John was consistent in his message. This daily devotional looks how he preached about repentance and forgiveness for our sins.
Nuggets
- John the Baptist’s message was needed because sin was in the world.
- In order to be restored to a relationship with God, we have to repent.
- When we repent of our sins, God will forgive us and restore our relationships to Him.
- Baptism is a visual statement that we have asked Jesus to be our Savior and God to be our Sovereign Lord.
Devotions in the John the Baptist series
In the last devotion, we started looking at who John the Baptist was and what was his message. We just had time to give a quick overview of what the message was.
In this devotion, we are going to flesh out what that message was. Getting the message across was the most important job John had to do.
Let's Put It into Context
Here is a running list of what we’ve discussed previously.
The Reason for John’s Message
“He went into all the vicinity of the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” (Lk. 3: 3 CSB)
John the Baptist’s message was needed because sin was in the world.
God always knew that mankind was going to disobey Him and let sin into the world. Sins are actions by humans that disobey God and break one of His reasonable, holy, and righteous laws and commandments, goes against a purpose He has for us, or follows Satan’s promptings.
Glossary
God created us anyway. With sin, death, crucifixion, and resurrection all in place, He created us anyway.
The world God created was permanent. It was a paradise that had no illness and death, no anger and hate.
Then, Adam and Eve committed the original sin.
Glossary
God gave man just one restriction. “… You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die” (Gen. 2: 16-17).
Satan convinced Eve to not believe and to disobey what God said. Satan said bite; Eve bit; and Adam bit.
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Adam and Eve’s sin unleashed consequences for that act. The consequences of sin are spiritual death and separation from God. The results of sin are poverty, crime, disease, and death — just to name a few.
How Does That Affect Us?
Because of Adam and Eve’s original sin, we all begin as sinners. “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3: 23 CSB).
We are born not only in the image of God but also in the image of Adam. We have a sinful nature.
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Even if we were able to do all of the do’s and not do any of the don’ts, we would still be sinful because we are separated from God.
But God created it so that sin would be temporary. His new Heaven and earth — and a new Jerusalem — will be permanent. It will be eternal.
God had the Plan of Salvation ready to go before He created the universe. He needed a way to restore us to perfect and eliminate the sin.
As soon as Adam and Eve committed the original sin, God said Jesus was coming to be our Savior. “I will put hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will strike your head, and you will strike his heel” (Gen. 3: 15 CSB). God was going to use His power to fix what was destroyed by the original sin.
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Our Part of the Plan
In order to be restored to a relationship with God, we have to repent.
God was going to use His power to fix things, but we need to do our part. We need to repent.
Repentance is acknowledging our separation from God and expressing sorrow for breaking God’s laws and commandments by making the commitment to changing ourselves through obedience so that we no longer do the wrong things.
Glossary
The Jews thought that, since they were God’s people, they could just sit back and let God do for them. It doesn’t work that way.
We need to show remorse for disobeying God. We need to want and try to follow His laws and commandments.
Repentance is our conscious decision to try to do all of that.
God is not a dictator Who forces His Will upon us. Adam and Eve made the decision to disobey; we need to make the decision to obey.
Some get hung up on the submission part of repentance. Meharry helped straighten out that line of thinking. He wrote, “Repentance means atonement; atonement demands love; and the harsh, brassy sound of the call to repentance may bring a man face to face with the more mellow, happier music of the spheres of glory — ‘God is love.’”
Resource
Atonement is about repayment for a wrong. Only Jesus can make the repayment for us because it requires the shedding of His blood.
Glossary
So, let’s do a quick run down.
- Mankind sinned.
- God established consequences.
- God established a repayment plan that cost Him dearly and costs us obedience.
- We have to accept that repayment plan as be obedient.
If God did so much for us, shouldn’t we submit to His requirements? I think submitting to God means that we obey God and keep His reasonable, holy, and righteous laws and commandments, follow His purpose for us, and do not follow Satan’s promptings.
Yep, that is the exact opposite of sin.
Submitting to God is letting Him call the shots. It is obeying — doing the one thing that Adam and Eve couldn’t do.
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God’s Part of the Plan
When we repent of our sins, God will forgive us and restore our relationships to Him.
It is right that we do the exact opposite of what Adam and Eve did to restore our relationships with God. In this way we earn His forgiveness.
Forgiveness is, when we ask, God pardons us because we have shown repentance for breaking His laws and commandments. We accept the pardon by letting go of the guilt and remorse that we feel because we have done something wrong. It is a conscious decision to accept His forgiveness.
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We just talked about God is adamant that we have to come to salvation His way.
- “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved” (Ac. 4: 12 NIV).
- “You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below” (Ex. 20: 3-4 NIV).
- “Jesus answered, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me’” (Jn. 14: 6 NIV).
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God is Sovereign God and has the power and authority to decide how He will forgive us. He has decreed how that will be.
It is up to us to follow the plan.
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Confirmation of Acceptance of the Plan
Baptism is a visual statement that we have asked Jesus to be our Savior and God to be our Sovereign Lord.
We are told in Romans 10: 9-10 that “… if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Rom. 10: 9-10 ESV). We have to do more than just say in our minds that we are accepting God’s Plan of Salvation.
We have to make an outward confession that we believe. Still, there is more than that.
“And Peter said to them, ‘Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit’” (Ac. 2: 38 ESV).
Baptism is the symbol of our conversion experience, providing the physical evidence that we have died and been buried to sin and have risen in a new spiritual life with Jesus.
Hubbard said that John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance. Repentance wasn’t a new concept that John brought with him.
“if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land” (II Chron. 7: 14 ESV).
What Hubbard said was different about John’s message of repentance was “his language, its directness, and the form with which he clothed his ideas, all showed how radical was the thing he aimed at.”
Resource
Making the Connections
John’s baptism was not a ceremonial baptism. It was to represent a true form of repentance.
We have to recognize our sins. That means we have to have been exposed to God’s laws and commandments. Those tell us God’s expectations.
We have to take the initiative to obtain forgiveness. We have to shout it loud and clear through our voices and our actions.
How Do We Apply This?
The ABCDs of Salvation
If you have not become a believer in Christ, please read through the
Plan of Salvation and prayerfully consider what God is asking you to do.
A – admit our sins
B – believe His Son Jesus is our Redeemer
C – confess God as Sovereign Lord
D – demonstrate that commitment by making any changes needed in our lives to
live the way in which God has called us
The Disciple’s Job Description
Father God. We admit that mankind has been separated from You. We believe Jesus is our Savior and Redeemer. We confess You as Sovereign God. We obey You and follow Jesus’ example into baptism. We will live our lives in obedience to You. Amen.
What do you think?
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