Matthew 3:1-3

(Text only for Ch. 1,2,3 Audio available for most Matthew sermons from Chapter 4-28)

Title:  The Arrival of John the Baptist

How fitting is it today to talk about John the Baptist and his arrival on the same day that we baptize one of our own, Jay Roberts, into the fellowship of this church?  A joyful day to be sure.

Now, after the first two chapters in Matthew, the story shifts forward about 28 years to the beginning of Jesus’ ministry.  Many people have argued that this raises several questions about Jesus’ early life and upbringing.  The only account in scripture that we have of Jesus between age 2 and 30 is the Luke account of Jesus when he was about 12 teaching and amazing the rabbis in the temple.

So why is there no account of this huge stretch of Jesus’ life?

Well, I think we need to keep a few things in mind:

  1. The point of the Gospels was to tell about Jesus’ message and ministry, not to give a biographical account of his entire life.
  2. For all of the gospel writers, but especially for Matthew, everything that is told about Jesus either fulfills O.T. prophecy, or shows his years in ministry.  Perhaps there just wasn’t anything between Jesus’ years of 2 and 30 that met one of these two requirements.
  3. Most importantly, remember who the author of Matthew REALLY was.  The Holy Spirit inspired Matthew with what to include and what to emphasize.

(read/pray)

  1. “REPENT!” 

We see the first recorded words of John the Baptist being the exact same theme of Jesus’ ministry:  repent.  Now, in order to grasp the fullness of “repentance” we need a correct working understanding of what it really means.

Repentance is NOT:

  1. Remorse
  2. Depression 
  3. Self-Punishment

(In Acts 27:3 we read that Judas was “sorrowful and distressed” yet he was not repentant.)

Repentance IS:

  1. A decisive change
  2. A turning away from sin to a life of obedience
  3.   The Equivalent of the O.T. call for Israel to return to faithful living in the covenant  (For us, a return to how we were designed to live before the Fall.)
  1. “Repent BECAUSE the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!”

And why are we to repent, according to John the Baptist?  Because the Kingdom of heaven is at hand.  What, exactly does this mean?  Well, both the Gospels of Mark and Luke refer to this concept as well, they call it the Kingdom of God, but the idea, the concept is the same:

The Kingdom of Heaven is exactly what the O.T. prophets were waiting for.  It is God’s Sovereign display of redemption upon his people.  In other words, it means God is taking his Kingdom back and redeeming his people.

So John is saying, now would be a good time to get right with him.  

And, of course, the kingdom of Heaven being “at hand” means that Jesus has come as the Messiah, the prophet and savior sent from God to redeem his kingdom from sin.  

John’s point:  The time is now!

Imagine you are 12 and you are home for the summer.  And your mother tells you one day as you roll out of bed at 10:30 in the morning (remember doing that?  Yeah, me neither…)  “Ben, your father is going to be home at 5:30, and you’d better have the garage cleaned like he asked you or you’re going to get it.  And the day passes by, you watch T.V. you play hoops with your buddies, you lounge around.  And you look at your watch and it’s 5 o’clock.  The time in now.  Get to it, or else!

Now, I’m going to jump ahead a few sermons, but follow the logic here:  John is the crazy prophet in the wilderness, yet people are coming from all over to see him.  They are even getting baptized as a sign of repentance, even thought they don’t yet know what exactly this new age looks at.  John rebukes the teachers of the law, and predicts one is coming who will baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire, and then Jesus shows up and John doesn’t want to baptize him because Jesus doesn’t need to repent.  

What is Matthew, as an author showing here?  

John was actually the first person to publicly proclaim Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah.

  1. The O.T. link

Matthew, being consistent, is very quick to show the link between what John proclaimed and Isaiah 40:3.

And think about this message:

“The voice of one crying in the wilderness”  (John the Baptist)

“Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight”  (John’s message:  King is coming home, the garage better be clean!”)

Now, don’t miss this, it’s the point to my entire message.  It’s the theological gem that we must discover if we hope to have our lives changed by these three verses:  Repentance MUST precede Salvation.

In other words:

You must know what you need to be saved from (sin) before you can know a savior (Jesus.)

You must be willing to change your life to obedience to him before he will ever be your Lord.

You see, many of us “Christians” want Jesus as our savior, but not as our Lord.  These two things are inseparable, according to Scripture.  Either Jesus is both your Lord and therefore your savior, or he is neither.

Chew on that for spell.

(pray.)