The NXR Podcast - SUNDAY SERMON - “Let Earth Receive Her King”

00:00:00.000 The word of the Lord says this,

00:00:02.440 there was a man sent from God whose name was John.

00:00:08.440 He came as a witness to bear witness about the light

00:00:11.680 that all might believe through him.

00:00:14.740 He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light.

00:00:19.160 The true light, which gives light to everyone,

00:00:21.920 was coming into the world.

00:00:24.040 He was in the world, and the world was made through him,

00:00:27.020 yet the world did not know him.

00:00:30.000 He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.

00:00:36.140 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name,

00:00:39.640 he gave the rights to become children of God,

00:00:43.020 who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh,

00:00:46.800 nor of the will of man, but of God.

00:00:50.520 And the word became flesh and made his dwelling among us,

00:00:53.740 and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father,

00:00:58.160 full of grace and truth. John bore witness about him and cried out, this is he whom I said,

00:01:06.740 he who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me. For from his fullness we have

00:01:13.540 all received grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses, grace and truth come through

00:01:19.600 Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God, the only God who is at the Father's side. He has made him

00:01:26.580 known. And this is the testimony of John when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to 0.93

00:01:33.840 ask of him, who are you? He confessed and did not deny, but confessed, I am not the Christ. 0.76

00:01:40.920 And they asked him, what then? Are you Elijah? He said, I am not. Are you the prophet? And he

00:01:48.100 answered, no. So they said to him, who are you? We need an answer to those who sent us.

00:01:54.980 what do you say for yourself he said i am the voice of one crying in the wilderness

00:02:01.500 make straight the way of the lord as the prophet isaiah said now they had been sent from the

00:02:09.040 pharisees they asked him then why are you baptizing if you are neither the christ nor elijah nor the

00:02:16.180 prophet john answered them i baptize with water but among you stands one that you do not know

00:02:24.600 even he who comes after me the strap of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie these things

00:02:31.660 took place in Bethany across the Jordan where John was baptizing and the next day he saw Jesus

00:02:38.980 come toward him and said behold the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world

00:02:45.680 this is the word of God let us pray

00:02:50.720 Gracious Father, we are thankful for your word, your word that convicts, your word that convinces,

00:03:09.760 your word that teaches clearly. Father, we pray this morning that as we hear and learn from it,

00:03:16.780 that our hearts would be soft,

00:03:18.720 that we would receive this spiritual food

00:03:21.560 with hunger and with a resolve to obey you.

00:03:26.880 Father, I ask that you would equip me

00:03:29.500 to speak clearly and well and appropriately

00:03:32.360 the things that you have to say.

00:03:35.520 I pray this in Jesus' name, amen.

00:03:46.780 So I thought about which passage I would choose to preach on today.

00:03:50.420 I was drawn to this story of John the Baptist, particularly in the book of John.

00:03:55.780 Now, one thing that we're going to have to keep straight as we go through here is that

00:03:59.660 we are talking about John the Baptist, and the writer of this book is the Apostle John.

00:04:04.860 I'll do my best to keep it straight for us.

00:04:07.780 I chose this passage because it shows the connection between the mystery of the incarnation,

00:04:14.220 the chaos and the violence even that was happening as the old covenant was giving way to the new

00:04:20.760 and this story of a simple zealous prophet john the baptist lived in a time of incredible upheaval

00:04:30.020 and change literally the way that god was relating to mankind was changing we would do well to

00:04:37.560 examine his example and his message as he lived through times of unprecedented change

00:04:42.680 he was the last of the old testament prophets but also he stood on the edge like moses looking

00:04:49.320 into the promised land and observed the new covenant coming to be and so before we dive

00:04:55.980 into the text i want to give us a few minutes of background to understand exactly the context that

00:05:02.640 john was speaking into and the incredible time of transition that not only the nation of israel

00:05:08.260 but really the entire world was about to go through.

00:05:12.860 So buckle up.

00:05:15.960 When we celebrate Advent and Christmas,

00:05:19.140 we think about the coming of the Messiah.

00:05:21.380 We think about the manger, the angels,

00:05:24.420 regal visitors from a far-off land,

00:05:27.180 promises of hope and peace.

00:05:29.340 And this is all good and glorious.

00:05:33.100 But then, after that night,

00:05:35.660 some 30 years passed.

00:05:38.920 Jesus grew in wisdom and knowledge and favor with God and man.

00:05:44.100 But during that time, we don't really see anything messianic.

00:05:49.020 Do you think those shepherds forgot?

00:05:51.380 Do you think they wondered if it was a dream?

00:05:54.100 Do you think one of them became the crazy uncle at the family gatherings?

00:05:58.200 Hey, Abner, you remember that time?

00:06:00.040 Then they go off into the story again.

00:06:05.020 Mary and Joseph had more children.

00:06:07.100 and at some point along the line, Joseph died.

00:06:11.060 Jesus carried on the family business,

00:06:13.180 and life went on, boring and normal and ordinary.

00:06:18.880 Do you feel that sometimes?

00:06:22.060 Something significant happened in your past,

00:06:25.360 but now you just look at one day after the next,

00:06:28.300 one year after the next, all running together.

00:06:32.080 Each year seems to be the same as the last.

00:06:34.760 Brothers and sisters, one of the lessons in this passage is that God is always working.

00:06:44.480 And in this story, at exactly the right time, on a particular day, Jesus got up and walked

00:06:52.500 the 64 miles from Nazareth to Jerusalem, and then 20 miles out to the Jordan River, where

00:06:59.380 John the Baptist was leading a revival.

00:07:05.500 Advent led to this moment.

00:07:09.360 Advent happened because God was going to change everything.

00:07:14.200 Isaiah 43, 19 is the promise that we look to where God says,

00:07:18.540 Behold, I am doing a new thing.

00:07:21.200 Now it springs forth.

00:07:22.940 Do you not perceive it?

