Repentance: A Prelude
2 Corinthians 7:9-11; Revelation 3:14-21
Cascades Fellowship CRC, JX MI
February 27, 2005
3rd Sunday of Lent
Last year, I learned a little something about weeds. Rach and I have a modest vegetable garden by the house. Every year we grow some green beans and tomatoes with an odd assortment of other experiments. We have tried everything from corn to okra – but it seems that only beans and tomatoes end up doing anything. Well, and spinach. We usually get a good crop of spinach.
Last year, we had a weed infiltrate our garden that caused me to just quit trying to weed out the weeds altogether. This weed was a real aggressive sort – popping up overnight. I would pluck out the pesky thing on one side of the garden and the next day it would reappear on the other side. I kept wondering how plentiful the spores must have been to scatter so far a field. Okay, my garden isn’t big enough to use the term “far a field,” but the point is the same. To have so many plants push out of the ground in so many different locations surely meant that the parent plant must have heaved gobs of seed into the summer breeze.
At least that was my theory at first. As the summer came to a close, I made a startling discovery. I wasn’t fighting weeds, I was fighting a weed; one weed, not two or three; not even close to the aforementioned “gobs.” But this weed was especially devious. So devious, it didn’t actually live in my yard at all, but in my neighbors yard – part of a “wild flower” patch.
You see, what this weed did was it buried a knot of roots deep in the soil on the other side of the fence and then from that knot it sent out tentacles pushing through the soil beneath the surface, every tendril having the potential of forming a new weed.. The only way to eliminate the weed was to dig up our entire garden. It was an all or nothing effort – either learn to live with the weed or go radical, purge the soil of its presence and start again next year.
I chose to live with it.
In some ways this choice disturbs me a little. I mean speaking economically, it was the right choice. All the labor, water and fertilizer that had gone into the garden would have been wasted if I had ripped up everything in an effort to destroy this one ubiquitous weed – this “everywhere” weed. But, was it the best choice? I am likely to have to deal with this weed again this year – so have I really saved myself anything?
I guess the real rub is that making the choice that I did means I am willing to settle. Rather than do the hard work and having soil that is properly prepared and cleared of all weeds, I chose to live with it. Ignore it where I could and work around it where I had to. Meanwhile, the weed robbed what we planted of nutrients – it grew fat on the water and fertilizer meant to fatten our tomatoes. I traded what was best for what was serviceable.
I sometimes wonder if we don’t do the same thing with our lives of faith. Settle, I mean; settle for what is serviceable instead of striving for what is best. The Scriptures often force me to ask this question.
Take our passage this morning, for instance. When I first read over this passage, I have to admit that I read it as a theologian instead of as a child of God – instead of listening for my God to speak to me, I found myself doing a job, not developing a relationship.
Rather than just hearing it for what it says, I hear it within a framework – my mind recalling details of the history behind the passage. I remembered that 2nd Corinthians was actually the fourth letter Paul had written to the church and that the letter writing campaign began because false teachers had come into the church charging Paul with being a huckster – a scam artist. I remembered that he had actually made a trip to Corinth after his second letter – what we know as 1st Corinthians – and that he was not treated well by the church there. They laughed him out of town and refused to recognize his apostolic authority. I also recalled that the third letter – the one this passage references was a hard letter, a tough-worded, no nonsense letter – what Paul refers to as a “painful letter.” He sent that letter with Titus, a tough-minded, no nonsense sort of guy – an enforcer, if you will. In love, he brought the hammer down on the Corinthians and when they finally saw the error of their ways, returned to Paul to share the good news.
But as I read the passage, something struck me. Paul says something rather remarkable in this passage – something that really grates against our sensibilities. In vv.8-10
“Even if I caused you sorrow by my letter, I do not regret it. Though I did regret it—I see that my letter hurt you, but only for a little while— yet now I am happy, not because you were made sorry, but because your sorrow led you to repentance. For you became sorrowful as God intended and so were not harmed in any way by us. Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death.”
God intended to make the Corinthians sorrowful? Does that sound like the God we know? Such a notion sort of shocks the system, doesn’t it? God wants us to be happy. He wants us to feel good about ourselves. He wants us to have a positive self-image, a sense of self-confidence, to be sure of our place in the universe. That is what a loving God would want, isn’t it? Isn’t that God’s plan for us – in the words of the prophet Jeremiah, “to prosper, not to harm us; to give us a hope and future?”
Quite frankly, the answer to that entire litany of questions is “Yes.” The same God who spoke tenderly to a downtrodden Israel in the clutches of Babylon, “I know the plans I have made for you, plans to prosper you and not harm you…” is the same God who brought sorrow on Israel in the first place. He was the one who brought exile upon them. Why? To instruct them in the ways of righteousness and justice. To unveil his holiness, how intensely he hates sin among his people. To bring them to repentance – the prelude to holiness.
And really, that is what Paul is talking about when he says that he was made happy by the Corinthian’s sorrow – not that he hurt them, but that their sorrow led to repentance. He was happy to know that their consciences were not so seared with pride and sin that they could no longer see how poor a state they were really in. He was happy to know that they could still recognize grace, even when it came in the form of sorrow.
When was the last time you recognized God’s grace through sorrow? I am not talking about the calm assurance that helps us weather the storms of life – the death of a loved one or a major upheaval in the fabric of our existence. But the sorrow that comes from realizing that you – that I – have fallen short of the glory of God and it is only grace that can make up the difference? The sorrow that comes when we realize that we have been called to holiness and we are anything but?
I ask this question because I see something in the text that suggests to me that there is a lot more to repentance than is often taught in the Christian church today. Note again what Paul says their sorrow has led to – “…a Godly sorrow [which] brings repentance that leads to salvation….” I find that an odd thing to say to a bunch of Christians – people who have already been saved! Why does Paul use such language? I thought the sequence was repent, salvation, and then sanctification.
Well, it is. But Paul understood salvation in terms of a process – he reveals this when he tells the Philippians to “work out their salvation with fear and trembling.” For him, salvation included sanctification. In other words, we are indeed saved once we have believed on the name of Jesus Christ – what Pauk would refer to as justified. There is no question that once Jesus has laid claim to your heart and you have laid hands on the grace and mercy his sacrifice affords, you are saved. But your salvation is not complete – it is sure, God will finish what he started, but it is not complete. We are saved and we are being saved. And what leads us deeper into the salvation Christ has purchased for us on the cross? A Godly sorrow which brings repentance.
We talked earlier how repentance is a prelude to holiness. Walking in holiness begins with repentance. That being the case, then maybe we should start thinking about repentance differently. Maybe we should start thinking about it as a discipline of our faith – a lifetime discipline necessary for a holy life. Maybe we should even think of repentance as a daily discipline.
So what precisely is repentance? I am sure we have all heard the stock answers of the Christian faith – saying we are sorry to God and agreeing with him that he is just in being angry with us and our sin. It is recognizing that what we are doing is damaging our relationship with God and so turning away from the behavior, the attitude, the habit – whatever it is – and taking up a new way which promotes our relationship with God.
The classic example of repentance in the Bible is that wee little man Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus was real snake of a man – if I may say so. Tax collectors in Israel got the job by bidding on it, in essence selling out their countrymen for their own personal gain. Rome didn’t care how much tax was collected – just so that they got their fair share. So tax collectors were notorious extortionist and ol’ Zacchaeus was no exception. But when Jesus ate with him – something no self-respecting Jew would do out of fear of being defiled – and literally graced his life, Zacchaeus underwent a change of heart. Not only did he stop what he was doing – a legalized form of stealing – he also gave half his possessions to the poor and even made restitution to people he robbed through taxation. So what can we learn about repentance from our man Zacchaeus?
Well, first of all repentance requires that we realize we have disobeyed God. We have violated his law, offended his moral purity, tried to cast off his yoke of authority. This only happens when we stop deluding ourselves that what we are doing really is not so bad when compared to others. God is not concerned about degrees – he is concerned about sin. The gossiper is just as guilty in the eyes of God as the murderer. The pornographer is just as bad as the adulterer, the fornicator and the practicing homosexual. The tax-fudger is just as much a thief as the armed robber. I think you get the drift here. We have to get past our tendency to relativize our sin – which, by the way, we do so that we can live with it more comfortably – and admit that we are doing wrong instead of right.
