Dennis Tuuri

Sermon text today is found in Matthew 7:3-5. Please stand for the reading of God’s word.

Matthew chapter 7 beginning at verse 3: “And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove the speck from your eye,’ and look, the plank is in your own eye. Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for bringing us together to transform us, Lord God, by your word, by your assurance of our forgiveness, by your bringing instruction from your word, and by feeding us at the table of our Lord. We thank you, Lord God, for these great gifts of glory, knowledge, and life. May we receive them gladly from your hand today. Give us now knowledge, father, and understanding of the importance of repentance in our lives and the significance of that action. In Jesus’s name we pray. Amen.

Please be seated.

Well, we’re sort of leapfrogging the last couple of weeks. On July 4th, I preached a sermon on freedom from sin. And I attached to the end of that outline some materials from the Peacemaker. It really is pretty much the basics of what biblical repentance and forgiveness of sins is all about. I’m going to address those things again today, but I want to provide a little bit of an introduction first.

I decided to return to this topic when I heard from several of you that the stuff at the end of that outline they hadn’t really seen before, hadn’t thought of in that way. And also as I observed in the context of my own life and the people in my life, that this very basic element of repentance—it seems like we have a difficult time remembering and applying what the scriptures tell us about it.

It’s been my experience in parenting and pastoring over the I don’t know 25 to 30 years of my adult life—that if we do not inject truth into this system of repentance in our lives, it tails away into some kind of putting up with our own sin, or at usually instead of what I would call biblical repentance, a simple assertion of sorrow over a matter. “I’m sorry.” And that’s supposed to be the end of it.

Well, it’s not the end of it. And this is not complicated stuff what I’ll be presenting from the Peacemakers. It’s very basic. It’s self-evident. But we need to hear it over and over again. I’ve been amazed in the years of counseling, for instance, how often these very simple steps are difficult, either unknown, or people are unwilling to enter into this series of seven very simple steps.

So what Ken Sande at Peacemakers calls the seven A’s of confession—now there’s a reason for that. You know, people have observed that for the last since the Reformation, we’ve had a very difficult time doing the very simple action of coming to the Lord’s supper as part of our normal worship service, bringing our children with us, and all of us eating bread and drinking wine. Now, that’s pretty simple in the scriptures and it’s not difficult to figure out. But you see, it’s a very significant event in the life of the church, and we can expect opposition to that event both from Satan, the adversary, and also from our own sinfulness—because our sinfulness kind of wars against us, as we saw from Romans 6 a couple of weeks ago.

Well, this is the same thing. This is the basic elements of what it means to repent of sin, what we’ll get to in the main portion of the outline. And yet, it is a powerful thing, and we, I think to some degree, don’t appreciate the power of it.

This is why I tried on July 4th—and I’m sure I didn’t do a very good job of it—but this is why I wanted to stress in Romans 6 not just that there is this deliverance from sin, that there is this right standing in God’s sight through justification, but that the whole implications of that are that we’ve been moved from old humanity to new humanity definitively in Christ.

And remember Paul says in Romans 6 that when we either present our arms—all that we have—to God or to not God, to ourselves, we are presenting weapons in a battle. Romans 6 says the Christian life is involved in a battle field. We sing about the Lord of hosts—Sabaoth. It means hosts, armies. We’re part of the army of God. When people are baptized, they’re put in union with Christ. They’ve been transferred into, mustered into, the army of God. They had their papers ready to go and everything. And baptism definitively puts them in the army of God.

And the way we go about waging the warfare that we know we’re called to do as optimistic eschatological Christians who have escaped the defeist, escapist mentality of our past—many of us—how do we go about exercising dominion? And Paul says that the way you go about winning the war for dominion is to present your arms—everything that you have—in service to Christ and to very directly cut off, break off from sinning and do what’s right.

And Paul went on in Romans 6 to say there’s an eschatology to that. Wages of sin is death. As we present arms to our own goals or purposes, our own particularities, our own desires, or the desires of the world, we’re presenting arms to the opposition. And the end result of that is it has an effect on the world. It ministers unrighteousness. Paul said in Romans 6, it ministers unholiness, and its end, its eschatological terminus, terminal point—death.

On the other hand, if we go about the simple activities of consecrating ourselves afresh to the service of Christ in all that we have through biblical repentance of the sin that so easily besets us, Paul says that the end result of that is a growth in holiness in the world and a growth of justice in the world, and the end result is life to the world.

So the way we go about exercising dominion is by knowing the basics of the Christian faith, and one of the most basic elements in this freedom from sin we’ve been given by God is how to appropriate that, how to go ahead and move away from besetting sin, how to break off with sin. And so repentance becomes not just something to sort of keep ourselves right so that then we can go about doing the work of dominion. Repentance is a movement away from doing the work of undomination to doing the work of dominion.

