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  REPENTANCE IS A GIFT OF GOD
  by Randy Krahn
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Summary: This sermon emphasizes the importance of reconciliation with
God and others, highlighting the need for repentance, forgiveness, and
humility. It explores the transformative power of being born again in
Christ, becoming new creations, and serving as ambassadors of Christ in
the world. The message underscores the ministry of reconciliation, the
love of God, and the significance of releasing grudges to experience
true freedom and peace.

Topics: "Reconciliation", "Transformation in Christ"
Scripture References: Isaiah 61:1, 2 Corinthians 5:17, 2 Corinthians 5:18, 1 John 3:2, John 3:16

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DESCRIPTION
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This sermon emphasizes the importance of reconciliation with God and
others, highlighting the need for repentance, forgiveness, and humility.
It explores the transformative power of being born again in Christ,
becoming new creations, and serving as ambassadors of Christ in the
world. The message underscores the ministry of reconciliation, the love
of God, and the significance of releasing grudges to experience true
freedom and peace.

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CONTENT
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Good morning. I was thinking this morning about when Jesus came and
probably fairly close to when he began his ministry. He went into the
temple and he asked for the scroll of Isaiah and he turned to 61 and he
began to read.

And I'd like to read that and we see from that passage that it was a
fulfillment of God in the people's hearing in that day. You know, it's
still God's heart that that would happen in our day. It was finished
when Jesus said it was fulfilled in his hearing, but on our part, we
either receive the word of God and it becomes real in our life or we
reject it.

And we see that in that day, in that time when Jesus read Isaiah 61 and
he said, today, this is fulfilled in your hearing that they became angry
with him and they grabbed him and they took him to throw him off a
cliff. Now, some of us would say, oh, if Jesus would come and everything
would be great. You know, he came to his own people and his own people
rejected him.

They didn't recognize him. They didn't understand the day in which they
lived. They didn't recognize that Jesus is the Christ.

And even today, the Jews are still waiting for their Messiah to come.
There's a whole pile of work going on and different plans happening for
when the Christ will come, whoever he is. They don't have a revelation
of Jesus as the Christ.

Yes. But we who believe have come to know that Jesus is the son of God,
that Jesus is the Christ. And he said to those who received him, he
said, Simon, flesh and blood hasn't revealed this to you, but my father
in heaven, it comes by revelation.

So, you know what, we can labor and we can grind it out and we can try
to convince people that Jesus is the Christ. But unless God reveals it
to you individually, it's not going to change your life. Giving mental
assent that Jesus is the Christ is not going to change your life.

It has to go more than just the level of the mind. It has to come into
the level of the spirit, into the heart and the depths of your being.
That's when Jesus is going to change your life.

When you meet him and have that Damascus Road experience for yourself
and you realize that all your life you thought maybe you were doing
something for God and you realize that you've been fighting against God.
His brother Saul received a conversion on the Damascus Road and became
brother Paul. It's a picture of a man who was dead in trespasses and
sins and he was made alive.

But he had to come to a revelation that he was blind. He had to be made
naturally blind that the Holy Spirit could reveal to him that he was
spiritually blind. Yet according to his righteousness, according to the
law, he found himself to be blameless.

So what righteousness did he have? He was consenting to the death of
Steve and he was holding the codes. He was going and imprisoning the
people of the way who were following after Jesus and who were teaching
others and spreading their heresy all over the place according to him.
And God stopped him in his tracks on the Damascus Road.

He thought he was doing it for God and God revealed himself to him.
Therein lies something that we rarely preach on called election. Why did
God reveal himself to Saul on the Damascus Road and not to everyone or
not to someone else? Because He just pleased God to do it.

You know what it does? You know what election does? It takes away all
boasting. It can produce boasting if you think, oh I'm one of the
chosen. But what it does, it humbles us because you realize he should
have long gone away with us.

He should have killed us. He should have passed us by. But it just, it
pleased him to take those things that are not, the foolish things, the
abased things, those things that are vile and an abomination before God,
that which is highly esteemed among men, that kind of religious,
pharisaical, I've done nothing wrong heart attitude and bring it to
naught.

Like dragging your tongue across the pavement until you get a revelation
that you missed God altogether. It wasn't that Saul was searching for
God. God found Saul.

