Prepare the Way

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0:18Would you pray with me, father in heaven? And we come now to your word and we need your help. So Speak through your word by the power of your spirit so that we would see what you want us to see, and that we would hear what you want us to hear, and that we would be transformed and changed into the likeness and image of your son. Jesus, we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

0:53There Are few words more unpopular than the word repent. If you stand on the street corner of Nicolette and Marquette downtown and you stand on a little crate and you yell out, repent, people will think that you're off your meds. They'll think something's wrong with you. There are few words in our culture that have more negative connotations than repent, maybe hell or wrath. Chances are that none of you have a nice calligraphy sign on some wood panel in your dining room that says, repent, maybe gather, eat, live, laugh, whatever. Right? That none of you have cross stitched. The words repent into any tea towels lately it, it's a word used often in scripture, but infrequent on the lips of believers and even in pulpits in America.

1:54And yet this message of repentance is one that we need. It's one that we need in our world and in our church. This idea of turning away from ourselves to God. It's a message that's emphasized again and again in the scriptures. Let me just read you four verses in the book of Acts, acts 2 38. Peter said to them, repent and be baptized. Every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins, acts three 19. Peter says, repent therefore and turn back that your sins may be blotted out or Acts 8 22, Peter told Simon the magician, repent therefore of this wickedness of yours and pray to the Lord that if possible the intent of your heart may be forgiven you.

2:47Or Acts 1730, Paul says to the men of Athens, the times of ignorance God overlooked. But now he commands all people everywhere to repent. You'll notice as Boaz read our passage this morning that the word repent or repentance appears three times in our passage. John the Baptist preached Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Verse two. Then in verse eight, bear fruit in keeping with repentance. Then in verse 11, John emphasizes his ministry, I baptize you with water for repentance. And Matthew records Jesus very first public words of ministry in Matthew four 17. And guess what? What do you think Jesus said, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

3:41They are identical to what we see here in verse two. So it's gonna be of no surprise that this message is all about repentance this morning. And what I wanna do is walk through this passage by looking at the man, John the Baptist, the message that John preached, and then the method, the man, the message and the method. So first we come to the man. What we see that Matthew does is he skips over Jesus' childhood and youth. And he fast forwards about three decades and he introduces us to John the Baptist. And and we don't get that here, but in the other gospels we learned that they are second cousins.

4:25Mary and Elizabeth were relatives. They're probably about six months apart because their pregnancies overlapped and he is a miracle baby Zacharia and Elizabeth were unable to have children and he's also a pk, not a pastor's kid, but a priest kid because of Zacharia. And so what do we learn about this man, John the Baptist? Well, first we learn that John is a preacher who is sent by God. John is a preacher who is sent by God. Verse two, he starts preaching, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Verse three tells us the voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.

5:12And so how do we know that He's sent by God? How do we know that John is sent by God? Well, verse three says, for this is he who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah. And there he quotes Isaiah chapter 40, verse three, all four gospels quote Isaiah 40 verse three. And if you need a little bit of a refresher on what Isaiah 40 is about, it begins with this section of hope and comfort begins comfort, comfort my people. And then it speaks of a day when the wars have ended, the people's iniquity is pardoned and the exiles are to return home. And then Isaiah 40, verse three says, A voice cries in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

6:00And this borrows the imagery of a herald that would go before a king into a town. And and he's saying, the king's coming. So prepare. Prepare the roads, make sure they're clear, and to announce his arrival, the staging crew goes ahead of the king. And so John is sent in fulfillment of Isaiah 40, verse three. He's a preacher who's sent by God to prepare the people for Jesus. The second thing we learn about John is that he's a prophet in the pattern of Elijah. He's a prophet in the pattern of Elijah. If you look at verse four, it says, John wore a garment of camel's, hair and a leather belt around his waist.

6:44And his food was locusts and wild honey. And so what we're supposed to immediately see is that John is not your normal guy. He's kind of a weird dude, right? He's eating locusts. This would've been considered clean. Leviticus 1122 speaks of crickets and grasshoppers and locusts being able to be eaten. And John's appearance is saying something about who he is. It's revealing his identity. And and we need to understand two kings, 1 8, 2 kings, one eight describes Elijah like this. He wore a garment of hair with a belt of leather around his waist and it said it's Elijah the Tishbite. So what Matthew is trying to do is he's portraying John the Baptist as one who looks just like Elijah.

