Make Ready
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Introduction
Introduction
Good morning, Theophiloi. I say that as a reminder that as we come to the Gospel According to Luke, that we try to come as Theophilus, reading it for the first time. I know it is impossible to fully do it, but let us try to come to the text with fresh eyes.
Last week we saw that Zechariah had entered into the temple to offer an incense offering to the LORD as he interceded on the people of Israel’s behalf. As he finished, an angel stood before him and told him that his prayer had been answered. I tried to show you that it was not the prayer of a son that was being answered, but the prayer for grace—given by way of a son. We saw that the name of this son would be John, Johanen—The Lord is Gracious. But that was not the end of the pronouncement being given to Zechariah.
This morning, we are going to conclude the pronouncement (though not the conversation) that the angel gave to Zechariah the priest. And in so doing, we come to three realities about John. The first reality is the character of John. The second is the control of John. Finally, we see the reality of the calling of John.
The Character of John
The Control of John
The Calling of John
And you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth,
for he will be great before the Lord. And he must not drink wine or strong drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb.
And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God,
and he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared.”
The Character of John
The Character of John
The first reality about John that the angel gives to Zechariah is the reality of his character. You’ve probably heard the quote from John Wooden—the late, great UCLA basketball coach—regarding character. “Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is what others think you are.” Or perhaps this one from him, “The true test of a man’s character is what he does when no one is watching.”
The angel told Zechariah that his son John would have great character; who he was when no one was looking would be great.
Luke 1:14–15 (ESV)
And you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth,
for he will be great before the Lord.
Before we actually get into John’s character, we are given what John’s character produces. It produces joy, in both Zechariah’s heart and in the heart of the many. This may seem insignificant; it may seem like the angel is telling Zechariah that this baby will do what all babies do: bring joy into the household, but in reality it is pointing to his character. Who John would be, produced such joy that Luke used three words to describe it.
If you’ve ever known someone who was named Kara, then you’ve known someone whose name means Joy. That’s the word that Luke used for the first joy. Then we see he used another word that the ESV translators put as gladness. But this is not just any type of gladness or joy. This is what we call eschatological joy which just simply means joy relating to the end times. So John produced a joy in relation to the end times in that John would be the forerunner of the Messiah who would bring in the Kingdom of God. Finally, John would cause many of the people to rejoice. It would not be just an inward feeling or emotion, but an outward expression of that emotion.
So John produce joy to Zechariah and Elizabeth. But he bring about an “end-times” joy as God will be working through him to usher in his kingdom through saving grace. And his very presence, his birth will be such that the people will experience that joy actively and outwardly in their own lives.
But this is what John produced by his character. This isn’t his character itself. So why is point one in this sermon, about the character of John? Or to put it another way, why is it that the people would rejoice at his birth and his existence? That answer is in verse 15: “For/Because he will be great before the Lord.”
Last week, we saw something similar said about Zechariah and Elizabeth.
And they were both righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statutes of the Lord.
Zechariah and Elizabeth were righteous before God. Their righteousness was not like the Pharisees and Sadducees and lawyers who paraded their righteousness around for the people, being whitewashed tombs. Their righteousness was before God. They were righteous in private, not only in public. So here is John, their son who would be great before the Lord. It was not simply that he would do great things before the Lord, but that he himself would be great before the Lord. Surely, this would not be his own doing. Like Jacob who was chosen over Esau from the womb before having done anything good or bad, but for God’s purposes, so John has been as well, as we’ll see momentarily.
It’s hard for us to imagine people liking the Pharisees because they have such a bad reputation to us today. But in Jesus’s day the Pharisees were the envy of the people. They had a reputation of holiness and righteousness. (Not so much the Sadducees, who were often seen as sell-outs to the Romans). John would have a mixed reputation. Among the regular people, John’s reputation was impeccable. Among the religious leaders, it was wretched. But John’s reputation was not what mattered. His character did. The Pharisees said he had a demon. Herod would cut off his head. But the angel said, he was great before the Lord.
People will think what they will think. They will say what they will say. In the end, all that matters is what God thinks and what God says. One of the characteristics that we will see about John the Baptist is that he was unafraid of people. He respected God’s unswerving word rather than humanity’s fickle thoughts.
How about us? If I were to be honest, I would say that I am not a John. I care too much about people’s thoughts, too much about my reputation to the detriment of my character. I would rather be seen as righteous than do what is right despite what others will think or say. Later on in Luke Jesus said,
“To what then shall I compare the people of this generation, and what are they like?
They are like children sitting in the marketplace and calling to one another, “ ‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not weep.’
For John the Baptist has come eating no bread and drinking no wine, and you say, ‘He has a demon.’
The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Look at him! A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’
When we care what others think and say, we end up playing a game we cannot win. When we seek a character that concerns itself with holiness, we win every single time.
