Turning Toward the Wrath

Transcript

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[0:00] our sermon text. It's from Luke 3, verse 7 through 18, and it actually follows on from last week. So today's the third Sunday of Advent. The first week of Advent was about the coming of Jesus at the end of time. Christmas Day is about the coming of Jesus sort of in the middle of time when He actually appears as a baby. And then the second week of Advent was on the appearance of John the Baptist and the fulfillment of the prophecy of the return of Elijah before the Messiah could appear, and this linkage between Elijah and John the Baptist. And this week is again about John the Baptist, but it's about the preaching of John the Baptist and the question about the Messiah. Is John the Messiah? Some people thought he was, and he answers that question. And next week, the final week of Advent this year is about Mary and her miraculous pregnancy. So you have that to look forward to next week. And then of course on Christmas, we'll read about the actual birth of Jesus. Right. got to wait a while for that. So today we're going to follow up on last week's idea of repentance. Remember that repentance isn't feeling sorry or sad. Repentance is a changing of your mind and a reorientation of the self away from something to something else in the context of John speaking is

[1:14] a reorientation away from sin and a life of sin and brokenness and a turning towards God. So that's the repentance that John is preaching. And today in our text, John's going to give some practical examples of what this reoriented life looks like. And he also answers the question, are you the Messiah? He answered it in a very interesting way. So let's go to our reading, Luke 3, 7 through 18.

[1:40] When the crowds came to John for baptism, he said, you brood of snakes, who warned you to flee the coming wrath? Prove by the way you live that you have repented of your sins and turned to God. Don't just say to each other, we're safe, for we are all descendants of Abraham. That means nothing. For I tell you, God can create children of Abraham from these very stones. Even now the ax of God's judgment is poised, ready to sever the roots of the trees. Yes, every tree that does not produce good fruit will be chopped down and thrown. And the ax of God would be destroyed and thrown into the fire. The crowds asked, what should we do?

[2:29] John replied, if you have two shirts, give one to the poor. If you have food, share it with those who are hungry. Even corrupt tax collectors came to be baptized and asked, teacher, what should we do? He replied, collect no more taxes than the government requires. What should we do? Asked some soldiers. John replied, don't extort money or make false accusations. And he replied, don't extort money be content with your pay. Everyone was expecting the Messiah to come soon, and they were eager to know whether John might be the Messiah. John answered their questions by saying, I baptize you with water, but someone is coming soon who is greater than I am, so much greater that I'm not even worthy to be his slave and untie the straps of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. He is ready to separate the chaff from the wheat with his winnowing fork, then he will clean up the threshing area, gathering the wheat into his barn, but burning the chaff with never-ending fire. John used many such warnings as he announced the good news to the people. Let's pray. Father, thank you for this word, this difficult word, this challenging word, but also that it's good news. So thank you for that, and we pray you add your blessing to

[3:52] it. In Jesus' name, amen. So in last week, we read that John was baptizing and preaching around the Jordan River, and word really spread. People were like, what's going on? What is he doing down there? A lot of people took a long trip from Jerusalem down to the Jordan, and if you've been to Israel, we took a trip to Israel, I forget, about five, six, seven years ago as a church, and it was a long bus ride. It was about an hour, you know, so you imagine what it would take to walk, and you actually get down to the Jordan River at that point, you go below sea level, so it's a long stretch of water, and you're able to walk down the Jordan River, and you're able to walk down the Jordan River, and you're able to walk down the Jordan River, and you're able to walk down the and you realize if you go down, you're going to have to walk back up again, so this was more than a day's journey. John was so compelling that people were like, we're going to walk all the way down there and hear what he has to say, and then we're going to walk all the way back. This was no light thing. So there was something about John that was attracting people, thus kind of the interest in whether he was the Messiah or not. So kind of sometimes we think of John as sort of this obscure

[4:43] person. He was like a rock star. Think about it, right? He was like an amazing person back then, like, we have to figure out what this guy's talking about. Even the Pharisees went, went down there to say, what is he saying? Is this in line? We're going to check this out. And in other gospels, some of his harsh words seem more directed at the Pharisees. Here in Luke, it seems more like it's just everybody that he's talking to. So the word spreads about John the Baptist. The people show up, and you know, it's like you go to a rock concert, and you expect the rock band to play your favorite song. So if you went to a Journey concert, if they don't play Don't Stop Believing, you feel like you've been ripped off, you know? And so they go down, they're like, let's hear what John has to say. It's going to be good stuff. And the first thing they hear is, you brood of vipers, you know? And they're like, whoa, this was not, this is not the top 10 list. This is the bottom 10 list here. And what does that mean? A brood, a brood is actually the descendants or offspring of something. So a snake was considered evil, as it is in most cultures. Maybe he's pointing to the serpent. We don't know. But he's saying, you're all children,

