1
00:00:00,460 --> 00:00:06,260
In chapter 1 of John, John the Baptist was talking with his disciples when he saw Jesus

2
00:00:06,260 --> 00:00:07,860
approaching him on the riverbank.

3
00:00:08,180 --> 00:00:13,900
And as he watched him draw near, John said, Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the

4
00:00:13,900 --> 00:00:14,880
sins of the world.

5
00:00:15,420 --> 00:00:19,320
Now why did John refer to Jesus as the Lamb of God?

6
00:00:19,660 --> 00:00:22,320
What are the implications of this particular term?

7
00:00:22,840 --> 00:00:24,920
That's the focus of today's study.

8
00:00:28,400 --> 00:00:31,580
Just a moment ago, I mentioned today is Palm Sunday.

9
00:00:31,680 --> 00:00:33,460
Now again, we call it Palm Sunday.

10
00:00:33,460 --> 00:00:36,000
If you had gone up to the people in the first century and said,

11
00:00:36,080 --> 00:00:37,360
hey, what do you think about Palm Sunday?

12
00:00:37,440 --> 00:00:38,500
What are you going to do on Palm Sunday?

13
00:00:38,600 --> 00:00:40,500
No one would have known what you're talking about.

14
00:00:40,860 --> 00:00:44,500
However, that's not to say that the day itself was not important.

15
00:00:44,640 --> 00:00:47,140
It was very important to the Jewish community.

16
00:00:47,520 --> 00:00:47,720
Why?

17
00:00:48,280 --> 00:00:51,440
Well, it was because, although it was not called Palm Sunday,

18
00:00:51,560 --> 00:00:55,920
it was referred to or thought of as Lamb Selection Day.

19
00:00:56,220 --> 00:00:57,280
Lamb Selection Day.

20
00:00:57,320 --> 00:00:58,160
Now what is that?

21
00:00:58,400 --> 00:01:02,340
Well, think about it. Jesus is going to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover.

22
00:01:02,800 --> 00:01:08,420
Now, the Passover itself was a commemoration of an event that had happened centuries earlier.

23
00:01:08,720 --> 00:01:14,380
The Passover celebration that they did every year was a commemoration of an event that occurred during the time of the Exodus.

24
00:01:14,380 --> 00:01:20,380
You remember Pharaoh was naughty. Pharaoh was restraining God's people. Pharaoh was oppressing God's people.

25
00:01:20,680 --> 00:01:27,560
God sent Moses and said, let my people go. Pharaoh said, no, not once, not twice, not thrice, but a countless times until,

26
00:01:27,860 --> 00:01:34,800
until, after a series of plagues came before it, God sent a final plague, the death of the firstborn.

27
00:01:35,080 --> 00:01:38,360
Now, if you remember, Pharaoh let the people go after the death of the firstborn,

28
00:01:38,460 --> 00:01:42,240
but the night of the death of the firstborn occurred something that we call the Passover.

29
00:01:42,680 --> 00:01:46,240
And what happened was this. God told his people what was coming.

30
00:01:46,620 --> 00:01:51,100
He says, if you want to survive it, when the angel of death comes through the land and claims the firstborn,

31
00:01:51,100 --> 00:01:54,200
here's what you've got to do. You've got to go find yourself a lamb.

32
00:01:54,600 --> 00:01:57,140
You have to find yourself a lamb, and it can't be just any lamb.

33
00:01:57,540 --> 00:01:59,860
It needs to be a perfect lamb.

34
00:01:59,960 --> 00:02:03,800
It needs to be an unblemished lamb, the best lamb that you can find.

35
00:02:03,900 --> 00:02:06,400
Now, when you find this lamb, don't break any of its bones,

36
00:02:06,740 --> 00:02:08,280
but when you find this lamb and you kill it,

37
00:02:08,320 --> 00:02:11,620
you take the blood from this lamb, and you go to your doorpost,

38
00:02:11,660 --> 00:02:13,400
you go to the lentils of your house,

39
00:02:13,400 --> 00:02:16,280
you take the blood of the lamb, and you mark.

40
00:02:16,700 --> 00:02:19,440
You mark your dwelling, you mark your door, you mark your house.

41
00:02:19,560 --> 00:02:23,280
And in marking your house, you will safeguard those who are inside.

42
00:02:24,020 --> 00:02:30,240
And the angel of death will pass over your home, even as he strikes others.

43
00:02:30,660 --> 00:02:32,840
So this was the Passover that occurred in the time of Exodus.

44
00:02:33,000 --> 00:02:37,880
And for centuries upon centuries upon centuries, God's people had been honoring and celebrating

45
00:02:37,880 --> 00:02:43,120
and remembering what God had done way back then, how God had rescued and delivered and

46
00:02:43,120 --> 00:02:49,120
redeemed his people from bondage to Pharaoh during the time of the Passover.

