Change Your Mind, Not Just Your Behavior

Transcript

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[0:00] Well, our sermon text is from Luke chapter 3, just six verses this morning, six verses, verses 1 through 6, and this is the second Sunday of Advent. Victoria's always stealing my thunder with a children's sermon. If you really wanted to, you could just go home after the children's sermon and you got it all, but it would hurt my feelings, so don't. So I want to just kind of remind us all that Advent is not Christmas. Advent and Christmas are different things. Advent is about the coming of Jesus, which is, Christmas is just part of that.

[0:34] And Christmas really only starts on the 25th of December, and even that date might be wrong, or probably is wrong, and it goes until Epiphany, which is in early January. And everyone else starts Christmas early, because I think the Christmas decorations have been, or the Christmas supplies have been in the stores for more than a month at this point, right? Everybody starts Christmas early, and then on December 26th, if you go into a store, there's no decorations. There's just a bunch of Christmas decorations. There's just a bunch of half-off stuff. So sort of the commercial world drops Christmas like a hot potato the day it's over. But when Christmas starts, we're still doing Christmas. Our Christmas goes for another two weeks or more after the 25th. And we kind of start on the 24th, the Christmas Eve. Yes, George? And the Philippines, those are pretty sure, in the Philippines, they start celebrating Christmas around late August or early September, and then there are Christmas celebrations, and you wait until February or early March. So half a year. Basically, George is saying that the Philippines has Christmas for about half a year. Yes. Well, I know a lot of people who would enjoy that. Would you enjoy that?

[1:39] No, I would not. I would not enjoy that. Would you enjoy that? Yeah. But if somebody from the Philippines came to visit us, we would try to accommodate them. I don't know how, but we would try. So anyways, where was I? Yeah. Yeah. So given that, you might be... You might be asking yourself, why did we decorate the church on November 30th, right? We should only decorate the church on December 25th. And the answer is, the church is always giving in to the culture a little bit. Have you noticed? And as long as it's not theological, it's not the end of the world, right? You know what? Christmas trees are pagan. So here we have one right here up on the stage, right next to me. But they're not pagan anymore, right? In sort of common uses, they're just kind of symbols of Christmas. But you know what? There's a little part of me that's always a little like, I don't think we should have a Christmas tree in the church. But you know what? It's beautiful. And it's like traditional. So it's okay. But as long as we understand that we're not worshiping the tree, we're worshiping the Lord, our Savior, Jesus Christ, and his Father, God the Father, and the Holy Spirit, then we're okay. And this is just a decoration, right? We're not worshiping nature or the tree or Festivus or anybody else.

[2:53] Okay. Okay. We're going to have the annual airing of grievances later today. That's going to be fun. So last week, Advent 1 was about the coming of Jesus at the end, you know, at the end of all time. And this week, it's about the one who comes before Jesus and prepares us for him, and that's John the Baptist. So today is about John the Baptist. And just as there's prophecies in the Old Testament about Jesus coming, there's a pointer in the Old Testament about John the Baptist coming. And that's what Christina read. From Isaiah chapter 40. And part of our New Testament text today, it's not up there yet, but it will be, it will actually quote from Isaiah. And you'll see this in the New Testament. The New Testament is often quoting the Old Testament. In this case, Luke will be quoting Isaiah. But if you look at Romans, a lot of the works of the Apostle Paul, he's quoting Old Testament scripture all the time. So these books are really connected together.

[3:49] And Isaiah 40 is focused on the prophetic basis of John. John the Baptist's work. So, and then just two more notes, a couple more notes on Advent. Next Sunday in the lectionary, Advent 3, is also about John the Baptist. So there's kind of two Sundays about John the Baptist, but that's more about his preaching in advance of Jesus. Today is more about him himself. And then the fourth Sunday of Advent is about Jesus's mother, Mary, and the time leading up to his birth. So there's, that's how kind of Advent kind of rounds out. So that's what it is. Now, I'm going to read the text. And just so that you're really listening and curious, listen in our reading for a word that sounds like an infection. You heard me right, an infection. And then I'm going to quiz you at the end. All right? So be listening. Also be listening for like the content of it, because this is the gospel. All right? So let's go to Luke chapter 3, 1 through 6. It was now the 15th year of the reign of Tiberius, the Roman emperor. Pontius Pilate was governor over Judea. Herod Antipas was ruler over Galilee. His brother Philip was ruler over Aeturia and Trachonitis. Lysanias was ruler over Abilene. Annas and Caiaphas were the high priests. At this time, a message from God came to John, son of Zechariah, who was living in the wilderness.

