If you would go and open up to Joel chapter two. I think Joel is one of my favorite minor prophets, I love the themes of the book after Hosea, before Amos will be in chapter two, starting with verse 12, as we just read. As Joel is talking about the day of the Lord, the wrath of God, terrible judgment for sin. When we read all of the details last week of Joel pointing. to different things that were going on in the nation of Judah, the drought, the swarms of locusts, all of the things that they were facing. And he used all of those things to point at judgment for sin. God was judging the people. And if they thought this was bad, if they thought the army of locusts and swarming locusts were bad, he assures them that there is an army coming with swords and shields that is going to overcome the people of God and take them off into captivity. As that prophecy expounds, it continues to expand. Remember that as he adds to that theme upon theme of destruction and judgment, he says that even as bad as things are now, this will seem like the Garden of Eden compared to what it will be later. It's something that struck them. as they saw the destruction around them to think that anything close to that would resemble the Garden of Eden. How much worse did that mean then that the wrath of God would be in the coming day of the Lord? But as this message was proclaimed, you'll remember there was a question at the end of verse 11 that we closed with last week. As the Lord talks about his coming in judgment to execute his word, the day of the Lord being great and very terrible, who can endure it? Who's going to be able to stand up under that hypothetical question with the answer that most people would answer is that no one can endure it. But we know from a New Testament perspective that Christ endured it. He bore the wrath of God for our sin and was raised from the dead the third day so that we might be able to stand up under the scrutiny of the purity and the holiness of God. Because Christ has given us his righteousness and his obedience, because he died to take away the penalty of our sin, we will endure the judgment. That doesn't make it any less terrible. But for the believer, it tells us the great and terrible price that Jesus had to pay to redeem us. But now in chapter two, verse 12, there's a call to repentance. Joel begins to give the solution. Last week, we talked about the proclamation of ruin. This week, we're going to look at the plea for repentance and what it is that he tells the people about the very nature of God. Next week, the message is titled the promise of restoration, the goodness and the mercy that God will have toward those who repent and turn to him from their sin. But here he begins. Now, therefore, says the Lord, this is God speaking. Turn to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping and with mourning. Surrender your heart and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and of great kindness. And he relents from doing harm. Who knows if he will turn and relent and leave a blessing behind him? A grain offering and a drink offering for the Lord your God. As God begins to offer the opportunity, as he begins to give them a hint here as for what is needed, he tells the nation, turn to me. It's a command, not a suggestion. It is the only solution for dealing with sin, the solution of repentance. He says, turn to me with all your heart. The phrase there, fraternity, is one of several phrases that is used to talk about repentance in the Old and the New Testament. In the Old Testament, the words range in meaning from meaning literally turning around. You're headed one direction and you stop, you turn around and you go back the other way. Oftentimes, when you hear the term repentance, God uses it in that phrase. Turn to me or return to me. Come back to me. It would be the story of the prodigal son where the son left. And when he came to his senses, when he was under conviction of the spirit, when he woke up there to what he had done in the trough with the pigs eating the husks. He came to himself, got up and returned home. He was repenting repentance in the New Testament, a little more specific word, and it deals with changing your mind. It is a change of mind and heart. You think one way about something, and then you think differently about it. You think about your sin. Before Christ, you were in bondage to your sin, and you couldn't get free. After Christ, you're free, and you have the desire to overcome temptation and to stand firm. We don't always stand like we should, but the heart of a believer is a heart of repentance. Constantly changing our mind about sin, casting off sin and turning to Christ. When we talk about saving faith and repentance, when we are converted, we understand that that is a turn, a change from embracing sin. We reject sin instead and turn and accept Christ by faith. That's a work that he does in our hearts. He changes us. Ezekiel says he takes out our heart of stone and gives us a heart of flesh, a heart that can be changed. But what we understand is that many who preach repentance today are