Heavenly Father, this morning as we gather, we are conscious of the fact that we are coming before a holy God, a sovereign God, the majestic creator of all the universe.
God, we agree with so many of the writers in the scriptures who ask the question, who is there like our God?
And we say with a resounding answer, there is no one and none like you.
There's no one as holy as you, God.
No one is set apart as you.
No one is kind and as just, as gracious and merciful as you, God.
And so we've come to worship you.
We've come to praise your name.
We've come to lift our voice in worship and to declare, God, that our hope is in you, God.
Lord, we've come to adore you this morning.
We've come to align ourselves to you.
Father, this morning, won't you give us faith where faith is lacking?
Won't you open our eyes to see you again and to draw us back to yourself, we pray, God.
We've come to worship you.
Father, this morning we pray for those in our midst that are struggling, those that are hurting,
those that are making big decisions, those that are facing trials and difficulties.
God, we pray, won't you draw near?
Won't you love us, God?
Won't you help us see your infinite wisdom and your perfect perspective?
God, open our eyes to see the way things you see things, God.
Help us, Father, not to insist in our own way, but to trust you in the midst of the storms,
in the midst of the fire, Lord God.
God, give us faith to trust you, though we do not always understand your ways and we do not understand the future,
but help us to know that you're good and you're gracious and that you're trustworthy.
God, we bring ourselves and we bring our brothers and our sisters before you.
God, come and draw near to us, we pray.
Come give us your Holy Spirit.
Father, this morning we pray for our city and we pray for the gospel in our city.
We pray for other churches gathered now all across Hong Kong, God,
from English churches, Chinese churches, Filipino churches, every language.
God, we lift them up before you and we ask you, God, pour out your spirit, God.
Pray for a renewal of the gospel in our city, God.
We pray for their evangelism programs and our evangelism programs.
We pray, God, that people will come to know you, God.
God, we lift up the church in Hong Kong.
Pray for Eric and Justine at the bridge, God.
Pray for Steve at community church and John and Rachel at ambassador and Brett and Shannon at island, God.
And Andrew at the vine and so many others.
We lift them up before you this morning.
God, this morning as they gathered, won't you minister to them?
Won't you pour out your grace on those communities as we pray for ourselves?
We pray, God, for your gospel to go forward in Hong Kong.
And finally, God, we pray for our city leaders.
We pray for our civic leaders and our politicians.
We pray, God, for great courage to make the right decisions,
make even unpopular decisions, but those that are good for the city and the country.
We pray, God, for the care for the poor.
We pray for the marginalized and the hurting.
That, God, our leaders will take care of the poor in our city.
They'll make decisions that look after them.
God, we pray if there's any corruption for that to be exposed and brought to light.
And we pray, God, for wisdom for complex issues facing our city.
Schooling, education, housing, accommodation.
We pray, God, give our leaders wisdom.
Help them to see through the complex issues and come up with solutions that will serve the citizens of the city, we pray.
We pray all these things in your wonderful and holy name.
Amen.
Thank you.
Thank you for praying for our city and our church together.
It's wonderful to pray together.
Let's listen to God's word as Echo is going to come and read to us from Matthew chapter 3.
The scripture reading comes from Matthew 3.
Please follow along in your bulletins and on the screen.
In those days, John the Baptist came from 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 path straight.
Now, John wore a garment of camel's hair and a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey.
Then Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region about the Jordan were going out to him, and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.
But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them,
You brood of vipers, who warns you to flee from the wrath to come?
Bear fruit in keeping with repentance, and do not presume to say to yourselves,
We have Abraham as our father.
For I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham.
Even now, the axe is laid to the root of the trees.
Every tree, therefore, that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I,
whose sandals I am not worthy to carry.
He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.
His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn,
but the chaff he will burn with uncreenchable fire.
This is the Word of God.
Great. Thank you, Echo.
Great. Well, as everyone else has said, Happy New Year.
If you've been away, welcome back to Hong Kong. It's great to see you.
And if you're new to Hong Kong or new to Watermark, it's wonderful to have you with us this morning.
Now, as a church family, in December, we started looking at the first few chapters in Matthew's Gospel
in the build-up to Christmas, and we're going to continue with Matthew's Gospel for the next five months
as we work through the next five chapters, chapters three until the end of the Sermon of the Mount in chapter seven.
And we're going to do that between now and the end of May.
And we're doing that for two reasons.
The first is because as a church, we want to be God-centered, and we want to hear what God has to say to us.
And so the best way to do that is to work expositionally through God's Word in our preaching.
As a church, we are not all that interested in doing cute sermon series on three ways to find a girlfriend,
or five ways to make a success of your life, or how to handle your emotions.
