For prayer, open your Bibles to the 130th Psalm. I want this to be in mind as I pray for you. This is one of our Psalms of repentance. Actually, you can be seated for this. You can be seated for this prayer. You have to understand a bit of my heart as I pray for you this morning. You understand on planet Earth, in my life as long as I live, in my wife's life as long as we live, I can say without exaggeration that this congregation is one of our greatest answers to prayer ever. We say that because Christopher, our son, and his wife Meredith are here, and have full custody of our grandchildren. And what do you pray for your children? You pray that they'll follow the Lord Jesus Christ, and that God will give them a Christ-centered word home, or church home. And he has answered that. You know, when they moved out here, When Christopher and Meredith moved here, and they started going to this church, and I knew that Eric is a friend of Cham Thornton's. I didn't know Eric at that point. I immediately called up my friend Cham, and I said, Cham, I mean, I trust this guy with my children or not? And I said, how well do you know him? I mean, that's almost about what I said. And Cham, he's one of my best friends ever. He's my mentor. He's one of the greatest influences on my life. And then Chaz started and started getting to know him. And I kept being surprised. I said, Christopher, I mean, he really knows what he's talking about. And finally, Christopher said, Dad, I mean, he went to seminary. And I said, yeah, well, I've known a lot of guys that went to seminary. And they both have already, the work that I've done today, have been a great blessing, the work that I'm talking to you about today. But you also have prayed greatly for Jamie during her battle with cancer. You've prayed a great deal. In fact, there was a day, February 6th, 2023, I gave Jamie this real stern-like talk as the day began. I'm like, hey, I gotta get a lot done today, so don't interrupt me a bunch. I give her this speech, I walk out. And as she walks out, and 10 o'clock in the morning, she calls me and goes, Hey, we got to talk. I'm like, well, that was short. You know, so much for a productive day. And she goes, before you start, the doctor is on the phone also. And that's when we got the word out of left field. that she had stage four cancer in her pancreas and liver, and it's all unfolded from there. And this psalm that I'm about to pray for you, this has been our psalm, Psalm 130. Out of the depths, I cry to you, O Lord. O Lord, hear my voice. Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my pleas for mercy. At one point, at Mayo Clinic in January, they were draining liters of fluid off Jamie's lungs and abdomen every day. And she was miserable. And I was standing there at one point, multiple points. And we said to one another multiple times, Lord, these are the depths. These are the depths. We didn't know at that point if Jamie would ever eat again. So that's where we were at. And she's Most of her pancreas is gone, part of her liver, part of her stomach, all those things. So out of the depths, this is a real Psalm to us. And listen, that's our story. But some of you right now are in the depths. We're gonna pray for you. Out of the depths. Some of you are not in the depths. You will be, you will be. Looking ahead to the series in Isaiah, there'll be those times when through fiery trials, God calls us to go. And the waters go over our head. As soon as you're in the depths, as long as you've known the gospel, you get to verse three. And Jamie, we've talked about this even in the last few weeks as she's battling her cancer, You're like, okay, Lord, I know salvation is by grace, but does it count for anything that I'm a pastor's wife? And, and here's a serious thought, here's a serious thought, is this just because of sin in my life? And then we get to the gospel in verse three. If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But with you, there is forgiveness, paradoxically, that you may be feared. I mean, so as you deal with the depths, and I'm gonna pray for you about the depths today, preach the gospel to yourself. If this was just God doing this thing, who could stand? Now, here's a verse you need, verse five. I wait for the Lord. My soul waits. And in his word, I hope. Where are you? You're in the waiting place. So the night of Jamie's surgery, we didn't see her. Chris was there. Thankful for that. We didn't see her. From seven in the morning, till 7.30 at night. And when she came out, she was very, very swollen. She'd been in surgery all day. She looked terrible and, and lovely and lovely, lovely. And my oldest, I was trying to think, do I stay at the hospital tonight? And our oldest said, Somebody should stay, and it should be you. I thought, I'm staying then. And all night, it was the longest night ever. Changed her sheets four times that night, which every time was an ordeal. a beeping sound going on, you know, these alarms. And I wasn't, I got more courageous as time went on about disabling beeping sounds. But this, if you ever deal with this, I'll just give you permission