Tag: repentance

DAILY PRAYERS FOR GUYS

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To Help Me Repent Rightly (Part 3)

Suffering Savior,
Since one of the themes of the lenten season is repentance, help me to repent rightly. When the law accuses and convicts me of my sin, I respond in genuine contrition, taking full responsibility for my sin. The gospel then directs me to the sweet comfort and assurance of forgiveness that are mine through Jesus Christ. Finally, repentance shows itself by the fruit that follows.

When I have wronged or harmed others, my repentant heart yearns to do what I can to make it right. While such actions on my part have no bearing on my forgiveness, which was won fully and freely by Christ, they do serve my neighbor affected by my sin. Moreover, right repentance never sees forgiveness as permission to carelessly fall back into my sin without fear, but rather the freedom from being enslaved by that sin and the motivation to press on to overcome it. So I ask you, Lord, not only to work in me the awareness of my sin and the assurance of my forgiveness, but also the awakening of my freedom from sin’s chains, which empowers me to live a changed man. In your grace, work this kind of right repentance in me.  

In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen. 

DAILY PRAYERS FOR GUYS

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To Help Me Repent Rightly (Part 2)

Suffering Savior,
Since one of the themes of the lenten season is repentance, help me to repent rightly. Repentance includes contrition, which is much more than just mouthing the words, “I’m sorry.” But it also involves much more than just feeling sorry or being weighed down by our guilt. We aren’t seeking to impress God by wallowing in the guilt and shame of our sin. Repentance doesn’t conclude with contrition; rather, that is just the beginning.

Repenting rightly means turning toward you, Lord, and laying our sin – along with all its accompanying guilt and shame – at the foot of the cross. Then, in faith we look up to you and see the price you paid to ensure our sin has been paid for in full. Yes, repentance includes embracing our forgiveness and trusting that you do not and will not ever hold our sin against us! This is the joy of repentance, and it allows us to confess and own our sins – because you owned the consequences and condemnation of our sin for us. Let us never tire of turning from our sin toward you, our Savior, in daily repentance.

In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen. 

DAILY PRAYERS FOR GUYS

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To Help Me Repent Rightly (Part 1)

Suffering Savior,
Since one of the themes of the lenten season is repentance, help me to repent rightly. While my sins are ultimately a rebellion against you, they often involve others, too. It is one thing to express contrition to you, but can sometimes be very difficult to do so to the people I’ve hurt or wronged by my sin. “I’m sorry” can be among the most hardest words to speak. I have become quite adept at the “unapologetic apology,” which is crafted to sound like an apology without actually taking any ownership of the sin I committed.

Let my repentance include genuine contrition, which is much more than simply being sorry someone else was impacted or sorry that I got caught. No, let my own wrongful sin be the source of my contrition, and free me from the need to attach excuses or justifications to my apologies. Instead, guide me to clearly confess the sin I committed, and when I speak the words “I’m sorry” to you and others, Lord, may they always carry the weight of my genuine contrition. 

In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen. 

DAILY PRAYERS FOR GUYS

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For Ash Wednesday

Lamb of God,
Today, Ash Wednesday, is much more than just the first day of the season of Lent; it is a reminder of my mortality. Anyone who has stood at the graveside of a Christian friend or family member has likely heard the eerie reminder, “ashes to ashes, dust to dust…” That reference to ashes, as well as the ashen crosses that will mark the foreheads and forearms of many today, serve as emphatic markers of my mortality. I will die. We all will die. Of this we can be certain, for death comes to all who sin. 

But the intent and purpose of this day is not to leave us woefully wallowing and dispirited by the inescapable reality of our death. No, it is a call to repentance, and yes, even a joyful confidence in confessing those very sins for which I will experience death. This confident confession that by faith turns me toward Jesus, my Savior, assures me that he was the sacrificial Lamb who takes away the sin of the world – and who therefore takes away my sin.

For that reason, though I will die because of my sin, I will never be condemned because of it. Hell is not my final destination, since Jesus endured it in my place. Therefore, today and throughout this season of Lent, may I repeat the refrain on my heart again and again:

“Glory be to Jesus,
Who in bitter pains
Poured for me the life-blood
From his sacred veins.

Grace and life eternal
In that blood I find;
Blest be His compassion,
Infinitely kind” (Glory Be to Jesus, stanzas 1&2). 

In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen. 

DAILY PRAYERS FOR GUYS

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To Embrace the Gift of Repentance

Faithful Jesus,
Repentance is one of those religious words that has gotten a negative reputation. To some degree, that reputation is understandable, as repentance includes taking a good look at ourselves and owning up to our shortcomings and sin. However, such a reputation may also stem from too many billboard, picket, and sandwich signs that have framed repentance as a term of hate-filled hellfire and brimstone. 

Help me to see repentance for what it truly is, Lord: an invitation to find rest in your work without insisting on my own. My natural way is to pick the path of my own choosing that I think serves me best rather than relying on your rest. But any path I choose on my own only takes me further away from you. 

Your gift of repentance opens my eyes to see the need to turn off my own path and follow you, the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Since sin continually entices me to step off your path, I daily need – and want – to repent and return back to you as often as necessary. I can be confident of the same response on your part every single time I repent: when I return to you, you promise to return to me. In fact by faith, I see that you never turned away from me in the first place, and never will.  

In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen. 

God Gives Return Gifts

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(Malachi 3:1-7b)

It’s good business for retailers to have a good return policy, since anywhere from 15% to one-third of Christmas gifts are returned. However, since those returns also amount to hundreds of billions of dollars in purchases needing to be refunded in, one might think retailers would make returns difficult or at least very inconvenient for shoppers. But one reason it pays for retailers to have a good return policy is that shoppers are more likely to buy from them in the first place. In other words, when purchasing gifts for others, if a retailer doesn’t have an easy or favorable return policy, shoppers are less likely to buy from them and will take their business elsewhere. Another reason to have a favorable return policy is that those returning gifts to the store from which it was purchased are more likely to spend their refund – and perhaps a little more – in that same store. So it bodes well for retailers to have good return policies. But shops and stores aren’t the only ones focused on handling returns; so was the prophet Malachi.

