"He Confessed" John 1:19-28 Sunday Morning Worship Service

John chapter 1 is where we'll be at this morning.

John 1 · chapter mention

And as you're turning, let me invite you back.

This evening we'll have evening service 5.15.

Pastor Jesse will be preaching, and we'll be taking communion.

If you're new to Emmanuel, we take communion once a month, but we often do it at our evening service.

So I invite you to come back.

5.15 is our evening service.

We'll be taking communion together.

Jesse will be teaching, but for now you're stuck with me.

And in fact, I'm going to hold you hostage for a few weeks because Jesse asked me to preach for a few weeks.

And when he did, I thought after celebrating the resurrection together, I think the best thing we can do is go into the Gospels and spend some time with the Lord in the Gospels.

And so we're going to look at John chapter 1 this week and for three more weeks.

John 1 · chapter mention

Four weeks in John in chapter 1.

One of the most amazing passages of Scripture.

And I want to go to the Gospel of John together for a number of reasons, but one of them is that of the four Gospels, John is unique.

In a number of ways, he's unique.

One of those ways is that he's the most explicit of all the gospel writers in stating his purpose for writing.

He says in John chapter 20, verse 30, Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book, but these are written, so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

John 20:30

The Gospel of John is a stunning testimony of the life and teaching and death and resurrection of Jesus so that you might believe and have eternal life.

And as we read the Gospel of John, we discover eternal life is not just a quantitative thing, it's also a qualitative thing.

In John 17, verse 3, Jesus says, this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.

John 17:3

And Jesus goes on to say that, well, the thief comes to steal and kill and destroy, he's come that his people might have life and have it abundantly.

So the testimony of the evangelist, the Apostle John, in this gospel is about the life, teaching, death, and resurrection of Jesus, so that you might not just have quantitative but qualitative eternal life in believing in Jesus, the Son of God.

So I want to spend some time in this gospel for the next few weeks.

In fact, that testimony, you could even look down at chapter one, where you have opened your Bibles to.

This testimony that John gives us begins in chapter one and verse one, where he tells you the scope of what he's going to tell us about in this book.

In verse 1, he says, In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God.

So he's describing this word who was God in the beginning.

He was in the beginning with God.

All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.

So he's describing the creator of the universe, the one true God who made all things that exist out of nothing, and he made you.

And drop down to verse 14.

That word has become flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

The eternal God has become a man and entered into his own creation.

So that, shot your eyes up to verse 12, so that all who receive him, who believe in his name, he gives the right to become children of God, the eternal God, all the fullness of deity, in bodily form in Jesus Christ, come into the world and testified in this gospel so that you might believe him, and by believing have life in his name, have eternal life, quantitatively and qualitatively.

That's why I want to spend some time in the Gospel of John together.

But we're not going to look at the prologue.

We're going to look at, as you see on the screen, verses 19 through 28 today, and then three more little vignettes of the story of Jesus' life, because the prologue's already been taken.

Because Pastor Jesse's already preached the prologue before.

If you're new to Emmanuel, he did it a while ago, one verse at a time, over the course of a couple years, through the Gospel of John.

So if you're interested in going more in depth and you're new to Emmanuel, those messages are available online.

But we're going to pick up where the prologue leaves and where John begins the narrative, the story of the life and ministry of Jesus.

That begins in verse 19.

And these four little stories that we have in the rest of chapter 1 are really, they take place on four days.

Do you know how I know that?

Well, verse 19 through 28 is one story, and then look at verse 29.

It says the next day.

Then verse 35 says, the next day.

Verse 43, the next day.

So these are four days in the life of Jesus.

And I think looking at these four episodes in sequence gives us an insight into what does it look like to live in the company of Jesus?

What does it look like to live as a witness of Jesus, in his presence, telling people about him, loving him, following him?

What does it look like to be a witness of Christ?

That's what we're going to see in the Gospel of John in these four stories.

So why don't we begin by reading the text that we're going to look at this morning, where we're introduced to the first of the witnesses to Jesus, John the Baptist.

And that begins in John chapter 1, verse 19.

John 1:19

Look down in your Bibles and follow with me as I read our text, beginning in John 1, 19.

This is the testimony of John.

When the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, Who are you?

He confessed and did not deny, but confessed, I am not the Christ.

And they asked him, What then?

Are you Elijah?

And he said, I am not.

So they said to him, Who are you?

We need to give an answer to those who sent us.

What do you say about yourself?

He said, I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness.

Make straight the way of the Lord, as the prophet Isaiah said.

Now they had been sent from the Pharisees, and they asked him, Then why are you baptizing if you are neither the Christ nor Elijah nor the prophet?

John answered them, I baptize you with water, but among you stands one you do not know, even he who comes after me, the strap of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie.

