What Is After Repentance?

In college, I used to watch a cartoon show every week. I thought this show was absolutely HILARIOUS. It was irreverent, and a little cringe-worthy from time to time, to be sure. I certainly don’t support it as a plan for healthy Christian living 20 years after the fact.

But generally, this cartoon made fun of basically everything, and everyone. And at the time, especially for a still-teenage version of me, it was a perfect weekly diversion from coursework and the various part-time jobs I worked all through my Undergraduate years.

In the cartoon, there are these characters called THE PAJAMA GNOMES. They are these little… well, gnomes. They appear here and there throughout a few seasons of the show, stealing pajamas from various people’s dresser drawers.

This goes on for a while, until one night the elementary-school-aged main characters of the show are working on a homework project about corporations, and they catch the pajama gnomes in the act. The act of, well, stealing pajamas. 

When the kids ask one of the gnomes WHY he and the other gnomes are sneaking around stealing pajamas, the gnome takes a group of kids to their secret lair to explain. “PHASE ONE,” the gnome begins, pointing at a blackboard, “STEAL PAJAMAS!”

“WHAT’S PHASE TWO?” the kids ask the gnome. The gnome thinks for a moment… and then another moment… and then for a bit longer. “Well,” the gnome finally says, “PHASE THREE IS PROFIT!” The gnome flips the blackboard over to show that Phase Three, indeed, is profit.

“Yeah, but what happens in Phase Two?” the kids ask again. “Hey,” the gnome asks his other gnome friends, who are in the background stacking up piles of stolen pajamas. “What happens in Phase Two?” “Well,” his gnome friends answer back, “Phase Three is PROFIT!” 

To give this silliness more of a summary than its content deserves, PHASE ONE IS STEAL pajamas. AND PHASE THREE IS PROFIT. Alright… but IT SEEMS THAT ALL OF WHAT’S IMPORTANT IN THIS EQUATION MUST HAPPEN IN PHASE TWO then, correct? 

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During Lent, we talk a lot about words like “atonement,” and “repentance,” and “redemption.” But what do these words really mean? How do they relate to one another? Understanding what these ideas are – and how they work together in our lives as Christians – is central to our faith.

Atonement and redemption are sometimes used interchangeably. But they are not the same thing. ATONEMENT, the result of Christ's sacrifice on the cross, PROVIDES THE POSSIBILITY FOR US TO BE FORGIVEN FOR OUR SINS. It represents the gift of forgiveness, God’s grace. 

Christ died for the sins of ALL, and that makes atonement AVAILABLE to everyone. It does NOT mean – to me, at least, as a Methodist – that EVERYONE IS AUTOMATICALLY FORGIVEN for every sin. But it does mean that EVERYONE CAN BE FORGIVEN for every sin. 

While RELATED TO ATONEMENT, redemption is different. Redemption is BUILT ON THE POSSIBILITY OF FORGIVENESS THAT ATONEMENT PROVIDES. But redemption is more about OUR side of the equation. It’s about US putting atonement to work in OUR own lives. 

Atonement is the gift that Jesus gave us when he died for our sins. For atonement to be put to work in our own lives, we have to accept Christ. WE HAVE TO ASK FOR FORGIVENESS – TO REPENT, AND TURN FROM SELF-WILL TO A LIFE SPENT TRYING TO LIVE IN GOD’S WILL.

MAYBE ATONEMENT IS SORT OF LIKE LOVE. It's universal. Anyone can feel it, and it's an awesome thing to feel. And when you feel it for the first time, you're like "oh, THIS is what everyone was talking about! This is GREAT!” Atonement is a gift we can all enjoy.

THEN REPENTANCE WOULD BE LIKE A WEDDING. It's beautiful, and it's an expression of specific love. Sincere love. It's also a commitment. It's a big deal. You turn from your old, single life and start something new. Your friends give you fancy blenders. Or at least a new Bible.

