Sin, Grace, and Repentance

QUOTES FOR REFLECTION

“No matter how good things get in this world, it’s all Egypt! There will never be enough gold chains, fine linen, praise, adoration, or anything else to satisfy the yearning that God has placed in us. Only his presence in the Land of Promise will satisfy his people.”

~Voddie Baucham, Dean of Theology at African Christian University in Zambia

“Penance is a religious attitude deeply rooted in the human heart which prompts people to attempt to pay for their own sins by good works and sufferings. Self-justification is the goal of this effort.”

~Jack Miller (1928-1996), pastor and seminary professor

“Though repentance be a deep sorrow for sin…, yet the very nature of it necessarily implies delight. Repentance of sin is a sorrow arising from the sight of God’s excellency and mercy…. ‘Tis impossible that anyone should see anything that appears to him excellent and not behold it with pleasure, and it’s impossible to be affected with the mercy and love of God, and his willingness to be merciful to us and love us, and not be affected with pleasure at the thoughts of [it]; but this is the very affection that begets true repentance.”

~Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758), New England pastor and theologian

Question 88: What is involved in genuine repentance or conversion?

Answer: Two things: the dying-away of the old self, and the rising-to-life of the new.

Question 89: What is the dying-away of the old self?

Answer: To be genuinely sorry for sin and more and more to hate and run away from it.

Question 90: What is the rising-to-life of the new self?

Answer: Wholehearted joy in God through Christ and a love and delight to live according to the will of God by doing every kind of good work.

~The Heidelberg Catechism (1563)

“Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either—but right through every human heart—and through all human hearts…. And even in the best of all hearts, there remains…an unuprooted small corner of evil.”

~Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918-2008), Russian novelist and Soviet dissident

SERMON PASSAGE

Ephesians 2:1-10

John 16 (ESV)

7 Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. 8 And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment….  

John 17 (ESV)

26 I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.

Acts 2 (ESV)

37 Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” 38 And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Ephesians 2 (NASB95)

1 And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, 2 in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. 3 Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.

4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6 and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.