"Oh - What to Do?"

Scripture: Luke 3:7-18

Have you ever had one of those days when you had to be decisive, but couldn’t make the right decision to save you? You’re on the way to a place you have never been to before, and you turn left instead of right, and travel 5 miles before you learn that you made a wrong turn? Or you’re at work, and you need the assistance of someone else, and you spend half the day calling the wrong office? Or you have a midterm college paper due tomorrow, and you can’t seem to get a single cohesive thought together in your mind?

There are days when you truly believe that you are headed in the right direction, but the starting line for your tomorrow just keeps moving further and further away!

From James Citrin’s book on business leadership:
French philosopher Paul Valery ... said, "The trouble with our times is that the future is not what it used to be." At a time when we can be certain only of continuous economic upheaval, geopolitical turmoil and technological change, effective leaders are those who manage uncertainty effectively. No single trait or action is responsible for a leader's success. Different styles are appropriate for different situations. Nevertheless, apart from matters of personal style, most great business leaders follow a consistent set of principles:

[Number one:] Live with integrity and lead by example.

Integrity is the internal sense of right and wrong that guides everything a successful person does. Living with integrity and leading by example build the kind of trust that is critical for high-performance organizations.

-James M. Citrin, "Six principles for leading during uncertain times," Business 2.0, January 31, 2002, business2.com.

This advice was being offered in a business context, but it is equally applicable in Christian faith. The difference between right and wrong is about as esoteric as life will ever get! So the Christian only has one other option – trust God, and let him set the pace!

Read Luke 3:7-9

The Baptist was fighting an uphill battle against legalism and shallow faith. The vast majority of Jews had come to lean so heavily upon their lineage and their status as “chosen people”, that their relationship with their great God Jehovah was all but extinct. And this self-serving approach to faith in the Hebrew tradition was carrying over into Christian faith as well.
Crowds of people were flocking to John for baptism, and while he isn’t questioning their decision, he is doubting the validity of their reason for coming. Are their motives as poisonous as the venom of vipers? Do they expect that baptism will counteract all their inadequacies? Do they think that once they are baptized, that they can continue to live “the old life” without fear? The people of today believe these things, and so did the crowds that were pursuing John.

His admonition to begin living a life that will produce “fruit of repentance” is a call to not only be baptized, but to completely change their concept of what pleases God. And their overriding dependency on “heritage” just isn’t going to cut it! They are warned that unless something changes very soon, God is going to raise up an entirely new line for salvation, and that they may be left in the dust, wondering what had just happened to their “chosen-ness”?

The New Interpreters’ Bible tells us that neither the ritual of baptism nor the rights of birth can ever be trusted as a substitute for repentance and Christian ethical reform.

Read Luke 3:10-14

These words aren’t just about a call to “good works” – they are about a complete change from the way it has always been. In Micah 6:8, the prophet asks a question, and then answers it for all who might stumble over the pointed truth that was there. He asks “What does the Lord require of you?”, and then offers the answer “To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”
John’s comments regarding sharing your excess with others, and acting honestly, and being satisfied with what the Lord has provided you with, satisfies Micah’s admonition to Israel. John is calling the people to care about the lives that others are living, and if you can make their life just a little easier - a little better - then do it. Notice that John isn’t calling the people, and us, to retreat from everyday society – he wants us to live differently within it.

But how do you even begin to make that kind of drastic change? Where do we get the wisdom to understand this new and strange, and even worrisome, truth?

That truth and that courage will only reside in the faith we receive from a life in Christ. John’s call to the crowd goes against everything that society, as well as the learned religious leaders, had ever taught them. Sound familiar? Attitudes in the early 1st century were no different than those in the 21st! In those days, it was all about getting as much for yourself as you could, and giving away the very least that you could get away with. And the “me-me-me” generation of today is just as morally bankrupt as the folks living 2,000 years ago! Is it any wonder that they – and we - don’t know how to live the righteous life that Jesus brings? John was inflicting, and conflicting, them with a completely new level of uncertainty that had begun to lead them to a true examination of life and faith.

Oswald Chambers, in [his] classic devotional, “My Utmost for His Highest”, cautioned Christians against thinking of uncertainty in this life as a bad thing. “The nature of the spiritual life,” said Chambers “is that we are certain in our uncertainty. ...”

“The spiritual life is the life of a child. We are not uncertain of God, just uncertain of what he is going to do next. If our certainty is only in our beliefs, we develop a sense of self-righteousness, become overly critical, and are limited by the view that our beliefs are complete and settled.”

“But when we have the right relationship with God,” Chambers explained, “life is full of spontaneous, joyful uncertainty and expectancy. Jesus said, ‘…believe also in me’ (John 14:1), not, ‘Believe certain things about me.’ Leave everything to him and it will be gloriously and graciously uncertain how he will come in — but you can be certain that he will come.”
- Homiletics OnLine

Recognition and acknowledgment of our uncertainty in faith will prod us to greater efforts to find the fullness of faith in Jesus Christ. Knowing that he came to redeem this hurting and sinful world from their sins is good. Knowing that he died on Calvary and rose to new life as a sign of eternal life for us is also important, but Jesus is about so much more than that, and if we are completely certain and comfortable in our limited aspects of faith, we may never arrive at a true and deep relationship with the Lord.

Read Luke 3:15-18

John began this discourse with words of condemnation, and when he had finally gotten the people’s attention, he began to offer them these far more important words of hope. He announces that, indeed, the Christ has come, but that he (John) isn’t the One. John’s baptism was one of repentance, which seems to be the central theme of all that he preached, but he says that Messiah will baptize in a far greater way.

So what does baptism “with the Holy Spirit and with fire” mean for us? In the context of Pentecost, it is the Holy Spirit that fills us with Godly truth and courage, and it is the “fire” of God that cleanses us of the failures of earth. Repentance is only the beginning of a life in Christ, and Jesus’ baptism with Spirit and Fire leads us toward the culmination of this life.
And the “threshing” that Messiah will accomplish is the separation of the things of heaven from the things of earth, and the attitudes and standards and hopes that this world offers are going to perish completely. And it is important for us to understand that this is God’s job, not ours, but that we must be open to his working this vital change in our lives.

This is the Good News of Christmas – that those who believe in Jesus Christ and seek to follow in his footsteps, that those who desire to be cleansed by his “refining fire”, that those who allow the Spirit of God to fill them and change them and use them to fulfill the desires of Almighty God, will begin to discover that their uncertainty in faith will begin to be satisfied, and that they – we – will finally know what God would have us do.

This, my friends, is the Hope of Christmas for all who will believe.