Repentance is a change of mind, a change of heart. The prodigal, when he came to himself, the text tells us in Luke’s gospel—when he got sane again—he said, “What am I doing this for? My father, you know, is a great guy.” He repents by coming to his senses and by engaging in action. And we’ll talk about that as we get into the major portion of the outline.

But I want you to look briefly at well, let’s look at Romans 7 first, because I have that noted on the outline. And it’s important that we understand this as well. If you look at verse 12 of Romans 7—and we don’t have time to develop the whole argument, but this is kind of the conclusion of the matter—it’s easy to think from Romans 6 that somehow the law is not very useful to us. But he tells us in Romans 7:12, “Therefore, the law is holy and the commandment holy and just and good.”

Nothing wrong with the law. But because of the fall of Adam and sin, the law ministers death to us under its condemnation rather than life. But the converse of that is also true. As Paul tells us in chapter 7, look at verse 14: “We know that the law is spiritual. But I am carnal, sold under sin.” And then he goes on to a long discussion of doing the things that he doesn’t want to do.

What’s he saying? He’s saying that he’s talking about the old humanity. God gave a holy, just, and good law to old humanity, but it ministered death until the transition comes through Christ. Now, the implication is that the law is good and spiritual, but I, at least in my Adamic nature, am carnal. And the implication is that now that we are spiritual, now that we’re alive spiritually in Jesus Christ, the law now is part of the mechanism where God is going to direct our paths. So the law is important. The law is important.

Eschatology is important in Romans 6 and 7. It says there’s a positive eschatology as we apply all that we have in this battleground known as life. And a part essential part of that is this removal that God has effected for us from the dominion of sin.

Now if you could look at Romans chapter 6, verse 7, and it says there in Romans 6:7 that we have been freed from sin. But in your Bibles, a King James Bible for instance, you’ll see a little footnote to that word “free.” And what it actually says is “justified.” It’s the same basic word as justification—justified, made just. And so what it says in Romans 6:7 is that we have been justified from sin. That’s not a normal way we think of justification by faith. We normally think of justification by faith as a legal verdict that God enters into—and that’s it. And this is what the Reformed confessions tend to stress, and what they say about justification.

But this verse has to inform our understanding of justification. Remember when we preached on theonomy, we looked at the confession of faith given in 1 Timothy, the little creedal formula that gives us justification for building creeds. And it says that Jesus, you know, came in the flesh and was justified in the spirit. And the justified in the spirit is referring to the resurrection of Christ. So Jesus is justified in the spirit. Does that mean that God imputed Jesus’s goodness to Jesus? No. It means that the resurrection of Christ is the justification, the demonstration of his perfection. And they’re one and the same.

And in Romans 6:7, it says that we who have been united to Christ—and the way Paul talks about that is through baptism—but don’t worry about that. If we’ve been united with Christ, a living relationship with Christ as is pictured in baptism, then it says that we have been justified from sin. And the whole point of the text is we’ve been given freedom from sin.

Justification—God’s declaration of this verdict to us—is not some kind of simple forensic action without a result in the context of our lives. The book of Judges, right? What is it about? It’s a funny book for little kids to read. The book of Judges. So you’re going to read about judicial decisions of judges, but you don’t. What you read about in the book of Judges is what? Deliverance—the destruction of our enemies. God’s giving his people victory over their enemies. That’s what a judge does in biblical terminology. And God is the just judge.

And in his justification of us, it isn’t a simple declaration that we now have the imputed righteousness of Christ. It is that, of course. But the immediate implication that Paul makes—in fact, it’s a direct application of our justification—is a resultant freedom from sin. So justification is what repentance is all about. The fact that we can repent of our sins is our justification from God. He’s given us deliverance from our sins.

You know, we sing these Psalms. I’m glad we do. But you know, it’s a little bit dangerous singing the Psalms just like Paul says. The law is a little dangerous because you could start thinking of the law as a way to live your life apart from seeing the law as a reflection of your life, which is now in Christ. There’s a dramatic difference between those two. And the Psalms are the same way. You know, we sing, “Let your face shine and we’ll be saved.” And we sing about, “Oh, that God would deliver his people.” All of those songs are talking about the advent of Jesus Christ. They all testified to him. And when Jesus comes as given to us in the gospel accounts, all the deliverance happened. That’s justification.

Justification is not some parent bringing little kids together, and one kid has stolen the other kid’s toy, and saying, “Well, my judicial pronouncement is the toy belongs to that child.” And then he walks away. No, that’s not how God acts in our justification. God declares us united with Christ. We have his faithfulness. We have the imputed righteousness. We have that legal standing. But God is not the kind of judge who makes an announcement with words that do not have an effect.

God speaks and creation occurs. God said, “Let there be light,” and light is there. And God says, “You Christian, united with Christ, are justified.” And what Paul tells us is that means you’re freed from sin. And he does it. He gives you that freedom from sin.

And so when we talk about repentance and we talk about justification, they’re really very closely related. And repentance is the tool whereby we turn from our sins, given the freedom to do that on the basis of Christ’s work.

