Journey with Jesus: Matthew 3, part one

In chapter three, we find John the Baptist preaching repentance. Isn’t it amazing that to prepare the way of the Lord, John preaches about sin? True repentance entails a change of mind. It is the Greek word, metanoia. True repentance is a reorientation of thinking. Bob Dylan once said, “People don’t do what they believe in---they just do what’s most convenient and then they repent.” That is not true repentance. True repentance is hating your sin and turning 180 degrees from it. A man cannot break free from a life dominating sin until he hates the sin. Similarly, a person cannot receive forgiveness if they haven’t confessed the sin. Sin is not dependant on whether or not the person considers what they are doing to be a sin. Sin is what God thinks sin is. Humans evaluate according to their own consciences. God evaluates according to His. That is a sobering thought especially in our relativistic culture.

Many people sin because they are simply abusing grace. They “know” God will forgive them, so they go on sinning. Grace enables us to say “no” to sin even more. Sin is an insult to God. Susanna Wesley said, “whatever weakens your reason, impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God, or takes off the relish for spiritual things then it is sin for you, however, innocent it may be in itself.” Oswald Chambers said, “it is perilously easy to have amazing sympathy with God’s truth and remain in sin.” This would apply to those who love the Scripture, love the church, and proclaim the truth, but continue to repeat the same sin again and again, even when they know it is sin. Philip Yancey said that, “Jesus reserved his hardest words for the hidden sins of hypocrisy, pride, greed and legalism.” Once we get to the later chapters of Matthew, we will see this in force. Legalism allows us to focus our energies on the things that really aren’t sinful. These are behavior patterns which are normally “easy” for the person to “give up.” However, when we get rid of our false sins, we cover up our real sins in the process. If sin grieves you…if sin causes shame in your life…if sin hurts your heart…if it causes you to mourn that you have sinned against God...the silver lining is that people whose hearts hurt like this over their sins most likely hurt because the Holy Spirit is in their heart hurting. As Christians, sin should be alien to us. John Stott said, “Sin and the child of God are incompatible. They may occasionally meet; they cannot live together in harmony.”

The people listening to John had their whole outlook changed once they believed what he said about the nearness and demands of God’s rule. True repentance is a change of heart. Altered thinking leads to a changed heart. A change of lifestyle. Just how genuine has been the change of mind and of heart is demonstrated in our behavior. It is very rare to see a truly repentant man. Most of the time we like to “save face” in some way. A truly repentant person is a humble and broken person. I have been involved in many marriage counseling cases. In every instance, if the man and the woman would simply and fully repent in humility, their marriage would have a fighting chance.

Isn’t there great beauty in true repentance? I recently spoke with a man who is struggling through total repentance. My counsel to him was to repent fully. It is so attractive for a man to repent in humility and most people are very forgiving. We know we have a God who is slow to anger and who abounds in love and grace. Oscar Wilde said, “how else but through a broken heart may Lord Christ enter in?” Lord, I pray if there is someone reading this tonight who needs to be baptized with repentance that they will lay their sin fully at the foot of your Cross. That they will be sweetly broken, wholly surrendered so that they will find that your grace is more than enough, that your grace is sufficient for them”. Amen~Amen.