Repentance in Gods Story

Hey Guys,


This is a sermon and notes that I preached last sunday. Enjoy!


http://www.kaleochurch.com/sermon/amos-ben-porter-repentance-in-gods-story/

Repentance in Gods Story

Today we are going to be examining a small group of 8th century palestinian Jews. As we dialogue and learn about what they can teach us about God and ourselves I think that it is necessary to first examine their cultural story and to see what exactly they were living out of.

These Jews lived in response to a story that really didn’t have anything to do with them. That may sound strange to us who have a story so involved with ourselves. But never the less, the Jews had a cultural story influenced by someone who was entirely different then them- namely YHWH. The covenant king of the universe.

God Establishes His Kingdom- Creation:
 
The story starts with God. God exists eternally past and future. Nothing holds him or binds him. He is the eternal overarching personal power of all. The thing about God in this story, is that he is immensely good, majestic and beautiful. And In a spontaneous bubbling up of his good, beautiful, and creative character he begins to sing and speak creation into existence. He creates the universe, our world, and everything in it. Because of his good and perfect character, God creates everything good and perfect. The humans are the crown jewel of this creation and receive the wonderful honor of being Gods image bearers on earth. In a small way they were to glorify God by acting out of there identity as his creations.

Rebellion in the Kingdom- Fall:

This beautiful peace, of safety and joy from God didn’t last however. In the place that God had prepared for the people he grew a tree which the humans were not allowed to eat. This was to remind them how good and great God was and how horrible it would be if they were to go against his rule. The serpent through,who is satan, convinced the humans that they could be like God if they were to eat the fruit of the tree. The humans wanted to overthrow God rule over them because they thought that they could have it better. They declared that God was not good and they rebelled against their beautiful and good king- God. This brought sin into the world and corrupted everything. All of Gods perfect kingdom was infected by death. Where life and light once flourished, Gods creation became the place of darkness, death and pain that it is today. Generation, after generation, came from the first humans and they grew farther and farther away from their God.

The King chooses Israel- Redemption Initiated:

As generation after generation grew farther and farther away from God, wars started, diseases spread, people died, lies about God were spread and false religions started. In the midst of this horrible disaster, God chose Abraham. Abraham was a moon worshiper who lived in the middle east, he was just one more human falling farther and farther away from God. God however, chose him for himself and called him away from his home. God made an agreement with Abraham. God said that through Abraham, all of the nations would be blessed. That in Abraham’s offspring, God would reverse the work that humans had done to distance themselves from him. In the pitch black despair of Gods broken creation there was now a little light.

Abraham’s descendants grew and grew until they became a nation. They were given more promises. They were promised that God would lead them to a land where he would stage his great redemption. He promised that they would usher in a new kingdom of righteousness which would return the humans back to God. Also, God began to dwell with his people in the temple. Where God was separate now he is with the people.

But Gods people were still rebellious. In spite of what God had done for them, in spite of all of the love and honor that was shown to them by being Gods people they still rebelled. They asked for a human king instead of God to be King. That king was evil and so were all of his sons. They led the people of God to Idolatry. Gods kingdom people began to worship other Gods and the land was torn into two kingdoms.

At this point when all seems lost, God sends men to go and preach to his people. They are sent to plead for the return of israel, to tell of coming correction and judgement so that they can turn and repent. And that is where we are at as we examine the next couple of verses. It is coming from a prophet called Amos. Does someone want to read it?Amos 4:6-14

This particular rebuke is for the jews in samaria according to verse 12.Now Samaria is apart of ancient Israel that was to the west and on the coast. These people, we are promised, will be saved like a lamb out of a lions mouth- only an ear or a couple of legs will remain. There punishment will be utter destruction. Only parts of furniture will be maintained. Only pieces of there former life will remain. God promises to purge them of all that they have except for him- and he expects that that will be enough.

There evils are these:

They have gone after other Gods in bethel and gilgal. These were heavy hitting places of worship in this time. They were pillars of worship  for the God of the bible. However, this particular group of Gods people have changed that to a place of idol worship. They have taken Gods places of worship and used them to worship other Gods. This is spiritual adultery, its like they are cheating on God.

