Turn Around

Considering for a moment, that is really good news. The degree of that good news is dependent on a very specific variable. How bad is the bad news? The good news of the airbags deploying correctly is better news the worse the reason for that deployment was.

There is an important character in the story of Jesus who we have mentioned before, John the Baptist. He was immortalized in this famous poem from the late 20th century:

a man from the desert with naps in his hair, the sand that he walked was also his bed, the words that he spoke made the people assume there wasn’t too much left in the upper room. With skins on his back and hair on his face they thought he was strange by the locusts he ate, the pharisees tripped when they heard him speak and so the king took the head of this Jesus Freak.

John was quite a guy. You just heard scripture from Matthew describing him.

Thinking about what we know about Jesus from the reaction of men and women at his birth, professions from angels, and even his own mouth as a teenager, we are coming to understand that Jesus doesn’t just bring good news, but IS good news that changes EVERYTHING.

As we will see over the coming months, not everyone responds to the good news the same.

Some are prepared, some are not to receive this good news and the change it brings. Because it does change everything.

So who was John then? Why was his ministry important? Going back to the terrible joke I started with, if Jesus’s good news is the airbag, John comes with the bad news of why the airbag is needed. Not a perfect analogy, but maybe helpful.

Key is this verse from Matthew quoting Isaiah:

Matthew 3:3 CSB “For he is the one spoken of through the prophet Isaiah, who said: A voice of one crying out in the wilderness: Prepare the way for the Lord; make his paths straight!”

He came to prepare. The hopelessly lost and the deeply religious for the same good news. The life, death, and resurrection of Jesus as our only hope for salvation from an eternity apart from God, goodness, and hope.

Let’s pray and then look at the life and ministry of this unusual character.

More importantly, John’s call to the men and women who walked those sands 2000 years ago, is the same

PRAY

Preparation for Good News

How did John prepare people for good news?

#1 he:

Got Attention

Let’s read a portion of that again:

Matthew 3:4 “Now John had a camel-hair garment with a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey.”

Imagine this guy out by the River. Wild hair and beard. We know from the angel visit to his parents that he was to be raised as a Nazaraite, one part of that is never cutting your hair.

Wild hair, camel skin garments, never making a trip to the Safeway for groceries but eating the bugs and honey that came his way.

But as people passed and he cried out his message, something in this presentation got their attention.

What gets your attention?

As one who stands up each Sunday to share a message from God’s word that I believe is worth you hearing AND acting on, I think a lot about how to get attention focused on the message.

Something funny, something emotional, something relatable

When I worked with teens, I had to think through the same questions, but the answers were different.

John was wild and bold out there. Because God called him to begin preparing people and that meant getting their attention.

God has good news that will change everything. But we naturally resist the changes, even if we receive the hope of Jesus, our natural bend is to resist the change that good news demands of us. But God loves us enough to keep getting our attention.

He will use beauty. Yesterday I spent the day at a viewing for Kristi’s friends and family. It was a long and emotional day. At one point I was standing next to a young lady from the family looking into the atrium there are Evergreen and the brightest green hummingbird came down and spent ten minutes flitting through the tree, down to drink from the fountain, occasionally showing us his iridescent red throat. She looked over at me and smiled, “Kristi loved hummingbirds...”

I saw God getting her attention, just a moment of beauty, a reminder of goodness, grace and love in the world. Not just her, but me too.

God will also use our pain to get our attention. Note: This is not the same as God causing our pain. But we live in a world of grief and God will not let it be wasted.

Most of you are aware that we suffered a second loss Wednesday night as Monica’s younger cousin Devin passed in his sleep. Monica is with her family this weekend, but is grateful for all your prayers.

I spent some time on the phone with Devin’s sister on Friday and noticed she and I had a shared reaction. An increased fire in our hearts for evangelism. At Thursday night’s elder/deacon meeting, I asked our team to consider their evangelistic temperature, and as I looked at mine, I don’t know that it’s been higher.

Thankful that Kristi and Devin both knew the Lord…but reminded of 2 things.

I have no guarantee of one more heartbeat.

I have no way to know if a chance to share the story of Jesus with someone will come around again if I let it slip.

I found myself along with Dana praying with the psalmist:

Psalm 90:12 CSB “Teach us to number our days carefully so that we may develop wisdom in our hearts.”

Let God get your attention. He has good news, and your and my natural bend is to ignore some or all of it to preserve our comfort zone. The best of life comes when we turn toward him when he calls.

Number #2 John calls people to prepare, after getting their attention

Called for Repentance

We already heard in the introduction:

Matthew 3:1-2 “In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea and saying, “Repent, because the kingdom of heaven has come near!””

Matthew 3:5-6 “Then people from Jerusalem, all Judea, and all the vicinity of the Jordan were going out to him, and they were baptized by him in the Jordan River, confessing their sins.”

To repent means to turn around in the mind. To reverse course and set out in a new direction in your heart of hearts. He gives a compelling reason:

The kingdom of heaven has come near. Good news is coming…but good news is only good news if you know the bad.

If in the airbag story the accident was that he pulled in to a parking space too far and bumped the curbing and “POOF”…not good news. If it was a significant accident and the airbag saved their lives…That’s great news.

Let’s understand what John is calling them back to.

Genesis, God creates man and woman in his image, his identity to be loved by him to love him, and to rule this world with him.

the story of the fall is the day we decided we wanted to take from this life rather than give…which is a rejection of his image. It’s like if the mona lisa declared that she was not a portrait, but a seaside landscape. Or if as a potter was working on making a mug, it declared that it was a plate.

