Sermons 2024

Video

Text: Acts 3:11-21
Theme: Joyful Repentance

Outline
1.    Repentance is serious
2.    Repentance is joyful

Alleluia! Christ is Risen!
He Is Risen indeed Alleluia!

My dear beloved flock, the text for our meditation today is the First Reading from Acts chapter three verses eleven through twenty-one.
Boys and girls, I pray that you are doing well today. Have you ever played the Hokey Pokey? You put your left foot in, you put your left foot out and shake it all about. Eventually your whole body is shaking and turning around. It is a fun game. It is also what the word repentance means. It means to turn around, to stop doing bad horrible things and turn to God, being sorry over our sins. It is something that is serious, but like the hokey pokey, can also be fun and joyful. How can that be? How does God call us to Repentance still today? Ponder those questions as you hear the rest of the sermon. You may go back to your seats and those who love you.

1.    Repentance is serious

“13 The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified his servant Jesus, whom you delivered over and denied in the presence of Pilate, when he had decided to release him. 14 But you denied the Holy and Righteous One, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, 15 and you killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses. ” Peter’s opening words create a stark contrast. The Jews killed the Author of life and asked for a murderer to go free in His place. Jesus they crucified, Barabas they released. A murderer takes life although it be only the earthly life; this Author of life has divine life in himself and has thereby become the fountain of spiritual and everlasting life for us. The contrast rises to a tremendous climax: the one destroys the lower life, the other bestows the highest life Killing the one who is the source and end goal of all life. Jesus who is the very words of life made flesh for humanity, to give to them life everlasting. Him they killed! With these words Peter calls the Jews to repentance over their sins. While they are marveling, dumb founded at this miracle that is before their eyes of a lame man now fully walking, constantly clinging to Peter and John in thanksgiving for what they did for him. Peter says no. They should not be marveling at this fact. Rather, they should be marveling that God has not slain them for their great sin against Him. They killed the author of life whom God raised from the dead. Because of faith in the Author of life, because Jesus was raised from the dead, this man was healed. 

    Repentance, and calling people to repentance, is serious business. Peter says, “19 Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out, ” We should take our sins seriously and its consequences. We should mourn over doing them. We should despise our dark thoughts that lead to even darker actions. We may not have physically killed Jesus like the Jews did, but that does not mean we have not done things in need of repentance. We, like the Jews, need to repent of our sins and turn back to God. We need to repent of our sins of rebelling against God when He does not act on our time table. Our sins of thinking that we know better than those that God has placed in authority over us. Our sins of words said in anger or frustration. Our sins of deeds done in the dark of night when we think no one is looking. Our sins of annoyance when something does a minor thing we do not like that causes us to get annoyed or angry. Our sins of impatience when someone cuts us off or we get stuck at every red light. Kill the author of life? No, but our sins are just as horrible. Just as deserving of present and everlasting punishment. James writes, “For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it.” 

Unlike many in the world who think that because Jesus died, then we are free to do whatever we want, that everything is forgiven. We dare not take our sins lightly. We dare not take our sins as anything less that what they are. Things to be abhorred. Spurned at the first inclination of them. Yet, how grievous our flesh! How quickly we cheapen the grace of God shown to us in Jesus Christ our Lord!

2.    Repentance is joyful

As serious as we should take repentance, it is also a time to be joyful. Many times, we focus so much on the seriousness and somberness of repentance that we lose the joy. How can we have joy? Because of Who we are turning to. Just look at what Peter says will happen with repentance. “20 that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus ” We turn in contraction, in sorrow over our sins. Who do we turn to? We turn to the very Author of life, the very One crucified for us. The One who has joined us in our sorrows and weakness in order to redeem us. As Luther writes, ““We Christians must know that if God is not also in the balance and gives the weight, we sink to the bottom with our scale. By this I mean: If it were not to be said, God has died for us but only a man, we should be lost. But if ‘God’s death’ and ‘God died’ lie in the scale of the balance, then he sinks down, and we rise up as a light, empty scale. But, indeed, he can also rise again or leap out of the scale; yet he could not sit in the scale unless he became a man like us so that it could be said: ‘God died,’ ‘God’s passion,’ ‘God’s blood,’ ‘God’s death.’ For in his nature God cannot die; but now that God and man are united in one person, it is correctly called God’s death when the man dies who is one thing or one person with God.”  Jesus took on our humanity, became one of us in every way yet was without sin, died, and rose from the dead that every single one of our sins are forgiven. They are covered by His blood. We rejoice that we are not left down in the balance of our sins but that He is on the other side. That He has made us light by taking away our sins. Because of Jesus God showers us, not with wrath and anger as our sins deserve, but with times of refreshing. When we turn to Him in repentance, He gives us joy that our sins are forgiven. He gives us of His Holy Spirit that we can, and do, turn to Him in repentance, be strengthened by Him in newness of life. We rejoice in the forgiveness that He has given to us in Christ.

We rejoice that God gives us the ultimate joy. Eternal joy found when Jesus comes again in power and glory. Raises the dead, bodies perfected forever, and we get to live with Him forever and ever in the new heavens and new earth eternally.

Is repentance something to be taken seriously? Yes, sin is serious business, but it leads to rejoicing in joy that we have repentance. We turn to our crucified, risen, and ascended Christ Jesus and receive forgiveness, and times of refreshment.  All because Jesus the Author of life, has died and risen for you.

 
Alleluia! Christ is Risen!
He Is Risen indeed Alleluia!

The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guard and keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.