jesus

The Falling and Rising of Many

/ thegracepastor / Leave a comment

Luke 2:34 “Then Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, his mother: ‘This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against…’”

The genuine way to God is uniquely humbling. Jesus came to empty us of all our delusions that somehow God owes us. We don’t live as his peers. We don’t endear ourselves to him by the way we live. He isn’t impressed by who we are. This is why Jesus could make shocking statements like these to the “church” people of his day: “The prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you.” He isn’t referring to those who defiantly defended their “trade,” but to those who repented. These ladies weren’t filled with pride. They knew they had messed up. They didn’t have to be told to be humble. They just were. It was obvious they weren’t going to impress God into accepting them.

The other camp is the way of human pride. The Pharisees were the poster boys for this cause in Jesus’ day. “Be good” was their basic approach to God. And there is nothing wrong with being good. God wants us to be. The problem was that the Pharisees had convinced themselves that they were, or at least that they were on a steady course of personal improvement that would get them there. They took great pride in how hard they tried.

Another way to look at this division is the difference between those who are saved and those who are struggling. Jesus did not come to be the great Trainer. He did not come to be the great Helper. He came to be the great Savior. By his life and death, by the forgiveness of sins, he pulls to safety those who had no way of rescuing themselves.

But many, like the Pharisees, prefer to struggle on themselves. Have you ever tried to help a little child who was struggling to do something, and instead you were rebuffed with: “I can do it myself!”? How often God must shake his head at us when he offers to save us but people reply, “I can do it myself!” Unfortunately, we are like a 3-year-old trying to solve a problem in advanced calculus, or trying to assemble a car from nothing but parts, or trying to swim 500 miles to shore. It just isn’t going to happen.

The result of this division into two camps, these two approaches to God, is, as Simeon said, “the falling and rising of many in Israel.” The irony is that those who looked like they were so low had actually been raised, and those who looked like they were so high had actually fallen. Take the Apostle Paul, for example. When he converted to the religion of grace from the religion of works and pride, he gave up a career path that promised to make him a prominent and respected rabbi in Israel, maybe even a member of their ruling council, the Sanhedrin. In its place he received a life of persecution and prison chains, and eventually execution as a criminal. It looked like Paul had fallen.

But from God’s point of view, Paul was raised to the heights: the heights of being intensely loved by Jesus, the heights of perfection– not of his own doing but of having his sins wiped away and receiving credit for Jesus’ perfect life, ultimately, the heights of heaven itself. It was those who insisted on coming to God on their own terms who were on a steady downward course away from God.

Here is an application to take to heart. Even Christians in name can end up in the wrong camp. Here is a direct quote from a sermon preached in a “Christian” church almost fifty years ago: “Jesus is an example, a prototype of what I and all men can become. He is not a sacrifice, a substitute, that saves me from all pain and sorrow, no matter how strong my faith may be. If it is necessary to believe in that kind of fiction in order to be saved, then I greatly fear that ‘when the roll is called up yonder,’ I shall not be there.” Sadly, we must confirm this man’s conclusion about his fate because his is the graceless religion of pride, struggling, and works, not Jesus’ religion of salvation.

There are other people who can recite the formula of salvation by grace– Jesus died on the cross to take all my sins away– but who do so something like a trained parrot. It is little more than a theory which they repeat, but not their trust and confidence. In their hearts they are still convinced they are basically good. They feel no great need for Jesus to forgive their sins.

Follow Jesus to become a saved person, not because you think you are a better person.

His Word Stands Forever

/ thegracepastor / Leave a comment

Isaiah 40:6-8 “A voice says, ‘Cry out.’ And I said, ‘What shall I cry?’ ‘All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field. The grass withers and the flowers fall, because the breath of the Lord blows on them. Surely the people are grass. The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever.’”

We don’t naturally go looking for the kind of comfort that will last forever. Our world is full of counterfeit comforts, short-lived comforts, and you and I have probably tried most of them.

There is Southern Comfort, and other similar mind-altering comforts that come in a bottle, or in a pill, or in a syringe. They may make us forget our hardships for a little while, but they can’t make them go away. They usually end up creating more of them than we had before.

There is the comfort that comes from being comfortable, from having all the money we need, all the things that we want, all the prestige and success we have worked so hard to build. The problem is that when we look for our comforts here, we never seem to have enough to be truly comfortable.

We may try to surround ourselves with comforters of various sorts, people who can give us a feeling of safety and security. We strive to build the perfect family. We work hard to elect the right leaders. We look up to heroes and role models who show us the way.

