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Beautiful singing. So for those that don’t know me, my name is Wes. I’m a pastoral assistant here at Red Village Church where I help lead the youth and the college ministry, which I greatly enjoy doing. So I’m going to be helping us to work through the book of Luke. That’s where we’ve been at for our church sermon series.
So we’re going to keep on working through that. So if you have a Bible, go ahead and open up to chapter three, Luke three. And we’re going to work through verses one through 22. I’m just going to read verses four through six. And then I’m just going to pray and ask that God would bless this time.
Studying his Word. And we’ll start through it. So here is what God’s Word says for us this morning. This is Luke 3, verses 4 through 6. So it says, as it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah, the prophet, the voice of one crying in the wilderness.
Prepare the way of the Lord and make his path straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low. And the crooked shall become straight, and the rough places shall become level ways. And all flesh shall see the salvation of God. Please pray with me, God.
It’s good to be able to gather with your people this morning. And Lord, we want to hear from you. I pray that you would open our hearts, open our ears to hear you speak. And God, through my folly of preaching, may you speak your holy word for the good of your people and for your glory. It’s in Jesus name that we pray.
Amen.
So for those here who know me, you know that I love backpack hunting for elk in the western states. And at this point, you actually might be getting a little tired of me bringing this up in sermons because. Cause it’s just one of the main things that I keep talking about. But if you are wondering why I love backpack hunting and hiking in the western states, the reason why is actually sitting in the second row right over here. And that is my dad.
So my dad is visiting with us this morning. And my dad instilled in me a deep love for wildlife and for hiking and for hunting ever since I was very, very little. The first memories that I can remember, I was out running around with my dad in the mountains. And so lucky for you all, this morning, I am going to let you all in on a little secret for the key to every successful hunt that me and my dad have ever been on. And that is I’m going to tell you all the coordinates to every secret hunting spot that we have ever been to.
So go ahead and just start writing these coordinates down. No, I’m not going to do that. That would be absolutely crazy. And my dad would probably tackle me, like, midway doing that. So that’s not going to happen.
But the secret that I am going to tell you to every successful elk hunt is that every single hunt I have been on has been well prepared for in advance. So if you want to hunt in the Gila National Forest, which is, like, one of the largest national forests in the United States, one of the rockiest national forests in the United States, you have to prepare well in advance. If you want to hunt elk and successfully kill an elk, you generally just can’t, like, show up in the Gila and, like, expect an elk just, like, run out of the forest and come over to you, and, like, you’re just going to shoot it and bam, it’s over. That doesn’t happen. It doesn’t happen for anybody.
And so you have to prepare, like, everything. You have to prepare physically to be able to hike up and down rocky ridges and mountains day after day, morning after evening, mile after mile, which means, like, you need to exercise long before in advance to be in good shape. You have to practice with your bow or your rifle again and again and again. You have to be consistent. If you’re actually going to go hunt like a big game animal, you have to prepare all of your equipment, Your tent, sleeping bag, backpack, water filter, jet boiler, fire starter, boots, jackets, rain gear, and even more things.
I’m not going to list a lot of things that you need if you’re just going to backpack hunt and all of these things, they got to be prepared well in advance. And even more important than having all these things prepared if you want to have a successful elk hunt is you have to prepare the way that you will travel in the wilderness. You can do all these things I just listed, but if you don’t know where you are going or how you will get there, then you’re going to be very unsuccessful. Preparing the path that you will hike is vital to a successful elk hunt. And if you don’t do this when your elk hunt arrives, you will spend your time wandering around in areas where there could be, like, no elk, absolutely none, and you will miss any opportunity at tagging out with a bull elk.
So the better prepared you are in knowing the wilderness, the better your odds are for a success, successful hunt. And in our passage today in Luke, we, we see that John was preparing the way for Jesus to Come. And we see that this preparation was vitally important in order for God’s people to receive Christ who was about to begin his ministry. So without John’s ministry of preparation, many of the Jews who listened to John like they would not be ready to receive the Lord and they would completely miss Jesus when he arrived. So looking at verses one through two in Luke chapter three, Luke fast forwards 18 years into the future from the story of Jesus as a 12 year old that Aaron preached on last week.
