You Will See

Now while they are and it's going to be available after the service in the FOIA or if you just would like to discuss any works with him He would be more than happy and I bet if you get him alone he would talk about Craig's work too but we'll see This morning we're going to reflect briefly on the beginning of an Advent series that I'm calling encountering the light looking at the gospel of Luke and some of the stories about what Advent and Christmas are all about I'm going to do a preface from the prophet Malachi that's linked to this text This is on page five of your worship guide if you'd like to follow along Malachi chapter three and then we'll focus on the reading in Luke chapter three See I will send to my messenger who will prepare the way before me Then suddenly the Lord whom you were seeking will come to his temple the messenger of the covenant whom you desire will come Says the Lord Almighty But who can endure the day of his coming who can stand when he appears For he will be like a refiner's fire or a longer or soap He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver. He will purify the Levites and refine them like golden silver Then the Lord will have men who will bring offerings in righteousness and the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will be acceptable to the Lord as in the days gone by as in former years In the 15th year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea Herod Tetraka of Galilee His brother Philip tetraka of Eturia and trecanitis and Lysenius tetraka of Abelene during the high priesthood of Annas and Thysus the word of God came to John's son of Zechariah in the desert He went into all the country around the Jordan preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins as It is written in the book in the words of Isaiah the prophet a Voice of one calling in the desert prepare the way for the Lord make straight paths for him Every valley shall be filled in Every mountain and hill made low the crooked road shall become straight the rough way smooth And all mankind will see God's salvation This is the word of the Lord I tell you story that happened to me several years ago I have my son's permission to tell it but my oldest son when he was only four years old attended preschool at P.S. 11 in Manhattan in New York City and every morning I would walk him to preschool It's part of our father's son routine One morning we were walking along 23rd Street in Chelsea walking down to Greenwich Village to go to school and As we're walking along my son was chatting chattering I should say is a a Gregorious four-year-old Was chattering away about what they were doing in their class? They were making one of these they were singing about this and and then Miss Mullenari said this And he was just going on and on and on when all of a sudden Three fire trucks came blaring down west turn the 3rd street to go to a fire on the other end of Chelsea and They were they were not only blaring their sirens But they were all three blowing their loud horns and they had lights flashing and there were These you know enormous New York City firemen hanging off the edge of the fire truck and the the crowd was actually moving and they're running through And I'm saying they're walking with my four-year-old and he continues talking to me about what they're doing in their class He doesn't even look at the fire trucks and I immediately my first thought is he's going deaf What's what's going and then I say I said my son fire trucks and he responds and says my fire trucks How is this possible? Well, yeah, it's possible all four years of his life he'd grown up in New York City At a fire truck in New York City That's like a Lego fried chicken in Georgia, you know, it's just it's just nothing It's just something you see constantly and all the time and I thought you know when I was Four years old and Douglas old Georgia living on a little dirt road if a fire truck Hey come down there, and I would have broken my neck to go out and see what was going on What is my point? It's entirely possible To get used to the most dramatic sirens in the world It's entirely possible to just grow accustomed to the extraordinary So that it almost becomes Ordinary for you And this is particularly the case when it comes to the story of advenent Christmas So what we've just read John the baptizer or John the Baptist is you probably know him better It's very easy to not hear the fireance To hear the incredible claim That John the baptizer that all the early Christians that for two thousand years the claims have been made about what was God was doing in Jesus Christ. There's nothing ordinary about it Now this morning as we begin to look at Luke and what he says about This light that's coming you see that the story of Jesus from the get go Is linked to another person namely John the baptizer or John the Baptist If you start the gospel you see that their birth narratives are linked so that you actually a John always He's like the advanced man for Jesus even as an infant He's like the the world's you know the sort of the the world's youngest point man even in his birth He's coming in and the story gets hold before you get to Jesus and then today You have sort of the dawn of adulthood and before you get to Jesus in his ministry You get John the Baptist And so John is very much linked to understanding Jesus and therefore with the birth narrative. He's he's very much an important part of Christmas Now I think that it's very awkward to try to weave John the Baptist into the kind of ordinary Warm sentimental joyful Overtones of Christmas that most of us have grown to live with Because his message his demeanor in so many ways it doesn't fit with what we really want to think about when it comes to Christmas Let's face it. How many of I'm just curious anybody here? Did my hair have a John the Baptist ornament on your tree? I've envisioned this in my mind. You know, you could have yarn for a big scraggly beard You know in a couple of dead bugs hanging off of him for those Editing out there in the G.D. and wilderness, you know a little camel hair clip some off the dead's camel hair jacket and get a little camel hair On him and then underneath them maybe with lighted red and green letters you could have repent Just hang it right there on your tree. It's just it's a real part of Christmas

