Well, God has something for you, and He
has His ways of getting you to church,
so you can hear what God has to
say.
And the wise person, when they hear what
God has to say, will act upon what
the Lord has to say in His Word.
So we come to the third chapter in
the Gospel of Matthew.
Matthew, chapter 3.
Does anybody need Bibles to follow along?
Anybody need an extra Bible?
We got a stack of them in the
back.
The slot in the seat in front of
you is too skinny to hold one, so
we're just going to hand them out.
If you need one, just stick your hand
up real quick, and we'll fix you up
here.
All right.
And if perchance you don't have a Bible
of your own, you can keep that one
and use it.
Okay.
We're coming to now the story of John
the Baptist, the coming of John the Baptist,
the baptism of Jesus, and the beginning of
Jesus' public ministry.
So we read, in those days, and those
days are more specifically laid out to us
in Luke's Gospel.
So if you look over in Luke, chapter
3, we read that it was in the
15th year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar.
We read that Pontius Pilate was the governor
of Judea.
Herod was the tetrarch of Galilee.
Annas and Caiaphas were high priests.
And the Word of God came to Zacharias,
to John, the son of Zacharias, in the
wilderness.
So some 30 years have passed between chapters
2 and 3, in which Jesus lived in
Nazareth and worked as a carpenter, and now
comes the time for his public ministry to
be unfolded.
We're told that Zacharias was John the Baptist's
father, and Elizabeth was his mother.
That would make John and Jesus second cousins.
So there was a relationship with them, and
John saw Jesus and knew Jesus as he
was growing up.
But as we'll see, even in this chapter,
he didn't know that Jesus would be the
Messiah.
He saw his life, he knew the spotlessness
of it, but that revelation comes here in
Matthew chapter 3.
You remember the story about Zacharias?
Zacharias was of the tribe of Levi, from
where the tribes of the priests and those
who took care of the things of the
temple, in Christ's day, there was the temple
of the Lord built there in Jerusalem.
And only those descendants of Levi could minister
in the temple and taking care of the
sacrifices and so forth.
And it was Zacharias' turn to burn incense
on the table of incense, which spoke of
the prayers of the people to God and
he was an old guy and his wife
was old.
They hadn't had any kids and an angel
came and spoke to him right there in
the holy place.
And the angel said to him, don't be
afraid Zacharias for your prayer is heard and
your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son
and you shall call his name John.
And you will have joy and gladness and
many will rejoice at his birth.
And now he describes what his life is
going to be like.
The angel does.
For he will be great in the sight
of the Lord and shall drink neither wine
nor strong drink.
He will also be filled with the Holy
Spirit even from his mother's womb and he
will turn many of the children of Israel
to the Lord their God.
And that's an interesting statement because it tells
us that there were many in Israel who
were Jews who went through the normal feasts
and the processes of the temple and yet
they didn't know the Lord.
They weren't close to the Lord.
Here he said John's ministry is going to
turn those who are supposed to be the
representatives of God's reaching out to the whole
world but are now living for themselves and
he's going to turn them back to the
Lord.
I find the preaching of the gospel often
does that even today.
That you can be born and raised in
a particular denomination and not know the Lord.
You can go through the motions.
You know some of the Bible stories.
You know a couple of hymns.
You know how to say amen and praise
God.
But in terms of your life being changed
and following Jesus Christ that's like the man
in the moon.
You're just like everybody else and you don't
make waves.
And I think the preaching of the gospel
does that today.
It draws people out of their sin or
out of their religious complacency and into a
place of fire.
Into a place where God is at work
in their life.
Do you know that God wants to work
in and through your life?
And most people that come here I say,
do you want God to work in and
through your life?
And they go, amen, yes, of course.
I go, well, are you ready for the
fire?
And sometimes they think fire is enthusiasm but
fire is much more than enthusiasm.
Fire is a cleansing and a purging.
And we'll see that in this chapter.
That that's what God wants to do.
He wants to clean out the old.
Clean out the stuff that is getting in
the way of what he wants.
What is a holy walk?
How do you bear fruit for the kingdom?
God has a work of cleansing that he
does in us.
So this was going to be John's ministry
to Israel.
And he will go before him.
That is, he'll go before the promised Messiah.
He will go before him as his forerunner
in the spirit and the power of Elijah
to turn the hearts of the fathers to
the children and the disobedient to the wisdom
of the just and to make ready a
people prepared for the Lord.
So after 400 years of prophetic silence, there
was no prophet in the nation of Israel
for 400 years.
And now, out in the wilderness of Judea,
here is John.
And he's proclaiming.
Here's the message after 400 years of silence.
He's not politically correct.
He's not worrying about who he's going to
offend.
He says, repent, for the kingdom of heaven
is at hand.
John's message was a call to repentance.
Some people think that repentance is mostly about
feelings, especially feeling sorry for your sin.
Now, it is wonderful to feel sorry about
your sin.
But repent is not a feelings word.
It has nothing to do with feelings.
Some people think, oh, well, you know, you
get busted.
Oh, I repent.
I'm sorry.
Oh, I'm just so sorry.
And then two hours later, you're back doing
the same thing.
That's not repentance.
David Guzik says, Jesus told us to make
a change of the mind, not merely to
feel sorry for what we have done.
So repentance speaks of a change of direction,
not a sorrow of the heart.
It means change.
Change of mind, change of heart, change of
direction.
Now, a question has been asked, is repentance
something we must do before we can come
to God?
Some say yes, some say no.
I say yes and no.
There you go.
Yes and no.
Repentance does not describe something we must do
before we come to God.
