Advent 2                             December 7, 2025
Matthew 3:1-12                    Pastor Wolfe

Time for a Turnaround!

Last year my wife and I were gifted tickets to our first Twins game at Target Field. It’s been one of the things on my list to do since we moved here. We were excited until we got close to the stadium. Now, maybe you who’ve lived here have no problems with downtown driving, but I could not make the right turns to get there. We missed an exit. Then we missed another one. Then we went the wrong way. Four times we took a wrong turn! And you know what happened every time? My GPS told me to turn around. To go another way. I was not happy with it. I may have said some unpastoral things. But here’s the thing – if it weren’t for that GPS telling us a better way to go, we never would’ve seen the Twins lose in the bottom of the 9th.

As we prepare the way for Christ’s coming in this Advent season, John the Baptist’s voice is a familiar one. We hear him every year. We know him as the one who prepared the way for Christ. But the message that John the Baptist brought to people in his day, and now shares with us, was received by many about the same way I received new orders from my GPS. John’s message was to tell people that it was time for a turnaround. God was calling out through John, “Open your eyes, hear my direction, and take a new path!” And today that call is directed at us.

Open your Eyes
John wasn’t the first to come to God’s people with a message of repentance. Even a quick scan over the books of the Old Testament reveals hundreds of passages urging people to repent. Warnings that God would bring punishment to those who did not follow him. But those warnings were always accompanied with a promise. A promise that God would richly bless those who put their trust in him. We’ve seen it a lot in our women’s study of Isaiah, or our midweek study of the minor prophets. Think of the songs of Isaiah: “Surely God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid. The LORD, the LORD, is my strength and my song, he has become my salvation.” But still, for centuries God’s people largely rejected the message of the prophets. They devoted themselves to false gods instead of the faithful true God. They put their trust in themselves instead of the one who promised to deliver them. And so God stopped sending prophets. Malachi was the last one, and for 420 years after him, God was silent.

Then God broke that silence with no less than an angel. The angel Gabriel himself announced the coming of John the Baptist. A prophet Jesus would call the greatest among those born of women. John the Baptist was special because he came not only to warn the people to repent, not only to tell the people the Messiah was coming someday, but that he would come in their lifetime. John came to prepare the people, to open their eyes. Even if people knew nothing about John’s message, they could see he was different. Here was a man of God living in the wilderness outside of the towns. Wearing clothes of itchy camel’s hair and living off locusts and wild honey. John’s lifestyle and message caused people to open their eyes and take notice.

Do you ever get the feeling God is trying to do the same to us? To get us to look up from our lives that occupy our time every day and to open our eyes to him? That’s really what the Advent season is about. It’s not specifically about getting ready for Christmas. While the rest of the world is running around trying to get things just right for a holiday of decorations and family time and gifts, God wants us to stop and open our eyes. To prepare ourselves not for a holiday, but for him. To get us to listen to his message and turn ourselves around. All of Advent is to prepare us the way John prepared his listeners.

Hear God’s Direction
John’s message was simple. “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near!” John’s work was to “clear the path” so that people would see Jesus and his work. He did that by showing the people their sin. He put God’s law squarely in front of their faces and showed them their failure to measure up to God’s standard. Where God demanded perfect love to our neighbors, he pointed out the people’s selfishness and greed. Where God commanded all honor be given to him, John pointed out the laundry list of things people placed before God.

And when the Pharisees and Sadducees came to him, the people who considered themselves the spiritual best of the best, John took the opportunity to point out another sin. The Pharisees and Sadducees were proud of their heritage and self-righteous about their status in the church. They were sons of Abraham after all. Surely this prophet in the desert had nothing to condemn them for. But John recognized that they weren’t ready for the Messiah at all. Pride had scarred over the wounds that God’s law made in their hearts, and because they didn’t recognize their sin they didn’t recognize their need for a Savior. They followed their own direction, not God’s.

What would John say to you if you were to walk into the desert to hear his message? How prepared are you for Jesus? Not the parties or the presents or the decorations. How prepared is your heart for the next time Jesus comes? Today John holds God’s law in front of us too. And many of us could use a turnaround too. Too often we keep the blessings God has given to ourselves instead of sharing them. Too often we are more concerned about our image or reputation than about the souls around us who are on their way to hell. We fail to work with all diligence to give glory to God. And when the law pricks our conscience we resort to the same pride as the Pharisees. “At least I’m here in church. Thank God I’m better than all those who are sleeping at home right now.” Brothers and sisters, it’s time for a turnaround for us too.

That begins by hearing ALL of John’s message. When John saw sinners that were repentant, sorry over their sin, he didn’t just tell them to go on their way and try to do better. He is known as “The Baptist” for good reason. John used the law to bring people to the gospel. He washed them with water and the word. He pointed them to Jesus as the lamb of God who takes away sin. Like my annoying GPS, he pointed out where they went wrong and showed them God’s direction instead.

And so we too come to John and remember what God has done for us. Washed in our baptisms, where the Holy Spirit created a new person within us completely different from the sinful one we’ve always known. Declared not guilty by a God who chooses to judge us not on what we do but who we put our trust in. The spiritual laziness, the apathy toward God and others, even the sinful pride have all been washed away. And all that remains for us is Jesus. The blessing of knowing him. The peace of knowing heaven is ours. And a grateful heart eager to live by his will out of thanksgiving for the gift.

Take the New Path
So now you’ve heard John’s warning and repented of your sin. You’ve heard John’s promise and put your faith and trust in the Savior. So now what? That’s a part of Christian faith and life that I don’t always hit very hard in sermons. As a preacher of the gospel my job is not to tell you what to do. My job is to show you God’s love in Christ. To let that motivate you as you leave here and consider your place in the world.

But John doesn’t pull any punches here so neither will I. He may not get specific, but he expects results. John says, “Produce fruit in keeping with repentance.” True repentance is not just an internal thing. And while I or anyone else can’t demand a particular fruit, John tells us in no uncertain terms that God expects fruit of some kind. “The ax is already at the root of the trees,” he says, “and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.” Many of us are perhaps familiar with the great verse in Ephesians 2, “It is by grace you have been saved, and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast.” Our whole trust and hope for heaven is not by what we do – it’s because of God’s gift. But do you know the next verse? ”For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” God has a purpose for you in life. He brought you out of darkness and into the light of faith and he wants you to do something with it. He expects us to turn around from our former way of living and take a new path. He wants us to live as the new creations we are.

So look back at the choices you made and the priorities you set last week. Ask yourself this morning, “What path am I on? What am I doing to fulfill the purpose God has for me?” Are you a Christian standing still? Are your head and your heart following Christ while your feet stay stuck in the muck of the world? Don’t misunderstand me – God wants our hearts. It is devotion to him that pleases him best. But he wants our hands as well. Hands that act according to a faith that has heard God’s direction and wants to follow a new path. As church leaders, we should have members knocking down our doors wanting to serve in some way rather than struggling to do even the most basic things.

So hear John calling in the desert. Repent! Look to the Lamb of God. And produce fruit in keeping with your repentance. Satan may have kept us being the full Christians that we are. Maybe he’s kept us from being the church we can be. But today we tell him, “No longer!” Today we turn around. We’ve seen our Savior, And we will see him again in glory. Fellow saints, give God the glory. Serve God in joy. And praise the Lord with a new path. Amen.