Grace Chapel Bible Ministries
worship Call 1160 Repent and return - 2024/10/11
[MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] Welcome to worship call with Bible teacher Buzz Lullbeck. Buzz is the pastor of Grace Chapel Bible Ministries located in Duncan, South Carolina. This ministry is dedicated to the verse by verse teaching of God's word and discipleship programs aimed at strengthening the faith of God's people. Now here's today's message. If any men offend, not in word, the same is perfect man and able also to bridle the whole body in James 3, 2. And this is A.W. Tozer in his pursuing God. And he writes, "Do you realize that most men play at religion as they play at games? Religion itself being of all games, the one most universally played. The church has its fields and its rules and its equipment for playing the game of pious words. It has its devotees, both laymen and professionals, who sport the game with their money and encourage it with their presence, but who are no different in life or character from many who take no interest in religion at all. As an athlete, uses a ball. So do many of us. Use words. Words spoken and words sung. Words written and words uttered in prayer. We throw them swiftly across the field. We learn to handle them with their dexterity and grace. And gain, as our reward, the applause of those who have enjoyed the game. In the games men play, there are no more roots. It is a pleasant activity that changes nothing and settles nothing at last. Sadly, in the religious game of pious words, after the pleasant meeting, no one is basically any different from what we had. Been before. This is the sixth day of the week, and God's created order, the 10th month of 2024th year of our Lord. And this is another fine day in the Lord. Lord, we pray that the words we speak and the songs we sing will be acceptable to you. Our faith is too important to us to play religious games. Let us see ourselves as we truly are. Let us worship piously. Let us worship. Let our worship be true. Let us look at the person that you are, that you are a personal God, and that you are sovereign, that you are righteous, that you are infinite and eternal. May the thoughts of the bring us to our knees and worship and may be reflected in our words and their actions and our thoughts. We pray these things in Christ's name, Amen. And this is, once again, another fine day in the Lord. My apologies for yesterday. It was just, but here we are back in the saddle. And here we are. We are at 3.19. I believe. Let's look at this. And I'm excited about this lesson. It's more really am. Therefore repent and return so that your sins may be wiped away in order that the times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord. And I was looking at this passage before we got here, this verse, and I was kind of excited about it. What does the Lord have to reveal about this? And here it is that Peter is speaking to his fellow countrymen. One thing you have to recognize. Sometimes you have to look at the word in context. Who is speaking and who is speaking to? Listen, Israel is still on the stage here. It's not about our personal sins. It's not about our sinning and by principle he may be talking and speaking to us in a different light. But in context he is speaking with the nation Israel. It is a national sin that is in view, the national sin. At first there comes whether we are dealing personally with our sins or whether we are dealing nationally as the Jews are, as Peter is dealing with the Jews here. At first comes with repentance and the nation had rejected their Messiah. And this was prophesied and even Peter is going to say that this was basically predicted. Daniel 9, let's look at Daniel 9, verse 24. "70 weeks have been decreed for your people and your holy city to finish their transgressions, to make an end of sin, to make atonement for iniquity." This is the angel speaking a prophesied to Daniel. Daniel was praying for interpretation of this dream and the dream that he had. And here the angel is interpreted for him. To bring everlasting righteousness to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the most holy place. So you are to know and discern that from the issuing and decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the Messiah, the prince, there will be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks. It will be built again in the plaza, the moat, even in the times of stress. Then after sixty-two weeks the Messiah, the noite one, the Christ in the Greek actually, will be cut off and have nothing in the people of the prince who is to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. And its end will come with the flood even to the end. There will be war and desolations are determined. So this is no surprise to God and this should be no surprise to us because it's no surprise to God because we are in the word of the Lord, amen. So set aside what you know about the church at this point. This coming up to this point that Daniel's prophecy has happened. There's been leading up to 490 years, seven years short, that the Messiah has been offered, but he has been cut out, he has been cut off, cut out through the unbelief of the people. And it's not, yes, I was getting ready to say that it's not the Lord who suffers, but the people who suffered, but the Lord did suffer. And so set aside what you know about the church and the church age right now, keep your focus upon Israel. And they'll come a time and their refusal to bow in need to Christ. And so doing, they will follow the Antichrist. So the national rejection is going to go move all the way up to the point where there's going to be those in Israel. They're still going to accept the Antichrist. They've rejected the Christ. See, this is their national sin. They have rejected the Christ and they continue to do so. And we don't look at them in animosity. We look at them if anything is pity because these are still God's people. They're still God's nation, but they are going to be subject to