A King Who Divides
Notes
Transcript
Call to Worship: Isaiah 40:9-11 // Prayer
Call to Worship: Isaiah 40:9-11 // Prayer
Adoration: Your Worth is total; yours is might and justice; all the nations are less than nothing before you; yet yours is gentleness in the comfort and redemption of your people.
Confession: Father, since you are gentle, we come to you: we have sinned. We have been tested, and yielded. We have been deprived, and reacted selfishly. We have been threatened, and have reacted in fear rather than faith. We have clutched your gifts greedily rather than enjoying them thankfully. In all this, we have sinned against you. Forgive us!
Thanksgiving: But we plead this confidently, since we know that our warfare has ended in the death of our Savior. In your love and by his blood, we have been sprinkled clean and brought near to you! For so great a salvation, we praise you!
Supplication: Now we ask, increase our faith, and teach us to be satisfied in you, and in your fatherly care // For the women in the congregation, specifically, we ask: cause them to be sources of life among us, through dependence on the life you supply through your Son; expose before their eyes the emptiness of our culture’s deconstruction of womanhood; give them gospel-powered courage in the face of what is frightening; in all ways cause them to flourish and glorify your name through them // Cross Creek: praise You for providing for their needs, for bringing unbelievers into their midst to hear the gospel… please fulfill in them every resolve for good… // Congresswoman Bonamici, blessing, safety, salvation; turn her heart away from injustice and toward justice, away from laws which would hinder the spread of the gospel // Brothers and sisters in Afghanistan: protection, sanctification, boldness // to the word
Family Matters
Family Matters
Benediction
Benediction
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.
Sermon
Sermon
Intro
Intro
When I was stationed on USS Benfold, “in those days,”
I was standing watch as the “Anti-submarine Warfare Evaluator”—fancy term for the guy who tells the ship where to go while hunting a submarine
We hunted subs with an array of sound-receivers strung on a line towed behind the ship… really good at seeing out each side of the ship, but really bad at seeing directly ahead or behind… which meant that, every 5-10 minutes or so, you needed to change direction in order keep a good line on the sub, and refine your target solution
Problem: often, not obvious which direction to turn—and in a real naval battle, choosing the right course determines if you have even a chance to get torpedoes in the water before you yourself are sunk
So there I was… a lot of chatter in the headsets from the sonar supervisor, a lot of advice on what course to come to from voices more experienced than me, voices I should have heeded… and I chose the opposite course. Within about 2 minutes, it became painfully obvious that I had chosen poorly… the headset became painfully quiet. The reason our 270 person crew didn’t die that day was because it was an exercise, not a battle.
A moment of decision—a day with a forced choice, in which not making a decision is just another way to die.
How much more terrifying the choice, when you are confronted, not with an enemy submarine, but with God himself. And that’s exactly what we see in our passage this morning:
A new character shows up: John the Baptist, preaching repentance to prepare the way for the heavenly King and his kingdom
Many respond by repenting! But for some, it's only a public display, and not a true turn from sin.
And so John warns them of the coming wrath: of the king who gathers the repentant to himself, but consigns the unrepentant to unquenchable fire.
And so Matthew confronts us this morning with Jesus as the King who Divides
We’ll see that first in the divided response, among the people, to the announcement King’s coming
And second, in the action of the King himself, who divides the people according to their responses
The Arrival of the King Requires Repentance
The Arrival of the King Requires Repentance
Might be thinking “Hold on a minute… how can you talk about Jesus as terrifying? As dividing? Hasn’t Matthew already shown us that Jesus is a humble and lowly and gentle king? A king who loves and redeems sinners?”
He certainly has!
And he does not contradict that message here… in fact, he starts off with it!
Look at verse 3, talking about John the Baptist
For this is he who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah when he said, “The voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord; make his paths straight.’ ”
So, John the Baptist is the ‘wilderness voice’ foretold by Isaiah
And according to Isaiah, John’s purpose is to preach a message that prepares for the arrival of God
=> BTW: ‘the Lord’ in this verse is a translation of God’s covenant name, YHWH… so notice: in Isaiah’s prophecy, the way is prepared for the arrival of God; in Matthew’s story—describing the same event—it is Jesus who actually arrives. What’s Matthew saying? When God arrives, he arrives veiled in human flesh: the Divine Son arrives as the humble Jesus
And how does Isaiah announce this arrival? A view verses earlier:
Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.