Then, REDEMPTION IS THE RESULT OF WHAT HAPPENS IN THE ACTUAL MARRIAGE. All marriages would end poorly if couples thought the wedding event itself meant the end of any effort to maintain their relationship. There's still the part of the on-going relationship itself.

However, because you're (presumably…?) in love with your spouse, marriage doesn't feel like work. It's not like "ugh – here I go again, another Wednesday and I still have to love and be kind to this person. This is the worst. Booo!" That would be silly, right? 

It's more like whispering to yourself quietly every now and then "WOW. What a truly exceptional person my spouse is. I can't BELIEVE I get to keep on loving them – and that they keep on loving me back. What a remarkable gift."

Atonement was brought to the world by the gift of Christ. No one asked for it, and NO ONE OTHER THAN JESUS COULD HAVE AFFORDED THE PRICE. It is given to us, by God, through Jesus, as A PURE ACT OF GRACE. IT IS A PURE GIFT, THE GREATEST GIFT EVER GIVEN.

Redemption only comes with earnest, on-going conversation with God about how to put that gift of forgiveness to work in our own life. For that gift of atonement to be put into action, I first have to repent, and I have to turn away from my old life in sin, and towards God.

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To put atonement into effect in our own lives, of course we repent, but we also pray, and we let the Holy Spirit guide us to on-going revelations through the Gospels, through his Creation, through other people, through worship, through service, and so on.

When I was younger, I used to think the process of getting to Heaven went something like this. PHASE ONE: accept Jesus, repent, and “be saved.” THEN… PHASE THREE: HEAVEN! Like the characters in the cartoon, I was left asking myself “BUT WHAT COMES IN PHASE TWO!?”

I’m going to be honest with you. When I was in my early teenage years – more or less when I first identified as having “accepted Jesus,” and when I was first Confirmed as a Member of the Methodist Church, I thought “PHASE TWO” was more or less just going to church.

I never really thought about PHASE TWO that much at all. But when I did, it was every now and again, during a Sunday sermon, when I’d be reminded not to, like, kill someone. Then I’d say to myself “PHEW! No murders committed by me this week! Nothing much to repent for.”

Then I’d more or less go on about my week. YOU SEE, WHEN I WAS YOUNGER, I THOUGHT OF MY SPIRITUAL FITNESS MORE OR LESS ALONG THE LINES OF “NOT DOING WRONG.” I never really thought about TRYING TO DO MORE RIGHT. 

More importantly for today’s conversation: when I was younger, I sort of thought that this model of PHASE ONE: BE SAVED! THEN… PHASE THREE: HEAVEN! Was just as straightforward, linear, one-thing-follows-the-other as it sounds. 

What I didn’t anticipate when I was younger, when I first came to Jesus and joined the Methodist Church, is what I now refer to as the “DPSW” in my life. The D-P-S-W: “DARK PERIOD OF SELF-WILL.” 

Because, you see, when the DPSW first started, I could SORT OF tell that my forays into Corporate America were taking me further and further from God. But in the back of my mind, I thought “I’m saved! I’ll say I’m sorry later and it’ll be fine.” 

DO YOU SEE WHAT HAPPENED TO ME? Remember our first Sunday together, we talked about Psalms 10:4, which reads “in their pride the wicked do not seek God.” In their PRIDE the wicked do not SEEK. WHEN WE DON’T TRY TO LIVE IN GOD’S WILL, WHAT DO WE LIVE IN?

We live in SELF-WILL. You see, at the beginning of the DPSW, it was MY PRIDE IN RELYING ON MY “PHASE ONE: BE SAVED,” IRONICALLY, that was keeping me from staying that way. “It is through faith alone we are saved.” And I had A TYPE of faith, for sure.

BUT AT THE START OF THE DPSW, I DID NOT HAVE “SUCH FAITH.” And my slide into darkness and self-will was based, in part, on my pride. In fact, it was based, in part, SPECIFICALLY IN THE WAY I FELT PRIDE IN BEING SAVED.

