5/15/15 Carlos about 25
Does God’s kindness lead us to
repentance? These words, taken from
Romans 2:4, are often used to justify an approach to the Gospel that emphasizes
Gods love for people over His love for justice – an emphasis on God’s grace
over His law. It is assumed that if only
people knew how much God loves them, then they will react with repentance and a
heart to follow God. But the context of
these words is in a much longer passage whose purpose is to show that, while
God’s kindness is intended to lead us to repentance, it does not, because of
our stubborn and unrepentant hearts, which are “storing up wrath against
yourself for the day of God’s wrath, when his righteous judgment will be
revealed.” (vs. 5) So what then, are we
to only warn of God’s wrath with no mention of His kindness? This would swing the pendulum too far in the
other direction, with an emphasis on God’s love for justice rather than His
love for people – his law rather than His grace. I believe the lesson of this passage is that
when we share the Gospel, we need to clearly explain how kind God really is,
because unbelievers don’t have the ability to truly recognize or appreciate His
tremendous kindness for themselves. We
need to share of His law in order to understand, in comparison to the
punishment we deserve, how kind and
loving was His sacrifice of Jesus on the cross and what an appropriate response
to His kindness would be. Yet some
people do seem to have a grasp of his mercy, but remain in unbelief, like
Carlos, a heavily tattooed and pierced young man I reached out to at a coffee shop. Carlos so humbly understood his own sin that,
although I did talk about his sin and need for repentance, I didn’t feel the need
to focus on it. Instead, I talked about
Jesus’ description of God as a loving Father.
I shared from Matthew 7 - “Which
of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a
snake? If you, then, though you are
evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your
Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!” Carlos’ earthly father was far from kind, and
Carlos needed an idea of what the kindness of our heavenly Father is like. Pray for Carlos, that the Father’s kindness
will lead to repentance and much more – to a saving faith in Jesus!
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