Matt Part 3 Recap

We saw and talked last week about the birth of Jesus and how Jesus being king was born and our proper response to Him as king

But chapter 3 starts out by saying “In those days” and so what has happened here is roughly 30 years has gone by and we see Jesus’ public ministry about to begin.

A man named John the Baptist is presented to us here.

Now John the baptist is an interesting guy.

What John is is a symbol of Jesus’ kingdom

He forsook his earthly father’s ministry for the sake of his heavenly Father’s

He isn’t found in the cities but out in the desert

He isn’t dressed to a T and ready to impress people

John is showing us that Jesus normally doesn’t operate how we think He should and John is showing us that God’s kingdom doesn’t look how we normally think it would or should

Because ultimately what John is, is a herald

Now a herald during this time had two primary responsibilities

He would prepare the way for a king

And he would proclaim the coming of a king

Often times a herald would go before a king and prepare the way. He would move obstacles, rocks, sticks from the road.

He would also proclaim to the people that he would be passing by and coming to so that they could adequately prepare themselves to be in the presence of a king.

John is doing the same here

When we repent and lay down our lives to follow Jesus, we are also called to be King Jesus’ herald.

We are called to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ

Proclaim Him with our words, and proclaim Him with our lives. .

We are to live in a way that proclaims the gospel.

We were created to proclaim and worship and when we don’t have Christ the default is to look to ourselves and what Christ does is He free’s us of that and draws our attention to King that is worthy. Himself.

He does this by “preaching” or proclaiming or heralding a message. It’s the first thing we see John say here, it’s the first words we will see in the preaching of Jesus (Matt 4:17), and when Jesus sends out the disciples (Mark 6:12)

So we know the message is important and it’s a message that is preparing the way for the king and so if we want to be in the presence of the king we must see, understand, and participate in this message

The message is “repent.”

Now in Greek writings repent means to “change one’s mind” but it would have been appropriate to use the term if someone was changing their mind from good to bad just as much as it would have been appropriate to use for someone changing their mind from bad to good.

In the Hebrew when the prophets used the word it was a call to repent and return to God.

Here John, and later Jesus, use it as a combination. The message is “repent - take off the old evil self, and put on the new and draw near to God”

Repentance is not merely a feeling sorry for the wrongs that you have done, it’s a feeling sorry enough to change and do something about it. It’s a turning from the old things you would run to, its a denying yourself of the world things you crave, it’s a laying your life down. Why?

So that you can be made new, so that you can be given the gifts and fruit of the Spirit, and so that you made be given life and life to the fullest inside the kingdom of God.

Repentance calls us to action

Many mourn for their sins that do not truly repent of them, weep bitterly for them, and yet continue in love and league with them - Matthew Henry

So the message is clear - “repent.”

ButI think that often times when we see this message or we hear this message most often I think of an angry message, an angry messenger, and an angry God

And most certainly our sin is great and absolutely deserving of punishment

But we should not view repentance as a bad thing

Repentance is an extension of God’s grace

What we are deserving of is immediate wrath and immediate judgment

But our king of grace doesn’t operate that way

He extends us the undeserved opportunity to repent, to recognize our weakness, see His greatness, and turn away from ourselves to Him

At the heart of repentance is not a motive to just make us feel bad but an opportunity to realize, yes, we are sinners but we have also been invited into the grace and love of Jesus

And where that leads us is into the kingdom of God

Romans 2:4 (NIV)

4 Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, forbearance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance?

John says “repent.” why? because the kingdom of heaven has come near. Or probably more accurately “has drawn near.”

So part of what John is preaching is turn from your sins. Turn from your old self. Turn from the former things

But what I also believe is happening here is the call to repent for misunderstanding the kingdom of God

You see the Israelites thought that the messiah would be born in a palace and raised as a proper king

But Jesus was born in a manger in the town of Bethlehem

They thought that the messiah would come with a sword to overtake the Roman empire and anyone else that may try to rise against them

But Jesus comes to love those who hate him and serve the world

They thought the messiah would become a king so powerful that no one could ever overtake him

But Jesus comes so that he may die

This kingdom that has drawn near is nothing like the kingdom that was expected. And so part of the repentance for the original audience and I believe for us is to repent for completely missing it

John is saying “You guys are waiting on a kingdom that is not coming and meanwhile your missing out on the kingdom that is here”

How often do we miss out on the movement of God because it didn’t look how we thought it would?

How often do we dismiss the Spirit of God because He was asking us to do something we thought surely couldn’t be God

How often do we miss out on advancing the kingdom of God because it’s different than how we imagined?

The kingdom of God calls us to lay down our lives, ourselves. How willing are we to do it?

Then we wrapped up with this

We talked about John the Baptist as a man, we talked about his message and his motive but now let’s talk about his ministry.

Matthew 3:6 NIV

6 Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River.

John the Baptist got his title because he was known to baptize people in the Jordan river

The word means to dip, plunge, submerge, or immerse. It was also used in the passive to mean “be drowned” and it was used to describe ships that had sunk.

We shouldn’t miss this violent imagery. Baptism signifies death to flesh and entrance into life.

It’s the symbol of us drowning out our old self and being raised to life in Christ.

And it goes hand and hand with repentance and salvation