These things took place in Bethany across the Jordan, where John was baptizing.

This is the word of God.

Of all the biblical characters, one of the most radical has to be John the Baptist.

The radical nature of his life even begins before he's born.

He's a miracle child.

He's born to, in Luke chapter 1, which describes the early years of his life and his birth, he's born to a priest named Zacchaeus, or Zecharias, rather, and his wife Elizabeth, who are old and without child.

Luke 1 · chapter mention

The King James says that they were stricken with age.

Which you can use that phrase wherever you like, I think.

But they've been stricken with age and they can't have kids anymore.

And one day, as Zecharias is ministering in the temple, an angel of the Lord appears to him and says, Zecharias, your prayers have been answered, you're going to have a child.

And he says, I don't think you understand how biology works, angel.

I've been stricken with age.

And the angel responds that because you didn't believe, you're going to be mute until the child is born.

And this child, when he's born, you'll name him John, and he's going to go before the Lord and prepare his way for the coming of Messiah that's been promised for ages in Israel.

John comes out of the temple, and all of a sudden, this prestigious priest can no longer speak and becomes kind of a hubbabaloo in Israel.

Nine months later, Elizabeth, lo and behold, does give birth to a child.

And as soon as she does, Zecharias's mouth is unleashed and he begins to speak.

He names his son John, but more than that, he begins to prophesy of his son John's future, and he says he's going to be a prophet of the most high.

And then at the end of Luke chapter 1, we get this little elliptical sentence that tells us that as John grew, he went out into the wilderness, and we don't hear from him again.

Luke 1 · chapter mention

You pick up details reading the Gospels that he's in the wilderness for years, receiving revelation directly from God, until finally, when he's about thirty years old, he appears on the scene.

When he appears on the scene, it's radical.

And I think it's worth reminding ourselves before we go any further in John of what John the Baptist's life and ministry looked like.

Matthew chapter 3 describes it for us like this.

Matthew 3 · chapter mention

Matthew says, In those days, John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea, repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

John wore a garment of camel's hair and a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey.

Then Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region around the Jordan were going out to him, and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.

It's a radical scene.

There's good reason that we see in the Gospel of John that Jerusalem was sending a delegation of people out to figure out who are you and what is happening.

This is a radical scene.

It's a startling man.

You see in verse 4, he's wearing camel's hair, got a belt of leather heats, wild honey and locusts.

With a startling message in verse 2, he says, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

Judgment is coming, the Savior is coming.

With the startling ritual, he's baptizing Jews in the Jordan River, which is absolutely unheard of.

We'll talk about baptism a little more as we go, but that's that doesn't make any sense to the Jews.

And it's a startling crowd because you see in verse 5 that Jerusalem and Judea and all the region and the whole land are trekking out to the middle of nowhere to the desert to hear from John the Baptist.

Tens of thousands in the crowd are swarming about to hear this man.

It is a wild scene.

He had a crazy life.

And we don't have time to go any further, but if we were to read all the rest of the account in Matthew chapter 3, you find that John even baptized Jesus himself.

Matthew 3 · chapter mention

Jesus comes, is baptized by John, and as he does, the heavens are open, Holy Spirit descends upon him, and then the audible voice of God the Father speaks before John and the crowds.

This is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased, and there is John, right in the center of all of it.

He had a radical life.

One of the most startling things about the account that we read of John the Baptist is that he never talks about it.

He's not at all interested in his credentials.

That's one of the things that I want you to see as we walk through the text that we just read.

But before we do, just uh one more word of kind of background is we might ask the question when we read this story in John chapter 1, verse 19 to 28, where in the world does this fit in the whole story of Jesus and John?

John 1:19–28

And I think if you read the Gospels closely, the best way to understand this narrative is that it occurs after the baptism of Jesus.

So after Jesus is baptized, we learn in the Snoptic Gospels that Jesus goes out into the desert in the wilderness for 40 days where he's not eating, and he's being tempted by Satan, and at the conclusion of those forty days, when he has defeated Satan and overcome these temptations, he comes back across the Jordan, and then will enter up into Galilee.

And that's where this little scene in John 1 takes place.

After Jesus has returned from his temptation, John is telling people, there he is, there's the Messiah, go follow him.

And none of what I have just kind of reminded ourselves of, of the life of John the Baptist and his crazy, absolutely radical, unique life, is told to us by the Gospel of John.

He assumes that we already know it.

John is the last of the four gospels to be written.

He assumes that we've known something of the Jesus story.

We've read Matthew, Mark, or Luke, or all of them.

And he just jumps straight into the testimony of John.

Now I don't assume that we know all of it, that's why I've reminded you, and I'll give you some details as we keep going.

