Repentance: A Practical Perspective

Introduction

I told you that I was technologically challenged. I don’t do great with PowerPoint. I tend to, you know, they got it there. When I moved to Tapioria a little over eight years ago, I was just getting where I could use an overhead projector sort of sort of good. And they had this PowerPoint thing there. And so I’ve tried to use it, but I don’t do it too good, and half the time I forget to hit the point and make the next point. And so I wasn’t sure if I would use it or not. And Tony wrote me a letter and said, you know, now if you if you’re gonna use a PowerPoint, you gotta do something here, and you gotta, and he went into this explanation about somehow to make it work on your television sets, and I thought, well, that’s that’s deciding for me because I don’t even know what he’s talking about.

So anyway, I hope you don’t mind that we don’t do that kind of thing. I hope you’ve had a good afternoon. If you if you’re spiritually minded, you took a nap. And that’s what spiritually minded people do on Sunday afternoon. Actually, it I call it meditating. but hope you did that so that you don’t have to take a nap during the lesson. But we appreciate very much your being here, and we hope that the things that we have to share with you tonight will be helpful and useful to you. I want to talk to you a little bit tonight about the subject of repentance. I want to talk to you a little bit from it in a in a kind of a broad way.

To look at it from the perspective of what it brings on or what brings it on, what it involves, and what it produces in us. And we’ll we’ll talk about that, I think, tonight in a couple of categories similar to that. And I think it’s something that every single one of us needs to understand. We all need to understand about repentance. and I really do mean all of this. Because repentance is not something that is supposed to just happen once in our life or that necessarily happens once in our life. And I mean it would be nice and ideal if that would be all that it would have to take place is just one time and we got it right after that.

But it certainly is not it’s certainly not something, for example, that takes place in the only for those who initially obey the gospel. I mean, certainly when we start talking about repentance, we often talk about repentance and the necessity of one who is coming to know who Jesus Christ is, coming into a relationship with Christ, obeying the gospel, that involves part of that process involves repentance, a change of mind, change of will. And certainly that’s necessary to becoming a Christian. Acts the second chapter in verse 38, when the Apostle Paul or Apostle Peter was preaching on the day of Pentecost, and those people asked, What must we do? He said, Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.

And later when he was preaching in the third chapter in the temple, after healing the lame man, he told those folks that they needed to repent and convert, that their sins might be wiped away and that they might experience these times of refreshing for the presence of the Lord. So repentance is clearly a part of the process in becoming a Christian. One will not become a Christian authentically. He will not authentically obey the gospel if he does not repent of his sins. It’s a very much important thing. But the reality is that all of us mess up. Even after we become Christians, we do things from time to time that are wrong. Sometimes we go through periods where that happens more frequently than others. But the reality is that happens to us.

John chapter 1 and verse 8 says that if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. For me to act as if I don’t ever make any mistakes, it’s just be wrong for me to think that way. And it’s just not true. We do make mistakes. And so we have to be willing, then when we recognize that we make mistakes, we have to be willing to repent of them and change. And sometimes there are times in our lives when certain sins kind of plague us. And we find ourselves confronted with that sin and it raises its ugly head in our life again. Maybe sometimes after I’ve had some success at putting it away from my life, and I sort of somehow down the road begin to come become a little relaxed in regard to that, and the next thing I know, I fall back into that thing that’s wrong, and I need to repent again.

You remember the story in Acts the 8th chapter of Simon the sorcerer who had believed Philip’s preaching the kingdom of God and he was baptized, just like all the other people there in Samaria who obeyed the gospel. And Simon had been this the sorcerer, had been a guy who had experienced the, you know, had been used to having some power and influence. And suddenly now in becoming a Christian, he, of course, had to relinquish all of that and just turn himself over to the Lord and be a servant of Christ. And he lost his power and position of prominence through his magical arts. But when he learned later on that through the laying on of the apostles’ hands, someone could impart the spirit and the gifts of the spirit to some to others.

When he learned about that, he offered money to Peter and John and you know, to maybe have the power that on whomever he lays his hands they might. And what happened to Simon is that old problem of his thirst for power and his liking that position of power and influence, that raised its ugly head in his life again. And he was told by Peter on that occasion, you need to repent. And so what I’m trying to get us to see is that though repentance is certainly something that is critical in terms of the initial response to the gospel, it is something that all of us are going to have to understand that there will be times that all of us will need to repent and to change and to do some things that are differently.

1. The Mind of Repentance

Different, live more correctly in our lives for the Lord. And so I think with that kind of a backdrop of explanation, I think it becomes important that all of us realize that whoever we are, we need to learn about what real repentance is all about and how we how that affects us and what kind of effect that how that will look in our life and what kind of effect it will have on our life. And so I want to talk a little bit about that in that sort of a broad sort of perspective way. And I want to do that first of all by talking to you for a minute about the mind of repentance. Repentance that is genuine has to start with the recognition of our spiritual condition.

