The Coming of the King-- Matt. 3

Many years ago, we decided to move from Upper Hutt to Lower Hutt.  Looking back it was a good move, but at the time we all struggled quite a bit.   For our children it was quite a traumatic uprooting from their friends and schools and so on.   As a sweetener to help them to come to terms with the decision, we promised them that they could have a dog in our new house.   Our children believed in us.  And they remembered what we have promised.  And they kept asking : Dad, Mum, when are we having a dog ?   In a matter of just over a year they got what they have been promised.     

How long did you have to wait for some of the promises others made to you ?  From your close friends, parents, or from God ?   Did you get really impatient when the promise did not look as if it was to be fulfilled ?  

 A man by the name of JO Fraser was called by God to share the good news to a very neglected people called the Lisus in southern China.  He obeyed and went.   God repeatedly gave him promises that thousands of Lisus will become Christians one day through his faithful effort.  JO Fraser untiringly shared the gospel after learning the rather difficult language.   The Lisu people were very polite, but not one person became a Christian after nearly ten years of his preaching.   Fraser did not give up, he continued to pray and to preach.  19 years after he first stepped foot in Lisu land, he won the first convert. And soon after, the flood gates seemed to just open and thousands of Lisus became Christians, as God has promised.  

For the Jews in Palestine, in the four hundred or so years before Jesus arrived, they have been praying and praying for someone to deliver them from their oppressors, someone to set them free.   For hundreds of years they have been suffering under one after another of their conquerors.  And they were almost in despair.  A few of their scholars and teachers were however hopeful that the promised deliverer will soon arrive. They looked into the scriptures and realized that God has promised them a king, a Messiah, who will sit on the throne of their Father David, their beloved King.  Can this be true ?   When is he arriving ? Many years have passed and their persistent prayers have welled up into heaven, but nothing seem to have happened, until one day, the whole of Jerusalem was buzzing with excitement.  Everybody was talking excitedly about a hitherto unknown prophet. And everyone was eager to go and hear him.  

Who is this prophet ?  And where is he ?   Someone asked.  "O he is preaching in the desert.   He does not look particularly impressive, but his message is what we have been waiting to hear : "  The message is an answer to their prayer.  The message is about a coming King and a kingdom that will soon be established.  A kingdom they hope will replace the hated rule of the Romans.  And so hundreds of people went to the desert to hear this message of hope and of urgency preached by John.  

 And what is this message ;
The preparation for the King
John's message was pure and simple : Repent !  Get ready.   You must change your ways !   The King is coming.  The kingdom of heaven is arriving soon.
This announcement of the coming of the King and his Kingdom is what they have been  waiting for.   After hundreds of years of their pain and despair, and crying out to the Lord to rescue them, here was an answer to their prayers.And so people poured out of their homes in thousands and they went to the desert to hear John proclaim the good news of the kingdom. It was good news, but the good news came with a call to prepare for the coming king.

What sort of preparation ?   
You may have remembered a year ago when it was first announced that the final episode of the Fellowship of the King was going to be premiered in Wellington.  People were beside themselves with excitement.  Wellington finally will be on the world stage.   Apart from many other things, the Embassy theatre was going to be completely refurbished at the cost of millions.   As well, hundreds of metres of red carpets were woven, and no expenses were spared to make this an occasion to remember.   And it was.  

The preparation for the coming of Jesus needs more than just a red carpet, more than the refurbishing of our outward appearance. The preparation needed is a change of heart.   A change from the inside, a change of our attitude, a change of our actions, a change of our lives.   That is repentance.   

Repent John said, otherwise you will not be ready for the King.  

Repentance is more than just being sorry for what we have done.   It is more than just trying to make new resolutions to turn over a new leaf.  That seldom works.
Repentance is actively turning away from our sin, and the love of sinning, and turning towards God.   This arises out of a deep realization of how evil and detestable sin really  is, and how it hurts God when we do sin.  Ultimately it is a deep work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts and not just a temporary plastering over of the cracks.. The scriptures said in John 14, that when the Holy Spirit comes he will convict people of their sins. 
Someone has once said that the word sin tells us a lot about what it is.

