Prepare the Way for the King!

The Lion and the Lamb

WELCOME

Good morning family!

Hear the word of the Lord...

Joel 2:12-13—“Yet even now,” declares the LORD, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your hearts and not your garments.” Return to the LORD your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and he relents over disaster.

Too far gone? Even now! Return.

In just a moment we’ll hear a reading from the text for today’s sermon in Matthew 3. Turn there now.

While you’re turning, 4 quick announcements:

1) A word about PBC. We are family.

Importance of TableTalk

Even if you’re not able to join us every night, if you’re a member join us tonight

2) Special Members Meeting—tonight at 5:30 PM

Voting on a new deacon, a new elder, and a new constitution

Packets at the blue flag

3) Should a Woman be a Deacon?—new Tabletalk series for the month of October

If you think that’s an outdated and repressive question, just understand that our desire is to let the Bible, not the culture, determine what we do as a church

4) Trunk or Treat

Sign-up to have a car at the blue flag

Now look in your Bibles at Matthew 3:1 as Lynne Jones comes to read for us.

Scripture Reading (Matthew 3:1-12)

Prayer of Praise (Lynne Jones, God is Righteous)

Steadfast Love

My Worth Is Not in What I Own

Prayer of Confession (Derick Dickens, envy and jealousy)

Holy, Holy, Holy

NEW CITY CATECHISM #39

“Though the eye of sinful man Thy glory may not see”

If God is so holy that we can’t even see His glory how can we come to Him in prayer?

Jesus’ death in our place on the cross

Because of Jesus we can “come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most.”

If we really believe that it changes everything! How then should we pray?

With what attitude should we pray?

With love, perseverance, and gratefulness; in humble submission to God’s will, knowing that, for the sake of Christ, He always hears our prayers.

Let’s go to the Lord with that attitude now...

PASTORAL PRAYER

Thanksgiving—Final judgment

Jesus will separate sheep/goats, wheat/chaff

No one will really get away with it!

We can leave justice in your hand because we know that it’s coming

That’s sobering. Because we want people to taste your mercy...

Prayer for PBC—As we relate to our neighbors

Surrounded by people that don’t know Jesus

Give us desire

Give us opportunities

Give us courage

Prayer for sister church—Norview Baptist Church in Norfolk

Help them in their search for a new lead pastor

Give them patience to search for someone with godly character and a love for God’s Word

Lead them to faithfulness

Pray for US—Public schools

Thank you for schools and teachers—give them wisdom and compassion to love and lead children well

Protect our children from harm...

Physically (Heritage High School, school shooters, etc.)

Intellectually (ideological worldviews that deny the existence of God, the value of humanity and the goodness of gender)

Parents/Guardians—help them to stay engaged with their children and remember their responsibility

Pray for the world—Brazil

Praise, has one of the largest evangelical populations in the world!—from 2 million to 55 million in 60 years

And yet...

Poverty—40 out of 200 million people live below the poverty line; urban slums with deplorable conditions

Mistreatment of children—7 million child laborers, 600,000 young girls in prostitution, countless others trapped in drug addiction and gang violence

Give their leaders wisdom...

President Jair [jah-air] Bolsonaro — sanctity for the unborn, justice for the vulnerable, human flourishing for all

And yet we know the greatest hope isn’t the kings of this world, but King Jesus...

Churches—help them to be healthy and holy

Send laborers—roughly 130 tribes unreached by the Gospel; 36,000 communities without a church

Pray for the sermon

SERMON

If you were to partake in a Passover feast with a typical Jewish family today, you may be surprised to notice an extra place setting at the table.

Later in the evening, a cup of wine would be poured at that extra place setting, and then a child will be sent to open the door to welcome the mystery guest.

Year after year, that guest never shows up at the Passover feast.

Because the guest they’re waiting for, is none other than the prophet Elijah.

The Old Testament repeatedly taught that Elijah would come before the Messiah.

And because most Jewish families do not believe the Messiah has come, they’re still waiting for someone to come to prepare the way for the king.

Turn to Matthew 3:1

It’s been 400 years since the last Jewish prophet, a guy named Malachi, promised that someone would come to prepare the way for the king

Nearly 30 years have passed since last week’s text

Introduced to a new character, John the Baptist

Doesn’t mean he’s “Baptist” in the sense that we’re a “Baptist” church, but that he was a baptizer

Matthew wants us to see that John is the one who has come to prepare the way for the king

3:3-4—For this is he who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah when he said, “The voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord; make his paths straight.’ ” 4 Now John wore a garment of camel’s hair and a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey.

