Episode Transcript
[00:00:20] Would you consider yourself to be a happy person?
[00:00:26] So here's the reason I bring this question up to us this morning.
[00:00:30] I want you to be a happy person.
[00:00:34] I want to be a happy person.
[00:00:38] Depending on the.
[00:00:39] The expression or branch of Christianity that maybe you were saved into or, or grew up in or are familiar with, the word happy can almost be like a trigger word for those of us who are reformed, like myself. It can almost be a bad word.
[00:00:56] So we will say things like, God wants you to be holy and not happy.
[00:01:00] But my question is, is that a biblical thing to say?
[00:01:05] Does God want you to be holy? He does. He commands it.
[00:01:10] You shall be holy as I am holy.
[00:01:13] Right. Did Christ purchase our holiness on the cross? He did. Is he making us more holy through the person of the Holy Spirit? He is.
[00:01:22] God delights and desires and is working for your holiness and mine. He's using all things in our life as Romans chapter 8 says for all who love Him. He's working all things in our life according to his purpose, that we might be conformed into the image of His Son, who is himself the embodiment of holiness.
[00:01:45] So, yeah, God desires your holiness, but might he also desire your happiness? And might those two things actually coincide with one another?
[00:01:55] John Wesley said, let me find my notes here. John Wesley once said, a sour religion is the devil's religion.
[00:02:08] Sullen, sad, introspective, nasal gazing, navel gazing, not nasal gazing could be either navel gazing.
[00:02:22] Christians, he say, is not. Is not true religion. It's the devil's religion. That doesn't mean Christians are never sad. It doesn't mean we don't lament. It doesn't mean we don't grieve. We do all of those things when sad things happen.
[00:02:34] Jesus was sad, we get sad. That's a godly response to sad things.
[00:02:41] But I wonder if a lot of our perspective on the Christian life, this kind of sour religion derives from a belief that God is a sour God.
[00:02:53] The reason I bring all these things up to you, you're probably wondering, what does this have to do with Simon? What does this have to do with Acts chapter eight is because at the end of our passage today, Simon is described by Peter as being a man who was in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity.
[00:03:16] It's almost like Peter could look at Simon and say, you're a miserable man.
[00:03:24] And if you look back at the verse prior to verse nine, verse eight of Acts, chapter eight, it says that as the Gospel spread throughout Samaria, so again, we talked about how Jerusalem, the city of Jerusalem sat roughly 2, 500ft above sea level.
[00:03:41] And to get to the surrounding valleys, you had to descend. You had to go down from Jerusalem into Judea and then up to Samaria. And Samaria was filled with people who were half Jew, half Gentile. They were hated by the Jews. In Jerusalem, they were seen as less than the people of God. In Jerusalem, they hated him. That's why when Jesus talked to a Samaritan woman, it was such a scandal. How could you talk to a Samaritan? Even the Samaritan woman said this to Jesus, like, who? Who am I that you're to talk to me? This is how the Samaritans viewed themselves. This is how the Jews in Jerusalem viewed the Samaritans. But nonetheless, the promise of Jesus, as is always the case, is being fulfilled before their eyes. As the gospel moves from Jerusalem, Stephen is stoned. He's killed. And so because of that, the believers are scattered down from Jerusalem into Judea and now into Samaria through the witness of Philip. We don't know much about Philip. He's a deacon of the church.
[00:04:39] But Philip is what some believe, the first global missionary of the church. He takes the gospel to the dreaded hated Samaritans. And as the gospel moves out into Samaria, it says that they are filled with joy.
[00:04:55] Because that's what the good news of God's grace does in the heart of a person.
[00:05:02] It creates and it stirs joy.
[00:05:06] And oftentimes, when the Bible speaks of joy, it's synonymous with happiness.
[00:05:12] We define happiness in our culture as a circumstantial thing. If things are really good and easy in your life, then you feel happy.
[00:05:20] It's flippant. It's quick. It comes and it goes at the whim of whatever circumstances you're dealing with. But when the Bible talks about joy and happiness, it's talking about this. It is a feeling, but it's associated with truth that we know.
[00:05:38] So that means despite the circumstances that are going on, we grieve and we lament hard, difficult, sad circumstances deep within our bones. There can be a sense of happiness because of what we know.
