Repent and Respond: God’s Message to a Rebellious Nation

Introduction

Tragedy is nothing new in our world. From the very beginning in the Bible, we see that mankind chose to disobey God and from that point onward, we’ve seen the results of sin. In Genesis 4, one chapter after sin impacted the human race, we see the first murder, and things quickly spiral from that point. Tragedy isn’t anything new… but with the dawn of social media, we’re aware of more tragedies than any other era in human history. From shootings to stabbings and from disasters to debates, we’re aware of more information, good and bad, than any other time in human history. Wednesday, I was at the doctors office and a friend shared a tweet with me. Within a few seconds, I had seen a video that no person should have to see of another human being shot and because of social media, these events happened just a few minutes ago. Then you scroll, and the social media algorithm then shows you a funny video. We don’t have the emotional range to handle this. Our heart breaks. Some have asked me, how can you speak about this tragedy this week whenever you didn’t speak about the one last week? Why this and not that? Or, the one that pastors get a lot, don’t talk about what’s going on in the world, because I come to church to escape all that. Some facts: There have been 47 school shootings this year in our country, so far, and each one is a tragedy. Sometimes as a shepherd, you look at your flock and mostly everyone is concerned and looking one specific way. What do you do? You talk about it because that’s what it means to be a shepherd. To comfort the afflicted and afflict the comforted. We’ve seen shootings, stabbings, death, and worst of all, celebration. Now, this shouldn’t surprise us because ultimately the problem isn’t knives or guns - the first murder in the Bible didn’t require either - the problem is sinful, broken, depraved hearts.

And guess what? That’s not political - that’s completely theological. What’s happened in our world is that the lens of politics has kept on expanding, and pastors have been told by the politicians and many in the pew, “You can’t talk about that one. Stay in your lane.” The lane of the government is tax code, roadwork projects, and foreign policy. Recently, though, the political has tried to redefine things like Gender. Marriage. Truth. And the God-given gift of Life. These aren’t primarily political issues - at their core they are theological issues where the church has often times failed to disciple people Biblically. We look around our world and we see division and death. We know there is something better! We know that God has the power to change lives and hearts. Wouldn’t it be incredible to see the Lord send genuine revival in our land? How can we experience this?

In studying about major revivals in the history of Christianity, did you know that every major revival in history has started with the preaching of the word and the repentance of God’s people! Not with emotional music. Not with a bunch of raised hands at the end of the service. But with Gospel preaching and God’s people repenting and living a changed life. Friends, if we want to see genuine revival in our church, in our community, and our country, it will start with faithful gospel proclamation, and God‘s people repenting of their sin, and turning in faith to Jesus! I pray that begins with us. Turning away from our sin, and trusting alone in God and standing on His Word.

This morning, we’re going to see the importance of repentance and what genuine, God-honoring repentance looks like. In Luke 3 we’re going to read about the ministry of John the Baptist and how John the Baptist prepared the way for the ministry of Jesus Christ. This is our ministry as well - like John, our responsibility today is to share how desperately we all need Jesus. Let’s read from God’s Word, and get our hearts right with the Lord

Luke 3:1–22 CSB

1 In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, while Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod was tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Iturea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene, 2 during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, God’s word came to John the son of Zechariah in the wilderness. 3 He went into all the vicinity of the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, 4 as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah: A voice of one crying out in the wilderness: Prepare the way for the Lord; make his paths straight! 5 Every valley will be filled, and every mountain and hill will be made low; the crooked will become straight, the rough ways smooth, 6 and everyone will see the salvation of God. 7 He then said to the crowds who came out to be baptized by him, “Brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? 8 Therefore produce fruit consistent with repentance. And don’t start saying to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,’ for I tell you that God is able to raise up children for Abraham from these stones. 9 The ax is already at the root of the trees. Therefore, every tree that doesn’t produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.” 10 “What then should we do?” the crowds were asking him. 11 He replied to them, “The one who has two shirts must share with someone who has none, and the one who has food must do the same.” 12 Tax collectors also came to be baptized, and they asked him, “Teacher, what should we do?” 13 He told them, “Don’t collect any more than what you have been authorized.” 14 Some soldiers also questioned him, “What should we do?” He said to them, “Don’t take money from anyone by force or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages.” 15 Now the people were waiting expectantly, and all of them were questioning in their hearts whether John might be the Messiah. 16 John answered them all, “I baptize you with water, but one who is more powerful than I am is coming. I am not worthy to untie the strap of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 17 His winnowing shovel is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with fire that never goes out.” 18 Then, along with many other exhortations, he proclaimed good news to the people. 19 But when John rebuked Herod the tetrarch because of Herodias, his brother’s wife, and all the evil things he had done, 20 Herod added this to everything else—he locked up John in prison. 21 When all the people were baptized, Jesus also was baptized. As he was praying, heaven opened, 22 and the Holy Spirit descended on him in a physical appearance like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well-pleased.”

