Go ahead and take a seat.
Well, friends, our Bible passage tonight is Luke, chapter 13, verses 1 through 21.
That's page 872 in the Pew Bible, if you want to follow along there.
Luke, chapter 13, verses 1 through 21, page 872.
Let me read this for us.
There were some present at that very time who told Jesus about the Galileans,
whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.
And he answered them,
Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans
because they suffered in this way?
No, I tell you.
But unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.
Or those 18 on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them.
Do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem?
No, I tell you.
But unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.
And he told this parable.
A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard,
and he came seeking fruit on it and found none.
And he said to the vinedresser,
Look, for three years now I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree,
and I find none.
Cut it down.
Why should it use up the ground?
And he answered him,
Sir, let it alone this year also,
until I dig around it and put manure on it.
Then if it should bear fruit next year, well and good.
But if not, you can cut it down.
Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath.
And behold, there was a woman who had had a disabling spirit for 18 years.
She was bent over and could not fully straighten herself.
When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said to her,
Woman, you are freed from your disability.
And he laid his hands on her, and immediately she was made straight.
She glorified God.
But the ruler of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath,
said to the people,
There are six days in which work ought to be done.
Come on those days and be healed,
and not on the Sabbath day.
Then the Lord answered him,
You hypocrites!
Does not each of you on the Sabbath
untie his ox or his donkey from the manger
and lead it away to water it?
And ought not this woman,
a daughter of Abraham,
whom Satan bound for 18 years,
be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath day?
As he said these things,
all his adversaries were put to shame,
and all the people rejoiced at all the glorious things that were done by him.
He said,
What is the kingdom of God like?
And to what shall I compare it?
It is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his garden,
and it grew and became a tree,
and the birds of the air made nests in its branches.
And again he said,
To what shall I compare the kingdom of God?
It is like leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour
until it was all leavened.
Let's pray together.
Oh Lord, as we have sung just now,
here is our heart.
Speak what is true.
Lord, that's what we ask tonight,
that you would indeed speak,
and that our hearts would be open
to hear what you're saying,
and that we would be able to say in response,
Take my life.
Father, we ask this in Jesus' name.
Amen.
So in our time together tonight,
I want us to consider
Jesus' call to repentance.
We see it there in verse 3 and verse 5, right?
But it's actually,
this call to repentance,
it's actually a constant theme throughout
Jesus' ministry.
In fact, according to Matthew and Mark,
the other two synoptic gospels,
this is how Jesus sums up his preaching and teaching.
This is his message.
In Mark, Jesus says,
the time is fulfilled,
the kingdom of God is at hand,
repent and believe the gospel.
That's Mark 1 15.
And in Matthew,
it's even more concise,
even more to the point.
Repent, Jesus says,
for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
That's Matthew 4 17.
And even here in Luke's gospel too,
we see that repentance
is a part of the core of Jesus' message.
If you go to the end of the gospel,
after his resurrection,
Jesus commissions his disciples
to spread the good news
of his saving death and resurrection.
And that good news entails,
Jesus says,
repentance and the forgiveness of sins.
That's Luke 24 47.
So clearly,
if we're going to understand Jesus,
and if we're going to understand
what it means to follow Jesus,
we have to understand this thing
called repentance.
So I want to spend some time tonight
zeroing in on this core aspect
of Jesus's message.
We'll think about what repentance is,
and then we'll look at
some motivations for repentance,
why we should repent
that we find here in Luke 13.
And then finally,
we'll talk about how we can actually do it,
how we can actually repent.
So that's sort of where we're going tonight.
First, let's think about
what repentance is.
What does Jesus mean
when he says that we must repent?
You know, it's not all that obvious today
what Jesus means, I think.
In fact, I think a lot of people,
when they hear the word repent or repentance,
basically think that what Jesus is calling for
is for us to just clean up our act morally.
Right?
You're doing wrong things.
You need to start doing right things.