I don't see why I don't see craft people in the church going Here's our craft idea. John the Baptist ornament No Because John the Baptist is He's just kind of a disconcerting figure in a lot of ways But what we see him doing here as an adult really helps us Understand all that God is doing in Preparing the coming of the child Jesus The man Jesus the Savior Jesus and specifically what I want you to say in the short verses we've reflected on It's that John basically says this You need to know that you are going to see the glory of God Are you ready That's admin means coming and it's it's a season where we where we try to prepare ourselves Are we really ready if Jesus is coming again like his first coming? Are you really ready? You will see no matter who you are quoting the prophet Isaiah all flesh Everything living is going to see God's rescue Everything is going to see him But John's question is are you ready now if it can be a disconcerting question And I want to make sure you know if you read on in this chapter to verse 18 in spite of his demand for repentance We're told in verse 18 that what John was preaching was good news But sometimes good news is hard news Now I want to I'm going to really develop just two quick points that deal with the news John the baptizer was preaching because it's still relevant to vary But there's the same question. I'm just going to use different intonations By the way, do you know that don't you know you do that all the time and if any of you know French you know You just depends on you. It's how you intone your voice and it works the same way in English And the phrase we're going to look at is are you ready? All right And if you're married you know exactly what I mean the way or if you're apparent You know what I mean our kids you know there's Mom and dad have got a real treat for you and they say are you ready? But ordinarily what are they saying are you ready? Right it's the same question, but it really conveys There are deep shades of meaning and John the baptizer really is saying both He's saying are you ready And then he's also saying are you ready for what's going to happen. Let's let's take you know Let's take the first. In other words, he's saying here Are you ready meaning you think you're ready for him You think you want this light in your life, but I'm here to tell you you're not ready And if you read on he uses some pretty unflattering descriptions To say to people you're not remotely prepared you're not remotely sincere you're not remotely prepared For the light the glory light of Christmas you're not ready for the light of God in your life you think you are But you have no idea what you're getting into you have no idea what you're opening yourself So now let me give you a little bit of background in the first century The Jewish people were in a very very desperate situation They had um They very much were praying for God to come to them And shine his rescue light his his light of love on them his light of restoration on them in a way Like they told the stories of their ancestors They were living in a a political nightmare and I'm not gonna unpack it But you you read about that and that that awkward turn at the very beginning It was the 15th year of tiberius. How many politicians do you list there? There's there's a bunch of them Why is he listing a bunch of politicians? Do I really need to explain the historical context where you'd understand this all right Is basically to listen? These are people who are the descendants of those who went into exile And if returned to their land and what if they found They found that things are still um They're still oppressed and things are if you read the history of the time things are at an explosion point Not only because of political corruption because the heralds are are Incredibly corrupt at tetraarch is just a word that means a petty sort of the petty prince Kind of what it came to denote in Rome They have petty princes who are building the people cheating the people Things are really at the sort of boiling point the exploding point And not only that the religious leaders aren't any better He mentions these high freaks and if you go into the story there things were just see just seeding with the idea that these religious leaders were totally corrupt and totally in cahoots with Rome Now notice that that Luke quotes and by the way all four gospels. This is this gets quoted by all four gospels He quotes Isaiah the prophet Isaiah chapter 40 And specifically he quotes Isaiah 40 talking about what God was going to do for the Jewish people Hundreds and hundreds of years ago where they had been carried off into exile in Babylon They were carried office and made you know into forced labor and terrible things happen to them And Isaiah was one of the prophets who announced the news you're going to go home And what he says and these are familiar Christmas verses you need to understand them as they were originally read These were people who were 800 miles away from home 800 miles away from any kind of real life Longing to go back home longing to go back to their temple Longing to go back and rebuild and and have a life in the place got it promised them Isaiah says to them and Isaiah 40 Come for them come for my people says the Lord Tell them that your long service is over And you're going to go back and you are going to see the glory of the Lord the glory of the Lord should be revealed They get back If we're bought had an impulse by something you just had to have and you get there and and then all the seven is like What was I thinking there's a sense in which collectively the whole Israel nation is going This is the glory of the Lord Here we are. Yeah. Oh, isn't it great to be back and yet another oppressive place Isn't it great to have you know yet another corrupt religious system There was an incredible hunger for people to say when's the real restoration going to happen What's a real light going to happen and since the promise was still very much Alive promise they were waiting on That had kind of been fulfilled but not fully And John gives them a message that is surprising Because on the one hand it's good news, but then it's it's it's it's like a it's uh, you know It's it's uh sort of damning with faint praise. You know, there's a sense at which John basically says hey, I'm announcing good news your king is coming It's finally going to happen the fullness of the premise is coming But at the same time he says and you're not remotely ready And what he introduces is a ritual that was associated with the most unclean of the unclean the Gentiles the goyum What he says to these religious people who are wanting God's line in their life God's line in their land is the same way they had ablutions and washings For Gentiles who wanted to somehow come in and be a part of the Israel he says to the most orthodox You need a bath too You need to do the same thing they need to do because we're all unclean none of us already friend are really calm And it's it's it was a hard it was a