Good morning and welcome to those joining us by radio! Grace and I are back from two great weeks of vacation. We traveled to Boise and Seattle to see our daughters Sarah and Abby and most importantly our 3 year old grand-daughters Eva and Mackenzie. What a delight! I have about fifty pictures to show you this morning – but I’m only allowed 4.
This morning is the 2nd Sunday of Advent. Last week, Pastor Ralph began our advent series by introducing you to the Jesse tree. He said the symbol of the Jesse tree has been used for over a 1000 years to remind us of the story of our salvation.
The inspiration comes from Isaiah 11:1. The year is about 700 BC - 300 years after the reign of King David and the glory of King Solomon. Since then, Israel has been in steady decline. They abandoned the Lord and his Law and turned to their own way. They sank to a level of moral depravity that was worse than the pagan nations around them.
As a result, God allowed judgment to fall. The nation of Assyria wiped out the ten tribes of the northern kingdom. The southern kingdom of Judah manages to hold on for another 100 years. But then the Babylonians totally destroy Jerusalem and haul the survivors into captivity.
The beautiful tree that was once the nation of God’s chosen people is cut off at the roots. Only a stump remains. That’s what sin does – what was full of potential and promise gets cut off at the roots. It’s to this situation of hopelessness, helplessness, and judgment, that Isaiah writes, “A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.” Isa 11:1
Jesse was the father of King David. God promised that one day the Messiah, the Savior King of the whole world would come from David’s line. He will be like a shoot springing up from this cut off stump. He will be a branch bearing much fruit and his fruit that will last into eternity.
Jesus is the fulfillment of this prophetic word! In the NT, Jesus is called the Nazarene because he was raised in the podunk town of Nazareth. The word nazar in Hebrew means branch. Amazing coincidence, don’t you think? Or is it?
Maybe you remember how Jesus talked about the unfruitful tree. He said the gardener prunes and fertilizes and tends this barren tree to make it more productive but the tree refuses to respond and it’s cut down and thrown in the fire. When we push God away, our lives become spiritual barren and we end up cut off like a stump – just like ancient Israel.
Scripture is filled with these connections between the OT and the NT and not one of them is coincidental! They are directed by the Holy Spirit. God doesn’t make mistakes. No matter how we mess things up, God’s will, his purpose will ultimately be fulfilled because God is not only holy and merciful. He is absolutely sovereign. That’s either good news or bad news depending on whose side you are on!
The Jesse tree reminds us that God works through ordinary people to fulfill his plan of salvation. Last Sunday, Pastor Ralph got us started with a look at Abraham and Zechariah. If you missed it, I encourage you to visit our website and listen to Ralph’s powerful message.
This morning we look at two more ordinary people who played vital roles in the coming of the Savior – Moses and John the Baptist. God used them both to prepare the way for the coming of Jesus. Here’s how it worked.
The year is somewhere around 1500 BC. The family of Abraham, now called Israel, has been in Egypt for some 400 years. They have grown into a great nation - so great that Pharaoh, out of fear, has enslaved them. Exodus 2 ends with these words, “The Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out, and their cry for help because of their slavery went up to God. God heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. So God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them.” Ex 2:23-25
We don’t have any indication that these Hebrews knew or remembered anything about the God who revealed himself to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. But God hadn’t forgotten them. He was already preparing a man, a guy who was probably the absolute opposite of everything we imagine in Charlton Heston! His name was Moses.
You think you have issues? Moses had issues. We’ll have to do a sermon series on him sometime. Hey, listen up, if God can use Moses, he can use you!
God uses Moses to bring his people out of slavery, through the wilderness, back to the land he promised Abraham over 400 years earlier. They called it the Promised Land. It’s a story that reflects our journey through the wilderness of this life on our way to heaven, the Promised Land.
The event that concerns us this morning is the key event in the journey of the Exodus - the giving of the 10 commandments. The Bible calls it “the Law”. The Bible tells us that God has 3 purposes in giving us the law. To reveal sin, constrain evil, and show us the path of blessing.
It’s this first purpose that I want us to focus on today. God gives us the law to reveal the depth of our depravity and expose the sin and darkness in our hearts. This prepares the way for us to understand how desperately we need a Savior. The longer I study the Scriptures the more amazed I am at the wisdom and power that is here in God’s Word!
