The Necessity of Repentance

Sermon Transcript

I’ve lived in Philadelphia for 12 years now and I’m starting to pick up on things, but I’m not from here. And people who are from Philly tend to take pride in that; they have certain ways of telling who is from Philly and who isn’t. So I remember early on in my time here calling the steps in front of my house my stoop, and one of the old ladies in my neighborhood told me “they” don’t call it the stoop—they call it the steps, “you all” call it the stoop—and what she meant was “you all” who aren’t from Philly. I learned later that true Philadelphians don’t talk about Girard Avenue—they call it Girahd Avenue. I remember the community meeting I was at when one Philadelphia native pointed out that we don’t need another gas station because we already got one on 11^th and Girahd, and another on 9^th and Girahd, and yet another on 5^th and Girahd. And we all know no one from Philadelphia is allowed to be a Cowboys fan. If you’re from Dallas you can be forgiven, but if you’re from Philly, that’s a violation.

 

Terminology, accents, sports teams—these things characterize true Philadelphians. What characterizes true Christians, though? Who are God’s people, really? As we come to Luke chapter 3 this morning, we’re reading about a time in history when that answer was obvious to many in the region in which Jesus Christ lived: God’s people are the Jews, the descendants of Abraham. So when God promises to save his people, guess who he’s promising to save, they thought? The Jews, all the descendants of Abraham. But in this passage, the word of God comes to a man named John, a man we’ve met before if you’ve been with us through earlier sections of Luke, and John starts calling Jews to repent. He says something in them needs to change, and by pointing out that something in them needed to change, God was pointing out that something in all of us needs to change if we are to be his people. And that’s because God’s people are repentant people. God’s people are not characterized by terminology, accents, or sports teams. God’s people are characterized by repentance. And we’ll see that in this passage as we see that repentant people are ready, repentant people are fruitful, Jesus will only save repentant people, and unrepentance only gets worse.

 

Repentant people are ready

 

Luke begins this passage in a way similar to how he began the story of Jesus’ birth, with a detailed timestamp of when the events took place, that puts them in about the year AD 28. As Jesus’ birth was a new beginning, so the timestamp here marks a new beginning, the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry, which began not with Jesus directly, but with John. We read in verse 2 that at this time, the word of God came to him. Bear in mind that the list of leaders who mark the date are not godly rulers. God’s people were not in power, and in this world that is typically the case. That can lead Christians to despair; when you consider the amount of wickedness even just in our city, let’s not forget that it was in a similar, and perhaps even worse circumstance, that the word of God came, not to one of those influential leaders, but to an obscure prophet living in the wilderness: John the son of Zechariah. Let’s pray for the preaching of God’s word in our church and the other churches of this city to bear fruit and multiply. Let’s pray for the word of God to come to more men in this city who we can send and support in the preaching of that word, for as in ancient times, so now: The revival of true religion, the kind that pleases God and brings blessing to a region, comes through a revival of true preaching.

 

And we can see in verse 3 the word that John proclaimed: A baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. This John is sometimes called John the Baptist for this reason: he proclaimed a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. He proclaimed the good news that your sins could be forgiven! And he told people what response God required of them to receive that forgiveness: A baptism of repentance. To baptize someone was to immerse them in water, and so the response John was calling for from those who wanted the forgiveness of their sins was to come and be immersed in water as a public profession of their repentance. To go through the ritual of baptism without repenting would not be an obedient response to that word, and we’ll talk more about that in a moment. But it also bears mentioning at this point that to claim to repent while refusing to get baptized would not be an obedient response to that word. And finally, we can see here another reason that baptism cannot be administered to infants: Since baptism itself is an act that signifies a person’s repentance, and the infant is not active in their baptism, an infant baptism is no baptism at all. As we can see in verse 7 of our text, all those getting baptized are those that came out to be baptized by him. They were active in it, they came; none were brought to be baptized.

