Latest / KCMS Spirit 105.3 / The Bible For Busy People - Repentance - Collective Worship - Jonah 3, Nehemiah 9

Transcript

The Bible For Busy People - Repentance - Collective Worship - Jonah 3, Nehemiah 9 · KCMS Spirit 105.3

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  Speaker 1: Hey, it's Jen. Welcome back to the Bible for Busy
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  Speaker 1: People podcast. Paul notably says of repentance, Repent then and
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  Speaker 1: turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out,
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  Speaker 1: that times of refreshing may come from the Lord. Repentance
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  Speaker 1: is refreshing. Have you experienced that? How have you seen
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  Speaker 1: it transform your and other people's lives? We've talked about
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  Speaker 1: it a few times. The Greek word for repentance is metanoia,
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  Speaker 1: meaning a change of mind. It's talked about in the
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  Speaker 1: scriptures as both a gift from God as well as
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  Speaker 1: a command. And the way I understand that is that
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  Speaker 1: God grants us the change of mindset, and we respond
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  Speaker 1: by turning away from that sin and back to God.
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  Speaker 1: While we individually seek repentance for our own sins... we
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  Speaker 1: open ourselves up to the transformation of God to teach
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  Speaker 1: us and guide us away from the ways that we've
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  Speaker 1: missed the mark, we can also do this collectively. There
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  Speaker 1: are many examples of this in scripture, especially with Israel
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  Speaker 1: who had seasons of turning away from God consequences, and
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  Speaker 1: then a return to God in patterns over history. Why
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  Speaker 1: repent together? Well, sin hardly ever affects just one person,
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  Speaker 1: and it'll often affect other members of a church living
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  Speaker 1: out the kingdom together. BibleHub.com sums it up well. Corporate
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  Speaker 1: repentance acknowledges that the actions of individuals can affect the
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  Speaker 1: entire community. and that the community as a whole bears
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  Speaker 1: responsibility for its spiritual state. Often what follows repentance are actions— fasting, prayer, confession,
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  Speaker 1: and lament— that show an eagerness to be right with God
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  Speaker 1: in a truly changed mindset. BibleHub adds, True collective healing
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  Speaker 1: comes with public acknowledgement and denouncement of sin— where appropriate.
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  Speaker 1: I would say it's rarely appropriate to call out an
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  Speaker 1: individual sin from the pulpit, but it is absolutely appropriate
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  Speaker 1: to handle church business together as a family if it
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  Speaker 1: affects the majority. Here's an example of collective repentance in
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  Speaker 1: Jonah chapter 3. In verse 1 it says, Then the
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  Speaker 1: word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time.
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  Speaker 1: Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to
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  Speaker 1: it the message I give you. Jonah obeyed the word
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  Speaker 1: of the Lord and went to Nineveh. Now, Nineveh was
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  Speaker 1: a very large city. It took three days to go
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  Speaker 1: through it. Jonah began by going a day's journey into
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  Speaker 1: the city, proclaiming 40 more days and Nineveh will be overthrown.
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  Speaker 1: The Ninevites believed God. A fast was proclaimed, and all
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  Speaker 1: of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth.
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  Speaker 1: When Jonah's morning reached the king of Nineveh, he rose
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  Speaker 1: from his throne, took off his royal robes, covered himself
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  Speaker 1: with sackcloth, and sat down in the dust. This is
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  Speaker 1: the proclamation he issued in Nineveh. Who knows? God may
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  Speaker 1: yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger
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  Speaker 1: so that we will not perish. When God saw what
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  Speaker 1: they did and how they turned from their evil ways,
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  Speaker 1: he relented and did not bring on them the destruction
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  Speaker 1: he had threatened. The king and people of Nineveh responded
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  Speaker 1: to the proclamation of God through Jonah by believing God.
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  Speaker 1: Their response was true grief, putting on clothes of mourning.
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  Speaker 1: The king ordered a fast, lament, and an end to
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  Speaker 1: evil ways and violence. And God saw this and did
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  Speaker 1: not destroy the city like he planned. Another example is
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  Speaker 1: in Nehemiah chapter 9. In verse 1 it says, They
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  Speaker 1: stood where they were and read from the book of
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  Speaker 1: the law of the Lord their God for a quarter
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  Speaker 1: of the day and spent another quarter in confession and
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  Speaker 1: in worshiping the Lord their God. Standing on the stairs
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  Speaker 1: of the Levites were a whole bunch of people that
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  Speaker 1: I am not going to say because I don't want
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  Speaker 1: to butcher their names. But at the end it says,
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  Speaker 1: Stand up and praise the Lord your God who is
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  Speaker 1: from everlasting to everlasting. Blessed be your glorious name and
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  Speaker 1: may it be exalted above all blessing and praise. You
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  Speaker 1: alone are the Lord. You made the heavens, even the
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  Speaker 1: highest heavens, and all their starry host, the earth and
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  Speaker 1: all that is on it, the seas and all that
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  Speaker 1: is in them. You give life to everything, and the
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  Speaker 1: multitudes of heaven worship you. You are the Lord God,
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  Speaker 1: who chose Abraham and brought him out of Ur of
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  Speaker 1: the Chaldeans and named him Abraham. You found his heart
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  Speaker 1: faithful to you, and you made a covenant with him
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  Speaker 1: to give to his descendants the land of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Jebusites,
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  Speaker 1: and Girgashites. You have kept your promise because you are righteous.
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  Speaker 1: You saw the suffering of our ancestors in Egypt. You
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  Speaker 1: heard their cry at the Red Sea. You sent signs
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  Speaker 1: and wonders against Pharaoh, against all his officials and all
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  Speaker 1: the people of his land, for you knew how arrogantly
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  Speaker 1: the Egyptians treated them. You made a name for yourself,
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  Speaker 1: which remains to this day. You divided the sea before
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  Speaker 1: them so that they passed through it on dry ground,
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  Speaker 1: but you hurled their pursuers into the depths. like a
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  Speaker 1: stone into mighty waters. By day, you led them with
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  Speaker 1: a pillar of cloud and by night with a pillar
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  Speaker 1: of fire to give them light on the way they
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  Speaker 1: were to take. And it goes on to talk about
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  Speaker 1: these same patterns of Israel falling into sin and choosing
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  Speaker 1: to compromise and be like the other nations around them
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  Speaker 1: and how they face the consequences of this. And then
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  Speaker 1: God comes back in and rescues them. You can go
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  Speaker 1: back and read the prayer in full, but the people
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  Speaker 1: reviewed and remembered what God had done for them and
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  Speaker 1: took an honest look at where the people have gone wrong.
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  Speaker 1: They took ownership for how they arrived in the circumstances
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  Speaker 1: that they were in, which was enslaved to another nation.
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  Speaker 1: At the end, the people made a binding agreement to obey,
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  Speaker 1: as you can read in the next chapter of Nehemiah.
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  Speaker 1: Public confession and repentance, though often accompanied by grief and discomfort,
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  Speaker 1: are necessary parts of growing together as a people of God.
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  Speaker 1: How will you be part of promoting repentance and peace
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  Speaker 1: in your faith community? What would that look like within
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  Speaker 1: your faith community? I'll leave you with that. Let's talk
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  Speaker 1: again tomorrow. Thank you for listening to The Bible for
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  Speaker 1: Busy People. If you need prayer or want to go
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  Speaker 1: deeper in your faith, visit our show notes. Will you
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