The missing ingredient; Luke 3: 1-17

Those of you that know my wife knows that she likes to cook.  She particularly likes to bake.  Her idea of a fun evening is finding a new recipe book and she is constantly collecting new recipes that she would like to try out.  Usually, she tries them out on us at home and that can either be a good thing or a not so good thing.  Sometimes, some recipe that she tries turns out to be a keeper, and she makes a note on it perhaps and stores it in a place where she keeps the good recipes.  But sometimes, a bakery item does not turn out all that good.  And she has found that even though a certain recipe by some famous cook may be published in a book and have a picture of a beautiful cake or pie, when we try to eat it, we find that something is wrong.  It doesn’t taste right, or it didn’t rise the way it should.  Something was missing in the recipe.  We end up throwing it out because it wasn’t any good.  It seems that among certain chefs, they sometimes deliberately leave out an important ingredient as a way to preserve their special recipe.  They want the accolades for having a delicious bakery item, but they want to keep it for themselves.  They don’t want to share it.

Oftentimes in the church we see a sort of Christianity that is somewhat like those bakery items that don’t really turn out.  Someone comes to the church, they go through the right motions, say some of the right things, seem sincere enough perhaps, they may even seem to have some sort of religious experience but over time it becomes apparent that something is missing.  There is an ingredient in their faith that seems to be missing, and as a result, their walk doesn’t quite add up.  Their faith doesn’t turn out to be all that it should be.  Perhaps, they fall away over time and go back to the world.  Perhaps they go back to the same sins that once enslaved them.  Bottom line, they never produce the fruit in their lives that that should have been expected from someone who was really converted.

And I think that the message of John the Baptist that we have been looking at for the last couple of weeks is really about that missing ingredient that is too often not considered to be all that essential, yet without it, the final product doesn’t turn out the way it’s supposed to.  They may go to church, they may sing the songs, they may talk the talk, but because they are missing an essential ingredient, they end up falling short of the grace of God.  They were never converted and so they never produced the fruit of their conversion.

Jesus warned that this would be a very real issue in the church.  He said in Matt. 7:16 "You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they? So every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit.  A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit.  Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.  So then, you will know them by their fruits.  Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter.  Many will say to Me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles? And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.'”
What a terrible thing.  To live a life that appears to be righteous on the outside, that may even do good things in society, that may appear to be very religious even to the point of supposedly doing miraculous things, speaking prophecy and casting out demons and yet at the judgment be told that it didn’t count as righteousness.  Christ never knew you as a son or daughter of God, and all your so called righteousness was not worth any more than filthy rags, it was nothing more than lawlessness.  You didn’t produce the fruit  of true righteousness.  Because you were missing the essential ingredient.

God forbid that we find ourselves in that condition.  So what then is the essential ingredient that makes us righteous, that converts us from children of darkness into children of God?  That causes us to be known of God?  Well, John tells us in chapter 3 verse 8 of our text;  “"Therefore bear fruits in keeping with repentance.”  See, repentance is the missing ingredient.  The fruit follows after.  Works without repentance is just self righteousness.  First must come repentance and then God credits you with righteousness so that you become holy, and having become holy by the gift of God, then you are adopted, grafted into the family of God, and then having become grafted into the tree of life you produce fruit in keeping with repentance.

Let me make this absolutely clear.  Terrifyingly clear in accordance with what Jesus said about the day of judgment;  salvation without repentance is not possible.  Salvation without repentance is not possible.  That is why John came preaching it says in verse 3: “preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.”

Listen, altar calls to come to Jesus so that you can live your best life now is not repentance.  Altar calls to come to Jesus so that you can have a relationship with Jesus is not repentance.  There can be no relationship between sinful man and a holy God without forgiveness of sins, and a transference of righteousness to our account.  And John is preaching that repentance is necessary for forgiveness of sins.

Until you understand that you are sinful, separated eternally from God because of your sins, condemned to eternal hell because of your sins, then you will not understand that you need to repent.  That you need a Savior.  Before Jesus can be your friend, He first had to become your substitute and your sacrifice.  And having become your substitute and your sacrifice He then became your Savior.  2 Cor. 5:21; “[God] made Him who knew no sin to become sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.” God has already cast judgment upon sin. Jesus paid the price of that judgment upon our sin. And  so then repentance is our answer to our sin, a cry for mercy and a willingness to forsake it.

So then we must understand first of all, that true repentance is marked by our understanding of the reprehensible nature of our sin. We saw that in an earlier message in verse 5. "Every ravine has to be filled up, every mountain and hill be brought down, the crooked become straight and the rough roads smooth." That's an analogy of what has to happen in the human heart. Before God can come to the human heart, the highway is going to be made, a highway of forgiveness into your heart. It is a highway of repentance.

Secondly, there has to be a realization that we deserve divine wrath. John at the end of verse 7 preached the wrath to come. To be a faithful preacher I must preach on hell. There must be a realization that wrath is promised to elicit a true repentance.

Thirdly, there must be a rejection of religious ritual.  John calls them a brood of vipers, and says, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?  Going through some ritual, or ceremony such as baptism cannot save you.  You are still sons of your father the devil.  You haven’t been converted.  Baptism is an outward testimony to an inward change, from being children of the devil to becoming children of God.  Baptism is a public declaration of that, but it can never accomplish conversion alone.

Fourth, John preached that your ancestry is worthless.  That was a big thing to the Jews, they thought that being children of Abraham made them saved. And a lot of people today think they're going to get into God's Kingdom because of their parents or grandparents, and certainly the Jews felt that way down in verse 8. He says, "Don't begin to say to yourselves we have Abraham for our father, because I'm telling you God can make children of Abraham out of rocks. That's not going to save you.”  And let me add this – being an American won’t save you either.  I’m as patriotic as the next guy.  But while my salvation may make me a better American, yet being an American has no benefit for my salvation.  Christianity is not one of our inalienable rights as  an American.  

Then fifthly, true repentance produces  spiritual transformation.  Vs. 8: Bring forth fruits in keeping with repentance.  If you are a new creation, then you’re going to bring forth  a different kind of fruit than you did in the past.  New fruit is not the means of salvation, but it is the produce of salvation. It is the evidence of conversion.

And Luke illustrates this in this passage starting in verse 10.  The crowds were asking John, “What then shall we do?” And he would answer and say to them, "The man who has two tunics is to share with him who has none; and he who has food is to do likewise." And some tax collectors also came to be baptized, and they said to him, "Teacher, what shall we do?" And he said to them, " Collect no more than what you have been ordered to." Some soldiers were questioning him, saying, "And what about us, what shall we do?" And he said to them, "Do not take money from anyone by force, or accuse anyone falsely, and be content with your wages."

Notice something.  They all asked the same question; “what shall we do?”  Repentance produces not only a godly sorrow, but a change of heart, resulting in a change of action.  A good example of this is the familiar story of the prodigal son.  He thought he knew better than his father.  He wanted to take his inheritance and live life the way he wanted to live it.  And so he spent his inheritance in riotous living.  One day when his money had run out and his friends had left him, he found himself in a pig pen eating the husks they fed the pigs.  He realized his predicament.  He was sorry he was in his predicament.  But that wasn’t repentance.  Sorry just would have left him there in the pig pen.  But he said to himself, I will go back to my father and beg for his forgiveness.  I will offer my life to him as a slave.  Now that was repentance.  He recognized not only his predicament and was sorry for his predicament, but he recognized that his father’s house offered him the way to life and so he got up and went back to what he knew was good. Repentance turns you around and starts you in the other direction.  A turning from your ways and a turning to God’s ways.

John’s answer to this question of what shall we do is pretty simple.  He’s talking about a change from doing things to serve yourself to doing things to serve God and serve his people.  The prodigal son said I’ll go back to my father and serve him.  And that is the fruit of repentance, service to God.  A life that is now dedicated to serving God, whereas before our lives were marked by self service.  My rights, my time, my money, my, my, my is the cry of the unconverted.  So having repented of our ways and our desires and our lusts, we now turn to serving God by serving others.  It’s not some great super complicated thing God asks of us.  It’s to be faithful to God in the small things, serving each other, serving His body, as unto the Lord.  Micah 6:8 “He has told you, O man, what is good; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God?”