The problem is that “all men are like grass.” Even the good ones may serve well in their time, but death overtakes us all. “And all their glory,” all the best things that their lives have produced, “is like the flowers of the field.” Human accomplishments rarely outlive the lives of the people who performed them.

My great-grandfather and grandfather spent their lifetimes building up a family farm. They worked on it until the day they died. Then one day the bank came and finagled it away.

The history of the world is littered with heroes whose life’s work benefits absolutely no one today, other than to make a great story. You can be sure the day will come when fathers of our own country, whose ideas and sacrifice we still benefit from hundreds of years later, will be added to the list of those whose glory has faded, whose flowers have fallen, and no one will benefit from their work other than a few interested historians.

But the word of the Lord, and the promise of comfort that it brings, will never end up on that list. “The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever.” The life’s work of Jesus Christ is no less relevant today than it was 2000 years ago. The power of his gospel to touch our hearts and bring us faith is no less effective today than when he first issued the Great Commission. The forgiveness of sins his gospel promises is no less valid and no less certain than when those comforting words first fell on the ears of his disciples in the towns and villages of Galilee. It is an absolutely sure message.

God’s comfort may not be immediately obvious to us in the stable at Christmas. It is even harder to see hanging on the cross. That is why so many artists have doctored the picture with halos and glowing skin. But we don’t need such special effects to see salvation in the manger. All we need to see is the comforting and certain message of forgiveness connected to that Savior, and know his word stands forever.

The Law Is Good, But…

/ thegracepastor / Leave a comment

1 Timothy 1:8-9 “We know that the law is good if a man uses it properly. We also know that the law is not made for the righteous…”

Few people would argue with the statement, “The law is good.” The word Paul uses for “good” describes something that works the way it is supposed to. If you buy a car and it turns out to be reliable–you are not constantly bringing it in to have something fixed or adjusted or replaced–then you have purchased a “good” one. God’s law is good because he made it and it serves his purpose. It does what he wants it to do… “if a man uses it properly.”

But using it properly, keeping it in its place, letting it serve its purpose, is just the problem. Each winter, it seems, you hear of someone who is trying to heat their house by leaving the gas stove on. You can make a house warm that way, but you can also burn the house down or asphyxiate everyone inside. Sometimes you can use a pliers to turn bolt or a nut, but you can also end up stripping all the corners and making it impossible to turn anymore. So it is that many people want to reach for the law when it’s not the right tool for the job, as Paul goes on to explain.

“We also know that law is not made for the righteous…” You don’t need to make rules for people who are already doing the right thing. What would be the purpose for that? Laying down a law on those who are already good might only change their happiness to do what is right into fear. Am I in trouble? Have I failed to live up to my responsibilities? Now behaving is all about guilt and pressure.

When God called us to faith in Jesus, he forgave all our sins. He declared us righteous. He sees us as holy people, perfect saints. We still commit sins, but by God’s forgiveness they don’t count against us anymore. We are free from them. As Jesus once said, “If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”

In God’s eyes, then, all Christians are “righteous,” good people. This also worked a change in us. As good people we want to do what is good. There is a new man living in me who sees things God’s way. He loves God and he loves everyone else and he is eager to show this love all the time in all he does.

It is a mistake to think that this new man can live on a diet of nothing but God’s law. “The law is not made for the righteous.”  Even when the rules are preached gently, with a sense of humor, with all kinds of practical reasons why they should be kept, eventually they pile up and weigh us down, and the load becomes crushing. Happiness is replaced by fear, confidence and faith by doubt and uncertainty. Am I doing enough? The law is not made for good men. It is the wrong tool for feeding the faith of God’s children.

What is its purpose then? “We also know that the law is not made for the righteous but for lawbreakers and rebels, the ungodly and sinful, the unholy and irreligious; for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers, for adulterers and perverts, for slave traders and liars and perjurers–and for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine that conforms to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which he entrusted to me.” In this list Paul gives specific examples of people who are devoid of religion, the violent, the sexually immoral, the greedy, the dishonest, and anyone who opposes good Christian teaching.

Note that the law does not prevent any of these sins from existing. In our culture wars, those who claim, “You can’t legislate morality,” are correct. No law has ever eliminated a crime, though it may help to keep it in check to some degree.

