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HOPE AMONG RUINS
Lesson Six: True Repentance
A study of the book of Jeremiah
by Pastor Kris Holroyd
Sunday evenings at 6:00 p.m.
Where We Have Been
• Chapter 2—God’s incredible, vulnerable,
passionate love for His people
• 3:1-18—The people’s inability to return to
God. Then, God’s initiation, his pursuit of his
people, and his bearing of their shame so that
they can return.
• The cross of Jesus bears our shame and death.
The Call to Repentance
• God’s call to his people: v. 19-20, 22.
The Call to Repentance
• Where have you turned away from God?
• Three examples throughout:
– Gossip
– Pornography
– Greed
The Call to Repentance
• We have already seen that God makes return
possible.
• What does it mean to “return to the Lord”?
• What is “true repentance”?
What Repentance is NOT
• The people’s heart remains with idols (v. 2122).
• Cf. 2 Kings 23—Josiah destroys the high
places.
What Repentance is NOT
• Regret
What Repentance is NOT
• 180⁰
• Turning around
• About-face
What Repentance is NOT
• “Sad to say, the Church has gradually lost sight
of the original meaning of metanoia…
[changing it to mean] the sorrow and regret
which follows when one has made a mistake
or has committed an error of any kind.”
–Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology
What Repentance is NOT
• “Whenever repentance is marginalized in
conversion, it is usually because of an
inadequate sense of God’s holiness and the
just demands of his righteous law. The
consequence is that conversion is represented
merely as moral improvement: the addition of
certain distinctives of Christian piety.”
—Michael Horton, The Christian Faith
What Repentance is NOT
• “Moralism occurs whenever the fundamental
message of a sermon is ‘be good; do good’ (or
some specific thereof). Whenever the
fundamental purpose of the sermon is to
improve the behavior of others, so that Christ
in his redemptive office is either denied or
largely overlooked, the sermon is moralistic….
What Repentance is NOT
• “…People have obviously come to associate
preaching with moral improvement (or moral
scolding); they do not associate preaching
with a proclamation of the fitness of Christ’s
person and the adequacy of his work to save
to the uttermost those who come to God
through him.”
—T. David Gordon, Why Johnny Can’t Preach
What Repentance is NOT
• Jeremiah 3:24 “But from our youth the
shameful thing has devoured all for which our
fathers labored, their flocks and their herds,
their sons and their daughters.”
• Cf. 3:3 “Therefore the showers have been
withheld, and the spring rain has not come.”
• Cf. 3:10 “but in pretense”
What Repentance is NOT
• Gossip
– Regret what I said
– Wish I could take it back
– Try harder next time
• Regret never results in lasting change.
What Repentance is NOT
• Regret
• Shame
What Repentance is NOT
• Jeremiah 2:26 “As a thief is shamed when
caught, so the house of Israel shall be
shamed.”
What Repentance is NOT
• 2 Corinthians 7:10 “For godly grief produces a
repentance that leads to salvation without
regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.”
What Repentance is NOT
• 3:25 “Let us lie down in our shame, and let
our dishonor cover us…”
• Cf. all of chapter two!
What Repentance is NOT
• Pornography
– Shame
– Feel dirty
• Shame doesn’t produce lasting change.
What Repentance is NOT
• Regret
• Shame
• Fear
What Repentance is NOT
• 1 John 4:18 “There is no fear in love, but
perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do
with punishment, and whoever fears has not
been perfected in love.”
What Repentance is NOT
• Without true repentance, that which you fear
will come upon you
• 4:4 “lest my wrath go forth like fire, and burn
with none to quench it, because of the evil of
your deeds.”
• Cf. Hebrews 10:31 “It is a fearful thing to fall
into the hands of the living God.”
What Repentance is NOT
• Greed
– Lack of generosity
– Sermon/book:
• Lose blessing
• God will take his
– Fear of punishment
• Fear does not lead to lasting change.
What Repentance is NOT
• Regret
• Shame
• Fear
TRUE REPENTANCE
• Hatred of our sinful self
TRUE REPENTANCE
• “Repentance pertains not simply to certain
sins; pagans can be remorseful for their
immoderate behavior. Rather, it is the
revulsion of the whole soul toward its alliance
with sin and death.”
—Michael Horton, The Christian Faith
TRUE REPENTANCE
• Luther calls “true inward repentance” a
“hatred of self” in the third of his 95 theses.
TRUE REPENTANCE
• WSC #87 Q. What is repentance unto life?
• A. Repentance unto life is a saving grace,
whereby a sinner, out of a true sense of his
sin, and apprehension of the mercy of God in
Christ, doth, with grief and hatred of his sin,
turn from it unto God, with full purpose of,
and endeavor after, new obedience.
TRUE REPENTANCE
• 2 Corinthians 7:10 “For godly grief produces a
repentance that leads to salvation without
regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.”
TRUE REPENTANCE
• Hatred of our sinful self
• Transformation of the heart
TRUE REPENTANCE
• True conversion “is a change that is rooted in
the work of regeneration, and that is effected
in the conscious life of the sinner by the Spirit
of God; a change of thoughts and opinions, of
desires and volitions, which involves the
conviction that the former direction of life was
unwise and wrong and alters the entire course
of life.”
–Louis Berkhof
TRUE REPENTANCE
• “According to Scripture repentance is wholly
an inward act, and should not be confounded
with the change of life that proceeds from it.
Confession of sin and reparation of wrongs are
fruits of repentance.”
–Louis Berkhof
TRUE REPENTANCE
• Jeremiah 31:33 “I will put my law within them,
and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be
their God, and they shall be my people.”
TRUE REPENTANCE
• 4:1 “If you return, O Israel, declares the Lord,
to me you should return.”
• Heart Allegiance
TRUE REPENTANCE
• 4:3 “…Break up your fallow ground, and sow
not among thorns.”
TRUE REPENTANCE
• Hard hearts
– Gossip → heart?
– Pornography → heart?
– Greed → heart?
TRUE REPENTANCE
• 4:4 “Circumcise yourselves to the Lord;
remove the foreskin of your hearts.”
• Paul, Philippians (3:2), and mutilated flesh
TRUE REPENTANCE
• Hatred of our sinful self
• Transformation of the heart
• Life-long
TRUE REPENTANCE
• The first of Luther’s 95 Theses: “When our
Lord and Master, Jesus Christ, said ‘Repent,’
He called for the entire life of believers to be
one of repentance.”
TRUE REPENTANCE
• “Since our tendency even as believers is still to
turn back toward ourselves and trust in our
repentance, we must be driven again to
despair of our righteousness or of any
possibility of ridding ourselves of our sins by
the law and cling to Christ.”
–Michael Horton
TRUE REPENTANCE
•
•
•
•
Hatred of our sinful self
Transformation of the heart
Life-long
A gift
TRUE REPENTANCE
• 3:22 “Return, O faithless sons; I will heal your
faithlessness.”
• “Turn back, O turning ones; I will heal your
turning-ness.”
TRUE REPENTANCE
• Hymn #472, “Come, Ye Sinners, Poor and
Wretched”
• “Let not conscience make you linger, nor of
fitness fondly dream; all the fitness he
requireth is to feel your need of him; this he
gives you, this he gives you, this he gives you;
‘tis the Spirit’s rising beam; ‘tis the Spirit’s
rising beam.”
The Call to Repentance
• Where have you turned away from God?
• Ask him for the gift of repentance.
The Call to Repentance
• True Repentance:
– Hatred of our sinful self
– Transformation of the heart
– Life-long
– A gift
Turn O’ turning ones;
I will heal your turning-ness.