Sermon Tone Analysis

“When our Lord and Master, Jesus Christ, said "Repent", He called for the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.”

Martin Luther’s 95 theses, that shook the world, began with this.

All the other theses were dependent on it.

All of his points about the abuses of the church, the selling of indulgences, the praying for the dead, all of his points, flowed from this one: That when Jesus said “Repent”, He called for the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.

If our receiving of salvation is based upon our own repentant heart, then no priest can claim authority over our salvation, or forgiveness.

If it is based upon our own repentance, then ultimately, we stand alone before God when it comes to the judgement, because the judgement of God looks beyond the appearance of man and to the heart.

I was told once that I talk too much about repentance.

I was told I used the word repent 31 times in one sermon.

Someone was counting.

In the same conversation, I was told I have no grace.

But the more I study, the more I reflect, the more I experience the grace of God, the more I want to double down on repentance, because if I double down on repentance in my own life, I double down on the receiving of the grace of God, and if I double down on preaching about repentance, those who hear and respond to the message will experience more and more of God’s grace as they look at their own heart and live a life, like Martin Luther rightly recognized, of one responding to Christ’s command to always be in a repentant posture before Almighty God.

It is said that Luther’s last words were, “We’re all a bunch of beggars”.

And when we properly realize our own standing before God outside of His marvelous grace found in the blood of Jesus Christ, then our repentant hearts are glad hearts, joyful hearts, redeemed and made righteous hearts!

So today’s passage is one that ought to encourage us.

It will

1: remind us of how miserable we are in our sin without Christ.

2: remind us of how He cleansed us, and

3: remind us to keep ourselves set apart for Him by honoring His Word.

Each week, as I prepare to preach on a particular passage, I have the challenge of taking an ancient text, trying to figure out what it meant then, to the people who first received it, and how it applies to us today, as believers in Christ.

Not all passages will be easy to do this with.

Sometimes it is a struggle to see what the passage has to do with us today.

Other times, it is crystal clear that the passage has direct application, and today is one of those times.

The message today is a direct parallel of the whole redemptive story.

In a sense, it is a summary of the entire gospel story.

Once again, we see in an an ancient prophecy that Jesus the Savior is present and active.

Let’s read the passage,

Once again, this passage should

1: remind us of how miserable we are in our sin without Christ.

2: remind us of how He cleansed us, and

3: remind us to keep ourselves set apart for Him by honoring His Word.

First of all, we are reminded of how miserable we are in our sin without Christ.

The Joshua in this passage is a priest, a representative of the people.

What is said and done to Joshua is a representation of what is done for all believers in Jesus Christ.

You see here a courtroom scene, or a kingdom scene, to be more direct.

Joshua is standing before the Angel of the Lord.

Who remembers who the Angel of the Lord is? Jesus.

And Joshua is being accused by Satan.

Satan is always accusing us.

He comes at us with two big lies.

The first lie is when he tempts us.

He tells us the sin won’t matter, we wont be caught, we will stop before we go too far, but go ahead and just this once you can do the sin.

And when we fall to that temptation, his role changes from tempter to accuser.

Now the same sin he told us wouldn't matter, he will say, precludes us from receiving God’s grace.

He tells us our sin makes us ineligible for God’s kingdom, He tells us that since we sinned, we may as well give up altogether, because we have ruined any chance we have for salvation.

Ironic, isn't it?

On the one hand, he tells us the sin isn't so bad.

On the other hand, he will bring it up over and over in his role as accuser, trying to bring us low and into despair.

Satan has always been the accuser, and here He is, accusing Joshua.

Remember Joshua is a representation of all Israel, and in our context a representation of us.

And the accuser is not always wrong.

We have a sin nature.

We make mistakes.

We are not perfect.

So sometimes, his accusations are not wrong in the sense that we are guilty, but in accordance with the one who has received the free gift of salvation through Jesus, he is wrong to accuse, since Christ has cleansed us.

And this is why Satan is rebuked here.

We will get back to that shortly.

Joshua’s sin is represented by filthy garments.

This language of being dirty and in need of cleansing is found throughout the Bible.

In fact, the language at times is rather harsh.

The point we are to take is that our sin is ugly.

It is reprehensible.

Compared with the standard God had in mind at the creation, we fall pathetically short.

We have wicked hearts, the Bible says.

And to really understand the grace of God, we need to understand our standing before Him, if we are to stand alone, and not with our Advocate, Jesus Christ.

To have a proper view of the value of an advocate, we need to understand how much trouble we were in, and how we would be unable to make our own defense.

Only when we get this through can we really appreciate and have proper gratitude for the grace of God.

And as Martin Luther pointed out in his first thesis, this needs to happen daily.

Let’s look at what scripture says about our sin:

Here Isaiah is saying that we have all become like one who is unclean.

Paul said all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

This is the witness of all of scripture.

But not only have we become unclean, Isaiah says, our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment.

So our sin cannot be wiped away by any deeds we do.

We can smile, buy people lunch, fundraise for wells to be dug in foreign countries, and even share the gospel with others.

None of those deeds can save us from our sin.

In fact, they are a polluted garment.

I realize this may be politically incorrect, but a Hebrew reader of Isaiah would have read this and in that language it says that our righteous deeds are like a dirty menstrual cloth.

In our language today, it would be like saying your “good works” are a dirty napkin.

Some of you are shocked that I would say that from the pulpit, and a preacher should never say things just to get a response or peak interest.

But Isaiah did use this language, and He was speaking for God as a prophet.

Clearly God wants us to think for a moment about how bad our sin is, and how worthless our deeds are when it comes to cleansing sin.

No deeds can do this.

No action on our part can save us.

We are utterly despicable in our sin form God’s view, unless a proper sacrifice can be made in our place, one so perfect that it would permanently cleanse us.

What sacrifice could do this?

Who can get off the hook of their sin?

Who will step forward and save us?

Again, God sees the sin as uncleanness.

As crass as we may find this, our sin is much the worse.

As offended as we may be at the political incorrectness of this prophetic passage, how much more is God offended at our own personal sins, and the sins of a nation quickly spiraling down the moral gutter?

We should understand by now that our sin is a huge problem.

On our own we can’t take any steps that would help our problem.

On our own, we are like Joshua, standing before God with the accuser ready with his list of sins we have committed, and we stand there looking miserable in our disgusting, dirty, clothes.

What way do we have out of this predicament?

How can we endure the accusations of Satan, and how can we lift our head knowing that we have failed God and have nothing better to expect than His awful judgment?

So I hope we have realized at this time how serious our sin is.

And I hope that we have come to realize our need to repent.

When we do this, the Angel of the Lord, Jesus Christ, our Advocate, our substitute, our Redeemer-kinsman, steps into the scene.

We should have known He would come!

We should have listened to the prophets who promised that the Messiah would come!