47
00:02:49,300 --> 00:02:52,200
So you have Jesus, he's going into town.

48
00:02:52,500 --> 00:02:56,280
And the day he marches in, the day with all the palm branches and the hosannas and everything else,

49
00:02:56,500 --> 00:02:59,820
that was Lamb Selection Day.

50
00:03:00,180 --> 00:03:04,360
In Jerusalem, the people were going around, they were looking for those best lambs they could find,

51
00:03:04,420 --> 00:03:06,280
the perfect, unblemished lambs.

52
00:03:06,560 --> 00:03:08,760
There was a whole cottage industry that had come up.

53
00:03:08,860 --> 00:03:12,660
The Sadducees and others would breed these lambs, and people, the pilgrims, would come on in,

54
00:03:12,700 --> 00:03:15,440
and they'd buy the lambs, and they'd sacrifice the lambs and the like.

55
00:03:15,440 --> 00:03:19,240
And in doing so, they would commemorate what God had done way back when.

56
00:03:19,640 --> 00:03:25,220
But the great irony, the great irony is that on the very day that they're doing that,

57
00:03:25,300 --> 00:03:29,100
on the very day when pilgrims are running around, they're buying lambs and finding the perfect lamb

58
00:03:29,100 --> 00:03:33,500
to sacrifice, to try to appease God, because that's their understanding of what it was.

59
00:03:33,500 --> 00:03:37,360
On the very day that they were doing that, trying to appease God by finding this lamb,

60
00:03:37,460 --> 00:03:39,800
sacrificing and hoping that God would find that sufficient,

61
00:03:40,180 --> 00:03:43,060
on the very day that they were trying to appease God through this means,

62
00:03:43,560 --> 00:03:45,380
God sent something better than appeasement.

63
00:03:45,740 --> 00:03:49,960
He sent a lamb, all right, but he sent the Lamb of God, and the Lamb of God didn't come to appease,

64
00:03:50,200 --> 00:03:55,700
but to atone. And as we're going to see this morning, atonement's way better than appeasement.

65
00:03:56,120 --> 00:04:02,160
Atonement's way more necessary than appeasement. So that's the context of what we call Palm Sunday.

66
00:04:02,460 --> 00:04:07,280
With that said, today we're not looking specifically at the text in which Jesus went

67
00:04:07,280 --> 00:04:11,640
into the city. Today we're looking at a different text. Today we're looking at a text that happens

68
00:04:11,640 --> 00:04:18,100
earlier in John 1. And the reason we're looking at this text in John 1 is because in this text

69
00:04:18,100 --> 00:04:24,420
in John 1, for the very first time, someone got it right. Someone looked at Jesus Christ and they

70
00:04:24,420 --> 00:04:29,140
saw that in Jesus Christ was the fulfillment of everything they had been doing for the Passover

71
00:04:29,140 --> 00:04:34,300
for centuries. In today's text, a man named John the Baptist is going to look down the riverbank

72
00:04:34,300 --> 00:04:38,320
and he's going to see Jesus Christ and he's going to call him something that no one else,

73
00:04:38,320 --> 00:04:44,720
none of his contemporaries had called him. He's going to refer to him as the Lamb of God. Why?

74
00:04:45,180 --> 00:04:51,280
Because he knew what the Lamb of God meant, and he knew how Jesus Christ would fulfill the shadows

75
00:04:51,280 --> 00:04:58,560
and types of the Old Testament. That's the context of today's passage. Let's look again at verses 19

76
00:04:58,560 --> 00:05:02,860
through 28, and then we'll just work our way through as time will allow this morning. Verse 19.

77
00:05:03,540 --> 00:05:08,480
Now this is the testimony of John, John the Baptist, when the Jews sent the priests and

78
00:05:08,480 --> 00:05:13,120
the Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, who are you? He confessed, and he didn't deny,

79
00:05:13,240 --> 00:05:17,460
but he confessed, I'm not the Christ. In other words, I'm not the Messiah, because some thought

80
00:05:17,460 --> 00:05:21,720
he was. And so they asked him, well, what then? Are you Elijah? He said, no, I'm not. Are you

81
00:05:21,720 --> 00:05:25,980
the prophet? He answered, no. And then they asked him, well, who are you that we may give an answer

82
00:05:25,980 --> 00:05:31,300
to those who have sent us? What do you say about yourself? What do you say about yourself? Let me

83
00:05:31,300 --> 00:05:35,320
stop there for just a moment. One of the things that's interesting when you think about John the

84
00:05:35,320 --> 00:05:42,080
Baptist is this. John the Baptist operated well outside the norms in Judaic society. John the

85
00:05:42,080 --> 00:05:47,220
Baptist was way outside the norms. John the Baptist was not schooled in their institutions. He wasn't

86
00:05:47,220 --> 00:05:51,660
raised in their synagogues. They couldn't say that the Pharisees and the Sanhedrin and others had

87
00:05:51,660 --> 00:05:55,980
anything to do with his development. He was literally from the wilderness, of the wilderness,

88
00:05:56,120 --> 00:06:01,100
and he acted like it to the point that they didn't even know who he was. He wasn't part of the system.

