Speaker 1: Hello and welcome to the FBC Eldorado Sermon Podcast.
Speaker 1: My name is Taylor Guerin.
Speaker 1: I have the privilege of being the pastor here at First Baptist and I want to thank you for listening in to our sermon this week.
Speaker 1: And I want to tell you this if you're in our area and you don't have a church home, we would love to see you any Sunday morning at First Baptist, el Dorado.
Speaker 1: Will you join me now in listening to our sermon from this week?
Speaker 2: Amen, and we'll be in Jonah, chapter 3 today as we continue our journey through the book of Jonah.
Speaker 2: Jonah, chapter 3, verse 10, says this when God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, god relented of the disaster that he said he would do to them, and he did not do it.
Speaker 2: Let's pray together.
Speaker 2: Lord Jesus, we do thank you for mercy and we thank you for what this text has to teach us this morning about repentance and about your mercy, about your grace, about the love that is so undeserved yet you delight to give.
Speaker 2: So, lord, this morning would you teach us anew, and teach us in fresh ways, what it means to live in the light of your mercy.
Speaker 2: We ask this in Christ's name, amen.
Speaker 2: In the light of your mercy.
Speaker 2: We ask this in Christ's name, amen.
Speaker 2: Most preachers, especially in, you know, baptist tradition, come to a new church and they preach in view of a call.
Speaker 2: Over just a year ago I preached in view of a call.
Speaker 2: Here it's really a weekend event of a lot of different events packed into one weekend leading up to that Sunday which is preaching in view of a call.
Speaker 2: You give a sermon to your potential congregation.
Speaker 2: I remember a professor earlier last year giving advice to a few of us on preaching in view of a call, and he said three things that I haven't forgotten and was quite useful.
Speaker 2: Number one he said this when you're preaching in view of a call, don't try anything new.
Speaker 2: It's not the time for something brand new, a new way of looking at something or a new text you've never explored before.
Speaker 2: It's a big weekend.
Speaker 2: The last thing you need to be worried about is you know what is the second sub point of the third point in my sermon on Sunday.
Speaker 2: Secondly, he said this don't do anything controversial.
Speaker 2: In my sermon on Sunday, secondly, he said this don't do anything controversial.
Speaker 2: You're preaching in view of a call.
Speaker 2: It may not be the time to give a Christian's guide to politics.
Speaker 2: That may not be the weekend for that.
Speaker 2: And finally, he said this don't do anything too heavy.
Speaker 2: He said, hey, there's a time for this, but preaching in view of a call may not be the time to unpack the mystery of the Trinity.
Speaker 2: It also may not be the time to go too heavy into sin.
Speaker 2: It's a tough thing to call the congregation sinners for 30 minutes and then ask for their vote.
Speaker 2: So don't do anything too heavy.
Speaker 2: And I appreciated that advice and, quite honestly, I used every piece of that advice.
Speaker 2: But as I think about Jesus in his own ministry, when he was quote-unquote preaching in view of a call, we know, for Jesus, that wasn't really the case.
Speaker 2: Before the foundation of the world he had the job.
Speaker 2: But as he was giving his first declaration, his first sermon in the book of Mark, it's his first moment on the scene as he begins his ministry.
Speaker 2: What does his sermon sound like?
Speaker 2: How does he start off his ministry?
Speaker 2: He does it in Mark 1, 15, saying this these are his words the time is fulfilled, the kingdom of God is at hand.
Speaker 2: Repent and believe the gospel.
Speaker 2: The time is fulfilled, the kingdom of God is at hand.
Speaker 2: Repent and believe the gospel.
Speaker 2: So from the start, jesus is already breaking some of the rules I just mentioned.
Speaker 2: Repentance, that's a key word in his first declaration.
Speaker 2: Clearly he is talking about the sin of those in his hearing.
Speaker 2: Repent, the kingdom of God is at hand.
Speaker 2: And it just strikes me that in Jesus's first declaration that word repent is there.
Speaker 2: And it strikes me because, if we're honest, that word is not as heavily used in our Christian vocabulary, or at least not as heavily used as it should be.
Speaker 2: And yet, from Jesus's first declaration, there he is calling us to repent.
Speaker 2: And so what is the importance of that word?
Speaker 2: Why would Jesus be so adamant from the start that we understand and really embrace the idea of repentance?
Speaker 2: And my question is this today, what does repentance look like?