You can break down each of John’s answers and you find at it’s root a change of heart about my stuff;  my possessions, my power, my money, my time.  It’s a change from a heart that is always seeking after more and more and more and never able to be satisfied, to that of being content in all circumstances.  If we have food and covering with that we shall be content.  (1 Tim. 6)  If we have two tunics, then that is one more than we need, give the other away.  If we have enough to eat, then give away what we have extra to him who doesn’t have any.   Don’t take advantage of other people to accumulate more money.  Do justice and love kindness.  Be content with your wages.  Focus on storing up your treasure in heaven, not on this earth.

Now this may have sounded simple, but it’s actually revolutionary stuff.  If we really applied this attitude of repentance in every facet of our lives and modeled what John taught then I think the world would be impacted with the gospel.  But when they see Christians hypocritically seeking after money at the expense of others and selfishly treating others unfairly, then our churchy self righteousness does nothing but turn them against the gospel.  So the multitudes were wondering about John because of his preaching.  They were wondering if he was actually the promised Messiah.

And that leads us to the final point;  true repentance receives the true Messiah.  So John makes it clear that he isn’t the Messiah.  And he does so by contrasting his ministry with that of Jesus’ ministry. Vs. 16 "As for me, I baptize you with water but One is coming who is mightier than I and I am not fit to untie the thong of His sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire." John says don't get us confused, folks, we are worlds apart. I can baptize you with water, but it’s only a picture of what Christ will do. I can take you down here into the Jordan River and I can dunk you under the water.  But that is not a supernatural act. It doesn’t actually cleanse you inwardly. There is no supernatural power in the water.  It’s just the plain old Jordan River. There is no holy water, by the way.  There is no holy oil.  There is only a Holy God that credits sinful people with holiness and then calls us to live holy lives, even as He is holy.

But says John, here is the contrast, there is One who is coming, the Coming One, the Messiah, who is mightier than I.   "I'm not even fit...John says...to untie the thong of His sandals."  The task of taking somebody's sandals off and washing their feet was so low on the service ladder that you couldn't get lower than having to do that job and it was a job usually assigned to a Gentile because it was beneath the dignity of a Jew to do it. John says I'm not even fit to climb up to the point where I could untie His sandals, I’m not even in the same class as Jesus.

And he goes on to contrast himself with Jesus.   "I baptize with water," end of verse 16, "He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire." That is a great statement filled with tremendous profound truth. John says...Look, I can immerse you in this Jordan River, which is only symbolic of an inward change but what I can't do is immerse you in the Holy Spirit or immerse you in fire. Only Christ can do that.

Listen, there is a lot of confusion concerning a second baptism of the Holy Spirit as if once we are saved you need to go seeking for another baptism of the Spirit.  Folks, don’t be deceived.  You can’t be saved apart from the Holy Spirit.  The idea of being baptized by the Holy Spirit is to be immersed with the Spirit.  The Holy Spirit is the means of our regeneration.  He is the means of our new creation.  We are born again of the Spirit, Jesus said to Nicodemus in John 3.  You can’t be born again without being filled with His Spirit.

The difference between Old Testament salvation and New Testament salvation is that in the OT, the Spirit was not a permanent fixture.  So they may have had the desire to keep the law, but they did not have the ability to keep the law.  They were weak in their sinful flesh.  However, God promised a new covenant for us through the blood of the Messiah.  It’s found in Ezekiel 36:26 "Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.”  See?  Now we have the Spirit of God living in us, we are permanently immersed in the Spirit of God, filled with the Spirit, who gives us the desire to serve God, and gives us the strength to serve God, and gives us spiritual gifts to equip us to serve God.  The Spirit of God is not a bunch of mumbo jumbo to make us feel excited or happy or ecstatic.  The gifts of the Spirit are not a toy box, they are a tool box, to equip us to do the will of God.  To do what He requires of us, to keep his laws and his ordinances.   And the Holy Spirit is given without measure at the moment of salvation, when God makes us righteous by the gift of Christ’s holiness, in exchange for our sins.  Then having been made holy, we become the temple of the Holy Spirit who  lives in us to empower us to do His will.

And that's why on the day of Pentecost when Peter stood up to preach, Acts 2:38, he said, "Repent, receive the forgiveness of sins and you shall also receive the Holy Spirit." You see, nobody is converted, nobody is saved, nobody is forgiven, nobody is transformed by some human act. When a sinner is truly repentant and comes to God in a broken and contrite spirit and asks for forgiveness and God forgives and transforms, it is the working of the Holy Spirit.

And secondly, John says, I baptize you with water but the Messiah will baptize you with fire.  Again, there is a lot of confusion about this fire.  Some think it’s talking about the tongues of fire that came upon the heads of the Apostles on the day of Pentecost.  But it’s not talking about that fire.  It’s talking about the refiner’s fire.  The Messiah will bring a refiner’s fire, that will burn up the chaff, and reveal the gold.  The refiner’s fire is a cleansing fire.

And this is very clear in the last book of the OT where God was talking about the coming of the Messiah, and the forerunner, John, who would come before him to prepare his way.  Listen to Malachi 3:1 "Behold, I am going to send My messenger, and he will clear the way before Me. And the Lord, whom you seek, will suddenly come to His temple; and the messenger of the covenant, in whom you delight, behold, He is coming," says the LORD of hosts. (2) "But who can endure the day of His coming? And who can stand when He appears? For He is like a refiner's fire and like fullers' soap.  (3) "He will sit as a smelter and purifier of silver, and He will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, so that they may present to the LORD offerings in righteousness.”

Look at the next chapter; Malachi 4:1 "For behold, the day is coming, burning like a furnace; and all the arrogant and every evildoer will be chaff; and the day that is coming will set them ablaze," says the LORD of hosts, "so that it will leave them neither root nor branch."

So when the Messiah comes, the coming One arrives, it's going to be a day like a furnace that's going to consume everything. "But...verse 2...for those who fear My name, the Sun of Righteousness will rise with healing in His beams. You're not going to be burned, you're going to go forth and skip about like calves from the stall and you're going to tread down the wicked and they're going to be ashes unto the soles of your feet on the day which I am preparing, says the Lord of hosts." Gold isn’t burned up in a fire, dross is burned out, and gold is made better, stronger, refined.  But the chaff will be gathered together and burned up.

Listen, Christians and non Christians are going to go through the refiner’s fire.  But one will come out as gold and the other will be burned up.  As a Christian, don’t be surprised James said at the fiery ordeal which has come upon you.  It’s only temporary, for your testing, so that you will be refined and come forth as gold.

Verse 17,  John  illustrated the principle of baptism with the Holy Spirit and with fire. It's like a winnowing process. "And His winnowing fork is in His hand to thoroughly clear His threshing floor, and to gather the wheat into His barn so He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire." . The separation will take place completely. You either fall in the pile of grain, or the pile of chaff. You are either separated with the grain which means you go into the glories of heaven, or burned with the chaff which means you go into the terrors of hell.  And it says it is an unquenchable fire, that is an eternal fire that will never go out.

Folks, the only other subject that isn’t preached on as much as repentance is the subject of hell.  We don’t want to think about it.  Truth be known, we don’t really believe in it.  Somehow we think in the back of our mind, God will be merciful and let people escape hell if they were nice people.  And of course, there is good in everyone, so no one will really have to go to hell, except for people we don’t like of course.  But if we really got a glimpse of hell, we would go home this morning and throw ourselves down on our knees in front of our loved ones and beg them, implore them to get right with God, to repent for the forgiveness of their sins.  But we don’t really believe that our sons and daughters and brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers are going to spend eternity in the torment of unquenchable fire.  Do we?

Folks, examine yourselves today. 2Cor. 13:5 “Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you—unless indeed you fail the test?”  Are you missing the essential ingredient in your life?  Have you truly understood the graveness of your sin, the predicament that you are in and repented, calling out to God for mercy and forgiveness?  Or have you decided that you aren’t so bad a person after all, and by adding just a little bit of religion to your list of ingredients you are going to turn out just fine.

