The Fourth Sunday in introduction – “Make Straight the way of ...

The Fourth Sunday in advent

December 18, 2011

"Make Straight the manner of the Lord"

John 1:19-28

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Now here's the testimony of John, when the Jews sent monks and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, "who're you?"  He confessed, and didn't deny, however confessed, "i'm not the Christ."  and that they asked him, "What then? Are you Elijah?" He noted, "i am not." "Are you the Prophet?" And he answered, "No."  Then they referred to to him, "who're you, that we can provide a solution to those who despatched us? What do you say about yourself?"  He mentioned: "i'm 'The voice of one crying within the desolate tract: "Make straight the style of the LORD," ' because the prophet Isaiah observed."  Now people who had been sent were from the Pharisees.  and they requested him, saying, "Why then do you baptize if you are not the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?"  John answered them, announcing, "I baptize with water, but there stands One amongst you whom you don't know.  it is He who, coming after me, is favorite before me, whose sanda l strap i'm not valuable to loose."  this stuff were executed in Bethabara beyond the Jordan, where John was baptizing. John 1:19-28

John confessed.  He didn't deny.  He confessed.  He changed into not the Christ.  He was the voice.  The voice isn't Christ.  He handiest speaks for Christ.� � but he does communicate for Christ.  He received't deny that.  He'll no longer lower back faraway from that.  His words are God's phrases.  So when he confesses that he is not the Christ he's by way of no skill denying that what he says is the actuality.  He is aware of he speaks the truth it is from God.  he is the voice of God.

John did not claim any special popularity for himself.  but he most certainly did declare divine authority for what he said.  John himself isn't any large deal.  He isn't useful of tying or untying Jesus' footwear.  He claims nothing for himself.  He's no longer Elijah.  He's no longer the Prophet.  He's no person particular.

however you'd superior listen to what he says!  He says, "Make straight the way of the Lord."  He says what God, in the course of the prophet Isaiah, gave him to say:

prepare the style of the LORD; make straight in the barren region a toll road for our God.  each valley will be exalted and every mountain and hill brought low; the crooked places will likely be made straight and the tough locations clean; the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together; for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.

The Lord God of Israel is the God who, in the beginning, created heaven and earth.  he is the God who made us in his personal photograph.  he's the God who referred to as Abraham out of the land of Ur and promised that in him all of the nations of the earth can be blessed.  he's the God who gave the impression to Moses at the burning bush and delivered Israel from bondage in Egypt and gave them the Ten Commandments.  he is the God who despatched the prophets and spoke through them.  he's the God who despatched Gabriel to tell Elizabeth that she would provide delivery to John and who informed Mary that she would give start to Jesus.  he's the handiest God who has ever existed.

And now here is John making ready the style for this God as he preaches, "Make straight the way of the LORD."  he is making ready the style for Jesus.  Jesus is the Lord God of Israel.  The God who spoke by using the prophets has now made his appearance amongst us.  "Make straight the style of the LORD."

Now John is however a voice.  He calls nobody to follow himself.  He directs every person who hears his voice to Jesus.  but if this is so, why does he baptize?  naturally, baptism entails allegiance to someone.  There is not any such component as a conventional baptism.  Baptism at all times has a manufacturer name.  but who is John?  What brand is he?  now not the Christ?  now not Elijah?  no longer the Prophet?  only a voice?  Why then do you baptize?  What kind of a baptism is it?

there have been numerous sorts of ceremonial washings among the many Jews of John's day.  They had been no longer sacraments.  they'd no divine command or promise.  They were human customs.  They did not supply the forgiveness of sins.  They had been in simple terms symbolic.  they'd no extra power than that of a reminder of a purity and holiness that they did not bestow.

but John's baptism become a real sacrament.  It was more than a symbolic ritual washing.  It became a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, because the Gospels of Sts. Mark and Luke inform us.  Put into our frequent theological language, John's baptism changed into a way of grace.  It become a way in which God gave his grace to sinners in want of it.

now not handiest became John's baptism a way of grace, it become for everybody.  He baptized lifelong believers, not just Gentile proselytes who had been converting to the religion.  John's baptism changed into for all and sundry because everyone vital to repent and acquire the forgiveness of sins.  This turned into the simplest manner to fulfill the Lord God who was coming.

The voice of 1 crying within the desolate tract teaches us that we're all in the equal boat.  all of us have the same needs.  We should prepare for the arriving of God within the flesh.  God got here in the flesh on Christmas.  This God in the flesh got here thirty years later preaching the gospel of the kingdom.  This God in the flesh comes to us these days in the Sacrament of the Altar and we prepare to receive him, within the phrases from the appropriate Preface for advent, "Whose way John the Baptist organized, proclaiming Him the Messiah, the very Lamb of God, and calling sinners to repentance, that they may get away from the wrath to be published when He comes again in glory."

smartly, I've been a Christian all my lifestyles.  i used to be baptized as an newborn.  I've long gone to church every Sunday of my life.  My father turned into a Christian, his father changed into a Christian, his father became a Christian, his father changed into a Christian, and we can hint it returned so far as the household can be traced.  They had been all baptized, all of them partook of Christ's body and blood in Holy Communion, and that they all confessed the pure gospel as taught in the Holy Scriptures and faithfully confessed in Luther's Small Catechism, the Augsburg Confession, and the rest of the confessions of the Church contained within the booklet of harmony of 1580.  yes, I've been a Christian all my life and that i understand of no time in my life that I did not be aware of that Jesus became my Savior from sin and that i'm saved via religion by myself in him.

