There's another kind of book we could well use as adults - "What to Do When We Don't Know What to Do". It would be for those situations when we have a problem and are quite stuck for the right course of action. It might need to be encyclopaedic in size! It would have to include all those helpful hints the women's magazines have about removal of a whole variety of stains. The handyman would want it to help get him out of the problems he strikes in restoring that old piece of furniture. It would have to be up to date with what do do when the fancy new ignition system in your car breaks down - and what to do for survival if that happens in Central Australia! It should probably also include a good section for politicians and bureaucrats. Now there's a book just waiting to be written!
Fortunately, for most of our life we don't need that kind of information. Experience has taught us most things we seem to know. But from time to time we have been faced with major decisions - and nobody else could really help us. The question of marriage was like that - so important, and yet the decision had to be ours alone.
We have been thinking about the birth of Jesus. Then we have had a brief glimpse of Jesus at the age of twelve - when he already understood his identity as the Son of God and knew that he had his heavenly Father's business to be about. Now another eighteen years have passed as the story continues for us in Luke chapter 3.
For Luke it was an important historical turning-point and he marked it with six historical references - the Emperor Tiberius, four governors in this part of the Empire and Annas and Caiaphas as high priests.
This was when John the son of Zechariah received that deep inner conviction of a message from the Lord - the word of the Lord came to him out in the wilderness. He was going about the country near the Jordan calling on people, "If you want to be forgiven, repent and be baptised."
But when people began to come out to him, he was very direct, very blunt. "You are the offspring of vipers. Who taught you to flee from the coming wrath?" For John's call to repentance was against a very strong back drop of the impending judgement of God. Were the people just like the snakes in the barren places that came out of their holes to escape the desert fire? And yes, the image of the snake was very definitely placing people on the side of evil!
The repentance to which John was calling them was a change of heart leading to a change of life. It was not simply a matter of stopping for a brief time to say, "God, I'm sorry!" and then continuing to do all those things that were hurting God and that would destine them for the judgement! They would have to show by the fruit of their lives that they had truly repented. There would need to be the evidence in their lives that they were no longer on the side of the serpent.
So the question that people were asking John - "What are we to do?" It wasn't a matter of saying, "John, tell us how to escape this judgement" Rather, they were asking, "In what ways can our lives begin to be different?"
I suppose we all have at least two problems here. We don't think of ourselves as particularly prominent sinners - we try to avoid the wrong thing and to do the right. So we may be quite unaware of any areas of change that might be needed.
Then, we are creatures of habit. Much of our life happens fairly automatically. Many things slip in unnoticed and just become part of the fabric of our lives. And we absorb many other things from the society about us - in meeting other people and in the influence of the media. And when something is a habit, we don't think much about it. What happens automatically doesn't trouble our conscience much at all.
Perhaps you have heard the little saying -
And they say that we only need to do something consistently for a fortnight and it becomes a habit. Habit, of course, isn't all bad! Good habits help our life. We don't have to stop and think all the time. But we do need to review our lives regularly in the light of God's Word - a daily review and a weekly stock-take. Otherwise, our lives will tend to drift away from where God intends them to be and our hearts will have drifted away from God - even if we are still (like the people of John's day) involved in formal worship.
What are we to do? To the general crowd, John's answer was that they had to share what they had with others. He put this at the very basic needs of food and clothing. It is striking that Jesus, in teaching us not to worry but to trust God, also refers to these twin needs. "Your Father in heaven knows that you need all these things. Instead, be concerned above everything else with the Kingdom of God and with what he requires of you, and he will provide you with all these other things."
Dare we trust God and give away our surplus? Dare we give our attention, unemcumbered, to the Kingdom of God? Dare we act as true stewards and share with others what really belongs to the Lord anyway?
What are we to do? The tax collectors were not told they had to give up their job for the foreign power - even though it brought them the anger and scorn of their fellows. But they were instructed to collect their taxes honestly. The tax system of those days was very much open to abuse. Tax collectors became rich on the surplus they extorted from people.
I don't think any of us are extortionists! But dare we live with scrupulous honesty?
What are we to do? the soldiers asked. These soldiers may have belonged to the armed forces of Herod Antipas or have been directly in the service of the Romans. John does not call on them to give up their military calling. But they are instructed not to use bullying tactics, not to extort money from people through false accusations - and to be satisfied with their pay.
Undoubtedly there would have been others too - what are we to do? In what ways do we need to be different? What evils need to be removed? What good things need to be planted in their place so that we will bear good fruit?
The message of John to "repent, for the Kingdom of God is near" is the same message with which Jesus began his ministry. Jesus is the one whom John acknowledged as the greater one who was following. In contrast to John's water-baptism, he would baptise with the Holy Spirit and fire. We read these words and think of Pentecost, but John's words were about God's judgement. The Holy Wind and Fire conjure up the picture of the threshing-floor. Later, when John was in prison, he sent two of his disciples to find out if Jesus really was the coming one. Was this, perhaps, because the ministry of Jesus was different from John's expectation?
But the message of John, though strongly about judgement, was finally a word of good news - "he urged many other things too and declared the good news to the people." The call to repentance reminds us that God treats sin very seriously, but it also affirms that God wants to forgive us. And the greater one died on a cross to open the way to heaven to all who will put their trust in him.
And what are we to do? I cannot answer the specifics of that for you. For myself, I need to look at my life in the light of what God expects of me. I need to read his Word daily with that prayerful openness. I need to review regularly my attitudes and actions towards other people and the society I live in. Lord, what am I to do?
I need to repent of every point of discrepancy, knowing his forgiveness and claiming the enabling power of his Holy Spirit. I need to be open to changes of direction and practical actions that will reflect that I now seek first his Kingdom and what he requires of me.
What about you? What are we to do?
Back to Sermons