Acts: Paranoia or Metanoia

We live in a paranoid world. From the chaos, violence, and immorality around us to the anxiety, pain, and trauma inside us, most of us live in a constant state of fear. And without any hope of rescue, this paranoia leads us to either alarmism, or escapism.

But the gospel story gives us a better hope.

Jesus came into a world just as paranoid as ours, and he confronted the root of our paranoia; we’re all stuck in spiritual slavery, sin, and sickness. And by living the perfect life, dying the death we deserved, and rising again, Jesus offers us hope. But to choose this hope takes an act of “metanoia,” or repentance. When we repent, we actively choose to reorient our lives around the reality of Jesus and his resurrection.

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 Easter, I think, is my favorite day of the year because it’s a day for the whole globe to hear churches around the world saying, Jesus is alive. Amen. And the tomb is empty. And because the tomb is empty, there is hope.

There is hope for you. There’s hope for me. There’s hope in the midst of such a chaotic world. But let’s be honest. Saying there is hope today is met with a whole lot of suspicion and cynicism because it often feels like there is no hope. Really, honestly, is our world actually getting better? That’s a question, no, alright.

I like this crowd, 11 is already winning. 9 o’clock was silent, alright, they were still waking up. That’s a question many authors, filmmakers, storytellers have wrestled with for a millennia. And for the last century, most conclusions have been dystopian. Much like that answer, no. Two famous examples are Huxley’s Brave New World and Orwell’s 1984.

Both of them are very pessimistic about the future. But what’s interesting is they’re polar opposites as to how we’re gonna get there. Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death, an incredible piece of literature, compares the both with the following quote. He says, Orwell, who wrote 1984, feared that the truth would be concealed from us.

Huxley, the author of Brave New World, feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture. In 1984, people were controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure.

Both, uh, they, they have different dystopian futures, but notice, they’re both very paranoid about the present. They feel like something bad is going to continue to happen. Roughly 100 years later, friends, we are as paranoid. As we have ever been, whether it be from the violence we see on the world stage and on our phones or the traumas that visit us in our families, in our schools, and sadly, even in our churches, the abuse committed in the dark from people we thought we should, we should and could trust or the emotional cutoffs and betrayals of people we did life with our best friends, or even for some of you, your story is your spouse betrayed you and left you.

And then, as you mentioned, all of the unspoken torment of intrusive thoughts that come into our mind that we never invited. We are all paranoid. And paranoia leads you down two paths, alarmism or escapism. Have you noticed the alarmism in our news today? This election is the most important election of our lifetime.

If things don’t change soon, we’re all gonna go in a handbasket, right? Everything is about to be the worst of the worst. It’s this paralyzing fear that those in power are concealing something from us. That some people are in the know, but we are not. It’s a world like 1984. Others of us choose escapism to deal with our paranoia.

We drown our distractions and our despair with social media. I admitted the first service and I will admit this one again. One rabbit hole that I chased down for the first couple months of 2024 were what is happening to Princess Kate. Anybody else look into all those conspiracy theories? Because we didn’t hear anything from them.

I will say I believe the video. I don’t think it was a deep fake and I am praying for her. But I was trying to figure this out. Is this a double? Who it? I was like, who am I? I have fallen into the trap and it’s because we watched the crown on Netflix. Anybody seen that show before? All of a sudden I care about the royal family.

I don’t know who I am. Power storytelling. Anyways, escapism. We don’t want to deal with our own problems. So we investigate others. We’re also just paralyzed by the many pleasures our society offers us and we’re exhausted, but we keep going. We keep grabbing more pleasure, like brave new world. Where is it leading us?

Whether it be alarmism or escape, escapism, it’s likely many of us in this room are in a posture of paranoia. To quote Henry Nowen, he describes the posture of paranoia as symbolized by a closed fist, by a protective stance, by habitual suspicion and distrust. Happy Easter, everyone. You feeling good today?

In order to get good news, we have to first talk about the bad news. We are living in a world filled with paranoia, and the question we have to ask ourselves, are we just left to choose between alarmism or escapism? Unfortunately, some of us who call themselves a church have believed the lie. Some churches are baptizing alarmism, getting you to come and to give more and to do more in the name of fear.

Not in the name of a hope, not in the name of Jesus is alive and reigning well, and this too shall pass. No, it is, this is the worst thing ever. Some have baptized escapism. Whether it be us for no more, let’s get away from the world. We don’t need to touch it anymore. Let’s just stay with us. We’re not allowing anybody in.

Or the escapism of, hey, come to our church. I know this world is entertaining. We’re going to try to be the most entertaining. Let’s try to fight the battle of choosing us as your escapist route. What I’m grateful for in the biblical texts and what Easter just says so loudly, we don’t have to give into paranoia.

We don’t have to give into alarmism or escapism. And the answer to our paranoia is metanoia. Turn your Bibles with me if you haven’t already to Acts chapter three. We’re going through the book of Acts together as a faith family. And the book of Acts is written in the midst of a really paranoid world, just like ours.

Those in power fear an insurrection in the midst of this new way of Jesus. Hearing this man was risen from the dead and has told us how to live. Those in poverty are in paranoia because they’re threatened. If they follow Jesus, That will lead to persecution and so this paranoia is on hyper hyper alert when Peter and John the Apostles Enter into the beautiful gates of the temple and encounter a lame man and heal him.

We looked at this last week It’s okay If you weren’t here verses 1 through 10, we saw Peter and John saw a lame man who was covered with shame and shame His whole identity was that he was not enough. And yet Peter looked at him in the eye and says, in the name of Jesus, get up. And he got up and because of his healing, he was no longer outside the tomb.

He ran into it, representing when we encounter the personal work of Jesus, our shame is gone, our identity is new, and we are now allowed into the presence of God, amen, with shouting and with joy. And so that’s where we left off. Nobody was paranoid at this moment, but now, verse 11, Peter turns up the paranoia because now he wants to explain to the people, here is what actually happened.

Let me tell you who healed this lame man, and let me tell you that he can heal you as well. Look at verse 11. While he was holding, this is the layman, was holding on to Peter and John, all the people, utterly astonished, ran toward them in what is called Solomon’s Colonnade. When Peter saw this, he addressed the people, fellow Israelites, I want you to notice this is a constant theme.

The Bible here in Acts has not yet reached Gentiles. That’s not the focus yet. It’s first to the Jews and then to every other people group, which we’ll see starting around chapter 8. But, so he’s talking to fellow Israelites, meaning he’s talking to people who know the Hebrew Bible. They know the Old Testament.

They know the Torah, honestly, probably better than most of us in this room, including myself. Fellow Israelites, why are you amazed at this? Why do you stare at us as though it we had made him walk by our own power or godliness? It’s your godly man always, or a godly woman always points to Jesus, right? Not we’re not great He is the one who’s great verse 13 the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob the God of our ancestors Peter is quoting the Hebrew literature The Jewish audience knew the first time they ever heard this phrase was in Exodus 3.

Exodus 3 was the burning bush moment. The burning bush was when God encountered Moses and called him to deliver his people. All of these things should be running through the mind of the audience and now yours because I told you to think of it. Amen. All right. God of our ancestors has glorified his servant, Jesus, whom you handed over and denied before Pilate.

This is what we talked about, you know, around the world on Good Friday, about him going before Pilate. Verse 14, here’s what happened. You denied the Holy and Righteous One and asked to have a murderer released to you. If you remember this story, there was, Pilate said, Do you want this murderer or Jesus released?

And who did they choose? The murderer, and what was his name? Barabbas. Extra credit to you, right? They said, We’ll take Barabbas. We want Jesus to be crucified. More on Barabbas a little bit later. Verse 15, you killed the source of life. Other translations say prince of life, whom God raised from the dead.

And we are witnesses of this by faith in his name, whose name Jesus, his name has made this man strong whom you see and know. So the faith that comes through Jesus has given him this perfect health in front of all of you. And now brothers and sisters, I know that you acted in ignorance, just as your leaders also did.

In other words, this isn’t unforgivable. You can still turn to Jesus now. In this way, God fulfilled what he had predicted through all the prophets that his Messiah, the long promised one, would suffer. He’s saying the whole Old Testament, this whole story has been pointing to Jesus. And I want you to see this Jesus is the one who was crucified and rose again.

So note, Peter is trying to explain how this miraculous healing happened. And he is using a, he’s using the Hebrew Bible, which we would call the Old Testament, to teach his Jewish audience. And he picks passages everyone knows. The famous ones, the big ones, and he’s using images everyone knows. But if you’re not steep into Hebrew literature, like most of us aren’t today, you can miss it.

N. T. Wright points out what Peter’s trying to do here. He says the following. He says, Peter is insisting that if his hearers want to know why and how the lame man has been healed. They should think first of the Exodus, God freeing those who had been enslaved and second of Isaiah, God’s servant bearing the sins and infirmities of his people.

And finally of Jesus in the middle of both of those stories, making them true in a new way. So Peter, I think these three words that Peter’s focusing on is a great way to explain why you and I may be so paranoid. It’s slavery, sin, and sickness. Let’s look at the first one. A quick word on each, slavery.

This, the Exodus story illustrates this well. You have the people of God who are in Egypt and they are enslaved to the pharaoh, to the powers, to the principalities of the air. We are also enslaved, right? When we’re born into this world, it’s these powers that are bigger than us, but you really see it typified in a person, this pharaoh of Egypt.

What does this pharaoh do to the people of God? First of all, he tries to kill all their sons. Remember the story of Moses had to be put on a basket, right? You know what Moses means literally in the Hebrew? Out of water, I think. Check with Caleb after, our Hebrew scholar in residence, but I think it means to be drawn out of water, right?

Because he was trying, he was saved because they were trying to kill him. So the powers are trying to kill their sons. And also, what did the Pharaoh do? Overwork them day and night. They became slave laborers and they were crying for a deliverer. And the whole story of Exodus is they were crying because they knew they didn’t have the power to win.

It’s not like they can rally together and beat the Pharaoh. No, they were hopeless. They needed a savior. But even after God delivers them, right? Has the Passover lamb, walks through dry ground on the Dead Sea. What happens? We see six weeks later, after they’ve been freed, they’re still slaves. They’re slaves to their appetites.

Six weeks they go, can we just go back to Egypt? I don’t like this manna. I really want the, that food was so good. Really bro? You rather be enslaved just to have a good burger. I know burgers are good, but goodness, we’re enslaved. I know. We’re enslaved to our desires and powers around us. And most of us have just given in because we can’t imagine ever winning against them.

In Romans 7, Paul speaks of the slavery. He says, quote, I do what I don’t want to do, and I don’t do what I want to do. Anybody relate? See, we are slaves to powers and to our desires, and that leads to our ultimate destruction. Is it any wonder why you and I are so paranoid? Another word to describe our hopeless condition is sin.

Sin at its most basic definition is just this imagery of missing the mark. So literally just imagine an archer trying to hit the target and he can’t. This is humanity. We were created to live a certain way, and you and I just fail every step of the way. One of my favorite definitions of sin is by Ignatius of Loyola.

He describes sin as the following, as quote, unwillingness to trust that what God wants for me is my deepest happiness. If you thought about that, every time we sin, it’s because we think we know what we want better than what we think God wants for us. And then a lot of theologians talk about sin through these three angles.

Sin of commission, omission, and imperfection. Let me describe that briefly. Sin of commission, this is what most of us think. It’s doing what God commanded us not to do. This is heartbreaking sins like adultery, murder, outrage, bitterness, gossip. It’s adding to the disharmony of the world. But not only that, we find ourselves in a mess because of the sin of omission.

So not only do we do what we’re not supposed to do, we don’t do what God commanded us to do, like loving others, praying, giving. taking responsibility, being a good parent. These things we seem to fail time and time again. And just to make sure you’ve just felt, you know, just so guilty and happy today. The sin of imperfection is all of us, all of humanity.

We do what God told us to do, but we do it with the wrong motives. So we give so that others know how good we are. We pray, but we make sure it’s loud enough so everybody else is impressed. Even the right things, we often do it for the wrong reasons. And this all feeds into our paranoia. We are paranoid from the guilt of sin done by us.

We are paranoid from the shame of sin done to us. And we are paranoid from the fear of all the sin happening around us. And the last way to describe our condition is sickness. I think we need to bring this back. You study the early church. They talk a lot about us being sick. And yet, most of us don’t really think about that.

When Jesus, uh, when Peter, excuse me, mentions Jesus as a servant in verse 13, this is supposed to be a callback to Isaiah 53, 4, where it says, Yet he, which we believe is Jesus, the Messiah, himself, bore our sicknesses, and he carried our pains. The story of scripture and the story of us, of humanity, is since Genesis 3, we have been diseased physically and relationally.

Our bodies give out. My best friend passed away last year from cancer. Only lived to see 31. These bodies we have fail us. And relationally, again, many of you, you can’t even speak to your mom or dad anymore. Or you are divorced, and you’re living in the heartbreak of separation. Your kids maybe don’t talk to you.

Your best friends betrayed you. We’re sick. Not only physically and relationally, we’re also sick mentally and emotionally. We suffer with intrusive thoughts. If you’re anything like me, anxiety seems to always be lurching around the corner. And emotionally, we’re plagued with boredom, frustration, depression, all the things all at once.