judgment as well as the rest of this world for the rejection of Christ. But there is going to be a remnant. And so Peter preaches, repent. He's talking to the nation, repent from the national unbelief and change your royalty. This is what repentance is, is changing your royalties or reorientation back to the authority of God. You believed at one point and then you didn't. So let's look at this word. Let's come back here to our passage, Acts 19. And this word repent. Let's give it to you here. Okay, the word repent here. I think by now you should just you should start knowing what this word is. There we go. And it's metanoia and metanoia is to change one's way of life as a result of complete change of thought and attitude with regard to sin and righteousness, to repent, to change one's way, repentance. Much more than, much more than, than, than feeling sorry for your sins. Don't we think of repent? I'm feeling sorry. We, you know, we pride tears, repentance. I'm sorry God. We're telling God that we're sorry. This is not repentance. Repentance is the actual change in one's, let's just say mental attitude. And the, the sin of Israel was unbelief and unbelief that the nation continues into this very day. And so the national mindset is, is one that rejects Jesus Christ as their personal Savior, as their, as their personal Savior. That's, that's individual. But as their Messiah, as their king, as the one whose administration whom they will, um, bally need to. Repentance once again means to turn away from one's mindset. And if, if we're going to turn away, see there is the context and there's principle. There's still principle involved with us. So we don't disregard this as only being with Israel. But there is a principle that we can bring out. But there is a context that we're looking at right now and that Peter is saying, okay, you've rejected him. You've, you've, you've, you've, you've, you've had out change your mind about who he is. There's, there's so much proof that we've seen him. There's been witnesses that, that has seen him, um, in the streets. And, and you've talked to him and he touched him. As John said, we've touched him with our hands. We've seen him with our eyes. We've, um, he's been, he taught this very one who died upon the cross, lives again. They've watched him ascend into heaven. There is no doubt. Now change your mind. You didn't believe before. Now change your mind. Uh, because the God and our King, he lives and he's sovereign over our lives. Um, truly I, I keep going back there. It is a Joshua moment. Choose this day whom you're going to serve. You're going to, you're going to continue to believe and trust and follow the, the religious order, the, the ones that led you in unbelief to begin with. Which, incidentally, they bow a knee to the devil. As Jesus said, your father to devil, you're going to continue to follow them. Or are you going to follow this Lord Jesus? And many are going to repent. And as we, as we studied the book of Hebrews, um, they're going to have to pay a price for it too. Because they're, because, uh, the world, the world, um, they, they're going to turn their backs on their families and not intentionally not not doing this, but to do so, they're going to turn their backs on their whole culture. Okay, and return. So we have, uh, repent and return. So I'm back to our, let's see if I'm bringing that back up. There we go. And. All right, we're not there. There we go. Repent and I had to figure out how to do that. Repent and return. And this return. Let's see if we could. Repent and return. Repent and return. Repent and return. Repent and return. Repent and return. Repent and return to this on turning about to return to go back to. And, um, return to where? Return to where? Return to what? To return back to what you first declared. Again, he's talking to the Jews. He's talking to the people there. They're talking and, and granted there may be some Gentiles along with this, but talking to the people. In a sense, he's turned back to what, um, turn it back to your mindset before you left your mindset. You know, let me just talk about repentance and return just a little bit. We as Christians, this is principle now. We as Christians, there's time and sometimes we have to ask ourselves and sometimes we have to analyze ourselves. So why am I in a rut? I always like to go back to, made my buddy when we were sitting on a step and he was talking about the rut that he was in. And I asked him, I go, how's your walk? How's your spiritual life? And I, and then he turned to me and our eyes met and he realized that that's the, that was the, that was where he was. His rut, his spiritual life was on hold. And your spiritual life goes on hold. The moment that you begin to live according to the flesh, according to the carnality, you were, you were at one point all for the Lord. You're all point, you're studying your Bible. And there, there is a refreshing, there's a spiritual refreshing, and we'll talk about that here in a minute. There's a spiritual refreshing in your, you're growing in the Lord, you're in the Bible, you're, you're walking with the Lord and all the sun distraction comes in. And with that distraction, you, you kind of start easing away from the Bible, you're easing away from your prayer life, you're easing away what your spiritual life, and all of a sudden you're, you're walking, even if you don't realize it. And it doesn't mean you're outwardly sending either in a sense that you're, you're participating while you're going back to alcoholism or that. It's just that you've left your spiritual priority, like, like in Revelation, you love your, you've walked away from your first love. Repentance is a mindset. First of all, repentance isn't exactly, repentance is the fact that, well, I've, I've sinned here and I've gotten drunk here and Lord, I'm sorry for doing this, this, this, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's a mindset and you're doing these things because you're in the wrong mindset. Repentance is