Repent

June 7, 2020 Speaker: Tara Detiveaux Series: Reset

Topic: Repentance

Reset Sermon Series

A Reset starts with REPENTANCE

To be honest this sermon and the series has been the hardest to write. 

My paper has remained blank for almost the entire week.

Our world has been and continues to be so conflicted (I would love to say that it will be over soon but as a person who has never said this...it would be easy to see that perhaps the end times are closer than they have ever been and lately I have longing for the sounding of that trumpet more than ever)

Which would be obvious in how quickly world systems are falling apart.

So many things have been unprecedented such as a worldwide quarantine that is and will continue to affect every nation on this planet.  It will affect those with the least even more disparagingly. 

Nations are crumbling underneath the weight of it.  My heart is burdened, overwhelmed, troubled and sad.  In El Salvador (just one of the countries affected) they have been hit with a hurricane that is causing landslides on top of hunger, joblessness, and the church whom we partner with every year, their pastor Mauricio has Covid 19. They have no way of knowing because they have no testing there.   That is just one country as we hear of…India and Malawi and Sierra Leone and the Philippines and others have been overwhelmingly impacted.  The estimated people that will die of hunger this year because of it will be unprecedented. 

We won’t feel that, but it doesn’t mean that it is not happening, and we shouldn’t be burdened.

They are our brothers and sisters. 

And then we look to our country with over 100,000 dead and counting because of Covid 19, people are without sources of income, there is underprivileged within the disease, while the wealthier get wealthier and the poor get poorer still.

They are our brothers and sisters.

And then the horrific death of George Floyd, Amad, and countless others with race inequality and prejudice which has been sinister and systematic in America for hundreds of years has been exposed yet again, because it has never stopped.  The wickedness of racism has showed just how far away we are from God’s heart of loving our neighbor as ourselves.  The injustices that have come through the privileged and those injustices that follow and continue to follow have caused the nation to reel.

They are our brothers and sisters.

Our nation is beyond divided.

At times it seems we will not find a way out. 

What started as a year for us at Hope Community of going “All In” and finding “Connection” with God and others has quickly dismantled to barely making it…if at all. 

We are suffocating under depressions, discouragement, fear, abandonment, patterns of sin, and pain abound.  We are hurting.

The world system holds no answers.

In fact, at times if not at all times it seems that they revel in the chaos and want even more.

And the question becomes what should the church do? 

What should I do also?

Our church yes, but the Church at large. 

And I think of pressing a big reset button. 

Not to say that these things don’t matter.  Not to say that things shouldn’t be exposed, and action shouldn’t be taken.  But a reset button with us the believer so that we can better affect Christlike change in our culture.  Because it starts with us the individual first.

RE is a prefix which speaks to doing something again or starting anew.

 

For Christians, it starts with being REborn (Faith in Jesus).

 

After that many things can happen, for example you can be:
Restored

Renewed

Reconnected

Revived

Reproduce (the call of the church)

And ultimately, God will REveal His promises and plans for your life!

 

But for today we start with the word Repent.

And biblically the first RE that we will be preaching on is the re called Repentance.

This has to be our mindset first.  If we are going to go in reset mode we must repent first.

Before we take action.  Before we make a reaction.

The people of God must start here.

2 Chronicles 7:14  If My people who are called by My namewill humble themselves, and prayand seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.

The doctrine of repentanceas taught in the Bibleis a call to persons to make a radical turn from one way of life to another. This is Salvation.

The repentance(metanoia) called for throughout the Bibleis a summons to a personal, absolute and ultimate unconditional surrender to God as Sovereign.  This is a lifestyle.

Living a lifestyle of repentance. Even Jesus said forgiving as we forgive. 

My daughter has these meltdowns about once a week it seems.  Something will happen, she will wake up on the wrong side of the bed, something in her mind is dramatized, I’m not sure, but at the end of it all she will denounce her family, siblings, love for humankind, and the like. Basically, we know it’s coming and so there is consequence and eventually she turns her heart and repents.

At the end of the day she will come into my arms and say I’m sorry. 

She even uses the word I repent. 

We need to be a people that say I’m sorry to God.  Our sins have separated us from Him.  Divided us from Him.  Made a disconnection from Him.  We need to repent 

We Must Repent to God 

The first person she makes it right with is me.  The first person we make it right with is God.

