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John the Baptist is preaching in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. He tells the people to bear fruit in keeping with repentance and warns them that those who do not bear good fruit will be cut down. The crowd asks John what they should do, and he instructs them to share with the needy and to not collect more taxes than authorized. The soldiers also ask what they should do, and John tells them not to extort money or make false accusations. John declares that he baptizes with water, but someone greater is coming who will baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire. Herod locks up John in prison. The text reminds us that the kingdom of God impacts all aspects of life, including politics and religion. The word of God comes to John in the wilderness, and he preaches a baptism of repentance. True repentance involves hating our sin and turning towards God's mercy. Go and grab your Bibles and make your way to the Gospel of Luke as we continue our sermon series through this wonderful book and today we come now to Chapter 3 of Luke's Gospel and for our sermon text this morning we'll be covering Luke Chapter 3, verses 1-20, verses 1-20. And these are the words of the true and the living God. In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip, tetrarch of the region of Uteria and Trachonitis, and Licinius, tetrarch of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John, the son of Zechariah, in the wilderness. And he went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, 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. He said, therefore, to the crowd that came out to be baptized by him, you brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from wrath to come? Bear fruit in keeping with repentance and do not begin to save yourselves. We have Abraham as our father, for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. And 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. And the crowd asked him, what then shall we do? And he answered them. Whoever has two tunics is to share with him who has none. And whoever has food is to do likewise. Tax collectors also came to him to be baptized and said, I'm teacher. What shall we do? And he said to them, collect no more than you are authorized to do. The soldiers also asked him and we, what shall we do? And he said to them, do not extort money from anyone by threats or by false accusation and be content with your wages. As the people were in expectation and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John whether he might be the Christ, John answered them all saying, I baptize you with water, but he who is mightier than I is coming, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire. So with many other exhortations, he preached the good news to the people. But Herod the Tetrarch, who had been reproved by him for Herodias, his brother's wife, and for all the evil things that Herod had done, added this to them all that he locked up John in prison. The grass withers and the flower fades. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we praise you as we just read your beloved son, the one whose very sandals we are not even worthy to untie, and yet he came down to be born of woman, born of the law, and he did so for us. He's poured out his precious promise, the Holy Spirit, and so we do pray. Grant us once again, give us eyes to see, give us ears to hear, for unless you do so, we are truly blind. We are deaf. But we know it is your holy will, and so we pray. Come Holy Spirit, come, and show us thy glory, and we pray it in Jesus' name, amen. Amen, you may be seated. All right now, even as we speak, raging fires devastate the West Coast. What feels like an unquenchable flame continues to wreak havoc and destruction upon California. Thousands of structures have been destroyed, perhaps some 40,000 acres engulfed in flames, untold number of personal injuries, and a death count approaching 30 people as brave firefighters work around the clock to combat that blaze. And you're probably well aware of this news, but your reaction might be somewhat out of sight, out of mind. While I'm sure your heart goes out to those who are suffering, especially if you have a family in California, but for many people, it hits us the same way that such news often hits us, which is that while tragic, we are isolated from and distant to that danger. What have I told you? Those fires are coming here. In fact, they're coming today. Prepare yourself, because those flames are coming to our area, your neighborhood, your homes, impacting your families and endangering them. At a minimum, my guess is your ears would perk up, and you would start to ask some questions and try to discern if this guy is crazy or is he telling the truth, and then of course you have some hard decisions to make. Well, it's at a far higher stakes. That is the atmosphere of our text this morning, because we will hear a voice cry from the wilderness and cry out to an unsuspecting people to prepare themselves, because the mighty one is coming, and he comes with this baptism of fire, even an unquenchable fire. The preparation is simply to humble themselves in simple faith and repentance before the almighty God. Of course, that same repentance applies to us today. Only we get to hear the good news from this text, that God has done for us what we cannot do ourselves through the gift of his Holy Spirit. If you remember, last week we left off when Jesus was just 12 years old as a boy, and so verse 1 you see brings us to a new setting. It says, in the 15th year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, and then Luke gives us five Roman rulers, such as Pontius