Deo Gloria
Sermon for December 8, 2019
Pastor Martin Bentz
Text: Matthew 3:1-12
Theme: Get Ready for Christmas by Making Changes!
- Confess your sins.
- Trust in Jesus for forgiveness.
- Produce fruit.
It’s 6:00 in the evening and the phone rings. Probably another tele-marketer, right? Reluctantly you answer the phone and you find out it’s not a telemarketer. It’s a representative from NBC. They’d like to interview you and your family as part of their people-living-in-a-small-town series, and they’d like to come over in an hour. You’re a little bit stunned. You pinch yourself to see if this is really happening. You are about to be featured on national TV, and you have one hour to get ready. What would you do? Where would you start? Obviously, you’d probably try to straighten up around the house a bit. Obviously, you’d probably look in the mirror, change your clothes, touch up your makeup a little. But with only one hour, there’s only so much you can do. I mean, you can do the dishes in the kitchen, but you can’t remodel the kitchen. You can straighten up your hair a bit, but there’s no time to go to the beauty salon and get your hair done. The cameras are coming—ready or not—and there’s only so much you can do.
OK, now I want you to sit back and take a deep breath. The phone did not ring and NBC is not coming to your house tonight; but Jesus is. Jesus tells us in his Word that he is coming, and it’s time for us to get ourselves ready. So what should we do to get ready? Straighten up a bit around the house? Fix up our hair? Touch up our makeup? No. The lesson we learn today from this portion of God’s Word is that getting ready for Jesus involves doing more than making a few, small changes here and there. It involves making some big changes, major changes, changes in our hearts and in our lives. This morning, then, let’s prepare ourselves for Christmas and for our Savior’s second coming by making changes.
Here in Matthew ch. 3 we meet John the Baptist. He was chosen by God to be the forerunner of the Messiah. Does anyone know what a forerunner is? Years ago, back in the days of kings and horse-drawn carriages, a forerunner was someone who would go ahead of the king and prepare a town for his visit. Days or even weeks before the king would arrive, the forerunner would go to that town and announce that the king was coming so the people would have time to get ready. That’s what John the Baptist was doing for Jesus. He was preparing the people for the coming of their King. And he did so by proclaiming this message: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near”(v. 2).
The word that John uses here for repent literally means “to change your mind, to change your opinion about something.” And it implies a dramatic change of mind, a 180 degree turn around. Before we were thinking one way. Now we need to think a different way. Before we held to one view or opinion. Now we need to have a completely different view or opinion.
What are we to change our minds about? Our sins. Many people today look at sin as no big deal. They look at it sort of like a little dent in your fender or a little scrape on your elbow–no big deal, nothing to worry about. In fact, many people don’t even view sin as sinful anymore. And they tend to think of God as this big, lovable teddy bear who just loves everyone. And on Judgment Day he’s just going to sweep all of our sins under the rug and say, “That’s OK,” and then let everyone into heaven. And you know, it’s easy for us to fall into the kind of thinking too. “Ah, so what if I tell a few lies? God will forgive me.” “So what if I curse and swear when I’m upset? God will forgive me.” “So what if I go to a party with my friends and get drunk? God will forgive me.”
You and I need to change our way of thinking. We need to repent. Have we forgotten what Paul says in 1 Corinthians, ch. 6? “Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God”(vv. 9+10). Or have we forgotten what it says in the book of Revelation? After giving us a beautiful picture of heaven, where God will live with his people, it says this: “But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur”(21:8). Or did we miss what John himself said right here in these verses—what he said about “unquenchable fire,” what he said about “coming wrath”? God does not take sin lightly. God does not look at sin like a little dent in the fender or a little bump on the elbow. He looks at sin the way you might look at someone who just smashed into your car because they were talking on their cell phone and not paying attention. God looks at sin the way a vicious dog would look a cat that just scratched it in the face. God hates sin. Sin is an affront to his holy and righteous anger. And one day he threatens to punish all those who have sinned, to cast them into the unquenchable fires of hell. You and I need to change our minds. We need to stop thinking that our sins are not very serious, that they’re no big deal. We need to repent.
Why? Because the kingdom of heaven is near. How near we don’t know. This world of ours could come to an end tonight or maybe next week or maybe next month or maybe 200 years from now. We don’t know. But what we do know is that Jesus could come back at any time.
And what if he did? What if he did come back tonight and caught you and your girlfriend in bed together? Would he say, “Ah, sorry, Jim. Sorry, Susie. Sorry to barge in on you like this. Here, let me give you a few minutes to put your clothes back on.” Or what if he came back and caught you and your friends getting high at a party? Would he say, “Oops. Sorry, guys. How about I come back a little later and in the meantime you can put all the drugs and the booze away?” Or what if Jesus came back while you and your friends were watching some raunchy movie on TV? Would he say, “Hey, guys, great movie! Mind if I watch too?” Do we really want something like that to happen? Do we really want Jesus to come and find us indulging in some sinful pleasure? Do we really want to run the risk of falling under his judgment and his holy wrath and being cast into the fires of hell forever? Of course not! No way! We need to make some changes. We need to change our minds. We need to repent.
