The Messenger and the Message
Righteous Judgements
We have a deep need and desire for what is wicked to be called evil and what is righteous to be called right.
Malachi 2:17-3:5
You have wearied the Lord with your words. But you say, “How have we wearied him?” By saying, “Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and he delights in them.” Or by asking, “Where is the God of justice?” “Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts. But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner's fire and like fullers' soap. He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, and they will bring offerings in righteousness to the Lord. Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord as in the days of old and as in former years. “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.
“A child of the light confesses instantly and stands bared before God; a child of the darkness says, 'Oh, I can explain that away.”
- Oswald Chambers
The Advent season enables us to slow down, focus and place Christ in His rightful place. The refiner's fire separates the dross from the pure gold. The impurities, the things that we've clung to and in which we've found our identity outside of Christ (i.e. - career, relationships, money, beauty, health, comforts) are removed whether through preaching or circumstance so that Jesus might be at the center again and forever.
John 7:7
The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify about it that its works are evil.
-Jesus
“Satan does not tempt us to do wrong things; he tempts us in order to make us lose what God has put into us by regeneration, viz., the possibility of being of value to God. He does not come on the line of tempting us to sin, but on the line of shifting the point of view, and only the Spirit of God can detect this as a temptation of the devil.”
- Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest: Traditional Updated Edition
Matthew 5:13-16
“You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet. 14 “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.
Isaiah 40:3-8
A voice cries: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.” A voice says, “Cry!” And I said, “What shall I cry?” All flesh is grass, and all its beauty is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades when the breath of the Lord blows on it; surely the people are grass. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.
John the Baptist came as the prophesied messenger and forerunner to Jesus who would prepare the way for Christ's redemptive work.
Redemption
Redemption came for Elizabeth and Zechariah who had served the Lord blamelessly for many years but remained barren until the birth of John the Baptist. Redemption came for the line of Judah who had a family history of both wicked and good kings who would all lead to the perfect Christ.
Luke 1:67-79
And his father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied, saying, “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David, as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old, that we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us; to show the mercy promised to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant, the oath that he swore to our father Abraham, to grant us that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies, might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him all our days. And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of their sins, because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.”
Rest
"It is not repentance that saves me, repentance is the sign that I realize what God has done in Christ Jesus."
- Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest
It is through the cross of Christ that we experience God's grace. It is through His death, burial and resurrection that we truly enter into rest.
ALMIGHTY God, give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us the armour of light, now in the time of this mortal life, in which thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious Majesty, to judge both the quick and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, now and ever. Amen.
From the Book of Common Prayer (1662) used in Anglican services for the first Sunday of Advent
Second City Church- Fulfilled Sermon Series - Rollan Fisher 2017