Pilate, Herod, and his brother Philip the Tetrarch. We've seen Luke do this before. He once again tells us about the bigwigs in terms of political power. You'll remember when the days of the great Roman Empire, and now we're under Emperor Tiberius, who is already being worshipped as a god by some Romans, and Rome was very good at many things, not least of which was spreading out her tentacles far and wide by installing puppet kings in various regions, kings like Pilate, Herod, or Philip, and Luke keeps reminding us how that Roman rule lords over God's people. So why does Luke continue to break the 11th commandment by mixing politics with religion? Because he's going to show us the reality that the kingdom of God reforms all of life, and it works its way into the loaf of the entire bread. The kingdom of God impacts us not just as individuals, but as families, churches, and even as a society. Yes, including even the political sphere, and we'll see that reality come to a head here in a moment. But speaking of politics and religion, notice Luke also gives us the who-who in terms of the who-to in terms of the religious hegemony of the day. Verse 2 says we're in the days of the high priest Annas and Caiaphas. One of the benedictions you often get here at Cornerstone is the benediction of the high priest. Just last week the blessing was, may the Lord bless you and keep you. That is the blessing of the high priest. God's high priest played a special role in blessing God's people. That's what makes this verse so concerning, because it foreshadows the irony, the perversity that Jesus Christ himself will stand trial before this high priest named Caiaphas. So you see, Luke paints this picture for us of the grim conditions of God's people, this corrupt priesthood, and this massive arsenal of Roman power. And people in such positions of power tend to fall into the delusion that they control the course of human history. We have verse 3 shockingly and simply says this, the word of God came to John. Here's your dose of whiplash, because we just went from super important, powerful people to some obscure guy named John. But this is what our God loves to do. You just read through the Old Testament and books like Jeremiah or Ezekiel or Elijah who lived in dark and godless days, void of all hope, when all of a sudden the word of the Lord comes to Jeremiah. The word of the Lord comes to Elijah. God's weapon of choice, his balm to his people is the sending forth of his mighty word. And our faith comes from hearing, hearing the word of Jesus Christ. So God's word goes to John, who you notice also happens to be in the desert or the wilderness. Now whatever idyllic picture you have of the wilderness, roasting marshmallows, by a campfire, singing kumbaya, well this is not that. In scripture the wilderness is often a place of desolation and desertion. Kids, if you're ever asked what is the opposite of the garden of Eden, a fine answer would be the wilderness. But the wilderness is also where God flexes his might. Can God turn a wilderness into a fruitful field? Can God make streams flow from a parched desert? Of course the current spiritual condition of Israel is a wilderness wasteland. You've surely had your seasons. You might even be in a season right now that feels like a dry spiritual wasteland. Well just watch how God prepares his highway out of such a wasteland. So he arms his prophet John with his word and now John takes up that word by preaching a baptism of repentance as verse 3 says. All true revival begins with repentance. In the dark days of Israel, what did she need most? Repentance. What does our nation need most? Repentance. What is the whole of the Christian life? Until you die, repentance. Repentance is often rightly summarized as a change of mind. Actually that mind change is a grieving over and hatred of sin paired with a turning towards God and his mercy. Even that definition raises the question, well why would I even need to hate my sin? You know why such graphic, extreme language? Because in our fallen flesh we love our sin. We indulge in our sin. We find sin pleasurable. We return to our sin as a dog returns to vomit. Excuse our sin, minimize our sin, explain away our sin, and even rationalize our sin. We do everything except hate our sin. Friends, that is why true repentance is also rightly called a grace. It is the work of God's grace for a man to see his lust, his pride, his laziness, and then to hate it and be grieved over it. It is a work of God's grace for a woman to be pained by her gossip or her vanity or her anxiety. Kids, it is God's grace to you if you recognize I have dishonored my parents and it grieves me. As Romans 2 says, what is leading us in those moments is the kindness of our God. How kind is our God that he says to us, how about a little less vomit in your diet and how about the bread of life for your soul? And John preaches on to that end, but not just the hard word of repentance, also in verse 3, the good news of forgiveness. Repentance and forgiveness make a happy couple. Not to be clear, our repentance does not earn or merit our forgiveness. I do not negotiate with God as if by flogging yourself or beating yourself up a thousand times over, you have somehow forced God to forgive you. God is faithful and just and delights to forgive his children. That said, if we hold iniquity in our hearts without sincere confession and repentance, we have no expectation of forgiveness. John comes and he proclaims this perfect pairing of repentance and forgiveness, but that of course in itself is not new. Many of the Old Testament prophets would have preached likewise, but what is new is that the people are heading, not to the temple, but out to the wilderness