Sermons
A Journey of Repentance
Romans 6:2-14
Of all the things that you and I value, I’m willing to bet that none of them were handed on a silver platter. None of them came without cost, without effort, without fight, or without sacrifice. The journeys that we remember and that shape us are the ones where we faced obstacles but overcame them. Where the path was difficult, but we kept going. Where we were very often tempted to quit, but we mustered up the ability to carry on.
As great as those journeys were allow me to suggest that the only journeys of eternal significance are the journeys of our souls. The journeys where the obstacles we face are overcome by God, where we find the will to keep at the difficult path because of the encouragement of God, and where we never quit because of the promise of God.
What if I were to suggest that the period of Lent was just such a journey, and that the reward was far beyond what you could even imagine. What if this was a journey of life – abundant, full, empowered, Holy, untamed, life? Would you want to come along?
Would you still want to come if I next told you that it would cost you everything? It is the pearl of great price. It is the journey of a lifetime. In fact, it is a journey of eternity, and it will be worth it.
The season of Lent is meant to be a time of repentance. It is a solemn season, in which we are encouraged to delve deeper into the meaning of Jesus’ death and resurrection, and where we are invited to journey deep into our souls and allow the Spirit of God to search us and to lead us in repentance.
It is a time of recognizing our sin, of allowing God to cut out all that is evil within us and purify us from all unrighteousness. This is not an easy journey.
Now, let me suggest that while we might be ok at confession, we really have no idea about repentance. We are used to admitting, at least before God, that we have sinned, and asking for forgiveness. That part is familiar, and that is confession.
But repentance is something more. Repentance is more than merely acknowledging that a wrong has been done, repentance digs much deeper. It gets down to the level of self-examination of the cause of the sin in the first place, and it invites God into those deep places of the heart and of motives.
Repentance is dealing with that soul cancer that causes sin. And at its completion, repentance is about change.
Repentance is the heart of the call of God to us. All through Scripture, from the beginning to the end, the call of God is that we repent. Repentance was the message of the men and women in the time of the judges. It was the message to the nations of Israel and Judah. It was the central message of all of the Old Testament prophets and repentance is the central message of the New Testament, and of Jesus.
“In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the Desert of Judea saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.”
Jesus said. “The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!” “I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”
Repentance is the heart of the very first sermon of the church: Acts 2:38: “Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”
And repentance is the message for us today.
In preparing for Lent, I found the following in an article by Dean Robinson describing the doctrine of repentance. He sees repentance in three parts:
1) Conviction -- where sin is admitted. Man must see himself as a lost, ruined, guilty, desperately wicked sinner without hope or help, in danger of hell. In repentance, a lost sinner not only sees himself as a sinner, but he recognizes the fact that he has sinned against a righteous and holy God. The message that Paul preached was: "repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ" (Acts 20:21). In repentance, there will be confession of sin to God (Psa. 32:5; 51:1-4).
2) Contrition -- where sin is hated. When one sees himself as he appears before God, he is brought to a place where there is godly sorrow for his sin and hates it altogether.
"For I will declare mine iniquity; I will be sorry for my sin." (Psalm 38:18); "Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret." (2 Corinthians 7:10).
To hate sin is to love God. In true repentance, there is not only the desire to escape the consequences of sin, but to be rid of sin itself as a thing displeasing to God.
3) Conversion -- where sin is abandoned. Repentance involves the forsaking of sin: "Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon" (Isaiah 55:7);
"He who conceals his sins does not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them finds mercy." (Proverbs 28:13).
Repentance is not only a broken heart for sin, but also from sin. We must forsake what we would have God forgive. It should be stressed that it is not enough just to turn away from sin; one must also turn to God for salvation.
In explaining this to King Agrippa, Paul shared how Jesus said to him, “‘I am sending you to (all people) to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’ …
(Paul) preached that they should repent and turn to God and prove their repentance by their deeds.” (Acts 26:18,20).
In true repentance, there is conviction, contrition, and conversion as one turns from his sin to Christ for salvation. Salvation is deliverance of a person from his sin, not merely from a sinful environment.
Jesus Christ is the Savior from not only the penalty and punishment of sin, but also the power of sin.
