How to Fight When You Fail

Article by David Sunday

I’m not writing for those who think they’ve got little sin problems. If you imagine you’re getting an A-, or at least a C+, in self-sanctification, you probably won’t resonate with what I’m saying.

I’m writing for the Christian who’s reading this a few hours after you’ve fallen sexually. I’m thinking of the deacon who has just exploded in anger at his children. Or the campus ministry leader who went to college with every intention of following Jesus, but is now waking up with a hangover and can’t remember what she did the night before. I’m writing for the pastor who told a lie in last night’s elder meeting. Or the Bible study leader who became Peter-the-Denier when her upper-class neighbor asked her if she really thinks that everyone who does not believe in Jesus Christ will go to hell.

For all who are weary of struggling with sin, I want you to be able to face your most disappointing failures without drowning in despair.

Gutsy Guilt

Let me tell you about gutsy guilt. John Piper first introduced me to this idea — and his teaching on this has sustained and strengthened me for over a quarter of a century of being “tempted, tried, and sometimes failing.” Piper found an example of “gutsy guilt, bold brokenness, confident contrition, rugged remorse” in the words of the prophet Micah, who teaches us how to fight when we have fallen.

But as for me, I will look to the Lord;
     I will wait for the God of my salvation;
     my God will hear me.
Rejoice not over me, O my enemy;
     when I fall, I shall rise;
when I sit in darkness,
     the Lord will be a light to me.
I will bear the indignation of the Lord
     because I have sinned against him,
until he pleads my cause
     and executes judgment for me.
He will bring me out to the light;
     I shall look upon his vindication.
Then my enemy will see,
     and shame will cover her who said to me,
     “Where is the Lord your God?”
My eyes will look upon her;
     now she will be trampled down
     like the mire of the streets. (Micah 7:7–10)

Do Not Delay

It seems counterintuitive to sin and then immediately to fall on your knees and say, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” We harbor in our hearts the false belief that, somehow, we have to pay for our sins — just a little.

But repentance isn’t groveling. You repent when you agree with God that your sin is wicked and flee to the only one who can do helpless sinners any good. So, what if after you’ve sinned you didn’t grovel for a week, but instead ran immediately to the Savior who “came into the world to save sinners” (1 Timothy 1:15)?

Micah shows us that even at our very worst, there remains a God in heaven who will not reject repentant sinners. “Look to him,” Micah says — “the sooner, the better!”

Satan loves to tempt you, trap you, and then taunt you with your guilt. He loves to watch you wallow in the mire of your misery. He wants you to embrace failure as your identity. Micah says, “Don’t listen to those lies. Call on the Lord. Do not delay. Fight when you fail.” And he shows us how in verses 8–10.

Talk Back to the Enemy

Rejoice not over me, O my enemy;
     when I fall, I shall rise;
when I sit in darkness,
     the Lord will be a light to me. (Micah 7:8)

Here is a vivid and dramatic rebuttal to Satan’s prosecution — a complete reversal of his accusatory strategy. The heart of faith defies despair. Faith refuses to believe that our sin is the end of God’s story for our life.

The tempter is a cruel tyrant who wants to terrify you with the greatness of your sins. Learn to turn his own weapon back on himself, like Martin Luther did:

When you say I am a sinner, you give me armor and weapons against yourself, so that with your own sword I may cut your throat and tread you under my feet, for Christ died for sinners. As often as you object that I am a sinner, so often you remind me of the benefit of Christ my Redeemer on whose shoulders and not on mine lie all my sins. So when you say I’m a sinner, you do not terrify me, but comfort me immeasurably.

Submit to God’s Discipline

I will bear the indignation of the Lord
     because I have sinned against him,
until he pleads my cause
     and executes judgment for me.
He will bring me out to the light;
     I shall look upon his vindication. (Micah 7:9)

Gutsy guilt doesn’t shrink from the real-life consequences of sin. The fiery wrath of God’s holy condemnation of our sin has been extinguished at the cross, but the fatherly anger of God’s displeasure at our sin is a sign of our adoption into his family. When God disciplines us, he treats us as his sons and daughters (Hebrews 12:7). His anger is bathed in love, aimed at restoration, and results in what is good for us.

God’s discipline is also temporary. Notice the hope-filled word until in Micah 7:9: “until he pleads my cause.” Here’s where Satan’s theology and the gospel collide. Satan says, “See how God is disciplining you? That’s proof he’s against you.” But the gospel says, “He will champion my cause and establish justice for me. He will bring me into the light; I will see his salvation.”

Yes, God is able to keep you from stumbling when you look to him for strength in the face of temptation. But when you do stumble, he is able to keep your stumbling from destroying you. He will “present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy” (Jude 24).

In the end, the enemy is going to witness the vindication of God’s blood-bought children. By grace, through faith, we will be righteous and shine like the sun in our Father’s kingdom (Matthew 13:43). And we will look upon the enemies of our soul, and see them trampled down like dirt and mud on the streets — it doesn’t get any lower than that. That’s Satan’s destiny (Micah 7:10).

Fuel for Our Fight

Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity
     and passing over transgression
     for the remnant of his inheritance?
He does not retain his anger forever,
     because he delights in steadfast love.
He will again have compassion on us;
     he will tread our iniquities underfoot.
You will cast all our sins
     into the depths of the sea. (Micah 7:18–19)

When you fail, fall on him. He won’t resent your repeated returns to his throne of mercy. He’s not sighing or sulking when he sees you trembling at his feet. He delights to show mercy. As Richard Sibbes writes, “He is more ready . . . to forgive than you to sin; as there is a continual spring of wickedness in you, so there is a greater spring of mercy in God.”

Imagine being with Moses and the children of Israel on the far shore of the Red Sea. You’ve just watched Pharaoh and his army disappear into the depths of the sea, never to torment you again. Someday that’s what’s going to happen to your sin.

Thrown into a sea without bottom or shore,
Our sins they are many, his mercy is more. (“His Mercy Is More”)

Many a preacher has repeated this memorable saying — but when you’ve failed, it will do you great good to preach it to yourself: When God throws your sin into the sea of forgetfulness, he puts up a sign that says, “No fishing allowed.”

David Sunday is the senior pastor of New Covenant Bible Church in St. Charles, Illinois.

5 Loopholes We Use to Excuse Sin

Will Anderson

When it comes to owning sin, humans can be fiercely stubborn. We come up with all sorts of excuses to downplay sin and avoid true repentance.

It’s easy to mouth the words of an apology, to others or God, while feeling out possible loopholes that leave room for future indulgence. We’re spiritual Houdinis, contorting and twisting our way out of true repentance. We’re actors who specialize in scenes of contrition, whose apologetic masquerades are little more than roles we play to get off the hook.

The Puritan Richard Sibbes, in The Bruised Reed, summarizes our resistance well: “It is a very hard thing to bring a dull and evasive heart to cry with feeling for mercy. Our hearts, like criminals, until they be beaten from all evasions, never cry for the mercy of the judge.”

For some of us, our cry for God’s mercy is long overdue, but our evasions keep us from real repentance. Here are five common loopholes we use to excuse sin.

1. Momentary Mourning

When it comes to repentance, the ups and downs of emotions fail us. Now, emotions are God-ordained and can be a genuine symptom of deep, lasting repentance. As we come to the cross in confession and find grace there, tears are often inescapable.

But emotions don’t always tell the truth. They can become another loophole, a way of looking sorry on the surface while we internally avoid the painful purging of idols God desires. As Jeremiah wrote, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” (Jer. 17:9).

