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Saint Peter’s Lutheran Church in Door County
316 W Main St, Forestville, WI 54213
(920) 856-6420
https://doorcounty.church
Text: Isaiah 66:18–23
Liturgical Date: Pentecost 11, Proper 16 C
Calendar Date: August 24, 2025
Location: Saint Peter’s Lutheran Church in Door County
Preacher: Rev. Dr. Christopher D. Jackson
TRANSCRIPT
The following transcript was written with the assistance of AI.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Today, we’re taking up the theme: Three Reasons to Repent Today.
The Case for Procrastination
There’s a certain t-shirt that you can see sometimes in the tourist shops at vacation places. You might see someone wearing it out on the street. I love the t-shirt. It’s a slogan t-shirt, and it says something to this nature: “Procrastinators of the world unite… Tomorrow.” I love that t-shirt because I think procrastination is really underrated. Now, certainly, there are some things that you gotta take care of today, you gotta take care of immediately. We’ll be talking about one of those things, but a lot of times, procrastination solves a huge amount of my problems. Dads, you know this, right? When a kid comes to you and says, “Oh, my elbow hurts,” or “Oh, I feel sick, please take me to the hospital,” what do you say? “Just sleep on it. Wait until tomorrow, wait a couple days, and if you still feel bad in a couple days, then we’ll take you to the doctor.” About 99 times out of a hundred, guess what? That solves the problem. Procrastinators of the world unite—tomorrow. I’m holding my hand up for it and saying that it’s a good thing.
However, there are things that you ought to take care of today. If your kid comes to you and she’s got a broken arm, you take her to the hospital immediately, right? Well, I’m here to tell you that there are wounds that we all have, which are much more serious than a broken bone. That’s the brokenness of our hearts, our hardness towards God and our hardness towards our neighbor, the brokenness of our souls. We ought not procrastinate about this. Procrastination is oftentimes a good thing, but not when it comes to our sins. So, our theme, as we said, is Three Reasons to Repent Today.
Reason One: The End Is Near
The first reason for repentance is because the end is near, and the day of judgment is drawing nigh. Many believe they have time. Back in 313 AD, one of the most powerful men the world has ever seen, a man named Constantine the Great, was the emperor of the Roman Empire. He declared in 313 that Christianity was now legal. You didn’t have to be a Christian in secret, but rather, it was legitimate and licit to be a Christian in the Roman Empire. Not only this, but he did a great deal to promote the cause of Christianity. In a few minutes, we’re going to recite the Nicene Creed. We would not have the Nicene Creed if not for Constantine the Great. He convened councils and was influential in those councils that helped to formulate the Nicene Creed. Not only that, but he also helped to build churches all across the Roman Empire. Interestingly enough, his mother was his right-hand woman in building many of these churches. She was right at the center of this church-building effort. All across the Roman Empire, Helena, a wonderful woman in many ways. Constantine was also responsible for helping to distribute the scriptures across the Roman Empire, and we have physical evidence of this to this day. One of the oldest bound copies of the entire Christian Bible is a document called Codex Sinaiticus. Why is it called that? That’s Latin—Codex more or less means books, Sinaiticus means at or from Sinai. So, it was a book, a Bible, that was found at a monastery at Mount Sinai. Many people theorize that this is a copy of a whole set of Bibles that Constantine commissioned to be sent out across the Roman Empire.
He was a great promoter of the Christian faith, and yet, there is a peculiar aspect of his life. He wasn’t baptized until 24 years later, 24 years after he decreed that Christianity was now legal. He was only baptized in 337, on his deathbed, and there was all kinds of confusion as to why he did that. There were things that he didn’t exactly have right. But one of those reasons, the key one that we’re going to talk about today, is that Constantine thought he had time. He thought he had time that God had never promised. Throughout history, and even today, many people have delayed repentance, believing that they have time. “I know that I need to address my drinking problem, but let’s leave that for another day.” “I know that I should either marry or get my own living accommodations rather than continuing to live with this man or this woman that I’m not married to. We will worry about that some other time.” “I know that I need to check my anger and my wrath against my family, but it’s the only way I can seem to get through. So, I’m gonna keep on with this way, which will ultimately alienate them, but I just gotta do it today.”
There are many reasons that people have to delay repentance of their sins. The fact of the matter is that the end is near. In Isaiah, we heard this—Isaiah 66, verse 18: “I know their works and their thoughts, and the time is coming to gather all nations and tongues.” With these words in the book of Isaiah, we hear God saying that the time is near, the end of this world is drawing nigh, the beginning of the next world is coming soon. Jesus promised as much as well in His ministry, and promised that He, too, is coming soon. Today, tomorrow could be the last day of this world. Many people may say, “Yes, that’s true, but isn’t a thousand years like a day for the Lord, and a day like a thousand years? It’s already been 2,000 years as we count them here on this earth, so perhaps Christ will delay another thousand, 10,000, or a hundred thousand years.” Admittedly, this is true. We don’t know when Christ will return. He has not promised to come at any certain time in the way that we count time. But the fact of the matter is that our end could come at any moment. Until the age now where it seems like so many guys my age just up and die. They seem healthy, but they’re just one blood clot in an artery away from dying. We’re all just one blood vessel rupture in the head away from meeting our end in this world. One swerve of a Mack truck on the road, one stray bullet on opening day of gun deer season, away from meeting our end. At that time, it will be too late. We’ll be like Esau, who sought to repent but found no chance, even though he sought it with tears. We’ll be like those who are outside of the narrow door and knock on the door, but hear those terrible words: “I tell you, I never knew you. I do not know where you came from. Depart from me.” The end is near. We ought not bank on time that we have not been promised.
Reason Two: Judgment Is Final
The end is near, and judgment is final. That’s the second reason why we ought to repent today. There are many people who try to skirt around the idea that judgment is final. There are those who claim the name of Christian, for example, who deny that God will judge at all, even though Christ has said that the day is coming when He will judge between the goats on His left and the sheep on His right. Even though the creed confesses that Christ will judge between the quick and the dead, they deny that God will judge at all and believe that all will be welcomed into eternal life, even though Christ Himself said the door is narrow. They deny judgment, and other Christians who affirm judgment still believe that there are ways to skirt judgment or work around judgment. Roman Catholics, for example, teach that after death, those who are not worthy of heaven have an opportunity to earn their salvation in purgatory. But once again, the scriptures don’t affirm this—rather, quite the opposite. The judgment is final. As we said, Esau, after the time had passed, found no opportunity to repent. Once the door is shut, we are cast out into everlasting darkness.
Reason Three: Joy Is Eternal
The end is near, judgment is final, but on the other hand, joy is eternal, and God offers that freely and fully to all who repent of their sins and trust in Him for righteousness. About a year ago, my family took a little trip, and on that trip, we visited Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio. If you’ve never been to Cedar Point, this is probably the place with the best roller coasters in the United States of America. Amazing roller coasters. We took advantage of that, right? We went and rode all these roller coasters. What’s interesting about these roller coasters, as we talked about with the young people today, is that it’s about 80, 90 seconds at most of fun. But on the other hand, to get to that fun, it’s not a half-hour wait like you might have with the Zippin Pippin down at Bay Beach in Green Bay. It’s more like two hours of misery, two hours waiting under the hot sun on top of hot, radiating, hard concrete, going back and forth, without a place to get water, without an opportunity to use the bathroom. It’s an awful lot of misery that many people are willing to give in exchange for a few seconds of fun. And you know what? I would do it again.
But God offers us a much better deal. God offers to take our misery from us. God asks of us nothing as precious as time and comfort, but God asks us to give Him worthless things in exchange for glory, joy, blessedness forever. Yes, this may mean giving up certain worldly pleasures, which maybe give a little bit of excitement for a few strained minutes, but ultimately lead to great trade-offs—trade-offs of shame and guilt, sometimes even ill health in this world, trade-offs of eternal life. That’s what repentance entails. Saying, “Lord, I’m sorry for the ways that I have violated Your law. I’m sorry for the ways that I have not lived according to Your will. I want to do better, but above all, I trust in You, O Lord, for You have taken these sins from me through the blood of Jesus Christ.” He took that shame, He took that guilt, He took that misery that we have deserved on account of our sins, and He did this all through His precious and holy death on the cross. In exchange, He gives us something of great value: eternal life, joy in the wedding feast of the Lamb.
A Daily Call to Repentance
What a great exchange, and my invitation to you, brothers and sisters in Christ, is to gladly and daily take the Lord Jesus up on this offer. Daily compare your life to God’s will, as He has clearly expressed it in the Ten Commandments. Compare your deeds, compare your words, compare your thoughts, compare the motions of your hearts to the will of God and the Ten Commandments. If you’re honest, you’ll see that you have failed. Confess that and ask the Lord to help you to do better. God, who is faithful and just, will forgive your sins. He will cleanse you of all unrighteousness. He’ll cast wide open that narrow door to you and invite you into eternal light and carry you in by the power of the Holy Spirit. Today is the day to repent. Every day is the day to repent, so that on that great day of judgment, we would be welcomed into the joys of eternal life.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.