All In | Sunday, March 23, 2025

Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip tetrarch of Iturea and the region of Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene, while Annas and Caiaphas were high priests, the word of God came to John the son of Zacharias in the wilderness. And he went into all the region around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins... (Luke 3:1-6)

When God breaks 400 years of silence, will you stand on the sidelines—or go all in?

The Most Interesting Man of His Time

In many Bibles this passage is headed "the ministry of John the Baptist," and there is an awful lot that could be said about him. John is a fascinating character who in some respects does not seem real. Yet even historians and scholars skeptical about the miraculous elements of the Bible agree that John was a real person, because his name, his life, and the details of his ministry appear in all four Gospels.

He was almost like the most interesting man of his time—except that he lived at the same time as Jesus, so he has to take a close second. It is amazing what Jesus says about him in Matthew 11: "Of those born of women, there is not one risen greater than John." If the Messiah says he is about the greatest you are going to find, that is a fascinating character indeed.

When I think about John, I think about someone fully committed to the purpose, mission, and calling God set for him—a calling placed on him before he was even conceived. It is my conviction that the same is true for you. God has a purpose and a plan for each of us before we are conceived. Paul says in Galatians that he was called forth from his mother's womb to preach the gospel to the Gentiles. God told Jeremiah, "Before I formed you, I called you and ordained you to be a prophet to the nations." John was called and commissioned to a task before he was ever conceived, and throughout his life he was fully committed to it. In one word, he was all in.

I listen to a lot of podcasts, and one of my favorites is called All In. That's a poker term, though it's actually a tech-investing podcast. The guys on it are friends and investors who often risk everything—they put it all in. When I think of John the Baptist, I think of someone totally invested, all in, in every possible way. At the end of our time this morning I'm going to ask you to make a bet, to put a little on the line—maybe not all in, but something.

Thirty Years Later

When we began Luke's Gospel, we started with the angelic announcement to Zacharias in the temple—that he and his elderly, barren wife Elizabeth would have a son named John. Now, coming back to John in Luke 3, it is fascinating to consider that thirty years have passed. If this were a movie, the screen would read "30 years later." There's little detail about what happened in between, but it's a long stretch from the announcement and birth in chapter 1 to the story here.

Luke introduces this section with what scholars call temporal markers—markers of time—giving us journalistic highlights about the setting. He tells us it was the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, who became Caesar in September of AD 14. Add fifteen years and we land in AD 29. Many historians believe Jesus was born around 4 or 3 BC, which means he is now in his early thirties, and John is six months older.

Luke wrote like a journalist—he tells us in Luke 1 and Acts 1 that he interviewed eyewitnesses to construct a detailed account. So he notes that Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, a name that becomes important later. Pilate became governor around AD 26 and served roughly a decade. Herod was tetrarch—ruler—in Galilee, his brother Philip tetrarch in Iturea to the north. The Herods ruled this whole region, even though Herod and his family weren't even Jewish. Herod was an Idumean, the Greek translation of Edomite—and the Edomites were not Jewish.

Not Just a Story, But History

These details may seem trivial, but they teach us important things. First, what we have here is not just a story; it's history. Tiberius, Pontius Pilate, Herod—these names point to a fixed point in time. Sometimes the Bible mentions people archaeology had not yet validated, and skeptics questioned its accuracy. For many years historians doubted whether Pilate ever governed Judea. Then about forty years ago they uncovered a stone inscribed with the name of Pontius Pilate, which you can go and see. The Bible is validated by archaeology, and Israel as a whole is like one giant archaeological dig.

We struggle with the concept of "old" because our nation is young. When I was about nine, we moved to England, just outside London in a town called Epping. On the high street stood St. John's church, and that building was older than our nation. In Israel, archaeology points back thousands of years and validates the Bible—just like the Pilate inscription.

