You guys act like you haven't seen each other in a couple of
weeks. So the the introverts it all set
down. So I needed to get this rolling.
All right, So it's good to see you guys.
If you have your Bible, you can open the Matthew chapter 4.
Matthew chapter 4 will be in verses 12 through 17 today.
Just a little context, little set up here as we come to the
passage today. We are beginning Jesus's public
ministry. We've been talking recently
about his, the preparation of the King, and we're going to see
that the preparation has happened.
We, we had the baptism of Christ in which the Son of the Spirit,
sorry, descends on the Son. The Father speaks from heaven.
This is my beloved Son and who I'm well pleased.
And then we went from there into the temptation of Christ, where
he's led by the Spirit, into the wilderness for time of fasting.
And then he is tempted by the great tempter himself, and he
withstands all of that, he quoting Scripture, right,
standing on the word of God. So we examine that last time we
were together a couple weeks ago.
And so now we come to a time where Christ is going to
withdraw in a sense, but it's really significant what he's
doing. And he's going to begin to to
announce himself repentance and to do so because the Kingdom of
heaven is at hand. And So what you'll see in the
passage is that John the Baptist has been arrested.
He was the forerunner, right? He was the one who was sent to
prepare the way of the king. His voice has been silenced
through his arrest of the baton is now being passed fully to
Christ himself. And so Jesus, however, doesn't
begin his public ministry in Jerusalem like we might think
among the religious elite. Rather, he withdrawals to a land
called Galilee, which is a region that is long marked by
mixture, by neglect, by spiritual darkness.
And Matthew wants us to understand that this is this is
no accident, all right. This is according to the plan of
God. This is according to what God is
working out through his Son, the salvation that's going to unfold
in the redemption story. And So what unfolds in these
verses is the fulfillment of an ancient promise through the
prophet Isaiah that one day light would break into the
darkness and hope would dawn where despair once ruled.
Hope would dawn where sin rules, right?
Hope would dawn where people have no hope, that the light
would shine there first. And so as we hear this passage,
we're meant to see that the arrival of, with the arrival of
Jesus comes the arrival of something far greater, not to
say far greater than Jesus, but that he's bringing something
even more than just simply himself, right?
He's His coming indicates the coming of something else, not
someone else, right, but something else.
And that is the long-awaited Kingdom of heaven itself has
arrived, right? This is what it means that light
has dawned, as we will see in this passage.
So if you're able, would you please stand in honor of the
reading of God's Word this morning?
Again, we're in verses 12 through 17 of Matthew chapter 4.
When I'm finished reading, I'll say this is the word of the Lord
and you can respond, thanks be to God.
Verse 12. Now when he heard that John had
been arrested, he withdrew into Galilee, and leaving Nazareth,
he went and lived and Capernaum by the sea in the territory of
Zebulun and Naftali, so that what was spoken by the prophet
Isaiah might be fulfilled. The land of Zebulun and the land
of Naftali, the way of the sea beyond the Jordan, Galilee of
the Gentiles. The people dwelling in darkness
have seen a great light, and for those dwelling in the region and
shadow of death on them, a light has dawned.
From this time Jesus began to preach, saying repent, for the
Kingdom of heaven is at hand. This is the word of the Lord,
right? Spirit of God, let's pray.
Heavenly Father, we are grateful, Lord, that you have
spoken to us by your word. We're grateful, Father, that You
have revealed yourself to us not only in creation through nature,
but You have revealed yourself through your spoken word.
That we might know you, that we might know your character, that
we might know your attributes, that we might love you.
Father, as you have revealed your redemption plan, that
redemption plan set forth from the beginning of time to
reconcile sinners to yourself and Father, we are gathered
today as your people, adopted sons and daughters, grateful to
be in your family. And we gather today to hear from
your word, to read it, to study it, to have you speak to us.
And so, Father, I ask that you would just simply use me as a
mouthpiece for yourself today, or that your word would be
magnified, that Christ would be magnified this morning, that we
would behold Him. And having beheld him this
morning, we would be transformed more and more into his likeness.
Father, we also pray that you would call sinners to
yourselves, unbelievers, Lord, that you would grant them faith
in Christ, that you would regenerate them, give them new
hearts today, having heard your word.
And Father, would you strengthen each of us to walk with Christ,
to serve him as our Lord and our King.
And we pray that you do this work to us, through us, in us,
by your Holy Spirit, a Father who is a comforter and a guide
for us. He's a seal for our souls.
And so Lord, we humbly now read your word.