You're living an irreligious life.
You need to start living a religious life.
That's what we think repentance means.
But, you see,
just cleaning up your act morally
is not actually what Jesus or the Bible means
by this word repentance.
Repentance, the kind of repentance
that Jesus is talking about here
is not primarily about your external actions.
biblical repentance has more to do
with our hearts, you see.
It's a change of heart
that then leads to a change of life.
Yes, but first and foremost,
it's about a reorientation
of the heart.
You know, when the Old Testament prophets
spoke of repentance,
they used a very simple and common Hebrew word,
a word that just meant turn
or even return.
The people had been chasing false gods.
They had been loving things
that weren't gods at all.
They had replaced the one true God in their life.
And God, through the prophets,
called his people to come home,
to return to him with all their heart.
That was repentance for the prophets,
to turn, to return.
And in the New Testament,
the word for repentance means something like
a change of mind
or a change of heart.
It's this inner redirection,
a re-centering almost.
And that's why Jesus,
in verse 1 through 5 of our text tonight,
says that everyone needs to repent.
Now, that message would have shocked
Jesus' original audience
as much as it shocks you and me today.
Here in our text,
people come to Jesus telling him
about a tragedy that's happened.
Pilate, the Roman ruler in Judea,
has had some Jews from Galilee
killed, apparently,
in the temple in Jerusalem
while they were offering sacrifices.
That's what it means
that he mingled their blood
with their sacrifices.
They were worshiping.
He had them cut down
in the middle of the act of worship.
And the people come to Jesus wondering,
Jesus, did God allow that to happen to them
because they were especially bad sinners?
Was that some sort of form
of divine retribution against them?
And what does Jesus say?
No.
You cannot draw a straight line
between tragedy and personal sin like that.
That's not how the world works.
In fact, he says,
they weren't any worse than anyone else.
But then,
Jesus draws almost the opposite lesson from this
than we would expect.
Instead of saying,
that was a tragedy,
it's sad,
it's something to mourn,
but you know,
sometimes bad things happen to good people
and we just have to soldier on.
Isn't that how you and I often respond to tragedy?
How does Jesus respond?
What lesson does he pull out of this?
Jesus says,
no, you see,
we're all bad
and we all need to repent.
Now note,
Jesus is saying this
not in a room full of tax collectors
and sinners.
He's not saying this
in a crowd
of sort of what we would think
is obviously bad people.
He's talking to a group of
good,
Bible-believing Jews.
In today's term,
he's talking to a bunch of
church-attending,
basically good,
moral people.
And he says,
you need to repent.
And doesn't that tell us
that repentance
is about something deeper
than our external actions?
Even good people,
according to Jesus,
need to repent.
Why?
Because even good people
can have their hearts,
their lives,
centered on something
other than God,
you see.
It's entirely possible
to live a self-centered life
and be very moral,
good,
and even religious
on the outside.
Imagine two buildings.
One building
is very poorly constructed.
It's just sticks
and rocks
kind of just patched together.
The whole thing
looks really shaky
and about to fall down.
And here's this other building
that's beautiful.
It's made of brick
and columns
and it's solid
and it's not going anywhere.
Very different buildings
on the outside.
But then look down
at the foundation
of those two buildings
and you notice
that both are built
on nothing
but a pile of sand.
The pile of sticks
and the stately brick
colonial home.
Both resting on something
that's just going
to wash away.
And you see,
friends,
it's the same
with our lives.
someone can have
a really good looking life
on the surface
but if the foundation,
if the center
of that life,
what drives it,
what motivates it
is still just
self
or anything
other than God,
then it's not really
any better
in the long run
than that pile of sticks,
is it?
It's all going
to come crashing down
and wash away.
And so this call
to repentance
that Jesus issues
is not, you see,
necessarily a call
to start doing
more good works
but to put your life
on a whole new foundation.
