Today we’re going to be talking about a really interesting person in Bible history. We’re going to be talking about a guy named John the Baptist. And as we have done a few times before, we aren’t going to start in our main passage which is Matthew chapter 3. We’re actually going to go learn some of the backstory of John first, and we can find that backstory in Luke chapter 1. So, let’s head there first and we’re going to read a few parts of this, and we’re going to start in verse 5.
Read Luke 1:5-25
So, we find here this man named Zacharias. He was a priest in Israel, his wife Elizabeth is actually a relative of Mary the mother of Jesus. Luke tells us in verse 6 that these were both righteous people, that they have lived well before the Lord, but God had not given them a child and they were quite old in age at this point. And so, Zacharias is doing his duties as a priest and he is going in to the temple to burn incense. But this time is different, because he walks into the temple, and he sees an angel of the Lord standing by the temple altar. This angel tells Zacharias there in verse 13 that God has heard his prayers and that he is going to have a son and he is supposed to name that son, John. He is told that people will rejoice at the birth of his son, that he will be great in the sight of the Lord, that he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from before birth, and that he will be used to turn many of the Israelites back to their God.
All around, I think that’s some pretty great news, but kind of like Abraham and Sarah, Zacharias is like we’re way too old to have children at this point. And because of his unbelief the angel Gabriel actually makes Zacharias mute until John is born. He’s like…if you don’t believe this then you don’t get to talk about it until John’s here. An interesting part of the story. And let’s jump down to verse 39.
Read Luke 1:39-45
We don’t really need to camp here, but we had to read this. This is the first time Jesus and John meet, and they’re both still in the womb. And John being filled with the Holy Spirit even in the womb reacts with joy to the very presence of Jesus. He jumped for joy as much as he could within the confines of Elizabeth’s womb. We read these verses as part of Mary’s story previously, but we had to stop here for John as well. But let’s continue on to verse 57.
Read Luke 1:57-66
And so, John is born and it’s believed that he is about 6 months older than Jesus. At eight days old, His parents go in to have John circumcised and at this point the ones performing the circumcision basically assume that his name is going to be Zacharias after his father. And it’s interesting because Elizabeth obviously corrects them, that his name is supposed to be John, but they want to double check with the dad as well and Zacharias is still mute at this point. Which makes verse 62 kind of funny, it says they are making signs at Zacharias trying to communicate with him, but Zacharias isn’t able to talk, it never says that he can’t hear. But regardless, they’re making these signs at him, and Zacharias has them bring a tablet for him to write on and he confirms what Elizabeth had already said. That this son was to be named John, and immediately Zacharias was able to speak again. And he used his newly regained voice to immediately praise God and then the Holy Spirit causes him to prophecy. The prophecy starts by talking about Jesus and the salvation that was coming through Him, but then it turns to focus on baby John. And here we find this father with his child and the Holy Spirit speaking through him, speaks to his son, and he says what we see in verse 76 to the end of the chapter.
Read Luke 1:76-80
He says son, you are going to be a prophet of the most High, you are here to prepare the way for the Lord, to help people understand salvation and the remission of sins, to give light to those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, and to guide our feet towards peace. I mean talk about jobs to do. This one is way up there. I can’t imagine what Zacharias thought and felt, holding his son and knowing that this little boy had the responsibility to pave the way for the Messiah. But this baby, John, started growing up and all we know is that at some point when he got older, he headed out into the desert until it was time to fulfill his role in Israel. And that is where Matthew chapter 3 picks up John’s story. So, let’s head over there now.
Read Matthew 3:1-6
John headed out into the desert at the end of Luke 1 and then out of that wilderness comes John preaching here in Matthew 3. Let’s take a brief overview of this passage and then we’ll break down the different elements here. Our passage starts off with John out there in the wilderness of Judea, or the southern part of Israel, and it’s there that we find him preaching. And what is he preaching? His message is pretty brief and to the point, he’s saying “REPENT, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!”
And then after this brief message, Matthew quotes from Isaiah 40, verse 3.
