What Really Changes Us: The Rationale and Reward of Repentance

REFLECTION QUOTES

“I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice.”

~Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865), lawyer and 16th President of the United States

“The first link between my soul and Christ is not my goodness but my badness; not my merit but my misery; not my riches but my need.”

“If you are to go to Christ, do not put on your good doings and feelings, or you will get nothing; go in your sins, they are your [proper attire]. Your ruin is your argument for mercy; your poverty is your plea for heavenly alms; and your need is the motive for heavenly goodness. Go as you are, and let your miseries plead for you.”

~Charles Spurgeon (1834-1892), British preacher

“Whenever the Psalter is abandoned, an incomparable treasure vanishes from the Christian church. With its recovery will come unsuspected power.”

~Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1909-1945), pastor and theologian, martyred by the Nazis

“These are noble, passionate, and very profound words of a truly penitent heart that is most deeply moved in its distress. In fact, this cannot be understood except by those who have felt and experienced it. We are all in deep and great misery, but we do not all feel our condition. ‘I cry to you.’ Crying is nothing but a strong and earnest longing for God’s grace, which does not arise in a person unless they see in what depth he is lying.”

~Martin Luther (1483-1546), German pastor and reformer on Psalm 130

“The quality of strength lined with tenderness is an unbeatable combination…”

~ Maya Angelou (1928-2014), poet, singer, memoirist, and civil rights activist

SERMON PASSAGE

Psalm 130 (ESV)

1 Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord!
2 O Lord, hear my voice!
Let your ears be attentive
to the voice of my pleas for mercy!

3 If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities,
O Lord, who could stand?
4 But with you there is forgiveness,
that you may be feared.

5 I wait for the Lord, my soul waits,
and in his word I hope;
6 my soul waits for the Lord
more than watchmen for the morning,
more than watchmen for the morning.

7 O Israel, hope in the Lord!
For with the Lord there is steadfast love,
and with him is plentiful redemption.
8 And he will redeem Israel
from all his iniquities.