[00:05:53] And so this joy is spreading throughout the people of Samaria as the people of Samaria are being delivered by God out of darkness and into the light of the kingdom of God through faith in Jesus. What is this darkness, then? Well, this darkness in many ways was being perpetuated by a man named Simon, who's said by Peter, which we'll talk about in just a moment to be in the gall of bitterness.
[00:06:21] So who. Who was Simon?
[00:06:24] Well, here's just a. Before we get into him. Before we get into Simon, it's important to note that Simon in. In the book of Acts is an agent of Satan.
[00:06:35] Okay? So you see, it's insinuated all throughout the book of Acts that as the Gospel moves forth and the kingdom of darkness is being pushed out, there's opposition.
[00:06:46] Sometimes that opposition from Satan and demons come from inside the church, as we saw with Ananias and Sapphira.
[00:06:54] And sometimes the opposition comes from outside of the church, like we see in the stoning of Stephen.
[00:07:02] And in particular, we see this embodied, so to speak. We. We see an agent of Satan. And his name is.
[00:07:08] Is Simon. So we'll talk for a few minutes about who Simon is, what it means that he was in the gall of bitterness, and how you and I, by the grace of God, might find happiness.
[00:07:18] Who is Simon? Why was he in the gall of bitterness? What. In other words, what was it that made Simon such a miserable person? And what does it look like for you and I to be happy today? Okay.
[00:07:31] All right, so let's look at the passage.
[00:07:33] Acts, chapter eight. We'll start in verse nine.
[00:07:36] And I'm going to read through verse 11.
[00:07:40] Says, but there was a man named Simon who had previously practiced magic in the city and amazed the people of Samaria, saying that he himself was somebody great.
[00:07:50] They all paid attention to him, from the least to the greatest, saying, this man is the power of God that is called great. And they paid attention to him because for a long time he had amazed them with his magic. So the first thing to take note of Simon is his sorcery.
[00:08:09] Simon's Simon's sorcery.
[00:08:12] There are all sorts of words that Luke uses to describe Simon, which we would think in our minds and in our culture should lead one to the most happy, fulfilled life one can live. People saw him as great.
[00:08:26] He had much influence. He had power. He had control of some sense. They thought he was so great in Samaria that actually led them to say that he is the power of God.
[00:08:41] So what is it about Simon? Sorcery. That is, first of all, what sorcery mean. Okay, so sorcery is just another word for magic.
[00:08:51] Here's what the Bible has to say about sorcery. Okay. Deuteronomy 18:9 through 12 says.
[00:09:00] I'm sorry, Deuteronomy 18:9, 12 warns God's people to not follow in the ways of the Canaanites. So as God led his People, the Israelites out of Egypt and into the promised land. They're about to inhabit the land of Canaan, filled with people who are participating in sorcery in a variety of ways. Warns them. He says, don't burn your sons or daughters as an offering, meaning that the Canaanites were doing these things.
[00:09:25] So he's telling his people, you be different. You look like me. Don't do these practices. Don't burn your sons and daughters as an offering. Don't practice divination, tell fortunes and interpret omens. Sorcery, charming or charmers, mediums, necromancers, or one who inquires of the dead. Whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord.
[00:09:49] Okay, so to perform magic or sorcery in the way that Simon was, this is how it could be defined. Defined to perform magical spells that harness occult forces or evil spirits to produce unnatural or supernatural effects in the world.
[00:10:07] So we don't know exactly how these things were expressing themselves, but we know there was something spiritual and supernatural going on with Simon.
[00:10:17] It wasn't sleight of hand. In other words, there were actually dark, demonic forces that were at power with and through Simon in order to spread sorcery across the land of Samaria. They were living in darkness.
[00:10:31] They were living in spiritual darkness. And so when the Gospel of light, the good news of God's grace through Jesus begins to.
[00:10:39] To come into this dark place, the dark forces oppose that. And we see this happening through Simon. As I was thinking about this, I was reflecting on my life a little bit, and. And somehow I got into this conversation not long ago with somebody. But I grew up in a home that practice the occult. Not. Not in some, like, major overt ways. But as I think back at my time as a child, I thought, man, like the movies we watched, the music we listened to, the various things we talked about and that were celebrated in our home was.