Contrary to the opinion of liberal theologians through out history and even today, the Bible is not just a bunch of pious religious scribble by primitive superstitious people that we must alter to fit our contemporary convictions; that we must edit or “contextualize” to bring it up to date.
This is the Word of God that called the universe into being. It is the power of God to reveal sin and convict sinners of our absolute need for a savior. It’s the same Word that became flesh and lived among us, gave his life on a cross for our salvation. It’s the same Word of God that is living and active and has the power to forgive sins, cleanse hearts, and transform lives. It is immutable, unchanging, the same, yesterday, today, and forever - and that is our only hope.
Paul puts it this way in Gal 3:24 “The Law was put in place to lead us to Christ so that we might be justified by faith.” It was this Law of God that John the Baptist was preaching when he called people to repent and return to God. His message, like Moses, prepared the way for the coming of Jesus by convicting us of sin and our absolute need for a Savior.
Do you remember the bait Satan used in the Garden to trap Adam and Eve? It went like this, “Don’t you want to be like God? Don’t you want to choose for yourself what is good and what is evil? Don’t you want to eat of the forbidden tree of the knowledge of good and evil? Don’t you want to know what evil tastes like? What it smells like? Aren’t you the least bit curious about what it’s like on the other side of the fence? The side called disobedience and rebellion? The side called sin? You will never be free until you are free to be bad!”
Ever hear that voice? How did you do with that temptation? Let’s fast forward to Romans 1:28. Paul describes the fruit of our decision this way, “Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done…”
Have you ever been involved in “what ought not to be done”? Why did you go there? The Bible says we gave up seeking knowledge of God in order to seek the knowledge sin. Why is it that we put our energy, our passion into flirting with evil and depravity rather than seeking God and his holiness? Anybody know what I’m talking about or am I here by myself?
We may claim to be holy but our tree isn’t bearing holy fruit. Instead our tree bears the fruit of “envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice, gossip, slander, insolence, lust, arrogance, disobedience. Sounds like a very sick tree! So what do you do with a tree like that? Jesus is honest enough to tell us what we are afraid to say. You cut it down! You throw it on the fire! It has become absolutely worthless.
Listen again to John the Baptist’s words,
“Many Pharisees and Sadducees also came to be baptized. But John said to them: You bunch of snakes! Who warned you to run from the coming judgment? Do something to show that you have really given up your sins. And don't start telling yourselves that you belong to Abraham's family. I tell you that God can turn these stones into children for Abraham.
An ax is ready to cut the trees down at their roots. Any tree that doesn't produce good fruit will be chopped down and thrown into a fire. I baptize you with water so that you will give up your sins. But someone more powerful is going to come, and I am not good enough even to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. His threshing fork is in his hand, and he is ready to separate the wheat from the husks. He will store the wheat in a barn and burn the husks in a fire that never goes out.” Matt 3:7-12
The Law brings us to Christ because it brings us to the end of ourselves. It reveals that we all are spiritually bankrupt and we stand without excuse before the righteous wrath and judgment of God. If we really understood that it would scare us to death!
We would race for the foot of the cross and hang on for dear life. It is only through the cross of Christ and his blood that our sins can be forgiven and we can be transformed, changed from the inside out. We have no other place to turn; no other hope has been given us.
The Scripture bears clear witness that any message that denies the absolute depravity of our human nature or the complete efficacy of Jesus’ blood shed on the cross to cleanse us from our sin or that absolute necessity for us to repent of our sins and cling to Christ alone for our salvation is not Biblical, not Christian, but in the words of Scripture anathema.
Imagine for a moment that some hideous physical malady has overtaken you yet that doctors are stumped as to diagnosing your condition. Some seeking to be kind say, “Don’t worry, I’m sure everything will be fine. Take these tranquilizers. I’ll see you next month.”
Somehow you know that’s a lie, everything is not fine. In fact, something deep within you convinces you that you are dying and unless you find an answer this disease will kill you.
Finally after years of suffering, you find a doctor with the skill and honesty to fearlessly diagnose your condition and prescribe a treatment plan. He tells you like it is. Would you be grateful? It would be like being born again.
God has given us the law to fearlessly reveal our sin, to tell us like it is and drive us to Jesus who alone has the power to save us. What an act of love and grace. Are you willing to listen? Thank you, Jesus. AMEN.