89
00:06:01,300 --> 00:06:07,320
so to speak, which is very important to realize because the system was broken. You see here in

90
00:06:07,320 --> 00:06:10,960
those first three verses, the Sanhedrin sends representatives, Pharisees and others to go to

91
00:06:10,960 --> 00:06:14,400
him and say, who are you? You're doing all this stuff. We're hearing all these tales. You're

92
00:06:14,400 --> 00:06:19,240
apparently baptizing thousands of people. Who are you? And the reason they didn't know him is

93
00:06:19,240 --> 00:06:24,480
because he was completely outside of the system, which should suggest to us that the system was

94
00:06:24,480 --> 00:06:30,260
broken. If you need a voice from the wilderness to come minister to you, it means something is

95
00:06:30,260 --> 00:06:34,680
broken in the city. If we need someone from the outside to breathe light and life to that which

96
00:06:34,680 --> 00:06:40,300
is inside, it means that that which is inside is spoiled. And that's the case. The Pharisees and

97
00:06:40,300 --> 00:06:45,860
the Sadducees and the scribes and the Sanhedrin, this was a cabal, a religious cabal. It had all

98
00:06:45,860 --> 00:06:50,300
the marks and hallmarks of religiosity. They had the tall pointy hats. They had the ceremonies.

99
00:06:50,420 --> 00:06:55,260
They had the priests. They had all that. And yet it was broken, absolutely broken. So they go to

100
00:06:55,260 --> 00:07:00,340
John the Baptist, and they say, who are you? We know all the power players that are supposed to

101
00:07:00,340 --> 00:07:04,800
be operating in town. I mean, we're the system. We know who the power players are, and you are

102
00:07:04,800 --> 00:07:09,760
operating with the power and authority that didn't come from us. Who are you? So that's what you see

103
00:07:09,760 --> 00:07:17,320
up there in verse 22 through 23. So his response, verse 23, he says, I'm the voice. I'm the voice

104
00:07:17,320 --> 00:07:23,020
of one crying in the wilderness. Make straight the way of the Lord, as the prophet Isaiah had said.

105
00:07:23,600 --> 00:07:26,200
He marries himself up to a prophecy in the book of Isaiah.

106
00:07:26,720 --> 00:07:28,820
Now, those who were sent were from the Pharisees,

107
00:07:28,940 --> 00:07:29,900
and they asked him, saying,

108
00:07:30,280 --> 00:07:32,380
Well, then why then do you baptize if you're not the Christ,

109
00:07:32,420 --> 00:07:33,680
you're not Elijah, you're not the prophet?

110
00:07:33,820 --> 00:07:34,980
And John answered them, saying,

111
00:07:35,340 --> 00:07:38,720
I baptize with water, but there stands one among you

112
00:07:38,720 --> 00:07:39,840
who you do not know.

113
00:07:40,080 --> 00:07:42,620
It's he who, coming after me, is performed before me,

114
00:07:42,980 --> 00:07:45,400
whose sandal strap I'm not worthy to loosen.

115
00:07:46,160 --> 00:07:48,180
These things were done in Beth Barah, beyond the Jordan,

116
00:07:48,180 --> 00:07:50,140
where John was baptized.

117
00:07:50,820 --> 00:07:55,180
All right, so these verses introduce us to John the Baptist.

118
00:07:55,400 --> 00:07:56,460
What do we know about John?

119
00:07:56,560 --> 00:07:58,260
Well, we know a few biographical details.

120
00:07:58,420 --> 00:08:00,640
He was the son of Zechariah and who?

121
00:08:01,520 --> 00:08:02,500
Zechariah and Elizabeth.

122
00:08:02,920 --> 00:08:04,540
Now, Zechariah and Elizabeth were pretty old.

123
00:08:04,640 --> 00:08:08,100
If you remember, it was a miracle at all that John the Baptist was born.

124
00:08:08,200 --> 00:08:10,600
With that said, he was not only born to Zechariah and Elizabeth,

125
00:08:10,600 --> 00:08:15,240
but he was also, as we understand it, a cousin, a cousin of who?

126
00:08:15,540 --> 00:08:17,280
Starts with a J, Jesus, right.

127
00:08:17,340 --> 00:08:19,740
So John the Baptist came from a family line.

128
00:08:19,920 --> 00:08:24,620
It was a priestly family line because his father was a priest, and yet he was also related to Jesus Christ.

129
00:08:24,700 --> 00:08:27,200
So we know that that's his biographical backstory.

130
00:08:27,340 --> 00:08:30,500
He was also a hairy guy who lives out and eats the locusts and all that.

