Open Door Policy – Repent or Perish gives us a chance to ask, “Why?” Jesus deflects our soul from knee jerk reaction of God responding to us based on our behavior. Jesus helps us see the real point of tragedy in a sinful world through the parable of the Fig Tree.
Repent or Perish
If you opened up the NIV Bible to Luke 13 the heading reads, “Repent or Perish.” That sounds like a severe ultimatum from God yet it is one that we need to hear, all of us, especially during the season of Lent. Lent is a time of repentance. Its important to take a moment to see how you and God are doing. Does my life live up to God’s demands? In the parable he compares us to a tree that isn’t bearing any fruit. And if a fruit tree doesn’t bear any fruit, what good is it?
A TV With No Sound
When God takes his walk past your life – for example everything that I am, and have, and can do makes up the fig tree that is Pastor Fred Guldberg, he has every right to expect fruit. What have you accomplished lately with the gifts God has given you. If you planted a garden how long would you keep the tomato plants that didn’t have any big red fruit? How long would you keep a TV with no sound? A refrigerator that held food wonderfully, but was never cold? A car that won’t run! God isn’t some heartless ogre that hates trees. God looks for fruit. He has a right to expect this fruit.
Cut It Down
7 So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard, ‘For three years now I’ve been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and haven’t found any. Cut it down! Why should it use up the soil?’ This is the serious warning God gives to the fruitless tree. I think maybe we misunderstand this warning. Have you made it through 2025 without any major catastrophe in your life? Not everyone has. You don’t need to go to North Macedonia to find heartache. In this case do you think that God decided to cut down a tree because there was no fruit? If you or someone in your family has been diagnosed with cancer, is God starting to hack away at the trunk of another tree that is a waste of soil?
4 Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? Jesus asks the same question. “Did these people sin that a random tragic event took their lives?” The answer is NO! BUT unless you repent, you too will parish.
Want to hear more? Watch this week’s message taken from our series, Open Door Policy – Repent or Perish.
Topic(s): Lent
Book(s): Luke
Series: Open Door Policy
Tag(s): Lent
Speaker(s): Fred Guldberg