Sermon Tone Analysis

The Anticipation of the King — (Vs.

11-12)

John’s baptism was a physical baptism of water due to a person’s repentance and confession of sins but it had no power to save.

Jesus baptism on the other hand was a spiritual baptism that actually brought forgiveness of sins.

And I just want to say today friend, we can go out here and I can dunk you under a 100 times but unless you’ve been baptized from above, unless you’ve been born again by believing upon the Lord Jesus Christ, water baptism alone cannot and will not save you!

Jesus told Nicodemus in...

Jesus said, “except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God!”

Listen, as I was studying for this message I came across at least three different view points on what our Lord meant here when He spoke of being born of water.

One writer said Jesus was speaking of our original birth as when a child is born it is referred to as being born of water.

— Warren Wiersbe

Basically what he was saying is that Jesus was saying, “it’s not enough to simply be born of your mother…you must be born again from above by the Heavenly Father!”

The second writer said what he thought Jesus meant by being born of water was that he must be born of the Word of God.

— J Vernon McGee

He stated that the water referenced here was speaking of the Word of God.

He used verses such as...

and

and one that came to my mind while reading those was...

In all of these instances I can see his view point that Jesus could have been using water as a reference to the Word of God.

Then we have the third fellow who said that when Jesus references water here He was speaking of the baptism of John.

— John Phillips

Basically he said that the baptism of John would have been fresh on Nicodemus mind and that what he was trying to explain to Nicodemus is that in order for a person to be born from above one must first think of what the baptism of John represented which was....repentance and confession, right?

So in essence, what this person said Jesus meant is that in order for a person to be born from above, he/she must first repent of and confess their sins to God at which point they would then believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ and be born again from above!

Now, listen to me for a second…do all of these explanations seem valid?

Of course they do!

Listen, these are three very respectable men in my estimation of whose opinions I take into great consideration and value very highly and if I’m being honest with you this morning, I believe Jesus meant all three of their explanations at the same time!

Look who He’s talking with here...

He’s talking with Nicodemus, right?

Who was Nicodemus?

He was a Pharisee, a ruler of the Jews.

That meant he was a part of the Sanhedrin council.

He knew the Word of God inside and out.

He more than likely was even a Rabbi in his own right teaching the word of God to the Jews.

So, being a teacher himself, Jesus needed to teach this teacher a lesson in just exactly what it meant to be born again!

He needed Nicodemus to understand the simplified version that it’s not enough to just be born of a woman but in order to enter the Kingdom of God a man/woman must be born again (from above)!

Then He needed Nicodemus to understand the deeper connection with the Word of God and see that in order for a person to be born again they need to hear and believe the Word of God for the Bible says in...

And then finally, He needed Nicodemus to see the modern day application (of that era) that in order for a person to be born again from above, they must first be willing to come by way of John’s baptism which was a broken and contrite heart willing to repent of and confess their sins.

Listen, if you’re not sincere, if you’re not willing to repent of your sins and confess them before a Holy God, you cannot be born again.

There must be repentance and confession before there can be forgiveness!

And so, I don’t think any one of these men are wrong but rather I think they are actually all right!

Every man, woman boy or girl must be born again from above and then they ought to follow through with water baptism in order to let the world know that they don’t identify with the world anymore.

They are a new person in Christ Jesus the old man has been put to death and behold all things have been made new!

When we baptize someone today we say, “I baptize you my Brother/Sister in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit…buried with Him in baptism, raised to walk in newness of life!”

Water baptism today is the outward obedience of the inward operation of Christ.

If someone claims to be saved but they’re not willing to come forward and follow through in believer’s baptism then there’s a disconnect somewhere.

Either they aren’t confident in their salvation or they’re ashamed of being called a Christian.

If it’s a lack of confidence in their salvation that’s keeping them from being baptized, then I would adjure them to come to this altar today and get it worked out with fear and trembling because not doing so is being disobedient to the Word of God.

And if they’re not willing to let the world know they have trusted in Christ because they are ashamed, then I would also adjure them to come to the altar with fear and trembling because the Bible says in...

And I’m here to tell you this morning friend, to stand in front of almighty God without the provision of grace that can only come through knowing the Lord Jesus Christ, that ought to scare us all to death!