131
00:08:30,680 --> 00:08:33,400
He's truly living as a wilderness man.

132
00:08:33,720 --> 00:08:36,100
With that said, he was the fulfillment of prophecies.

133
00:08:36,100 --> 00:08:41,120
This guy didn't just come on the stage out of the blue, but God had anticipated that this one would come.

134
00:08:41,420 --> 00:08:43,700
Now, a season of quietness had existed.

135
00:08:44,260 --> 00:08:48,600
If you look at the Old Testament and you flip to the New Testament, you go, all right, we've got Malachi and we've got Matthew.

136
00:08:48,720 --> 00:08:53,600
what happened in between? Because there's about 400 years. Well, in the world stage, a lot happened

137
00:08:53,600 --> 00:08:57,420
in between. There was all sorts of events and Joseph Maccabees and all sorts of interesting

138
00:08:57,420 --> 00:09:02,940
things that happened. And yet, prophetically speaking, nothing had happened. For 400 years

139
00:09:02,940 --> 00:09:07,500
between the Old Testament and the New Testament, nothing had happened. God hadn't spoken. And so,

140
00:09:07,660 --> 00:09:12,780
and so, all of a sudden, out of the blue comes this one, comes the first prophet that Israel

141
00:09:12,780 --> 00:09:18,900
has had in 400 years, and when they ask him his identity, he says, I'm one who was anticipated

142
00:09:18,900 --> 00:09:23,240
in the last book of the Old Testament. I'm one who was anticipated in Malachi. I'm one who was

143
00:09:23,240 --> 00:09:30,100
anticipated in Isaiah and elsewhere. I'm the voice that cries out in the wilderness, make straight

144
00:09:30,100 --> 00:09:35,520
the path of the Lord. I'm the one who precedes the one who is coming. Now, me and myself, I'm nobody.

145
00:09:35,800 --> 00:09:42,340
I am nobody. I am not even worthy to untie the shoelace, to do the sandal strap of the one who's

146
00:09:42,340 --> 00:09:47,000
coming that you should be paying attention to. I and myself am nothing. And for what it's worth,

147
00:09:47,080 --> 00:09:53,120
in that culture, anything that dealt with tending to other people's feet was the lowest. If you had

148
00:09:53,120 --> 00:09:58,080
the lowest, scurviest bondservant in your entire house that was given the lowest responsibilities,

149
00:09:58,340 --> 00:10:02,820
it was to deal with feet because feet were gross. They still are kind of gross, but they were very

150
00:10:02,820 --> 00:10:06,900
gross back then. You didn't mess with people's feet. So when Jesus washed feet, that's why it

151
00:10:06,900 --> 00:10:12,120
was stood out so much. Well, John says, I'm not even worthy to be the guy, to be the lowest guy

152
00:10:12,120 --> 00:10:17,600
on the ladder, the lowest guy on the totem pole, to be one who even messes with the sandals of the

153
00:10:17,600 --> 00:10:22,600
guy who is coming, of the guy who is greater than me and yet who precedes me. Notice how he says

154
00:10:22,600 --> 00:10:27,620
that. He's greater than me and I was born before him, which he was, but yet he preceded me because

155
00:10:27,620 --> 00:10:34,820
he comes from eternity. So John the Baptist identifies himself as the one that precedes

156
00:10:34,820 --> 00:10:39,660
the one. That's his answer there in those verses. All right, let's look at verses 29 through 31.

157
00:10:39,660 --> 00:10:47,940
Verse 29, now the next day John saw Jesus coming toward him, and he said, behold, the Lamb of God

158
00:10:47,940 --> 00:10:55,180
who takes away the sin of the world. This is he of whom I said, after me comes a man who is preferred

159
00:10:55,180 --> 00:11:01,340
before me, for he was before me. You see that? See how that works? I did not know him, but that he

160
00:11:01,340 --> 00:11:07,500
should be revealed to Israel, therefore I came baptizing with water. All right, so verse 29,

161
00:11:07,500 --> 00:11:12,400
John is busy baptizing. He's been baptizing for a while. People have come to him and they've had

162
00:11:12,400 --> 00:11:17,040
broken hearts and they need to repent and so he baptizes them and he's been doing this at some

163
00:11:17,040 --> 00:11:22,920
length. Now this is not a normal baptism. At that time, the only baptism that they really knew in

164
00:11:22,920 --> 00:11:26,700
the Old Testament leading up to the time of Jesus was something called proselyte baptism.

165
00:11:27,380 --> 00:11:33,080
Proselyte baptism is what happened when you had a convert from Moab or from Canaan or from somewhere

166
00:11:33,080 --> 00:11:39,160
else that God had enfolded into the Jewish faith community. And in order to go from Moab or what

167
00:11:39,160 --> 00:11:44,580
have you into Israel, you underwent proselyte baptism, which was the immersion, the washing

168
00:11:44,580 --> 00:11:49,300
with water to wash away your evils and your sins and the taints of your pagan nation and the like.