But that does not mean that the law has no purpose. Regardless of which sins our nation’s laws choose to address, God’s law still enables us to identify sin and confront it. Only when people know their sins can they repent of them and receive God’s forgiveness. This is God’s purpose for his law: to prepare people to receive his grace. Since we still have a sinful nature that sins every day, we need still need his law to convict us of our sins and fill us with a hunger for grace. But faith lives on the gospel.

The law is good, but God’s forgiving grace is the right tool for maintaining faith.

Honest Truth about Sin and Forgiveness

/ thegracepastor / Leave a comment

1 John 1:8-9 “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”

            You have heard of the two key questions, perhaps. We use them in evangelism work. In order to get a person to think about where they stand with God, we ask them the question, “Do you know if you will go to heaven when you die?” They may answer yes or no. In follow up we ask the second question. “Why do you think so? Or, to put it another way, if God were to ask you, ‘Why should I let you into heaven?’ what would you tell him?”

            A pastor friend of mine once asked these questions of a member of his congregation who was a senior citizen, and had belonged to a Lutheran church all her life. To the question, “Do you know if you will go to heaven when you die?” she answered, “Oh, yes pastor. I know that I am going to heaven when I die.” That was good, so he followed up, “If God asked you why he should let you into heaven, what would you tell him?” She answered, “Because I never sin.” That’s not the right answer, John tells us here. My pastor friend had to work a little to convince this lady what she said wasn’t true or honest, before he could proceed to tell her about God’s real solution for our sins.

            Most people, I believe, take an opposite view of whether they have sin, at least in theory. “Nobody’s perfect” is a truth embraced by almost everyone. But the devil is in the details. I have listened to church members try to defend extramarital affairs, chronic substance abuse that led to their hospitalization, driving 130 miles an hour to avoid arrest for speeding, giving nothing for any charitable cause though they made hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, shacking up, shoplifting, holding grudges. Everyone wants to believe that their case is an exception. It’s all a subtle way of saying and believing, “I am without sin,” even if we admit that we are sinners in theory. John says we are only deceiving ourselves. Somewhere Martin Luther comments that if we want to be only a “painted sinner,” sort of a sinner in theory, then we will get only a painted, or theoretical Savior. But if we admit to our real sins, then we get a real Savior as well.

            Which is just what John promises, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” The Lord isn’t looking for us to perform some great act of penance when he confronts our sins. He doesn’t expect us to pay for the sin ourselves, or spend the rest of our lives feeling miserable about them. He just wants us to confess them and say we are sorry. What he is really waiting for is the opportunity to say “I forgive you,” whether from the pastor’s mouth, or at the communion table, or in our personal gospel reading and devotions. That’s what gets him out of bed in the morning, so to speak. That’s what motivates our God to keep working with us and moves him to keep this relationship with us going. He wants nothing more than a fresh opportunity to show us his grace.

Perfect Timing

/ thegracepastor / Leave a comment

Matthew 26:1-5 “When Jesus had finished saying all these things, he said to his disciples, ‘As you know, the Passover is two days away–and the Son of Man will be handed over to be crucified.’ Then the chief priests and the elders of the people assembled in the palace of the high priest, whose name was Caiaphas, and they plotted to arrest Jesus in some sly way and kill him. ‘But not during the Feast,’ they said, ‘or there might be a riot among the people.’

The Passover was just two days away. The Passover was the celebration of God’s great deliverance of Israel from Egypt. It taught them, like nothing else did, that their God was a God who rescues his helpless people from death. It also taught them to look forward to an even greater deliverance from an even darker death when the Messiah appeared in the future. Jesus was that Messiah, and this Passover was his chosen time to execute that great deliverance.

His enemies had another idea about the timing of it all. “Not during the Feast.” As much as these men wanted to kill Jesus, the one time they did not want him to die was during the Feast, the Passover. They feared the consequences for their political careers: a riot by the people, injury to their reputations and weakening of their power, maybe even seeing the Romans clamp down and tighten their grip on Israel. Although they did not yet realize it, Jesus’ Passover Plans created a conflict with their own, a conflict of timing over his saving work.

If we step back for a moment and look at the timing of Jesus’ plans, we are impressed by the artistry and poetry of the way that Jesus orchestrates and conducts his saving work. In the Passover a Lamb died to free God’s people from slavery and death. On this Passover, Jesus the Lamb of God, would die to free God’s people from slavery to sin and death. In the Passover God brought deliverance and victory to his people when it looked certain that they were going to suffer death and defeat. On this Passover Jesus brought everlasting deliverance and victory to his people from what looked like certain death and defeat. The enemies of Jesus could oppose the timing of his Passover plan to save us, but they could not stop it.