We submit to it. We ask that you would guide us
in Christ name, I pray, Amen. Men, you may may be seated so
we, we live in a world that constantly talks about darkness,
right? We we speak of dark times,
right? We can look across our world
today and say there are many dark times happening.
There are many dark places, dark regions within the world where
sin just seems to be overwhelming.
We look at dark news cycles and we lament, right?
Our hearts are torn. Sometimes we're just, we become
numb to it that there's so much of it in front of us with the
way news cycles run on our phones all the time, right?
We also experienced dark seasons of the soul, times where we're
weary, times where we're suffering, times where strength
fails, times where we experience great loss or we experience
great turmoil and pain. There's dark seasons of the
soul, times where you feel like you're in a wilderness, you're
in a desert, you're in a dry land, right?
And so there's darkness all around because we live in a
fallen world. We live in a world that's
stained by sin, that's marred by sin.
Death, decay, and destruction are something we are well
acquainted with, not only in our own hearts and in our own souls,
but all around us, right? And yet, for all our talk, we
often underestimate what the Bible means when it speaks of
darkness, right? We we often misunderstand.
Scripture does not describe darkness merely as hardship or
sadness, right? So it's that those are
byproducts of darkness. Scripture describes darkness as
a condition. It's a, it's a sickness of the
soul. It's something that's affected
all of life. Creation groans for the
redemption of man when things will be set right according to
Romans 8, right? And so we, we know darkness from
Scripture as sin, sin and all of its effects, right?
That's a place in which God, people cannot see God rightly.
They, they can seek to understand but have no
understanding. They can appear wise but be
foolish in actuality, right? They, they cannot see God
rightly. They cannot discern spiritual
things because they are in darkness only can they not
understand spiritual things. They cannot understand
themselves. Truthfully, most people who are
in darkness would evaluate themselves as being full of
lights. They would say that they are
good, that their desires are good, that it's right for us to
not withhold anything from the desires of our own eyes or our
hearts, right? And so we, we pursue those
things headlong, right? We, we run into those kinds of
things. They don't understand that the
problems, most of the problems in life that we know are caused
by our own sinful actions, our own sinful desires.
All right, when we talk about darkness in Scripture, we're
talking about a darkness that permeates everything, including
your own soul, All right, We also understand that darkness
means we cannot find our way home.
We cannot find our way into the lights.
We are in a tunnel with no light at the end of it because of
darkness, unless there be divine intervention, unless there be a
work of God to arrest our hearts and minds and our souls and
grant us new hearts, hearts of flesh, remove a heart of stone,
grant us a right spirit with God through regeneration, all right.
This is divine intervention. This is where God acts in a
place that we cannot act on our own.
We're helpless to it. And so therefore we are hopeless
to it. And that's why Matthew 412
through 17 matters so much for us, that this passage is not
simply about where Jesus began his ministry.
It's interesting, but it's not just a geographical location.
What Matthew wants us to understand in these verses is
why Jesus's ministry matters at all for any of us.
This is Galilee of the Gentiles. This is a place of deep
darkness. Matthew shows us that Jesus
steps intentionally into a place of deep spiritual darkness in
order to fulfill God's ancient promise, in order to announce
that a new era has begun, a new age has dawned.
When Jesus arrives, the night does not slowly fade away.
It doesn't just disappear. No, what we see is that the dawn
is breaking. The sun is rising on the
darkness. And so here's the main point
that we must understand if we want to grasp this text rightly.
It's pretty simple. But God's promised light has
come in Jesus, and his Kingdom has arrived.
God's promised light has come in Jesus and his Kingdom has
arrived. As passage unfolds that truth
and three movements. The first is we're going to see
a land sitting in darkness. It's dwelling in darkness.
It's made its home in darkness. Darkness is all it knows and it
is unable to rescue itself. Second, we're going to see that
God's promised light dawns exactly as He said it would,
according to his plan, according to his purpose.
And 3rd, we're going to hear the King himself, Jesus Christ,
announce that the Kingdom has come, and he's going to call us
to respond with repentance and faith.
All right, so Jesus is beginning his public ministry here, and
before we can rejoice in the light of that, we must first
understand the darkness into which it came.
So we should begin where Matthew begins in verses 12 through 13.
I'm going to read those again to you now.
When he heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew into
Galilee, and leaving Nazareth, he went and lived in Capernaum
by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naftali point #1
Darkness covered the land. Darkness covered the land.
