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I invite you to turn in your
copy of God's Word to the Gospel of Matthew, Matthew chapter 3.
We're going to be looking at the first 12 verses. Matthew
3. We'll look at the first 12 verses. You know, whenever you meet someone
for the first time, when you have the expectation of being
introduced to a new person, that comes with a certain level of
anticipation and expectation as to whether the experience
will be good or bad. And so, when you're ready to
meet a new person, there can be a certain level of uncertainty
or fear even, even anxiety. Or of course, it can also be
quite, you know, you might be quite eager or there might be
joy. You ask the question, what is
he going to be like? Or what will she think of me?
When you meet a person for the first time, these are the kind
of things that go through our mind. Of course, meeting a person
can also be life changing. Like when you meet that person
who's going to be your future spouse or a teacher who will
turn out to be a lifelong mentor. Those could be positive experiences.
But sometimes meeting someone for the first time can be somewhat
negative, like when you meet that medical specialist who's
bringing bad news, or when you are invited to come speak with
the HR director, even in the midst of layoffs in your company. What Matthew is doing in the
passage that we're about to read today is that he is introducing
us to Jesus for the first time. We've seen the birth narratives
of Jesus, but for the first time we're going to meet the adult
Jesus. And I'm going to tell you now,
it's going to be a truly life-changing introduction. Now, will it be
positive? Will it be negative for you?
Well, that's wholly up to you. But when we look at Jesus, And
we see the kind of person that he is. It is a transformative
experience. Some of you have heard me say
that there's no more dangerous person you can meet than Jesus
Christ. Because once you have been introduced
to him, you must respond. You simply cannot walk away and
act as if you have not met him. When we think of Jesus, nobody
today is more on the lips on people's lips the words they
say in Jesus. You hear people everywhere saying
Jesus, Jesus all the time. More than Great Scott or by George.
And if for that reason alone at least the name Jesus is familiar
to so many people. But do they really know who they
so casually throw out as a name? Do you know the real Jesus? Back in the early 2000s, there
was a hit TV show called CSI, Crime Scene Investigators. And
some of you will remember that the theme song at the beginning
of the show would belt out the question, who are you? Who, who,
who, who, who are you? We really wanna know, right?
That's how the theme song went. And in the episode that follows,
the crime scene investigators would piece together the evidence
from the crime scene so that they can discover who it was
that had committed the crime. Well, in the same way when we
are met with Jesus, when we're confronted with him, millions
of people ask the same question. Who are you? We really want to
know. You see, this is the question
for the age. Who is this Jesus? This man who
is called Jesus is the most influential person in all of history. Many
people think they know who he is. But have they really examined
the evidence? Have they examined these historical
documents that we have here in the Gospels? I mean, what is
it that you really know about Jesus? The most talked about,
the most debated, the most controversial, the most revered person ever,
who has ever lived. Some people think that he's a
rebel. Others believe that he is just a very kind teacher.
Some say that he's a mystic or a Marxist or a lunatic. And in
this respect, there are so many different Jesuses out there.
But all of those opinions are in fact based on hearsay, not
on the actual evidence. So what we're going to do as
we continue through the Gospel of Matthew is we're going to
look at that evidence, we're going to examine it together
so that you can discover the real Jesus for yourself. Let's
start doing that today, looking at chapter 3, we'll look at the
first 12 verses. Hear now the word of God. In
those days, John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness
of Judea. Repent, for the kingdom of heaven
is at hand. For this is he who was spoken
of by the prophet Isaiah when he said, the voice of one crying
in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths
straight. Now John wore a garment of camel's
hair and a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts
and wild honey. Then Jerusalem and all Judea
and all the region about the Jordan were going out to him,
and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing
their sins. But when he saw many of the Pharisees
and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, you brood of
vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come, bear
fruit and keeping with repentance? And do not presume to say to
yourselves, we have Abraham as our father, for I tell you, God
is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham.
Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree,
therefore, that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown
into the fire. I baptize you with water for
repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I,
whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you
with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his
hand and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into
the barn, but the shaft he will burn with unquenchable fire. With us far, the reading of God's
word. May he bless it to our hearing, especially as it's preached
to us this morning. So as we come back now to the
gospel of Matthew after being away for a few weeks, what is
it that this gospel tells us about Jesus, the most important
person whom you will ever meet? Well, let's start with the fact
that this very book is called a gospel, because the word gospel
simply means good news. And the New Testament writers
weren't the ones who came up with that term. It was actually
a term already in use in antiquity. It was used to announce a historical
event that had occurred. Something that introduced a new
situation to the world. So you might have them announcing,
for example, when Caesar Augustus had defeated his enemies. And
by defeating them, he had then assumed the throne. He had conquered
the throne and taken the place of Julius Caesar. That was considered
the gospel, the good news, a retrospective looking back at something that
had happened. But the New Testament writers, including Matthew, Mark,
Luke, and John, when they wrote what we call their Gospels, used
the word and gave it a unique twist. It wasn't just a looking
back, there was a looking forward. It was a proclamation of not
just a historical reality, but a theological reality. Something
that was so significant that it actually created a whole new
genre of literature, which we call the Gospels. And so, what
is then this good news that this particular Gospel of Matthew
proclaims? He answers for us the question of who is this Jesus?
And as he does that throughout the book, he begins to help us
answer that question by giving us the messenger, that is Jesus'
forerunner, John the Baptist. So as we look at this passage
today, we're gonna see three things. We're going to see the
messenger, the message, and the Messiah. We're gonna see the
messenger, John the Baptist, who is he? We're gonna look at
his message and what he had to say about Jesus. And then we're
going to look at Jesus himself as we look at the Messiah. So
let's look at the first point, the messenger. And he opens the
passage by telling us, in those days, and in those days now refers
to the time when Jesus is an adult. We've left the birth narratives
behind, Jesus is now grown, and so this places this event somewhere
around the time of AD 25. Now, you know, we know that Jesus
is roughly 30 years of age, and you might say, well, why not
AD 30? And that's because Jesus was actually born somewhere around
either 4 or 5 BC. So this is going to place these
events here when John the Baptist was baptizing in the wilderness
roughly around AD 25. And John the Baptist, as we see
here and in other places in the scripture, has been called by
God to introduce Jesus to us. If we were to turn to the Gospel
of Luke, in Luke chapter 1, we learn that John the Baptist is
Jesus' second cousin. In other words, John's mother,
Elizabeth, is cousin to Jesus' mother, Mary. We also learn that
right from the time that he was conceived, it was already determined
that he would have this role, to be the forerunner for Jesus.
Matthew really doesn't tell us a whole lot of that. We had to
go to Luke to get it. But when we turn to Matthew, what does
Matthew think is important to tell us about John the Baptist? Well, he tells us how he dresses
in verse 4. He says that he wore a garment
of camel's hair and a leather belt around his waist. He tells
us what he ate, that his food was locusts and wild honey. He
tells us where he lived, tells us his dwelling place was in
the wilderness of Judea. And you might say, well that's
all interesting, why would he bring this kind of stuff up?
Involve very specific. Matthew brings these things out
because they all mark John as being a prophet in the tradition
of Elijah. Elijah was the prophet par excellence
in the Old Testament. And he is the one who dressed
in this way, who ate this kind of food and dwelled in this place.
