The Key to Your Reversal, Part 2

Now you may have hurt your neighbors, you may have hurt yourself, but the one sin has offended the most is God. Dr. Tony Evans takes a look at the true meaning of repentance.

Where only sorrow is, you got caught. Godly sorrow is I've hurt the heart of God. Celebrating 40 years of faithfulness, this is the alternative with Dr. Tony Evans. Speaker, speaker, senior pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas, Texas, and president of the Urban Alternative. Even if your life is so far off course that you feel you can never find your way back to faith again, Dr. Evans says it's never too late to make a U-turn.

Let's join him as he talks about the most important element in making that happen. What is the master key that can give you hope about a reversal in your circumstances? Simply stated, the master key for the reversal of consequences brought on by sin is developing a lifestyle of repentance. Repentance is necessary because of the existence of sin. Sin may be defined as any violation of the divine standard, any violation of the divine standard. The biblical word for it is sin. The biblical word is not mistake. The biblical word is not bad habit. The biblical word is not my bad. In the same way that you don't like trash or garbage, God doesn't like sin because of his nature.

In the same way that a doctor or nurse wants the surgical room sterile, no bacteria or viruses is because it contaminates the area. So God cannot have any relationship with sin and maintain his holy integrity. So that means sin has to be addressed before consequences can be addressed. What many people want is God to change their consequence without them facing their sin. Leave my sin alone, but get rid of the problems caused by it. Repentance is defined as an internal resolve and determination to turn from your sin. Without that internal resolve and determination, thus no real repentance, then you and your consequences must learn to live together the best way you can. Because you are stuck with them. That is why many people who don't want to deal with their sin go to other ways to deal with their consequences.

They try to buy their way out of them, entertain their way out of them, find relationships to cause them not to think about it. And they're constantly going to things to distract them from the consequence because they don't want to deal with the sin. God says, if you will repair your relationship with me through the internal resolve to deal with your sin, you have set the stage because I'm now back hooked up with you to intervene in your consequences based on, of course, His divine prerogative.

So let me break it down, break it down, break it down. Number one, to repent starts off with a recognition of sin. There is a recognition of sin because, see, if you don't believe it's sin, then you don't need to repent of it. It is sin because there's a violation of a divine standard. That's what makes something sin.

So you must recognize it to be so. 1 John 1 says, and if we confess our sins, He's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. The Greek word confess means to say the same thing.

That's what the Greek homologuia means, to say the same thing. You must say about that thing what God says about it, not what your neighbors say about it, not what the television says about it, not what your peeps say about it, not what you think about it. You must say the same thing that God says about it. If God says it's a sin, don't call it a bad habit. If God says it's a sin, don't call it a mistake. If God says it's a sin, don't just say, you know, I'm only human.

You must call it what God calls it in order for God to address it and to repair the relationship. So there must be the recognition of sin. You must confess and say the same thing. Secondly, there must be remorse over what you now recognize. There must be what the Bible calls in 2 Corinthians 7 verses 10 and 11, godly sorrow. Godly sorrow is I've hurt God. Now, you may have hurt your neighbors, you may have hurt yourself, but the one sin has offended the most is God. So he says godly sorrow leads to repentance. Worldly sorrow is you got caught.

Godly sorrow is I've hurt the heart of God. Godly sorrow, guilt and shame over sin, must be the reaction to the recognition of sin. Then, once recognizing it and being remorseful over it, there must be the decision to reverse it. John called it in Matthew, John the Baptist called it in Matthew chapter 3 verse 8, bring forth fruits of repentance. How do you know if you are really remorseful? How do you know that this thing is real, that you really want to deal with it?

Fruit. In other words, you are doing something that demonstrates you want a reversal. You're taking action steps that says I'm going to do something differently because I recognize it, I'm remorseful about it, and so I'm going to reverse what I am doing in relationship to it. I do want you to look at this passage, James chapter 4. In James chapter 4, the people were concerned that their prayers were not being answered.

They were praying and nothing was happening. He says, you have not because you ask not in verse 2. Verse 3 says you ask, but you still don't receive because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your own pleasures. Your adulterous is, don't you know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. God has enemies in his own camp because he's writing to Christians. Or do you not think that the Scripture says to no purpose, he jealously desires the spirit which he has made to dwell in you? Why is this a big deal of God?

Because he's a jealous person. He saved you for himself. But he gives greater grace. Uh-oh, he's giving you divine favor. Therefore, it says, God is opposed to the proud, you can do it without him, but gives grace to the humble. So what should you do? Submit yourself therefore to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

Don't misread that. He didn't tell you resist the devil. He said submit to God. A lot of people say, oh, I can't get rid of this devil. And you won't, because he's got space to work in. So he first says submit to God.