When we sing these Psalms asking for God to redeem and deliver his people, we must always in our hearts and minds apply them first and foremost with a hearty “Amen” and thankfulness to God that has happened definitively through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, it has an application to us, of course. There are times when our sins are exercising dominion over us, and when ungodly people rule over us, and we can sing those Psalms and it’s appropriate. But only if we see them first and foremost related to the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now, you know, I also want to tie this into my talk last week when I talked about fathers. We give this—you know, we talk about fathers as I did last week from the gospel of John, and it’s all true what I said. I think, pray, praise to God that it is. But it’s only one side of the picture. If we look at the specific admonitions given to fathers in the Bible, we read this in Ephesians 6:4: “You fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord.”

And we’re told the same thing in Colossians 3:21: “Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged.”

What’s my point? Well, we always talk about bringing them up in the admonition of the Lord. That’s good. But understand that there is not some kind of neutral option for dad. Fathers are to guard their children, all right? And nurture them. We know that’s the great two big dynamics of life from Adam through the priests to the elders: guard, nurture, guard, nurture, guard, nurture. Husbands are to guard, nurture their wives. We know all this. We guard, nurture our own bodies. We have clothing. We have food. We guard and we nurture.

But what does Ephesians 6 say? We’re going to nurture them, bringing them up in the training and admonition of the Lord. But who do we guard them from? And Ephesians and Colossians, in very explicit commandments to dads and by implication, moms—I would say here—because it doesn’t say “mothers” something separate. So mothers are included in dads. The scriptures warn us that it is the parents’ job to guard their children from the parents’ own sinfulness.

Isn’t that what it says? It seems to me that’s what it says. God preaches to our weakness. Our tendency as parents in Adam is to sinfully attack our children, to be unjust to them, to provoke them to wrath, okay?

So my point is that if you went away from last week’s sermon thinking, “Gee, I’m really awful because, you know, a lot of times I yell at my kids or I do things wrong or I ignore them”—and ignoring children can also provoke them to wrath and make them discouraged—well, you know, understand that’s the normal state of Adamic fatherhood. And understand that Romans 6 and 7 says we’ve been delivered from that by the grace of Christ. And the way you appropriate that deliverance is through biblical repentance of those sins, which we’re talking about today. And then the end result of that and a recommitment to do what God wants us to do is dominion in the world.

So it’s all of a piece—these last three or four sermons. They all flow together.

One other piece of introduction before we get to the actual seven A’s portion of the outline. I’ve given you a complicated outline from the book of Hebrews. It’s really confusing. Now, look at the outline. Not that complicated. I’m going to preach on Hebrews next year, but I’ve been I’ve seen this chiastic structure in the introduction to Hebrews. I’ve been teaching it to my 10 to 12-year-old class for the last month or two, and it’s just delightful, and it’s a nice illustration of what we’re talking about here today.

And I’ll say it in this way. So you see what I’ve done is you know in these structures, you have this middle section, and one of the tests for whether you’ve really gotten the middle section right is: Is there a shift of some kind? Some major shift at the center of a chiastic structure? Is there a shift? And then secondly, is there a focus? You see the difference? You shift, but then is there an actual focus?

Well, the delightful way that God has given us the first four verses—which everybody acknowledges as the introduction to the book—the delightful way that God has written it is that he has made it as simple as pie to see both the shift and the focus in Hebrews 1:1-4. I’ve outlined the verbs in this structure, and what you’ll notice—and you don’t have to do it now, believe me—what you’ll see is out of these 10 verbs, the first four: it’s God who is doing the action.

Do you see that? In A, B, and C: God who at various times and various ways spoke in times past, in these last days he has spoken to us, whom by the Son—whom, that is, God has appointed heir of all things—through whom also he made—that’s through Christ—God has made the world. Those four verbs: God is doing the action. But in the center there’s a shift because Jesus—referring to Jesus being the brightness of God’s glory, the expressed image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power—the shift is from God to Jesus at the center.

So there is a shift, and the rest of the verbs all have Jesus doing the action right down to the end of the introduction. So there’s a shift. There’s also a focus at the middle because the first four of these 10 verbs that are underlined for you in the outline are past tenses: spoke, times past, whatever. It’s all past. And then the middle is the present action of Christ: “who being the brightness of his glory and expressed image of his person, upholding”—present tense—”all things by the word of his power.”

So it’s the present action of Jesus that’s focused at the center. And then after that: “having purged our sin, sat down at the right hand of the father.” And we’re back now to past tenses, and it stays that way to the end.

So there’s a shift from God to Jesus at the center, and there’s a focus on the present action of Jesus at the center.

Now, in these sevenfold structures, frequently the fourth one in a stream of seven relates back to the fourth day of creation—the sun, moon, and stars—and that’s just the way it is. It’s the easiest way to spot one of these structures. And here is no difference.