We were made to be givers of life…but we chose…because God in his love for us gave us the dignity of choice that the mug or the painting as simply objects do not have. and we used that choice to ruin ourselves and this world.

The story going forward is God all the while promising that at some point there will be a man who will bring restoration of man and God in defeat of the devil who tempted us away…God begins by choosing a family and showing unmerited favor, grace on them. They become the nation of Israel. And though in the beginning, as God rescued them from Egypt they wanted to follow…they, like us, stayed self-focused and continued to violate the covenant God made with them.

They felt it early the nearness of the kingdom. And they asked for it to move away.

Exodus 20:18-19 CSB “All the people witnessed the thunder and lightning, the sound of the ram’s horn, and the mountain surrounded by smoke. When the people saw it they trembled and stood at a distance. “You speak to us, and we will listen,” they said to Moses, “but don’t let God speak to us, or we will die.””

But now John is preaching and telling the people that God’s kingdom, his presence is NEAR.

The biggest change of mind, the greatest repentance we must make in preparation for good news is to let God get close. In a minute we’ll get into some other specifics that follow from this repentance.

But the change of mind that repentance involves is not first and foremost about behavior. It is about our rejection of our God given identity as his image bearers. Our rejection of relationship with him, of becoming takers rather than givers.

God can and will break down every barrier in your heart, every stronghold you and the enemy have built to protect your self centered soul…but he won’t do it unless you repent. He will woo you, call to you, strive to get your attention, and do everything else he can to draw you back to him…because he loves you more desperately than any love story ever written.

He will be your comfort in every pain, magnify every joy, give you peace beyond understanding, and a completely transformed heart…but not until you turn.

If God violated that, you might as well be a mug or a painting. God loves you enough to give you the dignity of choice. But oh…how he wants you to choose him, to choose life, to choose that which endures over that which is passing. Whatever part of yourself you are holding back from the Lord today, will you repent and let the kingdom come near?

Pray...

John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance only. The first step toward God. We do not practice this kind of baptism any longer, because the one John prepared people for has come and we are baptized not ONLY for repentance, but to identify with the death and resurrection of Jesus, as a visual representation of our decision to allow the kingdom to not only come near, but to trust Jesus as our savior and Lord of our lives. Buried with him in the water, and life Jesus…like what we will celebrate at Easter, that he did not stay in the tomb but was raised to new life that we might have assurance of life eternal in perfect joy with him.

John got attention to call to repentance so that:

Described New Fruit

In Matthew’s account, John notices the religious, those who thought they had it together hanging around. He doesn’t pull punches:

Matthew 3:7-10 CSB “When he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “Brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Therefore produce fruit consistent with repentance. And don’t presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you that God is able to raise up children for Abraham from these stones. The ax is already at the root of the trees. Therefore, every tree that doesn’t produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.”

In essence he says, God isn’t concerned with your pedigree or position as much as he is your produce. What comes from your life? That’s the measure of faith, not your education or credentials. That apart from a repentance even of your good deeds done to try to earn God’s favor (these Isaiah calls filthy rags) you will not have life.

In Luke the religious don’t respond to this call, but the crowd does. Check this out:

Luke 3:10-14 CSB ““What then should we do?” the crowds were asking him. He replied to them, “The one who has two shirts must share with someone who has none, and the one who has food must do the same.” Tax collectors also came to be baptized, and they asked him, “Teacher, what should we do?” He told them, “Don’t collect any more than what you have been authorized.” Some soldiers also questioned him, “What should we do?” He said to them, “Don’t take money from anyone by force or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages.””

This is fruit. Sharing what we have with those who don’t. Not taking advantage of our position to benefit ourselves, but to benefit others.

Can I direct your attention back to Genesis and our intended creation design…to love and be loved, and rule with God adding goodness and love, meeting the needs of others and trusting perfectly our own would be met. When we repent, when we let the kingdom near...

The FRUIT of that is a return to that model. John gives them a few simple examples. But the list could go on. Jesus fleshes this out in the sermon on the mount, which we will go through down the road.

Today, God continues the call that John made.

He gets our attention,

Calls us to reptance

and reminds us what the fruit of that repentance should be.

let me close on the best news.

Repentance isn’t fun. We don’t like to change. John had a call to make us uncomfortable and to disrupt. God does the same now in your life when you are pushing back on him. But John’s role, and that discomfort of repentance…it’s temporary. Jumping forward in John’s story:

worship team, run to the father

Context: Jesus has begun his ministry. Crowds are starting to follow him. Many of John’s disciples are leaving John to follow Jesus. One of John’s disciples is disturbed by this and expresses that to John. Here is John’s response.

John 3:27-30 CSB “John responded, “No one can receive anything unless it has been given to him from heaven. You yourselves can testify that I said, ‘I am not the Messiah, but I’ve been sent ahead of him.’ He who has the bride is the groom. But the groom’s friend, who stands by and listens for him, rejoices greatly at the groom’s voice. So this joy of mine is complete. He must increase, but I must decrease.””

You church are that bride. You, here today that have not surrendered to Jesus, you are the bride desired. Jesus is the groom. John played his role as the best man, making sure the preparations were made. But once the preparations are made…it would be wrong for the preparer to be the center of attention.

The pain is for a moment, the discomfort for a season. The preparer will decrease as Jesus increases in your life. As you are no longer being prepared for him, but have come to him.

I’ve got good news and bad news. The bad news, you and I are worse than we think we are. We are more in need of a savior than we can imagine. But there’s good news, or to quote the Mercy Me song, “It’s not good news, its the best news ever” The kingdom of heaven is near. And you are invited to repent, to bear fruit and to have life. Will you receive it?