By Simon ManchesterSunday 24 Nov 2024Christian Growth with Simon ManchesterFaithReading Time: 1 minute
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Transcript:
Some of you know that I was in Armidale recently, and the bishop of Armidale, who’s an excellent man, told me an interesting story. He’d been invited by a young couple to go and visit them because I think they wanted to ask him questions about the Christian faith. In the course of the conversation, he went through the Christian faith with them. He explained that God had made them and that we, as a human race have turned our back on God.
He explained that God had sent his son Jesus Christ to pay for our sin and to bring us into the family and that we must turn back to Christ and we must put our trust in him. And when he’d finished explaining this to this young couple, the guy stood up and he said to his girlfriend, well, if we’re going to follow Jesus Christ, there’s going to have to be some very big changes. We’re going to have to stop living together and we’re going to have to stop sleeping together.
And then he went into the kitchen and he opened a cupboard, and he pulled out some drugs that they’d been using and he flushed them all down the sink.
And the girl apparently was not very pleased with any of this. But this young man had realised that he was go if he was going to take Jesus Christ seriously, that he would have to turn his back on what was wrong. Now we’re beginning this morning a little series of four, looking at what we’ve called lives turned around. This is the work of God to turn a person from the path they’re on, which leads to disaster onto the path of life and the path of what we might call safe arrival.
Repentance and turning around
The biblical word for this is repentance. It means that God works in a person to bring them to their senses. Think of the prodigal son who’d run away and comes to his senses and comes back to his father. We often think of repentance in negative ways. You think of the guy who stands in the street with a placard saying Repent now and he looks weird and gloomy and depressing. But actually, repentance could not be more loving.
When you consider that God is helping a person to turn back from a road that’s got a deep hit at the end of it. And I hope in our little series of four that every time I mention the word repentance you might hear in the background a very great and gracious God saying,
Why will you die?
Turn back and live? You’re greatly loved. Why will you die? Turn back and live? The Christian life, of course, begins with repentance because we’re born on a on a road. We’re born into the world on a road that is moving away from God, and it’s our nature to be moving away from God as well.
And, uh, that direction has to change. There’s no point in driving towards a cliff and pretending that you’re not driving towards a cliff. You are driving towards a cliff and you need to get off that particular road. And there’s no point, of course, in attending church either and, um, singing the hymns and saying the creed and knowing the minister, if you’ve not decided to leave the road away from Christ and you, you must decide to not only leave the road that leads away from Christ, but you must join the road that leads to Christ. So repentance is a very wonderful thing. It basically is.
Escaping the wrong road and repentance, my friends, is more than regret. It’s more than saying to God in our confession, you know, I’m pretty sad about the silly things I’ve done. They made me sad. No, no. Repentance is much more serious than that. Repentance is much more than remorse.
I feel sort of sorry about what I did. Repentance involves renouncing and leaving behind our sins. Now. Repentance is when we see that God is God. We recognise that our sins are insulting to him and they’re insane for us. And we lay down the sin. We surrender it, we yield to God. We resign ourselves to him because we’ve read in his word what’s right and what’s wrong. And we’ve decided to go with his word.
And you have to work out my dear friends, as I do as well, where we’re playing games we’ve got. When my Children were small, they, um, had, uh, a toy called Gumby. I don’t know if any of you are old enough to remember Gumby, but Gumby was a sort of a green man who was made of rubber, and you could bend him any direction you want.
And there are some people who think of Jesus Christ as a kind of a Gumby. You know, I can bend him and he’ll fit in with me and he’ll fit in with my plans, My friends, he won’t fit in with your plans. What will happen is you’ll miss out on his plans. So repentance is a very important thing. We mustn’t excuse our sin and say, Oh, look, it’s just part of my needs. And you know you, God, you’ve just got to understand we certainly wouldn’t F. We certainly shouldn’t form little groups to join that redefine sin and say It’s perfectly fine. I found somebody who agrees with me. This sin is fine. We’ve got to measure everything against the word of God.
When you do find yourself compromising, a strange smell of death comes over you. When you find yourselves flinging the sin away, the fragrance of life comes over you. So when we’ve decided to leave the path of sin, we’re ready to receive the salvation of Christ. Notice the sequence, we leave the path of sin and we receive the salvation of Christ and one of the reasons that many people, even in churches, never begin the Christian life is because they never actually leave the path of self rule.
They say. I give a tick to God. I give a tick to the creed, but I they never actually hand the steering wheel over to Christ. They can. They keep control of the steering wheel, and so they never really begin the Christian life. It’s as if they’ve got a secret room in their heart and they say, Well, that’s just out of bounds. And as long as you’ve got a secret room in your heart, Christ never enters.
It’s only when you so to speak, open the heart and say to him, every room is yours, every cupboard is yours. Everything is yours. That’s where Christ enters. Now one of the men who preached repentance the best of all was John the Baptist, and we’ve just had our reading Luke, Chapter three about John the Baptist Luke, Chapter 31 to 14 and, uh, you, as we were told, it’s in your Bibles on page 1527. I want to think about our passage quickly under two headings this morning and I hope you find this not only helpful but interesting. First of all, I want to think quickly about God’s Man John and then God’s message.
