UNLESS YOU REPENT

Introduction

-{Luke 13}

-When we hear about or read stories of personal tragedies, we often look for underlying reasons why it happened to those particular people. We may do it out of curiosity, or quite possibly we are doing it after reflecting on more personal questions like why did it happen to them and not somebody else, or why did it happen to them and not to me? We might be digging into these stories trying to figure out how can I avoid a similar fate.

~A few months ago, there was that condominium collapse in Florida killing 98 people. Why that condo and why those people? Out of all the places in the world why there, and out of all the people in the world, why them?

~The Gabbie Petito case has taken up a lot of the media. A young girl goes missing and is eventually found murdered. There is a suspicious boyfriend in even more suspicious circumstances. We might ask: Why her? Was there something about her?

-Our day and age aren’t the only times that had such tragedy and caused such reflection. And Jesus is confronted with questions about such things, but He turns the question around. The assumptions we might make about tragedies is often wrong. Instead, what these things ought to do is to cause us to look at ourselves.

-In the passage that we’re reading today, Jesus warned His listeners of the need to look inside themselves and see their own need for repentance. And as we’re reading today, there is a need to personalize Jesus’ warnings about our spiritual depravity and heed His call for repentance.

-I want us to leave here today with a heart that is open to spiritual reflection that will lead to a lifestyle of continual repentance which will then lead to a spiritually fruitful life.

READ Luke 13:1-9

-Jesus begins by:

1) Clarifying their misconception

-Jesus had been teaching on several topics, but there also was an overall theme on the topic of judgment, which is not a topic that any of us necessarily want to hear, and we don’t want sermons about it, but it is a reality.

-But the topic brought up a question in some people’s minds about some recent events. So, they bring up these latest news stories to Jesus. Hey Jesus, did you hear about what Pilate did to those people? Hey Jesus, did you hear about the tower at Siloam?

-These particular events aren’t recorded anywhere else for us in history, so we don’t have a lot of the details about them. They didn’t have social media and the internet to blast things all over the place for everyone to see, but we can make a little speculation.

~There were some Jews that were offering sacrifices at the temple. For some reason they were publicly executed by soldiers while offering the sacrifices—their blood ironically mixed with the blood of the animals that they brought. We don’t know why Pilate did it? Were they revolutionaries? Were they criminals? Did they merely speak out against the government?

~Then there is the tower at Siloam that collapsed. Siloam was in the southern part of Jerusalem. We know about the area because the Scripture talks about the pool of Siloam. Again, we don’t know the details—was it a construction site accident?

-But there is a connection between Jesus talking about judgment and these news stories. In their mind they questioned did those tragedies happen because those people were being judged? And Jesus uses this as an opportunity to clear up some common misconceptions of their day and it clarifies the same misconceptions today.

a) Bad things happen to bad people…

-The Jews fully believed that bad things always happen to bad people. And then there was the mirror reflection of that statement: good things always happen to good people.

~This is the same mistake that Job’s friends argued when supposedly trying to comfort Job. It’s the same mistake that the Maltese natives made about Paul after he and the others were rescued from the shipwreck. A snake jumped out of a fire and bit Paul and the people assumed he was some criminal because all these bad things happened—since he escaped the shipwreck, then the fates were going to judge and kill him with a snake.

~Bad people can’t escape bad things happening to them, and good people can’t escape good things happening to them. Bad people will always get judged immediately on this earth.

-But Jesus says that this is not how things work. Do you think those Galileans were worse people than anyone else? Jesus says no. Do you think that those people killed by the tower were the worst people that there were in Jerusalem? Nope.

-Here is the thing that we struggle with, but it’s the way it is in a world cursed by sin. Sometimes good things happen to bad people and bad things happen to good people. Neither scenario is a judgment made by God.

~Good things happening to bad people is not God winking at the bad people’s sins, neither is bad things happening to good people God judging them for some secret sin.

-Those people killed in the condo in Florida—were they somehow super-bad people that God judged? Was there something nefarious going on in that building and God wiped them out like He wiped out Sodom and Gomorrah? Not necessarily.

~Was 22-year-old Gabbie Petito somehow a really bad girl, doing things in secret that would cause God to do this or allow this? Not necessarily.

~I mean, we don’t know these people or what happened behind the scenes, but that is not how things work in God’s economy. Sure, sometimes sin has natural consequences that you can’t escape. Tragedy does not equate to the judgment of God and the lack of tragedy in bad people’s lives does not equate to God winking at sin. That is a misconception.

-But then Jesus turns the conversation around to get at another misconception that was not verbalized, but was at the heart of why the topic was brought up to begin with, and that misconception is:

b) I’m not that bad

-The people not only brought up these tragedies as a matter of curiosity, but they also brought it up so that they could try to justify themselves. They brought it up hoping that Jesus would feed into their moral superiority.

-Since the topic of judgment was being discussed, they wanted to make sure that they were in the clear. They wanted Jesus to agree with their assumption: the people Pilate killed and those killed by the tower were morally inferior, therefore I can sit here judgmentally and feel better about myself because I’m still alive therefore I am self-righteous and morally superior to them and just about anybody else. Compared to everybody else, I’M NOT THAT BAD!

-But Jesus rained on their parade. He said those people killed by Pilate were not worse sinners. He said those killed by the tower were not worse sinners. And frankly, whether or not they were worse sinners isn’t the point anyway. Because Jesus turns it back on them:

UNLESS YOU REPENT, YOU WILL ALL LIKEWISE PERISH!

-When Jesus says you will likewise perish, He wasn’t just referring to their physical death. Everyone is going to physically die. But everyone is going to physically die because everyone is a sinner. Physical death was the proof of the universality of sin. Every human being has a sin problem, so every human being is going to die.

