Father, I pray that the light
of your word would do a miracle today. I pray that the light of Christ
would be so shining in our hearts and souls, Lord, that it would
blind us to this world, that we would look no longer at the
things that it offers, no longer at the deadness of darkness,
no longer searching for those things that seem to be satisfactory. no longer looking to see what
plans we might put forth that we could grant ourselves joy,
but Father, that we would be blinded by the glorious, ineffable,
eternal light who is Jesus Christ. And that through this word today,
Lord, that we would see just how miraculous it is to sit here
this day, to be called your children, because we are, and to say that
we are redeemed, and have eternal life in Christ Jesus. Show us,
show us your mercy in the preaching today. Father, show me mercy
as I declare these words to us, knowing that it is not me who
speaks, but Father, your word who speaks. And we are just mere
vehicles, mere mouths, mere human beings. Yet through our mere
mouths, Lord, you proclaim great and mighty truth. And through
that truth, Father, you bring dead people to life. May that
be our testimony this day. In Jesus' name, amen. The prologue
of John is so cohesive that it would do justice for us to start
over today. It would do justice for the preaching
of this text for us to just start from the beginning and go through
the idea of what in the beginning means and the word and who he
is and all of that. but that we want to be out of
here by three o'clock will continue. I want to encourage you, church,
not to take lightly this season of this preaching. When we get
into the narratives, though, there is great doctrine to be
learned, and there's great theology to be revealed. If we do not
have a grasp, and when I say a grasp, I mean an intimate experience,
an intimate relationship with the prologue of this letter.
We will misunderstand every other aspect of everything else John,
the disciple, the apostle has written. We will misunderstand
that every time Jesus speaks and that every relationship in
which Jesus engages is shown in outline here in this prologue. It's shown here because the point
of this writing is that the light of the gospel of Christ would
shine in the hearts of men and women and children and that through
the light of Christ they would believe and have eternal life.
Beloved, we are not here today to say that we've come to church.
We're not here today to say that we've had our spiritual fix for
the week. God did not save us so that we
could attend a place and do spiritual things. God saved us to the praise
of His glorious grace. And because of that, we are a
people of His own possession. That's why I felt like reading
that in 1 Peter this morning in our opening was very fitting.
Because it's exactly what the gospel of Jesus has done. He
has gone in and reached into the hearts of people who are
worthy of condemnation. And he's brought us alive together
in Christ, as Paul would say. Praise be to God and the Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ. Because friends, we are a people. And the intimacy of the body
of Christ is something that's foreign in our world. Many of
you have experienced that same discomfort as you begin to attend
Grace Truth, as you begin to hang out with us and to hear
the preached Word and to realize that this is not a lesson that
you can just outline and take home and go, oh, file this away.
It's something that God calls you to have friction within your
own belief system. The Word of God and the preaching
is not something that can be taken lightly from a position
of academics. I could stand here and lecture
on theological things all day long and they can be fruitless
in your life. But the Word of God preached, the Word of God
preached is not fruitless, for it does what it was intended
to do. Psalms, my commentary, it is more powerful than anything
else in the world. And even though I may add to
the explanation of things or give examples or metaphors or
analogies, friends, none of those things are effectual for you,
but only the Word of God to your ears And only through it to your
ears will God bring you to life. And only through the hearing
with spiritual ears will you ever be able to overcome this
world, this life, this mind, the fear, everything that plagues
this natural body that we exist in. The only thing that will
overcome any of it is the Word of God, Jesus Christ Himself. And you might think, but that
is just so foolish. That's exactly what the unbelievers of Jesus'
day said. That is so foolish to think that just hearing some
text on a page could have a full effect in our lives, transform
us into new beings. Friends, it is because Jesus
Christ is the word that created the universe. Jesus Christ is
the God of heaven who has existed for all of eternity. Jesus Christ
then came to this earth through the person that he created, created
himself a body and became like us, never ceasing to be eternally
God. And as we come today and as we
have come the last two weeks in this letter, in this gospel,
we have seen a lot. We've seen who Christ is. We've
seen the power and the authority of Christ. We've seen Christ
as creator. And we've also seen last week
as Christ is illustrated as the light. And it is something that
is all through John's writing, the light, the light, the light.
This is something that we need to really keep in mind as we
continue, because it will forever be the theme that runs through
this, that nothing in darkness and no amount of darkness can
overcome the light of Christ. Oh, beloved, I wish I'd learned
this as a teenager. I wish I'd learned this at the
age of 10. I wish I'd learned this at the age of six. or in
my mother's womb. I wish I'd learned it years ago
when I started ministry over two decades ago, even longer
than that, preaching in the streets, preaching in businesses, getting
thrown out of malls. I wish I'd learned it. I wish
I'd learned that God was effectual in the gospel and that the Spirit
of God gave life because I pleaded with people to such a degree
that I felt like a failure because when people would reject the
gospel, I thought it my fault. When people would not hear the
word, I thought, what did I do wrong? When people weren't interested
in hearing the preaching, I thought, well, I must improve my oratory. Like a mentor of mine said years
ago, if you came here for good oratory, this ain't the place.