Matthew begins this section not with a miracle, not even with a
sermon. He begins with a setting, a
place. After John the Baptist is
arrested, Jesus, withdrawals from Nazareth, settles and
Capernaum by the sea in the territory of Zebulun and
Naftali. Now, to you and I as modern
readers, this may not. This may sound simply like a
geographical note To Matthew's original audience, however, it
would have carried deep spiritual significance.
Galilee, especially Galilee of the Gentiles.
You see, the Gentiles were not God's chosen people in the Old
Testament. They were wicked and cut off.
They were not Israel. Galilee of the Gentiles was
historically associated with a mixture of religions and
peoples. It's associated with
marginalization. It's associated with spiritual
neglect. These northern tribes were among
the first to fall to a Syrian invasion and 2nd Kings 15.
They became a symbol of a people that are cut off from God.
They became a symbol of a people that were compromised, that had
given themselves to foreign gods, to foreign women, to to
all sorts of idolatry. They were overshadowed by the
nations. And This is why Isaiah is able
in Isaiah Chapter 9, to describe them as those who walked in
darkness. He describes them as those who
dwelt in a land of deep darkness.
So only are they walking in darkness themselves, right?
They're, they're, they're in darkness by their own sins, by
their own actions. They also dwell in a land that's
marked by darkness. They've set up residence there.
It's their home. And Matthew, Matthew's point is
clear, right? Jesus intentionally begins his
ministry not at the center of religious power, Jerusalem,
though He begins his ministry at the edges.
He begins his ministry on the outskirts, among the people long
accustomed to the shadow. And notice the language that
Isaiah and Matthew use. The people are not said to be
wandering in darkness, other they're walking in darkness,
they're dwelling in darkness, they're sitting in darkness.
It's their way of life. Darkness is portrayed in Matthew
chapter 4 and Isaiah as a settled condition that they've
settled themselves. Here it's similar to Psalm One,
which tells us blessed is the man who doesn't sit with the
sinful right, the unrighteous, the wicked.
These are not the blessed man of Psalm 1.
These are the wicked people who have made their residence with
the wicked. It's their identity.
It's who they are. But I do want you to understand
that when Matthew talks about darkness, he's not merely
talking about suffering or hardship.
Again, those are byproducts of sin.
He's describing a spiritual blindness, an inability to see
righteousness. He's describing an alienation
from God. That's the kind of darkness
here. And we might be tempted to
think, well, that's Zebulun and Naftali, that that's those
people. But Paul does something in
Ephesians 2 and in four where he describes the fallen humanity as
this. He says the fall of humanity is
darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God.
So darkness biblically is not something we occasionally fall
into, brothers and sisters. Darkness is something that we
dwell in apart from Christ. It's it's the realm we inhabit
apart from divine grace. This passage tells us something
deeply humbling about ourselves, doesn't it?
What it reveals is that if we are left to ourselves, if we're
left to our own desires, if we're left to our own pursuits,
if we're left to ourselves, we will not naturally gravitate
towards the light. It's not in US.
It's not who we are by nature. If we're left to ourselves, we
sit in the dark until God acts on our behalf, until God
rescues, until God redeems, until God saves.
John Calvin put it this way very plainly.
He said Until Christ appears, we are held fast in darkness and
can perceive nothing but what is confused and perplexed.
We can perceive nothing but what is confused and perplexed,
meaning we don't understand. We have no understanding of
light. Darkness is not simply the
absence of information then, is it?
It's not simple that we don't have all the facts.
It's not simply that we haven't been given the right
information. No, it's it's more than that.
It's the absence of saving light.
It's the absence of Christ himself.
It's the absence of the Spirit which awakens us.
Those matters because it corrects A subtle but dangerous
assumption. And this exists especially in
the Bible Belt. I think it exists everywhere,
but especially in the Bible Belt.
The assumption goes that people merely need encouragement, they
merely need moral improvement, they merely need better
circumstances. But Matthew confronts us with a
deeper diagnosis than that. He confronts us with the true
state of the person. But the problem is not that the
world needs advice or needs better counsel or needs better
circumstances. No, it needs illumination.
It needs light, right. The land does not need reform
First. It needs rescue, needs
salvation. This forces us to ask honest
questions about ourselves because what we're seeing here
is that apart from Christ, we are not neutral seekers standing
in twilight. Now we we are people who sit in
darkness. Romans 3 describes the condition
really well. Couple of the phrases that you
see in Romans 3 or is that no one is righteous.
No, not one. No one seeks God. 323 You see
that we all fall short of the glory of God.
So what that means is exactly what Jesus tells Nicodemus in
chapter in John chapter 3. You you cannot find the lights
by your efforts. You cannot find the light by
insight. The light came looking for us.
