Our Beliefs : Sermons : Sermon Archive - 2004 : December 5, 2004
Prepare Your Hearts for Christ's Coming -- Repent!
Advent 2
I'm sure many of you know the following Aesop's Fable. A boy was looking after his sheep on a lazy afternoon, and he became thoroughly bored. So he decided to entertain himself at the expense of the townspeople. Can you guess what he did? He cried, "Wolf!" And what happened? Everyone stopped what they were doing and ran to help the boy save the sheep from the wolf. But when they saw no wolf and only the shepherd boy laughing at them, they went away a little angry because it was a false alarm. The boy enjoyed himself so much the first time, that soon afterwards he cried, "Wolf!" a second time. Again, the whole town came out, but found no wolf, so they told the boy that the next time he cried wolf they wouldn't come. What happened next? Sure enough, then a real wolf appeared. But when the boy cried, "Wolf!" this time, no one came because they didn't think they could trust the boy or his message. So the wolf attacked the boy and killed him.
This morning we are going to look at a prophet of God, John the Baptist. Just like the boy who cried, "Wolf!" John had a message to tell. But unlike the boy, John's message was never a trick or a sham -- it was a very serious message that needed to be taken seriously at his time, and it needs to be taken seriously today. John says, "Repent!" Will we listen to his message and be willing to stop what we're doing right now and follow his message? We need to if we are to be ready for Christ's coming. John's message of repentance is a message that is from ancient times and applies until the end of time.
The message that John the Baptist preached was really nothing new; in fact, it was the same message that the prophets of old had spoken: "Repent!" Repent literally means to turn around. The prophets of the Old Testament were continually telling their listeners to repent and turn around to God so they could receive God's mercy. The whole Old Testament, in fact, pointed forward to the Savior who would bring God's mercy.
So when John the Baptist cried out, "Repent!" it was really nothing new -- it was a message from ancient times. But at the same time John's message was very different and had never been heard before. He said, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near." In other words, the time of redemption was at hand. Thousands of years had gone by when God through his prophets told his people to repent and that the Savior was coming. John came as a very special prophet. He was the forerunner of the Messiah, just as Isaiah had foretold: "A voice of one calling in the desert, 'Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.' " Like a bulldozer leveling out a road, John the Baptist was to level out people's hearts and make them ready for the coming of Christ. So he proclaimed: "Repent!"
But the people had heard the message so often that many of them chose to ignore it. So by the time John came, even though "people went out to him from Jerusalem and all Judea and the whole region of the Jordan," yet many of those people weren't ready for John's message: "Repent!" But ready or not, the Savior had come.
In our text we hear about two groups of people who were not ready for Jesus' coming. It was the Pharisees and the Sadducees. The Pharisees were more concerned with how good they looked to their fellow man than how their heart was toward God. No one would dare accuse them of anything because they were so outwardly righteous. But John did. God enabled him to see right through their false piety to their sinful hearts. He called them a "brood of vipers," children of snakes, sneaky, deceptive -- just like Satan who had used a serpent in the Garden of Eden to plunge the whole human race into sin. John said, "And do not think you can say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our father.' I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham." The Pharisees prided themselves on being Jews, the chosen people of God descended from Abraham. But their hearts were far from God.
They were there with a group called the Sadducees. The Sadducees were much more worldly-minded. They were the political leaders of the Jews as well as the priests who lead Israel's worship at the temple. John's following was growing day by day, so if these leaders of the Jews didn't join it, they would be left behind and would lose their high positions among the Jews. Their hearts were not ready for the message of the Savior that John was proclaiming. That's why John's call to repentance is so harsh to them: "The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire." There was not much time for them. Their judgment was coming. If they did not repent, they would die eternally for their sins.
But those who did listen to the message and repent, John baptized. They were the ones who saw themselves as sinners and saw how despicable they were in God's eyes because of sin. They despaired of their own goodness and instead repented and turned to God. But really it wasn't them who did the turning; it was God who turned them through his message that said, "Continue to turn toward sin, and you will die. Turn to the coming Savior Jesus, and you will live."
