What It Means to Repent

Introduction

Context: The word repentance is a term that has fallen out of our regular vocabulary in the modern world. But for the Christian it has deep significance. Repentance describes both an event that happens once in our life (when we turn from sin and turn towards Christ), as well as a habit that is formed in us as Christians as we regularly turn from newly discovered sins. In our passage today, Jesus elevates the importance of learning what repentance really means. He says this phrase twice, in verses 3 and 5.

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

Unfortunately today, many of us in this room have an incredibly shallow view of repentance, very far from the Biblical view. And so today as we study this short passage in the Gospel of Luke, we are going to try to accurately undestand the full depth of what it really means to repent.

Luke 13:1–9 “There were some present at that very time who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And he answered them, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.” And he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came seeking fruit on it and found none. And he said to the vinedresser, ‘Look, for three years now I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and I find none. Cut it down. Why should it use up the ground?’ And he answered him, ‘Sir, let it alone this year also, until I dig around it and put on manure. Then if it should bear fruit next year, well and g…”

EXPLICATIO

I THE NEWS REPORTS

Galilean Blood: The text begins with a crowd approaching Jesus with a news story. In terms of the historical record, this is the only place that we hear of this event, though there is one event recorded outside of the Bible which could allude to this same story. But apparently, Pontius Pilate, who of course is the same Pontius before whom Jesus will eventually stand trial, caught a group from Galileeans in worship. And whatever caused his anger, he killed them, and shed their blood alongside the blood of the animals they were sacrificing. This is clearly a brutal story, and that is the point, it’s why they’re bringing it to Jesus.

Jesus Responds: Jesus responds in a way that reveals that he knew what they were thinking. His question is poignant.

Luke 13:2 “And he answered them, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way?”

You see, they had come to him to validate their theology. They believed that suffering like what those Galileans encountered, was always a result of personal sin. In other words, those people that were killed by Pontius Pilate got what they had coming. It was God’s way of sorting things out. Then Jesus says, “No, your theology is all wrong.” And he looks at them, and he says

Luke 13:3 “… but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”

Tower of Siloam: Then Jesus makes a connection with another horrifying event that is lost to the record books outside of the Scriptural account. But apparently at some point a tower in Jerusalem fell over and killed eighteen people. He states the same question, “Do you think they died because they were worse sinners than you?” Then he repeats himself

Luke 13:5 “No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.””

All of this is to say, that the terrible end those men experienced during those disasters was not a result of them being more sinful than anyone else. And in fact, a similar terrible fate awaits those who never repent of their sin. Does this mean that if we do not repent, that a tower may fall on us and destroy. No, that’s not what he is getting at. Jesus is referencing the judgment of God, and he is speaking about the suffering that will take place in Hell, where unrepentant sinners will suffer under the wrath of God. And so what he is really saying is, “You see that suffering over there, let that at least accomlish one thing in your own heart. Let it raise your awareness of the suffering you will face if you do not repent.” Christ is speakign about our judgment day before a Holy God. And he says that one purpose of suffering that we see in this world (not the only purpose, but one purpose) is that it would raise our eyes to the suffering that awaits us if we do not repent of our sins.

II THE PARABLE

Walk Through The Parable: Then Jesus tells this parable about a fig tree. A very common image in Israel. The point of this fig tree is that it is barren; it is producing no fruit. For three years, the man has waited for this fig tree to bear fruit, and for three years, it has born no fruit. And so he looks to the vinedresser, the man in charge the trees on his property, and he commands it to cut down And he gives two reasons.

Verse 7: Because it is producing no fruit

Verse 8: Because it is wasting space in the garden, space in which other more fruitful trees could be planted.

But then the vinedresser looks to the man and says, “Let’s give it one more year. I’ll dig around the base and get air into the roots. I’ll put fertiziler on it. One more year, and let’s see if it can turn around.” The man agrees. He says, “One more year, and if there’s no fruit by next summer, cut it down.”

The Point of the Parable: The point of this parable is to highlight the mercy of God in giving sinners time to repent. In a sense, he is looking at the crowd who brought him the report of the Galileans who suffered terribly at the hands Pontius Pilate, and he’s saying “The only reason you have not had a similar terrible fate, is not because you are more righteous than those men, but it simply because of God’s mercy, giving you extended to repent. But know this, the time is running short. You have one more season.”

