"Repent and Believe" - Mark 1:1-8

Gospel of Mark starts this way. The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

Mark's an interesting gospel. If you've read the gospels, you know that it's

quite a bit shorter than the others.

But as we begin the gospel of Mark, I kind of want to lay a quick foundation,

because we're going to be in Mark for a while.

We may take a break somewhere in the middle to do some other things,

but it's going to take a little bit to get through Mark, even though it's the

shortest gospel. There's a lot in here.

But the way this gospel begins, the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ,

the son of God, it begins much the same way that Genesis does.

In the beginning, right? God creates the heavens and the earth.

And Mark wants to draw his readers' minds to Genesis when he says the beginning

of the gospel of Jesus Christ as if to say, this is a new creation.

This is a new thing. God's doing a new thing in the person and work of his son, Jesus Christ.

This gospel word, it's a word that you've probably heard before.

If there's a Greek word anybody knows, it's gospel, euangelion, right?

And this is oftentimes, especially in the Old Testament, a word that's used for military victory.

In other words, there would be a battle and then they would send someone back

to announce victory, to say, hey, everything's going to be okay because the victory has been won.

And I think that's a great picture and a great message. But I think often when

we think of the Gospels, when we think of the Bible, when we think of what it

means to be a Christian, all of

those things, we forget that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is not just news.

It's not just a word. It's not just words spoken to you.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ is about a person, the person of Jesus Christ.

It's a picture of a messenger, right? A messenger that doesn't just carry the

news back that the victory has

been won. It's a messenger that comes to proclaim, I have won the victory.

An army didn't win. I won. And I've come back to tell you, I've won.

And if you will trust in me, I'll win every battle for the rest of eternity.

If you'll trust in me, I'll do everything for you that I promised you I would

do. Now, why is that so important?

Well, in the book of John, we see why it's so important. Jesus is talking to

the Pharisees. And again, a verse you probably have heard, John 5, 39.

He says, you search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life.

That's an incredible thing for Jesus to say.

And I don't think he's minimizing the scriptures. He's not minimizing God's word.

What he's saying is you search the scriptures, you search what God has said,

because you think simply in what God has said, there is eternal life,

right? This is how the Pharisees lived their life.

They read the word of God. They knew the word of God.

They knew it better than anyone in this room, right? They knew the word of God.

And Jesus is saying, you search the scriptures because that's where you think

you have eternal life. Again, you think the eternal life is found in the words.

In doing what the Bible asks you to do. And how many people,

when you say I'm a Christian or I go to church, whatever it is,

when they hear the gospel, they think, well, that's telling me what to do.

It's telling me what to do. And that's not the point of the gospels.

If we do that, we fall into the same trap as the Pharisees.

If we were to say to Jesus, Jesus, I've done everything you've asked of me.

I've gone to church, I've prayed, I've worshiped, I've walked the aisle,

I've worked through the, I've gone to camp. I've done what you've asked me to do.

I've heard your words and I've done it.

That's not the good news of Jesus Christ. He says, you think that in them you

have eternal life and it is they that bear witness about me.

Yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life. In other words,

you can hear the words of scripture and you can hear the gospel message.

You can hear good news come to your ears, but it is the person of Jesus Christ that saves.

It is the person of Jesus Christ that redeems. It is the person of Jesus Christ

who physically takes your sins on his shoulders, is crucified,

buried, and raised again, and

sits at the right hand of the Father to come back and redeem his people.

It is a person that we want to get to know.

The Bible exists for us to know Christ. The Bible does not exist so that you

can find out what you should do to make God happy.

Right? That's how the Pharisees lived their lives. What should we do to make God happy?

And Jesus looks him in the eye and said, you think you have eternal life because

you know the Bible and yet you don't know me.

And so as we get into this gospel of Mark, that's what I want us to do.

I want us to know Christ. I want us to see Christ.

I want us to see him for who he is. I want us to know the person of Christ.

Certainly there are things he's going to ask us to do and we should do this.

Certainly there's things in the Bible that if you live your life according to

those standards, there is a common grace that comes to you.

We talked about this in Sunday school this morning, that living in Tyler,

Texas, there's some common graces that we have, not because everyone's a Christian,

but because everyone lives in a, we'll say a framework that is Christian, right?

We're kind and we're polite and we're gracious. And we do a lot of the things the Bible asks us to do.