What we want to do is we want to encounter the living God in His Word.
We want to hear from what God has to say, and we want to know what God is like.
And we believe that as we do that, both individually and as a church, God will change us.
He will make us more like Himself.
He will teach us how to handle our emotions.
He will teach us how to handle both success and failure in life in a God-centered way.
And so for that reason, as a church, we are committed to working through His Word.
The second reason why we're going to be doing this is Matthew's Gospel is all about Jesus and the upside-down kingdom of God.
As someone who's relatively new to Hong Kong, we've been here just over a year,
one of the things that struck me when we moved here is that no matter what city in the world you live in,
whether you're from lowly Cape Town, or Singapore, or Hong Kong, or Tokyo, or Toronto, or London,
the basic modus operandi, the basic mode of operation of all human beings everywhere is,
let my kingdom come.
My will be done.
And Jesus comes to bring us a different kind of kingdom.
He shows us what true life in the true kingdom is like.
But Jesus' kingdom is often upside down.
It's not the way we expect it to be.
It's often counterintuitive and countercultural.
But it is the way that leads to life.
And so for the next couple of months, we're going to be exploring this as we work through Matthew's Gospel together.
Okay.
Now, today's passage of Scripture, we meet this guy called John, right?
Known as John the Baptist.
And John is an interesting guy, to say the very least, right?
How many of you, like me, that have daughters, would like John the Baptist for a son-in-law?
Anyone?
Or how many of you young ladies would like to take John to that work function, that dinner,
or maybe to your reunion dinner at the up-and-coming Chinese New Year?
John is an interesting guy.
He's a little rough around the edges.
I mean, look at his fashion sense, right?
He wears this camel's leather outfit.
And this isn't like Italian dyed, polished leather.
This is probably his trusty steed that got to the end of its life, and he skinned it himself.
And, you know, that's his outfit.
Camel skin and a leather belt.
John's not very tactful, right?
Tactful means knowing how to say the right things at the right time.
John says to the establishment, the leaders of society, the kind of legislative council of Israel,
the first thing he says to them is, you brood of vipers.
In other words, you offspring of snakes.
Not very tactful, right?
John's a little confrontational.
He likes to get into people's faces.
Imagine him sitting next to your grandma at your reunion dinner,
and the first thing he says is, repent.
This is John.
And, of course, don't forget his eating habits, right?
Wild locusts and wild honey.
And this isn't organic, caught on blue locusts from City Super.
This is the stuff he's caught just outside of his cave in the mountains.
John's a little rough around the edges.
He's an interesting guy.
And yet for all of his kind of unrefined ways, his peculiarities,
there's something special about John.
John has been sent by God.
Look at what verse 3 in our passage says.
It says,
This is he who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah.
When Isaiah said,
The voice of one crying in the wilderness,
Prepare the way of the Lord.
Make straight his paths.
And so what's happening here is in Isaiah's word 700 years beforehand,
in ancient times when a king or a member of the royal family
were to travel long distances,
for the weeks and months beforehand,
all the people would be working on the roads.
They'd be repairing it and fixing it and smoothing it out
and fixing potholes and making sure that the highway,
the road which the king was to travel on, was smooth.
And so they would prepare the way for the king to go.
Now what's happening here is that Israel, God's people,
are in Babylon.
Or they're about to go into Babylon.
And Isaiah is writing to them prophetically
to say that they're in Babylon because of their sin,
because of their rebellion,
because of the fact that they've turned away from God,
they've rejected him.
But God has not rejected them.
God has not forgotten his promises.
And so God is coming to rescue them.
He's coming to save them.
He's coming to bring them out of Babylon,
out of exile, out of captivity,
and to restore them to Israel.
And so a voice in Isaiah 40 cries out,
and this is what it says,
Comfort, comfort to all my people.
Tell my people that her warfare has ended.
Her sins have been pardoned.
And then Isaiah goes on.
A voice cries out in the wilderness,
Prepare the way of the Lord.
Make straight the path or the highway of our God.
And so what Isaiah is saying is this.
You Israelites, the people of God,
have been in Babylon in exile
because of your sin and your rebellion,
but God has not forgotten you.
Prepare the way because the king, God himself,
is coming.
And he's coming to Babylon to deliver you,
to set you free,
to bring you out of exile,
and to restore you.
And so God's messenger, Isaiah,
says,
Get ready.
Prepare the way for the king.
God is coming to set you free
and to rescue you.
And Matthew tells us
that what is true of Isaiah 700 years before
is just as true of John.
That John, on one sense,
he's this prophet like Isaiah and Elijah
that is saying,
Get ready for the king.
The king is coming to rescue you and restore you.
