Welcome to Expound, our
verse-by-verse study of God's Word. Our goal is to expand your
knowledge of the truth of God by explaining the Word of God
in a way that is interactive, enjoyable, and congregational. As you turn in your Bibles
to the gospel of John, Chapter 1, a question
to ask yourselves is, what is your view of God? In particular, what
is your view of Jesus? Some would say, well, I picture
Him as a King, He's enthroned. Others would say, I
picture Him as a servant. Others might say, well, I
picture Him as a friend. Others would say, I picture
Him as the Lord of Lords, King of Kings above all. And hopefully, you picture
Him as all of those things, because they're really, it's
not one single description that will totally
reveal and encapsulate the magnificence of the
character that is Jesus Christ. And that is why we
have four gospels. The four gospels
you might say are the four faces of Jesus Christ. I have literally
thousands of photographs that I have taken of my
family over the years. And each one is
slightly different. And incidentally, there are
very few pictures of me, because I'm always the
one behind the camera. So I've got the
pictures of my wife, and my son, and
now my grandkids. And every blue moon,
there may be one of me if somebody grabs my
camera to take one. But other than that,
they're pictures of them, but each photograph
is slightly different. And what's interesting
is that I never get tired of photographing them. I'll look at the way
light is hitting little Katie's hair or Seth's smile,
my grandkids, and I'll go, oh, I got to get
a picture of that. Now I might have 45,000
pictures of them already, but I need another one
to capture that moment, to capture that scene. So in the gospels, we have
the four faces of Jesus. Now let me just take
you back a little bit into the Old Testament. You remember that when
God dwelt among people, He dwelt among them
with a Tabernacle. And a Tabernacle was a
tent, you remember, sort of a very fancy tent. The courtyard was 75 feet
wide by 150 feet deep. In the middle of that
courtyard was a tent structure that basically had two
rooms the Holy Place and then the Holy of Holies. And then around the
Tabernacle where God dwelt with His people,
there were the Levites, the priestly tribe on
all four sides divided up according to families. But then beyond them, were
the thousands, upon thousands, upon thousands of
the tribes of Israel. The 12 tribes that were encamped
around where God was dwelling. But do you remember that
the 12 tribes were divided into four separate camps? A camp on the East, a camp on
the West, a camp on the South, a camp on the
North, so there were three tribes in all directions. And according to the writings
of the Jews in the Talmud and the traditions
of the Jews we understand that the
tribes on each side had an emblem according
to the head tribe that they gathered under. So on the Eastern side
of the Tabernacle, there were three tribes under
the banner or the emblem, the standard of
the tribe of Judah. That's on the East side. On the West side were three
more tribes under the emblem or the standard of
the tribe of Ephraim. On the South side
of the Tabernacle were three other of the 12
tribes under a single banner, a standard, an emblem, and
that was the tribe of Ruben. And then to the North,
three more tribes and that final encampment had
as its standard, as its emblem, the tribe of Dan. Now here's what's interesting. According to Jewish tradition
and those Jewish writings that I mentioned, on
the Eastern side, the tribe of Judah had their
standard, their emblem, . Was the emblem of a lion. On the Western side,
under the tribe of Ephraim was the standard or
the emblem of the Ox. On the South side,
those three tribes under the standard or
the emblem of Ruben was the image of a man. And on the North
side, the tribe of Dan had as its emblem over
those three tribes an eagle. So you had four faces. You had a lion. You had an ox. You had a man. You had an eagle. Why is that significant? Well, if you move
on in the scripture you see that Ezekiel gets
a vision in Chapter 1 of that book and Chapter 10 of
that book of the throne of God. Remember that wild vision of
the wheel within the wheels, and eyes on all sides,
and four living creatures. And the four living creatures
each had four faces. And what's interesting
is that the four faces were the same faces as
around the Tabernacle. On one side the
living creatures had the face of a lion and
an ox on another side. And another side
the face of a man and finally the
face of an eagle. When we get to the
Book of Revelation John sees a vision of heaven. This time the four
living creatures each have a singular
face each, but it's the same faces, a
lion, and ox or a calf, a man, and finally an eagle. Why is that important? Well, I don't think
it's there by accident, and I see the same kind of
imagery in the four gospels. That's why I'm calling them
the four faces of Christ. Matthew's gospel speaks about
Jesus as the King of the Jews. It is fulfilled, it says in
that book quite frequently. That it might be fulfilled which
was spoken of by the prophet. Matthew writes for the
Jews presenting Jesus. His picture, his portrait is
Jesus the King of the Jews like the lion of
the tribe of Judah, the kingly tribe, the kingly
beast, the kingly animal. When we get to the
Gospel of Mark, Mark writes for
the Romans and it's very rapid paced as
we saw last week. We made note of last week. Mark speaks a lot
about what Jesus did. He's the servant. He's doing things, so
the emblem of an ox. We get to the Gospel
of Luke, Jesus is portrayed in His
humanity as the Son of Man full of compassion. And Luke writes about
him in His humanity more than the other three
so the emblem of a man. But finally, we get
to the Gospel of John and that's the face of an eagle. He is the exalted one. He is the Son of God
more than the Son of Man. He is the Son of God in all of
His deity and all of His glory. So we have, like the Tabernacle,
like Ezekiel's vision, and like Revelation 4, the
four faces and not one of them is enough. And so we noted last week
that the three gospels Matthew, Mark and Luke, called
synoptic gospels because they bear so much resemblance
to each other, are snapshots of what
Jesus said, that's Matthew. What He said is
highlighted more in Matthew than in Mark, Luke, or John. The great discourses are
written about in Matthew. The parables are written
about in detail in Matthew, what Jesus said. In the Gospel of
Mark, what Jesus did. In the Gospel of Luke, what
