Living on the Edge

Dave Deway: Today on Living on the Edge, Chip welcomes guest pastor John Dickerson.

John Dickerson: The soil in God's word is our heart. Your heart has a tendency, and mine does as well, to get hardened. And you can hear the very best sermon or read the very best chapter of scripture, and it's just going to bounce right off until you break up the soil. How? Through repentance. This is why there's no lasting revival without repentance. Your heart has to get broken up.

Dave Deway: Welcome to Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. We're continuing our series Hearts on Fire, a God Sparks Revival with guest teacher John Dickerson. When you hear the word repentance, what comes to mind? Well, for a lot of us, it's shame, guilt, and a long list of failures. But today, John takes us to Psalm 51, the prayer King David wrote after his own devastating fall, and shows us that repentance isn't about perfection, it's about relationship. It's also the key to breaking the hard ground of our hearts, so God's word can actually take root. Well, here's John with today's message titled No Revival Without Repentance.

John Dickerson: This week, we learn about the second revival practice, which I call an ongoing repentance for relationship. If you're saying, John, what in the world does that mean? That's exactly what we're going to learn in our time together. Ongoing means this is a way of life. Repentance. What does repentance mean? Well, repentance very simply is when you turn from your sin in order to turn back to God. And repentance happens at the moment of your salvation. If you're here today at any of our locations and you're not sure that you've been made right with God, you can repent today and ask Jesus to forgive your sins.

That 's why he died on the cross. We receive salvation not by our good works, but by Jesus' work on the cross. And the way we receive that is by repenting, admitting, God, I'm a sinner, and God, I turn to you. Jesus, I believe in your work on the cross. Now, if you're here as a Christian and you know, I know there's a time in life when I repented and believed, here's the thing, you're going to learn today how repentance is something that you now do continually, not to maintain your salvation, but in relationship with God.

Just like a a husband and a wife, one might wrong the other, and that doesn't mean they're immediately divorced, but there is strain in the relationship until there's an apology and a repentance, and then the relationship is restored. And in the same way, God loves you unconditionally. After you've placed your faith in Jesus, your sins are forgiven. But if you want to know the joy of walking with the Lord, the power of God at work in your life, you need to learn how to be repenting for relationship. God, I love you more than the sins I've committed today or this last week or recently.

We're talking about relationship as a way of life. When Adam and Eve, the first humans, sinned, that they immediately hid in the garden. And there's something about shame that is irrefutable. Even if a person says, I'm an atheist, I don't believe in God, they will still experience shame because it is just a reality of our supernatural makeup. When you know you've wronged God or you know you've wronged another person, what can you do with your shame? What can you do with your regrets? What can you do with your failures? Now, first and foremost, you come to Jesus for salvation.

But if you're anything like me, after you received the free gift of salvation and all your sins have been paid for, past, present, and future, you still mess up. And you still have to figure out, what am I going to do with my shame? What am I going to do with my regret? If you could leave here today knowing how to resolve your mistakes, would you want to know how to? Well, last week, we looked at the revival story of young David, the shepherd, who took down Goliath, the ultimate fighting champion. And he did so cuz he was willing to urgently do everything he could do while depending on God.

And when David is at the peak of his success, he has a failure. Just like you, just like me, a time when he chose sin. In fact, he chose sin repeatedly. And David finally breaks down and repents. And when he does, he writes one of my favorite chapters of the Bible, Psalm 51. It's a chapter whenever you've messed up and you say, God, how do I make things right with you? Go to Psalm 51 and just read it out loud as a prayer to God. Here's David's Psalm of repentance. He says, have mercy on me, oh God, according to your unfailing love.

According to your great compassion, God, blot out my transgressions or my sins. Wash away all my iniquity. Cleanse me from my sin. God, I know my transgressions, my errors, my evils, my sin is always before me. Against you, God, and you alone have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight. So God, you are right in your verdict that I'm guilty. You're justified when you judge. And then David just pleads with God, would you cleanse me that I will be clean? Would you wash me that where I'm stained, I would be whiter than snow?

