"Repent" Matthew 3:1-3 Sunday Morning Worship Service

You can open your Bibles to the Gospel of Matthew chapter 3.

Matthew 3 · chapter mention

We're going to start a series this week, well, really this month, next month.

It's November, going through Matthew 3 and then Matthew 11.

So Matthew 3 is the John the Baptist origin story.

Trace is John the Baptist's ministry.

Matthew 11 is the end of the John the Baptist story.

So I'm going to pair those two of them together.

I think John the Baptist is an often one of the most significant figures in the New Testament, and he's often overlooked or neglected.

So we will get to spend several months.

By November, you're going to be good friends with John.

We're going to start this morning with Matthew 3, verses 1 through 3.

Matthew 3:1–3

In those days, John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea.

Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

For this is he who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah when he said the voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.

Could you reduce the message of the Bible to one word?

Is there one word that dominates the theme of the law, the theme of the prophets, the theme of Jesus' preaching in the gospels, the theme of Peter's preaching in Acts, the theme of Paul's writing the epistles, the theme of the letters to the seven churches in Revelation?

Is there one word that describes the theme of all of those?

Now, certainly there are many words.

There's love and grace and mercy, for example.

But I submit to you that there is one word that towers above the rest.

The word repent.

Repent.

This is the theme of so much of the preaching in the Bible.

It is literally the first word out of the mouths recorded by the authors of Scripture of many of the prophets.

It is the first word recorded out of the mouth of John the Baptist, for example, in verse 2.

He begins his preaching by declaring repent.

It is the first word recorded out of Jesus' mouth when he begins his ministry in Matthew 4.

He begins his ministry preaching repent.

In Mark's gospel, Mark chapter 1, it says Jesus began his ministry preaching the gospel, and then his first word is repent.

Mark 1 · chapter mention

The most famous preachers in the Bible begin their messages with a call to repent.

The most famous preachers in the Bible end their messages with a call to repent.

After the first sermon on that first Sunday of the first church in Acts chapter 2, the congregation asked, What must we do to be saved?

Acts 2 · chapter mention

And Peter said, You must repent.

Repent.

Paul, at the end of the book of Acts, is summarizing his ministry, and he says that he sent into the world to tell the Gentiles to repent.

This is the overarching message of the Scripture.

John, here in chapter 3, verse 1, comes preaching repent.

Now, chapter 3 begins.

In those days, John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea.

We'll talk about why he's called the Baptist in the weeks to come, but for now, notice that he's out in the wilderness of Judea, and he's there at a specific time in those days.

Those days connect you to Matthew chapter 2.

Matthew 2 · chapter mention

We haven't been, we were in Matthew chapter 2 like two advents ago.

Matthew 2 · chapter mention

It was a long time ago.

I don't expect you to remember it.

But Matthew chapter 2 ends with Jesus being in Nazareth.

Matthew 2 · chapter mention

In Matthew 2, verse 22, Jesus is coming back from Egypt.

Matthew 2:22

Remember, he fled to Egypt because of Herod slaughtering the infants.

Joseph smuggled him out, fled him to Egypt.

After a series of years went by, he went back to Israel.

Herod the Great had died.

Archelaus is reigning over Judea, which is where Jerusalem was in the place of his father.

So Joseph didn't want to go there.

Joseph brings Jesus up to Nazareth.

This was happened to fulfill what was spoken by the prophets.

He shall be called a Nazarene.

And if you recall, there is no verse in the Bible that says he's going to be called a Nazarene.

It says it's going to fulfill the prophecy.

There's no singular prophecy that says the Savior will be a Nazarene.

The word Nazarene is kind of a pun off of the word for insignificant or slighted or forgotten.

And this is what Matthew means by that.

There's a tenor in the scripture that the Savior will be someone who's, you know, there's nothing about his appearance that would draw you to him.

He's not from a rich and powerful family.

He's not from Jerusalem.

He's not from Tiberias, which is the capital of Galilee.

He's going to be from nowhere's ville.

He's going to be an insignificant person from an insignificant place, followed by insignificant people.

That's what it means when it says he shall be called a Nazarene.

And that's exactly where Jesus goes, up to Nazareth.

If you can picture Israel in your mind, it's kind of a rectangle.

There's a highway that goes along one side that follows the Mediterranean Sea.

