MK040 Sermons
John the Baptist (Audio)
Well, it's good to be here with you this morning. It's kind of exciting, actually. The last time I was here was in a different gym. And you were actually at that point thinking about or making the decision about purchasing this. And it happened. And that is a real great God thing. I'd like you to take your Bibles and turn to the Gospel of Luke. We are going to be thinking in terms of John the Baptist. This morning, as you saw that clip, maybe you'll get a bigger picture of that. But I wanted to just show you this, first of all. And I think it's coming up there. That is a Valentine's tree. I mean, it is Valentine's Day, right? And in our house, my wife-- I mean, she just really has this thing about decorating. And Valentine's Day is a big deal in our place. So there's our Valentine tree. In fact, Thursday night, we had our Valentine's celebration. We have a dinner where the whole family came together. And before they got there, I mean, Bonne made all these preparations. She bought cards for all of them. Put them on the table and say, now, sign all the cards. There's one for all the kids. Grandkids, you know, the whole bit. So I get out there, then we kind of seal them up. Then she takes them, and she hides them throughout the family room so that we can have a Valentine card-- what do you call it-- scavenger hunt. And that was fun, too. Now, her rules were, if you see one that's not yours, you know, don't tell them, let them find their own. What I saw was some of my grandkids going and hiding them further so the other ones wouldn't find them. I mean, yeah, it was a lot of fun. In fact, here's a picture of us just before we get ready to go in on the hunt. It's a little dark, but hey, they're all there just waiting. Bonne's back there taking a picture before she says go. Kind of pathetic, don't you think? I mean, really, to do all of that. And yet, I suspect you've all had your own ways of celebrating. Where did Amy go? Oh, Amy, stand up, Amy. Come on. She says she gets embarrassed, so I thought I'd do that for her. She got a diamond necklace for Valentine. Craig really put out, man. Isn't that awesome? Let's come on, yeah, I mean, yeah, yeah. Craig got earbuds. That's what he got. She told me that, so hey, I just thought you all know. Valentine's, we find many ways to demonstrate her love. I mean, for Bonne, she makes all this preparation weeks before, really. And then days before she spends-- I don't know how many hours at the card shop just picking out the right card. Yeah, you guys, you know that, right? You're supposed to read a half a dozen, because she's going to ask, is this the first card you picked up, or did you really think about what's on this here? Yeah. Unfortunately, the first one I picked up was the one I really liked. But I did. I read a few more, just a minute, because she might ask. She did. So we got the right one. But I thought, in light of Valentine's Day, it really is quite appropriate that we would be talking about John the Baptist. Or at least from the standpoint of all the preparation that God has made to demonstrate His love to us. It started thousands of years ago, thousands of years. As we have people after people, lineage after lineage, this mention, and then prophet after prophet, then there's been 400 years since the book of Malachi. And since Malachi was there proclaiming 400 years, they haven't heard from God. And then here comes John. John comes on the scene. I want to introduce you to him a little bit. And Luke chapter 1, would you go there? I want you to see John the announcer, because ultimately he is the one that's going to announce about the Christ. But I think we need to understand a few things about this. If you don't have a Bible, pick one up here. The men are going to make them available. And I'll share with you the references. For example, I want you to go to Luke chapter 1. And we're going to notice this is prior to the birth of John. We're going to see Zachariah and Elizabeth and read the words there in Luke chapter 1. And it really is important to get this. I'll begin reading in verse 13. Now, keep in mind that Zachariah is a priest. In fact, he's the priest that has gone in to the temple and gone into the place where they offer up sacrifices. And that's where he was accosted or confronted by this angel. The angel speaks to him and he says this. Do not be afraid, Zachariah. For your prayer is heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son. You shall call his name John. Now, Elizabeth was very old at this point. And it was totally unexpected that she would be expecting. But the angel promises her. And you will have joy and gladness. And many will rejoice at his birth. For he will be great in the sight of the Lord and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink. He will also be filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother's womb. He will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God. This is John. This is going to be his purpose. He's going to be this announcer. He's going to be the one that is going to proclaim the way of the Lord and repentance. He is in the line of the priest. So by all rights, instead of being what we're going to see later, John would have actually been a priest. He would have been in there offering up sacrifices in the religious system of that day. When he turns 30, he would go to work as a priest. Now, I want you to notice over in your Bible just a little bit further in verse 39. This is one of those wow moments as I was looking at this text. To realize that John, the announcer, John, the one that was the former, John actually proclaimed Jesus the Messiah, acknowledged him before he was even born, before he was born. You