00:07:24.140 I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.

00:07:28.800 God was indeed doing something new.

00:07:31.160 right under everyone's noses, totally unsuspecting.

00:07:36.120 The Messiah was come, more than a temporary earthly ruler,

00:07:40.640 more than just another prophet to call people back to repentance again.

00:07:45.480 He was going to bring about a whole new and perfect way to know and serve God,

00:07:50.960 where hearts would be changed to love the law and to serve the Lord with joy.

00:07:56.840 In John's gospel, when John sees Jesus,

00:08:01.000 he says, behold, the Lamb of God

00:08:03.220 who takes away the sin of the world.

00:08:05.560 It's verse 29.

00:08:08.240 Before Jesus, the way to repent,

00:08:10.680 to show contrition to God was to go to the temple

00:08:13.560 and offer sacrifices.

00:08:15.320 But that was all coming to an end.

00:08:18.960 Jesus was doing something new.

00:08:20.880 Matthew's gospel expands on this.

00:08:23.860 Then, this is chapter 3, verse 5,

00:08:26.120 Then Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region around the Jordan

00:08:29.120 were going out to him, to John the Baptist,

00:08:31.620 and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan,

00:08:34.400 confessing their sins.

00:08:36.120 And John said, I baptize you with water for repentance,

00:08:39.380 but he who is coming after me is mightier than I.

00:08:42.800 Now catch this.

00:08:44.000 What would be the purpose and the function of the Messiah?

00:08:47.640 He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.

00:08:53.460 John's baptism was new, but it was new in order to symbolize and to foreshadow an even more

00:08:59.880 new thing. There's a transition between the old covenant and the new. And Jesus would baptize

00:09:06.740 people by the Holy Spirit, into the Holy Spirit. That's what that means. God would save people from

00:09:13.100 sin, not just cover it. God would give them new life. God would give them new hearts. The baptism

00:09:19.600 by the Spirit that Jesus offered would transform people from dead sinners to living worshipers.

00:09:28.020 And Jesus also came to baptize by fire. Listen again to what John the Baptist said in Matthew

00:09:35.100 3 about the coming Messiah. He says this, his, the Messiah's, winnowing fork is in his hand.

00:09:43.160 that is a stick or a like a pitchfork that they would use to beat the wheat so that the good

00:09:51.220 kernels of grain would fall and the chaff would be removed from it so that they could burn it

00:09:55.960 his winnowing fork is in his hand and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat

00:10:00.800 into the barn but the chaff will be burned with unquenchable fire the baptism of fire

00:10:08.720 is the baptism of judgment or destruction. 0.93

00:10:14.380 And I want us to look for a moment at Malachi chapter 4.

00:10:18.400 These are the last few verses of the Old Testament,

00:10:21.460 and a lot of the sermon today is going to hang on these verses.

00:10:26.080 Malachi chapter 4, 1 and 2, and then I'll conclude with 5 and 6.

00:10:29.900 Listen to what God promises will happen when the Messiah comes. 0.82

00:10:34.200 But for you who fear my name,

00:10:36.160 the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves

00:10:42.360 from the stall. For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and 0.98

00:10:50.400 all evildoers will be stubble. The day that is coming shall set them ablaze, says the Lord of 0.96

00:10:56.120 hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch. Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet 0.85

00:11:02.740 before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes,

00:11:06.540 and he will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children,

00:11:09.780 and the hearts of the children to their fathers,

00:11:12.060 lest I come and strike the land with the decree of utter destruction.

00:11:18.540 It's important to realize that this passage in Malachi

00:11:21.960 predicts the events of Jesus' first coming.

00:11:26.820 It's both the last thing that was written in the Old Testament

00:11:29.980 before the 400 years of silence,

00:11:32.740 And the New Testament writers go to great lengths to point out several times that John

00:11:38.400 the Baptist is indeed exactly this Elijah from Malachi chapter 4.

00:11:46.000 He's preparing the way for the Messiah.

00:11:50.100 That day called the day of the Lord, fearsome and terrifying to God's enemies, is compared 0.93

00:11:55.900 to a burning oven of judgment on the one hand for God's enemies.

00:12:00.780 but on the other hand, as a glorious sunrise to God's people.

00:12:07.000 As the Apostle John wrote in the passage that we read,

00:12:12.140 the light was coming into the world,

00:12:15.760 and by its nature, the light will scorch some and give light to others.

00:12:24.420 One of the reasons we know that this passage is about the first coming of Christ

00:12:28.180 is that, in fact, John the Baptist did come in the spirit of Elijah.

00:12:33.200 Jesus confirms this in Matthew 11, and also in Luke chapter 1.

00:12:37.780 It says this, and notice the same language about the function of John the Baptist, Luke 1, 15 and 16.

00:12:44.500 For he, that is John the Baptist, this is prophesied about Zechariah's son,

00:12:49.880 will be great before the Lord, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit,

00:12:53.240 even from his mother's womb, and he will turn many of the children of Israel

00:12:57.420 to the Lord their God, and he will go before in the spirit and power of Elijah to turn the hearts

00:13:03.120 of the fathers to the children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the

00:13:08.620 Lord a people prepared. This means that John was zealous for repentance. He was zealous to call his

00:13:21.060 people back to serving the Lord on a massive scale. And they needed to repent, lest Jesus come

00:13:29.100 and rather than save them, destroy them on the spot. In fact, if you look back at the passage

00:13:35.720 in Malachi that we read, it says that God planned to send a messenger before the Messiah to prepare

00:13:42.080 the way. And then it says, lest, or so that the people would repent, lest the Messiah strike the

00:13:49.720 land with a decree of utter desolation. Malachi tells us that if John the Baptist had not come

00:13:57.020 to prepare the way, it's likely that the Messiah would have seen the situation in Israel and just

00:14:02.700 rained destruction down immediately. Advent, the birth of Christ, led to all of this. This 0.84

00:14:11.580 changing of the guard, this transition between ages. It was a time of long-awaited change and

00:14:19.460 violent transition. The king was making himself known after millennia of waiting.

