The good news of Christ
It matters not that men don’t see,
Nor ears be never pleased by praise;
I live, O God, for you alone,
To walk beneath your gracious gaze.
Make it so, O Lord! that I
Be a man against the world’s hard sway,
To passions of the flesh immune,
To do your will without delay —
Without delay to oft return
When feet would stray from the narrow path.
Let the heart be won by Jesus’ love,
The mind be warned by your righteous wrath.
In Bloom’s taxonomy remembering and understanding are lower levels of critical thinking, yet that’s where most of our sermons, classes … and sadly studies on how to obey the gospel are centered. It is at the level of applying the knowledge where a person sees how his own sin has eternally separated him from God and only the sacrifice of Jesus can restore the relationship. Then, when they are “cut to the heart,” they will ask, “What shall I do?”
I. Acts 2:36-47. The first gospel sermon that was delivered on the day of Pentecost used knowledge to convict the crowd that they were guilty of sin and putting an innocent man to death but that God had resurrected Jesus and made Him both Lord and Christ. The people were cut to the heart and wanted to apply this knowledge, which required further knowledge about how to obey the gospel. 3000 applied it.
II. Romans 6:3-5. In an era where many are convinced there’s no such thing as sin, what they’ve done is not that bad, or the preaching they’ve heard deemphasizes it, it’s hard to see the relevance of the gospel. But even a knowledge-level passage of 1 Corinthians 15:1-4 gives the application in the phrase, “for our sins.” After they’re cut to the heart, we can explain how obeying the gospel unites us to Christ’s death and resurrection.
III. Matthew 28:19-20. We each have a job to do. For we who are already living faithfully, ours is to use knowledge to convict the lost to action. Then, when we have made disciples and the cut-to-the-heart are asking what they must do, we baptize–when it’s God’s job to add them to His church–and then teach them to obey everything that He’s commanded. This is how is was for the gentile jailer in Acts 16.
When we push them to obedience before they’re cut to the heart, we risk making low-level disciples who struggle to see the relevance of church and live faithfully. Never having been cut to the heart and applied the gospel, they never utilize the higher levels of critical thinking in their Christian walk.
We want the community to obey the gospel and come into the church, but we don’t want the church to compromise truth and become the culture. U.S. church attendance has fallen from over 70% around WWII to less than 47% today. This means that the aging baby boomers (ages 60s through early 80s), who have lived through very challenging societal changes in their decades of life, are the ones filling our pews. How can the church today hope to grow?
I. Acts 11:19-21. Antioch saw changes in the church. Exclusively Jewish in its traditions and knowledge until God opened the door to the gentiles, Jesus’ church was suddenly overwhelmed with believers who had obeyed the gospel but came from a denominational (pagan) and unchurched backgrounds. Today’s faithful don’t fear opening our buildings to our communities without reason. During the turbulent ’60s, divisive ’80s, and combative 2000s, the culture deviated from truth while the church held fast but became unrecognizable to each generation. Sadly, a church that no longer looks like the community it is in soon dies.
II. Acts 15:6-20. Leaders in Jerusalem told the Antioch church to extend the same grace to those from the outside coming in as God had already given to those who had been in the church. It was God’s church, not theirs, and He was restoring His fallen tent. Giving grace means WORK for us as we convert the fallen away, the denominationalists, and the unchurched, who are all products of the current culture we live in. The easier ways of growth closed off to us, the church must return to the method that worked when it last looked like its communities.
III. John 15:16-18. While doing the difficult work of going into our communities and making disciples, we “should not trouble” those escaping the corruption of the world by keeping them from returning to it. We can extend grace and love as Jesus loves without compromising truth. If we do this, His church will be forever changed, yes, but it will thrive into the future.
David is described as a man after God’s heart (Acts 13:22), but that doesn’t mean that he was perfect. That’s good news for us! Because, as we strive to also chase after God’s heart, we can become disheartened when we sin. By exploring how David handled his return to God, we can better travel this narrow path (Matthew 7:13-14) ourselves.