Don’t be deceived, salvation isn’t possible without repentance.  Jesus gave a parable in Luke 18:10 "Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and was praying this to himself: 'God, I thank You that I am not like other people: swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. 'I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get.' "But the tax collector, standing some distance away, was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast, saying, 'God, be merciful to me, the sinner!'
"I tell you, this man went to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted."
Repentance is the only way to receive justification.  Let’s pray.

Flee from the wrath to come; Luke 3: 7-9

Today we are continuing in our study of Luke and we  just began to look at the ministry of John the Baptist.  We introduced him last week in the first 6 verses, and we will start to look at his message today and hopefully finish it next week.

Just to briefly review, last week we looked at the scope of John’s message.  It says in verse three that he came “preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.”  If you remember last week’s message we said that the baptism of repentance was normally reserved for Gentile proselytes;  Gentiles that desired to convert to Judaism.  But John is preaching to Jews, and he is saying that they need to repent just like everybody else.  That their heritage as Jews was not sufficient for their salvation.  John was saying that their self righteousness which came through the law, and through their religion and through their lineage was useless in God’s eyes, because their hearts were in rebellion against God.

So Luke gives an illustration from the Old Testament, which is actually part of the prophecy concerning John, found in Isaiah chapter 40.  And this picture that is presented is that of a highway  which needs to be smoothed out, to be made ready for the coming King.  And the highway is a metaphor for men’s hearts, which need to be made ready for the coming King.  It says in verse 4, "THE VOICE OF ONE CRYING IN THE WILDERNESS, 'MAKE READY THE WAY OF THE LORD, MAKE HIS PATHS STRAIGHT.  EVERY RAVINE WILL BE FILLED, AND EVERY MOUNTAIN AND HILL WILL BE BROUGHT LOW; THE CROOKED WILL BECOME STRAIGHT, AND THE ROUGH ROADS SMOOTH;  AND ALL FLESH WILL SEE THE SALVATION OF GOD.'"  What this scripture is illustrating is that before one can see the salvation of God, there needs to be repentance, a preparation of the heart in order that God can  be the King of our soul.  Every deep, dark crevice that hides our sin must be brought up to the light,  and every mountain and hill of our pride and self exaltation must be made low, every crooked way must be made straight before the way of the Lord.

Now in continuation of that message of the need for repentance, John addresses in verse 7 the crowds that were coming out to hear him and be baptized by him.  “You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Therefore bear fruits in keeping with repentance, and do not begin to say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham for our father,' for I say to you that from these stones God is able to raise up children to Abraham.  Indeed the axe is already laid at the root of the trees; so every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire."

And in that first sentence I take the title of this message this morning.  The title is “Flee from the wrath to come.”  The message of John the Baptist is a harsh message.  It is not the way to win friends and influence people.  But as I said last week, John the Baptist was a dying man preaching to a dying people in a dire situation.  And they needed to wake up and realize the urgency of the situation they were in.

I was struck this week with the images I saw on the internet and television of the bombing in Boston.  It was eerily reminiscent of the bombing of the twin towers on 9-11, but of course on a much smaller scale.  Still, as you looked at those images of the smoke and the carnage and the crowds running away in fear, you couldn’t help but notice the panic on people’s faces.  Something unexpected, something horrific was happening that they didn’t understand and they were fleeing for their lives.  It reminded me of the images when the twin towers fell and the look on people’s faces as they tried to run from that unimaginable horror on 9-11.

There are already people out there starting to question the Boston bombing as they did about 9-11, whether or not there was some sort of advance warning, or some way we could have been better prepared for that situation.  If one were to know in advance that something like that was going to happen and they did not raise the alarm, then such people would be guilty of criminal neglect, a dereliction of duty.

And if a preacher of the gospel knew that a wrath of God was coming that would make the bombings of 9-11 and Boston pail in comparison and yet we said nothing about it, we did not give the warning, then what punishment would be sufficient for us? Ezekiel  33:6 says, “But if the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet and the people are not warned, and a sword comes and takes a person from them, he is taken away in his iniquity; but his blood I will require from the watchman's hand.  Now as for you, son of man, I have appointed you a watchman for the house of Israel; so you will hear a message from My mouth and give them warning from Me.”

God has appointed his preachers as watchmen.  And He has clearly said in his word that there is coming a day of God’s wrath to judge the whole world.  John the Baptist spoke of it 2000 years ago to the nation of the Jews.  He came to prepare the way, to proclaim a warning, that the King was coming, and that God’s judgment was going to  be poured out on the Jews first.  So his message was harsh, it was urgent, because the wrath of God was coming.

This warning was clearly presented in the last book of the Old Testament which had been given 400 years earlier in the book of Malachi chapter 3 vs. 1;  "Behold, I am going to send My messenger [that was John the Baptist], and he will clear the way before Me. And the Lord, whom you seek, will suddenly come to His temple; and the messenger of the covenant, in whom you delight, behold, He is coming," says the LORD of hosts. "But who can endure the day of His coming? And who can stand when He appears? For He is like a refiner's fire and like fullers' soap. He will sit as a smelter and purifier of silver, and He will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, so that they may present to the LORD offerings in righteousness.”

The warning is repeated in the next chapter in Malachi 4:5 "Behold, I am going to send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the LORD.”

So here comes John, in the spirit of Elijah before the great and terrible day of the Lord, and he calls the people who come to hear him a brood of vipers.  I tell you what, I’ve been accused of being unloving before, but I never called people a brood of vipers, to their face at least.  But John wasn’t just calling people names to be mean, he was making a very important point.  He was saying you think you are ok because you are Jews, because you are Abraham’s children.  But God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones. What John is saying is that rather than being children of Abraham they were actually children of the devil, the serpent of old.

John was saying they were sons of the devil because they did the same deeds that the devil did.  And when Jesus started his ministry, he preached the same thing.  John didn’t preach judgment and Jesus preached love.  No, Jesus preached the same message of repentance that John had been preaching.  He said in John 8:44 "You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.”  He is saying very clearly, that if you do the deeds of the devil, then it’s obvious you are sons of your father who is the devil.  Jesus said again in Matt. 23:33 "You serpents, you brood of vipers, how will you escape the sentence of hell?”  By the way, Jesus preached on hell more than any other preacher.

I was accused a while ago of always preaching “doom and gloom.”  They said I preached too much about sin and the coming judgment.  But I only need to point to John and Jesus and say that I haven’t even began to scratch the surface of what they preached concerning the wrath to come.

“Therefore,” John says in vs.8,  “bring forth fruits in keeping with repentance.”  Oh, the Jews were willing to go through another ceremony, to be dunked in a river if necessary, if it meant they would be guaranteed their salvation.  They were lining up to be baptized by John.  But John wasn’t going to let them off the hook quite so easily.  He was saying that in your natural state, your sinful state, you are of your father the devil.  And so you did the deeds of your father.  But if you repent, and you become converted to be a child of God, then you should be doing the deeds of your Father who is in heaven.

In other words, there is no such thing as cheap grace.  There is no such thing as raise your hand if you want to have a relationship with Jesus, and come forward and repeat some words after me and step over here and go down in this pool and now you’re good to go.  You never have to worry about hell anymore, never have to worry about the wrath of God anymore and you can go live like the devil again.  I’m sorry, but that isn’t the truth of the gospel.  The truth of the gospel is that once I was blind, but now I see.  Once I was lost but now I’m found.  Once I was sinful but now I’m righteous.  Once I was carnal but now I’m holy.  Once I was a child of Satan but now I am a child of God.  Once I did the deeds of my father the devil and now I do the deeds of my Father in heaven.  That is the message of repentance.
So John warns these Jews that in response to their rebellion the wrath of God is coming and the axe is already laid at the root of the tree. Vs. 9; “Indeed the axe is already laid at the root of the trees; so every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire." Now what does he mean by that?  Jesus told a parable that helps to illustrate this prophecy in Luke 13:6  “And He began telling this parable: "A man had a fig tree which had been planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and did not find any. "And he said to the vineyard-keeper, 'Behold, for three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree without finding any. Cut it down! Why does it even use up the ground?' "And he answered and said to him, 'Let it alone, sir, for this year too, until I dig around it and put in fertilizer; and if it bears fruit next year, fine; but if not, cut it down.'"

