Repentance As A Regular Christian Discipline
Scripture:Revelation 3:14-22.
Exegetical Big Idea:Repentance should be a regular discipline for Christiansthat involves hearingthe Lord, honestybefore the Lord,and humility before the Lord.
Introduction
Our passage of reflection this morning is Rev. 3:14-22.
Although this is a text that is often used on evangelistic occasions to call people to Christ, itis, in reality, a call to repentance for Christians. This passage teaches us that biblical repentance involves not just the initial repentance we experience to become born again. Itshows us that repentanceshould also be a regular discipline for us.
Just so we are on the same page, let me explain how we are using this word repentance this morning. We often limit ourunderstanding of the word repentancetofeeling bad or remorseful about our actions or behaviour.In the NT, however, the Greek word that is translated as repentance is metanoeo (Meta - to change, Noeo - the mind). This NT word refers to not just a response of remorse over sin, but to a turning of our hearts, our minds and our wills to God that results in a permanent change of behaviour. The word always carries the sense of turning and changing one's mind about God and oneself so that one changes one's ways too. Eg. Acts 3:19 – Repent then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be blotted out. It means changing completely our habits of thought, our attitudes, our outlook, our direction in life, and our every day behavior. This is why repentance is our first indispensable response in our approach to God and this is why at the beginning of His public ministry the first words of Jesus Christ were, Repent, for the Kingdom of God is near. These were also the first words John the Baptist spoke when he began his ministry. This was also true in the ministry of the apostles.
Our concern this morning, however, as I mentioned earlier, is to seek to discover from our passage of reflection how and why repentance should also be a regular discipline for us after our first initial Spirit-led act of returning to God through repentance.
Our passage this morning shows us that repentance should be a regular Christian discipline that involves three important steps. The first step is hearing the Lord. The second step is being honest with the Lord. The third step is humility before the Lord. So, we have in this passage, 3H’s about making repentance a regular Christian discipline: Hearing, Honesty, and Humility.
Let’s go into the passage now and look at our first H.
I. Hearing the Lord (Verses 20-22)
1)In verse 20(KJV) the Lord declares: Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.
2)This is Christ’s call to the Laodicean Christians from outside the church. The church in Laodicea was one of seven churches that the Lord addresses with both words of commendation and words of correction in Rev. 1-3. In this passage, obviously,as theLaodicean Christians carried on with their well-meaning church services and their different meetings and all their other busy religiosity they did not realize that they had left Christ outside the church. Christ calls from outside, asking them to hear Him and to let Him in. This is quite a sobering picture.
3)In this passage the word hear refers to not just receivingwith our physical ears the physical voice of someone but instead to paying close attention to someone, understanding what they are saying, and responding positively to it.
4)How about us? Do we run this risk today, with all our busy religious activities,of not hearing the Lord? Can we too leave Christ outside the door and not even know it? As Christians, how do we hear the Lord amidst the many voices that call for our attention each day? We hear the Lordin many different ways.For example, we hear Him in a service like this, we hear Him from reading a good devotional book, etc.
5)But we hear the Lord most clearly when we regularly and intentionally set aside time daily for prayer and meditating on His Word.Among the various disciplines that help us grow in our walk with God, this is arguablythe most important if we want to regularly hear clearly from the Lord and develop an intimate relationship with Him.
6)In the second part of verse 20 listen to what the Lord said: If any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me. These are words of invitation to regular intimate fellowship and communion with the Lord to celebrate our relationship with Him. Indeed, that God Almighty has given to us spiritual ears to hear Him and that He deigns to speak to us regularly, as a parent speaks to his or her children,is one of our great privileges as Christians and we need to regularly avail ourselves of this wonderful privilege.
7)TheLord’s call from outside the Laodicean church to hear Him should be anurgent reminder to us to commit ourselves to set aside time in the midst of our busy livesto commune with Him daily through prayer and the study of His Word so we can hear Him. The Laodiceans Christians that the Lord addresses in this passage evidently failed to do this. Thisis why hearing the Lord is our first H and the essential first step in making repentance a regular discipline in our walk with God.
II. Honesty Before the Lord(Verses 15-19)
1)Laodicea was a wealthy banking centre. The Loadicean economy was also built on the large-scale production of a special eye medicine called cellyrium and the production of a glossy black wool from its sheep that was used for manufacturing expensive clothing and carpets. The city also had a famous medical school that attracted students from across the Roman Empire.
