The world is a very different place in the 21st century than it was in the days of our parents. But I am not talking about the obvious advancements in technology and science and so forth. The difference in our day from our father’s day is that at least in western civilization, man has become more egocentric rather than theocentric.
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 that 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 previous generations suffered through, and hopefully we realize that their sacrifices provided the security and prosperity that our nation now enjoys but too often take for granted.
On the other hand, when the pendulum started swinging in the opposite direction after WW2, during a time of prosperity, 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 now the pervasive view of 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 demands special rights for every possible special interest group at the expense of the greater good.
But what is more disconcerting than that 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 desires 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 who was sent by God to give a message to the Jews? Did he come to preach feel good messages about how to live your best life now? Did he come to preach messages on how to resolve family issues? Did he come to preach messages about psychotherapy? I’m sure all of that would have been as popular in his day as they are in ours. But John the Baptist 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 to repent and receive forgiveness from God. So John the Baptist preached repentance. He didn't think that repentance was impractical, old fashioned, or irrelevant. He didn’t tickle their ears and give them what they wanted to hear, but he preached to them sound doctrine.
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 wisdom that leads to salvation. Paul told Timothy in 2Tim.3:15 that the scriptures gave him the wisdom which leads to salvation through faith. And once a person is saved sound doctrine produces stability, maturity and spiritual fruit.
Now I would remind you that Jesus said 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. I for one can identify with a voice crying out in the wilderness. And like John, I 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. Of not really having a permanent location, especially when we meet out here 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 in this first chapter 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 to illustrate that theology. And the star 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 that 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 his achievements. But not John the Baptist. This was a humble man. And let me tell you something; humility is the hallmark of a true servant of God. Not where you went to seminary, or how many degrees you have, 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 no servant is 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 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 or knowledgeable they may be, but how humble they are. That is what God cares about. And that is the person that God will use. He will not share His glory with man.
So what John was not. He answers their 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, or in the Greek, the Christ. 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.” The last verses of the OT prophesied that Elijah would come before the Messiah. And so they wondered if he was Elijah. John said he wasn’t Elijah, but an angel had prophesied that John would come in the spirit and power of Elijah. They asked if he was the Prophet. It’s likely that Prophet they spoke of was the Messiah that Moses had said would come after him. And John disavows being that prophet as well.
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 being 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 sandals. Now that is humility. And yet Jesus says about him that John the Baptist is the greatest among men. That’s an illustration of the verse I quoted from Peter a minute ago; “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 voice 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 videos and dancing and singing in the church, if not giving voice to the word of God are just entertainment. Those things may attract a crowd, but the only power to save is found in giving voice to the Word. 1 Cor. 1:21 says, “it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.”
John the Baptist says that his mission was to prepare or make ready, the way of the Lord. He quotes from Isaiah 40:3. He is saying that his ministry is to prepare people’s hearts to receive the Lord, the King. To call people to repentance.
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 or ceremonies we practice. Or what kind of programs do you have. Well, John did indeed practice baptism. But the priority was not John the Baptist’s baptism, but on the fact that he was a witness. He was pointing people to Christ. Baptism simply prepares people’s hearts to receive Christ through repentance. Four times other gospel writers spoke of John the Baptist as preaching a baptism of repentance. So John’s emphasis is not on the ceremony of baptism as a means of receiving salvation, but as a sign of repentance. The focus is not 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 the Jews as a means of purification. But it was actually 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 immersed in water and then going through certain ceremonies and offerings. But John the Baptist is in effect preaching that Jews had no inherent national right to gain the kingdom of God because of their race, and they needed repentance and cleansing just like the Gentiles.
But again, John deflects attention from 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 earthly 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 by His righteousness and live.
And that brings up a 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 that takes away sin. 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. 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 emphasize is 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 Jesus’ 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 who Jesus was 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 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 by 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. To know God is to believe in God, which is a decision that everyone must make for themselves. To believe the truth about God. That He was manifested in the flesh as Jesus Christ, and that He is Lord of all.
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’ substitutionary sacrifice on your behalf, for forgiveness of your sins, that you may be born again 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 see 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 be given the right to become children of God and have everlasting life. I urge you to repent of your sins and receive Him as your Savior and Lord, that you might be saved.
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