Back since before I began my relationship with Jesus, I still attended churches regularly. I knew instinctively that there was something more to life, but I didn’t know how to get it. Every time the preacher would give what is commonly known as an ”altar call”, an invitation to come up to the altar to pray and receive Christ. I responded to every single altar call I could, hoping that maybe this time would be different. But it never was.
I then began to think, maybe I forgot to confess one of my sins, or maybe God just didn’t love me enough to care. My friends if you have ever felt this way, or maybe even feel this way now, today you will be set free by this message.
The idea that God doesn’t love someone, or that He just doesn’t love someone enough is faulty from the very start. For He would never have sent Jesus to die for all of us if He didn’t really love us. And if I may be so bold as to say the following statement as well: Because of that sacrifice of Jesus, your sins can no longer separate you from God.
You see, the enemy would love nothing more then to have you disqualify yourself under the false idea that your sins are too great for God to forgive – just as he tried to make me think the same way so long ago. But my friends, your sins as great or as horrific as they might be are exactly the reason why Jesus Christ came and sacrificed Himself for you and for me.
He came and died in your place and in my place and took upon Himself the punishment for each and every one of our sins, so that the condemnation for sins would no longer be on us. He died as us so that we can live as Him.
This realization though does not come through keeping the law. The reason why a person can go to countless altar calls and not be changed is because that a person is more conscious of their own sins instead of the love which Jesus has for them. Just as I was when I was so worried about not confessing all of my sins, and I was unsure that God actually loved me. I heard sermons constantly telling me how my sin made me repulsive to God and how this perfectly sinless Jesus suffered for me actually made me feel worse about myself, instead of the preacher actually telling me that Jesus chose willingly to die for me because He loved me that much!
My friends, today you need to know that Jesus loves you, He is not angry that He suffered for you. He undertook that punishment willingly because He wants you to be free from the bondage of sin and death. Now as we learned last week being free from sin does not mean the verb, but the noun! The very essence of sin is what we are freed from. There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. And since He was punished in your place, there is no reason for you to still feel guilty, or to punish yourself for it any longer.
There is one scripture that I want us to read this morning to bring the message to a close, and it is Romans 2:4:
“Or despise you the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance?”
See here that it is the goodness, not the judgment of God that leads to repentance. And this brings us to the title of today’s message. Many people, pastors even still misunderstand repentance. It is not constantly beating yourself up and feeling bad about your sins. In-fact if you are doing that then you still have not let Jesus be your salvation.
The word repentance in the scripture verse we just read is the Greek word metanoia which is a compound of two other Greek words meaning “change of perception” or “change of mind”.
To repent, is to change your mind or perception of something. This is why you can read in other Bible verses about God repenting. Not that He felt sorry for sin, because He has no sin to feel sorry for. Instead rather, God repented by changing His mind.
Likewise we too are called to repentance. That we should stop trying to earn the fee gift of Grace, the free salvation for all of our sins through Jesus Christ. His sacrifice wasn’t cheap, He paid an enormous price on our behalf, but He did so willingly for us because He loves us and He offers t to us as a free gift.
Today stop feeling guilty, simply accept His free gift and repent; change your mind and find a new life in Christ Jesus.
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