John the Forerunner!
Sermon
for Sunday, December 9, 2007
1. Opening prayer
2. It’s the Second Sunday of Advent!
3. A reminder – Advent is a penitential season – reflective!
4. Last Sunday I suggested that the best image for the Christian
in the Advent Season was that of Sarah Ockrin –
rubbing her pregnant tummy!
5. It’s the spirit of Mary isn’t it?
6. How she must have touched her swollen belly and wondered who
this child – this god/man was going to become!
7. This is the most perfect posture of the Christian waiting in
anticipation for our Lord’s Second Coming!
8. This is a spirit of anticipation!
9. God is clearly encouraging you and me to adopt a spirit of
eager anticipation for our Lord’s Coming again!
10. This time – this final time when all of time will cease and the
great Messianic Age will begin!
11.
What a day that will be!
12. Well today our Lord is encouraging us to
look at the life of John the Baptist!
13. There’s something about John that I’m convinced God wants us to
imitate!
14. What can John tell us about how to live
more holy lives I wonder?
15. The
16. I believe that the best way to approach this
contemplation is for me to read the Gospel reading talking to us about John and
then share some of my observations.
17. Now as we do this I want to ask you to compare and
contrast your life as it is today with John’s life.
18. Not to intimidate us but perhaps to encourage us to
greater effort to be like John – preparing the way for the coming of Jesus
Christ!
19. Let’s begin by some historical
background info on John . . .
20. The main theme of his preaching was the near approach of the messianic
age and the need for adequate spiritual preparation to be ready for it.
21. His mission was to prepare the people for the advent of the Messiah. The baptism
by water that he administered signified a break with and cleansing from sin.
22. His baptism prepared for a new condition; the Jews
baptized only Gentiles, but he called on Jews themselves to be baptized; and
his baptism was a baptism of water only in preparation for the messianic
baptism of the Spirit anticipated by the prophets.
23.
He was a revolutionary! Many scholars believe that he was part of the
Essene sect who were seeking
a return to “true” Judaism, not simply in political opposition to the ruling authorities.
24.
When Jesus had himself baptized by John (Mark
1:9–11), the act itself was a confession by Jesus that he had accepted John’s
message as orthodox in the Jewish sense.
25. Now I want to stop here and read the Gospel reading and examine his
life from this angle before we make some obvious observation.
26. Try to
imagine the scene as best you can.
27. Matt. 3:1 ¶ In those
days John the Baptist came preaching in the
28. He came from the desert!
Matt.
3:2 and saying,
“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.”
Matt.
3:3 This is he who was spoken of through the prophet Isaiah: “A voice of one calling in the desert, ‘Prepare
the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.’”
29. This sounds like a rather strange fellow at first
glance!
30. He seems to have only 2 messages – Repent, Prepare!
31.
32.
Have you ever
ridden a camel – the hair is very very coarse!
33.
Let’s put it
this way is the quintessential opposite of “cashmere.”
34.
35.
The emphasis
here is that very very large numbers of people went
out into the desert to see and hear him!!
36.
And what did
they do when they heard his message of Repent and Prepare the way for the
coming of the Lord?
37.
Reading on: Matt. 3:6 They came and ended up . . . Confessing their sins, and they were baptized
by him in the
38.
All of this was designed to get them ready for the coming of the
Lord!
39. Incidentally what have you and I done in our lives to
clean them up for the Lord? Let’s keep
reading . . .
40.
Matt.
3:7 ¶ But when he saw many of the Pharisees
and Sadducees coming to where he was baptizing, he said to them: “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee
from the coming wrath?
Matt. 3:8 Produce fruit in
keeping with repentance.
41.
Now this is a most interesting exhortation – this is grist for a
sermon in and of itself – John is exhorting
the hypocritical religious leaders to be what they say they are – to be truly
sorry for their sins and to live changed lives consistent with their sorrow.
42.
If there is one
phrase that has the capacity to cause most of us to cringe it’s this one
when truly understood and taken to heart!
43.
How many of us express deep sorrow for our confounding sins and
then keep on committing them!
44. If John is right our fruitlessness – our
spiritual impotency - is consistent with our lack of true repentance.
45.
In other words, if you keep on doing something you know is bad you
need to work on coming to true repentance!
46.
This is a
penitent season – what one thing in your life do you and I need to really ask God
to bring us to deep and true and final repentance?
47.
Let’s keep reading - Matt. 3:9 And don’t think you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as
our father.’ I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for
Abraham.
Matt.
3:10 The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that
doesn’t produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.
40. Ah! Don’t
make excuses! Stop with the
excuses! Know them for what they are – damnable excuses!
41. This is “THE” season for stopping with the excuses!
42. OK – let’s
finish our reading and then make some observations about this wonderful man.
43. Matt. 3:11 ¶ “I baptize you with
water for repentance. But after me will come one who is more powerful than I,
whose sandals I am not fit to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit
and with fire. 12 His winnowing
fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat
into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” 13 ¶ Then Jesus came from Galilee to the
44. Ah! Clearly John knew who Jesus was.
45. He even
recognized Jesus when he, John, was in his mother’s womb and Mary newly pregnant
with Jesus came into his presence and Scripture tells us that “he leaped in his
mother’s womb.” (Luke 1:41)
46. Oh, he
knew who Jesus was. Listen to what he
said when Jesus came to be baptized by him, Mark 1:7 And
this was his message: “After me will
come one more powerful than I, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie.
47. And Jesus knew who John was. Listen to what he had to say about him: Matt.
11:7 ¶ As John’s disciples were leaving, Jesus began to speak to
the crowd about John: “What did you go
out into the desert to see? A reed swayed by the wind? 8 If not, what did you go out to see? A man dressed
in fine clothes? No, those who wear fine clothes are in kings’ palaces. 9 Then what did you go out to see? A
prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. 10 This is the one about whom it is written: “‘I will
send my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way before you.’ 11 I tell you the truth: Among those born of women
there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist;
48. Ok now let’s reflect on what we’re just learned
about John and see if we can come up with a good image of him.
49. My first thought is that we may not want someone
like him as our pastor. He doesn’t sound
too pastoral to me!
50. Probably
not very politically correct!
51. Look at
him – he’s dressed in camel hair and he probably doesn’t spend a whole lot of
time in front of a mirror!
52. My guess is that
he didn’t look very healthy – living on wild honey and locusts – not what you’d
call a very balanced diet!
53. He called a
spade a spade and owed no one anything!
54. He was a zealot
– He knew what he was to do and he was doing it!
55. His message was
very simple – repent and prepare – for He’s a comin’!
56. Now think about
it – He was so compelling that a large portion of
57. He could command
a very very large audience and themn
cause them to walk into water and be baptized by him.’
58. What sort of
voice must he have had?
59. He wasn’t
a wimp – baptizing thousands and thousands of people in a day – day after day
after day!
60. So what is God calling out of us this
morning?
61. Repent and
Prepare! And stop making excuses!
62. Lose the weight! Stop smoking! Stop the angry outbursts! Get out of dept! Do the study to get the grade!
63.
Repent and Prepare!
64. May I encourage each and every one of us to
identify one thing we need to be rid of and invite the Lord right now to sweep
over us with a spirit of deep and profound sorrow – mortification. A sorry we’re not going to run from and a
mortification that we’re not going to ignore.
Ask the Lord to hold us in this state of utter mortification until we
are ready to bear fruit in keeping with this profound sorrow and repentance.
65. Then we can say truly we are ready for His
coming!
64. Let’s pray!