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Muskegon SDA Church

Steps to Christ

Kameron DeVasher

Repentance

As you are probably aware, this quarter we're going through the sequence found in that great little book, Steps to Christ, as we looked ways to be closer and closer to Jesus and our walk with Him.

2 Sabbaths ago, the message was about how God truly loves us.

In the Springful, all of our motive with a walk with Jesus is the love of God not our love for him but his love for us and we simply respond and then last Sabbath we looked at and recognize our need for him some of us do not realize yet that Jesus loves us and that we need him in our lives, but when we do, we come to a conviction that we should be closer to Jesus than we are already.

Which then leads us to today's topic, which is repentance.

You recognize that God loves you, you see your need for him, and now what?

But before we begin our study on any topic in God's Word, let's of course begin with the Word of Prayer.

Heavenly Father, thank you so much for this beautiful fall Sabbath day.

Thank you that we can be here in your house, and thank you that we can now study your Word in fellowship together.

Please guide us through the power of your Holy Spirit.

Help us not only to have a superficial understanding of our problem, but a deep-seated Repentance brought about only by you and your Holy Spirit.

Amen Again in that little book we find this interesting definition or explanation on page 23 of steps to Christ we read Repentance includes sorrow for sin and a turning away from it.

We shall not renounce sin unless we see its sinfulness.

Until we turn away from it in heart, there will be no real change in the life.

If there is a definition for genuine repentance, then implicit to that there's also something such as a false repentance.

If there's an original, there's a counterfeit.

So if the Lord has something called true repentance that He longs for us to have, then certainly there is a counterfeit repentance that might look like it, might seem like it, might smell like it and sound like it, but in its very real nature is not what the Lord is looking for.

For instance, we think of examples from the Bible.

Esau repented that he had sold his birthright to Jacob, But did he truly treasure the responsibility that came with it, or did he just want the privileges of the birthright?

Of course, he only wanted the privileges.

You think of Judas Iscariot with Jesus Christ.

When his plan unraveled, he saw that it was total folly and he repented, but if he had it to do over again, or things might have changed in the outcome, was he truly sorry he had betrayed Jesus?

Now turn, if you would, to the book of Numbers, chapter 22, as we look at 1 statement that seems on its surface to be genuine repentance.

It sounds just like it could be the real thing.

It's from a gentleman by the name of Balaam.

Might be familiar with the name, probably know a bit about the story, but let's take a look at it in light of genuine versus counterfeit repentance.

Numbers chapter 22 and verse 34, we read this statement.

And Balaam said to the angel of the Lord, I have what?

I have sinned for I did not know you stood in the way against me.

Now therefore If it displeases you, I will turn back.

He admits his sin, he says he'll turn back, and it sounds from every human standpoint like it's probably a genuine conversion experience, genuine repentance.

So how do we know it's not and how can we tell the difference in our own lives?

Between genuine and false Today we're going to study the story of Balaam in a little bit more detail and we'll can see what leads up to and then Follows this particular verse 34.

Let's go back to the beginning of chapter 22.

Numbers, I'm sorry, Numbers chapter 22, starting with verse 1.

And we'll give a little background on this individual called Balaam.

Now, Balaam was at 1 time a faithful prophet of God.

He was a messenger for the Lord, but he was not of the children of Israel.

In fact, the children of Israel at this point in their history were just coming out of Egypt.

The Lord was leading them through the desert way onto the promised land.

He was making of them a nation for himself.

And as they were at this point very faithful to him, they were going very steadily across the territory of that time, striking fear into the hearts of the surrounding nations.

And at this particular moment, they had come and encamped right next to the wicked empire of Moab.

So we go to Numbers chapter 22 and verse 1.

The children of Israel moved and camped in the plains of Moab on the side of the Jordan across from Jericho.

Now Balak, That's with a K, not to be confused with Baelum, but Baelak.

The son of Zippor saw all that Israel had done to the Amorites, and Moab was exceedingly afraid of the people because they were many, and Moab was sick with dread because of the children of Israel." So you get the picture.

Moab is watching, all the Moabites and their king, Balak, are watching what the Israelites have done as the Lord has led them out of Egypt.

And anyone who's come against them has fallen, and Now they've come to camp right next to their territory.

So they're shaking their boots and they think, we have to muster some sort of defense against these people.

And Balak decides on a strategy, not just of defense, but he decides to go on the offense.

He decides to take a countermeasure against the encroaching power that is Israel, and he realizes that the only reason that they're doing so well is because they're blessed of the Lord.

So he said, if their power is in supernatural assistance, maybe I need to get some supernatural assistance of my own.

And he calls upon Balaam, the prophet of God, to curse Israel.

