A good illustration of that is that in our father’s day,
young men cheerfully signed up to
fight the Nazis, risking and even losing their lives for the sake of God and
country. Not everyone was a
Christian in those days of course, but there was instilled in people the sense
that there were higher ideals worth living for than simply self
gratification. Consequently, we
look back in history with a sense of awe at what that generation suffered
through, and realize that their sacrifices provided the security and prosperity
that our nation now enjoys and takes for granted.
On the other hand, the when the pendulum started swinging in
the opposite direction post WW2, during a time of unparalleled prosperity that
was for the most part the result of winning the war, we see that society lost
that sense of chivalry and became increasingly narcissistic and
egocentric. That attitude has
fostered a philosophy of secular humanism which is the pervasive view today in
society.
As a result, politicians pander to such self aggrandizing
attitudes, producing a society that increasingly depends upon government
entitlements and consequently is contributing to what I think marks the
beginning of the end of this great nation. John F. Kennedy’s quote made 50 years ago that we should “ask
not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country"
no longer gets traction in today’s “Me First” culture that asks and keeps
demanding special rights for every possible special interest group at the expense
of the greater good.
But what is more disconcerting than the trend in the
political arena is that the church is pandering to the egocentric trends of the
culture as well. The whole focus
of the relevant church movement is to find out what appeals to the congregation,
and then format the church to meet the expectations of the people. So we end up with messages geared to
such topics as fixing your marriage, or straightening out your finances. There is even a popular sermon series
out there based on dieting. It’s
called the Daniel Plan. Not that
there is anything wrong with dieting.
Some of us could probably benefit from it, but it is not the ministry of
the church to provide a health club or social club or self help classes.
The Apostle John said in vs. 6 that “There came a man sent
from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness, to testify about the
Light, so that all might believe through him.” So what was the testimony of
John the Baptist? Did he come and give messages on love, sex, and marriage? Did
he come and give messages on how to resolve family issues? Did he come and give
messages about psychotherapy? I’m sure all of that would have been as popular
in his day as they are in ours.
And there may be a place for these things sometimes. But John saw that
the need of his people was much more fundamental than that. Israel had left her
first love. Israel had become apostate. Israel was a nation who needed
reconciliation and forgiveness from
God. So John the Baptist
preached theology. He didn't think
that theology was impractical, old fashioned, or irrelevant. He didn’t tickle
their ears and give them what they wanted to hear, but he gave them sound
theology.
The great thing about the ministry of John the Baptist was
that he didn’t pander to the culture.
He didn’t worry about being seeker friendly. He spoke about what God told him to speak about. His message was simply repentance, to
prepare the people to receive the Messiah, the Son of God.
Sound doctrine is the knowledge that leads to
salvation. And once saved sound
doctrine produces stability, maturity and spiritual fruit. Paul told Timothy in 2Tim.3:15 that the
scriptures gave him the wisdom which leads to salvation through faith.
Now I would remind you that Jesus would say about John the
Baptist that among men born of women, there was none greater than John the
Baptist. So if we are going to
pattern our ministry after someone, then I suggest patterning our ministry
after John the Baptist.
Personally, I have always identified with John the Baptist. I don’t say that to imply that I am
anywhere near his level, of course.
But I do identify with a voice crying out in the wilderness. I do believe that the primary message
of the gospel is repentance and pointing people to Jesus Christ. I guess I also identify with the idea
of a no frills, open air ministry.
Not really having a permanent location, especially when we meet out on
the beach.
So I want to look at the testimony of John the Baptist that
is presented here, and take some points from his ministry which we should apply
to our own. And we are going to
divide this passage by looking at three points; first what John says he is not, and second, what John says
he is, and third, who he says Jesus is.
What he is not, what he is, and who Jesus is.
Now to introduce this section let me remind you that the
Apostle John has presented a masterful theological treatise, much like the
opening statement in a court of law, presenting the facts concerning
Christ. Now John brings forth his
first witness to corroborate those facts, and illustrate that theology. And his first witness the apostle
brings forth is John the Baptist.
So vs.19 says that “This is the testimony of John, when the
Jews sent to him priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, ‘Who are
you?’” Now for most of us,
there is no more favorite subject matter for which we prefer to talk about than
ourselves. Isn’t that so? If the average pastor was asked that
question today, he would probably launch into a biographical essay in which he
ends up giving a glowing testimony of himself. But not John the Baptist. This was a humble man.
