♪ Beyond all measure ♪ That he should give his only Son ♪ To make a wretch his treasure ♪ Now praise the name, O cheering Lord ♪ The proud and learned ♪ With many sons to glory ♪ ♪ Behold the might of all the Lord ♪ ♪ Rising upon His shoulders ♪ I will not forsake anything. Namo'valokiteshvaraya Lord, we thank you that it is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone forever, Lord. And we do indeed cry hallelujah to the lamb this morning. Lord, we thank you for this offering. Lord, we thank you for those who have given it, Lord. We just pray that you would take it and use it for the furtherance of your kingdom this morning, Lord. In your name, amen. Our last song is Yet Not I, if you could remain standing. Lift up, raise, it's Jesus, my Redeemer. There is no more, more heaven bound to me. He is my joy, my righteousness, and freedom. My steadfast love, my deep and valiant knees. My hope is only Jesus, for my life is only the truth. I am not forsaken, for by my side this faith of evil's made. I labor on in weakness and rejoicing. Oh New feet I tread, I know I am forgiven The future's sure, the Christ who has been made For Jesus' sake I love you. Morning. Oh, can I add my thanks to all the hard workers yesterday? It was wonderful to share fellowship and we were blessed by all that you did and all the ways you served in all the different ways. So I wanna thank you and just also to add my welcome if you're here visiting or you're listening online for the first time, please accept our welcome. It's good to see you. We start our second part in our Christmas mini-series. I always like the challenge of Christmas. How many times can you look at the same thing every year, but from a different direction? I mean, Christmas is Christmas. Christ is born. Christ came, he was born, and he was born for a purpose. But last week we started it and we looked and we've been really following the sort of the advent. So last week was the first week of advent and we looked at what advent was. It's both a season and an event. It's a thing that happens, but it's about a person as well. And many times we gravitate to one or the other. We like the season, or we like the event, and we don't normally think about the person, or sometimes we're so busy thinking about the person, we forget about all that went into bringing that into being. So Advent is both a season and an event, and last week we looked at the first week of Advent, as I said, which I put in as hope in waiting, hope in waiting. Now, all this is based around the lighting of the Advent candles, if you remember those. That's a wonderful thing to do from time to time. And the first candle was the candle of hope, and so we looked at that. And we've seen how the hope in wedding was to do with the hope of a child. A child was to come. The child who is God. A child who would reign. And a child who would restore. And that's what we looked at. And it all came from Isaiah. Isaiah. Those well-known passages that we get. We always have read around Christmas time. So there was hope. in the waiting. And we looked at this concept of waiting and why there should be hope because Isaiah wrote these prophecies 700 years before Christ came. And we sort of, you know, we always think, you know, waiting from Christmas to Christmas is long, you know. You just finish, you get to Boxing Day and it's like, I can't wait till next Christmas, you know. But can you picture waiting 700 years for the fulfillment of these prophecies? And yet that's what, you know, God's not in a rush. God was waiting for the right time to come. And so we looked at this hope in waiting, the hope of a child to come. Well, we're gonna look at our second part, part two, the advent of Advent, part two, and I put this in preparation while we wait. Preparation while we wait. I want to read the passage we're going to be looking at again. It's from Isaiah. Isaiah chapter 40 and verses 3 through to 5. Isaiah 40 verses 3 through to verse 5. In the minute I begin to read it, you'll know it. It's a very well-known passage, and it says this, starting at verse three, it says, shall be revealed and all flesh shall see shall see it together for the mouth of the Lord has spoken this is a great passage Normally, a great prophecy when we're thinking about the time of Christmas, the advent as it is, that this passage that we've read, many people will go, well, that's about John the Baptist. It's not necessarily about Jesus. But there's a key point here. But there is a slight thing as I was preparing this, that we often think that this is the verse, the verse in Scripture for John the Baptist. Sadly, it's not. We have another verse in Malachi, Malachi chapter three, verse one, saying this. Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight. Behold, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts. I don't know if you got it there, but between Isaiah 40 verse 3 and Malachi chapter 3 verse 1, there's a recurring theme. Prepare the way of the Lord. Prepare the way of the Lord. Hence, the title for this morning. Not just the advent of advent part two, but preparation while we wait. Okay, I think it's very important that we focus in on this. So we're going to look at a few things very quickly, is prepare the way of the Lord. That's the first point. Then the second point is make straight the paths, then there's going to be removal of obstacles, and then we're going to see its impact on me. What does this mean for me and for you? I want you to be asking yourself that question as we go through this whole service. What does this mean for me? Okay, so the first thing is, prepare the way of the Lord. We see this in Isaiah, the beginning of verse 3 of Isaiah. Forty, prepare the voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord. And in Amaleki chapter three, verse one, behold, I send my messenger and he will prepare the way before me. So what does this mean, prepare the way of the Lord? Well, many scholars have said it means to prepare oneself and one's community for the coming of God. Now we have seen here, and again, we have to keep something in tension here. We've seen last week, and it will be a recurring theme, that when we think about the coming of the Lord, the whole aspect of Scripture is not just about his first coming, but about his second coming also. Now, in case you're wondering, we've missed his first coming. We look back in history and we see that he is born. That's what Christmas is all about, that he was born. He came to die on the cross, and that's why we said last week, if he never came and was never born, we would never have an Easter. Without Christmas, you can't have Easter, because it's all about Christ and why he came. But the other aspect about Advent is to look forward and his second coming. So the question still stands firm. How are we preparing ourselves for the coming of the Lord? The instruction is clear, prepare the way. So how are we preparing ourselves for the coming of the Lord? As many scholars say, it has this impact on us personally, but it's also on the community. And I want to divide that up into a couple of parts, us as God's church. the community here that meets here, how are we preparing ourselves personally, ourselves collectively, but also the communities that we're part of, how are we preparing them for the coming of the Lord? These are questions that have got no easy answer. And trust me, I can't answer for you how you're preparing yourself for the coming of the Lord. I can't answer that for you. I can only answer for me. And that's a big enough answer in and of itself. So we're gonna look at these things and we're gonna just unpack a few thoughts as we go through. The imagery here is drawn from the great some great works of the east, the conquerors of the east, they would send a herald before them. It's going through all the towns and the villages and the cities of all the places they've conquered. As they're on the way back, this herald would go through and go, prepare the way for the king. He would declare it. Your king, your conqueror, is coming. Prepare the way. Prepare the place. Prepare yourselves. The king is coming in. Prepare the whole area for the king. And that's where this idea comes from. So can you picture John the Baptist, if we may, for a moment, just going through with the Jews, going, prepare. Prepare the way, prepare yourselves for the King is coming. Get prepared, the King is coming. That's the idea behind this. It's not anything in one sense over, sometimes we pack in so much into this, but the simple aspect of this is just this declaration, the King is coming. Prepare yourself, get ready. We'll unpack this a bit more, but the idea is the phrase comes from the Old Testament prophet, Isaiah, who describes a voice in the wilderness calling for the preparation of a highway for the Lord. John the Baptist is saying to you, and he's saying to me, and Isaiah, as he writes, he's declaring, prepare in your life, prepare in your hearts, prepare personally, prepare collectively, a way for the king. Many times, many times, again, I can speak personally, we have a habit at times of putting too many obstacles in the way of the Lord. You know, we come into his presence and God has to do this, this, and this, and this, or else it's not quite church, or we haven't quite met with the Lord. Well, God can meet with us as we walk out to the car if he really wants to. God is not bound by place or time. He can meet with us anywhere at any time. Are we prepared? Are we preparing ourselves to meet with God? As we come into this wonderful building, are we preparing ourselves to meet with God? As we come to the prayer meetings and the Bible studies, are we preparing ourselves to meet with God? Are we preparing a way? That is the idea here that's brought in. To go along with this, we get the second instruction, to make straight the path. To make straight the path. It seems a bit strange as if we're asking the council to get out and start making, you know, get away all the curves and just