And it doesn't matter if you're a Christian or not. If you do some of the things

or a lot of the things that the Bible asks you to do, there'll be a net benefit to your life.

And Jesus's point is not that those things aren't good. His point is that they point to me.

I'm the reason that the Bible exists. I'm what the gospels are about.

And so as we look at the Gospels again, I don't want us to just hear the good

news of, let's go live a better life.

Let's act the way we're supposed to act and do the things we're supposed to

do and pray the way we're supposed to pray and give the way we're supposed to

give and just find a list of to-dos of, hey, Jesus came and he loves us.

And now it's all up to us to do something.

That's not what Mark is saying. And he's clear from the very beginning of his

Gospel. This is the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

The scriptures testify about Jesus, and he is the beginning of this new creation,

this new creation that he will rule over forever,

this creation that will have no end, this creation that will never be marred by sin and death.

That's what Mark is about. That's what the gospels are about.

That's what the whole Bible is about. And I pray that as you've come in here

this morning, you haven't looked for just, well, tell me what you want me to

do, because that's so secondary to what I want to do.

I just want to put the person of Jesus on display for you week after week and pray every week,

every day I get up here that he will reveal himself to you, that you will come

to know him as a person that has saved you. So some quick background on Mark.

Mark, again, is certainly the shortest gospel. It's widely accepted that John Mark is its author.

You'll know John Mark if you've read the letters of Paul. He's the one that

gets crossed with Paul and then doesn't go well and ends up leaving the missionary journey.

And then we find out later that they've reconciled, which is great.

But it's a gospel written mainly to Gentiles in Rome. A lot of commentaries

you read will say that there's a reason it's short and to the point.

It says the word immediately 41 times.

So if you're a person who likes moving quick, Mark is for you.

If you're a person who likes going slow, John is for you.

You should read both, but they're written very differently.

But I think something that was interesting that I think is interesting is this

is probably Peter's quote unquote gospel.

It's widely held, especially in the early church, that really John Mark was

writing things down for Peter.

And you see that kind of in Mark as you read through it, which I would encourage you to do.

It doesn't take long, but some of Peter's stories are really out front and center.

And so a lot of what's going on here is, hey, John Mark is going to write this down for Peter.

So all of those things said, let's get into it.

We've read verse one, the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ,

the son of God, verses two and three, he's going to quote this and he's going to introduce John.

He's going to introduce who John is and where John comes from.

And he wants them to know, John just didn't come out of nowhere. He was prophesied.

Verse two, as it is written in Isaiah, the prophet, behold, I send my messenger before you.

Who will prepare your way, the voice of one crying in the wilderness,

prepare the way of the Lord and make his path straight.

This is a combination of three Old Testament passages, Exodus 23,

20, Malachi 3, 1, and Isaiah 40, verse 3.

Isaiah 40:3

And there's been a huge hubbub about why doesn't he mention all these other

authors? See how dumb John Mark is. He doesn't even know he's quoting different authors.

And really, this is just a common way to say, I may quote different authors,

but the one that you're going to know is Isaiah.

And Isaiah would have agreed with these things.

So instead of saying Isaiah and Malachi, he just says, this is what Isaiah has

said. This is what Isaiah ascribes to.

A quick summary of these three passages in Exodus, he's a messenger to bring you to the place of God.

He's a messenger. There will be a messenger. In fact, a lot of Bibles will use

the word angel, which is the word messenger, to bring you to the place that

I, God have prepared for you. This is the promised land.

And Malachi says, prepare the way before me, a messenger of the covenant in which you will delight.

A messenger of the covenant in which you will delight.

What an incredible message at the end of the Old Testament to say,

hey, this covenant that has not gone well for you, right?

Malachi is the end of the Old Testament and the covenant that they were under

with God has not gone well for them. They're certainly not delighting in it at this point.

They're exiled and they'll soon be under Roman authority.

And one of the last thing Malachi wants you to know is, hey,

I'm going to send a messenger that will prepare the way for a covenant to be

brought to you that you will delight in.

It will not be about the law. It will not be about you doing something.

It's a covenant that you will delight in because it'll be done for you.

And then Isaiah says, a voice cries out in the wilderness, prepare the way of

the Lord, make straight the desert highway.

In other words, God is coming. God is coming.

He's coming. And because he's coming, I'm going to send someone before him to prepare the way.

Now, a good question to ask, how do you prepare the way for the Lord?

