Directions to the Party

SCRIPTURE: Luke 3:1-6 (ESV)

DATE: 12-10-17

It’s good to be with all of you at Gateway Church this weekend. And one thing I want you to know — and it doesn’t matter if it’s your first time with us or even if you’re worshiping at our North Main campus — one thing I want you to know is that God loves you and I love you too.

SERIES INTRODUCTION

And today we are in week two of our Christmas series, which we’re calling “Christmas Party.” So as we head towards Christmas, we’re doing so through the lens of a party.

Last week, we looked at the signs that tell us when the party is about to begin. When you go to a party — birthday party, Christmas party, or whatever — there are clues that tell you you’re in the right place. Balloons, for instance, or streamers tell you a party is about to begin. And last week we discovered clues in the Bible that tell us when the party of all parties is about to begin.

Today, we’re going to look at the directions to the party. A party isn’t any fun if you can’t find your way there. So today we’re going to find the directions to the party of all parties.

Next week, we’re going to see who is the life of the party. Every party has that one person who grabs the crowd’s attention. And in our Christmas Party there’s a Person Who’s the center of attention. He’s the life of the party.

And on Christmas Eve weekend, we’ll end this series by looking at what every good party needs…a party song. There’s nothing like great music to amp up the intensity of a party. And our Christmas Party has got a great party song that we’ll look at in a few weeks.

Signs that the party is about to begin. Directions to the party. The life of the party. And the party song.

ANNOUNCE THE TEXT

If you have your Bible please turn with me to Luke chapter three. We’ll be in Luke chapter three looking at verses one through six together.

And if you’re a guest with us — something we like to do at Gateway — is let you ask questions. So if you have a question during the sermon, you can text it to the number printed on the bulletin or you can submit it on the Gateway app.

RE-ANNOUNCE AND READ THE TEXT

Here are the words found in Luke chapter three. Beginning in verse one.

“In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene, 2 during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the wilderness. 3 And he went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 4 As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet, “The voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. 5 Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall become straight, and the rough places shall become level ways, 6 and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’” (Luke 3:1-6 ESV)

SERMON INTRODUCTION

Directions to the party. Last week, I mentioned that in this series we’re discovering that there are actually two different parties in the Bible. The first party began when Jesus was born in Bethlehem. It’s what Christmas is all about.

We see this as people put nativity scenes in their yards and on their mantles. We see this as we watch Charlie Brown’s Christmas special and hear Linus tell the biblical Christmas story on TV — and no one seems to be offended — it’s amazing.

But the first Christmas party — when Jesus was born in Bethlehem — was a party of reconciliation. You see our sin and rebellion against God had caused us to be separated from Him. The Bible describes mankind as people desperately in need of a relationship with God and yet we’re unable to find Him — not because He’s hiding — but because He is holy and we’re an unholy people.

But God so loved the world that He sent His Son — Jesus — to be born in Bethlehem as a baby — with the purpose of reconciling us to Himself — and to reconcile means to restore a relationship — to make right a broken relationship. So God — in His love — not because of anything we’ve done or will ever do — but solely based on His love for us — God sent Jesus to Earth as a baby who would grow up to be the Savior of the world — Jesus was sent — the first time — to start the party of reconciliation.

And although the party of reconciliation is a fantastic party, there’s an even greater party in store for everyone who believes in Jesus. Because when He returns to Earth — as promised in the Bible — a new party will begin. The party of redemption.

And the party of redemption is a party where slaves will be set free. Who are the slaves and what will they be set free from? Well, we’re the slaves. And we’ll be set free from our sin and rebellion. Set free from sorrow and pain. Set free disease and disappointments. Set free from our fears and set free even from death.

To be reconciled is a tremendous gift from God, but redemption — well that’s when the Party of all parties begins. And though we begin to taste and experience the party of redemption when we believe — it’s only a taste.

Kind of like when Grandma bakes Christmas cookies and has you taste a little bit of the batter just to make sure it’s OK. Everyone knows the cookie dough tastes awesome, but she gives you the taste because she loves you — she wants you to be excited and focused on what’s coming. And when Grandma’s Christmas cookies come out of the oven — well — that’s when the feasting begins — that’s the real party.

And our passage for today gives us the directions to both parties — for the directions to both parties is the same. Because the people who are reconciled with God are the people who will one day experience the completion of this promised redemption. For this a redemption that Jesus has guaranteed we will experience as we spend eternity with Him in the New Heavens and Earth.

So let’s look at the directions to both parties. Let’s begin in verse one of Luke chapter three where we read…

MAIN POINT 1

Now Luke — as you may know — wrote his gospel after doing a thorough investigation into the life of Jesus. In fact, the gospel of Luke begins with, “Many people have set out to write accounts about the events that have been fulfilled among us. 2 They used the eyewitness reports circulating among us from the early disciples. 3 Having carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I also have decided to write a careful account for you, most honorable Theophilus, 4 (and why did Luke carefully investigate the stories about Jesus in a way similar to a trustworthy news journalist who investigates a story today? In verse four Luke tells Theophilus that he did this so you can be…) certain of the truth of everything you were taught.” (Luke 1:1-4 NLT)

And a great way to help someone be certain is to use specific details to support your report. And that’s what we encounter in the first two verses of Luke chapter three.

Luke gives us a list of various men who held either government or religious positions. These are all real men who actually existed whose names appear in other documents in history.

Luke even gives us dates so we can know when all of this happened. Why? Because he wrote this gospel with the intent of Theophilus being certain that the stories about Jesus were true and — what better way is there to do that — than to give specific details like the names of people who were serving in government positions and dates — that can be verified — as to when all of these things took place.

Luke tells us that these things took place in the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar, which was most likely from August AD28 to August AD29. What do we know about Tiberius? We know that he was a skilled military commander who had a good handle on the administrative side of government work. What does that tell us? He was an actual person.

Pilate and Herod are two names Luke mentions that you probably recognize — especially if you have any familiarity with the death of Jesus. Both of these men show up at the end of Jesus’ life and are part of the account of His death.

You may wonder, what is a tetrarch — that’s not a term we’re used to hearing. Technically a tetrarch was a ruler who had authority over a fourth of a region or area. So divide up an area into quarters and each person who ruled over a quarter of the land was called a tetrarch. But the term was eventually used to describe low level rulers who maybe had a little more or a little less than a quarter of land to rule over. What’s the point? These were real people.

And as we keep going in our verses, we see more names and specific lands they were in charge of. Why? Luke’s wanting us to know that these are real people, real facts, his gospel is a real story — it’s a record of what actually happened.

And then there’s a shift from government employees to religious leaders. We encounter the high priests Annas and Caiaphas. Now — technically speaking — the Jewish faith only had one high priest. The position of high priest was passed down from man to man and Annas originally passed down the position to five of his sons, but eventually his son-in-law — Caiaphas — held the office beginning in the year AD18 until the year AD36. And Caiaphas was the high priest — you may remember — when Jesus was crucified.

And — again — why? What’s the purpose of all of these details? To show us that the events we’re looking at actually took place. And Luke records all of these details basically as an “I dare you” to anyone who thought he was just making up the story. Luke’s saying, “Here’s verifiable evidence — the facts. Go see if what I’m saying is accurate or not. I dare you to go and research them for yourself and see if you find anything I’ve recorded to be incorrect.”

And there’s an amazing thing we find in history — not just church history, but secular history as well. No one refutes these claims. One of the most astonishing things about the Christian faith is that contemporary writings to the gospels — things being written at the same time as the gospels in our Bible — these contemporary writings don’t argue against the accounts we have in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Parts of the New Testament were circulating within a few years of Jesus’ death, yet none of the writings from that time period refute what we read about in the Bible.

