How to Repent, Believe, and Fight (June 16)

Romans 6:3-12; 8:1-3

Dr. David Martin Lloyd-Jones- society with two sets of people analogy… You still obey those who oppressed you before because you don’t really know who you are, you don’t really understand what it means to be free, don’t really understand the new rights & responsibilities that come with being “free.” Though their status had legitimately changed, they couldn’t grasp it. And so they acted as slaves…

My prayer tonight is that you, Christian, would stop acting like a slave when infinite joy is offered to you, that you would, in the freedom that we have in Christ, learn how to deal with the “sin that so easily entangles us,” rejoice in the work of Christ in you, and grow to “be holy as He is holy.” My second prayer is that you, non-Christian, would see that you are trapped in the things that you think are going to free you. You fear that if you trust Christ completely that He will abuse you or He won’t satisfy, but my prayer is that you see that living for love or status or popularity or any number of things is slavery, that you are in bondage to it and, though a call to come and die may look to you like slavery, the fountains of joy in our God never run dry.

We, both Christians and non-Christians, find ourselves so often trapped in the things that we think are going to free us, but we make ourselves slaves. Let us follow the Master who laid aside the all the privileges of his being, became a servant, and denied himself that we might be set free! Why wouldn’t you offer yourself to the only Master in the universe who has already offered himself to you?

Now, tonight’s talk is entitled “Repent, Believe and Fight,” and it is, more or less, meant to be the duct tape that pieces together the massive pieces of spiritual knowledge we’ve been looking at the past few weeks- Matt’s talk on the two sons & Chad’s talk on identifying idols were, in large part, meant to focus our eyes on our sin, see its ugliness and make us wrestle with it; Ryan’s talk on our Position in Christ was meant to root us in the fact that we are children of God, holy and dearly loved, regardless of our performance either good or bad; I spoke on Importance of Community as a large piece of helping us “fight” our sin, once we have recognized them, repented of them, and been reminded of who we are in Christ. This talk is primarily meant to help you process, help you piece together what you’ve been learning so that you may equipped to really deal with the sin in your life.

Even repentance is the grace of God. Take heart: The reason that you see the sin you may want to ignore or despair over is because God wants to free you from it so that you will be closer to Him!

A husband & wife will ultimately only enjoy each other if their affections are not competing with outside influences, so God is, by grace, helping us to be rid of these things that take our eyes off him.

So we are led to repentance because we are called to be holy as he is holy, but ultimately because there is a longing in us to be with, near & like Christ

What does it really look like?

Repent- Taking ownership & seeing God for God & sin for sin

Identifying Idols
“…that most basic question which God poses to each human heart: “Has something or someone besides Jesus the Christ taken title to your heart’s functional trust, preoccupation, loyalty, service, fear and delight?” Questions… bring some of people’s idol systems to the surface. ‘To who or what do you look for life-sustaining stability, security and acceptance? …What do you really want and expect [out of life]? What would [really] make you happy? What would make you an acceptable person? Where do you look for power and success?’ These questions or similar ones tease out whether we serve God or idols, whether we look for salvation from Christ or from false saviors. [This bears] on the immediate motivation of my behavior, thoughts, feelings. In the Bible’s conceptualization, the motivation question is the lordship question: who or what “rules my behavior, the Lord or an idol?”
— David Powlison, “Idols of the Heart and Vanity Fair”

If anything but Jesus is a requirement for being happy or worthy, that thing will become our slavemaster.

NEVER FAIL TO ASK YOURSELF THE “WHY” TO UNCOVER YOUR UNBELIEF
Ex. I was really impatient and snapped at Tim when he was telling such & such
-My time is valuable & shouldn’t have been wasted
-My time is my own & that I’m the best judge of how it should be used; Tim is not worth my time
-I don’t trust in God’s sovereignty over my time, don’t love others because I am not really secure in how much Christ has loved me

ALWAYS GET TO THE HEART!

