Rethinking Repentance: Transforming Habits for God's Kingdom
Summary
Today, we explore the profound and often misunderstood concept of repentance. Many associate repentance with feelings of guilt or the ominous warnings of doomsday prophets. However, repentance is not primarily about feeling bad; it is about rethinking and redesigning our lives in alignment with God's Kingdom. Jesus invites us to trust in the reality of God's presence, love, and power, and to respond by re-evaluating our life strategies. Repentance is a call to reconsider our habits and thoughts, aligning them with God's goodness and presence.
Repentance is akin to design thinking, where we apply strategic systems to our lives, transforming our habits to reflect God's love and truth. This transformation is not about creating new habits but reshaping existing ones. The story of Tony Dungy, a football coach, illustrates this concept. Dungy believed in changing players' habits to achieve success, emphasizing that champions excel by doing ordinary things habitually and effortlessly. Similarly, a mature disciple of Jesus naturally embodies His teachings through ingrained habits.
The Bible, particularly the Old Testament, offers a brilliant framework for habit formation. The Shema in Deuteronomy 6 exemplifies this, encouraging us to love God with all our heart, soul, and strength. This love is cultivated through cues, responses, and rewards, creating a cycle of habitual obedience and transformation. By embedding God's commandments in our daily lives, we align our desires and thoughts with His will.
Practical applications of repentance involve conducting a habit audit, identifying cues, and redesigning our routines to foster spiritual growth. Simple actions, like starting the day with gratitude or removing distractions, can significantly impact our spiritual journey. Repentance is not about self-condemnation but about embracing the opportunity to live in God's Kingdom, where His love and grace transform our lives.
Key Takeaways:
1. Repentance as Rethinking: Repentance is not about feeling guilty but about rethinking our life strategies in light of God's Kingdom. It involves reconsidering our habits and aligning them with God's love and truth. This transformation is a thoughtful process, inviting us to redesign our lives to reflect God's presence. [01:33]
2. Habits and Spiritual Growth: Our spiritual journey is deeply connected to our habits. By transforming our habits, we naturally embody the teachings of Jesus. This transformation is not about creating new habits but reshaping existing ones to align with God's will. [02:47]
3. Biblical Framework for Habits: The Bible offers a profound framework for habit formation, as seen in the Shema. By embedding God's commandments in our daily lives, we create a cycle of cues, responses, and rewards that align our desires with God's will. [05:11]
4. Practical Habit Audit: Conducting a habit audit helps us identify cues and redesign our routines for spiritual growth. Simple actions, like starting the day with gratitude or removing distractions, can significantly impact our spiritual journey. [08:35]
5. Repentance as Opportunity: Repentance is not about self-condemnation but embracing the opportunity to live in God's Kingdom. By redesigning our life strategies, we align with God's love and grace, transforming our lives and habits. [11:36]
Youtube Chapters:
- [00:00] - Welcome
- [00:37] - Understanding Repentance
- [01:18] - Life in God's Kingdom
- [01:33] - Rethinking Our Lives
- [02:04] - Design Thinking and Repentance
- [02:20] - Power of Habits
- [03:20] - Tony Dungy's Philosophy
- [04:54] - Habit Loop in Scripture
- [05:11] - The Shema and Habit Formation
- [06:43] - Creative Habit Cues
- [08:23] - Invitation to Repent
- [09:03] - Morning Habits
- [10:40] - Removing Negative Cues
- [11:36] - Embracing God's Kingdom
- [12:03] - Closing Remarks
Study Guide
Bible Study Discussion Guide: Understanding Repentance and Habit Transformation
Bible Reading:
1. Deuteronomy 6:4-9 (The Shema)
2. Matthew 4:17 (Jesus' call to repentance)
3. Romans 12:2 (Transformation through renewing of the mind)
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Observation Questions:
1. How does the sermon redefine the common understanding of repentance? [00:53]
2. What role do habits play in our spiritual growth according to the sermon? [02:47]
3. How does the story of Tony Dungy illustrate the concept of habit transformation? [03:20]
4. What is the significance of the Shema in Deuteronomy 6 in the context of habit formation? [05:11]
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Interpretation Questions:
