ARMS WIDE OPEN

Matthew 3:1–12 NIV

In those days, John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea and saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” This is he who was spoken of through the prophet Isaiah: “A voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.’ ” John’s clothes were made of camel’s hair, and he had a leather belt around his waist. His food was locusts and wild honey. People went out to him from Jerusalem and all Judea and the whole region of the Jordan. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River. But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to where he was baptizing, he said to them: “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not think you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire. “I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”

Introduction

Dietrich Bonhoeffer offers a profound, and almost unsettling perspective on waiting - that is, unsettling until we remember once again the amazing God we wait for.

His words come:

In late 1943, imprisoned by the Nazis for his resistance to Hitler.

Bonhoeffer wrote [of his experience] to a friend:

"Life in a prison cell reminds me a great deal of Advent - one waits, and hopes and potters about, but in the end what we do is of little consequence, for the door is shut and can only be opened from the outside."

That’s the concept of waiting, which we introduced last week as the overarching theme of Advent this year.

Last week, we discussed two Advents - the first, as people awaited the birth of baby Jesus, and the second, which we are currently in, as we await His return...both of which are beyond our control. We don’t have the keys. But we can trust in the one who does. (P)

And then we discussed, What do we do in the meantime? How do we wait in a way that glorifies God as we seek to use the time we have to grow in our own faith, and help others in theirs? (P)

Today, we ask a different question: how can we find the peace of God in the here and now? (P)

We continue to wait because we obviously have a purpose for still being here on this planet; we discussed that last week. Waiting isn’t always easy. Life throws us hardships, and we continue to make a mess of things - how can we find peace in the midst of all of that? (P)

We spend a lot of time in life trying to figure this peace thing out, and every Christmas it comes up as we try to approach it from a different angle. But in all of those attempts, how often is our explanation of peace rooted in circumstances?

Peace as the absence of war.

Peace as separation from violence.

Peace as a time of calm and prosperity.

Peace as an ability to accept he things we can’t change and trust God in the outcome - and that one is certainly closer.

But I love what Charles Stanley says about peace:

Peace does not come from circumstances, but from relationships.

Particularly, we realize that the only pure form of peace comes from our relationship with the Prince of Peace, Jesus Christ Himself, through whom we can find the open arms of God and draw near to Him. (P)

Do you remember what today’s Advent video said about that relationship we have with God, whereby we can find His open arms?

Those arms are open wide to those who:

Humble themselves.

Repent of their sin.

Seek the forgiveness of God. (P)

Today’s text in Matthew 3 brings us to the moment just before those Jews would meet the One who would make that forgiveness and internal change possible - the One they had been waiting centuries for.

Jesus was literally just steps away from showing Himself to His people for the first time. But what we see here in the first 12 verses of Matthew 3 is His forerunner, John the Baptist, preparing the people for the type of message and ministry Jesus would eventually offer.

And those who knew the prophecies of Jesus enough to be excited for His arrival were likely just as excited about John the Baptist, as the one who was about to announce Jesus, because John’s ministry is also well documented in prophecy: {CLICK}

Malachi 3:1 NIV

“I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come,” says the Lord Almighty.

{CLICK}

Isaiah 40:3 NIV

A voice of one calling: “In the wilderness prepare the way for the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God.”

You heard that one directly in verse 3 of today’s text.

One that is a little less known, and requires some explanation, but just as significant - the very last words of the Old Testament: {CLICK}

Malachi 4:5–6 NIV

“See, I will send the prophet Elijah to you before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes. {CLICK} He will turn the hearts of the parents to their children, and the hearts of the children to their parents; or else I will come and strike the land with total destruction.”

Did you know John the Baptist was considered the New Testament Elijah?

It’s uncanny enough that their dress and speech were almost identical. Look at Matthew 3:4, where it describes John's clothes made of camel hair and a leather belt, while I read from 2 Kings 1:8: {CLICK}

2 Kings 1:8 NIV

They replied, “He had a garment of hair and had a leather belt around his waist.” The king said, “That was Elijah the Tishbite.”

