Prepare the Way
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
1 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.
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.
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.”
THE MESSAGE OF PREPARATION (v1-3)
THE SETTING OF PREPARATION (v4-5)
THE ACTION OF PREPARATION (v6-9)
THE END OF PREPARATION (v10-12)
THE SETTING OF PREPARATION
THE SETTING OF PREPARATION
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,
So, the message is PREPARE THE WAY of the LORD. Remove the obstructions and obstacles. Remove the bumps, but notice where this message is being professed and proclaimed. IN THE WILDERNESS.
NOTHING says Christmas like a man with the wilderness as his destination, camel’s hair as his wardrobe, locust and honey as his delicacy, and YOU BROOD OF VIPERS as one of his Christmas Carols, right? NEVERTHELESS, HERE WE ARE!
If we were making up this story, then we probably would have picked the proclaimer to come declaring the arrival of a Kingdom and the arrival of a King from the highest post of a great city spoken by a man in a fancy suit with fine cuisine and fancy soothing words.
AND YET THIS IS NOT WHAT WE GET AT ALL AND MAYBE THAT’S HOW IT IS SUPPOSED TO BE…
The wilderness has some geographical significance but more importantly is its theological significance. The wilderness is where the Lord takes the children of Israel for discipline and maturing after delivering them from Egypt. The wilderness is the place rarely traveled, unappealing, and undesirable. It is a place of isolation and emptiness
SOUND LIKE A PLACE, YOU’VE EVER BEEN BEFORE? Maybe you’re there right now in fact.
What about John’s uniform?
The Camel’s hair is the clothing of a poor man but it is also points back to a garment of power. Let me explain: in 2 Kings we read this:
8 They answered him, “He wore a garment of hair, with a belt of leather about his waist.” And he said, “It is Elijah the Tishbite.”
This was Elijah’s uniform as well. When we read about John’s attire, we are supposed to think about Elijah. Some of the final words of the OT are foreshadowing this very moment. Centuries before this moment we read this in the 4th chapter of Malachi:
5 “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. 6 And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction.”
And what will Elijah do upon his return?
1 “Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts.
The Camel’s hair, normally a possible sign of poverty and meager living is instead now a sign helping us see that John is in fact the second coming of Elijah who has come on the scene to announce that the Savior is coming.
The Savior is ENROUTE.
In fact, Jesus would later say of John the Baptist:
11 Truly, I say to you, among those born of women there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist. Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. 12 From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force. 13 For all the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John, 14 and if you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah who is to come. 15 He who has ears to hear, let him hear.
IN THIS SETTING OF PREPARATION, power is found in poverty rather than luxury. Light is found in the darkness of the wilderness rather than the crowded space of the city. Hope is found in the measly meal of locusts and honey rather than the fine delicacies of royal home.
Through the unusual setting of the Lord’s messenger, the Lord is actually sending us a message.
ADVENT isn’t always best represented in the commercialized, black-friday, holiday hustle and bustle of our lives. It isn’t best represented under a tree with presents stacked to the ceiling..
ADVENT is sometimes best represented in the quiet moments in our socially distanced homes as the number of deaths in our nation from this pandemic creep up to 300000 while we all cry out, HOW LONG LORD!
THAT IS AN APPROPRIATE SETTING FOR ADVENT
ADVENT is sometimes best represented in the mile long lines of cars all over this nation driving through one of the many food supply centers as some people for the first time in their lives receiving food boxes in order to survive while crying silently to themselves as they say again HOW LONG LORD!?
THAT IS THE SETTING OF ADVENT
It is into that darkness, that isolation, that place of discomfort and unease that the Savior is introduced to us.
And most of the time, it is also in that space that we are best prepared to receive Him.
I would love to tell you that your mind is best primed to hear from God in the hustle and bustle, in the crowded spaces, but I wouldn’t be being honest with you.
No, you are far more primed to hear from the Lord in the moments where it seems like no other voice is within a 1000 miles. The lonely places, the dark places, the uncomfortable places.
MOST OF US WANT TO RUN PAST THE WILDERNESS and meet Jesus in a more comfortable place, but the darkness, the isolation, the lack of luxury can oftentimes be just what we need to properly discern our NEED for Him!
Don’t be so quick to try to run past the wilderness in your life, but rather allow it to remind you of your true need for a SAVIOR…allow it to remind you of our true need for a SAVIOR to come and make all of this right.
THE ACTION OF PREPARATION
THE ACTION OF PREPARATION
The story of John the Baptist gives us a clear picture of the action of our preparation. REPENTANCE
2 “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
John’s ministry in the wilderness begins with this word, REPENT.
PREPARATION is REPENTANCE.
An unrepenting heart is unprepared heart.
If we aren’t turning away from this world and turning towards Christ than we ARE NOT preparing for His arrival.
In fact, this message of repentance is sooo important that everyone who comes proclaiming the Kingdom in the Gospels is also bringing this call to repentance.