And so by pointing out these things about John the Baptist,
he's marking him as the successor to Elijah, something that Jesus
himself would recognize later on in his ministry. John the
Baptist then would be the first prophet in over 400 years since
Malachi. And he would be the last of the
Old Testament prophets. And you can see that in what
Matthew says in verse 3. He says, for this is He who was
spoken of by the prophet Isaiah. And then he quotes from Isaiah
chapter 40 verse 3, the passage that we just read a little while
ago. And what that tells us is something very important, and
that's that John the Baptist, his coming, was not something
that was unexpected. Nor did John bring a new message,
but rather his message was a continuation of all the promises in the Old
Testament. And his coming was a fulfillment
of what we read in Isaiah. All this was part of God's plan,
and that's because the coming of Jesus himself was also a long-awaited
expectation, as the people of Israel longed and waited to meet
the Messiah. Now you have to know then the
role that John plays here. In ancient times it was customary
to send an officer ahead of the king to prepare the way when
the king was going to make a royal journey. The idea is that he
would go forward and he would be part of that advanced team
that would clear the way, as it were. You wouldn't want the
king to arrive and have to fight through brush or through, you
know, wild lands. And so there would be a highway,
as it were, prepared to make it easy for the king to travel.
Think about, for example, when President Trump traveled now
this past week to Alaska to meet with the Russian dictator Putin.
You know that it wasn't just that Trump arrived and that was
the first time that he was there. They had already sent an advanced
team that would have prepared everything. And that's what we
see John serving. But he also serves not only as
that advanced team, but he serves as a herald. He would announce
the coming of the king. We read in verse 3, the voice
of one crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight. This idea of making the path
straight is again, clearing the way so he can go forward. When
I lived in New Jersey, we lived very close to a road that was
called the King's Highway. It's the oldest road in America
and had been prepared so there would be a smooth path for the
British king to come if he ever did come to the colonies, and
he did not, but he would have this clear path all the way from
New Jersey, rather from New Hampshire all the way down to Virginia. Again, this idea that everything
has to be prepared because the king is coming. So that's who
Matthew presents John to be. He's the herald who comes with
a very particular message telling us that the king is coming. And
what's important to see is that even though this passage, these
twelve verses, deal extensively with John the Baptist, Matthew's
focus, as our focus should be, is not on the messenger himself,
but on the one whom he's introducing. The messenger himself is rather
unimportant. And John the Baptist recognized
that about himself. In the Gospel of John, for example,
in John 3.30, he says, he must increase, but I must decrease.
He recognized that he had to give way, that once Jesus arrived,
his ministry would end and the focus would be on Christ. In
fact, again and again, he would consistently deny that he himself
was the Christ because some people wondered, are you then the Messiah?
And he would again say, no, no, no. In John 3, 28, he says, you
yourselves bear me witness that I said I am not the Christ, but
I have been sent before him. So John's focus is consistently
on the one whom he is introducing. And because of that, John considers
himself unimportant, in fact so unimportant that he looks
at himself as being lower than a slave. He says in verse 11,
he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals
I am not worthy to carry. And all that tells us is even
as we look at the messenger, What it tells us that the one
that he is introducing is incredibly significant. Generations have
longed to meet him. And what we see in this passage
is John the Baptist is calling us to prepare ourselves to meet
this Jesus. So let's take a moment now to
look at the message that the messenger brought regarding Jesus. Are you ready? I guarantee you
that that's a message that will change you forever. This is your
last chance to escape. Did we lock the doors? It might
be too late. Like I said, meeting Jesus, He is the most dangerous
person whom you will ever meet. Because you cannot walk away
ignoring, being neutral after you've heard Him and His message. So let's take a look at our second
point. What is John's message regarding Jesus? And it's summarized
for us actually very simply in verse two. Repent, for the kingdom
of heaven is at hand. Now when he says at hand, that's
just language meaning it's near. The kingdom of heaven is near.
Now when you look at the gospel of Matthew along with all the
gospels, you'll learn that they're all relating different things
about the life of Jesus, but they do so with different perspectives
and from different angles and with different audiences. There
are no contradictions in the gospel, but they do have particular
things that each one emphasizes or themes that they bring out
that the others don't quite do. And so, for example, here in
the Gospel of Matthew, as we've seen already a number of times,
there are different events in the life of Jesus that Matthew
wants to point out. These things fulfill Scripture.