And why did he do it? Because it just pleased him to do it. And there
were a lot of Christians praying because that guy was wreaking havoc all
over the place. That guy had a zeal.

You want to talk about having a zeal for God? That guy had a zeal for
God, but not according to knowledge. He missed Christ. Those people who
were waiting for Messiah, they had a zeal for God.

But when Jesus stood up in the temple and read Isaiah 61 to them, they
missed Christ. They wanted to push the Christ over the cliff, but it
wasn't his time to go to the cross yet. It wasn't his time to die.

All things had to be fulfilled. That the purpose and the promises of God
might be fulfilled from Scripture. That's the thing about prophecy.

God knows what's going to happen. God knows the choices that you're
going to make. God knows whether you're going to reject him or receive
him.

He knows the end of the whole matter. Yet he's given us free will, but
he knows our choice. So therein lies the balance of free will and
election.

He gives us a choice. Choose you this day whom you will serve. He tells
them that in Joshua's day.

Then he says that to us today. But he also said this, Joshua revealed to
him, and God revealed to Joshua, and he said, but you were not willing.
As for me in my house, serve the Lord.

You choose to serve God, but you know what? You're not going to because
God already told me you won't. This is a fine line. Repent and be
converted.

Who can repent if they have no conviction? Yesterday I got caught up in
something. You know, I got caught up in battling flesh with flesh. You
know what? I spoke hastily, spoke from the flesh, spoke from pride.

Then I felt bad about it, and I kind of was trying to repent over it. I
went to sleep heavy. I woke up heavy.

You know, it was till I just started texting with Curtis on the drive,
and I started to acknowledge my transgressions. I started to acknowledge
my sin. It doesn't matter what the other people say.

It doesn't matter what the other people have done. What matters is what
I've done, my response to it. When those people went to all-in-one
accord, pushed Jesus off the cliff, he could have just screamed at them
and told them, I'm going to send a legion of angels, and I just wipe you
guys all out, because if you don't know, I'm the Christ, and just spoke
in the flesh, because that's not what the Father told him to say.

I never did that. We can think we're standing up for righteousness, or
truth, or some other thing, and speak totally and completely from the
flesh, because there's also another scripture that says, when he was
reviled, he did not revile in return. He continued to speak the truth,
but he spoke it in love.

He didn't speak it from anger. He didn't speak it from pride. He didn't
speak it because he had to push back against those who were trying to
push him off a cliff, and when I humbled myself, I was seeking
repentance from last night, even until this morning, but I didn't find
any, because repentance is a gift that comes from God, and until I was
prepared to humble myself, and I didn't even realize I was humbling
myself, except that I was just opening up my heart to share, you know,
because sometimes we can seem to be something, but we struggle just like
everybody else.

It doesn't matter what position you have, whether you're a king, or
whether you clean the king's shoes. What matters is what God says, and
when we open up our heart, and we become genuine, and become sincere in
where we're at, and our struggles, and become open one with another, and
vulnerable, then God sees the motive and intent of the heart, and he
gives repentance. All of a sudden, I started to tear up while I was
texting you, Curtis, and I started to realize, this is repentance.

God is granting me repentance. You can tell a man to repent until he's
blue in the face, until God changes his heart, nothing will change, and
then after I started to have a softness of heart, I decided I was going
to send a letter asking forgiveness to the person that I had spoken
harshly to. I spoke truth, but I spoke harshly, and I was accusing in
my, in my, the way I was saying things, and I was using it as a position
of authority over someone in a lower position to exercise my right as a
boss, and you know what? When I started to type that letter,
heartbrokenness came, forgiveness came, healing came, deliverance came,
freedom came, joy came for heaviness, praise came, the garment of
praise, and I knew that repentance has come.

We can ask on our part, but God is the giver of repentance. God is the
one who gives a man repentance, and when he sees that the heart is in
line with humility, and a genuineness, and remorse, God brings a change.
That's why a lot of times people, when they say, Jesus, forgive me of my
sins, and they hope to find forgiveness because they've willfully sinned
and done stupid things, they feel nothing's happened, nothing has
changed, and their prayers keep hitting the floor, because at the level
of the words, God sees the heart, because it says with the mouth
confession is made unto salvation, and with the heart one believes unto
righteousness.

