On a warm summer night in Washington, D.C., eight friends gathered around a backyard dinner table. They were celebrating their friend who opened a new restaurant the previous week. It was a beautiful evening with lots of good food and French wine. Everyone was having a good time. 

Suddenly, around 10pm, a gun-wielding intruder appeared out of nowhere. He put the gun to the head of a woman and said, “Give me your money, or I’m going to start shooting people.” 

He was serious, and they believed him. But there was a problem: nobody was carrying any money. Desperate to dissuade the man and defuse the situation, they appealed to his conscience. “What would your mother think of you?”

He snapped back, “I don't have a __________ mother!” So much for guilt.

A guest recalls thinking, “This is headed towards a very bad end. Someone is going to die tonight.” But in a stunning moment of clarity, a woman named Christina made the gunman an offer. She said, “We're here celebrating. Why don't you have a glass of wine?”

Reflecting on that moment, one of the men who was present said: “It was like a switch. You could feel the difference. All of a sudden, the look on the man's face changed. He tasted the wine and said, ‘That’s really good wine.’ We had some fancy cheese, too. So he reached down for some cheese. And then he put the gun in his pocket and relaxed.”

That intruder put his gun away, sat down, drank his wine, ate his fancy cheese, and began to rethink what he was doing. Then he said something nobody expected.

He said, “I think I've come to the wrong place.” For a moment, everyone sat there together, seeing the stars twinkling overhead, hearing the sound of chirping insects in the night air. Then he said something so strange. He said, “Can I get a hug?” The woman he aimed the gun at hugged him immediately.  Then another friend joined in. Soon, he asked, “Can we have a group hug?”

Everyone rose, moved toward the man, and formed a circle around him. An eyewitness said, “I can't tell you how strange that was. But we all came around him and hugged him. Then he said, ‘I’m sorry.’ And he walked out the gate with a glass of wine.”

Later that evening, they found the glass neatly placed on the sidewalk by their alley—not thrown, not carelessly discarded or broken—placed. The guests used one word to describe what happened that night: a miracle.

Because of someone’s surprising act of kindness, that man changed his mind. He turned. He thought again. There’s a word for that in the Bible. It’s called repentance.

I’m not saying that man got converted or began following Jesus. But on a horizontal level, he did change his mind that night and turn. That’s what “repent” means. 

Paul mentions that word in Romans chapter two. And the word “kindness” is found right beside it. Apparently, kindness and repentance belong together. Paul writes:   

Do you suppose, O man—you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself—that you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed. —Romans 2:3–5.

The Greek word for repentance (metanoia) means, “a change or turning of the mind.” It’s rethinking your life at a level that leads to genuine, lasting change.

Martin Luther said repentance includes an honest turning away from sin and self along with a hopeful turning to God for mercy. It includes Godly sorrow and God-centered hope. True repentance is not superficial. It’s deep and penetrating, meaning, it leads to a change in thoughts, attitudes, and behaviors. It bears fruit.   

It’s what both depraved, pagan idolaters and self-righteous, religious hypocrites need. It’s the only way out, but it’s directed up—toward God. How do we get there? 

According to Paul, God’s kindness leads us to repentance. It stimulates and creates space for true change. Considering the riches of God’s mercy, grace, patience, and love should bring us to our knees where we rethink our life at a deep level, turn from our sins, and put our trust in Jesus.   

Repentance is not just turning from doing bad things, thinking bad thoughts or saying bad words, to the opposite. It’s not resolving to try harder and do better. That never works. Repentance is turning to a person—to Jesus Christ. 

That’s why faith and repentance are nearly always together in the Bible. We don’t turn from sin and self to trust in better behavior. We turn from sin to trust in a person, the only one who can truly change us from the inside out.

Verse 4 is spectacular and shocking. It’s beautiful and arresting. What pagan idolaters and religious hypocrites deserve is judgment. But what God invites us to consider is his kindness. It’s a powerful guide to change.  

The same passage says that God’s kindness (or goodness in some translations) is what we often neglect. We presume on it, and despise it. Have we really taken the time to stand in awe of how kind God is to rebellious human beings?

Life, beauty, health, relationships, food, safety, provision, freedom, joy, pleasure. All good gifts from our heavenly father who is rich in kindness. The list is endless. 

God’s kindness assures us. It brings us out of hiding. God doesn’t drive us to repentance with guilt, fear, and reprimand. He leads us with kindness. Our blindness to his kindness will destroy us.  

If you were a criminal, running from the law, guilty of multiple capital offenses against the king, and fearful of what would happen at your capture, what would bring you in? The promise of pardon. The assurance of complete forgiveness, and nothing else.  

God’s kindness reminds us that we’ll always find room before God to turn from sin. A humble sinner will never find an “office closed” sign on God’s door. 

In Les Miserables, The Bishop Bienvenu not only welcomed Jean Valjean (an ex convict) into his home when nobody else in the town would give him shelter. But he trusted the man and showed him extraordinary kindness, even pardoning him when he stole his silver. That kindness led to his repentance and a changed life.

And what is the most astonishing act of kindness the world has ever seen? The Cross. If you are tracing God’s kindness, it will lead you straight to calvary, where a bleeding, sin-bearing savior took upon himself the curse of God that we deserve. At the Cross, God’s kindness appeared personally. Paul said:  

We ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us —Titus 3:3–5.

Our salvation depends on God’s kindness and goodness—not ours. He is “rich” in kindness, boasting an endless storehouse of mercy. His love endures forever and he is ready to unleash that goodness on undeserving people like you and me.

So take the advice of the Psalmist, “Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him."