Friends, it is not what I say or how I say it or with what
eloquence I spew it. It is the power of the gospel
of Jesus Christ for which we are not ashamed. We're not ashamed
to say this foolish, simplistic story, this foolish, simplistic
writing that the world relegates to some archaeological discovery,
that it is. But it's more than that. It's
the oracles of God. It's through which God speaks
in His Spirit, does all things. God's Word created all things
and God's Word created you, beloved. Not just in your flesh, but in
the new birth of life that comes through Jesus Christ. God's Word
created you as a new being. The old is passed away. Behold,
the new is come. You see, this is to show us that
we should see the light of Christ, even when we have been created
and recreated by the light of Christ. And we should behold
and we should worship to the praise of His glorious grace.
For if it was not the love and the kindness of God toward us
before we were, and if it was not before the loving decree
of God, before the foundations of the world, we could not sit
here with any confidence. with any assurance and say, I
know that I am a child of God. There would be no evidence of
the Spirit of God testifying to any of us that we are His
children, but yet we would forever be seeking to do that which would
classify as works. We would ever forever be seeking
to do the things that were required of us to nothing, as we say,
a fool's errand that would reduce us to nothing but religious fools. working to please God that has
no effect, that at the end of time, even with all the obedience
that we could muster, it is still disobedience. But God is merciful. And as we get through seeing
the power of the gospel, I know a lot of us, as we've come to
understand the gospel, as we've come to life through the hearing
of the gospel, and as we grow and mature in our understanding
of Scripture, we begin to see just how magnificently powerful
and how magnificently purposeful God is in salvation. That it
is nothing of us at all, but that God has done everything,
therefore He gets all the praise and all the glory and all the
honor. Worthy is the Lamb. The Lamb is not worthy with a
free, well-meant offer. The Lamb is only worthy with
an absolute, particular redemption. He has saved us, beloved, and
nothing could stop Him. He has paid for our sins, and
they are washed away. They are no more. As far as the
East is from the West, no matter that even though these things
John would say in his first letter are written that you may not
sin, even when we do sin, we have an advocate with the Father,
Jesus Christ, who is the righteousness of God, for He has satisfied
the judgment of God against us. Therefore, we owe God nothing
in payment for our sin, for Christ has paid it all. All to Him I
owe. Remember that song? And now we get here to verse
six. That was a review. Verse six, there was a man. Now it's interesting because,
just by a show of hands, I'm very curious, how many of you
have ever done a Bible study in John where you spent an entire lesson
or three on verse six? Entire lesson in three, okay,
a few of you. How many of you have ever done
a Bible study or heard some teaching on John that verse 6, 7 were
just sort of breezed over, not really dealt with, okay? And
sometimes they're picked back up down in verse 19 and we talk
about John the Baptist, but see in this prologue, This argument,
this outline that John, the gospel writer, is presenting here begins
to show us the authority of Christ as the living word that creates,
the authority of Christ that recreates in redemption, the
power of Christ who is the light that the darkness will not overcome,
but it shall overcome the darkness, the power of Christ in particular
redemption for a people that he has created for his own glory
and for his own possession before the foundation of the world,
and the fact that nothing can stop that. And now in verse six,
we see how God is going to send it to you. Because a lot of people go, well,
they argue, and they say, well, if Christ is the Savior, and
everybody seems to just reject Him, then where is salvation? Because if we look on down, we
heard it this morning, He was in the world, and the world was
made through Him, yet the world did not know Him. He came to
His own, and His own did not receive Him. His own did not
understand Him. His own did not comprehend Him.
They were looking for something else, and Jesus did not fit the
bill of what the Scriptures had shown them, even though it was
perfect. Their interpretation of who Jesus was to be was wrong,
because it was selfish. It was intrinsic. It was myopic. It was just for Jews. It was
just for Judah, for it was the only tribe left. It was just
for Judah, which is why John chapter 3 is so significant.
When Nicodemus is talking to Jesus and professes him as Messiah,
and then Jesus says, you can't see me, you can't enter into
me. You're not the teacher of all Israel, yet you cannot understand
these things. How can I tell you spiritual
things if you can't understand wind and birth? What's wrong
with you, Nicodemus? What's wrong with you, Nicodemus,
is that you're blind. You stay in darkness, you are
darkness, and you love the darkness. And that's why you came to me
at night anyway. You love darkness. And as Moses looked at the serpent
in the wilderness, see Nicodemus, Moses wrote of me. He'll tell
that to the Jews later in John chapter five. The scriptures
will indict you for Moses wrote of me. But you search the scriptures
daily and yet you do not find eternal life or they wrote of
me and you've rejected me. So you've rejected life. That's
what Jesus is meaning in that. And the glorious thing is, is
that God has made certain that the gospel gets out. And he's
done it. And everybody, I love to be in
an apologetic type conversation, which I'm in often every week
with somebody somewhere. And some of you are the same
way. And it never fails. Well, why doesn't God just come
down from heaven or do some crazy miracle? Why is it? Because you
know what? God did all that. And guess what?
They still wouldn't believe. Jesus raised Lazarus from the
dead in John 11. Let him die because He loved
him with an unfailing love. The Bible says that Jesus loved
Lazarus and his family. Therefore, because He loved them,
He let Lazarus die and stayed a few more days that his body
would rot. That's what the Bible teaches. We'll get there. What
kind of love is this? What kind of love is this? So
that the light of the truth of who he really was would be seen
when he walked in and opened the tomb and the smell of his
decay bellowed out. And the mourners of his family,
loved ones, oh, Jesus, what are you doing? We smell the body
of our brother. What are you doing? And he says,
Lazarus, come out. And there was this man's body
standing, breathing, wrapped in his dead clothes. And a very
prophetic statement that Jesus says, unbind him and let him
go. That's the light of the gospel.
