A Call to Repent
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A Call to Repent
08-30-2020
Welcome
Intro
This is our final week of Making the Main thing the Main Thing
Over the last few weeks we have drove head first into
13 The sons of Naphtali were Jahziel, Guni, Jezer, and Shallum, the sons of Bilhah. 14 The sons of Manasseh were Asriel, whom his Aramean concubine bore; she bore Machir the father of Gilead.
See over the last few weeks we have looked directly at vs 14
We have taken this verse apart and looked at the 4 things that we need to be doing for God to hear our cries and heal our land
Understand it would make sense and it would be easy for you and I as church goers to take notes over the last few weeks and for you to create a checklist of sorts
That if you do A, B, C, and now D that God will hear you and will heal you
Understand the goal of being Humble, Praying, Seeking Jesus and Repenting is not so that God will do something that we want but rather it is to grow in our own personal relationship with Jesus
See vs 14 is just that a picture of what it is to have a growing relationship with Christ
Vs 14 is not a checklist that you can create to force God’s hand into anything
It is about returning for those of you who are already sons and daughters of God
It is about making the Main Thing which is Jesus the Main Thing in your own life
That is done when you and I are a humble people, a praying people, a seeking people and a repenting people
For those of you who are not son’s and daughter’s it is the Gospel Message
It is humbling yourself, it is believing in Jesus and repenting and praying to God
So over the last few weeks we have looked at what it is to be humble
10 Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you.
This is what it is to be humble
Rather than thinking you have it all together
It is better to be honest with yourself and have a low estimation of your own importance
We understand that God does not need you or I to carry out His work
But what an amazing thing it is when we humble ourselves and allow God to use us
See church when you and I humble ourselves it is God who picks us up and holds us up to show us off
God will only use those who are humbled
Then we looked at what it is to pray
3 ‘Call to Me and I will answer you, and I will tell you great and mighty things, which you do not know.’
At it’s simplest prayer is communication with the God of the universe
There are 2 parts of communication
The first part is to speak
You have the opportunity to speak to the God of universe
To share what is going in your life, to share what you are praising God about, to share your struggles, to lift others up
What a powerful thing that is to speak before the God of the universe
The other part of communication is the thing we often forget and under used
It is when the upper lip and lower lip go together and you stop making noise, you absolutely listen
And the amazing thing happens when we listen we hear from the mouth of God Himself
Church we need to be a praying people and part of that means we need to be listening to God
Then last week church
We need to a seeking people
13 ‘You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.
When we seek the Lord with our entire heart we will find Him
The key to finding Him church is doing whatever it takes
WHATEVER IT TAKES to find Jesus
That is the question to us church
Are you and I willing to do whatever it takes to find Jesus
That is what it means to seek the Lord with our entire heart
So last week we left you with the question are you willing to seek the Lord with your whole heart, are you willing to do whatever it takes to find Jesus
Then when you find Him you cling to Him
This brings us to this week
A Call to Repent
To repent means more than seeking forgiveness, it is to stop and turn the other way from the sin
See forgiveness is to say that you are sorry you are sinning or that you got caught sinning
To repent means that you are sorry your are sinning and to stop and turn 180 degrees and run back to Jesus
To repent means action steps that are taken to flee from sin
Sort of doing whatever it takes to get away from sin
See I believe we live in a generation where the church has said you and I should do whatever we want and see how close we can get to sin with out crossing the line
But Jesus calls us to live in such away that we are so far away from sin
Church and it is about time you and I as children of the Irving God start to repent from our own personal sin
Church it is about about time that we as the Body of Christ the church repent from our sins as a body
At promise keepers Steve Berger spoke on repentance
When we as children of the living God repent it turns into a church, and then a community and so on and so on, and before you know it gets to the top person of our nation
At one point our nation was founded on Christian Principals but we are no longer a Christian Nation, we are a sinful nation and dare I say but it is time that our nation get on our faces and repent for the sin we have committed, and for the sin we have allowed to go on uncheck
See church this is not a check list
This is a call to a repentant lifestyle
This is a call to turn from the sin in your life and run to Jesus
This is not a one and done thing
As you grow in your walk with Christ
If you will continue to humble yourself, and pray and seek Jesus, He will continue to show you things in your life that are not of God
That is our time to repent
To turn from those wicked nasty mean ugly things that are sin and not of God and turn from them and run to Jesus