The sad truth is, that God had been waiting for Israel to produce the fruit of repentance for hundreds of years and yet they stiffened their necks and kept on rebelling in their idolatrous ways.  They had an outward form of religion.  They said they trusted in the one true God.  They had been entrusted with the oracles of God.  They had been entrusted with the laws of God.  God had sent them prophet after prophet to dig around the roots and put in fertilizer and yet they did not produce the fruits of repentance.  And so God’s patience ran out for Israel.  He raised up sons of Abraham from the stones by turning to the Gentiles with the gospel.  And in just 35 years from John’s message, God’s wrath came down upon Israel.

In 70 AD, the emperor Nero quashed a Jewish rebellion and went through Judea with 60,000 Roman soldiers methodically executing Jews as they marched to Jerusalem.  They laid siege against Jerusalem and eventually Titus sacked the city and laid the temple in ruins and desecrated the altar.  The sacrifices and offerings of the Jews were stopped.  Most of the Jews were executed or committed suicide.  What Jews were left alive ran for their lives and were dispersed throughout the remote parts of Asia.  The wrath of God had begun to be poured out.  Israel did not heed the warning of John the Baptist concerning the wrath to come.  And they have been hounded out of one country after another ever since for almost 2000 years.

During that 2000 years, God raised up another people, children of Abraham who would not be known by the circumcision of their flesh as had the Jews, or by their lineage from the tribes of Jacob, but by the circumcision of their hearts. Rom. 2:29 says, “But he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that which is of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter; and his praise is not from men, but from God.”
And Phil. 3:3 “for we are the true circumcision, who worship in the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh.”  Christ called this people of God his church, his body.  And God entrusted his church with the oracles of God, with the commandments of God.  And God has sent preacher after preacher, revival after revival in an attempt to call out a people who would produce fruit in keeping with repentance.

God has established in our days watchmen to warn the people of the coming wrath of God upon the unrighteous.  And as watchmen we are charged with the task of warning people today with the same message as that of John the Baptist.  “Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand.  You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?  Bring forth fruit in keeping with repentance.  For the axe is already laid at the root of the tree that has not born fruit.” And I’m afraid that the church today is in the same place spiritually that Israel was 2000 years ago.  We have a form of religion, we have Judeo-Christian values, we think we are exempt from the wrath of God, because we trust in our heritage, in our lineage, in our church membership and yet our hearts are in rebellion and produce no fruit.

The message of repentance is still needed today, and it is the last message to the church from Jesus Christ.  The Apostle John saw in a vision the last message of Jesus to what He called the seven churches, which were actually 7 historic churches, but which I believe are also symbolic of the worldwide church today and He had this to say starting in Revelation 2 to the church at Ephesus, that great church started by Paul and pastored by Timothy; “I have this against you, that you have left your first love. Therefore remember from where you have fallen, and repent and do the deeds you did at first; or else I am coming to you and will remove your lampstand out of its place—unless you repent.”

To the church of Pergamum He said, “I have a few things against you, because you have there some who hold the teaching of Balaam, who kept teaching Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols and to commit acts of immorality. Therefore repent; or else I am coming to you quickly, and I will make war against them with the sword of My mouth.”

To the church of Thyatira He said, “I have this against you, that you tolerate the woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, and she teaches and leads My bond-servants astray so that they commit acts of immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols. I gave her time to repent, and she does not want to repent of her immorality.
Behold, I will throw her on a bed of sickness, and those who commit adultery with her into great tribulation, unless they repent of her deeds.”

To the church in Sardis He said, “'I know your deeds, that you have a name that you are alive, but you are dead.  Wake up, and strengthen the things that remain, which were about to die; for I have not found your deeds completed in the sight of My God.
So remember what you have received and heard; and keep it, and repent. Therefore if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come to you.”

And to the church at Laodicea He said, “'I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot; I wish that you were cold or hot. So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth.  Because you say, "I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing," and you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked, I advise you to buy from Me gold refined by fire so that you may become rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself, and that the shame of your nakedness will not be revealed; and eye salve to anoint your eyes so that you may see.  Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline; therefore be zealous and repent.”

The Apostle Peter said in 1Peter 4:17  “For it is time for judgment to begin with the household of God; and if it begins with us first, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God? AND IF IT IS WITH DIFFICULTY THAT THE RIGHTEOUS IS SAVED,  WHAT WILL BECOME OF THE GODLESS MAN AND THE SINNER?”

Listen folks, the message needed in the world today is the same old message that John the Baptist preached and Jesus Christ preached and the Apostles preached.  The gospel hasn’t changed.  But I’m afraid the church has changed.  And not for the better.  We have left our first love.  We love the world and do the deeds of the world which are the deeds of their father the devil.  Our light has gone out.  The world looks at us and sees just a self righteous reflection of themselves.  We think we are alive and yet we are dead.  We have become so relevant to the ungodly world that we are no longer relevant to God.  We are neither cold or hot, we’re lukewarm.  The world cannot find God because the light has gone out in the church.  And the church is dark because it has turned away from the truth of God’s word.  The Bible says, “thy word is a lamp unto my feet.”  But the lamp has gone out like the lamps of the unwise virgins who thought that the Bridegroom wouldn’t be coming any time soon. But Romans 1:18 says, “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness.”

Oh, people, we need to prepare our hearts.  The wrath of God is coming and is coming soon.  We need to flee from any so called gospel that doesn’t call for repentance. We don’t know how much longer we have, but we know that the day of the Lord is coming soon.  We need to get ready.  We need to flee from sin and fly away to the refuge of repentance.  We need to prepare our hearts for the King.

In the early 1700’s there was a revival that swept across America known as the Great Awakening.   One of it’s foremost preachers was a man named Jonathan Edwards who died at 54 years old.  His most famous sermon is still being studied in classical literature today, titled, “Sinners in the hands of an angry God.”  Yet I doubt he would be featured on TNN today. He, like me, read his sermons and preached too much about sin and the need for repentance.   However, he was a faithful watchman to what God revealed to him through his word.  Listen to part of his sermon.

“The wrath of God is like great waters that are dammed for the present; they increase more and more, and rise higher and higher, till an outlet is given; and the longer the stream is stopped, the more rapid and mighty is its course, when once it is let loose. It is true, that judgment against your evil works has not been executed hitherto; the floods of God's vengeance have been withheld; but your guilt in the mean time is constantly increasing, and you are every day treasuring up more wrath; the waters are constantly rising, and waxing more and more mighty; and there is nothing but the mere pleasure of God, that holds the waters back, that are unwilling to be stopped, and press hard to go forward. If God should only withdraw his hand from the flood-gate, it would immediately fly open, and the fiery floods of the fierceness and wrath of God, would rush forth with inconceivable fury, and would come upon you with omnipotent power; and if your strength were ten thousand times greater than it is, yea, ten thousand times greater than the strength of the stoutest, sturdiest devil in hell, it would be nothing to withstand or endure it.
The bow of God's wrath is bent, and the arrow made ready on the string, and justice bends the arrow at your heart, and strains the bow, and it is nothing but the mere pleasure of God, and that of an angry God, without any promise or obligation at all, that keeps the arrow one moment from being made drunk with your blood. Thus all you that never passed under a great change of heart, by the mighty power of the Spirit of God upon your souls; all you that were never born again, and made new creatures, and raised from being dead in sin, to a state of new, and before altogether unexperienced light and life, are in the hands of an angry God. However you may have reformed your life in many things, and may have had religious affections, and may keep up a form of religion in your families and closets, and in the house of God, it is nothing but his mere pleasure that keeps you from being this moment swallowed up in everlasting destruction. However unconvinced you may now be of the truth of what you hear, by and by you will be fully convinced of it. Those that are gone from being in the like circumstances with you, see that it was so with them; for destruction came suddenly upon most of them; when they expected nothing of it, and while they were saying, Peace and safety: now they see, that those things on which they depended for peace and safety, were nothing but thin air and empty shadows.