Sin is basically self centredness : with an "I" right in the middle.  When we sin, we try to please ourselves and forget about God, forget about others and the effect on others.  Sin means our starting point is  "Me", "My" and "Myself".    One of the very popular tunes in 60-70s our days was "I will do it my way !"  regardless how it affects other people. True repentance changes our view point and our self centredness and we begin to say to God, yes you may have your way in my life. 
A willingness to say :  Tell me where to go and what to do, and have your will fulfilled in my life.

When the Angel Gabriel came to Mary and told her that she has been chosen to be the mother of Jesus, it was a request that would turn her life upside down.  It was going to be a call that is hugely costly to her.  But Mary did not protest. At the risk of losing not only her reputation, her future husband, her relationship with her family and her own life, she said to the angel : let it be done unto me as you said. 

How does repentance apply to a Christian ?
When we first became a Christian, we came to Jesus we confessed our sins and our inability to please him by our own effort and receiving Jesus as our Saviour to save us from our sins as well as the consequences of sin. That was our first step in repentance.  Jesus came into our lives and turned it around and we began to see things in a new light.   And we try our best to please him in everything that we do. And joy fills our heart.  
I remembered singing the song :
"Things are different now something happened to me when I gave my life to Jesus.   Things I loved before have passed away, things I love far more have come to stay. Things are different now, something happened to me when I gave my life to Him."

Yes ,something did happen that day.  And I am no longer the same.  The new life and new joy that flooded our heart came with a new sensitivity and desire to want to please the Lord. That new tingle of joy carries on for days and even weeks, but then it seems to just evaporate away. Somewhere, somehow we did something we ought not to do, and we began to feel really miserable. We felt we have let the Lord down and we were ashamed of what we did.   And we began to wonder whether we have really become a Christian after all. 
At this point, it is really helpful to read what John wrote to his beloved young disciples : If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.  But if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from our unrighteousness.  1 John 1:8,9.  

Why do we need forgiveness again.   Were we not forgiven once for all, at the time when we first came to the Lord. Yes we were.  Jesus has paid for the price of our sin and we never ever have to pay for it again.  The problem of punishment is gone forever.  Jesus suffered the punishment for our sin, we will never fear about condemnation and punishment ever more !  That is the good news about being a Christian.   

But sin itself apart from its punishment still causes havoc in our relationship with God.  It is like a wall that blocks us from communicating with Him. Sin is a leverage that allows the accuser of the brethren, Satan, to make us feel unworthy, guilty and makes us want to give up altogether.  It gives him a foothold in our lives and damages our relationship with God.   We have not stopped being a Christian or being a child of God, but something has happened to that relationship and a wall has begun to be built up between God and us..   

For example :  When you have an serious argument with a good friend of yours, and you both

walked away upset and angry.  Temporarily, that friendship and closeness is suspended.  You can't talk intimately with one another again and there is a coldness, deadness between you that is really horrible and unbearable.  How is that resolved. One of you took up the courage to say sorry, how stupid of me to behave like that.  Would you forgive me ?  Look, here is a bunch of flowers or a bar of chocolate I thought you might like.   Then once again, the relationship is restored.  The silence was finished.  The frost melted and you could breathe and talk freely again.  

In the same way, when we as a Christian sin, we have not ceased to be a Christian or a child of God, but our relationship with God is strained.  Confession of our sin, brings forgiveness and a restoration of that relationship.   Not only so, it also cleanses our conscience, and we no longer feel unworthy to come before the almighty God and Satan's voice of accusation loses its power.    

