Title- Repentance
Text- Jonah 3
Jonah 3:1 Now the word of the LORD came to Jonah the second time, saying, 2 "Arise, go to Nineveh the great city and proclaim to it the proclamation which I am going to tell you." 3 So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh according to the word of the LORD. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, a three days’ walk. 4 Then Jonah began to go through the city one day’s walk; and he cried out and said, "Yet forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown." 5 Then the people of Nineveh believed in God; and they called a fast and put on sackcloth from the greatest to the least of them. 6 When the word reached the king of Nineveh, he arose from his throne, laid aside his robe from him, covered himself with sackcloth and sat on the ashes. 7 He issued a proclamation and it said, "In Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles: Do not let man, beast, herd, or flock taste a thing. Do not let them eat or drink water. 8 "But both man and beast must be covered with sackcloth; and let men call on God earnestly that each may turn from his wicked way and from the violence which is in his hands. 9 "Who knows, God may turn and relent and withdraw His burning anger so that we will not perish." 10 When God saw their deeds, that they turned from their wicked way, then God relented concerning the calamity which He had declared He would bring upon them. And He did not do it.
I. Repentance
a. Definition of Repentance
i. Confrontation
ii. Conviction
iii. Confession
iv. Change
b. Results of Repentance
i. Forgiveness
ii. Restoration
iii. Blessing
There is a story of a pastor who noticed that the outside of his church had started to look a little rundown. It had been years since it had a good paint job, so he decided to get up there one Saturday and give it a fresh coat of paint.
He found an old can of paint out in the shed that looked like it would almost be enough to get the job done. Just to be on the safe side he thinned it way down with a jug of paint thinner.
Just as the pastor was finishing up the job he heard a loud clap of thunder and the sky opened up. The rain began to wash the thinned paint right off the church.
The pastor was so frustrated he threw up his hands and shouted, “O Lord, what am I supposed to do now?”
At that moment the clouds parted and a loud voice from heaven said, “Repaint, and thin no more!”
My dad told me that one about 15 years ago. I apologize to those of you who are allergic to puns.
The theme of repentance is common to the Bible; however, the word repentance isn’t often used outside of a religious context though. It is a concept that is often misunderstood. Today as we turn our attention to the third chapter of Jonah we will see two great illustrations of true repentance.
An accurate view of repentance is important. It not only is an essential ingredient in salvation, but it is also important in helping us preserve and maintain a healthy relationship with God and with other people. The ability to admit your own wrongdoing, face the consequences, and change your behavior is a skill that we all must master.
Follow along as I read chapter 3, and then we will talk a little about what repentance is…
Obviously the two illustrations of repentance from this part of the story are Jonah’s change of heart and the repentance of the people of Nineveh. It doesn’t say specifically when Jonah came to his senses and repented of his disobedience and rebellion, but my guess is that the change of heart came about while he was inside the stomach of that fish. It just seems like being partially digested would have a way of reorienting your priorities.
But it is clear that Jonah did repent. Because the second time God asked him to go to Nineveh, Jonah went.
Repentance means making a U-Turn. Jonah made this change the hard way, but he eventually made that U-Turn. Jonah’s actions here represent the four different aspects of true repentance. Let’s take a second to look at the definition of repentance.
First, repentance involves some kind of confrontation. Repentance is only needed when we are headed in the wrong direction. Jonah should have been headed for Nineveh, but instead he was headed in the opposite direction. He was clearly disobeying God. He was totally in the wrong. He was literally going the wrong way.
There are times in our lives when we start to head in the wrong direction too. We’ve all been there. We head down a path that we know is destructive, or dishonest, or selfish. We take our eyes off of what truly matters to us and start wandering towards some shiny object off the other way.
Instead of being on that road to reward and right relationship, we get turned around and head down a destructive path.
When that happens we need some sort of confrontation to snap us out of it. For Jonah the confrontation was the huge storm and the extra thinking time he got in that fish.
For us confrontation can take many different forms. In Matthew 18 we see a simple model for how to deal with individuals who are caught in sin and headed in the wrong direction. First go and confront them. Try and help them see their error. Next bring a few others to go talk with them, and then finally bring the issue before the church. The goal isn’t punishment, but restoration. But that can’t happen unless the problem is confronted head on.