The craftiness of the human heart creates a dangerous concoction of half-hearted remorse, using external repentance to mask inward apathy. It’s a strategy of self-deception: If we convince ourselves we’re repentant, the guilt we feel loses its sting.

It’s not that we’re totally without remorse—our hearts may be heavy in the moment. But when the sun of temptation rises again, our sorrow quickly evaporates in the blaze of indulgence.

Are our tears a vain attempt to mediate our own atonement, or do we embrace the cross of Christ in all its sin-crushing, affection-stirring wonder? May our tears flow from God’s endless fountain of grace, not from the streams of our fickle emotion and fleeting repentance.

2. The Percentage Plea

Sometimes we pit our righteous deeds against our sinful deeds. We draw up a spiritual pie chart to prove how our obedience far outweighs the tiny sliver of sin in our lives. We crunch the numbers, convinced they’re in our favor. If we get most things right, God will surely excuse the few things we get wrong.

The deception is twofold.

First, it overestimates human righteousness, anchoring it in what we do rather than in what Christ has done. In Romans 3:9–20, Paul makes clear the impossibility of building any case of innocence based on our works. Elsewhere he says our salvation is not something to earn but to receive (Eph. 2:8–9).

Second, it underestimates the corrosive nature of sin. It’s hazardous to assume the sliver of darkness in our lives can exist cozily alongside the light (in reality it’s probably more than a sliver anyway).

In Scripture, sin is never portrayed in neutral terms, as if it can be fenced in. Instead it’s pictured as yeast that grows steadily through dough (Gal. 5:9; 1 Cor. 5:6–7). Its appetite is insatiable. When we downplay its presence, sin’s growth is guaranteed.

Sin’s appetite is insatiable. When we downplay its presence, sin’s growth is guaranteed.

3. Institutional Cynicism

Ours is an age of institutional suspicion. No one wants to be told how to live. Autonomy is king and authority is foe. Any mandate to holiness is dismissed as yet another instance of the institutional church’s legalism.

The hypocrisy of “holier than thou” religious authorities—who are often exposed in the same sins they decry—thus becomes an excuse for individuals to treat their own sin lightly, allowing the church’s flaws to become a loophole for excusing their own.

Does our disdain for evangelical “holiness” jargon cripple our commitment to growing in Christlikeness? Is our eye-rolling at self-righteous believers a self-justifying strategy for holding on to sin?

As always, Jesus shows the way. He verbally skewered the legalists of his day (Matt. 23)—while taking holiness seriously. He refused to be manipulated by the judgmental and superficial Pharisaicalism of his day—while also proclaiming: “Go and sin no more” (John 8:11). He rescued the law from the abusive hands wielding it—while calling his disciples to follow its intent according to his Father’s heart (Matt. 5:17–20).

We must do the same.

4. Hiding in the Herd

Human community can be both a gift for our growth and an inhibition to it. Like Adam and Eve as they ate from the tree, there’s a herd mentality in all of us—a tendency to be influenced, led, and shaped by each other in destructive ways.

Community can be insular and bias-confirming, when we defend everything in our camp and judge those in other camps. Whatever is common becomes comfortable, normalized, justifiable. Evangelicals are not immune to this problem. We can easily fall into categories of “us versus them,” or Christians vs. the culture, blinded to how we’ve simply Christianized the same secular practices we claim to detest.

As we benefit from the beauty and life of Christian community, let’s also check the motives, habits, and presuppositions of our tribe. This is hard and courageous work, but in the end the status quo of evangelicalism is not always the way of Jesus.

Is community our crutch, a way to excuse sin because we’re “not the only ones”? Are we afraid to stand out and content to blend in, even when we sense we’re being disobedient?

As we benefit from the beauty and life of Christian community, let’s also check the motives, habits, and presuppositions of our tribe.

5. The Giftedness Game

A mentor once shared that his greatest moments of temptation come on the heels of success. As a gifted pastor and communicator, he recognizes in the aftermath of a great sermon, with the affirmation of his people ringing in his ears, he sometimes feels entitled to reward himself in sinful ways.

My mentor’s honesty is instructive for us all. Are we quietly convinced God cares more about giftedness than character? Do we imagine our “indispensability” in God’s kingdom affords us special privileges to dabble in rebellion?

Our friends and colleagues may applaud our gifts. The world may admire our success. But God’s eyes are fixed on our hearts. What does he see?

We must not let our accomplishments outpace our character. Our résumés do not excuse our rebellion. By God’s grace, may our public obedience accurately reflect our private habits.  

We must not let our accomplishments outpace our character. Our résumés do not excuse our rebellion.

Look Back as You Move Forward

How do we stop the evasive maneuvers? What can we do to stop the cycle of seeking loopholes that excuse sin rather than truly owning it and turning from it?

We must daily rehearse the gospel to ourselves. We must saturate in the simple, profound truth of the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. And we must not limit the gospel to something Jesus did in the past, but as something Jesus is also doing in our present. It’s not just Christ alone for salvation, but also Christ alone for transformation.

In his book Center Church, Tim Keller writes:

The gospel is not just the ABCs but the A to Z of the Christian life. It is inaccurate to think the gospel is what saves non-Christians, and then Christians mature by trying hard to live according to biblical principles. It is more accurate to say that we are saved by believing the gospel, and then we are transformed in every part of our minds, hearts, and lives by believing the gospel more and more deeply as life goes on.

The more we absorb the gospel, the less necessary each loophole becomes. In Christ, we don’t have to manufacture remorse for sin. Instead, Jesus’s sacrifice floods our hearts with affection for him. As we gaze at Calvary, it becomes impossible to trivialize our sin. Our good works are exposed as insufficient. Our cynicism is melted away. We’re freed from conformity to others. We come to see success not as license to sin, but as grace to undeserving rebels.

Our rebellion is indeed stubborn, but the love of Christ is more stubborn still. As we yield to the excavating work of the Spirit, saturated in the truth of the gospel, our loopholes will fall away.

Will Anderson (MA, Talbot School of Theology) is a pastor and writer who lives in Austin, Texas, with his wife, Emily.

Posted at: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/5-loopholes-excuse-sin/

Find the Point of Entry

Stephen Kneale

We’re coming into that time of year when we are under attack. I don’t mean spiritually; Satan doesn’t particularly abide by the seasons. No, our house is currently under attack from ants. Every year, they find some way in. Through some crack in the wall or gap in a floorboard. Every day we hoover them up and, the next, come down to find them swarming in again.

As I was trying to remove the latest incursion, I was given some simple but effective advice. Find where they are coming in and focus preventative measures on the point of entry. I was able to follow a line of ants to a tiny gap near the front of our house. We have initially put down washing up liquid (they seem not to like it) which is keeping them at bay. This is tiding us over until we can get some ant powder to ensure they don’t keep coming back.

But sin seems to have a similarly persistent habit of encroaching on us. We may find ourselves falling into sin again and doing little more than the spiritual equivalent of hoovering up the ants. We sin, we repent, but the very next day, there it is back again. We think we have dealt with it, we think we have resolved the problem, but really we have only cleared up the mess left from the latest iteration. And so, unsurprisingly, it happens again, and again, and again. It’s not that we don’t want rid of it, it’s just that the only tool we ever reach for is one that deals with the problem after it has arisen.

Just like with our ant problem, we need to find the point of entry and enact some preventative measures. If we know we are prone to particular sins, its not much good simply clearing away as and when it happens. We might be repentant, and genuinely mean it, but its not going to do much in the long run to stop it happening again. And if we know we are prone to such sins, genuine repentance means more than just cleaning up after the fact but putting ourselves in a position, and putting things in place, to limit the possibility of it happening again.

