Authority and Repentance

[00:00:00] Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our father and from our Lord and savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. [00:00:08] This hymn was all about the, you know, the church of God together, gathered together by God to be his family, to be his people. Got a couple of images there. You know, a family is a bunch of people united together in a hierarchical structure, too. You could say, like, you've got children and you've got parents, father and mother. And so it's an unequal kind of relationship, but father and mother bringing children into harmony, it's all held together in this structure. And the same can be said for all of us being citizens of God's country. You could say, right, where God is king and we are his people. And again there, that's an unequal kind of relationship where God rules us, right? And we look to him in obedience. [00:01:10] There's a hierarchy. I point that out because, like I said, we're going to talk about repentance. And repentance requires some sort of hierarchy. Like, there has to be somebody above us who can tell us what to do in order to call us to repent. [00:01:25] And that's kind of. That sounds hostile to at least some of our culture today, that we kind of. It's kind of the air we breathe, in a sense, maybe especially we younger people. [00:01:38] This is what I was brought up in to feel embarrassed of the idea of repentance, because you're telling somebody what to do. [00:01:46] But that's the way that this kind of a body works, right? A body of people in a nation, there are laws, and you have to follow those laws, and you can look at it and say, well, it's good that I'm told what to do, because since we're all told what to do, and then if we all listen to those laws, then we all can live in harmony together, to abandon the laws would just be chaos. And that's not good, right? It's not good for a nation. It's not good for a family. It's not good for me on an individual level. I have to be governed by something if I'm going to work in harmony, not just my limbs and all my capacities, my senses working together for the good of Josh, you know, but also internally, like my desires and fears, my feelings, my, you know, all of that has to be governed by something, or else it's chaos. [00:02:51] And from time to time, we all experience that kind of chaos, I think, right, when. When anger rises up and this sounds like inside out or something like that, I have not seen the new one, but you know, you can think that way, right? Like when anger rises up and overcomes me, I'm no longer governed by, well, like by a central authority within myself. And I'm taken over, and then there's chaos, that kind of thing. [00:03:20] So I guess where we're headed with all this is that we all need to be governed. We all need to be governed, well, according to what's good. And the beautiful thing about being part of God's people, all of us together, citizens of heaven, citizens of, well, of his kingship or members of his family. The beautiful thing is that God's will is good. [00:03:45] It's good. And so what we want to be governed by is God's goodwill, which makes sense. He's the one who brought everything into being. He's the one who knows how everything fits together well. He knows how I fit together well. And so being governed according to God's will is right where we want to be. And that's how harmony happens. [00:04:10] I just want to highlight what we sang in the Gloria in excelsis, which just means glory in the highest. [00:04:21] I suppose we sing glory be to God on high. Glory. We've talked about, maybe especially around Christmas, glory means attention. Like, you know, glory is like shininess or weightiness. You know, glory, like all our attention be to God on high. Okay, so look to God. That's what you do to obey somebody. You know, children, pay attention to me. [00:04:44] What I'm always seeking, right? So same kind of image. Like, glory be to God on high. So we all together look to God on high and unearth peace. [00:04:55] You see that? So that's the structure of faith. All of us together as God's people looking to him. And then he governs us in peace. [00:05:05] All right, so this is the structure. God governing us. Okay, so what about when we get out of line, then God calls us to repent. [00:05:16] And one of the great things about thinking this way, thinking about like, all of us together, living in harmony according to God's will. As we look to him, being governed in peace, is that you can see why it's so important to be called to repentance. [00:05:32] Because it's not just, it's not just me that's affected by my own sin or by my chaotic behavior. It's everybody around me. Like, we're all governed together in peace until I decide to go off on my own and do something crazy. And then other people are affected, my family and. And friends and, like, the people that I did something to and whatnot. Right? It's like the peace of everybody is thrown off. [00:05:58] Repentance isn't just about me. [00:06:01] I mean, you can think about it that way. Like, you feel guilty and you feel the need for forgiveness, and so you ask for forgiveness and you receive it and you feel better. But it's not just about you. Repentance is actually for the sake of the whole. [00:06:20] You can see that in our old testament reading, Amos, on behalf of God, is calling Israel back to good order. [00:06:36] And he uses. God uses the image of a plumb line. [00:06:41] Now, plumb line, of course, is like a weight attached to a string. Although now I'm thinking, well, there's probably different. I don't know. Yeah, that's what a plumb line is, right, Jason? And. [00:06:54] Right, so it's a weight attached to a string, and it tells you whether something's straight up or down. You know, straight up and down. And we probably use a level for that a lot these