Repentance Series

REPENTANCE

Those of you who are older may remember an old television program back in the 70s called ‘The Wide World of Sports.’ It started with the intro showing the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat. To show the agony of defeat, a clip of a ski jumper suffering a terrible fall was always shown. The name of the man in that video was Vinko Bogataj. He was competing in an event in Germany in 1970. As he was heading down the hill for his third jump of the day he realized that something was wrong. The snow had become heavy ice and midway down the hill he realized that he was going too fast. If he had completed the jump he would have travelled beyond the safe sloping landing area and hit the flat ground beyond it, which could have been fatal. Seeing that he was in danger he bailed out, tumbling and flipping wildly, and crashing through a light retaining fence near a crowd of spectators before coming to a halt. He suffered a mild concussion and a broken ankle.

Like this skier, changing your course in life sometimes can be a very dramatic and often painful thing to do. However, it is better than facing a fatal landing at the end.

Today we are continuing in our series entitled Authentic Faith. Let me ask you this morning, what comes to your mind when you hear that phrase? What does it mean to be an authentic Christian?

Last week we started with the fact that being an authentic believer means that Jesus first must be lord of your life. We need to be willing to lay down our lives to Him in Salvation, Sanctification, and in Service. Today I want to talk about another basic tenant of the faith. Repentance.

Eze 33:10-11 Son of man, say to the house of Israel, 'This is what you are saying: Our offenses and sins weigh us down, and we are wasting away because of them. How then can we live?" ' 11 Say to them, 'As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die, O house of Israel?'

For most people, repentance is an ugly word, considered out of date. You do not really hear a lot of pastors preaching today on the topic of repentance.

Joseph Parker was a pastor in England in the 1800s. He once said, “The man whose little sermon is ‘repent’ sets himself against his age, and will for the time being be battered mercilessly by the age whose moral tone he challenges. There is but one end for such a man -- ‘off with his head!’ You had better not try to preach repentance until you have pledged your head to heaven.”

People do not drift toward holiness & righteousness, they must aim for it. It must be intentional.

When I was in elementary school I had a problem with saying my S and R sounds so I had to take speech classes. I heard the story of a boy who had trouble pronouncing the letter "R" so his teacher gave him a sentence to practice at home: "Robert gave Richard a rap in the rib for roasting the rabbit so rare." Some days later the teacher asked him to say the sentence for her. Jimmy rattled it off, but had changed the words somewhat. He said, "Bob gave Don a poke in the side for not cooking the bunny enough." In changing the words he had avoided the letter "R".

There are a lot of people today who go to great lengths to avoid the "R" word – the word repentance. They will do anything to try to change what God’s word says about it.

As we look at what it means to have Authentic Faith, we must understand that repentance is part of what it means to be a follower of Jesus. We see that repentance was central to Jesus’ teaching. The first words of Jesus as He began his ministry were about repentance;

Mat 4:17 From that time on Jesus began to preach, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near."

Jesus last word in Revelation to the church in Laodicea are;

Rev 3:19 Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest, and repent.

So what does the bible teach us about it? Let me give you three points;

1. The Essence

In the scripture we read from Ezekiel, the people were saying “Our offenses and sins weigh us down, and we are wasting away because of them. How then can we live?” These people were part of the nation of Israel. They were God’s children, yet they were suffering because of their own actions.