We love Christ because Christ first loved us according to
first John, right? That humbles our pride.
It keeps us from thinking that I'm responsible for my
salvation, which is really helpful because when you sin and
you, you face temptation over and over again and you fall into
temptation over and over again and you sin over and over again,
you start to think somehow, someway, I must be losing my
salvation. If I was responsible for it, I
must be giving it away in my pursuits.
But what we see in Scripture so we cannot be prideful in our
salvation. Ephesians 289 tells us that you
are saved by grace through faith and that faith is not of
yourselves. It is a gift of God.
So that no one may boast means none of us can say look at how
great I am in my salvation. None of us can look at the good
in our lives and think, look how amazing I am.
We all look at that honestly. If we look at it honestly,
humbly, we say aye was a wretched, dirty, rotten Sinner
destined for hell. And Christ saved my soul by the
grace of God and we glory in him.
Whatever good comes from my life, Christ gets the glory.
God gets the glory because I dwelt in darkness and Christ has
saved me and brought me out of the darkness into marvelous
light. It's his work.
And so that humbles our pride, but it fuels our gratitude as
well. But it tells us who to be
thankful for. It tells us what to be thankful
for. It teaches us how to praise God
above ourselves or our circumstances or our situations.
We can thank God that he is in control, that He's at work, that
He's sovereign in salvation. And it also shapes our mission.
That shapes our mission. If Jesus was willing to enter
places long overshadowed by darkness and to save a people
from their sins, to grant them new life, then we understand,
brothers and sisters. We understand that there is no
heart, there's no family member, there's no community that is
beyond the reach of God's grace. That when faith comes by hearing
and hearing by the Word of God, we know that we are to go and
proclaim the Word of God to family members, to friends, to
coworkers, to people in other areas of the world.
That's their hope. That's the light of the world
that we bring. And we know that when the light
shines, the darkness cannot overcome it will not overcome
it. It's the great hope for anyone
who was outside of Christ today. But Matthew doesn't want to
leave us standing in darkness long right.
It's it's gloomy even just to look at it for a moment.
You feel the the weight of sin. You feel the darkness kind of
creeping over you and Matthew doesn't leave us there for long.
He wants us to see that this darkness was not ignored by God.
That's the beauty of grace. Since God doesn't look at the
darkness and say, man, they're they're just too far gone.
No, God looks at the darkness and says, I'm going to send my
son into the darkness. I'm going to bring hope where
there's no hope I'm going to be bring redemption where there's
no hope for redemption. I'm going to grant new life
where there's nothing but death. But he wants us to see that this
darkness was not ignored by God. It was not permanent.
Praise God, it's not permanent, right?
The darkness was real, it's deep, it's long standing, but it
was not the final word. Because into that very darkness
God did exactly what he promised.
His Son came and the light dawned.
Point #2 The promised light has dawned.
The promised light has dawned. Verses 14 through 16.
So what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be
fulfilled. The land of Zebulun and the land
of Naftali, the way of the sea beyond the Jordan, Galilee of
the Gentiles. The people dwelling in darkness
have seen a great light, and for those dwelling in the region and
shadow of death on them a light has dawned.
Matthew is careful to tell us that Jesus's move into Galilee
was not merely strategic or circumstantial.
No, it's scripturally necessary. It was necessary to show that
he's the Christ, to prove yet again through the prophets that
this is the Messiah. It was necessary so that what
was spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled, Matthew
says. And with those words, Matthew
invites us to step back, to take a breath, to see this moment not
only through geography, but through redemptive history.
Isaiah had spoken these words more than 7 centuries earlier.
That's a long time. That's longer than dog years.
Kids addressing a people who were crushed by invasion and
exile. Zebulun and Naftali had been the
first to fall. They were the last to be
restored. They were the place where
darkness seemed to settle most heavily.
And yet Isaiah declared that it would be precisely there.
There of all places, that God would cause a great light to
shine. And Isaiah 91 and 2.
And so Matthew now declares that this time has come.
The promise is no longer future tense.
No, no, no, no. It's past tense.
The light has dawned. The imagery is deliberate.
The imagery is powerful. Light does not argue with the
darkness. When you turn a flashlight on,
it doesn't get in an argument with the darkness around you,
does it? No.
What does it do? It dispels the darkness.
It casts the darkness away, and it shines light.
It illuminates. And Matthew does not describe
this light as some flicker. It doesn't describe it as a
gradual glow. No, it's a great light, he says.
It's a decisive breaking in of God's saving presence.
That verb dawned signals the beginning of a new age.
Night is ending. Day is arriving.
