Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / July 3, 2022 | RETOLD - John the Baptist

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July 3, 2022 | RETOLD - John the Baptist · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Good morning.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: Happy pre-independence day to everybody.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: I am representing one of the three colors.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: Though, to be honest with you, when I picked out my polo this morning from my closet, that's not really the kind of thing.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: There's a not a whole lot of thought that goes into what I wear.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: I leave that up to my wife.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: So if you are just joining us this morning, we are continuing our series titled Retold.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: And Retold is basically looking at these stories that are familiar to us from the Bible.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: Whether you grew up in a Christian home and you were read these stories as a child, you're in a children's ministry, you kind of got to see the felt board.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: Or maybe you're not from a church background, but perhaps you've heard some of these stories before.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: The difficulty is when we become so familiar with these stories and these narratives in the Bible, or these characters, as we'll look at today, that we think we know every single thing about them.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: When in reality, it can hamper our ability to see God's true story that He is trying to communicate to us.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: And this morning, like I mentioned, we're actually going to be looking at a character who does not, let me tell you, does not get enough credit.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: All right?
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: This morning he is referred to, by the way, as we'll talk about, in connection to our friend from last week, Elijah.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: But our friend this morning is going to be John the Baptist.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: All right?
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: Now, John the Baptist, let me tell you, I've accepted a new job, and that role is being John the Baptist's uh public relations advisor.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, they hired me.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: Listen, I thought it would be really interesting because this guy is somebody that Jesus said is the greatest among all who have been born of women.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: Think about that for a second.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: The guy who is normally attached with eating bugs and living in the desert is somebody who Jesus himself lifts up to the very pantheon of greats.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason why is because John was an amazing prophet of God.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: He was the initiator of really the New Testament, uh, ending 400 years of prophetic silence.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: But most of all, he was the herald of Christ.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: And that that is gonna be the thing that we sort of hone in on this morning is how we can elevate the guy who um, well, has a particular look, right?
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: Now, John had a camel hair garment with a leather belt belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey, right?
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, probably the most familiar thing we recognize him with is the It's Man from Monty Python.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: For anybody who's watched Monty Python, for anybody who has, that's a really good comparison, but anyhow.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: Now, John is somebody who um has really suffered under the auspices of being a crazy desert guy.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: And the problem with that is he was far more, and we lose sight of what it means to be the herald of Christ, and then we also lose sight of what his message to the entire world was, because you see, he is preparing the way for Jesus.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: We see him in all four Gospels, and we actually see him take a very prominent position at the beginning of all four of the gospels.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: This morning we'll start out in Mark 1, verses 1 through 4.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: This is the beginning of Mark's gospel.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: And the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, as it is written in Isaiah the prophet: See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, he will prepare your way, a voice of one crying out in the wilderness, prepare the way for the Lord, make his path straight.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: John came baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: Excuse me.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: So we see here, first of all, two prophecies that are attached very closely to John.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: The first one, and they're they're smooshed together here, but the first one is from Malachi 3, and the second one is from Isaiah 40.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: And both of these prophecies are listed in all four of the Gospels as a reference to what John is doing, basically what his job is.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: And we're going to see that his purpose is really what defines him as this amazing figure.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: John is a righteous man.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: He is going to preach a message of repentance that we'll get into certainly later on.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: But really what makes John so amazing is what he was destined to do, what God had called him to do.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so we'll see that John ends up fulfilling these prophecies.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: And in, man, the Gospels, which are all about Jesus Christ, and filled, replete with prophecies that Jesus himself fulfilled, it's pretty amazing that the book of Mark begins one out with a prophecy not about Jesus, but about John.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: And we'll actually see in Mark 1 that he devotes so much time to John the Baptist that it gets way more attention than the baptism of Jesus, which John is involved with, the temptation of Jesus in the desert, Jesus in Galilee, or the calling of the disciples.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: In Mark 1, there are nine different topics, and none of them get as much attention as John does.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: As we look in the other Gospels, we see in the Gospel of Matthew that he comes out in Matthew 3, in the Gospel of Luke, which begins with two birth accounts, right?