And I’m going to repeat myself and say a little bit about what I said this morning because it involves learning to see ourselves the way God sees us. And to be quite honest, it is difficult for us as people to see our sinful condition, what our sinful condition is, how sinful our condition is before God. It’s tough sometimes for us to recognize that we have a fault. And it’s tough for us to realize how bad that is sometimes in the presence of God. The truth of the matter is we can we can deceive ourselves into overlooking faults that we have. I mentioned 1 John 1 and verse 8. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. Then you think about that passage.

If a person can actually deceive himself to the point where he thinks he has no sin, well, surely he could at least deceive himself to the point where he overlooks a sin in his life. Certainly. If you can get so that you think you have no sin, surely you can overlook a sin. And I think that does happen for us sometimes. We tend sometimes to overlook our faults. We don’t see them as false. When we sin, sometimes we tend to deceive ourselves into sometimes excusing the sin. We deny that what we did was wrong, or it at least wasn’t that bad. You know, it was, yeah, okay, it wasn’t good, but it wasn’t that bad. Or we point to some extenuating circumstances as, you know, okay, yeah, I messed up, but there were these situations that contributed to it.

You know, it wasn’t just my fault. And very often that effort to blame something else becomes an effort to blame someone else. And that’s a game that we have played with sin from the very beginning. I mean, you just got to go back to the very first sin in the Garden of Eden, and you find that blame game thing has been going on ever since then. I mean, you know, Adam tried to blame Eve, and Eve tried to blame the serpent, and you know, everybody’s trying to blame somebody else. It wasn’t really my fault that I did that. And we do that. I do it. Sometimes in my relationship with my wife, when I don’t always act like I ought to act.

I don’t want to say too much about that. I’ve got two brothers in laws in the audience that may beat me up afterwards. I don’t want that to happen. But you know, sometimes I don’t treat my wife like I should. I try hard to treat her right. But sometimes I’m a little hard-headed, and I do some wrong things sometimes, and I don’t always treat her right. And I have sometimes a hard time seeing that. And it’s very difficult sometimes. That happens to us all.

Or at least we don’t do that initially. And certainly we don’t see it the way God sees it.

But if we are going to truly repent in a way that leads to salvation, then we need to start by seeing ourselves in our sin the way God sees us. And I think that has to happen. In some way, it has to happen if I’m really going to change, if I’m really going to repent and change my mind about it, resulting in a change of life, then I’m going to have to, I’m going to have to see my sin for what it is, for how bad it is, for how bad it hurt God, for how bad it hurts others that may be affected by it. We all know the story of the prodigal son in Luke the 15th chapter. This young man, of course, you know the story.

He asked his father to divide his wealth with him and his brother, and the father did that, and the younger son decided that he was going to take off to the far-off country, and he was going to you know just live it up a lot. And that’s what he did. He went off to the far-off country and lived it up there, and he enjoyed everything, but pretty quickly he had burnt all of his inheritance. Spent it all.

On top of that, the text says that there was a famine in the land. And that made his circumstance even worse. And was so bad, the text says, that he ultimately he ultimately took a job. Think about this for a Jewish boy, taking a job with one of the citizens of the far-off country feeding swine, pigs. And this young fellow was so hungry that he would have filled his stomach with the pods, with the things that were being fed to the to the swine. He was ready to eat the pig food. That’s how bad it got for him. And there was nobody helping him out. And verse 17 says, but when he came to his senses, the original text literally says, when he came to himself.

When he suddenly realized what his circumstance was, when he realized where his sin had brought him, what it had done to him in his life, and where he was now as a result of this selfish, self-centered way of living. We suddenly realized how bad it got. That’s when suddenly his mind turned toward home. That’s when he began to think about what it was like for servants in his father’s house. They had it much better than he did, where he was right there. And what I want you to understand is that has to happen for us. Because we will never start turning our attention toward home. We will never start turning our attention toward our Father, our Heavenly Father, until somehow circumstances have brought us to the point where we finally realize how bad this thing is that I’ve been doing.

This thing that I’ve gotten myself involved in. Until I sort of hit rock bottom, like this young man did, it’s difficult for us to see where we are. And until that happens, we won’t see ourselves the way we need to see ourselves.

Repent, we’re going to have to see ourselves for what we really are in the eyes of God. We’re going to have to see, we’re going to have to reach that kind of bottoming out sort of circumstance. As long as we think, okay, I did wrong, but it’s not that bad. Okay, I made some mistakes, but really it’s, you know, it was a situation’s fault that I had that problem, or it was somebody else’s fault that I had that problem. As long as we’re still looking at our circumstance that way, we will never truly repent. We won’t truly turn away from those things that are wrong. As unpleasant as it was for this young prodigal to hit bottom, it was actually fortuitous. It was actually fortunate for him to do that.

