on 13 September 2023
Dear all at IPC,
Martin Luther, the great German Reformer in the first of his 95 Thesis that he hammered on to the door in Wittenberg in 1517 said….
‘When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, ‘Repent’ (Matthew 4:17), he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance”. They begin, continue and end their life of faith here on earth with repentance’
Luther’s life and writings were shaped by repentance and yet one of the things we love most about the Reformer was his joy in life, his great company, his gift of friendship. I would want to argue those most familiar with repentance will be those marked with the deepest joy, the two are integrally linked.
What does real repentance look like? Because it is such an important issue in the Christian life we must not think that it is something we do at the start and then move on from.
Firstly repentance means recognising your sin. You would have thought that was easy but our hearts are so blinded by it that unless the Holy Spirit opens our eyes to our sin we will not even admit it. It’s why the preaching of the Word is so important, Sunday by Sunday you come to church and hear God’s Word proclaimed, it is not something you or I control. God’s word is a ‘lamp unto our feet and light to our path’ (Psalm 119:105). It is like the light being turned on and exposing what was hidden in the darkness, revealing that which we did not see before. The ordinary experience of the believer is that when we sit under the preaching of God’s Word, God’s Spirit both unveils and unravels to us our sinful thoughts, words and behaviour. It is not a pleasant experience to begin to understand that we are caught in sin and admit it to ourselves. Without this stage of recognising our sin there will be no meaningful change, there certainly will be no turning from it.
The second stage of repentance is confession to God but also to others, owning our sin and rebellion. Seeing that it is not just what I have done but who I am that I need to repent of. There is no set pattern of words given to us in the bible. In Luke 18:18 the Tax Collector famously says ‘God be merciful to me a sinner’, David having had his sin exposed says ‘Against you and you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight’ (Psalm 51:4). The challenge of my proud heart is often being unwilling to open my mouth and confess my sin. There is a reluctance often to articulate what is the particular sin, so for example when it comes to lying, it’s so humiliating to admit I just lied to you and that I lied before God. It is easier to keep the sorry’s generic and obfuscate.
Yet as we confess our sin and bring it from the darkness into the light, taking it to Christ who bore the punishment for our sin, recognising that the Lord has laid on him my iniquity. There is wonderful liberation and freedom.
It is no coincidence that those Christians in the past like John Bunyan described sin as a burden. In my experience when believers are aware of their sin and recognise it for what it is, they often describe as a weight, weighing them down. The guilt is a heaviness that cannot be got rid of. In the confessing our sin to God we are saying I want, I need to be free of this burden/ weight. My conscience needs to be cleansed. The hymn ‘And can it be’ expresses this experience we yearn for ‘My chains fell off, my heart was free, I rose went forth and followed thee’.
In all likelihood when we recognise our sin and confess it to God we will have to confess it to the person we’ve sinned against. I don’t under estimate the agony and even trauma of having to do that but I want to assure you that is the path of freedom and love. It is certainly the path for a clear conscience. God will give you grace to say what needs to be said. The devil will whisper in your ear, don’t do it, it will ruin everything, keep it in the dark. Proverbs 28:13 ‘Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy.’ Let me encourage you if you know that you need to confess your guilt and are feeling torn as to whether you can do it – 2 Corinthians 7:8 gives to you a glorious promise ‘godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret’.
When it comes to sin many of us are racked with guilt and regrets and yet I have never met in all my lifetime someone who regrets repenting. Have you? Think of anyone who has regretted repenting? Let’s imagine we could go into eternity and interview the saints in heaven asking the question “Do you regret repenting?” To even think of the question is ludicrous.
The Westminster Confession is so very helpful on Repentance – ‘Men ought not to content themselves with a general repentance, but it is every man’s duty to endeavour to repent of his particular sins particularly.’ We are called to be specific, to call sin what it is, to not conceal. Christians in the past have talked and prayed about keeping short accounts which is so helpful in our homes and and in church life.
Thirdly there will be sorrow that accompanies repentance. Very often we can be sorry for the effect our sin has had but a godly sorrow recognises like David above that our sin is against God. It’s right for parents to say when our children apologise ‘There is someone else you need to say sorry to’. They (and we) need to recognise that we sin before a God who has loved us and has given his son for us. God is personal and so our sin is personally against him.
Often our ease of sinning and flippant saying sorry betrays an unfamiliarity with our God, a reluctance to take him serious and a lack of understanding of his love for us in Christ. Our personality plays into this but repentance will express itself in sorrow, many of us reading this know that sin casts a long shadow. We have witnessed in our own lives the destruction and damage sin causes and so we cannot take it lightly.
Fourthly, Repentance obviously leads to change. John the Baptist preaches ‘Bear fruit in keeping with Repentance’ (Matthew 3:8), that means out of the soil of our broken and contrite hearts there will be new life that comes. Evidence that repentance will show itself in a change of direction, a movement away from the sins that we have committed. To continue in our sin without change tragically shows that our repentance was not genuine.
My prayer for us as a church is that we would be marked by this willingness to humble ourselves, to take the painful path of repentance but that we would be marked by the joy and liberation that comes with forgiveness. One of the hallmarks of our cancel culture at the moment, is there is no forgiveness. The gospel of Jesus Christ offers us something completely different, it offers restoration and redemption for those who repent.
Your Minister and Friend,
Paul