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: We uh actually did this, looked at these during our Christmas series.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the first birth is not Jesus with Mary and Joseph, it is John the Baptist who is recognized in Luke 1.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um we are looking at Mark here, um, and then we look at the Gospel of John, and we're gonna be we're gonna be in the Gospel of John today, and so I'm gonna try and distinguish between the two of those.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: But the Gospel of John, talking about John the Baptist, John the Baptist makes an immediate appearance.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: In John 1, verses 1 through 9.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: He was with God in the beginning.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: All things were created through him, and apart from him, not one thing was created that has been created.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: In him was life, and that life was the light of men.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: That light shines in the darkness, and yet the darkness did not overcome it.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, my client John coming in on the foot of Jesus here, there was a man sent from God, whose name was John.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: He came as a witness to testify about the light, so that all might believe through him.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: He was not the light, but he came to testify about the light.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is before even we probably, if we've grown up in the church, recognize a lot of this language about in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: But later on, one of the most famous passages in John 1, that Jesus, that he dwelt among them, that the word dwelt among men, we haven't even gotten to it yet.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: John is thrown in at the beginning of two of the four Gospels.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: Two of the four Gospels begin with a story about John the Baptist.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: So, on our campaign to rehabilitate his image, the first thing I want you to see is that he receives preeminence in the Gospels of Jesus Christ, and his role is inextricably tied to the Gospel of Jesus and the coming Messiah.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: Now, we're going to be going back and forth here between John 1 and Matthew 3 for the rest of the morning.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: So if you want to put a thumb and where you are in John 1, you can turn to Matthew 3, because we see that John did have a specific purpose.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: And John, let me tell you, was really, really good at his job.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: In Matthew 3, verses 1 through 6, in those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea, and saying, Repent, because the kingdom of heaven has come near, for he is the one spoken of through the prophet Isaiah.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: Then people from Jerusalem, all Judea, and all the vicinity of the Jordan were going out to him, and they were baptized by him in the Jordan River, confessing their sins.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: So one of the things that of the many that is misunderstood about John is that he was amazingly popular.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: As the forerunner of the Messiah, John had already built up a huge following.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, we'll see, sort of fast-forwarding, when we get to the book of Acts, that there are many of John's disciples who are didn't really end up following Jesus, which was to their loss, but that John had these disciples that were still circling around the church at the time.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: Apollos and Acts 18 would be one of them.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: And they're just saying, they're recognizing John as this amazing teacher.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: Elsewhere in the Gospels, we'll see that John often, once the baptism of Christ occurs, he pushes some of his disciples off to follow Jesus.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: But in order to do that, you have to have an amazing following.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: Some of the same language that we see about Jesus, where he needed to seek out a large place, those same words are applied to John, that he had to seek out some place with a lot of water to accommodate all of the people who were seeking his baptism.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so as the forerunner of Christ, as the one who tells the world about the light to come, John was amazingly popular, had a huge following that continued even after Jesus arrived, despite John's best efforts.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: And because of all of that, the religious leaders of the day had a couple questions for John.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: See, based upon the book of Daniel, we know that there was a prophecy that a Messiah was going to come.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: And it would be false to say that the religious leaders of the time weren't already anticipating the Messiah.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: Based upon the timing of the book of Daniel, they were anticipating that a Messiah should be arriving on the scene around this time.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: And so it is as much as we talk about how much Jesus was rejected as the Messiah of the world, it's not correct to say that the Jewish people weren't already looking for him.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the first sort of suspects that they have of the Messiah is John the Baptist.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: We see in John 1, verses 19 through 22, this was John's testimony when the Jews from Jerusalem sent priests and Levites to ask him, Who are you?
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't deny it, but confessed, I am not the Messiah.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: What then?
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: They asked him, Are you Elijah?
