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Weekly sermons from the traditional and contemporary worship services at Church of the Incarnation in Dallas, Texas. Rooted in Scripture and the Anglican tradition, these messages explore how the gospel speaks to our faith, our everyday lives and the world around us.
Church, one of the most dangerous places to drift spiritually is
inside these church walls.
Not out there in the world, but right here where it's easy to look alive.
Where some of us settle into a secondhand spirituality, coasting
on a Christian upbringing, a familiar routine, borrowed
but not owned.
And without ever saying it out loud, we start believing that proximity
to holy things equals intimacy with a holy God.
But our colleague confronts that illusion by declaring that God
demonstrates his almighty power, how chiefly in showing
mercy and pity. Meaning God's greatest flex
isn't crushing sinners, but pardoning them.
Yet mercy, it is never automatic. Grace is never
mechanical. God's compassion is poured out on those who come to him
on his terms,
not with status in our hands, but surrender in our
hearts. And across our readings today, God pulls back
the curtain on a kingdom reality we cannot afford to ignore.
Heaven does not open for the privileged.
It opens for the penitent.
Before God can pour transforming grace into a life, he has to
confront the lie we tell ourselves.
And the first lie he exposes in our text is the one that keeps
countless believers spiritually stuck,
the lie that someone else is responsible for the
condition of my heart. Ezekiel and Jesus
both drag that lie into the light. They show us the danger of a
faith that talks big, excuses fast, and
promises much, but actually refuses to turn and
repent.
Let's begin where human nature loves to hide, the land of
self-justification. In Ezekiel 18, Israel clung
to a popular proverb, "The parents have eaten sour grapes, and
the children's teeth are set on edge."
Translation, our situation is not our fault.
They blame their ancestors for their exile, accuse God of
injustice, and use generational pain as a shield against
personal responsibility. But God shatters that
shield when he says, "All lives are mine.
The person who sins is the one who will die."
You see, God rejects inherited excuses because every soul
stands personally accountable before him.
Not one of us in here can outsource repentance.
And then Matthew 21 brings the spotlight even closer.
The priests and the elders challenge Jesus' authority, so
Jesus tells a parable that exposes the difference between
religious performance and actual obedience.
A father tells his first son, "Go work in the vineyard."
The son snaps back, "I will not." But later, he
considers his actions, repents, and he goes.
The second son responds with polished respect, "I go,
sir,"
but he never sets foot in the vineyard.
One son rebelled with his mouth but obeyed with his life.
The other honored with his mouth but rebelled with his life.
The second son represents believers who give God respectful titles,
emotional worship, and Sunday promises, but live in quiet
rebellion Monday through Saturday.
God is not moved by lip service. He is looking for lives that
turn the other way. So hear this clearly from
Ezekiel. It is not our parents' fault. It is not our upbringing.
It is not even our environment. It's not even a season that we might
find ourself in. God holds each of us responsible for how we
respond to his word today.
The question that presses on us is, if excuses and spiritual
lip service won't open the door to God's kingdom, then what will?
If God isn't persuaded by pedigree, promise, or
polished religion, what is the one thing that he's actually looking
for?
Scripture this morning does not leave us guessing.
It drags us to the one response God always honors, which is
radical repentance.
Listen to Jesus' conversation with these religious leaders, men who
knew scripture, who taught scripture, who enforced scripture, as he
speaks what must have shaken their theological confidence.
"Truly I tell you," he says, "the tax collectors and
the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you."
That statement should shake every comfortable soul in this room.
Tax collectors were traitors. Prostitutes were moral outcasts.
Both groups the religious elite wouldn't even touch or consider, yet
Jesus says they are entering ahead of the people who look
most qualified.
Why? Because when John the Baptizer came preaching righteousness,
those broken sinners, they didn't hide behind excuses.
They didn't polish their image. They didn't defend their past.
They repented. They turned. They changed their direction.
Meanwhile, the religious establishment watched those sinners transform and
still refused to repent. They saw the
evidence of God's power and stayed unmoved.
Family, let us not be like Pharaoh. Do not harden your heart.
