A Costly Grace
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Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.”
A few weeks ago we considered the Great Commission and we saw that we - the church - are called to collectively make disciples by teaching the Word of God and bringing people into the community of faith - into the church.
And we saw that since discipleship is the focus of the Great Commission, that those who carry it out need to themselves be disciples. We need to know the Word of God, and we need to be contributing members of the covenant community - of the church.
In other words, disciples make disciples. And we are called to make disciples, so we have to be disciples.
But there’s more to it than what we saw with the Great Commission. Jesus gave multiple instructions to His church, on how to be the church. Some He gave after His resurrection. We can’t conflate all of those post-resurrection instructions into one like some and think they are saying the same thing. They were different commands, given at different times, and even in different places.
We saw the Great Commission was given in Galilee shortly after the resurrection. Here, we will see that these instructions are given in Jerusalem shortly before the ascension.
And today, we will see what Jesus tells His church to do along with the Great Commission. And this is not a second set of instructions, like: we have a checklist of commands to get through.
We will see that this goes right along with the Great Commission - this is part of making disciples. And it’s part of being disciples. It is part of growing the church.
It is part of why we’re here.
So just like we saw with the Great Commission, while this is a mission for all of us as a church - MCC and the universal church of all time - this is also about what we each need to do as part of the church.
So I would like begin by reading a quote from Dietrich Bonhoeffer. This is from his book The Cost of Discipleship. The context is that he is trying to explain what grace is, and he wants to correct a false idea about grace in his day - and it is one that is prevalent in our day.
The false idea is: that since our salvation is by grace alone, that nothing is required of us once we’re saved. That because there is nothing we can do to be saved, that there is nothing we need to do once we are saved. He calls this understanding of grace, “cheap grace”.
“Cheap grace means grace sold on the market like cheap…wares. The sacraments, the forgiveness of sin, and the consolations of religion are thrown away at cut prices. Grace is represented as the Church's inexhaustible treasury, from which she showers blessings with generous hands, without asking questions or fixing limits. Grace without price [and] grace without cost! The essence of grace, we suppose, is that the account has been paid in advance; and, because it has been paid, everything can be had for nothing. Since the cost was infinite, the possibilities of using and spending it are infinite…
Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession… Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.
Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man will go and sell all that he has. It is the pearl of great price to buy [for] which the merchant will sell all his goods. It is the kingly rule of Christ, for whose sake a man will pluck out the eye which causes him to stumble; it is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows him.
Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock.”
In other words, there is an understanding of grace that says “God did it all, and does it all, so there is nothing I need to do but passively receive His grace.”
And then there is an understanding of grace that says, “God did it all, and does it all, and by His grace I want to be part of what He’s doing, and I am actively going to seek the grace I need to be what He calls me to be.”
So here is my question this morning: why are we here (universal, MCC, us today)? To passively enjoy cheap grace? Or to actively pursue costly grace?
And I think we can find what our answer should be in our passage this morning.
So let’s set the context of what Jesus says here. Luke records two post-resurrection appearances of Christ and mentions a third.
First, Jesus appears to the two men on the road to Emmaus. They’re walking, Jesus shows up, and they don’t recognize Him. So Jesus plays a little coy and asks what’s been going on. And they tell Him of what happened to Jesus and say that they had hoped Jesus was the Messiah, but clearly since He died, He wasn’t.
So Jesus tells them that they should have known He was going to die, and we read:
And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.
And He goes on with them teaching them as they walk, and when they get to where they’re going, they invite Jesus - who they still don’t recognize - to eat with them. And as He blesses the food - boom! - they realize it’s Him and He disappears.
And this is what they say to each other - they both had this same experience:
They said to each other, “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?”
Now I want us to notice something here. The risen Jesus appeared to them. He physically walked with them. He physically talked with them. And they didn’t recognize Him.
But once they do realize its Jesus, neither of them says “we should have recognized Him when we saw Him.” or “We should have recognized Him by the way He spoke.” No. They both say: “we recognized Him when we heard the Word of God.”
“Hey, Cleopas, didn’t you feel it while the Scriptures were being expounded. Didn’t your heart point you to Who He was as you heard the Word of God?”
