The Choice of Christmas

That is what repentance is. And John is telling us if you want to have a wonderful life, you have to repent of your sin. But it's not just the negative. There's the positive. He says, "This one is more powerful than I am. Is coming after me." And he says, "I'm not even worthy to stoop down and untie the strap of his sandals." Hey, listen. Uh we're in Mark chapter 1 today. If you want to take your Bible and open it there, we're going through this series. Uh it's a wonderful life in which we are focusing on uh some of the first chapters of the gospel uh leading up to our Easter or excuse me Christmas uh celebration. Forgive me, I'm a little tired this morning. I I've been bird hunting, feeasant hunting in in western Kansas. I uh hunted all day Friday, got in my truck and left uh Kansas around 4:30 uh Friday afternoon and drove home all through the night. I got home about 3:30. It was wonderful. Tanya had a big breakfast ready for me. A nice warm dra bath drawn. Not so much. But uh uh I'm here this morning and uh excited to be with you. So let's just jump in uh to Mark's gospel. Uh Mark doesn't waste time and I don't think we will today either. Uh it's the shortest of all the gospels. Uh his focus is on action. He doesn't share much about the words of Jesus, but instead focuses on the works of Jesus. He skips the Christmas narrative and starts his journal of the life of Christ with John the Baptist. Uh the scripture says in verse one, in the beginning uh of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the son of God, as it is written in Isaiah the prophet, see I am sending my messenger ahead of you. He will prepare your way. A voice of one crying out in the wilderness, prepare the way for the Lord, make his paths straight. John the Baptist is a fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy. He's a fulfillment of Malachi chapter 3 when it says in Malachi 3, see I am sending my messenger and he will clear the way before me. Uh he's also a fulfillment of Isaiah 40 which is quoted here in Mark 1. John the Baptist I think it is safe to say was an unusual man. Uh the Bible tells us a little bit about him in verse 6. It says that John wore a camel hair garment with a leather belt around his waist and he ate locust and wild honey. Uh he was unusual in his dress, a camel hair jacket. I tried to find some camels hair on Amazon a couple weeks ago in preparation for this message and I failed. But I am wearing a leather belt. Uh he was unusual in his diet. The Bible says that he ate locust and wild honey. I brought with me uh some of my friends here some small locusts. Uh you can order almost anything on Amazon if you are uh inclined to enjoy some of these. The Bible says he ate Oh, one of half of them fell off. That's good. I don't dipped it in honey. I I learned after the first service more honey. um and ate it and it was delicious. That was his diet. Tastes a little bit like chicken. Oh, I didn't do this. I I hadn't eat any of this before the first service, so it was worse this time because I knew what it was going to taste like. Little crunchy. Going to get that wing down. Um, kind of reminds me of a Christmas vacation and Clark Griswall eating the tough turkey. It's really good. Little tough, but a little good. So, what we're going to do uh throughout the rest of December, there's going to be some locust in the cafe out there. We've also established an apparel line that uh you might want to pick up. a shirt uh to celebrate uh John the Baptist and and Christmas uh this year. Um just a second. That's good stuff, man. He was an unusual man, but he also had an unusual message. Not just himself, he had an unusual message. We we hear it in verse four. John came baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And the entire Judeian countryside and all the people of Jer Jerusalem were going out to him and they were baptizing. They were being baptized by him in the Jordan confessing their sin. So John is preparing for the first coming of Christ and in so doing shows us a little bit on how to prepare uh for Christ coming into our hearts and and our homes even this Christmas. John tells us gives us a blueprint a little pathway on how to have a wonderful life. He says first of all to have a wonderful life we have to repent of our own wickedness. He is baptizing them and and asking them uh to repent of their sins, confessing their sins. It says in verse five, you know, we tend to act like everything is wonderful when it's not. As a matter of fact, you look at the world in the aftermath of the first Christmas. That's where we find ourselves in Mark chapter 1. And our world today as we prepare to celebrate the next Christmas and you realize Houston, we have a problem. We have a sin problem. What we try to call wonderful, many times God calls wicked. Uh the movie It's a Wonderful Life is one of my favorite Christmas movies right up there with Elf and Christmas Vacation. Uh we couldn't figure out how to do a sermon series around either of those. Maybe uh we'll do that next year. However, at the