Let's now turn to Luke 3 Luke 3 We continue our series of messages called foundations this church was built Bob fine Aaron Voorhees placed a foundation underneath it and It's my goal to lay out some basic foundations for this church from the word of God. Who knows? We may be kicked out of this church. We may be back to fields and basements in the next 10 years. Who cares? God knows. But at the very least, we ought to have some firm foundations underneath our body. Those that are committing themselves together as Christ's church. The building is not the church. We are the church. Now, I want to review some of the things we've done thus far in this series. And what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to pull together the measures versus the minors so that we're not straining at gnats and swallowing camels. So you can do one of two things to find the measures. You can go into the Bible and find out where the Bible says this is a big deal. The Bible says this is a big deal. Then let's put that on the list. That make sense? That should make sense. OK. Also, we go to the creeds, the confessions, the early creeds and confessions to identify the measure. So there's two ways you can do it. You can do it by way of the Bible itself telling you these are the measures, or you can go into church history and listen to the most esteemed, most respected leaders of the church over 2000 years. You can pull together a fair amount of consensus. you know, assuming that we aren't the first representation of the Church of Christ on earth. I trust we're not. There are others. So you can do that. So that's what I did. I haven't gone to the creeds yet. We're going to get there. But first I went to the Bible and I identified the things the Bible considers to be important, the first of which is the fear of God as the beginning of wisdom. Hebrews 12, also towards the end, The final marching orders given to the church, the end of Hebrew said, OK, now seeing we have a kingdom that will not be moved. Let us now what worship God with reverence and godly fear. So that's kind of a big Mack truck summary of what life is all about is living and Worshipping and serving in the fear of God. That's number one fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. So The fear of God ought to show up in the Church of Christ and if it doesn't we're in trouble So if there isn't anybody fearing God, or anybody speaking of the fear of God, we're in trouble. So that's number one. Number two, the cross of Christ is proximate in preaching. Paul said, I committed not to know anything more than Christ and Him crucified amongst you. He told the Corinthian church that in the second chapter of 1 Corinthians. So we looked at the cross of Christ. as proximate in preaching. In other words, we need to get there somehow. We have to get to the cross, which we attempt to do every single Sunday as we approach the table. It's one reason why we do the Lord's table here, because we want to make sure we make it to the cross of Christ, precious to us. Number three, the third major issue is God-centered worship and life. Paul says Romans 11 36 of him through him to him are all things to him be glory forever two religions in America One is God centered. The other is man centered So the the goal is to present a God centered worship and life So we like to give people the heads up if you've come here for yourself We had visitors here as we presented that message and we challenged the visitors who said if you're here for yourself You've come to the wrong church This church is about God-centered worship, and we seek God in worship and in life. That's essential for the church of Jesus Christ. If we're going to be a true church and not a church of the false religion in America, the major religion in America, we need to worship God. He needs to be central in our estimation. Number four, And this is essential for the Christian from Revelation 14, 12, a Christ-oriented faith. We need a faith in the right Christ, the God-man. Then right next to that, Revelation 14, 12, speaking of the gospel of Christ, this is essential for the Christian. This defines the Christian. He's one who keeps the commandments of God. So we did a message on the law of God. This would have been about four weeks ago. Number six, the sovereign, powerful grace of God undergirds our salvation. Romans 8, 28 and 29. This is this is basic. When we come into the matter of salvation, we want to know what the foundation is. What do we stand on? What is the basis, the absolute basis, the rock-solid foundation of our salvation? Assuming that we're interested in getting saved and going to heaven and being with Jesus forever and we don't want to go to hell, what is the rock-solid basis of our salvation? It is the grace of God, the sovereign grace of God. That's what keeps us. That's what establishes us. And that came as number six. Number seven in the study was the mission that Jesus gave us. Matthew chapter 28 18 through 20. This is a 2,000 year mission's been going on for a long time Jesus had get out there disciple the nations baptize them and teach them to observe whatever I've commanded you so So that was number seven number eight was last week the greatest of these is love So the Bible, again, identifying a big one. We looked at faith, we looked at judgment, we looked at the big ones that Jesus lists in Matthew 23, and then we centered in on the greatest of these. Of the top four, what's the number one most important of this list? And Paul in 1 Corinthians 13, 13 said, the greatest of these is love. So that was last week. And then now we come to the ninth, the absolute necessity of repentance. And that's Acts 2021 and Hebrews six and verse one. All of these truths are found in apostolic writings. I'm going to point that out to you in just a moment. You'll see them in your outline as well. These are important things. You know, again, you want to keep a list in front of you. If you're going to a church, say you're moving into a different area and you want to make sure the measures are mentioned from time to time, I would pull out this list. I would grab this list. These are the big ones. And the list I give you towards the end of the first page of your notes there. I would pull that list out because these are the measures. These are the essentials of the faith. They are the warp and the woof of the faith. They're not everything in Scripture. We'll get to some of the other things as well. And we want to do that because all Scripture is given by inspiration of God to equip the man of God for every good work. But we want to get to the major issues. Well today We're going to get down to the doctrine of repentance Now some of you may say wow, I've heard this message before Yes, absolutely, I hope you've heard it before That's the idea. These are the measures. And if if you if you're coming to a Christian church and you're interested in the revelation of God and the important truths that Jesus wants to share with you. then you ought to look forward to a repetition of certain key doctrines. You ought to be, you know, hey, yeah, let's talk about this again. Maybe there's something in this doctrine that I have not picked up on before. Maybe there's an element here I haven't applied in my life. Maybe I have been somewhat blinded to something in my own life and I need to be here. Boy, am I glad that we showed up today to hear another message about repentance. I happen to think that repentance is important. But it's not mentioned very much in American churches. You don't find Repentance Community Church. I think I've talked about that before. You have Faith Baptist and Grace Presbyterian. But hardly anybody wants to refer to their church as Repentance Community Church. Now, that's not the case with the church fathers. But it is the case today. The Protestants generally don't like repentance. And I think the reason why the Protestants don't like repentance is because the Catholics made a big deal out of it. But the problem with the Catholics is they take the word and they changed it to penance. And when you think about penance, what do you think about? 