Holy Road Construction

Road Construction Ahead

I hate road construction. Hey, I’m a guy. When I’m behind the wheel, it’s all about making good time. It’s all about getting from Point A to Point B. That being the case, I can’t stand seeing those pesky orange barrels and signs that say “Road Construction Ahead.”

When I grumble as I slow down, that’s when my wife reminds me of just how great the road will be when it’s done. The DOT will transform a crowded, crooked, two-lane blacktop into smooth, wide, six-lane highway. Short term pain for long term gain. 

Mark begins his biography of Jesus with a report of holy road construction. He backs up in the story of the Son of God to describe highway conditions before the Messiah arrives. Our author introduces to the dude whom Christ personally selected to run this critical transportation project. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

The Fab Four

Flip to the opening lines of Mark’s story of Jesus, one of the Fab Four of the New Testament Gospels. It’s right after Matthew and just before Luke and John. If you’re like me (and if you are, I’ll certainly pray for you!), you’re probably wondering why there are not one but FOUR bios off the radical Rabbi/Carpenter in the Bible.

It seems that each of these authors are writing to different audiences. Matthew has Jewish folks in mind. Luke hopes to appeal to Greek speakers. John throws the doors wide open to everybody with a closer look at what trusting in Jesus looks like.

The Fast and the Furious

Which brings us to Mark. He’s writing to Romans. And just like 21st Century Americans, Romans love them some action. This Gospel is not for the faint of heart. It’s action packed. Mark moves at breakneck speed. Think the Fast and the Furious. Buckle up, buttercup.

Things are going to change dramatically when Christ arrives. That’s why the author says, “This is the Good News about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God” (v1). Jesus’ arrival is Good News. His message is Good News. And by “Good News,” Mark means GREAT NEWS!!!

Jesus’ Swan Dive into Sin

The Son of God left the luxurious comforts of the heavenly palace to make a swan dive into the dumpster of sin. Our sin. Your sin. My sin. He came to live the life of perfect obedience we failed to live. He came to die the brutal death we should have died. He came to rise to a glorious new life we don’t deserve.

He came to do for us what we could never dream of doing for ourselves. See, I told you this Good News! And it doesn’t stop there. Jesus comes to not only save us but lead us. We have the privilege of following the loving leadership of our Lord. His commands act as glorious guardrails to keep us out of the ditch and on the road to what He calls the abundant life (Jn 10:10).

Before the Green Flag Drops

Before we strap in and put the hammer down, we need to make serious road improvements. Smooth pavement. No potholes. Straighten out the curves. That’s why Mark rewinds the story just a bit to show us the work needed to be done before the green flag drops on the story of Son of God.

As a matter of fact, Mark zips all the way back to the Old Testament for perspective. “It began just as the prophet Isaiah had written” (v1-2). Despite popular belief, the story of Jesus doesn’t start when you get to the New Testament. Every bit of the Hebrew Bible, the part Jesus’ followers have renamed the Old Testament, is a preview of the One who is to come.

The Big Hero of the Big Story

That’s because the Bible is one Big Story with one Big Hero. That Hero is Christ Jesus. God promises He will send Someone to the rescue from the moment our first parents trash His perfect creation (Gen 3:15). Throughout the story, He gives us pictures, predictions, and prophecies of the coming Messiah.

A series of prophets play an important part in predicting Jesus’ arrival. Mark specifically mentions Isaiah here in his opening lines. That makes sense. Isaiah is a heavyweight when it comes to prophets. The OT document bearing his name talks so much about the Hero coming from heaven that some folks refer to it as the fifth Gospel.

Prophetic Predictions

But actually, Mark drops a quick quote first from Malachi, one of the lesser known of God’s spokespersons. “Look, I am sending My messenger ahead of You, and he will prepare Your way” (v2; Mal 3:1). Get this. Malachi wrote his 450 years before Jesus! God used him to not only to correctly predict Messiah but His advance man too!

Mark pairs that prophecy with a legendary line from Isaiah written around 700 BC. “He is a voice shouting in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way for the LORD’s coming! Clear the road for Him!’” (v3). This messenger gets on the loudspeaker in the middle of the chaos for a very important announcement. Get everything ready! God is coming! Drop what you’re doing and start fixing the roads!!

Isaiah’s original prophecy gets a little more specific about what needs to be done to the highways before Messiah makes it here. “Fill in the valleys, and level the mountains and hills. Straighten the curves, and smooth out the rough places. Then the glory of the LORD will be revealed, and all the people will see together. The LORD has spoken!” (Is 40:4-5).

Getting Ready for Royalty

Back in the day, local residents would get everything ready for the arrival of royalty. A big part of the preps would be improvements to the local roads. You wouldn’t want the king’s motorcade hitting potholes on the way into your town. It was one way of making the ruler feel welcome.

You still see this sort of thing today. Anytime a city or region hosts a large event like the Super Bowl or the Olympics, they make loads of improvements, especially to the local infrastructure. They fix local roads. They build new ones. The last thing you want is out-of-town guests frustrated by traffic and gridlock.