Why? In context, b/c Zion’s warfare is ended, her sin is pardoned, her God has come
All this, Matthew will show us, has been fulfilled in the life and passion of Jesus… divine comfort for his people.
Yet, there is a discordant note in these opening verses of Matthew 3, which drops a hint for us about how a king as lovely as Jesus could at the same time be a king who divides the people
The discordant note is this: unlike Isaiah, John does not open with news of comfort, but with a command to repent.
Remember: Isaiah + John the Baptist are announcing the same kingdom
So why, then, does John add a command to repent? (BTW: I’m not saying they contradict each other… it’s a difference of emphasis… but an important one!)
“Well,” you might be think, “Doesn’t it make sense?”
“Haven’t we just seen that Jesus is the one who saves us from sin to God?”
“And isn’t repentance just turning from sin to faith in Jesus? And isn’t that how we receive the gift of salvation anyway?”
So this all makes sense: John the Baptist is preaching repentance to prepare the hearts of the people to receive their king.
Maybe the word ‘repentance’ is a dreary word for you— ‘admit that you did some bad stuff, and tell God that you’re going to try harder next time’
But the biblical idea is different. In Isaiah, a couple verses after the verse Matthew has quoted here, Isaiah explains the result of this repentance:
And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”
It’s turning from sin to God—you can’t behold the glory of God while simultaneously admiring the filth of sin
You can’t stubbornly mistreat your friends and revel in the kindness of God at the same time…
You can’t admire yourself and be awestruck with God’s majesty at the same time…
You can’t hold on to your autonomous exercise of power and become a citizen under Jesus, in the Kingdom of Heaven, at the same time…
To repent is to turn from the filth of sin to receive the comfort and forgiveness of God through Jesus
The Call to Repentance Receives a Divided Response
The Call to Repentance Receives a Divided Response
And as we move through the passage, we see something wonderful:
Then Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region about the Jordan were going out to him, and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.
He preached repentance
Many obeyed
At this point, it’s a ‘good news’ story—a new day of comfort and forgiveness is about to come for so many of these people—there’s no division here… just obedience to the gospel of the kingdom, and anticipation of the coming king
But then we get a rude jolt… some of the Pharisees and Sadducees—religious leaders of Israel—were also coming to participate in this baptism… but John turns to them and says (vss. 7-8), “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?”
What was John’s problem with them?
Look in Vs. 8—they were making an external show of repentance, but in their lives, there was no actual turn from sin to God.
They feigned repentance, but the fruit of repentance—growth in righteousness—was absent from their lives.
And so, the news of the coming King, preached by John, divided the people in two before the king even arrived on the scene… it divided them into (1) those who turned from sin in anticipation of the kingdom, and (2) those who did not.
But why didn’t these Pharisees and Sadducees turn from sin?
They felt safe. They saw themselves as safe from the coming wrath based on the fact that they were part of the people of Israel—sons of Abraham. They thought that, on this basis, they would receive all the blessings promised to Abraham. They were safe.
What does John say to interrupt this sense of safety?
In vs. 7, he calls them, “brood of vipers”—meaning, children of the snake—of Satan. In other words, he’s saying to them, “You may think that Abraham is your Father, but the truth is, the Evil One is your father.
Then, vs. 9, in case they missed the point, he says, “don’t presume to say to yourselves, “We have Abraham as a father””—he’s saying, “It’s not true!”
The true children of Abraham are those who actually turn from sin to God—who actually repent from the heart—so that fruit of true repentance begins to appear in their lives.
So then: here’s his message to the religious leaders of God’s people in his day: You want to be children of Abraham? You want to be saved from the wrath to come? You have the same need as everyone else: The King is coming: Humble yourself. Confess your wickedness. Repent.
Then he gives them the divine perspective:
First, (vs. 9) “God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham”… what’s he saying?
There will be children of Abraham—God will ensure it by his power. He is able.
And so, the blessing promised by God to Abraham, fulfilled in the gospel, will go out to the nations
The Kingdom of Heaven will go forward with power
You may be the religious leaders of God’s people—he is saying to them—but his plan will go forward whether you are involved in it or not
Second, (vs. 10) “the axe is laid to the root of the trees”… an image of judgement
Because of the evil laid up in their hearts—a respectable, self-righteous evil, of course—they were in the cross-hairs of God’s judgement
About to be removed from God’s kingdom, about to be consigned to eternal judgement.