A Troubled Time

The second thing these details reveal is that John shows up at a troubling time in Israel's history. We're told Annas and Caiaphas were high priests. Annas was appointed by a Roman official around AD 15, had troubles in the role, and installed his son-in-law Caiaphas—remaining the power behind the power. When you study what was happening in Jerusalem then, you discover that the religious heart of Judaism had become essentially a political endeavor. Annas and Caiaphas are listed among politicians like Herod, Pilate, and Tiberius. What once was the connection to heaven at the temple had become a political power play.

The ruling body was the Sanhedrin, seventy leaders and rabbis divided into factions—Pharisees and Sadducees, the lesser-known Essenes and Herodians, and the Zealots. The Zealots produced a group called the Sicarii, the dagger men—religious assassins who would covertly kill those who didn't do things their way. These are the dynamics swirling in Israel.

These politics matter, especially because once you follow John through the Gospels, it won't take him long to kick the political hornets' nest. More importantly, by highlighting these names, Luke reminds us that for centuries leading up to John and Jesus, religion in Jerusalem had become little more than a political power play. An Idumean—a descendant of Esau—sat on the throne. Go back to Genesis: Abraham had Isaac, Isaac had Esau and Jacob, and Jacob's name was changed to Israel, his descendants the children of Israel. Esau was called Edom. They were related, but they were hated; the Jews and Edomites did not get along. Having an Edomite rule Israel would be like Prince William being elected president—"We're related, but stay across the pond." The nation was divided, immoral, and an irreligious hot mess.

Can It Get Any Worse?

I think two thoughts filled the hearts of the people when John appeared. First: can it get any worse? Second: is there any hope it could get any better? Maybe you've thought those things—looking at your household, your workplace, this county, the nation, the world. And yet, from biblical and extrabiblical first-century texts, we know there was an expectation that something was about to happen. It could be bad or good, but something was coming. After 9/11, I woke many mornings expecting something bad. That's how it felt in Israel then—occupied by Rome, ruled by an Edomite, overseen by hireling priests.

And then we read: "In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar... the word of God came to John the son of Zacharias in the wilderness." Point number one: God often seems to show up at just the right time. Sometimes it seems like he shows up a little late to the party, but he shows up at just the right time.

I love that phrase, "the word of God came." Some variant of it—"the word of the Lord came"—appears more than a hundred times in the Old Testament. It came to Abraham, Samuel, Solomon, Ezekiel, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Zechariah. But in the New Testament, only twice. What happened? God was silent for 400 years—longer than our nation has existed. Israel had become so expectant that God might speak at any moment through a prophet. But after 400 years of dial tone, an angel finally appeared to Zacharias in the temple. No wonder he was struck speechless.

The angel said his son would be filled with the Holy Spirit from the womb, would turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God, and would go before the Messiah "in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children... to make ready a people prepared for the Lord." Here is the amazing thing: those words were the very last words God had spoken through a prophet 400 years before. The last book of the Old Testament is Malachi, and Malachi 4 contains those exact words. The angel was announcing: God is on the move once again.

Where We Least Expect Him

Notice that the word of God did not come to a priest in Jerusalem. It came to a prophet in the wilderness. Luke quotes Isaiah 40:3: "The voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord, make His paths straight. Every valley shall be filled and every mountain and hill brought low... and all flesh shall see the salvation of God."

Point number two: God often seems to show up where we least expect him. Not in Jerusalem, not in the temple, but in the wilderness of Judea—which looks almost exactly like Anza-Borrego. Four hundred years of silence was certainly long enough to bring the people to a deep yearning for God to appear. And he did—in an unexpected way, in an unexpected place, through an unlikely person.

Why an unlikely person? John was the child of an old, probably long-dead couple. He did not take his father's name, and he did not follow his father into the priesthood. Matthew and Mark describe him wearing a tunic of camel's hair with a leather belt, eating wild locusts and honey. I'm sure the John the Baptist diet will be the next big thing—you'll just be skinny and weird. And what was this unlikely prophet doing? He went into all the region around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins.

Don't Miss the Opportunity

What do you do when God shows up? Point number three: when God shows up, don't miss the opportunity to join him. John didn't. Regrettably, more than a few people miss the opportunity, or delay until their later years and finally relent, saying, "I wish I would have sooner."