Sometimes God uses events or things in our lives to get our attention. Sometimes it’s a sermon, or a verse from the Bible, or a friend, or even an unexpected event that forces you to stop and think.
People are very good at compartmentalizing their lives. They can be Christians, yet have aspects of their lives that are totally incompatible with the Christian life. As long as the two compartments are kept far enough apart we are OK. We can use all sorts of lies to justify behaviors that we know are sinful. But at some point you will be confronted with the fact that what you are doing is just plain wrong.
So at some point along the way we are confronted with the reality that we are going the wrong way. God used Jonah to confront the people of Nineveh with their sin. Jonah went and told them that in forty days the city would be wiped out. He confronted them with their wickedness and warned them of the consequences.
This confrontation was probably made all the more frightening to them because they no doubt had heard about what had happened to Jonah. Some think that is appearance might have been radically altered as a result of spending time swimming in digestive juices. He was a scary looking dude who would have been very hard to ignore.
Just think about how the Ninevites must have felt. If this is how God treats one of His own prophets, just think about what He could do to us!
This confrontation led them to the next step in repentance, conviction. The news of God’s coming judgment made it all the way up to the king of Nineveh. When he heard it he removed his robe, put on sackcloth, and sat in the ashes. This was the common practice of mourning. These were actions you took when a family member died. This was an extreme showing of sorrow.
Everyone, all the way up to the king was cut to the heart when they heard Jonah’s message. They recognized their wickedness, they saw their own sin, they realized that they had behaved in such a way as to deserve the wrath of God.
They were truly sorry for their actions. A key component in real repentance is being sorry for what you are doing. It means having real remorse. Not just being sorry that you got caught, but being sorry for what you did.
As a parent of two small children, I see a lot of disingenuous apologies. Lilly will walk out of the playroom crying and complaining about Gracie hitting. So I go in and have Grace apologize, she says- sorry, but you can tell she isn’t all that sorry, and my guess is that Lilly probably did something to her first to deserve a good smack. I’m sure that those of you with kids have seen the same thing. They apologize, and then three seconds later they are swinging again.
However there are times when you can tell that they truly are convicted. A few weeks ago we had some chocolate cake leftover from Camille’s birthday sitting out on the kitchen counter. Apparently Grace had taken the step-stool from the bathroom into the kitchen and was reaching up and helping herself to the cake. Camille walked in and found her intently reaching for larger pieces. As soon as Grace saw us watching her she got a very surprised look on her face and then immediately burst into tears. She was caught and she knew it.
True repentance needs to come from a heart of true sorrow for what you have done. It comes when we realize how much we have hurt someone we love. Or when we see just how destructive our actions are. Or when we come face to face with a holy and loving God.
So often we think that our destructive actions only affect us. But that is just never true. We end up not only hurting ourselves, but our family and friends.
Real, genuine, godly conviction comes from God Himself. It is a part of the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. In the book of John, Jesus says of the Holy Spirit…John 16:8 8 When he comes, he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment”
Conviction comes when we allow God to speak to our hearts. It happens when we are confronted with the weight of our own sin and really understand the damage it does to others people and to our relationship with Him. Being confronted with you sin doesn’t always lead to being convicted of your sin. Some people are perfectly happy to continue on down the wrong way. But without conviction there is no repentance.
Fortunately we know that God is amazingly gracious. Those people of Nineveh clearly deserved death. But because they showed such sorrow for their actions, God had mercy on them.
The outflow of being convicted of your actions is confession of your sin. Confession of sin is something that the Bible talks a lot about. In 1 John 1:9 it says that if we confess our sins God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.
James instructs us to confess our sins to each other and pray for each other.
There is something cathartic and cleansing about confessing your sins to God and to each other. I think it goes back to that tendency we have to justify things, make excuses for things, and pretend that everything is OK. When we confess our sins we are admitting that we are wrong. That isn’t an easy thing to do for anyone.
Confessing your sins is a way of taking responsibility for your own actions. It is also a way of asking for help. There is an accountability factor that comes into play when we confess our sins to someone else.