Read Matthew 3:3
Matthew relates John to this verse. That this prophecy from so many hundreds of years before, pointed to this guy that had just come on the scene, from out in the wilderness. Matthew describes John as being clothed in camel’s hair, wearing a leather belt around his waist, and feeding on locusts and wild honey. But even with the interesting description of this man, it says there in verses 5 and 6 that people from Jerusalem and Judea and all over the region were coming out to meet him at the Jordan river, confessing their sins, and being baptized by Him.
But I feel like that begs the question…why? Why in the world were people flocking out to this crazy guy in the desert? I mean if some random guy walked out of the desert in North Indio or the east valley, he was wearing animal skins, he was eating bugs and honey, he was preaching some message in the streets, and trying to baptize people in the canal. I don’t think all that many people are going to be running over there to check this guy out. Maybe some would go for the novelty, but probably not many would go seriously. And so again, why? What drew people to John.
Perhaps there was some initial novelty for some, to go see this crazy guy in the wilderness, but this was the first real prophet back on the scene in Israel for like 400 years at this point. We know from Luke, that John from the womb had been filled with the Holy Spirit, his coming had been prophesied of to lead the way for Christ, and he is now here with a message that these people desperately need to hear. He’s preaching, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!”. The novelty probably wore off pretty quickly once they heard this man speaking from the power of the Spirit of God with a message concerning the present reality of God’s kingdom. I’m sure when encountering this man there was no longer novelty, because he was the real deal, and he was purposed and empowered by God to do His work. John was sharing with these people that God’s kingdom wasn’t some fairy-tale far-off place that they didn’t need to be concerned with, it was here, and it was now. The kingdom was literally at hand and John was paving the way for King of the kingdom.
And I say, paving the way, because in that prophecy that Matthew quotes from Isaiah 40, there is this picture of preparing literal roadways for a king to travel over. In the ancient world they had roads, it wasn’t all just walking through the desert, but many of these roads weren’t necessarily upkept all of the time and they would fall into disrepair. And many times, they would stay that way until the king or someone prominent enough was to travel over them and then they would rush out and they would fix and prepare the roadway for the king’s trip. So, the king had a nice road to travel on. So, John in his role, was like a one-man Cal Trans, but obviously he wasn’t paving literal roads, instead he was paving the way forward for people to understand why they needed Jesus. And he was doing that through a message of sin and repentance.
The message of repentance requires an understanding of our sin. And we have to understand our sin before we will really ever understand why we need Jesus. Because Jesus isn’t just a participation award that we get for coming to church. Jesus is the only way to salvation from the problem and the predicament that we have found ourselves in as sinners. These people that John is talking to, just like us, really needed to understand this, because Jesus was just moments away from walking down this path that John was paving right into all of these people’s lives. As John said, “the kingdom of heaven is at hand”, and the King was already here, even if they didn’t know it yet.
This somewhat eccentric, but Spirit-filled man, carried with him this message of sin, and repentance, and of the kingdom. He was calling people to turn away from their sin because their savior was imminent. And that turning away from is what repentance is, it’s not just feeling sorry or saying sorry about something, it’s understanding clearly that we’re sinful and then choosing to turn and move away from that sin. Repentance is not just a feeling, acknowledging our sin should cause sorrow and we should feel that, but repentance at its core is the action of moving directly away from that sin that we should feel sorry for. And why is that so important?
Because if we as believers are really going to follow Jesus, we can’t be following after sin at the same time. John was calling these people to start dealing with these things, to start understanding and dealing with their sin, to repent, because doing this would turn them around and away from their sin, so that they would now be looking in the right direction in preparation to follow Jesus.
Maybe you have never actually turned from your sin to follow Jesus. If you haven’t, I would encourage you to do so today. John was preaching this message for a reason, there’s nothing good at the end of the path of sin and you might find some fleeting fun in the moment but guarantee that it is absolutely nothing compared to knowing and having the life, the hope, the salvation that is found in Jesus Christ. He died so that our sins could be wiped out and He rose back to life so that might have life in Him. There’s no price to pay anymore, because He already paid it all.
