2nd Sunday of Advent 12/10/06 Text: Malachi 3:1-7 & Luke 3:1-4 Title: Prepare the Way
2nd Sunday of Advent
12/10/06
Text: Malachi 3:1-7 & Luke 3:1-14
Title: Prepare the Way
I was going to talk about just the reading from Malachi this morning, but the more I studied all the readings, the more I saw how well the Old Testament and Gospel readings blended. In our Old Testament reading, Malachi, which means messenger, is prophesying to the people of Israel that God will send a messenger in the future that will prepare the way for Him. Then he tells them that the Lord will arrive in the Temple, a prophecy about Jesus. Malachi was not the only prophet to prophecy about the messenger that was to come before the Messiah. The prophet Isaiah tells us in Isaiah 40:3, “A voice cries: "In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD; make straight in the desert a highway for our God.”
Some 700 years after Isaiah, who lived 300 years before Malachi, spoke his words; the fulfillment of their prophecy took place. John the Baptist arrived on the scene and started preparing for the long awaited Messiah. John did his job well, all the while knowing that when the Messiah arrived he would be left standing in his shadow.
Can you imagine God telling you, first, that the Messiah is coming, and second, that you are to be the advance person for him. Sort of like the warm-up act at a concert. Who ever remembers that warm-up act, after the star has arrived? You have the mission of preparing the way for him. How would you handle it?
Knowing me, even as much as I love our Lord, I think I would be a little intimidated by the prospect of such a mission. Why me, what credentials do I have for such a task? Do I really want to live under the conditions that the mission required, much less eat the food? There must be at least a million people better qualified for the job, and probably ten million who are better qualified spiritually than I am.
That is probably how I would feel about the mission, at least for a little while, but if we were to look back at the history of God’s people we would start to see a pattern developing as God chose people do carry out his work. God picked Abraham, an ordinary sheepherder from Ur of the Chaldees. God picked Moses, who had been early on discredited both as a Jew and an Egyptian. God picked Peter, who more than likely smelled of fish and who was terrible wishy-washy in his faith life. God even picked Saul, the same Saul who had been imprisoning and murdering Christians.
You have to admit that by our standards God did not pick out what we would call winners. Despite that, every time they followed God’s directions everything they did for God turned out as God told them it would. Now it did not always turn out well for them. John got his head cut off, for doing the mission he was told to do. Most of the Old Testament prophets were either run off or killed for their efforts. Almost all of the disciples died doing the mission that God gave them. Doing God’s work is not always easy, but what could be better than following God’s will.
What if God asked you to do the job that he had asked John the Baptist to do? Just look at the job description. “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”
What a job! And you think that you would be making a sacrifice if someone asked you to help on some committee, or do something for the congregation. Actually since the congregation is doing the work of Jesus, he really is the one that asked. The task that God gave Abraham, Moses, Elijah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Malachi, and John the Baptist were impossible tasks, impossible if it were not for God giving each one of them the task, the mission that he did.
You see, God never gives anyone a task that they cannot do. I am not saying that the task will not be hard. Most are not, but it may well be, the one you are giving requires some sacrifice, but it can be done, for God only asks that you follow his lead trusting in him to do what needs to be done.
You are probably thinking, “Now what is the pastor up to? Why is he bringing up this subject this morning?” Actually, I am not up to anything. Well that is not the whole truth. I am sharing what I have learned from God’s Word so that you will hopefully grow in your faith, thus being more open and willing to let God use you to do whatever mission he has for you. God wants you to serve others willingly and joyfully, not grudgingly.
The problem we all have is that too often we let things get in our way of doing the mission that God wants us to do, things that in the end really do not matter when we are in his Word and he is leading us.
Say, that God puts it on your heart to do some particular project. Now to our reasoning, it would not be unreasonable to ask God if he could give you some ballpark idea of what kind of budget he is talking about; would it?
What if God answered your question with, "There is no budget. Just do your best with what you have." "Do my best with what I have! You must be kidding! I do not have anything! I do not have the time; I do not have the talent, much less the money. Lord, this is important! In fact, this is huge Lord! I cannot prepare for your Second Advent without a budget. You have to work with me here." And God replied with, "I will help you."
"Well, I know that you will help me, and I don't want to seem ungrateful, but none of this comes free, Lord. We need good people. We need the best people. And the best people cost money, lots of money. Lord, you own the cattle on a thousand hills. How about selling a few of them for a good cause!"
And God would say, "Dennis, or John, or whatever your name is, you don't need a budget. Some of my best people did, and are doing, my work with no budget at all. You're going to be one of them."
"But, Lord, without any budget, I might as well just go out into the desert and shout into the wind." And God would say, "Now you are getting the idea."
God’s ways are not our ways, and sometimes God’s ways are quite strange, at least in the eyes of our sin-filled lives.