[00:11:13] Was of the occult.
[00:11:16] And I think about that. I think about the. The effect that that had on my life. And as a Christian, by the grace of God, I was saved out of that. I was redeemed. I was delivered into the kingdom of light. Um, but. But I did want us to. I did want us to consider this question.
[00:11:31] And it's a heavy one, but I want you to really consider it.
[00:11:34] Are you filling your mind and your heart with demonic things?
[00:11:40] And when I ask you that, this is what I'm not asking you or not saying to you. I'm not talking about the arts. Okay? I'm not. I'm not talking about culture generally. I'm not talking about you can only watch Christian movies, you can only listen to Christian things. That's not what we're talking about.
[00:11:55] God's common grace covers the earth and it's manifested through the artistry and the creativity of Christians and non Christians alike. So we can watch and listen to non Christian things and celebrate the goodness of God through his common grace. And that. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about overtly demonic things.
[00:12:13] Are you filling your mind with overt, with, with things that are overtly antagonistic toward the gospel of Jesus Christ?
[00:12:24] So Jesus says, it's not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person.
[00:12:30] And you can apply that to a lot of different things. The fundamentalists from back in the day wanted to say that don't do this, don't do this, don't do this. Don't dance, don't drink, don't do all these things because these things will defile. These things in and of themselves will not defile you. There are some things though, in and of themselves that are defiling things.
[00:12:49] Now what, what defiles us comes from in our heart. But what I'm asking you as a Christian is are you filling your mind with things that are in direct opposition to the things of God?
[00:13:03] God detests these things.
[00:13:08] Not because he's a joy kill, not because he's a rulemaker and he wants you to follow all the rules, but things that celebrate the demonic, things that glorify the demonic. Like, I'm not going to go into very, you know, super specific application as to miss a variety of other things, but man, there are, and I'm a baby when it comes to horror movies anyways, but the genre in and of itself, has it not taken a turn toward overtly demonic?
[00:13:40] I mean, it's almost like every picture I see of a new horror movie that comes out has an upside down cross. It's got a picture of a demon, it's got. I'm like, dude, don't, don't dabble in those things.
[00:13:50] If you're a follower of Jesus, why would you.
[00:13:55] You've been delivered out of that. You've been delivered out of that kingdom.
[00:14:02] So I say this lovingly as a pastor. Like, some of you in the room need to grow up.
[00:14:09] You need to stop dabbling in things that are destroying your soul, that aren't increasing affections for Jesus. It's actually dampening it. And then you wonder why you feel so distant and cold all the time. It's not because God's distant.
[00:14:26] God's not distant, but it's because we're filling our mind with things that are in direct opposition to his truth, goodness and beauty.
[00:14:38] Simon practiced sorcery, and this is an abomination to God.
[00:14:47] So what else about Simon? Well, now that we've introduced Simon as a sorcerer, practicing dark magic, filling the place of Samaria and the people of Samaria with darkness, we read about his conversion, and I do air quotes because we don't know that he was actually converted.
[00:15:05] So we need to talk about that for a little bit. Look at verse 12 with me.
[00:15:11] Verse 12 says, but when they believed Philip, as he preached good news about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized both men and women.
[00:15:26] They were baptized both men and women. Even Simon himself believed. And after being baptized, he continued with Philip and seeing signs and great miracles performed, he was amazed.
[00:15:37] Now, when the apostles at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent to them Peter and John, who came down and prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit. And for he had not yet fallen on any of them, but they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then they laid their hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit.
[00:16:00] So Simon believes Philip's message regarding Jesus, and he himself is baptized. Peter. Sorry. Philip preaches the gospel of Jesus. Many Samaritans are converted to Christ. And we'll talk about what the laying on of hands and the Holy Spirit coming and all of that means in just a moment. But for us, because that's important. It's a theological conundrum of sorts.
[00:16:20] But many Samaritans in Samaria believe Philip is one of those. He's like, I am amazed by the works that are being done through this man. He himself was performing magic of a satanic kind. And now you see the kingdom of God and God flexing his power and his glory through Philip by the power of the Holy Spirit in a variety of ways that are so incredible. They're amazing. Simon.
