Follow Me

We are in the Gospel of John, this story of Amazing Love. Now in seminary you are told to start every sermon with an introduction that kind of grabs your attention and then moves into the message. Can I ask you a question, “Do I have your attention?” Good, that was the introduction.We have lots to cover this morning so we are going to jump right into it. Last week was part one of the story of John the Baptist. We tried to overcome the unfortunate impression that many of us have: that because John wore camel skins and ate grasshoppers, he was a lunatic. He wasn’t a mad man. John the Baptist was an Old Testament prophet. And specifically he was the prophet identified in Isaiah chapter 40, the forerunner of the Lord. Jesus said that among those born of women, none is greater than John the Baptist. That’s a pretty high compliment. This is no mad man. Here we have a guy of towering character whose Spirit-filled integrity explodes off the pages of the Scriptures. We have a man who, according to the narrative, never performed a miracle, and yet, thousands were attracted to his character and message. How is that? What in particular was so attractive?To really understand why the ministry of John the baptist was so alluring, we need to do the work of harmonizing the four gospels. In fact, if we don’t do this work we are going to miss out on a ton of what John has to say. So let’s begin today by reviewing what we’ve already said and then fill in a few details that we didn’t have time to address last week.Last week we told the story of the circumstances surrounding the birth of John the Baptist and the temple adventure experienced by Zacharias, how he was visited by the angel Gabriel, how he was struck mute for his disbelief, and how the people of Judea marveled at the events attending the birth of John the Baptist. This series of events was significant by virtue of the fact that this revelation broke the 400 years of silence of the inner-testamental period. The heavens finally speak again. It generated a great deal of excitement. That’s all clear enough in terms of chronology but it gets a little more tricky how the chronology fits together as John the baptist begins his ministry, 30 years later. So let’s put it all together in one spot in our minds.John Baptizes in the Jordan RiverJohn begins his ministry baptizing in the Jordan Rift, right where the Jordan River meets the Dead Sea. His message was simple: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” And if you identify with the message that the Kingdom of God is at hand, which of course means that you welcome the King of the Kingdom, well, then be baptized.John preached that message with absolutely compelling zeal and conviction. I was browsing in the book of Amos this week and I ran across this passage. Amos is speaking about what it’s like to be a prophet who has heard a message from God.John had heard as it were, the lion roar. He had a message from God and it was his job to deliver it. People were wildly attracted to the message. Think about it. John had no marketing team, no team of social media experts who know how to appeal to culture, he’s got no funding, he’s not attractive. The only thing he had was a message. In fact, about a year later, Jesus remarks on this fact, asking the people to reflect back on this baptism event.You went out to see the forerunner of Messiah. John, as a prophet, was the voice of the lion - and people could tell. And what was this prophets message? You have learned that before you approach God you must become clean; but I say to you, you are to get clean not because you are about to approach God; God is about to approach you. The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Your king is coming.And so John ran his plow through the hearts of the people of Israel to prepare the nation to receive her king. Now to put a fine point on this, it’s interesting that later on in that same narrative it says:Luke makes the Baptism of John an index of how receptive people were to Jesus. So hopefully you are starting to see that the ministry of John was a preparatory ministry that created the right heart conditions for people to accept Jesus? Now John’s popularity grows to the point that many of the religious leaders come down to visit and see what is going on.John Confronts with His MessageNow John calls out their hypocrisy. He openly condemns the Pharisees and Sadducees. “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? The ax is laid at the root. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down.” He tells the soldiers to be content with their wages. He says, if you have two tunics, give one away. As his popularity and fame grew Luke records that some were asking, “Maybe John the Baptist is the Christ.” And John says, “I baptize with water. One is coming who will baptize with fire and he will consume in judgment all those who are not part of his kingdom.” Now eventually the One of whom he speaks does come. So the next event that happens is the baptism of Jesus.Baptism of Jesus by JohnUp to this point, Jesus has been quietly living in Nazareth. Put yourself in Jesus shoes at this moment. His public ministry has not yet begun. He is a carpenter in Nazareth. He’s a tradesman. He’s making tables for people. He’s got orders in. God had not yet called him into public ministry. He’s living in submission to his parents. He hears that this second cousin of his is Baptizing and if you believe that the kingdom of heaven is at hand, then you need to submit in baptism.So why is Jesus going down to the Jordan? Ask yourself the greater question. Why did Jesus obey anything the Old Testament demanded of a Jew? Why did Jesus go to the temple every year for the feast of weeks, the feast of booths, or passover? Why did he go to Synagogue every week? Because that’s what every faithful Jew did. He was just submitting to what it meant to be a faithful follower of YHWH. I think Jesus’ motivation for going to the baptism was no more complicated than that. So Jesus, wanting to be faithful to the cultural expressions of kingdom hope, descends into the Jordan rift to be baptized.Jesus shows up on the scene. Now the text says very explicitly, twice, that John never met Jesus. If he had never met Jesus how does John identify him? It could be as simple as Jesus just told him and that detail is not recorded for us. But the text reads as though it was a dramatic revelation to John himself. Let’s remember this, John was filled with the Holy Spirit from conception and when John was six months in his mother Elizabeth’s womb, he recognized the Messiah. You remember when Mary came to see Elizabeth before Mary could utter word, John the Baptist was leaping for joy inside his mother’s womb. So we can certainly insinuate some Spirit-enabled insight that John had to recognize Messiah.Why Does John Baptize Jesus?Jesus asks John to baptize him and he argues. “I shouldn’t baptize you, you should baptize me.” Jesus says, “No, permit it at this time to fulfill all righteousness.” What is meant by that? We ended last week by asking this question. The big misconception we have in our mind is that by being baptized it was somehow a confession of sin. And we think to ourselves, “Jesus didn’t have anything he needed to repent of, right? So why be baptized?” The misconception is that the baptism itself cleansed a person from sin. But note, what made you a candidate for baptism, was repentance. So presumably, if you had nothing to repent of, you’d also be a candidate for baptism. Keep in mind that even the concept of ritual mikvah cleansing required you to be clean prior to dipping yourself. Think about how we take communion. We come to communion in the same way. We are not to take it in an unworthy manner, meaning, in an unrepentant sort of way. We must repent first. When we take communion we recognize that communion doesn’t remove sin; rather it reminds us of the provision already given for the removal of sin.Similarly, John’s baptism, much like every other ritual act commanded by God, was a pointer to something greater. Do you think Jesus just stood watching as his father offered the sacrificial lamb on passover? “Yeah, I don’t need that. I’m sinless.” No, we know that is not correct. Jesus celebrated the passover with his disciples in the upper room the night before he died. Jesus didn’t need a passover lambs; he was the passover lamb. So why participate in it? Because as Jesus himself says, “I came not to destroy the law but to fulfill it.”Let me give you an example, in a couple months Lisa and I will be celebrating 20 years of marriage. Those many years ago we invited a few hundred people to our wedding by sending invitations. By entering through the door, you’d be saying, “I got an invitation and I’m ready for the wedding to begin.”But my wife and I didn’t need an invitation. By entering through the door, we are saying I am ready for the wedding to begin. Why don’t you have an invitation to the wedding? We are the wedding. Jesus came not to destroy the law but to fulfill it.In the same way that Jesus could take the passover, not because he needed the passover. He was the passover. In the same way, he could identify with John’s message. Not only do I believe that the kingdom of heaven is at hand. I am the kingdom of heaven. I am the king of that kingdom.The Spirit DescendsNo here’s the point. It seems that Jesus went down to the Jordan river to be baptized, innocently so to speak. He had not yet begun his ministry. We know that because in Luke 3:23, after he is baptized, after the Spirit descends, after the voice from heaven speaks, the very next verse says, “Jesus, when he began his ministry, was about thirty years of age.” So apparently Luke connects the beginning of Jesus ministry with the Baptism and the Spirit’s descent. The Spirit of God as it were, releases Jesus into public ministry. Now, let’s pause for a moment and think about the significance of this Spirit anointing. Again, the movie depictions here are horrific. Some dove comes flapping down and lands on the Jesus character. Cheesy.So how do we better understand this. Once again, keep in mind, for all practical purposes, this is still the Old Testament era. And think of the Spirit in terms of the Old Testament era. As post-resurrection, New