To center your life
no longer on yourself,
no longer on your own reputation
or your own good works
but to center your life
solely on God
and on His Son,
Jesus Christ.
In other words,
it's a call
to stop trying
to run your life
your own way,
to turn around
and to entrust
your life to God,
to surrender
to Him
and to His Word.
That's what repentance is,
a change of heart,
a change of allegiance,
no longer being
your own king
but letting God
be the king of your life.
And now why?
Why ought we do this?
Well, here's where we get
into our text tonight.
We see two reasons.
The passage before us tonight
has two halves,
verses 1-9
and then verses 10-21.
And this first half
clearly teaches us
that we ought to repent,
we ought to hand our lives
over to God
because danger is coming.
Repent because danger is coming.
Jesus says it quite clearly.
Unless you repent,
you will all likewise perish.
Jesus is saying
that one day
God will judge the world
with perfect justice,
you see.
And on the one hand,
deep in our hearts,
part of us thinks
that that's really good news,
right?
After all,
there's so much evil
and suffering
and wrong in the world
and God's coming judgment
tells us that God
is not going to let
those things continue forever.
He's not going to let
evil and wrong
and oppression
and injustice
and murder
and hatred
and sex trafficking
and all the things
that aren't right in the world.
He's not going to let
that continue.
He's going to put it to an end.
He's going to judge the world
in perfect justice
and restore things
the way they were supposed to be.
And yet,
that perfect justice
that God is going to bring
will be cast over
every part of God's creation,
you see.
Nothing will be left unturned.
And that means
every human heart as well.
You and me
and everyone.
We will all stand
before the God
who created us
and we will all give an account
for the life that we've lived.
And then Jesus gives us a picture
to help us grasp
the reality of what he's saying.
Imagine, Jesus says,
a man who owns a vineyard
and in the vineyard
is a fig tree
and he rightfully comes
looking for fruit.
Which is to say, of course,
God has the right to come
and require something of us
and call for an account.
After all,
everything has been created by him.
Every breath we take
is given by him.
Every talent we have,
every moment we have
is a gift from him.
It's all his.
We're totally dependent on him.
And yet,
when the owner comes
and looks at the tree,
he finds no fruit.
He finds nothing
that bears the mark
of loving submission to him
as ruler, as king.
And immediately,
what do our hearts say
when we're confronted
with this reality
of giving an account to God?
But wait,
I've tried my best
to be a really good person.
I'm actually not that bad.
Trust me.
Immediately,
our hearts want to
justify ourselves, right?
We come up with
all the reasons why
we weren't perhaps
as loving or faithful
or true
as we know
we maybe should have been.
But you know, Lord,
there were all these
extenuating circumstances.
I was having a really bad day
or a really bad month
or a really bad year.
We recoil at the fact
and try to justify ourselves.
And yet,
doesn't the fact
that we so quickly
and so instinctively
try to justify ourselves,
doesn't that in itself
tell us that we know
we're not the way
we should be?
We know we haven't
let God be God
and put Him
at the center of our lives.
We know that we've tried
to be our own king
and try to run our lives
our own way.
And you know,
some of us trying
to run our lives
our own way
have made a wreck
of our lives.
And other people
trying to run their lives
their own way
have actually made
something of their lives.
But Jesus is saying here
at the end of the day,
it's a house built
on the sands
that will fall.
At the end of the day,
it's a barren tree
with no fruit.
Cut it down,
says the owner.
Cut it down.
Why should it use up
the ground?
Then another character
enters the story.
A vine dresser.
A gardener.
A worker.
Let's give it one more year,
he says.
Let's loosen the soil
around the roots
so the water
can get down into it.
Let's put some fertilizer
down there.
Let's give it one more year.
Jesus is saying
to his fellow Israelites
here in this moment
in history,
this is it.
God's sending you
one more chance
to repent.
And friends,
he's saying the same thing
to us.
Here it is.