In other words, we have to find the point of entry for the sins to which we are prone and lay the spiritual equivalent of ant powder to prevent it getting in. There comes a point at which, knowing we are tempted to certain besetting sins, we are dicing with death if we aren’t willing to inconvenience ourselves enough to stop falling into it. That is not to say you will necessarily never see that sin again – just as my laying ant powder doesn’t mean I will never see another ant inside my house – but it does make it that much less likely and evidences a desire to mortify it.

If Jesus can talk seriously about hands chopped off and eyes gouged out if they cause you to sin (cf. Matthew 5:29f), why should we be any less serious about it? If your internet connection causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. Better to lose your ISP than to enter Hell with your wifi password. It’s no good insisting that you need the internet (or even, your computer) for your work. The prostitutes who came to Jesus, no doubt, had similar concerns. If your ministry is causing you to sin, stand down and do something less visible. Better to end your ministry than to enter Hell with your pastor’s contract. It’s no good insisting your church will probably fall apart if you leave. No doubt the early church viewed the apostles as they were martyred similarly.

We are, by nature, self-justifying creatures. Any sin to which we are prone may come with excuses. The circumstances under which we repeatedly find ourselves falling can readily be justified as necessary. Yet a repentant heart would do what is practicable to inconvenience itself enough to minimise repeat occurrences. There comes a point at which, if we’re not willing to do so, we are proactively giving sin a foothold and evidencing a heart that is happy to indulge sin. And that, dear reader, is a treacherous path indeed.

We will all have besetting sin this side of glory. None of us will free ourselves from sin influence in this life. As such, we must find the points of entry and take preventative measures before we find ourselves infested. Some of that will be positively stepping into our time with the Lord, being honest with him in our prayers about our struggles, seeking to surround ourselves with those who will encourage us to press on in the church. But some of it might involve placing ourselves in positions where the sins to which we are prone will have a much harder time gaining entry. It may mean doing what some would consider drastic because we don’t want to dishonour the Lord.

If we’re frequently failing to honour the Lord in our existing circumstances, we have to ask whether we love the Lord more than we want the thing causing us to sin. A genuine love for the Lord will mean we want to honour and glorify him more than we want anything else. For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?

Posted at: https://stephenkneale.com/2019/05/22/find-the-point-of-entry/

Why Did Christ Die?

Excerpt from John Stott book “The Cross of Christ”

Herod and Pilate, Gentiles and Jews … had together “conspired” against Jesus (Acts 4:27). More important still, we ourselves are also guilty. If we were in their place, we would have done what they did. Indeed we have done it. For whenever we turn away from Christ, we “are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace” (Heb 6:6). We too sacrifice Jesus to our greed like Judas, to our envy like the priests, to our ambition like Pilate. “Were you there when they crucified my Lord?” the old negro spiritual asks. And we must answer, “Yes, we were there.” Not as spectators only, but as participants, guilty participants, plotting, scheming, betraying, bargaining and handing him over to be crucified. We may try to wash our hands of responsibility like Pilate. But our attempt will be as futile as his. For there is blood on our hands . . .

Before we can begin to see the cross as something done for us (leading to faith and worship), we have to see it as something done by us (leading us to repentance). Indeed, “only the man who is prepared to own his share in the guilt of the cross,” wrote Canon Peter Green, “may claim his share in its grace.”

On the human level, Judas gave him up to the priests, who gave him up to Pilate, who gave him up to the soldiers, who crucified him. But on the divine level, the Father gave him up, and he gave himself up, to die for us. As we face the cross, then, we can say to ourselves both, “I did it, my sins sent him there,” and “He did it, his love took him there.” The apostle Peter brought the two truths together in his remarkable statement on the Day of Pentecost, both that “this man was handed over to you by God’s set purpose and foreknowledge” and that “you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross.” Peter thus attributes Jesus’ death simultaneously to the plan of God and to the wickedness of men. For the cross which . . . is an exposure of human evil is at the same time a revelation of the divine purpose to overcome the human evil thus exposed.

Posted at: https://ftc.co/resource-library/blog-entries/why-did-christ-die

Toward a Theology of Apology

By Kevin DeYoung

We need more work in the years ahead—exegetical, historical, and doctrinal—on our theology of apology.

For starters, the word itself is ambiguous. Apology can mean anything from “let me defend myself,” to “my bad,” to “I’m sorry you feel that way,” to “I repent in deepest contrition.” We could use more careful language to express what we mean (and don’t mean) to communicate.

Apologies are also complicated by history. What is our responsibility in the present to apologize for things that have happened in the past? Should Christians apologize for the Crusades? For the Salem Witch Trials? For slavery? Some apologies for the past are appropriate and heartfelt, while others feel less sincere and more manufactured.

And then there is the presence of social media, which gives us all the opportunity to make public apologies (or demand them of others). When are public apologies profound examples of humility and healing, and when do they cross the line into implicit rebuke and moral grandstanding? These are issues of the heart to be sure, but they are also biblical and theological issues.

Moving in the Right Direction (Maybe)

The “Toward” in the title of this post is important. It’s the academic way of saying, “I don’t have this all figured out, but maybe I have something helpful to throw into the mix, so here goes.” With my weasel word firmly in place, here are two suggestions for Christians as we formulate a theology of apology.

Suggestion #1

First, let’s utilize the category of corporate responsibility, but within limits.

The book of Acts is an illuminating case study in this respect. We see, on the one hand, that people can be held responsible for sins they may not have directly carried out. In Acts 2, Peter charges the “[m]en of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem” (v. 14) with crucifying Jesus (v. 23, 36). To be sure, they did this by the hands of lawless men (v. 23), but as Jews present in Jerusalem during Passion Week, they bore some responsibility for Jesus’s death. Likewise, Peter charged the men of Israel gathered at Solomon’s Portico with delivering Jesus over and denying him in the presence of Pilate (Acts 3:11-16). While we don’t know if every single person in the Acts 3 crowd had chosen Barabbas over Christ, Peter certainly felt comfortable in laying the crucifixion at their feet. Most, if not all of them, had played an active role in the events leading up to Jesus’s death. This was a sin in need of repentance (v. 19, 26). We see the same in Acts 4:10 and 5:30 where Peter and John charge the council (i.e., the Sanhedrin) with killing Jesus. In short, the Jews in Jerusalem during Jesus’s last days bore responsibility for his murder.

Once the action leaves Jerusalem, however, the charges start to sound different. In speaking to Cornelius (a Gentile), his relatives, and close friends, Peter relays that they (the Jews in Jerusalem) put Jesus to death (10:39). Even more specifically, Paul tells the crowd in Pisidian Antioch that “those who live in Jerusalem and their rulers” condemned Jesus (Acts 13:27). This speech is especially important because Paul is talking to Jews. He does not blame the Jews in Pisidian Antioch with the crimes of the Jews in Jerusalem.

This is a consistent pattern. Paul doesn’t charge the Jews in Thessalonica or Berea with killing Jesus (Acts 17), nor the Jews in Corinth (Acts 18) or in Ephesus (Acts 19). In fact, when Paul returns to Jerusalem years after the crucifixion, he does not accuse the Jews there of killing Jesus; he does not even charge the council with that crime (Acts 23). He doesn’t blame Felix (Acts 24) or Festus (Acts 25) or Agrippa (Acts 26) for Jesus’s death, even though they are all men in authority connected in some way with the governing apparatus that killed Christ. The apostles considered the Jews in Jerusalem at the time of the crucifixion uniquely responsible for Jesus’s death, but this culpability did not extend to every high-ranking official, to every Jew, or to everyone who would live in Jerusalem thereafter. The rest of the Jews and Gentiles in the book of Acts still had to repent of their wickedness, but they were not charged with killing the Messiah.