But on the other hand,
John is a nobody.
He's just a voice.
He's just a voice in the desert.
And he's calling out to those
that are far from God,
Prepare the way.
You may have forgotten God,
but he hasn't forgotten you.
He's coming to set you free.
Okay?
Now, how does John do this?
What does John say?
How does he prepare God's people
to meet with the coming king?
Well, let's look at verse 2.
What does it say?
He says,
Repent,
for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
Repent.
Repentance is one of those words
that we don't like to talk about too much, right?
We probably don't like it as much
as John's original hearers,
the audience,
like to hear it themselves.
But if we were to just flip over the page,
we see that actually in Matthew chapter 4,
Jesus says the exact same thing
that John says in chapter 3.
In chapter 4, verse 17,
Matthew writes and he says,
Jesus now went throughout the whole region
preaching,
and this is what he said,
Repent,
for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
And then if we flip over our Bibles
a few more pages
in the book of Acts,
the apostles are going throughout
the city of Jerusalem,
throughout Judea,
and the known world,
and this is their message.
Repent,
be baptized,
every one of you,
for the forgiveness of sins.
Now,
let's think about this for a second.
What is repentance,
and why does it matter?
Why is it so important?
Why is it that John and Jesus
and the apostles,
in fact,
the entire New Testament,
the Old Testament,
why is it that God's people
keep on going on about this thing
of repentance?
Well,
that's actually what our passage
today is all about.
What is it,
and why is it so important?
And so let's dive into that.
First thing,
what is repentance?
Well,
in the New Testament,
which was written in Greek,
there are numerous Greek words
to refer to repentance.
And one of the most common of them,
the one that's used here
in Matthew chapter 3,
is the word metanoio,
okay,
something like that.
I don't know how to pronounce it,
but let's just pretend
I said it right,
okay?
Metanoio.
And what it means
is to change your mind
or to turn around
for a change to take place
in your thinking
or maybe even in your body.
But it doesn't necessarily
hold a moral connotation.
It's like you can change your mind
from one day you like red,
the next day you like blue,
okay?
It's not necessarily
a moral connection.
But that's what,
in nominal sense,
that's what the word meant.
But when the Bible uses it,
when the New Testament writers
use this word repent,
it often means three things.
It has three key ingredients to it.
It means realizing
or discovering
or seeing something
anew in fresh light.
Discovering something
that you hadn't discovered before.
Seeing something in a new way.
It means secondly,
your heart is grieved
or your heart is now anxious
about what you've just discovered.
There's an anxiety in your heart
about this new state of affairs
or what you've just thought about.
And then thirdly,
it means a change that takes place.
You were facing this way,
you're now gonna do this.
You used to think I'll go there,
you now think I'm gonna go here.
So these three ingredients,
a change in your mind,
an anguish in your heart
about the current situation
or what you previously thought,
and then a change that takes place
from the old way to the new.
Does that make sense?
Okay.
Maybe an analogy will help.
Think about that situation
Chris helped me with this this week.
Think about a movie, okay?
Your favorite movie.
In every movie,
there's that point
when something,
a change takes place, right?
So the main character
is about to do something dreadful.
They're about to leave their family,
their wife and children
to go move in with someone else.
They're about to make
that billion dollar investment,
but it's a scam.
They're about to get on the airplane,
but you know that there's a bomb
on the airplane.
They're about to do something
that's going to end badly.
And then,
they get a text message,
they see something
out the corner of their eye,
they overhear a conversation,
something happens
that gives them
a new understanding
of the situation,
their heart realizes
this is not good,
and they make that radical change,
right?
They run through the airport
and they hug their wife again,
or they cancel the business deal,
or they tackle the terrorist
who's about to,
you know,
blow up the plane,
something like that.
Does that make sense?
Not really.
Okay.
Well,
sorry about that.
In some ways,
this is what repentance is like.
It's not just acknowledgement
of something.
It's not just changing your mind.
It's a radical change
in orientation
from this way
to that,
a disposition.
It's forsaking the old
and it's turning
to something new
because your eyes
have been opened
to see things
as they really are.
Charles Spurgeon
said it like this.
He said,
Repentance is a discovery,
a revelation
of the evil of sin,
a mourning,
a grieving
that we've committed it
and a resolution
to forsake it.
It is, in fact,
a change of mind
that is so deep
and of a practical nature
that it causes a man
to hate
what he once loved
and to now love
what he once hated.
But do you see
those three ingredients?
It's a discovery
of the evil of sin.
It's a grievous mourning
that we've committed.
It's a resolution
to change your disposition
and your orientation.
You see,
repentance is not just
thinking differently
about something.