It describes what coming to God is like.
It describes what it's like.
If you are in New York, and I
tell you to come to Los Angeles, I
don't really need to say, leave New York
and come to Los Angeles.
To come to Los Angeles is to leave
New York.
And if I haven't left New York, I
certainly haven't come to Los Angeles.
Is that pretty simple?
That's what repentance means.
Get out of New York.
No.
You're from New York.
I'm not trying to offend at all.
Some of you are like, we're glad to
get out of LA and come to Escondido.
We can't come to the kingdom of heaven
unless we leave our sin and our self
-life.
Did you get that?
We can't come to the kingdom of heaven
unless we leave our sin and our self
-life.
As we see throughout the gospel of Matthew,
the kingdom of heaven is referring to the
reign and the rule of Jesus.
And it speaks continually about our relationship that
if Jesus is ruling, if he is Lord
of our lives, then that means that our
lives are submitted to him.
We don't say, praise the Lord.
Jesus is Lord.
And then go off and do everything opposite
what would please the Lord.
That doesn't make sense.
But if you're going to say that Jesus
is Lord, that implies that he's your king
and you are his subject and you're going
to follow after him.
John's contemporaries thought that the kingdom of heaven
meant exclusive privileges and their rule over the
heathen, over the Gentiles.
They had all but lost the thought that
it meant first God's rule over their own
wills.
Does God rule over your will today?
Is your heart and desire to please the
one who made you, to please the one
who sacrificed himself for you, the one who
made the way possible for you to go
to heaven because you were going to hell
because of your sin and your trespasses?
And Christ came and lived a holy, perfect
life that he might be the perfect sin
-bearer and he died to bear your sin
and mine because I couldn't bear it myself.
I couldn't wipe away the stain of my
sin through my own efforts, through New Year's
resolutions, through even being pressured by law to
be good because, you know, if whoever's pressuring
you is stronger than you, you'll submit until
they're not looking, right?
Then when they're not looking, the old sin
nature just kind of comes up.
Jesus died for me and for you that
we now know that we are not our
own anymore.
We've been bought with the price of his
blood.
When I said I surrender all, Lord, I
surrender my life to you.
You died for me.
I choose today to follow you.
Then from that point on, Jesus is my
king.
And if I choose to go my own
way, I am in rebellion to my king.
So either we're following the Lord this morning
or we're in rebellion to him.
And the word of John would be to
us, repent.
If you're not following, if you're allowing all
kinds of other things to get in the
way between you and the Lord, there's a
very simple thing.
You don't need therapy.
You don't need drugs.
What you need to do is to make
a choice today.
And that choice is to follow Jesus and
to turn from and leave New York and
get over to L.A. in that sense.
Leave sin and begin to walk in the
fullness that God has for you.
Don't negotiate with sin.
Don't make excuses for sin.
Leave it.
And I often wonder what part of leave
don't we understand?
John was going to wake them up from
their religious slumber.
And he wouldn't be very subtle.
He wouldn't be very reserved.
He wouldn't be very politically correct.
And so we read in verse 3, This
is he who was spoken of by the
prophet Isaiah, saying, The voice of one crying
in the wilderness, Prepare the way of the
Lord and make his path straight.
In a word, get ready.
The king is coming.
Get ready.
The word here is drawn from an oriental
custom of sending persons on their journeys ahead
of kings to level the roads and make
them more passable.
Get ready.
The king is coming.
And in a spiritual sense, he was also
speaking to them to prepare their minds, to
prepare the minds of men to give the
Messiah a fit reception and secure his blessings.
Prepare the way of the Lord.
Get ready.
The king is coming.
So John himself was clothed in camel's hair.
It's just thinking about that.
He's not clothed in the silk garments and
the bejeweled cloaks and so forth of the
priests and the leaders of the day.
Camel's hair, a leather belt around his waist,
and his food was locusts and wild honey.
He ate grasshoppers.
And that's what a locust is, basically.
And interestingly, it is one of the clean
animals of the Old Testament.
It was not against the dietary laws of
Judaism to eat locusts.
High in protein, I guess.
But it's not the kind of guy you'd
see, you know, asking to handle your daughter
in marriage.
You know, he's sitting there on the couch
with locust legs hanging out.
And, you know, it's not a real pretty
picture.
But, you know, he didn't care.
It wasn't about what he looked like.
And that's what it so distracts.
Don't looks distract us.
You can get so occupied with how you
look that you totally forget who you are.
You totally forget the person that God made
you.
Oh, I'm too tall.
I'm too short.
I'm too fat.
I'm too skinny.
I got this.
I don't, you know, this, that.
We're always worrying about what we look like.
There's TV shows on what to look like
and what not to look like.
And you just can get so wrapped up.
And John didn't care.
He had a message.
And that's what spoke.
Jesus said of John in Luke 7, 25,
What did you go out to see?
A man clothed in soft garments?
Indeed, those who are gorgeously appareled and live
in luxury are in king's courts.
But what did you go out to see?
A prophet?
Yes, and I say to you, and more
than a prophet.
This is he of whom it is written,
Behold, I send my messenger before your face
who will prepare your way before you.
For I say to you, here's Jesus talking,
I say to you, among those born of
women, there is not a greater prophet than
John the Baptist.
So he's taking all of the Old Testament
prophets and he's looking at John and he's
saying, There hasn't been a greater prophet.
But that wasn't the last of his statement
there.
He finished it up and looking at his
people and he said, But he who is
least in the kingdom of God is greater
than he.
Now that was prophetic of you and I.