Jesus felt as the Son of Man. And finally, the Gospel of John
is who Jesus is in His deity, in His totality. We made it through
half a chapter last week, because
this book I would say demands a little
more attention, a little more consideration,
a little more study, so that it might have
its full impact upon us. Do you realize that
the book of John 90% of the material
in the Gospel of John is unique to the Gospel of John? That's how different it is
from Matthew, Mark, and Luke, those three synoptic gospels. And there are certain
features in John that are featured nowhere else. The seven great "I am"
statements of Jesus. I am the breath of life. I am the living water. I am the way, the
truth, the light. There are seven
such statements that are found in the Gospel of
John and found nowhere else. There are no parables written
in the Gospel of John, because the emphasis
isn't on what Jesus said, that's more Matthew. There are seven
miracles presented in the Gospel of
John, five of which are found in none of
the other gospels. Also, the longest prayer
found in the New Testament is found in the Gospel
of John by Jesus Himself, John Chapter 17. It's like holy
ground, man, that's like the Holy of
Holies of this Book. John, Chapter 17. It's the longest prayer
in the New Testament. And the shortest
verse in the Bible is found in the Gospel of John. John 11:35, Jesus what? Wept. The shortest verse,
longest prayer, all found in the Gospel of John. I don't know why
Deuteronomy opened up. We're in the Gospel of John. Something else. The word, Jesus, and
the word, Christ, is found in the Gospel
of John 170 times. 170 times. The word, believe,
is found 100 times. I'm bringing that
up, because when you look at word
repetitions in a book you discover the core of the
book, the essence of the book, the purpose of the book. Jesus and Christ are found
170 times in 100 times the word, believe, is found. And that shows you
the purpose that John wrote the book, that
you might believe that Jesus is the Christ. And that's what he says in
John Chapter 20, Verse 30. Truly many other signs
Jesus did in the presence of His disciples that are
not written in this book, but these are written that
you may believe that Jesus is the Son of God
and by believing you might have life in His name. That is the core and the
purpose for which John wrote. Well, we made it down to about
Verse 20 something last week. We're going to pick it
up at Verse 19 tonight. We began with the
introduction of the Son of God or, if you will, the
incarnation of the Son of God, that's Chapter 1,
Verses 1 through 18. In the beginning was the Word. The Word was with God. The Word was made flesh. That's the introduction or the
incarnation of the Son of God. Beginning in Verse 19,
we have the presentation of the Son of God. He is presented to
John the Baptist. He will be presented to
the early disciples that become His disciples. He will be presented
to the people at Cana, His first
miracle in Chapter 2. And He will be presented to the
City of Samaria in Chapter 4. Verse 19, now this is
the testimony of John. This is not John the Apostle
now, it is John the Baptist or as we affectionately call
him J the B. John is mentioned by name in this book,
John the Baptist, J the B is mentioned by name. John the Apostle, the
author of the book, is not mentioned
at all in the book, except he calls himself the
apostle whom Jesus loved. And I love that. Before our study tonight, I had
three or four different people come up and just give me
a short little snapshot, a little snippet of what God had
done in their lives this week, and I love that. This is what God has done for
me, or through me, or in me in my life. And when a person comes
to the realization, hey, I'm the one Jesus loves,
it's a great realization. You need that realization. So would you rather
be called John or would you rather be known as
the apostle whom Jesus loved? That's not hard to figure out. So he calls himself the
more preferable term to just his name. He leaves his name out of
it, and he calls himself the one whom Jesus loved. Now this is the testimony
of John, J the B. When the Jews sent priests
and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him who are you? He confessed and did
not deny, but confessed, I'm not the Christ. So he began telling
them who he's not because who he is really
isn't important to him. John the Baptist never
came on the scene and said, do you realize who I am? He came on the scene and said,
do you realize who He is? I'll tell you who I'm not. I am not the Christ. He knew that's what
they were thinking. Now history tells
us that there was, not only in the Jewish world
but in the secular world at that time-- this is written
by Suetonius and Tacitus. They tell us that there was
this yearning and expectation that a leader would arise
in the world, many of them even pinpointed it to Judea. Among the secular
world, according to Suetonius and Tacitus, a
ruler would emerge from Judah. There was that expectation. And there was also a heightened
expectation among the Jews for their Deliverer, their
Messiah, their Christ. History tells us that. You see, the Jews had
been in captivity. In captivity they could not
practice ceremonial law. Their temple had been destroyed. Their city had been destroyed. They're in a foreign country. They can't offer animal
sacrifices anymore, so the institution of the
temple in captivity was gone. Right? So in captivity Judaism
developed something that stayed with it
even to this day. You don't read about them
at all in the Old Testament. Suddenly you read about
them in the New Testament. It came during the Babylonian
captivity called the synagogue. The synagogue is an institution
that we don't read about in the Old Testament. God never established it. The Jews established it
while they couldn't practice ceremonial law because their
city had been destroyed, their temple had been burned,
they couldn't offer sacrifice. Now they're in a foreign land. The only thing they
can do is get together, and while they're together
in the bet knesset, that's the Hebrew word for synagogue,
the gathering together place, they could read, and study, and
apply the written Law of God. They can practice
ceremonial law. They can only read, and study,
and apply the written law. While they were reading and
studying the written law, a yearning more than ever
before to go back to Jerusalem, but also to experience
the coming of Messiah, was greater than ever before. Especially now, they're
back in the land, and the Romans have
come in and taken over. And there is a