now as a pastor, unplug it, do whatever. But I just listened, I listened for extended time to this persistent beeping. And I, like three in the morning, I went out to go to the restroom and there's a guy sitting at a desk all night long. That's what he did. And that's how life is. He just sat there all night. I wait for the Lord. My soul waits. And in his word, I hope. more than watchman for the morning, more than watchman for the morning, more than that guy wanted it to be morning at the Mayo Clinic, and more that I wanted it to be morning. That guy waited. Now listen, some of you are there, you have stuff you've been praying for for a long time. Just wait on the Lord. Wait on the Lord. God knows. Lord knows where you're at. And the psalm continues, it's such a beautiful psalm. And so often the psalms that begin individually move corporately. So you're waiting by yourself, but now we say to the congregation, oh Israel, hope in the Lord. For with the Lord there is steadfast love, and with him is plentiful redemption. The King, the Lord Jesus' love for you is steadfast, and with him is plentiful redemption. And he will redeem Israel from all his iniquities. You can count on it. Let's pray this psalm. Lord, out of the depths we cry to you. We have people for whom we pray every day, that we ask that you would give them the gift of repentance, and that in a far country, such as they are, that they would come to their senses. Lord, we have areas of besetting battle in our lives that we deal with, and we're so tired of them. Lord, we hurt physically. There are people right now who are uncomfortable physically or are awaiting test results. And Lord, out of the depths, we say to you with all reverence, listen to us, we pray. Let your ears be attentive to the voice of these people for mercy. Lord, we don't come here, we don't stand here based on our conduct. We have no other righteousness, no other plea. It's enough that our king died, that he died for us, that there's no condemnation. And Lord, our hearts, when we think about the gospel, and we think about what you have done, our hearts are moved to such reverent fear. When I look at the faces of these people during the first hour today, their faces, when I would read the word or ask a question about the word, or the way they lead worship, and we see this, there is forgiveness, and we fear and revere you. But Lord, we're feeble, frail, weak people, and we're really tired of waiting. We're in this waiting place, and in your word, we hope, but we long for the morning. And I wonder, Lord, we ask, Would you answer prayer this week? Would you give hope? You're able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine. Would you give a hope in ways we cannot understand? Please, please. For parents, for spouses, for family members, for church family, Lord, we wait for you. We do so with gladness, as we have confessed today, because we know that with you there is steadfast love and with you is plentiful redemption. And we know that very soon your people will be gathered together in your presence. And so we praise you and pray in Jesus name. Amen. All right, open your Bibles to the book of Acts, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts. Acts chapter 11. And today we're unwrapping repentance. We're unwrapping the gift of repentance. This is a passage that when you read it, the more you think about it, the more beautiful it becomes. Now, before I read the passage, just a couple of things. I'll give you some repentance basics. You got basics when you were in, if you were here for the first hour, I'm just going to give you some basics now to orient you to this gift of repentance that we're unwrapping. Three things. First of all, repentance is a complete about face. That's what repentance is. It's a 180. It's a pivot. It's... a turn from the ugliness of sin to the beauty of Christ. I grew up on a farm in the great state of Iowa, and we had pigs. I know something firsthand about how pigs smell. I'm an authority. And I can tell you that when the Bible says the prodigal came to his senses in an unclean place, in a pigsty, and decided to go home, that that was a beautiful turn. Second, repentance is an occasion of joy because it's a turn from sin to Christ who is beautiful. Jonathan Edwards said, there's nothing that we might imagine that we would want in a savior that we do not find in Jesus. He is the most beautiful. And the parable of the prodigal son would not be a joyous story if the son had returned to an abusive father. It's a beautiful story because the father was watching for the son and saw him when he was still far off. And Eric's already alluded to this as such a good point. Repentance and faith are inseparable. The faith that saves is a penitent faith, a repentant faith, and true repentance is believing repentance. Here's a really important point. It's not enough to leave a pig pen if you only go to a different pig pen. It's not a, you know, if your battle is, addiction, it's not enough to give up the addiction if you don't turn to Jesus. It's only repentance unto life if it is a repentance that turns to