Sermon Tone Analysis

Some of you have heard me tell a story before of my first year preaching, when a lady decided she needed to have a sit-down with me and tell me my sermons were accusatory.

She went on to tell me that in a recent sermon, I had used the word repentance 39 times!

Now, in that sermon, I was preaching from the Bible and one of my texts was from Romans2.4

So it was hard in that sermon to avoid the word repentance, but in this sermon, I don’t suggest anyone keep a tally, because you may run out of lead or ink, because this sermon will involve the repeated use of the word repentance.

However, I do not want this to distress anyone, because the very real truth of the matter is that if we could learn what repentance really is, and live a life of repentance, then we would experience much grace from our God, and much relief for our weary souls.

We will also find ourselves more easily overtaken with joy when we learn a life of repentance.

We will be looking at the ministry of John the Baptist for the next 2-3 weeks, and one thing that is important for us to understand about John the Baptist’s ministry is that his ministry, his calling, his charge from Almighty God, was to call people to repentance.

And that repentance was symbolized by baptism.

The way of repentance

A Time for repentance

A Call to repentance

A Promise of repentance

The way of repentance

A Time for repentance

A Call to repentance

A Promise of repentance

First, let us consider the time for repentance.

In this case, Luke has carefully given us a timetable.

In just 2 verses, Paul names nine men.

Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate, Herod, Philip, Lysanias, Annas, Caiaphas, John, and Zechariah.

I hope if you have been here anytime in the past couple of months that at least two of those names are familiar to you.

John and Zechariah.

The last we heard about John was in chapter 1, when he, as a baby, leaped in his mother’s womb at the approach of Mary, who was pregnant with Jesus, and again, at his birth, when his father affirmed his name would be John, and gave a beautiful prophetic doxology, which is an outpouring of praise to God.

Why did Luke mention the other names?

This reminds us of what a detailed historian Luke was.

Because he gave these names, we have a pretty good frame of time that these events took place.

IN fact, because he listed each of these figures, we can know that most likely the ministry of John began between late AD 28 and early 29.

We are reminded that Israel at this time is under Roman rule.

He lists some of the rulers at the time.

Interestingly, he also lists two priests as being High Priest.

Now, Luke certainly is aware that there is only one High Priest at a time.

So did he make a mistake here?

Well, no.

There are many theories of what was happening here.

The Romans has deposed Annas as High Priest, but he seems to have made sure that his son-in-law Caiaphas would replace him, and it is likely that Annas was really running the show, even though Caiaphas had the title.

He was likely a puppet for Annas, who held the real power.

One evidence of this is in the gospels themselves.

We know that when Jesus was arrested, he was first brought to Annas, not Caiaphas.

Again, the fact that Luke listed each of these Roman Rulers and also the High Priest helps us to have a pretty good idea of the time period, within about a one year margin, of when John was baptizing people.

We know that God is sovereign in all of his timing, and this is especially evident in how he orchestrated world events to bring about his plan of salvation for all the elect.

A lot of meaning is packed into that phrase, the fullness of time.

Much has been written about this, but let it suffice for now to say that all the world events, every person who was part of these narratives, all the placements of the various locations, even the weather and the climate at this time, all of it was carefully worked out by God to bring about the exact plan he had.

He is truly a sovereign, and powerful, and knowing God.

Our God is perfect in all of His ways, and He has perfectly continued to work out his plan throughout each generation.

The way of repentance

A Time for repentance

A Call to repentance

A Promise of repentance

Let us next consider, the Call to Repentance.

We know about John’s birth.

Last week we saw just one incident that is recorded in the life of Jesus as a boy.

For John, we do not have anything about his childhood or even his early adult years.

But here we are plunged right into the thick of his ministry.

We see that the word of God came to John Luke3.2

This is very similar to what we learn about many of the Old Testament prophets, and indeed, we may technically say that John was an Old Testament prophet, although we learn about him in the gospels of the New Testament.

I say this because Jesus himself acknowledged John as a prophet of great significance.

No one born among women is greater than John, our Lord said.

He was the Elisha to come.

Jesus clearly considered John to be a prophet of note.

And why do I say he was an Old Testament prophet?

Because his ministry took place and was completed before the atonement of the New Covenant was complete.

John, then, we may say, was the last of the Old Testament prophets.

While Matthew and Mark note John’s clothing and diet, which also associate him with the Old Testament prophets, Luke instead jumps right to the ministry of John, and the message he preached.

He does, however, note that the word of God came to John in the wilderness.

This reminds us that very often, when God has significant dealings with his people, it happened in the wilderness.

His preaching ministry was not in a comfortable church with a pulpit and air conditioning, his platform was rocks and the crest of small hills most likely, and his place of ministry was broad “all the region around the Jordan”.

It seems he went to areas on both sides of the Jordan.

This is the same Jordan river that the Israelites crossed on the miraculous day, and so through this water were brought into the promised land, and now John was calling the people to a new sort of baptism, that in this same water they may find a new way to come into God’s promise.

Here in this region he proclaimed a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

For some, this may have seemed offensive.

Until this time, the only baptism was for new converts to Judaism.

It was one of the rites of passage for a Gentile to enter into the Jewish religion.

It symbolized the Gentile being unclean and in the need of cleansing in order to be accepted.

THey had to do three things.

They had to confess their alignment with the laws of Israel, they had to get circumcised, and they had to get baptized.

Now John has come and he is telling Jewish people that they need to be baptized, and in a sense this is scandalous to some of them.

The Jews saw baptism as fit only for Gentiles.

Yet many came to John to be baptized, and let us remember that this is a baptism of repentance!

Add one more repentance to the tally if you would please!

Repentance!

Repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

And so we see that for these people there was a call to repentance.

They were called to repentance by a prophet.

You see, scripture reminds us that God has spoken at various times in many ways, and through prophets being one of those ways, but now he speaks to us by His son, Jesus.

For these people, it was a prophet that spoke to them and called them to repentance, and this was to prepare for Jesus, but now we have even better than John the Baptist, better than Moses, better than Abraham, better than Melchizedek, we have our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and He has proclaimed his gospel to us.

No one is prepared to receive Jesus who has not repented.

It was true of those called buy John and true of us today.

John’s baptism looked forward, to what Christ would soon accomplish.

When Christians are baptized, we look backwards at what He has done for us.

If you are not right with God, that is, if your relationship with Him is impaired by sin, which is the case for all until they repent and believe in Jesus, then you must repent to receive Him.

It is that simple.

And yet, even for the one who has repented and turned to Christ, a lifelong repentance remains, so that we can be constantly coming back to Christ, and each time we repent of sin, we draw closer to Him, and each time we repent of sin, we commit to fight the sin better the next time we are tempted.

And so throughout our life, we grow to be more and more like Christ, since even though we have His righteousness imputed to us, so that without fear we can face our death and judgment, yet we want to live lives pleasing to Him, not living in presumption but living as though He truly is Lord and Savior, and to whom we owe all our allegiance and worship.

So the message of repentance may then be a beautiful message to everyone.

To the believer, we must repent.

Each day and each time we realize we have sinned.

To the one yet to repent and put your trust in Jesus, you must do so now!

Today is the day of salvation.

Repent, and times of refreshing will surely come to the one who repents.

Repent!