How Close Do We Want The Kingdom?

The Call to Move

Once upon a time, in a world much like ours, there existed a beautiful land teeming with life and harmony. People lived in peace, their hearts filled with kindness, and their actions guided by virtue. But lurking in the shadows, there was a force, a poison spreading insidiously, waiting to taint the purity of their existence.

In this allegorical tale, let us liken this poison to COVID-19, a microscopic menace that swiftly swept across the globe, leaving devastation in its wake. At first, it seemed distant, a problem for others to deal with, but soon it crept closer, infecting communities and nations with alarming speed. Much like sin, it took hold silently, often unnoticed until its effects became too severe to ignore.

In this world, sin was not a tangible virus, but rather a spiritual virus, an affliction that poisoned the soul. It began with small transgressions, a lie here, a theft there, spreading like a contagion through the hearts and minds of humanity. Just as COVID-19 exploited vulnerabilities in the human body, sin exploited weaknesses in the human spirit, feeding off fear, greed, and pride.

As the poison of sin spread, so did its consequences. Relationships fractured under the weight of deceit and betrayal. Communities descended into chaos as selfishness and envy tore them apart. And like the waves of a pandemic, the effects of sin reached far and wide, leaving no corner of the world untouched.

But just as there were measures taken to combat COVID-19, there were those who sought to counter the spread of sin. They preached love and compassion, offering forgiveness to those who had strayed. They built bridges where others had burned them, fostering unity in place of division. And though the battle against sin was ongoing, there was hope in the resilience of the human spirit.

In the end, the story of sin's spread serves as a cautionary tale, a reminder of the dangers of complacency and indifference. Much like COVID-19, sin thrives in conditions of ignorance and apathy, but it can be overcome through vigilance and virtue. And though the scars it leaves may linger, there is always the promise of redemption for those who seek it.

Vipers! That’s what he called them. John was honest, he didn’t hold back and he spoke the truth no matter what it cost him and it would cost him in time, his head. He called them vipers the authorities that could do anything they wanted with you, he was angry as he asked them wanting to know who warned them to come to him. John describing the sinful world in which we live and our participation in that sin is so fitting because this is how sin attacks us, we may not see it at first, may walk all around it and then we get just a little too close and it bites us.

How many times have you felt something change either in you or in the world that required something from you? I don’t mean a momentary change or a slight change but a major shift that was so felt in your being that you knew that nothing after that moment would remain the same, maybe it was a call to action that required something of you in a personal way.

I think about another call that happened one day, another war starting and it caused one person to action. I’m not really sure what exactly happened in his life but something did and it required something of him and he knew that He was going to leave home, tell his parents goodbye and answer the call and go. Maybe it was the local leaders that had been extorting the people, and oppressing them, controlling them, because if you didn’t obey, they would arrest you, maybe even take your life if you didn’t do their bidding. We’re not sure, there are several possibilities but regardless, we know that something happened.

But one day he was working there in the shop, paused and took his tools he had been working with and just laid them on the table, reached down and grabbed the strings of his apron, untied it and slipped it off, around his head for the last time and laid it on the last piece he was working on, maybe running his hands over the raw unfinished piece of wood he was working on thinking about another project that lay ahead for him, he knocked the dust from his clothes and hair and walked out of his carpentry shop for the last time. Maybe the cries of a hurting people were getting louder, we do know the Roman’s in and around Nazareth were exerting more and more control but whatever the reason, Jesus knew that his days of a carpenter were finished, something stirred in him and now it was time, maybe one of the reasons was a cousin of his that was stirring up trouble that he was going to have to walk right into, John is walking out of the wilderness and Jesus was going to walk into it. Now all the feelings and experiences he has had since he was a child have now become clear and it was time to leave.

It’s hard to get to the story of Christ without going through John the Baptist. To say that he was a little different would be an understatement, he looked different, spoke differently than anyone that had come before, other than Elijah but he was unlike him too in some ways. John had a calling on his life that moved him to many places and now he finds himself in the very heated Jordan valley, he had been preaching a baptism of repentance and warning people that the kingdom of God was near, it was at hand and he tried to bring people into a place where they knew they had to turn from the way they were going and turn toward God. The people had strayed from God on a grand scale, worshipping who and what they wanted, many not wanting anything to do with God and others that tried to hold the people to the letter of the law of Moses while not being obedient themselves and God was silent, watching and waiting.

