John's Prologue Talk 5

John the Baptist in John's Gospel

I wonder did you realise that Pierce Brosnan has been voted number ten in the list of actors with the most sex appeal of all time? He's been in Australia the last few days promoting The Thomas Crown Affair, his new movie. And they mentioned it while they were interviewing him on the Today show on Thursday morning. How does it feel, he was asked, to be the TENTH SEXIEST MOVIE STAR of all time?

He's the current James Bond as well; cool, handsome, suave, all those things. How does it feel to be the tenth sexiest movie star of all time? What would you say? I know what I'd say. Well, I'd rather be number 9. Or 8. Let's face it. I'd rather be NUMBER 1. Why not shoot for the TOP?

Because that's how we're WIRED isn't it? How we're conditioned. To think that if we're not more important than other people, if we're not successful, if we're not MAXIMISING OUR PERSONAL POTENTIAL, then we're nothing.

Pierce Brosnan, though, being the ultra cool guy that he is, was very suave. He might have THOUGHT to himself I'd rather be number 1. But he was very humble.

Well, this morning I want you to meet someone else. And I'd suggest to you he's the SECOND MOST significant man ever born. May not be quite as suave as Pierce Brosnan. And you'd never catch him in a suit and a bow tie. But the SECOND MOST SIGNIFICANT MAN ever born. And yet he's got NO AMBITION AT ALL… to push out NUMBER 1. Just the opposite.

It’s John the Baptist. A guy who was well placed to become sensationally popular, sensationally famous. When we meet him here, his CAREER IS ON THE RISE. And yet all he wants to do is talk about SOMEBODY ELSE. All he wants to do is shrink into the background so we're only looking at THE NUMBER ONE person. And that's JESUS.

You first meet John the Baptist here in verse 6. We've already been told something about Jesus. We've already been told Jesus is a WORD FROM GOD. We've already been told Jesus is the LIGHT, the light that brings LIFE. Now it's time to meet someone else. Follow from verse 6. There came a man who was sent from God. His name was JOHN. John the Baptist. And look what he's come for. "He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all men might believe. HE HIMSELF was not the light. He came only as a witness to the light."

It's an interesting thing, and we're going to see it a few times, the thing John the Baptist most often does is he says what he's NOT. And it's the same thing here. He's NOT THE LIGHT. Jesus is. He's not the important one. JESUS IS. All John wants to do is be a witness. Point him out. So that people will believe. IN JESUS.

You meet John again down in verse 15. And he's doing exactly the same thing. Saying DON'T LOOK AT ME! Look at him.

Now let me remind you. This guy John the Baptist, he's a real celebrity. He's got a reputation as a prophet. He's out in the wearing a camel skin thing with a big wide leather belt, he's eating locusts and honey, which probably isn't quite as good as the Honey Prawns down at the Chinese restaurant; but similar. And everywhere he goes, the people come out to hear him in their thousands. You can read about him in the other gospels sometime, in Matthew and Mark and Luke. They all talk about him. Because he's the biggest thing to happen in Israel for hundreds of years.

He's a rugged sort of bloke, John the Baptist. And the people are coming out to hear him. And he's telling them they need to change their attitude. To turn back to God. And be baptised in the river as a mark of their new start. Which is why he's called John THE BAPTIST, and not John the Presbyterian.

But again, will you notice the strange thing is he doesn't want people to take any notice of HIM. He wants them to watch SOMEONE ELSE. And you'll see what he's saying in verse 15. He's saying, "I'm nothing." John testifies concerning him, He cries out saying "This was he of whom I said, "He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me."

John's already got a big reputation. Jesus hasn't. John says I'm just the CURTAIN RAISER. He says, "It might seem like I was here first. But there's someone BIGGER. Someone who was way before me." By which he means the one who was WITH GOD IN THE BEGINNING. Jesus.

I don't know if you ever sit around daydreaming about where you were before you were. Our Susie being the youngest in the family always gets a bit offended when we're looking at family photos from before she was born. She says "Where's ME?" And she has trouble getting her mind around the fact that she wasn't anywhere. She wasn't even BORN YET.

Try it. I was born in 1959. So where was I in 1958? 57? Weird feeling even thinking about it!

Now I take it the big difference between us and Jesus at this point is that if you look back at verse 1, JESUS WAS THERE FROM THE BEGINNING. And we weren't. In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God and the word WAS GOD. He was WITH GOD IN THE BEGINNING. You and I weren't. We come into existence at a point in time. He was always there. Which is what John is talking about here. This one who's about to come along after me, he says, is GREATER THAN ME. Because he was there before me. He says, it looks like I WAS HERE FIRST. But I wasn't. HE WAS.