And so our passage now in chapter three is giving us some historical context 18 years later, which is the context of the time that the word of the Lord came to John in the wilderness. So Luke reminds us that Jesus ministry and life is a part of history, which gives us certainty that knowing, like when each of these events took place, like when the word of the Lord came to John, is a time in history. And so that being said, John’s ministry began during the reign of Tiberius Caesar, who was a very paranoid and very wicked ruler. And we see also Pontius Pilate is mentioned as governor of Judah, who we know Judea, and we know that like Pontius Pilate would actually give the sentence for Christ to be crucified in only three years time. From this we see that Herod Antipas is also mentioned, which he is the son of Herod the Great, who is listed as the tetrarch of Galilee.
And then not only him, but also his brothers Philip and Lysanias, both of them are also listed as being tetrarchs in this time. And all of these guys, all of these leaders just mentioned, they were all very corrupt leaders in Israel. They had no regard for the Lord and for His Word. And they were not trying to honor him or walk in his ways with the power that they had. And so with that being said, Luke also includes the high priests that were in position at that time for Israel.
And so it was the high priest and Annas and then his son in law Caiaphas, who were part of the Sanhedrin, which the Sanhedrin did not believe in the resurrection. So an Annas and Cafe messed that up, represented a very spiritually corrupt priesthood, like they cared more about money and how others viewed them, like more than they cared about the Lord or about God’s people. So from like the top down that Luke gives us, the leaders of this day and age were very morally corrupt and it was only getting worse, leading to a spiritually decaying Israel who was in their own spiritual wilderness at the time. And yet we read beneath the surface of all this wicked politics and wicked leaders, God was on the move. The word of the Lord came to John just as the word of the Lord came to great prophets of old like Jeremiah and Isaiah.
The Word came to the one who was prophesied to be a prophet of the Most High, the one who will go before the Lord to prepare his ways and give knowledge of salvation to God’s people through the forgiveness of their sins. This is what his father Zechariah had prophesied about John. The time for John the Baptist preparation had come. So keep in mind, it’s been 400 years since the word of the Lord came to a prophet to speak to God’s people. So this is like generations of silence now that is broken by John.
So John, being filled by the Spirit of God, went into all the region of the Jordan proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And so John wasn’t like preaching in the streets of Jerusalem or seeking to persuade political leaders of his day. John was out in the middle of nowhere in the wilderness by the Jordan river, and he lived off the land wearing camel’s hair for clothes and eating locusts and honey for his meals. So John, like, he’s not trying to impress anybody. He had a mission, a mission that the Holy Spirit was powerfully carrying out through him as he proclaimed God’s word to Israel.
And so it’s clear that John was a mighty prophet because, like, there’s no other reason for people to come gather around him in the middle of nowhere and to hear what he was saying. God was powerfully doing something and he was gathering people to hear the word of the Lord through John. So the word of the Lord that God gave to John was to repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of sins. So John confronted the problem of Israel’s sin head on by calling individuals to repent, like, change their mind and change their heart, stop sinning, instead turn towards God in acts of righteousness. John told God’s people that they were to be baptized with their repentance as an outward act of cleansing from an inward change of heart.
So John’s baptism pointed towards a need for washing in order to be spiritually renewed. And as he was doing this, thousands of Jews were coming to the Jordan to receive this baptism from John as they repented of their sins. And so, like Luke tells us this to help us understand the weight of what John was doing. And he also quotes Isaiah 40, verses three through five as being directly fulfilled by John, actually three through six. And so I’m going to go ahead and just read that passage that I read earlier again from Isaiah.
It says this. The voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare the way for the Lord. Make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled. Every mountain and hill shall be made low.
Every. And the crooked shall become straight, and the rough places shall become level ways. And all flesh shall see the salvation of God. So understand, like this fulfillment of Isaiah, this is no small thing. Like, this is huge.
This is very weighty in its fulfillment in the place of the book of Isaiah. Isaiah 40, chapter 40, where this is being referenced from is actually the place where God transitions from judgment upon Israel to restoration for Israel and God’s people. And then from Isaiah chapter 40 to Isaiah chapter 66, it is loaded with promises of restoration and healing for God’s people as his coming kingdom was going to be established through the Messiah. So, like understanding the context of Isaiah, we understand that like John the Baptist, he is part of the restoration that is being prophesied in the book of Isaiah. And God’s word is being fulfilled, like right here in this very moment in this text, as John tells the people, the Lord is coming, get ready, prepare the way.