00:14:25.820 He was changing everything. This is the situation that John the Baptist came into.

00:14:32.120 And as I read this passage in John 1, two questions came to mind.

00:14:38.540 Why did not God simply do this on his own? Why did he need John to prepare the way?

00:14:44.980 and the second one is what can we learn about our mission as we continue to prepare the way

00:14:52.340 to receive the lord and king again advent is always a looking back and a looking forward

00:14:59.560 to do that i want to look at three highlights from this text first we will look at the man

00:15:07.680 with the message second we will look at the message about the messiah and third we will

00:15:13.820 look at the means to accomplish the mission. The man with the message. Who was John the Baptist?

00:15:22.820 Who was he? One of the things I love about this passage in John is that it gives us the story

00:15:29.120 of John the Baptist, but it intertwines the theology of the incarnation in a really unique way.

00:15:36.560 Our reading this morning began with these words. There was a man sent from God whose name was John.

00:15:42.900 He came as a witness to bear witness about the light

00:15:46.040 that all might know, that all might believe through him.

00:15:50.840 He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light.

00:15:55.280 John's birth was miraculous, not as miraculous as Jesus' birth. 0.61

00:16:00.400 Nevertheless, Elizabeth, his mother, was barren in her old age. 0.65

00:16:04.400 God sent an angel to appear to his father, Zechariah.

00:16:08.380 And they made this prophecy in Luke 1.

00:16:10.700 I alluded to it earlier.

00:16:11.600 the angel said to him, do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard,

00:16:16.640 and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John, and he will be filled

00:16:23.220 with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother's womb, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared.

00:16:31.660 But interestingly, when we go to the end of that same chapter, Luke chapter 1, verse 80,

00:16:37.280 shows that John did not have a normal upbringing by any stretch of the imagination.

00:16:43.120 It says this,

00:16:44.560 And the child, again, John the Baptist, grew and became strong in spirit,

00:16:49.540 and he was in the wilderness until the day of his public appearance in Israel.

00:16:58.060 John lived in the wilderness for most of his life.

00:17:01.760 He clothed himself with camel hair, and he ate locusts and wild honey.

00:17:08.100 He was zealous for the Lord and for holiness

00:17:10.920 and that his people would return back to God.

00:17:14.820 And he probably did not fit in well in polite company.

00:17:19.560 Can you imagine John the Baptist going to a dinner party?

00:17:23.900 It would be like in the movie Beauty and the Beast

00:17:26.060 where the beast is trying to eat with the spoon.

00:17:31.160 He was not of the elite.

00:17:33.640 He was not of the well-known or the cultured or the educated.

00:17:40.060 Returning to John 1, verse 8, we see that despite the events going on,

00:17:47.880 John the Baptist was not the true light that was coming into the world.

00:17:52.520 And John the Apostle and John the Baptist wanted it to be very clear.

00:17:56.300 He is not the Messiah.

00:17:59.180 Nevertheless, he was preaching.

00:18:01.760 He was preaching, and his ministry grew and spread

00:18:06.700 so that multitudes from the region around Jerusalem and Judea

00:18:10.640 were coming out to the Jordan River to be baptized.

00:18:13.400 Again, it was about 20 miles from Jerusalem to the Jordan River,

00:18:18.440 and many, many people were coming to hear his preaching.

00:18:21.980 And when they heard his preaching, they were convicted,

00:18:24.920 and then many of them repented.

00:18:26.540 And upon repenting and confessing their sins publicly, they received a baptism from him.

00:18:37.560 He baptized them in the Jordan River, and such a commotion was happening that the Pharisees

00:18:43.900 decided they needed to know what was going on.

00:18:47.720 They had reached the capital, the circles of the elite, the circles of the cultured.

00:18:52.720 What is going on?

00:18:54.040 you will remember that the pharisees were the conservatives in israel at the time they were

00:19:02.540 the strictest of the religious leaders they professed an expectation of the messiah they

00:19:08.840 were actively looking for him they were zealous for the transitions of the elders

00:19:14.460 and it seems like they were putting some pieces of the puzzle together they were looking for the

00:19:23.480 Messiah to appear during this time, and something about John's ministry seemed messianic to them.

00:19:32.680 So they sent an envoy. In verses 19 through 23 of John 1, we see that when they came to him,

00:19:41.180 they asked him three things. They asked him if he was the Christ, they asked if he was Elijah,

00:19:47.760 and they asked if he was the prophet and he replied no to all of these three things

00:19:56.280 perhaps we understand their question about the christ right the word in the old testament

00:20:03.420 is messiah the lord's anointed they were asking john are you the one that god has appointed

00:20:11.040 and anointed by his spirit to bring back the kingdom, similar to King David or a prophet

00:20:18.900 to reestablish and raise the prominence of the nation of Israel again, both its land and its

00:20:26.440 holiness, at least as they understood holiness. John says, no, I am not the Christ. He was humble.

00:20:34.680 he knew who he was and he knew who God is and that is humility humility is not thinking

00:20:43.420 poorly of yourself it's knowing who you are and who God is

00:20:47.280 but they knew that something was going on something is clearly happening here John

00:20:54.440 so they asked him another question this one based on the Malachi 4 passage that we read earlier

00:21:02.480 They asked if John the Baptist is the Elijah that God would send.

00:21:06.460 Now, John is a little bit shrewd here.

00:21:10.620 We know from Matthew 11, 14, Jesus words themselves

00:21:14.580 that Jesus claimed that John the Baptist was the promised Elijah.

00:21:18.920 He says that directly.

00:21:20.760 He says, if you are willing to accept it, he is the Elijah who is to come.

00:21:25.920 So why does John answer no?

