Transcription
[Music] It's Kim Ministries back to you on the Marketplace Network. Special shout out and thanks to Dr. Ken for allowing me to be on here once again and to bring to you part four of Back to the Basics.
Now, we've talked about Back to the Basics and why it's important. The Lord really wants us to get some of these foundational truths and concepts into our spirit so when we look at the scriptures, and as we work through our salvation, right? I think Paul uses that language, "as we work out our salvation in fear and trembling." And we look at the scriptures, this will help clarify things in our minds because it's important to remember, uh, that words do create pictures. I'm a little bit ahead of myself here, but let's talk about some of the things that we've looked at in the past. If you haven't seen these things and you want more details, just go into the Marketplace Network channel and you can see Back to the Basics part one, two, and three. And we're on part four right now.
So, some of the things that we have looked at in the past, and we'll do a quick review today, is justification versus sanctification. This was a very confusing thing for me, even when I was in the ministry. So getting clarity on that is very helpful in our walk with the Lord. Defining sin when we look at the original languages, both in Hebrew and Greek. Defining law in Hebrew and Greek. The English word that's translated in our Bible, which is "law," most of the time, we wanted to look at what the Hebrew and Greeks said about it. And then a real important teaching I did last time in part three. If you haven't seen this, please go to the Marketplace Channel, go into their video section, and look for Back to the Basics part three. This is teaching about there's only one way to be saved from Genesis to Revelation. And I lay out some proof that Adam and Eve put their faith in the coming one that would ultimately be Jesus the Messiah. Okay, so if you haven't seen that, please, I encourage you to go back and watch part three after you're done here.
And today, we're going to bring clarity to conviction and repentance. And then hopefully, we'll wrap up with the basic meaning of Holiness. That's kind of a nebulous thing, you know, it's kind of a gray area. I'll bring clarity to that next time in part five, also with our identity in God in Messiah. Okay, so we're going to focus on conviction and repentance today. But let's do a quick review of where we've been.
So again, like I said, when we're speaking or when we're listening to somebody, words have word pictures. We may not recognize it because we talk so much and we listen so much through our lives that words do have meanings, and sometimes those words have different meanings depending on who you're talking to, maybe in a different culture, they, or a different language, they maybe speak English as a second language, or in different faith backgrounds. Anyway, words have word pictures in people's minds, and it's important for us to grab hold of these simple, basic truths and see them for what they are. A lot of times when we go to the original languages, the Hebrew, as you see off to the left, and the Greek, as you see off to the right, can bring clarity and bring that word picture to light for us. So sometimes we want to take a look at those original languages.
Foundational teachings are very important. Jesus spoke about this. You find it in Matthew chapter 7 and Luke chapter 6. Jesus teaches about our foundation must be upon the rock, and he's talking about his teachings that we should incorporate his teachings and his ways into our life. Now, you can see the two houses on the right-hand side there. They both look like they're fine, and when the weather is clear and blue sky. Well, that's not Seattle. That may be Southern California or somewhere where you live. But in Seattle, we usually have what's on the left. It's stormy, it's windy, it's rainy, at least it's gray. But when those times come into our lives where we do have the storms that arise, either from the enemy or circumstances in our lives, this is when we're really going to find out if we put down a solid foundation. And these teachings are so important to get that foundation solid. So when they will, if you haven't experienced it, believe me, storms come through life, and we need to be founded on the rock that is Jesus's teachings and his lifestyle because he is the Messiah. He was without sin. We'll touch on that in just a minute.
So again, reviewing justification versus sanctification, right? Justification is salvational righteousness. It's this act of being saved that happens once when we put our faith in the finished work that Jesus did on our behalf. We don't have to do anything. We just have to take hold of what he's done on our behalf and believe it, trust in it. And guess what? We get born from above. His Spirit will actually come into our spirit and he will create a new nature within our spirit man, the most inner part of our person. And he writes his teachings, which in Hebrew is his Torah, on our heart. So this is really important stuff for us to know. So again, justification is salvational righteousness.
Sanctification, on the other hand, is something that happens after we're saved, and we should be working with this and working with the Holy Spirit on this. Sanctification is practical righteousness. What's practical righteousness? Practical righteousness is everyday life. It's how we think, it's what we speak, and it's what we do. In Hebrew, it's called halakha. It's the way we walk out life. And so sanctification is a lifelong process into the mindset and the lifestyle of Jesus. This doesn't happen all at once, and we never quite arrive until we're in our glorified form. But the Lord wants us moving towards that. He wants that new creation that's in our spirit man to come out and be manifest. This is a very important thing, and this comes through sanctification. This is a work of restoration of our soul realm, and we cooperate with the Holy Spirit in this. And this is really going to come into play with today's topic of conviction and repentance. This is a tool that the Lord uses for sanctification.
