Real Repentance

Repentance... How would you define it? It may be the case if I asked every person in this room to give me a definition of repentance, I may get quite a few different answers. This is a subject that I believe is greatly misunderstood in the religious world, including amongst the Lord’s people.

What is repentance:

· To ask for forgiveness?

· To have a change of mind?

· To feel sorry for your actions?

· To come back to church after “forsaking the assembly” (because of sin)?

· To come forward at the invitation?

· To confess sin?

All of these “definitions” that people give to repentance, I believe, fall short of defining repentance biblically. Some of these things may happen when someone has repented, but in and of themselves, they are not repentance. We will talk about these things during our lesson today and talk about how they fit into the discussion about repentance, but we need to understand that if we think we have repented solely because we have done one of these things or a few of these things, we are deceiving ourselves into thinking that we have truly shown repentance in our lives before others and God.

What is real repentance?

Repentance is a brokenness in spirit that leads a person to a change of heart, a change of works, and to a desire to be cleared from their sin, which includes the confession of sin which is specific and free from excuses…

1. REPENTANCE BEGINS W/ A BROKENNESS IN SPIRIT

This sorrow that we have is more than an outward display of sadness. It is more than feeling sorrow for our sin merely because we happened to get caught. You have probably heard or seen a young child who knew they did something that was going to get them some kind of punishment, so what do they do? They cry and cry. They say they are never going to do the action again… They are not sad because they realized they have disobeyed their parents and are truly sorry for it, but because they want to avoid any consequences for their actions or avoid feeling guilty for what they did. But feeling pain for our sin is important… it is necessary. I think at times we are too quick to say to the one who is feeling guilt over their sin and in sorrow, “It’s ok. It’s not a big deal” to try to get them to feel better, but It’s not ok. It is a big deal. Feeling pain can be a good thing! They need to feel the pain of their sin. There is no such thing as painless or guilt free repentance!

When we sin or are confronted with our sin, it must break us. If we have truly experienced a relationship with the Lord, to be confronted with our sin is to be confronted with something that has gotten in the way of us having the kind of relationship we want to have with God and our brethren. When we see that, it will hurt us deep inside…

God said through the prophet Joel to “weep“ and to “rend your heart and not your garments” (). Outward signs of sorrow are not enough, God wants us to be broken inside over our sin. We know how that feels. Many of us have had a “broken heart” when a relationship that we have valued has either been disrupted or even ended by that person. Have we ever felt that way about our sin against God? David gives us a great example of this:

3 For I know my transgressions, And my sin is ever before me. 4 Against You, You only, I have sinned And done what is evil in Your sight, So that You are justified when You speak And blameless when You judge. 16 …You do not delight in sacrifice, otherwise I would give it; You are not pleased with burnt offering. 17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; A broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise (; )

David realized his sin. He knew God would be just in condemning him. He understood what this did to his relationship with God, and it surely affected him deeply.

2. REPENTANCE IS: A CHANGE IN HEART AND WORKS

The brokenness in spirit is just the beginning of Biblical repentance. It is the spark that gets Biblical repentance going. This brokenness of Spirit leads to a change of heart and a change of works. One person put it this way:

“Repentance is a turning away from sin, a hatred for the things that God hates and a love for the things that God loves, a growing in holiness and a desire […] not to be like the world, and not to be like the great majority of American Christians, but to be like Jesus Christ!”[1] (ellipses added)

We need to be ruthless toward the sin in our lives... We need to radically get it out of our lives. We need to turn away from the sin… get it out of our lives completely! We need to hate the sin… desire to be more like Christ. Jesus gave us the example of cutting off a foot or hand; pluck out an eye. We need to be radical in fighting sin. We need to be changed. If we are not any different after we confess our sin, then we have not repented. We have instead put a Band-Aid on cancer. Change is necessary. There must be meaningful change in our lives. We must bear fruits of repentance.

3. REPENTANCE IS WILLING AND DELIBERATE

If someone has truly repented, they will not need to be told to go apologize or to go confess their sin. They do not need to be told to go to the Lord in prayer to ask for forgiveness. This will be a natural outflow from a repentant heart.

The person who is Biblically repenting has a desire to be cleared from the sins they have committed. There is an urgency in the person to be freed from the sin they committed against God and man.

For observe this very thing, that you sorrowed in a godly manner: What diligence it produced in you, what clearing of yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what vehement desire, what zeal, what vindication! In all things you proved yourselves to be clear in this matter ().

