School holidays and rain go together. Hard work and good results go together. Red arrows and precise piloting go together. Wind and a bad hair day goes together. But perhaps in your mind repentance and baptism has never gone together. Today we want to think of the combination of these two things in our passage and in our sermon and indeed in our service as we journey through together. They're found in this chapter we read in Acts chapter 2, a carryover from the ministry of John the Baptist whose baptism is described in the Bible as a baptism repentance. In John's ministry baptism and repentance went together and in Acts 2 that combination of repentance and baptism is carried over into the New Testament Church. Repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of sins. we see the relation between Acts chapter two and the repentance of the 3,000 listeners to the fallen and restored Peter with the relation to Jonah and the turning to God of that big city of Nineveh by the fallen and restored preacher, Jonah. In this third chapter of Jonah, People date this book by the third verse. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city. It fell in 612 BC. Some argue then that this book must have been written after 612 BC, something which is not totally necessary or true. I might say Asda was looking well yesterday. It doesn't mean it's collapsed today. It just indicates that yesterday it was looking well. So, in this third verse, Nineveh was an exceedingly great city. And when the book was written, it might well still have been an exceedingly great city. But perhaps more interestingly and importantly is this account of the evangelical repentance of the city of Nineveh is never found in secular writers. Those who have written the history of Assyria make no mention of this monumental turning around of the people unto God. And so some argue that this repentance was shallow and temporary and minimalistic. But we read in verse number nine and 10 that God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way. God judged that they were truly repentant in their life, and he came with grace and blessing to them, just as those in Acts chapter two were truly repentant. And so we come today to think of this item which is linked to baptism by the apostle Peter in Acts chapter two. Repentance, what is it? And here in this third chapter, this single short chapter in the Bible, we have repentance viewed from a range of angles. We think of repentance and the believer in verses one to four. We think of repentance and the unbeliever in verses five to nine. and we think thirdly of repentance and God in verse number 10. A fascinating and interesting look at repentance and as we journey through this subject today we are praying in our hearts that Phoebe to be baptized today will know this evangelical repentance, and that Isaac, as he grows up among us, will express that evangelical repentance which he professes to already have, and that Glenn and all of us who are older believers will demonstrate and model such repentance in our life. Let's thank, first of all, of repentance and the believer in verses one to four, as demonstrated in the life of Jonah. His repentance was visible and total, and our repentance as a believer is to be visible and total. We come to an interesting phrase in verse number three, so Jonah arose. This phrase was used of him in chapter 1 verse number 3, Jonah arose. Here is a verb, this man is getting up and the first time he did the wrong thing. And so readers in this third chapter coming through the opening verses which are a mirror of chapter 1 verses 1 and 2, that first command of God to this prophet to go to the city of Tarshish to warn them about God's judgment. They were enemies of the nation of Israel and he doesn't really want to go. So here God comes the second time after his big fish experience. God comes to him and he says to him the very same thing. There's nothing different. There's no modification of the command. You've to go and do the same task. And so we come again along to the same T-junction. Jonah arose. It said this the first time in chapter 1 verse 3. It says the very same thing about him in chapter 3 verse 3. Jonah arose. And we're all sitting there watching this man getting up, gathering his belongings together, getting his rucksack packed. What's he going to do? What course is he going to take? Is he going to go one way in disobedience or the other way in obedience? And this time, he obeyed God. Jonah arose and went to the place he was told to go. His obedience was visible. He didn't lie in his bed and think, well, I will go to Nineveh. He didn't dream of going to Nineveh. He didn't tell others in his local town that he was going to Nineveh. Visibly, he showed his repentance. He obeyed God. he arose and went to Nineveh. His repentance is also total. We have in verse number three this word from God that he was, verse two, he was to call out against it the message that I tell you. This is different from what was stated in chapter one and verse two that he was to call out against it. Now there's this added part, the message that I tell you. Jonah had to trust God and submit himself completely to God. Whatever God would tell him to say, Jonah was to be prepared to say. His repentance was total. Joyce Baldwin comments that in this case there was to be no place for his personal views. The message that he was to speak in this foreign city was the message that God would tell him. And Jonah submitted his life himself to this uncertainty. What would God tell him? It might be against his heart, it might be against his feelings, and it was, as we find out in the next chapter. It wasn't what he would have thought should have been done to that city. But such is his repentance that he submits himself to this generalization from the Lord, the message that I tell you. So as a believer, our repentance is to be visible. Our repentance is to be total. I read recently a survey of under 40 year old people and the survey stated that 74% of them don't know how to do DIY. They use their credit card for grouting the tiles. They use a rolling pin instead of a hammer. They use a kitchen knife instead of a screwdriver. There's all kinds of bizarre tools being used and most of them end up calling in a professional to fix their mistakes. 