The two have to connect. The mouth and the heart have to come in
agreement in order for there to be repentance, but the heart one
believes unto righteousness. See, I thought I was doing what was right,
and I spoke what I thought was right, and I was not going to back down
from truth, but yet with the heart, it was speaking from pride.

It was not speaking from love, and if we're not speaking from love, then
we miss Jesus. You miss the righteousness that I'm speaking about. Jesus
always spoke the truth in love.

It's not in the words, it's in the heart attitude by which one speaks
from love or from pride, and I have this yet to learn. So praise God, I
got some repentance. I'm grateful for that.

We have many things yet to learn. I want to read Isaiah 61, and I can
see myself this morning in there. Isaiah 61.1, and this is what Jesus
stood up and read in the synagogue, in the temple.

Now the spirit of the Lord God is upon me. This is what Jesus says, the
spirit of the Lord God, the spirit of God is upon me. He was the God
man.

He was fully man, but he couldn't change who he was. He was God in the
flesh, but yet he had a father who was in the heavens, and he subjected
himself as a man as we are to subject ourselves as men to God. Subject
ourselves to the word of God and to the spirit of God.

That's a mystery we won't discuss today, but we have the spirit of God
come upon us as believers in Jesus, filled with the spirit of God, born
again, not of corruptible seed, but incorruptible through the word of
God, which lives and abides forever. We've received an anointing from
the Holy One, and Jesus said the spirit of the Lord is upon me, because
he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to
heal the broken hearted.

How many of you are broken hearted? Sometimes our sin makes us broken
hearted. Sometimes our circumstances make us broken hearted. Sometimes
the people we work with make us broken hearted.

Sometimes empty promises that people have made to us make us broken
hearted. Sometimes we're waiting on God to do something in our life, and
it hasn't happened. We become despairing of heart, but Jesus says he
sent his word to heal the broken hearted.

He sent his word to heal us, to proclaim liberty to captives. What is a
captive? Someone who's been taken captive to sin, perhaps someone who's
been taken captive naturally and finds himself in prison for no fault of
their own, or sometimes people who've been taken captive because they've
sinned and they've gone to jail for their sins, and he comes to set them
at liberty where they're at. You might not naturally get free from
prison, but you can be the Lord's freed man, as Paul was when he said to
the Agrippa, he said, I wish you were as myself except for these chains.

Paul was the Lord's freed man, even though he had chains on the outside.
Agrippa was free on the outside, but he had chains on the inside, and
Jesus said, I come to set the captives free, to free those who are in
prison houses, the opening of the prison to those who are bound, bound
to sin, bound by fear, crippled by anxiety, crippled by what the future
looks like. God wants us to be free.

There's freedom in Christ if we can find ourselves just looking unto
him, the day of vengeance of our God, when God deals with Satan and the
powers of darkness as he did at the cross, and he now comes to deal with
these things in our own personal lives, where God seeks justice for us
from our adversaries who have brought us into bondage, as the just judge
gets justice for the widow who feels she's been violated. To comfort all
who mourn. Some of you have been discouraged.

You've been sad in your heart. To console those who mourn in Zion. Maybe
children not walking with the Lord, friends not walking with the Lord,
parents not living for the Lord, been divided, brothers relationships
have been severed because things have been said, and Jesus is there to
say, I'm here to comfort those who mourn, to bring encouragement to you,
and say, hey, you know what, we have hope.

Let's not lose hope here. To console those who mourn in Zion, to give
them what? To give them beauty for ashes. You know what, maybe this
morning, you know, you look not too far in the past, and you say, you
know what, like David and Ziglag, we shared a few weeks ago, and all the
houses were burned down, and the children are taken, and the men are all
weeping, and God says, I'm here to give you beauty for ashes.

You say, well, I've made such a mess of things. All there is is just
destruction around me, because I've made so many mistakes, but God says
he's not going to leave us in that place. He sent the Spirit of God
through the preaching, the foolishness of preaching, to say he's going
to give you beauty for ashes.

