[The below text has been machine translated and may contain errors. Please listen to audio for original and integral translation]
The reason I’m dressed like this, to give you a little thing, God said, go as you are. Go as you are. I come downstairs, Rob goes, you know you’re speaking today? I’m like, yup, I’m wearing a sweatshirt, pants and sneakers, because I’m going as I am, because that’s how God sees us.He sees us in the raw. He sees us when we don’t even know. He’s looking because we’re not thinking we’re going to go into confession and repentance, but we were sitting here a couple weeks ago, and Pastor Steve announced baptism, like after me, next week.And I’m like, I had the sermon all done. And I was sitting there, and I looked over at Rob, and I said, wow, if that’s not confirmation. Because to get to baptism, we’re going to talk about what true repentance is.It’s turning away from those things that hold us back. And the baptism part, is we’re going to learn, it’s the immersion, it’s going down with the old and coming up with the new you. And I was like, oh my gosh.So, this is not something I dreamt up. I believe totally, wholeheartedly, this is God preparing us for next week. Preparing us.You know, we don’t just jump into baptism lightly, I mean, but we have to be ready. We have to be ready. We have to get ready, and we need to have that in our spirit, that God, I want to change.It’s not just words. It’s not just me. I mean, you know, in this world, you know, as you can see my shirt that says God, faith, and country.You know, he was killed and assassinated for speaking the word of God. You know what? I think to myself, you know what? God, that is so, he tells us to do that. Like, he’ll take care of us whatever that situation is.And it’s just awful that our world has gotten to be violence, opinions, non-respect for authority, of our police, of our government, you know, kids and parents. I mean, there’s, you know, we just have no healthy boundaries in life. It just seems like we just fell off.Like, what happened? Where did all this go wrong and get derailed? We don’t understand why things happen in life, but we serve a God that’s bigger, bigger than your problems, bigger than my problems, bigger than, you know, my sin. His name is Jesus. So we’re going to talk about that today, but we’re going to pray right now.Lord, we just praise you and thank you, Lord, for this word. We thank you, Lord, that you love us so much that you gave your son, Father God on a cross, Lord, that our sins are buried. They are taken away by the blood of the Lamb.Lord, by that precious blood that cleanses us from all unrighteousness, Lord. And I just pray, Father God, for each one. I pray, Lord, this is not condemnation.Lord, this is a wake-up. This is a wake-up call, Lord, to each one of us, Lord, this morning, God. Here, near, far, Lord, whoever’s listening.Lord, I just pray, Father God, your spirit go forth and, Lord, that I’m just a mere vessel delivering what you have laid on my heart to share, God. And we just praise you and thank you, God. And we thank you for our pastor, Lord, that he has a desire, Lord, to serve you up here.And, Lord, I just pray for your grace as well. In the name of Jesus, amen. Amen.So we’re going to start out with, you know, how many times have we done things wrong and we confess? God, I, forgive me, Lord, I’ve failed again, I’ve done this again. We somehow, we just don’t have victory over it in our life. You know, we’ve all been there.In John 1, 9, we read, If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive our sins, to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. So why don’t we see victory over that? You know, he says also in Luke 44, he says the message for repentance is, you know, forgiveness of sins, and the Holy Spirit will be in you, with you, upon you, and enable you to do it. So there are two primary words in the New Testament.So repentance, you know, confession is recognition of my sin. So you’ve got to recognize that you have the sin in your life to be able to renounce it, to walk away from it, to get freedom from it, right? If we just walk around and say, I didn’t do that, I didn’t do that, that’s not so bad. How many times did we do that? We justify our sin, you know? I mean, God sees it.But we seem to be a, you know, human in nature. We do that. We justify our sin.We say, oh, that’s not too bad. They do this, that’s even worse than my sin. Well, you know, we’re going to get into it.You know, God doesn’t look at sin like that’s worse or that’s better. It’s all sin, okay? And we’re going to talk about that here in a little bit. But so the thing is, is a lot of people confess their sin, but there’s more to that.You know, we’re not feeling sorry about our sin. There’s more to repentance than that. Having remorse, no, not, we’re sinning against God and we’re sinning, we’re really lying to ourselves, you