Becoming Whole Sermon Week 5 - Healing & Repentance

Justin Ashurst

Sermon • Submitted 4 years ago

0 ratings

· 5 views

Notes

Transcript

Welcome/Intro

Welcome to One Hope

Name, glad you are here wherever you are

We are in week 5 of our becoming whole series.

Broken Angle

Imagine you saw some one running a race with a broken ankle

What if you saw his coach yelling at him to get running!

You would say can’t you see he has a broken ankle?

This is how we often can approach healing and repentance.

We try to ignore the ways we have been hurt and go on limping through life.

Or we make everything a repentance issue.

The truth us just as you can’t continue to run on a broken ankle,

You can repent from a wound you have recieved.

You can only heal from it

We do need to repent of the sin we commit, sometimes even as a result of the pain we feel

But we cannot repent of the wound itself.

This is critical to understand, becuase

to be transformed is to experience true healing and true repentance and to know the difference between the two.

Why go through this?

Why put yourself through any of that?

Video of Roundabout

Don’t you want to get off the roundabout of your life?

Where you keep having the same experiences

learning the same lesson

Don’t feel like you are making any real progress

Made for the open road

Don’t you want to experience true joy, true freedom?

It is as CS Lewis so aptly put:

You and are are prone to settle for mud pies in the parking lot becuase we can’t imagine what a day at the beach can be.

Affects every aspect of your life

Better marriages, better parenting, better relationships.

the multiplication of ministry through your life

Jesus has more for you:

We are all wounded, we are all limping

We’ll be in 1 John 1:5-10

Go there in your Bibles

Let’s pray

Pray

Healing & Repentance

Let’s look at 1 John 1:1-5

Btw, we could virtually be looking anywhere in the NT b/c so much of it us unpacking what healing and repentance look like

We can find many aspects right here in these few verses:

1 John 1:3–10 ESV 3 that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. 4 And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete. 5 This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. 6 If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. 7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. 8 If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

What does this text teach us about transformation.

Fellowship is the Goal

Notice the word fellowship.

this is the greek word “koinonia”

and it is what we mean by Biblical Community.

Notice that our community with one another is based upon our community, or communion, with God

God who is a community: Father, Son and Spirit.

This is an important aspect:

Our Horizontal Ability to live out community in healing and repentance has everything with our Horizontal ability to do this.

Ultimately this is lived out in community.

It’s why we talk about it all the time.

We grow by God’s Word, God’s Spirit and God’s People.

Over the next few weeks working these truths out in Community will be so critical.

The Redemptive Pathway

Let’s look at this text in more depth.

Whether we are talking about Healing or Repentance there are 5 steps that we go through:

Confessing

Grieving

Forgiving

Cleansing

Repenting/Healing

Healing vs. Repentance

healing without repentance leads to a victim mentality

leads to a dignity only approach w/out responsibility

repentance without healing leads to harshness

lack of love, invalidation

It is a depravity only approach

We need to preserve both Dignity and Depravity

We can see these right in our text.

1 & 2. Confession & Grieving

1 John 1:6–10 ESV 6 If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. 7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. 8 If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

Some parallel statements here:

6 If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.

8 If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

10 If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

If we say = for professing believers

Walking in darkness

Walking in darkness ≠ sinning

it means not confessing our sins to one another.

Walking in Darkness = not confessing sin

Certainly it is also not making a practice of sin in our lives

This is often the hardest step.

It requires humility

It requires truth

It feels like weakness.

But it is absolutely CRUCIAL.

Nothing good grows in the dark.

When we step into the light, our sin loses it’s power

It is an amazing truth.

Confession in Repentance:

So in order to repent of our sins, we first need to acknowledge our sin.

That seems obvious enough.

Example: Restoration Groups

We used to run Restoration Groups here for those struggling with sins and wounds.

One of the major goals for these groups was to provide a safe space for people to confess sin free of judgment, this is what Biblical Community looks like, btw.

We had many men confess for the first time that they were addicted to porn.

It is often in stepping into the light that much power is lost.

My own story here

When we step into the light, our sin loses it’s power

like vampires

Grieving our Sin

but it’s actually also grieving our sin.

Grieving our sin

My kids apologize to each other all the time without any real sorrow.

You and I do this to.

We say “I’m sorry you feel that way”

or “i’m sorry you took it that way”

We are not very good at confessing our sin.

These are statements that dodge the reality.

Paul says in 2 Cor that it is “godly sorrow that leads to repentance”

2 Corinthians 7:10 ESV10 For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.

Godly sorrow, true sorrow, not just regret for having been caught

So step one is to confess our sin, step 2 is to grieve our sin.

These aren’t necessarily sequential, btw.

