A Wake Up Call and a Special Diet

Read Mark 1:1-8

Things are concluding—a culmination.  I am not talking the end of the age, though that is part of it.  All of history is coming to a point where the creation will be reconciled to God and able to fully live as he designed us to live. 

Everyone will kneel—I believe as an involuntary response to the truth.  Paul supports this by attaching the words that it will be to the glory of God when he espouses this action on our part.

I believe that the truth will not only set us free, but once we are free, we will kneel before Jesus.  In light of the truth, how could we do anything else.

What truth?  That Jesus is Lord.

Lord or king or master or other similar such words are not popular these days, especially in a culture dominated by the satisfaction and gratification of the self.  In an all about me world, nobody wants to hear about the King of kings or Lord of lords.

The truth tells us that is exactly who Jesus is.  He is King of kings and Lord of lords and Master and Prophet and Priest and Teacher—one with an easy yoke from whom we may learn, and he is Friend.

But this culmination is not here yet.  This complete reconciliation was accomplished on the cross but not fully realized throughout the universe, yet.  Some things must happen before everything comes together perfectly.

We know enough of our history with God to know that he has been at work in us.  This is not just general maintenance, but craftsmanship.  We are fearfully and wonderfully made.  He is crafting us into the exact people he wants us to be.  The creation is being shaped into the exact domain that God wants us to live in forever.

We look at Adam and Eve getting the boot from the Garden of Eden, and wonder, could it get any worse?  Sure enough, it wasn’t long before the first murder.  Things got so bad in humanity’s early history that God sent a flood and started over with a remnant.

That cleaned up everything and made everyone one right with God for the rest of time.  Well, not really.  People got this all about me thing going early.  Actually, it might have been all about us.  In any case, humankind decided to build a tower to heaven instead of going out to subdue and exercise stewardship of the planet entrusted to them.

Had there been no Tower of Babel and confusion of human language, I would have never been required to take German in college; and surely would not have had to take it twice.

Liberation and captivity, commandments an sin, restoration and desolation have all had their turn in this craftsmanship.  God has taken our human weakness, much like a marred pot, and remade his people into what he wants us to be.

But, we have not fully realized everything in store for us.  Some things must come first.  Jesus, who was there at the creation and through whom all things were made would wait for a forerunner before entering this world as a babe in a manger.

Someone would precede him to prepare the way.  This forerunner would not direct road repairs or bridge construction or a beautification project along the royal route as would be done for an earthly king.  He would not make sure all the graffiti was painted over so as not to offend the sovereign.

This forerunner that we know as John would prepare a route for his King and yours into our hearts.  His message was one of repentance.  He told people that they must repent for their sins to be forgiven.  He told people that One was coming so much greater than he was that he was not even worthy to tie his shoes.

And John was a little different.  It was not your run of the mill religious guy.  Think about the age into which John came.

The religious leaders—the Scribes and Pharisees—wore fine clothes.  They were adorned with phylacteries.  They ate at the finest tables.  They loved the finer things in life and were never far from them.

They knew the law.  They knew what sacrifice was required for what offense.  They would have never stood for words such as the previous call is under further review.  The were the sole custodian of the yellow penalty flags.

John did not wear fine clothing.  In fact, when I think about what John wore, my skin itches 2000 years later. I don’t think there has ever been a more distinct fashioned statement than camel hair.  John never had to worry that if he went to a social event, somebody would show up in the same outfit.

He didn’t wear a phylactery on his forehead.  He wore a leather belt around his waist.

John did not eat the finest food as the Pharisees did.  He ate locusts and wild honey.  I like wild honey and I have eaten a few dozen grasshoppers in my day; but all things considered, I would rather do the Atkins or South Beach diet. 

John was anything but someone who fit the religious model of the day; yet, people came from all over to see him.  People came from all over to hear him.  People came from all around and were baptized by him.

But John said, I’m not the big deal here.  I am just getting you ready for the One that everyone has been waiting on to arrive.  Well, he is on his way.

