Sermon Tone Analysis

Date: 2022-01-16

Audience: Grass Valley Corps (ONLINE)

Title: Preparing the Way

Text: Matthew 3 (all)

Proposition: John was important to demonstrating the identity of Jesus

Purpose: Recognize Jesus was God-approved

Grace and peace

Story of Jesus in the biography written by Matthew.

Matthew – one of the Twelve Apostles – key disciples of Jesus

How many disciples?

At times, followed by thousands.

Needed central group of lieutenants to hear him and carry his message.

Matthew was one of these guys.

He was educated and wealthy when Jesus met him.

Matthew was a tax collector.

I’ve mentioned Matthew’s emphasis on the way of Jesus being open for everyone who chooses to accept it.

Tax collectors were hated, treated as traitors.

They worked for Rome, collecting taxes that kept the legions paid, which kept the troops strong, which kept Israel oppressed by and subject to Rome.

Matthew was someone who voluntarily worked to keep his own people poor and controlled by the enemy who ruled over them.

Not very popular.

A group called the Zealots had quietly come into existence.

They were trying to raise underground support for Israeli independence.

One of the things they were known for was finding tax collectors who got separated from their security details or who got too close to a dark alleyway.

They would knife them and leave the body as an example of what they believed should happen to all who worked for Rome.

One of the other eleven members of Jesus’ inner circle was Simon the Zealot.

I bet these guys had some interesting dinner discussions.

And yet, both Matthew and Simon became disciples of Jesus.

Why?

Because they recognized that Jesus was promised by, sent by, and approved by God.

How did they come to that conclusion?

Because of things like we see in Matthew Chapter 3.

Matthew chapter 3 centers on a man who was called John.

In those days John the Baptist came to the Judean wilderness and began preaching.

His message was, 2 “Repent of your sins and turn to God, for the Kingdom of Heaven is near.”[1]

The Judean wilderness was an area of baren desert hills west of the Dead Sea.

The hillsides were scarred with furrows, called wadis, which were dry and rocky most of the time, but would fill with floodwaters rushing downhill during the rainy season, scouring away anything in their path.

It was largely uninhabited because it was largely uninhabitable.

Being there was a test and sometimes people would go out into the wilderness because the history of God’s people included times where they were lost or set adrift in far reaches where they had to learn to rely on God to survive.

For pilgrims, passing through wilderness was a way of retracing the steps of their ancestors in hope of meeting the God who gave them refuge and renewal in the harsh places of their lives.

The prophets spoke about returning to the wilderness as a part of bringing the people back to God.

Hosea describes the LORD’s plan this way:

14 “But then I will win her back once again.

I will lead her into the desert

and speak tenderly to her there.

15 I will return her vineyards to her

and transform the Valley of Trouble into a gateway of hope.

She will give herself to me there,

as she did long ago when she was young,

when I freed her from her captivity in Egypt.

[2]

It was to be a new Exodus to a new promise, foretold by prophets and executed by the long-awaited Messiah who would be declared by one final, great prophet.

Isaiah brought this message to the people in his day:

9 O Zion, messenger of good news,

shout from the mountaintops!

Shout it louder, O Jerusalem.

Shout, and do not be afraid.

Tell the towns of Judah,

“Your God is coming!”

[3]

What we are reading in Matthew reflects a belief that this time has come.

Because that’s exactly what John is preaching from his place in the wilds outside of Jerusalem:

2 “Repent of your sins and turn to God, for the Kingdom of Heaven is near.”[4]

We’ve talked about sin and repentance before.

Let me remind you that neither of these are intended as angry words.

They are both directions.

To sin is literally to miss the mark.

Think of it as being given directions to a certain place, but choosing to go elsewhere instead, be that somewhere close or somewhere far away.

Either way, you have missed the mark.

To repent is a turning back to where you were supposed to be heading – it’s not a change of mind or thinking, though that might be part of it.

To repent is to actually move back onto the route you should be traveling.

What John is preaching in the wilderness is that the time of God is coming and that we need to make sure we are heading towards life in his kingdom instead of heading away from it.

All four gospel writers link John’s message to the passage I just read part of from Isaiah 40.

They quote a piece from the beginning of that passage.

Matthew put it this way:

3 The prophet Isaiah was speaking about John when he said,

“He is a voice shouting in the wilderness,

‘Prepare the way for the Lord’s coming!

Clear the road for him!’

” [5]

John sounded like a prophet and spoke in a place God was known to send his prophets, but the wilderness was also a place for exiles and outcasts.

There were those who came for spiritual renewal and those who came to escape spiritual renewal.

Matthew wants us to understand which kind John was.

4 John’s clothes were woven from coarse camel hair, and he wore a leather belt around his waist.

For food he ate locusts and wild honey.[6]

John’s location, his clothing, and his food all spoke to his identity.

His clothing was the same as that worn by the prophet Elijah – made of hair with a leather belt holding it in place.

His food was kosher, natural, and entirely supplied by God.

His subsistence on these things would have carried great weight, demonstrating John to be a man living a simple life focused on the LORD, not on the things of the world.

And, recognizing him as a prophet, the people came to hear and respond to what John said.

5 People from Jerusalem and from all of Judea and all over the Jordan Valley went out to see and hear John.

6 And when they confessed their sins, he baptized them in the Jordan River.

[7]

John’s call wasn’t just for people to apologize for a single sin or a handful of them.

It was a call to change the way of life people were living in – turn from the old and embrace the new.

The baptism he was doing was a symbol used when Gentiles would convert to Judaism.

It was the last step in a process of embracing a whole new way of life obedient to the LORD, turning away from everything else.

It wasn’t just wading into the river to get dunked.

It was an intentional turning away from the place someone was at and giving themselves over to living as if they were waiting for the Kingdom of God to appear and establish something new.

John was telling people that entry into the true Kingdom was by choosing to repent and pledge themselves to God and NOT by being born into or becoming one of the family descended from Abraham.

He was telling them that true acceptance into the family of God was a matter of your choice or acceptance of God’s gift of salvation, not one of destiny or birthright.

This would have been shocking to many of the people in his day, just as it will be to many in our time.

When the religious leaders came to see what was going on with John in the wilderness, this is how John welcomed them.

7 But when he saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming to watch him baptize, he denounced them.

“You brood of snakes!” he exclaimed.