[5:11] Then John went from place to place on both sides of the Jordan River, preaching that people should be baptized to show that they had repented of their sins and turned to God to be forgiven. Isaiah. Isaiah had spoken of John when he said, He is a voice shouting in the wilderness. Prepare the way for the Lord's coming. Clear the road for him. The valleys will be filled and the mountains and hills made level. The curves will be straightened and the rough places made smooth. And then all people will see the salvation sent from God. Let's pray.

[5:51] Lord, thank you for this reading, for your word. We pray you would add your blessing to it. In Jesus' name. Amen. Okay, who heard the infection word? Trachonitis. Yeah, it sounds like an infection of your trachea, which I don't know what that is. Maybe your trachea anyways. You can have a bad case of trachonitis and get some appendicitis, some penicillin. I almost said appendicillinitis. That's not a thing. But trachonitis is actually the Greek name for the region now known as Lajat in southern Syria. Of all places. This is an actual place and there used to be somebody ruling in Trachonitis. We'll get to those names and those times a little later in the sermon. But anyways, I just thought you would like be paying more attention if you were looking for that funny word. Okay. So now I want to tell you something about John the Baptist in the Eastern Orthodox faith. I wish John and Georgia were here today because sometimes they go to Eastern Orthodox Church and sometimes they come here. But in the Eastern Orthodox Church, John is considered to be the final prophet of the Old Testament. Which is funny because he's not in the Old Testament, but he is. He's in the New Testament. But that's their view, is that he's the final prophet of the Old Testament and he bridges

[7:04] the Old Testament to the New Testament, which he definitely does. Jesus talks to his disciples in Matthew 17. This is after what's called the Transfiguration. And they actually see Elijah there. And they're kind of curious about Elijah. And so they ask him this. Well, Jesus tells him that John the Baptist is actually the fulfillment of the Old Testament. He's the fulfillment of the expectation of the coming of Elijah in Judaism. And do you guys remember Elijah? Like he didn't die.

[7:33] There's a chariot came with fire and it took him away. That swing low sweet chariot coming for to take me home. Also one other person in the Old Testament named Enoch was taken up to heaven and never died. So there's two people. And so there was this sense in Judaism that Elijah would return and his return was really the sign that a new phase was going to happen. What?

[7:54] It would be the first time in the world. And Jesus tells his disciples that John the Baptist is the Elijah that Judaism has been waiting for. Isn't that interesting? So that just kind of fills that niche. And this is what he says in Matthew 17, 10. Then his disciples asked him, why do the teachers of religious law insist that Elijah must return before the Messiah comes? So this is the expectation in Judaism, is that before the Messiah can come, Elijah has to come back from heaven. appear. And Jesus replied, Elijah is indeed coming first to get everything ready, but I tell you, Elijah has already come. But he wasn't recognized, and they chose to abuse him. And in the same way, they will also make the Son of Man suffer. Then the disciples realized he was talking about John the Baptist. So Jesus himself says after the transfiguration that Elijah actually had come back. And now the Messiah can come, and John the Baptist is Elijah come back so that the Messiah can come. Okay. So the Old Testament, the appearance of Elijah means that God is about to do something new and amazing. It means the Messiah is going to come and deliver the people. How they deliver it, we'll get into it. The Old Testament is always pointing forward to the time of the Messiah.

[9:18] And our walkthrough, the Bible studies, just this last week we were talking about this, there were two expectations. One was that the Messiah would come and deliver the people. Right He's not very powerful. There's another expectation in Judaism that a Messiah will come in power and in glory and have military might and be able to kind of wipe away all the physical enemies of God's chosen people and kind of basically restore them to the kingdom that they used to have, free them from any kind of oppression or slavery they may be in, and actually punish their enemies in a kind of a resounding way, right? And so there were these two competing views of what the Messiah would be. Would it be the suffering servant or would it be this sort of powerful Messiah figure? And the disciples always wanted to be Jesus to be the one to come in power and clean out the place.