169
00:11:49,580 --> 00:11:55,480
So proselytes came to Judaism through this action of proselyte baptism. And some think that that's

170
00:11:55,480 --> 00:12:00,020
maybe what John was doing, but that's not what he was doing. That's not the case. John was doing

171
00:12:00,020 --> 00:12:04,200
something different. John was doing something that they hadn't really experienced and didn't

172
00:12:04,200 --> 00:12:09,340
really have a keen understanding of. People were coming to him in repentance of their sins,

173
00:12:09,440 --> 00:12:13,540
hearing him preach because he could speak like none other. Remember, Jesus would talk about John

174
00:12:13,540 --> 00:12:17,340
the Baptist and say, this is the greatest man ever born up until that time. Greatest of all,

175
00:12:17,440 --> 00:12:22,300
born of women. He was a great speaker. He spoke. He preached. He turned the hearts of the children

176
00:12:22,300 --> 00:12:27,420
to their fathers. He turned the hearts of people to their God. And when he did so, their response

177
00:12:27,420 --> 00:12:33,360
was to repent and say, I've got this all wrong. I have sinned. I've sinned. I shouldn't be as

178
00:12:33,360 --> 00:12:37,440
worried about Rome and the centurions and all the things of this world. I should be worried about

179
00:12:37,440 --> 00:12:41,840
the sin of my own heart. I should be worried that I've offended a king greater than me. I should be

180
00:12:41,840 --> 00:12:47,600
worried that in the eyes of God, I am a rebel. I repent. And they underwent this baptism of

181
00:12:47,600 --> 00:12:52,680
repentance. And what's fascinating was, unlike proselyte baptism, proselyte baptism involved

182
00:12:52,680 --> 00:12:57,180
people from Moab and Philistine and Canaan and the like coming to Israel to be baptized. But

183
00:12:57,180 --> 00:13:04,260
unlike proselyte baptism, this baptism that John was doing included the Jews. You understand that

184
00:13:04,260 --> 00:13:08,740
Jews were coming to be baptized. That was not the norm. It was the foreigners that should be

185
00:13:08,740 --> 00:13:14,520
baptized. For a Jew to undergo this baptism was a sign of tremendous humility and also tremendous

186
00:13:14,520 --> 00:13:20,380
repentance. And so many came to him with hearts of repentance, but not everybody. Some came to him

187
00:13:20,380 --> 00:13:25,100
just to check him out and say, what is going on here? And that's what the Sanhedrin was doing.

188
00:13:25,320 --> 00:13:29,280
That was the Jewish council at the time. They sent their people to go and to find out what's

189
00:13:29,280 --> 00:13:34,840
the deal, what's going on, who is this guy? So he's preaching this repentance. Some are coming

190
00:13:34,840 --> 00:13:39,160
to him with the right reason. Some are coming to him with the wrong reason. With that said,

191
00:13:39,560 --> 00:13:45,960
someone else, someone else came to him that day in verse 29. Not the usual folks that had come

192
00:13:45,960 --> 00:13:51,480
to be baptized, and not the Pharisees and the scribes, but in verse 29, we see that Jesus comes

193
00:13:51,480 --> 00:13:57,940
to John. Jesus comes to John the Baptist, and John the Baptist's response to seeing him

194
00:13:57,940 --> 00:14:04,760
is to say, behold, behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.

195
00:14:05,860 --> 00:14:10,200
Now, that's a fascinating phrase, because you have to understand, in the sacrificial system

196
00:14:10,200 --> 00:14:15,340
of Old Testament Israel, in the sacrificial system of John's day, they didn't sacrifice lambs.

197
00:14:15,340 --> 00:14:19,740
they would sacrifice the ox and the bulls and the goats and the like. They didn't necessarily

198
00:14:19,740 --> 00:14:24,780
sacrifice lambs. So why did he say lamb here? Why didn't he say there comes the ox, the goat,

199
00:14:24,880 --> 00:14:29,320
the bull, the what have you of God? Why did he say lamb? Well, the reason he said lamb is because he

200
00:14:29,320 --> 00:14:34,860
knew his Bible. He knew the Old Testament and he knew what the Passover pointed to. He knew it.

201
00:14:34,860 --> 00:14:39,460
He knew it. He knew it. He knew it. That the Passover lamb, that the Passover lamb that

202
00:14:39,460 --> 00:14:44,200
they've been sacrificing literally for centuries up to that point had been intended to point forward

203
00:14:44,200 --> 00:14:48,780
to the guy who was coming down the riverbank. These lambs and goats are never going to save

204
00:14:48,780 --> 00:14:52,560
anybody. You could slay lambs and goats up to the rafters, and you're not going to be saved because

205
00:14:52,560 --> 00:14:57,900
a bunch of animals died. But you are going to be saved if the Son of God comes down, takes your

206
00:14:57,900 --> 00:15:03,060
sin upon him, and dies in your place. That's the means of salvation. And when John looks down the

207
00:15:03,060 --> 00:15:09,920
riverbank, he sees the Lamb. Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.

