Sermon preview, week of December 3, 2024
From the Wilderness, With Love
John the Baptist is about as cuddly as a cactus. But that shouldn't stop us from learning from him about love and repentance.
This Sunday’s order
- Sunday
- Reading
- Luke 3:1-6
- Series
- Advent 2024
- Preaching
- Jonathan Balmer
The readingLuke 3:1-6
"...the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. He went into all the country around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins." - From Luke 3:1-6
Read Luke 3:1-6
1In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, while Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip tetrarch of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene, 2during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. 3He went into all the region around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, 4as it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet:
“A voice of one calling in the wilderness,
‘Prepare the way for the Lord,
make straight paths for Him. 5Every valley shall be filled in,
and every mountain and hill made low.
The crooked ways shall be made straight,
and the rough ways smooth. 6And all humanity will see God’s salvation.’”
Berean Standard Bible, public domain
This is the second week of our Advent 2024 series, "The Weary World Rejoices."
Find our livestream and archive of previous sermons on our YouTube channel.
A short (1 minute) video about John the Baptist from The Bible Project.
"...the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. He went into all the country around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins." - From Luke 3:1-6
"But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner's fire" Malachi says of the Lord's Judgment, even as he promises a messenger, an Elijah to come ahead of the day of the Lord. (Malachi 3:2).
This Elijah coming before the Day of the Lord, Christians (and Jesus himself!) associate with John the Baptist, a figure about as cuddly as a cactus. Yet, gruff as he may be, John the Baptist has a message for us that is truly good news. A weary world is unprepared to see God or God's salvation, so the landscape must, and will, change by God's action. John testifies to the one who comes after him. He testifies to Jesus.
Preparing to see the salvation of the Lord, we change our hearts and lives. What is wrong that has been exalted and celebrated? Let it be brought down. Where has what God has called good been trampled? Let it be lifted. And what's more, let judgment start with me, with you, with us. As 1 Peter 4:17 says: "For it is time for judgment to begin with God's household."
The good news of the Kingdom is that judgment does not necessarily mean condemnation. Advent awaits the coming of Christ as King, and if King then Judge as well. But the same Judge who will set wrongs right, comes as the Lord of Love. The same one who lifts what is low, and brings down the "high-and-mighty" did not come to condemn.
As John 3:17 says: "For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him."
But make no mistake, his love and his justice are one. His love means he will not leave the world, or us, as we were. He loves too much for that. He is a refiner's fire. God has a cut and fill operation, changing the landscape, he'll renovate our hearts, and our world is not the same when he comes.
And that, in fact, is Good News.
Join us this Sunday as we await a righteous judge who is love.