Now, this is a text that a Baptist would love to preach on.
Baptists love to talk about repentance. But their idea of
repentance is somewhat different from what the Scriptures mean when they talk
about repentance. For example, if I were a Baptist minister, this is how
I would preach this text: First, I would try to make you feel as guilty
as possible. I’d do this by focusing on sin, specific sins, bad habits,
bad thoughts, lustful thoughts, angry thoughts, bad words, bad attitudes, and
bad deeds. Then I’d say, “Now, is that how a Christian is supposed to
act? What would Jesus say about all that? Wouldn’t He be ashamed of
you? And to think He has to live with that kind of junk in your heart!
Would you stay in a filthy house?” Then, once I’d made you feel
guilty, I’d tell you to repent, but I’d preach as if it were all up to you and
that it was all about cleaning up your life for Jesus. I’d tell you you
need to quit all those bad habits and turn around, make amends, and rededicate
your life to Jesus. You need to tell Jesus you’re sorry and then show Him
that you truly are by living a God-pleasing life. You don’t want Jesus
shaking the dust off His feet, do you? You don’t want to stand before His
judgment seat on the last day and have Him say to you, “I never knew you,” do
you? And finally I might say something like, “Look how much Jesus did for
you. Look how much He loved you and gave Himself for you. Don’t you
think He deserves your love in return? Don’t you think He’s worthy of
your best? Stop backsliding and recommit yourself to the Lord. Stop
living like a pagan and live like a Christian.” And that would be the end
of the sermon. That’s how I would preach repentance if I were a Baptist.
But we’re not Baptists; we’re Lutherans, rejoicing in the
Gospel of the forgiveness of our sins for Christ’s sake. And yet, we
often hold onto some of these Baptist ideas about repentance and what it means.
The word is defined as “to change one’s mind, feel remorse, or be
converted.” So, the common understanding among many evangelical and
Baptist churches is to turn from your sinful behavior to God, to stop sinning
and to live a holy life. They maintain, then, that repentance is all up
to you. It’s a decision that you have to make for God based on His
command. God wouldn’t command something that you couldn’t do, would He?
So, if He tells you to repent, you have the power to do so; you have the
choice whether to repent or not. If you do you’ll go to heaven; if you
don’t you’ll go to hell. And sometimes we Lutherans believe some of these
things regarding repentance. We too often take the command to repent as
something that we have to do and can do in and of ourselves.
But all you have to do is go to the 10 commandments to see
that just because God commands something does not mean you are able to do it.
God commands that you have no other gods. And yet, we all have our
little gods that we fear, love, and trust in above God, whether it’s our money,
our security, our cars, or our family. God commands that we are to love
our neighbors as ourselves. And yet, we all love ourselves more than we
love others, and we struggle with anger, gossip, and selfishness all the time.
Far from showing us that we can keep God’s commandments, the Law
actually shows us that we can’t and how we have failed at each one.
God’s command to repent is no different. Just because
He tells us to repent doesn’t mean we can do it. Just what is it that He’s
telling us to do, when He says, “Repent”? The Augsburg Confession of the
It’s the Word of God itself that leads you to repentance and
faith. It changes your mind, it causes you to feel remorse, and then it
turns you around and causes you to trust in the Gospel. The Word of God
first leads you to repentance by confronting you with your sin. This is
the message of repentance that no one likes to hear, the message that you are a
sinner, guilty of having broken all of God’s commandments, and that you deserve
nothing but God’s judgment. This is the message which the prophet Amos
was given to give to the people of
You can’t, then, take credit for repenting, because it’s God
who brings you to the knowledge of your sins, terrifies you with His wrath, and
works in you confession of your sins as He works through His words of Law.
But then with His words of Gospel, He leads you to faith in Jesus Christ
and comforts you with the proclamation that He forgives your sins for Christ’s
sake. The proclamation of repentance prepares you to hear the
proclamation of the Gospel. When Jesus sent His apostles to preach
repentance to the people of the cities He was about to visit, this was to
prepare them to receive Him when He came to them. But to reject the
message of the messengers whom Jesus sends is to reject Him. And to
reject Jesus is to remain in your sins under the condemnation of the Law.
Jesus says that “God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the
world, but that the world should be saved through Him. He who believes in
Him is not condemned; he who does not believe is condemned already, because he
has not believed in the Name of the only-begotten Son of God.” Jesus
doesn’t come to condemn you of your sins; Moses and the Law do that. But
Jesus comes to save you from your sins. God does not want to keep you in
a state of terror on account of your sins, nor does He want you to think that
you can help yourself out of this state. He points you to Jesus, your
Savior, crucified and risen from the dead for you.
And Jesus is not the Savior of partial sinners; He does not
forgive you only some of your sins. Jesus is the Savior of
complete sinners, giving His complete forgiveness and righteousness to all
chiefs of sinners. He has taken away not just some of your guilt, but all
of it, so that you are completely holy, blameless, and righteous before God.
Those who don’t confess they have much sin don’t have much forgiveness.
The bigger a sinner you confess yourself to be, the bigger a Savior you
can confess that you have in Jesus. But no one can take credit for making
Jesus their Savior. Jesus is your Savior apart from your accepting or
choosing Him. It wasn’t you who accepted and chose Him, but He who
accepted and chose you. He came to you while you were dead in your
trespasses and sins and made you alive. Most of you were baptized while
still infants, before you could ever make a decision for Jesus. There He
placed His Name upon you, washed away all your sins, and claimed you as His
own. You don’t remember it, but He worked repentance and faith in you
even at that age. Many people think children should become more like
adults, waiting until they’re old enough to make a decision for Jesus before they’re
baptized. But Jesus says that adults are to become like children if they
want to inherit the
And so we rejoice that God continues to work repentance and
faith in us today. Repentance is not just a one time thing; it’s not just
for unbelievers, but believers too need to repent. We live in repentance.
And this repentance is not a work of ours; it’s not something we can come
up with ourselves. It is the result of God’s daily work on us through
Baptism and His Word as He drowns our old sinful nature and raises us with
Christ to newness of life. He kills you with His words of Law, raises you
up with His words of Gospel, and then He transforms you and causes you to live
a holy and godly life. By His Spirit who has made your body His temple He
helps you to forsake sin and produce the fruit of repentance.
Here at the end of the sermon you might still be asking the
questions, “Then, what are we supposed to do when the Lord tells us to repent?”
Stop focusing on what you’re supposed to do and focus on what the Lord is
doing for you, in you, through you, to you with His Word. Then you’ll
know what repentance is all about and who gets all the glory for it.
Repentance from beginning to end is God’s work in you and not your work
for Him, and so all the glory for it goes to Him. Remember your Baptism
and what God did for you there and what He continues to do on a daily basis for
you through it. Remember the Lord’s Supper by which He causes you to
remember Christ’s sacrifice on the cross for you and puts His very body and
blood into your body giving you new life in Jesus. And hear His Word
again, confessing both what it says about you and what it says about your
Savior. That’s repentance! You are a sinner, but Jesus is the
Savior of sinners. He Himself became the chief of sinners and suffered
God’s wrath for you in your place. His sacrifice on the cross has atoned
for all your sins. His blood cleanses you from all unrighteousness.
You are now also a saint and a child of God. Repent, then, and
believe the Gospel. And just as you can thank a teacher for having taught
you how to read, so you can thank the Lord for bringing you to repentance and
faith in Him, so that you might receive Him who has received you. Amen.