The Splendour of God’s Holiness (3)

“Repentance” - Pastor Sunder Krishnan

- Feb. 7-8-2015

Once a cheater, always a cheater

• This should come as a surprise to no one. He built a career out of lies, seeing the truth as something only suckers or the weak would champion. Even when he finally did come clean about using performance-enhancing drugs, the lies having finally caught up to him, it was more about self-preservation than true remorse.

Once a cheater, always a cheater

• Just last week, Armstrong admitted that as "brutal" as his fall from grace has been these last few years, he'd do it all over again. He pointed to the benefits that came from his lies: the spike in business for his sponsors, the growth of cycling, the increased donations and awareness for cancer patients

Ruthless honesty• V 1-5 Have mercy on me, O God, according to

your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin! For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment.

Ruthless honesty

• The fact of his sin

• The depth of his sin

• The defilement of his sin

The defilement of his sin

• V 7-9 Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have broken rejoice. Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities

Ruthless honesty

• The fact of his sin

• The depth of his sin

• The defilement of his sin

Radical renewal

• V 10-12 Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit

Restoration

• 13-17 Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you. Deliver me from blood guiltiness, O God, O God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness. O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise. For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; you will not be pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

Kick starting the process

• God’s confrontational Word

A wake-up call

“When we trust too much to the intellect in religion, when the mind is satisfied with beautiful thoughts and pleasant feelings; but the heart does not hear God. When we are secretly content with our religion, our sound doctrine and Christian life........When our life does not seek to keep pace with our knowledge, and we have more pleasure in hearing and knowing than obeying and doing, (then), amidst all the pleasing forms of godliness,

A wake-up call

the heart is too hard to discern the voice of the Spirit. Yes, it is an unspeakably solemn thought that, with a mind occupied with religious truth, and feelings stirred at times by the voice and words of men and a life apparently given to religious works, the heart may be closed to the humble, direct communion with God, and a stranger to all the blessing the living Word can bring. So, as the Holy Spirit says: "Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts

Proverbs 29:1

A man who remains stiff-necked after many rebukes will suddenly be destroyed -- without remedy

Kick starting the process

• God’s confrontational Word

• Self examination

A helpful litany

• Lord, open our minds to see ourselves as you see us, or even as others see us and we see others; And from all unwillingness to know our infirmities, Save us and help us, O Lord

A helpful litany

• From pride and self-will, from the desire to have our own way in all things, from an overweening love of our own ideas and blindness to the value of others, from resentment against opposition and contempt for the claims of others, enlarge the generosity of our hearts and enlighten the fairness of our judgments; and from all selfish arbitrariness of temper, Save us and help us, O Lord

A helpful litany

• From jealousy, whether of equals or superiors, from grudging others success, from impatience of submission and eagerness for authority, .. and from all insubordination to just law and proper authority. Save us and help us, O Lord

A helpful litany

• From strife, partisanship, and division, from magnifying our certainties to condemn all differences, from building our systems to exclude all challenges, and from all arrogance in our dealings with others, Save us and help us, O Lord

The basis of David’s confidence

• V 1 Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions

Glorying in the Gospel

Shrinking the Gospel

Pretending

Performing

Not performance or pretense...but

• Ruthless honesty

– that faces the fact, depth and defilement of sin

• Fleeing to the cross for

–Radical renewal

–Restoration to fruitful ministry