The light is dawning. It's crucial for us to
understand that the light is not a philosophy.
It's not a moral program. It's not some pragmatic thing
that God brings to help make a a more moral people tell people be
better versions of themselves. No, it's, it's, it's a whole new
way the light is a person. It's not a person with a new set
of teachings. No, it's Jesus himself.
He embodies what the prophets longed for.
He embodies what the prophets foretold.
He embodies what God had been promising for ages.
He is the God man. He is the light of the world and
the gospel of of John the Apostle John makes it explicit.
He said in him was life and the life was the light of men.
The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not
overcome it. John chapter 1 verses 4 and 5 S.
The light promised by Isaiah shines because the light
promised by Isaiah is Christ, and Christ has arrived.
The light was not only dawning in history past, brothers and
sisters, No, the light stands among us still in His Word and
by His Spirit. This is why Matthew's
fulfillment formula matters so much.
We talked about this early in the series that Matthew over and
again says this was to fulfil what the prophets said.
It's a repeated refrain throughout Matthew's Gospel.
What Matthew wants you to understand, brothers and
sisters, that God is not improvising.
He's he's not making up some new plan as it goes.
He's not looking for a way to defeat where he has been
defeated. No, not at all.
God is keeping his word. He's staying true to what he has
said. He's remaining faithful where
man has been unfaithful, and what he promised in Israel's
despair, the depths of Israel's despair, he now accomplishes in
the presence of his own son. Now Charles Spurgeon captures
this well when he said Christ is the true morning star.
He ushers in the day of grace, and with him comes light and
warmth and life. There's a few applications to
this .1 If the light has dawned in Christ, then your despair is
never ultimate. It's never ultimate.
If you belong to Christ, then your despair is not ultimate.
Darkness may still press in and you'll feel the effects of a
fallen world, either through your own sin or outside things,
right? But what you understand, or what
you must understand if you do not, is that darkness does not
reign over you. Christ does.
Christ is your hope. You carry a hope that is
undefiled and kept in heaven for you.
You understand nothing can defeat the light.
Nothing can cast out. I don't care what you've gone
through. I don't care what losses you've
experienced, what pain you've had.
It's not that I don't care about those things.
It's not what I'm saying. But I want you to understand
those things are not bigger than Christ.
Those things are not greater than His glory.
Those things are not, are not able to harm body and soul.
You are kept in heaven. So despair is never ultimate for
you, is it? You can rejoice in despair.
You can praise God in despair. You can hope in despair.
You can have strength and joy and peace in despair.
You can hurt in despair and know that Christ carries your tears.
Christ is a sympathetic high priest, as we sang earlier and
before the throne. Another application is that this
means that Christianity is not primarily about climbing toward
God through insight or effort. I want you well, that the elders
here want you to be a doctrinally informed people, to
be theologically rich, to have depth to your faith.
That's what we mean when we say that we exist to glorify God by
making disciples who grow in their faith in Jesus.
We want that faith growing deeply.
We want you to be faithful for a lifetime and let God sort out
the fruit for a lifetime. That does require theological
death. It does require doctrinal
purity. It requires a lot of those sorts
of things. But I don't want you to ever
misplace those things, to think that doctrinal depth or
theological purity or any of those things are the high marks
of Christianity. The high mark of Christianity is
loving the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and
strength to love your neighbor as yourself.
You're not trying to climb your way to God.
You're not trying to gain His love through further insights or
through better efforts. You're not ascending a mountain.
No, what we see in the Gospel is that Christ descended the
mountain and came to us. We only receive what God has
offered. By His marvelous grace.
We receive the light that God has graciously sent to us.
It's his work. And so I think for believers
this fuels confidence and hope, a confidence in Christ, a
confidence in his finished work that he has done what I cannot
do. He's the great high priest who
was able to sit down after making his sacrifice, and he sat
down at the right hand of God. And he invites us to come boldly
before his throne in our time of need and to find mercy and
grace. He's sympathetic to us and our
weaknesses because he was tempted and tried as we are, yet
without sin. And he invites you to come to
him. So you have confidence that
Christ has done what you cannot do, and you have hope.
Hope in the middle of a darkened world.
Hope in the middle of a darkened circum, darkened circumstance.
You have hope that Christ reigns, that he will not be
dethroned, that he's working all things together for your good
because you love Him and you've been called according to his
purpose. Now, if you're an unbeliever in
here, you have not set your faith on Christ.
You've not repented of your sins, you've not made Christ
Lord of your life, you've not received him, but you've
rejected him at every turn, at every opportunity.