Let me tell you something; humility is the hallmark of a true servant of
God. Not where you went to
seminary, or how big your church might be. But even as Jesus humbled himself, taking the form of a
servant. And if we are truly
servants, then we should remember that the servant is not greater than his
master. We need to be humble, to
practice humility if we are going to minister as Christ’s representatives.
And we see that humility illustrated in the answers that
John gives to the questions of the religious leaders. As my outline illustrates, he starts out by saying what he
is not. What he is not. That is the mark of humility. Peter admonished the men of the church
in 1Peter 5:5-6 “You younger men, likewise, be subject to your elders; and all
of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, for GOD IS OPPOSED
TO THE PROUD, BUT GIVES GRACE TO THE HUMBLE. Therefore humble yourselves under
the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time.” All of you, that is all the men of the
church, pastors and all of the church, clothe yourselves with humility.
You know there was another famous prophet who was singled
out as being one of the greatest, and that was none other than Moses. And notice what it says about Moses in Numbers
12:3, “Now the man Moses was very humble, more than any man who was on the face
of the earth.” Humility is the
hallmark of a man or woman of God.
Not how charismatic or talented they may be, but how humble they
are. That is what God looks at.
And that is the person that God will use. He will not share His glory with man.
So what John was not.
He answers there question of “Who are you?” with “I am not the Christ.” I believe it was Luke that tells us in
his gospel that the religious leaders had been asking, along with many of the
multitudes that were coming out to hear him, if John the Baptist could be the
Messiah. And so he answers that
question; “I am not the Christ.”
Then they ask him, ““What then? Are you Elijah?” And he
*said, “I am not.” “Are you the Prophet?” And he answered, “No.” Notice John goes from a five word
answer to a three world answer to a one word answer. I think that indicates that he doesn’t want to talk about
himself. He wasn’t in ministry to
promote himself, but to promote Jesus Christ. And John knows that very well.
You know I think God hates self promotion. So by extension, I would have to say
that God hates facebook. Lord
knows that is the most visible form of self promotion in this modern world gone
narcissistic and egocentric. And
ranked right under that I would have to put this obsession with selfies. Even the very word conjures up self
serving. Take 500 digital photos
of yourself and pick the most flattering one and put it on facebook. And then do it everyday until you get
enough likes to satisfy your ego.
I don’t think you would find John the Baptist on facebook if he were
alive today. Nor would you find Moses, or Jesus for that matter. Some people might pretend that it is a
ministry tool, but I think the fact is most are probably just tools. I’m sorry if that offends
somebody. But we can’t do ministry
when the primary person we are interested in is ourselves. We need to drop our façade of self
righteousness and start speaking the truth to the world, and start caring about
others more than ourselves. That’s
pretty basic ministry fundamentals.
So John says he is not the Messiah, he is not Elijah, he is
not the Prophet, and back in verse 8 we see that he was not the Light. Furthermore, in vs.27, John says “He
who comes after me, the thong of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie.” He is saying that he doesn’t even
consider himself worthy of the lowest household servant in the kingdom of God,
so that he is not worthy of even untying the sandals of Christ. So not only is he not the Christ, he is
not even worthy to untie Christ’s shoes.
Now that is humility. And
yet Jesus says about him that he is the greatest among men. “Humble yourselves
under the mighty hand of God and He will exalt you at the proper time.”
Jesus said in Matt. 20:26-28 "It is not this way among
you, but whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you
shall be your slave; just as the
Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a
ransom for many."
Now then let’s look at what John testifies about
himself. Who John says he is and
what he is doing. Vs.22 Then they said to him, "Who are you, so that we
may give an answer to those who sent us? What do you say about yourself?" He
said, "I am A VOICE OF ONE CRYING IN THE WILDERNESS, 'MAKE STRAIGHT THE
WAY OF THE LORD,' as Isaiah the prophet said."
First of all, note the contrast John the Baptist makes
between himself and Christ. He is
not the Word, but he is a voice. The Word exists before him. The word exists in the mind before the
voice articulates it. The Word
remains once the voice is silent. He just speaks the words of God as God gives
him utterance. John would later
say “He must increase, but I must decrease.” He understood that it was not his words that had any power
to save. But John knew that the
Word of God who was God was the only power unto salvation.
I wish we could get hold of that principle today in our
churches. We exist merely to give
voice to the Word of God. To bear
witness of Him. All of the
programs and skits and dancing and singing if not giving voice to the word of
God are useless and self serving.
Those things may attract a crowd, but the only power to save is found in
giving voice to the Word.
