From the earliest age, I was a computer junkie. As “I” was coming of age, “personal” computers were coming of age. Computers started popping up in libraries, in people’s living rooms. We were one of the last families to own a VCR but one of the first to own a computer system. I never had a TV in my bedroom but eventually I had my own computer. I was mesmerized how you could program a set of instructions, and so long as your code was right, the computer would perfectly obey all your commands. If your code ever failed, no worries. You could reset the whole platform with a simple keystroke—CTRL+ALT+DELETE!
Once I was sitting in a typing class, and we had to type this long article out, and format it perfectly in a program called “Word Perfect.” A fellow student on the other side of the room was having fits getting Word Perfect to work. She’d typed up this whole assignment but couldn’t get things to format. She kept impatiently, shouting her questions across the room to the teacher, “How do I get things to bold? How do I control the line spacing again?”
Annoyed, I leaned over to a friend and joked, “CTRL+ALT+DELETE makes all your problems go away.” Sure enough, the girl hears me and unknowingly resets her computer! Next thing, she’s shouting to the teacher, “Hey, why did my screen just go blank? Why is my computer rebooting? Where did my all my work go?” And now you know why I had no friends in high school.
Every electronic device has a reset button these days. No matter how bad things get, how many viruses have infected your machine, or how many bad apps you’ve tried to install. . .you can always reset your default programs and settings.
Don’t you wish life worked this way? What if you could hit RESET on your relationship with God? What if you could hit RESET on your relationship with yourself? Like your inner life (heart, mind), or maybe your character? What if you could his RESET with your family? Perhaps your marriage? Your kids? And let’s not forget what a mess things have become in our world!
The closest thing we have to a reset button is repentance. Acts 3:19-20a says, “Therefore repent and turn back [to God], so that your sins may be wiped out, that seasons of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord…” Every time I’ve drifted from God, my sins began accumulating… the malfunctions, pain, and frustrations began multiplying. How bad do things need to get for us to turn back to God? For some, not even death itself, will cause them to turn to God. But what about you? The moment we repent, seasons of refreshing come from Lord!
The idea of repentance is relatively simple. To repent is to “turn back.” But turn back to what? Or perhaps even who? I don’t think it is adequate to say, “Turn back to God.” Nor is it adequate to say, “Turn away from sin.” What if our code, our very operating system, our very thinking about God, has become corrupted? What if our very thinking about what it means to love God, love ourselves, love others, or to even love the world “IS” the problem?
When you hit CTRL-ALT-DELETE on a computer it doesn’t actually “rebuild” the underlying code and operating system. If your operating systems hasn’t become corrupted by rogue apps or viruses, a superficial RESET may be all that’s needed. But if the operating system—the very way a person thinks about reality has become corrupted—a RESET does nothing at all. In fact, what’s needed is a REBUILD! A whole fresh installation! So how do you go about REBUILDING your whole worldview?
To me, there isn’t anything more foundational to Repenting, Resetting, or Rebuilding than the WORD of God. FIRST, the WORD OF GOD RESTORES TRUE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. I want you to think critically about this. Everyone believes they know who God is (and isn’t). It’s one opinion against another. The Christian perspective is that the Bible is God’s “self-revelation.” We wouldn’t know God, but God has revealed Himself by the Word. In the Bible, God declares, “This is who I am. I am who I am. I’m not who you say or think that I am! This is my name, my character, my purpose and plan, my will, this is what pleases and displeases me. . .”
But what is now the deepest, truest knowledge of God is revealed in the face of Jesus Christ. All of Scripture is God’s testimony about the coming Son. This is my Son, whom I love, listen to him. But then God’s Son Jesus Christ is the living embodiment of God’s Word. Hebrews 1:3a says, “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact expression of his nature, sustaining all things by his powerful word.” Col 1:15 says, “He [Jesus] is the image of the invisible God.” John 1:1-4 says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 All things were created through him, and apart from him not one thing was created that has been created. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of men.” John 1:14, “The Word became flesh and dwelt[h] among us. We observed his glory, the glory as the one and only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” John 1:18, “No one has ever seen God. The one and only Son, who is himself God and is at the Father’s side—he has revealed him.”