We don’t hear many calls to repentance today, and I wonder if one of the main causes is that we have lost a Biblical view of self and of sin. We prefer to only concentrate on the love of God for us and neglect the fact that we only see the depth of that love when we recognize how unworthy we are, and how desperately we need to be saved.
We have bought into a cheap grace that forgives without thought and without effort, and we have responded in kind – without giving much thought or much effort to God in how we live from day to day. We have lost the truth of repentance because we have lost the weight of sin.
We take this time to look deep into our hearts and check which areas of our lives are out of step with God, and then let God forgive us and change us and give us the gift and ability to repent. It is the season where we hear, and heed, God’s call to repentance.
I’m aware yawl are on this journey of repentance because you’re here. It’s a journey that will lead to life and to freedom.
Once we join the journey, the first step is of admitting our need for God – of surrendering our lives into His all-powerful and all-loving care. Of kneeling before our God and making Him our Lord.
But first, there is a pretty critical part that applies to the whole of our spiritual lives that I’m not quite sure we have fully grasped, summed up in the question: “What is God’s job, and what is my job.
Through this journey of repentance only God can change us, only God can make the old new, only God can forgive us and fill us with new life.
So what are we supposed to do? What is our part?
If your physical heart isn’t working properly, you need to see the doctor. You can’t do the surgery on yourself, but the doctor won’t operate until you give permission.
I don’t know of any doctor who will come to your house, tackle you, drag you into the operating room and force the anesthesia into you, even though they know it is what you need.
You can’t do the operation, just like you can’t make yourself Christ-like, but you can and must give permission and go to the hospital at the right time and allow the doctor to perform the surgery.
Have you got it? It is not our work, it is God’s work, but we must make the space for God to do the work. We must choose to spend time in His Word, in prayer, in worship, in service to God, and in the company of others who are striving after the same things.
On the journey of repentance, we begin then with surrendering to God, by which I mean we truly allow Jesus to be the Lord of our lives.
We kneel to Jesus as our King, and we enlist in His service and give Him both permission and opportunity to replace what is broken and evil and sinful, with beauty in our lives.
The next step is death. It is dying to self, dying to sin, being united with Jesus’ in His death, being “crucified with Christ,” then passing through death.
Repentance is first an inward change, which then results in an outward change, and we get there as God puts to death all that is broken and sinful and evil and then leads us through that death.
That is what Romans 6:2-14 is all about. “We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? 3 Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
5 If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. 6 For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin– 7 because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.
8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. 10The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.
11 In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. 12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. 13 Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness. 14 For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.”
This step of repentance that is death is not about loss, but rather about release. It’s like a cancerous tumor being removed. It is more like a virus that has been making us miserable and that is now being killed off.
You see, the death we are talking about is the death of sin.
And here is the best news, it’s already been done.
For all of us who have turned from sin towards God and cried to Him, in whatever words or circumstances you used, “Please Lord! I believe, and I am yours,” the death has already been accomplished.
That is why Romans 6 is all in the past tense – “we died”, we “were buried”, “our old self was crucified.” That is why verse 11 is so important, “count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.”
Repentance is about living out the reality of our new selves, about recognizing that we are dead to sin because of Jesus’ death on the cross and because of our “being united with him in His death.”
This is not only true in Romans. Listen to Galatians 2:20: “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”
Listen also to Galatians 5:24: “24Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires.”
Or Colossians 3: “1Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. 2Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. 3For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. 4When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.”
This step in the journey of repentance is not an easy step, and that is why I’ve called this step “through” death. Once we really allow Jesus to be our Lord, we must next allow Jesus to put to death our old self, we must unite ourselves with Jesus in His death, so that we can walk through death into the greatest life – into new life.
The final step along the journey of repentance is the step into life. Into the life of God, into the fullness of God, into being continually filled with the Spirit of God and with the gifts and opportunities to be a part of the most amazing thing imaginable – love for God and love for one another. True, deep, abiding, purposeful, transforming love.
I don’t know where you are on your journey of repentance, but let me encourage you to continue. Other paths look easier, they look like they are full of pleasure, but they are full of false promises and disappointment.
The road is narrow, but it leads to life. My prayer is that you will have the courage of Peter, that you will stand up and see the chains fall, and that as you walk toward the gate you will see it open and you will walk through to freedom.
In Jesus” Name, Amen!