He’s almost here. He is the voice crying out in the wilderness, make way for the Lord. When a king was going to enter a city, often a messenger would go before the king into a city and he would inform them to make preparations for the king’s arrival. The messenger would tell them to clean up the streets to ready the people, because royalty is about to visit you. And so we see the preparation described in Isaiah is like, larger than just like preparing a city and cleaning up a street.
Like actually this fulfillment in Isaiah says to make a straight path by filling every valley and to bring every mountain and hill to be made low and to make all the crooked paths straight and the rough to be made level. So like, what does this mean? What, what is Isaiah saying and what is Luke saying that John is doing? Well, the topographic description here in Isaiah is symbolic for the work of repentance within a person’s heart. So there are valleys of darkness and difficulty that are within every person’s heart.
And John is saying, repent and let them be filled. There are mountains of pride and hills of self reliance, keeping God’s people from coming to the Lord. Repent. Bring those mountains and hills down to the ground. Get off of them.
There are crooked paths that God’s people are taking, lying, cheating or deceiving. Repent and come back to the straight and narrow way. Replacement? Are there rough character traits like greed or anger or a spirit of bitterness in a person’s life? Then repent and let them be smoothed out.
This is how John was preparing the way for the Lord through repentance. Repentance removes the obstacles, it flattens out the sierras, and it fills in the death valleys in our lives so that Christ has full access. So this is why this preparation, this fulfillment of Isaiah, it’s so important in this text. If a person cannot acknowledge that they have sinned and are in need of cleansing by turning away from their sin, then they cannot receive the Lord when He comes. They will remain lost and unprepared, unable to receive the cleansing that comes from the Lord.
And this is why John is crying out, hearts must be prepared by repenting and by being baptized, which in itself is only possible through the Lord’s conviction and humbling of a sinner’s hard heart. The baptism that one received by John was a sign of God’s activity within a person’s heart. Saving faith and true repentance are always found together. Saved souls are repentant souls. So the last part of Isaiah that Luke quotes in verse 6 is that all flesh will see the salvation of God when he comes.
So this is saying that both Jews and Gentiles alike will see the salvation of Christ. And all people one day we know, will bow the knee to Jesus at the end of the age. And when Christ comes to judge all, all will see that he is the Lord and God’s salvation. So this is the end result of repentant hearts is to place their faith in Jesus Christ and then see the salvation of God. This is John’s mission.
This is his ministry. And Luke gives us even more insight to what this looked like in the next set of verses. So go ahead and look with me in your Bible at verse seven. We see there are crowds of people before John waiting to be baptized. And these crowds are gathering to hear and to respond to John’s preaching.
But just because all like crowds are gathering around John and gathering out in a large area, that doesn’t mean that they’re there for the right reasons. We know this because, like John then gives this sharp exclamation to the crowds, you brood of vipers who warned you to flee from the wrath to come. The Gospel of Matthew actually tells us that John directed this statement towards the Sadducees and towards the Pharisees in the crowds who were not willing to repent. And perhaps it could be also, as Luke is saying to those in the crowds that also were unwilling to repent. So essentially, like John is saying here, that the spiritual leaders of the Israelites in the crowd and those who weren’t willing to repent like they are, like a den of snakes, they breed wickedness and evil, and that’s all they’re capable of producing.
That’s all they keep doing, is just keep bringing about wickedness and evil. And so John points this out and he says these spiritual leaders are fleeing from the wrath of God instead of repenting and obeying God’s word. And so he tells them, bear fruit in keeping with repentance. And we know that fruit is the good works that flow from a repentant heart. Like fruit tastes good to those who receive it because it points them to the source of the goodness of God.
Like fruit is full of love and joy and mercy and justice according to God’s law. And fruit verifies that a person truly has repented. And now that they are producing like this godliness in their lives instead of producing sin and wickedness. So if the Pharisees and Sadducees had really repented, then their righteous acts that honor God, it would have followed. But clearly Luke points out there’s no fruit evident in their lives.