That goes through modern-day Tel Aviv up into Lebanon.

There's a highway on the other side that follows the Jordan River that goes from really Jericho and Egypt all the way up around the Sea of Galilee and up into Syria and Damascus.

In the middle of those two is mountains.

They're elevated.

In the northern part of Israel, there is nothing up there.

Even today, there's no real cities up there.

It is just settlements.

In the life of Jesus, that is where Nazareth was.

It was a small, insignificant, forgotten place up in the hills.

Nobody good.

Nobody, period, comes from Nazareth.

If you've been to Israel today, you know it's the Valley of Armageddon is there.

You're up on Mount Carmel, is where most people see it from.

You look across Mount Carmel, across the Valley of Armageddon, up to that mountain on the far side.

Nazareth is up there, on top of that, somewhere.

Jesus is insignificant in an insignificant place.

That's the idea.

It is at that time that John the Baptist starts preaching in the Judean wilderness.

So the Judean wilderness will make Nazareth look like Manhattan.

The Judean wilderness is there is nothing, it's almost impossible to describe if you haven't seen it with your eyes.

There is nothing there.

It's not that there's no trees, it's that there's no trees, there's no shrubs, there's no tumbleweeds.

Nothing grows there.

There is sinkholes and pits in the grounds from the receding Dead Sea.

That's what's there.

I said the highway kind of follows the Jordan River down, and that's true, but the highway veers off in the middle of the wilderness there to go over to Jericho.

Jericho is, I don't know, six, seven miles away from the Jordan River out there, and there's nothing between Jericho and the Jordan River.

It is desolate.

The Jordan River, when it comes out of the Sea of Galilee, the Jordan River starts in the north part of Israel, it comes out of the Sea of Galilee.

There, the Jordan River is clean and crisp and it's surrounded, it's going through like green trees, and it looks so beautiful.

It looks like a jungle up there, really.

When tourists go to Israel and they want to go get baptized in the Jordan, that's where they go.

They've got little, you know, a little place up there with like locker rooms and cameras and you know, looking over the river, and you can get a magnum ice cream bar there at the side and get baptized in a green forest.

It's lovely up there.

That is not where John the Baptist was.

He was not in a green forest, the river was not clean, and there were no magnum bars for sale.

You follow the river down, the highway breaks off and goes to Jericho, the river keeps winding through.

At this point, there is no growth around really.

The water is dirty because it empties into the Dead Sea, and so all the sediment in the water backs up.

The water is dirty and gross and brown.

The river is relatively narrow.

You know, it's 10, 15 meters across.

You have creeks, some of you have creeks in your backyard that when it floods is wider than the Jordan River is at this point.

Today there's just like a lane line from a swimming pool floating down the middle of it, and that marks the border between Jerusalem, I mean between Israel and and Jordan.

It's just a little floating thing in the water.

You could, the water is way steep there.

You could walk across it, duck under the lane line, and go into Jordan if you wanted to, and didn't care if you got shot.

There's nothing out there.

That's where John the Baptist goes.

And he goes there preaching a message, and massive crowds flood out to him.

Massive crowds.

Extra biblical sources estimate that tens of thousands of people went out to John the Baptist.

I read one source that surmised that more people went to hear John the Baptist speak in person than any other person in the world at that point.

More people went out to John than to Caesar in Rome.

This was an ordeal out there.

People came from Egypt and from Syria and from Lebanon.

They came out to see this guy who's preaching out in the wilderness.

And he's calling people to repent.

Now, why was John preaching there?

It's obscure, but it's not obscure, it's obscure only geographically.

It's not obscure canonically.

Other events in the Bible took place here.

This is where Israel crossed the Jordan River to enter into Jerusalem.

Or to enter into Israel.

This is where the Israelites first came to march around Jericho.

Remember, the Lord stopped the Jordan River.

They walked through as if on dry ground.

They carried the Ark of the Tabernacle in front of them, the Ark of the Lord in front of them.

They surrounded Jericho.

The walls of Jericho fell down.

This is not a strategic military place to cross.

There's no force there.

Even today, though I don't think there's any military occupations or bases out there.

You can see from Jericho straight to the Jordan River from miles away.

There's no sneak attacks here.

That's where they crossed.

This is also the place where Elijah left Israel.

At the end of Elijah's life, he'd been preaching repent all his life.