Jewish prayer that was said every day by
pious Jewish believers. I believe, it, said I believe
in the coming of Messiah. And even though
He tarries, yet, I will wait for Him
every coming day. Well, He has come on the scene. He is about to be presented
to John the Baptist, to the disciples, to the people
of Cana, Samaria, Jerusalem, etc. But before He comes,
John the Baptist is out in the wilderness. As he's out there and a
crowd draws around him because he is a curious
figure, indeed, they ask him are you the Christ? Are you the one we're expecting? Are you the promised one? He says, I am not the Christ. They asked him what then? Are you Elijah? He said, I am not. Are you the prophet? He answered, no. Then they said to
him, who are you that we may give an answer
to those who sent us? What do you say about yourself? He said, I am the voice. Jesus is the Word. I am the voice of one
crying in the wilderness make straight the
way of the Lord as the prophet, Isaiah, said. Are you Elijah? Nope. Now why would they
think that he is Elijah? Well, two reasons. The way he looked. We know that John the
Baptist grew his hair long. He wore camel's hair, leather
around his waist, ate bugs. Do you remember? Some of you will remember
the description of the Elijah the prophet in
the Old Testament. It comes to us out of, I
think, Second Kings, Chapter 8. Elijah comes on the scene,
and he's outside the door. And they said,
who's at the door? And they said, a hairy
guy with leather on. So looking at John
the Baptist would have been reminiscent
to any Jew that was familiar with his
Bible or her Bible, that reminds me of Elijah. But there is another reason
that they expected Elijah, and that's because the last
chapter of the Old Testament predicts that before
the Lord, the Messiah, establishes his earthly kingdom,
Elijah will come and turn the hearts of the fathers
back to the children, and the children
back to the fathers, turn the nation back to God. Behold I will send
you Elijah Malachi 4 says before the great and
dreadful day of the Lord. And that is why, even to
this day, if you've ever been to a Jewish
Passover Seder, they leave a chair vacant
for the prophet Elijah. They expect that on
one of these occasions at somebody's Passover
around the world, Elijah's is to show up and
sit in that chair and come. So they always expected the
Messiah is going to come, but we're going to know it's
the Messiah come to set up His kingdom when Elijah comes. So they say, John,
are you Elijah? He goes, nope. Well, now we have a
problem, don't we? We have a problem
because of the words that Jesus said if you have
a mind to turn to Matthew. If you don't, I'll
turn to it for you. This is Matthew
Chapter 11, Verse 11, "Assuredly Jesus says, I say to
you among those born of women, there is not risen one
greater than John the Baptist. But he who is least in
the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. And from the days of John
the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven suffers
violence and the violent taked by force for all the prophets in
the law prophesied until John." Now watch this verse. "And if you are
willing to receive it, he is Elijah who is to come." It's an odd statement. Are you Elijah? Nope. Now Jesus said now,
if you can receive it, he is Elijah who is to come. Let me confuse you further. If you go forward in the Gospel
of Matthew to Chapter 17, now John the Baptist
has come and gone. He is dead. Matthew 17, Verse 9,
"Now as they came down from the mountain Jesus
commanded them saying, tell the vision to no
one until the Son of Man has risen from the dead. And His disciples
asked him saying, why then do the scribes say
that Elijah must come first?" Now the reason they asked
the question is because Jesus was transfigured moments
before this along with Moses and Elijah the prophet. They saw this transfiguration
vision on the mountain. So they asked him about it. "Why then do the scribes say
that Elijah must come first? Jesus answered and said to them,
indeed Elijah is coming first and will restore all things." So speaking yet future, now John
the Baptist has come and gone, so he's saying, you know what? Elijah is going to
come like Malachi said. He is coming. "But I say to you that
Elijah has come already, and they did not know
him but did to him whatever they wished. Likewise, the Son of Man is
about to suffer at their hands. Then the disciples
understood that He spoke to them of John the Baptist. So John says I'm not Elijah. Jesus said, well, if you can
receive it, it is Elijah. Then He says, you know, Elijah
the prophet, the real Elijah, is going to come in the future. But, you know, in a sense
Elijah has already come. And they did whatever
they wanted to him. And they go, oh, He must be
speaking about John the Baptist so what does this all mean? Here's what it means. When Zechariah was in the
temple and offering incense, and the angel Gabriel
said, your wife Elizabeth, though she's an old
gal, is pregnant. And she's going to have a son. You guys are going to
have a son together. You're going to call his
name John, John the Baptist. That's the John
we're talking about. He will come in the spirit
and in the power of Elijah to turn the hearts of the people
back to the Lord their God, he starts quoting Malachi 4. Now the angel said he's coming
in the spirit and the power of Elijah, not in
the person of Elijah. So in a sense, in a type, in
a futuristic type in a shadow, John the Baptist was any
Elijah-like forerunner. But since the
prophecy in Malachi says he's going to
come, Elijah the prophet is going to come before the
Lord sets up His kingdom, which is yet future. We see that John the Baptist
was a partial fulfillment of that ushering in, in the
spirit and power of the Elijah, the first coming of Jesus
whereas as the prophet Elijah, literally, resurrected
will come in the future to usher in the second coming. I hope that makes sense. I hope that clears it up. You say, well, where do we find
that in the Book of Revelation? We know that Jesus comes
back in Revelation 19. Well, it's interesting
if you look at the two witnesses
in Revelation 11, and you look at
what they do, they sound very suspiciously
like Moses and Elijah. Just go some other
time, we don't have the time tonight
we've already taken really too much time on the subject. But go look at the
description and you'll see that Moses and
Elijah possibly are the two witnesses
spoken about in Revelation. As far as two witnesses
to the Jewish nation, you couldn't have
two greater witnesses than Moses the lawgiver and