So that's one of the big themes in Matthew. How Jesus' life,
the events in His life, fulfill Scripture. But one of the other
major themes in the Gospel of Matthew is the Kingdom of God.
Again, it's not that it's not in the other Gospels, it certainly
is. But it's a major theme all throughout the Gospel of Matthew.
Now, interestingly, he only uses the phrase Kingdom of God five
times in this Gospel. Instead, he uses again and again
and again the term Kingdom of Heaven. Because Matthew wrote
primarily to Jews and Jews were very sensitive about using the
name or the word God. Because they were afraid they
might use God's name in vain. So they substituted the word
heaven. The kingdom of heaven simply
means the kingdom of God. And so John's message here is
an announcement. Even you might say a warning.
That the kingdom of God is coming. Now before we unpack that message,
let's take a step back and ask the question, what precisely
is the kingdom of God? Well in one sense when we talk
about a kingdom, we're talking about a king. One who has rule. And so when we talk about the
kingdom of God, we are in fact talking about the sovereign rule
of God. The fact that God rules over
all of creation and that includes every last person who's ever
lived. That might make you say, wait a minute, if God is already
sovereign over all things, then how can his kingdom be coming?
How can it be near as it approaches? Isn't it already here? And in
one sense, yes. God is and always has been sovereign
over all things. He ordains whatsoever comes to
pass. One of the most colorful passages
in scripture that illustrates that is in Proverbs 16, 33. It
says, the lot is cast into the lap, but it's every decision
is from the Lord. It's a way of telling us that
nothing happens by chance and nothing is outside God's control. But when we speak, the kingdom
of God is at hand, or is near, or is coming. Its usage here
is a little different. It refers to the fact that God
is restoring His rule in the hearts of men and women. That
He's moving and restoring, you might say, His sovereignty over
our lives. The lives of those who have rebelled
against Him, who have rejected Him. And he's restoring that
sovereignty both in judgment and in salvation. And that really
brings up the big question that we have to wrestle with, which
the people who were listening to John the Baptist had to wrestle
with. How do you and I respond to the rule of God? How do you
respond to the fact that God truly is in control? And it's
an important question because ever since the Garden of Eden,
we have wanted to be the ones in control. Since that time,
we have been the ones who have rejected God, we have rejected
His good ways, we have rejected His good gifts, and we think
we can make it on our own. Every time that you sin, You
are in essence saying, God, I don't need you. I don't need your advice. I don't need your rule. I don't
need your direction. I hear you. This is what you
say is best for me. But I choose to be the one in
control and I will say what is best for me. And so John is coming
to warn us and tell us, well, guess what? We've been rebels,
but Jesus is coming. And Jesus' very presence brings
the kingdom of God, the rule of God into our presence. The
early church father Irenaeus once wrote that Jesus is autobasileia,
which is just a Greek term that means the kingdom in himself. When Richard III ran off to the
Middle East to fight Saracen and left behind the Kingdom of
England, you can see there's a kingdom, there's this plot
of land, England, and its king was over here, and there's the
kingdom and there's the king, but this is different with Jesus.
The kingdom of God is wherever Jesus is. And wherever he goes
and makes himself manifest, there the kingdom of God intrudes into
our world. And so John is telling us, he's
calling us to be ready for the king is coming. And why is it
that you need to be ready? Because we're rebels. And because
God knows your heart. God knows your every thought
and your every intention. Psalm 44 verse 21 says that God
knows the secrets of the heart. And that means that He knows
your rebellions. He knows your secret hatreds. He knows your secret lusts and
your secret desires. Oh, we can try to justify them,
and we can say, well, you know, I'm not as bad as all that, right?
And you can compare yourself to other people who you consider
to be worse. But that's not going to cut it.
