Advent 3: Preparing the Way, Luke 1. 5-25

Advent 3: The Fore-runner... Preparing the Way    Luke 1.  5-25


John was born to "prepare the way" for the Lord to come....  Each of the Gospels refers to this strong, courageous, unconventional character who was there, beside the river Jordan, baptising people who came wanting to turn from their sins, and laying down the demands of the coming Kingdom. And when Jesus came along, John recognised "The lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world" and was willing to go into obscurity while Jesus took centre stage.  It was all as had been promised: he was there to "prepare the way of the Lord."

But only Luke gives the details of John's miraculous birth, to the aged Zechariah and Elisabeth.  For Luke, it is the story of John's birth that starts the Gospel. I want to focus on the encounter Zechariah had with the angel. Here is an old man, maybe under a cloud of sadness that he has no children; as a Priest he is called upon to offer incense, and while he is in the temple God's angel promises him a son, who will be the one who will prepare the way.

If we want to prepare the way for Jesus, getting ready for Jesus to show something of his kingdom, in advance of his final return we need to look not just at the way the rough clothes and the locusts and wild honey john looked. We need to look at his inner life.

Sacrificial Discipleship.  And he must not drink wine or strong drink, (v15).  Now, I don't usually preach about drink, and you can't say the Bible teaches that drinking alcohol is a sin.  But you can say that going against your conscience is a sin; you can say that drinking to excess -the point where you are influenced in your character, you words, and you ability safely to perform tasks like driving - is a sin. And you can say that to do something that you know will cause other people to struggle, is sin. You may say, "It's a sacrifice to do without my pint, my glass of wine".  But it was more of a sacrifice in the time of Jesus when there was no Coca Cola or even a cup of tea!  For some of us it may be a sacrifice God calls us to make.  Specifially for John, I identified him as a Nazirite, one like Samson, set apart for God.

Christian service may be a sacrifice.  Baking for Coffee morning may be a sacrifice. Teaching in Lighthouse Kids or Bible Class may be a sacrifice. Minding the grandchildren, going shopping for a neighbour may be a sacrifice. Attendance may be a sacrifice:  going to church when there's something exciting on TV, or when it's a boring prayer meeting; or when you don't see the point; or when the place is cold or the music isn't to your taste. Sometimes not going to Church can be a sacrifice - perhaps because you need to be with your family. Witness will be a sacrifice: being counted as a Christian at work. Giving may be a sacrifice: recession hits charities including Christian ones and Churches, for a number of reasons: one of these is that Christians have not grasped the idea of sacrificial giving. And changing as a Christian or a church will involve sacrifice.  We need to get beyond the "feel-good factor" to understand the nature of sacrificial discipleship.  Preparing the way of the Lord, means sacrificial discipleship.  I know this is something I cannot do.  I cannot bring you painless, cost-free revival, because such a thing does not exist.

Spiritual Power "He will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother's womb. (v. 15) Here is the first reference to the Spirit's work in Luke's writing. And it's the first of many.  Next, it's what the angel says to Mary: her virgin pregnancy will be the work of the Holy Spirit.  Then Elisabeth, John's mother was filled with the Holy Spirit when Mary visited her.  When the baby Jesus was taken to the temple, the old man Simeon who blessed Jesus, was caught up "in the Spirit"... Before Jesus was baptized, John identified him as the "one who baptizes in the Holy Spirit"; the Spirit came upon Jesus like a dove; he was led by the Spirit in the desert; then when he began his work he said "The Spirit of the Lord his upon me..." One of the big truths Luke's Gospel keeps pointing to, is the work of the Spirit.  Someone said that "Acts of the Apostles" could be called "The Acts of the Holy Spirit" It could be called "The Acts of the Hoy Spirit, part two."  Luke's theology of the Spirit is in both books.

You can't get away from it.  Any revival, any "coming of Jesus" to do kingdom stuff- is going to have to involve the work of the Holy Spirit.  There's no Spiritless revival just like there's no cost-free revival.  If we want to prepare the way, we need spiritual power.

Strong words...  "He will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God, and will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared." Lk 1:16f    Speaking like Elijah means being prophetic; Elijah challenged idolatry wherever he found it.  For John that would mean challenging the rich, religious and powerful - "You brood of vipers..?"  It involved spelling out in plain terms, what repentance meant for ordinary people - tax-collectors, soldiers, and ordinary people: "He who has two tunics, share with the guy who has none..."   But there is also a tenderness there: preparing the way included a call to reconciliation "to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children (v 17)

Listen, I don't believe we need to be the censorious church, always tut-tutting about how bad the world is getting.  But we need to have something to say: we need to be prophetic in our society. And that means we need to hear the prophetic word ourselves: to be prepared to be challenged.  We need to know what the Gospel is, and how this gospel can change people's lives.  We need to be able to speak an affirming, positive and loving word into the hearts of the hundreds of people around us who think God doesn't care about them.

