In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar—when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip tetrarch of Iturea and Traconitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene—during the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. He went into all the country around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet:
“A voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him. Every valley shall be filled in, every mountain and hill made low. The crooked roads shall become straight, the rough ways smooth. And all people will see God’s salvation.’ ” (Luke 3:1-6 NIV)
“In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar—when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip tetrarch of Iturea and Traconitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene—2 during the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas…” I can see your eyes starting to glaze over… That’s what happens, isn’t it, when the Bible gives us lists of names and dates. Tiberius Caesar? Lysanius? “Who cares! Why is all this in the Bible?” Because God wants you to know it’s true! Do you know a phrase that you won’t find in the Bible? “Once upon a time…” The events in the Bible are real history that happened in real places at real times.
You can Google them! Tiberius Caesar ruled as the Roman emperor from August 19, 14 until March 16, 37. It’s a historical fact! Pontius Pilate… You’ve heard of him right? He was the Roman governor of Judea from 26-36 A.D. One of his rings was recently discovered in Israel. Herod the tetrarch of Galilee? Ironically, he was the King Herod who later had John the Baptist beheaded. These are real people! If you like history, eat this stuff up! Learn as much as you can about the people and places of the Bible. If you don’t like history, just know this: God wants you to be absolutely sure that his story is true. It’s not a fairy tale. It’s not a myth. It’s real history!
Right in the middle of real history, God placed John the Baptist. The gospels of Matthew and Mark tell us a little more about John than Luke does. Remember? His clothes were made of camel’s hair with a leather belt around his waist. He ate locusts—grasshoppers—and wild honey. But Luke doesn’t tell us any of that. He introduces John with one phrase: “the word of God came to John…” An ancient pastor named Ambrose read that phrase and said, “St. Luke says that the Word of the Lord came to John, so that the church would not begin from a man but from the Word.” The focus isn’t on John. It’s on the Word. John’s message came straight from God.
It was pretty simple. You could summarize John’s message with one word: Repent! “He went into all the country around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” Matthew gives us John’s exact words: “Repent for the kingdom of heaven has come near” (Matthew 3:2). God sent John to prepare hearts for Jesus. How do you prepare your heart for Jesus? One word: Repent! That’s how you prepare for Jesus. Repent! We confess our sins and trust in God’s forgiveness. “Repent for the kingdom of heaven has come near!”
Do you like hearing that? “Repent of your sins!” A few years ago, the Super Bowl was in Minnesota. I took our boys to some of the Super Bowl festivities in downtown Minneapolis. They still talk about it as one of the boringest days of their lives. One thing stood out to me. On just about every street corner in downtown Minneapolis during Super Bowl weekend, there were Christian street preachers with snow pants and megaphones. Everywhere! Can you guess their message? “Repent for the kingdom of heaven has come near!” How do street preachers make you feel? Don’t you want to walk by quickly with your head down, pretending you don’t hear? Why? One—they make us feel guilty for our sins! Two—we’re embarrassed by their message. That’s not what Christianity is about, right? Nobody’s going to want to be a Christian if we keep talking about people’s sins! That repentance stuff was just for John the Baptist, right? Just for back then!
Well, after John, Jesus came. When Jesus began to preach, do you know what Jesus preached? Here are his exact words: “Repent for the kingdom of heaven has come near” (Matthew 4:17). Sound familiar? That was Jesus’ message too! Then, after training his twelve disciples, Jesus sent them out to preach. Do you know what Jesus taught them to preach? “They went out and preached that people should repent” (Mark 6:12). Do you see any connection? There’s confusion today about what Christianity is all about. There isn’t any confusion when you read the Bible. At the heart of Christianity is repenting of our sins and trusting in Jesus’ forgiveness.
Is that Christianity’s message today? “Repent for the kingdom of heaven has come near!” Test what you see and hear. When you hear Christian songs on the radio, when you see Christians interviewed on TV, listen to see if that’s the focus—repentance for the forgiveness of sins. That was John’s focus. That was Jesus’ focus. Is that our focus? Or is truer to say that we want the peace, we want the joy, we want the love, we want to feel good about ourselves, but we don’t want to hear about our sins. Get these crazy street preachers out of here! Stop the focus on repentance. Stop talking about sin. Focus on the positive. Wouldn’t life be happier that way?
Listen to what Jesus once said: “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance” (Luke 5:31-32). Think about those words: “It’s not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.” If you’re not sick, what don’t you need? A doctor. If you’re not sinful, what don’t you need? A Savior! So when we make sin seem small, what do we do to Jesus? We make our Savior seem small too. What did Jesus come to do? Take away sin! If there isn’t much sin, what did Jesus accomplish? Not much! Small sin = small Savior. “It’s not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.” So are we healthy or sick?