Malachi’s whole message is all about returns. While he isn’t the most well-known prophet in the Old Testament, Malachi does have the distinction of being the last one recorded. After the book of Malachi, the Lord silenced his notifications for about 400 years until Jesus’ birth, after which point the Holy Spirit picks up pen again through the New Testament Evangelists and writers and resumes recording the truths of his Word for us again.

Malachi served long after the era of patriarchs and kings in Israel. He was a messenger to the Israelites who had returned from their exile in Babylon. But, since things weren’t as magical as the Israelites expected them to be once back home, they took issue with God. The message recorded for us in Malachi is a back and forth between God and the Israelites, with their complaints directed at God, and God’s response, which essentially amounted to, “You are no different from your ancestors; you are the problem, not me. Return to me and I will return to you.”

He isn’t talking about returning gifts after Christmas, though. He’s got more important returns on his mind, and wants to make sure that God’s people do, too. So what are the returns Malachi mentions?

The Lord’s messenger will return.

The Lord himself will return.

The Lord’s people are called to return. A real Christmas is all about the returns.

The Lord’s Messenger Returns

The first return will be of the Lord’s messenger. “I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me” (Malachi 3:1a). About whom was Malachi speaking? He is none other than John the Baptist. But wait. Why do we speak of John the Baptist’s arrival on the scene as a “return”? Because Malachi pictures him metaphorically as Elijah, one of God’s well-known and respected past prophets who lived and served in the past during the time of Israel’s monarchy. In one of the final verses of the whole Old Testament, picturing the arrival of John the Baptist, Malachi writes, “See, I will send the prophet Elijah to you before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes” (Malachi 4:5).

John the Baptist, the second Elijah, returned for a very specific purpose: to prepare the way. In the Christian Church year, the Second Sunday in Advent always focuses our attention on the messenger who came to prepare the way for someone greater. That was John’s role, he was well aware of it, and he carried it out faithfully. Another prophet, Isaiah, foreshadowed John’s work by illustrating the type of preparatory work that would need to take place in hearts to be ready for the Savior (cf. Isaiah 40:3-5).

The Lord Returns

Through John the Baptist, God prepared his people for another return: his own.“Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come,” says the Lord Almighty. But who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears?” (Malachi 3:1b-2b).”  This “return,” so to speak, from Malachi’s perspective, looked ahead to two fulfillments: Jesus’ first coming and his return on the Last Day. 

While we spend a significant part of our lives in anticipation of our Christmas celebration each year, we are celebrating an event that already took place 2000+ years ago. God already came into our world in the flesh when Jesus was born. Malachi, along with so many other messengers in the Old Testament, looked ahead to that day, but we look back on it. For them it was an anticipation of a future event to come. 

In that regard, we can relate to the anticipation of a future event to come when we speak of Jesus’ return on the Last Day. Just as Malachi’s audience in his day understood his words to speak of a coming event, so we see his words also referring to a coming day, when on that Last Day he appears again for judgment, and the question is asked, “Who can stand?”

When Jesus returns on the Last Day, it will be as a judge, and he is right to ask “Who can stand,” based on the evidence stacked against the Israelites. Malachi exposes them. “‘So I will come to put you on trial. I will be quick to testify against sorcerers, adulterers and perjurers, against those who defraud laborers of their wages, who oppress the widows and the fatherless, and deprive the foreigners among you of justice, but do not fear me,’ says the Lord Almighty. ‘I the Lord do not change. So you, the descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed. Ever since the time of your ancestors you have turned away from my decrees and have not kept them’” (Malachi 3:5, 7a).

Indeed, who can stand before the Lord with all that evidence stacked against them? Here is the good news. That day of Jesus’ second and final return, Judgment Day, even with all the sin stacked against mankind, will not be be a day of dread for those who by faith receive the work Jesus did when he came the first time. 

Malachi described that work, too, using pictures to illustrate why the Lord would have to return to his people and the work he would come to do in Jesus Christ. “For he will be like a refiner’s fire or a launderer’s soap. He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver. Then the Lord will have men who will bring offerings in righteousness, and the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will be acceptable to the Lord, as in days gone by, as in former years” (Malachi 3:2c-4).

Jesus came first to refine and purify, to wash away sins and make us presentable before God. Now we can stand! Jesus came to bring the righteousness we needed and to remove the sins we didn’t. Since we have been made holy by faith in Jesus, we have nothing to fear when thinking about standing before the Lord at his Second Return.

That day will be radically different from his first coming, where joy was initially confined to a local hillside among a group of shepherds on a hillside and an angel chorus. The whole world will be the audience when Jesus returns, and the outcome for all people at that return will be entirely dependent upon what each individual believes about Jesus’ first coming at Christmas, and his perfect life, death, and resurrection that follows. 

But until that day, here we stand, sandwiched in the middle. In the past, the Lord returned to his people when Jesus was born into this world on Christmas. In the future, Jesus will return on the Last Day. How do we spend our days in the meantime? The same way. By returning. Returning back to God. 

Our Returns

Why is that such a priority? Because Satan and sin do not take days off. They do not stop doing everything possible to turn you away from God permanently. We already saw the evidence Malachi presented in verse five, but when we read through a list like this, it might be natural for us to presume it’s referring to someone else – those wayward Israelites. But we must know better, right? It’s not an exhaustive list – there could have been many more sins included.

If Malachi was alive today, his warning to us would read a bit differently. “So I will come to put you on trial. I will be quick to testify against, drunkards, greedy shopaholics, sex/pornography addicts, lovers of violence, foul & filthy language, worshippers of sports, celebrity idolators, etc.” He would name different sins, but the sin doesn’t matter – it all does the same damage, trying to gain the upper hand and lead us off the path of righteousness along the path of selfishness that leads to permanent separation from God. 

