Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven has come near!

In the Advent season, those of us from liturgical backgrounds are reminded every year by the scripture readings that guide worship that Advent is not just a season of hope and joy because of the coming of Christ. It is foremost a season of preparation for his coming.

Churches that use the Revised Common Lectionary find some of their scripture texts and sermons are about repentance and Christ's second coming of judgment. It's possible, of course, to skirt these texts and choose only the ones that are about hope, joy, and the coming of a better world through the Messiah. But even these texts hold an aspect of repentance in them. The hope of a better world is one where the rough places will be made straight, the poor will be fed, injustice will be no more, safety and peace will reign.

Excuse me, but those things will not happen unless humans wake up and start living in different ways. In other words, we need to be about repentance. The Messiah comes, in part, to provide a  example to us about what living out God's priorities looks like. He comes in part to enable us to do it ourselves. And he comes, in part, to provide forgiveness for those who realize they have not been living as God desires. Those who repent.

"Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven has come near!" -- John, Matthew 3:2

"Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven has come near!" -- Jesus, Matthew 4:17

It's no accident that both John the Baptist and Jesus make repentance—turning away from the way you used to live, and living a new way in accordance with God's commands—the focus of their preaching. God's message to us has been all about repentance ever since we first started sinning. What is the message of the Old Testament prophets? Repentance. What do Jesus and John the Baptist and Paul and others in the New Testament emphasize? Repentance.

So in Advent it should come as no surprise as we prepare for Christ's coming and the promise it holds for the world, that part of our preparation is to repent. In the clutter of the "Shopmas" season, taking the time to take stock and repent is one of the best ways we can honor the birth of our Lord.

Search me, O God

Psalm 139 is one of the "biggies." In it, the psalmist talks about the God who knows everything about him, inside and out. He expresses trust in this God and a willingness to be searched, known and corrected by him. The psalmist's goal is to live in fellowship with him.

This psalm is so familiar to us—the part about being known before birth, God knowing when we sit down and rise up, knowing what we will say before we say it, not being able to get away from God. And of course, the praise to God who knows us so intimately.

We marvel at this psalm and use and pray it all the time.

But—do we really want to invite God to search us and know our hearts, test us and know our thoughts? Do we want Him to see if there is any wicked way in us... and then correct us and lead us in the way everlasting?

When I think about Christian leaders I've known who have gotten off track and done damage to themselves and their churches, what they have in common is that they got away from Psalm 139—they did not keep in mind God's searching and purifying role in their lives. Perhaps they believed they had already ordered their lives and had been "good to go" for some time. They believed their own PR, or made their own plans believing these were God's plans, or they saw themselves as God's chosen ones whose thoughts and ideas were always the right ones. They weren't open to the counsel of others or to God's correction.

When we read and pray Psalm 139, we should do so with a full understanding of what the psalmist is saying. What does it mean to be open to God searching your motivations, reaching down into your soul, and showing you what He sees there? What does it mean to ask Him to dredge things up and then lead you on His path?

This is a psalm to sit with and contemplate for a long time before accepting what it teaches and incorporating it into your life. It is not a psalm to be taken lightly.

An example of true repentance

A few days after I posted about the importance of taking repentance seriously, the news broke that Alan Chambers, founder of Exodus International, had apologized for the ministry and was shutting it down. Here is his apology in full.

It is an example of the kind of repentance I was talking about. Chambers is direct and contrite. He spells out all the ways Exodus hurt people. He acknowledges his part in it. He talks about how in trying to do good, he did great harm. Most importantly, he is ceasing what he is doing, ending the behavior, and looking to see what God will do next.

We rarely see this from Christian leaders of any stripe. That's stunning when you think about it.

It will be more than interesting to see what God does with this kind of repentance. I look forward to watching the developments.

Taking repentance seriously

A key part of salvation, a part that is for us to do, is to repent.

In both the Old and New Testament, God makes it clear again and again that one of the things he wants from us is to repent (*see some good references below*). If sin is the fundamental problem between us and God—and it is—then when we desire to come to God and receive his salvation, part of that desire needs to be a resolve to stop sinning, to look at our life and begin to change what needs to be changed to bring us increasingly in line with what pleases him.

God promises us that when we accept his salvation and desire to do this, he will give us the power to live differently. That's one of the things the Holy Spirit does in us.

Repentance does not mean feeling bad about what you have done and how you have lived in the past and thanking God that Jesus' work covers all that so you can now go to heaven, even if you actually do not plan to examine and make changes in your life from here on out. That's not what salvation is all about, and that is certainly not repentance.

No, the Bible is clear throughout in letting us know repentance means stopping, considering our lives, turning from how we used to behave, and living in a new way that pleases God.

I'd argue that you can't tell whether someone's really repented until time has passed and you see how things turn out, because repentance happens over time.

Don't get me wrong—I don't mean the qualification for repentance is that a person never sins again after accepting Christ. That's unrealistic and a ridiculous thing to argue. Come on now.

What I mean is that one component of accepting salvation means you're willing to actually look at your life and not live it the way you've always done in the past. It means you first look to God and what pleases him, and then you see how you have missed the mark (sinned). And you resolve to make changes, and you actually make them, and then you see what else does not line up, and you make changes, and on and on and on until the end of your life.

That's what salvation looks like in practice. That's repentance. And anything else is... not quite salvation, I'd argue. It's both your fault and the church's fault for not being adamant about what the "after" part of salvation entails.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer spoke of cheap grace. I think cheap repentance is a component of that. Say the prayer and Jesus forgives your sins... and then just keep on living your life as you have been. I don't see a lot of churches showing people how to repent and what it should mean for their lives afterwards. We are living in an era of cheap repentance.

And I believe the church is suffering internally as a result. Our churches are full of people who've "received Christ" yet still behave in self-interested, dysfunctional, sinful ways that affect not only themselves, their families, friends, neighbors, and co-workers, but others in the congregation and the Body of Christ itself. Instead of working for the Kingdom, they're at best non-participants and at worst stumbling blocks and moles, agents of the enemy.

And most of them don't even know it, because most of them have never been told otherwise.

Now, let me be clear. I don't know what God does with folks who "accept salvation" and keep living the way they always have. I'm not going to go there now. Let me just say I trust in God's mercy and his justice, his faithfulness and his righteousness. We'll find out when we get to the Kingdom.

But I do think churches need to do a much better job of being clear about what salvation and repentance mean before the "prayer is prayed" or Christ is confessed. And we also need to do much better at walking alongside new Christians and showing them the ropes once they do join our ranks. Anything less does them a great disservice and is slow suicide for us.

* See—
The Book of Judges to understand a cycle of sin and repentance in Israel. In your opinion, did Israel really ever repent during this time in its history?
1 Kings 8 and 2 Chronicles 7 for God's word to Israel at the dedication of the temple.
Matthew 3-4 for what both John the Baptist and Jesus have to say on the matter.
Luke 16 for Jesus' parable about the rich man and Lazarus.
Revelation 1-3 for the importance of repentance within the Body of Christ.