00:21:28.380 it's possible that he didn't know several things were unclear to him he didn't even know

00:21:36.080 who jesus was until he saw him for the first time but i think that's unlikely because he

00:21:42.340 definitely knows in verse 23 that he has been sent to prepare the way for the messiah

00:21:47.880 instead i think he is responding with his no i am not elijah to the common belief at the time

00:21:57.440 The belief was that because Elijah, the prophet, was taken to heaven in a chariot of fire

00:22:03.720 and did not die, that God would send that literal man back to prefigure or to prepare

00:22:12.560 the way for the Messiah.

00:22:17.560 And I think the reason that John says no is because he is not that Elijah.

00:22:24.020 He comes in the spirit of Elijah.

00:22:27.440 But he knows that there is no man, even Elijah, if he were to return, could not do the work

00:22:33.520 that needed to be done, that the Messiah was going to do.

00:22:36.440 In fact, that's the whole point of this chapter of the book of John.

00:22:41.300 John 1, 8 through 9 says this, the true light which gives light to everyone was coming into

00:22:47.680 the world.

00:22:48.620 We read in verse 10 that Jesus is the one who created the world, yet was rejected by

00:22:54.620 his people.

00:22:55.180 We read in verse 12 and 13 that Jesus was to become the only hope for new life and fellowship

00:23:01.540 in the family of God, not a lineage from Abraham.

00:23:06.020 We read also that the Messiah, Christ, is full of grace and truth, which are things

00:23:11.640 that can only truly be given by God, and that in verse 18, he is the very God of God at

00:23:18.260 the Father's side.

00:23:20.140 Finally, in verse 26, that he is the Lamb of God.

00:23:26.080 Sorry, that's 29.

00:23:29.080 And John says, there is a man in your midst, but he is not Elijah, and I am not Elijah.

00:23:35.600 There is no other man like Jesus.

00:23:38.840 None could ever come close.

00:23:41.220 And for that reason, John the Baptist wants to be very clear that they ought not look

00:23:46.600 backwards towards great prophets or to the strength and power of mere men.

00:23:55.000 I am not Elijah, he says, but one is in your midst whose sandals I am unfit to untie.

00:24:04.360 One is in your midst who will do things beyond the wildest dreams of Elijah,

00:24:10.240 things beyond the wildest dreams of Moses.

00:24:16.600 So he answers, no, he is not Elijah.

00:24:20.260 And the Pharisees ask them their third question.

00:24:23.260 They say, well, if you're not the Messiah, you're not Elijah, are you the prophet?

00:24:29.720 And actually, they're not that far off here.

00:24:32.420 They're getting closer.

00:24:34.400 In Deuteronomy 18, God promised to send a true prophet who would speak the true words

00:24:40.700 of God, a prophet who was raised up from the people who would be like them.

00:24:45.180 But in Deuteronomy 18, God says he will raise a prophet because the people were terrified to hear

00:24:52.120 from God himself. The holiness of God was too great for them, and they said, send a prophet.

00:24:58.720 And God says, in the last day, I will send a true prophet, and he will teach you as one of you.

00:25:06.460 And isn't it amazing that we find in John 1, the word became flesh? Isn't it amazing that John 1

00:25:14.360 18 says that Jesus explained the Father to us. Jesus is the true prophet, the final prophet,

00:25:23.020 not John. Jesus is the one who would speak the words of God and yet, like his brothers, a human.

00:25:32.600 So you can see that the Pharisees were on to something. They didn't understand that the

00:25:38.020 Messiah would combine all of these roles. He was to be the prophet and the priest and the king.

00:25:47.500 And so John says, no, I'm not the prophet.

00:25:53.220 And finally, they give up and they say, well, then who are you? We have to report back. Give

00:25:58.840 us something. They are not going to be happy. And how common is the bureaucracy in human history?

00:26:05.400 You have to answer to us because we have to answer to them.

00:26:13.260 John obliges them in verse 23 and answers this way.

00:26:18.640 I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness.

00:26:22.160 Make straight the way of the Lord.

00:26:26.380 We're going to come back to this declaration in a moment.

00:26:29.440 but notice for now that this is a direct quotation of isaiah chapter 40 verse 3 and that john the

00:26:37.920 baptist is aware that this is his role he is not the prophet he's not the messiah he's not elijah

00:26:44.480 but he knows that he is the one to prepare the way he was more than a prophet in fact he was a herald

00:26:52.480 one who goes before and blows the trumpet, it says, make way, make way.

00:27:01.740 It's for this reason that Matthew 3 verse 1 tells us that he preached to the people that they should

00:27:07.820 repent, not just because judgment was coming, but because the kingdom of heaven was at hand.

00:27:15.440 The king is on the move.

00:27:17.480 imagine all those people around israel the fireworks of the birth of christ had been

00:27:27.380 impressive and yet lay in distant memory in fact most never knew about them if this was where the

00:27:34.100 story had stopped this would have been one of the most insignificant movements of god

00:27:38.260 in the old testament in human history but the story was not done though it appeared that god

00:27:46.240 had not in fact spoken, God was moving. And in obscurity of the wilderness, apart from the system

00:27:54.720 of the elites, the true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. And because

00:28:02.140 of this fact, God carried out a plan. There was a man sent from God whose name was John.

00:28:10.920 brothers and sisters when it seems that god is not working god is still working

00:28:18.420 his kingdom is coming and the light of christ still through the power of the gospel and the

00:28:26.620 testimony of the saints is going forward and we should not be surprised if the workings of god

00:28:34.600 in history and in our time do not make the news feed do not hit the headlines of cnn

00:28:41.520 This is how God has worked for millennia.

00:28:45.680 That is not to say that we are convinced that the work of God is so small and insignificant.

00:28:51.160 It is to say that it goes unnoticed until the proper time.