2)In fact Laodicea was so wealthy that in a.d. 60 when the city was almost destroyed by a very severe earthquake they refused the offer of earthquake relief from the Roman Senate because Laodicea’s rich banking firms were confident that they could finance the reconstruction of the city themselves.
3)So, the Laodiceans obviously took great pride in the wealth of their city and it is this pride in their wealth that made the Laodicean church describe itself with these words in the first half of verse 17: I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing. But in the second half of the same verse 17listento how the Lord saw them: You do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. What a contrast! The church boasted about its material wealth but the Lord saw only its spiritual poverty! What about us – how do we see ourselves, and how does the Lord see us?
4)To the north ofLaodicea was the city of Hierapolis from where thermal streams of soda-laden warm water ran into the Maeander River in the south, near Laodicea. This soda-laden warm water was thought to have healing power, so medical tourists came regularly to Laodicea from across the Roman world to drink the water in hopes of beinghealed.
5)But during certain seasons of the year as the hot water flowed down the slopes in the north from the spring and approached Laodicea in the south, it quickly became lukewarm, so that it lost its healing power.It became good for nothing!So, when the Lord called the Laodiceans lukewarm, He was metaphorically using the lukewarm waters that flowed from Hierapolis to tell them that spiritually, they had become good for nothing!
6)The Lord didn’t end there. When He said to them you are wretched, pitiful, poor, He was telling them metaphoricallythat instead of boasting about their banking wealth of gold amd money, they should instead buy from Him true wealth in the form of spiritual gold, that represents faith and obedience. When He said to them you are blind, He was telling them metaphorically that instead of boasting about the special eye medicine that the city produced they should receive spiritual sight from Him, so that they might see their spiritual poverty. When He said to them you are naked, He was telling them metaphorically that instead of boasting aboutthe expensive clothing that was made from the wool produced in Laodicea, they should obtain from Him white clothes that represent righteousness and purity. The Lord, in other words, was telling the Laodiceans, in terms they could understand, to be honest about their true spiritual condition. This is how God speaks to us, by the way – He comes to us where we are and speaks to us in a way we can understand.
7)Honesty is our willingness to be vulnerable in owning up to the truth regardless of the cost to us. This honesty before the Lord about our real spiritual condition is what enables us to repent and to turn away from our sinful and nominal ways to a daily walk of faith, obedience in our Christian lives. This is our second H and the second step we take in seeking to make repentance a regular discipline in our walk with God.
III. Humility before the Lord(Verses 16-19 & 21-22)
1)Inverse 19 the Lord says to the Laodicean Christians: Those whom I love, I rebuke and discipline, be zealous therefore and repent.The wordrepentused here is a form of the word in the original Greek tense that is both a command as well as a call to a continuous action. Here the Lord was in effect calling the Laodicean Christiansto humble themselves to see their need forrepentanceif they wanted to avoid His rebuke and His painful discipline. It was a call that reflected His love for them because He says: Thosewhom I love, I rebuke and discipline.
2)The reason for this need for repentance on the part of people who are alreadyChristiansis that when we become Christians, the Holy Spirit who in-dwells us still regularly ministers repentance to us. You see, our initial repentance and placing our faith in Christ resulted in our being born again and being delivered from the penalty of sin. Our ultimate deliverance from the power of sin, however, is a life-long process that will continue until Christ returns to deliver us permanently from the presence of sin. So, on our Christian journey of being transformed into the image of Christ,we therefore find that we still sin – consciously or unconsciously.
3)It is this fact that makes it necessary for us, after our first experience of spiritual repentance has brought us into the Kingdom of God, to continue to be humble on a daily basis before God and to make repentance a regular habit in our walk with God.You see, the difference between a Christian and a non-Christian is not sinless perfection but our remorse over sin that the HS effects in our hearts. This is why no truly born again person reallycherishes sin in their hearts. As the HS convinces us of our various sins of commission and omission we need to respond in humility with daily repentance. This becomes our daily response of obedience to the convicting work of the HS in our lives.
4)This response of humility on our part should not be an indulgence in morbid introspection or a wallowingin feelings of self-condemnation that make usfeel unworthy and unacceptable to God. Any such sense of self-condemnation that turns us away from the Lord comes from Satan. This is why he is called the accuser of the brethren in Rev. 12:10. The conviction of the HS that calls us to humble ourselves before the Lord in repentance turns us to God to seek His forgiveness, not away from Him.
