Luke 3

Discussion Questions

1. What is the significance of the genealogy in Luke 3 and Matthew 1? How does the fact that we can trace the lineage of Jesus back to Adam (through David) infuse our faith with certainty, and what might that record have meant to Luke’s original audience, the early church?
2. What can we learn from John’s ministry? He was a prophet of God living in a unique time. Our lives will look different than his, but how can we also “prepare the way” for Jesus to shine his “light to those living in darkness” or even make room in our hearts for our own turning and returning to God?
3. John’s circumstances were not “blessed” by modern standards, but in a more profound sense, he was blessed. Does that give you hope to trust in God’s sovereignty no matter your situation or even to see your circumstances differently?
4. What can we learn from Jesus’s actions in Luke 3? Why did the King of Kings submit to John’s baptism?
5. John preached that we should “repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” What does a repentant lifestyle look like for you and me? Have we, in some ways, become satisfied with serving the little “g” god of behavior modification and performance-based lifestyles that so often lead to self-hate when we fail?
6. Review the Tim Keller quote. How do we avoid fear-based repentance and lean into joy-based repentance? How can we embrace a joyful attitude of repentance in the true God who is way more eager to forgive us than we are to forgive ourselves? Do you live a life of daily repentance to God? What hinders you from coming to God more often?
7. Jesus’ first word in the Gospel of Luke is “repent” (turn from sin and toward God) – how does this compare with the modern mantras of “be yourself,” “you’re already perfect,” and Christian-synthesized versions like “God loves you just as you are,” etc.?
8. What’s the difference between a repentant act and a repentant life?
9. Why does repentance bring “times of refreshing,” as Peter says in Acts 3?

Transcript

We study through books of the Bible here at The Village Chapel. That’s no surprise, is it? Shocker. Today’s no different. Raise your hand if you’d like a paper copy to follow along with, and a cheerful saint will hand deliver one to you. And if you prefer to use your device, up here on our screen you’ll see our Wi-Fi login info, password, and our ever-present QR code. That’s got all of our sermon, the notes and quotes, and song lyrics, all the bits if you want to download them. We’d like to welcome those of you who are joining us online this morning. Thanks for being with us, friends. We’re grateful you’re here. And this past week we have been joined by folks from Quezon City, Metro Manila in the Philippines, from Lima, Peru, from the cities of Bengaluru and Karnataka, India, from Sydney, Australia. Yay. Yeah, from Tampa, Florida. Shout out to Bern’s Steak House in Tampa. Anybody know what I’m talking about? Yes. If you know, you know. Thank you. I see those hands. It’s worth a trip to Tampa. That’s all I’m saying. And Oxford, Mississippi.

So welcome, friends. Yeah, we’re glad you’re with us. Well, we’re continuing through our study of Luke this morning. Luke, the good doctor, said in the opening paragraph of his letter to Theophilus, “It seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past.” Clearly this is a man who has been paying careful attention to all of the events surrounding the life, death and crucifixion of Jesus. And he continues on to Theophilus, he says, “It seemed good to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught.” And I love that. Luke’s careful, detailed, orderly account is beneficial for us too. And in our chapter today, Chapter 3, that same orderly account, that same careful attention to detail is going to give us certainty in the things that we know and have been taught.

So, some 18 years have gone by since the end of Chapter 2 that Pastor Jim taught through last week. Jesus and His cousin, John, are now both grown men. John is living out in the wilderness, and we’ll hear today how the word of the Lord comes to him and calls him to preach this new baptism of repentance of sins. And while he’s out doing that, he’s going to meet Jesus along the way, and Jesus is getting ready to start His public ministry as well. John places a heavy emphasis on repentance in this passage, and so I’m calling our study today, “Turning and Returning to God.” Turning and returning to God is something that I pray all of us do, every day.

This week, I ran across this quote in the Africa Bible Commentary, and frankly, I could just say this sentence over and over again for 20 minutes and we could call it a day. It’s so great. “To get right with God, you have to admit you’re not right with God.” Can I get an Amen? “To get right with God, you have to admit you’re not right with God.” But ironically, the way we find ourselves in a right relationship with God is to be able to admit, to come humbly and repent and say, “I’m not in a right relationship with You.” And Jesus immediately runs to us, and forgives us, and puts us in that right relationship with Him. But I’m getting ahead of myself a little bit.

