Pathway to Victory

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Hey, podcast listeners, thanks for streaming today's podcast from Pathway to Victory.

Pathway to Victory is a nonprofit ministry featuring the Bible teaching of Dr. Robert Jeffress. Our mission is to pierce the darkness with the light of God's Word through the most effective media available, like this podcast.

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Now here's today's podcast from Pathway to Victory.

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Hi, this is Robert Jeffress and I'm.

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Glad to study God's Word with you every day.

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This Bible teaching program on today's edition of Pathway to Victory.

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Repentance is not just a one time action to receive salvation. It is the lifestyle. It is the attitude of believers. And that's what we're going to talk about today. We're going to talk about choosing repentance over guilt.

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Welcome to Pathway to Victory with author and pastor Dr. Robert Jeffress. Romans 3:23 says, "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."

So whenever we experience moments of moral failure, we have a choice to make. Are we going to deny our failure or repent of our failure? Today on Pathway to Victory, Dr. Robert Jeffress urges us to choose repentance over guilt.

But first, let's take a moment to hear some important ministry updates.

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Thanks, David, and welcome again to Pathway to Victory. Before we dive into today's message, I need to tell you what I'm seeing right now. Our culture is increasingly hostile to biblical truth, and I believe we're racing against the clock. I don't know when Christ will return, but I know the opportunity before us right now is extraordinary and fleeting.

That sense of urgency hit me again when I read David Green's new book, the Legacy Life. David founded Hobby Lobby, but this book isn't about building businesses or accumulating wealth. It's about understanding that you and I are part of something much bigger than our individual lives.

Here's what I want you to consider when you become a Pathway partner today with an automated monthly gift. You're not just supporting a ministry; you're setting something in motion that will outlast you. You become the instrument God uses to reach someone in your neighborhood, across the country, or on the other side of the world.

And as my thanks, I'll send you David's book, the Legacy Life. Because I want you to see your generosity the way God sees it, as kingdom investment with eternal returns.

Okay, it's time to get started with today's study in God's Word. I titled today's message Choosing Repentance over.

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Guilt. The Internal Revenue Service received an anonymous envelope. Inside the envelope was a note and 10 $1,000 bills. The note read, "Dear Sirs, for several months I've been unable to sleep due to the guilt I felt over cheating on my income tax last year. Enclosed you will find $10,000. If I still can't sleep, I'll send you the rest of what I owe you."

You know, in our series "Choose Your Attitudes, Change Your Life," we're saying that an attitude is our response to the circumstances of life. We can't choose our circumstances, but we can choose how we respond to those circumstances. And one circumstance we all experience is moral failure sometime in our life. You know, sometimes we try to cover over our failure, our failure to meet God's standard. Sometimes we rationalize it; sometimes we did what this guy did and made a half-hearted attempt at restitution.

But one of the biggest decisions we have to make in life is: Are we going to deny our failure, or are we going to choose to repent of our failure? And that's what we're going to talk about today. We're going to talk about choosing repentance over guilt. That choice not only affects our life right now, but it affects our eternal destiny.

Now, you know, when we talk about repentance, people sometimes have a funny idea of what repentance means. They picture some scraggly street preacher out on the sidewalk with a sandwich board saying, "Repent, the end of the world is at hand." It's true, repentance is important for non-Christians to receive salvation. But interestingly, in the Bible, repentance is something more for Christians than for non-Christians. Repentance is not just a one-time action to receive salvation; it is the lifestyle, it is the attitude of believers.

Now, what do we mean by repentance? Contrary to popular thinking, repentance is not primarily an emotion. We think it's weeping and convulsing over your failure; that can be a part of it, but that's not what the word repentance means. The word repentance in Greek is "metanoeo," two root words: "meta," meaning change, and "noeo," meaning the mind. Metanoeo, a change of mind. That's literally what it means to repent: to have a change of mind.

For a Christian, repentance—and write this down—is a change of mind that leads to a change of direction in our life. A change of mind that leads to a change of direction in our life. You've probably had this experience before, especially if you've driven around downtown Dallas. Have you ever had the experience of driving down one of these roads and seeing all of the traffic heading towards you, and you realize you're going the wrong way on a one-way street?

At that moment, you have a decision to make. You can decide that you're right and they're wrong and you're going to stay going the direction you're going, or you can acknowledge that, in fact, you are mistaken. Now, just acknowledging that isn't enough to keep from a crash. You have to do more than acknowledge it. You actually have to do what? Turn around.

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Turn around.

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Repentance and turning around are inseparably linked with one another. A change of mind that leads to a change of direction. If you don't believe that, listen to God's word through the prophet Ezekiel in Ezekiel 33:11-12.