~But if every human being has a sin problem, then physical death is not the biggest problem you are going to have to face. Because of sin, every human has to face the judgment of spiritual death. YOU WILL ALL LIKEWISE PERISH.

-Last week the parable I preached on told us to be ready for Jesus’ return. Jesus is here telling His audience and us that we also need to be ready for our physical death because we don’t know when it’s going to come.

~Those Galileans didn’t know Pilate was going to kill them. Those Jews didn’t know the tower was going to fall on them. Therefore, be spiritually ready for death.

-How do you get ready for death: REPENT. Jesus said that without repentance you perish. You will physically die no matter what, but you don’t have to spiritually die. REPENT AND BELIEVE THE GOSPEL.

-What does it mean to repent. To repent is to make a change of mind and heart—it’s a spiritual U-turn where you stop going in the direction you are going and turn and go the opposite way. Instead of running from God, you run to God. Instead of running toward sin, you run away from sin. Instead of relying on your supposed moral superiority to get to heaven, you instead trust Christ’s death and resurrection.

-But even after salvation you need to repent. Repentance is constant. And so, we too need to repent otherwise we will suffer the loss of reward in the life to come.

-Don’t sit there thinking I’M NOT THAT BAD. Jesus says you are, and I am, and the only recourse we have is to repent. But that is the beauty of the gospel. Repentance is available.

-But then Jesus turns to a parable to make the point, and so we see that He starts:

2) Warning His listeners

-Jesus gives a parable about a man with a vineyard and in the vineyard is a fig tree. The fig tree had been fruitless for some years, and so he wanted to cut it down because it’s a waste of space if it isn’t going to bear fruit. A fruit tree ought to bear fruit otherwise it really isn’t a fruit tree.

~But there’s two points we need to consider regarding this parable:

a) Immediate historical context

-The picture of a fig tree or a vineyard was often used to represent the nation of Israel. With that in mind, Jesus is saying something very important to the Jews.

~The Jews had always been a rebellious people. As a nation they were to be a light to the rest of the world to point people to Yahweh God, but instead they became a holy huddle that cared only for themselves, their nation, their religious structure, and the power that came with it (not unlike many churches today).

-They had become a fruitless tree. They were previously warned of this before the Babylonian captivity. In Isaiah 5, God said through the prophet:

Let me sing for my beloved my love song concerning his vineyard: My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill.

He dug it and cleared it of stones, and planted it with choice vines; he built a watchtower in the midst of it, and hewed out a wine vat in it; and he looked for it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes.

And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard.

What more was there to do for my vineyard, that I have not done in it? When I looked for it to yield grapes, why did it yield wild grapes?

And now I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will remove its hedge, and it shall be devoured; I will break down its wall, and it shall be trampled down.

I will make it a waste; it shall not be pruned or hoed, and briers and thorns shall grow up; I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it.

For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are his pleasant planting; and he looked for justice, but behold, bloodshed; for righteousness, but behold, an outcry! (Isaiah 5:1–7 ESV)

-God had done everything He could for the nation, and they still were rebellious—they did not bear the fruit that He expected of them. Now, these hundreds of years later, they still had not changed. As John describes for us in the prologue of His gospel, the Word of God (Jesus) came to the world He created, and the world did not know Him. And He even came to the people that He called out from all the others and His own people did not receive Him.

-And so, now the call went out to Israel to repent, because the Kingdom was at hand. Their Messiah was in their midst, and they too would perish if they did not turn to Him.

~Of course, from history we know that, although many Jews came to faith, in general the nation rejected their King. And as a result Jerusalem was destroyed in AD 70.

-But now the call still goes out to the Jews, because if they do not repent and believe in their Messiah they too will perish. They will die and be separated from the goodness of the God that they think they are serving, but in reality are not. So, that is the historical context, but then I want to quickly look at some:

b) Considerations for today

-First, for the Christian, we have to consider if we are bearing fruit. Jesus warned in:

“Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away” (John 15:2a ESV)

-This is not a loss of salvation, but our fruitlessness tells us that we are not a tree or a branch that belongs to Christ. There is a call to self-examination according to scripture. Sure, it’s easy to compare ourselves to the world and consider ourselves alright and proudly say in our heart I’M NOT THAT BAD. But when we compare ourselves to the Word of God we come up with a different answer.

-But Jesus said unless you repent you will likewise perish. Repent of self-righteousness. Repent of spiritual apathy. Repent of laziness when it comes to the things of God. Repent of taking less care of your soul than you do your body. Repent of not having a care whether the Great Commission is fulfilled or not. Repent of not getting involved in the ministries of the church. Repent of not supporting the ministries of the church.

-Repentance leads to fruitfulness. If we are going to fulfill the mandates God places on us as His people, we need to bear that fruit.

-But then there is a call to the unbeliever to repent. Turn from your sin and the world and turn toward Christ. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, because unless you repent you too will perish for eternity.

Conclusion

-The end of the parable is interesting. The worker pleads with the owner to give him one more year to tend to the tree, and then if it still doesn’t bear fruit then cut it down.

-This shows the patience and longsuffering of God. Our God is merciful and loving and He gives time to repent. But there is a limit to that time. Israel had about 40 years to repent after Jesus’ ministry, but they refused to do so, and their nation was destroyed and they were scattered.

-God’s patience will not always be with us. But right now it is, and so there is a call to repent right now.

~Christian, repent of your self-righteousness and self-centeredness and self-reliance.

~Unbeliever, repent of your lack of faith.

~Unless you repent, you will likewise perish.