Has it not ever seemed strange to you that God would inspire Isaiah and Malachi to say what they did about the messenger that would prepare the way for the Lord, much less prophecy about his birth and second coming? Has it not ever seemed strange to you that God picked John the Baptist, a rather strangely dressed man, to prepare the way for Jesus? Has it not ever seemed strange that John went out to the desert wilderness to preach, a place where nobody lived? :
Well if has not appeared strange to you it has to me! With all the options God has at his disposal, why did he pick John the Baptist for such an important job? I do not know. Then, I do not know why he picked Abraham either, or Moses, or Peter, or Saul. God works in mysterious ways. I think that God delights in working through humble and lowly people to accomplish his good work.
Think for a moment, who was the person who introduced you to Christ? Who prepared the way for you to know Christ? Who made the path straight for you? Who filled in the valleys and lowered the mountains so that you could see the Lord? Who straightened out the crooked roads for you, and made the rough places smooth? Who did all those things so that you would be able to see "the salvation of the Lord"?
I sometimes ask people who brought them to Christ. For the most part most people talked about their mother or their father starting them on their lives of faith. Others talked about special people in their lives. Some were pastors, others were teachers, but mostly they were not special well-known people, but just ordinary people, people of faith, compassion, and kindness.
What struck me, and what I want you to take to heart this morning is that the people who are most often responsible for preparing the way of the Lord are people such as you who are sitting in the pews this morning. Most of you would say, "Aw shucks, not me! I am completely ordinary. I have no talent." However, the fact remains that most of Christ's work is done by you and people just like you.
You are the people who prepare the way of the Lord. Who make his paths straight. Who fill in the valleys. Who flatten out the mountains. Who makes the crooked roads straight. Who make the rough ways smooth, so that all people shall see the salvation of God.
You do not need to be rich or famous to prepare the way of the Lord. You do not need to be well-educated or sophisticated to prepare the way of the Lord. You only need to be a servant of the Lord. You only need to be person who God in his mercy has wrestled away from Satan. That is all you need to be to be enabled to help others become Christ’s very own.
During this Advent season, let us all take the time to pause, ponder, and prepare for the celebration of the great gift God gave his creation, so that we will be ready for the Second Advent of our Lord, the one Malachi said would happen when he wrote Malachi 3:5-6 "Then I will draw near to you for judgment. I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, against the adulterers, against those who swear falsely, against those who oppress the hired worker in his wages, the widow and the fatherless, against those who thrust aside the sojourner, and do not fear me, says the LORD of hosts. "For I the LORD do not change”.
Rejoice my fellow missionaries, for when the LORD comes we will be changed in a twinkling, reunited with our souls, not in this sinful body, but a body free of sin. Not because of anything we did, but because of Jesus. Amen
12/10/06
Text: Malachi 3:1-7 & Luke 3:1-14
Title: Prepare the Way
I was going to talk about just the reading from Malachi this morning, but the more I studied all the readings, the more I saw how well the Old Testament and Gospel readings blended. In our Old Testament reading, Malachi, which means messenger, is prophesying to the people of Israel that God will send a messenger in the future that will prepare the way for Him. Then he tells them that the Lord will arrive in the Temple, a prophecy about Jesus. Malachi was not the only prophet to prophecy about the messenger that was to come before the Messiah. The prophet Isaiah tells us in Isaiah 40:3, “A voice cries: "In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD; make straight in the desert a highway for our God.”
Some 700 years after Isaiah, who lived 300 years before Malachi, spoke his words; the fulfillment of their prophecy took place. John the Baptist arrived on the scene and started preparing for the long awaited Messiah. John did his job well, all the while knowing that when the Messiah arrived he would be left standing in his shadow.
Can you imagine God telling you, first, that the Messiah is coming, and second, that you are to be the advance person for him. Sort of like the warm-up act at a concert. Who ever remembers that warm-up act, after the star has arrived? You have the mission of preparing the way for him. How would you handle it?
Knowing me, even as much as I love our Lord, I think I would be a little intimidated by the prospect of such a mission. Why me, what credentials do I have for such a task? Do I really want to live under the conditions that the mission required, much less eat the food? There must be at least a million people better qualified for the job, and probably ten million who are better qualified spiritually than I am.
That is probably how I would feel about the mission, at least for a little while, but if we were to look back at the history of God’s people we would start to see a pattern developing as God chose people do carry out his work. God picked Abraham, an ordinary sheepherder from Ur of the Chaldees. God picked Moses, who had been early on discredited both as a Jew and an Egyptian. God picked Peter, who more than likely smelled of fish and who was terrible wishy-washy in his faith life. God even picked Saul, the same Saul who had been imprisoning and murdering Christians.
You have to admit that by our standards God did not pick out what we would call winners. Despite that, every time they followed God’s directions everything they did for God turned out as God told them it would. Now it did not always turn out well for them. John got his head cut off, for doing the mission he was told to do. Most of the Old Testament prophets were either run off or killed for their efforts. Almost all of the disciples died doing the mission that God gave them. Doing God’s work is not always easy, but what could be better than following God’s will.