Now when we follow John the Baptist through the rest of John's gospel, you'll see he's there a lot in the first three chapters. And it's always the same. Don't look at ME. Look at HIM.

If you read on from verse 19 here in chapter 1 you'll see he gets a grilling from these Jews from head office in Jerusalem. The priests and the Levites have been sent to check him out. Verse 19, the prologue's over and it's into the story. And the story starts with John the Baptist. The Curtain Raiser.

And at every point, John's telling these Priests and Levites who he's NOT. They're full of their old testament prophecies about the Christ coming, about a great prophet coming, about Elijah coming back. And so they ask him who he is. And the answer John wants to give is, "Don't look at me! I'M A NOBODY."

Pick it up in verse 19. "Now this was John's testimony when the Jews of Jerusalem sent priests and Levites to ask him who he was. He did not fail to confess, but confessed freely, "I AM NOT THE CHRIST." They asked him, THEN WHO ARE YOU? Are you Elijah?

He said, "I am not."

Are you the PROPHET? No.

He says, Don't look at me… look where I'm POINTING.

These guys are tearing their hair out. And finally in exasperation they say, GIVE US A STRAIGHT ANSWER. Give us something to take back to those who sent us. WHAT DO YOU SAY ABOUT YOURSELF."

Which is exactly the point. John doesn't want to say ANYTHING about himself. He's there to announce somebody else. And John answers them with the words you can read back in Isaiah chapter 40 in the Old testament, a passage that's talking about the time the messiah's going to come. And there's going to be a voice crying out, GET READY. And verse 23, John says "All I am is a voice. A voice in the desert calling out MAKE STRAIGHT THE WAY FOR THE LORD."

Do you remember when Bill Clinton came to Queensland? A year or two back, a quick break up North. A bit of fishing and sunbaking. Did you know, just for Bill to drop in and go fishing like that, first of all the Protocol officers had to come and brief everyone about how to do it. And then the Personal Assistants had to come, and re-arrange the hotels he was staying in so everything would be just right. And when they worked out the roads Bill Clinton would be travelling on to go fishing, they actually repaired all the potholes and RESEALED THE ROADS. Preparing the way.

Now let me tell you, the teams who have come on ahead to get things ready, they're not that important. They're not celebrities at all. And my guess is they're not allowed to be. They don't even give interviews. They just get on and do the job. And that's exactly what John's doing. The voice of one calling in the desert, Make straight the way for the Lord. Because he's COMING.

Re seal the roads. Change your attitudes. Repent. And make straight the way for the LORD GOD. Who Isaiah promised was going to come. John wants people to see JESUS. And not him.

Same in verse 27. There's one standing among you, John says, who you don't know. He's talking about Jesus. He says "He's the one who comes after me, the thongs of whose sandals I'm not worth to untie." "I'm not even fit to polish his shoes."

And he's not just saying it. He means it. Turn over to chapter 3 verse 22. The next time we meet John the Baptist. He's out in the countryside in Judea, and Jesus is out there as well. John's baptising people on one side of the Jordan river. And Jesus is baptising people on the other. And gradually, more and more people are going to JESUS. Instead of to John.

They come to John in verse 26, and they say, "Hey John, that new guy's baptising over the other side of the river and everyone's going to him." And I guess they're expecting some sort of reaction out of John, that he's going to lose his cool, or get jealous. But look what he says. Chapter 3 verse 28. He says "It's exactly like I said." He says "I'm not the bridegroom. I'm just the best man. And I'm MEANT TO STAND ASIDE."

Read verse 29 and 30. He says "The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend who attends the bridegroom, the guy we call the best man, he waits and listens for him, and he's full of joy when he hears the bridegroom's voice. He's arriving for the wedding. "That joy is mine, and it's now complete. HE MUST BECOME GREATER - I MUST BECOME LESS."

It doesn't come naturally, does it? I mean, when you look at a group photo, who's the first person you look for? You look for YOU. Ever been looking at a photo like that, you find yourself in there and you've got that sort of half opened half closed eye look that makes you look like a criminal, and someone else in the photo says, GEE, That's a nice photo. Let me get a copy. And you want to say, AAAGH, you can't do that, I look TERRIBLE. But they haven't even looked at YOU in the photo at all. They only reckon it's a nice photo cause it's a nice photo of THEM.