The Control of John
The Control of John
Which leads us to the second reality that the angel reveals about John. He not only reveals John’s character, he reveals what it is that controls him. How would he be so great before the Lord? Namely: the Holy Spirit.
Luke 1:15 (ESV)
And he must not drink wine or strong drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb.
Some would say that John was a Nazarite and that his Nazarite vow was thrust upon him from the womb just as it was Samson. But it is most likely not that John was a Nazarite. There were other aspects to the Nazarite vow than just abstaining from alcohol. Like Samson, John would have been instructed not to cut his hair. Like Samson, John would have been told not to be in contact with the dead.And not only that, but anything grape related was prohibited for Nazarites. But the only thing is that he was not to drink alcohol. For what reason?
Neither Luke, nor anyone else, gives us an explicit reason, but he does link it here to the filling of the Holy Spirit. Now, we know that these two are not in opposition with one another: alcohol and the Holy Spirit. Remember the text we read just a moment ago: John didn’t drink and they said he had a demon; Jesus did drink and they called him a drunkard. But both were filled with the Holy Spirit. So for what reason? We don’t know for sure, but it very well could have done with his being filled with the Holy Spirit in some form.
John would go on to behave rather strangely. He would go into the wilderness and live there. He would preach a repentance for the kingdom of God was at hand. He would wear a coat made of camel’s hair and tie a leather belt around his waist. He’d eat locusts and wild honey. These were peculiar actions on the part of John the Baptist who came from such a renowned family. The last thing he needed was to be accused of being a drunkard. As we saw, he was already accused of being demon-possessed when in reality he was Spirit-filled.
But that’s exactly what controlled John: The Holy Spirit. Even from his mother’s womb, Luke tells us. The Holy Spirit was the one who led him. The Holy Spirit was the one who moved him, who gave him a fearlessness. He didn’t need any liquid-courage; he had the Holy Spirit who was with him and in him. Please understand that when I say that the Spirit controlled him, I don’t mean like a robot. But in the same way that love controls us. I love this image. Even when angry, love controls the action.
Paul would later write to the Corinthians
For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died;
Whether Paul was talking about Christ’s love for him or his love for Christ, doesn’t matter. Love controls; it compels us to action. But who puts that love in our hearts? Who gives us the new heart to love Jesus? The Holy Spirit who is with us and in us.
Luke, more than any other gospel writer talks about the Holy Spirit. You may have heard that the book of Acts shouldn’t be title The Acts of the Apostles, but rather the Acts of the Holy Spirit because Luke mentions him constantly. But it wasn’t a new thing to mention the Holy Spirit in Acts. Luke already starts in his gospel account, just fifteen verses in. Matthew mentions the Holy Spirit five times in his account. Mark, just four times. John also mentions him five times. Luke mentions him 15 times! That’s more than all the others combined! Luke was a Holy Spirit kind of guy. He understood John the Baptist’s influence and actions coming as a direct result of the Holy Spirit. He saw Jesus’s ministry empowered by the Holy Spirit.
Let me ask you: where does the Holy Spirit rank in your life? Has he been relegated to peripherals of your life? Or does he lead you and empower your life? I think most evangelicals today are afraid of the Holy Spirit. Not in the way that we are fear God in a sense of awe and reverence. I think we are afraid that the Holy Spirit will lead us to places we don’t want to go. Now, most likely the Holy Spirit will not call on us to be John the Baptist and go live in the wilderness and eat locusts. But he may call on us to go to those on the fringe of society. To eat with them and drink with them and walk with them and talk with them. He may interrupt cozy, reclusive lifestyles with opening up the home for hospitality or even fostering and adopting. He may lead us to pray for enemies, feed the hungry, and love those we find hard to love. The Holy Spirit can be scary; he disrupts our lives in unpredictable ways, but the great thing is that he will also empower us with undeniable grace and strength.
The Calling of John
The Calling of John
Which leads us to the third reality that the angel reveals to Zechariah. The first was the character, then the control, but now there is the calling of John.
And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God,
and he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared.”
John the Baptist’s calling was not a calling to baptize. That would just be a byproduct of his calling. His calling was a calling to reconciliation. Luke wrote that John would turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God. Really that word for turn is the word for turn back. In fact, that’s how the NASB has it translated.
“And he will turn many of the sons of Israel back to the Lord their God.
Which means that the children of Israel, the people of Israel, had turned away from the Lord their God. John was born to turn them back—to help them see the error of their ways, to bring them to a state of repentance. Which was what Elijah’s ministry was all about. When Elijah confronted King Ahab and the prophets of Baal with the children of Israel standing around, he called on the people to stop limping between two opinions. If Yahweh is God then worship him. If Baal is god then worship him, but make a decision. Yet the people wouldn’t do it. So, the showdown began. The prophets of Baal offered a sacrifice and danced around it and cut themselves all the while they were calling on Baal, but nothing happened. Elijah got up, made the sacrifice, dug a trench, poured water on it, and then prayed for God to consume the sacrifice with his holy fire. Have you ever paid attention to his prayer?