days, but, yeah. So that's to measure whether something is straight up and down. And that's for the sake of the stability of a structure. You're going to build a tower or a building. It's got to be plumb. It's got to be straight up or down, or it's not going to hold together. [00:07:21] Not just like we'd really like that tower to be straight, because when we look at it and it's crooked, we're always going to think, oh, man, should have gotten that straight. No, if we don't get it straight, it's going to fall down. [00:07:36] Or in other words, if we don't get it straight, the unity is not going to hold together and it's going to fall apart. [00:07:45] Back to the unity picture. God governing us in peace, right? When we're not straight, like when we're not plumb, we fall apart. [00:07:56] That's why it's so important. That's why God calls Israel to repentance. It's because, well, that's no way to live. You know, the way they're living. Actually, what's happening is that they've given up God and gone after another God, the priest of Bethel, in that reading, you can look back at it later, but it's the priest of Bethel that says to Amos, like, go on, get out of here. We don't want to hear your words calling us to repentance. Well, there wasn't supposed to be a priest of Bethel. There wasn't supposed to be a temple in Bethel, okay? The temple God said, there's one temple in Jerusalem. Everybody comes to that. It's kind of like, you have one head on your body, right? It's like you've got one head on your body. Everything. Listen to that. [00:08:51] But it's like, well, if you had another head or something like that, you know, that'd be pretty chaotic. [00:08:58] That's what happened. It's like, well, now, there's a temple in Bethel. It's not God's temple, but it's calling the shots. And it's saying, go on, get out of here, Amos. [00:09:07] We don't need you. [00:09:10] It's replacing the source of unity, replacing what holds everything together. It's replacing goddess. [00:09:22] So God calls us to repentance, to bring us back into harmony, right? To bring us back in line with his will, to realign us to his will for the sake of the whole. [00:09:36] And you could say, I mean, so now I'm just going to bring this in. From ephesians one, God has made known to us the purpose, the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, in Jesus, to unite all things in Jesus, things in heaven and things on earth. Actually, in Christ, you know, Christ means king. Okay? So to unite in Jesus Christ the king, to unite all things in heaven and on earth. You see that image of pulling everything together, holding everything in harmony. [00:10:20] That's what happens, brothers and sisters, in Christ. [00:10:23] As we follow Christ with one mind, with the mind of Christ, as we walk according to the spirit of Christ, he draws us all together so that we have one heart and one mind together as his people. [00:10:39] Just a side note, that should mean wonderful things for our life together. And I see it, you know, I see God's love shared with me through you, right? Or I see you ordered by God, and I give thanks. I go and I visit people who can't make it to church and who are suffering with or struggling with things. Some of you out there, I have, and I see your faith, and it encourages me. You know, I see Christ working in you, and it directs me, you know, glory be to God on high. It directs my attention to Christ. And together we enjoy Christ and his governance, his good governance, as we look to him in faith, in the midst of whatever. [00:11:24] That's what it means to be God's people, to all be united together, looking to him in obedience. [00:11:34] In our society today, come back to this, I guess, in our society today, the idea of obeying somebody sounds threatening again. I think for some of you who grew up a long time ago, we'll say a long time ago for me, all right, this might be a little more foreign. You might be looking at society and going, how could this be? But I didn't grow up that long ago. [00:12:11] And I guess this is just kind of the world I grew up in. But you see today some strange things, like, I'll say furries, if you know what those are. [00:12:22] Well, like young people thinking that they're a cat or wanting to be a cat, and then people around them saying, like, yeah, you be what you are. You know, you be what you think you are. That's just fine. [00:12:35] It's like, well, where did that come from? You know? But it comes from somewhere. [00:12:40] It comes from the idea that we shouldn't provide any kind of structure that, that limits people to just what we think they are or what God thinks they are. [00:12:55] Any kind of structure like that is seen as confining. I mean, it does confine, right? It's seen as limiting. [00:13:04] And that's threatening. [00:13:09] See, that comes back to the idea that hierarchy in and of itself is bad. Okay, so we're just going to get a little philosophical for a second here. Okay, I'll throw out the word postmodernism, all right? But it comes with the idea that all unequal relationships or power relationships, like between a boss and employees or pastor and people, bishop and people, pope and people, king and people, you know, like whatever. Any father, right. Any kind of unequal relationship is a power structure. And it's about power. [00:13:51] A recent Star wars show, you know, takes up this, this idea, of course, and somebody says it's not about good or evil. Like, this isn't about good or bad. It's about power and who's allowed to use it. [00:14:11] So anyway, there's this idea that has kind of been imbibed by our culture that says that there's no good or evil, that the structures that define those things that say, here's what it looks like to live in good order. Like, here's how you fit into the whole, all those structures are power opportunities. And so the father or the, or the priest or the politician that all of these people are simply manipulating, using their position of power in order to confine you and tell you what to do to fit into this order for their sake because it benefits them. [00:14:59] All right? Now, that's not the way we think as christians. Okay? If we're singing praise my soul, the king of heaven to your feet our tribute bring, like we're laying ourselves down at the feet of somebody, and again, we can't help but actually live within these power structures. Again, if you let go of yourself and you just say yes to any desire or fear I or whim that you have, it's going to be chaos, right? [00:15:32] Herod is living in chaos. In the gospel reading, he's married his brother's wife. That's chaos, and it's unlawful. He's not living within the structure. [00:15:43] Herodias, his brother's wife, kind of has him on a leash. Like, he really wants to listen to John, but then she attracts his attention through her daughter, and his attention goes from John to her daughter. And then John ends up getting beheaded, which is kind of interesting because he kind of loses his source of unity. You know what I mean? Loses his head. Right? That's the picture. You know, it's like chaos brings John into chaos, right? Chaos is seeking to eliminate the common thread, eliminate the. The rule, the structure, the hierarchy. And she does. But the thing is, John, like, John, doesn't just go away, right? John is ordered according to the mind of Christ. John is prophesying not on his own behalf, but on God's behalf. [00:16:33] So Herod's like, I think John's back from the dead when he hears Jesus teaching. You see, John the Baptist, he gave up his. [00:16:41] I mean, he was willing to suffer, right? Lose his life, not for nothing. Right? But for Christ. [00:16:51] Christ our king, who brings everything into order. John's not gone. [00:16:58] John is in Christ. [00:17:00] And everybody who's in Christ is a new creation. The old is gone, the new has come. Everyone in Christ is held together in unity. In Christ, who's united all things, things in heaven and things on earth. [00:17:16] So he can't be sort of toppled by chaos, really. And this is what we see with the apostles. They go out and they risk everything for the sake of Christ. Why? Because they believe that in Christ they're held together in unity. They're united in him, and he'll give them life. He who rose from the dead will give life to their mortal bodies. [00:17:44] We hear that we shouldn't be judgy and that we shouldn't call people to repentance. And yet God's people have courageously called people to repentance, not simply because they want to control people, right? It's not a power game that the apostles were after. If it were, they wouldn't have risked their lives. [00:18:08] They would have just enjoyed the, you know, the planes and the houses that they earned from, right, from calling people to repentance. That's not the way it went. They actually lost their lives, like their earthly power was completely diminished because they had citizenship in heaven that they were counting on. They were not setting themselves up as little kings. [00:18:35] They were submitting themselves to the king of heaven, to God above, and looking to him to. Well, to glorify them, to give them glory and power whenever he wants. [00:18:50] You see, we submit ourselves. Not to me. You guys don't submit yourselves to me as your king or something like that, right? You expect that I'm speaking God's word to you. You look to God as your king, and then that allows you to give up anything. [00:19:07] It's not about power in this life. [00:19:11] It's about Jesus Christ being ordered according to God's will in him. [00:19:21] So we live in this world that's kind of spinning out of control. [00:19:28] What do we do? [00:19:32] What do you do if you have a family member or somebody who you feel needs to be called to repentance? Well, for one thing, we want to remember why we don't call people to repentance, because we're so mad about what they're doing, although it can kind of make you feel like this is destabilizing, this is hurting other people, and that can kind of arouse you to really care. [00:19:59] But we call people to repentance because when we are unrepentant, we're actually rebelling. So repentance, from the greek metanoia, it's like metamorphosis, it's like a change of mind. Or you could say, return to a right mind. [00:20:18] Return to a mind directed toward God in faith and obedience. [00:20:26] Why do we want to call people to repentance? So that they will follow the king of heaven. So that they will look to God and not be rebelling against his good order. So that they'll look to him in faith and not to their own whims or, or to somebody else, that they'll be governed also in order, so that they'll submit themselves to the king of heaven and be governed in peace. That they'll look to Christ and be governed by him, have him dwelling in them. Have the mind of Christ walk according to the spirit of God. That's why we call people to repentance. Thanks be to God. He's called you to repentance and me. And so we live in daily repentance, not as like the, you know, the holy group that I said this last week. So this is repeat, but, you know, it's like, not as like a group of people who are so much better than other people, but simply as a group of people who are called by God to repent daily and to follow him who look not to ourselves or to any earthly power for everything that we need, but who look to God and Jesus Christ, whom he sentence to be our savior, to call us back to God to give us life and forgiveness and everything that we need. That's our life together and living that way, all of us directed toward God in Jesus Christ. Right? Glory be to God on high. Living that way, we will enjoy God's peace with one another. In Jesus name, amen.