Your Daily Bread – The Pattern of Sanctification: Repentance

I’m concerned, Paul says, about sin in your life. Oh, I’m concerned about your economics, and I’m concerned about your career, and I’m concerned about the disappointments in life, and I’m concerned about the physical problems that you have. And those are matters for prayer and concern, but those aren’t nearly so concerning to me as your spiritual condition, because the worst that can happen to you physically is you die. And that’s the best that could happen to you, because then you leave the sinful world behind. Far better to depart and be with Christ, right? But what does concern me is sin in your life, because then you forfeit the blessing of God in this life, you forfeit eternal reward in the life to come, and you lose your usefulness and fruitfulness and effectiveness, both in the lives of believers and unbelievers who need to hear through you and see through you the power of the Gospel.

I’m much more concerned about the spiritual dimension. You can’t ever be concerned that you have a large crowd. That’s insufficient. You can’t be concerned that they liked the sermon. You can’t even be concerned that they got it, which is nice when that happens, that it was clear and understandable and they got the message. The thing that has to be the bleeding passion of your heart is personal holiness of the people. And I confess that the hardest thing to hear is when I hear about some pattern of unrepented sin that’s been uncovered in the life of a believer or revealed in the life of a believer.

That is just wrenching. And Paul had an experience that I think you’ll understand. Verse 21 he says, When this happens, two things take place. Two things. It affects me two ways. First verse 21. I’m afraid that when I come again, my God may humiliate me before you. It brings on me shame. It brings on me shame. It brings me low, tappino. It means to be brought low. You know, he’s saying, I just, my credibility is at stake here. The authenticity of my apostleship is at stake. You are my epistle, he said, known and read of all men.

Right? If somebody wants to know whether I’m a true apostle of Jesus Christ, if somebody wants a valid affirmation of my ministry, they look at you. And if you’re just engulfed in sins that destroy the unity and the purity of the church, then I’m dishonored. Then my critics are justified. Then those who would attack my authenticity have reason to attack it, you’ve pulled my name down. Now, it wasn’t that Paul hadn’t learned that humbling was good. Back in chapter 12 verse 7, you know, he said that because of the greatness of the visions that he’d had in the revelations, the Lord had to put a thorn in his flesh, a messenger from Satan, to buffet him, to keep him from exalting himself.

The Lord was humbling Paul in some very, very difficult ways. Being humbled is one thing, being humiliated is something else. I don’t want to be humiliated by people saying, oh, yeah, you know that Corinthian church, that church full of impure, corrupt, contentious, fighting, wrangling people. That church was spiritual-leaded for two years by the apostle Paul. It would humiliate him and cast further doubt on the authenticity of his apostleship and give more fuel to his enemies. It’s humiliating. I can understand when a spiritual leader does everything he can do in a church situation, and what he gets back his sin.

I can understand that he gets brokenhearted. I can understand that it’s more than he can handle. I can understand that you reach a point of shame where you just really don’t want to be associated with it. It’s heartbreaking, it’s crushing, and you might leave. Nothing is more distressing. Nothing is more discouraging. Nothing more disheartening. Nothing takes away your joy and sort of saps your strength more than a failure at the very place of your greatest effort. And you’re making a great effort for the sanctification of your people, and there’s a monumental failure at that point.

You begin to question the validity of what you do, question your own ministry, and you’re without honour. But there’s a second part of it. Not only did Paul fear suffering shame, but sadness. Verse 21, and he says, in the middle of the verse, I may mourn over many of those who have sinned in the past. Not only will I have to suffer shame, but sadness. The word mourn here, pentheo, in the Greek, means to grieve. It’s that inward aching. It’s that deep-seated trouble grieving down deep. It’s just grievous. You find your congregation in a sinful condition, and it’s a dishonour to you because you’ve been there.