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: So, okay, a couple things.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: The Jews from Jerusalem sent priests and Levites.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: So basically you've got probably the Sanhedrin, and we find out later that they're also the sect of the Pharisees that are sending these religious individuals, the heads of the churches, basically, to go and ask John, Who are you?
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: Because based upon our timeline, we think that the Messiah could be here.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's the first question they ask him.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: They want to know if he is the Messiah.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: And you can see that he sort of preempts their next question, Who are you?
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: And he's like, I'm not the Messiah.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: That's not me.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: But then they keep going and they're like, okay, well, what then?
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: Because what you're doing is amazing.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: You have a following, throngs of people are coming to you, and they're being baptized in a way that we don't recognize.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so they say, Are you Elijah?
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: Our friend from last week that Jim spoke about.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: And why would they think that he's Elijah?
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: Well, in 2 Kings chapter 1, verses 7 through 8, the king asked them, What sort of man came up to meet you and spoke those words to you?
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: They replied, A hairy man with a leather belt around his waist.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: He said, It's Elijah the Tishbite.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: So, a couple things.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, one, this is in reference to, I mean, this is Elijah from last week.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so Elijah, like our guy John, had a particular way that he dressed that was very recognizable.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: So much so, and I think this is funny, that the king is like, What did he dress like?
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: And they're like, he was hairy and had a leather belt, and he's like, Yeah, that's definitely Elijah, for sure.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: Not that he was like a prophet of God, not that he was doing it, but like, oh, he's hairy and has a leather belt.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, definitely.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, kind of like Steve Jobs, he just wore like one thing, and Elijah just wore one thing, and John basically just wears one thing.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so there is um different people kind of discuss what level of influence Elijah's uh dress and appearance and ministry had upon John the Baptist.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, at the foundational level, they were very similar.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: They were both individuals ministering in the desert who genuinely did look alike, and they were speaking out to a nation that had rejected God, and so they were calling them sort of back from the wilderness.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: For Elijah, right, we know that I mean Jim spoke about this last week, about the the different um the prophets of Baal and the Asherah and the um competition they had on Mount Carmel.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: When it comes to John, we've got a 400-year gap in between the end of the Old Testament and the book of Malachi, and when he comes onto the scene, and so Israel is sort of drifted off and he's trying to draw them back.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so there is good reason to believe that John, in some respects, was basing a portion of his ministry, or maybe just his fashion statements, upon Elijah and referencing him.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: But there was another reason they would think that this was actually Elijah in Malachi 4, which is the chapter after the prophecy about John.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: Look, I'm going to send you the prophet Elijah before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children, and the hearts of children to their fathers.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, I will come and strike the land with a curse.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: And so the Jewish leaders know this, and they are basically connecting all of the dots, and they're like, Looks like Elijah, sounds like Elijah, probably smells like Elijah.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, are you the new Elijah?
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: They were anticipating that he was going to return, and he, because we see from the Old Testament, was going to proclaim the coming Messiah.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: They're like, It it really seems, are you the new Elijah?
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: It says, I am not.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: He said, That is not me.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: And they say, Okay, are you the prophet?
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: And what are they going for here?
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: Well, in Deuteronomy 18, Moses speaks about a, like capital P, prophet that is coming.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own brothers.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: You must listen to him.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: I will put my words in his mouth, and he will tell them everything I command him.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: I will hold accountable whoever does not listen to my words that he speaks in my name.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so they're recognizing that there's going to be this prophet that rises up, and in particular, he is going to have a lot of authority to speak the words of the Lord.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the gospel of John in the New Testament picks up this particular prophecy from Deuteronomy 18 and mentions it twenty-four times.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: It was very much in John's mind.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: And what he is trying to show, and what the religious leaders don't understand, is that Jesus is the prophet that Moses is speaking about here, a connection that is later on made in Acts 3, where they tie the two together.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: But up to this point, they're like, we don't know who the prophet is.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: Are you the prophet?
