What Is Ash Wednesday For?

If you spend any time with preschool age children, 3 year olds, 4 year olds, one thing they are known for is asking questions. They are at the age when the world is opening up to them. All day long they point and ask, What’s that? If you say a word they don’t know, which is most of the time, they ask what that means. My favorite question is “why is the sky blue?” That’s a tough one to answer.

I have felt a lot like a preschooler this past month preparing this message. I’ve been asking myself a lot of questions about the purpose of Ash Wednesday, which is to reflect on our sins and repent. Honestly, repentance is not a word I would use to describe my devotion to Christ. But here we are celebrating Ash Wednesday, and then we will spend 40 days through Lent to do the same thing. For me, repentance is what a person does one time. A person repents of their sins when God convicts a person of their sin and reveals Christ’s sacrifice on the cross, which pays the penalty for their sin. When they repent of their sin and turn toward God in faith, they are born again. That’s a done deal. So, in my mind, repentance is an exclusive act. So, my questions have been piling up. I’ve asked knowledgeable friends what they believe. I’ve read scripture. I’ve searched my heart. Does repentance belong in a believer’s day to day life? If so, how?

I have an answer to that question and it’s not nearly as complicated as the answer to why the sky is blue. I want you to know I am learning all the time. However, what I have to share tonight is this: repentance will help you deepen your love for God and motivate you to godly living like nothing else can. Especially if you are a person who always feels ashamed and condemned. I know what that is like. I can promise you repenting will not lead to more condemnation. Repenting and trusting God will lead you out from under that burden. This is really good news.

First it’s helpful to understand salvation as not just one event that brings a person to faith in Christ, but it is a life long pursuit of holiness that also has a final completion.

A verse that describes our starting point is very familiar: Romans 10:9-10:

“If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved.”

But consider Phil 2:12-13:

“Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.”

God is at work to transform us, save us from the effects of sin still in our lives, so repentence - the fear and trembling - is a part of that continued salvation we experience. God will continue to convict us of our sin so we can get our will in line with his will.

Further, in 1 John 3:2-3 we see the future salvation:

“Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.”

When we see Jesus at the resurrection, we will be all the way like him, glorified and perfected. Because of that promise, I am motivated to put my best effort into purifying myself from sin every day. Everything I do now will be worth it. I will have complete victory over sin then because of Jesus in my life now.

So our salvation has a beginning. It has a continued effect to bring our will in line with God’s will, and it has a final glorious conclusion when every tear is wiped away and every evil is gone and our emeny the devil is gone for good. We are rewarded for our faithfulness and we live with God forever. That is such good news!

Just as salvation is continuous, repentance continues to be a part of God’s redemptive plan for us.

What does repentance do?

First, through repentance we learn to cherish Jesus for the indescribable gift of his holy life given for me.

Our sin is costly. All my sins today are what put Jesus on the cross back then. I am contributing to that sin debt. Jesus laid his life down for me because he loved us. God demonstrated his love for us in this: while we wer yet sinners, Christ died for us. (Rom 5:8) So we thank him for redeeming us from eternal separation from him. We realize we could do nothing for ourselves. Where would I be if God had not intervened in my life? What if he stopped intervening? What a lavish gift he extends to us.