Continual Repentance And Faith (John Announces Jesus) Series

Preaching Through the Life of Jesus Year 1

1. The Preaching of John the baptizer

Matthew 3:1-12; Mark 1:1-6; Luke 3:1-18

3.

CONTINIAL REPENTANCE AND FAITH

“Repent and be baptized so your sins can be forgiven.”

(Mark 1:4)

“To the / church at Ephesus. / You do not have the love you had at first. / Repent and live like you once did.”

(Revelation 2:1-5)

The story of Jesus’ public ministry begins with a scene much like a Billy Graham Crusade. A man called by God is preaching Christ; calling people to turn from their sins and put their faith in him and telling them their eternal destiny of heaven or hell depends on what they choose to do.

Jesus and John were both about thirty years old at this time. Isaiah 40 and Malachi 3 and 4 said a “prophet”; a “voice in the wilderness”; an “Elijah” would step forward and announce the Messiah promised in the Old Testament. When God called John out of the desert and he came on the scene dressed like Elijah () and claiming to be this “voice”; Jesus, up in Nazareth knew it was time for him to come forward. In John’s message shows lost people are saved and how saved people grow. Our salvation begins with:

CONTACT

People by the tens of thousands were streaming down to the Jordan. They did it is because God reached out and touched them and drew them there. A farmer could not get his mule to start pulling a plow. He found a mule “whisperer” who talked mules into obeying. The whisperer stood in front of the mule and hit it between the eyes with a sledge hammer, making the mule’s legs buckle. The stunned farmer said, “I thought you were going to talk to my mule.” The whisperer said, “I am. But first I have to get his attention”.

What got these people’s attention were John’s words, “The kingdom of God is at hand.” To them this meant the Jewish Messiah-King was about to arrive. For 400 years, between Malachi and Matthew, Israel was subject to Gentile nations from Persia to Rome and they longed for and prayed for the day when their Messiah-king would come and conquer all Gentile (non-Jewish) nations; set up the Jewish kingdom of peace and prosperity and rule the Gentiles with a rod of iron. (Psalm 2;72 Amos 9). We will see how Jesus’ kingdom was different from that, but this is what got them to John.

We don’t come to God to get right with Him until He comes to us and gets our attention. Romans three says none of us “looks for God”, meaning the true God revealed in Scripture. Adrian Rogers says a sinner no more looks for God than a mouse looks for a cat. Jesus said we come to him when God “draws” us. (John 6:44) Hebrews 6 says the Holy Spirit “leads” us to “repentance.

We are fortunate enough to live where we are continually bombarded by the gospel. But First Corinthians three says we don’t “understand” it and it is “foolishness” to us. After I became a Christian at age 22, under the preaching of Jack Whitley, I was a little angry at the Pastors I had in the past. I wondered why they hadn’t preached the gospel he preached. They had, but I wasn’t listening. The sound went into my ears without my really hearing it. (Isaiah 6) I was thinking about cars, football and girls or sometimes girls, cars and football.

God reaches us in different ways. For Luther it was the death of a friend struck by lightning. For my Ethics Professor in seminary it was the fear of going to hell. For hundreds of thousands of young men it was going through the living hell of the Civil War. Scottish Comedian Harry Lauder said when his son died, “For me it was alcohol, suicide or God and I chose God.” For me it was the desire for a loving home without arguing and fighting, and I knew for that to happen, I needed help to stop doing some things. After contact comes:

CONVINCING

Jesus said the Holy Spirit must come into us and change us in something comparable to being born all over again. (John 3) After getting our attention the Holy Spirit, using the truths of the Bible (xx) convinces us of sin, righteousness and judgment. (John 16:8-11) We all know we sin. Our conscience tells us that. But we don’t take it seriously because everybody does it. But the Spirit lets us know God is not talking “to everybody else”; He is talking to us. It becomes personal. A little boy asked his mom and dad, going home from church, “Has the preacher been peeking through the window at our house?”