I love how the Living Bible paraphrases this: "Surely as I live, says the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but I desire that the wicked turn from his evil ways and live. Turn, turn from your wickedness. For why will you die?"

For the good works of a righteous man will not save him if he turns to sin, and the sins of an evil man will not destroy him if he repents and turns from his sins.

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Do you see?

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The relationship to repent is to turn around, a change of mind that leads to a change of direction. Well, what is the result of not making that choice? What is the result of not repenting of our sin? In a word, guilt. Before we look at how to develop an attitude of repentance in our lives, let's talk about the opposite of repentance. And that is guilt. Guilt is one of the most debilitating of all human emotions.

One of the best illustrations of the damage guilt does in our life is in the familiar story of King David found in 2 Samuel chapters 11 to 12. You remember the story. David was by far the most successful king in Israel's history. He had reached the zenith of his power. The nation had never been more successful in conquering its enemies. He had accumulated great wealth. And yet, at the high point of his career, he traded all of that for a few moments of passion with somebody else's wife, a wife named Bathsheba.

This temptation came about one evening while David was looking out from his balcony at a building, a residence across the street. On the rooftop, this woman, Bathsheba, was bathing, going through the rites of purification. 2 Samuel 11 says that it occurred at a time when David should have been out fighting with his men, but instead the king said, "You know what? I'm so successful I don't have to do that stuff anymore. Let the underlings do that. I'm going to enjoy the fruit of my success. I'm going to go into a time of relaxation."

Could I say an aside here? When you have a life of leisure, you are setting yourself up for Satan's temptation in your life. That's exactly what happened to David. He had too much time on his hands. He should have been out fighting. But he saw Bathsheba, and they had relations that evening. Soon, Bathsheba reported to him that she had become pregnant.

Now immediately, David had a choice. He could have acknowledged his sin, asked for God's forgiveness, and made restitution. But instead, he chose to cover over his sin in a cover-up scheme that rivaled Watergate. He decided that he was going to hide his failure from the kingdom. Here was plan A: he was going to call for Bathsheba's husband, Uriah, who was out fighting, to come back home for a weekend of relaxation with his wife. He thought if he could get Uriah to come home with Bathsheba, surely he would sleep with her, and then David and Bathsheba could say, "Oh well, the child belongs to Uriah."

So Uriah comes back, but he doesn't sleep with his wife, the Bible says, not because he didn't want to, but because he said, "How could I indulge in this pleasure when my fellow soldiers are out deprived of this pleasure?" He had more integrity than the king did, and so he abstained.

David thought, well, that didn't work. Go to plan B. Plan B: he sent a letter to Uriah's commander and said, "Put Uriah on the front lines of battle and then withdraw the other soldiers." And that's exactly what happened. Uriah was killed in battle. Now David was charged not only with adultery but also with murder.

Again, how did he respond? He didn't repent. He didn't acknowledge his sin. Instead, he kept silent about his sin. What happened? What did God do to him?

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Absolutely nothing.

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For a while anyway. Days passed, weeks passed. David took Bathsheba to be his own wife after Uriah's funeral and nothing happened.

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Happened.

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And David began to think to himself, maybe I have a special relationship with God and I don't have to live by the same standards of other people. Or maybe God really doesn't care that much about murder or adultery. Maybe there are other sins he's more concerned with. Maybe God doesn't even exist and that's why he hasn't punished me.

David's son Solomon, years later, wrote these insightful words in Ecclesiastes 8:11: "because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed quickly, therefore the hearts of the sons of men among them are given fully to do evil." Do you hear what he's saying? We tend to think that because God doesn't zap us the moment we sin, he doesn't care about it, and that we're getting away with something. Do not confuse God's tolerance with God's mercy. Don't confuse God's tolerance for sin with his mercy. Don't think that because God hasn't punished you yet, he does not care about your sin. The only reason he's delayed his discipline in your life is to give you another chance to repent. But there is a day when God's mercy comes to an end. There is a day when there is no further opportunity to repent.

David was confusing God's mercy with God's tolerance for sin. And yet, even though there was no visible sign of God's judgment or discipline, there was inner turmoil. David was experiencing this turmoil during that six months, up to a year, that he refused to acknowledge his sin. He writes about that period in Psalm 32:3-4. He said, "When I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away through my groanings all day long. For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me, and my vitality was drained away, as with the fever heat of summer."

