Repentance

As you know, the call to repentance and faith is a common theme in my preaching. I often remind you of this at the end of a sermon. I do that for a good reason. You will not live well without this dynamic being a regular part of your life. Repentance and faith is basic to a good life. It has occurred to me that it might be good if I spent a little time exploring and explaining this. What am I calling you to do when I tell you to repent and believe? So, this week we’ll look at repentance and next week at faith.  

Please listen as I read the text for this morning, 2 Corinthians 7.8-11. There will be other Scriptures, but we’re going to start here.

The first thing that I would like you to see is that there are two kinds of repentance. One is based on what Paul calls ‘worldly grief’. This kind of repentance is a counterfeit. It does not lead to forgiveness. Instead, as Paul has written, it leads to death. The other, true repentance, is based on what Paul calls ‘Godly grief’. It leads to salvation. That is, it leads to life.

So, consider. There are those who sin and take no thought about repentance at all. There is no grief, no sorrow over their sin. Their situation is clear. Then there is another group. These feel sorrow because of their sin. But their sorrow is rooted in all the wrong things. This sorrow leads to a counterfeit repentance. As a result, there is no forgiveness, no salvation, no life. Theirs is a worldly grief and its sad result is death. So, grieving over sin, being sorry for what you did, isn’t enough. God calls for something more, something different.

Understanding the difference between these two is not difficult. Think of the young child who is told to say that he is sorry for what he just did and who obeys. And you hear the appropriate, ‘I’m sorry’. Why did he say that? In lots of cases it’s because he doesn’t want to be spanked. He shows the required sorrow – and it’s important to see that – but it is not a Godly sorrow. If, when this child grows up, he acts in the same way to God will he be forgiven? No.

Or consider another example. There are those who feel the weight of their sin. Their conscience is making it very clear that they have done wrong. They feel sorrow over what they have done. What do they do? They pray. They confess their sin and ask for forgiveness. Will they be forgiven? Well, was there Godly grief behind their repentance? Or was it really just a matter of trying to quiet their conscience? You can’t tell by listening to their prayers. It’s all about what is going on in the heart.

So, the key is not whether there was sorrow at doing wrong. The key is what kind of sorrow was there. Was there a Godly sorrow leading to true repentance and life? Or was it just worldly sorrow that has nothing to do with true repentance and can only lead to death? So, my first point is simply to alert you to the fact that there is such a thing as a counterfeit repentance. It will not result in forgiveness that leads to salvation. It only leads to death. Don’t be fooled.

Let’s take the next step now. The difference between true and false repentance lies in the heart. So, what should be in the heart if there is to be true repentance? Imagine some Christian who is repenting, and let’s assume that his is a true repentance. What is going on in his heart? What motivates him to repent? Or to put it another way, what are the ingredients of Godly sorrow? I have several thoughts here.

Here’s the first reason our friend repents. He knows that his sin is an offense to God. There are, to be sure, consequences to our sin. We all have had to deal with lots of trouble because of the sinful things that we have done. And who wants to face more of that? But there is something  worse than how our sin affects us. It is how our sin affects our God. If you love someone you don’t want to do something that will pain that person. You want to love that person. Our sin grieves God. Think about the time that Jesus was about to heal the man with the withered hand. He was surrounded by Pharisees who were ready to pounce. It was, after all, the Sabbath. Do you remember how He responded? ‘He was grieved at their hardness of heart.’ Right there, we see the heart of the Father revealed in the emotional response of His Son. Our sin grieves God. And so, it is no wonder that Paul warns, ‘Do not grieve the Holy Spirit’. Those who love God take that to heart. Real repentance is the expression of sorrow at grieving the God who has loved us so. And that kind of sorrow is Godly sorrow.

Here’s a second motive for repentance. A sense of danger. We have been going through the book of Hebrews in our Friday night Bible study. That has made me more sensitive to the idea of the danger of our sins. So, a quote: ‘Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it.’ This was – and still is – written to the Church. There is the possibility of failing to reach the promised rest of heaven. Those who do not take this warning very seriously will not take the need to repent very seriously. But those who understand that the danger is real will respond differently. The solution here is not for someone to become anxious. The solution is simply to repent when the Spirit points out some sin.

