And He said, "A man had two sons. "The younger of them said to his father, 'Father, give me the share of the estate that falls to me.' So he divided his wealth between them. "And not many days later, the younger son gathered everything together and went on a journey into a distant country, and there he squandered his estate with loose living. "Now when he had spent everything, a severe famine occurred in that country, and he began to be impoverished. "So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. "And he would have gladly filled his stomach with the pods that the swine were eating, and no one was giving anything to him. "But when he came to his senses, he said, 'How many of my father's hired men have more than enough bread, but I am dying here with hunger! 'I will get up and go to my father, and will say to him, "Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in your sight; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me as one of your hired men."' "So he got up and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion for him, and ran and embraced him and kissed him. "And the son said to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.'
Luke 15:11-21
Now many of us are familiar with this parable. And we see the problems that the son got himself into. And we can understand why he did what he did. We have all at one time or another gone off and done what we wanted to do and got ourselves into a lot of trouble for it. I’m sure if we had time we could go around the room and everyone would have a story to share that is similar to the son’s story.
So here the son is. Eating with the pigs. And he experiences what everyone experiences when they get themselves into trouble because of a bad, selfish, sinful decision they have made.
He feels Sorrow, and He feels Regret. But these things are not the same thing as Repentance. Let’s take a look at 2 Corinthians 7:8-10 to help illustrate this for us.
(8) For though I caused you sorrow by my letter, I do not regret it; though I did regret it--for I see that that letter caused you sorrow, though only for a while--
(9) I now rejoice, not that you were made sorrowful, but that you were made sorrowful to the point of repentance; for you were made sorrowful according to the will of God, so that you might not suffer loss in anything through us.
(10) For the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces a repentance without regret, leading to salvation, but the sorrow of the world produces death.
So we see that Regret is not the same as Repentance and neither is Sorrow the same as Repentance.
Now lets get back to the prodigal son. He undoubtedly felt much sorrow for the predicament he was in before he repented. I mean it’s no fun going broke and feeding the hogs, and eating what they eat. That’s sorrow.
And he most certainly had regret. He knew his father’s servants were eating better than he was. He regretted leaving his home. He knew it was a bad decision.
But those two things were not repentance. He could have kept his regret and his sorrow there in the far country and died there.
But we see that his sorrow and his regret lead to repentance. A change in the will. If you take a look at the parable again, at what moment do we see his repentance? When he says, “I will…”
Now sin has a way of making us sorry in all kinds of ways for all kinds of things. But I think there are three basic directions for Sorrow, Regret and Repentance.
1. We are sorry for what our sins do to us. It embarrasses us. It humiliates us. Some sins will destroy our health.
Take the man who is an alcoholic and he drinks himself to the point bad health. He can’t hold a job down. He can’t remember his own house number. He is simply living from one drink to the next. He regrets that. He is very sorry for that. He is concerned about how his sin affects him.
And of course our sins ultimately hurt us most because they separate us from God. And if not forgiven will cause us to go to hell.
2. We are sorry for what our sins do to other people. We can look at the alcoholic again. He might also regret what his sin had done to his family. The money that he spent on boos could have gone to the well being of his family. Not to mention any emotional or physical abuse that often takes place when dealing with alcoholism. And he fells regret and sorrow for what he has done to his family.
3. But true repentance does not really begin until we start to have sorrow or regret for what effect our sin has upon God. It’s easy for us to get concerned about what sin does to us and to ours. It messes me up, it destroys my life, it threatens my eternal soul, isn’t that bad, sin is just terrible.
But do we think about what our sin does to God?
The answer to that question is this. Only to the extent that we really love God.
One of the reasons that in our churches today there is a very low level of repentance is because we live in a very narcissistic, egocentric culture.
And so when we think about sin and repentance what receives most of the attention is what sin does to me. And it’s very bad what sin does to me. We think I should quite this I should stop. Why? Well look what it’s doing to me! And God knows we don’t want anything bad to happen to me. Look how important I am. My do I love me.
But we have to remember that our sin ultimately resides in the mind of God. Who does our sin hurt the most? If sin bothers our conscience, think what our sin does to an absolutely righteous God.
And we can see how this is true. Think about your first child and the first time they fell and got scraped up. Your child was over it in a few minutes but it bothered you all day. Right? It bothers us when our children get hurt.
