Psalm 40, 54; 1 Kings 18:20-40; Phil. 3:1-16; Matt. 3:1-12
Elijah challenges the prophets of Baal to a contest, but it isn’t them he is really challenging, it is the people who have followed them. He first asks the people to choose and yet no one answered him, no one made a public declaration of faith one way or another. The contest will be to see whose God will respond to prayer and the others cry and scream and maim their bodies for hours while Elijah taunts these 450 men. Finally, they give up and Elijah asks the Lord to answer his prayer for the sake of His Name and for His glory, that these people may come to know the Lord. Nothing is for Elijah’s sake or his own glory, this is completely about restoring the Lord’s people to Himself. The Lord’s fire consumes everything, including the water poured onto the wood to make it more difficult to ignite and the people recognize the Lord. Now is the time for vengeance on those who have led them astray.
John’s mission was to call the people to the Lord in preparation for an encounter with the One who was being sent. He had a message that was to repent, change the way you’re going, and return to the Lord in order that you be ready to greet Him with joy. He saw the Messiah as coming in judgment. John’s mission is similar to our own but ours is larger and also easier. We have a more complete message, in some ways a more winsome message, we preach grace, we know that God’s desire is to forgive sins and we know the depth of God’s love for the world in the cross. John laid down his life in order to preach that message, whatever he might have envisioned for his life, he lived as God told him, under a Nazirite vow his entire life, and never drawing attention to himself or his success, but only the one who would come after him.
Clearly, Paul knows there is an enemy of salvation by faith, those legalists who would come and return the people to their own brand of Judaism. The problem is that they have made faith a religion, a set of rules that must be kept to avoid punishment rather than the guidelines for maintaining a healthy relationship with God. The Lord’s desire was for a people who would know and love Him and who would be a holy nation, a royal priesthood and a treasured possession, and somehow all that had been corrupted into religion. He is not a God like other gods, He sought them, redeemed them and loved them. We do have covenant obligations but they come after His action to establish relationship. Paul says that now that he understood this truth he has counted his own efforts at righteousness nothing more than rubbish in light of what he now knows of righteousness and love in Jesus. Everything else must go because it pales in comparison and it is worthless in the sight of God now. Paul repented of his attachment to religion because of Jesus, he completely turned away from it.
Baptized in water,
sealed by the Spirit,
dead in the tomb with Christ our king;
one with his rising,
freed and forgiven
thankfully now God's praise we sing.
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