Then notice that the next question they are concerned about
is his practice, his baptism. People
are concerned about the externals, aren’t they? What rituals we practice. What ceremonies. What kind of programs you have. Well, John did indeed
practice baptism. But the emphasis
of the gospel of John is not John the Baptist’s baptism, but on the fact that
he was a witness. And that is the
emphasis of John the Baptist as well.
To point to Christ. Baptism
simply prepares people’s hearts to receive Christ through repentance. John’s emphasis is not on the mode or
method of baptism as a means of grace, but as a means of repentance. Not
focused on the outward sign, but on the heart of man.
So they ask him, “Why then are you baptizing, if you are not
the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?”
See the problem wasn’t that he was baptizing. Baptism was already practiced among first century Jews as a
means of purification. But it was
self administered. And the other
thing was that it was for Gentiles, not Jews. It was part of the method by which non Jews could become
proselytes. They could become
accepted into the Jewish faith by becoming washed in water and then going
through certain ceremonies and offerings.
So for John to be administering baptisms to Jews for repentance was a
new teaching that would have attracted criticism.
But again, John deflects attention to his ministry and points
to Jesus. Vs. 26 John answered them saying, "I baptize in water, but among
you stands One whom you do not know. It is He who comes after me, the thong of whose sandal I am
not worthy to untie." What
John was saying was that his baptism was a sign. He did not have power to cleanse or forgive sins. All he could do was use human means to
point to a heavenly purpose that would be fulfilled in Christ. It was a sign in the flesh, much the
same as the sign in the flesh of circumcision which was given through
Moses. So John the Baptist comes
with the sign of baptism, and this sign points to Jesus Christ. First by showing their need for a
Savior, and then when John baptizes Jesus it points to Him as being the Son of
God. So in all aspects, John’s ministry points to
Jesus and Jesus alone. Never does
it magnify John the Baptist.
Now then the last point, who John testifies that Jesus is.
Who John says Jesus is. Vs. 28
These things took place in Bethany beyond the Jordan, where John was baptizing.
The next day he saw Jesus coming
to him and said, "Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the
world!” John says Jesus is the
Lamb of God. Now that goes back to what I just said about John’s baptism. The first purpose of baptism is to show
us our need for repentance, for forgiveness of sin. And as he is baptizing, which has no power to forgive sin in
and of itself, he sees Jesus coming to him and says “Behold, the Lamb of God
who takes away the sins of the world.”
Baptism then has no power to take away sin, but the Lamb of God does
take away sin.
Now any Jew would understand the imagery that John is
referring to when he says the Lamb of God. First of all, hearing that a Jew would naturally be reminded
of their father Abraham when he offered up Isaac on the altar, and was about to
slay him as a sacrifice, and God stopped him and provided a ram that was caught
in a thorn bush behind him. God
provided a substitute. God
provided a lamb. That is the first lesson of the Lamb of God. He is our substitute. God placed our sins, our punishment
upon Him, so that He died for us, so that we might be made righteous with His
righteousness and live.
And that brings up the second point of the Lamb of God that
every Jew would think of. And that
would have been the Passover Lamb that was slain on the night when God caused
all the first born male children in Egypt to die because of the hardness of the
Egyptian’s hearts and their refusal to let Israel worship the Lord. So God told His people to take a lamb
for every household and slay it and put the blood on the doorposts of their
houses so that the angel of death would not strike them. And as they obeyed God’s command and
sacrificed the lamb and put the blood on the doorpost of their house, the angel
of the Lord passed by and they were saved from death. Now that illustrates the second principle of the Lamb of
God, He saves us from death, eternal death.
So first who John says Jesus is, He is the Lamb of God.
Secondly, John says Christ is the One who baptizes in the Holy Spirit. As
opposed to his baptism with water, Christ will baptize in the Holy Spirit. (and
by the way, it is noteworthy that Christ is never recorded as baptizing anyone
in water) So John says in Vs. 30 "This is He on behalf of whom I said,
'After me comes a Man who has a higher rank than I, for He existed before me.' I did not recognize Him, but so that He
might be manifested to Israel, I came baptizing in water. John testified
saying, ‘I have seen the Spirit descending as a dove out of heaven, and He
remained upon Him. I did not recognize Him, but He who sent me to baptize in
water said to me, He upon whom you see the Spirit descending and remaining upon
Him, this is the One who baptizes in the Holy Spirit.'”
