All throughout Scripture, God’s call for sinful humanity is repentance. Jesus clearly preached this as did His forerunner John the Baptist. But what does repentance mean? In this sermon, we consider the meaning of this important biblical term and begin our study of the blessing of repentance as Matthew presents the preaching of Jesus in his gospel.

Jesus worshipped and served His heavenly Father only. The Father was the supreme love and the greatest treasure of His heart. While Satan attempts to stumble Jesus by offering Him what he thinks would entice and allure Him, Jesus maintains His resolve to live His human life as a true worshipper with His heart fixated on His heavenly Father as the singular and supreme object of His love and worship. While sinful humans often keep as our supreme devotion, our desire of approval, security, comfort, power, and/or pleasure, not so the Son of Man. He remains faithful to the end so as to make atonement for our sins to grant to us the remission for our sins and the reconciliation of our souls to the holy God as those restored to Him as His true worshippers.

Jesus trusted in His heavenly Father. Thus, He would never patronize God by subjecting Him to a test to confirm His trustworthiness. God is faithful and true and He is the very essence of such attributes. While we may reasonably test countless other things that are uncertain, we do not test the One who Himself is the plumb line of faithfulness and truth. We learn from Jesus that we are not to test God, but instead, we are to trust in Him with all our heart.

In Jesus’ response to the temptations in the wilderness, we learn what is the will of God for man which Jesus Himself pursued and upheld, and thus, what we are to pursue and uphold. Man indeed does not live on bread alone but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.

The purpose of Christ for us is that we be disciples and make disciples. This entails that we know and remember the commands of Christ that we may live by them. This sermon marks the starting point of a season of rigorous Scripture memorization and recitation in our community groups. May we all live as faithful disciples of Christ who are also capable disciple makers for Christ.