From Embers to a Flame, Part 4: The Call to Repentance
What did the prophets come saying? Repent!
What did John the Baptist come saying? Repent!
What did Jesus come saying? Repent!
What did the Apostles preach? Repentance!
“God is calling all men everywhere to repent.” Acts 17:30
What is Repentance?
Repentance is to come clean before a Holy God who loves us too much to allow us to continue in our sin.
The Scriptures do not teach that repentance is only necessary occasionally, but that it is both an attitude and an action of life. Repentance is a heart attitude we need all the time. Those who think the former have a “break glass in case of fire” theology.
The Framework for Repentance
1. God is serious about sin. God is so serious about sin that He killed His own Son. He could not allow compromise.
2. All sin will be dealt with. The guilty will by no means go unpunished.
The question is not whether God will deal with sin, but how He will deal with sin. Repentance allows God to deal with sin by means of His grace.
But God’s people keep sinning in thought, word, and deed. We sin by what we should have done, but did not do.
The good news is that God’s unfailing love and compassion makes us always acceptable to God through Christ even when we sin--because of the atonement! We are accepted, but our sin is never acceptable. We do not need to convince God we are good, doing penance. Both God and we acknowledge our guilt.
The thing we are to do with our sin is repent. Turn away from it and turn to God. And God will never turn us away.
If Thou, O Lord, shouldst mark iniquity, who could stand? The answer is “no one”. God is utterly holy. We are totally depraved. And the bridge is all of grace!!!
A Wrong Theology of Repentance
A wrong theology of repentance cause people to:
1. Deny we’ve sinned.
2. Shift the blame.
3. Do three things to make up for one bad.
4. Lose hope and cave in.
These are a joke before a holy God. It shows that you don’t believe in the utter holiness of God.
Do you know what is so great about sin? Sin is like cancer, but unlike cancer it is always immediately curable. No one has ever gone to the thrown of grace with a broken and contrite heart and been despised. The root of our sinful idolatry is based in the heart, a failure to trust God’s truth and goodness. And it is as old as the Fall. It is the idea that we can make our lives apart from God and that God is not reliable.
We all sin. We all need to repent. For the Christian, this is a glorious realization: “Tell me that I have sinned against God’s grace and goodness to me, and I will be all the more willing to be broken at God’s feet.”
John Calvin called the human heart an idol factory. Repentance is turning away from sins because our hearts are turning back to God from idols.
Habitual sinners need to become habitual repenters!
The Process of Repentance
1. We must be convicted of our sin. (Psalm 51; Romans 2:4)
Conviction comes through the ordinary means of grace (Word, sacraments, and prayer). Wouldn’t be wonderful if we all came to conviction under the ordinary means? When it doesn’t, then often God must send conviction through Nathans in our life.
Wouldn’t it be great if God built in a beeper when we sin that just kept beeping faster until you repented? You know, like the beeper that tells you your seatbelt in unbuckled? Well, God did give us that: our conscience. And you should want to have a soft heart, a hair-trigger conscience.
2. When we see it, we acknowledge it and have sorrow over it. (Psalm 51:16-17; 2 Corinthians 7:10)
There is a whole new theology that says, “if I can just say it, I am clean.” That is not repentance. Catharsis is not repentance. Saying “I’m sorry” is not adequate. We need godly sorrow that comes from the heart. Contrition, to be crushed.
Worldly sorrow brings only death.
3. We must turn away from our sin and turn to God from our idol. (Psalm 32:5-6; Acts 20:21; Acts 3:19)
Confess your sin. Turn back to God. A turning to God in repentance is absolute necessity! Refreshment does not come otherwise.
When are we going to be convinced that idols do not deliver? Every time, they will leave nothing but saw dust in our mouth. Only the cross, found in repentance, brings relief. For this reason, we want to “really” feel better and that is only possible if we ‘fess up. When we deal with our sin, it is taken away and that is a wonderful feeling.
Origen called repentance that “vomit of the soul”. Does it feel better after you do that? Of course it does!
4. Repentance issues forth in a changed life. (Matthew 3:8; Acts 26:20; Psalm 51:13)
Repentance will cause you to worship God and seek to walk with him. Repentance will motivate you to make restitution if you have stolen. Repentance will motivate you to seek reconciliation and restoration if you have a fractured a relationship.
Sin becomes odious as we walk in ways of new obedience.
Corporate Repentance
Was Israel ever called to corporately repent? Yes.
In Revelation, the Holy Spirit is saying to the whole church, “Repent!”
How about in the local church? Pastors should show their people how to repent. Repent, so that your people might be led to repent. They won’t do that if you are a “holier than thou” pastor. When leaders begin to be repenters, that goes completely in the face of both the general culture and the church culture. It is at that point that the church will begin to repent.
Habitual sinners MUST become habitual repenters!
