Repentance and forgiveness: every preacher must teach it.

 

Repentance is a grace of the gospel that leads to life. Just like faith, repentance must be preached by every minister of the gospel. Without this message we fail to preach the full council of God.

 

Yet we can never rely on our repentance by believing that it partially pays for our sin or that it is the reason why God will forgive it.

No, our sin is only redeemed and forgiven by God’s free grace in Christ.  But it remains necessary for each of us, and we shouldn’t expect to receive a new heart and life without it.

 

It is repentance that help us to sense the danger of our sins and see how dirty and hideous they are. And more importantly, we see how contrary our sins are to God’s holy character and his perfect will. It is because we repent of our sins that we learn to realise the grace of God’s promises to grant us mercy in Christ.

As we grieve for and hate our sins, we turn from them to God, we become determined to walk with our Lord and pray that the Holy Spirit will help us to keep his commands.

 

There is no sin so small that it does not deserve to be condemned. But there’s no sin so big that it will condemn those who truly repent, relying on the grace of God in and through being redeemed by Jesus Christ.

 

And we are not content with repenting of our sins in a general sense. Healing comes from grieving every individual sin that plaques our conscience and restrains our intimate relationship with the Lord.

 

We must first of all privately confess our sins to God and beg for his forgiveness. We must accept God’s offer to be redeemed through Christ and to be saved from the devastation caused by our disobedience and unholiness.

God assures us of his forgiveness in and through the Lord Jesus when we ask for his grace and mercy because we hate our sinful ways and desires.

When we sin against and dishonour a brother or sister in Christ, or the Church, we must also willingly ask to be forgiven by the person or people we’ve offended.

We must be remorseful because we have sinned and tell those involved that we have asked for God’s forgiveness. Then our brothers and sisters should become willing to be reunited with us and receive us back in fellowship with them, in love.

 

“Our Father in heaven, forgive us our sins, as we forgive them that sinned against us.  Amen.”