Matthew 3:1-12 (p. 1499)
Int.: According to St. Mark, “The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him.” (Mark 1:5)
John the Baptist was without a doubt the most influential man of his day.
John attracted larger crowds than did the politicians of his era. His lasting impact on the conscience of his nation was far greater than that of any other person of his day except his cousin Jesus. And well John should have been a most influential person! John had been prophesied by God himself and had been eagerly awaited by people for almost 4 centuries!
People had been expecting great things from John ever since God’s angel Gabriel announced his birth to John’s father Zechariah. There was only one recorded visit of the archangel Gabriel to a person before his appearance to Zechariah in the temple at Jerusalem, and that was to the great Old Testament prophet Daniel in Babylon!
The miracles of his mother Elizabeth’s conception in her old age, his father Zechariah’s being struck mute by God, and the miraculous recovery of his speech after Zechariah named his son “John,” all pointed to great things from John. People had been watching him from before his birth, and they just knew that he would be someone great! John did not disappoint them.
John became one of the truly great, fearless preachers of his day.
John the Baptist was no mealy-mouthed suck-up, who told people only what they wanted to hear so that he could become popular. John told people the truth, and he was not afraid to call a spade a spade, and of letting the chips fall where they may. Not even when it cost John his head, literally.
John was in direct communication with God, the way that false prophets often claim to be, but aren’t. John was the first prophet in almost 400 years to whom God talked personally. But even more, John was the forerunner and announcer of the Messiah-Savior, who had been awaited ever since the first sin entered into our world.
Those crowds who came out to see John at the Jordan wanted to know the will of God for their lives, and who the Savior was. They knew that John was God’s spokesman, inspired by God. They eagerly listened as John gave them his message from God:
Prepare The Way For The Lord!
“Repent, For The Kingdom Of Heaven Is Near,” John cried out.
In order to repent, we must learn to recognize our sins.
Like Adam and Eve crouched behind the bushes in Eden, the people of our day spend their days rebelling against God and then hiding from him and trying to conceal their wickedness. In fact, many today proclaim that there is no such thing as right or wrong, that morality depends on the situation, and that you need care about no one’s opinion but your own. “Be true to your self” is their motto and approach to life. Total selfishness and sin are the result.
Most of those who don’t buy into moral relativity today spend their time finding excuses and people to blame for their faults and failures. A lot of psychologists in our society are more than happy to assure us that no one is ever at fault for anything they do. Someone else is always to blame.
Well, Adam and Eve already tried that sort of stuff way back at the very beginning of time. But God didn’t buy it then, and he still doesn’t buy it now. So it doesn’t make one bit of difference how many people try it, or how many self-proclaimed “experts” say that it works, you can’t hide your sins from God, and you can’t push the blame off onto somebody else for the sins you commit.
Sin is disobedience to God’s will and commands. It begins in the heart with failure to love and honor God above everything else in life, and it ends with the most putrid, disgusting and stupid crimes imaginable. Sin is degrading and dehumanizing to the sinner as it destroys his self-respect and self worth, along with the lives of his victims.
“You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?” John screamed at the stuffed-shirt, self-righteous religious leaders who came to see him at the Jordan River. John might just as well have called them “sons of Satan” as Jesus later did, for that is what they were as they tried to twist God’s word to hide their sins and justify themselves. But they couldn’t hide their sins from God, and they couldn’t hide them from John, either. John warned them, “The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.”
There is only one way to recognize what sin is, and that is to learn God’s will and to apply it to your life. You can only do that when you use your Bible and truly listen to what God says to you there.
Once you have learned to recognize your sins, then you must confess your sins to God.
All the times we have failed to love God first and best, to put him ahead of all else, and to serve him with our whole heart and life - all this and more we need to confess to God. The lovelessness of our words and our deeds and well as our hearts needs to be confessed. They say that “confession is good for the soul,” and it truly is, for confession is the first step toward repentance. And you can’t receive forgiveness from God until you admit that there is something to be forgiven.
True confession isn’t made with a proud head and a loud voice, but on your knees and in deep humility before God. It has truly been said that the only time some people get on their knees before God is when he knocks them there. Well, I hope to God that description doesn’t fit you, because if it does, then you had better know for a fact that God has knocked a lot bigger people than you to their knees, and he has ground many of them to dust as well. God wants to hear from your own heart and lips a confession of all the sins recorded in his books against you, both small and great. So you and I need to confess to God every sin from jealousy and anger against others, to contempt toward our Creator and the Ruler of all things; from gossiping about our neighbor to stealing from God our Owner by selfishly withholding the offerings we owe him. We need to confess it all.
After a true confession, God demands that you turn away from your sins.
America and much of the world today is on a health kick. As we discover the things that killed our parents and grandparents, we are changing our lifestyles to avoid their mistakes and live a longer life in better health. At least anyone with good sense is doing that. Well, it is time everyone recognized that sin is deadly poison to our souls, and to treated it as such. If you found that your basement was full of radioactive radon gas, would you spend as much time down there as possible, in order to see how long it would take you to get cancer? I seriously doubt it! Well sin is the worst thing in your environment, and in your daily life. It kills everyone without exception. So it is time to get rid of it, and that is what repentance is all about.
Repentance is turning away from sin, overcoming its addiction, and beginning life anew as one of the saints of God, forgiven by Christ and dedicated to living life free from the slavery of sin; free to love and honor God as your Savior and Lord. As in John’s ministry at the Jordan River, this is the day of repentance. Now is the time God is giving you to turn from your sins back to him. Now is your chance to turn your life around and put it fully on the track of living for God as one of his children on earth. Now, while you have God’s word, now during your time of grace, now is your chance to recognize your sins, confess them to God and turn from them in repentance; now, before Christ calls you to stand before him in judgment. Once that happens, there will be no other chance.