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: Because once more, you've sort of got this huge following, and you seem to have a power to be able to attract, and you are bringing this message of repentance that seems to follow with a lot of the prophetic announcements that we get in the Old Testament.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: And John says, Of all of those things, no, that's not me.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: And this is where, right, as my client, I'd be like, hey John, let's throw him a bone here.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe kind of, you know, talk up, let's give you some talking points about how you can speak with these people.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: He's not interested in it.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: And as they keep going, though, they almost grow frustrated.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: They say, Okay, well, then who are you then?
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: We need to give an answer to those who sent us.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: What can you tell us about yourself?
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: He said, I am a voice of one crying out in the wilderness.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: Make straight the way of the Lord, just as Isaiah the prophet said.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: Now they had been sent from the Pharisees, so they asked him, Why then do you baptize if you aren't the Messiah or Elijah or the prophet?
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: I baptize with water, John answered them.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: Someone stands among you, but you don't know him.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: He is the one coming after me, whose sandal strap I'm not worthy to untie.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: So, first of all, what a response.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: Who are you?
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: I'm the one the prophets were talking about.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: I am making the way straight for the Lord.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: I am paving the road.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: He is coming, and I am making sure that everyone is ready for him.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: But as he keeps going, though, we see that there are some context here that we might be missing if we don't understand that the Jewish leaders at the time, right, see, they see baptism, something that for the church in the New Testament age is an ordinance, a wonderful thing.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: TB, we've got our baptism coming up here in like two months.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: But at the time, baptism was only something done for ritual purity.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: It was not something that you did to recognize new believers or people dedicating themselves to the Lord, right?
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: John is basically blazing his own trail in this regard, and the fact that he is baptizing people who want to be recognized for having repented and turned back to God.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: That is new.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so they're also sort of frustrated with him because they're like, You're not a priest.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have the ability to be doing these kinds of things.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: You're not the Messiah, you're not Elijah, and you're not the prophet.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: So what are you doing?
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so he responds, he says, Well, I have authority from one who is among you.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: And the one who is among you, who you have not met yet, I am not worthy to even untie his sandal straps.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: Which seems like kind of an odd thing to mention.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: Not untying his sandal straps.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: We have, though, from this time period, an extant copy of some sort of laws or guidelines for how rabbis and their students were supposed to interact with each other.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: And one of those sort of guidelines was that a rabbi who John would be seen as a rabbi, and certainly Jesus was later called a rabbi by his followers, that these Ubbinic teachers they could not accept payment for their services, but the disciples who were following after them could perform small acts sort of of thanks.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, they could carry their books or they could open the scrolls or that so on and so forth.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: But the one thing that was mentioned as too low of a task for the disciple to do for their rabbi was to untie the sandal, uh the sandal straps.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so John, knowing all these things, he's like, the one thing you're saying I should not be doing for my teacher, he is coming, and I am not even worthy to do such a thing.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: It has nothing to do with being embarrassing to me, because I'm not worthy to touch his sandals.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: Now, here ends sort of one day of interactions with John in John 1, verses 23 through 27.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: We see that he then has to go back.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, my basically, I'm so busy right now.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have any other questions?