27 Hail Marys. Now, what's the problem with that? Well, the problem is that the Catholics externalize the doctrine. They turned it into an external expression, and this was one of the major battles between Tyndale and the Catholic Church, and one of the major reasons why Tyndale was martyred. He was martyred over seven words, one of which was repentance. And the reason he was martyred over repentance is because he said, we don't want penance, we want repentance, because the idea of repentance has more of a biblical conception to it. It's closer to the Greek, and it brings back not just the external elements, but the internal heart element of repentance, which is essential to understanding the doctrine of repentance. So the Catholics have externalized the doctrine and ruined it. So the Protestants said, let's be done with it forever. Who needs any stinking repentance? And now here we are in the 21st century saying, let's bring back the doctrine of repentance. Anybody with me on this? Let's do it. All right. Luke 3, and we'll begin with verse 3. Now, one of the things you're going to find in this is a surprising emphasis that I did not expect to find. What I'm going to give you right now was a shock to my system. And you know what? It usually begins with getting your electronic concordance out and typing in R-E-P-E-N-T. It's how it happens, you know. What did the Bible say about this, you know? Have you ever done that? What did the Bible say about this? And you get into the Word and you find the Bible had more to say about it than you thought. Now follow the outline as we go in the Word. Stay in the Word. Luke 3, 3. And it came to pass, He came into all the countries. John the Baptist. New Testament, remember, begins with John the Baptist. Okay, so not sure exactly when it was, probably somewhere around 80, 30. We read this story about John the Baptist. We don't know how many years he ministered, but he explodes on the scene, the greatest prophet of all time up to that point. He's the big one. So he shows up on the scene. It's very exciting. Okay, first time in 2,400 years, the big prophet shows up, John the Baptist, chewing grasshoppers, wearing leather. And he shows up rather rough guy and he comes into all the country about Jordan preaching the baptism of repentance for their mission of sins. As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah, the prophet saying the voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare you the way of the Lord, make his path straight, bring all the bulldozers out. remove all of that mountains and those valleys and and pave out a freeway across Colorado where all the Rocky Mountains are flattened and it looks like Kansas Okay, that's what he's saying here roughly Every valley shall be filled, every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways shall be made smooth, and all flesh shall see the salvation of God. Then said he to the multitude that came forth to be baptized of him, O generation of vipers, who is warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth therefore fruits worthy of repentance, and begin not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham for our father, For I say to you that God is able of these stones to raise up children to Abraham. And now also the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree, therefore, which brings not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire. And the people asked him, saying, What shall we do then? He answered and said unto them, He that has two coats, let him impart to him that has none. He that has meat or food, let him do likewise. Then came also the publicans to be baptized and said to him, Master, what shall we do? And he said unto them, exact no more than that which is appointed you. And the soldiers likewise demanded of him, saying, and what shall we do? He said unto them, do violence to no man, neither accuse any falsely. Be content with your wages. As the people were in expectation, all men mused in their hearts of John, whether he were the Christ or not. John answered, saying unto them all, I indeed baptize you with water, but one mightier than I, the cometh, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose. He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire. All right, so that's the beginning. of the ministry of John the Baptist. Now let's run through several other passages. Skip over to Mark 1 and verse 14. Now Jesus emerges on the scene. What is his message? What did Jesus preach? WWDP. Need to get bracelets for every pastor in America. WWDP. What did Jesus preach? Mark 1 14 now after that John was put in prison Jesus came into Galilee Preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God and saying What is the gospel of the kingdom of God? What is it? Here it is. Here's what he said everybody ready? That's what Jesus said the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand repent ye and believe the gospel and Two things constitute the gospel of Christ. Number one, the kingdom. But then what does that mean? What's the implication? Believe and repent. All right, now skip down to Mark 6 and verse 7. This happens fairly quickly after Jesus begins his discipleship program. He has a discipleship program. One guy, 12 students sitting around him. called unto him the twelve and began to send them forth by two and two and gave them power over unclean spirits. This is the first missions outreach ever. In the. Discipleship program of Christ, Mark six and verse seven. Now verse eight, he commanded them that they should take nothing for their journey, save a staff only, no script, no bread, no money in their purse, but be shod with sandals and not put on two coats. And he said unto them, in what place soever you enter into a house, there abide till you depart from that place. And whosoever shall not receive you nor hear you when you depart, then shank off the dust under your feet for a testimony against them. Verily I say unto you, it shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that city. And they went out. preached What do they preach? Take a look at it verse 12. They preach that men should repent That's something All right, let's move on Luke 24 Now Jesus has completed his work on Earth and he is about to go to heaven. He has one last Commission to give to his disciples we have one version of it in Matthew chapter 28 and We don't get a lot of detail in Matthew 28, neither do we in Luke 24. We all we know is we're to teach them to observe whatsoever Jesus commanded, which sounds a little bit like repentance. But look at what he says in Luke 24. Verse 45, then. Opened he their understanding that they might understand the scriptures and said to them thus it is written and thus it behove Christ to suffer to rise from the dead the third day and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations beginning at Jerusalem and you are witnesses of these things and behold I send the promise of my father upon you but Terry in the city of Jerusalem until you be endued with power from on high." So they're waiting for power on high in order to preach a gospel of repentance and remission of sins. Let's move on to Acts 2 and verse 38. So what did they do? What did they do? What message did they preach? And Peter said unto them, this is his first sermon, he preaches a sermon to them. His sermon is mainly this. Jesus the Messiah came, you kill them. Now he's on the right hand of the father on high and he will rule until his enemies are on his footstool. So that's, that was the initial part of the message. And then verse 38, Peter said to them, repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins. And you shall receive the gift of the Holy ghost. Then if you skip, skip over to acts three in verse 19, this is the message again, shows up in the next chapter. Repent, therefore, be converted, that your sins may be blotted out. When the times are refreshing, shall come from the presence of the Lord, and He shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you." Okay, so did the apostles follow through on the commission of Luke 24? Absolutely, they did. Right away, boom, got right to it. Preached two things. One, they preached repentance and remission of sins. Those two things. So right away, they followed through on it. And then if you look at Acts 20, In verse 13, you'll find here Paul summarizes 20 years of ministry, his missionary ministry, with the church at Ephesus and other churches through Asia Minor. Paul is speaking to these elders at the very end of his life, somewhere around AD 62, maybe 63, somewhere in that neck of the woods, because he's going to get arrested, he's going to Rome. But he's wrapping up his ministry. Acts 20 and verse 13, this is what I was doing, okay? So here's what you do. If you're going to be elders or bishops or pastors in the Church of Christ for the next 2,000 years, this is what you do. He says he preached repentance towards God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. Two things. Repentance and faith. So then I was curious what the early church preached. What were the major doctrines preached by the early church? Because I kind of wanted to know if I was on track