Now listen to what Jesus says in Matthew 11 when talking about John the Baptist:

Matthew 11:14 NIV

And if you are willing to accept it, he is the Elijah who was to come.

(P)

Those who had been taking comfort in the prophecies of this Savior who would bail them out of spiritual turmoil would likely have heard of the one who would precede Him and prepare people for Him and introduce Him, and now here’s John the Baptist fulfilling all of those prophecies. (P)

And while we end at verse 12 in today’s text, what you see if you read just one verse further is the arrival of Jesus, and His baptism, and so would begin His ministry. (P)

But John’s message of introduction to Jesus would be significant, because it would contain the same key elements that you saw in that video we just discussed. John’s ministry was about introducing people to Jesus, the one and only way to the Father, the means by which we could have a relationship with Him, which is how peace is achieved.

And John, just like the video, would say that the key to that relationship, the way to get it started - the way to be greeted by the wide open arms of God - is simply found in these three familiar steps. {CLICK}

1. The Humbling of Self

Humility brings us to two simple realizations, and ultimately, conclusions.

It’s not about me.

I can’t do it alone.

Tim Hansel shares Wakefield’s story of the famous inventor Samuel Morse, who was once asked if he ever encountered situations where he didn't know what to do. Morse responded, "More than once, and whenever I could not see my way clearly, I knelt down and prayed to God for light and understanding."

Morse received many honors from his invention of the telegraph, but felt undeserving: "I have made a valuable application of electricity not because I was superior to other men but solely because God, who meant it for mankind, must reveal it to someone and He was pleased to reveal it to me." (P)

400 years of silence.

I don’t know if you caught it or not when I said it, but when I referred to the Malachi 4 passage earlier, I read to you the final words of the Old Testament.

And while not all the prophets are necessarily written in chronological order, because the work of many of them ran together, scholars believe that these words were about as late as the writings went.

Then nothing - for centuries!

Even when Jesus' birth occurred some three decades before the ministry we see John the Baptist doing in today’s text, many hadn’t heard about it yet - unless they were in Bethlehem and happened to catch the news, or were in the small circle of folks who were in the know.

And that was Jesus’ desire - remember He wanted to keep things subtle at first, even after He got started with His work. (P)

So for the bulk of the people coming down to the river to hear John, silence was still what they had experienced up to that very day, when John, the prophecized forerunner of Jesus, began cracking open the door to what was happening.

And two types of people came into that space that day:

A handful of the prideful Pharisees, who thought they had achieved Heaven’s favor by their association with Abraham.

And the bulk of the people who realized, whether they carried the actual word humility with them in their thinking that day, that it wasn’t about them, and they couldn’t do life alone. They couldn’t get themselves out of the slump that sin had put them in by themselves. (P)

Verse 5 of our text says they came willingly and readily. {CLICK}

Matthew 3:5–6 NIV

People went out to him from Jerusalem and all Judea and the whole region of the Jordan. {CLICK} Confessing their sins, they were baptized by John in the Jordan River.

And the only shame in them was that which sin carried, but even that was only temporary, because it was about to be taken care of. The overwhelming feeling was joy because they knew what this Savior would accomplish - not ridicule, not condemnation, not shame, but compassion and wide open arms.

All John was asking, and all Jesus would ever ask - and still only asks of us - is that:

We humble ourselves before Him, because we need Him, and

We undergo the second step of reaching His open arms: {CLICK}

2. The Repenting of Sins

The Greek word for repentance literally means to change one’s mind.

Repentance goes right on the heels of humility. Humility is the mindset that it’s not about me, and I can’t do it alone, and repentance is saying, This is my new mindset because up until now, I have been living exactly the opposite way, making it about me, and I need to turn it around. (P)

I love how Brian Weatherdon describes it using a Canadian town.