So, let’s pray, church, and then let’s read through this amazing passage. And part of this prayer is from Evelyn Underhill’s Prayer Book. “Grant us grace, O Lord, to know that which we need to know, to love that which should be loved, to seek those things that are precious in Your sight, and to turn from those things which are vile before you.” In our short time together, Lord, open our eyes to see You and our ears to hear from You. We ask this in your Son’s name, Amen.

Let’s get started. Luke 3, “In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Iturea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene,” not West Texas, “during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John, the son of Zechariah, in the wilderness. And he went into all the region around the Jordan proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” So much there already.

So, Luke is such a good researcher and he’s so intent on giving us historical accuracy, so that we might have certainty about these things that we have been taught. And so, he gives us this great detail. He mentions seven political and religious figures, and here’s a look at them. I’m not going to talk much about them, but just see this great detail he gives, a variety of social contexts from the emperor of Rome to the governor, Pontius Pilate, and then local Herods, all the Herods, and then Annas and Caiaphas. And why this is important is it locates the start of Jesus and John’s ministries in space-time history. And why is that important? Well, so we know that this is not a made-up story.

These are actual people, actual events, where we can pinpoint them down very close to when these events happened or where they happened. And as Paul said in 1 Corinthians, “If Christ has not been raised, our faith is futile and we’re still in our sins.” And thankfully, we know that that is not true, that Jesus has been raised from the dead and our sins are forgiven through Him. And we have certainty, aided by what Luke has given us here. Well, so in verse two, where he says, “The word of God came to John, the Son of Zechariah, in the wilderness.” So, in the midst of giving this great detail to us, Luke subtly puts in these powerhouse statements. The phrase, “The word of the Lord came to John in the wilderness,” that is straight out of Old Testament prophet literature. John is considered a prophet by that statement, that the word of the Lord came to him. Now, he’s not an Old Testament prophet, he is a New Testament prophet because he’s going to preach the good news of the Gospel of the coming King.

It’s been over 400 years since Israel has heard from God and now, He’s chosen to speak, right at this time when Jesus is getting ready to start His public ministry. And in verse three, where it talks about John preaching, “proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins,” that is something never heard before. In the Old Testament, the idea of baptism per se, that wasn’t a word that was used. There was ritual purification and cleansing that we read about in Leviticus, both for priests and regular folks. For instance, if you touched a dead body and became unclean, you would go wash yourself in order to become clean. Well, after the exile, post-exile, what’s called the intertestamental period, something came about called proselytizing. There’s that word, proselytizing baptism, which meant Gentiles who wanted to become Jews and become part of the faith, well, if they were males they had to go through circumcision. But for any Gentile who wanted to become part of the Jewish faith, they had to get baptized because Gentiles were considered unclean and this was a way to cleanse them, at least on the outside.

But here John is going to be preaching something entirely different, baptizing for the repentance of sin, something that’s going on on the inside. This is brand new. Let’s keep reading. So, verse four: “As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet, ‘The voice of one crying in the wilderness,’” Isaiah was talking about John, “’Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.’” That’s what John is doing. He is preaching this baptism for the repentance of sins in order to prepare people’s hearts for the coming of the Lord. “’Every valley shall be filled in, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall become straight, and the rough places shall become level ways, and all flesh shall see the salvation of God,’” being Jesus Christ. And boy, I love, “The rough places shall become level ways.” I don’t know about you, but that really strikes me. I’m just praying that that’s what God would do in my life, that He would make all of the rough places become level ways.