 

Baptism and repentance are clearly linked here, but they aren’t the same thing. That baptism is to immerse someone in water is clear from the word’s original meaning; what about repentance? The word behind it comes from two Greek words that meant a “change of mind,” so it is an internal act, unlike baptism. But the mind in the Bible is more than just the center of cognition; like the heart, it refers more to the center of the whole person. To change your mind, then, is to change the orientation of your life, and repentance in particular in the way John is talking about is to change the orientation of your life away from sin and toward God. To call people to repent is to call them to something much more than typical New Years’ Resolution material—spend less time on your phone, get to church a bit more often, start eating healthier. To call people to repent is to call them to a total transformation of their lives from a life that is built on sin to a life that is built on God. Baptism signifies this: You go into the water one person (a person bent on sin), you leave that person dead in the water, and then you come out a cleansed, new person.

 

Now why would this be the message that God wanted John to proclaim? Verses 4-6 tell us that it was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah, which spoke of a voice crying out in the wilderness to prepare the way of the Lord, and ends with this announcement that all flesh will see his salvation. In other words, John came first to prepare the people for the coming of the Lord, who was coming to bring salvation—the forgiveness of their sins. And how would the people be prepared for his coming? A baptism of repentance. Repentant people are ready people. Repentant people are ready for the coming of the Lord and his salvation. If the people in the region around the Jordan had continued in rebellion against God, then even when God came to bring salvation, they wouldn’t have wanted him! They wouldn’t have been ready for him.

 

I was once explaining to an unbelieving friend what Christians believe will happen in the end: Jesus will return, and as he rose from the dead, he will raise all the dead from their tombs. And he said, “Wow; that’d be awesome if it were true.” But if you aren’t repenting when that day comes, it won’t be awesome for you, and you can’t live an unrepentant life now and then just try to repent on that day. At that point it will be too late. You have this life, and this life only, to repent. So are you ready for that day? How can you be? You can be by repenting. Did you catch in verse 5 how it says part of this preparing the way of the Lord is that every mountain and hill shall be made low? Repentance brings you low, because repentance means admitting that you aren’t just an imperfect person who needs some improvement; repentance means admitting that you’re a sinful person who needs a total reorientation of your life away from sin and self and toward God. It doesn’t mean everything you’ve ever done is in itself sinful; if you’re already kind to your neighbor, repentance won’t mean becoming unkind to your neighbor. But repentance means recognizing that even your kindness to your neighbor has been a kindness without reference to God, and one part of a more overarching scheme to be happy and control your life without having to rely on God. Can you really admit that and turn from it? That’s the only way to be ready for his coming.

 

And even once you become a Christian, repentance is the way we remain ready for whatever the Lord has next for us. So you come across a tough passage in the Bible or hear your pastor say something tough in a sermon and you feel some kind of way about it, even though you’re pretty sure he’s getting it from the Bible. If you are a repentant person, though, you can be ready for those moments, because you’re used to thinking that you’re the one who needs to change, not God or his word, and you’re used to turning from how you were thinking and adopting a new way of thinking that aligns with God and his word. You know that to disbelieve or disobey God’s word is to disbelieve or disobey God himself, and you’re used to the idea that you may want to do that, but you’re also used to not acting on it. If the Lord puts you into a new situation that requires a new step of obedience for you: A new job, a new boss, a new marriage, a new child, a new home, a new church, with new challenges that you didn’t know you were signing up for, new good works that God has now prepared in advance for you to walk in, you’re ready to say no to whatever ungodly desires start to bubble up in you in that new situation, and to say yes to the Spirit’s work in you leading you in a godly direction, hard as that direction may feel.

 

Repentant people are ready people; they are ready for the Lord’s coming, and for whatever the Lord has next for them in the meantime. You will ready yourself for whatever you set your hopes for the future on: If what gives you hope for the future is marriage, you prepare yourself for a spouse. If what gives you hope for the future is retirement, you spend a lot of your resources preparing for it. Kids, you know what it’s like to prepare for a birthday or holiday, a musical performance, or a sporting event. But what are you ultimately preparing yourself for? God’s people set their hopes for the future on his coming, and therefore God’s people are a repentant people, because it’s repentance is the way we prepare for his coming. And next we’ll see that repentant people are fruitful people.