So he tells them, bear fruit. And John continues to speak to them in addressing, like, their false hope for salvation that we see in the passage. John tells them in the next set of verses, do not begin to say to yourselves, we have Abraham as our father. For I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. So the Pharisees and Sadducees, like, they wrongly thought that by being the offspring of Abraham, that this was going to save them from God’s coming wrath.
Like they thought, surely by being related to Abraham, the great father of Israel, surely that will make us holy and righteous and acceptable before God. Like, that’s. That’s enough. But this kind of thinking, this was very pridefully wrong. This was a false hope for salvation.
It’s easy to, like, read this and think, wow, like, how dull are these religious leaders? How could they think that just by being related to someone that they’re going to be saved? But the truth is, like, people still do this today and put their trust into all kinds of false hopes for salvation. Like people say, if, if my parents are good Christians, then I’m good, I’ll be saved because my family is Christian, I’m Christian, I’m good to go. If I go to church every Sunday, and God will consider me righteous, He’ll See that I went to church.
That’ll be enough. If I do enough good things for God, or I’m just like a really good person, really stand up guy or girl, then God will forgive me and he’ll see that that’s enough and I’ll be saved. But the reality is, none of these false hopes will save a person. Every person must repent and be washed by the blood of Jesus Christ if they want to be saved from the coming wrath of God. Nothing else will save us from coming judgment, only faith in Christ.
John tells the crowds that God is able to raise up true children of Abraham who live by faith from stones, essentially saying, like, being Jewish is not enough to save a person, but God is able to bring about his people from those who come from nothing, from stones. And then John proceeds to give a chilling warning. In verse nine, he says, even now the axe is laid at the root of the trees. Every tree, therefore, that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. This is a terrifying warning.
The sharp axe of God is already laid at the root of every single tree that does not bear fruit. And after it’s cut down, it will be thrown into the fire. And this metaphor is alluding to the eternal punishment in hell that that will follow to all who do not bear fruit with repentance. And this had to come to a shock, like to the entire crowd that was hearing this. So in response, the crowd with specific individuals that Luke gives us, like tax collectors and soldiers, the crowd asked three different times, John, what then shall we do in verses 10 through 14, I think these questions that these people are asking, like they’re genuine questions from John’s warning and trying to ask, like, what do we do about this judgment?
Like, what shall we do to bear fruit with repentance? What does this even look like? What about for a tax collector? What about for soldiers? Like, how can I actually practically do this?
And so to each question, John gives practical answers for bearing good fruit. You’ll see that in our text. So for the general crowds, John tells them to be generous by. Be generous to others by giving away an extra tunic if you have two, so that those who have none may be able to have a tunic and be able to be comfortable and warm and be able to. To be cared for.
To the tax collectors, he tells them to collect no more than what they are authorized to do. And in other words, John is saying, don’t wrong others by taking more than you should. Like, work with integrity, like honor the Lord when nobody’s looking to the soldiers. He tells them not to exhort money by force through threats and false accusations. Instead, they are to deal with others kindly, according to the truth, by telling the truth and being honest with what’s going on.
And not only that, but they’re also to be content with their own wages, not coveting what others have, and then trying to force it upon others to get what they want. All of these applications that John gives, we can see that they’re all focused on another, like, how one’s actions are affecting another person, which in itself is pointing towards the golden rule that Jesus would soon preach, which is to love your neighbor as you love yourself. We can see this, like, really kind of behind the root of every practical application that John gives, that we are to love others in what we do. And John doesn’t tell them to, like, leave their occupation of being a tax collector or soldier. Rather, he just tells them, love, like, do it in a way that would honor the Lord.
And so John gave wise, practical answers for each question that was asked from the crowd. And all of his answers were rooted in God’s law. So looking at verse 15, it tells us that John’s preaching and his preparation heightened the expectation of God’s people for the coming of the Messiah. The problem is that they began to question in their hearts, like, maybe John is the Christ. John has such amazing, wise answers, like, maybe this is the one we’ve been looking for.
And this would be, like, a huge compliment for John to receive for people to be questioning, like, is he the Messiah? And like, all eyes of this crowd are on him. I’m sure that was enticing to receive that and receive the. The praise from this crowd. And so John could have easily, like, took this moment and seized the opportunity to, like, start telling them more about himself and how he’s like, the greatest of prophets and all the great wisdom that God had been giving him.