I know now looking back that if I had SUCH FAITH then, I would have prayed more often. I would have asked more often for God to help me understand His will for me. For God to give me humility to follow His Will in my life, and for Him to help give me the power to carry it out.

As I allowed my life to slip further into the DPSW, I felt myself thinking, in a very small voice in the back of my head “this feels ethically slippery, Peter.” “Yeah, but,” I’d answer myself, “WE’RE SAVED. WE’LL FIX IT LATER. We want to buy that apartment in Brooklyn, right?”

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Let’s get into some scriptures. We are also GOING TO TALK A LOT ABOUT FIRE. Like, A LOT about fire. We’re going to talk about how fire can be used to burn away impurities. Also about how fire can be used to create light. And lastly, how fires can start other fires.

Malachi 3:3 is one of my absolute favorite verses in the Bible. “...He is like a refiner's fire…He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify and refine us like gold and silver….” For me, this verse is it. This is what LIVING IN GOD’S WILL, NOT SELF-WILL, IS ALL ABOUT.

In a vastly summarized way, this is how I would explain my understanding of what the Bible tells us of human nature. We are all made in the image of God, but we are corrupted by sin. Sin is anything that turns us from God. So another way to put it is we are corrupted by SELF-WILL.

So here we are, and each of us has the capacity to follow our own thoughts, our own intentions, what WE THINK IS BEST FOR US. OR, INSTEAD, we have the same capacity to follow GOD’S THOUGHTS, HIS INTENTIONS, AND WHAT HE THINKS IS BEST FOR US.

So, WHAT IS GOD REFINING FROM US? What is He taking away? And what is left? This might just be me, but I like to think of most of THE BAD PARTS OF MY LIFE as coming from SELF-WILL, AND THE GOOD PARTS FROM GOD’S WILL.

Now, that might not entirely be true. And a real discussion of this would need to be saved for more than one sermon on the Book of Job… Can you imagine? A brand-new preacher like me, coming to his congregation the first month with a series of several sermons on JOB!? Nope!

So yes: bad things happen to good people. However, IT CAN BE USEFUL TO THINK OF THE GOOD PARTS OF OUR LIVES AS COMING FROM GOD. IF WE CAN BE TRULY GRATEFUL FOR THE GIFTS IN OUR LIVES, WE ARE LESS LIKELY TO BE PROUD OF THEM.

Psalms 10:4: “in their pride the wicked do not seek God.” In their PRIDE the wicked do not SEEK. You see, what happened to me at the beginning of the DPSW was a form of PRIDE. As I grew into my 20s and into my professional life, I LOST SIGHT OF WHERE BLESSINGS COME.

You see, as I slipped into the DPSW I started to think I ACTUALLY DESERVED what I had. “Well, I mean: I’m kind of smart. And I went to good schools. And I work hard.” But was I smarter than a firefighter is about saving lives? Did I work harder than a school teacher?

Then why do I think I somehow DESERVE to make more money than they do? And what about the schools I went to? Is it possible some of that, most of that, possibly ALL OF THAT was handed to me on a silver platter? What is “being smart,” anyway, BUT A GIFT FROM GOD?

In today’s scripture reading from Matthew 3:10, John the Baptist tells us that “the one who comes after him,” meaning Jesus, “will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” (By the way, this is repeated verbatim in Luke 3:16, “He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.”)

Water, you see, will wash your Earthly body clean. BUT ONLY THE POWER OF GOD, THE FIRE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT, WILL CLEANSE YOUR SOUL. Only by letting God into your life, daily, through Prayer, meditation, reading the Bible, can this refining fire be lit. Here is 1 Peter 1:4-7:

“...[your] inheritance is kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. 6 In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. 

These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.” SOMETIMES THE REFINING FIRE COMES TO US THROUGH TRIALS.

Here is Psalm 66:8-12: “Praise our God, all peoples, let the sound of his praise be heard; he has preserved our lives and kept our feet from slipping. For you, God, tested us; you refined us like silver. You brought us into prison and laid burdens on our backs.

