Repentance, the Door to the Kingdom of Heaven (Matthew 3:1-17)

[Stephan Choe]

January 17, 2026

Key Verse 2: “And he said, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.’”

My brother used to commemorate the anniversaries of my parents’ deaths every year. In the Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox churches, the saints’ feast days are not their birthdays, but their death days. However, there are three exceptions: The birthdays of Jesus Christ (December 25 or January 7), Mary (January 1), and John the Baptist (June 24) are celebrated. This shows that John the Baptist has a special significance in salvation history because, as the forerunner of Christ, he had a bridging role between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant.

John made Jesus Christ known by humbling himself and exalting Christ.

Today, we want to learn about John’s preaching of repentance and his understanding of Christ in order to prepare our hearts for Christ.

1. Repent! (1-6)

Before Matthew tells us about the ministry of the adult Jesus, he tells us about the ministry of John the Baptist.

Many preachers today are reluctant to speak about repentance because they fear the anger of their listeners. But John preached repentance with the words, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!”

What does repentance mean? Repentance means acknowledging in our hearts, “This is wrong. I have sinned. God is saddened.” The counterpart to this realization is justification. Repentance can also be explained as liberation for Christ from the false things that control our hearts. Various things control our hearts and prevent us from receiving Jesus Christ into them:

We can name different forms of sin that control our hearts:

The first form of sin is our intense preoccupation with something that prevents us from accepting Jesus Christ wholeheartedly.

For example, we cannot wholeheartedly accept Christ if we find more joy in someone, something, or our own pursuits than in the joy of Jesus Christ. In this case, sin can mean loving someone, money, or our own business more than God.

Repentance means recognizing this as wrong and correcting it. Once we have corrected it, there is room in our hearts for Christ, and we can wholeheartedly accept Him. Jesus Christ can then work in us. In this sense, repentance is a blessed correction of the heart. We need courage to correct our wrong attitude and give the Lord first place in our hearts.

The second form of sin is our unbelief in Jesus Christ, which prevents us from receiving Him into our hearts.

Today, unbelief is widespread in Germany and Europe. It has become fashionable. Over the Christmas holidays, I wanted to watch the television film about the Christmas story on ARD and ZDF. Unfortunately, I couldn't find it. The tendency toward unbelief has increased dramatically in Germany.

But our God lives. Despite persecution, He worked powerfully among the despised, poor people in Africa, Muslim countries, and China so that the number of Christians worldwide continues to grow, even though it is declining in Europe, the USA, and South Korea.

But if we believe in Jesus Christ with all our hearts, we have eternal life and great joy. If we repent of our unbelief, Jesus Christ enters our hearts and gives us great joy and eternal life. For through our repentance, a place is made in our hearts for Jesus Christ, and He joyfully enters our hearts and blesses us abundantly. Thus, we can already get a foretaste of the Kingdom of Heaven here on earth.

The third form of sin is the addiction to sin.

Those who have sinned become slaves to sin, and sin wants us to remain its slaves. This is comparable to a drug addict's struggle against their addiction. Sin gives us a fleeting feeling of pleasure, but this is short-lived. Afterward, a feeling of emptiness and depravity follows. Sin drives us to continue sinning. Sin is like a hard drug. It destroys our lives and leads us to the tragedy of hell. We must clean up the mess in our lives. This work of cleaning up is painful in the short term but a great blessing in the long run.

Repentance, on the other hand, leads us to freedom, to God, and to His kingdom. Repentance may cause us a moment of pain, but it gives us lasting freedom and joy. Through repentance, we are to be freed from sin and receive Jesus Christ into our hearts. He will then enter our hearts and give us freedom and heavenly joy. May God give us the courage to fulfill this task of forgiveness.

The people's response shows us that John's preaching of repentance truly helped them. Numerous people from Jerusalem, all of Judea, and the regions around the Jordan River came to John, heard his preaching, were baptized, and confessed their sins. Their response shows us that people genuinely wanted to repent and be freed from the power of sin. When we have sinned, we face conflicting choices: either we do not confess our guilt and do not repent, or we confess it and receive forgiveness and God's blessing. If we do not repent, we will, in the long run, experience guilt and ultimately be punished by God. But if we repent, we receive forgiveness and God's blessing. Through repentance, we can be freed from the power of sin and blessed by God through the gospel. Jesus Christ died for the forgiveness of our sins and rose from the dead for our blessing. Therefore, Jesus Christ preached repentance and faith in the gospel. If we have sinned, we should repent and believe in the gospel.

2. Bear True Fruit of Repentance! (7-10)

Among the many people who came to John were also many Pharisees and Sadducees. They, too, wanted to be baptized.