God has spoken and we must respond - today, how have you responded to Jesus Christ? Luke 3 tells us that our response must be that of repentance. Today, let’s pray and ask Jesus to help us be a repentant people.

Repentance Recognizes Our Sinful Reality (1-9)

Remember, Luke’s stated desire with his Gospel account is to help Theophilus know with certainty that these things took place. Luke is a doctor and searched eye witnesses and investigated everything carefully. Luke wants to demonstrate the reliability of what he shares in this book. These are historical events that really happened. So far, Gabriel really told Mary and Joseph that they would have Jesus. Jesus really was born in Bethlehem. These are things that really took place. One of the ways that we can know this is by verifying what we read with historical accounts outside of the Bible. In Luke 3, we see a list of names of historical people. Romans and Jews. Political and Religious leaders. These are helpful for us as we seek to know when this takes place, when would these people have been in power at the same time? This is more than likely 26 AD as John begins his ministry. We’ll see next week that Jesus is roughly 30 years old at this time. Lots of big names in this list, but I want to draw our attention briefly to the last 2. Annas and Caiaphas. These two are religious leaders in Jerusalem. Annas was the high priest a few years before this, and now his son in law was in this position of high priest. The high priest had an important task in the Jewish world. The high priest would go into the Holy of Holies on the Day of Atonement and offer a sacrifice for his own sins and the sins of the people. There’s a problem with these two, though. They are corrupt high priests. Whenever people would come to make their sacrifice, Annas had sacrificial animals sold next to the temple and they were at times 10x more expensive than they should have been!

This is the leadership that John and, later, Jesus dealt with. Can you see why some of the religious leaders didn’t like Jesus? Do you see why Jesus would later flip over tables in the Temple? This is what is going on in the context to John’s arrival, and look at how Luke introduces us to John the Baptist in verse 2: When all of these powerful people are in their positions, God’s Word came to John! Not to the powerful. Not to the emperor. Not even to the high priest! But to John. As we read our Bible, we see example after example of God chooses to use unexpected people to accomplish His purposes. We’ll see this in the lineage of Jesus next week - God uses weak people. He uses young people. He uses foreign people. He uses men and women. He uses powerful people and He uses powerless people. Today, realize that you aren’t saved because of the incredible things that you bring to the table, but because of God’s incredible power. He is so good that He even uses weak, sinful, broken people like you and I to advance His Kingdom! We see this with the inclusion of John… a relatively unknown person in the wilderness compared to these powerful people in the city.

God uses John to proclaim a message of repentance. We see this word show up in the Bible. Yet, there are some churches where this word isn’t even in their vocabulary! What is repentance? Many today would see repentance as similar to being sorry for something. Like whenever your mom made fresh, chocolate chip cookies in the kitchen, and she leaves to go to the other room, and you can smell them and they are literally asking to be eaten. But you know that you’re about to have dinner, and the rule is to wait until after dinner to have cookies. What do you do? We’ve all taste tested a cookie before we were supposed to. Mom finds out. What happens? You say “I’m sorry!” Why are you sorry? You’re not sorry that you ate the cookie, you wanted to eat the cookie! You’re just sorry that you got caught. Repentance is different from being sorry. We have to realize what the Bible says about our situation… we aren’t just guilty of swiping a cookie, we’re guilty of sinning against a morally perfect God who created us! We’re caught red handed and we deserve to be punished for our sin. Repentance means to have a change of heart, a change of mind. To think differently than you did before. To go a different direction. Imagine you’re driving on highway 160 towards Springfield, just outside the walls of our church. To repent means that you turn around. That what you used to be driving towards is now in your rearview mirror. That what you used to be driving away from is now what you are driving towards. This is Godly repentance. We acknowledge that we were going the wrong direction. We don’t just slow down, we turn around. We have a change of heart, a change of direction. John preaches and calls for people to repent of their sin and seek God’s forgiveness.

