The Pilgrim’s Path Part-2, Mathew 5:1-12
Penitence
Introduction
The Congregational preacher of old, D.L. Moody, told the story of a rebellious and angry boy who had run away from home. He had given his father no end of trouble. He had refused all the invitations his father had sent him to come home and be forgiven, and help to comfort his old heart. He had even gone so far as to scoff at his father and mother. But one day a letter came, telling him his father was dead, and they wanted him to come home and attend the funeral. At first he determined he would not go, but then he thought it would be a shame not to pay some little respect to the memory of so good a man; and so, just as a matter of form, he took the train and went to the old home, sat through all the funeral services, saw his father buried, and came back with the rest of the friends to the house, with his heart as cold and stony as ever.
But when the old man’s will was brought out to be read the ungrateful son found that his father had remembered him along with all the rest of the family, and had left him an inheritance with the others, who had not gone astray. This broke his heart in penitence. It was too much for him, that his old father, during all those years in which he had been so wicked and rebellious had never ceased to love him.
Penitence is the right response to the unending love of our Heavenly Father. It is a pathway to forgiveness. It is the Pilgrim’s pathway to freedom!
Transition
Today we begin the second part of our journey through the Sermon on the Mount, discovering the Pilgrim’s Path through this life; uncovering the way of following after Christ on His mission of redemption, the walking stick of God’s protection and provision in our calloused hands, dusty feet shoed in the sandals of peace, as we walk along the Pilgrim’s Pathway of repentance, redemption, and grace.
Exposition
Concerning today’s text, Mathew 5:4, the Jamison, Fausset, and Brown Commentary says, “This “mourning” must not be taken loosely for that feeling which is wrung from men under pressure of the ills of life, nor yet strictly for sorrow on account of committed sins. Evidently it is that entire feeling which the sense of our spiritual poverty begets; and so the second beatitude is but the complement of the first.
The one is the intellectual, the other the emotional aspect of the same thing. It is poverty of spirit that says, “I am undone”; and it is the mourning which this causes that makes it break forth in the form of a lamentation - “Woe is me! for I am undone.”
Penitence is, most clearly, as with all 8 principals found in the beatitudes, a matter of the hearts attitude. Being penitent is having a sense of one’s own need for the forgiveness of God because of one’s own sin and shortcomings.
Penitence, as with humility which we examined last week, is about poverty of the spirit; an attitude of repentance, and a lifestyle consistent with an honest appraisal of who we are in relation to who He is. He is creator, we are the creation. He is redeemer; we are those in desperate need of redemption. He stands alone – God – while we kneel in humble adoration of divinity.
Illustration
One of my absolute favorite films is the Indiana Jones saga staring Harrison Ford. If you have not seen the films, they are the story of Indiana Jones, a famed archeologist who goes on wild adventures in search of ancient lost artifacts, including the Ark of the Covenant in the first film and the Sankara Stones in India in the second film. There is a part in the third film, “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” that I especially enjoy. The setting is WWII era and after a long journey of fighting Nazi soldiers who are looking for the Holy Grail, the cup with which Jesus instituted the sacrament of communion, Indiana Jones and his father finally arrive at what is actually the ancient city of Petra, where they are to discover the Holy Grail. Through a series of events, Indiana Jones character is faced with several challenges which must be overcome in order to discover the Holy Grail.
All that he has is his knowledge of ancient history and a few clues as to how to make it through these challenges and indeed, survive them. In the first challenge the clue is that “only the penitent man shall pass.” As Indiana Jones slowly walks up a flight of steps leading into an ancient stone hallway, he sees the setting littered with the decapitated skeletons of those who had tried before him to make it through this first challenge and failed, losing their life in the process. As Indiana Jones makes his way toward the place of the challenge he and his father, who has remained behind, repeat the clue over and over, trying to figure it out. “Only the penitent man shall pass… only the penitent man shall pass.” Just before Indiana Jones is about the make it to the point where all of those who came before him failed and lost their life, his father realizes that the penitent man lives in an attitude of prayer, the penitent man is on his knees.
He yells to his son to kneel and just then whirling blades pass over the top of his head! Surely, if he had not gone to his knees he would have perished liked all of the others before him.
While you and I are not treasure hunters or Hollywood actors, we, like Indiana Jones are faced with many challenges in this life where the answer to the clues are to live under the conviction, the understanding that only the penitent man shall pass; because it is only the humble in heart, those who are poor in spirit rather than proud of heart who pass the ultimate test of this life; that of knowing God and being known by Him.
Where pride destroys us, humility leads us to our knees in an attitude of penitent petition to God to forgive us our sins, to restore unto us the joy of our salvation, and to seal us with the presence of the Holy Spirit within us. Only the penitent man or woman will find their way to the place of absolute necessity for receiving the forgiveness, the grace, and the mercy of which they are in absolute need.