So Malachi’s message then, along with the other OT prophets, along with John the Baptist, along with any Jesus-loving, Bible-treasuring believer today, is the same: return. For example, listen to just one other Old Testament prophet,  Hosea. “Return, Israel, to the Lord your God. Your sins have been your downfall! Take words with you and return to the Lord. Say to him: “Forgive all our sins and receive us graciously, that we may offer the fruit of our lips. Assyria cannot save us; we will not mount warhorses. We will never again say ‘Our gods’ to what our own hands have made, for in you the fatherless find compassion.” Who is wise? Let them realize these things. Who is discerning? Let them understand. The ways of the Lord are right; the righteous walk in them, but the rebellious stumble in them” (Hosea 14:1-3,9). Return to God. As often as it takes, return. Get back on track and don’t step too freely and frequently on that other path so that it becomes comfortable. Return to grace, return to goodness, return to God. 

That’s really just another way of saying “repent.” We often think of repentance as being a call to get our act together and stop sinning so that we can somehow make ourselves presentable before God, and that he’ll will be happy with us as a result.

But if we know the gospel, then we know that God’s happiness with us isn’t based on our repentance or lack thereof; it’s based entirely on what Jesus already did for us. So we don’t return to God in hopes of winning his affections; we return to God because we already have God’s affection. And don’t let sin and Satan fool you – they cannot ever offer you anything better than what you already have with God because of Jesus Christ. 

God says to you through Malachi, “Return to me, and I will return to you” (v.7b). Is there a better gift than that permanent promise? God’s returns are the best gifts. He returns his messengers to us as often as we need to hear their message. He himself will return on the Last Day to make all things new. And in the meantime he give us the gift of returning to him through repentance, and attaches to it his promise to never turn away from us when we do. 

When it comes to your Christmas gifts this year, hang on the ones you like. Return the ones you don’t. It doesn’t really matter. But what does matter is that you don’t miss out on the best return gift of coming back to God again and again. That’s his gift to you, and it’s the key to A Real Christmas. 

Real Repentance

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(1 John 1:5-2:2)

Even if you didn’t have your special glasses to watch the solar eclipse, unless you live in a cave or under a rock, you surely heard about it or saw pictures of it online. People made plans to travel to other states to get the best possible experience with such a rare phenomenon. While California only had about 35% coverage, there were other states in the path of totality that were able to witness the sun being covered up entirely at different times of the day. 

It’s one thing for the sun to be blotted out momentarily to reveal an eerie darkness, but could you imagine if the world was like that all the time? I’m not just talking about the gray skies and gloom sometimes associated with the Pacific Northwest or the Midwest, but actual darkness because of a lack of light. Not only would our mental health be affected, but some of the very basic, fundamental errands and day-to-day activities would be much more difficult with less light.

It’s our own experiences with light and dark that help us relate to the distinction John is makes in the verses from 1 John, where he connects God with light and unbelieving sin with darkness.

What is it that bridges the gab between darkness and light? Repentance. Even though the word itself isn’t used in these verses from John, repentance is nonetheless described. The basic meaning of repentance is to turn around. The Bible uses the term in primarily two ways, which have been called the wide sense and the narrow sense.

At times when we hear Peter or Paul preaching, they exhort their hearers to repent and believe. That is the wide sense of repentance. It is another way of referring to a person coming to faith. When repentance happens in that sense, a person has been converted from unbelief to faith in Jesus as Savior.

The narrow sense of repentance is more specific. It refers to the recurring process that has been described as having three steps: 1) contrition (“sorrow”) that confesses sin, 2) faith that believes Jesus has forgiven that sin, and 3) a change of heart/mindset that seeks to struggle against that sin in the future and aims to overcome it.

For most of us reading this, repentance in the wide sense has probably already taken place – the Holy Spirit has converted us from the darkness of unbelief to the light of faith in Jesus. But repentance in the narrow sense will never stop taking place in our lives. It is an ongoing practice. That activity is both made possible by the resurrection of Jesus, which guarantees our forgiveness, and is fueled by it as well. We wish to remain in God’s light, and real repentance keeps us there. 

Why is repentance so important to John? Because it is essential to achieving one of his goals in writing this letter. He stated as clearly as it could possibly be stated in verse one of chapter two: “My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin.” John wants what God wants: to put a stop to sinning. Here’s a question for you to wrestle with: do you want what John wants? Do you want what God wants? Do you want to stop sinning?

I assume that almost everyone reading this knows the answer to that question. Absolutely we are supposed to want to stop sinning! Duh! No brainer, right? 

Except that we aren’t made up of just a mind. We have hearts, too, and our hearts have this nasty tendency to reveal our true colors. Our hearts expose us. Our hearts convict us. Our hearts give away the truth that our lives are riddled with countless examples of times that our actions clearly demonstrated that we were not interested in putting a stop to sin. 

I know I shouldn’t do this or that… as I proceed to carry it out. I know exactly the circumstances, the scenario, the conditions, that lend themselves to engaging in this sin or that one, and I do nothing to safeguard against them. I spend more time thinking through how I will either hide or get away with a certain sin than I do battling against it. I slip back into the damnable lie that convinces me that because God is all-forgiving, I have nothing to fear, because an all-forgiving God has bound himself to forgive me no matter what, so I’m in the clear. Consider how much premeditation goes into our sinning and ask yourself if that’s a reflection of a genuine desire to stop.

Then consider the other end of the sin. It has already been committed. It is in the past. When we perform the postmortem, what do we see?

How do you respond when either your own conscience or another person calls out your sin? Do you remorsefully spill the beans and spiral into feelings of shame and regret because you can’t believe you did it yet again, even though you want so badly to stop? Hopefully that is our response at least some of the time!