preaching it with just the bare minimum of requirements. You would ask some, what is biblical repentance? And they would say rightly that the Greek word in the New Testament is most often their metanoia. It means a change of mind. So just change your mind, think differently. Now, where that fails, it's not that that's not the truth, but where that fails is in the application. Because then you will have people say that in order to repent, you just need to hate your sin. You don't have to give it up. You just have to hate it. You just have to change your mind that just muster up the willpower and say to yourself, sin bad, God good. And it's this kind of primal thing that you can just change your thinking. That's not the picture of biblical repentance that the scripture gives us at all. Repentance starts with a command from God. Return to me. It's not just a change of mind. What we fail to understand is that if you really change your mind, your behavior will match what you think. We have got a bunch of people running around today preaching a bunch of psycho babble, telling people that if they think it, it will become so. No, if you think it, it is so. If you're thinking it, if it's in your belief system, if it's in your mind, that is how you will behave. Pastor friend of mine who mentored me in the faith, you probably heard me tell this illustration. He would explain it this way. If you were to take your family out this afternoon to enjoy the beautiful weather out into some area of the woods around here, and maybe you're new to Texas and you've heard all the stories about the tarantulas that can drag your children off and the rattlesnakes that swallow minivans whole, and you know that there are horrible and nasty things out there in the wilderness of Texas. So you're here and you're with your family and you're in the great outdoors and you're in the woods and something begins to rustle. And you don't know if it's a big snake or a bear or a lion. You don't know what it is, some Texas monstrosity that's coming after you and your family. Now, it doesn't matter what's in the woods, does it? What matters now is what you're thinking. Because if you think some big, bad, mean, lone star, eat-em-up monster is coming after your family, you're going to pack up and leave. as quickly as you possibly can. Pastor friend of mine said it this way. If you're in the woods and you think a bear is chasing you, you're going to run just as fast as if a bear was really there. If you think it's there, you will act accordingly. How many of us would think that some horrible creature was coming out of the woods and would just sit there calmly and continue to eat lunch? If so, you don't really believe something's coming after you. If you believe something is coming, you're going to react. But here's what we face. We face this dilemma of the fact that we have been told, if you just believe it, eventually it will come true. That's not biblical faith. It's not biblical repentance. It's not just change your mind. A change of mind, a change of heart results in a change of behavior. Jesus said what was in your heart comes out your mouth. It will be evident for all. And in reality, what is in your heart and what is in your mind will show itself in the way you live, the way you act, the way you behave, the way you react will be evidence of what you believe. So if someone tells you that repentance is just changing your mind, Understand that what that means is you change your mind. You think differently about sin. You reject your sin and you turn to Christ in faith and your behavior will change. It has to. If not, you haven't repented. We'll look at that further down in the text here in Joel. But he lays the foundation here by saying, turn to me with all your heart. You've not come after me with all of your heart. You're not hungering and thirsting for me. You're not wanting to be with me. You're not obeying me. You're not thinking the right thoughts about me. When we talk about the book of Joel, we need to understand that God wants us to have a right vision of him. He says, turn to me with all your heart. Think, think right thoughts. These people thought that God would let them get away with their sin. They thought that God would just wink at it. The Old Testament term that's used a lot. Do you think that God will wink at your sin? Do you think he'll just shut his eyes and look away and not see what you're doing? God is aware of what we do as his people. And in the book of Joel, there was a command. You've sinned. So now you need to repent. You need to think right thoughts. You need to come to me with your whole heart. He qualifies it there, he says, as you're repenting, as you're turning back to me, you need to do this with fasting, with weeping and with mourning. You need to fast. Fasting is not something that's talked about very often anymore as a spiritual discipline. A lot of people think that fasting can be mystical or whatever, but fasting is as simple as denying your flesh so that you can allow the spirit of God to speak to your heart. Fasting is as simple as denying