When I was growing up and I did something wrong and was about to be spanked as punishment, my parents said to what all parents say when they are about to spank you, “This is going to hurt me more than it’s going to hurt you.” And of course as the child I couldn’t understand this at all. I thought well you just hand me over than paddle and I’ll see what I can do about that.
But it’s true isn’t it? The parents are more hurt because of the child’s pain than the child is. And why is that? Because of our love. We love them so much that when they hurt, we hurt.
And it’s like that with God. Our sin hurts God more than it does us, because He loves us with an intensity that we can’t even imagine. And our sin offends Him.
So once again, Do we care about how our sin hurts God?
Only to the extent that we truly love Him.
If we love our selves more than anything else in the world then our primary concern in repentance will be what my sin does to me. And this is a legitimate concern. But it becomes illegitimate when it is our only concern. Do you see what I’m saying?
Our primary concern has to be what our sin does to God. How it hurts Him. And that can only be our primary concern when we love Him.
So how can you tell what you primary concern is? Well when you are faced with temptation, what reasons do you think of to resist the temptation? Do you think, “Well I might get caught.” Or “I could get hurt doing that.”
Perhaps you are a little better and think, “Well I don’t want to hurt my spouse.” Or “I don’t want to take advantage of that person.” “I don’t want this person to get hurt.”
But what is it that we should be thinking? “What would God think?” “I do not want to offend my God” “I do not want to sin against Him!”
Back in Genesis when Joseph was being tempted by Potiphar’s wife, how did he respond?
Genesis 39:7-9
(7) It came about after these events that his master's wife looked with desire at Joseph, and she said, "Lie with me."
(8) But he refused and said to his master's wife, "Behold, with me here, my master does not concern himself with anything in the house, and he has put all that he owns in my charge.
(9) "There is no one greater in this house than I, and he has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. How then could I do this great evil and sin against God?"
See if Joseph had been enticed by the temptation and slept with Potiphar’s wife, there would have certainly been consequences. He would have gotten into a lot of trouble with His master, as we see he did when he was falsely accused of that crime. But you see Joseph’s primary concern was not how will I be hurt if I do this, it was how will God be hurt if I do this. And he answered “I could not do that to my God.”
It comes down to what is our motive. Why do we obey God? Why do we read our Bibles? Why do we spend time with Him in prayer? Why do we try and evangelize to the lost? Is it simply because we are supposed to if we want to go to heaven?
Take evangelism. Why do we evangelize to the lost? Because we are supposed to so we don’t go to hell?
Is it because we don’t want the lost to go to hell? Are we thinking of them? That’s a bit better. But what about wanting to reach the lost for Jesus? Because He loves them and He died for them? Shouldn’t we want to reach the lost for Him?
What is it that motivates us to do what we do? And this is the case with repentance. What is our primary concern with repentance? Is it only for ourselves and how sin has hurt us? If that is true, then that is not enough. It’s not enough to simply not want to deal with the pain and consequences of sin and that’s why you are repenting. That is not true repentance and it will not lead to revival. True repentance and true revival flow from our love for God.
Let us look back at what the prodigal son says to the father upon his return.
“Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight; I am no longer worthy to be called your son”
Note what he did not say. He did not say , “Father I want to come Home. Why? I hate hog feed. I’m sick of the pigs. Look at me, I’m in terrible shape.”
Was this one of his motives for coming home, sure it was. But he didn’t say to the father, “accept me back because of what my sin has done to me.”
Look at his priorities. We know he had three reasons but he only talks about two of them.
I have sinned first of all, how? Against Heaven. I’ve hurt God.
Secondly, I’ve sinned in your sight. I’ve hurt you.
And even though he hurt himself, he didn’t give that as a reason.
That’s a great model of Repentance.
If we examine the short comings in our lives and If we ask the question why am I not doing what I should be doing. We will come down to the question “Do we really love God?”
If we really love Him that is the greatest motive for repentance. That’s the greatest motive for the Christian life.
This is why Jesus gives us, as the greatest commandment, “Love God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength”
See if we start there, we will have everything in proportion.
You see true revival comes from true repentance. But true repentance comes only from a heart that loves God. Do you love God? Are you more concerned with how your sin hurts Him rather than how it hurts you?
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