Sermon Tone Analysis

Luke 3:1-18

 

! Introduction

                One of the most fascinating chapters in Canadian History is that of the building of the railway across this country.

Pierre Burton has written two books, The National Dream and The Last Spike which describe the whole process.

In Northwestern Ontario, the task of making a level path to lay rails was complicated by the swamps which seemed to be bottomless bogs.

There is a story that in one place a whole engine disappeared into the mire.

In BC, the challenge was to cross deep gorges and traverse high mountains.

Surveyors carried heavy equipment up mountains to plan the most level route possible.

If you travel to BC today, there is a monument and museum at Cragalachie where the last spike was driven.

It celebrates the completion of this great event.

As you drive through this mountainous terrain, it is amazing to think about what was involved in getting the railway through.

Today whether we travel by rail or road, we sometimes take for granted the great difficulty involved in laying a level surface on which to travel, but if we want nice level roads, it is essential that the mountains be leveled and the valleys be filled in.

The imagery of building a road is used in the Bible to help us understand the need to clear a way for God to enter into our lives.

It appears in Luke 3:1-18 and is descriptive of the work of John the Baptist.

I invite you to turn to this passage.

In two weeks, we will celebrate Easter.

At that time, we will think about how God has entered into human history to establish a way for us to have a relationship with Him.

We will think about Jesus’ death on the cross and how that paved the way for forgiveness.

We will think about his resurrection and how that has opened the way to heaven for us.

We will observe the Lord’s supper together as we remember these things.

Easter is a good time to rejoice that God has come to us.

It is a good time to examine our lives to see if he still has access into our lives.

It is a good time to open the path and clear away any debris which has blocked His way into our life.

There are many churches which celebrate a season of lent during this time of the year.

Lent began this year on March 8 and runs for 40 days, not including Sundays, until the Saturday before Easter Sunday.

One writer describes the meaning of Lent in the following way: “Lent is a season of soul-searching and repentance.

It is a season for reflection and taking stock.

Lent originated in the very earliest days of the Church as a preparatory time for Easter, when the faithful rededicated themselves…” In our tradition, we have not usually observed Lent, but I think that there is something valuable here.

As we anticipate the celebration of Easter, I would like to call us to a season of reflection and repentance in order to make sure that the way for God to come into our lives is clear.

In the gospels, the person who was sent by God to do the work of preparing the hearts of people for the coming of Jesus was John the Baptist.

He called people to a baptism of repentance and helped prepare hearts that were ready when Jesus came.

Why did God send him?

You may have heard the story of the man who sold his donkey and when the buyer tried to take the donkey home, it didn't budge.

After trying everything, the buyer went

back to the seller and said, "I thought you told me that the donkey listened well, but he won't budge and I've tried everything."

The seller said, "he listens well, but you have to get his attention first."

Then he went out, grabbed a 2x4 and whacked the donkey over the head, told him to go, and the donkey went.

Because of their sin, the people of Israel were not in a state of mind to listen to Jesus and the work of John the Baptist was a work of getting their attention.

I promise I won’t whack you over the head with a 2x4, but rather, I would like to gently suggest that each of us needs to pay attention as we listen to the message of John the Baptist and examine whether the path of God into our life is clear and level.

! I.

The Need For Repentance

                Repentance seems to be a bad word these days and we don’t often hear it or hear preaching on it.

Why mention it?

Why have a message on it especially in a context of believers?

!! A. It’s Subtle Entrance

When Bill Graham preaches, his messages often include a call to repentance.

We know that people who are unbelievers need to repent before they can become believers.

When John the Baptist preached, tax collectors, sinners, soldiers and others of questionable morality came to repent and we applaud their desire for change, but John also called the religious leaders to repentance.

The Jewish people and particularly the Jewish leaders were a people who thought they had it all together.

They thought that God favored them because they belonged to the family of Abraham.

But John speaks harsh words to them.

He called the people a "brood of vipers."

A viper is a snake and a brood is a bunch of offspring, children, if you will.

I wonder if the "viper" he has in mind here is in fact the snake who started all the trouble -  Satan.

If so,  he was calling them children of Satan.

They thought they were so religious and had pure blood lines to holiness because they were children of Abraham, but in fact they were children of Satan.

Sometimes when we hear a message calling us to repentance, we think about other people who are living a sinful lifestyle.

In the case of John the Baptist, the tax collectors and other sinners knew they needed to repent and did, but the religious leaders who also needed to repent did not.

They had become complacent and self righteous.

When we read that, we have to be careful to open our hearts to God.

We may have things in our life that we hadn’t noticed were there.

We may have allowed habits and patterns to develop that have now begun to block God’s way into our lives.

It is necessary to come to repentance because of this possibility.

What has come into your life that blocks God’s way?

I have only begun to get to know you and so I don’t know what there is that needs changing.

I know some of the things that sometimes creep into my life and so please permit me to suggest that perhaps we need to look for such things as jealousy, anger, doubting God, being more concerned about selfish pleasures than pleasing God.

Sometimes these things are so subtle that we don’t even notice.

Because of the possibility of sin having crept unnoticed into our life, a season of reflection is necessary.

!! B. It’s Evil Effects

If sin has come into our life then it is very important to get rid of it because of all the terrible things that sin does.

Dr. C.E.M. Joad, who was a secular philosopher once wrote, "Sin I dismissed as the incidental accompaniment of man's imperfect development.

I have come lately to disbelieve all this.

I see now that evil is endemic in man, and that the Christians doctrine of original sin expresses a deep and essential insight into the human nature."

The word endemic is defined in the dictionary as the "action of dwelling or that which is native to a people."

It is used to define the fact that sin is not a result of our environment but is part of who we are.

As a result of Adam's fall, sin has entered the world and it is present everywhere as normal to human beings.

If we don’t bring it to the cross, it will steal into our lives and take over.

Andy Doerksen, speaks of sin as "a wasteland of our own making."

It devastates.

If it goes unchecked, it always results in destruction.

When we sin, we build walls.

If as a father, I say "no" to my child but if my child does it anyway there is a breech in our relationship.

As a wife, you entrust your life to your husband and if he betrays that trust by going with another woman the relationship is in a state of brokeness.

All sin leads to broken relationships and the first broken relationship is between us and God.

As soon as Adam and Eve sinned, they hid from God because they had a broken relationship.

A survey found that thirty four percent of U.S. adults when asked what they most felt guilty about responded with "nothing in particular."

This reveals the other problem with sin and that is that it brings guilt.

Because sin is so destructive, it is critical that we deal with it in our lives.

!! C. It Will Be Judged

                A poem in the Western Canadian, a community newspaper, included the cliche, "You do the crime, you pay the time."

We have a sense that if someone does something wrong, they should pay for it.

Today, many people do not like the concept of punishment, but it is built into the system and we all know that it is right.

If you break the rules, there are consequences and the consequence for breaking the big rule is death.

Sin is punishable, not because God is vengeful or because God is trying to correct us, but because punishment is a just consequence of doing something wrong.

The people had a sense of the coming judgement of God.

When John accuses them of being a bunch of vipers fleeing the coming wrath, he acknowledges that this is what they were doing.

When there is sin in our lives, we know that we are under God’s wrath.

He affirms that perspective when in vs. 17, he assures that the Messiah will separate the wheat from the chaff and burn up the chaff.

Judgement is coming and all who fail to repent will experience it.

Because God will judge it, is necessary for us to take time to examine our lives.