The first sermon preached in the New Testament
(Based on a sermon preached 1-15-2023 at First Baptist Church, Chamois, MO. This is not an exact transcription.)
Introduction: John the Baptist, son of Zechariah the priest, was the first true prophet to Israel in nearly 400 years. Not since Malachi had there been a messenger bringing God's message, and the people noticed some unusual things once John started preaching. Let's look at some of these:
Text: Luke 3:1-14, NASB: 1 Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was tetrarch of Galilee and his brother Philip was tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias was tetrarch of Abilene, 2 in the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John, the son of Zechariah, in the wilderness. 3 And he came into all the region around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins; 4 as it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet:
“THE VOICE OF ONE CALLING OUT IN THE WILDERNESS,
‘PREPARE THE WAY OF THE LORD,
MAKE HIS PATHS STRAIGHT!
5 ‘EVERY RAVINE WILL BE FILLED,
AND EVERY MOUNTAIN AND HILL WILL BE LOWERED;
THE CROOKED WILL BECOME STRAIGHT,
AND THE ROUGH ROADS SMOOTH;
6 AND ALL FLESH WILL SEE THE SALVATION OF GOD!’”
7 So he was saying to the crowds who were going out to be baptized by him, “You offspring of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8 Therefore produce fruits that are consistent with repentance, and do not start saying to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,’ for I say to you that from these stones God is able to raise up children for Abraham. 9 But indeed the axe is already being laid at the root of the trees; so every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”
10 And the crowds were questioning him, saying, “Then what are we to do?” 11 And he would answer and say to them, “The one who has two tunics is to share with the one who has none; and the one who has food is to do likewise.”12 Now even tax collectors came to be baptized, and they said to him, “Teacher, what are we to do?”13 And he said to them, “Collect no more than what you have been ordered to.” 14 And soldiers also were questioning him, saying, “What are we to do, we as well?” And he said to them, “Do not extort money from anyone, nor harass anyone, and be content with your wages.”
Let’s stop here now and go to the Lord in prayer.
<Prayer>
There are a lot of ways we could look at this passage and indeed some have sliced and diced it in any number of ways. This morning, we could look at it and see how this first sermon preached in the New Testament was very unusual! Now, some think the real first sermon happened when the angel, and later the heavenly host, proclaimed good tidings that Jesus, the Messiah, was born in Bethlehem. That could be; and some others think the first sermon was when the shepherds told as many people as they could that Jesus was born. All of that is in Luke 2, but for me, this passage contains the first sermon, ever delivered by a prophet or preacher, to an audience who had come to hear the message.
And there were some unusual things about this first sermon.
First, it was unusual because there hadn’t been a message like this, the voice of a prophet, in 400 years or so! The prophet Malachi was the last of the prophets before John and he had some things to say—not just about the Messiah, either. But that’s another story.
Some of us have a hard time thinking about 400 years. Look at it like this: this is January 2023. A little over 400 years ago, Jamestown was still struggling to survive and the Pilgrims had celebrated the first Thanksgiving a year or so before. Now imagine if Governor Bradford had said, “Thank you, people, and thank You, God, for all You did for us. Now everyone go home,”—and there was never another sermon preached from that day to this.
That would be a very long time, wouldn’t it! I mean, from his day to ours we had three wars on this continent, at least; we also had two World Wars; plus an armed conflict or two where American soldiers fought—and some died—in far off lands.
And no sermons, no messages, no preachers bringing God’s truth to us. Oh, sure, there were synagogues and the reading of the Law and the Prophets, but there was also plenty of stuff added to or piled on top of the original Word. How much the average Jew knew of the Old Testament, the Bible of his day, is anybody’s guess. Without preaching, though, the Jewish people probably didn’t have a very good grasp of it. I hope I’m wrong.
But now, here’s a real, live, preacher, and he’s bringing God’s message! It’s no wonder the people went to hear John preach. And that leads us to the next unusual thing—the location.
You see, John didn’t set up shop, so to speak, there in Jerusalem. Oh, sure, the Temple was there and there were any number of synagogues, but John didn’t go there. He went out “in the wilderness.” A note here; in the Bible’s language, ”wilderness” had a couple of meanings at least. The land of Mt Sinai, indeed the whole Sinai Peninsula, was the land where the Hebrews wandered before they finally came to Canaan. That land, we might say, had plenty of nothing to offer people except sand, rocks, and other unpleasant things and it was called a “howling wilderness (Deuteronomy 32:10)”.