And repenting is not a one time deal either, something we do maybe once or twice in our lives and that’s it. The word John uses here is a present tense verb, indicating that this is an ongoing thing, a continuous thing. You and I need to repent every day, because we sin every day. Every day we need to change our minds about our sinful thoughts and desires. Every day we need to change our minds about the careless and hurtful things we say. Every day we need to change our minds about our loveless and godless actions. Instead of excusing our sins or ignoring them or pretending they’re no big deal, we need to confess our sins to God and ask for his forgiveness.
That’s what the people back in John’s day did. After listening to John the Baptist preach about repentance and about the coming kingdom of God, they confessed their sins and asked for God’s forgiveness. And then they were baptized by John in the Jordan River to assure them of their forgiveness. That’s what you and I need to do as well. We need to confess our sins to God—not defend them, not make excuses for them, not try to put the blame on someone else. We need confess them humbly and honestly. We need to admit that what we did was wrong, that what we said was wrong, that what we thought was wrong. We need to confess our sins to God and ask for his forgiveness.
Of course, you and I don’t have to be baptized again. We don’t have to go down to the Minnesota River and re-enact what John did at the Jordan River. You and I have already been baptized. We’ve already had our sins washed away through the waters of Holy Baptism. In fact, you and I have received a baptism even greater than the one John administered. We’ve received a baptism instituted by Jesus Christ himself. We’ve received a baptism empowered by Jesus Christ himself, a baptism with more than just water, “with the Holy Spirit and fire,” a baptism in which Jesus himself has given us his Holy Spirit and enkindled the fire of faith in our hearts. You and I can look back to our baptism for comfort and assurance, assurance that our sins have been forgiven, completely washed away, and that we stand before God holy and clean.
And we can look to Jesus too. John doesn’t mention Jesus by name in these verses, but he does describe him for us. He describes him as someone more powerful than he is, indeed so powerful and so great that he is not worthy even to carry his sandals. I think of the President of the United States as being a pretty great and powerful person. I think most of us do. And yet, even though I might not feel worthy of eating Christmas dinner with the President or riding in the same car with the President, I still think I would be worthy enough to carry his shoes around. Not John. The one coming after John, the one for whom John was preparing the way, was so great and so powerful that John didn’t feel worthy even to carry his sandals. Who could be so powerful? Who could be so great that John would feel so unworthy? God could be that great. And that’s our answer. That’s who was coming after John. That’s whom John was preparing the way for. He was preparing the way for the Lord, the God of heaven and earth. He was preparing the way for the great and all-powerful Son of God. He was preparing the way for Jesus.
And yet, it isn’t only his awesome power and might and glory that make Jesus so great. It’s also his love. In fact, it was his love for us, his tremendous love for you and me and all people that made him willing to set aside the full use of his great power and glory for a while so that he might come into this world and serve as our Savior, that he might suffer and die on the cross for our sins. Amazing, isn’t it? That’s like the parent discipling himself instead of the naughty child. That’s like the principal serving detention for the student who got in a fight. That’s like the President of the United States not simply pardoning someone on death row, but offering to take his place and die in his place. That’s what our Lord has done for us. That’s what our great and merciful God has done for us. He took our sins and suffered the punishment we deserved. He took our place under God’s righteous wrath, so that we might be forgiven, so that we might be holy in God’s sight, his holy, precious children. Look to Jesus. Trust in Jesus for forgiveness for your sins.
And thirdly, produce fruit. John talks about this in v. 8 of our text: “Produce fruit,” he says, “in keeping with repentance.” If we are truly sorry for our sins, it’s going to show. If we trust in Jesus for forgiveness and are thankful for our forgiveness, it’s going to show. That faith is going to bear fruit, fruit in keeping with repentance. If my sin is cursing and swearing, then I’m going to do my best not to curse and swear anymore. If my sin is using drugs or abusing alcohol, then I’m going to ask for God’s help and the help of others too to help me stop. I may even go into a treatment program so I can get the help I need to overcome my addiction. If my sin is lying, then I’m going to apologize to the people I lied to and do my best not lie anymore. If I hurt someone by something I said or did, then I’m going to go to that person and say “I’m sorry,” and maybe even ask if there’s something I can do to make it up to them, to make things right. That’s what it means to produce fruit in keeping with repentance. Our change of heart and mind is going to lead to a change in our actions. We don’t want to live in sin anymore. We want to make a fresh start. We want to do what’s right. We want to make things right. We want to change things and live a new life because of what Jesus our Savior has done for us. And the time to make those changes begins today.
Don’t wait for the phone to ring. Jesus is coming, and it’s time to get ready! Amen.