It's a good question to ask in your life. How do you prepare yourself for the

Lord? How have you done that this morning?

Have you done that this week, right? The Bible here is saying,

listen, God is coming to mankind.

The Savior is coming. The Messiah is coming. And I'm sending someone before

him to prepare the way for him. Well, what's that person going to look like?

What's that person going to do? How do you think you prepare the way of the Lord?

It's a good question to ask. What kind of procession do you think should be given to God Almighty?

He's the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. You would think there would be

some sort of presidential convoy, some stretch camel. I don't know.

I don't know. What would have been considered? Is there stretch buggies? I don't know.

At the very least, you'd think you'd have a WWE announcer that would announce

him before he comes in, like, in this corner, the Son of God.

You think there would be something, and yet this is the picture of the person that we get?

Verse four, John appeared, right?

John appeared. That's an interesting phrase simply because Mark's saying,

this is what was prophesied. Again, he's moving quick.

This is what was prophesied. And then the next verse is John appears as if he comes out of nowhere.

Read Matthew and Luke if you want to know kind of John's Genesis, where he comes from.

But for Mark, he doesn't go into detail. He just wants them to know this was

prophesied, and then he appears.

This is how he wants his readers to think. God said this would happen,

and guess what? It happens.

John appeared baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance

for the forgiveness of sins.

And all the country of Judea and all Jerusalem were going out to him and were

being baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.

Now, John was clothed with camel's hair and wore a leather belt around his waist

and ate locusts and wild honey.

What a messenger. What a messenger.

John's not the description of the guy that you would think would introduce God

to the world. Just look at his appearance.

There's no tasseled loafers here. There's no blazers.

There's no nice clothes. There's no royal robes. There's no red carpet.

John is out in the wilderness.

He's out in the wilderness. He's wearing a leather belt, wearing these weird

clothes. He's eating this weird food.

And for some reason, these people are coming out to him in droves.

Now, it's important to note that John's description is intentional.

The way John dresses and the way John acts is intentional. John is supposed

to be, as is prophesied, a prophet in the likes of one that was before him.

And so in 2 Kings verse 1, we find out that this is what Elijah looked like.

If you go read 2 Kings chapter 1, it tells you that this description matches

2 Kings 1 · chapter mention

very closely to what we see in John.

It would be like if you're watching a Civil War movie and there was no words, right?

And there was just a silhouette of the screen and you saw this kind of tall,

lanky guy with a beard and a top hat. You would know who that was.

If you don't know who that is, read a book, okay? But I'm just joking.

But you would know, hey, that's probably Abraham Lincoln. We're watching a Civil War movie here.

Like that's what he looked like, tall guy, beard, top hat. That's what Mark's doing.

That's what God is doing in the person of John, is he's saying,

when you see this guy, you should know, well, there's a reason he dressed that way.

There's a reason he acts that way because he is a prophet like Elijah.

That's the procession. That's the announcer, not a prophet sent by God that's

in a kingly robe or in the palace, or maybe he's really high up in the religious

establishment. He's going to be the one that tells all the religious people about Jesus.

No, he's a prophet in the wilderness, eating locusts and honey.

His location is interesting. Again, John baptizes in the wilderness.

Specifically, he baptizes them in the Jordan River.

If you've read Exodus, you know that the Jordan River is not just some random river, right?

The Jordan is the river that the Israelites cross on the way to the promised land.

When they left Egypt, God parts the waters and they cross through the Jordan River.

Again, while they physically come to the promised land in Exodus,

eventually, you know that they wandered in the wilderness for 40 years because of their sin.

And it's if the Bible is saying, hey, listen, you came out of Egyptian slavery

and you crossed through this river and eventually you came to the promised land,

but your sin stuck you in the wilderness.

And now God's saying, hey, why don't you come to the wilderness and let me work on you again?

Why don't you come to the wilderness? Let me deal with your sin.

But instead of killing your whole generation off for 40 years,

you know what I'm going to do?

I'm going to call you into the wilderness and call you to repentance.

Repentance. Most important thing in his message is this word repentance.

The title of the message, repentance is the way.

You may not realize it, but not too, too long ago, there was a movement called

the church growth movement.

This will be important in a minute. So just stay with me. You look at me like, yeah, okay.

Just wanted to give you a quick history lesson and I'll get back to the rest of the programming.

But there was a movement, the church growth movement, that essentially what

it did, what it was based on is they would go out and they would ask unbelievers.

