Good Repentance

"Good Repentance"

Mark 1:4-15

Last week, from the opening verses of the Gospel of Mark, I talked about who we are, what our task is, and who Jesus is.  We are the ones who are sent out.  We are not the ones who are called in, to huddle and hide out within the church walls.  We are those who are sent out.  Sent out with Good News.  Sent out to be heralds of that Good News, no matter how contrary and violent the world is to us and our Good News.

We found out that Jesus is not only the Messiah, the Savior, but that Jesus is the Son of God.  Jesus is our Good News.  We are sent out to tell the Good News that there is a Savior who is also the Son of God.

That's who we are.  That's who Jesus is.  That's what we are to be about.  Pretty simple.  We learn all that in the first three verses.

As Mark goes on, we find out we, as the sent out ones, need to prepare ourselves before we go out.  There is something about us that we have to take care of before we get sent out by God with the Good News about Jesus.

We need to repent.  This word shows up twice in the opening of Mark's Gospel.  John the baptizer tells the people they need to repent and be baptized.  And then Mark tells us that when Jesus started his ministry, his one main message was, "The time is fulfilled, the kingdom of God is at hand, repent and believe the Good News."  So, between John the baptizer and Jesus, we find out that repentance is all mixed together with baptism, the kingdom of God, and the good news.

Repentance is pivotal to who we are and what we are about as believers and kingdom people.  It is an interesting word, repentance.  You may have heard that repentance has to do with making a 180 degree turn in your life, to do an about-face, and go in the opposite direction from where you were headed.

But mainly this word, from its Greek origins, means a couple of things, both very similar.  To repent really means to think differently.  And along with that, it means to change your choices.  Think differently.  Change your choices.  That's what John the baptizer and Jesus are telling people (us) what we need to do if we really want to "get it", if we really want to know what their preaching is all about.

Think about it.  You are the sum total of all your choices so far. Life is about choice--about the choices we make.  And then dealing with the consequences, good and bad, that come about from those choices.  As we face those consequences we must make new choices based on those consequences that will take us either along the path we are going or divert us to another path, leading to more choices.

Now the choices we make are products of the way we think.  James Allen has written a classic book titled, As A Man Thinketh.  The title of the book is taken from Proverbs, "As a man thinketh, so he is" (Proverbs 23:7).  Allen says in his book that, "A man is literally what he thinks, his character being the complete sum of all his thoughts."  It makes sense, doesn't it, that how we think and our character are one?

Allen also wrote in his book, "Men imagine that thought can be kept secret, but it cannot; it rapidly crystallizes into habit..."  In other words, your thoughts become the habits and outward behavior and character that everyone sees.  This has to do with the good and the bad, the godly and the ungodly ways of thinking.

I am going to stand here and make a bold statement.  Some of you are not going to like it.  But here it is:  The way that all of you think, myself included, is messed up.  The way you make choices is messed up.  Because your thinking is messed up, because your choices are messed up, that means your character is messed up.  All of us.  I know, I know, not something you wanted to come to church to hear this morning.

The good news is, there is something we can do about it.  We can repent.  We can change the way we think.  We can change the way we make choices, which will change the choices themselves.  We can repent.  And when we repent, when we change our thinking and choices, our character is enlarged.

Repent and be baptized.  Repent, "the kingdom of God is at hand."  Repent!  Change the way you think!  Finally and ultimately let the Holy Spirit take control of your thinking.

Here are 10 ways you can have a good repentance.  10 aspects of a good repentance.  (I’ve listed them in the bulletin for you if you want to take notes.)

Number one, lean in to your repentance.  Do not make repenting more painful or more difficult by resisting.

You know what the number one reason is for resisting repentance?  Ego.  Your whole ego defense system that is probably screaming in your ears right now, "I am not that bad!"  Your whole ego inflation system with all its red lights flashing on your mother board, "God likes me a lot better than most of these other people."

The key to not resisting repentance because of your ego is not to kill your ego, but to bring it under subjection of the Holy Spirit.  Don't resist.  Give in.  Let go.  Lean in.  Embrace the new way of thinking with the Holy Spirit in your head and heart rather than your ego maniacal selves.

Number two is expect fear.  Repentance is a fear-full thing.  Mainly because changing the way you think, changing the choices you make is fear producing.  The operative word in that sentence is "changing."  That's what's scary about thinking differently.  You have to change.  Leaving the comfort of the familiar, even though it is a sick familiar, makes you afraid.

It is kind of the same dynamic as people who are abused.  People who are being abused would rather stay with an abuser because it is familiar, even though destructive, rather than move into the unknown and be free of abuse.  We don't want to think differently--repent--because it means moving into the unknown.

Number three, plan for your repentance.   What I'm getting at here is that change is the definition of life.  None of us can stop changes from happening.  The people who are not enjoying life are the ones who are digging in their heels and resisting change.  So plan on changing at strategic times in your life--plan for it before it hits you and you are forced to change.  Step back from the way you are presently thinking and plan on making changes in the choices you have made.

