Key Life Network

Guest (Male): You’re forgiven. Deal with it. Let’s talk about it on Key Life. Key Life is a radio program for struggling believers, sick of funny religion and pious clichés. Our host and teacher is seminary professor Steve Brown. He teaches that radical freedom leads to infectious joy and surprising faithfulness.

Steve Brown: We’re talking about repentance. One of the lies we believe is that repentance is change. For years I couldn’t repent because I couldn’t change. I became a spiritual giant by repenting because repentance has to do with what we think, not what we do. Once I saw that and started repenting, I started changing.

If you were listening yesterday, I talked about the danger of arrogance in the church. There is always the arrogance that we’re better than they are. The truth is we’re not. In the church, the difference between us and pagans is that we know we’re not. It’s not that we are pure and faithful and obedient. We’re getting better because that’s the promise of God when we repent, but we have to be careful about being arrogant about what God is doing in our lives.

There’s another kind of arrogance, and I have to be careful about that: being proud of the grace and understanding grace and applying grace and looking down our noses at those people who don’t get it. Be careful. Let me tell you something. I once had a man come to me who said he was so evil God would never forgive him. I told him if he wanted to confess, I was available.

I’ve been doing this so long that I’m no longer shocked or surprised by my own sin or anybody else’s sin. I said I’m going to be here on Saturday morning in my study, and I don't have anything planned. If you want to show up and confess to me, I’ll be here. I’m a good person to confess to and I’ll die with your confession in my heart. Never will I reveal what you said.

I didn’t think he was going to come, but to my surprise, the man took me up on my offer. He came in and spent almost two hours telling me about his sins. Just so you know, they weren’t popcorn sins either. While it’s true that I’m never shocked or surprised by human sin, that morning came close. I’ll spare you the details, but the man’s list of sins was so long that I thought it would never end.

After each item on his list, I said, "Jesus told me to tell you you’re forgiven. Don’t bring it up again." Do you know what happened after that confession? The man got up and he hugged me and, believe it or not, he started dancing. Frankly, he couldn’t dance very well. What made up for his bad dancing was the joy he felt in doing it. Where did the joy come from? From his repentance.

I suspect the prostitute who crashed the dinner party of the Pharisees in Luke 7—and that’s one of my favorite chapters in the entire Bible—was a dumb prostitute. I’ll tell you, if you’re a prostitute and you’re going to crash somebody’s party, it shouldn’t be a party of self-righteous Pharisees. At any rate, Jesus said about her, "Her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much. But he who is forgiven little loves little."

That’s Luke 7:47. I might add that those who are forgiven little hardly ever dance with joy at their forgiveness. Sinners who dance can appear to be arrogant, but they’re not, just forgiven. Then there’s one other thing: repentance is the road God has given his people to stay close to him.

Martin Luther once said to his rather uptight colleague Philip Melanchthon that he should find a sin and commit it so he had something to repent of. If that happened, and it sounds like something Luther would say, Luther told his colleague to take the road to God and rejoice in the place where it would lead.

I have to be careful here, but I’m thankful for my sins. You say, "I knew it! You encourage sin!" No, not for the reason you think. I feel sorry for good people—and there aren't many of those, if any—and self-righteous people, because they live lives of purity and never experience the party thrown for the prodigal who came home.

That’s the point of the story Jesus told in Luke 15. It’s about a son who left home and lived a life of debauchery. With no other alternative, when he ran out of money and friends, he was forced to come home. Believe it or not, his father welcomed him. I would not have done that. Not only that, his father gave him new clothes and threw him a party.

That story, however, isn’t so much about the prodigal son and the party. It’s about the older brother who never left home and refused to go to the party. Parties thrown by forgiven sinners for forgiven sinners are the best parties in the world. Those who never left are almost always uncomfortable at that party.

Repentance is a word with such negative connotations that Christians are not very anxious to go there. It has overtones of a hair shirt or a cat-o'-nine-tails and a place of darkness and fear. We know repentance is called for, but we work so hard to be good enough so that we won’t have to go there very often.

Actually, we aren’t supposed to go there often. Listen to me: we’re supposed to live there. Repentance isn’t so much an act but a way Christians live. It’s my hope that what I’ve taught you and what I wrote in this chapter has disabused you of the negative feelings about repentance. If not, then go back and read what Hebrews says about the dead works of the law.

In other words, repent. Repent, then laugh and dance and rejoice because the road of repentance goes exactly there. Do you know who are the happiest Christians in the world? There are those that will tell you obedient Christians. That’s not true. When I’m obedient, I feel good about it and I sleep better at night, but that’s not the happiest Christian there is.

The happiest Christian around is the Christian who has repented of his or her sins and who lives in the place of repentance and doesn’t give a rip about what anybody says or what anybody thinks. The freedom of being loved no matter what. Repent, then laugh and dance and rejoice. It’s easy. Sit down with a legal pad and list your sins and say, "God, that was so against you, so out of who I want to be, so different than what you’ve taught me to be, and I’m so sorry."

In that moment, there is a freedom that you can’t get anywhere else. Repent and then laugh and dance and rejoice. Maybe you’ve heard this for the first time. That dark secret that you have that nobody knows but you and God: tell him about it. Then repent and laugh and dance and rejoice. And then don’t forget to thank me; I was happy to help. Hey, you think about that, okay? Amen.

Guest (Male): Thanks Steve. We have been on a guided tour of Steve’s new book. It’s called God’s Not Mad at You and today we took a refreshing look at repentance and what it really means. Tomorrow we’ll explore what it takes to look into the mirror and say, "I’m a sinner, but I am forgiven and I’m beautiful." You gotta join us for that one.

Well, it’s a good time to have a good time. Now that’s not exactly the message we got from Ray Ortlund on Steve Brown Etc, but it’s close. We recently spoke with Ray about a surprising lesson from Ecclesiastes. Ray’s new book is called Eat, Drink, and be Merry: A Gospel Call to Bold Enjoyment. Intrigued? Then let us send you that entire conversation on CD for free.

Just call us right now at 1-800-KEY-LIFE. That’s 1-800-539-5433. You can also email steve@keylife.org to order that CD or go to keylife.org/contact to find our mailing addresses for the US and Canada. Again, just ask for the CD featuring Ray Ortlund. And before you go, would you give generously today to help continue the ministry of Key Life?

Giving is easy, just charge a gift on your credit card or include a gift in your envelope or simply text Key Life to 28950. And please know that no matter how you give, big or small, one time or ongoing, every gift matters and every gift helps. Thanks. Key Life is a member of ECFA in the States and 4C in Canada and Key Life is a listener supported production of Key Life Network.