God’s Commandment to Repent, Part Two
--Mark 1:14-15, Revelation 2:1-7; II Chronicles 7:14
Charing Cross is the geographical center of London, England, and the location of one of the primary railway stations in the city. The name stems from the fact that King Edward I erected a cross on that site in memory of his wife Eleanor after her death in 1290. “All distances in the United Kingdom from London are measured from Charing Cross. This spot is referred to simply as ‘the cross.’ A lost child was one day picked up by a London ‘bobby.’ The child was unable to tell where he lived. Finally, in response to the repeated questions of the bobby, and amid sobs and tears, the little fellow said, ‘If you will take me to the cross I think I can find my way from there.’” [SOURCE: James Brown Pounds, “London’s ‘The Cross’” in Paul Lee Tan, Encyclopedia of 7, 700 Illustrations: Signs of the Times (Rockville, Maryland: Assurance Publishers, 1979), 206.] When we repent at the foot of the cross of Jesus, we find eternal forgiveness; we find our way home.
Recall the basic lessons in repentance we discovered from The New Testament last Sunday. Repentance, or the verb “to repent,” means “to think differently; to change one’s mind or purpose.” It always involves a change for the better, an improvement in the repenter. It is a decision that changes one’s entire life, a total “about-face,” a 180 degree turn in direction, “a radical, moral turn of the whole person from sin and self to God.” Because it embraces one’s entire being and personality, repentance is a change in both attitudes of the heart and the outward behavior and actions.
Sin is basically a problem of the heart that requires repenting of wrong attitudes. Sinful acts flow from a sinful heart. Jeremiah 17:9 clearly states our human dilemma, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” Jesus takes up this same message in Matthew 15:19-20, “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. These are what make one ’unclean’. . .” Repentance must be a change in heart, a change in attitude.
We all would do well to memorize and live the closing words of Dr. Norman Shawchuck’s prayer of repentance, “This day I pledge to You and to myself that I will begin even now to pursue right thinking and right living, but my God, I need Your help. Amen.” [Source: Norman Shawchuck and Reuben P. Job, A Guide to Prayer for All Who Seek God (Nashville: Upper Room Books, 2003), 318.]
Here is a key point to grasp in Dr. Shawchuck’s prayer: Although repentance is a personal decision, a change in direction on the part of the repenter, a human act, it is rooted in the grace of God. Even though I promise God that “I will begin even now to pursue right thinking and right living,” I can not do that in my own strength and power; I “must have His help.” Paul thoroughly understands that the very act of repentance depends on the grace of God in I Corinthians 12:3b, “. . . no-one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except by the Holy Spirit.” Only the Holy Spirit can lead us to repent and enable us to do so.
Last Sunday we discovered that the New Testament teaches that everyone, sinners, loyal disciples of Jesus, and the Church as a whole are all called to repent. Paul preaching at Athens in Acts 17:30 reminds us, “[God] . . . now commands all people everywhere to repent.” Jesus in Luke 5:32 declares that His mission is “not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance,” and John in His First Epistle continually reminds us as Christ’s disciples that if the Holy Spirit points out sin in our personal lives, we only receive divine forgiveness when we confess our sin.
We mentioned last week that Jesus personally called the Churches at Ephesus, Pergamum, Sardis, and Laodicea in Revelation Two and Three to repent. In some past appointments I have preached a series of messages on “The Churches of the Revelation.” Every local Church can learn some valuable lessons in ministry and commitment to Jesus Christ from taking a close look at these seven Churches in the Apocalypse.
Perhaps in the coming months, if the Lord so leads, I will get those messages out, revise them, and share that series with us at Trinity, But for the present a quick look at the first Church, the Church at Ephesus can give us some worthy insight as to why the Holy Spirit may call a local Church to repent.
Ephesus had backslidden in her relationship with Jesus. She was not as
committed to her Lord, as enthusiastic in her outreach and witness for Him as she had been when revival fires had broken out in their city and many had turned from their immoral worship of their fertility goddess Diana, accepted Jesus Christ as their Saviour and Lord, and began to live for Him.