74% of them don't know how to do DIY. And I would judge that about 97% of us don't know how to do repentance. We think a tear of remorse is enough. We think a shallow apology will do. But this chapter is teaching us that our repentance is to be visible and total, so that our minds are to be moved away from filth, adulterous thoughts, impurity, onto chase thoughts, pure thoughts, loving thoughts, so that our words are to be taken away from unkindness, abusive language, to gentle words, loving words, that our deeds are to move very visibly from selfishness to selflessness, from unkindness to kindness, from impatience to patience. Our repentance is to be visible. And our repentance is to be total in every area of our life. as husbands and wives, as parents and children, as brothers and sisters, as church members, as employers and employees, as citizens, our relationships to the environment, to money, to Jesus Christ. We're to submit completely unto him. So this is the repentance that we're to pray for Phoebe and for Isaac, For Glenn, for us all, we will make mistakes, we are imperfect people, but we will be like Jonah, and we with visible and total repentance will come again before God. Let's think of unbelievers in verses five to nine. And the two aspects of the repentance of unbelievers is in relation to the source of their repentance and the parts of their repentance. What moved the people of Nineveh? powerful, the world empire of its day, a big influential city about 60 miles in its ultimate diameters, including the suburbs, hence the three days journey through that city. What moved them to repent in this evangelical manner? Well, they were warned about God's wrath, weren't they? In verse four, yet 40 days and none of they will be overthrown. God had softened them up in his providence. There had been famine in Nineveh. There had been invasions in the city of Nineveh. There had been eclipses of the sun in the region of Nineveh. And now this prophet comes to them, warning them that their city was going to be overthrown. They believed God, verse five says. They believed his warning. They recognized their danger. They were driven. by fear of God's judgment. Jonah's own experience, perhaps he appeared in the city of Nineveh, bleached from the acid inside the stomach of the great fish. His very appearance indicated that God takes our sins seriously and the people of Nineveh accepted this, believed this, didn't push it to the side, didn't sleep another night. It says Jonah went in one day's journey. Their belief of God and repentance was immediate. They recognized a holy and a righteous God. But they also recognized his love and his grace. He had sent a prophet to warn them about the judgment to come. He had given this implication that if they turned from their wrongs that they would be forgiven. The very word overthrown used in Jonah's short message of five Hebrew words has two meanings. One is to destroy. The other is to put the right way up. And here were these people and they latched on to this message of grace, even in this short message of judgment. This drives them to come to this God, a God of righteousness, but a God of grace and salvation and hope. Their repentance was outward and it was inward. Outwardly, they expressed their repentance by sackcloth, a rough cloth which gored on the skin, expressing their sorrow. Ashes, a place of humility, the king leaving his throne and sitting in ashes instead of on his throne. They engaged in fasting, not only themselves, but their animals and livestock as well, indicating the sincerity of their repentance. Their repentance was outward, and their repentance was inward in their life and in their heart. In verse number eight, they are told to turn away from the violence that is in their hands. This was the key sin which characterized the people of Nineveh. They were violent. Their city is described by another prophet as a bloody city because of the abundance of violence in this city. But they repent, they turn away from the evil deeds of their hands. Driven by God's wrath, drawn by God's love, they express their repentance outwardly and intangibly. They express their repentance inwardly in their hearts, in their minds, in their lives. King Charles was at Ascot this past week, and one journalist describes him as delighting the crowds, the race goers with his morning suit. He was smiling. He was waving. He was laughing. And all the time, his government was passing the assisted dying Bill. Shame on him. Our King should have been like the King of Nineveh, sitting in sackcloth and ashes in Trafalgar Square, taking seriously a holy God and a forgiving God. And you and I are to take seriously this God, repent and be baptized. Repentance and baptism go together right throughout the Bible. This is to be part of our experience that we are to recognize the righteousness of God, that we have sinned before him and that we, in a real and a deep and a full way, turn away from our sin and come to this God for forgiveness and for life. We meet people who say, well, I profess to be a Christian, but I don't want to say that I am a Christian because I'm not living like a Christian. What that person should do is not remain silent, but repent so that their profession and their lifestyle will concord And here, the people of Nineveh. They rose that morning, unbelievers. But that evening, they had turned from their sin and trusted in God's grace for salvation. So let this historical event in Nineveh challenge us direct us, reach out to us. Jesus does this, doesn't he, when he speaks about the repentance of Nineveh to his contemporaries. He's saying that far off city, when they heard the preaching of Jonah, they took it seriously and they turned away from their sins. So we who live here in this province, who know the Ten Commandments, who heard about a righteous and a loving God, to bring it home into our life. Like these people, turn to the living God. And so this is our prayer for Phoebe. She will repent and be baptized in her life. Then thirdly, the repentance of God in verse number 10. This is an unusual repentance, isn't it? One that we don't think about very much in our life or as we read the Bible, and yet it occurs in the Bible in various places. But it brings up two difficulties for us. One is, how can God forgive this people of Nineveh? And the other is, how can God change? Well, how can God forgive the people of Nineveh? It's in the last phrase of the verse, he did not do it. How can he spare this people who were so evidently wicked, who were so terrible in their life, beliefs, and