The God of King David | Week 10 | The Six Movements of Repentance | Pastor Dave Brown
MESSAGE NOTES
The God of King David
July 13, 2025
The Six Movements of Repentance
Teacher: Dave Brown
The Six Movements of Repentance
1 - Sin Recognition
In the Christian life our primary task isn’t to avoid sin, which is impossible anyway, but to recognize sin. The fact is that we’re sinners. But there’s an enormous amount of self-deception in sin. When this is combined with devil-deception, the task of recognition is compounded.
— Eugene Peterson
Sin is the word we use to designate the perverseness of will by which we attempt being our own gods, or making for ourselves other gods. Sin isn’t essentially a moral term, designating items of wrongdoing; it’s a spiritual term, designating our God-avoidance and our god-pretensions.
— Eugene Peterson
2 - Confession
3 - Contrition
"My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise."
— Psalm 51:17
Attrition is being sorry that we were caught.
Contrition requires humility, sincerity, and a desire to change.
4 - Forgiveness
5 - Consequences
Our sins have unpleasant consequences for us and those around us.
6 - Action
The great thing is to prevent his doing anything. As long as he does not convert it into action, it does not matter how much he thinks about this new repentance. Let the little brute wallow in it. Let him write a book about it; that is often an excellent way of sterilizing the seeds which the Enemy plants in a human soul. Let him do anything but act. No amount of piety in his imagination and affections will harm us if we can keep it out of his will.
— C.S. Lewis
"From that time on Jesus began to preach, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.’"
— Matthew 4:17
Repenting of any vice means going in the opposite direction, to practice the virtues most directly opposed to it.
— J.I. Packer