As John Wesley feared might happen to the Methodists in Europe and America, perhaps Ephesus had come to the place where she “only existed as a dead sect, having the form of religion but without the power.” Or maybe, as has happened to so many members in United Methodist congregations today, her people had forgotten their sacred promise to Almighty God when they joined the local Church—they did not remain “loyal to their Church or uphold it by their prayers, their presence, their gifts, and their service.”
My first pastoral appointment was the Marissa and Zion United Methodist Charge in St. Clair County, Illinois, about forty miles southeast of St. Louis, Missouri. Zion had only three members and no electricity or running water. In past decades light had been provided in the sanctuary by kerosene, reflective lamps like this one placed by each window, the way sanctuaries for centuries received their light in Europe and America. [NOTE: LIZ HOLDS UP OUR KEROSENCE, REFLECTIVE LAMP FROM THE ZION UNITED METHODIST CHURCH BEFORE THE CONGREGATION AS I TELL THE FOLLOWING STORY.]
“Several centuries ago in a mountain village in Europe, a wealthy nobleman wondered what legacy he should leave to His townspeople. He made a good decision. He decided to build them a church. No one was permitted to see the plans or the inside of the Church until it was finished. At its grand opening, the people gathered and marveled at the beauty of the new church. Everything had been thought of and included. It was a masterpiece.
But then someone said, ‘Wait a minute! Where are the lamps? It is really quite dark in here. How will the church be lighted?’ The nobleman pointed to some brackets in the walls, and then he gave each family a lamp, which they were to bring with them each time the came to worship.
“‘Each time you are here,’ the nobleman said, ‘the place where you are seated will be lighted. Each time you are not here, that place will be dark. This is to remind you that whenever you fail to come to Church, some part of God’s house will be dark.’” [SOURCE: James W. Moore, Some Things Are Too Good Not to Be True, (Nashville: Dimension, 1994), 117-8.] Have you faithful kept your sacred vow to Almighty God to be “Loyal to the United Methodist Church by supporting it with your faithful presence? “Whenever you fail to come to Church, some part of God’s house is dark.”
At the heart and center of the backslidden condition of the Ephesian Church was the fact that Jesus was no longer the rightful Lord and head of His Church in Ephesus. He did not remain their priority in life or in mission. In sharing warning signs with His disciples concerning the End of the Age Jesus says in Matthew 24:12, “And because of the increase of lawlessness, the love of many will grow cold.” Already this was beginning to happen in Ephesus. Disciples lacked the passion they once had for their Lord, and their love for each other also had diminished.
I can not help but think that the spiritual condition at Ephesus in the first Century of the Christian Era was like so many of our United Methodist congregations and other mainline local Churches in America as described by United Methodist clergyman The Rev. Paul Nixon in chapter one of his book I REFUSE TO LEAD A DYING CHURCH: “More than half of the congregations that call themselves United Methodist, Evangelical Lutheran, Presbyterian, Episcopal, Disciples of Christ, American Baptist, and United Church of Christ will likely disappear sometime in the next half-century.” Unless these local congregations “repent and do the things they did at first,” many of them most likely will close their doors a lot sooner than Pastor Nixon’s prophecy of fifty years.
Whatever the particular circumstances of her backslidden relationship was with her Lord, Jesus tenderly implored His Church, “Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place.” [Revelation 2:5]
Jesus clearly shows the Ephesian Church what real repentance will mean in her particular situation. The congregation must “repent and do the things they did at first.” Failure to repent will result in the death of the local Church, because Jesus Himself will “remove her lampstand form its place.” Without repentance the Church will die and fade into history.
After delivering His message to each of the seven churches in Revelation, Jesus always repeats this refrain, “Let anyone who has an ear listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches.” The Churches Jesus pleads to “listen to what the Spirit is saying to them” include not only these seven but all local Churches throughout the ages including our own today. Are we obediently listening to His Voice?