How does that middle section, the center of the whole introduction, work? Well, it begins by saying that Jesus is the brightness of the glory of God. He’s the sun. S-O-N, right? He’s the bright shining radiance of God’s glory. At the very center of the structure is the brightness of Jesus Christ.

Now, the whole book of Hebrews is going to exposit the brightness of Jesus. One way to look at the structure is: take the center and think of it as the flashlight, okay? You got a flashlight at the center of that structure. The light is shining, and the light is shining through Jesus, who is the brightness of the glory of God. Now, as it radiates out from that center, the present work of the Lord Jesus Christ, we see matched sets going outward.

And the first matched set is the creation of the world and the redemption of the world. Now, if I ask you what’s the basis for keeping the fourth commandment in the Decalogue, the ten commandments, you could give me two correct answers because in Exodus the basis is the work of creation—the Sabbath rest of God in the seventh day. But not so in Deuteronomy. In Deuteronomy, the second giving of the 10 words, there is a shift in some various important parts. But one shift is that now it’s not the creation that’s referenced as the justification, the reasoning for Sabbath rest, but instead in Deuteronomy, it’s the redemptive act of God in bringing them out of Israel.

Now, I could, we could go to lots of scriptures, but over and over again in the Bible, creation and redemption are pitted up against one another. So the brightness of the glory of Christ shines out to us through him having purged our sins and brought about a new creation.

Then, as you radiate out from the center to the B points—B and B prime—what you have are references to the king. Those were references to the priestly action, purging our sins. Now we have references to the kingly actions of Jesus. He inherits, he’s become heir of all things. And after having purged our sins, he sits down at the right hand of the father. He’s the enthroned king. Those are references to Psalm 2 and Psalm 110, the great messianic work of Christ, the king.

The brightness radiates out from Christ. It is expressed in his priestly action of taking care of our sins. And it then shines out from the center in the kingly actions of dominion over the world. And then finally, it gets to prophets and angels. And angels in the book of Hebrews and other places in scripture—they’re the mediators of the word of God, the Old Testament. That’s what they are. So those match up. It’s revelation.

God doesn’t speak through prophets and angels. He speaks through the Son. It’s the prophetic ministry. This is the way the ministry of any person moves out: priest, king, prophet, okay?

And this is what Romans 6 and 7 are all about. Philippians says we’re supposed to shine as lights in the midst of a dark world, right? We all know that. Our kids, most kids in this church, I’ll bet you, memorize Philippians 2: “Do all things without grumbling or disputing. Right, you children? Do all things without grumbling or disputing. You may be sons of God, shining as bright lights in the midst of a darkened age.” You’re supposed to shine like Jesus shined.

How? By applying the purging of our sins, the recreation. By walking in the newness of life—the brightness that God has called you, Christian, husbands, wives, adults, children. You’re supposed to shine as lights when you leave this place. How?

Well, like that flashlight from the middle of Hebrews: the brightness shines out in reference to our sins, turning from our sins. Jesus has purged our sins. He’s justified us and given us deliverance from our sins. That’s how it applies. And as we do that, Paul says in Romans 6 and 7, exercise of dominion—you become kings. You see, through doing that, through applying the work of Christ to our sins, and beyond kings, you become prophets. You become the voice of the Lord Jesus Christ to the culture. The voice—remember, the word of God is not a falling word. No falling words. Book of Joshua: does God give words of conquering? God gives words that have effect. “Let there be light, and there was light.” “Your sins are forgiven, and you’ve been redeemed and justified, freed from sin.” Okay. That’s the words we’re to have.

As we attend to the brightness of Christ at the middle of who we are, and as we apply this to the purging of our own sins—applying that on a daily basis—then God causes us to exercise rule and authority in the world. And then we speak forth the word, and the world is changed.

You know, it’s interesting. We sang Psalm 51. We recited Psalm 32. And those Psalms that talk about the songs of confession, the so-called penitential Psalms—they don’t just, you know, it’s not the way we think of penitential Psalms. You know, we think of penitential life as, “Oh, we confess our sins, God forgives us, then we’re okay.”

No. In those Psalms, we confess our sins, God forgives us, and we conquer. “Then I shall show sinners your way. Then I’ll convert the world.” He says, you see, because the Psalms are written from the same perspective: the brightness of the glory of Christ shining forth in his people addresses sins, but beyond that empowers them to be kings and queens in the midst of the earth. And beyond that, then our word changes the world in which God has placed us.

This is the wonderful news of Jesus Christ. This is tremendous implications of the gospel of Christ, and it’s given to us in a nice pictorial way at the introduction of the book of Hebrews that I hope sets an image in your head when you go out this week.

You want to shine. You want to rule. Everybody wants to rule the world, right? Seventies song. Well, that’s right. And we want to rule in terms of Jesus Christ, not for ourselves. But you don’t get to ruling if you don’t go through purging. He purged our sins and then sat down at the right hand of the father. And when I preach on Hebrews next year, we’ll see that this—again—is a dominant theme: this idea of redemption and rule, that Christ rules by means of his redemptive work of his people, is also exceedingly important in the scriptures. And it’s important in our lives.

