Sermon Tone Analysis

ME

Can you believe it’s two weeks and one day until Christmas?

Last year, most of us spend Christmas in our home, eating either a home cook meal or getting take out from a delivery app.

Conversing on the laptop over zoom while your parents, or your in-laws are eating their meal.

This year, we can look forward to spending time with our families again.

Even with the new Omicron variant, and the increase cases, there’s still a general sense of renewal this December, like everything is not quite pre-Covid, but not 2020 either.

WE

Have we thought about besides being renewed as a family, a husband or wife, a brother or sister?

how can we be renewed as a follower of Jesus?

How can we be a faithful witness to Him this Christmas and into 2022?

GOD

We’ve been exploring the message of John the prophet, otherwise better known as John the Baptist.

He was the voice who proclaimed the good news of salvation.

Through the act of repentance, the Jews can receive the forgiveness of sins.

His baptism is a precursor to the one who is coming, and we were held in suspense at the end of last weeks message with this question: How will people respond to such a challenging, and at times, judgment-filled message?

John ends with a warning of the imminent judgment for those who will not repent, and how they are in danger of being cut off from the root for not bearing fruit.

Will the Jews respond with defiance or will they respond with repentance?

In other words, our big idea today is:

A response to God is not merely words but concrete action which could lead to suffering.

So how do we respond to Jesus’ good news?

I.

We respond to Jesus’s good news with concrete action (10-15).

Our first point!

Praise the LORD!

The Jews’ response tells us they are not only eager to be baptized but they are responding in repentance!

They want to change.

They no longer want to be bearing rotten fruit, but good fruit in keeping with repentance.

And here Luke lists three reactions from three different groups who have come to hear the message and be baptized.

Notice they didn’t ask John, “what shall we know”?

Or, “what shall we say?

But, “what shall we do?”

The first group is the crowd:

Verse 10:

This would be the general crowd, like you and me.

They have heard of the hope which will be found in Christ, the promise of salvation, and the need for repentance.

They want to bear good fruit.

Notice John doesn’t tell them, oh you are good enough.

Or, just have faith.

These are the misguided encouragements we may tell others.

I am sometimes guilty of this myself, as a pastor.

We want to be comforting, so we minimize the need for change.

And of course, when someone is already guilt-ridden and beaten down by remorse, that may not be the right time lay it heavy upon them.

But there DOES need to be a time where a concrete step needs to be taken, and for some of us it’s blatantly obvious.

We should not shy away from this kind of encouragement to take concrete action, as long as we have a helpful and humble attitude as we do this and are not looking down on others..

And so John suggests to the general crowd to be generous to the least of these.

Two tunics are more than sufficient, even excessive for the average person.

Contrast that with someone who has no tunic, which is an inside shirt to cover the body before the outer robe.

Surely we can give from our excess.

And also food.

Most of us have food.

I can still remember going on a cruise trip pre-covid and just looking at the excess food and food choices for breakfast, seven different ways you can make eggs, another dozen type of salads, pancakes, roast beef.

I even remember not finishing a piece of roast beef because it was too dry.

Here I am, being picky about food while there are many in the world who would gladly eat a dried up piece of meat, or more likely, break the generous portion and split it among all their family members.

Perhaps this can challenge us to take a percentage of the money we originally planned for our cruise or vacation, but are now not taking due to COVID, and give it to the Canadian Food Bank.

The second group are tax collectors:

Tax collectors are notoriously looked down on because they work for the oppressing government.

Tax booths were often strategically located at key roads to and from cities like Jerusalem and Jericho.

Tax collectors had the ability to rig the system and charge way more in terms of commission and kickbacks on top of the standard fee for bringing goods and trades through these roads.

Farmers and herdsmen already had a difficult time living under Roman occupation.

Now, they look forward to their own kindred charging them excess tax at each station, essentially stealing from them or giving more to their oppressor.

The extra tax would be demanded even if the harvest was not favourable that year or there was drought.

This is why tax collectors are likened to robbers by Jewish writers and even Roman writers regard them as brothel-keepers.

And notice what John’s reply to them is, how they can bear fruit in keeping with repentance.

Collect no more than you are authorized to do.

Interesting John did not call them to leave their shady business, but just to be honest with their work.

If you bought this tax collector role from Rome for X amount of dollars, than just charge what the government requires people to pay and nothing more.

This seems hardly repentant.

Wouldn’t it be better if John ask them to leave the profession altogether?

But that’s not the point, even if it’s ideal.

The point is not to cause anyone to lose their job, or to attack the system itself, but to do what is moral to do within an imperfect system.

This application is a challenging one, because there are many professions where you walk a fine line in an imperfect system.

For an accountant, do you agree to fudge the numbers a bit or find tax loopholes if it means you get recommended to bigger and better clients?

For those in real estate, do you inflate the number of interested buyers so people will bid well over the asking price for a heftier commission?

The key is not to dump on financial or real estate as a career, but John’s examples all have one thing in common: money.

And how the love of money leads to the need to lie.

John says, there’s a better way to a life of integrity within the job you are currently in.

And lastly, there are the soldiers:

Whose soldiers are these?

Since most likely those who would recognize John from Isaiah 40 would be Jews, it can be either troops under Herod Antipas’ rule in Perea, or troops who guard alongside tax collectors in case there is non-compliance from merchants or disputes arising from unfair tax .The behaviour John suggests to these soldiers is to refrain from shaking violently (that’s what the Greek word to extort means) by using their power and violence to force people to pay.

If intimidation didn’t work, a soldier could also lie about the person they want to extort and justify their confiscation of property or goods.

The property or goods seized could then supplement their wages, a basic food ration and just enough to get by.

Again, it’s not wrong to be a soldier, but as a soldier one should not abuse their authority and power.

Notice who was seemingly absent.

The whole gang of people in the introduction from Luke 3:1-2.

No Caesar.

No Tetrarchs.

No Governors.

Not even the High Priests.

Here John is having a mini-revival and yet those in the upper echelon of society did not see it as a threat, or something to worry about.

No one was sent to disperse these baptizing mobs.

Only those who knew they were a sinner and needed mercy.

It reminds me of watching the movie The Hunger Games and how the upper society of Pan Am just go about their business and allow the struggles of the districts to be determined by a game of the survival of the fittest.

Yet as we said, John isn’t the main attraction.

He’s the announcer, the way-setter.

The focus and the Way is about to come.

Our second point:

II.

Jesus is the Christ and the Emobodiment of Good News (15-18, 21-22).

With no prophetic words for over 400 years, John had a unique appearance of camel hair clothes, a unique diet of locusts and honey, a uniquely bold message of repentance, and unique confidence in challenging the people with authority.

The Jews would have started to wonder if he’s is the Christ.