I was scheduled to preach this coming Sunday on Ezekiel 33:7-11, but I have spent the week sick. I am very thankful for my associate pastor Heather for filling in on 3 days notice.
Here is a message I did from this passage in 2008.
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Billy Graham wrote a book called How to be Born Again. What a straight forward title from a man who
has spent his life telling the simple truth in a direct manner. In this book, Rev. Graham tells us about Joe.
Joe was
brought up in Bronx Ghetto. … The streets of New York had been his home since
[birth]. Gang warfare, knife fighting,
stealing and lying were simply a way of life.
He was … a drug user and an accomplished thief.
Joe,
however, went to a meeting at which Akbar Haqq, [a Billy Graham Association]
evangelist was speaking. Before the
evening was over, Joe had given his life to Christ. The day after his conversion, one of his
buddies was trying to induce Joe to go with him to get drugs and Joe didn’t
want to be bothered. The friend pulled a
knife and threatened to cut Joe. Joe was
much quicker and he got the better of his friend, stabbing him many times. His friend was in the hospital for two weeks.
Joe [had
accepted Christ, but he] had no Christian background to fall back on, and he
had many ups and downs in his spiritual life.
Is there a common thread between you
and I and Joe? I haven’t met gang
members here at our church. Of course
there is drug use, violence, and crime in Chapel Hill, but I have not run into
many people like Joe. I have though met
a lot of people in our town and in our church that go through ups and downs in
the spiritual life. No matter how
dedicated we are to prayer, to worship, to Bible study, and to Christian
service, we have high points and low points and many days where we are
somewhere in between. There is no
solution to that. Discipleship is a
journey. What we can see in Joe’s life
and in the words of the prophet Ezekiel and in other stories we’ll hear this
morning is that repentance has to be a critical part of the disciple’s
journey. Repentance is more than
something we just do when we initially confess our sins and accept Jesus. Repentance is more something we just do when
we know we have committed sins or lived in a season of spiritual dryness or in
a season of decadence or sinfulness.
Repentance is a crucial, consistent element in the disciple life.
I read about a young German girl in
the 19th century who was giving a piano concert in her town. She was not famous, but she wanted people to
come, so she fudged her resume. She said
she was a student of the famous composer, Franz Liszt. She had never met him or studied piano under
him, but this was a great way to generate a crowd until she learned that the
day of the concert, Franz Liszt would be in town.
In her embarrassment, she dealt with
what she had done. She didn’t try to
hide. She didn’t hope the whole thing
would blow over. She went to Franz Liszt
when he arrived and confessed all. He
said to her, “You made a mistake. We all
make mistakes. What you need to do is
repent and I believe you have. Now, I
want you to sit down and play what you will be playing in the concert.” She did.
He corrected a few of her mistakes.
Then he said, “Now you can truly say I have been your teacher. Proceed with your concert. Your teacher will play the final
number.” And he did.[i]
As this pianist found redemption
from a kind hearted master in Franz Liszt, the New York street-tough turned
Christian, Joe, found redemption through the faithful witness of Akbar Haqq and
Billy and Ruth Graham. Joe was led to
Jesus when he heard Billy Graham’s associate present the Gospel. However, just because Joe accepted Christ
does not mean he was instantly a perfect disciple. Like the 19th century small town
German girl, Joe made mistakes even after he was saved. He made a lot of mistakes.
When Billy Graham came to NY to do
an evangelism crusade, he learned of Joe’s story. Ruth Graham met Joe and urged him to come to
the worship services and he did. A
friendship formed between this evangelist’s wife from NC and this tough-guy
turned believer. On one occasion, Joe,
frantic, called Mrs. Graham. She by now
knew him well enough to ask, “What have you done now, Joe?”
He responded that he had robbed a
filling station. “Why would you do
that,” she asked. Here is his response.
Well, it’s
like this. I have this buddy. He really
needed money, but he had never robbed a filling station before. I had, so I just thought it was my Christian
duty to help him.