He's able to make those ashes beautiful. He's able to take that flesh
and that carnage, and he's able to rebuild it and make something
precious in his sight that pleases him, that pleases the heart of God,
to give you the oil of joy for mourning, to take away that
discouragement and the sadness that's in your heart. Maybe you haven't
seen your kids in a while.

You know, maybe it seems that it's just all weighing you down and making
you sad inside, but Jesus says, I'm going to give you joy that doesn't
make sense. I'm going to give you peace that passes understanding. It's
going to guard your heart and your mind in Christ.

This is what Jesus was reading in the temple to his people, and they got
mad after he preached this, and he pushed them. They wanted to push him
off a cliff. Makes no sense.

Jesus is there just extending hope, truth, and life, and love, and
telling them, I'm here, and they rejected him. They rejected his truth.
They rejected him as the Prince of Peace.

They rejected him as the Christ. He says, the garment of praise for the
Spirit of heaviness. This is what I got to experience this morning.

When you find repentance, it doesn't matter that your head tells you
that you're right and you're justified. What matters is, if you don't
have peace in your heart, and you feel disconnected from the Spirit of
God, because sin separates us from God. Nothing else separates us from
the love of God, but sin, it says in Isaiah 59, separates us from the
love of God, which is in Christ.

It doesn't change the fact that God loves us. It changes the fact that
we can't experience any of it. That's what sin does.

Did you know that it's across the board? It says, he who knew no sin
became sin for us, in 2 Corinthians 5. He became sin for us, and God,
his Father, who loves Jesus as much as he loves us, sounds like a
heresy. He loves Jesus as much as he loves us. He had to turn his face
away from the one that he loved.

He didn't hate him, he loved him. But he can't look on sin, because God
is holy. Sin separated Jesus from his Father, when Jesus took our sin
upon himself, upon his shoulders, when he bore our sins in his own body,
it says, and he took the penalty and the punishment for our crimes we've
committed against Christ.

Why is it any different if we walk in pride, and we walk in
stubbornness, we walk in ego, and we hold fast to our integrity, rather
than walking in the Spirit, and fulfilling the purpose and call of God
for our life, that we find our prayers not going too far? We can make
eloquent prayers. Pharisees had long ones. It doesn't commend us to God.

What commends us to God is, if when we go to meet before God, and we
don't even have confidence to look up, because we know we're guilty, and
we just beat our chest and say, oh, God have mercy on me. Oh, God will
meet you there. God will meet you when you're humble and you own your
sin against God.

David, he got found out, and then he humbled himself. Brother Sean
shared, against thee and thee only have I sinned and done evil in thy
sight. Well, he'd sinned against Bathsheba, he sinned against Uriah for
sure, he sinned against the people of Israel because God was going to
end up dealing with them all.

And what does he say, against thee and thee only have I sinned, because
our true crimes are committed against Christ. And when this is dealt
with, then we are able to deal with our relationships this way, to love
God with all our heart, and to love our neighbor as ourself. Do this,
and you'll live.

You say, well, that sounds like a works gospel. Well, when the Word of
God says, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, there's a response required
to walk as Jesus walked, means to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,
because the two are connected. Faith and fruits are inseparable.

Show me your faith without fruit, and I'll show you my faith by what I
do. And the true believers, if we have been given a ministry, what is
the ministry we've been given? Well, we all have a diversity of gifts,
but there's one ministry, the ministry of reconciliation. God had the
same ministry through Jesus Christ, reconciling the world to himself.

And we have this ministry wherever we go, and whatever gift and capacity
you have is to show the love of Christ to everyone that you meet in one
way or another. And if that is compromised because of your pride, and
you speak it in the flesh, and you speak from pride and not from love,
you have broken that purpose and call of God for your life, which is the
ministry of reconciliation. How are the unbelievers and the people who
are in bondage and in darkness to see a great light if we're walking in
pride? And we're just giving them a piece of our mind.

And that's why the Holy Spirit has to convict us. That's why the Holy
Spirit keeps working and sanctifying us and separating us unto himself,
that we might fulfill that ministry where wherever we are, we're able to
speak the truth in love, that we might impart grace to the hearers, to
give them the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the
spirit of heaviness, that they may be called the trees of righteousness,
the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified, and they shall
rebuild the old ruins. So after God does the work in us, now we begin
this ministry of reconciliation where they shall rebuild the old ruins.

