Well, nice to see everybody again.
And Paul, I don't think, explained that I'm actually retired.
! I'm not a minister at the moment.
Probably will never be again.
I'm retired.
I retired back in 2013.
And I'm still an elder at the church there in Kendall.
But we've got a slightly, well, a very younger, faster than I am,
which is a great thing.
So I want to carry on from where we left off this morning.
Let's just pray before we do that.
Heavenly Father, we thank you for this parable, this parable of the sower.
We thank you for what we learned this morning about the different kinds of responses to your word,
the hard response, the shallow response, and the overcrowded response,
none of which bear fruit.
And we pray now that as we come to the good soil, the good ground,
the ground that bears fruit, the fertile soil,
we pray, Lord, that you'd help us to understand your word.
Speak to us by your spirit, we pray.
In Jesus' name. Amen.
So I want to speak tonight about two very important words.
These two words should always go together.
They're like hinges on the door, two hinges on the door.
They're like the wings of a bird or an airplane.
You need both.
And you should never think of the one without thinking of the other.
And they're very important words because Jesus used them at the very outset of his ministry.
He began to preach in Galilee after the imprisonment of John the Baptist.
And Matthew summarizes his message and Mark summarizes his message and so does Luke.
And they all agree that the message of Jesus right at the beginning of his ministry,
the words that sum up in some ways his ministry were these.
Repent and believe the good news.
Repent and believe.
The time has come, he said.
That means the decisive, long-promised moment
that God has been preparing his people for throughout the Old Testament period for centuries.
People had been, the Jewish people had been looking forward to the coming of God's kingdom.
And Jesus arrived in Galilee and he said, it's here.
It's come.
The king has come.
And the time that God's people have been waiting for has come.
The kingdom of God has come near.
And therefore, repent and believe the good news.
In those days, kings were really important.
And they had a lot of power.
Royalty in those days wasn't like royalty today.
Kings and queens these days don't have much power.
They're just tourist attractions.
And they don't have much power.
But a king in New Testament times had the power of life and death.
His word was law.
And Jesus said, the king has come.
I'm here.
The Messiah, the Christ.
God's anointed one.
The king has come.
The kingdom is here.
And you prepare for the arrival of a king.
My wife was telling me how when she was a little girl in Salford, which is, well, it was quite a grimy northwestern Lancashire town.
I'm sure you'll forgive me for saying that, Jim.
But it was.
And she was telling me that when the queen visited Salford, they were actually cleaning the pavements on which she was going to walk.
You prepare.
And you prepare well for the coming of royalty.
And Jesus is saying here, royalty is here.
God's king has come.
The kingdom is here.
You'd better get ready.
You'd better prepare.
And how do you prepare for the coming of the king?
You prepare for the arrival of the king by repenting and believing.
You don't just shrug your shoulders when you hear these words and say, well, that's nothing to do with me.
We're talking about a king with the power of life and death.
And this king says to you tonight and says to me, repent and believe the good news.
There are a wide range of phrases which Christians use nowadays to describe how to respond to Jesus.
We talk sometimes about becoming a Christian.
The New Testament, as far as I know, doesn't use that language.
The New Testament never tells us to become a Christian.
In fact, the word Christian only occurs three times in the New Testament.
And in each case, it's clear that it was used as a nickname for believers in Jesus by pagans, by non-Christians.
There's nothing wrong with talking about becoming a Christian, but that is not how the New Testament describes it.
We talk sometimes, I remember I was taught as a little child in a Christian home, to ask Jesus into my heart.
Well, the Apostle Paul writes to the Ephesians and prays that the Spirit would cause the Lord Jesus Christ to dwell in their hearts,
as the owner-occupier of their heart, and to fill them with the knowledge of God's love.
But that was written to a church.
I don't think there's anything terribly wrong with telling people to ask Jesus into their hearts,
but it's not the language that the New Testament uses it.
We talk about making a commitment.
We talk about making a decision for Christ.
The New Testament doesn't use these expressions.
What does the New Testament say we should do in response to Jesus?