It actually helped him. Nobody wants to be in that circumstance and on top of it a famine and get to the point where this young man was. But in a real sense, it was fortunate for him, because that’s what brought him to his senses and helped him to see that he needed to think about home. And so it’s essential to our repentance. Of course, it doesn’t happen for everyone. We don’t all experience that kind of a bottoming out of circumstances like the prodigal son did.

Sometimes what has to happen, what happens to cause us to realize that we to see ourselves the way we are, sometimes what that takes, it’s not like a bottoming out like that. Sometimes what it takes is a confrontation. And not necessarily a hostile confrontation, but some kind of a confrontation from someone who helps us to see what we’re doing that’s wrong. In Luke the 17th chapter, and in verse 3, if your brother sins, rebuke him. Sometimes, in order for me to repent, I have to have someone who will come and help me see that I’m doing wrong. I think maybe one of the best illustrations of that is the case of David in 2 Samuel chapter 12. And you know the story after David had committed adultery with Uriah the Hittite’s wife, and then tried to cover it up by getting Uriah drunk.

That didn’t work, and then ultimately having Uriah killed on the battlefront in order that he might cover up his sin, and then he takes the guy’s wife.

David, I feel confident when I read the Psalms, like Psalm 32, I feel confident that in his heart of hearts, he knew that what he was doing was wrong. But he was having a hard time recognizing it. And so he had a friend, a prophet by the name of Nathan, who came to him. And Nathan tells him this story in 2 Samuel 12, and it’s a story that paralleled his circumstance. And it sort of demonstrates a little bit how hard it is for us to recognize our problems. Because he comes to David and he said to him, There were two men in one city, one rich and the other poor. And I would suggest to you that as Nathan tells this story, Nathan tells it to David as if this is an event that actually took place in his kingdom.

Because David’s going to be pretty hot about it. So he says, There were two men in one city, one rich and the other poor. And the rich man had a great many flocks and herds, but the poor man had nothing except one little you lamb, which he brought, which he bought and nourished, and it grew up together with him and his children, and would eat of his bread and drink of his cup and lie in his bosom and was like a daughter to him. This you had become kind of you lamb had become kind of a pet for him. Now a traveler came to the rich man, and he was unwilling to take from his own flock or his own herd to prepare for the wayfarer who had come to him.

Rather, he took the poor man’s ew lamb and prepared it for the man who had come to him. And notice David’s response. David’s anger burned greatly against the man. And he said to Nathan, as the Lord lives, surely the man who has done this deserves to die. David didn’t have a problem seeing what was wrong with some action. He recognized that this was wrong behavior. And that’s the way it is so many times with you and me. We can recognize that what’s happening, what someone else is doing is wrong. We can see that what they’re doing is wrong. And maybe sometimes we’re even willing to show our indignation against that wrongdoing. The problem is that sometimes we have a hard time when it’s me, when I’m the one that’s doing the wrong thing.

And that’s exactly what happened here, because when David was angry, he said, as the Lord lives, surely the man who has done this deserves to die. He must make restitution for the lamb fourfold because he did this thing and had no compassion. Let me know who that guy is. If that happened in my kingdom, I’m going to go visit him and we’re going to straighten this matter out. That guy is going to make this right. And Nathan said to him, You are the man. David, you’re the man. You’re the one I’m talking about. Thus is the Lord God of Israel. It is I who anointed you king over Israel, and it is I who delivered you from the hand of Saul. I also gave you your master’s house and your master’s wives into your care, and I gave you the house of Israel in Judah.

And if that had been too little, I would have added to these to you many more things like these. Why have you despised the word of the Lord by doing evil in his sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with a sword, have taken his wife to be your wife, and have killed him with the sword of the sons of Ammon. Now therefore, the son shall never, the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised me and taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife. Listen to the terms of this pat of Nathan’s indictment here. Notice how he says that in doing what you did with this other man’s wife, which we would think, ooh, that’s a sin against that woman, and it’s a sin against that man whose wife it was, how awful it was that he hurt him like that.

The reality is, he says, Listen, what you did was you despised my word when you did that. And in fact, you have despised me, God says. What we have to understand is that our sins ultimately, yes, they affect others around us. Yes, they are often against individuals around us, but ultimately, our sin is an affront against God. That’s why David will later say in Psalm 151, against you and you only have I sinned and done that which is unrighteous in your eyes. Because David recognized that ultimately the one who was hurt by what he did was God. God was the one who was hurt. Yes, there were people that were hurt. Sure, a Uriah was hurt. Sure, that’s Sheba was hurt. Sure, this innocent baby that now comes from this result of this adultery, sure that baby was hurt.

It lost its life. Yes, innocent people fell as a result of this sin or were hurt by it. But the greatest and the most egregious thing is that it was against God. And David had to understand that. David had to come and see that’s what had happened. That’s what he had done. What I’m trying to get us to recognize is that it’s not until we have something like this happen. Whether it’s hitting rock bottom so that we sort of have a kind of a an epiphany where we sort of come to ourselves and realize, wow, look at how bad my circumstance is because of my sin. Or whether it’s someone who comes and confronts us, maybe confronts us in love, maybe confronts us nicely, maybe confronts us harshly.