It's not just saying,
hey,
I used to think
camel's hair
and leather belts
were in
and fashionable
but now I'm not
so sure anymore.
That's not quite repentance.
Repentance is not
an attempt
at self-approval
or reforming our lives.
It's not like
New Year's resolutions
where you say,
this year,
I really should get
bit at not lying.
I'm going to try
and tell the truth
more this year.
Repentance is not
even feeling guilty
about something
and trying to atone
for it.
Like maybe you feel
guilty about the fact
that you lied
to your mother-in-law
about Christmas plans
and so you decide,
okay,
Chinese New Year,
I'm going to tell her
the truth.
I'm going to be
really nice to her
to make up
for Christmas,
right?
No, no,
maybe you just feel
bad because we are,
I'm proud
or I'm self-righteous.
Repentance sees
the ugliness of sin
such that it changes
not only my mind,
it changes the way
I see life.
It causes an anxiety
in my heart
to say this is not right
and it causes a change
in my orientation
from one way
to the next.
Maybe I can give you
an example
from my life.
Something that happened
in recent,
in the last few years.
there was a situation
where I listened
to a sermon,
an online sermon
of another preacher
from my city
and truth be told,
I didn't think
the sermon was very,
I wasn't that impressed,
I didn't think
it was very good
and,
but
in my self-righteousness
and in my arrogance,
I told myself
that's a terrible sermon
and I told,
I gave myself
all these reasons
why I thought
it was so bad.
He didn't do this
and didn't do this
and he should have done this.
Now,
truth be told,
I might have taken
a different approach,
that's truth,
but my self-righteousness,
my arrogance
was very judgmental.
And then what happened
in the next couple of months,
I happened to have
two conversations
with two different people
where this church
and the approaching
came up in the conversation.
And so the very humble person
that I am
decided to,
tell this person
what I thought.
And so I said,
I listened to their sermon
and I didn't think
they were very good at all
and these were the reasons,
A, B, C, D.
Now,
if I'm honest,
at the time
that that was happening,
I think the Holy Spirit
is probably at work
in my heart,
saying,
Kevin,
this is not honoring me,
this is not good.
But I quickly shut that out
because I didn't want
to listen to him
because I wanted
to feel better
about myself.
Until a few months later,
I read a book
by an English pastor
from 300 years ago
called Richard Baxter.
And in this book,
he talks about
how proud ministers can be,
pastors can be.
And he gives a whole lot
of things
and he says,
in fact,
pastors can be so proud
that sometimes
they'll even speak badly
about other pastors
to make themselves
feel better about themselves.
And when I read that,
I was absolutely devastated.
I remember lying
in my bed at night
just weeping
at the realization
of who I was
and what I'd done.
That another pastor
in the city
that I could go
and talk behind his back
and slander him
to make myself
feel better
about myself.
And so,
over the next few weeks,
I had to call
those two people
that I had conversations with
and say,
I'm so sorry
that I included you
in my sin.
Won't you please
forgive me
and I need to make it right.
And then I had to
have a very awkward coffee
with this pastor
and sit across the table,
tears streaming down my face
and say,
I'm so sorry
for what I've done.
This is what I've done
and this is what
I've said about you.
And please,
will you forgive me?
I don't want to be
that kind of person.
Now,
to be honest,
on the one hand,
it wasn't an easy thing to do.
I wasn't looking forward to it.
Part of me wanted
to just confess to Jesus
in my room
and get on with it
and just leave it there.
But I knew
that I couldn't hold
on to my pride.
I couldn't hold on
to my honor
and repent honestly
at the same time.
And so part of me
didn't want to do it.
But on the other hand,
if I'm honest,
I couldn't wait to do it.
And the reason was
because my awareness
of my sin
was like a weight
on my shoulders.
It had become
disgusting in my mouth.
And as I saw
the wonder of Jesus
and the beauty of truth
and the horror
of my sin,
what I once enjoyed
putting down
somebody else
and I now
saw as disgusting
and what I once
loathed or hated,
the idea of me
being humbled,
suddenly looked
beautiful
and liberating
liberating
and freeing.
And so as I
sat down with him,
tears streaming
down my face,
telling him what I'd done,
asking him to forgive me,
I felt free.
I felt liberated.
It was the most
beautiful thing.
Now friends,
I tell you that
not because I'm a hero
that's got it right.
I tell you that
because I'm a sinner
that gets it wrong
time and time
and time again.
But I tell you that
because the more
I grow as a Christian,
the more I realize
how sinful I am
and the more beautiful
God's grace looks
and the more liberating
and wonderful
repentance looks.
And I remember
the words of
John Newton
who was a former
slave trader.