“O sinner! Consider the fearful danger you are in: it is a great furnace of wrath, a wide and bottomless pit, full of the fire of wrath, that you are held over in the hand of that God, whose wrath is provoked and incensed as much against you, as against many of the damned in hell. You hang by a slender thread, with the flames of divine wrath flashing about it, and ready every moment to singe it, and burn it asunder; and you have no interest in any Mediator, and nothing to lay hold of to save yourself, nothing to keep off the flames of wrath, nothing of your own, nothing that you ever have done, nothing that you can do, to induce God to spare you one moment.”

The wrath of God, long held back due to the kindness and patience of God, is coming upon this world.  Peter warned again in 2Peter 3:10 “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up.”

I’m not a big fan of celebrity Christians.  I find their walk and their talk to be too far apart in most cases.  However, I do believe that Johnny Cash seemed to know the Lord, especially in the last few years of his life.  And in what was perhaps the last song Cash wrote before his death, he quotes several passages of scripture from Revelations regarding the great and terrible day of the Lord.  Some of his theology may be a little warped, but I think he gets the idea about the coming wrath of God.

"And I heard, as it were, the noise of thunder. One of the four beasts saying, 'Come and see.' and I saw, and behold a white horse"

There's a man goin' 'round takin' names,
And he decides who to free and who to blame.
Everybody won't be treated all the same,
There'll be a golden ladder reachin' down.
When the man comes around.
The hairs on your arm will stand up,
At the terror in each sip and in each sup.
Will you partake of that last offered cup,
Or disappear into the potter's ground?
When the man comes around.

Hear the trumpets hear the pipers.
One hundred million angels singin'.
Multitudes are marchin' to the big kettledrum.
Voices callin', voices cryin'.
Some are born and some are dyin'.
It's alpha and omega's kingdom come,
And the whirlwind is in the thorn tree.
The virgins are all trimming their wicks,
The whirlwind is in the thorn tree.
It's hard for thee to kick against the pricks,

Till Armageddon no shalom, no shalom.
Then the father hen will call his chickens home,
The wise man will bow down before the throne.
And at his feet they'll cast their golden crowns,
When the man comes around.
Whoever is unjust let him be unjust still.
Whoever is righteous let him be righteous still.
Whoever is filthy let him be filthy still.
Listen to the words long written down,
When the man comes around.

Where then are we to flee this wrath to come?  What are we to do?  How are we to be saved?  The answer is found in Isaiah 55:1 "Ho! Every one who thirsts, come to the waters; and you who have no money come, buy and eat. Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why do you spend money for what is not bread, and your wages for what does not satisfy? Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good, and delight yourself in abundance.  Incline your ear and come to Me. Listen, that you may live; And I will make an everlasting covenant with you, According to the faithful mercies shown to David. Seek the LORD while He may be found; call upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts; And let him return to the LORD, and He will have compassion on him, and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon. "For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways," declares the LORD.
“For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.  For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there without watering the earth and making it bear and sprout, and furnishing seed to the sower and bread to the eater; so will My word be which goes forth from My mouth; It will not return to Me empty, without accomplishing what I desire, and without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it. For you will go out with joy and be led forth with peace; the mountains and the hills will break forth into shouts of joy before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands. Instead of the thorn bush the cypress will come up, and instead of the nettle the myrtle will come up, And it will be a memorial to the LORD, for an everlasting sign which will not be cut off."

The authority of the Word; Luke 3:1-6

I have been looking forward for a long time to this passage of scripture that we are looking at today, the beginning of the ministry of John the Baptist.  I identify with John the Baptist probably more than any other figure in the Bible.  And perhaps that is because that in many ways I see some parallels in my ministry and John’s ministry.

John described himself in John chapter one, as a “voice crying out in the wilderness.”  He gave this description in response to questioning by his critics as to who he was, and where he got his credentials.  They said, “are you the Messiah?”  And John said “no, I am not.”  “Are you Elijah?”  And John said, “I am not.”  “Are you the prophet?”  And John said “I am not.”  “Who are you then?  Where are you from?  What are your credentials?  Who gave you the authority to speak as you do?”  And John said, “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, make straight the way of the Lord.”

I can identify with that.  Recently I was criticized by a few people concerning whether or not I was pastorly enough, or if I had the proper credentials to be a preacher of the gospel.  And my answer is “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, make straight the way of the Lord.”  That’s it.  That’s my credentials in a nutshell.  To declare the gospel of the Kingdom:  Repent!  For the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

Now though I identify with John the Baptist, I do not in the least bit claim to be of the same caliber of a preacher as John was.  Jesus said of John, of all the men born of women, there is none greater than John the Baptist.  John had a unique ministry that began with the announcement of the angel Gabriel before he was even conceived.  He was a miracle baby, born to parents that were “stricken in years.”  They were well beyond the point of childbirth.  John was announced by an angel.  He was in dwelled by the Holy Spirit while he was still in the womb.  He had the supreme privilege of being the forerunner to Jesus Christ, to seeing Jesus Christ, of  baptizing Jesus and being martyred for Jesus.  All of those things are unique to John.

So it is not self effacing in the least for me to say concerning John the Baptist, that I am not even worthy to untie his shoelaces.  However, that being said, his ministry is something that I think is worthy of emulation.  If he received that kind of praise from Christ, then doesn’t it make sense that I should try to emulate his ministry?  I think so.

So today I want to take this opening passage about John and present some things that I think make his ministry special in the eyes of God.  That’s what is important, isn’t it?  That’s what the angel Gabriel had to say about him, remember in Luke 1:15 "For he will be great in the sight of the Lord.”  Not necessarily great in the eyes of men.  Not necessarily great in the size of his church building or the size of his congregation, not necessarily great in the eyes of the NY Times best seller list, but great in the sight of the Lord.  And that is my goal, to be great in the sight of God.  And so we’re going to look at four things about John’s ministry that sets him apart and makes him great in the eyes of the Lord.  John had a divine authority, a divine calling, a divine message, and a divine illustration.

First off, let’s look at how Luke opens up this passage.  We know Luke is giving us an historical background to establish the time period when these things happened.  It was in the time of Tiberius Caesar, of Pontius Pilate, and Philip and so forth were governors of their respective provinces.  And the reader would have known that as clearly as we would know today if someone mentioned that something happened when Lincoln was president of the United States.  We would know that they were speaking of something that happened during the time period of the Civil War.

But I think there is another purpose that is established here.  He lists for us the civil authorities, and then the religious authorities.  He says it was in the time of the high priests Annas and Caiaphas.   Now much could be said about all of these men, both government authorities and religious authorities, about how corrupt they were.  But again I’m not sure that is the point.  I think the point of this list comes in verse 2, when it says, after listing all these authority figures, “the word of God came to John, the son of Zacharias, in the wilderness.”

I don’t know about you, but that makes me smile.  Here are all the most powerful, most important figures in the whole country, if not the whole Roman Empire, and yet God picks a no body from no where, to give His word to.   John, the son of Zacharias.  Zacharias had been an old priest who had probably been dead for 25 years already.  His mother Elizabeth probably hadn’t lived too long after his birth either.  She was already old when she had him.  And so we can speculate that John lived among some tribal group out in the desert, like the Essenes, who may have raised him until he was old enough to go out on his own into the desert.

You know, when God calls a man, He often finds him in a desert, doesn’t He?  I think of Moses out in the desert tending sheep when he saw the burning bush.  I think of Abraham being called to leave Ur and go into the wilderness where God met him and spoke to Him his promises.  I think of David out in the wilderness tending his sheep.  Elijah out in the wilderness, and so many more.  When churches or denominations call a pastor, they tend to call them from a seminary, they tend to select them according to their credentials, their degrees, their denominational affiliation, but as when God called David to be king, He told Samuel, men look at the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart.  And he warned Samuel against looking at the outward appearance, and so he found young David tending sheep out in the desert, who was a man after God’s own heart.

The word of God came to John and John went preaching, in verse 3.  This is where John received his divine calling.  It didn’t come from an ordination ceremony. It didn’t come from laying on of hands from a particular denominational board.  It came from receiving the word of God.  And ladies and gentlemen, my authority and calling as a preacher comes from the word of God.   Long before I was ordained, or even before some preachers laid hands on me, God laid hold of me in a desert expereince.  He made me trust in the word of God.  He made me learn the word of God.  He made me appreciate the word of God.  And He let me know that there is no substitute for the word of God.  And I searched around for a church that was preaching the unadulterated word of God with authority, and I found it lacking.  And so I finally responded to the call of God which had come to me years before and said, Ok, I’ll go.  Here I am.  Send me.  Speak through me.