First of all, God’s Man, you’ll see Chapter three verses 1 to 2, that Luke anchors the arrival of John the Baptist in political history as our reader this morning, so capably steered around all these long and weird names. Luke begins this chapter by saying, This all happened when this guy was Caesar. This guy was the governor Pontius Pilate, and these three were local leaders.
Why is this important? As Luke tells us? Because it’s in historical context. This is factual, and also because the message of Jesus is for the world. It’s not just for the church, it’s for the world. Every human needs to repent. Every human needs to turn back to Christ. And, uh, having described the political leaders, you notice that Luke says this was their title and this was their territory. And then he introduces John with no title and no territory.
But who did the word of God come to? It didn’t come to Caesar didn’t come to Pontius Pilate. It came to John in the wilderness. Who has the power? Is it the political leader with temporary hold on power? No, no, it’s the person who holds on to the word of God, putting all politics aside. Its been very interesting in Scott Morrison’s book, which he’s kind of written to the people of Australia to get Australian people to take Jesus seriously, whatever you make of Scott Morrison, he is a genuine believer in Christ. And he says in the book that the Western world, including Australia, has turned its back on Christ. And so this is his word. The Western world is untethered.
Picture the boat that is just suddenly untied on the rope, holding it to the boy and the boat is just off into the wilds of the seas. And he says the Western world is untethered. He says it’s not. The Western world has stopped believing in God. They now just believe in God when they the God who they see in the mirror, that’s absolutely right.
And so he says, the Western world has replaced the Truth of God for falsehoods. And then he goes on to say that uh, the Christian faith is God intervening, stepping in to say something to the world. And that’s of course, what John the Baptist does. Well, you look, if you look at verses 3 to 6, you’ll see that he began to preach repentance, and he was no ordinary preacher. In fact, he’s described as the voice long before John Farnham, John the Baptist was described as the voice and, back in Isaiah, 800 BC. Isaiah the Prophet announced that there would come somebody who would turn up before the Lord turned up. And this person who turned up would be the voice announcing the Lord. The voice would be announcing Yahweh.
And then suddenly into the world comes Jesus.
And we’re told in Verse six that all people will see God’s salvation because the message of Christ is a global message and it’s gathering a global family. Every kind of person is going to hear about Christ.
Now, my friends, listen very carefully to this. This was John’s message. If you don’t get anything else this morning, just get this, John said. Step one. You must repent. Get off the road that leads away from Christ. Second, I’ll baptise you.
That’ll be the sign that you’ve turned around. Three. When Jesus comes, he will save you. Get it again. Step one, you repent. Step two, I’ll baptise you. Step three. When Jesus comes, put your trust in him and he will save you. So you see, John was only capable of doing water. Baptism. Jesus would give spirit baptism. Put a new life into you. John was only capable of making a person wet.
Jesus was capable of making a person new. The water baptism would be a sign that you had turned around and notice that you didn’t do the water. Baptism yourself like the people who wash in the Ganges to wash away their sins. No, no, no. The baptism of John would be done by him.
As if to say, You can’t do this. It’s you needing help. The spirit baptism would come when you put your trust in Jesus. And everybody who puts their trust in Jesus Christ receives the spirit. That would be the work of Christ. Now the real issue was repentance, people surrendering everything. And then they would receive the sign from John of surrender. And, God willing, when Christ turned up as he did, people would put their trust in him and they would receive new life.
It’s always a tragedy, it seems to me, when people are are happy to get the outward, but not the inward. You know, Marcelo and I occasionally deal with people who say we we’d like a baptism for our kids. We we don’t want anything to do with Christianity. We just want a quick baptism or you think of the person who comes week by week, month by month and they take communion. That’s they just get the bread and the wine. They don’t know Christ.
It’s a tragedy when people take the external, but not the internal. Anyway. That’s John the Baptist. Here’s the voice. And, um, our second point is God’s message verses 7 to 14 when I was, um, thinking about this little series on the subject of repentance. And remember, repentance is a good news message. It’s the escaping of the wrong road. When I was thinking of this little series, I read a book on the subject of repentance, written by a man called Thomas Boston, who was a minister in England around 1700 and, um, the book itself is a very good book. It’s a very thorough look at what it means to really repent. But the most interesting thing for me was the forward, and the foreword was written by a man who described how Thomas Boston, when he was doing his ministry in the church where he’s now buried, was very courageous.
He would name sins fearlessly. People were fearful of judgement. They turn from their sins. They turned to Christ. The the church was filled service after service. And then the guy who had written the forward for the book said this. I went to the church where Boston had worked and I we went to the church where Boston was buried and it was so sad.