So they now leave Emmaus and go to Jerusalem to the eleven Apostles, and tell them what happened. And they find out that Jesus has also appeared again to Peter (maybe the conversation recorded in John 21). And as they’re discussing all of this, all of a sudden, Jesus is just there with them.
As they were talking about these things, Jesus himself stood among them, and said to them, “Peace to you!” But they were startled and frightened and thought they saw a spirit.
They are startled because Jesus is just there. But notice, they think He’s a spirit. Why? Because He died. This must be His spirit.
And note, this is after the giving of the Great Commission. We read in the post-resurrection appearances of Christ that the Apostles had some trouble getting their minds around the whole physical resurrection thing.
And here, even after He shows His hands and feet to them, and even after He invites them to touch Him, we read this:
And while they still disbelieved for joy and were marveling, he said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?”
This is now two of the post-resurrection appearances of Christ that we have looked at. And in both, we are told that there was unbelief among the Apostles. Here, they thought it was just too good to be true.
So just like we saw with the Great Commission, we need to realize: this has nothing to do with how great our faith is or isn’t.
This has nothing to do with how much we understand the entire Bible, how far along we are in our walk, how long we’ve been a Christian, or how ready we feel or don’t feel to carry out the work Christ has given us. This is all about the object of our faith, Who He is and what He has done.
That’s why Christ says:
Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.”
We are going to see that the instruction here is ultimately for the church to proclaim the Gospel. But we are going to see that this proclamation is specific: it has a specific focus, and it has a very specific source.
And that source is the Word of God.
Jesus appeared to those two disciples, and He expounds the Word of God. His physical presence did them no good, remember. It was the Word of God that made their hearts burn within them and recognize Jesus.
He appears here to a bunch of disciples, including the 11 Apostles, and He expounds the Word of God - He tells them its all about Him. His physical presence did nothing for their faith. They didn’t believe it was Him physically. It was the Word of God that gave them the understanding they needed:
Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures,
What the two disciples needed to know Jesus was the Word of God. What the Apostles needed to believe Jesus, was the Word of God.
And we are no different.
Remember, the source of our message - of our proclamation - is the Word of God. So that means that we need to know the Word of God to carry out our mission as the church. We need to know Christ and believe Him in order to fulfill our purpose - it is why we’re here!
Because, as I said, this is not about us and our faith. This is about the object of our faith - Jesus Christ. It is about Who He is and what He has done - which is exactly what He expounded from the Scriptures to the two disciples and then says to the 11 Apostles.
The Word of God is where we can find Jesus. So that we can know Him, and so that we can believe Him. And as Bonhoeffer said, we need to seek the Gospel over and over and over again. We need to seek Jesus continually. Because He is the root, He is the foundation, He is the truth upon which His church is built - and is being built.
The Word of God is how He prepares us to carry out our mission as the church. It is how He grants us faith and grows that faith. It is how He works salvation. It is the heart of our mission as the church.
We need to teach everything Christ taught in order to make disciples. What is the content of our teaching? The Word of God. What is the means of the faith we need to be disciples? The Word of God.
What do we proclaim? The Word of God. Like Jesus did here.
Note that Christ opens their minds - not directly to believe. He doesn’t just say “okay, now you believe.” He doesn’t open their minds directly to understand the “how” of the resurrection and what it means. He doesn’t open their minds and give them a direct, miraculous comprehension of their mission.
No. He opens their minds to understand the Scriptures. He does all of those other things by opening their minds to understand the Scriptures.
And the same is true for us. Understanding the Word of God - it will lead to an understanding of our mission. It will lead to an understanding of what Christ’s finished work means for us and the world.
It will lead to the faith we need to carry out our mission.
As Martin Luther said:
“Not through thought, wisdom, and will does the faith of Christ arise in us, but through an incomprehensible and hidden operation of the Spirit, which is given by faith in Christ only at the hearing of the Word” - Martin Luther
Everything we need to do what Christ calls us to do and be what He calls us to be, is here. The understanding. The faith. The power of the Spirit. The desire to answer the call to discipleship - the ability to be a disciple and make disciples.
The path to costly grace that changes us and the world! It is found in the pages of Holy Scripture.