And that same gospel, that same light is shining on us today.
That same gospel, that same light is shining in the way that God
has ordained and testified that it would. And this is chapter
one, verse six. This is how it goes out. There
was a man sent from God. See, for a lot of people, they
don't get it. Here's all this divine talk, and now there's
a man. His name was John. Jehovah is gracious, by the way,
is what John means. This man sent from God, his name
was John. So what's the big deal with that?
Well, that's to show us that God sends the light of the gospel.
God sent a man. Just like God sent the Son, God
then sent a man. Now, do you know the story of
John the Baptist? John the Baptizer? John the Baptizer? He is the son of Zechariah and
Elizabeth. First cousin to Mary, the mother
of Jesus. And the Holy Spirit, or excuse
me, the angel of God came to Zechariah when his lot came up
in his old age to offer the sacrifice for Israel and the Holy of Holies.
And the angel of the Lord met him in there and said, Zechariah,
you're going to be a dad. And he said, you're a funny guy.
You're a funny guy because my wife's so old she can barely
move. She's not about to be a mother. She's way beyond those years.
And because he did not believe the messenger of God, he was
stricken what? Mute. Mr. Commute, he could not
speak until the day that the child was born. And the very
next thing he was to say, which his son's name should have been
Zachariah. And the mother says his name
should be Zachariah. And all of a sudden, then the mouth of Zachariah
was open. He says, no, his name shall be
John. Yahweh is gracious. Because God sent John the Baptist
as a miracle. because the prophets of old had
prophesied about John the Baptist coming to declare, make you the
way of the Lord. The kingdom of God is at hand.
Behold, see the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world.
Behold the Lamb. Look at the Lamb. See the Lamb of God. See
and believe and live. Isn't that the message of John's
gospel? But John the Baptist is not the writer of this gospel.
John here, as we learn in our first week, is the disciple whom
Christ loved. There was an intimacy that Jesus
had with John the Apostle that is unparalleled, which makes
it fitting that he would not name himself, for he was known
to be one of Jesus' most trusted companions. It would have become
a popular work of literature. It would have been idolized.
Yet, John, in his humility, he writes this narrative so that
we might see and believe. Jesus was sent. John the Baptist
was sent. He came as what? As an apostle,
a man sent from God. And I won't give you all the
Greek in that, but it's the perfect passive participle. That means that in
this person who is not the Apostolos, but Apostoliminos, Almanos, Apostalmanos,
doesn't matter. The point is that it had an abiding
result. That he was not just sent from
God, but he was sent from God with fruit. He was God's messenger. He wasn't offered an option.
Would you go for me? God made him and put him in his
mother's womb and sent him out. This isn't a call to consider. It's a divine election which
John the Baptist had no part in. He had no part in it. Brothers and sisters, you might
think it's strange, but recognize if God does not overcome the
will of men, there is no salvation for you. If John the Baptist
had to be raised up in the wilderness eating bugs and looking like
a crazy guy, he'd be the guy that'd be standing out on the
street corner like we saw in Savannah last week who just mumbled. I looked over at Trey, I said,
what did he say? He goes, I don't know. We just kept on walking. I don't know what he meant. I
don't know what he was saying. That's John the Baptist in his day,
this crazy guy that nobody wanted to be around, bug legs in his
teeth. I know y'all eat crickets, but either way, That's not normal in our culture. It's not bad,
but it's not normative. It wasn't normative in the days
of Jesus either, walking around doing stuff like that. And John didn't grow up and have
a good life and all of a sudden you go, you know what, I think
I'm just going to follow God for a living. He didn't come to the
place of discerning, I'm really going nowhere, this business
isn't working out, this bug business. I mean, people just don't want
to eat bugs today. I don't know what's going on. This camel hair clothing
company I'm trying to start, it's just not profitable. I think
I'll follow God. I'll give it all up. Well, I
don't have anything anyway. I'll just give it all up for God. That's
not the story of John the Baptist. The story of John the Baptist
is that God allowed Elizabeth to become pregnant as a miracle. And God, before the foundations
of the world, elected that John the Baptist would be born as
a miracle, so that the light of Jesus Christ could be proclaimed,
and we, beloved, are the fruit of John the Baptist, who is the
sent one from God. See the strength there? Now,
if we were taking this and making it into what we would call one
of those application life studies, we'd sit on this for a few weeks,
wouldn't we? Because friends, to be the one who declares and
proclaims and preaches the kingdom is at hand is not a work of man. Why is it that so often in our
culture that there are men going into the so-called ministry hand
over fist? Number one, because it's profitable
for most men. Number two, because it's glorifying to most men.
And number three, because a lot of people listening to what you
have to say, when you can tell them to change their lives just
with a sermon and they do it, is a powerful, prideful, ego
feeding ability. That's why most men go into the
ministry. But you know, the men that go into the ministry by
the grace of God and teach truth, they fight tooth and nail not
to. They hate it. They wish they could do other
things. They try to escape. They go and they dislike Jonah. Why
was Jonah such a hard-headed fellow? Because he was called
of God. That's why. And no matter what Jonah did,
no matter what desire Jonah had, God would orchestrate every act
of disobedience so that Jonah would preach the gospel to Nineveh. And so God in His sovereignty
just decided that John the Baptist wasn't going to get that option.