You know to do right, you do wrong.  Repent. It’s sin. (Maria in my life)

You are in sexual sin, repent.  It’s sin.

You are angry and sinned, repent. It’s sin.

You have harbored unforgiveness in your heart, repent.  It’s sin.

Racism has been a part of your way of thinking and action, repent. It’s sin.

We Must Ask Forgiveness of Others

Now this is a little different because we are not repenting to others for salvation or forgiveness of sins, we are repenting to make it right, so that the enemy doesn’t get a foothold.

My daughter always has to go to her brothers and sister and ask for forgiveness.  It is a part of the repentance process in our house.  Because things have to be made right.

This is humbling and often hard for her to do.  But often the most needed thing.  The hardest thing for me to do is say I’m sorry to Ted after we had a fight. It’s humbling but needed. 

She surrenders again and admits the ultimate and personal God as sovereign.

We have to be a repenting people.

Even Jesus says in Matthew 5:23 “if therefore you are offering your gift at the altar, and there remember that your brother has anything against you, be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. 

If you have something against your brother even before you go into worship, make it right. I did that wrong.  I saw that wrong.  I acted wrong.  My heart was wrong.  My words were wrong.  I am asking you for forgiveness.

We Must Call Out for Our Nation

If my people who are called by name…Us…its on us

Daniel 9:3-23

Then Iturned my face to the Lord God, seeking him by prayer and pleas for mercy with fasting and sackcloth and ashes. Iprayed to the Lordmy God and made confession, saying, “O Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, wehave sinned and done wrong and acted wickedly and rebelled, turning aside from your commandments and rules. Wehave not listened to your servants the prophets, who spoke in your name to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, and to all the people of the land. To you, O Lord, belongs righteousness, but to us open shame, as at this day, to the men of Judah, to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to all Israel, those who are near and those who are far away, in all the lands to which you have driven them, because of the treachery that they have committed against you. To us, O Lord, belongs open shame, to our kings, to our princes, and to our fathers, because wehave sinned against you. To the Lord our God belong mercy and forgiveness, for wehave rebelled against him 10 and have not obeyed the voice of the Lordour God by walking in his laws, which he set before us by his servants the prophets. 11 All Israel has transgressed your law and turned aside, refusing to obey your voice. And the curse and oath that are written in the Law of Moses the servant of God have been poured out upon us, because we have sinned against him. 12 He has confirmed his words, which he spoke against us and against our rulers who ruled us,[a]by bringing upon us a great calamity. For under the whole heaven there has not been done anything like what has been done against Jerusalem. 13 As it is written in the Law of Moses, all this calamity has come upon us; yet we have not entreated the favor of the Lordour God, turning from our iniquities and gaining insight by your truth.14 Therefore the Lordhas kept ready the calamity and has brought it upon us, for the Lordour God is righteous in all the works that he has done, and we have not obeyed his voice. 15 And now, O Lord our God, who brought your people out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand, and have made a name for yourself, as at this day, we have sinned, we have done wickedly.

16 “O Lord, according to all your righteous acts, let your anger and your wrath turn away from your city Jerusalem, your holy hill, because for our sins, and for the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and your people have become a byword among all who are around us. 17 Now therefore, O our God, listen to the prayer of your servant and to his pleas for mercy, and for your own sake, O Lord,[b]make your face to shine upon your sanctuary, which is desolate. 18 O my God, incline your ear and hear. Open your eyes and see our desolations, and the city that is called by your name. For we do not present our pleas before you because of our righteousness, but because of your great mercy. 19 O Lord, hear; O Lord, forgive. O Lord, pay attention and act. Delay not, for your own sake, O my God, because your city and your people are called by your name.”

Gabriel Brings an Answer

20 While I was speaking and praying, confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel, and presenting my plea before the Lordmy God for the holy hill of my God,21 while I was speaking in prayer, the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the first, came to me in swift flight at the time of the evening sacrifice. 22 He made me understand, speaking with me and saying, “O Daniel, I have now come out to give you insight and understanding. 23 At the beginning of your pleas for mercy a word went out, and I have come to tell it to you, for you are greatly loved. Therefore consider the word and understand the vision.

This is going to be a Marathon, not a sprint, we need to be a repenting people.



 

More in Reset

July 12, 2020

Retake

July 5, 2020

Redemption

June 28, 2020

Reproduce