Christ Church

John the Baptist — His Message

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Sermon text: Matthew 3:1-3

In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea and saying,
“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” This is he who was spoken of
through the prophet Isaiah:

“A voice of one calling in the wilderness,
‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.’”

John’s message from 40,000 feet
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In the context of Isaiah 40

Gospel foundation in light of Hebrews 11:6

Repentance — back to front
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Judgement is real — Malachi 4:1, 5-6

Repentance and belief

Practical teaching on what that looks like.
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Two types of people — Matthew 3:7 and Luke 3:10

Two types of instruction — Matthew 3:8-9 and Luke 3:11-14

Two types of power with two outcomes — Luke 3:15-18

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Real Forgiveness

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Introduction:
Everyone knows that the Christian faith revolves around the forgiveness of sins. But because there is a gospel logic involved in it that eludes every form of carnal reasoning, we have to be careful to understand what is actually involved. What is real forgiveness?

The Text: 
“Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you” (Eph. 4:31–32).

Summary of the Text:  
There are two ways of conducting life together. One of them is the enemy of life together, and the other is the true friend of life together. One drives us apart and the other knits us together.

The first is the way is the way of keeping score, with the intention of winning. It is the way of bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, slander and malice (v. 31). This all sounds pretty bad, but we have to remember that all these plug-uglies travel under an alias. They call themselves righteousness, and have a deep commitment to being right. This approach makes koinonia community impossible.

The alternative is kindness and tenderheartedness. And the way that kindness and tenderheartedness “live out” is by forgiving one another, and doing so in exactly the same way that God has forgiven us for the sake of Jesus Christ (v. 32).

What Forgiveness is Not:      
We often feel like we are asking God for His forgiveness when what we are really doing is asking Him to accept our excuses. And because we know that we are to forgive as we were forgiven, as per our text, we often seek to forgive others by agreeing beforehand to accept their excuses, when possible. But (unlike ourselves) they had better have a good one.

Our problem is that, when living together with other sinners, we frequently run smack into what can only be called inexcusable. And because it is inexcusable, our scheme with the excuses cannot work.

Forgiveness deals with sin. And sin, by its very nature, is inexcusable. But what is inexcusable is not (thank the Lord) unforgiveable.

Pardon Me and Forgive Me: 
If you accidentally back into someone during fellowship hour, and make them spill their coffee, you naturally say pardon me, or please excuse me. By this you mean to say that you did what you did to them in a way that was entirely unintentional. They respond accordingly—don’t mention it. No problem. The accident was an accident, and it was therefore excusable.

But suppose you looked across the fellowship hall, and there saw your enemy, as pleased with himself as a conceited Pharisee could be, and so you lowered your shoulder and ran straight into him, knocking him clean over. Under such circumstances, the only reason you would say “pardon me” would be if you had decided to taunt him after bowling him over. In this case, your behavior is inexcusable.

That doesn’t mean that nothing can be done about it. The inexcusable is not the same kind of thing as the unforgiveable.

A Mixed Bag: 
But there is another category. What if we don’t have something that is purely wicked or purely accidental? Suppose it is a mixed bag.

Yes, you snapped at the kids, but it was at the end of two days of migraine headache. Yes, you said some things to your wife that were rude and thoughtless, but she was the one who started the argument, and would not let it go, not even after you had asked her to. You asked her three times. Yes, you sent an email to your boss that you regret sending, but it was 2 in the morning, and the beer you had made you careless.

There are extenuating circumstances, in other words. But we should all remember two things about this. The first is that we will tend to stretch our legitimate excuse part to cover over our sin part. But the only thing that can actually cover sin is the blood of Jesus Christ. When apologizing, we lead with the excuse. “Bob, sorry about yesterday. I had a long day, and I didn’t really mean what I said.” And Bob often responds in kind (because he wants to play the same game when he needs to). “Oh, well, because you didn’t mean it, forget about it.” In other words, because the “you” who said those things was not the real you, he can let it go.

The second is that we want our excuses to be way stretchier than our neighbor’s excuses. But as C.S. Lewis pointed out one time, the chances are excellent that our neighbor’s excuses are way better than we tend to believe. And it is also true that our excuses are way lamer than we think they are. When we handicap the competition between us and our fellow Christians, we are not nearly as objective as we think we are.