[00:16:45] Okay, so we talked about this a little bit last week. The signs and the wonders that were being done through Philip were not the point. They were intended to be a finger of sorts, pointing to the true source, which is Jesus. So God is doing, in essence, a similar thing that he was doing in Egypt. In Egypt, they would perform magic arts and these kinds of things. And God is like, I'm going to show you who the true God is by sending the plagues.
[00:17:06] I am the one true God. There is no other God. And so God expresses his power in that specific way. And we see that happening now, so much so that Simon is amazed and believes. But is his belief genuine? Is Simon's belief genuine? So before we get to that, let me kind of address this somewhat theological conundrum in verses 14 through 17 when it says that when the apostles in Jerusalem heard that the Samaritans had received the good news of the Gospel, they sent Peter and John to Samaria so Peter and John could lay their hands on them and they could receive the Holy Spirit. That's a little bit confusing. Did they not receive the Holy Spirit when they put their faith in Jesus? Is the question that people have. Well, brothers and sisters of the Pentecostal tradition would say, would call this, and texts like this the second blessing or the second baptism. But is that true? Is that what's happening here? And I would argue no, that's not what's happening here. Okay. And here's why I would, I would say that, okay, I'm all over myself in my notes. Forgive me. We're going to get there. All right?
[00:18:14] So before we get to what was happening with the Holy Spirit coming down on them in this particular moment, it is interesting to note that John was one of the two that is sent down to Samaria. And it's interesting to note because In Luke chapter 9, verse 54, John is one of the ones who alongside his brother, asks Jesus if he wants Jesus, if, if, if he, if Jesus wants him to call fire from heaven down on the Samaritans.
[00:18:43] Isn't that interesting? It's kind of ironic there that John and James are the ones who are like, do you want me to call down fire from heaven to kill the Samaritans? Because they didn't respond to you. And now those very people that John wanted to call fire from heaven down upon are the ones that he's going to lay his hands on to receive the Holy Spirit. It's amazing how God works in that way. Don't ever think that you, maybe it's you this morning or somebody in your life is too far for God's grace to reach.
[00:19:10] Like, this text tells us many things that are amazing and good to ponder. But this is one of the things that it's like, oh my gosh, like look at what God's doing and how he's orchestrating all these things in order to save these far off Samaritans. So Peter and John go down and they pray for them to receive the Holy Spirit, because Luke tells us that they were only baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Here's what Patrick Shriner, commentator says in regards to what's happening here. He says this is an exceptional circumstance recounted because of the rift between Jerusalem and Samaria.
[00:19:46] This was, he calls the Samaritan Pentecost.
[00:19:52] This is out of the norm.
[00:19:54] The entire narrative of Acts is geographical. So you have to remember that we're reading a geographical narrative. The Gospel is moving from one place and into another, into another, into the ends of the earth. So as we talked about this difference between prescriptive and descriptive things, descriptive things being the churches to do throughout the duration of time until Jesus returns, like generosity and evangelism and gathering and worshiping and all of these kinds of things. But there are also things in the book of Acts that are prescriptive that happened one specific time for one specific purpose. And this is one of those things.
[00:20:30] He says now something unique happens as the good news of the kingdom penetrates into northern Israel.
[00:20:36] And it's that they have received in essence a part of the message that's the baptism of Jesus. But they have not yet fully come to an understanding of what repentance and faith in Jesus is. When the apostles go down and they lay their hands on them, that's when they receive the Holy Spirit. Does all this make sense? So this isn't a teaching telling us that it is normative in the life of a Christian to receive Jesus as Savior and Lord, to repent of sins and believe upon him, be filled with the Spirit and then need to be baptized in the Spirit. Again, this is not the teaching of the New Testament. And that's made more clear as you see the New Testament unfold.
[00:21:10] There is one baptism of the Spirit when one puts their faith in Jesus and many fillings of the Spirit. According to Ephesians chapter 5, be filled with the Spirit. Don't get drunk with wine. Be filled with the Spirit. This is how we live the Christian life, by being perpetually filled with the Holy Spirit. But this doesn't mean that, that we're being baptized again by the Holy Spirit in the same way that this is happening in Acts chapter eight.
[00:21:33] All right, so back to Simon.
