Luke 3:8 Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham.
You might have noticed lately that there is a lot of emphasis on status in our world today. Much of this emphasis here in the West has to do with the rise of Socialism among the youngest generation. Without the knowledge of history, they are falling for the trap that has caused the death of about 100,000,000 people worldwide. Even Wikipedia has removed this dark side of Socialism. It sounds good on the surface, but it never delivers what is promised. It can’t. The world doesn’t work that way.
But the world has always had those that defined themselves based on human heritage, race, ethnicity, or citizenship. The one thing these categories have in common is that they are earthly, temporal categories. Each lacks the perspective of time. For we see over time that these categories come and go. They aren’t permanent.
In our text today, John the Baptist is speaking to the crowds who had gathered around him near the Jordan River. Something about John’s message resonated with the people. They were looking for solutions to the current problems, so they came to hear what this prophet of God was saying. His message was simple: Repent and act like it!
John goes right to the heart of the matter. Many have come without the proper heart attitude. They are there for the show, out of curiosity, maybe even they were bored. It could be entertaining to gather with a crowd and hear someone speak. So they have gathered.
Produce repentance fruit! The following verses in this chapter gives specific examples of what repentance would look like for different people. They are visual learners. They need concrete examples, so John gives them some.
They thought having the earthly pedigree of their family lineage would be enough. They were part of God’s chosen people after all. If anyone was going to be in the right crowd, it was them. Or at least that is what they were claiming.
But John pokes a big hole in their balloon. You see, they thought that their earthly family was what mattered. But John knows that it was the LORD who made them a family. It was only through the grace of God that they had not been destroyed multiple times down through their history.
God had raised them up, sustained them, disciplined them, redeemed them. It was all His work. It was God’s raising up that made the difference. God could raise up rocks. Perhaps the rocks would be more grateful and loyal. Perhaps the rocks would live out their repentance with their conduct.
Our identity is not as Americans, Italians, Africans, Indians, Japanese, or white or brown. Our identity starts and finishes with Jesus. It is God’s work of adopting us into His family. We only respond to His call. We show our new identity by responding to this change He brought in us with a choice to live differently. We need to live differently or our repentance isn’t real.
Is your repentance real? Do you live differently?
The Arnold Journey 