But we also handle it another way. We deflect the accusation and with calculated precision detail all of the factors beyond our control that took place and led to the sin, masterfully attempting to shift the blame where we feel it really ought to be. We resort to personal attacks against the one who would have the gall to point out our sin. Maybe we just go with one of the oldest standbys of all: deny it. When you look at how you tend to respond to your sin being pointed out to you, is your response really a reflection of a genuine desire to stop – or just a genuine desire for the other person to stop accusing you?

How we love the darkness! How steeped in it we truly are! God help us! God save us! God rescue us from eternal darkness!

Good news – he has!

Listen again to John. “This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all” (1:5). In God alone is there not even the slightest speck of darkness! Only light! So if someone, if something is going to save us from the darkness, it can’t be ourselves or anyone else who is only steeped in darkness. No, it must be someone who is only light, one from whom light emanates. One who can overcome the darkness and not be overcome by it. 

Because that is what light does. Light exposes and dispels the darkness. It’s never the other way around. Darkness cannot cover or hide the light. We can wear a pair of sunglasses to protect us from the bright sun, but those sunglasses don’t actually lessen the light at all – the sun shines just as brightly whether we’re wearing them or not!

Sin puts up a wall of darkness between God and us, but his light still shines regardless. That light will expose the darkness of our sin, but darkness will never put out the light. Therefore, we need to confess that darkness of sin that separates us from his light so that we can be rejuvenated by it. How comforting! His light is always shining. We need only to remove the covering from our eyes. We need only to confess our sins and then we see the light again. 

That’s repentance. It calls out the darkness of sins and shows a much better way – the light of God, the forgiveness and grace that emanate only from him. That repentance is real because of the reality of the resurrection. Had the dead body of Jesus Christ remained in the tomb; had the stone remained intact to shut out the light and keep the tomb covered in the darkness of death and sin, then the light would have been snuffed out. Then darkness and the one who reigns in darkness would have been victorious. 

But Easter really happened! The Resurrection is real!

So then, is your repentance. We take our darkest sins to the source of all light and see what he does with them. Look at how many different ways John describes what God does with that sin! “The blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin” (v.7). “He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (v.9). “[Jesus Christ] is the atoning sacrifice for our sins” (2:2). See what the Light does to the darkness of sin?!? Sin doesn’t stand a chance!

So let’s keep killing sin. Let’s repent – really. If sin is a part of our day-to-day lives – and it is! – then let’s also make repentance a part of our day-to-day lives. Whether it’s when you wake up every morning, go to bed at night, or as often as it might happen somewhere in-between, let’s be intentional and very conscious of killing our sin by repenting of it and letting the Light decimate it and destroy it, leaving nothing but purity and righteousness in its place.

When that becomes a regular part of our daily routine, the benefits are ongoing, because repentance rewires your heart. It just does.

It’s a terrible thing when a corrupt church or teacher twists the Bible to make forgiveness into some conditional arrangement wherein a person is only forgiven if certain stipulations are met. The rationale behind that foolishness is that if everyone is freely forgiven without any conditions or requirements, then people will just keep sinning and live however they want. 

But that reasoning sells grace and the power of the gospel too short. Instead, what happens when real repentance becomes a regular part of our daily routine is that it renews and rewires our hearts. The more the darkness is exposed, the less appeal and power it has. Instead, the light becomes far more attractive. Not sinning becomes a genuine desire. Walking in Jesus’ footsteps makes our heart sing. Blessing others through our obedience satisfies our hearts. Doing that which brings delight to God fills our hearts with joy. Living in the light and embracing the fellowship we have with not only the God who himself is light, but also others who walk in the light – that’s when we’ve arrived. That’s what matters. That’s the real deal. That’s real repentance. 

Prepare to Meet Him

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(2 Peter 3:8-14)

The story of Goldilocks and the three bears finds Goldilocks stumbling upon the residence of three bears while they are out on a walk. As she makes herself at home, she first sits down on a chair, only to find it is too hard. The next chair is too delicate. Finally, the third chair is just right. She makes her way over to the table to find one bowl of porridge is too hot and another too cold, but the third is just right. As nap time beckons, she tries out the beds. The first bed is too hard and the second is too soft, but the third is – you guessed it – just right.  

When it comes to our perception of God’s timing, we find Goldilocks’ struggle very relatable. God’s timing in life can often feel like one of two extremes – either too slow or too quick. We pray and pray and pray, and find our patience tested as we wait on God’s answers to that prayer. Or, we are caught completely off guard by an event that happened so unexpectedly, finding us unready and unprepared.

Peter described the apparent discrepancy between our perception of time and God’s when he wrote, “With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day” (v.8). While Peter isn’t writing in literal terms, he is reminding us that our view of time is vastly different than God’s, who remember, created time in the first place. When it comes to God’s timing, however, it is not too slow or too quick. No, God’s Goldilock timing is just right.

Not too slow. Not too fast. Just right. 

What that means for us as we prepare to meet Christ our King when he returns again on the Last Day is that he isn’t behind schedule. He hasn’t forgotten. He hasn’t gotten caught up in his other responsibilities so that it just slipped his mind that he does in fact need to return again on the Last Day!

What’s more, as much as we dwell on the time we spend waiting for his return, we’re not the only ones waiting – so is the Lord! For what? “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance” (v.9). The King Shall Come… when all those he is waiting for come to repentance and turn to him in faith. When that happens, he will return.

With that assurance, our minds are settled not having to worry about whether God’s timing is late or early. When we keep that in mind, we can redirect our thoughts to the here and now – to how we live. As we wait for everything to be just right for Jesus to return, how do we make sure we’re “just right” in our living? How do we make sure we’re prepared to meet him?

Before we explore that more, let’s make sure we grasp a pretty remarkable detail about these verses. We can’t possibly miss the language Peter uses to describe what the end of the world will be like when Jesus returns. “The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare… everything will be destroyed in this way” (v.10-11). “That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat” (v.12).

Sounds like a modern-day Sodom & Gomorrah – but at least that destruction was limited to one relatively small area! The devastation Peter describes will involve the whole earth. It will take place everywhere. How terrifying!

