Author Archives: reveds

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About reveds

Occupation: Pastor, Ebenezer Presbyterian Church, Lennox, SD Education: BS - Christian Education, Sterling College; MDiv. - Princeton Theological Seminary Family: Married, with Four children. Hobbies: Running (will someday run a marathon), Sci-Fi (especially Doctor Who and Sherlock), Theater, and anything else my kids will let me do.

Repentance is…

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“No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”
(Luke 13:3 (ESV))

Imagine for a moment that you had a friend, a spouse, a child, who continually hurts you through what they said or done, and, when confronted about their behavior, readily apologizes and promises never to do it again, but only too soon returns to their offending behavior.  What would you do?  What would you think of their apology?  Would you still be able to trust and respect?  When someone we truly love and care for causes us pain, it’s one thing to know that they are sorry for what they’ve done, it’s something else entirely to know that they are trying to change their ways and never do it again.  We’re grateful for the apology, but what we really need is repentance.

Now at the risk of “meddling,” when given the opportunity for privately confessing your sins during worship on Sunday morning, or in that moment of honest reflection in your daily prayers, what do you confess before God?  Is it the same sin each day?  Do you find yourself coming back to God day after day, week after week, confessing the same sin?  While I encourage your constant struggle against sin and your return to the throne of God for mercy, I have to stop and ask, “How is that any different from the unrepentant apology of the friend, or spouse, or child mentioned above?  (Please know, I am writing to myself here more than anyone else.)

Charles Spurgeon once wrote, “the repentance which has no tear in its eye, and no mourning for sin in its heart, is a repentance which needs to be repented of.”  Repentance means to change your mind, to change your behavior, to turn yourself around.  To repent means that at one point you were headed in one direction, but now you’ve changed course and are going a new way.  If you say to God on Sunday morning, “I really am sorry for my behavior last night after the fifth round of drinks,” but next Saturday night you find yourself bellied up to the bar, that is not true repentance.  It may be regret, but it certainly is not repentance.

Here’s the thing: Genuine faith will produce heartfelt repentance.  If you truly believe that while you were still lost in sin, God, in His love, sent His Son Jesus Christ to die your death, to bear God’s wrath, and to offer you forgiveness and the promise of eternal life, then you will grow more and more aware how little you deserved this love and how nothing you could have done could have earned this love. Faith in such radical grace and undeserved love will naturally produce heartfelt sorrow and even a hatred for those things in our lives (covetousness, pride, anger, sexual sin) which offend the One who loves us so, and will teach us to flee from sin and to live joyfully according to the will of God in all good works (Heidelberg Q & A 88-89).  Listen to what the Westminster Confession says about repentance:

By [repentance] a sinner, out of the sight and sense, not only of the danger, but also of the filthiness and odiousness of his sins, as contrary to the holy nature and righteous law of God, and upon the apprehension of his mercy in Christ to such as are penitent, so grieves for, and hates his sins, as to turn from them all unto God, purposing and endeavoring to walk with him in all the ways of his commandments (WCF XV.2).

Unfortunately too many (progressives and conservatives alike) want Scripture to validate their choices and behavior, their opinion and prejudice, rather than submitting to Scripture’s authority as God’s word.  We stare deeply into the well only to find our own reflection looking back and, liking what we see, think that the Bible takes our side and supports our position.  We tell ourselves, “Now that I’ve confessed my sins, and God says he loves and accepts me just the way I am, why should I ever have to change?” 

Let us once again hear the Confession’s call to repent:

They who, upon pretence of Christian liberty, do practice any sin, or cherish any lust, do thereby destroy the end of Christian liberty; which is, that, being delivered out of the hands  of our enemies, we might serve the Lord without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him, all the days of our life (WCF XX.3).

Repentance is an ongoing practice, where by the power of the Holy Spirit through the word of God we are continually being convicted of our sin, learning to turn from it unto righteousness, and seeking forgiveness and reconciliation with God and neighbor.  Repentance is part of the Sanctifying work of God’s Holy Spirit within us, destroying the body of sin, mortifying the savage lusts that once ruled our hearts, and working growth in grace and holiness before God.

I leave you with one last thought from Spurgeon:

The man who has led the purest life,
when he is brought before God
by the humbling influence of the Holy Spirit,
is the man who almost invariably
considers himself to have been viler than anybody else.

