Great Commision Christian 5

Great Commission Christians

Acts 2:14-41

To help the church realize the mission of the church

Intro

Explaining the phenomena

The miracles and death of Christ

The Resurrection

The Exaltation

Lord and Christ

A summons to Repent and receive Forgiveness

36 “When they sin against you—for there is no one who does not sin—and you become angry with them and give them over to the enemy, who takes them captive to a land far away or near; 37 and if they have a change of heart in the land where they are held captive, and repent and plead with you in the land of their captivity and say, ‘We have sinned, we have done wrong and acted wickedly’; 38 and if they turn back to you with all their heart and soul in the land of their captivity where they were taken, and pray toward the land you gave their fathers, toward the city you have chosen and toward the temple I have built for your Name; 39 then from heaven, your dwelling place, hear their prayer and their pleas, and uphold their cause. And forgive your people, who have sinned against you.

40 “Now, my God, may your eyes be open and your ears attentive to the prayers offered in this place.

Recognize my sin

          The first step in repentance is always to recognize our sin. That’s one of the works that the Holy Spirit does in the lives of unbelievers. He convicts people of the sin in their lives:

Experience godly sorrow

          True repentance affects our hearts. When we sin, we realize how much we have grieved God and we grieve as well.

          Worldly sorrow is the kind of sorrow we see quite often in the world around us. It is the kind of sorrow that focuses on me, rather than on God. It’s being sorry that I got caught.

          If we really want to move toward real repentance then we need to have the kind of godly sorrow that recognizes just how badly our sin grieves God. We need to see how our sin damages our relationship with God and grieve over that ourselves.

Pray and confess my sin

          . It means that I don’t justify it, I don’t rationalize it, I don’t call it a mistake, or a lapse in judgment or and unfortunate incident. I admit that it is sin and a pray and confess that to God.

Exchange my heart for God’s heart

          But how do I actually do that? I know I’ve tried to do that hundreds of times in my life, but often with no success. I sin. I know it and I’m sorry over it. I confess it to God and then I try to make that U-turn only to find I’m headed in the wrong direction again after a while. But the problem is that I try to do all that with my own heart. And my heart, my mind, is terribly corrupted. It is deceitfully wicked. So if I want to be able to really repent, I need to change my mind. I need the mind of Christ.

Nurture my relationship with God

          The way that I make sure that I exchange my heart for God’s heart is by spending time with Him

Turn from my sinful behavior

          In other words, changed behavior, what Jesus calls the fruit, is a product of our repentance.

I’m convinced that the main reason we struggle so much with trying to turn our behavior around is that we try to short circuit the process. We live in a world where we want instant results right now, so we ignore the rest of the process. We don’t take time to grieve over our sin. And we certainly won’t put in the effort required to get a new heart, God’s heart. Until we experience that inward change, we’ll never be able to make the permanent changes we need to make in our outward behavior.