Shane Hughes 12-7-25

Good morning, everyone. My name is Shane Hughes. I'm one of the ministers here. It's good to see most of you. I have been very blessed.

A little ophthalmology joke there. I've been very blessed to. I think that I've had a wonderful season. But one of the things about Christmas is that I think just fits right in is conspiracy theories. And I have a few conspiracy theories that I would like to share with you today.

You guys may have some conspiracy theories too, that you might want to share. One of those conspiracy theories is LA Popular puts something special in their tortillas that makes you crave them fortnightly. They are amazing. There's something extra in those tortillas. You guys.

You guys have any conspiracy theories? Aaron, what do you have?

I. Okay, so my fiance has a lot of conspiracy theories and I just go along with it. It's fun to live with someone that has these ideas, doesn't it? Yes. Learn a lot of things from him.

But, you know, we have a lot of questions about Chipotle in particular. Okay, what do they have in there? Why is it magical like that? Food does beautiful things, you know? Okay, okay.

Anybody else? Conspiracy theories? I just wonder why a fountain. Dr. Pepper is so much better than any other kind of Dr. Pepper. These are all food related.

I have a theory about particularly McDonald's. Absolutely, yes. It's the best one. Coke at McDonald's. That's true.

I have a theory about ACU. I don't think that they put the feral cats on campus. You. But I do believe that they keep them on campus. Not because of the rat problem that's now gone, but because of the mental health of students.

Like, I just see students petting cats all the time. Feral cats. And the cats. So I think they selectively breed calm or maybe they dose them. I don't know.

That's one of mine. Anybody else? All right, here's my last conspiracy theory. My last conspiracy theory is that the Christmas song, which is not a hymn, but the most wonderful time of the year. You know this, right?

This was written by three people, one of which did not prepare at all and actually has no idea what Christmas is about. And they just showed up and they're like, I gotta have verses. I gotta have lines. Here we go. To prove my point, please.

The most wonderful time of the year.

It's the most wonderful time of the year There'll be much mistletoeing and hearts will be glowing when loved ones are near it's the most wonderful time of the year There'll be parties for hosting, marshmallows for toasting and caroling out in the snow. There'll be scary ghost stories and tales of the glories of Christmases long, long ago. Okay, well, let's just pause for a second. Aaron. Yeah.

Much mistletoe? No, let's keep this pg. I know you've got a social someone you've experienced. Hearts aglow. Heart's aglow.

You've experienced this lovely Christmas love. Yeah, I mean, we all watch Christmas rom com. It's a great time to fall in love. Absolutely. David, your.

Your line was about parties, marshmallows, toasting. We go to East Texas to my in laws every year. They live out in the country making s' mores right around the bonfire. It's cold, so it's nice to make a bonfire. Keep warm.

All right, so would you please tell me the ghost stories you tell around Christmas? What are. What are the ghost stories exactly? Well, I'm an enneagram4, so getting lost in other people's nightmares and melancholy is like my idea of a good time. Okay, so that.

That actually is holiday moment. Right? And then. And then tell me a little bit more because I'm not exact. What are the tales of the glories of Chris?

Like, I mean, was Lord of the Rings set in Advent? What. What are these tales that you refer to? Snowy. It's snowing.

So snow is like an epic adventure in West Texas. It is. Man, cuz Those streets be 75 degrees on Christmas Day. Right. So what are the tales of the glory of Christmas?

Long. Long. I mean, is this. Is this St. Nick? What are we?

What are we? That I don't know. Yeah, I don't know either. Cuz I don't think you understand Christmas at all. I do understand the Muppet Christmas Carol.

Oh, that's a good one. Which is the very best Christmas movie ever for the m. Children of men, I would argue. But that's neither here nor there. All right, let's thank these all for their wonderful participation this morning. I'm.

I will remain convinced that the most wonderful time of the year was written by someone that didn't actually understand Christmas. And. But that kind of brings us to our text today, right? As Nanette read very well, you brood of vipers. That doesn't feel very Christmassy.

The does it? That. I don't know if that makes sense to you. I mean, this is unusual. And I don't know if anybody wants to hear a sermon about John the Baptist chastising us this close to Christmas I mean this doesn't feel the, that we lit the candle of joy.

And you who warned you of the calamity that is about to come. I don't think any preacher wants to read this text when preparing for his third adventure, their third Advent sermon. And I, and I think most of us are looking forward. We're close enough now that we've, we've bought the gifts or we're planning to buy the gifts and our friends are on their way and we're knee deep in parties and Christmas cards and all of those final Christmas preparations and purchases. And is this really the story we need to tell today?