turning away from the mindset that you are because that mindset is producing, it's producing as you're a fruit from walking in darkness and the mindset that you're in, the fruit is the things that Galatians, Paul points out in Galatians 5. Turn away from that mindset, turn back into, our passage called this divine, divine, divine, divine, dynasty, but coming back into the light as John describes it, coming back into corn and neon with the Lord and with one another, pick up where you have left off because until you get back into that spiritual realm, it's on hold, it's not going anywhere, you're not going anywhere, you've got to change your mind and now, because we're thinking because here's two things, first of all repentance, turning away from one mindset, you have to return to the other, that's the principle, that's a Christian principle there, but it's also a principle here, so return to what? These people used to, these people had one point where they believed Jesus, at one point they were excited about Jesus, so there was a number of things, like the people will start with just Luke, the men on the road to Emmaus, on the day of the resurrection, and they thought they had thought that Jesus would be the Messiah, but now they're bummed out, they're in disbelief now because Jesus is no longer beside, they see they're not sinning per se, but what they believed, they no longer believed, let's look at Luke, 1937, as soon as they were approaching, as soon as he was approaching, near the descent of the Mount of Bobs, the whole crowd disciples began to pray, let me say, where are we here, did I mess up here? Yes, I did, let's back up Yeah, let's go to Luke 24, as you were, Luke 24, 18-21, one of them named Caiaphas answered and said to him, "Are you the only one visiting Jerusalem as unaware of these things which have happened here in these days?" And he said to them, what things? And they said to him, the things about Jesus and Nazary, who was a prophet, mighty indeed, and word in sight and God, and all the people, and how the chief priests and rulers delivered him to the sentence of death and crucified him, but we were hoping, and we were hoping that it was he who was going to redeem Israel, indeed, besides this, this is their day of the sense that's happened Yeah, they have to realize at this point that they have, that their mindset is going to have to be changed, they have once believed, once believed, and once again, they're not sinning, but yet they still have to repent They believed here he died, and therefore they're going to have to change their mind and return back to the mindset that he is the king, repent from their unbelief In Luke 1937, as soon as they, he was approaching near the sent amount of olives, the whole crowd of disciples begin to praise God joyfully with the loud voice for all the miracles which they had seen shouting Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord, peace in heaven and glory in the highest You see, this was his coming into Jerusalem, as these people were excited about it, this was their Messiah, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, and they at one point were excited And only a few days later they ended up changing their mind into the darkness, they changed their mind, they changed their mindset, they lost that, they lost that They turned away from what they were declaring, and they were declaring this to be the Messiah, and they changed into the darkness, so this is what Peter is saying, turn back, turn back to your previous mindset And again, repentance is the changing of the mind, and returning is the real orientation to the mindset that we serve a living God Jesus And there is yet another example of the rejection when after feeding the thousands, Jesus had many disciples, not just the 11, he had many disciples But then there was this one time, so he fed the thousands, they were believing, they were loving him, everything was good to go until they rejected the words of Jesus, look at John 651 And this is what Jesus said, he says, "I am the living bread that came down out of heaven, if anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever, and the bread also which I will give for the life of the word is my flesh" John 653, and Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, that unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in yourself, those are some strong words" Those are things, eat your wood, drink your blood, eat your flesh, this was what is he talking about, and then John 666, as a result of this, many of his disciples withdrew and were not walking with him anymore You talk about losing a congregation, that was a big congregation to lose, and then Jesus turns around, when he all walked away, he turned around to the 12, and he says, in 67, so Jesus said to the 12, do you not want to go away also, do you? So, and by time Jesus had gotten to the cross, he was by himself, he was by himself, and though the disciples had scattered, they had left him, John was their present, but John did not believe until he came to the empty tomb So, he was essentially alone, when even the 11, except for John, scattered, and even John, did not believe Let's go to some points of doctrine here Okay, point of doctrine, repentance and return Repentance deals little with your personal sense Repentance means little, you can feel sorry for your sins, you can regret your sins, you can be embarrassed by your sins All these things, it's not repentance, you can be asked for forgiveness, but repentance deals little, very little with your personal sense Repentance deals with the orientation to the authority of God, or may I should say repentance means with the reorientation with the authority of God, at one point you believed, at one point you were walking with him, at one point you were in the light And remember, the principle that we've learned in the past, I don't know why that screen is like that, but I'm not going to deal with it right now, we'll deal with it later Remember the principle, you're not