August 4 Nehemiah - You Can Change
The glory of the gospel is not that it grants forgivness to those who repent, but that it offers repentance for those who sin.
You haven’t repented until you change
Neh. 1:1-2:9 people who stray from God have hope and can return. Repentance.
Neh. 1:4 when he heard the news he sat down and cried - fasted and prayed
1:6 Confess their sins
1:8-9 remind God of His promise "If you obey and return..."
2:4 what do you want Mr. Sadface?
2:5 I want to return, to rebuild
You haven’t repented until you change
Repentance is what makes religion more than ritual. -- David Smith
Not enough to be sad, Never mistake remorse for repentance; remorse simply puts a man in hell while he is on earth. Oswald Chambers
Not enough to be Sorry
Calvin and Hobbes - Calvin says to his tiger friend, Hobbes, "I feel bad that I called Susie names and hurt her feelings. I’m sorry I did it." "Maybe you should apologize to her," Hobbes suggests.
Calvin replies, "I keep hoping there’s a less obvious solution."
Repentance means not only saying you’re sorry, it means you are going to genuinely change
Not enough to cry your eyes out
True repentance has a double aspect; it looks upon things past with a weeping eye, and upon the future with a watchful eye. -- Robert Smith
Repentance allows me to hate sin, not just the consequences or the effects.
Not enough to mope or be depressed Repentance is taking God’s point of view
Admit you’re going the wrong direction -
Basic gospel message isn’t I’m OK you’re OK, but Repent - the kingdom is right behind you - you’re going the wrong direction, youll miss it
Repentance is metanoia. Meta means "to change or shift" and noia means "perspective."
It literally means a change in the way one views things.
You haven’t repented until you change
Canadian geneticist Robert Hegele told a conference in Edmonton, Alberta, that when he revealed to some Newfoundlanders in remote villages that they possessed a genetic flaw that increased their chances of heart disease, they were happy. Their initial reaction, said Hegele, was, "This is great! They figured, ’This means we’re doomed, so we . . . don’t need to quit smoking or eat healthy.’"
Patrick Reynolds has signed on to help the American Lung Association’s anti-smoking campaign. He is the grandson of R. J. Reynolds. Why -- to "make up for the damage my family has done."
Ruthless Honesty – Brokenness which is the seedbed for real change
Experiment with Repentance
1 - Allow the Holy Spirit to show you just one thing He wants you to change
2. Not enough to stop - think - What will replace that behavior? Bible direction
You haven’t repented until you change
2 Cor. 5:17 If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!
Col 3:9-10 ... you have taken off your old self with its practices 10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator
Lazy - no ambition, couch potato, Internet junkie - Invest in a dream - pour your life into others
Eph. 4:26 28 He who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing something useful with his own hands, that he may have something to share with those in need.
You haven’t repented until you change
Gossip - driven by need to make others look worse than you,
Don’t stop talking people down. Start talking people up.
Romans 12:10 Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves
Romans 14: Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in your brother’s way.
Rom. 15:7 Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you,
Heb. 3:13 13 But encourage one another daily
1 Thess. 5:11 Therefore encourage one another and build each other up
Heb 10:24 And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds.
You haven’t repented until you change
Temper / Anger - sign of a self-centered life, why don’t people do things my way?
GAL 5:22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.
1 PE 3:8 Finally, all of you, live in harmony with one another; be sympathetic, love as brothers, be compassionate and humble.
EPH 4:1-2 As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. 2 Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. 3 Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.
Eph. 4:31-32 Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. 32 Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.
You haven’t repented until you change
Carnal, porn, flesh - exalt the senses over the Spirit. Not enough to purge photos, films, intenet. You must reinvest your mind.
PHP 4:8 Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things. 9 Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me--put it into practice.
Disney, Discovery, explore nature, beauty is meant to be inspiring
You haven’t repented until you change
Selfishness - buying stuff that doesn’t fill my emptiness, life filled with thoughts about My time, MY $, oh no - MY Investments! Begin to invest in others
Give to God’s work - here or somewhere else
Phil 2:3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves RO 12:9 Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. 10 Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves. 11 Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. 12 Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. 13 Share with God’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.
