Sermon Summaries

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February 17, 2026

Wilderness Gifts #4 -- God's Forgiveness

Just about 2:30 on this warm(ish), yet cloudy, Tuesday afternoon. I ended up visiting my father at home for a little over an hour yesterday because Carissa was concerned about his breathing. He was fine, it just doesn't take much for him to get out of breath these days.

Nothing new otherwise, I'm thinking that if my mother had been released from the Nursing Home after her appointment yesterday, Carissa would have told me. I could have stayed until she got to my parent's place, but needed to get back and get some other things done. For now, I'm taking no news as good news.

I have 2 examples in keeping with Pastor Matt's opening thought today. He began by saying that wilderness times can start out as feeling like adventure, but may turn fearful.

Back in the mid-late '90s, my now ex-husband and I had just seen a somewhat scary movie here in Concord and were headed back home to Henniker. Now, there is more than one way we could have taken, and he took an alternate road, even in the midst of the secondary road. Between Concord and Hopkinton village, there's a decent sized hill. The main road leads over it. The road Rich took that day goes around the back side, rejoining the other after just a mile or 2. Anyway, he starts down this road and turns the headlights off!! Now, being after 10 p.m. on this road, there wasn't much danger of meeting anyone coming the other way, which we didn't. At the same time, it was making me VERY nervous!! Of course, it was all fine, but I warned him to never do it again!! LOL

The other story is from my visit with Jeremy in Oct. 2016. A few towns south of Lincoln, where he was living at that time, there's one of many small Nebraska towns where the "downtown" is nothing but a bar, post office, and grain silo. This particular town is called Roca. Most of the year, the berry farm there is perfectly nice and a great tourist attraction. During October, however, they do the Scary Farm thing to the maximum effect!! Now, when Jer and I first arrived, it was still daylight for a while, so I could enjoy the scenery and get the "lay of the land", as it were. I even let him take me through the Haunted House, and it was fine. Then he got us tickets for the Psycho Path and Corn Maze. As much as I hated feeling like he had wasted his money on the second one, I was so shaken after the woods path that I simply couldn't take anymore. He understood and said it was fine. Friends, I did NOT STOP SHAKING for about an hour and a half after the fact!! We spent about 20 minutes looking for the car, as the parking lot wasn't lit. We then drove back to his place to drop it off before walking about 25 minutes to get some drinks at a local bar he enjoyed. Only when we got settled in there was I calm.

While both of these incidents turned out to be harmless, the latter one in particular has me sworn off Halloween Farm walks for life!! And it wasn't that I was alone, it was just that the experiences made me uncomfortable for a while. The point lies in who we trust. In our time today, we will see more about how God invites us to trust Him, even in the most uncomfortable situations of life.

The Advent Lantern for December 21, was lit by a couple who had recently been baptized and joined our Church. They are former Mormons. Each of them therefore, grew up with feelings of guilt and shame for whatever they may have done or said, or even mentioned thinking about. It wasn't until the wife was talking with other non-Mormon Believers that she heard about God's forgiveness!! (At least in a way that she could actually appreciate.)* The husband then read a poem about turning your head. It is about Dark vs Light.

As I mentioned above, Pastor Matt's opening thoughts were about how the wilderness times in our lives may start out as something that seems fun and adventurous, but may turn fearful. The truth, as we have been uncovering it through these messages, is that God draws us into His love and protection. While the fears we experience may be either internal, as there really wasn't anything to fear with Rich driving in the dark, or external, as my experience with Jeremy as costumed college kids chased after us, or reached out to us from the sides.* But in any case where we are feeling fear, God invites us to trust Him. (In the lives of the couple above, they had to un-learn the fear and come to a place where they were assured of God's forgiveness.)

Pastor Matt went on to say that these times of testing are meant to recalibrate our relationship with God. For example, in the Garden of Eden, God didn't ask Adam and Eve where they were physically. He knew that already. What He was asking was about where their hearts were. And not because He didn't already know that, too, but it made them look at themselves and determine where they had gone wrong. God exposes our weaknesses for our good, so we can fix them. Nothing is hidden from Him, it's about getting us to shift our focus inward and see what needs to be dealt with.

Turn with me to our Scripture for this afternoon in Luke --

Luke 3:1-6

New International Version

John the Baptist Prepares the Way

3 In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar—when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip tetrarch of Iturea and Traconitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene— ²during the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. ³He went into all the country around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. ⁴As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet:

“A voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.⁵Every valley shall be filled in, every mountain and hill made low. The crooked roads shall become straight, the rough ways smooth.⁶And all people will see God’s salvation.’”^[^a^]

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We notice in this brief passage, that John the Baptist is referred to as "A voice calling out in the wilderness...". Into a time of chaos and fear, he was sent specifically to direct people's attention to Jesus and His Salvation. This turns a corner for all of us, as it did for them.

Now, out of the dark wilderness, God brings His Salvation. (Today's "take away" statement)

This prophetic language echoes the past for the Jewish People. In this, they heard the history of exile in the wilderness, and of prophets like Elijah and Isaiah in their roles of presenting God's words to the people. It is into this LINE and ROLE that John the Baptist has stepped.* As with those prophets of old, it now falls to John to preach of repentance and renewal; the only difference being that Jesus was now ready to offer it.

While the Pharisees were rigid in respect to their role in preparing Israel for Messiah as the Ruling Elite, John the Baptist was a wilderness prophet. His appearance was unkept, unlike the "Fashion Show" of the upper classes.* Aside from his physical façade, what set John apart from the elite was that he had no benefactors to support him or his ministry. He was TOTALLY RELIANT ON GOD.

In verse 3 of our brief passage above, we see that John preached "in the area around Jordan". This calls to mind New Exodus imagery, as the Israelites of the past had crossed water into the Promised Land.

Pastor Matt then brought out the point that, in preaching about and announcing Jesus, John was confronting the powers of both the Religious Elite and the reigning Empire. In presenting a repentance of forgiveness and renewal vs sacrifice and old rituals, he was introducing a shift of death to life as Salvation would bring God's rescue once for all. This meant that, like the couple above who spoke and lit the Advent Lantern, these people had to learn a new way to relate to God. They had to understand that the old ways were not going to be valid anymore*, and they needed to embrace something new.

As we consider what John was saying here, we need to take a closer look at the word "repentance". Pastor Matt explained it as a "humility of truth, not of humiliation". (I really like that!!) It's not about our words, but our hearts. At that moment, Pastor Matt used the analogy of a parent talking to their sons. When they say, "Don't hit your brother!!", and the offending son replies, "I'm sorry.", and then a few hours later hits his brother again, the sincerity is clearly lacking.*

The truth is that we align ourselves with what WE BELIEVE to be truth. While we may THINK that we can carry the groceries into the house in a single go, that's not necessarily so. Sometimes, we need to set something aside before we can effectively accomplish our goals. Whether it involves bags of food or false narratives in our minds, we need to set them aside in order to get things right.

Next, we look at the word "sin". In essence, this is a rejection of God's Law of Love.* (We find in Matt. 22:37-40 where Jesus says that the Greatest Commandment is basically to love God and love others.) The fact is that sin leads to destruction. While some churches, like the Mormons and Catholics, teach a False Narrative of "Behavior Management", we find in the FULL CONTEXT of Scripture, that this is not Biblical. Pastor Matt called to mind here the Madagascar Movies with the penguins. Even when the pieced together plane is crashing, they pretend everything is fine. Their leader just continues telling them, "Smile and wave, boys!! Smile and wave."

True repentance is not just about words. It's about reconciled relationship.* It's not about freedom to go about our way and do what we want. Although the Judge may rap his gavel and dismiss the Court, the accused is not free to go out and commit another crime. He/she is expected to obey the laws, showing sincere regret of his/her former actions. (If needed, that's what the Probation period is for.)

The bottom line is that, when we are the most desperate, God brings Salvation. In our passage above, John the Baptist says, "You worship with your mouth and lips, but your hearts are far from Him." "Make way for Messiah."

Religion (in and of itself), goodness, money, large networks of business associates and/or friends, etc... None of that can save us. Only God, and as we've seen through this series, He loves us too much to keep us out of the wilderness. He meets us there to rescue us. Only one question remains. Will you accept Him??*

-- God Bless!!

Footnotes:

A brief search on this showed me that the Mormon belief in God's forgiveness is based on what I can only see as a purposeful misinterpretation of Scripture in order to control people. Rather than taking the full context of the New Testament into account, which clearly says that Jesus died for the redemption and forgiveness of sins, they "cherry pick" the verses that talk about how God only forgives us IF we forgive others. (And even then they are taught that He may not.) But that's not the truth. Those verses only speak to the point that, as we forgive others, we will feel MORE DESERVING of the forgiveness God has ALREADY PROVIDED through Jesus. All we need to do is accept it.
Just to be clear, none of the people in costume were actually allowed to touch us, unless by accident.
I emphasize that it was the ROLE of Elijah that John the Baptist took on because some errant people think that he literally WAS Elijah, reborn. But, once again, this is where the full context of Scripture is needed to show why that isn't true. I like to explain it this way -- A cover band or artist may look, dress, and sound the same as the original, but it's not them. They are simply taking on the same persona and delivering the same music.
I primarily got the idea of the whole "Fashion Show" bit from my ex-husband, Rich. It's part of the reason he seldom attended church with me after Carissa was born. I mean, he was fine with going back in Job Corps, and even after he completed and my mother was playing at the Presbyterian, but when we started looking on our own, there was no place around that felt right to him. And he was right. When you have a place that's more interested in looking good and following a bunch of rules than they are on a personal relationship with God and all that Scripture tells us about resting and abiding as opposed to striving and straining, you're not in a good position to learn Biblical truth. You're just trying to use fear and guilt to control people. That's the "Behavior Management" thing Pastor Matt spoke of. Keeping up appearances while their hearts were cold and hypocritical.
Of course, in light of my earlier note, we find that the Mormon approach to God's forgiveness never was valid.
In speaking of the insincere brother, I can't help thinking about my mother. Although her Narcissism hasn't been so much in evidence since she and my father left my place back in early December, I can't guarantee that we've seen the end of it. She apologized after I had lit into her earlier that week, but rather than simply trusting her and telling her I forgave her, I replied, "Time will prove the truth of that."
You'll find that in the past, I've covered this in detail, but for now, I'm simply going to say that this basic concept of sin is really the best. The fact is that sin doesn't look the same to everyone. As with repentance, the truth lies not in our actions so much as in our hearts.
Just a caveat to Pastor Matt's words on reconciled relationships. (And he probably said this as well, but it's not in my notes.) Anyway, just to be clear, the most important relationship to be restored in forgiveness is between us and God. Other situations may not demand it, nor would it even be valid. For example, if someone cuts us off in traffic, we're not likely to know who it is, never mind if we may ever see them again. In that case, there is no relationship to be restored, only forgiveness to be extended in order to clear our hearts of the offense. (Which actually reminds me of something I heard at one of my former churches. Just because you feel that someone is OFFERING offense doesn't mean you have to take it. Amen!!??)
If anyone needs guidance in accepting Salvation, please feel free to message me.