You know, you can show up at a place where the floods have come through
our valley, and you say, well, you know, what's the options? Well, we
can tear down and move, or we can rebuild the old ruins. And I think God
wants us to fulfill the purpose and call of God, that if we've gone
astray and we see zigzags burned with fire, and God's moving us back
into his will, into his perfect plan for us, that we rise again and
bless his name. The scripture says, though a righteous man falls seven
times, he gets up again.

The key point is not seven times. The key point is he rises again.
That's what God calls us to do.

Seven is God's number. It's a complete number. It doesn't matter how
many times you fall, you repent, you ask forgiveness.

If your brother comes to you and asks for forgiveness seven times, do
you forgive him, or seven times 70? In other words, you always are ready
to forgive your brother when he sins against you and speaks from pride
and says certain things and say, hey, brother, I'm really sorry. It's
like, you know what, I'll forgive you, but you know what, we don't have
fellowship anymore. Is that how God is with us? Say, you know what,
brother, I'll forgive you your sins, but you know what, we're not going
to have fellowship.

We won't have fellowship no more. That's not how God works. When God
forgives, he forgives completely.

He justifies just as if we've never sinned, when the blood covers, when
our heart is right in true repentance and God grants us repentance. You
know, it says that Esau, he sold his birthright for a bowl of stew, and
he forfeited his blessing, and then he sought repentance. It says in
Hebrews 12, Esau sought repentance with tears and found none, because
repentance is granted from God.

And it says before the children were born, Jacob I have loved, before
they've done any good or evil, and Esau, I hated that guy. God said he
hated Esau from scripture. Why? Because he saw the end of Esau's heart,
and all the things, all the opportunity, all the mercy, all the kindness
that God showed to that guy, and he rejected God's blessing and God's
promise for his life.

And at the end of it, when he sought repentance, because he lost all his
blessings, and he lost his birthright, and he found himself with
nothing, he didn't find repentance, though he sought it with tears.
Tears alone doesn't mean repentance, because there's worldly sorrow that
doesn't lead to repentance, but godly sorrow leads to repentance. Tears
doesn't mean repentance.

Repentance is from the heart. That's where God grants repentance, where
there's a changing of the heart, there's a renewing of the mind, and
then there's a clearing of oneself, and a vindication, and an open
heaven to God, where you know that your sacrifice of repentance has been
accepted. You don't need a man to tell you that you're forgiven.

You don't need a man to tell you, a priest to tell you, that your sins
are forgiven. You need God to tell you, and when God tells you, you
don't need to learn to love yourself. You know the love of God, which
surpasses knowledge.

This doctrine of learning to love yourself, no, the scripture says you
should loathe yourself for the things that you've done, and then the
waves of God's love just come and pour over you, and then you just say,
how could I have done it? I've been there, and I just weep, and I wail,
and I say, Lord, how could you love me, a sinner condemned, unclean? How
marvelous, how wonderful is the Lord who's done this for me. You
experience the waves of his love. God is loving.

He doesn't want to hold it back. He wants to pour out on you, but we're
not hindered by his affection for us. We're hindered by our own
affections.

We don't want to let God get too close, because we don't want to become
vulnerable. We don't want to become weak. We don't know what that's
going to look like, and so through fear, we keep ourselves a good arm's
length from God having his own way.

That's 2 Corinthians in chapter 6. Paul said to the church, he said,
open your hearts wide. Be open. We ourselves are open.

You also be open. You're not hindered by us. You're hindered by your own
affections.

You're just guarded. Let your guard down. Let God break you down.

Let's become vulnerable together. Let's be open. Don't worry about being
hurt.

Trust God. It's safe here, Paul says. Then you shall rebuild the old
ruins.

They shall raise up the former desolations. They shall repair the ruined
cities and the desolations of so many generations. He goes on from
there.

Let's look in 2 Corinthians in chapter 5. 2 Corinthians in chapter 5,
verse 17. Being born again is a miracle. It's just as much a miracle as
if we went to a funeral, and there was someone who died before their
time in the casket, and the man went over there through brokenness and
through the word of the Lord and spoke life into the man in the casket,
and he'd just come right out of the casket.

And he just raised from the dead. You say, man, well, that would be
something. That would be something.

