The Turnaround that Transforms

Encountering Jesus

Allen Snapp

Grace Community Church

March 29, 2026

The Turnaround that Transforms

Let’s turn to Matt. 3.

In those days John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea, ² “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” ³ For this is he who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah when he said,

“The voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord; make his paths straight.’”

⁴ Now John wore a garment of camel's hair and a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. ⁵ Then Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region about the Jordan were going out to him, ⁶ and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. Matt. 3:1-6

I briefly considered postponing our series in Matthew series this morning to bring a Palm Sunday message, but then I realized there is a connection between John’s ministry and Palm Sunday. On Palm Sunday, as Jesus approached Jerusalem riding on a donkey, the crowds knew they were seeing as Zechariah prophesied that this was their King, riding on a donkey and coming with salvation and they prepared the way of their King with palm branches and shouts of hosanna.

John’s whole ministry was about doing the hard work of preparing the way for the King.After 400 years of prophetic silence after Malachi, a voice is heard, the voice of one crying in the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord. John was like an excavator, digging up hard ground, making rough places smooth and crooked roads straight in preparation for the coming of Jesus.

His message was simple and blunt: the kingdom of heaven is at hand so repent! We prepare the way for the King by repenting. Repentance isn’t a message that sells today. I was in a Barnes and Noble and noticed how many books there were in the self-help section. They had titles like:

• Absorbing SpongeBob: 10 ways to squeeze more happiness out of life
• Think and Grow Rich
• 14k Things To Be Happy About
• You Can Do It!

John’s message was You Need To Stop Doing It! You need to turn your life around 180 degrees and stop doing the sin you’ve been doing and start doing the right thing that you haven’t been doing. To repent means to have such a change of mind it leads to a change of life. Where I was walking from away from God I am now running towards God. Repentance means I am running away from sin and running towards righteousness. I am running away from rebellion and running towards obedience to God.

Repentance means I am turning away from the kingdom of Satan and turning towards the kingdom of God. I am preparing room in my heart for Jesus by repenting. John says make the crooked ways straight. Deep in our hearts, unless our conscience is seared through continual sin, we know what a crooked road is and what a straight road is. We may justify our sin, but our sin can never justify us.

In Luke’s gospel the crowds ask John, “what should we do?” and he tells them to do what’s right. Simple. Be generous to the needy. Don’t steal or extort money. Don’t tell lies about people or bear false witness. Repentance is take that thing in your life that’s crooked and straighten it. Turn away from that direction that is leading you away from God and righteousness and turn towards God and righteousness.

And people from all walks of life are flocking to hear John’s message and be baptized and then one day some very important people show up.

⁷ But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism…

Let’s pause here for just a moment. The Pharisees and Sadducees were the most powerful and influential religious leaders of the day. This should have made John so happy! It should have made him feel so validated! The religious bigwigs are acknowledging me – I’ve arrived, I’m somebody!

John’s reaction is actually kind of shocking.

⁷ But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? ⁸ Bear fruit in keeping with repentance. ⁹ And do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,’ for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. ¹⁰ Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Matt. 3:7-10

John says “coming here isn’t going to help you. Your problem isn’t where you are, it’s who you are, you brood of vipers!” They were poisonous. Their religion was toxic. They didn’t come to humble themselves; they came as the experts on God who thought they were qualified to render judgment about whether John was legit or not. These same guys would sit in the same kind of judgmental examination of Jesus over and over again.

For them the kingdom of heaven drawing near meant the wrath of God drawing near. Fake repentance wasn’t going to do it. Getting wet in the water wasn’t going to do it. Anyone can say, “I repent, I’m sorry.” John says bring the fruit of repentance. That’s not going to happen overnight. Fruit takes time to grow. Fruit can’t be stapled onto our lives, fruit is the outer evidence of what’s inside of us. Jesus said by their fruits you shall know them. Bad people can put on a good show for a while but eventually what’s inside will come out.

Jesus called the Pharisees whitewashed tombs – look good on the outside but inside full of dead men’s bones. There is a kind of religion that focuses on the outside – looking good, looking sincere, looking holy, but ignores the inside. That kind of religion cares most what people think but true religion cares most what God thinks and God doesn’t look on the outside, He looks at the heart. Real faith will produce real fruit.

Gal. 5 tells us what the fruit of the Spirit is: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, faithfulness, goodness, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Are these the ruling principles in our heart? Do we see their fruit growing in our lives?

But this leads us to an important question: does repentance have the power to produce this fruit in us? Do we have the power to repent and be loving? Holy? Righteous? The answer is yes…and no. John goes on to admit the limits of his baptism and the repentance he is calling people to:

¹¹ “I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. ¹² His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” Matt. 3:1-12

There is one coming after me who is mightier than I. Jesus is coming! I’m not evenworthy to carry his shoes. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. John isn’t the way – he’s preparing the way. His repentance doesn’t make people holy, the One coming after him will make people holy. John says “I can’t get you into the kingdom of heaven, but the One coming after me can!”

Repentance doesn’t have the power to make us holy or cleanse us of our sins. If it did, it would mean that we have the power to be holy and cleansed of sin, because repentance is something we do. What repentance does is turn us away from sin and towards Jesus. Repentance humbles us so that we say Jesus I need you. Be my Lord. Be my Savior.

And Jesus baptizes us with his Holy Spirit who empowers us to live holy. The Spirit works inside us giving us the power to bear different fruit. In place of anger, there’s patience. In place of selfishness, there’s love. In place of harshness, there’s gentleness. In place of immorality, there’s righteousness. It’s a process – it doesn’t happen all at once, but it is a real thing going on in us and bearing fruit through us.

Let me share a story that maybe illustrates this for us. One summer when I was a teenager, my dad and I went sailing in and out of different harbors on Long Island. One day we anchored in Lake Montauk and I wanted to fish so I got in our rowboat dingy and rowed towards shore to a bait store. It was easy rowing because the tide was going out to sea which happened to be the direction the bait store was in.

So I got my bait and got into the boat and began rowing back to our sailboat, but now I was going in the opposite direction from the tide. The tide wanted to carry me and my little 12 foot dingy out to sea. I rowed as hard as I could but the best I could do is stay in the same place. I couldn’t make any progress. I began to get nervous as I was getting tired and saw that the tide wanted to carry me out to sea in a little boat most definitely not made for the ocean.

That’s the best legalism can produce. I’m heading towards God in my own strength. I’m rowing and rowing with all my strength – but getting nowhere. Legalism has no power to make us holy. We might be doing better compared to someone else but not compared to God’s righteous standard.

Then a powerboat came by and threw me a line and pulled me out to my boat. That’s Jesus. He didn’t come to judge us, he came to throw us a line and save us. When we truly and sincerely turn to him, we are forgiven of our sins because he paid for them all on the cross. And the Holy Spirit takes up residence in us to empower us to live the way God intends for us to live. To be what God intends for us to be. The Spirit bears fruit through us as we surrender to Him and obey Him.

When we repent and turn towards Jesus in faith, we are turning from our own power to live the way God calls us to and humbly depending on the power of Jesus in us to make it possible for us to live the way God calls us to live. We are tethering our boat to Jesus’ boat.

All those who turn towards Jesus and tether their lives to him in humble faith will be saved. We are the wheat that is gathered into his barn (into the kingdom of heaven). Those who refuse and reject Jesus are left with empty husks that will be burnt up on that day when the kingdom of heaven draws near in all its fullness, bringing wrath to those outside of Christ, but grace and peace to those who are in him through faith.