know? We’re to justify that.So you can feel sorry for your sin, because a lot of times people feel sorry and remorse and it’s just mere words, you know? People, it’s not at the heart level to be able to change. You know, I’m sorry because my parents told me to go say sorry. How many times have we been there? I’ve done that to my kids.I’ll say, you know, you really should say sorry. That’s really not right. Well, did they do it just for me? Is it just words that fall to the ground with nothing? Like they didn’t mean anything, right? Because there was no action to it.So when we confess our sins, there needs to be an action to repent, to turn. Those things work hand in hand. So, you know, when just, you know, there’s different consequences.When you steal, you know, obviously, you know, police, authority, you go to jail, you know, you feel remorseful about your sin because someone found out. Maybe you were, I don’t know, dabbling on the Internet or whatever, doing whatever, or adulterous affair. The sin carries a consequence, right? So sometimes we don’t want to make us look bad.It’s not a point of making us look bad, you know, and that’s where we need to get over that hump, okay? We need to get out of that mindset, you know, what people think. We need to get our heart right with God and God only, you know, in that. So repentance is grieving over sin.No, it’s not. We’re not grieving over sin. Repentance is sorrowful.Yes, we are all sorrowful when you do something. You want to, you know, say sorry, but it’s not that either. But all those two components of feeling sorry, feeling remorseful, you know, all carry on what repentance is.So as we dive in in the Old Testament, repent is several times in the Old Testament. It means to make a turn. When we turn, that’s what repentance is.Confession is we’re speaking with our words. We’re voicing it. But, you know, and then faith comes in there, and we’re going to talk about how all things will align up here, okay? So bear with me here.When a person repents of their sin, they have a change of mind. The change of mind is going to result in a change of direction. So if you think about it, when you turn, when you turn, you’re changing direction of your life, right? So that’s what you need to do with repentance.It’s not just saying, hey, I’m sorry for my sin, what I did to you, how I offended you. No, you’re making an honest confession. Hey, Lord, I screwed up.This is my sin. And you know what? And then you need to turn. You need to walk away from that, you know? If it’s on the Internet, you know what? You put filters on.You be accountable to somebody. You know, do something like that. Like, that’s turning, but it’s okay, like, to have somebody else, a sister, a brother in Christ saying, hey, I’m with you on that.You know what? I’m going to help you. We’re not to be the ones that stand up and say, oh, you know, I don’t want to do that. That’s uncomfortable to help somebody.No, no, we’re all driven for the kingdom of God, right? We’re all going to the same goal. It’s not saying, oh, you’re this, you’re that. Oh, my gosh, look what they did, you know? No, no, this isn’t, you know, this isn’t like, oh, my gosh, and we tell everybody.No, we go to that person that knows Jesus and says, hey, can you help me out here? I’ve really stumbled and I can’t find my way. And what are we to do? Lift them up, right? Lift them up. We’re not to sit there and say, oh, my gosh, God’s bad at you or you’re going to hell, you know? It’s not that.We all sin. We all fall short of the glory of God, and that’s the thing. And so our words really, you know, mean a lot, too.So it’s how you present yourself, you know? They will know we are Christians by our what? Love. Yes, love. So you can’t love somebody if you’re throwing daggers at them and telling them that they’re just terrible, you know? Our goal as Christians is to lift up, to build up, to walk beside somebody that’s struggling.It’s not for us to answer. We’re all going to get Judgment Day, and it isn’t going to be judged by each one of us, and we’re going to talk about that, too. All right, so repent means to change, so keep things all in.So confession is just merely words saying, you know, hey, I confess this. It didn’t reach that heart level where when we repent, we turn. Okay, that’s where we’re at right now.Okay, so let me just see. Hold on. I’m getting ahead of myself here.Okay, so when a person truly has a change of mind, it changes your behavior, your surroundings, your heart, recognizing sin isn’t against God. It’s against themselves. Something is going to happen in your life.There becomes a freedom. There becomes a freedom. Just like when you have debt, when you pay off debt, the freedom you feel of that burden, right? Sin is the same way.You know, when you get out of that sin, it’s going to be a hard road. It’s not going to be easy. You know, it’s not going to be easy, but