They would ask people that didn't go to church.

They would say, what do you want in a church?

What do you want to see? What are some things that would make it easier for

you to come to church, to make it a little more comfortable for you to come to church?

And the reason I say that's important is if you don't realize it,

most of the churches that exist, exist out of that model, right?

We're a product of the time we live in.

And a lot of churches, I can remember going to youth group in the mid nineties

and hearing like Lifehouse.

If you don't know who Lifehouse is, I'm dating myself, but it's a secular band

that wrote songs about girls, but they could also be about Jesus.

Like it just depends on how, yeah, you know, like we would play that at church

camp and you would see some people worshiping and some people singing into the

girl they fell in love with on Tuesday. It's, It's a weird thing.

The reason that's an important thing to note is that's the experience that most

of us have had in some way, shape, or form. Now, maybe you've avoided that.

Good for you. But for the most part, all of us has at least had a touch point

with this idea where churches became a place that were supposed to be as comfortable

as they could be for everybody.

Now, again, certainly we don't want to be grouchy and neat. We've probably all

been to a church like that, where you walk in and people look at you like,

how dare you visit this church?

You're dressed wrong. You think differently than us. You obviously don't,

you're not as smart as us, obviously.

It's like, I haven't even met you. I just know you're wrong.

You ever felt that tension when you come into a church? I hope that's not here.

If you felt that way, our bad.

But again, the flip side of this is also that, and this is why I want you to

know about this church growth movement, because what happened was things like

repentance weren't on the list.

Because you know what sinners don't want to hear about? You know what you and

I didn't want to hear about when we were sinners?

Repentance. Because repentance means turning from who you are,

turning from what you're doing.

You're walking a certain way and you need to stop and turn and go another way.

That's literally what the Greek word means.

Again, why is this so important? Well, it's important because these are the waters that you swim in.

There's now two generations of people who have swam in those waters that think

anything that doesn't make someone feel good, that doesn't make them feel welcome,

that doesn't make them feel like this is where they're supposed to be is a bad

thing. And repentance is one of those things.

You'll quickly be called a legalist if you start talking about repentance too much.

So while I think the intentions were good as

they usually are we want more people to come to church that's

a good thing by the way we're pro that the

way that you win someone is the way that you keep someone and if you win them

by getting rid of everything they don't like then the second you try and like

backdoor that and say like hey I know you've been here three years but we know

you're getting drunk every weekend and maybe you shouldn't do that they hit

you with whoa whoa whoa you said you love me just the way I was.

All right. And if I want to wear 10 foot tall Indian headdresses in church,

you have to love me like that. That was an extreme example, but you get it.

Never seen that personally. If you have, God bless you.

Again, we may not have seen these things with our own eyes, but we've felt that.

I know each and every one of you, we sat down, we felt that.

And maybe you're of the thought that like, hey, that's not necessarily a bad

thing. And we can have that discussion.

Because again, I think the good thing is we want people in church.

We want people to come to know the Lord. We want people to be around godly people.

But if we do that at the expense of things like repentance, then what we're

doing for people is simply giving them a more comfortable place to go to hell

in. And that's a terrible place to be.

Hey, you look uncomfortable going to hell out there. Why don't you come in here

and you can sing songs that may or may not be about Jesus and we'll love you just the way you are.

And that way it's like hospice care for hell goers. Let me make you comfortable.

I'm not gonna call you to repentance because that would make you feel bad.

And I don't wanna make you feel bad.

I don't wanna call you to live the life that God's called you to live because

that's gonna make me feel like a legalist.

And it's interesting that the first person to announce, to make the way for

Jesus hitting the earth, his main message, his main drive of his preaching is repent.

Repent and believe the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Repent and believe in the person and work of Jesus Christ.

Now, of course, at this point in Mark, they don't know exactly what Jesus is going to do. They don't.

You're trusting in this promised Messiah that is to come in the same way that

every Old Testament person would have.

Again, this is not people coming to the Jordan, to the wilderness,

to feel better about themselves.

This is people coming to the Jordan and ultimately to the wilderness to say, I know I have a problem.

I know that I'm a sinner. I know that there's an issue in me and I need to know

what to do about that because I've done everything the Pharisees have asked me to do.

I've gone where I'm supposed to go. I've sacrificed my goats and my sheep.

I've done the pigeon. I've done all those things, and yet I know I still have a sin issue.