A Variation on the Golden Rule:
The basic Christian response is to forgive as we have been forgiven. In our text, the apostle Paul is simply repeating what the Lord taught us when He taught us to pray. Every time we pray the Lord’s Prayer, we ask Him to forgive us as we forgive others. The way many Christians live, the room actually ought to become much quieter when we get to that part.

Lord, doubt the sincerity of my repentance the way I doubt his. Lord, dismiss my excuses with a wave of your hand the way I dismiss his excuses. Lord, keep a hidden tally so that if I sin in this area again, You can bring everything up again, and throw it in my face, the way I do with him. Amen.

The Golden Rule teaches us that we should do for others what we wish they would do for us. This is in the same spirit, but there is a higher level of danger in it. Here we are asking God to treat us the way we treat our brother. If I give my brother an orange, he might give me an apple. But if I give my brother a stone when he asked for bread, and then I ask God to treat me in the same way, I may find out the stone is one that will crush me. God can give me a much bigger stone than my brother ever could.

By Grace Alone:
But how is this consistent with salvation by grace alone? “For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses” (Matt. 6:14–15). If you refuse to forgive your brother, you are not failing to earn your salvation. If you refuse to forgive your brother, you are revealing to the world that you have no understanding of what salvation by grace through faith actually is. Remember that Christ is all.

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The Ultimate Authority

Ben Zornes on

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Introduction
The question for every nation, generation, and individual is “who is in charge: you or God”? We are never left in neutral territory. The world is divided, down the middle, of those who are obedient to Christ and his commands, or those who obey the moral code of the mob. As Christians, we must never leave off obedience to Christ for the sake of the traditions, fads, or fashions of men, no matter how noble they may seem.

The Text
Matthew 21:23-32
And when he was come into the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came unto him as he was teaching, and said, By what authority doest thou these things? and who gave thee this authority? And Jesus answered and said unto them, I also will ask you one thing, which if ye tell me, I in like wise will tell you by what authority I do these things. The baptism of John, whence was it? from heaven, or of men? And they reasoned with themselves, saying, If we shall say, From heaven; he will say unto us, Why did ye not then believe him? But if we shall say, Of men; we fear the people; for all hold John as a prophet. And they answered Jesus, and said, We cannot tell. And he said unto them, Neither tell I you by what authority I do these things. But what think ye? A certain man had two sons; and he came to the first, and said, Son, go work to day in my vineyard. He answered and said, I will not: but afterward he repented, and went. And he came to the second, and said likewise. And he answered and said, I go, sir: and went not. Whether of them twain did the will of his father? They say unto him, The first. Jesus saith unto them, Verily I say unto you, That the publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you. For John came unto you in the way of righteousness, and ye believed him not: but the publicans and the harlots believed him: and ye, when ye had seen it, repented not afterward, that ye might believe him.

Summary of the Text
This exchange between Christ and the chief priests comes right after some quite notable moments: the triumphal entry (vs. 1-11) and the clearing of the temple (vs. 12-13); Jesus then heals in the temple (vs. 14-16). The next day on his way back into Jerusalem he commands an unfruitful fig tree to whither, which it does, and then Jesus teaches his disciples on the power of believing prayer (vs. 17-22).

It is in the light of these episodes that Matthew presents us with the chief priests questioning Christ’s authority to teach (v. 23); Jesus responds to their question with his own question regarding John the Baptist’s origin (vs. 24-25); the priests huddle-up and come up with the ficklest of replies, “dunno” (v. 27). So, Jesus pointedly gives His answer by refusing to give the answer (v. 27) and by telling the parable of the two sons (vs. 28-31).

The father in the parable commands one son to go work in his vineyard (v. 28), the son refuses, then repents, and then obeys (v. 29); so the father commands the second son, who then gives lip-service to obedience, but in fact, simply does not obey (v. 30). Jesus then asks them which of the sons did the will of the father, and they acknowledge that it was the one which actually obeyed the father and went to work in the vineyard (v. 31); Jesus then summarizes the point: repentant sinners, not unbelieving Israelites, would enter the awaited kingdom of God (vs. 31-32).

