The Ministry of John the Baptist

a. John’s preaching (3:1-3)

b. John’s practice (3:4-6)

Matthew 3:1-6

1. INTRODUCTION

2. BODY

a. John’s preaching (3:1-3)

i. Matthew 3 starts with an interesting phrase. Matthew writes the same as Mark in 1:9 where they both speak about those days. This phrase helps us understand what verse 3 is speaking of. This is important because as we saw from the birth of Christ to chapter 3, many days have gone by. But what are the Jews waiting for? I mean Judaism is a religion based off of this. They are still waiting for the Messiah. So for the Bible to write, now in those days, it is speaking about a particular day.

ii. This is significant because it helps us to understand that these days were special. We see immediately John the Baptist come unto the scene. It says John the Baptist came, just as what? Chapter 2:1-2 the arrival of Jesus the King and the arrival of the wise men. We saw the significance of Jesus’s coming and now we see the importance of John’s coming.

iii. So we know that John the Baptist was born earlier, earlier than Jesus according to Luke 1. Interesting that John the Baptist was also conceived during the time of Herod, King of Judea (Luke 1:5). Interesting note to take into account that based off of 1:24-26 John the Baptist is roughly 6 months older than Jesus.

iv. But when we think about the significance of John the Baptist, the first thing is that he came, he grew older and started to preach in the wilderness of Judea. This is significant because it’s pointing back to those days. Those days were days that were preparatory for the coming of the Messiah. Remember, the Jews were waiting for the Messiah, and although He had come as we saw in the first 2 chapters, He was not an adult yet. His ministries did not start yet. So as John comes, John is the forerunner to Jesus. He was the messenger sent to prepare Israel for their encounter with the Messiah. But His job wasn’t just that. As we see, His job was to preach and prepare Israel for the day of the Lord. John the Baptist was a prophet preparing Israel for God and calling them to repentance as we see in the minor prophets which is why in verse 2, we see John’s message.

v. But who is John the Baptist? What is the significance of John the Baptist? The first significance about John is his subordination and loyalty to the Messiah. We have to take into factor that John was older than Christ, but is preaching the Christ. We see this clearly in 3:11-12. He knows that his cousin is the Messiah and is humbly preaching a message stating that the Kingdom, the Christ was here. This must have been hard to understand. I think as humans we fail to understand how jealousy works. It must not have been easy to grow up with the Messiah and see how probably everyone knew that Jesus was the chosen one and being compared to him. I remember growing up with my cousins and everyone would ask me, how come you aren’t more like your cousins? My cousins were both very smart and did well academically. So when I didn’t do as well, or when I wasn’t like them, people in our church or family friends would ask me those questions. I could imagine that it was hard for John and also Jesus’s brothers and sisters, but we see John’s faithfulness.

vi. With that in mind, we also must see the high degree of parallelism between John and Jesus. The two men say similar things (cf. 3:2 with 4:17, 3:7 with 12:34 and 23:33, and 3:10 with 7:19). Both are introduced in similar fashion (cf. 3:1 with 3:13). Both are opposed by the Pharisees and Sadducees (cf. 3:7–10 with 12:34 and 23:33). Both appeal to the same generation to repent (11:16–19). Both act by the same authority, the authority of heaven (21:23–32). Both are taken by the people to be prophets (11:9; 14:5; 21:11, 26, 46). Both are rejected and executed as criminals (14:1–12; 26–27). And both are buried by their own disciples (14:12; 27:57–61).

vii. It’s important to note that this message that John preaches is different than Mark 1:4 and Luke 3:3. In the other texts, it speaks of the forgiveness of sins but Matthew omits it. I will speak about that later, so let’s keep going.

viii. What is his message? Repent for the kingdom of Heaven is at hand. It’s a beautiful phrase. We want to acknowledge a couple of points. First, there is no mention of the Gospel. John the Baptist is simply calling people to repentance because the kingdom of Heaven is at hand. John knows that the Kingdom has come, so his job is to come before and prepare the people for the Kingdom that has come. We want to realize that John wasn’t preaching Christ yet. He was not preaching for people to repent their sins and turn to Christ for salvation. This was not the message. Well not yet for that matter. Jesus will come later in 4:17 and do that. John’s message was simply realize your sin and repent of them because the Kingdom of Heaven had come.

ix. This is missing in so much of our preaching today. It’s missing in many of my preaching as well. The reality is, calling people to repentance is hard because people don’t want to be told that they are sinners. And when we do call people to repent, we try to be nice to them, try to almost call people to repentance nicely. But from my experience, a true call to repentance is like breaking up with your boyfriend and girlfriend. There’s no easy way to say it.

x. So when we see John’s message of repent, John is helping people acknowledge the first starting point of the Gospel. The Gospel works in tandem with a realization of sin in our lives. We must first acknowledge we are sinners and in need of a savior. This is why John was preaching repentance.

xi. Verse 3 tells us that John coming as the forerunner was an Old Testament prophecy that was fulfilled by John. So why is this Old Testament reference important? There is a significance to Matthew and Isaiah. Throughout Matthew Isaiah’s name (Mt: 6–7; Mk: 2; Lk: 2) is associated on the one hand with Jesus’ ministry to a blind Israel that rejects him and, on the other hand, with the salvation held out to the Gentiles (8:17; 13:14(?), 35(?); 15:7; and 4:14 and 12:17 respectively.

xii. But specifically, here, contextually in Isaiah 39, we see Isaiah telling Hezekiah that Israel will be exiled to Babylon. And although Israel was exiled, this prophecy was telling Israel that God would come to them in their distress. We see this in Isaiah 40:11. God would come and carry them in His bosom and gently lead them. So when we think of what is being fulfilled by John the Baptist’s coming, The voice crying here is not the Lord of an angel, but John the Baptist. The Lord is not Yahweh but Jesus. The exile is not in view, but the time of the Messiah.

xiii. So we see clearly that John was calling people to repentance so that they would be ready for the coming one. This in one statement helps us to understand the role of preachers. Preachers have the task of calling people and their sins to turn to Christ. But before they call people to turn to Christ, they must call them to repentance. They must first realize their need for Christ. Without that need, people will not repent.

b. John’s practice (3:4-6)

i. Verse 4 tells us his external appearance. It is important the description here. The fact that John wore a garment of camel’s hair and a leather belt is similar to that of Elijah. According to 2 Kings 1:8, that was a similar description of Elijah. Elijah also was hairy and wore a leather belt. This appearance was not to say that John the Baptist was Elijah, but just as Elijah was a prophet, John the Baptist also was a prophet.

ii. The description of his diet tells us that John was poor. Just as a Nazarite, he was wholly dedicated to God so he didn’t involve himself with the things of the world. It’s interesting that this is the origin of Christian monasticism where men and women would devote themselves to God and abstain from the things of the world.

iii. It’s interesting that this seems like the devout thing to do. But the problem is, it is not promoted in the Bible. Jesus doesn’t tell us to run away from the world and devout ourselves to Him. No, rather the calling is to follow Jesus whatever walk of life we are in. One of the other problems this creates is that it creates religious vocations and secular vocations. Well you might say being a monk is no different than being a pastor. If we look at this purely from a secular view, it does look the same. But what is the difference between a monk and a pastor? The problem with monasticism is that these super Christians, these men and women who feel like they are called to the ministry now have a special vocation where they can obtain perfection. Monasticism doesn’t define godliness but through a profession, it’s almost considered more godly than everyone else.

iv. Well you can say that is the same as a pastor. The difference is, the pastor isn’t more godly because of his profession. Pastors are not more godly because they are called to the pastorate. Let me give an example. When I was a hospice chaplain, there is a difference in the way people view a pastor and a priest. People will respect pastors but they give special treatments to priests because they are more godly than Christian pastors. Why? Because of this very truth. They are more godly because they’ve given up the things of this world for God. Their profession makes them more godly than others. Christian monasticism is a form of asceticism that can be good but should never be looked upon as godly.

v. So when we look at John, the fact that he appeared like Elijah draws the link back to the fact that indeed, he was a prophet, but it didn’t mean that he was more godly than anyone else. It was merely a man who devoted himself to God, to the point that he wanted to be set apart for the ministry.

vi. Verse 5 tells us that he was such a good preacher that thousands of people heard his preaching so much that all of the people of Judea were going out to see him. Many people heard his preaching and as verse 6 tells us, went out to him to be baptized by him and they were confessing their sins.

vii. We have to take note here that baptism here and confession of sins are significant here. I stated prior Mark 1:4 and Luke 3:3 tell us that they were being baptized for the forgiveness of their sins. What is the difference between Matthew, Mark and Luke? There is difficulty because 2 Gospel accounts wrote forgiveness of sins while Matthew didn’t. What could be the reason? The answer lies in the fact that he was preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. He was teaching that they must acknowledge their sins and repent of that to be forgiven. But again, because he was just the forerunner, He was not able to forgive those sins.

viii. What’s important to note here is that, people here were not being saved. Remember, John the Baptist is not the savior. He is the forerunner. He was preparing the way for the Messiah. Because he was not the Messiah, He was not able to save, which is why it makes sense that he says what he says in 3:11-12. He can tell us that we need to repent there there is coming one who can actually take your repentance and forgive you.

ix. What I learned from this message is that, we must be continually preaching forgiveness of sins. But not only that, our message must be so convincing that we can convince people of their sin and tell them that their only hope is in the Messiah. It is in Jesus Christ. This is why it’s important for us to understand that knowing our sin doesn’t save us. Our salvation doesn’t come from our acknowledgement of our sin. John the Baptist was making it clear for us. Rather, it is the Messiah’s ability to forgive our sin. People think logically like knowing the problem. We say things like “Inorder to fix the problem, we have to know the problem.” So they think that if we know our sin, we can fix it. But what this passage is telling us is, simply knowing our sin, is not the answer. It is to trust Jesus with our sin. We must confess our sin and trust Jesus as Savior to cleanse our sin.

3. CONCLUSION