This message was given at Grace Community Church in Minden, Nevada. At the end, we will give information about how to contact us to receive a copy of this or other messages. It is a good day to be here. What a blessing it is to worship with you all. If you have your scriptures, would you open to the Gospel of Luke, please? The Gospel of Luke, Chapter 3. Today in our sermon, we'll be covering 10 through 14. I thought it was 10 through 20, that's why your bulletin says that, but then the text corrected me. 10 through 14, but for now, let's pick up at verse seven so we can be fresh in the context. The gospel of Luke chapter three, picking up in verse seven, this is the reading of God's word. 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. And the crowds asked 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 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. This is the reading of God's word. You take a few weeks off and you are just pumped to be back up here. I do not know what you should expect from how I'm feeling right now. We took a few weeks off and last time we were talking about John the Baptist ministry. And the last sermon I preached, we called it The Need for Repentance. The Need for Repentance. John the Baptist comes out here and I find I just can't get past this picture. It's really so valuable to me. I think John the Baptist is a perfect cross of Pastor Brian and Don Strachan. Yeah. Just picture it and it's glorious. This wild man out in the wilderness preaching fiercely. about the need to repent and find forgiveness in God. Doesn't that not, is that picture not perfect? Brian thinks it's faulty. I think it's perfect. He's out there preaching and he's preaching repentance. There is no forgiveness if there is not first repentance. But he's not just preaching repentance, although that would be good enough. Funny, I talked about repentance last time and someone's phone went off. Do you remember that? Three weeks ago. Literally, like on the dot. Okay, anyhow, moving on, moving on. He's preaching repentance as an important event in the unfolding of God's plan across all time. He's preparing a way for the coming one. He is making straight his path. And we talked about how that was that picture of the King is coming. So we're going to build a road that goes over every low spot and every high spot alike. And that is why he preaches repentance. He is getting ready for the ministry of Jesus Christ, the Messiah of God. And we, excitingly enough, we are right on the cusp of getting to enter into Jesus's ministry proper. But first we have to finish up with John the Baptist and this call to repentance. In the last sermon, you remember that there were those who came to him and he didn't receive them so well, did he? It's Matthew's gospel that points out in the parallel account that these were Sadducees and Pharisees. And apparently they came seeking to sort of fake their way through repentance. They didn't come in faith. They come relying on some kind of earthly credential. Well, we've got Abraham. We're good, aren't we? And you heard what John thought of that kind of answer. John had no room for people who wanted to come in a fake guilt for fake repentance. But what you do find now, as we continue on after we've established the need for repentance for non-Christians and for Christians alike, the need for repentance. Now we pick up with the people who come to him and say, so what are we going to do? I want to repent. What does that look like in my life? And what you find is that John the Baptist's tone, it changes remarkably. He's no longer talking to some brood of vipers. He's talking to people that he is going to guide in the life of repentance. So we're in verses 10 through 14, and the theme for the day, what then shall we do? What then shall we do? What is a life lived in repentance? What does that look like? And John addresses three different audiences. Three different audiences are mentioned that come to him. The first audience is a general audience. That's verses 10 and 11. It's the crowds asking him, what then shall we do? We've heard your message that we need to repent for forgiveness. So what are we supposed to do about that? John replies, In verse 11, whoever has two tunics is to share with him who has none. And whoever has food is to do likewise. It's kind of a surprising answer. And it's exceptionally straightforward. Do you have any doubt about what he said there? The straightforward application of the life of repentance, share. Share. Share what you have with people who are in need. To the one who has been richly provided for, share with the one who is in need. One fruit of the life of repentance is a life that is lived for others and no longer just yourself. And it's a life that is tangibly, that's such an important word, tangibly, concretely about loving one's neighbor. We all like to think that our loving attitudes are somehow the only thing required in love your neighbor. Love your neighbor results in actually doing something. And John's example here is as basic as it gets. These are the most fundamental ways of helping. You see someone in need of clothing, you've got extra clothes, clothe them. You see someone hungry, feed them. It's really surprisingly simple. And I find as I read this text, as I meditated on it, and I imagine for you all as well, I wanted a fancier answer than that. What's the life of repentance look like to a big crowd and you tell me go share? I really thought it was something more advanced, so to speak. John doesn't care about my so-called advanced requirements. He goes to the fundamentals. It's not an eight-step program. It's a reminder to love your