the Lord Jesus Christ. It's so critical to see this. Well, this sermon will highlight a further truth about repentance that must be understood. And listen, this is of great practical importance. It is a truth we all struggle to keep in view. And the failure to do so often leaves us tired and frustrated in our Christian walk and in our relationship with others. I'm gonna give you a biblical bullet here today. I'm gonna give you a truth. And it's one we struggle to hold on to. And because we struggle to hold on to it, it's not an intellectual problem simply, it's a real life problem. And because we don't keep this in mind enough, we don't do and respond in some of the ways that we should. That's what we're going to get to in the sermon today. So first though, Acts chapter 11, verses 17 and 18. Apostle Peter is reporting, and he says, if then God gave the same gift to them as he gave to us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could stand in God's way? So this is talking about the salvation of Gentiles here. And Peter says, if then God gave the same gift to them as he gave to us when we believed in the Lord Jesus, Who was I that I could stand in his way? Now, this is a people, there's a group of people who are objecting at this point to what's going on. And they think they've got an argument and they're pushing back on Peter pretty good. And then we have verse 18. And when they heard these things, they fell silent. They shut up. And they glorify God saying, then to the Gentiles also, God has granted repentance that leads to life. When they heard these things, it hit them like a ton of bricks. And everybody just quit talking just like this and let it sink in. And when it sank in, they said, then it's true. To the Gentiles also, people in Columbus, Ohio, Stillman Valley, Illinois, and all around the globe, God has granted repentance that leads to life. Let me pray for the preaching of the word. We ask, Lord, that your spirit would illuminate the preached word. We know it's profitable for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness. And so, Lord, we ask that this word that revives the soul, makes wise the simple, gives joy to the heart. We ask that it would do so today, we pray. In Jesus' name, amen. Now, I've said I want to point out the central truth about the doctrine of repentance. But first, I want you to think about this question. What happened to Tom Terrence over 50 years ago? How did a man like Tom Terrence come to know the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, chances are that you don't, he's not particularly famous. Chances are that you don't know him personally, or maybe not even know his story. But in 1968, June 1968, this was one ugly human being. And I could demonstrate that based on his own story, what he had told about how hateful and racist he was as a young person. He would watch for someone from a different race and he particularly targeted weak people and was as awful as he could be, physically awful. He was a fairly powerful guy. If I just told those accounts that he gave, that would be enough for you to wonder, how does a guy who is headed that hard in this direction, how does he pivot completely? If I just told you some of that background stuff, you'd be wondering. But I'll tell you when you would really wonder is when I told you that on June 29th, 1968, a muggy June night in Mississippi, he took 29 sticks of dynamite and he went to the home of a Jewish leader and in the community, he and a partner. His partner was a school teacher in her 20s who was married. Her husband didn't know anything about what was going on. They went to this home with 29 sticks of dynamite to blow a family to smithereens. That was the goal. You say, how does a guy like that repent? I mean, within two years of when he went out on that muggy June night in 1968, he had done and about face. It's interesting you say, well, what happened to the home? The FBI had been tipped off that he was coming. It turns out there's no honor among killers. And someone from the Ku Klux Klan had outed them to make a deal of his own. So they were waiting for him. And there had been a lot of violence in the late 60s, racially motivated violence. And there had been some people one way or another who had gotten away with it. and local law enforcement had been humiliated, and they were told, kill him, kill him. That was what was going on. His partner was killed. He was shot four times, himself. They think one of the guys was going to finish him off and just then somebody at the federal level came in. And his life was spared. You just wonder, how does a guy like that come to repentance? How does that happen? How does someone turn, and by the way, he would say his story would be, his story was that he believed he was absolutely justified in what he was doing. He was convinced it was the right thing to do. And he had grown up, can you believe it? He had grown up going to Sunday school. and being around some form of Christianity. Well, keep that in question in mind. Let's think about Acts chapter 11. And I'll give you the central thought. What is it that