You haven’t repented until you change
A rabbi was walking along with some of his students when one asked, "Rabbi, when should a man Repent?" The rabbi replied, "You should repent on the last day of your life." The student went on: "But we can not be sure which day will be our last." To that the rabbi smiled and said, "Then the answer is simple. Repent now."
You can pray for change, plan for change, but you don’t change until you just DO IT!
You haven’t repented until you change
Charles Colson - Jack Eckerd. A few years ago I was on the Bill Buckley television program, talking about restitution (one of my favorite subjects) and criminal justice. Bill Buckley agreed with me. A few days later I got a call from Jack Eckerd, a businessman from Florida, the founder of the Eckerd Drug chain, the second largest drug chain in America. He saw me on television and asked me to come to Florida. He agreed Florida had a criminal justice crisis, would I come down and do something about it? And we did. We got the attorney general of the state, the president of the senate; we got on Jack Eckerd’s Lear jet; we went around the State of Florida advocating criminal justice reforms, and everywhere we would go Jack Eckerd would introduce me to the crowds and say, "This is Chuck Colson, my friend; I met him on Bill Buckley’s television program. He’s born again, I’m not. I wish I were." And then he’d sit down. We’d get on the airplane and I’d tell him about Jesus. We’d get off at the next stop, he’d repeat it, we’d do the same thing again, and I’d talk to him about Jesus. When we left I gave him some of R. C. Sproul’s books and I gave him C. S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity, which had such an impact on me. I sent him my books. About a year went by and I kept pestering Jack Eckerd. And eventually one day he read some things including the story of Watergate and the Resurrection out of my book, Loving God, and decided that Jesus was, in fact, resurrected from the dead. He called me up to tell me he believed that, and I asked him some other things. When he got through telling me what he believed I said, "You’re born again!" He said, "No, I’m not, I haven’t felt anything." I said, "Yes, you are! Pray with me right now." After we prayed he said, "I am? Marvelous!" The first thing he did was to walk into one of his drugstores and walked down through the book shelves and he saw Playboy and Penthouse. And he’d seen it there many times before, but it never bothered him before. Now he saw them with new eyes. He’d become a Christian.
He went back to his office. He called in his president. He said, "Take Playboy and Penthouse out of my stores. The president said, "You can’t mean that, Mr. Eckerd. We make three million dollars a year on those books." He said, "Take ’em out of my stores." And in 1,700 stores across America, by one man’s decision, those magazines and smut were removed from the shelves because a man had given his life to Christ. I called Jack Eckerd up. I said, "I want to use that story. Did you do that because of your commitment to Christ?" He said, "Why else would I give away three million dollars? The Lord wouldn’t let me off the hook."
Isn’t that marvelous? God wouldn’t let me off the hook. I don’t know any theologian who’s better defined the Lordship of Christ than that. And what happened after that is a wonderful sequel and a wonderful demonstration of what happens in our culture today.
We are caught up with this idea that we’ve got to have big political institutions and big structures and big movements and big organizations in order to change things in our society. And that’s an illusion and a fraud. Jack Eckerd wrote a letter to all the other drugstore operators, all the other chains, and he said, "I’ve taken it out of my store. Why don’t you take it out of yours?" Not a one answered him. Of course not--he’d put them under conviction. So he wrote them some more letters. But then Eckerd’s Drugs began to get floods of people coming in to buy things at Eckerd’s because they’d taken Playboy and Penthouse out. And so People’s removed the magazines from their shelves and then Dart Drug removed them from their shelves and then Revco removed them from their shelves. And over the period of twelve months while the pornography commission in Washington was debating over what to do about pornography, and while they’re trying to come up with some recommendations for the president about what to do which will result in laws which if Congress ever passes them will be sued by the ACLU and will be tied up in the courts for 10 years--meanwhile, across America, one by one, stores are removing them. And the 7-11 chairman, who sits on Jack Eckerd’s board, finally gave in two weeks ago and 5,000 7-11 stores removed it. And in a period of twelve months, 11,000 retail outlets in America removed Playboy and Penthouse, not because somebody passed a law, but because God wouldn’t let one of his men off the hook. That’s what brings change.