He was going to set him apart before the world began. That
in his mother's womb, he leapt with joy. He leapt with joy. He leapt. Because the Spirit
of the Lord was in him. The Spirit of the Lord was in
Elizabeth. The Spirit of the Lord was in Mary. because God
was in Mary. You might think it a little strange,
and I pray that you do, because that teaching right there violates
everything that violates everything that's natural in our understanding. Of human volition. It violates it. But it's not
fair. That John the Baptist didn't
have a choice. You got that right. It was not fair. For if John
the Baptist were given the freedom of his mind as a sinner, he would
spit in the face of God. And he would get the just wrath
that he deserved. And you and I would fall right
in behind him, for he would not have heralded the gospel of Jesus.
God is not looking for the willing. He has established us. God sent John. God had prepared
John. John's daddy didn't send him
to the ministry. God did. And when we see that the light
shines out of darkness and the darkness has not overcome it,
it's because God in His infinite wisdom has declared that mere
human men, mere human beings, mere mouths, would do a miraculous
work with the natural means. Jesus raised Lazarus from the
dead. That's where I was when I got on that. And they knew,
the scripture says, they knew He was Messiah. And they would not believe in
Him. We're not trusting Him. Why? In John chapter 12, for
they loved the glory that comes from men rather than the glory
that comes from God. And the very details of that
in John 12 is that they did not want to be thrown out of the
synagogue. They did not want to be mocked and laughed at.
They did not want to lose their place of ministry. They did not
want to lose their prosperity. They did not want to lose their
authority. See, these things that I say, I don't make them
up. They come from the context of Scripture. So when I say that
most men in the ministry want power and money and prestige,
it's because that's what the Bible teaches. That's what the
scripture teaches. God sent Moses, God sent the
prophet, God sent the son, and God sent John the Baptist. To
do what? Look, verse 7. He came as a witness,
to bear witness about the life that all might believe through
him. These are important words here.
A lot of these words can be twisted. God sends this light, who is
John the Baptist, who sends John the Baptist as a witness. He
doesn't send John the Baptist as the light. He sends John the
Baptist as a witness about the light. You see the difference?
Sometimes we think in our world, especially as Christians, that
we are the light of Christ. Now, doesn't Jesus say in Matthew's
Gospel that you are A light of the world? Yes, we are a city
on a hill. We are the light of the world,
but we're not the light, are we? Just like Lucifer, who was
the greatest and brightest of all angels, looked at his own
brightness in contrast and comparison to the brightness of God, and
thought himself worthy to stand in equal place with God, but
he forgot that he was created by God, and all of the brightness
of his glory was just a reflection of his Creator. So that in the
shining of the light into the world, we, beloved, though we
are the light, we are reflections of the light. We are testifiers
of the light. We are witnesses of the light.
We shine because Christ shines. And we just share it. John came as a witness. This
means in order to testify or to proclaim this testimony. And this testimony of Jesus Christ
reveals Christ and declares in order to what? Give an account
of Him. What is a testimony? It's an
account of what one has heard, what one has seen, what one has
experienced. John, the gospel writer, gives
that account in his first epistle, does he? Does he not? That which
was from the beginning, which we have seen with our eyes, touched
with our hands as experience, and heard with our ears, we now
what? Proclaim to you. So there's a testimony. The testimony
of who? Who God is, who Jesus Christ
is. He is the God of heaven who is from the beginning. Beloved,
understand that when we share the gospel of Jesus Christ, we
must establish who he is. We take for granted sometimes
to say, and this is a little side note here, we take for granted
sometimes just to say, you know, you gotta believe in Jesus. And
most everybody we talk to says what? Oh, I do. It'd be better to say, who do
you believe Jesus is? Who do you believe Jesus to be?
And you'll find out that there's a lot of mixed up things. Why
did Jesus come to earth? Why that which was from the beginning?
Why did he come into existence into the world as a human? He
didn't come into existence as a being, as a person. He just
did become into existence. He's not always been the baby
in the manger. He incarnated, he came into creation, his own
creation. Why did He come? And most people
will answer, what, to love us? Okay, then how did He do that?
Because most people love is just being held when you're scared.
Most people love is just getting something to eat when you're
hungry. But Jesus yet in John 6 forbid to ever feed those people
again. He says He's the bread of life. Starve in your flesh,
but eat of Me in your spirit and you'll live forever. You'll
never thirst again, you'll never hunger again. I'm the living
water. Oh, give me this water always.
I'm tired of coming and having to hide here at this well and come
in the heat of the day all the way out here to this well that's
been here forever because I'm tired of people talking about
me and gossiping about me because I'm running around with men after
men after men. And the man you're with now,
Jesus says, is not your husband. Oh, I see that you're a prophet.
