This morning I’d like to give a post script to the year.
When you write a letter and you have one more thing to say you write
ps. That means post script, or after the letter.
If you then think of just one more thing you want to say you’ll write
pps. Or post-post script, after the post script.
Zecheriah’s song gives us a pps at the end
Prepare
Proclaim and
Shine
Read together
The Birth of John the Baptist
Luke 157 When it was time for Elizabeth to have her baby, she gave birth to a son. 58 Her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown her great mercy, and they shared her joy.
59 On the eighth day they came to circumcise the child, and they were going to name him after his father Zechariah, 60 but his mother spoke up and said, “No! He is to be called John.”
61 They said to her, “There is no one among your relatives who has that name.”
62 Then they made signs to his father, to find out what he would like to name the child. 63 He asked for a writing tablet, and to everyone’s astonishment he wrote, “His name is John.” 64 Immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue was loosed, and he began to speak, praising God. 65 The neighbors were all filled with awe, and throughout the hill country of Judea people were talking about all these things. 66 Everyone who heard this wondered about it, asking, “What then is this child going to be?” For the Lord’s hand was with him.
Zechariah’s Song
67 His father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied:
68 “Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, because he has come and has redeemed his people.
69 He has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David
70 (as he said through his holy prophets of long ago),
71 salvation from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us—
72 to show mercy to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant,
73 the oath he swore to our father Abraham:
74 to rescue us from the hand of our enemies, and to enable us to serve him without fear 75 in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.
76 And you, my child, will be called a prophet of the Most High;
for you will go on before the Lord to prepare the way for him,
77 to give his people the knowledge of salvation
through the forgiveness of their sins,
78 because of the tender mercy of our God,
by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven
79 to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the path of peace.”
for you will go on before the Lord to prepare the way for him,
What is it that makes a person a prophet of the Most High God?
1. He prepares a way for Him.
i. I have friends that are missionaries who talk about “pre-evangelism”; doing things that demonstrate the nature of the Kingdom of God, without preaching or pressing people to make a decision about Jesus. I think in India, particularly, there is a place for this-a place for walking before we talk, preparing the way, opening hearts so that the Lord can pour Himself in.
ii. We prepare the way of the LORD when our actions, our attitudes, the way we treat one another, the way our organizations, including the Church, reflect goodness, kindness, mercy, love-where politics are absent, and quests for power are impossible to find, when we outdo one another in showing humility and taking the lowest place, when people of all colors, castes and languages come together in unity and worship the One True God. We prepare the way of the Lord by having families where husbands love their wives, and where wives respect and obey their husbands, where children honor their parents, where parents nurture their children. We prepare the way for the LORD when we are honest in business, and faithful in friendship-when we as believers speak of others when they are absent better than, or as well as we would if they were present. We prepare the way of the LORD when we help others, no matter what their faith or lack of it, discover and develop all God has designed them to do and be. We prepare the way of the LORD when we tell the story of our own redemption, and share our stories of God’s mercy in our lives. We prepare the way of the LORD when we speak out against injustice and evil and corruption. We prepare the way of the LORD when we create music that worships God in Spirit and in truth.
Illustration: Sneha’s family -came to Jesus hearing Maranatha Music and experiencing peace in the home only when that music was playing and they were singing.
Illustration: Devin -came to Christ working at a hospital and seeing the way his boss handled the work and business of medicine.
John the Baptist prepared the way wearing his unique wardrobe of camel’s hair wrap-around with a leather belt, and his unique diet of grasshoppers and honey-a kind of extreme Mediterranean Diet. People were drawn to his odd simplicity and austerity. He was a kind of tourist attraction of the Jordan River. Once people came to him he was able to point them to Jesus.
And we prepare the way of the LORD when we bring people to the knowledge of salvation.
77 to give his people the knowledge of salvation
through the forgiveness of their sins,
78 because of the tender mercy of our God,
John’s message seems a bit harsh in 21st century ears: “Repent!” and “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?”
Yet by pointing people to Jesus John pointed them to Mercy Incarnate.
When John introduced Jesus to his own disciples he said “Look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world” (John 1: )
Jesus said “this is eternal life, that they might know you, the only True God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (John 17:3) The name Jesus means God is our Salvation. God with us in humility and grace, “for the Law came through Moses, but Grace and Truth came through Jesus” (John 1:17)
When God started with the human race He had designed us for fellowship, made in His image so we could commune with Him. But Adam made the wrong choice, and ate of the fruit of knowledge of good and evil-before Adam and Eve had only known good. Now they knew good and evil.
Man, because of his fallen nature, could not know God. the means of fellowship was broken.
Jesus is the second Adam
Jesus is the fulfillment of the promises made to the serpent that He would put enmity between the seed of the serpent and the Seed of the woman. Satan bruised His heel, but He crushed his head.
Jesus is the tree of the fruit of the knowledge of good without evil (John 15). And God invites us to eat of that fruit, His flesh, to drink of that juice, His blood. To once again take upon ourselves the image of God unbroken in Christ.
As the great theologian and hymn writer Charles Wesley expressed it
Come, Desire of nations come,
Fix in us Thy humble home;
Rise, the Woman's conquering Seed,
Bruise in us the Serpent's head.
Adam's likeness now efface:
Stamp Thine image in its place;
Second Adam, from above,
Reinstate us in Thy love.
This is the tender mercy offered to us by God-the “knowledge of salvation” God sends John the Baptist and, I believe, us, to offer to the world.
by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven
79 to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the path of peace.”
The Horn of salvation has come, but there are plenty of people out there who still living in darkness and the shadow of death. They need someone to go before the Lord and prepare the way for him. God wants us to be a candle if you will, who will go into the darkness to prepare the way for the glorious light of Christ. David Elvery
It is not John the Baptist alone who is called to this ministry of light. Paul perceived his ministry this way. He was sent
"to open their eyes, in order to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God" (Acts 27:18).
And Paul commissioned all believers to do the same
. . . that you may become blameless and harmless, children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast the word of life . . . Philippians 2:15-16
a generation before Paul, Jesus gave this command to all His disciples
“you are the light of the world”.
This is our commission this morning, this, the last Sunday in the year, to
Prepare
Proclaim
Shine