We all the time put ourselves first. But John's very clear about it. JESUS COMES FIRST. And he's a distant LAST. And he's always said the same. He's watching his disciples wander off, the crowd's thinning, there's no one coming to him anymore; and he says, GREAT. That's exactly how it's meant to be.

JESUS THE LAMB OF GOD

John wanted his disciples to look at Jesus. And he wants us to look at Jesus as well. So I want to take a moment to do that. And to look back at the way John introduces him, the way John announces him at their first public meeting.

Back to chapter 1 again, and I want you to find verse 29. Because it's the big announcement. John the Baptist doesn't want us to look at John the Baptist. He wants us to look at Jesus. And what he wants us to see is there in chapter 1 verse 29.

Back in the Old Testament, God gave the nation of Israel a whole set of rituals. He spelled out exactly the way he wanted them to do their worship. And we've already seen a few weeks back, the rules are all there in the book of Leviticus in incredible detail. There was the temple. There were the priests. And day after day, there were the sacrifices.

It was all designed to teach the people of Israel about the seriousness of SIN. God is holy. God says the WAGES OF SIN IS DEATH. And time after time, just like us, every single Israelite SINNED. In the way they thought. In the things they said. In the things they did.

God said, WHEN YOU SIN, when you need to be cleansed from guilt, here's what you do. You get a lamb. Not the runt from the flock. The best. The most perfect. No black markings, no dirty patches, no defects.

I guess if you've seen new lambs jumping round a paddock, you know, you can't think of anything more innocent. GET THE LAMB. Pick it up, carry it down to the temple. Get in the line and wait your turn. It squirms around in your arms and you give it to the priest.

He says PUT YOUR HANDS ON ITS HEAD. And you do. And he probably says some words; about how this innocent lamb is about to take your guilt. And pay for it.

And he lays it down on the altar and it kicks around helplessly and he picks up the big knife with the blood stained blade - and he kills it.

Let me tell you, I'm glad I'm not a priest like that. Messy job. And it's an awful picture, isn't it. But I'll tell you one thing. Every time you did it, every time you brought your lamb to the sacrifice, you'd go home with a very vivid picture in your mind. A reminder that God takes sin very seriously. And that you're very, very lucky that YOU didn't get what you deserved. That there was a lamb there to fill in for you.

Can I take you back to the words of John the baptist. John 1 verse 29. "The next day John saw Jesus coming towards him, and said - look at what he says - BEHOLD THE LAMB OF GOD - who takes away the SIN OF THE WORLD."

He says here he is - the SACRIFICIAL LAMB. Provided by GOD. And that's what he's going to do. As you're reading John's gospel, as you watch the anger grow, as you watch the enemies closing in, as you watch Jesus crucified, YOU'VE BEEN ON NOTICE SINCE RIGHT HERE IN JOHN CHAPTER 1 - that that's what it's all about. A perfect sacrifice. For the sins of the world. Yours and mine. Behold the lamb of God - who takes away the sin of the world.

Funny, isn't it. We want to make ourselves FIRST. We want to be successful, we want to be rich, we want to be powerful. We read all the books, we take all the steps. John the Baptist wanted to be a NOBODY. Compared to Jesus. And JESUS wanted to be a SACRIFICE. To give up his life for sinners like you and me.

You know, it's nice to see every now and then a HIGH PROFILE CHRISTIAN. Successful. Public about their faith. Darren Beadman, the jockey. Evander Holyfield, the boxer. He said after he beat Mike Tyson, "If you trust God, you can do ANYTHING YOU WANT." Which may or may not be quite right. I don't think I'd do too well against Mike Tyson myself.

I wonder if we need to see that maybe Jesus is glorified more in our SERVICE. Than our success. You don't need to be in the limelight to point people towards Jesus. We can all do it. And we should be.

John the Baptist sticks it right under our noses, doesn't he. What we need to be on about is Jesus. What we need to be doing is not saying LOOK AT ME: it's saying LOOK AT JESUS. Pointing people to the LAMB OF GOD. Who came to deal with SIN once and for all. To deal with your GUILT. By dying as a sacrifice on a cross. With his absolute perfection. In absolute disgrace.

That's our message. Not us. But the lamb of God. Who takes away sin. Can you put your own glory aside? Your own success? Your own ambition? And glorify the lamb of God instead? Can you become less? So he becomes more?

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Let's sing about that with our final song - BEHOLD THE LAMB OF GOD.