This is the testimony of the whole scriptures, repentance.

Proverbs 28, 13, whoever conceals his transgression will not prosper,

but he who confesses and forsakes his transgressions will obtain mercy.

1 John 8, 10, if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to

cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

That's what people are doing. They're coming to the wilderness of the Jordan.

They're confessing their sins.

Not just confessing that they've done something wrong.

They're confessing that they are sinners, that their base desire,

that they desire to sin, and they know that's not good. It's not good.

I think one of the greatest examples of repentance is found in Psalm 32,

and this is King David reflecting on his affair with Bathsheba.

If you don't know that story, David sees Bathsheba while he's up there on the

rooftop, and he decides, that's who I want to be with.

And so he has her husband move to the front lines, essentially having him killed.

He takes Bathsheba, sleeps with her, and that becomes his wife.

And David doesn't repent of that immediately.

It takes the prophet Nathan coming to him, but this is his reflection in Psalm 32.

He says, blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.

Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity,

and in whose spirit there is no deceit.

Verse three, for when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long.

For day and night, your hand was heavy upon me.

My strength dried up as by the heat of summer.

And if your relationship with the Lord is not where he wants to be,

I would encourage you start there. Start there.

Repentance is the way to the Lord's presence. It is the way to the Lord's forgiveness.

And we learn in Psalm 32 that David doesn't just wake up one day and decide he wants to repent.

David doesn't just wake up one day and go, you know, I finally feel bad about that decision.

What does it say in verse four? For day and night, your hand.

In other words, for day and night, Lord God, your hand was heavy upon me and

my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer.

Listen, most Christians don't burn out. Most Christians fail to repent of their sins.

And instead they buy into the lie of just do more.

Just do more. Just serve more. Just give more. You're feeling disconnected from the Lord?

Sing more. Start listening to 89.5. Listen to 88.7, right? Find some worship music you like.

Find a devotional you like. Do more things. And again, you become a Pharisee.

You seek the scriptures thinking that in them you have eternal life,

but in actuality, your bones are drying up and you're exhausted.

And the Lord's hand, because he loves you, is heavy upon your shoulders to say,

you need to repent. You need to acknowledge your sin before the Lord.

You need to come back to the Lord.

Verse five finishes this way. I acknowledge my sin to you and I did not cover my iniquity.

I wonder how many times you can say you've covered your iniquity.

You may be covering an iniquity right now.

When David says he covered his iniquity, it's a way of him saying, I just ignored it.

I just ignored it. I killed Bathsheba's husband. He was out of the picture.

I'm the king. I took her as my wife. Who's going to tell me I shouldn't?

And King David thinks like Americans

and by extension, even tenfold Texans think, don't tread on me, bro.

I do what I want. I'm the king of my castle.

You can't tell me how to live my life. You can't tell me what I did was wrong.

You can't tell me I'm in sin.

You can't tell me I should obey that. You can't tell me I should do that.

This is how we cover our iniquity. This is what David does.

He finally gets to a place again because of the Lord's grace in his life where

he says, I will confess my transgressions.

To the Lord, and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. This is what we see in Mark.

We see that God's hand is heavy on some people. And when his hand gets heavy

on people, he drives these people into the wilderness to meet his prophet,

John, and for John to tell them, repent.

Turn away from that, confess your sins, confess that you're a sinner,

confess that you don't have it figured out.

Confess that you can't save yourself. Confess that no matter how many good deeds

you do, or how good you feel about yourself, or how many nice things you do,

or how nice of a person you are, or how much food you give away,

or how much money you give away,

confess that those things can't save you.

That you need forgiveness of your sins over and over and over again.

Repentance is the way to the Lord.

This isn't just repentance for the day you got saved.

David was already called out by God. David was already chosen to be the king.

David was already a man after God's own heart when he did what he did with Bathsheba.

What you lack in your Christian life may not necessarily be your salvation,

but it may be your intimacy with your heavenly father because you fail to repent,

because I fail to repent of my sins.

I just leave them, just act like they never happened. I've moved on from that.

Like a wound that you try and put a Band-Aid on that needs surgery, right?

We've all done that. We've all had those moments. You're like,

it's not that bad. I'll just cover that up. I'm sure it'll get better.

And then, thanks. And then a week later, all of a sudden it's infected.

You're like, man, how'd that happen?

