Sermon Tone Analysis

prepare: the Lord is coming, salvation and judgement.

intro me

last week we reached the end of the opening act in Matthew’s gospel: Jesus’ arrival as God with us - and through Christmas and into this new year we’ve seen both the worship and the trouble he met as he enters into our broken world before the curtain went down on the first act.

Today, the curtain rises again and there’s almost a hushed expectation as act 2 is about to begin.

It’s been about thirty years since the events of that very first Christmas - about thirty years of waiting where, so it seems, nothing much happens.

And the truth is, for God’s ancient people, the Jews, it’s been a much, much longer wait - 400 years since the last of the prophets brought God’s message to them; 400 years of silence.

Yes, a brief moment of angels and stars and a baby in Bethlehem which must have got tongues wagging - but it doesn’t seem to come to much, and I expect, was quickly forgotten.

Back to business as usual: waiting.

Let’s pick up the story and hear what happens next:

The kingdom of heaven has come near

The people were waiting because God had promised his people that things were going to change.

Perhaps that’s why this new guy in the wilderness with is getting so much attention.

There’s his diet: who here’s eaten honey?

mmm tasty.

Locusts?

nope.

I don’t think that’s going to be the new diet craze.

There’s his dress code: who has a leather belt on today?

now who’s wearing any camel hair?

Odd, right, but I doubt that was enough.

It takes far more than just being weird to draw a crowd.

I think John gets attention most of all for the heart of his message: “the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

That, that, is what people had been waiting for - but I don’t think this message is that clear for us to understand.

What does he mean, that the kingdom of heaven has come near?

Let’s unpack that a bit.

What is this “kingdom of heaven”?

Is it a physical place, an area of land - like the Kingdom of Fife just over the water, with borders, boundaries?

no - not a physical place.

Is he talking about the nature, the substance of the kingdom - what it’s made out of?

Like a kingdom of cheese?

- ooh actually quite fancy that.

But that’s not getting at it.

If you were to look in the other gospels we have in our bible, the three other tellings of the story of Jesus, in the place of this phrase, where the different gospels overlap, you’d read about the “kingdom of God” instead.

That helps us understand the phrase here in Matthew.

this kingdom is anywhere and everywhere that God is actively king, everywhere his rule is honoured; everywhere that moves to his command.

When we pray in the Lord’s Prayer, up on the wall over here, “your kingdom come”, this is what we’re praying for: God’s active rule and his good design to break into our lives and our world, and to take over more and more.

Of course, there’s a sense that God is king over the whole universe - but he’s not enforcing his rule, his ways; not setting the agenda and enacting it everywhere.

Yet.

Imagine a family home with some good family rules: No feet on the sofa.

Some healthy veg with every meal.

Do the washing up before bed.

Now imagine the parents go away for a few days - a special wedding anniversary, maybe.

On the first day, perhaps standards stay pretty high.

But you can bet by day three the kitchen surface is covered in washing up.

There are exactly the same number of vegetables in the fridge as there were on day one, and the sofa’s going to need to go in the washing machine whole.

Imagine the whole house looking like a teenager’s bedroom!

Are the parents in charge?

Do they have authority?

Are they “king”?

Yes - oh yes, children, that’s what he bible tells us - Colossians 3:20 children obey your parents!

They have authority - but they’re not enforcing it, not enacting it right now.

And then… Then there’s a knock on the door… [knock] “the kingdom of heaven has come near” - that’s what it means.

God’s back - He’s right at the door - and things are going to change.

Big-time.

That closing part, “the kingdom of heaven has come near” is more about nearness in time than location - it’s not close by, just a few miles away - it’s moments away, it’s about to happen, it’s imminent.

Let’s go back to our illustration for a moment.

Let’s say - let’s say the parents have been away a long time - a really long time.

And things have gotten wildly out of hand as the kids have spiralled away and away from the the straight and narrow.

It’s quite possible the house is going to have be written and off and torn down completely.

And then, through the window, the kids see one of their friends shouting and waving at them from the street, gesticulating so wildly it’s like they are try to flap their wings fast enough to take off.

The friend is pointing down the road, looking terrified.

And then you make out what he’s saying: “they’re coming!”

What are the kids going to do?

Well, it’s too far gone to fix it.

There’s no way they could wash everything up in time if they tried.

And the carpet will actually never be the same ever again.

The place is trashed.

So what hope is left for them?

Back to our bible passage - this is why John starts his message with “repent”.

That’s the only hope those kids have got: to repent.

repent...

Now “repent” is a bit of a christian-y word so let me unpack that for you.

What does it mean to “repent”?

It means to change direction.

To turn around.

But it’s not just any change of course, just any adjustment to your heading.

Like, ok, that door’s closed, let me try this other one.

More specifically, it’s turning away from a wrong direction, accepting, admitting that was the wrong direction to be going.

Turning towards a new direction, one you accept is, in fact, the right direction you should have been going all along.

And I think the heart of our problem with this repentance stuff is just how painful, how deeply painful, it is for our human psyche to admit that we were in fact going the wrong way.

We’re just allergic to admitting we were wrong.

Take something trivial like driving.

There’s the sat nav saying “make a u-turn where possible” “make a u-turn where possible” “make a u-turn where possible” but me, I’m just going straight on because I know where I’m going, I know the right way, I know it’s over here.

But then at the dead-end, it finally dawns on me that I actually don’t know where I’m going.

I’m actually wrong.

Do you find it easy to admit you were wrong?

Or can you identify with that sort of internal wiring?

That’s my internal wiring.

The huge block getting in the way of repentance is our pride, our massive pride, which makes it so hard for us to admit we were wrong.

Here, as people respond to John’s message of God knocking at the door, the kingdom of heaving drawing near, we see two practical steps teaching us how we do this.

Look at verse 6 with me.

Matthew 3:6

Confession and Baptism.

Back to our picture of those kids home alone.

They have a few choices when the parents show up at the door.

They can pretend there’s nothing going on - but that won’t get them far: can’t help but see the smoking ruin of a home behind them.

Reality is going to assert itself.

They can reject their parents’ authority outright: “you can’t tell me what to do”.

“I like my house like this”.

But it’s not their house.