5)In the pattern of prayer that the Lord taught His disciples that we call the Lord’s Prayer, He said that when we pray we should say: And forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. Was He perhaps pointing out to us our need for this practice of regular repentance?
6)The Lord’s call to the Laodicean Christians to humble themselves and to repent evidently fell on deaf ears because today if you go to Turkey where the Laodicea church was located in the first century you will find no trace of the church. Laodicea is today the Turkish city ofDenizli. It still has a significant textile production industry and it still has the hot springs. It even now has several thermal water spa hotelsbecause the various types of thermal waters it still produces have made it a major domestic tourism destination. But there is no church there.The Laodicean Christiansobviouslyignored the Lord’s call to repentance and they just carried on with their nominal, ritualistic, and compromising Christianity. In verse 16 the Lord had told them that He would spit them out of His mouth because they were neither hot nor cold. This is exactly what happened to them. The church eventually disappeared.
7)If theLaodicean Christians had humbled themselves before the Lord and repented, look at the Lord’s promise to them in verses 21 and 22: To the one who is victorious, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I was victorious and sat down with my Father on his throne.This highlights the importance of our third H – our need to humble ourselves before the Lord and to respond in obedience whenever the HS calls us to repentance. Humility, by the way, is seeing ourselves in the same way that the Lord sees us.
Conclusion
I trust you can see how this passage helps us to see that repentance must be a regular Christian discipline for us that involves, first the cultivation of devotional habits that enable us to regularly hearfrom the Lord,a genuine honesty before the Lord, and Spirit-inspired humility before the Lord.
So, having now seen these 3H’s involved in making repentance a regular Christian discipline, what is involved in the actual act of a Christian repenting of a sin or sins the Lord has brought to our attention? 1 John 1:8-10 gives us the following steps: First, we admit that we have sinned against God. Second, we ask for God’s forgiveness on the basis of Christ’s work on the cross. Third, we turn away from the sin or sins in question, with a deliberate desire to live right henceforth. Where our sin or sins have hurt others, we need to ask them to forgive us, and where there is need for restitution we will need to promptly do so as well. NT repentance, as we said earlier, results in action on our part.
The good news, of course, as 1 John 1:9assures us, is that the Lord promises to pardon and restore us if and when we turn to Him in genuine repentance.
Let me end with a story about this passage. This past Thursday, a painting by Leonardo da Vinci entitled Salvator Mundi (Savior of the world), was sold by the auction house Christies in New York for the colossal sum of $450m, making it the most expensive artwork in the world.
I’m sure most of us here have heard about Leonardo da Vinci but we may not have heard of the artist Holman Hunt. He was a famous English painter of the 19th century. One of his best-known paintings that now hangs in St. Paul’s Cathedral in Londonis of Christ that is entitled, The Light of the World. This painting was inspired by Rev. 3:20 where Jesus told the Laodicean Christians that He stood at the door knocking and would come in and eat with anyone who heard His voice and opened to Him. In Holman Hunt’s painting of this verse he has depicted Jesus wearing a crown of thorns and standing outside an overgrown and long-unopened door that represents the human heart. When the painting was first displayed at the Royal Academy in 1854 one critic who came to view it said to the painter, “Mr. Hunt, you have painted a masterpiece, but you have made one very serious mistake. You have painted a door without a handle.”“That is no mistake,” replied the artist. “The handle is on the inside.”
If, as you listen to this message this morning, you have not already opened the door of your heart for Christ to come in, He may very well be calling you to do so this morning, so He can come in and change your life.
For those of us who have opened the doors of our heart to Him, are we allowing ourselves to hear the Lord calling us to regular repentance? Are we being honest with Him and humbling ourselves before Him on a daily basis? In Kenya today the painful, prolonged, anddepressing political crisis the country is going through could very well be God’s way of seeking the repentance of His people from the nominal, ritualistic, and compromising Christianity that permeate His church in this country. As he told the Laodicean Christians, He rebukes and disciplines those He loves as His demonstration of His love for us. Heb. 12:7-11 tells us that discipline can be quite painful. Are we hearing Him,are we being honest with Him and humbling ourselves before Him?
In verse 22 the Lord ended His message to the Loadicean church with the words: Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches. Christ doesn't only knock on the door of a church; He knocks on the “door” of every Christian's heart. He is patient, but He will not wait forever. I hope we all have the ears to hear what the Spirit is saying to us this morning.
Let us pray!
Rev. Canon E. Kwasi Amoafo,
Tigoni,
10th September, 2017.
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