What did John the Baptist come saying? Repent!
What did Jesus come saying? Repent!
What did the Apostles preach? Repentance!
“God is calling all men everywhere to repent.” Acts 17:30
What is Repentance?
Repentance is to come clean before a Holy God who loves us too much to allow us to continue in our sin.
The Scriptures do not teach that repentance is only necessary occasionally, but that it is both an attitude and an action of life. Repentance is a heart attitude we need all the time. Those who think the former have a “break glass in case of fire” theology.
The Framework for Repentance
1. God is serious about sin. God is so serious about sin that He killed His own Son. He could not allow compromise.
2. All sin will be dealt with. The guilty will by no means go unpunished.
The question is not whether God will deal with sin, but how He will deal with sin. Repentance allows God to deal with sin by means of His grace.
But God’s people keep sinning in thought, word, and deed. We sin by what we should have done, but did not do.
The good news is that God’s unfailing love and compassion makes us always acceptable to God through Christ even when we sin--because of the atonement! We are accepted, but our sin is never acceptable. We do not need to convince God we are good, doing penance. Both God and we acknowledge our guilt.
The thing we are to do with our sin is repent. Turn away from it and turn to God. And God will never turn us away.
If Thou, O Lord, shouldst mark iniquity, who could stand? The answer is “no one”. God is utterly holy. We are totally depraved. And the bridge is all of grace!!!
A Wrong Theology of Repentance
A wrong theology of repentance cause people to:
1. Deny we’ve sinned.
2. Shift the blame.
3. Do three things to make up for one bad.
4. Lose hope and cave in.
These are a joke before a holy God. It shows that you don’t believe in the utter holiness of God.
Do you know what is so great about sin? Sin is like cancer, but unlike cancer it is always immediately curable. No one has ever gone to the thrown of grace with a broken and contrite heart and been despised. The root of our sinful idolatry is based in the heart, a failure to trust God’s truth and goodness. And it is as old as the Fall. It is the idea that we can make our lives apart from God and that God is not reliable.
We all sin. We all need to repent. For the Christian, this is a glorious realization: “Tell me that I have sinned against God’s grace and goodness to me, and I will be all the more willing to be broken at God’s feet.”
John Calvin called the human heart an idol factory. Repentance is turning away from sins because our hearts are turning back to God from idols.
Habitual sinners need to become habitual repenters!
The Process of Repentance
1. We must be convicted of our sin. (Psalm 51; Romans 2:4)
Conviction comes through the ordinary means of grace (Word, sacraments, and prayer). Wouldn’t be wonderful if we all came to conviction under the ordinary means? When it doesn’t, then often God must send conviction through Nathans in our life.
Wouldn’t it be great if God built in a beeper when we sin that just kept beeping faster until you repented? You know, like the beeper that tells you your seatbelt in unbuckled? Well, God did give us that: our conscience. And you should want to have a soft heart, a hair-trigger conscience.
2. When we see it, we acknowledge it and have sorrow over it. (Psalm 51:16-17; 2 Corinthians 7:10)
There is a whole new theology that says, “if I can just say it, I am clean.” That is not repentance. Catharsis is not repentance. Saying “I’m sorry” is not adequate. We need godly sorrow that comes from the heart. Contrition, to be crushed.
Worldly sorrow brings only death.
3. We must turn away from our sin and turn to God from our idol. (Psalm 32:5-6; Acts 20:21; Acts 3:19)
Confess your sin. Turn back to God. A turning to God in repentance is absolute necessity! Refreshment does not come otherwise.
When are we going to be convinced that idols do not deliver? Every time, they will leave nothing but saw dust in our mouth. Only the cross, found in repentance, brings relief. For this reason, we want to “really” feel better and that is only possible if we ‘fess up. When we deal with our sin, it is taken away and that is a wonderful feeling.
Origen called repentance that “vomit of the soul”. Does it feel better after you do that? Of course it does!
4. Repentance issues forth in a changed life. (Matthew 3:8; Acts 26:20; Psalm 51:13)
Repentance will cause you to worship God and seek to walk with him. Repentance will motivate you to make restitution if you have stolen. Repentance will motivate you to seek reconciliation and restoration if you have a fractured a relationship.
Sin becomes odious as we walk in ways of new obedience.
Corporate Repentance
Was Israel ever called to corporately repent? Yes.
In Revelation, the Holy Spirit is saying to the whole church, “Repent!”
How about in the local church? Pastors should show their people how to repent. Repent, so that your people might be led to repent. They won’t do that if you are a “holier than thou” pastor. When leaders begin to be repenters, that goes completely in the face of both the general culture and the church culture. It is at that point that the church will begin to repent.
Habitual sinners MUST become habitual repenters!
posted on 3/08/2006 | permalink | more bloggy goodness
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