In the “Written Word,” the Father reveals and testifies about Jesus. Yet reciprocally, Jesus reveals the Father. Jesus is the “Living Word”… the living embodiment of all who the Father is, and all who the Father’s revealed Himself to be. To truly know the written word is to know Jesus. To truly know the Living Word, Jesus, is to truly know the Father. In John 8:19 people ask to see Jesus’ Father. “Where is your Father?” and he replies, “You know neither me nor my Father,” Jesus answered. “If you knew me, you would also know my Father.”
The written Word of God (the Bible)… The living Word of God (Jesus) resets, restores, rebuilds True Knowledge About God! Turning back to a God constructed of pure imagination does nothing. Turning back to the God of Scripture, who has most fully and perfectly revealed Himself through his Son is transformative! I love that verse in Colossians 3:10 that says, “You are being renewed (i.e. you get renewed) in knowledge (i.e. true knowledge) according to the image of your Creator (i.e. Christ Jesus!).” God created us! It stands to reason that we’d return to our creator to be recreated. Repentance is gaining true knowledge.
SECOND, the WORD OF GOD RESTORES TRUE KNOWLEDGE OF ME and YOU. Just like people assume they know who God is, they assume to know their true selves. Our secular education system has effectively suppressed knowledge of God, and self. In secular education, God is a zero, but so is man. Some of the greatest questions ever asked, were asked by the Greek Philosophers. But before those questions were asked by great Psalmists! Psalm 8:4, “God… Who and what is a human being that you think about, remember, are mindful of him?” The secularist says, “Why there is no God, and you’re nothing more than an accidental cosmic mist. From stardust you came, to stardust you’ll return. You’re just matter that matters not.”
But what if we’re more than mere matter? And matter more than mere matter? What if indeed we’ve been created in the Image of the Invisible God? Who does that God say I am? Who does that God want me to become? What plans and dreams might God have for me? The Great Philosophers turned to their imagination to answer the biggest questions of life, like, what is a human being? But we don’t have to turn to our imagination, we can turn right to God’s Word! For in the Word of God we get true knowledge about God but also about ourselves!
Psalm 8:3-9, “When I observe your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you set in place, 4 what is a human being that you remember him, a son of man that you look after him? 5 You made him little less than God and crowned him with glory and honor. 6 You made him ruler over the works of your hands; you put everything under his feet: 7 all the sheep and oxen, as well as the animals in the wild, 8 the birds of the sky, and the fish of the sea that pass through the currents of the seas. 9 Lord, our Lord, how magnificent is your name throughout the earth!” That’s quite a different answer than ones typically given!
Hebrews 4:12-13, “For the word of God is living and effective and sharper than any double-edged sword, penetrating as far as the separation of soul and spirit, joints and marrow. It is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. No creature is hidden from him, but all things are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give an account.”
2 Timothy 3:13-17, “Evil people and impostors will become worse, deceiving and being deceived. 14 But as for you, continue in what you have learned and firmly believed. You know those who taught you, 15 and you know that from infancy you have known the sacred Scriptures, which are able to give you wisdom for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16 All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness, 17 so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”
I really doubt you are sitting here because you’ve found the words of evil people to be so refreshing, and so restorative! You’re here because you’ve found the words of evil—their thinking about God, about human nature—to be utterly corrupt and quite frankly destructive. Maybe you’ve known the Holy Scriptures from infancy and just need a reset. Maybe you’ve never known the Holy Scriptures and need to have your knowledge of God and Self completely overhauled. Either way, repentance looks like abiding in a whole new set of words.
John 15:5-8, “I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in me and I in him produces much fruit, because you can do nothing without me. 6 If anyone does not remain in me, he is thrown aside like a branch and he withers. They gather them, throw them into the fire, and they are burned. 7 If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you want and it will be done for you. 8 My Father is glorified by this: that you produce much fruit and prove to be my disciples.” Do you feel like you’ve been dying out there? Do you feel like your life slowly withering away? Time for some new words. If you return, and abide in the true Word, the words of Christ… the word who is Christ… seasons of refreshing come… seasons of flourishing.