to be baptized. That is quite new. In the Old Testament we have many types of baptism. You can think of Noah's flood, for instance, as a kind of baptism, but yet John seems to be instituting something new. And we hear it when he picks up these words of Isaiah of how high things will be brought low, low things will be brought high. As verse 4 says, every valley shall be filled, every mountain and hill made low, and even the crooked things will become straight. This is apocalyptic language, apocalyptic in the sense that when they heard this, their ears would pop, their hearts would beat a little faster, because something cataclysmic is on the horizon. And so John recites Isaiah, but he adds something that Isaiah did not say when we just read from Isaiah 40. John says all that, and then he preaches this line, all flesh will see the salvation of God. Isaiah spoke of God's glory, John speaks of salvation. It's as if John is saying God's glory is now going to show forth in God's salvation. So that is John's very unique calling. You can see why he is sometimes called the last prophet. He's got one foot in the old and one foot in the new. And like a true prophet, he menses no words, because these crowds trek out to the desert to hear this wild news from this wilderness man, and just hear the warm welcome they get in verse 7. You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from wrath to come? You can only wonder what would John think of the seeker-sensitive movement of today. Imagine, if we trained our welcoming team to greet visitors likewise, welcome snakes! You know, are you really ready to flee from God's wrath? So that's the question, why this abrasive imagery that harkens back to the serpents in the Garden of Eden? Well, we've seen John preaches genuine forgiveness, and next he addresses false or counterfeit repentance and forgiveness. In this particular case, trusting in your religious pedigree or your religious heresy, religious heritage. Now, he's likely speaking to Pharisees and Sadducees here, and he confronts their hypocrisy head-on in verse 8, when he says, Do not begin to say to yourselves, We have Abraham as our father. That's stories from the Jewish Talmud, how Abraham kept watch over the gates of hell. As long as Abraham could see your circumcision, he would snatch you from the gates of hell. You remember Jesus' parable of the rich man, he cries out to father Abraham for mercy, but to no avail. And that is just how deceptive and deadly John sees it, so deceptive that he says, Do not even begin to tell yourself this lie. I am proclaiming the true gospel of repentance, and when you hear it, do not even take one step down the road of a false gospel. Why such urgency? Well, John knows the heart of man. This is exactly how we are self-deceived. As Paul said to the Galatians, Why are you so easily bewitched? Why are you listening to a false gospel? Or as Paul warned in Romans, Why are you seeking to establish your own righteousness, a self-righteousness? And for them, their false way was claiming Abraham is our father, that in terms of our pedigree, our bloodline, our circumcision, we are Abraham's offspring. Of course, it's not hard to see why that would be a tempting idol, because God did covenant with Abraham that he and his seed would be blessed. And so here these people are saying, We are that seed, therefore we are blessed. But of course, God's covenant with Abraham at every point and in every way called for faith. It called for the very repentance and faith that John himself preached. The true children of Abraham are those of faith. And so John warns them, If you dare lean upon and rest in your Abrahamic association, then you have forsaken the true gospel. Of course, for us Gentiles today, our temptation is not that of claiming Abraham, but we are in no less danger. We too abandon the gospel any time we lean upon and trust in anything other than Christ alone. And so we may not say we have Abraham, but we might well say we have our good works, we have our Presbyterian pedigree, we have our doctrines squared away, we have our church attendance, we have our daily disciplines checked off, and we've got our good reputation and our good standing. Of course, all of those are good things when rightly ordered. But every one of them makes for a worthless messiah and a false savior. And if we even begin to think to ourselves, I have this or that, and the this or that is anyone other than Jesus Christ, we are slipping away from the gospel. And so John corrects their delusions and ours, and he does so with all the subtlety of smacking someone with a two-by-four over the head when he says in verse 8, I tell you, God can from these stones raise up children for Abraham. And John's bluntness shows the folly of idolatry. And I use the word idol, because as we just confessed, an idol is anything that we put our trust in, alongside of or in place of God, whether that trust is in a feeling, a relationship, a status, an income, and so on and so forth. And idolatry makes for a most toxic relationship, because when man serves his idol, that idol is never satisfied nor satisfying to the worshiper. And the more man worships his idol, the more blind and delusional he becomes. And so John jolts them back to reality that God is no idol. He is not served by human hands as if he needed anything. If God needs Abrahamic children, these stones will do just fine. And there is tremendous irony in their claim, because you know the story. Abraham and Sarah were barren, they were childless, and God brought life out of a dead womb. Such is the delusional nature of idolatry, that man would boast before God, whether that be boasting in his works, boasting in our faith, boasting that we are Abraham's offspring. All such boasting is silenced before the Almighty God. And so John moves from correcting them, and now he outright warns them in verse 9. He says, the axe is laid at the root of the tree. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Every farmer looks for fruitfulness. A farmer plants a field or an orchard, he waters it, he prunes it, and then he expects it to produce fruit. And God is often described as the master farmer, the ultimate vine dresser. And Israel was his prime vineyard, his special tree, and he looked for her to bear fruit. And yet John warns Israel that she is fruitless, as she is indulged in this idolatrous lie. Not only is that a sin, it also yields a fruitless life. Of course, we see this all the time, that a man gives himself over to alcohol and his life is wasted. A person is given over to gambling and their wealth withers. A person is handed over to sexual deviancy and it bears rotten fruit. And in keeping with the analogy, the farmer's only use for that barren tree is firewood. So John uses this image of the axe laid at the root, ready to chop it down and throw it into the fire. And so if you're them, you look up and you see Damocles' sword hanging over you, right over your head. That's the time to ask, what needs to change in my life? And so our second section, the crowd asked John that hard question. Verse 10, John, how then shall we live? If what you say is true, what should we do? And there's a lot in his response, but you could sum his answer up quite simply as, live righteously. Love your neighbor. As Micah said, do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly before God. Lest we ever think that repentance is merely a feeling sorry for what I have done, true repentance results in a visibly changed life. And so for instance, to the first group, John says, whoever has two tunics is to share with him who has none. Now to clarify, the word justice has been mangled beyond all recognition today. So just to clarify, notice John does not call for the Roman government to enforce the redistribution of tunics in the name of social welfare. But a far better option, as well as more efficient, John calls for a true change of heart that leads to genuine generosity. It's much like what Paul says in Ephesians. Only after three chapters of describing union with Christ, then Paul tells the thief, hey, quit stealing, instead go work, and by working, you're going to have enough to share with anyone in need. This is the glory of Christian ethics, that it's unlike any other ethical system, that our behavior flows from a new heart, not some abstract moral system, but truly from God's grace at work in our lives. Second group comes to John, those infamous tax collectors in verse 12, also asking, how then shall we live? Now generally speaking, no one needs extra incentive to despise the IRS, and so it was for the tax collectors. But even worse, the tax collectors were notorious for padding their own pockets, skimming off the top. And so John commands them, collect no more than you're authorized to do. Again, it was assumed that they would skim off the top, but John says, knock it off and don't do that anymore. If you work for a secular company today, John just might say, hey, you don't need to quit your job, but he would say, to follow Christ is to obey him in every area of life, even at a personal cost, and yes, that includes so-called business ethics. The Christian cannot be shady at his work, but straight on Sunday. Of course, we see this very transformation in the life of the chief tax collector named Zacchaeus, who restored all that he defrauded, and what does Jesus tell him? You, Zacchaeus, are a true son of Abraham. Third group is a group of soldiers, and John tells them in verse 14, do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be content with your wages. A soldier, of course, could, by force of his sword, threaten and coerce a civilian. You know, would you like to go to jail today, or would you like to pay me off? And notice, too, they might even use false accusations. What is more satanic than false accusations? And so John says, put off that extortion and put on contentment. So it's interesting, we've got these three groups, and they all ask, how then shall we live? And John's response is stunning. I know I certainly would not respond this way. I would tell them, hey, get into a good church, read your Bible, begin praying, and fellowship with other Christians. Of course, John is not at all against those things, and he bears this unique position of preparing the way for the coming Christ, as if to say, hey, in the times of ignorance, God overlooked, but now he commands all men everywhere to repent in all of life. And he speaks with so much authority that they wonder if he himself is the Christ. And so, to distance himself between he and the Christ, he says this in verse 16. I baptize you with water, but he who is mightier than I is coming, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie, because he will baptize you with Holy Spirit and fire. It's as if John says, on my best day, I can pour out water, but I cannot pour out the Holy Spirit. I can pour out water, but I cannot cast fire upon the earth. The most I can do is use the mere outward sign of water, but that's it. I can outwardly wash you, but I cannot cleanse your soul. Oh, but there is someone coming who is so mighty, I am not even worthy to untie the sandals, because he will pour forth the promised Holy Spirit. He will wash you, and not just outwardly, but with the washing of a new heart and the renewal of the Holy Spirit. And so we learn so much of the supremacy of Jesus Christ right here, particularly when it comes to the gift of