They have been greedy at the expense of others. What they were doing would not be unlike many places in the world where white tourist travel to exotic locations to stay at hotels which use up 75% of that regions clean water supply for pools and fountains. All the while, ten miles away,locals die from water born illnesses like dysentery. Its selfishness, at the expense of others.

They have hated and oppressed the poor. Those with less money and resources are left without help.

They have crushed the needy

There women have become drunks and have demanded of their husbands.

They have taken there sin on the road and gone to different cities to sin all over the region in cities dedicated to worshiping the one true God.

They have become massive hypocrites

It is for this that God is punishing them.

Additionally, 6-9 reflects many agrarian catastrophes- devastation of the fields and crops. The land of milk and honey is now the land of death and starvation.

Food is scarce, there is no bread

There is no rain to feed the fields

People wander from town to town, looking for water and being unsatisfied.

The crops wither and die because of mold and mildew.

Locusts devour all of the crops

A shocking realization here in verse 10 is that the land of promise is being punished like the land of Egypt. Egypt was the symbol of oppression and captivity, it was the opposite of the perfect land of rest that was promised to the israelites.

They are compared to Sodom and Gomorra. These places were the symbols of uncleanness, and unrighteousness. It was the place exactly opposite to the beautiful and spotless israel, promised in Gods covenant.

To sum up all of this death and destruction God declares that he is behind every last piece of it. It is God who sends every pestilence, every death, every sickness. He says as much, as his condemnation is coupled with him claiming it as his rebuke. He makes no apology. This is his punishment.

Additionally, God claims that it is all done to produce repentance. God in all of his power and authority, bends even the elements to his desire to rebuke his people. His number one desire of them is that they repent. He does this by removing every distraction from them. He peals away the would-be-attractive things so they can see God for what he is, the majestic and wonderful father that they truly long for. He urges his people to a beautiful and radical dependance on him through his punishment of the guilty. He is offering them a way out. He is asking them to once again be the people of God. He is giving these Samarians a chance to to turn and submit themselves under the gracious rule of God. But the question is, do they take it?

Sadly, they do not. In fact, the entire pattern of the bible is one of God coming down, giving his word, man receiving it with repentance, but then falling away. God desired of his people a radical dependance on him, even when they had nothing else. But that he did not receive.

Our stories though are not that much different though are they? God has come down and given us his word in the form- but in the form of His Son. He has shown that he is the most concerned for us. He literally lost everything when Jesus was sent to the cross because in a way he lost himself. He even still to this day lovingly pursues us in this by tearing us away from the would-be idols of our heart. Some of you need to hear that! God is not evil for taking your things away he is Good!

And still we stand in obstinate un-repentance. You see, brothers and sisters, our sin at its heart, is failure to see God as most glorious, good, gracious, and great. We are so created for his face and presence that we try to find it in everything but him. When God is calling you back to repent and love him, he is not putting a burden on shoulders but he is lifting one off. It is in God that we find the culmination of all of our hearts desires.

But, what happened to Israel? They never repented. They continued to believe the lie that Gods rule was heavy and burdensome. They never turned from sin. They spiraled down into further and further obscurity. The purpose of God returning the world back to the garden seemed like a long forgotten dream, lost forever.

But it was in the dust of the israelites dreams that hope arrived. Jesus was born and he was the coming messiah who was to deliver and fulfill the work of Israel. He was the perfect King, who never sinned. He is the only one who could return us back to our creator in the garden. God did not sit idly by and watch his creation fall apart. He came down and did something about it. God became man in Jesus to return us back to him. He lived the perfect life that we could never live and he died the death that we all deserved to earn the right once again to live with our beautiful and perfect God.

In fact that it is in him, that it is only possible to repent. Let me say that again. You can only repent and turn from your sin, if you trust in Jesus to be the king over your life. If you try to fix your own sin, you will crumble into an ineffectual mess!

The reason for this is that you have no power over your sin, But Jesus did. We are powerless to sin, we are slaves to it! But God in all of his mercy, came to us and lived the only life that was free from sin. As a result, he has the goods. He has the power to release us from sin and its effects if only we submit to his gracious reign over our lives.

So the question is, how do we repent?

What are the ways that you commonly deal with your sin, in a way that isn’t with the gospel? How do you incorrectly deal with your sin, outside of Jesus?

There are three things that we must know about repentance that will allow us to repent well.

