Matthew 4:17
From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
Interesting that the first sermon Jesus preached was: Repent!
Lots of good subjects He could have preached to begin His ministry on earth.
But He chose repentance. Hmmmm. Listen up!
This is a good time of the year to think about repentance, with New Year’s resolutions and all.
Isn’t that what resolutions are all about? Change?
You recognize that there is something about yourself that needs to change.
Maybe lose weight, stop smoking, exercise more, spend more time with family, save more money. Those are some popular resolutions for 2020. Funny, they don’t change much from year to year. That probably has a lot to say about our ability to keep our resolutions. Well, I guess I’ll try to lose weight again this year, until that 2 for 1 special at Krispy Kreme anyway! And then, well, I AM trying to save money!
Jesus wants us to change. To repent.
Repentance means to change your mind in a radical way, so that it drives you to stop sinning and agree with God. To turn 180 degrees from your sin and selfishness and turn to God. That’s real change. To go the opposite way to what you were going. You were pursuing your own sinful lusts and selfish pursuits, but now you are going to turn and go the other way, agree with God and obey Him.
That’s what Jesus chose to tell us to do first in his earthly ministry.
Let’s break this sermon down. Actually, there’s a lot to break down in this – “Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
Just in that one word: Repent is a whole sermon.
One of the things I love about the sermons that Jesus and the apostles preached is that they get right to the point. It doesn’t take them 30-60 minutes to preach their subject. No, not at all.
Repent! Get to it!
First, when Jesus TELLS us to repent, He is telling us that we NEED to repent. Do it now! It’s not a suggestion. Like, well, repent, if you think you need to. Repent, if you feel like it, or if you think it will make you the person you want to become, or if it’s something that you feel like you have a duty to do, or that you’ll be self-actualized if you do it. No, just repent!
There are a lot of implications in the command to repent.
First, we NEED to repent. We have screwed up. We’re sinners. The way we’re headed is not the right way. We need to get our act together. Change the way we’re operating. The way we’re going is not the right way. Jesus is telling us to change. Go the other way.
Admitting you have a problem is the first step to changing. In AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) they’ll tell you that until you WANT to change, until you WANT to quit drinking, until you’ve hit rock bottom, there is no amount of pleading, persuading, or begging that your friends and family can do to do the trick. You have to WANT it and want it badly.
Same with repentance. The first step: you have to recognize that you need to change and then that you want to change. And you have to want it badly enough to make the hard decisions and choices to actually change your ways.
Just like New Year’s resolutions, it’s easy to MAKE the resolution. It’s another thing altogether to make it past January 10th. To keep the resolution.
The second step is to change your mind. To truly want to change, you have to first change your mind. This is probably the hardest step. You may make a resolution, you may decide to repent, but have you truly changed your mind about your behavior? Have you convinced yourself that this is the right thing to do, the thing you MUST do? See, we can fool ourselves. We do it all the time. We may intellectualize that this change is the right thing to do, the thing I know God wants me to do. I need to do it and I want to do it.
But it is another thing altogether to be convinced and truly convicted in your own mind.
The other implication in Jesus’s command to repent is that for us to change our behavior, there has to be a change in US first.
How can we change if we’re the same person we’ve always been? Won’t we just continue to do what we’ve always done before?
Something has to change in us, for us to change. For us to change what we do, for us to change our conversation or behavior as the scriptures say.
We have to become someone different than we’ve been in the past. We have to become a new creature. There has to be a change agent or a catalyst, if you please. Every chemist knows that a chemical reaction, which results in change, requires a catalyst, an agent of change.
For us, that agent of change is the Holy Spirit. God’s spirit comes into our hearts by the power of God, not because of anything we do, and we are born again as new creatures. Now, we can change.
Of course, Jesus knows this. When He says: “Repent!”, he is speaking to his children who hear His voice. He is speaking to His children, his sheep, who have already been born again.
John 10:27-30 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand. I and my Father are one.
John 8:43-44 Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my word. Ye are of your father the devil …
The next implication in the command to repent, is that you have the desire and the ability to change to please God. Why would Jesus tell you to repent, if you don’t have the ability to do it? Before you are born again, you don’t have this ability. Or the desire. But now you do.
Romans 3:10-12 As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.
1 Corinthians 2:14 But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
Ephesians 2:8-10 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.
Now that we’re saved by grace, we have the desire and the ability to repent and do other good works, because we are new creatures, created in Christ Jesus that we should do these good works beginning with repentance.
The last part of what Jesus tells us is not implied. He is explicit. He says that we should repent, because the kingdom of heaven is at hand. It is close. So close that we can touch it.
But this part is up to us. We have to repent. We have to turn and go the over way. Make a U-turn. And if we do, we can touch it, we can enter into the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God.
This is not the eternal heaven, not yet anyway, that we will enter someday when we die and go to be with the Lord. This is here and now.
By not agreeing with our selfish selves and by agreeing with God now, we can be a part of His kingdom right now. Here. On earth. Today.
We can enjoy the blessings of His kingdom now. No waiting.
How about it? Want to make your New Year’s resolution now?
You need to do it. You have the desire and ability to do it through the Spirit. You have it within your reach. It is at hand. You can touch it.
Why not reach out and grab it?
May the Lord richly bless you.
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