My authority, my only authority is by the word of God. I’m not called by a congregation, but I’m called by the God of heaven.  I am qualified to speak the word of God because God called me to preach the word of God.  Not my words, but His words.  I have nothing to offer you of any value other than the word of God.  I have no inherent wisdom. I’m not some academic intellectual.  I haven’t played professional sports. I haven’t been a rock star.  I haven’t been the CEO of a national company.  I have no training in self improvement or motivational speaking.  I have no credentials worth claiming or speaking about. I have no cute stories.  I can not tell a joke.  I am only enabled by the Spirit of God to preach the word of God.  Period.

My credentials as a preacher of the word are found in 1Cor. 1:26 “For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble;  but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong,  and the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He may nullify the things that are, so that no man may boast before God.”

Look at verse 3: “And he went into all the district around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.”  Another reason I identify so easily with John is that he didn’t have a church building.  I’ve never stood on the beach on a Sunday morning in the last seven years that I haven’t looked at that desolate, deserted stretch of sand at 7:30 in the morning and thought of John standing in the desert preaching “Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand.”

Listen, the size of a church building does not qualify a pastor to be a preacher.  The message of God qualifies a pastor to be a preacher.  Jesus said in John 10:27 "My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.” It’s the word of God that is recognized by the sheep of God. In the same message Jesus says, “"He who is a hired hand, and not a shepherd, who is not the owner of the sheep, sees the wolf coming, and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. He flees because he is a hired hand and is not concerned about the sheep.”  I am not a hired hand.  God called me to preach the word of God to protect the sheep, with or without a building.

Then we see that John had a divine message.  Verse 3, “preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.”  Now I know that was an unpopular message then, because I know it’s an unpopular message today.  The number one criticism I get is that I preach too much about sin and the need to repent of it.  It’s unpopular because it is uncomfortable.  But you know what? God designed it to be uncomfortable. Hebrews 4:12 says, “For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”  The word of God is supposed to lay open the heart of man like a scalpel, exposing the cancer of sin, and cutting it away so that new life may grow there.

John the Baptist’s message was unique because he was a dying man preaching to a dying people an urgent message because they were in a dire situation.  It’s like the man that was screaming at people to get out of a burning building and one man answered the door and said, “I don’t like your tone.”  He didn’t understand the urgency of his situation. I am not going to try to make dying people feel better.  I have a cure for death, and it is called repentance.  I have just one piece of advice, no matter what problem I am asked to deal with;  it’s called repentance.  Get right with God.  It’s the answer for broken marriages, it’s the answer for alcohol or drug problems, it’s the answer for job problems, or financial problems.  “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and then all these things shall be added unto you.” Matt. 6:33.

Listen folks, don’t be deceived.  There is no salvation without repentance.  Repentance is not just being sorry for your sins, sorry you got caught, but turning away from your sins.  Making a 180 and going the other direction.  Repentance is developing a holy abhorrence of sin, a holy fear of God, and a holy commitment to turn away from sin by the grace of God.

Notice it says a baptism of repentance.  Some people misinterpret that to mean that one has to be baptized to be saved.  That’s not what it means.  What it is talking about is in the old covenant, under the Jewish law, there was the provision for a Gentile to become converted.  It was called becoming a proselyte.  And for that to happen, one of the ceremonies required that the Gentile was to become baptized, symbolizing the washing away of his sins, turning away from the pagan practices and worshipping the one true God of Israel.

So what John was proclaiming in his message was really about as unpopular as it could be.  Not only was he saying that you needed to repent, but that your religion was worthless.  Your Jewish heritage had done nothing but condemn you because of your rebellion against God.  You knew the law of God and yet you told yourself you were righteous and stiffened your neck in pride and arrogance and took refuge in your religion and your national heritage and your heart was unbroken and unrepentant.  And so he says the Jews are no better off than the Gentiles.  He says a Jew needed to be baptized in repentance just like  a Gentile had to be baptized to be converted to Judaism.  See, a Jew didn’t need to be baptized, but a Gentile did.  However, John equates the Jews with the Gentiles in their need of repentance.

And finally, John is going to illustrate that for us with a divine illustration.  And he takes this illustration fittingly enough from the scriptures, specifically Isaiah chapter 40.  “as it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet, "THE VOICE OF ONE CRYING IN THE WILDERNESS, 'MAKE READY THE WAY OF THE LORD, MAKE HIS PATHS STRAIGHT. 'EVERY RAVINE WILL BE FILLED, AND EVERY MOUNTAIN AND HILL WILL BE BROUGHT LOW; THE CROOKED WILL BECOME STRAIGHT, AND THE ROUGH ROADS SMOOTH;  AND ALL FLESH WILL SEE THE SALVATION OF GOD.'"

I read something interesting the other day as I was studying for this message.  Isaiah has 66 chapters.  And as you probably know, the Bible has 66 books.  The first 39 books are what we call the Old Testament, and the New Testament has 27 books.  And in a way, Isaiah parallels the scriptures in that the first 39 chapters are basically an indictment of judgment against Israel, and starting in chapter 40 and on through the rest of the 27 chapters, we see a different message, predominately a message of reconciliation, a message of salvation.

So it is really interesting to me that John picks this 40th chapter to identify with, and Luke also presents John’s message as from this 40th chapter, the beginning of the new covenant of the gospel of the kingdom. John is the first NT preacher of the gospel.  The reconciliation of the world to God by Jesus Christ.  And that is evidenced in 40 verse one where God says, “Comfort O comfort my people.”  The tone of the whole book changes dramatically from that of condemnation to that of reconciliation.  It goes on to say that her iniquity has been removed.

And so this is the context of John’s message as he prepares the way of the Lord, as he calls for repentance before the coming of the One who will take away the iniquity of the world.  Luke is quoting from 40:3 and metaphorically Isaiah is speaking of the need for men’s hearts to be cleansed from sin by the illustration of preparing a roadway for the coming King.

What he's talking about here is heart preparation. Before there can be any national reception of the Messiah, there has to be an individual reception of the Messiah in men’s hearts. So he says in verse 5,  "Every ravine shall be filled up, every mountain and hill shall be brought low. The crooked shall become straight. The rough roads smooth. Then you'll see the salvation of God." If you want to experience the salvation of God, you must then make the path ready. And spiritually the pathway is through the wilderness of the heart. "Every ravine shall be filled up," that refers to the low things, the base things, the dark things of the heart. They have to be brought up, as it were to light. And then every mountain and hill is brought low...the high things of the heart, self-exaltation, self-will, self-fulfillment, all the pride has to be brought down. And then he talks about the crooked being made straight, anything perverse, twisted, deceitful, devious, lying, manipulating. All those matters straightened out. And then the rough road smooth, any kind of hindrance, any kind of rebellion, anything that clutters a clear and smooth path, anything that obstructs the Lord's entrance into the heart.

Listen, the kingdom of heaven is a spiritual kingdom.  It is a kingdom of your heart.  Who rules your heart?  Who is on the throne of your heart?  Your heart is best understood as a metaphor for your soul, your mind and your will, the seat of your emotions.  It is the second part of your being;  we were created spirit, soul and body.  And even when we are born again in the Spirit, there remains a war in the mind between the flesh and the Spirit.  God said in Genesis 6:3, “my Spirit will not strive with man forever.”  Our heart, our soul must be brought under subjection to the Spirit of God.  If we are not walking in the Spirit, then we are not children of God.

Romans 8:3  “For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.  For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.  For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace, because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so,  and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.”

Well, that is about all we have time for today.  Next week we will look at the rest of John’s message.  Many would say that John’s message seems a bit harsh.  His bedside manner didn’t seem quite befitting a pastor.  He was a little too rough around the edges for a lot of people.  We get the idea from looking at John that many people were initially attracted by the novelty of John, and they were astonished at the authority of John, but eventually they ended up turning away from the message of John.

