Repentance... How would you define it? It may be the case if I asked every person in this room to give me a definition of repentance, I may get quite a few different answers. This is a subject that I believe is greatly misunderstood in the religious world, including amongst the Lord’s people.
What is repentance:
• To ask for forgiveness?
• To have a change of mind?
• To feel sorry for your actions?
• To come back to church after “forsaking the assembly” (because of sin)?
• To come forward at the invitation?
All of these “definitions” that people give to repentance, I believe, fall short of defining repentance biblically. Some of these things may happen when someone has repented, but in and of themselves, they are not repentance. We will talk about these things during our lessons today and talk about how they fit into the discussion about repentance, but we need to understand that if we think we have repented solely because we have done one of these things or a few of these things, we are deceiving ourselves into thinking that we have truly shown repentance in our lives before others and God.
What is real repentance?
Repentance is a brokenness in spirit that leads a person to a change of heart, a change of works, and to a desire to be cleared from their sin, which includes the confession of sin which is specific and free from excuses…
1. REPENTANCE BEGINS W/ A BROKENNESS IN SPIRIT
This sorrow that we have is more than an outward display of sadness. It is more than feeling sorrow for our sin merely because we happened to get caught.
To repent Biblically, we must have a brokenness in spirit. When we have realized that we have sinned and rebelled in some way against our God, this should be the natural response. You have probably heard or seen a young child who knew they did something that was going to get them some kind of punishment, so what do they do? They cry and cry. They say they are never going to do the action again… They are not sad because they realized they have disobeyed their parents and are truly sorry for it, but because they want to avoid any consequences for their actions.
A little bit closer to home… I have done this in my marriage… I say or do something stupid that upsets my wife or makes her cry… I sin against her, and because she is crying and I feel bad that I made her cry… I say I am sorry… I try to apologize so she will cheer up and I don’t have to feel like a jerk for making her cry… This is not repentance… It is a selfish, sinful apology. It is more concerned about self than it is about a desire for the restoration of the relationship and forgiveness of the sin.
It is easy to be more concerned about what people think about us when we sin instead of being concerned about our relationship with God when we sin. We try to show as much sadness and sorrow for what we have done as a cover up for repentance so the person will look at us differently or so we can escape the consequences. We may come back to church or even come forward at the invitation and ask for the congregation’s forgiveness, but this is not repentance. We are not going to fool God into thinking we have repented. We may be able to fool people, but not God.
When we sin or are confronted with our sin, it must break us. If we have truly experienced a relationship with the Lord, to be confronted with our sin is to be confronted with something that has gotten in the way of us having the kind of relationship we want to have with God and our brethren. When we see that, it will hurt us deep inside…
In our scripture reading, God said through the prophet Joel to “weep“ and to “rend your heart and not your garments”(Joel 2:12-13). Outward signs of sorrow are not enough, God wants us to be broken inside over our sin. We know how that feels. Many of us have had a “broken heart” when a relationship that we have valued has either been disrupted or even ended by that person. Have we ever felt that way about our sin against God? David gives us a great example of this:
3 For I know my transgressions, And my sin is ever before me. 4 Against You, You only, I have sinned And done what is evil in Your sight, So that You are justified when You speak And blameless when You judge. 16 …You do not delight in sacrifice, otherwise I would give it; You are not pleased with burnt offering. 17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; A broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise (Psalm 51:3-4; 16-17)
David realized his sin. He knew God would be just in condemning him. He understood what this did to his relationship with God, and it surely affected him deeply.
2. REPENTANCE IS: A CHANGE IN HEART AND WORKS
The brokenness in spirit is just the beginning of Biblical repentance. It is the spark that gets Biblical repentance going. This brokenness of Spirit leads to a change of heart and a change of works. One person put it this way:
“Repentance is a turning away from sin, a hatred for the things that God hates and a love for the things that God loves, a growing in holiness and a desire[…] not to be like the world, and not to be like the great majority of American Christians, but to be like Jesus Christ!” (ellipses added)
We are lying to ourselves when we tell ourselves that repentance is a desire to improve in an area of weakness we have. We tell ourselves when we are stuck in a sin, “Well, I have improved greatly. Instead of committing this sin every other day, I am only committing it once every two weeks. This shows I have repented.” No it doesn’t. If I told you that I have repented because I have improved in the sin of murder; I only do it once a week instead of every other day; would you believe me? Of course not! But for some reason, we think we have repented if we are improving in the time between our sin. We are not. We at times say things like this because we want to ease our conscience; and in so doing, justify our sin.
We need to be ruthless toward the sin in our lives... don't play around with it or just “try to improve.” We need to radically get it out of our lives. We need to turn away from the sin… get it out of our lives completely! We need to hate the sin… desire to be more like Christ. Jesus gave us the example of cutting off a foot or hand; pluck out an eye. We need to be radical in fighting sin. We need to be changed. If we are not any different after we confess our sin, then we have not repented. We have instead put a Band-Aid on cancer. Change is necessary. There must be meaningful change in our lives. We must bear fruits of repentance.