 

Repentant people are fruitful

 

So John goes around preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, and what do you know? By verse 7 we read that there were crowds that come out to be baptized by him. This is the kind of thing we pray for, right? Surely John must be head over heels excited to baptize all these crowds! Well let’s look at what he says to them in verse 7: “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” Ok, maybe not exactly what we’d have expected there, but John doesn’t mistake enthusiasm for sincerity. He knows the character of these crowds, and he’s not interested in performing a ritual on them that has no correspondence to that which it signifies: He doesn’t want to baptize them if they aren’t actually repenting, and he wants them to understand what repentance entails! So he tells them in verse 8 to bear fruit in keeping with repentance. This is one reason we don’t do things like spontaneous baptisms in this church—we see it as our responsibility to teach before we baptize, and to do what we can to ensure that those being baptized are actually being baptized as an act of repentance, and not as a mere ritual done in place of repentance. It’s also why we not only don’t baptize infants, but would ordinarily not even baptize young children—we want to do what we can to ensure they understand what they’re signing up for in getting baptized, and to be able to assess the sincerity of their repentance, which is just harder to do the younger the child is.

 

How would you take it if you were in the crowds that day, you were coming to get baptized, the very thing God was saying through John to do, and then you got called a brood of vipers? Well again, if you are repentant, you’d be ready for that. You’d agree with it! Yes, because of my sin I am among the brood of vipers. Listen to how the apostle Paul described all of humanity in Romans 3:9-18 – “What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, 10 as it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one; 11 no one understands; no one seeks for God. 12 All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.” 13  “Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive.” “The venom of asps is under their lips.” 14  “Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.” 15 “Their feet are swift to shed blood; 16 in their paths are ruin and misery, 17 and the way of peace they have not known.” 18 ‘There is no fear of God before their eyes.’” That’s why John can look out on the crowds and call them a brood of vipers. He knows apart from repentance that a brood of vipers is what we all are, and part of repentance is agreeing with God about that: God, apart from your grace, I am not just an imperfect person; I am a wicked, sinful person. It’s an uncomfortable thought, I know, but when the word of God came to John, that’s what he said of the crowds, and when the word of God came to the apostle Paul, that’s what he said of all: None is righteous, no not one. No one does good, not even one, and that’s why there is a wrath to come. Repentance begins by acknowledging that, and acknowledging that God would be totally justified in bringing wrath upon you and the rest of sinful humanity for our viper-like living. If you can’t acknowledge that, you haven’t yet begun to repent.

 

Repentance begins by accepting God’s verdict on our sin, but it doesn’t end there, because true repentance also bears fruit. Repentant people are fruitful people, and we see that in verse 8 when John tells the crowds to bear fruit in keeping with repentance. In other words, don’t just say you’re repenting by getting baptized—actually repent, and demonstrate that not merely with a ritual like baptism, but with a changed life. If repentance is a true change of orientation, a true change of mind, that will show itself in your life. If you’re on the subway going south to the game, and halfway down you say you changed your mind, and you’re going to stay home instead, but then you just stay on the subway, why should anyone believe you? Your actions prove you haven’t really changed your mind. A true change of mind produces a true change of life.

 

But that gets shortcut or counterfeited in two ways this passage points out: A ritual, and a heritage. The ritual in this case is baptism, which apparently the crowds were very interested in doing, but what John is showing us is that it’s possible for someone to participate in that ritual without actually repenting, and in that case, they will not be forgiven of their sins or saved from the wrath to come. And the heritage is the next thing he warns the crowds about. He goes on to say in verse 8 that they should not say to themselves that they have Abraham as their father, because God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. In other words, mere lineage from Abraham is of no saving value in God’s sight. And I warn you as well, 2000 years later, than in every era of the Christian church, a dependence on ritual and heritage have substituted for repentance that bears fruit as the marker of God’s people. Sociologists tell us that there are 1 billion Christians in the world today, but how many of them consider themselves Christians and assume they are safe from the wrath to come because they were baptized, because they take communion, because their parents are Christians, and/or because their church traces its lineage back to the apostles? No matter how unrepentant they are, no matter how fruitless their life is, they take comfort in the familiarity and the longevity of the rituals, while remaining a brood of vipers, and the warning of verse 9 to such is clear: Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. God’s people are not most fundamentally the baptized people, the people with Abraham as their father, the people with the apostles as their father, or the people with Christian parents—God’s people are repentant people.