we need to keep in mind? What is it that we can't miss here in Acts chapter 11? What we cannot miss is repentance is a gift. The central thought is repentance is a gift that God gives. Now, if you will think about that truth, this first thing that must be said about repentance, it will just kind of grow in your mind. It can't be missed, can it, in the verses? If I had asked you to memorize the critical words in this verse to underline them, to notice them, Acts 11, 17, and 18, what would you have noticed? If then God gave, gave, the same gift to them he gave to us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ. Who was I that I could stand in God's way? And then the summary here, when they heard these things, they fell silent and they glorified God saying, then to the Gentiles also God has granted, you tell me, what did he grant? Repentance that leads to life. Repentance that leads to life. Now, in the original language, the word translated gave is a very common word. I just, Chaz is looking up in the Greek, so I'll just tell him. It's ditto me, it's ditto me, okay? And you all know this word in other contexts, okay? Because if you read elsewhere in the Bible, you read that our word taught us to pray, do what with our daily bread? Give us this day our daily bread. Same word. Now, start to anticipate where I'm going with this, because if repentance is a gift that God gives, okay, that's gonna shape my whole orientation to dealing with people like Tom Terrence, with his 29 sticks of dynamite, or the person from whom you are praying all the time, and yourself. You're thinking about, I got this area I'm dealing with, and how do I deal with it? And you say, well, the quick answer is, I repent. Then you say, what do I believe about repentance? It's a gift God gives. Now you say, well, you're hanging a lot on this one phrase in the book of Acts. God granted repentance that leads to life. Well, let's notice some other places as well. Turn in your Bibles to 2 Timothy 2. Paul's instructing Timothy about how to deal with hardheaded people at church, okay? That's the context here, 2 Timothy 2. And he says, Don't have anything to do with foolish, 223, don't have anything to do with foolish, ignorant controversies, because you know they produce quarrels. You can get controversies about anything. You can have a controversy, I'll use an example, an Illinois example, you guys are more spiritual, here in Ohio, but in Illinois, we got issues, right? So it's possible for us to have controversies about stuff like politics, you know, and pandemics. Wouldn't have any, never happened here, of course, but could happen to us. And Paul says, I'm teasing, okay, I'm teasing. Have nothing, and I'm not talking about something in particular, okay? Don't have anything to do with foolish, ignorant controversies because you know they breed quarrels. And the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome, but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness, God may perhaps grant them repentance. Same wording here. So when we're dealing with difficulties, and I've been a pastor for 31 years, and you might ask me, so like, what's the percentage of years you've been a pastoral ministry that there's been some sort of controversy one way or another? Here's the answer, 31, okay? 100%, all the time. How do we deal with it? Gently, hoping that God will grant repentance, leading to a knowledge of the truth. So I'm saying, God, give Difficult people, repentance. And listen, give me repentance. Give me, please, Lord, because it is a gift. This is such a critical point. Repentance is a gift God gives. Or look at Acts 5, 30 and 31. The God of our fathers, Raise Jesus whom you killed by hanging him on a tree. That's fairly direct, isn't it? The God of our fathers gave Jesus, you know, the one you killed. God exalted him at his right hand, Psalm 110, as leader and savior. And what is this all about? to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. And we are witnesses to these things and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey Him. Listen, you cannot miss, repentance is a gift that God gives. And motivated by joy, we are to unwrap the gift. We tend to think of repentance, next slide, we tend to think of repentance as something we must do, and to be sure, we must. But we first have to understand that repentance is, first of all, a gift that God gives. So I started working on this book, I was telling the first hour, I started working on this book fairly hard in 2008. And I've been studying repentance really a lot since then. Psalms 32, Psalm 51, Psalm 38, Psalm 130, those are great Psalms of repentance. This passage, Acts 11, this is a critical passage for repentance. And you read, this is what you do when you're writing on this, you read everything you can. You try and be the most well-read passer on repentance in the English speaking world. That's the goal. And then you try and read the whole historical discussion of repentance. And of course, one of the critical points in the discussion of repentance is in 1517, When something happened, you guys, I was so impressed