If you can turn your Bibles with me to Luke chapter 3, I'm going to be reading starting from verse 3 down to verse 9. But we're going to be dealing with the whole section all the way up to verse 14 today. Luke chapter 3, verses 3 to 9. "And he came into the district around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

And it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet, 'The voice of one crying in the wilderness, "Make ready the way of the Lord. Make his path straight; every ravine will be filled, and every mountain and hill will be brought low. The crooked will become straight, and the rough roads smooth, and all flesh will see the salvation of God.' So he began saying to the crowds who were going out to be baptized by him, 'You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come.

Therefore bear fruits in keeping with repentance, and do not begin to say to yourselves, "We have Abraham for our father." For I say to you that from these stones God is able to raise up children to Abraham. Indeed the axe is already laid at the root of the tree, so every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.'" Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, we pray for your Holy Spirit's power to move us, guide us, open our ears that we may hear from you, soften our hearts that we may be easily molded to be what you desire us to be. You are the potter, we are the clay, and we are ready to hear your word.

In Jesus' name we pray, amen. You know, I didn't mention the two things I, again I forgot to mention is next Sunday the cry room is going to be moved to the other side, okay? We're trying to prepare for the students coming and so we're going to get all that ready by this week.

And so starting from next Sunday we're going to be having the cry room. So we're setting up the different places. It'll be a little bit easier to, if you have children you need to watch. There's going to be a big screen set up, so just kind of be ready for that.

And then we're going to be opening up that area, at least the windows are going to be gone and we're going to take extra seats to be seated over there. So that's starting next week. The other thing is we're picking up India Mission trip again this winter and so the dates are January 20th through 28th.

We only have a few more spots left and so there's going to be a short trip where we leave on the 20th, come back on the 20th and come back on the 28th. If you are an eye doctor, we need you more than ever so you'll get first priority because that's the main work that we're doing.

You don't have to be an eye doctor. It is a medical mission trip but we need more assistance than doctors normally but it just happens that this year we need some more eye doctors to go. So if you're able to go, please let me know. And because there's only a small space, I actually need to know today.

So during service just raise your hand and I'll know, okay? So actually Cross Life has always joined us in this and so they're going to tell me a few people that they're able to go so we're going to have to lock up the spots today. So if God is speaking to you now, right, just as soon as possible if this is on your heart and again especially if you're an eye doctor, please let us know, okay?

Well along with that, you know years ago when we first started going out to India, we were actually warned not to go and the reason why is because this place that we were going was so deep in the boonies that even the missionaries who were stationed down in the big city in Bangalore were telling us that they don't venture out beyond two hours because after two hours the area is not developed.

There's Hindu nationalists who basically has free reign and they're telling us that this road is going to take us five hours into the boonies and so if something happens, it's going to be very difficult to get us out because there's nobody there to help us. So you know, prayed about it and we thought this work is important enough and so I remember the first year we did go, you know, we had the pastors not just here but outside the church praying for us and those of you, there's some of you who are here that went that first year in particular, we kind of had to tell people to make sure you get everything in order.

You know, if something happens, make sure that you know, that people are able to be prepared and I remember before I left, I had to leave like, you know, make sure Esther knew where all the bank accounts were. There's nothing hidden and then so you know, I didn't want to scare her but at the same time where we were going was not a safe place to go.

And so when we got there, we got on onto a car and about there was about an hour worth of road that was paved and after that it was like basically one road, dirt road, another four hours into deep part of where we were going and all of us, even though we're laughing and having fun, we're a bit nervous.

You know, we're nervous because we don't know if something does happen here, you know, man, this is a long way to go on this dirt road to come back. And so, you know, that's kind of how it started and so obviously each year we got more, more accustomed and so one of the things that I've noticed through the years, especially in the last maybe about three to four years, that there was a big sign, I think starting from the second year that Hyundai was coming.

So you know, before all the factories were out in China and Vietnam and so a lot of them are starting to come into India and Hyundai bought a huge, you know, part of land over there and so every year we went, we saw a little bit more, a little bit more being developed and now when we take that road, it's become actually one of the best highways, better than here.

