December 28, 2023

Luke 3:1-14 (HCSB)
The Messiah’s Herald
3 In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, while Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod was tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Iturea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene, 2 during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, God’s word came to John the son of Zechariah in the wilderness. 3 He went into all the vicinity of the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, 4 as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah: A voice of one crying out in the wilderness: Prepare the way for the Lord; make His paths straight! 5 Every valley will be filled, and every mountain and hill will be made low; the crooked will become straight, the rough ways smooth, 6 and everyone will see the salvation of God. 7 He then said to the crowds who came out to be baptized by him, “Brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? 8 Therefore produce fruit consistent with repentance. And don’t start saying to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,’ for I tell you that God is able to raise up children for Abraham from these stones! 9 Even now the ax is ready to strike the root of the trees! Therefore, every tree that doesn’t produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.” 10 “What then should we do?” the crowds were asking him. 11 He replied to them, “The one who has two shirts must share with someone who has none, and the one who has food must do the same.” 12 Tax collectors also came to be baptized, and they asked him, “Teacher, what should we do?” 13 He told them, “Don’t collect any more than what you have been authorized.” 14 Some soldiers also questioned him: “What should we do?” He said to them, “Don’t take money from anyone by force or false accusation; be satisfied with your wages.”

Pastor HD Jones
We talk a lot about repentance, but do you know what it means to repent? It should mean that we agree with God on where we miss the mark; we should feel convicted about our sins; and we should feel remorse or sorrow for our sin. BUT repentance is so much more than saying we are sorry. It literally means we are to have a change of mind... to think differently about our situation. This is why John was giving practical applications to those who came to repent and be baptized. He told the crowd to be generous to those in need; he told the tax collectors to do business in an ethical way; and he told the soldiers to be satisfied with their wages. Good works do not make us holy, but once we are in agreement with God and we “change our minds” about our sin, then we should do our best to do better. What areas of your life do you need to clean up or clean out? It could be as simple as deleting Netflix or Facebook. Think about it and see what God says.