Hebrews 10:14 January 25, 2004
If Christ Has Me Covered, Why Do I Need to Confess & Repent?
Last week I started a series in The Purpose Driven Life. And it seems that immediately we are going to take a break. Last week left some questions unanswered, and I felt the need to deal with them.
Today we were supposed to deal with the topic “You were made for God’s Pleasure” Not the other way around!” – we’ll come back to that topic as soon as I can (in the mean time meditate on that – you were made for God’s pleasure, not him for ours! Read the chapters in the book, and you could go on the web and see past sermons I have preached on worship.)
Over the last few weeks I’ve really concentrated on How God’s grace transforms our lives – how when we come to Christ he takes all the things that we have done wrong in our lives and forgives them and takes away the guilt and shame. We take off the old clothes of shame fear and control that we tried to hide our shortcomings with and we are clothed with Christ who is perfect and sinless, well loved by God the Father and standing in God’s pleasure.
2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!
We learned how, when we are “In Christ” God sees us through the lens of is Son and the payment he made on the cross. There is nothing that can condemn us in the courts of heaven. All that we have ever done outside of the will of God is covered by Jesus and his death on the cross.
Rom 8:1-4, 28-39
1Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,[1] 2because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death
31What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all--how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? 33Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. 34Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died – more than that, who was raised to life – is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. 35Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? …(nothing)
So the question is… If Christ Has Me Covered, Why Do I Need to Confess & Repent?
John Piper ask the question this way in his devotional book “A Godward Life”
“How can we be justified by faith, once for all, and yet need to go on confessing our daily sins so that we will be forgiven?”
Why does Jesus, in his model prayer encourage us to pray “Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive our trespasses as we forgive others…” the pairing of confession with daily bread would make us think that we are to confess daily.
1 John 1:8-2:2 says to the Christians
8If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. 9If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. 10If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives.
1My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense--Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. 2He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for[1] the sins of the whole world.
To answer the question we need to turn to the Bible.
The writer to the Hebrews is making a comparison between the priests in the Old Testament who made daily sacrifices for the people’s sins – their sacrifices had a temporary effect, but Jesus sacrifice was once and for all, permanently covering all or sin. This is what it says…
Hebrews 10 NIV
11Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. 12But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God. 13Since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool, 14because by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.
15The Holy Spirit also testifies to us about this. First he says:
16"This is the covenant I will make with them
after that time, says the Lord.
I will put my laws in their hearts,
and I will write them on their minds."[2] 17Then he adds:
"Their sins and lawless acts
I will remember no more."
18And where these have been forgiven, there is no longer any sacrifice for sin. 19Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, 20by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, 21and since we have a great priest over the house of God, 22let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. 23Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. 24And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. 25Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another--and all the more as you see the Day approaching.
Hebrews 10:14 “because by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.”
He has made perfect those he is making holy.
What this verse says is that our standing with God through Jesus is perfect. That Standing is unshakable, but he is working in us to make that reality of perfection before God something that we experience here in our everyday lives.
This is why Paul tells us that we need to “work out our salvation in fear and trembling” We do not work on out salvation, to earn it, we work it out because we already stand before God as pure and holy children, so we begin to act like it.
I often tell people I’m preparing to be married – I can do the ceremony, and you will be married, but it is after that that the real work of being wed begins – you are one, you now need to learn how to act like it.
Regime change
Regime change has been a word that has become part of our common vocabulary over this past year. We need to realize that what happens when we come to Christ and give our lives to him, what happens is a regime change.
Colossians 1:21-23
21Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. 22But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation-- 23if you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel. This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant.
We go from being under the power of the kingdom of the devil (whether we recognize it or not) to being under the power of the true King.
The regime change happens, but then God has to go about making our lives look like his kingdom.
A regime change has happened in Iraq – for good or bad motives the Americans brought down Saddam Hussein and the Bath Party. But as one American official said, “regime change is not as easy as we thought.” The toppling of Saddam’s statue and the fall of the Government and even the capture of Saddam himself solidifies the regime change, but now the work of rebuilding the nation begins.
In the same way, our lives are like a country where regime change has happened, we are now ruled over by Christ, and in Christ. We have been liberated, we have been freed by Christ, but now that freedom needs to be entered into.
Confession & Repentance
Iraq is recovering from decades of a regime that rules through fear, intimidation and corruption. You can well imagine that there are times when the interim rulers have to explain to people, “no, we don’t do things that way anymore.”
After we turn to Christ, the Holy Spirit comes to reside in us and he has to explain that we do not do things the same way as we used to under the old regime.
We have to give up old ways of doing things and find new ways. There are times when we go back to the ways of the old regime, or times when we do new wrongs that we never did as an unbeliever. That is when we need to come, confess and turn away from doing those things again (repent)
In the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa, people who did atrocious things under the old Apartheid regime are coming forward saying “I committed these wrongs as part of that old regime.” It is an attempt to heal the country and repair generations of Broken relationships. It is also allowing people bring into the light the things that they did in darkness and a type of absolution given.
