180-Degrees

 

Acts 2:38 (KJV)

38 Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.

 

When you turn 360 degrees you’ve completed a circle and are back where you originally started.

• So if you want to describe a position that’s diametrically opposed to another, the expression you want is not “360-degrees away” but “180-degrees away.”

• Someone might say “I’ve done a complete turn around in my life”.  If this were true then that would mean that they have gone 360-degrees, which leaves them exactly in the same position that they were in originally.

 

An 80 or 90-degree turn is farther from where you were before, but it is not the furthest point that you can get from your original position.

• Many people in their walk with God are satisfied with something less than a 180-degree change in their life, because it is not where they were originally, but neither is it the position that God would have them to be either.

 

1 Corinthians 2:9 (KJV)

9 But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.

• Oftentimes we assume that the situation that we are in is God’s will.
• We think that because we are where we are in life that THIS is God’s will.
• What we fail to realize is that God has much bigger plans for our lives than we ever realized.
• He wants to use our lives in ways we never imagined.

 

The question we need to ask ourselves today is not why is God holding back so many good things in my life,

• But rather, “Do I Love Him”.
• This is the only prerequisite for the blessing promised in 1Cor 2:9 Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.
• What a Promise!
• What an amazing assurance!

 

What we so often do not realize is that the reason we have the struggle we have going on in our lives is not because God is mad at us or because He does not care about us…

• But rather because we may be going in the wrong direction!
• It’s entirely possible here today that some of our lives may be going 180-degrees from where He desires our lives to be.
• If this is true, then we realize today that it is going to take a 180-degree turn in our lives to get ourselves in alignment with God’s purpose and will for us.

 

A 180-degree turn is the furthest point that one can reach that is opposite from their original position.

• It is from this point that one has truly begun to go in a different direction.
• It is truly opposite from the direction they were in originally.

God is not in the business of leaving people in the same position in which He found them.

• What kind of God would He be if He were not willing or able to meet the needs in our lives when we truly needed Him to?

 

The problem however is not necessarily His problem.

• We so often want God to come to us and meet our needs.
• We want Him to answer our problems on our terms.
• We want Him to help us in our timing and the way we want him to.
• The glitch in this thinking though is…
• “That’s not how it works!”
• We don’t get to live the way we want to live and then expect God to always clean up the mess.
• Oh, He’ll help you clean up some messes in your life all right, but if your attitude is, “Alright God, Here’s another Mess I’ve made, Hurry and clean it up.”
• Then you might just have a wrong conception of who and what the purpose of God is all about.
• Jesus loves you, yes He does, but He’s no doormat either.

 

Maybe there needs to come a change in our thinking before we go asking Jesus to clean up the messes we’ve made.

Does that make sense to anyone?

This is what repentance is all about.

• Some people believe that repentance is all about saying, “I’m sorry for my sins.”
• In fact they believe a person has to do this in order to be saved.”
• However repentance has more to do with the attitude one has towards sin than it does with the actual sin itself.
• I will explain that a little more in a minute.

 

Let’s talk a little more about this 180-degree turn that we were discussing…

• A 180-degree turn is a complete turn where you face the opposite direction.  (Demonstrate by facing one direction then the other.)

• The direction I was heading before is now not the direction I am currently heading is it?

• I have experienced a 180-degree turn in my life.

• I have experienced what the original Greek language described as repentance.

• If you keep finding problems and troubles and wrong living while you are going in this direction, then today would be a good day to start going in another direction.

• That direction over there keeps leading to pain and depression, and hurt and guilt and shame.

• But if we could just have a 180-degree change in our lives we would find ourselves going in a different direction.

This is what Jesus is offering us here today.

• This is what the Cross of Calvary was all about.
• This is why God robed Himself in flesh and suffered and died for you and I.
• He wanted to be able to be there with help and forgiveness when we needed a change of direction in our lives.

Jesus told a story about a man who had two sons.