00:28:56.800 It means that God will use the weak and the foolish, us, to shame the strong and the wise. 0.54

00:29:04.580 God will use regular men like Jacob Miller and the abolitionists to destroy abortion.

00:29:12.140 That won't make the news until it does. 0.99

00:29:15.900 He will use a mother to preach the gospel in repentance to her son and daughter.

00:29:23.520 These things will go unnoticed all the way into the point when God makes them known.

00:29:28.780 And then it will be obvious that Christ is king.

00:29:30.900 god is always working i don't know what situation you're in what discouragement

00:29:41.460 you're in what depression you're in what doubt you're in god is always always working

00:29:51.440 you must have eyes of faith to see it i mentioned earlier john didn't even know who jesus was

00:30:00.340 He knew a Messiah was coming.

00:30:02.080 He didn't know until he saw him for the first time.

00:30:05.240 By faith, he knew and preached.

00:30:10.820 Things were so dark in Israel, I mentioned earlier,

00:30:13.900 that if John had not come to prepare the way,

00:30:16.780 it's likely that Christ would have just destroyed the nation on the spot.

00:30:22.960 If you think it's dark in your life, if we think it's dark in our nation,

00:30:27.460 God is working.

00:30:30.340 We might look at our situation, our context, our politics, to churches in our country,

00:30:38.260 our family and friends who have rejected God, and we may look even at our own sin and despair

00:30:43.940 and how dark it is, how dark it seems. The darkness may seem, in fact, to be winning.

00:30:53.120 But what was becoming true in the time of Israel, in the time of John the Baptist, 0.99

00:30:56.980 is even more true now. 0.98

00:30:59.620 As the Apostle John points out in verse 5,

00:31:02.820 the light shines in the darkness.

00:31:05.840 And even to this day,

00:31:08.460 the darkness has not overcome it.

00:31:12.760 Do not despair.

00:31:15.820 Do not give up.

00:31:18.720 Do not give in to sin or doubt or fatalism

00:31:23.300 or the spirit of the age that says we have no hope. 0.95

00:31:26.920 Eat, drink, and die.

00:31:31.240 And yet, remember the flip side of this message,

00:31:35.500 that the light will absolutely shine and does shine now.

00:31:39.340 And yet, though for some it is a sunrise of life,

00:31:43.960 for others it is a desert, scorching heat of judgment.

00:31:52.060 Who was John?

00:31:53.340 he was a herald and a witness

00:31:57.580 like John we have been made witnesses

00:32:01.780 to Jesus Christ we are heralds of the true light

00:32:06.580 so take hold of your calling in the midst of turbulent

00:32:10.600 times like John the Baptist

00:32:14.720 we are nothing and yet Christ

00:32:18.880 from whom we have received grace upon grace and adoption

00:32:22.960 as sons, as everything.

00:32:26.660 He is here.

00:32:28.380 Even now, among us, we are his body.

00:32:32.640 We are the light, his light, to the world.

00:32:36.020 We are a city on the hill.

00:32:38.420 We will not fail to testify about him.

00:32:41.920 We will not fail to call people to repentance,

00:32:44.560 starting with ourselves and our children,

00:32:46.820 and then our nation, and then all nations.

00:32:52.960 And in this way, we will continue to prepare to receive the king.

00:32:59.660 So that's who John was.

00:33:02.200 The second point is what is the message of the Messiah?

00:33:08.080 Let us now examine his message about the Messiah.

00:33:12.640 To do that, we will return to what I said a few minutes ago in verse 23 of John chapter 1.

00:33:18.180 When the Pharisees finally do ask John who he is,

00:33:21.900 he quotes scripture. He quotes Isaiah chapter 40. These verses in Isaiah 40 come immediately

00:33:30.180 on the heels of God assuredly promising exile to Babylon for Judah. There is no way out of it for 0.98

00:33:37.740 them. And yet to encourage them, he gives them these words from Isaiah 40 verse 3 through 5.

00:33:44.860 a voice cries in the wilderness prepare the way of the lord make straight in the desert a highway

00:33:52.800 for our god every valley shall be lifted up and every mountain and hill will be made low

00:33:58.400 the uneven ground shall become level and the rough places a plain and the glory of the lord

00:34:05.340 shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together for the mouth of the lord has spoken

00:34:10.300 many Jewish scholars at the time and even now believe that this passage in Isaiah 40

00:34:18.620 was a prophecy that was immediately fulfilled by God making a way for Israel to return from

00:34:25.120 Babylon through the wilderness to Jerusalem again and yet that is not what God meant and is not how

00:34:34.260 John the Baptist applied it to himself. He was the voice calling out to prepare the way for the

00:34:41.480 Lord. His message, what was his message? His message was that the king is coming and we must

00:34:47.940 make the way ready. John Philpott was a preacher in England born in 1802. He was known as the

00:34:58.760 seceder because he ended up leaving the Anglican church, becoming a particular Baptist, and moving

00:35:05.420 to much smaller, poorer, less well-known churches for the rest of his time as a preacher. He describes

00:35:13.620 Isaiah 40 this way, and I'll read an extended quote here. The language of the text is, of course,

00:35:20.200 highly figurative and is an allusion to a practice in ancient times of oriental monarchs.

00:35:26.360 There being in those days no highways nor beaten roads in most parts of their dominion.

00:35:33.060 When they intended to visit some distant province, they were accustomed not only to send messengers

00:35:39.540 beforehand to announce their approach, but pioneers also to remove all impediments to

00:35:46.260 their progress.

00:35:47.660 There were often deep valleys and morasses, which are swamps, which had to be filled up,

00:35:52.460 hills and mountains to be laid low, crooked paths and intricate roads amid woods and forests to be

00:36:00.900 straightened, and rough places overgrown with thorns, thickets, and briars, and overspread with

00:36:05.940 loose rocks and stumbling stones which had to be smoothed and taken away. As the king traveled in

00:36:12.140 great state, it was necessary to make room for the royal chariot, for the approach of the majesty

00:36:19.520 with all its splendor and as the monarch never journeyed unattended the road was to be made wide

00:36:25.640 enough for his suite of servants and numerous cavalcade as well of himself as himself if you

00:36:32.800 want a more comical picture think of the disney movie aladdin where prince aladdin is making his

00:36:41.580 way into agrabah in a huge procession and they go before him singing out make way for prince ali

00:36:49.700 Clear the way.