neighbor. John's command is really as simple as this. Share what you can with those in need. one ingredient of the repentant life. The second audience that comes to him, and this is when it starts getting a little fun, tax collectors, tax collectors. Verses 12 and 13, tax collectors also came to be baptized and said to him, teacher, what shall we do? And he said to them, collect no more than you are authorized to do. So, whenever you talk about tax collectors in the Bible, in this New Testament period, you just have to have some sense of Rome's system of taxation. It was called tax farming. And that either makes you cringe or celebrate, depending on whether you're the farmer or the farmer, I think. Tax farming. Rome sort of awards a contract to someone else to go collect their taxes on their behalf. That person then goes out and adds a surcharge, a fee, to cover their own expenses. Whatever they think their expenses are, well, I guess they get to decide that. That person who wins the contract was known as a publican. Not a republican, a publican. And the publican was actually kind of the big picture person. They would then go and hire tax collectors who would go and do the actual tax collecting. That person would also add their own little surcharge to make up, you know, for their time. Sometimes the situation would be big enough that they would actually have to have tax collectors hiring tax collectors. Well, you know what that last tax collector needs? A little something for their pocket, right? There is massive room in this system for abuse at every single level. You have the ability of the tax collector or the publican to add their own surcharge to what you were sort of lawfully required to pay Rome. So, you take an example, right? Say Rome has the right to tax me for $100. Well, they get the contract to the public and the publican's like, I'm not doing this for free. I deserve $25. So now my amount that's going to come to me is $125, but it doesn't stop there. Well, the publican has to hire some people to go do the actual tax collecting. The tax collector gets the contract from the publican, and he says, OK, I have to collect $125. You know what? I deserve $20. Okay, so then, if it even goes even further, the tax collector goes and hires sub-tax collectors, and the sub-tax collector's like, I deserve a little something for my time. Throws on, say, 15 bucks. Okay, super dangerous, I wasn't adding that up. Was that 160? I think that was 160. In the end, I was supposed to pay $100, yet the tax collector shows up at my door and says, $160 this year. You see what kind of system that is? Ramping corruption that no one was going to appreciate. And at some level, I must know, I don't owe Rome $160. I owe them a lot less than that. Yet here I am with the tax collector saying, I owe the bill. And so tax collectors, tax collectors have come and they want to be baptized in this ministry. of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. So you have to understand that because that's going to factor into what John tells these tax collectors. What does a repentant life look like for someone who belongs to an abusive tax system? He tells them, don't collect more than you are authorized to collect. He says, tax collector, repentance in your line of work means stop adding your sin to the mix. What's interesting is he doesn't tell them they have to go fix everything. He doesn't tell them to rise up and purge the tax system from all the corrupt people. He just says, get your sin out of the mix. That is the repentant life of a tax collector. Stop abusing the authority of your position. Now you hear that and that might seem kind of small. Really, that's it? That's it? Just do the job you were supposed to do and stop cheating people, that's all? I think we have to hear this a little bit from their perspective. Don't you think that one of the big reasons you take a job like this, especially when everyone's going to hate you for it, is that you're going to make some good money in it? I bet you these people, at least in some part, take the tax collector gig because they want to overcharge people. And so John has just told them, stop doing the thing that brought you into this field in the very first place. I don't think it was such a small thing to a tax collector to be told, just collect what you have been authorized to collect. I think it might've been a big change of course. And that brings us to our third audience. The third audience is soldiers. soldiers. Verse 14, 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. This is actually where it gets even more interesting. You were really interested in the tax collecting part, right? If you had just tax collectors, if you'd had just soldiers, that would have just been, we were just treated that individually. What's interesting though, is having tax collectors and soldiers at the very same opportunity for baptism. The reason is, is because the soldiers were absolutely involved in this corrupt system of taxation. See, when you win a tax contract from Rome, Rome then is also going to grant you the muscle to go collect the taxes you need. They would grant you soldiers to go around and collect that tax bill, right? Because if Rome shows up, if that IRS agent sitting at my door is saying, I owe way more than I think I owe, what's your reaction if it's just him? You just slam the door, right? Every time, right? We can talk about that later. What's your reaction if he's got a couple guards standing behind him? A couple war-hardened veterans behind him? I'll go check the sofa cushions. I'm sure I've got a little bit more money over there. The soldiers were absolutely complicit