Yet that’s what is noticeably missing from Peter. There’s no terror. No fear. This description isn’t fear-mongering on Peter’s part; rather, he is just providing us with the details of how different the world’s destruction will be at that time compared to how God poured out his devastation the first time through the world-wide flood. But nowhere does Peter pen words of fear or trepidation or terror regarding that last day. 

Nor should he, because that will not be a day of dread for the child of God. Jesus has assured us of that through Paul’s letter to the Thessalonian Christians. “For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage one another with these words” (1 Thessalonians 4:16-18). Paul didn’t direct his hearers to terrify one another with this news, but rather to encourage each other. 

That same encouragement is what Peter is providing here so that we pay attention to and to prioritize how we are living in the meantime. Now believers already know that we don’t have to be afraid of that Last Day since we’re saved through faith in Jesus by God’s grace alone. So, one might naturally ask why it matters how we live up until that point. If Jesus has already accomplished forgiveness and salvation on our behalf, then why does it matter how we live right now?

Good question. Peter thought so, too, which is why he addressed it. “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance” (v.9). There you have it. God, whose desire is to not be separated from anyone for eternity, is patiently waiting for repentance. And how you live plays a very significant part in that.

This happens in two ways. We live good lives and we live godly lives.

To better understand the first way your good lives affect others coming to repentance, consider when it is that you are most comfortable doing what you know is wrong (excluding the times you’re by yourself or you imagine no one else will find out). Isn’t easiest to engage in wrong, sinful behavior when you are in the presence of others who are doing the same thing or at least permissive of it?

One rather extreme example of this might be when we hear of mobs or very large groups of people bursting into a store to grab and steal as much as they can before hurrying out. A good number of those participating would never do that on their own, but when surrounded by a group of people doing the same thing, they become emboldened. Their conscience is quieted by a crowd of criminals. When what is wrong or sinful becomes normal and accepted in the world, it’s not only much easier to follow suit, it becomes natural.

How do we change that? Christians wake up from our sleepy, sloppy sanctified living and start being much more intentional about doing good, about doing the right thing so that the world doesn’t feel so comfortable with what is wrong.

“But it’s too late,” you reason. “It won’t make a difference,” you think. “I’m just one person.” Understand that your excuses are directed against the very words of God in these verses when he reveals that he is patiently wanting everyone to come to repentance and calling you to live a holy life that can help that happen!

So if you disagree that how you live will make a difference, you need to take that up with God and explain that you have a better solution in mind than his! Otherwise, if not, then by God’s grace and the Holy Spirit’s power, let’s “Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us” (1 Peter 2:12)! To “glorify God on the day he visits us” is to carry out the very repentance God is waiting on, which results in turning to Jesus and trusting in him for salvation. That is the best way we can glorify God!

But it isn’t just our good lives that ought to grab the attention of others; it’s also our godly lives. What’s the difference? There is another way your life can affect others’ coming to repentance. Through your own repentance. A godly life is one that shows the place of God in it. That means repentance. Not only are we striving to do right to lead others to repentance, but we also lead others to repentance by… modeling it ourselves.

Paul recognized God’s patience in leading him to repentance served that very purpose. “But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his immense patience as an example for those who would believe in him and receive eternal life” (1 Timothy 1:16). Paul didn’t try to hide his past or keep his skeletons in the closet. Instead, he willingly confessed his sin, realizing that God’s patience in his own life could serve as an attractive example to others. Paul wasn’t afraid to draw attention to his sin, because he knew that through it, what would really end up in the spotlight was God’s patient grace. 

The most natural place to begin getting better at repentance would seem to be in our own homes, in our marriages, and in our families. After all, those are the people who are most frequently going to witness our words and actions that call for repentance (and sadly, are the same ones who are too often on the receiving end of our sinful words and actions).

How would managing conflict within your marriage look different if each spouse started out with repentance, apologizing for what they did wrong or could have done better (and there is almost always something!)? How could we better show our children what godly living looks like by not only making Sunday morning worship a priority and giving them Jesus every day in our Lutheran elementary schools, but also – and most importantly, I would contend – showing them repentance at home by apologizing to them and in front of them when we have done wrong? We tell children they ought to do this, but we aren’t always so great at it ourselves. 

And what we’re really modeling through regular repentance is not just contrition, a sorrow over sin, acknowledging that sin IS a big deal. No, it also models complete confidence in the gospel, that God’s grace shown to us through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus means absolute confidence that our sins are forgiven. To live in the joy and freedom the gospel affords us is to have no need of hiding our sin or clinging to it. Instead, we can bring it out into the open, expose it, and kill it through confession, since our Savior has already nailed it to his cross and paid for it in full. It’s already forgiven – but we only enjoy the bliss of that forgiveness when we confess our sin in repentance. 

What do others see when they witness that repentance in us? A total reliance on a God of mercy and grace. A dependence on a God they can’t find anywhere else but where he has revealed himself to us in Scripture. A God who wants to be just as gracious and merciful to them when they are brought to repentance. And then, when that happens, when all those the Lord is waiting for are brought to him in faith, then that day will come, and the new heaven and earth, the new home of righteousness, will not only be ours, but it will be theirs, too! 

Searching for Fruit

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(based on Matthew 21:33-43)

If you were hired as the executive chef at an exclusive restaurant but then refused to spend any time in the kitchen, I don’t imagine you’d be holding on to that job very long. If you sign a lucrative contract as the starting QB in the NFL and end up rarely completing a pass, it won’t be long before you find yourself sitting on the bench or playing for another team as a backup. The movie star leading in flop after flop at the box office will find the offers for roles eventually start to dwindle as they’re offered to others. The point is, if you’re hired to do a certain job and don’t do it, it’s only a matter of time before that job will be taken from you and given to someone else who will do it.

