Reptenance & Forgiveness - Deuteronomy 30:1-3

Repentance and Forgiveness - Deuteronomy 30:1-3 (ESV)

INTRO:

Good Evening everyone.

I hope you are all doing well and it is so so good to see you all.

I know that I and the leaders truly do care about you, how you are doing, and what your relationship with Christ looks like.

I say it every week, but I do truly enjoy hanging out with you guys. Getting to know your story, who you are, and building relationships with you guys is something that I cherish.

But what I love more than anything… is having the opportunity to open up the Word of the Living Lord…

I get excited about what it is that God is teaching us in and through his Word…

We serve a God who saved us and does not remain silent… he saves us and speaks to us…

TRANSITION - PHYSICAL COPY OF GOD’S WORD

I hope you brought a physical copy of God’s Word with you… because we are going to use it…

I encourage you to highlight, underline, and circle the passages that we go through and to get to know the pages of your Bible…

I pray that the motion of turning pages in your Bible would be more familiar than scrolling through reels on your phone…

Turn with me to Psalm 42:5-6…

For it says…

Psalm 42:5–6 (ESV)

Why are you cast down, O my soul,

and why are you in turmoil within me?

Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,

my salvation and my God.

CAST DOWN is a verb and action that means = “to despair, and described as sinking down”.

The New Living Translation says,

“5.) Why am I discouraged?

Why is my heart so sad?

I will put my hope in God!

I will praise him again - my Savior and my God”.

These Words were more than likely written by King David… someone who had experienced difficulty, hardships, and had been ridiculed by others. And David notices that his heart is cast down… that it is experiencing despair… that it is sinking down deep in despair… and his solution is to turn to God… his Savior!

I love reading and opening God’s Word because even when I am down cast… even when I am experiencing deep despair that is sinking in my soul… the Word of God reminds me to look to my God and my savior for HOPE!

TRANISITION - PRAYER

1, 2, 3, initiate prayer…

Father God in heaven… hallowed by your name...

Your name Lord deserves praise, glory, respect, and honor…

for you are creator, sustainer, and savior…

For what could we give you that you do not already have?

In you Lord is joy, peace, and love…

Father… as we open up your Word this evening… would you bring it to life for us…

Would you… through your spirit… give us understanding to see what it is your trying to teach us…

Would you… through your spirit… write your words on our hearts…

God you are good…

Thank you for sending your Son Jesus to die on the cross for a sinner like me… and for raising him from the dead so that the sinner can proclaim that he has a savior!

AMEN!

TRANSITION - MAIN PASSAGE - DEUTERONOMY 30:1-3

We are in week 3 and are last series in the Book of Deuteronomy…

With Valentines Day around the corner… Next week we will be doing a one-time message on 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 and talking about what love truly looks like when considering a relationship…

This week however… We will be looking at and diving into Deuteronomy 30:1-3…

Please turn to Deuteronomy 30:1-3 and follow along as I read…

Deuteronomy 30:1–3 (ESV)

“And when all these things come upon you, the blessing and the curse, which I have set before you, and you call them to mind among all the nations where the Lord your God has driven you, and return to the Lord your God, you and your children, and obey his voice in all that I command you today, with all your heart and with all your soul, then the Lord your God will restore your fortunes and have mercy on you, and he will gather you again from all the peoples where the Lord your God has scattered you.

CONTEXT

CONTEXT gives us a CLEAR picture the CIRCUMSTANCES SURROUNDING the STORY…

EXAMPLE - If I were to tell you that I got in a fight yesterday…

Your initial thoughts may be...

Why did you get in a fight?

What happened?

Where did it happen?

Who did you fight?

Did you win?

In other words, you may ask me questions about the circumstances of the story… so that you have a clear picture of what is actually happened…

In the same way… when we look at Deuteronomy 30:1-3… we have to look at the circumstances surrounding the story to get a clear picture of what happened, which are:

Moses is talking to the Israelites - God’s Chosen People…

If you were to look at the past 10 chapters in Deuteronomy… Moses has just gone through and taught the people all the rules, regulations, feasts, laws, rights, and manners in which the people of God should be living… he lays it all out there for them…

And in chapter 28 Moses tells them that if they obey God there will be blessings and if they disobey God… they will be cursed and fall into captivity of another people

Leading up to Chapter 30 where Moses tells them in advance… that they will experience a time of curse for their disobedience… but they will return to the Lord with all their heart and with all their soul and that the Lord will restore them…

In fact, if you were to look just one chapter ahead - chapter 31… You would see that Joshua is going to Succeed Moses… and that Moses is 120 years old when he is talking to the Israelites in Deuteronomy 30…

In other words… Moses is at the end of his life… in fact in Chapter 34 Moses dies… Deuteronomy 30 are some of the last words that we have from Moses when he is addressing the Israelites…

And if they are some of his last words… I bet they are important…

TRANSISTION - POINT #1

So what is God teaching us through this text?