You’ve been the shepherd. You’ve been the leader. You’ve been the spiritual leader. And it’s also a source of deep sadness. I can understand when a man leaves a church under conditions like this. I can understand when a spiritual leader reaches the point where he just has lost heart. Paul was depressed over the Corinthians, as he says in chapter seven. Chapter two, he said he didn’t have enough strength to even minister to an open opportunity in Troas because he was so heartsick about the mess in Corinth. I can understand when a spiritual leader packs up and says, you know, the shame is too great, and the sadness is too great because the sin is too great.

Anything short of that, you better re-examine your motives. It may be that you’re leaving because you’re looking for greener pasture, or because the challenge is too hard, or because the place isn’t exactly the way you would like it, or because they’re not treating you the way you’d like to be treated. But I think if you do leave, and you and we can honestly say there might be justification for it. It’s when you’ve reached the point where the sins of your people have so shamed and saddened you that you just have nothing left. They have continued to strike blows at the unity of the church and against the truth that they have heard.

It wasn’t that Paul hadn’t taught them the truth. He had. He had taught them the truth. I can understand a man losing heart in a situation like that because the concern we have is for repentance. It’s not for perfection in the sins that there’s no sin. We want them to move more and more toward the perfection of Christ, but we understand there’s going to be sin in everybody’s life, and all the Lord expects is repentance for them. And that breaks the pattern of shame and sadness that comes into the heart of the preacher.

We expect to have to deal with sin in our own lives, and sin in the lives of the people. We rejoice when there’s repentance. In closing, let us look at Revelation chapter 2. Revelation chapter 2 hears the Lord writing to the churches, seven churches, and as the Lord writes to the churches, we get a picture of what concerns him. He’s writing to Ephesus in chapter 2, and says, I know your deeds, verse 2, and your toil, and your perseverance, and you, you’re not tolerant of evil men, and you test everybody who claims to be an apostle, and you discern the false from the true, and that’s good.

You have perseverance, you endured, you haven’t grown weary. But he says, I’m concerned about you, because you left your first love. Boy, that is a serious indictment. Then in verse 5, remember therefore from where you have fallen, and, do what? Repent. Again, even the Lord doesn’t expect sinlessness in his church, but he does call for repentance. Down in verse 12 of the letter to the church at Pergamum, and he writes to that church and affirms some who are faithful witnesses. But he says, I’m concerned about you, because you have some there, verse 14, who have the teaching of Balaam, and you’ve put that teaching in there that taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, eat things sacrificed to idols, commit acts of immorality, and you’ve also followed some of the teaching of another false group called the Nicolaitans.

Verse 16, repent. Repent. What does that mean to repent? It means to consider the pattern of sin, turn around, go the other direction. Repent. Chapter 3, he writes to the church at Sardis, actually in the church at Thyatira, in verse 21. He talks about giving time to repent to the church at Thyatira, but she doesn’t want to repent. And then in chapter 3, verse 3, the church at Sardis that had a name that it was alive, it probably had a good crowd, just dead. And he says in verse 3, remember therefore what you have received and heard, and keep it and repent, repent, repent.

Verse 19, to the church at Laodicea, those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, be zealous therefore and repent. That’s what God is asking, is asking for in his church, repentance, brokenness over sin, contrite heart, confession of sin, admission of sin, and telling the Lord you desire to turn from it. That’s Christ’s call to his church. That’s Paul’s call to his church. That’s my call to you. That’s every spiritual leader’s call. That’s why I say, the faithful spiritual leader is concerned for the sanctification of the church, the building up of the church, and that starts with being concerned for the repentance of his people.

That’s my prayer for you, that when sin crouches at your door and is successful in taking you captive to it, you will repent, and the grace of God washing you clean continue on the path of sanctification. Thank you for joining us in this exploration of the pattern of sanctification, repentance. Until next time, remember to keep the faith, stay strong, and continue to shine your light in the world. To hear these daily devotions of your daily bread, please log on to goddessgovernment.com. Goodbye, and may your faith always lead the way. [tr:trw].