Does that mean we don’t need prayer? No. But we know that because the Bible tells us how prayer-dependent we are. For both understanding the Word and applying the Word and unlocking the power of the Holy Spirit in us.
Does it mean we don’t need to serve? No. But we know that because the Bible calls us to sacrificial service and through it the Spirit empowers us to do it.
Does it mean we don’t need corporate worship or fellowship?… OK, I think we get the point. Everything we need to know, to believe, and the power to do - it is rooted in the Word of God, where we can find Christ.
And that means, we each need to be seeking Christ - we each need to be knocking at the door of knowledge and faith and power - if we are going to be the church together.
So let me repeat what I said a few weeks ago: coming to church on Sunday mornings is not nearly enough. It is not enough to make us disciples. It is not enough for us to know Christ the way He wants to be known. It is not enough for us to increase in faith and knowledge.
The last thing I want as the pastor of this church is a monopoly on your understanding of the Bible. You need to be in the Word. You need to seek understanding. Read the Bible. Read books about the Bible. Listen to other sermons. Discuss the Bible in a community group. Come for more in-depth teaching at one of our Bible studies.
You all need to sign up for the Operation Worldview classes we are running in the fall.
We all need to seek Christ in every way and at every opportunity.
But realize, this is going to take work. It is going to cost you something. If you devote yourself to seeking Christ, you are going to have to give something - or many things - up. If you are going to seek Christ to know Him and believe Him, it will cost you something. But only then will you encounter God’s costly grace.
And realize, He told us that it would cost us a great deal. And He told us to count the cost before following Him. Because you can’t follow Him without paying a price.
So in Bonhoeffer terms, we each need to choose what we want: passive, cheap grace. Or active, costly grace.
Because realize, it is only after Christ tells the disciples what is written in the Word:
Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.”
That they are able to understand:
Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures,
But my point today is not that we need to know our Bibles. I mean, that’s always my point, but that is never the end of the story.
Because we are like the disciples here. The point is not that they understood. The passage doesn’t end there.
The point is why they needed to understand. Why they needed to know the Word and believe.
Because they had work to do.
Why do we need to understand? Why do we need to believe?
Because we have work to do. We are carrying on that same work.
This is what Jesus is calling His church to here. This is why we’re here.
After Christ tells them that the Scriptures bear witness to Him, and they understand, He says this:
and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead,
Let’s stop right there. Let’s note that again and again Jesus roots all of His instructions to His church, in Himself. It’s all about Who He is and what He has done.
We saw in the Great Commission it is because He has all the authority and because He is with us that we make disciples. Here, we see that it is because the Bible bears witness to Him that we proclaim it.
He is the Christ. He is the promised seed of the woman, the offspring of Abraham Who would bless the whole world, the son of David that would reign over God’s people, the promised Messiah that would bring salvation.
The Word of God, and the church, and our mission, is rooted in Who He is.
And it is also rooted in what He’s done. In His death and resurrection. This is how He crushed the head of the serpent, blessed the whole world, inherited His throne, and saved sinners.
By coming as one of us, living a perfect life of obedience to the Father, then taking on our sin and carrying it to the cross, dying as punishment for that sin to defeat sin, and then being raised back to life to defeat death.
This is what He has done, brothers and sisters. He did all that God promised He would.
And He did it for us.
But He did it for us, not so we could sit passively by and enjoy cheap grace.
He did it so that we could be instruments of salvation. He did it so He could dwell among us and continue to redeem those sold under sin and death.
He did it, so we could know Him. He did it so we could believe Him.
He did it so that when we seek, we will find. So that when we knock, it will be opened. So that when we ask, we will receive.
What He did, He did for us, so that what He would still do, He could do through us.
And what He wants to do through us, is proclaim the Gospel.
and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.
Notice the focus of the proclamation Jesus is talking about here. He points first to Himself and what He has done. He roots it all in the Word of God. He says that this is what is written in the Scriptures. “Thus it is written...” about Him.
But that isn’t all that’s written. The Scriptures also detail our mission.
“Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead. AND… It is also written… that repentance and forgiveness should be proclaimed in His name...”
Let’s consider what this says.