A prophecy of you and I who is
least in the kingdom of God.
Jesus said this in Matthew 13, 16.
He said, But blessed are your eyes for
they see and your ears for they hear.
For assuredly I say to you that many
prophets and righteous men desired to see what
you see and didn't see it and to
hear what you hear and didn't hear it.
These prophets that we read of in the
Old Testament, they were looking forward to what
you and I experience today.
To know the Messiah.
To be a people who don't have a
heart of stone, but have a heart of
flesh.
A heart that is alive to God.
People born again where God rules.
So many of these prophets, as they were
given to Israel, had the very difficult task
of calling them back to God when the
whole nation was going just the opposite way.
They weren't popular.
You know, you come down, walk down the
street and they go, Oh no, here comes
the prophet.
It wasn't, How you doing, pastor, reverend?
Please come in.
It was, Oh no.
And the oh no was because they were
in sin.
They weren't walking as God's people as they
had promised to walk.
And so God sent the prophets to get
in their face and to deal with them.
And so they prophesied of the judgment of
God of sin and the work of the
Messiah and the ultimate rule in the kingdom
age.
And it was always a call to get
right.
To turn from their wickedness.
Many of the prophets, Jeremiah, one of them,
never saw one person turn.
He's called the weeping prophet.
He was the prophet of Jerusalem before Nebuchadnezzar
destroyed it.
He was in the last throes of that
holy city and he had to live through
it.
In 1 Peter 1 verse 10, we read,
Of this salvation the prophets have inquired and
searched carefully, who prophesied of the grace that
would come to you.
That's us.
The grace has come to us.
The unmerited, undeserved favor of God has come
to us.
And by the work of the Spirit we've
received and we've been born again and filled
with God's Spirit and He's changing us.
They looked forward to that.
They searched what or what manner of time
the Spirit of Christ who was in them
was indicating when He testified beforehand the sufferings
of Christ and the glories that would follow.
To them it was revealed that, not to
themselves but to us, they were ministering the
things which now have been reported to you
through those who have preached the gospel to
you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven,
things which angels desire to look to.
And look at now the response.
Here's John out in the wilderness going, Repent!
Change!
The kingdom of heaven is at hand.
And it says, Then Jerusalem, all Judea, we're
back to Matthew 3, verse 5, Jerusalem, all
Judea, and all the region around the Jordan
went out to Him.
They went out to Him and were baptized
by Him in the Jordan, confessing their sins.
He didn't go into Jerusalem and set up
a church.
He went out into the desert.
And I don't know who He was preaching
to first.
But it didn't take long before the crowds
began coming.
And what a message!
What a message!
I mean, what kind of response do you
think we'd get if we advertised in the
North County Times?
And we said, Come to Calvary Chapel, Escondido,
where Pastor Pat can get in your face
about your sin.
How many of you would cut that one
out of the paper and say, Ooh, I
can't wait.
I can't wait.
But you know, there is something very interesting
about revival, about moves of God.
Moves of God happen when sin is dealt
with squarely.
The moves of God happen where sin is
intolerated.
We don't try to pacify it and make
it like it's not important.
Revival happens when the blood of Christ is
preached.
The work of Christ on the cross for
lost sinners is proclaimed.
And that's when you see the move of
God.
And there was a move of God happening
in the wilderness of Judea.
And I pray there's a move of God
on the west end of Escondido.
And that it will continue until the Lord
comes back.
So they all come out to him, and
they're baptized in the Jordan, a baptism of
repentance.
They're realizing that they need to change, and
they're confessing their sins in biblical typology, the
river Jordan is a type of death.
Thus the baptism in the river Jordan was
a sort of death to the old life.
In other words, it was a change.
Some today say they have come to Christ,
and yet as you look at their life,
there is no change.
They're still doing the same things they did
before they were saved.
There's no transformation, only a conforming to this
world.
And the reality is that repentance is empty.
Peter in his epistle, 1 Peter 1.13
says, Therefore, gird up the loins of your
mind.
You go, what?
What are loins of your mind?
In those days, they wore the long robes,
the tunics, if you will.
And when you went to work or you
had to run, you had to gird them
up.
You had a girdle or a sash, and
you'd cinch it up so your legs would
be free to go.
That's the illustration.
The NIV translates it, Therefore, prepare your minds
for action.
We just don't want to come to church
to have a feel-good buzz for, you
know, an hour and a half, and then
go back and there's no change.
What good is that?
Who needs that?
Go down to Barnes & Noble.
There's plenty of books you can read that
can give you a momentary little, you know,
make you feel good.
But the gospel wasn't given to make you
feel good.
It was given to change you.
And if you're not changed, you don't know
the gospel.
Therefore, prepare your minds for action, Peter said.
Be sober.
Okay, we can pause there for a minute.
Anybody not know what sober means?
I think we all know what sober means,
don't we?
It means we have a clear mind and
it's not clouded by any other stimuli.
It's not clouded with drugs.
It's not clouded with alcohol.
It's not clouded with pornography.
It's a clear mind.
Now he says prepare your minds for action.
In other words, you can't have action if
you're not sober.
Be sober and rest your hope fully upon
the grace that is to be brought to
you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
As obedient children, not conforming yourselves to the
former lusts, as in your ignorance, but as
he who called you is holy, you also
be holy in all your conduct.
Be holy, separated unto God, separated from
the things of this world where they aren't
going to be possessing you and choking you,
to be holy in all your conduct because
it is written, because God says, be holy
for I am holy.
Now if God said that to us, that
must mean that practical personal holiness is possible.