Simple faith   Why was poor Zechariah struck dumb, and made to spend the nine months of Elisabeth's pregnancy in enforced silence?   I tell you why. I believe our words matter.  God wanted John was to be nurtured into Sacrificial Discipleship, Spiritual Power, and an ability to speak strong words. What, more than anything, could parents do to threaten that? They could speak words of unbelief.  It was important that John grow up with an attitude of simple faith; and in order to grow up with an attitude of simple faith he had to grow up in an atmosphere of simple faith.  And the complicated thinking of a jaded old man who was inclined to say "I don't know how that can possibly be" was not the best way to create and atmosphere of faith."   Unbelieving words do damage: they release negative consequences.

They have a profound effect on children. When I was about eight years old, my Dad applied for a job in Melton Mowbray. For some reason he told me if we moved, we would have to travel down there in a train with no toilets... Let me tell you, I dreaded that journey.  If you tell a child he's no good, he will believe you.  If you tell a child the situation is hopeless, he will believe you.  If you tell a child God doesn't answer prayer, he is going to believe you.  And if you act as though God never answers prayer - that is to say you don't really pray about stuff - the child will pick up the idea that prayer isn't something you do in real situations.

The same applies to adults. In giving feedback to adults in training situations, you are supposed to find five good things to say, then one bad one: people have fragile souls.

And it applies in the heavenly realms, too.  When you say something will never work, someone will never get sorted out, you are perhaps unintentionally speaking a curse over them.  That is what negative words can do.

John needed to grow up knowing he was loved by his heavenly Father; he needed to know his value as a person was not connected with his popularity, or prosperity. He needed to be able to trust that when God gave him a prophetic word, God would back that word up. He needed to know when he baptised people that God was meeting with them to forgive their sins. When he started to say, "I baptize you with water, but he who is mightier than I is coming...." (Lk 3:16) he needed to know that the Promised one was coming.

We, as we seek to "prepare the way" for the present and coming Kingdom of God, as we prepare the way for the Christ of Christmas to display his Kingdom by pouring out his Spirit; to harvest souls in preparation for his return, need that simple faith.  It will enable us to live in sacrificial discipleship, to move in spiritual power and to speak strong words.

© Gilmour Lilly December 2010

Bible Sunday: 2 Timothy 3. 14-17 (5 December 2010)

Timothy was the son of a Jewish mother and a gentile (non-Jewish) Dad. He had been taught the Christian faith by his mother Eunice and his grandmother Lois, who must themselves have been fairly new Christians.  As a very young man he was privileged to join Paul's team, and before long he was given huge responsibility - as the leader of the Church in the Turkish city of Ephesus.  It must have been difficult integrating this new faith, in a heathen environment.

Inside himself he may well have asked, "Can I make this work in the real world?"   Was Timothy's faith in danger of being "for women and children only"?   He learned it, after all, from his Mum and his Gran, as little more than a child.

He was still a young man, and hence possibly somewhat unsure of himself; would people think he had nothing to offer because he was too young and inexperienced?

And to Timothy, Paul says, "hang in there.  Don't give up. Stir up the gifts you have been given (2 Tim 1. 6); and hang on to the truths you have been taught " (2 Tim 3. 14) A key resource for Timothy is Scripture....

All Scripture... But what is Scripture?
I watched a bit of a TV documentary a few weeks ago, in which the presenter suggested that there are many "Gospels" (attributed to names like Barnabas, Peter and Thomas) that are different to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John" (Correct) - and that these "Gospels" were suppressed when the councils of the Church decided in about 380 AD what was "in" and what wasn't. (Wrong - the whole process of deciding what was "in" and what wasn't, was going on from the moment people began to write down things about Jesus - and there is clear evidence of the story of Jesus being passed on in spoken form long before it was written down.)

But for Paul, the Scriptures consisted of the Old Testament.  But a few years later, Peter referred to those who twisted Paul's letters "as they do the other scriptures" - evidence that Christians were already accepting the authority of letters and books about Jesus.  Even if Paul would be too modest to claim his letters were Scripture, he knew he wrote with God's authority.  Definitely, some bits of Gospel were being gossiped by Christians and quoted in worship. Maybe Mark had written his account by then. Certainly, the "Scriptures" we have today were already taking shape, when Paul wrote to Timothy.  The Bible is God's word written: but God's word can be spoken, and Paul says, "Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God." Words were spoken well before they were ever written down. So what is "Scripture?" it is a written record of God's word to us.