Elijah, their greatest prophet. And when Jesus was transfigured
in the gospels with Moses and Elijah upon
that mountain, it says they were speaking about
things of the kingdom in one of the gospel accounts. I love the fact that not
only did Moses make it into the promise land in
that scene-- remember, he wasn't allowed to go
in the Old Testament, but he's showing up
there in Northern Israel with Jesus and Elijah. But also the fact that Elijah
the prophet is with him. And they speak
about things future and probably they'll show
up in Revelation Chapter 11 as the two witnesses. Now back to John Chapter 1. Verse 24, now those who were
sent were from the Pharisees. And they asked him saying
why then do you baptize if you are not the Christ
nor Elijah nor the prophet? Now what is this, the prophet? They said are you the prophet? No, I'm not the prophet. Why are you baptizing if
you're not the prophet? When Jesus asked
his disciples right before the transfiguration
at Neziri Phillippe, who do men say that I am? Remember, they said some
say you're John the Baptist. Some say you're Elijah. Some say you are Jeremiah
or one of the prophets. The reason they
thought Jesus might be Jeremiah or one
of the prophets is there was a long
standing tradition that Jeremiah the prophet
will also come back and he will restore
the Ark of the Covenant to its proper place
in the worship system of Israel prior to
the Messiah's arrival to establish His kingdom. But I believe what
they are referring to more than that when they
said, are you the prophet, is if you recall in our study
in Deuteronomy Chapter 18, Moses said for the Lord
your God will send to you another prophet like unto me. Him you shall hear. You shall listen to him. And that is believed, a
longstanding belief, that that is a Messianic prediction. Are you the Christ? No. Are you Elijah? No. Are you the prophet
either Jeremiah or one of the prophets,
or perhaps that prophet referred to in Deuteronomy 18? So they ask him since he
says, no, I am none of those, he said why are
you baptizing then if you're none of these people? John answered and said to
them, I baptize with water but there stands one among
you whom you do not know. It is He who coming
after me is preferred before me whose sandal strap
I am not worthy to loose. Again, please notice John, just
the humble nature of this voice proclaiming the word of life. He says, there's somebody coming
and the one that is coming, the one that you are
anticipating, you know what? I am not even worthy to be a
household slave to this man. It was a servant's job to
unloose and to take off the sandals of a master
who had walked the streets and had come home
in the evening, the slave, the servant,
would take off the sandals by and unloosening the straps
and then wash the feet. John the Baptist said, I'm
not even worthy to do that. Now contrast John's
words, I'm not even worthy to be His servant
to some of our attitudes when we pray and go, Lord,
I deserve better than this. The way you've been
treating me, the way you've allowed this to
happen in my life, the trials and the tribulations,
well, I've served you and I've trusted you. And we start getting
angry at God, like God should give
us what we deserve. You should praise Him
and thank Him every day that He doesn't give
you what you deserve. You'd be in hell. That's what we deserve. I'm not even worthy to
be his household slave. These things were done in
Bethel bara beyond the Jordan where John was baptizing. Bethel bara is where we were a
few weeks ago in Deuteronomy. It's the place of crossing. The place the children of
Israel when Moses said, you're going to cross over the Jordan
River, and Joshua in Chapter 1 takes them over at this
place called the place of crossing Bethel bara. They had been wandering
around the wilderness till they crossed over
into the promise land. It's the place where the nation
was baptized, so to speak. They went through the
waters of the Jordan that parted for them, and they
came over from wandering around into the promised land. I don't believe that
John puts that there without intentionality. I believe that John is
directing our attention to just as the children of
Israel wandered, and wandered, and wandered, and had no
resting place till they came into the promise land. It's time for you to
enter into your rest. Quit wandering around through
life and wandering off the path and come into the place
God has promised you in Christ, life in Christ. So he's baptizing down there
where the nation had been baptized at the Jordan River. Now let me tell
you about baptism, because most people in the
world, most religious people in the world, think that baptism
was invented by Christianity. You know, Christians,
we baptize people. That's the ritual of Christians. It wasn't originally. It was invented by
the Jewish people. Did you know that if you wanted
to be Jewish in antiquity you had to go through three
things, three rituals. Number one, instruction. Number two, circumcision if
you're a male, and number three, baptism. Instruction by a scribe,
circumcision by a priest, baptism by or with a witness. It was a symbol that
you were proselytizing. You were converting from
paganism, from whatever you were into before into Judaism. You acknowledge one true
living God, the God of Israel. If you wanted to be an
Israelite, if you wanted to believe in the
one true God, Yahweh, you had to proselytize
by those three things. So if you wanted to be a Jew
if you're a Gentile, a pagan, that's what you had to do. Baptism was part
of it, number one. Number two, if you
were a Jew, and you had become ritually unclean
by touching a dead body or coming in contact with
something that would defile you, before you would go
up into the temple area you would have to
baptize yourself. There was self-baptism. Now if you've been
with us to Israel, as you get up to the Temple
Mount on the southern steps, just before you see all these
pools dug out in the rocks. They're called mikvot. That's the plural Hebrew
for the singular mikveh. A mikveh is a little pool,
a ritual cleansing pool. If you've been defiled, you
immerse yourself you get up, towel off, and now
you are ready to go up and worship in the temple. So number one, if
you're a non-Jew and you want to convert, and
number two, if you're a Jew and you've been defiled
you get baptized. The puzzling thing
to the Pharisees about John the Baptist is he's
not calling pagans or Gentiles to convert to Judaism. He's calling Jewish people
under God's covenant to repent of their sins and
turn to God fully, completely. It's a baptism unto repentance
