What does it mean to repent of sin? If you are not careful, you will give a definition that only includes about one-third of what the word means. So, check your understanding to see if your definition includes the following three things;:
- A change of mind about your sin
- A sorrow over your sin
- A turning away from sin and toward righteousness.
At times, I have tried to help people understand that to repent is to recognize, reject, and replace sin. We recognize our sin, seeing it as actually sinful and not OK behavior. We reject sin, declaring that we hate it and do not want it in our life any longer. Then we replace sin, turning to a righteous opposite alternative.
Often, when you hear people talk about repentance, you will see them get the concept of recognizing their sin and rejecting it. But often people miss the key of replacing sin. People will get the concept of putting off their sin like dirty clothes, but they will fail to remember that we need to be dressed in righteousness (cf. Col. 3:5-17).
In an interesting illustration, I believe that Jesus shows us the importance of replacing sin with righteousness. He shows us that it is not enough to get rid of something bad for a while. You have to replace evil with good.
Matthew 12:43-45 – 43 “When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, but finds none. 44 Then it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when it comes, it finds the house empty, swept, and put in order. 45 Then it goes and brings with it seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and dwell there, and the last state of that person is worse than the first. So also will it be with this evil generation.”
This odd-sounding passage comes as a part of a fairly intense discourse between Jesus and some Jewish religious teachers. The teachers saw Jesus cast out a demon, and they accused him of doing so by the power of the devil rather than by the power of God. For his part, Jesus told those teachers that they were failing to see the genuine power and compassion of God and they were missing that the kingdom of God was at hand. They were generally embracing laws and regulations, but they were failing to embrace the Lord himself.
In the odd little illustration, Jesus showed the Jews the danger they were in. As miracles were happening, it was as if God was cleaning up their house. God was freeing people from dreadful, spiritual calamities. But, if the people did not embrace the Lord, they would be leaving their lives empty. Without allowing the Lord Jesus to be at the center of their hearts, their hearts were in great danger of being reoccupied by evil, and even worse evil than they had in there already.
To make the application to our repentance, consider what happens when you have an evil in your heart. It will sometimes happen that you will try to turn from it. You will make a personal, moral decision. You are going to clean things up. You are going to repent. You are going to cut out your evil.
That is all good. In fact, it may work for a time. But, if you do not fill your life with the things of God, with righteousness, you will find that your life quite quickly slides back into your sinful habits. And, in fact, you will often find that your habits are worse than before because they are the old habits amplified by the discouragement of being back there again and again.
The only way to defeat our sin, to truly repent, is to find a righteousness to replace our sinfulness. So, for example, it is not enough for a man to stop being harsh toward his wife. For repentance to take place, the man must put on genuine kindness and love. It is not enough for a man to stop thinking lustful thoughts. He must seek out genuine purity—to see women as people made in the image of God and not to be exploited. A husband does not put off sin when he stops watching dirty movies. He has repented when he also starts delighting in his wife. Otherwise, he will find his heart drawn down the same old road, but it will go further each time.
In his illustration, Jesus was showing the Jewish teachers that they had a season of opportunity to embrace the Lord. They could turn to him, allow him to be central in their lives, and experience the blessing of God. Or, they could like the work he was doing in general, leave their hearts empty, and find themselves in a far darker place in the future.
For us, we can see our sin and work to clean it up. That is good. But, if we do not replace our sin, living to the glory of God, we will find that our sin comes back on us harder than before. So, in repentance, recognize, reject and replace.
Pastor Travis Peterson 