But maybe you already know Jesus. And hopefully we’re trying every day to be more like Him, but if we’re honest we know that we all still mess up sometimes. The great thing is that we’re told that we can’t lose our salvation. But even though we may have repented before, we still need to deal with our sin. Because we’ll never be as effective as we can be in following Jesus if we’re getting pulled in different directions by sin. But the great thing is that we know a wonderful God who despite our problems is continually faithful to care for and forgive us. I think of passages like 2 Chronicles 7:14:
- If My people who are called by My name humble themselves, and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.
And 1 John 1:9:
- If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
I don’t know if we always comprehend how much of a blessing that is. That we with all of our dumb problems can’t run God out of His grace and mercy. Of course, we should never use that as some sort of crutch to give us a pass on sinning, but we’re still going to mess up at times in the path forward and I am thankful that my God has forgiven my ridiculousness at times and brought me this far and I know He will continue to do so.
And so, at the end of our verses for today, there in verses 5 and 6, we see people confessing their sins and being baptized by John in the Jordan river.
Read Matthew 3:5-6
This was a big step for these people, the baptism that John was doing was really like a visual and actionable acknowledgement by these people of their uncleanness because of sin and then being washed by the waters of repentance. This baptism is different then what we do now, but that doesn’t in anyway make it insignificant. Functionally it was the same, being immersed in water. But they were identifying with the repentance and being prepared for the Messiah’s coming, where we now fully identify with Christ and what He has done for us. In baptism we see the picture of us dying with Christ and being raised to new life in Him. We’re baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit to publicly display the reality of our salvation in Him not just in repentance. Baptism doesn’t save us, and it didn’t save these people. For them, God was using John and his message to prepare their hearts for Jesus. Now if we know Jesus, then in obedience we are baptized to officially and publicly identify with Him and tell everyone around us that we died with Him, we rose with Him, and now we live for Him.
John served in a very interesting role, being the one to prepare the way for Jesus in some ways. And even his seemingly simple message would have probably caused some controversy. Culturally people weren’t really used to being confronted with and having to deal with personal sin. It was often viewed more so as a national issue and we’ll probably look at that more next week. His message was against the grain, as God’s word often is. Subjects like sin and repentance are often shied away from, because we as people don’t like acknowledging our issues and we definitely don’t like dealing with them.
Talking about sin is necessary, but not in some judgmental way of us looking down at “all you sinners out there!” That’s ridiculous, we’re all sinners, I’m no better than anyone else and nobody else in here is either. When we talk about sin, we should talk about it from a place of love and care for the other individual, because sin is devastating to the individual and can also be to the community around them. But I want us to understand why this is a loving message. So, let’s look at this passage in James.
James 1:14-15 says:
- 14 But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. 15 Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death.
You know why we have to talk about sin? It’s what we see in these verses. Because this fleshly body that we live in likes to give into temptation, it likes to act on those desires, and it likes to sin. But what we need to be concerned about is that the inevitable outcome of sin without Jesus’ intervention is death. And I don’t know about you, but I hope none of us would wish that upon anyone. In love we bring the warning of sins results. And in love we say that the way of sin leads to death, but I know this one named Jesus who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Death may be on sin’s path that way, but life is found with Jesus Christ. That’s why John’s message was so important, these people needed to see the danger that they were in because of sin and then John will point them straight towards Jesus. That’s what his dad prophesied over him when we started in Luke, that he would help people understand sin and salvation, that he would bring light to those sitting in darkness and show them the way of peace. And that’s exactly what he’s doing.
But as we sit here today, let us be purposed to join this cause, there are still plenty of people that need light shown into the darkness, there are still plenty of people that need to understand sin and the salvation found in Jesus Christ. And they need that brought to them in love and in truth. But as we prepare for these things, let us consider and deal with the sin in our own lives as well, because every hook that sin has in us will only hold us back from our greatest potential for God’s glory and for His Kingdom work. The kingdom of heaven was at hand then and you better believe it still is now. These goals even reflect the mission of this church. We’re broadcasting Jesus, because He is the hope in the darkness for sinners like us. And we’ve got to be dealing with sin, because we’re here to make disciples of Jesus and that means people purposed to really follow Him, and we simply can’t be following Him well, or at all, if we’re trying to follow after sin at the same time. So, we’ve got to deal with it and there’s just too much at stake to not take these things seriously. So, let’s be about these things together.