Okay, well verse seven, he said, this is John talking to the crowds, specifically to Pharisees and Sadducees: “He said therefore to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, ‘You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruits in keeping with repentance, and do not begin to say to yourselves, “We have Abraham as our father.” For I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. Even now the ax is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.'” Well, John is criticizing the Pharisees and Sadducees who have come to observe. If they’re getting baptized, it’s just for insincere reasons, and he’s very critical of what they’re doing. And they were thinking, the line of thought then was because their ancestors were of Abraham, that alone made them right in their relationship to God. And John is saying, “Nope, not anymore. It’s the condition of our heart that puts us in a right relationship with God.”

So, verses 10 through 14, in response to what John says, “The crowds ask him, ‘What then shall we do?’ And he answered them, ‘Whoever has two tunics is to share with him who has none, and whoever has food is to do likewise.’ Tax collectors also came to be baptized,” tax collectors who were hated by the Jews, “And said to him, ‘Teacher, what shall we do?’ And he said to them, ‘Collect no more than you are authorized to do.’ Soldiers also asked him, ‘And we, what shall we do?’ And he said to them, ‘Do not extort money from anyone by threats or by false accusation and be content with your wages.'” Well, in verse eight, remember John said, “Bear fruit in keeping with repentance.” And here he’s talking about what that looks like. These aren’t actions that are going to save anybody, but what he is saying is, if you’re living a repentant life, if you have changed your vertical relationship with God, that should work itself out in your horizontal relationships with other people.

You should care about others and their physical needs. And then in response to the tax collectors and the soldiers, I find it very interesting. John does not say, “Leave your post, quit your job, do something else. That’s a horrible profession.” No, he’s saying, “Keep doing your work but do it in a way that honors God and cares for your brother and sister.” I think that’s fascinating. Well, moving on, in verse 15, “As the people were in expectation and all were questioning in their hearts, concerning John, whether he might be the Christ because they are looking for the Messiah. John answered them all saying, ‘I baptize you with water, but he who is mightier than I is coming, the strap of whose sandals I’m not even worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.'”

In those days, the winnowing fork was this big, broad fork and a farmer would take a fork full of wheat that had been harvested, and he would throw it up in the air. Heavier wheat seeds would drop down to the floor and then the chaff, which was just the light, the husk, the outside, would just get blown away in the wind or burned up in a fire. And that’s what John is saying that Jesus is going to do. He’s going to winnow us out. He’s going to call us to repentance and leave the sin behind. And John displays great humility here, but I’m going to talk about that in a little bit. So, let’s move on, verse 18: “So with many other exhortations, he preached good news to the people.” John’s pretty fiery and yet we read, he’s a prophet that is preaching good news. This is a New Testament prophet here that we’re experiencing.

Verse 19: “But Herod the tetrarch, who had been reproved by him for Herodias, his brother’s wife, and for all the evil things that Herod had done, added this to them all, that he locked up John in prison.” I’m going to talk about that a little bit more in a minute as well. Moving on to verse 21. Here’s another one of those subtle little powerhouse statements that Luke puts in here, “Now when all the people were baptized and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying…” This is no small thing, again, I’m going to talk about this in a minute, but Jesus showing up for this baptism with John, this is no small thing. After He “had been baptized and was praying, the heavens were opened and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove; and a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.'”

We have such a beautiful picture of the Trinity there, and I think it’s worth taking note that before Jesus has really started His public ministry, although we could argue that, stunningly, this is the first act of His ministry is baptism, being identifying with sinners. But what does God say to Jesus before He’s even gone out and started His ministry? This is “my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.” And in a reflection of the Gospel for us, Jesus did not need to do anything else to be loved by His Father. He is a beloved Son, and that’s the Gospel that comes to us, that all we have to do is come to Jesus.

Well, so coming into this last little bit, the genealogy of Jesus, there’s a theme of sonship in here. The Pharisees and Sadducees were claiming sonship of Abraham. We’ve just seen how God declares that Jesus is His beloved Son, and then now we’re going to go through this extensive genealogy which is going to go from Jesus all the way back to Adam, emphasizing that He’s a Son of God. And I think one of the reasons why Luke includes this, Luke being a Gentile is aware of the fact that Jesus is the savior of the world, not only for the Jews but for all mankind. You could take the first word of verse 23 and the last two or three words of 38 and just say, “Jesus the Son of God.” Now I’m going to step out on a limb here, and go ahead and read through this genealogy, and there’s just a couple of things to take note of here. And by the way, Luke didn’t have the internet. Luke did not have Ancestry.com. It’s amazing, isn’t it, that he was able to research this long line of genealogy?