and trust and belief in the Messiah that he
says is going to come. So that baffled these Pharisees. Now Josephus tells us, you
know how many Pharisees were alive at the time of Jesus? 6,000. Pharisees were strict. They were legalists. They were very narrow in their
interpretation of the law. They were very ritualistic. They believed in miracles. They believed in spirits,
they believed in angels. Their opposite counterparts
were the Sadducees. They were the liberals. They did not believe in spirits. They did not believe in the
scripture past the Torah. They didn't believe in
supernatural, et cetera. So they were antagonists, the
Pharisees and the Sadducees. But John wants us to
know that the group that comes to John the
Baptist were sent out by the Pharisees, these really
strict, legalistic Pharisees. The next day, Verse 29, John
saw Jesus coming toward him, and he said, behold
the Lamb of God who takes away the
sin of the world. Now John's dad, was what? What was his occupation? He was a priest. He was a priest in the
temple of Jerusalem. John, therefore, grew
up around temple ritual. He understood what
lambs were for. They were bred for sacrifice. He see Jesus, says look,
there's the Lamb of God, the lamb God has sent. And the application is
universal, who takes away the sin of the world. What did John the Baptist have
in mind when he saw Jesus? Well, perhaps he had
the Passover in mind from the ancient times. You take the blood of the
lamb put on the lentils and doorpost of your homes. It was the lamb for the family. Now he's broadening it out. Or perhaps, he was thinking of
Isaiah Chapter 53 that predicts the Messiah's sacrifice. He will be led as a
lamb to the slaughter, as a sheep before it
shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. Or maybe he was
thinking about Abraham bringing his son Isaac and
the angel stopping him. And then predicting
to Abraham saying, the Lord will provide
Himself a lamb. In the mountain of the
Lord it shall be seen. And Abraham said that
to his son Isaac. He sees Jesus,
and he said behold the Lamb of God who takes
away the sin of the world. This is He, verse
30, of whom I said after me comes a
man who is preferred before me for He was before me. I did not know Him, but that He
should be revealed to Israel. Therefore, I came
baptizing with water. And John bore witness saying,
I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove. Why a dove? A dove was an
animal of sacrifice. If you couldn't
afford a lamb, if you were the poorest of the
poor, you could bring a dove. So like a lamb, a dove appearing
over Jesus indicating this is the one. Here's the one who
can relate to those who can afford a sacrifice and
those who can't, rich and poor alike, all people. A lamb or a dove,
it's the same person. "And he remained upon Him. I did not know Him, but He who
sent me to baptize with water said to me, upon whom you
see the spirit descending and remaining on
Him, this is He who baptizes with the Holy Spirit. And I have seen and testified
that this is the Son of God." Now let me ask you a question. It's puzzling, because twice
in what we just read, twice in this text, John the Baptist
said, I didn't know Him. I didn't know Him. How could he say that? He knew Him quite well. He was His cousin. He was His second cousin. We know from the scripture
that John the Baptist's mother, Elizabeth and Jesus' mother
Mary were first cousins, making Jesus and John second cousins. They knew each other. They grew up going to
the feast together. John knew that Cousin
Yeshua's coming to town. We're going to play
and have a blast. They were familiar
with each other. He knew Him, but he
says, I didn't know Him. What he means is, I
knew Him as a cousin, but I surely didn't
know all this time that this was the Son of
God, the Savior of the world, the Lamb of God who takes
away the sin of the world. I grew up not having
that awareness and now this dove alights upon
Him and tells me, that's Him. That's the one, the one
you know as a cousin. You didn't know He would
be the Savior, but He is. That's what it means. So Jesus and John were familiar. They were second cousins. Now there's something else. It is believed
that Jesus' mother Mary and John, the
writer, John the apostle, not John the Baptist now,
John the author's mother, Salome is her
name, were sisters. Making John, the author,
the first cousin of Jesus, John the Baptist, the
second cousin of Jesus. Makes sense? OK, I'm belaboring that
point for this reason. It adds to the credibility of
the witness of John the Baptist and John the Apostle to say
this Jesus is the Lamb of God, the Son of God. God in a human body, which
John affirms over, and over, and over again and
highlights in this book. Why does it affirm that? Why does it understate that. Why does it add to the
credibility and authenticity of the narrative in
the testimony of John? Well, think about it. You have cousins. And the ones that know you-- I
remember growing up my family reunion with some
of my cousins, and I remember the Dower boys, Peter
Dower, John Dower in Minnesota. We had a blast in
the summer, but I'll tell you this my
cousin would never say Skip is the Lamb
of God who takes away the sins of the world. My cousin Skip, he's
God in a human body. Cousins know their cousins. But these cousins, John the
Apostle and John the Baptist, their testimony, and it
adds to the credibility because of this familiarity. They said, this is the one. This is the one. I have seen and testified
that this is the Son of God. Are these testimonies important? Well, sure they are. These are eyewitness testimonies
and under the circumstances they're vital. Because you see,
there's a whole lot of people who want
to say, well, you know Jesus was a good man, a
good teacher, a good example. We'll even say He worked some
miracles, but the Son of God He is not. The Lamb of God He is not. God in a human body He is not. But according to those who
knew Him best and saw Him most, it's exactly who He was. Now Israel didn't want a lamb. He came into his own
we read last week. His own did not receive Him. They didn't want a lamb. They wanted a lion. They wanted the lion of Judah. They wanted somebody to set
up the earthly kingdom now. But first He must come as a
lamb to take away their sin, otherwise they could
not enjoy that kingdom. He will come again as
the lamb or as the lion of the tribe of Judah, but first
He comes as the Lamb of God to take away the
sin of the world because sin is the impediment
between the world and God. Again, the next day,