Practical Application…of Asphalt?

So what does this mean for you and me? Is God calling us to put on an orange vest,  and run a steamroller as part of a DOT crew? Is Mark telling me that the practical application of this passage is the very practical application of asphalt along a local highway?

Let’s remember what the author is talking about. This is all about prepping for the arrival of Jesus and the Good News. We’ll see in the next few verses that this advance man was Jesus’ weird, bug eating cousin known as John the Baptizer (Mk 1:4-8). His job was to get folks ready to meet the Son of God and His amazing message of grace.

Jesus + Nothing = Everything

How can we pave the way for the Good News to move quickly in the lives of those around us? It’s really pretty simple. We need to remove every obstacle that will get in the way of meeting Jesus. Is there something that might get in the way? If so, clear the road.

Our problem is that many of us come from religious traditions that seem to add a lot of extra stuff to following Jesus. We really need to remember that sharing the Good News shouldn’t be like adding bonus materials to the blu-ray. As one pastor likes to say, Jesus + Nothing = Everything. Adding anything destroys the formula. Jesus + Anything = Nothing.

Clearing the Road

The Gospel isn’t about my preferred style of doing church. Not music style. Not preaching style. Not clothing style. Not architectural style. Any of those things can become barriers to someone who needs to meet our Savior.

This is a big deal because the Good News can be tough to swallow. People do NOT like to hear how badly they need help. They make the fatal mistake of believing they fix their lives. Both Paul and Peter realized that the Gospel could be a huge stumbling block for many people (Rom 9:33; 1Cor 1:23; 1Pet 2:8).

Since that’s the case, get everything else that doesn’t matter out of the way. “Prepare the way for the LORD’s coming! Clear the road for Him!” (v3). Take a look around. What’s in the way of people you know meeting Jesus. We all probably need to do a little holy road construction.

©2017
Jay Jennings

Spiritual Road Construction

I hate road construction. Take the Fortify Project on the Beltline in Raleigh. The DOT's thrown a massive monkey wrench into my commute to and from work. And because of it, I totally avoid that section of highway.

But lets face it. Road construction and maintenance is necessary. In the end, all of the hard work on the highway is going to make it a lot easier for me to get where I’m going.

Did you know that the Bible talks about road construction? 

Back in the ancient Middle East, before kings and emperors hit the road, they would send out construction crews ahead of them to get the road ready. 

Their job was to fill all the potholes, straighten out the curves, and freshly pave the highways. Maybe even build a road where there was no road before.

That’s why the prophet Isaiah talked about the arrival of God’s Son and like he worked for the DOT. 

Isaiah 40:3-5 reads, "Clear the way through the wilderness for the LORD! Make a straight highway through the wasteland for our God! Fill in the valleys and level the hills. Straighten out the curves and smooth off the rough spots. Then the glory of the LORD will be revealed, and the people will see it together.” (Is 40:3-5 NLT).

Isaiah was encouraging folks to do everything possible to get ready for a personal appearance by God and the first arrival of Jesus.  

It’s VERY similar what we do in First Impressions here at Hope Community Church. We just turn it upside down. 

God sends people to His church every weekend. And they come in all flavors. Believers. Unbelievers. Disciples. Seekers. Doubters. He gives those of us serving there the privilege of filling in the valleys and leveling the hills. Straightening out the curves and smoothing off the rough spots.  

How do we do that? We take away all the distractions and all the stuff that gets in the way of folks meeting Jesus. 

Bill Hybels says church should be "a safe place to hear a dangerous message.” The Gospel is dangerous. A relationship with Christ rocks your world and turns your life upside down.  

We needed a safe place on our first visit here at Hope back in 2009. My wife Debbie and I were already followers of Jesus. But the day we pulled into the church parking lot, we were beat up and bruised. 

Over the past 15-plus years, we had been part of three consecutive church plants that closed. We basically washed up on the shore like survivors of a shipwreck.  

That’s just when Jesus used the folks of First Impressions to come to our rescue. God used them to welcome us from the moment we got out of the car. We didn’t realize how burned out we were until the FI team rolled out the red carpet for us as first time guests. 

It became obvious that Hope was a VERY safe place. They filled in the valleys. Leveled the hills. Straightened out the curves. Smoothed off the rough spots. God has put us in position to play big part in making it safe for everyone who walks through our doors.

Let's do absolutely everything to remove all distractions. There’s too much at stake. Let’s do the hard work of spiritual road construction. Once we do everything we can to remove stuff that gets in the way, folks have a better chance of hearing the Good News and meeting Jesus. 

That’s why we smile. We provide a place to park. We open doors. We answer questions. Maybe even give them a hug. We tell people that they matter to God. We tell them we’re really glad they’re here.  

That’s what it looks like to fill in the valleys. To level the hills. To straighten out the curves. To smooth out the rough spots. Who's ready for a little spiritual road construction.

God's Work Zone

 “For it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13).