At the end of his life, he left Israel by crossing the Jordan River and went and was taken up with the chariots and the world, went on the other side of the Jordan back in the nation Jordan.

Elisha went looking for Elijah.

He too crossed the Jordan River here.

He takes Elijah's mantle.

And Elijah's mantle was the hairy garment, remember?

The hairy robe that he wore.

Elisha takes that on himself, walks back, and crosses the Jordan River again at this point by hitting it with the mantle, crossing back into Israel again.

That's the place that John the Baptist goes.

And he's not even being subtle about it.

He dresses himself like Elijah with the camel hair.

He dresses like him, he preaches his message, and he preaches it at the same spot that Elijah left Israel to begin with.

And you remember the prophecy, of course, Elijah would leave, and before the Savior comes back, a second Elijah will come to prepare the way for the Lord.

And now you've got John the Baptist out there where Elijah was, wearing Elijah's clothes, preaching Elijah's message, preparing the way for the Savior to come.

That's why this takes place there.

It is obscure just like Nazareth.

It's obscure just like Jesus.

But the message is profound just like Jesus's.

When I say it's profound, you can break his message really into two points.

John has a dual mission.

There's two things he's sent to do, two things he's sent to preach.

We'll look at them both this morning.

First, he came preaching a message of repentance.

He told people to repent.

Repent.

As I mentioned, the most famous preachers in the Bible begin and end their messages with this one word.

But it was the prophecy of John the Baptist since he was born.

Do you remember when Zechariah, the priest, went into the uh temple and found out that his wife was pregnant, he had unbelief, he was struck mute because of his unbelief.

The angel spoke to him.

Classic angel dialogue.

The angel looks at him, struck mute, and says, Don't be afraid.

I love it when angels tell people that.

Don't be afraid.

A child that's going to be born to you is being sent to turn hearts back towards their fathers, back towards the Lord, really.

The children, the hearts of the children of Israel, their hearts will be turned back towards the Lord.

That's the message given to John the Baptist.

That idea of turning hearts back towards the Lord, that's the word repentance.

The New Testament, the Greek word, Metonimea is the Greek word, and it's an idiom that means change your mind.

That's what how it gets translated into English is repent.

This idea you change your mind, you're turning back to the Lord.

We have the same idiom in English.

Oftentimes with idioms, it's tough to translate, but not this one.

We have the same one.

You say you change your mind about something, it doesn't mean you take your head out, your brain out of your head.

It means that you are have a change of thought about it.

You were convinced this way, now you're convinced that way.

You changed your mind.

And we change our minds all the time about things, you know.

You've grown up your whole life rooting for the Redskins, and you get to the point in your life where you're like, no more.

No more.

I'm done.

I officially have changed my mind about them.

It's over.

You go to a restaurant and you order some food.

And then you see the table next to you get the fajitas or something, and you're like, whoa, I want that.

And so you tell the waiter, excuse me, I changed my mind.

I did order this other thing.

Now I want that thing.

That's changing your mind.

That's the word repent.

You might even jokingly tell the waiter that.

I repent.

I want the fajitas.

And he'll say, I thought you were a Christian.

You repent when you change your mind about something.

Now it sounds trivial to say you repent about your sports team or you repent about what you ordered for lunch.

The reality is the repentance of the Bible is talking about is changing your mind about why you're living your life and who you're living your life for.

Changing your mind about the nature of God and his value in the universe.

So you're living for yourself, you have your own agenda, you're living for your own life, you have your own goals, your life is revolving around you.

You're the star of the show.

You're living with yourself in the center of your thoughts.

That's how everybody is.

They're born that way.

You come into this world concerned about yourself.

And as you grow up, you get more sophisticated about it.

But you have your own goals, your own agendas, your own happiness, your own health, your own wealth that you're pursuing, your own sins that you pursue.

The hedonistic person pursuing their life of sin, looking for satisfaction in sin.

The materialistic person pursuing a life of wealth and looking for happiness that comes from finances.

The career-oriented person pursuing their own goals, the family-oriented person pursuing their own family and the happiness there.

Those people are living ultimately for themselves.

Repentance is when a person says, I no longer want to live that way.

I'm changing my mind about my role in this world.

That agnostic or materialistic or career-minded or hedonistic person, they are often apathetic towards God or agnostic towards God.

And they get frustrated with God because after all, they're not happy.

