NEW CHRISTIANS-Basics of Discipleship-True Repentence-Part 2-by David Nelson

Posted: 2007-08-01 19:58:02

BASICS OF DISCIPLESHIP-True Repentance-Part 2

Scripture verses referenced in this study:

Colossians 3:5-12, 1:28
Romans 12:2
Galatians 4:11-19,3:1-5,19
Ephesians 4
Hebrews 12:5, 7, 9, 11, 14
II Corinthians 6:14, 7:1

In Col. 3: 5-12, it says to put off or put to death what is earthly in you.  We should put off earthly things and put on spiritual things and become more spiritual.  This is a continuing repentance.  Rom 12:2 says, “Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”  Don’t be conformed to the world.  Don’t become like the world.  The path of the world, the path of flesh that will bring death.  The path of the Spirit, sowing to the Spirit, will bring life.  Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.  Don’t be conformed to the world.  Don’t be tempted to go the world’s way but be transformed.  Be changed.  As your mind is being renewed; as God shows you things, put off the old and put on the new and you will become more mature in God.  This is continuing repentance. 

God’s goal for us, is to come to more and more maturity.  God’s goal for us is to come into the fullness of Christ.  In Col. 1:28 it says, “Jesus, we proclaim.  We warn every man and we teach every man in all wisdom.”  Christianity is not just to warn someone to accept Jesus and get saved.  Yes, that is part of it; we should warn them that they need to be saved.  But then, it says, “teaching every man in all wisdom an ongoing repentance—not just the initial repentance in turning to Christ, but the ongoing is that we are being taught that every man who comes to Christ may be taught in all wisdom—that we may present every man mature in Christ.  That is what it says and that is what Paul’s goal was, that people might come to maturity, that they might bear fruit, that they might become more like Christ.  This takes a continuing walk; continuing to see the path of life, and then to move out of whatever is earthly in us.  To put off what is earthly is sometimes painful and to repent and to move into what God has, so that we can progress.  Paul’s goal was that we might present every man mature in Christ.  He says, “For this I toil, striving with all the energy which He mightily inspires within me.”  In Gal. 4:11-19, Paul says, “My goal for you Galatian Christians…I’m afraid I have labored over you in vain”—that I have labored over you to present you mature in Christ, and now you are veering down the wrong path.  He was saying to the Galatians, REPENT, come back on to the right path.  Yes, they might have been correct in many areas of their life, but he says you are going down this wrong path.  In Gal. 3:1-5, he is saying, “Oh, foolish Galatians, you are going down the wrong path.”  You are letting these false teachers bewitch you and deceive you.  He says, “You started in the Spirit and, now, are you ending in the flesh?”  Something is going wrong here—you’ve got to repent.  He says, “Have I labored over you in vain?”  Then he says in verse 19, “My little children, with whom I am again in travail until Christ be formed in you.”  Paul was in travail to birth Christians; not just to birth little babies, but he was in travail until people would come to maturity in Christ.  He says, “I am again in travail with you until Christ be formed in you.”  Not that they become Christians, but until you become more and more like Christ, I have to continue to birth you individually and corporately towards the fullness of Christ.  That is what it says in Eph. 4 that the gifts of the Spirit were given to the Body, that we might be built up in the faith, built up into the Body of Christ, that we might all attain to unity of the faith, and the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.  This was Paul’s goal and this is God’s goal, that there be maturity; that we come to find fullness in Christ.  The only way that we come to fullness in Christ is by a walk of true repentance, a walk where we continue to go down the path.  God is trying to birth us into new areas of strength and new dimensions of spirituality, and new plateaus of closeness to Him.  He wants to move us and press us on to the upward path, the path that leads to life, to greater and greater maturity.  THAT is true repentance. 

One of the important things that God is trying to teach us, is that many times in our life we are holding onto things that are toys.  When we were children, we loved toys.  We played with toys.  We loved to get toys at Christmas.  Do you remember ever coming down on Christmas morning or on Christmas Eve, whenever you open presents and opening a whole bunch of toys.  How would you like to get a whole bunch of toys this Christmas for yourself?  No, you wouldn’t want them for yourself because you are beyond toys right now.  God, as we go down this path of life, is teaching us to let go of toys as we grow up.  Wherever we are in our Christian walk, he is leading us on to become more mature and more holy.  Whatever we are holding on to that is a toy, as we grow up and as God helps us to grow up it is sometimes painful to let go.  There are growing pains.  It is not easy, sometimes, to let go of the past and to go on.  But God doesn’t want things to control us.  God wants us under Him and under his kingship. 