208
00:15:10,620 --> 00:15:12,060
He understood him correctly.

209
00:15:12,160 --> 00:15:13,540
That's what makes John stand out here.

210
00:15:13,600 --> 00:15:15,740
No one else got Jesus, especially early on.

211
00:15:15,780 --> 00:15:17,540
Even when he's sitting there doing all the miracles

212
00:15:17,540 --> 00:15:20,480
and on the road to Jerusalem to die with the palm branches,

213
00:15:20,580 --> 00:15:21,720
they didn't necessarily see him right.

214
00:15:21,780 --> 00:15:23,520
But John got it right from the get-go.

215
00:15:24,280 --> 00:15:25,640
John got it right early on.

216
00:15:25,720 --> 00:15:27,040
He knew who this Jesus was.

217
00:15:27,120 --> 00:15:28,160
Let me stop and ask a question.

218
00:15:28,560 --> 00:15:30,720
Do you know who this Jesus is?

219
00:15:31,380 --> 00:15:33,160
You know, the culture we're in,

220
00:15:34,080 --> 00:15:36,580
the culture we're in, let's say they assume there is a God.

221
00:15:36,980 --> 00:15:37,740
I think they do.

222
00:15:37,860 --> 00:15:42,480
I think the culture around us basically generally understands and accepts the idea that there is a God.

223
00:15:42,560 --> 00:15:46,140
Now, there are some agnostics and atheists who would deny who God is and the like.

224
00:15:46,320 --> 00:15:50,860
But generally speaking, we would say that most of the people in the culture around us understand there's a God.

225
00:15:50,860 --> 00:15:55,180
So then the next question is, how do you get right with this God if you've offended him?

226
00:15:55,280 --> 00:15:59,240
If there is a God who made you and formed you and you broke his laws and you broke his rules,

227
00:15:59,320 --> 00:16:00,600
then how do you get right with him?

228
00:16:01,320 --> 00:16:04,860
Well, the culture around us would say through appeasement.

229
00:16:05,660 --> 00:16:06,640
Remember we mentioned that earlier.

230
00:16:07,180 --> 00:16:11,760
The culture on us would say this, all right, let's say that God exists, and let's say I have done

231
00:16:11,760 --> 00:16:15,760
something wrong, because most people acknowledge they've done something wrong. In order to address

232
00:16:15,760 --> 00:16:21,080
that, they'll say, well, I just have to do enough that's right, okay? I did something wrong. In fact,

233
00:16:21,100 --> 00:16:26,160
I did a number of things wrong. I grant that. I own that. I'm a sinner, okay? But the way I'm

234
00:16:26,160 --> 00:16:30,220
going to deal with that is I'm going to do more things right than I did wrong. In the eyes of God,

235
00:16:30,220 --> 00:16:35,440
I will have appeased his wrath by doing all these things, you know, holding old lady's hands across

236
00:16:35,440 --> 00:16:39,800
the street. I won't kick my dog. I'll be nice to folks. I'll smile big. I'll do this stuff that

237
00:16:39,800 --> 00:16:44,940
people want me to do. And as I do that, then God also will be pleased. I'll appease his wrath. I'll

238
00:16:44,940 --> 00:16:50,200
satisfy him by bowing and scraping just enough. You know the reason the church is going to be

239
00:16:50,200 --> 00:16:57,120
full next week? You know why? It's appeasement. It's appeasement because people will come once

240
00:16:57,120 --> 00:17:03,300
or twice a year and they'll say, aha, aha, I did it. I did it. I came in. I was there. God,

241
00:17:03,300 --> 00:17:08,000
you saw me. I was here. Sure, I won't be there next week. Sure, I won't be there the other weeks.

242
00:17:08,160 --> 00:17:13,860
You know, sure, I don't live accordingly, but I did just enough. I can appease God by doing just

243
00:17:13,860 --> 00:17:21,900
enough that he'll let it all slide. Wrong! Dear heavens, one sin, one sin which functionally

244
00:17:21,900 --> 00:17:26,520
involved biting into a piece of fruit, one sin in the garden was enough to cast the entire created

245
00:17:26,520 --> 00:17:33,500
realm into chaos. One sin brought about death. One sin brought about judgment. One sin was the

246
00:17:33,500 --> 00:17:38,520
causation by which Adam and Eve were evicted from the garden. You've sinned a million times,

247
00:17:38,580 --> 00:17:43,820
more times than you can count if you were given time to count them. You think, you think that you

248
00:17:43,820 --> 00:17:48,260
can appease God by showing up in church once or twice a year? You think you could show up to church

249
00:17:48,260 --> 00:17:53,140
a thousand times a year, every day three times? You think you can appease God by doing things?