Does this mean there is never any place for corporate culpability across time and space? No. In Matthew 23:35, Jesus charges the Scribes and Pharisees with murdering Zechariah the son of Barachiah. Although there is disagreement about who this Zechariah is, most scholars agree he is a figure from the past who was not killed in their lifetimes. The fact that the Scribes and Pharisees were treating Jesus with contempt put them in the same category as their ancestors who had also treated God’s prophets with contempt (cf. Acts 7:51-53). It could rightly be said that they murdered Zechariah between the sanctuary and the altar because they shared in the same spirit of hate as the murderers in Zechariah’s day.

Similarly, we see several examples of corporate confession in the Old Testament. As God’s covenant people, the Israelites were commanded to confess their sins and turn from their wicked ways so as to come out from under the divinely sanctioned covenant curses (2 Chron. 6:12-42; 7:13-18). This is why we see the likes of Ezra (Ezra 9-10), Nehemiah (Neh. 1:4-11), and Daniel (Dan. 9:3-19) leading in corporate confession. The Jews were not lumped together because of race, ethnicity, geography, education level, or socio-economic status. The Israelites had freely entered into a covenant relationship with each other and with their God. In all three examples above, the leader entered into corporate confession because (1) he was praying for the covenant people, (2) the people were as a whole marked by unfaithfulness, and (3) the leader himself bore some responsibility for the actions of the people, either by having been blind to the sin (Ezra 9:3) or by participating directly in the sin (Neh. 9:6; Dan. 9:20).

To sum up: The Bible has a category for corporate responsibility. Culpability for sins committed can extend to a large group if virtually everyone in the group was active in the sin (it is telling, however, that the apostles don’t seem to think they killed Jesus, even though they were in Jerusalem at that time). We can also be held responsible for sins committed long ago if we bear the same spiritual resemblance to the perpetrators of the past. And yet, the category of corporate responsibility can be stretched too far. The Jews of the diaspora were not guilty of killing Jesus just because they were Jews. Neither were later Jews in Jerusalem charged with that crime just because they lived in the place where the crucifixion took place. And we must differentiate between other-designated identity blocs and freely chosen covenantal communities. Moral complicity is not strictly individualistic, but it has its limits.

Which leads to a second point.

Suggestion #2

Let’s try using more precise categories when apologizing for the past.

As I said at the beginning, our apologizing words don’t always mean the same thing. “I’m sorry” can mean “I feel bad that you are hurting” all the way to “I sinned against God and men.” Likewise, people may use “blame” to mean “I could have done more” or “I feel deep contrition for my wickedness.” We need some additional categories for expressing grief over wrongs committed.

I can think of at least four things we might mean by making an apology for something in the past.

• Recognition: I acknowledge what happened, and I see the negative effects of those sins of omission or commission.

• Remorse: I feel terrible for what has happened.

• Renunciation: I reject what has taken place in the past and repudiate those beliefs, words, thoughts, or actions.

• Repentance: I have sinned against God and will turn away from this evil and strive after greater obedience to God’s law in my life.

Each aspect of apology has its place, but all may not be present in every instance of saying, “I’m sorry.” Sometimes we get tied up in knots making public apologies of corporate sin because we are unsure how to repent of sins we didn’t commit, when a more appropriate (and equally salutary) step might be to recognize what happened and express our remorse over what transpired in the past, while utterly renouncing those attitudes and actions wherever they exist in the present.

[I suppose you could make restitution a fifth aspect of apologizing, but I would include this under repentance. When Zacchaeus declared his intentions to pay back four-times the amount he defrauded from others—in keeping with Old Testament law (Exod. 22:1)—Jesus took this as a sign of genuine faith and repentance (Luke 19:8-9). While the law at Sinai never tried to enforce a vision of cosmic justice whereby every inequality was abolished, it did command God’s people to make restitution for wrongs committed (Exod. 21:33-22:15) and to be openhanded to the needy (Exod. 22:21-27).]

Is There Room for We?

Of course, things get even trickier if we change those “I” statements to “we” statements. When am I responsible for something as a “we” that I may not be responsible for as an “I”? That depends on a lot of factors. We’ve already seen that Paul did not ask the Jews in Pisidian Antioch to repent of killing Jesus just because they were Jews. And yet, that doesn’t put an end to all corporate responsibility.

Consider two examples.

If you’ll permit a grim analogy, suppose you are the parent of a child who ends up a mass shooter. You raised your child with love and discipline. You didn’t encourage any destructive or hateful tendencies. You were a good (if still imperfect) parent, and your other children turned out fine. When the camera comes on you for a statement, you may not repent per se (since you don’t feel like you sinned in how you raised your now-25-year-old son), but you would certainly be right to recognize what has happened, express profound remorse (probably even saying “I’m sorry”), and renounce violence of this kind.

But consider a second example. Suppose you never disciplined your child for violent behavior. You saw his disturbing journals and did nothing about it. In fact, as a parent, you often told your son that people of color, or people with disabilities, or people with athletic chops, or pretty girls, or whatever, were losers and didn’t deserve to live. Now when you find out what your son has done, what do you say? Even though you didn’t commit a crime, you would be right to issue a “we” statement that includes repentance. Your actions played a direct role in the tragedy.

It’s messy, isn’t it? Someone can always say that you were a part of “a culture” that produced someone or something. But I think we need a tighter argument. The apostles didn’t argue that the culture of first-century Judaism killed Jesus; the Jews in Jerusalem, by the hands of the Romans, killed Jesus. Our corporate apologies would be helped if we looked at the differences between recognition, remorse, renunciation, and repentance.

Similarly, public apologies are more or less appropriate based on whether their cost is mainly to us or mainly to someone else. When someone steeped in Southern Presbyterianism apologizes in tears for the sins of the 19th-century Presbyterians he grew up revering, that costs something. When college kids, who have never been tempted in their lives to idolize Richard the Lionheart, set up confessional booths on campus to apologize for the Crusades, that costs next to nothing. One is a public expression of personal lament; the other is a personal expression of public accusation.

All of this means that the stronger the ties that bind, the stronger the argument for corporate identification. On the one hand, some Christians are quick to apologize for anything and everything (and quicker to demand apologies from everyone else). On the other hand, there are too many examples in the Bible of God’s covenant people confessing their sins together to immediately dismiss every attempt to address corporate sins of the past or the present. Even if we don’t issue a formal statement of repentance, there is still a place for churches, denominations, and other institutions to express the other three R’s. Our theology of apology must be sufficiently nuanced to allow that “We are sorry” can be appropriate even in situations where insisting on moral complicity may not be. If the Sanhedrin in AD 90 had come to Christ en masse, they wouldn’t have had to repent for killing Jesus, but we would certainly have taken it as a good sign if they had expressed the deepest remorse over his crucifixion and renounced the opposition to Jesus that lead to his death.

Posted at: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/kevin-deyoung/toward-theology-apology/

Recipe for Repentance

Article by Josh Squires

There are fewer deceptions that are more confounding than that of false repentance. When someone pretends to confess and turn away from sin, but in the depths of his heart means only to appease anger and escape consequences, it leaves in its wake an especially sensitive kind of confusion and pain.

“Do they really mean it?” is a question that I’m asked frequently. My response is that I do not know for sure, and I am vulnerable to deception. However, genuine repentance tends to be more like mountains on the horizon than a pit on the path — that is, it tends to be easily discernible and not something for which you have to be on the lookout. The more you feel like you have to go find it, the less likely it is authentic.