[10:31] And when Jesus would say, no, I'm actually more of the suffering servant kind, he would sell them, the son of man will be betrayed and die and be raised again. And he told them. And they said, no, no, no, we want you to be this one that comes in glory. And he says, no, I'm going to be the one that comes sort of in humility. And what we find out is that both of those are Jesus. The suffering servant is the one that comes at Christmas, 0 BC or around there. And the one that comes in glory and power is the one that comes at the end of time. So Jesus is both of them, but he's not, he didn't come at Christmas. Christmas. In a military physical way, he came in a way to subvert. Right. And so last week, even in our reading, Victoria read in the sermon text, the son of man will come riding in the clouds with power and great glory. That's at the end of time. That's Advent one. Right. That's Advent one. What we're looking for.

[11:33] So the Messiah can't come until Elijah comes. Elijah does come back in a way in the person of John the Baptist. And so I think it's. Okay. For us to think like the Eastern Orthodox that John is the last prophet of the Old Testament. Or I think maybe better is that John is like a bridge from the Old Testament to the new. He definitely preaches in the same kind of voice as the Old Testament prophets. He sounds a bit like Jeremiah. You know, when he talks to people, he sounds a bit like Jeremiah.

[12:05] But John is not in the time of the Old Testament. He's in the time of the New Testament. So he kind of. He kind of. And he's a very interesting figure. He occupies this space that kind of transcends time. And I think it's at least once a year. It's really fun and interesting for us to kind of get to know John the Baptist a little bit better because he's this really interesting figure. He he doesn't just show up at the beginning of all the gospels. He has sort of vignettes all throughout the gospel. Some of them quite tragic, as you know, or we will get to at some point. Not today, though. So he's not in the time of the Old Testament prophets. He he wants. And Luke wants to. He wants to make sure we know that. And so the first three verses where we heard about Trachonitis, all we need to say about them is that they locate John in a very specific place and time in the 15th year of the emperor Tiberius. Right. We were given the names of leaders and places, and we can date that with some accuracy. So we know when John lived, we know when he had his ministry. And then it's pretty easy for us to say, well, Jesus ministry, Jesus was born before that. But Jesus ministry didn't start until John's ministry had started.

[13:09] And John eventually baptizes. He sort of free Jesus and sort of passes the mantle to Jesus and says, He has to increase and I have to decrease. He kind of got the idea of it. So the idea about John is that he stands here at the cusp of history, at the beginning of a new thing. And he's telling people how to get ready for the arrival of Jesus and how Jesus will rescue them from all the problems that the Old Testament tells us about. So not only is he speaking in the voice of the prophets of the Old Testament, But he's talking to them. about somebody who's coming who will fix all the problems of the Old Testament. And God does that by making a new covenant with his people, and that new covenant isn't a covenant of law or of land or of blood, at least of lineage I should say, but it's a covenant of grace and new life that comes from the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. And so God does a new thing and he does it through Jesus. And so all these problems in the Old Testament, if you were to go through the Old Testament, you would hear all these problems. The fall, idolatry, oppression by other countries, slavery in Egypt, and then this sort of maddening cycle that you get into if you read 1 and 2 Kings, 1 and 2 Chronicles,

[14:25] plus all the prophets, of this cycle of getting closer to God and then drifting away again and getting kind of punished and then going closer to God and drifting away again. And it's just this incessant thing until God, I think, finally gets sick of it and says, I can't do this anymore. This back and forth, we have to change how we do this. That's where the new covenant comes from. And then they're finally, they're exiled to Babylon and then they return after 70 years. And then finally it culminates with this prediction in Isaiah that you saw in the last part of our reading there, that all people, this is all nations, not just the Jews, but the Gentiles, all nations will see the salvation sent from God. And thus a covenant and a prophecy made to Abraham. When Abraham was called, it's a promise that was made to Abraham. And so the promise that was made to Abraham is going to be fulfilled in Jesus because God said to Abraham, go outside your tent, count the stars, this is how many people, how many descendants you will have, and I will bless all nations through you, not just your children, but the children of all the other people in the world. So Jesus truly is one that's, it was promised long ago, but Jesus is the one then that John

[15:34] points forward to who's going to universalize salvation beyond just one small ethnic group in one small place. So, I think that's a promise that's going to be fulfilled in Jesus. And so, we know that that happens at Pentecost and beyond, and the missionary work of Paul and all the rest.

[15:48] Okay, we're almost done actually, and I'm going to switch gears here and say, we've established what the meaning is associated with John the Baptist and his appearance and his purposes. So now we should ask, what is John saying? Now we know how important he is. Now we know where his location is and how all this plays out, but what does he say? And all we have from this reading, and maybe you could put it back up there again, Steve, is, John the Baptist. John the Baptist would say that he was preaching that people should be baptized to show that they had repented of their sins, maybe one more, and turned to God to be forgiven. Okay?