know, I'll read this for you in a moment. Well, let's do it now. Now, Mary arose verse 39 in those days and went into the hill country with haste to the city of Judah. Mary, the mother of Jesus, she was pregnant at this time. She's leaving her town the disgrace in the sense of how people would have been speaking of her and she goes up to Elizabeth, a relative. She's gonna stay there for a while. She entered the house of Zacharias and greeted Elizabeth. And it happened when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary that the babe leaped in her womb and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. Then she spoke out with a loud voice that said, "Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit "of your womb, but why is this grant to me "that the mother of my Lord should come to me?" For indeed, this is really exciting. Indeed, as soon as the voice of your greeting sounded in my ear, the babe in my womb leaped for joy. John recognized the coming of the Messiah before he was even born. I'll tell you, I know this is kind of a nerth the illustration, but I did watch some of the Super Bowl this past week and I saw a commercial. Did you see the Dorito commercial, anybody? It's caused quite a rage. If you haven't, you might wanna check it out because it shows this man eating some Dorito in the room where the ultrasound is being done for the baby, the child in the womb of this woman. And the child is responding to the Dorito. You gotta see it really to appreciate it. But I'm telling you, when Mary came, John in the womb responded to the presence of the Messiah Jesus. Jumping in the womb for joy. It's been quite a stir. You've been following any of that on the Facebook and all because pro-choice people are just enraged because it showed this child in the womb, too much like a human being. Newsflash, it is a human being. Yeah, and John was every bit a human being. And even in the womb began to fulfill what his father had said to him. Because do keep in mind, here's the priest Zachariah. He doesn't just have a child born and then the child's left to himself. And somewhere around one year old, John goes out into the wilderness. No, it doesn't work that way. What happened, obviously in those next years, five, 10, 15 maybe, but at least 12, is Zachariah's would be educating his son in the Old Testament scriptures. John would have known the prophecies of the coming Messiah. He would have understood that this one, Jesus, his cousin actually, was going to be the one to take away the sin of the world. I mean, he would have gotten that picture from the Old Testament scripture because Zachariah, he would have been preparing him and equipping him. This is no surprise to John. And I think it was somewhere right around in his 30s. That's when the priest ministry began. About 30, he's out in the wilderness and begins instead of a priest in the religious system of the day. He begins to talk about having a relationship, a relationship instead of a religion. Well, we're gonna see some of that as we move on in the text. I wanted to show you verses chapter three of Matthew. By the way, we're gonna be going back and forth between Matthew and Luke. In Matthew chapter three, we see a little bit more about him and it's in verse four. Now, John himself was clothed in camels here with a leather belt around his waist and his food was locust and wild honey. You don't see him wearing priestly garments here. The hair of a camel is woven into some kind of a garment, which obviously is not a comfortable garment. And then they have these locusts and honey. Actually, those two probably not too bad. I mean, in the culture, I don't know if you've ever been to any of these other countries, but we've had the opportunity. I remember going to Papua New Guinea and they were feeding us spiders there. I mean, big spiders. They fry them up for us. They pull off all the legs so they didn't get caught in our throat. But you know, it tasted kind of like, I bet you're thinking chicken, right? No, it tasted more like steak or a mistake. But it was something else eating those spiders. Well, he's eating locusts. And can you imagine, here he is, he takes a locust, you know, I'm not sure if he pulled off the legs or not, but I mean, here he is with a beard and he's gippin' the locusts in the honey. And then he, that was John, out in the water. Locusts and honey is his food. No wine. I mean, his dad told him right from the very beginning, you don't drink any wine. By this time, by the way, his parents would have been dead when he's out there. I don't know if you thought about that. And a couple of years from this point, John's gonna be dead. He's beheaded before he's even 33. So John, the man we're talking about here this morning, this special announcer that God from the very womb has had this in mind that he would come and he would announce the coming of Christ. Now, I want you to notice the announcements that he's going to be making. And we'll see that in this text in John, Matthew chapter three, and we're gonna look at Luke as well, but Matthew chapter three, listen to what he says, or what it says in the text. Verse three, chapter three, in those days, John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea and saying, here it is, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. For this is he who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah, saying, the voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord, make his pass straight. Luke expands on that. If you go over to chapter three of Luke, we read this. And he went, meaning John, went into all the region around Jordan preaching a baptism of repentance unto, that really would be a better translation than for unto the remission of sin. As