They're living for their sins, which don't make them happy, living for their money, which doesn't satisfy their heart, living for their career, which never ends up panning out, living for their family, but they never get the joy that they'd want from their family.

They're frustrated.

They get angry at God.

God, if you exist, why aren't you treating me better?

God, if you exist, why aren't more of my wishes coming true?

And so that person is agnostic or apathetic towards God or even hostile towards God.

Because they're at the middle of their heart, the middle of their life.

Repentance is when they change their mind about that.

They surrender living for themselves, and they change their mind about God, and they want to live for God and his glory.

And it becomes more important for God to be glorified than for them to be happy.

That's repentance.

In the Old Testament, the word for repentance, there's different words.

I'm not going to tell you what they are in Hebrew because Ryan will judge my Hebrew pronunciation.

But one of them, that's sometimes translated repent, sometimes translated forgive, it literally means to send away.

So the Greek word is to change your mind, but the Hebrew word can often be rendered to send away.

You put your sins on the scapegoat and you send them away from you.

You can see how they're the same concept, can't you?

Even though they're two different languages.

One is I have my sin and I'm sending it away from me.

And the other is I have myself at the center of my life and I'm changing my mind about that.

So I'm sending my sin this way and I'm turning my mind that way.

It's the same concept.

That concept boils down to the word repent, and that's what the John the Baptist comes preaching.

To repent.

And this, by the way, is the message that will get him killed.

This is not some harmless Sunday school or harmless Saturday school message out here in the wilderness.

This is the message that will get him killed.

He's going to tell Herod, not Herod the Great, but his son that's ruling over the northern part of Galilee, that region, he's going to tell him to repent from his ungodly marriage, repent from his sexual immorality.

He's going to find himself imprisoned and ultimately have his head cut off because of his message of repentance.

People don't want to repent.

But it's what God calls them to do.

Repentance is turning around.

It's the only way to encounter the gospel.

The unrepentant heart cannot have the gospel take root in their heart.

Imagine, just keep track with me for a second why that is.

If you're living for yourself and for your own family and for your own career and your own happiness, somebody tells you about Jesus, and you're frustrated with your family and your career and your happiness, you're frustrated there.

Somebody tells you about Jesus and tells you Jesus can help you have a better family, help you be more happy in life, help you have just a better, well-adjusted life kind of thing, that kind of person, if they believe the message about Jesus, will add Jesus to their life, but they didn't repent.

They might go to church, they might be baptized, they might become a member of the church, they might do all the church things, but ultimately they're still living for themselves.

So what happens to the seed of the gospel in that unrepentant heart?

Well, it doesn't take root.

It'll start to kind of grow, but Jesus says it this way the heart that loves the world, the heart that hasn't repented, as the gospel starts to take root in there and starts to grow, the love of this world chokes it out.

Because they didn't repent.

Repentance is the way you turn back to God.

Repentance means to turn back to God.

Repentance is not being sorry about sin.

Repentance is being broken about sin.

And there is a difference.

Lots of people are sorry about sin, but lots of people are sorry about how their life is turning out.

They wish they could change their mind about who they're living for and how everything has panned out in their life, but that's different than turning back to the Lord.

Even in the Bible, there's people that weep over sin all the time.

If you read the book of Judges, Israel weeps over their sin constantly, but they don't truly repent.

Here's one of the best descriptions of this.

2 Corinthians 7, verse 10.

2 Corinthians 7:10

Godly sorrow brings repentance, it leads to salvation.

There's no regret there.

Worldly sorrow brings death.

Godly sorrow is conversion.

Worldly sorrow is death.

Godly sorrow is, Lord, I'm such a sinner.

My sin is against you.

Worldly sorrow is, Lord, I don't like what's happening to me.

I've made bad choices.

Fix it.

Remember Saul offered a sacrifice that wasn't approved by God?

Samuel comes to him and rebukes him and says, the kingdom is going to be taken from you.

And Saul wigs out and starts pleading with Samuel, weeping and grabbing.

Samuel rips Samuel's coat.

He's so adamant.

I don't want to lose my kingdom, rips his coat.

And says, beg God, beg God not to judge me like this.

And Samuel says, Get away.

The Lord is not a man that he would change his mind.

This is not repentance.

This is worldly sorrow.

This is your tears.

And the Lord's not fooled by your tears.