It's like, well, it happened because you acted as though it wasn't that big of a deal.

You acted as though you could just cover it up and everything would get better.

And the Lord wants you to know.

John wants these people to know you cannot do that with your sin.

You cannot come to church and just feel better about yourself and act like your

sins will not condemn you.

No matter how many times the Bible says that, we try time and time again through,

generation after generation to treat the scriptures like the Pharisees did and

say, just tell me what to do.

I can't tell you how many times people came to my office, church,

and they're like, what should I do?

At the beginning, I'm like, bro, I'm 23. three. This is a terrible person to ask.

And it's not like at the age I am now, I feel way more qualified to tell you what to do. I don't.

Seems to be the driving for us where we live is just the scriptures tell us

how to live. And that's not what the scriptures are meant to do.

They're meant to introduce you to the person of Jesus. And the way to that person

is through repentance. His message is so simple.

Repent, confess your sins, trust the Lord.

Again, I just wonder when the last time you did that was. I did that this week.

Felt very convicted about it. Sitting in my office, at a construction office,

reading this, and I'm like, I don't even know. I can't tell you when the last time I did that.

The good news is you don't have to go to a priest. You don't have to come to

church. You don't have to come to me.

You confess your sins to the Lord. He is faithful and just to forgive you of your sins.

Now, what is John's hope? John knows that even a confession,

even a repentance is not enough.

So he does what we said we should do from the very beginning.

He looks to Jesus. This is how he closes in verses 6 through 8.

Sorry, 7 through 8. It says, And he preached, saying, this is John's message,

After me comes he who is mightier than I, the strap of whose sandals I am not

worthy to stoop down and untie.

I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.

Again, the Bible, the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ is not simply that he has news to give you.

He has his person to give you.

He has his person to give you.

There's this relationship that you're supposed to have with the Son of God.

Not just, well, I know what he said.

What he said. Christians are great at this. We're great at this.

God comes and says, man, I love you, care for you. Come to me,

all who are weary and heavy laden.

And we'll take a verse like, come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden.

We'll go have a Bible study about it. We'll talk about it.

We'll get together and say, I looked at the Greek. You won't believe what the

Greek says about this. And I read what this guy said. And I read what this guy

said. And the church father said this about it.

And then we'll put all that information on the table and go,

look how smart we are and then we'll leave.

Look how great we are. We're going to live so much better than everybody else

because we've studied this.

But the point of the gospel and the point of verses like, come to me all who

are very heavy laden is for you to come to him,

to actually come to the Lord, to actually lay yourself at his feet,

to confess your sins, to repent and trust in him. That's the point of the gospel.

And when we bring people to church, we want to talk about repentance because

we love people not to say, you're a sinner just like me.

You need to repent just like me. You need to repent just like Paul did and Moses

did and Abraham did and the apostle John.

You need to repent like every human being has needed to repent other than one, the true son of God.

Again, John wants them to know this, that he is the one.

He is the one, this one that's coming. He is the one who will save you I'm calling

you to repentance and i'm calling you to confess your sins and I want to baptize

you right? That's john's message. I would say this about myself.

I I want to call you to repentance I want to I want to call you to confess your

sins if you're not baptized and you're a believer I want to baptize you,

but I know I can't save you.

I can talk you into doing all of those things.

Man, especially in East Texas, it's amazing what people will do if you say, I'm a pastor.

And you're like, just rub peanut butter on your ears. And they're like,

I've hit a word, man. I don't know. Like, that must be in a part of the Bible I haven't read yet.

Well, in the Hebrew, it means peanut butter. And you're going to, okay, right?

I can get you to do all kinds of things in the same way that John can get them

to do all kinds of things, because he obviously is a prophet of the Lord.

But John knows, I can't save you.

I can baptize you in water. I can't baptize you in the Holy Spirit.

Check that John gives us to kind of give ourselves and say, am I thinking of Jesus the right way?

And he says this in verse seven, he says, the strap of whose sandals I am not

worthy to soup down and untie.

Now, untying someone's sandals was not even allowed by Jewish slaves.

In other words, if you were indebted to someone and you were a Jew and you became

a slave in a Jewish household, they wouldn't let you untie their sandals.

That was reserved for Gentiles.

Because no matter what you had done to deserve being in slavery to them,

you didn't deserve that. You did not deserve to touch their feet.

And what John is doing is not saying I'm nothing.

He's not saying, I don't care about myself at all. Woe is me.

