Scripture: Matthew 3-4
Notes: The Bible says you must be born of water and the Spirit. Jesus came straight out of the water which means He was fully immersed. We want to follow the example that Jesus set. You have to be forgiven of your sins. Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
After Jesus emerged from the water the Spirit descended upon Him like a dove and the Lord spoke. When the Holy Spirit comes in He comes in speaking. Shortly after that Jesus was driven into the wilderness, where He was tempted by the devil for 40 days and then the angels came and ministered unto Him. Then He set out to do the work that He was called to do — spread the Good News. The kingdom of God is near and the first thing He urged the people to repent.
Repent means to have Godly sorrow and change, turn away from sin. God can’t dwell in an unclean temple. We must repent from our sins. When God tells us to do something we should act upon it. First, we have to believe that He is. We have to come to Him believing that He is.
The Gospel is the good news, the death, burial, resurrection of Christ. Jesus came preaching about the kingdom and so did John the Baptist, who came preaching the same message in the wilderness of Judea — the voice of one crying. John was a messenger and like John, God has already ordained what we are going to be. We just have to remain steadfast in our living for Him. Sometimes we don’t understand where God is putting us, but He has given to each of us a ministry to witness. The Bible says we are ambassadors.
When Jesus came He came teaching the Kingdom and that’s what we as the people and children of God should be focusing on. It was the message at the beginning of His ministry. From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand (Matthew 4:17). In turn, we need to know where we fit in the Kingdom, so that we as the people of God so we can continue the message that has been set by Jesus.