II APPLICATIO

That completes my explanation of this text. It is not a very difficult text to understand what he is saying. But now our work is to apply this text into our hearts and lives so that we might be changed by it. There are three themes that are worthy of reflecting on today: The Purpose of Suffering, The Gift of Repentance, The Intervention of Christ.

I THE PURPOSE OF SUFFERING

The first theme I want to explore from this passage is the purpose of suffering. That theme is a major theme in scripture, and this particular passage only draws out one of the many purposes of suffering. And I want to consider that one aspect here.

Jesus Words: Now in the first half of our passage, there are two stories of tremendous suffering that took place. There were the Galileans who were murdered by Pontius Pilate, and there were those who died when the Tower at Siloam fell upon them. The general worldview of the crowds was that their suffering was because of their sin. And the flip side of that logic was that the reason we have not suffered like that, is because of our righteousness.

The Lesson From Jesus: Their logic is so unbiblical. And recall that what Christ is doing, is he using their flawed logic, to help them see their own condition. Let us be very clear on our doctrine here. It is certainly possible that some of the suffering we endure in this life is a result of our sin. For example, Jesus says that if we take the Lord’s Supper in an unworthy manner, suffering may befall us. But his point is that, living in a fallen world, that is not always the case. Much suffering is not a result of our personal sin, but simply a result of living in a fallen world. Think of Job, a man who was upright and fearing God, yet had terrible misfortune. And so we as Christians should never look out at someone else’s suffering, and assume anything.

Pastoral Word: The World is filled with suffering. And any time I preach on this theme with any depth, I always have to take a big breath and pray heavily because I know how very real the suffering is that many of you have experienced even recently. And the first thing I want to say to you who are suffering even now, is how great and how beautiful a Savior we have. We worship a living God, who truly does minister to us in our weakness, who truly does meet us in our spiritual poverty, and tend to us in our hardest moments. The Scriptures say

Isaiah 42:3 “a bruised reed he will not break, and a faintly burning wick he will not quench…

And I want you to know that Christ may permit suffering to endure for some time. His intention, if you are in him, is not to break you, not to quench you. He will sustain you, because He loves you.

The Final Judgment: Yet, we have to speak on suffering. And we have to speak on it in the same way that Jesus spoke on it this passage. All suffering can serve the purpose to remind each person that we are guilty before a Holy God, and without some kind of salvation that comes to us from outside ourselves, will endure a similar suffering at the hands of God. Speaking of the person who never receives Christ by faith, we read,

2 Thessalonians 1:9–10 “They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might, when he comes on that day to be glorified in his saints…”

The First Step (knowledge): And so, repentance is a “foundational step” for a Christian.

Hebrews 6:1 “Therefore let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God,”

Today, we are going to consider seven aspects of repentance. And the first aspect is connected to this idea of the purpose of suffering. Jesus is teaching us that suffering around us must produce in us a sense of our own vileness, of our own sin. That is the first step of repentace. God’s law is revealed to us, and we begin to see the reality of our own corruption. There are many out there who are stuck in all kinds of sin, and don’t know it, or believe they are doing the Lord’s will. Think of the Apostle persecuting Christians, not realizing his sin. This can happen in two primary ways.

The Word: For some, it is through the Word of God, either preached or spoken or read. Where they read God’s Word and are convicted in their heart of their own sin and faulty standing before God.

The Spirit: For others, it is simply by the Spirit, where a sense of the knowledge of their sin is brought before their heart, and they weep at their own misery.

Wrap Up: Step one is knowledge of sin. Do you know your sin? How have you learned it? How has God brought it to your mind? “Repent, lest you perish in your way.”

II THE GIFT OF REPENTANCE

Second, let us consider the gift of repentance. Twice, Jesus says in this passage,

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

What does it mean to “repent”? We would do well to define this term and to build some biblical meat upon it, because none of us want a terrible fate that we can avoid.

A Shallow View: Today, we have what I call a very shallow view of repentance. If you ask the majority of modern Christians what they believe repentance is, you will get a response something like this, “Repentance is apologizing to God for your sins.” It is a Christian faith that is so easy, that costs a person nothing, that requires very little effort or resolve. It’s cheap.

