1-2 Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar (when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea and Herod was tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip was tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias was tetrarch of Abilene) in the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John, the son of Zacharias, in the wilderness.

3 And he came into all the district around the Jordan preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 4-6 As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet, “The voice of one crying in the wilderness, make ready the way of the Lord - make His paths straight. Every ravine will be filled and every mountain and hill will be brought low; the crooked will become straight and the rough roads smooth; and all flesh will see the salvation of God.” Luke 3:1-6 New American Standard Version

Luke begins now to tell us what happened when John (the son of Zacharias and Elizabeth) and Jesus (the son of Joseph and Mary) were adults. They were now both probably around 30 years of age. He starts by saying who the 'big shots' in the political world were in those days. (vs 1-2) These verses show us how careful Luke was to get his facts straight, and that John and Jesus were real people who lived at a real time in history. The gospel is not a made up story of fiction about some imaginary people.

Luke starts with John. Did John decide himself that he should set off to tell people about God? (vs 1-2)

We see that it was God who brought His message to John. And what was the message God gave John to go out and tell people? (vs 3).

It was a call to repent. God willing we'll look more into that in the next study, but we get a picture here already of what repentance means in vs 4-6 where Luke tells us John was doing what God had promised over 700 years earlier through the prophet named Isaiah. What would you say vs 4-6 tell us about repentance?

Over the past few years here in Yorkshire we've had some major cycle events (including the start of the Tour de France) and each time the Councils got very busy fixing up potholes and re-tarring bumpy sections of the roads. People used to do that in ancient times also when VIP’s were going to visit a city. So John was saying that repentance is when we prepare the way for God's salvation to come to our lives.

Imagine if you were expecting a delivery of a very important item, only to get a call from the company saying they couldn't deliver it because your driveway was so cluttered with kids toys and loads of junk! Perhaps a bit far fetched, but the point I'm trying to make is that baptism and repentance is when we show God we really want the wonderful salvation He has made known, and we eagerly clear up all the wrong things in our life that have kept God out before. Notice that Isaiah also said 'every mountain will be brought low'. Sometimes the biggest thing we need to repent of is the pride that may have been a large part of our life. We proudly imagined we did not need God.

If you happen to be someone who came across these studies who is not yet a Christian, can I ask if there are things that you know are keeping Jesus out of your life? God's salvation is a gift – He offers it to us freely. But while there is nothing we can or need to do to pay for His salvation – He does command us to repent of sin and turn from things that are wrong in His eyes. And that’s true even for those who are already Christians. When we've fallen along the way and behaved badly, we need to come humbly back to God and confess our wrong thoughts and wrong doing. Ongoing repentance is like keeping the drive way of our life continually clear. The Bible uses the better word ‘conscience’.