Can We Really Overcome Sin? The Power of Repentance and Revival | Jason Ishmael

0:09 Josh Howard here with discipleship.org, and I'm here with my best friend Jason Ishmael, who you may know him as the megachurch pastor from our Disciple Makers podcast. Brother, I'm just a humble local pastor. I'm not a level 5 movement leader. I'm not a, I'm not a global phenomenon. I'm not— I don't have hundreds of thousands of disciples in my wake. Just a humble local pastor. Just a humble local pastor of a mega church.

0:40 Yes, exactly. So I love you. Okay, we're getting a lot of miles out of that still. I— listen, that will never stop. I just want you to know that. I know. So Jason and I are here at the Spire Conference in Indianapolis, Indiana, and so we're just going to have a quick convo that we hope blesses you. On, uh, some stuff that y'all put on your heart lately. And so I'd love to hear it, man, and then we can kind of just go back and forth and, and chat it out a bit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you got to give a hook. I got to give a hook. Yeah, a mega hook. Yeah, mega hook.

1:08 Uh, so let's get straight to it. I, I think that there— I had an experience a couple of weeks ago, okay, where someone had approached me in the context of conviction, uh, and a desire to solve a problem that had been habitual and longstanding, had been tearing the family apart. The consequences of this were massive, and they're still massive. Yeah. Most of the time though, when I hear about— we've been here, we've talked about statistics around sin, like classics. You just start talking about pornography and sexual addiction across our culture, drug addiction, alcohol addiction. The statistics are very easy to to despair over. Yeah.

1:50 And to fill— even, even people that are super passionate about the gospel, people that are really passionate about discipleship, would say, man, I just don't— I don't know. Yeah. If, if we can overcome this. Yeah. And it feels like we're losing the battle all the time. Yep. And you see this throughout the scriptures. I mean, for crying out loud, you go to the Old Testament, it is cover to cover of God moves, God's people respond, They eventually fail.

2:16 They finally come back to repentance, rinse and repeat over and over again. And what I had not done, so this is, you know this about me, like in terms of personality, like eternal optimist, I'm always able to find the silver lining. You're the same type of thinking. And a preacher, obviously, because we've got 10 minutes and we're not even at the story end. It's over. It's done. Okay. It's done. We're going to wrap it up right here. So that's all the time we have. Thanks for joining us, guys.

2:40 You can catch us next time for the exciting conclusion. It's going to be amazing. It's going to be great. It's a 3-parter. So as the Lord of the Rings saga continues in my story. Okay, great. I had never, for whatever reason, embraced optimism around the kingdom's battle against sin, against death. I'd see it maybe when it's all said and done.

3:07 Yeah, right. When we die or when everything's over on the planet, then there's victory. Uh, and the problem is I think the average American has gotten just too used to seeing perpetual losing in this. Yeah. And not seeing progress. And all of a sudden, for whatever reason, it just hits me, like, why wouldn't this be a pretext? Yeah.

3:29 For the movement of God? Yeah. Where you see the, the how prolific sin is in our culture, the brashness of sin in our culture. I mean, you want to see a desperate enemy? It is when darkness attacks in full blatant daylight. That's a desperate enemy. Yeah. And in the context of this, what if, what if that actually is the onus behind, I mean, for instance, like the 90-some percentile or percentage pornography statistics. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like pretty much everybody that we know has had a battle or is in a battle.

4:00 Yep. Seems like a great opportunity to see a movement of God, for crying out loud. Hey, come on now. Preach it. But what happens when you actually start to lean into this, not to solve the problem, but actually give people the basis and the foundation for Christ following to actually see freedom and deliverance? Yeah, well, here's the question. I mean, really on the disciple-making journey, which includes both leading people to Jesus, baptizing them, and then teaching them to obey, that whole journey is the whole disciple-making journey, both evangelism and disciple-making.

4:32 We have to step up to that table with the understanding and even the excitement and expectation that Jesus still radically transforms lives. Because if he doesn't, then what we're doing is a waste of time. Like if Jesus isn't actually capable of raising dead men and women back from the dead into newness of life, the old being gone, the new coming. And if we don't have that optimism in the disciple-making journey, then dude, we like, we're missing it, right? If the only victory is when we die, then there— we're completely missing the opportunity that we have in front of us, right? And so I love what you're saying, because the reality is, if we're going to be churches and individuals that are serious about evangelism

5:15 and disciple-making and going hard after it, we need to come to it with the understanding that Jesus wins. Victory is, is available to us, and chains can be broken, demons can be cast away, battles can be won forever, not just for a week or but they can be completely won. And so often, you're right, dude, we come to it super pessimistically that, yeah, your, your sins can be forgiven, but this battle is going to be forever, basically. And it's like, actually, no, we, we can have victory in Jesus, and we can live a pure and holy life with him. Uh, yeah, we're gonna screw up at times, and we're gonna fall, and we're gonna fail, but the reality is, like, the disciple-making journey is being able to consistently

5:56 live that out with people. What a message of hope that actually the direction of a person's life actually can change. Yeah, it doesn't have to keep going this way. Yep. I, I'm so zealous for that message because now I look at, at people around me, I see that like the wreckage of sin, and it should break our hearts, but it should simultaneously fill us with the hope. God, this seems— you would move exactly in this circumstance.