And also stop touching me.

Contrast that with David.

David sleeps with Bathsheba, murders Uriah, is confronted by Nathan, and Nathan comes along and shows him his sin.

And Nathan rebukes David.

And we just saw what David responded with in our scripture reading today.

David says, Against you and you alone have I sinned.

And you read that and you think, Well, you murdered Uriah.

How about sinning against him?

That's a pretty obvious one.

But David isn't concerned about the externals.

He's not even concerned about the horizontal, horizontal plane of other people he's sinned against.

He's only concerned about the Lord.

He says, I have murdered, I've committed adultery, but it's against the Lord alone that I've sinned.

He throws him He begs for forgiveness, but he ultimately surrenders himself to the Lord.

Your will, Lord, be done.

That's true repentance.

Brokenness is not a sign of true repentance.

Brokenness over your sin against God is.

This is the message of the scripture from start to finish.

It's all over the place.

David, I mean Solomon, when he dedicates the temple.

Solomon builds a temple, dedicates it.

1 Kings chapter 8, his prayer, he pictures the time when Israel will be sent into exile.

1 Kings 8 · chapter mention

And he says, when they're in faraway places, Lord.

1 Kings 8 verse 48, if they repent with all their mind and with all their heart in the land of their enemies and they pray to you, then hear in heaven and forgive your people who've sinned against you.

1 Kings 8:48

Notice David says, one day will come when they will be broken.

Solomon says, one day will come, they will be broken.

And when that happens, they will repent.

And when they repent, listen to them.

Implication if they don't repent, you're not going to listen.

God's favor is rooted in their repentance.

Joel chapter 2, verse 12, so something very similar.

Joel 2:12

This is the message of Joel.

Yet even now, declares Yahweh through Joel, return to me, repent.

Return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weep with fasting, weeping, and mourning, and rend your hearts, not your garments.

God says, I don't care about your clothes.

I don't want the external kinds of repentance.

I want the heart repentance, like Psalm 51.

God doesn't want your sacrifices and your bulls and your offerings.

He wants a broken spirit and a contrite heart.

Return to Yahweh your God, Joel 2, verse 13 says, For he's gracious and merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love.

Joel 2:13

He relents over disaster.

Return is the concept that's in his preaching.

The prophets all preach this.

Repent.

That's the notion of repentance.

That you turn back towards God.

This is not merely an Old Testament thing.

John the Baptist here in the New Testament, although you could say he's the last of the Old Testament prophets, that's fine.

He preaches repentance.

Jesus in the gospel preaches repentance, and you might say, Oh, but what about the church?

Well, Jesus, when he resurrects, preaches repentance.

On the road to Emmaus, remember, he's out of the grave, he comforts the women, he walks with the disciples.

The disciples act, you know, grief stricken.

They can't believe the Savior died.

Jesus says, How did you not know I was going to resurrect?

Jesus kept telling the disciples, remember, I'm going to die and resurrect, and they just didn't listen.

They tuned out after the death part.

They definitely weren't listening to the resurrection part.

So there Jesus is walking with them, and he says, I mean, this is what was written.

The Christ would suffer and rise again from the dead on the third day, and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be proclaimed to all the nations.

And sometimes we think of the Great Commission in terms of the resurrection will be proclaimed to all the nations, and certainly that's part of it here.

Jesus says the resurrection will be to all the nations, but the resurrection is preached through the lens here of repentance.

Repentance is the content of the preaching.

The resurrection is what validates it.

Repent, Jesus says.

That's what will be taught to the nations.

This is all over the book of Acts, and the book of Acts picks up the church's preaching, as I mentioned.

Acts chapter 2, verse 38.

Acts 2:38

Peter preaches, and the congregation is the very first church sermon.

And the congregation says, What must I do to be saved?

And Peter says, You must.

Oh, you guys are catching on.

I love it.

Acts chapter 3.

Acts 3 · chapter mention

The disciples get in trouble with the Jewish authorities again.

And what do they tell them?

Peter says, Well, you got to repent and turn so your sins can be blotted out.

Acts chapter 8, verse 22.

Acts 8:22

Simon the sorcerer sees Peter doing all the gifts that he has of the Spirit, and the sorcerer tries to buy the power of the Holy Spirit from Peter.

Sorcerer says, I've got some good tricks, but not that good.

And let me in on the action.