And I know that not everyone believes that the Bible is true or accurate — some think the Bible is full of inaccuracies — but that’s not what we find in the writings of the contemporaries of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. We just don’t find contemporaries saying those kinds of things.

And the reason Luke gives us all of these facts is in order to validate what we read at the end of verse two. “The word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the wilderness.” (Luke 3:2b ESV)

Now — for us — these words might not seem like much, but for the early Christians — especially for the Jewish converts — this sentence would’ve been monumental. Why?

For four hundred years — or so — no words of God have been spoken. Throughout the Old Testament, we see God speaking through His prophets — men like Isaiah and Jeremiah, Daniel and Malachi — but for a few hundred years there was a period of silence — there were no words from God. No prophets spoke on His behalf. God had been silent to His people.

So for the early Christians, this sentence of Luke’s was huge. The word of God was being spoken again. A prophet was receiving a message from the Lord. The prophets were back on the scene — God’s voice could be heard again.

And for the rest of our time, we’re going to look at these words spoken by God through John. We’re going to take a close look at the “words of God” that were given to him. These are the first “words of God” spoken in hundreds of years. And these words are our directions to the parties of reconciliation and redemption. Look with me in verse three.

MAIN POINT 2

“And he (that’s John) went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of (now look at John’s message — the words of God he’s speaking — it was a message of…) repentance for (what reason? God’s first words — coming after hundreds of years of silence — is a message to the people to repent for the…) forgiveness of sins.

(Now — so we’re clear here — these are the directions to the party of reconciliation — the party of being made right with God. We’ll talk about these more in just a moment.

Continuing on in verse four we read…) 4 As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet (And here Luke — our author — is showing us exactly what’s happening in John’s message of repentance for the forgiveness of sins — so this is Luke’s commentary on what’s happening in these “words of God” being spoken for the first time in hundreds of years — Luke is wanting us to understand what’s going on by quoting the prophet Isaiah. So Luke tells us what we’re witnessing here in John’s message is…), “The voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. 5 Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall become straight, and the rough places shall become level ways, 6 and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’” (Luke 3:3-6 ESV)

Directions to the party — actually directions to both parties — to the party of reconciliation and the party of redemption. And what are the directions? How do you find your way to these parties? What would Google Maps tell you to do if you could put these parties in as your destination? You repent for the forgiveness of your sins.

Let me explain. The way to the party that all of us think we’re going to — because though people joke and say things like “I’m gonna go to Hell for that” as if that’s supposed to be funny — in reality everyone thinks they’re going to Heaven — and if we’re not careful — even those who believe in Jesus and in Hell functionally live as if everyone’s going to Heaven.

For example, I don’t know that I’ve ever been to a funeral where the person who died isn’t in Heaven. No matter how they lived or what they believed — you go to their funeral and everyone’s like “Well they’re in a better place now.” Really!? Maybe we say things like that to ease our conscious or something — and obviously the funeral isn’t the time to talk about all of this — but in those moments it seems as if we all drop Hell from our theology — silence would be a better option than “Well at least they’re in a better place.” End rant.

So the way to the eternal party of Heaven — the party of reconciliation and redemption — is a way that many people aren’t following the directions to. They think they’re going to the party, but they’re not following the directions.

John came proclaiming — a word that means preaching — he came telling everyone that the way to be reconciled with God — the way to have your sin problem taking care of — he came telling everyone the way to be made right with God — and that way is repentance.

So what’s repentance? What does it mean to repent because if the directions to THE party includes repentance — then we’d better know what that word means.

To repent means to turn away from sin and turn to God. It means to turn away from rebelling against God and turn and submit yourself to Him. Repentance is the idea of a complete overhaul of how you think, feel, and act as you turn from self-sufficiency to complete dependency upon God.

As one pastor said, “Repentance is the turning of the direction of our life and the affections of our heart, so that we become oriented on God and love the things He loves.”