yourself, taking up your cross and following Christ. And this is what he says. I want you to turn to me. I want you to return and I want you to fast and weep and mourn. Now, what does that show? Does that mean that every time we repent, we're supposed to fast and cry? No, but what God was saying is I want this to be genuine. I really want you to turn to me with your whole heart. Because your heart's gone astray. You followed after false gods. You followed after Baal. You have wrong images of me, he says even. And you need to return to me and be sorry for your sin. Part of repentance is being sorry for our sin, but it is not enough just to be sorry. I want you to hear that because that's an important distinction to make. Part of repentance is being sorry for your sin. But it's not enough just to be sorry. How often is it that people are sorry that they got caught? They're not sorry that they sinned, they're sorry that there were consequences, and so God is telling his people here, return to me with all of your heart. Be sincere about it. You need to be devastated over the fact that you've sinned against God, you need to fast, you need to weep, you need to mourn. In verse 13, he says, rend your heart and not your garments. Make it genuine. In the Old Testament, what did they do if they were grieved over something? They would rip their clothes, render their garments, and that meant something was really bad. He says, no need to do that. Just rend your heart, make it real. Turn to me. Rend your heart, not your garments, return to the Lord your God. Now, as he's preaching this message of repentance, usually we hear a message of repentance amidst wrath and hellfire. And God's going to get you if you don't do this. But what does God say here as he's told them there's going to be judgment for sin? He stops, though, and he says, now you need to turn back to me with all of your heart. You need to genuinely repent, rend your heart, not your garments. Turn yourself back to me. And he tells us why. In verse 13, he says, Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and of great kindness, and he relents from doing harm. He presents a picture of himself as merciful. Yes, there's justice. Yes, there's anger towards sin. Yes, there's wrath. But God also is gracious and he also is merciful. What is it for God to be gracious? To be gracious is to be given something that we don't deserve, that we can't we can't earn. He is gracious. He is merciful. Oftentimes, we do picture God in his wrath as being terribly, terribly angry, but it says there in verse 13, he is slow to anger. How many of us are quick to anger? How many of us? It does not take very much to get us angry at all. Thank the Lord, he is not like us. He is slow to anger. And it says he is a great kindness. This word kindness is a tender heartedness. There's a soft spot with God, not that he overlooks sin, but he says, look, if you will repent. And here's why you need to repent. Because I am gracious, I am merciful, I am slow to anger, I am tenderhearted. And when you repent, it says he relents from doing harm. I want to spend a little moment on that when it says God relents from doing harm. I want to ask you a question. Does God ever change his mind? Think about that for a moment. Free answer. Does God change his mind? Now, we have illustrations in the scripture. where God said, I'm going to destroy those people down there, Moses. And Moses said no. And Moses interceded. And God said, OK, I won't for now. The biblical language is that God repents. Does God have any sin he needs to repent of? No. What does it mean? Does it mean he changed his mind? No. It means he changed. Does it mean that he changes at all? No. It means that men met the requirement for him to be gracious. God doesn't change. God says, I'm going to judge. But always in that pronouncement of judgment, we have verse 13. But I'm gracious. I'm merciful. I'm slow to anger. I'm tenor hearted. And if you repent, I will stop. It's not that God changes his attitude towards sin. It's not that he changes his mind about his people. It's that he's given us conditions. If you don't repent, you'll be judged. But if you do repent, I will withhold that from happening. Some have said that God does change his mind, that he was sorry that he made men and that he's repented and then he's changed his mind about different things. If anybody ever tells you that God does change his mind, take them to Malachi chapter three, verse six. Malachi, the last book in the Old Testament, chapter three, verse six, this is what God says, I am the Lord and I do not change. It's not that God changes. It's that we change. And when we repent, he withholds that judgment. He says there in verse fourteen, who knows if he will turn and relent and leave a blessing behind him? Here's the idea. God is coming in wrath and in anger and in judgment. And here comes the storm. And we repent and God turns. We return to him, so he turns away his wrath. And it's the idea that he turns around and when he leaves, as his robes pass by, there is a gift. It says there a grain offering