John told those who came to hear him, and God also requires that you …
II. Produce Fruit In Keeping With Repentance.
God is checking you daily for fruits of faith.
You are like a tree planted by God in his orchard and carefully taken care of, so that you can bear a good harvest of fruit for him. He planted and watered you with his word, fertilizes you with tender loving care, and protects you with the forgiveness which Christ earned for you on the cross. God did not plant you and care for you for your own sake, but for his.
I have a small orchard of fruit trees in my yard, as do many of you. I did not plant those trees merely because I like trees, but because I want the fruit that those trees should produce. They exist, are watered and fertilized and pruned, not for their sake, but for the sake of the fruit that they grow. Jesus calls you fruit trees for God, and he says that God is looking for fruits of faith on you, just as I look for fruit on the trees in my small orchard. Your fruits of faith are what we call “stewardship.” I must tell you that it really bothers me when some of you do not make any stewardship plans for the coming year, and refuse to make any commitments to serve God in your lives. John the Baptist tells you why:
“The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.”
The ax is death and the fire is hell. God has as little use for Christians who do not serve him, as I have for fruit trees in my yard that do not produce good fruit. I cut them down, saw then into logs and burn them in a fire, then I plant others in their place. If you look in my back yard, you will see some young trees where old ones that are now firewood used to grow. Likewise, during the week in which he died for our sins, Jesus looked for figs on a tree in front of the house where he was staying near Jerusalem. He expected the tree to have figs on it, but it didn’t. So he cursed that tree. When Jesus returned home that evening the tree was dead and so thoroughly dried up that it looked like it had been dead for years.
God does the same thing to people. Those who won’t serve him for one reason or another are soon cut down and hauled out of his Church, and others take their places. God isn’t kidding when he caused John’s warning to be printed in the Bible for you, and I am not kidding either when I warn you to take it to heart, because God means it. But Christian service to God does not flow out of fear of being cut down, it flows out of love.
God has poured his love into your heart and life.
He has given you good homes, good schools, good jobs, good friends, and every other good thing you need in life. And he has poured out his grace on you in Christ. You do not lack one thing that you need to serve God and to do it well. In addition to all of the blessings that God has given to you, he has laid open before you tremendous opportunities to glorify him by worshipping God and serving him and by sharing with others your knowledge of the truth: the truth about God and salvation and righteous living. You have every reason and resource to serve God, and every opportunity to do so. Make the most of them now, while you can, before you are called before God to have the fruits of your faith measured and counted - for or against you.
John the Baptist was sent by God to be the announcer of the Savior’s arrival. A good announcer he was, and John was clearly speaking about Jesus when he told the people who came to see him …
III. After Me Will Come One Who Is More Powerful Than I.
He is the Hope of Israel and the Savior of the nations.
All of the prophets from Moses on foretold his coming to be the Savior. Throughout history, the faithful have always placed their faith and trust and hope for the future in the Messiah who was coming. Without the Christ, there was no hope for Israel, and there still isn’t. But Jesus did not come just to be a Savior of the Jews, and God never said that he would. He came to save the whole world from sin.
Our salvation cost Christ dearly. He had to give up his home and position and power as God in heaven to become a human being like us. He had to live a whole lifetime of perfection under God’s laws, in spite of the most severe temptations and opposition from Satan and from people. He had to suffer unimaginable torment and torture on the cross, from both man and God, in payment for sins that he never committed. No one ever, in all of human history, ever loved anyone as much as Jesus loved us. No one ever before or since ever suffered as Jesus did when he made himself the payment that purchased forgiveness of our sins from God. There is no sin Jesus did not pay for, no life he did not save. Whoever believes in him will not perish, but will have eternal life, just as God promises.
By faith in Jesus you became a redeemed child of God, and a saint of God. Your sins are now gone and you are as holy before God as Jesus himself is, and all this comes through your faith in Christ as your Savior and your Lord.
John promised the crowds about Jesus, “I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me will come one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not fit to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.” Later John would point straight at Jesus and declare to the crowds, “Look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” The Holy Spirit of God washed away your sins through the faith in Jesus that he himself created in your hearts. That is what made you a Christian. The fire that John spoke of is the fire of opposition and oppression and persecution that so often follows conversion to Christianity. It is a fire of cleansing to burn away the vestiges of sin and of self-service that cling to our sinful human natures so that we can serve Christ whole-heartedly. And that is what you do as Christians.
You serve Christ now as your Lord, because he served you as your Savior.
Without him, you and I would not have a hope, not a prayer; no chance at all. Christ is the only way to God, our only hope of eternal life, and the only way to produce fruits of repentance.
The Apostle Paul says that having Christian faith is like being grafted onto Christ by faith, and so Christians can’t help but produce bountiful harvests of good fruits of faith for God.
Then, when Christ takes you from this world, you and I shall serve God most joyfully and perfectly forever.
Con.: So as John the Baptist cried out, “Prepare The Way For The Lord!”
Repent, For The Kingdom Of Heaven Is Near.
When you have repented of your sins, then Produce Fruit In Keeping With Repentance.
And put your trust for salvation in Jesus Christ alone, for he alone is God and he alone can save you from sin, from death and from hell. It is only through faith in Jesus that you can come to God and receive his gift of everlasting life. Amen.