First, notice the “for” - “repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” Is this saying forgiveness is a result of our repentance - that we repent in order to, or for the purpose of, gaining the forgiveness of sins by God?
Well, the Greek doesn’t say “for.” Some of the earliest manuscripts have a word that means something more like “into” - repentance “into” the forgiveness of sins, which is where this “for” comes from. But no Greek manuscript I know of uses the word that means “for” as we would understand it - that repentance is for the purpose of forgiveness.
In most Greek manuscripts, the word “and” is used. That is what Jesus is saying. Repentance AND the forgiveness of sins.
It is talking about two things that go together, neither of which relies on the other. One is not the result of the other.
They go together, as in, they are both results of salvation, and they are inseparable.
In other words, you do not have forgiveness of sins if you have not repented, and those who repent are those who have had their sins forgiven. Not because one depends on the other, but because God never grants one without the other.
Because forgiveness of sins without repentance would be cheap grace. This is part of what we heard from that Bonhoeffer quote:
Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance
And again, it isn’t that repentance is the pre-requisite for forgiveness. And it isn’t that we would “require” repentance from someone when we bring them the Gospel as a rite of initiation or a payment for the forgiveness.
Rather, repentance is inseparable from forgiveness. And if you want forgiveness but do not repent, then you aren’t looking for what Christ offers. You don’t want what He died for.
And you cannot be what He calls you to be without repentance, and you cannot do what He calls you to do without repentance.
That is why the message of the Gospel is what John the Baptist preached:
In those days John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
This was the same Gospel Jesus preached at the very outset of His public ministry. He is baptized, goes into the wilderness and overcomes the temptations of Satan, and then:
From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
The Gospel message is not a message of cheap grace. It is a message of repentance and the forgiveness of sins.
And what is repentance?
Because just like we saw with discipleship - how you can’t make disciples unless you are a disciple - we just saw, with the message we proclaim, we need to know it, and we need to believe it. And that means that we have to be forgiven if we are going to proclaim forgiveness, and we have to repent before we can proclaim repentance.
And the old adage that repentance simply means a “change of mind” is wholly misguided, because what we call the “mind” is not what the Greeks or the Jews or anyone in the ancient world would understand the “mind” to be.
And that includes Jesus and the writers of the New Testament.
Repentance isn’t just about how we think. Like: we used to consider sin to be good, and now we consider it to be bad. That is part of it, but only a small part. Because we can all say from experience that knowing something is bad doesn’t keep us from it, does it.
And why is that? Why is just knowing something not enough to keep us on the straight and narrow?
Well, because as we saw in our series on mental health, we are whole people with intellect, spirits, emotions, bodies, and relational needs. And all of those aspects of our being are inseparably intertwined. What affects our minds affects our bodies and our emotions. What affects our bodies and emotions affects our minds.
So repentance - true repentance - affects every aspect of our being.
The root of the word Luke uses here means: “sense directed on an object that embraces: sensation, the power of spiritual perception, and capacity for intellectual apprehension.” That is not my definition. That is what the Greek word meant in the ancient world.
In other words, repentance affects our minds, our spirits, our emotions, and our bodies because of a relational focus on someone or something aside from ourselves.
And for us, that Someone is Christ.
So this isn’t about just our minds. This is being turned or converted - or changed - in our whole being. It isn’t changing our minds. It’s changing our lives. It is thinking differently. Feeling differently. Speaking differently. Acting differently. Dealing with others differently.
It is fixing our eyes on Christ our Savior, and then because He has forgiven us and has changed us in every aspect of our being, being who He has made us.
And this is the message we proclaim. Christ has done everything that needed doing to grant us forgiveness and repentance. He changed how God deals with us - turning us, converting us - changing us - from objects of wrath to objects of steadfast love - so that how we now deal with Him, and ourselves, and others would change.
We are forgiven, and we are changed.
Forgiveness and repentance.
Forgiveness alone would be cheap grace.
Forgiveness and repentance is costly grace.
Many Christians..fail to realize that the Christian life is not only an identity to be embraced, it is also a lifestyle to be cultivated, and a fight to be fought.