See God as holy
Sin is not judged by virtue of how “great” or “small” it is, but the greatness of the One who is sinned against. If I spit (sin) against a rock… a friend… my parents… the President… the God who created, sustains, & governs the entire universe, whose holiness & goodness is infinite

Sin as infinitely worthy of punishment
See that as I much as I hate child prostitution & it makes me want to vomit, as my fists close in rage against those who perpetrate it… God infinitely hates each sin, even those that I ignore, dismiss, or overlook, more than I hate child prostitution… And it is not that he is overly harsh, it is that He is infinitely more holy, more just, and more good than we are…

Godly Regret
2 Corinthians 7:9-10 => To feel sorry, to feel grief or guilt or regret over a past sin is not the same as repenting. Vaguely feeling rotten is not repentance

OWN IT! This is no one else’s fault. In godly regret, we do not blame shift nor merely beat ourselves up over consequences. Think LaTarian Milton.

1. Worldly regret is when you feel sorry for something you did because it starts to backfire on you and leads to humiliation or punishment. It’s the reflex of a proud or fearful ego. Pride will always regret making a fool of itself. And fear will always regret acts that jeopardize comfort and safety. So feeling sorry for something we have done is in itself no sign of virtue. But godly regret is the reflex of a conscience before God.

2. Godly regret is owing to God’s Word putting its finger on sin in our lives. Worldly regret is owing not to God’s Word but to the attitudes of men whose praise we don’t want to lose. We can feel extremely sorry for something we have done if we detect that the people around us think it is stupid or silly or reprehensible. The word of man not God becomes the criterion of guilt.

Sin poured on Christ on the cross for my sake

It was your sin- it was my sin- that put Jesus up on the cross. He had to die to pay its penalty. Let us never forget that. That God is so good that “his eyes are too pure to look upon evil”- He must punish any & every sin.

➢ Meditate on the fact of Christ’s death to pay for that specific sin

If you don’t see the gap between your sinfulness & God’s holiness, then the “good news” isn’t really all that great. “If your sin is small, your Savior will also be small. But if your sin is great then your Savior must be great.” –Spurgeon

Abhorrance of sin & a desire to change

This isn’t me lying, this is me saying, “I’d rather deceive than follow you. “

We begin to abhor our sin, shudder at the thought of doing it again, shudder at the thought of ever having done it…

Repentance is experiencing a change of the mind’s perceptions & purposes, rather than mere sorrow for sin or mere improvement of behavior. We turn from something and turn to something. An idol cannot be removed; it can only be replaced. The design of the human heart is that we would worship something, but only one thing can satisfy. So we ask God to turn us from the idols of our hearts, to…
A “godly grief that produces a repentance that leads to salvation”

Ultimately, we chase after idols because we don’t truly understand or trust who God is & what He has offered us

But now, take heart, not that your sins are not real, but that your sins are real, and your Savior is real and He is infinitely greater…. We glance at our sin & gaze at the cross.

Believe

Satan: If he cannot keep you from regretting your sin, then he will do his best to keep you from enjoying your forgiveness. He will try to keep you in bondage to guilt.

Remember that “it is for freedom that Christ has set us free” Christian, live in that freedom! You are free from guilt & shame because sin & death have been defeated!

Trust in Christ- sufficiency, love, faithfulness, power
1 John 1:9, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

This is SO important! If we fail to remember this step, we will do one of three things in our attempts to repent- all hopeless, despondent, and guilt-ridden: (1) Grow into a prideful older brother- pleased because we’ve done a better job covering our sins than someone else; (2) Grow despondent because our “record” doesn’t seem to be improving; (3) Give up altogether & revert to slavery as a younger brother because you failed to understand what true freedom is.