7:38And more evidence comes in Malachi four five. Actually, lemme encourage you to turn in your Bible there. You just need to turn backwards, a handful of pages because the very last book of the Old Testament in your English Bible is Malachi. And the very last chapter is Malachi four. And the last two verses are four and five. And Malachi four, five, the prophet Malachi predicted, behold, I will send you Elijah, the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. And then Elijah has been dead for 400 years. It's gonna be another 400 years until John the Baptist gets on the scene. But what we're supposed to see is that as the Old Testament ends, what are the people waiting for?

8:26A prophet who resembles Elijah? And this is further confirmed in Luke chapter one, verse 17, where an angel appears to zacharia John the Baptist's father. And he says to him, John will go before the Lord in the Spirit and power of Elijah to make ready for the Lord a people prepared. And if we need more evidence, we can go to Matthew 17, verses 10 to 13, Peter, James and John had just gone up onto the mountain of transfiguration. They saw Moses and Elijah there with Jesus, and they're coming down and they're like, what in the world just happened? And and Jesus says, don't tell anyone about the vision you just saw.

9:10And and then the disciples say, well, why do the scribes say that first Elijah must come Matthew 17, verse 10. And Jesus tell them, Elijah has already come and they realize that he was speaking to them about John the Baptist. So two kings, one, eight, Malachi, four, five, Luke one 17. And Jesus himself all confirm that John the Baptist is the prophetic forerunner in the pattern of Elijah. It, it's like everything else that we've seen, the stars, the angels, everything is pointing to the fact that the king, the Messiah is coming. This is special. And everything in the Old Testament was prophesying.

9:56The king is coming. And then we get the one who is the herald who's paving the way for this King John the Baptist came in the prophetic pattern of Elijah and he declares the message In just a moment, we're gonna look at the message, but the third thing we want to see is that John not only was this prophetic forerunner, but he's also a humble servant. Look with me at verse 11. John says, I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. What we see in that text is that John knew that he was not the main attraction.

10:48If you go to a concert, uh, you'll usually, there's kind of that first act just to kind of get everyone kind of loosened up and riled up. And then the main act comes. And John says, I, I'm that guy just preparing the people for the main act. He's the groomsman, not the groom. He's the herald. And Jesus is the king. He says that he's even unworthy to hold Jesus sandals. This would've been the lowest job on the totem pole. It would've been unclean, both ceremonially and literally in holding someone's sandals. And it would've been reserved for the lowest to non Hebrew slave. And John says that he's that unworthy in comparison to the glory and of the greatness of Jesus.

11:34That shows great, great humility, the chasm between them. John says, it is just massive. Later on, John says, he must increase, but I must decrease. In Matthew 1111, Jesus says, of John, truly, truly, I say to you, among those born of women, there has not arisen one greater than John the Baptist. So Jesus says, John is the greatest man born of women, and all men are born of women. He's the greatest one. And John says, still, the chasm is massive between us. He's a humble servant. And so the prerequisite this morning before we can understand John's message of repentance is, do we come with the humble attitude and disposition of John?

12:30When we approach Jesus, do we see the greatness and the glory of Jesus? John knew his place. Jesus is the man and he's just a herd. Jesus is one of one. And his job is to prepare the way. So John is a preacher who's sent by God. He's a prophet in the pattern of Elijah, and he's a humble servant. And now we look at his message, Matthew gets right to the point. Verse two, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Now think about it with me for a moment. John could have said a lot of things when he first came onto the scene, he could have said, love incarnate is coming. Get ready. The grace of God is about to break in.

13:19Guys, you know those sacrifices we used to do in the temple? The lamb of God is here, he's gonna wash away our sins are are, are you crying? Are you mourning? Are you grieving? Guess what, he, he's gonna wipe away every single one of our tears. He could have said all those things and all of those things would've been gloriously true. But what does John say? Instead, he thunders repent. Why? First, let, let's understand. In in the Greek the word repent could mean to change one's mind. But what John is calling for is much more than that. He calls for turning away from sin, these change of thoughts and life and actions and turning to God.

14:06It's this moral and ethical transformation. It it's like if you're driving on a road trip and you're going eastbound on 94, whichever direction, it won't matter. 'cause there's, you won't see it in, in this direction anyways. You're going eastbound on 94 and you need to exit and you need to get back on the highway and go westbound. You, you need to go this complete reorientation of mind and heart and behaviors and trajectory that that's what this idea of repentance has in view. And let's just take a moment to kind of dive a little bit deeper on what is repentance. First repentance includes the confession of sin.