What if God asked you to do the job that he had asked John the Baptist to do? Just look at the job description. “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”
What a job! And you think that you would be making a sacrifice if someone asked you to help on some committee, or do something for the congregation. Actually since the congregation is doing the work of Jesus, he really is the one that asked. The task that God gave Abraham, Moses, Elijah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Malachi, and John the Baptist were impossible tasks, impossible if it were not for God giving each one of them the task, the mission that he did.
You see, God never gives anyone a task that they cannot do. I am not saying that the task will not be hard. Most are not, but it may well be, the one you are giving requires some sacrifice, but it can be done, for God only asks that you follow his lead trusting in him to do what needs to be done.
You are probably thinking, “Now what is the pastor up to? Why is he bringing up this subject this morning?” Actually, I am not up to anything. Well that is not the whole truth. I am sharing what I have learned from God’s Word so that you will hopefully grow in your faith, thus being more open and willing to let God use you to do whatever mission he has for you. God wants you to serve others willingly and joyfully, not grudgingly.
The problem we all have is that too often we let things get in our way of doing the mission that God wants us to do, things that in the end really do not matter when we are in his Word and he is leading us.
Say, that God puts it on your heart to do some particular project. Now to our reasoning, it would not be unreasonable to ask God if he could give you some ballpark idea of what kind of budget he is talking about; would it?
What if God answered your question with, "There is no budget. Just do your best with what you have." "Do my best with what I have! You must be kidding! I do not have anything! I do not have the time; I do not have the talent, much less the money. Lord, this is important! In fact, this is huge Lord! I cannot prepare for your Second Advent without a budget. You have to work with me here." And God replied with, "I will help you."
"Well, I know that you will help me, and I don't want to seem ungrateful, but none of this comes free, Lord. We need good people. We need the best people. And the best people cost money, lots of money. Lord, you own the cattle on a thousand hills. How about selling a few of them for a good cause!"
And God would say, "Dennis, or John, or whatever your name is, you don't need a budget. Some of my best people did, and are doing, my work with no budget at all. You're going to be one of them."
"But, Lord, without any budget, I might as well just go out into the desert and shout into the wind." And God would say, "Now you are getting the idea."
God’s ways are not our ways, and sometimes God’s ways are quite strange, at least in the eyes of our sin-filled lives.
Has it not ever seemed strange to you that God would inspire Isaiah and Malachi to say what they did about the messenger that would prepare the way for the Lord, much less prophecy about his birth and second coming? Has it not ever seemed strange to you that God picked John the Baptist, a rather strangely dressed man, to prepare the way for Jesus? Has it not ever seemed strange that John went out to the desert wilderness to preach, a place where nobody lived? :
Well if has not appeared strange to you it has to me! With all the options God has at his disposal, why did he pick John the Baptist for such an important job? I do not know. Then, I do not know why he picked Abraham either, or Moses, or Peter, or Saul. God works in mysterious ways. I think that God delights in working through humble and lowly people to accomplish his good work.
Think for a moment, who was the person who introduced you to Christ? Who prepared the way for you to know Christ? Who made the path straight for you? Who filled in the valleys and lowered the mountains so that you could see the Lord? Who straightened out the crooked roads for you, and made the rough places smooth? Who did all those things so that you would be able to see "the salvation of the Lord"?
I sometimes ask people who brought them to Christ. For the most part most people talked about their mother or their father starting them on their lives of faith. Others talked about special people in their lives. Some were pastors, others were teachers, but mostly they were not special well-known people, but just ordinary people, people of faith, compassion, and kindness.
What struck me, and what I want you to take to heart this morning is that the people who are most often responsible for preparing the way of the Lord are people such as you who are sitting in the pews this morning. Most of you would say, "Aw shucks, not me! I am completely ordinary. I have no talent." However, the fact remains that most of Christ's work is done by you and people just like you.
You are the people who prepare the way of the Lord. Who make his paths straight. Who fill in the valleys. Who flatten out the mountains. Who makes the crooked roads straight. Who make the rough ways smooth, so that all people shall see the salvation of God.
You do not need to be rich or famous to prepare the way of the Lord. You do not need to be well-educated or sophisticated to prepare the way of the Lord. You only need to be a servant of the Lord. You only need to be person who God in his mercy has wrestled away from Satan. That is all you need to be to be enabled to help others become Christ’s very own.
During this Advent season, let us all take the time to pause, ponder, and prepare for the celebration of the great gift God gave his creation, so that we will be ready for the Second Advent of our Lord, the one Malachi said would happen when he wrote Malachi 3:5-6 "Then I will draw near to you for judgment. I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, against the adulterers, against those who swear falsely, against those who oppress the hired worker in his wages, the widow and the fatherless, against those who thrust aside the sojourner, and do not fear me, says the LORD of hosts. "For I the LORD do not change”.
Rejoice my fellow missionaries, for when the LORD comes we will be changed in a twinkling, reunited with our souls, not in this sinful body, but a body free of sin. Not because of anything we did, but because of Jesus. Amen
posted by Pastor Rhoads | 12:07 PM
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