But we don’t see John do that. We see John actually do the exact opposite as he begins to boast in the ministry of Christ. And so we see in the verses to follow. John answers the crowd by saying, I baptize you with water, but he who is mightier than I is coming. And the strap of whose sandals I am not even worthy to untie.
He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear the threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire. So if you’re Here, and you’re taking notes. Like make note of this phrase that John says. Circle it, underline it, write it down.
He who is mightier than I is coming. Crowds and spiritual success. That didn’t faze John. That is not why he’s out here in the middle of nowhere. John was preparing the way for Christ.
He’s not here to prepare the way for himself. John points the people to the one who is mightier than him in every single way. So John immediately like, shoots down any thought of him being the Messiah and says, I baptized with just merely water, like, I’m telling you to repent, and this is what you should do. But the one who is coming is far greater than I. And the baptism that he gives is with the Holy Spirit of God and with fire.
So what John is saying here is that Jesus will remove dead spiritual hearts in the midst of every single person. He will take out their heart of stone and he will replace it with a beating heart that is now alive to. To live for God. It is spiritually alive. And then that spiritually alive heart will be moved by God to keep God’s law and to bear good fruit.
And he will do this through the power of the Holy Spirit, who will regenerate, cleanse, indwell, intercede, illuminate, empower, counsel, help, and sanctify all who receive him. So the baptism of Christ, the baptism of the Holy Spirit. This is far greater than anything John could possibly offer or do. And Isaiah 4, 4 echoes what John is saying about the fire of this baptism. Isaiah 4, 4 says, the Lord will wash away the filth and blood stains of God’s people by a spirit of judgment and burning.
So what this is saying is, the Holy Spirit will refine his people as fire refines silver and gold, and he will make them holy and righteous, enabling him to walk in this newness of life, to bear the good fruit that John is saying you should bear. And so John’s water baptism could not do this. Only the Christ, the Son of God, could baptize people in such a way. And so John also brings another sobering exhortation in the midst of this about the Messiah. And he says that the Messiah will come to judge in the end of the age with a wintering fork in his hand.
So he says he will clear the threshing floor of mankind, and he will gather wheat, I.e. his saints, into the shelter of his barn, while the chaff. Those who are separated from God’s saints, those who do not receive him, says they will burn in unquenchable eternal fires of hell. This is a very heavy and immense picture of final judgment that John says Jesus will bring. So John, like, see, he’s not shying away from the reality of judgment, and he’s not shying away from what God’s word has already been telling his people.
Jesus, the Messiah, he’s far mightier than him in bringing future judgment to all mankind. Something John was totally incapable of doing and something that John would have to endure as well as a mere man. And John even further emphasizes just how much greater Jesus is by saying, I’m not even worthy to untie the straps of his sandals, like John is saying that the lowest act of service that you can think of for a Jew, not even that, could John do for Jesus. He was not worthy of even doing that. So John, we can see he humbly understood his position before the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.
Jesus is he who is mightier than I. He made that very, very clear to the crowds. And we too should not ever forget this truth. The worth and glory of Christ far surpasses any title of success that we could gain here on this earth. Our task, like John’s, is to simply point people to the one who is mightier than I.
So Moving to verses 18 through 22, we see John’s teachings and exhortations were called good news by Luke because surely it was great and wonderful news that the Messiah was coming and that he was going to bring salvation. But Herod, as we see here in our text, the tetrarch Herod of Galilee, he did not receive this as good news, just as his father didn’t receive it as good news when Jesus was born and he tried to kill Jesus as a baby, along with all the firstborns within the area. So this Herod, in the same way, was blatantly sinning before the Lord and before all of Israel through many evil acts, including marrying his brother’s wife, Herodias, which was a direct violation of the law of Moses found in Leviticus. And so John here, like he doesn’t shy away from reproving Herod just because he’s a leader, like he calls out his sin. He wasn’t trying to be like a popular figure that was going to be liked by all the political figures in Israel during his day, John sought to preach God’s word unfiltered, including judgment to all who don’t repent like Herod.