Now, the point of all this is to just get your attention. The point of all this is for you to want to say: those sins that so easily beset me, that I’ve kind of let slide in my life, or that I’ve kind of told God, “Well, I’m sorry about that,” or told somebody that I offended, “I’m sorry,” and moved on from—and haven’t really moved on from. What I’m trying to get you to see is that there is no way to be God’s dominion people in the world if you don’t go through the application of the purging of our sins.

Repentance is absolutely vital. When Luther said at the beginning of the 95 Theses that the Christian life is to be a life of repentance, that sounds weird to our modern ears. “Well, all we ever do is get to repent. Don’t we get to actually exercise dominion for Christ?” Well, see, Luther, I think, understood the relationship that as we move away from sins and are cleansed of our sins, then indeed God exercises dominion as almost a byproduct of that.

You see, the light shines from the middle of the introduction to Hebrews through the priestly act of Christ, removing us from our sins, becoming then kings with him. Priests and kings—not just purged of our sins, but purged of our sins so that we might serve and be kings under the Lord Jesus Christ, and then changing the world through bringing the prophets, the voice of Jesus, into our culture. So this is only accomplished through repentance.

We need to come to ourselves. Luke 15:17, the prodigal, when he came to himself, he said, “How many hired servants of my father’s house have bread enough?” When he comes to himself, this is what repentance is. Repentance means a change of mind, a change of heart. It doesn’t mean being sorry for something. It means turning. It means coming to our senses. Coming to who we really are in Jesus Christ. That’s what repentance is.

Don’t paper it over with a brief apology. Come to yourself. Come to your senses. Break off sin. And this instruction material from Ken Sande is very useful.

Now, there’s cards. I mentioned this before. There’s little cards. I made sure they’re in the literature rack today on the bottom row. Whole series of them there. If they run out, we’ll get more. They’re like Lay’s potato chips. We’ll make more. We’ll get more if you take them. I think they’re very useful in our house. And you see why? You see the importance of working through the context of repentance? It’s absolutely vital in terms of the dominion that God has called us to.

Let’s talk about these seven A’s quickly then. The seven A’s of confession and Matthew 7:3-5. It’s not just your own sins, but you’re to apply the purgatory work of the Lord Jesus Christ to your brother. Matthew 7 is frequently used—or its corollary text. You say, “You’re not supposed to judge.” You can’t judge because you got a real problem yourself. But Jesus says, “Take the log or plank out of your own eyes so that then you can help your brother take the speck out of his.” It’s not, you know, Christianity is not an introspective life. What you’re supposed to do is clean up your sins so that you can help your brother clean up his sins.

Okay? And if we’re going to do that, we have to repent of the plank in our own eye.

What does it mean to repent? Well, A—this first A—address everyone involved. Proverbs 28 says that he who covers his sins will not prosper. Whoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy. 1 John 1:8 says if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. But if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

When we sin, we’re to address everybody involved. Now, that starts with God, right? David says, “Against thee, against thee, only have I sinned and done this great evil in thy sight.” He’s talking about committing adultery with Bathsheba and killing Uriah. He’s talking about adultery and murder. Seems like he’s wronged Uriah and Bathsheba—at least Uriah, no matter what your take is on Bathsheba. He certainly wronged Uriah. He slept with the guy’s wife, and he killed him.

But David is telling us a basic truth that is correct and important. All sin is lack of conformity unto, or transgression of, the law of God. And it is against God ultimately that all of our sins are committed. So whenever we sin, repentance involves addressing all parties. And that starts with the holy God, the Lord in glory, seated holy, holy, holy. This is what the cherubim sing. This is what we sing. We’re addressing a holy God whom we have offended with our sin.

To repent doesn’t mean telling the person you’ve sinned against you’re sorry. It means first and foremost addressing the God in heaven whose law you have violated, whose holiness you have violated, whose work you have rejected. You’ve turned. When he said present arms, you presented your arms to the wrong guy, to the opposition. You gave them to al-Qaeda instead of fighting for the Marines, okay? And when you do that, it is an affront to God.

You’re going to address everyone involved. That begins with God. Now, it may stop there. There are sins of the heart, and there are sins of society. There are sins that we commit only in our mind and heart and are known only to ourselves. And God does not want you addressing everybody else because they’re not involved in it, okay? They’re not involved in it. You address it to the One you offended—God. But there are also sins that are societal sins, sins that have an impact on the people around us. We take a brother’s toy. We’re unkind in our speech. We yell at each other. We do whatever it is—commit adultery, kill somebody.

There are people that we offend with our sins as well. And biblical repentance addresses all the parties to our sinfulness. Lord God gave me a great reminder of that this last week. I sinned in the midst of one, two, three, four, five people. Five people. And I had to, you know, thinking of my sermon, I had to go to each of those five people. Now, I was mad at one of them, right? But the other people saw it, and it affected them.