Because there's no getting to Bethlehem like we're going to do next week. And the sweet baby in the manger without first crossing by this rough prophet in the wilderness this calls, calls us to repent. And I, and I spent some time this week trying to avoid and sugarcoat John's words. I tried to find a way to turn this into a hope filled happy sermon. I just don't, I don't think it's possible because faithful and fruitful arrival at the manger will only be possible, not only, I mean only after self careful examination and a recommitment that is called to by John.

I just don't think you can get to the cradle that holds the crown until we look, take a good hard look at ourselves.

This language is crazy. You brood of vipers. Who warned you? The spoiler is that John did. John is the one that warned them.

And he's out in the desert and there's all of these people that are flocking to him. And there's Jews that are coming, but there's also professional sinners that are there. And that's unusual. The tax collectors are there and there's even Roman soldiers that have come along to hear John preach out in the wilds. And there's no privilege, John wants to tell us, of being on the inside.

There's no privilege of being one of the God's chosen. There's no privilege of making sure that you've been at church for at least three Sundays a month for the last 12 months. That doesn't count. Because if God wanted more children, he would make them from the rocks. You think he needs you?

Mmm. We're gonna get there. We're gonna get there. If you didn't hear it, it was, yeah, they've all come, the Jews and the professional sinners, like tax collectors and those Roman soldiers alike to hear John preach. And isn't that awkward to imagine them all there together.

The guy that charges you too much every month for crossing a bridge or to open your business or just living in the city and you're struggling every week just to get by, to have enough food for your kids. And he lives like a king. The Roman soldiers that are occupying the land that prevent you from doing the things that you prevent us from being the kind of people that we're supposed to be. And here we are, standing, three in a row, side by side, and I guarantee you, one of them has no idea what messiah is about. But for some reason, they are there.

But John tells them they all need the same thing. They all need repentance. And my sense is, is the person that came, that's been a faithful Pharisee their whole life, they would look at the soldier and say, yep. And they would look at the tax collector and say, yep. But then John says, yeah, yeah, but you too, all of us need to hear this.

And for John, repentance has a lot less to do with how fervently you pray or how faithfully you attend worship service. And instead, it has everything to do how one handles riches, executes public service, and exercises stewardship. Tertullian, who's a North African theologian, once noted when commenting on this text, repentance is more competent to heathens than to Christians.

It makes more sense to a heathen than it does to one of us that grew up on the inside. And I think this text makes a lot of sense to people who want to repent. I mean, if you grew up in church, you never really did anything wrong. And even you know this is true, I know this is true. I know it's easier to repent when you want to change your life, when you found yourself in a hard space and it's time to get out.

We all know this is true because we all have the same conversation every six months at the dentist office when they remind us gently, you ought to floss. And we say, yeah, but we don't do it right.

But eventually your gums get so bad that you want to floss.

Sometimes that dentist will look you dead in the eye and say, ah, maybe it's too late for you. Who told you to repent? Who warned you about this? But the truth is, is that when your life is a wreck, when you want something new, when you know that you've driven yourself into a spiritual or a social or a mental cul de sac and there is no way out but to turn around, when you know your profession hurts others, and when you've seen the horrors that no mind is supposed to grasp, is meant to grasp, and you have to deal with it anyway. That's when you want to repent.

When I worked in Arkansas, in Fort Smith, Arkansas, we had this guy that came to our church. His name was Jesse, and he was a recovering alcoholic. And he worked for us. He came on as kind of a custodial and a handyman. And this man was stronger than any person I've ever met.

And he worked harder than any person I've ever met. He could do more in a day than most people could do in a week. And sometimes I would find Jesse as he's working around the building, and I would just stop and talk to him, just see how he's doing. And Jesse was an inspiration for me because he was turning his life around. And he paused at me one day.

He was painting a wall and he paused at me as we were talking. And he looks at me dead in the eye and he says, you know, Shane, I didn't know how many problems I had until I stopped drinking.

And when Jesse died and we did his funeral, we preached the gospel. The gospel about how grace can save a person, how it can transform their mind and their heart. And even though it didn't transform Jesse's body, he had already taxed that too much. He knew what it meant to repent because he didn't want to live in the cul de sac he had found himself in. And so this message that John is giving is not for encouragement.

It's not for consolation, or is may not sound like it, but it actually is good news. It's evangelical. It's the gospel to hear. The proper way to prepare for Advent of Jesus is to let the divine acts cut off our greed and cut off our self indulgence and cut off our egoism and cut off our hypocrisy and the like and throw them into God's unquenchable fire, into God's judgment. Because honestly, I think we would all be a little bit happier if we had been experienced an axe that cuts off part of us that we don't know, we know we don't need and we don't want, but we kind of feel stuck with sometimes.

Stuck with because we think it helps us sometimes because we haven't actually hit the cul de sac yet and know where the end of that story goes. Miriam Kamel, she writes that, you know, for John the Baptist, repentance looks like caring for the needy and practicing truth and justice. John does not say a word about ritual, about the temple, or about sacrifice or any religious system. And maybe this is a foreshadow. His cousin Jesus is going to replace the gesture and the ritual with his own life, with his own blood.