The quotation is from Isaiah 40:3, and a similar promise was given in Malachi 3-4

The comment about John’s clothing is alluding to 2 Kings 1:8, which depicted Elijah wearing similar clothing

In Luke 1:17, when John’s birth was foretold, we learn that John will come “in the spirit of Elijah”

John is preparing the way for the king!!!

But how does John prepare the way?

Not clearing a path, but preparing hearts

But how do we prepare our hearts for the King?

You’re not prepared to meet the King unless and until you repent.

Five truths about repentance:

1) Repentance Requires FAITH.

Jesus’ first words in the Gospel of Mark mention repentance...

Mark 1:15—“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”

Christians have long looked at passages like this one to summarize what it means to be converted

Repent—turn from your sin

Word repent means change

Change of thinking, feeling, choosing

Believe—turn to Jesus

But what do I do first, repent or believe? Can I do one without the other?

John the Baptist helps us understand...

3:1-2—In those days John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea, 2 “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

We repent because we believe

Repentance and faith are two sides of the same coin.

Genuine faith is repentant faith. Genuine repentance is believing repentance.

Jumping from mama grizzly—what do I do first? Turn away from the ground I’m standing on, or trust that the branch will hold me? Both!

You will never repent unless you believe, and if you believe you will repent!

You’re not prepared to meet the King unless and until you repent.

And repentance requires faith.

But what must I believe?

Among other things you must believe that wrath is coming if you don’t repent...

2) Repentance Means FLEEING.

3:5—Then Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region about the Jordan were going out to him

Why are these people flocking to see John?

Perhaps part of it was the spectacle of a fiery preacher wearing scratchy clothes eating honey-dipped insects

But for many, it was the recognition that they were in danger

We see that in...

3:7—But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?

Many in the crowd are there to “flee from the wrath to come”

We’re going to talk about John’s reply to the Pharisees and Sadducees in a moment, but for now let’s talk about this wrath to come.

What’s wrath? Fierce anger

Whose wrath is coming? God’s!

v. 10—God will cut fruitless trees down and thrown into the fire.

v. 11—Jesus will immerse people in fire

v. 12—Jesus will burn unbelievers with unquenchable fire.

Why is God’s wrath coming? Because of our sin

Hell: this is what awaits those who do not repent

Repentance is recognizing this and fleeing from the wrath to come.

Dr. Bryan Chapell once told the story that illustrates this well… [1]

On August 6th 1945 in the town of Hiroshima, Japan, a little girl named Michiko was walking with her school chums down a city street. The sirens had gone off, but they had gone off before and nothing had happened. They didn’t pay much attention.

Michiko turned the corner of a building with her friends trailing behind, and in a millisecond, they were dust. In a few more seconds the heat wave came that literally melted the skin off her face and off her body.

Now we all knew as a nation what had caused it. We knew of the deceit at Pearl Harbor. We knew of the lack of mercy at Midway. We knew of the slaughter at Baatan. We had every reason to be angry, but when the newsreels showed us Michiko, our hearts cried out for peace.

And we brought her to this country for healing—a nation turning out its hearts in mercy because it could see what the fire could do. It was a fire that lasted seconds.

And here [John the Baptist] points us to a fire that will burn for an eternity....

Despite all the hurt, if you had stood there with Michiko, if you had known what was coming, I know what you would have done. You would have screamed, “Run Michiko! Run! Run! Get out of here! The fire is coming!”

Repentance means fleeing from God’s righteous wrath.

But why? Am I really that bad?

If you feel that way you need to understand that...

3) Repentance Means FORSAKING.

On the one hand, repentance means forsaking your sin.

If sin is the atomic bomb that destroys us in the end, we haven’t repented until we leave it behind.

But repentance also means forsaking your self-righteousness.

To see this, let’s go back the Pharisees and Sadducees...

These were two major religious groups in Jesus’ day and they’ll be repeat characters in Matthew’s gospels

The name Pharisee comes from an Aramaic word that means “to separate”

They were religious separatists. They were well-known for the strict and literal application of the Mosaic law

Kind of like strict fundamentalists in our world today

But don’t think of the Pharisees as grumpy rule-makers that nobody could stand. They were actually pretty popular among the Jewish people.

The name Sadducee probably comes from the name Zadok, who was the high priest during the reign of King David

They were wealthy, powerful elites.

Most of the members of the Sanhedrin, which was kind of like the Jewish Supreme Court, were Sadducees.

Just like many elites in our world today, the Sadducee’s had a liberal worldview. They denied the possibility of the supernatural, so they didn’t believe in the afterlife.

These two groups were very different, and often fought against each other, but one thing they had in common was their pride in their Jewishness.

These are the chosen people of God!

If you could ask any self-respecting Jew in John’s day (and especially a Pharisee or a Sadducee) what was the best thing about them they’d say “I am a Jew.”

