Point Person

Would you like to be more effective in pointing other people to Christ? If we will learn from John the Baptist’s example and humbly apply the principles we see in him, God can and I believe will put us to greater use winning people to faith in Jesus Christ. With that in mind, let's look at John and his response to investigators sent to him by some religious leaders, who were curious about the attention he was getting.

6There came a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7He came as a witness, to testify about the Light, so that all might believe through him. 8He was not the Light, but he came to testify about the Light. 15John testified about Him and cried out, saying, "This was He of whom I said, 'He who comes after me has a higher rank than I, for He existed before me.'" 19This is the testimony of John, when the Jews sent to him priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, "Who are you?" 20And he confessed and did not deny, but confessed, “I am not the Christ." 21They asked him, "What then? Are you Elijah?" And he said, "I am not." "Are you the Prophet?" And he answered, "No." 22Then they said to him, "Who are you, so that we may give an answer to those who sent us? What do you say about yourself?" 23He said, "I am A VOICE OF ONE CRYING IN THE WILDERNESS, 'MAKE STRAIGHT THE WAY OF THE LORD,' as Isaiah the prophet said." 24Now they had been sent from the Pharisees. 25They asked him, and said to him, "Why then are you baptizing, if you are not the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?" 26John answered them saying, "I baptize in water, but among you stands One whom you do not know. 27"It is He who comes after me, the thong of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie." 28These things took place in Bethany beyond the Jordan, where John was baptizing. 29The next day he saw Jesus coming to him and said, "Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! 30This is He on behalf of whom I said, 'After me comes a Man who has a higher rank than I, for He existed before me.' 31I did not recognize Him, but so that He might be manifested to Israel, I came baptizing in water." 32John testified saying, "I have seen the Spirit descending as a dove out of heaven, and He remained upon Him. 33"I did not recognize Him, but He who sent me to baptize in water said to me, 'He upon whom you see the Spirit descending and remaining upon Him, this is the One who baptizes in the Holy Spirit.' 34"I myself have seen, and have testified that this is the Son of God."

God was drawing so many people to listen to John’s message that people were beginning to think he might be the long awaited Messiah. Even after Jesus’ ministry, there were still people who had to be moved from belief in John to belief in Jesus (Acts 19:1-5). I think that is at least part of what John, the human author of this Gospel, is doing here. He is reminding people that John the Baptizer himself said he was not the point of all the attention he received. His point was to point people to Christ. He was there to prepare the way for the Way and then get out of the way.

Let’s look at a few of the things that made John so effective. First, He was truly God-sent. "There came a man sent by God." John was keenly aware that God had called him and sent him out on mission. That same awareness is essential for anyone who wants to point people to Christ. As God’s ambassadors, we will feel the resistance of a gone-astray world, and we will feel tempted to compromise the Gospel that Jesus is the Way. He is not a way that is fine for me and maybe you will find some other way that will be your way one day. Jesus is God’s perfect Way to God and all other ways are deadly dead ends. Knowing that God has called us to Himself and sent us out in His service and that He is watching over us today and that we will answer to Him for our faithfulness on the Day helps keep us from compromise in the face of opposition and temptation. Awareness of God’s call is the first key to being an effective point person.

The next thing I notice about John is his awareness of God’s purposes. Look at his commitment to the role God had for him to play and how he found his identity in pursing God’s purposes - “He came as a witness…so all might believe through him...he came to testify...this is the Son of God.” His role (and ours) is that of a witness - not a prosecuting attorney and certainly not a judge. He is a witness on the world’s stage, and he does what witnesses do - He testifies. He literally tells the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help him God. I know its corny, but its accurate. Moving on - notice his testimony is out of personal experience. “I myself have seen and have testified.” You don’t need a theology degree to direct someone to Christ. You do need real life experience with Him and to be ready to share your story about His impact in your life.

Finally, let’s notice John’s awareness of God’s glory. John does not have a self-esteem problem and he is not feigning humility when he says that Jesus is One “the thong of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie.” True intimacy with God produces true humility in the one experiencing it. Bob Dole once said something like “Bob Dole grew up in Kansas and felt his smallness standing before the big wheat fields.” I am sure he said it better than that, but you may recall the speech to which I am referring. My point is this - if standing before an open field makes one aware of the relative measure of a man, how much more does standing before a holy God. In fact, you simply cannot stand before Him. All you can do in the gravity and brightness of His glory is bow low. When we truly feel God’s worth, we feel our relative unworthiness and in humbled gratitude we get to truly feel the genuine privilege of doing even the most menial services in His name.

