The First Sermon In The New Testament--And It Was Unusual!

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.