[00:21:36] Let's get to Simon's true desire. Was, was Simon's belief legitimate? He, he believed in the message. He was baptized. But was his belief legitimate? Look at verses 18 through 20.
[00:21:49] Says now when Simon saw that the Spirit was given through the laying on of the apostles hands, he offered them money. Satan saying give me this power also. So that anyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit. But Peter said to him, may your silver perish with you because you thought you could obtain the gift of God with money.
[00:22:11] You have neither part nor lot in this matter, for your heart is not right before God.
[00:22:19] So Simon believed and was baptized. But what motivated Simon's belief?
[00:22:25] Was it greed? Maybe?
[00:22:30] Was it power?
[00:22:32] Could have been power.
[00:22:33] Was it idolatry? Could have been idolatry. Was it love of money? Could have been that.
[00:22:40] The text is unclear about what drove Simon to believe in the message of Philip and be baptized.
[00:22:49] It's unclear about that. But what is clear in the text is Simon's obsession.
[00:22:55] What was Simon's obsession?
[00:22:57] Simon's obsession were the signs and the wonders.
[00:23:04] He. He was a practitioner of signs and wonders, not from God, and he was a lover of signs and wonders.
[00:23:15] Here's what this does. This doesn't mean that signs and wonders. Signs and wonders do not still exist and ought not be desired by the Christian. We ought to want to see God perform signs and wonders as his kingdom moves out into the world.
[00:23:30] But like I told you guys last week, my family and I, we. We love the countryside.
[00:23:36] We would be, by my admission, probably. I think Sidney would agree with this, too, if not for our theology, probably Amish.
[00:23:45] Our theology and you. Okay, but we love to drive out into the countryside. And when we're driving out into the countryside to point to our kids and say, hey, look at those horses or look at that rainbow or look at those planes or look at those cows. And it is almost 100% of the time that as we're pointing our finger out the window, the thing that our kids focus on is not the object, but the finger.
[00:24:10] Okay, like, look. Looking at us like, what are you talking about? I'm like, I'm pointing you to that thing right there. This is what Simon was doing.
[00:24:19] He's looking at the signs and wonders, and they're amazing him. And he's believing, and he's like, I want to be baptized. Then he comes to Philip and he's like, hey, I want to pay you money. Because if I can pay you money and I can get that kind of power, then I'll be great.
[00:24:31] He's missing the object by which the finger's pointing to.
[00:24:39] He. He's missing it.
[00:24:41] He's missing it all. And so Peter. A literal translation of what Peter's saying. This is going to be jarring. A literal translation of what Peter's saying is, to hell with you and your money.
[00:24:57] Peter's not saying, I want you to go to hell.
[00:25:01] But he's saying, hey, if you think that you can purchase the gift of God through your money, let your silver perish with you, because you will perish.
[00:25:17] And then that's when he goes on to tell him, simon, you're in the gall of bitterness and you're in the bond of iniquity. You are enslaved.
[00:25:29] You're enslaved in darkness and you're miserable.
[00:25:36] Simon.
[00:25:38] Simon needs salvation.
[00:25:42] And so what then is Peter's directive to Simon at this point?
[00:25:48] Verse 22, repentance.
[00:25:54] Repent therefore, of this wickedness of yours and pray to the Lord that if possible, the intent of your heart may be forgiven you.
[00:26:06] For I see that you are in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity.
[00:26:13] And Simon answered, pray for me to the Lord, that nothing of what you have said may come upon me.
[00:26:23] So according to Peter and according to Luke in this passage, the road to happiness, friends, is the road of repentance.
[00:26:37] This is the way to happiness.
[00:26:41] And the reason this is the road to happiness. It's not the destination, by the way, it's the road to the destination.
[00:26:50] So we could do the same thing with repentance that Simon did with the signs and wonders.
[00:26:55] Repentance is the finger pointing to the thing.
[00:26:59] And we can look at repentance and we can fixate ourselves on the repentance and we can make it all about repentance and all about turning and all about these things and miss the one that we're turning to, not just the one that we're repenting to, but the object who animates our repentance, the one that when we look to, we want to repent.
[00:27:23] Repentance becomes a joyful act because of the one that we're repenting to, the one that we're coming to in the midst of our repentance.