It's like four lane highways on both sides and because it's headed out to nowhere other than to Hyundai that it usually doesn't have much traffic. So you have what used to take us about five and a half hours to get to where we go, now it's about three and a half and it saved us maybe about an hour, hour and a half of driving and right up to Hyundai, you know, right all of a sudden in the middle of nowhere you'll see Korean barbecue, you know, Korean spa, Korean, you see Korean signs everywhere in the middle of India, you know, and then all the roads right up to that and then right as you pass Hyundai, it gets back to the old roads, you know.

Obviously we knew something important was coming because of these roads, right? Hyundai has invested so much money right there and then they said over 30,000 people who have come just to work in that area and obviously they're, you know, wealthy people, executives and so they have to build all this infrastructure just to get this company to come in.

Obviously you know where I'm going with this, right? This road was invested because without these roads you can't get there. The text says in Luke 3, 4 to 6, that was the whole purpose of John the Baptist. Before Christ can come, John the Baptist was sent ahead of him to prepare the best roads to get to the Messiah and the way it was explained, he says, every ravine will be filled and every mountain and hill will be brought low, the crooked will become straight and the rough road smooth and all flesh will see the salvation of God.

So he was to basically prepare the road for the coming of the Messiah. So when we think of John the Baptist's ministry, right, when he comes on the scene, he doesn't come with a shovel, right? Their caterpillar, you know, wasn't there at that time. So what did he do?

He doesn't hold any office. In fact, there's no record of John the Baptist performing any miracles. So this that he's been called to do, to do, you know, basically lower the mountains and fill the ravines, all of this was by one thing. All we know about John the Baptist that he was a preacher.

The way he was going to prepare for the coming of Christ, the way he was going to prepare the road that's going to lead to Christ was through his preaching. And so we need to recognize what his preaching was. If his preaching and his message was primarily to get us to God, what was the content of his preaching?

His preaching is described for us in that prophecy of Isaiah as voice of one crying in the wilderness, crying in the wilderness. You know, the funny story about when we were doing construction in this building, we had contractors here, you know, putting windows and fortifying that room over there.

And it used to be a racquetball court in that room that where everybody's in right now. And they would ask him, what is this room for? Why are you putting windows here? And I told them that it's a cry room. And you can see the confusion on their face, like, oh, cry room, cry room.

And they didn't ask me right away, but eventually they got, they were curious and it's like, cry room? You have a separate room for people to cry? And it never dawned on me that that's how they would hear it because they're not Christians. And so I initially, I was like, you know, for the babies, right?

And then it's like, huh? And so now I have to explain to them, so, you know, young parents who have young children and if they cry, so we call it the cry room, but it's really for parents with young children. It's like, oh, that's what that means, right? When he says crying in the wilderness, it's not just referring to John the Baptist went to the wilderness and just cried all day.

Crying meaning like he was proclaiming with passion, crying, like crying out loud. That his preaching was not just nonchalant. And you know, when I think of John the Baptist being described as preaching, crying out, I think of Jonah, you know, the prophet, maybe exactly the opposite, you know, a reluctant prophet who literally had to have his arms twisted to go into Nineveh and preach a message of repentance, knowing that if they repented, that God would forgive them.

And he didn't want God to forgive them. So when he went to Nineveh, I would imagine that Jonah was not crying. Exactly the opposite. He whispered, you know, as he was walking along, it's like, "Have you ever repented or God might forgive you?" Right? He said, "I did my job!" You know what I mean?

Somebody who is saying something that they really don't care, they're just going to do the absolute minimum. I can see Jonah is the exact opposite of John the Baptist. And despite the fact this weak preacher, revival broke out in Nineveh. Well, John the Baptist was sent and he was crying out and he was pleading with the nation of Israel to prepare for his coming.

But his primary message, in fact, we don't have many things that we know about what John the Baptist said. His primary message is recorded in verse three. It says, "He preached the baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins." In a nutshell, that was his own message. Baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

Now, preaching repentance is not new to John the Baptist. If you study any part of the Old Testament prophets, their primary message was the same thing. If you do not repent, judgment is coming. That's their primary message. Almost every prophet had the same message. That because you've rebelled against God, yet you do not obey his commandment, judgment is coming.

But what makes John the Baptist's preaching unique? They called it the baptism of repentance. Again, in order to understand exactly what's going on, why baptism of repentance is described to his message, is baptism, the ceremony in and of itself, was not created new from John the Baptist. In fact, that ceremony of being dunked into the water and come out, in fact, the word "baptizo" basically means to dunk, right?