Sin breaks relationships. And don’t think that it just breaks the relationship with the person you’re directly sinning against. If you’re in the context of a home, that entire family that has observed your sin—they’ve seen it. If you’re in the context of work, the people that have observed that sin—if you’re in the context of this church and sitting around and talking, the people that are in the immediate context of that—they’ve seen it. And probably your sin has affected your relationships to each of them and their relationship to one another.

Biblical repentance addresses all the parties that are involved.

Secondly, biblical repentance avoids ifs, buts, and maybes. In other words, don’t make excuses. I preached on deflection as defection. I don’t know, a few months ago. When did I preach on it? I preached on it February 8th. “Deflection as Defection.” This is what we’re going to want to do when we have a sin. We’re going to want to explain that sin, even in the midst of knowing we’re supposed to say we’re sorry and repent.

“Well, gee, you know, I’m really sorry. I lost my temper. But, you know, if you had not done this, I probably wouldn’t have lost it.” You see? And that’s a deflection of total responsibility. Biblical repentance owns up to your sin. No ifs, ands, buts, maybes, but this, that, or the other thing. No excuse making, okay? You take responsibility for your actions.

It’s hard for us because in our Adamic nature—the old creation, the darkness of sin and judgment against sin—that’s what Adam did. That’s what Eve did, right? That’s what fallen people do. They try to blame the other party. And they won’t do it overtly a lot of times, but they’ll just sort of throw it in. “Well, you know, the wife that you gave me gave me this fruit.” He’s not saying he didn’t sin, but he’s kind of deflecting responsibility.

And the point is that if you do that, you have not brought forth biblical repentance. You’ve presented arms to al-Qaeda. You’ve defected. It’s not a small thing. God wants us to very clearly admit to what it is we’ve done wrong, avoiding ifs, buts, and maybes. We don’t say, “Well, I was kind of tired, and so I did this.” I took counseling training from George Scipione, and he was really good. We were sitting around 25, 30 people in a class, and somebody had been kind of cantankerous with him, and they said, “Well, you know, I am sorry about that, but I’ve been tired.” And Scipione immediately said, “Well, you know, you might be tired, but you know, that’s never an excuse for our sin. So if you’re going to repent of that, just admit it specifically: ‘Well, yeah, you’re right. I should. I do confess that sin.’”

You see? That’s what we need to do with each other. We want to cut off deflection, excuse-making. Avoid deflection, which is in essence defection.

Three, admit specifically in both attitudes and actions. Now, Chris W. gave a great talk on 2 Corinthians 7:9-12 recently. I don’t know, sometime in the last 6 months, I think, maybe a year ago, and it was excellent. 2 Corinthians 7:9-12 Paul is commending the Corinthians for the way in which they have repented of their sinfulness. Remember the Corinthians have not really done what they were supposed to have done with a man. And Chris did a great job of explicating that text from 2 Corinthians 7:9-12.

And why don’t you turn there and we’ll just look at this briefly. 2 Corinthians 7:9-12. “I rejoice, not that you were made sorry, but that you sorrowed to repentance, for you were made sorry after a godly manner, that you might receive damage by us in nothing.”

Let’s just stop there for a moment. So the point is: see, when you say “I’m sorry for something,” it has no use. We’ll get to that in a minute. You should be sorry. But Paul says, “Your sorrow was not just a worldly sorrow. It was a godly sorrow unto repentance.” And then he’s going to describe what it looked like.

“For godly sorrow works repentance to salvation, not to be repented of, but the sorrow of the world works death. For behold, this same thing that you sorrowed after a godly sort. What carefulness it wrought in you! Yea, what clearing of yourselves! Yea, what indignation! What fear! What vehement desire! Yea, what zeal! Yea, what revenge! In all things you have approved yourselves to be clear in this matter.”

So Elder Wilson likes to use this text when talking to people about their sin. And it’s a great one to turn to. And we don’t have time to exposit the whole thing, but Elder Wilson did that in a recent sermon, and you can get that sermon from Isaac in the office. But the point is that when we say that one of the A’s of biblical forgiveness is admitting specifically, see that’s what these people did. They attempted to clear themselves of all their sin. And that involves admitting specifically what our sins are.

Admitting specifically. So you know, you address everybody involved. You avoid excuse-making, and you admit very specifically what you did. You don’t just say, “Well, I’m sorry for inappropriate speech.” No, you say, “You know, I—three people all heard me say this thing.” You go to each of them individually, and you say, “It was wrong of me. I agree with God. It was sin for me to tell you, ‘Shut up.’” Okay? You don’t just say, “Well, I’m sorry.” No, you admit specifically. You try to clear yourself of the specific details of your sin.

Four, apologize. You do apologize. You do express sorrow for the way you affected someone. While repentance is a turning, it involves—Paul tells us in the text of 2 Corinthians—sorrow. There’s a godly sorrow and a worldly sorrow. Worldly sorrow doesn’t really lead to repentance. But you are supposed to be sorry that you did something wrong.