in the series of messages I've given you over the last 10 weeks. So what was it? So far, we've looked at what Jesus did in 8030. We've looked at what Paul did between 8045 and 65. And now we're curious as to what the church did between 8080 and 8140. And the Apostolic Fathers have left us something like 350 pages of extant letters and writings. And if you haven't read them or read them to your children, I encourage you to do so. We're doing that right now. We just finished Clement. We just read the Didache. We plan to read Barnabas next. But if you look at the apostolic fathers, OK, what were the major doctrines these guys We're teaching over the first 60 years of the church. Now, yeah, a few things get perverted over the years. I believe that. I think you get some perversions. And that's why it's important to sort of go back to roots, go back to foundations. What were they preaching over the first 60 years? Now, I will tell you, in all of my 45 years sitting in churches, I have never heard of any of this. OK, it's because the modern church doesn't really respect the church fathers or the apostolic fathers all that much. As it turns out, Calvin did. Luther did, they constantly made references to them, but rarely do you find references to them in sermons today, at least in my experience. Now, some of you may have been to churches in which there were manifold references to Clement and the Didache and Barnabas and others, but you don't find very much in American churches today. And that may be because we have wandered away from the true church. And too many churches are becoming cultic, if not just plain old-fashioned cults because they have cut themselves off from the historical church. So that's why it's very, very risky, extremely risky, not to get back into the writings of the early church fathers. So I went back and did word search, found out that these are the emphases of the early church. Jesus Christ is mentioned 309 times. That's number one. Number one. If Christ is not preached in your churches, you're going to the wrong church. Number two, love. Does that make sense to you? Anybody, does that make sense? 209 times love. The greatest of these is love. Love big deal, a really big deal in the early church. Faith is mentioned 158 times, taking in third place. Repentance, 85 times, taking up the fourth place. So the most important subjects preached in the early church. In the primitive early churches, they met in the catacombs, the homes, on the back porches, the rooftops. What were they preaching? They were preaching Christ. They were preaching love. They were preaching faith. And they were preaching repentance. Now, does that sound anything like Paul in Acts 20? Does that sound anything like Jesus? Does that sound like John the Baptist? Yes and yes and yes and yes. Okay, number five is the law of God. Number five, the fifth emphasis, the law of God. Number six, eldership. Number, excuse me, number five is the fear of God. I apologize. Number five, fear of God. Number six, law of God. Number seven, eldership. Number eight, grace. Number nine, the doctrine of election. Number 10, the judgment of God. And then here are the other emphases, holiness, abortion, which is bad. Humility. joy, justification, and baptism. Those are more minor themes, but they are mentioned by the early fathers in the first extant writings we have on hand. All right. So I just, I wanted to give you a introduction to the most important subjects in the church of Jesus Christ. You're not going to be part of a cult. Then you want to be part of a church that's been around for a long time. And then you need to look for churches that preach what? Number one, Christ, love, faith, repentance, the fear of God, the law of God, eldership, grace, the doctrine of election, and the judgment of God. By the way, the church fathers are very committed to the sovereignty of God in salvation. Very committed to it. So just be aware of that. It's a major emphasis amongst the early church fathers. Okay, let's take a look at the doctrine of repentance now. Repentance, defined, comes from the word metanoeo. I know you've heard that before, but I say it again. Metanoeo is directly translated, transliterated as a change of mind. Now, I believe, not everybody agrees with me on this. It seems to me George Whitefield believed that regeneration and repentance are the same thing. I don't believe so. Otherwise, the Bible would use the same word. But the Bible defines repentance differently from regeneration. Regeneration is considered the new birth, a complete change of the person, as in entering a mother's womb for a second time and being born again. So it's the construction of the new person, the new man, inside and out. And it is configured as the work of God. There's nothing you can do to regenerate yourself. Regeneration comes about by the work of the Spirit of God. According to Jesus in John three, a man has no control over his regeneration. Yet a man has some responsibility in the area of repentance, as a man does in the area of faith. So there is a difference in terms of responsibility. We have a responsibility when a man gets up in front of you and says, believe the gospel, repent of this I wickedness. When a man gets up and says that, that places a burden upon yourself. Now, it does say you must be born again. The problem is you can't be born again of your own efforts. So that is a passive tense. You're regenerated by another influence that is the influence of the spirit of God. Repentance is a responsibility of the man. So here's the way it works, as I understand it. Regeneration must happen in order for there to be repentance. So where there is no repentance, and sometimes pastors are working very hard to see there's repentance in a man's life or a woman's life, and he brings the message again and again. And yet there was no repentance. There's something like what Esau experienced, tears and things of that nature. And maybe a tertiary reception of the word, but but nothing really substantial. And there's no fruits of repentance. So there's no true biblical repentance. And we say, well, why not? Why not? Well, the problem is there must be a change of heart. a complete new man or a new heart placed within. God must come in and do the surgery, pulling out the heart of stone and placing within that heart the heart of flesh. God needs to do that in order for there to be a change of mind. The word noeo is knowledge or mind. There must be a change of mind and the change of mind comes about because now we have a new man operating within the person. So once there's heart change, the heart change begins to give way to a mind change and the mind change. Once there's a mind change, once this fundamental shift in direction in terms of how we think about things, There becomes a change in life. And you see now the the futile nature of trying to change the drunkards life patterns and the porn addicts life patterns over here where there is no fundamental change of mind. He still kind of likes his sin. He's still drawn to all this sin against God and appreciates his rebellion and doesn't really mind the fact that God's totally turned off and he's going to burn in hell forever. His mind is okay with all that. And so he's not going to change his life because there has been no change of mind. And there is no change of mind. Why? Because there is no change of heart. There's no new man, there's no regeneration. So the heart change drives the mind change, and the mind change drives the life change. Do you see how that works? And that's the difference between regeneration and repentance. The purpose of preaching, therefore, is to change your mind. You come in here with the wrong perspectives. That's a given. We all have the wrong perspectives. What we need to do is change our mind fundamentally about everything. About God, about you, your purpose in life, sin, Christ, everything. I got a big job to do. Now, obviously, it has to happen by the Spirit of God, working inside, working outside, helping with the preaching and all that. Yeah, that has to all come to bear. But the first thing you have to change your mind about is this. Here's the first thing. Or maybe one of the first things, but this is somewhere up front. You have to change your mind about the fact that your mind is alright. And that you've come in here with your mind in good form. See, that's hard because the average person is like, you know, my perspectives are the right perspectives. Whatever I know, whatever I believe is right. And I'm not going to be changed by any outside force, especially that of the Word of God. That's the natural man. But you've got to come in here