Number four, allow for grief.  Repentance means letting go of the old ways of thinking.  Repentance means letting go of bad choices we have made.  That means embracing loss, feeling grief.  Changing your thinking means admitting you have been wrong, you have made mistakes, a lot of which you have been reluctant to admit.  Looking at those wrongs and mistakes in the face and changing your thinking so you can move on creates a lot of personal sadness.  Realize that is going to wash over you when you repent.  Be ready for it.

Number five, follows number four:  get excited!  Free of those sick ways of thinking, imagine what your life is going to be like.  Imagine the directions God can now take you!!

Repentance is an adventure!!  It means getting to move forward, getting unstuck.  Repentance means the Holy Spirit is giving you a new destination--get excited about that new destination and what it means for your life.  Jesus says that repentance is about the kingdom of God.  That is your new destination.  Get excited about that!  Because that kingdom of God has to do not just with heaven after you die, but with life right now.  About having a great experience in life right now.  Get excited about your new kingdom life right here, right now when your thinking is changed.

Number six is get support in your repentance.  It seems like repentance is an individual journey.  Nothing is further from the truth.  That is what the church is at its best--a company of the repentant helping each other when we are grieving our repentance, when we are needing excitement about our repentance, when we are afraid and the change of thinking seems just to difficult.  That is why we are here.  We are all in this together.

Number seven is communicate well. Understand that you changing your way of thinking--your repentance--will impact others.  It is a basic systems understanding of how things work.  If one part of a social system changes, then all the other parts of that system have to adapt and change, too.

So, think of your family as a social system.  If you have been acting in a certain way within that family, if you have been demonstrating a peculiar way of thinking, and you suddenly decide to repent--to change your choices, to change your way of thinking--all the other people in your family will have to decide how they are going to react to your repentance.  (Certainly all of Bruce Jenner's family and friends are having to react to the changes he has made over the last few months.  But, sadly, those changes have nothing to do with a healthy repentance.)  Maybe it will cause the others in your social system to repent as well.  Or maybe it will cause them to try and sabotage your repentance so you will keep acting and thinking in the same old way, or be the same old person.

Thus, repentance, and changing the way you think, will challenge you to communicate with all those around you in clear ways so they know what is happening in your life.  Communicating well with others is strategic when going through a time of repentance.

Number eight is to expect detours.  Repentance involves being changed by the Holy Spirit.  God's Spirit, when you repent and change your choices, is going to take you in an entirely different direction.  Repenting and making new choices is going to force you onto some detours so you can travel on different roads.  The Spirit is going to take you where the Spirit wants you to go.  Expect the journey of thinking differently to shift as God adjusts your direction and the path you are on.

Number nine is to expect backsliding.  Changing the way you think and changing the choices you have made and the consequences of all that is going to be hard.  Repentance is hard work.

We were talking in Men's Bible Study this week about the part in the Sermon on the Mount about the two paths: one narrow and hard with few people on it, and one wide and easy with crowds of people on it.  We talked about this image of the wide and narrow roads with the question, "What if the two roads are side by side?"  You can look over and see the other road and the people on it.

So, let us say you are on the wide, easy road.  This road is smooth.  It is paved.  Maybe even carpeted.  There is plenty of room for everyone.  Walking on it is pleasurable.  You see your wide, smooth, populated road is heading for some mountains, but your road cuts right through the mountains.  No climb.  No effort.  No problems.

Now, let us say you decide to repent of your easy, wide road thinking.  You jump over to the narrow hard road.  Your new way of thinking is hard.  You are not only heading in the opposite direction, but the road is made up of loose scree gravel that you slip on all the time—like trying to walk on thousands of marbles; or there are boulders you have to jump from one to another; or fallen trees and debris you have to climb through and over where the road is lost for a while and you don't even know if you are on the road anymore.  You look ahead, you are coming up on some mountains, and your narrow, hard road does not have a nice cut through the mountains, but climbs in successive switch backs up the mountain.

You stop and think, "What am I doing?  Why am I on this harder road?  Even though I have repented, changed my thinking, and changed the choices I've been making, look what it has got me?  That other road I was on--that other way of thinking I was caught up in--was certainly easier.  And even though it was heading in the opposite direction, it was so much more comfortable and pleasurable."

Those are the thoughts of backsliding.  Because changing the way you think is not easy at all, you will be tempted to just go back to your old way of thinking--the way of misguided, ultimately destructive thinking--simply because it is more comfortable.  Be ready for it--the backsliding--once you have repented.

And lastly, number ten, have fun.  This goes along with number five, get excited.   Because repenting, changing the way you think is hard, there is more to celebrate along the way.  When the path you are on is easy and there are no worries, no difficulties, no challenges, there is also nothing to celebrate.  No victories of one way of thinking over another.  No joy in seeing the adventure of making new choices.  No smile because you know that your new way of thinking that your repentance has afforded you has the sense of rightness about it.  So have fun with all that, once you have repented.

You may be thinking that you have already repented and become a Christian.  That you don’t need to do much more with this whole repentance stuff because you already believe. And once you believed you were baptized and all that has been taken care of.

Repentance is certainly that—the one big thing you do to get yourself on the road with Christ.  But repentance is also what we do as a daily discipline when our thinking and choices get messed up and they need changing.  They need the Holy Spirit to come in and give us a check-up from the neck-up.  That’s the daily discipline of repentance.