1. How does the concept of repentance as "rethinking" challenge traditional views of repentance? [01:33]
2. In what ways can the process of habit transformation be seen as a spiritual discipline?
3. How might the principles of design thinking apply to one's spiritual life and relationship with God? [02:04]
4. What does it mean to embed God's commandments in our daily lives, and how does this relate to the idea of cues, responses, and rewards? [05:52]
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Application Questions:
1. Reflect on your current life strategies. Are there areas where you need to "rethink" in light of God's Kingdom? How can you begin this process? [01:33]
2. Identify one habit in your life that does not align with God's will. What steps can you take to reshape this habit? [02:47]
3. Conduct a personal habit audit. What cues in your daily routine could be redesigned to foster spiritual growth? [08:35]
4. How can you incorporate the principles of the Shema into your daily life to create a cycle of habitual obedience and transformation? [05:11]
5. Consider a simple action, like starting your day with gratitude. How might this impact your spiritual journey and relationship with God? [08:35]
6. What distractions in your life could be removed to better align your habits with God's presence and love? [10:52]
7. How can you embrace repentance as an opportunity to live more fully in God's Kingdom, rather than as a source of self-condemnation? [11:36]
Devotional
Day 1: Rethinking Life Strategies in God's Kingdom
Repentance is often misunderstood as merely feeling guilty for past actions. However, it is a profound invitation to rethink and redesign our lives in alignment with God's Kingdom. This involves a thoughtful process of reconsidering our habits and thoughts, aligning them with God's love and truth. Jesus calls us to trust in the reality of God's presence, love, and power, and to respond by re-evaluating our life strategies. By doing so, we can transform our lives to reflect God's presence more fully. [01:33]
Isaiah 55:7 (ESV): "Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon."
Reflection: What is one habit or thought pattern in your life that you need to rethink in light of God's Kingdom? How can you begin to align it with God's love and truth today?
Day 2: Transforming Habits for Spiritual Growth
Our spiritual journey is deeply connected to our habits. By transforming our habits, we naturally embody the teachings of Jesus. This transformation is not about creating new habits but reshaping existing ones to align with God's will. Like a skilled coach, we can change our life strategies by focusing on the ordinary things we do habitually and effortlessly. A mature disciple of Jesus naturally embodies His teachings through ingrained habits, reflecting God's love and truth in everyday actions. [02:47]
Colossians 3:9-10 (ESV): "Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator."
Reflection: Identify one habit that you perform daily. How can you reshape this habit to better reflect the teachings of Jesus and align with God's will?
Day 3: Biblical Framework for Habit Formation
The Bible offers a profound framework for habit formation, as seen in the Shema from Deuteronomy 6. By embedding God's commandments in our daily lives, we create a cycle of cues, responses, and rewards that align our desires with God's will. This cycle of habitual obedience and transformation helps us to love God with all our heart, soul, and strength. By aligning our desires and thoughts with God's will, we can cultivate a life that reflects His love and truth. [05:11]
Deuteronomy 6:6-7 (ESV): "And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise."
Reflection: What is one commandment or teaching from the Bible that you can embed into your daily routine to create a cycle of habitual obedience?
Day 4: Conducting a Habit Audit for Spiritual Growth
Conducting a habit audit helps us identify cues and redesign our routines for spiritual growth. Simple actions, like starting the day with gratitude or removing distractions, can significantly impact our spiritual journey. By examining our habits and making intentional changes, we can foster spiritual growth and align our lives with God's Kingdom. This process is not about self-condemnation but about embracing the opportunity to live in God's presence and grace. [08:35]
Hebrews 12:1 (ESV): "Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us."
Reflection: Conduct a habit audit today. What is one habit you can change or remove to foster spiritual growth and align your life more closely with God's Kingdom?
