SPEAKER_00: Question for you.
SPEAKER_00: Um, how many of you would say that you are good with directions?
SPEAKER_00: You raise your hands on this.
SPEAKER_00: Good with directions.
SPEAKER_00: I generally know where I'm going.
SPEAKER_00: I usually don't get lost.
SPEAKER_00: There's three people in this whole crowd.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: That's amazing.
SPEAKER_00: Some more, some more, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Directions are helpful.
SPEAKER_00: Um, how many of you have been just extremely lost?
SPEAKER_00: Like, I mean, you're lost.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe not, you're not in the Yukon lost, but you're just really lost.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: There you go, right?
SPEAKER_00: Some of you guys, so when you're lost, when you're completely lost, the most helpful thing isn't to know what direction to start heading, right?
SPEAKER_00: The most helpful thing to know is where are you at?
SPEAKER_00: Where am I?
SPEAKER_00: I can't get where I need to be until I figure out where I'm already at.
SPEAKER_00: A good preacher does this for us.
SPEAKER_00: A good preacher will tell you where you're at, and then tell you where you need to go.
SPEAKER_00: We see this lostness, if you will.
SPEAKER_00: I don't just mean salvation loss, but just the directionless, aimless.
SPEAKER_00: Everything seems ambiguous.
SPEAKER_00: We see this in our culture.
SPEAKER_00: Almost everywhere.
SPEAKER_00: People just seem to be lost.
SPEAKER_00: And whether, I mean this with cars and getting places, but I really mean they're just not sure where they're heading.
SPEAKER_00: They're not even sure where they're at.
SPEAKER_00: They just are living for the moment.
SPEAKER_00: What's the next best pleasure I can get?
SPEAKER_00: Or what's the next best thing I can do to feel safe or secure?
SPEAKER_00: They're rather aimless because they know neither where they should be going or where they are currently at.
SPEAKER_00: Again, the preacher comes to tell people where they are, that they are lost, and where they can go to be found.
SPEAKER_00: Turning your Bibles to Luke chapter 3.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't have a Bible, there's some on the back table there.
SPEAKER_00: Love for you to have one.
SPEAKER_00: It's great to have a Bible.
SPEAKER_00: Open up into the Gospel of Luke.
SPEAKER_00: It's just open, it's toward the back of the Bible, but it's early in the New Testament.
SPEAKER_00: Matthew, Mark, Luke.
SPEAKER_00: If you get into 1 2 Corinthians, those letters, go back.
SPEAKER_00: In Luke chapter 3, we'll be looking this morning at verses 17 through 14, Lord willing.
SPEAKER_00: Last week we looked at verses 1 through 6, that John the Baptist was fulfilling the prophecy to prepare the way for the Messiah to come.
SPEAKER_00: He travels around this region of the Jordan, calling people to repentance.
SPEAKER_00: And then we pick it up here in verse 7 of Luke chapter 3.
SPEAKER_00: He said therefore to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come, bear fruit in keeping with repentance.
SPEAKER_00: And do not begin to say to yourselves, We have Abraham as our father.
SPEAKER_00: For I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham.
SPEAKER_00: Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees.
SPEAKER_00: Every tree that is therefore every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
SPEAKER_00: And the crowds asked him, What then shall we do?
SPEAKER_00: And he answered them, Whoever has two tunics is to share with him who has none.
SPEAKER_00: And whoever has food is to do likewise.
SPEAKER_00: Tax collectors also came to be baptized and said to him, Teacher, what shall we do?
SPEAKER_00: And he said to them, Collect no more than you are authorized to do.
SPEAKER_00: Soldiers also asked him, and we and we, what shall we do?
SPEAKER_00: And he said to them, Do not exhort, extort money from anyone by threats or by false accusations, and be content with your wages.
SPEAKER_00: This is God's holy and precious word.
SPEAKER_00: So the first thing that John the Baptist does when he goes out, he's proclaiming this message of baptism and repentance, is he begins to tell them where they are.
SPEAKER_00: He tells them, he orients them, it's a kindness that he does to them.
SPEAKER_00: He tells them where they are.
SPEAKER_00: First, he does this by telling them who they are, what they desire.
SPEAKER_00: He's revealing to them who they are.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 7.
SPEAKER_00: He calls them a brood of vipers.
SPEAKER_00: It's pretty strong language.
SPEAKER_00: Pois snakes.
SPEAKER_00: Lethal in their teaching and their living and acting, acting like seeds of the serpent, Satan, rather than seeds of Abraham.
SPEAKER_00: Who warned you to flee the wrath to come?
SPEAKER_00: In a sense, he's questioning where is this authority coming from?
SPEAKER_00: Who are you listening to and taking advice from?
SPEAKER_00: Who is your counselor?
SPEAKER_00: Where are you looking for wisdom?
SPEAKER_00: That now you, as poisonous snakes, are coming to be baptized to repent?
SPEAKER_00: He's calling into question the source of their wisdom.
SPEAKER_00: And he's calling into question their motives.
SPEAKER_00: Who told you?
SPEAKER_00: Who warned you?
SPEAKER_00: And why are you listening to them?
SPEAKER_00: Are you coming to repent because the Messiah is coming?
SPEAKER_00: A chosen one?
SPEAKER_00: Talk of the Messiah never seemed to motivate you guys in the past.
SPEAKER_00: So why now?
SPEAKER_00: Do they really desire to be made right with God?
SPEAKER_00: Or to just have a clean conscience?
SPEAKER_00: It's really important that we understand the difference.
SPEAKER_00: One is I want to be reconciled to my creator, the one whom I've been made for.
SPEAKER_00: Another is I don't want to feel bad about myself.
SPEAKER_00: Now, it's often that those feelings are together.
unknown: Right?
SPEAKER_00: So sometimes it takes some work to figure out am I repenting because I just want to feel better?
SPEAKER_00: Or because I want to be made right with the Lord?
SPEAKER_00: Well, in a sense, both.
SPEAKER_00: No one's like, hey, I want to be made right with the Lord, but I want to keep feeling guilty.
SPEAKER_00: This is that's not the case for most people.
SPEAKER_00: However, there is a difference.
SPEAKER_00: And if you're a Christian, hopefully you've been able to identify that sometimes in your life.
SPEAKER_00: That in your own repentance.
SPEAKER_00: It's not that you're hating sin.
SPEAKER_00: It's not that sin has just drive you, driven you so down, and you so far down you just hate it and you loathe it.
SPEAKER_00: It's just, I don't want to feel bad for it anymore.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to feel the pricking of my conscience, the Holy Spirit potentially.
SPEAKER_00: If you're a Christian, it's the Holy Spirit working.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to feel those things.
SPEAKER_00: So let me just say I'm sorry and do the prayer of confession thing and take communion and I'll feel better.
SPEAKER_00: And I, you know, I probably mean it.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not gonna change the way I live, I'm not gonna change my friends, I'm not gonna change uh what's going on with my phone or TV or what I consume.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not gonna change my life, but I'm gonna repent.
SPEAKER_00: If you're not a Christian, this repentance thing, maybe you've grown up in the church, and you're just weary of this like repent.
SPEAKER_00: Like apparently we're all so bad, we just gotta keep repenting every day for everything.
SPEAKER_00: Well, I mean, you know, you you you examine your own life for 24 hours, and you tell me just how good you think you are before a holy and righteous God.
SPEAKER_00: Repentance is not just a acknowledgement that I've done something wrong.
SPEAKER_00: It's a contrition.
SPEAKER_00: It's a it's a man, I feel bad that I've done the wrong thing.
SPEAKER_00: And I don't want to do that anymore.
SPEAKER_00: And I don't want to do that anymore, so I'm gonna change things in my life.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna turn from those sins and I'm gonna follow Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: So he calls into question their motives.
SPEAKER_00: He calls into question in verse 8 what they believe.
SPEAKER_00: Bear fruits and keep it with repentance, and do not begin to say to yourselves, we have Abraham as our father, for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham.
SPEAKER_00: And John the Baptist, just add it again, just cutting right to the heart of things.
SPEAKER_00: If you claim to be repentant, then show it.
SPEAKER_00: Live like it.
SPEAKER_00: If your claim is I'm truly repentant, I really am, and I want to I want to forsake sin and follow Jesus, then live that way.
SPEAKER_00: Bear fruit that keeps with repentance.
SPEAKER_00: It's like the husband who keeps abusing his wife emotionally, or he's having an affair, and he and he says, Oh, I'm sorry, I won't do it again.
SPEAKER_00: But he does it again.
SPEAKER_00: There's no fruit in your repentance.
SPEAKER_00: It's like the guy who says, I love my wife and I and I care about her, but keeps going back to porn again and again, hoping that somehow that's gonna fix him, but yet claiming that he's sorry and repentant.
SPEAKER_00: It's one thing to fight sin.
SPEAKER_00: Hear me on this.
SPEAKER_00: It's one thing to fight sin.
SPEAKER_00: It's another thing to just indulge sin.
SPEAKER_00: But say you're sorry.
SPEAKER_00: You see the difference there?
SPEAKER_00: It's one thing to fight against sin and struggle and lose and win and struggle and lose and win with sin.
SPEAKER_00: That's that's the pattern for the rest of our lives, brothers and sisters.
SPEAKER_00: That is us until Christ comes.
SPEAKER_00: Hopefully, as we get older, there's a lot more victories and a lot fewer losses.
SPEAKER_00: But if the attitude is, I'll repent and then turn back to my sin, that is my intent.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know that you are a Christian.
SPEAKER_00: If that is your desire to keep indulging in sin and yet claim to follow Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Because what John is saying, and he's saying these to old covenant-believed people, bear fruit in your repentance.
SPEAKER_00: Show that you're struggling.
SPEAKER_00: Fight, contend, struggle, have victory, and you have losses, but then you repent and you contend again and again.
SPEAKER_00: Bearing fruit with repentance doesn't mean we do not sin anymore.
SPEAKER_00: But it does mean that we are fighting sin always, or contending against it.
SPEAKER_00: And so he's challenging them in that.
SPEAKER_00: And then he says, listen, don't think you can slip into the kingdom because you can kind of pull the whole, I'm Abraham's descendant cart.
SPEAKER_00: You can't scoot in on Abraham's coattails.
SPEAKER_00: That's not how this works.
SPEAKER_00: The Jews, they just threw this around, like, hey, Abraham's my dad stuff, and I can get away with what I want, and I can get immunity, it's fine, it's good.
SPEAKER_00: They're thinking.
SPEAKER_00: And it goes right after their false sense of security.
SPEAKER_00: It goes right after it.
SPEAKER_00: Don't be thinking.
SPEAKER_00: Because you're Hebrews, you're your father, your descendants of Abraham that you can slip in.
SPEAKER_00: He says, because God can raise up children for Abraham.
SPEAKER_00: Which is kind of an interesting phrase.
SPEAKER_00: Well, why would God have to raise up children for Abraham?
SPEAKER_00: Why would God need to use stones to do these things?
SPEAKER_00: God made a covenant with Abraham.
SPEAKER_00: John is affirming that God will keep this covenant he made with Abraham.
SPEAKER_00: That from Abraham will come many nations.
SPEAKER_00: So they're not going to manipulate God.
SPEAKER_00: Well, God needs us to keep his covenant with Abraham.
SPEAKER_00: We've got to be here.
SPEAKER_00: No, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord can take all these stones and make up from raise up from them children for Abraham.
SPEAKER_00: For they are not looking for bloodline, but rather those who have faith like Abraham.
SPEAKER_00: So he challenges what they believe, their sense of security.
SPEAKER_00: Well, I grew up in a Christian home.
SPEAKER_00: Or I am a good person.
SPEAKER_00: And from the world's standards, like maybe you are.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you pay all your taxes and you even return your shopping cart when you're done.
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that amazing?
SPEAKER_00: That does not get you into heaven.
SPEAKER_00: And the standard isn't even just, well, you gotta believe the right things.
SPEAKER_00: Read your Bible regularly.
SPEAKER_00: There's plenty of people who read their Bible regularly and who think the right things, but their hearts have never been changed.
SPEAKER_00: They've never forsaken sin and followed after the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And that is required if we are going to be Abraham's descendants.
SPEAKER_00: If we're going to be in the covenant.
SPEAKER_00: So he then gives them this warning.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 9.
SPEAKER_00: Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees.
SPEAKER_00: Every tree, therefore, that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
SPEAKER_00: Again, he's getting back to the fruit language here.
SPEAKER_00: And the axe is laid to the root of the tree.
SPEAKER_00: And this no doubt brings up Isaiah chapter 10, when God's talking about lopping off all the trees, right?
SPEAKER_00: Judgment on Israel.
SPEAKER_00: That was Isaiah 10's message, Isaiah's prophecy that God would cut down all the trees, all the people, these covenant people, and they would be carried off into captivity.
SPEAKER_00: But then in Isaiah 11, there is a promise that from the shoot of Jesse, this lumped-off tree, a shoot would come.
SPEAKER_00: David, King David, and from King David would come the Messiah.
SPEAKER_00: And so John is using this same language, language his listeners would have known well.
SPEAKER_00: That the axe is laid at the fruit of the tree.
SPEAKER_00: And if your tree is, Abraham is my father, it's going to be cut down because that is bad fruit.
SPEAKER_00: And if your tree is, again, I'm not a per bad person, that will be cut down.
SPEAKER_00: If your fruit is anything other than the fruit of God's amazing work in your life, it will be cut down and thrown into the fire.
SPEAKER_00: John is not speaking metaphorically, that wrath is coming, that judgment is coming.
SPEAKER_00: He means this quite literally that for those who reject God, those who live against his ways and bear bad fruit, judgment is coming.
SPEAKER_00: They will face eternity in hell.
SPEAKER_00: John cannot be clear enough to these people that this wrath is coming, that they need to bear fruit and repentance.
SPEAKER_00: Don't appeal to your heritage.
SPEAKER_00: Don't appeal to your knowledge for salvation.
SPEAKER_00: Appeal to the person and work of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: It's not, I'm going to look, I'm going to be Abraham's descendant.
SPEAKER_00: Or I have a lot of Bible knowledge.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we can even deceive ourselves as Christians, having been born again, regenerate.
SPEAKER_00: We become Christians, the Lord saves us.
SPEAKER_00: And then we learn so much about the Bible, it's beautiful, it's glorious.
SPEAKER_00: And we understand more about who God is, and we understand more about how he works, as little tiny glimpses we can get into that because our finite little minds.
SPEAKER_00: We get a glimpse of our own nature and how we function and how we're broken and how the Lord has made us beautiful and how we're designed to be like our Creator and to worship Him and all these things.
SPEAKER_00: That we're just kind of growing in our faith, and things are good.
SPEAKER_00: And then there's a creeping in of pride, a creeping in of just this, well, you know, of course I'm a Christian.
SPEAKER_00: I remember when the Lord saved me, and I remember being baptized, and I remember all these things, which is good.
SPEAKER_00: Praise the Lord for that.
SPEAKER_00: But then we keep looking to our past for our confidence.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not saying that those things don't matter.
SPEAKER_00: Hear me.
SPEAKER_00: One of the blessings as Christians is looking behind us and saying, remember what the Lord did?
SPEAKER_00: Remember when we were dead in our sin and how the Lord changed our hearts?
SPEAKER_00: Remember when we blew it and we sinned and how the Christians of the church loved us well and called us to repentance?
SPEAKER_00: Remember when we didn't have enough money the Lord provided?
SPEAKER_00: And you just reflect on all these things.
SPEAKER_00: Those are beautiful things, wonderful things.
SPEAKER_00: They built our faith.
SPEAKER_00: And so we should be, as a church, quick to share those.
SPEAKER_00: But it can be dangerous when our confidence is just in the past.
SPEAKER_00: And it's been five years since I've really felt like I was in a sweet time of prayer with the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: It's been probably 18 months since I sat and read God's word and let it minister to me.
SPEAKER_00: Let it convict.
SPEAKER_00: Let it prod, let it cut me and heal me.
SPEAKER_00: I just don't do those things anymore.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not saying you're not a Christian.
SPEAKER_00: That's not my point.
SPEAKER_00: My point is the danger, just looking to the past.
SPEAKER_00: Looking to the past.
SPEAKER_00: But what's the Lord doing now in your life?
SPEAKER_00: No doubt some of the people that John was taught was referring to or speaking to would have been devout in their desire to be faithful Jewish teachers or students or followers.
SPEAKER_00: But at somewhere, at some point, their heart became more callous.
SPEAKER_00: The cares of the world, which are real, you can't just do away with them.
SPEAKER_00: But they begin to shroud over them and cover them and weigh down on them.
SPEAKER_00: And John is calling them to repent.
SPEAKER_00: This language of for return.
SPEAKER_00: Come back to.
SPEAKER_00: And some here this morning.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord has done amazing things in your life.
SPEAKER_00: And we can sit down at the mealtime and we can go for hours.
SPEAKER_00: Just with probably you and someone else talking about how the Lord has been faithful to you, how the Lord has ministered to you, how the Lord has freed you from sin.
SPEAKER_00: How the Lord has provided when you thought there was no way out.
SPEAKER_00: That's a beautiful thing.
SPEAKER_00: But I want to remember remind you to keep repenting, keep confessing, keep coming to the Lord, seeking to be built up and encouraged and strengthened, that you might not grow weary in doing good, that you might not grow callous in following Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And then worst of all, you don't just slip into this apathetic place where, yeah, you want to follow Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: But man, just somehow, I don't know how, but every day I just, the day gets away and I don't have time in the Word.
SPEAKER_00: You know, I've been meaning to meet up with a brother or sister and get coffee and just encourage one another to do that.
SPEAKER_00: That's an important thing we do.
SPEAKER_00: But, you know, somehow this year it didn't happen, but this next year it will, then somehow just it didn't happen.
SPEAKER_00: This is a dangerous place as Christians to be.
SPEAKER_00: Where we're we're kind of apathetic and we have good intentions, we know what we should be doing, and the Holy Spirit is convicting us on things, but we just kind of stay complacent.
SPEAKER_00: I know, but but genuinely praise the Lord for his grace and praise the Lord for his grace.
SPEAKER_00: But it is not cheap grace, it's not grace for us just to be throwing around.
SPEAKER_00: Well, I I know I wanted to do that, but it's okay.
SPEAKER_00: It's a fine.
SPEAKER_00: I'll make up for it next time, or I'll do it next year, I'll get there.
SPEAKER_00: Instead of walking in humble repentant obedience.
SPEAKER_00: There are some here this morning, I would imagine, who have yet to repent, truly follow Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And John's words are for you to hear and respond to.
SPEAKER_00: They're not just here for you to say, well, that's interesting.
SPEAKER_00: This first century guy who lived in the wilderness and he's calling, he comes out of the wilderness, and somehow all these people are now like, well, let's go get baptized by this guy.
SPEAKER_00: This guy's wearing some weird clothes, eating weird food, and now it's cool to go get baptized by him.
SPEAKER_00: It's a little social phenomenon here we see in in Luke chapter 3.
SPEAKER_00: John's words.
SPEAKER_00: John the Baptist's words are the words that you need to hear.
SPEAKER_00: That you are dead in your sin.
SPEAKER_00: That there is wrath coming.
SPEAKER_00: There is judgment coming.
SPEAKER_00: And you should flee that wrath.
SPEAKER_00: And you should flee to Christ, coming to him, repenting to him, trusting in him for your salvation.
SPEAKER_00: That he might work in your life and free you from sin.
SPEAKER_00: That he would adopt you into his family and you belong to him.
SPEAKER_00: And then from that place, a place of being saved.
SPEAKER_00: You've been atoned for.
SPEAKER_00: All your wrongs have been paid for.
SPEAKER_00: Not canceled.
SPEAKER_00: Again, it's important we understand our sins are never canceled.
SPEAKER_00: The payment for your sins are never canceled.
SPEAKER_00: They've been paid for by Jesus' blood and body.
SPEAKER_00: Amen?
SPEAKER_00: We do not come to Christ, looking to make ourselves better, clean ourselves up, and then come and be baptized or be saved.
SPEAKER_00: John's call is to come and follow the way.
SPEAKER_00: It's interesting how even in John's language as he's talking to them, this is again under the old covenant, so there's still more to come.
SPEAKER_00: And the reality is they don't just need to repent and strive for the old covenant system again.
SPEAKER_00: Although that's the system in place.
SPEAKER_00: They need to repent looking to the Messiah.
SPEAKER_00: Because in the old covenant, in the Old Testament, it was never intended that that would be God's way forever.
SPEAKER_00: It was never God's intention.
SPEAKER_00: He brought the old covenant, he brought the law so that we might know our need for a Savior.
SPEAKER_00: That He would then bring the Savior.
SPEAKER_00: So even in the Old Covenant, with their sacrificial system and all those things, they're to be looking to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: The hope is in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Not that the priest on the Day of Atonement can wipe all of our sins away.
SPEAKER_00: They're looking to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: So even as John's calling them to repentance, he's saying, Come and look for the Messiah with us because he is coming.
SPEAKER_00: And oftentimes we get this backwards.
SPEAKER_00: When we come to Jesus, one, because we want to be cleaned up to our standards.
SPEAKER_00: And there's some things going on in our lives that we don't like about ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: And we know they're wrong.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible says they're wrong.
SPEAKER_00: And we want those things to be taken care of.
SPEAKER_00: But we don't always come to Jesus saying, Lord, I am now yours.
SPEAKER_00: Do what you want with my life.
SPEAKER_00: Do have your way with me.
SPEAKER_00: Take down all of my idols.
SPEAKER_00: Remove all of my dreams.
SPEAKER_00: And then give me the vision that you have for my life.
SPEAKER_00: We want Jesus to fix part of us, but not all of us.
SPEAKER_00: We're not willing to surrender everything.
SPEAKER_00: The second mistake we can make in our repentance is we come, we have this wrong understanding, again, that we have to patch ourselves up enough to come to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And you just can't do that.
SPEAKER_00: You can never be good enough, do enough to be able to then come to Christ for salvation.
SPEAKER_00: It's kind of the whole point, right?
SPEAKER_00: That's kind of the whole point, is that apart from Him, we can't do any of these things.
SPEAKER_00: So we come and we repent and we just confess, Lord, right here in all this mess, this is who I am.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, would you save me?
SPEAKER_00: Would you forgive me for my sins?
SPEAKER_00: Would you put uh take out the heart of stone that I have?
SPEAKER_00: The rebellious heart that pushes against you, that resists you, that loves sin, and that, as Ephesians says, hates you.
SPEAKER_00: God, would you take that out?
SPEAKER_00: And would you put in a heart of flesh, a heart with new desires, a heart with a desire to obey you, to follow your ways, to trust you?
SPEAKER_00: That is God's call on us.
SPEAKER_00: So if you're if you're not a Christian, I encourage you this day, today, call out to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Come talk to me.
SPEAKER_00: I'd love to pray with you and talk with you, talk with Jimmy, talk to just anyone you came with.
SPEAKER_00: We would love to pray with you that you might repent of your sins, not just fling the wrath to come, although that's real and important.
SPEAKER_00: But that you might be made right with your Creator.
SPEAKER_00: That you would finally know what it means to be forgiven.
SPEAKER_00: Only God can forgive your sins.
SPEAKER_00: You can't forgive yourself.
SPEAKER_00: Your parents can't forgive you.
SPEAKER_00: The world can't forgive you.
SPEAKER_00: And they're trying.
SPEAKER_00: And they're really trying hard.
SPEAKER_00: I mean that.
SPEAKER_00: Like people are always trying to forgive people of things.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Well, we're we're kind of we are made in God's image.
SPEAKER_00: We want to be merciful to people at times.
SPEAKER_00: But we can't extend forgiveness because you haven't sinned against us.
SPEAKER_00: You haven't broken my law, you haven't broken society's law, you've broken God's law.
SPEAKER_00: So even in your quest to be made right, it's that you might be made right with God.
SPEAKER_00: Whether you realize that or not, the tension, the frustration, it's because you need his forgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: Even in your selfish, sinful desires and your sinful ways, you long to be made right, to have God's forgiveness given to you.
SPEAKER_00: And you might be looking to other things to find that.
SPEAKER_00: But I want to encourage you this morning to come to Christ, to feel his forgiveness, to know his forgiveness, to trust his word when his word says that he has forgiven you.
SPEAKER_00: And that you might then be able to worship him.
SPEAKER_00: And this isn't a worship that would just come.
SPEAKER_00: It's not just coming on Sunday mornings and singing songs.
SPEAKER_00: Although that's beautiful, it's wonderful.
SPEAKER_00: It's that your life might be for him, that your days might be spent adoring him, following his ways.
SPEAKER_00: Because in that there is life.
SPEAKER_00: There's hope.
SPEAKER_00: There's change.
SPEAKER_00: Not just get over the sin issue you have, although that's important.
SPEAKER_00: But God desires you that he might know you and walk through life with you, that you might enjoy him, and that you might be satisfied in him.
SPEAKER_00: There's no other way to do this but then coming and repenting of your sins, turning from them and following after Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And joining us as a church as we're fallen and we're broken and we sin and we're reminding each other week after week.
SPEAKER_00: Remember what Christ has done for us.
SPEAKER_00: Remember what he's called us to.
SPEAKER_00: Let's be faithful.
SPEAKER_00: Let's encourage one another all the more as we see the day approaching.
SPEAKER_00: Church, I don't think I'm going to get to the rest of the rest of this passage this morning.
SPEAKER_00: We have some testimonies, we have some baptisms.
SPEAKER_00: So I'm going to pray for us.
SPEAKER_00: Then we're going to hear from a couple brothers as they prepare to be baptized.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.