Second, repentance requires a Godly sorrow. Now what is that? A real regret that what we have done has dishonored God. This only comes when we take seriously that God hates sin. He does not hate it as a preference – like some hate Coke, but love Pepsi. If your thirty and Coke is all you can find, doesn’t matter how loyal you are to Pepsi, you will drink the Coke. No God hates sin at his very core, he cannot tolerate it, he must judge it, punish it, purge it! If the cross tells us nothing else – and it certainly does – but if nothing else it tells us how much he hates sin. And when we realize how much he hates sin and how nonchalantly we engage in it, we suddenly become aware of how unlike Christ we really are! We become saddened, not because we are busted or fear of punishment. But because we see the price God in Christ paid for us – for us, he didn’t need to die for himself – he died for us. We see the price he paid for us and how easily we cast it aside for a momentary indulgence.
Third, repentance requires a heartfelt request for God’s forgiveness, a fervent prayer for God cleanse our conscience and the power to not fall back into the same thing again. Now, let’s understand something here, just because we pray for God to give us the power to not fall back into the same ol’ sin doesn’t mean that we just get to cruise and if we fall again, well it must be God’s fault because we prayed. Oh no. Our part in this thing is to give deep and deliberate thought about how we are going to keep clear of the sin. What triggers the action, what leads down the primrose path? We must “[p]roduce fruit in keeping with repentance,” meaning we work hard at guarding our hearts. We don’t walk willingly into what we know is a field of reproach for us.
Fourth, repentance requires that we cultivate a hatred for sin, as God hates sin. How? By the consistent study and meditation upon God’s Word. By continued prayer that God will change your heart to be like his, to hate what he hates and love what he loves. By confessing your sin not only to God, but to a trusted brother or sister in Christ – an accountability partner. Nothing teaches you to hate your sin more than having to admit in front of another.
On the lintels going into our computer room, Rach and I have a running scale of our girls’ growth. We have been talking about what to do when we repaint because it has been exciting for us as parents to see how our girls have grown up. We have also talked seriously about putting rocks on their heads to slow them down a little.
We like things to grow, don’t we? We mark the growth of our plants, our animals – we’ve already mentioned kids. We mark the growth of our checkbooks – at least we want to, sometimes that doesn’t work out so well. We mark the growth of our reputations, our businesses, our knowledge. We tend to think that bigger is better, more is preferred. But to grow in holiness we must do something radical – we must grow smaller. John the Baptist said of his own ministry in reference to Christ, “He must increase and I must decrease.” In other words, we must become less and less like ourselves and more a reflection of Jesus Christ. We must stop seeing ourselves as central to the existence of the cosmos and just get real – we are insignificant, dispensible and not nearly as nice or as capable as we like to pretend.
How do we get there? By practicing repentance daily; by coming to grips with what weak and despicable creatures we really are. I know this flies in the face of popular psychology and even a substantial amount of modern theology and sounds like I am calling for a life of being miserable. But I am calling on us to think much less of ourselves. Why? Because when we realize how small we really are, how wanting we are of anything good, the immensity of grace suddenly becomes just as real as our smallness. And when the immensity of grace becomes real to us, gratitude and love become our primary motivators for a holy life. We don’t settle for a life that is serviceable, we want the best – to be conformed to the image of Christ.
So what’s it going to be? Will you settle for a life that is serviceable, ignoring some sin where you can, working around it where you must or will you go for what is best, uprooting everything so that you can start clean – confess your sin and then purge your life of circumstances or influences that draw you into it? Only one way will lead to the holiness God desires from all of us. Remember, repentance is a prelude for holiness.
2 Corinthians 7:9-11
Revelation 3:14-21 Repentance is a lifetime discipline necessary for a holy life. To reinvigorate the congregation to the basic practice of daily repentance..