[5:52] of the snakes. And who warned you to run away from what's coming? And of course, they're like, we're not children of snakes. We're children of Abraham. This is quite different. You're quite mistaken, sir. Well, we'll get into that in a second. But he says, who warned you to run away from the coming wrath, the judgment? And, you know, let's be honest here. This is tough stuff. We don't like hearing about wrath. It's very negative. But there's a sense that the world is broken. And I honestly, do you get the sense still that the world is broken? I don't know. It hasn't really improved much in 2000 years. Some people think it's worse. Some people think it's better. I think it's a constant. Human nature is broken. There's greed. There's violence. There's ethnic cleansing. There's racism. There's economic injustice of all kinds. It's all there. And people are suffering. That was true then. It's true now. And our God loves the world so much that he's angry about that. It actually makes him mad. Okay, this, the broken state of the world, the world. Now, so mad that he actually does something about it, which we'll get to in a few weeks. What he does about it is he sends Jesus. But he's mad about it. And all the prophets,

[7:00] and including John as sort of the final prophet of the Old Testament, as the Eastern Orthodox Church says, he says, God's mad. God's mad about your life. God's mad about you. And this is a difficult word. This is a difficult thing to say because we could look at our own self and say, well, I feel pretty good about myself. I'm kind of great. But John says, watch out. God's wrath is there. And God's wrath isn't just for all those other people that do bad things because you do bad things too. Maybe you're not a dictator. You're not, you know, you're not like Hafez al-Assad, or you're not like Adolf Hitler or any of those other people. But you know what? In God's eyes, if you've committed these injustices, he's angry. So he says, the wrath is coming. Who told you to flee from the coming wrath?

[7:52] He says, if you want to get away from it, you have to prove by the way you live that you've actually repented. You can say you've changed, but now we need to see it. Now, other translations, and maybe we can show that again. Could you show, go back, Stephen, show our text. Go back one.

[8:14] Prove by the way you've lived that you've repented of your sins. This is the New Living translation. It's just a bit of a paraphrase. The actual sort of more trans, more sort of somewhat literal translation is, bear fruit worthy of repentance. That might be a more of a familiar phrase to you. It's a little more cryptic, but it matches a later section when he talks about trees and their fruitfulness. Okay, thanks. You can you can hide it again so it's not distracting. Bear fruit worthy of repentance. Prove by the way you live that you've actually repented. This is the way to get away from the coming wrath. Okay. And John anticipates what the people would say. He says, don't say we're safe because we're the descendants of Abraham. We're not descended from snakes. No, thank you. We're descended from Abraham as if that would exempt you from having to repent. Isn't that interesting? He says, repent, and they say, we're the children of Abraham. It's like, is that a disconnect? No. Well, it is because they think, oh, we're the children of Abraham. We've got it. We're covered. Okay. A few weeks ago, we preached from Jeremiah 7 as we were going through the walk through the Bible stuff. Jeremiah 7, and the people were in the temple and they're saying, we're safe. This

[9:32] is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord. We're safe here, right? Like there's some magical force shield that's protecting them from attack. It's actually kind of like science fiction. They thought, I'm in the temple. This shield is surrounding me. Nothing can happen to me here. The temple actually is invaded several times over history. Right? But Jeremiah says, even when you're in the temple, you can lie.

[9:57] You can sit in the temple and you can lie. And you do. The temple is not this magical place where you suddenly act righteous. The temple is this place where you think you can go and be safe, but you bring all your brokenness with you in there. So in the temple, you can lie. In the temple, you can do evil. Why would God protect that? Jeremiah says. There's no base, like, you can tag, you know, and tag, you know, there's base. You can't tag me. I think it's for when you're tired for the kids. They're like, I'm tired. I got, or, you know, the smart thing is to kind of defend the base. If you're it, you know, that'd be smart. I never thought like that when I was a kid, I was never strategic with, with tag. It's I was just like running around. And I think that was really the point of tag was just, it wasn't really winning. It was just running around chasing people. It was fun, but there's no base. The consequences of what you've done can always catch you. Isn't that true? The consequences of what you've done. Can always catch you. It's true in life. So it's in the same way that John tells the people being a descendant of Abraham is nothing that's really provocative, right? Think about what that sounded

[11:04] like to them. Cause to them saying we're descendants of Abraham, we're children of Abraham. That was the bulk of their identity. They're like, this is who we are. This keeps us safe. This makes it so we don't have to repent. Cause we pretty much have it all figured out. And John says, that's nothing.