Day 5: Embracing Repentance as an Opportunity
Repentance is not about self-condemnation but embracing the opportunity to live in God's Kingdom. By redesigning our life strategies, we align with God's love and grace, transforming our lives and habits. This transformation invites us to live in the reality of God's presence, love, and power, allowing His grace to shape our thoughts and actions. Embracing repentance as an opportunity enables us to experience the fullness of life in God's Kingdom. [11:36]
2 Corinthians 7:10 (ESV): "For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death."
Reflection: How can you embrace repentance as an opportunity to experience God's love and grace more fully in your life today? What specific step can you take to redesign your life strategies in alignment with His Kingdom?
Quotes
Repentance is not mostly a feeling word; it's mostly a thinking word. It is the Greek word "metanoia," which means "after" and is related to the word for mind, "nous." So it's like second thoughts, think again, think again. Dallas Willard talked about it as reconsider your strategy for living or we might think about your design for life. [00:01:31]
To be a follower of Jesus means to be enthralled with God in our minds, to come to love him dearly and believe there is no limit, no catch to his goodness or God's power to carry out his goodness. But then the other part of the curriculum to become like Jesus, to follow Jesus, is to be transformed at the level of our habits because we are a mass of habits. [00:02:18]
Repentance is redesign your life, the systems of your life, so that the habits, the thoughts, the intentions, the desires, the beliefs that are flowing inside of you, the inside of the tree, becomes changed and reflect God's goodness and God's presence with us so that becoming a person of love and truth and courage and encouragement and generosity become second nature habitual. [00:02:43]
Champions don't do extraordinary things, Dungy would explain. They do ordinary things, but they do them without thinking, too fast for the other team to react. They follow the habits they have learned. The mark of a mature disciple is somebody who effortlessly does what Jesus would do in his place because it has gotten into us by the power of God's grace at the level of habit. [00:04:07]
The Bible, starting with the Old Testament, is the most brilliant plan for habit formation or Reformation in history. I mentioned the basic text of the Old Testament, Deuteronomy 6, was called the Shema. Notice this: think for a minute about cue, response, reward. Moses says, "Hear, Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your strength." [00:05:05]
These Commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Now the idea of that is they're not something that we just give rote habitual obedience to in that sense, but something that changed my mind and my way of thoughts and what it is that I desire. So that's the response that God wants: love. That's love. [00:05:31]
When you see your kids, you'll think about them, talk about them when you sit at home, when you walk, sinning and walking, going in, coming out. Write them down on your hands and your foreheads, door frames, and gates. So the cue, you put the cue all over the place. And then Moses says this is actually in verse 3: hear and be careful to obey so that it may go well with you. [00:06:01]
You may flourish in a land flowing with milk and honey as the Lord your God has promised. You will become a great people. God will do a great work in your midst. There is a great reward. There is a great life. It doesn't always mean that it will be prosperous or pain-free, but it will be life with God. [00:06:22]
The invitation for you today is repent, and what you can do right now is just do a quick habit audit. You may want to spend some more time with this. That's what I've done, and a lot of times in the morning when we first get up, there's just a whole bunch of habits. I wake up, what I'm doing now is to stand and say, "This is the day the Lord has made; I will rejoice and be glad in it." [00:08:25]
I always go to the bathroom. I always have to take a little strip off my mouth. I wear this little thing to keep me from snoring, hopefully, at night, and when I do that, I can remember that my mouth can bless God. And I brush my teeth, and I shave my face. I weigh myself. I get on a scale, and each of those are moments when I can attach to it if I want to in any particular way. [00:08:55]
A friend of mine was telling me how he would wake up in the morning reaching for the phone as one of the first things he did, and there was an app on there, and he was always curious. It created a cue, creates this craving: I want my curiosity satisfied, but it would feed his mind junk that's just not real good, not what he wanted his mind to be filled with first thing in the day. [00:10:43]
The simplest way to stop doing that wasn't by trying to use more willpower. It was simply to remove the cue, to get rid of the app, and then he would have to try to relocate it or find it, and just simply not having the app there meant that that old routine was gone. That's what repentance looks like. [00:11:12]
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