I'm going to tell you a greater miracle than that is a man who's dead in
trespasses and sins being made alive. That's a greater miracle than our
eyes seeing someone get out of the casket after they've been dead. We
have to wrap our minds around what God did in sending his son to deal
with the sin issue on the cross and pouring out his spirit and giving
his spirit to a man who was dead in trespasses and sins from Ephesians 2
and making them alive.

It's what he says. Ephesians 2, you were dead in trespasses and sins,
but he made us alive together with Christ. We become one with Christ.

Joint heirs with Christ. Sounds like a heresy. You know, we were talking
a little bit about inheritance last night.

We've got nine children. You know, everybody gets their share of
inheritance. And it's like, yeah, I don't want to wait for that.

And, you know, and we become impatient. And that seems like so far in
advance. And you know what? We have an inheritance in Christ because
Christ is our elder brother.

He's our husband. And we are the bride of Christ. We have an
inheritance.

And he said, well, I don't know. I don't want to wait for all that. You
know, I know one day that's coming and all that.

But what's that do for me today? It does nothing for me. We have to have
a revelation. All the riches that are in the Godhead in Christ are in
bodily form.

And we are his body. He's our head. And we're complete in him.

All the promises of God are yes and amen in Christ. And we can tap into
that. We can have the resources of life and truth and everything
pertaining to life and godliness in Christ.

If we look to him, if we submit ourselves completely to him, that
whatever we ask in prayer, believing we shall receive. The same way that
God answered Jesus, the same way Jesus through the Holy Spirit will help
us will answer us. And we'll see the power of God.

Because we don't see it yet. We can't be discouraged by it and become
unbelieving and lose heart. So he says in verse 17, if anyone is in
Christ, he's a new creation, a new creature.

All things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new. This is
what we see rebuilding the old waste places, giving beauty for ashes,
the oil of joy for morning, the garment of praise for the spirit of
heaviness.

So what we have seen is carnage. What we have seen is discouragement and
setting our hope in that which is fading. But now we see Jesus.

If anyone be in Christ, man, woman, child, if anyone be in Christ,
they're a new creation born again, not a corruptible seed, but an
incorruptible seed through the word of God, which lives and abides
forever. Jesus is the living word of God manifested in flesh, and we are
complete in him is the word of God alive in you is Jesus through the
power of the Holy Spirit, real in your heart. If it's not real, it can
be real.

Call upon the name of the Lord, ask him for help. He's who I've tried
that. Well, you know what, maybe it was at the level of the mind, let it
be at the level of the heart, and it will become real.

And you know what, you'll find that your circumstances may not change.
But what's going on inside, you will have peace, the Prince of Peace,
who will guide your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Now all
things are of God, verse 18, Second Corinthians 518, who has reconciled
us to himself through Jesus Christ has given us the ministry of
reconciliation.

Every one of you has received this ministry, a ministry of
reconciliation, that is that God was in Christ, reconciling the world to
himself, not imputing their sins against them, not saying, you know
what, they did this against me, and they did that against me. And
they've done all these things. And and that separated them from me.

But now at the process of time, when God decides, it just pleased him to
do it. And when God puts it in your heart, to pass over whatever
everybody's done to you, and said against you, and spoken of you, and
what they think about you, and you don't impute any of it against them.
But it's now the Spirit of God in you, imploring them to be reconciled
to God.

Just pure love, just speaking that truth in love. As God didn't impute
our sins against us, we don't impute sins that others have committed
against us to anyone. And that's where it says, if you forgive anyone's
sins, they're forgiven.

If you retain their sins, they're retained. You have the power to
forgive people who sin against you. God has the power to forgive people
who sin against him.

And if you release people who have sinned and hurt you, then you can be
free and fulfill that call of God for your life. And when you release
them, God will release you. The unbeliever doesn't have that power.

It comes through Christ. Jesus breathed on them. He breathed on them
after the resurrection.

That wasn't the baptism of the Holy Spirit. They received life, and he
said, now you have power to forgive sins. It's misunderstood.

The Catholics take it that the priests have power to say, my son, my
daughter, your sins are forgiven, then go give some penance. We have
power to forgive people who sin against us. Their sins are not imputed
against them because we release them.