God's extending you
a season of mercy
so that you can stop
seeking your own agenda
and your own kingdom
and you can hand yourself
over to God's own agenda
and his lordship
and his kingdom.
But we will not have forever,
you see.
God's perfect justice
will come
and we will give an account
to God.
And friends,
if we have refused
to surrender our lives
to God,
then that day of reckoning
will mean danger for us.
God's purpose,
cut it down.
Why should it use up the ground?
And brothers and sisters,
friends,
obviously this is a warning
for all of us.
Is it not?
In love,
Jesus is saying to us
through this passage,
unless you repent,
you will all likewise perish.
It doesn't matter
how long you've attended church.
It doesn't matter
how kind or moral
or compassionate
you try to be.
It doesn't matter
how much intellectually
you know about Christianity
or theology.
What is the condition?
Jesus says,
unless you repent,
you will perish.
Unless you admit
that your heart
and your life
has been centered
on something other than God
and you turn
and entrust yourself
to him and to his son.
that's the first reason.
Repent because
danger is coming
for those who do not.
But there's another reason
in our passage tonight
why we ought to repent.
Not only because danger is coming,
but
because deliverance
is here.
in verses 10 through 17
we read
of another healing
that Jesus performs
on the Sabbath.
We've seen a few of these
in the Gospel of Luke.
Here is a woman
bent over,
unable to stand up straight
and it's been that way
for 18 years
afflicted by a disabling spirit.
But with a single word
from Jesus
immediately
she's made straight.
Do you see the power
of Jesus here?
There's no struggle.
There's no back and forth.
What's held this woman bound
for 18 years of her life,
almost two decades,
is done away with
in a moment
because Jesus
is that powerful
because he has
that kind of command
and control
over the world,
friends,
that he made.
And like so many
of Jesus' other miracles
on the Sabbath,
this one too
ignites in controversy.
Now, of course,
there's no law
in the Old Testament
forbidding someone
to heal on the Sabbath.
But what happened was
is that some later
Jewish traditions
started gathering up
and they started
to view healing
as a form of work.
And so,
unless it was something
really, really
life-threatening,
healing was prohibited
on the Sabbath.
Come back another day.
And how does Jesus respond?
Comes right out
and says,
you hypocrites.
And then he does
this little play on words.
He says,
you'll loose
your ox or your donkey
and give it water
on the Sabbath,
but you won't loose
this woman
from Satan's affliction
on the Sabbath?
You see,
loose and untie
are the same word
in these verses.
You'll release an animal,
but you won't release
a daughter of Abraham,
one of God's chosen
and beloved children.
You're out of your minds.
What's the Sabbath for,
after all?
If you look back
at Deuteronomy 20,
or excuse me,
Exodus 20
and Deuteronomy 5,
what was the Sabbath
all about?
It was about rest
and deliverance.
The Sabbath
was a means
of trusting,
not in our own works,
but in God
as our creator
and redeemer.
And the Sabbath
was this picture too,
you see.
The Sabbath
was this picture,
a sign
of a great day
that was coming.
A great day
that was coming
of true rest
and true deliverance
from all that afflicted us
as human beings.
The day that Jesus says,
I'm bringing right now.
Jesus has come
and deliverance is here
and what the Sabbath
was always all about
is breaking forth
right before
their very eyes.
Freedom from sin
and guilt and shame.
You see friends,
this woman's physical condition
is a mirror
of all of our
spiritual condition.
Aren't all of us
bent over
by sin
and by guilt?
And doesn't Satan,
the accuser of our soul,
want to come
and just rub it in
and keep us bound.
But Jesus has come
to conquer sin
and to conquer death
and to conquer condemnation
and to utterly overwhelm
the evil one.
To put an end
to our sin
and to silence
his accusations
and to allow us
at last
to be loosed
from our burden
and to be released
from our sin
and to be untied
from our guilt
and to allow us
at last
to stand up straight
in the presence of God.
Friends,
we need to repent.