Submit means to place yourself underneath the authority of someone. Place yourself under the authority of God and then resist the devil. Why? Because once you get God on your side, you got help with the devil. So if the devil is bringing these consequences and you want to get the devil off of your back, you've got to first come underneath God so God can work with you in getting the devil off of you because the devil can handle you. He can't handle God working with you.

And how do you do that? Verse 8 says, draw near to God and he will draw near to you. When it comes to reversing consequences, this is not party time. This is not showtime at the Apollo. This is not fun time. This is the time if you really want to invite God's greater grace into your situation, this is the time for sorrow over sin.

The worst thing in the world is to have somebody laughing and joking at something that you're trying to talk to them seriously about. He says when it comes to this issue, there are plenty of things we rejoice in the Lord over. There's plenty of things there's joy in the Lord about. But when it comes to this issue of sin and consequences, he says it's no joke. This is the time for mourning and weeping, solemn assembly. This was a time of gnashing of sackcloth and ashes. It was getting right with God so God could intervene with us.

Bring forth the fruit of repentance. Submitting to God is like a sergeant saying to his soldier, about face, reverse, shift your direction. And I don't care how much you talk if you're still facing the same way. Your words don't mean anything.

You aren't serious yet. And the less serious you are, the more the consequences last and the deeper they go. Repentance is to be a lifestyle. It's a way you operate.

It's not an event, it's a lifestyle. We teach our kids to say, I'm sorry, right? We teach them to say, you say I'm sorry on Sunday, that'll cover you the rest of the week. No, you tell them to say I'm sorry, or we say I'm sorry as needed. You know, when we're sorry for something, we tell another person, we've done something, oh, I'm so sorry. In other words, saying you're sorry about something to people is a lifestyle.

It's a way you operate. Repentance is a lifestyle of acknowledging to God. Our sin, with the remorse that I've heard God, with the request that he intervenes in not only my forgiveness, but in my circumstances. And repentance opens the door for him to limit, postpone, avoid, reverse, cancel, or empower in the midst of dealing with the circumstance.

It's his prerogative. Dr. Evans will come back in just a moment to tell us more about what happens when we open that door of repentance. First, though, I wanted to let you know that Tony has written and released a brand-new book that goes hand in hand with what he's been teaching today. It's called U-Turns, and it's a look at how you can turn around key areas of your life that have gotten off course, areas like fear and anxiety, financial challenges, addiction issues, sins that pass down through generations, and more, including problems you thought were incurable or irreversible. For a limited time, we're bundling this powerful new book along with all 12 full-length messages from Tony's current teaching series, U-Turn, Reversing Spiritual Consequences, and offering them as our gift to you when you make a donation to help us keep Tony's teaching on this station. And if you're interested in sharing these powerful lessons with others or just understanding the concepts better yourself, be sure to ask about the companion U-Turns Bible Study and DVD kit.

Together, this complete package of powerful resources can help you get yourself and those you share it with headed in a whole new direction. Just call us at 1-800-800-3222 or visit TonyEvans.org today to get all the details before time runs out. Again, that's TonyEvans.org. I'll have our contact information for you again after Dr. Evans brings us the second part of today's lesson, and this. Anytime, anywhere, visit TonyEvansTraining.org to get started today.

That's TonyEvansTraining.org. So if you want to see God intervene in your financial circumstances, in your emotional circumstances, in your relational circumstances, in your spiritual circumstance, whatever, the circumstances are same key. You say, okay, I see what you're saying, and I want to live and not die. I don't want this illegitimate separation occurring in my world.

What can I expect if I take this thing seriously? It's all through the Bible. It's worth repenting.

It shows up all through the Bible. He says, you will establish now the grounds for God to deal with your consequences. Isaiah 30 verse 15 says, your deliverance is in your repentance. Let me explain something about repentance.

The master key to your consequences. Stick with me here theologically for a moment. Repentance has to do with the forgiveness of sins.

Acts 3 says that your sins may be wiped out, erased. But the purpose of repentance is relational. If you steal a car and they take you before the judge, the judge's purpose is not forgiveness. The centerpiece of the judge's purpose is guilt or innocence.

That's his concern. Are you guilty of the crime? The Bible says all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. As judge, he has pronounced the whole world guilty because all have sinned. So when we relate to God judicially as a judge, we're guilty.

So what the judge did, God, was send Jesus Christ to the cross to bear our guilt. God can only accept you into heaven if you are as perfect as He is. Not one iota of sin can be practiced in heaven. So you got to be as good as God to get there.