make a straight path. That's not what it means. What it does mean is something a bit more personal. And it also means something for us collectively as well. To make straight the path. The core of making the way straight is a sincere change of heart, turning away from sin and making a conscious choice to live according to God's way. So here's again, we can develop this in John the Baptist. John the Baptist, what did he call for? Repentance. Repent and be baptized. He called people to repentance and then the baptized, because he was calling them to make straight the way, because the King is coming. To start dealing, start looking inwardly, not to be selfish or it's all about me. It's not so much a navel gaze, but to open up your heart and to look into it and go, what do I have to change? What do I have to make straight? Because the King is coming. Is there something I have to deal with personally? Is there something I have to repent of personally? Is there something collectively? I'm not saying there is, I'm just putting this out here as questions. Because this is what it's all about, to prepare the way means we have to be willing to open up our heart and let the Holy Spirit search us and make straight the path. Be prepared to repent of what needs repented of, to fix what needs fixed. Fix those crooked paths to make them straight, as it were, metaphorically. making one's heart straight and open to God's will. This is not about, it's not about, we come to church and it's not about what I want, it's not about, and I don't want to burst anybody's bubble, but coming to church should not be about what you want or what I want. Coming to church should be about what God wants. Our heart should be open to Him. Now, I'm not trying to, say that we have to change everything or we have to be radical or we throw away all manner of protocol. I'm not saying any of that. All I'm saying is sometimes we come and we look for a specific thing to be done, not the meeting of the Lord. And our hearts have to be open to God's will, doing what God wants. You remember Christ, and I said this, Christ said, He taught us to pray, and we looked at this last week. He didn't teach us to pray, God, give me what I want. He taught us to pray, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. He taught us to pray, Father, not my will, but your will be done. That's what he taught us to pray. And so as we come in, as we're preparing our hearts, as we make straight the path, as we prepare the way to meet with the King, We should also be prepared to say, Father, not my will be done, but your will be done. This is all about making the path straight. It's about being prepared to put aside all the things that we want, personally or collectively, and laying at God's feet saying, Father, your will be done. This is what it means to make straight the path. It does take sacrifice. Without a doubt, it can be painful at times, but this is what this means. This is what this means, to be able to take a stand and say, I will put aside everything, put away everything that gets in the way. I want to prepare the way to meet with the King. That's all I want to do. One scholar says that this means turning away from sin, confessing, and making a conscious choice to follow God's path. I think that's very self-explanatory. I was going to ask a very stupid question. I do that sometimes. Like, can you put your hands up if you're perfect? I didn't think so. There are things in all our lives, isn't there? If we're honest, there are things in all our lives. And we have to be prepared in this aspect as we prepare the way, as we're waiting for that event, that advent, the King coming, we have to prepare the way, which means we have to be prepared to repent as the Holy Spirit goes, that bit in your life, that's not right. or let's work on this aspect of your life now. We have to be prepared to repent and follow God in the way he wants. Isn't it the Psalmist who said, search me, O God, and know my heart? Psalm 139. And he goes on and say, try me and know my anxieties and see if there's any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting. Are we preparing our hearts to meet with the King? The King is coming, amen? Are we preparing our hearts to meet the King? And are we coming in, and I, listen, I don't care if you march to the front or you sit at the back, I really don't care, but are we at that point where we say, search me, try me, know if there's any wicked way in me. I wanna prepare my heart, I wanna make straight the path to meet with the King. My heart is to meet with the King. That's all I want to do, is sit and spend time with the King. See Him face to face and talk with Him as a friend speaks with a friend. But I know to come into the presence of a holy God, I have to make the pass straight. I have to come and let Him do a work in my life, and I have to open up my heart to Him. So make straight the path. Search me, O God, and know my heart. In Matthew chapter three, verses one and two, it says, in those