I don’t know. But they come and help us recognize our fault. It’s only when we see our sin for what it actually is. Yes, an affront against innocent people. Maybe an affront with guilty people. But more than anything, it is an affront against God. When we start recognizing that, now we’re ready. Now maybe we’re to the point where we’re going to be willing to truly repent. When we come to see it that way, then we’re ready to repent, maybe. But of course, that’s only the beginning of the repentance. That’s only the thing that sort of begins to help us realize I’ve got to change my ways. I’ve got to change my mind about the way I’ve been living, I’ve got to change my ways. It’s only the beginning.

2. A Tearing of the Heart: Broken and Contrite

What has to happen is there has to be a tearing of the heart. There has to be a an experience that says, not only do I see how bad this thing is, but I feel awful about it. I feel terrible about what I’ve done. I’ve done it. And I feel awful about it. In the book of Joel the prophet is talking about Israel. And he says in Joel chapter 2 and verse 13, I think that’s in the Old Testament. Hosea, Joel. Joel 2 and verse 13. First of all, in verse 12, he says, yet even now, God has been telling Israel about how terrible their sin has been and how awful it is. And he says, yet even now, declares the Lord, return to me with all your heart.

And with fasting, weeping and mourning. And rid your heart and not your garments. Now return to the Lord your God, for He is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in loving kindness, and relenting of evil. God is pleading with Israel to repent. And what he says has to happen is you have to turn. You have to have a change of heart. You have to rent your heart. Rent your heart, as it were.

It’s the same sort of thing that the psalmist that David is talking about in Psalm 51. I alluded to Psalm 51 a moment ago. I don’t know if you’ve ever done this or not, but I have I’ve blown it in some ways that were pretty big. And I can remember more than once sitting with my Bible open and reading the words of Psalm 51 and saying to God, that’s my heart. That’s who I feel about this. But we’re told in Psalm 51 and verse 17 that the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit. A broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. There’s something that God simply can’t. This God of compassion, this God of love and mercy, that just sort of gets to him every time, and that is a broken and contrite heart.

When he sees that we have a broken spirit and a contrite heart, that’s when we open the door for real change and real forgiveness. We sometimes think of a broken spirit as a bad thing. But when it comes to sin that separates a person from God, pride often plays a huge role in the whole process. And so what has to happen is that prideful spirit that keeps us from admitting our sin, that prideful spirit has to be broken. Just as it was in David’s case. It had to be broken. David had to realize that he had to admit to himself and to God that yes, indeed, what he had done was this terrible thing. And David was crushed by his sin. A broken heart describes the idea of being sorrowful.

A contrite heart means that we have this real humility that needs to happen if we’re going to truly repent. In 2 Corinthians chapter 7, and this is an important text because this text makes a distinction between some things that is very critical to understanding. Sometimes we think that repentance is being sorry, and repentance is not actually being sorry. Repentance comes as a result of real sorrow. Real sorrow produces real change. And that’s what is being said here in 2 Corinthians chapter 7. You remember the people in Acts chapter 2. Those people were already pricked in their heart. They knew that what they did was wrong, and yet they were told to repent. So repentance isn’t just being sorry. They were already sorry. Repentance is something more than that, but repentance won’t happen without me recognizing what I’ve done and feeling genuine pain and sorrow over that thing.

So 2 Corinthians chapter 7 and verse 10 says, for the sorrow that is according to the will of God or godly sorrow produces repentance without regret. It produces a repentance that we don’t repent of. Okay? Leading to salvation. But the sorrow of the world produces death. And we need to be really careful here. When we start thinking about sorrow, because we may experience some sorrow as a result of our sin. And we have to be very careful not to mistake what kind of sorrow I have for the right kind of sorrow. Because there is sorrow that is of the worldly sort, sorrow of the world, that’s often the sorrow that says, man, look how bad my situation is, and we feel sorry for ourselves. We feel sorry that this terrible thing is coming upon us.

But we’re not really sorry for the thing that we’ve done. Sorrow of the world will not produce repentance, but sorrow of the godly sort. This broken and contrite spirit that David talks about. Now that’s the kind of sorrow that will produce real repentance. Pride and arrogance is removed when we have that kind of sorrow. And we see that, for example, in the prodigal son, who went back to his father and just said, I am not worthy. I’m not worthy to be in your presence, to be considered a part of your family. He went back with his hat in his hand, saying, I recognize that I don’t deserve anything from you. And I want you to understand that until we have gotten to that point where we are truly sorry for what we have done.