I. 2 Samuel 12:1-15. The man after God’s heart admits he has sinned. David didn’t seem to see his sin with Bathsheba or her husband Uriah, and so God dispatched the the prophet Nathan with a parallel story. The king saw the wrong and pronounced judgment on the wrongdoer. That’s when Nathan was able to confront David with his sin. Rather than ignore, justify, or pass blame for his sin as Adam and Eve did (Genesis 3:12-13), the man after God’s heart admitted to his sin.
II. Psalm 51:1-17. The man after God’s heart repents of his sin. Though it may not be part of scripture, most scholars agree that the titles attached to the Psalms are very old. The title attached to Psalm 51 indicates that this is David’s attitude after he had sinned. It’s an attitude of repentance. In this psalm, David takes ownership of his sin and acknowledges that only God can cleanse him from it. More than that, he appeals for renewal of a right spirit within him, a restoration to the joy of his salvation, and to be upheld by God. Only then can he teach sinners how to return to God.
III. Ezekiel 18:21-23. Admitting and repenting define a man after God’s heart. Only if we live according to the Spirit and not the flesh can we avoid the eternal consequences of death and live (Romans 8:12-13)! This means that like David we must admit and repent of our sins as we all must one day give an account to God (Hebrews 4:11-13). There’s a process for repentance (2 Corinthians 7:10-11). His kindness is meant to lead us to it (Romans 2:4-5), and He desires it (2 Peter 3:9-10). Those after God’s heart will do it, and Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross will pay the consequence for their sins if they are in Christ (Romans 3:21-26).
Those who don’t admit, repent, and remain outside of Christ will have to pay the consequences of their sins on Judgment Day. Are you ready for that day to come?
Sat in a corner
Eating a Christmas pie;
He stuck in his thumb
And pulled out a plumb,
And said, “What a good boy am I.”
Why did Jack isolate himself to the corner? Was it to eat a pie he had stolen? Or so he didn’t need to share it with anyone? The lack of utensils would point to this. And, is just declaring himself ‘good’ mean that he is now indeed good despite his behavior?
That’s how sinners and others who stray from God’s Word would like to have it, especially in this politically correct culture in which each person develops his own standard of conduct and declares it ‘good.’ But, God has a standard recorded in the pages of Scripture that He tells us to follow.
I. Judges 17:1-13. Five wrongs don’t make a right. Micah steals from his mother, but to his credit returns the silver. His mother then has it made into an idol, which Micah puts into his home, makes a shine, other gods, and articles of worship for it, and installs his sons as priests to it. The writer interjects an explanation here that everyone at this time did what was right in his own eyes (Matthew 7:6-13). Then, Micah gets a Levite to be a priest to the idol and declares that God will now prosper him because he has made a sad attempt at restoring his actions to God’s Word.
II. 2 Chronicles 34:15-21. But, is ‘good enough’ good enough for God? We can fool ourselves, but God knows our true motives (Proverbs 16:1-3). James 1:5-8 tells us that He’ll help us with wisdom, and James 4:3-4 reminds us that we can’t compromise with the world. While the world tells us that truth is whatever we make it, God says that’s not so (Proverbs 30:20). Instead, we need to repent and return to God’s Word like Josiah or like the church at Ephesus was encouraged to do (Revelation 2:4-6).
III. 2 Corinthians 5:6-10. Cain was told that if he did what was right, he would be accepted (Genesis 4:6-7). The prodigal son needed to come to his senses and get up and return to his father (Luke 15:17-20) to be pleasing. So, we must repent and submit to God’s will (James 4:7-10) if we are to please God. We can’t just declare ourselves pleasing to God with the plumb from the stolen pie on our thumb and expect Him to say, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”
Perhaps we should rewrite the nursery tale:
Got up from the corner
He repented of sin
Was restored from within,
And said, “What a good boy am I.”
Like Superman, Samson had great strength, but he had his kryptonite–women! Many like to blame Delilah (and she was certainly evil), but Samson, like us, was lured and enticed by his own evil desire.
I. Judges 16:1-30. Though the text says “loved,” there’s no indication that Samson had anything but a very shallow relationship with Delilah, perhaps not much more than he had with his “heifer” who was burned (Judges 14) or the prostitute. But like that first wife, Delilah worked with the Philistines to undo Samson by using her feminine wiles four times to discover the secret of his strength. Now, Samson’s thickheadedness in not recognizing what she was doing each time he fought off men doesn’t excuse his giving in and telling this evil woman (she tormented him in his sleep!) and thus throwing away God’s gift.