not chesting your mind anymore. That needs to change. So the business of preaching is the business of turning the mind. It's a business of taking the big rusty bolts and taking the eight foot lever. You ever had a big old bolt that won't move? It's just like rusted in place. So in preaching, our goal is to take the eight foot lever on the rusty bolt and pull down. See, that's hard work. If you ever see me sweat up here, that's because I'm turning bolts or trying to. Obviously, it takes the Spirit of God inside of you. As I said, without regeneration, without the change of heart, all bets are off for the change of mind. But that's the definition of repentance. Here's one more thing. According to Hebrews 6 and verse 6, repentance is a state of being for the Christian. I think I also pointed out the very first plank on the 95 Theses that Martin Luther put on the Wittenberg church door. was that repentance is a lifelong state of being. It's very number one. So if you're a Reformed person, you believe in the Protestant Reformation, you attend Reformed churches, if you don't believe, like, number one on the 95 Theses, you better go back to number one, review it one more time. Repentance is a lifelong state of being for the Christian, Hebrews 6 and verse 6. speaks of the man who bears thorns and briars. He's nigh to cursing. He's tasted a spiritual gift. He's been sitting in church all his life, received a lot of messages, but he's not bearing any fruit. Just sitting there, bored out of his mind, but still attends because he wants to. And he's turning into a dried out old piece of branch, briars and thorns. And here's what the Word says about it. It is impossible to renew that person to repentance. Call it the Hebrews 6 apostate. There's a kind of person out there who's been part of the visible church for a long time. Received a little bit of the spiritual gift, tasted of it, but he's all dried up, doesn't bear fruit, and it's impossible to renew or restore him to repentance, which means repentance must be a state of being. Okay, now that's the definition. Let's move on to general lessons from all the passages above. We're going to take the cumulative passages and do our best to mine as much as we can. Find some of the common themes that come out of these passages that I took a lot of time to read to you. Number one, here's the first general lesson from the passages we reviewed. In every case, mention the passages. John the Baptist, Jesus, apostles. The message of repentance comes on the front end of the gospel message. Do you notice that? right at the very, very front end. Now, that's a tough pill to swallow. The first pill is the horse pill. It's a toughie. So, you know, when you're standing up in front of a university class debating evolution and creation, and you're standing in front of the abortion clinic, and there are people that disagree with you, you know what? We are commissioned on the front end to tell them we are here to challenge you. We're here to tell you that you are wrong and that you're going to change your perspective and your life on this issue and this issue and this issue. That's a huge turnoff. I know for the population out there. But that's the way John the Baptist started. That's the way Jesus started. That's the way the apostles started. That's the way the Apostolic Church did it. The front end involves a call to repentance. Remember a case in which I was watching the YouTube of a PCA pastor at Opportunity at a university classroom at this Columbia University, and the question was posed to him. Do you think homosexuality is a sin? And he backpedaled and backpedaled and backpedaled and backpedaled. He could not say it was a sin. Do not say it was a sin. Why? Because it's hard to say, yes, and we're here to call all men everywhere to repentance here and now. It's hard to say. I was in a similar position one time at Channel 12 doing a little debate on evolution, trying to change a little minds on evolution. And the guy exploded on me asking, I suppose you think homosexuality is a sin. Everybody's going to hell and commits it. And I said, not if they repent of it and believe in Christ. And he didn't know what to say. But see, that's gotta be on the front end of this. You say, well, it's unpopular to put it on the front end. It was unpopular for Peter. The Messiah we've been waiting for, for 2000 years, you done killed him! Repent! It was the most politically unpopular message ever preached in the history of preaching. And he put it on the front end. Repentance. It's unpopular. Tell that to John the Baptist. Tell that to Jesus Christ. Tell that to Peter. Yeah, it's confrontational. Yeah, it's a turn-off. Do it. Get out there and call the nations to repentance. They're wrong. They're in sin. They need to change. If people don't like repentance, they don't want to repent, what do you do? What do you do? Move on. Talk to 100 people. Nobody likes it. Talk to 1,000. Talk to 10,000. I don't waste an opportunity, as best as I can. I don't waste an opportunity. Now again, you don't have to have bad BO in the process. And don't eat kimchi before you... I ate kimchi this morning. I'm talking about what it does to the breath. You know, be careful that you're not using yourself as a turn-off. But the message is the message is the message. You've got to get there. You've got ten minutes with this guy. A couple of months ago, a guy was right next to me and he went right to the girlfriend he was living with and the fornication and all that. And I went as fast as I could to the message of repentance before we landed that plane. Had to get to repentance at the very least. Now whether it had any saving influence on his life, I don't know. But you've got to do that a hundred times or a thousand times everybody. We need to call all men everywhere To repentance every man in elizabeth every single one of them needs to hear the message repent For the kingdom of heaven is at hand repentance We're not looking for people who don't want to repent We don't want to bring everybody into the church and say, OK, I'm going to put off the message of repentance for the first five years and cultivate a bunch of people who are content with themselves, content with the status quo, content with their minds, their lives, that are besmirched with the taint of sin. We're looking for people who, at the very least, are asking the question, what am I doing in this handbasket and where are we going? They're a little uncomfortable that they may be in a handbasket and on the way to hell. Just not feeling quite right about it. See, these are the people we're looking for. It's just not worth it to delay the message. You'll fill your church with terrors. They won't tithe very much. Try to give a pragmatic reason for those who don't want to preach the message. They'll never multiply. They don't want to multiply. That's a pain. They'll dry up and burn anyway. So you're looking for repentance. Let's not be embarrassed by the word. It should run in our vocabulary all the time. True Christians are bothered by how the natural mind thinks about things. They compare the teachings of Christ with the way the natural mind thinks of things. They find these incompatibilities. Do you still do that? Ever go into the word and Jesus is jarring you, jerking you, shaking you? Still do that? Read a little Matthew 5, Matthew 7, Matthew 15. And he's shaking you. He's going, OK, this is you and this is me. And you're going, man, there is radical incompatibility with the way the natural mind thinks and the way Jesus thinks. OK, so the message of repentance comes on the front end. Here's number two. The message is universal. Paul says in Acts 17, calling all men everywhere to repentance. Jesus as well, Luke 24, 47, repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations. Beginning at Jerusalem. I went to Mexico this last weekend, got a day of that down there. four hours of preaching, guess what we did? Called the repentance. Are we trying to get them to repent of the same sins we're repenting of? No. The whole idea of preaching in Mexico is you've got to go over their issues. We've got to figure out ways in which they need to change. Because Mexico is one terribly messed up nation on multiple levels. And if they don't change, and if there isn't a change, a radical change happening with the way that kids are educated, in Mexico, that nation will never, ever see anything of a discipleship to it. And honestly, brothers and sisters, I think it's time for the message of repentance to spread through leaders, through men in this congregation, who one day will be called to missions, who will get out there and do what has not