When sorrow has, when a recognition of our sin has caused us to feel this broken and contrite heart. Until that happens, we’re not going to be ready to repent. I want to suggest to you also something here in connection with this, and I’m going to talk a little bit more about it a little bit more in a minute, but true repentance is never presumptuous. Yes, one sinned against must forgive. And God has promised to forgive. But a sinner who is truly penitent never takes it for granted. You remember that statement that in we didn’t read it a moment ago, but go back with me to Acts the eighth chapter, because I want you to notice exactly what Peter says to Simon on that occasion. Acts the eighth chapter, when he confronts Simon about his sin, he says in verse 20, May your silver perish with you because you thought you could obtain the gift of God with money.

You have no part or portion in this matter, for your heart is not right before God. He says, Therefore repent of this wickedness of yours and pray the Lord that if possible, if possible, the intent of your heart, the intention of your heart may be forgiven. Notice that Peter the apostle doesn’t even presume that it’s a guarantee. He says, you pray, you repent and pray. If possible, God might give you repent, might give you forgiveness. And I’m not saying that God is not wanting to forgive, he certainly does. And he will, because he’s promised to do that. But what the sinner must never do is presume that it’s going to happen. If my repentance is presumptuous, it doesn’t come for the heart. And so it’s not true.

Repentance. A broken and contrite heart is what will keep me from being presumptive. It will go, it will cause me to be sorrowful my sin, and it will help me to realize that I need to appeal for forgiveness, but I need to not accept that somehow that’s a guarantee. I need to beg for forgiveness because of the thing that I’ve done that is wrong.

3. The Words We Use When We Repent

And I want to talk a minute about, this is not, I shouldn’t say that because I’ve already been told. I’m not supposed to say I’m not eloquent. I’m not very eloquent, but this is just kind of, we’re just kind of looking at this kind of thing in a in a non oratory sort of way. I just want to just say make some points here. I want to talk a minute about the words that we use when we repent. In Hosea the 14th chapter, again, that’s in the Old Testament also. Hosea the 14th chapter, God is pleading again with Israel to repent. And here in Hosea chapter 14, verse 1 and 2 return, O Israel to the Lord your God, for you have stumbled because of your iniquity.

And he says, take words with you and return to the Lord. Say to him, say to him, Take away all my iniquity and receive us graciously, that we may present the fruit of our lips. Assyria will not save us. We will not ride on horses, nor will we again set our God to the work of our hands. For you are the orphan. You for in you the orphan finds mercy. God is saying to Israel, I want you to repent. You need to return to me. And a part of what I want you to do is I want you to come to me with words that demonstrate that you truly have repented. That you really are changing your mind about the things that you’re doing that are wrong.

And the very fact that he says, take words. Israel had wanted to take sacrifices. Oftentimes what we want to do is we want to just go and maybe do some sort of perfunctory thing and go through some sort of external motions, and we sort of think that somehow is going to take care of it. Israel thought that they could just go make a sacrifice and everything be okay, and that wasn’t good enough for God. God didn’t want to just come make a sacrifice to me. We sometimes say, well, I just go to church a couple of times, everything would be okay. And it doesn’t work that way. It doesn’t work that way. God wants us to come to Him with words. Words that demonstrate that we truly have repented.

The point is that repentance involves words, so we need to think about the words that we use when we repent. Why? Because the words that we use say a whole lot about what’s really going in our heart going on in our heart. Remember we talked about that this morning? How the words that come out of our mouth proceed from the heart. And so the point is that the words that we use very often say something a whole lot, tell us a whole lot about what’s going on in our heart. So we need to consider the content of what we say when we come to God, or when we come to someone, and we want to tell them that we repent of this terrible thing that we’ve done.

True repentance, what it does is it leads to confession. It leads to an acknowledgement of the fact that we have done this wrong thing. And I want to suggest to you that when I look at what the New Testament says about confession, I understand a couple of things about it. One thing that I understand about it is that confession from a biblical perspective is unambiguous. It is forthright.

If I have sinned. And folks, that’s that’s not a confession. That’s a conditional statement that doesn’t really acknowledge that you’ve actually sinned yet. In fact, it might actually even be a denial. It might be a statement where he says, I don’t really think I’ve done anything, but if you think I’ve done something, I’m sorry. And that’s often the way we want to come when we want to acknowledge our sin to God or to those that we’ve sinned against. David didn’t say to God, if you, God, feel like I’ve sinned, then I’m sorry. And I repent. Nathan specified what David had done, and David took ownership of it. He said, You’re right, I have sinned. There was no ambiguous nature about it. It wasn’t, I have, you know, I kind of gooped up a little bit.

I’m sorry. I made a blunder here. It was just forthright, I have sinned. He just said it. That he’d done the thing that was wrong. And that’s what the young prodigal went to his father and said. There wasn’t anything ambiguous about it. He said, I have sinned against heaven in your sight. It’s not like I’ve maybe sort of messed up. It’s I have sinned. And I want you to understand that if we are going to really repent and we’re going to have the kind of repentance that produces that ultimately leads to salvation, that repentance is going to cause me to confess in an unambiguous way the things that I’ve done. That unambiguous nature is sometimes blurred also by the word but. Sometimes we sort of blur it by saying, if I have sinned, sometimes we blur it by saying, but.