That ceremony was kind of similar to what we do today in our society, like an invocation or dedication. Many of you who are in the medical field, after you graduate and before you become, you know, like sent out to do your work, you have a white coat ceremony where they put that coat on you, and that's to kind of separate you from your civilian life so that you can serve the people.

And so it's an act of dedication, that now you're getting special permission to do this work. Well, baptism ceremony itself at that time in the secular world was used kind of like an invocation. And in particular, when somebody decided to serve as a servant in politics in Athens, they would have the ceremony signifying that they're putting down their civilian life and they're taking on this public life to serve.

So they're no longer civilians, but they are being ordained specifically to serve their people. Now, that's what baptism was for. And the reason why they dunked is to signify exactly what it signifies to us, that your old life is dead and that now you're going to begin to live a new life.

So just by saying baptism, people would have understood that that's what it is, is a special dedication. But John's baptism is not just described as baptism, but the baptism of what? Repentance. It wasn't just an invocation. It wasn't just a dedication. But baptism, the word in and of itself, metanoia, means to change your mind.

So meaning it wasn't just an external where you are living externally one way, and then now you've taken upon yourself a new job. It required repentance, a complete transformation and putting away internally and externally your old life and receiving a new life. In fact, John became so prominent in his generation, Josephus, a Jewish historian who's not a Christian, who recorded much of what was going on in Christianity at that time.

Josephus in his writing actually mentions John the Baptist, and he says this, "John's baptism required a cleansed soul." You know, all the other baptism, it was just, they were just kind of going from dedication from one way of life to a new way of life externally. But it says John's baptism required a cleansed soul.

Even Josephus, a non-Christian historian watching what was going on, understood what it meant to proclaim baptism of repentance. I think one of the best illustrations that I see in the New Testament of true repentance is Apostle Paul, you know, where he, before he met Christ, you know, he was willing to murder in the name of God, thinking that he's doing God a favor.

But then he meets Jesus and the road to Damascus, and he completely is thrown off. Everything that he knew was wrong, and he becomes blind for three days. Can you imagine for three days what was going on in his mind? He's probably sifting through the law, that everything he understood about the law may be wrong.

Everything he understood about the Messiah was wrong. In fact, everything he did, he committed murder in the name of God, was wrong. So after three days, his eyes become open. Can you imagine what that must have been like? He no longer saw anything the same way. He didn't just see that, oh, I shouldn't have done that.

Oh, maybe I should have been more vigorous in doing this. So everything after he met Christ was completely different. In fact, he was so different that even the apostles had a hard time believing. How can this be the same man? How can be this the same guy who took responsibility for the first martyr in the church?

How can be this guy be the same guy who took soldiers to go and get Christians? And it took a while to warm up to his conversion because it was so radical. See, the idea of repentance, baptism of repentance, is double-fold because baptism in and of itself means conversion.

But repentance is exponentially above that, not only externally, but internally. In every way, he's a completely new creation. And that was the preaching of John the Baptist. He was so effective in his preaching that even leaders traveled far distances, Pharisees, Sadducees, scribes, and just regular people started to come out to where he was, to some strange place in the wilderness because of his preaching.

They knew something was different about him. Remember we talked about last week, it says the word of the Lord came to him, and that was very specific about an anointed prophet who's going to come and speak for God. So it wasn't that they didn't have the word of God.

At this time, the Septuagint, the Old Testament was translated into Greek, and they had more access to the Bible, the Old Testament, than they ever had in history. I would say it would be, at least up to that point, it would be very similar to today for us. We have more access to the written word and the preaching of the written word than we have ever, any Christian has ever had in history, ever, especially me and you.

We have, our problem is what translation we should use, what Bible program, what pastor do we like? We can wake up three in the morning and hear the best preachers of our generation, just click of a button, in our car, in our ear, we can download all of that.

We have access to the written word of God more than anybody has ever. See the period that the first generation Jews had was very similar to that, because there was a period when they didn't have access to the scrolls. But during that period where they allowed, the Romans allowed them to practice their faith, that they did have access.

But the problem was when Amos said that part of the judgment, and one of the last judgments that's going to come upon the nation of Israel, is that there's going to be the famine of the word. That they're going to be staggering from place to place to hear the word of God, but they're not going to find it.