In a nutshell, that was exactly the point Jesus was making in the parable he told in our Gospel today when he concluded, “Therefore I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit” (Mt. 21:43). Simply put, the Lord is searching for fruit, and where and when he doesn’t find it, he will take his blessing elsewhere and provide others with the opportunity to produce its fruit. Where God’s Word and the work he desires to carry out through it are despised or disregarded, he will take his Word and work elsewhere that he might bear fruit through others. Martin Luther observed: 

“For you should know that God’s word and grace is like a passing shower of rain which does not return where it has once been. It has been with the Jews, but when it’s gone it’s gone, and now they have nothing. Paul brought it to the Greeks; but again when it’s gone it’s gone, and now they have the Turk. Rome and the Latins also had it; but when it’s gone it’s gone, and now they have the pope. And you Germans need not think that you will have it forever, for ingratitude and contempt will not make it stay. Therefore, seize it and hold it fast, whoever can; for lazy hands are bound to have a lean year” (LW 45:352).

Last Sunday we had a short and sweet parable – only three characters in three verses. Today’s parable is longer and more detailed. Thankfully, Jesus clearly spells out the point of this parable. Because he does, 1 ) we don’t have to worry about missing out on the big picture because of all the details, but 2 ) we can also gain a better understanding of the main point by giving out attention to the various details of the story. 

First, we note that God took every care to set up his people for success. “There was a landowner who planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a winepress in it and built a watchtower” (v.33). God had given his chosen people everything they needed to bear fruit. Even as their people were just being established in Egypt, the Lord granted them the lush lands of Goshen to settle in when Joseph brought his whole family there. The next stop after that was the land flowing with milk and honey that God had promised exclusively to them. And on the journey there the tabernacle in the desert was their portable house of worship to visualize for them the Lord was among them. At Mt. Sinai God further set them apart from every nation on earth by blessing them with the Ten Commandments and a special set of laws to bless them and protect them from the world’s corruption. In describing the steps the landowner took to bless his future tenants, Jesus is simply putting into story the picture Isaiah painted from our First Lesson: “I will sing for the one I love  song about his vineyard: My loved one had a vineyard on a fertile hillside. He dug it up and cleared it of stones and planted it with the choicest vines. He built a watchtower in it and cut out a winepress as well” (5:1-2). Jesus put into a parable the very word picture painted by the prophet. The message: God had given his chosen people everything they needed to bear fruit. The Lord even raised the very question through Isaiah, “What more could have been done for my vineyard than I have done for it?” (v.4).

Now then, against this backdrop we have certain people represented in the parable, the tenants, the servants, and the son. The son plainly represents God’s Son, Jesus. As for the tenants and the servants, the reaction of the hearers that Matthew provides after the parable shows that even they clearly understood who the wicked tenants represented. “When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard Jesus’ parables, they knew he was talking about them. They looked for a way to arrest him, but they were afraid of the crowd because the people held that he was a prophet” (Mt. 21:45-46).   That leaves the servants sent by the landowner to gather his fruit. These are the prophets the Lord sent again and again to his people in hopes that their message would yield fruit in his people (people like Isaiah, the prophet/writer of today’s First Lesson). But sadly, throughout the history of the Old Testament, God’s people responded just as the religious leaders were responding at the conclusion of Jesus’ parable. 

It is clear how this parable applied at the time and in the circumstances during which Jesus told it, but is it as clear how the parable applies to us today? Surely it isn’t recorded for us in the Bible just so that we have yet another opportunity to shake our heads and point our fingers in disappointment at those poor excuses for religious leaders, the full-of-themselves Pharisees. For in so doing, as Jesus’ condemnation of them leads us to hold an even lower opinion of them through this parable, we can become blind to how easily our disappointment directed at the Pharisees can slowly mold us into their modern day counterparts! 

We guard against that by striving to understand how any application of the parable can serve as a personal warning or application to us. Consider first how the tenants’ behavior served as a warning to God’s representatives in his church today. Their behavior in the parable showed a severe misunderstanding of their role int the vineyard – it wasn’t their vineyard to operate and control as they saw fit; rather, it was the landowner’s who had entrusted it to them.

When God’s representatives in his church today forget that, the ship can very easily start to veer off-course. When church leaders take the wheel, so to speak, and speak/act/lead as if it is their ship to steer in the first place, they put everything at risk and potentially chart a course that may lead to a shipwreck. No pastor, ministry, or organizational leader has anything to manage except that which has been entrusted to them by God himself. This is not my church, for example, but God’s church which he has privileged me to shepherd. No congregation belongs to any pastor, but to the Good Shepherd himself. God’s vineyard is not for me to use to further my own self-interests. It does not exist as a means to line my pockets or advance an agenda. The tenants forgot that, and just as it did not end well, so will it be for any under shepherd or leader in the church who forgets whose vineyard it really is in which we’re working.

Ah, but the parable doesn’t just serve as a warning to God’s representatives in his church, but to everyone in his church. For the way the tenants treated the servants sent to collect the harvest ought to be a clear warning to all of us in how we also treat God’s representatives in his church. Remember that it was the landowner himself who sent the servants to the tenants. So to mistreat or abuse the servants as God’s people mistreated and abused his prophets throughout the Old Testament, is tantamount to mistreating and abusing the landowner – God – himself. 

Does this happen in Christ’s church today? Of course it does, otherwise we’d have to conclude the Jesus was quite oblivious in providing a warning in this parable that is unnecessary. When a message from the Word of God is faithfully proclaimed, but falls on ears that do not wish to hear it or have it applied to their lives, nowadays the hearer may simply depart from one place in favor of another messenger or community whose message is more suitable to their palate, even if it uses God’s Word to lie and deceive instead of hold forth the truth. Or, and this may be even more common in this day and age in which there’s no shortage of access to messages via video, podcast, blog, etc., we simply choose to avoid or ignore one of the servants sent by the landowner in favor of another, leaving issues unresolved. When we disregard the efforts of pastors, elders, and church leaders to communicate and reach out to us, we are essentially letting God know that we’re not interested in his efforts to care for his sheep or that we don’t agree with how God is doing it. 

