Repent and Live!

Ezekiel 18: 1-4, 25-32

Matthew 21: 23-32
 

There were 3 preachers in a Starbuck’s Coffee shop who were discussing the time when life began. They each gave their opinion of when life begins.

One preacher said "Life begins when the child takes his/her first breath."

The other said "NO," then he finished, "It begins when the child is conceived."

But the last preacher said "You both have the wrong answer! Life begins when the last child leaves home and the dog dies!"

Prayer: Lord, I am glad to say that life begins when we give our sins to Jesus. Thank you Lord that we are able to come to an altar of repentance and say... I need you Lord, I need you! In Jesus’ name, Amen.

 Today we are going to speak of repentance and salvation using the two texts we read earlier. The passage in Ezekiel speaks of repentance in the typical OT way. The Lord tells the Israelites that it used to be that if the mother or father would sin, then the children were punished, if a tribe of Israel sinned the descendents of the tribe were punished as well. But the Lord tells them through Ezekiel that no longer will this be true.

 Instead, a person’s sins are their own and only they would deal with consequences. In the text of Matthew at first it would seem that Jesus is speaking only on authority and obedience. But at the end, he ends with this response: “And even after you saw this, you did not repent and believe him”.  Jesus is also sharing with the Jews how they may be saved and that is through repentance of their past sins just as God had told the Israelites in the book of Ezekiel.

 Since we are speaking of repentance and salvation today, let us take a deeper look at them both. Repentance is another word for contriteness, sorrow, regret, and guilt. However, in the Hebrew language the word for repentance literally meant to turn your back on or turn away from. So when a person repented of their sin they would promise to do the exact opposite of what they regretted doing in the first place.

In a remote portion of Canada, there is a small town called Wabush, which was completely isolated for many years. But as it always seems to happen, eventually civilization reached Wabush and a road was cut through the wilderness to reach it. Wabush now has one road leading into it, and thus, only one road leading out. If someone would travel the unpaved road for six to eight hours to get into Wabush, there is only way he or she could leave---by turning around.

Each of us, by virtue of our human nature, arrives in a town called Sin. As in Wabush, there is only one way out--a road built by Jesus himself. But in order to take that road, one must first turn around. That complete about face is what the Bible calls repentance, and without it, there is no way out of town.

We repent because we are sorry for the awful deeds we have committed. We do not understand the depth of our sinful nature until God has already forgiven us. That may seem strange to think about. We say we are sorry after God has already forgiven us? I can just see some of you thinking, “Isn’t that like closing the barn door after the horse escaped?”

The fact that God forgives us and blesses us when we don’t deserve it and even before we have realized the depth of our sin against God is what makes grace such a risky thing.

Author Philip Yancey, in his book What’s So Amazing About Grace, calls these things loopholes. We all understand loopholes. Webster’s defines a loophole as a means of evading something unpleasant - a hole that provides a means of escape.

Yancey notes that in his book he provides what he calls "a one-sided picture of grace - portraying God as a lovesick father eager to forgive, and grace as a force potent enough to break the chains that bind us. He writes: "depicting grace in such sweeping terms makes people nervous, and I concede that I have skated to the very edge of danger. I have done so because I believe the New Testament does, too."

He then proceeds to tell the story of a friend of his he called Daniel. Daniel was about to leave his wife of 15 years for another woman, someone younger and prettier. He knew the personal and moral consequences of what he was about to do. But he had a larger concern - and he asked his friend "Do you think God can forgive something as awful as I am about to do?"

What a question, huh?

Yancey pondered, "How can I dissuade my friend from committing a terrible mistake if he knows forgiveness lies just around the corner?"

C.S. Lewis once wrote, "God gives where he finds empty hands." Then Lewis noted that a man whose hands are full of parcels can’t receive a gift. Yancey agreed with this because he reflected, "Grace must be received. Lewis explains that what I have termed “grace abuse” stems from a confusion of condoning and forgiving. To condone an evil is simply to ignore it, to treat it as if it were good. But forgiveness needs to be accepted, as well as offered, if it is to be complete…and a person who admits no guilt can accept no forgiveness." Ultimately, Yancey told his friend that, yes, of course, God could forgive him. But he also challenged him with these thoughts:

What we have to go through to commit sin distances us from God. We change in the very act of rebellion, and there is no guarantee we will ever come back. He said to his friend, "You ask me about forgiveness now, but will you even want it later, especially if it involves repentance?"

Consider what a tremendous risk God took by announcing forgiveness in advance. Yancey says that the scandal of grace involves a transfer of that risk to us. So yes, we are forgiven before we even admit remorse, and God forgiving us is often what provides the catalyst for our contrition.

 However, we must always be careful to not take it too far. If we assume that we are forgiven even before we have committed an act of sinfulness we have abused God’s grace. We must take on our own sense of responsibility for our actions and our knowledge of God. God tells us in Ezekiel that our sins are our own and we will pay for them. Jesus tells us with the story of the two brothers that our choices hold bigger consequences than our words.

 While one boy said he would go, he did not. The other said he wouldn’t help, but he did. Jesus uses this story to speak to us of not only the chief priests’ actions toward John the Baptist and Jesus, but the way we act toward God.

 We may say that we are Christians and that we love the Lord and our neighbors, but if our actions do not speak just as loudly, then we are like the first son. However, there are many people in this world that say they are not Christians, they say they do not follow God, and yet their actions show that God is with them. We sometimes reject the very people that God has accepted.

This parable in Matthew presupposes the rejection of Jesus by the chief priests and elders and by many of the Jews. As religious leaders they claim to be faithfully obedient to God, but they are blind to the fact that authentic obedience includes responding in faith to the new things God is doing. Do we commit the same sin?

Their refusal to see God at work in John’s ministry is anticipated in their rejection of Jesus. The sinners of Israel such as the tax collectors and prostitutes who had carelessly ignored the demands of their religion, will take a place in the kingdom while Jesus’ adversaries will be shut out.

Sometimes, religious followers become so blinded by their rituals, their ideas about culture and society and even about following the exact demands of God, that they become lost to what God is really up to. It happened two thousand years ago to the Jewish leaders and followers. It makes me wonder if it is happening today.

When I see so many denominations fighting over things like if we should baptize children or adults. Should we give communion by intinction or in the pews? Should we use the trust fund money to rebuild our crumbling church or help feed families who have lost their source of income? Should we allow openly gay members to be leaders of the church or should we not? Should we join two, three churches together to save money or allow all of us to struggle to support our individual buildings? These are the things we fight over. These are the things we allow to divide us.

Christians can also become blind to what God is doing in the world around them. How easily “Church work” degenerates into little more than simply maintaining the institution, with no excitement concerning what God’s active grace is doing and consequently no enthusiasm for evangelism and renewal! We say that we are going to work in the vineyard, but instead of harvesting the grapes we spend our time rearranging the stones along the path!

Repentance is the only way to accept salvation, it is the only way to get back to that Spirit of revival and renewal. We too often condone our bad behavior by focusing on the letter of the law instead of the Spirit of God. The Holy Spirit helps us to follow Jesus the way we are supposed too. Not by just miming what he has told us to do, but by truly changing us, helping us to turn our backs on our past sins and turn toward a future filled with life-eternal life.

Amen.