She told
Joe, he had to repay all the money. He
was shocked and hurt at what she said.
She asked if he had stolen anything else. He looked at her strangely. Everything he owned was stolen. Through much guidance and love from the
Grahams and their associates in NY, Joe did return all the things he had that
were stolen. He grew in faith and
eventually went on to graduate from Columbia Bible College. He has given his testimony at many Billy
Graham Association evangelism events. He
presents himself as the ultimate example that no one is a hopeless case.[ii]
Joe’s journey has not been
easy. It was not easy for the young girl
in Germany to confess her sin to Franz Lizst.
Repenting – turning away from sin and toward the truth – is difficult
work. It is work that must be a regular
part of the life of any person who would follow Jesus.
You and I sin. We say mean things to people we love. We look at others and we judge them to be
less than us. Maybe we look down on
people in certain profession. Maybe we
have latent prejudice toward people of certain ethnic backgrounds. This is uncomfortable to face because we know
that all people of all races are beloved in God’s eyes. We know from scripture that we are not to
judge or despise anyone. But when we look
honestly into our hearts, we know we do.
We may try not to. But those
feelings are in there and they come either bluntly or subtly in our words and
in our actions. It may not be a
judgmental attitude. It may not be a
deep seeded prejudice. Maybe the sins
that keep recurring are related to rage, excess, greed, or omission. That’s one on which Jesus hit the Pharisees
pretty hard. We know what God wants us
to do and who God wants us to help, but we don’t help because we don’t want
to. That is sin as grievous to God as
theft or adultery or even murder. To us,
it’s that not that bad. But to God, it
is someone taking the name ‘disciple of Jesus Christ’ and then acting by the
world’s values instead of kingdom values.
This is not being said to beat us up.
We simply have to be honest and specific in acknowledging that sin is a
reality in our lives.
God doesn’t want to punish us for
our sins. It’s not His preference. Ezekiel, writing in chapter 33, has spent
much time and exhausted many words in calling out the disregard for God of the
people of God. They’ve sinned and
Ezekiel has pointed it out. It can’t be
missed. They’re sitting as slaves in
exile. Ezekiel is set in Babylon in a
time after invading armies have ravaged the land God promised to Abraham. The temple has been destroyed. Sin and the results of sin, the brokenness
and utter defeat are apparent. And yet,
after all he has said and written, God tells Ezekiel to write this. “As I live, says the Lord God, I have no
pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn back from their
wicked ways and live” (33:11b).
When someone goes out and drinks and
then drives, God doesn’t want that person to get in an accident and live as a
paraplegic for the rest of his life; or to live with the guilt of knowing he
killed someone while driving under the influence. When two friends speak words in anger and the
result is the end of the friendship, God doesn’t want them to each live in pain
and loss and bitterness. The language
God tells Ezekiel to use is oath language.
“As I live,” God says. He’s
making a pledge to people. The almighty
isn’t obligated to do that, but He does it to get through to us. He promises the depths of the diving heart,
he doesn’t want us to hurt from our sins.
Sometimes we will even though God doesn’t want that. But, there is a way to cope with our sins and
even grow past them.
Turn! We must honestly face the sins in our
life. We must confess them. We must turn from those sins and the
lifestyle that ends in making mistakes and hurting others and ourselves. We turn away from that life and those bad
choices, and we turn to God. Five times
in the NRSV translation of Ezekiel 33:7-11, God implores his wayward people to
turn. We, because of Christ, are counted
among the people of God. In verse 11, he
pleads with us. “Turn back; turn back
from your evil ways. Why will you die?”
Sin leads to death and
destruction. As long as we live in sin
and with sin clinging to us, our souls are in decay. Death lurks in the corners and even hovers
over us. But God asks, why? Why accept such a spiritually dark,
depressing existence. Turn to me and
live. Jesus said the type of life we
have when we follow Him and obey the Father.