First, we see John calling men and women to prepare the way for the arrival of the Savior by repenting
But we also hear these words, when the Savior begins his ministry,
17 From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
And Jesus teaches his disciples this message as well for when they were charged to go and share the Gospel of the ADVENT Savior, Mark 6:12 says
12 So they went out and proclaimed that people should repent.
PREPARATION IS REPENTANCE.
Miss this and you miss ADVENT. Both figuratively and LITERALLY.
Miss repentance and you will miss the Savior’s arrival and the salvation that He brings with Him.
So, needless to say it is very important that we get this right, and in verses 6-9, we receive a blueprint for repentance.
6 and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.
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.
REPENTANCE AT ITS FUNDAMENTAL ROOT means to change your mind, to think differently, but in Scripture there is a little more depth in meaning.
David Platt gives us a great outline saying that repentance involves confession (admission of sin), contrition (sorrow over sin) and conversion (turn from sin).
In Matthew 3, the people are called from the city into the wilderness and they come being baptized and CONFESSING their sin, ACKNOWLEDGING their wrongdoing.
They weren’t in denial about the reality that they had crossed a HOLY and JUST God. He held up a law and a standard and they had violated.
One of the most difficult things we find in this current climate of American culture is a willingness to even acknowledge wrongdoing. From our celebrities calling us to pursue our own hearts no matter where they lead us to our political leaders denying acts of wrongdoing when they are plain for all to see.
Just simple acknowledgment of sin is a difficult thing for us to come by…we don’t like to be WRONG. But PREPARATION for the arrival of a sinless savior requires that we first acknowledge that we are sinful.
Why should we be expected to change when we don’t even acknowledge that there is something wrong with us?
However, Platt rightly acknowledges that repentance includes confession but not only confession. He references Pharaoh's acknowledgement of His sin in...
27 Then Pharaoh sent and called Moses and Aaron and said to them, “This time I have sinned; the Lord is in the right, and I and my people are in the wrong.
He acknowledged his sin but he wasn’t CONTRITE over his sin. He felt no sorrow over His sin...
The Scripture tells us in...
English Standard Version Psalm 51
17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
We prepare our hearts for the Lord’s arrival when we demonstrate a true brokenness over our sin. A recognition that we have offended a Holy God.
The Scripture tells us in...
10 For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.
Acknowledgement that we have offended a HOLY God and brokenness over our offense is what leads to true repentance.
Do you SEE your SINFULNESS before a SINLESS GOD?
Do you FEEL SORROW over your SINFULNESS AGAINST THIS SINLESS GOD?
You are on the way. I say on the way because we know that even acknowledging and feeling sorrow over our sin is not the full picture of repentance. The Rich Young Ruler in Matthew 19 understand his need for a Savior and even felt sorrow over his unwillingness to give that Savior his allegiance but that did not lead to him actually REPENTING!
We must actually convert or TURN from sin.
You can see John addressing these three stages of repentance in Matthew 3.
He calls the people into the wilderness to confess their sins, but then he challenges the religious elite. WITH YOU BROOD OF VIPERS, openly they may profess to live confessing lives but inwardly they are not walking in it genuinely. John takes their arrogance further when he says don’t presume that your ethnic or national lineage will give you entry into the Kingdom of God.
Being born of the right ethnicity does not grant your salvation…
Only embracing Jesus will grant you salvation…
We actually see this even in the baptisms taking place. Biblical Scholar Leon Morris rightly points out that usually...
The Gospel according to Matthew 1. John’s Preaching, 3:1–12
The Jews employed baptism in admitting Gentiles as proselytes, but the sting in John’s practice was that he applied it to Jews!
Baptism represents a death to my self and everything in my identity that I thought was sufficient to save me. It is an acknowledgement that I can’t save me. It is an acknowledgement that I need to be born again. By calling the Jews to baptism, John is saying that their national and cultural identity was not sufficient for true repentance. In other words our complexion and heredity is NOT sufficient to save us.
In fact John takes it a step further and says, Don’t get too arrogant about being born in the right ethnic lineage because God is able take whatever inanimate object He wants and make children for himself.
And what’s amazing about that, is in a way, that’s precisely what he does. He takes spiritually dead and inanimate men and women from every nation, tribe, and tongue both inside and outside of Israel and HE MAKES THEM LIVING MEMBERS OF HIS FAMILY
I love what love what one prominent scholar and author says about this scathing rebuke that John gives the Pharisees and Sadducees :
Advent: The Once and Future Coming of Jesus Christ The Axe at the Root of the Trees (Matthew 3:1, 7–10)
Now do you see? A power from outside is coming, a power that is able to make a new creation out of people like us, stones like us, people who have no capacity of ourselves to save ourselves. The power that is coming is not our power—not the power of our deeds, or our inner strength, or our spiritual discipline, or our faith, or even our repentance. It is God’s power that gives good deeds and inner strength and spiritual discipline and faith and repentance. We are able to repent and bear fruit because he is coming.
We cannot trust any of the powers of this world to make us children of Abraham. We cannot presume to say to ourselves that we have better genes, or better morals, or better theology, or better attitudes, or better humility, or better repentance. It is God who is making children of Abraham—making people new for his kingdom—making them out of stones.