 

This is why we are careful not only about who we baptize, but who we bring into the membership of our church, and are willing even to remove someone from membership if they prove themselves unrepentant. We want to love everyone, as John did, and we see that the best way to do that is to be clear about what true repentance is, rather than building our unity around shared rituals and heritage. We don’t want to deceive anyone into thinking they’re already saved from the wrath to come when in fact they still need to flee it. We should not deny the legitimate place of ritual and heritage—baptism is a ritual that John proclaimed and performed, it is one Jesus commands us to perform, and we thank God for Abraham, the apostles, and all the saints who have gone before us into glory. That’s all well and good, but we must recognize that the ritual is only rightly administered in conjunction with a repentance that bears fruit, and the heritage is worthless if we do not follow in the footsteps of Abraham and the Christians who have gone before us by bearing fruits in keeping with repentance. As the Anglican bishop J.C. Ryle said of a religion that is built on ritual and heritage: “It is the religion that the natural heart likes, but it is not the religion of God.”

 

What, then, is the religion of God? What does it mean to bear fruits in keeping with repentance? That’s the question John gets next in verse 10. The crowds ask, “What then shall we do?” And his first answer to the crowds is that whoever has two tunics is to share with him who has none, and whoever has food is to do likewise. Then some tax collectors come to be baptized, they ask him what they should do, and he tells them to collect no more than they were authorized to collect. Then the soldiers ask him what they should do, and he tells them to not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and to be content with their wages.

 

Notice the simplicity of these fruits: He doesn’t tell them they have to work miracles, speak in tongues, win everyone in their region to Christ, liquidate their assets, solve global poverty, dismantle systemic injustice, Christianize their culture, or move to the other side of the world. If you’ve got a sweatshirt and a coat, the guy next to you has only a t-shirt, and it’s 30 degrees outside, give him your coat or your sweatshirt. If you’re a tax collector, just collect the taxes—don’t be skimming off the top for yourself. If you’re a soldier, don’t use your weapon or your fighting skills to get your way, and be content with the amount of money you get for your service. Interestingly, he doesn’t even tell the tax collector and soldier they need to leave their job, though tax collectors especially were viewed as wicked by most Jews, because they were employees of the Roman Empire, and collected taxes for that very empire from whom the Jews longed to be free. And the Roman Empire was far from perfect. Gladiator games in which slaves were forced to fight to the death were legal, normal, and a source of entertainment, the sexual exploitation of slaves, even children, was both legal and normal, heads of households could decide whether to let their children live or not, 10-30% of their population was enslaved, and guess what tax collectors did? They collected taxes to fund that empire. You might think John would say then, “You’ve got to quit your post as a tax collector. The whole system is unjust, and if you aren’t actively fighting it, you’re part of the problem,” or “You have to quit and start your own Christian government.” But that’s not what he said. The tax collector could repent and remain a tax collector, the soldier could repent and remain a soldier.

 

A minority of Christians have taught that Christians cannot serve in government because to do so is to be complicit in the evils of worldly governments, but this passage proves that’s not the case. A Christian can be a sincere, repenting Christian today while holding government office, serving in the military, or working as a police officer, even when the government for which they work sometimes does evil things. They must never themselves perpetrate evil, but fighting to defend a nation or arresting someone who broke the law is not inherently evil; in many cases, it’s positively good. Unless your job requires you to sin, like if you sell drugs, work at a strip club, or perform abortions, repentance for you probably won’t mean changing your job. In every circumstance, whatever your employment, your marital status, or your location, there are opportunities for you to bear fruit in keeping with repentance, and they probably aren’t that complicated to find.