Well, nobody can meet that standard. So what God did was become a man down the cross and credit the righteousness of Christ to all who come to Christ for it. All who come to Christ stand before God as though we've never sinned. Because God has credited to our account the righteousness of Christ, He who knew no sin became sin for us. So when it comes to your eternal destiny, guilt has been covered, which is why you can't lose your salvation. Guilt has been covered by the death of Jesus Christ because when it comes to your eternal salvation, the judge has acquitted you once you come to Christ. But now, suppose you are before the judge and you stole his car.

Now you've entered into a twofold relationship with the judge. He must judge you judicially, but he must be willing to forgive you personally because you've got this dual relationship with the judge now. When it comes to repentance, you are re-establishing the personal relationship because the judicial relationship was satisfied on the cross. 1 John 2, 2 makes it clear that at the death of Christ, He died in propitiation for our sins, but not for our sins only, but for the sins of the whole world, it says. The judge has spoken on the cross as a judge, but he has not spoken in relationship without repentance.

So you can be on your way to heaven, but not in fellowship with Him on earth. Everyone who has a biological child understands this. If your child was born biologically from you, that can never change. But that don't mean the two of you are on good terms.

They can forever be your child and you'll never speak to each other because you bear a twofold relationship, a judicial one by biology, but a personal one by relationship. And repentance is designed to restore the personal. And so he says, your deliverance is in your repentance. So let's conclude with a U-turn. You're driving south on the highway. As you're driving south on the highway, it dawns on you, you should have been going north. So you recognize you're going the wrong way. You're sad that you're going the wrong way, but you keep passing exit.

Then you have not yet repented. You recognize it, you feel bad about it, but there has been no reversal or attempt to reverse. You didn't even pull up your GPS to say, what should I do now? The girl talking to you over the GPS, you ignoring her.

Shut up, Siri, I ain't paying no attention to you. But then, when you feel bad enough, long enough. When you keep on driving, you find out it's nice stuff I see along the way, but I'm not getting anywhere to where I'm trying to go.

And you feel bad enough, long enough, it dawns on you, I better do something different. So you see an exit coming up one half a mile. You move over to your right lane, and you exit off of Confession off-ramp. I agree that I've been going the wrong way.

I confess South is not the right way, so I'm getting off. Now, you haven't solved the problem yet, but you've acted. You've acted.

It may not be big fruit, but it's some fruit. And you've acted, and you've pulled off on Confession off-ramp. But there's a bigger problem. Getting off doesn't solve your problem, because North is over there. But there is a connection between the ramp you got off and the ramp you need to get on. We'll call it grace overpass.

Because the Bible says grace is greater than our sin. So when you get off the Confession off-ramp, there has been a buttress built for you to make it right. So you now cross over grace overpass. On the other side of the overpass is an on-ramp. We'll call that restoration on-ramp. So you get off on Confession exit off-ramp, you cross over grace overpass, you get back on restoration on-ramp, and guess what? You're headed in the right direction. Now, dependent on how long you've been going wrong, it may take you a minute to get back fully on the right road. But I got some good news for you. If you've ever been on a long trip and gone on a long journey, and now it's time to come home, have you ever noticed it seems to take less time to get home than it did going there?

Now, wait a minute. It's the same amount of miles if you're taking the same route. But it feels different. And you know why it feels different?

Because you're going home. God says, if I can just get you to come home, it may take a minute, it may take some time, but because you're coming home and I want you home, it's going to feel different. Dr. Tony Evans, with some encouraging insight on putting our lives back on the right course. As always, today's message is available in its entirety on both CD and digital download, including portions we didn't have time to include in the broadcast. You can also get it as a part of Tony's current series, U-Turn Reversing Spiritual Consequences. For a limited time, we're bundling all 12 full-length messages in this two-volume collection, along with Dr. Evans' brand-new book, U-Turns, and sending them to you as our thank-you gift when you help support this ministry with a generous contribution. And don't forget, Tony has created a complete companion Bible study kit and teaching DVD that goes along with the U-Turn series. Get all the details and make your request online at TonyEvans.org, where you can browse through our huge library of resources and sign up for Tony's free weekly email devotional. Again, that's TonyEvans.org. Or you can give us a call at 1-800-800-3222, where team members are standing by around the clock to help you with your resource request. Again, dial 1-800-800-3222. We all know actions have consequences. Well, tomorrow Dr. Evans will use a familiar story to show us why, in the spiritual arena, some of the worst of them can be reversed. Be sure to join us. The Alternative with Dr. Tony Evans is brought to you by the Urban Alternative and is celebrating 40 years of faithfulness thanks to the generous contributions of listeners like you.