time of its release, many people didn't think the movie was that wonderful. It was a failure, a huge failure in the box office. Some in that day thought it might even be communist propaganda. It didn't really become a worldwide sensation until 1974 when the US copyright expired and people were able to watch it without any royalties attached. To add to that, the main character in the movie, George Bailey, Pastor Andrew's great great great great greatgrandfather, didn't think his w life was that wonderful. He actually tried to take his own life even though everything on the outside seemed great. Let's be honest, some of you in this room and watching online are modernday George Bailey's. Your life may look good on the outside, but on the inside, the secret side, you're falling apart. Jesus referenced that same analogy in Matthew's gospel chapter 23 when he looked at the scribes and Pharisees of his day and he says you hypocrites. You are like whitewashed tombs. You're good on the outside but on the inside you're full of dead men's bones and all uncleanliness. Sometimes that little passage that Jesus shared in Matthew gets lost in translation in our modern day context because we don't understand exactly what was going on. What was going on in that day is that uh leading up to large Jewish holidays, people would make spiritual pilgrimage from all over Asia Minor to Jerusalem. And on the way the roads would get so crowded and there were these roadside tombs and if one would slip off the side of one of those crowded roads and come into contact inadvertently with a with a grave site, they would be immediately declared ceremonially unclean. And so to prevent that, the weeks preceding the Jewish holidays, they would go out and they would put a fresh coat of paint on all of those roadside tombs. The unintended consequence was is that the prettiest thing in the county were those new whitewashed tombs. They had a fresh coat of paint on them. Jesus uses that analogy and looks at their own hearts and says, "You are just like those whitewashed grave sites. You look good on the outside. You clean up well. But on the inside, where God sees, you're still full of dead men's bones and all uncleanliness." This Christmas, we can be tempted to whitewash our lives. We can decorate our houses. We can even spice up our eggnogs. But the stark reality is we are still filled with dead men's bones and uncleanliness. How many of you like Disneyland? Raise your hand. All right. I like this crowd. Three people. Only three people. I hate Disneyland. Disneyland is of the devil. >> You shouldn't go. Several years ago, my wife uh somehow maybe I just returned on a long hunt and I didn't know what was going on. And somehow she talked me into going to Disneyland with what it then at that time we only had four grandchildren. And so we took our four grandchildren. One set of the parents went. My son, who is the smartest child we had, said, "You can take our kids, but I'm staying home." And so we took his two, Baylor and Maverick, and we took Hadley and Hudson, our surprise grandkids. And we went to Disneyland. We paid the $6,000 for everyone's tickets. I'm still paying for that. And we went to Disneyland together. And we got there the first day. We'd paid for the 3-day park hopper pass. I wanted to hop out of the park, not in the park, but you still have to pay the same amount. And our oldest grandson, he's not our oldest grandchild, but he's our oldest grandson, Maverick. And I love Maverick, and we're buddies, man. We We hang. But, uh, the first morning we were there, Maverick got sick. I mean, he got really sick. He may have got on one ride and then he was he was throwing up all over the place like I'm going to be when I get home to get the locust out of my system. And so me being the the caring and generous person that I am, I volunteered to miss all of the festivities of Disneyland to take Maverick back to the hotel and stay with him literally the next two days. It I thought I'd run won the lottery. And I don't know if you noticed, the lottery got up to a billion dollars yesterday. If you played it and won, make sure you tithe off that. Um, but it was far better for me to be in the hotel room literally getting vomited on every 30 minutes than standing in a 3 4hour line for a twominute ride. But if I have to confess, there is one ride at Disneyland that I do like. My favorite ride at Disneyland, and it isn't close, is Pirates of the Caribbean. I like it for a lot of reasons. It's one of the closest rides to the front of the park. It's also fairly long. Yes, you stand in line for three or four hours, but it lasts more than two minutes. And it's cool inside. And they serenade you. You know the song, yo ho, a pirates's life for me. We're rascals and scoundrels. We're villains and naves. Drink up me hardies. Yo ho, we're devils and black sheep. We're really bad eggs. Drink up me hardies. Yo ho, yo ho. It's a pirates's life for me. Well, many times we are more Pirates of the Caribbean than a wonderful life. So, in the midst of all of the Christmas cheer and