is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet saying, the voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord, make his pass straight, every valley shall be filled, every mountain and hill brought low, the crooked places shall be made straight, the rough way smooth and all flesh shall see the salvation of the Lord. Now he preached some pretty strong stuff after that. Then he said to the multitudes that came to be baptized, brood of vipers who warned you to flee from the wrath to come, therefore bear fruit worthy of repentance and do not begin to say to yourselves, we have Abram has our father. He was a fiery preacher. But you know, as I prepared for this and as I was studying, I came across something that I didn't understand. I mean, I didn't know the cultural context of it. And so many times when we read scripture, we're not capturing all the context of what's going on. In this particular case, the part I struggled with, or this part I was struggling with was the voice of wine crying in the wilderness. Prepare the way of the Lord. And then it talks about valleys. Let me see if I can find that again. It talks about the valleys being filled, every mountain and hill brought low, the crooked places made straight and the rough ways smooth. What's John supposed to do? I mean, what is the context of this? Well, here's the context. In the days of John, of course it was the Roman Empire, there were Caesars, there was Caesar, there were these major dignitaries that were called kings. And if Caesar or one of those dignitaries was going to visit a city, you need to understand that the people in the city, they were a little nervous about Caesar coming to their town. One of the reasons they were nervous, you realize this because Caesar could simply wipe out the town. So when the people knew that Caesar was coming, even sometimes years of preparation was taken, where they would smooth out the roads, they would make sure that the Caesar could come into their town without any problem, without any difficulty, the bridges would be there, the even mountains would be displaced and filled into the valley. They were making the paths straight for Caesar to come. I remember a few years ago, the president visited up in Scranton area. And in comes the secret service, and they're making sure everything's set in. And they brought in actor police officers, and they closed down 81 so when the airplane came in, the president would have a clear shot to come in to the speaking engagement. They were preparing the way for the dignitary, for our president, John, his job, was to prepare the way for the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. That's what it's saying. And when John heard those statements about his role, he understood, it's my job, to prepare the way for people to hear this message of repentance for the unto, the remission of sin, getting things ready for Jesus. Well, here I wanted you to see another part of this, and that would be, you can bring the next slide up, because his message was about people coming out and they were being baptized. And I'm not so sure that you capture what that was all about, especially this part. Why was Jesus baptized? And what was that all about? Well, if you don't understand what John's baptism was all about, you wouldn't really capture why Jesus was saying, "Baptize me." So I thought we'd do a little word study here for just a moment. I want a little participation, we'll see how you do. Would you put up the first phrase here? This word, deaconos, can you say that? Deaconos, it sounds like deacon. I mean, that's basically the idea of it. There's a transliteration of the word deaconos. So if you read through your scriptures and you come across the word deacon, you didn't get a translation. You got a transliteration. What it should have said in that place is servants. Now, are you with me? See the difference between a transliteration and a transliteration. Transliteration, you're sounding out the word. Transliteration, you're giving the meaning of the word. Here's another one, apostolos. Can you say that one? Apostolos, yeah. What's that sound like? Apostol, yeah. We'd have to be brain dead not to get that, right? Yeah, apostol. That's the transliteration. They didn't tell you that. And in fact, when you go through your Bible and you read the word apostol, you should translate it in your mind. Oh, we're talking about the one that was the sent ones. There were 12 apostles. They were sent ones. There were 12 sent ones. That's how we could say it. But instead, they transliterated it. How about this one? Baptizma or Baptizo. What's that sound like to you, folks? Come on, baptized, that's right. And there's an awful lot of confusion as it relates to baptized. The word translated means to immerse or dip. That's what it means. So when you come across this in this scripture and it says John, here it is, John the emmercer came preaching in the wilderness, repent. And then later it talks about how the people came out and they were immersed by him in the Jordan. They were immersing him. Now, maybe I should, I believe what happened is when this was translated back in the 1600s, the people that were doing the translation did not want to do injustice to the word of God. If they had translated immerse back then, it's more than likely their job would have been over. They would have lost their heads or they would have lost the opportunity to do translation. So rather than do that there with King James, rather than doing that kind of thing, they just transliterated it in order to keep their jobs and still be true to the word of God. Immerse. I understand that Pastor John, when he was preaching, I wrote this down, I think, somewhere, let me see. He made this