It says we should repent and we should believe.
So that's what we should do.
We should repent and we should believe.
That's how we become a Christian.
I've just used that expression myself.
That's how we respond to Jesus initially.
And that's how we go on responding to Jesus.
We go on repenting and we go on believing.
That is the response to Jesus Christ.
Repent and believe.
Those are the two words I want to talk about tonight.
I want to talk first of all about repenting.
John the Baptist prepared for the arrival of Jesus by preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sin.
Jesus said unless you repent, you will perish.
After his resurrection, Jesus sent out the church to the world.
And he said repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached to all nations.
On the day of Pentecost, Simon Peter, after the very first ever Christian sermon, was asked by the hearers what they should do.
And his response was to say repent and be baptized every one of you for the forgiveness of sins.
And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
The apostle Paul preaching to the philosophers at Athens.
He said God now commands all people everywhere to repent.
So it's pretty clear, isn't it?
The response to Jesus, first of all, is to repent.
So what does it mean to repent?
Well, the Old Testament word means just to turn.
To turn, that's it.
To turn.
To turn around.
The New Testament word means to have a different mind altogether.
A complete reorientation of your thinking.
Let's just focus on that word to turn.
You've got to realize that you're going in completely the wrong direction.
And if you carry on going in that direction, it will end in disaster.
And therefore, you turn around.
I remember some years ago now, preaching at Ingleton Evangelical Church, which is 18 miles east of Kendall.
I live in a lovely place.
We've got the Lake District to the west and north of us.
And to the east of us, we've got the Yorkshire Dales.
And we're right there in the middle between the two.
And I was preaching one Sunday at Ingleton Evangelical Church.
So I needed to travel 18 miles east.
And there's Kendall.
There's Ingleton, okay?
On a map of England, which I'm asking you to imagine.
And between the two is the M6 motorway.
And if you go north, you go to Carlisle.
If you go south, you go to Lancaster and Preston and places like that.
And I was worrying about a children's talk I had to give at Ingleton Evangelical Church.
If only people realized the stress that they caused preachers when they asked for children's talks in their meetings.
And I was stressing about this children's talk.
I was going through it in my mind.
And I sort of woke up and found myself driving south down the M6 towards Lancaster and Preston and eventually London and places like that.
And I thought, why am I doing this?
I'd just done it without thinking.
It was just automatic.
That's normally what I did at that particular roundabout.
And I hadn't been concentrating properly.
And, well, what did I do?
Well, you're not actually allowed to do a U-turn on a motorway, as you probably know.
And you're not allowed to reverse down the motorway either, just in case you thought that was a possible way out of the problem.
I had to go, oh, maybe 10 miles further north.
And then turn around at the next roundabout.
Go all the way 10 miles further back.
And then get on the right way to Ingleton.
And I arrived during the first hymn.
And the lady on the door looked extremely pleased to see me.
A bit like the father in the parable of the prodigal son.
She ran and fell on my neck.
Well, no, she didn't, actually.
I was going to say she kissed me.
She didn't do that.
But we had a real handshake.
And she was very pleased to see me.
I turned around.
That's what you do when you repent.
You turn around.
So repentance means turning from everything that displeases Jesus.
He's the king.
So you turn from everything that isn't his will.
Everything that he doesn't want.
You stop distancing yourself from Jesus.
Instead of running away from him, you run to him.
You stop ignoring him.
You stop disobeying him.
You're sorry and ashamed at the way you behave and the way you think and the way you speak.
You come to see that you're disobeying God in thought and word and deed.
We're doing those things that we ought not to do.
And we're not doing those things that we ought to do.
And we come to see this and it burdens us.
It deeply concerns us.
We've not loved God with all our heart and soul and mind and strength.
We've not loved our neighbor as ourself.
We don't love our neighbors as we love ourselves, as God tells us to.
We love ourselves.
Everything we do is tainted by self-love, by pride, even the good things we do.
We feel proud when we do them.
We love ourselves when we do them.
We even self-righteously condemn others for the sins we know we commit ourselves.