A Biblical View: But a Biblical view of repentance is quite different. It really is an all consuming life change in a person. Let me give you two Biblical examples before we walk through the steps of repentance.

The Ninevites: You might recall our friend, the prophet Jonah, who went approached against that wicked city of Nineveh. When the Ninevites heard about the wrath of God that was coming on them as a result of their sin.

Jonah 3:6–9 “The word reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. And he issued a proclamation and published through Nineveh, “By the decree of the king and his nobles: Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything. Let them not feed or drink water, but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and let them call out mightily to God. Let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands. Who knows? God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger, so that we may not perish.””

Notice what happens in this scene. There is both an inward emotional experience of lamenting over their sin and over their condition, that is matched by a turning from sin. In other words, they do not just give God lip service that they are sorry, but they do the hard work of reforming their ways.

Westminster Confession of Faith: The classic Westminster Confession of Faith has a wonderful section teaching on repentance. It says the following,

“[Through 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 endeavouring to walk with him in all the ways of his commandments.

Here we see, along with King David, that true repentance is far more than just words. It must flow from a heart that has seen and felt the odiousness of sin, and has purposed in his soul to abandon sin and to follow God.

Biblical Repentance: So, let us now work through four more elements of true Biblical repentance. But rather, to paint a picture for us of what this means when Jesus says that we must repent. These sevent steps do not happen instantaneously. But they do happen for every Christian.

2 Sorrow for Sin: Second, we need to move towards sorrow for sin. That does not just mean saying “I’m sorry.” This means, in our heart, as we look to a Holy God, we recognize that every sin is an affront to the glory of God. And in our heart of hearts we hate the sin that we bring to the table. I see this in my own children sometimes. Perhaps they have done something wrong that has hurt another one of my kids, and as I reprimand them for their behavior I can see they are saying sorry but not because they really care, but just because they want to get through the moment. And then my job as a Dad really begins. We must have a sorrow for our sin. A sorrow of the affront to God that our sin really is.

3 Confession of Sin: Third, is confession of sin. The scriptures teach us

1 John 1:9 “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

In confession we get specific. We talk to God about specific sins that have taken a hold of us, and how they have taken a hold of us. If we have behaved in a way that is ungodly we speak to God, and to others in our community that we trust. But its not just the behavior we are after, we want to confess our thoughts and our feelings. “God I have been harboring so much bitterness towards this person…” “God I have thought of ways how to use this person instead of love this person…” By the way these build on each other. One of the reason our confessional life is so weak is because the first two steps are often not there! If you begin having a sorrow over your sin, confession will follow!

Circumstance: There are false confessions that occur for two reasons. The first is because of our circumstances. As a boy I said prayers like this at times. “Oh God if you’ll help me find my soccer cleats I won’t cut through the neighbors yard anymore!” Humorous, but all too real. Many false

Fear of Judgment: The second false confession simply for fear of Hell, as a get out of jail free card. I call this cheap Christianity. Many Christians have prayed the sinners prayer, but have truly no real sorrow, no real confession from the heart. It was just a algorithm to complete to check off a box. No! That is a false confession. God is after the heart.

4 Breaking Away from Sin: Third, there is a breaking away from sin. Repentance means turning from sin. And so, true repentance, means not returning to the same sin that you have repented of. Otherwise it would be like a dog returning to his vomit.

Encouragement: Now, a pastoral word here. First, an encouragement, and then second an exhortation. I want to be very careful here that I do not crush the spirits of many in this room, who are truly sorrowful over their sin, and yet not yet finding victory and a full turning from sin. Let me encourage with the words of David, “God delights in a penitent heart.” And it is true that the process of overcoming sin is very rarely instantaneous. Take heart, you have Christ on your side.

Exhortation: But now an exhortation. For many, this can be an excuse to to linger in sin far longer than you ought. For many, the ongoing return to the sin actually is revealing a hidden taking pleasure in the sin. And I want to exhort you. You have been given the Holy Spirit, and God delights in bringing you full victory.

5 Produces Deep Hatred of Sin: Fifth, this will produce in you a deep hatred of sin.

Psalm 119:104 “Through your precepts I get understanding; therefore I hate every false way.”