Well, here we go. “Jesus, when he began his ministry,” there’s another little nugget there. Jesus is starting His ministry. It’s go time. “… was about 30 years of age, being the son (as was supposed) of Joseph, the son of Heli, the son of Matthat, the son of Levi, the son of Melki, the son of Jannai, the son of Joseph, the son of Mattathias, the son of Amos, the son of Nahum, the son of Esli, the son of Naggai.” All of these names were all known by God. That’s one of the reasons why these names are important. God knows each and every one of us. We are not unknown.

Verse 26, “The son of Maath, the son of Mattathias, the son of Semein, the son of Josek, the son of Joda,” not Yoda, “The son of Joanan, the son of Rhesa, the son of Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, the son of Neri, the son of Melki, the son of Addi, the son of Cosam, the son of Elmadam, the son of Er, the son of Joshua, the son of Eliezer, the son of Jorim, the son of Matthat, the son of Levi, the son of Simeon, the son of Judah, the son of Joseph, the son of Jonam, the son of Eliakim, the son of Melea, the son of Menna, the son of Mattatha, the son of Nathan,” not Nathan, the prophet, but the son of Nathan who is, “The son of David,” King David.

This is a thousand years back in history already, “The son of Jesse, the son of Obed, the son of Boaz,” who we read about in the book of Ruth, “The son of Sala, the son of Nahshon, the son of Amminadab, the son of Admin,” he’s so organized, “The son of Arni, the son of Hezron, the son of Perez, the son of Judah, the son of Jacob, the son of Isaac, the son of Abraham,” back to Father Abraham, “The son of Terah, the son of Nehor, the son of Serug, the son of Reu, the son of Peleg, the son of Eber, the son of Shelah, the son of Cainan, the son of Arphaxad, the son of Shem, the son of Noah,” we’re back in Genesis 6, “The son of Lamech, the son of Methuselah, the son of Enoch, the son of Jared, the son of Mahalalel, the son of Kenan, the son of Enosh, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God.” Whoo. Whoo.

Yeah, well, I appreciate that. I spent no small amount of time on that this week. If it had been memorized, now that would be worthy of applause. But, oh my gosh, Luke, what an amazing amount of research and how beautiful to point to the fact that Jesus is the Son of God and that He’s the Son of God for all humanity. Amen. Amen.

Well, okay, so what can we learn from this passage? There’s just so much here. I just love this passage. How does it fit in our own lives? I think first, this passage points to John and his mission. In our sermon prep meeting this week, we were all marveling at John, his humility and his focus to be so faithful to what God had called him to: the tasks, the ministry. And here’s what his dad, Zechariah, filled with the Holy Spirit, prophesied over John when he was born,

“And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High, for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways.” And indeed, he does just that. “To give knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of their sins, because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.”
Luke 1:76-79

Man, what a beautiful prayer his dad prayed. John’s single mission was to go and prepare the way for the Lord, to point, to funnel everyone to Jesus.

This is an obscure reference, but any Fantastic Four fans in the house? Anybody? Don’t be afraid. Oh, got one. John is a herald. He’s the Silver Surfer from Fantastic Four. Now you guys got to go look that up. Yeah, but the significance of John’s life was how faithfully he did this one thing: pointing others to Jesus. And in verses 15 and 16 of our passage, when the crowd who just is desperately wanting that Messiah, they start asking if John might be the guy, this is a chance for John to skyrocket his ministry, right? “Look at all the followers I’ve got now…” But no, he doesn’t blink an eye. He says, “I’m not the dude and not only that, the real Messiah is coming, and not only that, I’m not even worthy to untie His laces on His sandals,” which would be a job that the lowest of slaves would do, taking off someone’s sandals and washing their feet. And yet this same man is the man that Jesus proclaims a few chapters later, “There has been no one greater born of a woman than John the Baptist.”