It's John chapter four. And that God saves her. Jesus
Christ saves her. She wanted that living water. She didn't
understand it was Jesus. It wasn't what Jesus would give
us. Jesus is not someone who gives us anything. He is everything. And without Christ, everything
we ever have is nothing. It's testimony. John's gospel almost exclusively
utilizes this term. You don't see this idea about
testifying and testimony and the other. It's there, but it's
not there much. John's writing really utilizes
this idea of testimony over all the other writings of the New
Testament. And what is this testimony? Sent
by God, He came as a witness to bear witness about the light.
The second part of chapter, I mean of verse seven. What does that
mean? That means that John the Baptist was sent by God to declare,
to declare what God had declared about the light. So that we who
proclaim the gospel of Jesus, we're not coming up with our
own ideas. You know how many certificates I have thrown away
through the years? Just as a show of hands, how
many of you have been Southern Baptist Churches for a good season? Did you ever
get EE certified? Evangelism Explosion? You got
EE certified? How about Faith Certified? Anybody got Faith Certified?
F-A-I-T-H. Anybody ever do the Chick Tracts? That was the early ones. How
about the master, give the master charge of your life, you know?
When you go to pay your bill, you leave a tip, they think you
left a... How about the fake 20? You dip it in tea and put
it in the back of the car, it actually looks real. Shocked,
you shouldn't be. If you were in Christ, you wouldn't
be. I mean, you know, that kind of stuff. We've all learned all
sorts of ways of sharing our faith. But ultimately, what we
need to do is to say what God has said about Himself. That's
what sharing the gospel is all about. It's not about coercion
or argumentation. And it's not wrong to learn some
things, especially if you're in the academic circles or on
a college campus. It's not wrong to have a little bit of knowledge
on how to engage people where they are. But it doesn't matter,
ultimately, whether you know everything about what they're
talking about or whether you know nothing. If you know the testimony of
God about himself, if you know the testimony of God about his
son, you know everything. And the reason it's so foolish is
because it seems so stupid that someone that has half a brain
would believe that this little old book here written by all
these hundred and something people that's over 150, I mean 1500
years old would actually be authoritative to tell us anything about anybody. But yet there was a computer
found in some ancient ships. And we believe that, but we don't
believe this. We bear witness about the light.
John the Baptist bore witness about the light. He declares
Christ plainly. He declares Christ boldly. And then through the message
of John the Baptist, many believe in Christ. See, look at the latter
part of that verse 7. Believing the message of God,
that all might believe through Him. You see that? Some people
ought to argue, oh no, no, no, we believe through Christ. No,
we don't believe through Christ, we believe in Christ. We believe
through the one who gives the testimony. We believe in the
testimony of Christ, not me. Don't believe in me, don't believe
me. Believe the message of God that I speak today. that Jesus
Christ alone is God eternal who created all things and then came
to earth through the womb that he created that he might live
as God has commanded all of us to live, holy and perfect before
him, never failing, never disobeying, never lusting, never being frustrated,
never being angry. Ever! And that if we violate
one part of the law, even in our hearts we are guilty of being
a lawbreaker, and we are guilty of the consequence of all the
law, for the wages of sin is death, and all have sinned and
fall short of the glory of God, therefore we are condemned by
existence. We are not able to stand before
God justified, because we are sinners, therefore we sin. But
Jesus Christ came to be a man, and He lived on this earth, and
He obeyed God fully, never sinning. And at the right time, when God
had decided, He was revealed to the world, He was baptized,
and the Father spoke from heaven and says, This is My beloved
Son, in whom I am well pleased. And his ministry began and he
began to teach from the Old Testament and go into the synagogues of
Israel. And he began to say that here it is, the day of Jubilee,
the time of celebration, the time of redemption, the time
of salvation. And he would say, I am that celebration. I am the
day of rest. I am the Lord of the Sabbath.
And they mocked him. The free gift of God is eternal
life through Christ Jesus. Not Christ Jesus plus, not Christ
Jesus and, not Christ Jesus with something sprinkled on top to
make it a little bit better. Jesus alone. And if we don't believe
in the testimony of God about Jesus Christ, that not only did
he do and proclaim and live as a holy man, but he died a death
that he did not deserve. Because the wages of sin is death,
so Jesus in his humanity did not deserve to die on a cross.
He was innocent of all things. He'd never sinned. Even Pilate, the governing authority
that day, says this man has done nothing wrong. I wash my hands.
But I cannot condemn a man who is not condemnable. Except that
I release a man who is condemned, who shall it be? Give us the
murder of Barabbas. And so Jesus stood innocent of
all charges and he died because God the Father put him on the
cross. Why? Not only did He live a life that
we could not live in perfect obedience, but He died a death
that we would not be able to pay for our sins, even if we
died forever. And then God raised Him from
the dead. If you do not believe in the work of Jesus Christ and
the person of Christ, if you do not believe on Him and in
Him, you will not live. And Jesus Himself says in John
3, that if you believe on Christ, you have everlasting life, but
if you do not believe, you are condemned already. Beloved, this
is the message of God. Not believing John and not believing
on John, but believing through John. We sit here today because
John the Baptist preached the gospel. You realize that? Just like the scripture would
say that the blood of Abel cries out after the death, the testimony
of John the Baptist cries out today. Behold, the Lamb of God
that takes away the sins of the world. Behold, the one who came,
that I came before, came before me. For he was before me. John would later say, I'm not
worthy to tie his shoes, much less stand before everyone. And
people began to believe John, and believe in John, not believe
through John. How do we know? Because later
on in the narrative of this gospel, we'll see in the weeks to come,
where people go, hey John, people are leaving our group and going
to Jesus. And John says, I must decrease
that he may increase. The bridegroom gets the bride. I'm just a mouth. People go, it's so sad that John
the Baptist had to have his head taken off. That was the decree
of God. The testimony. God in His powerful
wisdom has proven that the testimony given through humanity, as foolish
as it is, is the vehicle through which, is the vehicle through
which He brings to life his people. John the Baptist in chapter 10,
40 says he went away again across the Jordan to take place to the
place where John had been baptizing at first. And he remained there.