Now there is a lot in those verses and we don’t have time to
unpack everything there. But one
thing I want to say that John says it was necessary for him to baptize in order
that the Christ might be made known. Now certainly John knew of Jesus before
this time. He was his cousin. And
though they may not have lived near one another as they were growing up we must
imagine that John knew of Him, and perhaps even had met Him or known Him all
his life. That is certainly
possible but I don’t think that is what John is saying here. What he is saying is that I did not
know Him as the Christ, as the Messiah, as the Son of God until it was divinely
revealed to me in the baptism. God
had spoken to John previously and said He who the Spirit descends upon is the
Christ.
So John knew Jesus not by sight, not by human intellect or
knowledge, but by divine revelation from the Holy Spirit. And this illustrates an important
principle of salvation. God has to
open men’s eyes to see that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. Remember the famous situation with
Peter when Jesus asks, “who do men say that I am?” And Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of God.”
And what did Jesus say to that?
“Flesh and blood did not reveal this to you Peter, but my Father who is
in heaven. (Matt. 16) It takes a divine intervention to open
a blind man’s eyes, and we that are in our sins are blind. Jesus said in John 6:44 "No one can come to Me unless the
Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day.”
But it also reveals the two fold nature of salvation; on the
one hand there must be a removal of sin, but also a filling of the Holy Spirit.
Both are necessary for salvation.
One sanctifies you, the other makes you a temple of the Holy Spirit and
empowers you to live as a witness to the world in obedience to God. You must be born again of the Spirit of
God if you will have the life of God in you.
Then the last statement that John the Baptist testifies as
to who Jesus is, is found in vs. 34 "I myself have seen, and have
testified that this is the Son of God." This is the ultimate witness of John the Baptist. That Jesus is the Christ, that is the
Messiah, and He is also the Son of God.
He is God in the flesh, the Word made flesh. And John saw the Spirit of God descend and remain on Him
just as God said, and he heard the proclamation of God as recorded by Luke in
Luke 3:22 when the Holy Spirit
descended upon Him in bodily form like a dove, and a voice came out of heaven,
"You are My beloved Son, in You I am well-pleased." This was the
witness of John, and this is his testimony, that Jesus is the Son of God.
And of course that testimony correlates perfectly with the
Apostle John’s stated purpose for writing this book in John 20:31, “but these have been written so that you
may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you
may have life in His name.”
Now there are two quick applications that I would point out
that makes the believing in Christ efficacious for you. One is to recognize the
One whom you do not know. Notice vs.26, John says, “among you stands One whom
you do not know.” Some have decided that they do not want to know Him. They have rejected the idea of God and
Lord, and so they have rejected the Savior of the world. Knowing God is a decision that everyone
must make for themselves. To know
the truth about God. Everyone,
atheist or believer, starts with a presupposition which is either God exists or
He does not exist. That decision
comes before all evidence, before all science. There is either a rejection of God or a realization that God
is. And based on that presupposition, then man goes about living out either his
theology or philosophy.
But knowing God is a choice. And it’s a choice that all of us make. And then the second
point of application is that you must receive Him as your Lord and Savior. It
is not enough to just believe in God, or even believe that Jesus lived on earth
2000 years ago. It’s necessary to
receive Him as your Lord and Savior.
You must accept Jesus’ substutionary sacrifice on your behalf, for
forgiveness of your sins, and receive the promise of life by the Holy
Spirit. If Jesus is truly the Son
of God, then there is no alternative but to bow down before Him and plead for
His mercy. And Jesus said that to
them that call upon Him He will surely save them. In vs. 12 of our text, John says, “But as many as received
Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who
believe in His name.”
Today we have heard the testimony of the Apostle John here
in this passage before us, who lived with and followed Jesus for 3 years of his
life. We have heard the testimony
of John the Baptist who heard the voice from heaven declaring that Jesus is the
Son of God and saw the Spirit descend in the form of a dove upon Him as was
prophesied. We have heard the
testimony of the Old Testament Scriptures which present the Christ as the Lamb
of God who takes away the sins of the world. We have around us the testimony of creation which reveals His
invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, so that we are
without excuse. But most
importantly, we have the witness of the Holy Spirit inside us, convicting us,
drawing us to Christ, opening our eyes that we might see Him and believe in Him
and be saved. I hope if you are
here today, and you do not know Him, that you will not reject these faithful
witnesses. Jesus came to earth to
save those that are lost. All that
is necessary is for you to believe in Him and receive Him as your Lord and
Savior, and you will have life everlasting. You will come to know Him who is the source of all life and
the Light of the world.
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