Seeing The Grace Of God In Repentance

God reveals his grace through the “times of ignorance” in three ways: By His long-suffering, His kindness and the conviction He brings of sin to our heart. The Scripture says, “The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.” (2 Peter 3:9) Also Romans 2:4 says: “Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance?” And in Acts 2:37-38 we see the conviction of sin God brings to the heart: “Now when they heard this, they were pierced to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, "Brethren, what shall we do?" Peter said to them, "Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”

The Lord wants all people to repent of their sins and to experience an intimate relationship with Him. I wonder this morning if you have fellowship with Him? Repentance is so important that God commands “all everywhere should repent”. The lost are to repent. Jesus said, “I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners (Matt. 9:1:3). But Christians are to repent as well – it is the means by which God continues His good work in us (Philippians 1:6). Paul speaking to Christians in 2 Cor. 7:9 said: “I now rejoice not that you were made sorrowful. But that you were made sorrowful to the point of repentance.” There were carnal Christians in the church at Corinth and in Paul’s first letter to that church he called upon the church to discipline the guilty and in his second letter he rejoices because the guilty repented. So repentance is for the Christian. Charles Spurgeon said, “There is a good deal of repentance to be done in the church before much good can be done in the world… When the ungodly see that Christian people do not repent, you cannot expect them to repent and turn away from their sins.”

In the Old Testament the Lord spoke through the prophet Zechariah with a plea for the people of Judah, God’s chosen, to repent. “Therefore say thou unto them, Thus saith the Lord of hosts; Turn ye unto me, saith the Lord of hosts, and I will turn unto you, saith the Lord of hosts.” If you say, “I have returned to the Lord this morning, can He see evidence of this in your life? Is there fruit of repentance? Or have you allowed sin in your life to come between you and the Lord and your intimacy with Him is gone?”

True repentance starts with the graceful work of conviction. Conviction makes people see their personal accountability before God. Oswald Chambers writes: “The marvels of conviction of sin, forgiveness, and holiness are so interwoven that it is only the forgiven man who is the holy man, he proves he is forgiven by being the opposite to what he was, by God’s grace. Repentance always brings a man to this point: I have sinned. The surest sign that God is at work is when a man says that and means it. Anything less than this is remorse for having made blunders, the reflex action of disgust at himself.” It was D. L. Moody who said: “When a man is not deeply convicted of sin, it is a pretty sure sign that he has not truly repented… experience has taught me that men who have very slight conviction of sin sooner or later lapse back into their old life.”