He says:

Wabush, a town in a remote portion of Labrador, Canada, was completely isolated for some time. But recently, a road was cut through the wilderness to reach it. Wabush now has one road leading into it, and thus, only one road leading out. If someone would travel the unpaved road for six to eight hours to get into Wabush, there is only one way he or she could leave---by turning around.

He then goes on to say:

Each of us, by birth, arrives in a town called Sin. As in Wabush, there is only one way out--a road built by God himself. But to take that road, one must first turn around. That complete about-face is what the Bible calls repentance, and without it, there's no way out of town. (P)

I mentioned that Jesus doesn’t shame sinners for their sins, and that’s true. The shame, the anger, and the frustration come when sinners don’t think that they are sinning, or they consider their sin no big deal.

John wasn’t hard on the Pharisees because they were sinners. He called them broods of vipers because, like a stealthy, dangerous snake, as leaders, the Pharisees should have been the first to repent:

Because they were to set the example, and:

If they didn’t change their minds, which is the literal definition of repenting, if they didn’t change their way of thinking about sin and their need to turn from it and their need to take it to the only one who could eliminate it, the Messiah, who was just moments from making his public debut, then they would end up misleading a whole group of people - God’s people - who were counting on them to show them the right way.

And as you know, when God’s people are misled, God doesn’t take too kindly to that. (P)

And so John would not be the only one to call the Pharisees such a strong name - you hear it from the lips of Jesus Himself in Matthew 12: {CLICK}

Matthew 12:34 NIV

You brood of vipers, how can you who are evil say anything good? For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.

What the Pharisees said was always in the public ear, and it carried weight because of their position.

And one of the things the Pharisees believed was that God’s good graces came upon them because of their association with Abraham, from centuries and centuries ago. {CLICK}

John 8:33 NIV

They answered him, “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free?”

They wouldn’t believe it when Jesus kept trying to say that the only way to God the Father was not through Abraham, but John 14:6: {CLICK}

John 14:6 NIV

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

(P)

The Pharisees, without a change of mind - repentance - were in a dangerous position of leading others right out of salvation if those people would choose to believe the religious leaders over Jesus, which we see at His crucifixion, is exactly what happened to many of them. (P)

In contrast, the people who came to John for a change of life knew the prophecies, and they knew they needed a new life, and they wanted to get away from the old one, and they realized they couldn’t do it themselves. They chose to trust God in what He did through the prophets and what HE was about to do through Jesus, so they came to John to repent and then be baptized as an outward demonstration of the cleansing that was happening inside.

Verse 11 of our text: {CLICK}

Matthew 3:11 NIV

I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.

It was a cleansing so freely given because God does not shame the sinner who humbles themselves and repents, but opens His arms to them, and allows them the opportunity for step number 3: {CLICK}

3. The Receiving of Forgiveness

The beauty of forgiveness is in realizing that the popular phrase, Forgive and Forget, is inaccurate - or at least - it doesn’t go near deep enough. (P)

I forget things. It disgusts me how often I can be forgetful, but it happens. But there aren’t too many things I have forgotten that I don’t, at some point, remember later. (P)

That’s not how God’s retention of our sin works. How it works is found in Hebrews 8:12: {CLICK}

Hebrews 8:12 NIV

For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.”

It’s a purposeful and permanent forgetfulness.

The Psalmist says: {CLICK}

Psalm 103:12 NIV

As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.

{CLICK}

And that promise is available to anyone who wants it - anyone who longs for it, realizing they need it, that they can’t fix their mess on their own, and they no longer want to live in a way that disappoints God.

All we do is recognize those shortcomings, and then humbly come and repent and joyfully accept the loving forgiveness of God, made possible by this Child we celebrate at Christmas time. (P)

I love the story that is found in a 1992 issue of Bits and Pieces magazine.

