Identificational Repentance

Identificational Repentance

YouTube – https://youtu.be/iqdWsJ46qdk – Time 15:36

Transcription 

we move on to another our tools for spiritual warfare one of our weapons and it is a term that has brought some controversy in people’s thinking but it’s something that I think has very valuable application if we look at it in the right perspective it’s

referred to as identification repentance

it’s a term that was coined by John

Dawson in his book healing America’s

wounds and it’s a process where we

identify confess and repent of corporate

sins sins of a generation or family or a

nation a people group that have had

implications and impact in other

people’s lives now for us to have an

understanding of the importance of

identification or repentance we need to

move away from a strictly

individualistic way of thinking about

sin sin doesn’t only have consequence in

my life when I am living in sin or

participating in sin it has implications

beyond me in the corporate setting in

which I met in the biblical worldview

there was an understanding of this

reality in Exodus it talks about the

consequences of sin that sin visits the

third and fourth generations there’s the

biblical concept of you reap what you

sow that’s not just an individualistic

aspect it’s a people a declaration we’ve

already seen in a lecturer and the

understanding on fasting is that Joel

the Prophet called the people to

corporate repentance and fasting for

acknowledgement of sin and so this can

become a practice that’s helpful to us

in our walk with God one of the great

pray prayers of the script scriptures is

the prayer by Daniel when you think

about Daniel and his ministry and the

character of his life there are a few

people that have the

Daniel Daniel praised this powerful

prayer he says Oh Lord we have sinned

and done wrong we have been wicked and

rebelled we have turned away we have not

listened David’s perspective is that the

sin of the people he participated in it

we have sinned when Daniel pray goes on

praise later in Daniel chapter 9 he says

I was confessing my sin and the cinema

people and so identification repentance

is acknowledging our corporate

participation in moving away from God

and somewhat standing in the gap between

people who are in rebellion and God’s

design Jeremiah writes this and 1420 or

declares it o Lord we acknowledge

wickedness of my generation and the

guilt of our ancestors our fathers we

have indeed sinned against you Psalm 106

six literally States we have sinned

together with our fathers there’s a

participation aspect there we see this

declaration and Ezra and Nehemiah and

from the prophet Isaiah when Isaiah

recognizes the guilt of the nation and

so these are biblical examples of people

owning the sin of forefathers or

spiritual authority lines that they’re

in one of the interesting ones is when

David repents to the Gibeonites for the

actions of Saul it’s interesting story

if you remember the story of the

Gibeonites their first introduced in the

Bible through the story of Joshua you

remember these are people that took old

clothes and made them dirty and took

bread and let it dry out became hard and

they came to Joshua and they were

imitating the fact that they were people

that were from a far distance and they

wanted to be in covenant with God’s

people and the Lord had told Joshua not

to make covenant with people right

around them as it turns out Joshua was

duped he did not inquire of the Lord and

the treaty was made but treaty and word

was binding in that context and even

though that word was made illegitimately

by the Gibeonites the covenant was to be

honored by the people of God well along

the way saw the first king of Israel

broke that treaty and tried to

annihilate the people the record of

David’s responses in second samuel 21 he

recognizes that covenant breaking by saw

had brought guilt upon the nation and it

was corporate guilt that was bringing

god’s judgment and so david deals with

his sin to avert that judgment david

said the following to the Gibeonites in

second samuel 21 what shall I do for you

and how shall I make atonement that you

may bless the heritage of the Lord it’s

interesting decoration David saw a

direct correlation between the blessing

of God and maybe a curse that they were

living out because of their action so he

repented of it and because of that God

brings cleansing into that relationship

so what is identification illrick entus

it’s simply looking for the ways that

mod people whether it be family line

nation church society group has sinned

against another in acknowledging that

and applying the blood of Jesus so what

are some practical steps the first thing

is to identify the sin of your

generation or your people group or your

city or your nation one way would be to

identify what are the strong men of the

area in which you live because strong

men are not there on their own they’ve

been invited through the activity of the

people of the community and be

to recognize that then secondly it can

confess that sin corporately and asked

specifically for forgiveness from the

people who have been sinned against and

so if we recognize that in our past we

have done something evil to a group of

people to acknowledge it and repent of

it a few weeks ago I was I went to the

theater to see the movie 12 years of

slave there was one of those movies that

just rocked me I had a day off from work

and I should have probably done

something a little more entertaining and

relaxing but I was moved it’s one of

those movies where you sit at the end

when the credits you don’t want to leave

because you feel the pain of past

generations having sinned against the

people and as I was coming out of that

theater I in this overwhelming sense

there were two african-american woman

who were coming out and I know that

though slavery has been long gone

America racism has not been long gone

and I looked at these two women and I

just said I know that this is after the

fact but I just want to ask your

forgiveness to repent of all the years

that my forefathers and i have lived out

Rachel intentions whether it be in

slavery or attitudes that we have two