And he wasn't simply talking about they're going to lose the scroll, or they're not going to know what the Old Testament says. They had full access to that. But they didn't have a man of God speaking, speaking directly to them. Again it's much like today where we have the word of God, access to the word of God, but we are more ignorant to what the word of God says than probably ever in history.

When John the Baptist began to speak, people began to recognize this guy is not like the other scribes. He's not just regurgitating information. He's not just talking. He's not just a learned man. They could tell that he was a prophet sent from God. And so people out of curiosity began to come, and some very prominent people.

It doesn't mention here, but in the other gospels it mentions that Pharisees, people with authority, leaders of Israel, were coming to this guy at New Widener. Strange guy. His diet is weird. His dress is weird. And then his preaching is different. So you would think that when John saw these people who were coming and the crowds were growing that being aware of who is in this crowd that John the Baptist may have addressed them, saying, "My distinguished guests, thank you for traveling long distances to come here to hear a humble man." You would think that that's what he would say.

Instead, what does he say? "You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?" Basically, he said, "You snakes!" That's what came out of his mouth. These distinguished people were coming to listen to him. "You snakes!" In fact, that's probably one of the worst things that you could have called a Jew at that time.

Snake is a filthy animal. But not only is it filthy, historically, snakes is how Satan was presented at the Garden of Eden. So to call somebody a viper, and again, not only is he a snake, but a viper is venomous and is dangerous to other people. He doesn't say it here, but later on, Jesus will call them out and say, "Because of their sins and their hypocrisy, they're ruining all of Israel." And he says, "Watch out for the leaven of the Pharisees." Leaven is basically another word of saying the poison.

He goes even deeper than that. He doesn't just call them viper. He says, "You brood of vipers, not only are you a snake, your mom's a snake. Your dad's a snake. Your grandfather's a snake. Your ancestors are snakes. You come from a line of snakes." So this is the worst, most offensive thing that you could probably say to a Jew.

You think about today, what's the worst thing that you can say to somebody? Don't say it, right? Don't even think it too loud, right? Maybe racist. I mean, there's a lot of things that we could think of, and in our generation, you can get away with a lot of things, but you call somebody a racist, that's almost like the worst thing you can say, right?

Well, he goes straight to the matter. He doesn't mix words. He doesn't build up to that. He sees their sins. You brood of vipers. Jesus himself uses this term repeatedly to the Jews. Matthew 23, 33, "You serpents, you brood of vipers, how will you escape the sentence of hell?" This encounter with these fake Jews who are saying, who thought that they believed him, and Jesus encounters them in John 8, 44, and he goes straight to the matter too.

You are of your father, the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. Why is he so harsh? Why does he, why is he more gentle? He sees right through, and this is what he says in the verse saying, the reason why he is so harsh with them.

He says, "Therefore bear fruits in keeping with repentance, and do not begin to say to yourselves, we have Abraham as our father, for I say to you that from these stones God is able to raise up children to Abraham. Indeed, the ax is already laid at the root of the tree, so every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire." He's cutting through their hypocrisy because they believed that they were safe, and the people who are in the most danger in our generation are people who are in the church, may have been baptized superficially, maybe even serving in the church, maybe even leading in some sense, and yet they do not know God.

They do not know God, and so they can live their whole life thinking that they are in the front of the line in the kingdom of God, and yet when the judgment comes, the judgment is the greatest to them. John the Baptist was calling through all that fluff, all that deception, and he's cutting right through them.

He said, "You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath that comes?" You know, probably some of them were thinking that if they came, John the Baptist is becoming prominent, that so many people are going out to see him, and so they are so committed to their own glory that maybe if we attached ourselves to this prophet, maybe that's where we need to be.

So they were coming out to be baptized without genuinely repenting. That's what he means. "Who told you to flee? You think that just going into the water and coming out is going to cause you to be right with God because you're descendants of Abraham?" There's a reason why he says, "You brood of vipers." You're not true descendants of Abraham.

The true spiritual descendancy that you're from is Satan himself. That's what he means by this. And he says the consequence of their fake repentance is that the ax is laid down to be cut down and be thrown into the fire. Jesus himself says this in John chapter 15. "Every branch in me that does not bear fruit, he takes away, and every branch that bears fruit, he prunes it so that it may bear more fruit.

