Okay, let’s open up our Bibles this morning to Luke chapter three. If you know we started the series on Luke back in December. We spent the first three or four weeks of December talking about the arrival of Jesus; the Advent, the Birth of Jesus, the Grand Invasion; what that meant to all of us. And now we’re going to pick up in the third chapter of Luke. Let me give you some context on what’s happening in this third chapter.
From Luke chapter two to Luke chapter three, about 30 years have past between the two chapters. So where we left off in Luke chapter two was Jesus – well maybe not that long, maybe 18 years because we did hear the story at the end of Luke chapter two of Jesus the 12 year old, who walked away form His parents, who was in the temple with the priests. Now in Luke chapter three, Jesus is around 30 years old, and the conditions in the country of Israel have gone form very bad to much worse. I mean it could not be any worse than what’s happening right now in Israel.
So at the end of Luke chapter two, Caesar Augustus was the emperor of Rome. He was the leader of Rome. And by the way, he was a violent ruthless leader. He was a guy that controlled by fear, by intimidation, by just heavy-handedness. The Roman soldiers were very violent, cruel people who really were the police officers in the police state of Israel. Fast forward now, Caesar Augustus who called himself God is dead. And in his place is an even more evil man now, who is ruling in Rome. His name is Tiberius. Tiberius makes Caesar Augustus look like a Sunday school teacher. Tiberius was violent. He hated the people of Jerusalem. He hated the whole thing and he was determined to bring them under his absolute control.
Well you know what happens when people are controlled? There are always rebels in the crowd. There are always young men and young women who will stand up and face down the evil dictator. And certainly many, many times in the history of Israel, young men and young women would stand up and defy Rome. You know what would happen? They would get arrested, they would get thrown in jail, and most of them were executed.
So it was not uncommon for young men and women, young revolutionaries to stand and say, “We’re not going to take this oppression any longer! We’re rebelling against Rome!” They would end up in jail. Then a young guy named John the Baptist, whom we know who was foretold by angels. God told Zachariah and Elizabeth that this baby that Elizabeth was carrying would be the fore runner, the fore teller of the gospel. By this time John the Baptist was about 30 years old, he and Jesus were the same age. And John the Baptist was out in the desert; out alone.
But he began to proclaim not political freedom or military freedom or some kind of social freedom, the message that John the Baptist was a spiritual declaration. It had something on it. There was an anointing, a power of God on this young man. He was different than the young revolutionaries who were calling for the overthrow of Rome. This guy was calling for the kingdom of heaven to come to the earth. His message was powerful. And while he looked different than everybody else, the Bible says he was dressed in camel hair and he ate locust and honey; a wild man. He was a Colorado mountain man; a wild guy. He would’ve fit in right among us and been perfect.
John the Baptist was different and his message was different. And so crowds of people would leave the safety and the comfort of Jerusalem, their villages and leave their homes and go out into the middle of nowhere and hear this high firebrand, this young dude, preach the gospel. And his message was a message of repentance; the idea of turning to God, the idea of turning your hearts toward God. And he would say radical things like this. He would say to the Jewish people, “Repent and be water baptized.” Now we’re going to talk more next week about what that means; about water baptism because I think we’ve lost the awe and we’ve lost the understanding of what that means. We’re going to talk about that next Sunday.
What was so radical about his is Jewish people weren’t required to be water baptized. Jewish people certainly had religious rituals that required them to bathe and to cleanse their bodies before they could go into worship. But the idea of being immersed in the Jordan River – fully immersed in water baptism was not a Jewish tradition. In fact it was the way the Gentiles who wanted to become Jews – that’s what they had to do.
Gentiles had to be water baptized in order to enter into the Jewish faith. And so for John the Baptist to look at a Jewish crowd and say, “I want all of you to be water baptized” was radical and in fact it was, to be honest with you, a little offensive to the Jewish people. “How dare you John the Baptist, tell us. We are the children of Abraham. How dare you tell us that we have to submit ourselves, humble ourselves to this idea of water baptism?” But that was the point.
You see the sin of the Jewish people was simple; pride, arrogance, self-centeredness, selfishness, consumed them. And they were religious. They felt that because they were the children of Abraham that they deserved everything that God had promised them, and it had nothing to do with repentance.
So let’s pick up this story here, Luke chapter three verse one, “In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar -- when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip tetrarch of tonsillitis and”, I have no idea – “and Lysanias the tetrarch of Abilene Texas”. All right, let’s just forget all of verse one and verse two. Let’s just skip right ahead to verse three, okay? Can we just act like we never even heard that, all right? Let’s go to verse two.