There is no forgiveness from God if there is no repentance from sin. John preaches that God alone is able to forgive people of their sins, but people must repent. He is going to prepare the way for Jesus, and he is reminding people that they desperately need forgiving and saving.

Here we see our first 2 marks of repentance:

Conviction from the Word - we repent whenever the Bible says we’ve done wrong. Many in our world try to justify their sin, but believers realize that if the Bible says it, that settles it.

Confession without excuses - it’s easy to say that we made a mistake, an error, that an accident happened. But the Bible calls these things sins. We sinned against God. Sin separates us from God. We own our sin whenever we repent and acknowledge that we need God’s help!

I love John the Baptist. He didn’t sugarcoat things. He simply spoke the truth. John is preparing the way - this is what preachers do today. John’s baptism didn’t save. I can’t save anyone. But just as John prepared the way for Christ, Gospel preaching does the exact same thing today. Through proclaiming the Word of God, crooked things are made straight, rough ways are made smooth, and people see the salvation of God. This doesn’t mean that everyone is saved - we know that some people reject Christ still today, but it does mean that salvation is good news for all people, Jew and Gentile alike. And whenever you realize the reality of your sin, whenever you respond in faith to the Gospel, whenever you realize the One whom you have sinned against and see that He alone provides salvation, and you place your faith in Christ, something radically changes inside of you. Look at verse 8

Luke 3:8 CSB

8 Therefore produce fruit consistent with repentance. And don’t start saying to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,’ for I tell you that God is able to raise up children for Abraham from these stones.

These people believed that because they were Abraham’s great grandchildren, they were fine. John calls them a brood of vipers. There is a deadly poison in thinking that you are fine because of your past or your performance… John reminds these people that we all will face judgment and that whose who don’t produce good fruit will be thrown into the fire. Friends, forgiven people are a repentant people because we produce fruit consistent with repentance. We all desperately need Jesus. Regardless of how many times you’ve come to church, how much you know, or how many nice things you’ve done, we all need Jesus!

Repentance Results In Real Change (10-14)

Have you discovered that one of the greatest tactics of the enemy is to either make us feel like our sin isn’t a big deal, or to crush us so deeply into believing that we’re the only person who has ever struggled with this sin in the history of the world? Whenever we are passive about our sin, it’s easy to be indifferent to it. Everyone sins. It’s not a big deal. Our prayers often sound like this, “God, please forgive me of any sin that I might have done over the last month.” HB Charles is such a gift to the church today, and he shared years ago that whenever we pray, we should be specific. Think of a time that you did something wrong to a family member or a friend, think about how passive aggressive or indifferent this sounds, “Hey, I’m sorry if anything that I’ve done recently has upset you.” Do you hear how tone deaf that can sound? Contrast that with this response, “Hey, I’m really sorry for the words that I used yesterday. I shouldn’t have said them. Can you forgive me?” That resonates while the first one is often repulsive. Whenever we are convicted of our sin against God, we should be specific and take action

1 John 1:9 CSB

9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

God is faithful and righteous and forgiving! What are we called to do in this text? Confess our sins. Throughout the Bible whenever the Gospel is proclaimed, it demands a response. Whenever you hear about the seriousness of our sin and the lengths God went to in order to save our souls, it demands that we not only realize where we’ve been but respond to what He has done! The first Christian sermon in Acts 2 did exactly this. Peter proclaimed the good news of the cross and the seriousness of sin, and God’s Word tells us that the people were pierced to the heart and asked, “What should we do?” Peter’s first word was: Repent!

In Luke 3 we see the same result from John’s preaching on sin - the crowds ask, “What should we do?” Do you see John’s answer? It’s the same as Peter’s. Repent. He doesn’t say to go and do 3 nice things or spend an hour in prayer or sign up to serve in the church nursery once a month… he says that they need to repent and change the way that they are treating other people. The best way to tell if someone is truly repentant is not necessarily seeing if they have added new things to their lives, but seeing what they have changed about their lives. Sin is serious. John MacArthur once said, “Hard truth creates soft people.” Preaching on sin and our need to repent might sound harsh, but what does it do? It creates Christ-like people. People full of grace and truth. People who love God more and who long for people to come to know Him as Lord and Savior.

John gives several things for these people to do. Here we see 4 more marks of repentance:

Concrete change - we see real, measurable steps

Compassion and generosity (11)

Character and justice (12-13)

Contentment in Christ (14)

Private citizens are to share with those who have needs. Tax collectors are to not take more than they are required to. Soldiers are to be satisfied with what they have. In this culture, tax collectors were despised because they essentially could make up their rules. They had an amount they were required to collect for the government, but if they raised that a couple percentage points, you really couldn’t do anything about it. This is why Zacchaeus was hated in Luke 19 as he was not just a tax collector, but a chief tax collector. You don’t get to the top of a corrupt profession by being squeaky clean… In the world that they lived in, it would have been easy to say “Well, everyone else is doing this, why shouldn’t I?”

Everyone else is saying these words, why shouldn’t I?

Everyone else is using ChatGPT to write their research paper, why shouldn’t I?

Everyone else is wearing this style, why shouldn’t I?

Everyone else is doing this trend, why shouldn’t I?

As believers, our first question is not “Can I do this?” instead it is “Does this glorify Jesus?” Does stealing glorify Jesus? Does cheating glorify Jesus? Does dressing immodestly glorify Jesus? Does sin glorify Jesus? No! We might have the ability to do something, but if the Bible says that it is wrong, that’s where the discussion stops! John is sharing for these individuals that repentance looks like making real, legitimate changes in their lives. Whenever we repent from our sins, we take a specific step after that repentance. Failing to plan is planning to fail! So we repent and when we do, we ask the Lord to help us discern the steps for us to take in order to genuinely change and fulfill the plans He has for us.

Repentance Responses Really Vary (15-20)

Whenever you do repent and whenever you reflect Christ to those around you, people notice. And, if we’re not careful, with that comes some praise and some credit that can quickly go to our head if we’re not careful. All of us have to remember who we are and the role that God has given to us! People ask in verse 15 if John the Baptist is the Messiah. Can you imagine this? Are you THE guy? John knew what his role was. He knew what God had called him to do. He doesn’t go along with this, instead he says that he is not even worthy to untie of sandals of the coming Messiah.

This is a different context and situation than ours… they walked everywhere they went and wore sandals, meaning that their feet weren’t exactly the nicest feet out there. They were dirty. Hairy. Dusty. Cut up from rocks and sand. There was a Jewish saying that says that disciples are to do everything needed for their masters with the exception of one key thing: Untie the master’s sandals. Only a slave would do that because of how degrading it would have been. But what does John say? Even that action is too high of an honor. See, John knew what he was supposed to do - to prepare the way and to get out of the way. This is our job today as well, friends! Our purpose is to realize that it’s not about us, it’s all about Jesus!

John says that he baptized with water, but Jesus will baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire. What does this mean? Whenever you repent of your sins, turn from them and trust in Christ as Savior and Lord, something radical happens inside of you!

2 Corinthians 5:17 CSB

17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, and see, the new has come!

You are literally a brand new person! What does it mean that you’re in Christ? It means that God Himself opens your eyes, changes your heart, and His Spirit comes to live inside of you. Whenever the Holy Spirit comes to live inside of you, He changes you. When this happens, you are

Born Again (John 3:5-6)

Sealed (Ephesians 1:13-14)

Changed (Romans 8:13)

These things don’t happen whenever you are baptized in water, they happen whenever you’re baptized in the Holy Spirit, the second that you become a Christian! John also says that we’re baptized with fire. What does that mean? Fire represents the Spirit’s work in our lives. The Spirit purifies us. He cleanses us. He melts our hearts and changes us. Those who repent of their sin and are baptized into God’s forever family experience the blessing of being sealed and being sanctified by the Spirit… however, not everyone responds this way. Verse 18 tells us that he proclaimed good news to the people. This is what we mean:

God Created (Creation)

Man Sinned (Fall)

Christ Saves (Redemption)

Man Responds (Restoration)

Do you know what happens whenever the Gospel is proclaimed? The Word of God does the Work of God in the People of God for the Glory of God. Some people, like these we’ve seen in this passage, they are convicted and they repent… but other people are hardened. Charles Spurgeon had a masterful way with words, he once said this, “The same sun that melts the wax hardens the clay.” The same Gospel message can be responded to in completely different ways. John proclaimed the Gospel, and we see Herod oppose John, not just because of John, but because of John’s message. Friends, whenever you proclaim the Gospel, you will be opposed by some. Can I encourage you with that today? Do you know what Herod ended up doing to John? Herod not only imprisoned John the Baptist, but eventually Matthew 14 tells us that Herod had John the Baptist killed. We say that’s a tragedy, and on one hand it is… but let me encourage you this morning, church. Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints. All that death can do to you if you’re in Christ is make your life infinitely better because all death does is take you straight to Jesus. In a world that hates God’s Word, few things are as dangerous as speaking the truth of Scripture, but this is what God calls us to do. And this is what your pastor is commanded by God’s Word to do week after week according to 2 Timothy 4, Preach the Word!

The Word convicts and the Word comforts. You know what our world loves? Lukewarm Christians. Preaching God’s Word boldly and unapologetically has always led to problems, and your pastor is content with that cost, however high it might be - are you? Are you content to share the Gospel though it might cost you a friendship? Are you content to stand on Scripture when it’s not popular? You know what we can’t control? Outcomes. You know what we can control? Faithfulness. We are to be faithful to share the good news and call people to repent!

Rejoice In Your Perfect Representative (21-22)

If you’re a Christian this morning, think back to the day that you were baptized. If you’re a Christian and you haven’t been baptized yet, we need to chat after service! Think back to that day. You stood before your church family and showed them what Christ had already done in your life, saved you and changed you. You are buried with Christ and baptism and raised to walk in a brand new life! We are baptized in water to show what Christ has already done in our lives in saving us. So this brings us to an interesting situation at the end of this passage - all these people are having this baptism of repentance, and we see Jesus getting baptized as well. Question: Why on earth is Jesus getting baptized? Jesus never sinned - and John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance from sins and trusting in God.

You can summarize the ministry of Jesus in one word: Substitution. In Matthew’s Gospel, John raises this objection and says that it is John who needs to be baptized by Jesus, but Jesus says that “This is the way for us to fulfill all righteousness.” What on earth does this mean? His baptism marked the beginning of His ministry. Jesus is baptized not because He sinned, but because He stands in our place. One day He will stand on a blood-stained cross in our place and take our sin upon Himself and transfer to us His perfect righteousness

2 Corinthians 5:21 CSB

21 He made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

He obeyed perfectly in our place. The only sin that Jesus ever had was ours, and the only righteousness we’ve ever had is His! Jesus didn’t get baptized because He needed to repent of sin, He never sinned. He is baptized by John in order to 1) show us what we should do, but more importantly, 2) reveal Who He is.

Imagine this scene, heaven opens as Jesus is baptized. The Holy Spirit descends on Him like a dove, and then a voice thunders from heaven saying, “This is my Son, with Him I am well-pleased.” We visually and verbally see here that there is something unique about Jesus. That He is the Messiah who was promised. We see the Trinity at work, Father, Son, and Spirit. This is so important for us to realize that our God and our salvation is Trinitarian.

The Father Appoints Salvation

The Son Accomplishes Salvation

The Spirit Applies Salvation

If you don’t have any one of these things happen, appoint, accomplish, or apply, then you not only lose what the Bible calls salvation, but you lose God Himself! Our statement of faith, the BFM 2000 says this: The eternal triune God reveals Himself to us as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, with distinct personal attributes, but without division of nature, essence, or being.

We believe in 1 God, 1 being, who reveals Himself to us in the Bible as 3 distinct persons. You and I are 1 being and 1 person, but God is different. 1 in being and 3 in person. We see this at the baptism of Jesus - Jesus, the Son of God, is being baptized. The Holy Spirit descends upon Him. God, the Father, speaks from heaven and says this is my Son! The Trinity is fascinating. Incomprehensible. Isaiah 55 reminds us that God’s ways are higher than ours. There are things about God that are a mystery to us - like this: Why would Jesus come and die for sinners like us? Isn’t that a mystery? Yet, this is what He will do. God says that He is well-pleased with His Son. Again, Jesus is likely 30 years old at this point and getting ready to begin His public ministry. Why would God say that He is well-pleased with Jesus Christ?

Sinless Life (Past and Present)

For 30 years, Jesus lived a perfect life. He didn’t fight fire with fire. He obeyed God’s Word. He never sinned. Scripture tells us that God is pleased with the one with clean hands and a pure heart - this is Jesus!

Sinless Sacrifice (Future)

Ultimately, we know that this is also pointing to the future. Why is God well-pleased with Jesus? Not only because He had lived a sinless life, but also because 3 years later He would be the sinless substitute for sinners as He would sacrifice Himself in our place. This is what Jesus came to do!

Luke 19:10 CSB

10 For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save the lost.”

Today, Jesus is still seeking and Jesus is still saving! And Jesus is better at saving than we are at sinning.