So it says in verse 4, so Moab said to the elders of Midian now this company will lick up everything around us as an ox licks up the grass of the field.

And Balak the son of Zippor was king of the Moabites at that time.

Then he sent messengers to Balaam, the son of Baor at Pethor, which is near the river and the land of the sons of his people, to call him, saying, Look, A people has come from Egypt.

See, they cover the face of the earth and are settling next to me.

Curse this people for me, for they are too mighty for me.

Perhaps I should be able to defeat them and drive them out of the land, for I know that he whom you bless is blessed, and he whom you curse is cursed." Now this is an important key in verse 7.

So the elders of Moab and the elders of Midian departed with the diviner's fee in their hand.

Now, were they going to ask him to voluntarily curse?

They said, what you do is very important.

In fact, it's part of the strategy that we have against them.

If you were a nation, a king of a nation, and another nation were coming against you, instead of raising up an army, instead of getting all the military weaponry, you wanted 1 supernatural weapon to end it for you.

If you were to develop a weapons system that would counter an entire people in 1 fell stroke, would it be worth some money to you?

You think about it even in our great nation, if we want to develop a new weapon system that we think will take care of other enemies that might be out there, it does cost a great amount of money.

And they're putting all their eggs in the basket of Balaam.

And so they bring a fee with them and said, we're going to be very willing to make it worth your while.

Verse 8, and he said to them, lodge here tonight, and I will bring back word to you as the Lord speaks to me.

So the princess of Moab stayed with Balaam.

Verse 9, then God came to Balaam and said, Who are these men with you?

So Balaam said to God, Balak, the king of Zippor, king of Moab, has sent to me, saying, Look, a people has come out of Egypt, and they cover the face of the earth, come now curse them for me, perhaps I should be able to overpower them and drive them out.

Tell me if you see any obfuscation, any vagueness on the part of God.

Verse 12, and God said to Balaam, You shall not go with them.

You shall not curse the people, for they are blessed.

Now is there anyone here today who did not understand the Lord's response?

Confession

As you are likely aware by now, our current quarter study, we're going through the process of Steps to Christ, as outlined in that great little book, which if you don't have a copy, is available on the back at the resource desk whenever you're at the conclusion of our service today.

And A couple of ideas is why I plan to have this particular series.

First of all, it's very easy to get caught up into grand, lofty, large theological themes and doctrinal concepts when sometimes we need a refresher course over the most basic elements of Christianity 101.

What does it mean to have a walk with Christ and how can I make it better or how can I start 1 if I don't have 1 at all?

And secondly, tied to that, corollary to that, is the need for practical messages.

I'm more and more convinced that our preaching needs to be more teaching than preaching.

And though we need to have big ideas, we need to be able to put feet on our faith or legs on our lessons, if you will, and make it practical.

So how do I actually go about doing these grand lofty things that we talked about?

So in this process, we've seen first of all that God loves us We don't come to him because we love him, but we love him because he first loved us and he draws us to him Then we recognize our need for him as the Holy Spirit works on our heart and it develops through the power of the Holy Spirit a sense of Genuine repentance not just sorry that we got caught or fear of punishment or helpful for a reward but genuine I don't want to be causing pain to the Lord.

And last week we looked at the experience of Balaam and how it demonstrated not genuine repentance.

And then the obvious next step, or hopefully it should be obvious, or what we're going to be talking about today, is now that you feel this sense of genuine contrition, genuine sorrow for sin, genuine repentance, what do you do with it?

Which leads us to the very next step to Christ, which is confession.

But before we do any study of God's Word, of course, let's begin with prayer.

Heavenly Father, thank you so much for a day of life at all, and particularly a day of Sabbath rest, fellowship, worship, and service.

And Lord, as we turn our attention to a study of your Word today, we ask that you send the Holy Spirit to soften our hearts, to sharpen our minds, and to give us what we need today, not only to be blessed, but also be a blessing to others.

Help us to understand genuine confession, teach us how to do it.

James chapter 5 is often read, in fact, almost exclusively read in the context of people being ill and needing prayer and anointing But I want you to notice I want you to notice something here that James picks up on which is honestly a template of Jesus ministry He just writes it down here for us James chapter 5 starting with verse 13 Again this is a very practical book James is all about practicality.

He says in verse 13, Is anyone among you suffering?

Let him call for the elders of the church and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.

And the prayer of faith will save the sick, And the Lord will raise him up and if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven You notice the connection between physical healing and spiritual restoration This is always noticed in Christ ministry as well Every time he Would give someone a physical healing would also tie that to the forgiveness of sins that is available Just in the same way this physical healing was made available It was an object lesson while of course God wants us to be physically healed and I believe that the Lord has the power to do That it's up to his discretion whether he will or not and even if he were to heal every disease at some point we have the big end of death coming until Jesus comes again But what he assures us here is that if we've committed sins it will be forgiven and then it gives us this counsel in verse 16 confess your trans trespasses to 1 another and pray for 1 another that you may be healed.