Then John said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who assured you that you would escape the coming wrath? Bear true fruit of repentance! Do not think you can excuse yourselves with the excuse, ‘Abraham is our father!’ God can even raise Abraham’s descendants from these stones.” (7-9)

The Pharisees were a Jewish group that emerged around 135 BC. “Pharisee” means something like “the separated ones.” They committed themselves to the strict observance of the divine law. Therefore, they separated themselves from all those who did not adhere to these laws. Because they tried to outwardly follow God's laws to the letter, they inevitably overlooked their true meaning, for love of God and neighbor is the core teaching of the Bible. Humans cannot see into another's heart and judge whether they possess love. The Pharisees paid little attention to people's inner motivations; instead, they observed whether others followed the laws precisely and judged arbitrarily. Judging others is a grave sin. Moreover, the Pharisees were hypocritical, for they were just as selfish as the unbelievers.

The name Sadducees likely derives from Zadok, the high priest in the time of David. Theologically, the Sadducees considered only the five books of Moses to be the Bible and did not believe in the resurrection of the dead. Many nobles and wealthy citizens belonged to the Sadducees, most of them from priestly families. The current high priest also belonged to this family. They were open to Greco-Roman culture and indulged in worldly pleasures.

The Pharisees and Sadducees were religious leaders of the people. They saw themselves as leaders of the blind and teachers of the ignorant. They taught others God's word, yet broke His commandments themselves. They boasted of the law, but dishonored God through their transgressions.

John sharply rebuked the Pharisees and Sadducees: “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit of repentance and do not say, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you, even from these stones God is able to raise up children for Abraham. Already the ax is laid to the root of the trees; every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and burned.” (7–10)

God wants us to repent of our sins and bear the fruit of repentance. We are to repent of our love of the world, our unbelief, and our sin, and bear true fruit of repentance. We are to renounce our love of the world and love God with all our hearts. We are to renounce our unbelief and have a living faith in God and His Word. We are to relinquish our worldly hopes, have a heavenly hope, and live and act accordingly.

3. Be Baptized with the Holy Spirit! (11-12)

John was incredibly successful as a preacher, for the people flocked to him. He could have presented himself as a great man of God. What did he say about himself?

John said to the people (verse 11a): “I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who comes after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not even worthy to carry.”

In those days, people wore sandals. But these sandals wore out quickly. Therefore, travelers took several pairs of sandals with them. And carrying sandals—that was the task of servants.

With his words, John wanted to express that he was far below Christ. Although John was a great man of God, he presented himself as very small. In doing so, he wanted to introduce Christ to us in a fitting way, for Jesus Christ is God in human form and the Son of God. He is indeed the Creator. He came into the world as a man to reveal Himself to us and take away all our guilt.

John recognized the crucial difference between himself and Jesus. He said in verse 11, “I baptize you with water for repentance… but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.”

Water can only cleanse us outwardly. Jesus Christ, however, baptizes us with the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit can burn away and completely eradicate all our inner impurity, namely our hidden sins.

We should believe that Jesus Christ can completely cleanse us through his Spirit. When Jesus cleanses us through his Spirit, all our sin is wiped away without a trace. We absolutely must believe in Jesus and his power of the Holy Spirit so that our hearts can truly be cleansed. We should allow our hearts to be continually cleansed by the Holy Spirit. Otherwise, we have no way of getting rid of our hidden, bad thoughts, feelings, and sins. But when we confess our sins to Jesus Christ and ask him to cleanse us completely through his Spirit. Then we feel truly at peace.

4. Jesus' Introduction and Baptism (13–17)

When John was baptizing in the Jordan River, Jesus came to him and wanted to be baptized by him. At first, John refused, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, but not you by me.”

Jesus answered him, “So be it, for we must do everything God wants.”

Although Jesus was the Son of God, he humbled himself and allowed himself to be baptized by John.

The purpose of Jesus' baptism was:

First: The divine proclamation of Christ.

Mary conceived through the Holy Spirit and gave birth to Jesus Christ. When Jesus was to begin his Messianic ministry, he was baptized by John. John was known to all the Israelites as a great servant of God and a prophet. Crowds from all over Israel flocked to him. When Jesus was baptized by John, the large crowd watched the baptism.

As Jesus came up out of the water, the Holy Spirit descended upon him, and a voice from God proclaimed, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (17).

Thus, God proclaimed to all people that Jesus is his Son. In this way, God presented his Son, Jesus Christ, to humanity. Because God presented Jesus as the Christ and Son of God through a great prophet, people were better able to believe in Jesus as the Son of God and Christ.

Second: Christ's baptism served as a transition into following the divine ministry of John.

John acted as a bridge between the Old and New Covenants. Now he was to present Jesus Christ to the people of God. And Jesus was now to begin his ministry in the New Testament as the Christ. For this purpose, God sent John as the forerunner of Christ. And John fulfilled the divine commission perfectly. Praise be to God for his goodness and his perfect providence.

Let us look again at verse 2. John the Baptist preached: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!”

To receive Jesus Christ, we must prepare our hearts through repentance.

We should free our hearts from strong desires, our unbelief, and our sin so that Jesus can enter our hearts and work graciously.

Have we freed our hearts from strong desires?

Have we freed our hearts from unbelief?

Have we freed our hearts from sin?

Then let us warmly invite Jesus into our hearts.

God bless you all!