We live in a broken world. A world where sin is put in the spotlight. Death is celebrated. Life is seen as an accident. In a fallen, sinful world where hope seems to be evaporating and darkness seems to be winning, can I encourage you today? Darkness doesn’t win because Jesus has already won. The Gospel we proclaim is that the God who created all things perfectly, sent His Son into this world to redeem sinners like you and me. That Jesus does for us what we could never do for ourselves. He saves us and He changes us. John 14:6

John 14:6 CSB

6 Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

This is the Gospel - while we were sinners, Christ died for us. In a world that loves to point fingers and say, “There’s no way that person could be saved” we know better. We know there is no one too far gone for the Gospel of Jesus Christ! See, to be a Christian means that we forgive the inexcusable in others because God has already forgiven the inexcusable in us.

The Gospel is not good advice to consider, it is good news that demands a response! At South Gate Baptist Church, this is our message and we will not back down or water it down. This is the message that has the power to change lives and today it can change you! Today, how can you respond to the Gospel?

Repent

Maybe you are here and you are living a life that is in opposition to God. You’re celebrating sin. You’re living for yourself. Today, the Gospel calls on you to repent. To turn away from sin. To have a change of mind about sin.

Believe

We don’t just want to repent and change our mind about our current sins, because then we’ll fill them with new ones! We are called to repent and believe. To believe that Jesus truly came to this earth. That He really died on the cross for MY sins and your sins. That He really defeated death and rose victorious on the 3rd day. That He is alive and returning and that we will be with Him forever! Believe the Gospel!

Be Baptized

Maybe you’re here and you’ve turned away from sin and you’ve believed the good news we call the Gospel, but you haven’t followed through with believers baptism. Friend if this is you, straight up, you need to do this. No, baptism doesn’t save your soul. But saved people get baptized. We celebrate what Jesus has done in our lives and we do this as a church and it is such a joy to get to celebrate together. Baptism is often called our first step of obedience as a Christian - you won’t grow much if you don’t take this exciting step!

Bear Fruit

If you’ve repented of your sin, believed in the Gospel, and followed through with believers baptism, the Gospel is still relevant because it calls on you and I to produce good fruit. See, even as Christians, we continue to battle sin. We aren’t perfect - your pastor certainly isn’! But what can we do? Luke 3:8 - produce fruit consistent with repentance. When we sin, we repent. When we wrong someone, we apologize. When we fail to speak the truth in love, we pray that God would give us another opportunity. We bear fruit and we point people to Jesus.

South Gate, we are saved in order to serve God and share His Gospel message. We aren’t told that we’ll be liked, in fact John 16:33 tells us that we will have suffering in this world. We aren’t told that everyone will respond positively, in fact Acts 17:30-34 tells us that some people believed but other rejected the Gospel message. We aren’t told that we’ll even survive sharing the Gospel, in fact Acts 7 tells us about my favorite deacon, Deacon Stephen. Stephen preached the Gospel and was stoned. You know what he said while being stoned? Lord, don’t hold this sin against them. You know who was there when Stephen was stoned? A man named Saul, that we know better as Paul. A man who imprisoned Christians. A man who put Christians to death. You know what God did to this man? He saved him. He changed him. And one day, Paul died and went to haven. And you know who met him when he got there? Stephen - the same man he helped put to death - He didn’t say “Why are you here?!” He said, “Welcome home, brother!” Because that’s how the Gospel works. If you believe for a nanosecond that someone has outsinned the cross, you demonstrate that you don’t understand Jesus. Jim Elliot famously said this, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.” Jim Elliot died taking the Gospel to an unreached people group in Ecuador. This is our legacy as believers - we proclaim the Gospel and we practice what Philippians 1:21 says

Philippians 1:21 CSB

21 For me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.

You know what can’t happen to you as a Christian? You can’t lose. John diagnoses people with the problem… Jesus delivers people from the problem and saves us to live a Christ-like life. We live in a broken, messed up world where evil is celebrated. Jesus alone can deliver us from these problems. In Christ we are a new person. We aren’t guaranteed tomorrow, but we do have today. Today, you can’t change the world… but you can share the Gospel with one person, and Jesus can change their world.

Today, is this your story? If it is, because of the finished work of Jesus, God is pleased with you. If it is not, today, repent from your sins, respond to the Gospel, and be saved forevermore!

South Gate, let’s Speak Truth. Stand Firm. Share Scripture. Let’s be about our Master’s business!