Repentance is to leave
The sin we loved before,
And show that we in earnest grieve
By doing so no more.

Grace and peace,

SDG

The Medicine for Sin

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“The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance,
 that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.”
(1 Timothy 1:15 (ESV))

I heard the comedian Brian Regan joke recently about getting to pay for his Doctor to insult him.  You know what it’s like; who else do you visit who requires you to wait for 30 minutes just for the privilege of having him tell you that you need to lose some weight and probably ought to do something about that mole on your face.  And we pay him for the insult.

But in all seriousness, I’d rather have the Doctor tell me the truth about my health than lie to me just to protect my feelings. The truth is, I am overweight and need to exercise more and shed a few pounds.  If there is a cancerous growth, I want him to tell me, then recommend, though difficult and painful it may be, the best remedy so that I might live a good long life with my family.  I want my Doctor to care enough for me to tell me the truth and to make me take the hard medicine that comes with it.

If you think about it, that is the job of the church as well.  The priority of the church is to proclaim the gospel, which is the message of the good news of God’s love and forgiveness from sin in our Savior Jesus Christ.  As Paul’s letter to Timothy reminds us, Jesus came to save sinners – that was his mission, that is our message.  Jesus said to the crowd that stood by in disbelief when Jesus entered the house of Zacchaeus the tax collector, “the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost” (Luke 19:10).  All sinners, regardless of the sin, are welcome, invited, to hear the Savior’s bidding, and to find salvation and hope.  The blood of Christ washes away sin, defeats sins power over us, and in His Spirit we are given new life to live for the glory of God in holiness and peace.  It has been said before, and I wholeheartedly agree, that the church is the hospital for the sin-sick soul, and the gospel is the medicine that has been entrusted to the church. 

Yet it seems that for a while now the Church’s medicine cabinet has been closed and locked.  The church has begun to tell the world, “You don’t need medicine.  You are sick.  The sickness is the judgment that made you think you were sick in the first place.  What you need is simply reassurance, God loves you just the way you are.”  That’s like my Doctor saying, “Your ballooning waste line is nothing to worry about, keeping eating the pizza and drinking the root beer and you’ll be fine.  See you next year.”

To get to this point in the church (or at least in my particular denomination, the PC(USA)), there have been three subtle shifts that have taken place.  First, there has been a Redefinition of Sin.  The old moralistic and puritanical definition of sin as those thoughts and actions that either disobey or neglect God’s word no longer qualify.  Instead, in a more enlightened age, sin is now that which brings harm, either interpersonal, environmental, social, or personal.  Sin is the oppressive force that subjugates the weak.  To that end, the progressive church has also Relocated Righteousness and Salvation.  Righteousness and salvation are now less of a personal issue, and are more focused on social righteousness and justice.  Salvation is from the oppression of cruel and unjust practices of those in power, and true redemption exists when we learn to live in peace and acceptance of one another.  At the heart of these two changes is the most important: a Reimagining of Scripture.  Setting aside the teaching of the Authority and Inspiration of Scripture, the church no longer says that it is the Truth, but that it “contains the truth.”  No longer do you hear preachers say before reading the Bible, “Hear now the word of the Lord,” but rather something more ambiguous like, “Listen now for a word from the Lord.” 

In a desire to be found acceptable by a dying and broken world we have taken away the one thing that the world needed most; the truth of the gospel for salvation from sin.  The hospital for the soul is still open, but we’ve stopped treating the patients.

I say this with all confidence: God’s Church, the body of believers in Jesus Christ, will not be diminished by the faults and failings of this assembly we call the church today.  Denominations will rise and fall, congregations will come and go, but Christ’s Church is victorious.  We must “be vigilant lest while the pious snore the wicked gain ground and do harm to the church” (2nd Helvetic Confession).  We must, with renewed compassion and diligence, boldly proclaim the gospel message, that whatever the sin (addiction, sexual sin, pride and self-righteousness) – Christ is the cure.  Yes, let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever flowing stream (Amos 5:24), and at the same time let us confess our sins to one another and pray that we be healed (James 5:16).  Let us never forget that wherever the gospel is faithfully proclaimed and humbly heard, God’s true church will flourish and grow in righteousness and grace.

Grace and peace – and truth – be with you!

SDG