....Is Inspired by God.  
What does "Inspired/God-breathed" mean?  Does it mean that God dictated every word that Paul, Mark, Luke, John, Isaiah, Jeremiah wrote?   Do you imagine that one day God told David, "Write this down David: 'The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.'"?   I suspect that rather, David the shepherd king, was one day thinking about his life, about keeping sheep, and about the challenges of looking after a whole nation... as he thought about what it was like to care for sheep and lead them into safe pastures, he realised that God's care is like that too, so he wrote a poem: "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want..." Inspiration comes through the experiences people have.  Words that can help build faith and lead people to know God, come out of the good times and bad times that people have; they come out of people's reflection on those times.  Inspiration means that God breathed through the experiences; he breathed through the thought processes, sometimes the anger and pain.  Paul wrote his letter to the Romans because he wanted to go on a missionary trip to Spain and he wanted all the Christians in Rome, who were divided between Jewish and non Jewish, to put their differences aside and support him. He wrote his letters to the Corinthians because the church in Corinth was full of excitable, undisciplined people who loved to party and were used to living very selfishly.  He wrote his letter to the Galatians because the Christians in northern Turkey had decided they needed to keep the Jewish law to be proper Christians.  Inspiration comes thought the experiences people have. So, the Bible's inspiration isn't some kind of fantasy writing, that claims to have been "dictated by God".  That means we can have confidence in the Bible: it's rooted in reality.

But if it's rooted in the reality of historical events, does that mean you can't understand the Bible without knowing a lot about the historical background, and the life people lived at the time of Jesus or David or Moses? Does that mean Christianity is a kind of book-learning, studious religion that is really only for book-reading, studious types? Doesn't it mean it's a bit beyond an ordinary working man or woman? As they say "it's all Greek to me". Doesn't it mean that you have to spend hours and hours reading it, listening to sermons about it?  Isn't that a bit of a useless way to spend your time?  Isn't all about weird people with weird names, and all remote from our lives; isn't it all in funny, old fashioned, out-of date language?  Isn't it all a kind of historical curiosity for the losers who like that sort of thing? Where's the relevance to my world?

...And is useful!  
It's useful for teaching the truth...

I don't know how many of you have a sat-nav.  We got one recently and it's really useful when you are trying to find your way around unfamiliar city streets in a place like Edinburgh.  But the sat-nav is dependent on having the right information downloaded. If there aren't any maps, you are stuck.  If I want to use the sat-nav on a trip to France, I need to make sure the map is in the computer.  If it has the right map in its memory, it will do the job.

We all carry inside our heads, a map of reality: our personal, online map of life, the universe and everything.  It tells you lots of things about how the world works: what happens if I stick my finger in the fire?  Does ice-cream taste nice? Is it better or worse with HP sauce on it?  Are drunk people good company? If I want a holiday in the sun should I go to Skye? Does having money make you happier? Can I trust people in uniform?  Do people only love me if I am a nice person?

We have a map of reality that provides us with our own answers to these and thousand of other questions.  It's called our "worldview".  When Paul says to Timothy the Scriptures are useful for teaching truth, what he means is that they can provide us with the building blocks to help us construct our worldview, our take on reality: Scripture can help us to factor spiritual reality, God, into our worldview. Scripture reveals truth about the God bit of reality; without it, there will be some bits on our map of reality that are greyed-out, because we haven't got the information we need so we are kind of left to our own imaginations.

And it's useful for training...

Paul says to Timothy, the Scripture teaches us to do what is right.  God uses it to prepare and equip his people to do every good work.   It is intensely practical.  It's not just about a bunch of vague theories. It's not just nice thoughts to comfort women and children.  Paul tells Timothy that Scripture can equip the man of God for every good work.  It's the map of life, the universe and everything. It's the manufacturer's handbook for life.  It's the instructing manual for the soul and the spirit.

You want to know how to know God? You'll find out in the Bible. You wan to know how to live without guilt? You'll find the answer in the Bible.  You want to make your world a better place? You'll find out how in the Bible.  You want to discover your purpose in life and how to fulfil it? Start with the Bible.

Every part of Scripture is God-breathed and useful one way or another-showing us truth, exposing our rebellion, correcting our mistakes, training us to live God's way. Through the Word we are put together and shaped up for the tasks God has for us. (The Message)

So, working with the Bible isn't about vague theories. It isn't about being something you're not.  It's not about watering down who you are. It's about finding out who you are.  Timothy, who had believed since childhood, a faith he learned from his Mum and his Gran, who felt he was too young to get people's respect, was able to be a man of God, thoroughly equipped for every good work.

© Gilmour Lilly December 2010