statement, an unbaptized Christian is a walking contradiction. Do you remember that? How many remember that statement? Good. What would you have thought of you to said this? An unimmersed Christian is a walking contradiction. Ouch. Because I know that there's many churches and maybe some of you, you've been sprinkled, you've been poured, but you haven't been immersed. And you haven't been baptized because they're one and the same. I just thought I'd bring that out. But there is an opportunity for you to be immersed in the days ahead. I remember you saying something about that, right? And they can do that. But why? Why be immersed? Why be any of it? What's that from? And here's the context of that. If you were living in that day as a Gentile, which I suspect many of you are, if you were living in that day as a Gentile and you came to Jewish faith, you began to realize that Judaism or the Jewish faith was in fact the true God and you wanted to worship the true God as a Jewish, they would call you a Jewish proselyte, a Jewish disciple. And in order to be a Jewish proselyte, there were some things that you had to do. You had to subscribe to the law. Men, you had to experience surgery, circumcision, and you needed to be immersed. Immersion was something. This thing we call that, that was practiced by the Jewish community. And what it was is this, that they were saying, as they're being immersed, as they're being placed under that water, they're being placed in that and it's saying, look, we desire to be a Jewish proselyte. We want to identify with you. We want to be part of you. We subscribe to your teaching. And so when people came out to John and they were hearing this message and this message was flying in the face of the temple worship. I mean, are you getting this? Here is a Levi or rather a priest in the line of the priest to it and he's saying, hey, that's religion. You need a relationship. And he began to repent, turning from your sin. Go the other way, unto the forgiveness of sin. So people were flocking out to John hundreds and some would say hundreds of thousands of people during this period of time. We're coming from all that area. It says the multitude. And we know a few times it talks about multitudes with Jesus and there were 5,000, 4,000. I mean, the multitudes were flocking out to John saying, we subscribe to the truth that you're presenting. We are repenting, we're turning from our sin. We're looking to the Messiah as you're proclaiming. And they were immersed, identifying, initiating into that truth and that doctrine. They're saying, John, we get it and we wanna be part of it. You track with that now? That's what this is about. Now notice a couple more texts with me as we go on to what I call the anointing because there is something going on here. And I wanna read about it here in verse 13 of chapter three. Matthew, that is, the anointing. Then Jesus came from Galilee to John after Jordan to be immersed by him. And John tried to prevent him. John said, no, no, no, no, no, wait a minute. And I can understand this because John is saying, Jesus, I know who you are. You're in the Messiah. You should be baptizing me because I wanna identify with you and with the truth and with all this going on that is yet future. And Jesus said, no, and, hey, did you hear? Jesus said, no, permitted to be so now. For thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all the righteousness. Then he allowed him, John allowed him. He baptized him and when he had been immersed, Jesus came up immediately from the water and behold, the heavens were open to him. He saw the Spirit of God to send like a dove a lighting upon him and suddenly a voice from heaven saying, this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. This also has his roots in historical Judaism. When someone was becoming king, he would be anointed and it often talked about how the Spirit of God came upon him. You might remember that, for example, with David. Here's David, he's this young boy out in the field. Samuel shows up and he says, I'm here to anoint the king, the future king and David comes in. Samuel anoints him. It's many years before he actually takes office but he was anointed king. And here's Jesus and I see this is the anointing service. The anointing service, if you would, for John comes and he's baptizing and Jesus is coming in and he's saying, look, baptize me, he's baptized. The Spirit of God in a visible form floats down, flutters down, I don't know, it's not a dove. It's like a dove, a visible manifestation of the Spirit of God that, and then God speaks from heaven. This is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased. What an amazing event, this is it, this is the beginning. Can almost say this is the beginning of the end but it's really the very beginning of this ministry. I think there's another phrase I want to come up on the screen. Here it is, listen, there's Jesus' words were this, permitted to be so, what's the next word that's underlying? Can you see it? What is it? What's the word? Now. He could have just simply said, it is permitted to be so, for thus it is fitting but that's not what it said. It says, permitted to be so now, it begins now, later, and it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness. And then Jesus' words later talking about John, it says John came proclaiming the way of righteousness. This is critically important, that you understand what's happening here in this text. Actually, I thought maybe it would help, that's maybe questionable but I want to show you some words of other men in the past that you may be familiar with and have heard these things. For example, Winston Churchill, World War II, British Isles, we shall prove ourselves to defend our island home. We shall fight in France, defend to the death on seas and oceans, we will have great confidence in the air. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and streets. We shall never surrender. Do you ever read those words? Your history class, Winston Churchill, it was a turning point in the war, as he said, it's now. We are going to stand, we shall never give up. Or Martin Luther King. It would do as well to read his dream. I have a dream speech. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. I have a dream that one day on the Red Hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood. I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. People came from all over. Over a million people showed up as he preached this message. Basically he's saying, "This is God to start now." Any of you ever seen the movie Independence Day? The president's speech. Actually, it's picked out as one of the great speeches on media. Mankind. That word should have new meaning for all of us today. We can't be consumed by our petty differences anymore. We will be united in common interest, perhaps its fate that today is the Fourth of July, and you will once again be fighting for, not be fighting simply for our freedom, not from tyranny, oppression, or persecution, but from annihilation. We are fighting for the right to live, the right to exist. We will not go quietly into the night. We will not vanish without a fight. We're going to live. Now listen, my friends, those are speeches, but they're nothing compared to what Jesus was saying that day. He was saying, "Listen, forbid it to be so now. "It starts now. This is the beginning of my earthly ministry, "and is for the sake of providing righteousness for you and for me." That's what it's about. That's what was happening that day. And that's what John was doing as he proclaimed and he immersed Jesus. And as the heavens opened up and God spoke, it's now, it starts now. It's interesting to me that you're looking at these 40 days until Easter, and you're looking at these different personalities. This is the place to start with John, because John is proclaiming and Christ is saying, "It starts now." You know this verse, don't you? 2 Corinthians chapter 5 and verse 21. Look at this. For God in demonstrating His love to us, God made Christ for new no sin to be sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Christ. Are you seeing it? That's how we get right with God. It's not our own righteousness. It's by faith in Christ. And Jesus is setting the stage right there as He's being immersed, and He's saying, "It's now, John, it's now. We've got to get started now." I believe John knew what was going on that day. It was not some surprise. He'd read about it. He'd studied it. He knew Jesus. And Jesus says, "John, now." You know this verse as well. Romans 10, 9 and 10, notice what it says about righteousness. "If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in your heart, that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved." Now, for with the heart, one believes unto what's the next word? Righteousness. With the mouth confession is made unto salvation. This is the place where we all need to come. And you're not going to escape the wrath of God if you don't receive the Son of God. You got that? You're not going to escape it? Because it is the righteousness of Christ. Jesus Christ was made to me wisdom, righteousness, truth. He's the only way. And John was proclaiming that the Messiah's come to provide this salvation, a joy to all nations, it says. And that's for you too. So I want you to think of it by way of two. Two different sides of this coin. One side is this. If you've never placed your faith, your trust in Christ, you've never confessed-- it doesn't say actually confess your sin, it says confess Christ as the forgiver of sin. Confess Him, believe in Him, trust in Him. And if you've never done that, you're still not right. You need the righteousness of Christ. That's one application of what we're seeing in the life of John. I think the second application is this. You are called to be John, the announcer, the proclaimer. If you have the truth just as he had the truth, then we have this role where we can be the reconcilers. It actually talks about that in the same verse that I showed you earlier with 2 Corinthians chapter 5 and a few verses before that. Paul is pleading and says, be the reconciler. Be the one that speaks to others of how they can come to know and receive the righteousness of God. We have something in common with John. Because just as John was to be the forerunner, Jesus is coming again. And we are to be the forerunners. We are. Imagine what that would be like. Can you think of it? Wow. They flocked out to John away from religion to relationship. I believe the same thing is happening and can happen here in these communities that you live in that is you proclaim the righteousness. It's not religion. It's relationship. And God will just do an extraordinary work as we do this work of reconciliation. You are John the immerser for this day. You get it? Awesome, huh? Father, we thank you. We thank you that you loved us with such love that you have planned and strategized and worked through the ages to bring Jesus to this earth that he might die and provide us with righteousness, that we could be right with you. God, I suspect there's some here that you are even right now pressing that truth on their hearts. And I would ask that, God, you give them the faith and the grace to respond to this good news. And then that the rest of us that have already made that faith decision. May we take our place alongside of John to announce this truth to others. For this we pray in Jesus' name, amen. >> Thank you, Dan.