That's not going to cut it, and God doesn't accept that. Proverbs
21.2 says, every man's way is right in his own eyes, but the
Lord weighs the hearts. He knows the reality. We might
fool ourselves. We might deceive ourselves and
tell us we're not that bad. But He knows our hearts. He weighs
them. So John warns us, be ready, because
He's coming. As Proverbs 20, verse 9 says,
who can say I have made my heart pure? I am clean from sin. And the answer is no one. He
knows what's in your heart. And for every last one of us,
as Paul says in Romans 3.23, we all have sinned and fall short
of the glory of God. And so people of God, you need
to hear what John is saying. The arrival of the kingdom of
God, it arrives in the very person of Jesus, brings God into contact
with sinful human beings. And that is an explosive combination. And so John warns us to be ready
because judgment is coming. He says in verse 12, his winnowing
fork is in his hand and he will clear his threshing floor and
gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with
unquenchable fire. He's using here an illustration
of the harvest where the farmer goes out and he gathers up the
wheat and the wheat is both the kernel, which is the good stuff
that we want to keep, in the shaft, which is the useless stuff
that he's going to destroy. And he says here, burn with unquenchable
fire. And he tells us Jesus is going
to be the one separating. Jesus is the one who will be
the judge. And on what basis will he judge? Jesus himself
tells us in Revelation 2.23, Jesus says, I am he who searches
mind and heart. And I will give to each of you
according to your works." God knows what you think. God knows
what you feel. And he will pay back, give to
us what we deserve according to our works. That's what John
is telling us. And so John is calling us to
repent. We need to hear what he's saying. Because each and
every one of us stands as it were naked before God. And He
calls us to repent. What does it mean to repent?
It means to turn away. To turn away from your sin. To leave
it behind and instead grab a hold of God. Embrace God. Embrace His rule in your life
rather than resisting that rule. And when you do that, when there's
that true repentance, leaving behind your sin and saying, Lord,
I submit to you and I will have you rule my heart, then there's
a change of mind. There's a change of heart. That
kind of true repentance leads to a transformed life. That's
what was being symbolized by the baptism of John. It's just
a symbol in and of itself. It didn't do anything. But the
idea was as the water came down on you and cleansed you from
sin, and it showed your commitment to God. This is the message that
John the Baptist has for us. The kingdom is coming, and the
kingdom of God is coming because God himself is coming. Jesus
is coming, and he brings judgment because he knows who we really
are. Not who we pretend for all the
people, but he knows in our hearts who you and I really are. So
he calls us to repent, and it's an urgent call. The kingdom of
heaven is at hand, it's near. God's rule is breaking into history
with the coming of Jesus, even as it breaks into your very life.
And at that time, we read that people from all over the area
responded to the call of John, and they came confessing their
sins and seeking renewal. How refreshing. We read in verse
five, then Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region about
the Jordan were going out to him, and they were baptized by
him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. And I ask you, my
friends, What areas in your life need repentance? From what things
do you need to turn? What are those sins that you
need to confess and set behind them? Are you open to the rule
of God in your life or will you continue to say, I will run things
my way because I know better? Are you indeed open to the work
of God transforming you from the inside out? The kingdom of
God demands a response because Jesus in his coming demands a
response. Like I said, he's the most dangerous
person you will ever meet. So how are you aligning your
life with the will of God, with the rule of God, with the kingdom
of God? True repentance, according to
John, is much more than a feeling. It's much more than just saying,
I'm sorry. You see politicians get up there, and I'm sorry I
did this. They're really saying, I'm sorry I got caught, and I
still need your votes, and that kind of thing. But true repentance,
John tells us, is much more. He says in verse 8 that it needs
to bear fruit in keeping with repentance. In other words, true
repentance actually has a change, fruit that you can see that can
be measured. When you truly repent, your choices
will be different. Your thoughts will be different.