Knowing what not to do is one thing; correcting it is another. The wonderful part of this parable is that making corrections is actually some of the most desirable fruit God craves in his vineyard. It’s called repentance, and it means acknowledging wrong on our part, turning from that sinful, unrighteous behavior, and turning to the Son of the landowner for forgiveness. For God’s representatives, this means confessing when they have not guarded their hearts from seeing their position as self-serving instead of serving selflessly. It means confessing when we’ve placed our ways before His. It means acknowledging the times we’ve defiantly claimed his vineyard as our own to do with it what we please.

We also bear this fruit when we acknowledge our role in mistreating those servants God sends to us to collect the harvest. We confess that we don’t pray enough for those God sends to serve us. We repent of the times we ignore their efforts to serve us. We acknowledge that we let our personal indifferences and preferences get in the way of their service to us and not taking their words and actions in the kindest possible way. When in repentance we turn from our own mistreatment of God’s servant to the Suffering Servant himself, Jesus, for forgiveness, we rejoice that he never turned his back on those who turn away from him, those who mistreated and abused him, and not even those who would crucify him, but even pleaded to the Father for their forgiveness. Rest assured, the forgiveness for which he pleaded has been applied to you and me as well!

How do we respond when faced with those unpleasant calls to repentance? Hopefully not the way the chief priests and Pharisees responded when Jesus told this parable! Rather, let us swallow the bitter pill of repentance and embrace that such difficult steps are exactly the types of fruit God wants to see in our lives! Through the ongoing practice of repentance we are actually removing the rocks and tilling the soil, enabling the Holy Spirit to produce abundant fruit in us.

We are furthermore equipped and empowered to bear abundant fruit when the burden of doing so is removed by the Savior whose perfect harvest of fruit fully satisfied the landowner’s demand and expectation. Where we have forgotten whose vineyard it is that has been entrusted to us, when we’ve treated God’s servants as poorly as the tenants in the parable, the Landowner’s Son has not. His Father’s will, not his own self-serving purposes, was his only concern 100% of his time on earth. Even the religious leaders who plotted against him and finally murdered him, he always treated with respect, even when he directed his harsh calls to repentance at them. The Son produced the perfect harvest of fruit, removing the burden from our shoulders to do so. 

And, at the same time, the Son inspires and moves us to step our fruit-bearing up. Does that mean we have to start a ministry that helps feed 1 million starving children or build 100,000 homes for the homeless, or rescue thousands of sex-trafficked children? Of course it doesn’t. But… could it? What if we the only thing holding us back from bearing abundant fruit on that scale is ourselves? What if we’ve been too quick to think so little of ourselves – and actually it’s God we’re thinking too little of – that we’ve never dreamed of, envisioned, or prayed for God to bear that kind of fruit through us? Could it be possible? My response to that question would simply be, “Have you not seen the astronomical things God has done in Scripture and throughout history through his people?” You better believe God is capable of producing that kind of harvest of fruit in our lives! Maybe all we need to do is remember that he can, and provide him with the opportunities to do so. 

Brothers and sisters in Christ, you haven’t been hired as an executive chef at some exclusive restaurant or signed on to some lucrative contract in the sporting world or offered a starring role in the next blockbuster movie. No, you’ve been called to something far greater – you’ve been brought into God’s vineyard to produce something that will last far longer than a fine plate of food, or championship, or academy award – you’ve been set apart to produce fruit that will not only cause God to grin from ear-to-ear with delight, but fruit that has the potential to make an eternal impact in the lives of others. Let’s get to work.

A Story of Sons, Sorrow, and Salvation

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(based on Matthew 21:28-32)

Jesus knows how to grab our attention, doesn’t he? He introduces his parable with the question, “What do you think?” (v.28). That question is about as powerful as they come, because it clearly and directly invites the listener to be a part of the story. What was true then may be even more true today – everyone has an opinion, and we love being asked it, because the truth is, we were going to give it anyway! No one holds back on their opinion, so Jesus, the master story-teller who knows our hearts even better than we do, draws us in by asking, “What do you think?”

Well let me go first. I suppose there are plenty of ways the response, “No,” can get our attention, but few of them make get to me as much as when that “no” is spoken by a child in direct defiance of a parent’s command, as it was in today’s parable. I suppose it shouldn’t surprise me that kids, sinful nature and all, are prone to such a response. What is really telling in those situations, however, is how the parent responds. Will mom or dad tolerate such a defiant response and let it go, further reinforcing it and guaranteeing that it will be spouted off with much more confidence by the child in the future, or will it be addressed right then and there? 

If, like me, you’re waiting to see how the dad responds in the parable, don’t hold your breath. We don’t ever get his response. Rather, we’re just told the son eventually changed his mind and ended up doing what his father asked. “There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work today in the vineyard.’ ‘I will not,’ he answered, but later he changed his mind and went” (v. 28-29). That’s it. A brief introduction to the first son, a description of his actions, no response from the father, and then the parable continues on to the other son. “Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered, ‘I will, sir,’ but he did not go” (v.30). And that concludes the parable. Three verses. Three characters. Very few details, and “The End.” One of the effects of Jesus’ short and sweet parables, though, is that instead of trying to sort through lots of details and trying to associate meaning to them, we’re left with more of an urgent, nagging desire to know the meaning behind the parable. In the case of this one, namely, whom do the sons in the parable represent?

For the answer to that, Jesus again involves his hearers, the chief priest and the elders, who were listening to him teach in the temple courts and had already questioned his authority to do so. Jesus asks them a question and uses their response to explain what would have been to them a rather unpleasant and outright offensive truth. “Which of the two did what his father wanted?” “The first,” they answered. Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you. For John came to you to show you the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes did” (v. 31-32). Jesus then clearly identifies the first son in the parable as representing the tax collectors and the prostitutes, the very types of people the religious leaders despised. Because we are familiar with the religious leaders from Jesus’ interactions with them in the Gospels, we don’t have to imagine how that sat with them. 