So, aware of God’s call, God’s purposes, and God’s glory we boldly point everyone He brings our way off us and onto Christ - the Lamb of God, who alone can save them and who alone is truly worthy to be the center of everyone's attention.

One in the Son

"I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word; that they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me. The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me” - John 17:20-23.

The United States honors Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and the peaceful means he used to promote his dream of equality and unity each year with a holiday in his name on the third Monday of January. Since that is tomorrow, I thought today would be a good time to focus on Dr. King’s King, the ultimate peacemaker Jesus Christ, and His prayer for unity among believers. It is a blessing to know that shortly after Jesus had shared His last meal with His first followers, He prayed for you and me - specifically for us. After washing His first followers’ feet and transforming the Passover into the Lord’s Supper and just prior to heading to the Garden of Gethsemane on His way to the cross, He prayed for Himself, His disciples and everyone, including us, who would come to believe in Him through their word. As we examine His prayer and an excerpt from Paul to the Ephesians, let’s look at (1) what is requested, (2) what is at stake, and (3) what is required.

Jesus prays that everyone under the Son - that is everyone living under the saving protection and righteous reign of God’s Son - would live as one. First He prays that all of us would be one with God, just as He is one with His Father. Could the Father and Son have any more perfect communion? Could they be any more one? The Father is in the Son and the Son is in the Father. They are so completely united that we rightly say there is one and only one God, and Jesus requests that we might likewise be in Him and He in each of us, so that we all might enjoy true holy communion with God. Next He prays that all of us who are privileged to have such oneness with God will also be one with each other. Three times in this brief section He prays "may they all be one...that they may be one...that they may be perfected in unity.” There is no missing His heart for our unity here, and knowing this - how the lack of unity too often found within and between churches bearing His name (but not enough of His image) must break His heart. He wants and has provided everything we need to enjoy intimate fellowship with God and one another and the stakes could not be any higher.

God’s glory and people’s salvation are on the line. Jesus repeatedly states that unity between believers is vital because the credibility of the gospel hangs on it. He repeatedly prays for unity so that “the world may believe that You sent Me...that the world may know You sent Me and loved them.” It is no surprise the gospel of peace and reconciliation loses credibility when it comes through divided people. If the Great Physician can’t do any more healing than that for His bride why would any one else go to Him? The world has division and brokenness. What it lacks and longs for is unity and wholeness. Jesus prays we will become convincing evidence for God to present to the world to validate His claim to be the Savior of the World. This is a big reason Satan constantly sows discord between believers and attempts to keep our focus on superficial matters. The common bond we share is a spiritual reality at the core of our being, and we must dwell at that depth rather than the level of personal tastes and petty differences to enjoy the unity available to us in Christ. Jesus maintained His oneness with His Father through perfect humble submission, and His oneness was so complete that He could say that anyone who looked at Him could see the Father. Would that His church - His body, His bride - was so fully submitted to Him on this point that the world could truly see Christ revealed through us.

To more clearly see what this requires, let’s look at Ephesians 4:1-3:

“Therefore I, the prisoner of the Lord, implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing tolerance for one another in love, being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”

To help us have more than a 5-cent response to a priceless salvation, Paul calls us to diligently preserve our God-given unity. The unity is supernatural. Uniformity, which is usually what humans create, is superficial. See military haircuts and uniforms for an example. God's unity does not require such external conformity. God weaves together everyone from tattoo artists with pin cushion faces to yuppies with sweaters around their waists into one body of Christ. Preserving this unity requires the development of Christ’s character in us, which once developed makes Him all the more visible through us. For unity to be maintained we must grow in Christ’s humility (full of God’s Spirit instead of ourselves), in patience aka long-suffering (since there is no such thing as microwave maturity), in tolerance (this virtue’s reputation has been damaged by those using it to condone sin -we can reclaim it by properly employing it), in grace (take off our fault-finding glasses and put on fruit-finding ones) and above all in love. If we will do these things, prayerfully relying on God’s Spirit to empower us, the world will see that Jesus is the Way to God and the wholeness they lack. What a great answer to Jesus’ prayer that will be, and what a dream come true for Dr. King.

In the Flesh

“The true Light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth…For of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace. For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ. No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is at the Father’s side, He has made Him known.” – John 1:9-18

Last week a telescopic view of the universe helped us appreciate the grandeur of the eternal Word of God, who created and sustains it all. This week a microscopic view helps us appreciate the humility of God’s Word, who condescended to become a man. John’s Gospel may be the most helpful in grasping the theological significance of Jesus’ birth. “The Word was with God, and the Word was God...and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us!” In Jesus, Divinity and humanity exist in perfect indissoluble union. Jesus was not ‘faking it’ when He placed Himself into the limitations of human flesh. He got tired, sore, thirsty, hungry, tempted and everything else just like we do. Why? Let’s look at a few reasons.