celebration, how do we prepare for Christ's coming? And and John the Baptist tells us with without any mincing of words, it starts with a confession, an acknowledgment, a realization that something is missing in our lives and that something is a someone and his name is Jesus Christ. So John is proclaiming here outside in the Judeian wilderness around the Jordan River, a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sin. Verse four tells us he's preaching a message about the baptism of repentance for the remission or the forgiveness of sins. And we say, "Well, does that mean in order to be saved, order to have my sins forgiven, I have to be baptized?" Well, I think the key to that understanding is in that little threeletter word for. John is not saying that we are baptized so that our sins can be forgiven. Rather, we are baptized. A better translation of the little word for is the word because. We are baptized because our sins are forgiven. I don't get baptized. People in our church don't get baptized because they want to be forgiven of their sins. They're baptized because they have been forgiven of their sins. Because if you go outside and you think, "This is a great sermon." You you go outside and you just leap for joy. Do you leap because joy is up there and you need to to get it? No. You leap because joy is in here and you already have it. And that's the message of John the Baptist that he's preaching the word baptism and repentance for the forgiveness of our sins. The word repentance means a change of mind. It means a change of mind about your sin. It means you see suddenly how ugly and terrible and black and dark your sin is. So you repent. you turn away from that sin. That's the only thing that will get people ready to receive Jesus Christ as their savior. You see, Jesus doesn't look too good to people until their sin starts looking really bad to them. John the Baptist said to the people, "Repent." Jesus is coming. He He can't get into your heart and straighten out the crooked paths until we repent. Someone said, "Repentance is the needle which pierces the thread that makes way the for the gospel thread. Repentance prepares the way of Jesus coming into our lives." And so in our story, people are repenting. They seem to be on the verge of a national revival. Someone has estimated that as many as 300,000 people were baptized by John the Baptist. That'd be a pretty good year of baptisms at our church. I'm telling you. Whether correct or not, verse 5 indicates that the whole land of Judea and all of Jerusalem poured out to Jordan to hear him. This man John had a message and it was the message that sin is very serious that God demands that we repent of that sin and the only way to be ready for Jesus to come into our hearts is to do that. You might be tempted to think, well, that was the message of John the Baptist. Jesus's message might have been different. And yet, Luke records in Luke 13:3 the words of Jesus when Jesus says, "Unless you repent, we will all likewise perish." Sometimes we think about repentance. And when I was a younger growing up, I'd see those signs. I don't see them as often anymore uh at ballparks, at baseball or football games says repent or turn or burn. And sometimes we might think that repentance is just some fabricated formula for freaks. But what we all ought to understand is that it is the central clause for Christianity. Repentance is going one way, realizing that you're going the wrong way and making a U-turn and turning away from your sin and turning back to God and putting your faith only in Jesus Christ. It's as if you're headed to California, to Disneyland, and you get close and you're like, "What in the world am I doing? I'm an idiot. I'm going the wrong way. And you make a U-turn. And you head south to Tory Pines to play some golf. It's going to be cheaper and it's going to be a lot more enjoyable. >> Listen, you're going one way, your way. It's the wrong way. and you say, "Man, I can't live this life and I can't have the outcome that I want and I need to turn my back on myself and my sin and I need to give my life completely and holy to the Lord Jesus Christ." That is what repentance is. And John is telling us, if you want to have a wonderful life, you have to repent of your sin. But it's not just the negative. There's the positive here. You have to receive the wonderful one. The Bible says in verse 7, he proclaimed one who is more powerful than I am is coming after me. I'm not worthy to stoop down and untie the strap of his sandals. I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit. You see, if you truly want a wonderful life, you have to have a personal relationship with the only one with whom the Bible calls wonderful counselor, prince of peace. >> John would say in John 1:12, "But as many as received him, to them gave you the power to become the sons of God, even to those who believe on his name." When John talks about Jesus, he becomes an altogether different individual. As he talks to people about their sin, the fire flashes in his eyes. But when he begins to talk