 

If you have more than you need, look for ways to be generous. And whatever you have, be content with it. Show up to work on time; stay until your shift ends. Work while you’re on the clock instead of scrolling on your phone. Don’t talk bad about your boss or co-workers behind their back. Tell the truth, even when it makes you look bad. If you work at a grocery store or elsewhere in the food and beverage industry, don’t eat food you haven’t been authorized to eat. Don’t lie about the tips you got. If you own a business, don’t underreport your earnings, and pay your employees a fair wage. If you work in a lab, don’t falsify your research. If you’re a student, don’t cheat on homework or tests. If you’re a police officer, don’t use excessive force, don’t pocket money from arrests. These fruits in keeping with repentance are simple, but they aren’t easy. Our sin nature works against them, and that’s why we need repentance. The sincerity of our repentance will show itself in its fruits; repentant people are fruitful people. And that matters because Jesus will only save repentant people.

 

Jesus will only save repentant people

 

So after hearing all this we read in verse 15 that the people begin to wonder if John himself is the Christ, but John shuts that down quickly. He says he baptizes with water, but after him he says is coming one who is mightier than he, whose sandals he is not worthy to untie, and he will baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire. Then he explains what he means by that: His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire. This is similar to what John said earlier: Though he preached the forgiveness of sins, he said every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Now we see how both the forgiveness of sins, and the throwing into the fire will happen: Through Jesus.

 

When Jesus did come after John, those who were truly repentant were ready, and they received him. And in receiving him, they received the Holy Spirit, through whom their sins were forgiven, and by whom they were transformed into new creatures. What John’s baptism signified and pointed to, they received by faith in Jesus. This also helps complete our understanding of repentance. Repentance admits sin, repentance turns from sin, repentance bears fruit, and repentance receives Jesus. To turn from sin, to start sharing your two tunics with him who has none, but then to reject Christ would be to totally miss the point. That’s not turning from sin to God; that’s turning from sin to morality. That’s resolutionism; not repentance. “From this day forward I will live better” is not repentance. Living better is a fruit of repentance, but repentance turns from sin to God, and receives from God his promised salvation: Jesus. We could say, then, that true repentance is not only turning from sin; it’s turning from our efforts to save ourselves, our efforts to convince God and ourselves that we really are good people, and instead receiving and resting on Jesus Christ alone for salvation. It’s only those who do that whose sins are forgiven, and who receive the promised Holy Spirit.

 

But to those who do not, Jesus will bring fire. Did you know the Bible taught this about Jesus? Note his personal activity in verse 17. A winnowing fork was used at the time after grain was harvested—when grain was harvested, there was the edible grain, called the wheat, and then there was the inedible husk, called the chaff. And the way they were separated is using a large fork, which would scoop up a pile, toss it in the air, and then the wind would blow away the chaff, letting the wheat fall to the floor. So we read in verse 17 that he will come and he will gather the wheat—he will draw the repentant, those who are truly God’s people, to himself. Jesus saves! That’s what you see on billboards, right? But did you ever see this one? Jesus judges! Jesus burns! Because look at where the verse goes next: But the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire. The text even makes clear that this isn’t a temporary fire that purifies you—it’s an unquenchable fire—it’s the fire that never dies, the fire of hell, which subjects those in it to eternal, conscious, torment. The wrath to come is Jesus’ wrath, and it will fall on the unrepentant.

 

But amazingly enough, 2000 years later, it hasn’t yet fallen on all the unrepentant. That’s kind of surprising if you consider what John said in verse 9: Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. John came to prepare the way of the Lord, Jesus is that Lord who came, and John said he would burn the chaff with unquenchable fire. And sure enough, Jesus did come after John, and sure enough, Jesus did send his Holy Spirit on his people, and sure enough, Jesus gathered and still is gathering God’s repentant people to himself from every tribe and language and people and nation. But he hasn’t burned all the chaff with unquenchable fire. Why? Because in his first coming, Jesus came not to pour out God’s wrath; he came to bear God’s wrath, for us who deserved God’s wrath. Why can we flee to him for salvation from the wrath to come? Because Jesus already bore that wrath in our place when he died on the cross for the sins of his people. On the cross he suffered under the wrath of God for the sins we committed, and on the third day he rose again, and received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, who he now pours out on whoever repents and receives him. That’s why repentance is for the forgiveness of sins; Jesus already paid for those sins! And it’s also why those who refuse to repent will face his wrath. If you refuse to receive the one who bore God’s wrath, then you will have to bear God’s wrath, and it is an unquenchable fire.

