Introduction
I. John the Baptist brought a message of the need for repentance before God.
II. Luke, quoting from Isaiah chapter 40, wrote that John was,
A. “The voice of one crying in the wilderness; Prepare the way of the Lord, Make His paths straight. 5 Every valley will be filled, and every mountain and hill brought low; and the crooked places will be made straight and the rough ways made smooth; 6 And all flesh will see the salvation of God.’”
B. The king is coming, but not just any king, THE KING.
C. John the Baptist is proclaiming the coming of Lord, King and Savior, Jesus Christ.
III. Today, when a dignitary comes to town what does the city do?
A. The graffiti is washed away;
B. Street sweeping machines come out of hiding;
C. Barricades are put in place,
D. A city wants to put on it’s best face, and suddenly what once was shabby is not turned into sheik.
E. Make way for the President of the United States of America.
IV. In the first century, when a king was coming to town,
A. Roads were straightened;
B. Ditches, or valleys were filled,
C. Hills were brought as low as possible,
D. Everything possible was done to make the king’s journey into town a pleasant one.
E. Make way for king whoever.
V. John the Baptist says,
A. Get busy,
B. King Jesus is coming
C. Do everything possible in your life to be ready,
D. Turn from your wicked ways, and repent from your sin, so that you may be ready for judgement day to arrive.
E. John’s message was a message to bring conviction of sin, and repentance of heart.
VI. And further, John the Baptist states plainly that “Repentance of Heart, Ushers In a Change of Action.”
VII. I read a great story about conviction of sin this week.
A. The story goes something like this,
1. Two deacons from a local church were out fishing on prayer meeting night.
2. One of them said to the other,
a. “I really feel guilty about being out here.
b. I know pastor is really encouraging the body to be more involved in corporate prayer, and here we are fishing.”
3. The other deacon said,
a. “I couldn’t be there, even if I was home,
b. My wife is sick.”
B. At least one of the church leaders felt guilty about not supporting the work of His church, BUT
C. Not guilty enough to pass up the fishing trip.
VIII. Now me, of all people am not saying that going fishing is a sin, BUT
A. I will say that if we are being convicted in an area we need to deal with, AND
B. We don’t deal with it,
C. It is probably fair to call that SIN.
D. And maybe you have heard it said, “The wages of sin is death...” (Rom 6:23)
IX. When sin in our lives is made visible, there is only one thing to do, and that is to repent.
A. But what does repentance look like?
B. That we shall look at this morning.
X. In Luke, chapter 3, we are once again drawn to a story of John the Baptist.
A. John is proclaiming the coming Messiah, and people are responding,
1. Some are convicted of their sin, and respond with acts of repentance.
2. Some are convicted, and respond with acts of arrogance,
3. And John the Baptist just keeps on proclaiming that salvation is coming.
B. When true conviction of sin is evident, action will surely follow.
A Message of Repentance Is Not Always Pleasant (vs. 7)
7 He therefore began saying to the multitudes who were going out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?
I. I want you to imagine a Sunday morning with me for a moment.
A. You get out of your comfortable bed, eat a hearty breakfast, take a nice warm shower, and put on your freshly laundered clothes.
B. You leave your air conditioned home, and get into your air conditioned car for the comfortable journey to an air conditioned worship facility.
C. On the way, you think or even say, “I sure hope the pastor brings a nice, inspiring, uplifting message this morning.”
D. You enter the building, at your convenience, take your usual seat, and the pastor opens his message with something like,
1. “You brood of sinners.
2. What are you doing here?
3. Who told you that you would be welcome in God’s presence anyway?”
E. How long would you stay?
F. I venture to say that most of us would never have heard the third sentence.
II. Now go with me to the first century,
A. You hear about this “Prophet of God” speaking and baptizing down by the river.
B. You arise very early, and prepare for a day or two’s journey; a walk over hot and dusty land to the side of this river to hear about God.
C. Upon your arrival, maybe expecting to hear something nice, you instead hear,
1. “O brood of vipers!
2. Who has warned you to flee from the wrath to come.”
D. And rather than leave, you say, “What must I do to change my situation before God?”
III. A message of repentance is not always pleasant, but it does always get a response.
IV. You question and mine is “With which group of responders do I want to identify with?”
Works Do Not Bring Repentance, But Repentance Will Bring Works
8 “Therefore bring forth fruits in keeping with repentance, and do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham for our father,’ for I say to you that God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham.
9 “And also the axe is already laid at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”
10 And the multitudes were questioning him, saying, “Then what shall we do?”
11 And he would answer and say to them, “Let the man who has two tunics share with him who has none; and let him who has food do likewise.”
12 And some tax-gatherers also came to be baptized, and they said to him, “Teacher, what shall we do?”
13 And he said to them, “Collect no more than what you have been ordered to.”
14 And some soldiers were questioning him, saying, “And what about us, what shall we do?” And he said to them, “Do not take money from anyone by force, or accuse anyone falsely, and be content with your wages.”