and a drink offering for the Lord. It's a question. He says, who knows if this is what he's going to do? He will provide. Look what happens there when we repent. He will provide the sacrifice. For restoration. Sin demands a sacrifice, doesn't it? It doesn't just demand repentance. Sin demands a sacrifice. There's no forgiveness, no remission without the shedding of blood, without a sacrifice. But what does he say here? Who knows if he will turn and relent and leave a blessing behind him? A grain offering and a drink offering for the Lord. God himself provides the offering. What is that a picture of for us? Sounds a lot to me like the book of Hebrews, doesn't it? Where it says the blood of bulls and goats were not sufficient, but Jesus was offered once for all as a sacrifice for the sins of his people. God offered the sacrifice that brought about our redemption. He does demand of us, though, that we repent and that we believe him. He goes on and he says in verse fifteen, blow the trumpet in Zion, consecrate a fast Gather the people, sanctify the congregation, assemble the elders, gather the children and the nursing babes. Let the bridegroom go out from his chamber and the bride from her dressing room and let the priest to minister to the Lord week between the porch and the altar. Let them say, spare your people, O Lord, and do not give your heritage to reproach that the nation should rule over them. Why should they say among the peoples, where is their God? As we talk about the truth of repentance and the necessity of repentance and the character of God involved in that, he goes on and he says, look, in this repentance, there needs to be a reality to this. You need to rend your hearts. You need to be serious about it. He says you need to blow the trumpet. You need to consecrate a fast, call a sacred assembly. What is he saying here? Don't just do this in private. Don't just think this is something like, OK, my mind is changed. I'm OK now. God says I take sin very seriously. So you need to get together with the people of God and together you need to repent and confess. What did Daniel do when Daniel knew that God was judging his people? Daniel prayed. And what did Daniel pray? He repented of the sins of his people. Not just his sins, the sins of his people, the point to blowing the trumpet and consecrating a fast and calling a sacred assembly and gathering all of these people is that we don't just repent of our individual sins. We repent of our sin collectively as his people. We confess our sins and he is faithful and just to forgive us. In the passage of James, chapter five, that talks about healing, I really think more that's talking about restoration. But what is a condition of restoration and healing? Those of you who are sick call for the elders of the church. And when you have confessed your faults to one another, oftentimes we think that sin is a personal matter, don't we? Sin is just between us and God. How many times have you heard people say that? Well, it's just between me and God. It's none of your business. Sin is a corporate matter within the body of Christ, because our sin affects each other. If we lie, we cheat, we steal, if we're deceptive, if we're proud, whatever we do, if we think it's just going to affect us, that's simply not true. Sin has wide-reaching effects. When you sin, it will affect your relationships and the people around you. Think about that just in the example of God being slow to anger and us being quick to anger. Do you think if you're sin and you're quick to anger, do you think that doesn't affect the people around you? And maybe give them cause to fall into a root of bitterness and to be angry and critical back towards you because you were angry at them? Our sin affects others. And so here it's a corporate thing. It's not enough just that you repent. He says you all need to repent. Come together. Blow the trumpet. Consecrate a fast. Call this big, solemn assembly and confess before God that you have sinned. Gather the people. Sanctify the congregation. That means set yourselves apart to God. Assemble the elders. Gather the children and the nursing babes, the bridegroom and the bride. This is everybody in the camp. This is everybody in the church. By the way, whenever God calls for His people to come together, He always calls for everybody. That's one of the reasons that we have families together in worship. Because God doesn't say, OK, you adults, I'm going to deal with you, but put your kids somewhere else so they don't distract anybody. God says, I'm dealing with you as a people, as a group, as a family of families come and deal with your sin before me. The people can come because they have the hope that a sacrifice has been made and they know that when they come, they come because God is gracious and merciful. He says, let the priest who minister to the Lord, there it is again, the priest, the priest don't minister to the people, the priest ministers to the Lord. Remember that we're all a kingdom of priests now. Let the priest who minister to the Lord. Do you ever think about that that way? Do you ever