How does it sit with us? The past two Sundays, at the conclusion of our previous sermon series and the start of this one, we were reminded that forgiveness and grace are for everyone. That makes for a very touching storyline, but it seems to get a little tougher to swallow when we stop to consider the challenging reality of who that includes. Who could the first son represent today? It’s definitely not the types of people we’d consider as fine church-going folks, is it? Rather, it’s those with checkered pasts, to put it mildly, who at some point after their prodigal son-like wayward living, eventually come to faith in Jesus. Basically, think of the type of person that makes you cringe, the farthest thing away from the church going type. The people like that, who at some point in time come to faith in Jesus, are represented by the first son. 

It could be the die-hard atheist who spent his lifetime attacking Christianity, who finally succumbs to the very gospel he hated and sees Jesus as his Savior. It could be the sinners who sin that sin that reaaaaaaally gets under your skin, only to later confess that sin, and in repentance rejoice in Jesus’ forgiveness. The first son could be the political analyst who holds what you consider to be a radically opposing view, who actually is a Jesus follower, too. The first son could be the converted prisoner we skeptically roll our eyes at when he claims to have “found Jesus” while serving time. We could go on.

There’s something else worth noting when we think about “those types of people”; Jesus seemed to spend a lot of time around them, didn’t he? Jesus, the churchiest of church guys, not only didn’t avoid such sinners, but actually went out of his way to be among them! Think of how frequently the Pharisees themselves tried to shame Jesus for associating in such scandalous circles. Jesus spent an awful lot of time in his ministry with first sons who by their lives defiantly protest, “I will not” to the father, so that in the end, through his patient preaching and teaching, they might later change their mind, as well as their ways and their heart, and up believing in Jesus and living for him. 

And here’s the most shocking part of Jesus’ parable: these are the ones who are first in line for heaven! They don’t eke it out and barely squeeze their way in, as we might expect; no, Jesus told the religious leaders that these are the types of people “entering the kingdom of God ahead of you” (v.31). How could the church-going types not be first in line? Frankly, it’s a rather offensive thought, isn’t it? It reminds me of the story of the “upstanding” member of a church who discovered that the pastor had called on a dying delinquent, a non-active member of the church, and assured him of Jesus’ forgiveness and his home in heaven. Upon hearing this, the upstanding member took the pastor to task, incredulous that he would do such a thing. “If that is the sort of person who is allowed in heaven, then I have no desire to go there.” To that the pastor replied, “Don’t worry – if that is truly your feeling on the matter, you don’t have to be concerned about being in heaven with him.”

Here’s where this particular parable leaves us feeling a little unsure of ourselves. On the one hand, when we hear about the types of people represented by the first son, we don’t particularly gravitate toward that crowd! That’s not really how we want to be thought of or considered… yet they’re first in line for heaven, which DOES appeal to us. Well, if we’re not sure about how we feel identifying as the first son, there’s only one more option in the parable, and it isn’t really any more appealing.

The second son gave what we’d all consider was the proper – and particularly polite! – response. “Yes, sir – I’ll get right on it.” But it goes no further than that. There is nothing that follows the dutiful reply. He was merely paying lip service to his father. Though his response made him appear to be the perfect child every parent dreams of, his actions showed something else. The second son bears a striking resemblance to the individual Jesus warned about elsewhere when he said, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom’s of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven” (Mt. 7:21). Yikes! And if at this point it isn’t clear who does Jesus identify as being represented by the second son? Not necessarily a much more favorable social circle: the pharisees. He pointed out that this was the third time they were being called to repentance. First, they refused to heed John the baptist’s call to repent and believe. Second, they weren’t convinced even after the prostitutes and tax-collectors did repent and believed. Now Jesus comes to them again with his call to repentance through this parable.

The bigger question though, is where does this all leave us? The first son would seem to be the easier one to spot, agree? Are there some hearing this message that need to hear and heed that warning? Yes. The second son may not be as easy to spot, but where would he be more likely to hang out? Wouldn’t it be in church? Wouldn’t it be at a Bible study? Wouldn’t it be in a leadership position? Wouldn’t it be the proper, polite, say-all-the-right things person that everyone would agree on the outside appears to be everything we’d expect of the ideal Christian and much more? Yet, aside from saying the right things and looking the part, there is no actual substance. There is no faith behind the guise of right words and possibly even actions.

So where again does this parable leave us? Believe it or not, with hope. Because you notice that Jesus leaves the doorway to his kingdom cracked open for both sons. The first sons may be entering first through that door, but Jesus explained to the second sons that the door was still cracked open, for “ahead of you” means there’s still room. You hear that? It doesn’t matter if you’re a first son or a second son – the door is still open. There still is room. For you. For me. For every other son! 

How can this be? How can the doorway to heaven remain opened for both sons? Someone once made an excellent point about the missing son in the parable, the unmentioned son one we might call the third son. How was he different from the first two? He not only said “Yes, sir,” but he also followed through perfectly and did what he said he would do. Who is this third unmentioned son? It’s Jesus. The perfect Son. Our perfect Savior. He is the reason heaven is held open to any son, first or second, life-long church-going member, or late-to-the-party prodigal. This third Son Jesus literally did everything the Father asked him. And he did it perfectly, satisfying the Father’s righteous expectations. 

What’s more, he paid the highest price that could be paid so that other sons and daughters would be able to enter the kingdom of God. Only by his blood can we rightly even be called sons and daughters, brought into the family through repentance and faith. The change of mind, the turning away from my way to God’s way; the confession of sin; the confidence of complete forgiveness. These are the blessings the third Son brings for everyone else, for us.

You’ve heard it said that it’s not how you start; it’s how you finish. Regardless then of which son you are, cling to the third Son, Jesus, and live in faith over fear, peace over panic, and hope over helplessness.