Sermon Tone Analysis
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Introduction
[Illus] There’s a billboard on Springhill Avenue.
I see it every time I head back to the church from University Hospital or Mobile Infirmary.
On the billboard is a message calling people to call on Jesus for salvation.
It promises that if you do, your life will change.
And then it ends with one word, “Repent.”
People go up and down Springhill, make their turns, and their stops, but everyone it seems ignores that billboard—and perhaps especially that word “repent”.
It’s understandable
Some people don’t see it.
I suppose some could simply not understand it.
But the message of repentance that Jesus and John preached was unmissable and unmistakable.
The message of repentance they preached was like if that billboard on Springhill smashed into the top of your car as you went by.
You’d have to stop, assess the situation, and decide what to do next.
That was what those who heard John and Jesus had to do as well— stop, assess, and decide.
And that’s what we must do this morning in response to God’s Word—stop, assess, and decide.
[CONTEXT] We started looking at this passage of Scripture last week and the backstory is interesting—Jesus was baptized, anointed by God the Holy Spirit, and verified by God the Father.
He defeated Satan in the wilderness by resisting every temptation.
He began his public ministry by teaching with amazing authority.
He claimed to be the Christ.
He healed people, kept preaching, got some disciples, kept healing people, kept claiming to be the Christ, chose his Apostles, kept healing, kept preaching, and kept healing!
He healed a Centurion’s servant without even being present and raised a widowed woman’s only son from the dead with a command.
That’s why in , it says...
There was a buzz about Jesus.
But while people buzzed about Jesus, John the Baptist was in prison.
John the Baptist was the forerunner of Jesus.
He was the one who came in the spirit and power of Elijah to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.
He did this through preaching a message of repentance.
As we’ll see some repented of their sins but others rejected repentance.
John was in prison because he called Herod, the Jewish King (really a puppet-king on behalf of the Romans) to repent of the sin of stealing his brother’s wife.
Herod kept John in his cell and would bring him up when he wanted to hear John’s preaching.
John likely preached that same sermon on repentance to Herod over and over again.
During that time John’s disciples were reporting to him all the things that Jesus was doing and saying.
God had revealed to John that the one on whom he saw the Spirit rest would be the Christ, the Messiah, the Anointed One who would take away the sins of God’s people.
And that’s exactly what John saw at Jesus’ baptism.
He also heard the Father say from Heaven, “This is My Beloved Son with Whom I am well pleased.”
John certainly knew that Jesus was the Christ.
He even referring to Him as “the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.”
But the reports he was getting about Jesus’ ministry were not what John expected to hear.
But the reports he was getting about Jesus’ ministry were not what John expected to hear.
Back in John said of the coming Christ...
He heard a prophet of God repeatedly preach the Word of God regarding his sin.
Now that’s what John expected the Christ to do, but when his disciples reported back to him about the ministry of Jesus, what did John hear about?
He heard about mighty miracles and perfect sermons but not about winnowing forks and unquenchable fire as he expected.
John expected Jesus to come condemning but Jesus came redeeming.
This confused John, so he sent his disciples to ask, “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?” ().
He could have (and if he was affected by John’s preaching at all, must have) gone to God’s Word himself to see if what John said was true.
And it certainly was true!
Rather than respond to John’s doubt with frustration or dismissal, Jesus responded with compassion.
In that very hour, right before the eyes of John’s disciples, Jesus began to intentionally fulfill the Word of God—doing the very things that the prophet Isaiah said the Christ would do.
Then why didn’t Herod repent?
The blind received their sight.
The lame walked.
What other answer could there be other than atheism?
The lepers were cleansed.
The deaf heard.
The dead were raised up.
The poor had good news preached to them.
And all of this so that John would not doubt that Jesus was the Christ.
Then Jesus sent John’s disciples back with a message, “…blessed is the one who is not offended by Me,” ().
Those who refuse to believe that Jesus is the Christ stumble over Jesus on the way to Hell.
Those who believe that Jesus is the Christ, however, are blessed with eternal life.
Not wanting the surrounding crowds to get the wrong idea about John, Jesus began to them of John’s greatness, his toughness, and his conviction.
John was a man of conviction, not some reed shaken by the wind.
John was a man of toughness, not some dainty royal dressed in soft clothes while living in some luxurious palace.
He was a man of the wilderness dressed in camel hair and a leather belt while eating wild honey and locusts.
John was a prophet and more than a prophet.
He was the forerunner of the Christ.
Jesus said that “…among those born of women none is greater than John,” ().
Greater still, however, are those who get to see the fulfillment in Jesus of all John preached about.
That’s you and me and all who trust Jesus as the Christ.
Now that brings us up to where we are this morning.
[CIT] In we see that the people declared God just for calling them to repentance through the ministry of John the Baptist while the Pharisees and the lawyers rejected repentance.
[PROP] This morning the call to repentance comes to us through this passage from God’s Holy Word and we must decide...
[INTER] …will we admit that it is right and good of God to call sinners like us to repentance?
Will we actually repent?
Or will we also reject repentance?
[TS] I want to make four OBSERVATIONS from this passage of Scripture...
Major Ideas
OBSERVE: God is just in demanding we repent of sin.
[Exp]
[Exp] We are sinners.
You are, and I am.
God, our Creator, is holy (i.e., He is perfect righteousness and without even a hint of sin).
Thus, it just or right for God to call us sinners to repentance.
We come to v. 29 from v. 28 where Jesus said that John the Baptist was great but greater still were those in the Kingdom of God.
John came to prepare the world for the Kingdom of God in the coming of Jesus—but people enter the Kingdom of God by repenting of sin and trusting Jesus as the Christ.
eople enter the Kingdom of God by repenting of sin and trusting Jesus as the Christ
As v. 29 says, “When all the people hear this… they declared God just.”
The people to whom Jesus spok
More literally, “they justified God.”
What does that mean?
More literally, “they justified God.”
What does that mean?
What does that mean?
To justify someone means to declare their righteousness in general or in a specific action.
Here, the people are saying that God did right in sending John to prepare them for Jesus by calling them to repentance.
The baptism of John was a baptism of repentance.
It looked similar to our baptism.
A repentant individual went down into the water, was immersed, and came up out of the water.
John’s baptism was a public declaration that one was turning from sin and joining with God’s people in worshipping Him alone.
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