So instead for Herod, instead of repenting and hearing what John had said and warned, Herod un frightfully used his Power to lock up John in prison, hoping that this would silence the truth of God’s word that he refused to listen to and hear. Herod would end up beheading John the Baptist in order to protect his own reputation. But he would fail to silence the word of God. You can bury the workmen, but the word of God will go on. And for Christ, he was on the edge of coming, and his ministry was about to begin.
So in the end, Herod would die in his sin, but John, he would live on through faith in Christ our Lord. And so our passage, then Luke ends the description that he gives about John the Baptist, and it now transitions to the incredible unveiling of Christ, whose ministry is about to begin. Jesus has now arrived. And so verse 21 tells us when all the people were baptized. And so we’re just going to stop there, miss this.
God’s word is telling us that John had completed his preparation for Christ’s arrival by all these people being baptized who God had brought in. Like all these people who came to John in the wilderness to hear the word of the Lord and to respond in repentance. They were baptized, and they were there prepared and ready for Christ to come. At least those who God had called out into the wilderness to hear from John. And so now the time had come.
And so I know up to this point, we’ve worked through a lot throughout this passage, but as I preach on these last two verses, I want you to really listen in, because these last two verses are very important. And this is the fulfillment of all of what John had been preaching and preparing for. So before John was placed in prison, this is before he was locked away near the end of his ministry, Jesus came to him to be baptized in order to fulfill all righteousness. And so Jesus affirmed John’s prophetic work and message by himself being baptized. And so Jesus, like, didn’t have to do this because he needed to repent.
Rather, Jesus did this to fulfill all that John had been proclaiming up to this point and to validate John’s baptism of repentance, to show that Jesus was in line with what John was preaching and what his baptism symbolized. And so at this moment, when John takes Jesus and baptizes him in the Jordan, something absolutely incredible happens. Luke tells us the heavens were opened up. And, like, this is not describing, like, the clouds begin to part and it was kind of sunny upon Jesus. Like, no, the spiritual heavens open up where God the Father dwells.
Being, like, opened up in time and space above Jesus. And, like, we can Only imagine, like, what this must have looked like. But this had to be just absolutely incredible beyond what Luke could even record, what this must have been like. The glory of heaven is opened up upon Jesus as he is being raised from the waters of baptism. And from out of heaven.
Then descends the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit of God descends from heaven in a bodily form like a dove, and then rests upon Jesus and the Spirit, the Holy Spirit. He resembles the heavenly dove, the bodily form of a heavenly dove. It’s likely a reference to Genesis, when the Spirit of God is hovering over the waters of the surface of the deep in Genesis 1, and the Spirit is then present and bringing new life from out of darkness as God speaks all of creation into existence. And so when this is referencing the Holy Spirit resembling the likeness of a dove, this is looking back at how the Spirit was bringing new life in the very beginning.
And now this new life is being rested upon Jesus. So based upon the work that we know the Holy Spirit does, we know for certain the Holy Spirit descending upon Jesus meant the power of new life is now being laid upon Jesus. And so heaven was pouring out the power of new life out upon Jesus to bring heaven to earth. And so, after the heavens are open, the Spirit of God descends like a dove. A third sign occurs.
An audible voice from heaven speaks to all the crowds and all who are there. They all can hear this voice that says, you are my beloved Son, and with you I am well pleased. A final validation of Jesus divinity is given by the voice of the Father in heaven, setting his approval upon his eternal Son for all that he is about to accomplish. The words of the Father echo the words of the prophet isaiah in chapter 42 that says, Behold my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights. I have put my Spirit upon him, and he will bring forth justice to the nations.
And then again in Psalm 2, Psalm 2 also is an echo of what the Father is saying, which says, you are my Son, today I have begotten you, and ask of Me, and I will make the nations your heritage and the ends of the earth your possession. So both of these references, both of them talk about the nations being given to Jesus with this approval. And so the Father’s words were prophesied long ago, and they speak of his eternal love and favor for the Son. And so this event is actually like a further revelation of who God is. He is the triune God, who is three in one, with the Father speaking, the Spirit descending, and the Son being present.