“Christians who are no longer sure that God loves and accepts them in Jesus, apart from their present spiritual achievements, are subconsciously radically insecure persons, much less secure than non-Christians, because of the constant bulletins they receive from their Christian environment about the holiness of God and the righteousness they are supposed to have. It is our insecurity regarding our acceptance with God, which is the reason we make idols. We look at our knowing of him (which fluctuates so much) instead of his knowing of us, in Christ.” –Tim Keller

Romans 8:1- Good Will Hunting
-Just like Robin Williams keeps pounding into Matt Damon “it’s not your fault,” so we need someone to pound into our hearts “there is no condemnation.” We know it to be true, but it has not changed us because we don’t ultimately believe it!

We are the sons of God (Pres. Obama’s daughter-it’s ridiculous for us to think we could be found guilty and sentenced)
We are called to “be holy as I am holy.” This is an impossible task, but our faith is not in who we are & what we can do, but in what Christ has already done. He has purchased for us the righteousness of God, so when we call us, children of God, to be holy, he is not calling us to be something that we are not- he is calling us to be something that we are! We are not adulterers, we are not slanderers, we are not cheaters, we are not liars, we are not gossips, we are not the boastful… we are the children of God.

We are the bride of Christ
Not only are we his children, but he has called us his “bride” (Isaiah 62)- Say a rich man earned his riches through his intellect and hard work, and then marries- how did the wife gain wealth? By marriage. Because of what he had done, but it’s just as much hers now. His past is tied to hers, his present is hers, and his future is hers. That should give us great courage, because our Groom is headed to glory…Not only is everything he has yours, he rejoices in you BECAUSE HE HAS SET HIS LOVE UPON YOU AND NOTHING CAN STOP IT.

The Fisher King- when you know that you are completely known & completely loved, you are completely changed- the old is gone, the new has come. You cannot go on living the same. Though from time to time you may forget, ultimately, the more you realize the implications of that love, you are changed.

Without understanding your position in Christ, you will always think and feel that your relationship with God has to do with what you do and not what Christ has done- the great and central thing is not how much our hearts are set on God, but how much his heart is set on us.

It enables us to say with Paul in 1 Cor 4… I don’t care what you think; I don’t care what I think. I only care what the only Voice I care about says about me… And he has already declared his love on me- the courtroom is empty!

As Satan comes to accuse you, apply & remember these truths! There is no condemnation for you! God, who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it! It is by God’s grace that drew you in, so by God’s grace you will stay with him.

FIGHT

Because you know who you are, because you know that nothing is too hard for God, because you know that God will ultimately win, delivering all of us & all the world from sin & death- we fight!

Listen and respond immediatiely to the Spirit’s resistence (Rom 13:14; 2 Tim 2:22; 2 Cor 10:3-5) &Focus on the Lord and be consumed by him – worship-
In the gospel, we see that Christ has died for us and valued us not for what we bring him. We are of no profit to him! We have been loved for our own sakes. And to the degree we see that in gospel faith, we respond in kind. Now we can serve God not for what he brings us, for we already have everything guaranteed, but for who he is and what he has done for us. Finally, we can love God for who he is.

Understand how the flesh works
When are you most susceptable to this sin?
What are ways you make concessions / “compromies” with your flesh / the sin?

Apply yourself to the means of grace
Pray – ask the Lord for a hatred of this sin and a greater love for Christ (Ephesians 3:16-19), for wisdom (James 1:5), for protection (Ephesians 6:13-18)

Find verses that speak to this particular sin (or it’s righteous counterpart) – memorize and meditate on them. Renew your thoughts according to God’s Word (Rom 12:1-2)

Find a brother in Christ who can encourage and challenge you in this area of sin.
-Bold & broken hearted in bearing one another’s burdens (Gal 6)

Give thanks to the Lord as you experience vistory, understanding that the Lord is at work in your life, enabling you to resist the sin

All of Life is Repentance
Luther’s First thesis, “ When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, ‘Repent,’ he intended that the entire life of believers should be repentance. “ All of the Christian life is repentance. Turning from sin & trusting in the good news that Jesus saves sinners aren’t merely a one-time inaugural experience but the daily substance of Christianity. The gospel is for every day and every moment.