[1]Revelation 3:1-6
Sardis
[2]Revelation 3:15-22
Laodicea
[3]Matthew 6:9-13
Lord's Prayer
[4]1 John 1:9-10
Faithful and just to forgive our sins
[5]Romans 7:18-20
Sinning when we don't want to
[6]Romans 1:18-32
List of sins that Paul sent to the Church at Rome
[7]Romans 13:1-7
Be subject to laws and rulers
[8]1 Peter 2:13-17
Submit to laws and rulers
[9]Matthew 5:1-12
Beatitudes
[10]Romans 12:1
A Living Sacrifice |
One of the things I talk the most about, as God lays it
on my heart, is sin within the Church, and while a time
of Revival may bring new converts to the Lord, the main
point is to revive the Christian who has become lukewarm
or cold, as the Churches are described in the Book of
the Revelation. The Church of Sardis[1] was described
as "dead", while the Church of Laodicea[2] is
lukewarm, neither cold nor hot. Too many Christians
today are like the Church of Laodicea, and Jesus would
say to them that He wishes they were cold or hot so that
He could work with them. The lukewarm think they are
hot when they are really cooling down. This is the
Christian and the Church that does the minimum, or plays
the part, or the Christian without being on fire for the
Lord. If you are on fire, you are doing His Work, and
if you are cold, He will convict you and bring you
to His Work. The lukewarm think they are fine and
ignore the calling of the Holy Spirit in their lives.
Jesus says he will spit them out and advises them to
come back to Him for what they really need. He
says that they believe they are rich when they are
really poor, and that they do not recognize their
wretched and miserable state!
Dear Christian, if this is you, may this all change by
the time we finish this series on Revival. May
you become the on-fire worker who is willing to say all,
do all, and sacrifice all for His Name's Sake!
So, how does the Christian clean up? The first
step is to follow the Lord's advice on prayer. In
the scripture we call the Lord's Prayer[3] Jesus tell us to
pray to the Father in a certain manner. First, we
ask that God's Will be done on earth as it is in Heaven,
and since part of His Will is that we be without sin in
His sight the Holy Spirit will lead us into the next
parts. We ask that His Kingdom come and that we receive our needs from Him. These things
put Him first in our sight, rather than our earthly
things, our will, and our ability to provide for
ourselves. Once we do this, we ask that He
forgives us our sins as we forgive those who sin against
us. While He is faithful and just to forgive us
our sins[4], meaning that forgiveness of others is not
required for His forgiveness[a], forgiving others,
especially things between Christians, is necessary to be
fully in His Will. To begin our process of
"cleaning up" we should examine ourselves and find
anything that we are harboring in ourselves against
others and forgive that person os what they have done to
us.
Next, we must eliminate sin from our lives. Does
them mean that we never sin? No, we will sin, as
the Apostle Paul said, he did the things he would not,
and did not do the things he would[5]; he never quit trying
to live perfectly, he just failed. So will we
while we live in the corrupt flesh;
we must trust the sacrificial blood of the Lamb of God,
our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, to intercede for us
with the Father so that Almighty God sees us as perfect
as He sees His Only Begotten Son. We must seek
forgiveness through confession and with true repentance
so that we are perfect before the Most Holy. Paul
went on to state that if he truly wants to do that which
is right, but finds himself failing, then it is not him,
but rather the corrupt flesh that he occupies that is
the problem.
Oh, what a wonderful statement! We are perfect in
God's sight due to the rebirth and salvation given
through the sacrifice of His Son! This says to us
that it is not ourselves (our personality) that sins, as
we seek to live without sin, but it is the flesh that
cannot be renewed while in this life. Then, as
Paul says, it is not us that sins, but the flesh that
must have its desires repressed, that sins. I
caution each Christian to be very careful with this!
You cannot excuse a lack of trying to live holy by
saying "well, it's the flesh". The true Christian
who is trying to live a holy life and finds their flesh
failing to do so will be broken hearted before the Lord
Jesus that they do these things after all that He has
done for them in His death, resurrection, and advocacy.
This cannot be an excuse to sin, but simply a fact that
we will sin until that time we are called from this
mortal life to a holy life with Him.
The next thing that we must do is discover what sin is
through reading the scripture and eradicate it from our
life. Every sin that is unconfessed and unforgiven
is stain on us that literally makes a Holy God sick from
the smell of it. There are particular passages
that the Christian should start with.