And it makes us feel better about our own sins when we condemn them in other people.
We're sinner.
King Jesus has given his manifesto.
We call it the Sermon on the Mount.
It's the manifesto for the kingdom of God.
I'll just take you briefly through the Sermon on the Mount.
Very, very briefly through the Sermon on the Mount.
I think you should read the Sermon on the Mount two or three times this week.
Read it carefully.
Read it prayerfully.
And ask yourself what you should be repenting of.
We're not poor in spirit.
We're not meek and humble.
We do not hunger and thirst after righteousness.
We're not starving.
We're not ravenous for righteousness.
We're not merciful.
We're much harder on other sinners than we are on ourselves.
We're not forgiving.
We're not pure in heart.
We're not peacemakers.
We don't go around trying to reconcile ourselves to people who we may have wronged or who we think have wronged us.
We don't try and reconcile other people to each other.
We don't seek peace and pursue it like a hound pursues a fox.
We're not persecuted for Jesus' sake.
I'm just going through the Beatitudes here.
We're not persecuted for Jesus' sake.
We're afraid to openly confess our Savior.
We harbor anger and resentment in our hearts.
We belittle other people with our words.
We refuse to seriously seek reconciliation.
Jesus told us if we go to church,
He actually said if you were about to offer a sacrifice,
but in New Testament times it would be if you're going to church
and you realize your brother has got something against you,
there's something not right between you and somebody else there,
you should go.
You don't wait until they come to you.
You should go and be reconciled to them
and then come and worship God.
We don't do that.
We play around with lust.
We don't even behave rightly towards our spouses.
We're not totally honest and truthful,
so that our yes means yes and our no means no.
We repay evil with evil in all kinds of different ways.
We don't love our enemies.
We don't pray for them.
We don't pray as we should have done,
and when we do pray,
it's mainly about ourselves and our families
and our physical needs.
We don't pray with God at the center.
We don't give generously to the poor.
We pretend to be more godly than we really are.
We're friendly to those who are friendly to us,
but not particularly friendly to those who aren't friendly to us.
We set our hearts on earthly success.
We lay up treasure on earth instead of laying it up in heaven.
Earthly success, earthly treasure occupies our thoughts all the time.
It's what we get anxious about.
It's what we get worried about.
We condemn others.
We're far more concerned about the faults and the sins of other people
rather than our own sins
as a way of feeling good about ourselves or better about ourselves.
We're always judging others and criticizing others
and gossiping about others.
We don't gossip about ourselves.
No, we gossip about others.
We imagine that we're more righteous than they are.
We do not do to others what they would like them to do to us.
I've just taken you quickly through the Sermon on the Mount.
Read it two or three times this week
and honestly examine yourself in the light of it
and repent and grieve that you are not like this.
You haven't even started.
And more than anything else,
you want to be forgiven
of all the rottenness in your heart.
So you see, repentance isn't just praying the prayer
or making some kind of superficial decision.
it is a deep, life-changing realization
that you are going completely in the wrong direction.
You're not as Jesus wants you to be
and you're appalled at your state of heart
and you're far more concerned about the sins of others
than about your own sins.
Sorry, you're far more concerned about your own sins
than you are about the sins of others
when you've repented.
What you want more than anything else
is God's mercy,
God's forgiveness.
The best picture, of course,
that I know of,
of repentance in the New Testament
is that lost son,
so-called,
that lost son
who forsook his father and his father's house,
left home,
spent his father's inheritance,
wished his father was dead,
and actually told his father so.
He actually said,
give me my inheritance now.
I can't wait for you to die.
And he then took that inheritance off
into a far country,
spent it all in no time,
according to his brother on prostitutes,
amongst other things,
ending up in a time of famine,
longing to feed himself
with the pig's food.
And then he came to his senses
and he turned around
and he went all the way home.
Father, I have sinned.
His elder brother
thought he didn't have much to repent of.
And he resented
his brother coming home
and he resented even more
his father throwing this party for him.
And he refused to go in.
And it was him
who was outside the father's house,
not the so-called lost son.