• He said to the first, “Go, and work today in my vineyard.”
• The first son said he wouldn’t work in his dad’s vineyard, but Jesus said he later repented and went.
• What did this boy do when he repented?
• He simply changed his mind.
• God wants us to change our minds about sin and our participation in it.
• That’s what the Bible is talking about in commanding all men to repent.

 

Bible repentance is a change of mind, prompted by a change of heart, resulting in a change of life.

 

I have seen many miracles in my life.

• I’ve seen God do some amazing things, but I’ll tell you what the greatest miracle of them all is…
• It’s not when the sick are healed.
• It’s not when the blinded eyes are opened.

It’s when there is a 180-degree change in someone’s life

Luke 15:10  Likewise, I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth.

When someone repents, it by definition means literally to think differently.

• Thus when I say I am going to repent of my sins, I mean that I am going to think differently in regard to my sins and how I am living.
• My old thinking was content with the junk in my life and the crummy circumstances that came as a result of my offenses to God.
• But my new thinking is that I am sorry that I’ve done something that offends God and I don’t want to do it again!
• This new way of thinking will then lead to a new kind of action.

 

So, repentance is both internal and external.

• Internally I change my way of thinking; externally I change my way of acting.
• The one, thinking, leads to the other, acting.
• It all starts in the heart you see.
• If you don’t get it right here (Heart) you won’t get it right anywhere else in your life either.
• It all starts here (Heart).

 

In the New Testament there are two different Greek words, which have been translated, repent.

• The word repent is an English word.
• It is an obsolete old English word and means nothing to us today.
• It was not even used in the Bible until the King James Bible came along in 1611.
• What I’m saying is that the word “Repent” as we know it was not used originally in Acts 2:38 until the King James’s translators placed it into the text because they did not have a word that fit exactly what Peter was saying.
• It was translated from the compound Greek words Metanoeo and Metamellamai.
• These two words have completely different meanings.
• In the original Coine Greek a word can have only one meaning.
• This was the language that the original New Testament manuscripts were written.

1. Metanoeo, which is a compound word. “Meta” means change “noeo” means thinking. This word is derived from “nous” which means mind. So, metanoeo means to “change your mind”

2. Metamellamai, is also a compound word. “Meta” means change ?“mellamai” means emotions. It means to have a “change of emotions”.

Weeping and crying at the altar is good, but understand something, that alone is not repentance.

• It is not until Metanoeo has taken place that repentance has truly come to a person’s life.
• Feel bad about your sin all you want, but what Jesus is looking for is the conscious decision in your heart and mind that you are going to change.

This is why so many people struggle with the same thing over and over again in their lives,

• Because although they say they are sorry over and over again, they never do make a decision to change.

They cry at the altar hoping God will fix the problem, but they never do make the decision to knock off all the nonsense in their life.

 

“Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: (Phil. 2:5-8 NKJV)

 

If what has been going on up here (Mind) has been taking you down some wrong roads in your life, it might be time to Change Your Thinking!

• Philippians tells us to not have our own opinion, but rather to have the mind of Christ Jesus.
• This is what makes a Christian a Christian.
• They start thinking and acting like Jesus.
• Their way of handling things got them into trouble, so now they are asking the question, “What would Jesus do” before they act.

 

Understand something today; Repentance is more about our thinking and emotions regarding sin than it is the actual sin itself.

• See, if you can justify something in your mind, then you are going to struggle with it for the rest of your life.

This is why we need to understand what repentance really is.

• It is a change of heart.
• It is a change of thinking.
• “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus…”
• Our attitude needs to be humble and obedient as Christ’s was in Phil 2:5-8.

 

I’m going to share an amazing secret with you.

• I’ll tell you why this is such a good secret.
• The devil does not want you to know this…
• And the reason he does not want you to know it is because if you don’t know it, he can beat you up with guilt every single day of your life.

Here it is…

“No one can turn away from sin completely.”