[16:24] Yeah, yeah, that's in the next slide, it's okay, it's on the next slide too. So, all that's left today is to talk about what it means to repent in the New Testament, and I want to differentiate between two ideas. One is repentance and the other is remorse, right? And they're not the same thing, okay? Okay? Remorse is feeling sorrow at something you've done. And it's not even feeling sad about somebody else, right? You can feel sad about something that happened all the way on the other side of the world, but that's not remorse, right? If you really feel sad as a deep emotion for what's happening on the other side of the world, that's empathy. If you only feel pity or sorry for them on the other side of the world, then that's sympathy. That's the difference between empathy and sympathy. But remorse is if I've personally done something and I feel regret or guilt about it. So that's remorse. I've done something wrong. I feel bad about it. John's not asking for remorse. He's asking for repentance. Repentance is something entirely different. Repentance and the Greek word for repentance is metanoia.

[17:27] It's not sadness. Metanoia does not mean sadness or acting sorry. Metanoia is a change of mind and of life, a complete reorientation of who a person is. I'll say that again. Metanoia. Metanoia is a change of mind and life. It's a complete reorientation of who a person is. The root of the word metanoia is nous. It's that word, the root at the end, n-o-u-s. And that's the mind. That's what your mind is. That's the part of you that directs your rational actions. The heart in Greek thinking would have been, they actually put it down here, would be that place of sort of your impulses and your other emotions and things like that. But the mind, and they didn't really understand where the mind was, but they understood the concept of the mind. It's that part of you that directs your rational actions. And metanoia is to have a fundamental change in your mind, not in your heart. There's a difference there. It's a change of your mind. Not so small as to change your opinion on some matter. Sometimes we say, oh, you changed my mind about that. You could change your mind about a small opinion of no consequence. This is to change your mind altogether, to reorient your entire mind. Really, it would be how you perceive the world and how you perceive your action in that world,

[18:47] and your rational reactions to everything that you experience, and then thus direct your body and your mind and your heart and your voice, especially what you say. So metanoia is to have a fundamental change in your mind, and not so small as to change your opinion. So when we change our mind in this fundamental way, then we're repenting. Okay? Okay? And so I'll be honest with you. I don't know how many times I've actually repented if I take this definition seriously. I could say to God, I'm sorry. I could ask God to forgive me. But have I gone to God and say, I want to fundamentally change my mind and my rational thought and how I make decisions and the behaviors that follow that. Okay? I'm not sure how many times I've actually said that to God. This is what John is actually saying. He's asking the people to do so that they can be ready for the coming of Jesus. Now, I wouldn't say that Jesus only comes if you repent, because Jesus can come to you in your brokenness and your sin and all sorts of things like that. But this is what John is saying. You need to prepare yourself for the coming of Jesus by changing your mind, changing how you perceive the world and your rational thoughts. And so let me ask you this question.

[20:09] You can maybe just sort of ask yourself this question. And maybe you've said this yourself. Why can't I change my behavior? You know, for me, I could give you a whole list of things that I wish I could change about myself. I tried stopping drinking coffee once. That was not pretty. Didn't work out. Okay? There's other behaviors that I have that I have a very hard time stopping, like eating candy. I love candy. It's my mom's fault. I think she ate candy when she was pregnant with me and just . No, she didn't. But I don't know. She gave me a lot of candy when I was a kid. I don't know. Or maybe I should just blame my own self, right? I should just blame my own self.

[20:47] Yeah, candy and coffee are socially . I can tell you about all sorts of other behaviors, but I would fall in your estimation of me. And maybe that would be a good thing. So why can't I change my behavior? And the answer is actually that you can. If you just say, I'm not going to do that today, that works for today. But you know what? Tomorrow always comes. And you might do it tomorrow.

[21:11] But the third day is like, oh, I forgot, or oh, I don't really care. I'm going to have another piece of candy. So you can try to change yourself in that way by reminding yourself, shaming yourself, right, these negative sort of incentives, or maybe even positive incentives. But to really change your behavior, you need to change your mind. Does that make sense, right? It's the mind that directs the behavior.