I’ve often been discouraged to see so many people come and then eventually fall away from the message of the kingdom and the need for repentance.  There is plenty of interest still today in religion.  There is still plenty of allegiance today to a national heritage of so called Christian values.  But there are not a lot of people either in John’s day or in our day  who respond to the message of the need for repentance from sin.  That your religion and national heritage are useless if your heart is prideful and stubborn towards the truth.  After John’s ministry and after Jesus’ ministry, there were only about a 120 people in the upper room.  That is all that were left when the loaves and fishes stopped being passed out and they started handing out crosses.  So as much as I would like to identify with John, I shouldn’t be expecting much better results than he had.

But John had this to say about the purpose of his ministry and the exaltation of Christ;  He said He must increase but I must decrease.   The goal of this church is to exalt Jesus Christ.  It’s not about exalting me, or any of you.  It’s about being faithful to our calling, faithful to the word of God, and faithful to the full message of the gospel.  By God’s grace let us be found faithful until Christ comes back.

Obedient to authority: Luke 2:39-52

Today we come to a very significant passage of scripture.  Out of all that was written concerning the life of Jesus Christ, this passage today is the only place that gives us any detail of the missing 30 years of scriptural record between the birth  of Christ and the beginning of His public ministry.  Over the centuries there has been a lot of speculation about this time period of Jesus life, and especially in antiquity there were a few spurious accounts that attempted to fill in the blanks of this part of His life, however they were debunked by the early church as mythical fables with virtually no truth to them. 

So rather than fall into that trap of trying to speculate on these early years of Jesus life and conjure up images of Jesus making chairs or something in a carpenter’s shop, I would like to focus your attention today on what the Holy Spirit obviously thought was the most significant event of this 30 year period that the scripture is otherwise virtually silent about.

By way of background, the passage tells us that Jesus is 12 years old.  Most of us can picture what a 12 year old boy might look like.  However, what may not be quite as obvious is the implications that age would have in Jewish culture.  He is right on the cusp of transition between boyhood and manhood.  At thirteen, a young Jewish male would have a ceremony which would celebrate his coming of age.  Today the Jews still practice that ceremony with the Bar Mitzvah. Through that rite of passage he would be considered to be of the age of accountability.  And in those days he would be of the age where he would transition from the tutelage of primarily his mother to the tutelage of his father.  Most young men from that time period would follow in their father’s footsteps and begin to learn their trade. 

But Jesus is still considered a boy, though right on the verge of that transition.  And I believe that the text in verse 40 encapsulates all of Jesus life from birth through the age of 12.  “The Child continued to grow and become strong, increasing in wisdom; and the grace of God was upon Him.” 

Now remember the announcement of Gabriel concerning Jesus in Luke 1:35, The angel answered and said to her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; and for that reason the holy Child shall be called the Son of God.” 

And what I think is important to understand is that contrary to some teachings that say Jesus did not become God until He had come up from the water at his baptism and the Holy Spirit descended upon him like a dove, the truth is that Jesus was the Son of God, the Child of God from his birth.  No less than God himself was lying in that manger in the form of a baby.  And yet in some mysterious way, He laid aside some of His glory, some of his privilege,  to become flesh like us, and to become subject to the same things we are subject to as humans. Hebrews 2:17 explains it this way, “Therefore, He had to be made like His brethren in all things, so that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.”  And again in Hebrews 4:15  “For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.”

So I believe that verse 40 speaks to the fact that Christ submitted himself and humbled himself to become a man, the Creator of the universe humbling himself to the point of becoming a human baby,  of having to be nursed, of having to be weaned, of having to be changed, of having to learn to walk and talk and have all of the normal, human things of childhood happen in his life.  He did not exert some special power or privilege which allowed him to circumvent the normal events of growing up.  He didn’t  go around snapping his fingers and creating rabbits to play with or healing childhood friends.  During this time in his life he subjected himself to become one of us in every respect, and did so perfectly, without sinning in anything or in anyway. 

This understanding helps us appreciate the reason that Jesus lived until the age of 30 without ever beginning his ministry.  Have you ever wondered about that?  Have you ever wondered why He didn’t start his ministry at 18 or 21?  I think this passage gives us clues to that, and several other scriptures confirm the fact that Jesus had to live a perfect life, a full life, with all the normal difficulties, trials and tribulations of life, all the sorrows, all the joys, all the pain that we suffer, and do so without sin, that he might be made our perfect substitute in all things. 

This understanding gives new light to the verse I’ve been quoting quite a bit lately, 2 Cor. 5:21  “[God] made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”  Jesus not only exchanged our sins for his righteousness, but he exchanged his righteous life for our sinful life.  For thirty three years He fully lived the life we could never live. God didn’t just send him to earth fully man on a Thursday and crucify Him on Friday and raise him from the dead on Sunday.  God let Him humble himself for 30 years to become in all points like we are, yet without sin, so that He might exchange that righteous life for our sinful lives. 

This is what Hebrews 5:8 means when it says “Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered.”  And also in Rom. 5:19 “For as through the one man's disobedience [Adam’s original sin] the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous.”

Isn’t it ironic that God in the flesh would subject himself to 30 years of submission in order to learn obedience, and yet most Christians today want instant sanctification?  We want instant maturation.  We want everything immediately, right now.  There is no concept of submission and subjection to years of learning and growing to gain wisdom and insight and grow in grace.  Most Christians today can barely give an hour a week and they expect to grow in the Lord. 

There are a couple of secrets to spiritual growth I’ll share real quickly with you this morning, and one is perseverance.  Sticking with it.  Being faithful in the little things.  The other is being obedient to the truth as God gives it to you.  Sanctification is progressive and so is revelation.  Jesus said, to him that is given much, much shall be required.  So as God reveals truth to you, no matter how insignificant you may think it is, be obedient to what He shows you, and then He will show you more truth, and then you exercise your faith by being obedient to that, and then He reveals more truth and so forth.  But if you resist and reject the first truth, then don’t expect Him to say “Let’s just skip over that, maybe we can come back later.”  No, that’s as far as you’re going, until you are obedient to that revealed truth.  There is no shortcut to spiritual growth.  The only way to grow spiritually is to be obedient each step of the way to the truth revealed.  It’s like exercise, what is known as progressive resistence.  You add a little more weight to the machine every time and eventually you find that your muscles have grown.  You can’t just put the weight on the top limit the first time in the gym.  Physical growth doesn’t work that way, and neither does spiritual growth.  1 Timothy 4:7 says, “exercise yourself unto godliness.”

So back to our text in verse 40, as the Christ Child continued to grow and become strong the grace of God was upon Him.  In other words, Jesus grew physically, He grew mentally, and He grew spiritually.  And I am the first to admit that I don’t know how God in the flesh can grow spiritually, but I believe it must mean that as His mental and spiritual capacities grew as in a normal child, He also grew spiritually in relation to that capacity.  Just as his mind at age one was not equal to his mind at age 20, so I believe the indication is that his spiritual capacity matured as well.  At the end of the chapter in verse 52 it basically restates this spiritual, physical and mental growth again. Luke 2:52  “And Jesus kept increasing in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men.”

There is a principle in theology that tries to explain what is really unexplainable by calling it the Covenant of Redemption.  It refers to an agreement between Jesus and God the Father before time began, somewhere in eternity past, that Jesus would lay aside the glory of heaven and take on the form of a human to complete the redemption of mankind.  That He would be fully God and yet become fully man, but in the process of becoming man, He would lay aside some of His glory, some of His divine prerogatives for a time, in order that He might be made in all points like we are, yet without sin, so that He might become our substitute, to pay the price for our redemption. 

So Jesus entire life up to the age of 30 years old is described in two almost identical statements found in verse 40 and verse 52.  In both cases He is described as growing, gaining wisdom, and having favor or the grace of God upon Him. And as we have established, this whole period is encapsulated with the principle of obedience.  Jesus being obedient to the foreordained will of God, willingly subjecting himself to become flesh and endure all the humilities, indignities and trials  of man.  And sandwiched in between these two summary statements is this story of how Jesus was left behind in the temple. 

And in this story we are going to see that obedience carried out as an illustration of subjection to authority that I think is a primary point that the Holy Spirit is making here.  Out of all the possible events that the Spirit could have chosen from this 30 year period of Jesus life, God chose this example of Christ humbling himself in obedience, to be in subjection not only to his earthly parents, but to His heavenly Father as well , so that Christ may be the example for us.