in this abusive tax system. The soldiers were like the henchmen of the system. So you have a very likely context going on that the tax collectors and the soldiers might've even come together. And thus you understand a bit more about why John gives them the commands that he does. The exhortations that he does is because he is putting them in the context of this abusive tax system. So the first thing John tells them, do not extort money from anyone by threats or by false accusation. See, when you have the power of the sword, abuse of that power is always going to be a temptation, always. And interesting here too, that word for extort, it's literally like shake violently. And it lines up perfectly with our saying about shaking someone down. This is the same kind of concept. They knew it. We know it. Same concept here. The repentant life for these soldiers meant never again abusing the power that they wielded. But there's a second part. John had a second part to give them. Be content with your wages. Rome wasn't known for paying soldiers all that well. And as soon as you hear that, the frustration is so easy to understand for those soldiers, isn't it? You could script it. I put my life on the line for this empire, and then when I get home, this is how I have to live? This mediocre existence? Right, does that resonate with you? You can imagine the frustration as it boils up in that soldier's heart. You can imagine how quickly that frustration leads to the abuses that John is talking about. So with John's first exhortation, he went after what the soldiers were doing. With the second, John goes after why they are committing these abuses. why they are committing these abuses. See, the abuse of power, it's only a symptom. It's only a symptom of where they're really at. The soldier must repent of the state of his heart. His heart is discontented. That is why he goes around abusing his power. It's interesting to note, when you look at what all these calls to repentance have in common, It turns out that they all relate to money. Every single one of them relates to money. Don't get me wrong, money's not the only implication of repentance, but you cannot read this passage and deny that it has a prominent implication for the life of repentance. The soldiers to be content with the money he earns. The tax collectors not to collect more money than he has authorized. That large crowd, they're called to share food and clothing, both with obvious ties to money. We can't get away from the truth that a repentant child of God is called to confront a wide variety of sins that all relate to money. A repentant child of God is called to have a right view of money. So you embark on these things and you start recognizing where you are in the landscape, and this is a little bit more sensitive of an area of the landscape. I make a disclaimer on the front end. The way we have things arranged in leadership, I actually have no idea who gives and who does not. This is a really valuable part of our system here. The deacons know. The elders don't know. We don't want to pastor you differently based on knowing how much or how little you're giving. We don't want that in the mix. So I actually don't know who gives, who doesn't. Moreover, I'm not going to use this sermon to ask for funding for some pet project of mine. We will build the soccer field later. Moreover, I do not receive some kind of commission check based on the week's giving. You know, where someone, you know, secretly whispers to me, hey, good job, Jason, and, you know, gives me a hundred dollar bill wrapped in his palm or something. That doesn't happen. I get no commission based on what you guys feel guilty about, and then you go and give in the back or something like that. It's not what I'm doing. There is a lot of sensitivity when we enter the area of talking about money. And so I want to be sensitive to that. But at the same time, the Bible talks a lot about money. And we cannot call ourselves faithful Christians if we just want to duck, dodge, and circumvent talking about money when it comes up. So I'm going to ask you as an act of faith, I don't know how sensitive you are or sensitive you are not, as an act of faith, hear the word today, even if it makes you uncomfortable, because it's God's word. I really have very little stake in this. This is God's word. It's between you and God. And as an act of faith, we do this. The repentance that John describes, it will transform how we view God's blessings, and especially it's going to transform how we view the money that God provides each and every one of us. We'll look at three calls, three calls to repentance based on what John said in this passage. We could probably talk about a million calls. We just don't have time for it. Three calls to repentance in the areas of sharing, contentment, and idolatry. Sharing, contentment, idolatry. The first call to repentance, the child of God repents of selfishness and instead embraces sharing. Repentance for many of us means turning our focus to our neighbor. See, we find that we can get so caught up in ourselves and in prioritizing ourselves that at the end of the day, we've got nothing left to share with anyone. That's a matter of our priorities. And to put this in balance, there are so many of you that are fantastic at sharing. And I'm not talking about like Facebook, which isn't usually a service to many people at all, but you are like legitimate sharers, godly sharers. And it is an encouragement to minister with you, to you, alongside of you. So many of the things that mark our church as being healthy come back to the people with no position and no publicity who are sharing with their