Speaker 2: I believe Jonah, chapter 3, is going to give us the perfect picture of what repentance looks like.
Speaker 2: What was so important to Jesus in his ministry was so important that the same God that was with Jonah wanted to teach him this lesson, wanted to teach Nineveh this lesson.
Speaker 2: And the first point I want to see today is simply this Repentance looks like a belief in the truth of God's word.
Speaker 2: Repentance looks like a belief in the truth of God's word.
Speaker 2: Catching us up to chapter three, jonah, chapter one, jonah is a prophet on the run.
Speaker 2: God told him to go preach in Nineveh.
Speaker 2: Instead he went the opposite direction.
Speaker 2: He is thrown overboard of a ship.
Speaker 2: He thinks this is the end of him, the end of his life.
Speaker 2: He's floating, not floating, he's sinking to the bottom of the sea, and yet God, in his grace, provides salvation for him in the form of a really big fish.
Speaker 2: God miraculously gets Jonah back onto dry land using that fish.
Speaker 2: And now God is going to call Jonah once again to go to Nineveh, chapter 3, verse 1, then the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time.
Speaker 2: The second time.
Speaker 2: It's interesting to me sometimes, when you will hear this language and I've talked about it before that people will use the language of that Old Testament God.
Speaker 2: Have you heard that idea?
Speaker 2: The New Testament God, he's sure a nice one, but that Old Testament God, he's a little difficult to work with.
Speaker 2: And from the start, when that language is used, we know it's a fallacy, we know we are in error, because we know we serve one God, a Genesis through the maps.
Speaker 2: He is one God, always and forever.
Speaker 2: But people will bring up this idea that that Old Testament God was full of wrath, not a lot of grace in the Old Testament.
Speaker 2: And if you ever want to know if someone has not done a ton of study in the Old Testament, listen If they say something like this there's not a lot of grace in the Old Testament, you'll know quickly they probably haven't read much of the Old Testament.
Speaker 2: Because as we flip through the pages of the Old Testament, all we see time and time again is the gracious activity of a gracious God, and you see it right here in one small way.
Speaker 2: In Genesis 3, chapter 1, the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time.
Speaker 2: How does Jonah get a second chance at this?
Speaker 2: God came to him the first time, called him to go to Nineveh, and what did he do?
Speaker 2: He went the opposite direction.
Speaker 2: Jonah doesn't deserve a second chance.
Speaker 2: It's true, but it's also true.
Speaker 2: Jonah didn't deserve a first chance.
Speaker 2: We don't deserve a second chance, a third chance, a 52nd chance.
Speaker 2: We don't even deserve a first chance because in our sin we are so far from the Lord and yet in his mercy, in his grace, he comes to us.
Speaker 2: That's what we've been talking about throughout this series and here in this moment, the gracious activity of God is so present in the life of Jonah that he gives him another opportunity to go.
Speaker 2: Verse 2, he says this arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it.
Speaker 2: The message that I tell you it sounds so much like what he said in chapter 1,.
Speaker 2: Verse 2, arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it for their evil, has come up before me.
Speaker 2: It's interesting.
Speaker 2: Maybe I'm speculating or reading between the lines, but in that first chapter there's maybe a little bit more freedom with the message go call out against them.
Speaker 2: In chapter 3, he says call out against them the message that I will tell you to give.
Speaker 2: It's almost in my mind, as if God is saying Jonah, I'm not taking any chances second time around.
Speaker 2: You do exactly what I say.
Speaker 2: As I say it when I say it.
Speaker 2: Don't mess it up this time.
Speaker 2: But the gracious activity of God, arise and go.
Speaker 2: And so verse 3, jonah arose that's a good step and went to Nineveh.
Speaker 2: Now remember, the people of Nineveh are an evil people, they're a dangerous people and from chapter 1 to chapter 3, they haven't gotten any less evil and less dangerous.
Speaker 2: So Jonah is still going to a people that he knows.
Speaker 2: This is a tough assignment, but he goes, he arose and he went to Nineveh.
Speaker 2: According to the word of the Lord, there's a good start for a prophet of God.
Speaker 2: Now, nineveh was an exceedingly great city, three days journey in breadth.
Speaker 2: What I think this is referring to, it's a three day journey across the city, not meaning that it took a literal three days from one side to the other, but three days to preach throughout the city in going a day's journey and he called out yet 40 days and Nineveh shall be overthrown.