It was the elder brother
who thought he had nothing
to repent of very much,
who turned out to be
the lost son
in that parable.
So that's what it means to repent.
It means to turn around.
But Jesus
comes to this other word,
believe.
Believe the good news.
Or it says in the version
that you have,
believe the gospel,
which means great news,
fantastic news.
So he summons us
to repent
and then he tells us
to believe the good news.
Well, what's the good news?
Not good news so far.
So far,
all we've heard is
that we're just
sinners who need mercy.
What's the good news?
Well,
the good news
is that God's kingdom
is for the repentant.
It is for
repentant
rebels.
It is for people
who repent.
That's the good news.
This king,
and he is a king,
never forget that.
He is also called
the friend of sinners.
He is the friend
of sinners.
He is on the side
of sinners.
He came into this world
to save,
rescue
sinners.
He calls sinners
to repentance.
He didn't come
to call the righteous.
That's good news,
isn't it?
Because I'm not righteous.
He didn't come
to call the righteous.
He came
to call
the sinners.
He's like a doctor.
Doctors aren't here
for the healthy.
Doctors are here
for the sick.
And Jesus says,
it's the sick
who need a doctor.
And I'm a doctor
and I've come
for the sick.
I've come for the sinners.
sinners.
That's the good news.
He came
to save
his people
from their sins.
He died the death
that sinners
deserve to die.
He rose again
on their behalf
as their
in union
with them.
And therefore,
all those who believe
in Jesus,
his death
is their death.
and his resurrection
is and will be
their resurrection.
Jesus is the friend
of sinners.
And he calls sinners
to himself
for salvation.
So you've got to
believe that.
You've got to believe
the good news.
The New Testament
is absolutely
packed with this.
Believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ,
said the Apostle Paul
to the Philippian jailer.
Believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ
and you
will be
saved.
John is full of it.
John's gospel.
God so loved
the world
that he gave
his only son
that whoever
believes in him
should not perish
but have everlasting life.
And at the end
of his gospel
he says,
I've written all this
so that you might
believe
that Jesus
is the Christ
and by believing
you might have
life
in his name.
And Thomas,
he says to Thomas,
Thomas you've only
believed because
you've seen me.
Blessed are those
who have not seen
and yet have believed.
The New Testament
is full of it.
The Apostle Paul
is full of it.
We are justified.
We are freed
from condemnation
in God's sight
by faith,
by believing
in the Lord Jesus Christ.
So what does it mean
to believe in Jesus?
Well,
yes,
it includes
believing the facts
about Jesus.
It means,
it includes
believing
that the New Testament
is
an historical
record
of his life
and death
and resurrection.
Believing the facts
about Jesus.
You've got to do that
obviously
in order to believe
in Jesus.
And sometimes
we use the word
just like that.
We use it
in the same sense
as we might say
I believe
in the Loch Ness Monster
or I don't believe
in the Loch Ness Monster.
Some people do,
some people don't.
I don't.
My wife and I
went for our honeymoon
to Durham
where the Loch Ness Monster
is supposed
to appear regularly
and we didn't see a thing.
So we are not believers
in the Loch Ness Monster.
It includes
believing
that the story
of Jesus
is true
and may I
assure you
if there's any
doubters here
that there's loads
of evidence
for this one.
Far more evidence
than there is
for the Loch Ness Monster.
There's loads
of evidence
for the death,
for the life
and the death
and the resurrection
of the Lord Jesus Christ.
There's absolutely
no shortage
of evidence
and if anyone
tells you
there's no evidence
they just haven't
looked at it,
that's all.
They haven't really
looked at the evidence.
So if there's
anybody here
who's got a problem
about that
talk to me afterwards
and I'll take you
through some
of the evidence.
So yeah,
it means believing
the facts
about Jesus
but it means
much more than that.
The word believe
in the New Testament
means
to trust,
to rely on
personally,
to depend on
personally,
to trust
the person,
the words,
the death,
the resurrection
of the Lord Jesus Christ.