And at the time of the offering of the oblation, Elijah the prophet came near and said, “O Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that you are God in Israel, and that I am your servant, and that I have done all these things at your word.
Answer me, O Lord, answer me, that this people may know that you, O Lord, are God, and that you have turned their hearts back.”
Then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt offering and the wood and the stones and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench.
And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces and said, “The Lord, he is God; the Lord, he is God.”
John the Baptist would go out, in the spirit of Elijah, and call his people back to God. That they would know that it was God who was at work in their hearts to turn them back.
But it wasn’t just a reconciliation between the people and God, but between fathers and children. This is actually a paraphrase of the text found in
And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction.”
Did you catch that last phrase? “Lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction.” God’s sending of Elijah, which comes from Mal. 4:5, is indeed a grace of God. He promised to send him for grace’s sake! Indeed John is living up to the name God gives him: the Lord is gracious!
So here is John, conceived and called to be God’s instrument of grace upon the people of Israel. Reconciling people to God himself. Reconciling fathers to their children. Reconciling the disobedient to the understanding of the righteous. It is a misunderstanding that prophets were God’s mediator to man while priests were man’s mediator with God. There is plenty of overlap. Certainly we see Moses making intercession on behalf of Israel though he was a prophet and not a priest. But priests also were those who brought God’s word to his people.
For the lips of a priest should guard knowledge, and people should seek instruction from his mouth, for he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts.
John, who was a direct descendent of Aaron from both sides of his family, was not only a prophet, but a priest as well. His job as prophet and priest was to be sure the people understood righteousness, thus he was called to bring the disobedient to a new understanding of those who are righteous that they would follow after that understanding. In Romans 12:1-3, Paul tells us that we are to be renewing our minds with the results being that we begin to think differently. That word for think is the verbal form of this word for wisdom, understanding, insight.
All this could be summed up in the last clause that Luke wrote in verse 17. “To make ready for the Lord a people prepared.” If you ask me, that’s pretty awkward English. Let me break it down this way: John was called to put the house of Israel in order. Once the house was in order, it would be ready to receive its guest. Which would be the Lord, of course. Thus the idea of “to make ready,” is to put one into a state of readiness. Thus, the table is set, the food is prepared, and all that is left to do is to wait for the guest to arrive. Thus the people are prepared. But that word prepared is a completely different word than “To make ready.” It actually means to be equipped or built or even to furnish. In other words, John’s calling was to get a people equipped so that when the Lord came, they would be ready to receive him.
Our calling is not much different than John’s. It’s more of a difference of how than what.
All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation;
that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.
Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.
Christians have been taught through culture and even through preaching at times or just through the sentiment given off by so many around us that the calling of God is really a calling into the ministry: pastor, professor, missionary. When in reality the calling is everywhere to be an ambassador of reconciliation—going into a foreign place to proclaim a message to those hostile to God that they too can be friends of God. But foreign fields don’t necessarily mean outside the US. The calling to the medical field, the calling to a legal field, the calling to the home, the bank, or computers. Because it isn’t simply about how one fulfills the calling as much as it is taking the mindset of the calling wherever you go. What mindset? The biblical mindset, to be God’s representative in the place where you are so that in that place you may make read for the Lord a people prepared.
Conclusion
Conclusion
As we conclude this portion of Scripture, we have seen these three realities about John. We’ve seen his character. We’ve seen his control. Finally, we saw his calling.
Beloved, how different would our lives be if we had the character of John in which we were unafraid of what people thought or said, whether from the secular or sacred world? What would life be like if we simply thought in terms of God’s thoughts and words about us? What would life be like if we allowed the Spirit to lead us? It would be full of adventures that’s for sure, but adventures can be scary—leading to the unknown. What would life be like if we stopped splitting ourselves into two having a mindset that makes distinctions between the secular and sacred? So that the place in which we are would be a place of reconciliation rather than simply a job or a neighborhood or family gathering?
Perhaps you’re here and you want to reconciled to God yourself. You sense the presence of God’s Spirit upon your life and you now want to make things right with God. That can only come by turning away from your sin and turning back to God, but forgiveness only comes by receiving Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. It was Jesus who came to save we who were destined for wrath, if we would but turn from our sin and trust in him. It was Jesus who came to be the substitute for us, taking God’s wrath upon himself so we wouldn’t have to bear it. Jesus died, was buried, and rose again to reconcile a people fully to his Father. It is Jesus who is the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father except by him. I would love to talk with you about this some more. 636-212-0699 Jesus said, if you would come to him, he will in no way cast you out.