Now most people don’t believe they have a need to repent — they think of themselves as a relatively good person — and everyone knows that being good is the directions to the party in Heaven, right? Wrong!

Good people don’t go to Heaven. Forgiven people go to Heaven. There’s only one good Person in Heaven and His name is Jesus. Everyone else in Heaven are bad people who’ve been forgiven. Being good is not the directions to the party. Being forgiven is.

Just how bad are we? Well look at how Luke — quoting Isaiah — describes our situation. He uses an illustration describing the kinds of things that the people would need to do — so these are things that would need take place — for the arrival of their king.

He writes, “‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. 5 Every valley shall be filled, (So get this. The King is coming — THE KING IS COMING! — and we don’t want him walking up and down and up and down and up and down — so fill in all of the low lying areas — we’re not talking potholes here — we’re talking full blown valleys — well that’s gonna be a lot of work. But that’s not all….) and every mountain and hill shall be made low, (So level off all of the hills and mountains because the King is coming. Maybe we can fill in all of the valleys with all of the debris from the mountains and hills we’ve flattened? I don’t know. But we’re not done…) and the crooked shall become straight (The King doesn’t need to be zig zagging His way here — let’s give him a straight shot to us — so take all of the curves out of the path to us…), and the rough places shall become level ways.” (Luke 3:4b-5 ESV)

So here’s what we’ve got to do — this is the illustration showing us just how bad our situation is — we’ve got to fill in the valleys, flatten the mountains and hills, straighten the crooked paths, and level off the rough spots all because the King is coming. Because we want to make it as easy as possible for Him to get to us.

Now I used to live in West Virginia — mountain and hilly illustrations were easy for me there — but we’re in flat Northwest Ohio — the only hills we’ve got are interstate overpasses — so use your imagination and pretend we’re living in a place with lots of valleys and mountains and hills. And if you’ve ever driven on mountain roads, you know how zig zaggy they can be. OK?

So we’re all there in our minds right — not flat Northwest Ohio — hilly West Virginia or out in Colorado somewhere. And say an important official is coming to visit us — let’s call this person — oh I don’t know — the King of the Universe, because if I said the president of the United States — depending on if you’re a Republican or Democrat — you may allow your politics to ruin this illustration.

So the King of the Universe is coming to visit and He’s coming by land. But we want Him to have an easy trip getting to us — we want to take the obstacles out of His way — I mean, after all — He is the King of the Universe — He’s a pretty big deal. So we’ve got some work to do on our roadways.

For starters, none of our roads are straight. But we can fix that by leveling off all of the mountains and hills and make everything perfectly flat. But if we level off all of the mountains and hills and fill in the valleys, we don’t need all of the curves in our roads so we need to take out all of the twists and turns and make the roads straight. I mean — the King of the Universe is coming to visit — so surely flattening all of the mountains and hills and filling in the valleys and taking out the zigs and the zags is worth all of the effort, right?

Now most of you are thinking, “Josh this is an incredibly ridiculous illustration. We could never flatten every mountain and hill and fill in all of the valleys even if the King of the Universe was coming to visit us. We can’t even figure out how to fix I75.”

And I’d say, “You’re absolutely right.” And that’s the point — for that’s the state of the human soul. There’s no amount of good you can do — or work that you can do — that will reconcile you with God. So God sent His Son — Jesus — to do the work for you.

Jesus came and leveled all of the mountains and hills between us and God. He filled in every low lying area. He made the crooked paths straight and leveled off all of the rough places. All so we could turn from our sin and turn to God and follow the straight path, which leads to the eternal party that we’ve been trying to find — but have gotten desperately lost while on this trip known as life.