people a different skin color and in

that moment these two women were just

moved by someone acknowledging now I

don’t know what happened in that

situation did something break in the

heavenlies but it was an acknowledgement

of sin I gave space for God to correct

something of my evil history my evil

past my own participation in places of

racism after you’ve confessed it’s

important to apply the blood of Jesus so

that place would be healed we don’t know

we don’t only want to acknowledge the

sin but we want to declare forgiveness

of Jesus over and then from that moment

choose to walk in obedience to bring

about restoration or repair

the damage caused by that’s in now it

would be ridiculous for me to repent of

racism from these women and then walk

out of the theater of participating

reason I often give this precautionary

note on identification repentance this

is not a gimmick if we see this as a

task outside of the flow of what God is

doing in a connection to our Authority

in Christ in the movement of the Holy

Spirit we can turn this into a gimmick

that loses its impact the person doing

identification of repentance needs to

sense the definitive conviction of the

Holy Spirit that a sinner sins have been

committed and that this must be broken

to move forward then after we have lived

in this aspect of identification illrick

endings we want to be purposeful in

living the kingdom principle that’s

office of that so if we recognize that

in our people line there’s been a spirit

of aggression towards others we want to

live in the opposite way gentleness if I

in the past we have been part of a

people move to the lived in racism which

creates walls between people we want to

become boundary crossers proactively

entering into people’s lives to learn

about them and to be engaged with them I

can give a lot of contemporary examples

of this type of identification appendant

Promise Keepers had a great movement

towards racism in America but we saw a

situation that happened in Mali that was

pretty powerful to us the end of my

first term fellow missionary and I were

praying about some of the things that

we’ve been observing and we recognized

that in the history of the mission its

relationship with the church but there

is a lot of racism that had entered into

that rate of that relationship many

times missionaries out of the context of

the culture in which they had come had

lived with somewhat of a superior

attitude and a cultural imperialistic

added

towards moly ins and so as to young

missionaries there was an opportunity

the first ever all Molly pastor

conference was being held nearly 300

pastors from around Molly the exciting

thing about this conference is that

there were pastors who are going to see

each other who had seen one another in

40 50 years who had gone to bible school

together but because of their assignment

being out in the regions that were

separated by distance and because of the

lack of opportunity to get together had

not seen one another so this was a great

celebration moment this young missionary

and I asked for special privilege to

speak with the Molly and pastors and we

stood up and we acknowledge that we have

seen the sins of our forefathers that

racism was pretty strongly practiced but

it wasn’t just our forefathers we too

have racist attitudes and that we wanted

to create a new space the church and

mission could work together and move

forward and as a means of showing the

seriousness that we had about this sin

we asked if we could have the privilege

of watching the feet of the National

President the Vice President the

secretary and the treasurer well as my

friend knelt down to begin washing the

feet of these different men weeping

began to move throughout the whole

gathering place within time there was

hardly a dry eye in the place and the

ones who were almost heaving there there

weeping was deep with groans were some

of the oldest men who were sitting in

the first pues of the Bible School where

we were meeting there was that kind of

Wow crying out to God was like all these

years of stuff down in pain have you

been treated with racist at in

mentions and attitudes all of a sudden

came to the surface and God began moving

and I really believe something

significant happened in the heavenlies

that day something broke it’s

interesting the enemy came back in

within the next few months and separated

the church admission I was back in

America at time and God had it all set

up that I would come back in and be the

field director in Mali and through

another series of repentance and

humbling ourselves before the church God

restored that relationship between

church and mission and when the Mayans

talk about it they say those were the

best years the following four years of

cooperating together to watch God move

in Mali and I do believe that something

happened in that identification illrick

intense as I go on later that I see all

types of critique going on vacation

ulrich’s one of the common things that I

often read is is it necessary I don’t

think a public display is necessary but

is there power released is their Kingdom

advanced released when we acknowledge

sin corporately and we asked people to

release us from the bondage of that sin

I believe so I believe public confession

is a great way to see God move fresh

ways in our area second Corinthians 7 14

is a scripture that we know well and I

think it’s applicable in this setting if

my people who are called by my name will

humble themselves and pray seek my face

turn from their wicked ways then I will

hear from heaven and forgive their sin

and heal their land that repentance is

both vertical to God but horizontal

taking responsibility for the sin in our

lives so your exercise this week is to

think about what might be some of the

areas of the flow of sin and your

corporate structures where you live

historically socially and immediately in

the cotton

X where you find yourself serving in

ministry now and it may be something

that you want to gather some people

around to acknowledge and to pray about

and ask the god bring the application of

the blood of Jesus for victory in your

relationships in that area of life

AllWatched