Fruit worthy of repentance

Read Matthew 3:1-12

Complying with rules is one thing.  Producing fruit is another.  Fruit is a product of something, often a plant or tree.  We have heard the fruit of the womb, meaning offspring. 

We can think of the Fruit of the Spirit as what comes of living by the Spirit that is within us.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.  Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.  Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.  Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.

John the Baptizer noted the presence of the religious leaders, specifically noted are the Pharisees and Sadducees, and he called them out.  You bunch of snakes!

Who gave you a heads up that the wrath of God is looming over you?

The Pharisees and Sadducees had not come to John to repent and be baptized.  They wanted to see what was drawing people all the way out to the Jordan River. Surely the news of what John was doing had reached far beyond his limited place of ministry.

John knew who had come to see him.  These were the upper crust of the religious society that prevailed over the Hebrew people.  The Romans were their political masters, but these self-righteous men would use God’s rules to enslave his people far more than the requirements of the godless regime that governed them.

They were to have been the shepherds of Israel, but they did a terrible job of pastoring the people entrusted to them.  What did they have to worry about?  They were the top tier of the Sons of Abraham Club.

John boldly addressed these men who were used to getting the grand treatment, being given the best seats at events, and who otherwise considered their status more than their mission.  He charged them to produce fruit worthy of repentance.

Not only do you need to repent, your actions should demonstrate that you have.

To repent is to turn away from and leave behind something.  In this case, it is to turn away from a godless lifestyle and leave it all behind—not only the rules of the world to include rules of the world masquerading as religion, but the thinking and status afforded by playing by the rules of the world.

To repent was to be a part of a wholesale exchange—body, mind, soul, and spirit.  Everything was left behind and exchanged for the ways of God.

This would have been a hard sell for the Pharisees and Sadducees.  They were the enforcers of the rules upon others.  They wrote the administrative law if you will. 

Do you know that our national legislature has written very little of our law?  They write more than enough and make the verbiage and syntax confusing and voluminous, but it is the administrative agencies that draft and implement most of our law and regulations. 

We don’t even get to vote for or against the people who write these laws.  There’s something to think on in the week to come, just in case you are running short of things to contemplate this week.

It’s all done with good intentions, or so that was the original intent.  Administrative law filled in the gaps in the law that was legislated.

So too the Pharisees and Sadducees filled in the gaps and noted exceptions and in so doing essentially embalmed the Law of God given through Moses.  These men surely did not come to see John so they could repent.  They came in self-interest.

We like it when the Pharisees and Sadducees get their comeuppance, but John’s command to them should hit us center mass as well.  Produce fruit worthy of repentance.

Produce fruit, not commentary or armchair quarterbacking.  Get on the playing field and do something productive.  And that’s your dose of mixed metaphor for today.

Our lives should demonstrate that we follow the one true God.  We don’t do things to receive acknowledgement from men but to please God.

Some will see that we do good and that we follow God.  Later in his gospel, Matthew notes that this brings glory to God, but we are little concerned about what the world thinks about us.

We produce fruit in keeping with repentance and this pleases God.  John was offering a baptism of repentance, but he said that this is just the beginning.  One is coming after me who is much greater and more powerful than me and he will baptize with the Holy Spirit.

So, what is fruit in keeping with repentance?

The first and foremost is receiving Jesus not only as our Savior but as Lord as well.  Jesus is Lord!  We outwardly signify his lordship with baptism. 

It’s not Jesus and the Sooners or the Cowboys or our political party.  Jesus is Lord.  It’s not Jesus and this committee or that doctrine.  Jesus is Lord.  We have not really repented until we come to grips with this simple statement.

Repentance must not only include that which we turn away from but that which or whom we turn to and follow.  Our first fruit of repentance is receiving Jesus as Lord.

Turning away from evil and seeking good is noble.  It is a form of repentance.  I will turn away from the bad and seek the good.  It is noble but not sufficient.  We must seek after the Lord.

Just trying to be a good person is not enough!  That sounds critical of those seeking good.  It might be but it’s honest.  When we turn away from evil and seek good, we are still our own master.  We are doing this because it’s how we see things.  We are our own lord.  We get to be the Pharisee.

We become susceptible to sitting on the sidelines and criticizing those who are following Jesus.  The first fruit of our repentance must be to receive Jesus as our Lord.

Jesus is Lord!

Everything after that is our discipleship or the fullness of our salvation.  The rest of our fruit will come out of our discipleship.  That will include turning away from evil and seeking what is good.

It will include the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

It will include being the salt of the earth, that all may taste the goodness of God when they encounter us.

It will include being the light of the world, that people will see how we live and by such witness bring glory to God.

It will include embracing the ways of the Lord as our own.  It will be putting his words into practice.  It will be loving one another.  It will be being known by our love.

But it all starts with repentance.  We must be willing to give up the ways of this world—mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

Receiving the Lordship of Jesus is now a part of our identity.  His yoke is easy and his burden is light, but now it’s our yoke and our burden.

Producing fruit worthy of repentance is first turning away from the world and seeking God through Christ.  Then we live out our salvation in such a way as to bring glory to God.

Narrow is the way which we come to Christ but abundant are the ways in which we may live for him once he is Lord.

Here it is in Okiespeak:  You can’t straddle the fence.

Repent, put God first by making Jesus Lord of your life, then produce fruit worthy of this fantastic relationship.

We will do good and it will be to God’s glory.

We will love one another and it will be to the glory of God.

We will be known by our love and put a smile on God’s face.

Let this be a bumper crop year in producing fruit worthy of repentance!

Amen.

Mercy

Read Psalm 51

We are going to spend a little time on the topic of mercy.  Mercy is a recurring theme in God’s word.  Mercy is a quality of God and a quality of his people.

If you follow Jesus, then you are called to be merciful.

So mercy is just another word for grace or forgiveness, right?

Sort of but not exactly.  Precise definitions are elusive, but let’s take a short at this.   Mercy is God not giving us what our sins deserve.  Mercy abates God’s punishment.

That mercy is rooted in forgiveness and grace.  It’s all about who God is and not what we did or did not do.

Grace extends God’s favor and blessings to us even though we don’t deserve them.  Mercy delivers us from judgment and grace extends God’s lovingkindness to us.  Neither which we deserve based on anything that we did or did not do.

Mercy, like grace and forgiveness, is about God’s divine heart.

David—a man after God’s own heart—had surrendered to his lust with Bathsheba.  That lust resulted in pregnancy and the sequel here is that David arranged for Bathsheba’s husband to get killed in battle.

Just when he thought he had put all of this in his past, Nathan who was both prophet and friend to David, showed the king what he had done.

When David realized just how far he had fallen, he was broken.  He had disqualified himself from living in God’s goodness, at least at first glance.  But in the course of his relationship with God, David learned that he was a God of mercy.

God’s desire was not punishment.  God was not looking for more sacrifices.  God did not want David walking around in ashes and sackcloth for the next 7 years.  God’s desire is mercy.  God is merciful.

So, David called out to God to have mercy on him.  In this request, David acknowledged his sin.  In fact, he said that he couldn’t get away from it.  It was always there right in front of him.

David’s request was to blot out his transgression, take his sin away, create in him a clean heart.  David knew how terrible his sin was but he also knew that it was not game over.

In verses 11 and 12 we see David seeking mercy and grace.

Do not cast me from your presence

    or take your Holy Spirit from me.

Restore to me the joy of your salvation

    and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.

That’s a bold request.  Head hung low in shame asking God not to punish him is one thing but to be so bold as to ask to have the joy of salvation and sustenance was another. 

To understand mercy, we must understand that God not only wants to forgive us but he also wants to bless us and pour his favor out upon us.

So why ask God for a half-measure of anything?  When we seek his mercy, follow David’s example and seek his blessing and favor.

