The blessing of repentance is central to the message of the gospel and the Christian life. It’s not always popular or fun, but it’s hugely important.
We love to jump to, “There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ.” We love to skip to the ending in which God separates his children from their sins by Jesus’ work on the cross. Praise God for that! But we do a disservice to ourselves, we disobey God’s commands, and we deny hard truth in God’s Word when we skip from Eden straight to Heaven.
Sin is real. It matters. And that’s why God emphasizes all through the Bible what we see highlighted in 2 Corinthians 7—“repentance that leads to salvation,” and Revelation 3, that repentance is not the result of our vanity, but God’s kindness to us, resulting in fruit and fellowship with him.
Literally the first thing Jesus says to start his public ministry is, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” He’s repeating the first words of John the Baptist’s witness: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” How does Peter end his sermon at Pentecost? “Repent, and let each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus.” He says the same thing again in the next chapter. And the next. And the mission—the grace—of repentance comes too from the prophets and from Paul, from the gospels and letters, and from the whole counsel of God.
Repentance is pervasive in the Word. Is it pervasive in our lives?
1 John 1:5-9 reads:
This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.
If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.
In this series, I want to look at four questions about repentance: 1) Why repent? 2) What is repentance? 3) How do we repent? And 4) what is our assurance in repentance?
Why Do We Repent?
It might just boil down to the fact that God tells us to do it and we should be obedient. But let’s go deeper.
I believe, in the first place, we repent because we are sinful. John says in verse 8 of our text: “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves.”
Appropriately and biblically, we like to focus on our kingdom identities as saints—and we are and we should!—but it’s only in recognizing what we’ve been saved from that we can be truly gracious, humble, empathetic, and thankful to God. Let us not think of ourselves more highly than we ought, but rather with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has given us.
Repenting is for those who are not yet perfected, not yet glorified. That means repenting is for us because even while we are saints, we sin—and we need, we long for, total transformation toward heavenly excellence.
So we repent because we are sinful, and in the second place, we repent because Jesus is sinless. As John says in verse 5, “God is light, in him there is no darkness at all.” That’s why he also says “the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.” That’s the precious gospel.
We repent because we know what a righteous life and holy sacrifice look like in Christ, and because he—who never needed to repent—makes our repentance worthwhile. Gives it power. Makes it effective in leading to transformation.
The two work together: Our acknowledgement of our own sinfulness makes Jesus’ sinlessness amazing. Why repent? Because our sins mean we need redemption, and because Jesus’ sinlessness makes him the only true Redeemer.
I think we cannot comprehend the perversity and deceitfulness of our hearts which pretty much make us blind to most of our sins. I think the best clue to our sins is found if we take a hard look at our relationships, starting in our families: spouse, parents, in-laws, siblings, children. If any of those relationships are less than optimal, that would be a good clue that repentance might be more appropriate than rationalizations. The next clue would be relationships in one’s local church. Who bugs you the most? Who is the most annoying person? With whom would you least desire to talk to/spend time with/or—horrors—invite over to your house? When Jesus was hours away from His arrest, were His last urgent words to His disciples, “This is my command: Love each other”(Jn 15:17) just theoretical? Maybe the first item of repentance could be the lack of love in our hearts toward those we are around everyday, to which we have become accustomed.