1.Sin is a heart issue, not a behavior issue. Does everyone want to turn to Matthew 12: 33-37? It tells us where our sin comes from.

What is Jesus saying here, about our relationship to our sin?

How does this run contrary to what the world says about our sin?

The sin isn’t our fault
The sin can change, if we change ourselves.
This goes radically against what Jesus says here in this verse. It seems like Jesus is saying that we are bad, if we are bad, and we are good if we are good. There is no good people bad people distinction! We are all bad!

Our sin is very far removed from what we do, according to this verse. It says that it all starts with a hearts desire that is not for God. At the root of our sin is a fist shaking, rebel declaring war against the most benevolent and good being in existence. Our hearts resort to accusing God of things are not true.

It kind of all channels back to where we see our identity. It comes all the way back to how God defines us. If we live outside of the identity that we have, in God, then we will be in sin. Our hearts search for identity all day long and very seldom do they find it in their creator.

What false identities do you live out of, that lead to sin?

It kind of works like this.

Work backwards (ask for examples):

Belief about God
Belief about what he has done (Jesus)
Belief in our identity
That effects what we do.

We must be defined by who God is and what he has done, so that we can live out of that. That is why we put such a high emphasis on believing the gospel. The gospel returns us back to being defined by God and therefore we are once again living as we were created.

2.The gospel both inspires us to repentance and empowers us to repentance.

Inspires:

Grace- forgiveness, leads us to repentance because it causes in us a love of Jesus which diminishes the love that we have for other things. You see, it is in Jesus that God dwells in all of his loveliness and desirableness. Colossians tells us that “it is in him the fullness of God was pleased to dwell. And what he did on the cross was the most that you will ever be loved. God, abandoned his Godhead, for you, so that he could live with you forever. This was done not because you were worth it, but because he loved you so much. This beautiful love demands a response. It demands your heart. It woos you to repentance. This love is the thing that allows you “to get to” repent and “have to”. Jesus asks you, “do you love me” and then asks you to obey. His love inspires us to repent.


Empowers:

The spirit of God enables us and gives us the emotional and spiritual strength to walk in repentance. This has everything to do with trust. We must trust the spirit to empower us to obedience. You see, repentance literally means a turning. A 180 deg. turn from what you were doing and just stopping. So that means, what ever you are doing, must stop now. That porn issue- ya. That fear of man issue- ya. That anxiety issue- ya.  But you cannot do that on your own. You must take advantage of the holy spirit. He empowers you to take the first baby steps of repentance. He is the one that gives you the power to take one step in front of the other. Repentance starts with that first step. Trust in him to work through you to repent.

3. [[[Repentance must be done in community.

We must live this out together, with everything in the light. The spirit works in community. And therefore, in order to deal with your sin with God, you must confess it to community. That means, guys- confess your porn issue to your MC this week. Do it. That is a command from the pulpit and from scripture. 1 John says, ‘if we say that we have fellowship with him, yet walk in the darkness, then we lie and do not practice the truth.

But not only that, we must be a gospel community that calls one another to repentance and to a belief and trust in the gospel. We must always be confessing and encouraging. Confessing and encouraging. Remember that we cannot turn from sin unless we believe the truth about God. Community reminds us and beckons us back to live under God rule for his glory. No doubt that somewhere along the line in this sermon, you were convicted of sin. Confess it this week in your MC. Do it! You must. And then you will experience Gods people speaking truth into you as you grow up in him. leaving that sin behind.

What this will mean for the world?

This leads to a radically grace filled community that commends Jesus in everything that they do. When churches stop confessing and repenting of sin, they whither and die. That is because they stop operating in the grace of Jesus’ forgiveness. They stop living as a community formed by grace and they start living as a community formed by their own accomplishments.

But if we live in the grace of Jesus daily together, making a demonstration of how much he has forgiven us through our repentance, then we will begin to commend grace to the world. The world must see us repent! When, you invite someone into community, confess all of your junk to community in front of them. Or they will not understand why they need a savior.

Truth be told we are prideful and we do not want people to know that we are evil. But the answer to that is still Jesus’ grace. You see, grace leads to humility and humility leads to more grace. If we can understand how much he has done to save us, then we will understand how to repent. This is how we commend Jesus to our community and to ourselves. Lets pray.