You let people ride over our heads; we went through fire and water, but you brought us to a place of abundance.” When we live in God’s Will, when we allow God to light a refining fire inside us, at the center of our lives, WE ARE ABLE TO SEE EVEN TESTS AS BLESSINGS.

AND WHEN WE EXPERIENCE TESTS AS BLESSINGS, EVEN AS THEY HAPPEN AROUND US, WE SEE GOD’S REFINING FIRE FOR WHAT IT IS, AND WE COME TO “A PLACE OF ABUNDANCE.” We come to abundance BECAUSE of the fire. 

It’s like a forest coming back to life after a forest fire. Forest fires happen naturally, and when they do, they are un-doing the work trees have done to create energy from the sun. Fires burn away dead matter, releasing vital nutrients from older trees so that new growth can happen.

And yes, we’re even going to get into Job. But only a little bit! Only one verse! Don’t run away just yet! But in Job 23:10, we read “but he knows the way that I take; when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold.” WHEN WE LIVE IN GOD’S WILL, EVEN TESTS CAN BE GOOD.

Remember the daily devotional I shared with you when we talked about prayer? “I prayed for strength and God gave me difficulties to make me strong. I prayed for wisdom and God gave me problems to solve. I prayed for courage and God gave me struggles to overcome.”

WHEN WE TRUST GOD’S WILL IN OUR LIVES, when we try and avoid the sort of mistakes I made when I was living in the DARK PERIOD OF SELF-WILL, we see blessings all around us, all the time. WE CAN SEE THAT GOD IS GIVING US WHAT WE NEED.

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In John 8:12, we read “when Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, ‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.’” In a world before Thomas Edison invented the lightbulb, what was light? LIGHT WAS FIRE.

HERE IS ANOTHER CRUCIAL ELEMENT OF HOW THE FIRE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT WORKS IN OUR LIVES. IT REFINES, BUT IT ALSO PROVIDES LIGHT. John 1:5, “the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”

2 Corinthians 4:6, “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ. GOD MADE HIS LIGHT, TO SHINE IN OUR HEARTS. 

But please allow me to go on. Because the next verse is where it gets really interesting. 2 Corinthians 4:7, “But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.” THE LIGHT COMES FROM GOD, AND NOT FROM US.

To me, here is what is going on. We turn from Self-Will, and we turn towards God’s Will. This is Repentance, and it is possible because of Jesus and the Atonement he offers us. In that turn of Repentance, we enter into a new relationship with God. We build that relationship over time.

As part of the work of our relationship with God – daily prayer, reading the Bible, worship – WE ALLOW GOD TO CONTINUOUSLY REFINE US, SO THAT WE CAN BE MORE USEFUL TO HIM. TO EXPRESS GRACE IN ALL ITS FORMS: KINDNESS, LOVE, FORGIVENESS, CHARITY.

Psalm 119:105: “Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path.” Ephesians 5:8-10: “you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) and find out what pleases the Lord.”

FIND OUT WHAT PLEASES THE LORD. You know how I think of this Divine Fire, this Refiner’s Fire, which helps make me more willing to live in God’s Will, that helps me become more useful to God? You know what term I give this in my mind? This beautiful expression of God’s Grace?

IT IS A DUMPSTER FIRE. A DUMPSTER FIRE. BECAUSE WHAT I AM ALLOWING GOD TO BURN AWAY WHEN I ALLOW HIM TO DO HIS WORK OF REFINEMENT IN MY OWN LIFE, TO WORK HIS PROCESS OF REDEMPTION ON ME, IS THE TRASH OF MY SELF-WILL.

I am allowing God to burn away my sins, and most importantly my PRIDE. Because in my PRIDE, I will follow my Self-Will every time. In my PRIDE, I think I know best, not God. In my PRIDE, I think “eh, I’m saved! We’ll fix it later. Let’s go and buy that apartment now.”