The people were about to be divided into the redeemed and the judged
His message to them, again, is an urgent confrontation: humble yourselves and repent, before it is too late
Jesus is the King Who Divides the Repentant and Unrepentant
Jesus is the King Who Divides the Repentant and Unrepentant
But John the Baptist’s message is not merely about the vague fact that God will bring justice against the wicked, or even that God will bring justice swiftly
John’s message is about the person who is coming—the King, who divides the people
Now, let’s stop for a moment and think about all this. This is really a shocking passage. Their’s plenty in it to offend us: judgement, division, fire—and the arrival of a kingdom of which we are not king. But we should not think that we—modern Americans—are the only ones who would find this offensive. Put yourselves in the shoes of the Pharisees and Sadducees. Consider it from their perspective.
Were’t they honoring John the Baptist? Here they were doing something friendly toward him—coming out to participate in his movement, hear his preaching. And what do they get? A public rebuke in which they are labeled enemies of God!
You can bet their hackles were up! And maybe we shouldn’t hold them at arm’s length and look down on them… how would you react to the sting of such an accusation?
But John has something to say to us to help us wrap our minds around this message. We’ve already seen:
That the king’s arrival makes repentance necessary
But that this command to repent divides people in two
And we just started to see that this divided response leads to a divided destiny: the repentant to blessing, the unrepentant to judgement
But John wants to help us wrap our minds around this message by telling us something about the king himself (vs. 10)--
This coming king “is mightier than I”—yes, I’m out here as a prophet of God, preaching with boldness and power… but it’s nothing compared to the power you will see in this king, if you have eyes to see
The worth of this coming king is so great, I’m not fit to be the lowest kind of slave to him.
That’s what John means when he says, “whose sandals I am not worthy to carry”
In that time and culture, the foot and the sandal were where the dust of the day and the mire and refuse of the street collected… it was a very lowly position, to attend someone’s feet or sandals…
Here’s John the Baptist, the greatest prophet Israel has ever seen, saying, “If I carried his sandals, that would be an honor high and out of place for me”
BTW, I don’t know if any of you watch the show, “The Chosen”—a series dramatizing the life of Jesus. It’s very popular. And it’s fine if you watch it. Kyleigh and I have been watching it as it comes out. And there are many good things to say about it. But there is one, troubling, repeated pattern in the show: the Jesus of “The Chosen” doesn’t like to be worshiped. He is a wonderful friend to sinners, but not so much their divine king. In the Bible—in reality—he is both.
And it is the astonishing worth and power of this king that really makes sense of the message:
If there were a King so wonderful, so worthy, so beautiful, so pure, that the greatest of human beings was not worthy or pure or clean enough to be his foot-servant,
But if this King intended to make spiritual rocks (spiritually lifeless people, as everyone is before Christ)—if he intended to make spiritual rocks into the honored citizens of his kingdom, wouldn’t they need to repent? To turn from sin and trust him for salvation?
And if they refused to repent in front of the Maker of all things, and instead cling to their sin at the very moment when he comes to save them, doesn’t it actually make complete sense for him to remove them from his kingdom, and consign them to judgement? And so John says:
His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”
Jesus is a king who divides: the repentant, who trust in him, are like wheat kernels gathered to a barn; those refuse him and cling to sin, are consigned to unquenchable judgement.
Friends, this is tough, right? It’s not a pleasant message—Jesus is the King who Divides
And in some ways, this situation was unique—a transition period in salvation history—leadership was about to be transferred from the Temple establishment—the Sadducees and Pharisees—to this new King.
But there is a principle here that still applies to us: growing up in the church, identifying as Christian… you can put on a fine show for the congregation. I know, because I lived it. But you can still be, as John would say, a son or daughter of the snake! Or, you can be a true believer, but will all of your ‘Christian growth’ an external show.
The question is not whether you claim to be a Christian, or whether you look like a good Christian on Sunday mornings. The question is not whether you participate in christian activities, or hold Christian opinions on current issues. The question is whether you’ve turned from sin to God.
Religious identity cannot insulate you from this; it cannot substitute for yielding yourself to the kingship of Christ, and trusting him for salvation.
But all who yield to him, he baptizes with the Holy Spirit—an unspeakable grace!—who then works in your heart to produce that fruit of repentance, a little more as each month and year go by.
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