He said this,
the older I get
my memory is fading
but two things
I remember,
I am a great sinner
and Christ is a great
savior.
Charles Spurgeon
said this,
we spoke about earlier,
repentance is the discovery
of the evil of sin.
It's a grieving
that we've committed it
and it's a resolution
to forsake it.
It's a change of mind
so deep
and so practical
that it causes you
to hate what you once loved
and to love
what you once hate.
And we see this
in our passage today.
In our passage
that we read
we actually see an example
of genuine repentance
and example of
fraudulent repentance.
Look at verse 5 and 6
with me
for an example
of real repentance.
John is preaching,
he's crying in the wilderness,
repent for the kingdom
of heaven is here.
And then verse 5
says this,
when Jerusalem
and all Judea
and all the region
about the Jordan
were going out to him
and they were baptized
by him
in the river Jordan
confessing their sins.
So,
what does real repentance
look like?
Well the first thing we see
involves confessing
their sins.
Now the passage,
it seems like
they weren't just
confessing their sins
to themselves
or to Jesus,
they were actually
confessing it to John
or maybe to one another.
They were coming to John
saying,
John,
can I be honest?
This is what's happened.
This is what I've done.
This is where I've gone
my own way.
And John says,
hey,
you confessed your sin.
Wonderful brother.
Let's put that right.
And he stands with him.
Friends,
one of the marks
of genuine repentance
is that we cannot
hold on to our honor,
hold on to our pride,
and repent honestly
at the same time.
Genuine repentance
means such a deep
and radical hatred
for what once
was part of our lives,
what we once enjoyed,
that we now are
willing to lose face,
even lose honor
in order to forsake it.
Remember,
Israel here
is an honor and shame culture
just as much as Hong Kong.
They were very concerned
about saving face,
about not damaging
the family name,
the family reputation,
but their eyes are open
to seeing what
they once were doing.
And they come to John,
they say,
John,
I want to come clean.
This is what's happened.
It involves confession of sin.
But what's more,
look at what happens here.
They get baptized.
Now the word baptism
means to immerse
or to dunk
or to drown something
in water.
It's a public picture
or demonstration
of what happens
when someone becomes
a Christian.
So here are these people,
they come to John
and they say,
John,
this is what we've done.
We want to be put
right with him.
And John says,
let's baptize you.
Let's immerse you
in water as a picture
that your old life,
your old disposition,
your old orientation
is dead
and buried
and in the grave.
And as you come up,
it's a picture
of your new life.
You've changed direction.
You were this person,
you're now this person.
You were this person,
you're now alive
and a new person again.
It's a radical picture
of so completely
turning away
from the old life
of self-righteousness
and self-sufficiency,
wanting to be
their own God,
that they make
a public picture
saying,
that old life
is dead.
I'm a new person
in Christ.
You see that?
Friends,
let me ask you
this question.
What do you think
our church
would look like?
What do you think
our CGs
would look like
if we were a community
marked by genuine repentance?
I'll tell you
what it won't look like.
It won't look like
a group of people
that are always
putting their best foot forward.
It won't look like
a church where
we all pretend
that we've got it
all together.
Because friends,
we don't have it
all together.
We're broken.
We're sinners.
But you know
what I think
it will look like?
I think it'll look like
a community
of gentleness,
a community
of grace,
a community
of forgiveness.
Count intuitively,
it'll look like
a community
full of non-judgmentalism
because we all
know that we're broken.
There's no room
for us to be judgmental
and look down
our nose at others.
I think it'll be
a community
that is marked
by unbelievable
humility
and sincerity.
I think it'll be
a community
that's marked
by tears.
Tears of sadness
at the horror of sin,
but tears of joy
at restoration
and healing
and repentance.
And I think it'll be
marked by
supernatural power,
supernatural life,
and supernatural freedom.
Because in Acts chapter 3,
when Peter's preaching,
he says,
repent,
brothers and sisters,
turn back,
that your sins
may be blotted out,
that times of refreshing
and times of healing
may come upon you.
Friends,
that's what happens
when we turn to God.
There's a supernatural freedom
and refreshing
and life
that is given.
May we be such a church
as that.
But then we see here
in verse 7 to 9,
look at me,
look with me
at this passage.
We see an example
of fake repentance
or religious repentance.
Matthew says that
when many,
when they saw,
when John saw
the Pharisees
and the Sadducees
coming to his baptism,
he said to them,
you brood of vipers,
who warned you
to flee from the wrath
to come?
Keep fruit
and bearing with repentance.
And don't say to yourselves,
oh, we find
we've got Abraham
as our father.
God is able to
raise up children
of Abraham
from these very stones.