“During the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John, son of Zachariah, in the desert. And he went into all the country around the Jordan preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet: ‘A voice of one calling in the desert, prepare the way for the Lord. Make straight paths for Him. Every valley shall be filled in. Every mountain and hill made low. The crooked roads shall become straight. The rough ways smooth and all mankind will see God’s salvation.’”
Now “John …” verse 7, “John said to the crowds …” understand and see the word crowds there? The book of Matthew says that when John saw Pharisees and Sadducees coming to the gathering. Luke waters it down a little bit and says no, you just saw the crowds coming. But Mathew points out that John the Baptist saw the religious leaders of his day, coming out to hear him speak.
Apparently John the Baptist had not read the book “How to Win Friends and Influence People”, because listen to his opening comment. In fact I thought about opening up this Sunday, just walking up here and saying to you what John the Baptist said to the crowd. Listen to what he said. This is not real inviting, he says, “You brood of vipers. Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?”
What if I just walked up here one Sunday and didn’t smile, the lights come on, I go, “You brood of vipers. Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?” A little church growth strategy there. John the Baptist – there are people that God puts into our lives, who speak truth to us that’s hard to hear. And by the way the Gospel is a confrontational message. The moment we make the gospel a message that does not confront the nature of our sin, we have watered down the gospel to make it something that it’s not.
John the Baptist with the help of the Holy Spirit – it was not that John didn’t care about these people. It wasn’t that John did not love the people he was talking to, because John did. He was there though to confront the powers of darkness, that were wrecking these people’s lives. And so he says, “You brood of vipers. Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce fruit in keeping with repentance.” In other words, don’t tell me how holy you are. Prove it to me by the fruit that is coming from your life. And do not begin to say to yourself, “Well we have Abraham as our father.” If I put it in our context, I would say, “Listen; don’t tell me about your godly grandmother. She’s not going to get you to heaven. Don’t tell me about your heritage, your lineage, although I’m grateful for godly grandmothers. And I’m grateful for moms and dads who prepare the way for us, who train us up in the way we should go. But we cannot depend on the godly grandmother, or wonderful moms and dads. We all have to take personal responsibility.
And so the people of Israel were saying, “Listen, we are the people of Abraham. That’s good enough for us. That’s going to get us to heaven.” By the way, you know, we had in the first gathering this morning, two Jewish people in the crowd, came and gave their lives to Christ this morning after hearing this message; this morning. This is good news. I’m fascinated by that when people get saved after hearing the truth of the gospel. And listen don’t just say I’m the children of Abraham. Don’t just put it on your grandmother or the heritage of your life. We all have to make choices of our own to accept Christ.
Listen to what he says, all right? He says, “For I tell you that out of these stones, God can raise up children for Abraham. The ax is already at the root of the trees. And every tree that does not produce good fruit, will be cut down and thrown into the fire.” What should we do then? So the crowd says, “Okay, okay, you’ve got our attention. What should we do? Tell us what’s next.”
So the title of this morning’s talk is this, Beautiful Repentance. When I say that word, in fact when I – most of you if you grew up like I did, I grew up in a tradition when people preached on repentance, the message normally was a message that was causing people to be shameful. In other words, I remember 40 or 50 times being so ashamed of my behavior and hearing this message, I would come down front, kneel at some altar and cry or pray, because I felt so embarrassed so ashamed.
So the word repentance is not supposed to make you feel shameful. The reason I called it Beautiful Repentance – I’m going to show you this morning that repentance literally opens the door for God Himself to enter into the messy places of our heart. Repentance, the idea of humbling ourselves, calling on God, asking God to be a part, literally opens the door of our lives for God to enter in. And God’s not mad at us this morning. God wants to enter in to the messy places of our life. And the door that opens up, that allows God into our life is repentance. And we’ve lost the beauty, the majesty of having a repentant heart. And this is what John the Baptist was saying to the people of Israel, “Will you just please repent. God wants to enter into the messy place of our country. God wants to enter into the mess of your lives.”
Listen in America, that tragic news yesterday, made me think, “Oh God, can we just repent?” Lord, I pray that the people of God will be a repentant people because if there were ever a time we need God to enter into the messy places of our country, the messy places of our heart, it’s right now. Right now. Listen, God wants to come in. God wants to be a part of this, but it’s repentance that opens the door for it.
This is the message of John the Baptist. Let’s keep reading here he says, “So the crowd asked, ‘What should we do?’” And in verse 11 John answered, “The man with two tunics should share with him who has none and the one who has food should do the same.” “Tax collectors also came to be baptized.” That’s a miracle, right? That’s one of the greatest miracles in scripture, right there. Tax collectors wanting to be baptized.
“Teacher,” they asked, “what should we do?” So the crowd, the Pharisees and the Sadducees asked “What should we do?” Tax collectors asked and said, “What should we do?” And he says, “Don’t collect any more than you’re required to.” Verse 14, “Then some soldiers …” By the way, these are not Israeli soldiers, these are Roman soldiers, they were a part of the problem. They were the dictators. They were the enforcers of the land. But some of them standing out in the crowd heard the message and their hearts were convicted. And they had all the power. They had all the physical power, the political power and yet, their hearts were turned toward God.
Listen, here’s what I’m saying this far. There are some people that you have written off. I guarantee you standing out in this crowd if you would have asked the Jewish people, “Who are the last people in this crowd who will repent?” They would say, “The soldiers would be the last ones to repent. They’re the most evil. They’re the moist destitute. They’re the most harmful. They’re the ones that cause the most harm. They’ll never repent.” And yet it was the soldiers who said, “We’ve heard the message, now what should we do?”
Listen, I don’t know who you’ve given up on this morning. I didn’t say this in the 9:00 services. This is something new. Who have you given up on? Who have you said, “They will never repent.” I think John the Baptist tell us a story. Luke tells us a story to remind us don’t ever give up on the hard difficult people that you think will never repent. These soldiers came forward and they said, “What should we do?”
He said, “Don’t extort money. Don’t accuse people falsely and be content with your pay.” So he’s talking to religious, government, and military leaders; the leaders of the religion, the leaders of government, the leaders of the military. That sounds like Colorado Springs. Who are the most influential people in our culture here? Religious leaders, Government leaders and military leaders. Imagine if those three groups in our own city, or our own county, or our own region, if we would come under the conviction to be a people who are quick to repent – let me just say this to you, one of the marks of a mature Christ follower is that someone is quick to repent.
If you argue with God, if you are always arguing with God, not quick to repent, it’s a sign that you’re not mature. Mature Christ followers are people, that when they are convicted by the Holy Spirit, when the Holy Spirit shines the light on a place of their heart that’s dark, they are quick to repent. It is a sign that you are mature, that you are quick to agree with God.
Can I tell you what’s going to happen this morning? Across this room, and there are three or 4,000 people here this morning, across this room the Holy Spirit is going to come to many of us, myself, many of you. He’s going to show us the race of our lives. He’s going to stand at the front door of our heart, He’s going to show us places of our lives and he’s going to say, “Hey, I want to enter into that mess. I want to come in to that mess and be a part of the problem, the solution. I want to come in to that problem. I want to help you.”
The sign that you are growing, the sign that you want to take a step forward with God is how quickly you agree with that. Now you can argue with God from your seat out to your car. You can argue with God while you’re driving home, and you can argue with God all day today and all day tomorrow about it. But God’s going to keep coming back. He’s going to keep coming back. He’s going to keep coming back because he wants to be a part of the messiness of our hearts. He’s not offended.
So I want this morning to ask some questions and try to answer them together. First of all, what is repentance? I think a lot of people have a misunderstanding of it. You can ask poll people – I’ve asked people throughout the last couple of weeks, what is repentance? And I get some of the craziest answers. So I'm going to give you a very simple answer of what I believe is true repentance, and it's very, very simple.
Real repentance is simply this, to return to God with all of your heart and all of your soul. Repentance simply means, turning toward God with all of your heart and all of your soul. You say, “Isn’t it turning away from things, walking away from something?” Right, because when you turn to God you will naturally turn away from things that are causing you to be disobedient. You will turn away form the very thing that’s keeping you from moving forward.
And listen, nobody in this room can make any significant spiritual advances without turning away from things that are causing us to be disobedient. You have to turn toward God and away from those things that are causing you to be disobedient. It’s obedience that leads to maturity. It’s hearing the Word and agreeing with the Word that causes any of us to grow in this room. Hearing the Word is good. Hearing the Word will do things in your heart, I promise you it will but there has to be a point in all of our lives, when we say, “I agree, and I’m obeying it.”
