Sermon: Repentance is not enough
Story: "In Kentucky there were two farmers who owned racing stables – and these men were great rivals.
One spring, both of them entered a horse in a local steeplechase.
One of the farmers hired a professional jockey thinking that this might just give him an edge.
The race started – and at the last fence the horses of the two farmers were leading the race.
But it proved too tough for them and both horses fell, unseating their riders.
But this didn’t stop the professional jockey.
He quickly remounted and won the race.
Returning triumphant to the paddock, the jockey found the farmer who had hired him fuming with rage.
"What’s the matter?" the jockey asked. "I won, didn’t I?"
"Oh, yes," roared the farmer. "You won all right, but, you fool, you won the race riding the wrong horse."
In our reading from the book of Acts today, St Paul comes across a dozen believers who are on the wrong horse
They are followers of John the Baptist and not followers of Jesus – the one whom John the Baptist pointed to.
They have been baptised into the baptism of John and not into the baptism of Jesus in the Holy Spirit
Story: I took the funeral of a lady recently and asked her family if she was a Christian.
Her husband said: ”Yes she was”.
I probed further and asked if she went to Church – or read her Bible.
“No” was the reply. “But she went to Sunday school 60 years earlier.”
Some people think they are a Christians because they are nice people.
Others think they are Christians because they have gone through a Christian ritual like infant baptism
Others think it is enough to say they are sorry for what they have done wrong
But the key to being a Christian requires us to turn away FROM our sins AND turn TO Jesus.
When Paul arrived in Ephesus he came across a group of men who followed the teaching of John the Baptist.
They were baptised followers of John – just like Apollos in the earlier chapter had been.
But following John was not enough.
Although John pointed to Jesus – and they knew ABOUT Jesus, they didn’t know Him
Illustration: English is a poor language in this respect.
In German you have the word wissen – to know a fact.
And they have the word kennen to know a person
The followers of John knew about Jesus (wissen) and Paul brought them on to know Jesus as a person (kennen)
There is a huge difference between the baptism of John the Baptist and the baptism of
Jesus Christ.
The baptism of John was one of repentance.
People come to a point where they realize that they have done wrong and they wanted to make a change. But that alone does not make you a Christian
They were sorry for living the way they had lived and instead wanted to live morally righteous lives.
That’s repentance, a turning away from something. That’s good but that’s not enough.
That’s only part of the process.
A morally good atheist could live that way – and he’d not call himself a Christian
We are truly Christians
i) when we turn to Jesus Christ,
ii) when we seek His forgiveness for our sins and
iii) when we decide to follow Him as Lord and Master come what may.
That is the baptism of Jesus Christ.
Jesus himself said “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.” (John 5:24)
Belief in the days when John wrote was more than simply an intellectual assent to a proposition – say that God exists
Belief in St John’s day meant actually following the teaching of the person believed in
If you believed in Socrates you followed his teaching in your life
Good works and changed lifestyles do not make a person a Christian
They should be the result of BEING a Christian.
Just as the chicken hatches out of the egg
But there is a second aspect to following Jesus
God himself – in the Holy Spirit comes to live in us.
In other words when we receive the Holy Spirit in our lives
In our reading today Luke records: ~ 6And when Paul had laid his hands upon them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they began speaking with tongues and prophesying. (Acts 19:6)
When we become Christian the Holy Spirit comes to live in our lives.
That’s why all of you Christians here today are referred to by St Paul as “saints”
The Scriptures say this:
13By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. (1 John 4:13)
“…9if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong
to Him…16The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God.” (Romans 8:9b, 16)
What a privilege that when a person becomes a Christian, he or she receives the Holy Spirit within.
To be “filled with the Spirit of God” means in a very practical way that a believer has surrendered completely to following Jesus Christ.
Being a follower of Jesus Christ means we allow the Holy Spirit to guide our decisions in life
in order to exalt Christ.
One of the most compelling evidences of a Spirit-filled life, and of our salvation, is our consistent, Christ-like daily living.
And people will notice it
I would like to leave you with a story:
Story: John Wesley become a priest in the Church of England before he had become a Christian
His conversion story is very interesting:
Not long after the first Moravian missionaries came from Germany, Wesley had left for the West Indies,
He found himself on board a ship with a group of Moravian Christians on 25th January 1736.
That day the weather was rough.
Three storms had already battered the boat, and a fourth was brewing.
Wesley scribbled in his journal, “Storm greater: afraid!”
But the Moravians trusted God so simply and so completely that they showed no signs of fear. They even held a service at the height of the storm.
In the middle of their singing, a gigantic wave rose over the side of the vessel, splitting the main-sail and covered the ship
Water poured between the decks like water pouring over the Niagara Falls - “as if the great deep had already swallowed us up,” Wesley wrote.
The English passengers shrieked as the ship lurched and pitched between towering
waves.
A terrified Wesley clung on for dear life.
But the German missionaries didn’t miss a beat.
Wesley, awestruck by their composure, later went to the leader and asked,
”Weren’t you afraid?”
“I thank God, no.”
“Weren’t your women and children afraid?”
“No,” replied the man. “Our women and children are not afraid.”
Wesley was so struck by their faith that he spoke to one of their main leaders, Peter Boehler, when they arrived in London.
Wesley wrote in his journal,
“…Peter Boehler, whom God prepared for me as soon as I came to London, affirmed of true faith
in Christ…that it always has two fruits with it,
“Dominion over sin, and constant peace,
from a sense of forgiveness,” I was quite amazed, and looked upon it as a new Gospel.
Peter Boehler went on to share a passage from with John Wesley, “The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God.”
(Romans 8:16)
He then persuaded Wesley into attending a
meeting with Boehler’s Moravian Church one evening.
Wesley continued on in his journal:
“In the evening, I went very unwillingly to a Society in Aldersgate
Street, where one was reading Luther’s preface to the Epistle to the
Romans.
About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed.
I felt I did trust in Christ; Christ alone, for salvation; and an assurance was given me,
that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.”
Wesley as we know was the founder of the Methodist Church and became a famous evangelist and social reformer
But he himself was won to Christ by a small group who knew that they were children of
God because of the presence of the Holy Spirit in their lives.
(my thanks to Michael O. Silva Beyond Repentance July 23, 2006 for the story)
As we close this morning we need to ask ourselves the question “Where do I stand?”
With the baptism of John or the baptism of Jesus?”
We are true Christians only when we turn away from our sins AND we turn to Jesus.
And the evidence that we are true Christians will be the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives
