Preaching Transcript • April 27, 2025
Asahel Adams • Santa Fe Hall
I was out walking with my wife the other night, heading down our hill toward the river bottom. As we walked, I kept stopping to dictate some notes into my phone—and I want to read them to you:
We Are Home
We are home—there is room at the Father’s table,
Free at last from the ache of wandering alone.
No more striving, no more silence,
We’ve come in from the cold—
To abide, to belong, to be part of His own.No more time out on the road,
No more drifting, lost, unknown—
We are home. We are home.
In the house not built by hands,
With our brothers, hand in hand—
We are home. Yes, we’re home.How could it feel so familiar
The first time that we met?
Like I knew the words of the song
The first time they were said.The rhythm was already beating
In the chambers of my chest—
Only God could write such beauty
From the places we confessed.He designed a harmony
From a thousand broken parts,
Wove a symphony of mercy
From a thousand yielded hearts.We were scattered, we were splintered—
But His love has made us one,
Every soul a sacred note
In the song He’s just begun.On the ladders of ambition,
I climbed alone and fell.
Down the highways of illusion,
I passed by those who’d dwell
In the quiet grace of brotherhood,
In the strength of giving all—
But the voice kept calling inward
To a deeper, higher call.What the world could never offer,
We have found in bread and wine—
Not just welcome, but a wonder,
Not just mercy, but design.Now we laugh, and now we weep,
Through the stories that we keep—
Where love has cast out fear,
And every soul draws near…
Humility: The Beauty of Brokenness
And I want to talk for just a minute about something so familiar it’s hard to even speak of it—because we think we already know it.
But there are layers to this truth, like peeling an onion, and God keeps revealing more insights and more graces if we’ll stay soft.
(And yes, I know—I’ve got to stop this rhyming!)
Nothing is more beautiful
than people freed from their pride
to become what they could never be
through private ambition,
but only what they can become together.
Humility is beautiful.
Wherever the face of Jesus in His body is scarred, marred, and unrecognizable, it’s because of pride.
It’s because of fear—which is really just the instinct to protect pride.
Fear is cast out not just when we receive love, but when we choose to love.
“There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear” (1 John 4:18).
The Call to Repentance: The Gateway to Unity
A few years ago, Brother Howard and I were invited to speak at a school of theology in another state.
They gave us these tidy little slots—twenty minutes each. Far too short for the message burning in our hearts, but I’m used to that.
I had twenty minutes to present the “great cloud of witnesses”—the story of the church throughout history, and where God is leading His people today.
I barely finished the introduction before time was up.
We raced through it. But even so, some hearts were stirred.
At the end, the dean of the college raised his hand and asked,
“You’re describing this sense of community God desires for the church in these days. I speak with pastors around the world every week. If they were to ask you, as they ask me, ‘What do we do next? What’s the next step?’—what would you tell them?”
And I told him:
Pursue repentance.
Because unity is impossible without repentance.
And I know they would immediately say,
“But we already have repentance.”
But I would immediately say,
“Don’t judge your understanding of repentance by the labels you’ve attached to it—even labels taken straight from Scripture. Judge it by the fruit it produces.”
It’s exciting to see what God is doing, how many are stirred in their hearts for true community.
But let’s remember: Community is simply two words—com (with) and unity.
It means with unity.
If you don’t have unity, you don’t have community.
It’s that simple.
Unity Demands the Death of Self
Jesus said,
“Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and every city or house divided against itself will not stand” (Matthew 12:25).
If we want to be a house, a home, a community,
we must drive out division.
But where does division come from?
Is it from doctrine?
Is it from tradition versus modernity?
No—the source of division is inside of us.
The source of division is my will.
Unity is the fruit of repentance.
You say, “Well, I know what repentance is—it’s changing your mind.”
Of course it includes that—but is that all it is?
You say, “I know what repentance is—it’s turning around.”
Yes, that’s biblical too—but again, is that all it is?
Because Paul didn’t just liken repentance to a mental shift or a slight turn.
Paul likened repentance to death on a Roman cross.
Your turnaround has to be a painful pivot.
Your mind change has to be a radical surrender.
“I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me” (Galatians 2:20).
Not said as a fiction and called faith.
But said as a promise—not settling until it becomes real, until it happens in our lives.
Obeying the Gospel: Death, Burial, and Resurrection
The essence of repentance is the cross.
The gospel is not just something we believe.
It is something we obey.
Both Peter and Paul said that the wrath of God comes upon those who do not obey the gospel (see 2 Thessalonians 1:8, 1 Peter 4:17).
So how do we obey the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ?
Peter made it clear on the day of Pentecost, when he answered the multitudes crying, “What must we do?”
Peter said:
“Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of your sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38, KJV).
That’s the pattern:
- Die to self-will in repentance—that’s how you obey His death.
- Bury the old man through the covenant of baptism—that’s how you obey His burial.
- Be filled with the Holy Spirit—that’s how you obey His resurrection.
Paul said,
“We were united with Him in the likeness of His death” (Romans 6:5).
There is unity—there is union with Christ—that happens only through death.
And that is what God is calling us to:
Deeper unity through deeper surrender.
The degree of unity in the body will be in direct proportion to the degree of death to self.
The measure of God’s glory and power falling upon the sacrifice will match the measure of self-surrender we bring to the altar.
The Essence of the Cross: The Surrender of Will
What is the essence of the cross?
What was the fulcrum—the pivot point—of Christ’s sacrifice?
Was it when they nailed the spikes through His hands and feet?
Was it when they pierced His side with a spear?
Was it when they mocked Him and spit on Him?
No—the decisive moment came earlier.
It came in the Garden of Gethsemane, when Jesus fell on His face and prayed,
“Father, if You are willing, take this cup from Me; yet not My will, but Yours be done” (Luke 22:42).
It was there that He won the battle.
It was there that He surrendered everything.
He told the disciples,
“Pray that you may not enter into temptation” (Luke 22:40).
But they did enter into temptation.
Peter drew his sword and cut off a man’s ear—the exact reaction Satan was trying to provoke.
The devil wanted to prove that these men were no different than all the others under his bondage—those whom he held in slavery through the fear of death (Hebrews 2:14).
But Jesus didn’t retaliate.
Because the fulcrum of the cross had already been settled in His heart:
“Not My will, but Yours be done.”
The cross is repentance.
And the fulcrum of repentance is dealing with willfulness.
Willfulness: The Kingdom of Self
Why is willfulness so important?
Because will is tied to kingdom.
Jesus taught us to pray:
“Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:9–10).
Whose will is done in your life—that’s whose kingdom is reigning.
If you are king over your own life,
your will must be done,
or else your claim to kingship is a lie.
If God is King,
then His will must be done.
The tragedy is that we cling to our way:
- Our how,
- Our when,
- Our with whom,
- Our outcome.
This willfulness—this stubborn attachment to our own way—is what must be surrendered at the cross.
God’s promises are yes and amen,
but they often play havoc with our ego.
The road to liberty is not God doing things how and when we demand.
It’s God doing great things—
but doing them His way,
in His time,
for His glory.
This is what must die.
Repentance: More Than a Past Event
We want to think of repentance as something finished—something we did when we first accepted Jesus.
But Jesus didn’t just come to atone for sins.
He came to be Lord—right now, today, in the present moment.
“Your kingdom come. Your will be done.”
When we claim the benefits of His sacrifice but refuse the submission of His lordship,
we rob Him of His glory.
We rob Him of His rightful reign.
Repentance is not just accepting what Jesus did for us.
It is surrendering our lives to what He is doing in us and through us.
It is crowning Him—not self—as King.
An Orange on the Window Sill: A Parable of Surrendered Will
I can’t think of a more vivid picture of willfulness than the story of a forgiven brother—who now sits here among us—whose life has become a living parable for all of us, a mirror of our own unsurrendered wills.
He shared how willfulness had taken root deep in his heart, pulling him out of the way of the Lord, out of fellowship, out of the life of the church.
He lost his connection with God.
He lost his marriage.
He lost his children.
He fell into addiction—and finally, he lost even his grip on reality itself.
He found himself locked in a padded cell—alone, raging, refusing food and water—bitter that his ways hadn’t worked, furious that he couldn’t fix what was broken.
Guards had to come in and cram sugar cubes between his lips just to keep him from starving to death.
And every day, the staff would place an orange on the windowsill of his cell—a small, simple offering of provision, an invitation.
But to accept that orange would have meant surrender.
It would have meant peeling away the last shred of control he clung to.
It would have meant admitting need, yielding his will.
And he hated that orange.
He resented it.
He wished it wasn’t there—because it represented everything he was refusing to face.
This is the madness of human pride.
And it’s not just his story—it’s mine.
It’s yours.
It’s the war raging inside all of us.
He said he remembers how God’s questions began to drip into his soul—small, piercing, undeniable questions:
“If this is the end, don’t you want to at least write your father—the one you haven’t spoken to in years—and tell him he was right, and you were wrong?”
He wasn’t thinking it would change anything.
He wasn’t bargaining for a future.
He just wanted to be honest before it was all over.
And it was then—through that small, humiliating surrender—that he finally reached out, took the orange, and began to peel it.
And as he peeled it, the floodgates burst open.
The tears came.
The walls crumbled.
The bitterness broke.
It was never about the orange.
It was never about the cell.
It was always about the surrender God was after—the surrender of the will.
That surrender is still what He’s after in all of us.
The Garden of Eden: The First Willful Rebellion
This battle of will didn’t start in his life—or in mine—or in yours.
It started back in the Garden of Eden.
The serpent’s lie was simple:
“You will be as gods.”
Satan whispered, “God just doesn’t want you to be as powerful as Him. That’s why He put limits on you.”
But God wasn’t afraid they would become His equal.
He was warning them that without trust—without relationship—they would wake up to find themselves
not gods,
but scared, naked children,
lost and exposed.
They lost the walk with God in the cool of the day,
lost the covering of His love and grace,
and fled in shame.
That is the core of our willfulness.
We still believe the lie:
“I can be my own god. I can rule my own life.”
But what God is asking is for us to return to trust—to surrender control, and let Him be the Father we were made to walk with.
How Repentance Happens: Beyond a Moment
How does repentance happen?
Can I do it right now?
Can I simply say “yes” right now—and is that enough?
Can I pray a “sinner’s prayer” and check it off my list?
Some of you are walking the road to Calvary.
You feel the narrowing, the pressure, the distress that Jesus spoke of when He said,
“I have a baptism to undergo, and how distressed I am until it is accomplished!” (Luke 12:50).
Some of you feel that tension—you know God is leading you toward a surrender that feels terrifying because it is full of unknowns and risk.
And some of you have already come through one level of surrender, but you sense God is calling you back—back to the altar, back to a deeper consecration.
Someone might say to me,
“I was in the youth meeting two weeks ago, and the presence of God was so real. I threw up my hands and said, ‘Yes, Jesus!’ I felt His grace, I felt His acceptance—but now, two weeks later, I’m still battling my flesh. I thought it would have been over.”
Was that moment not real?
No—it was real.
It was a real beginning.
But the whole story is wrapped up in one word:
Perseverance.
Liberation Comes Through Revelation
The Bible doesn’t say glance at yourself once in a mirror and move on.
It calls us to look steadily and not forget.
James writes:
“But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. He looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like.” (James 1:22–24).
Liberation comes through revelation—facing who we really are.
As long as you cling to the illusion that you’re a good person who merely “makes mistakes,”
you’ll stay on the repair project—the patch-and-polish, hide-and-repaint project.
But repentance calls for a crucifixion project.
The moment of surrender was real—but it was just a beginning.
The roots and tentacles of pride and willfulness go far deeper than we realize.
Some fear facing this. They think:
“If I admit how deep my sin runs, will it call my past salvation into question?”
No!
This isn’t about condemning the past.
It’s about going forward from grace to greater grace.
If you had already arrived, God would have taken you home.
The fact that you’re still here means He’s inviting you to go further.
Jesus’ Deeper Surrender in the Garden
Even Jesus Himself—perfect, spotless—kept pressing deeper.
In Gethsemane, it says:
“He withdrew about a stone’s throw beyond them, knelt down and prayed.” (Luke 22:41)
And then again:
“He went a little further and fell on His face and prayed…” (Matthew 26:39).
Was that because He hadn’t surrendered before?
No!
It was the Father inviting Him to a deeper surrender.
And if Jesus—God in the flesh—could yield more fully to the Father’s will,
then surely we must too.
Humility: The Key to Grace
We want God to do it all for us.
We want to be passive, limp rags and say,
“Well, if God wants to give me the Holy Spirit, He can just drop it on me.”
But that’s not how it works.
Scripture says:
“Seek the Lord while He may be found; call upon Him while He is near” (Isaiah 55:6).
“You will seek Me and find Me, when you seek Me with all your heart” (Jeremiah 29:13).
God isn’t hiding.
We’re buried under the rubble of our pride.
The seeking isn’t to climb over His barriers; it’s to climb out of our own.
Humility is not just about confessing weakness.
It’s about eagerness—the eagerness of a child running toward what they need.
“God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble” (James 4:6).
Humility opens the floodgates of grace.
Victory Over Self: Stretching the Moments
Some of you feel like you’ve tried repentance—and it didn’t work.
But let me ask you:
Was there ever a week where it worked?
Maybe just a day?
Maybe even just an hour?
Was there a span of time when you realized—
for that hour, for that day—you didn’t live for yourself?
- Your thoughts didn’t circle around self.
- Your efforts didn’t revolve around self.
- Your words didn’t manipulate for self.
Was there a time when you truly lived surrendered?
If there was—even for an hour—then something is going right.
And if it can happen for an hour, it can happen for a day.
If for a day, then for a week.
It can stretch into a lifestyle.
Why Was That Victory Possible?
I asked someone recently:
“When was the last time you felt real deliverance from yourself?”
They thought about it and said,
“It was that morning when I woke up and, in prayer, realized I was a lot more rotten than I had ever admitted before.”
And that was the day they walked in victory.
It’s counterintuitive.
We think the key to walking strong is feeling strong.
But the secret to walking free is seeing our need.
Jesus didn’t come to bring abundant condemnation.
He came to bring abundant life.
But freedom does pass through the gateway of sacrifice.
Ecstasy passes through self-surrender.
Power comes through weakness.
Paul said:
“My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9).
The Mirror of Truth: Facing Ourselves
We have to look into the mirror—not glance, not peek, but look steadily.
We have to see the truth about ourselves—
the selfishness, the pride, the willfulness.
The specter staring back at us would make the portrait of Dorian Gray look downright handsome by comparison.
But we must look.
And when we look, we do not stay there.
We don’t collapse in despair.
We don’t wallow in self-pity.
We look—and then we reach for grace.
“The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit” (Psalm 34:18).
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:3).
God’s grace meets us at the end of ourselves.
God’s power begins where our flesh’s efforts expire.
Living Dependent: Daily, Not Once
When I remember what I am without God, I don’t try to take a step without Him.
When I forget, I try to live off yesterday’s blessing—and I fall.
It’s not enough to focus only on what God has done for me.
I must live with Him today.
Moment by moment. Breath by breath.
God doesn’t want to just fix you.
He wants a relationship with you.
He doesn’t want to be your emergency kit, your Plan B.
He wants to walk with you in the cool of every day.
He has designed a life you cannot live without Him.
He has called you to a fruitfulness you cannot achieve apart from Him.
“In Him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28).
Repentance Does Not Eliminate Our Need for Help
Repentance does not remove our need for help.
It reconciles us to the reality that we will never stop needing help.
Some of us seek repentance hoping that it will terminate the painful awareness of our need.
We think:
“If I could just repent hard enough, I could finally stand on my own two feet, free from weakness.”
But that desire is pride, still strategizing.
That’s not biblical repentance.
Real repentance is waking up every day and saying:
“Lord, I need You now as much as ever.”
“Lord, I cannot walk a step without You.”
Repentance doesn’t set us free from God.
It binds us joyfully to Him.
The Help We Need Every Day
We need help from the Holy Spirit.
Jesus said,
“It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing” (John 6:63).
And,
“Without Me, you can do nothing” (John 15:5).
Paul wrote,
“If by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live” (Romans 8:13).
We need help from the Spirit every day.
We need help from the Word of God.
“Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path” (Psalm 119:105).
“Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4).
We need the Word to live.
We need help from our brothers and sisters.
Peter said,
“As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace” (1 Peter 4:10).
There are graces God intends to give you—but He designed to deliver them through the body of Christ.
“Can the eye say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you’? Or again, the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you’?” (1 Corinthians 12:21).
We need each other.
We need help from Providence.
The challenges, storms, sick cows, disappointments—they all declare something.
They call us back into relationship with God and with one another.
We need help—not just sometimes, but every single day.
Repentance is the Lifelong Cry for God
Repentance does not say,
“Now that I’ve gotten Your salvation, I can walk away from You, Jesus.”
It says,
“Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life” (John 6:68).
It says:
“Give us this day our daily bread” (Matthew 6:11)—
daily life from the Word,
daily sustenance from the Spirit,
daily humility through the body,
daily reminders through Providence.
God wants to place us in an environment where our repentance can live and thrive—
where our flesh stays crucified
and His Spirit stays alive in us.
Unity: The Fruit of Repentance
Let’s bring it home:
Unity is the fruit of repentance.
Repentance is the death of our will.
And the death of our will can only happen when we face who we really are—
when we see our exceeding sinfulness in the mirror of God’s truth—
and refuse to forget.
And in that brokenness, that horror of guilt,
we don’t wallow in despair.
We reach out—desperate for grace.
And there, grace flows to the brokenhearted.
There, the power and dominion and stranglehold of sin begin to lose their grip.
“The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit” (Psalm 34:18).
“He gives more grace” (James 4:6).
Grace isn’t earned.
It’s poured into broken vessels.
We don’t repent to stop needing help.
We repent so that the river of help can keep flowing freely—day after day.
Water Grave: The Covenant of Death and Life
Let me share some lyrics I recently penned that capture this journey of surrender:
I’ve come to lay my burden down,
To cast this dying flesh away.
I’m done with crowns of my own making—
I choose the cross, I choose the grave.
The water closes like a tomb,
But Love has marked the stone to roll.
My past is buried in His blood—
My name changed beneath this flood.
I’m going down, down, down to a water grave,
And rising up, up, up in Jesus’ name.
Washed and free, I bear His flame,
Bound by love, a vow proclaimed.
Dead to sin, alive again,
Sealed in blood, this covenant stands.
This is no symbol, soft or tame—
It’s death to self and life reclaimed.
My will is broken, bond is made—
A servant now in Jesus’ name.
No turning back, no second thoughts—
I’ve crossed the line, counted the cost.
A covenant cut, an exchange of blame—
I wear His shame, I bear His name!
The Final Call: Make Peace with Your Need for God
You can get there.
You can walk through death into life.
But you have to make peace with your permanent need for God.
Don’t seek freedom from sin so you can walk away from Jesus.
Seek freedom from sin so you can fit together with your brothers and sisters—
humbled, trusting, alive with the Spirit of Christ.
Because the most beautiful thing in the whole wide world
is humble people trusting God together.
Unity is not the product of human contrivance.
It’s the fruit of repentance.
It’s the surrender of every little throne to the King of kings.
Where He alone is Lord.
Where His Spirit brings liberty.
Where His people, broken yet beloved, become the house of God together.