Obedience & Authority
This parable is often used to moralize about how children should obey their parents the first time; but although that is an important lesson for children to learn, that is not what we are to take away from this parable. This is a parable about which authority we will obey, not whether we will obey at all.

The chief priests query Jesus as to who gave him the authority to teach; Jesus points to the  ministry of John the Baptist to make the obvious truth (that Christ’s authority came from God the Father), even more painfully obvious. John’s ministry resulted in repentance, which David had proclaimed was what God most desired from his people in giving them the covenant signs: “For thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it: thou delightest not in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise (Ps. 51:16-17).” But the chief priests were more akin to those who received Isaiah’s searing rebuke of the unbelieving and unrepentant Israelites of his day: “Wherefore the Lord said, Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honour me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men (Isa. 29:13).”

Despite the obvious heavenliness of John’s ministry, they had the more convincing signs of Christ’s ministry: the blind seeing, the lame leaping, the multitudes being fed, the dead being resurrected; but they quibbled over whether Jesus had the proper credentials, degrees, and qualifications to be teaching the people. Jesus simply points to the fact that both John’s ministry and His own were fruitful; whereas, the ministry of the priests and elders was marked by unbelief and unrepentant hearts.

Two Religions
From the beginning there has really only been two religions: the covenant people of God (marked by faith and repentance), and the unregenerate (marked by humanism & idol-worship). The first son in Jesus story, was outwardly rebellious, but later repents & obeys the father’s command. The second son, which we are to associate with unbelieving Israel, visibly and verbally seems to be quite the good little boy, whose cheeks the church ladies are wont to pinch; however, this son flat out disobeys and thus disregards his father’s authority. His disobedience shows a loveless heart, regardless of his flattering tongue.

We must either repent and believe, and be saved; or else pretend and be forever lost. At the end of the story, where do we find the two sons? The first son is precisely where the father desired him to be in the first place: the vineyard; the second son is, due to his disobedience, consequently found outside the vineyard. Notice where the father intends his sons to be: harvesting in a vineyard. The harvest of a vineyard brings the joy of the wine; but only the repentant and obedient son is found where the wine flows, and thus receives joy for his reward. Jesus shows us that the second son is left in the joyless misery of disobedience.

The question for us is, “Which son am I?” Jesus came to save sinners that repent of their disobedience, not sinners that feign obedience and never repent. The harlots and tax-collectors were the most dubious of sinners, but they repented when they heard the Gospel message. They knew they were disobedient to God’s law, authority, and standard; they were guilty as sin, but they repented, and submitted to the authority of God’s Word, and were found obedient to the Father. Jesus wants us to see the hypocrisy and false obedience of the chief priests in the second son; lip-service is not what He demands. Rather, loving obedience, faith & repentance are what He asks of us (Rom. 12:1, Mar. 12:33). As the Psalmist has it: “The LORD is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit (Ps. 34:18).”

A Great Commission
Matthew, in his Gospel account, is leading up to something. If we’re not careful we might stop short by dwelling on the crucifixion alone, rather than going on to what Christ redeemed by His cross-work and resurrection; namely, a commission, backed by all authority, to go into the Father’s vineyard of this world and preach the Gospel, teaching all nations to obey Christ’s commands (Mt. 28:18-20)!

It is impossible for there to not be a standard; the issue in every generation is from which authority that standard will be derived from. We will obey either the God of creation and how He made the world; or we will obey the whims of our depraved nature.  Either God will be your God, or else Man will be your God.

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Sermon #1952: Psalm 80

Ben Zornes on

KINDLY PRODUCED BY CANON PRESS

Introduction:

As with others of the psalms of Asaph, this is likely either in the tradition of the school of Asaph, or by another Asaph downstream from the father of that tradition. The events described here are not what we see in the time of David and Solomon, so it is either written later, or it is prophetic.

The Text:

“. . . Turn us again, O God, and cause thy face to shine; and we shall be saved . . .” (Ps. 80:1-19).

Summary of the Text:

We will divide this psalm into three sections, each one concluding with the refrain turn us again. Each refrain builds on the previous one—turn us again, O God, then turn us again, O God of hosts, and finally turn us again, O Lord God of hosts. The first section is the invocation (vv. 1-3). The second section is a brief lamentation over Israel’s condition (vv. 4-7), and the third section is a more detailed lamentation using the extended metaphor of Israel as a ravaged vine (vv. 8-19). This is a mournful psalm.