We say, you know, I did sin, but. And then we offer an excuse for why it happened. And very often we end up blaming sometimes the very person we’re confessing the sin to. But it’s really your fault. You know, I wouldn’t have done that if you hadn’t done that to me. I don’t know how many times I’ve done that to Candy. Where I’ve said there, you know, you know, yeah, you’re right. I did that, but you know, you were pushing my buttons. He doesn’t do that much. But I sometimes mess up like that. And that’s not, that’s not being very, that’s not really a confessing. It needs to be, I have sinned, no ifs, ands, or buts about it. I have done the dirty, I have sinned against you and against God.

And I want to suggest the second thing. I said that it when I read about confession from the biblical perspective, I understand, number one, that it’s unambiguous. It’s just very clear. I have sinned. There’s no ifs and or buts about it. There’s no doubt about what we’re saying. I have certainly saying I have sinned against you. The second thing that I learned from Scripture about confession is that confession is specific. I want you to look at a couple passages with me. James chapter 5 and verse 16 is one that I want to go to right away. James 5 and verse 16, because I think sometimes we misunderstand this passage. James 5 and verse 16. James says, therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another so that you may be healed.

He doesn’t say, I think sometimes we think this passage says, confess that you’re a sinner. The Bible doesn’t tell us to confess that we’re sinners. All of us are.

Look at Leviticus chapter 5 and verse 5. Leviticus goes here in chapter 5 and mentions a number of things that a person might have been guilty of and learns that he’s guilty of them. And so it says then in verse 5 So it shall be that when he becomes guilty in one of these that he shall confess that in which he has sinned. He must confess that in which he has sinned. He must say what it is that he did that was wrong. Look at Joshua chapter 7 and verse 19. This is kind of an interesting text because this is the case of Achan, and what Joshua has finally ultimately through a whole process, Achan has been discovered as the one who kept some of the booty from the city of Jericho when they took the city, and now that it resulted in the defeated Ai, and finally he’s been exposed for the thing that he’s done that is wrong.

And so here’s what Joshua says to him in verse 19. Joshua says to Achan, My son, I implore you, give glory to the Lord, the God of Israel, and give praise to him, and tell me now what you have done. Do not hide it from me. And I want you to notice what Achan did. And of course it didn’t do him much good on this occasion because he was destroyed anyway. Sometimes God goes ahead with the punishment. So Achan answered Joshua and said, Truly I have sinned against the Lord, the God of Israel, and this is what I did. When I saw among the spoil a beautiful mantle from Shynar and two hundred shekels of silver and a bar of gold, fifty shekels in weight. Then I coveted them and I took them, and behold, they are concealed in the earth inside my tent with the silver underneath it.

Well, I’ll tell you, he just specified exactly what it was that he did that was wrong. Matthew chapter 3 and verse 6. When boy, we’ve got to get going here. Matthew chapter 3 and verse 6.

We’re told that Jerusalem in verse 5 was going out to John the Baptist to be baptized of him. They were going out to him and all Judea and all the district around Jordan, and they were being baptized by him in the Jordan as they confessed their sins. Look at Acts chapter 19 and verse 18. After there is this kind of a showdown between those who were trying to cast out spirits in the name of Jesus when they weren’t really servants of the Lord God and the sons of Skeba get kind of have a bad thing happen. That sort of caused everybody to realize that they need to make some correction. And verse 18 says, Many of those who had believed, talking about Christians, they kept coming confessing and disclosing their practices.

And 1 John chapter 1 and verse 9. 1 John 1 and verse 9. If we confess, not that we’re sinners, not that we have sinned, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us of our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

If I really had a change of heart about what this thing is that I’ve done, I’m going to acknowledge it. I’m going to acknowledge in unambiguous terms what that I have sinned. It’s a sin, and I’m going to say what it is that I have done that was wrong. You can’t ask somebody to forgive you of something when you’re not really willing to say to the person what you’ve done that’s wrong. You need to be willing to say, here’s what I did. It was sinful. Will you please forgive me? Someone says, comes to, you know, I go to someone and say, hey, maybe I go to Tony and say, Tony, will you forgive me? And Tony, being the merciful guy, he says, Well, yeah, I’d be glad to forgive you, but what is it I’m forgiving you of?

Well, I’m not going to tell you what it is, but I’ll tell you that I did sin against you, and I need your forgiveness. But I won’t tell you what it is. Now that even sounds silly, doesn’t it? It doesn’t even sound silly, and it is silly. But that’s what we do sometimes. We dress up our sin and our statement, and we try to pass it off as a confession to God or to our brother. But listen, I’m not ready to ask for somebody’s forgiveness until I have said what it is that I’ve done. And I’ve made it very clear that what I’ve done is a sin, is sinful. I’m not ready to ask for forgiveness until that’s the case. And I want to again say, don’t turn your request for forgiveness into a presumptive act by saying, after you confess to the person, I did this thing, it was wrong.