Now what's going on here
is that John,
this rough around
the edges guy,
is getting a bit
of a crowd.
People are starting
to hear about him
and people are leaving
the city to go out
to the wilderness
to listen to him.
Now the religious leaders,
they can't just stay
in the city
while everyone's
flocking out
to go and listen
to what John is saying.
They better get
to the picture
and go and find out
what's happening.
And so they go out
into the wilderness
and they're watching
what's happening
and they're seeing
their entire congregations
are confessing
their sins.
They're getting baptized.
They're rejoicing
and celebrating in God.
And the religious leaders
are thinking,
gee, it's a little embarrassing
if we're just standing
on the side watching.
We better get involved.
But they don't want
to get involved.
And so they shuffle along
and they say,
just grin and bear it.
Join the queue.
Get baptized.
It'll just take five minutes
and we'll be back
on our way.
And so they shuffle along
and they join the queue
and they say,
yes, we too want
to get baptized, John.
But John sees
through the hypocrisy.
And so what does he do?
He says,
you guys are being deceptive.
You like snakes, right?
Not a very complimentary
thing to say
to the religious leaders.
He says,
who warned you
to flee from the wrath
that's coming?
Now, I was being sarcastic
because they're not really
fleeing from anything.
They're not,
they're just putting up
a pretense, right?
Friends,
religious repentance,
by that I mean
repentance which is not
born out of
seeing the horror of sin
and the wonder
of the gospel.
religious repentance
is always marked
by three things.
By selfishness,
by self-righteousness
and by defensiveness.
In other words,
we find a way
to justify ourselves.
We tell ourselves
there's a reason
why we don't really
need to repent
or why we fine.
Look at what they do.
They say,
oh, it's fine.
We are children of Abraham.
Because we are good Jews,
it'll be fine.
We don't need
to really repent.
Think about what Adam
and Eve did in the garden, right?
God comes to Adam
and says,
Adam, what happened here?
And he says,
Eve made me do it.
Eve, what happened here?
The snake made me do it.
What happens when
Samuel comes to Saul
in the Old Testament?
Saul says,
oh, well,
I was going to wait for you
but you took so long
I just couldn't wait
any longer.
Self-righteousness,
selfishness,
defensiveness.
And that's what we see
happening here.
John says that
if they genuinely repent,
there'll be fruit of it.
There'll be a humility.
There'll be a brokenness.
There'll be a distaste
for sin
and a longing for truth.
There'll be a gentleness
and a sincerity,
a delighting in the things of God.
Except rather than forsaking
their pride
and their honor,
here these people
are holding on to their pride.
They're holding on to their honor.
They are saving face.
They don't want to look
disrespectful before others.
Rather than letting God
be their God,
they still want to be
their own God.
And the consequences
are disastrous.
Because look at verse 10.
John says,
even now the axe
is laid at the root
of the tree.
Every tree that does
not bear fruit
is cut down
and it's thrown
into the fire.
Friends,
can I say this
as gently as possible?
It is possible
for us to
deceive our bosses.
It is possible
for us to deceive
the government officials.
It's even possible
for us to deceive
our spouses.
But friends,
we cannot dodge God.
God will never be able
to deceive him.
God looks into
the reality of things.
And John gives
a stern warning here.
He says,
the axe is ready.
It's laying weight.
And every tree
that doesn't bear fruit
is going to be thrown
ultimately
in the fire.
Now,
why is this
all so important?
Why are we making
such a big deal
of this?
Well,
up until now,
everything John
has been saying
has been really important.
Remember,
this is central
not only to John,
this is central
to Jesus
and the New Testament
and in fact
the whole Bible.
It's really important
but
it's not the most
important thing.
In other words,
in some ways,
repentance
is so important
but in other ways,
it's just the doorway.
It's just the house keys.
It's just the entrance hall
into what is really important.
In other words,
it's absolutely vital
that we practice
what Jesus and the Bible
say when they call us
to repentance
but this mustn't become
the focus of the church
as if we go around
saying to our brothers
and sisters,
have you repented today,
brother?
Have you repented today?
It's so important
but it's not the most
important thing.
How do we know?
Well,
two things that John
tells us here.
Look at what he says
in verse 2.
Repent.
Why?
For the king
and his kingdom
are here.
Okay?
Secondly,
look at what he says
in verse 11.
He says,
I baptize you with water
for repentance
but there is one
coming after me,
he who is mightier
than I,
who is infinitely
more worthy
than I am
and he will baptize you
with the Holy Spirit
and with fire.
You see why repentance
is so important?
Because it's the gateway,
it's the entrance hall,
it's the house keys
to the ultimate thing
which is knowing
and loving
and savoring
and walking
with the king,
with King Jesus.
