I would suggest that sometimes “repent” gets a wrong connotation. Some say that it is to “turn away from your sins,” but this would suggest a works-based salvation. I would understand repentance as a change of mind which says that we are done with trying to lean on our own righteousness to get to heaven but are trusting in Christ’s righteousness and death, burial and resurrection for eternal salvation.
It is the purpose of the sermon in the hearing of the lost that they are to understand that they are lost and bound for hell. Unless they understand that they are sick and in need of the Great Physician, they will see no need to be saved. Salvation is not some kind of business deal, or contract where A does this and B does that. No, A does it all, all to Him we owe. Sin had left a crimson stain, He washed it white as snow!”
I agree. Here’s another way of stating it. What do you think?
Good works (and not doing bad works) are an outward sign of how our heart has changed to acceptance (that is, repentance). So we should use those outward signs as just that: signs, or indicators, of how well we’ve accepted The Trinity and Its grace.
For example, if someone catches himself staring at a woman on the street, that’s an indicator he’s “sick” and not “leaning on” and trusting Christ enough. At the risk of getting too much into definitions, that increasing of his trust in Christ is itself a “work”, that is, a battle in which to engage and defeat the enemy.
Repetence is an act of sorrow for sin and turning away from it as best you can.