If anyone does not abide in me, and he is thrown away as a branch and dries up, and they gather them and cast them into the fire, and they are burned." Now what is the consequence of somebody who has fake repentance and there's no fruit? He doesn't say he does not bear any fruit that God is going to put him in timeout.

He doesn't say if you don't bear any fruit that your repentance is fake. It's only external, but there's nothing, no real transformation going on, no real fruit going on. He doesn't say you shouldn't be a leader or you need better discipleship. He doesn't say that. He said he who bears no fruit, he's going to cut down and be thrown into the fire.

That doesn't sound like pruning to me. That doesn't sound like better discipleship. He says no, you're in danger of hell. That's what he's saying. You can be more clear than that. Having no fruit or repentance is not just feeling bad. Call to repentance is not to call to feel bad about what you did this week.

I feel bad. So much sometimes of our repentance is, "Hey, I struggle with pornography," and I say, "I feel bad." But thank God. Thank God God is gracious. And then you fall, and then you go back two, three days later, and you go through the same act and you go over and over and over, and all you're doing is commiserating with other people and never truly repenting.

Repenting is not feeling bad about the situation that you're in. Repenting means to turn away, to put that away, to do everything in your power to put that away. If we actually knew how God feels about sin, we wouldn't be so nonchalant. You know, I know that there's people in this room who your internal clock is broken, right?

And you almost say, "I can't help it." So we may have a meeting at 10, you show up at 10.15 or 10.20. It's like almost predictable you're going to be 10, 15 minutes late. "I can't help it. I can't help it." But no matter how broken your internal clock is, if you knew the serious consequence of being late, you will show up on time.

So I don't know anybody who is late to everything else, but is also late to their flight. Because if you're late to your flight, the door's closed and you're gone, whatever money you paid is squashed. So "I can't help it. I can't help it." All of a sudden, you can help it because you're afraid of the consequence.

"I can't help it. I can't help it." And all of a sudden, you show up to work on time because if you don't show up to work on time, you get fired. So it's not that you can't help it, but you don't think the consequence is serious enough to get to that point, right?

If we understood how God views sin, we wouldn't be so nonchalant. Call to repentance isn't simply, "You should feel bad about where you're at. You should feel bad." That's exactly what John the Baptist was cutting through. He said, "Go with it. Bear fruit with repentance." If you're going to genuinely repent, turn from your sin.

Instead of just saying, "I feel bad. I shouldn't have done that." That's what John is saying. Years ago, we were at Together for the Gospel. At the Together for the Gospel, they would have the speakers come up and sit in a half circle and they asked a question, Q&A session.

One of the questions that came in from the pastors was, "How would you counsel a guy in the church who continues to struggle with pornography and he just can't conquer his sin? What would you counsel him?" And you know what John the Baptist, John Piper, right? I did the same thing at first service.

John Piper basically said, "Tell him he's going to hell." The whole room just erupted in laughter, thinking like, "Oh, it must be a joke." So hyperbole, you know, John Piper is just kind of joking. And after the laughter just started to die down a little bit, he said, "No, I'm dead serious.

I'm quoting scripture." And then he took out Mark chapter 9, 43, says, "If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than having your two hands to go into hell, into the unquenchable fire where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched." Jesus says that about the hand, about the foot, and about the eyes.

And so John Piper basically was answering that maybe he doesn't understand the consequence of continuing to sin without true repentance, that it may not be true, that his faith may not be true. If he just confesses like, "Oh, yeah, you know, I didn't believe in God, but now I believe in God.

I wasn't sure about the resurrection, so now I do believe in the resurrection. I didn't believe these set of truths, but now I believe in these set of truths. And the rest of it is one saved, always saved. And so how I live, what I do, what I invested, it doesn't matter anymore because one saved, always saved." Pure rubbish.

If we read the scriptures for ourselves and instead of having security over sermons and maybe articles or things that you've heard from other people thinking that your sin does not matter is an outright lie. The same God who hated sin to the point where he abolished all of creation with the exception of eight is the same God that we will meet when we die.

He's not a lesser God. He's not any less holy than that same God. He hates sin equally. The same God who wiped out the earth warns us that when we meet him, unconfessed, unrepentant, it is the same holy, holy, holy God that you will meet. And if anybody has convinced you otherwise, they are a false prophet.

If you have convinced yourself that that is not the case, you do not know what the scripture says. There is a reason why John the Baptist cut through all of that bull. Because in order for them to be saved, they needed to know where they were. If they left thinking they're secure because they have these external things that they are doing, you have given security to somebody who's going to hell.

That's why men of the past who preached the word of God preached with the same kind of vigor. John the Baptist preached crying in the wilderness. He cried because he was crying for their salvation to prepare for the coming of Christ. Jonathan Edwards, as you guys know, gave a sermon called "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God." And it was a catalyst for the great awakening in America.

Revival broke out. Consider what we consider a good sermon today versus Jonathan Edwards that caused the revival to break out in this country. And I'm only giving you a very small snippet of his sermon. He says this, "The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you and is dreadfully provoked.

His wrath towards you burns like fire. He looks upon you as worthy of nothing else but to be cast into the fire. He is of pure eyes and to bear to have you in his sight. You are ten thousand times more abominable in his eyes than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours.

You have offended him infinitely more than ever a stubborn rebel did his prince. And yet it is nothing but his hand that holds you from falling into the fire. Every moment is to be ascribed to nothing else that you did not go to hell the last night, that you were suffered to awake again in this world after you closed your eyes to sleep.

And there is no other reason to be given why you have not dropped into hell since you arose in the morning, but that God's hand has held you up. There is no other reason to be given why you have not gone to hell since you have sat here in the house of God, provoking his pure eyes by your sinful, wicked manner of attending his solemn worship.

Yea, there is nothing else that is to be given as a reason why you do not this very moment drop down to hell. That's a very small portion of his whole sermon, "Sin is in the Hands of an Angry God." Josh Moody, who is a historian of Jonathan Edwards, writes about this particular sermon.

He says this, "On this day in history, Jonathan Edwards started a sermon that he did not finish. Such was the impact of his preaching that the people listening shrieked and cried out, and crying and weeping became so loud that Edwards was forced to discontinue the sermon. Instead, the pastors went down among the people and prayed with them in groups.

Many came to save knowledge of Christ that day." And it wasn't limited to his church. Other pastors began to repent and they began to preach warning. And many, many people began to come and gave their life to Christ during this period. In fact, so many people came to Christ and there were so many raw emotions that broke out in the middle of these preachings that Jonathan Edwards actually had to write a book to clarify.

Religious affections. What is true repentance? What is fake repentance? There's a lot of people who are crying and being baptized and so many things are happening. So he had to cut through all of that and he had to, if you've ever read that book, half of it is about this is fake.

You can cry and be fake. You can go to church and be fake. You can be a leader and be fake. You can preach and be fake. You can give and be fake. You can become a missionary and be fake. And then after he does that, he begins to break down.

What does the Bible say about true repentance? What does true affection look like? We have become so familiar with sin in our generation that we are more concerned about offending sinners than offending a God who has been offended. God is the one who is offended. Not me and you.

You and I have received the grace of God. He could have just wiped us away. God's the one who's offended. But we're so concerned that we allow all kinds of sins to exist in the church and so concerned about sinners feeling uncomfortable with this type of preaching that we water down and misrepresent this holy God.

There is no reverence of God in our generation because we have had to water it down to allow the sinners to feel comfortable in the midst of our fellowship. It is not that God doesn't want sinners in the church. It is not that God doesn't desire to have the sinners come to Christ, but they must come to Christ in His terms.

In the terms that He has given us. Not what we have created in our generation. Not so that majority of them can come without feeling offended, but by the terms that He has created. And the only way that we can get to Him is through true repentance. True repentance.

You cannot live day to day unrepentant and wanting to fit in at church. You cannot be a part of the fellowship unrepentant week after week, year after year, and desire to be one of the group. We cannot. This is the body of Christ. This is the temple of God.

And He who destroys the body, the Bible says the judgment is coming upon Him as well. Apostle Peter, after the resurrection of Christ, he began to preach the gospel. And this is a man, before he met the resurrected Christ, was cowering in fear because he was afraid the same thing was going to happen to him.

And yet, after the resurrection, being filled with the Holy Spirit, is speaking in front of a similar crowd that crucified him, says this. Men of Israel, listen to these words. Jesus of Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs, which God performed through him in your midst, just as you yourselves know, this man delivered over by the predetermined plan and for knowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put him to death.

He didn't say, well, some of you guys weren't there, it's not really your fault. You know, maybe it was the leader's fault. You didn't really mean it. You didn't really understand. He cuts through all of that and said, no, you did it. You turned on him. You crucified him.

And the reason why he says that is because you can't repent if you don't own up to your own sins. If you come to God and say, well, I am the way I am because the way my mom treated me, that's not repentance. I am the way I am because my leaders did this.

That's not repentance. I did what I did because of my circumstance, because of my past, because I've been backstabbed by my friends, because of the fellowship. That's not repentance. Repentance is coming before God, beating our chest, asking for forgiveness. It was me. It was my corrupt nature. It was my sin.

I did it. I did it. I wanted it. I was lustful. I was coveting. I'm the one who lied. I, it's me. Versus the Pharisee who came up and said, well, thank God I'm not as bad as that guy. See, until we recognize the need, the desperate need of a savior, it's just an encouraging message.

It's just a security blanket. It's just insurance just in case, after everything good that we've experienced here so that we can also have everything good afterlife. But when we actually recognize who we are and what we have done and what we deserve, Christ is not somebody to be appreciated from a distance.

He is our life. He's our life. Not just for eternity, but for today. For today, I need Him. The anger, I can't overcome my own anger. I need Him. I can't overcome my own lust. I need Him. My bitterness, I can't. I need Him. I need a savior to save me from my own sins.

When Peter preached this sermon, there are peers to the heart in verse 37, it says, now when they heard this, they were peers to the heart and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, brethren, what shall we do? Peter said to them, repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins.

He says, repent. Compare that to our generation. When somebody wants to come to Christ, he said, well, find a good church. Make sure you got a small group. Make sure there's people your age, similar, that can walk with you, you know, live with you. You know, like make sure you have similar doctrines and, you know, somebody near you so it's not so inconvenient that you have to drive so far.

Think about all the things that we tell people. Again, if all of those things are available, great, blessing to you. But the answer that he gave was repent. Repent. All that you need for a life of godliness has been given to you in the knowledge of His Son, Jesus Christ.

For those of you who already did Bible study, right? Everything that you need has been given to you. So if you're sitting there in want, I can't because of this. I can't because of that. That's an excuse, unwilling to repent. If I can't pray, I can't pray because other people are not praying with me.

I can't pray because it's too hot in here. I can't pray because it's too far. I can't pray because I wasn't taught to pray. That's all an excuse. Because it says everything that you need for a life in godliness has been given to you. Not will be given to you, but it has been given to you.

And the only thing that we need to do to get to Christ is true repentance. Recognize our sins and repent and the doors will be open. Recognize our sins and repent and the mountains will be cut down and the ravines will be raised up. He says to repent. You know what's interesting is whenever strong sermons are given, the people who normally need to hear usually gets offended.

And the people who I look at and say, wow, they're really doing well. They're the ones who usually say, thank you for that sermon. That's exactly what happens here. John the Baptist gives and he calls them out on their sin. And the Pharisees and the leaders are offended. And from that moment on, they're like, that guy is a false prophet.

They start distancing himself with them. They didn't have to get rid of him because eventually Herod gets rid of him. But Jesus comes and he takes the baton and he goes even further than John the Baptist. And they want to make sure that this doesn't happen again. So that's why they end up crucifying him.

Some of them are convicted to the heart. In verse 10, it says, and the crowds were questioning him saying, then what shall we do? If you're calling us out and my repentance is not genuine, what shall we do? He responds in verse 11, and he would answer and say to them, the man who has two tunics is to share with him who has none.

And he who has food is to do likewise. If you look at Acts chapter 2, that's exactly what happens. People who are wealthy were selling their possessions and they were passing it out. And people were living together, being generous. Now why does he point this out? I mean, Jesus himself said you can't serve two mammons.

You can't have two gods. Either you will serve money or you will serve God. But you're not going to do both. If after claiming to know Christ and your spending habit is no different than somebody who does not know Christ, then maybe there was a repentance externally. Maybe you were baptized, but it wasn't true baptism.

There's no fruit. Now the Bible didn't call everybody to live poor. He didn't say you have to sell all your possessions. And in essence, the fire actually get into trouble because of that, because they pretended. He said that wasn't required of you. But the reason why he points this out is because of that, that we can, we can sacrifice what is less.