So we looked at sin and law. It's very interesting. The basic definition of sin is simply to miss the mark. Mark of God's teaching. God's teaching is out there, and we simply miss it in our thought life, in our words, and in our actions. The definition of law is correctly understanding and applying God's teaching or Torah, as it is in Hebrew. That's hitting the mark. We're applying, we're understanding, and we're applying God's teaching correctly, and that hits the mark. So sin is missing the mark. Law, Torah, or nomos in Greek, is hitting the mark. It's very simple stuff. So when you're looking at the scriptures, you know, think about these very simple word pictures.
So there's only one way to be saved from Genesis to Revelation. And part of this is because scripture is given to us in a progressive revelation. And I'm using the tomato plant as an example. What do I mean? Well, sometimes people want to see the Old Testament as totally something different from the New Testament. When really, it's one word. They can't contradict each other. You don't start with an apple tree and then have this tomato plant show up in the New Testament. That's not how scripture works. It all has to fit together like an intricate puzzle. If we can't reconcile the scriptures one to another, be it the Old Testament, the Hebrew scriptures, with the New Testament, the apostolic writings, then we have an issue. It's our issue. It's not the scriptures' issue. Okay, so we need to stop.
Scripture is progressive revelation. We see here on the left-hand side, the little tomato plant coming out of the ground. This would be like the Book of Genesis. And as we progress through Moses and the prophets, we see the plant growing. It's bringing forth flower, and now we know for definite it's a tomato plant. And then we find its final form in the New Testament, the apostolic writings. We see the fruit, we see the plant in its full glory and grandeur. This is called progressive revelation. It starts as the same thing from Genesis and ends up the same thing in Revelation. There's no contrary stuff going on in scriptures. It's just a, and we're starting with something that's very, um, uh, basic, and then it just continues to grow and bring more and more definition and clarity as we move through time in the scriptures. Okay.
So there has only been one way to be saved from Genesis to Revelation. When Jesus says in John 14:6, "I am the way, the truth, and the life," that's not time-bound. Just because he spoke it in John does not mean that statement is time-bound because we know by reading the book of Revelation that Jesus Christ was crucified before the foundations of the earth, before the galaxies were even created. It was already finished in God's mind. Remember, God is outside of time. So Jesus says, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father but through me." So it has to be faith in him. There's no other way. I gave that example with Adam and Eve after the fall in Genesis chapter 3, where verse 15, God gives him the first prophecy of how he's going to fix this problem when they died spiritually after missing the mark and sinning. Okay, for more of that teaching, again, back to part three.
So, why the temple sacrifices and the Tabernacle and all these sacrifices that we see in the Old Testament? The book of Hebrews answers this question for us. Sacrifices never atoned for sin. They were simply a picture of the one who would come that would be an innocent, substitutionary sacrifice on our behalf. So what happened in the temple, as you see the picture there, if you were an Israelite or, you know, you were a gentile that had come to believe in the one true and living God and you went up to the temple, believe it or not, all Israelites did not go to the temple. Most of them lived outside the land of Israel, and it was a real treat for them to go if they could even go once in their lifetime. Most of the time, people in the diaspora, they called it the dispersion, they would send a representative for the community. That's another topic. I know I'm getting off on a rabbit trail, but let's say we send a representative from our city. We're from some part in Asia Minor. He goes up, he purchases a lamb without spot or blemish. There's a cost involved in that, right? And he brings it in, and what he's going to do is he's going to press down on that innocent, substitutionary sacrifice with his hands and confess the sins, his sins, the sins of his family, and the sins of his community, and maybe even the sins of Israel over this innocent, substitutionary sacrifice, metaphorically transferring those sins onto that animal. Then the priest would sacrifice, would would cut the arteries of the lamb, and the lamb would die. So he's an innocent, substitutionary sacrifice, only a picture of the one who would come and take his sin upon us, the Lamb of God, as John the Baptist put it, who would save the world. So he took our sins. Remember, it wasn't the Jewish leadership that put Jesus on the cross. It wasn't the Romans that put Jesus on the cross. Yes, they had an act in it, but ultimately, it was my sin and your sin and the sin of humanity that put Jesus on that cross. He had to come as the second Adam, and he had to complete that work on our behalf so that we once again could have our relationship restored with God, and that we could get the indwelling of the Spirit of Holiness, the Ruach Hakodesh, in Hebrew, inside of our spirit, that we would be one with God's Spirit in our innermost man.
So, part four, and this is where we're starting with part four. We're going to bring clarity to conviction and repentance. A lot of people have word pictures in their minds when they think of repentance and conviction as negative things, and it's not negative. In fact, it's positive, and it's crucial for us to have this in our life for one who has been saved, that is justified and reconciled to God through the finished work of Jesus, and we receive the Holy Spirit, that new heart, right? That Ezekiel talks about, a new nature, and his teachings that are written on that new heart, Jeremiah 31. Now begins that's in the spirit man, the innermost part of us. Now it's time for the Spirit to begin to illuminate, little by little, where we have missed the mark in areas of our life, our thought life, words that come out of our mouth, and actions in our lives. He, this is called conviction. It's a tool to be used for sanctification, that bringing us into the likeness and the lifestyle and the thought patterns and the words of Jesus. He's our model for all of this.
