John: Freedom in the I Am Not

Well, good morning.

We're working our way through the book of John.

So we're in John chapter 1 toward the end of it this morning.

John 1 · chapter mention

This week I was walking my dog.

At this point, my dog walks me because I've realized that I actually need the walks more than he does.

And so we're out walking, we walk a couple times a day, and we're out walking, it's in the afternoon, and I'm walking down the street, and I pass um a friend's house, and the the wife is out front and she doesn't know that I'm walking by, so she she doesn't, she's not aware I'm there.

And I I look over and I can just tell she was incredibly sad.

I mean you can just tell by her face and you know her countenance.

I mean, she's just incredibly kind of contemplative and sad.

And she's getting something out of her car, and and I wasn't gonna say anything and just kept walking, and she looks up, and as soon as she looks up, she smiles and says, Hey, good afternoon, how are you?

You know, right?

I mean, like that switch.

We've all done this, right?

You're like sad or contemplative about something, and then you see somebody, and then you just you know, you put the face on and you pretend.

Um but I kept as I kept walking with my dog, I started to think about this, these moments we have where we we think we're alone, right?

We think we're alone and we we get incredibly sad about something.

Uh and uh this sadness, I call it the reality of the I am not reality.

I'm not as important as I thought I would be at age 34 or 54.

Um I'm not as fit as I wish I was, I'm not as successful as I hoped, I'm not as righteous as I pretend to be, I'm I'm not as known as I'd like to be amongst friends, I'm not as accepted, I'm not as courageous, I'm not as wise, I'm not as intelligent, I'm not as pretty.

Um, this is the I am not sadness that comes to us.

I was watching a Woody Allen documentary this week, and uh I've seen a handful of Woody Allen films.

I didn't actually didn't know much about his history, and so I'm watching this documentary.

As I'm watching, I'm fascinated with just how events unfold in his life for him to get to where he's at to be able to write and make movies whenever he wants to.

And I'm sort of just fascinated with this, but there's part of me that's incredibly sad also because I'm going, man, I'm I'm not even close to as brilliant as this man is.

I'm not even close to as creative or connected, or I'm I'm not even close to as known as this person is.

Um, there's this inner sadness.

What do we do?

What do we do with this inner sadness?

Louis C.K.'s a comedian, and I I don't think he's always clean, by the way.

Um I just saw a clip this week.

Uh he was on Conan, and so on Conan, he starts, uh he just kind of lets off into this rant about cell phones and kids.

It got went kind of crazy on the internet, and people picked it up and wrote news articles about it.

And he he's just going off a little bit about the human condition, uh, but what he's talking about at first, he starts talking about kids and cell phones, and and then from there he get he starts into just how we're sad.

And here's what he says: he says, Underneath everything in your life, there's that thing, that empty, that forever empty, that knowledge that it's all for nothing and you're all alone.

Life is tremendously sad.

And he's being funny and people are laughing, but they're laughing because we all kind of know it's true.

So he goes on and he says that this is actually why we text and drive.

Like we're so scared to face ourselves that we'll break the law and risk our life and our children's lives and other people's lives just because we just came like too close to some inner sadness.

And he tells this story about he was driving, he was listening to Bruce Springsteen, and he's just he's so getting so sad, and he has this urge to reach for his phone, to check something, or text, you know, 50 friends and then see who replies and feel better about himself by who replies.

And he says this I started to get that sad feeling, and I was going to reach for the phone, and I said, you know what, just don't.

Just be sad.

And he said he pulled over on the side of the road and he just he cried.

He just wept like a baby.

And then he said, at the end of the sadness, uh, there was happiness waiting for him.

Now we we may disagree on where relief comes from from the sadness, but we're all agree that there's this inner sadness, there's this inner I am not.

And I say all of that to say that this I am not that we all know can lead us either to despair or to freedom.

It can go one way or the other.

So there's four questions for us this morning.

The first is what am I not?

The second is what am I?

The third is, where's God?

And the fourth is, what does this mean?

And this is all coming from the text in John chapter 1.

John 1 · chapter mention

So John the Baptist, he's he's out preaching in the wilderness.

He's a wild man.

He's clothed in camel hair, he eats locusts and honey.

He's out, he's preaching, he's preaching out in the wilderness, and people are just flocking.

The news is so good that this somebody's coming, a messiah's coming.

God's gonna send a man to come and to be the sacrifice for us.

This news is so good that we can be forgiven by what that man does, not by what we do.

And he's preaching, you know, repent and turn to God.

He's and everybody's they're they're flocking.

So the Jewish authorities, they hear about this, and this is a problem because they don't like uprisings.

They don't like uprisings because they love control, just like us, and they also don't like uprisings because they're under Roman authority, and so they want to just kind of stay quiet.

Let's just keep this all under control so we don't get in too much trouble with Rome.