00:36:51.120 Make room for this massive procession to come through.

00:36:58.840 What did it mean for John the Baptist to prepare the way?

00:37:03.700 I read earlier that the other Gospels record that John the Baptist said that he proclaimed

00:37:09.120 that the kingdom of heaven was at hand, and that because of this, John proclaimed the

00:37:15.700 need for repentance and confession of sin and baptism. And that the people of Jerusalem and

00:37:22.760 Judea came and publicly confessed their sins and received washing in the Jordan River as a symbol

00:37:29.220 of cleansing for sin. What was the message of John the Baptist? The kingdom is coming.

00:37:36.900 the king is coming therefore repent and be cleaned

00:37:44.300 so what does this have to do with preparing the way for the lord

00:37:49.220 well remember again malachi says that if the people were so wicked the messiah would come

00:37:58.680 and simply destroy them in other words the way that john the baptist was preparing was not a

00:38:05.640 physical road. It was a spiritual preparation. He called them to repentance, to cleaning house

00:38:14.560 in their hearts. The holes that needed to be filled up, the hills that needed to be leveled,

00:38:20.360 and the crooked paths that need to be straightened out were obstacles of sin, rebellion,

00:38:27.960 unbelief, hardness of heart. He warned severely in Matthew's gospel. He said, even now the ax is

00:38:36.880 laid at the root of the tree. The whole system is going away, and your self-reliance on your own

00:38:43.180 works will leave you empty and vulnerable to the fire of God. The way that John called them to be

00:38:53.280 ready for the Messiah was to repent and purify themselves, to bear fruit in keeping with that

00:38:59.340 repentance. And it's the same for us. In John's first letter, 1 John 3, we read this, verses 2

00:39:10.160 and 3, Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared. But we know

00:39:18.800 that when he appears, we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone

00:39:24.600 who has this hope purifies himself, just as he is pure. We have pride and doubts and disobediences

00:39:36.400 that while they don't separate us eternally from Christ, they make it difficult to see him.

00:39:43.260 the first step in receiving the king is always repentance always repentance

00:39:52.420 there's no way around this as much as sometimes when we are hardening our heart we wish there was

00:40:00.860 some way around this there is no way around this we will never ever serve the king properly or

00:40:06.740 welcome him well into our hearts and our homes and our nation until we repent. And once we have

00:40:14.720 done so, will not that pattern continue? The pattern of service to the king involves continual

00:40:22.880 repentance. And as we see in the example of those who went to the Jordan River, sometimes, maybe

00:40:31.540 often, it should be public. I don't mean going around to every person after church on Sunday

00:40:37.120 and confessing all of your deep and darkest secrets. I don't mean public mic time where

00:40:42.980 we get up and confess to everyone. But James exhorts us to confess our sins to one another

00:40:49.560 for a reason. We ought to do this as a spiritual discipline and as a practice.

00:41:01.540 In the same way that we, like John, are witnesses, we, like John, have a message.

00:41:09.520 The message is repent.

00:41:12.240 We live in a time when sin has reached almost unprecedented levels.

00:41:18.680 And where even more sad than that, we Christians, whether we try to or not, are desensitized to it.

00:41:28.120 I don't have to list all the horrors of society.

00:41:30.880 We know the abortions and the hatred of father and mother.

00:41:35.280 We know all of these things.

00:41:37.220 We know about pornography that is enslaving entire generations

00:41:40.940 and destroying marriages and households.

00:41:43.860 We know that the respectable people in our society,

00:41:47.000 the elites and the institutions, have largely abandoned God,

00:41:51.440 and consequently our society and our nation is being destroyed.

00:41:56.840 And that is angering.

00:41:58.340 that is sad and grievous.

00:42:04.520 The peace that we used to have, the safety, the common trust, is eroding.

00:42:10.500 These are terrible things.

00:42:13.680 And yet, as we live as Christians in our world,

00:42:16.920 we must remember that our efforts to build businesses,

00:42:20.220 to raise godly families, to pass just laws,

00:42:23.160 to rid our education systems of evil and ungodly ideas,

00:42:27.260 our efforts to work in the civil sphere all of these things must always center on one message

00:42:36.720 first and foremost which is repent and look to the lamb when we write our senators or call our

00:42:46.300 school boards our message is we urge you not to pass this law because it violates god's law and

00:42:53.980 you, sir, or you, ma'am, need to repent.

00:43:00.820 As we do this, we will lose allies.

00:43:05.240 People who we thought were on our side of the abortion fight,

00:43:09.680 conservatives, will reject that message, repent, that's too much.

00:43:16.700 But our message as heralds to the king is always repent and look to the lamb.

00:43:23.620 There are many ways to do this.

00:43:25.040 We don't all have to be John the Baptist.

00:43:27.220 Fire and brimstone.

00:43:29.400 There is a gentle, tender call to repentance from a mother to a child.

00:43:34.480 There is a grieving call to repentance of a good friend to another friend who is walking into sin.

00:43:40.080 There are many ways to call for repentance.

00:43:45.160 John's message was to repent and to look to the Lamb.

00:43:48.900 And our message is repent and look to the Lamb.

00:43:53.640 What does it mean to repent?

00:43:57.080 Well, we see in the text, one thing it means is to confess your sin,

00:44:01.140 to agree that it is evil and wicked, to make it known, to not hide it.

00:44:09.080 And then it means to turn from it.

00:44:10.900 John said over and over, bear fruit in keeping with your repentance.