So again, the spiritual is tied to the physical and it involves confession of sin.

We think of it, any time we've done something wrong, very simply as fessing up, right?

And as simple as it is to say, just say what you've done wrong, admit your sin, and ask for forgiveness.

It's an old-fashioned, nuts and bolts, simple apology.

And it's extraordinarily easy to say, But it's very, very difficult sometimes to do.

In fact, I partially blame it on the society and technology available these days, but in our 24-7 news cycle, in our interconnected world of technology and social media, everything and anything we do is watched far more than it ever is.

We see people do things, we hear people do things, we know more about people and their everyday moment-to-moment life than we ever knew before.

And the more you see people, you more the recognize that people do bad things.

Now, this is particularly difficult in the world of well-known people or celebrities or famous people.

You think a politician sometimes get caught doing things that are not right.

And the circumstance forces out an apology.

And I don't know if you've noticed lately, but my ears kind of perk up when someone of well-renowned is by circumstance forced to confess their wrongdoing.

I listen carefully for what they actually say.

In fact, there is now a term called the non-apology apology where you try to say that you're sorry but you don't actually confess that you're wrong and try to get out of trouble that the spotlight put you in.

A non-apology apology is a statement that has the form of an apology but does not express the expected contrition.

It is common in both politics and public relations.

It's, yes, I figured there'd be an amen there.

It most commonly entails the speaker saying that he or she is sorry not for a behavior, statement, or misdeed, but rather is sorry only because a person who has been aggrieved is requesting the apology, expressing a grievance, or is threatening some form of retribution or retaliation.

And it might take the form of something like this.

Oh I'm sorry you feel that way If my actions have made anyone uncomfortable, I sincerely apologize.

So today we're going to try to make this practical.

As simple as it sounds, just confess that you're wrong, ask for forgiveness, say that you're sorry, Admit your guilt.

Sometimes it's very difficult for us to do that very simple thing.

So what I want to give you today is a very simple four-step watch list, okay, of ways to know that you might be veering into the non-apology apology and how to write the course, okay?

First of all, be careful that your apology is actually specific.

You'll notice that there are many non-specific confessions of wrongdoing.

1 of the telltale signs in an apology as insincere is that there is no specificity about the transgression itself.

It speaks of the results of the sin, the impression that it gave, but the wrong itself is never specifically or clearly acknowledged.

Yet we read in Steps to Christ, page 37, true confession is always of a specific character and acknowledges particular sins.

And it's so easy not to do that because I don't want to say what I've actually done.

I really don't even feel that it was particularly wrong, but I just want to get out of trouble.

And so, out comes something very vague, very general, very opaque that we hope will cover all the bases, get everybody calmed down and get out.

She continues, they may be of such a nature as to be brought before God only." Now, be clear about this.

There are some things you shouldn't confess to me.

If you haven't done something wrong to me, don't tell me about it.

You should go to the wrong 1 you've actually wronged.

And many times, the 1 we've wronged is the Lord Himself.

In fact, even if you recall David's transgression, he said, Against you and you only have I sinned.

Potiphar was making her immoral advances to Joseph in Potiphar's house.

He said, how can I do such a thing and sin against God?

You would think that his only highest authority would be Potiphar himself, but he said, No, no, this all goes to God himself.

So every sin is a transgression of God's law, so we have a wrong against God.

And many times the wrong is merely or only, it's exclusively to the Lord.

And those things which are between you and the Lord should stay between you and the Lord.

Now you should have a conversation with the Lord, but not with everybody else.

I don't know if you've ever experienced that, but I've been in some occasions where people start confessing things that don't have anything to do with me, and it gets very awkward and very tense.

Like, that's between you and someone else, or maybe just you and the Lord, but it should be specific when you do.

So there's some things that are before God only.

Next, they may be wrongs that should be confessed to individuals who have suffered injury through them.

Consecration

But here we are today We're continuing this quarter study on steps to Christ and using that small booklet as a companion guide to our Series and again if you don't have a copy of that book or you need 1 and want 1 for someone else They are available at our resource desk as you leave today free of charge, of course, but we've looked at how God truly loves us and that our need is for Christ in our lives for both pardon for our sin and power for victorious living in the future in a spirit of genuine repentance.

Hopefully we've confessed whatever sins might be between the Lord and ourselves and made things right between our fellow man and ourselves.

And now we turn our attention to what goes next, going forward, pushing on in the future.