I. For some reason, multitudes of people stayed, listened to what John was saying, as looked to respond to the message.
A. Look at verse 10, “Then what shall we do?”
1. They probably didn’t like being called vipers,
2. But something about the way John presented truth must have cause caused many to question, “If that is me, then what must I do?”
B. Strangely John does not say,
1. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding.” or
2. “Trust in Christ and be saved.”
C. In light of “just believe in Christ and be saved” we might find what John said to be interesting,
1. vs. 11 - If you have two tunics, give one away,
2. If you have some food, share it with others,
3. vs. 13 - tax collectors, don’t stop collecting tax, just be fair about it.
4. Vs. 14 - Soldier, don’t rob the people, don’t slander people, and be content with your financial station in life.
5. What is that, it sounds like a works theology to me.
II. Look all the way back at verse 8, and read it carefully, “8 “Therefore bring forth fruits in keeping with repentance, and do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham for our father,’ for I say to you that God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham.”
A. In the beginning of the verse, are the words, “in keeping with” or “worthy of”
B. The idea is this,
1. If you have repented,
2. If you have turned from sin and turned towards God,
3. If Christ is the focus of your life, THEN
4. If you have repented of your sin, THEN
5. Our lives will exhibit fruits that there has been a change in the way you think and act.
III. What does that fruit look like?
A. Your’s may well be different than mine.
B. That is why you cannot judge whether a person is saved based on whether they live according to your standard or not.
1. We are all at different places in our walk
2. We all have different gifts for service
C. One thing is true of all of us though, if we have repented, our lives will in some demonstrate works which will demonstrate a difference in our lives.
IV. I want to stop here for one moment and make a very important point.
A. Don’t count on your heritage to assure you salvation.
B. Listen to the end of verse 8 - “and do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham for our father,’ for I say to you that God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham.’”
1. Just because you go to church on Sunday
2. Just because your parents, their parents, or even their parents were followers of Christ is no guarantee of your own salvation.
V. I have never been a part of any church, where there are not a few that seem to believe they are going to heaven because of their relationship with the “church.”
A. Salvation, repentance is an individual decision that we must each make.
B. I cannot repent for you, and you cannot repent for me.
C. So two questions?
1. Have you come to that place of recognizing your own personal sinfulness and called on Christ to save you?
2. If you have repented, what acts in your life, other than church attendance, demonstrate that you have repented of your sin.
VI. One thing is true, you cannot repent and stay the same, there will be a change.
VII. I fear that in the churches quest to make our churches larger, we have lost the message that discipleship is going to cost something.
VIII. Please hear me on this,
A. “I fear we have made church membership far to easy” and I believe
B. One reason it is so easy to walk away from the church, is because our investment is often so low.
Three Quick Points
15 Now while the people were in a state of expectation and all were wondering in their hearts about John, as to whether he might be the Christ,
16 John answered and said to them all, “As for me, I baptize you with water; but One is coming who is mightier than I, and I am not fit to untie the thong of His sandals; He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.
17 “And His winnowing fork is in His hand to thoroughly clear His threshing floor, and to gather the wheat into His barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”
18 So with many other exhortations also he preached the gospel to the people.
19 But when Herod the tetrarch was reproved by him on account of Herodias, his brother’s wife, and on account of all the wicked things which Herod had done,
20 he added this also to them all, that he locked John up in prison.
I. I want to make three very quick points before I close this morning.
II. Number One, Repentance always points to Christ,
A. John the Baptist was developing quite a following,
1. People were even asking if he were the Christ.
2. It could well have been easy for John to keep some glory for himself, but look what he said,
a. I am not even worthy to untie His sandal.
b. In another place, “He must increase, while I must decrease.”
B. Any glory that came his way, John was consistently giving it back to Christ.
C. When you look for someone to follow in this spiritual battle; look for someone that is always pointing you to the one that can save you.
D. Never, ever follow a man that is pointing to himself.
III. Number Two, Look for a variety of ways to share the gospel
A. Verse 18 says, “With many other exhortations ...he preached.
B. John was not a one method man.
a. The picture we see is a man standing in the water baptizing those that came; but that is only part of what he did.
b. First and foremost, John spoke the message of repentance.
c. People will not come to Christ, unless the gospel is spoken, IN A MANNER THAT THEY CAN RELATE TOO.
d. There is only one message, but man methods of delivering the message.
IV. Number Three, Some people will respond negatively
A. We all know this to be true,
B. If you have share the gospel with more than one person in your life, I can almost guarantee that one or more times that message has been rejected.
C. Some may even have been angry that you tried.
D. King Herod was not a nice guy.
1. One of his crimes was to steal his brother wife as his own,
2. Herod was convicted by the message which John brought.
3. Unlike those that repented, Herod became angry to the point of having John the Baptist jailed.
E. Some people will respond negatively, BUT some people will repent.
V. You cannot know how a person will respond, until you step out and share the good news with them.