Will you notice, first of all, the physical effects of guilt? Guilt actually affects our bodies physically. He talks about his body wasting away and his vitality being drained. But there are emotional effects of guilt as well; it affects us emotionally. One of the most common side effects of guilt is depression. That's what David talks about when he says, "my groaning all day long." By the way, it's very important to note that that depression over your sin is not the same as repentance from your sin. Repentance is not just feeling sorry about your sin; it's feeling sorry enough to change. A lot of people aren't willing to go to that next step.

Do you know people like that? They wallow in their circumstances. They feel terrible about their circumstances, but they never make the changes. Yes, some of the emotional effects of guilt result in depression. Another common side effect of guilt is anxiety. We talked about that in our message, "Choosing Faith over Worry." From six months to a year, David experienced fear that one day he would open the Jerusalem Times and right there on the front page would be the...

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Expose of his guilt.

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He was scared to death. That was going to happen.

And then one morning, he got up. On a day that began like any other day, something was about to change.

He went into the palace, asked his secretary for the schedule, the daily schedule. And he saw, oh, the prophet Nathan.

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Is coming to see you today.

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Fine. He liked Nathan. He always liked a good sermon. So he welcomed Nathan in to see him.

"Nathan, what is going on?" Nathan said, "Oh, King, I came to inform you of something terrible that is going on in your kingdom."

David said, "Well, what is that?"

He said, "Well, there is this very poor man living here in Jerusalem. He is so poor that he had only one ewe, one little lamb in his possession. And then a wealthy man came and he stole that one lamb that that poor man had."

David stood up. He was outraged. He said, "I cannot have this going on in my kingdom. I demand to know who is that man who did such a thing."

Nathan pointed his bony finger in the face of David and said, "You are the man." And immediately David knew.

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Everyone knew.

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And listen to what Nathan went on to say. 2 Samuel, chapter 12. Thus says the Lord God of Israel. It is I who anointed you, David, as king over Israel. And it is I who delivered you from the hand of Saul. Thus says the Lord. Behold, I will raise up evil against you from your own household. Indeed, you did it secretly. But I will do this thing before all Israel and under the sun.

There are finally spiritual effects to guilt. Not just physical, not just emotional depression or anxiety, but there are spiritual effects of guilt. He says in Psalm 32:4, "For day and night, God, your hand was heavy upon me." It affected his own relationship with God. How does that happen in our life? Guilt produces, first of all, a distance from God.

Remember, in James, chapter 1, verses 14 and 15, James explains how sin actually happens. I call it the temptation equation. Remember, he says in James 1:14 that each one of us sins when we are enticed and drawn away by our own lust. That is, when our sinful desires meet an external temptation. It is like sperm and an egg coming together. They come together. And if you think that's an outlandish example, that's exactly what he says in verse 15. Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin. And when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death. When you have lust and an opportunity come together, you have sin. And when sin is fully accomplished, it does its work. It produces death.

Death. That word death means separation. Thanatos means separation. What does James have in mind when he says that sin produces death? Is he talking about physical death? Well, in a general sense, yes. I mean, the reason all of us die is because of Adam's sin, and we've inherited that sin virus in our life, and so we all die physically. 1 Corinthians 11:28 and 30 says, "Furthermore, some Christians die prematurely, at least from their point of view." You can live in such a state of rebellion against God that God decides you're an embarrassment to him and to the cause of Christ, and he takes you home prematurely to be with him, so you can't do any further damage. First Corinthians 11:28 and 30 talks about that.

But let's face it, if death were always the punishment for sin, none of us would be here today, would we? So he can't be primarily thinking about physical death. Some people say, well, maybe he's talking about eternal death. Eternal death is the separation of our spirit from God for all eternity. If we die without having confessed Christ as Savior, we're separated from God. Is that what he's talking about? I don't think so. Because after all, James is writing to Christians here.

I think what he's talking about is a deathlike existence for Christians who sin and don't receive God's forgiveness. When we as Christians—now listen to this—when we as Christians sin, our position with God doesn't change. We don't become unjustified or unborn again. Our salvation is forever. We are never more forgiven than the day we trust in Christ as Savior. God doesn't change his attitude about us when we sin, but we change our attitude about God when we sin. That's what sin does in the life of a Christian. It changes our attitude about God.

That's why Isaiah said to his own people, the Israelites, he said, "Your sin has become a barrier between you and God." Remember in Genesis chapter three, after Adam and Eve sinned, they went to hide themselves. Genesis 3:8, God came searching for them. God said in verse 9, "Where are you?" Verse 10, Adam said, "I heard the sound of thee in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid myself." Adam and Eve's first inclination after sinning was to hide from God. We do that. God doesn't change his attitude about us. But when we are living in unconfessed sin, we don't feel like hanging around God. We don't feel like going to church. We don't want to read His Word. We don't want to be convicted any further.