In the flesh. All three persons of the Trinity are clearly seen here in this passage, showing us that all three persons are separate, yet they are one. Like God does not morph into different forms of himself by becoming the Father at one time and the Spirit at one time, and the Son at one time. Like, no, like God is actually all three of these persons performing different roles in creation and redemption and glorification, but he is one. This is a clear teaching from God’s Word.
And I don’t have the time to go into the depth of this to explain to you all the intricacies of the Trinity. And so this will have to be enough. But understand, this is a revelation of God’s triune nature to us. And so just imagine, like if you were here witnessing all of this take place, all three persons of God acting at one time as John baptizes. This would have been absolutely amazing.
And I’m sure to those who seen it, like they had to just been perplexed, shocked, like, maybe even afraid. Like, this is just unnatural to something that we see on a daily basis. Yet it all proclaims what Christ was about to do and who he is. And it shows that what John had been preaching about all this time, it’s true. And now Jesus is here.
And for anyone who had any doubt about what John had said after seeing this, they now know for certain that Jesus is the Christ. And what all the prophets long to see in the Old Testament is about to happen. Jesus is here and his ministry of salvation is prepared for and about to begin. So with that being said, to finish our time together, I could give like multiple different applications from this text because there’s a lot here. But for the sake of time, I’m going to give us just one main application that I think speaks loudest from this text.
And so that one application is, prepare the way for the Lord in your own heart. From the word of the Lord that John the Baptist preached, to the hard heart of Herod, to the judgment that is warned, and to the incredible divine phenomenon of Jesus baptism. One thing is very clear in our passage this morning, and that is Jesus. The Lord has come. He is the one who is greater than I, the one who will bring new life through the baptism of the Holy Spirit and fire.
The one who will return with judgment in his hand to separate all mankind to either eternal life or with Christ or eternal judgment in unquenchable fire. The path to receive the Lord is the same today. Repent and believe in the Lord Jesus. Humble yourself and turn away from Your sin. Do not think more highly of yourself than you should.
Like if John is the greatest of all prophets and he wasn’t worthy to untie Jesus sandal, what does that make you and me here? In a moment we’re going to take the Lord’s Supper and Ben is going to give us time to respond to God’s word that I’ve been preaching this morning. And if you’re here and you’ve placed your faith in Christ, but you are harboring onto sin, turn away from it like Jesus died to put sin to death. Prepare your heart for the Lord and get rid of sin, the spirit of life. To those who put their faith in Jesus, he now lives in you.
Walk by the Spirit and bear good fruit in accordance with your faith that you may joyfully glorify the Lord in all of your days. Repent so that times of refreshing may come upon you and upon all of God’s people who have faith in Jesus and turn away from sin. We know that through faith in Christ, you are the Father’s beloved child with whom he is well pleased because of your faith in Jesus, with whom God loves and is well pleased. And so if you’re here and you haven’t placed your trust in Jesus, if this is very new to you and you feel that you are just at a distance from God, today is the day of salvation. Repent and turn away from your sin.
Believe in the Lord Jesus who is able to bring you new resurrecting life. To be like the religious leaders who trusted in themselves, or like Herod who tried to just silence God’s word and ignore it. Jesus alone can wash away your sin and give you eternal life. If you hear his voice calling this morning through God’s word, then here in a moment when Ben comes up, he’s going to give you a time to confess your sin. And in that time, I encourage you.
Believe in the Lord Jesus. Just as the Holy Spirit descended from heaven upon Christ, God freely gives his spirit to all who will repent and believe in him. And he will make all new who do this. He did this for me. He did this for our dear friend Tracy.
And he can do this. He’s done this for all here in this room who have placed their faith in Christ. And he can do that for you too. That’s my hope. For anyone that’s here who has yet to repent and place their faith in Jesus.
My word to you is prepare your heart for the Lord. That being said, please pray with me.
God, I thank you for your holy Word.
Thank you for the preparation that you call your people to. And thank you that your spirit convicts and humbles and helps us to turn away and to receive this new life, God, that we know has been given to Christ and now given to us. Lord, I pray for our church as a whole. Help us to bear fruit and accordance with your Word. And Lord, may we continue to be guided by your spirit.
And for anyone here this morning who doesn’t know you, I pray that you would save them, Lord, in bringing them to repentance and filling them with your spirit as they believe unto you. And I ask these things all in Christ’s name. Amen.