I’m sorry that it’s wrong. Now, do you forgive me? Do you forgive me? Don’t make it sound like that. Okay, I’ve done my part. Now you’ve got to do your part. That’s presumptuous.

Some use this form of repentance and confession and request for forgiveness. They use it to force those who they’ve hurt them, who they’ve hurt to forgive them. I’ve done my part, now you’ve got to do your part. When you go and say to someone, I’ve asked you to forgive me now. You have to forgive me. The Bible says you have to forgive me. When you do that, you demonstrate that you don’t have the right kind of heart. One may be forgiven by a merciful brother who doesn’t want to be guilty of or be considered of being an unforgiving person, so he may go ahead and forgive you in a situation like that, but God doesn’t buy that stuff. Don’t you for one moment think that God buys that?

You can’t do that kind of thing before God. God doesn’t forgive when a person is using it to control the circumstance and to manipulate the other person into giving them their forgiveness. If you really are sorry for what you’ve done, if you’ve really recognized that what you’ve done is wrong, it’s been an affront against this person, it’s been an affront against God, then you say what it is that you’ve done that was wrong, and you ask the person, please, will you please forgive me? And you beg for their mercy. You don’t demand it. And I want to suggest something else about real repentance. Not only does real repentance motivated by recognizing where we really are in the presence of God, and it involves this genuine sorrow that produces this change of heart, and that it results in my actually being willing to ask, to say what it is that I’ve done and ask the person for forgiveness, be it God or an individual.

4. Fruit in Keeping With Repentance

But I would suggest that when somebody really repents, it’s apparent that’s happened. That when someone repents, there is fruit that is seen from that. Look with me at Luke chapter 3, verses 7 through 14. Luke chapter 3, verses 7 through 14. This is where some of the individuals were coming to John. Luke chapter 3, beginning at verse 7. Where am I on my outline here? So he began saying to the crowds who were coming to be baptized by him, you brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come. Therefore, bear fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, we have Abraham for our father. For I say to you that from these stones God is able to raise up children of Abraham.

Indeed, the axe is already laid at the root of the tree, so every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into fire. John is saying to you to these guys, you need to bring forth fruit in keeping with repentance. You need to demonstrate that you’ve genuinely repentance. And the crowds were questioning him, saying, Then what shall we do? And he would answer and say to them, The man who has two tunics shall is to share with him who has none, and he who has food is to do likewise. Some tax collectors also came to be baptized. And they said to him, Teacher, what shall we do? And he said to them, Collect no more than what you have been ordered to.

Some soldiers were questioning him, saying, But and what about us? What shall we do? And he said to them, Do not practice, do not take money from anyone by force or accuse anyone falsely, and be content with your wages. What John was telling these people to do is that they was telling them to change, and was telling them to change, particularly the things that they were doing that was wrong. Because when someone truly repents, he stops doing the thing that’s wrong. He changes that. It’s evident there’s a difference in how he acts and how he behaves. And that’s got to be the same thing with us. There’s a story of Zacchaeus in Luke the 19th chapter, beginning at verse 1. You remember the story of Zacchaeus was the wee little man, and a wee little man was he?

I love that song. We used to sing it with the kids. Zacchaeus was a wee little man, a wee little man was he, climbed up in the sycamore sea tree, saved before the sea, and as the Savior passed that way, he looked up in the tree and he said, Zacchaeus, you come down.

In Africa, when we learned that song, it was Zacchaeus, you come down, for I’m going to your house for tea. That was the British influence. But this Zacchaeus, he sees Jesus, and he wants to see Jesus. And Jesus sees him in the city, and he looked up and said to him, Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for today I must stay at your house. And he hurried and came down and received him gladly, and we saw it. They began to grumble, saying, He has gone to eat to the guest of guest of a man who is a sinner. Zacchaeus stopped and said to the Lord, Behold, Lord, half of my possessions I will give to the poor, and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will give back four times as much.

And Jesus said to him, Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man has come to seek and save that which was lost.

But he was determined, because he recognized that what he had been doing was wrong, he was determined to do what he could, the very best he could, to restore what he had done, what he had taken to repair the damage that he had done. And that’s necessary, not because God requires it, but because the heart of the truly repentant moves him to want to do it.

But do all that just isn’t really repentance. If you have done wrong and you’re trying to slide by without really doing right, you make an ambiguous confession, or you offer excuses, or you blame others for what is wrong in your life. And what you need is you need someone like John to confront you. If someone tried to vaguely confess or minimize his sin, and I said, You snake, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? You need to bring forth fruit in keeping with repentance. You know what most of you would think is you would think that I’d mistreated the person. But that’s exactly what John the Baptist does. What he keeps saying when he says you brood of vipers. He’s calling them a bunch of snakes.