Let’s look at Heb. 12.  It will give us some good thoughts about repentance and this continuing walk.  In Heb 12:5 it says, “Have you forgotten the exhortation which addresses you as sons.  My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord....”  If you were a child and you had to learn to grow up, there has to be some discipline.  This is NOT right what you are doing, this is child’s stuff that you are doing; this is playing in the street or eating too much candy.  “Oh, I WANT my candy.  Oh, I WANT to play in the street.  Oh, I WANT to touch that expensive vase.”  No, you can’t touch that.  No, you can’t play in the streets in front of the cars.  No, you can’t eat candy all day long, it is not good for you.  Oh, I WANT……and it is painful.  “Do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord.”  Take seriously His discipline.  Don’t lose courage when you are punished by Him.  Don’t lose courage when He is correcting you or he makes you see that you fall flat on your face or that you don’t really know the way.  The Lord disciplines him whom He loves.  He chastises every son whom He receives.  So, if you are chastised, or you feel discipline, or you feel his correction, you are blessed, because He loves you.  He is trying to correct you and get you going on the right way.  Verse 7, “It is for discipline that you have to endure.  God is treating you as sons.  For what son is there that his father does not discipline.”  God is going to discipline us.  He wants us to grow up.  “If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.”  People who claim to be Christians, who don’t know anything of the discipline of the Lord, they don’t know anything of suffering under God’s discipline or being punished by God, or being chastised by Him, or being corrected by Him—which is not a pleasant thing, have deceived themselves, for all sons must be corrected.  In verse 11 it says, “For the moment, all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant.”  It is not pleasant as the Lord is correcting you and making you grow and stretching you into new areas, but, later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.   People who claim to be Christian who don’t know what it means to be chastised by the Lord, who don’t know what it means to be corrected by the Lord, who don’t know what it means to be lead by the Lord and changed by him, and birthed into growth areas and new plateaus of closeness to the Lord, if you don’t know that, you are an illegitimate son, not really a son at all.  Only those who are trained by his discipline will yield the peaceful fruit of righteousness.  We have to listen to God.  Sometimes, we don’t listen to Him and we suffer for it, but when we do we get changed.  So, it says here, verse 9, “Besides, we have had earthly fathers to discipline us, we respected them.  Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of Spirits, and live.  For they disciplined us for a short time at their pleasure.”  We grew out of their discipline and went off on our own into the world and grew up, got married, or did whatever.  They disciplined us for a short time.  But God disciplines us for our good that we may share His holiness.  God is making us more holy as He changes us.  For the moment, all discipline seems painful but as we are trained by it, as we yield to it, as we move into new areas and grow and repent and change and have to turn from our old ways into His new ways, we will become more holy.  In verse 14 it says, “Strive for peace with all men and strive for holiness, without which no one will see God.”  You have got to become more holy or you will not see God.  You have got to share his holiness.  He is disciplining us for our good that we may share His holiness.  We have got to bear the fruits of righteousness and be trained by his discipline.  God loves us and he is working on us and he is not through with us.  This is a process that we are going through.

“Without holiness, no one will see God.”  It says, he who is not exercised or trained by his discipline is an illegitimate son and not a real son.  A verse in Rom. 8 says, “Those who are led by the Spirit are the sons of God.”  We have to be led by the Spirit.  We have to have a relationship with Christ.  We have to know Christ and let Him speak to us and change us and mold us.  No, we are not perfect.  No, we don’t always obey Him, but we know that we are being changed.  We know that we are becoming more like Him.  We know that we are being stretched and because of that training we know that we are not illegitimate sons—we are true sons and daughters of God.  Those who are led by the Spirit are the sons of God.  We must be led by the Spirit and have a relationship with Christ and that is the continuing repentance.  In II Cor 6, verse 14, it says, “Do not be mismated with unbelievers.  For what partnership have righteousness or iniquity?  What fellowship has light with darkness?  What accord has Christ with Belial?  What has a believer in common with an unbeliever?”  We have been changed to such a degree that the closer we are to God, the more we want to have fellowship with God and the more we want to have fellowship with those who love God and have fellowship God.  It is just like a natural longing.  What do we have in common with a unbeliever?  Yes, we both have two legs and two eyes and we both love to eat food and we both love to talk about the weather—but this is human, this is not the spiritual part.  The spiritual part longs to be with people who love God and who can fellowship in God and who, themselves, fellowship with the Lord and because they do they can fellowship with you.  This is what we long for.  We are like a fish in spiritual water.  Sometimes when we talk to unbelievers it is like being tossed on dry land.  How can we fellowship in the Spirit?  But as we live in the Spirit, we can be that shining light, even to the unbelievers; where they will know when they are with you that they have been with someone that is with Christ.  II Cor. 6 goes on to say, “What agreement has the temple of God with idols, for we are the temple of the Living God.  As God said, I will live in them and move among them.  I will be their God and they shall be my people.”  This is the relationship.  I will live in them and move among them and I will show them the path of live.  They shall be My people.  I will be their king, their God, and their leader.  “Therefore, come out from them and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch nothing unclean, and I will welcome you and I will be a father to you, and you shall be My sons and daughters.”  This does not mean don’t be with unbelievers but don’t be comfortable with them and learn their ways.  We don’t fit anymore in this world.  God is saying that we have got to let go of the worldly toys.  We have got to let go of the world.  We have to be separate.  We have to touch nothing unclean.  We have to come out and be holy and come out from what is worldly.  This is a stretching, growing up like a child, process.  The Lord will show you the way.  He will discipline us.  The fruits of righteousness will come forth.  You see what it says here, “Be separate, come out.”  Put off the earthly.  Put on the heavenly.  Put on the spiritual.  Set your mind on things that are above, not on things that are on the earth.  Chapter 7:1---this is just a continuation of his thought.  He says, “Since we have these premises, Beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and Spirit and make holiness perfect in the fear of God.”