You've lived for yourself. Well, then, this text presses an
urgent question on you. What will you do with the light
that God has provided? What will you do with Jesus
Christ? Do you think he's simply a good
teacher? If you think he's simply a good
teacher and a spouse some good things, then I would argue with
you that you do not know all that Christ said about himself.
Because if you did, then you would have to conclude that
either he's a lunatic or he's Lord.
But you have to decide what are you going to do with the light
that God's provided? You see, Matthew is not content
for us to merely observe the light.
He doesn't want you to look at the flashlight in the darkness.
He wants us to hear what the light says, but the light calls
us to. Because when the light dawned
did not remain silent. But the arrival of light brings
an announcement, and that announcement is a summons for
your heart. And it's a summons from the King
himself. That brings us to .3.
The Kingdom has arrived verse 17 from that time dwelling in the
land of Galilee, Galilee of the Gentiles, dwelling in the land
of the great darkness. From that time Jesus began to
preach, saying repent for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand.
These are the first words in Matthew's Gospel from Christ,
the first recorded words of Jesus's public preaching.
Repent for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand.
This is not some warm up message, right?
This isn't, this isn't just, you know, taking a few swings in the
batter's box before you step in to really play.
It's not even a placeholder sermon.
Matthew signals with care that this is programmatic, right?
This is what God has designed. It sets the tone for everything
that we will see in the rest of Matthew's Gospel.
The content of the message is striking in its simplicity.
It's striking in its authority. Jesus announces that the Kingdom
of heaven is at hand. When he says it's at hand, he
means it's not distant anymore. It's not theoretical anymore.
It is near and its presence. It is among you.
It has arrived. The light is here.
The Kingdom is not merely an idea.
It's not a future hope. It arrives in the presence of
the King himself, and where Jesus stands, the reign of God
has drawn near to us. The dawning light is inseparable
from the arrival of the Kingdom. You cannot miss that in
Matthew's Gospel, and you cannot miss the demand that this
announcement makes. Jesus does not say reflect, for
the Kingdom of heaven is at hand.
He does not say consider all these things, for the Kingdom of
heaven is at hand. He does not say admire me, bow
down to me, for the Kingdom of heaven is a hand.
No, he says repent, for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand.
Repent. It's a word you're likely really
familiar with, at least in usage, but I want to explain to
you what repent means. Repentance is not mere remorse.
When you catch your child in a lie and you confront them about
this lie and they realize they're caught, often times they
will show remorse, especially if you have some consistency in
discipline because they know what's coming.
But repentance is not merely remorse.
Now, to be sure, James, the brother of Jesus in his book,
says we should be wretched and we should mourn over our sin.
That'll be remorse. That's not merely remorse.
Repentance is not merely a religious feeling.
I went to a youth camp or I went to VBS or I went to a church
service and I felt some goosebumps and I made some sort
of emotional decision because I had this religious feeling.
It's not repentance, brothers and sisters.
Not always. Not saying you won't have some
sort of feeling about repentance, but you can't tie
repentance to merely remorse or feeling.
Repentance is a decisive turning away from.
If you have to apologize for something in our house is not
enough in our home to say I'm sorry, you must say I'm sorry
that I lied to you. I'm sorry that I got angry with
you or that I yelled at you or that I called you a name or
whatever. Why?
Because we want to name the sins that we're turning away from.
These are things we're not going to do any longer.
It's a decisive turning. It's a renunciation of darkness
and a submission to God's reign. Right.
To repent is to step out of the shadows and into the light.
Repentance is to lay down self rule and bow to the rightful
king. He's at the heart of all of our
sin is a kingship issue. We have made ourselves kings.
We have sought to build little kingdoms for ourselves.
We have been selfish. We have been idolaters.
And so we must learn how to lay down self rule and submit
ourselves. Bow to the rightful king.
You may notice that this call echoes the preaching of John the
Baptist earlier in Matthew chapter 3, verse 2, but with a
crucial difference. John was announcing the nearness
of the Kingdom. He was announcing the nearness
of the Kingdom and anticipation for the king.
He's preparing the way for the king to arrive, but Jesus
announces it in its arrival. As Herman Bavni observed, he
said this. He said the Kingdom is not
something Jesus proclaims only with words.
It is something that comes with him and in him.
He said the king does not merely speak about the Kingdom, he
embodies the Kingdom. Now I think theologically this
guards us from 2 errors, 1 is it prevents us from reducing
Christianity to moral improvement.
But the call to repent flows from the announcement that God
reigns. The call to repent flows from
the announcement that we are to bow to the rightful king.