Verse 35, John, this is J the B stood with
two of His disciples. So he's down to the Jordan
River down by the Dead Sea. It's very hot down there. We were down there just
in the end of February beginning of March, and
it was in the 90s already. If it's the summer time,
it's in the 120s or so. So I'm guessing, I'm
hoping for their sake it's in the milder time of the year. Again, the next day John stood
with two of His disciples and looking at
Jesus as he walked said, look-- that's what
behold means-- look. Check it out, check Him out. Look, the Lamb of God. The two disciples heard Him
speak, and they followed Jesus. I love that. They heard John [INAUDIBLE]. They said, OK, see
you, John, we're going. See you. Bye. We're going to follow him now. And Jesus turned and
seeing them following said to them, what do you want? Well, it says what do you seek? What do you want? Same question. What do you want? They said to him rabbi, which
is to say when translated, teacher, where are you staying? Now in John's gospel,
these are the first words that he records Jesus speaking. The first red
letter in the book. And it's interesting the
first words out of Jesus mouth recorded by John is a question. Why did Jesus ask this question? Because He didn't
know the answer? No, He knew the answer. He wanted them to
think about the answer they were going to give. You know, many times God
will ask the questions, and He doesn't do that because
He doesn't know the answer. He asked the questions so
that the one He's asking will have to think
about the question, and it will lead that person
to a logical consideration. In the garden after Adam sinned,
God said, Adam, where are you? God wasn't, like, He didn't
like miss him on the GPS. And I can't find Adam anywhere. He knew exactly where Adam was. He wanted Adam to think about
how far he had moved from God. Adam, where are you? Jesus said to his
disciples who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am? He knew the answer to that. He wanted them to answer
it and to consider what people were saying. And then he said, who
do you say that I am? He wanted to hear
their confession. In John, Chapter 5, Jesus
will ask the paralyzed man, the paralytic who is
at the pool of Bethesda an interesting question. It's probably not a
question you would ask somebody who's cripple. Imagine walking up to a crippled
person in a hospital room and asking him the
question of Jesus, do you want to get better? What kind of a question is that? Hey, hey, cripple person,
do you want to get better? Anybody listening to that
question who didn't understand what was going on would think
that's a very cruel question to ask. I was going to say, try
that, but don't try that. The question was meant to
probe that are you sure you want to get better? Or are you up for--
it's going to mean some changes in your life. You've been living off
of the graces of people who are giving you
things, and giving you money, and sustaining
you on the dole of the charity of the
people or the government all of this time. Are you sure you are ready
for a lifestyle change that means you're going to have to go
back to work and struggle, etc? I know you're in
suffering and pain. You don't want this, but are
you sure you want to get well? Are you ready for this? So sometimes God
will ask the question to provoke the answer to get
us to think of our motives. What do you want? What are you seeking? It's a good question. What are you seeking? You here tonight, us here
tonight in this place. What do you see? Why do you come to church? What are you seeking? To give God the glory, to
further your relationship with Him? To spot young girls
that aren't married, young guys that aren't married? There's a number of reasons
people can do things. And so these questions, when
you find them in the scripture, it's good to meditate on
them and apply them yourself. What do you want? What are you seeking? I love their answer. They said, rabbi, now
they ask the question, where are you staying? We just want to
be where you are. There's something
about you Jesus. There's something we're
noticing right now. John pointed you out. There's something
compelling about you. We want to find out
where you're hanging out, because we want to
be there with you. It's like David said, one
thing I will desire of the Lord and that will I
seek after that I might abide in the house of the
Lord all the days of my life and behold His beauty. They didn't say, well,
we want some information. Or we want a course on
theology with a degree. Or we want a miracle of healing. We want food. Where are you staying? We want to hang out with you. And he said to them, again,
I love these statements. Come and see. Come and see. He doesn't give
them information. He gives them an
invitation, come and see. Explore for yourself. Let it be a personal
exploration. They came and saw where He
was staying and remained with Him that day. Now it was about
the 10th hour, which means it was 4:00 o'clock in
the afternoon by this time. I'm guessing it's
the winter time, the sun would be
going down soon. The reckoning of time among
the Jews began with 6:00 AM. That was the first
hour of the day. So the 10th hour of the day
is 4 o'clock in the afternoon. One of the two who heard
John speak and followed Him was Andrew, Simon
Peter's brother. The fisherman from
Galilee is down-- one of them is down with John
the Baptist and that's Andrew. Now watch this. He first found his own
brother, Simon and said to him, we have found the Messiah
which is translated the Christ. Now this is the text that the
Billy Graham Organization has used for the past, I don't
know, 40 years or so, 50 years, called Operation Andrew. You know before a
crusade comes into town, the Graham Organization
will say OK, we're going to teach you
Operation Andrew. It's all about identifying
and writing down the friends that you're going to
invite to the crusade that Dr. Graham is
going to preach. You start praying
for those friends. You invite them early, you
invite them perpetually. You pick them up and
bring them on that night or that day of the crusade. So here is Andrew going
out to find his brother to introduce Jesus to
him and him to Jesus. That's always a sign of love. If you're really
following Jesus, I believe, you're going to want
to find other people that you know and love to
bring them to Jesus. A true disciple is
someone who is not content to go to heaven alone. If you're good with just
getting to heaven all by yourself alone, you don't
want to invite anybody else, you don't want to mention