14:47Look at verses five and six, all the people in Jerusalem, Judea, surrounding region, were going to John to be baptized in the river Jordan, and what were they doing? Verse seven, confessing their sins. It means calling your sin what it truly is. So repentance includes this confession of sin. Now, I don't know if any of us ever struggle with confessing our sins. I imagine we do. I remember early on in my own marriage, I would often struggle to confess my sin. I would say things like, well, I I got really angry there because I felt disrespected by what you said. And, and so if only you'd stop saying things like that, I would stop getting angry.

15:35So really at the bottom of my anger problem is you like what you say, right? The it's the shuttle blame shifting that happens. I'm sure that never happens in any of your marriages, but confessing sin is to rightly identify it and to recognize it as an offense against a holy God. Now, what's the difference between confession and repentance? What's the difference between repentance and confession? Uh, uh, I I think it's, it's good to come in and make a differentiation here. So repentance describes the U-turn away from sin to God when one often first gets saved. Now, there's repentance that, uh, accompanies the Christian life throughout, but it often goes from this radical change of direction of, of, I'm, I'm going down hurdling down this highway of self-sufficiency, and I need to turn around, otherwise I'm gonna fly off the cliff here.

16:38So one goes from seeking their joy and drugs and alcohol to now finding it in Christ or a life of promiscuity to now, now a life of purity or one goes from lying and cheating and stealing and gossip to now a life of humility and service and honesty and integrity. So that repentance is the u-turn of hurdling down the highway of selfishness to now trusting and obeying God. This often happens at conversion or salvation. It happens kind of throughout the Christian life. But whereas confession, I think more accurately describes the ongoing daily fight against sin. So like the Lord's prayer where we ask, forgive us our debts, this is that ongoing daily confession of any thought, deed, action or word that does not honor God.

17:31So our life consists of constantly confessing our sins before the Lord and then running to Jesus for cleansing so that we might hate our sin and seek to put it to death. The second thing we are to see about repentance, not only does it include confession of sin, but it includes repentance, includes godly sorrow, repentance includes godly sorrow. It's what we call contrition or this heart level grief that we've sinned against a holy God. Because often when you bring up the, the word repentance, people wonder, well, how rotten do I need to feel about myself or about my sin before I'm truly forgiven?

18:15Before it's really bad enough. Paul, in two Corinthians seven verse 10 talks about the difference between godly and worldly grief. He says, for godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret. So godly grief leads to salvation, whereas a worldly grief produces death. So how do we know the difference? Well, this worldly grief feels sorrow and sadness and remorse because we were caught in our sin because they've been exposed, we're embarrassed, we're ashamed. And, and it's still ultimately about you and your ego. You feel bad about yourself. It's like Judas who felt rotten about betraying Jesus who was innocent.

19:09And in that worldly sorrow, worldly grief, he it led to regret. He returned the money. And then what did he end up doing? He took his own life. Self condemnation, not salvation. Whereas godly grief, on the other hand, feels rotten over your sin. Yes, but it's not because I've mainly disappointed myself, but because I've sinned against a holy God. I've grieved God, I've trampled upon his grace.

19:38And so it doesn't primarily wallow in self-pity and self condemnation, and woe is me, but rather godly grief leads to repentance to say, oh God, I cannot save myself. I cannot be perfect. I can't fix myself. I can't work hard enough. I can't put enough barriers to keep myself from sinning. I, I I throw myself at your mercy and your mercy alone. We run to Jesus. We draw near to the throne of grace to find help and mercy in time of need. Hebrews for 16. So does your grief over sin draw you closer to God or farther away? Does it drive you towards the throne of grace or does it pull you further away?

20:30Hebrews 10 says, we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain. So therefore, let us draw near true repentance recognizes I can't fix myself. And we draw near to Jesus and his throne of grace, godly grief draws near to Jesus where whereas worldly sorrow, where wallows apart from Jesus. So this morning for the unbelievers among us, or perhaps even some believers or so-called believers, have you repented of your sins? Have you turned away from your self-sufficiency being your own master running down the road the way that you would like to live?