As the passage states, it was the custom for Mary and Joseph to take Jesus along with many relatives to the Passover each year in Jerusalem.  This would have been quite an undertaking, involving a large caravan of many children and many families from Nazareth traveling together for safety’s sake perhaps for the long journey to Jerusalem which would have taken many days.

I’m sure you are familiar with the story.  After the Passover, the caravan returns and it’s a full day out before his parents realize that Jesus is missing.  Traveling that night is not an option, so the next morning they get up and travel back a full day’s journey to Jerusalem.  It must have been a heart wrenching ordeal for this young couple.  If you’ve ever lost one of your children even for just a few minutes in a shopping mall or outdoors, then you know the absolute panic that sets in.  I remember when my daughter Rachel was little, she loved to push the button on the elevator.  And we were in this shopping mall in a big city and it had an elevator that went down several floors into the parking garage.  And I remember Rachel got in the elevator somehow and we were trying to get her off and the doors closed on her and she was gone.  We went into an absolute panic.  We ran to the exit stairs and went flying down each course, ran out to the elevator only to find it was still going.  We ended up finally running out to the bottom floor and there was Rachel standing with some strangers in the parking lot.  It was a horrible experience.  I can’t imagine what it would be like to have your child missing for three days.

So it takes a day to travel back to Jerusalem, and then they spend the next day looking everywhere in the city.  During the Passover, there were probably 2 million people in Jerusalem.  And the text tells us that finally they found Jesus in the temple talking to the teachers there.  Vs. 46 “Then, after three days they found Him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers, both listening to them and asking them questions.  47            And all who heard Him were amazed at His understanding and His answers.”

Here’s what I think happened.  I think when his parents went to the temple Jesus went with them.  And when everyone else left to go join the caravan Jesus stayed right there and was teaching the teachers and whoever was listening to him.  I think it was an amazing thing.  This 12 year old boy sat down with the teachers, the scribes and rabbis and the priests and as was their custom they would ask questions and then answer them according to the law.  And I believe Jesus was giving insight into the law that no one could believe.  The teachers were astonished at his wisdom.  And what we can understand here is that even though Jesus is 12 and obviously not mature physically, yet his spiritual maturity at 12 far surpassed the rabbis that had spent a lifetime in spiritual training. 

I wouldn’t be surprised if for three days Jesus didn’t sleep or eat.  I’m reminded of the story of the Samaritan woman who Jesus talked to while his disciples went to buy food.  And when they came back they urged him to eat, and He said, “I have food to eat that you know not of.”  And He explained that in John 4:34, “Jesus said to them, "My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to accomplish His work.” 

And this is further born out by Jesus answer to his mother’s concern and worry that his parents had over him being found missing. Luke 2:49  “And He said to them, "Why is it that you were looking for Me? Did you not know that I had to be in My Father's house?"  The Greek rendering is perhaps more accurately “the things of my Father.”  Or “my Father’s business.”  I’d love to preach a message about the need to be in the Father’s house if that was what the text was really getting out.  But it’s broader than simply being in church or being in the temple.  The idea is that Mary and Joseph should have looked first in the temple, rather than last, knowing what they knew about Jesus.  But more importantly, Jesus knew who He was and what He had come to do.  He had come to do the Father’s business.  And so again we see that by 12 years old, He has already matured spiritually to the point that He knew who He was, and what He came to do.  I’m sure that the Passover week had inspired Him as He realized that He would be the Passover lamb which would take away the sins of the world. And here is the point;  He was signaling that He had reached the age where He was not much longer to be under the tutelage of his mother, but under the tutelage of his Father, and that wasn’t Joseph, that was God the Father. 

But the final point that I think the Holy Spirit wants to make here is found in verse 51; “And He went down with them and came to Nazareth, and He continued in subjection to them; and His mother treasured all these things in her heart.”  Jesus, God in the flesh, full of grace and truth and wisdom, knowing He was of God and what He had come to earth to do, continued in subjection to his earthly mother and father until the time appointed by God was complete.  The scripture makes it clear that God’s will is for us to be under earthly authority, which is also God’s authority. Jesus is showing that earthly authority has a dual purpose, and is not mutually exclusive, but rather God has established earthly authority as representatives of his heavenly authority. 1Pet. 2:13 “Submit yourselves for the Lord's sake to every human institution, whether to a king as the one in authority, or to governors as sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and the praise of those who do right.”

Subjection is an essential principle that Jesus is modeling for us in this passage.  He subjected himself to the plan of the Father.  He subjected himself to the Law.  He said I did not come to do away with the Law but to fulfill it.  To keep it completely and fully.  He subjected himself to His mother and father.  Jesus would pray in the Garden of Gethsemane, “Not my will but your will be done.”  He understood and modeled submission to authority.  He said in John 5:30            "I can do nothing on My own initiative. As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is just, because I do not seek My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.” 

Jesus modeled submission to authority because He wants us to be under authority and under submission first of all to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, then under the authority of our church leadership, and in submission to one another.  This principle is repeated over and over again in the Bible.   We are to be in subjection to the governing authorities in Romans 13.  We are to be in subjection to our elders in 1 Timothy.  We are to be in subjection to one another in the church in Ephesians 5.  Wives are to be subject to their husbands in Ephesians 5:22.  The church is to be subject to Christ in Eph. 5: 24.  Children are to be subject to their parents in Ephesians 6.  Workers are to be subject to their masters in 1 Timothy.

The point is, we all are to be in subjection even as Christ subjected himself.  God did not create any free agents.  I’ve said before that our American independence may be a good thing for America, but it’s not a virtue that God wants for the church.  God has designed the church to be interdependent, not independent.  We are to be serving Christ by serving one another, not serving our will and our selfish desires.

The word used for subjection in the Greek is hupotasso, which had a military connotation that was well understood in Greek culture. This word was a military term meaning "to arrange troop divisions in a military fashion under the command of a leader". In non-military use, it was "a voluntary attitude of giving in, cooperating, assuming responsibility, and carrying a burden".   

I think it’s helpful to see the church as the army of God.  And God has established that just as there are units in an army, like squads, or regiments or whatever, so there are local churches in God’s army that are units with leaders and authority of the people in that unit.  The whole army is under God’s command, but God has established local authorities.  And our job is to get under authority in a local, Bible believing  church.  If they aren’t preaching the Bible then get out.  But get under authority. 

In the army, you can’t have soldiers wandering around from unit to unit, deciding where or when they will serve today.  “Well, let’s see.  This unit is going on a march today, that sounds fun.  I think I’ll join them.”  That doesn’t work.  And it doesn’t work when Christians are wandering around from place to place based on what sort of entertainment such and such church is having today.  You’re weren’t saved by the precious blood of Jesus Christ to be entertained, you were saved to serve the Lord, not your will, but His will. 

Folks, the church is the only organization that Jesus Christ created when He came to earth.  And yet today the church is in disarray because we have sought to redefine it according to how we think it should be or to make it more appealing to the culture.  It is basically in a rout because we have left the basic principles that it was founded upon in search of a more relevant, entertaining, world pleasing, carnal Christian pleasing message.  And the message is that the church exists to serve you, rather than you serving God through the church.  We think the church exists to give us a half hour pep talk and make us feel special and loved and send us back out in the world with a pat on our head.  We’ve lost sight of the fact that we are in a war, a spiritual battle and that we have been called to forsake the world and serve Christ, taking up our cross and following Him.  You can’t do that watching a TV evangelist on Sunday morning sitting on your couch in your bathrobe.  That’s not church.  Church is getting under authority, working as a unit with other believers in a local body, serving Christ through serving one another, putting their needs above your own.

Listen, I believe that the Holy Spirit is illustrating through the young life of Jesus Christ one of the most important principles in the gospel, and that is that of coming under authority.  Get in rank.  Take up your position.  Find your place in the battle.  Get engaged.  Stay engaged.  Stand firm against the assaults of the Devil, fighting the good fight of the faith.  That one day we may say like Paul in 2Tim.  4:7 “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith; in the future there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day; and not only to me, but also to all who have loved His appearing.