Speaker 2: There's the sermon Yet 40 days and Nineveh shall be overthrown.
Speaker 2: Eight words in the English, five words in the Hebrew.
Speaker 2: Jonah offers them a five-word sermon.
Speaker 2: That's not a lot.
Speaker 2: Imagine if I stood up here on a Sunday morning and offered you a five-word sermon.
Speaker 2: How would you like that?
Speaker 2: Maybe don't answer that question.
Speaker 2: Don't answer that question.
Speaker 2: Maybe you'd love it.
Speaker 2: But five words, and maybe those are the five words.
Speaker 2: And Jonah is obeying perfectly to what God said.
Speaker 2: And God gave him five words and Jonah spoke five words.
Speaker 2: That could be the case.
Speaker 2: That'd be fantastic.
Speaker 2: Or maybe God gave him a word and Jonah got to Nineveh and said five words are enough.
Speaker 2: Five words are all that I'm giving to this people.
Speaker 2: Whatever the story is what we see, these are the words.
Speaker 2: Yet 40 days in Nineveh shall be overthrown.
Speaker 2: But even in this moment, is there not a hint of grace?
Speaker 2: You say, well, where in the world is it Yet 40 days?
Speaker 2: The Ninevites were evil.
Speaker 2: They had committed great sin against God.
Speaker 2: Why 40 days?
Speaker 2: Why is the message from God not this Right now?
Speaker 2: Nineveh will be overthrown.
Speaker 2: Maybe there's something in that that God, by saying yet 40 days, that the Ninevites can hear that, and clearly they did, and at least have the curiosity.
Speaker 2: Could it be that if I could put myself before the mercy of this God, that within those 40 days, god might have mercy on us?
Speaker 2: Could it be Yet 40 days and Nineveh will be overthrown?
Speaker 2: Verse 5, and the people of Nineveh believed God.
Speaker 2: Think about the book of Jonah.
Speaker 2: Up to this point, we've seen a prophet on the run, disobeying literally at every step along the way.
Speaker 2: But if you're also keeping score at home, you've also seen unbelieving sailors suddenly worshiping Yahweh.
Speaker 2: And now you see the worst of the worst.
Speaker 2: The people of Nineveh very simply believe in God.
Speaker 2: They hear the word of the Lord, they have a belief in the truth of the word of God, and it changes everything.
Speaker 2: And so verse 5 continues.
Speaker 2: They called for a fast, they put on sackcloth from the greatest of them to the least of them.
Speaker 2: Simply put, they believed in the truth of the word of God and they reoriented their actions accordingly.
Speaker 2: And we'll see that more and more as the text goes on.
Speaker 2: But I just want to ask you this question, like a people in Nineveh.
Speaker 2: Do you believe in the truth of God's word?
Speaker 2: Do you believe it Not?
Speaker 2: Do you know some of the stories?
Speaker 2: Not?
Speaker 2: Can you quote a few popular verses?
Speaker 2: I hope you know the stories and can quote verses.
Speaker 2: I'm asking do you believe in the truth of God's word, the word of God?
Speaker 2: Do you believe it when it comes to offer you comfort and encouragement?
Speaker 2: Oh, I pray you do.
Speaker 2: Do you also believe in the truth of God's word when it comes to offer you conviction and reproof and a need to reorient your own life?
Speaker 2: Do you believe in the truth of God's word?
Speaker 2: You may know the old phrase that goes around Baptist circles and well beyond, but the simple phrase is this God said it, I believe it, that settles it.
Speaker 2: You remember that old phrase God said it, I believe it, that settles it.
Speaker 2: I remember hearing Dr Rex Horne preach at one point and he made the excellent point that really that phrase is just a little too long because there's something in there that doesn't need to be there, because really the idea is this God said it, that settles it.
Speaker 2: Whether I believe it or not, whether I respond to it or not, whether it changes the reality of my life or not, the fact remains the same, that God said it and that settles it, that there is truth in the word of God.
Speaker 2: No matter how I respond, but when I come to this book, what I find is the truth.
Speaker 2: And we live in a world and a culture.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's always been this way, surely it has, but even more and more does it not feel like that?
Speaker 2: We live in a culture that just wants to tear down the truth of God's word, a world that calls wrong what God calls right, calls right what God calls wrong.
Speaker 2: All we have to do, really, we don't even have to look at our culture.
Speaker 2: We can look at the story of Scripture and see all the way back on the first page or really about the third page in the Garden of Eden.
Speaker 2: How did Satan first come to Eve?
Speaker 2: He said this did God really say the original sin happened because Satan wanted to place some doubt in Eve's mind about the truthfulness of God's word?
Speaker 2: Did God really say Our job is not to twist the word of God or even apologize for the word of God.
Speaker 2: Our job is not to take the parts of the word of God that make us comfortable and leave behind the parts that make us a little uncomfortable.
Speaker 2: Our job is to come to the word of God and acknowledge that it is this the word of God, and it is true, and it is living and active and sharper than any double-edged sword.
Speaker 2: I think of Nehemiah, chapter 8.
Speaker 2: After exile, the people of God have returned to Jerusalem.
Speaker 2: They have now completed the wall and Ezra grabs a scroll of the law and he starts reading the Word of God.
Speaker 2: And as he starts reading, the whole congregation in the town square stands to their feet in reverence to the Word of God.
Speaker 2: And they listen, it says, from daybreak until noon.
Speaker 2: They listen to Ezra read and then explain the Word of God.
Speaker 2: But then it doesn't stop there.
Speaker 2: In chapter 9, the people have heard the word of God and then they see this We've heard the word of God, but now we've looked in our own lives and realized there's plenty of ways we are not falling in line with the word of God.
Speaker 2: Then the people of God repent of their sin.
Speaker 2: So they believe in the word of God, even to the point of letting its truthfulness change themselves.
Speaker 2: That repentance again looks like belief in the truth of God's word.
Speaker 2: There it is in verse five.
Speaker 2: The people of Nineveh, these sinful, evil.
Speaker 2: People believed God.
Speaker 2: But also, I believe this repentance looks like a godly sorrow over sin.
Speaker 2: Repentance looks like a godly sorrow over sin.
Speaker 2: Look with me at verse 6.
Speaker 2: The word reached the king of Nineveh and he arose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth and set in ashes.
Speaker 2: There's been a lot of discussion on this king of Nineveh because in reality, nineveh is not the nation.
Speaker 2: Nineveh is a city within Assyria.
Speaker 2: You would think of a king of Assyria, but not necessarily a king of Nineveh.
Speaker 2: And yet I believe for Jonah, this is just his way of really talking about the one who is in the leading authority within Nineveh.
Speaker 2: This is the one who is overall in Nineveh.
Speaker 2: And what does this person do, this king of Nineveh?
Speaker 2: He arises from his throne.
Speaker 2: Now we might wonder what happens next.
Speaker 2: He maybe arises from his throne to let the God of Israel know that he's in charge here, to let the God of Israel know that we're not going to change a thing and, jonah, you can get on about your way.
Speaker 2: In fact, the king of Nineveh actually probably would not let Jonah get on about his way.
Speaker 2: That would probably be the end of Jonah's way.
Speaker 2: We have ideas of what the king of Nineveh might say, but we would not have expected this.
Speaker 2: He arose from the throne, he removed his robe, he covered himself in sackcloth and set in ashes these physical, outward signs of absolute sorrow over sin and repentance before the Lord.
Speaker 2: Do you notice this?
Speaker 2: That there's no titles when it comes to repentance.
Speaker 2: There's not a king of Nineveh when it comes to repentance.
Speaker 2: There's no everyday townspeople.
Speaker 2: When it comes to repentance, there's not the CEO of the company, there's not the head of this or the captain of the team, there's not whoever's in charge.
Speaker 2: There's not high, there's not low.
Speaker 2: When we get to the point of repentance, all titles are gone.
Speaker 2: We get to the point of repentance, all titles are gone, because repentance is something that is called upon for every single person who is in sin, and so all titles fade away.
Speaker 2: So the king, in this moment, doesn't look and say hey, if those under me want to, you know, do some repentance on behalf of all of us, fantastic, have fun.
Speaker 2: But I'm the king.
Speaker 2: No, no.
Speaker 2: He says I'm in this with you.
Speaker 2: I am one of you.
Speaker 2: I'm not over anybody when it comes to our sin.
Speaker 2: I think there is a danger of Christianity in the country that we live in and the danger is, all things considered, we're doing all right, that even in our country, those among us who have the least and hear me clearly, I am in no way saying we don't have poverty here we do it at such a deep.
Speaker 2: I'm not saying we will not do everything we can for those in poverty.
Speaker 2: We will at a deep level.
Speaker 2: But even those who in our country seem to have the least, there are other countries that would look at them and say, my goodness, I only dream of your life.
Speaker 2: And then, for those who may have a little more, they might look at that life and say I can't even fathom that.
Speaker 2: There's a temptation and a fear when we're doing okay, when maybe we have the title, when maybe life is going okay.
Speaker 2: There's a temptation there, why?
Speaker 2: Because we can let it sink into our minds, even in the deep, dark places, that maybe I don't need a Savior, that maybe I can do this thing called life on my own.
Speaker 2: There's a temptation to not put our full dependence on the mercy and grace of God, because surely I'm doing okay.
Speaker 2: Even the king got to a point of repentance.
Speaker 2: Repentance looks like a godly sorrow over sin.
Speaker 2: Why do I make that point, a godly sorrow, because this is a sorrow over sin that has the right motivation.
Speaker 2: There may be many motivations a sorrow over sin that has the right motivation.
Speaker 2: There may be many motivations for sorrow over sin.
Speaker 2: Maybe we are sorrowful because we've gotten caught.
Speaker 2: We are sorrowful because now we have to bear the consequences of that sin.
Speaker 2: And I'm not saying those sorrows can't exist, I am certain that will be part of things.
Speaker 2: But there better be an ultimate sorrow that exists and it is a godly sorrow that says this I have sinned against the Lord, god, my Father.
Speaker 2: Isn't this what David says in Psalm 51?
Speaker 2: What does he do in verse four?
Speaker 2: Against you, you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight at the end of the day, against you, and you only have I sinned.
Speaker 2: Do you have a god disobedience?
Speaker 2: That your sin is against the God who loves you, the father who saved you, the Lord who cares so deeply for you?
Speaker 2: Repentance looks like a belief in the truth of God's word.
Speaker 2: It looks like a godly sorrow over sin.
Speaker 2: But it also looks like this.
Speaker 2: It looks like intentional turning from sin.
Speaker 2: Look with me at verse 7.
Speaker 2: This is the king still, and he issued a proclamation and published through Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles.
Speaker 2: Let neither man nor beast herd nor flock taste anything, let them not feed or drink water, but let man and beast be covered in sackcloth and let them call out mightily to God Look at this.
Speaker 2: Let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands.
Speaker 2: Let me tell you what repentance is.
Speaker 2: It is turning from your evil way.
Speaker 2: Repentance is this If I am walking this way in sin, I am now walking this way out of sin.
Speaker 2: Repentance is not walking towards sin and every few days, weeks or months, looking up to God and asking for forgiveness and just keep on doing the same old thing walking towards sin.
Speaker 2: That's not me saying.
Speaker 2: Forgiveness will never be present.
Speaker 2: We have a Lord that delights to forgive.
Speaker 2: But repentance looks like more.
Speaker 2: It looks like now I'm not just asking for forgiveness, I'm turning from sin, I'm walking away.
Speaker 2: I'm putting things in place that will keep me from going back to the places I used to go.
Speaker 2: For the people of Nineveh, the king told them your actions are about to look different.
Speaker 2: You're going to turn from your evil ways.
Speaker 2: And he told this to the men, the women, the children, and you read that right.
Speaker 2: He told it to the animals.
Speaker 2: He told Fluffy back home things are about to look different.
Speaker 2: We're making a change in this home.
Speaker 2: This is full-scale repentance of not doing the things we used to do, pleading for the mercy of God and changing our ways according to his word, and changing our ways according to his word.
Speaker 2: How do you know if it's true repentance?
Speaker 2: As you look at your own life, how do you know if you truly are repenting?
Speaker 2: Are you starting to look different?
Speaker 2: Are you starting to walk away from sin and sin less in that way?
Speaker 2: Have you desired to put safeguards and barriers in place to keep you from sin?
Speaker 2: Will this be easy?
Speaker 2: It is not.
Speaker 2: Is it easy living under the conviction of sin that comes from the Holy Spirit of God?
Speaker 2: It is not.
Speaker 2: I've told this story before.
Speaker 2: I will again.
Speaker 2: Cs Lewis in Mere Christianity talks about the idea of when he was a boy.
Speaker 2: He would sometimes wake up in the night with a toothache, and he would have this toothache and it would bother him so much it would keep him up.
Speaker 2: He couldn't sleep because of it he was in a lot of pain, and so he would think about going downstairs to his mother and asking for an aspirin.
Speaker 2: Surely that would solve the problem, would give me some relief and help me get some sleep.
Speaker 2: But then he said this often I didn't do it.
Speaker 2: Why?
Speaker 2: Because I knew I would get the aspirin.
Speaker 2: I knew I would get the relief.
Speaker 2: But I also knew this that the next morning when we woke up, my mom would load me up and would take me to the dentist's office.
Speaker 2: And now there's dentists in the room and your dentist office is fantastic.
Speaker 2: We delight to go there For CS Lewis.
Speaker 2: He was a little nervous about it because what he wanted was a little relief from some of the symptoms.
Speaker 2: If you can just give me one night's sleep by offering me just a piece of relief, that'll be enough.
Speaker 2: But what he needed was to get in the dentist chair and get to the source.
Speaker 2: Repentance looks like more than just kind of a healing of some of the symptoms, but it looks like getting down to the source, that the Holy Spirit would operate in our lives and find those places so deep inside of us that are leading us time and time again back to sin and that process is not fun.
Speaker 2: That's conviction.
Speaker 2: You'll find out so much about yourself.
Speaker 2: You'll look deep inside your heart and realize there is so much deeper to go.
Speaker 2: And I need the Holy Spirit's work in my life in ways I never thought possible and never imagined.
Speaker 2: And yet we need it.
Speaker 2: Holy Spirit, help us turn away from our sin.
Speaker 2: Repentance looks like a belief in the truth of God's word, like a godly sorrow over sin, like an intentional turning from sin.
Speaker 2: But I want to end with this Repentance looks like hope in the mercy of God.
Speaker 2: Repentance looks like hope in the mercy of God Verse 9.
Speaker 2: Who knows, maybe as we come before him with repentance, as he sees our heart, as he sees our desire to honor him, maybe he will look on us in mercy.
Speaker 2: Maybe there is something in the character of this God of Israel that will have mercy on us.
Speaker 2: In verse 10, when God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, god relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it.
Speaker 2: Repentance looks like hope in the mercy of God.
Speaker 2: Here's these Ninevites.
Speaker 2: They're as evil as it gets.
Speaker 2: 24 hours ago they didn't either know or didn't care about anything, about Yahweh and the God of Israel.
Speaker 2: And yet now they realize that there is truth in his word.
Speaker 2: There is sin in my life, sin in my life, and my only hope is to throw myself upon the mercy of God and maybe, just maybe, he will look upon us in grace and he will not destroy us.
Speaker 2: He will not overcome us, he will not lead us to destruction.
Speaker 2: Maybe it could happen.
Speaker 2: And as they repent, as they seek after God, god in his mercy relents.
Speaker 2: If you want to see a picture of the gospel, just read every word of the book of Jonah.
Speaker 2: But time and time again, god offers his saving touch.
Speaker 2: And you say this well, I don't know if this is the gospel.
Speaker 2: I mean, they repented, they did what they were supposed to do.
Speaker 2: They earned God's saving?
Speaker 2: No, they didn't.
Speaker 2: If they had spent those 40 days not doing a thing wrong, guess what?
Speaker 2: They deserved it?
Speaker 2: They deserved destruction.
Speaker 2: You and I, we deserve it.
Speaker 2: We deserve destruction.
Speaker 2: And yet what we see time and time again is the mercy of God.
Speaker 2: We see here, as we think about repentance, that true confession and true repentance look at this is always met with the mercy of God.
Speaker 2: I wonder, in your own life as you think about your own sin.
Speaker 2: It's not that enjoyable to think about, is it?
Speaker 2: But your own sin, your own past, the great sins you have committed before you were a Christian, the great sins you have committed since you've been a Christian, the great sinful, disobedient moments of your life, and when you think about those things you think about the weight of it.
Speaker 2: Maybe we think about those moments where we have been so deep in our own sin, those moments where we were certain we had our sin and we find out our sin had us.
Speaker 2: Those moments where sin has taken us deeper than we thought we could go, further than we thought we were able to go, and sin has brought us to the absolute rock bottom of our lives and it has left us broken, alone and confused and our sin has left us again at rock bottom.
Speaker 2: I want to tell you this morning that when you reach rock bottom, if you've reached rock bottom, that bottom is solid and there is a Savior there and at that rock bottom there sits an empty tomb and one Friday afternoon, every sin you have sinned are sinning will.
Speaker 2: Sin was placed on the Savior, jesus Christ the righteous.
Speaker 2: They died and they put him in the grave An early Sunday morning.
Speaker 2: He rose and so if you wonder, can I be forgiven?
Speaker 2: Is mercy possible for me For the first time?
Speaker 2: For the eighth time, for the thousandth time?
Speaker 2: Don't wonder any longer.
Speaker 2: Look one place, and one place only the empty tomb.
Speaker 2: I think I've told you this before, but I'll tell you this a hundred more times.
Speaker 2: Katie and I were in Israel in 2016.
Speaker 2: Now that I'm starting this story, I'm certain I've told it before.
Speaker 2: We went to the church, at the Holy Sepulcher, we saw the place where they tell me the cross was put into the ground, the rock there that they tell me is Calvary Golgotha.
Speaker 2: We go down the stairs and walk 50 yards in the other direction and we see the place they tell me is the tomb of Christ Looks a little different nowadays.
Speaker 2: You wouldn't look at it and say, surely that's it.
Speaker 2: There's a large structure around it.
Speaker 2: If you've been there, I had to kind of be told about it.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't look at it and say, surely that's it.
Speaker 2: There's a large structure around it.
Speaker 2: If you've been there, I had to kind of be told about it.
Speaker 2: I didn't really realize, and we waited in line.
Speaker 2: I mean again, if I'll wait in line for a good meal or a ride at a theme park, I'll wait in line to see the tomb of Christ and Katie and I get to the door and we walk into that tomb and it's dark and it's small Maybe me and Katie and maybe one or two others could fit in there at most.
Speaker 2: And we look around and as we're in there we notice that there is nothing in there, not a thing, not a thing.
Speaker 2: And you might be tempted to think, if you've been waiting in line for a while and you finally get to the point and you walk in and nothing's there, it's a little bit of a let down.
Speaker 2: Not that day, it wasn't because there was nothing in there.
Speaker 2: There is nothing that can separate you from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus, our Lord.
Speaker 2: Because Christ Jesus rose from the grave.
Speaker 2: There is not a sin or mistake that can render you lost or plucked from the Father's hand Because there was nothing in the tomb.
Speaker 2: There is nothing that can have a hold on you that Christ Jesus cannot more firmly keep you Because there was nothing in the tomb.
Speaker 2: You are kept in the Father's hand.
Speaker 2: You are kept in the father's hand and as you come to him for forgiveness.
Speaker 2: As you come to him with repentance, what you find is a father who delights to forgive.
Speaker 2: That's the gospel.
Speaker 2: That's what Jonah teaches about the gospel.
Speaker 2: That's why Jesus started his ministry talking about repentance.
Speaker 2: That's the story of everyone that knows Jesus Christ the righteous that there is forgiveness in him.
Speaker 2: And so, if you don't know Jesus, why don't you get to know him and, for the first time, experience that?
Speaker 2: If you do know him and you are overwhelmed and overcome by the weight of your sin, why don't you tell yourself again that if I confess my sin, he is faithful and just to forgive my sin and cleanse me of all unrighteousness?
Speaker 2: Lord Jesus, I thank you for the gospel.
Speaker 2: I thank you for the hope of your word.
Speaker 2: I thank you for the truth of your word.
Speaker 2: I thank you that where sin is great, your mercy is greater, that you love us in a way that we don't deserve, that we couldn't earn, and yet it is freely given.
Speaker 2: So, lord, let us be people that take repentance seriously.
Speaker 2: Let us be people that take our own sin seriously.
Speaker 2: Holy Spirit, spirit even now, even this week, convict us of sin in our own lives.
Speaker 2: And, lord, let us respond in repentance.
Speaker 2: We're walking one way in sin.
Speaker 2: Lord, let us walk the other way out of it.
Speaker 2: Not in our own power, we will fail, but through the power of the Spirit.
Speaker 2: Lord, would you empower us to walk away from sin, and, lord, we need you for that.
Speaker 2: But, lord, thank you for your mercy, mercies that are new every morning.
Speaker 2: Thank you that you are with us, that you love us In Christ's name, amen.