We need to turn to Christ
because deliverance
is here.
Don't be like
the ruler
of the synagogue here.
Jesus upsets
his comfortable
little Sabbath service,
doesn't he?
We're going to read
a little scripture.
We're going to have
a little talk.
We're going to sing
a few songs.
It's all quaint.
It's all comfortable.
It's all controlled.
And we all go home.
The ruler of the synagogue,
the synagogue was
most often
just a layman
who presided
over the affairs
of the synagogue.
He would organize
and often teach
in the services.
Sort of the guy
who kind of called
the shots.
And then Jesus comes in.
And suddenly,
instead of the ruler
of the synagogue
having his quaint
little Sabbath service,
all eyes are on Jesus.
All eyes are on him.
The one with the power
to actually redeem.
And just like this ruler
of the synagogue,
friends,
aren't we just like him
that we don't really like
to have Jesus
at the center sometimes?
We'd much rather
have all eyes on us.
We want to be at the center.
We like to stay in control.
But we can't release
any of our burdens.
And we can't untie
the guilt
that comes with our sin.
Only Jesus can.
And if we let go
of running our lives
our own way
and we give ourselves
over to him
if we repent,
then he'll bring
that deliverance
into our lives too,
you see.
And like a mustard seed,
it will seem so small
at first.
And so much
of the world
will seem to be
unchanged.
And yet Jesus
says it will grow
until it last.
God's kingdom
will be all in all.
You know,
we can look out
at the world,
can't we?
And we can doubt
that deliverance
has really come
in Jesus.
Jesus.
But you have
to understand
what the kingdom
of God is like,
Jesus says.
It's like a seed.
If I were to hold
a mustard seed
here in my hand,
none of you
would be able
to see it.
I would drop it
and we would never
find it on our
brown carpet.
It would be gone.
If I had a little
yeast in my hand
and I blew it,
it would disappear.
Jesus is saying
the kingdom begins
in an almost
insignificant way.
And isn't that true?
Jesus' first coming
was not what anyone
was expecting
of the Messiah.
This was not
what they were expecting
of God's
in-breaking rule.
This is not
what they were expecting
of God's kingdom.
Jesus was not
a military hero.
He did not end
all of their
national troubles.
He preached,
he healed,
he had a couple
followers,
he offended the
religious establishment
and he was crucified.
But,
unlike all the
other would-be
messiahs whose lives
ended in the same way,
Jesus' claims
were actually true.
Jesus was
God's son.
Jesus was
God's king.
Jesus was
bringing in the kingdom.
And to demonstrate
that,
to demonstrate
that Jesus
truly was
God's king,
three days
after his crucifixion
and burial,
God raised him
from the dead.
And now,
friends,
what do we see
of that
insignificant
beginning of the kingdom?
kingdom.
Now,
Jesus' kingdom
extends
across the world.
A few
ragtag
disciples,
a bunch of
fishermen
and tax collectors,
one woman
healed
on one
Sabbath day.
A bunch
of tiny
seeds.
And now,
in every
corner of this
world that we live in,
you will find
people who profess
the name of Jesus
as Lord.
The kingdom,
friends,
is growing.
It starts
small,
it grows.
And one day,
Jesus will return
and his kingdom
will be all in all.
And that
deliverance that we
long for,
that we wait
for,
that we're so
struggling to see
because it's not here,
one day it will be
complete and like
leaven,
it will work
its way out
through every
aspect of life.
And all sickness
and sin
and death
and disease
and shame
and jealousy
and lust
and all of that's
going to be done.
And in its place
will be God's
own glorious
rule.
So friends,
repent
and turn
because deliverance
has come.
The kingdom of God
has arrived
and one day
it's going to be
all in all
and you are all
called to be a part.
Finally then,
how can we repent?
We've seen what it is
and why we should do it.
But you know,
what's actually
going to dislodge
us from our
self-centeredness
and turn us
to God?