action? How could he spare them? Well, God has indicated his great love to this city by sending the prophet Jonah, as we've said. The city is described in this verse number three as being exceeding great, or it's literally great to God. not just in its size or its importance as an economic or religious center, but of great value to God. He loves the many people of this city. In chapter four and verse 11, he pities the city. So here is a God who has his righteousness demanding that this people are judged, but what his love and his compassion and his grace is wanting to spare this city. How can these two dimensions of our glorious God be reconciled? Well, we know that they're reconciled in the death of our Lord Jesus Christ. who goes to the cross and dies on the cross for the sins of many. He takes the righteous judgment of God so that God's grace and love can flow to all who trust in the Lord Jesus. And this is hinted at in the use of the word repent in this chapter. The use of the word repent occurs four times. But in the last time, a different word is used. In verse number 10, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them. And that word indicates an inward sorrow, an inward grief, an inward pain in God. The repentance of Nineveh mentioned in verse seven, eight, and nine, it involved sorrow for them. But this sorrow here is indicating a sorrow for God. As they turn, and he turns, there is this sorrow in his heart, as they have sorrow in their lives. But the sorrow is a different type of sorrow. For them, it's a sorrow of remorse. For God, it's a sorrow of redemption. They're sorry for the sins they've done. His sorrow is in giving his son, Jesus Christ, to express his compassion and his grace. So that's how a righteous God can forgive those who sin. But what about him changing? The Bible asserts that God doesn't change, that that's one of his strengths, that he's not like us. He doesn't have the frailties or lack of insight or knowledge. He is a God, Malachi 3, 6, that does not change. Because Samuel asserts that God is not a man, that he should repent. So how are we to understand this last phrase then? God relented of the disaster that he would said he would do to them. We're to understand this phrase as this is God not changing. This is God being true to his character. This is God holding on to who he really is. A God of grace, a God of love, a God of forgiveness, a God of compassion, a God who will pardon every single person who believes in his son, Jesus Christ. He remains committed to that course of action. He will never change from that. And so when Nineveh, pagan Nineveh, big Nineveh, godless Nineveh, engage in evangelical repentance, God stays the same. And he forgives the pagan, big sinner, just as he would forgive any one of us brought up in a Christian home, taken along to church every week. God, in this passage, by changing remains the same, committed to his grace, his love, his forgiveness. His changing here is not a weakness, it's a strength, it's him holding on to the changeless God of salvation that he always is. We speak about returning evil for good as being demonic. We speak about returning good for good as being human. We speak about returning good for evil as being divine. And this is what God is doing here. He's not behaving as human here. He's behaving as God here and giving grace to those who are repentant but undeserving. Our government has been criticised of making U-turns, hasn't it? So, for example, the winter payment, it's made a U-turn on that, and it's going to pay out to many people the winter payment. But is that U-turn a weakness? Is it not a strength? And God here, in relenting, And repenting and changing in his dealings with the people of Nineveh is not showing weakness. He's showing wonderful and glorious strength. And so we hold on to this changeless God as parents of covenant children today. A God who will always be merciful to everyone who calls on him. Whatever age we are, Isaac, Phoebe, Glenn, as we call on our God, He changelessly is committed to that promise. Whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. Let us trust this changing God, that He will change from His wrath against us to His grace towards us. as we believe in His Son, Jesus Christ. And let us be people who change. When others repent and seek our forgiveness and God's forgiveness, let us be like God and not just treat them the same way and bat them to the side and just remember their sins. Let us have a heart like God. who will forgive and show compassion and love and welcome. So we've thought about repentance today. Repentance in believers to be visible and total. Repentance in unbelievers to be sourced in God and expressed outwardly and inwardly. Repentance in God who's steadfast and changeless in one way as he changes in a different way. Now in our church we have a larger catechism. It is large. Question 167 might be one that you want to reflect on later. And it talks about how can we improve our baptism. And one of the things it says in the lengthy answer to how we can improve our baptism, is to do it when we are sitting in the presence of the baptism of someone else. So in church today, as we witness the baptism of Phoebe and of Isaac and of Glenn, we're not just to think of them and their life and pray for them, but we're to think of our life and all that our baptism calls us to do. One of the things it calls us to do is ongoing repentance, coming before God again and again, telling him we're wrong, turning back to his way. So as we witness baptism today, let's think of the call of our baptism. to a life of holiness and humility. But we're not just in the presence of baptism today, are we? We're in the presence of God. And that should make us feel our sin, allow him to search our hearts, and drive us to repentance and forgiveness. I'm interested in some of the interviews that Keira Knightley gives, and she has a self-deprecating mindset and attitude, and recently she was talking about her red trainers and how she loves to wear them around her house, within her family and within her community, down to the shop. But when she goes to those high-powered beauty fashion meets, her red trainers. are so out of place, that in the presence of such beauty, she feels inadequate. As we sit today in the presence of the beauty of Christ, let us feel our inadequacy. And whether a believer or an unbeliever, Let us come to our gracious God in repentance.