The Kingdom of Heaven Is Near

Introduction

The vast, foreboding wilderness seems an odd place for a new beginning. We don’t always think of vast, foreboding, deserty areas as being a place for new things to begin or grow—yet that is what we see here in the text.

In the midst of the wilderness, something new is happening. We’ve seen it throughout the story of Scripture: Moses receiving a call from God in the wilderness; the people of God being delivered from Pharaoh’s hand and continually being provided for in the wilderness; the forty days of Jesus in the wilderness (though that story happens after today’s). Throughout the breadth of Scripture God’s hand and provision have been present even in the harshest places, the most barren lands.

In church history, we see mothers and fathers who intentionally travel to places of wilderness to deepen their faith with God; mystics who meditate, pray, and write, who call the church to be who we are supposed to be. While most of us spend time avoiding wilderness places and spaces in our hearts and lives, it appears that, while seemingly barren, these are the very grounds on which God chooses to birth new life.

Here in today’s text, we are again in a wilderness. We are not in a synagogue, not in a temple, not in a city—but at the edge of a river in a barren land. As someone with wild hair and crazy clothes cries out, “Something new is happening. Someone is coming. Repent! Be ready! Be ready for this new thing that God is doing!”

Body

1. The New Exodus

a. This passage has sometimes been referred to as ushering in the new exodus. b. It takes place in the wilderness.

We know that the wilderness was a big image in the exodus.

Moses was called in the wilderness.

The people wandered in the wilderness for forty years.

There is a connection between the forty years of wilderness wandering and the forty days Jesus spent in the wilderness, which occurs shortly after today’s text.

c. Moving into a new place, away from the old.

i. The reference to Pharisees and Sadducees could be seen as criticism of thinking they had all their theology correct. It could also be seen as a call for change that needs to happen because of what’s coming.

The reference to Abraham and creating children from stones is directly stating that God can make new children if God wants.

The reference to Abraham and creating children from stones is directly stating that God can make new children if God wants.

While the children of Israel were the chosen ones before, God is creating a new people.

d. This new exodus is to be led by the Messiah.

i. The baptism shows a passage through the new Red Sea. ii. Through the journey they will be formed into the new people of God, following the Messiah.

2. John the Baptist, the new Elijah

The reference to John the Baptist’s clothes is to connect him to Elijah, the Old Testament prophet ().

Later in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus directly refers to John as Elijah (11:10, 14; 17:11–13).

While we often mistakenly place “fortune teller” on the backs of prophets, what they really are is truth tellers. They see the world for what it is and reveal what is wrong. John reveals several issues here for the people to confront.

The attitude that what they do doesn’t matter because they are the children of Abraham.

He makes it clear that God can create children from whatever and whomever he wants.

Lineage is not what saves us; repentance and grace are.

The kingdom of heaven is near, literally; repentance is needed

Repentance doesn’t just mean to seek forgiveness; it means a completely new way of thinking.

Flesh this out more.....it will be a major part of the sermon. GOD IS WORKING HERE!

Christian Theology, Volumes I–III Definitions of Repentance

Mr. Wesley says, “By repentance I mean conviction of sin, producing real desires and sincere resolutions of amendment.” According to Mr. Watson, “Evangelical repentance is a godly sorrow wrought in the heart of a sinful person by the Word and the Spirit of God, whereby from a sense of his sin, as offensive to God, and defiling and endangering his own soul, and from an apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ, he with grief and hatred of all his known sins, turns then to God as his Saviour and Lord.”

Romans 7:1–13 ESV

Or do you not know, brothers—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives? For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies she is released from the law of marriage. Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress. Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God. For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code. What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead. I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good. Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure.

Romans 7

the law was never the problem, but the function of the law was to reveal the condition of our hearts so we might change and turn our lives to complete dependence upon God.

Confessing--acknowledging, being aware of.....a sign of a soft heart.

The pharisees were not willing to be aware of the short comings in their life because they were concerned about appearing right. They were focused on caring out the letter of the law. This led to a covering up.......Satan works in the places of our lives that we are unwilling to bring into the light.

-repentance is not about the one thing that Jesus is asking you to change or give up or do.

-repentance is about everything being before Jesus and willing to allow him to change, remove, add things into our relationship......its not the one thing.....its everything.

but also it isn’t about everything we do.....its about the one thing that drives what we do.

-Our mind, will, emotions we call the heart......are we willing to allow the Holy Spirit to mold, shape, remove, add in our hearts?

-because if what we do is only molded and shaped by what we think is good for us to do and not by the moving of the Holy Spirit in our lives then that is self-righteousness not God’s righteousness.

It’s not about everything....its about the one thing. The posture of our heart.....

People entangled in the idea that law, theology, and lineage save them are going to need new eyes to

see the new way Jesus offers.

Bear the fruit of repentance. It isn’t enough to give lip service to this baptism and this new way; it

must be embodied in the way we live as God’s people.

There will be a division of people: those who repent and follow (the wheat) and those who don’t (the

chaff).

John the Baptist is revealing a new way of living as he points toward Jesus, preparing a path for him.

3. Entering into Our Own Wilderness

Advent is a time for us to enter our own wilderness places—the places we avoid or don’t want to confront—and cultivate and look for new growth.

Just as a new thing was happening in the wilderness of our text, new things are also happening around us and in us, if we look.

The first step is repentance, seeing with new eyes. i. What areas in our lives need new eyes? How can we look at them differently?

Once we see things with new eyes, we must bear the fruit of that repentance. i. What needs to change in our lives? What kind of people are we being called to be?

We are called to be the children of God. i. God did not call rocks to be God’s children; God called us.

ii. What does it look like for us to be the children of God?

We are part of this new kingdom that Jesus ushered in.

i. What does a citizen of the kingdom of God look like? How can we live like citizens of that kingdom?

i. What does a citizen of the kingdom of God look like? How can we live like citizens of that king- dom?

Conclusion

New life comes in unexpected places and is ushered in by unexpected people. The wilderness was a place people feared, and it ended up being a place of preparation for the Messiah. It became a place of new life, new hope, and the beginning of a new people of God being formed.

Our lives might feel like the wilderness right now. It might be scary and untamed—desolate, even— but that doesn’t mean it is abandoned. There is truth to be told. There is life to be revealed. Even now God is creating new children—not out of rocks but out of us—and new life is being born all around us, if we have eyes to see.