To trust ourselves
completely to Him
and just to say to Him,
I can't do it.
You know what I'm like.
I can't do it
but you can do it
for me
and I trust you
to do it.
trusting
the Lord Jesus Christ,
relying on
His death
for our sins,
believing
that His sacrifice
on the cross
is sufficient
to cover all our sins
no matter how wicked
we may have been,
no matter how long
we may have rebelled
against Him
and closed our hearts
to Him.
He calls us now
to believe in Him
and
He will
save us
if we do.
It is to rely
and trust,
rely upon
and to trust
in His grace
and His love
and His mercy
which is greater
than all
our sins.
It is to rely
on His resurrection
from the dead
as our hope
for the future
and it's to stop
relying on anything else.
That's what it means
to believe in Jesus.
There are some
other words
that the New Testament
sometimes uses
instead of faith,
coming
to Jesus.
Remember what I said
about turning round?
Coming,
instead of
distancing ourselves
from Him,
coming
to Jesus.
Come
to Jesus.
Lepers
came to Jesus.
They couldn't do anything
at all themselves
about their leprosy
but they came
to Jesus
for cleansing.
All sorts
of people
came to Jesus
and He never
turned
any of them
away
ever
and if you
come to Him
He won't turn you
away either.
He invites
people to come
to Him.
Come unto Me
all you
who are weary
and burdened
and I will give you
rest.
He invites
you
to come
to Him
this evening.
The New Testament
also talks about
receiving Jesus.
Receiving
Jesus.
It actually
says
that we've got
to receive
Jesus
like little
children.
Little
children
love
receiving
things.
Have you
noticed that?
I've got
some grandchildren
and I've had
two children
of my own
and
every Christmas
we used to
give them
gifts like
parents do
and not
once did
either of my
two children
come to me
and say
Dad
you've just
been too
generous this
year
can't accept
all this
and if I do
accept all
of it
I'll at least
have to pay
for some
of it.
No chance
absolutely
no chance
at all.
They never
ever spoke
to me
in those
terms.
They just
said
they didn't
even say
thank you
they just
said let's
bring it
on more
and more.
They love
receiving
things.
Children
love
receiving
things.
That's how
you've got to
come to
Jesus.
You've come
to receive
what he's
done.
New Testament
talks about
following him
and that's
important.
If you
really come
to Jesus
if you
really turn
from yourself
to Jesus
you will
follow him
you want
to please
him
you want
to be
led by
him
your whole
life.
Near where
I live
is Morecambe
Bay
and Morecambe
Bay
is
quite a
dangerous
area
there are
lots of
quicksand
but there
is a way
across
Morecambe
Bay
and there's
a man
who's just
retired
he was
called
Cedric
and he
used to
lead walks
across
Morecambe
Bay
he used
to go
in a
tractor
actually
and
maybe
200
people
would
follow
the
tractor
and he
would
take
them
from
Arnside
to the
other
side
of the
bay
to
Grange
over
Sand
but the
point is
you had
to follow
him
if you
trusted
Cedric
you
followed
him
you
didn't
say
oh I
know
better
than
Cedric
you
didn't
wander
off
if you
did
you'd
end up
being
swallowed
up
by
quicksand
honestly
you
followed
Cedric
he was
the
guide
and he
knew
the way
and because
you
believed
in him
because
you
trusted
him
you
followed
him
and
that's
what
you
will
do
if
you
trusted
Jesus
New
Testament
also
talks
about
feeding
on
Jesus
and
drinking
of
Jesus
and that's
a lovely
picture
particularly in the light of the Lord's Supper which is coming up
soon
it is a lovely picture
of
trusting
in Jesus
my wife makes lovely apple pie
so does
Paul's wife
actually
because we had a bit
at lunchtime
they both make lovely apple pie
I'm telling you that
you can believe that
with your head
ask my wife
and she might even give you a recipe
you can believe the recipe
you can understand the recipe
you can even
make an apple pie
but if you don't eat it
you'll never taste
how good it is
you've got to
take
the Lord Jesus
as it were
to yourself
by faith
eat
and drink
anyone
who
comes to me
will never
thirst
again
there's a man called Alfred Wainwright
who
before he died
lived in Kendall
he was the