Because God gives us power to forgive everyone. Because God has forgiven
us. If God has forgiven us, we ought to forgive everyone.

If you hold grudges, I'm telling you, you're going to go back into
prison houses and to chains. You'll be the most miserable person, and
you'll try to repent a thousand times. But until you start sending out
the texts and the letters and the emails, and you start releasing people
and just taking ownership of your pardon in holding grudges, even if
that's all you did, is hold a grudge, you'll feel separated until then.

You release them, and you will feel a connection between you and God. I
can attest to that even this morning. We can't hold grudges against
anyone.

It doesn't matter what they've done to us. What matters is we've
committed a hundred thousand times more crimes against Christ. Do we
want him to hold a grudge against us? We expect him to release us, but
we can't release others.

If we die in that state, we're not going to be in a good way. Let's just
put it that way. You won't be in a good way.

If you die having grudges against anyone, you're taking your chances,
and I wouldn't take those chances. Now then, verse 20, we are
ambassadors for Christ. What does it mean to be ambassador? You get into
government, and they make you an ambassador for a certain country.

You speak for Canada. You speak on behalf of the Prime Minister. When
you go there, you are a representative of the leadership of the country
which you come from.

That's a noble position. That is a stately place to function. Now we are
ministry of Christ in the earth as ambassadors from heaven.

It says we're seated with Christ in heavenly places, and when the Spirit
of Christ is in us, and the Holy Spirit is functioning properly through
us, we become ambassadors of Christ to the perishing people of the
world. So wherever God sends us, we are there to speak on behalf of the
Spirit of God, and as we hear we speak. You are ambassadors for Christ.

As though Christ were pleading through us, and then begging people, or
begging you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God. Get right with
God. That's the ministry of reconciliation.

That's everyone's ministry, whatever gift you have. Maybe you make
muffins and cupcakes, and you go to your neighbor, and the tears run
down your face, and they ask for the hope that's in you, and you say,
you know, I just love you so much. I just don't want to see anything
happen to you on that day, because we have to give an answer to Jesus.

Be reconciled to God. For he made him who knew no sin to be sin for us,
that we might become the righteousness of God in Christ. Because Jesus
took our sin upon himself, we could become the righteousness of God,
like Jesus, just as if we never sinned.

Sounds a heresy, but the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin, and
when we're right relationship with him, we are complete in him. We
haven't become what we shall be. We don't know what that final end is
for ourselves, because we're in progress.

But when he is revealed, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as
he is. And everyone who has this hope in him, from 1 John 3, purifies
himself just as he is pure, looking unto Jesus, and being saved. Saved
from what? Saved from my rights, saved from my pride, saved from the
flesh, all the works of the flesh.

That's what he's saving us from. His name shall be called Jesus, for he
shall save his people from their sins. It's a journey, my friends, my
brothers, sisters, children, walk with God.

Serve Jesus. Fulfill the purpose and call of God for your life, the
ministry of reconciliation, because the world's going to know us because
of the love we have one for another, and the love that we have for the
world. They'll know you're Christians because the love you have one for
another.

You know what, you can meet someone in the world, and you can just have
the compassion and the love of God. It says, for God so loved the world
that he gave his only son, that whosoever believeth in him shall not
perish, but have everlasting life. God did not send his son into the
world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be
saved.

And that's the same ministry we have, not to condemn the world, but that
the world through us might be saved. That we would point to Jesus and
say, look to him and be saved. Amen.

That's great. Heavenly Father, we're grateful for your word. Thank you
that you sent your spirit, that you've not left us as orphans.

You've come to us. I pray that every individual that doesn't know you as
a loving father would come to know you in truth. That their heart and
their mind would line up with your word, and you would grant repentance
where repentance is needed, and fill them with righteousness, peace, and
joy in the Holy Spirit.

And that we would grow in discernment, and in truth, and in love. And
that the love of Christ would be shed abroad from our hearts, Lord, to
everyone who needs it. And that the light of the gospel of the glory of
God would shine through the face of Jesus, through us.

In Jesus' name, amen.

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Video: https://sermonindex2.b-cdn.net/8tMv3TRNGx4.mp4
Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/randy-krahn/repentance-is-a-gift-of-god/
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