But I think that there is an important lesson here in noting that of all the amazing things you could say about John the Baptist, the evangelist in the Gospel of John is not interested in them.

He's just interested in what he thinks is the main thing in John's life.

And in fact, we'll see this morning, John the Baptist agrees.

The main thing in his life is not all of the miraculous, unique things he experienced, but the testimony of Jesus.

What matters in his life is that he came, as we see in verse 19, to testify of Jesus.

He came as a witness.

And so John just jumps straight into the testimony and the ministry of John the Baptist.

And so without any further ado, that's what we'll do.

We'll jump straight into the story.

And as we do, we see that it unfolds in the course of a personal interrogation.

There's a delegation sent from Jerusalem to interrogate John and ask him, who are you?

And he's going to respond to their questions.

To give you an outline this morning, the personal interrogation unfolds in three questions.

And as we ask them, I think it'd be helpful for you to ask yourself these questions.

If you say that you believe in Jesus, you're saying you testify that Jesus is the Son of God who died for my sins, who resurrected from the grave, who has ascended into heaven, and I believe him, then you are a witness, you are a disciple of Jesus.

Then you could ask these same questions of yourself.

And you could compare your initial reaction, your initial answers to these questions, to John the Baptist's answers to these questions.

He is for us the model witness.

Here's the first question.

Who are you?

Notice in the text, look down at verse 19.

This is the testimony of John, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, Who are you?

Now, coming from Jerusalem, so this is a delegation from the leadership in Israel, and they had sent priests and Levites to ask John, Who are you?

The priests are not the high priest.

The high priest and his family were usually considered part of the Sadducean sect, and they were kind of the elite.

They were the oligarchy who had power and money and prestige in Israel.

But outside of the high priestly family, there were thousands of priests in Israel.

They were those who were descended of the line of Aaron, and they didn't just live in Jerusalem.

They lived around the country, and they wouldn't serve in the temple except by an appointed time.

So they'd come to Jerusalem for their appointed time, they'd get the privilege of serving in the temple, then they'd go back to whatever village they normally lived in, but they were looked at as the spiritual guides of the people.

They were those who understood and were instructed in the ways of the Torah.

And when they were in the temple, their primary duty was to offer sacrifices and then to oversee the cleansing ceremonies that were necessary for those who wanted to enter the temple and worship God.

But along with them, the delegation is accompanied by the Levites.

And the Levites are those who are from the tribe of Levi in Israel, but they're not priests.

They're not allowed to serve in the priesthood because they're not of the line of Aaron.

But they do have temple duties.

Two primary temple duties.

One would have been they could serve as musicians, but even more common would be that they would serve as really the temple police.

And they were in charge of crowd control, riot prevention.

As people who are residents of DC, we have a picture in our mind of what massive crowds in a city look like.

In the ancient uh city of Jerusalem, during the times of Passover and the feasts, there would be an absolute outpouring of Jews all over the city, and the Levites served an important role.

They were crowd control.

Well, these are the perfect pair of people descended John the Baptist, because they're going to ask about his purifying ceremony.

What is this baptism you're doing?

And there's a lot of people there, so they're going to need some crowd control.

And so they come to John, and you might ask one more question why exactly are they coming to John?

And there's really, I think, a pretty basic answer here.

And the basic answer is that it's kind of common sense.

They're trying to preserve the peace.

Israel, at this time in their history, they are not a self-governing body.

They're under control of the Roman Empire.

And the Roman Empire lets them do largely what they want as long as there's no disruptions in the order and peace of the society, so there's no disruption in the tax flow.

And the leadership in Israel have a vested interest in making sure that happens because if there's any kind of disruption in the tax flow, they're the ones who are going to pay for it.

And so they see tens of thousands of people flooding out to the desert, and it seems that there's some kind of messianic religious fervor happening, and they want to know what is going on.

So when this delegation comes to John, you should perceive it as somewhat hostile.

Who are you?

What authority do you have to do this?

But I think below just the common sense preserving the peace, the pragmatic side, I think there's a personal side, and I think they're really after power.

I think that because as you see the development of the contrast between Jesus and the leadership in Jerusalem through the Gospel of John, you see that the leadership in Jerusalem become increasingly hostile towards Jesus.

And you see that even in the way that John phrases this little line.

Look at verse 19.

It says, this is the testimony of John when the Jews sent priests and Levites.

So there's a delegation sent from Jerusalem, and that contrasts with John, who we know has been sent from God.

That's the way that the gospel describes John the Baptist.

Look up at verse 6.

Verse 6 introduces John the Baptist like this: there was a man sent from God, whose name was John.

He came as a witness to bear witness about the light that all might believe through him.

So from the very beginning, John is setting up a contrast.

This is how you should view this interrogation: a contrast between revealed religion and human tradition.