This is the other ditch we can fall into. If many times we fall into the ditch of just saying, “I’m sorry,” I don’t want you to now go off the other way and say, “Well, all I got to do is admit specifically what I did to everybody that I did it to, and not make excuses, and then say you’ve got to forgive me.” No.

There should be a sorrow for what you did to that other person. There should be an apology then involving an understanding, a compassion for the person that you sinned against.

I’m going to talk on community in a couple weeks. I heard yesterday on C-SPAN—I like to watch BookNotes on Saturday whenever I can. There was a man, a sociologist from NYU and London School of Economics, talking about community. And he said that he thought one of the best ideas of community the modern day came from this woman, an author who I don’t know, but she’s like a leading light among sociologists in the world today. And she said we cannot build community upon compassion. We have to build them upon camaraderie. So we build community upon camaraderie, not compassion, because compassion devolves into pity and putting people down, etcetera.

Well, she’s wrong. And I’ll talk more about that in a couple weeks. But biblical community is built on a sense of compassion, a sense of understanding what people are going through, and a desire to be sympathetic to that. Again, in Hebrews, that’s one of the two great characteristics of Christ’s priesthood: his faithfulness and then his compassion or sympathy. And we’re called upon to be like that to one another.

We’re to be compassionate, and we are to apologize, expressing sorrow for our sins against one another. And again, that’s what Paul commends them for in 2 Corinthians.

Five, accept the consequences, such as making restitution, or accept the consequences. So you know, we should want to understand that the prodigal is an example of this. When he comes to himself, when he comes to his senses, he says to his father, “I have sinned against heaven and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son.” He says, “I know that for what I did, it would be just if you disowned me. I am not worthy to be called your son.” If you disown me, is what he’s saying. That’s okay. And this is biblical repentance. The prodigal is willing to accept whatever the consequences of his sin are.

Now, God be praised. God is not devoid of mercy. And indeed, the father then says to the servants, “Bring forth the boy, the best robe. Put it on him. Put a ring on his hand, shoes on his feet, and bring the fatted calf.” But the point is that the prodigal was willing to accept the consequences of what he had done wrong.

Now, if what we’re trying to accomplish through our actions of being free from sin is a change in the world in the exercise of dominion, that’s another way to think about repentance. Repentance tries to restore the relationship and restore—whatever you damaged by your sin. And so over and over again in the scriptures, repentance is talked about as being accompanied by fruit, actions that are meet, worthy, fit in relationship to our repentance.

So if you steal from somebody, and they find out about it, you’re supposed to make double restitution. You make back what it is. But more than that, repentance is tied to the improvement of our community, the exercise of dominion. Now the guy doesn’t have just his normal goods that you stole, but he’s got double the goods by which to exercise dominion in stewardship. So biblical repentance accepts the consequences. These consequences may well indeed be marked by restitution as well.

The text I give you here in Luke 19:1-9 is the story of Zacchaeus, who was a tax collector. And Jesus comes to Zacchaeus, and we read in verses 5 and following: “When Jesus came to this place, he looked up and saw him, and said to him, ‘Zacchaeus, make haste. Come down, for today I must stay at your house.’ So he made haste and came down and received him joyfully.

But when they saw it, they all complained, saying, ‘He has gone to be a guest with a man who is a sinner.’ Then Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, ‘Lord, Lord, look, I give half of my goods to the poor. And if I have taken anything from anyone by false accusation, I restore fourfold.’ And Jesus said, ‘Today salvation has come to this house, because he also is a son of Abraham.’”

Are you a son of Abraham? Bible says you are. You’re knit together with Christ in the faith of Abraham. And as a son of Abraham, our heart’s desire, the scriptures tell us, is to make restitution far beyond what the simple requirements of the law were. Our great joy in our biblical repentance is to make restitution, to accept the consequences, to ask the person you’ve offended, “Well, what should I do to kind of make this up to you?” To accept the consequences, and be willing to accept all things, including the restitution of what you have done wrong.

Six, biblical repentance is another A of this: alter your behavior, commit to changing harmful habits. And I’ve got Ephesians 4:22-32 here. Remember we used to recite the Ten Commandments. You know, “Let him who steals steal no more, but rather let him labor, giving with his hands to him that needeth, okay? That he might have as the labor of his hands to give to him that needs.”

So there’s a consequence to the person you sin against. You restore back what you stole, for instance. But beyond that, there’s an altering of your behavior. There’s a commitment to the new way of life that God has enabled you to perform. And the idea then is to labor instead of theft. And to labor to the end of being able to give things to people who have need of things. There’s a restoration of vocation to the one who has stolen.

So alter your behavior. Commit to changing harmful habits. Acts 26:20 says this: “But that the salvation of God was shown first at Damascus and at Jerusalem and throughout all the coast of Judea, and then to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God and do works meet for repentance.”