So they send authorities out to check out John the Baptist.

So that's where we're at, John chapter 1, verse 19.

John 1:19

Now, this was John's testimony when the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem sent priests and Levites to ask him who he was.

He did not fail to confess, but confessed freely, I am not the Messiah.

So there's this ancient story in the Old Testament, the story of Moses in Exodus chapter 3, and Moses is out tending sheep, and the people of God, Israel, they are they are in Egypt.

Exodus 3 · chapter mention

They're in slavery in Egypt, and they've been crying out, and God's just been waiting, hadn't been doing anything for them, just been waiting and waiting.

Finally, he decides, I'm gonna come, I'm gonna bring them back and take them back to their land in Israel.

And so he comes and God comes to Moses and he says, You know, Moses, I've I've heard them crying out, I've come to rescue them, and I'm gonna send you.

You're actually gonna be the voice for this.

I'm gonna send you to Pharaoh, and you tell Pharaoh to let all my people go.

And Moses says, you know, who am I to go?

I mean, I tend sheep.

This is what I do.

I mean, who am I?

He says, No, well, I'll be with you.

And Moses is like, Yeah, thanks.

You know, that that's gonna help out a lot.

Okay, great.

Suppose I go, who do I say sent me?

And this is where God responds.

He says, I am who I am.

You just tell him, I am sent you.

And God is speaking about his self-existence, that he's the one true, independent, non-needy being.

He's the great I am for us.

So when we have these moments of like, my job is miserable, it's a waste of time.

Where can I find some purpose?

We hear him say, I am.

I feel alone, is the only one with me?

I am.

I feel inadequate, who might accept me, I am, I feel anxious, who might take my anxiety away.

I am.

I need some life, I need some, I need love, who might give this freely?

I am.

Verse 21, they, back to the story with John the Baptist, the Jewish authorities asked John the Baptist, then who are you?

Are you Elijah?

He said, I'm not.

Are you the prophet?

I answered, no.

I'm not.

I mean, just the honesty here.

I mean, this is his shot.

I mean, these are important people.

I mean, just to say, I yeah, okay, but but you know, I'm yeah, I'm kind of like a prophet.

I mean, I'm kind of a big deal.

I mean, people are flocking to hear me.

I mean, this is his shot.

And he's just saying, no, I'm not.

I'm not the Messiah.

I'm not a prophet.

I mean, if if we if we get honest, it's I'm not as important as I wish I was, I'm not as put together as I make myself out to be, I'm not as secure as I let on.

I'm not as capable of keeping my life perfectly under control as I wish I was.

I'm not even capable of forming a perfect life.

I'm not the creator of the world, I'm not the redeemer of souls, I'm not the healer of wounds, I'm not the source of unconditional love for people.

I'm not Messiah, I'm not Jesus, I'm not God.

I mean, that in itself, just that confession out loud, is an amazing freeing moment for us who we're constantly trying to be our own God and solve our own problems and keep everything under control by ourselves.

And to be completely content, like John the Baptist, to be completely content and free with who he is, to not even not even step in and kind of say, all right, I'm not Jesus, but sort of a big deal.

I'm kind of like the one leading up to him.

And he just says, No, I'm I'm not.

Moses responds to God and says, I'm not, I'm not a somebody, I'm not a theologian, I'm not convincing, I'm not a preacher, I'm not capable of this.

I can't go to Pharaoh.

See, but but Moses says all of this out of despair because he's not he doesn't trust God yet that God's enough for the scenario, the situation, for him.

So God does some loving and convincing, and eventually Moses sees that there's more to the story than I am not.

So question number two What am I?

Verses twenty-two and twenty-three.

Finally they said, Okay, who are you, John the Baptist?

Who are you?

Give us an answer to take back to those who sent us.

What do you say about yourself?

And John replied in the words of Isaiah the prophet, I am the voice of one calling in the wilderness.

Make straight the way for the Lord.

What am I?

I'm a voice.

Valuable, needed, but nothing to put on a pedestal, nothing to worship.

I'm a voice.

I think in John chapter 1, if you remember four weeks ago, our first week here, we talked about the word.

John 1 · chapter mention

You have to go back and listen to that about the word being logos, and but it's about God speaking into existence.

And the power is in the word, it's in God's ability to speak into existence.

And so here we have John the Baptist saying, I'm the voice.

And earlier we had the writer, John, saying, Jesus is the word.

And I think there's a little bit at play here talking about the power is not in the voice, the power is in the content of what's being said in the word.

So I think I mentioned a couple weeks ago we went to the Mumford and Sons concert.

I love Mumford Sons.

I've probably listened to the album through at least once a week.

He has a great voice.

But you know what?

A lot of people have great voices.

I mean, I mean, there's thousands, maybe, maybe tens of thousands of great voices.

I mean, I've heard a lot of great voices in like One Hit Wonder songs.