Revealed truth through John the Baptist to the people and human tradition moderated by the authorities in Jerusalem.

And this is the question that this delegation has for John at the end of verse 19.

Who are you?

Who are you?

That's a good question.

And I think we should pause for a second and think just remember all of the things that John the Baptist could have said.

Who am I?

I'm a miracle, baby.

Who are you?

Who am I?

Look around.

What do you mean, who am I?

Look at this.

I'm kind of a big deal.

What are you asking, who am I?

But you need to note that of all of the things in John's resume, that he very easily could have mentioned, there's not a single word about any of it.

When the delegation asks John, Who are you?

he immediately begins deflecting attention away from himself.

Look at the first way he does it in verse 20.

He answers this question, Who are you?

with three answers.

The first one is in verse 20.

He confessed and did not deny, but confessed, which is a very emphatic, repetitive way of saying he was eager and enthusiastic to tell them this I am not the Christ.

So the first thing that he tells them is something that he's not.

Which is an interesting response because that's not what they asked.

They didn't ask, Are you the Christ?

They said, Who are you?

And the first thing he does is say, I want to redirect the conversation.

I am not the Christ.

Now there certainly was speculation about John the Baptist.

Luke in chapter 3, describing his ministry, says the great crowds that thronged about the Baptist were asking themselves, could John himself be the Messiah?

And the very first thing that John wants to do is redirect the conversation away from himself and any speculation to truth about Jesus.

He wants to deflect your attention away from himself and instead to the true Christ.

I mean, John would say, look, you have one life, and you're asking me, Who am I?

What a waste of time.

You have one life, and there's one God who has appointed one Savior who can remove your sins, and the question that you should be asking is, Who is he?

Well, the delegation doesn't really pick up what John is putting down, so they keep after it.

First, they ask, Who are you?

and he says, I'm not the Christ.

Secondly, verse 21, they ask him again, What then?

Verse 21, are you Elijah?

Which might seem out of left field to us.

But in the time and place that John the Baptist was living, that was a very legitimate question.

Elijah was a big deal.

When you read the Old Testament, Elijah was one of the prophets.

He's in the book of 1 Kings, which really could be called the book of Elijah because he's the star of it.

He is the, apart from Moses, who we'll learn about in a second, is the prophet par excellence in the Old Testament.

His prophecies denounced an entire pagan nation.

His miracles absolutely undid the authorities of his day.

And at the end of his life, in 2 Kings chapter 2, verse 11, we find that at the end of his life, he doesn't even die.

2 Kings 2:11

He gets scooped up into heaven.

God sends a chariot of fire driven by angels to pick up Elijah and bring him into heaven.

That's crazy.

I was walking down the street recently with some friends, and we heard a loud sound.

We turned and there was a brand new Lamborghini driving down the street, and you could see along both sides of the sidewalk, everybody said, That's a Lamborghini, that's nice, but this is a flaming chariot of fire driven by angels.

This is kind of pretty wild.

And so naturally it created a little bit of speculation in Israel.

If Elijah's been taken up into heaven, could he possibly come back?

And you read through the Old Testament, in fact, we don't have to speculate because God Himself answers that question.

The last book in our Old Testament is the prophet Malachi in Malachi chapter 3, the Lord says, Behold, I'll send my messenger, and he'll prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple, and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he's coming, says the Lord of hosts.

Malachi 3 · chapter mention

So there's a messenger coming who's going to prepare the way before the Messiah, the Lord Himself, who's going to accomplish his promises.

And you might ask, sounds a little bit like Elijah.

Is it?

Well, just keep reading.

And when you get to the very last verse of our Old Testament, Malachi chapter 4, verses 5 and 6, last verses of our Old Testament say this.

Malachi 4:5

Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes.

And he will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction.

The last verse of the Old Testament, God says, Elijah is going to come before the Messiah.

And so in the time of John the Baptist, in the time of Jesus, there was an expectation in the land of Israel that there's going to be an Elijah figure who's going to hearken the coming of the Messiah.

But that development, excuse me, that expectation had developed in the years leading to Jesus, not just from an Elijah figure, but that Elijah himself would step his two feet backwards.

Maybe on the flaming chariot would reappear, and he would come.

Elijah the Tishbite himself would come and appear in Israel.

The Greek translation of this book of Malachi says that Elijah the Tishbite, so that person is going to come.

That's the question that they're posing, John.

Are you Elijah himself?

Well, we could go a little bit further with this.

I mean, if you think about it, John really, I mean, he acted the part.

When you read that description of the way John dressed with the camel's hair and the belt of leather, that's exactly the way Elijah the Tishbite dressed.

So it seems he's taking on the mantle of Elijah.

And then we could even go further and we could ask Jesus, what do you think about John the Baptist?

