Read the word.
Teach the word.
Preach the word.
- 1 Timothy 4:13
Of all the places that Jesus could have gone to call His apostles, He went to Galilee of the Gentiles and told fishermen to “Follow Me”. Galilee is not the place and fishermen are not the people you might expect God would select to change the world—and yet that is exactly the reason Jesus chose that place and those people!
God chooses the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chooses the common and discarded things of this world so that no one can boast before Him. Jesus took these forgettable men from a forgettable place and spent time with them. They listened to His preaching and teaching. They heeded His warnings and followed in His way. And in doing so, they were changed forever! Jesus can do the same with you! He has called you to be with Him, to learn of Him, and to learn from Him. Spend time with Him—listen to His preaching and teaching, heed His warnings and following in His way. Spend time benefitting from His leading according to the mighty working of the Holy Spirit. After spending time with Jesus, you will be different! Light and life will have come where there once was darkness and death!
As we continue our study of the life of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew, we will see Him preaching, teaching, and warning—all according to the working of the Holy Spirit. And Jesus starts His earthly ministry in the unlikeliest of places—Nazareth and Galilee.
In the eyes of the religious elite of the day, these were not destinations to travel to or places to be proud of. And yet, these places were just right for Jesus to begin His public ministry and recruit His followers—for God uses the foolish, the forsaken, and the forgotten things to shame the strong and bring glory to Himself (1 Corinthians 1:27). Watch our study of Matthew 4:12-25 as we consider the beginnings of Jesus’ earthly ministry. Satan often turns times of testing into times of temptation by enticing us to take matters into our own hands and do the Lord’s work in our own way. But Jesus shows us how we can fight by faith to resist temptation.
To fight by faith we need the Holy Spirit, for we cannot rely on our strength alone to resist temptation. God promised that the Holy Spirit would bring back to remembrance all that He has said to us (John 14:26). The more you allow God to speak to you by reading His word, the more opportunity you give the Holy Spirit to bring back to remembrance all that He has said to you at just the right time in your time of need. That brings us to the next critical component in fighting by faith—the word of God. A specific scripture for a specific temptation is a wise way to fight by faith. The Lord is calling us to do the same. We can search the scriptures for something specific that applies to a trial or temptation so that when that trial or temptation comes, we are ready to fight by faith. Respond out loud if you have to! It might seem a little freaky, but that pales in comparison to how free you will be as you resist the devil. Finally, we need to take action when we fight by faith. James 4:7 says, “Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.” 1 Peter 5:8 says, “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.” When you face temptation, resist the devil, take your stand, and fight by faith!
In the book of Hebrews, we read that “…we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.” (Hebrews 4:15). Jesus was tempted in every way that we are tempted. In many ways, His temptations were much, much worse—and yet, He did not sin.
In Matthew 4, we read of three temptations Jesus faced and see Him emerge victorious and unstained by sin. But that does not mean He was unaffected by the human experience. His trial of temptation has a profound effect on His life and ministry. Watch our study of Matthew 4:1-11 as we consider how Jesus resisted temptation by fighting by faith and how His experience of being tempted affected His life and ministry. Thirty years of purposeful purity prepared John for one moment. The years of preparation poured over into preaching as he prepared the people for their Messiah. And the people responded—thousands came from all over to hear his preaching and recognized their sin and need for repentance.
The same happened to John when Jesus arrived. In the presence of the sinless Jesus, John could not compute how he would baptize Jesus. So John prevented it from happening (Matthew 3:14). The original word translated as ‘prevent’ means to utterly prohibit or forbid. From John’s perspective, Jesus’ request to be baptized is backward—if anyone needs baptizing between them, it's John. But Jesus put John’s mind at ease. He knew what John needed to hear—“Permit it to be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” (Matthew 3:15) This was all that John ever wanted—righteousness. He wanted to prepare the way for the public, earthly ministry of The King of The Kingdom that was at hand. What better way to start than by being baptized? In doing so, Jesus acknowledged the ministry of John and publicly identified with sinful humanity, whom He came to save.
John the Baptist’s whole life and ministry was in preparation for the public ministry of Jesus—The Messiah. With each passing day of John’s life, he knew that Jesus would be coming at any moment. And so, he faithfully prepared the people to be prepared for the Lord’s arrival. The King of the kingdom that is at hand would be coming very soon!
And then…that day came. Watch our study in Matthew 3:13-17 as we paused and considered the significance of the Uncreated Creator not only visiting humanity in the frailty of humanity, but also beginning His earthly ministry. John had a very unique call on his life. In order to fulfill that call, he needed to live a unique life. His entire life was preparation to be the preparation for the Messiah. To effectively prepare the way, he needed to be pure.
More than any man had ever before, John pursued purity. He pursued God in the solitude of the wilderness, surviving on wild honey and locusts. Thirty years of purity and prayer, spending time with God thinking of nothing else—until one day, the Lord told him to speak: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!” The sound of that message resounded in the hearts of thousands from the area who came to him in the desert to confess their sins and be baptized, desperately wondering what would happen next. John told them what to expect: the Messiah is approaching. He would baptize also, but not by submerging in water. He would submerge you, saturate you, and transform you in and by the Holy Spirit. His ministry would be the most important. Are you ready? Is your heart ready? He will be here any second. Repent—change your mind about your sin and let it go. Get your heart ready to receive what He is going to give. He is coming!