You remember like the one song that got played a lot, and then you're like, where'd that guy go?

He had such a great voice.

That girl, she had such a great voice.

You know what happened?

She, he, they didn't have good songs.

They didn't have good content.

The power is is in the words.

James Taylor, Patty Griffin, Elton John, Bob Dylan, Adele, Paul Simon, Nora Jones, Sean Lennon, Emily Lou Harris, Joni Mitchell.

Why do people keep listening to their music?

I mean, their voices are pretty good.

Some of them.

Some of them have great voices.

Some of these people don't have all that great of voices.

It's the song.

It's the music, it's the words, it's the content, it's the poetry.

The power is not really in the voice.

The power is in the word.

This is what John the Baptist is saying.

He's saying, I'm I'm a voice.

I have a role, I'm valuable, I'm to speak it into the world, I'm to speak God's love into the world, but the power is actually in the message itself.

I tell you that to say this.

The greatness in our lives does not come from our production value of our talent and our giftings and what it creates.

The greatness of our lives is in the thing that we speak out loud, what we create into the world.

What this means is it means I don't have to be Jesus to be important.

I don't have to be Woody Allen to be important.

I don't have to be James Taylor to be important.

It actually means I don't even have to be important to be important.

And this is amazing.

I mean, this is unbelievably freeing that I don't have to be important to be important, because what can make me important is what I speak.

This is what John the Baptist is saying.

And I I think it's very hard to believe this because I mean we spend, I spend at least a lot of time thinking about and figuring out how I can make myself more important.

And it's very hard to believe that I can be unimportant and still be important.

But it's freeing as we begin to believe in it.

Verse 24.

Now the Pharisees who had been sent questioned him, asking John the Baptist questions, Why then do you baptize if you are not the Messiah?

Nor Elijah, nor the prophet?

He says, I baptize with water, John replied, but among you stands one you do not know.

He is the one who comes after me, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie.

This all happened to Bethany on the other side of the Jordan, where John was baptizing.

So this sandal reference, this is kind of interesting because this was the role of a slave.

I mean, this was this was bottom barrel role, and he says, I don't even deserve to do that for Jesus, for this, for this man who's coming.

And what he's saying here, he's saying, My life gets to be a voice for a bigger story.

I mean, it's Psalm 115, verse 1, not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name.

Psalms 115:1

Give glory for the sake of your steadfast love and your faithfulness.

Let's jump into the rest of the passage, verse 29 through 34, a bit of reading, so sort of hang with me.

The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him, and he said, Look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

This is the one I meant when I said, A man who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.

I myself did not know him.

But the reason I came baptizing with water was that he might be revealed to Israel.

So John the Baptist existed so that Jesus might be known.

Then John gave this testimony.

So baptism, it wasn't a new thing for these people.

I mean, I mean, the Jewish people they baptized, so this wasn't new.

Um, this idea of sacrifice, this wasn't new.

This was a Jewish practice.

And the Jewish people were used to just sacrifice after sacrifice.

I mean, every day, morning and evening, a lamb without blemish to slay it, lay it on the altar, put some blood on the horns.

I mean, I think I said last week this seems so barbaric.

This blood, all this slaying and sacrificing and blood.

But what they knew is, is what we still know is that in blood there's life.

Lose your blood, you lose life.

And so God comes in a great metaphor and says, I will shed my blood for you.

I will give you my life.

And John the Baptist is saying, This is happening now?

Like this is going on.

God is sending his own lamb to be the final sacrifice, so we don't have to keep doing this.

This is going on right now.

He is He is out there with you.

I mean, you can just see John the Baptist on the side of the Jordan River.

It's a pretty narrow river, you know, trees around there, and he's looking out over the people, and he's going, he's he's out there, he's with he's with you.

I don't think this is really a passage about baptism, the ins and outs of baptism.

I think that's another sermon.

We have an article online.

If you want to know what we believe as a church about baptism, you can read about it.

What this is, is this is about uh baptism in the New Testament, is about the inner reality of God's covenant to us.

It's a great picture of symbolism of God's covenant and faithfulness to us, and Him covering us.

I mean, here you can just see them in the Jordan River going under and coming up.

You know, the church I grew up in, we always said buried with Christ in baptism, raised to walk in newness of life.

This imagery being covered.

I love it.

It's in a river, this imagery of it being, you know, who you are, what you've done, being washed away.

I mean, it's just beautiful symbolism.

I remember a few years ago, I got a call from a friend who was in our church group, and he called and he said, uh, I want to be baptized.

I said, great.

It was mid-January.

I said, well, let's do that.

Let's figure out when to do that.

And he said, um, I want to be baptized in the Chattahoochee.

And I said, okay, great.

Um, you know, you want to wait until like May?

And he said, no, I want to do it like Sunday night.