People somehow knew that John had something to say to them that they needed to hear.  He was not about penalties and payments as the Pharisees were.  He was not about putting on a good show.  He did not seek the best seat in the house.

His ministry took place in the wilderness near the Jordan river.  He wore clothing that nobody would want to wear and was on a special diet; yet people came to him.

Was it his clothing or his diet? They were surely unique. 

There is an engraved sculpture of Will Rogers in Granite, Oklahoma.  I go through Granite about a dozen times each year.  I stop in and look at the sculpture about once a decade. 

There is the Stafford Space museum near Weatherford, Oklahoma.  I have been to the Smithsonian Air and Space museum at least 20 times but have never been to the space museum that is just half an hour away and that I drive by at least 40 times a year.

Both are unique, but I am not compelled to go just a little bit out of my way to see them.

John was a long way off the beaten path and people flocked to him.  Was it his clothing?  Probably not.  Was it his special diet?  I don’t think so.

Something was happening and somehow the people knew it.  Something big was about to happen on this world stage and John was the opening act.  Jesus had come into the world and now was the time for his ministry to begin. 

He would be God with us.

He would be the Anointed One.

He would be the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the World.

He would be Teacher, Messiah, Healer, Prophet, and the only one ever to live a sinless life; yet he would become sin for us.

He would bear the sin of the world upon a cross and with a few words, It is finished, seal the deal forever.

Paul wrote:  But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.

The time had come to that point.  John announced the coming of that time in his call for repentance and in the baptism that followed.  It was time for God to take away the sin of the world.

John baptized with water but the One for whom he prepared the way would leave us with the Holy Spirit when his work was done.

But somehow, people knew to come to John.  People came out of their world of religious regulation and began a course that would lead to liberation.

John fulfilled a role in the greatest story ever told.  His role would lessen once Jesus entered fully into his earthly ministry, but John’s role was essential.  He was the wakeup call to a generation full of God’s laws and void of the Spirit that should have come with them.

He was a voice that cried in the wilderness.  That wilderness was a geographical reference for sure, but he also called out in the wilderness that was the human heart.  John cried out to a world full of regulation but void of spirit.

John was the messenger that went ahead of the Messiah.  John was singing the verse in Joy to the World that goes, let every heart prepare him room.

John was an essential part of this story of reconciliation.  We like the part about the babe in a manger, but a few months earlier, there was a babe born to an old couple that were thought not to be able to have kids.  John was to prepare the way.

We have heard this part of the story many times.  Mark begins his gospel with it.  The other synoptics take a couple chapters to get there, but John was essential to prepare the way for the coming of the Lord.

Let’s turn the clock forward to 2018.  The New Year is upon us.  We will celebrate the birth of our Savior and begin a new year.  We will look forward to the coming of our Lord as the King of kings and Lord of lords.  We know that time is closer than it was in 2017.

But what are we doing to prepare the way for this coming of our Lord?

John came in a time when the religious world was riddled with regulation.  We live in a time when the body of Christ is drugged and disconnected.  

Some are faithful and hold fast to discipleship but so many need a wakeup call.

So many are content to merely exist and are not living for Christ.

So many have taken to the sidelines of discipleship.

So many offer advisory opinions and are void of service.

So many want transactions instead of transformations.

So many want to blend into the world so they don’t have to be identified with Christ.

So many want to love the world and everything in it.

So many are conformed to the patterns of the world and don’t want the discomfort of changing.

Who can do anything about this?  Who?

Listen to the prophet Malachi as the faithful few converse among themselves as God listens.

You have said, ‘It's useless to serve God. What's the use of doing what he says or of trying to show the Lord Almighty that we are sorry for what we have done?  As we see it, proud people are the ones who are happy. Evil people not only prosper, but they test God's patience with their evil deeds and get away with it.’”

Then the people who feared the Lord spoke to one another, and the Lord listened and heard what they said. In his presence, there was written down in a book a record of those who feared the Lord and respected him.  “They will be my people,” says the Lord Almighty. “On the day when I act, they will be my very own. I will be merciful to them as parents are merciful to the children who serve them.  Once again my people will see the difference between what happens to the righteous and to the wicked, to the person who serves me and the one who does not.”