21:29And have you turned and have you drawn near to Christ and and thrown yourself at his mercy to say, I cannot save myself. There's nothing I can do. There's nothing that I can say. There's nothing that I can kind of produce in my life that would merit salvation and I need you. Jesus. I remember asking a relative of mine many years ago, what will you say on judgment day? I was trying to share the gospel with him. And this relative of mine said, uh, on that day, if I stand before the throne, if God is real, I think I'll get into heaven. And I said, what will you say? What will you point to? And he says, I was a really good person.

22:16I was a really good person. I, I've made a few mistakes, might have divorced my wife, made a few hiccups, but I was really good and I was just flabbergasted my, you know, wasn't quite sure how to respond in that moment, but that is the battle cry of the self-sufficient. I'm good enough, I'll work harder, but no one will get to heaven and say, I earned my spot. Repentance recognizes I cannot do enough. I cannot be moral enough. I cannot work hard enough to make myself right with God. My only hope is recognizing my inability and casting myself at the mercy of God. The battle cry of the believer is all I have is Christ.

23:05So may that be our battle cry this morning for those who are believers that we would be reminded. Once again, it's not about what you do in your works, but it's about throwing yourself at the mercy of God. And for those who are not yet trusting in Jesus, oh, our encouragement this morning, our exportation repent, turn to Jesus. There is no other way. So John's message is repent. We've looked at the man, we've looked at the message. Now we turn to his method, the method. John didn't just preach, but he baptized all who came to him in the river. Jordan, the word baptized here means to dip or plunge or be drowned, signifying the death of this former way of life and then rising again to this new pattern of life.

23:56Now, baptism was not very common in the Old Testament. Before John Jews would observe certain ritual washings, or if a gentile wanted to be kind of become part of the Jewish community, a ProSite, he, he would get circumcised and then he would have this ritual cleansing and he would be baptized. But here it's unusual. John is baptizing Jews and he's even going to baptize Jesus. So John's baptism is this way of saying, I cannot save myself. I renounce my former ways and I embrace the one true God. And these people are recognizing that our ethnic heritage being Jewish is not ultimately going to save us.

24:43And here's this guy out in the wilderness who's calling us to repent. And so we're gonna go to him and we're gonna be baptized in this dirty river, the river Jordan, in order to acknowledge that we cannot save ourselves. It's why in verses seven and eight, John warns the Pharisees and Sadducees, he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism. And he said to them, you brooded of vipers who warned you to flee from the wrath to come bear fruit in keeping with repentance. Now what we'll see, the Pharisees and Sadducees a lot in Matthew, these are the spiritual and religious leaders of their day.

25:18They're respected and revered. They had different kind of beliefs. The Pharisees were the teachers of the law, more of the commoners, if you will. The Sadducees are sort of the aristocrats, the the elite. They would've consisted of the chief priests and John calls them a brood of vipers, offspring of snakes or Satan himself, that they are full of poison and they've not come to John to be baptized. They've come to see what in the world is going on. And John's question, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come is full of sarcasm here. They've not come to flee any wrath. They've come to see the circus sideshow of this disheveled hobo in the wilderness who's somehow baptizing people and they've come to look and be like, what, what?

26:12What is this guy doing? And why are you people listening to him? They don't flee any wrath because they were righteous in their own eyes. And John warns them against claiming to be right with God, but refusing to repent and failing to bear fruit with repentance. They rested on the fact that they were biological descendants of Abraham. So in verse nine, John says, do not presume to say to yourselves, we have Abraham as our father. For I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. What he's saying is, you are resting your entire existence and life on the fact that you are Jewish, your ethnic heritage.

26:58You think that makes you right with God. And John says, God can raise up children for himself from stones. He does not need you. Your ethnicity is not going to be enough on the day of judgment. Then in verse 10, he says, even now the acts is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree, therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. These trees are not being trimmed, they're being uprooted. The ax is laid not to the trunk, but to the root itself, to uprooted. What he's saying here is that you, pharisees, you religious leaders are trusting in something that will not ultimately lead to life.

27:50Your works, your family, your heritage, your morality to trust in anything else besides what Jesus has done, means that you are a dead and diseased tree that God will uproot and burn. And this draws on all this Old Testament imagery. You know, we talk a lot about oaks of righteousness. We, we want our children to grow up to these oaks. But there is this other category that there are trees that do not bear fruit. And God repeatedly throughout the scriptures, cuts them down and burns them. It's an Isaiah, it's an Ezekiel. They prove not to be God's people For these religious leaders, there was no repentance, no fruit, and God's judgment is imminent.