the Holy Spirit. Just as Calvin rightly said, everything that Jesus Christ did for us is completely worthless and of no value unless he sends his Holy Spirit. That's a bold claim, but you see his point. Without the Spirit, Christ is outside of us. Christ is over there, and I am over here, and never the twain shall meet. The Spirit's great work is to make us alive together with Christ and lead us in true repentance. So Christ comes, and he pours out, baptizes his church with the Spirit. And historically, John's words were fulfilled on the day of Pentecost in Acts chapter 2. That's when the promised Holy Spirit was poured out upon men of every nation and were divided with tongues as of fire. And so to those who are in Christ, that's fire. Burns away our impurities. It refines us. But for those not in Christ, such fire is judgment. And so verse 17, once again, the wise farmer gathers that wheat into his barn, whereas the chaff is burned, not just with fire, but you see those words, unquenchable fire. There are movements, both old and new, that would teach that hell is temporary, that the wicked do suffer punishment in hell, but not for eternity, that eventually they're annihilated or perish, and so their punishment is not everlasting. For me, I certainly appreciate the sentiment, because there's nothing more terrifying than to suffer the unending fire of God's wrath. That sentiment alone will not do. We have here the clear teaching of Scripture, that such torment is everlasting, that as Isaiah spoke of the wicked, their fire shall not be quenched. That word unquenchable there is the Greek word asbestos. I remember asbestos was once commercially used, because it would burn and burn, but not be consumed. And so John exhorted them with that news in verse 18, and I exhort you today, we are meant to bow before our God and a holy fear and rejoice that Jesus Christ Himself underwent that baptism of fire, that He alone quenches the unquenchable fire of God in His baptism upon the cross. And it was this that John preached, and it was also this that landed John in the jailhouse. Because we return to the bigwigs in verses 18-20, which tell us that Herod put John in prison, and we should ask, well, what was John's great crime? Well, like an Elijah opposing King Ahab, John openly denounced King Herod, because King Herod committed adultery with his brother Philip's wife Herodias, and following that they both annulled their marriages in order to marry each other, and for that, John rebuked them. John simply preached, Lex Rex, the law is king. In other words, Herod, you are not king, God's law is king. Herod, there is an authority higher than you, greater than Rome, and that is God's law, which you, mighty Herod, are subjected to and accountable for. I don't know how we need more of John today, but one wonders how many Americans, even Christians, would correct John for this foolish move of imposing his morality onto a public figure. Of course, we're no different today. For instance, if we shrink back from declaring that abortion is properly categorized as murder, or that homosexual marriage is rightly termed an abomination by God's standards, or even the simple truth that Christ is Lord over all, including even the public realm. And so, in the words of Psalm 2, John simply told a king of the earth about the God of heaven, telling Herod, kiss the son, lest he be angry with you. And so, as we close, let's store up in our hearts two uses of this awesome section. Firstly, repentance unto life. Repentance unto life. And John is warned that God's ax lays at the root of that unfruitful tree. And we've seen also that we are to repent, yes, of course, of our big, our obvious sins, but also our sins of omission, right? Our failure to share our tunic, our neglect to show generosity, mercy, kindness, encouragement, hospitality, and our many other sins of omission. And John warned us. Of course, he also declared to us the good news of Jesus Christ, who is that true vine. The reality is we cannot bear fruit ourselves. Any more than a dead branch could bear fruit. But as we abide in Jesus Christ, what does God promise? He promises to prune us so that we might bear fruit for Him. Even a lot of fruit. And God will be pleased with that. Secondly, we've seen how it is that we are to abide in Jesus Christ. And that is through the gift of the Holy Spirit. John could pour out water, but he could not pour out the Holy Spirit. And the Lord Jesus told His disciples, Friends, it is better for you that I go away, because when I leave, I will send another comforter, my helper, indeed my Spirit, who will guide you into all truth. And so what is ours to do? To walk in the Spirit. Sow unto the Spirit. And to not grieve the Holy Spirit. And as we walk, not according to the flesh, but by the Spirit, what should we expect? Well, we really will bear fruit in keeping with repentance. We really will walk in a manner pleasing to our Heavenly Father. And all because He sent this Mighty One. The One whose sandals we are not even worthy to untie. And yet He gave Himself up for us. Let us pray. Our gracious God and Heavenly Father, we praise You. That indeed You sent the One whose very sandals we are not worthy to untie. And yet not only did He come washing our feet, He came to wash us of our sins. That He underwent a baptism of fire upon the cross, in our place and as our beloved Savior. And You have raised Him up. And through Him and from You, You have sent forth Your Holy Spirit into our hearts to guide us into all truth. And so we do pray, help us to be that very people who are led by the Spirit that we might bear fruit for You. And we pray it in Jesus' name. Amen.
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