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• Illustration: MacDonald remembers scenes from "The Lone Ranger" radio show, illustrating how hard it is to know someone if you're not prepared to meet him.
• John the Baptist's job was to prepare the people to meet and know the Messiah.
• To see, know, and obey Christ demands preparation.

• God chose an unlikely messenger to bring an unwelcome message—repent.
• Everyone who would know Christ must likewise repent.
  - Luke 3:2-3

• To be regularly prepared for Christ, a person must regularly open his heart to repentance.
• Preparation demands daily substituting right acts for bad acts in our lives.
  - Luke 3:5-8

• We will never see Christ in his fullness until we have offered Christ our possessions.
  - Luke 3:10-14
• Repentant people are aware of others who are being downtrodden and misused.
• Repentance does not mean abandoning all for missions but serving in the world by doing our jobs justly and rightly and sensitively and generously.
• When we repent inwardly in sorrow of sin and match it with the acts that befit repentance, then we are prepared to see and serve Christ.