OPENING PRAYER OF REPENTANCE
Where the life changing truth of the salvation offered through Jesus Christ is either not known or not embraced, may we, your ambassadors, go into the highways, byways with the bold, truthful, grace-saturated message that the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is the only hope for the brokenness in the world and the evil in our hearts. May your Holy Spirit prepare the soil in those who hear, and may your Holy Spirit enable us to be faithfully present in a dark world with the light of holiness, truth and love.
Where lies and deception flourish, bring the light of truth that we can shine into the darkness of deception.
Where fear lurks, bring hope that we can spread to the despairing and hopeless.
Where hatred festers, bring loving peacemakers – like ourselves, dedicated to the hard and messy work of dragging real peace from deep conflict.
Where revenge motivates, bring forgiveness and reconciliation that is genuinely demonstrated and taught by your people.
Where injustice rages, let justice roll down through our words and actions.
Where cruelty simmers, bring gentleness and mercy from the lips and by the hands of your children.
Where chaos erupts, bring calm and order that begins in our hearts and permeates our cities.
Where lawlessness lives, bring accountability and lawfulness that begins with us.
Where evil abounds, may goodness much more abound, and may our heart, soul, mind and strength display it.
Where hard and cold hearts motivate, bring grace that first saved us, and continues to be extended to us, the most unworthy of all.
And where we have failed to bring heaven to earth in these ways – and we have – oh, merciful God, forgive us, and give us another chance.
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To recap last week:
Repentance involves submission. We have to recognize that, if we choose to surrender our lives to Christ, there is a sense in which choices have been made for us. In moments of temptations, I think, “This isn’t my choice to make. It’s already been made for me. God established the path of righteousness, and when I surrendered my life to Him, my steps were ordered in that path. The choice has been made.” Question #1: What choices are you wrestling with that have already been made for you?
Repentance involves action. Repentance literally means we “turn around” and to the other direction. I believe God gives us the strength and the grace to repent; I also believe that we can experience the act of turning very differently. Question #2: What change of direction will follow your repentance? Depending where you see yourself in the analogy, what has God strengthened you to do right now?
Repentance involves humility. This means not just acknowledging your sin to God, but to others who were hurt by your sin without equivocation or defensiveness.so that peace can follow. Question #3: To whom do you need to go and make peace through humble confession and repentance?
This week, point #4: Repentance Involves Planning Not To Sin.
You've heard the saying "those who fail to plan, plan to fail." Never was this more true than with Christian character formation and discipleship. When it comes to sins of various sorts, it is a necessary and good beginning to "not plan on sinning." In other words, not positioning myself, my heart, my attitude in such a way that I am ready and eager to sin. I'm not planning to "rent that movie, pick at my spouse, sow discord, etc."
However, this is what I will call a ‘negative’ approach to righteousness. It's defensive, as it were, telling me what I won’t do. I am not "planning" to sin. Real discipleship - hence, real repentance - requires that we add the positive counterbalance by shifting the terms around. Instead of merely "not planning to sin," I need to "plan--not--to--sin."
See what I just did there? I still need to plan. I need to plan and position my heart, my attitude, my circumstances in such a way that I am filled with light because of what I view, read, listen to, dwell on, say, etc. This plan puts me in places and around people that will tend to effectively crowd out the temptation to sin. What kind of movie will I rent? How might I bless my spouse? How will I sow seeds of unity, etc." It is taking the offensive, rather than the defensive. Instead of hoping to hold the ground I have, I take new ground and am transformed in the process. Consider the following
▪ "And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has been forcibly seized, and aggressive men seize it aggressively." (Matt 11:12) (Matt 11:12) What in the Heaven does this mean? Well, there are differences of opinion, but this could very well be a picture of Jesus' apprentices taking positive action to get the Hell out of themselves and the Heaven in. Picture a bunch of sheep bursting through the opening of their pen in the morning when the shepherd lets them out after being penned up all night. They ‘thunder’ out into the world. They don’t stay penned up in a defensive structure.
▪ "And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." (Matt 16:18) Imagine the gates of Hell having been erected inside your own soul. Their purpose is to keep your soul "separated" from the Kingdom of the Heavens. What God has done through Jesus is batter down those gates and invite us to participate in building new ones: gates that now protect the holy kingdom that has been set up in our hearts. One of our primary battering weapons is repentance.
▪ "When an impure spirit comes out of a person, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, 'I will return to the house I left.' When it arrives, it finds the house unoccupied, swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that person is worse than the first. That is how it will be with this wicked generation." (Matt: 12:43-45) What is your plan for putting something new in place of the bit of Hell that just got removed from you? Repentance isn't just ceasing some sinful action. It is turning and going the other direction. Repentance isn't negative and defensive, it is positively offensive against the Gates of Hell. For example, if we struggle with lustful thoughts, we need to put new thoughts in our head, or the lustful ones will simply move back into that empty space. If we struggle with saying harsh words, we need to practice saying kind words. If we struggle with spending money selfishly, we need to make a practice of spending money sacrificially. If we like to fill our time with anxiety -producing news, we need to replace it with peace-inducing material.
In the same way that Jesus improves on the Silver Rule "Do not do to others what you would not have done to yourselves" (a negative, defensive maneuver) and gives us the Golden Rule (Do to others what you would have them do to you), we are to go on the offensive (Do); we are not to remain on the defensive (Do Not). We Christians are already known predominantly for what we are against.
We talk a lot about getting as many people as possible into Heaven. This is indeed the end result of the Great Commission. However, I think it’s helpful to remember that the means to this end is to diligently evangelize to get Heaven into as many people as possible--starting with ourselves. This is literally why Jesus came--to get the Hell out of humanity by putting Heaven into us. This is what God’s grace through Jesus does on the other side of repentance; this is the aim of discipleship; it has got to be the primary goal of our Church fellowship.
Question #4: With regard to repentance, in what specific way can you ‘plan not to sin’ by going on the offensive and ‘taking new ground’ with the help of Jesus, in the power of the Holy Spirit, to the glory of God?