[00:27:32] And so Peter's telling Simon, you're in the gall of bitterness. You're in the bond of iniquity. The bond of iniquity just means you are enslaved to sin.
[00:27:40] It's got its shackles around you and there's. There's no amount of money you can pay to get out of the bond of iniquity.
[00:27:50] There's no amount of working or religious deeds or actions that you can perform to get out of the slavery of iniquity that you're in that's causing you to be in the gall of bitterness.
[00:28:04] There's nothing you can do.
[00:28:08] This is what you need. You need rescue, you need salvation.
[00:28:17] You need grace says the way to happiness, the way out of the gall of bitterness, is repentance.
[00:28:28] We don't know if Simon repents. Luke doesn't tell us that. Commentators disagree on it.
[00:28:34] The early church fathers went as far as to say, there are wild stories about Simon the magician. If you're interested in doing that, you can go home and study those.
[00:28:43] A lot of the church fathers believe that Simon the magician, which was actually the father of all heresy, that all heresy actually ended up coming through Simon, that he left this interaction with Peter and went off and began to call himself God, the power of God.
[00:28:58] Others believe that he's the father of Gnosticism.
[00:29:02] There are all sorts of beliefs about Simon. Some are a little bit more optimistic about Simon, some of the newer scholars, and they're like, well, you know, Luke's narrative seems to kind of go in a direction of optimism. You know, God saving a bunch of people, like, he probably came around. We don't know.
[00:29:17] As a pastor, I don't particularly care, no offense to Simon.
[00:29:23] I care way more about you and me. And I think this is one of the beautiful things that the Bible does over and over and over is it forces the question on you.
[00:29:37] It gives you the opportunity to respond and me the opportunity to respond.
[00:29:47] Repentance.
[00:29:49] The word repentance just means to turn, means to change the way you think repentance requires. This is Wayne Grudem's definition. Repentance requires understanding that you understand that you're a sinner and that because you're a sinner, friends. And we just sang about it like, there is a day of judgment coming.
[00:30:18] John Calvin says this, and this struck me as a pastor.
[00:30:24] He says church pastors would be well advised each time they saw some disaster pending, whether war, famine or pestilence, to teach their people to need to pray to the Lord with tears, repentance and fasting, provided they insisted on the main requirement, which is to rend one's heart and not one's garment. And the reason that struck me is because I, which I'm sure, like you spend so much time thinking about the affairs of the world and never take into account friends, this is an opportunity to repent.
[00:31:01] Like if looking out at the brokenness of the world and the sadness that's happening and the war in Iran and all, you know, all these crazy things that are happening.
[00:31:13] Like if. If in nowhere in your purview you're seeing these things and thinking, I need to render my heart before God.
[00:31:23] If it's all about what's happening outside of you, you're missing the opportunity.
[00:31:29] Like revival begins in the household of God, it does not begin in the culture.
[00:31:36] Revival starts with you and with me recognizing and I'm speaking to Christians, that if you're a Christian, repentance is not just the initial thing that you respond to in order to enter into a relationship with God. It is that. So if you're not a Christian, you need to understand you're a sinner and that you're guilty before a holy God.
[00:32:02] You need to accept the Bible's teaching about God's judgment upon sin.
[00:32:07] And then you need to turn and you need to believe upon Christ, who died on the cross for sin so that you'd be forgiven of all your sin and cleansed of all your unrighteousness and reconciled to God. That's what you need to do today if you're not yet a Christian and that's available to you.
[00:32:26] But if you are a Christian, repentance is not just that one time act. Repentance is an attitude of heart that marks the Christian.
[00:32:36] Repentance is just your attitude, or it should be.
[00:32:43] Like Paul says in Ephesians 5, he says, put off the old man and put on the new man that gives the image of clothing. Every day you wake up and you put clothes on.
[00:32:56] At some point you put clothes on, right? You make a decision to do that as a Christian, you're already in Christ, meaning that the cross of Christ has already Jesus, through his cross has already cleansed you. He's already forgiven you. You are grafted into the triune Godhead. You have communion with God. God is your father, Jesus as your brother, Holy Spirit as your helper. You're a saint because you're in Christ. That's who you are. And so the entirety of our life is by the power of the Spirit, is one of putting off the old man that's already been crucified and putting on the new man that is Christ, that's a life of repentance. It's not getting saved again, it's not getting forgiven again. That's already taken place over 2000 years ago on the cross.