[21:35] And your mind could say, don't do that. Don't do that. You know, slap your own hand five days in a row. But what if you changed your mind so that that behavior of not wanting candy, I'm just using that as an example, doesn't happen so much? And I would like to get there. And so you could pray for me and my candy addiction. And not the coffee. I'm not giving that up for any reason for anyone. You know, I can't really worry about the apocalypse. And honestly, my first thought on the apocalypse is what if there's no coffee? Like not the apocalypse, but like World War III, and you're like, you're hunkering down and you're prepping. And I made sure I have extra coffee. But the day will come when it runs out. And I don't have a coffee plantation in my backyard. So I guess I better, anyways, this is unrelated. Okay, so how do I change my mind on a fundamental level, right? That's what John's saying I need to do before Jesus arrives. And honestly, I don't really know how to change my mind so that my actions follow. I don't know. I can't tell you that I know exactly how it's done. But I have a few ideas. And I want you to listen to my ideas. And you maybe have your own. So for one, since it's my rational mind, I need to decide to change my mind.

[22:47] I don't need to decide to do a behavior differently because that only lasts a few days. I know I need to decide to change my mind. It won't just change itself magically and some sort of will and decision is involved. So you have to start with the decision that I want to change. I want to change behaviors, so I want to change the ideas that create those behaviors. I want to change my mind. I want to have a fundamental change of my noose, my mind, right? So what can we do practically, right? This is only a list, all right? You can change what you put into your mind.

[23:20] Any phone scrolling addicts here in the room reading the news incessantly or Pinterest or whatever? It's okay. It's okay. You can just confess it in your own heart. I see that hand. I see that hand. Now, okay. So, I mean, that's up to you. But you can change. I'm talking to myself now. I can change what I put into my mind, right?

[23:41] You can reason with yourself. You can actually sort of interrogate yourself a bit and say, why do you have those ideas? Where did they come from? Do they make sense? Are they logical ideas? Are they productive ideas? Are they good ideas? And if they're not, then you can challenge any wrong ideas that you have, right? So as you see, my struggle with coffee is nowhere near over because I'm kind of doubling down on it. Right? So I'd have to challenge that a little bit and say, well. And the other thing is, I think this is super important. Do you know how social we are? I mean, we're less social than we used to be after the pandemic, but we're very social people. We tend to take on the behaviors and ideas of people we spend the most time with. It's just how we are. We're social. You know, that's how God created us. And probably in a good way, right?

[24:31] So spend some time, at least a little bit of time. With people who behave the way you want to behave. Does that make sense? I should spend some time around people who don't drink coffee, right? Do you want to exercise more? Don't spend all your time around people who watch TV all day because then it's not going to rub off on you, right? Spend time around people who exercise a lot. You don't have to spend all your time around them, but spend some time around them. And after a while, you'll be like, oh, exercising seems like a good thing. It seems like the normal thing to do. It seems like the natural thing to do. Now I'm going to. I feel like going out and walking in my own shoes. I feel like I'm going to smile, you know? Do you see what I'm saying? It's the social side. So here's all my practical ideas. I don't know if any of them are really good. Start with deciding yourself that you want to change your mind. Change what you put into it. Reason with yourself. Challenge or interrogate any wrong ideas or illogical ideas you have. And spend time with people who behave the way you want to behave. And their mind will kind of rub off onto your mind and your mind will rub off onto their mind. So be careful not to mess them up, okay, with your stuff.

[25:35] So we're done, basically. I'll say sometimes sermons can be too theoretical and too lofty and too theological, and sometimes I get this critique, not enough practical application. Well, today you cannot complain about that because that was all practical stuff, right? That was all practical stuff, okay? John the Baptist is telling each of us, repent, metanoia, change your mind in a fundamental way and your behavior will follow suit. And saying, oh, I guess that's a good idea isn't enough. Nothing will come of just agreeing that that's a good idea. You have to change. You have to decide to change. So I wanted you to take an inventory later today, as fun as it sounds. Ask yourself, what am I reading? What am I listening to? What am I watching? Who am I with? Ask yourself those four questions. What am I reading? What am I listening to? What am I watching? What am I reading? What am I listening to? What am I watching? What am I reading? What am I reading? What am I reading? What am I listening to? What am I reading? What am I listening to? Who am I with? And let's all prepare for the coming of Jesus by having a mind and a heart that's ready to receive him. Let's pray. Father, thank you again for this word. Thank you for your servant,

[26:38] John the Baptist, speaking across millennia to speak into our hearts and our minds. And Lord, we pray for the will, the decision, and the courage to change our minds.