And Jesus in a number of places gives us his answer.

One of those is in Matthew in chapter 11, where he says, For all the prophets in the law prophesied until John.

He's the last Old Testament prophet, and if you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah who is to come.

So according to Jesus, yeah.

John the Baptist is that Elijah prophet preparing the way for the coming Messiah.

Alright, so I think I know the answer to this question.

John, are you Elijah?

I know.

I know the answer.

So let's look.

Let's see what he says.

Look at verse 21.

Are you Elijah?

And he said, I am not.

What?

Haven't you read the Gospels?

Like what don't you know?

Who do you what?

So is this a contradiction?

And I think what we should do is when we see a contradiction, we should read closely.

And there is a really specific, very good reason why John answers in this way.

Go back to the story in Luke chapter 1 I mentioned earlier about John's birth, and the angel that announced John's birth to his father Zecharias told Zecharias, This is what your son's going to be like.

Luke 1 · chapter mention

He will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God, and he will go before him in the spirit of power and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of fathers to the children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared.

He's going before the Lord, before the Messiah, before the Christ, in the spirit and power of Elijah.

He's taking the Elijah role to prepare the people for the coming of Messiah.

And that way Jesus says, He is Elijah, he has fulfilled that role, and I'm the Messiah.

Believe in me.

But that's not the question that this delegation is asking him.

The delegation is not particularly interested in the Messiah.

Because they keep asking about John, who are you?

Who are you?

Who are you?

All their attention is on him.

And in fact, I mean, straight up, they're asking him, are you actually Elijah?

And John can say with all honesty, no, I'm John the Baptist.

Would you like to see my passport?

So his answer is very specific and very wise for two reasons.

One, it's absolutely truthful.

He's not Elijah, he's John the Baptist.

And secondly, the function of Elijah was never to draw attention to himself.

And this interrogation to this point has been all about John.

And his job as the Elijah prophet is to point people to Messiah.

And so he directs them away from himself.

But the delegation still doesn't get it.

So they come back with yet another question.

Here's their third question.

Look at verse 21 again.

After responding, I'm not the Christ, I'm not Elijah, finally they ask him, Are you the prophet?

That seems pretty random.

And there's a sense in which, obviously, he's a prophet.

Look around you.

When his father Zecharias spoke after John the Baptist's birth, he said, You child would be called prophet of the Most High.

Definitely he is a prophet, but this delegation is being specific.

Just as Elijah was understood to be an eschatological figure who would come before the Lord, so there was an understanding in Israel that there would be a very specific, particular prophet who would come with the Messiah.

And that expectation comes from Scripture, comes from Deuteronomy chapter 18, where God spoke through Moses these words.

Deuteronomy 18 · chapter mention

So there is this expectation that there's going to be a very specific prophet like Moses, who is the incarnate word himself.

Moses was not like other prophets.

In the book of Deuteronomy, God says, I speak to the prophets, but to Moses I speak face to face like a friend.

And I'm going to raise one up, even greater than he is, who is my very word himself, and to him you must listen.

John, when he's asked, Are you that prophet?

His answer is very simple.

Look at verse 21.

No.

That's not me either.

By the way, if we ask, who is this prophet?

Well, it's pretty clear, Peter, after the resurrection of Jesus, when he begins preaching of the gospel, preaching about Jesus, this is in Acts chapter 3, the apostle Peter says to the Jews, Repent therefore and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, whom heaven must receive until the time for restoring of all things, about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets long ago.

Acts 3 · chapter mention

Moses said, The Lord God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers.

That's that Deuteronomy 18 text.

You shall listen to him in whatever he tells you, and it shall be that every word, every soul that does not listen to that prophet shall be destroyed from the people.

That prophet like Moses, greater than Moses, who is God's word himself, that's Jesus.

He's come.

John's not interested in acquiring that kind of attention because he wants to deflect people to the one who he knows is the Christ.

He's better than Elijah, who is the prophet like Moses.

There's one last thing I want you to notice about this, and that is notice the way that John increasingly shortens his answers.

They ask him, Who are you?

And he says, I'm not the Christ.

Five words.

They ask him, Are you Elijah?

I'm not.

Three words.

Are you the prophet?

No! He's done with this conversation.

He wants nothing to do with this.

You're asking all the wrong questions.

You're looking at the wrong person.

I want to deflect you.

I want to turn you away from me.

John, in other words, he understood his role in the team.

He found his significance and his value and his identity in the right place.

He understood his role in the team.

I was never a fantastic top-tier athlete.

I was never featured in Rivals Recruiting Service magazines, but I did play a lot of sports.

Enough to know very well that if you play enough pick-up basketball games, you'll discover that there's usually somebody out there who's pretty bad.

