Sermon: "Repent, Believe, Follow"
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
I had a pastor some years ago who would very frequently look at Scripture through a pattern he called, "repent, believe, obey." It isn't a bad pattern, all in all. In fact, it almost became a sermon title for today. But instead, looking at our Gospel lesson for today, I thought "obey" didn't exactly fit. There's something that seems to work better about "follow."
What do we see in Matthew 4 when Jesus comes onto the scene? Jesus' message from verse 17 is very simple. "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand" (ESV). And that's that. Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, is present. We aren't God. Therefore we need to repent. God's demand is that his people be holy as he is holy. God's demand is perfect faith and obedience. God's demand is that we be utterly righteous. He cannot accept that which is not perfectly holy. As people who are fallen, people subject to a sinful nature, we can't obey him, at least not perfectly. Yes, we want to try. And as partakers of God's divine nature, imputed to us by Jesus who died to put our flesh to death, we have a desire to please God. He gives us this desire to obey him. But we all know it isn't a wholehearted desire. We all know that we sin, in sins of commission and sins of omission, by what we have done and by what we have left undone. For that matter, every one of us, if we are honest, can say that in the time since I proclaimed God's forgiveness at the start of the service, we have failed to think and act in a manner pleasing to God. Time to repent again.
The kingdom of heaven is at hand! Repent!
Is there some good news in there somewhere? Of course there is. If our Lord didn't care about us, would he call us to repent? Would he not rather leave us to wallow in our sin and shame? He certainly would. We would have no call to repentance, we would have no presentation of the loving and forgiving presence of Jesus, God in the flesh, if it were not for the love of God. A message of repentance is a message of love. Is that the way a call to repentance is always used? No, sadly it is not. It's kind of like that walking stick that I sometimes use when my knees or ankles are hurting a lot. I have an impressive walking stick one of my students made for me some years ago. I'm pretty sure it is black walnut. Some sort of very dense wood. It's about four feet long and a bit thinner than a baseball bat. Yes, it could be used to great effect on a hostile dog, or a hostile person for that matter. But do you know what it's really for? It's to keep my creaky knees from hurting as much when I go walking. It's a prop, not a weapon. It brings comfort, not pain. The message of repentance before God is just the same sort of tool. It is to bring comfort. Repent of your sin! God loves you too much to leave you hurting that way.
When people hear that message of repentance, some of them believe. After all, repentance without belief is foolish. Do we repent of our sins and then not believe they are sins, or not believe God is the one who forgives sin? Do we repent of our sins so as to live as enemies of God? No, not at all. We repent of our sins because we believe that our Lord hears our plea, that he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. We repent of our sin because Jesus, the light of the world, has come to give us light and hope.
Again, we see in Matthew 4 that we have people who are repentant. They believe Jesus is who he says he is, that he is telling them truthfully of God's forgiving grace. In the same way, we are gathered today, primarily people who believe in our Lord and Savior. Primarily? Yes, primarily. Are there some among us who don't believe? Are there some who are skeptical? Are there some who think the love of God is just too outlandish to believe? It's quite possible. In fact, in a healthy congregation, there are normally some people who are looking at the claims of Christ, people who are not sure they believe, people who want to hear more. Maybe it's more likely that we all fit into the pattern of the man who told Jesus, "I believe, help my unbelief."
So we are called to repentance. We repent of our sins and we believe, at least as well as we have it in us, that our Lord is forgiving us. We confess that the same Holy Spirit who lives in us is in charge of our repentance and our belief. But somehow we manage to mix in a little doubt anyway. Gives us something to repent of, I suppose. Not that we need to go out of our way. We have plenty to repent of, just as we have plenty to believe.
So we repent. We believe. But then what do we see the people in Matthew 4 doing? Not obeying. All right, they are obeying too. The believer does that. We try to obey. But these people go ahead to follow Jesus. That's more important. When the light of the world has come, what do we do? Try to shine our own light? Create our own plans for how to celebrate Jesus? Try to demonstrate that Jesus is relevant to our world? No. We follow Jesus. We look at what he is doing and we go along to see what he will do next.
What is Jesus doing in this passage? He's teaching. He's proclaiming the gospel. He's healing people. He is providing his followers with all they need.
In Matthew 28 and in John 20, Jesus presents himself to some of his believers. He gives them authority to forgive. He sends them to make disciples, baptizing them and teaching them to obey. Jesus promises his presence with them always. The light of the world, God incarnate, has presented himself in his own person. And he has commissioned his servants to continue the work as instruments of the Gospel. He has provided laborers to proclaim repentance. He has provided Christian ministers to remind people of the one in whom they believe. He has raised up countless Christian leaders through the ages whom we can follow, watching the way Jesus has worked in and through them.
When you call your new pastor, when you have someone here week after week, year after year, calling you to repentance, to belief, and to follow Christ, I want you to know, that man is someone who is commissioned by our Lord. He is someone who is appointed as God's servant. By God's grace, you can hope to have a man who is bold to call for repentance. By God's grace, you can hope to have someone who reminds you of Christ's death on your behalf and his presence with you as he promised. By God's grace, you can hope to have someone who will follow Jesus and with whom you can walk as you follow Jesus too.
Let's go this week. Let's see what Jesus is doing.
Lord, we pray you would give us eyes to see what you are doing. Even more importantly, let us look at this world through eyes that see your death, burial, and resurrection on our behalf as your greatest mercy upon us. Let us believe you care for us that much. And let us follow you wherever you are going. Amen.
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Dave Spotts
blogging at http://capnsaltyslongvoyage.blogspot.com