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: Because there's a whole lot of people who are trying to be baptized and understand the repentance of the Lord.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so he has to leave them.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: But as we continue on in our story, we see the next day is the one where John really, if you will, makes his name.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: He is John the Baptist, after all.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: And so we see in John 1, verses 29 through 34, the next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: This is the one I told you about.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_00: After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me because he existed before me.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know him, but I came baptizing with water, so that he might be revealed to Israel.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: And John testified, I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and he rested on him.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know him, but he who sent me to baptize with water told me, the one you see the spirit descending and resting on, he is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: I have seen and testified that this is the Son of God.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: This is um this is a pretty amazing passage, and it reveals to us a lot of the backstory behind John and also the level of dedication that he had to his role.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: You see, there's um there's a bit of debate over how well John and Jesus knew each other beforehand, and furthermore, if John knew that Jesus was the Messiah before this moment.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: A straight and um, I think obvious reading of the text is going to show that the signifying event to John that Jesus was the Messiah he's been preparing for was the anointing of the Holy Spirit as the dove upon Jesus.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: Apparently, the Father spoke to John and told him about this circumstance that was going to happen, and that would be the thing that notified him that, hey, this this is the Messiah.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: But the other sort of debate, though, comes in when you say that if you remember the beginning of the Gospel of Luke, we know that Elizabeth, John's mom, and Mary, Jesus' mom, that they were cousins, and that they spend time together while she's pregnant.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, there's an amazing instance there where a John in the womb uh turns over when Jesus enters the room, as they are both sort of uh, you know, recognizing each other without seeing each other through the Spirit.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so they probably grew up.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Together.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: They probably knew each other quite well and were very close.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: And we know that John wasn't just sort of some servant for Jesus because later on, when John is killed for the message that he is, the sort of calling to repentance that he is giving to the leaders of the day, and he is ultimately beheaded, we know that that deeply affected Jesus and that he was mourning John's death.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so they had some sort of connection to each other.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: What I think is going on is that John recognized, like everybody around Jesus would have, that he was a righteous man.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: And when Jesus comes up to him and he says, Look, the Lamb of God, John is probably able to pull some things together and figure it out.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, my cousin who has never made a mistake, and now I'm seeing the Holy Spirit resting upon him.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, I think, I think this is the guy.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: But at the same time, it also gives us context into the faithfulness of John's purpose.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: If we run with this idea that John, like other people in Jesus' family, did not, except for his mother, did not recognize and appreciate his divinity until after witnessing some supernatural event.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_00: Like we know James and Jude, two right New Testament writers, brothers of Jesus, or half-brothers, if you wanted to call it that, that they didn't believe in their brother as the Christ until after the resurrection.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: That John, until after seeing the anointing of the Holy Spirit, did not recognize his cousin Jesus of Nazareth as the Son of God and the Messiah that he was preparing for.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so we see that John was even more faithful in his journey, devout to his purpose in carrying it out, because he didn't know who was coming.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: But when Jesus arrives on scene, John says, Look, elsewhere in the Gospels, he says, This is the one that you should be following.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: He must increase, I must decrease.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: John ends up sending his disciples, he says, That's the one that you need to go and follow, not me.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: He had no ego about him.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: There was no sort of predisposition for glory and for attention.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: John is like, I eat locusts in the desert.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_00: Listen, I don't need the trappings of mankind.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: My purpose was to show you the Messiah.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so while we see that, we also know that John's story continues on.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: I've mentioned it, but see, John's ministry does continue.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: We see accounts where he and Jesus are baptizing near each other.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_00: And John continues to funnel people towards the Messiah.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: But John also gets in trouble with the religious leaders of the time and the secular leaders by denouncing their behavior and saying that what they were doing, in the case of Herod, or one of Herod's sons, rather, he had married his brother's wife and that he was living in sin.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: Well, they jail John and then ultimately, as a party favor, serve his head up on a platter.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so John is killed, but his legacy continues on.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_00: And there this retold series has been really a fascinating thing for me, and I've really enjoyed it because each week there's so much stuff that has to get cut out that I wish we could cram into, but I need to talk at a reasonable speed so that everybody can understand what I'm saying.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: So there are probably six or seven more stories about John the Baptist.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_00: He is in the Gospels way more than you would realize.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: I would encourage you to go and look for John the Baptist, but also listen to our podcast later this week where we'll take a deep dive into some of these things, including his death and then his disciples after in the book of Acts.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_00: But nevertheless, there's one thing that I want to do this morning, though, with John before we sort of leave him, and as his personal representative here, I want you to see that John had a message himself, though.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: That John was not just saying, hey, somebody's coming.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: But rather he had a message that was preparing the ground for the arrival of the Messiah.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: And if you were just kind of considering, we've gotten glimpses of it, right?