treasurer of the council
and
he was absolutely mad
on the Lake District
and he went up every
Lake District peak
and he
wrote a guidebook
both with pen and ink
on every
Lake District mountain
and his books sell like
hot potatoes
now
and you
could become an expert
on the Lake District
just by reading Wainwright's
guidebook
you could spend your
winter evenings
by the fire
reading up about
the different paths
of Skidda
and Scorfell
and Helvellyn
and so on
you could know all about it
by reading Wainwright's
guidebook
but unless you get up
and get out
onto those fowls
you'll never
experience
what it
like
to look out
from the top
of Helvellyn
and see
all those peaks
and all those lakes
below you
that's what it means
to believe
not just
head knowledge
but
acting
on what
you know
so
repent
and believe
I want to say
just two things
before I
I'm really finished
but I want
before I sit down
I want to say
two very important things
the first of these
two very important things
is that repenting
and believing
in Jesus
are ongoing
those who
repent
and believe
in Jesus
continue
to repent
and believe
in Jesus
in fact
their repentance
and their faith
deepens
as the longer
they are following
Jesus
the longer
they're Christians
the more
their repentance
and their faith
deepens
and
Hebrews chapter 11
is quite clear
about this
believers
continue
to believe
they believe
until they die
they die
in faith
Hebrews chapter 11
and
that is the mark
of true faith
and true repentance
that it continue
as we were thinking
this morning
it doesn't fizzle out
it doesn't get choked
by thorns and thistles
if it's true faith
those who repent
and believe
continue
to repent
and believe
and I come now
to the second
of the two
final
important points
and it
follows really
from what I've
just said
that repentance
and faith
are not just
the way we
start the
Christian life
they are
how we
continue
the Christian
life
when I was
a young
Christian
when I was
a teenager
and
maybe in my
early 20s
there used
to be all
kinds of
theories
and formula
how to live
what was called
a victorious
Christian life
and
there were
different groups
and different
speakers
and different
conventions
and different
books
and they all
had their
particular
catchphrases
or even
the word
secret
was used
the secret
of living
a victorious
Christian life
and I used
to go from
one to the
other
because I was
aware that I
wasn't doing
particularly well
living the
Christian life
I used to
go from
one to the
other
seeking this
secret
of how to
live a
victorious
Christian life
which is
not an
expression I
really approve
of
because a
victorious
Christian life
would be a
sinless life
if you sin
and you do
every day
you would
fail
you of not
being victorious
so this
victorious
Christian life
that I was
seeking
and this
secret
that I
was
seeking
I wish
I hadn't
bothered
to be
honest
with you
I wish
that I
hadn't gone
through that
stage
in my life
because
there is no
quick fix
there is
no secret
it's not a
secret at all
the way you
respond to
Jesus and
the way you
continue to
respond to
Jesus
is repentance
and faith
you carry
on as
you began
repentance
and faith
that's all
go on
repenting
go on
believing
go on
preaching the
same gospel
to yourself
every day
you need it
every day
because you'll
sin
sadly
every day
in thought
or word
or deed
go on
repenting
go on
trusting in
the promises
of Jesus
examine
yourself
search your
heart
every day
ask God
to show you
what you need
to repent
of
read the
sermon on
the mount
two or
three times
this week
ask him
to show
you
and keep
repenting
and keep
trusting
Jesus
the friend
of sinners
as we've just
heard from
Paul
he doesn't
write you
off every
time you
fail
he is the
friend
of sinners
keep looking
to him
keep relying
on him
relying on
his grace
trusting in
him
asking him
to go on
cleansing you
from all
unrighteousness
preach the
gospel to
yourself
every day
there's nothing
else
it's not
a secret
it is not
a secret
this is all
you need
until you get
to glory
turn from
sin
every day
and turn
to
Jesus
repent
and believe
and go on
repenting
and go on
believing
amen
to
!
to