That’s what John did. When John saw anything that was less than true repentance, he didn’t let it slide. He confronted it for the person’s sake. For the sake of the individual who was coming saying he repented. They needed to know that what they’re doing isn’t really right yet. What John was interested in was the salvation of souls. What Nathan was interested in when he confronted David with his sin was not to embarrass David or put David down, but to help save David’s soul. And when we call upon someone to demonstrate, we shouldn’t have to call upon someone to demonstrate that he’s repented or she’s repented. That should become evident in the way in which they respond, in the way in which they go forward from that day onward.

Conclusion

And so real repentance. It’s going to start in the mind. It’s going to start with me recognizing who or what I’ve done that’s wrong. It’s going to, it’s going to cause me. If I’m going to repent, I’m going to, I’m going to feel sorrow, broken and contrite heart for what I’ve done that’s wrong. And I’m going to be moved by this change of mind. I’m going to decide that I’m going to say what it is that I’ve done wrong. I’m going to acknowledge it to God or to the person that I’ve heard and to God. And I’m going to do it in unambiguous ways. I’m going to say it right out, and I’m going to ask him to plead them if perhaps maybe, will you please, possibly?

Could you please forgive me? And then I’m going to go forward from that day forward and demonstrate that I have really changed with regard to that thing that was wrong. And I talk to us about these things. Because I care about our souls. We’re interested in helping people have salvation. Not putting on a front, not doing something technicality. You’re not going to get off with things like that. Interested in helping you do what’s right. So that ultimately we can be saved. Let me say something real quickly in closing about the necessity of repentance. It’s interesting to me that the first word that John the Baptist that is at least attributed to John the Baptist when he announced the coming kingdom, the first word was repent. Matthew 3 and verse 2.

When Peter was asked, what must be do? Those people in Acts the second chapter, when they were pricked in their hearts and they said, What must we do? The first word that Peter said to them was repent. Acts 2.38. And I would suggest to you that there may come a time in our lives when the first word we need to hear is the word repent. Repent, friend. Repent. And I will remind you of the warning of Jesus in Luke, the 13th chapter and verse 3. When he said, I tell you no. But except you repent, you will likewise perish. You can fool me. I’m easily fooled. I tend to be a kind of a guy who wants to be forgiving and wants to wants to believe the best about you.

And so you can probably fool me. You may be able to fool somebody else. You may be able to fool other brethren. When you come and say, I repent, but somebody, there’s somebody who sees right through it all. And you are not going to fool him. And that is the God of heaven. You will not fool him. Be not deceived. God is not mocked. Whatever a man sows, that shall he also reap. You may be able to fix circumstances so that it looks like you’re okay. And you may get people to acknowledge that you’re okay. And you may fool me, and I may think that you’re okay. But you will not fool God. And so I’m trying to encourage us to realize that we’re not involved in this is not a game that you or I can play with God and somehow get away with it.

There is someone here that is in this room right now that is present right now in this room who knows the truth about you and me. Who knows the truth about what’s in our hearts, who knows whether or not we’ve truly given ourselves to him. And we will not fake him out, we will not fool him, we will not get away with anything. So please, it is futile to try. Don’t try. Just do what’s right. If you’ve got something wrong in your life, change it. See what you’re done, what you’ve done that’s wrong, and if it’s just between you and God, acknowledge it to him plainly, unambiguously. I have sinned. Tell him what it is you’ve done and beg his mercy. Don’t presume he’ll give it.

Beg his mercy. And if you’ve done something that has been a sin against someone, then go to that person. Humble yourself and let them know. Tell them that what you’ve done is wrong. Acknowledge your sin. Make it right. Do what you can to fix it. Demonstrate that you’ve really changed. And ask them to forgive you. Please forgive you. And if you do that, if you do that, and you’re really genuine about it, whether that person forgives you or not is irrelevant. Because he knows what you’ve done. And that’s what really matters. What really matters. So tonight, think about who you are. Think about where you are. Don’t think about somebody else across the room. Don’t think about somebody else, some other place. Don’t think about anyone else for a moment.

Focus on you. And ask yourself, am I what I need to be in the presence of my God? Is there something I need to write? And you do whatever it takes tonight, whatever it takes tonight to make it right. Whether it’s acknowledging it privately to God, whether it’s acknowledging it publicly to this group of people, or whether it is going home and sitting down with your family and talking to them and acknowledging your sin to your family, or whether it’s some individual that you need to just take off tonight and get a cup of coffee with and let them know what you’ve done that’s wrong and beg their forgiveness. Whatever you need to do to make it right, do it tonight. Because you can’t fool God.

Please understand that. And if we can help you, that’s all we want to do is help you. So please respond while we stand and see it.