The word "convict" is only found two times in the New Testament. This Greek word means to bring to light so one can recognize and be convinced of wrongdoing. So the Holy Spirit wants to help correct us, little by little, if we'll listen. Okay, we need to be listening for the voice of the Lord. That's that small voice in us. We may see it in the scriptures, we may hear it in a sermon, we may hear it from another brother, you know, or in life, we may just say something or do something or think something and wow, you know, all of a sudden we feel really bad about it. That's conviction. That's by the Holy Spirit. But it's not to condemn us, and it's not to shame us, and it's not to spank us, and we're not going to get a lightning bolt from heaven over it. God's, that's not God's design for us. He loves us. He's gone through a lot of trouble to get us to this place, and now he wants to conform us into His image, into his thought patterns, into his words, and into his actions. Okay, so, um, this is aligning ourselves with his ways and his will. His desire is to put us on display for his glory. You know, Jesus said, we're a light on the hill, and are we to be put under a bushel so no one can see us, or in a basement? No. God wants to take that light. If it's actually being exposed in our life, you know, it starts inside, but it needs to come out, right? Once that light begins to come out, he wants to put us on a pedestal in the middle of a home in the ancient world to give the most light in a building would be to put a lamp in the middle on a pedestal. He wants to display the glory that he's done in us. He can only do this if we'll cooperate with him and allow what's happened inside of us, this new nature in our soul realm, to begin to grow and to conform into his ways. Then God can put us on display for his glory. This tool of conviction is to convince us to change our thoughts and our ways to be more like him. Now, remember, he loves us, and he wants to put us on display, and it's fun. This is part of entering into the joy of the Lord. Talk about an exciting lifestyle. God wants to put us on display. Can you believe that? It's awesome.
It's important for us to understand that conviction is not something that we can produce on our own. It's actually a gift. So when you receive that feeling when you're reading or you're doing whatever you're doing and you got to check on what's going on, that's actually a gift. The Holy Spirit's trying to help us recognize something that's going wrong. It's not aligning with God. So it's, uh, he wants to, but but but it's a gift of God. But however, we can position ourselves to receive conviction. How? Through his word, the word of God, through prayer, through praise. Praising him always seems to meet the Lord in praise. And when we are with the body of believers, maybe it's a pastor that's speaking, maybe we're speaking to a dear brother in the Lord, and may have a word for us. But ultimately, like I said, it's a gift of the Holy Spirit.
Again, conviction and repentance are connected, and it's a gift of God. Repentance is just acting upon that conviction. Repentance in Hebrew is teshuvah. It just means to turn back or to return or to restore. And guess what? It actually means to refresh. It's a good thing. It's a refreshing thing. It's a restoration thing. And the Greek in the Old Testament, which is called metanoia. So repentance is a return to an original lifestyle and destiny that God has for me and has for you that he intends for us. It's a lifestyle that's modeled by Jesus. And I'm telling you, he wants to and he's ready to put us on display if we'll cooperate with him.
So again, conviction and repentance is God's gift through the Holy Spirit to help develop us into the mind of Christ, to help us develop our kingdom lifestyle, and to grow in practical righteousness, right? Sanctification. This is a process of sanctification. It's a lifetime thing for the believer. It is God's desire to move us to the highest place where Jesus is seated. You'll see this in the book of Ephesians. And let's use a word picture again to maybe illustrate this with a penthouse at the top of a tall building to illustrate this. So here we see this tall building, and at the top is the penthouse. This is where Jesus is enthroned in the heavenlies, and it's God's desire for us to be with him in this highest place. But when we sin, we miss the mark, and thus we miss dwelling with him in that highest place, and we're somewhere in those other stories of the building. But it's his desire, wherever we're at in that process, to continue to move us up towards him, to restore us and bring us up to where Jesus is dwelling in that high place. This is God's tool that's used by the Holy Spirit, conviction, and then the action that follows, repentance, comes in. It's a rising up to our calling so that we can be put on display and manifest in the world to the truth of the Gospel, the good news.
So that's my teaching for the day. Again, I thank you for watching. I want to thank Dr. Ken and Bishop Dominic for this opportunity. Quickly, I'll do a quick prayer. Father, we just thank you for this teaching. Thank you, Lord. Just get these basic teachings deep into our spirit. I pray, Father, just move us forward this year. I pray and may these teachings be a tool for you, Lord. Encourage us through these teachings and begin to apply these teachings to us. Help us to capture the word pictures, I pray, in these teachings and incorporate these things into our life, Lord, into our foundation that you have taught us. Father, we love you, we praise you, and we thank you this day. And I love you guys. I thank you guys for tuning in, and we'll see you next time for the final series of Back to the Basics. And we're going to move into a new series after that. I'm not going to give it away yet. You tune in next time, you'll see it then. Thanks for watching, and we'll talk to you then.