Would you let me hear joy and gladness again? Let the bones that you have crushed under the consequences of my sin, let them rejoice again. God, hide your face from my sins and blot out my iniquity. So what can you do with your shame, your regrets, your mistakes? Here's the answer. Bring your shame and regret to God. Bring it to God in repentance. Only God can wash you spiritually. Only God can restore you in the supernatural realm. There are certain things that only God can lift you up from. Last week, we learned that revival is all about relationship.

This week, we learn that revival begins with repentance. 1 John 1 verse 9 says this. Christians, followers of Jesus, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from just some of your mistakes. No, from all of your unrighteousness, every way you've fallen short. Do you want to be forgiven? Do you want to be cleansed? Would you like to be spotless in God's eyes? Well, first and foremost, repent for your salvation. Now, after you've been saved, you initiate what I call ongoing repentance. And why is it ongoing repentance?

It's for relationship. When you start to repent as a way of life, it leads to a revived love for God. Well, I want to share with you today three truths about this kind of repentance that leads to revival. Cuz I don't know about you, but when I hear the word repentance, I think of shame and guilt, and I kind of don't want to think about repentance. Maybe you feel that way, too. So here's three things we'll unpack these. First, you need to understand biblically, when we talk about repentance, this is not about your perfection. This is about your relationship with God.

When you view repentance through a lens of am I perfect or am I falling short, then it becomes very discouraging. But when you view repentance through a lens of I want to be in right relationship with God at all times, then it it becomes a joyful thing. Repentance when it's done God's way results in joy, not in shame. Now, there will be shame for a moment when you really stare at your sin and confess it to God. But shame will be something you pass through to a destination of joy. Godly repentance doesn't end in shame.

It might begin in shame, but it doesn't end there. And then third, repentance God's way is about now, God, I want to go out and obey you. The false idea of repentance is just I just need to avoid sin. I just need to avoid sin. And can I just tell you, if all you try to do is avoid sin, you'll get really discouraged. But if instead you say, God, I want to obey you in my life. I want to go and do what you tell me to do, you'll find that as a result, you are avoiding a lot more sin.

It's more of a positive mentality than a negative one. Okay, first of these, repentance is about relationship, not perfection. In Hosea chapter 10, prophet Hosea says to the people of God, break up your fallow ground. What in the world does that mean? Break up your fallow ground. It's time to seek the Lord again. Stop seeking wealth and pleasure and all these other things that God may reign his righteousness and his blessing upon you. What is fallow ground? The soil gets packed down, thick as concrete in some places. And if a farmer were to drop seeds on top of that soil, which is what fallow ground is, hard soil, the seeds, what would they do?

They would bounce right off the top. It'd be like trying to plant seeds on a concrete sidewalk. There would be no crops to harvest because the seeds cannot get down into the soil. The soil in God word is our heart. Your heart has a tendency, and mine does as well, to get hardened. And you can hear the very best sermon or read the very best chapter of scripture, and it's just going to bounce right off until you break up the soil. How? Through repentance. This is why there's no lasting revival without repentance. Your heart has to get broken up.

And if you want to grow spiritually, there's times where you got to say, Lord, if I'm honest, I've become apathetic. My heart has become hard. God, I invite you to break up my heart. That's a risky prayer.

Dave Deway: You're listening to Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram and guest teacher John Dickerson. We'll get back to the message in just a moment. But first, did you know that you can take Living on the Edge with you wherever you go? Download the free Chip Ingram app from your app store, and you'll have today's program, video messages, and daily discipleship tools right in your pocket, ready whenever you are. Well, now here's John continuing today's message.

John Dickerson: 2 Corinthians 7 says this. The sorrow that is according to the will of God. Do you hear that? There is sorrow in your life that is according to the will of God. It's sorrow that would lead you to repent. And of course, repentance is also what leads us to salvation. On the other hand, the sorrow of the world just produces death. One way of interpreting this verse would be this. There will be sorrow and regret in your life either way. Whether you're a Christian or not, whether you're repenting or not, you're going to do things you regret.

You're going to have shame. You're going to have sorrow. What are you going to do with them? It's your choice. If you will allow your sorrow to move you to repentance, it will lead to a life of no regrets. And of course, repentance leads to salvation. On the other hand, if in your sorrow you refuse God, in your shame you refuse God, then according to this passage, it leads to death. Psalm 30 verse 5 says this. God's anger lasts only a moment. When when you do the wrong thing and you just you know you're choosing sin, God has a right to be angry, and he is for a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime.