Ed Banghart
You can’t embrace forgiveness, without cultivating a lifestyle change. And it is a fight, brothers and sisters. It isn’t easy.
But this is what we have to embrace, because this is what we have to proclaim.
and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.
Spreading the word of Christ - evangelizing the world - all people - the word here is the same as the word in the Great Commission. The “nations” means “all people”. It mean this is to be proclaimed to everyone with no exceptions.
No one is excluded from the proclamation of the Gospel.
And that proclamation, Jesus says, is done by His church. He gave these instructions to the disciples that would spread Christianity to all people.
And we are part of that mission.
This is why we’re here. The purpose of the church is: proclamation of the Gospel and disciple making. That is what we have seen so far between the Great Commission and our passage today.
But I want to focus for a minute on the “proclaimed” part of this command.
Because I think that we all sometimes forget that the Good News of the Gospel is only Good News if we report that news. If we proclaim it.
There is what I believe to be an unhealthy loss of focus in the American church. Think back to some of the mission statements we considered from some other churches. We tend to focus on the wrong things. They aren’t bad things in and of themselves, many of them are good things.
Like inclusion. This is a good thing. We do not exclude people from anything based on any worldly distinctions. We certainly do not as the church exclude anyone from hearing the Gospel of grace. We are to make disciples of all people.
Repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in Christ’s name to all people without exclusion.
So inclusion is actually necessary to do what we’re called to do as the church.
But if inclusion means everyone is welcome to be part of our church regardless of how they live their life - regardless of how they think, talk, or act - regardless of what they believe - and we are not going to proclaim that God calls for there to be change - then we have embraced forgiveness without repentance. We have embraced cheap grace.
Or, how about a focus on social justice. Social justice is a good thing. It is something the church should care very much about and strive for. Justice is a chief virtue of God - and He calls for the same from His people. And the church is a preserving presence in this world - if there is going to be social justice, the church universal needs to be the catalyst.
But if that becomes the mission - if we believe that is why we are here - and we abandon the proclamation of repentance and forgiveness, then we have abandoned eternal justice for temporal justice.
We have neglected the costly price paid for justice to be done and for God to save sinners.
The church is here to proclaim the Gospel and make disciples. And inclusion and social justice are necessary means to bringing our message to all people, but they are not the message.
But this doesn’t just go for the church. The same is true for each of us. This applies to how we each live our lives.
“preach the Gospel at all times and when necessary use words” - This doesn’t mean anything! The Gospel is a message!!
The Gospel is a message. It is good news. Yes, as I just said, we need to change - our thoughts, our actions, our words. We need to repent. But that is because we need to proclaim repentance. I find that many people use that quote to justify never sharing the Gospel verbally. “I show the world Christ through my works.” - and that’s wonderful, but that’s only part of the job.
Our words are necessary. Yes, they will be effective only if they are rooted in His Word, and if our actions give people a reason to listen. But “actions speak louder than words” is not a Biblical principle. We need both - actions and words - to communicate the Gospel.
Christ’s works were always to point to His words - He didn’t perform miracles in a vacuum. He preached the message: “the kingdom of God is at hand, repent and believe in the Gospel” and then performed miracles to prove the truth of His Words about Himself
And this is why we need to repent. Our actions will speak.
But we also need the proclamation. Show the world Christ through your works, and then, since they have a reason to listen, tell them about Him.
Why?
You are witnesses of these things.
What things?
His death and resurrection, and the repentance and forgiveness of sins that God grants through that work.
Christ said this not just to those few disciples in that room. He sad this to His church.
We are witness of these things. The church - all of us. Christians - each of us.
We weren’t physically there to witness the work of Christ. But remember, being physically there did nothing for the two on the road. It did nothing for the 11 Apostles in that room. They saw Christ and didn’t know Him or didn’t believe Him.
When did they know and believe Him? When they found Him in the Word.
So we are witnesses because God has opened our minds to understand the Scriptures. We know what God said - we know Christ - we believe.
We have been forgiven, and we have repented.
We are witnesses of these things.
And so, we are held out to the world by God so that the world may see Him, and hear Him.
and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.
So I am going to ask you all to do four things, which really comes down to one thing.