His humility and his faithfulness, they’re so inspiring, but yet there’s a reality check for us. We might say, “Man, John, bit of a weird dude, dresses funny, nutty diet, got all the locust legs and honey caught in his beard, nutty dude, and he’s harsh. However, boy, he’s blessed. He’s living a faithful life. #blessed, #livinghisbestlife.” But that’s not the way the story turns out because we read about how Herod Antipas puts John in prison, because John had called him out because Herod had stolen his brother, Philip’s, wife, Herodias. And John would not let Herod off the hook about that. So, he imprisons John, he eventually beheads John in prison at his wife’s request.

His life did not have a happy ending, did it? But we can’t say that he wasn’t blessed. And so that is a sobering reminder for all of us that we can’t respond to our circumstances and just say, “Whew, things are going horribly. I must have screwed up. God hates me.” Or conversely, “Man, things are going good. God is so happy with me this moment.” Our call in our life, God’s faithfulness to us, it’s not dependent on our circumstances. Amen? Amen.

Well, secondly, this passage also, it points to Jesus and His purpose, and I am struck by the humility of both John and Jesus. We just talked about John’s humility a minute ago, but then here’s Jesus coming to get baptized with a bunch of people getting baptized for the repentance of sins. And in Matthew’s account, as Jesus comes through the line, He sees John and John’s eyes get real wide and he goes, “Jesus, why are you here? You should be baptizing me. I shouldn’t be baptizing you.” And Jesus says, “Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.”

This is huge, that Jesus starts His ministry by, as Isaiah said, “Numbering Himself as one of the transgressors.” Jesus gets baptized with the sinners, not because He’s a sinner, but because He’s identifying with us in our sin so that we can identify with Him in His righteousness. 2 Corinthians 5:21 tells us, “For our sake, He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.” And that is worth an Amen.

And that is why Jesus humbly went to this baptism. Michael Wilcock put it this way in The Bible Speaks Today commentary,

“He (Jesus) might truly have claimed that ‘a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins’ was for Him unnecessary and inappropriate; but His readiness to undergo it just the same, if that is His Father’s will, is the mark of a man unique among men in His total obedience to God.”
Michael Wilcock, The Bible Speaks Today

Jesus was baptized by John, the baptism for the repentance of sin, so that He could be unified with us believers. And now after His resurrection, through baptism, we are able to be unified with Him in His righteousness. Paul explains this in Romans, Chapter 6. He says,

“Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? We were buried therefore with Him in death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.”
Romans 6:3-4

And that’s why we practice what we call believers’ baptism here at The Village Chapel. It is an outward sign of something that has already been going on in our hearts, and we go under the water to signify being buried with Christ, and then we are raised up out of the water to signify being raised with Christ to walk in newness of life.

Well, lastly, this passage asks the question, what does a repentant life look like? The word for repentance in the Greek is “metanoia”. It means putting on a new mind, a change of mind, a change of thought, a change of direction. So, what does that look like in Nashville in 2024? What does that look like for me and for you? I think it’s worth noting that Jesus’ first words in His public ministry, in Matthew 4:17 were this,

“From that time Jesus began to preach saying, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.'”
Matthew 4:17

It wasn’t, “Y’all are so great, I just love you,” which He does. Culture is quick to hop on board the idea of Jesus loves me just like I am. God gets us, which is true, He does. He meets us right where we are, but what does He tell us? He tells us to repent, to take up our cross and to follow Him.

Repentance is not just saying, “We’re sorry,” through gritted teeth because we got caught. Husbands, I’ve got a little question for you because I know I have done this, to my embarrassment, more than once. Let’s just put it that way. When I hurt Kristen’s feelings, do I, with a repentant heart say, “Man, I am sorry I hurt your feelings.” Sometimes I do, but there’s plenty of other times where instead I say, “Well, I’m sorry if your feelings got hurt.” That’s not being sorry at all, is it? It is not. That’s not repentance. Repentance comes from a Holy Spirit revelation to us of who God is and who we are, of God’s goodness and of our utter lack. It’s not just an understanding of individual sins, although it is that, but it’s also this grasp of the concept of the condition of the sin, the fact that there is this vast, Grand Canyon between us and God.