250
00:17:53,560 --> 00:17:58,900
No. Your salvation does not hinge on being here once a year, and it doesn't hinge on being here

251
00:17:58,900 --> 00:18:03,920
10,000 times a year if such a thing were possible. It does not hinge on the things you do as if you

252
00:18:03,920 --> 00:18:12,180
can appease God and make him happy. Your salvation hinges on your faith that one has come and paid

253
00:18:12,180 --> 00:18:20,300
the debt that you were due. Your salvation hinges on this idea that the Lamb of God came, and on

254
00:18:20,300 --> 00:18:26,000
Calvary, your sins were placed upon him, imputed to him. The things that you were done wrong were

255
00:18:26,000 --> 00:18:33,340
placed upon him, and in a very real sense, God judged him instead of you. The wages of sin is

256
00:18:33,340 --> 00:18:40,280
death. If a man has sinned, a man must die. On Calvary, that's just what happened. On Calvary,

257
00:18:40,400 --> 00:18:47,360
the lamb was slain. On Calvary, Jesus Christ, through substitutionary atonement, stepped into

258
00:18:47,360 --> 00:18:52,800
the law place and the wrath of God that was due to you came down on him instead. Now I get it,

259
00:18:52,840 --> 00:18:57,700
that's not a popular concept because it takes our works and says our works are not the foundation

260
00:18:57,700 --> 00:19:03,240
of our faith. I can't appease God. It takes our faith and elevates it to a level a lot of folks

261
00:19:03,240 --> 00:19:07,560
just aren't that comfortable with. And yet that's the singular means of our hope. We are saved not

262
00:19:07,560 --> 00:19:11,760
through our works, not through appeasing God, but through the atonement of Jesus Christ on our

263
00:19:11,760 --> 00:19:16,940
behalf. He died so that we don't have to. He suffered the wrath of God so we don't have to.

264
00:19:16,940 --> 00:19:22,620
We will not die a spiritual death because Jesus Christ has paid our penalty. So when John the

265
00:19:22,620 --> 00:19:26,560
Baptist sees him approaching and says, behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world,

266
00:19:26,700 --> 00:19:30,900
he knew what he was talking about. All right, let's look at verses 32 through 37.

267
00:19:31,440 --> 00:19:36,340
John bore witness saying, I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and he

268
00:19:36,340 --> 00:19:40,680
remained upon him. I did not know him, but he who sent me to baptize with water said to me,

269
00:19:40,680 --> 00:19:46,300
upon whom you see the Spirit descending and remaining upon him, this is he who baptizes

270
00:19:46,300 --> 00:19:52,740
with the Holy Spirit. And I've seen and testified that this is the Son of God. And again, the next

271
00:19:52,740 --> 00:19:57,380
day John stood with two of his disciples, and looking at Jesus as he walked, he said, Behold,

272
00:19:57,660 --> 00:20:01,960
the Lamb of God. He says it again here. Then the two disciples heard him speak, and they went

273
00:20:01,960 --> 00:20:08,760
and followed Jesus. All right, in verses 32 through 37, John's referring back to Christ's

274
00:20:08,760 --> 00:20:13,380
baptism, which you'll find in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. You see John is talking about the baptism

275
00:20:13,380 --> 00:20:18,160
that Jesus underwent. Remember, Jesus goes to John the Baptist to be baptized. And at first,

276
00:20:18,220 --> 00:20:23,140
John the Baptist says, no way. We should reverse roles here. You baptize me. It shouldn't be me

277
00:20:23,140 --> 00:20:28,540
baptizing you. But Jesus says, let's do this to fulfill all righteousness because Jesus came to

278
00:20:28,540 --> 00:20:31,600
live the life that we should have lived, do all the things that we should have done. So he says,

279
00:20:31,700 --> 00:20:36,720
let's do it. Let's get it done. So John baptizes Jesus there in the Jordan. At the moment that

280
00:20:36,720 --> 00:20:44,700
John baptizes Jesus, a voice is heard from heaven. What does it say? This is my son in whom I am

281
00:20:44,700 --> 00:20:51,620
well pleased. This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased, and the spirit alighted like a dove.

282
00:20:51,820 --> 00:20:55,200
We don't know that it was actually a dove. It was like a dove. Whatever it is came down

283
00:20:55,200 --> 00:21:01,340
like a dove upon Jesus, and the father's voice is heard. The spirit comes down. If you were sitting

284
00:21:01,340 --> 00:21:05,140
on a hillside watching all this, watching Jesus be baptized, it was one of the coolest things,

285
00:21:05,140 --> 00:21:09,640
because in that moment, you could have sensibly detected all three persons of the Trinity.