And I think we have come to an
age where we just don't follow that anymore.
We think that is too archaic.
It is too puritanical.
It's not for the real world, but God
transcends the real world.
And God says, be holy for I am
holy.
Thus we as believers must be people who
have a passion for holiness.
And if whatever needs to change or get
flushed down the toilet or burned in the
bonfire or trashed, whatever you got to do
that's getting in the way of personal holiness,
would you have the courage to do it?
To take the step, to start a new
habit.
I was reading this morning in a little
volume I picked up this week from Pastor
Tony, as a matter of fact.
Thank you, Tony.
You've all heard of Oswald Chambers' My Utmost
for His Highest?
Well, this is a sequel to it.
Still higher for his highest.
And you don't see it around very much.
And I was looking at the devotion for
today.
And the title of it was Habit Forming,
Character Building.
Can I read it to you?
Because I think it's from 2 Peter 1.
Always distinguish between the defects of a growing
life and the vices of a mature life.
Be as merciless as God can make you
with the vices of a mature life.
But be endlessly patient with the defects of
a growing life.
A young life is always in chaos.
But there is one main trend coming out
all the time.
And that trend can be garrisoned by intercessory
prayer.
God never makes character.
God puts into us the disposition of His
Son.
And on that basis, we have to form
character.
As we form the habit of doing things
in accordance with the disposition of Jesus Christ,
we are backed by inward supplies of God's
grace.
Every habit begins with difficulty.
And I think in context here, he's meaning
every good habit begins with difficulty.
Habit is a mechanical process of which we
have ceased to become conscious.
You know, when something becomes a habit, you
just do it.
You don't have to think about it.
It's just an unconscious reaction.
A man who is right with God does
the right thing instinctively.
We're told to add to our faith with
virtue.
These things do not emerge until we so
form the habit of doing them that they
become characteristic of our lives.
But I appreciate what Oswald Sanders said there
about habit being a mechanical process.
And just as the bad habits that folks
might have started with a choice and a
repetition of that choice so that it became
a bad habit, there are godly habits that
you can learn and that you can grow
in.
And you can start today by making that
right choice.
Turning from sin and turning to Christ and
following after him.
As we move on, we'll see a group
of people that were not interested in inward
change that changed their outward actions.
They weren't interested in that.
But only looking good outwardly while their hearts
were still full of evil.
And God searches our hearts, folks.
We can impress people when we come into
church.
We can say the right things.
We can carry a three-pound Bible and
have the bumper stickers.
But is our heart right before God?
Only God knows that.
Only God really knows that.
And the measure of a person, the measure
of a person's character is not who you
are when you're here.
It's who you are when you're by yourself.
What kind of a godly man or woman
or boy or girl are you when you're
by yourself?
Or is the only time you think about
God is when you're drugged to church?
Now, I'm not saying, I'm not mad at
you guys.
I know I'm sounding stern.
And I'm not mad at you.
But I am mad at lethargy.
I am mad at laziness.
I am mad at compromise.
Because I see it's so choking, the work
that God wants to do in His people.
Do we dare to be a people who
can burn out for Jesus?
It doesn't matter what else.
A people that can be on fire for
the Lord.
And that's not just emotion.
That's a work of God in our lives.
Does the fire, is the fire of God
burning anything in you today?
I hope so.
Because I might suggest, if you can't smell
anything singin', you need to get on your
knees.
And cry, search me, oh God.
And know my heart.
Because I don't think repentance is something you
do just once.
I believe repentance is a lifestyle.
It's the way we live.
Not just something we feel, something we do.
So, when He saw many of the Pharisees
and the Sadducees coming to His baptism, He
recognized them.
But not like we might do today.
You know, if a bunch of the leaders
came today and were sittin' in the front
row, you know, the leaders of the Catholic
Church, the leaders of the Anglican Church, the
leaders of this thing or that thing, and
they were all in their regalia and they
were all sittin' there in the front row,
the typical response might be, I'd like to
welcome our esteemed guests, the Reverend so-and
-so, da-da-da, da-da-da, da
-da-da.
Well, here comes the Pharisees, who were the
legalists of the day.
They had interpreted the Ten Commandments with more
than 600 other commandments, and they prided themselves
in keeping every one of them at the
expense of ministering to the people and of
caring for the people.
Then you have the Sadducees, who wore religious
garb, but they didn't believe in the spiritual
or the supernatural.
And these are the leaders, and they all
come out to the side of the Jordan,
where John is speaking, and he looks up,
and he sees them.
And what does he say to them?
Verse 7, Brood of vipers!
Man, there was no fear in this guy.
I could imagine the crowd going, Oh!
What are you doing, man?
You know, they're gonna kill you, man.
You don't mess with these people.
And eventually, he was killed.
Had his head chopped off.
But to the very end, he remained steadfast.
And he didn't compromise.
I know that the same thing will happen
with you and me, as we speak boldly.
Not just to impress people with how bold
we are.
You know, because I've heard some preaching that
is just, it's just yelling.
It's just anger.
And I get excited, and my voice raises.
I don't want to bawl out and just
condemn, but I want to speak the truth.
And I want to be able to lead
people into the truth and into the freedom
that they can have in Christ Jesus.
And when people are in bondage, when they're
clouded, sometimes you have to, you know, blow
away the clouds and the distractions.
And that's what John was doing.
He wasn't being politically correct.
He called them a brood of vipers.
Now, vipers are poisonous rattlesnakes, and these are
baby rattlers.
And if you know anything about poisonous snakes,
you know that baby poisonous snakes are the
most poisonous.