Have we learned to trust God’s timing as he continues to work in our lives for our salvation? Do we catch glimpses of the artistry and the poetry in the way he still conducts and orchestrates his plans as we live them? Like Israel under Pharaoh’s heavy hand, or trapped by the Red Sea; like the disciples watching Jesus slowly die on the cross, we may find it difficult to see past the darkness of the moment in which we are living. It must seem to us like God brings help too late. Remember Martha’s words to Jesus when he visited after Lazarus had died? “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” Thanks for coming, but isn’t your timing off, Jesus? But was there something wrong with Jesus’ timing when he performed an even greater miracle and raised Lazarus from the dead?

Admittedly, it is hard to keep carrying our heavy load when we are pleading with Jesus for help. We want the pain to go away. We fear the future. It is hard to wait. But Jesus’ enemies are the ones who oppose and reject his timing. His friends trust it and accept it. So easily, so many times, we become guilty of fighting the very plans he has made to serve our souls and increase our faith. The time has come for us to repent of our doubt and dissatisfaction, our complaining and contradicting, that put us in conflict with Jesus’ plans and their timing for our lives. Jesus’ timing is perfect, and it will always serve us best in the end.

A Double Portion

/ thegracepastor / Leave a comment

2 Kings 2:7-10 “Fifty men of the company of the prophets went and stood at a distance, facing the place where Elijah and Elisha had stopped at the Jordan. Elijah took his cloak, rolled it up, and struck the water with it. The water divided to the right and to the left, and the two of them crossed over on dry ground. When they had crossed, Elijah said to Elisha, ‘Tell me, what can I do for your before I am taken from you?’ ‘Let me inherit a double portion of your spirit,’ Elisha replied. ‘You have asked for a difficult thing,’ Elijah said, ‘yet if you see me when I am taken from you, it will be yours–otherwise not.’”

In an ancient Israelite inheritance, a double portion of the inheritance went to the true successor of the one who died. It was a way of saying, “This is the new leader in the family.” It had as much to say about position and leadership as it did about money or property.

Elisha wasn’t interested in Elijah’s stuff. We don’t know that Elijah owned much. Elisha wanted to be a courageous, faithful, powerful prophet like Elijah had been. When God builds a faith that produces fruits like courage, faithfulness, service, and power in a person, that happens in our soul or spirit. It is a spiritual thing, more than just information in our head or physical strength in our bodies. Elisha wanted these things like Elijah had them so that he could serve God’s people the way Elijah had.

More than that, he wanted the double portion. He wanted to be the true successor, the new leader of the prophets and people of God. And in order to do this, he would need a spirit of faith like Elijah had.

This wasn’t a greedy or prideful request from Elisha. It wasn’t going to get him anything materially speaking. It was an invitation to rejection, persecution, and heartache. But he asked for it because he loved God’s word, his people, and his work. It was an important thing not so much for him as for the people he would serve.

It was also something only the Lord himself could give. “You have asked a difficult thing,” Elijah said. You don’t “inherit” someone else’s faith. You don’t “inherit” someone else’s ministry. God gives them through is word, and through his call. Elijah had taught God’s word and preached God’s word to Elisha, the thing that would make it possible. But the rest was up to the Lord himself.

Most of you aren’t called to a prophetic ministry like these men. As a pastor, my life might be a little closer, but I am not a leader of exactly the same type either. A double portion of Elijah’s spirit may not be so much what we need. But to have the same kind of priorities, the same kind of love for God’s word, the same kind of desire to serve God’s people, the same kind of faith–that would be as useful and dear a gift for you or me as it ever was for Elisha.

As a parent, I would like to leave a nest egg for my children after I am gone. I hope that we have passed along a little of their mother’s work ethic, and my interest in learning and education. These would all serve our children well. But what I desperately want them to receive above all else is a faith in their Lord Jesus as their Savior from sin. I want them to see him as the very center of their lives and their purpose for living. I want them to live every day in the certainty and peace that God sees them washed clean in Jesus’ blood and claims them as his very own. I want Jesus to be the very highest priority in their lives, and for this to show itself in the way they live their lives and their devotion to their churches. Then, when my last day comes, I can face death like Elijah, and so can they, because we share the most important things.