I once preached for a funeral in Minnesota. I thought it was a pretty good sermon! Afterward, a man from a different Christian church came up and said, “Thank you, Pastor. That was the first funeral sermon in this old-fashioned church that didn’t go on and on about how sinful we are. I’m glad you’re finally catching up with the times. Keep it up!” How do you think that made me feel? That must have been a bad sermon! I preached what that man wanted to hear, but I didn’t preach like John the Baptist preached. I didn’t preach like Jesus preached. When sin gets taken out of Christianity, who else gets taken out too? Jesus. Do you see that? Small sin? Small Savior!
Do you know what the result always is? As good as it sounds, ignoring the sin in your life always has the same result: No peace. You can see that in your own life. Of all the times you’ve blamed someone else for your sins, how much peace has resulted? Of all the times you’ve pretended that you’re better than you really are, how much peace has resulted? Of all the secret sins that right now you hide inside, whether from your spouse or from your parents or from your church, how much peace does that bring you? Ignoring sin doesn’t result in peace. It results in guilty consciences. In broken relationship. Stress. Hurt. Small sin = small Savior = no peace.
But God wants you to have peace! God wants your heart to be filled up with everything Jesus your Savior brings. So what did he send John the Baptist out to preach about? Repentance! God knows what really brings peace to the hearts he made. It’s the forgiveness that comes from Jesus. To show someone their sin isn’t mean. It’s loving. Because when you show someone their sin, whom do you get to point them too? Jesus! John preached again and again about repentance, but do you know the line he’s most famous for speaking? “Look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” Realizing how big my sin is allows me to appreciate how big my Savior is.
People sometimes wonder why the Bible tells stories of people who sinned so much. Moses murdered. Abraham committed adultery. King David did both! Peter messed up everything. Paul persecuted Christians. Yet, those are the guys God chose to be his servants. People with big sins! Why? They knew how big God’s grace is. Do you know whom Jesus hung out with? Tax collectors, prostitutes, and sinners. Why? For the same reason that doctors hang out with sick people. If you’re perfect, there’s no need for you to be here today—it’s not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick! But if you’re a sinner, if your sins weigh on your conscience, you’re in the perfect place. Do you have big sins? We have big Savior! Repent and believe in Jesus!
So what does this repentance look like? Luke describes repentance for us using words from Isaiah in the Old Testament. “Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him. Every valley shall be filled in, every mountain and hill made low. The crooked roads shall become straight, the rough ways smooth.” What does that sound like? Road construction. Do you like driving over potholes? Jesus doesn’t either! Repentance is road construction on your heart. It’s removing every pothole, every bump, every obstacle, every sin that gets in the way of Jesus. What does it take to get hatred or lust or anger out of a heart? Road construction. Repentance!
So what are the sins in your heart that keep you from Jesus’ peace? I bet you know. Is it bitterness? No matter what has happened to you in your life, a bitter heart will never be at peace. Repent! Is it drunkenness? Is alcohol affecting your family and your faith in Jesus? Clear it out of the way. Repent! Is it apathy and complacency that make you not even care about the Word of God? Tear it away. Repent! Is it pornography? Is it discontent? Is it greed? Is it selfishness? There’s no peace in trying to hide your sins. You know that! God already knows them. “Repent for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” Get all the obstacles and potholes out of Jesus’ way.
Maybe you’re thinking, “How? I can’t. It’s too much for me.” You’re right. It is. It’s too much for me too. We’re sick. We’re sinful. So whom do you need? Jesus! John the Baptist didn’t just preach. He baptized—“a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” In your baptism, God already took away every one of your sins. In your baptism, God gave you new life. It’s God’s Spirit living in your heart who gives you power to change your life. When you wake up each day, your baptism reminds you: “I am not a slave to sin. I am a child of God. All I do today, I do for Jesus!” And then when you go to sleep at night, your baptism reminds you that the blood of Jesus purifies me from every sin. This is want repentance does—it points us back to Jesus.
Because John the Baptist wasn’t the only one who came in real history. Jesus did too. He suffered under the same Pontius Pilate we heard about earlier. In the middle of his trial, Pilate sent Jesus to King Herod—that tetrarch of Galilee. As he hung on the cross, staring down at the biggest sin imaginable—crucifying the Son of God!—what did Jesus say to the Roman soldiers serving under Tiberius Caesar? “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34). Big sin? Big Savior! If Jesus forgave them, then he’s forgiven you, and he’s forgiven me. When God through his Word reminds you how sinful you are, rejoice at how big Jesus is. Your Savior is coming. So repent for the kingdom of heaven has come near!
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