The first and most obvious was to die. The One who is the Life could not pay the death penalty for us without first becoming one of us. The incarnation was a required step on Jesus’ journey to meet us where we all once lived spiritually, namely “dead in sin” Ephesians 2:1-5, which amazingly is exactly what He willingly became on the cross. Jesus went the distance to meet us at our horrible spiritual address, so He could take us to live with Him forever in paradise.

A second reason the eternal Son of God became a man was to express the fullness of His empathy with us. In Hebrews we read, “We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are” - Hebrews 4:15. I think God has always had perfect empathy with us, but now we know that He knows what it is like to feel the pull of temptation and pain of betrayal. When we experience rejection, we know we can go to One who has been there. “He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him.”

A third reason the Word became flesh and dwelt among us was to give us an example. If we built a building according to a poor model, the building would be less than it could and should be. Jesus went through all sorts of situations with all sorts of people to show us how it is done - to leave His people the perfect model on which to build the new lives He has given us.

So, let’s look at how to become a child of God and thus experience these and all the blessings that come with adoption into God’s eternal family. It is right in our text. Anyone who receives Christ receives the God-given right to become a true child of God. So how do we receive Christ? This and many other texts tell us that we receive Him by believing on Him. That is...we place our faith in the reality that God loves us enough to give His only begotten Son to pay for humanity’s sin by living a sinless life as a human (fulfilling the requirements of God’s Law in our place) and then offering Himself to God on a cruel Roman cross as an atonement for sin (enduring the penalty of breaking God's Law in our place). We must also trust the reality that God raised Jesus from the dead and that He is very much alive in heaven interceding for us even now. We believe Him to receive Him, and we receive Him to become children of God.

So, how does Biblical belief come about? Are we born into Christianity? According to this text and others, the answer is “no!” We can be born into nobility or poverty, but we cannot be naturally born into God’s family. Do we emotionally work up saving faith or will it into being volitionally? Again, our text says “no!” It is “not of blood nor of the will of flesh nor the will of man.” If neither our parents nor even our selves can generate it, where does saving faith come from? The answer is from God. Most people did not recognize that Jesus was the Christ in spite of the evidence. God repeatedly reveals that only He can overcome our spiritual blindness. The Bible goes on to say that we are not only spiritually blind - we are spiritually dead. Thankfully, God awakens us from spiritual death and gives us 'eyes to see' that we might turn to Christ. Think about our physical birth. We all experienced our birth, but none of us caused it. Likewise, we all participate in our spiritual birth (we cry out to Christ like we cried during physical birth), but like our first birth, we are not the source of our new birth - God is. He unites the seed of His Word and His Spirit in our hearts creating new life as we are born again, believe in Christ and become children of God!

This new life we receive as a gift from God is much more full and abundant than anything available through God’s Law. I love how God paints humanity pictures of His Gospel using people as His brushes and history as His canvas. For example, Moses was able to lead God’s people to the Promised Land, but he was not allowed to take them in. It was Joshua, (Yeshua -‘YHWH saves’) who followed Moses after living under his leadership, who took God's people into the Promised Land. Likewise, God’s Law given through Moses can lead us to the edge of receiving God’s promises but only Jesus (Yeshua), who followed Moses and lived under God's Law, can take us in to possess the fullness of God’s promises. "For of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace. For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ."

In the Beginning

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it”– John 1:1-5.

Science can help us grow spiritually by growing our appreciation of the dimensions of the universe that God created and sustains. Until the 1920s, the Milky Way was thought to be the entire universe, but now we realize there are billions of galaxies. The universe is incredibly wonderful, so how much more wonderful must be the One upon whose purpose and power it depends! The inner-geek in me also finds it interesting that when looking at telescopic images of distant galaxies, we are actually looking back in time, since those galaxies are light years away. That is where John’s account of Jesus’ life and ministry begins, not at His birth like the others, but all the way back before any stars or galaxies or any matter at all (for that matter) existed. Jesus’ story begins before the universe began.