286
00:21:10,040 --> 00:21:14,100
At that moment, you could have sat there and watched Jesus the Son being baptized. You could

287
00:21:14,100 --> 00:21:17,420
have seen the Spirit coming down like a dove descending upon him, and you could have heard

288
00:21:17,420 --> 00:21:23,060
the Father's voice. The three persons of the Trinity were all sensibly perceived at that very

289
00:21:23,060 --> 00:21:29,440
moment. What a cool thing that would be. Well, John says, I was there. I saw this. I heard this.

290
00:21:29,440 --> 00:21:37,500
this is the one this is the lamb of God who comes to take away the sin of the world so he says it

291
00:21:37,500 --> 00:21:43,980
more than once on different days and what's very fascinating here if you look at verse 36 he has

292
00:21:43,980 --> 00:21:48,820
disciples with him and they looked at Jesus as he walked and John says behold the lamb of God and

293
00:21:48,820 --> 00:21:55,360
the two disciples heard him speak and then they followed Jesus look at him John says listen to him

294
00:21:55,360 --> 00:22:00,600
when they heard him speak, John says, and then follow him. That's the model. What these two

295
00:22:00,600 --> 00:22:06,720
disciples did is what we're called to do. We look at him, we listen to him, and we follow him. And

296
00:22:06,720 --> 00:22:12,340
every good pastor says the exact same thing. Behold the Lamb. The job of the pastor, of the

297
00:22:12,340 --> 00:22:16,900
prophet, of the priest, the job of the apostles, the job of the epistles, the job of all these

298
00:22:16,900 --> 00:22:23,660
things was to say, behold the Lamb, to point to Jesus Christ with clarity that others would look

299
00:22:23,660 --> 00:22:29,780
at him, others would listen to him, and that others would follow. All right, let me close with this

300
00:22:29,780 --> 00:22:36,960
thought. Charles Spurgeon, the Prince of Preachers, he once said something that is striking, especially

301
00:22:36,960 --> 00:22:42,000
in my vocation, but he said this. He said, the preacher's primary business, primary business

302
00:22:42,000 --> 00:22:49,880
above all else, is to declare, behold, the Lamb. Now, he goes on to say, he says this, he says,

303
00:22:49,880 --> 00:22:54,680
if John the Baptist had preached repentance, even if he had been the most earnest disclaimer

304
00:22:54,680 --> 00:23:00,800
against the sins of his time, he would nevertheless have missed his life's work if he had forgotten to

305
00:23:00,800 --> 00:23:10,400
say, behold, the Lamb of God. You see, the gospel, in order for it to be well-rounded, has two parts.

306
00:23:10,540 --> 00:23:16,560
The first part is to preach repentance. The first part is to remind a fallen world that we are

307
00:23:16,560 --> 00:23:20,980
sinners and the wages of sin is death. So it's good to do that. It's important to do that. If

308
00:23:20,980 --> 00:23:25,180
you don't do that, then no one will understand why they need a savior. If you don't explain how

309
00:23:25,180 --> 00:23:29,600
Jesus came to save sinners, if you don't explain why sin is bad and why it's deadly, if you don't

310
00:23:29,600 --> 00:23:33,200
explain that part of it, then they won't look at Jesus as something that they want or something

311
00:23:33,200 --> 00:23:37,960
that they need. So you need to preach repentance. But Spurgeon said if John the Baptist had just

312
00:23:37,960 --> 00:23:41,840
shown up and just preached repentance and baptized in repentance and the like, that wouldn't have

313
00:23:41,840 --> 00:23:47,480
been enough. If he'd given his whole life's work, that wouldn't have been sufficient. He needed to

314
00:23:47,480 --> 00:23:53,280
be able to say, behold the Lamb of God. Churches can get caught up declaring a lot of things.

315
00:23:54,500 --> 00:23:58,920
Churches, pastors, ministers can get caught up declaring a lot of things, and many of them are

316
00:23:58,920 --> 00:24:05,860
very important. You need encouragement, being equipped with what this word says on marriage,

317
00:24:05,980 --> 00:24:10,840
on parenting. You need what this word says on any manner of things that touch upon your life.

318
00:24:11,360 --> 00:24:14,580
And the church should declare these things to you.

319
00:24:15,180 --> 00:24:21,680
And yet, the peak, the primacy, the focus, the apex of the church's ministry, the pastor's ministry,

320
00:24:21,680 --> 00:24:25,780
this microphone and the like, is to bring it close and say,

321
00:24:25,880 --> 00:24:30,080
Behold the Lamb, to point to the person and work of Jesus Christ.

322
00:24:30,160 --> 00:24:32,420
This morning, I trust we've done it in some small way.

323
00:24:32,900 --> 00:24:36,160
This morning, if you're visiting, I hope you'll come back on Easter next week

324
00:24:36,160 --> 00:24:38,940
as we expand on all of this in greater detail.

325
00:24:39,220 --> 00:24:39,620
Let's pray.