What’s our part?  Repentance.  We must desire to turn away from and leave behind that which is not of God.  That doesn’t mean leave all of your worldly stuff at the pawnshop and get a receipt.  Leave it all behind.  You are not coming back for it.

We did this when we turned away from the world and professed Jesus as Lord.

We became a new creation.  I am crucified with Christ.  Christ lives in me, but the old creation just won’t go away and if we are not diligent, it takes a shot at getting its old job back.

We are his disciples.  We are known by his love.  We press on towards the goal.  We are running a good race, and then we slow down or stop and take a breather in our race of faith and start focusing on others and what they are or are not doing and our eyes are no longer on Jesus.

It happened to Peter as he took a few steps on the water and then started focusing on the storm.  So much for walking on water.

That’s when that old creature can get its hooks in us, when we lose sight of where Jesus is leading us and start focusing on everyone else.

The disciples struggled with this.  They saw some people driving out demons in the name of Jesus and so they told them to stop.  Why?  They were not part of the group.

Jesus admonished them noting that they could not do this and the next moment become his enemies.  If they are doing this and not against us, then we are surely on the same team.

The disciples were not quite ready for what would happen after the death and resurrection of Jesus and the coming of the Holy Spirit.  Their tight-knit little group would launch similar events all over the known world. 

We do this too.  We stop running our race.  We stop following Jesus and we start judging other believers for how they respond to God’s grace.  Who am I to judge another man’s servant?

When this happens to us, let’s repent.  Let’s ask for God’s mercy.  Let’s ask to receive God’s blessings as we get back in the race.

We know that God doesn’t want to hear our excuses.  He wants to hear our confessions.  He doesn’t want our apologetics for our divisiveness.  He wants us in one accord in his love and mercy.  He wants to give us his mercy.  He wants us to know his heart.  He wants us to live in his favor.

But first comes mercy.  We have all fallen short of the glory of God.  That’s a familiar scripture most know from Romans, but understand that we all need mercy to rescue us from that fallen state.

The dictionary defines mercy as compassion or forgiveness given to someone who is within your power to punish.  Before we live in God’s favor, we need merciful forgiveness.

When we ask God for mercy, we must first repent.  It’s not, God forgive me so I have a clean slate and can do this sinful thing again.

God grants us mercy knowing full well that we will likely sin again, and soon.  It is our human condition.

God has always been merciful.  He has the absolute right to judge and condemn but his divine heart is one of love and we know that love in his mercy.

His mercy is so great that his own blood was given in sacrifice.  The mercy seat in the Old Testament was that place above the ark of the covenant—between the two golden cherubim—when God would appear in the Holy of Holies.   Once each year, the high priest would enter with the bull’s blood and atone for his own sins and those of the people.  Some translations read those that the people committed in ignorance.

But this was a foreshadowing of things to come. 

The blood of bulls could not give people a clear conscience.  The people had made their part of the prescribed sacrifice, but atonement was not complete.

Only by the blood of Jesus are we free of our sins.  Only by the mercy of God, can this atonement be for eternity.  Only in this New Covenant can we truly live.

All of this comes from God’s divine mercy.

When we truly examine our lives with eyes to see granted to us by the Holy Spirit, then we see that the difference between what we deserve and what we receive is mercy. 

I am going on record today saying that I am a big fan of mercy.  It is so intertwined with forgiveness and grace that we often see them as one, but know that it all began with God’s mercy.

As we move forward in our exploration of mercy, know with certainty that God created no one for the purpose of condemnation and eternal destruction.

As we move forward, know with certainty, that God knew we would fall short but that mercy not sacrifice was and is always his first choice.  External rituals—even though they came from his own directives—give way to mercy.

There was sacrifice, but God in his mercy and compassion, make this sacrifice himself.

I know that mercy and grace and forgiveness are tightly intertwined, but this week set your thoughts and prayers on God’s mercy. 

God is merciful.

Amen.