Jesus to anybody else because they may not like you. They might marginalize
you or scorn you. It's a very sad and
narrow life to live. I remember when I
gave my life to Jesus. It was the summer of 19
(mumble) and I was up in the San Francisco Bay Area. I was living with my
brother, 1973, summer. I had watched Billy
Graham on television. You've all heard that story. And I remember being
gripped with I've got to tell my family
what happened to me. They've got to find out. They've got to
hear this, they've got to hear about Jesus. So I decided I have
to go back home. Now I'm living up
in the San Jose, San Francisco area and I drove
my motorcycle eight hours south to Southern California
because I was so eager and anxious to
tell my family first. They didn't get too excited
about my conversion. My friends, they weren't all
excited about my conversion. But eventually, some of
those came to know Christ. And what I loved is
when I went to a friend to tell him about Jesus,
the reason he came to see me is to tell me about
Jesus not knowing that I had given my life to Him. So we both had the same idea. We were both Andrew
looking for our friends to invite them to Christ. So Andrew does that, finds
Peter, brought him to Jesus. Now Jesus looked
at him and said, you are Simon, the son of Jonah. You shall be called Cephas,
which is translated to stone. The Aramaic word
is Petros, Peter. I'm giving you a new name. I'm not going to call you Simon
Hearing, because you're not all that good at hearing, Peter. I'm going to call you Rock. Now those that knew Peter
probably laughed at that name. Ha, ha, Rock? This guy's shifting sand. He's anything but rock. He is impetuous and unreliable. But you know I've discovered
as I read through the gospels that the people
that Jesus names, I believe He names them
based upon what He's going to make them
into, not based on their present character. You may be shifting
sand, but I'm going to make you a
chip off the old rock. I am the rock, Peter, but I'm
going to make you rock man. And Peter became that. Who preached that great message
on Pentecost and 3,000 souls were baptized that day? Peter. Who wrote two New
Testament letters as a leader of the early church? Peter. I love that about Jesus. The following day Jesus
wanted to go to Galilee. It's up north now, Sea of
Galilee, and He found Philip. And He said to him, follow Me. Now Philip was from Bethsaida. That's a little fishing
village on the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee. The city of Andrew and Peter,
Philip found Nathaniel. So Andrew went to
Peter, now Philip finds Nathaniel and says
to him, we have found Him of whom Moses in
the law and also the prophets wrote Jesus of
Nazareth, the son of Joseph. We found the one everyone has
been searching for, and talking about, and anticipating. What you hear about
in the synagogues by the rabbis, the coming
Messiah, we found Him. His name is Yeshua. He's from Nazareth. And Nathaniel said to
him, can anything good come out of Nazareth? And Philip said to
him, come and see. He'd been hanging around
Jesus with that question with that answer. Come and see. I like that. He's just, I'm going to
do a Jesus, come and see. Nazareth, and out
of the way village. Now Nathaniel we
are told and you won't be told till
John, Chapter 21, but you will find out
in John, Chapter 21 that Nathaniel was originally
from Cana of Galilee, not far from Nazareth. Now nobody liked the
Galilean cities in Jerusalem. All the Jerusalemites thought
the Galileans were hicks. It's how you and I would view
people from other states that have certain accents. We're, oh, they're just kind
of like country bumpkins. They're hicks, man. The Galileans were
unsophisticated but of all the Galilean
cities, Nazareth was like the lowest
on the totem pole. So unsophisticated. Can anything good
come out of there? Now keep in mind the village
that Nathaniel's from is Cana. It's not, like, great. And probably Nazareth and
Cana were rivals growing up. I'm sure their high school teams
played each other in basketball and things like that. So he was familiar that. Oh, can anything good
come out of there? Come and see. Jesus saw Nathaniel coming
toward Him and said of him, behold our luck, an
Israelite, indeed, in whom there is no deceit. Now you notice when
Jesus meets these people, He already knows about them. Oh, you're Simon, son of Jonah. Well, I'm calling you this now. So they on a normal,
natural human level are being introduced
to Him, but it's as if Jesus was
anticipating them. Now, I don't have time
now, but in a study I did, Finding the God Who
Finds You in our Believe 879 series on the Gospel
of John in-depth, I go into this
in-depth in detail. The whole idea of you
choosing versus God choosing. Arminianism versus
Calvinism, preelection, predestination versus
personal volition. I go into all that
using this text. So suffice it to say
now Jesus said, hey, it's like I know you. An Israelite, indeed,
in whom there is no God. Now why would He say that? Because He sounds
like a wiseacre. A wise guy, oh, could anything
good come out of Nazareth? He had the kind
of personality he wore his heart on his sleeve. If he doubted something, He
would say I doubt that, sort of like Thomas. We don't know where you're
going, how can we know the way. He's that kind of personality. Thomas wasn't the only
doubter on the team. Nathanial was the other guy. Can anything good come
out of that place? But that's what he felt,
that's what he said. He was honest and Jesus
knew that about him. He said, you don't
hide your feelings. You're not covering up anything. You're a man in whom there
is no guile, no deceit. Nathanial said to Him,
how do you know me? Jesus answered and said before
Philip called you when you were under the fig tree I saw you. Evidently, there was
some personal place that he was praying,
hanging out. He thought nobody knew this
little special hideaway that I have except for me. Jesus said, I saw you there. Look at his response. Nathaniel answered and
said to Him, Rabbi, you are the Son of God. Wow, that's quite a turn. You are the King of Israel. That's all it took. The fact that Jesus
told him showed him that He knew even the
secret parts of His life. Jesus answered and said to
him, because I said to you, I saw you under the fig
tree do you believe? You will see greater
things than these. And He said to him,
most assuredly, I say to you hereafter
you shall see heaven open and the angels of God
ascending and descending upon the Son of Man. You thought that fig tree thing