John knows this, so he cuts to the chase...

3:9—And do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,’ for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham.

The fact that they were related to Abraham doesn’t matter!!!

The best thing about you isn’t good enough!

Isaiah 64:6a—We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment.

We know we have to flee the wrath to come because we’ve forsaken our trust in ourselves.

Is that true for you? Have you forsaken all hope in yourself?

Young people: don’t assume you’re fine because your mom or dad are strong Christians.

Your earthly parents can teach you about repentance, model it for you with their lives, and encourage you to repent. But they cannot make you repent. You must do it.

Charles Spurgeon—“The greatest enemy to human souls is the self-righteous spirit which makes men look to themselves for salvation.”

You’re not prepared to meet the King unless and until you repent.

And repentance means forsaking your sin, and your self-righteousness.

How do I know I’ve really done that?

4) Repentance Bears FRUIT.

Would you believe me if I told you I parachuted to PBC this morning?

What if I told you I was skydiving and my parachute didn’t work so I had to clean myself up a bit before Sunday School, which is why I was late.

Would you believe me? Absolutely not!

Because you cannot have an encounter with the ground going 120 miles per hour and not be changed.

The same is true with God. You cannot have a genuine encounter with the God who created the sky, the ground, and gravity and not be changed.

Repentance—real repentance—will change you. Repentance bears fruit.

John makes this clear in...

3:8—Bear fruit in keeping with repentance.

He doesn’t say “bear fruit” so you can repent. He says bear fruit to give evidence that you did repent.

If repentance means change, than your actions will change!

In this story John mentions two types of fruit:

The initial fruit of baptism

3:6—and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.

Word baptism literally means “immerse” or “dunk”

The practice of immersing people in water as a religious symbol wasn’t invented by John the Baptist...

Archaeologists have discovered these ancient pools throughout Israel called Mikveh baths

When I visited Israel a few years ago I got to see this one, which is located just south of the Temple Mount

SHOW MIKVEH PICTURE

Jesus likely walked passed this mikveh every time He entered the temple

This could have been used to baptize 3,000 new believers on the Day of Pentecost

One of the uses of mikvehs was to baptize Gentile converts into Judaism.

If you were born a Gentile, but wanted to profess faith in the God of the Jews you could symbolize that commitment by being dunked in a mikveh

John is telling them, “Your Jewishness isn’t enough to make you right with God. You must repent!”

And the first fruit, the first evidence of that repentance was to submit to the same symbol that a Gentile received to become a Jew

John Piper—“When a Jewish person received John's baptism, it was a radical act of individual commitment to belong to the true people of God, based on personal confession and repentance, NOT on corporate identity with Israel through birth.” [2]

So too with our baptism today. It’s a radical act of individual commitment to belong to the true people of God, based on personal repentance and faith in Christ alone.

Have you been baptized?

If you haven’t been baptized as a believer in Jesus, you’re missing the first fruit of repentance.

Most of you have. But don’t think you can just check off this point and move on. You also need...

The ongoing fruit of good works

John is not content with people getting dunked in a river...

3:10—Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

If you have truly repented, your life will result in good works

Again: we’re not saved by good works, we’re saved for good works

Ephesians 2:8-10—“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”

Your good works will vary depending on your stage and season of life...

Singles: resisting sexual immorality

Married: submitting to husband, loving/leading wife

Kids: obeying and honoring parents

Employees: working hard and honoring your employers

Retired: using your time and talents to love God and your neighbor

IF TIME...

Galatians 5:19-24—Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

If you will not fight your sin and fight for good works, you have no reason to believe that you’ve really repented.

Do you know why John (and later Jesus) was so hard on the religious people?

They act like they’re fine when they’re not. They pretend to bear good fruit, but inside they’re filled with sin and death. They’re hypocrites.

The Christian will struggle with things like this, but he’ll fight it.

Direction not perfection.

The church should be a safe place for people who are willing to fight their sin. It’s a safe place for sinners.

But the church cannot be a safe place for hypocrites.

Fellowship Groups should push you to be open about your struggles

Our life together should push us to hold each other accountable

We should be willing to discipline those who claim to be following Jesus with no observable evidence in their lives

Repent of your hypocrisy!

Repentance bears fruit, beginning with baptism and continuing with a life of good works

Why should I do any of that?

5) Repentance Brings FREEDOM.

When Neo first meets Morpheus in the first Matrix film, they talk about slavery.