I’m a girl dad, so pray for me. It’s all the things all at once. But do you see the case Peter is making, if you really look? By alluding to the Exodus and to Isaiah, and soon we’re about to read to Samuel, Abraham and Moses, Peter is reminding everyone in his audience and everyone in this room, we are paralyzed with paranoia and there’s only one way out.

Look again at verse 16. By faith, this, that’s the opposite of paranoia. By faith in his name, his name has made this man strong, whom you see and know. So the faith that comes through Jesus has given him this perfect health in front of all of you. Jump down to 19, therefore repent. This is the word metanoia.

Repent and turn back so that your sins may be wiped out. That seasons of refreshing, I’m going to talk about what that means, may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send Jesus, who has been appointed for you as the Messiah, the saving one, the promised one. Verse 21. Heaven must receive him, so we believe he, Died, rose again after 50 days.

He ascended to the throne. That’s where Jesus is now, fully in his resurrected body. So heaven must receive him until the time of the restoration of all things. Hear me, the resurrection, we don’t just celebrate that Jesus was resurrected. We celebrate that you and I, one day, will also be bodily resurrected, and we will also have a new heaven and a new earth.

All things will be restored. We’re not just souls floating in the clouds. All of these earth, these earthly things will be renewed. Which God spoke through his holy prophets from the beginning. Now, he quotes Moses. Moses said, The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your brothers.

You will, you must listen to everything he tells you. Everything. Or else he’s not your Lord, right? And everyone who does not listen to that prophet will be completely cut off from the people. In addition, all the prophets who have spoken. From Samuel, who’s a big person in the Old Testament. He has two of the books named after him.

You know what they’re called? Proverbs. Proverbs. First and second Samuel. All right, Samuel and those after him have foretold these days. You are the sons of the prophets. So he’s speaking to the Jewish people and of the covenant that God made with your ancestors saying to Abraham This is a call back to genesis 12 and all the families of the earth.

Now, that’s not just jews It’s all the gentiles as well will be blessed through your offspring. Who was the offspring? His name is Jesus Jesus. All right, verse 26. God raised up his servant and sent him first to you to bless you By turning each of you from your evil ways, turning from your evil ways, friends, the answer to our paranoia is metanoia.

Now the obvious question, we’re not Greek here. What does metanoia even mean? Again, in verse 19, Peter uses the phrase metanoia, which means repent. One of Jesus’s first words in the synoptic gospels when he starts his public ministry, guess what it is? Metanoia. He tells everybody, repent for the kingdom of heaven is here.

Unfortunately, this word repent or repentance has been hijacked, uh, I think by American culture and it’s often associated with things that it shouldn’t be. I think it’s associated with an angry man holding up a sign on a street corner, right? I think it’s also associated with a really sad feeling of regret.

So you come forward, you feel bad, you repent. But then you know you’re gonna return to your vomit just like, you’re gonna return to your sin just like a dog returns to his vomit. But you keep beating yourself up and thinking, one day I will be better. That’s not repentance. That’s not hope. Jesus has something much better on offer.

He meets our paranoia with metanoia. Let me explain what metanoia is. Metanoia means to change your mental maps of reality. It’s to reconsider who you think is God, who the creator is, who you are, what your purpose in life is, what this life’s all about, what the next life’s about, reconsidering your whole understanding of reality when Jesus is on the throne.

One author describes metanoia the following way. He says, metanoia invites us to move beyond, sorry, to move above our normal instincts into a bigger mind. And to a mind which rises above the proclivity for self interest and self protection, which so frequently trigger feelings of bitterness, negativity, and lack of empathy inside us.

In essence, Jesus opening words might be rendered, be unparanoid and believe that it is good news. live and trust. It’s not an Easter sermon from Trey Van Camp if I don’t quote Dallas Willard. So he also defines metanoia the following way. He says it means to reconsider. To reconsider your strategy of living.

Reconsider who you put your hope in. Reconsider what you live for. Reconsider your definition of reality. Reconsider who is the boss of your life and gets to define who and who you are not. Now the question we have to ask is can changing our mind really change our whole situation? Can it actually change our eternity?

Can metanoia truly set us free from paranoia? It all hinges on if Jesus is real or not. Because look at the promise Jesus gives us in John 16, 33 says, I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace. You will have suffering in this world. I like how realistic, it’s not going to be super easy, but be courageous.

I have conquered the world. So you and I, we can be more than conquerors. We can have peace. If Jesus is who he says he is, and we trust in him, I don’t have enough time. But I would really encourage you, if you’re a doubting, skeptical person, we so love that you’re here. I believe there’s more than enough reasonable historical evidence to prove that the tomb is empty and that Jesus did rise again.

Um, I think by the way the biblical writers picked the witnesses, Like they even allowed women to be the first to see and that time that would have hurt your case. They didn’t care. This is what the truth was. There’s over 500 witnesses that saw Jesus in the resurrection. People are willing to die for their faith, which means they saw the empty tomb and they saw Jesus in his scarred hands and his resurrected bodies.

We can go on and on. But here’s what I want to argue. Let’s say you do believe the tomb is empty. What does that mean for you? And what does that mean for me? Since the tomb is empty, we can trust Jesus is the promised one who delivers us from slavery. Jesus is more powerful than any other principality and power over your life.

Jesus is more strong than your desires in your life. He can conquer those if you let him. We don’t have to be ruled by our appetite. Secondly, we can trust Jesus is the Lamb of God. Who wipes away our sin. We see that Peter says, literally that phrase, trust this Jesus that your sins may be wiped out. What Peter’s alluding to is Isaiah 53 5.

Notice, he’s making so many callbacks to the Old Testament. 53 5 says, but he was pierced because of our rebellion, crushed because of our iniquities. Punishment for our peace was on him. And hear me, we are healed by his wounds. He wipes away our sin. Verse 14 mentions, he says, Jesus says, Peter’s the holy and righteous one.

And he compares it to the murderer. Who’s the murderer again that got released? Barabbas. Every Easter we are declaring, I am Barabbas. I deserve to die for my sins. I deserve to be crucified. My sins put me there, but for some reason, Jesus took my place. He saved me, and now, according to even legal standards, I am sinless.

My debt has been paid, not by me, but by Jesus who died the death that I deserved. This is the hope of Easter. And because the tomb is empty, I love this last promise, we can trust Jesus is our great physician who heals our very soul. I think we need to bring back mentioning Jesus as the divine doctor. How cool is that?

Church history, you read people talking about Jesus and they describe him as the divine doctor. So next time you pray, dear divine doctor, it’s a little British. I’m watching The Crown, right? Dear, right? He is our divine doctor. Meaning, He’s come to heal us. Jesus said as much in Mark 2, 17. When Jesus heard this, He told them, it is not those who are well who need a doctor, but those who are sick.

I didn’t come to call the righteous, but sinners. If you are a sinner in this room, you are in good company. Jesus came for you. In fact, I love, have you heard this word salvation? It’s a really Christian word. It means to be saved. That word is sozo in the Greek. And interpreters often struggle because sozo can mean saved, but it also just as much means healed.

That’s the good news of the gospel. It heals us. It heals our very soul. Ultimately, we believe Jesus will ultimately heal us by giving us resurrected bodies and a new heaven and a new earth. That’s what I explained when we looked at verse 21. But notice again in verse 20, it says, Seasons of refreshing may come.

from the presence of the Lord. Here’s what we believe. We pray for healing today. Physically, we pray for all of these things today because we know there are seasons, there are moments where in this lifetime, he gives us a refreshing. He heals us of our ailments. He changes who we are, but we trust and know we love the refreshing, but our confidence is in the full restoration in the age to come.

There will be great things that happen now, but it doesn’t compare to the healing that will come in the next life. And I want you to notice this tension. I’m bouncing between in some ways. I’m saying Jesus has already conquered all these things for us and in other ways I’m saying Jesus has not quite yet done all these things for us.

And this is a theological term. You’ll hear a lot if you get all nerdy with me and study theology. It’s the phrase already, but not yet. Here’s what we believe. Jesus is already our deliverer. He’s already the Lamb of God who took away our sin. He’s already our great physician who has healed me and I pray has healed you.

And the resurrection will make that an ultimate reality. But because we’re not in the resurrection yet, we have yet to experience the fullness of what he’s done for us. Until the new heaven and new earth, until we die and are raised again with Jesus, you and I in this lifetime will groan. We’ll grow weary, we’ll experience the pain of death, but our trust, He’s given us a foretaste of the beautiful things to come.

And I love that truth. I love this gospel and it comforts me on my worst day, because if you know me, I can out paranoid all of you on my worst day. I wrote a book called The Non Anxious Pastor, and it’s not an autobiography of my life. It is what I wish to become. I struggle a lot with anxiety, and just this week, and of course, I knew this was coming.

I’m like, I have a sermon on paranoia, when’s it coming? And that’s being paranoid right there, so it was already happening. But anyways, Tuesday, I wake up, and we receive news as a family. That was not great at all. And it really hit me, set me back. I said everything’s fine, but throughout the rest of that day, I was just panicking.

I was bothered. I was hurt. I was grieving. I was experiencing all these negative emotions. I couldn’t get myself to finish the sermon. I was a mess. And to make it worse, my family, we participated in Lent this year, which means we fasted from food. And so I couldn’t even run to my favorite dessert to make myself feel better.

I’m like, Lord, why? If it was next week, I can eat in and out right now, but it’s not, you know? So I felt sorry for myself for a little while. Then I remembered, wait a minute, paranoia. or metanoia. So Wednesday morning I chose metanoia because Wednesday night anybody get this? I was assuming that piece of bad news was going to become a domino effect where everything else would get bad too.

Anybody else get there? You know, the whole phrase when it rains, it pours, especially in Arizona on an Easter Sunday. Wednesday morning, I said, you know what, Jesus, I need to practice what I’m preaching today. I’m choosing metanoia. Here’s what I did. I’m not saying it was some miraculous thing. I said, okay, I’m not allowed on my phone.

Give my wife my phone. Don’t give it back to me. She said, sound good. You’re a lot better person when you’re not on your phone. Okay. Calm down. All right. So we did all that. I was in my Bible a little bit longer than normal. I went on a prayer walk, a long prayer walk, and I just kind of gave everything to the Lord.

I said, Lord, I need to change my mind. Would you change my perspective? Would you bring healing in this area? Would you give me confidence in that? And by the grace of God, and this feels so trivial to say, like now everything’s better. It’s not, but like there was a moment, a beautiful moment of refreshment.

God is not done with me. He is by my side. He loves me and he cares for me. And what was the difference between Tuesday and Wednesday? Tuesday. Paranoia. Wednesday. Metanoia. And I believe this choice is, is both sometimes in one single moment, like to get saved, you need to have a moment of metanoia, but then the rest of your life is a series of decisions of metanoia.

What I love about the gospel, hear me, the gospel of Jesus is not about performing so that God loves you. The gospel of Jesus is not about proving that you’re better than the other people around this room. And so you should get to heaven. The gospel is not even about saying, don’t worry, God, I never fear.

Jesus says, don’t fear because he knows you’re going to fear. God relieves us of the pressure by making it all about the posture. The gospel message is this: which posture are you taking? The posture of paranoia is self protective, it’s self preserving, and it’s bitter. It’s living in never-ending suspicion and distrust.

It’s a close fist. But the posture of metanoia is opening your life to God’s loving embrace, allowing God to define who you are, trusting, yes, people may let me down, but Jesus, you will never leave me nor forsake me. Paranoia is the posture of gritting your teeth, but metanoia is the posture of falling in love.

And again, I believe we both. Everyone in this room has an invitation. We make invitations. You make decisions. I can’t force anybody in this room to do anything. I have learned that long enough, but some of us, we need that initial moment of metanoia, which is what we call salvation. Some of you, you lived your entire life.

All you know is paranoia. And the offer today, because the tomb is empty, is to come to Christ and allow him to be the promised one who frees you from slavery. Receive him to be your lamb who wipes away all of your sin. Look to him as your great physician who will heal your very soul. And we believe there is a moment when you do that, you have a new heart and a new life.

And paranoia may follow you, but you no longer follow paranoia. And for the rest of us in this room who have already made that decision, the ongoing process daily to choose repentance, metanoia is what we call sanctification. We have our ups and downs, but it’s a daily decision to set your mind on things above to have your mind, your attitude, be that of Christ Jesus, Philippians says, and we want to partner with you in that, honestly.

At our church, we’re a practice-based church. We like to focus on one thing and help us become metanoia people, where we are. We are simple people. We are restful people. We are truthful people. And it’s a daily process. But I believe this Easter, the Holy Spirit is asking you, which posture are you living in?

Paranoia, Or metanoia. The invitation today.

It’s not about working hard enough. It’s not about doing enough. It’s simply no longer pursuing paranoia. It’s leaving things on the ground and saying metanoia, nothing in my hands. I bring simply to you, Christ. I cling. I bring no other argument. I bring no other plea, but Jesus, you died and you died for me.

And so I choose to look to you and to you alone, who are you looking to? Let’s pray.