Who can do anything about the casual Christian or the half-drugged disciple?  God can, but we who fear the Lord and faithfully serve him must give a wakeup call.

Someone—we—must be preparing the way for Christ to come again.  We are his commissioned and yet most of those who should be ambassadors for Christ and letters from Christ have nestled themselves back into the comfort zone of the world.

How can we reach the lost if the body of Christ is doped up and out of the discipleship game?

Like it or not, we must be more like John the Baptist.  I am not buying a camel hair sports jacket for 2018 or changing the Wednesday night meal to locusts and honey, but I challenge us to be a voice in this modern wilderness and go on a special diet.

John was not calling out to the pagans of his age.  His voice went out to God’s people.  John had to wake up his own people.  The Anointed One was on his way.

We must give a wakeup call to those who have professed Jesus as Lord and Savior; yet, have been narcotized by the numbness of the world.

And we need a special diet.

Some of you know that some people were upset with me over some Facebook posts about the church not being the vending machine.  This has been a consistent message of mine for over 4 years, but this year it got some people angry and they defended the vending machine.

I won’t go into the business of the transactional church versus the transformational church right now, but I want to share something that was overwhelming as I read some of the comments.

People are not reading their Bibles.  They get a little on Sunday morning a couple times a month or a year or a decade.

They get the verse of the day.

They get a whole lot of unholy horsehockey that someone has posted as biblical.

People are not reading their Bibles!

We who are faithful must go on a special diet.  We must hunger for and consume the word of God as never before.  The word of God must be tastier to us than the most succulent ribeye steak.  It must be more delicious than bacon.  That’s a hard sell in some parts, but we must have a special diet.

It is the word of God.  We need to proclaim to those Christians who are stumbling around in the wilderness of this world what God’s words says.

I don’t think that we all need to be biblical scholars.  We don’t lock ourselves in ivory towers with our nose in the Bible but never putting anything we learn into practice.

  I think that we all need to rightly divide the word of God.  To me that’s a tradesman.  He or she can navigate life with the word of God as well as the mechanic replaces the transmission, or the doctor removes the appendix.

The mechanic does not have to be able to design next year’s car of the year, but he better be able to diagnose and repair more than a burned-out headlight or worn out windshield wipers.

We must know enough to live a holy life in response to the love of God that was poured out in the blood of Jesus on the cross. 

Must we all be able to illustrate the four most recognizable metaphors of the atonement?  Likely not!  Understanding that the blood of Jesus atoned for our sins is probably sufficient for most of us.

We need to read our Bibles more, not so we can strain out gnats of biblical minutia, but so that we don’t swallow any camels, which today would be the transactional nature of the church.  Today that would be the feeling that it’s just fine to sit out this discipleship stuff.  Today, that would be remaining conformed to the pattern of the world.

Jesus is coming.  I don’t have the date but the Bible says soon.  And the Christ professing world has gone to sleep or is drugged by the narcotizing effects of this post-modern world.

Be today’s voice in the wilderness.  Be the wakeup call to the deadheaded disciples who are just sitting out their salvation.

Be the voice that awakens the body of Christ.  We live in a time so like that of the prophet Malachi.  Few were faithful, but God remembers those who were.

This morning I call out to the faithful.  Wake up the sleepers.  Sober up the disciples drugged on the patterns of this world.  Be a voice in this modern wilderness that calls people home.

And...  Stick to your diet.  

It is a diet that equips you wake the saints and seek the lost.

It is a diet that enables you to rightly divide the world of God.

It is a diet that judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.

It is a diet—a special diet—that fill us when we do the work of the One who sent us into the world. 

It is a diet that is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path.

It is a diet that is God-breathed.

It is a diet useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness.

It is a diet that proceeds from the mouth of God—better than bread alone.

It is a diet that equips us for every good work.

Let’s be the voice of our time that cries out to turn away from the world and back to God.

Let’s stick to our diet.

Amen.