II. James 1:1:13-15. We too cannot blame others or circumstances … or the devil (Sorry, Flip Wilson) for giving in to temptation. Like the foolish youth of Proverbs 7:6-23, we get lured and enticed by our own desire. We must fight against it. While in the flesh and made like us in every way, Jesus did in Gethsemane when he committed to following His Father’s will and not his own. David didn’t do so well (2 Samuel 11), but Joseph resisted Potiphar’s wife’s advances (Genesis 39). We must submit to God and resist the devil who is fanning the flame of our desire (James 4:7-10).
III. 2 Corinthians 7:10-11. In Casting Crowns “Slow Fade,” the husband and father doesn’t realize how he is giving himself away. Samson certainly didn’t get it. But Judges 16:18-20 tells us that when he gave in, his strength left him … because the Lord left him. The ending of Samson’s story shows that he went for vengeance rather than repentance. Let that not be our end as God is willing to forgive and restore if we turn our hearts and minds back to Him through godly sorrow and right actions.
Each person’s Delilah is constantly there, working at us until we are vexed to death. How we handle these temptations will determine if we hold onto our strength or die with the Philistines.
Most work hard for a paycheck, but if the company can no longer give us money for our work, we no longer show up. We have a certain amount of loyalty but largely are not intrinsically invested in our jobs. This is just the opposite of our walk with Christ–and good thing! We must obey God, but heaven is not given to us because of our obedience. We cannot work for our salvation; it is a gift. In some ways, this seeming disconnect makes it harder for Christians to persevere and be faithful unto death if we must rely on grace through Jesus’ work on the cross that has nothing to do with us.
This is why we are left with one of the three big gifts (1 Corinthians 13:8-13)–hope!
I. Hebrews 6:17-20. Hope is our motivator. God, who never lies, confirmed eternity for us with an oath, so we might flee our old life of sin and selfishness and take hold of the only thing that can save us–His unchangeable promise of heaven! It was this hope or the “joy set before him” that got Jesus through the cross to motivate us to throw off hindrances and sin and not grow weary in the Christian walk (Hebrews 12:1-3).
II. 1 Timothy 4:7-10. We labor and strive because of hope in the living God. When asked if he wanted to leave Him too, Peter replied that there was no one else to turn to (John 6:66-69). Before the Sanhedrin, he declared that salvation was found in no one else (Acts 4:8-12). But, the very nature of hope is that it is always just out of reach, and it is so hard to wait (Romans 8:23-25). Yes, it is!
III. Mark 14:66-72. There was a time when Peter had let go of hope. It was Thursday through his talk with the resurrected Christ while eating some fish (John 21:15-19). Having denied Jesus, the very thing he swore he would not do, Peter slunk back to huddle with those who had deserted their Master while Jesus was crucified and buried. On the resurrection Sunday, the omniscient God calls him out when He, through the angel, tells the women at the tomb to tell “his disciples and Peter” (Mark 16:7).
When we sin, we let go of the hope that we have taken hold of to return to that which we have fled from. We become like Peter, even pretending to fit in with His disciples today at church. We must repent and re-grasp this great gift of hope, letting it be our motivator to walk as Jesus did (1 John 2:6).
Most only know that Zacchaeus was a “wee little man” who climbed a tree to see Jesus as He passed by, but this account is about great grace given because of this chief tax collector’s realization of his great wickedness and his reaction of great repentance.
I. Luke 19:1-10. Though short in height, Zacchaeus had risen in earthly stature through ill-gotten gain. So, he naturally believed the way to see this great teacher that some perhaps were secretly murmuring was the Messiah was to climb a tree. When he saw the true riches that Jesus offered, he realized that the way up with God was to fall to His knees and he repented (Ezekiel 18:21-24).
II. Luke 19:11-26. The parable that Jesus tells next challenges us to examine our relationship with Him. How we act with God’s blessings and gifts He’s entrusted to us reveals our true motivation. We don’t want to be found as the wicked servant who hid what he was given lest it be taken away and given to those who are using their talents for God and His Kingdom.