neighbor. who are blessing their neighbor. And they do it with their time, the phone call in the middle of dinner, or right before they were gonna go to sleep. They do it with their money, money that they could have been spending on their family, on themselves. They do it with their labor and their expertise. I love when I hear about things that just got fixed because someone went and fixed it. That's someone sharing their expertise. You do it with your counsel. I've been through a situation like that. Let me tell you how it went for me, right? And you share godly counsel. The commitment that I see in so many of you, it blesses my soul. So many of you are like success stories as far as I'm concerned. But as with anything, there are others who need to be spurred on. As in any area, some will be strong, some will not be so strong. And so others don't need to be commended so much as they need to be spurred on. They need a little kick in the rear, pointed in the ways of God's righteousness. Because some people, they have time, they have money, they have ability, they've got the wisdom even, yet they're not sharing them. They don't share them with nearly anyone. And why not? I mean, I suppose there's just too many reasons to count, but I mean, a couple likely candidates, why not? I think some of you maybe just lack initiative. You lack initiative. So you say things like, you know, I would help if I knew how. I would help if I knew who needed help. I would help if I knew when the help was needed. But I just don't know any of those things. So at the end of the day, at the end of the week, at the end of the month, I haven't shared with anyone. Because I just never knew how. And so for you, if that's where you are, maybe what you need to hear is that the opportunities to share and the opportunities to bless others, they are everywhere around you. The person to your left, the person to your right, good odds, that person, that person could use your blessings, whatever that looks like. The problem is, of course, that we don't wear name tags. We don't wear name tags that say, this week, I really need advice. This week, I'm struggling to pay rent. This week, I am depressed and broken down, and I don't know what I'm going to do tomorrow. We don't wear those name tags, do we? In fact, more likely, we actually try and hide that these things are going on. You really should encourage the brave soul who does make their needs known because so many of us are cowards suffering on our own. If you need the help, you need the help. No other way around it. Turns out that what it's going to take in a church full of people who like to hide their needs, what it's going to take for you to be able to help someone is you're going to have to seek those people out. You're gonna need to be in the relationships where it becomes obvious. Oh, I heard how they said, oh, I'm okay today. I know I need to go talk to them. Oh, why weren't they here on Sunday? That normally means something bad for that person. I'm calling them right after this, right? You need to be involved with the people if you're ever gonna have the chance to help the people. And that's why I say it comes back to initiative. You say you want to help. Well, the prerequisite to helping is generally you need to be involved. You need to be involved with people actively, hear that word again, actively looking for the ways that you particularly are able to bless. God is pleased to use people who take the initiative and actively seek to serve him and to serve others. So that's the person who lacks initiative. I think on the other hand, you have people who don't share with others because essentially they don't think they can. That person would say, I don't know how you found the time. I've got plenty of things going on that I can, I don't even keep up with them. How am I supposed to help anyone else? Does that resonate with some of you? Resonates with me, that's for sure. But it turns out the whole story of, man, I'm so busy, it's actually the story of every single one of our lives. And it's the story that goes back as long as, you know, time. We have always been a busy people, struggling to figure out how to meet this need and that need and that priority and this priority. The people who serve and the people who share, they're not merely the people who are wealthy and have nothing else to do but write checks philanthropically all day. Don't we sometimes like to picture that? I could serve if just all my responsibilities were taken off my plate and all the resources in the world were given to me. Yeah, maybe that would help. But that's not actually the MO of the people who serve and share. People who serve tend to be every bit as busy as you are. And in many cases, they're more so because they are serving. Yet even with that busy schedule, they make the time for others. People who share, people who are able to give, you know, very often they have budgets that look just like yours. It's not like it's only people who win the lottery. that can give. No, it's people with ordinary budgets who say, I'm going to make it a priority to give to others. And so it happens, not without cost. There is no such thing as giving without cost, but they make it happen. You see the ability to give, the ability to share, it doesn't flow out of our circumstances as much as we like to imagine sometimes. It flows out of our priorities. It flows out of our commitments. It flows out of understanding how God and Jesus Christ has loved his children. Child of God, has God been generous to you? Can you even count the blessings that he has poured out upon you? Can you even count the number of times that he forgave