God MAKES US LIVING MEMBERS OF HIS FAMILY that come forward not only acknowledging sin, but displaying true sorrow over that sin and not only displaying sorrow but actually turning from sin.
What does this turning look like? John tells us in...
8 Bear fruit in keeping with repentance.
BEAR FRUIT that is consistent with a repentant life. That is the conversion piece. We prepare for His arrival not just by acknowledging or sin or even feeling sorrow over our sin. We prepare for His arrival by bearing fruit in line with repentance.
What does that look like? Matthew doesn’t give us the full picture but Luke does. In this same story in Luke when the people begin searching for answers as to what does repentance look that, Luke captures John’s words in verses 10-14 of chapter 3...
10 And the crowds asked him, “What then shall we do?” 11 And he answered them, “Whoever has two tunics is to share with him who has none, and whoever has food is to do likewise.” 12 Tax collectors also came to be baptized and said to him, “Teacher, what shall we do?” 13 And he said to them, “Collect no more than you are authorized to do.” 14 Soldiers also asked him, “And we, what shall we do?” And he said to them, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or by false accusation, and be content with your wages.”
What do we learn from these words:
1. The REPENTANT LIFE IS A SACRIFICIAL LIFE
2. The REPENTANT LIFE IS A WHERE WE LOVE NEIGHBOR. We don’t look to exploit or cheat our neighbors simply because we can. Bearing fruit in keeping with repentance means that we are seeking our neighbor’s good above our own.
When you think about that, you really begin to see how ANTI-ADVENT the culture sometimes pushes us to be. It’s not that they’re is anything wrong with buying gifts for your friends and family but the true essence is not found in what I can hoard it is found in what I can share!
PREPARATION is not about COLLECTING and STORING. It’s about seeking ways to live SACRIFICIALLY.
How are you embodying the Spirit of ADVENT this season? In what ways are you looking give versus simply receive?
This is what it looks like to prepare our hearts for His arrival. This is what it looks like to live repentant lives.
THE END OF PREPARATION
THE END OF PREPARATION
So John’s message of preparation is PREPARE THE WAY. A message that has been longed for and anticipated for centuries and is finally finding it’s fulfillment in this arriving King.
His setting is in the wilderness, the darkness of this cold and broken world is where God most often can capture our attention and do the inner work that leads to true and abiding preparation
And the action of preparation is repentance. A repentance that includes not only acknowledgement of sin, but sorrow over our sin, and a wresting away from our sin.
Here’s the question to what end? What is the preparation for?
John gives the reason in the verse 2
2 “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
For the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand...
Remember last week, we discussed the Kingdom of Heaven being the reign and rule of God.
The first arrival brought the King and His Kingdom.
Jesus comes and lives the perfect life. Sacrifices himself on the cross for the salvation of the world and rises from the grave with all power in his hand...
But that is only one half of the Kingdom’s coming. That is what the scholars call the ALREADY portion. This is only half of ADVENT
We still have a NOT YET portion. A part that we long for.
This part we look for when a young man is shot in the head at a party like what happened this week.
This part we look for when three people are shot in the city with one dying like what happened last week.
This part we look for when 15000 People die in one week in this country from a virus that we still argue over how to actually fight.
This part we look for when there are more bills than money. When there are more headaches in our relationships than laughs. When there are more moments of weeping than moments of relief in our suffering.
This is the part that we cry out from the darkness and say MARNANTHA! Lord Jesus Come Quickly!!!
This is the second half of ADVENT. THE NOT YET portion of ADVENT.
And with the second arrival of the King, comes the fulfillment of that second ADVENT.
But there is another side to this ADVENT that we would do will to pay attention…a portion that we w
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.
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.”
Ways that you can prepare your heart during the season of Advent.
SOAK YOURSELF IN THE WORD. What are you reading right now?
Starting today - We are going to share on our social media page a daily ADVENT audio devotional read by Pastor John Piper called Good News of Great Joy. I want to invite you to take 10 minutes out of our everyday to listen to each devotional, meditate on the encouragements & challenges shared, and then pray for the Lord to use the word in a way that will leave you transformed.
BEAR FRUIT IN KEEPING WITH REPENTANCE. As we discussed earlier, REPENTANCE looks more like selflessness rather than selfishness. It is models a savior who sacrificed and died for His family. The culture in many ways has robbed us of the posture the season of Advent is supposed to produce in us. Out of the abundance of love we have received in Christ, there should be desire to share with others. In other words, this season should be marked by Christians thinking about what they have to give rather than simply what they desire to receive.
Late this week I stumbled across an article in the Vicksburg Post expressing deep concern that the Salvation Army had more kids provide Christmas gifts for than the city was going to be able to adopt. This year has left a lot of people in need and a lot of other people with less room in their purses and wallets to spend than normal years. Those two issues have combined to result in a big shortcoming in the amount of kids adopted for Christmas. So, because of this need, we are also asking this year if you would consider donating towards City Light adopting 5 children and gifting them with a few clothes and a few toys.