The way that you treat other people will be different. Now, you submit to the rule of
God in your life rather than rejecting it. Now, you seek to
live according to His ways and not your ways. This is what He's
calling us to do, each and every one of us here. The problem is
that so often we think that we can skip that. We think that
we have other ways that we can have an entree to God and we
can be right with God. And so John warns us against
the danger of being complacent and thinking that this message
is for other people. You see, there are two things
that we substitute for true repentance. Two things that we rely on for
being right with God. And John calls them both out.
The first one is that of relying on your own achievements. The
things that you do. in order to be accepted by God,
in order to escape his judgment. In verse 7 he says, But when
he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism,
he said to them, You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee
from the wrath to come? Bear fruit in keeping with repentance.
Now, the Pharisees and Sadducees, as you know, they were the religious
leaders of the day. No one could be more righteous
than these people, at least externally. They did all the right things. And John calls him out and says,
that's not enough. It's not enough to rely on the things that you've
done. It's not enough to rely on your religious status. It's
not enough that you come to church. It's not enough that you sit
through sermons and that you give faithfully. It's not enough
that you go to Bible study and attend our home fellowship groups
or volunteer. None of these things in and of
themselves will make you right with God. John warns us against
relying on your own achievements. But he also warns us against
relying on your heritage in order to be accepted by God and escape
His judgment. In verse 9 he says, And do not
presume to say to yourselves, We have Abraham as our father.
For I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children
for Abraham. Even now the axe is laid to the
root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does
not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire." And
what he's telling us is, look, these Jews might have sat there
and said, but we're the children of Abraham, we're God's chosen
people. And by that very fact, we are accepted by God. And he
says, no, no, no, no, no. That's not enough. It's not enough
that you grew up in the church. It's not enough that your parents
are believers and even strong believers. Those things will
not do it. It's not enough to rest on those
things. John tells us that the only proper
response of the kingdom of God is a true repentance, which means
turning away from our sin and embracing the rule of God ourselves. And it's something that applies
to all of us, to all of us. You know, one of the interesting
things is we see John baptizing the people who came to him. Baptism
as a rite was not something that was new to Jews. They had used
it before, but it had been reserved for those who were converts to
Judaism. Baptism was for outsiders. But
what John is doing here is radical. He's saying it's for all of us.
It doesn't matter whether you're a Christian. It doesn't matter
whether you grew up in the church. It doesn't matter what it is
that you do. It doesn't matter how faithful you have been. None
of these things matter, he says. All of us need to repent of our
rebellion against God because none of us will survive contact
with the kingdom of God when it arrives. That's the message. It isn't actually new to the
New Testament. You find it throughout the Old. At the very end of King
David's life in 1 Chronicles 28 verse 9, David is talking
to his young son, Solomon, who's preparing to assume the throne.
And listen to the wonderful advice that he gives, which is something
that every father should tell his children. And he says, and
you, Solomon, my son, know the God of your father and serve
him with a whole heart and with a willing mind. For the Lord
searches all hearts and understands every plan and thought. If you
seek him, he will be found by you. But if you forsake him,
he will cast you off forever. It's something that every one
of us needs to hear. Do not presume just because you are the son
of the king of Judah, or of all of Israel, and that you have
been told that you're going to be the wisest person of all the
kings that ever Israel had until the coming of Jesus. Solomon
could have presumed, I've got it made. But he's told, no, no,
this God knows what you're thinking. This God knows what you're feeling.
He knows who you really are. So know Him, seek Him, pursue
Him with your whole being. And if you do, he will embrace
you, but if not, he will cast you off. That's a message found
all throughout scripture, and it's the message that John brings
to us. Jesus Christ is coming, and he brings the kingdom of
God, the rule of God into our lives. Are you ready? Now, we're not going to meet
Jesus in person until next week when we look at the remainder
of chapter 3. But there are some things that John tells us about
him now, so let's look at our last point. We've looked at the
messenger, we've looked at the message, and now let's look at
the Messiah. And it's really interesting when
you look at these 12 verses, nowhere in this passage is Jesus ever
mentioned by name. We never see the word Jesus or
Christ in the passage, but it's clear that this is whom John
is referring to. When he says in verse 11, he
who is coming after me is mightier than I, it's clear reference
to Jesus. And so we begin by asking the
question that we asked, if you will, by way of review, when
we looked at chapter one. Who is this Jesus? And back in
chapter one, verse one, We were told that he is Jesus Christ.