IF you are unwilling to repent then listen to me please you cannot expect the God of the universe who is a Holy God to continue to bless you and hear from you
Because you have sin in your life
you and I are a sinful people
Church now is the time to repent
Now is the time to be on your faces before God and cry out and turn from your sinful ways and run to Jesus
Now is the time for our city, state, and our nation to turn from their wicked ways and be on our faces before God almighty and turn from our wicked ways and run to Jesus
4 Then Jonah began to go through the city one day’s walk; and he cried out and said, “Yet forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown.” 5 Then the people of Nineveh believed in God; and they called a fast and put on sackcloth from the greatest to the least of them. 6 When the word reached the king of Nineveh, he arose from his throne, laid aside his robe from him, covered himself with sackcloth and sat on the ashes. 7 He issued a proclamation and it said, “In Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles: Do not let man, beast, herd, or flock taste a thing. Do not let them eat or drink water. 8 “But both man and beast must be covered with sackcloth; and let men call on God earnestly that each may turn from his wicked way and from the violence which is in his hands. 9 “Who knows, God may turn and relent and withdraw His burning anger so that we will not perish.” 10 When God saw their deeds, that they turned from their wicked way, then God relented concerning the calamity which He had declared He would bring upon them. And He did not do it.
Church please hear me this morning
When the people of Nineveh heard they were headed for death and destruction
They didn’t turn their noise up at it and say no it won’t happen to us
They heeded the words of Jonah and stopped and turned and ran to the Lord
Then something amazing happened
The king found out about it and did the exact same thing
He sent out a decree saying that you should stop all the wicked ways and turn to God and cry out to God
Then the king says who knows maybe He will hear us
The Ninevites did not know if God would stop or not
They didn’t have the entire Bible and they sure didn’t have the end of the story
You and I have the promises of God that if you and I will repent from our sin Jesus will be their waiting with open arms
How much more than should be stopping our wicked ways and repenting
I wonder what would happen, if the church, if Maranatha repent from our sins, I can promise you that God would hear us
Church we had better do it quickly you and I are not promised tomorrow
6 Seek the Lord while He may be found; Call upon Him while He is near. 7 Let the wicked forsake his way And the unrighteous man his thoughts; And let him return to the Lord, And He will have compassion on him, And to our God, For He will abundantly pardon.
While He may be found
Church we are not promised tomorrow and you and I need to ensure that we are right with God
For those who are believers you need to repent
For those who do not have a personal relationship with Jesus you are not promised tomorrow and you need to ensure you are right with Jesus and to be right with Jesus you need to repent
Enough of the junk we are going through right now and lets repent of it this morning
Right now we are seeing what happens when we do not repent of our sin and when we do not preach that sin is bad and leads to death
And I am afraid that if we continue that God will do the same thing He did in Noah’s time and shut the door
We need to repent while there is still time
There will come a time when you no longer have the option to repent and will be sentenced to eternity in hell if you don’t have a personal relationship with Jesus
Praise the Lord we still have time to repent
1 How blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, Whose sin is covered! 2 How blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity, And in whose spirit there is no deceit! 3 When I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away Through my groaning all day long. 4 For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me; My vitality was drained away as with the fever heat of summer. Selah. 5 I acknowledged my sin to You, And my iniquity I did not hide; I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord”; And You forgave the guilt of my sin. Selah.
praise the Lord church when we seek forgiveness and when we repent from our sin God is faithful and just to forgive them
God will forgive our sins and our response to that is to turn from continuing to do that sin
Our response to Gods forgiveness should be to not sin anymore that is repentance
Praise the Lord when we repent God is there to welcome us and to have fellowship with us
You can find that fellowship this morning with Jesus
You can begin a new relationship with Jesus this morning
you can reignite or renew your relationship with Jesus this morning
Church now is the time to repent
CLOSEING
I am going to ask the band to come up
Church the invitation is this
Would you repent this morning
This morning we are inviting you to repent from the sin in your life
If you do not have a personal relationship with Jesus I would invite you to repent of the sin in your life and believe in Jesus
If you do have a personal relationship with Jesus I would invite you to repent of the sin in your life and renew the relationship you have with Jesus
The altar is open and Jesus is waiting to welcome you back after you turn from the sin in your life