Friends,
the story of the Bible
is not about how
religious
we should be.
It's about how
wonderful King Jesus is.
So great and glorious
is this king
that he's come
not to introduce
a new religious system,
not to introduce
a religion,
he's come not to even
make us feel bad
about ourselves,
he's come to bring us
into his family,
he's come to welcome us
into his kingdom.
Friends,
every human being
is born into sin.
We cannot help but sin.
We are children
of Adam and Eve
and our heart's disposition
is against God
and towards ourselves.
We've rebelled against God,
we've wanted to be
our own God
and we've hurt ourselves,
we've hurt one another,
we've dishonored God
and God could have said,
fine,
have things your way
and the consequence
is eternal fire.
But God didn't do that.
He came,
He came to rescue us,
He came to deliver us,
He came to save us,
He came to pardon our sin.
Not only that,
He came to bring us
back to His family,
He came to make rebels
His children,
He came to make sinners
like me and you
sons and daughters.
Christ the King
came to rescue us
from the gutter of sin
and to bring us back
into His family
with God as our King
and we as His beloved children.
And John says,
I baptize you with water
for repentance
but there is one
coming after me
and He is what it's all about
and He will baptize you
with fire and the Holy Spirit.
He says,
this one who's coming,
He's infinitely mightier
than I could ever be.
This one who's coming,
He's infinitely more worthy
than I could ever be.
You might know this
but in John's day,
a disciple,
the way a disciple
treated his rabbi
is the same
that a way a slave
treats his master.
They were expected
to do the same thing.
What a slave does
for his master,
a disciple does
for his rabbi
except one thing.
There's one thing
that a disciple
never had to do
for their rabbi
and that was carry
their smelly shoes.
That was considered
one level too low,
too humiliating.
John says this,
so worthy,
so glorious,
so beautiful
is this King
that even if he were
to ask me
to carry his smelly shoes,
I wouldn't even consider
myself worthy enough
to be after the task.
John is saying
what he's been saying
all along.
I am nothing
compared to this one.
Who he is
and what he does
is infinitely more important
than who I am
and what I do.
I am the voice.
He is the King.
I am temporary.
He is eternal.
I must decrease.
He must increase.
I am man.
He is God.
And friends,
that's why repentance
is so important.
Not so that we can be
super Christians
who show how serious
and how religious
and how dedicated we are,
but so that we can know
the King.
We can walk in relationship
with the King.
Friends,
baptism and repentance
are important,
but in and of themselves,
they are nothing.
They are utterly meaningless
unless they lead you
to knowing,
walking with,
delighting,
and enjoying,
and glorifying
in God the King
and Christ your Savior.
Fiona read it to us earlier,
but Psalm 51,
David has sinned.
He's committed adultery
with Bathsheba.
He's then gone
and murdered Bathsheba's husband
so that he can marry her,
and he's made aware
of his sin.
And he doesn't just say,
oh God,
I'm such a sinner.
Please put things right again.
The thing that David misses
is the sweet communion
with the living God.
What grieves his heart
is that relationship
with the King,
with Christ,
with the glorious
and infinitely worthy God
has been broken.
And so listen to his prayer.
He says,
God,
let me hear joy
and gladness again.
Let the bones
that have been broken
rejoice.
God,
do not hide
your face from me
any longer.
Create in me
a clean heart,
God.
Renew what is right
within me.
Do not cast me away
from your presence
any longer.
And do not take
your Holy Spirit
from me.
This is what John says.
John says,
I've come to baptize you
for repentance,
but there is one
coming after me,
and he will baptize you
with the Holy Spirit
and with fire.
But what does it mean?
Well,
it means a whole bunch
of things,
but two things in particular.
It means being immersed,
being dunked,
being soaked,
being drowned
in the life
and the presence
of the eternal God.
Remember,
that's what baptism means.
It means to drown something.
John says that
when Jesus baptizes you
in the Holy Spirit,
he will so radically
pour out his Holy Spirit
upon your life
that no area
of your life
will be unaffected.
Think about
if you get baptized,
right?
You can't get baptized
in the pool outside
and say,
just,
I don't want my right side
of my body
to be wet,
please,
just the left side
of my body,
right?
Friends,
when the Holy Spirit,
when you get baptized
in the Holy Spirit,
God touches
every area of your life,
your financial life,
your sexual life,
your vocational life,
your relational life,
your emotional life.
Jesus says
that when he comes,
he will douse you,
he will drown you
in the life
and the power
of the living God.
John Piper put it like this,
baptizing with the Holy Spirit
and baptizing water
is the difference
between a lightning bolt
and a firefly.