you for yet another death penalty crime? Can you even count the number of times he forgave your rebellion and your hard heartedness? Has God been generous to his people? You bet he's been generous to his people. Has God shared the most precious of blessings with his people? Remember the son of God dying on the cross and ask yourself if the answer is yes. Yes, he absolutely has. So to the one who has received generosity, go and be generous. To the one who has freely received, now go and freely give. That is the model the repentant child of God shares with others. The second call to repentance, the child of God repents of discontentment and instead embraces contentment. Okay, that one might sound really straightforward, but if you've ever tried, you know it's not so easy. Contentment wasn't a problem limited to Roman soldiers. Contentment, we struggle with it to this day. You struggle with it right now. If you're like any normal person, even this moment, you are struggling with contentment. When we talk about contentment, we are talking about a satisfaction that is grounded in God's provision. A satisfaction that is grounded in God's provision. And let's be clear, contentment is not apathy toward our circumstances. Contentment is not laziness and a refusal to work hard. Nor is contentment like closing your eyes in ignorance and saying, there's nothing better circumstantially out there. It's none of those things. But contentment comes from a heart that finds satisfaction in God and not in circumstances. You hear that? That's really important. Contentment has to do with you being satisfied in God. and not in your circumstances. So when John calls out the soldiers for lacking contentment with their wages, he's actually pointing to evidence of discontented hearts. And if we're honest, and this is the place to be honest, if ever there's a place to be honest, if we are honest, we must acknowledge that many of us are not satisfied with God's provision for us. particularly in the area of finances. We are certain that we deserve more than we have. It is our right. Our work should be better appreciated if they only knew what it takes to do what I do, dot, dot, dot. Our intangibles should be rewarded. Do they know this place would fall apart without me? Dot, dot, dot. If they saw the way I am just breaking my back, they would know they owe me a better wage than they are giving me. If you let that discontentment into your heart, it's going to infect your whole life. Soon enough, you find you resent the people you work for. You resent clients. You resent employers. You look around and the envy starts boiling out, and you resent people that seem to be better appreciated than you, better comforted than you, better provided for than you. Why do they get to have an extra room on the house? Have you seen how that guy works? He's lazy. He doesn't deserve that. In the end, we find that we resent God for not providing for us in the way that we think we deserve. I think it's helpful to look at your sin in the ugliest light possible. When you feel that discontent, you almost want to just make it plain and look at God and say, God, I am dissatisfied with you. Let your sin be every bit as ugly as it is. Because that's where you are. The evidence of our discontentment, it's written across our hearts and it's written across our lives. So what can we do about that? What does the repentant life look like for someone who struggles with contentment? I think first off, we reject the lie that we have swallowed hook, line, sinker, that our circumstances can never make us content. Do you ever read the news and think, wow, rich people are so happy? No, no, apparently the riches have done nothing for their state of being. Your circumstances don't make you content. We reject that lie and we embrace the truth that the only place you find true contentment is in Jesus Christ our Lord. To make this point best, I offer you the thinking of the Apostle Paul. One of the most famous, yet at the same time least understood passages in the Bible, Philippians 4.13, I can do all things through him who strengthens me. Okay, there's an abstract way in which that is completely true. If God wants you to levitate and fly home after this, indeed, you can do it. But it's weird, we take this passage and we take it to mean I can overcome any obstacle, there's no challenge too great for me, anything I set my mind to, that is what we're talking about. And yes, abstractly, God can make anything possible. Is that what Paul was talking about? That you can just do anything? After you're just a little bit broader of the context, picking up in Philippians 4, 11 through 13, this is how Paul leads up to that. He says, not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. Here you go, you ready? I know how to be brought low and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me. He's talking about contentment in any situation. He's talking about that by the grace of God, he can be content no matter his circumstances. And Paul describes a contentment that could endure through any circumstance. Did you hear that? In any circumstance, good or bad. And his secret was a total dependence on Christ. And his secret was a true understanding of the good news of Christ. Put this in the context of contentment and hear the good news for every child of God. God has eternally redeemed you. Brother and sister, you are secure. Jesus Christ gave his life to save you. Brother and sister, you are precious. The Holy Spirit himself has been abundantly poured out upon you. Brother and sister, you are rich. That is the truth of the gospel. I hold out to you that contentment is actually the only