Jesus on the cross absorbed all the anger, all the consequences of our sins so that you don't have to live under that. Repent for your salvation, but then repent daily to clean up your relationship with God. Weeping may last for a night, but rejoicing follows in the morning. God's heart is to be in loving relationship with you. He invites you to break up the heart and soil of your life and your heart because joyful relationship follows. And that's the second thing. Repentance ends in joy, not in shame. If you just associate, maybe as you began this message, and when you hear the word repentance, you just thought of shame and guilt and self-condemnation.

No, no, repentance is all about God, you admitting what's wrong, receiving what Christ did on the cross, and then him washing those things away. Repentance might lead through shame, but shame is not the destination. If you will let God break up the hard soil of your heart, sorrow will not be your destination. Well, what happens if Christians who are saved by grace choose to say, hey, my sins are forgiven, my place in heaven is secure, I'm not going to repent as a lifestyle. It's too dirty, it's too self-condemning. I don't ever want to repent. Well, when repentance is not part of your daily life, here's what will happen.

You will stop experiencing God's power in your life. This is not because God stopped loving you, it's because the joy and the life of a dynamic relationship with God have gotten blocked by what? By your own sin. They've gotten clogged. Here's a great visual of it. If you've ever used a bathroom sink and you turn the water on and it's just not going down the drain fast enough, this is what's happening underneath the sink. Sink has that little curve there, and it fills up with debris, all sorts of gross stuff, you know, hair and slimy stuff.

And and at first, as the debris builds up, the water can still pass through. But eventually, enough debris adds up, and the water can no longer pass through. Sin does the same thing in your dynamic relationship with God. I don't personally believe that you can lose your salvation. Some Christians do. I don't believe when sin clogs up like that that you lose your salvation, but you do lose your joy. You do lose the ability to hear God's whisper. You do lose the ability to sense his presence. You do lose his dynamic power in your life.

Sometimes the sin blockage is an obvious thing, and you know exactly what it is. You know it's lust, or you know it's greed, or you know it's unforgiveness, or you know it is lying and dishonesty. Other times, the sin is more subtle. Sins of idolatry. What's idolatry? It's when we worship any other thing. Now, there are good things in your life that God gave you to enjoy, but you're not to worship them. For example, your spouse, your kids, your grandkids. If you're not careful, you can love them so much that you start to worship them and you actually look to them and value them more than you love God.

Now, there's nothing wrong with loving them, but there is something wrong with worshiping them. And that's a sin that can clog up our relationship with God. Unconfessed sin of any kind blocks our ability to have a flow between us and God of his love, his direction, his voice. It's like cholesterol in an artery. It's like hair and gunk in a drain. And as a result, then what happens? Your love for God's word starts to grow cold. Why? Cuz your heart is getting hard, and the passages are bouncing off. So why read it? And as your heart grows cold and your love for his word grows cold, it often leads to a cycle of more sin and less God because you start to miss out on the joyful relationship you used to have with God, and you start to fill it other ways.

And before we know it, God feels very far away and distant. And we still believe all the things about God, and we know he loves us unconditionally, but we don't feel the things anymore. And the reason is not that God has changed or gone away, but the relationship is strained by unconfessed things. Whenever a Christian drifts away from God, they just stop attending church, they stop reading their Bible, they stop really living their faith, they become apathetic and cold-hearted. It always begins with unconfessed sin of some kind. And then that strains the personal relationship. Unconfessed sin is the first step in growing cold and apathetic.

Now, the flip side of that is when you confess your sin, it's like clearing out the drain. Saying, God, here's the things I know about that are clogging the drain. There's even other stuff I'm not aware of. I I want to confess it all to you. I want to love you more than my desires, more than these other things. I choose you. And what did we learn in 1 John 1 verse 9? If we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. In your own life, learn to run to Jesus when you sin.

This is the irony. Adam and Eve, when they sinned, they ran away from him. And they're still part of our old fallen nature that when we sin, we want to run away from God. Through Jesus, you can run to God. Guess what? Before you were born, he already knew every sin you'd ever commit. And Jesus is already paid for him. He's not surprised when you sin. We're more surprised when we sin than he is. He's waiting for you to return through the work of Jesus on the cross. And so if you've ever heard this phrase in church, keep short accounts.