But there's different kinds of bad players.

The worst kind of bad player is somebody who doesn't know how bad he is.

So you pick him on your team and you give him the ball and you think, oh no, not again.

Because he gets the ball and he's thrown it up.

And it's not coming anywhere close to the basket, nor ever will it, but he just keeps throwing it up.

And he just keeps trying to make it about him, and it's about him, and it's about him, and he's trying to show off.

And he's not helping anyone.

He's not helping himself.

He's not helping his team.

Totally oblivious that it's not about him.

John the Baptist wasn't such a player.

John the Baptist understood that his role as the Elijah prophet was to prepare people for somebody who was so much better than he.

He was preparing people for the Christ.

The delegation here, they still don't get it.

So they move to the second question.

After asking, Who are you?

They ask, So what do you say about yourself then?

You see that in verse 22.

So they said to him, Who are you?

We need to give an answer to those who sent us.

What do you say about yourself?

Look, we've been sent by the boss.

We're gonna go back home.

We need to have something to say.

We can't just say, Well, he's not Elijah.

That's not gonna work, buddy.

We we need to justify our trip out there.

Can you justify yourself?

What are you doing here?

What do you say about yourself?

You think about that question.

They're really asking John to justify his existence.

What do you say about yourself?

Justify our trip out to come see you.

I wonder how you would answer that question.

What is your gut reaction?

What do you say about yourself?

How do you justify yourself?

Here's what John says.

Verse 23, he said, I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, make straight the way of the Lord, as the prophet Isaiah said.

That's where John directs their attention.

And he still is not even talking about himself, because he's just a voice.

But he says, I understand my role on the team.

My role appointed by God is to be a voice, telling you about someone who is to come.

And he's speaking from the prophecy of Isaiah chapter 40 and verse 3.

Isaiah 40 · chapter mention

We read Isaiah chapter 40 in our scripture reading.

Isaiah 40 · chapter mention

That's a prophecy and a time in Israel's history when they were deported into exile.

And it's telling them there's coming a day when God is going to restore his people, and he's going to bring them salvation.

He's going to remove their sins and enter into their presence, and all flesh will see God Himself because He'll dwell with them and make them His people.

And before that comes, He's going to send somebody who will prepare the way.

And John says, that's what I'm doing.

I'm one preparing the way, making straight the way of the Lord.

And that's an ancient custom.

Custom maybe isn't the right word, but a practice, an ancient practice, that when a king would go to visit a different city, he would send out heralds, messengers, and a cleaning crew before him who would prepare the way, who would make the road smooth to simplify the journey into the city.

But it wasn't just for kings, it was also when you were transporting a statue of a deity from one city to another, you'd send out the street pavers to get the road ready.

God doesn't need a street paver to enter into Jerusalem or anywhere, but he is going to straighten out his people.

And John is saying, This one is coming.

You need to acknowledge that you are crooked, your lives are crooked, and you need straightening out and you need deliverance.

And he's doing it in a very specific place.

Notice he's a voice crying out in the wilderness.

Before we move on, I just want to make note of that.

Because John connects everything that he's doing to the Old Testament.

He defines himself according to the Word of God.

At the end of this little passage, verse 28, it says, These things took place in Bethany across the Jordan, where John was baptizing.

That's the middle of nowhere.

If you have, I I've never been to Israel, but if you have at least seen a picture, you can get a good grip of this.

There's nothing there.

Recently, Emmanuel Christian School sent some middle schoolers to the Grand Canyon, and I'm told that in part of that trip, they left the beaten road and they went to a ranch in the middle of nowhere.

And it's a nice long drive where you didn't see anything except desert, desert, desert.

And I have been told, I'm sure this could never possibly be true, but there was complaining along the way.

What are we doing?

It's so far.

I don't want to go here.

That's the way people think about the middle of nowhere desert.

That's where John is.

And tens of thousands of people are going out to see him.

Why in the world would he pick that?

Why would people go out there?

Because he's connecting it to the Isaiah 43, 40, verse 3 prophecy.

It's connecting to it to a specific element of Israel's history.

When God constituted Israel as a nation, he redeemed them from slavery in Egypt.

He brought them out of Egypt, through the wilderness, across the Jordan, into the promised land, which foreshadows the full salvation that he's going to give his people in the new heavens and new earth.

He's going to bring us into spiritual deliverance and into an everlasting kingdom in the promised land, across the Jordan, into the promised land.

And John is bringing the people out so that they can recognize you need the fullness of the salvation that God has promised.

You need God's Messiah to take away your sins and bring you into his kingdom.

You need him to cleanse you.

You need him to adopt you.

You need him to make you new.

You need him to straighten out your crooked life.

You need the Christ.

