Grace of Repentance
Pete reports that his mission team’s trip to the Holy Land was the best of all the mission trips that he’s been blessed to experience. There were many highlights of their trip. They were honored to join in a worship service at a small Christian church in the city of Bethlehem. After the service the pastor invited Pete and his mission team to spend the afternoon at his house to harvest olives. In three hours their team harvested what would have taken the pastor’s family two weeks. Pete and his team were honored to minister at a youth mission in Israel. They shared communion at the Garden Tomb. The significance of the tomb is that in this area, God resurrected Jesus Christ from the dead. At Magdala, a recent archeological discovery, they were blessed to visit a newly constructed chapel. Another highlight was a baptism service at the river Jordan where one of the women on their mission team was baptized. John the Baptist’s mission was to call God’s people to repentance.
The essence of a Puritan prayer from the book, The Valley of Vision, says, “Blessed Lord, we kneel in prayer and see the sin that caused the enormity of your divine wrath. Allow us to perceive the saving grace of the divine sacrifice of our Lord Jesus. Sin is our malady born in our flesh dominating our faculties and intermingling with our every thought…the nature that holds us captive against your will. Yet your heart hastens to our rescue…your love endures our curse. Let us walk in humility bathed in the precious blood of our Lord as heirs of your salvation through his supreme sacrifice. You saved us from eternal death and gave us life more abundantly….for that we are ever grateful and give you all praise and glory through our Lord Jesus Christ…Amen.”
Christianity starts with repentance. Repentance means to turn around, to change your mind. Repentance begins with a broken and a contrite heart. Repentance is by God’s grace…God will break our heart for what breaks his. God’s love and grace calls a man to repentance. Those who do not repent are held captive to their sin nature. Repentance is to turn from sin…to turn our hearts to the Lord. To feel regret for the direction we were headed…to experience the burden of sin and to lay down our burden at the foot of the cross. May our prayer be to run the race set before us and to press toward the mark of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Psalm 51 and Psalm 32 are pictures of repentance through the eyes of David, a man after God’s own heart.
All men struggle with sin and it takes repentance to turn from the destructive appetites of the flesh and toward God’s saving grace. There are two types of repentance. One is a false repentance. This is like when the child says to his father, “Dad, don’t spank me.” It’s a feeling of remorse for having been caught and for having to suffer the painful consequences.
The story of David and Bathsheba is an illustration of true repentance. David sinned by committing adultery with Bathsheba, getting her pregnant, and then having her husband Uriah murdered. David continued in sin for a year. God gave his prophet Nathan a story to convict David of his sin. Nathan told David about a poor man in his kingdom whose only possession was a precious little ewe lamb whom he cherished and loved like his own daughter. There was also a rich man in David’s kingdom who owned many flocks of sheep and herds of cattle. A traveler came to the rich man’s house for dinner. Instead of taking a sheep from his own flock, the rich man stole the poor man’s precious little ewe lamb, butchered her, and served her to his rich guest.” David had been a shepherd as a boy so this story moved him deeply. The penalty for stealing a man’s sheep is to pay him back four times over. However David pronounced the death penalty when he said, “the man that did this thing must die.” Then Nathan stuck his finger in David’s chest and said, “You are the man.”
The worst part of sinning is when we deny that we have sinned and fail to acknowledge that the sin separates us from walking in fellowship with a holy God. David’s confession in Psalm 51 said, “against thee only have I sinned.” According to 1 John 1:9, “if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
David’s confession in Psalm 51 says, “I was born in iniquity and sin.” Confession is coupled with a desire to come clean before the Lord and to make restitution for wrongs committed. David knew that only God’s mercy and grace would allow him to repent. David was a man after God’s own heart because he returned back to God with a broken and a contrite heart. The grace of repentance is that God will break our heart for what breaks his. David’s story is a picture of true repentance. Even though he sinned mightily against God, he approached his Lord with true contrition. A contrite heart is given by God’s mercy and grace so that we can turn from our wicked ways and return our hearts to fellowship with our Lord.
God doesn’t want our sacrifice…all he wants is a broken and a contrite heart, for godly sorrow works repentance unto salvation. A scene from the movie “The Mission” illustrates true repentance. Spain had sent missionaries to South America to convert the natives to Christianity. The King of Spain gave this territory to Portugal as part of a treaty. Portugal sent their soldiers to enslave the natives that the Spanish missionaries had converted to Christianity. In one moving scene, the military leader of the Portuguese enslavers has a conversion experience. He is brought to repentance when after struggling to bring his pack with all of his possessions to the top of a mountain, he’s confronted by the Spanish missionary and the tribesmen the missionary has led to Christ. The tribesmen approach the Portuguese leader with a knife to slit his throat as an enemy of the faith. However, the missionary tells the tribesmen to cut the burden free instead of killing the Portuguese enslaver. In this scene the leader rejoices that God has forgiven him and freed him from his burden of the sin.
Repentance is by God’s grace. The Holy Spirit stirs the soul of men unto godly sorrow which leads to repentance. The miracle is when a man turns from his wicked ways and unto the living and the true God. Where sin abounded, grace abounded all the more….in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for the ungodly.
May we pray as David prayed in Psalm 51, “have mercy on me O God. According to thy loving kindness and tender mercies blot out my transgressions. For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me.
Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight: that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest.”
Make me to hear joy and gladness; that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice. Hide thy face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities.
Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.
Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me.
Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit.”
Thank you Lord for the grace of repentance through our Lord Jesus Christ.
May we ever live to the praise of the glory of His grace!
Your brother in Christ,
Michael