If we have to ask the question, “I wonder if they have truly repented,” it may be the case that they have not truly repented. If we are close to the situation and the person involved and it is not clear that they have returned to faithfulness towards the Lord, then they may not have… Those who want to be freed from their sin will go at lengths to make sure they are cleared. They will drop everything to make things right. They won’t wait until worship to “come forward.” It is going to happen immediately. Back in our scripture reading in , God in calling His people to repentance, said, “Let the bridegroom go out from his chamber, And the bride from her dressing room” (). It seems like God is saying that repentance is so necessary that all weddings for the day need to be called off! Would you have any question that someone has repented if they called off their wedding to go to someone they have wronged and to fix their broken relationship with God? Of course not.

Restoring our relationships with each other and between us and our God is the most important things in this life. When it comes to restoring our relationships with one another, Jesus said in the sermon on the mount, “23 Therefore if you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, 24 leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift” (). We shouldn’t bring God worship unless we have first taken care of the wrong we have done. This is how important true repentance is. We cannot properly worship God unless we first are reconciled with one another.

One of the reasons why the repentance of people is questioned is because there commonly is so little done by the person who has sinned. There seems at times to be no urgency in the person to make things right, and when they do come to confess their sin, there seems to be no brokenness on their part. I believe that we need to learn to ask questions of the person when they do come to us to confess sin.

You may or may not agree, but I believe that true repentance cannot be brought into question by anyone except for those who do not want to forgive (those who themselves do not want to repent from their sin of being unwilling to forgive)... We do need to make sure that we are careful that we are not questioning someone’s repentance because we are not having a forgiving heart ourselves. Make sure our concern is for the person in sin and not about the bitterness we feel about what they did to us. If they have come to us in repentance, we must be willing to forgive, no questions asked.

4. REPENTANCE IS ACCOMPANIED BY A CONFESSION

When we sin against our God or against man, a confession of sin is normally present.

CLEAR/UNAMBIGUOUS: it does not include the word “if” For example, ““If any of my indiscretions have caused you personally any undue grief or personal harm please consider this an adequate apology.” It is not clear here what is being confessed or even if a wrong was even being confessed.

SPECIFIC: Say exactly what it is that we did. We did not commit an indiscretion, faux pa, misstep, blunder, etc. We are not just misunderstood… We don’t confess that we are sinners. We confess our sins. We are specific. says “Therefore confess your sins to one another… says to confess your sins (not that you are a sinner). Sometimes, especially in group prayers, being more general is ok, but whenever we are confessing our sin to those we sin against, to God, or confessing to someone about a spiritual battle we are facing that we need prayers about, there is a lot of value in being specific.

FREE OF EXCUSES: “if only you did not do this, then I would not have responded this way. But nonetheless, I am sorry.” Don’t blame someone else for your sin: “she made me do it!” and don’t blame the devil for it. James says that we sin when we are led away by our desires and are enticed and give in! You are the only one who is ultimately to blame for your sin.

If we say things to brush some of the blame onto someone else or if we try to minimize our sin, real repentance is not present.

I like to look at the contrast between Saul’s confession and David’s confessions in the books of 1 and 2 Samuel.

Saul, after being confronted with his sin, confessed to Samuel after making a whole bunch of excuses, “I have sinned, for I have transgressed the commandment of the LORD and your words, because I feared the people and obeyed their voice” (). Even when he finally says he had sinned, there is still some kind of blame given to the people. But David, when he was confronted with his sin, he is brief and clear. He said, “I have sinned against the Lord” (, ). There were no excuses. He simply confessed his guilt before the Lord. He knew exactly what he had done and he didn’t water down what he did at all. He made it clear that he rebelled against God.

Conclusion

When this is what our repentance looks like, there will be blessing, most importantly, from the Lord.

“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” ().

A lack of true, fruitful repentance will be our downfall. Our lives as Christians must be lives of repentance. Repentance is something that we should be doing often in our lives as we get into God’s word and see our sin. Biblical repentance must be our response when we are confronted with our sin. Only when we repent Biblically and confess our sins can we know that we have forgiveness before the Lord.

Is there a sin that you are committing that you need to repent of. I pray that you will make it right with the one who sinned against, especially the Lord, before it is too late. It will get to the point for us all that repentance will into be able to happen.

[1] Paul Washer, Sermon: Shocking Youth Message, http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?currSection=sermonsspeaker&sermonID=52906154239