One of the most important questions you can ever wrestle with is this: Which judge of your life matters most to you? Lots of people will have this or that to say about how you live your life. Some will judge how you live positively, while others will judge you negatively. What you have to figure out is which judge’s opinion matters most to you.
From your past, can you remember hearing somebody say something negative about a band you liked to listen to or an outfit you liked to wear—and their negativity made you quit liking it? On the other hand, can you think of a time in which somebody in your life didn’t like something you liked—and that made you like it all the more? This gives you an idea of whose opinion has mattered most to you.
Who is someone in your life whose opinion matters so much to you that they could get you to rethink a political position that you hold? On the other hand, can you think of anyone whose opinion matters so little to you that, if they don’t like your political position, that’s further proof to you that you’re right?
Throughout the Bible, there is one Judge presented as the one whose opinion should matter above all. Although many shrug off God’s say in their lives as repressive or irrelevant, there are numerous important reasons why we should care more about what God thinks about our life than what anyone else thinks. For one thing, God created us and knows better than anyone else how we should live. For another thing, if we are disciples of Jesus, then Jesus is our King, and this means that he calls the shots in our lives.
“Throughout the Bible, there is one Judge presented as the one whose opinion should matter above all.”
Another reason God should be the Judge whose opinion we value the most is that God is the final Judge. He’s the Judge before whom everyone will stand someday.
“Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it….The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books….” (Revelation 20:11-15, NIV)
“We will all stand before God’s judgment seat.” (Romans 14:10b, NIV)
Since we will all stand before God at the final judgment, what’s going to help us get ready for that day? The answer is a call to repent, plus specifics.
John the Baptist’s Specifics
Something strange is happening in Luke 3. Huge crowds are leaving their towns, taking their vacation days, and going out into the wilderness. There must be something amazing out there for so many people to be traveling out there. You tag-along with the crowd hoping to see what’s so incredible, but when you get there, it’s a bit anticlimactic. It’s just a preacher preaching! Now, I suppose this isn’t just any preacher; it’s John the Baptist. So, he’s obviously baptizing people. And he’s dressed funny (clothes made of camel hair) and he lives eccentrically (eating locusts and wild honey). But other than that, what’s the draw? Why are so many people compelled to take an interest in what he’s doing?
What’s fascinating about John the Baptist is that he’s not even preaching what most people want to hear. People are traveling from the relative comfort of their homes to the discomfort of the wilderness to hear uncomfortable sermons. What is the theme of these sermons? It’s the topic of repentance. And it’s something far more uncomfortable than generic sermons on the general need to repent of our sins. John the Baptist gets really specific.
- (For the crowds) “…Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none, and anyone who has food should do the same.” (Luke 3:10-11, NIV)
- (For tax collectors) “…Don’t collect any more than you are required to.” (Luke 3:12-13, NIV)
- (For soldiers) “…Don’t extort money and don’t accuse people falsely—be content with your pay.” (Luke 3:14, NIV)
“We will all stand before God’s judgment seat.”
What’s truly helpful
Look closely at Luke 3, and you’ll see that John the Baptist’s specifics were the difference between people receiving God’s wrath and God’s grace. This is because repentance isn’t just a feeling. A truly repentant life bears actual fruit that people can see:
“Produce fruit in keeping with repentance…” (Luke 3:8a, NIV)
For example, here’s some specific writing advice: “The car drove down the road” is bad writing. Here’s better writing: “The silver Corvette shot along the interstate,” or “The beige, boat-like old-folks-mobile floated into the Perkins parking lot.” More specific writing makes for better writing.
A story is told by the preacher Haddon Robinson of a pastor in a town known for its lumber production. One day the pastor was walking by the river and saw some of the men from his church working. Strangely, these men were sawing off the ends of the logs, branding the logs, and then sending the logs down the river. The pastor discovered that what these men were doing was intercepting these logs from their business competition, cutting off the original brand, and rebranding them as their own. The pastor was shocked and decided he had to do something about this. So, that Sunday, he preached on, “Thou shalt not steal.” And guess what? Everyone, including some of the same loggers he had seen rebranding the logs, congratulated him for his fine sermon, just as if it had been any other Sunday. When he discovered that week that nothing had actually changed, he decided the next Sunday to preach on, “Thou shalt not cut off the end of thy neighbor’s logs.” And the congregation decided to run him out of town. That’s the power of getting specific.
“A truly repentant life bears actual fruit that people can see.”
If, on Sunday morning, all you get out of the sermon is, “Be a nice person. Try to get along. And be a good Christian,” then, for you, that sermon didn’t do for you what a sermon’s supposed to do. You might have nodded along and agreed with everything, but nothing ever got specific enough to force an actual decision. If we want help getting ready for the final judgment, what’s truly helpful is a call to repentance plus specifics.
Where specifics can land you
John the Baptist says, “Repent,” and then he gives specifics. And a lot of people aren’t going to want to hear that kind of preaching. If we jump ahead in Luke 3, we’ll see where that kind of preaching gets John the Baptist:
“But when John rebuked Herod the tetrarch because of his marriage to Herodias, his brother’s wife, and all the other evil things he had done, Herod added this to them all: He locked John up in prison.” (Luke 3:19-20, NIV)
Herod had stayed at a brother’s house and fallen in love with his brother’s wife. She divorced her husband to marry Herod. It was “happily ever after” for them, until that hairy, uncouth weirdo started wagging his finger and saying, “You shouldn’t marry your brother’s wife.” Couldn’t he have just kept things generic? Why get so specific about what counts as sexual sin? John ends up in prison, and eventually beheaded, because he says, “Repent,” and gives specifics.