That's why he went out into the wilderness, announcing the way of the Lord.

The last thing to note in this little text is all of this is directed towards that very last word in the prophecy.

Making straight the way of the Lord.

Who is the Lord?

In the Isaiah chapter 40 prophecy, who is the Lord that Isaiah speaks of?

Isaiah 40 · chapter mention

It's the God of Israel.

It's the God of heaven and earth.

And now John the Baptist is saying, the God of heaven and earth is coming as a man, and you need to turn your eyes to him, and you need to pay attention to him because you need him.

And so this conversation, this dialogue, as it's been ensuing, has kind of come to this head where John is saying, you are asking the wrong questions.

Who are you?

What do you say about yourself?

What I say is that there is one coming greater than I.

There is a Messiah.

God is coming.

You should be asking about him.

John understood his role on the team.

You know, there's another kind of terrible basketball player.

It's not so terrible.

The kind that knows his role in the team, the kind who understands his function.

The guy who can't shoot, can't dribble.

But if you pick the star picks him for his team, that guy is stoked that the star has picked him to be on his team.

He can't wait to give the ball to the star.

And he gets the ball and he passes it to the star.

And when he doesn't have the ball, he sets a screen for the star.

When the ball is on the ground, he throws himself after the loose ball.

He understands his role.

And he's actually really helpful.

John understood his role.

His role was a voice crying out in the wilderness, make straight the way of the Lord.

That's what it looks like to be a witness of Jesus.

And I think we could ask ourselves our question, this question.

If you are confronted with these basic, I mean really basic human questions, who are you?

What do you say about yourself?

I mean, what springs to your tongue?

What comes into your mind?

Natural human tendency is to begin to justify yourself with what you've done, what your ambitions are, what kind of potential you have, maybe your birth story because you're from a good family.

It's the natural human reaction.

But to become a disciple of Jesus is to be born again.

To believe in Jesus is to become a child of God, born not of blood, nor of the will of flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

It's to receive a new identity, to become part of a new family, to be on a new team.

And your role in this team is not yourself.

It's to witness to the one greater than you.

You find your significance, your value, and your identity not in what you have done, not in justifying your existence, but in pointing people to the one who justified you.

That's the role of a witness.

But the delegation still doesn't get it.

So they move to this third question.

Who are you?

What do you say about yourself finally?

Why are you doing this?

That's in verse 24.

Look down at verse 24, it says, Now they had been sent from the Pharisees, which is just a little allusion to what's coming, or the Pharisees who are leaders of a particular religious movement in Israel and the diaspora, and they're going to become increasingly hostile towards Jesus.

And they have sent this delegation, we discover in verse 24.

And so the delegation, verse 25, says, Then why are you baptizing if you are neither the Christ nor Elijah nor the prophet?

It seems that you're doing something pretty crazy, John, but you're claiming no official or eschatological role for yourself, so what authority do you have to do all of this?

And their question about baptism should help us kind of shake the dust off of our of our minds if we're used to reading this text.

If you are not used to reading the Bible and you are reading John the Baptist story, then all of this is weird.

But if you have grown up around this, there you could become accustomed to John the Baptist baptizes.

That's why he's called the Baptist.

I mean, he's not an Episcopalian.

And that just becomes normal.

But it was not normal in Israel.

What John is doing is really strange.

You don't drag people to the middle of nowhere and dunk them in a river.

What are you doing?

Baptism in and of itself wasn't necessarily crazy.

Baptism was pretty common in Israel.

Baptism as a ritual cleansing.

Jerusalem was full of mikvot.

A mikvah is a big pool with steps down to it, and it was connected to another pool, so the water was always running, and you would step down and you would immerse yourself in the pool and you come out and walk up the stairs on the other side.

It was part of that was a baptism.

It was a ritual cleansing.

Many ritual cleansings are prescribed in the Old Testament for the people in certain seasons of life and when they're coming into the temple.

Also for the priests, before they offer sacrifices, they have to perform water cleansings.

Water cleansing, by the way, are a transreligious phenomenon.

They're all over the world and all through human history.

Ancient religion, all of them.

Everywhere from Japan to Africa, the Middle East, Native Americans, all people practice some kind of water ritual.

It's a human sense.

We know that we are guilty and we need cleansing.

But what John is doing is not the normal mikveh cleansing that you would do before you go to the temple.

What he seems to be doing is something totally unheard of.

He's doing a proselyte baptism, but a proselyte baptism for Jews.

Now let me explain proselyte baptism.

Proselyte's obviously someone who converts from one religion to another.

And for those who were Gentiles and wanted to convert to Judaism, you would do a baptism.

There were two rituals required of Gentiles to become Jews.

