Hurry to Repent • Luke 13:1-9
1:07:17 Teaching begins
Notes
In the news death sounds like something extraordinary that happens occasionally.
They dropped 85 1,000 pound bombs on Nasrallah’s bunker till they got all the way down. He’s dead now. They got Sinwar because he came up out of the underground tunnels. They weren’t even looking for him, and he’s dead now.
Time ran out for Nasrallah and Sinwar.
Death isn’t extraordinary. You have to change your mind about that. Everyone, all of you, are going to die, unless you repent. And you don’t have a lot of time to waste.
I’m reading in Luke chapter 13.
1. In the middle of Jesus speaking and preaching someone gives Him the News.
A. It’s continuing on from the previous verses: Jesus says to the crowds, you all are on the way to court. God is suing you for your sin against Him, you’re going to lose your case, you will be in punishment forever.
B. And then a small group tell Jesus about worshippers offering sacrifice and the Roman governor Pilate kills them.
1. That is unexpected, out of the ordinary. You don’t expect to worship God and get killed.
2. Their next thought is, what kind of people were they? What did they do, that Pilate had to kill them right there, on the spot? They must have been extraordinarily wicked. They were real sinners to die suddenly, at the hands of the government. Shocking!
2. Jesus doesn’t deflect from the most important point.
A. He asks the question lurking in their minds. Do you think they were worse sinners than all other Galileans because they suffered such things?
B. Unless you repent you all are going to perish.
1. The last thing you say is what lingers in the mind.
2. Jesus’ point that He wants to stick in their minds is that you all are going to die.
C. He follows that up with the news about the catastrophe in Jerusalem. A tower fell on eighteen people in Siloam.
1. Were they worse sinners than everyone else in Jerusalem because of how they died, when they died? No! They were all the same sinners.
2. And then He wants this to stick in their minds: unless you repent, you will likewise perish.
D. The point is not how they died or when they died. The point is that they died!
E. Death is not something that happens extraordinarily, that if you live right you’re not going to die. You’re going to die.
F. Jesus means physical death. He means spiritual death. Eternal punishment is real. Jesus taught it, believed it, and died on the cross to save people from eternal punishment.
2. Repent means to change your life by changing your mind.
A. The word means to change your thinking. Transform your thinking from one way to another.
B. Really, it’s changing your heart, because the heart is where you hold things to be true. You don’t believe something you know isn’t true. It must be true in order to believe it.
C. What do you change your mind and your heart about? You change from what you hold to be true to what God says is true.
1. The Bible says there is a God. People don’t even think about God. He is nowhere in their thoughts. You change your mind, that’s wrong, and say, there is a God.
2. The Bible says that God is good. What do you think? Do you see God as someone who gets in your way and doesn’t give you what you want? He doesn’t answer your prayers? Seems indifferent to you? You see that as wrong, change your mind, say, God is good.
3. The Bible says God created us for His purposes. People say, I want what I want. You repent and say, Your purposes are higher than mine, I want Your ways in my life.
D. Why would you change your mind on these things? Because you hear the truth and believe it. For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.
1. God loves you with everlasting love, that never started and will never end.
2. How do you know that? Because nothing can save you from your sins and eternal punishment except that He sends His Son to die in your place. What parent would give his child’s life for a stranger? For a criminal to live, my child must perish? Why would I do that? Yet God did that.
3. Not only did God give up His Son to die in your place, but three days later He raised Him from the dead.
4. Now God says, drop what you’re doing and receive this in your heart as true. Change your mind, change your heart. Believe in Jesus, receive Jesus as your Lord and Saviour and be saved.
E. If you do that, you will find you will change your mind and repent for the rest of your life.
1. You will find that you have a habit of believing the wrong thing all the time. You choose to sin, against what you know to be true. You turn again to Jesus and ask Him to forgive you. He will.
2. You do this so often that you realise, I’m not as good a person as I thought I was. You become worse and worse, and at the same time Jesus becomes better and better.
3. Godly people repent and turn to Jesus all the time. Ungodly people never repent and turn to Jesus. Jesus saves sinners, and you will come to see that it’s true. He saves sinners, He’s saving me.
3. The other things Jesus emphasises is: you don’t have time to waste before you repent.
A. He tells this parable about a vineyard owner who planted a fig tree, and it’s not bearing fruit.
B. The reason is, there’s something wrong with the tree.
1. God created fig trees to bear figs. That’s the function He gave them.
2. Here’s a tree that grows, photosynthesises, but it doesn’t bear fruit.
3. There’s nothing wrong with the soil. Works fine. Nothing wrong with the sunshine, or the water.
4. It’s the tree. It’s not doing what it was created to do.
C. This tree is worse than just being a nothing.
1. It’s wasting time. The owner has waited three years, and nothing.
2. It’s a bother. The guy says, That tree might have forever, but I don’t. I’ve waited long enough.
3. This tree is actually holding back fruitfulness. The owner uses an interesting word to describe “use up the ground.” It’s translated elsewhere, “nullify”, “make of no effect”, “done away with”, “bring to nothing”, “removed”, “severed”, “abolished”, “bring to an end”, “render powerless”. This tree is preventing this ground from being fertile, from bringing increase, from benefitting. This dirt could benefit people, but this tree is actively preventing that because it’s doing its own thing.
4. Jesus said, “If anyone doesn’t gather with Me, he scatters against Me.” This tree is working against nature, against the owner, against God.
D. The owner says, cut it down. Let’s get rid of it and get something else in there.
E. The vinedresser says, well, let me dig around it and fertilise it. If that doesn’t work, I’ll cut it down.
1. What is fertiliser? Manure. What’s it do? Adds nutrients and make the ground more fertile. The tree might respond to the stimulation and grow fruit.
2. Is manure nice stuff? I’ve smelled it, it’s not my favourite. But it works.
3. I know what you’re thinking: God is going to add manure to my life? When you’re going the wrong way God makes it harder. When you run out of strength, you run out of stubbornness. You say, like Jacob, “I won’t let go unless you bless me.” You turn to God and quit fighting Him.
4. But realise the tree gets only another year. Is it time to say, “Well, I’ll think about being fruitful but I’m keeping my options open.”? Can you play around indefinitely? You do not know the day of your death.
5. A tree can’t think, but you can. Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.
4. So what?
A. Death is not something that happens in extraordinary ways to people in the news. It’s going to happen to you.
B. And you don’t know when you’re going to die. I saw a video of a guy crossing the street in Judea, and a missile fell on him and killed him instantly. That’s the news again! Extraordinary! I called a friend of mine, he’s been in the hospital for six months. He was crossing the street, a truck was racing the yellow light, he’s paralysed in half his body, brain damage. But he’s still alive. When are you going to die? You have no power over that.
C. Are you going to make God dig around your roots and put in manure?
D. Or you can repent. Say, “God is right and I am wrong.” “Jesus died for my sins and rose from the dead, and I am going to receive Him. Please forgive my sins. Teach me Your ways, that I might know You. Make me fruitful.
E. If you’re a Christian, you need to be fruitful.
1. You need to be filled with the Holy Spirit, you need to be benefitting God and man.
2. You can’t stand being unfruitful. That has to drive you crazy, because it’s against your nature as a born-again believer in Jesus.
3. Whatever is making you inert, preventing the ground from being fruitful, that’s not your friend, that’s not from God. That’s sin.
4. John 15:4-8 Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are burned. If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples.
F. You need to repent, and you don’t have time to waste.
Let’s pray.