Sermon Tone Analysis

Who can tell me the name of the minor prophet that we studied all of last month?

That’s right, Malachi.

And just to see if you’re on your toes this morning, does anybody remember how many chapters are in the book of Malachi?

Very nice, yes, there are four chapters in Malachi.

And last week we looked over the last part of Malachi chapter three, and then quickly went over Malachi chapter four.

And if you remember, chapter four was a great prophecy about the coming Messiah.

Specifically, Malachi described the coming Messiah as the “Sun of Righteousness.”

Also, at the beginning of Malachi three, Malachi prophesied that there was going to be a messenger that came and prepared the way of the LORD.

Well, last week was the conclusion of our four-part series called “God’s Message Through Malachi,” and today we are going to begin a twelve-part series entitled “Who is Jesus Christ.”

Over the next twelve weeks, we are going to look at the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth.

The reason I chose to start this series now is because we will have the climax of the series on April 24th, which is Easter morning.

So before we begin to investigate what the Bible says about Jesus, we should take a moment to think about what the world says about Him.

Friedrich Nietzsche, who was famous for his quote, “God is dead,” also said this about Christ: “Jesus died too soon.

He would have repudiated His doctrine if He had lived to my age.”

Nietzsche claims that if Jesus had lived longer on earth, He would have stumbled and fell, just like other people.

John Lennon, one of the Beatles, also had strong words against Jesus.

He said that “Christianity will go.

It will vanish and shrink.

I needn't argue with that; I'm right and I will be proved right.

We're more popular than Jesus now; I don't know which will go first - rock and roll or Christianity.”

Guess what.

Now the Beatles are long gone, and there are more Christians on the planet than at any other point in human history.

A lady by the name of Jena Malone said that “A lot of the powerful religious leaders, from Jesus to Buddha to Tibetan monks, they're really talking about the same things: love and acceptance, and the value of friendship, and respecting yourself so you can respect others.”

So Jena is not saying that there is anything necessarily wrong with Jesus, she’s just saying that He is no different from all of the other religious leaders throughout history.

But over the next twelve weeks, we are going to take an in-depth look at what the Bible says about Jesus Christ.

I hope that it is a journey that will not only be enjoyable, but that will draw us ever closer to the One who set us free.

So I ask you now to turn in your Bibles to Matthew 3:11, and we’ll be reading until the end of the chapter.

“I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance: but He that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire: Whose fan is in his hand, and He will thoroughly purge the floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.

Then cometh Jesus, from Galilee to Jordan unto John, to be baptized of him.

But John forbad Him, saying, I have need to be baptized of Thee, and comest Thou to me?

And Jesus answering said unto him, ‘Suffer it be so now: for thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness.’

Then he suffered Him.

And Jesus, when He was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon Him: and lo a voice from heaven, saying, ‘This is my beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased.’”

Let us pray.

The title of my sermon this morning is, “Jesus: The Promised Messiah.”

In the course of discussing these verses, we are going to look at how Jesus’ ministry was promised, how Jesus’ ministry was begun, and how Jesus’ ministry was verified.

Point #1: The Ministry is Promised

Let’s look again at verse eleven.

“I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance: but He that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire:” The reason I had Bro.

Red read verses one through twelve earlier is so that you could hear the context that these verses falls in.

Those twelve verses record in a nutshell the preaching of John the Baptist.

And if you had to sum up John the Baptist’s message with one word, I think it would have to be “Repent!”

Just seeing if you all are awake out there.

But then in verse eleven, John changes gears and begins to tell them he is merely the forerunner of the Messiah.

In fact, John the Baptist was the fulfillment of the prophecy in Malachi 3:1, where God said that He was going to send a messenger to prepare the way before Him.

John in this verse says that he is not even worthy to carry around Jesus’ shoes for Him.

Now, in our day of nice paved roads and nice grassy lawns, carrying around another person’s shoes is not that big of a sacrifice.

But 2,000 years ago, whenever the roads were nothing but dirt that had been packed down, and whenever people walked everywhere they went, sandals could get mighty dirty.

Because of this, it was a common job for slaves to take the shoes of their masters and wash them off.

But John here is saying in this verse that he is not even worthy to be a slave of the coming Messiah.