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_00: It says that he had a message of repentance and he was baptizing people in that regard.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so you might have an idea what he was talking about, but I want you to think for a second.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_00: If you were the herald of the Messiah, if you were the one that was paving the way for Jesus, what would your message be?
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: Because if it were me, it would probably be something like, hey, um, the one they talked about, he's coming.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: Like all the prophecies are going to be fulfilled if you just watch him and listen to him.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um step right down.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: There's gonna be a whole lot of miracles if you want to see that, and then you can, you know, get a pretty great idea that he's the one you were thinking he was going to be.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: Like it would be a very welcoming message to those who were inter I want people to be interested in the Messiah.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_00: And John doesn't really cut his message that way.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: We see that his message is a much more stark reality of the reason why Jesus is coming.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_00: He is not concerned with a popularity contest, he is concerned with the truth.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_00: And we see that ultimately that truth is pretty striking as well.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_00: In Matthew 3, verses 7 through 12, when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, Brood of vipers, strong start, brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_00: Therefore, produce fruit consistent with repentance.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_00: And don't presume to say to yourselves, We have Abraham as our father.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_00: For I tell you that God is able to raise up children for Abraham from these stones.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: The axe is already at the root of the trees.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_00: Therefore, any tree that doesn't produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_00: I baptize you with water for repentance, but the one who is coming after me is more powerful than I am.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_00: I am not worthy to remove his sandals.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: He himself will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_00: His winnowing shovel is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with fire that never goes out.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, right?
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_00: That's the message of John.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it was when I was going through this uh the message this morning, there was a component where I thought I could just continue giving his biography, and that that would be the best way to finish.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_00: But I thought that really what would show the importance of John was helping you to understand the message that did precede Christ, the message that God gave to John before he himself walked the earth.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_00: And it's important for us to consider this and see how it affects our life as well, because the message of John is one that we need to hold to.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_00: See, even though when John is speaking here, those who are around don't fully understand the divinity, the presence, the purpose of the Messiah to save the world, the Savior that has come, that is going to die on a tree for their sins.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_00: They don't know all of those things yet.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yet, this is how God is preparing the world for all of those events.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's important for us to see that too, and we don't overlook this, I admit to you, stark and startling message of judgment, because this is what God intended.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: So there are a couple things I want you to see before we uh move on here, and as we finish our time this morning, looking at the message of John.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: The first one is simply that when John is speaking to this group of people, we have to just briefly understand that who he's directing his message towards are those who claim to follow God but do not act like it by his measure.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_00: The Pharisees and the Sadducees are going to be sects of individuals who have particular beliefs about God and have basically in these 400 years since Malachi, since the Old Testament, have built upon and built upon and built upon all of the regulations for people who follow after Christ.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_00: And John and later Jesus, who picks up this phrase, brood of vipers, which originally comes from Isaiah, that they are frustrated and angry with the religious leaders of the time because they are not representing themselves well.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: We see, second of all, that John calls out against them and their heritage.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Don't presume to say to yourselves, we have Abraham as our father.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: And then what is in a play on words in two languages, in Hebrew and Aramaic, the word for stones is very similar sounding to the word for children.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so you can imagine John looking around, he is probably in the Jordan River, and he is looking at river stones, and he's saying, Why do you think you are so special because you have descended from Abraham?
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_00: Why do you think, moreover, that that alone is what will bring you into the Messiah's kingdom when he comes?
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_00: God can raise up these stones to be his children.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_00: He says there's something deeper to it than that.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_00: And then third, we see that John, and what takes the lion's share of his message, is that he says and proclaims that when Jesus comes, that he is going to bring a fire.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_00: The same prophecy that John is from in Malachi 3, one uh literally the next sentence after it talks about John, or well, it doesn't say John, but rather it talks about the prophet who is going to come preparing the way for the Messiah.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_00: It says that Messiah is going to come with a refiner's fire.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_00: And that's a message we need to see this morning.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_00: So, three points for you.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_00: The first, if we can listen to the message of John, is we are to act like we follow Jesus.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_00: And this is such a critical thing.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: And it is so important because we see that John was speaking to people, right?
