Who Am I? The Gospel According to Matthew Week 5

The Gospel According to Matthew

Week 5

I am writing this lesson with a heavy heart.  A dear friend and a member of this Sabbath School Class has died.  Jim Hall was a big guy with an even bigger heart.  All who knew him loved him! He was a grandfather to a church full of children who lovingly called him, "Papa Jim".  He was a manly man who introduced many of our boys and girls to the joy of being in Gods play ground.  I could go on and on, but when I think of Jim in Sabbath School class I remember a man with a never ending thirst to understand and know God.  He always had a question, was always seeking.  I pray that each of us will as earnestly seek after our heavenly Father as Jim did.  Jim Hall, I can't wait for heaven! Jim I can't wait to see you again, but even more anticipated will be to see you embrace your Lord, whom you have so earnestly sought. Oh what a beautiful moment that will be!

 

You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. Jeremiah 29:13

 

 

This week our study continues in Matthew 3.  Here we are introduced to John the Baptist.  Wow what a guy he was.  Let's read it first all together.  

 READ:

John the Baptist Prepares the Way

3 In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea ² and saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” ³ This is he who was spoken of through the prophet Isaiah:

“A voice of one calling in the wilderness,
‘Prepare the way for the Lord,
    make straight paths for him.’”^[a]

⁴ John’s clothes were made of camel’s hair, and he had a leather belt around his waist. His food was locusts and wild honey. ⁵ People went out to him from Jerusalem and all Judea and the whole region of the Jordan. ⁶ Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River.

⁷ But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to where he was baptizing, he said to them: “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? ⁸ Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. ⁹ And do not think you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. ¹⁰ The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.
¹¹ “I baptize you with^[b] water for repentance. But after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with^[c] the Holy Spirit and fire. ¹² His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”

As I read this I keep asking myself several questions.

1. Would I have been willing to listen to someone who was so far outside of the norm?

2. Would I be willing to seek after truth even when the source was someone that my established religious leaders wouldn't listen to.

3. Am I willing to be that zealous for God?

4. Were the people around him, listening to him, just watching a spectacle or were they seeking? Or Both?

 

At the time there was a group of outsiders or radicals who lived out in the wilderness.  They were the Essenic Community of Qumran. This group were smaller in number than the Pharisees or Sadducees and believed in poverty, wilderness living, often celibacy and repentance. Many scholars believe that John may have been part of their group, however according to Michael Card, the fact that he wore camel hair instead of white robes would make him unclean to that group.  I think it is interesting to note that he didn't fit in with the radical wilderness dwellers, he didn't fit with the Pharisees or the Sadducees.  He just didn't fit. 

 

John called it like he saw it. Was willing to be seen as a crazy man.  What he ate and what he wore was so odd it was note worthy by Matthew and others.  

 

He had one strong and clear message.

 

1. Repent 

2. Be baptised

 

Next week we study the the baptism of Jesus.  In asking myself these questions about my willingness to seek after him, even to the point of being willing to go against the grain, I think of the moment that Jesus was baptized and all who saw.  Can you imagine for those who had just repented and were baptized, to see Jesus follow, the doves, the voice of God.  Wow what a moment.  Don't you wish you had been there?

 

This week as we say good by to our dear dear friend Jim, and as we read the story of John the Baptist, I can't help but think how important that we seek.  That we be willing to go out into the wilderness, to put everything aside, to repent, to be baptized, to seek after truth, to seek after Christ!  Seek Him!!!! 

 

This week let us make an effort to seek him.  To let go of anything that is standing in our way of earnestly seeking our Savior.