think about coming to church to minister to God? We often think about it, about coming to church to get ministered to or to minister to one another. We come to minister to God. He says, let the priest who minister to the Lord week between the porch and the altar. Let them say, Spare your people, O Lord, and do not give your heritage to reproach that the nation should rule over them. Why should they say among the peoples, Where is their God? The question at the end of this first section, we study the proclamation of ruin, the question about the day of the Lord, who can endure it? But now talking about the plea for repentance, the question that ends this section would be the people out there saying, Where is their God? Do we have a form of religion as Paul talked about? They have a form of religion, but they deny the power thereof, having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof. Paul referred to it as those who are ever learning, but never coming to a knowledge of the truth. Do we have a religion where people look at us and say, where is your God? Or is our faith such that people know that we know God and walk with him? Are we salt and light? The plea here, repent, confess your sin as a group, as a group of people, be in tears, have grief, have a broken and contrite heart because of your sin. That will tell the people around you that you take your relationship with God seriously. If you treat, excuse me, if you treat sin lightly, what does that really say about your view of God? Some people would address that and say, well, if you treat sin lightly, then you've got a wrong view of sin. No, if you treat sin lightly, you have a wrong view of God. Because it is God who says, if you trespass my law, if you break my commands, if you violate my word, there will be consequences. Do we really believe that? How often when we're tempted, do we really think maybe this time I can get away with it? Has anybody here ever gotten away with any sin? Have you? If so, I want to know your secret. You know, you've seen the movies and read the books, the perfect crime, the perfect murder. No such thing, because the Holy Spirit knows right where you are and right what you've done. He knows every word you're going to speak before you even speak it. You can't hide your sin from God. So if you have a light view of sin, then you're not seeing God for who he is, because sin at its root is a very violation of the character of God. He is holy, and when we sin, we act against that holiness. So what is your view of God? Maybe you even ask it. This is talking about the nations, those who are conquering Judah and judging them because of their sin, those who are being used as God's instruments of wrath. It is those who say, where is their God? How often do you face trials and circumstance? And how often do you say, where is God? He's here, if you get to the point where you have to ask where he is, guess what? Blow the trumpet, consecrated fast, rend your heart, not your garment. Make sure that you have repented of your sin. Is repentance a one-time act? You just do it once, you're saved, boom, it's over with and you never have to repent again? Now, salvifically, you repent, you turn from your sin to faith in Christ, you believe in him, and you are saved, and that's forever. But you know what the Christian life is? The Christian life is day after day after day of repenting of our sin, confessing our sin, confessing our fallenness. I got a note from a friend this week, and he asked a question. He said, the more I study the word of God and the more I read about the law of God, the more I see how often I'm breaking the word of God and sinning against him. You understand what is the law? The law has been summed up by Christ to say this. Love God with all of your heart, soul, mind and strength. Do each of us every day love God with everything we are? Do each of us for any period of any day love God with everything we are? Do you understand that if we failed to love him for one moment with everything we are, we've sinned against him? That's why the Christian life is a life of repentance, constantly turning away from ourself and our sin and to Christ. I think the Hebrew word is the best. To say that we are moving one direction, we stop, we turn around, and we head back the other way. If we're headed toward our sin and we catch ourselves at any point during the day walking toward our sin and embracing our sin instead of Christ, we repent when we stop and we turn around, when we deny ourself, when we take up our cross, when we die to what we want and turn back to God, when we turn to him. One more question I want to ask as we talk about repentance and the plea to repent from your sin. Where does repentance come from? Is repentance you just one day just decide you're going to repent? No. Repentance, just like salvation, is a gift of God's grace. Have you ever prayed and asked God to give you repentance? Seriously. You know, you're struggling with sin, you know, you're struggling with temptation. Have you ever prayed instead of God? Give me victory or God, take me out