Matthew 3

v1-12: If we want to receive peace and pardon from God, we need to repent of our sin.  “It is only those who are brought with sorrow and shame to acknowledge their own guilt who are ready to receive Jesus Christ as their Righteousness.”  Repentance of sin will always be accompanied by a determination with God’s help not to return to sin.

v13-17: How the Father must love us.  He gave His Son, the one whom He loved, whom He delights in, to suffer and die for those who were objects of His wrath.  As the Father declared from heaven that Jesus is His beloved Son that He is well pleased with, so we are to agree with by saying that “He is our beloved Saviour, in whom we are well pleased.”

Matthew 4

v1-11: The aim of Satan in tempting Christ was to get Him to sin against God so that He would not be able to be the sacrifice for sins of His people.  The way Satan sought to do this was by trying to get Christ “to despair of His Father’s goodness, to presume on His Father’s power, and to seize His Father’s honour and give it to Satan.”  The aim of Satan in tempting Christians is to get us to sin against God and end our relationship with Him by encouraging us to give up our “dependence on Him, [our] duty toward Him, and [our] fellowship with Him.”  When we are tempted to sin we are to resist and repel with ‘It is written’ which means we need to know what God’s Word says.

v12-25: Jesus is the One who calls us and equips us to be fishers of men for Him.  To be fishers of men we need like fisherman need to both fish by telling and teaching people the Scriptures, and mend nets by studying the God’s Word.  “Mending [our] nets is, in its time, as necessary work as fishing."