Repentance, Godly Sorrow, and Easter

Let me hear in the morning of your steadfast love,

for in you I trust.

Make me know the way I should go,

for to you I lift up my soul.

Psalm 143:8

This week marks the most important week of the year according to the Christian calendar.  Somehow I believe that most believers do not celebrate it as such.  Is not Christmas celebrated more?  Our culture loves Christmas because the retailers can find ways to exploit it more.  One can only do so much with chocolate bunnies and Easter baskets!

Anyway, I digress.  Today I was thinking of the incredible love of the Lord for His people.  Hear of the steadfast love of the Lord for you.  He willingly died and then rose again to eternal glory for His Church.  On Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, his closest disciples abandoned Him.  Just like we do!  Yet, He loved them, restored them, and spoke His steadfast love into their lives.  May He do the same for each of us.

I am thankful for the on-line discussion I had with an old friend, Todd Murphy, who is the pastor of Sacred Journey Church in Rhode Island.  In regard to a post on Eastern Orthodoxy, he challenged me that modern Evangelicalism has abandoned the primacy of repentance in the Christian life. I must confess I could not agree more!  We need our Christian tradition to shed true light on the scriptures so we can repent, believe, and find revival in our midst.

"Make me know the way I should go..." prays the Psalmist.  God's steadfast covenantal love should propel us to repentance.  It is not just something we say we believe, but it should bring us to true evangelical humility (the Puritan term that is now forgotten and misapplied to an entire movement).  

What does such humility look like?  It looks like true repentance.

"For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret,

whereas worldly grief produces death.

For see what earnestness this godly grief has produced in you,

but also what eagerness to clear yourselves,

what indignation, what fear, what longing, what zeal, what punishment!

At every point you have proved yourselves innocent in the matter."

2 Corinthians 7:10-11

In this passage, Paul is discuss his "harsh" letter sent to the Corinthian over the topic of tolerance for what is most likely sexual sin in their midst.  For several chapters, Paul expresses his concern for how they would take his rebuke.

What is going on here?  Paul is taking the Law and addressing it to the thoughts and actions of the Corinthian church.  Sometimes when confronted by the Law, we grieve for getting caught and the consequences of our sin.  This is worldly sorrow.  It leads to death and it does not bring about life transformation.  It might bring about temporary moral change, but it cannot deal with the heart.

Conversely, godly sorrow leads to true transformation.  It produces heart change evident by repentance and renewed faith or trust in Christ.  This results in "earnestness, eagerness for righteousness, indignation, fear, longing, zeal, and a willingness to deal with real sin."  In other words, it brings God into the Church.  It diminishes us and places God's glory, righteousness, and final work in Christ at the center.

Without true repentance, all we have are self-righteous posers who masquerade as people of faith.  We have folks with hard hearts who do not truly recognize their relationship with God.  We have rejected grace.  We have "a form of godliness, but we deny its power." (2 Timothy 3:5)  Dare I say that we have been marked by  these awful traits in many "bible-believing churches" in America?

Paul's concern was that true godly repentance would mark the Corinthian church.  He was so pleased when they manifested authentic repentance and faith.  When they acknowledged their sin before the Living God, they repented and sought God's glory in their thoughts and actions.  Their lives became became God-centered, which means they walked in authentic repentance and faith. 

In the Psalmist's language, God "made known to them the way they should go" and they repented and believed in Christ as their only hope.

May this week be a time of true repentance and faith for each of us.  May we ask the Living God to love us so much that He leads us to true "evangelical humility".  May our hearts be prepared to celebrate the joy of Easter!