been done very much in places like Mexico. They need to repent. There needs to be a lot of repentance, especially among the Protestant churches. The message is universal. Number three, repentance is absolutely necessary for salvation. Jesus says, except you repent, you will likewise perish. Also in 2 Corinthians 7 verse 10, we find out that Godly grief does produce repentance that leads to salvation without regret. whereas worldly grief produces death. That's 2 Corinthians 7.10. And Paul... Elucidates a little bit on what that repentance consists of he says it is a change of minds a change of heart It's a change of direction. It's a lot of weeping going on Yes, there's godly sorrow, but that godly sorrow produces a fervency which produces a shoring up of discipline within the church true action fruits of repentance and in the end the church is purified of the sexual sin That's been dog in the Corinthian Church for the last five years or ten years or how long it's been Paul says I'm seeing repentance Because I'm seeing change I'm saying that you're willing to turn off people. You're willing to excommunicate people. You're willing to to passionately drive the message home because you believe it now. It's shifted the way you think. It's shifted the way you do your motions. It's shifted the way that you do your life. Repentance is necessary for salvation. Second Corinthians seven, verse 10. OK, let's move on to number four is the fourth general lesson you'll pull from. The messages of repentance in the New Testament, repentance and remission of sins are inseparable in the message. See that in actually 22. Repent, therefore, of this wickedness of yours, Paul says to Simon Saucer. repent of your wickedness, and pray to the Lord that, if possible, the intent of your heart may be forgiven you. Luke 3 and verse 3, John's repentance is for the remission of sins. Luke 24, 47, repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all the nations. You'll see that sometimes there's a repentance that is for the remission of sins. Don't say it's a meritorious cause. I don't believe it is a meritorious cause, but I do believe there is something of an inseparable connection between repentance and remission. You're not going to see somebody forgiven who doesn't want to be forgiven. Somebody loves their sin doesn't want to be purged away. They love their sins. They enjoy it. They're not coming to Jesus to wash away their sins. They love them. They're going to stick with their sins. So without repentance, without someone's having a fundamental change of mind towards his sins, he's not going to be seeking remission. He doesn't want it. He doesn't want it, so it doesn't make any sense to even talk about remission or forgiveness. It doesn't make any sense at all to a crowd of people that love their sins. If you don't love your sins, there's no sense in me talking about Jesus remitting your sins. You like them. But this message is for those who don't want their sins anymore. They've kept that little dangerous pit bull in their bedroom for a long time and then bid a hundred times. That's their baby. They love that pit bull. That's their cute little pit bull chewing up their bodies. But now they finally decided they don't like that dangerous pit bull anymore. They've forwarded that tattoo right there on their arm for the last 20 years. Oh, they love that tattoo. Oh, that, that, that helped them identify with something very, very closely. And their heart was all wrapped around that tattoo. Now they want it off. A change of mind toward the tattoo. He said, yes, it's been a part of them. It's been a part of their life. And they loved it. They appreciated it all this time. But now they're looking at it going, I wish I could get this off of me. Great. Run to God. He'll take care of it. That's what he's there for. We are called, therefore, to faith in God's remission. That is that God is there to remit sins. but we are also called to repentance. There is a sense in which the remission of sins is God's work, and repentance is our work, but don't forget, according to 2 Timothy 2.25, repentance is also the gift of God. Now let's move on to Luke 3. I want to take a special examination of Luke 3 because that is our passage for this morning. So take a look at verse 7 of Luke 3, and let's work through this rather quickly, but I'd still like to spend a little time in our passage this morning. This is John speaking to the multitude that came forth to be baptized of him. Oh, generation of vipers! Now stop there for a moment. Probably not the best opening for good, solid ethos. You want them to kind of open things up and kind of lighten things up with a joke on the front end. I'm less and less likely to do that in my conferences. I know that the people that have all of the funny lines are typically the ones that are appreciated more than anybody. And I, over the years, have been tempted to Cultivate the ethos but not so much John and Brothers, I wonder how much a thoughts we should be concerned with when there are bigger issues at stake. Shall we say? So John opens up he says Oh generation of vipers who have warned you to flee from the wrath to come Repentance is first a Recognition and a certainty That judgment is real. And that judgment is imminent. The ax is laid at the root. Take a look at verse 9. There he's telling them the ax is there at the root. The root being the root of the tree. Ax is at the root. What is the tree thinking? It's thinking his days are numbered. Perhaps his hours are numbered. Perhaps his minutes are numbered. So there's the ax right at the root of the tree. Speaking of the Jews, And so the first thing he wants to convince them of is imminent judgment. This is something like Noah's perspective on his 600th birthday. That was two months and 17 days before it began to rain. We know that. We don't know exactly when the flood began, but we know it was two months and 17 days after Noah's 600th birthday. Now, Noah has been preaching for 120 years. He knows it's getting close. He knows it's going to rain. It's coming this year. No one knows that rain is imminent. Judgment is imminent. And what is he thinking? He's thinking, well, here's number one. He's thinking, this is the church. This is the steeple. Open the door. There ain't but eight people. And there are two billion people who refuse to hear the message. One thing he knows, judgments is coming and it is going to be devastating. So our perspective has to be something like Noah's on his 600th birthday. There are going to be a lot of people killed. The suspense must have been intense. It's only a matter of days. Judgment was imminent. And we read here that these people are being mourned of the wrath that is to come. And we have harbingers of this all around us. We were in Guadalajara as I said, over the weekend, and took about an hour or two and surveyed churches up and down the stone streets of Guadalajara. It's a beautiful city, probably 420 rock churches made out of sandstone, and embedded in that sandstone are pieces of fossils. These hundreds and thousands, perhaps millions of dead things buried in these rocks that form the churches in Guadalajara. And again, I can't help but think of what God did to a world when he saw what this world did. in bringing about such bloody devastation. And the bloody devastation of abortion over the last 40 years has been more intensive, I believe, than any other time in human history. We have never had the chemicals. We never had the technology. We never had the ability to do it. We had a few hangers, yes. But we never had the ability to slice and dice children in a mass production way to bring the birth rate from an average of 6.0 down to about 2.2 worldwide and kill between 2 and 7 billion children since Margaret Sanger came up with that pill in 1960. There has been, just in the last 10 years, even more nations, right down to Ireland last year, the last nation in Europe to buckle to abortion. And this whole self-centered, existentialistic, it's all about me approach to life has brought about so much evil. And that was the sort of world God finally was fed up with. He said, I'm coming to that world, I'm destroying that world. I'm gonna kill all flesh from off the earth and now to this day the rocks try out to us everywhere including the churches in Guadalajara God is a judging God. He knows how to kill and he can bring down life billions of lives If he gets fed up with it Judgment is far more imminent today as I see it than it was even in 1960 At least for the Western nations Now, you say, future wrath? Will there be future wrath? Oh, yes. There is a wrath yet to come. Paul says in Romans 2, 