Why Do We Repent?

“My bad.” Those words got me out of more trouble as a young man than any other two-word combination I can imagine. Guys especially have a tendency to think that repentance almost solely consists of admitting a fault. Once the fault has been admitted, even if in the most lexically concise way possible, the assumption is that everyone should just get over it and move on.

However, when repentance is given the short shrift, so is the relationship that is supposed to be repaired. Our repenting of sin is the first step toward rebuilding trust with those whom our sin has harmed or affected. If we seem irritated or rash in our repentance, then the wound which that sin created can stay open and become infected with bitterness.

More than that, the reason that we prioritize repentance is because our Lord and Savior tells us to (1 John 1:9). The gospel is on full display when we repent. Its light shines forth for us as we perceive our moment-to-moment need of a gracious Savior, and it penetrates into the painful darkness of others as it illuminates the route to restoration grounded in the good news of a holy God. As Tertullian once said, “I was born for no other end but to repent.”

The famous seventeenth century pastor Thomas Watson wrote a treatise on repentance with six “ingredients” to show us what genuine repentance looks like.

1. Sight of Sin

By this, Watson means that we rightly perceive ourselves as sinners. How often have you heard the phrase, “I know I’m not perfect but . . . ” which in nearly every circumstance means, “when it comes to this, I’m perfect!” Genuine repentance starts with the understanding that we are desperate sinners whose sin touches nearly everything we do (Romans 3:10). It means that we should not be surprised when we find it necessary to repent, nor should that exercise undo us.

2. Sorrow over Sin

This ingredient is the element of lament for our sin as we see its effect on ourselves, on others, and on God. As David cries, “The sacrifices of God are . . . a broken and contrite heart” (Psalm 51:17). This is the element which is most easily observed and therefore most often counterfeited. As Watson observes some are sorrowful “not because sin is sinful, but because it is painful.”

3. Confession of Sin

Again Watson writes, “Sorrow is such a vehement passion that it must vent. It vents itself at the eyes by weeping and at the tongue by confession.” Confession should focus on oneself and one’s own sin. It should not look to mitigate, excuse, rationalize, or blame. Genuine repentance takes ownership of the pain that our sin has caused both in its particulars and generalities.

While preferred that confession is always voluntary on the part of the penitent, it is not uncommon for confession to flow from the fact that the Lord has graciously let us be caught in our sinful ways. However, if confession results only from the times that we are involuntarily caught in our sin, then this is no repentance at all.

I cannot count the number of philanders, gossips, addicts, and gamblers whose confessions became a serial event — always confessing to exactly what they’d been caught doing and no more. Our confessions, while they do not have to go into exacting detail, must not leave grand portions of our sin concealed.

4. Shame of Sin

“Blushing is the color of virtue,” says Watson. All sin makes us guilty, and that guilt is only removed at the cost of the blood of God himself, who voluntarily took on flesh and lived a perfect life never once ceding to temptation, though tempted by the prince of lies himself. He voluntarily clothed himself in that very sin and took on the wrath of God — hell itself! — at Calvary. If that does not make us ashamed when we sin, nothing will! May there be in our communities of faith more blushing and less boasting when it comes to sin (Ezra 9:6).

5. Hatred of Sin

“Christ is never loved till sin is loathed.” Genuine repentance reflects something of God’s wrath. God’s anger burns at sin, and for those who do not trust in Christ alone for salvation, they will experience this firsthand upon death. It is not just a historical anger but an eternal one.

When we get angry at our own sin, we are reflecting something of God’s holiness and purity to those around. This hatred of sin in oneself, when genuine, is never too far from the surface. It usually only takes a little agitation to yield significant expression. When someone’s anger is focused primarily on others’ sins and not his own, it’s typically a sign that repentance is a mere performance.

6. Turning from Sin

Repentance means little if it does not result in reformation. This is the ingredient of repentance that takes the longest and can be the most excruciating for all involved. Will you raise your voice again in anger? Will you look at something inappropriate when no one else is around? Will you talk again about someone else’s flaws just so you can feel accepted?

Scripture tells us that we must not only repent but that we must also actively turn from the sins we commit (Ezekiel 14:6). If we repent without a sincere desire to keep from engaging in that same sin in the future, then one or more of the ingredients above are missing. That said, if we turn from sin in our own strength, we will fail. We will lose both the motivation and the energy for the fight that the conflict against sin requires of us. Instead, if we turn not to our own efforts but to God, we will find ourselves more and more refreshed by his grace and have the catalyst to see sin beaten.

Repentance is a key part of the Christian life. It never feels good — and if it does, you’re doing it wrong — but it is necessary. It’s what reminds us of our need for grace while displaying our growth in grace to the world around.

Josh Squires (@RevJASquires) serves as pastor of counseling and congregational care at First Presbyterian Church in Columbia, South Carolina. He and his wife have five children.

Posted at: https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/a-recipe-for-repentance

Toward a Theology of Apology

Kevin DeYoung

We need more work in the years ahead—exegetical, historical, and doctrinal—on our theology of apology.

For starters, the word itself is ambiguous. Apology can mean anything from “let me defend myself,” to “my bad,” to “I’m sorry you feel that way,” to “I repent in deepest contrition.” We could use more careful language to express what we mean (and don’t mean) to communicate.

Apologies are also complicated by history. What is our responsibility in the present to apologize for things that have happened in the past? Should Christians apologize for the Crusades? For the Salem Witch Trials? For slavery? Some apologies for the past are appropriate and heartfelt, while others feel less sincere and more manufactured.

And then there is the presence of social media, which gives us all the opportunity to make public apologies (or demand them of others). When are public apologies profound examples of humility and healing, and when do they cross the line into implicit rebuke and moral grandstanding? These are issues of the heart to be sure, but they are also biblical and theological issues.

Moving in the Right Direction (Maybe)

The “Toward” in the title of this post is important. It’s the academic way of saying, “I don’t have this all figured out, but maybe I have something helpful to throw into the mix, so here goes.” With my weasel word firmly in place, here are two suggestions for Christians as we formulate a theology of apology.

Suggestion #1

First, let’s utilize the category of corporate responsibility, but within limits.

The book of Acts is an illuminating case study in this respect. We see, on the one hand, that people can be held responsible for sins they may not have directly carried out. In Acts 2, Peter charges the “[m]en of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem” (v. 14) with crucifying Jesus (v. 23, 36). To be sure, they did this by the hands of lawless men (v. 23), but as Jews present in Jerusalem during Passion Week, they bore some responsibility for Jesus’s death. Likewise, Peter charged the men of Israel gathered at Solomon’s Portico with delivering Jesus over and denying him in the presence of Pilate (Acts 3:11-16). While we don’t know if every single person in the Acts 3 crowd had chosen Barabbas over Christ, Peter certainly felt comfortable in laying the crucifixion at their feet. Most, if not all of them, had played an active role in the events leading up to Jesus’s death. This was a sin in need of repentance (v. 19, 26). We see the same in Acts 4:10 and 5:30 where Peter and John charge the council (i.e., the Sanhedrin) with killing Jesus. In short, the Jews in Jerusalem during Jesus’s last days bore responsibility for his murder.

Once the action leaves Jerusalem, however, the charges start to sound different. In speaking to Cornelius (a Gentile), his relatives, and close friends, Peter relays that they (the Jews in Jerusalem) put Jesus to death (10:39). Even more specifically, Paul tells the crowd in Pisidian Antioch that “those who live in Jerusalem and their rulers” condemned Jesus (Acts 13:27). This speech is especially important because Paul is talking to Jews. He does not blame the Jews in Pisidian Antioch with the crimes of the Jews in Jerusalem.