days, John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea, saying, repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Repent. We know what that means. You've had it told you many, many times. It's not a threatening word. It's not a complicated word. It just means a 180 degree about turn. So here's the reality here of this passage. Doesn't matter what you've been doing to a point. If God puts his finger on it and says, that's not right, do a 180 degree about turn and follow him, not follow your own heart. Prepare the way, open up your heart, search me, oh God, know me, try me. If there's anything not right, I want to repent of it because I want to meet with you. Not that I want to make myself look good to the person beside me. I'm not trying to impress anybody else. I want to meet with you. God, and therefore I have to prepare the way." The next thing we want to see is the removal of obstacles. Isaiah 40 verses 3 and 4 says, the voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert, a highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted, every mountain and hill brought low. The crooked path shall be made straight, or as some would say, plain, and rough places smooth. This involves, if we want to say, the leveling of metaphorical mountains, those mountains of pride. Pride is what had Satan fall in the first place. And scholars, as they've dealt with this, they've taken that aspect of mountains and valleys and those metaphorical ideas and they've said, these aspects of it, it's all about me and it's all about what I want, it's all about pride. They have to be brought down low. Humble yourselves before the Lord and he will lift you up. It's all throughout Scripture. God wants the humble. God loves the humble. That's why I love the picture of the Pharisee and the tax collector. The Pharisee's at the front and he's saying, God, I bet you're glad I'm on your team. And the tax collector's at the back saying, oh God, have mercy on me, a sinner. And God asked his listeners in my way, which one went home right? Humble. We are to remove those mountains. It's not about us, never about us. And as we wait, as we anticipate, as we look for the King coming, the King is coming. Well, we should be anticipating it. Are we saying, God, remove any stumbling blocks from me? Because I want to meet with you. This is what this great passage is. In the valleys, the valleys of sin and despair in one's life, sin has a way of crushing, stealing the joy. And again, I don't judge anyone. I don't point fingers at anyone. I'm not here as judge and jury. Trust me, I am not. But you know your life better than I know your life. You know the things you wrestle with more than I know the things you wrestle with. In fact, I know the things that I wrestle with and you don't know what things I wrestle with. But God does. God knows it all. And now, are we prepared to deal with those valleys, those dark times, those times when we, when we, play with the thought of rebellion or running away. Those ideas, those weights of despair and feeling pressed down, are we gonna deal with those? Because again, the scripture says, prepare the way. Deal with it. Let's be honest with it. Don't hide from it. Prepare it. The king is coming. The king's gonna be here soon. So we have to prepare these things. So what is its impact on me? What is this idea of preparing the way, dealing with the valleys and the mountains and the making straight the path? What is its impact on me? This is a valid question. If you're going to read this passage and we're thinking about Advent, and this is all about Advent, it's all about John the Baptist coming to the to declare that the king is coming or the king has arrived and they are to prepare the place. If you're going to keep that at an arm's length, you're not going to hear what God is saying. If you're going to open up your heart and say, God, what are you saying to me? Then we're going to see this passage in true light. You see, when John the Baptist preached, repent and be baptized, I can almost picture, you know, by the river, and he's saying, repent and be baptized. The person who felt convicted didn't turn and go, well, that's all about you. You should repent and go and be baptized. No, the Holy Spirit spoke to each person individually. It was up to them personally to make the choice. So again, the impact, what does this mean about me, me? And again, I'm just going to put it out there because it also means us. Because if we all dealt with ourselves individually, guess what? God would deal with us collectively because he deals with us all individually. So let us not keep it at arm's length or think it's for somebody else. Let us look at this passage and go, what is its impact on me? To prepare the way of the Lord means to get spiritually ready for Jesus is coming. Now, I want to stop just there because, again, these scholars have put in many great things, but I want to just say, getting ready for Jesus is coming means, one, we examine our hearts for why Jesus