One was circumcision, that's actually prescribed in the Old Testament, but in the time between the Old and New Testament, that intertestamental time, there had become a tradition that if you were going to become a Jew, you'd also have to undergo a baptism.

And it would be like this it would be outside and it would be an immersion, signifying that you were leaving your the uncleanness of worshiping pagan gods and coming to worship the God of Israel.

But Jews didn't need to do that because Jews were already members of the covenant, and so they only needed to do the occasional ritual cleansings before worshiping in the temple.

And now here is John taking all these Jews out to the middle of nowhere and telling them, you've got to be converted.

Because you need this Messiah every bit as much as an unclean pagan does.

You need the forgiveness of your sins.

That's wild.

And so they ask him appropriately, why are you doing this?

This doesn't make sense.

What authority do you have to do this?

And the way that John responds is totally striking.

Look at verse 26.

John answered them.

I baptize with water.

And so it sounds like he's about to explain the nature of the ceremony and make it all make sense.

But then he stops himself.

I baptize with water, but among you stands one you do not know.

What?

He breaks off.

He's about to compare water baptism with, I don't know, some other kinds of baptism, some other ceremonies, and going to explain why this ceremony is more efficacious than another ceremony, but he doesn't go that route at all.

He stops and says, I baptize you with water, but that's all this is.

It's just symbolic, it's just a ceremony.

But contrast that with a person.

Contrast that with Christ.

Christ is where the efficacious merit is.

Christ is where the salvation is.

Christ is where grace is.

Christ is where salvation is.

Christ is forgiveness.

You need to take your eyes off of the baptism, off of me, off of what I'm doing, and put your eyes on Jesus.

He's drawing a contrast between ritual and person, between religious practice and knowing God and his son Jesus Christ.

See the contrast?

Everything in this conversation is calculated by John to draw the attention of the delegation away from himself to Christ.

Which is where he lands his plane here finally in verse 27 with these words.

This one who stands among you that you don't yet know, the one whose way I'm preparing, he's the one who's coming after me, the strap of whose sandals I'm not even worthy to untie.

I untie my kids' shoes, but I wouldn't untie your shoes unless you're really in a pickle, then maybe I would.

But in the ancient world, that is slave work.

That's slave labor.

There was a saying among the rabbis in this time that everything that a slave did for his master, a disciple should do for their teacher, except the task of untying the shoes.

Because that's too low even for a disciple.

And John says, I'm not even worthy to attain that.

The one who I have come to proclaim is so much greater than me.

What gives me significance and value is to point people to him, is to know him.

Everything about John's life, everything about being a testimony of Jesus Christ is to point away from himself towards Jesus.

You even notice it in the number of words that he uses.

I mean, I said at the beginning, when he's answering that first question, they ask him, Who are you?

And he says, I'm not the Christ, five words, I'm not Elijah, three words, no, one word.

Then they ask him, What do you say about yourself?

And he says, I'm a voice.

And there he's starting to direct your attention to Jesus.

So he uses 15 words, double what he said about himself.

And then they ask him, Why are you doing this?

And now he's going to go all out and start talking about Jesus, the one who I'm not even worthy to untie his sandals, 30 words.

Double of everything what he's done before.

You see the stair step in his life?

Who are you?

Not me, not me, not me.

Less of me, more of him, more of him, more of him, more of him.

That's the life of a witness.

The life of a witness, the person who is the greatest person, according to Jesus in John chapter 11, is the person who rolled out his life as a red carpet and said, It's not about me, it is about Christ.

John 11 · chapter mention

What it would mean for us to be witnesses of the resurrected Jesus is to share with John in the confession, I must decrease, but he, the one in whom all the fullness of deity dwells, he must increase.

Father, thank you for the truth that we get to see in this passage.

Thank you for the testimony of John the Baptist.

Lord, we most of all we thank you that he points beyond himself to Christ, who is greater than all that we could ever hope or think or imagine.

And as we consider his testimony, Lord, we ask that you would make us like him, that you would make us lovers of Christ, servants of Christ.

We pray that you would give us less thoughts of ourselves and more thoughts of Christ.

Lord, we pray that you would give us less confidence in ourselves and stronger confidence in Christ.

And we pray that you would change us by the truths that you reveal to us in your word so that we would walk in a manner worthy of Christ, rejoicing in him and bearing glad testimony to the reality that Jesus is alive.

We pray this in his name.

Amen.

And now, for parting words for Pastor Jesse Johnson.

Thanks for joining us.

If you're in the Washington, D.C.

area, I would love to see you at Emmanuel Bible Church.

For more information on our church or our current service times, go to IBC.church.

For more information about the Master Seminary and their Washington, D.C.

location, go to TMS.edu.

I hope this resource has been a blessing to you and it helps you seek the Lord daily, serve others around you, and share the gospel with Jesus.