But he says, Jesus himself said, right, your heart is where your treasure is. So he said, take your treasure and invest it in things that will last. And he goes on and he says in Luke chapter 3 verse 12, and some tax collectors also came to be baptized and said to him, teacher, what shall we do?

And he said to them, collect no more than what you have been ordered to. Some soldiers were questioning him, questioning him saying, and what about us? What shall we do? And he said to them, do not take money from anyone by force or accuse anyone falsely and be content with your wages.

One thing I want to point out here is that he's referring to their jobs, right? Their jobs. Because that's where they spend the most of their time. You know, we kind of have a tendency to compartmentalize like we're righteous at church, but then that's where we turn it off, right?

We're godly at church, but then at home we're a completely different person. Or maybe you're good at home, but then you're lousy at work. That's for some reason we compartmentalize where we bear fruit and then the other parts where people are not watching, it doesn't really matter. So he goes straight to them.

He doesn't say, make sure you come to the temple more often. He said, make sure that your sacrifices are really clean, you follow the order. And all of that is true and is important, but he goes straight to the matter where the rubber meets the road, it's at their job.

Make sure that there's true fruit in what you're doing, that the world may see that there was true baptism of repentance. Let me wrap up this morning. You cannot have peace of God without having peace with God. Let me say that again. You cannot. It is impossible. It is unbiblical to have peace of God without peace with God.

How much of your frustration in your walk with God that sometimes you blame God for is because you do not have peace with God. You want to have a relationship with God on your terms and God repeatedly tells you no. You cannot and you will not. You cannot come to God with unconfessed sins.

You cannot come to God when you sweep it under the rug. When you can, you cannot come to God if repeatedly all you are doing is feeling bad and there's no true turning from sins internally or externally. You cannot have peace of God in your home. You cannot have peace with God in your marriage.

You cannot have peace with God at church, with your relationships until there is peace with God. And the only way that you can have peace with God is true repentance. True repentance. The good news of the gospel isn't that a holy God looked at your sin and said, "You know what?

I'm not going to keep you accountable. I'm going to die on the cross." And then from that moment on, when you confess, you don't have to worry about sin. That's not the gospel. The gospel is, the good news is that if you repent, he will forgive you. That's the gospel.

If you repent, he will forgive you. It's not if you feel bad, he will forgive you. If you repent, he will forgive you. Isaiah 29, 13, "And the Lord said, 'Because these people draw near with their words and honor me with their lip service, but they remove their hearts far from me and their reverence for me consists of tradition learned by rote.'" It just became habit.

Everything I know about my walk with God is just habit. But there's no true worship happening. Jesus repeats those same words, Matthew 15, 7-9, "You hypocrites, rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you. These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts is far away from me. But in vain do they worship me in teachings and doctrines, the precepts of men." John the Baptist's message is loud and clear.

Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Jesus comes on the scene, he takes the baton and he says, "Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." He gave that baton to the apostles and the apostles began to preach, "Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." And then he gave that baton to the pastors and evangelists and missionaries to say, "Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." Whether that is in the first century or 2,000 years later, the message has not changed.

Even if you don't hear it, even if it's not a popular message, the commission that we have been given to take to the world has not changed. We can only come to Christ by the road that he has paved for us, which is repentance, true repentance. I pray that this message will be loud and clear to all of us.

Yes, we wrestle, we struggle, we get tempted, we covet, but do not ever think that that is okay. The God who is holy, holy, holy calls us to himself and because of his grace, sinners who are undeserving, when we repent, we'll find refuge in him. But we must repent.

We must repent. Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Let's pray. Lord, we plead for your grace. Lord, if we have become low to sleep in our compromise, I pray you would open our eyes. As Paul's scales fell from his eyes and he repented, was never the same.

Lord, help us. Lord, we believe help our unbelief. Help us to see the things that we covet is leading us to destruction. Help us to see and number our days that all that we rejoice over is temporary. Lord, help us, Lord God. Lord, all the time, energy and money that we are putting in so that we can have a better retirement, help us, Lord, to see eternity, that we may invest in things, Lord God, that will never fade, spoil or perish.

Lord, as you've called people to repent, to confess our sins, to cling to our savior, that the only thing that can cleanse us from our own guilt is the blood of Christ, help us, Lord God, cling to him with all our might. Lead us that we may honor you, worship you in spirit and in truth.

In Jesus' name we pray, amen.