God is the Shepherd of Israel, and He is asked to “shine forth” (v. 1). He is asked to stir up His strength for salvation before the sons of Rachel (v. 2). Turn us, O God, and we will be saved (v. 3). How long will God be angry with the prayers of His people (v. 4)? What does He give them but tears (v. 5)? It is God who has made His people a laughingstock among their enemies (v. 6). In one way it shouldn’t matter, but it still does. Turn us, God of hosts, and we shall be saved (v. 7). God brought a vine out of Egypt and planted it (v. 8). It flourished there, filling the land (v. 9). The vines covered the cedars, the way kudzu might (v. 10). She expanded to the sea to the west, and the river (the Euphrates) to the east (v. 11). She was greatly blessed. And so then the lament sets in. Why has God broken down the hedges of her protection (v. 12)? The boar has wasted the vine, which is something a boar can certainly do (v. 13). Return, O God, and visit your vine (v. 14). After all, You planted it; You made it strong in the first place (v. 15). It is burned, wasted, and it perished at the look of God’s countenance (v. 16). God, let your hand be upon the man of your right hand (v. 17), let your hand be upon your Benjamin. In order that we not fall away, “quicken us” is the prayer. Then we will call upon You (v. 18). And the last prayer is offered for the third time—turn us again, O Lord God of hosts. Cause your face to shine upon us, and we will be saved (v. 19).

A World of Hurt

When God is judging a people, they smart under it. Being in that condition, they cry out for deliverance. But there is a Catch-22 involved. Because they are under chastisement, they pray. But also because they are under chastisement, God is angry with their prayers. “How long wilt thou be angry against the prayer of thy people” (v. 4)?

Make Your Face Shine:

As the plea to “turn us” is offered up three times, other expressions come in alongside it. Two times God is referred to as the God of hosts, which is to say the “God of armies.” When the God of armies turns you back to Him, the reason is that He has victory in mind. And three times, the expression “cause your face to shine” is used. When that happens, the end result is deliverance and salvation.

The expression makes you think instantly of the great Aaronic blessing. “The Lord bless thee, and keep thee: The Lord make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee: The Lord lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace” (Num. 6:24–26).

Turn Us:

When we turn to God on our own steam, our prayers for deliverance just add to the offense (v. 4). When we repent autonomously, our repentance requires repenting. We don’t know how to return to God without wandering off from Him. We do not know how to repent any more than we know how to do anything else right. If we “turn us,” we will not really be turned. But if God gives the gift of repentance, it really does the work.

“Turn thou us unto thee, O Lord, and we shall be turned; Renew our days as of old.” (Lam. 5:21).

“Him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins” (Acts 5:31).

“In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentanceto the acknowledging of the truth” (2 Tim. 2:25).

Repentance is not the coin that we come up with to put into the vending machine of God’s forgiveness. All of it is the gift of God. Not just the salvation afterward, but the repentance and faith that receives the salvation.

The Son of His Right Hand:

The tribe of Benjamin is mentioned earlier in the psalm, along with the other (grand)sons of Rachel. Benjamin is alluded to again later in the psalm, with a strong messianic statement.

Remember this is a call for deliverance in the midst of mourning. And what does the psalmist call for? He calls for this:

“Let thy hand be upon the man of thy right hand, Upon the son of man whom thou madest strong for thyself” (Ps. 80:17).

Who is the man of God’s right hand? These expressions apply in their fullness to Christ. Christ was made to sit at God’s right hand (Ps. 110:1; Heb. 1:5). And the next phrase, son of man, is applied to the Lord Jesus constantly. As one scholar notes, it is used of Christ in Scripture 71 times. Of those instances, 67 were from Christ Himself. Daniel uses it once, Stephen once, and twice by the apostle John in Revelation.

Let your hand be upon Christ, let Him be seated at your right hand. Let your hand be upon the son of man, the man you have strengthened for your own glory. What will be the result? Then we shall be turned. Then your face will shine. Then we will be saved.

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