“In the beginning…” is an obvious allusion to the Bible’s first four words “In the beginning God” and that is John’s point. Jesus is God, but it is not that simple. From the start, the Bible interchangeably uses singular and plural pronouns to talk about God. For example, in Genesis 1:26-27 we read, “Let Us make man in Our image...God created man in His own image...male & female He created them.” In our text the reason becomes increasingly clear. There is one & only one God, but He is & has always been a perfect community of sorts - a tri-unity or Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We see both the distinctness and unity of Father and Son in our text. The Word was with God (distinction) and the Word was God (union). John drives the message that Jesus is divine home by emphasizing that absolutely everything that exist was created through Jesus, the Word. John prefaced Jesus’ role in creation with the direct statement that the Word was God in case anyone might think the Word was God’s first created being through which He created the rest. No -The Word was God!

Let’s look a bit closer at the word ‘Word’ as it was understood by the original audience to which John was writing. The word he used was ‘logos’, and it was rich with meaning to Greeks and Jews alike. To the Greeks ‘logos’ meant something similar to divine or ultimate reason. Here is why. A philosopher named Heraclitus taught that we can “never step into the same river twice.” He meant that everything was completely dynamic - in a constant state of flux. When asked why then everything is not in a state of chaos, he replied that controlling the constantly changing universe was an unchanging divine mind or reason that he called ‘Logos’ - the Word. He had passed off the scene prior to John’s day but his teaching permeated the Roman Empire's Greek culture. To the Jews God’s Word was packed with meaning, since God had been communicating His written word to and through them for years. They understood God’s word to be absolutely authoritative and creative. They knew God’s word was concrete - a deed done. They knew Isaiah 55:11: “My word which leaves My mouth will not return empty without accomplishing what I desire.”

Like many, you may have thought our relationship with God seems one-sided: We pray. We sing. We obey. We worship. God is silent. That is false. Jesus, the Word, is the eternal revealer of God. God’s Word reveals God generally and indirectly through creation. Through this we can know His power. God’s Word reveals God specifically and directly through the Scriptures -1 Peter 1:10-11. Through this we can know His plans. God’s Word reveals God supremely & personally through His incarnation. Through this we can know His personality & heart. Jesus is like a window opened in time through which we can look back into eternity and know what God has always been like - Like Father...like Son. Does the Father hate sin? So does Jesus! Does Jesus love sinners? So does the Father!

We have talked about Jesus as Logos. Let’s look at Him as Life & Light. Life and light go together like death and darkness. Think about plants. I had a plant once that I gave a near death experience. It was a depressing season in my life, and I kept this hanging plant in the dark with me. After a kick start woke me up, I went to work on the plant. I removed all the withered death from it leaving only a sprig. I gave it plant food, water and light. Whichever direction I wanted to the plant to grow determined where I put the light, because life reaches for light. They go together, and in Jesus we see the perfect combination of the two. Life - the eternal, ongoing, vibrant life of God is the power source fueling the Light of the world. The powers of death and darkness are not as strong as the Life and Light which created all things, including those principalities which used their God-given freedom to corrupt themselves and the world. The principalities of darkness seek to keep truth hidden. Jesus brings Life to Light, and He has proven invincible by proving to be incorruptible. He came into a totally corrupt environment dominated by the devil, death and darkness and came out still spotless - shining bright. That's Good News! The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it!

The Gospel of John

Introduction:
The Gospel of John is the fourth book in the New Testament. Not surprisingly, this first-hand account of Jesus’ ministry written by one of His first and closest followers is one of the most beloved and revered books in all of Scripture.

It has many favorite texts, including the most widely known of all (thanks to the informal ‘sports fans with signs’ campaign) - John 3:16. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.” John’s account also contains many beloved stories, such as Nicodemus (Nick at Night) and the woman at the well, and it chronicles numerous miracles, both miracles of transformation (water into wine) and multiplication (thousands fed with a few loaves and fish) plus many more.

Additionally, John’s Gospel is one of the most theologically profound books in the Bible. Martin Luther once wrote, “Should a tyrant succeed in destroying the Holy Scriptures and only a single copy of the Epistle to the Romans and the Gospel according to John escape, Christianity would be saved.” So, this gospel is packed full of the nourishment a growing believer needs to mature spiritually, but it is also a great introduction for those who are just beginning to explore the claims of Christianity.

Some believe that Christianity is a call to blind faith. That is inaccurate. Biblical faith is sincerely placing your trust in God’s revealed truth based on an honest examination of evidence. That is why John wrote his Gospel - to provide the evidence people need to believe in Jesus Christ. As John said, “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 20:31.

Wherever you are in your faith journey, we pray and trust that God will bless you as we journey together through the magnificent Gospel of John!