about Jesus, there is a tenderness and humility about what he says. He says, "This one is more powerful than I am. Is coming after me." and he says, "I'm not even worthy to stoop down and untie the strap of his sandals." What he's describing here is the practice of a household slave in the ancient world who would stoop down when the owner of the home came in and take off the sandals or the shoes of of the owner's house. And he says, "I'm not even worthy to be a man's slave when it comes to the Lord Jesus Christ." Sort of like when I get home from hunting, Tanya's there to take off my hunting boots, wash my feet, make me breakfast. John was saying, "I'm not even worthy to do that." When John compared himself to Jesus, he realized his own unworthiness. Here's a key truth, a wonderful truth I want you to remember today. Too often we suffer from a false sense of security because we are comparing ourselves to the wrong people or the wrong standards. Many brag about themselves and think that they have no need of Jesus. The reason they do that is they're comparing themselves not to Jesus. They're comparing themselves to other people in their lives. That comparison with other people can be misleading. When you compare yourself to another sinner, you may look better. You may look pretty good. But when we collectively compare ourselves to Christ and his earthly perfection, all of a sudden we don't look so good, do we? Many of you know that Pastor Andrew is a huge Arizona sports fan. As a matter of fact, I'm a little bit worried that we might lose him to the Arizona Cardinals as their next uh either head coach or general manager. Trust me, he knows it all. And if you don't believe me, just hang out with him. But here's what we know about the Arizona Cardinals, man. In preeason, they look good. They look good when they practice against themselves. They always win. But then the season comes around and instead of comparing themselves to other guys wearing the same uniform, they look across the field and they see the San Francisco 49ers. >> Or it pains me to say the Seattle Seahawks. >> Be quiet, Washington. and reality sets in and then it's game over. You see, compared to others, you and I may look great, but compared to Christ and his earthly perfection and his eternal holiness, not so much. Then something amazing happens in this text that we haven't read about yet. Jesus shows up. Jesus shows up to be baptized by John in the Jordan River. It says in verse 9, "In those days, Jesus came from Nazareth and Galilee and was baptized in the Jordan by John. And as soon as he came up out of the water, he saw the heavens being torn open and the spirit descending on him like a dove and a voice came from heaven. You are my beloved son. With you I am well pleased." Jesus walked approximately 70 miles to be baptized by John. Nothing is unimportant if Jesus walked 70 miles to do it. Jesus had only three short years for his earthly ministry. He didn't have time for trivia. There's nothing minor or unimportant about his baptism. But it does raise what we call a wonderful question this morning. one that you've probably asked yourself. Why was Jesus baptized? Why did Jesus who knew no sin submit to be baptized by John in the Jordan? Well, there's two reasons. Number one, because of human identification. John's baptism indicated repentance of sin. But Jesus obviously had no sins of which to repent. When Jesus was baptized, he was not admitting that he was a sinner. Not at all. Don't get that idea. That's not the reason for his baptism. He is identifying, however, with our sin. Isaiah 53:12 says, "He was numbered with the transgressors." When Jesus came to the baptism of John, though he had not sinned, he had come into the world to bear the sins of men, Jesus was identifying with you and with me. Isaiah would also say in Isaiah 53:6, "The Lord laid upon him the iniquity of us all." Here's the problem in our lives apart from Christ. The Bible says that God loves you. He loves you immeasurably. He loves you so much. The sweetest Christmas verse in all the Bible tells us this. John 3:16. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believe in him should not perish but have everlasting life. That's how much God loves you. But God hates our sin. Let this represent our sin. And that sin creates an impregnical barrier between God's love and our lives. And so what happened at the cross is that God according to Isaiah laid upon him. Let this hand represent Jesus. God laid upon him the iniquity of us all so that now you and I could have unrestricted access to God the Father now and for all of eternity. That's why he was baptized to identify with our sinfulness. When Jesus came to the baptism, he got underneath, he got beneath the burden of human sin and bore it all the way to Calvar's cross. There's a second reason for his baptism. Not only human identification, but heavenly consecration. So far as I can tell, this passage is the only place in the entire Bible where every person of the Trinity converge at the same point and at the same time and in