A penitent heart rightly leads us to a place of repentance. Once our hearts condition is such that we recognize our need for God’s grace in our lives, then surely we will be motivated by that grace toward repentance, that is, a change in not only the way we view ourselves and God, but also a change in the way that we live out our lives in the light of that grace.
It is important to remember, however, that though we are imperfect, we remain the children of God. Though we have made mistakes, it is terribly important that we do not allow our adversary, the devil, to bury us under the weight of shame; rendering us helpless to our own shortcomings and mistakes. In II Corinthians 5:17 the Apostle Paul writes, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” (NIV)
In just the same that humility is not about debasing oneself but having a right understanding of oneself in the light of God’s supremacy in the universe and in our lives, so too penitence is not about living a life consumed by shame. The penitent man, the man who mourns, ought not to live a lifestyle of repentance based on the constant pursuit of forgiveness for past failure, but based on the simple, humble recognition that all of us are in constant need of God’s forgiveness and grace.
It is unfortunate that many Christians have replaced a lifestyle of repentance, a heart of genuine penitence, for an assumption of the necessity of shame.
How many of us live under the burden of nagging inner voice which constantly tells us, “your not good enough, you don’t measure us, you are a failure?”
Certainly there are times when all of us face situations in our lives, challenges and struggles that seem to ne more than we can face. That is not so much what I am talking about here. All of us will have times of self doubt where we need to learn to depend on God in ever increasing ways.
What I am talking about is the person consumed by shame from what someone else has done to them, personal past failures, or a person who because of one or both of those things, is convinced not just that they are likely to fail in whatever they do, but is convinced that they will fail because they are a failure.
Guilt is the right understanding that my sin places me necessarily in a place of responsibility to account for it in the light of the holiness and perfection of God. We all stand guilty before God for the sins that we have committed to other people in our lives and even the ways in which we have responded to the sins that others have committed to us. We are all guilty of sin but we are all equally forgiven of that sin by simple faith in Jesus Christ.
The Holy Spirit convicts us of sin and it is right that we should have a sense of guilt over the sin that we have committed. Guilt, as the right response to the conviction of sin that the Holy Spirit brings, however, is very different from carrying the burden of shame in the name of being penitent.
Here is what the Bible says in John 16:7-14, where Jesus says, “But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I am going away. For if I do not go away, the Advocate will not come to you, but if I go, I will send him to you. And when he comes, he will prove the world wrong concerning sin and righteousness and judgment concerning sin, because they do not believe in me; concerning righteousness, because I am going to the Father and you will see me no longer; and concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world has been condemned. "I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. For he will not speak on his own authority, but will speak whatever he hears, and will tell you what is to come. He will glorify me, because he will receive from me what is mine and will tell it to you.” (NET)
Guilt leads us our knees in repentance, where we find forgiveness. Shame leads us only further into the depths of hiding from God.
Guilt is the right recognition of sin while shame is the burden of the heart that never learns to live under, to reside in, and to be cleansed by the superabundant grace of God, which was manifested in Jesus Christ; which was made available according to the superabundance of God’s grace and is accessible by faith alone.
A sense of guilt is brought about justly by having sensitivity to the conviction of sin that God has covered upon the entire world. Some of us harden our hearts to its sensation while others respond to it in faith. Guilt is the positional reality of the entire human race before a completely holy and just God.
Romans 3:23says that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” In the following verse, it goes on to say that we “are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” (NIV) Guilt of sin is propositional truth but shame is a denial of the redemption that has come freely in Christ!
Where shame enslaves, guilt, when brought before the throne of grace, destroys the shackles of the consequence and burden of sin. My dearest friends, if we are to enjoy all that God has for us in this life we must embrace the hearts attitude of penitence, rather than shame, we must respond rightly to our guilt by bringing it to the throne of mercy in repentance and embracing the grace that has been poured out to each one of us!
We were not meant to wear shackles of lowliness or be enslaved by memories of past failures or what is in many cases, only the perception of past failures. God forgives us based not on our ability but on His grace. Our mourning in this life shall one day be completely comforted and until then we have the power of the very presence of God in our lives showering us with forgiveness; enabling us to let go of pride and shame as we embrace humility and a truly penitent heart!
Conclusion
True penitence is a life style of adoration of God in recognition of my terrible need for His mercy, His forgiveness, and His Grace. It is not, however, a life lived under the burden of shame for past, present, or future failures. The pure Gospel of Christ never enslaves us; it always sets us free!
Dear Saints of God, be encouraged today to a lifestyle, a hearts attitude, a condition of the soul, which is marked by the humble recognition of our need for grace. When it comes to finding the grace necessary for the challenges in this life, surely it is true that, “only the penitent man will pass.”
Amen.