Ezekiel echoes the same heartbeat of God when he says, "I have no
pleasure in the death of anyone. Turn, then, and live."
God is not eager to judge. He is eager to restore, but
restoration requires a U-turn.
Repentance is like driving downtown the wrong way on a
one-way street, and your GPS is screaming, "Make a U-turn!"
You don't ignore the warning. You don't argue with the GPS.
You don't keep driving into danger, especially with the city buses
barreling towards you. You hit the brakes, you turn the wheel, and you
turn around.
Repentance, it is not an emotional moment at the altar.
It is a decisive, intellectual, spiritual course correction.
If you're living in rebellion, you do not have to stay trapped in yesterday's
choices.
The moment you turn, God's mercy wipes the slate clean.
But hear this, God cannot transform a person who refuses
to change their direction.
I can hear someone say, "I want to turn, but I don't have the strength to
change my life."
You see, that's not an excuse, that's the truth, and scripture does not shame that
confession, it answers it. Because the kingdom doesn't just
demand obedience, it empowers us to obey.
If repentance is the U-turn, divine enablement is the engine that
moves the car. That brings us to the secret of kingdom
power. We cannot live a kingdom life in our own strength.
That's why the Apostle Paul, he does not begin with our effort.
Paul begins with Christ's humility.
Jesus, fully God, did not cling to divine privileges.
He emptied himself. How? By adding to his divinity the form of a
servant, embracing the cross, obeying the Father to the very end.
Jesus' obedience, it wasn't partial, it was not performative,
it was total.
And because Christ obeyed perfectly, Paul gives a command that should make
all of us in here sit up straight. He says, "Work out your own
salvation with fear and trembling." Not work for
your salvation. God already secured our salvation, but work out what
God has deposited in us.
Then Paul reveals a truth that keeps the tension in this text.
He says, "For it is God who is at work in you, enabling both you to will
and to work." Why? For his good pleasure.
God doesn't just empower our actions, he empowers our
desires. He shapes our will. He fuels our obedience,
and the psalmist echoes that same reality when David comes
to God and he says, "Teach me your ways and guide me in your truths."
Why? Because God guides the humble in doing what's right.
The humble heart becomes the teachable heart, and the teachable heart
becomes the obedient heart. Trying to obey God in
our own strength is like trying to push a stalled car up a hill.
We can strain, we can sweat, we can groan, but we will never push that
car to the top of the hill. But when the engine turns on, when
divine power engages, that same hill becomes climbable.
When you receive Christ, God places within us His Spirit.
He gives us the desire to obey and the power to obey.
So we have to stop trying to push our life up a hill, especially
in the power of our own flesh. Stop trying to manufacture
holiness with sheer willpower. We must yield to the indwelling
Spirit of God, and cultivate a humble heart, and let God's
supernatural power drive our daily obedience.
But all of this, family, it leads us to one unavoidable question.
If God supplies the power, and God invites you to turn,
and God delights in our desires, what will we do
with his word and invitation today?
Church, our colleague asks God for the fullness of his grace so that
running to obtain his promises, we may become partakers of his
heavenly treasure.
But hear me, no one runs toward heavenly treasure while dragging the
chains of pride or clutching the excuses of yesterday.
God is not impressed with how strong our spiritual start once looked.
He's looking at where your feet are pointed today.
He's looking at the direction of your obedience right now.
Some of us, like the second son, have responded with polite words
and respectful titles and enthusiasm on Sunday, but a
lifestyle that quietly says, "No, Lord." If that's you,
the Spirit is calling you to lay down the lip service, turn, and
live.
Some of us may feel more like the first son, fully aware of our rebellion,
painfully conscious of our failures. If that's you, hear the gospel.
The Father's vineyard is open, and the moment you turn your feet toward him,
your past rebellion does not disqualify you, your present
repentance restores you.
But repentance, it is not the finish line.
It is the starting line of a Spirit-empowered life.
The God who calls you to repentance is the God who works in you, giving you
the desire and the power to obey. So yield your heart to the
King today. Cast away the excuses. Surrender the self-will.
Step into the transforming grace of God that opens heaven's door,
not to the privileged, but to the penitent.
In the name of God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.