Without Repentance Heaven Cannot Be Mine

8.31.2012 Spirit Fruit Church Without repentance heaven cannot be mine. Without repentance, without being clean we know that we cannot enter into heaven. The way of repenting and being clean is shown to us in the Word, but we refuse to look at these teachings. We know that we must confess our sins before God, but we have difficulty admitting our faults to Him because we must humble ourselves and that effects our pride. Rather than admit our wrongs, we try to make ourselves good by covering up our sins through deceit and this prevents us from repenting. But if we do not repent we cannot enter into heaven. Even amongst ourselves, between fellow people and enemies, we cannot hide from each other no matter the distance between us. Within us, we know and feel the pull of the relationship. When there is tension between people, you may act as if nothing is the problem and pretend to go on with your life, but it does not mean that the issue has been resolved. It is the same between us and God. We may come to church, read the Bible and pray to Him, but if there is something between us then God cannot accept our worship. The Bible teaches us that when there is something that is in the way of our relationship with God, He will not answer our prayers. Rather than heed the message, understand it and follow what it says, we refuse to repent. We make excuses that we have done nothing wrong. We blame the other people, our parents, our children, our neighbors, our employers, or our employees. The path to repentance is blocked because rather than accept the blame we put the blame onto others. There are times that we may be right, but more often we have done more wrong. When we acknowledge that we are wrong we are hurt in our pride. We become discouraged. We think to ourselves that we have done so much for God and have believed in Him for so long, and think that we are not bad. We compare ourselves with nonbelievers and think that we are better than them because at least we believe in God. It is easier to preach repentance to a nonbeliever than it is to one who has believed in Jesus for some time. Those who have faith have a hard time accepting that they must repent. This is a bigger problem. I went to church since I was a child an knew nothing outside of school and church. As I grew up, God told me to repent, but I asked what must I repent of? I had not stolen, I believed in Jesus, what had I done that required repenting? I knew nothing of the world. But when God came and met me, He told me to repent. I did not understand. I really knew nothing outside of the church. I thought that going to church was so important that if I stopped going to church that I would die. I thought if I stopped reading the Bible I would die. I prayed the way I thought I should pray. I realized that there is a difference between who God is and who I thought God to be. We think that all the things we do for God, going to church and serving others makes us right before God, but God desires that our relationship between He and I is proper first before we do other things. We think that we are showing our allegiance to Him through our works. God desires that I believe He is my Father and my Savior. I thought that I did. As time passed I realized that I did not understand what it really meant to believe in Him. When two people are involved in a relationship they desire to be with each other. God desires that I want to be with Him, but we think that God desires that we serve Him. We think that by going to church, volunteering, sacrificing, going to daybreak prayer that we are right with Him. When I was young, we went to church 8 or nine times on Sunday. I was so dedicated. I was at church before the sun came up and returned home about midnight. I was a youth teacher, attended the youth services and the adult service, and went to all the meetings. By the time everything was done we had at least 8 or nine services. I did what I thought was my best because I was raised in the church. But God cares more about my relationship with Him. He wants to be in a loving relationship with you first. Who would do the church work? He would tell me even though you I did not do it someone else will do it. Did the church close when I did not do the work? It did not. We meet here and we do not have any separate groups or meetings. You come to church twice a week, but how difficult is it to try and live according to the Word? It is not about going to church as many times as possible in a week, it is about living your life according to the Word that is living out the will of God. God looks upon you with favor when you take what you have heard, meditate on it and practice living it out during the week so that you can be one with Him. God alone is able. He does not need our help in accomplishing His will on earth. He loves us and places us where we belong to give Him glory, but not at the expense of our relationship with Him. Between spouses, if the wife hands over all responsibility to the husband but does nothing, will the wife be loved? If the wife cooks and cleans, but does whatever she wishes against the will of her husband, will the husband love his wife? He will not. God gives us the family so that we can learn about His love for us through the family structure. This is the foundation from which we must learn. We have a problem with understanding how we are to live before God and how we are to repent because the family has become broken today. We approach God the way we live with our families and so we see God from our broken world view and we do not know Him properly and therefore do not know how we must live which is the way He desires that we do. This is why we are unable to repent. Between spouses when we have wronged each other, we should apologize specifically for what it is that we have done wrong, but rather than admit what it is that we have done wrong, we throw out a generic apology and ask to be forgiven, but what are you apologizing for? It is not really an apology. You cannot be forgiven. Because we are like this with one another, when we pray to God it is the same. ‘I am sorry for everything , God forgive me.” Yes, God does know everything, but you must confess with your mouth so that God will forgive you for that sin. We refuse to do this. We say that the Bible tells us that God knows