And when he came in and said, John did no sign, but everything
that John said about this man was true. And many believed in
him there. And John chapter four, many Samaritans
from that town believed in Christ because of the testimony of the
woman who said, he told me everything I've ever done. Could this be
the Christ? The works of Jesus' ministry
in John 5, the testimony that I give, is greater than that
of John the Baptist, Jesus would say. For the works that the Father
has given me to accomplish, the very works that I am now doing,
bear witness about me that the Father has sent me. John's Gospel
teaches us that the Father has given a testimony about Jesus.
In John 8, I am the one who bears witness about myself, and the
Father who sent me bears witness about me. The Scripture bears
witness about Jesus in John chapter 5. You search the Scriptures,
I've already quoted this today, and you think that in them you have
eternal life, but it is they that bear witness about me. Yet you
refuse to come to me, yet that you may have life. The masses,
the population, the great crowds testified about Jesus in John
12. The crowd that had been with
Him and had called Lazarus out of the tomb, raised him from
the dead, continued to what? Bear witness. What did they do?
They said, this man called this man from the dead. He must be
from God. He must be from God. Years and
years ago, 15 years ago, I started saying this little phrase, every
person is an evangelist and every person is an apologist. Everybody. Do you know in the corporate
world today, those people who go out and spread the message
of a company are called evangelists now? And they have been for about,
I don't know, 20 years. They have evangelistic teams
at Google. And they have their chief evangelist,
and their sub-evangelist, and their associate evangelist, and they have evangelistic
teams that go out. They're called evangelists. And that term now
is used in the corporate world. How sad, because it's not used
in the Christian world anymore, is it? Everyone is an evangelist. We share what we love. We share
everything that's fond to us. We share everything that we love,
and we want everybody else to experience the joy that we experience. I had a meal a couple of weeks
ago, my anniversary, and it was so good, I ate it with my eyes
closed. It was great. And for a couple of days, everybody
I saw, oh man, you really need to eat this steak. You really
need to eat this piece of meat. I mean, it's like that cow just popped
up in there and said, yeah, what cut you want? And I just took it
all. I mean, it was great. The broccoli was great. I've
never had broccoli so delicious. See, that's evangelism. That's
evangelism. I'm sharing with you what I love
the most, an experience that I had that's absolutely breathtaking.
It's life changing. I mean, you know. The movie that
you see, the song. Oh, I remember that song when
I was a kid. You ever heard a song, you adults, from back in your
childhood and it just takes you back? And sometimes good experiences,
sometimes bad, but we used to share these things. We share
these things. So not only is everybody an evangelist, everybody
is also an apologist because when somebody comes back and
says, oh, that's just dumb, we get, what, defensive. Don't call
a man's baby ugly, even though it is. Just don't ask the age of a woman.
And don't ever go up to a woman and say, are you pregnant or
just gaining weight? I mean, you know, you'll die. You don't do
that. You might think, well, who would
do that? They're not here anymore. They're not with us. They made
the mistake. What's the point? We stand up
for what we believe in. Are we proclaiming the gospel
of Jesus? No, we're not doing enough. But God is certain to
give us the gospel. The Spirit of God, when the Helper
comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of
truth will proceed from the Father. He will bear witness about me.
Jesus in John 18 told Pilate. I mean, Pilate said to him, so
are you a king? And Jesus says, you say that I am a king for
this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into
the world to bear witness to the truth. And then Jesus says
something extremely powerful. Everyone who is of the truth
listens to my voice. You hear the voice of Christ? You hear
the testimony of God? You hear the testimony of John
the Baptist today? You hear the testimony? I find it very interesting
sometimes when people in our lives come to us and they rebuke
us or they try to challenge us out of love. Say, hey, how's
it going? Want to hold us accountable?
And sometimes that can be rude. But even when they're rude, if
the scripture is true, we as the children of God receive it.
And I was sitting at a cafe, I've been doing that my entire
life, in California, mentoring a couple of brothers, and one
of our other elder brothers was with me, and this one brother
got offended because this other elder asked him a question about
something that he was dealing with. And this man, he says, you don't
know me. You don't know me like that.
You don't know me like that. You don't have the right to ask
me about that. And I'm sitting there going, oh boy, this might
get ugly. This guy's big and strong and
angry. And I stopped him after about
a minute of him telling this other elder that he didn't have
a relationship with him strong enough to ask him about his sin.
And that's where I came up with the cat. I said, let me tell you something.
I said, if a cat jumps up on this table and barks out God's
Word, you better obey it. You better take heed. And I said,
when an elder in your church does it, he loves you far more
than that cat. That's where that came from.