These are also the first two steps of healing:

true repentance always leads us back to the father (cross) not away

Confession in Healing

The 1st step in the healing process is to confess that you have been hurt.

Confessing = Acknowledging the Wound

It can be incredibly difficult to acknowledge that someone has deeply hurt you.

Usually our feelings of Hurt are immediately followed by Anger or despair.

But again until we acknowledge that our ankle is broken we will not stop trying to walk on it.

My Story - I have experienced freedom from past harm

Grieving the Sin done against

The 2nd step is then to grieve the hurt in your heart.

Grieving the Sin Done

This is a step many of us try to avoid.

in counseling room telling tragic stories with no affect

But grieving the painful parts of our story is part of healing,

becuase it tells the truth about the pain

and tells the truth about the past.

John 11:35 ESV “Jesus wept.”

The next step for each of these is forgiveness.

3. Forgiveness

Forgiveness is perhaps the most important aspect of our transformation.

Forgiveness is both between you and God, and you and the other.

Ephesians 4:32 ESV32 Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.

James 5:16 ESV 16 Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed.

We are going to spend a whole sermon unpacking what forgiveness is and what it isn’t next week.

But let me say briefly:

For the Sinner

In order to really experience true repentance we need to experience being forgiven of our sin.

We have sinned and need forgiveness.

Forgiveness = is the core of the gospel.

God forgives us of our sin because Jesus took our sin.

Forgiveness is about Mercy & Justice

it is our greatest need.

We need to experience forgiveness for all of our sin, past, present and future.

Since we still continue to sin, we sill need to be forgiven.

We need to be forgiven by God

We need to be forgiven by those whom we have sinned against.

We will unpack all that next week.

For the sinned against

There is the ‘forgiven’ but there is also the forgiver.

This is perhaps the most misunderstood and misapplied doctrine in the Bible.

The hardest thing you may ever do is forgive someone of sin they have committed against you.

But of all the things that hinder our transformation and freedom, unforgiveness may top the list.

And it is exactly what the enemy will go after.

But we need to understand what biblical forgiveness looks like b/c it is not just a forgive and forget mentality. There is much more to it.

I’ll say this

Whether we are forgiven by God or others or are forgiving others:

Forgiveness always goes through the Cross

Having worked through forgiveness, the next thing we see in this text is cleansing.

4. Cleansing

What is this cleaning?

Sin affects our very souls.

Defilement of Sin

When we sin we are also experiencing an inner defilement b/c sin is not what we were made for.

Look at what Jesus says in Mark 7:23

Mark 7:23 ESV 23 All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”

There is an inbuilt system that goes off in us (as image bearers of God) that detect when we sin.

It’s called our conscience.

The feeling is Guilt and shame.

Not only do we need to be cleanses from sin against us, we need to be cleansed from the defilement of sin within us.

Isaiah 1:18 ESV18 “Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.

Jesus cleanses us from the inner defilement of sin and makes us clean again.

Repentance

This is true repentance

When we have confessed the sin, grieved it, experienced forgiveness from it and been cleanses of it we now complete the process by turning from it

It is the experienced of God’s love through forgiveness and cleansing that transforms us.

This is true repentance

The result of is worship.

My experience of Cleansing

Wounds:

When we are sinned against we experience the stain of sin on our souls.

Forgiveness is like pulling out the splinter that has been infected.

When we pull the splinter out, we can finally begin to heal

In order for it to be properly healed it needs to be cleaned out.

When we are sinned against there is a cleansing that needs to take place

We long to feel clean, pure again.

Consider:

Ephesians 5:25–27 ESV25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.

Shame is at the core of some of our wounds.

Jesus in his grace clothes us, covers our shame, cleanses us from shame.

Healing

It is only now that we can begin to truly heal.

Having acknowledged the hurt, grieved the pain, forgiven the offense and been cleansed by God’s Grace

Healing then happens, sometimes quickly

often over time.

Couple Questions

You might ask, if I have to keep repenting of the same sin, have I really repented.

We will get there in a couple weeks. But i would say it depends.

Also, if I need to forgive again does that mean I didn’t truly forgive?

We’ll get there next week.

But i’ll say, forgiveness is less a one time event and more of a process

To experience transformation you need to experience true healing and true repentance and know the difference between the 2.

Closing

Let’s end where we began

Look at what John says:

1 John 1:4 ESV4 And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.

This is about your joy.

The goal is multiplication of ministry 2 cor 1:1-9

The goal is your healing, your restoration

Your transformation and your joy.

Isn’t that what you want?

We have to go through a sort of death before we can experience resurrection power.

Just as Jesus did.

He didn’t go around the pain, he went through it.

Live free, be transformed, experience true joy.

My Story:

Where have I experienced this?

Let’s not settle for mud-pies, but let’s imagine, let’s experience a holiday at the beach.