One facet of repentance is crucial. Repentance always requires humility. The little boy in our opening story is a prime example of such humility. No better text captures this truth than today’s Lesson from the Hebrew Scriptures II Chronicles 7:14, “If My people, who are called by My name, will humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” This is the battle cry of revival in Holy Scriptures. Revival in the local Church begins with the spirit of humility.
Repentance is a humbling experience, and God says His people, those who are called by His name, must humble themselves before Him in prayer. The people called by His name in the Hebrew Scriptures were the Israelites. As Christians today we are the people called by His name. How do we humble ourselves before God? The Hebrew term humble literally means “to bow the knee, to humble oneself before God in repentance.”
The word pictures a proud, disobedient, and stubborn person or group of people submitting themselves to a stronger authority or power. Humility is the opposite of arrogant, haughty pride. The arrogant, haughty individual or Church boasts about their own self sufficiency. They proclaim along with Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley, “I did it, no, I do it my way.” The humble person or Church knees at the cross of Jesus and confesses, “Lord, I only continue to mess everything up doing it my way. Forgive me, and by the power of Your Holy Spirit help me from this moment on to do everything Your way, under Your guidance, direction, and control.”
God can not work through any disciple or Church who is plagued by arrogance, haughtiness, and self-sufficient pride. Fanny Crosby captures the humility of repentance in the second stanza of her hymn, “Pass Me Not, O Gentle Saviour”:
Let me at they throne of mercy find a sweet relief,
Kneeling there in deep contrition; help my unbelief.
For his sins of adultery and murder King David deserved the death penalty on both counts which meant execution by stoning. Yet David is still known as the “man after God’s own heart.” God forgave and restored David, because he humbled himself before Him in true repentance.
Psalm 51 is David’s penitent confession and act of contrite repentance. He did not hide or ignore his guilt but remorsefully knelt before God confessing:
Have mercy on me, O God, in Your great goodness;
according to the abundance of Your compassion
blot out my offences.
Wash me thoroughly from my wickedness
and cleanse me from my sin.
For I acknowledge my faults
and my sin is ever before me.
Against You only have I sinned
and done what is evil in Your sight,
So that You are justified in Your sentence
and righteous in Your judgment.
I have been wicked even from my birth,
a sinner when my mother conceived me.
[PSALM 51:1-6, COMMON WORSHIP PSALTER]
Then David acknowledges in verse eighteen:
The sacrifice of God is a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.
As with David, God always forgives anyone or any people who humbly come before Him with a broken and contrite heart. A contrite heart is a humble heart that shows sincere repentance and remorse, and God always forgives all who kneel before Him in such a spirit.
Craig R. Dykstra in Vision and Character fully understands what true Biblical repentance is when he correctly observes:
Repentance . . .requires two things: humility and trust. Repent-
ance requires the humility involved in the confession that I am a
sinner, one whose life is not whole and who lacks the power
both to find either the direction to wholeness or the resources
for wholeness on my own. Repentance requires trust in a
power that can and will ultimately sustain and establish me
if I let go of myself into that power’s hands. Without both
trust and humility, repentance is impossible.
As a disciple of Jesus Christ, is the Holy Spirit calling you to repent today from a wrong attitude you have harbored in your heart? As the Church of Jesus Christ, is He calling us as a Body to repent because “we have lost our first love?”
Have we honestly kept our promise to Jesus when we joined His Church that we would “be loyal to the United Methodist Church and uphold it by our prayers, our presence, our gifts, and our service” or have we come dangerously close to fulfilling John Wesley’s greatest fear that we “only exist as a dead sect, having the form of religion without the power?”
If either case is true for us as a disciple or collectively as the Church of Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit is calling us to humble repentance at the cross of Jesus Christ. God can never work through any person or Church who remains arrogant, haughty, and full of self-sufficient pride, but He will always forgive, empower, and bless His people who kneel before Him and pray:
Pass Me Not, O Gentle Saviour,
Hear my humble cry;
While on others thou art calling,
Do not pass me by.
Saviour, Saviour,
Hear my humble cry;
While on others thou art calling,
Do not pass me by.
As a faithful disciple of Jesus Christ and collectively as His Church, may we truly make this our prayer as we kneel before Him now and always.