Not only have I heard the Word, not only has the truth been revealed to me, I’m going to obey the truth and I’m going to turn away from those things that are causing me to be disobedient and I’m going to repent. I’m going to set my face on God all of God, with all of my heart, and all of my soul and I’m going to walk away from it. And at that moment – listen I can’t even explain to you, you make these giant leaps toward God. You take giant steps toward God just by saying, “God all of my heart, all of my life, everything I am, belongs to you. And I am turning away from those things that are destroying me, that are causing destruction in my life.”
So when John the Baptist began to say to the people of Israel, he said, “Listen, you know what to do.” Here’s what John the Baptist said, “Israel, people of God, you know what to do. You’re just not obeying. You’ve got the law right in front of you. You know God’s heart because it was revealed to us through the law.” He said, “You’ve become a disobedient people.” And so when he was preaching about turning to God, especially the devout Jewish leaders, knew exactly what he was talking about because Malachi the last of the Old Testament prophets, the last of the Hebrew prophets, Malachi, prophesied that this would happen.
Let’s read it together, Malachi chapter three verse seven, it says, “Ever since the time of your forefathers, you have turned away.” Notice the language here, “Ever since Moses, ever since the time of Abraham, you have turned away from my decrees and not kept them. “ And then Malachi prophesying to the people of Israel, prophesying to us to day, he says, “Return to Me, and I will return to you.”
“Return to Me and I will return to you.” Now if I were to stand at the door and poll each of you as you left today or maybe as I poll you as you came in this morning, and everyone of you , I look to you right in the face and said, “Hey I got a question for you. Do you want more of God in your life this year?” I think 99.9% of you would have said, without hesitation would have said, “Absolutely, I want God to be more involved in me. I want to reflect God better; I want the Holy Spirit to be more active in my life. I want to talk more like Jesus, act more like Jesus, have thoughts like Jesus.” Certainly, nobody would have said, “No, I don’t want to look like God. I’m just in church to kill some time.”
You’re here this morning. There’s obviously some desire, some girl you’re here to see but most of you are here to see some desire to be more like God, to be godly. Can I tell you the quickest way to allow more God into your life? Just turn to Him. Turn away, but turn – it’s not what you’re turning away from it’s what you’re turning toward.
You know that song we sing, that’s an old hymn, “Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus”? You can sing it out loud: “Turn …” sing with me “your eyes upon Jesus.” All right, no, no, stop there. That was very good. All right, and then there’s a line in that song every time I sing it. Something resonates in my heart and it says, “And the things of this world will grow strangely dim.” Isn’t that amazing? Now listen, that’s good theology. It’s not what you have to have the discipline to turn away from; it’s what you have to have the passion to turn toward. And when you turn toward God, something happens with the craziness of the world, the things of the world, the things of your flesh; it just grows strangely dim. It’s not what I’m turning away from, it’s what I’m turning toward.
Guys listen, men who want to get free from pornography, you want to get free from sexual addiction, you want to get free from the things that are wrecking your life? It’s not having the discipline to turn away, turn away … Listen, just fix your eyes on Christ and those things will become so gross to you, you’ll have no fascination with it because your fascination is on God, Christ. It’s what you’re fascinated with is what you will worship.
Whatever you are fascinated – that sounded really good by the way. I need to write that down. Whatever’s caught your fascination is what you’re going to worship. Whatever’s caught your fancy. That’s why I make sure Pam has my fancy. I’m fascinated with her and her alone. Whatever you’re fascinated with, that’s who you’re going to worship; that’s who you’re going to belong to.
Malachi four verse five says, “See I will send you the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes and he will turn.” Listen there’s the turning, the language is the same “he will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, he will turn the hearts of the children to the fathers and that day I’m going to send you Elijah.” Who was John the Baptist? He was the New Testament, new covenant, Elijah. The voice, the prophetic voice saying, “Repent, repent, God is near. God is here. The kingdom of heaven is near.”
Now notice this, when John the Baptist was preaching these messages, Jesus was in the crowd. We’re going to read this, at the end of chapter three; we’re going to talk about this next Sunday. John the Baptist is preaching a message and the Messiah is in the crowd. He’s standing there. Here’s what I think was happening. John the Baptist was out there preaching, “Repent and be baptized.” I think Jesus was standing in the crowd. Some guy was standing next to Him nudging Jesus, “Who’s that guy talking about? I wonder when the Messiah really will come.” And Jesus was sitting there going, “(sighing) Yes, I’m God, I’m standing right here.” Some people have asked me, why do you think Jesus waited until He was 30 years old to start His ministry? It seemed like there was a lot of wasted time he could’ve made use of.
The entire decade of His 20’s, we don’t hear a word about anything. We don’t hear a word about Jesus from 12 ‘til 30; 18 years of silence and yet he was here. He was walking among people. He was having conversations in the marketplace. He was there; sick people were there. I think Israel had to get so destitute for them to repent. And once they repent and notice this, at the end of verse 14, read it for yourself this week, when they finally repented, when the soldiers said, “What should we do?” When the Pharisees and the Sadducees said, “What should we do?” When the tax collectors finally repented and said, “What should we do?” Suddenly John the Baptist looks in the crowd and says, “There He is, right there, a man whose sandals I'm not worthy to strap on. Whose feet I'm not worthy to clean, that is the Messiah. Here, there He is!”
He was there the whole time. Here’s the point, Jesus is standing among us today. He’s right here in our crowd, in our midst, in our hearts. And you’re wondering, “Where is the Messiah? Where is all this help from God?” Could it be that we’re not waiting on God, that God’s waiting on us? Just saying, “God …” I mean do we have to wait until our country gets worse before we cry out to God? How much worse does it have to be before the children of God say, “God come enter into our midst? We repent. Come, Lord.”
So what happens? That’s a good question to ask. What happens if you repent? What happens if you agree with this message? And you say, “Oh God, okay I see things in my life. I want God to enter in to the messy parts.” It says in verse eight that, we’ll produce fruit in keeping with repentance. In other words, there’ll be things that other people can see. It’ll be fruitful; it’ll be obvious to other people that you’ve repented because something about you is going to change. I’ll tell you what’s going to happen though. The most significant thing that will happen is that there’s going to be a genuine shift in your thinking.
I want to help you with something today, okay? -- Because I’m determined for lost people. I’m praying like never before for lost people to come and know Christ this year. This is the season, God has spoken to us, the harvest is ripe. For the last six or seven Sundays, every Sunday people are getting saved. Every Sunday people are coming forward and getting saved. Every week – can I tell you how? I want you to go find them. I want you to share the gospel. But I want to tell you what you’re going to encounter now when you get around centers.
This is a very deep theological truth I’m about to share; dogs bark, cats meow, and sinners sin. So when you have conversations with them, let me tell you how the conversation is going to go. Let me tell you about this Christ. This conversation is going to come up. They don’t want to hear about sin and Christ because they are in love with their sin. Now let’s take off our church mask. Everybody do this, just a symbolic – I’m taking off my church mask. I have no ambition to pastor church people. I love to pastor Christ followers but I have no ambition to turn you into little church people.
When I was without Christ, I want to confess something, and the air might go out the room, I really loved my sin. How many of you loved the sin that you were a part of at one time before you came to Christ? This is hard to raise your hand and go, “Should I raise my hand” I'm going to get thrown out of my small group.” This is the point though, before you repented, you didn’t realize that the sin that had captured your heart was going to destroy you. But suddenly like the prodigal son, your eyes – the Bible says that, “He came to his senses.” Something dawned on him, He said, “I want to return to my father’s house.”
That was repentance. Hear what he said, “The prodigal son …” Read it for yourself. “When the prodigal son was at the lowest point of his life in a pigpen feeding pigs, starving to death …” the Bible says, “he came to his senses and he said, ‘I am now going to return to my father’s house.’” Suddenly, it dawned on him. The stuff that he had loved for months, maybe years, he realizes, “This is going to kill me.” But repentance did something in his mind and helped him see that the destruction that he was living under was now – he was free from it. I can go back to Dad’s house.
So when you’re around sinners, I don’t want you to get in arguments with them. Here’s how I want you to do. I just want you to love them. I want you to pray for them. Can I tell you something? The Holy Spirit is really, really, really good at bringing people to Jesus. All you need to say, “Holy Spirit, I want You to grab their heart. I want You to open their minds.” Don’t argue with them about their sin. They’re in love with their sin. They love what they’re doing or they wouldn’t do it.
Listen, I don’t do anything I don’t like. I liked it that’s why I was doing it. And then suddenly because I had a praying mom at home and had other people praying for me, suddenly I went, “This is killing me.” Now how did I go from loving it to realizing it was going to kill me? Because the Holy Spirit came to me and said, “Brady, I have something so much better for you.”
Now the very things that I used to love, I hate those things now. I despise them. I went from loving them to despising them because I repented. And one of the fruits of repentance, one of the things what happens when you repent is the very thing that you now love maybe. The thing that’s destroying you, destroying your marriage, destroying your home, the thing that you’re fascinated with, you’ll suddenly look at and go, “Yuck! Wow! How did I ever love that?”
It was killing me. That’s repentance. A genuine shift happens in your thinking. And by the way, God’s not waiting for you to clean it all up before you come into the house. Can you imagine what the prodigal son smelled like? He’d been in a pigpen and he’d been walking for a few days with pig on him. Do a little experiment. You want to find out how gracious God is with messy people? Go work at the pig farm and then walk for three or four days in the heat of the summer and see how many of your family and friends run out to you and embrace you. But you notice that the Dad in the front porch ran out to meet his son, embraced him and says – he didn’t say to his son, “Listen, I really want to hug you, this is not a good time. Shower hug, shower, then hug.”
Do you know that most people who don’t know Jesus would like to know Jesus, they just don’t want to look like you and I in 10 years. Most people that don’t know Jesus want to know Jesus but when they look around at Jesus followers, they don’t want to look like us because we’ve become civilized and churchy. I know what tag means in DSM. I know where the tent is and you don’t. I know the New Life language and it will take you years to figure out all those little symbols, and we wear our mask.
There is three lies told every Sunday here at New Life; I love you, I’ll pray for you, and I’m okay, I’m great. Instead what if we were just authentic people and just loved each other, cared for one another and we didn’t pretend to have it all figured out. And we didn’t pretend to have everything perfect, and we didn’t wear this mask that said, “I haven’t sinned in years.” And we didn’t put so much pressure on people to have it all perfect before we allow them into the family.
See Pam's like this-- one of Pam’s deep-seated fears is somebody ringing our doorbell when our house was not perfect; in order. Now some of you are like that. You’re the one that makes the bed at the hotel before you check out. You just can’t stand leaving the bed unmade. Well that can’t come over to the church. Listen, Jesus standing at doors knocking, wanting to come in to the mess – and here’s the good news; not only does He want to come in to the mess, He wants to clean it up for you, with you. So the question is, “What happens if we repent?’ That’s exactly what happens. What happens if we repent? Jesus comes in to the mess.
I took this poll in the first service. How many of you have been born again more than 20 years and Jesus is still cleaning up some messes in your life? Okay, keep your hand up. This is one of the most radical hand raising opportunities I’ve had at New Life. All right, you've been born again more than 20 years – I have been. And Jesus is still knocking at your door from time to time. They might not be as big of messes as they once were, right? They may not be the messy, messy, messy thing but there are still messes, still things that God is knocking at your door and he’s coming to look around.
Look around at this; I want you to see all of the imperfect people at new Life. Now if you’re standing here today, if you’re sitting here this morning and you’re not a Christ follower, that actually should give you great encouragement. And I’m not pro sin. I believe in higher moral conduct, I believe good behavior is better than bad behavior, I believe in following the rules better than breaking the rules. I’m not talking about that. I’m not giving you a license to live a life that’s not godly-- that’s not what I’m saying at all. Please, you know me better than that; for those of you who’ve been here. What I’m saying is this; this life we’re living is really messy at times. And Jesus is not offended. It’s repentance, beautiful repentance that opens the door for Him to come in. And if God were mad at us, He would not be on the front porch of our lives. I don’t hang out at the front porches of people that I’m mad at or I know who are mad at me.
Now, some of you had that idea, “God’s mad.” Why would He be hanging out on your front porch? What do you mean hanging out on the front porch? Let me show it to you in the Bible, all right? Here it is. Revelation chapter three verse 19, notice the first four words. Notice the first four words; put it up there for me. Look at the first four words; “Those whom I love …”
All right, let’s stop here for a minute, this is a big deal. It does not say, “To those who I am really mad at.” I’ve heard this passage in Luke, preached a hundred times growing up. And that idea of Jesus standing there with an ax; the ax is already at the root of the tree! Aaahh! Nobody opens the door for somebody with an ax in their hand. “I’m God, open that door! I’m about to put the ax to the root.” It’s not what He was saying. We have Christ at the door, “To those whom I love …”
I rebuke in discipline. I love my kids; crazy about Abraham and Calleigh. Crazy about – they ain't getting away with anything at my house. I love them, I love them to pieces. They are all over me. I’m all over them. We are a hugging and kissing family. But they’re ain't getting away with nothing, and they know it. They can love their old Dad all they want but they’re not getting away with anything. I love them. I’m not mad at them. I get aggravated with them, but I’m not mad. Crazy about them.
So listen to what he says, “Be earnest and repent. Here I am.” Here I am. I’m standing right here just like Jesus standing in the crowd while John the Baptist was preaching Jesus standing out in the crowd. “Here I Am.” He says. “I stand at the door and knock. I’m standing on the front porch. I’m standing on your steps. I’m standing there, I’m standing there, and I’m going to knock. I’m going to knock. I’m going to knock. I’m going to knock. And anyone who just hears My voice – you see, here’s what’s about to happen in just a minute. We’re going to pray and many of you are going to hear the voice of the Lord. It may not be audible, but you’re going to hear this whisper of God. You’re going to have these – you’re going to know that it’s God saying something to you. If anyone hears my voice, and opens the door, I will wait until they have the house perfect. I will wait until their behavior matches that of the pastor; God forbid.
Listen to this, it’s very important. Are there any other requirements? Look at the scripture; I’m not making this up. That’s why you better bring your Bible because I might one Sunday make something up just to test you. But I’m not making this up. So you see that's all you have to do is hear His voice. What’s the next thing you have to do? You heard Him; open the door. Is there any other requirement for Jesus to come into your mess at that point? Any other requirement? You see it there? Learn the rules, follow the rules, learn church language, come to all the prayer meetings. All those things are good. There is no other requirement though. Just open the door.
“Here I am. I’m not distant. I’m not far away, I’m right here. I’m right here.” Christ is right here knocking at the door of our hearts, all of our hearts. “I just want to enter in. I just want to come in to the house. I want to help you clean the mess. In fact when you can’t clean up the messes, I’ll clean up those messes for you if you’ll let Me. If you’ll just give Me the right, the permission, I’ll clean up all the messes.” He’s good at cleaning up messes.
Listen to this, “I will come in ...” And notice how relational God wants to be, “…and I will eat with him and he with Me. In other words, He’s not standing there at the table and you’re the servant feeding God food. He says, “Hey, pull up a chair next to Me. Hey, come here. I don’t want you here just serving me food. You’re not my servant. We’re brothers. We’re family so I’m going to eat; I want you to sit here next to Me. We’re going to have a meal together.”
That’s an amazing passage by the way. It’s one of the most important passages in all scripture, right here. It says, “I will come in. I will eat with him and he with Me. And to him who overcomes, I will give him the right to sit with Me on my throne, just as I overcame and sat down with my Father unto His throne.”
He’s inviting us into His life. So this morning, what better way to start 2011 than to start it with just a feeling among us that we’re here to repent? Listen, if you will simply cooperate with God this morning – I’m not here to try to make you do anything. I cant, I don’t have that ability. But the Holy Spirit is just saying to us, “You want a better 2011 than you could possibly imagine? You want your marriage to be better than you can possibly imagine? You want your business, your family, your kids, your relationship you have with your friends, to be better than you can possibly imagine?” What better way to start 2011? This new decade even. We’re starting a new decade. It will be a decade of repentance, beautiful repentance.
God’s not calling you here today to shame you into responding. God’s welcoming you into a family, a big messy family. He’s cleaning up messes in all of our hearts, making us more like Him. So would you just for a moment ask yourself, would you just focus on the Lord? Close your eyes and bow your head, whatever you want to do; stare at the ceiling. Whatever you do to hear God, to focus on God; not on anybody. I don’t want you to focus on me. I don’t want you to focus on anything. I want you to ask the Holy Spirit, “Lord is there something this morning I need to repent from? Is there something where that I have failed to invite you in? Is there a relationship that You want restored in 2011? Is it possible that's part of the problem with You?” Just leave that open as a small possibility; a remote possibility.
All I’m saying, maybe you had no fault in it at all but maybe you could say, “Lord I just repent for holding on to unforgiveness. I repent for allowing my heart to become bitter maybe.” What is it that God wants to come in? What mess is in your heart today? And god-- Christ himself is standing at your door, knocking, knocking, knocking.
And there may be some of you -- in the first service, there were people who got saved. There were people who gave their lives to Christ; came forward and said, “Today I’m praying that prayer.” Lots of people accepted Christ in our 9:00 service and I suspect in a crowd this size or some of you that maybe have never invited Jesus into your life in the first place, never ever really made him Lord of your life.
Now I’m about to give you the – you can pray however you want but this prayer that I’m about to tell you is going to sound so simple. In fact, the first thought that’s going to come to your mind is, “That sounds too good to be true. That is way too simple. That’s for people who got their act together, not people like me.” And I’m going to tell you something, this is for every one of you sitting in the room, myself included. If you’re sitting here today and you’ve never – the Holy Spirit’s speaking to your heart right now; you know it. You know it. God is speaking to you. God is drawing you in. He’s knocking at your door.
