Here we go. This is 20 questions with Pastor Mike. Yes, I'm wearing a shirt with cockatails on it. Yes, I have a jar of gummy bears behind me, but that's not what this is all about.

What we're doing is learning to think biblically about everything. So that entails taking your questions, whatever's on your mind, and answering them with biblical answers, at least that's my agenda, that's my goal.

I don't pretend to know everything about the Bible, but I do pretend that I've been studying the Bible for quite a long time and care very much about what it says. I think that's not pretending actually I really do.

And I think that there's incredible wisdom and untapped resources in the scripture for each one of us as we study it and learn it better.

So this is 20 questions. This is question number one. We do this every Friday at 1 p.m. Pacific time. That's California time. I don't know what day or hour that is where you live, but you can figure that out.

Here's the first question. This is from Mark Conley. If repentance is required to be saved, why is it not mentioned in the Gospel of John and other evangelical texts like Acts 1631 and Romans 10, can repentance be somewhat synonymous with believe?

And Mark, this is a, I'm really like excited to get certain questions. This is one of them. I'm excited to get this question because there is been this sort of divide in agreement,

some disagreement, a pretty big disagreement, and some people on one end call this, they take a side that some people call Lordship Salvation, and the other people take a side they call like free grace or easy believeism or something like that.

And those terms, I don't like either one of them. Okay, free grace doesn't make sense anyways because of course grace is free. That's what makes it grace. If it's grace, it's free. Like that's kind of just a topology. But the,

but the issue here is is repentance part of the Gospel message and I think it is. I think repentance is part of the Gospel message, but I want to offer clarity before I answer your question.

I want to offer clarity and say, I don't think repentance is an action. I think it's an attitude of the heart. So I'm not suggesting that actions of performing works or somehow part of the Gospel, part of getting saved.

I think there's something happens after you're saved, but rather there's an attitude. Lord, I've been living my way and I want to live your way. Lord, I've been doing my own thing and I want to do your thing. Lord, you're Lord.

You are Lord, like I submit myself to you and know I haven't fixed my life and know I haven't fixed all my problems mentally and into sin issues and stuff.

But I'm turning to you with my heart, not just with my head, not just with the head knowledge of I believe Jesus died in rows. Therefore, I'm saved.

Rather, there's a sense of commitment because belief in in a biblical sense, reply implies commitment. So yes, I do think belief is sort of like repentance, that idea of attitude repentance, changing your mind from sin towards God.

I think that that is in the idea of belief. So I think it's in the Gospel of John, but those who push back against my teaching here and I have a whole video teaching about repentance.

There's a link down below where I say you must preach repent as a Christian and I have a video in there for that. But the people who push back, one of the things, one of the talking points they use the most is this idea that, hey, Mike, in the Gospel of John, which according to John, it was written so that you may believe in that very Gospel.

The word repent is never used. And so their conclusion is, since the word is never used, the idea of repentance is not there.

You don't have to repent to believe. You don't have to repent to turn from your sin in order to come to Christ. I think first off, I want to acknowledge this.

That is a shocking argument, but it's a very weak argument. And I will use the word bad argument. This is a very bad argument.

The absence of a word in John, in this case, repent does not imply rejecting the term repentance. But that's, that's what we're doing with this, with this argument.

When someone asks this question, why isn't, doesn't John say repent? Whatever your answer to this is, your conclusion should not be because you don't have to repent when you turn to Jesus.

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