That is the same message we preach today at the end of time as well. Which of the groups that John preached to would you say that your are? Are you a Pharisee? Do you lead an outwardly good life at work and at church, but when you get home your life and actions don't agree with what you say? Do you sometimes think that because you're a son or daughter of the Wisconsin Synod, a church that preaches and teaches the truth of God's Word, you have it made when it comes to heaven? Then you are not prepared to hear about the Christ coming in Bethlehem's manger because the message of a Savior will hold no meaning for you. Are you like the Sadducees? Do you focus on the things of this world instead of giving time to following God's will and purpose in your life? The Sadducees were priests so they worked in the temple every day. We might go to church and Bible class or Sunday school every Sunday, but maybe we're not going because we want to hear the Word -- maybe we're going because we should or we have to. Then we need to repent.
We have parts of the Pharisee and the Sadducee in us as sinners, and so we need to hear John's message: "Repent!" We need to see what will happen to us if we don't repent. Christ becomes something terrible to us if we don't repent -- he becomes our holy Judge who has "His winnowing fork...in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire." The picture is of a farmer harvesting wheat in Jesus' time. He grabs a fork and digs into the pile of grain that he just brought in from the fields and throws it into the air. The husks are blown away by the wind, and only the wheat kernel remains. The fact is, by nature we are the husk -- with no value but to be thrown away. And we need to understand that we don't have a thing that we can offer God in and of ourselves except disobedience. We need to hear God tell us how often we've gone through the motions of worship without thinking about what we're doing. We need to see that there are many times when we say all the right things when we think we're being watched, but when we don't think we're being watched our behavior sometimes changes. But others are watching. Our neighbors might see us with a perpetual frown on our face or aloofness in our demeanor. Co-workers might hear something very unchristian coming from our mouths. Someone might witness some very unchristian behavior in our lives. We need to see what our sins have done against our neighbor, our loved ones, but especially against God. We have offended the holy God. We need to fall on our knees every day and repent.
Then we're ready for the message of John the Baptist: "The kingdom of heaven is near." Christ has come to make full atonement for our sins. After we fall on our knees before God and say, "Have mercy on me, a sinner!", then we hear the message: Christ has now come and has taken all your sins away. When you realize that your life can't even come close to what God demands, you see that Jesus came to this earth and took on human flesh to live a life of perfection in your place. And he gave that perfect life to you when he offered himself on the cross. There he also took every one of your sins and the sins of the world, and suffered and died for them so we wouldn't have to. No, we don't have to despair when we hear that Christ will soon come in judgment because we know that he has given us eternal salvation. He has changed us into the wheat instead of the chaff. He has changed us into his children. What do we do then when we see some behavior that doesn't reflect what we truly are as forgiven children of God? We want to get rid of it.
In the third and fourth centuries, especially in Germanic areas, it became customary for men to disarm themselves before entering into the sanctuary for worship. The bulk of these weapons were simple wooden clubs -- effective as protection against highway bandits and wild animals. Thus, it became common for the back of the church to fill up with a pile of the wooden clubs during services.
Eventually someone made a game of these piles of clubs at the back of church. They would set them up and roll large stones at them at them to see who could knock down the most clubs. The more clubs knocked over, the more sins the individual was believed to have left behind. By the time of the Middle Ages, that game had left the church and become a game at inns and fairs. Eventually, nine pins were used, and then ten, and we have what we see today -- the game of bowling. It was said to be Martin Luther's favorite sport because he loved the symbolism of knocking down one's sins that keep us from seeking God's will and receiving his blessings.
What sins are you having trouble knocking down? Realize that as a child of God, there is a part of you that always wants to do God's will and there is a part of you that always wants to do your own will or the will of this world. After seeing Jesus who came to this world to live and die for you to give you eternal life, turn from your sinful ways and look to Jesus for your fulfillment. Let the Spirit of God blow away the chaff of your life each and every day so that a new person can arise to live before God in righteousness and purity forever. That is what John is telling us today as we prepare our hearts for Christ's coming at Bethlehem and at the end of time -- Repent. And in your forgiveness that is yours through faith in Jesus, know that you now live in the kingdom of heaven through faith in your Savior, and rejoice that he is coming soon. Amen.