Here's a Benjamin.

And Peter tells him, Remember, repent.

Repent, therefore, of this wickedness of yours, and pray that the Lord, if it would even be possible, would forgive you for the intent of your heart.

Repent.

That's the constant preaching in the New Testament.

The letters to the churches in Revelation, same thing.

Repent.

This is the concept of what is preached through the scriptures.

It's what John comes preaching in chapter 3, verse 2 of Matthew.

Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

But that's not the only part of his message.

He also is a second function here.

He's preaching repent because this is what prepares the way for the Lord.

Prepare the way of the Lord.

This is the one crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord.

That's the prophecy in the Old Testament, that before the Savior comes, Elijah would come like him to prepare the way for the Savior.

Prepare is kind of an agricultural term.

And you would understand this.

If you want to grow, you know, plants or crops or whatever, you don't just throw the seeds into the yard.

You have to prepare the ground.

You make little trenches for the seeds and you put the seeds in and you cover them with soil and you water them, you're preparing the ground for the seed.

And we have the same concept in our world.

You know, if you want to plant like a you know a fig tree or some kind of roses, you have to build up the ground a little bit so they can grow in some kind of elevated fashion.

If you want to plant a boxwood, you hollow out the ground a little bit so it can keep the water in there.

There's different approaches, but the idea is that you have to prepare the ground in some way.

This is the way God prepares the heart for the gospel through this kind of repentance.

So the preaching of repentance is not the end in and of itself, it's preparatory for the gospel.

That's the language, prepare.

And God always works like this.

He doesn't give forgiveness without repentance.

And so to prepare the heart for forgiveness and to receive faith, there is repentance.

So Adam and Eve sin.

They're hiding from God.

They go away from God and they're hiding, and God comes and calls them.

And so they have to physically now change their minds.

They have to stand up and with their feet go from fleeing from God and turn and come to God to be covered by God.

God's going to lead Israel out of Egypt and into the promised land through the Red Sea and give them manna for 40 years.

But before that, he brings the plagues of judgment.

You turn, you repent from your sins, you're covered by the blood of the Passover Lamb, and you receive the forgiveness.

That's offered to you.

God prepares the heart through repentance.

As I mentioned, the heart that's unrepentant, the seed of the gospel, does not grow in it.

It just gets choked out.

And this is all over the New Testament as well.

The Holy Spirit shows himself in powerful ways in the ministry of Peter and then Paul.

And this is how they describe it.

Well, then, God has granted to the Gentiles, this is the early church wrestling through, how come Gentiles are saved without keeping the law?

And they just determine, listen, God has granted to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life.

So notice the word prepares is here swapped out for leads.

Repentance leads to eternal life.

Paul's sermon of Marcel.

Acts 17, verse 30.

Acts 17:30

God is now declaring that men everywhere should repent.

This is what comes to bring about salvation to them.

Acts chapter 20, later on in the book of Acts 20, so the Ephesian elders, Paul was solemnly testifying to both Jews and Greeks repentance towards God and faith in Jesus Christ, faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.

Acts 20 · chapter mention

This is the crux of the message.

You repent, that prepares your heart for faith, it leads you to the saving knowledge.

Now, truth here is a bit of a razor's edge because it's not really a chronological preparation.

So, like if you're here today and you're leading an immoral life, you're sleeping with your girlfriend, you're cheating on tests or whatever, I wouldn't say, okay, repent and come back next week to believe the gospel.

So go a week without, you know, sexual immorality and then come back on Sunday and receive the gospel.

I wouldn't tell you, go a week without cheating on your tests and come back and receive the gospel.

No, it's not a chronological preparation, but it's a conceptual preparation.

And the example that I've always found helpful is that of a coin.

Repentance and faith are two sides of the same coin.

But one side is facing up, repentance is facing up.

But repentance and faith exist simultaneously.

It's just you encounter repentance first.

So again, the person who's leading their life this way, leading in sin, what do they need to be saved?

Well, they need faith in the God who's over there.

They're going this way, they need faith in the God who's over there.

But in order to have faith in the God over there, they have to turn around.

But that act of turning, you see how that act of repentance is turning them towards God.

So it's one act, repentance and faith.

It's simultaneous.

You can't say repentance is chronologically first and then faith later.

It's one act, but you can say conceptually repentance is first.