Here’s a prayer you could pray to receive Him into your life. Father I’m a sinner. I know it. I have a lot of messes. I need a Redeemer. I need a Savior. I need someone. I need Christ. Would you be the Lord of my life? Christ, would you be the Lord? I repent; I turn away from those things. I turn toward You. I give You all of my heart and all of my soul. Just like that. If you pray that prayer, and you mean it, it's that easy. It’s that easy.
So God is speaking and if you’re hearing, we’re hearing together, then let’s agree with God. Let’s just cooperate with God this morning in your life, all right? What is it you need to repent from? So that we can enter into this new decade, this new year, this new month with clean hearts, clean screens; everything right between you and God; everything right between you and people.
And you cannot imagine how fast you’re going to grow with God; how mature you’re going to become with Christ this year, if you’ll simply be a person of repentance; quick to repent, quick to turn toward God, quick to turn away from things that are causing you to be disobedient. Amazing growth is in your future. You’re about to take huge steps with God; huge steps.
So let’s pray together, all right? Father, we are men and women in this room. We just thank you Lord that You love us, that we’re sons and daughters, that we’re not people You despise. We’re people that You’re crazy in love with. Father, we thank You today that when we repent we’re just simply opening the door for You to come in. So Lord today in this room, I invite You into my heart, into the messy places of my heart, I invite You in. I welcome You in. When I repent, please Lord forgive, cleanse me from all unrighteousness, fill me with Your Holy Spirit, in Jesus’ name, Amen. Amen.
That feels good doesn’t it? To just say that out loud; just say it out loud to God, I just cleanse my heart from all unrighteousness, fill me with the Holy Spirit. Those muttering prayers, if you will get a habit of praying those prayers throughout the day, it’s amazing how free you are. A person of repentance is a person full of joy; I’m telling you. Just full of joy. Full of it probably too, but full of joy.
Let’s stand together. And for those of you who pray down front, I want to invite you down, past the small group leaders, dream team people; all of you who pray down front. If you prayed that prayer and you really meant it, you really accepted Christ into your heart, I want you to come tell somebody. Come down here and tell somebody and be baptized next Sunday. What a great two weekends you could have.
Born again this Sunday, be baptized in front of your family and friends next Sunday night. I would love for that to happen. That little boy who was born again about five Sundays ago; little 13 year old boy who came down at 9:00 and said, “Hey I got saved about five Sundays ago, do you remember?” I said, “Yes I remember. I’m here to water baptize, Sunday.” I said. “Awesome!” “My whole family’s going to be there.” “Awesome!”
It’s going to be fun. It’ll be a celebration next Sunday night especially if you said that prayer this morning. I’m telling you – thank you by the way. You just made a great call. The greatest miracle that could ever happen here in your life just happened. I mean that. So if you need prayer, you step out and let us pray for you, all right? Let’s celebrate with those who did pray that prayer, all right? So thankful, so thankful.
By the way, would you encourage if there are people who won’t come to this building with you, I just was reminded of a story-- because a lot of people say, “I’m not going to that big church. I’m not going to that big blue industrial looking monolith out there.” Invite them to watch online, live. We had a lady this morning, who has been watching online without telling anybody for six months. She’s been secretly watching online, watching the services. She showed up this morning and gave her life to the Lord because she had just been watching online and the Holy Spirit drew her.
We’re not trying to get people in the building necessarily, but we do want them in the family. As so encourage people. You may not go with me to New Life, tune in nlclive.com. Let them watch and the Holy Spirit just has a remarkable way of working through technology. I mean, He created it. I mean, He can work through it, right?
So if you need prayer if you’re sick this morning, if you need prayer for your marriage, kids, any prayer you need at all, we want to pray for you down here. I’m headed to Guest Central. If you’re new to New Life, I’d love to meet you, love to say hi, I’ll be out there. By the way, drive safe going home, I don’t think the roads are bad yet but they’re going to get a little rougher later. Just be careful today.
All right let me pray for you one more time, okay? Father in heaven, thank you for the Holy Spirit. Thank you for what You’re doing in our lives. Thank you for entering into our mess. We welcome You in Jesus’ name, Amen. God bless. If you need prayers step out. Make sure you find somebody, say hello. Have a great Sunday.
