4 Forgive us our trespasses Repentance

Repentance is turning away from sin to God. Like one of the prodigal sons, it’s leaving the famine, distance from home, and poverty that sin brings, and running into the welcoming arms of the Father, who throws a celebration and spreads a banquet.

With this in mind, I wonder why I am often so hesitant to repent, when it is turning from the unsatisfying to the all-satisfying.

Why should we repent? And why should we repent if we are already justified completely - past, present and future sin has been forgiven. Yet it is clear from the Bible that repentance should not just happen at conversion. Acts 19:18 says, “Also many of those who were now believers came, confessing and divulging their practices.” They are already believers, and they repent. In the same way, Jesus taught his disciples to repent in the Lord’s prayer.

Psalm 51 is a prayer of David, also designed to be sung corporately by a congregation, because repentance is relevant for all. David is repenting after Nathan, a prophet, has called out his sin. He had committed adultery with Bathsheba, and then arranged for the death of her husband.

Have mercy on me, O God,     according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy     blot out my transgressions. 2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,     and cleanse me from my sin! 3 For I know my transgressions,     and my sin is ever before me. 4 Against you, you only, have I sinned     and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words     and blameless in your judgment. 5 Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity,     and in sin did my mother conceive me. 6 Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being,     and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart. 7 Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;     wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. 8 Let me hear joy and gladness;    let the bones that you have broken rejoice. 9 Hide your face from my sins,     and blot out all my iniquities.10 Create in me a clean heart, O God,     and renew a right spirit within me. 11 Cast me not away from your presence,     and take not your Holy Spirit from me. 12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation,     and uphold me with a willing spirit. 13 Then I will teach transgressors your ways,     and sinners will return to you. 14 Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God,    O God of my salvation,    and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness. 15 O Lord, open my lips,    and my mouth will declare your praise. 16 For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it;

    you will not be pleased with a burnt offering. 17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;    a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. 18 Do good to Zion in your good pleasure;    build up the walls of Jerusalem;19 then will you delight in right sacrifices,     in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings;     then bulls will be offered on your altar.

We should repent to receive restored joy; in repentance we see & therefore praise more fully “his glorious grace,” which declares us blameless. Through Jesus, there is joy in having a ‘broken and contrite heart’ (vs 17) over your sin. Repentance results in a fresh realisation of the Gospel, and therefore a restored joy in your salvation, because despite the sin, “there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” (Romans 8:1). Our joy increases & the God of the Gospel becomes more glorious when your understanding of how sinful you are increases. In Romans 7:24-25 Paul says, “Wretched man I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Paul also writes to the Corinthian church, after a former rebuke has caused them to repent. This is 2 Corinthians 7:9-10; “As it is, I rejoice, not because you were grieved, but because you were grieved into repenting. For you felt a godly grief, so that you suffered no loss through us. For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.”

True repentance is not just being grieved, but feeling a godly grief. The grief of Judas, who betrayed Jesus, was not repentance, it was worldly grief; while the grief of Peter, who denied Jesus, was godly grief. Worldly grief terminates with the knowledge of your wretchedness, but you do not believe that Jesus’ substitutionary death will atone for your sin, and you drown in guilt. Godly grief is also a brokenness over your sin, acknowledging you’re wretched, but it doesn't stop there; it throws you onto Jesus as the only Saviour, who delivers from your body of death, and gives full life. A godly grief meant that they ‘suffered no loss,’ a godly grief resulted in gain. This gain is ‘salvation without regret;’ there is no regret, no condemnation, but restored and increased joy. This is why believers repent.

Joy heightens because repentance leads to an increased dependance upon Jesus, a treasuring of the wisdom in the secret heart (vs 6) This wisdom is ‘Christ crucified,’ it’s the gospel. That through Jesus alone, though I have sinned against him and done what is evil in his sight, the just and blameless God, (vs 4) rather than give me the punishment I deserve, says, “Come now, let us reason together, though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.”(Isaiah 1:18)

Repentance is not working to earn forgiveness. The point is that we cannot appease the Father and settle our guilt through long-winded prayers and weeping. I get this wrong so often. Repentance must be centred on the Gospel. John Miller said “Pursue ongoing repentance as a child of the King, not as an orphan.” “Forgive us our trespasses” is translated in the ESV as, “forgive us our debts.” We repent to God not to pay off those debts by the praying, but because we cannot pay those debts off. Rather, repentance is going to the Father to receive, because he is “abundant” in mercy and “steadfast” in love (vs 1). Repentance is not giving, it’s getting, because God gives, rather than receives. Verse 16 says, “for you will not delight in sacrifice,” because God glorifies himself not by taking our sacrifice, but having been ours, on the cross. Therefore, God wants a ‘broken spirit,’ that has in response to their sin, turned to Jesus for rescue.

Repentance is part of God’s ongoing work of sanctification in us, where he, as Psalm 51:10 puts it, creates in me a clean heart and renews a right spirit within me. Joy increases because we become more like Jesus.

Sanctification is a two-strand process of vivification and mortification. These continue throughout the Christian life simultaneously. Vivification is to set your focus on Jesus, and mortification is to put sin to

death. Repentance is necessary for these because in repentance, you are aware and grieved over your sin, and pushed into the gospel, therefore you are empowered to put to death the detected sin (mortification). And in repentance, Jesus is realised as the all-satisfying hero, who brings infinitely more pleasure than sin, therefore, you fix your gaze upon Him (vivification).

David described sin as being “ever before me.” Unresolved sin does not cause a Christian to lose their salvation, but the presence of sin and the resultant guilt blocks our vision of God. It hinders your relationship with Jesus and robs your joy, so that the Psalmist feared he would be cast away from his presence, where there is fullness of joy.

In Ephesians 6, an instruction to stand against the devil’s schemes is to pray at all times. Prayer includes repentance. Repent, in order to withstand evil. Admit and regret your sin, in order to fight it. Physically, pain is good. If we didn't feel pain we wouldn't know that we were bleeding or were being burned or developing a disease. It’s the same in repentance. It hurts, but it’s the good pain that detects the disease, so that the sin doesn't spread and grow and eventually kill us, but can be killed itself.

Repentance makes us more like Jesus because it makes us humble. It reminds us of how great we’re not, how truly great God is, for still loving a not-so-great me and how much we rely on this God.

Repentance results in changed actions, not only the absence of sin, but the presence of fruit. Matthew 3:8 says, “Bear fruit in keeping with repentance.” Repentance is looking at the Gospel, and the Gospel makes the tree good, and produces good fruit on the good tree. This is why the Lord’s prayer goes, “forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors,” (Matthew 6:12).

The original sin was believing the lie that the forbidden tree and their own way would bring more satisfaction than God. However, the good news is that through Jesus, we have a way back into the better Eden, where we can feast on the tree of life, that is himself. And so Christian repent, for restored joy, in order to see Jesus for who he is - faithful & just & forgiving, just as 1 John 1:9-10 says, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.”