He offers right now abundant life, joy-filled life, exciting life. There is though work involved. One aspect of the work of a disciple is
regular repentance. Regularly we examine
ourselves, identify where our hearts are oriented toward values of the world,
and we turn. We turn from sin, to God. This is not easy work, but it is necessary
work.
The journey of Israel, God’s chosen
people, from Abraham to Joseph to slavery in Egypt to Moses and exodus, and
Moses and law to monarchy and the golden days of David and Solomon to slavery
again, this time exile in Babylon is a study in the hard work of
repentance. At times, leaders like David
and Solomon and Hezekiah and Josiah did things to call the people to God. They shined as His people, chosen to
represent Him in the world. But as soon
as the nation seemed to get it together and start to move toward holiness,
human values instead of heavenly values would begin to take over the corporate
mindset. Israel would fall into the
worship of statues, idols representing foreign gods. Israel would look to strong foreign nations
for security instead of putting her trust in God. By the time Ezekiel came along, it seemed all
was lost. They weren’t even in Israel
anymore. They were the property of their
Babylonian conquerors.
Yet God
forgave the past. Through Ezekiel God
told them the past is in the past. God
implored them to turn back and live. How
could they live the faith and the identity of God’s chosen while wallowing in
servitude? God would take care of
things. Their only concern was to faithfully
turn back. Repent and turn once again to
God and He would lovingly accept them.
This is a
story with two sides, whether we are talking about ancient Israelites or the
present day church. On our side is the
burden of repentance. God give gives us
free will. He will not force us to turn
to Him. We must choose. If we choose to reject God we will
continually suffer the painful consequences of our sins and we face eternal
destruction, eternal death. God’s side
of the story is grace. If we turn back
to Him, he forgives all and gives us abundant life and the promise of eternal
life.
As we said,
‘the turning back’ is not as easy as it sounds.
Last weekend, Candy and I watched a comedy – Failure to Launch. It’s a
silly movie with some good laughs. The 3 poignant moments of the movie are when
the different characters have to apologize for the devious and cruel ways they
have treated each other. Each apology is
accepted and ends in a warm embrace. In
real life, apologies are not so easy or feel-good. Sometimes pain lingers.
Doug Wendel,
writing in Discipleship Journal,
explains,
Blaming someone else is not repentance. Crying is not
repentance. Even feeling sorry for people who've been hurt by our sin is not
necessarily repentance. True repentance is the inner focus of my heart on my
own sin—realizing the pain and separation I have caused in a situation, feeling
sorry about my
wrong actions and attitudes, and being willing to turn away from my
sin. It is [to quote Jesus in Matthew 7] recognizing and dealing with the plank
in my own eye before trying to remove the speck in my brother's eye.[iii]
Furthermore,
Wendel points out that the New Testament word used for repentance literally
means to change one’s focus or purpose.
Our purpose, in doing the work of repentance, becomes receiving God’s
grace and extending to those who have sinned against us.
I find it helpful to look to Richard
Foster’s Celebration of Discipline
for further help on this. Foster’s book
is a prescription for applying the classic disciplines of the disciple life in
our 21st century American lives.
The purpose of performing disciplines is to do things we are able to do
in order to accomplish – holiness – we cannot accomplish on our own power. The example is of the amateur weightlifter
who wants to bench press 300 lbs. When
he starts, he cannot. He can’t even do
150 lbs more than twice. But he can do
that twice, and so he does three times a week for a year. By the end of that year, it’s not 150 lbs,
it’s 175. And he’s not doing it 2 times,
he’s doing it 8. The discipline of
something he could do, lift 150 lbs, helped him accomplish something he could
not – 300 lbs. In spiritual discipline
we do things like confess, worship, study, fast, and pray in order to become
like Christ. This is work, lifelong work.
I am suggesting here that repentance
be a part of our spiritual discipline.
Foster does not include a chapter on repentance as a discipline in his
book, but he does include a chapter on confession.[iv]
In that chapter, he writes of his own experience. He was pastoring his first church and he felt
he was missing something. Something of
the power of God was absent in his life.