The intensity of the venom in a baby
rattler is far stronger than an adult rattler.
And he calls them a brood.
You're like a bunch of baby snakes.
Vermin.
You know what I mean?
Who warned you to flee from the wrath
to come?
Therefore, here's what you need to do.
Bear fruits worthy of repentance.
And this has been the message of the
prophets over the centuries past.
For example, Jeremiah 7, 3, Thus says the
Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, Amend
your ways and your doings.
Change, and I will cause you to dwell
in this place.
Don't trust in these lying words.
Oh, the temple of the Lord, the temple
of the Lord, the temple of the Lord
are these.
And this was at a time when Nebuchadnezzar
and the Babylonians were about to destroy Jerusalem.
And Jeremiah warned them that this was the
judgment of God on the sin of the
nation.
And if they wanted to survive, they needed
to go to Babylon.
Don't fight this king.
And then the false prophets would say, Nothing
can happen to us because we're in the
temple.
We've got the temple, the beautiful temple with
the Holy of Holies.
This is where the Lord dwells.
Nobody's going to mess with us here.
And so they talk about their temple and
their tradition, but their hearts weren't right before
God.
And that temple was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar's armies.
He said, If you thoroughly amend your ways
and your doings, if you thoroughly execute judgment
between a man and his neighbor, if you
don't oppress the stranger, the fatherless, and the
widow, and you don't shed innocent blood in
this place, or walk after other gods to
your hurt, then I will cause you to
dwell in this place and in the land
I gave to your fathers forever and ever.
See, it illustrates in the Old Testament, and
John has illustrated in here, bear fruits worthy
of repentance, that real repentance will show itself
in life.
It has to be a matter of living
repentance, not just talking repentance.
And I think as Christian people, as church
-going folk, we know how to talk the
talk.
But I can't tell you how many people
I've had to counsel over the years that
have been talking the talk, but their walk's
a mess.
Their personal relationships are shattered.
The habits that are possessing them and controlling
them are overwhelming.
The talk isn't what does it.
It's the walk.
And you got to make those steps.
You got to make the choice to walk
after Him.
Jesus said, Come, follow Me.
He didn't say come.
He didn't say, Sit there and admire Me.
He didn't say, Stand and have good thoughts
about Me.
He said, Follow Me.
And where did Jesus go?
Where did He end up?
In His physical life, He ended up at
the cross.
He said, The Son of Man doesn't have
a place to lay His head.
Now, that's a radical thing when you say,
I'm following Jesus.
Really?
If Jesus says, Get up and go, and
I want you to move to Belize next
week and teach in the school down there
for the next five years.
Oh man, God hasn't showed me that.
But you know, that's...
How else...
How do you think the Spirit of God
moves?
You know, when you say, Lord, I love
you.
I want to serve you.
I want to be used of you.
Lord, show me how I can be used
of you.
And then you hear somebody say, We need
teachers for junior hires and nursery workers.
Ha ha ha.
And we go, Anything but that.
And then God has to start going down
the list to see what you're flexible enough
for.
And I want to be Gumby before the
Lord, you know?
I want to be Gumby, Lord.
However you want Him.
Not Gumby to the world, you know, but
to Jesus.
However you want to lead me.
However you want to guide me.
Whatever I need to get rid of.
Take it.
I don't want anything to get in the
way of what you want to do in
my life.
So John is dealing with their self-righteousness.
He's saying, Your lives aren't changed at all.
Show some fruit.
And don't think to say to yourselves, because
John already knew what they were thinking.
We have Abraham as our father.
And John says, I say to you, God's
able to raise up children to Abraham from
these stones.
You see, they were trusting in what's called
generational salvation.
The thinking went, Because I'm related to Abraham.
Because I'm a Jew, I have salvation.
And we can probably look at how it
is in our day.
People might say, Well, you know, I'm going
to heaven.
Because my parents were good Christians.
Or because I'm an American.
Or because I'm a Lutheran.
Or I'm a Catholic.
Or I'm a Baptist.
God would say, What's your life showing?
And who is your life showing that you're
following?
You don't get to heaven by being baptized
as a kid in some denomination.
You get to heaven by laying down your
life to follow Jesus Christ.
Hello?
You get to heaven by following Jesus.
Now you go, Well, that's not grace.
Oh, yes it is.
Grace is undeserved, unmerited favor.
We deserve to go to hell.
Jesus intervened in our lives.
For God so loved the world that He
gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes
in Him should not perish, but have everlasting
life.
That's grace.
But we need to know that everlasting life,
this new life that God gives us, isn't
just an insurance policy.
You know, it's not just something, Okay, you
got saved.
Put it in your back pocket.
When you die, you go up to St.
Peter and go, See, I accepted Christ in
1984 at Calvary Escondido.
No.
And I hope, you know, if you did,
I'm not saying, No, you're not saved.
But I'm saying that it's not just one
thing.
And I'm not speaking that you have to
get saved over and over and over again.
But the call to repentance is over and
over and over again because God wants you
to be changed.
He doesn't want you to stay the same
with the same habits and the same problems
and the same weights of carnality and materialism
in the flesh.
He wants you to be free and bear
fruit worthy of repentance.
Fruit that looks like repentance.
Their lives and ours were to bear good
fruit.
But look what he says in verse 10
to these Pharisees, to these phonies, if you
will, that even now the axe is laid
to the root of the tree.
Therefore, every tree which doesn't bear good fruit
is cut down and thrown into the fire.
Their lives and ours are to bear good
fruit.
