Time to Turn
Time to Turn
Are we working for or against the agenda of the coming King?
What would happen if you were driving the wrong direction on I35?
Transcript:
Welcome to the Light of Christ Weekly Podcast. Light of Christ Anglican Church is located in Georgetown, Texas at MLK and University Avenue. We are a modern expression of the ancient faith. You can learn more about at lightofchristgeorgetown.org.
Today's sermon soundbite comes from Matthew 3:2, where John the Baptist preaches, "Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand."
Advent is a time to repent, a time now to turn to the King who is coming soon. First, we need to define repentance because it's a church word and it's always good to define church words that we're not using every day. What does it mean to repent? Well, what happens when you're going down I35 and you miss an exit? You repent, don't you? Repentance. When I was at beginning of our dating relationship, I would get so angry if we missed an exit. I think I've improved. But I would just hate it, because it takes forever, right? You've got to get off and you've got to turn around. That's what repentance means. Repentance is when you're going one direction to turn around and go the other. It's a 180 degree turn.
This is the message of John the Baptist in our gospel. The King is coming, the King that we've been waiting for, the Messiah, is coming, and he has an agenda, and we want to be working with that agenda and not against it. John is using shocking imagery here because it's important. It's important that the people he's talking to and we get on the same page as the coming King. To go back to I35 for example, what would happen if you were driving the wrong direction on I35?
People do it every once in a while. Sometimes it's complicated, those on ramps and off ramps. Sometimes in Texas, it's weird. The feeder road, sometimes it goes two directions, and so you can get really get confused and go up the wrong way. Well, it's dangerous, right? You're going against the flow of traffic. Well, it's dangerous for us to be going against the flow of the almighty God, to go against the flow of all that's good, and lovely, and beautiful, and wonderful in this world leads to tragic consequences, and so John's being very real. We need to turn and get with God's agenda. Because he's coming. He says in verse two, "Repent, turn, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." The King is coming, he's saying. He's coming right now. For this as he was spoken of the prophet Isaiah when he said, "The voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight." So we must turn, turn to King Jesus and be ready for him.
I love this quote by John Stott. He says, "In essence, Christianity is Christ." “Christianity is Christ. Who Christ is and what he has done is the foundation upon which the Christian religion is built.” Christianity is all about Jesus, King Jesus. I'd like to add it's not only about who he is and what he's done, but it's also about what he is doing and what he will do. Bring a little advent, hope into that. This is all about the coming King and we need to trust him with our future and reorient our lives for his coming.
The King who is coming is not only our goal, we not only want to be like him and on his agenda, but he's also the source of our repentance. Think about the plant. There's amazing time lapse films out there that follow the growth of a plant where they move the light around. The plant is following the light source. But for the plant, it's not just pointing at the light, but it's pointing at the light because the light is the source of its very energy in life.
That's how it is in our life. In order for us to repent, it's not just changing to God's agenda through sheer force of will or trying really hard. There are times in the Christian life where we need to try hard and we need to make decisions on our will, but to make decisions like that over and over again doesn't work. We need a deeper interior change. Our desires are all tangled and they're all crooked, and what we need is to see Jesus.
When we see the beautiful person that he is, when we see his actions and what his vision is for our life, that untangles our hearts. Like that plant, our desires begin to realign towards his desires for our life. We can't do it without him. He is both the direction that we're pointing, but he's also the source of the life that's necessary for us to make that change at all.
Thank you for listening to the Light of Christ Weekly Podcast. Let us end our time together with a prayer from the book of common prayer. You can find this collect for the second Sunday in Advent on page 598.
Blessed Lord, who caused all Holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that by patience and the comfort of your holy Word we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