And there's something to be said and to be understood in that
name. The name Jesus marks him as a human. As being human, the
name Jesus is given to a human baby. That name, Jesus, is simply
the Greek form of the Hebrew or the Aramaic, which would have
been Joshua. And the word Jesus or the word
Joshua, the name Joshua, means God is salvation. The angel tells
that to Joseph. In Matthew 1, 21, he says, you
shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from
their sins, because that's what it means. God saves, or God is
salvation. And so the fact that he is called
Jesus and has a human name Joshua, just like so many others, marks
that he is fully human. And then the term Christ, it's
not a last name. It's not like Joseph Christ married
Mary Christ and they had Jesus Christ. No, it's a title. And
the title Christ is just a Greek word for the Hebrew word Messiah,
which simply means the anointed one. That Jesus is God's specially
appointed agent upon this earth to carry out a very specific
task. And that task, as we've already
seen, is to save his people from their sins. And in that same
chapter, in chapter 1, verse 23, he's also called the Immanuel,
which means God is with us. And it tells us that not only
is he fully human, but he is also fully God. God come in our
midst. God come in human form, walking
amongst us. Most extraordinary. That's who
Jesus is. And when we turn then to our
passage here in chapter 3, we begin to see what it is that
He's come to do. And He already, as we said, said He's come to
save us from our sins. Well, how does He do that? And
the answer is found in the baptism of John. Because that baptism
was called here a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness
of our sins. But let me ask you, just because
you choose to repent, is that enough? Are you really truly
able to repent and to turn away from your sin? In your own strength
and in your own ability? We all know the answer to that.
Because we've all tried. You've tried. You've tried changing
your ways. You've tried turning a new leaf
and sometimes you're able to do so for a short time but what
happens sooner or later You fall back, you return to the old habits,
don't you? You return to those old thought
patterns. Sometimes we are able to leave
behind certain habits and we replace them with others that
are equally bad and evil and destructive. We all know that
from our experience. What we need is something different.
What we need is a total transformation from the inside and out, a remaking
of our character, which is something that we're unable to do on our
own. But Jesus is able. Jesus can do that for us. And
that's what John is talking about here in this passage. He talks
about baptizing with water, which is simply a symbol. but it's
a symbol that's pointing to the real baptism. When he says in
verse 11 that, I baptize you with water, but he will baptize
you with the Holy Spirit and fire. He's saying that when he
comes and he brings the Holy Spirit into us and gives us that
new nature, that he's going to empower us to truly be able to
change. In other words, the Holy Spirit
transforms us to want to repent. And he transforms us to be able
to repent. Ezekiel tells us that through
the work of the Spirit, that heart of stone is removed and
instead is replaced with the heart of flesh. Paul says in
Romans, I'm sorry, in 2 Corinthians 5.17, that we become a new creation. Jesus himself would say in John
chapter 3, that we are born again. The Holy Spirit does something
amazing, something that you and I cannot do. You cannot repent
in your own strength. We simply don't have what it
takes. But He reworks us from the inside out through the Spirit
and enables us to turn away from our sin and to embrace God. And
he says that he baptizes us not only with the Holy Spirit, but
with fire, and that fire points to the fact that he's purifying
us. He's removing that old nature, as Paul says in Ephesians chapter
four, that we take off the old nature, like taking off the old
set of clothes, and we're able through the Spirit to put on
a new nature. And Romans chapter six tells
us that we are being refined. We were before slaves to sin,
but now righteousness begins to grab a hold of us. This is
only possible because of Jesus Christ. He purifies that old
nature, enables us to leave behind those sinful habits and desires
and to become a new creation. And He alone is able to forgive
our sins. Have you ever thought on what
basis our sins are forgiven? You might go through that baptism