5, speaking to homosexuals, rebellious teenagers who won't obey their parents, fornicators, slanderers, etc., you are treasuring up wrath unto the day of wrath. And he's speaking to the Romans. He's talking about the pagans here. I'm talking about the Jews. At this point, he's talking to the pagans. Treasuring up wrath unto the day of wrath. Revelation 6, 16, the kings of the earth, the rich men, the mighty men, as the proudest men of all. Proudest are those with all the wealth, those with all the power. They hid themselves in the caves, and they said to the mountains and rocks, follow us, hide us from the face of him that sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb. For the great day of his wrath has come, and who shall be able to stand? You've seen the wrath of Adolf Hitler. You've seen the wrath of some of the worst dictators, but I'm here to tell you that's nothing in comparison to the wrath of God. These things are real. Therefore, what? Well, according to John the Baptist, he says, flee, flee the wrath to come. This is a picture of Christian pilgrim's progress. He says it's hitting the city of destruction. Somehow he gets the sense there will be judgment. There will be destruction. Something is coming. This is the city of destruction after all and he begins to get very very uncomfortable It says we got to go. We got to go. We got to go We got to run and then the story tells us that he gets up and he runs He runs out of the city as fast as he can why because he has imminent sense that judgment is coming If the word got out that Pikes Peak was about to blow It's going to be a volcano, not unlike what happened at Mount St. Helens, right there at the base of Colorado Springs. You know what? People would be concerned. If they heard that there was going to be fire and brimstone coming out of this gigantic mountain, which is, what, not 10 miles away from the city, I tell you, If they heard 150,000 homes, potentially 400,000 lives, will be destroyed this afternoon, there would be a mass exodus out of Colorado Springs. They would be motivated to leave. And if the Colorado Springs Gazette didn't worry about it, didn't take any look at the seismic charts, weren't all that interested in any of the data, but they continued to talk about the fender benders on Academy and the dedication of a new monument to some gay school teacher down on Bijou Street. me encourage you not to buy the paper. They're talking about essential things here. Why would you buy the Colorado Springs Gazette? Talking about stupid things. There is a volcano. It's about to blow. All the seismic charts are indicating this. And there will be 500,000 lives lost in Colorado Springs. And they're talking about a gay schoolteacher and his monument on Beijing Street? Forget that! There are far more important stories that should be on the front page of that paper, and on every page in that paper, there is judgment imminent, and somebody better say it! This is the message that John the Baptist brings to the people 30 years before it came. The motive for repentance, therefore, is judgment, a certain hatred of sin, an expectation of God's judgment, and a discomfort with your present condition in the city of Colorado Springs, or the city of destruction. It takes a certain discomfort. You need to feel something of a motivation to leave the city. But secondly, it also includes an apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ. That's the way our catechism puts it. It's dead on. Yes, it is a hateful, a hatred of our sins, but it's also an apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ. We flee, but where do we go? We flee to Christ because Christ is offering the salvation that we need. We're fleeing to the ark because the ark offers that opportunity. We flee into the Father's arms because the Father is saying, come to me. I am not a wrathful God towards you. I'm a merciful God. Isaiah 55, 7, let the wicked forsake his way, the unrighteous man his path. Let him turn to the Lord for he will abundantly pardon. God is there. He's ready to abundantly pardon. So there's the push and the pull. There's the push in realizing the bankruptcy of one's sin, one's condition, the condition of sitting under judgment. There's that, that push. And then there's a pull of God the Father beckoning to us with his arms wide open, standing right there at the front of the driveway saying, come, come, flee from the city of destruction, but come to me. I will protect you in the day of wrath. My son will provide for you in the day of wrath. This is the motive for repentance. Thirdly, the third thing we find from the story of John the Baptist and his preaching is that fruit really matters. Fruit is the only thing that demonstrates true repentance. Find that in verses 9 through 14 of the passage. And the people asked him, John the Baptist, they said, what shall we do then? He answered and said to them, He that has two coats, let him impart to him that has none. He that has meat, let him do likewise. Then came also the publicans to be baptized, said to them, Master, what shall we do? He said to them, exact no more than what is appointed you. And the soldiers likewise demanded of him, saying, What shall we do? And he said to them, Do violence to no man, neither accuse any falsely, and be content with your wages. It almost seems like a rather non-dramatic ending to his ministry. It doesn't sound that intense. He gets right down to the practical. And that maybe is what causes us to think this is not exactly what we thought of when we thought of repentance. I think because we still think of repentance as something of an emotional thing. But actually the word repentance has almost nothing to do with emotions. Now it is true, tears sometimes accommodate repentance. occasionally, but not always. Repentance is not about tears. Repentance is a change of mind, a change of perspective, a basic change of perspective, which leads to a change of life. Words themselves are not enough either. It's so easy for some of us to just parent the words. We get that religious talk going. We even use the word repentance. Maybe a lot. Maybe we bring it in, but we just have learned to talk the talk. At the end of the day, there's not that much difference between those who attend church and those who don't attend church. We see that a lot in our society today. That's why we need to be the kind of people like James, who says, don't tell me how much you talk. I want to see your walk. Do you bridle your tongue? Are you bridling your tongue? Is this a church that bridles its tongue? And do you feed the orphans and widows? It just comes down to the basic stuff. And you say, well, yeah, I kind of did that for like a week, and then I got tired of it. And basically my life has been nothing but feeding myself for the last 52 weeks. But on Thanksgiving week, when the pastor gives a sermon, sometimes I get a little involved for about 10 minutes, and then I fizzle out within a week or two. Yeah, I don't know. I don't really have much of a change of perspective. I just my life never really changes very much. I get a little whipped up into some kind of a, you know, oh, I got to do this to make the pastor happy. But, you know, it's just an external thing. And I don't really have much of a change of mind towards towards money and towards the poor, towards bridling my tongue. I'm just really basically the same person I was 10, 15 years ago. Friends, that's not what John is talking about here. He's talking about a change of life. And evidently, something to do with money is important. Mammon must be important. It's important to Jesus. And it should be important to us as well. The consideration of money and material things is huge. Now, I think it should be just as significant with us as it is anywhere else. I think we need to continually ask ourselves, how important is money to us? Are we driven by money? Is the reason why we're trying to get a good education to get our kids a good job? We need to ask that question. The emphasis on a good education versus the kingdom of God is significant among homeschoolers. Come on, I'm pressing the point home. And those of you involved as leaders, those of you who are engaged in education, trying to make smart kids out there with your little classes and stuff, I'm asking you, is it about them being smart and them getting good jobs, or is it about the kingdom of God and His righteousness? I believe, and some of you know that I have stuck my head out a bit and I've challenged the system a fair amount. Why? Because I believe there is something fundamentally wrong with education in America and the way we look at careers for our