And then the saving knowledge, the conviction that Jesus is the bridge, who lays Himself down across that gap, in order that we may travel over and be in right relationship with God. And even our awareness of the need to repent – that in itself is a gift of the Holy Spirit. So, if you’re being nudged today about some things that you might do business with God about, I encourage you to look at that as not guilt inducing, but that is a gift. That’s the Holy Spirit saying, “Come home, come to Jesus.” Repentance is not just turning away from sin. It’s what John Stott calls a two-fold turn, because it’s a turning from sin, but it’s turning towards Jesus. That’s what makes repentance great. We’re not just leaving, trying to get rid of the dirt in our lives. We’re turning towards something beautiful. And if we look at repentance, just as solely turning away from sin, getting the dirt off, then really all we’re doing is working on behavior modification.

All we’re doing is trying to act better, whatever that means for me and whatever that means for you. And frankly, our good behavior can become a “little-g” god, can’t it? You know that that “little-g” god is only going to approve of us as long as we meet the standard, as long as we perform, as long as we do good things, and then when we fail and fail… we will, because none of us can do good all the time. God knows this about us. Well, then we’re going to be filled with self-loathing, self-anger, and we’ll live in fear of rejection by God, by others, by ourselves, and our emphasis is on our performance instead of our focus on Jesus who loves us despite our performance.

Tim Keller talks about this very thing. He says,

“Fear-based repentance makes us hate ourselves. Joy-based repentance makes us hate the sin.”
Timothy Keller

And I’ve got to say, I can fall into this trap, and I would ask, do you? When you sin, when we sin, when we fall, when we fail – are we hating the sin or are we hating ourselves? Are we preaching the actual Gospel to ourselves or are we shaming and hating ourselves? And it’s actually a backward, inverted kind of pride when we’re so focused on our self-loathing, because we’re still focused on ourselves and not focused on Jesus. And here is the gospel truth, Jesus is more eager to forgive us of our sins than we are to forgive ourselves. If you’re a thousand steps from God, you turn around, you take one step towards God and bam, He’s already come that other 999 steps, and He’s just standing right there, just waiting to forgive you and to welcome you home.

Spurgeon says this about how quickly God runs to meet us. He says,

“No eye is quicker to see the mercy of God than the eye washed with the tears of repentance.”
Charles Spurgeon

And that is the truth. God comes quickly to meet us. And this is the picture of the Father that Jesus talks about in the parable of the prodigal son, in Luke 15. Here the boy is that has demanded this money from the father saying, “You’re as good as dead to me.” And he goes off, squanders it. He finally comes to his senses. He comes home, tail between his legs and he has this speech all prepared about, “I’ve sinned against you, Father, and against Heaven. I’m no longer worthy to be called your son. Can I just be a servant?” But the father meets him, when he’s still a long way off, and he runs to him, and he picks that kid up and gives him a big bear hug, and he says, “Oh, I’m so glad you’re home. I thought you were dead. You were out there living on the edge. You were lost, but you’re home. Welcome, welcome home.”

That’s what God does for us. The father didn’t wait with his arms crossed, waiting for the kid to grovel and say, “Serves you right, about time you came to your senses.” No, he was just eagerly looking for him, waiting for him to come home. Well, here’s another aspect of what a repentant life looks like. It’s a repentant life. It’s not a repentant act. It’s not a one-time thing. It’s a way of life. It’s a way of being that becomes a way of life, and in other words, I’ve got to say, your direction becomes your story in your life. Your direction becomes your story. Which way are you walking? Are you walking towards Jesus or are you walking away from Him? There’s a saying that how you live your days is how you live your life, and it’s the same thing with a repentant life.