you will have that sense of, God, thank you.You know what? You’ve been bearing that. You’ve been hiding that. You’ve been, you know, dealing with that.It’s not for you to deal alone. It’s okay. It’s okay.We want to help. We want to be that body that lifts you up out of that miry play. There’s no judgment here.There’s no judgment here. So when God says we’re to preach repentance because God wants us, wants there to be a change in people’s lives because living in sin, living in disobedience, rebellion, you will destroy yourself and others around you. Because we all know what’s the wages of sin? Death.You will die, maybe not physically, emotionally, spiritually, produces death. When you have sin in your life, you don’t produce fruit, right? So when a tree is dead, no leaves, it’s not bearing anything, right? So we don’t want to be in that state. And if you are, there is freedom today.And I am just so, I was so excited, honestly, to come in here, but I was nervous too because I’m like, oh, my gosh. But I believe God wants just to heal and deliver and just set a newness in your life, a new outlook, a turn from those ways this morning. But the gift of God is what? Eternal life.And that’s in Romans 6.23. For time, I’m not going to read them all. I kind of, you know. So repentance recap.So we change our mind. That’s Romans 12.2. Do not be conformed to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. So when we renew our mind, what are we doing? We’re turning.We’re turning from those sinful thoughts. We’re turning from those sinful actions. And we’re turning that.We’re changing our heart. And when we change our heart, it changes our behavior, right? I mean, for the mouth speaks what the heart is full of. So if you’re full of, you know, I don’t know, of anger, rage, you know, that comes out, right? Because that’s what you are stuck.You’re stuck. You know, you just, you know, you don’t know how to channel that and to get free of it. Let’s see where I’m at.Okay. So let’s look at salvation and faith. They were used interchangeably.Because without faith, we cannot have these things, right? We need to have faith in God that he has set us free. So God called for a change in life, salvation for forgiveness of their sins. You might ask, the Bible says we are saved by faith.Faith and repentance go hand in hand. You can’t have faith or repentance without faith, and faith you need for repentance. When the Bible says, Believe on the Lord Jesus and thou shalt be saved.That’s in Acts 16.31. So what must we do to be saved? What must we do to break free? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved. He maybe could have said believe and repent, but in the mind of Apostle Paul, these are two things absolutely that you couldn’t think about them differently. Because you can’t have one without having the other.So for a moment, John writes, For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him would not perish but have everlasting life. Why didn’t he say believe and repent? Because in his mind, wait a minute, hold on. Faith and repentance are just like salvation and repentance.There’s two sides of a quarter, right? So if you think about it, probably people have a quarter. So if you have a quarter, I can’t give you a quarter, I can’t give you a head without giving you a tail, right? So they’re together. They’re not separated.And that’s how faith and repentance are. We need both, just like a sheet of paper. I can give you a sheet of paper, but you have to take what’s on the front and the back.I can’t separate them, right? And that’s what we’re talking about today, what we need to break free from this. So faith and repentance go hand in hand. It’s the same.You have to have both, and you can’t separate them. So in Jesus Christ, something’s going to happen to your lifestyle. That’s what baptism’s all about.You know, we talk about baptism because it’s next week, and this was already done. Baptism doesn’t save a person, but what is baptism? We all know that, right? That you’ve died to the old way, and you’re coming up, and your sins are buried with Christ. They’re gone.When you come up out of this baptismal, you come up a new creation in Christ. All those things, those old things are gone away. We’re not going to keep regurgitating them and saying, hey, do you remember? Did that mean anything to you? You got baptized.No, no. Leave them alone. Those are buried.I don’t choose to regurgitate up my old past, believe me. Before Christ told my Lord, thank God He saved me. But I am not that person, and I will never, I remember those things, but that is not me.That is not me. And I choose to renounce them when they come to my mind? No, I am not that person. You know, and I do.Sometimes, you know, when Satan works, he just, he’ll just, you know, bring those things up from your past. No, no, that’s in the past. That’s under the blood.I choose not to bring those up. But