True repentance is evidenced in a changed life
that does not just give lip service to
good character, but is really good.
It's really good.
And what are some of those fruits?
Well, we're told in Galatians chapter 5, the
fruit of the spirit is love.
God's love.
Obvious and flowing into your life.
In other words, other people will look at
you and go, man, they're a loving, that's
a real loving person.
And, you know, I'll tell you, I don't
know a lot about them, but this I
can tell.
They really love others.
See, that's the idea of godly fruit.
Others can tell.
It's not just what I do in my
closet.
It's others can tell what's going on.
So what is the fruit of love?
Well, eight different things.
Joy, peace, long-suffering.
Patience, that's what it means.
Patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, self-control.
See, these are all fruit.
And you know a tree by its fruit.
Amen?
I mean, you go to the orchards around,
you can tell.
There's an orange, there's a lemon, there's a
pomegranate, there's a grapefruit.
You know, you can tell by the fruit.
And if any of you have ever worked
orchards, you know that when they quit bearing
fruit, what do you do?
You chop them down, and oftentimes you graft
in a better, a healthier, a younger stock.
And then you get fruit again.
Any of you have attended a garden?
How many of you like roses?
Some of you like receiving roses.
Some of you like growing roses.
But you know, when you're growing roses, and
those rose bushes have been putting it out
for you.
I mean, they have been working all year
long, all season long to give you the
beautiful, beautiful color, wonderful aroma.
And then come January, you go out into
the garden with your snips, and you go,
I appreciate you.
And you cut it off to a stub.
I know some people who to this day,
they just can't bring themselves to doing that.
They go, I'll kill it.
I know I'll kill it.
But if you've raised roses, you can talk
to Pastor Richard about this.
He's got some beautiful roses in his garden.
You have to cut them back.
Because you can't get the continued good new
fruit if you're not cut back.
And a lot of times that's how we
are.
You know, God wants to deal with us.
God wants to work in our life.
You know, you're challenged by the word of
God.
You're challenged by biblical exposition.
You know, God's word is getting to you.
But it sometimes doesn't feel good because there's
a cutting going on.
There's a pruning that's taking place.
And why is that?
To punish you?
To make you feel bad?
No!
It's to cut off that which isn't barren
fruit anymore so you could bloom even greater
and bring forth even tastier fruit down the
road.
That's why we come together.
That's why we go to the word.
That's why we dare to say, Search my
heart, Lord.
See if there be any wicked way in
me and lead me in the way of
everlasting life.
Jesus said, Every branch in me that doesn't
bear fruit, he takes away.
Remember he said, I am the vine and
my father is the vine dresser.
He's the gardener.
And any branches that aren't barren fruit, snip,
snip, snip, snip.
And I don't believe that's speaking of losing
your salvation.
But it is speaking about God doing a
work in your life so that you can
continue to be bearing good fruit, so that
God can use you to touch others, so
that you can be sober-minded.
And when God says, Move and go, you're
already so in sync with him that it's
a natural flow of God's revealed will in
your life.
God has so much he wants to do
with us.
And you got to understand when trials come
and things are difficult, it's not that God
hates you, but that's when you need to
tune in and say, Lord, what do you
want to teach me through this?
How am I to grow in this?
The psalmist said in Psalm 1 3, that
he shall be like a tree planted by
the rivers of water that brings forth its
fruit in its season, whose leaf also shall
not wither and whatever he does shall prosper.
And that's what God wants.
He wants us to be like trees planted
by the rivers of water where we're growing.
Psalm 92 13, Those who are planted in
the house of the Lord shall flourish in
the courts of our God.
And I like verse 14 there, They shall
still bear fruit in old age and they
shall be fresh and flourishing.
How many of you are technically senior citizens?
You're over 55.
You know what?
God says more fruit, not less, not less.
Yeah, the bodies are starting to wear out
and get more achy and tired and pains
and diseases, but the fruit of your life
doesn't need to wane.
That can just continue to grow.
And, you know, we have a lot of
folks that work with the seniors ministries going
and visiting the different senior homes and towns
and they can tell you, you know, there
is some elderly folks that they're ministering to
that are the sweetest, most joyful to be
around.
Even when they got some dementia, you know,
they're just loving people.
And then you got others that are in
the same situation and they are so bitter
and angry and resentful and mad.
And I said, Lord, I don't want to,
I don't want to end up like that.
Because the choices you make now and the
character that's developed in you now, if it's
godly character, it's only going to grow.
It's only going to continue to bear fruit.
There's a certain species of date palms that
I read about that the older they get,
the more fruit they bear.
They never slack off.
They just keep bearing fruit.
I don't know how they die.
Maybe when they're all top heavy and the
wind just finally, that's it, you're done bearing
fruit and now you go home.
That's how I want it to be in
my life.
When I'm done bearing fruit, I don't want
to go into a slide.
You know, I just want to walk into
glory.
So God do that in us.
Are you up there in the years?
And are you whining?
Talk to my wife.
I've been whining lately.
You know, I don't like aches and pains
and having physical problems and stuff.
I don't like that.
Amen.
But God promises me that as I walk
in Him and as I lay down myself
to Him, that there's going to be increased
fruitfulness.
And that's the kind of people we want
to be.
If you're a young person now, make those
choices while you're young to serve the Lord
with all your heart and mind and soul
and strength.
Because then you can know that as you
get older, that's going to determine, that's going
to describe the kind of character you have.
Don't think that, well, I'm a kid and
I'm just going to do what I want
or I'm a teenager or I'm a young
adult and now is my time to have
fun.
And then when I get old, then I'll
find God.