of how well you guys know your stuff in the first hour. What happened, who was the guy's name in 1517? Did something, Martin Luther. He nailed 95 theses to the door at Wittenberg, 95 statements. And the first one was about repentance. And then the reformation happened. And the Reformation was among other things, an extended discussion about what we believe about repentance. And this discussion went on since then. But by 1646, so 130 years into the Reformation, they'd been working on this for 130 years. During the English Civil War, we forget sometimes the context of the Westminster Assembly when the Westminster Standards were written. It was during a civil war. They were killing each other. That's what was happening. And they called the Westminster Assembly together the best Reformation minds to think about important topics. And they wrote the Shorter Catechism. And question 87 of the Westminster Shorter Catechism was this, what is repentance that leads to life? Now, from Acts 11. Think of it, Acts 11, when they heard these things, they fell silent and they glorify God saying, then to the Gentiles also, God has granted repentance that leads to life. Well, the Westminster Divine said, what is that? What is repentance unto life? So this is 130 years of Reformation thinking about the doctrine of repentance. And this is their answer. I think you have this in your notes or you can see it up here. Here's their definition. Repentance unto life is a saving grace. whereby a sinner out of a true sense of his sin and apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ, doth with grief and hatred of his sin turn from unto God with full purpose of and endeavor after new obedience. Now, the longer you think about that definition, the more beautiful it is. What is repentance unto life? It's a saving grace whereby a sinner out of a true sense of his sin, he looks and he says, like, pornography is ugly. Being manipulative is ugly. Being presumptuous about my church and rude with my people and getting impatient with them is ugly. And do you see that every day? No, a lot of days you feel justified in it. But repentance is when, out of a true sense of your sin, with grief and hatred of your sin, you come to your senses and turn from it to Christ with full purpose of, out of a true sense of his sin, apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ. But this is what Jesus has given me. He shed his blood in my behalf. Turn from it to God with full purpose of and endeavor after new obedience. This is one beautiful paragraph. Anybody ever have to diagram sentences? Anybody ever do that? I'm sorry, for you. No, it is a great thing. And I'm about to make the case for why cruel teachers make you diagram sentences. It is a beautiful practice, seriously. It's like, if you've rebelled against it, repent, okay? Now, but listen, if you diagram that whole definition, I want you to see something. And I think this is the greatest man-made statement. I know you can't see it very well here, but if you diagram, and by the way, I got, I didn't do this all on my own, okay? I just want to confess that. But we got a lot of help, including from a homeschooling mom and Hillsdale College to diagram this. But if you diagram this whole thing, what I want you to see, just look at the top row of the diagram. What does it say about repentance? It's grace. It's a gift. What kind of gift? Well, it's unto life. If you repent and turn to Jesus, you've gone from death to life, from the power of Satan to God. It's a saving gift. Is it alone, all by itself? It's not alone, all by itself. We're saved by faith alone, but we're not saved by faith that's alone. Ducking, Quacking doesn't make you a duck, but ducks quack, okay? You can quack, you can do it right now, you won't be a duck, I promise. It's like, I'm not quacking. No, but ducks do quack. Acting like a Christian doesn't make you a Christian, but Christians act like it. Paul says, I preach that they should repent and turn to God and prove their repentance by their deeds. Repentance is a gift, you must see that. Now, having seen that, when we stop and remember that repentance is a gift, we stop trying to force it in ourselves and others and rely on God. What do you do for the person that you're so concerned about with where repentance is concerned? Here it is, look up here, You get down on your knees every day, like the persistent widow in the gospel of Luke, and you always pray and you don't give up hope. Lord, would you grant them repentance? You say, how long do I pray that? Listen, you're gonna be praying that for people the rest of your life. When you're laying on your deathbed, there will be people you love for whom you are praying. And one of those people will be you. Lord, you know, you say, how do you battle stage four pancreatic cancer? What do you do a lot when you have pancreatic cancer? I'll tell you, you repent. You repent a lot about the unbelief that flies at you. And you're like, you are one hardcore dude. Your wife is laying there with tubes, gagging. Did you seriously talk about that repentance at that point? Absolutely. All the