A repentant heart, has learned to hate sin. To see it for what it is. To see how it destroys lives, and destorys marriages, and destroys churches. This doesn’t mean we hate people, no we love people tremendously. But we really hate sin. We hate sin because we know what it is, its poison. It’s death. It’s an affront to God. We must be like Jael, the righteous woman in the Old Testament, who when she discovered that Siserah was asleep in her tent, she took out a tent peg and drove it through his temple. Yes, that is what we must do to sin. Sin may be dormant, but we must hate it enough to destroy it before it awakes and does more damage.

Wrap Up: Now, there are two more steps in repentance, that we are going to discuss in just a moment. But I want to pause us here and ask us if this kind of process is how we have gone about repenting in the past.

Romans 8:13 “For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.”

What that phrase “put to death the deeds of the body” means is what I have been describing here. This is Christian maturity. And it takes work that is empowered by the Holy Spirit. It takes a little bit of spiritual sweat to really see it through. But this is what Christ has called us to.

III THE INTERVENTION OF CHRIST

The third and final aspect to this text I want to consider is the intervention of Christ.

Galilee & Pilate: There is a profound irony about this text, that is certainly no accident. The text begins with an account brought to Jesus about some men from Galilee, who were killed at the hands Pontius Pilate, and whose blood was mixed with sacrifices.

Jesus: Well that sounds a lot like what would eventually happen to Jesus. Jesus was from Galilee. That is the region of Israel that he was raised in, and did much of his early ministry. When Christ was eventually arrested, he would stand trial before that very same Pontius Pilate. Unlike the men who had just been killed, who were in fact guilty of some sin, Jesus had never sinned, not even the slightest thought. His will was always to do the will of the Father. Pilate permitted him to be killed on a cross alongside other criminals. Christ’s blood was not mixed with animal sacrifices, but his blood was the sacrifice. The Scriptures tell us that Jesus shed his blood as the final sacrifice, to put an end to all other sacrifices, for the forgiveness of sin.

He Suffered in Our Place: And what happened on the cross is that Jesus fulfilled this passage. He suffered a terrible tragic death, not because he was guilty, but as a substitute for you and I. In this passage, Jesus has been teaching us that a terrible fate awaits those who do not repent. But the other side of that is that a terrible fate has been averted for those who do repent, only because another has taken our place, another took that terrible fate on our behalf.

Repentance (Last 2 Steps): If we understand this, then there are two final steps of repentance that should be produced in us. Remember what we’ve seen so far: knowledge of sin, sorrow for sin, confession of sin, breaking away from sin, and hatred of sin. But now we examine two more.

6 Gratefulness for Christ’s Forgiveness of Sin: Gratefulness for Christ’s forgiveness of sin. If what I just shared is true, if another has taken our place underneath the wrath of God, and we have been given grace upon grace, then when we repent, we should look to the cross and be overwhelmed the love of God. We should see our sin on Christ’s shoulders, and in a humble adoration cry out, “I am not worthy of such love.” Every time we dig a little deeper, and discover some new aspect of our fallenness that has not yet been mortified, there ought to be a continual looking up to Christ in gratefulness.

7 Produces Deep Love of Virtuous Living: Seventh and finally, biblical repentance produces a deep love of virtuous living. It is not only that we hate the bad, but we truly learn to rejoice in the virtuous. Christ’s design for life becomes attractive. Christ’s vision of morality becomes our vision of morality. We long to live virtuously because Christ truly is changing our heart.

Wrap Up: These final two aspects of repentance (Gratefulness for Christ’s forgiveness of sin and a deep love of virtuous living) must accompany our repentance if we are to hold to a biblical vision, and not a shallow vision of repentance.

Closing

Today what I have tried to do is help us move on from a shallow view of repentance. Too many in the modern Church go through their whole life without really knowing what it means to repent. May that not be us!

Nonbeliever: To the person who has never actually repented and believed in Jesus. Hear Christ’s words today.

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

Don’t let that be you. Repent today. Turn from your sin. Trust in Jesus who has paid your debt in full!

Believer: To every believer in the room this morning. God is not done with you yet. Your whole life should be a process of discovering new aspects of sin in your life that you did not know, and slowly allowing God to take you on the journey of full repentance, not partial, not shallow. But biblical repentance!