Key Bible Passage(s):

Matt.12:33; 15:19-20; I John 1:8-9; Phil.3:12-14

Tier 1:

Repentance opens up the possibility of a different future. This isn’t just about our ‘big picture’ future, which has been fundamentally changed from condemnation to hope. It includes our future day-to-day life in this age, here and now. That change may be limited, incremental and long term, but it is none the less real. Indeed the whole rest of a service of Christian worship is God’s answer to our prayer of confession, and all that He provides to ensure the loosening of sin’s grip on us.

Tier 2:

There is a danger that an inadequate understanding of repentance can lead to an impoverishing of Christian experience. There is a popular re-casting of Christianity that seeks to fit Jesus into current lifestyles, not realising that the call to faith is in fact a call to a radically different pattern of life. Our being caught up in the grace of Christ leaves us no option by transformation, however gradual it may be.

Tier 3:

There is an inevitable connection between what we pray and what we believe (and thus, how we act). That connection works in both directions. What we believe should be shaping what we pray, but also what we pray is teaching us what to believe. What we believe about our ongoing experience of sin leads us to repentance. But how we repent will also help us to understand our ongoing expereince of sin.

I consider that the chief dangers which confront the coming century will be religion without the Holy Ghost, Christianity without Christ, forgiveness without repentance, salvation without regeneration, politics without God, and heaven without hell.

William Booth

Discussion Questions:

Can we be forgiven without repentance?  Can we be a Christian without repenting?

Does an emphasis on repentance lead to a morbid kind of spirituality?

What might an inadequate / incomplete repentance look like?  How would that affect our discipleship?

What are the consequences of genuine repentance?

How would you explain the experience of repentance?

and later in the session:

On a scale of 1-10, How far can we make progress in being transformed into the image of Christ?

What helps and what hinders in this process?

How can we support each other to ‘throw off the sin that so easily entangles’ (Heb.12:1)?

What can you expect from MIE to help you in this process?

How would you help someone who didn’t seem to prioritise becoming more like Jesus?

Homework

Over this half-term we have been working to memorise Matthew 7:13-20. You will have to keep refreshing Matt.5:1-26, Matt.6:5-15 and Matt.7:7-12 & 21-28 whilst you do this.

(we’ll memorise the whole of the Sermon on the Mount over the 3 years of DTP)

read Rev.2-3.

If Jesus were writing a letter to [our Church] – what would he celebrate, what would he call us to repent of?