I will make this point also: just coming back to church is not repentance. I would like to say two things about this point. First, we tend to think that the only sin that people commit when they are “forsaking the assembly” is that they are not coming to church. This is most of the time not the case. There are usually many other sins that are keeping them away from God’s people. All of the sins need dealt with, not just the forsaking of the assembling of ourselves together. Second, we as churches need to remember that our goal is NOT to get erring brethren back to church. Our desire is to bring them to repentance. If they do not come to repentance, they should not be amongst God’s people. This seems to be the clear teaching of Paul in 1 Corinthians 5. Repentance must come before a brother or sister is accepted back amongst the camp of God’s people.
3. REPENTANCE IS WILLING AND DELIBERATE
If someone has truly repented, they will not need to be told to go apologize or to go confess their sin. They do not need to be told to go to the Lord in prayer to ask for forgiveness. This will be a natural outflow from a repentant heart.
The person who is Biblically repenting has a desire to be cleared from the sins they have committed. There is an urgency in the person to be freed from the sin they committed against God and man.
For observe this very thing, that you sorrowed in a godly manner: What diligence it produced in you, what clearing of yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what vehement desire, what zeal, what vindication! In all things you proved yourselves to be clear in this matter (2 Corinthians 7:11).
If we have to ask the question, “I wonder if they have truly repented,” it may be the case that they have not truly repented. If we are close to the situation and the person involved and it is not clear that they have returned to faithfulness the Lord, then they may not have… Those who want to be freed from their sin will go at lengths to make sure they are cleared. They will drop everything to make things right. They won’t wait until worship to “come forward.” It is gong to happen immediately. Back in our scripture reading in Joel 2, God in calling His people to repentance, said, “Let the bridegroom go out from his chamber, And the bride from her dressing room” (Joel 2:16). It seems like God is saying that repentance is so necessary that all weddings for the day need to be called off! Would you have any question that someone has repented if they called off their wedding to go to someone they have wronged and to fix their broken relationship with God? Of course not.
Restoring our relationships with each other and our between us and our God is the most important things in this life. When it comes to restoring our relationships with one another. Jesus said in the sermon on the mount, “23 Therefore if you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, 24 leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift” (Matthew 5:23-24). We shouldn’t bring God worship unless we have first taken care of the wrong we have done. This is how important true repentance is. We cannot properly worship God unless we first are reconciled with one another.
One of the reasons why the repentance of people is questioned is because there commonly is so little done by the person who has sinned. There seems at times to be no urgency in the person to make things right, and when they do come to confess their sin, there seems to be no brokenness on their part. I believe that we need to learn to ask questions of the person when they do come to us to confess sin.
You may or may not agree, but I believe that true repentance cannot be brought into question by anyone except for those who do not want to forgive (those who themselves do not want to repent from their sin of being unwilling to forgive)... We do need to make sure that we are careful that we are not questioning someone’s repentance because we are not having a forgiving heart ourselves. Make sure our concern is for the person in sin and not about the bitterness we feel about what they did to us. If they have come to us in repentance, we must be willing to forgive, no questions asked.
4. REPENTANCE IS ACCOMPANIED BY A CONFESSION
This point is more focused on whatever confession takes place. When we sin against our God or against man, a confession of sin is normally present.
CLEAR: it does not include the word “if” For example, ““If any of my indiscretions have caused you personally any undue grief or personal harm please consider this an adequate apology.” It is not clear here what is being confessed or even if a wrong was even committed.
SPECIFIC: Say exactly what it is that we did. We did not commit an indiscretion, faux pa, misstep, blunder, etc. We are not just misunderstood… We don’t confess that we are sinners. We confess our sins. James 5:16 says “Therefore confess your sins to one another …
FREE OF EXCUSES: “if only you did not do this, then I would not have responded this way. But nonetheless, I am sorry.” Don’t blame someone else for your sin: “she made me do it!” or how about this excuse “I didn’t mean to do this.”
I like to look at the contrast between Saul’s confession and David’s confessions in the books of 1 and 2 Samuel.
Saul, after being confronted with his sin, confessed to Samuel after making a whole bunch of excuses, “I have sinned, for I have transgressed the commandment of the LORD and your words, because I feared the people and obeyed their voice” (1 Samuel 15:24). Even when he finally says he had sinned, there is still some kind of blame given to the people. But David, when he was confronted with his sin, he is brief and clear. He said, “I have sinned against the Lord” (2 Sam 12:7a, 13). There were no excuses. He simply confessed his guilt before the Lord.
To whom we direct our words? I think the answer to this question is simpler than we make it at times. The prevailing notion is that the confession must be as public as the sin is. I don’t know of a passage of scripture that teaches this. I think the better and Biblical approach is to confess our sins against the one in whom we have sinned against. If we sinned against an individual, confess our sins to that individual. If we have sinned against many people or the church as a whole, then our sin should be confessed to the group.
Conclusion
When this is what our repentance looks like, there will be blessing, most importantly, from the Lord.
“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).
A lack of true, fruitful repentance will be our downfall. Our lives as Christians must be lives of repentance. Repentance is something that we should be doing often in our lives as we get into God’s word and see our sin. Biblical repentance must be our response when we are confronted with our sin. Only when we repent Biblically and confess our sins can we know that we have forgiveness before the Lord.
Is there a sin that you are committing that you need to repent of. I pray that you will make it right with the one who sinned against, especially the Lord, before it is too late. It will get to the point for us all that repentance will into be able to happen.