Then I'll get religion.
Then I'll start getting serious about the Lord.
Probably, no, you won't.
Because there's a hardening that takes place.
When you continue to choose not to respond
to what God is doing in your life,
you get harder.
You just get harder and harder and harder.
And I believe God's given us this passage
as we go, as we're in our chapter
-by-chapter, book-by-book study, that he
brings us to this chapter for a purpose.
We're not looking at just ancient history because
there's a present-day application of this to
us here at Calvary Escondido, to me as
Pat Kenny, to you as whoever you are,
that God wants us to be bearing fruit.
And He wants us to be walking wholly
unto Him.
Failure to truly repent is going to surely
result in judgment.
This is a warning for people of all
ages.
Don't let a hard heart happen.
The judge is standing at the door.
It's not that far away.
How long are you going to live?
Does anybody know?
Have you gotten some special notice from God
that says you're going to live for 60
years or 40 years?
I mean, you don't know.
You just don't know how long you're going
to live.
So make the choice now to live for
God.
If you only have five days or if
you have five years or five decades, live
them for the Lord.
If you put off living for the Lord,
you're only going to get harder.
And it's not going to be easier when
you get older to turn away from those
things.
Choose now.
Choose today.
And I would have to say that there's
not a one of you here nor watching
on TV if you've lasted this long with
the broadcast that if you were to today
call upon the Lord and surrender your heart
to Him, that God wouldn't hear you.
He would.
You wouldn't be watching.
You wouldn't be sitting here if there wasn't
still a spark, if there wasn't still a
work that God could do in your life.
My challenge to you is will you let
God do that?
Would you call upon the Lord today and
let Him do that work?
Now John says in verse 11, I indeed
baptize you with water unto repentance, but he
who is coming after me is mightier than
I, whose sandals I am not worthy to
carry, and he will baptize you with the
Holy Spirit and fire.
A lot of people want to be baptized
with the Holy Spirit.
They don't like the fire part.
You know what I'm talking about, folks?
I mean, it's one thing to be able
to speak in tongues and to have words
of wisdom and words of knowledge and miracles
and so forth, and that's exciting.
And it's real.
Those are real gifts that are given.
But a lot of times we get our
eyes more on the gifts than the giver
of the gifts.
And we look more for the power or
the pizzazz or the rush than we do
for the daily, consistent walking after the Lord.
Fire here is not wild Pentecostal emotionalism.
And if you're from a Pentecostal background, I'm
not meaning to insult you.
I'm just trying to use that word to
describe that it's not just running down the
aisles.
It's not flopping on the floor.
It's not barking like a dog.
You know, it's not just these wild emotional
things.
And then, whoa, the Spirit of God really
moved today.
That's not what the fire is.
The fire is a purifying of the person.
The Holy Jesus coming to baptize with the
Holy Spirit is an immersion, an immersion in
the will of God, an immersion in the
life of the Spirit where God now can
do what He desires in your life.
And if there's sin, if there's something dead,
something not bearing fruit, He can take it
out.
He can burn it right out.
Here's the description of the fire, what He
really means by it in verse 12.
His winnowing fan is in His hand, and
He'll thoroughly clean out His threshing floor and
gather His wheat into the barn, but He'll
burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.
See, this is speaking of that purifying process
of our lives through the Holy Spirit.
The fire is that which consumes the chaff
in order that we might be refined and
purified where the impurities in our life are
removed that the purposes of the Holy Spirit,
this is the purpose of the working of
the Holy Spirit in us, the removal of
those impurities in our lives that we might
be conformed to the image of Jesus.
So what would it burn out?
It'd burn out anger and strife and those
areas of the flesh.
And what would it leave?
Wholesome grain.
This is the process they used in those
days.
We don't remember it now because we just
go to the store and buy a loaf
of bread or a cake mix or whatever.
But in those days, they had to go
out to the field and they'd have to
reap the wheat or the oats or whatever,
and then they'd bring them to their threshing
floor and they'd spread them all out and
they'd roll big stones or have their oxen
stomp on it and all of that pressure
would release and separate the grain from the
chaff that surrounded it.
Then they'd take a scoop and throw it
up in the air and then have a
winnowing fan.
It was like, you know, some of you
have those in your houses.
You know, they're a wall decoration.
They're like a big fan.
You can get them at Pier 1.
You know, those big fans.
And you could just...
And if you were to throw that thing,
you'd generate a whoosh and that whoosh blows
away the chaff.
And this morning, you're getting a whoosh.
The Word of God is a whoosh to
blow away those things that you can't make
a loaf of bread or a tasty cake
or a tortilla or whatever it might be.
I'm hungry now.
I know.
So are you.
But this was the process.
And then they take the chaff and burn
it.
They burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.
Chaff's the residue.
Chaff is the worthless residue of a wheat
stalk after the kernel of grain has been
removed.
These proud and unrepentant leaders are just as
useless to God.
I just don't want that said of any
of us that we're useless to God.
So I would ask you, how's God using
you?
Are you desiring for God to use you?
And if you would say, yes.
Oh, I want the Lord to use me.
Then be prepared for the whoosh.
Be prepared for the winnowing.
That winnowing fan starting to blow away those
things.
And you know, maybe this afternoon you just
need to get on your face before the
Lord.
And when you get back up, you look
at your book rack.
You look at your magazine rack.
You look at the kind of stuff that
you allow in your house.
And you go, gee, I wonder if Jesus
would really like to sit here and watch
this with me.
And it might be time to allow the
whoosh to blow through your house.
But I would ask it to first blow
through your heart.