Morpheus: “You’re here because you know something. What you know you can’t explain, but you feel it. You felt it your entire life. That there’s something wrong with the world. You don’t know what it is, but it’s there. Like a splinter in your mind driving you mad... you are a slave Neo, like everyone else you were born into bondage. Born into a prison that you cannot smell, or taste, or touch.” [3]

Morpheus may be wrong about the nature of our prison—it’s not the matrix—but he’s right that we’re in bondage. Not to a complex computer program but to sin.

Freedom from that bondage is accessed, not by swallowing a red pill but through repentance.

3:11—“I baptize you with water for repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.

Jesus is coming! And He will baptize everybody in one of two ways: either we’ll be immersed in fire, or we’ll be immersed in the Holy Spirit.

Repentance, then, brings two kinds of freedom...

Repentance brings freedom from future judgment

In verse 11, John says Jesus will baptize (immerse) some people in “fire.” I think the fire he’s talking about is the “unquenchable fire” he mentions in verse 12

Memphis revival preacher who literally tried to “scare the hell” out of people by preaching such scary sermons that people flocked down the aisle to pray a prayer

Danger: “praying a prayer” or getting baptized becomes like fire insurance, a “get out of hell free card!”

Let’s avoid that kind of preaching! But let’s not be afraid to tell people that hell is real, and a real eternal hell awaits you if you will not repent

Repent! Trust that wrath is coming, you cannot escape it on your own and Jesus is your only hope.

Repentance is bigger than freedom from future judgment. Also...

Repentance brings freedom for forever joy

If you repent, Jesus will baptize (immerse) you with the Holy Spirit (v.11)

What does it mean to be baptized in in the Holy Spirit?

1 Corinthians 12:12-13—“For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.”

Not a “second blessing” reserved for the super-spiritual Christians.

Not speaking in tongues or some supernatural gift

Not an emotional feeling

Corinthians were all baptized in the Spirit.

Your baptism in the Holy Spirit occurs when you repent and put your faith in Jesus. When you become a Christian, the Spirit begins to live in you.

Every Christian: you’ve been baptized by the Spirit!

When you repented, you were set free to live life as it was meant to be lived!

When you keep repenting, you are set free from the sin that tries to re-enslave you.

You’ve been set free for forever joy!

You’re not prepared to meet the King unless and until you repent.

And repentance brings freedom, from future judgment and for forever joy.

Elijah has come and gone.

John the Baptist, who came in the spirit of Elijah, has come and gone.

Jesus has come and gone, but He’s coming again.

And John tells us what will happen when He returns...

3:12—His winnowing fork is in His hand, and He will clear His threshing floor and gather His wheat into the barn, but the chaff He will burn with unquenchable fire.”

SHOW WINNOWING FORK IMAGE

When farmers gathered the harvest the wheat would get mixed up with the useless chaff

When the wind was blowing they’d take a special fork and throw the pile up into the air. The chaff was lighter so it would blow away and the wheat would fall to the grown.

This was called threshing.

The wheat would be harvested and the chaff would be burned up.

What must you do to be ready for that day?

Four types of people in this room:

1) You have not repented

Sample prayer

“I can’t believe!”

Ask God to give you faith!

Talk to someone at the white flag after the service

2) You have not been baptized

You’re a Christian, but you haven’t borne that first fruit of believer’s baptism

Baptism doesn’t save you, but it’s evidence of your salvation. The only non-baptized Christian in the entire NT was the thief on the cross

We hope to have a baptism service in a few weeks and we’d love you to join us

Talk to someone at the white flag after the service

3) You are not repenting

You’re a Christian, you’ve made it public through baptism, but you’re holding onto some sin.

To the church in Ephesus, Jesus said...

Revelation 2:5—“Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent.”

Removing the lampstand isn’t taking away their salvation, but their witness. Their influence.

If Jesus threatened to remove the influence of the church in Ephesus if they didn’t repent, won’t He do the same to us?

4) You are repenting

Don’t stop! When God exposes a sin, repent! Run away from it! Fight!

Martin Luther—"Our Lord and Master Jesus Christ. willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance."

The truth is, no matter which category you’re in, we all deserve to be burned up like chaff.

We’re all deserving of God’s wrath.

How can we be safe?

A prairie fire was whipped along by the wind so fast that it overtook all creatures in its path.

One family, seeing the impossibility of outrunning the blaze, began a backfire and then covered themselves with earth as they lay in the midst of the already burned-out circle.

The roaring fire met the backfire and it burned only up to the edge of that burned-over area, then went right around it, continuing its hungry race. That family was saved.

They knew the only safe place was where the fire had already burned.

The fire of God’s wrath has already burned on the cross. You can be safe, but only if you run to Him in repentance and faith.

So don’t let that day come before it’s too late. Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

I Stand Amazed (How Marvelous)

BENEDICTION

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brothers [and sisters]. Amen. (Galatians 6:18)