had to come first time. Do you realize why Jesus had to come the first time, his first coming? Do you realize what it was all about? Do you realize that he came to defeat sin, to crush sin, to defeat Satan, to destroy the works of the evil one? He came so that he could die. Do we understand that? Not just to give businesses their bumper time of year. But he came to deal with sin. To live the life we should have lived. To live the life that Adam should have lived, but Adam sinned, so the second Adam came. These are all great pictures, great types that we have in scripture. But here's, again, the reality. As we think about his first coming, preparation is about his second coming. Think about that for a minute. Think about that for a minute. I was listening to a testimony this week of an atheist. He was 90, I'm gonna, I'll probably get this wrong, but I think he was 97 or something. When he gets saved, an ardent atheist crushed Christians, pushed against them. He fought against them. God dealt with him. And he said this one phrase, he says, as I repented, and he got baptized as well, just see his testimony and see him getting baptized. And he came up out of the water and he's weeping and he's thanking God for salvation. He turned and he said this, I had this dream. Before he could say it, he said, I had this dream. And he said, I was standing in my lecture hall as I've done countless years in the past. And I could see myself at the podium where I've beat and crushed many Christians and dispel their hopes as fairy tales. He said, and I looked to my left, and he says, there to my left was a figure, bright, shining bright. He said, I couldn't see his face, but it was Jesus. He says, at that moment, every thought I had was on display. And he repented. So here's the thought, can you picture, and again, I don't want to be emotional, I don't want to try and push you down these traps, but it struck me that we need to prepare for the king coming. The king is coming back, we shouldn't be playing games, but can you picture the point when he comes back and I'm before him and all my thoughts come out as real before me? What's that gonna be like? What's it gonna be like for you? That's why here we're encouraged to prepare the way because the king is coming. The king has come and the king is coming. Prepare the way. And notice what this whole picture is about is the conquering king. It's not just someone who hopes to be king or someone who's trying his best to be a king, but someone who is a conquering king is coming. Christ is coming. He's not coming as a lamb. He's coming as a lion. He's coming. He's not coming as savior. He's coming as judge. This is the king. This is the second advent that we wait for. But as we're instructed for the first advent, Christmas, so we're instructed for the second advent, his return, is that we prepare ourselves. We make straight the path. We remove the obstacles. We get ourselves right spiritually. We get ourselves right spiritually for his coming. That's why I say, because if you're anything like me, I know what it's like to play the game. I could play the game. In fact, all my friends that I grew up with in this place used to think I was a Christian before I actually became one, because I could play the game brilliantly. I could sing the songs. I could even memorize scripture. I could do the Christian thing, but I wasn't a Christian. And it wasn't up until God touched my heart, challenged, He appeared, He challenged, well, I challenged Him and He beat me twice. But God did a work in my life. And from that point on, I had to deal with Him spiritually. I had to repent of my sin and give him control of my life. And it's the same for you. I don't know where you are today. I don't know how you've come in this place. I don't know where you are in your mind or in your heart. But the thing goes out, the whole concept goes out the same. We have to deal with him spiritually. Get ourselves right spiritually. Don't put it off to tomorrow. We've often heard it said, Tomorrow never comes. Tomorrow never comes. It's a place where you always put stuff off to, but it never actually comes tomorrow. And we're never promised it either, so we're told to get it right today. Today is the day of salvation. So we're encouraged, each and every one of us, wherever you are, if you're here today and you do not know Christ personally, God invites you, challenges you to get right spiritually with him. If you claim to be a follower of his, make straight the path. Is there things in our lives that we have to deal with to get right? Things that we're putting in our life before him, things that we need to repent of, a lifestyle perhaps we're playing with, but it's not a godly lifestyle we need to repent of. We have to prepare ourselves for the coming king. We are to create. I mean, there's whole aspects in here. People were looking at humility and love and a conscious effort to align oneself, one's life with God's path. All these things are great, wonderful words, but all