Let me illustrate that for you. Have you ever talked about somebody behind their back? You know what you're doing. And you just don't want to be around that person, do you? You're uncomfortable around them. They haven't changed their attitude about you, but you've changed it about them. You feel guilty.

I think about the couple that was driving home from their 25th wedding anniversary dinner. As they were driving home, the wife started to complain. She said, "You know, honey, our relationship has just changed." He said, "What do you mean it's changed?" She said, "Well, just look at us. When we first started dating, the first couple of years of marriage, we sat so close together in the car, snuggled with one another. And now look, you're over there, I'm over here." He said, "I haven't moved."

You know, that's the truth in our relationship with God. When we sin, it's not that God moves away from us; we move away from God. And that's one of the spiritual ramifications of guilt instead of repentance.

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If you feel an emotional distance from your creator, it isn't God who has moved away. He's never left your side. And our hope is that today's pathway to victory causes you to move closer to Him.

Before we close, let me come back to something that's been on my mind all program long. David Green's book, *The Legacy Life*, has fundamentally changed how I think about the years I have left. David built Hobby Lobby into a household name, but that's not what this book is about. It's about a far more important question: What will outlive you?

See, most of us spend our working years focused on security, building that retirement account and ensuring we're comfortable. David doesn't dismiss that, but he challenges us to aim higher. What if our lives could bless people we'll never meet? What if the work we do today could bear fruit in our grandchildren's generation and beyond? That's not wishful thinking. That's what happens when you partner with a ministry committed to proclaiming Christ to the ends of the earth.

When you become a pathway partner with a monthly gift, whatever amount God leads you to give, you're not just supporting programs; you're planting seeds with eternal consequences. And I want to thank you by sending both *The Legacy Life* by David Greene and my own book, *Choose Your Attitudes, Change Your Life*. Even a generous one-time gift qualifies you for both resources.

Remember, when you become a pathway partner, your legacy doesn't start when you die. It starts the moment you say yes to being part of what God is doing in the world today. Thanks so much. Here's David to tell you more.

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You support the ministry of Pathway to Victory by giving a generous gift, or when you sign up to become a Pathway Partner, you're invited to request a copy of the book *The Legacy Life Plus*. You'll also receive the book *Choose Your Change, Change Your Life* by Dr. Robert Jeffress. To request both resources, call 866-999-2965 or visit online at ptv.org.

And when you give $100 or more, you'll also receive the audio and video discs for the teaching series *Choose Your Attitudes, Change Your Life*. Plus, we'll send you a study guide especially designed for individual or group study. Again, call 866-999-2965 or visit ptv.org. You know, a lot of folks prefer to contact us the good old-fashioned way, and if that's you, simply write to P.O. Box 223609, Dallas, Texas 75222. Again, that's P.O. Box 223609, Dallas, TX 75222.

Before I go, I want to remind you about an incredible opportunity coming up this summer. Experience the vacation of a lifetime on the Pathway to Victory Cruise to Alaska, June 13th through 20th, 2026. Join Dr. Jeffress aboard Holland America's luxurious Koningsdam as you sail through the breathtaking Inside Passage in Alaska. Enjoy powerful Bible teaching, worship with Michael O'Brien, and laughter with Dennis Swanberg, all while witnessing God's magnificent creation. To reserve your cabin, visit ptv.org.

I'm David J. Mullins inviting you to join us next time for Part Two of the message *Choosing Repentance Over Guilt* right here on Pathway to Victory. Pathway to Victory with Dr. Robert Jeffress comes from the pulpit of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas.

You made it to the end of today's podcast from Pathway to Victory, and we're so glad you're here. Pathway to Victory relies on the generosity of loyal listeners like you to make this podcast possible. One of the most impactful ways you can give is by becoming a Pathway Partner. Your monthly gift will empower Pathway to Victory to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ and help others become rooted more firmly in His Word. To become a Pathway Partner, go to ptv.org/donate or you can follow the link in our show notes.

We hope you've been blessed by today's podcast from Pathway to Victory. Oh, and one last thing before we go. Have you reserved your spot yet for the 2026 Pathway to Victory Cruise to Alaska? You've been hearing me and Dr. Jeffress mention it. So what are you waiting for? Just picture yourself on the deck of Holland America's elegant Koningsdam and stepping out on deck to witness nature's grandeur. It's beautiful. These moments in God's creation will deepen your faith in powerful ways. It really will. Experience five-star dining, luxurious staterooms, and visiting iconic ports like Juneau, Ketchikan, and Skagway. We're also bringing along our own Christian entertainment. You'll love it. Seats are filling up, so book your spot today at ptv.org.