The first is the first chapter of the Book of Romans[6]
where we are given a list of sins that we are to be very
careful of. This list is pretty self-explanatory;
if you are doing these things you need to beg the
forgiveness of God, and repent, and seek to not commit
them again.
Sin, however, creeps into the Christian's life very
easily, and in this day of legal societies, we find it
easy to sin based on laws and rules. Yet God
expects us to obey the laws of the land and the rulers
that are in power, to pay our taxes, and to act in a
manner that shows we honor Him and those He has put in
power[7] [8]. How many Christians today actually do this?
Do you not realize that every time you drive faster than
the speed limit you break this command? Do you not
realize that every time you get paid in cash and do not
report it on your taxes you are sinning? Many
Christians have a tendency say that these are man's
laws, not God's laws, so they can be broken with
impunity. I am here to tell you that this is not
true! When you break man's laws, that do not
conflict with God's laws, then you sin and need to
confess and repent from this. Now, if man passes a
law that it is illegal to preach the Gospel, as they
have in China, then you should ignore that and keep
preaching the Gospel. You can do it in a hidden
way, and try to remanin safe, or you may choose to do it
openly and be a martyr; that is up to you, but you
should continue to preach the Gospel.
Every time you sin, you harm your relationship with God
until you confess that sin and ask for forgiveness.
At times you may not remember a sin that you have
committed, so we say, as in the Lord's Prayer, forgive
us of our sins. To rail to do this is to put a
block between you and God. When you have
unforgiven sin in your life, or unrepented sin in your
life, the Holy Spirit is offended and does not work in
your life as He should. A Holy God is sickened by
unholiness, and His Spirit does not like to work in that
environment. I see people that I know are
Christians driving to work every day going sixty-five
mph in a fifty-five mph area and I hear the talk about
how God is blessing them. People! You have
no idea how God will bless you if you will just stop sinning!
You think you get great blessing now? What about
when you start to remove all these sins from your life?
You go to Church on Sunday and you sing praises and pray
that and get rid of the stains of sin, and God touches
you and richly blesses you, and you leave and spend the
week talking about how great it was at Church last
Sunday, and it never occurs to you that you can have
that same rich blessing ALL THE TIME if you would just
stay out of sin the way you do at Church! But, instead,
you leave Church and you speed on your way home (not
obeying the law), and you eat way too much Sunday dinner
(gluttony), get angry at a driver on the road and call
them an idiot (not loving your neighbor), check out that
good looking person at the next table over in a
lascivious manner (mental adultery), yell at your
kids when they need your attention and interrupt the
football game (suffer little children), and many more
things.
YOU LEFT YOUR HOLINESS AT THE CHURCH
And then you say "well God was at the Church and I was
blessed, must be because two or more were gathered
together in His Name there...no way to get that back
until Sunday".
Understand this, Christian: If you go to church on
Sunday to get built back up, then you did not follow
God's Word during the week! You should be going to
church to join with others and praise Him for what He
did for you during the week, to glorify Him for His
greatness in your life. If you feel that you are
barely making it through the week to get to Sunday so
you can feel God in your life again, then YOU are the
problem. God is always there, ready to be a part
of your life in the smallest things, if you will just
stop kicking Him out! Stop sinning and have the
"Church Life" all the time! You should be so full
of the Holy Spirit and the power of God that when you
walk into Church you want to tell people about the
wonderful week that God has given you, not get charged
back up for the next week, only to lose that charge
again. The early Church came together, not because
they were wretched and miserable, but because they
wanted to worship and praise God for His Greatness in
their lives, and this in spite of the fact that the
Roman government was actively seeking Christians to
imprison and kill. (See, here is one of those
times you ignore the law and meet together regardless)
We will all have trying times as Satan comes against us
with his armies of demons and attempts to ruin our lives
and testimonies. There will be times we come
together with other Christians because we need the
strength that comes form unity, but if you find you
always need building back up on Sunday, you should look
at what you life is like the rest of the week!
We should also look to the Beatitudes[9] for more advice
on how not to sin. Jesus explained the things we
should not do, by telling us what we should do to
receive blessings from God. He says "Blessed are
the pure in heart, for they shall see God"; by this we
know that to have a unpure heart is to sin, and that
anything that makes us unpure should be confessed as sin
and repented from so that we can avoid it in the future.