The King is Baptised

Even as the people were doing what they could, waiting for the king's arrival, and lining up in their hundreds, confessing their sins and getting baptised, Jesus himself came to the river Jordan to be baptised by John. This really put John in an embarrassing position.   Here is the King he was talking about, the king everyone was waiting for.  The king who would as he said, baptize everyone with fire and with the Holy Spirit. But He did not come with pomp and ceremony, and he came with army or chariots, he did not walk on a red carpet.   He came as a lowly humble individual and he simply joined the queue, lined up behind everybody else, so that he too could be baptised.  And by so doing he demonstrated to us what true servant leadership was all about :

a.  Jesus : comes in humility
Instead of walking up to John and said, hey, I have arrived.  I am the one you have been talking about.  Let me take over.  I might be able to do a better job than you, as John might have expected him to say.    No.   He said in effect : here am I. Please baptise me. Don't worry.   You are doing a wonderful job. Throughout his ministry, Jesus consistently practiced servant leadership. One of the most striking instance was when they were gathering together for the last meal together, the last supper as we called it.   It was the local custom that a host will provide a servant to wash his guests' feet, quite a necessary ritual because they all have making walking in dusty conditions, with sweaty and rather dirty feet and all sit on the ground right next to one another.  

But on this occasion, there was no servant, or at least no one among the disciples was willing to be the servant.   They all probably fought for the best seat, right next to their master and all arguing who was the greatest among them all.  Jesus said nothing. He got up.  Took off his outer garment and took a towel and a bowl of water and began washing his disciples' feet and to dry them with the towel.  How embarrassing for his disciples.  Indeed, but Jesus humbly took the servants' place, in order to set an example for servant leadership.   I have come Jesus said, not to be served, but to serve, and to give my life as a ransom for many.  

What kind of leadership are you, what kind of leadership am I ?   Do I always look for the easiest path, to get the best advantage, to get the most praise ? or am I like Jesus ?

Even as Jesus was baptised, and came up out of the water, the scriptures said :the heaven opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on him.  And a voice from heaven said, This is my Son, whom I love, with him am well pleased.  

b. The Holy Spirit  :  comes in meekness and in power
The Spirit of God came down like a  Dove and rested on Jesus.  What is the significance of that ?  Well a Dove nearly always represents gentleness and meekness. While the Spirit of God comes with all the power that He will ever need in his ministry, he comes to represent the kind of  power that Jesus is to use in serving the world. 
Isaiah 42 :  Her is my servant, whom I uphold.  My chosen one in whom I delight.  I will put my spirit on him and he will bring justice to the nations.  He will not shout or cry out, or raise his voice in the streets.  A bruised reed he will not break, and a smouldering wick he will not snuff out….."

Someone has once said that meekness is not weakness:  meekness is simply hidden strength . The Holy Spirit is not given to us in order for us to impress others how good or how special we are.  The power of Holy Spirit is first and foremost to equip us to serve, and to make us aware that our strength is from him.  He is the one who makes the difference, and we are only the channels. 
Let us serve with gentleness and with humility.  

What else happened at the baptism ?  God spoke from heaven acknowledging his love for his Son.   This is my Son, my beloved……I am well pleased with him……  God put as it were his stamp of approval on Jesus right at the beginning of his ministry.   Well done my beloved Son, I am delighted with you.  Won't it be nice you said, if God said that to me ? 

c  The Father :  comes in love and approval
But the  amazing thing is that God is saying the same to each of us, as his Sons and daughters.  If our

ears are open today, we would hear God saying to you and to me and speaking our name :  You are my beloved Son, my daughter I love you very much.   My love for you is without conditions, without strings attached. It does not depend on how you feel, what you have done or have not done.   I have loved you well before you knew me because I have loved you with an everlasting love.   Come and receive my love. 
How do I know that ?   John 3:16   God so loved the world that he gave his only Son.  How much love…. Enough for him to give up his own Son !   If God loved Jesus very much, then he must love you a lot to give his son to die for you and for me.    If you have never ever experienced or received that love, I want to pray for you that you may receive that love today….