Up to the end, John the Baptist just kept going with the unpopular specifics to whoever was in earshot. Listen to what he calls the crowds coming to be baptized, with Matthew specifying that John was referring specifically to the religious leaders, the Pharisees and Sadducees:
“…You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?” (Luke 3:7, NIV)
Wow. Although everyone else knows that the Pharisees and Sadducees are the people you’re supposed to try to impress, John the Baptist calls them “snake babies.” Shouldn’t he be excited that they’re coming out to listen? Yet he’s really stern and serious. Why is he so serious?
“If we want help getting ready for the final judgment, what’s truly helpful is a call to repentance plus specifics.”
How serious is our situation?
Why is John the Baptist treating his audience’s sins so seriously? After all, the audience is God’s chosen people. These are the children of Abraham. How serious could their situation be? Actually,
“Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham.” (Luke 3:8, NIV)
So, how important is this repentance thing for them? Where on the timeline are they in the process of God’s judgment? He explained,
“The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.” (Luke 3:9, NIV)
That’s graphic language. For his audience, judgment wasn’t 100 years off. God’s judgment was at the root of the tree. That’s scary stuff.
So, it’s at this point that his audience begins asking what exactly he means by repentance. His responses are helpfully specific:
- If you’ve got extra clothes, give to those who don’t.
- If you’ve got extra food, feed those who don’t.
- If you’re a tax collector, don’t overcharge.
- If you’re a soldier, don’t bully people around and take their money, and don’t be complaining about your paycheck.
Their situation is serious, and that’s why we need repentance plus specifics.
“For his audience, judgment wasn’t 100 years off. God’s judgment was at the root of the tree.”
What happens if we don’t repent?
When people start wondering if John could be the Messiah, he makes it clear that he most definitely isn’t. He immediately takes his audience’s focus and retrains it on the Messiah to come. And when the Messiah comes, what will he do?
“…I baptize you with water. But one who is more powerful than I will come, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” (Luke 3:15-17, NIV)
From these verses, we learn that it is good to be baptized by the Holy Spirit (immersed in the Spirit), and it’s bad to be baptized by fire (i.e., what happens to the chaff). In light of the Messiah’s teachings, those who won’t repent are in serious danger.
The One who has the power
John the Baptist has already mentioned that fruitless trees will go into the fire, and that the “ax is already at the root of the trees.” By introducing Jesus into the picture, he sobers the audience up even more with a Messiah to come who will separate wheat from the chaff, and then “burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” John has the power to draw crowds, but he uses his platform to point his audience to him “who is more powerful.” Compared to the Messiah, John saw himself very humbly.
A rabbi didn’t typically get paid for teaching his students, so his students would serve the rabbi and do work for him. Yet, there was one job that was commonly considered too low for the student to do. Here’s how the rabbinic saying goes: “Every service which a slave performs for his master shall a disciple do for his teacher except the loosing of his sandal-strap.” So, here’s how it works: You’ve got the rabbi. Then under the rabbi are his students. They serve the rabbi. Then, somewhere under the students is a person so low that his job is to untie the rabbi’s sandal strap (if such a low person even exists). Then, John the Baptist says, “Oh, I’m not even important enough to untie Jesus’ sandal strap.” With as important as John the Baptist was, where do you think that puts us in relationship with Rabbi Jesus?
“John sobers the audience up even more with a Messiah to come who will separate wheat from the chaff.”
Once we too recognize Jesus’ awesome power, we’re in a good place, even if it feels intimidating. What a relief to know that Jesus is more powerful than all our greatest enemies: sin, death, the devil, etc. He may be highly intimidating (just ask the demons!), but Jesus’ power actually makes him the perfect person for us to take refuge in. This is because Jesus is both our Judge (John 5:22-23) and our Savior. Our situation is serious, and that’s why we take refuge in him. The One we stand before at the final judgment is the One we need to take refuge in today.
You know that kids’ game you might have played at one time (probably when there was nothing else to do) where you each put one hand on top of the other? With hands on top of hands, there’s basically a tower of hands, and it’s ever-shifting because the person on the bottom pulls his hand out and puts it on the top, followed by the next person who brings his hand from the bottom to the top, and so on. In terms of importance, we’re at the bottom (under John the Baptist, who is an under-the-sandal-guy). But Jesus turns that hand game upside down, to where he, starting from the top, inserts himself under where we’re at. He chose to serve us and so teach us how to serve others (Philippians 2:3-8). He shows us that real power—the power to transform people and restore the world—comes from sacrificial love.
The One we stand before at the final judgment is the One we need to take refuge in today.
Wrath is on its way
We will all stand someday before the judgment seat of God (Romans 14:10), and his wrath against sin is very real (Luke 3:7). Every evil action that’s ever made you shudder. Every headline that’s made your heart hurt. Every sin you’ve ever committed that you hope nobody finds out about. Multiply them and multiply them again until you’ve got all the sins committed throughout history. That’s some major wrath that’s been building up, and it’s on its way.
If we don’t repent of our sins and take refuge in Jesus, that wrath comes against us. In light of the final judgment in which we will stand before God, it’s time for everyone to get serious about repentance. We need to keep reminding ourselves that, even if repentance isn’t fun, it’s not the thing we should be afraid of.
What we should fear is regret.
And how do we prevent regret? Repentance.