He couldn’t figure out why. He
knew there were spiritual resources available for facing the challenges of
living the disciple life that seemed beyond his reach.
So, he devoted a day to prayer. He got three pieces of paper, each
representing an era of his life: childhood, adolescence, adulthood. In silent prayer, he asked God to reveal
anything that needed forgiveness or healing.
As things came up, he wrote them down.
He was careful not to analyze or judge himself or anyone else. He trusted that God would reveal what he
needed to confess or be healed of. When
this time of prayer was up, he had three pages representing those three seasons
of life.
With paper in hand he went to a
trusted brother in Christ. He read it
all, slowly, painfully, confessing his life.
He finished and went to take the paper and leave, but his friend, took
the paper from his hand. He watched as
his friend ripped the history of his sins to shreds and dropped them into the
trash. He knew he was forgiven. Then his friend laid hands on him and the
power of that prayer has always lived in the heart of Richard Foster.
What I have described is the
practice of confession. How does that
relate to repentance? Initially, Richard
Foster had to turn to God and that led him to remember his sins. Writing them, confessing them, and receiving
forgiveness was all a part of the work of turning away from sin. Recall the story of Joe, the tough
guy-turned-disciple. Part of his
repentance was doing what Richard Foster did.
He confessed. Part of it was following Ruth Graham’s advice. He repaid the money he had stolen. Part of it was working with Graham
association to tell his story. And in
Joe’s life and I suspect in Richard Foster’s life this work of turning and
confession, making amends and telling the story has had to be repeated not for
already forgiven sins, but for newly committed ones. Add to this the young German girl who had to
face the one her lie affected and we start to get a picture of repentance.
(1)
We acknowledge the sin.
(2)
We turn from it.
(3)
We turn to God and confess.
(4)
We repair relationships with people who have been hurt by our
sins.
Consider two
examples from the New Testament. Jesus
told a parable of two sons. The younger
asked for inheritance he would receive when his father was death even though he
wasn’t. The father could have thrown the
son empty handed out at this insult.
Instead he gave the cocky young man what he asked for. The son went into the world and spent it all
on prostitutes, booze, parties, and anything else that would bring a cheap
thrill. When it was all gone and he was
starving, he returned to his father hoping to be hired as a worker. His father received him with love and
celebrated his homecoming.
At this
point the older brother got really mad.
He couldn’t understand the grace his father gave. He considered his rebellious younger brother
dead. He judged him and he hated
him. He hated him for his wildness, and
he hated that the father forgave.[v] I have heard a lot of believers say, “I can
really identify with that older brother.
What the father did wasn’t fair.”
Keep the older brother in mind.
Jesus also
told a parable about a landowner hiring day laborers to harvest in his
vineyard. He went early, 6AM, and hired
those who were looking for work. He went
again at 9Am and found more who needed employment, so he hired them too. He did the same at noon, at 3PM, and again at
5PM. The last group hired only worked
for an hour.
When it came
time to pay, he paid everyone equally – an acceptable wage for a day’s
work. The workers hired at 6AM were
quite upset. The pay was fair for a
day’s labor, but it wasn’t fair that those who were hired after them received
that pay. Instead of being grateful for
what they got, they grumbled at what someone else got. I have heard many Christians over the years
say, “I can really identify with those workers hired early. They had a legitimate gripe. It wasn’t fair.”
The older
brother and the workers hired early were more upset about the grace someone
else received than the grace they received.
Too many people who claim to follow Jesus, get caught up in thinking
that faith is theirs because they deserve it or they earned. They’ve gone to church for 30 years. They’ve tithed. They’ve served in ministries. They deserve the grace God gives. People who come wandering in after a life of
sin and get saved don’t deserve the same grace of God. Doesn’t this sound ridiculous? This is the spoiled fruit of neglecting
repentance. This is what happens when
people look at murderers and drug dealers and porn-addicts. People in church look at those who commit
more obvious transgression and say, “Well, I am not that bad. I don’t need to
repent.” We all need to repent. Repentance is a disciple’s way of life.