It’s a Spanish story of a father and son who had become estranged. The son ran away, and the father set off to find him. He searched for months to no avail.

Finally, in a last desperate effort to find him, the father put an ad in a Madrid newspaper. The ad read: Dear Paco, meet me in front of this newspaper office at noon on Saturday. All is forgiven. I love you. Your Father.

On Saturday, 800 Pacos showed up, looking for forgiveness and love from their fathers.

Are you a Paco who knows you need that and who wants it?

If so, it’s yours - that simple. The open arms of God are facing you - all you have to do is jump in. (P)

Conclusion

It gives new meaning to the prayer Jesus would teach his followers not all that long after this event in Matthew 3.

One of the keys to everything we do is learning to pray first - I’ve said that enough, you probably hear it in your sleep. And there are a lot of ways to pray, but in Matthew 6, you remember that Jesus gave us a model prayer, called the Lord’s Prayer.

It’s a model prayer, not because it was meant to be the only prayer we offer to God, but because each of those sentences is a category of something we are to be praying for:

Our needs

Our forgiveness

The forgiveness of others

There’s a component of praise, adoration, and thanksgiving that we are to give to God.

We mustn’t forget to pray for His will to be done.

We can word any of these categories however we feel led to, as long as we are sincere, but that gives us a guide when we pray about things, or topics, we should try to include. (P)

But there is a piece in that prayer that is often overlooked - at least its importance is. We still say it, but we often don’t reflect on what we are truly asking for when we say it.

It’s the part that goes: {CLICK}

Matthew 6:10 NIV

Your kingdom come, your will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven.

(P) Your Kingdom come, God.

What are we asking for? (P)

Sure, there’s an element, as we touched upon last week, where we are in this second period of Advent, waiting for the return of Christ, and all old things to pass away, and are eager for the day when we, as believers in Christ, are forever with God in His Kingdom. It’s certainly coming in that sense.

But what about the time in between - that time of waiting. What can we do about the approach of His Kingdom now? (P)

Theologically, there can be a lot to this answer.

It’s coming gradually.

Part of the baptism of the Holy Spirit John the Baptist talks about is when the Holy Spirit comes upon the believer, equipping that person with the gift and skills so he or she can do whatever it is that person is called to do. We all have that gifting, and we all have that responsibility, and we’ll talk about that more after the first of the year.

We want that Kingdom and the influence of that Kingdom to be broadened and expanded throughout the world, by the way we take Christ to others.

And if we want to get deep, we can keep going with the implications of that. (P)

But there is a place where this all starts - and this place, I argue anyway - just Pastor Eric's opinion here - I believe is the most important part of this component of the coming of God’s Kingdom.

And that place is in the open arms of God, the most peaceful place, the place where we basically say yes to Him, and a place so powerful and joyful that we shouldn’t be able to help but tell others all about it.

But it starts with us. It starts with us humbly wanting to reach out and let Him be the Lord of our lives. Letting His Kingdom come into our lives. I know that’s what He wants.

That’s why He sent Christ.

That’s why He designed forgiveness the way He did - permanent separation from sin.

It is a freedom we can’t find anywhere else or get from anything else.

He has offered the opportunity to increase the chasm, or gap, between us and sin. And the greater that chasm is, the smaller the one between God and us gets, until it finally disappears when we crawl into His lap. (P)

Consider this poem from Charles Wesley as you depart today:

I rest beneath the Almighty's shade,

My griefs expire, my troubles cease;

Thou, Lord, on whom my soul is stayed,

Wilt keep me still in perfect peace.

Is that where you find yourself this Christmas?

If not, the only one stopping that from happening is you. That’s where this theme of waiting takes a different turn. We might be waiting for the big prize in Heaven, but God Himself is available to you right now, with open arms. He’s the one waiting for you now - all you have to do is climb in.

If you need help making that decision, or you are ready to, come forward or to the prayer room so we can help you close that gap once and for all.