There are few things I hate more when I’m driving than work zones. Hey man, how in the world am I supposed to make good time when I’m suddenly faced with a giant flashing arrow, a sign warning “Left Lane Closed Ahead” and a line of orange cones disappearing into the horizon? There IS one thing worse. No workers in the work zone. Few things get my undies in a bundle more than a construction zone on the highway when the crew has the day off. Hey, I’m not opposed to anybody getting a day off. But why am I merging into one lane when there’s not a single hard hat along the highway? 

There’s one work zone that’s fully staffed 24-7-365. That’s the life of every follower of Jesus. Paul tells his friends back in Philippi that God never stops, never takes a break, never takes a day off when He’s working in our lives. There are no cones. No orange barrels. No Jersey barriers. But this is God’s work zone. It’s non-stop. He’s always up to something. Nothing is wasted. As a matter of fact, He even works to gives you and me the desire to and energy to please Him. Once Jesus comes to the rescue, your life is God’s work zone. 

The apostle reassures his readers that it’s not up to each of us to save ourselves. We may have gotten just a wee bit worried that it was up to us after reading the previous verse. We’re told to “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling” (Phil 2:12). I don’t know about you, but I would be shaking in my boots if God left it up to me to earn my way into heaven. It would not end well. Instead, Paul tells us to explore what it means to be on the receiving end of God’s grace. If salvation were a car, we wouldn’t really enjoy our new ride until we took it out on the road to see what it will do. We work out our faith by exercising our faith muscle through obedience. It’s only when we do what Jesus commands that we truly experience the abundant life He has for us. 

One verse later, the man from Tarsus reassures us “it is God who works in you” (v13). We’ve already read what God starts in us, He will finish (Phil 1:6). God’s the ultimate closer. He’ll wrap things up every single time. Just as sure as He’s always closing is that He’s always working. Paul uses the Greek verb energeo, which means to be powerfully effective, be active, produce, cause, or be in action. It focuses on the energy, power, or force involved. God doesn’t just punch the clock. He simply mail it in when He’s on the job. He works and works HARD. He gives it His full supernatural attention. The verb form of energeo is in the present tense. You can easily read this as “God who is currently working in you right here, right now.” His work isn’t a one-time event. He’s not a short-term contractor. He’s doesn’t just punch the clock 9 to 5. If you’re a follower of Jesus, our Savior has His supernatural sleeves rolled up at this very moment. “It is God who works in you” (v13). And He’s working while you read this.

All throughout the Bible, we read how our God isn’t afraid to get His hands dirty. He pulls the first full six-day work week in the history of the universe and then takes Saturday off (Gen 1:3-2:3). Paul tells the folks over in Corinth, “There are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone” (1Cor 12:6). The writer of Hebrews prays that God would “equip you with everything good that you may do His will, working in us that which is pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to Whom be glory forever and ever. Amen” (Heb 13:21). And the apostle says he wouldn’t be where he is without heaven’s descending one-way love. “By the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain” (1Cor 15:10). All awesome examples of our God at work.

There’s interesting aspect of God’s work is His impact on our desire to do what He wants. He’s plugging away “both to will and to work for His good pleasure” (v13). The translators of the NLT do an awesome job of getting this idea across. It’s God who’s “giving you the desire to obey Him and the power to do what pleases Him” (v13 NLT). He does simply just leave you and me swinging in the breeze after coming to our rescue. Who would blame Jesus for kicking back and waiting for us to get off our tails to obey Him? Hey, He did go out of His way to leave paradise, live the perfectly obedient life we failed to live, died a bloody death on the cross we should have died, and rose to a glorious new life we don’t deserve. That sure sounds like a full career to me. But He doesn’t stop there. He works overtime to give us the want-to. 

But wait, there’s more! Kinda like one of those cheesy Ginsu knife commercials where they throw in the Bamboo Steamer. God doesn’t stop there. He stokes us with the power to also do what He tells us. This is where His Holy Spirit does what He does best. The Third Person of the Trinity is the power behind Christ’s resurrection (Rom 8:11).  Jesus tells His followers not to make move until the Spirit powers them up for the mission of spreading His Gospel (Acts 1:8). God’s Spirit is a total game changer. Once the Spirit falls, the Good News washes across the Mediterranean like a supernatural tsunami. Imagine what the kind of power the Holy Spirit gives you and me.

So what in the wide world of sports do we do with all this? First, we’re God’s work zone. He saves us and keeps on saving us. Second, remember God is always up to something in your life. It doesn’t always feel like it but He is. Third, the Lord is working away in each and every one of His followers. I have to admit there are a few believers  I find it difficult to believe. And I’m sure there are a lot of folks who look at me and scratch their heads too. Anywho, He’s doing His thing no matter what we see. Fourth, His Spirit gives each of us the desire and the ability to do what God wants. Do you have any desire to obey Jesus’ commands? Well, you can thank Him for that. He also gives you the ability to actually obey. That’s because once Jesus comes to the rescue, your life is God’s work zone.