From Pastor Andrew’s Desk
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Greetings FCCB’ers! I hope that you are having a great week. Thank you for you who have shared that you are praying for myself and my family in the loss of my great uncle, Gilbert James. I’ll be traveling to Youngstown, Ohio later in the week to be with the family for the memorial service. Pray particularly for my grandfather in the loss of his beloved brother, neighbor and longtime business partner. Thank you!
This Sunday, Sunday School is back on track as we start with an in-depth Bible Study of 1 Peter. Pastor Tom and I have been deeply impacted from reading through this in our one-on-one discipleship time together. Join us at 9:00 am and see what God will reveal to us! Also, just a reminder that the ‘Connect Luncheon‘ will be held after Sunday’s service. This luncheon is primarily for newcomers to FCCB (roughly 0-2 years) to get to know each other and
to see what the Lord is doing here at FCCB!
If you are a newcomer to the church or just looking to connect a bit more at FCCB, please email me, so we can plan for food and room setup. As we have been in prayer, the Lord seems to be leading us to the Book of Acts as a new sermon series. But first this Sunday, I will focus on repentance and then next week on God’s wonderful work at FCCB . Last week we looked at how the Lord “does beginnings.” We witnessed how His first words recorded in his public ministry were “Repent, for the Kingdom of God is near“. We talked about how the Lord calls us to His ways through our repentance. In the Greek, repentance is called ‘metanoia’, literally meaning to “change one’s mind about God.” Repentance is not primarily a feeling or just feeling bad about your actions and trying to do good things. Repentance is a total and complete change in one’s thinking about God that causes a change in the heart as one turns to Him and away from sin.
There are two passages that I believe highlight correct and incorrect responses to God when it comes to repentance. The first passage that I feel led to preach on are my life verses (Isaiah 30:15-21), so obviously I am excited about preaching on these. Verse 15 and 16 state,
“This is what the Sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel says: “In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it. You said, “No, we will flee on horses. Therefore you will flee! You said, “we will ride off on swift horses. Therefore, your pursuers will be swift.”
When the Lord prompts us to turn to Him and to change our mind about Him, one faulty response is simply to run. People “run” from God all the time whether a conscious decision or not. In this chapter, the Israelites were being pursued by the Assyrians. Yet, instead of turning to God in their fear and concern, they simply ran away from Him. (The horses were the symbol of the run. Elsewhere in the Bible it states that “horses are a vain hope for deliverance.”) When we seek to handle situations and disregard sin and healthy repentance, we look for other things to numb the pain and even try to “outpace God.” This can stem
from an incorrect understanding of the character of God and His goodness,
from not truly believing that God has our best interests at heart (even if things are difficult and confusing).
So we take matters into our own hands and try to figure things out without acknowledging the Lord or asking Him for direction.
What is the result of this response? In the text we see that “a thousand will flee at the threat of one: at the threat of five you will all flee away, till you are left like a flagstaff on a mountaintop, like a banner on a hill” (v. 17).
We can’t “outrun” God. Eventually this “fleeing mentality” will catch up with us. Repentance and changing our mind about God and our response to Him is a journey that is not easy, particularly in the beginning of the process. However, it is so essential and so good! Remember, that in “repentance and rest is our salvation.” God wants to grant us His rest! The Lord wants us to live a life of repentance so we can experience the true freedom and healing we long for. By turning inward or “running away” we circumvent this process and miss out on His wonderfully redemptive love and purposes. Don’t run from repentance, run to repentance! Where does the Lord want to encourage you in these ways?
“Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you; therefore He will rise to show you compassion. For the Lord is a God of a justice, blessed are all who wait for Him!” (Isaiah 30:18).
Do you feel like you have run from God recently or missed out on His best? I can’t think of a greater encouragement than these verses! The passage continues,
“people of Zion, who live in Jerusalem, you will weep no more. How gracious He will be when you cry for help! As soon as He hears, He will answer you.” (v. 19).
The Lord honors those who turn to Him and seek His face, partiuclarly in difficulty. He is a good God who gives us hope in the midst of darkness. So let’s not run from a life of repentance, but run to a life of repentance in the Lord to experience the fullness of His healing and joy!
What does healthy God fearing repentance really look like? To uncover this jewel, let’s look at 2 Corinthians 7:8-12. In these verses the apostle Paul is referring to a letter that he wrote to the Corinthian church. We can’t be sure which letter but mos likely it is 1 Corinthians. He starts off by saying, What is Paul saying here? He is pointing out that his letter (because it was tough at points with Gospel truth) may have caused some grief in some of the Corinthians as they realized the gravity of their own sin and God’s call on their lives. Before we come to faith in Christ and even in our journey as a Christ follower, there are significant times of grieving that come from the weight of our sin. After all, until we understand the depth of our sin, we will never understand the depth of our need for a Savior. Paul is not saying that he is happy that they feel sorry, but he is happy because that sorrow led to repentance.
This is such a key point that we do not want to miss. Repentance is not just feeling sorry about things. In the midst of what is going on in our world today, we have a lot of people confessing a lot of things publicly and apologizing. And probably in many cases, they are genuinely sorry. But it could be feeling sorry for being caught, or feeling bad about oneself. That is simply ‘outward’ repentance and does not necessarily reflect a change in the heart brought on by a response to God. True biblical repentance goes one more huge step further than a surface level feeling of being sorry. In repentance we not only feel the weight of sin and wrong thinking about the Lord and His ways, but that then we turn to Him and turn away from where we have been. True repentance acknowledges our desperate need for God. So this temporary sorrow brings great gain in turning to God in repentance! Paul continues, Worldly sorrow turns inward on itself. It leads to further condemnation and sin, because it is only at surface level. It is not a heart change. It stops far short. Meanwhile, the rewards of truly repenting before God are eternal and joy-filled. Repentance does not save us, God does. is our response to His drawing
it leads us unto salvation and once saved
deepens our love and devotion for the Lord for all He has done and is doing.
As believers, we are no longer under the penalty of sin by Christ’s redeeming blood, but also we are not under the weight of regret that holds us captive to our past. We have changed our mind about God and His ways and have turned to Him and therefore He is changing us day by day. This is Good News!
Seeing the fruit of this repentance is outlined by Paul:
“See what this godly sorrow has produced in you: what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what alarm, what longing, what concern, what readiness to see justice done. At every point you have proved yourselves innocent in this matter.” (v. 11).
Feeling weighed down by sin or guilt before God?
Feeling like you want to just run or be apathetic?
Feeling sorry about something?
Just run to the Lord. He loves you! He can take it! He can handle it! And only He can truly change our hearts and give us that new song again. Sing His praises today for His new life in you! And then let’s sing them on Sunday (The Solid Rock and I Need Thee Every Hour). I hope you can join us Sunday as we all sing this out!!
Blessings, Pastor Andrew |