And so the crowd, he says, hey, look, if you have an extra coat, if you have more than you need, share it with somebody that has nothing. To the tax collectors, he extols them, just to be honest, to the soldiers, which are surprising participants in this story. They're warned about the greed that their position has enabled them to act upon.

Look, I think what John is speaking to is that on some level, repentance looks like contentment. And contentment is never an easy lesson, particularly when we have the means to obtain what we wish. But it is the crucial fruit of repentance, for it reveals steadfast trust in God's and God's work and God's will. And so I want you to imagine with me in this Christmas season, not the snow, snowy white fields, not the carolers and the sleigh bells, but I want you to imagine a dusty desert. I want us to find ourselves in the crowd that we have traveled to hear the Baptist.

We've traveled through these dusty roads to plant a spiritual stake in the ground. It's a promise to ourselves that many of us make this time of year anyway, that next year will be different. Next year I'm going to make a change. Next year I'm going to turn around. And here's the lingering question that Luke never asks, but we need to what should we do?

Where's the place that I need to repent?

The soldier's profession. He speaks to the profession more than the person. The tax collector, he speaks to the profession more than the person. But in your profession, what does it look like?

I'm kind of a halfway teacher, and my parents were both teachers, so I'm going to choose teaching. I think I've experienced in my life the effect of quiet quitting in schools. And it happened to my mom. She got out, you know, her blood pressure was higher during the year than it was in the summer. Her weight was higher during the year than it was in the summer.

Teaching was not a good place for her to stay.

And I know the power. I know the power of a teacher that actually cares deeply about their students, that's passionate about what they're teaching, that wants their students to grow not just in the knowledge of the subject that they have to teach, but to grow as human beings. You've had those teachers in your life the way I had Them in mind that they're still in the classroom. And they stood up to speak, but that deep and powerful purpose of teaching was gone. I imagine that the Baptist might say to my parents and quasi to me, remember that teaching is so much more than conveying information.

It's about forming human beings.

And it's easy. It's easy just to mail it in, say, but don't.

And I think we could all do the work of our own professions, our own experience of examining those places in our life where the Baptist might say, I think you're in a cul de sac. I think there is a branch growing in your soul that has no business being there. And what Jesus offers you, although it sounds crazy, is the best thing that you could have, which is an axe to cut that part out of your life. And we live in a complicated world where moral ambiguity of our professions and our nation, our economic systems and our role in it may give us privilege and it may intentionally or unintentionally bestow more than we think it would. And so it's.

It's kind of in our best interest. It works for us. We have two coats.

And John's not saying, give all of your coats away. Jesus will say that, but John doesn't say that. John says, if you see somebody that's hungry, maybe you should help them. Maybe. Maybe you should.

Maybe you should give one of your coats away because you have enough, because you've learned the secret of contentment. Christmas is a time where we want to bear fruit. I think it's a time where we give gifts to others and we think of others and we think of charities we want to donate. We think of how to bear fruit in our lives. And we look at the last year and we see how we've grown, how our children have grown, how things have changed.

And you look at your Spotify list and you think, I really have bad taste in music. I ought to fix this next year. Like this is a time where you do a self examiner and you look forward to the next thing. And I think what I don't want us to miss as a people of God is the voice of John the Baptist calling us to say, are you sure that you want to live in the brood of vipers?

This text is filled with images that feel like Old Testament apocalyptic literature. Coming wrath, the axe, the winnowing fork, the threshing four floor, the unquenchable fire. And all of these things, they all have one thing in common. They are the beginning of the end. It's the place that you go before everything else stops.

But John calls us to something new. He calls us to repentance. Repentance, then, is just sort of the end to the beginning. Repentance is the first fruit of the harvest that will come in your life. And John says this comes through baptism.

It's the first act of obedience that sets you on a course into the trajectory of God. And that's a trajectory that's going to last well past your life into the next part of this universe. But it begins when you submit yourself to God. It begins when you meet Christ in the waters. It begins when we repent.

And so I wonder what in your world needs to get cut off. Man, surgery can be painful, man. It's scary. You don't know what the outcome's going to be. You don't know how it's going to end and how the rest of your life is going to be affected.

But I guarantee you that the surgery that John offers is a surgery that will set you free. Will you pray with me, please? Heavenly Father, we are grateful to be gathered here today. We're grateful for your word that challenges us, informs us, and shapes us. And even this unlikely sermon from John in an unlikely season, it still compels us to examine ourselves, to see the work that can be done in our lives, to bring good fruit.

Father, I ask that you bless this community, this church body. Let us do good fruit with our choices in our lives. Let us partner with you in the restoration of all things. It's through Christ we pray, and the church says amen. All right.