6:22 Yeah, this is— look at all of the opportunity for genuine desperate faith to see deliverance from evil. We've been praying about this for 2,000 years. And the problem is that most of us are not totally sure it can actually happen. And I think that begs the question, Fred, you know, you've asked it so many questions so many times. Am I a disciple worth reproducing? That isn't just about being really good at doing the stuff. Yeah, absolutely. It is about knowing firsthand what it is like to be affected by him, what it is like to walk in step with the Spirit, the delight of the path of holiness and walking in the footsteps of the shepherd. But it is better. That's so good than walking away from him. Yeah. And so listen to this, guys. Like when you look

7:06 around and you're on social media, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, whatever, just makes me mad. And you're— yeah, exactly right. Like, and it shouldn't. I shouldn't be seeing— you're seeing darkness everywhere. The reality is, could that be a sign that revival is on its way? Could it be a sign that God is getting ready to move in power and there will be a great move of the Spirit of God where disciple-making and evangelism And really the transformative power of Jesus spreads across a culture. Like light is brightest in the most dark places, right? And so when we start living out that light and allowing Jesus to live that through us, there's real radical transformation on the other side, right? And so let's just step into that with

7:50 hope, with courage, with expectation that revival is on its way. The Spirit is moving. God is doing radical things. And he's going to continue to do it. And that's the— man, that's the good news of the kingdom. Dude, the truth, literally. Matthew 3, Matthew 4, Mark 1. What did Jesus teach? What did John teach?

8:08 Yeah. Repent and believe. Yeah. The kingdom of heaven has come near. Yep. I mean, it's— if we bring them that message, that's a message of hope. Yep. That's a message of life change. It is not just a message of cognitive ascent. It's actually something that shifts us. That transforms us. Yeah, dude, that's so good, man. Beautiful. Yeah, awesome. Well, guys, before you do this part, can you connect repentance to revival? Yeah, that's great. Awesome.

8:35 Sweet. Um, so let me— because I was getting ready to say something, so let's do this. Um, before we close up, Jason, would you just take a moment, dude? I think throughout revival history or awakening history, when you look at great awakenings and revivals and, and, uh, the spread of the gospel globally, there is a connection that when darkness begins to rise, repentance begins to come across a society, and then revival begins to be birthed out of a repentant confessional heart, right? Can you connect those 2 together, really repentance and revival and what that looks like? Yeah, I mean, we see the— we always talk about prayer, obviously, right? But it is prayer and repentance. Prayer doesn't

9:18 change God, it changes me. Yeah, and part of that change is the notion of repentance, is the reality of repentance, a shifted mind. My life actually gets to follow with a renewed mind, with the mind then of Christ instead of my own. I mean, I think about Bonhoeffer talking about cheap grace, you know, this is salvation without repentance. Like, hold on, that's actually not the gospel. Yeah, absolutely. And that's actually just another way of imprisoning people to tell them, yeah, you just think about something and maybe it makes a difference in your life. No, like Jesus has an expectation that we'll actually walk in repentance. Imagine what happens to a community of people. If you can imagine being in a neighborhood of people where the lifestyle

10:01 of repentance is the neighborhood norm, wouldn't you want to be neighbors with somebody who is prone to repentance instead of selfishness, instead of digging their heels into their poor choices and burying whatever person wants to come against them. Yeah, man, I want to be— I want to be that kind of neighbor, and I want to be neighbors with people like that. Well, and I mean, the reality is we all want relationships like that, period, right? Like, I want to be friends with somebody who, when they screw up, they can come and say, dude, I'm sorry, I messed up, man, and I need you to forgive me. Like, that's what real repentance looks like. Who wants to be married with some— to somebody that never admits

10:34 their mistakes ever, and they always feel like they're right and you're always the one wrong? Like, any relationship is healthy that way. And so of course, like, when, when repentance becomes the norm, that completely stomps on the head of the enemy, and it actually creates disciples where even when we fall, when we're quick to confess and quick to repent, it continues to keep the cycle of cleansing and forgiveness and purity and revival spreading as we repent. It's not that we, it's not that we, you know, live lives that are completely spotless and blameless in every way, and we never speak for yourself. Well, Megachurch pastors definitely live that way, but us, we know better than that. Us lowly disciples of Jesus, uh,

11:16 I need his blood on my life every day. Amen to that. Um, you— yeah, yeah. So yeah, anyway, daily surrender, daily surrender, daily confession. And that's really what the life of a disciple— that's one of the pieces of what a life of discipleship looks like. Amen. Awesome, dude. Thank you, bro, for hanging out. I'm so grateful. Yep. Jason's been way too busy with his massive church to come on our podcast recently. And so we're so grateful. We're finally back. We're back. We're finally back. And it's because he was here for the 1K One Day events that was happening here at Spire. I actually came. I had to come and rebuke you. That was really what it was. I'd been sent to call you to repentance. Good. And I will

11:54 here now. Off camera, of course. Yeah. All right. Love you guys. We'll see you