III. Matthew 6:19-21. Where we store our treasure reveals where our heart truly is–whether in heaven or on earth. Storing treasure in heaven is hard work and requires spiritual training (Hebrews 12:7-11). It means giving to others how we want to receive from God (Luke 6:37-38) and a conscious understanding of what we are sowing to know what we will reap (Galatians 6:7-10).
Squirrels are often busy, well … squirreling away their treasure of acorns for the winter, but this is a selfish model of what we shouldn’t do. They won’t share what they’ve been given with other squirrels in other trees. This is how Zacchaeus was before he climbed down from the tree and hosted Jesus in his home. What great grace could be yours with your great repentance?
Nowhere in the text of Luke 16 is “The Rich and Lazarus” called a parable, but even if the characters are fictitious, Jesus doesn’t ever make fantasy out of doctrine.
I. Luke 16:19-31. We cannot change anything after death. The beggar Lazarus, who had a terrible earthly life, received comfort after death while the rich man, who never thought about anyone but himself in life, was in torment. And that was it. There was no changing their situation, no prayers or purgatory-like system to move a loved one from one side of the chasm to the other. Death is final.
II. 2 Corinthians 7:10-11. The time to repent is now. Allow godly sorrow to produce in you the fruit of true repentance while you still have breath. One who procrastinates in obeying the gospel and living a life of repentance and obedience may find that time runs out on him suddenly. We are not guaranteed even one more minute. The rich man certainly would have liked a second chance.
III. 2 Timothy 3:16-17. We have everything we need to repent. The rich man’s brothers had Moses and the Prophets, God’s Word at that time, the same Bible that the resurrected Jesus preached the gospel from on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:25-27). We have the completed Word of God that thoroughly equips the man of God for every good work.
Like the rich man’s brothers, the world today isn’t convinced of the narrow path to eternal life even though Jesus has risen from the dead. They continue searching for spiritual truth when all they need is widely available to them within the pages of Scripture. What will convince you to live repentance now while you still have breath?
We all know the frantic, panicked feeling we have when searching for something that’s lost, such as our keys, wallet, or phone. Hopefully, we’ve never known the sheer terror of losing a kid in a store, or if so, hopefully we know the sheer joy when that object or person is finally found. That’s God’s joy in finding us when we repent and turn back to Him.
Most of the time, however, we are like the German groom in a 2013 Daily News article who didn’t even realize that he’d lost his bride when she went to the restroom at a gas station until he had driven 125 miles. Sadly, many of us are lost in sin, just driving through life, but don’t know it.
I. Luke 15:1-24. We will never realize that we are lost in sin and want to repent until we realize our worth to God and His incredible love for us. For Jesus not to eat with sinners, as the charge was made, He couldn’t eat with any of us (Romans 3:23), but the truth was that He was eating with repentant sinners. In all three parables that follow, God’s love for us and, thus, the reaffirming of our value to Him are the focus–even in the indignity of the watching Father running to His returning son.
II. 2 Corinthians 7:8-11. A parent will demand his kid say he’s sorry to someone, but this just reinforces worldly sorrow in that child. Even if the kid means it but continues to do the wrong behavior, he may have reached godly sorrow but not repentance. Repentance produces actions that are consistent with a change of heart, mind, and attitude toward sin and selfishness. When the lost son’s money ran out, he tried to fix his own problem by hiring himself out but found his life empty, physically and spiritually, as the pigs were eating better than He was. Godly sorrow led him to consider that his father’s hired hands did better than he was doing at that moment. But, it wasn’t until he “got up” and “went” to his father that true repentance was produced.
III. Romans 2:4-7. Just as Simon the Sorcerer believed and was baptized but was not living out repentance (Acts 8:13-24), it is quite possible that those who have obeyed the gospel warm our pews with only a godly sorrow or worse–a worldly sorrow. We need to produce fruit in keeping with repentance daily. Eternity is at stake!
So, what stage are you in: sinning because the money has not run out yet? Hiring yourself out to futilely take care of the problem by your own resources? Or, is your stomach growling while you watch the pigs eat better than you do? If this brings godly sorrow to you, let it produce repentance. Get up and go to your heavenly Father. He’s watching and will run to you with open arms.