Because if you are standing before Him without the precious, perfect blood of His dear Son applied to your life that means you will be standing before Him naked in your sins and oh what a dreadful situation to be in!

You can choose to stand before Him clothed with a cloak of righteousness provided by His dear Son or you can choose to stand there in your own cloak of maliciousness and sin and I can assure you the outcome is not going to be one you would wish on even your own worst enemy!

Do not be ashamed of the Lord Jesus Christ today!

Do not be afraid to let the world know that you have believed upon Him and that you have decided to follow Jesus and then follow through with that profession in believer’s baptism!

John goes on to say here, “He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire: whose fan is in his hand, and he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”

What John is saying here is that you have a choice as to which baptism you choose.

You can choose to be born again by the power from on high and be baptized with the Holy Ghost or when he says here you can choose to be baptized with fire, he’s speaking of eternal damnation!

Notice how he continues here.

“Whose fan is in his hand, and he will throughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”

EXPLAIN

So we see here John’s Anticipation of the King.

Now, let’s look on down at The Appearing of the King.

The Appearing of the King — (Vs.

13-15)

One writer said the trip from Galilee to Jordan was probably around 60-70 miles.

That’s a long way to travel just to be baptized.

So why did Jesus travel all that way?

To set in motion the beginning of His ministry and let the world know that the Messiah had come!

When you go to John’s gospel and look in...

So here’s John and there’s a really good possibility that either he hasn’t seen Jesus in many years or possibly even never as they lived a good ways apart and if you will remember, the Bible told us that John was in the wilderness until the time of showing, right?

But no doubt, Zacharias and Elisabeth had told John stories of how his cousin would be the one to set people free from the bondage of sin; of how he was the one who was prophesied of old to come and set the captives free.

And then on top of that John’s gospel just told us that while he was in the wilderness the one who had sent him, being God, had told him “upon whom you shall see the Spirit descending and remaining on the same is he which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost.”

Now, we don’t know how John new that Jesus was the lamb of God before the baptizing and the Spirit descending upon Him but somehow, either by revelation from above or by recognition, John sees Jesus coming and says, “behold the lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world!”

At this point, Matthew’s gospel tells us that John tries to stop Jesus from being baptized by him, stating that he needs to be baptized more than Jesus!

Now, this is absolute truth and John had need to be baptized for his sins but Jesus had no sin to be baptized of so why did He indeed seek to be baptized?

I mean the Bible does say in...

Jesus had no sin so why was He so adamant about being baptized?

He tells John here in Verse 15… “Suffer it to be so now: for thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness!”

What exactly does He mean by this?

Let me read you what John MacArthur said about this...

Jesus came into the world to identify with men; and to identify with men is to identify with sin.

He could not purchase righteousness for mankind if He did not identify with mankind's sin.

Hundreds of years before Christ's coming, Isaiah had declared that the Messiah "was numbered with the transgressors; yet He Himself bore the sin of many, and interceded for the transgressors" (Isa.

53:12).

Jesus' baptism also represented the willing identification of the sinless Son of God with the sinful people He came to save.

That was the first act of His ministry, the first step in the redemptive plan that He came to fulfill.

He who had no sin took His place among those who had no righteousness.

He who was without sin submitted to a baptism for sinners.

In this act the Savior of the world took His place among the sinners of the world.

The sinless Friend of sinners was sent by the Father "in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh" (Rom.

8:3); and He "made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him" (2 Cor.

5:21; cf.

Isa.

53:11).

There was no other way to fulfill all righteousness.

— John MacArthur

The Father had a plan and the Father had a way and this was part of the way in which He had established the beginning of His Son’s ministry!

It was all figured out before the world began and ultimately it was the will of God and Jesus said in...

And the Bible finishes this section out by saying, “then he suffered him.”

After understanding that God’s plan was bigger than his plan, John decided to be obedient to His Lord’s lead.

Can I just give a word of application here before moving on?

How many times do we think we know better than God?

How many times do we feel the Spirit of God telling us to do this or that and we, like John here, try to tell God that we know better than He does how things are supposed to go?

We’d do well to understand the sovereignty of God and realize that everything happens according to His will and His way and His purpose and that He knows best, Amen!

We’d do well to understand that He had this entire thing planned out before specs of dust in the universe were even created!

We’d do well to understand that our lives are part of His master plan and the sooner we get on board with His leading the better off we’ll be!