In Judea, though, there was another kind of wilderness, not like the lands Daniel Boone or Davy Crockett explored, but just land that was basically open. Few people lived there. That’s probably what Luke meant in this verse.
But at this he was preaching near the Jordan. That river spoke, or should have spoken, volumes to those who knew Hebrew history. One example: the entire nation crossed Jordan on dry—and the original means just that, dry—ground of the river bed. Elijah crossed over with Elisha, and Elisha crossed back after Elijah was taken to heaven. Now John is there, and he’s near the river that meant so much to Israel. No, John didn’t preach in the temple, or anywhere else, as far as we know, but he went to where the Lord told him to go.
To give you kind of an idea, let’s suppose Chamois is the county seat or the capital city. John didn’t come to preach in any of the churches, open land, empty buildings (every city I know of has at least a few of these) or anyplace like that to bring his messages. He was out of town and we could guess he might be preaching near the City Park or the boat ramp, or maybe by that abandoned two-story brick farmhouse west of town (note, all of these landmarks are familiar to my congregation). But he knew what he needed to do, and where he needed to do it.
And that’s what he did.
This, then, became unusual because of what he was preaching. Matthew’s gospel includes John preaching on “Repent”, as does Luke’s account, as we read, but Matthew also added “for the kingdom of Heaven is at hand”. This was something that really spoke to the Jewish people. Don’t forget that they had been under the rule, or control, or thumb of somebody else for nearly 600 years, ever since the Babylonian Captivity. No doubt there were messages here and there, and studies of the prophets, declaring how Israel would once again be a great nation.
No wonder the people listened so enthusiastically to this message—it was something they wanted to hear, and something they needed to hear, but there was one key thing to do before they could even hope to enter that kingdom.
They needed to repent. Now, this word “repentance” may be one of the most misunderstood words in the Bible. I may have mentioned in a previous message or two that the word really comes from a term meaning “to change the mind.” In simple terms, the people knew what John was preaching was correct—just take a look at what he told them to do! For those who had extra clothing, share with those who didn’t; ditto for extra food—and this was for those who COULD not help themselves, not those who DID not do this.
He also told the tax collectors to collect only what was required. Why was this important? We get a glimpse of this when Jesus met Zacchaeus, at a later time. Zacchaeus told the Lord he would make restitution or pay back what he had taken illegally, if he had done so. This could mean that tax collectors had a quota, target, assignment, take your pick, but if they got more, they could keep it under Roman law. John told them to follow God’s law instead. He didn’t tell them to stop collecting, but, as someone said, he said to quit gouging people of their money.
And John even had a word for soldiers. The commentators I’ve read don’t know if these were Roman soldiers, or Jewish men “soldiering” for Rome. Whoever they were didn’t matter, but what John told them to do certainly did.
Now, there are only a few here who ever served in the U S military, but I can assure you, there are some things that are universal among GI’s. Ask any GI, past or present about food and you may get a detailed report that would make a five-star restaurant critic proud! I once bought an MRE (standing for “Meal, Ready to Eat—there are other translations) for a church member who had served a couple of tours in Iraq. He looked at that MRE (chili mac, by the way), began to laugh, and said, “Pastor, I don’t know whether to hug ya or slug ya!” He did none of the above, by the way, and I lived to tell the tale!
Another thing is most can’t wait to leave where they’re stationed and get transferred to someplace else. For me, there was one duty station where frankly I could have spent the rest of my days, but that didn’t happen; and there was one place that I couldn’t wait to leave after I’d been there just a day or so. It happens.
And one thing you’ll probably never hear any GI say is “My salary’s good enough, and I don’t need a raise.” Uh-huh. Verse 14 shoots that theory down in flames, doesn’t it! This proves GI’s have been complaining about salary for thousands of years! Now, one thing John was saying is that the soldiers were to either stop, or to never begin, extorting money, harassing anyone, and complaining about their pay. Oh, John, I could easily go along with the first two but you didn’t stop, did you? Oh my.
But the overall theme of this first message ever preached in the New Testament was this:
Repent.
Change the way you live, and do it God’s way. John didn’t say it would be easy, but it would be important, and I for one honestly appreciate what he said and what he did. The kingdom is indeed coming, but unless one repents, that person will never see it or experience it.
This first message set the tone, then, for most of the preaching in the New Testament: the kingdom is coming, but everyone needs to repent and do right.
We all know what we need to do. John spelled it out for us. Now all we need to do is just do it.
Scripture quotations taken from the New American Standard Version of the Bible (NASB).
