Lent Series #2 - Repentance That Gives Life

Repent! How do you feel when you read the instruction “Repent”?

Luke 13:1-9

Repentance seems an outdated, even offensive concept that doesn’t really fit in with today’s world.

One image that comes to my mind is like the picture above: an elderly man wearing a sandwich board that shouts the message “Repent or Perish”, megaphone in hand, ready to spruik the message to passers-by.

In other words, repentance seems an outdated, even offensive concept that doesn’t really fit in with today’s world. Even as a preacher, I find it more comfortable to talk about the love of God, his forgiveness and grace, calling people to believe in Jesus who showed God’s love by dying for the world.

But “Repent!”? Some of us are old enough to remember the 1960s and early 1970s when the counterculture of the hippies threw aside cultural norms of values, behaviour and dress and embraced a frequently drug-laden lifestyle.

And repentance is an essential element in that difference. Today’s sermon title is “Repentance That Gives Life”. Repentance at its core is a change of attitude towards God that overflows into our lifestyle. It means turning from self-centredness to God-centredness. It is confronting and uncomfortable to us personally, and to the culture we live in, but it brings life and freedom to become all that God designed us to be.

God bless

Pastor John