First to blow through your mind.
And then repent.
Change.
Remember, repentance is change.
It's not just sinning and going, oh, I'm
sorry I sinned.
Now, if you're sorry, you can be sorry
for the next 30 years that you sin,
and you can keep on sinning and keep
on saying, I'm sorry.
But I believe Jesus died on the cross
for your sins and mine, that sin should
not have dominion over us.
That we are to yield our members.
Romans 6, we're to yield our...
Yeah, Romans 6.
We're to yield our members unto righteousness, not
unto unrighteousness.
That's a choice.
What are you going to yield to today?
Yield to the Lord.
The baptism of Jesus in the Spirit is
a dying to self, a cleansing of motives.
It's a baptism of purity.
And again, many people today want the power
of the Spirit, but they don't want a
changed lifestyle.
So the fire of God may make me
shout, but it'll be, ouch.
Oh, that's hot.
That burns.
That's the kind of shout we should be
looking to.
Not just an emotional outburst shout, but I
want the Lord to be working on me.
You know, I've known the Lord for 35
years, 34 years.
And I don't want to retire from knowing
the Lord.
You know, I don't want to say, well,
you know, I've put in my time.
I've served God.
I've served God's people.
Now it's my time.
It's time for me.
Time for me to kick back.
Pastor Richard said this to me a couple
years ago.
He said, you know, I want to be
like Caleb.
He says, you know, Caleb was already 80
years old when he hit the promised land,
and he asked for the toughest territory.
Right on, Caleb.
Right on.
And I looked at Richard, and I go,
man, you're making me tired.
You know?
And it was a season in my life
where I was just tired.
Wore out.
Figured I needed a break.
I needed more Jesus.
And I've got more Jesus.
And I want you to have more Jesus
so that we can live our lives for
Him and not compromise with the things of
the world.
That's why Jesus came.
Jesus is about to begin His ministry.
He's going to be baptized by John to
fully identify with fallen man.
Jesus didn't need to get baptized, but He's
fulfilling all righteousness, and He's showing that He's
the perfect, the perfect one that we identify
with.
And so we get baptized today, but it's
an identification with Christ.
It is repentance as well, but it's also,
it's more than that.
It's that identification that as Christ died, we
die to the old man.
And as Christ was raised from the dead,
we raise to walk in newness of life.
We identify with Christ's death and Christ's resurrection.
And that's a sweet life.
That's a powerful life.
That's a life that is going to impact
a world that so desperately needs Jesus.
May we be those people that follow in
His steps.
And when He had been baptized, Jesus came
up immediately from the water.
Verse 16, And behold, the heavens were opened
to Him, and He saw the Spirit of
God descending like a dove and alighting upon
Him.
And suddenly a voice came from heaven saying,
This is my beloved Son in whom I
am well pleased.
We'll pick it up there next week as
we get into the beginning of the Lord
Jesus' public ministry.
So Matthew's gospel, the rule of Christ, His
reign in our lives.
And oh, what an important foundation for the
rest of our study, amen?
That God wants us to be changed.
And that's a choice that we make.
And then we have all the power of
heaven behind that choice.
But make it over and over and over
and over again.
Repentance is a lifestyle, not just a one
-time buzz.
May God make us that kind of people.
Father God, we pray right now that You
would do that work in us, Lord.
Lord, we would choose today to allow Your
winnowing fan to blow through and to burn
out, Lord, those things that are not of
You.
We sing, Change my heart, O God.
Make it more like You.
You are the potter.
I am the clay.
Mold me, shape me.
This is what I pray.
Thank You, Lord.
Father, I thank You for each person here
this morning.
Thank You that we can grow together in
You.
Lord, we don't want to grow in religion.
We even don't want to grow in just
Calvary Chapel.
We want to grow as a people who
are following Jesus.
And we thank You for this ministry.
We thank You for the privilege of serving
You, Lord, and learning of You.
God, as Your people today, we want to
walk obediently.
We don't want to just go to the
temple of the Lord and, oh, I'm this,
and, oh, I go to that church, therefore
I'm okay.
We want to be walking with You that
our lives would bear fruit worthy of repentance
and that even in our old age we'll
keep bearing good fruit.
So, God, have Your way in us and
use us for Your glory this week and
continue to teach us, we pray in Jesus'
name.
Amen.
Can we stand together, please?
I don't know if I'm going to be
able to talk much this evening, but we
will eat well, okay?
So, you newcomers, if you're new to the
church, I'd love to spend time with you.
Pray for my voice that it'll hold up
for tonight.
And we look forward to acquainting you a
little bit more with the background of how
we got here, how this ministry came to
be, and to give those of you who
are new to the church an opportunity to
interact a little bit with some of the
leadership in the church.
And we're not going to come in robes
and jewels, and we probably aren't going to
come with camel hair either, and we will
not probably serve locusts unless you can find
some bonies or something, I don't know.
But we do want to grow together in
the love of Christ.
And so I would encourage all of you,
as you go on with your week, to
look for opportunities to serve others, to ask
God to bear that good fruit, to bring
forth that good fruit, to recognize that it
may require cutting, that the Lord may need
to cut back, may need to whoosh, you
know, some of the chaff away.
Don't be afraid of His fire.
It's a purifying fire, and it'll help you
to grow like you've never grown before.
Walk in the love of the Lord.
Love Him, love those who are around you.
Christ has forgiven you, so you should forgive
one another.
And let those fruit, that fruit that we
were talking about today, be evident in your
life.
May God richly bless you and keep you
in His love as you follow after Him.