I found the gospel lesson for today to be especially interesting, considering where we’ve been as a church for the past month or so. Following His baptism, Jesus found Himself sent into a critically important spiritual season, a season that lasted forty days. He spent that time being tempted by Satan. Satan was attempting to lure Jesus into forsaking the path that God had chosen. Jesus’ forty days in the desert was in preparation for His ministry.
I find it interesting because it’s kind of fun to make those little comparisons between our forty days and His. He was in the desert, so it was kind of a spiritual retreat. Not much different from our forty days, where we asked you to retreat back from an overloaded calendar so that we could all focus in on God’s purposes for our lives. And yes, I’m quite sure that we all faced Satan’s attempts to dissuade us from the path that we were on. Not only that, but Mark also tells us that Jesus was “with the wild animals” . . . and I thought that maybe that sounded like some of your small groups that I heard about!
But even more interesting is what Jesus began to do after His forty days. After His forty days, Jesus went right to work on the purpose the Father had given Him. He didn’t waste any time, He just went right out and went to work.
Though it may seem like a little thing when we read it, I see Jesus’ first words in Mark as being the words of a revolutionary. “The time has come,” Jesus said. “The Kingdom is near. Repent and believe the good news!” “The time has come” . . . sort of like saying, “All that was before me didn’t matter. All that is after me will be too late. This is the time—right now—that God has appointed to change the world.” Jesus is calling our attention to the fact that His ministry is something that is going to shake things up, something that’s going to be a defining point in all of history. The Kingdom of God was at hand. Jesus was about to usher in the reign of a new world order.
“The time has come!” Jesus said. There’s a new sheriff in town, and He’s a’gonna take the old system and throw it away. If there’s three things that are important to the world’s value system, it would be self-sufficiency (taking pride in the fact that I can take care of myself), supremacy (having the power and authority to run my life the way I want to run it), and . . . ME! In the world’s system, the almighty ME is at the dead center of everything I do! Me!
But that’s not the values of the Kingdom of God. No, Kingdom values take the world’s system and turn it upside down. Where the world values self-sufficiency, the Kingdom values humility. Kingdom people know they have to rely upon Christ and others to get by. Where the world values supremacy, the Kingdom values service. Kingdom people follow the example of Christ and empty themselves, taking on the form of a servant. And where the world puts ME! at the center, the Kingdom brushes ME! aside and places Christ at the center where He belongs.
We learned at lot about Kingdom values during the 40 days. I’m not one to knock knowledge. I think knowledge is very important. But if all we got from forty days of study and small groups was some extra knowledge, then we’re not where we need to be. Look on your interactive sermon sheet; you’ve got two columns of values side-by-side. Ask yourself those questions, ask yourself, “Which set of values is my longing?” Which set of values do you want to be just oozing out wherever you go? Now, which set of values are you currently living?
If the answer to both of those questions isn’t “Kingdom values”, then I’m in sin. It’s that simple. I’m in sin and need of repentance.
But maybe it’s not that easy for you. You might not find it that easy to say—or even identify—that you’ve sinned. We’ve just finished 40 Days, and we want to put into action the Kingdom values that we’ve learned. Not only that, but it is the penitential season of Lent, and during this time of the church year we focus in on the sin that separates us from God. So with all that in mind, let’s take a few minutes to talk about the process of reflection, repentance, and renewal.
When you say the word “reflection” it brings up an image of a mirror. When you look in a mirror, do you always like what you see? I mean, sure . . . there are some folks who look in a mirror and go, “Oh, yeah . . . I am hot tonight!” But there are also times when you catch yourself in a mirror and see every little imperfection. That’s what a reflection does, it can reveal to us where we’re less than perfect. Spiritually speaking, reflection searches out, “Where have I sinned?”
The process of reflection tackles a pretty broad spectrum. Really, reflection takes on all of our thoughts, words, and deeds. We reflect upon what we did, what we said. How we reacted to a certain situation. What we thought. What we didn’t do. Sometimes even what we are is subject to reflection.
The first thing that triggers the reflection process for most people is their conscience. Our conscience is that little voice that God has planted inside of us that speaks up when we’ve acted up. When our conscience pricks you, it is usually a good indicator that you’ve gone wrong somewhere. Usually, but not always.
It is possible to have a faulty conscience. The Scriptures speak of a kind of person who ignored their conscience so long that it no longer functions like it should. Their conscience has been seared with a hot iron, and now there’s just scar tissue covering over it. It doesn’t work anymore. Let that be a warning to you: heed your conscience or you will break it! But even the Apostle Paul himself says in 1 Corinthians 4:4 that even though his conscience is clear, that still doesn’t make him innocent. Even Paul realized that his conscience, while a good indicator, is not always reliable.
It’s a good thing to pay attention to your conscience, but I also want you to go further. Our conscience is not always reliable, but the Word of God always is. Therefore, it’s always a good idea to contrast our actions to the Scriptures. Paul says to Timothy in 2 Timothy 3:16, “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.”
The Scriptures contain God’s Law and God’s righteousness. They are the absolute standard for our thoughts, words, and deeds. The Scriptures are the bar by which we’re measured. What’s more, there is not a single aspect of our lives that is not touched on in some way by the Scriptures. Not one. As you reflect, as you search out where you have sinned, just go see what the Scriptures have to say. You’ll find pretty quickly where your actions and attitudes don’t line up with what God has to say.
The next item on the list, confession, is kind of a bridge between reflection and repentance, so it actually shows up on both lists.
Let’s talk about the word confession for just a bit. Normally we’d think of “confession” as telling. We’d tell God that we sinned, that sort of thing. But God already knows that we sinned! That’s kind of His job, you know. But It’s interesting to pick apart the Greek in this instance. The Greek word for “confession” could actually be broken up into two words, and put together they would mean, “to say the same thing.” Confession means “to say the same thing.” In other words, when you confess your sins, you’re saying the same thing that God says, you’re saying that you’re in agreement with God.
As the last part of reflection, then, we go to God and we stand in agreement with Him. We tell him what we’ve done and agree with Him that we have lived in contrast to His Word and Law. This isn’t the time to hide behind excuses anymore, it’s not the time to defend ourselves or try to squirm out of it. If you know what time it is, you know that confession is the time to simply stand in agreement with God. Psalm 32:5 says, “Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, "I will confess my transgressions to the LORD.”
Furthermore, we finish up the reflection process by agreeing with God not just that we have sinned, but that we are sinful. Don’t play games with God or with confession. Don’t be like the guy who stepped into the confessional one evening and said, “Forgive me Father, for I have sinned. I have lusted after loose women.” And the priest said, “Tell me who it was, my son . . . was it Mary Hollis?” And the man said, “No, father. I shouldn’t say.” And the priest said, “This is important to confess, my son . . . was it Susan Jameson?” And the man said, “Please, father, I really should not say.” And still the priest tried to draw it out of him, saying, “My son, you must confess. Was it Shirley Stevenson?” And the man still refused to answer. But as he was going out the church doors, he met a friend coming in. His friend asked him, “What’d you get?” And the guy pulled out his little black book and said, “Four Hail Marys and three good leads for a hot date!”
See, it sounds funny, but it’s a mistake to play games with God in confession. You can’t stand before God and agree with Him unless you also agree that you are corrupted right down to the core. That takes guts, sometimes . . . to acknowledge that we don’t even deserve to be talking to Him. But the reflection process isn’t complete until we’ve looked at our sins as well as our selves.
After reflection searches out the answer to the question, “Where have I sinned?”, repentance acknowledges our shortcomings and cries out, “Lord, I have sinned!”
This repentance involves a few different things. The first part, as you may have guessed, is confession. As we’ve already said, confession stands in agreement with God. Confession says, “I have sinned before God.” There’s three people that we confess to.
The first is obvious and one we’ve already talked about, we confess our sins before God. That’s the first place to start. But although we always need to confess to God, we often find ourselves in the position of needing to confess to others, as well. James 5:16 tells us, “Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.” Ideally, we confess our sins to the people we’ve sinned against. That’s just healthy and mature behavior.
But that’s not always possible, is it? There are times when that person isn’t available—they’ve moved away or possibly even died. They might have been someone that we just didn’t know. So the third person that is available to hear your confession is . . . me.