I remember at about nineteen sitting in my 1981 Toyota Starlet—a car they only made for one year, for good reason. My friend Charles, with his giant blonde afro, and I were both in Bible college, talking about serving God. I told him, "I don't ever want to get to a point where I say, 'I wish I would have.'" A lot of people carry "I wish I wouldn't have." But almost worse is "I wish I would have served the Lord and followed when the opportunity came." John was all in.

A New Thing: Baptism of Repentance

What was John preaching? A baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. This was new. The word baptism comes from the Greek baptizo, to fully immerse in water—relatively new for Jewish people. They knew ritual washing: Leviticus 15 for the unclean, Leviticus 16 for the high priest on the Day of Atonement, and 2 Kings 5, where the Syrian general Naaman dipped seven times in the Jordan and was healed of leprosy—though he first complained that the Jordan was a dirty, disgusting river. But that's about it. Now John shows up calling people to be immersed in water for the remission of sins. Come on, all in—be immersed.

John was calling people to demonstrate not their forgiveness but their repentance. The English word "repent" connects to "penance," the idea of payment or even beating yourself up because you've been so bad. But the Hebrew word is hardly ever translated "repent"—most often it's "return" or "turn." You've been on this path, and God says turn, return. It's like the GPS—the "God positioning system"—saying, "Recalculating, get back on the line." Repent means turn from your path and return to the Lord.

And remission means pardon, forgiveness, dismissal of sins. This was new, because to be forgiven in Judaism you would go to the temple in Jerusalem and offer a sacrifice through a priest. But we've established God hadn't been at that temple for a long time—it was filled with hirelings, money changers, and politicians. So John says: turn to the Lord directly for forgiveness. You don't need to go to Jerusalem.

Baptism for Revelation

Why was John baptizing? First, because God told him to—and if God tells you to do something, you ought to do it. But some have wrongly read this text to mean baptism saves you or deals with your sin. That's not what's said. It is repentance—turning to God—that deals with sin; baptism is the external demonstration of an internal, metaphysical act in the heart.

More than that, John's baptism was primarily for revelation. In John's Gospel (a different John), John the Baptist explains: "He who sent me to baptize"—that is, God—"told me, 'Upon whom you see the Spirit descending, that one is the Messiah.'" Here's the amazing thing: after Jesus was baptized and John bore witness that the Spirit descended on him like a dove and remained, John stopped baptizing. If his baptism were essential to salvation, he wouldn't have stopped. Its primary purpose was revelation—that we might know who the Messiah is.

God Is on the Move

With all this in mind, let me make some application. Things in John's day were bleak. Rome ruled with an iron fist, an Edomite was king, the priests had stooped to political scheming, the prophets had been silent 400 years, and the people were in despair. But God always seems to show up at just the right time, in unexpected ways, and the right response is to not miss the opportunity but to join him.

Why bring this up? I think we, living in 2025, are at the end of a long, bleak winter of silence—but God is on the move. Have you read C.S. Lewis's The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe? Narnia is always winter and never Christmas. Then something happens: Aslan, the picture of Jesus, is on the move. Father Christmas shows up—and interestingly, J.R.R. Tolkien objected to Lewis injecting Father Christmas from our world into that fictional one. They had a real conflict over it. But after Father Christmas appears, the snow begins to melt, because as Aslan is on the move, the perpetual winter is broken. I think we're seeing something like that now.

Many in our nation and church have been asking, "Can it get any worse? Is there any hope?" I have too. This past week my wife and I attended a senior pastors and wives conference in the desert—the first like it in our 17 years as a senior pastor—put together by my friend Pastor Rob Salbato of Vista. My friend David Guzik was there and gave a message titled "God Is on the Move." He asked us beforehand what we were seeing. My friend Chuck said, "God's doing something on the college campuses in America"—and I see that. I told David that people who were previously atheistic and skeptical are now wondering whether there's truth in Christianity, and people formerly steadfastly against the moral standards of the Bible are suddenly saying, "Maybe there's something to that." I don't want to miss the opportunity when the Lord is on the move.