hard film to swallow Now the word he uses the calling them what this action of baptism for forgiveness of sins The word he uses is the word repent Which is a simple word that means if you will you need to change your mind Change your mind about what well notice that he calls them People who contended themselves believing they were children of Abraham And what he's saying to them is you're assuming that you're just okay with God that every do you begin to say the Relatives here for any of us He says you just assume you're okay You just assume that everything about your life is fine with God really honest. I'm okay You're wrong You need to repent and what he's describing is not just a one-time act But actually a mindset a change of mind where a person permanently against to realize I need to be facing God's light. I need to be facing God's truth. I need to know that I constantly need forgiveness. There's the washing All right, I need to be forgiven But I also need to know that my problem is I continually think I'm okay I continually think I can do this on my own I've got to turn and begin a lifestyle. You know any of you working on the low carb lifestyle Well, you need a glory the glory light of God lifestyle You need to be able to turn away and say only here is sanity only here is truth only here Well, I really begin to grow into the person who's ready for more and more of him You know over the holiday my family and I listened to this wonderful rendition of CS Lewis's story the silver chair It's part of the chronicles of Narnia and in the silver chair. There's this character Prince Rillian He is the son of the king of Narnia. He's a prince, but this you know, watch out for the good-looking woman this beautiful woman Who's actually a green serpent witch Bewitches him drags her off into her kingdom down underneath the earth and puts him in a silver chair And he constantly is deluded about who he is and why he is there and what his purpose in life is and it's only for one hour a day It's all over one hour a day that Rillian sees he turns and he changes back into himself and he remembers on the son of the true king I'm the son of the true king I'm a prince And friends I think Advent is here as a way frankly for all of us to admit That repentance is not a lifestyle for us Repentance is the idea of turning your mind in your heart toward God in it as a constant of saying your need for forgiveness of seeing your need for grace of Prayerful dependence on him moment by moment of guidance from his truth so that his word becomes utterly indispensable for you We're like Rillian We're so caught up in the having and doing and the being of life and the business of life That we just have these occasional respites Where we come to ourselves and remember that we're sons and daughters of the great king and he's called us John says to you and to me Are you ready? We talk about the light all the time, but are you really living a life? Where you're ready for him But then finally John also says here, I mean Luke also says here about John the Baptist saying Are you ready? The glory is beginning Now what's unusual about Luke is that he says something in this gospel that only Luke tells us the other gospel writers Don't give the next verse of Isaiah chapter 40 and it's here where he says this uh Prepare the way for the Lord makes straight past for him, but then this is where Luke is original Every valley shall be filled in every mountain and hill made low the crooked road shall be made straight the rough Ways smooth and all mankind will see God's salvation Now that's a picture of the end times isn't it? The idea of um, you know if a great king were coming to town You don't just let him bump up and down the road you get the road ready If there are mountains you move them out of the way if something's crooked you straighten it out It's got to be ready for the king and what John is saying is he's coming and nothing is going to stop his coming You are going to see it, but he's not just describing an event in the life of Israel Luke is pushing us to say That God's purposes are for the world and they are for you That this is something that every living thing literally will someday see But John also envisions that it's beginning to happen right now in the ministry of Jesus now This is this is the application I want to draw. This is where Christmas comes in If what John is saying is true Then there's a process going on that began with the first advent of Jesus Well, it will not be completed into the second advent of Jesus to the final return of Jesus Which is God is absolutely now committed to pouring his glory into this world God is absolutely committed in Jesus to pouring his life Into this world and renewing this planet that has fallen Every living thing is going to see the rescue people who aren't ready are not going to share in the rescue But the good news is For those As the gospel of John says to those who call upon his name He gave the right to be his children to be his sons Those who share in that light Now that imagery of John is what I want to close with this morning because I think it's a good place to ask where you are If Christmas is true if Christmas is true Then we can see what the rest of Luke tells us Jesus did come into this world Jesus did die on the cross and he was raised again and he has promised to come again and completely renew the universe right now He is pouring his glory light into the world one life at a time one community at a time Are you a person this Christmas who can say I'm ready I Want my life to be part of that landing path for the kingdom of God I know that there are rough places I know there are crooked places that are framed out There are listen are you ready this Christmas to say listen. I need you. That's why I'm here There are mountains of pride in my life Mother down There are valleys Of bitterness and hurt that I just can't get rid of fillet and place And there are things in my life that are just plain Crucket um lord Jesus Give me your life Let's pray Lord I want you to fill us right now both with the fear of not taking you seriously of not being ready and With Holy Spirit expectation I've just how good your promises are of coming more fully into our lives aggregation right now. I want to speak to you in this time of prayer and ask you Is there any area of your life where you know There's a mountain of pride or there's a there's a valley of hurt and you're turning away from him rather than toward him There's a crookedness you don't want to turn away from And therefore you're turning away from him rather than repenting and turning toward him Would you take a moment in prayer and turn toward him in faith