28:35So there, there's a word of application here for us. The first is that if you're not baptized and you're a believer in Jesus, get baptized, John baptizes, Jesus himself gets baptized by John so that it might be fulfilled. And he calls his people to go and make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father Son and the Holy Spirit. And I'm always surprised sometimes that there are believers among us that have never been baptized. Baptism is this blessed privilege to say publicly I've been crucified with Christ. It's no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me and the life that I now live in the flesh.

29:19I live by faith in the son of God who loved me and gave himself up for me. It's a privilege and it's a blessing to be able to say, I identify with Jesus in his death and in rising again to new life. But a second application here is not to presume to be right with God like the Pharisees or the Sadducees. We, we can do that, can't we? I, I remember growing up, I always thought I'm a pk. Like I got a direct line. 'cause you know, dad, you know, does the thing on Sunday. And I just thought that was enough. And some of us can think that this morning, I grew up in the church, I give, I know a lot of theology.

30:06I'm a PK or a mk. I even was a missionary for a short time. You know what, I sat under Pastor John Piper's preaching for years. Like I must be in, I even have Bible degrees or you know what, as I look out at the world, I'm not as bad as those people. I'm pretty, pretty good. Not squeaky clean, but clean enough. If we presume upon anything we do, our ethnicity, our heritage, our works, we too will be cut down. So do not presume that we're somehow right with God based on anything we've done. So we've seen the man, he's a preacher, he's a prophet, he's a servant. We've seen the message repent by confessing with God the grief.

30:54And we've seen the method baptism by renouncing our self-sufficiency and bearing fruit and keeping with repentance. And so the main point of our sermon is very simple. It's repent, repent This morning, it's the message that John preaches. It's the warning that he issues that the Pharisees and Sadducees repent and bear fruit in keeping with repentance. Now, notice what John says in verse 11. He, he begins to transition in 11 and 12 to talking about himself and engaging the Pharisees to now talking about Jesus. He says, Jesus is coming and he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. What does that mean? Well, Isaiah 11, two prophesies that the spirit of God is gonna rest on this Messiah who is coming.

31:46And now through Jesus, all believers receive the indwelling Holy Spirit that comes to believers at conversion. So this is not a special baptism that comes just for select Christians who manifest some sort of spiritual gift. But this is baptism with the spirit describes Jesus transforming work that happens to all believers at conversion. All believers are in dwelt by empowered, by sanctified, by this Holy Spirit. One Corinthians 12, 13 says, for in one spirit we were all baptized into one body. Or Ezekiel 36 talks about what God will do. He's gonna give you a new heart and a new spirit I will put with you and I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.

32:37Or Joel 2 28, I will pour out my spirit on a select few no, he says, on all flesh. So all believers have received God's holy spirit, which enables and empowers them to bear fruit in keeping with repentance. Now there, there's a lot of questions that come up when we see the attachment of with fire and fire. Like, is that a fire of purification or is that a fire of judgment? We know that in Acts two at Pentecost, these tongues of fire rested on their heads. And so maybe that's a purification picture. But then in verse 10 of our passage, you're thrown into the fire or verse 12, burned with unquenchable fire.

33:25So which is it? Is this this fire of purification or this fire of judgment? And I think it's really both. Fire has the power to purify metals in a furnace or it has the power to destroy, like a fire in your fireplace can warm up your entire house in the kind of cold of winter, or it can burn down your entire house and the entire town it can be deadly. So those who bear fruit in keeping will with repentance, will experience this purifying fire as they're conformed to the image of Jesus. And those who reject Jesus, they're gonna be separated and they will face the fires of judgment. And this confirms what we see in verse 12, isn't it?

34:11Jesus is doing this work of dividing the wheat and the chaff. He's gathering the wheat and he's destroying the chaff. And he is emphasizing that Jesus is coming, the Messiah is coming, the the king is coming. And there's only two ways to respond to this king. You either receive him and the way that you receive him is you confess to your sins and you repent and you say, I I'm going down the highway of self-sufficiency and have to make a sharp u-turn and go the other way. Or you say, I don't want that king, I'm gonna keep going. And John warns that that leads to an unquenchable fire, eternal judgment.