Now you may think that confessing to a minister is purely a Roman Catholic thing. But did you realize that Martin Luther himself recommended that we continue the practice of private confession and absolution? Because of the minister’s calling through the church, God says that confessing to a pastor is the same as confessing to God. Even more, the pastor’s absolution is God’s own absolution. We base this teaching, called the Office of the Keys, upon Jesus’ words to the Apostles in John 20:22-23, where He said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”
This is why I’m setting aside an hour every Wednesday during Lent to hear private confession. Yes, you can and should confess before God. Yes, you should confess your sins to those whom you have offended. But if you are still feeling weighed down by your sins and you desire to hear the words of God saying, “You are forgiven,” then come to me. Wednesday evenings, beginning at 5:00, I’ll be available in my office to hear confession and to pronounce God’s absolution. This can be a powerful opportunity for you.
I just mentioned it, but in case you didn’t catch it I’ll say it again. After confession comes absolution. Receiving absolution means that I am absolved of my sins, it means the debt of sin that I have wracked up is forgiven. In absolution I can say with absolute certainty that God has forgiven me through Christ. Absolution is so closely tied with the next item—renewal—that we’re just going to move right to that.
Reflection searches out, repentance cries out, and renewal stands out. It stands out because it is entirely unique in its singular claim to “Repent and believe the good news!”
Renewal stands out because belief leads to action. LeAnn Minton told me a story about a young man who stuck out in her mind in all her years of teaching. She had the privilege of seeing many young men who went on to become ministers, but there was one boy by the name of Alva who underwent a serious spiritual transformation in his sophomore year.
In tenth grade Alva started attending church three times on a Sunday, he went to several different Bible studies during the week, he was a regular at the weekly church prayer meeting and so on. It seemed there wasn't a day went by that Alva wasn't involved in some spiritual function. When LeAnn finally asked him about what caused his transformation, Alva simply said, “Ms. Minton, I've been to church all my life and hearing them preaching about damnation, hell, and judgment . . . but I didn't believe a word of it until I got into your class!”
Belief leads to action! And in absolution we believe nothing other than what God himself promises us. We trust in God’s promises that through Christ’s death on the cross that we too will be saved. We trust in God’s promises that His Holy Spirit will always be with us, in us, showing us the way of righteousness and leading us into it. This belief leads us into the benefits and actions of renewal.
When Jesus Christ said, “Repent and believe the good news!” He was speaking of our renewal. How do we get renewed? Jesus gives us the answer in John 10:10 when He says, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”
Christ came to give us life. We are justified through Him, meaning that our sins are forgiven through His death and we are given eternal life through His resurrection. God goes so far as to say that He won’t even remember our sins anymore. Can you imagine that? Going up to God and saying, “God, remember the time that I . . .:” and having God say, “What? No, no, I don’t remember that at all.” “But God! You’re all-knowing! You’re eternal! Certainly you must have a record of my sins!” And God will say, “Well you know, that’s a funny thing. I did have this record book here with your name on it. But it looks as though the blood of my Son got on the pages and erased everything you ever did. Your record is clean.”
Your renewal comes from Christ. Repent and believe the good news! Believe and be renewed!
However, Jesus Christ didn’t just say that He came to give us only eternal life . . . He said, that He came to give us life to the full. That means your life, right now, this moment, can be a renewed life. It can be renewed through a process that theologians call sanctification, the process by which God makes us holy.
Believe in God’s promises means that we believe that the past is past, what’s done is forgiven. We don’t dwell on the past, but strive for the future. Paul told this to the church in Philippi, saying Philippians 3:13-14, “13 Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”
Your past is gone. There’s no way you could get it back . . . even if you wanted to. Your past is forgiven, and that belief leads us into the action of living as a forgiven and redeemed saint of God. Romans 6:11 says, “In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.” In sin we are dead, but in Christ we’re alive. Can dead people do living things? Hardly! But in Christ we do the things we’ve learned, we put our hands into actions that express the beliefs we hold in our hearts.
Redeemed saints of God regularly go through the cycle of reflection, repentance, and renewal. Not just during Lent, but at all times. God continually leads us to compare our lives to His Kingdom values. And though we more often than not find that we’re not living up to those values, He is always ready to renew our lives in Jesus Christ. Repent . . . and believe the good news!