It was so feeble. It was so fearful. It was man centred. It was jolly, it was jokey, it was shallow and it was empty. And I thought, What an interesting contrast between the courageous speaker of the truth and the modern person, afraid to do the same. And there needs to be some courage if we’re going to speak the Word of God, and I hope that you will always encourage the courageous preaching of the word of God and you’ll see that this is certainly the mark of John the Baptist. Because if you look at Chapter three verses seven the following, as he looks at the crowds coming to him who are showing no signs of repenting, they’re just out for a picnic. He says to them, you snakes.
Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? One writer says John’s job was to destroy their false optimism. He was certainly not called to charm them with stirring oratory. And he likens these crowds to PE to snakes, escaping a fire in the bush. And you know, of course, that if a snake slithers away to escape a fire in the bush, it stays a snake. And what John is saying is you need to be a completely different person. It’s not enough for you to just run.
And, uh, John calls them in Verse eight to show signs of being genuine, he says, produce fruits that look like repentance. Where are the signs in your life that you have turned away from sin? Where are the signs in your life that you are following Christ keenly? Uh, this is what John is saying. If you profess to be real about God, where’s the evidence? Where’s the proof?
The the warning in Verse nine is that the axe is laid to the tree. If there’s no fruit on the tree, the axe will come home to the tree. And this is simply telling us, my friends, that we must ask God on a regular basis to help us to be good repents, to turn from the things not just the things that are obvious but the things that we may not be aware of. It’s the the words in the Old Testament. Search me. Oh, God know my heart.
Lead me in the path of everlasting help me to repent. Well, cos there maybe some certain things that I’m holding on to which are dishonouring God and wrecking my faith. We need to ask him to help us repent well, and we need to ask him, of course, to help us to put our trust in Christ. The danger you see in verse eight for John’s listeners was they said to themselves as they sauntered around Hey, listen, we’re safe as a bank.
We’ve got Abraham as our distant father and John says, I want you to know that God can make relatives of Abraham from rocks. So don’t claim some kind of external safety. The question is, has there been an internal transformation? You think of those people who we bump into every now and again they say, Oh, yeah, I don’t have anything to do with Christianity because I heard it all at school. There’s been no transformation.
Or they say, Um, yeah, I used to sing in the choir or, um, I got confirmed once or my great great uncle was a bishop, And John the Baptist would say none of that counts for anything just doesn’t count for anything. The question is, have you turned and trusted and you have a new life?
So we, my friends, we must repent and believe to begin the Christian life, and then we’re safe forever. But we also keep repenting, and we keep believing every day because we are disciples. When you’re a believer, you don’t repent and believe to get into the family, you repent and believe cos you’re in the family.
I became a Christian 54 years ago. I repented and believed by the grace of God, that was God’s kindness. But I should be repenting and believing every day because I’m a follower of Jesus Christ. Please notice that John got through. We might think this is a depressing passage because there were so many who were careless. But John got through to many. And how do we know John gets through? Because three times people come up to John and say, What must we do?
People in the crowd come up and say, What must we do? People who are tax collectors come up and say, What must we do? And people who are soldiers come up and say, What must we do? And you’ll notice that John doesn’t ask the tax collectors to leave their jobs, and he doesn’t ask the soldiers to leave their jobs. He doesn’t say to them, You could do much better.
He’s not interested so much in external stuff. He’s interested in them being new. And so he says to the crowds, Here’s the question. Can you give your property away? Now? You might think to yourself, that’s a fairly silly thing to say. But actually what John is saying is, are you actually free enough to give stuff away or are you addicted to your property?
That’s a good question. And then the tax collectors come up and say, What must we do? And John says a very interesting thing. He says, Get rid of all your sneaky scams because if you can turn your back on greed, it sounds like you’ve really turned your back and then the soldiers come up and they say, What should we do? And, uh, John says, I want you to get rid of all your intimidation tactics because if you can turn your back on false power and being a bully sounds as though you’ve really turned your back and my friends as I close, I want to say to you, That’s God’s purpose for us. It’s his purpose for us that we would be free of evil and era and idols and free through Christ for Christ. It’s a double freedom.
It’s freedom from the wrong road and it’s freedom for the right road and therefore we must give great thanks to God. You see that he’s brought to the world the message of repent because it means get off the wrong road and he’s brought to us the message of salvation, which is follow the Lord Jesus. Trust him depend on him. Throw yourself onto him. And Jesus, of course, also called on people to repent. He said The Kingdom of God has come repent and believe the gospel. And I hope that you’ll never forget as you live this week, that there is a God who runs the universe, who’s calling to the lost person.
Get off the wrong road. Why will you die and take hold of Christ and you will have a new and eternal life. And he says to us, as well as we walk with him, turn your back on the things that are wrong and take hold gratefully, firmly of Christ.
Let’s Pray
We thank you, our gracious God, that you care for people. We thank you that you have shown this so clearly in the giving of your Son and we thank you that you’ve shown it so clearly in the calling to the world. We thank you that your heart is great and gracious and big and merciful and loving and patient.
We pray that you would help many to turn and live, and we pray that you would help many in this building who have turned and who do live to keep putting away what is displeasing to you and to keep pursuing what is pleasing to you with joy and with faith and with hope we ask it in Jesus name, Amen.