STRUGGLING WITH REPENTANCE

LAMENTATIONS 3:39-40

STRUGGLING WITH REPENTANCE

I want you to say something with me. Say, “I am a sinner.” What are you whispering it for? Everyone else knows it! If I had ask you to say, “He’s a sinner,” you would have had no problem. Think about this. Even though you may have a problem saying this about yourself, the person next to you would have not problem saying you are a sinner! Everyone knows that everyone of us is a sinner. So why try and keep it a secret?

The reason that we struggle with repentance is that we struggle with admitting we are sinners. Listen to these great words on the subject. Read the first page of the preface from “The Vanishing Conscience” by John MacArthur, Jr.

I. TODAY’S RESPONSES TO SIN

The world teaches us to handle sin in three main ways:

A. Play the Blame Game. Have you noticed in our present society nobody is responsible for anything any more? Bernard Cummings mugged and brutally beat an elderly New York man in the subway. Cummings was shot and permanently paralyzed by the transit police. He sued the transit authority and won $4.8 million, while his victim had to pay his own hospital bills.

A San Francisco city supervisor claimed that he murdered a fellow supervisor and Mayor Gene Moscone because too much junk food-especially Hostess Twinkies-made him act irrationally. A lenient jury believed this defense and charged him with voluntary manslaughter instead of murder.

A drug dealer and cocaine addict form the Bronx was acquitted of murder after killing eight children and two women whom he shot in the head at point-blank range. The jurors decided that drugs and stress “were a reasonable explanation for his actions” and decided he “had acted under extreme emotional distress and the influenced of drugs.” They found him guilty on a lesser charge.

B. Try and Cover Up Sin. This all began with Adam and Eve. This last year we saw unprecedented corporations that uncovered cover ups that had been in place for years. You can’t cover up sin.

C. Be Oblivious to Sin. Like a skunk can’t smell itself, often people are not aware of their sin. If you continually cover your sins or blame others you will harden your heart toward God to the point that you won’t feel your guilt. Your have seared your conscience to the point that you don’t know it when you sin. These are today’s responses to sin in the world.

II. RESULTS OF UNRESOLVED GUILT

☻Unresolved guilt brings mental problems. A London psychologist once told Billy Graham that seventy percent of the people in mental hospitals in England could be released if they could find forgiveness. They had a bad conscience and could gain no relief from the guilt and pressure under which they lived.

Karl Menniger wrote a landmark book, “Whatever Became of Sin?” He is not an evangelical, but saw the folly of treating social and behavioral problems as if their causes were all utterly non-moral. He understood that mental health is contingent upon moral health. He wrote that the first step to any truly effective remedy for all mental and emotional afflictions is an honest assessment of ones’ own sin and acceptance of complete responsibility for one’s moral failings.

Rex Julien Beaber in a Newsweek article (April 4, 1983) points out: “The new ‘sciences’ of sociology, psychology and psychiatry have cast aside such concepts as will, will power, badness and laziness and replaced them with political and psychological repression, poor conditioning, diseased family interaction and bad genes. One by one, human failings have been redesignated as diseases.”

☻ Satan gains a foothold in our lives. Many times we are shocked when a Christian leader all of a sudden ruins his life. In reality this is not what happens. As George Sweeting says, “Collapse in the Christian life is rarely a blowout; its usually a slow leak.” Usually the unconfessed sin makes it easier to continue in sin until it grows into a destructive monster.

☻The Holy Spirit will be grieved.

☻We lose our joy in Christ. This is seen in the confession of King David. He relates that he lost the joy of his salvation because of unconfessed sins.

☻We feel separated from God and other believers. Unconfessed sin is like a wall that we build brick by brick. The longer we let it go the thicker the wall gets. This also causes us to feel alienated from our Christian friends.

☻We become a stumbling block. Instead of being a mighty witness to the greatness of God we become a mighty witness to the greatness of Satan.

Do these describe your life today? If you haven’t had a heart to heart with God in a long time about the sin in our life, then you have walked away from God. That’s why Jeremiah tells us to walk back to God. Every unconfessed sin takes us a step further from God. Some of you used to be close to God, but during the years you have quit confessing your sin and now you are far away.

During the years of my ministry one of the most tragic things that I ever hear people say is, “I would never have believed that I could commit this sin.” Friends, that is where unconfessed sin will take you.

III. THE RIGHT RESPONSE TO GUILT

Until you learn to manage sin God’s way-repentance-it will ruin your relationship with God, with others and with yourself. Luis Palau, a Christian evangelist, tells about the effect of his sin on his family. He was hurrying one

night to get ready for a trip. His boys were not in the bed, his suitcases weren’t packed and it was late. He took it out on his family. Later he found this note on his pillow: “Dad is mad. I am sad. I’m not glad ‘cause Dad is mad, So, Lord, change Dad.” It was signed by all four of his boys. He was humbled and went immediately to ask for their forgiveness.

It’s time to quit playing the blame game or quit trying to cover your sin. It’s time to recognize YOUR need for forgiveness. I’ve had people to tell me not to lay a guilt trip on them. That’s not my job. That is the job of your conscience and the Holy Spirit. They don’t need my help. All I do is to tell the truth. The Lord will control your feelings about it. The right response to sin is to repent of our sin.

We MUST Repent of Our Sin. All of these other approaches to guilt fall short. They are like the man I heard about. He wrote a letter to the Internal Revenue saying, “I haven’t been able to sleep because last year, when I filled out my income tax report, I deliberately misrepresented my income. I am enclosing a check for $150 and if I still can’t sleep, I’ll send you the rest I owe you.”

(Lamentations 3:39-41) Repentance signifies two actions. It requires us to turn away from our past life of sin and to turn to Jesus to forgive us of our sin. It requires both of these actions. If we do both of these, then at the moment we surrender to Jesus as our Lord and Savior He forgives our sins-past, present and future. God’s righteousness is satisfied completely. From now on as a child of God we still repent of our sin, but not to be saved. We repent to maintain a close relationship with Christ. The Holy Spirit will convict of us sin in our life so that we can immediately repent and keep our relationship with Christ a close one. If we fail to admit to our sin and repent, then we set in motion the results of sin we looked at earlier. Could it be that sin has hardened your heart to this point?

CONCLUSION

A great example of continuing in unconfessed sin and then to have true repentance is seen in the life of David. Nathan, the prophet, came to him and pointed out his sin. When David heard the accusation he didn’t blame anyone or anything else. He fell on his face before God and said this prayer. (Psalm 51:1-2a)

Remember 1 John 1:18 , “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.” Ask them to repeat it.

Whether or not we repent, it is the only way that we can truly deal with the problem of our sin. If you choose to play the blame game or find another way to deal with your sin, you will not be able to free yourself from a sense of guilt. (Proverbs 26:13-“He that covers his sins will not prosper; but whoever confesses and forsakes them shall have mercy.”) Which will it be for you today?

Ridgecrest Baptist Church | 7469 Old Canton Rd. | Madison, MS 39110 phone: 601.853.1090 fax: 601.853.1092