[00:33:40] This is why it's joyful, this is why it's happy.
[00:33:44] Because putting on Christ, there's nothing happier than that, is there?
[00:33:50] Putting off the old man that was in the gall of bitterness and the bond of iniquity, and putting on the new man, Christ, it's happy no matter what's happening in our life.
[00:34:08] So, friends, I just want us, as we prepare to close our time to spend just a couple of minutes focusing on the one that we repent to.
[00:34:21] Because again, this. This is the thing that will animate your repentance.
[00:34:29] You're not going to repent of something that maybe you need to repent of today by redoubling your focus on repentance.
[00:34:38] There's something much more glorious that you and I have as followers of Jesus that animates our desire to confess sin and turn away from it than repentance itself.
[00:34:49] And it's the one that we.
[00:34:51] That we repent to.
[00:34:53] Matthew 12, 18, 20, I think, has some of the most beautiful words in all of the Bible to describe Jesus.
[00:35:02] And remember, in Jesus in his person, the fullness of God dwells bodily.
[00:35:07] So if you want to know what God is like, look no further than the person of Jesus.
[00:35:14] Matthew 12, 18, 20. This is a quote from Isaiah 42 that says this.
[00:35:22] Behold my servant whom I have chosen, my beloved, with whom my soul is well pleased.
[00:35:30] I will put my spirit upon him, and he will proclaim justice to the Gentiles.
[00:35:37] He will not quarrel or cry aloud, nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets.
[00:35:43] A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not quench.
[00:35:54] Hey, you are a bruised reed.
[00:36:00] I am, too.
[00:36:02] You're a smoldering wick. You ever seen a smoldering wick?
[00:36:07] No. Ever have? Okay, anybody? Anybody like candles? You like candles? All right.
[00:36:13] Okay. What? So when the candle's lit, everything's great, right? You get your little ambiance and your Bible and your coffee and all. That's what I like.
[00:36:21] But when that fire begins to go out, what do you do with it?
[00:36:26] You dispose of it.
[00:36:28] You put it away.
[00:36:30] It's useless to you. Now.
[00:36:34] What Jesus is saying is he doesn't dispose of it.
[00:36:40] You're a smoldering wick.
[00:36:43] You and I are more weak than we like to think we are.
[00:36:48] A bruised reed. What do you do with a bruised reed other than pick it up out of the ground and throw it away?
[00:36:54] Jesus doesn't do that.
[00:36:58] You're littered. And so am I.
[00:37:01] Still internally with sin and suffering, we're very weak, like a smoldering wick and a bruised reed.
[00:37:10] And he doesn't despise of us.
[00:37:13] He doesn't cast us out. He doesn't throw us away.
[00:37:17] He doesn't dispose of us.
[00:37:20] It's actually those weaknesses that draw his heart closer to us.
[00:37:26] It's in moments of recognizing those weaknesses that we really begin to experience the tender mercy of Jesus.
[00:37:34] A bruised reed. He will not break.
[00:37:36] He'll refine it.
[00:37:39] A smoldering wick. He will not quench. He'll breathe through the person of His Holy Spirit and ignite the flame once again.
[00:37:48] Jesus Christ is gentle with you and I in our sin and suffering. And that's why you should repent today.
[00:37:58] You should repent today not because God is holding a heavy hand on you.
[00:38:03] If you're a Christian, this is not the case.
[00:38:08] We repent today, which is really just a recognizing of where we're weak and where we're struggling and where we're sinning.
[00:38:15] Because he's not going to discard of you.
[00:38:19] He's going to welcome you.
[00:38:21] He's going to shower you with his grace.
[00:38:23] He's going to remind you once again of the reality of your sonship, that you're a son and you're a daughter of the Father.
[00:38:29] He's going to reignite the flame. He's going to heal the wound. This is what he does and he delights to do it.
[00:38:37] This is why we repent. So where does happiness come from?
[00:38:41] Happiness comes from humbling ourselves before God in a posture of repentance and turning again to Jesus Christ who is himself. Happiness.
[00:38:50] Let's pray.
[00:39:05] Sa.
[00:39:31] Sam.