God has his own “Truth and Reconciliation Commission” going. His goal in calling us to confess and repent is not to make us feel like terrible slobs for doing the things we did, but to bring healing to us so we live under the new regime of freedom instead of slavery He calls us to confession and repentance to heal the relationships that we have broken through our misdeeds. The goal of confession and repentance is to make us look like our standing in heaven – pure and holy.
This cannot be done in the quiet of our bedrooms, or minds. Just as South Africa’s desire to bring reconciliation had to be done in the open, so does our confession and repentance. Not in a public meeting, but in the presence of another Christian brother or sister. I know that I harp on this, but I do because I know how difficult it is to confess you sins to another person like we are commanded to in James.
This is what Detrich Bonhoffer said in his book “Life Together:”
“Why is that it is often easier for us to confess our sins to God than to a brother? God is holy and sinless, He is a just judge of evil and the enemy of all disobedience. BUT a brother is sinful as we are. He knows from his own experience the dark night of secret sin. WHY should we not find it easier to go to a brother than to a Holy God?
BUT if we do find it easier, we must ask ourselves whether we have not often been deceiving ourselves with our confession of sin to God, WHETHER we have not rather been confessing our sins to ourselves and also granting ourselves absolution (forgiveness)
AND is not the reason perhaps FOR our countless relapses and the feebleness of our Christian obedience to be found precisely in the fact that we are living on self-forgiveness and not a real forgiveness? Self forgiveness can never lead to a breach with sin…”
We must confess our sins to one another. You can do this by entering into a relationship of openness, support and accountability with another Christian. You can also confess to one of the pastors or leaders of this church. We will hear you out, pray with you and proclaim God’s forgiveness and help you in your commitment to repent – to turn from doing the stuff from the old regime.
As we come to God and ask him where the regime is not yet changed in our life, he takes us, he doesn’t give us the whole picture – that would be overwhelming, but he tells us what needs to be dealt with now. Sometimes he shows us harm we are doing right now, sometimes harm we have done in the past both of which can keep us from living fully in the freedom of the new kingdom. Both need to be dealt with.
Inner Healing
The regime change that happened in Iraq it happened very violently and left the country in a shambles. The country also suffered from years of being cut off from relationship with much of the rest of the world through the boycott, and it suffered from living under a regime that served itself rather than the people and the nation. So a great task in regime change is rebuilding.
It is the same way in our lives. Through the damage done to us by our family of origin, by past relationships by sinful behavior of the church by our own sin, we are wounded people. Those wounds often keep us from living in the freedom and fullness that God would have for us.
God sometimes brings these wounds to the surface through suffering in our lives.
Last week we looked at 1 Peter 1 to talk about how our inheritance is in God is sure, but Peter goes on from there….
3Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade--kept in heaven for you, 5who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. 6In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. 7These have come so that your faith--of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire--may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.
God is refining us like gold. When the refiner refines the gold, he puts it in a big pot and heats it up melting it, as he melts it, the dross rises to the top, and he skims all the impurities off. Then he heats it up more and more impurities rise, and he skims them off.
When things are heating up in our lives, there are things that rise to the top that we might not like to look at, but it is God bringing them to the top, so we can be rid of them. The pain of our lives may also rise to the top so that God can heal it.
So another part of the regime change is to seek out healing for those wounds – some of which we have become so used to that we do not even recognize, some that are obvious to everyone but us, some that we done know the cause of until we start to delve into them with another gifted person. There are ministries and people that can help in this area of inner healing, other times God does the work in us through experiences in worship and prayer. Many of my friends experienced deep inner healing during the outpouring of the Spirit that happened at the Airport Christian Fellowship.
Isaiah 58
11 The LORD will guide you always;
he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land
and will strengthen your frame.
You will be like a well-watered garden,
like a spring whose waters never fail.
12 Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins
and will raise up the age-old foundations;
you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls,
Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.
Deliverance
Although the Americans toppled the regime in Iraq, and even captured Saddam, there are still people who are loyal to the old regime who are roaming about the country spreading terror and doing as much damage to those who are ruling now.
In the same way, even though we have accepted Jesus as the King of our lives, there can be agents of the old regime hanging around causing us all sorts of trouble. We often need to seek deliverance from these demons who are hanging on where they should not be. It is only the power of the cross that can break their power in our lives so that we can be completely free.
We can recognize our need for inner healing and deliverance if there is a case when we are trying to move forward in the things of God and we constantly get blocked. If the issue is not obvious we need to go, often with a helper, and ask God what is the issue that is hindering me? God will bring to light in his time the things that need to be dealt with.
Conclusion:
We are heading toward a solemn Assembly at the end of February. It will be a time when we ask God to bring to the top the issues that he wants to deal with in our lives, in our families lives, and in the life of the church.. But as we prayed about this, the sence was that God was saying that the repentance begins now.
Repentance, inner healing and deliverance are all a gift from God. God brings the things to the surface, he causes us to regret them, ask for forgiveness, he forgives us, and gives us the power through His Spirit to turn around and change our behavior.
Pray for a spirit of repentance
Ask if anyone is ready for a regime change
Offer confession.