Can we do it Sunday night?

Sunday night in the Chattahoochee River, middle of January.

So you sure?

I mean, I'm thinking May, we schedule it in.

He said, No, I want to do it.

I know where I want to do it because it's meaningful to me.

I want to do it there, and I want to be baptized in the Chattahoochee because that spot's meaningful, and I want to do it right, I want to do it this week.

So, okay.

So we January, it's nighttime.

We wade out into the Chattahoochee at night.

You know, bodies of water at night are eerie, right?

Anyway, ever been night swimming, REM, excuse me.

Um so we're out walking out into the river at night.

It's eerie, it's freezing.

I mean, we get out there, and and I think I made the strategic mistake of uh, well, a couple things.

One, I should have at least gotten out to like waist level, but it was so cold I was just trying to minimize how far out we were going to walk.

And I probably should have asked him to get on his knees before you know I put him under because he was a he's a big guy.

I mean he's a big fella.

And we get out to like mid-thigh, and and I go to to put him down from you know mid-thigh, and and and I kind of fall down, and he goes under, and it was, you know, um everybody else on shore, so they didn't see it.

It's dark.

They just kind of hear what's going on.

Um, but he goes under.

I kind of I baptized myself at the same time, I guess.

I don't know, and then we come back up.

Um what was I doing?

Well, I I was just putting him under the water and pulling him back up.

What was that about?

That was about this beautiful covenant that God has with us, that he promises to cover us with his love and his provision.

That's what John the Baptist is saying.

He's saying, I'm just my baptism is symbolic.

That's what John the Baptist is saying, but there's just somebody else coming, and the baptism he'll do when you invite him to be part of your life, when you surrender to him, when you begin to believe in him, that baptism is a permanent, eternal, secure covering.

That's God's spirit coming into your life.

Question number three: where's God?

Particularly in this story, it helps narrow the question in.

Uh he's he's in line with the sinners.

I mean, this is what John the Baptist says.

He's standing amongst you.

I mean, Jesus had nothing to repent of.

He's in line with all the sinners who were repenting.

He was with them.

He wanted to identify with them.

He's not up on a holy hill saying, you know, if you if you can climb up this high, if you can get yourself this holy, if you can be this moral, if you can get your act together this well, then we can be together.

No, Jesus is the opposite.

He's like, I'm I'm with you.

I'm in line with you as you're repenting.

I'm I want to I want to be identified with you.

And he the great I am is with the I am nots.

I mean, he's not in line going, man, good thing you're here because I've heard about you.

You are so screwed up, you are so messed up.

I'm so glad you're repenting.

You're just you're an absolute mess.

He's just in late scripture doesn't say he's saying anything.

He's he's just in line.

He's being identified with them because he wants to be with them.

And he wades out into the Jordan River and John baptizes him.

He doesn't need to be baptized.

I mean, it's a way that the people, John, would recognize Jesus, that's told in the text.

But this is Jesus saying, I'm I'm just I'm with you.

This is God saying, I'm with you.

While you're broken, while you're messy, while you're repenting, while you're, you know, I'm I'm with you, I'm in line with you.

And when John baptizes him, he goes under the water, he rises up out of the water, and this is this is a beautiful imagery of what later would happen, because those same people who came to question John, they come and they question Jesus later on, and what they do is they put him in prison and they beat him, and then they crucify him.

And then he's put in the grave.

He's under.

And three days later he rises.

So the last question: what does this mean?

Well, it means when I come face to face with my sadness, when I come face to face with I am not, we can begin to see another source of life that says I am.

It's the true and everlasting source, the I am of the universe, and it means that I'm not everything I wish I was, I'm not everything that I wish I, I'm not even everything that I should be, but I'm more loved than I could ever imagine.

Because of the Messiah.

Because God came, He made his life amongst sinners, and he taught a different way.

And he died for us.

What am I not?

I'm not God.

What am I?

I'm me.

I'm created in the image of God, but I'm imperfect, I'm a bitten, narcissistic, and obsessive, I'm proud at times, I'm sad at other times.

I'm a voice.

That's what I am.

What is where's God?

He's in line with me, he's beside me.

And my brokenness, my frustration, my failure.

What does this mean?

Well, it means not, and it means yet.

See, freedom is in the not and the yet.

Slavery is in the not.

I am not, all these things.

Freedom is in the not and the yet.

I am not in control, yet I am loved by the one who is.

I'm not perfect, yet I am loved by God.

And I know this objectively in history.

Because he came.

And he died and he rose again.

It is certain.

Let's pray together.

God, we thank you for the gift of Jesus because we know I am not.

I'm not what I should be.

And God, we thank you that you come and you love us.

You give us your righteousness as we begin to believe in you.

And that you are you are our justification.

For existing, for mattering, for being righteous.

We have none other than you.

We have no hope other than you.

Pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen.