If you'll remain standing, you know, we've got some special people in this room today that we want to take a moment right now as a church to pray for our students, our teachers, faculty, professors, whichever category that may mean to you or fit for you. So I don't think it's too hard to figure out which one our students are. Give me an "oh yeah" right now. There's one student in the room. Kids, I just gave you the invitation.

Let's try that again. Kids, if you're in the room, say, "Oh yeah." Wow.

Lick my wound later. But you know, some of you in this room, you're a teacher, you're a faculty member, you're an administrator, and I don't know that the rest of us in this room know the sacrifice you make, the heartaches that you carry, the things that you see, You see, I would argue that being a teacher is one of the greatest callings that someone could ever commit to do. You see, Martin Luther talked about how if you think about the word vocation, the root of that word is vocal. All of us have a calling. If you work at a bank, your calling is there.

If you work in business, your calling is, is there. I'm not the only one called in this room, you know that, right? And teachers, you are called to an incredible work. In fact, I would say you have the greatest exposure to the world to spread the gospel than anybody else in this room. Amen.

And you know, we can pray for protection today. We want that, right? But you know, there's nothing new under the sun. We've all been exposed to the evils of this world for a long, long time. But we know where our culture is today.

But rather than just praying the evil away, why don't we pray, God, what can we do to make a difference? And so here's what I want to do. So kids, if you're near your parents, I want you to hold hands. See, that's not weird. Shouldn't be.

And kids, if your mom or dad's a parent or a faculty member or professor, whatever they may do, I want you to hold their hand. And if you're near them, you know, reach toward them and let's pray that they would have opportunity this year to be salt and light on their campus. Yes, I want you to be protected. I don't want any bad things happening. That'd be, that'd be weird.

What I want to see is the gospel of Christ permeated in our community right now as we're sitting here. Even as you think about our sister churches that are meeting this morning to worship, there's still about 85% of people sitting at home, or about the business. There's a large number of people who aren't connected to church, and there's a lot of people who don't know Jesus. He's called us to go. And so, Father, as we pray this morning, God, yes, first we do pray for a fantastic year.

We pray for our students that, that they would learn— that's what they're going for— that you stretch them, give them opportunity, place friends in their life. Watch over them. Lord, we pray for our campuses, that you would hold back the evil sometimes that our world throws at them. God, we pray for our teachers. What a great calling they have on their life, that they would have a connection with those kids, that when they see needs, that you give them the ability to meet them, that with their words and their actions they will proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ, that they could bring hope Some teachers in this room are going, "I can't wait for this week." Some teachers in this room are like, "Oh my gosh." For both of them, give them the strength, the courage, and the stamina.

For our friends at our colleges at Toccoa Falls and others, God, be with those professors and the faculty as these kids come back. Be with the lunchroom workers and the janitors. All of them. They all have this calling to be salt and light to our campus. So Lord, would you today touch them, give them what they need, be with them in Jesus' name.

And everybody said amen. Thank you guys so much. You can be seated. And as you're sitting down, if you go ahead and take your Bible or your device, go to Mark 1. Mark chapter 1.

We're going to be looking at quite a few verses today, but I want to start there to kind of set up the message, uh, we're gonna, we're gonna talk about But before that, I need to do some, some housekeeping. So if you just bear with me for a moment, uh, let's start with our Brazil team. Uh, Randy texted this morning, they've already had such a great week. Um, they are on the ground, they've been building each morning and working VBS at night. And what's incredible about the church that they are working with is it's right next to an apartment complex.

And so today Ebenezer gets to have a part of seeing a church continue the work where they are planted. And you are a big part of that. Because if you're giving— because if you're giving to Give to Go specifically, we're able to go and help the people with which we partner. So thank you guys. From Randy, he, he sends his welcome, his greetings.

But continue praying for them. He sent me a picture of a couple in our church standing next to a guy dressed in a Jesus outfit. And it said, "Jesus te ama." Y'all know Spanish? It says, "Jesus loves you." But what's incredible, and it's not my story to tell. I'm going to ask their forgiveness rather than their permission.

They married a month ago. And their honeymoon is this week. They decided to, instead of going to a beach or a resort or anywhere else, they went to Brazil for their honeymoon to build a church. I think that's incredible. And so as we say often, I mean, I'll be honest with you, I sat this morning thinking about what all is going on in our church and I liken it to somebody when you're going down a 4-lane.

I don't know if this bothers you. It bothers me. Plus not turning your blinker on.

It's 2 inches from your finger. Just pfft.

When somebody goes to pass you and then they stop, they don't go backwards, they don't go forwards, you ease up, they ease up. The solution to that is press the gas. Thank you, Joe.

We haven't let up and we're not going to let up. We've got a lot of stuff going on. As Crosby mentioned to you, our Wednesday nights start back this week. And folks, listen, if you're coming to an adult gather group this Wednesday, we do need you to sign up. Why?

Because we got a plan. Kevin's got to make rooms. We may have to— I mean, if we get enough, we may have to add teachers, and they need time to study. So please, today, go on the Church Center app, sign up for a class. That way we can make some plans, because we start Wednesday at 6:30.

And is it not a great blessing for our students to have this designated space? To be able to worship. To gather. To connect. And impact the next generation.

All of this is so exciting. And so this week we got a lot to do. Pray for stamina. These chairs are not going to walk themselves over this parking lot. And so we just— we have so much to do.

Tomorrow, not letting off the gas. I want you to come back tomorrow morning at 6 AM.. It's our day of prayer. We didn't cancel it because we're doing construction. We need you to come.

We're going to meet in here. And one thing I'm asking you to do— I've got a stack of prayer cards on my desk this tall from the last 8 months. Some of them we don't know if they've been answered, not answered. We don't know. Some of them aren't signed.

We don't know who they belong to. So up here on the stage and during the invitation or after service today, come get a blank card. If you've done a prayer request before and it's still bearing on you, come fill out a new card. If you've got a new request, come fill out a new card. We need new cards.

So during the invitation, there's a stack there, there's a stack here, there's a stack here. Come and fill out a new card and bring it to me. Leave it on the stage and these will be ready for tomorrow. Thank you guys. That's a lot of stuff.

That's your infomercial for the day. Let's pray and go home. I'm just kidding. I've got an hour and a half.

March 22nd, 1977 is etched in our history as one of the most, if not the worst aviation accidents in history. Off the coast of Spain at an airport, a KLM and a Pan Am flight sat waiting to take off.. It was foggy. There were all kinds of things going on, not to mention probably a language barrier. Both planes were sitting there ready.

And in the fog, the KLM crew radioed the tower and said this, "We are now at takeoff." Now I want you to think about that phrase. Let me say it again. "We are now at takeoff." Well, what did that mean? I mean, if you've ever spoken to somebody else whose native language isn't English and they're saying something back to you, a lot of times you don't understand. Like, I don't know if you know this or not, English is dumb.

Our language is the worst. I went to seminary and took Greek to learn English. I mean, it's just hard to understand. And so he says, we are now at takeoff. Did that mean they were in position?

Did that mean they were ready? Or did it mean they were in the process of taking off at that moment? Well, the control tower understood that they were ready for takeoff. But the pilot meant, "I'm hitting the throttle." And the Pan Am flight was still on the runway. And that day, 538 people lost their lives and 61 people ended up in the hospital.

Because, they said, one major contributing factor was inadequate and ambiguous communication.

Words matter. They do. If you text your wife and say, "I need you to pick up a few things." Well, what are the things? That's very ambiguous. You need to speak with specificity.

Because clarity matters so much that if you don't, the consequences can be serious.

For example, there's a reason, unless you've been to Europe and driven on the wrong side of the road on the wrong side of the car, you realize we drive on the right side of the road. How awkward it would be if you went out to 365, Highway 17, and drove on the wrong side of the road. Now you may be skilled enough to dodge and play frogger, between all of those cars coming at you. But eventually you're going to lose that battle and someone's going to hit you. Or in fact, you're going to hit them because they're going the right way.

You're going the wrong way. We cannot leave ourself to implicit information. When it comes to spirituality, we're dealing with life and death. We're dealing with eternity. We're dealing with things that matter and we need clarity.

And a lot of times in church, we focus on things that are very minor and we don't talk about things that are major. We'll argue over what song we need to sing, but we won't extend forgiveness. Now, which of those two things are talked about in Scripture? Should we use the King James Bible or another Bible? If the King James is the only Bible— can I get in your stuff today?

If it's the only Bible, then what are the other people who don't speak English doing? What did people do for 1,600 years? It wasn't translated till 1611. And I'll be honest with you, I sat with someone 2 weeks ago who brought in their King James Bible and had no clue what it was saying. But we'll argue over Bible translation.

We'll argue whether we should be congregational, Episcopal, or Presbyterian. We'll argue over whether we should be Calvinist or Arminian. And all these ologies and isms are, are mixed in, and it divides us. It makes us cocky and arrogant while people are dying and going to hell.

I need clarity about what my Lord needs me to do, and I need to major on what is clear. Some truths are implicit. Let me give you an example. How many of you believe in the Trinity of God? Go ahead and look in your Bible and find the word Trinity for me and bring it up to me after church.

You won't find it. But we know systematically, we go through the Scripture, that the Father is God. We know that the Son is God. And we know that the Spirit is God. We know from Deuteronomy 6:4, "O hear, O Israel." Our God is— y'all say it out loud.

Don't be afraid. I'm not going to bark at you. He's one. Three persons but one God. So you won't find the word Trinity, but we believe in Trinity.

There's a lot of other things in Scripture that are very explicit. Matthew 28:6, the angel said to the lady, "He, Jesus, is not here." for he has risen. Tell me, is there any ambiguity in that? Is there any room for debate about that? Jesus was born to a virgin Mary, Matthew chapter 1.

Those are things we die for. I'm not going to die for whether we should sing Amazing Grace or contemporary. You think that's— I mean, honestly, in the eyes of God it's silly, and in the eyes of Satan it's just candy. There's one more thing I can do to drive a wedge between somebody else. If we would follow the explicit commands of Jesus Christ, do you know how different church would be today?

And we follow Jesus Christ out of a heart of love. Jesus said in John 14:15, "If you might love me, you will keep my commands." Jesus said in the Great Commission,— to go into all the world baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Teaching them to obey what I've commanded. For the next few weeks, I want to talk to us about explicit discipleship.

I want us to focus in on the very clear, straightforward commands that we've been given from scripture. In fact, I have 4 goals. Number 1. I want us to hear and be reminded of the foundational truths that are key to our faith and following Christ. 2 Timothy 2:5 says, "Be diligent to present yourselves approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the Word of Truth." Number 2, I want us to commit to do with certainty what Christ has told us to do.

James 1:22 says, "But prove yourselves to be doers of the Word and not merely hearers." But there's more. "Who delude themselves." If you only hear and you do not do, you're deceiving yourself. Do you truly believe in the Word of God who is Jesus Christ? Is He living in my life? Is the Holy Spirit driving me to faith-filled living?

Number 3, I want you to consider while we go through this study, am I following Jesus out of a heart of love and allegiance or for selfish gain? "If you love me, you will keep my commandments." Number 4, months ago we talked about this year being the Year of Reach. We've talked about the importance of prayer. We've studied prayer. We're doing prayer.

We're doing it tomorrow. We pray so that we might prepare to share the gospel. We've done classes. We're going to do another one starting this Wednesday called Sharing Jesus Without Freaking Out. Without losing your mind.

Like, you can do it. All of us can do it. Share his story.

But we need you to participate. I can't do that. You can't? You can't give a reason for the hope that you have? Then you need to question your hope.

We want to be able— my fourth goal in this is to incorporate a means that you can take these points and work them into a conversation. We know that Isaiah 55:11 says God's word does not return void. So let's be sharers of His Word. Let's focus the next few weeks. It's gonna be an— it's gonna be an olethic series.

It'll go through October. But I want us to focus on explicit stated truths Jesus has called us to do. And I'm gonna go ahead and tell you, you can't do it. But the Spirit of God can do it through you. If we are living a life that is yielded in faith and repentance.

So stand with me as we hit the first truth today. I want you to hear me read 2 verses out of Mark. Mark 1:4 and Mark 1:15.

John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sin. You go down through there a little while. You go through Jesus' baptism, His temptation. And just like Matthew 4, we see it here. "After now John had been taken into custody, Jesus came into Galilee preaching the gospel of God." And what was that?

"The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe." in the gospel. Say, "Repent and believe." Repent and believe. Father, that's what we offer to you as our prayer today, God, that we would repent because you commanded us to, and that we would believe in the one who died to set us free from our sin. In Jesus' name, amen.

You can be seated.

The beginning of both John the Baptist and Jesus And their ministry started with these phrases, "Repent and believe." The Kingdom of God is the highest authority. We can't touch it. We can't smell it. But His Kingdom is over all. And our King, King Jesus, when He came and He appeared, when they said that the Kingdom had come, it was because the King had come.

Jesus was coming to die and pay the price for our sin. So that sin would no longer have dominion over you. That the darkness and the reign of Satan would no longer have dominion over us. The kingdom had come. And the doorway into that kingdom was the cross.

Jesus Christ died so that you and I could be in the kingdom of God.

Richard Owen Roberts wrote a book called Repentance: The First word of the gospel. And he wrote these words. The first word of the gospel is not love. It's not even grace. The first word of the gospel in Mark 1, Matthew 3, Matthew 4 is repent.

He later states repentance is not the entry ticket into the kingdom of God. The cross is. But it is a condition of citizenship. In other words, if I'm not living a life of repentance, I'm not in the kingdom.

Repentance is an insider's way of thinking. And it's just that. It's repentance. A new good friend of mine and I were talking about this this week. And he said, "Y'all, watch this video." And the guy said, "There's more to repentance than just turning from sin." And that's absolutely true.

That's what you've been preached. You need to turn from sin. But it's not enough. If I just turn from sin and I don't have a new direction, again, it's like I'm driving down the wrong side of the road. I can pull off on the side of the road, but which way am I supposed to go?

When you look at the Old Testament, you begin to see bore out this idea that Israel had turned away from God. And God was saying, "Return to me." It's a change of thinking. In fact, when you study the Old Testament. For example, like Joel 2:12-13. It reads, "Yet even now," declares the Lord, "return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning." Why?

Because sin has destroyed your life. And he says, 'Rend your heart.' Not your garments. Your garments was an external way of saying, 'I'm in grief.' He's saying, 'I want you to rend your heart and return to the Lord your God.' Why? Because he's gracious. He's compassionate.

He's slow to anger, abounding in loving kindness, and relenting or repenting of evil. In other words, he says, 'You turn to me and I'll turn off the valve.' That word, it's a weird word, it's shub. It literally means to return. Most of you today, when you leave this room, will return to your home. And God's inviting us, commanding us to repent.

And return to Him.

Do you know Jesus today?

How long have you been coming to church but you don't really know Him? Do you know Jesus today? Because if you simply decided you were going to stop sinning and think life was going to get better, it didn't, did it? Unless you turn and return, it's not repentance. In fact, if you go to Job 42:5-6, you see another word in the Hebrew language, 'naham.' I had to do that.

I had something stuck in my throat.

Y'all get it later. Job, after God had shown up and said, 'Okay, Job, if you're so smart, tell me where you were when I told the oceans to come this far and when I made this and I made this,' and it shut him down. And Job says, 'I have heard of you By the hearing of the ear. But now I see you with my eyes. And he says, therefore I retract.

He kept saying, if God would just hear me out. If God would just give me audience. He said, and I repent in dust and ashes. This word means to change the mind. Job, even though he was a righteous man, his thinking was misguided.

Today he's inviting you to do the same. I love. I have a thousand— How many Greek words are in the Bible? That's how many favorite Greek words I have. Well, this is one of them.

Metanoia. Meta-no-eo in the verb form. Now I've impressed you with my vocabulary. Just kidding. There's nothing impressive about it.

I love the word. It's a compound word. Meta is a preposition that means with. Noeo is to perceive and to think. So when I metaneto, I am changing my mind.

Because if my mind changes, my thinking changes, my behavior will follow. If I simply just try to modify my behavior, that's not repentance.

That's behavior therapy. We do that with dogs all the time. You're more than a dog. You know that? God created you and I just a little bit lower than angels.

Guys, we're better.

We change our mind. Jeremiah said in 29:13, "You will seek and find me when you seek after me with your whole heart." When your heart and your volition is in line with the thinking. They didn't think about it. Well, you have a heart. You have a mind.

You have behavior. It was all one thing wrapped up together. And He's calling us to repent, to turn away, and to return to our God who is compassionate. That we can come boldly to His throne of grace to receive mercy, to find mercy and receive that grace in time of need. Our God's got His arms stretched out and He's saying, "Come to Me, all of you who are heavy laden." and I will give you rest.

Are you tired of driving down the wrong side of the road? The only answer is to pull up that emergency brake and do a 180 and start driving the right way.

One commentator said this: In the New Testament, the term repent is understood against Old Testament, against Jewish background, where there is no distinction between thought, heart, or action. To repent means to turn away from ignorance, to turn away from guilt, to turn away from wickedness, to turn away from evil, to confess sin, and to give up sin. And I'd say surrender.

Here, God.

I surrender. I surrender. I'd rather be shackled to my Lord Jesus than shackled to sin and death. And that's the essence of what it means to repent. So today I want to invite you— let me pull out this little page right here— we're going to look at the reason.

Well, there's lots of nuances. I know I could probably do a whole series on repentance. But again, remember, I'm just focusing in on the command. The command to repent. It's explicit.

It's not ambiguous. Have you repented? Are you living a life of repentance? And how are you inviting others to do the same? Does that two honks mean I'm going the right way or the wrong way?

The reason. But then there's also the reality. The reality that this invitation and this call is given to everybody. And finally, there's a response. There has to be a response from us because I bear responsibility for my sin.

Jesus bore my sin on the cross, and he didn't have to, but he took it upon himself, bore my responsibility on the cross so I could be forgiven of my sin. So the least I can do is take responsibility for what repentance should look like in my life. And so point number 1 today— I'm going to give you 3 points We're going to start with the reason. The reason that we must repent. The reason that it's staring at us today is because everyone is lost and guilty.

Everyone is lost and guilty. The philosophy of our modern time says, "If I do good things, I must be a good person." And because everyone has set themselves up as judge of right and wrong, that if it seems good and is deemed good in my eyes, it must be good. We're no different than the book of Judges. When there was no king, everyone did what was right in their own eyes. But what they were doing was nowhere near right.

It was wrong.

Paul was addressing those gathered on Mars Hill, addressing the polygamy, the multiple worship of gods of the Grecians and the Athenians. And he says in his discourse, "Therefore," God, having overlooked the times of agnostik— it's the same word we had in 1 Thessalonians 4:13— to ignore knowledge, God is now declaring to all men that all people everywhere should repent. He didn't go into an argument about who Jesus was, what Jesus was. He started with the first word of the gospel.

Repent. Because he fixed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness through a man whom he had raised and appointed. When Jesus Christ appeared and John and Jesus begin to call people to repentance, because the kingdom had come, the king had come. But because of my sin, because I am lost, because I am guilty, I can't just get a key and walk right into the gates of heaven.

The entrance is the key shaped as a cross that's covered with the blood of Jesus. That's what's going to get me into the kingdom. Doing a bunch of good works will not get me into the kingdom. Faith in Christ connected with repentance. That's why I got kids in the room right now.

Kids, if the only thing you know about Jesus and being saved is that you ask Jesus into your heart, I'm telling you, that's incomplete. If you're an adult and you say, "Well, no, I was 7. I asked Jesus into my heart." Jesus isn't in your heart.

Where is Jesus? He's sitting at the right hand of God. And if you believe that Jesus is in your heart, you've removed Him from His place of authority. You've moved Him from His place of intercession. I want Jesus exactly where He is.

And if he's not there, that means he's come back. You know who lives inside of you? The Holy Spirit lives inside of you. The Paraclete lives inside of you. The power of God lives inside of you.

The presence of God lives inside of you. The direction of God lives inside of you. The enablement of God lives inside of you. I want the Spirit inside of me. And I want Jesus interceding for me.

To my Father. And the time, he said, is now. He appeared and he's calling men everywhere, not just the Jews, but even us Gentiles, to repent and believe. F.F. Bruce observed, if ignorance of the divine nature was culpable before, it's inexcusable now.

We live in a society where atheism and agnosticism is growing. Agnostics believe there's a higher power, but you can't know. And most of the time, it's because they had bad experience with Christians.

And that's a shame on the church for not living in the grace and truth Christ called us to be.

But they will not be able to stand before God someday and just say, well, I never figured out who you were. The Bible is very clear. No, you will.

Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father except by me." Romans 3:23 is clear. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. There is no exceptions to that rule. How many parents are here today?

You realize that you may have had your kids say "mama" as their first word, but their next word was probably "no." You don't have to teach a kid to be a sinner. Have you figured that out? Now, we do a good job modeling it, but you don't have to teach it. I sometimes buy into the lie that if I'm just a little bit better than somebody else, then I must be all right. Tony Evans said, "Your neighbor is not your standard.

God is the standard, and we fall short. All of us fall short." Don't let the devil trick you into continuing to walk in sin just because you think you're a pretty good person. I'm telling you today, you're not. Sorry. I do it in love because I want you to experience the righteousness of Christ, not your righteousness.

Let that live in and through you. Paul had in his mind Psalm 14:1-3 when he was writing these words. It says, "The fool has said in his heart, 'There is no God.' They are corrupt. They have committed abominable deeds. There is no one who does good." And tell me how you sidestep that explicit statement.

The Lord looked down from heaven, which means he is high in authority, looking down to see if there's anybody who might understand. And the answer is no. They've all turned aside together. They have become corrupt. There is no one who does good.

No, not one. So if you think you're a pretty good person just getting by in life, you may be lost.

If you think today, "Well, I've got everything figured out," or, "I'll wait till tomorrow and I'll get my orders in line," you might be lost. If you say, "I believe," and you have not repented of your sin, you are lost. Because you can't believe without repentance.

And repentance without faith is meaningless. No repentance, no faith means no salvation. Folks, listen, I'm begging you. In a world today where we— this week I read a story where, where like half of clergy, half of clergy aren't even preaching the gospel.

What are they preaching? Like, you know, I'll tell you what they're preaching: do good things and look good, and you'll have enough good to get into heaven. That is the lie of the devil, and he's tricked many of you into believing it. Today I want to invite you, because the reason we must repent— everyone's lost and guilty, and big A-N-D, Jesus is coming back. I want you to be able to stand confidently before Christ in the blood of Jesus Christ, not your works.

Not your do-goodedness, not your perceived righteousness, but because of the blood of Jesus. If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways— who's he talking about? The people of God. Peter said, "The judgment must begin with the household of God." I'm going to get in your stuff for a moment. I do it in love.

If you're at home and you are embellishing yourself in your secret sins, whatever that may be, just know it does affect this body.

How do I know that? Go read Joshua chapter 7 where Achan took dedicated things they were commanded not to take. And the army lost the battle because of one man's sin.

We, as a body, need to be a repentant people. We need to be a penitent people. We don't need to be an arrogant people. We don't need to be a self-righteous people. Right now, as we sit in this room, 85% of Stephens County is neither sitting in church nor listening online.

If the population of this county is 25,000, then you're pushing 20,000 people right now are sitting at home. Some of them might know Jesus, but let's assume they don't. 20,000 lost people within our doorstep.

And a lot of it's because the people of God have never turned away from the sin they said they were saved from.

Number 2, we must repent and believe to be saved from our sin and receive eternal life. These two words go hand in hand, to believe and to repent. I'm not saying repentance saves you. The only thing that saves you is Jesus Christ alone and what he did on the cross. Our faith is the pipe It's the conduit through which grace comes and saves me.

And a fruit of that faith is repentance. If I'm being saved from my sins, it would make sense as a believer I would turn from them. And there is a big difference. Some of you in this room, you struggle with habitual sin. But there's a big difference in someone who is so stuck in the habitual sin and wants to be free than somebody who just disregards it.

Well, that's just the way I've been made. I mean, if you've been tracking anything about the LGBTQ philosophy for any length of time, 20 years ago they started popping in with these things. Well, this is the way God made me. This is the way God made me. No, he did not.

Sin made you that way. Because I haven't heard them justify pedophilia the same way. Did God make somebody a pedophiliac?

I'm meddling, aren't I? But they have a double standard even in their own philosophy. Why don't they just come over to our side where we say, "It's all sin and I want to be dead to it. I want to be saved from it. And the only way I can be saved is to repent and believe." If you go back to Matthew chapter 3.

In fact, if you want to turn there just for a moment. I've got another 30 minutes.

I'm just kidding.

I love this chapter because of verse 8. But if you go back to the beginning, we hear of John the Baptist's ministry beginning and proceeding. And then in verse 2, we get that parallel to Mark 1:5. Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Justified as he being that Isaiah 43 voice in the wilderness.

Describes John. And then you see in verse 7, says, 'But when many of the Pharisees and Sadducees were coming for baptism, he said to them, "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?"' Because the Pharisees and the Sadducees are like our modern-day self-righteous, either politicians or religious people who think, 'Well, I'm pretty good. I've arrived. Look at me.

Look how good I am. I'm checking all the boxes.' But he says in verse 8 something very profound. "Therefore bear fruit in keeping with repentance." One of the metaphors of baptism is that I am turning away from sin as my mind has been convinced of the reality and expectation of God. And turning to Him. So when I go down into the water.

When I go down into the water. Jesus went down into the grave because he died to my sin. And so he's saying, die to my sin. And when I come up, as according to Romans 6, I'm living a life of righteousness according to him.

To go back to my sin, to go back to my own status, negates That. Bear fruit in keeping with repentance. So let me tell you about two types of repentance. One is the saving repentance. You repent of your life of sin.

I'm turned. But now I'm walking. I'm walking toward Jesus. And I'm like the Apollo 13 capsule. If you've watched at the end where they've got to get the Earth in the window.

So they're going straight. And they've got all these little rockets on the outside. Pop this one, it goes this way and this way and this way. They're trying to adjust. Y'all seen the movie, right?

Well, if you hadn't, just kind of imagine. You got this thing and it's trying to aim toward this one dot. That's us. As we walk, we get this way. We go this way.

We do something we shouldn't do. We say something we shouldn't say. Repentance is continual. So in your faith and practice every day before you lay your head down on the bed, Do you utter a prayer and say, "Lord, I know I have sinned today. Here's what I know I did.

Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. But Lord, I need you to show me what I don't know." If you think you can be exhaustive and know all the sins you've committed, you're wrong. Until you leave this world, until you leave this world, you are still in this flesh.

But I want to walk I want to stay pointed to the one who saved me from the death.

That's where I want to walk. I mean, you keep going, he calls them out. He calls them out for this. "Brood of vipers." Can I translate that for you? Son of Satan.

You sons of Satan.

That's what people do when they look in the church and they see sometimes the hypocrisy that we present. And they go, well, how can I believe in a Jesus if your life hasn't changed? What if he did look in and see a group of people that were so passionate in love with Jesus that they were willing to be as faithful as they can to obey his explicit commands? That's kind of person I want us to be. Jesus said to the Pharisees later, you brood of vipers.

No, he didn't say that. This This time He said, "You honor God with your lips. But your heart is far from Me. If you love Me, you will keep My command." We want the right motivation. And I can only get that if I repent and I believe.

When you get to Acts 2:38-37, after Peter has preached on the day of Pentecost. It said, "Now when the crowd heard this, they were pierced to the heart." Why? Peter just told them, "You're the one that sent Jesus to his death." And you are too.

All of us in this room are guilty of the death of Jesus Christ. You know that, right? "Whoa, that's strong, isn't it? I've never killed anyone." Well, first of all, have you ever hated somebody in your heart? Because Jesus said if you did, that's the same as murder.

Secondly, yeah, your sin sent Jesus to the cross.

And they're standing there cut to the heart. Peter says, "Brethren, they say to them, 'What must we do?'" Well, can I answer that question? Nothing. You can't do anything. Jesus saves you.

You don't save yourself. The response is embedded. "Repent and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." Does that mean That if I get baptized, I'm saved.

No. Repentance is the response. The declaration of repentance and faith. It's the response. It's the declaration.

I'm telling the world, "I believe and I have repented." So if you're in here today. No offense. If you were sprinkled or christened as a child. Somebody else did that to you.

Baptist, the reason we're different is we believe that once you have made a conscious profession that I have turned from my sin and I've trusted Christ, then you are baptized. And I'd encourage you, listen, it says we don't believe there's anything mystical about baptism, but we do believe it's spiritual.

He commanded the church to do this. And when I yield myself to baptism, I'm telling the world I've repented of my sin, and I need a whole bunch of people right here to keep eyes on my life so I can keep walking in Jesus. It's called accountability, not authoritarianism. We don't need spiritual bullies in our life. We need grace-filled people to come alongside of us, say, "Hey man, you're getting off track a little bit.

We need to get you back over here. We need to point you back." Point number 3: We must repent by turning from our sins to God in faithful surrender to Jesus. I think that's the key. Again, faith And repentance goes hand in hand. Jesus explicitly commanded that we repent.

And this is both qualitative and quantitative. When you sin and you're feeling bad, feeling sorry for yourself, feeling overwhelmed with shame and guilt, the quickest thing you can do is repent and ask the Lord to forgive you.

You know, Jesus said, "Stand on the rock." Right? Or go wallow yourself in sand. Like, if you ever go to a swamp and you're walking through a bog, you can't get your footing. I remember I used to explore around my house before people would shoot you. Yes, nowadays don't go exploring around your house, you might get shot.

But I walked down toward this creek and I stepped off and I went down to my waist and I was by myself like an idiot. And I'm like, if I'd have sunk down to blow my head, I'd have been dead, I'd drown. The quickest thing I could do was start feeling around with my foot for something to stand on. When you sin, the quickest thing to do is appeal to Jesus and stand back on the rock and get out of the muck.

We just stand there going, "Oh man, I'm all dirty. I can't get up." Yes, you can. You don't have to have a lifeline. Just get on the rock. Don't sit there wallowing in the pity of your sin.

Get on the rock. Repent. And get back in line. Look at this. Let me give you some principles.

Go back and read these passages later. When you look at Acts 3:19, when Peter is preaching, he says, "Therefore repent and return so that you may experience times of refreshing." The reason we are not experiencing sometimes revival and renewal is because the people of God do not want to stand in repentance. We hide in our closet sins. And we think we can come in this room. Put on a pretty dress, put a smile on my face, and it not affect anybody else.

