What do you do when you realize that you’re going away from the place you’re trying to get to, instead of moving toward it? Obviously, you need to turn around. But what if the destination someone is trying to reach is not a place, but a person? What if I’m trying to find my way to God? Again, if I’m going the wrong way, I need to turn around.
When Jesus began his ministry, the very first message he preached was:
“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near” (Matthew 4:17).
Mark uses different words, but says essentially the same thing:
After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!” (Mark 1:14-15).
Even before Jesus began his ministry, John the Baptist gave the same call to repent (Matthew 3:2, Mark 1:4, Luke 3:3). And after Jesus returned to heaven, the disciples preached the same message:
When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?”
Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:37-38).
The Greek word translated “repent” in these passages is metanoeō, which literally means to change one’s mind. In context, it simply means turning toward God and away from sin. To turn around, in other words. This is not a popular message today. In fact, it has never been popular. But it should be.
Repent. More than a command, it’s an invitation to enter into God’s kingdom. The incredible good news is that there’s no long, arduous path, no steep mountain we have to climb, to find our way to God. There’s no quest. The search is over. We don’t need to find God, because he found us. All we have to do, Jesus says, is turn around.
But to do this we need, first of all, to understand that repentance is not the same as feeling sorry. It’s not a feeling at all, which is a very good thing, because none of us has that much control over our emotions. But at the same time, repentance is also not simply a matter of the intellect. The change of mind that matters is also a change in our priorities. And in the actions that come out of those priorities.
Does this mean, then, that I have to get my life cleaned up before Jesus will accept me? More bluntly, am I saying that I have to be good enough to deserve God’s love? Absolutely not! The Scriptures are completely clear on this.
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast (Ephesians 2:8-9).
And:
You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:6-8).
My repentance is my response to God’s grace. He’s the one who takes the initiative, not me. And it in no way means that I deserve what God has freely given me; it only means that I’ve stopped refusing to accept that gift. If a government, seeking to end a civil war, offers amnesty to a group of rebels, the condition of that amnesty is always, minimally, that they stop rebelling. The insurgents have to lay down their weapons and live peacefully under the authority of the government. Without that condition, amnesty simply makes no sense. Similarly, sin is lawlessness (1 John 3:4). It is rebellion against the legitimate authority of God, who created all things and who has every right to make the rules for the things, and the people, he created. When I repent I stop rebelling and acknowledge God’s authority. I admit that his way is right, and that every time I departed from his way, I was wrong. I accept, also, that obeying him from now on is not just a good idea, it’s my duty. Repentance is a change of mind, yes, but it’s also a change in my attitude and my intentions. It’s turning around.
“Turn around” is the message Jesus preached. The message his disciples preached. The message that is still preached today. Turn around. Whatever you’re chasing, turn around. Status, money, sex, power, drugs, pleasure; turn around. Or religion, spiritual experiences, morality, good deeds; turn around. It doesn’t even matter whether you’re the black sheep of the family or the goody two-shoes. Whatever you’ve been doing, wherever you think you’ve been headed, if you’ve been doing it your way, then you’re going the wrong way. It’s time to turn around, because “the kingdom of heaven has come near.” God is the one your heart has been seeking, even if you didn’t know that you were seeking anyone at all, and he’s right there behind you if you’ll just turn around. The first of the elementary lessons listed in Hebrews 6:1, the basics that every believer should know well enough to explain to others, is “repentance from acts that lead to death.” In other words, repentance from sin:
For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 6:23).
Now, whenever you turn from something, you turn toward something else. But there’s a surprise here. Turning from sin doesn’t mean turning toward doing good deeds, or living according to the rules, it means turning toward trusting in Jesus.
But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus (Romans 3:21-24).
There are some big words and some even bigger ideas in this passage, enough to write whole books on, but the message is crystal clear: the righteousness of God is not earned by those who try to follow the rules, but it is given freely to those who trust in Christ. The scandalous message of the gospel is just this: turn around. Turn away from the life you’ve been living and trust that Jesus will do just what he said he would do:
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him” (John 3:16-17).
“For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day” (John 6:40).
“My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I and the Father are one” (John 10:27-30).
This, as I said at the beginning, is incredible news. But there is a catch, and it’s right there in the word “repent.” To repent, to turn around, means admitting that you’re wrong. That you’re not on the right path. That the way you’ve been going leads to nothing but death. It means accepting that you can’t do things your way any longer, because your way has been the wrong way all along. In short, it means giving up your pride and your self-reliance and submitting to Jesus. Repentance means facing the truth about yourself. Jesus didn’t pull any punches here:
“This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God” (John 3:19-21).
There’s no way to sugar-coat this. The message of repentance is unbelievably good news to those who are willing to receive it, but the cost is giving up everything you’ve invested in your own pride. That, undeniably, is a steep price. And, unfortunately, for some it is a price too high. When all is said and done there will be some people who can not be saved because they will not be saved. They will refuse to receive God’s gift.
Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God – children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God (John 1:12-13).
For everyone, high or low, good or bad, the kingdom of God begins here. To find what you’ve always needed, what you’re spent your whole life looking for (whether your conscious mind knew it or not) you just have to turn around.
“The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!” (Mark 1:15).