Sermon: The Message of John the Baptist 08-12-2013
Yesterday morning, I was listening to an interviewer on Radio 4 who asked Jimmy Carter, the former US President, what he thought about the idea that some people were likening Nelson Mandela to Jesus.
Did Jimmy Carter agree with them?
Jimmy Carter replied: “No, because as a Christian I believe that Jesus is the divine Son of God and Mandela was merely a man”.
But that got me thinking.
Who do I think Mandela was more like in the Scriptures?
And it struck me that Mandela - in his character – had some great similarities to John the Baptist, because he – like John was a man of integrity.
And it was only because Mandela and John the Baptist had integrity that their message could be heard.
Both John the Baptist and Nelson Mandela stood for what they believed in – and both landed in prison for it.
Mandela was offered a deal to come out of Robben Island earlier than he did – if he would compromise his principles.
John the Baptist could have kept his head if he had stopped telling Herod that he was an adulterer. He could have compromised to live.
This morning I would like to look at just one verse from our Gospel reading. The verse in which John the Baptist says:
8 Produce fruit in keeping with repentance.
What is really interesting is that John is speaking to the religious people in Israel – not the irreligious people.
He is telling them that THEY (the good guys if you would like) have to change.
It seems crazy doesn’t it until you look into the background.
For so long, the Pharisees and Sadducees had managed to live a double standard.
They taught piety on the one hand yet on the other manipulated the Word of God to enable them to live differently another.
Jesus ran into conflict with the religious people over the concept of Corban in Mt 15 and summed up the religious people’s attitude to God’s word:
These people make a big show of saying the right thing, but their heart isn’t in it.
They act like they’re worshiping me, but they don’t mean it. They just use me as a cover for teaching whatever suits their fancy.”
(Mt:15:8-9 The Message)
So when John came proclaiming a message of repentance, he was telling them that he didn’t simply require them to give intellectual assent to the religious proposition that they needed to repent.
He said: You have to change:
8 Produce fruit in keeping with repentance
Earlier this year, I reading a book by Bill Hybels called “Courageous Leadership”.
It stood me in good stead because when I went out to Kenya in May this year (2013), the Vicar of St Matthew’s Kanamai, Geoffrey Dida asked me to speak on “Leadership” at the Conference he had organised for his church leaders the following day.
The book was a very useful basis for the discussion.
Bill Hybels runs the very successful Willow Creek Community Church which was founded on 12th October 1975.
Since then, the Willow Creek Association was formed in the 1990’s, which has been used by God to reach hundreds and thousands for Christ.
Bill Hybel’s recipe for good leadership is to find people with the following characteristics
• character,
• competence, and
• chemistry
In that order.
If you don’t have a good character, it doesn’t matter how competent you are – or how well you get on with others (the chemistry) - you won’t make it as a good Christian leader.
And as I mulled that over, I thought: “Come to think of it, if the character is wanting, you won’t make a good Christian.” – full stop.
St Paul said to the Christians in Corinth that:
“If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone the new has come.” (2 Cor. 5:17)
And that should IMPACT the WAY we live.
Being a NEW CREATION must result in living a NEW LIFESTYLE.
Or as John the Baptist put it in our Gospel reading this morning:
8 Produce fruit in keeping with repentance.
When God’s Holy Spirit lives in us – he starts to touch areas of our lives that need changing.
He starts with the word integrity
Is what we are doing in line with the Scriptures?
Can we seriously do God’s Will while openly rejecting some of the 10 commandments?
For example, can we expect God to bless us if we commit adultery?
Do I need to pray and ask God is I should commit adultery.
Of course not.
Because God has already revealed in the Bible his view on the matter.
If we have thoughts like that we need to repent.
One of the deadliest killers of a great Christian ministry has been adultery.
The road of Christian ministry is sadly strewn with men who have committed adultery
Or can we expect God to bless us if we steal from others? However we justify it.
“Does the end justify the means?”
No it doesn’t.
We do well to reflect on the words of St Paul who said :
10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared before that we would walk in them. (Ephesians 2:10 World English Bible).
We do not become Christians by doing good works - for as St Paul puts it, that is God’s job.
However, once we are Christians, God works on us to change us.
And He expects us to respond by doing the good works He has prepared for us to do.
C.S. Lewis expressed it like this in Mere Christianity:
“Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house.
At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing.
He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised.
But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense.
What on earth is He up to?
The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of - throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards.
You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace.
He intends to come and live in it Himself.”
Several years ago C.S. Lewis wrote a book entitled “The Screwtape Letters.
Screwtape was a Master Demon who wrote a series of letters to his nephew Wormwood, who was a Demon in training.
I came something this week, that someone had written who had obviously read Lewis’ book.
It is another letter, this one written by a Demon named Twisttape to his young apprentice Harshwood.
I want to share it with you in closing today.
The letter begins:
Dear Harshwood,
I understand that you are about to graduate with honours and begin your work on earth. I’m glad that your training went so well.
I would like to give you one piece of advice, one bit of devilish wisdom that I feel will be very useful to you as you begin your tour of duty on Earth.
One of the most important things I learned about humans during my tour of duty was that they think very highly of themselves.
For the most part they consider themselves to be good, moral and upstanding people.
The faults, the shortcomings and even the sins of others are very obvious to them.
But when they look at themselves all they see is what they want to see, which of course are their good points.
My advice to you my dear Harshwood, is to encourage that kind of thinking.
Encourage it for all its worth.
Our Enemy wants them to see their sins as God sees them, so they will turn back to Him.
But that’s the last thing we want.
I encourage you to blind their eyes, their hearts, and their souls to that revelation.
Encourage them to think only of their good points and you, my dear friend Harshwood, will succeed in damning thousands of human beings to the fires of Hell.
When Pastors and Evangelists preach about their need for repentance convince them that there is no need for them to repent, that the pastor is really talking about the person sitting in the balcony or on the other side of the church.
When the pastor reads the words of John the Baptist, help them to fall asleep or turn to other thoughts, so they will not realize that John is speaking to them.
Convince them that they are in pretty good shape, that there is no need for them to repent, and then you’ll have them.
For you see, my dear Harshwood, when human beings start thinking about how good they are, they get filled with pride, and when that happens they are as good as ours.
Good luck on your tour of duty, my heart goes out to you as you use every trick, every scheme, every evil desire, every good intention, every proud thought to win souls for the god of this world, our lord and Master, Satan himself.
Signed Your Devoted Teacher, Twisttape
(My thanks to Matthew Sicking for the illustration – to be found at http://www.sermoncentral.com/print_friendly_illustration.asp?illustration_id=61350)