How does the personal revival and reformation of repentance and confession and starting things off right with God and each other?

Continue as we go forward in our daily life the chapter title in the message title today is consecration How do we devote our lives to him going forward?

But before we begin any study, of course, let's begin with the word of prayer.

Heavenly Father, thank you for just allowing us to have any life at all, and particularly this Sabbath day of rest and fellowship, worship and ministry.

And Lord, as we study your word now, we claim the promise that you would lead us into all truth if we were to ask by the power of your Holy Spirit.

If you would, please go to the book of Philippians Philippians chapter 2 We're gonna look at the Apostle Paul's counsel to the church at Philippi And as you're finding Philippians chapter 2, I want to lay out some principles that we're going to be developing in our message today.

Some basic premises will be the foundation of our study.

First of all, it is important to understand that the maintenance of a growing Christian experience is not passive.

Expecting God to simply carry us effortlessly through each day.

It's not a passive thing where we come to Christ, we accept His salvation, we repent of all of our sins, and now we say, Lord, I'm yours.

We just let him do his thing it's not passive there's an active agent for us to do something that we're supposed to do as Paul left the church in Philippi He urged them to maintain their standing with Christ.

Looking now at 1 Philippians chapter 2 verses 12 and 13.

Therefore my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence." Notice he's saying, I'm leaving and you're going to be on your own now.

Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.

For it is God who works in you both to will and to do for his good pleasure.

Clearly, Paul taught that there is something of an ongoing work of obedience committed to us.

But in the same breath, He explains that it is only by the power of God that will even want to or be able to accomplish his will So it's not like we're saying Lord.

I'm on my own nor Are we saying Lord you take over here and I'm gonna stand back and watch Apparently we work it out through the power of God in our daily lives.

Okay, now, the misconception, prevalent as it is, and appealing as it may sound at least at first, that once I give myself to God, He will then simply take over and all tough decisions are on Him.

Everything is, well, it is through His power, but it's through our cooperation with his power.

Choice, this independence of thought, this free moral agency, is the greatest gift and at the same time the greatest responsibility the Lord has entrusted each of us with.

He gives us the power akin to that of our Creator, power to think and power to do.

You can look at a situation, evaluate it Through the discernment of God's Word and the Holy Spirit know what the right thing is and that the power of God choose to do the right but the choice is ours Everything we do is a choice now God and Satan both do all they can to influence those choices right God sends his Holy Spirit to knock on the heart's door, to awaken conscious, to convict of sin.

And Satan sends his evil angels to send forth temptations and distractions and discouragements.

And there's an influence struggle, but The decision of who wins is ours.

Disobedience and obedience is ultimately and finally our responsibility.

The 1 choice, now follow me here, the 1 choice that we cannot make is the choice not to choose.

The only choice unavailable to us is the choice not to choose because even in not choosing that is a choice.

By not choosing to get up and go today, I am choosing to stay in bed.

And that choice is left to us throughout our Christian experience.

Let's go to the book of Joshua, chapter 24.

To the people of ancient Israel was given this great challenge, this poignant challenge that we read in Joshua chapter 24, verses 14 and 15.

We read, Now Therefore fear the Lord, serve him in sincerity and in truth, and put away the gods which your father served on the other side of the river and in Egypt.

Serve the Lord." Now, I want you to notice this.

In his call to serve the Lord, apparently there's an active role for them to do to put away the other gods, right?

It's not just saying I choose the Lord and then you go back home and everything's still the same.

He said no, no, if you're gonna choose the Lord it takes some active participation with you to put away the other things, right?

Now therefore fear the Lord, serve him in sincerity and in truth, and put away the gods which your father served on the other side of the river and in Egypt.

And then he goes on to say in verse 15, and if it seems evil to you, right, if you look at the situation and say you know what it seems painful it seems unappealing unattractive uninviting to follow the Lord then don't but that's your choice right if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, then what does he say to do?

Choose for yourself this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your father served that were on the other side of the river or the gods of the Amorites in the land who and whose land you dwell but as for me in my house we will serve the Lord." Notice he's saying I'm making a choice our household is making this choice and you have the same choice I can't make it for you and just because the rest of the congregation might choose 1 way the choice is yours individually And that choice dwindles down to active, daily, small changes, 1 way or the other, for or against the Lord.

He will not come in, move us over, and start making all the decisions for us.

As much as that sounds appealing, think of how that strikes at the heart of the great controversy.

Christ wants to empower us, to strengthen us, but He wants the choice to still be ours, the actions to still be in our daily lives.

God does not force the will of his creatures.

He cannot accept an homage that is not willingly and intelligently given.

A mere forced submission would prevent all real development of mind and character.

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Steps to Christ

Faith and Acceptance

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