Daniel 4:27 says Daniel says to Nebuchadnezzar, who had been exalted and prideful, “Wherefore, O king, let my counsel be acceptable unto thee, and break off thy sins by righteousness, and thine iniquities by showing mercy to the poor, if it may be a lengthening of thy tranquility.”

So break off your sins by righteousness, and specifically for Nebuchadnezzar, this involved showing mercy to the poor—a changed lifestyle. You know, it’s a good idea when you’ve done something sinfully to disrupt community in a fairly major way: write out and try to follow these steps, these seven A’s of confession. Write them out. Write out a plan for how you’re going to change in reference to the sin you are committing. Commit yourself to altered behavior. Repentance isn’t just sorry for what you did. Repentance is a turning from that with a change of mind, a change of character, a change of actions to doing positively what is right.

And then finally, ask for forgiveness. Seal the deal. Got a few salesmen in our congregation. They know they got to seal the deal. Not enough just to present a good product and sort of lay it out there. You got to get them to ink the contract, right? You got to be a closer in reference to repentance. You know, you’ve admitted specifically to everyone involved what you’ve done wrong. You haven’t made any excuses. You’ve committed yourself to accept the consequences of your behavior, and you’ve also committed yourself to alter your behavior in ways of righteousness—regardless of this specific incident, to alter your behavior in ways of righteousness.

And having done all of that to the person you’ve sinned against, then you ask them, “Will you forgive me?” And they say yes. And if they don’t, then they’ve got a problem. And we have to work on that aspect. And we got to take the little speck out of their own eye. Maybe they haven’t believed your repentance. And your first reaction to that should be gracious to them.

“Well, how can I really tell you I’m sorry, because I really am?” But once that’s been conveyed, then ask for and receive forgiveness. And as a result of that, the deal is sealed, so to speak, and you can move ahead—not just to where you were before, but actually now positively. It’s like doing jiu-jitsu. The Adamic nature, you know, we end up sinning when we don’t want to. And God has established this system of repentance in the scriptures so that we can actually not just get back to where we were, but be improved from that and be more powerful in our exercise of dominion.

The brightness of Christ’s countenance within you, shining forth to the application of the forgiveness of your sins, then yields directly to this idea of dominion in the world.

I’ve also given on your outline the four promises of forgiveness. You remember last week when we talked about God as a father, as a father, pitieth his children—the Psalms say—so God pities us. In the direct context of that is that as far as the east is from the west, so far he puts our sins away from us. And these four promises of forgiveness are designed to do the same thing. They’re designed to give us a sense that really we’ve moved on.

When we forgive somebody, we tell them: number one, we will not dwell on the incident. 1 Corinthians 13 says not to keep a list of wrongs suffered, but to be patient and kind to people.

Secondly, we should assert to one another that we won’t bring this incident up and use it against you. So you’ve put it behind. Imaging God’s forgiveness. You’ve separated that sin from the relationship to this person. You haven’t kept a list of wrongs suffered. You put it behind, and you make this promise.

Third, I will not talk to others about this incident. It’s their job to talk to all the parties involved. It’s your job to keep your lips sealed because now this person has been restored in Christ’s favor, and you’re not to bring this incident up to other people.

And then finally, I will not allow this incident to stand between us or hinder our personal relationship. God says that the community of the Lord Jesus Christ is knit together at this table by the common apprehension of the mercy of God through the forgiveness of sins. And when we forgive somebody else from the heart, one of the essential promises is that we indeed will continue to build relationship with you in spite of this matter that now has lain behind us.

Dominion is what we’re after. We want to be the bright light of Jesus Christ shining forth in the world. To accomplish that, as Luther said, our lives should be lives of daily repentance.

Please go over these seven A’s of confession or repentance in your homes. Please go over the four promises of forgiveness in the assertion of what you will do when you forgive someone. Please make use of these cards made available in the literature rack.

It’s not just a matter of doing the right thing today and getting a little bit of peace in your home. It is a matter of whether we’re presenting all that we have in service to the Lord of Sabaoth, the Lord of Hosts, the Commander-in-Chief, or whether instead we’re presenting what we have to al-Qaeda, to the spiritual opposition.

I pray that as we come forward today, bringing ourselves to God in offering response to him, to his word, that we would commit ourselves afresh to dealing seriously, biblically, and in a God-honoring way in reference to our repentance for sins.

Let’s pray.

Father, we thank you for the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We thank you that you have justified us and freed us from sin. Help us, Lord God, to believe that, to reckon this to be the case, and therefore not to hold back when we know that we’ve sinned, but instead to freely confess our sins to you and to one another and make use, Lord God, of the great redemption we have through the work of our Lord Jesus Christ.

May we, Lord God, each of us today, seal the deal with you. Bring us, Lord God, to an understanding of the need to commit ourselves afresh to biblical principles of repentance and confession. Help us, Lord God, to put behind the worldly way of just saying sorry about that when we’ve wronged other people. And help us to move in terms of the life of the Lord Jesus Christ.

In his name we ask it. Amen.