everything. Even though I do not say anything God knows, so when we say we are sorry we think God should forgive us for whatever we did. Even between spouses, you may do that once or twice, but as time passes and those things build up, eventually you will divorce because in the end you will be enemies and have no desire but to separate. The devil desires this. When spouses apologize to each other we must be specific about what it is that we seek in forgiveness. Husbands avoid admitting what they are wrong about and rather than openly saying it they just say “I told you that I’m sorry” and to drop the matter, or you buy flowers or a gift or dinner and think that the issue is resolved but what you are doing is only covering up the problem. This is how we approach God. Rather than repent we give more offering or volunteer more at the church. We think that we have done enough to be forgiven. We tell Him to forgive us for our works. God does not need your offering. He does not need you to come and volunteer. Without being right with God first, everything else does not matter. The church will still function without your offering. Do not give your offering thinking that you are helping the church. Your offering is a gift to God it is not for the church. You give tithe and thanks offering because you are grateful for His grace and all His blessings that He has given you. If you think that you give offering to help the church keep its door open then your are wrong. God has brought me here to this day by providing for my needs. Unless you truly follow the Word you cannot repent. You cannot fool God thinking that you have repented when you did not. Is God fooled by you? You are mistaken to think that you are fooling Him. On the day of judgement, God will not tell you not to enter into heaven, but your sins will be evident and you will have no choice but to go to hell. In heaven there can be no sin and unless you repent while you are still alive you will never make it into heaven. You may argue that you are not completely stained and there is only a little discoloration, but it is said God cannot look at sin. God cannot look at sin, and it is not because He does not want to forgive us, we cannot enter because of our sins. God must rid those that have sin. This is why daily we must repent of our sins so that we may stand before Him. People say that forgiveness is once and final, so never sin again and live in joy. How great that would be but this can only be if you stop sinning. If I continue to live in sin and do not repent then I will not be able to enter into heaven. Jesus and John the Baptist both preached the message of repentance and said that the kingdom of heaven is near. We think that repentance is a one time act and do not realize that daily we commit sin through the things we see, hear, feel, speak and act. It would be great if we never sinned but even if you are confined to your homes you sin in your heart countless times a day with all the thoughts that pass through you as you judge others, hate others, and persecute them in your mind. When you leave your homes you may sin even more but even in your homes you are sinning. God is not desiring that you confine yourselves to your homes to prevent you from sinning, or does He want you to go far away and hide. A believer is to be amongst people in the midst of it all, not away from society. We are to live amongst the nonbelievers and be the light and show them the way to live a life of faith and but rather than be examples of Christ we have become stumbling blocks to those who are true believers and making it more difficult for those who truly believe by bringing persecution on them for our false lifestyles. How can I enter into heaven when this is how I live? We do not forgive, nor repent nor live the true life of a Christian. Rather because of me there are more nonbelievers because of my false lifestyle. When we witness to people and find out that they used to be a Christian they tell us that they fell away from the faith because of all the fake Christians. But when we look at those who do not believe we persecute them and say that they will go to hell. Just because you sit in church does not mean you are safe from hell. You will not all go to heaven. Only those who do the will of God will go to heaven. Only those who repent and live according to the Word. Those who live in the Word with joy and thanksgiving. If you do not live as a Christian you will not enter into heaven. You will not go because you sit in the midst of believers. It frustrating to think that people believe this. The first requirement is repenting. It is no use to memorize the entire Bible, for without repentance you cannot enter into heaven. If after you repent, you do not change your life then likewise you will not enter into heaven. The one who repents must live the life of repentance, and to do so means that you believe in the Love of God and you must also reflect that Love. Therefore you must love. You did not truly repent if you still harbor feelings of hate and anger. This is not repentance. The greatest command is to love. In order to love you must repent. You must forgive so that you can love. How can you love when you have hate inside you? How can you love someone when you are judging them? There is no love. When you see them you hate them. You dislike them because they do not listen to you. When you see them feelings of anger rise up inside you. How can your forgive when you feel this way? To repent you must forgive. Not only must we repent to God but we must forgive each other first. Our forgiveness must turn into love. Love must be evident in our lives. We must not hate others, we must have compassion on those who need compassion, we must help those who are in need. When I see someone who is hungry, then I must sacrifice from what I have and share with the one in need, this is love. If I must satisfy myself first then I will never have enough to give. We are unable to help others because we take care of all our needs first and have nothing left to give. Love is the same. We desire to give love after we have been filled with the love of others first. How selfish we are that we fail to realize that we have been given so much more love than we could ever hold onto that we desire even more? Parents love their children. We think we give our children plenty