It made me angry that this brother wouldn't receive the Word of
God from somebody that didn't know him well enough. But yet
he'll get on the internet and listen to preachers who preach
half heresies. And they want to follow after what they say.
and his own family, his own spiritual household. He didn't want to
hear it. But friends, that's what we do.
That's what the flesh does. Let us hear the testimony. Let us
hear the testimony of God's Word about Jesus Christ. This testimony
started with John the Baptist on earth proclaiming that Jesus
was coming. That Jesus was coming. The light
is shining. and is in the world today and
it will not be overcome. We are here, as I've said four
times already, because of the testimony of John. And just like
the blood of Abel, he still speaks through the tongue that he spoke. that the apostles recorded. Though
He is dead in the flesh and His words no more come from His mouth,
they are still here. When we see in Acts chapter 2
where it says they daily devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching.
The apostles were alive during that time. And beloved, though
they have died in this earth, the word of their testimony is
still to be followed. The apostles are still overseeing
the church through the written word of Scripture. as the under-shepherds
who we call elders and pastors continue to govern through the
Word of God and oversee with tenderness and with fear and
with trembling and with much prayer. We still devote ourselves
to the apostles' teaching. We are here because there is
a legacy that God has established. Do you realize that? I remember
me sharing with you just a few weeks ago about the preaching
of a legacy and what it looks like at a funeral. Somebody was
talking about legacy. What is true legacy? You know,
there are whole nations of people that we don't know about. They
have died in antiquity and we've never discovered their remains.
We've never discovered their artifacts. They are nobodies. They did not exist according
to the present world and our understanding and the receipts
of our knowledge and the narrative of antiquity. They do not exist
anymore. But what does exist when we leave
this world as the church is that the church lives in perpetuity. The church goes on. What makes
a ministry worthwhile and successful is not that we have built a school
or that we have built a nursery or a halfway house, because these
things will stop. These things will cease. What
makes a ministry have an earning? and lasting legacy is that Christ
is continually preached, and Him crucified, and nothing else.
And that the people who are part of that assembly continue to
grow and make disciples, and grow and make disciples, and
that the praise in our hearts come from our lips, and that
as we live together we encourage each other with the same thing.
The legacy of John the Baptist is still alive today in you,
beloved. But yet he's a nobody, and I'm a nobody, and believe
it or not, brothers and sisters, in the eyes of grace and the
economy of eternity, we're all nobodies except that we're somebody
because we're in Christ. In verse 8 it says that he was
not the light. He was not the light, but he came to bear witness
about the light. Now why would John say this?
Because many people would come to the
idea that John the Baptist was the prophet or was Messiah. Where do you get that? Well, right on down there in
the testimony of John in verse 19. And the Jews from Jerusalem
came, the Levites came, the priests came, and they said, who are
you? What does he say? He confessed and did not deny,
but confessed, I am not the Christ. I am not the light. I am not
the Holy Anointed One of God. That's what the word Christ means.
The Hebrew word is Messiah. The English word is Christ. The
Greek word is Christos. And they said, what are you?
Then Elijah said, I'm not. Are you the prophet? We talked about
it a few weeks ago, Jeremiah. He said, no. He said, who are
you? We need an answer. Those who
sent us, we need to go back and tell them who you are. He says,
I am the voice of the one crying out in the wilderness, make straight
the way of the Lord, as the prophet Isaiah said. Wow. He says, I baptized with water,
but the one who stands among you, who you do not know, even
he who comes after me, the strap of whose sandal I cannot untie.
Not worthy. You know what he's saying there?
I'm not even worthy to wash the feet of Jesus as his servant.
I'm lower than that. That's why the disciples, as
we'll see, were so upset when Jesus began to wash their feet.
You just didn't do that. That was the lowest of lows in
a household. And John the Baptist is saying, I can't even wash
his feet. Jesus is the light and He will shine through the
mouths of natural men. The gospel of Jesus Christ by
the power of the Spirit of God is shining forth today. Jesus
is the object of faith, not John. He's the object of faith, not
John. You might think, well, that's
obvious. Through the mouth of John, through the ministry of
John, through the proclamation of John, through the testimony
of John, through the testimony of you, Others come to faith,
which is through the testimony of John, for he was the first
evangelist. It is the same message. You see why doctrine and theology
is important, because we cannot know life without knowing God
and knowing God is hearing his word and the witness of the apostles
and the evangelist and of the prophets. If we don't know who
God is and we don't know what God has taught us about Himself,
then we cannot know God. Knowing God is salvation, John
17, for this is eternal life, that they know you, the one true
God and the Son whom you have sent. Do you have eternal life
today? The answer to that, I pray, is yes. How? Because I have received and heard
and believed the testimony of God about His Son Jesus Christ,
who is my righteousness, who is my salvation, without any
merit of my own. There is no work which I do and
nothing that I bring, except my sin to the cross, and to that
cross I cling. Do you cling to Christ today?
John is not the object of faith. Jesus is the light. He is the
one in whom we must believe. We cannot put faith in anything
but Christ. He's the object, not the conduit. We do not believe through Jesus.
We believe in Jesus. Jesus is not the agent of faith.
He is the object of faith. He is the light. Listen to this
text. So everyone who acknowledges
me before men, I will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven.