Because who are they turning to?

What are they turning from?

They have faith in God.

That requires them, saving faith requires them to turn around.

Another example that's helped me conceptualize this point for me is that of the sun.

The sun is the rock, and the sun is the light shining out of it.

There's no point where the rock exists before the light.

It's not like you have the rock for a few years and then the light finally comes out.

No, rock, light, boom, simultaneously.

But you recognize that conceptually, the rock is prior to the light.

Conceptually.

Oh, they're simultaneous.

The same concept is true with repentance and faith.

The language that is used in the New Testament is that of prepares or leads to, but you recognize they are so close together.

True repentance is saving faith.

There is no such thing as saving faith without true repentance, though.

You cannot repent without faith.

You cannot have faith without repentance.

This is how the book of Acts even ends.

Acts 26, the very end of Paul's ministry is recorded, says that they should repent and turn to God, performing deeds appropriate with repentance.

Repentance repairs the heart for the gospel.

Jonah is such a picture of this.

Jonah was running away from God.

As far away from God as his little feet would carry him.

He got a boat to get away from God.

He went to the edge of the known world.

But no matter how far away he got from God, it was only one step back.

All he had to do was repent.

He repents, tossed into the ocean, has a way of producing repentance.

The fish gobbles him.

He's back in the will of the Lord.

No matter how far you've wandered away from the gospel, no matter how far you've wandered away from God, you've been living for yourself for five years, for ten years, for twenty years, for fifty years, for sixty years, you've spent decades running away from God.

You would be so tempted to think, I've made such a mess in my life, I've gone so far away from God, I've done so much sinning.

There's no way I can get back to God.

I'm so far away from him.

You're not.

It's one step back to him.

It doesn't matter if you've lived 60 years running away from, it's one step back to him.

This is what John means in verse 3.

He's the voice crying in the wilderness, make straight paths for the Lord.

It's so direct to get back to God.

Your life is so circuitous and so sinful, so windy.

You're the highway that curls all up and down, switchbacks all up and down the mountains to get to where you're going.

It's one step back to the Lord.

Repent and receive forgiveness of your sins.

This is the message of the scriptures.

In seminary, I was in preaching lab.

Preaching lab is an awful experience, by the way.

You know, it's you're in with like 10 or 12 students and you're sitting in like a little semicircle.

There's a professor in the back of the room, and you have to get up and you take turns preaching your sermon to the twelve seminary students and the one professor.

It's awful.

And I was there one time as a seminary student, and this guy who will remain nameless, except his name was Seth, uh was preaching, and he is wearing like a suit and Birkenstock sandals.

It was a whole mess.

And he's getting flustered in his notes, and Seth is now a missionary in the Middle East somewhere, so I'm, you know, I can't make fun of him too much.

But he's like getting flustered in his notes and loses his place, and it's just lost up there, and it's getting pretty awkward.

And he grabs onto the pulpit and takes a deep breath and looks up at us and goes, repent! We're like, whoa.

I repent.

And you know what?

Looking back on that so many years later, I have heard way worse sermons than that.

Hey, that's the one thing you get out of his mouth.

Receive it.

Repent.

No matter how far away you are from the Lord, you can turn your heart back to Christ.

Lord, we're thankful that you have made straight ways back to you.

Our lives are crooked, and you are eager to receive us when we turn back.

We're thankful that you have made a clear demarcation between darkness and light, between the kingdom of flesh and the kingdom of Christ, between the kingdom of this world and the kingdom of the next world.

In my mind, I think of that little floaty in the Jordan River between Israel and Jordan.

A little lane line floating there.

Yet how clear it is to mark the border.

That's what repentance is.

Such a clear demarcation between death and life, between hell and heaven.

It's there, Lord.

I pray for hearts here today that have never gone under that lane line, that have never turned from their sin, that have never truly repented.

I pray today they would repent and receive the grace that comes through Christ.

We ask this in his name.

Amen.

And now for a parting word for Pastor Jesse Johnson.

Thanks for joining us.

If you're in the Washington, D.C.

area, I would love to see you at Emanuel Bible Church.

For more information on our church or our current service times, go to IBC.church.

For more information about the Master Seminary and their Washington, D.C.

location, go to TMS.edu.

I hope this resource has been a blessing to you and it helps you seek the Lord daily, serve others around you, and share the gospel with boldness.