half and half, you're not percent by percentage You are either fully walking with the Lord and the light, or you are walking in the darkness, there is no straddling in the defense There is no almost spiritual or 70% spiritual, 80% spiritual, 90% spiritual Same with darkness, you're not 10% or 15% in the darkness You're either in the darkness or the light, and repentance, when you are walking in accordance with darkness You are away from a path that you began to walk in, remember, as a believer, going back into the personal idea of repentance When we first were saved, and we trusted Lord Jesus Christ for eternal life, we were completely clean, we were completely walking with the Lord at that point We were perfect, we were perfect in the light, and we were following Him at that point But at some point, we've sinned, and we stepped out of that relationship and stepped back into the darkness Like a dog, like my pastor always said, remember, he always talked about going back like a dog, returning back to his vomit And that's like a dog returning back to his vomit, that we go back into the darkness And at that point, to recognize, and yes, we've all sinned and come short of the glory of God And God has made provisions for us to return back into that position, and that's another lesson altogether But here it is, at one point, we are serving the Lord We began with declaring Him that He is our Savior, He is our Lord over our lives, that He is sobbing over our lives, and we're going to follow Him And the moment that we sinned, we have rejected that sovereignty So repentance is a reorientation back to where we had left off from Coming back to our... Okay, number three, repentance turns away from the orientation of whom and what we were following Because we were following Him at one point And of whom and what we were following, i.e. dictates back to i.e. the dictates of the old sin nature Satan and the world system Before we were saved, those are the systems that we paid our homage to But when we were saved, we got away from these things and we began to follow Jesus But then, when we sinned, we go back to the dictates of the old sin nature Back to the... back to Satan and back to the world system Number four, return means that the reorientation, repentance and return means reorientation To walking with the Lord in perfect submission In perfect submission, remember 1st John 1st John 1st John 1st 1st John 1st If we confess our sins, he's faithful and he's just to forgive us our sins And cleanses us from all unrighteousness So when he cleanses us, when we name our sins We are... and I say this because it brings us back to 100% submission again You can lay aside our guilt, you can lay aside your blame, you can lay aside those things Forget those things and press on to afford as Paul says I forget what lies behind and I forget what lies behind and I press on to the objective that's set before me It allows you to... because you are... you can do that because you're perfectly and completely restored back into fellowship So what Paul... Peter is telling his people here At one point, they were all for Christ At one point, they were all... Yeah, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord They were all on board with the Messiah agenda And then they all fell away in unbelief Some of them... not through... not through what we may think, personal sins and all that They just stopped believing in Jesus Even his disciples stopped believing in Jesus And his disciples, the leaders who become apostles They're going to repent, they're going to change their mind They're going to come back into full belief that Jesus is who he said he was And now... and now they're going to lead those... the nation is under rejection of the Messiah They're going to be those that's going to... to believe And they are going to... and that belief comes in a person that's going to make a personal repentance And turn back, reorient back to the authority and to who and what Jesus is Father in heaven, thank you for this opportunity of fellowshiping in your Word this morning We pray Heavenly Father God to Holy Spirit will open our hearts to the things that we have talked and learned this morning I pray Heavenly Father that if we are in the sound of my voice, if any of us are in some type of rut At one point, we felt that we were more... maybe more pious, more spiritually walk in However you want to phrase it at one point and now we are just feeling a rut Let us examine ourselves That where are we? Have we left our priorities? Maybe we're alright, maybe it's just... having a bad day, health or anything else But maybe it is that we've lost our first love And if that's so, may it be within our hearts to repent and turn back to where we've left off from Pray Heavenly Father this day that we'll examine our hearts and examine where we are Thank you Heavenly Father, and these things we pray in Christ's name, Amen Alright, it's not a fine weekend coming up, we have our communion Sunday coming up, hope you're with us on that And if you're in the area and until then stay motivated in the Lord, keep your armor on And fight in good fight of faith, Lord, will and Spirit God wrap your pinning We're going to be back here, well actually we'll make that announcement then We're not going to be... actually we're not going to be streaming on Sunday We're not going to be streaming, I will record it and post it later But we will not be streaming or zooming, so if you're in the area, if you're in the local area Please come by, so until then we will see you Sunday Thank you for joining us You can hear this message again, as well as previous lessons And get note by visiting us online at www.gchapel.org Thanks for watching! Thank you for watching! Thank you for watching! Thanks for watching! Thank you for watching! Thank you for watching! [BLANK_AUDIO]
Israel is under national Judgment for their rejection of the Messiah. Peter's sermon calls for individuals to repent from their rejection to the returning of their acceptance.