What did he say? Acknowledges what? Me, Jesus
speaking. Come to all who labor, come to
me, who are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Jesus says,
come to who? Come to me. Not go to John, not go to church,
not go to a system of theology. Not go to any other thing, come
to Christ. Romans 3, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus
Christ for what? All who believe. Galatians 2.16,
Yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the
law, but through faith in Jesus Christ. We stand right before
God because we believe in Jesus Christ, the object of our faith.
So we also have believed in Christ Jesus in order to be justified
by faith in Christ, and not by works of the law, because by
works of the law no one can be justified. Galatians 2.20, I've been crucified
with Christ and it's no longer I who live, but Christ who lives
within me and I live now this life in my flesh. What does he
say? By faith in the Son of God who
loved me and gave himself for me. Ephesians 1, he predestined
us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ according
to the purpose of his will. Philippians 3.9, and being found
in him. not having a righteousness of
my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through
faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith.
Colossians 1.4, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus
and of the love that you have for all the saints. So here we
are seeing just very short, brief references to the faith that
is in Jesus Christ just in the epistles, and it goes on and
on. You may think that that's sort
of silly to expound on that. But friends, we need to hear
the testimony of Jesus Christ who is the light of life. You've
got to believe on Him. Well, I've already done that.
It's not something you do. That in itself is problematic. Faith in Christ is not something
you have done. Did you get that? That's where you rest today.
Are you believing on Him now? Because if you look at when you
did believe, then you're looking at the date. Or you're looking
at the time. Or you're looking at the expression.
Or you're looking at faith, not Jesus. Well, I know, I'm okay
because I believed in 1963. Well, good. Are you believing
in 2017? Do you believe this moment? Do not
hear the testimony of John's baptism. The Scripture says that
many were baptized into John. What does that mean? John wasn't
saying, okay, come be baptized into me. Be baptized into me.
He thought they were believing in Christ. No, they were believing
in John. John's got a message. I want it. I want to be a part
of John's ministry. Beloved, don't become part of
James' ministry because it will send you to hell. Be part of
the body of Christ by faith alone in Jesus. Do not believe in your
own belief. Do not hold fast to the confession
of your confession. Hold fast to the confession of
hope. Who is Jesus Christ? Do not believe in the fruit of
your faith. Do not look at what you do in
your life and say, wow, look how awesome I am. Look how much
work God has done. The only example of that in the
entire New Testament is a condemnation. Where the Pharisee said, thank
you God that I walk the way I do. Thank you that I tithe. Thank
you that I pray. Thank you that I worship. Thank you that I study
the Bible, that I preach Sunday school, and all these things.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. And the publican says,
have mercy on me, a sinner. And Jesus says that the Pharisee
went home condemned and that the publican, that the tax collector
went home justified. Why? Because there's nothing
that we bring, church. That's why it's called the gospel.
We don't look to the transformation of our morals. There is no such
thing as right morals. For the command to be holy is
given to all men, believers and unbelievers. Be holy for I am
holy. The difference in the command with the believer and the unbeliever
is that the unbeliever will pay for the consequences of the inability
to fulfill it. But the believer, Christ, has
suffered the consequences of our inability to fulfill it. No matter how good we look, it
has no merit on our justification. And there is no sin for which
Christ has not died for his people, no matter how heinous, ugly or
repulsive. In verse 9, we won't finish it
today, but let me close with it. The true light which gives
light to everyone was coming into the world. This is the message
of Jesus Christ. The light of the life of men
is coming into the world. That means that Jesus, who is
before all things and eternal, is coming into the world of creation. He's coming in. And you'll understand
this a little bit better, but I need to make this statement
in closing. Are you in the world? Yes. I hope you think you are. If not, we have some helpers
afterwards. But a better question is, are
you of the world? When we see the word world in
John's writings, 100% of the time it is talking about the
totality of human beings who are depraved and lost in darkness.
100% of the time. And there's a positive and there's
a negative aspect of that. But as the church, as the believer,
we are no longer of the world, for we are of the kingdom of
light. We are no longer walking in darkness. We are being transferred
to the light of Christ. And my prayer for you, church,
is that all of you truly believe on Christ. And for those of us who do, that
we truly continually believe on Christ for everything, especially
for our Christian living. especially for our intimacy,
especially in the overcoming of our shortfallings and of our
sin and of our errors and of our mistakes and of our apathy,
that we are not condemned before God because Christ was condemned
before God. Hope in Christ alone, beloved.
Let's pray. We thank you, Father, Lord, that
we can call you Father, we can say Daddy to you, Abba, Lord, what an intimate thing
to be able to know that you who are holy and worthy
and glorious above all things, Father, we can call you intimately
our dad. We can do so because Jesus Christ,
the righteous, has lived and satisfied the command to be holy
and died and satisfied the wages of our sin, and has been raised
to life in power, promising us eternity. Lord, I pray for the
children who are here, that they would hear these words and know.
Lord, for the adults, the youth, that we all would take heed to
hear these words. And Father, I pray that by your
Spirit, this testimony is active and effectual in our lives. And
that we who hunger would be back. We would return as we assembled
again. We would come to love each other
and to embrace the opportunity to share Christ together. That
we would be dependent upon each other's prayers. Father, that
we would be a witness to the light. Sharing the faith as we
pray that you would bring others to salvation. Saving them out
of the world. to be your own. And it's in Jesus'
name we pray. Amen.