I want to give you a word on vision. Like I said last week, I am so frustrated with the timing and the very obvious Morissette irony that I lost my sight when I was in the middle of a vision sermon. And all this stuff was like, it was stacked together and planned well. Like I was supposed to introduce to you who Ali is and the importance of the work that we do in restoration of the world. Right?

Like how that fits into who we are and how that cycle of us pouring into the world actually comes back to us and shapes and forms us as Ali and Mark have already done to our staff. And how we're hopeful for that partnership in the future. But before, you met Allie and we ordained her. Right, but instead, you're going to hear about that in January. You're not going to hear about it now.

One of the other things that's a little out of order is that Slade introduced to you that we're asking more from the restoration offering than we ever have before. It's a sum of $700,000, which most of you be like, okay, where is this extra $300,000 coming from? More than normal. Well, if I'd been able to preach, you would have known, and we couldn't do it. And so everything's all topsy turvy.

So I want to just give you, like, a preview of where that money is going to be used. And it's difficult because I'm going to say it's here, here, and here. But you don't know all the things, all the scaffolding that's behind it, all the purpose that's behind it. And so I want you to just, like, feign excitement for a little bit until you understand the whole story, all right? That's what I just need you to do.

We just have to partner here. It's not my fault. All right, whatever. So part of that extra money is going to be used for three purposes that we believe are very important to the life of this church. The first part of that Money, the first 400,000 of the restoration offering, it's just like every year, it funds the work of today.

It plants the seeds for the work of tomorrow. It helps us get. Helps us get the next step forward. Part of that extra money is going to purchase two new to US vans. You can ask anyone in the youth group the status of our vans.

They are safe, they are effective, but if we got some new ones, it'd be way better. And so we are looking. Yes, we're going to look for two new to US vans that we're going to use some of that money from. Now you may have children in the youth group, and you know exactly what I'm talking about when I say it's time. I love the fact.

I love the fact, and this is one of the things I adore about Highland, that Highland will wring out every little bit of resource, but from everything it has. It was a few years ago that I came up to you and I said, look, I love those bathrooms over there, but I can put my fist through the crack in the wall. It's time for us to fix that. Right? And so we ask you to help us remodel this south foyer and remodel those restrooms.

It was time. We had dealt with that long enough. We're going to do two more. We're going to finish that project. So part of that $300,000 will remodel our north foyer bathrooms on this side.

And we see this as an act of hospitality. There Are people that will come into our church and wonder, what is this church thinking when they use those bathrooms? Like what? What are we thinking exactly? And we're actually making a value statement that I love, that we are wringing out every resource that we possibly can so that we can put everything else into the service of this kingdom.

But it's time. The third place that. That that money is going to be used will be to remodel the bathrooms near the kitchen and the gym. You can go and look at all these places and just decide, right? You can just look and don't do it very hard, but you can kind of just bounce on the floor in the men's restroom back there.

Our intention there is to create two new spaces, two family restrooms back there so that families, particularly families that have adults with disabilities or others, can have assistance. We don't have a public space for family restrooms in this building. And so we want to create that. So that's. We're going to transform those into two spaces.

If you've ever worked on a funeral team or you've sat in at a funeral where we've served a family a meal, and some of those family members are not from Highland, they don't understand our values. They don't understand our purpose. But I have felt that motion where they say, where's the restroom? And I direct them to the other side of the building. I want to solve that.

I think we want to solve that. And so if you want to know where that extra funds were, we're asking that to happen is going to happen there. I do realize that this is a big ask. Like, I am not naive to the economic pressures that are happening in our world right now. This is a big ask.

And we may not get there this year, but that's okay. These are kind of the values that we've decided. These are the next places that we need to do some work. And so if we don't get here in December, I'm just going to ask you again. And I'm going to keep asking until we get to these goals, because we think these are three important things for a way for us to show hospitality to our neighbors, to reflect the value that we have in this place, to provide that kind of safe transportation that we desperately need for the people that ride in those vans.

So if you ever wanted to know, that's what it's for. And if you have more questions, you can find me and come talk to me. There are a lot of other things that you haven't heard about yet. Good things that we're going to do to partner in restoration of Abilene. Good things that we're doing to partner in the restoration of the world.

Good things that we're doing where we see God working and we decide we want to be a part of that. There's so many things that you haven't heard about that you're going to be excited about and the way that we were excited back in November when all of this started, but just things got jumbled up because I went half blind. But it's going to be okay and we're going to see God's work in this world and more than anything else, I really want to be a part of it. So will you please stand for our benediction?

May the God of all heaven who bestows on his church every resource on their behalf, fill you with an abundance of goodness and peace and joy and and love. May you be transformed by God's grace as we await his second coming. May you be filled with blessings and go in peace.