It's the difference
between a real person
and a photograph,
between a marriage
and a wedding ring,
between a real life birth
and the delivery ward
and a birth certificate.
And that's what Jesus is saying,
that when he comes
with repentance,
leads us to this encounter
that changes our lives forever
with the living God.
But then secondly,
he says,
I'll baptize you
with fire.
It means we'll be filled
with God's purifying,
cleansing power.
It means God
actually empowering us
to turn from our sin
which we hate
and empowering us
to turn to life
which we love.
Turning from sin
which kills us
and full of darkness
to life and purity
and lives of holiness.
Friends,
Christians are not only
those that are saved
by the blood of Jesus
for heaven.
Christians are those
who are made ready
for heaven
by the Spirit of Christ.
And when God
comes on his people,
that's the one
that he changes us.
He makes us more like Jesus.
He baptizes us
with his purifying fire.
John said this,
I come to baptize you
with water
but there is one
coming after me
who will baptize you.
He will baptize you
with the Holy Spirit
and with fire.
And that's why
he calls us
to repentance.
Now,
let's land with this.
I want to land with
three very practical
applications
last three minutes.
Application number one.
If you're here this morning
and you're not a Christian,
maybe you're still
a spiritual seeker,
maybe you're trying
to make sense
of the Bible
and you're not yet
convinced about Jesus.
This is the first
application for you.
Can I gently
and yet very clearly
urge you
and implore you
to take seriously
John's words
and Jesus' words
to come to him
in repentance?
Friends,
turning from sin
and turning to the living God
is the only way
to salvation
and it's the only way
to knowing
and encountering
the one true living God.
your giving money
to the poor
won't help you a bit.
Your religious observation
and dedication
won't help you a bit.
Your moral
and ethical endeavors
won't help you
a single bit.
The only way
to come to know
the one true living God
is to come to him
in sincerity,
humility,
and repentance.
And the good news is
he longs to give it to you.
That's why Jesus came.
He loves you so much
that he wants to give it to you.
He loves you so much
he died on the cross
to give it to you.
Friends,
come to him
this morning.
Let today be the day
that he turns your life around.
Let today be the day
that he baptizes you
with power
on the Holy Spirit.
Friends,
maybe some of us here
this morning
think we're Christians,
but maybe we're not.
Can I ask you
to observe yourself?
Can I ask you
to really examine
whether you truly are saved?
Test the genuineness
of your repentance?
Is it marked
by selfishness
and self-righteousness?
Is it marked
by defensiveness
and excuses?
Friends,
come to him.
Come to Jesus.
Come to the one
who died on the cross
for you,
but come to the one
who can give you
true life
and salvation.
That's the first application.
Second application
is this.
For those of us
that are Christians,
do we think
that repentance
is something
we did once upon a time
and we've moved on from?
Or do we realize
it's a daily endeavor?
Martin Luther,
the great reforming monk
said it like this.
He said,
the entire life
of believers
should be marked
by repentance.
In other words,
the life of a Christian
is a life
that's continually marked
by turning from one
and turning to the other.
Turning from death
and turning to life.
Turning from me
and turning towards God.
Turning from self-sufficiency
and turning to God dependency.
Turning to align myself
with the truth
of who God is.
Friends,
every day we should wake up
and say,
Christ,
have your way in my life.
Friends,
have you repented recently?
For those of us
that are Christians,
let us be a mark
of our life.
And then thirdly
and finally,
for those of us
that are Christians,
let us prepare the way
like John the Baptist.
Friends,
the cities of Asia
are filled
with literally
billions of people
that do not know
the life-giving water
of the living God.
Our cities are filled
with billions of people
who have never encountered
heaven and earth's true king.
Who have never come
to know the good news
of his rescue plan
for salvation.
Billions of people
who have never encountered
the life and the love
of Jesus.
They've never known
that his upside-down kingdom
is the true kingdom.
The everlasting kingdom.
The kingdom that never ends.
They've never met
the one who is infinitely mighty
and infinitely worthy.
Friends,
our cities are full of people
that have never been baptized
in his love
and the Holy Spirit
and with fire.
Friends,
Jesus says he stands
ready to separate
those that are his
from those that are not.
He sends us out
with good news
that the king
and the kingdom
are at hand
and therefore,
we graciously
and gently
and winsomely
but urgently
call our brothers
and sisters,
our fellow Hong Kongers,
to come
and encounter
King Jesus.
John said this,
I baptize you with water
for the repentance of sin
but there is one
coming after me,
the true king.
He is infinitely
mightier than I,
he is infinitely
more worthy
and holy than I
and he will baptize you
with power,
with the Holy Spirit
and with fire.
Let's come to him
now.