In Jesus Holy Name December 5, 2021
Luke 3:7-8a
“The Wilderness Preacher”
Not too long ago a pilot was practicing high speed maneuvers in a jet fighter. She turned the controls for what she thought was a steep ascent and flew straight into the ground. She was unaware that she had been flying upside down.
This is a parable of human existence in our times. Not exactly that everyone is crashing, through there is enough of that, but most of us as individuals and our culture as a whole are living life at high speed and often have no clue that we are flying upside down, opposite the life God wants us to live.
Several weeks ago Colleen and I were traveling to visit a friend in another community. As we were driving through town we approached a stop light. On the corner was standing a street preacher. He had his mega sound speaker on, a sign in his hand. He was calling: “Jesus is coming!” “Jesus is coming”! Repent!. Stop Sinning. A modern day wilderness preacher.
With his animal-skin wardrobe and insect diet, John the Baptist was the prototype of ancient prophets, calling from the desert for God’s people to “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” He called the Pharisees a “brood of vipers” because of their pretend religiosity. They were into doctrinal purity but not obedience.
Micah the O.T. prophet wrote: “What does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and walk humbly with your God.” That’s why John called the Pharisees a brood of vipers and asked them to produce fruit in keeping with repentance.
John’s words “repent”, twenty centuries later in the words of Dallas Willard: “..are a call for us to reconsider how, we have approaching our life”, so that our behavior is “right side up” and we stop flying upside down.
Charles Swindoll stated that John the Baptizer had three responsibilities:
a. Prepare the way for the arrival of the Messiah
b. Encourage people to straighten out their lives. (crooked roads will be made straight)
c. Then get out of the way, for the Salvation of God has arrived.
John appeared near the river Jordan and began to preach. “Repent, Stop sinning. The Messiah is coming.” The Messiah is coming. The listeners must repent and change their behavior. What an army of priest had not been able to accomplish in 400 years …one man, sent by God did in six months. People repented. Behavior changed.
John provides the dividing line between the Old and New Testaments. He is the bridge of divine history. “God was turning the page in the human drama. John was the hinge from the old covenant to the new covenant. The era of Moses and the Law was coming to an end. The era of grace and truth brought by the promised Messiah was beginning. “The next to the last verse of the Old Testament contains a clear reference to the coming of John the Baptist: “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.” (Malachi 4:5) Jesus applied those words the John the Baptist.
(quote from Leonard Sweet Jesus a Theophany p. 111)
John worked no miracles, wrote no books, and lived in the wilderness. His ministry lasted less than a year because he ran into trouble with powerful people. He went to jail where he struggled with doubt. Finally, he ended up with his head on a platter to satisfy a guilty king. He arrives on the stage of history for one moment, then he disappears. He led revivals on the banks of the Jordan River. He was the Billy Graham of his day.
In human history God always works to accomplish His tasks through human beings. To a world that perished, He sent Noah. When He wanted to raise up a new nation, He sent Abraham. When He wanted to deliver that nation from slavery, He sent Moses. He sent Joshua to lead the nation into the Promised and. much later He sent David to be their greatest king. In Babylon He raised up Daniel. When the walls of Jerusalem needed to be rebuilt He sent Nehemiah.
So, it is through history. When the time was right God sent His only Son into the 1st century world to bring about human redemption from the grip of Satan’s power. His name was Jesus, for He will save God’s people from their sins.
John knew his purpose: Prepare the way for the Lord. “The wrath of the Lord is coming!” Repent! Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. Repentance is more than saying a few prayers, attending Holy Communion, crying a few tears.
Repentance means change your crooked behavior and make you life style imitate Jesus. Repent means you rethink your life of bad habits that do not honor God. Repent means you quit breaking God’s commandments, and where they will take you if Jesus doesn't change things. Repent means allowing the Holy Spirit to reverse the sinner you are through the Savior's sacrifice. For it is the work of the Holy Spirit to transform you, your life, and your eternal destiny.
This is what our last sermon series on the “fruits of the Spirit” was all about. In Galatians Paul was clear: (read Galatians 5:16-21) When John the Baptist called for those standing near the water to “produce fruit in keeping with repentance” they are listed by Paul in (Galatians 5:22-26)
When Jesus walked into the water of the Jordan River John the Baptist proclaimed? “Behold the Lamb of God, who will take away the sins of the world.”
That’s entirely right. Jesus came to do what the animal sacrifices could never do. He came to deal with our broken commandments which separate us from a holy and righteous God, once and for all.
Only Jesus could remove our broken commandments from God’s holy presence. He pitched his tent with us for 33 years, Then he nailed our broken commandments to the cross of Jesus. Christmas marks the human birth of the Lord Jesus, but it does not mark the beginning of his existence. As the Son of God, He existed with the Father long before He was conceived in Mary’s womb.
Second, Jesus came to replace the failed Jewish system of animal sacrifice. Hebrew 10:5 says it very explicitly: “You did not want sacrifice and offering.” “For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.”
The writer of the book of Hebrews in chapter 10 understood the futility of the old system: “Every priest stands day after day ministering and offering the same sacrifices time after time, which can never take away sins.
Priests in the Old Testament spent their days in a routine of sacrifice and offerings–one after the other, morning, noon and night, day in and day out, week in and week out, month in and month out, year after year, decade after decade, century after century. During the years from the time of Moses to the time of Christ, tens of thousands of lambs and goats and bulls were offered on the altar before God to make atonement for the sins of the people.
Hebrews 7: 11,23…(read from the bible in hand) . Jesus has become the guarantee….He is the perfect high priest.
26 Such a high priest truly meets our need—one who is holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens. 27 Unlike the other high priests, he does not need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people. He sacrificed for their sins once for all when He offered Himself.”
You and I fall into temptation. We fly upside down. Jesus resisted every enticement to sin. This He did for us. You and I regularly break God's commandments. We lust, we covet, we lie, we disobey, we disrespect those in authority. It is certainly what we see in our culture where every commandment is being broken. We see smash and grab, murders and drug use on the rise. A culture flying upside down.
So we might be saved, Jesus lived a perfect life. He knew that you and I are going to die someday. He also knew that human death was not what our Creator wanted for us. So we might be spared the terror of eternal death Jesus allowed Himself to be nailed to a cross where He nailed our sins to the cross. With His blood He washed away our sins. With His blood and with His resurrection from death and the grave He assures all who believe on Him as Savior that they are no longer condemned. They are forgiven.
The Apostle Paul says it best in Colossians 1:21-23a (read)