of repentance in John the Baptist and say, yes, I repent of my
sins. And maybe you can turn to begin
a new life through the empowerment of the Spirit. But what about
your old sins? Has God forgotten your guilt? His holy character does not let
Him set that aside. Your guilt does not go away,
so on what basis are your sins forgiven? And again, Jesus is
the one who's the answer to that, because Jesus is the one who
removes that guilt. As we're gonna see later on in
the gospel, in fact, as early as next week, what Jesus does
is he takes that guilt that you and I have because of our sin,
that record of our wrongs, and he takes it upon himself, and
he pays for it himself. with his substitutionary death
on the cross. Rather than you dying, he dies
in our place. So the guilt of your sin can
only be washed away, literally, by the blood of Christ on that
cross. And that's what's being represented in the baptism of
John. And so what Matthew is showing us in these few verses
is the very character of Jesus. And that character is one both
of judgment and of grace. Judgment and grace. Yes, judgment,
because as the kingdom comes, as the holy comes in contact
with us, the unholy, that sin must be and will be judged. But it's also grace, because
if you turn to Jesus Christ and trust in Him, then it's judged
not in your person, but Jesus takes that sin upon Himself,
and He takes the judgment. He takes the punishment. that
you and I deserve. That's what we see even in this
passage. John the Baptist doesn't even
realize half of what he's saying. We find out later that he wasn't
100% sure what it was that Jesus was doing. But even in his own
words as he says them, he's pointing, the judge is coming, the judge
who will graciously take upon himself the judgment that you
and I deserve. You see, people of God, Jesus
is the most important person that you will ever meet. And
through John the Baptist, you have now been introduced. You
have been summoned to meet with him, as we'll do next week. And
one of the things we're going to discover is that Jesus' message
is precisely the same as John the Baptist's. When we get to
chapter 4, verse 17, we read, From that time Jesus began to
preach, saying, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Are you ready? How will you respond
for meeting Jesus? Let's pray. Our Father in heaven,
how thankful we are that we have been introduced to this Jesus. How thankful we are that in your
love and in your compassion, you have not allowed us to continue
in the ignorance of our sin and our rebellion against you, which
has only done more to destroy this wonderful world that you
have given to us as a gift. To destroy the wonderful relationships
in which you have placed us in. Every time that we choose to
go it on our own, we only make things worse. But you have pursued
us with a ferocious love in Jesus Christ, a love that will not
let us go. And even as your kingdom comes
and you restore your rule over our hearts, You do so graciously,
knowing that what we deserve is punishment and even death,
but having your Son take that in our place. Father, how thankful
we are that Jesus is the conquering King who comes, the one who is
the judge, but the one who also comes as the Lamb of God, sacrificed
in the place of his people, so that in his death we might have
life. We pray that each and every one
of us here will hear the message that the kingdom of God is at
hand, that Jesus the judge is at the door, and that each and
every one of us will hear the call to repent. Even for those
of us who have been followers of Jesus for so long, we know
that there are areas yet that we need to submit to the rule
of God. Help us to do so through the
enabling of the Holy Spirit. Purify us as with fire. And for those of us, Father,
who have not yet given our lives to Christ, if there are any here
this morning, we pray that they would hear clearly their need
of Christ, that they cannot walk away neutral and ignore what
they have said, what they have heard. They must either reject
Him now and accept the judgment which is to come, or they may
even now turn to Him as Savior and rest upon His finished work
on the cross, taking upon himself that punishment that we deserve.
We pray, Lord, that you would be gracious and merciful to open
their eyes and hearts to see their need even this moment.
He’s Coming…Are You Ready?
| Sermon ID | 81725133443165 |
| Duration | 43:12 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Bible Text | Matthew 3:1-12 |
| Language | English |
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