It is helpful to go to someone you trust, someone who has your best interests in mind, and confess something that you are struggling with. You don’t have to take an ad out in the paper or anything. But it does help to have that other person who can check up on you from time to time to see how you are doing. It gives you someone else to be responsible to besides God. It provides you with someone else who can pray for you and encourage you.
It just feels good to get stuff off your chest sometimes. Don’t hold it in. Confession is an important part of the repentance process.
The last aspect of repentance is probably the most important aspect. Once you’ve been confronted, convicted, and have confessed, you need to actually change your behavior. None of those other steps matter much if there is no real change. Repentance isn’t just being sorry for what you have done, it is making a change.
The way you can tell that there was true repentance with Jonah is that when God called him a second time, he obeyed. He made the necessary adjustments. He stopped running and turned around and headed in the right direction.
When the Ninevites heard the warning from Jonah they changed their actions. They stopped what they were doing and instantly reformed their ways. Their willingness to change is what caused God to have mercy on them. If they would have just said, “Sorry” and then kept on heading in the wrong direction God would have given them their forty days and then wiped them out.
Unfortunately for that city their repentance didn’t last for long. They did slide back into their old ways. They started to turn back in the wrong direction. And about 150 years later the prophet Nahum warned them again of God’s coming judgment. But that time they didn’t listen and God wiped the city off the map.
In order for repentance to take hold we need to be willing to make changes. We need to make the U-turn and start heading back the way God wants us to go.
Chapter 3 of Jonah not only teaches us about the definition of repentance, it also shows us the results of repentance. What exactly happens when we make a change. God response to repentance in a big way.
First of all repentance brings about forgiveness. God is slow to anger and quick to forgive. Jonah knows this about God. Over in chapter 4 Jonah is pouting about Nineveh’s salvation. He says…
Jonah 4:1-2 But it greatly displeased Jonah and he became angry. 2 He prayed to the LORD and said, "Please LORD, was not this what I said while I was still in my own country? Therefore in order to forestall this I fled to Tarshish, for I knew that You are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, and one who relents concerning calamity.
Jonah says, see God it’s just like you to go and forgive people. I knew you would be loving, that’s why I ran in the first place.
God is holy and just and righteous. When we are acting selfishly or rebellious or disobedient, God doesn’t just ignore that. He will punish evil and there really are consequences to our actions.
But on the flip side of that, God is also incredibly loving and gracious, and quick to forgive. When we repent God always forgives. Just like we do with our kids. I know I’ve use the parent/child relationship as an illustration a lot, but it is a very fitting one.
Whenever I have to punish Lilly, she will often say, “I’m sorry daddy, do you still love me?” My answer is always, “I forgive you, and I will always love you no matter what.”
Along with the forgiveness comes the restoration of the relationship. What God wants from us is the same thing that we want with our children; a loving, healthy, strong relationship.
Sin puts a strain on that relationship. Just like if someone were to walk up to you and punch you in the gut. That would probably put a strain on your relationship with that person.
The end goal of repentance is the restoration of the relationship with God. God didn’t; really want to see Jonah dead, he wanted to see him back on track. God didn’t really want to destroy Nineveh and all the people who lived there, He wanted to see them change their ways.
The result of repentance is that it heals that relationship. It restores us back to the place God wants us. Ultimately God’s desire isn’t to punish us, but to bless us. The result of repentance is blessing from God.
When we turn from selfishness, God will bless us. When we change those destructive habits, God will bless us. When we make that U-turn, God will reward that.
Repentance is necessary for salvation. Every one of us is a sinner and we must admit our need for God’s forgiveness and love.
Repentance is also necessary for our continued growth in the Christian faith. Whenever we start wandering down that wrong path, God will get our attention. He wants us to live every day in right relationship with Him. That is His will for our lives.
Let me challenge you to take regular inventory of your lives. Do it today. Are there areas of sin in your life that you have compartmentalized or tried to justify away? Is it time to make a U-turn? If so it’s as easy as confessing it to God. Simple say, “God I’m sorry, do you still love me?” His answer will always be, “You are forgiven, and I will never stop loving you no matter what.”