• You can minimize sin in your life and you should, but to turn away from sin completely is impossible.
• Paul was a great apostle
• He was a missionary
• He wrote much of the New Testament
• But listen to what Paul said…

Romans 7:14-16 (Message Bible) I can anticipate the response that is coming: “I know that all God’s commands are spiritual, but I’m not. Isn’t this also your experience?” Yes. I’m full of myself—after all, I’ve spent a long time in sin’s prison. What I don’t understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise. So if I can’t be trusted to figure out what is best for myself and then do it, it becomes obvious that God’s command is necessary.

17-20 But I need something more! For if I know the law but still can’t keep it, and if the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need help! I realize that I don’t have what it takes. I can will it, but I can’t do it. I decide to do good, but I don’t really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. My decisions, such as they are, don’t result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time.

21-23 It happens so regularly that it’s predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. I truly delight in God’s commands, but it’s pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge.

24 I’ve tried everything and nothing helps. I’m at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn’t that the real question?

25 The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different.

The Apostle Paul also tells us in Romans 6:12:

• “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lust thereof”
• Paul is not telling us here that we must quit sinning completely in order to be saved (We all know this is impossible); he is saying that we should not let it rule our lives.

Are you saying Jim that it is ok to sin?

• No I am not because that would create an attitude that is a 360-degree attitude.
• It would lead people right back where they were when they started.
• Remember it is about our attitude.
• It is about our emotions.
• But I do also realize that we are all going to sin.
• It’s not “if you are going to sin, it’s when you are going to sin.

What we have to understand is that when we sin, we need a mediator.

• That’s who Jesus is.
• That’s the reason for the Cross.
• That’s why we get baptized.
• We don’t get baptized to join a church; we get baptized to have all our sins removed.
• We get baptized as an act of obedience to His command to follow Him.
• It’s all a part of our learning to trust Him instead of our own selves.

1 Peter 3:21 (KJV)

• 21 The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God,) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ:

You say, “Well, I’ve asked God to forgive me, that’s enough…

• No, that is not enough, it is through the act of being baptized in Jesus name that people gain forgiveness of their sins.
• You say, “well, I feel like God has already forgiven me of my sins…
• I’m glad you feel that way, but that’s not what the bible says.
• It does not say to tell God your sorry and he will forgive you.
• It says to “Repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of your sins.”

This is the problem so many people have today…

• They want to make God into what they want Him to be.
• Be careful, what you imagine God to be
• What you imagine Him to be may be incredibly different than what or who He really is.
• This is why I have spent the last 31 years of my life studying this book.
• I don’t want to know who man thinks he is.
• I want to know who the Bible says He is.

I can imagine all kinds of things about God, but this book is sure.  It is True.

• It has been tested.
• In this book are the Words of Life.
• This is why the Bible says, “Let God be true and every many a liar.”
• What you think is not so important, but what this book says will have dire consequences for some people.

1 John 1 “If we say that we (Christians) have no sin we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us”

• John here was speaking to Christians and included himself as having sin.)

In the Bible there are verses, which do say to repent or change your mind about sin, but in every case this is speaking to Christians who are sinning.

• It is simply saying to us to quit letting sin rule our lives and turn our attention back to the things of God and to worship him.

• This is why I preach grace so much.
• This is why I am always encouraging the church to forgive other people’s sin.
• Because I realize that we all are either currently or will in the future sin.
• Our attitude (Judging) about someone else’s sin may be much worse than the sin someone else is committing.

(CONCLUDING)

Repentance means a change of the mind.

• It is a 180-degree turn in our thinking and emotions regarding a person’s faith, belief and obedience to Jesus Christ.
• It no longer matters what other people think, they are going to do what Jesus wants them to do.

180-Degrees is all about turning.

• It’s about making a conscious decision and deliberately choosing to go in the opposite direction.
• This turning is a response a person makes when they realize their life is not pleasing to God.

Are you ready to make a change in your life?

Are you ready to take a new direction?

• How about a 180-degree in some areas of your life.
• How about we truly repent of some things today and begin a right course towards God.