the same space. In verse 10 and following, God the Son comes up out of the water. God the Holy Spirit descends like a dove and God the Father speaks. He went into the water picturing his death. Jesus came up out of the water picturing his resurrection. And he would live the rest of his three years under the shadow of the cross. The spirit, it says, like a dove descended, anointing Jesus that day. Now, throughout the Bible, the dove is a symbol of gentleness and sacrifice. It's interesting to note that a dove was present at the first baptism and a dove was present at Jesus's baptism. You say, "What's the first baptism? I thought this was the first baptism." No, the first baptism happened way back in the book of Genesis. The first baptism was the flood. It was a baptism for all the world, a baptism of judgment. You remember after the flood, after they had been in the ark many days, Noah sent out a dove. After some time, the dove brought back an olive branch, indicating there was dry land out there somewhere. And then he sent the dove out again and the dove never came back. I like to think about it this way. I think that dove just kept flying looking on someone to land. But that dove couldn't land on Abraham. He had lied about his wife. So he kept flying. That dove couldn't land on Moses. Moses got angry and couldn't enter the promised land. So the dove just kept on flying. The dove couldn't land on David because he had committed adultery and murder. So the dove just kept on flying. And finally that dove rest on the holy sinless Lord Jesus Christ. And the father spoke and the father said, "This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased." When Jesus acted out in advance here what he had come to do with the world, the father approved it. And Jesus, well, he was just tipping his hand, calling his shot, if you will, forecasting for the world why he came born of a virgin in the first place. Those of you who know me a little bit know that I'm a big New York Yankees fan. For you Dodger guys in the room, you got a nice little run. Congratulations. When you get to 27 World Series, give me a call. One of the most famous Yankees of all time was Babe Ruth. Picture of him on the screen here momentarily. Babe Ruth, you'll know there's a whether it be true or lore, I'm not sure. I I'm just going to believe it to be true. One of his last at bats as a professional baseball player, old, overweight, and decrepit, kind of like me, went up to the batter's box, got two quick strikes on him. Everybody was booing him, hurling insults at him, and he stepped out of the batter's box. He tapped his cleats to get the dirt off the spikes and he lifted his bat over right field and pointed over the right field fence. Some people say he called his shot. He got back into the batter's box, hit it over for a home run. Think about what Jesus was doing at his baptism. Jesus was calling his shot. Jesus was saying, "Listen, guys. I'm come into the world to save the world from its sin. I've gotten under the load of human sinfulness. I'm carrying it each step of the way for three years." He carried it all the way to Calvar's cross. They impaled on him on that cross with three rusty spikes. He hung in broad daylight naked for the world to see. And the father would speak again and affirm the work of his son. Here's the deal. Jesus called his shot, but if you haven't done so already, it's time for you to call yours. Way back in the day, IBM had a commercial. Some friends from Atlanta recently reminded me of this in a meeting. IBM had a commercial. You remember it if you're were around then. You make the call and you could throw a flag or you could call the play. You make the call. I wish I wish they'd let me make the call. It wouldn't take as long as video replays do today. Maybe the Cardinals would win one of those debates. But every single one of us on a personal level have to make the call. We have to decide. We have to choose whether we will give our lives to Jesus or not. So much turmoil in the world today. It's so sad to see the senseless violence Brown University overseas in Australia just this past week. And we may think the world is divided between conservatives and liberals or Democrats or Republicans, between NATO and non-NATO countries. But the reality is this. The world is squarely divided between those who have rejected Jesus and those who will accept Jesus and you have to make the call today. Have you repented of your sin? Have you decided, man, I'm going in one way, one direction. It's the wrong way. If I continue this, it's not going to be good for me, my family, or my faith or my future. I know what I'll do. I'll turn away from my sin and I'll turn back to Jesus, the one who took my sin to the cross with him and I'll give my heart and my life to the Lord Jesus Christ. You see, let's stop kidding ourselves. Jesus is either Lord or he's a lunatic and a liar. There's no middle ground here. He is either the Lord of the universe or he is a liar or maybe even a lunatic. But you have to make the call. Will he be the Lord of your life today?