The Only Hope for Our World

My wife suggested I share more of this with you, so I will. Twenty years ago I served at a Bible school in Germany, where I met David Guzik. In one teaching he said, "The only hope for Europe in this next generation is a move of God. It will either be Christianity and a move of God, or Islam." About a year later I read a book called While Europe Slept by Bruce Bawer—not a Christian book at all. Bawer left Tennessee with his partner to escape what he saw as bigoted Christians, moving to Amsterdam, only to find his street filled with radical Muslims who didn't just call him a sinner but wanted to harm him. He wrote that as secularism increased, Christianity declined, and radical Islam moved in to take over. He noted a shirt worn by Islamic youth in Copenhagen reading "2030"—and then we take over. That's not far away now.

A few years ago Douglas Murray wrote The Strange Death of Europe, highlighting the same pattern over recent generations: secularism increased, Christianity declined, Islam moved in. It's long been said America is about twenty years behind Europe. You've watched it—secularism increasing, Christianity declining. There is only one hope for our nation and the world, and it is the gospel of Jesus Christ. Not better politics, not better politicians—those are byproducts of salvation.

But Pew Research released a study a few weeks ago reporting that, for the first time in a quarter century, the decline of Christianity in America has leveled off, with the first positive increase in twenty years. God is on the move. The question is whether we'll stand on the sidelines or recognize that God wants us engaged—maybe a side bet, maybe all in.

Will You Engage?

I'm not worried the church won't survive. Jesus said, "I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it." But we can't assume that things as they have been in the West will continue if Western people depart from the truths of Christianity. The gospel is the only hope. Jesus speaks of abundant life, more present here, and eternal life in his future kingdom—and his message is the only way to life. He calls us to partner with him.

So I'm asking you to engage. Many of you have known me a long time and say, "I did that in the past." But are you doing it today? Some of you have never been invited into the work. When we're faithful in little things, God moves us into bigger things. Sometimes the small first step is being an usher, a greeter, a life group leader—but it's where you say, "I'm going to push in and see if God might want me to do something." I can guarantee you he does.

We need your help. Within ten miles of this building are a million people, and research years ago found only 9.3% of them are in any way affected by the Christian church. More than 90% don't know or haven't heard the gospel. That means we're not doing our job, and God wants us engaged—not just for a bigger church, but so the kingdom of God increases, so we might see his kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.

The great apologist Francis Schaeffer released A Christian Manifesto in 1981; chapter six is titled "An Open Window." He said the church had an open window for the gospel at the start of the 1980s. I think we have another small open window now, and would to God that we would see him move. The amazing thing is that he chose to use us. I think he could do it better—this may be why he waited until the end of creation to make man, knowing we'd second-guess his methods—but he still wants us to engage.

So pray, because God wants you to be part of it, and we need your help—for life groups, for children's ministry, for all of it. God is calling you to be involved, to reach a place we sometimes think is too far gone. It's not. When I travel, people hear I pastor in California and ask, "Are there any Christians in California?" Come on—there are more Christians in California than there are people in Kentucky. And we are here, contending earnestly for the faith. Would to God that he would move in our day. Amen.

Closing Prayer

Father God, I thank you for your word. I pray that you would help us to walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time because the days are evil, making the most of every opportunity. God, help us as your people, as your church, for such a time as this in this place, to be a light to those who are in darkness. We pray you would move miraculously and powerfully by the hosts of heaven against the spiritual hosts of wickedness here. There are strongholds of the enemy in San Diego County. Help us to see them, to recognize the spiritual battle, and to engage. Help us not to sit idly by, for I want to hear you say, "Well done, good and faithful servant." Open our eyes to see the ways you might be calling us to engage, and give us the faith to be all in and not seated on the sidelines—even if it makes us fearful, even if it causes issues. Help us to be fully committed. And now, may the Lord bless and keep you. May he make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. May he lift up his countenance upon you and give you his peace. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father, and the fellowship of his Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.