Repentance
Conversion
NEXT WEEK
Part 4 – Baptism
I drove by him this week. He
was standing in the median on Main Street, signs draped across his front
and back bearing the same message: REPENT
OR BURN. Drivers passed by, mostly oblivious to his warning. Several were
amused, a few irritated, many indifferent. I predict that none of them
repented.
My local church, located at
another intersection on Main Street, faces a similar problem. Calling people to
repentance is one of its essential tasks (indeed, the first word Jesus spoke as
he began his ministry was repent),
but such a message seems to fall on deaf ears. Your church is no different. It
stands at the intersection of peoples’ lives, asking them to listen but knowing
most will not. Many preachers, afraid they too will become an irritation or
amusement to their audience, have basically eliminated repentance from their
vocabulary.
If the first century disciples
were to set foot in our churches, would they notice what has happened? Would
they approve of the trend to place repentance on the backburner? Judging from
their words and actions in the New Testament, I believe they would indeed
notice and would not approve.
Without a doubt, becoming a
walking placard urging people to repent is ineffective today. But churches are
not without options. Consider the following steps that may lead people toward
repentance in the twenty-first century:
1) Help them examine the direction they are headed in life. In our
fast-paced, goal-oriented world, men and women need to pause and analyze the
paths they are taking. I have found today’s generation very receptive to taking
such an inventory of life. Many are walking directly away from God and His
purpose. Deep inside, they know the road they are traveling is the wrong one.
2) Show them the negative that lies ahead if they don’t repent. Repentance
involves turning around and heading in the opposite direction. Over the years, the
Church has tried to warn people that the path they are taking will eventually
lead to destruction. This is what that well-meaning but ineffective man was
doing on Main Street. His was the same “repent or judgment” message of the Old
Testament prophets. The problem, however, is that phrases like “repent or
perish” and “turn or burn” have little punch today. Granted, it is true that
walking a path away from God has severe and eventually disastrous consequences,
but the Church must find other ways to compel people to stop and turn around.
3) Show them the positive that lies ahead of them if they do repent. Instead
of looking at repentance chiefly from the negative perspective, Jesus tended to
emphasize repentance in its positive light. He said, “Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand.” In
other words, he focused on the good that comes when someone turns around. This
seldom-used approach needs to be embraced by the Church today. The gospel of
Jesus Christ is good news, and part of that good news is that repentance leads
to an abundant life.
4) Show them what Jesus did so that they could repent. Last week we
discussed how belief in Jesus as crucified Savior was essential to being a part
of the Church in the first century and should be just as essential in the
twenty-first. This week we make the same point: today’s churches need to come back to the cross. They need to make
it clear that repentance is made possible through the death of Jesus. His
suffering and pain cleared and paved a path back home. The essence of salvation
is that all humans are on a one-way, dead-end road, but a crucified Jesus has
forged a new path toward a full and everlasting life. No wonder Jesus referred
to himself as the Way!
Conversion is different from
repentance. Repentance means turning around and walking toward Jesus.
Conversion is the change inward and outward in a person after repenting.
Consider again that man on
Main Street. As I drove past him this week, I did so in my red Jeep, equipped
with a hardtop that can be removed to change it into an open-air vehicle. If I made a U-turn in my Jeep and headed in
the opposite direction, that would be analogous to repentance. If I removed the
hardtop after I turned around, that would be akin to conversion.
While repentance is made
possible through the death of Jesus, conversion comes about because of His
resurrection. A quick review of the New Testament will show that this is true.
After the crucifixion, the disciples were grief-stricken and in hiding. Seeing
the risen Lord transformed them into bold witnesses and fearless martyrs. Likewise,
Saul of Tarsus became Paul the Apostle because of an encounter with the
resurrected Jesus on the Road to Damascus. Today the situation is no different.
Jesus’ death on the cross makes it possible for us to repent. His rising from
the grave makes it possible for us to become new creations.
The task for today’s Church,
then, is to bear an old and essential message – repentance and conversion – in a
new and creative manner. Our challenge is to preach this message in ways that
will make today’s audience pause and listen. As we do, we must quit ignoring
and start acknowledging the elephant in the room: sin. Call me old-fashioned, if you must, but I believe it is
impossible to repent and convert without admitting and addressing the problem
of sin. When a person repents, he or she is turning away from a path of sin. To
be converted, he or she changes from a sinful creature to a new creation. Our
methods of communicating the problem of sin may change (indeed, they must
change if we are to get people to stop and listen today). But ignoring the
problem is not the solution. Paul’s message that “all have sinned” and that
Jesus died for us “while we were yet sinners” is pivotal to Christianity. We
should neither dilute that message nor apologize for it.
In Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis spoke of the need of acknowledging sin
in order to repent and convert:
…Christianity
tells people to repent and promises them forgiveness. It therefore has
nothing…to say to people who do not know they have done anything to repent of
and who do not feel that they need any forgiveness. It is after you have
realized that there is a real Moral Law, and a Power behind that law, and that
you have broken that law and put yourself wrong with that Power¾it is after all this, and not a moment
sooner, that Christianity begins to talk. When you know you are sick, you will
listen to the doctor.
Summary
This, then, is the summary of
Parts 1, 2, and 3 of our analysis of today’s Church:
1
Belief in Jesus as crucified
Savior and resurrected Lord is essential to belonging to the Church.
2
Repentance, a 180-degree turning
to God, is made possible by the death of Jesus.
3
Conversion a transformation from sinful creature to new
creation, is made possible by the resurrection of Jesus.
4
Instead of neglecting belief, repentance, conversion,
and sin, the Church must find new and
creative ways to share them.
But how and where can today's Church accomplish this? How can we proclaim Jesus as crucified Savior and
resurrected Lord without turning off our audience? Where can we preach the
necessity of repentance and conversion and have our listeners take heed?
I will not answer the “how”
question. I will leave it to creative minds in local churches to come up with
ways to make the message relevant today. But I will answer the “where”
question. Church members don’t have to stand at the busiest intersection on
Main Street and preach repentance and conversion. Their first step should be to
proclaim this message once again during their worship services. On any given
Sunday, there are plenty of men and women in the pews who are headed in the
wrong direction.
Part 4 – Baptism
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