As Jesus
followers, we don’t begrudge the grace of others. We are so happy that we are forgiven we
rejoice in the grace of others. If we
are in the role of the older brother, we join the party and celebrate the
prodigal’s return. We don’t get angry at
the celebration thrown for him. We help
plan it. We don’t rub his nose in his
mistakes. We embrace him in his new
life.
Rick Warren
asked John McCain and Barak Obama each about their greatest moral
failings. McCain confessed
responsibility at the failure of his first marriage. Obama confessed drug use and other aberrant
behavior in his teens. If I was asked that
question – about my greatest moral failure – I could say honestly, I have never
committed adultery or fornication. I
have never used an illegal drug. I am
not as bad as those guys. In doing this,
it might be tempting to take on air of moral superiority. If that happened, it would be damning to my
walk with Jesus. I’d become a Pharisee
who stood in the way of his work of leading people into the kingdom of God. My safeguard against such arrogance is
practicing repentance as a normal part of my life. It’s something we should all work on.
(1)
We acknowledge the sin.
(2)
We turn from it.
(3)
We turn to God and confess.
(4)
We repair relationships with people who have been hurt by our
sins.
Right now,
begin picturing what repentance would look like in your own life. What sins do you need to turn away from? What things do you need to bring to God? What relationships do you need to approach
with a new heart, a disciple’s heart? Imagine right now how you are going to do
the work of repentance in this upcoming week.
Plan how this will become a part of your spiritual practice, your
exercise of spiritual disciplines. Five
times in Ezekiel 33:7-11, God emphatically tells the prophet to tell the people
to turn away from wickedness and turn to God.
This is repentance; changing one’s purpose, direction, and focus.
Zenji Abe, a
native Japanese man, lived in Tokyo most of his life. However, on December 7th, every
year he made a trip to Hawaii. Why? He had to visit Pearl Harbor on that
day. Why? He was one of the pilots of those
Japanese planes that bombed the US navy and brought the United States into the
war. He recalls in detail his own horror
at what he saw that day. He was a part
of the second wave of attack. When he
arrived, he said he could see “indistinct, black anti-aircraft bursts, flashes
of exploding shells and tracers flying all [over the place].”[vi]
Abe barreled his fighter jet down on the USS Raleigh. His bomb hit his target and he almost passed
out from the dive and then delivery.
Abe counts
himself fortunate to have survived WWII.
He did not talk much about his experiences until 1991 when he was
invited to Hawaii to speak at a commemoration of the 50th
anniversary of the attack. After that,
he returned each year. Through his
annual meetings with Americans who also survived the war and specifically
December 7, 1941, Abe has developed friendships with those who were his
enemies. Every year on the 7th,
he places a rose on the memorial wall that lists the names of the Americans who
died.
Abe is not
going back each year to receive again forgiveness from America. It was war and he has long since been
forgiven. He goes back to continue to do
the work of reconciliation, respectful remembering, and future friendship
building. His effort is a good model for
us. Once we are forgiven, our sins are
gone. What’s left for the disciple is to
repent of future sins and to do the work of reconciliation and relationship
building with God and with people. In
our walk with Jesus this week, let us hear Ezekiel’s word. There’s no need to live a living death. Let us turn to the Lord and live the abundant
life.
AMEN
[i] I got
this story from the illustrations list in the E-sword library.
[ii] Graham,
Billy (1977).
How to Be Born Again, Guideposts (
Carmel, NY),
p, 80-82.
[iii]
Wendel, Doug, “True Repentance,”
Discipleship
Journal, online archives.
[iv] Foster,
Richard (1978).
Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth
(HarperSanFrancisco), ch.10. p.143-157.
[vi] Wenger,
J. Michael (December 3, 2006).
The News and Observer, 1D, 5D.