J.I. Packer says it like this,

“Show me, then, a professed Christian who does not see and insist on the need for ongoing repentance, and I will show you a stunted soul.”
J. I. Packer, Rediscovering Holiness

Friends, repentance is a daily thing. When Jesus invites us to follow Him, we have to keep turning towards Him on a daily basis. And it’s a struggle, but what He’s calling us to do is just follow Him. Just turn towards Him on a daily basis, and repentance is not only for when we blow it big time; it’s for all of the moments. The Christian life is a life of repentance, and Peter encourages us in this way of being. In Acts 3, he says,

“Repent therefore, and turn back that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord.”
Acts 3:19-20

Man, I love those verses, such encouragement for us. This is the way to experience the refreshment of the presence of the Lord in your life. Just turn back towards Him. And I want to be refreshed over and over again. I need it.

I suspect that you do too, and I don’t know where everyone is, where each of us are this morning. Maybe you are consistently in this season, turning to Jesus on a daily basis, and man, praise God for that. Or maybe you took two steps towards Jesus yesterday and you’ve already taken three steps back today. And I would just like to encourage you, turn back to Him again, and He’s just waiting, just right there, to fold His arms around you and to welcome you home. I’m not going to do this, but if I was to ask you to raise your hands and say, could you remember a time when you just came to your senses and said, “What am I doing? I’ve got to go home.” And if that’s where you are today, man, I pray that you would take that one step towards Jesus. If you’re a thousand steps away from God, He just wants you to step that one step, and then He’s going to meet you right there.

So, I’ll close with this last quote from Adrian Rogers, which beautifully points us to King Jesus. Adrian says,

“He came the first time to die; He’s coming again to raise the dead. When He came the first time, they questioned whether He was King; the next time the world will know that He is King of kings and Lord of lords. The first time He wore a crown of thorns; the next time He will be wearing a crown of glory. The first time He came in poverty; the next time He is coming in power. The first time He had an escort of angels; the next time He will come with ten thousands of His saints…”

and that might be Augustine, that might be Martin Luther, that might be your grandmother who’s been praying for you all these years.

“…The first time He came in meekness; He is coming again in majesty.”
Adrian Rogers

Wow. How great for us to know who our King is, how He identifies with us so we can identify with Him. Amen. Amen.

So as the worship team comes forward, before I pray, I just would like to say, we do have a prayer team in the back, and they would love to pray with you. And man, if you feel the Holy Spirit doing this to you, say, “Yes.” Come talk to me or one of the other pastors afterwards, we’d love to pray with you or meet with the prayer team in the back. So, let’s pray:  Jesus, You did not have to come for us, but You did. You certainly did not have to identify with us, but You did. You don’t have to forgive us, but You do. You are just waiting for us to turn to You on a daily basis. I pray, Lord, that You would convict us this day of Your goodness, which leads us to repentance. Convict us of Your goodness, and of our need for You, and our need to return You. I lift this in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Songs, Readings & Prayer

Songs:

“O For A Thousand Tongues To Sing“ by Charles Wesley
“His Mercy Is More“ by Matt Boswell and Matt Papa
“Victory Song of the Lamb“ by Keith Getty, Kristyn Getty 
“My Worth is Not In What I Own“ Music by Keith Getty, Kristyn Getty and Graham Kendrick
“Doxology” by Thomas Ken and Louis Bourgeois

All songs are used by Permission. CCLI License #200369

Call To Worship: Let Us Go to the House of the Lord

The beginning lines of this Call to Worship are taken from Psalm 122, one of the Psalms of Ascent, which Israelites would sing and recite as they traveled up to Jerusalem to worship the Lord.

Leader: I was glad when they said to me, Let us go to the house of the Lord!
People: Praise the Lord! For it is good to sing praises to our God!

Leader: Great is our Lord, and abundant in power; His understanding is beyond measure.
People: Blessed is he whose hope is in the Lord, Who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them.

Leader: The Lord will reign forever, your God, O Zion, to all generations.
All: Let everything that has breath praise the Lord! Praise the Lord!

Classic Prayer: Leonine Sacramentary, 7th C. AD

Almighty and everlasting God, who art always more ready to hear than we to pray, and art wont to give more than either we desire or deserve, pour down upon us the abundance of Thy mercy, Forgiving us those things whereof our conscience is afraid, and giving us those good things which we are not worthy to ask, but through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord.

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