children. There's a fundamental problem with the way that we prepare our children for life. Why? The kingdom of God is not primary. There is a reason why homes in America are twice as large as they were in 1900, and the average American has half the kids. That represents their values. They're about materials. And I think this seeps in on us as well. Sometimes we do compromise discipleship just to make an extra buck. Are their families doing that? These are the things that John the Baptist is pressing home. And Jesus would press home. How important is mammon to us? If making the extra buck is more important than discipling our kids, then admit it! Maybe there needs to be a fundamental change of mind for ourselves. And I think replacing the private charity system presented in the Word of God by the debt-based welfare system that corrupts the poor, wholesale, such that I have a hard time, even the brother who was working downtown in Columbus, Ohio, and he gave us all the story about how he worked very hard down there with the poor trying to bring, he couldn't bring one person, not one person came to repentance. It was others in the suburbs that eventually joined his church. And I've heard this many times. The fundamental problem in America is that there is not enough charitable contribution happening voluntarily from people in our churches. And there aren't enough poor seeking accountability in churches that are willing to bring 10% of their income to bear on the poor in those congregations. We need a fundamental change or Jesus will curse our churches, including this one. I believe it. Unless we reverse the way we look at charity, voluntary charity, and begin to do way more as congregations of the saints, whether it be the inner city or here. In conclusion, have you repented? Are you repenting? And what must we repent of? The obvious thing, of course, covetousness, the idolatry, materialism, and the failure to care for the poor. But also the idolizing of power, sex, and money. These things are huge motivations. They have been in my own life, friends. They dogged my heels way too much. I wonder sometimes how much fundamental change I've had, as I'm always back to competition. back to the fundamental principle in the city of man, and that is love of praise. I wonder if we ought to have contests and trophies. I wonder that. Because remember, the fundamental value, the fundamental value in the city of man is the love of the praise of man, rather than the praise of God. And I think that what waters down our worship on a Sunday morning is there's way too much praise of man going on. The idolizing of self. of body image, especially in Colorado, the fixation on exercise, the fixation on the way we look, the fixation on physical health, especially when spiritual health is neglected, is a huge concern in the state of Colorado. Are there people right here, right now that need to repent, have a fundamental change of heart and mind? on these matters that will result in different priorities in your life. Why am I so passionate about this? Because unless you repent, you will perish. You say repent of what? Find something to repent of. If repentance has not been the warp and woof of your life, friends, you're not a Christian. You're not a Christian. Repentance is the Christian life. According to Hebrews 6.6. So what do we repent of? All idols under foot be trod. The Lord is God. The Lord is God. It's been the cry of my heart for the last year. I've had to find some idols in my life. I know it hasn't been hard to find them and crush those idols, one of which was entertainment. Such a big deal in my life. I've had to crush that thing. Empty forms of entertainment have become more important than the word of God in our homes. We look forward to that movie rather than family worship. That's a problem. That's a fundamental problem in your home with your kids. Fundamental. There are things that represent apostasy in the Western world. Autonomy. As I said, the praise of man, but also pride and knowledge. The autonomous knowledge that Aquinas gave us. The philosophical knowledge built up on human reason that largely characterizes our universities today is a tremendous problem, a huge problem. I still tell our children, I think a lot of them become very, very strong in their knowledge and their understanding, their skills. And if they're not fighting the pride of men and the autonomy of human thought in these universities, every single day they will get sucked in by it. It will chew them up, spit them out, and they will apostatize. Friends, we've seen that. for the last two to three hundred years, perhaps four hundred years. We've seen so much that we need to fight that with everything we've got. I'm not saying don't go to the universities. I'm just saying you pack as much vegetables with you as Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego did. And if you don't understand that, OK, there are things that they took into their mouths, but there are things that you're taking into your ears. that are just as dangerous, even more dangerous. Be, oh, ever so careful with those ideas. And then there's the big sins that easily ensnared us. Pornography, gluttony, drunkenness, slothfulness, rebellious spirits towards husbands and fathers. And some have told me of dysfunctional courtships, and maybe I was just ignorant, but Brother Mike Chapp is really concerned about this. He brought a good presentation to the family camp, and he brought it up again in our session meeting. And he was concerned. He's waving the flag on this one. He says there are so many instances he knows of where the angry fathers or the unloving parents and the dishonoring children, the problem was under the surface. Nobody knew where it was or even existed. And then suddenly, you know, courtship happens and it all blows up. And there's all these terrible relationships that form. Friends, if that be the case anywhere, there'll be relationships that are torn apart by lack of honor, lack of love, angry fathers. These are major issues. And I warn you, I don't want to see you in hell. These are sins. Repent. Repent of these sins. You know, it could be that we have a big facade. in much of our homeschool courtship circles. Maybe it's a lot of it's a fake, maybe not all of it, but maybe a lot of it's a big fake. Maybe people have been faking it all these years. Wouldn't that be sad? Go to judgment day. And we thought that somehow we'd talk about relationships, talk about love, talk about honor, but it turns out all we had was shattered relationships between parents and children. And there wasn't true honor and true love amongst us. at least in certain families, that would rip my heart out, especially if nobody stood up in front of the people of God and said, repent of this, repent of it. There's something fundamentally wrong with you, especially if your relationships with your parents and your children are so bad. Repent of this thy wickedness, Peter says. And then sexual sins, inordinate, untoward desires. I'm not even talking about thoughts, I'm talking about desires. Some have said, some homosexuals say, you know, I just have desires towards the same... The problem is, God has said, not for you, on every male in the world. He has assigned, not for you, on every male in the world. And you're wanting it. It's the same problem incestuous families have. Where kids begin to desire something. Where God says, not for you, on your siblings. Not for you, not for you, not for you, not for you. And you're desiring something that God says, not for you, on. The homosexuals have the same problem the incestuous do. And then the heterosexuals say, well, I guess we're doing well. Not if you're a male and you're looking around and you're seeing all your sisters in Christ and you're being incestuous with them. God has placed not for you signs on all these ladies and you think they're available to you. You think that's an option for you that that somehow you can lust after them if you want to someday, maybe not now, but someday you will. That's an inordinate desire. No different than the homosexual incestuous. We need a fundamental change of mind and then. Towards towards God, towards his commandments, towards our sisters in the body of Christ. These women are our sisters. Treat them like sisters. They don't even play the potential opportunity for a sex object to you. You need a fundamental change of mind on some of these major sins of the day. And may God bring it to you. May you run to Him and say, God, I hate this problem in me. God, change my heart. Change my mind. Purge me of these untoward, inordinate desires. Enable me to see my sisters as true