So it's not moral improvement, it's Lordship.
Secondly, it keeps us from postponing obedience to some
future age. Right now in my life, I will
continue to do what I want to do because I've got plenty of time.
I will settle these things later in life.
And I wonder how many have split hell wide open thinking
precisely that. If the Kingdom is at hand, and
it is because Christ says it is, if the Kingdom is at hand, then
neutrality is no longer an option because the light has
demanded a response. Repents for the Kingdom is at
hand. What this means is that every
encounter with Christ, as people who are sitting here today
observing the Word of God, this is an encounter with Christ and
His Word. And every encounter with Christ
is a crossroads in your life. To hear His voice, to hear the
Word of God proclaim, to hear these things is in itself a
summons. It's a summons to turn from sin,
to turn from self, to turn from darkness, and to trust the King
who has come near to us in His grace.
Now for believers, we understand that this repentance is not a
one time event, it's a lifelong posture as we continually seek
to align ourselves, align our lives with the reign of Christ.
2nd Corinthians describes it as beholding the glory of Christ in
such a way that you are being transformed from 1° of glory to
the next. So in our sanctification
process, after you've been declared justified freely by the
grace of God, there's a process of sanctification that ensues
where God takes you and transforms you by his spirits to
be like his Son. What that means is we're
constantly, constantly at war with the flesh.
We're constantly at war with the old man.
We're putting death his old deeds and we're taking on the
new man, and that requires a posture of repentance.
If you've ever had a conversation with a seasoned
St., you'll know that you just become more and more aware of
your own sinfulness. Even as you're defeating sins,
even as you're putting those things to death, you become more
and more aware of new idols of the heart.
And by God's grace, we put those things to death through
repentance for unbelievers. Again, the call is urgent and
it's gracious. It's good to hear that you are a
Sinner in need of a Savior. It's good to hear that you
cannot climb the mountain of righteousness on your own.
It's good to hear those things. It's a grace of the Lord on your
life. Why?
Because what we're saying is that the light has come.
The Kingdom is here. The door of mercy stands open to
you right now, and I'm imploring you from the word of the Lord to
come to Christ, to stop yourself serving, and to serve the Lord
on high. Matthew has shown us the
darkness, He's shown us the dawning light.
He's shown us the King's call. All that remains for us is to
reckon honestly with what this means for our lives.
The question before us all, believers, unbelievers, is
simple and unavoidable. If God's promised light has come
in Jesus and his Kingdom has arrived, how are we going to
respond? And Matthew has shown us
something unmistakable this morning.
The world was not slowly improving.
No, it was. It was stuck in darkness,
dwelling in darkness. It was sitting in it.
You and I were sitting in it. But but God did not leave it
there, Right? God, God's promised light has
come in Jesus, and His Kingdom has arrived.
What we see is that the darkness was real and the light has truly
dawned, and the King has now spoken to us.
And yet Scripture is brutally honest with us about why this
moment is so searching for our hearts.
Jesus Himself tells us later in his ministry.
In John chapter 3, you read this.
Jesus says the light has come into the world and people loved
the darkness rather than the light.
And that's the dividing line this passage presses upon us.
The question is not whether the light has come, because it has.
The question is whether we will come to the light or whether we
will clean to the darkness that we call home.
So again, for those who belong to Christ, my brothers and
sisters in here, this passage calls us to ongoing repentance,
and it calls us to confident hope in Christ.
We have not drifted into the Kingdom, no we we must walk in
the light daily, turning again and again from our own sin, from
our own self rule, from hidden shadows of the heart.
The same light that saved us continues now to expose us.
But it doesn't expose you to shame you, it exposes you to
heal you. Hebrews reminds us that God
disciplines those whom he loves, His children.
He disciplines them. And all discipline is painful
for a moment, yet it rewards the fruit.
Its rewards are the fruit of righteousness.
First, John chapter 1 tells us that if we walk in the light as
He is in the light, and He is faithful and just to forgive us
our sins. So we understand this.
We understand that we should live as people of the day, not
as people of the night. We understand that we should
walk openly, joyfully, obediently under the gracious
reign of our King. Once more, for those who are not
in Christ the the Kingdom, I want you to know that the
Kingdom is not far off. The Kingdom is at hand.
The the king has come near in mercy.
The King has shed his marvelous grace on us and and when the
scriptures call us to repent, when Christ calls us to repent,
he's not calling you to lose life.
He's calling you to finally step into really living.
He's calling you to truly live as he designed you to live in
fellowship with the Father through the substitution of the
Son by the Spirit of God. He's calling you to turn from
darkness to receive the light that God has freely given us.