Now if you are paying close attention, you may be wondering what on earth this baptism of John business is all about.

I mean, we know that Christians today get baptized because of what Christ did, but why was John baptizing people?

What was the baptism of John all about?

Did you know that the idea of baptism was not new to John the Baptist?

Actually, it was a practice all the way back to the time of Moses.

You see, since the law was written, there has been a way for a Gentile to become a Jew.

We’ve talked recently about how God is a missionary God, and how even in the Old Testament He desired for the Gentiles to become a part of His people.

And in the Old Testament law, God provided a way for these Gentiles to join the camp of the Israelites.

It was not an easy process, and to accomplish the different things showed a true zeal for being a part of the people of God.

And one step in that process was being dipped in the water.

The dipping showed in a symbolic way that the person was dying to their old ways, and was being brought up a Jew.

Does that concept ring a bell with anyone?

But if you notice, John wasn’t focusing his ministry on baptizing Gentiles into the Jewish faith.

No, John was baptizing Jews.

So why was John baptizing Jews who did not technically need this ritual practice?

The Bible says in verse eleven that John was baptizing people with a baptism of repentance.

John was preaching a message very similar to that of the prophet Malachi.

Malachi told the people that they could not merely offer lip service to God, but that true obedience came from the heart.

John is telling the people in a symbolic way that it is not enough to simply be born into the Jewish race, but that they need to become a part of the spiritual people of God, by being baptized, just like the Gentiles were being baptized.

John was preaching that all of the people who were simply going through the motions needed to repent of their sins, and for John, the Old Testament concept of baptism was the perfect way to show that transformation.

But John said that one day, the Messiah was going to come, and He was going to radically alter baptism, and at that point, people would be baptized with the Holy Spirit and with fire.

While I think that John was prophesying the future of baptism, he was also prophesying a future where the Messiah would judge between the righteous and the unrighteous.

Why do I say that?

Because remember, being dipped in the water was a symbol of death.

It was a symbol of dying to one’s old way of life, and being brought up in a new way of life.

So I believe that John was saying that one day, every person is either going to die with the Holy Spirit or is going to die with fire.

And verse twelve strengthens that point.

Verse twelve reads, “Whose fan is in his hand, and He will thoroughly purge the floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”

This verse is an analogy of a farmer who is separating the good harvest from the bad harvest.

Long before the days of Round-Up Ready wheat, the farmer’s harvest would be full of both wheat and weeds.

And so he would use a sickle to gather up the harvest, he would put both the wheat and the weeds in an area called a threshing floor.

And then whenever the wind was blowing hard enough, he would take an instrument similar to a pitchfork, and he would throw the harvest up in the air.

The head of wheat was heavy enough that it would fall back to the ground, but the wind would blow the weeds to a different area of the floor.

John is saying that the coming Messiah is going to arrive and begin the process of sifting people and seeing who was good and who was evil.

So it’s plain from these two verses that John was very excited about the coming ministry of the Messiah.

He knew that one day soon, a Man was going to come that would be so great, that John wasn’t even worthy to carry His sandals for Him.

And he also knew that this Man was going to be a perfect judge, and would judge between the righteous and the unrighteous.

So John’s entire ministry revolved around preparing people for the Messiah, and telling them to repent of their sins, because Someone is coming who is going to judge sin.

So point number one, the ministry of Jesus is promised.

Point #2: The Ministry is Begun

Look at verse thirteen once more.

“Then cometh Jesus, from Galilee to Jordan unto John, to be baptized of him.”

Do you ever feel like God is never going to answer your prayers?

I know that sometimes I just pray and pray, and it seems like God is taking His time.

I imagine that that is how the Israelites felt during the 400 years between the prophecy of Malachi and the coming of Jesus.

Sometimes God takes His time answering our prayers, because He knows what is best for us, and He knows exactly when the best time for an answer is.

But then sometimes, God answers our prayers before we even say “Amen.”

This is the kind of answer John the Baptist gets in verse thirteen.

Matthew paints the picture that as soon as John finishes his sentence in verse twelve, Jesus walked up on the scene.

It seems like there’s a good chance that Jesus was listening to the entire sermon, and walked up to John at just the right time.