state that makes sense for a Christian. Because discontentment, it flows out of either ignorance or sin. Contentment is what God works in us when we see clearly, when our hearts lay hold of what God has done for us in the gospel. Brother and sister, you are called to contentment. The third call to repentance, the child of God repents of worshiping money and instead worships God. So this is a big one. This is a really big one. I want you to understand why I'm talking about it like this. The tax collector took money that he wasn't authorized to. The soldier extorted money from those weaker than himself. And in each case, there is abuse of power and there's stealing from others. clear sins, and if you see any of that in yourself, repent. If you cheat and deceive people in your work, repent. If you steal from others, physically or virtually, repent. If you abuse your power, if you abuse your position, repent. But I hold out to you that each of these problems actually masks, each of these sins actually masks a deeper sin, a deeper problem. Why? Why are we willing to steal? Why are we willing to abuse power and authority for money? The answer is that fundamentally we think that money is more important than God? That's your answer at its core. And you remember what it's called when we elevate anything over God? Idolatry, exactly. Idolatry. At our hearts, we are worshiping creatures. We are always worshiping something or someone. When we elevate the pursuit of money over obedience to God, brothers and sisters, we're worshiping money. When we choose money and hoarding money over the love of our neighbor, brothers and sisters, we are worshiping money. When our life's goal revolves around making money, we're worshiping money. I think of that famous question, what is the chief end of man? And so many of us in America have decided that the answer is to have enough money to travel and retire comfortably. What is the chief end of man is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever. And so God calls us to repent of our false gods and he calls us to repent of our selfish attitudes. Tear down the altar that you have built around your bank account. Money is a cheap and demanding master. but your heavenly father is a generous and gracious God. Money is not the meaning of your life. Money is a means of serving God with all of your life. Worship God, not money. As we wrap this passage, I leave you with a warning and an encouragement. Painting in the broadest strokes of this passage of John the Baptist ministry here, there were really two groups, only two, that came to John. There were those who came in a false repentance, and there were those who came in a believing repentance. The Pharisees and the Sadducees, they came to John and they basically tried to fake their way through repentance. What happened to them? You brood of vipers. They got called out. The seemingly righteous turned out to be just a brood of vipers. On the other hand, then you have the tax collectors and the soldiers and they repent in faith. What happened to them? They were welcomed. They were guided in the way of life. These men were the epitome of sin and selfishness. And yet here they are repenting in faith and they are ushered on the path of eternal life. And you see in this God's pattern, there is no comfort for the self-righteous, not even an ounce. no comfort for the self-righteous, but for those who come convinced of their sin, for those who come convinced of their need for the Savior, there is welcome and there is hope, not for false righteousness anymore, not for imitation righteousness, but for true righteousness. If you come to God convinced that you're not so bad, Convince that, well, I'm doing most of it. I know I need a little help. I'm getting like at least a C, if not, you know, a B or an A. If you come thinking you're actually living up to God's standards or even close, expect God's rejection. Expect God's rejection and it will be a million times more. than merely calling you a brood of vipers. You do not want that rejection. Be warned that your fake repentance will not fool God. He's not fooled by things like that. There's the warning, but the encouragement is this. If you come as one who is truly guilty, And if you come in faith to the one who makes sinners righteous, then you can know, you can absolutely know that there is no crime that you've committed that can outdo his grace. There is no stain on your soul that he cannot wash clean by the blood of the perfect lamb, Jesus Christ. God delights in repenting sinners who come to him and ask, Lord, what then shall we do? Let's pray. Father, we repent. We repent of the fake righteousness. We repent of the fake repentance. We repent of looking at your law and acting like we almost pass. We repent that it takes us so long to repent. We repent that we think we can atone for our sins ourselves. We repent for all the filthy things that make up our days and our lives. And we're so grateful for your kindness. We know that we repent to a God who will welcome us. Lord, give us the faith to return. Give us the faith to turn from our sin. Give us the faith to trust in a righteousness that is not our own. Give us a faith to trust in the cleansing that only you can accomplish. May we be a people who repents in faith. And may the guilty today who have never done so, may they flock to a Savior who welcomes them. We ask this for the sake of our Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. We hope you've enjoyed this message from Grace Community Church in Minden, Nevada. To receive a copy of this or other messages, call us at area code 775-782-6516 or visit our website gracenevada.com.