that’s what we got to do. We got to change our mind.And when we repent, we turn. So when you get saved, what do you do? You’re repenting. You’re confessing your sins to the Lord, but now we’re going to make a positional change.We’re going to change. We’re walking in the direction of the Lord, right? We want to do his ways, his works, and live for him. And we’re to go out and preach and teach the gospel to the lost.We’re to give testimony of healing. That increases people’s faith, you know? We need to be doing those things because God is still on his throne and he’s still doing those things. There’s still healing.There is still deliverance. I mean, honestly, in this church, maybe 20 years ago, when Kurt and Eileen were here, we had a deliverance of demons. I think Lisa, obviously, was here, maybe a couple other ones.And we did see that. We did see that. And it’s biblical.It was something I probably stood there and went, you know, you read it and you’re like, whew, you know? But God’s delivering today as he is then, you know? But we’re in the way. We’re in the way. Why are we in the way? Selfishness? Are we afraid of the consequences that your sin produced? That caused in your relationships, in your life, in your finances? We’ve all been there.We’ve all signed up for stupid stuff in our life. I mean, we signed up for a timeshare once, you know? I mean, I was like, we get home, we’re like, ugh, that didn’t feel good. That was a big debt we didn’t need.What are we gonna do with this? But it felt good in the moment, right? Felt good in the moment. And that’s where sin creeps in. Because it feels good in the moment, and it does something, feel good, we feel warm and fuzzy, we feel like, okay, you know? But the consequences, you know, nobody thinks of that until, you know, you’ve felt good already, you know? We get sidetracked.We get sidetracked. Okay, so, let’s see where we’re at. So, we’re gonna, so when you get baptized, we’re coming up, we’re gonna walk in the newness of life.So when it comes to this, the issue about belief, why he said, believe and repent for the same. If you really, truly have placed my faith, or your faith in Jesus Christ, acknowledge he is the Savior, acknowledge he is the one, that my sin is against him, he’s gonna be my judge. One of these days, you will give an account to him.If you understand who he is, genuinely understand who he is, and to regret your sin, realize it’s against him, it’s not against yourself, it’s a genuine belief, there’s a genuine change. Now, the confession, in the world, what does confession mean? You know, we talked about, you know, kind of like lip service. So when you confess your sins to God, you know, I am in agreement with him about his viewpoint about my sin.It grieves God when we sin. I, you know, I was listening to this sermon, and just, you know, it grieves God when we sin, because he has good things for us, he has good things for every one of us. But sometimes those things are placed for a certain time, because in his plan, it’s to make us stronger, to deliver us, to help others, like to sanctify the body.Like, we need a change, right? So God, things happen for a reason, for a season, for a time. But what are we gonna do about it? You know, we can’t just do the same thing. We have to turn, we have to repent.So if it’s genuine confession, there must be an element of repentance in it. Because if you see it the way he sees it, this is the way he sees it. It’s wrong, it’s against God, it’s against me, it’s devastating consequences, it’s bad consequences, therefore get rid of it.That’s what he said, get rid of it. It doesn’t fit in your life, get rid of it. Deal with it, walk away, lay it aside.If you come to him and say, Lord, I just want to confess my sins to you and thank you very much, that doesn’t mean anything. They’re mere words that fall to the ground and don’t produce. If you say, I confess my sins, you’re faithful to forgive me of my sins.And God, I’m disappointed in myself. And if I would even do this in Jesus’ name, like, it’s not sufficient because it didn’t reach the heart level. You can confess, you can say things, but is there action to it? That’s where faith comes in, where you can do that.We can’t do it on our own. We need the faith that God is in this. So if we just say, Lord, you said if we confess our sins, you are faithful and just to forgive us our sins, cleanse us from all unrighteousness.I’m confessing this. Lord, I want to thank you. I am forgiven in Jesus’ name.Is that sufficient? No, that didn’t even, you know, that didn’t even get to that heart level of change. You see, there’s more to confession than just telling God what you did. We need to have faith and repentance and turning away from those things.But confession is the first part, is acknowledging being humble, saying, God, I screwed up, I did wrong, I sinned against you. So you’ve got to acknowledge your