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_00: Who he said, I hear you calling out and saying that you follow God and telling every single person around you that you follow God.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_00: And you can just sort of see John in his very frank way that he communicates, just going, I don't see it.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_00: I don't see, as he says, the fruit of repentance upon you.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_00: And repentance is not just saying that you are sorry for something, but John is anticipating that if they truly understood who God was, and if we truly understand who Jesus is, that our repentance means that we turn from our previous way of life and follow after him.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_00: That is what John's baptism was about.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_00: For those who had made the commitment to turn from their previous way of life and follow after the one who would be coming.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_00: John says, I will baptize you for that.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_00: He says, this will be the signifying mark that you have been put to death and you are being resurrected into life as we know with Jesus Christ.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_00: That is what we celebrate when we celebrate baptism.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_00: Now John was not confused.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_00: He did not believe in a gospel of works.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_00: He did not believe that people were saved because of the things that they did.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_00: We don't need to attach that to him.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_00: His message was not work salvation, but rather it was John saying, Look, I call him like I see them.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_00: And based upon the way that you're acting, based upon the things you're telling me, there's no reason for me to believe that you actually follow Jesus.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_00: You say that you know him, but I couldn't tell.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's important for us to see this.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_00: Remember, this is the fertile ground that the Messiah is coming into.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_00: And understanding that those who follow God so often are not actually living their lives in a way that is honoring to him.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's amazing that the gospel of grace and truth that follows with Jesus Christ's ministry, where he is meeting with sinners and tax collectors and all the people that actually John is confused about later on in the gospels.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, Why are you getting together with all of these people?
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the gospel of grace and truth.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_00: But he is also the one that is best grown.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_00: His gospel grows best when the ground is prepared, understanding they need to follow after him and accept his gospel.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_00: The second point that John is communicating is that we are only to trust in Jesus.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_00: You see, there are a lot of things that we do trust in.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_00: And for the individuals he was talking to at this point, they're like, hey, my great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great granddaddy was Abraham.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_00: And John is like, I don't need your family tree.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I want to see repentance.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_00: John says, it doesn't matter that you are from the seed of Abraham, because even though God does have a plan for Israel and those things aren't insignificant, John is saying, really, what that was supposed to mean is that you were faithful to the Lord.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_00: Being a descendant of Abraham should be a mark that you are one who is faithful to God.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_00: And once more, he says, Yeah, I'm not seeing it.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_00: Now there are a lot of things that we trust and see.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody trusts in something, everybody puts their hope in something.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_00: For a lot of us, when we talk about Jesus Christ, we trust in things that are related to, but not ultimately eternally significant to Jesus.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_00: We say, hey, I go to church.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_00: I own a Bible, right?
