Will the Real Messiah Stand Up

Just over a week ago a friend of mine visited with his wife in the area. They stayed at a motel in the next town over. They were married on a Saturday, and then flew to Maine on Sunday for thier honeymoon. This was a friend from the Air Force that I haven't seen in person for almost 30 years. Him and his wife are both Christians, and it was evident in our time together that they love the Lord. Praise God for such a special visit. Shortly after returning to North Carolina, he sent me an e-mail with the following verse.

Colossians 1:10-12, "And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light." (NIV)

What an encouraging and comforting passage of scripture. Praise the Lord.

Last time we looked at the beginning of John the Baptist ministry. We learned a little bit about sanctification and repentance. I promised that this time we would try to understand what John's baptism was all about.

"preaching a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins,"

Baptism was a means to demonstrate your membership or agreement in something. It is a public symbol of participation. When folks heard from John that the messiah was coming and they needed to prepare their hearts for change (repent). They demonstrated that repentance by joining others in baptism. So here is what is being demonstrated.

1. The messiah is coming
2. John is warning us to prepare
3. I repent. I turn from the direction I was heading and turn to God.
4. I am baptized to symbolize that I have laid my old selfish nature aside and show my membership and agreement with those awaiting salvation.
   
5. I change my actions to be more caring, generous and careful to be a ministry to others. These are the things we talked about last time.

After being baptized the people began to wonder if John was the messiah.

Lk 3:15 Now as the people were in expectation, and all reasoned in their hearts about John, whether he was the Christ or not,

Why were they wondering that? First there wasn't a spiritual leader in Israel that could speak to the needs and hearts of the people. It can be imagined from John's statement and the statements of Jesus later that the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law were making the people feel bad, unable to meet the requirements of the law. They viewed themselves as unworthy. Which if they tried to make themselves worthy of the law would be the case. Also we already noted they were living with the Pax Roma (the peace of Rome). That is when you country does what it is told, pay taxes and you would be protected from other enemies. The people we waiting and anticipating a Messiah. Plus John had just told off the religious leaders and they that were smug about their ancestry to Abraham. Maybe he is the Messiah. But John corrected them.

Lk 3:16 John answered, saying to all, “I indeed baptize you with water; but One mightier than I is coming, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to loose. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 17 His winnowing fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clean out His threshing floor, and gather the wheat into His barn; but the chaff He will burn with unquenchable fire.”

John is preparing the way, the Messiah is coming. John is uncomfortable with the idea of being worthy to tie the Messiah's sandal, let alone we mistaken for the Messiah. The messiah is coming and he will bring real judgment. He will clean house. The chaff are those who pretend to religious righteousness and the wheat are those who seek God with their hearts.

You can imagine that even today God is seeking those who are seeking Him. He is knocking at the door of your heart. He is looking for your willingness to let Him in. He is not interested in those living their lives serving themselves or religious leaders who are satisfied with their own self righteousness. He wants those that have repented. Turned from seeking their own self and instead have turned to seeking God.

Are you seeking God, are you searching for a Savior. That savior is Jesus Christ and no one comes to comes except through Him. If you are prepared to except Jesus or have made that decision and have questions please let me know.

U Turn Ahead

Before we look into our scripture passage, I would like to give you an update on what we have been up to.  On labor day weekend my wife and I returned from a trip to western New York state to drop off our youngest at Houghton College. Though we have done this first year college trip already 3 times, it wasn't any easier this time. We were graciously invited by another couple in our church who have also dropped off their daughter at college that same weekend to join them for a 2 day vacation at their time share in NH to just relax. It was just what we needed at the time.
Its interesting to think of our youngest starting his adult life of independence just as the passages we are looking at starting this week jump ahead to the time when John the Baptist starts his adult ministry. The message of the angel and the prophesy of Zacharias, John's father, has now come true. John has been called to preach and baptize to prepare the way for Jesus.

Luke 3:1 Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip tetrarch of Iturea and the region of Trachonitis and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene, while Annas and Caiaphas were high priests, the word of God came to John the son of Zacharias in the wilderness.

As we have stated before Luke wants to create an accurate account and demonstrate that the events happened in a real places to real people. The rulers and priests mentioned put the events in a real time period. John in is the wilderness . Why is John in the wilderness? There is a sense of setting aside, being apart, preparing himself for the spiritual mission that God was calling him to.  This setting aside in the Bible is referred to as sanctification, to be set aside for use by God.  So after preparing himself for this mission, John has left the wilderness and has entered the region around the Jordan.

"preaching a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins…"

What is this message all about? Well we know that repentance means to turn from one direction and head in the other direction.  Like going down the road to work and forgetting something at home, I immediately turn around and head toward home, instead of away from home. In this case John is referring to our relationship with God.  We are heading one way, doing our own thing, and we need to be going the other way seeking God.   We need to turn from going our way, to going God's way.  Now there is sometimes confusion by many preachers that repentance is all about stop sinning. They will say we are to repent of our sins in a sense that we stop sinning. Stop drinking, stop gossiping, stop cheating, stop whatever.  The idea conveyed by these preachers is we need to be pure before God will accept us.   However I think that misses the point.  In this passage of Luke we have more of a sense of repentance being to change our mind, our attitude and as a result our actions.

I am going to jump ahead to the examples in v10 - 14

The people were responding to John's call for repentance by asking what shall we do. Look at the positive instructions: If you have two tunics, give to some one who doesn't have one. Share your food. To the tax collectors who were resented because they cheated by collecting more than they should, they were told to just collect what they were supposed to. To the soldiers do not intimidate, accuse falsely and be content with your wages. All of these instructions effect your relationships with others, they take the focus off of our selfish desires and DIRECT THEM TO A DESIRE FOR GOD. Without a desire for God, we are lost.   So if this is about turning back to God, why are we serving others.  Because God cares for us and loves us.  We serve him when we serve others.

Next time we will look more closely at what was accomplished by John's baptism, how does this prepare us for Jesus coming.