And that one thing is: I would like you to decide why you’re here. For cheap grace, or for costly grace.
If you choose costly grace, for which a person will sell all they have to gain the pearl of great price, and leave their net and follow Jesus, and pluck out their eye that causes them to stumble, and seeks the Gospel again and again.
Then I say to you, seek, and you will find.
How?
1. Commit to know your Bible better, and better, and better.
I am including myself in this, believe me. None of us can ever get to the point where we say “I know my Bible well enough” because none of us can ever say “I know and believe Jesus enough - I am as close with Him as I need to be.”
The great part about this is that we are all in the same boat. We all need to seek the Gospel over and over again in the pages of Scripture.
So whatever you have been doing to know your Bible, do more. Whatever it costs, whatever you have to give up, seek to know Jesus more from the pages of Scripture.
If you would like suggestions on how to do that, or on resources to help you, please come see me.
2. Repent
And you might say: Lee, I am already saved. I’ve already repented and believed. And to that I say praise God!
But I am talking about making even more changes, to be more of what Christ calls us to be. As I said, repentance changes our whole person: spirit, intellect, will, emotions - all of it.
But even after that has been granted by God, we have a million little choices every day that affect how we carry out the mission Christ has given us.
Think about what Christ did in order to bring the message of repentance and the forgiveness of sins to us.
The Son of God left heaven for us - and became one of us - to do it.
He had to become like us in every way. We have seen this before - He had to come physically to redeem the physical. To overcome death, He had to physically die. To overcome sin, He had to physically become one of us to represent us before the Father.
But Christ did not come completely like us. He had no sin. He identified with us through baptism - a baptism of repentance - but since He had no sin He never had to repent. So there are two things Christ did not experience: sin, and repentance.
And everyone else has sinned.
But only those who now want to identify with Him repent. We repent to become like Him. And we become like Him to represent Him before men.
In calling for repentance, Christ calls us to turn, to change - and to reject sin. Repentance is doing what our Lord did at His baptism, in becoming flesh, in dining with prostitutes and tax collectors. It is identifying ourselves with Him.
Christ’s incarnation identified Him with us. It is repentance that identifies us with Him.
It is saying that He died for a person and for a purpose. He died for me that my sins would be forgiven, yes...He died for me that I may sin no more, yes…but He died for me that I may be changed more and more into His image, know Him more and more, and believe Him more and more.
And when Jesus forgave people and told them “now go and sin no more” - He wasn’t calling them to perfection, He was just calling them to responsibility.
So I am calling for all of us to repent in this way. To examine how we handle that responsibility, and to find where our ideas, our actions, or our priorities get in the way, and to change them.
That is repentance.
3. Proclaim Christ
This is not just for evangelists and preachers. This is not just for the spiritually mature. This is not just for the believer of 20 years.
This is for all of us, and each of us.
Am I suggesting that you need to give a full presentation of the Gospel to people and expound justification or adoption? No. Do you need to turn every or even many conversations to the topic of your faith? No.
Just seek opportunities to tell people what Christ has done for you. In your own words. From your point of view.
Tell them how you have been forgiven. Tell them how you have changed. That is proclaiming repentance and the forgiveness of sins.
4. Pray for the Spirit
Christ told the disciples one more thing:
And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.”
Jesus was not about to send them to do this work unprepared. He was going to come to them and give them power. He was going to manifest Himself to them by the Holy Spirit.
And it was only when the Spirit came that they fully understood all Christ said. It was only when the Spirit filled them that they had the boldness to speak the Word and live as witnesses of Christ.
If you have repented and believed, you have the same Spirit.
Because remember what we saw last time: this is God’s work. He will do it through us, but it is His to do.
And if you have been feeling unsure. If you have been doubting. If you have been feeling powerless. If you don’t think you can do what He calls you to do. It’s okay. Because God doesn’t expect you to do this alone.
That is why He sent His Spirit.
Pray for the Spirit. Pray that you would be aware of His presence. Pray that He would work His power in you. Pray that you would hear Him - be sensitive to His voice and His promptings.
Pray that He would reveal Christ to you more and more and turn your heart to love Him more and more.
We need to be clothed with power from on high, so we need to pray for God to clothe us.