Let me use my own experience to show what this might look like. There are those times when I feel a certain unease in my conscience. This is not some vague feeling. It’s always tied to some specific thing I did. I am learning that when this happens, I need to stop. I need to consider what I am sensing. So, I ask myself, ‘Did I sin?’ This is not just a question that I ask myself. I also ask the Father. ‘Did I sin?’ Most of the time it becomes quite clear that I have sinned. It may take a moment or two for the walls of my resistance to tumble, but they do. I yield to the Spirit. And then, I repent. And here is one reason that I work through all of that: I am afraid of failing to reach the promised rest. I have gotten to know myself well enough to know that it could happen to me. I am not anxious about this. And I have never felt closer to the Father than I do now. But I believe that quote from Hebrews. I believe that the danger is real. So, I work at repenting. I hope that you also see that the danger is real.

Here’s another motive to repent. The Father offers forgiveness to sinners who repent. Let me quote one of the verses that we use for our Declaration of Pardon.

‘Seek the Lord while he may be found; call upon him while he is near; let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.’

‘Abundantly’. What an encouraging word! Our God is not stingy when it comes to forgiveness. He will abundantly pardon. And one great example of this is in the parable about the prodigal son. There he is on his way home, hoping against hope that he might get a job from the father he so greatly insulted. He’s probably expecting a tongue lashing. But what happens? He gets a hug. His father doesn’t even let him finish his little speech. And that is just a faint picture of the attitude your heavenly Father has toward you when you repent. He is eager to forgive and to forgive abundantly. ‘Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sin are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.’

You need to get this because Satan whispers lies into your ears. ‘That sin? Again?!? This time you’ve gone too far. You’re despicable. How could you expect forgiveness for that?’ But the Spirit speaks the truth to you: ‘There is abundant forgiveness for sinners who repent.’

Here’s another motive for repentance: you hate your sin. Part of being a mature person is being able to see life more like God sees it. And that includes seeing your sin more like God sees it. So, one sign of growing into real maturity as a person is coming to hate your sin. Now, be careful. You don’t hate yourself. You hate your sin. And so, you repent of it. This is from the Psalms: ‘Through your precepts I get understanding; therefore I hate every false way.’ Getting to understand life results in the hatred of sin. And that leads to repentance.

Let me add one more motive for repentance and this is tied to the previous motive: the yearning for freedom. You want to be freed from your sin. It is such a burden, and it causes such pain. It makes sense to want to get rid of it. And the route to freedom is repentance. That’s what Paul meant when he wrote, ‘For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation …’ Salvation is not just about ending up in heaven. Remember that the verb ‘to save’ has three tenses: past, present and future. By repentance you are being saved from your sin. You are being freed from it. By repentance, the Spirit destroys sin so that it no longer trips you up. He frees you from your sin.

Well, I’ve talked about the difference between a true repentance and its counterfeit. I’ve pointed out several motives to repent. Now, let’s take a look at repentance itself. What are you doing when you repent?

The basic idea of repentance is that of turning. When someone repents, he turns from sin and toward God. I want to take a look at that in terms of the role of the mind, the role of the heart and the role of the will.

The mind is to identify sin as sin. That may sound odd, so let me explain. You all know that adultery is sin. You know that if someone commits adultery, he needs to repent. But what if a person did not know that adultery is sin. There are many today who do not know that. If they do not see adultery as sin, then how can they repent? They see no need to repent. Sin needs to be seen for what it really is. It needs to be seen as sin. So, if you are going to repent, your mind needs to know some truth, and it needs to do some thinking with that truth. Your mind needs to know about sin. There are things that we do and thoughts that we think and attitudes that we have that are just as sinful as adultery, but we don’t see these things as sin. So, how will we repent of them? There is work for the mind to do. You need to see life as God sees it. That’s what things like daily Bible reading and Bible studies and sermons are about. They are means that the Spirit uses so that you might see sin as sin, and then repent of it.

Then, there is the role of the heart. Repentance is far more than some intellectual assessment of a situation, as important as that is. If it is only this, then it is not true repentance. The heart must also be involved. That doesn’t mean that you need to get all emotional. But it does mean that the inner you, the thoughts and desires of your heart, need to be involved. Remember, we are to love God with all of our heart. So, those things that I just talked about – the sense of offense to God, the danger to our souls, the offer of forgiveness, the hatred of sin, the longing for freedom – they are to be embraced not just with the mind but also with the heart. Not one or the other but both. The heart needs to be involved. But how do you change the heart? How do you make it embrace truth? You can’t. Changing the heart is something that only the Spirit can do. So, embracing truth with the heart will require prayer. Listen to David’s prayer. ‘Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts!  And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!’ He was praying that God would change his heart. As your mind grasps new truth, you need to pray that your heart also embraces it.

