Sermon Tone Analysis

The Right Response

Concentrating on Luke 3:10-14

Subtitle: The Reality of Repentance

Big Idea: Sincere repenters seek ways to live anew

When repentance is preached,

There are spontaneous responses

Egotistic people become benevolent

Malcontents find fulfillment

Last week:

Big Idea: True salvation must include repentance.

True Repentance always bears fruit.

Vipers flee the fire

God’s Children bear His fruit

Dead trees are fuel for the fire

Subtitle: The Reality of Repentance

Big Idea: Sincere repenters seek ways to live anew

When repentance is preached,

There are spontaneous responses

Egotistic people become benevolent

Malcontents find fulfillment

The Spontaneous Response:

In several places in Lukes writing, we find the same or similar questions.

These questions came to Jesus:

You see that the response to preaching the word of God, when the Holy Spirit is working in the hearts of those listening, is that those people whom God is drawing to Jesus through the message will be concerned, or even alarmed, or at the very least have a great desire to do something good and right.

All of these responses come when the Holy Spirit is doing a regenerative work in the heart of the hearer.

I pray each week that whatever message I preach may work in the hearts of the hearers.

For what its worth, I spend much time in God’s word, concerning myself about how to preach each passage, and indeed it can be a great burden, for even when the study is complete, then I still must grapple with how to preach it.

How will I make this message clear?

What are the points of this message that those listening to me need?

Will the entire congregation be able to get something useful from it?

So each week, as I joked to Jenelle a couple days ago, another Sunday is coming, and what will I preach?

No matter what a bang-up job I may think I did in preparing, and in study, and in prayer, and in putting together the message, unless the Holy Spirit do the work of drawing people to Jesus, and causing them to believe the truth of scripture, it is all for nothing.

I am but a man, who can make mistakes, to which my family and anyone who know me will certainly confirm for you if you like.

Not one word of what I preach will have any effect of all… But God.

But God who works through this thing that has been called the folly of preaching, and make stone hearts into hearts of flesh, and bring those dead in their sin to life in Christ.

He does the entire work.

He gets the glory.

And oh, how glad you should be that you need not depend on me!

I will certainly let you down if you stick around long enough.

But our good God will never let you down!

So when we see the response to the preaching, when God does that beautiful work we call regeneration, whereby he brings a person dead in their sins to be able to receive the gospel and respond in faith, that He is truly an amazing God, who takes what may seem foolish to the world and uses it to make men and women and children wise unto salvation.

And so the response came to the preaching of Jesus, “What shall I do?

How can I receive this eternal life?” and they said to John the Baptist as well, what then shall we do?

And in response to the miracles on the day of Pentecost, when Peter gave his sermon, the people there, as Luke records, cried out a question in the same manner.

Acts2.37

What sweet words to the preachers ear!

What praise and joy Peter must have felt, the same joy that John must have felt, and Jesus himself, when, hearing the preaching of the good news of Christ, people respond like this: What should I do?

Preacher, what should I do with this message?

Oh, that the Holy Spirit would cut us to our hearts, that when we hear the preaching of God’s Word, we would respond like this.

What shall we do?

And this is the response of the Philippian Jailor, who was about to commit suicide after Paul and Silas had their midnight hymn sing and the earthquake shook the prison, and he feared the prisoners had fled, and Paul cried out to him, Do not harm yourself, for we are all here.

And so Paul must have thought, in this case, I have not even yet preached, and here is a response!

How powerful the Holy Spirit was working in the heart of the jailor that evening, that he cried out asking what he must do! Paul and Silas most certainly would not shirk their gospel duty, and saw a responsive person, so they give a very simple answer, to which all who come to Christ at some point marvel, because it seems much too simple a thing to do to be saved.

Believe?

Is that all I have to do? Yes, and yet, this is no easy thing, for it requires one to become humble, and many are incapable of the humility it takes to cry out to God.

So many today, instead of replying as Paul and Silas, would have said to the Jailor, “DO you accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior?”

You don’t find this language anywhere in scripture, by the way.

You aren’t ever asked to accept Jesus.

You are commanded to believe.

In fact, it is the other way around.

Rather than you saying you will accept Christ, you ought to fall on your knees and beg Him to accept you!

He isn’t some candidate for political office who needs your support.

He isn’t some product at a trade show, that after hearing the sales presentation, you should be asked why you won’t accept him.

No, when the gospel is preached, and the Holy Spirit is active in drawing people to Jesus, then they will not need to be gently asked to accept him, they will rightly seek to find out what it is they must do.

And so we see in nearly every description of a conversion in the New Testament.

No altar calls are recorded.

The message was preached.

Some mocked.

Some got so mad they wanted to kill the preacher.

And some believed, and those who believed were cut to the heart and instantly humbled to the point where they must only ask, “What now should I do?”

My last example from Luke’s writings is Paul himself.

After persecuting the church, and hating Jesus, and suddenly and miraculously Jesus himself spoke to him, and he asked, “Who are you, Lord”, Jesus answered “I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you are persecuting.”

And what was Paul’s response?

Did he say, “but wait, Jesus, you have not yet asked if I would accept you.”

No, his response was like those who heard John the Baptist preach, like those who heard Jesus preach, like the Philippian jailor:

Paul’s response when he encountered the living Christ was to ask that same question.

It is a question of curiosity, what the person indicates they need some information.

It is a question of humility, that says, I recognize my need.

It is a question of fervor, where the one asking this question has a burning sense of their desperate state as a sinner before a Holy God.

What Shall I do?

So the people are coming out to John, and they are seeking to receive his baptism of repentance.

They hear his chastisement, when he calls them a brood of vipers.

They hear his warning about the wrath to come.

They hear that they must not depend on being children of Abraham.

They hear him and his urgency, that the axe is laid to the root of the trees, that trees without good fruit are going to be cut down and thrown into the fire, and so they ask, “What then shall we do?”

And John gives them some practical ways to live out now the repentance that was initiated in his baptism.

We see that three main groupings are addressed.

First, the crowds.

In other words, verse 11 can be applied to all those who are seeking true repentance.

Then he specifically addresses tax collectors, and then Soldiers.

Luke3.11

Here what John is teaching should be no surprise to anyone who is part of Israel.

After all, if Israel was the original D6 class, and had known very well that each generation had an obligation to teach and learn God’s law, to have it on their hearts, to speak of it all the time, then it should have been a completely boring and repetitive idea for John to speak of sharing.

I mean, isn’t this basic stuff we deal with our own children with all the time?

There are only two hotdog buns left.

Can you share with your sister?

And yet, this is presented by Luke as something quite profound, as though this very basic teaching from the Old Testament was being rightly applied, at least for some of these people, for the first time.

It sure wasn’t new.

One of the virtues of Job was his delight in helping those in need:

Isaiah said this is the fast God chooses, or delights in: Isai58.6-7