sisters in Christ. Then there's the fundamental shift that happens for unbelievers. We repent of tens of thousands of things our whole life long, but When you come to a saving knowledge of Christ, you repent of the fundamental issues first. Now, I don't know where any of you are exactly, whether you're here or here or here or here. I'm just throwing out these things. It may be some of you need a fundamental shift. Maybe you need to go even more fundamental. Some of the things I've said thus far, Jeffrey Dahmer, for example, I just think that his last words to NBC News the day before he died, were the most interesting I think I've ever read. He said, the problem with me is I saw myself as an animal. And I came to find out that I was created and all of us were created by the Lord Jesus Christ. And I am accountable to him. And as we read the testimony of his book, Everything else changed about that man's life. It was incredible. Why? Because he had a fundamental shift, metaphysically, as to who he was. You, brothers, you, sisters, are created by God. You are not your own. You were created to serve Him, to worship Him. to love Him, and you're recreated in Christ to be the servant of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's your identity. And that's where everything is going to change about your life, when you find out who you really are. Well, we must all repent of not repenting. If you have not taken the judgment of God seriously, Now repent of that. If you have not taken Christ seriously, not estimated Him very highly, then repent of that. Here's the good news. The good news is, as far as I can tell, there's no rain falling yet. Noah is 598 years old. Or maybe he's 599. Or maybe he just turned 600. But the good news, friends, is that God is long-suffering. Yes, to a sinful world, but also to a sinful Western world, filled with all this apostasy and the things we've talked about, there is yet time to repent. Seek after the Lord while He is found. Call on Him while He is near. And if you don't listen to messages like this, if you wind up in hellfire, God forbid, that should happen to anybody here, but if you do, you would give 10,000 worlds to be in one more sermon. so that you would have one more opportunity to hear the message of repentance unto life. See how privileged you are today? You're here. Praise be to God. You're hearing the message. What a wonderful thing. And here's some more goodness. It doesn't matter how bad you are. The very worst men who ever lived have repented. I mentioned Jeffrey Dahmer. But think about Manasseh, probably the worst murderer and the worst child killer. And you want to talk about abortionists, it's out there. Roasting children committing human sacrifice little babies. This man was awful. He's the very worst I think that that Israel ever had is interesting that we've got the worst and God saves them Here's Manasseh the worst and they take him off to captivity. He turns back to God with all his heart and The word says, and God went and grabbed him, embraced him, said, I'm going to take you all the way back to the promised land. Yeah, my servant, you're here. And God rewards him just like that. Beautiful story of Manasseh, the prodigal Judah, beautiful picture of Judah, the worst of all the 12. Then he committed some of the worst sexual sins. Yeah, this guy was awful But he repented so he turned to that woman and said I have been the worst sinner of them all Wow, what a repentance and God comes to Judah and says great. I love you, man You're gonna be the progeny for the Lord Jesus Christ himself and on and on and on and on This is the way God works He is so gracious to us They found mercy, and they found it because they sought it. They wanted it, they cried out for it, and they valued it. And as believers, I hope that the love of God will continue to grow in you, the love of the Son for the Father, the Father for the Son, and the Son for you at the cross, that there may be more love for Christ within you, more value in his sacrifice, and more gratefulness for what he has done. Let's pray. Father in heaven, Oh, Father, we can sense our minds turning at perhaps a hundred different points right now. I have shifted direction in so many things. And, Father, there's so many more things, but You are patient. Father, we run to You every time we say, Oh, Father, we dislike our sin. We want to be purged of these things. We ask for Your mercy upon us, oh God. Extend to us your arms Receive us father protect us that we may not be harmed in the day of judgment most importantly we pray That your son would wash our sins away today in Jesus name and let's Now, take some time for the Lord's Supper. We come to a remembrance of what Christ did at the cross for us. This is the way that he purged away our sins. This is how we get remission of sins. Paul, in 1 Corinthians 16, 22, says this is kind of a surprising verse that shows up at the end of the letter. If any man loved not the Lord Jesus Christ, Let him be anathema Maranatha enemy cursed forever. That's shocking. You know, that's we don't we don't say things like that very much. but it appears that Paul is very passionate about the love of Christ. Hebrews 10, 28, also, he that despised Moses' law died without mercy under two or three witnesses. Of how much sore punishment, suppose ye shall he be thought worthy who has trodden underfoot the Son of God, hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing done despot unto the Spirit of grace. Hebrews, again, warning us. And there in Revelation 2, the church at Ephesus had lost their first love. And here's the thing that shocks me about this. They had only come out of paganism over the previous 20 years. And so that has a message to us. And maybe some of you have come out of paganism in the last 20 years. You know, you've been part of the church for 20, 25, 30 years, and here already they had lost their first love. Wow. And then Jesus turns to them and says, remember, therefore, from whence you are fallen, repent. And do the first works or else I will come to you quickly, will remove your candlestick out of his place, except you repent. So here, I think, is the fundamental area of repentance. So really, really core, especially for those of us who've been in the church for a long time. And that is a repentance. of our lack of love for Jesus Christ. If there is any lack of love, if Jesus, your relationship with Jesus is growing cold, And your appreciation of him and his sacrifice has grown cold. Jesus Christ is the very highest object of love. He demands our love. Everything about him demands our love for several reasons. One, he's God. We're to love God with our heart, soul, mind and strength. And but number two, he loved us. And he did the most spectacular action of love ever done by any human being, by anybody in the history of the universe. The absolute most astounding act of love happened at Calvary. You can't get a more loving person. You can't find a more loving act than what happened at Calvary. And now, we're telling you, that was for you! Jesus loved you! Jesus died on the cross for you! So now, would you love Him? That's the application. Would you love Him? The greatest lover who ever lived. Would you love Him? There's nobody more lovable. I don't know as if I'm that lovable for my wife. Very much. I have a feeling I'm a turn-off. Way too much. But she still loves me. Thank you. But you know what? Jesus is the most lovable. He's way more lovable than me. So, I guess, here's the application for this service. Will you embrace this love? He's holding on to you. And maybe you're like Mr. Anglo-Saxon stiff about the whole thing. You know how Anglo-Saxons are? The Mexicans say, you Anglo-Saxons are way too stiff. You don't kiss anybody, you don't hug anybody. And so you're just being Mr. Anglo-Saxon stiff. And Jesus' arms are all around you. What I'm saying right now is give him a hug. Give him a hug. Love him. And that's what we're doing at this table. Let's pray. Father in heaven, we thank you for your love. Oh God, help us to feel it at this table. Help us to understand more about it. And father, to appreciate what you have done. Perhaps we've just seen a little piece of it here and there. But open our eyes even more to see what you did for us at Calvary and you have prepared a mansion for us and you're there waiting for us and you're going to embrace us for eternity. Father, we pray we embrace you now. I love you, Lord. Thank you for your kindness to us. Thank you for this table. Thank you for washing away our sins. Thank you for your spirit. Pray now that you'd administer more love to us, Father, by your spirit now in Jesus' name.