In Matthew 3, two of the most influential men and most influential ministers in human history came to a crossroads. John’s was the greatest man to be born up to that point—and his ministry was coming to an end. Jesus was the greatest Man to ever be born—and His earthly ministry was just starting.
In order to understand all that was happening, we have to go back to a time before Jesus and John were born—to the ancient prophecies that foretold their arrival. This past Sunday, we considered the backstory of John the Baptist—the real history of this real person—so that we might appreciate the scripture that we will be studying in weeks to come. Repentance isn’t something you must do before you can come to God. Repentance is what coming to God looks like. Repenting of sin is turning from sin and turning to God. Turning to God means you are turning from sin.
Think of it this way—if I say I’m driving today to Duluth, I may not also say that I’m leaving St. Cloud and driving to Duluth. But the only way I can drive to Duluth is to leave St. Cloud. Similarly, the only way I can turn to the Lord is to turn away from sin. This is repentance. This is what leaving sin and coming to God looks like. Does that mean that we will never sin again or that we won’t struggle with it? No. But it does mean that we never again desire to give our loyalty, time, attention, or devotion to sin. We now want to give God all of our loyalty, time, attention, and devotion. He will not leave us helpless in our battle with sin—quite the contrary. He has sent His Holy Spirit to help us by baptizing and burning away sin. The pain of holding on to sin is so much more than the pain of God’s help to release us from that sin. God’s holy fire burns away the sin in our hearts so that the awful impurities rise to the surface to be removed. Then God can see His reflection in a heart purely and wholly His.
In Matthew 3, we read about one man in the wilderness with one singular purpose—to prepare the way of The Lord.
His name was John, and at first glance, he might seem like an odd man. After all, he wore camel’s hair and ate honey and locust. But he had an important message to fulfill his purpose. What was his message to prepare us for The King of The Kingdom that was at hand? What was the message that would prepare us to receive Jesus? “Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!” This past Sunday, we considered John the Baptist—the man God called to prepare the way for The Messiah in our study of Matthew 3:1-12. What does it mean to repent? Is it to feel sorry for your sin? Or to change your mind about sin? You could do both—and still not truly repent of your sin.
If you only feel sorry for your sin (or just sorry that you got caught in sin), and even acknowledge that it is sin, you cannot just declare repentance and then continue in that sin. True repentance is not merely a simple statement, a feeling sorry, or an acknowlement of wrong. It includes those things, but it is also turning away from your sin—the complete ceasing of that sin, renouncing of that sin, and having a humble hatred that sin. Repentance is not something that only happens at the moment of conversion. As Jesus gently and persistently reveals more and more of what He wants to remove from our lives, we respond humbly in genuine repentance. When we do, He replaces that sin with new and wonderful life-giving holy habits. This hopefully happens again and again as we follow Jesus and become more aware of sin in our lives.
After speaking to His people through the prophet Malachi, God was silent for 400 years. The last thing He told them was that He would send a man who would help them prepare for the coming Messiah by turning their hearts to the things of the Lord.
That man was John the Baptist—the last of the Old Covenant prophets, even though his life and ministry is recorded in the New Testament. John had a word from the Lord, the first word spoken by God to His people in 400 years. What was that first word after centuries of silence? Repent! But what does repent mean? And why is repentance important to the Lord? We considered these questions as we studied the first two verses of Matthew 3. The town of Nazareth is where Jesus grew up. It was an unimportant country town with a reputation for nothing good. ‘Netzer’ is the Hebrew word that Nazareth comes from. It is a term of contempt, meaning ‘a sprout in the middle of death’. Netzer-eth. Jesus was called a Netzer-ene, dismissed as just another insignificant life surrounded by nothingness—an insignificant life surrounded by death. And yet, Jesus would be, was, and always will be, the giver of life. Jesus rules, reigns, and saves to the uttermost by the power of an indestructible life.
We see this concept in Isaiah 6, when God asks, “Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?” Isaiah says, “Here am I! Send me!” Then God describes what Isaiah’s ministry will look like: “You are going to go to people who have eyes but refuse to see ears but refuse to hear hearts that refuse to repent that they might turn to Me and be healed.” At this point, Isaiah asks an honest question: “How long?” God tells him the length of his ministry—until there is so much death and destruction due to sin it will be like an oak tree that has been cut down and is now a decaying stump. But, God tells Isaiah, in the middle of that stump, surrounded by death, will be My holy seed, My sprout—My Netzer, My Son. This describes the time surrounding the life of Jesus—death and destruction. Israel was no longer sovereign. Cut down, they were ruled and reigned by Rome as a consequence for their sin. They were just a stump, reeling from the rot caused by Herod. And yet this little life persisted. This little life surrounded by death was The Author of Life, who would one day lay down his life for the worst of sinners. Whether you are a vile and violent sinner like Herod or a religious sinner like Saul, who would be Paul, Jesus came to save you. All you need do is look to Him and be healed! |
From Pastor Dom...When I first gave my life to Jesus, there were friends in my life who helped me to grow in my understanding of God, through His word, and for those friends Archives
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Strengthened by grace is the Bible Teaching ministry of Pastor Dominic Dinger.©2022 - All rights reserved.
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