I'm telling you, my sins affect you and your sins affect me. Because we're called to lead the broken to hope in Christ, to reach the world with the gospel. And we can't do it divided. Number 2, if you look at Acts 5:31, again, the apostles have been bringing— they're standing before the high priest who had Jesus crucified. And he said that Jesus granted repentance to Israel and forgiveness.

Folks, we could deepen this in a whole message, but repentance is a gift God gives you.

I think sometimes we can think, "Well, I'll just at 4:03 tomorrow, I'll get things right with Jesus." Well, what if you don't? Don't miss the windows of opportunity of God's calling for you to return to him. Because that opportunity may close. The conviction may leave. Are you with me?

Don't play Russian roulette thinking, "Well, I'll put it off till tomorrow." Number 3, Acts 20:21. When he's speaking to the elders of Ephesus, he said, "Solemnly." This was his life. "Solemnly testifying to Jews and Greeks of repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ." There it is again. You cannot get around this idea. Of faith and repentance together.

So how are you and I living surrendered in faith that is bearing fruit of repentance? Thomas Constable said, one must change his mind toward God and place his trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. In fact, he uses this word Godward. Are you living Godward? The alternative is to live to the world.

And then the last one there, Acts 26:20. Paul is speaking to Agrippa and he said, "But I kept declaring both to those of Damascus, Jerusalem, Judea, and even to the Gentiles that they should repent and turn to God, performing deeds appropriate to repentance." Our response in repentance is to submit in faith to Jesus Christ. And it will come out in what we do, and it will come out in what we say. Let me give you this quote: The essence of eternal life is that our sins are forgiven and we are made right with God by the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. That's why we're here today.

All of you should by now know by heart my two-word talk. How do I know I'm going to heaven? Because some of you know it. Jesus promised. When I get to the gates, I'm not going to talk about the date of my baptism.

I'm not going to talk about how many Bible studies I've been to or how many days I was in church. How much money I gave. I'm going to stand at the gate. When they say, "Why should you come in?" I'm going to say, "Because Jesus promised." He's called you to repent. Don't you want to experience times of ref— refreshing.

That word means cool. We stay all heated up in the conflicts and strife and the pressures of life. Richard Owen Roberts said, repentance and faith, I repeat, are wed together. They're linked. We must turn from and turn to.

He said it's impossible to turn to without turning from. If you do, you're just turning into open space. But when my heart gets aligned with the Lord, man, I can experience those times of refreshing. So are you praying? Do you pray for revival?

Revival will never come without repentance. You may be saying, "Well, I want that emotional high. I need Jesus to build me up, fire me up." Well, that's great. If He fires you up, it's going to clean you up.

If he fires you up, he's going to clean you up. Now I'm asking, like, when you pray, do you really embrace this idea that it's time for the judgment of God to begin with the household of God, with us first? What will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God?

I don't want to find out.

If I'm going to pray for revival, I need to pray for repentance. Secondly, Repentance is a continual practice. Henry Blackaby said, "Keep a sin inventory." Sit down in your day when you do your quiet time. If you don't do a quiet time, get started tomorrow. Oh, I got an idea.

Come tomorrow morning at 6 AM. It'd be a great catalyst. And you say, "God, here's what I know I've done wrong. Now open my heart and show me what I don't know." Because if you ever get to a day where you think you haven't done anything wrong, you've probably missed it. Number 3, get help.

If you're in habitual sin, you will never carry it by yourself, and you'll never find victory and freedom if you think positive thinking is going to get you through it. Get help. If you come to one of our pastors this morning, we'll, we'll help you, or we'll find somebody who will help you. One of our goals is to help you connect. It's one of our core values.

We don't want you walking this life alone. Finally, and thank you for letting me go a little bit longer, I think I take a little bit of grace in the second service to do that. When you talk to somebody who is struggling in life, I have a friend of mine and he'll say often, "How's that working for you?" Say your neighbor comes over to you and they're talking about their kids and they say, "Well, I know I ought to have them in church, but you know, we do this and this and this." What if you looked at them and just say, "Well, how's that working for you?" Because truth is, it's not. But asking them that question, listening to how they respond, may be the door for them— for you to say, you know what, that sounds really hard. What if you decided to stop walking that way and start walking his way?

That's repentance. The command is clear: repent. Father, as we come to this time of decision and altar Pray you speak to our hearts. God, I pray that through the words expressed today, that they hear your words, not mine, and that God, that you would be exalted and magnified as you call us to continual repentance, that you call us to weigh our hearts. We see the reality, we see the reason.

Now help us to respond submissively to the work of Christ in our life. We love you. In Jesus' name, amen.