[11:25] To the people. I mean, God's so powerful. John says, uh, he could take the pebbles on the road in front of you and craft them into the children of Abraham. If you wanted, if he can make them, he can unmake them. It's only a small miracle to God. So it's nothing that you're the children of Abraham. It doesn't make you safe. God can make a child of Abraham out of a rock. Don't think that being a child of Abraham is going to protect you from the coming wrath, something that has to come. Instead of thinking you're safe because you're in the temple or because you're a child of Abraham or because you've been baptized 55 years ago, like me, because you go to church once a month, you're not safe. Flee from the coming wrath. Now what's and bear fruit worthy repentance. Show by your life that you've changed and turned toward God. And the only way to flee is actually toward the wrath. This is the interesting thing. Here's the switcheroo in the story and the turnaround.

[12:21] Has anyone ever played a Mario game? One, two, Mario. Oh, Mario is fun. Okay. All right. So the little quiz. There's different levels in Mario. This is more later Mario, not the very first Mario. So it depends on how old you are. Later Mario games, one of the several of the levels is a haunted house, right? Remember the ghost in the haunted house? It goes, because this is real like kind of scary. I'm not doing it very well. I should have had a sound effect.

[12:52] So Nathan, well actually add Nathan already did something today. So Adam, what happens when you're in the haunted house? The ghost chase you. When does it stop chasing you? Somebody else. When does the ghost stop chasing you? When you look at it. Exactly. Did you guys know that the ghost, you're running away and the ghost is chasing you and is blocking your exit is blocking your access to the base or whatever. But if you turn around and look at the ghost, the ghost stops.

[13:22] Turn around and it starts chasing you. And I don't know if that means the ghost is afraid of you. The other logic of Mario doesn't work because the ghost can go through walls. So it has no matter evidently, but if it touches you, you lose a life. So that doesn't make any sense, but it's video game logic. So it doesn't matter. It's just, it's just an, it's just an, it's just an NPC that's chasing you around, but it doesn't chase you if you face it. Okay. So I can't believe I'm using a video game as a sermon illustration, but the fact that five people in this room got it, I'm okay with it. All right. So hip pastor. Here, if only George was here, he's homesick. Okay. But that's the thing. The wrath is coming. We flee it, but we're not safe. Not by what building we're in, not by outrunning it, not by how we trace our ancestry ancestry. We escaped the wrath by turning away from sin and repenting and turning towards the wrath, turning towards God. Isn't that interesting? If you turn from sin, there's no fleeing anymore. You you cause you're facing God. And then there's, there's no threat anymore. So you turn towards God. You reorient your life. Repentance is reorienting your life towards God, changing your mind. And John says, when you change your mind,

[14:34] your actions will follow. The ax is waiting. It's leaning up against the tree. Any tree that does not bear fruit will be cut down and a new tree will be planted in its place. That, that space is important. That space is valuable. That ground is important. God wants that, that, that soil. There. There to be fruitful. So if there's a tree that doesn't produce fruit, it'll be cut down to make room for a tree that does produce fruit. And it's the parable of the vineyard that shows up in so many ways in scriptures, basically like that. So John says, bear fruit worthy of repentance, be a tree that produces fruit. The ax is there for the ones that don't. And is this scary? Yes, but it's, and, and, and so, you know, the very last, can you go to the very last slide of the reading? Um, this is, this is kind of provocative. Verse 18, John used many such warnings as he announced the good news to the people. Is this good news? Sounds like bad news, but it's actually good news. Do you know what else this reminds me of? Arnold Schwarzenegger. Remember him? So for those of you who are really young, a while back, our state elected Arnold Schwarzenegger to be the governor. Is that weird? Yes. He was a bodybuilder and a movie star. And he would have this way of talking and he'd say,

[15:47] and things of that nature, you know, he kind of end a sentence. Like he'd be talking about things that were not good. Right if you want to think of it that way. It's good news because if you turn to God, you're safe.