Each of the Beatitudes has an opposite, such as those
who believe they are rich in spirit, those who have a
good time rather than mourning sinners, those who are
not gentle, those without mercy, those who are gluttons,
those who never present the Lord and so are never
despised or persecuted. These things may not
always happen to you, such as persecution, but if you
are not out being a witness and taking the chance on
being persecuted, then you are not following God's Word
on preaching the Gospel, which is everyone's
responsibility. While we all have gifts from the
Lord, we are all to present the Gospel to a lost and
dying world!
Last, in cleaning up, once we have removed all of this
sin from our lives, we should accept Communion with our
Lord, and present ourselves to Him a living sacrifice[10],
holy and acceptable to do His Work. Only in this way
will you be revived in the Lord.
I caution you that there are many false prophets out
there today who will present you with "shortcuts" to
being in touch with God. They will bring you
"self-help" books, astrology, and enneagrams (becoming
big in liberal Christian churches). All of these
things that are presented to bring help and peace to
you, that are not directly attributable to God through
His Word, are of the Devil and will lead you further
from God. Don't read your horoscope, don't use
enneagrams, don't read advice from self-help gurus, or
any of this trash that Satan will present to you as an
easier way to get your life in order; the only way to
get your life right with God is to repent, seek
forgiveness from sins, do your very best to live Holy,
and stay in communion with God through prayer and taking
Communion!
These same false prophets will attempt to trick you with
the Bible. I see this coming out of Africa a lot,
pastors and Churches that are telling people they must
follow the Mosaic Law. In Paul's time it was
Circumcision that was being pressed on the Church in
error; now it is items from Leviticus, such as not
having tattoos and other things that God told the
Israelites to do, or not do, to separate themselves from
the pagans that they lived around. Paul made it
clear that if we follow one part of the Mosaic Law we
are responsible to the whole Law. That instead we
should live under Grace. Do not fall into the trap
of following the Law instead of Grace. The Law
existed to condemn, while Grace exists to save.
Do follow the Ten Commandments for they are God's Law,
but you do not need to worry about a Tattoo, unless it
is something evil, nor do you need to make people with
skin diseases stay outside the city limits, but instead
take them to a doctor.
Do not wait until the end of the day to confess a sin
and ask forgiveness. The only thing you should
have to ask forgiveness for as you head towards sleep
are things you did without being aware you sinned.
Any sin you know you just committed, ask forgiveness
immediately so that ther rest of your day is not darkened
under the cloud of that sin!
If this has touched your heart in any way; if you want
to have everyday communion with God that is the same as
you have on Sunday, or even more, and if you want to
live fully for Him and receive his continual blessings,
then pray with me:
Father in Heaven, I come before you to ask
that you forgive all my sins, those I remember and those
that I do not. Father, send your Holy Spirit to convict
me in a mighty way with each sin so that I may confess
it immediately and have it blotted out by the Blood of
Jesus, and not carry it around all day ruining my
testimony. Father, I beg you to teach me to be
Holy by the work of Your Spirit, that I may live for you
every moment of the day. Father, show me the path
to Holiness that I may become a "good and faithful
servant" living only for you, and by you, every day of
my life. Father, keep me from the lies of the
Devil, your adversary, so that I do not fall into
temptation. Show me where I need to forgive
others and bless me with what you know I need.
Father keep me from spiritual legalism and let Your Grace
abound in my life. This I ask in the precious and
Holy name of your Only Begotten Son, my Lord and Savior,
Jesus Christ.
Next week we will move into the second "night" of
Revival with the next step in bringing His Glory to our
lives with "Pray Up!".
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[a]Expositor's Bible Commentary (QAbridged Edition): New
Testament
12 In addition to physical provisions, we also need
forgiveness of sin and deliverance from temptation. The
word "debt" means "sin" or "transgression," here
conceived as something owed God (cf. Lk 11:4).
Some have taken the second clause to mean that our
forgiveness is the real cause of God's forgiveness,
i.e., that God's forgiveness must be earned by our own.
But we must distinguish between the concept of earning
forgiveness (not taught here) and adopting an attitude
that makes forgiveness possible. This thought is
reinforced in vv.14-15 and 18:21-35 (see also comments
on 5:5, 7). Copyright 2004
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