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_00: I give to the church.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a nice person.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_00: And ultimately we'd say, those are wonderful things.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_00: Just because you grew up in a Christian home, though, just because you put those things in your home, put the Bible next to your bed, those things don't save you.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_00: Those things you cannot trust in for eternal salvation.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_00: The only thing that you can trust in is Jesus Christ.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_00: And this is what so many people thank you.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_00: This is what so many people had missed.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_00: They were trusting in all of these other things that were well and good.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_00: It was good to be a descendant of Abraham.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_00: It was something that God desired for everybody.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_00: And ultimately the seed of Abraham is the one that saved the world.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_00: But for those who thought that that alone was going to bring them into the Messiah's kingdom, John had a final message.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_00: He said, Um, hey, I'll be honest with you, you don't make the cut because you only care about your heritage.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_00: You only care about the things that look like importance, and in reality you have rejected the eternal Savior.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so John comes, though, with a third and final message that we are to prepare for Jesus.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_00: And you might think, right, if I were counseling him as his PR, I might say, hey John, let's dial it back a couple.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_00: Like let's let's comfort people.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_00: Let's let them know that Jesus is coming and he can solve their problems.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_00: Let's let them know that they can find joy in their relationship with Christ.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_00: Let's let them know that when they get to know Jesus personally, that their life will be forever changed and they will find fulfillment and purpose that they never had before.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, John, maybe that should be our message.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, No, thank you.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_00: I would like to tell them about his refining fire that he is going to bring.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_00: In Malachi, it says that Jesus is going to come like a fire, like the fire that spreads throughout the flint hills every spring and burns away all of the invasive species so that the native grasses can grow fresh and strong.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_00: That is what is going to happen when Jesus returns.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_00: The time that John was announcing and proclaiming was still in the future for us.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_00: The second coming of Christ is when this will happen.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so we see that John was giving us a message beyond our time.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_00: He was giving us a message that everybody can still accept and realize, that they must prepare for Jesus.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so he asks the questions of those who are with him, those same ones who are saying, Are you the Messiah?
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_00: Are you Elijah?
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_00: Are you the prophet?
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_00: He's saying, What is going to happen to you when the Messiah comes?
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_00: Where will you be?
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_00: And what will happen to you?
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_00: Because I want you to know that the answer to that question is coming.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_00: So all of these things come together, though, and it's important for us as Christians to sort of hold them in concert.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_00: This message of John is hard to accept.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_00: The imagery of an axe at the root of a tree is not comfortable by design.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yet at the same time, we have to hold these two things in concert.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_00: On the one hand, the recognition that Jesus is the Savior of the world, that gives an unending amount of mercy, an unending amount of grace to anybody who would accept his gospel.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_00: At the same time that he is going to return and bring judgment to the world with a refiner's fire, and that there will be some who are caught up in that blaze.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_00: And these two things are things we have to hold in tension with each other, because if we don't, if one of them gets out of balance, then our faith gets out of balance, and we become too focused on one and forget the other.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so John actually gave us the exact message that we needed to hear.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_00: His ultimate goal wasn't a popularity contest.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_00: His ultimate goal was that we understood the truth of Jesus Christ when he came.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_00: That as many did, the crowds who were just following him for his miracles, the many people who were just seeking after him for what they could gain, John wanted to make sure that as many as possible understood why the light of the world had truly come, and it was to save the world.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_00: This morning we have the opportunity to take the Lord's table together.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I really want to be clear about one thing, which is that when it comes to the Lord's table, something that we see helps us remember Jesus Christ and his death and his resurrection.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's also important that we recognize that the Lord's table is only intended for those who have accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so if that's not you today, um, two things.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_00: One, uh just go ahead and sort of let the elements pass you by, and you can just leave them to the side.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_00: Use the time still as reflection.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_00: But consider the questions of John and the and the message of John.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_00: Where will you be and what are you going to do when the Messiah comes?
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_00: Where are you placing your trust?
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_00: Because these things are eternally significant.
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_00: And we don't want you to go without at least understanding what John and later Jesus was trying to say.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_00: And if you have any questions about that, ask anybody, but you can also ask me or someone near you.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_00: At the other hand, for those of you who have trusted in Jesus Christ as your Savior, use this time of reflection as I step off here for just a few moments, briefly, to consider what it means to act like we follow Jesus so that other people might follow him as well.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_00: There are far too many of us who will pass through the refiner's fire by faith and yet do not act like we follow Jesus, to the harm of those who are seeking to learn more about him.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_00: And also we have trusted in things that are ultimately not eternally significant.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_00: We are going to be saved in the last time, but John would look at us, J the B, and he would say, Hey, I call him like I see him.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't really know what I see here.
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to consider that as I was wrestling with that this week.
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_00: I pray that as we turn now to the Lord's table, you would consider that as well.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_00: So think about those things for just a moment, and then I'll come back to lead us.