00:44:15.820 We get rid of it.

00:44:17.000 We turn to obedience.

00:44:18.040 We put in place patterns and guardrails and habits that will keep us in holiness.

00:44:23.460 My parents used to talk about developing habits of holiness.

00:44:28.960 We put up guardrails to protect us against sin.

00:44:35.120 And yet in our time, as we call for repentance publicly,

00:44:39.260 repentance is almost an impossibility in the time that we live in.

00:44:42.860 Because on the one hand, postmodernism has exerted itself

00:44:47.700 and it's eroded all moral authority. How can you call someone to a supposedly higher moral path?

00:44:57.680 Don't you know that morality is relative? And this is what people use to assuage their

00:45:04.140 consciences. There is no right and wrong. There is just what makes me happy.

00:45:09.320 and how can we say that anything is god's judgment the tornado or the fact that you

00:45:17.780 haven't been able to sleep for three weeks or the fact that you have so many ulcers from your worry

00:45:23.220 and anxiety no these are not god's judgment we have materialistic and natural explanations for

00:45:31.240 these things now. All the same, brothers and sisters, our call always is to repent.

00:45:42.720 And in a world that rejects some of the natural revelations of God, it may be the case that the

00:45:50.800 only means left to them is the testimony, the call to repentance from Christ's church.

00:45:56.880 i long to see a holy army of god's people who unite in this call not in anger necessarily

00:46:06.420 although we ought to be angrier about the sin in our society but in love in longing that our

00:46:13.240 people our nation our neighbors our family members our co-workers would repent and find life in

00:46:19.560 Christ. I long that the church, we even, would stop being desensitized by the sin that is so

00:46:28.940 rampant. I long that we would not think that the politeness of letting people do what they want

00:46:36.340 is acceptable. And until the church arises with that single message, our nation will continue

00:46:44.420 to reject Christ as king

00:46:46.320 because the way that we prepare

00:46:48.480 to receive the king

00:46:49.760 always begins with repentance.

00:46:55.780 Brothers and sisters,

00:46:57.100 this is the message

00:46:57.900 for your household as well.

00:47:00.740 In fact, that's where it starts.

00:47:04.100 Parents,

00:47:05.200 do you call your children

00:47:07.300 to repentance?

00:47:08.820 Do you show them

00:47:10.280 what it means to repent?

00:47:11.980 not even just to say sorry and move on but godly repentance

00:47:17.900 it's not enough just to tell them that jesus offers new life that jesus loves them

00:47:25.720 in tenderness and in love and in affection and nevertheless in truth they must know that their

00:47:34.880 sin offends not just mommy and daddy, but God himself. It is okay for them to know the terror

00:47:43.120 of God's wrath in order to be driven to the Lamb of God who takes away their sin. I vividly remember

00:47:50.380 when I was very young, my mother shared the gospel with me, particularly about sin. And the conviction

00:47:57.960 of the Holy Spirit came upon me in a tangible way, and I fled to my bedroom, and I jumped in

00:48:03.960 my closet, and I closed the door, and I sat there trembling under the complete and utter certainty

00:48:10.300 that I was under the wrath of God. Do you know what happened next? I repented. I turned to the Lamb.

00:48:23.980 We must preach this message to our children, and this message is for you,

00:48:31.400 Brothers and sisters, we must preach this message to ourselves most of all.

00:48:37.700 Repent. Destroy sin.

00:48:41.280 Yes, it's good to read books such as John Owen's The Mortification of Sin

00:48:45.340 or Thomas Watson's The Doctrine of Repentance,

00:48:48.200 but then actually go out and do the work of repenting.

00:48:53.400 We often trick ourselves into thinking that because we're learning about repentance,

00:48:58.320 that's the same as actually repenting.

00:49:04.120 There is no phase of life

00:49:06.260 where repentance should not be common practice

00:49:09.460 for God's people.

00:49:11.960 For the more we see of God,

00:49:13.720 the more we know of ourselves and our sin.

00:49:16.320 And the more we know the word,

00:49:18.220 the more we see how far from the standard we fall.

00:49:23.380 And yet we have known the Lamb.

00:49:25.220 We have looked to the Lamb.

00:49:27.240 Let us not hide our sin, but let us bring it to the light.

00:49:35.040 God is doing something here in our midst.

00:49:39.120 I believe that.

00:49:40.480 We are a body seeking to bear witness to the risen King,

00:49:43.560 and we have a message for the world around us.

00:49:47.800 But repentance is the first step.

00:49:50.540 That was the message of John the Baptist,

00:49:53.320 and that is our message as well.

00:49:56.500 And lastly and briefly, the means.

00:49:59.080 How does this happen?

00:50:03.180 I said at the very beginning that one of the questions that I have as I read this passage

00:50:07.560 is why God chooses to carry out his plan in this way.

00:50:13.160 I mean, after all, isn't he God?

00:50:14.780 Didn't he make the world just like that?

00:50:18.380 Why did he not just grant repentance to all of those who were in Judea?

00:50:22.740 Why did he have John preach and then come out to the Jordan?

00:50:26.500 Seems like an inefficient way to do things for an all-powerful being.

00:50:32.480 We Calvinists rightly proclaim that salvation is a work of the Spirit.

00:50:37.320 We proclaim that God is sovereign over all things, as Spurgeon said,

00:50:40.620 even the particle of dust falling through the beam of sunlight.

00:50:46.860 And yet, we need to be careful not to fall into a very dangerous belief

00:50:52.220 that if something should be done and needs to be done,

00:50:56.500 God is the one who will just do it. Fiat. And therefore, we need not take any action.

00:51:05.440 No, you see, as we grow in our faith, we come to understand the effort and the energy that it takes

00:51:11.060 to accomplish God's purposes. Consider, although it's an imperfect analogy, a baby who, when it's

00:51:19.600 a newborn, only knows that it opens its mouth and there's milk when it cries.