unbelief that flies at us. What, I thought we had a deal? Watch my grandkids grow up? Do we really have to continue in pastoral ministry when we're going through this? Wouldn't we be happier if we could just get a break? It's unbelief, unbelief, unbelief, unbelief. And by the way, if you've been greatly offended, and some of you had, one of the things you, the more you've been offended, the more difficult it is to deal with the sin in your own life. Do you see that? You deal with the tough, you know, deal with this in marriage counseling situation. Somebody has been horribly offended. And you say to both parties, you need to repent. And the offended party says, you think this was my fault? So, no, I don't think it was your fault, but I do think you have unbelief in your life that you need to own. That's the more you've been hurt, the harder it is to repent, to deal with your own stuff. And so we just keep working on it. Now, here's the big objection to this. Say, okay, pastor, cut to the chase. Repentance is a gift God gives. I got people who need to repent. Why are they not repenting? I mean, why is this gift not universally bestowed to everyone all the time? Well, now we've run right smack up against it, haven't we? This is the question of the sovereignty of God, God's being all powerful, election, doctrinal election, all these things. And here's the pastoral answer. There's three or two things we need to believe. We have to believe repentance is a gift God gives and we need to repent. We have to hold on to both things. Let me tell you three things to not do with this. Three things to not do with the beautiful mystery that repentance is a gift. Number one, don't make your head explode trying to fit it all together. Okay, that's the first thing. I mean, there's a mystery about the sovereignty of God in salvation. And if we, I think we're on the, we want to get to that slide that says three things not to do with the beautiful mystery that repentance is a gift. Number one, don't make your head explode trying to fit it all together. If you try and get to the bottom of it all, is that, do we have that slide? The three things not to do, and I know this is on me, I got out of order, okay? Don't make your head explode trying to fit it all together, okay? Number one, it's like, you know, why are you here today as a believer? God, for reasons sufficient to himself, worked in your life to save you. You say, but I have people I love, and it just, the lights didn't come on for them. All of the purposes of God will not fit between your two ears, okay? And so we just accept this. Number two, don't start arguments. If you wanna start an argument at church, I'm not recommending it. But if you want to, just say, well, I want to talk about election, the doctrine of election. And there's a stage for, or the thing we call young guys who want to talk about this all the time, we say cage stage. They're cage stage. We should just put them in a cage for a while until they learn something more. And number three, don't give simplistic evaluations that end either in the road ditch of Pelagianism. So if you try and work this all out, you'll think, well, repentance, you say, I know people who have brought others to repentance, and they were the reason. That's called Pelagianism. It's the idea that the human can make it happen. Or if you don't go to that extreme, you'll go to an extreme of Hyper-Calvinism, I'm doing a robot thing here. We're all just robots. What we do doesn't matter. So I just won't do anything. No, you can't do that. You have to do two things. You have to know God is sovereign and repents as a gift that he gives. You also have to know it's our responsibility to respond and repent. And we say both things. Sinclair Ferguson says, God's gift is simultaneously our act. So if God's working on your heart right now, that is a gift from you. There's an area of sin you need to deal with, that is a gift from God. But repent, repent. And we'll glorify God, saying to you also God has granted repentance that leads to life. Now, what happened to Tom Terrence? I got to go back to him. Remember, Ku Klux Klan affiliated guy took 29 sticks of dynamite to a house, shot a police officer in the shootout, and was shot four times himself. Went to maximum security prison. and was not at all repentant, tried to escape, did escape, escaped with a second partner. His second partner was also killed in a shootout when they were recaptured. He was so dangerous, they put him in maximum security all by himself. He had no human conduct at all. The only thing he could do was read. I'm reading now from his words. Nothing else to do in solitary confinement, he began to read widely. And he says, several months into the journey of reading, I came to the Bible, or rather I came back to it. I felt an especially strong desire to read the Gospels in the New Testament. Why did he feel that? Because the Holy Spirit was giving him a gift. I can't really say why on a human level. He said, it was part of my search for the truth. It didn't rise out of a search for solace or escape or a way to get out of the trouble