of this. Have you ever stopped to pray? God, give me a repentant heart. Why would we pray that? Well, listen, Acts chapter five, verses twenty nine through thirty two. The apostles are on trial. They're told, did we not strictly command you not to teach in this name? And look, you have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine and intend to bring this man's blood on us. But Peter and the other apostles answered and said, we ought to obey God rather than men. The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom you murdered by hanging on a tree. Him God has exalted to his right hand to be prince and savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. Repentance is a gift from God. If we were left to ourselves, Paul in Romans 7, as he's talking about that infamous battle between the spirit and the flesh, if we were left to ourselves, we would probably fight for a time, but then give up and be tired of the fight. Paul gets to that point in Romans 7 and he says, who shall deliver us from this body of sin? I praise the Lord that through Jesus Christ, he gives us that victory. You understand God gives us everything we need to live the Christian life. He's the one who gives us grace when we don't deserve it. He's the one who gives us faith. Faith is a gift from him for my grace. You have been saved through faith that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. People say, well, what is the gift there? What is the gift of God, the grace and the faith? God gives you the grace and the faith here. It says that Jesus came to give repentance. God doesn't leave us in our sin to fight for ourselves on our own to save ourselves. Jesus came to actively save to redeem his people. There is power in the gospel. When we understand that the gospel is the power of God to salvation because God sent his son to be the sacrifice for our sin. He raised him from the dead to give us victory over death. He's imputed his righteousness to us so that we're holy before God. He sanctifies us by his word. He gives us grace. He gives us faith. He gives us repentance. He gives us the fruit of the spirit. God doesn't leave any of it up to us. Now, we are expected when he gives us those things to do certain things with them. And we're told you need to do this and you need to do this. You need to obey. You need to love God with everything that you are. But understand, our salvation is not dependent on what we do. Because if it was, we wouldn't be saved for long, would we? We wouldn't be saved at all. God gives us what we need. Acts chapter 11, verse 18 puts it best. Peter has gone and met Cornelius and his household. He's preached the gospel. Everyone in the house has been saved. There's evidence of that salvation. They're ready to baptize them. And Peter now, as he's defending God's grace before the others, the Jews who are kind of skeptical about this. Peter says, As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them as upon us at the beginning. Then I remember the word of the Lord, how he said, John, the baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit. Peter says, Look, these people have received the Holy Spirit just like we have. Verse 17, he says, If therefore God gave them the same gift as he gave us when we believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, then who is I that I could withstand God? Peter says, I'm not going to tell them they're not saved. I'm not going to tell them God's not moving on their hearts because God gave them the Holy Spirit just like he gave us. And the people he were talking to in Acts 11, 18 said this. When they heard these things, they became silent. They quit complaining and fighting and being skeptical. And they glorified God. And this is what they said. Then God has also granted to the Gentiles repentance to life. It was God who granted repentance. There's a command in the book of Joel. Turn to me with all of your heart. Turn away from your sin. Turn to me in faith. I'm gracious. I'm merciful. I'm slow to anger. I'm tender hearted. I will relent from the judgment that I proclaim, he says, when you repent. And we need to understand that as we are convicted of sin, we need to ask God to give us repentance. Oftentimes, people think they repent, they change their mind, but their behavior doesn't follow. We've already talked about that. That's proof that they didn't really repent. We need to ask God to give us repentance so that our behavior might change so that we can be pleasing to him in all that we do. The plea for repentance is really just God saying, Come back to me. Come back to me. We can't think that we're walking with him. We're going our own way and living in sin. But that's when the spirit begins to convict us, and that's when we're glad that God is gentle and slow to anger because he says, Come back to me. Think about that parable of the prodigal son. He's in the father's house. He demands his inheritance, he leaves, he spends it on riotous living. In Texas terms, he was sending up a storm. just sowing his wild oats, doing whatever you want to call it, living to himself. But