00:51:24.840 and then as the baby grows it perhaps as a toddler knows that mom put the food in front of him

00:51:31.720 and then as the child grows even more he sees mom in the kitchen shaking some pots around

00:51:38.540 and oh maybe the food comes from shaking the pots around right and then the child grows and

00:51:44.820 the mom says will you rinse this carrot for me will you cut this cucumber for me will you stir

00:51:50.840 that sauce for me. And all of a sudden, the child is now making dinner once a week for the family.

00:52:00.920 There is a true sense that God accomplishes everything that happens.

00:52:08.840 His providence governs all things and his power enables all things. But as we grow in our faith,

00:52:15.280 we discover that amazingly, God uses us to carry out that plan.

00:52:24.500 This is not because we are great. Look what John the Baptist says in verse 27. He says

00:52:30.980 that he is not even fit to untie the sandal from the one who is coming, from the Messiah.

00:52:38.100 In a logical world, we would have no business serving the great and glorious king of the

00:52:43.100 universe. We are utterly unworthy, clumsy, and wrong-headed. Our cry, like John's, must always 0.68

00:52:51.300 be, he must increase, and I must decrease. And yet, consider the testimony of the New Testament.

00:52:58.800 We have this treasure in earthen vessels to show that the surpassing greatness is not from

00:53:04.600 ourselves, but from God. Christ is reconciling the world to himself, but he has given to us

00:53:11.940 the ministry of reconciliation. When we see the world embracing sin, it is good and necessary to

00:53:20.020 pray, even with great fervor and great zeal, that God would change hearts, that God would grant

00:53:25.940 repentance. You've heard the phrase, perhaps, you can take a horse to water, but you can't make him

00:53:34.920 drink. This is not true. You know how you make a horse drink more water? Give it salt.

00:53:44.780 The call to repentance is the salt that can lead to salvation for those around us.

00:53:54.940 John knew that he was an unworthy servant of God. We know that we are unworthy servants of God,

00:54:02.260 And yet he did not go around with the, woe is me, I'm so small and insignificant, I can't do

00:54:09.000 anything. Rather than focus on his own unworthiness, he focused on how great and holy God was

00:54:17.540 and how desperate the need of the people around him was. When we maintain this false sense of

00:54:24.620 humility, I can't do anything, I can't speak to that person, I'm too small, we lie about what God

00:54:31.440 has said. He has made us his witnesses. And we demonstrate hatred towards our neighbor.

00:54:38.980 No, instead, John the Baptist preached and spoke boldly, even though he knew he was so

00:54:43.920 small and insignificant. Because he believed, he truly believed that he was unworthy.

00:54:51.380 He didn't have to worry about what the Pharisees or the elites would say to him or do to him.

00:54:56.420 imagine a wealthy man very wealthy and he has some friends and he wants to

00:55:03.660 give them an evening of entertainment and so he hires the best musicians in all the land to come

00:55:09.780 and put on a private concert for his close friends and yet he has a young daughter and he delights in

00:55:17.180 this daughter and she started taking piano lessons three months before that and so to kick off the

00:55:23.760 concert, he has his daughter play Mary Had a Little Lamb. Now, she's not worthy to be there

00:55:33.200 if you consider the amount of time and effort and practice that those other great musicians had put

00:55:39.180 in for decades. Her musical accomplishments are nothing compared to theirs. And yet, because she

00:55:48.120 knows that she's unworthy to be there and yet because her father has said come and play she

00:55:55.240 plays with joy and abandon grace even not worried about what the rest of the musicians will think of

00:56:02.720 her that is us we are not worthy to bear the message we are not worthy to be the means of

00:56:11.260 preparing earth to receive her king. Yet God has given it to us. Who will we believe?

00:56:19.760 For whatever reason, God delights to use us.

00:56:24.520 John the Baptist was unworthy. He didn't know the whole plan. There were holes in his

00:56:30.060 understanding. Even later on, he doubted for a time. And yet he knew that God had called him

00:56:37.820 him to witness to the true light. We don't know all the details either, but we know that God is

00:56:45.460 establishing his kingdom. We know that he is the ruler of the kings of the earth. We know that he

00:56:51.500 has given us the right to become children of God, contrary to all logical explanation.

00:56:58.940 We know that his gospel is going out, and so we take hope because we are unworthy servants.

00:57:05.180 we are bringing the light into the dark places we are bringing it into our families

00:57:10.800 we are bringing it to our jobs our neighborhoods our land we preach repentance to ourselves we

00:57:16.500 preach repentance to our families and to our world that means the means that God used to 0.67

00:57:24.200 prepare the way for the Messiah in the time of John the Baptist was an unworthy man the means 0.97

00:57:30.600 that he will use to continue to prepare the way for the king now is the testimony of unworthy men 0.97

00:57:37.660 and women. There was a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness about the 0.96

00:57:47.120 light that all might believe through him. Brothers and sisters, in the same way, there is a man or

00:57:54.080 woman sent from God whose name is Kevin, or Stacy, or Nicole, or Chris, or Jenny, or insert name

00:58:03.540 here. You are not the true light, but you bear witness to the light. Go and do it with joy and

00:58:12.860 perseverance. God is working, and amazingly, he's working through us. Let's pray.

00:58:24.080 Father, these truths are beyond us.

00:58:29.120 And yet we want to be humble, not just in a sense where we are full of the awareness of how small we are,

00:58:37.460 but also humble in our faith of how great and powerful you are.

00:58:43.080 Father, help us to be bold.

00:58:45.720 Help us to be ruthless with our own sin.

00:58:48.200 Help us to repent.

00:58:49.100 help us to walk closely with you so that we may go out and prepare the way for the king

00:58:55.120 and pray this in the name of your son christ jesus amen

The NXR Podcast - December 11, 2023

SUNDAY SERMON - “Let Earth Receive Her King”

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