And it's to me that the voice cries out: "Make straight the way of the Lord."  And it's to you.  it's a frequent call and it's a relentless call and the name will continue to be cried out except Christ returns to choose the living and the dead.  each person should repent and we need to repent every day of our lives.

there's a well-liked but false view of repentance and style that has taken grasp all the way through tremendous parts of american Protestantism.  It's an error of which we may still be warned, so let me warn you of it.  The error is twofold.  First, it denies that Holy Baptism is a method of grace that provides us with the forgiveness of sins and everlasting existence.  2nd, it falsely teaches that as soon as somebody has repented of his sins and come to have faith in Jesus as his Savior he can't be lost.  He cannot fall away.  This false doctrine holds to the slogan: "as soon as saved, all the time saved."

with the aid of denying that Holy Baptism is a means of grace through which the Holy Spirit seals to us the forgiveness of sins, these errorists change the Holy Spirit with the flesh.  They change Holy Baptism with the resolution of the believer, as if our determination has extra vigour and validity than God's washing.  as a substitute of Jesus coming to us in Holy Baptism and the Lord's Supper and the preaching of the gospel, they have us coming to Jesus by means of making him the Lord of our lives by way of means of our trustworthy resolution of religion.  as soon as we've made the determination of faith, it's a finished deal and we can't fall away.  select Jesus as your Savior.  Invite him into your heart.  Then, you are going to ever after have the reassurance of eternal existence.  Eternity safety can be yours!

They should still listen to the voice of John crying within the barren region.  When he referred to, "Make straight the manner of the Lord," he wasn't talking a couple of one time resolution we make.  He wasn't saying that we permit him to come back to us with the aid of making his means straight as if he can't come to us with out our aid!

listen to John.  Repentance isn't a one time element.  Repent and get it over with.  Repentance is lifelong.  Baptism is a one time component.  God baptizes us once and as soon as is enough.  John's preparatory baptism became changed via Jesus' permanent baptism and we who have been baptized by the authority of Christ within the identify of the daddy, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost do not need to be baptized more than as soon as.  This baptism is Christ graciously coming to us day by day of our lives.  but there has always been just one method to get hold of the grace of God in Christ.  and that's through faith.  And religion is born in repentance.

Repentance doesn't bring Jesus to us.  He comes of his personal free will.  hearken to the spectacular creation hymn with the aid of Paul Gerhardt instructing us about our vigor and Christ's coming:

Ye don't need to toil nor languishNor examine day and nightHow in the middle of anguishYe draw Him by way of your may.He comes, He comes all inclined,Moved by using His love by myself,Your woes and troubles stilling;For all to Him are everyday.

We don't make Jesus our Savior with the aid of drawing him to us.  He involves us as a result of he loves us.  but he involves sinners.  And he involves forgive.  in case you won't be a sinner you can not understand him.  simplest sinners want a Savior.  handiest sinners will also be saved from their sins.  simplest sinn ers who recognize they are sinners and who mourn their sins and wish them forgiven may have anything else to do with him who got here in the flesh and who comes in his holy potential of grace.

Make straight the manner of the Lord.  Confess your sins to God.  have you ever disobeyed those God set over you to honor and obey?  have you damaged guarantees you have got given?  have you been lazy?  have you harm any person by what you mentioned or did?  have you taken what you had no correct to take?  have you disregarded to do what you were given to do?  have you lied?  have you ever despised God's be aware?  have you ever taken God's name in useless?  have you broken your marital vows?  have you ever served yourself when God informed you to serve those with whom you're employed and live?

Confess your sins to God.  Don't hang on to them in cussed insistence for you to do what you are looking to do.  Doing what you desired to do is what caught you up to your sins within the first location.  You can be a Christian, however you're still a sinner.  God doesn't name on sinners to bitch about how complicated life is for them.  He calls on them to repent.  Confess.  Lay your burden of sin earlier than the throne of God's grace.

And take God's notice to heart.  He forgives you all your sins for Jesus' sake.  Your faith doesn't trust to your choice for Jesus.  It trusts in his determination for you.  He decided to take upon himself your body and blood.  He obtained your human nature from his mother Mary, but he become preserved from any taint of original sin.  all through his lifetime of obedience and self-sacrificing love he avoided all sin.  He lived the best sinless life ever lived.  And he lived it for you.  He lived your existence for you.  On the cross the Lord God develop into flesh, whose footwear no mere man is worthy to untie, took upon himself the shame of our sin.  He inclined faced it so as to wash that sin away.

Now he comes to us and provides us the treasures he purchased for us with the aid of his holy life and loss of life.  He chooses us as his personal in Holy Baptism.  In his Supper he offers us to eat and to drink of the identical physique and blood in which he procured our liberty and eternal salvation.  anytime we hear the voice of his gospel we hear him.  he isn't ashamed to claim us.  He remains Immanuel, God with us, continually.

Sin's debt, that anxious burden,Let now not your souls misery;Your guilt the Lord will pardonAnd cover by His grace.He comes, for guys procuringThe peace of sin forgiven,For all God's sons securingTheir heritage in heaven.

Amen.

Pastor Rolf Preus