I was in, nor was it from a concern to improve my relationship with God, which I thought was fine. He said, I thought I was fine. But he said, as I began to read in the New Testament this time, it was unlike my previous experiences. When I turned the pages, it was like lights in a darkened theater began slowly turning up. Now I began to see. I was able to understand what I read in a way I had never read before. The words on the pages seemed to be speaking directly to me, and as I read the Gospels each day for a couple of weeks or so, the light became brighter and brighter, and spiritual sight got clearer and clearer. And then he says, finally, like a laser beam, one Bible struck my heart with conviction more powerfully than any other. What will profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? This was, I think, in 1970. He came to faith in Christ and has been walking with Jesus ever since. Say, what happened with Tom Terrence? God gave him the gift of repentance. Don't you want to see more of that? Don't you want to see more of that? Well, it only remains to be said then, given that repentance is a gift, we have to keep in mind the location of the Christmas tree. So the thing about this, if repentance is a gift, then we gotta know where and how to receive the gift, right? And Mary Elizabeth was with you this summer, played the flute with and did some things, spent the summer here, the fourth of our youngest kids. And of all my kids, I'll tell you what Mary Beth's expertise, this is something she picked up on quicker than any of our kids, was she knew where the Christmas tree was at. And she used to sit at the Christmas tree for hours waiting for Christmas. She would, we would put the presents out and she would stack up her presents, weigh them. Literally, she would put Post-it notes on presents speculating what they were. And I have a picture of her with these notes all around her Christmas tree, Christmas presents. I think, what kind of a materialistic child Am I raising? You don't have to teach a little girl where the Christmas tree is. Sometimes, though, you have to teach God's people where it's at. And the Bible tells us that we receive the gift of God in very specific places. God gives grace through certain ordinary means. The Word, shared life in Christian community, worship and prayer. Listen, where do you receive the gift of repentance? Here, with God's people, here in the Word read. Where do you hear it as you sing, as you participate in the Lord's Supper, as you watch people baptize, as you pray? This shapes everything. I was talking with someone this week who's going through a horrific, horrific time. And he's asking, what should I do? And I started talking to him about Psalm 38. I just had this sense as I was talking that he was thinking, yeah, yeah, yeah. but tell me what to do. How can I fix it? And like, no, it's like, this is what you do. This is the Christmas tree where the gifts of God are received as we hear his word. Luther said, scripture is the swaddling cloth in which we find the baby Jesus wrapped. It's when we're in the word. Repentance, last slide, repentance is a gift from God. Ask God for that gift and unwrap it for his glory and our joy. Repentance is a gift. Ask God to graciously grant it to others so that they unwrap it for his glory and our joy. Know where the Christmas tree is at. Hear the word, share life, take communion, pray. Let's pray. Our Father in heaven, we hear these things, we fall silent and we give you all glory because we say to us also, you have granted repentance that leads to life. We praise you. We're not here because we had some capacity in ourselves to figure it out. We were dead, we were gone. Tom Terrence, with his 29 sticks of dynamite, wasn't any more difficult than us for your Holy Spirit. And you gave him repentance that leads to life. Lord, we ask that you would give it to us also. First in coming to you, as most of us have, but also Lord, in dealing with these besetting battles that go on. Help us bring them to the foot of the cross and rest in you, we pray. In Jesus' name, amen. After spending the entire summer going Sunday after Sunday talking about the importance of the local church, I deal with people all the time and I say to them, come hear the word preached. hear it week after week after week. Get in, read scripture week, day after day after day. And they all go like, yeah, right, but what? Really, kind of what? I'm going like, no, there is no magic sauce here. That is the sauce. And he says it again, where does repentance come from? Hearing, hearing the word over and over and over. And God works that into our hearts. Folks, we need to be that church, but we need every individual to pursue the greatness of God so that we will repent and so that he will grant repentance. Both are in line. And so I want us to finish our morning with this hymn. Lord, I need you. Lord, I come, I confess. Bowing here, I find my rest. Without you, I fall apart. You're the one who guides my heart. Lord I need you. May this be our hearts cry as we sing this together. Stand with me and let's sing this morning.