How do we get
unstuck
from ourselves
and come
to embrace
God
as all
in all?
Well,
friends,
we've actually
been talking about it
this whole time.
One way to see it
is to see that
Jesus here
tells two stories
about two trees,
one utterly fruitless
and another
full of life
and growing
to be big enough
to provide rest
for all who come.
What's going to
pull you out
of that
self-centered
agenda
that you live on?
Seeing what
Jesus Christ
has done for you,
you see.
See,
at this point
in Luke's story,
at this point
in Jesus' life,
he's on his way
to Jerusalem.
Jesus is on his way
to his own tree.
He's on his way
to the cross.
And on the cross,
Jesus is going
to be willingly
cut down
like a fruitless
fig tree.
He's going to die
the death
that you and I
deserve
because of our
self-centered
lives.
And he's going to
satisfy God's
justice for us.
And he's going
to unleash
God's deliverance.
And because Christ
rose again,
because he lives,
because Jesus
right now
stands at God's
right hand
as king,
right now
by his spirit
and in the
proclamation
of his word,
Jesus himself,
the risen king,
is calling us
to come,
to turn,
to repent.
To see what
he's done
through the cross
for you
and for me
and to come.
the living
Christ even
now is summoning
you to come
and to escape
from the danger
and to know
his deliverance.
Jesus would say
to John
many years later,
I stand at the
door and I
knock
and if anyone
hears my voice
and opens the
door,
I'll come into
him and eat
with him
and he with
me.
Friends,
Jesus freely
grants
repentance.
Open
the door
of your
heart to
him.
And friends,
if you've
done that,
if you're here
tonight and you
are a Christian,
what is this
passage teaching
us?
In many ways,
it's teaching
us to keep
on doing
just that.
Jesus is going
to keep on
knocking on
the doors of
our life
and like a
seed,
repentance
is the
continual act
of handing
over our
life to
him.
Whenever
he knocks
on another
area of
our life,
we open
to him
and let
him have
his way.
We turn
from those
self-centered
pursuits
and we embrace
him as
king.
And that
constant
turning over
of our
lives to
him,
that is
the continual
life of a
Christian.
That's how
we get
into the
kingdom and
that's how
we grow as
his kingdom
people, by
letting him be
king more and
more and more
in our lives
and trusting that
his grace covers
all of our
sins.
In just a
second, as we
come to the
Lord's Supper,
friends, this is an
opportunity for all
of us to do
what this passage
is telling us to
do, to repent.
If you're here
tonight and you
have not
trusted Christ,
then here is
your chance to
do so for the
first time.
To step over
the line and to
take him as
Savior and to
trust him as
Lord.
And for those
of us who have
trusted him, this
is our chance
through the
Lord's Supper to
surrender to him
more and more.
To hand over to
him all those
areas of our
hearts that we
want to withhold
and to let him
reign there as
well.
So friends,
tonight, repent.
Give your life
to him.
Let's pray.
Lord Jesus, we
confess that often
it is so hard for
us to do what you
tell us to do in
this passage.
And so we need
your spirit to
come and to
pull us and to
change us and to
get us to see all
of you in your
beauty and your
glory, to see what
you've done for us
on the cross.
Lord, would you
come and would you
make yourself real
to our hearts
tonight and help
us, Lord.
Give us the
strength to repent.
Oh, Lord, help us
to see how it is
freedom itself to
stop trying to live
for ourselves and
to live for you,
the one who made
us and who loves
us and will never
lead us astray.
And so, Lord, as
we come to your
table, would you
feed and fuel the
faith of those whom
you have called to
yourself, those whom
have trusted in you.
Lord, would we be
strengthened to live
our lives for you as
we remember your
death and resurrection
for us.
And, Lord Jesus, for
those who are here
and don't know you,
who are still
considering you, Lord,
would you draw them
close to yourself?
Help them, Lord, to
come to faith in you,
we pray.
In your name, amen.
Amen.