We pick up in the story here in Matthew chapter 3 John’s call, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!” Some people thought that he was just a fool, that didn’t know what he was talking about and they would just look right past him. He reminded many of the prophet Elijah by the way he dressed and the food he ate because he was fulfilling the prophet Isaiah,

“The voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the LORD; Make His paths straight.’ ”

The people had rebelled against God, and so have we, treating him more like a genie that is there to grant our wishes and we continue to live the life we want and not have to answer to anyone, but God, in his infinite love sent John to tell the people and offer a word of warning that He’s coming. John the Baptist was the first prophet in 400 years and many were coming to hear him, many people were noticing, many who had been waiting on God for so long, the people that were looking to make that change in their life and turn toward God, receive the baptism of repentance and live a changed life and his disciples were included in this number but it was the other groups that brings us here.

The Pharisees and Sadducees where the ruling parties of the time, the Sadducees followed the law of Moses literally, to the letter but didn’t believe in a future life nor the Spirit. The Pharisees obeyed to the letter and also the unwritten tradition and originally they were about genuine reform but over time, as less spiritual successors took over, their system became a shell of what it had been and really just became a formal observance of the law. Neither group stood for God and they made a mockery of Him. The world slowly started this turn away from God and more onto themselves to lead the people and the people feared them and now we have John pushing back.

Imagine if you will listening to John preach, listen to what he tells them when they approach, it sounds like he’s angry with them, saying to them, “Brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?”(Mt 3:7.) He taunted them, telling them not to depend on the fact that being descendants of Abraham will save them. The Kingdom is near, the ax is at the root ready to kill the tree that bears bad fruit. The ax was now at their neck.

The Kingdom is near, right now. How many people still see God as some far away future that doesn’t have to be dealt with, at least for now.

John preached about turning from the world and turning to God before the ax cuts through the root to kill the tree so we have to ask ourselves, what kind of fruit do we produce and a larger question that has to be asked,

How close do we want the kingdom to us?

The judge is coming and he’s serving subpoenas to the people to answer for what they’ve turned the world into and John is warning them. We often say that Christ is the candle, the light in the sanctuary and if so then John is a prairie fire sweeping through the Jordan valley. His preaching would almost be too much to hear, his words didn’t just hurt ears but hearts, he didn’t care who you were or what status you had, before God you’re all the same and he is carrying this message every place he went.

Do you hear what John is saying today? Where is your fruit? He called them vipers because their beliefs were a poison to the world and they were infecting every person they could. The world wants to turn you, sin wants to creep into your soul and turn you into a poison to bear bad fruit, our worship redirected to anything that isn’t God, money, status, pride, we worship ourselves because we believe we’re that special and before you know it we become something that looks like a christian, we become the Pharisees of our time and trust, they’re walking around us.

We may have all of the right “Jesus” talk, we talk like, walk like a christian, we may even have the right sets of friends, the good set that makes us “look” good and the set that makes us “feel good.” We hang around the good just enough so people can see us so we can feel good about ourselves and we present the right image to the right people but we fall back on the other that makes us feel good so we can continue to engage that sinful nature and enjoy the world instead of enjoying God. I mean you go ahead and do that, why maybe even your parents were “good christian people”, but that doesn’t get you into heaven and we know that because this is what John told them here when he tells them it doesn’t matter that your father was Abraham, God can create children of Abraham from these dirty old rocks you kick along the ground not realizing that sin that has gripped you is doing the same to you and just kicking through life and making you enjoy it and ask for more.

None of these things get you into heaven. We often think of heaven as having some type of border, a high wall that you can’t climb over or crawl under, the border of a country and that border is guarded by the angels of God, that isn’t it, it is not like that. Please understand that the border of heaven that we have to cross isn’t a wall, it’s a relationship. To be in heaven is to be in the right relationship with God, a God that we can experience here and rewarded with a greater relationship when we leave this life.

Are you listening to John?

We talk about heaven being so far away. It is within speaking distance to those who belong there…. Heaven is a prepared place for a prepared people.

Dwight L. Moody

When you think of the worlds greatest preachers to ever live, John must be on that list, even Jesus said so when he said,

The New King James Version (Chapter 11)

“Assuredly, I say to you, among those born of women there has not risen one greater than John the Baptist;”

Jesus didn’t even start his ministry, preaching until after John was arrested. John came to preach the coming of the Messiah, comes out of the wilderness to the Jordan, baptizes Jesus and Jesus goes into the wilderness.

John was preaching a new birth, not of water but of the Holy Spirit that comes from Christ. Are you listening to John? He’s talking to you, to us, do we hear him?

There are no crown wearers in heaven, who were not cross bearers on earth.

Charles Spurgeon

Listen to John, hear his word in you spirit, apply what he is teaching but also listen to the hope and grace in the text when Jesus says,

The New King James Version (Chapter 11)

“but he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.”

This is the promise that we have when we turn to the kingdom of God, when we want that kingdom to come near to us and we enter in that relationship with Christ. Hear what John is saying, let it move you closer to Christ and ever closer to the Kingdom.