We Are Not Alone

/ thegracepastor / Leave a comment

2 Kings 2:1-3 “When the Lord was about to take Elijah up to heaven in a whirlwind, Elijah and Elisha were on their way from Gilgal. Elijah said to Elisha, ‘Stay here: the Lord has sent me to Bethel.’ But Elisha said, ‘As surely as the Lord lives and as you live, I will not leave you.” So they went down to Bethel. The company of the prophets at Bethel came out to Elijah and asked, ‘Do you know that the Lord is going to take your master from you today?’ ‘Yes, I know,’ Elisha replied, ‘but do not speak of it.’”

This scene plays itself a second time. Elijah leaves and goes to Jericho. He tells Elisha to stay behind. Elisha won’t do it. When they arrive the prophets in that place come out and tell Elisha that this is Elijah’s last day. Elisha doesn’t want to talk about it.

There are a lot of things going on here. Everyone knows something big is about to happen. No one seems to know exactly what to do about it. Should Elisha leave, or should Elijah and Elisha stay together? Should we be talking about what’s going to happen, or shouldn’t we?

It’s hard to tell what everyone is thinking. Does Elisha want to stick close to Elijah for himself, because he can’t bear to leave him, because he wants every last moment with his friend he can get? Or does he stay with Elijah to support him, because what is coming seems a little scary, and he doesn’t want Elijah to face it alone? Does Elijah ask Elisha to stay behind because he wants to spare Elisha the trauma of thinking about this all day long, and having to see Elijah’s final moment? Is he trying to help him get started on resolution and closure? Or is he personally burdened by the grief he senses in Elisha, and he doesn’t want to drag this around with him his last day? “Just leave me alone.”

I don’t know that I can answer those questions for you. It may be a mixture of all the above. How to act as death approaches confuses us. Family members get on each other’s nerves. Selfishness often rises to the surface. The emotional pain makes some people bossy. Others withdraw into themselves. We are tempted to believe the worst about others. An elderly woman to whom I was close believed that the rest of her family was interested only in her money as her last days approached. The truth was, no one I knew even cared about an inheritance. But sometimes that is a big issue in a family. It’s sad that at a time when both the dying and those around them may need each other the most, we easily end up pushing each other away. Just when “Love your neighbor as yourself” is most needed, it suddenly becomes all about me.

If we are going to face death like God’s people, this is what we can take away from this part of the story: This is the time to support each other. Maybe that seems too simple. But this involves a facet of the gospel we don’t talk about so much. It is important at a time like this. Regardless of the current condition of our earthly families, God has made us part of a family of faith. Jesus died to cleanse us of our sins and to make us his brothers and sisters by faith. That makes us brothers and sisters to each other as well. One of the prayers in the funeral liturgy reminds us of the blessing when someone dies. “In our earthly sorrows, help us find strength in the fellowship of the church…You give us family, friends, and neighbors to help us when there is loneliness now and in the days to come.” We are not alone. That’s good news.

A Better School – A Better Teacher

/ thegracepastor / Leave a comment

John 7:15 “The Jews were amazed and asked, ‘How did this man (Jesus) get such learning without having studied?’”

The question of the Jewish leaders does not suggest that Jesus was illiterate. Like most Jewish boys of his time, he had likely attended a synagogue school where he learned how to read.

But Jesus had never studied in one of the rabbinical schools. These were something like our seminaries. You may remember that the Apostle Paul studied in the school of the well-known rabbi Gamaliel. But Jesus had no college level degree in theology. He was a tradesman, a carpenter by training, who had a brilliant grasp of the Scriptures. His teaching did not come from what he had learned in a classroom.

Likewise, the test of true teachers of God’s word is not about the school they attended or the number of degrees they have earned. These may not be bad things. We don’t want ignorant or lazy preachers and teachers who have not worked at learning Scripture and prepared themselves for serving God’s people. Continuing study is a healthy thing for one’s ministry. But theology degrees from prestigious institutions do not necessarily make a better teacher of God’s word. Many things that could be learned from some theological schools would be serious problems today. In spiritual things, academia has often produced a skepticism that gets in the way of knowing God’s word.

Jesus himself prayed, “I thank you Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned and revealed them to little children” (Matthew 11:25). Paul made this observation to the Corinthians, “Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe” (1 Cor. 1:20-21). In the test of the true teacher, the right answer to the question, “Where does his teaching come from?” is not, “From some respected school.”

Where, then? “Jesus answered, ‘My teaching is not my own. It comes from him who sent me’” (John 7:16). With these words Jesus does not deny that he agreed with his own teaching, believed it, and claimed it for himself. He is talking about the source. His teachings were not new teachings he made up independently during his earthly ministry. Truth is never something new, though it may have been forgotten and rediscovered. Truth has a long history behind it. In fact, truth is eternal.