35:00What he's trying to do is he's trying to prepare the way, pave the way for Jesus who will come. There's only two ways to respond to this king. You cannot sit on the fence. You either receive him and all that He calls for repenting, confessing your sins, making him lore, or you reject him to your own peril. And and this is an unpopular message, isn't it? What does our world say to this? Our world says hell doesn't exist. It, it's just what Christians have created to, to scare people. O otherwise no one would give to the church, right? Or, or if there's a hell, then it's just gonna be this awesome party.

35:44All my friends are gonna be there. It it's just gonna be a great time. You know, repentance, it's such a downer. It's such a kind of hell fire and rim stone kind of thing. So Puritan esque seems backwards and frankly, I'm not that bad. I've made a few mistakes, maybe a few hiccups, maybe a blunder or two, but God's gracious, right? Those are the lies of our world. And this text invites us to turn to God and turn away from our own self-sufficiency. One of my goals today is to poke and prod the so-called nominal Christian who just looks fine on the outside, but who bears no fruit in keeping with repentance.

36:27There's no change, no love of Jesus, no fighting sin, no commitment to the church, just going through the motions. You could be a member, you could even be baptized. But I don't want anyone to stand before the Lord someday and say, uh, but the people at the North Church never told me I needed to repent and live a changed life. I don't want anyone here in this room who hears my voice right now to say, Lord, Lord, did we not cast out demons in your name? Do mighty works in your name? And to hear the words of Jesus depart from me? I never knew you, you workers of lawlessness. My other goal is to encourage weak but true believers.

37:15A a message of repentance can cause some of us to tailspin, like, do I feel bad enough about my sin? Or, you know, I'm supposed to make this U-turn, but I I keep doing these same sins. I keep getting angry, or I'm, I'm, I'm constantly anxious, or I keep looking thing at things that I shouldn't look at. And, and like I keep committing those things. So have I repented or have I not? And and maybe I should confess, but I've confessed like a dozen times and it doesn't seem to be making any difference. And what, what do I do? And I don't have time to get all into that. But if you're growing despondent over your sin, over the slowness of your sanctification, let me share this word of advice from Robert Murray chain.

38:04He gave the famous advice for one, look at yourself. Take 10 looks at Christ for everyone. Look at yourself. Take 10 looks at Christ. Look to Jesus, the author and perfecter of your faith. Run to the throne of grace. Don't just stare at yourself and beat yourself up and condemn yourself and, and say, woe is me, but run to Jesus who receives his children. Who, who's glad to hear our confession. And, and we don't have to pray like the Pharisees do publicly with lots of words and going on and on. We can just say, Lord, I need you. And he is eager to receive his broken children. I think one of the best examples of taking one look at yourself and 10 looks at Christ is Psalm 51, I, I'm not gonna read it now, I don't have time.

38:57But David's confession, after Nathan exposed his adultery and his murder of Uriah, I think is just this perfect picture of, yes, I have sinned, grievously. And what does he do? He throws himself at the mercy of God, have mercy on me. Oh God, according to your steadfast love, according to your abundant mercy bought blot out my transgressions. He goes and he proclaims who God is and calls that to mind and say, because of who you are and all that you've done, forgive me, cleanse me, wash me, make me new, and then transform me so that I might even proclaim your goodness to a watching world.

39:44The greatest motivation for repentance is that the kingdom of heaven is at hand. It's just, again, a reminder that we repent, not just to escape, hell fire, but we repent because the kingdom is coming and the king is coming. And what we want more than anything else is king Jesus. We need a perfect king who knows us, who loves us, who welcomes his children, who is indeed the lamb of God, who is indeed love incarnate, who has come to rectify all of the problems of our world, to make all things new, to wipe away every tear, to fix all of the massive intractable problems in our world. We need this king.

40:35And the way we take hold of this king is to turn away from our self-sufficiency, and turn to God. And we have a kingdom that is coming. We have a king who is coming, and his name is Jesus. Let's pray. Father, we thank you that King Jesus is coming, that we can repent and turn from our ways and receive Christ in all of his glory. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

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Kurt Elting-Ballard

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Bryan DeWire

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Ryan Dembeck

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Nick Brazis

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Laurel Watkins

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Carmen Tomaszewski

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Missy Steward

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Lulu Robinson

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Millie Roberts

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Claire Olson

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Grace Ohlendorf

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