The 4 Marks Of True Repentance

I've been through a lot of airports over the years but there was only one time that the TSA found something in my bag that I wasn't supposed to have. It was a two-inch drill bit. I had completely forgotten that I had borrowed it from someone and placed it in my book bag. They didn't give me too much trouble about it, but it had to be thrown away. Since then, I enter TSA with a little more caution. It's a little unnerving knowing that you could be carrying something that sets off the alarms and gets you in trouble.

THE WORD

"Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." - Psalm 139:23-24

As annoying as the TSA can seem, we need them. They ensure nothing or no one gets onto a plane that isn't supposed to. Getting searched is the price of being safe.

In Jesus' model prayer, He instructs us to ask for the forgiveness of our sins regularly. He emphasized the importance of regular confession and repentance in the life of a believer. David's prayer here in Psalm 139, for God to search him and see if there be any wickedness in his heart, is a perfect companion to his prayer of repentance in Psalm 51.

After an adulterous escapade that ended in the murder of an innocent man, David fell on his knees and begged God to "create a clean heart" within him. It seems to me that being confronted about his hidden sin in Psalm 51 led David to embrace a regular practice of bringing his sin to the Lord, as in laid out in Psalm 139.

As believers, we are to be subject to voluntary "searches and seizures" in our daily encounters with the Lord. I don't know what confession and repentance looks like in your life, but I can't emphasize enough how vital it is that you become well-versed in this practice.

FOUR MARKS OF TRUE REPENTANCE

I'm probably not the only one who grew up being made to say "I'm sorry" for things that I was not at all sorry for. I'm thankful my parents taught me to own up to my mistakes and wrong-doing, but you'd probably agree that there are far too many adults who still know how to say the right words when they're caught, yet never move in the right direction as a result.

Today I want to explore what it looks like to be truly repentant. These four marks come from Corrie Ten Boom, survivor of the holocaust and Christian writer whose legacy of forgiveness, grace, and love lives on long past her death over forty years ago.

1. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF WRONG

Wickedness sounds like a very intense word that should only be reserved for witches in the land of Oz, but the Bible refers to our wickedness quite often. For example, Romans 6:13 says that you are not to "offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness." Why use such a strong word? Because "wicked" is simply the opposite of righteous. In short, it means guilty. The first step toward true repentance is admitting we're guilty.

Like me, your knowledge of judicial law and courtroom etiquette is probably fairly limited. However, I know enough to know that "guilty" is actually not a sentence but a judgement. Pleading guilty is a tactic used by many lawyers to obtain a lesser sentence for their clients. When you admit to wrong-doing, you often receive a lesser punishment.

Acknowledging when we're wrong is always a shot to our pride, but it's our pride that leads us into sin in the first place. Your pride needs to be put in its place! If we truly want to get on the right path it begins by making better choices, the first of which is to acknowledge, "I'm wrong."

2. WILLINGNESS TO CONFESS IT

The school I taught at for six years had a no cellphone policy; it made teaching a lot easier. If we saw a phone, we were to immediately confiscate it. It never failed, whenever I spotted a student with their phone, their immediate reaction was to deny it. "What phone?!"

Of course, they knew the moment they confessed to having it, I would confiscate it. This is a part of the sinful nature in all of us. When confronted about our sin it just seems so natural for us to deny it altogether. But this is how sin is supposed to work in the life of a believer: God CONFRONTS it, we CONFESS it, and He CONFISCATES it. God cannot take away what we are unwilling to give up.

1 John 1 says "IF we confess our sin, He is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness" but that beautiful and rich promise all hinges on an IF! We had the choice to sin and we also have the choice to confess.

3. WILLINGNESS TO ABANDON IT

Would you believe there's a lot of debate about what the word REPENT actually means? Hard for you to imagine believers having a theological disagreement, I'm sure. Some say to repent means to change your direction while others believe it means to change your mind.

A couple of weeks ago I found myself on a short hike in the foothills of Alabama with some friends. As we trekked deeper into the woods and up a small mountain, I could sense my inner mountain-man rising up. I was doing my best to navigate the trails using an app on my phone, but after about 2 miles in, I could tell the heat was taking its toll (not to mention dark clouds were starting to roll in). We eventually reached a crucial moment where we could either loop back around to where we had begun, requiring a steep climb through a thick, over-grown trail, or we could just simply turn around and go back the way we came.

If you know me, you know I never turn back. But knowing that this could end up the way things often do with me (everyone hot, tired, sweaty, and angry), I determined it was best to just simply turn around. We ended up making it within eye shot of our cars right as a torrential downpour began.

Did we see the best sights? No, but was everybody still alive, fairly dry, and not completely fed up with me? Yes! Ultimately I knew I had made the right decision despite my inner Paul Bunyan wanting to conquer the mountain. Notice what took place in that crucial moment: I first changed my mind, which caused me to change our direction. One doesn't happen without the other.

Abandoning our sin is a shot to our pride. It often looks like abandoning a means of deep comfort, temporary pleasure, or our normal routines and habits. To abandon our sin many times feels like abandoning ourselves. But Jesus' promise to us is, "Anyone who loses their life for my sake will find it." Never forget the wages of sin is death but the gift of God is ETERNAL life! In abandoning your sin you are receiving something far greater.

4. WILLINGNESS TO MAKE RESTITUTION

Allow me to save you a quick google search. Restitution means to restore what was lost or stolen. To make restitution means to not only acknowledge your wrong-doing but to pay for it.

But, wait, didn't Jesus pay for everything on the cross? Absolutely, and your sin is forgiven and redeemed by His blood. Ultimately, because of the sacrifice of Jesus, we will not be held in judgement for our sins in eternity but we are still subject to the consequences of our sins here on earth.

I've never liked the phrase "all sin is the same." I understand the concept and to some degree it's true; all sin is the same in that Jesus paid for it all and we can be forgiven for it all. But different sins bring about different consequences.

Our sins come with residual effects, many of which are not necessarily wrought by the hand of God in anger. In most cases sin punishes itself. The hangover you get after a drunken night isn't God punishing you for your bad decision; it's your body's natural reaction to alcohol dependency and overindulgence. The entire reason that God forbids us from sin in the first place is to protect us from its effects. God can forgive you for the sin, but you may still have to reap the consequences of your sin.

Where we have sinned against others we are responsible to make it right with them. Jesus tells us in Matthew 5 that if we are at the altar in worship and remember that we have done someone wrong, we are to leave the altar and go make things right with them. Being right with God requires us to be right with others.

The final step of true repentance is not only admitting our wrongs but accepting the consequences for them. The Bible exhorts us to not just accept discipline and correction but to embrace and love it. Some of the sweetest times of God's presence in my life was on the other side of a bad decision that I had to make right. His presence is worth your repentance.

CONCLUSION

Redemption is when Jesus became broken FOR our sin. Repentance is when we become broken OVER our sin. It's part of the Christian life. If we will become quick to repent for the little sins that happen quite regularly in our lives, we will find it easier to repent for the big ones that occasionally rear their ugly heads. This is the model Jesus gave us. I encourage you to put it into practice in your life!