John K. Jenkins Sr - Repentance

Father, we thank You for Your loving kindness and Your tender mercies towards us. We celebrate Your hand of mercy upon us. We pray that You take these next few moments and speak to our hearts. Help us to be in the center of Your will. Father, in the name of the Lord, I pray for unsaved, backslidden, unsure, and unchurched people. I pray for those who may be frustrated with their journey in life at this point. I pray that You strengthen believers even more than they already are strengthened, and that the name of Jesus receives all the glory and honor. Put a hedge of protection around this place; bind every distracting spirit, Almighty God. I pray in the name of the Lord, Father, that not only in this place do You rebuke distracting spirits but in every place that’s watching this service, in Jesus ' name. Amen and amen.

All right, you may be seated. God bless you this morning for being here. I am so proud of you all for being here on this second Sunday of 2024. Thank God for a new day! I want to take a moment to celebrate and mention that we had prayer week this week. It was phenomenal; the presence of the Lord and the power of God were amazing. We are looking forward to doing that again in the future. Amen. We are also in our 21 days of fasting. Look at your neighbor and say, «Are you fasting with us?» If you’re not sure how to do it or if you’ve never done it before, there are instructions on our website on how to fast. You don’t have to fast for the whole 21 days. Most of this crowd can’t make it 21 days without eating, but there are a variety of ways to fast, and there are instructions on our website to guide you on how you can participate in that. We are believing God to show Himself strong. Let me welcome our online audience; we have people from 22 states and 12 countries joining us from all over the world. I am very thankful for our online congregation that joins us every week.

On December 31st, I mentioned that our theme, focus, and mandate for 2024 is discipleship. That 's always been our mandate, but we’re going to amplify it. Someone say, «Amplify!» We 're going to ensure that every person who identifies as a member of First Baptist Church of Glenn Arton has been discipled. If you have already been discipled, you should be discipling someone else. Wait, hold on; slow down, y’all! The point is that it’s not just about receiving; it 's also about taking what you have received and pouring it into and depositing it in someone else. Amen! That, my brothers and sisters, is the instruction I believe God has given us to put on display.

I was traveling this week, and while at the airport in Charlotte, North Carolina, a couple approached me who are members of First Baptist Church of Clara. They introduced themselves, but they had not attended since the pandemic. I asked them a question: «Do you know what question I’m going to ask you?» They said, «Which ministry are you a part of?» What does that tell me? It tells me they haven 't been connected, haven 't been here, and haven 't been watching. Now, you know what I’m about to ask you: What discipleship program have you been through, and who are you discipling? If all you do is take it in yourself and never give it to anyone else, that’s not the purpose for which God gives it to us. He wants us to take it in, learn it, apply it, and then share it with others.

Over the next several weeks, I will talk to you about the things you should learn, know, understand, and deposit in other people. Having said that, I need you to open your Bibles to Hebrews chapter 6. Now, for some of you who’ve already heard me teach on this before, it’s okay; I’m going to teach it again. This is something we’ve been teaching over the years. This is not the first or second time I’ve taught it; I’ve done it multiple times. But sometimes you need to be refreshed, reminded, and rehearse it again to ensure we grasp it. Hebrews chapter 6 starts off with an interesting word: «therefore.» Chapter 6, verse 1 — do you see that? Anytime you see " therefore,» you need to ask the question: «What is it there for?» «Therefore» connects what he is about to say with what he has just said. To understand what " therefore» is there for, we need to go back to chapter 5. So, slide back to chapter 5, and I will start reading at verse 12. Now hold up; before I tell you this, let me give you some background on Hebrews.