POINT #1: You can only RETURN to the LORD if you REPENT of your sin

Look at Deuteronomy 30:2

Deuteronomy 30:2 (ESV)

and RETURN to the Lord your God, you and your children, and obey his voice in all that I command you today, with all your heart and with all your soul,

RETURN is a verb/action that means = “to repent and to turn away from sin”

Please turn to Acts 3:19

Acts 3:19 (ESV)

Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out,

REPENT = “to have a change of heart and mind - abandoning former behaviors and thoughts that lead to regret - resulting in a new self and a new life”

STORY #1 - TYLER KINMEN & COLLEGE BASKETBALL

When I was in college my friends and I would always go to gym and play futsal - which is indoor soccer but with a smaller ball and smaller goals…

we would typically play from 9 PM - 12 PM - all night…

But usually we would have to wait until the court was open and there would be pick up basketball games going on before 9 PM…

There was this one night where one of my friends - Tyler - was playing in the pick up game that we were waiting to get done before we could start playing soccer…

And in this pick up game he was playing awful… this was the sequence of plays that Tyler had done…

He shot a three that missed - complete brick…

Someone gets passed him for an easy lap-up…

He drives the ball and misses the lay-up…

He attempts to steal the ball and falls…

He shoots the ball and gets blocked…

This was the worst sequence of basketball I had ever seen him play…

And I am on the sidelines laughing to the point of tears…

I can not stop laughing… because he was playing so terribly…

But one of my friends looks at me and says, hey man… Tyler is getting really frustrated… you have got to stop laughing… but I could not contain it…

If there is one thing you should know about Tyler… it is that he extremely competitive…

And all of the sudden I look up and Tyler is sprinting towards me from the opposite end of the court… And he pushes me… Launching meet me in the air were I land on the floor and slide 6 feet into the wall…

Tyler storms out of the gym and the gym is silent and everyone is starting at me… one of my friends looks at me and says… you are not gonna let him get away with that right?

With my pride rising to the surface and not wanting to be embarrassed… I storm outside of the basketball court and chase down Tyler in the hallway… Where we begin to yell at each other and argue with one another to the point where we were nose to nose…

We begin to yell louder and he starts to point in my face and poke me in the chest…

And all of the sudden out of no where… he begins to cry… and I could tell that he was hurting… that something deep within in him was damaged…

And his tears broke the walls of hostility between us…

And he begins to apologize and share how life at home was really hard and difficult and how he was not doing well…

He apologized for pushing me and said he could not believe that he did it and that he regretted it…

Which then lead me to cry and confess that I was sorry for laughing and making fun of him… for publicly laughing at him… we both committed actions that we regretted… we both had behavior that we were not proud of… that we regretted and we repented and expressed how we were sorry and it lead to a new friendship… new behavior… and new promises were would we told one another that we would not behave or act like that again…

TRANSITION - HOOK FROM STORY

My point is this… REPENTANCE is a RESULT of a heart full of REGRET… that longs to RELINQUISH SIN…

In other words… if you have not repented of your sin… it is because you do not regret your sin… and if you do not regret your sin… then you will not have the desire to get rid of or relinquish your sin…

But make no mistake…

You can not RETURN to the LORD if you do not REGRET, RUN, and REPENT of your SIN…

My question for you tonight is… Have you truly turned away from and repented of the sin in your life? Or have you not repented and returned to the Lord because you do not want to turn away from sin? In other words, are you do you regret the sin in your life? or do you love the sin in your life?

POINT #2: A LITTLE is not ENOUGH, the LORD requires ALL of your HEART and SOUL

Look at Deuteronomy 30:2

Deuteronomy 30:2 (ESV)

and return to the Lord your God, you and your children, and obey his voice in ALL that I command you today, with ALL your HEART and with all your SOUL,

That word HEART means = “The place and center of a persons thoughts (mind), will, emotions, and conscience - knowledge of right and wrong

You see we so easily and often freely give all of heart to things that hurt us… instead of the hands of our heavenly father…

We are so willing to give our heart to a relationship

We are so willing to give our heart to a sport

We are so willing to give our heart to friend

We are so willing to give our heart to what others think about us

And yet we are not willing to give our heart to the Lord…. we withhold our heart from the Lord

My question for you this evening is… why are you withholding your heart from the Lord? Why are you so willing to give your heart to other things but not into the hands of your heavenly Father?

When I look back on my life I can see times where I withheld my heart from the Lord…

I withheld my heart from the Lord because I had given it to Soccer and a my girlfriend…

And I did not want to give my heart to the Lord because I feared that he would take it away… that he would change it… that somehow I would not be as happy or truly get to do the things I want…

I think a lot of us in this room know that God is good, understand that God loves us, but do not trust him or really think that he is going to give us what we want…

One reason why I think that there it is hard for students to give their heart over to Christ…. is because there are little or very few who actually do it…

To those of you who are 8th Graders in this room… my hope for you is that you would be an example to the younger kids and have a heart that has been truly given over to Christ… so that those who are younger than you could look up to you… My prayer is that your faith would be so authentic that other students would recognize that your entire heart has been given over to the Lord…

If you are a junior or a senior… I hope that your entire heart has been given to Christ… All of it… every facet… every room… every corner so that others see you and say… wow your faith is real… your faith is authentic… how? My prayer is that you would invest in and help the younger students get to know Christ better…

My fear is that in this youth room… we have too many students worried about what others think and not about what God thinks…

My fear is that in this youth room… we have too many students who have given their heart to anything and everything else other than the hands of God…

Why do I say this? Because I see how you treat one another… I see how you talk to one another… I see how you text and communicate to one another… I been in the small groups with you and see a lack of transparency at times… And it scares me, but the reality is… there are many of you who have not given your heart fully over to Christ… And those of you in this room who have truly given your heart to Christ… I beg you and ask you to keep your friends and others in this in group accountable… continue to the Lord with all your heart… despite what others think… continue to be a leader and shine for the glory of God… despite what others think… and continue to place your heart in the hands of your heavenly father… and not into the hands of anything or anyone else…

TRANSITION - CLOSING SCRIPTURE

Psalm 25:4–5 (ESV)

Make me to know your ways, O Lord;

teach me your paths.

Lead me in your truth and teach me,

for you are the God of my salvation;

for you I wait all the day long.

TRANSITION - CALL WORSHIP TEAM UP & CLOSING PRAYER