the result of his sin, the consequences of his sin, the conviction of his sin brought him to the point where when he realized what he had done, he was low enough that he was glad to be eating pig slop because he was so hungry and so alone. And when he came to himself, he returned. And what did the prodigal son say? He prepared a speech, didn't he? I'm going to go back home to my father and I'm going to say, I'm not worthy to be your son. Just let me be a servant. Just hire me on and let me work for you as a slave, because I'm not worthy to be your son. Did he ever get to say that speech he had rehearsed? Why not? Because when he repented. The father saw him coming and ran to meet him and had the servants bring the robe and the ring and the shoes and kill the fatted calf. And he welcomed home a son. That prodigal never got to rehearse it. You know, we always think about that. Sometimes we get convicted and we know we've really blown it. What am I going to say to God? God is not nearly so concerned with what you say to him. He's just concerned that your heart is turned back to him. Do you come back to him? You don't have to come with a speech or with an explanation or with an excuse. He says, return to me. And I would challenge you, understanding that ultimately it is God who grants repentance. When you know you have sinned, ask him to call you back to himself. He will and he does. So often we think we really do think, because we have sinned, that we've alienated God and he wants nothing to do with us. Do you understand when when somebody sins against us and we get all offended and we don't want to talk to that person and don't want to see that person? That's just us in our humanity. God is not like that. Why does God send consequences? Why does he threaten judgment? Because he wants restoration. When we sin against God, it's not that we push him away and he wants nothing to do with us. It's that he pursues us with his spirit and says, Come back to me because I'm gracious. I'm merciful. I'm slow to anger. I'm tender hearted. I'll relent from doing harm. I'll turn and leave a blessing behind me. Come back to me. The plea for repentance is a plea for restoration. It is God saying you have sinned. Turn around, come back. You're mine. You belong to me. Come back to me. Hopefully, that will give you a proper view of God this morning, that while there is anger and wrath and judgment, ultimately, God is desiring restoration. He wants us to come back to him. That's what it means when the gospel writers wrote what Jesus preached. John the Baptist preached it. Jesus preached it. Peter preached it at Pentecost. What did they all stand up and say? The first words out of their mouths recorded in Scripture as they began to preach. Repent for the kingdom of God is at hand. God is coming for his people. Come back to him. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word this morning, and we pray that you would indeed instill in us the courage to live it, that when we fail, we would understand that you desire us to come back. It's not just that you command repentance, but it is the desire of your heart to be reconciled with us. Father, I pray that we would see this message as being something that you accomplish in us. Father, on our own, we tend to love sin, but we know that you, by your Spirit, can teach us to hate it. That because we are a new creation in Christ, now we have an aversion to sin. That's why there is a war between our flesh and our spirit. Father, we pray that when we do fail, we would be quick to repent. We also pray that we would understand the consequences of our sin, that it's never just us, but that sin affects your body. It affects our family. It affects our church family. It affects the relationships, those around us. Sin is not solitary. Father, as we see the consequences of our sin, we thank you that you are a gracious God who has offered to us the forgiveness of sin, if we will but repent. And as we have repented and believed into eternal life, as we thank you for granting to us salvation, we pray that you would grant us daily. That change of mind, that change of heart, that we would forsake sin and embrace Christ, that we would turn from the things that would draw us away from you. and that we would continually walk toward you, living a life of righteousness empowered by your spirit. Father, as we go astray and as we fail, we do pray that your spirit would gently continue to call us to come back. And we thank you that just as in that parable of the prodigal, you are there waiting, just waiting to see us turn, and then you run to meet us. Father, we thank you for orchestrating Our lives by your grace and we thank you for giving to us repentance from sin. Grace and faith for giving us joy and love and hope and long suffering and patience and goodness and gentleness. So that by your spirit we can be pleasing to you in all that we do. Our desire is to love You and to obey You and to please You. And we pray that You would continue to enable us to do that by Your Spirit. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.