 

Don’t say to yourself that you were baptized; don’t say to yourself that you prayed a prayer once; don’t say to yourself that your parents are Christians or your uncle is a bishop or you were an altar boy. That’s not what makes up the people of God. Those aren’t the things that separate the wheat from the chaff. God’s people are repentant people, and only repentant people will be saved by Jesus from the wrath to come. Repent, receive Christ, and bear fruit in keeping with repentance, finally because unrepentance only gets worse.

 

Unrepentance only gets worse

 

So John keeps doing his thing verse 18 tells us, preaching good news to the people. God’s salvation has come! Our sins can be forgiven! Jesus does give his Holy Spirit to whoever repents and believes in him, and he will save us from the wrath to come! But it’s the required response that trips people up, that pesky repentance, and it tripped up Herod the Tetrarch. Herod’s name appeared in 3:1, and this is a different Herod from the Herod who ruled the Jews at the time of Jesus’ birth. Instead, this is his son, known to historians as Herod Antipas. This Herod had divorced his wife, and then married his brother’s wife, while his brother was still living, which breaks all kinds of God’s laws. Herod divorcing his own wife was against God’s law, Herod marrying another man’s wife was adultery under God’s law, and God’s law even specifically prohibited marrying your brother’s wife (Lev 20:21). And that’s not the kind of sin you can just fall into either. Like sometimes you know you can hear angry words coming out of your mouth before you even realize it’s happening? That’s not how divorcing your wife and marrying your brother’s wife works. It takes premeditation, and step after step, even legal action, to make that happen, and every step of the way, though having multiple opportunities to repent, Herod stuck it out and married Herodias, his brother’s wife.

 

And it’s not like he didn’t know this was against God’s law. John preached to him just like John preached to everyone else and called him to repent, but Herod didn’t repent, and look at what it leads him to do: On top of all his other evils, he locked up John in prison. An unrepentant heart only gets worse. At first maybe John was just annoying to him, but the more he wanted to keep Herodias, the more he wanted to keep doing all his other evils, and the more John persevered in calling him to repentance, he didn’t want to hear it anymore, and so he locked John up in prison. If you are here today and you are not yet a Christian, you may feel somewhat neutral toward Jesus; maybe you’d even express appreciation for him. But if you really get to know him and what he says, if you even just keep coming to these services and listening to what he says in the Gospel of Luke, you will find that he reproves you, and if you aren’t willing to repent, you won’t be able to remain neutral to him. Eventually, in some way or another, neutrality will have to give way either to repentance, or to outright opposition. Eventually in Jesus’ case, it did, as he was not only imprisoned, but crucified. Don’t let your unrepentance get there. And brothers and sisters in Christ, don’t think you can leave a little unrepentance in your life untouched and expect it to stay there. Don’t think there are some evils you can hold on to, while continuing to repent of others. Sin wants all of you, and it won’t stay in a corner. Unrepentance will only get worse.

 

And consider this: If even John, and Jesus, couldn’t get everyone to whom they preached to repent, is it really likely that we will? And if those who refused to repent put John in prison and then crucified Jesus, do we really think they’ll all like us? Later in Luke we are going to find Jesus saying this: “Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man!…Woe to you, when all people speak well of you” (Luke 6:22, 26). Jesus says it’s not a sign of God’s favor; it’s a sign of God’s curse if all people speak well of you. Don’t make that your aspiration. Make fidelity to Jesus your aspiration, come what may of it, and fidelity to Jesus means a life of repentance.

 

That’s how we get ready for whatever he has for us in this life, and that’s how we get ready for his return returns. Don’t fall back on rituals or heritage; bear fruits in keeping with repentance. In whatever life the Lord has presently assigned you, you can do that, and it is not complicated. But you cannot do that apart from faith in Christ. Repent and receive him for the forgiveness of your sins, and he will give you his Spirit, who will empower you to bear fruit and persevere until Jesus comes again to save those who are eagerly waiting for him, and to burn the chaff with unquenchable fire.