of love. But ask a child if they think that their parent truly loves them and see how many believe so. The number is small. We talk to many people and they all reply that they love their parents and that they love their children but dig a little deeper and we see that it is not as they say. No matter how much love a parent gives the child think that they did not receive love. Parents also cannot love a child perfectly. But God’s love is complete. We have a hard time accepting His love because we do not know how to accept love nor give it. So even though God loves us we are unable to accept. We doubt His love. We question why would He love us? Then suddenly we become sinners and tell Him that we are filled with sin, that we are disobedient, that we do not deserve His love. We act holy. This is all an act. There is no lack in God’s love. We are unable to accept it. We do not understand it, because of our misunderstanding we do not understand the meaning of the cross. The death of Jesus on the cross is love. But we do not see it as love. Love is sacrifice. But we do not have the strength to sacrifice. It is because we are not one with God. Some have more strength than others but not many are willing to sacrifice all for Him. This can only be done when we are one with Jesus. You must have this love to go out and witness, so that we can go to our neighbors and help. Without this we go out and and for a little while we do what we can, but shortly after we burnout and question what it is that we are doing. The one who is completely in Christ and filled with His love is able to put their life on the line, and though their family be killed and scattered, and they are beaten and fall ill, because they are consumed with His love they are able to share that love until they breathe their last breath. This is true love. Though you do not go out to the mission field, your life is your mission field and you are to live your life as a missionary. But you cannot sacrifice because you have not given your life to God, and you have not repented nor forgiven and there is no love inside of you. You are not clean. This is why the Lord keeps telling us to repent. We may say that the other person should forgive me. That is not the way. We must each seek forgiveness. There are times that we have hated and judged others. That other person does not know. God knows. You must ask God for forgiveness. You do not have to go and seek forgiveness when you have not wronged that person. But the wrongs that have been made known we must seek forgiveness. If that person is dead and gone then we must ask God to forgive us. Confess to God if you do not know the whereabouts of the person you have wronged. Seek forgiveness until God forgives you. Repentance is not easy. Sometimes it is easy at other times it is not. When you are wholeheartedly repenting then it is possible that you may be forgiven in that moment, but most often we are not sincere in seeking repentance and therefore we are not forgiven. It is not because God refuses to forgive us, it is because we fail to truly repent. We blame God for not forgiving us though we say we seek forgiveness. When we go deep into your heart you see that it is you who has failed to truly repent. This is why God cannot forgive you. If you truly desire to live by faith, then you must first take a look at yourself and see what it is that you are doing wrong. You must know your sin so that you can repent. When you do not remember your sins ask God to show you and he will remind you of them. We fail to do this. Generally speaking, we know our sins, but we like to cover them up and act as if there is no sin. God knows. Those of you here are going through a difficult time because of all the sins that you are confronting and confessing to God. It is a trying time. Those things that God is showing you are the very things that you must confess and seek forgiveness for, but when the opportunity comes for you to seek forgiveness you become silent and do not repent. There is a spirit of repenting here with us. You must repent. If you do not repent during this opportunity you will be responsible for it in the end. God is preparing us for something and before we can be used by Him we must repent and be right with Him. If you do no participate we will still continue forward. Do not think that we will not move forward without you. We shall. We will leave you behind. If no one else goes I will go alone. God’s purpose is more important than waiting for you. But if you decide to repent and go forward then we can go together. God desires that we go together as it provides strength and speed. If you do not want to be a part of it then you will be left out. God sent His Son 2000 years ago for this reason. He desires to take even one more soul enter into His kingdom so He waits patiently. Do not mistake His patience for a sign to go and do what you want. God will do His will without you. God will take those who choose to believe in Him and use them. Do not be proud and think that everything hinges on you. What makes you think that God needs you and that He cannot do His will without you. You have mistaken God for Who He really is. God desires to use those who obey Him. When God brought the Israelites out of Egypt He used Moses who was obedient even though amongst the Israelites there were those who obeyed, and disobeyed, and those who were filled with joy and those who were not. God will take those who follow. All was not perfect when they left Egypt. Form the moment they left they complained and blamed God for all their troubles. God still took His people to promised land of Canaan. If you fail to go then it will be your loss. Even though I do not go, God will go. Though I do not do, God will do without me. God desires that you repent, turn to Him and be with Him and find joy in Him. This brings Him pleasure. When you repent and do His work He can use you for greater things. If we fail to be used by God He will use others. I refuse to see that happen so I will do what God commands. I do this because I know His will. It is up to you whether you do or not. The first thing you must do is lay it all down, repent, forgive and love. This is the foundation from which you must grow. Without doing this you cannot advance. Be victorious in your life of faith. Sermon by Pastor Joy Lee Translation by Miguel Park