that means is that we are willing to say, God, I'm sorry for doing it my way. I don't want that. I want it your way. That's what it means. It goes on, many of them go on to say that it's to create a welcoming environment. And I'm not just talking about church, I'm talking about also your heart. We create an environment in which the Holy Spirit comes to dwell. We remove the obstacles, no hindrances, no barriers. There's none of this, God, you can't go here, because that's my special place. Our hearts are open to him completely. Psalmist says, lift up, in Psalm 24, verse nine, lift up your heads, O ye gates, lift up you everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall come in. There's this wonderful, again, the psalmist has this great picture. Again, once we prepare the way, we can fling open the gates, we can lift them up because the King of glory will come in. Because we've made, we've prepared the way, we've removed the obstacles, the King, the conquering King, the returning King, he'll come in. He will come in and it's all about him first and foremost. So we've got a great, we've got a great passage here. A passage that's normally skated over very quickly as we point to John and what John had to do, make things ready for Christ's coming. But that passage of a voice crying out in the wilderness, prepare the way for the Lord, is important for us. Not because of the birth of Christ, because Christ has been, he has come, he was born, He died and he rose again. It's important for us because the truth is still relevant and real. Our King is coming. Now, I don't know when. Trust me, he could come before I end this. Or he could come tonight, he could come tomorrow. I do not know when he's coming back, but I do know he is coming back. And it's not incumbent upon me to know the exact day or hour and tell you guys the exact day or hour. That's not the important bit. The important bit is we have to tell one another that he is coming back and to prepare ourselves for his coming back. To go out and warn the person who isn't following Christ, the one who isn't a Christian yet, the one who lives their life far away from God, to warn them that the King is coming. We have to prepare ourselves. So it's important for us. So just as we conclude, it says this, so just as there is hope in waiting, there is hope because of the child, a son who will be king, who he's gonna come and he's gonna do the great things that we looked at in the first week, the hope of Christ to come. and fulfill the prophecies of God the Father, so there is preparation. This preparation is incumbent on all of us as we hopefully and eagerly anticipate the return of Christ. I want to use the words of Paul here. In case you're wondering, you say, Rodney, when will that work be finished? In the words of Philippians, Paul says that he who began a work on you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. So it's gonna be a lifelong work. Until you see Christ face-to-face, that work will continue. But when we see Christ face-to-face for the believer, that work is finished. We are made perfect in his sight. But this is incumbent upon us that we on a daily basis make straight the path for him. In light of Christ's first advent, how has it impacted on my life? And in light of his promised second advent, his return, how am I preparing my life to meet him? Those are the questions we ask ourselves. So if you get anything from today, it should be the question, How am I preparing myself to meet Christ? Amen. We're gonna sing our final hymn, and it's a great, great song, Only a Holy God. and whisper in darkness trembles, only our Holy God. All of her beauty demands such praises. All of her splendor outshines the sun. All of her majesty rules with justice. What other glory consumes like fire? What other fathom and ways to death? What other name remains undefeated? Only a holy name. Who else could rescue me from my failings? Who else could offer His only Son? Who else invites me to call Him Father? Only our Holy God. Behold Him, the One and the Only. Ride on, stay holy, ride on. Come and behold him, the one and only. If you are here this morning or if you're listening and you do not know him, not know Christ personally, I ask you that you will not let another minute go by without giving him your full life. Lord, we want to thank you that you have met with us this morning. Lord, as we've been thinking about your first coming and how that declaration to prepare the way So Lord, I pray that we would take that same call and help us to prepare our hearts to make straight the path for the return of the King. Dear Lord, who are we that you should come to us? That you have visited your people, as we think about that so many years ago, and because of your death and your resurrection, you redeemed us in your Son. Lord, as we prepare to celebrate your birth, make our hearts leap for joy at the sound of your word, and move us by your spirit as we prepare ourselves for your return. We ask this in your name, amen.