This is a consistent pattern. Paul doesn’t charge the Jews in Thessalonica or Berea with killing Jesus (Acts 17), nor the Jews in Corinth (Acts 18) or in Ephesus (Acts 19). In fact, when Paul returns to Jerusalem years after the crucifixion, he does not accuse the Jews there of killing Jesus; he does not even charge the council with that crime (Acts 23). He doesn’t blame Felix (Acts 24) or Festus (Acts 25) or Agrippa (Acts 26) for Jesus’s death, even though they are all men in authority connected in some way with the governing apparatus that killed Christ. The apostles considered the Jews in Jerusalem at the time of the crucifixion uniquely responsible for Jesus’s death, but this culpability did not extend to every high-ranking official, to every Jew, or to everyone who would live in Jerusalem thereafter. The rest of the Jews and Gentiles in the book of Acts still had to repent of their wickedness, but they were not charged with killing the Messiah.

Does this mean there is never any place for corporate culpability across time and space? No. In Matthew 23:35, Jesus charges the Scribes and Pharisees with murdering Zechariah the son of Barachiah. Although there is disagreement about who this Zechariah is, most scholars agree he is a figure from the past who was not killed in their lifetimes. The fact that the Scribes and Pharisees were treating Jesus with contempt put them in the same category as their ancestors who had also treated God’s prophets with contempt (cf. Acts 7:51-53). It could rightly be said that they murdered Zechariah between the sanctuary and the altar because they shared in the same spirit of hate as the murderers in Zechariah’s day.

Similarly, we see several examples of corporate confession in the Old Testament. As God’s covenant people, the Israelites were commanded to confess their sins and turn from their wicked ways so as to come out from under the divinely sanctioned covenant curses (2 Chron. 6:12-42; 7:13-18). This is why we see the likes of Ezra (Ezra 9-10), Nehemiah (Neh. 1:4-11), and Daniel (Dan. 9:3-19) leading in corporate confession. The Jews were not lumped together because of race, ethnicity, geography, education level, or socio-economic status. The Israelites had freely entered into a covenant relationship with each other and with their God. In all three examples above, the leader entered into corporate confession because (1) he was praying for the covenant people, (2) the people were as a whole marked by unfaithfulness, and (3) the leader himself bore some responsibility for the actions of the people, either by having been blind to the sin (Ezra 9:3) or by participating directly in the sin (Neh. 9:6; Dan. 9:20).

To sum up: The Bible has a category for corporate responsibility. Culpability for sins committed can extend to a large group if virtually everyone in the group was active in the sin (it is telling, however, that the apostles don’t seem to think they killed Jesus, even though they were in Jerusalem at that time). We can also be held responsible for sins committed long ago if we bear the same spiritual resemblance to the perpetrators of the past. And yet, the category of corporate responsibility can be stretched too far. The Jews of the diaspora were not guilty of killing Jesus just because they were Jews. Neither were later Jews in Jerusalem charged with that crime just because they lived in the place where the crucifixion took place. And we must differentiate between other-designated identity blocs and freely chosen covenantal communities. Moral complicity is not strictly individualistic, but it has its limits.

Which leads to a second point.

Suggestion #2

Let’s try using more precise categories when apologizing for the past.

As I said at the beginning, our apologizing words don’t always mean the same thing. “I’m sorry” can mean “I feel bad that you are hurting” all the way to “I sinned against God and men.” Likewise, people may use “blame” to mean “I could have done more” or “I feel deep contrition for my wickedness.” We need some additional categories for expressing grief over wrongs committed.

I can think of at least four things we might mean by making an apology for something in the past.

• Recognition: I acknowledge what happened, and I see the negative effects of those sins of omission or commission.

• Remorse: I feel terrible for what has happened.

• Renunciation: I reject what has taken place in the past and repudiate those beliefs, words, thoughts, or actions.

• Repentance: I have sinned against God and will turn away from this evil and strive after greater obedience to God’s law in my life.

Each aspect of apology has its place, but all may not be present in every instance of saying, “I’m sorry.” Sometimes we get tied up in knots making public apologies of corporate sin because we are unsure how to repent of sins we didn’t commit, when a more appropriate (and equally salutary) step might be to recognize what happened and express our remorse over what transpired in the past, while utterly renouncing those attitudes and actions wherever they exist in the present.

[I suppose you could make restitution a fifth aspect of apologizing, but I would include this under repentance. When Zacchaeus declared his intentions to pay back four-times the amount he defrauded from others—in keeping with Old Testament law (Exod. 22:1)—Jesus took this as a sign of genuine faith and repentance (Luke 19:8-9). While the law at Sinai never tried to enforce a vision of cosmic justice whereby every inequality was abolished, it did command God’s people to make restitution for wrongs committed (Exod. 21:33-22:15) and to be openhanded to the needy (Exod. 22:21-27).]

Is There Room for We?

Of course, things get even trickier if we change those “I” statements to “we” statements. When am I responsible for something as a “we” that I may not be responsible for as an “I”? That depends on a lot of factors. We’ve already seen that Paul did not ask the Jews in Pisidian Antioch to repent of killing Jesus just because they were Jews. And yet, that doesn’t put an end to all corporate responsibility.

Consider two examples.

If you’ll permit a grim analogy, suppose you are the parent of a child who ends up a mass shooter. You raised your child with love and discipline. You didn’t encourage any destructive or hateful tendencies. You were a good (if still imperfect) parent, and your other children turned out fine. When the camera comes on you for a statement, you may not repent per se (since you don’t feel like you sinned in how you raised your now-25-year-old son), but you would certainly be right to recognize what has happened, express profound remorse (probably even saying “I’m sorry”), and renounce violence of this kind.

But consider a second example. Suppose you never disciplined your child for violent behavior. You saw his disturbing journals and did nothing about it. In fact, as a parent, you often told your son that people of color, or people with disabilities, or people with athletic chops, or pretty girls, or whatever, were losers and didn’t deserve to live. Now when you find out what your son has done, what do you say? Even though you didn’t commit a crime, you would be right to issue a “we” statement that includes repentance. Your actions played a direct role in the tragedy.

It’s messy, isn’t it? Someone can always say that you were a part of “a culture” that produced someone or something. But I think we need a tighter argument. The apostles didn’t argue that the culture of first-century Judaism killed Jesus; the Jews in Jerusalem, by the hands of the Romans, killed Jesus. Our corporate apologies would be helped if we looked at the differences between recognition, remorse, renunciation, and repentance.

Similarly, public apologies are more or less appropriate based on whether their cost is mainly to us or mainly to someone else. When someone steeped in Southern Presbyterianism apologizes in tears for the sins of the 19th-century Presbyterians he grew up revering, that costs something. When college kids, who have never been tempted in their lives to idolize Richard the Lionheart, set up confessional booths on campus to apologize for the Crusades, that costs next to nothing. One is a public expression of personal lament; the other is a personal expression of public accusation.

All of this means that the stronger the ties that bind, the stronger the argument for corporate identification. On the one hand, some Christians are quick to apologize for anything and everything (and quicker to demand apologies from everyone else). On the other hand, there are too many examples in the Bible of God’s covenant people confessing their sins together to immediately dismiss every attempt to address corporate sins of the past or the present. Even if we don’t issue a formal statement of repentance, there is still a place for churches, denominations, and other institutions to express the other three R’s. Our theology of apology must be sufficiently nuanced to allow that “We are sorry” can be appropriate even in situations where insisting on moral complicity may not be. If the Sanhedrin in AD 90 had come to Christ en masse, they wouldn’t have had to repent for killing Jesus, but we would certainly have taken it as a good sign if they had expressed the deepest remorse over his crucifixion and renounced the opposition to Jesus that lead to his death.

Posted at: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/kevin-deyoung/toward-theology-apology/

Why God's Kindness Leads to Repentance

Article by Michael Card

What we thought would be a routine procedure dragged out to three days in the hospital. The surgeon was amazingly kind, as were the nurses who meticulously cared for us. On the second day, when I began to realize that we might have a longer stay ahead, I went down to the store for some “possibles” we would need.

When I filed into the checkout line, there was a woman ahead of me with as many items in her hands as I had. She smiled and said, “Why don’t you go ahead of me.” Little did she know the minefield she had just stepped into.

“Oh, I couldn’t do that,” I said. “My mother didn’t raise me to break in line, and what’s more I was always taught to let girls go first,” I said jokingly, but also kind of serious.

She patiently smiled, but insisted again that I go ahead: “I have some questions, and I don’t want you to have to wait on me.”

“But I would be glad to wait,” I said, still trying to be considerate, kind, my mother’s son, and so on.

Then she said something that suddenly brought tears to my eyes. There are tears in my eyes at this moment as I write these words, though I’m not sure I completely understand why.

RECIPROCAL KINDNESS

“Why won’t you let me be kind to you?” she said.

Why wouldn’t I? In my mind, apparently kindness counted only when I did it for someone else. In that small encounter I learned a new lesson. If you truly love hesed as Micah 6:8 says, you should love having it shown to you as much as showing it to others. As Paul says, it’s a pathway, and it can be traveled in more than one way.

Perhaps something like this is in view when Paul asks why we sometimes despise the riches of God’s kindness. Why would we question him in the garden? Why would we refuse to enter the Promised Land? Why would we say no to his extravagant offer of loving us through his Son?

His kindness is a path that leads us to repentance, that leads us to Jesus.

HESED: THE PATH TO REPENTANCE

Paul is not the systematic theologian he is sometimes made out to be. He is a church-planting pastor, overpowered by the grace and mercy of God. Though Paul had been a persecutor of the church, ungrateful, even wicked, Jesus forgave him and enlisted him to become one of its most influential apostles. Paul had become a sure recipient of hesed, and he remained amazed by it for the rest of his life. He offers encouragement and deals with problems in his letters. And like the other New Testament writers, he thinks in Hebrew and writes in Greek.

We do not consult the letters of Paul like a theological answer book. Rather, we go to Paul to find the answers to problems and conflicts in the church and in our lives. That was the original purpose of his writing. He was writing to encourage the young church as it faced impossible obstacles. If he has a theology (and certainly he does), it is what William Lane calls a “task theology.”

To be honest, hesed as we have sought to define it is not prevalent in the writings of Paul. Twice he quotes Old Testament passages but frustratingly stops just before the word hesed appears (Rom 15:9, 10). Scholars cannot even agree on what Greek word he used when he was talking about hesed. Some say agape (love), while others argue for charis (grace).

But understanding hesed is not a matter of settling on one single term. Its semantic range is simply too vast. Grace, mercy, and love are central to Paul’s understanding of God’s free offer of forgiveness. In his writings, they are less technical theological terms and far more about describing the heart of God.

THE KINDNESS OF GOD

There is another term Paul uses that often describes the character of God and belongs in the world of hesed. It is the Greek word chrēstotēs usually translated “kindness” (see Rom 2:4; 2 Cor 6:6; Gal 5:22; Col 3:12; Titus 3:4).1 We have seen that this idea falls close to the center of the semantic range of hesed. The word most often appears in the midst of the “chain sayings” Paul (and Peter) was so fond of. In Ephesians 2:7 Paul speaks about the immeasurable riches of God’s grace being displayed through his kindness (chrēstotēs) to us in Christ Jesus. But two passages in Romans speak most clearly of God’s hesed as Paul seems to understand it.

We are not certain when the church in Rome was founded. There is no attribution to a single apostle. When Paul communicates to the believers in Rome, it is clear they have already been gathering for some time, perhaps as early as AD 40. When he arrives in the city he is greeted by a strong group of the followers of Jesus from an apparently well-established church that demonstrates remarkable hospitality (Acts 28:13- 15). In his letter to the Romans, Paul comments that they are known all over the world (Rom 1:8). But a crisis overshadows the church.

Suetonius wrote about a riot in the city in AD 49 over someone he referred to as Chrestus. It is a slave name that means “good one.” Historians agree that it is, in fact, a garbled form of the name Christos. As a result of the disturbance, Emperor Claudius ordered that all the Jews be banished from the city. This would include Jewish Christians as well. As a result the Roman church was divided. The Jews were sent away, while the Gentile believers remained behind.

From the beginning Jesus had been worshiped in Hebrew as Messiah; then as the remaining Gentiles filled the leadership vacuum he was celebrated in Greek as Kurios, or Lord. In AD 54 Claudius died, and as was the custom his edicts were canceled. The Jews returned to Rome (see Acts 18:2), and tension in the church began to rise. Before the expulsion, leadership was primarily Jewish. In the gap caused by the edict, Gentiles had taken up leadership. They had been shaping the church for five years. This is the central problem Paul is dealing with in the letter to the Romans. There are leadership struggles and disagreements in the body as to who Jesus is and how he should be celebrated. Believers are judging one another and factions are forming.

KINDNESS LEADS TO REPENTANCE

In his letter Paul gives two reasons for writing. First, he has been trying to come to them but has been prevented thus far (Rom 1:10, 13). Second, he wants to encourage them and be encouraged by them (Rom 1:12). Paul begins in chapter 1 with a discussion of sin. He goes on to encourage the church to not get caught up in the sins of paganism and to also avoid the sin of passing judgment on those who do.

The context of Paul’s allusion to hesed in Romans 2:4 is the previous discussion of sin in the Gentile world. In the opening verses of chapter 2 he is insisting the church, given the pagan environment, must also keep from the sin of being judgmental, for when they judge others they are really judging themselves. In that context he makes an extraordinary statement that relates to the hesed character of God: “Or do you despise the riches of his kindness, restraint, and patience, not recognizing that God’s kindness [chrēstotēs] is intended to lead you to repentance?”

The best motivator to keep the Roman Christians, both Jew and Gentile, from becoming mired in their sinful pagan surroundings, and also to keep them from judging each other in the process, is to remember the revelation of God’s character that goes all the way back to Exodus 34. He is a God of hesed. It is not fear that drives us to him, but rather his unexpected and extraordinary kindness that provides a pathway along which we are drawn to him.

Taken from Inexpressible by Michael Card. Copyright (c) 2018 by Michael Card. Published by InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, IL. www.ivpress.com

Michael Card has recorded over thirty-one albums, authored or coauthored over twenty-four books, hosted a radio program, and written for a wide range of magazines. A graduate of Western Kentucky University with a bachelor’s and master’s degree in biblical studies, Card also serves as mentor to many younger artists and musicians, teaching courses on the creative process and calling the Christian recording industry into deeper discipleship. Card lives in Tennessee with his wife and four children.

posted at: http://gcdiscipleship.com/2019/01/17/why-gods-kindness-leads-to-repentance/

8 Steps to Real Repentance From Psalm 51

Article by Catherine Parks

My brother and I had a nightly childhood ritual of asking one another’s forgiveness for a list of vague sins. Having been warned not to let the sun go down on our anger, we made sure to cover all possibilities of sins we may have committed during the day. “Aaron, I’m sorry for yelling at you, hitting you, being selfish with the Nintendo, and tattling on you today. Will you forgive me?” His answer, along with his own confession, came back to my room in return. Thus we slept in the peace of the slightly remorseful.

When I read Psalm 51 (written by David after the prophet Nathan confronted him with his sin), I realize how lacking my childhood confessions were. Even many of my confessions in adulthood leave much to be desired.

Often we treat repentance as a statement—an “I’m sorry, please forgive me” that checks a box and (hopefully) alleviates our guilt. But if we look closely at Psalm 51, we see that repentance is a turning away from sin and a turning toward God—a process that doesn’t merely alleviate guilt but cultivates deep joy.

So how do we grow in a joy-giving habit of repentance? Here are eight steps.

1. Define the sin.

The first step to meaningful confession is understanding what sin is. David uses three different words for it in Psalm 51: “iniquity,” “sin,” and “transgressions” (vv. 1–3). Each term has been deliberately chosen for its unique meaning. “Transgression” is rebellion against God’s authority and law, “iniquity” is a distortion of what should be, and “sin” is missing the mark. David also says his sin is deep—there is no minimizing or excusing it.

2. Appeal to God’s mercy.

The psalm begins: “Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love” (v. 1). Here, David appeals for forgiveness based on what he knows about God’s character: that he is merciful. David knows God is committed to him in a relationship of “unfailing love”—and when we come before God in repentance, we do so because of his covenant with us through Christ.

3. Avoid defensiveness and see God rightly.

David’s sin hurt multiple people. He committed adultery, orchestrated a murder, and tried to cover it all up. And yet he says to God, “against you, you only, have I sinned” (v. 4). How can that be? Sin is missing the mark—God’s mark. Our sin does hurt others, and we must seek forgiveness from them, but all sin is ultimately against God.

4. Look to Jesus.

David writes, “Cleanse me with hyssop, and I shall be clean” (v. 7). He knows hyssop signifies purification with blood (see Ex. 24), and he knows that blood alone can make him clean. What he doesn’t know is exactly how this will be done. But we do. We have the full revelation of Jesus, who “has appeared once for all at the culmination of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself” (Heb. 9:26).

5. Ask God to break and heal you.

David prays, “Let the bones you have crushed rejoice” (v. 8). When God reveals our sin to us, it’s painful. It’s never pleasant to confront just how unholy we are. But like a doctor resetting a fractured bone, it is God who breaks, God who sets, and God who heals.

6. Be comforted by the Spirit.

Next David prays, “Do not . . . take your Holy Spirit from me” (v. 11). But the fact that David is grieved over his sin is a sign that the Spirit is at work in him. Have you ever been so discouraged by your sin that you’ve wondered, How can God love me? Surely I’m not really a Christian. Take comfort in knowing that the grief you’re experiencing is a sign that you have the Holy Spirit working in you, causing you to hate what God hates.

7. Rejoice and proclaim truth.

In verses 12–15, David asks God to make him so joyful about his salvation that he can’t help but proclaim the gospel to others: “Open my lips, Lord, and my mouth will declare your praise.” This is important, because so often we do the opposite—we wallow in our sin and draw back from serving others because we think we’re unworthy. But the joy of forgiveness should compel us to share the good news with friends, family, co-workers, and neighbors.

8. Resolve to obey.

We can do all the steps above, but if we’re planning to sin in the same way again, then grace isn’t truly taking root. What God desires is the mark of true repentance—a heart that is “broken” by sin and truly “contrite.”

As Puritan pastor Thomas Watson wrote, “‘Til sin be bitter, Christ will not be sweet.” If we come to God with a heart set on obedience, he “will not despise” it because of Christ’s sacrifice on our behalf (v. 17).

Unlike my childhood bedtime apologies, practicing this kind of repentance has led to deep joy as I learn to hate my sin and love my Savior more. It has also led me to open up with others, not seeking to hide my sin, but enlisting others in praying for me and building a community of women who fight our sin together. Like David, it’s my joy to tell others of God’s grace and forgiveness, depending on Christ each step of the way.

Editors’ note: 

This article is adapted from Catherine Parks’s new book, Real: The Surprising Secret to Deeper Relationships (The Good Book Company, 2018).

Article posted at: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/steps-repentance-psalm-51/

Your Sin Will Find You Out (But So Will His Righteousness)

Article by Jared C. Wilson

… be sure your sin will find you out.
– Numbers 32:23

In the news a couple of years ago I read a report from Kennebunkport, Maine that a fitness trainer had turned her business into an underground prostitution ring. I am not clear on whether there were multiple prostitutes available or just her, but the primary focus was on the “johns,” a variety of local men, some of them quite prominent figures, whose names were listed in the newspapers. The ensuing debate is over whether such a practice is appropriate. Won’t it ruin these men’s lives and devastate their families? The public shaming is part of the attempt to crack down on prostitution in the area.

I confess I’m not sure how I feel about the publishing of the names. I feel similar in my reaction to those who hang out in the parking lots of adult bookstores and strip clubs, snapping photos of the patrons as they come and go, to print their pics in the local paper, “outing” them. It’s an effort to “take back” neighborhoods, which I certainly sympathize with. In the latter example, nothing illegal (theoretically) is taking place, while of course in the former case, it is. And I guess I can also see the logic in publicizing the names of those soliciting prostitution as a way of creating parity with other crimes, whose suspects are regularly named in the media.

And I suppose this is essentially a modern fulfillment of the biblical principle: “your sins will find you out.”

Your sins will find you out. You won’t get away with it. There will be justice. In this life or the next. Or both.

I think many of us who have tasted of the Lord’s holiness have a degree, some more than others, of the shame of sin. We envision the day when we will stand before the Lord to give an account of everything we’ve done. I recall preachers past suggesting a giant movie screen will play before God and everybody of all our sins, the ones external and internal, the ones we remember and the ones we don’t. Every single drop of bitterness, unkind word, every single second of lust, every hateful thought, every self-indulgent theft of the glory belonging only to God in stunning color and panoramic vision. Like a list of names in the newspaper or only infinitely worse. “This man! This man is a pervert” the broadcast will reveal.

But then there is the promise of my holy God himself—that his Son is not ashamed to call me his brother (Hebrews 2:11). He oughta be! But he’s not. He has satisfied justice by taking the endless list of my sins upon himself, bearing my shame on a public cross beneath a paper vindictively, sarcastically publishing his name. I stake everything on that promise and the promises from which it is derived. There is the promise that he will present me blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy (Jude 24). Oh, he will read a list, all right. He calls it the Lamb’s Book of Life. And because this ferociously holy and glory-jealous God has foreknown me, elected me, justified me, sanctified me, is sanctifying me, and will glorify me, my name will be found in it.

“This man! This man is a good and faithful servant” the broadcast will reveal. For I have been covered in the righteousness of my precious Redeemer. He has cast my sins in to the depths of the sea to remember them no more. (Let the redeemed of the Lord say so!)

Christian, be sure his righteousness will find you out.

About the Author: Jared C. Wilson is the Director of Content Strategy for Midwestern Seminary, managing editor of For The Church, Director of the Pastoral Training Center at Liberty Baptist Church, and author of numerous books, including Gospel Wakefulness, The Pastor’s Justification, The Prodigal Church, The Imperfect Disciple, and Supernatural Power for Everyday People. A frequent preacher and speaker at churches and conferences, you can visit him online at jaredcwilson.com 

Posted at: https://ftc.co/resource-library/blog-entries/your-sin-will-find-you-out-but-so-will-his-righteousness