We live in an age that idolizes the new and the trendy. Christians also suffer from this disease. When people make some preacher or teacher popular, because, “Here’s something we haven’t heard before,” we can be too quick to jump on the bandwagon. Has he dusted off some Biblical teaching that has been neglected for too long? Then feel free to follow. But is his teaching some creative new idea spun out of his own imagination? Through Jeremiah God complained about the prophets who “dream their own dreams.” That is the wrong answer to “Where does his teaching come from?” in the test of the true teacher.

Instead, it needs to come “from him who sent me.” Jesus was a true teacher because his teachings agreed with those of his heavenly Father, the one who created the world. His words lined up with God’s revelation to the Patriarchs, and Moses, and the Prophets. Jesus’ claim that his teachings come from the one who sent him was not a claim that defied contradiction because there was no way to investigate it. Everyone present knew the way to check it out: compare Jesus’ teaching with the Scriptures.

When testing to see if someone is a true teacher, “From God through his Holy Scriptures” is still the best answer to the question, “Where does his teaching come from?”

The Fruit Our Lord Seeks

/ thegracepastor / Leave a comment

Luke 13:6-7 “A man had a fig tree, planted in his vineyard, and he went to look for fruit on it, but did not find any. So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard, ‘For three years now I’ve been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and haven’t found any. Cut it down! Why should it use up the soil?’”

It helps to know the context in which Jesus told this parable. Some people had come to him after an incident of police brutality in Jerusalem. The Romans rulers had killed several Jewish people from Galilee right in the middle of their worship at the temple. The question naturally arises, “Why would God let an injustice like this happen?”

So Jesus asked those who reported the news to him, “Do you think these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way?” That’s the way people sometimes think. I remember some Christians suggesting that Haiti was struck by a devastating earthquake because of the devil worship in that country. Obviously we are against devil worship, but is that how we explain the devastation around the globe each year? Are Californians worse sinners when wildfires rage across their state? Are Texans, Floridians, and Puerto Ricans worse sinners when hurricanes take life and property? Are the many shooting victims each year worse sinners because they died in an attack?

Jesus’ answer is short and to the point: “No!” Then he reminds us that death, by whatever means, is always an urgent call to repent. “But unless you repent, you too will all perish.” Our own day is coming soon. The real tragedy is not to die, but to die without repenting of our sins.

Now for the fig tree. Repentance involves real change. It is not giving theoretical approval to certain pious opinions because that makes my Christian parents, friends, or pastor happy. Politicians can get away with telling the public what it wants to hear about some policy, whether or not they believe it themselves. Christians can’t. Unless we truly change our minds, and embrace Jesus’ forgiveness, there is no true repentance.

When we do repent, that produces fruit. The fruit is how we know something has changed on the inside. Like the owner of the fig tree, God expects to find fruit, new behaviors, when he comes to see us.

Certainly that means giving up sinful habits and selfish behaviors. Forgiveness is not permission. Forgiveness may get us off the hook for bad things we have done. It is not a license to keep doing them. And real repentance doesn’t try to use it that way. We may slip and need to be forgiven again. But that is not because we have decided to be comfortable and okay with our sinful habits.

More than giving things up, fruits of repentance mean new positive actions in our lives. The essence of God’s will for our lives is love. Love is not a vacuum in which we find nothing. It is filled with serving others. It is not occupied with making myself feel good. About romantic love the saying so often holds true, “There is no one more selfish than a lover.” Love that grows as a fruit of repentance, however, accepts that serving others will involve discomfort, inconvenience, sacrifice, sometimes even pain.

So here you and I are at the end of another year, like the fig trees in Jesus’ parable. God comes looking for fruit, a changed life, and what does he see? Have we again arranged our schedules, spent our money, used our time, and expended our energy in our own self-interest? I once knew a woman who professed to be a Christian. She lived without pursuing any obvious vices. She didn’t drink or smoke, sleep around, curse or swear. But the more you got to know her, the more it became evident that the theme of her life was, “It is all about me.” She lived her life as though she was the conductor, and everyone else was just a player in her orchestra–often unwilling musicians at that. She spent all day trying to create her own little universe over which she ruled as God and Lord.

Have you ever known someone like that? The better question might be, “How much is this a description of ourselves?” Is our life crowded with fruits of love? The Lord has spared us for one more year. He is patient with us. That itself is evidence of his grace. Let our lives respond with the love he seeks.