It means when you sin, don't go days or weeks or months. Run right back to God. This will keep the flow of his peace, his joy, his power unhindered and unblocked in your life. You see, repentance is not about shaming yourself. It's about continually telling God, God, when I did that, I was choosing to love that or love myself or worship that person or worship that pleasure or worship those resources, I confess that. I worship you again. I love you more than that distraction or that sin. Does God still love you when you've sinned and you don't repent?

Of course, he does. Jeremiah 31 verse 3 says that God has loved you with an everlasting love. Romans 8 verse 39 says that nothing and and God lists out everything you can think of will ever be able to separate you from the love of God that's in Christ Jesus. So God does not stop loving you when you don't confess your sin. Those are powerful promises. But can I give you my spiritual opinion after studying revival for the last year in scripture and in history? I believe in American Christianity today, in the American church today. Many believers misunderstand these promises that nothing will separate you from the love of God.

And And they take it as, well then I never need to repent or confess anything again. Quite the opposite. The more you love God and understand his love, the quicker you will be to repent, not because you have to and not because you might lose your salvation, but because you want to reconcile the relationship with the God that you love. Ongoing repentance as a lifestyle is a hallmark of a mature Christian. You might have an inverted idea of this. You might think, man, if I was having to repent all the time, that would mean I'm a bad Christian.

Nope, it actually means you're very sensitive. And you realize repentance becomes a gateway to emotional intimacy with God. It's not about shame.

Dave Deway: No Revival Without Repentance, a message from guest teacher John Dickerson and part of our new series Hearts on Fire here on Living on the Edge. And if you want to learn more about what John just shared, including a small group video study and more, go to the revivalproject.org/livingontheedge. John compared a hardened heart to packed down soil where even the best seed just bounces off. Repentance breaks up that ground so God's truth can finally take root. Well, that's the heart behind Chip Ingram's Growing Deeper in Christ, a 365-day journey to true discipleship. It's a year-long journey to help renew your mind and deepen your love for Jesus.

And this November, it's also coming in a new leather-bound edition. With Christmas just around the corner, consider giving it to someone you love, a daily tool to seek God and experience his presence all year long. Get your copies of Growing Deeper in Christ today at livingontheedge.org/offers. Maybe today's message reached you at exactly the right moment. With your help, it can do the same for someone else tomorrow. Whatever you give today helps this teaching find people who've been hiding from God and invite them to run to him instead. Make your gift today by going online to livingontheedge.org or call and give over the phone by dialing 888-333-6003.

You're also welcome to mail your gift to Living on the Edge, PO Box 3007, Suwanee, Georgia 30024. Now, let's hear from Chip Ingram as he shares some closing thoughts on today's lesson.

Chip Ingram: Thanks, Dave. Now, let me offer some what now thoughts to what we heard John express today in the teaching. Look, there's something devastating about privately carrying shame. And I think that's something that all of us have experienced. And I like how John took us back to David. And here's a guy that is a man after God's own heart, and yet he shares some of the most raw and honest prayers in all of scripture. I mean, he blew it big time. It doesn't get much bigger than adultery followed by murder. And yet when David comes to God, when he wants to make things right, he doesn't try to clean himself up.

He doesn't try to brush himself off. He doesn't make excuses. He doesn't blame anyone else. He says against you and you alone have I sinned. And then he recognizes what God is really like. He prays specifically, you know, if you want me to bring sacrifices and earn my way back to you, I would do it. But that is not what pleases you. A broken spirit and a contrite heart. That is what God always will respond to. It's not about proving how sorry you are. It's coming with raw honesty, owning your stuff, asking him for forgiveness, and then it's repenting.

It's all, God, I'm going to own it. No excuses. And so I want to ask you right now as we close today's program, is there something in your life that you need to stop feeling ashamed about and hiding and redirecting and medicating yourself on? And you just need to get honest before God and experience his love and his forgiveness.

Dave Deway: I'm your host Dave Deway. Next time, John Dickerson wraps up this message with the story of Peter's most spectacular failure and the conversation with Jesus beside a fire on the shore that changed everything. It's right here on Living on the Edge. Today's program is produced and sponsored by Living on the Edge.