You see, the directions to the eternal party in Heaven don’t include “being good” — they include being forgiven. And a person is forgiven when they’ve repented of — when they’ve turned from — their sin and turned to God. When they’ve left the path they’ve been traveling on — one full of ups and downs and twists and turns and getting lost — a path full of rough patches — when they turn from that path and walk along the path Jesus has paved for all who turn to Him in faith. Believing that through faith in Him — that by turning to Him for salvation — results in discovering directions to the eternal party.

That’s why Isaiah’s prophecy concludes with, “and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’” (Luke 3:6 ESV)

Everyone who follows the directions to the eternal party — no matter their race or gender, age or education — all people who follow the directions will experience the eternal salvation of God — they will experience the eternal Party of Heaven.

MAIN POINT 3

As I mentioned earlier, Luke wrote this gospel as investigative account — but his gospel is just part one. In part two, Luke writes about things that happen after Jesus has gone to Heaven. And one of the early stories Luke records is the first sermon preached by the apostle Peter — Peter was one of Jesus’ followers and he became a changed man after he repented of his sins and believed in Jesus.

And during this first sermon of his, Peter concludes with these words. “So let everyone in Israel know for certain that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, to be both Lord and Messiah!” (Luke goes on to tell us that…) 37 Peter’s words pierced their (the people listening — Peter’s words pierced their) hearts, and they said to him and to the other apostles, “Brothers, what should we do?”

(What a great question to ask. What do we do now? Maybe that’s the question you’re asking. You’ve heard the truth. You want to go to the party of all parties. You’re eager to receive the invitation. But you need directions. What do I do now? What are the directions to the party Peter? Peter answers them…) 38 …“Each of you must repent of your sins (so you must repent of your sins — turn away from your sin — AND you must turn to who? You must turn to…) God, (that’s faith — turning to God…) and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins.” (Acts 2:36-38a NLT)

Directions to the eternal party — the party of all parties. The party that will take place in Heaven forever — a party of reconciliation and redemption — a party where you’ll be free from sin, and sorrow, and pain, and fear. And for all of us listening today, the directions to God’s eternal Party have been made clear.

The directions include repentance — turning from your sin — and faith — turning to God. Turning from whatever your life is focused on and turning your life and your affections on God — focusing your life on Him.

SERMON CONCLUSION

God has made the path straight for you. He’s done what you couldn’t do. He leveled the mountains and hills of your sin. He filled in the valleys of your rebellion. He’s made straight the crooked ways of your heart. He’s smoothed out the rough patches of your desires. All so that by turning from your sin and by turning to Him, you might be welcomed into the greatest party that will ever be thrown.

The question is will you follow the directions? Will you follow God’s directions to His party or will you spend your life being lost and unable to find the party you’re being invited to today? The directions are clear. Repent of your sins and believe in Jesus Christ. For He is the One inviting you to follow the direction to His party.

Let’s pray.

PRAYER

Heavenly Father, I pray that You would remind us often of the directions to Your party. We must repent of our sins and turn to You in faith for forgiveness.

For those of us who are following the directions to Your party, Father, I ask You to give us a desire to share the directions with all people just like John did. He proclaimed the directions so that many might repent, believe, and be forgiven. May we be people who share the Good News with others — the directions to Your eternal party.

And Father, I pray for anyone who’s asking the same question the people asked when they heard Peter preach. “Now that I’ve heard this news — what do I do?” What you do is follow God’s directions. Repent of your sin — confess right now that you have sinned against God — that you have rebelled against Him — that you’ve failed to submit yourself to Him. Admit that you’ve fallen short of the obedience He’s required of you.

Repent first, but be sure to turn to God in faith. Turn to Him for your joy and hope and peace and forgiveness. Turn to Him and His Word — so He can shape the way you think and what you feel and how you live. Turn to Him for the directions of Your life.

And by repenting of your sins and by turning to God, you can know with certainty that — not only are you saved — but you’ve been given the directions to God’s eternal party in Heaven. And you will be welcomed as a guest into His eternal party.

We pray these things in Jesus’ name. Amen.