Like, look how awful I am. He's not self-loathing.

Jesus says of John, he is the greatest among men to ever live.

John doesn't say to himself, I'm the worst. He just looks at Christ and says, he is worthy.

The best among men is not worthy to untie his sandals.

John doesn't think of him less. He thinks of Christ more. That's how we should

think of Christ. Not that we walk around all mopey.

I'm a sinner. There's just nothing I can do about it. I'm just an idiot and

I can't get anything right. That's not what John's doing.

Half the time we do that because we just want to hope that God's like,

well, he looks really sad.

If he mopes around long enough, like a child, maybe I'll give him what he wants.

No, John simply sees Jesus for who he truly is.

And he says, as we close.

Baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.

In other words, all these physical actions, all these things that you're called to do, they exist.

They exist not as an act of your salvation, but as an act of your trust in the

one who brings salvation.

When you repent of your sins, God doesn't look at you and say,

well, you repented so you're saved.

When you confess your sins, God doesn't just look at you and go,

well, you confessed and I feel sorry for you, so you're saved.

When you get baptized, God doesn't go, well, you did that. You walked the aisle. You said the prayer.

You got baptized, so now you're saved. God doesn't do that.

What God does do is say, if you've placed your faith truly in the person and

work of Jesus Christ, he has promised to save you.

He has redeemed you. The easiest evidence of this is go read Revelation.

Not for the weird stuff.

Not for the weird stuff. Go read Revelation and see what it is that the saints

depend on in front of God.

When they're looking for his acceptance, when they want acceptance into his

kingdom, they do not get up there and say, look at everything I've done.

God, my grandma signed my Bible the day I got baptized. What more could you ever want?

They look to Christ and they're repenting and they're confessing and they're

getting baptized or simply outpourings of, I trust him.

I trust him. And he's asked me to do this. He says, it's good for my soul.

He says, it's good for me to repent. He says, it's good for me to confess.

He says, it's good for me to get

baptized as a public proclamation of the faith I've already put in him.

It's good for me to be a member of a church. It's good for me to go where I

need to go. It's good for me to have a giving spirit.

It's good for me to treat others the way I want to be treated.

What it looks like, your actions and what you do.

And when you read the Bible and go, man, I should do that, should not come from,

I want God to be happy with me.

It should come from, God has saved me. He has redeemed me.

He has rescued me from the dominion of darkness and delivered me to the dominion

of light. And I trust him.

So when he says, go, I go. And when he says, do, I do.

And for some reason, one of the things that he says to do is get baptized,

to get dunked under some water. And if that's what he says to do,

I'm doing it. I'm doing it.

He says to be kind to my enemies, to love them and to pray for them.

And that feels so contrary to what I want to do, but my savior has asked me

to do it and I'm gonna do it.

Jesus is the good news of the gospel. The person and work of Jesus is the good

news. And I pray that you know him.

And this morning I do. I ask you to repent.

I ask you to believe. I ask you to trust Him, to confess your sins.

I want you to believe in the Lord and get baptized. I want you to do all of

those things, but I also want you to know none of those things will save you,

but the person and work of Jesus Christ will save you. They will redeem you.

Trust Him, repent, and believe. Let's pray.

Father, thank You for Your Word. thank you for your gospel that you've given

us to help you to help us know you better.

God i pray that as we leave here that if we haven't repented in a while if we

haven't just spent some time confessing our sins before you to receive actual

forgiveness that we wouldn't cover our iniquities like david.

Look at our sins and say, you know, I think I can handle that on my own.

I think if I just cover it up and keep living my life, eventually it'll take care of itself.

But we would come to you knowing that you love us and you care for us.

And you have told us clearly in the scriptures that if we would repent, you would forgive us.

God, if there's someone in here that truly doesn't know you,

they don't know Christ as the person that saves them.

They simply know him as a message to do certain things, I pray that you lay

your hand heavy on them, that you lay your hand heavy on them,

that you push them towards your son, that you draw them to repentance and faith.

And for those of us in here who do know you, who would say, we're Christians,

we believe in the Lord, we trust him.

God, would our repentance be one of, God, we want to be as close to you as we possibly can.

And we know that no matter what we do, no matter how hard we work,

that if we don't repent of our sins, what suffers is not our eternal destination,

but our immediate intimacy with you, God, that we would take care of that.

We thank you for that. Amen.