And that leaves the role of the will. There are choices to be made. That’s what the will does. First, we are to turn from. We are to choose not to sin like that anymore. But then, there is also this turning to. It’s not enough just to stop some sin. We also need to renew our efforts to do the opposite of that sin. We need to obey. Sin is to be replaced by obedience. And that’s what we see in this from Paul about the Thessalonian Christians. ‘For they themselves report concerning us the kind of reception we had among you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God…’ From idols, to God. From serving them to serving Him. Paul gets more specific in Ephesians 4 which we looked at recently in the adult Sunday school. Instead of stealing there is to be honest work so that you have something to share with those in need. Instead of corrupting talk there are to be words that give grace. It’s not enough not to sin any more in some particular way. True repentance includes replacing that sin with appropriate obedience.

And now a question. Why is this important? And that’s just another way of asking why you should care. I have three reasons why you should. The first is a basic principle. You’re either moving toward heaven or sliding into hell. The movement might not be obvious, it might be slow, but it’s happening. No one is standing still. I say this because I am concerned that so many Christians have the attitude, ‘Well, I professed faith (or got converted or was baptized) so it’s all good. Next stop, heaven.’ And beyond showing up on most Sundays and doing a few religious kinds of things during the week, they don’t give the state of their souls a second thought. Now, making profession of faith, getting converted or being baptized are all good things. But they are all the beginning of the journey, not the end. Jesus said, ‘Strive to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able.’ Making it into heaven takes work, hard work. And part of that hard work is repenting of your sin. You should care about this because it is dangerous not to be.

A second reason why this is important: True repentance leads to a sense of acceptance by the Father. True repentance leads to a growing experience of feeling loved. This is not some psychological trick. It’s the blessing of the Spirit. Far too many Christians struggle with life, and at the heart of that is not knowing that they are loved by the Father. Part of the reason for that is their failure to face their sins and to repent of them. David wrote this after repenting of his sin with Bathsheba. ‘Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit.’ What could be better than being able to tell yourself, ‘Though I am a terrible sinner, I know that I am forgiven. I know that I am loved by the Father. I know it.’ The Spirit blesses those who repent with this kind of assurance.

Then there is the third reason why this is important. The failure to repent has consequences. Christians who fail here have no joy, no hope. They are without the clear assurance of God’s love. So, at best, their lives look no different from a moral pagan. How does that make Jesus look good? When I was growing up, one of the big things in the Church was all these booklets for ‘sharing the faith’. And if there was any opportunity to read through them with some unbeliever, you were to jump at it. That won’t work any more. Our culture has changed. They’re not interested in any booklet about religion. But one thing that we can certainly still do is live in such a way that the people that we interact with will say of us, ‘So that’s what it means to be a Christian.’ And out of that will come natural opportunities to say something about Jesus and His Gospel. The only way to have lives like that is by repentance and faith. So, this thing about repentance is important because it leads to people hearing and believing the Gospel.

Now here’s my last thought. I’ve talked to you about true versus false repentance. I’ve pointed out some of what goes into true repentance, the motives for repenting, the roles of the mind, heart and will, and more. I’ve done this to encourage you to repent. However, I need to tell you that it’s just a plain fact that none of us repents in the way that the Bible requires. None of us meets God’s standards and expectations. None of us. And that should not be a surprise. Think of anything that God calls us to do, whether it’s repentance or anything else. We never meet His standards. Never. But isn’t that what it means that we are sinners? Our sin poisons all that we do, including our repentance. So, a note of realism. We fail at repenting. But that doesn’t mean that there is no hope. Jesus has come to save sinners, sinners like us, sinners who can’t even repent right. So, if anyone makes it to heaven, it will only be because Jesus got him there. That’s grace.

That doesn’t mean that we should stop trying to obey when the Spirit tells us that we need to repent of some sin. We will do a lousy job of it, no doubt. But we still need to do what we can. And as we do, the Spirit will bless. That’s also grace.

So, there is no room for pride. We have nothing to be proud of. We are saved despite the utter failure of our best efforts. But at the same time, there is no room for despair. Jesus has saved us from our sin, and He will continue to save us from our sin. He will make up for what is lacking in our repentance and in everything else required of us. By His grace He will get us Home.