Start by reading Luke 3:1-20. Here’s a link if you don’t have a Bible nearby.

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%203%3A1-20&version=NLT

Once again, look at all this detail to clarify the timing of these events. This is so clearly intended to be a historical account with reference points that enable readers to look back and verify exactly when this occured themselves. Have I mentioned I love Luke?!

But he doesn’t stop at clarifying where John fits in historically, he also explains how John fits in with all the prophetic writings around the Messiah. John, Luke tells the reader, was the messenger sent ahead that Isaiah had prophesied about 700 years earlier. John starts preaching andhis words are striking a chord with people, as evidenced by the fact that they are flooding out to the wilderness to hear him speak. And he’s calling them snakes! I think I would be inclined toward a more gracious approach to helping people see that they are broken and need saving.  But let’s be real, John was a way more effective teacher than I am! People listened.  They travelled in hordes out into the wilderness where he was teaching. They wanted to know what God expected of them.

John’s advice was deeply practical and demonstrated a true change of heart. It wasn’t, “Go sacrifice a goat.” It was “Change the way you are living.” After generations of laws that were designed to cover sin with atonement, John was saying, “Repent.  Actually regret your old behaviour and live differently.”  If your heart wasn’t changed, and your life didn’t look different as a reflection of your changed heart, your sacrifices were pointless.

This was the preparation needed for Jesus ministry! It’s interesting really because many of us are so grace focused that I wonder if we are just rebranding pharisaism. They were writing laws on laws so that you could DO the right thing no matter where
your heart was. But I feel like these days we keep writing theology text books and scriptural self-help books that outline in detail what we need to BELIEVE.   I wonder, as we study meticulously what we ought to believe, if we, like John’s audience, are neglecting to look at our hearts. Right belief is absolutely indispensable, but does our right belief led us to repentance? Can we see that in changed lives? Or have we just made a new set of rules that enables us to avoid being changed?

People came to John from many different walks of life.   They asked him how they should live differently. He was deeply practical in his advice.  He told them to demonstrate their repentance by no longer extorting bribes or taking more taxes than they were owed.  He told them to sacrifice their own prosperity to help someone in need.

We know that we can’t earn salvation by behaving in a certain way, but receiving salvation should change us.  John’s message wasn’t the whole story.   He was very clear whenever anyone asked that he was not the way.  He had been sent to prepare the way.  But that means that we need his message in order to be prepared to receive the salvation that Jesus brought.  So it’s worth applying to our lives right here and now.  It’s worth taking an honest look at our lives and asking, “Would my life look any different if I wasn’t a follower of Jesus?”  If our answer is, “No” we might need to take another look at John’s message of repentance.