Ready Or Not, Here He Comes

Ready or Not, Here He Comes

Isaiah 40:3-5

Intro. An elderly widow decided it was too much trouble to get all of her kids and grandkids Christmas presents, so she decided to send them a check with a card. She chose a special card for each one of them and wrote them a little note and ended all the messages with the same words. A few days after she mailed all the cards, she discovered she forgot to include the checks in the cards. Imagine all those kids opening a card from grandma with a note inside that says, “Buy your own presents.”

. Sometimes we should take a little more time in preparation shouldn’t we?

. Advent is a time of preparation.

. Last we looked at the anticipation of Christmas and some of the gifts that are attached to the gift of Jesus.

. Today I want us to look at the preparation for Christmas and how we as Christians can do that.

. Folks it’s time to get ready for Christmas.

. Time to either pick out a tree or get yours out of the attic or basement.

. We have been working on that at our house all week and I’m sure that most of you are doing the same.

. It’s time for us men to consider shopping and time for the ladies to start wrapping the gifts that they have already purchased.

. Time to put the finishing touches on the Christmas musical and get the children ready for their presentation next Sunday night.

. We are busy aren’t we?

. While these are things that we need to do to prepare for Christmas, this morning I want to share with you three more things we need to do to prepare for Christmas.

. Our scripture this morning is out of Isaiah chapter 40: 3-5

. 3Listen! It’s the voice of someone shouting, “Clear the way through the wilderness for the LORD! Make a straight highway through the wasteland for our God!

4Fill in the valleys, and level the mountains and hills. Straighten the curves and smooth out the rough places

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5Then the glory of the LORD will be revealed, and all people will see it together. The LORD has spoken!”

. Isaiah is giving us prophesy about the coming of the messenger who will herald the coming of the Messiah.

. The coming of Jesus Christ.

. John the Baptist quoted these words when he was preaching about the coming of Jesus.

. We see these words again in Matthew 3:1-3 as John the Baptist was preaching about the coming Messiah. He said this.

. 1In those days John the Baptist came to the Judean wilderness and began preaching. His message was,

2“Repent of your sins and turn to God, for the Kingdom of Heaven is near.”

3The prophet Isaiah was speaking about John when he said, “He is a voice shouting in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way for the LORD’s coming! Clear the road for him!’ ”

. Prepare for the coming of the Lord.

. How are we to prepare for the coming of Jesus?

. The coming of what we call Christmas.

. Isaiah gives us three ways that we can prepare

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. Look at verse 3 again.

. 3Listen! It’s the voice of someone shouting, “Clear the way through the wilderness for the LORD! Make a straight highway through the wasteland for our God!

. The first thing we can do is Listen.

. Listen to the sounds of the season folks.

. Listen to the story of what this Christmas thing is all about.

. In order to listen, we have to slow down.

. Years ago there was a commercial on TV by a brokerage house.

. The commercial would come on and you would see all these people in a room bustling around and everybody was talking and glasses were tinkling together and the whole room was full of noise. Then they showed these two guys talking about their stock brokers and one of them say’s, “ my broker is E F Hutton and E F Hutton says”. The whole room stopped talking and moving around and wanted to listen to what this man had to say.

. Folks in order to prepare for Christmas, we need to stop and listen to what God has to say.

. We need to let God speak to us through this Holiday when we celebrate the birth of our Savior.

. Psalm 46:10 says that we are to: “ Be still, and know that I am God …”

. We need to listen, be still, and realize what we are celebrating .

. We are celebrating the birth of our King, Our Lord, Our Savior, Our Deliverer, Our redeemer. God coming to earth in a human body.