sin, and then the next step is confessing your sin. You know what? Confess your sin.God, I’m sorry I screwed up, but the thing is, is here’s the test. Between confession and repentance come together, and we turn away from that sin. You know, if it’s things that you’re not strong enough to turn away from, then you know what? You’ve got to put some, you know, filters, boundaries, whatever the problem is.You know? And that’s when you find a church. You know, you find a body that will come in with you and help you grow. You know? We’re not to do any of this alone.That wasn’t ever God’s intention for us to be alone in this walk. We need each other. We need the church.Okay? So God, so let’s see where we’re at here. I’m getting ahead of myself. Okay.Okay. So genuine repentance is confession, which we all agree with that. That’s his viewpoint.But we need to walk away from it. You know, sin will separate you and God. There’s a lot of condemnation, a lot of, oh gosh, why did I do that? Like, you just feel, like, sick.You just feel like that in your spirit, that you’re just like, oh my God, I just don’t want to deal with this. You know, and that’s the enemy telling you that you are not going to get delivered from this sin that’s holding you. Here’s God.He didn’t move. Here’s you. Here’s your sin.You’re moving. You’re moving. You’re moving away from God because sin and God, he wants us to be over here, but if we’re over here, we need to renounce that.We need to confess that sin, and we need to turn and walk this way. Right? He will give us strength, and that’s where faith comes in. You need faith to believe and get there.And so when sin crops up, you need to say in your mind, no, no, Satan, I rebuke you in the name of Jesus. I take every thought captive. You know, how many times do we do that? No, we just are like, oh, I’m trying to fight it on our own.We can’t fight that on our own. Our battles are, he’s battling. You don’t even know what he’s battling in the heavenlies for each one of us, and thank God that he’s doing it because, man, when you think of that, I think, God, that’s a lot of, yeah, you got a lot of people, a lot of stuff going on, even in my life, you know? So that’s the thing.So we need to, he knows your past. He knows your future, and he knows the present right now. So it doesn’t, you’re not running from him, you know? So we need to just come, confess, be genuine, repentant, turn away from those things.And God, you know, sin is sin, you know? The wage of sin is death, so, but he has given us his son, his freedom, and if you believe in him, he will cleanse you from all unrighteousness. He’ll take all that away. He’ll take all that away.So if you weren’t going to get baptized next week, maybe, you know, you think about it, you know? I don’t want that in my life anymore. I’m going to repent today. I am going to get right with God.And you know what? The enemy, it’s not going to be easy. The enemy does not want you free, does not want you to break free. And things will happen, and things will continue to happen.But that’s when you stand your ground, and you get around people that are Bible-believing, God-fearing warriors of the word, and you ask them, hey, pray for me, I’m really struggling with this. You know? And that’s, you know, where two or more gather together, and my name shall be given to you. You know? That’s the power of prayer.God wants each of us to be free. Okay. So, but, so how many times, I mean, we’ve all confessed things, and then you re-confess, and you fall off the wagon again, and you re-confess, and you know, how many times have we done that? Everybody’s done that.I mean, if you didn’t, I don’t know, you’re special, I don’t know. But Satan will not leave you alone. So, you know what? Does it mean you’ll never fail again? Nope.You’ll fail again. But God’s grace, and faith in Him, knowing that He will catch you again, and again, and again. But sin after sin after sin, we need to turn and repent from it.We need to get right with God. And you know what? And those things, when we have victory, He’ll give you the victory if we do those things. He wants a commitment from us.He wants to see our heart. He wants to see us in the rock. Come as you are.That’s why I didn’t dress up today. I come down, Rob goes, you know you’re speaking today? I’m like, yep, coming as I am. God, here I am.Got out of bed? Here I am. So, I mean, it’s just an illustration. And when I was praying this morning, God said, go as you are.Don’t be anybody else. How many times do we get like that? The world sees us as somebody else. You know? No.I was like, you know what? I’m gonna go as I am. And not that that probably means a whole lot. But God was speaking to me like, be who you are.Be who you are. Be who you are in me. And I was like, oh, God.As I’m hot and sweating up here in this sweatshirt. But anyway. To me, that wasn’t the best choice for that, this shirt.