[16:27] If you turn to God, you're safe. Don't worry about the fruits. This is what Jesus says. This is what Paul says. The fruits come. You receive the Holy Spirit, the fruits come. You don't have to produce the fruits. You just have to turn to God. That reorientation of yourself invites in God's power. God will do all these things. That's the good news. It's only glimpsed briefly here, but it's there because this is also good news as preparing people, preparing their hearts for Jesus because they needed to be softened up a bit. They needed to understand that being a child of Abraham isn't enough. In fact, it's nothing. They needed to be prepared, and we need to be prepared. That's what this season is. I love Advent, but let's not, again, I keep saying this, let's not confuse Advent for Christmas, and we're doing a turn. We're doing a terrible job of it because we had a Christmas party last night. We have a Christmas tree. We have Christmas decorations up, but Advent's not Christmas. Advent, you should think of more like Lent. It's a time of preparations. It's a time of introspection. It's a time for preparing yourself to receive Jesus, and the way that we're talking about it here is to repent, is to have a change of mind and change of heart and change of life away from sin and towards God.

[17:40] It's not about Christmas presents, but we're stuck. I love the music. I love the decorations. I could do this all day long. I've been playing Christmas music at home, but Advent is different. So maybe just for an hour, we'll just do Advent. The rest of the time, you guys can do Christmas, but for this hour, we're pointing to Jesus, but he's not here yet. So the good news is that he's coming, but he's not here yet, okay? So bear fruit worthy of repentance, and real quick, what does that fruit look like? There's these practical examples that John gives the people. To the people, he says, share what you have, right? To the tax collectors, he says, don't be corrupt. To the soldiers, he says, don't be, not don't, be content with your pay. Don't extort people. Don't cheat people, right? Do you notice all of these fruits are related to wealth and greed? The Bible talks more, some people have their favorite sins that they think everybody else should kind of pay attention to. The Bible talks more about greed and the injustice that follows greed than almost any other sin, and we could write them all down. It really, he really cares about it, especially in the Old Testament. Economic justice is a really big deal to the prophets in the Old Testament, and to Jesus, and to Paul, okay? So again, and finally,

[19:00] we'll save that for another day. I think we're gonna have to have some kind of sermon someday where we talk about greed, okay? But not today. It's just, save it, save it, your mind, bookmark. The people say, you know, the way you're talking, you sound a lot like how we expect the Messiah to sound. So don't keep us in suspense. Are you the Messiah? And this was kind of a test for John, because he was a rock star. He could have said yes, he was developing quite a falling, but you know what, John, remember, John's a prophet in the tradition of Elijah. He can't get too big. You may remember from the Old Testament, if you don't, I'll tell you the story, that when Elijah went to heaven, Elisha said, can I have a double share of your power when you go? Which is kind of a cheeky thing to ask for, but you know, ask big, and you might get something small. I don't know. So Elijah's like, it's not for me to say, but if you see me going away into the heaven, I think you'll get it. And so this chariot comes down and picks Elijah up, and Elijah does, or Elisha, they sound the same, but they're different. Elisha manages to see the chariot take Elijah away, and it turns out that Elisha ends up with a double share of Elijah's power.

[20:08] If you read in the Old Testament, Elisha performs twice as many miracles as Elijah. So it's there. And his first miracle is to summon two bears from the forest to punish children for making fun of his bald head. And that's my favorite miracle in the whole Bible, because, you know, maybe Blake's too, you know. Blake has an excuse. He had valley fever, and he lost all his hair. Is that right? Kind of. No. It's something else. But anyways, but for me, it's just, the shame of male pattern baldness got me, and I stopped combing over because it was embarrassing. It was more embarrassing than being half bald, so there I am. But anyway, so Elisha ended up, so the one who comes after Elijah is twice as powerful. Do you get that? And that's how John is. I'm here, but somebody's coming after me, and he's not even going to be twice as powerful than me. He's going to be like a thousand times more powerful than me. I can't even untie his shoes, right?

[21:18] So let's end now, because it's time to end. Just a little recap. John is preparing people for Jesus by preaching repentance. Repentance is turning away from sin and greed. He's very specific about that greed and turning towards God. There's no escape from the consequences except to turn towards God. And the parts of our lives that are not oriented toward God will be cut away in the hope that something more fruitful will take up that part of us, that whatever the time or the energy, the interest, whatever it is that we're going to have to deal with. And so, I'm going to read a verse in 2 Chronicles 2 that says, 2 Chronicles 2 is coming, and let's celebrate then. And for now, I think we should contemplate the words of John. Turn and be saved. Prepare yourself for the one who's coming, who's a thousand times greater. Let's pray. Father, thank you again for your word. Thank you for the ministry of John the Baptist.

[22:21] Father, speak to each of us today in your own way about what it looks like for us to turn away and turn towards you, what's not bearing fruit in our lives, and what we're willing to give to you so that something new can grow in this place. And we ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.