statement I just said was cool? Stick around, dude. You're going to see no less
than 37 miracles recorded in the Gospel of
John, the first being in your hometown next
chapter in the town of Cana, turning water into wine. You think that's great? Hold your horses. You're going to see heaven
opened and the angels of God ascending and descending
on the Son of Man. Real quickly, that's a
reference to Genesis 28. Jacob runs away from
his brother, Esau, trying to kill him after
he stole the blessing. And he sees a vision
of God that night. He camps out, puts
his head on a rock, he's in the area
of Bethel, and he sees a dream, a
vision of angels, heaven open, and a ladder
from heaven to earth, and angels, God's
angels going down. And I believe what
Jesus is telling him is you are going to see that
I am the ladder between heaven and earth. You're going to discover in
looking at me and following me, not only can I tell you cool
things about you hanging out under a tree, more than
a tree, I'm the ladder, man that connects God and man. I'm the bridge that
connects heaven and earth. And you're going to see that
displayed in the days ahead. Now in our chapter,
we noted last week that Jesus came into
His own, and His own did not receive Him. But as many as did
receive Him, He gave them the right, the power,
to become children of God. In those verses you have what
people thought about Him. And, in fact, what
people think about Him. You have two responses, the
majority response, the minority response. The majority response,
they didn't receive Him. The minority response,
a few did receive Him. And those who did, God
gave them the right to become His children. The majority was wrong. The minority was right. Don't let your
spirituality be governed, be dictated, by a
finger to the wind. Find out what everybody
else is thinking, and I'll do it
because they do it. I'll do it because
everybody else does it, because you will be wrong. If you want to
discover who Jesus is based upon what your friends
or what your coworkers think of Him, you'll be wrong. The minority report is
the accurate report. He is the Son of God, the Savior
of the world, the Lamb of God, that's the accurate report. And, therefore, you receive Him. And if you receive Him, you
will become a son or daughter of the living God because
you believe in His name. That's all it takes
for salvation. You believe in His name. Let's pray. Father, thank you Father for the
testimony of John the Apostle, the testimony of
John the Baptist, the testimony of Nathaniel. These people who
came into contact with this carpenter,
the son of a carpenter from Nazareth, who
is the very lamb sent by God to take away sin
that is prevalent and rampant in this world. Lord, we, too, have sin. And some of us Lord have
never come to Christ to get it removed. Some of us have never received
Jesus as our Savior and Lord. Others may have done it
but walked away from it. Received you, but
turned away from you. Tonight, Lord, we are once
again given the choice to receive Jesus. As we close this service, we
close in prayer and a song, if you are gathered
here tonight and you need to be one of
those few who say, I will place my faith in Jesus. I will turn to Him personally. It won't be religious, it will
be real, it will be authentic. I'm going to receive Jesus
as my lamb, as my Lord. Or if you have
turned away from Him, and you need to
come back to Him, either way, if you
know that's you, I want you to raise
your hand in the air as we close this service
before we're dismissed. In raising your
hand, you're saying, Skip, here's my hand up. Pray for me. I need to do this. I'm going to do it now. God bless you, right on
the aisle and you, sir, right on the aisle
in the middle. Anyone else? Let those hands go up high. It's God speaking to
you, raise Him up. God bless you and you. And in the balcony, and on
the side, and in the back, and in the back
again to my right. And over here. Father, we pray for those
around this auditorium with those raised hands. I pray, Father,
you would fill them with a sense of anticipation,
excitement, joy, peace as they make Jesus the Lord
and the Lamb of their life. It's in his name we pray. Amen. Let's all stand. We're going to
close with a song, and I'm going to ask those
of you who raised your hands, and I saw hands go up
around the auditorium, even in the balcony. We'll give you time to
get down the stairs. Jesus called people
publicly, and we believe it's a great
celebration whenever we do it. So if you raised
your hand, I'm going to ask you as we sing this
to get up out of your seat and come stand right
up here in the front, where I'm going to
lead you in a prayer to make Jesus the Lord and your
lamb who takes away your sin. You come as we sing. If you raised your
hand, you come and just stand right up here. And we'll welcome you, and
we'll applaud your decision. [SINGING] It's We're going to wait
just another moment. We're not going to
let this linger. We're already a
little bit over time. If you're in that balcony, you
need to come down those steps. If you raise your
hand, if you're in the back, the
middle, the front. If you didn't raise
your hand but you know God is speaking
to you, this is something you need to do. You come and join those
who have already come and say yes to Him. You know, Jesus will never
force Himself on you. He works by invitation. He says I stand at
the door and I knock, if you will open the
door, I will come in. Will you open the door
of your life, your heart. He's given you the power,
you the control over it. You have choice,
you have volition. So say yes to Him and you'll
discover how much He loves you. Beautiful. Come right on up this way. All right. Now those of you who have come
forward, I'm glad you did. I hope you don't feel
on the spot right now. I just want you to feel
and know that you're surrounded by people who
love you and are excited that you are making this all
important, most important, decision of your life. So I'm going to lead you
in a prayer publicly. I'm going to say
these words out loud. I'm going to ask you to say
them out loud from your heart as you give your
heart to the Lord. Let's pray. Say, Lord, I give you my life. I know that I am a sinner. And I'm sorry for my sin. I believe that Jesus
died on a cross, that He shed his blood for me,
and that He rose from the dead for me. I turn from my sin. I leave it behind me. And I turn to Jesus as my
Lamb, as my Savior, as my Lord. It's in His name I pray. Amen. Amen. If you've missed any
of our Expound studies, all of our services
and resources are available at expoundabq.org.