And Christ here is urging you. Do not delay.
He's urging you. Do not bargain as the rich young
ruler tried to bargain. He's urging you.
Do not hide as Adam and Eve tried to hide themselves from
the Lord, though. He's urging you to come to the
light while the door of grace stands open to you.
You see, the night is ending, the day has dawned upon us, the
light has come, the Kingdom has arrived.
And the only question left for us is how will you respond?
How will you respond? It's my hope and my prayer for
every one of us that we may turn from the darkness, that we may
come to the light and live joyfully under the reign and
under the rule of our King Jesus Christ.
Would you pray with me? Heavenly Father, we we praise
you, we thank you grace and mercy shown to us in Christ, We
thank you that he is described as the glory of the Father
revealed for us. What you once spoke through the
prophets, you have now revealed in your Son Jesus Christ.
And Christ says to us in the middle of darkness, repent, for
the Kingdom of heaven is at hand.
God, you have not left us with neutrality as an option.
In fact, what you've done is revealed that neutrality was
never really an option. We are either people of the
darkness or people of the light. And Father, I pray now for my
brothers and sisters here, old and young.
God, would you help them in every way to walk faithfully in
the light of Christ, to truly be, as Christ will say, the
light of the world. God, would you help them to put
away the darkness of their flesh, to walk by the Spirit, to
walk by faith in Christ, to not only trust Him for the
forgiveness of sins, but to be vigilant in putting death,
putting to death the deeds of the flesh at the living by the
Spirit of God, which frees us from a spirit of slavery to sin,
to a spirit of sonship where we can now cry.
ABBA Father, we thank you that you have adopted us as your own.
You have made us your own children.
We're Co heirs with Christ. We're sealed by the Spirit of
God. There's nothing, nothing in this
world according to Romans 8. There is nothing that can
separate us from the love of Christ our Lord.
So God would you help us to walk in that hope.
Would you help us in that hope to put to death the flesh?
Would you help us in that hope to carry forward the light into
the world that man might see our good deeds and glorify our
Father in heaven? God, would you unite us together
as brothers and sisters in Christ.
Help this church, these people, these members here.
Help them to be a beacon of light and hope for the world.
God, help them to carry the light into their homes, into
their marriage, into their relationship to their children.
Lord, would you help us to serve and to glorify you, to magnify
your great name in every area of our lives?
Help us to carry the light into our workplaces.
Help us to be set apart. Help us to walk as holy men and
women of God again, not for our own boast or bragging, but for
the glory of the Lord Jesus God, would you lead us in
conversation to those who are lost, those who are dying
without Christ? Would you help us to carry the
gospel to them? Let the gospel adorn our feet
wherever we go. The words of Christ be on our
lips. The words of your Word be on our
lips. Help us to offer salvation to
those who seem as though or to those who are dwelling in great
darkness, and may we see salvations, God, near and far.
Would you lead us into our community for the same purpose?
Would you lead us into our nation and state for the same
purpose? God, would you lead us into the
world all across the globe for the same purpose of proclaiming
Christ and him crucified, the hope of sinners, the help for
those who are in darkness, a salvation for the soul.
God, again I ask that you first lead us to be a holy people.
Helps to walk in the holiness of God, putting to death our sins,
growing in our faith in Jesus Christ, loving those around us.
Father, I also pray for anyone here who doesn't know you again,
whether they're young or old. Maybe they're older and they've
made a life of living for themselves, a life of hedonism,
giving themselves to whatever their heart desires.
God, would you help them to see Christ today?
Help them to hear his call to repent, for the Kingdom of
heaven is at hand. May they yield themselves to the
lordship of Christ. May they deny themselves, take
up the cross and follow Him. Maybe they're young, being
raised in a home where Christ is proclaimed, hearing the truths
of Scripture, but haven't yet believed them, haven't yet had
the light of Christ shine in their hearts.
God, would you save them? Lord, would you help them to
never know a day where they were not in fellowship with the Lord?
Would you help them to grow in their faith and love as young
boys and girls? Would you transform them by the
renewal of their mind? Would you grant them new life in
Christ? Today I'm going to give you a
moment now there in your seat to pray and seek the Lord.
Heavenly Father, we thank you for the gracious work you do in
us, the merciful work you do in us through Your Word by your
Spirit Lord, it's my prayer that you would transform each one of
us, whatever that looks like for each person here.
God, would you help us to be faithful, to remain faithful, to
walk with you. To the name of Christ I pray,
Amen. Amen.