Testament Christians, we are so familiar with this idea that the Spirit is given to all believers in a special way. But that doesn’t mean that Spirit of God is absent in completely absent in the Old Testament. In fact, if you read the Old Testament, He’s everywhere. But his ministry seems to be noticeable in a very narrow way.In every place where we read of the Spirit’s activity, he’s empowering a particular individual to perform some function almost always associated with the kingdom of God.So for example, we are told explicitly in Numbers 11 that Moses’ ability to lead and prophesy was a result of the Spirit of God. The Spirit was transferred to Joshua. There was manifestation of it in the 70 elders. Two artisans, Oholiab and Bezelel, were given the Spirit so that they could build beautiful temple accessories needed to furnish the tabernacle. We see the Spirit of God work in Samson, in Gideon, in the judges. Saul was this unimpressive figure hiding in the baggage and then the Spirit of God falls on him and he saves Jabesh Gilead from Nahash the Ammonite. Remember when Saul continued to sin God took the Holy Spirit from Saul and gave it to David. And as a result, Saul resorted to consulting the medium. Then David when he sins in Psalm 51, he prays, I’ve sinned, create in me a clean heart. take not your Spirit away from me. That’s talking about David losing his salvation. It’s talking about his fear that God would to do him what he did to Saul, that is, take away this special enabling Spirit. Solomon asks for a double portion and becomes the wisest man that ever lived.The point is that it’s not the normal ministry of the Spirit we are familiar with and that the descent of the Spirit would have signaled something very different to them then it would to us. People would not have seen it as a personal blessing given to an individual. They would have seen it as national blessing given to the nation administered through Messiah. By virtue of the fact that Jesus was deputized by the father to offer the kingdom to Israel he receives this enabling Spirit. Now we didn’t get a chance to talk about it last week, but look what happens immediately after this.Jesus Thrust into Wilderness to be TemptedImmediately after the Baptism, Jesus is thrust out into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan. And there’s something here, that when I first saw 20 years ago - I still remember this - I had to rub my eyes to make sure I was reading it correctly. All three synoptics, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, make the exact same point. What is the force that thrusts Jesus out into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil? The Holy Spirt. All three synoptics say this.It’s worth pausing for a second on this because there is a principle here that’s just too good to blow over. What is it? Let’s zoom into the Matthew passage there on the left and grab the context from the end of chapter 3.Tim Keller makes this point in a sermon he preached on this passage. He says the principle is bound up in the word ‘then.’ Jesus was baptized by John, then he’s tempted by Satan. He hears a voice from heaven, then he hears a voice from hell. Jesus is empowered by the Spirit then suffers the weakness of starvation.And the key question is this: what does ‘then’ mean? All events must happen in a certain order: I was watching a youtube video and then suddenly an ad pops up and then the video finishes. There’s no logical connection, it’s just describing the order in which things happen to occur.Is that what ‘then’ means? Jesus was baptized and then he went into the desert? Or does it mean ‘therefore?’ Jesus was baptized and the Holy Spirit descended and therefore he was thrust into the wilderness.Ask yourself this question based on what we are observing in the text. Who leads Jesus into the desert? What pushes Jesus into the hands of Satan? Random chance? Evil? The text could not be more clear: the Spirit. The same Spirit who comforts, strengthens is the same Spirit that drives him into the desert. Spiritual Baptism THEREFORE Spiritual Battle. The voice of heaven THEREFORE the voice of hell. The waters of baptism THEREFORE the deserts of temptation.And here’s why this point is worth pausing for. It reveals a massive misconception we have about our Christian life. Ask yourself, “What if you were able to live your life in perfect submission to God, you were never self-focused in any way, totally about the Father’s business, you were absolutely and totally pleasing to God. How would your life go?” Most of us think that most of our problems are the result of sin and not being close with God. Of course there is truth to that. Some of our problems are a direct result of sin. But you want to know how to make even more problems? Get rid of sin and get in perfect communion with God.There’s was one totally led by the Spirit, totally pleasing to God, you could not get any better. And how did his life go? He was thrust into the wilderness to be tempted by the Devil and he was rejected and despised by men and ended up on a Roman cross to be tortured. When troubles and conflict begin to happen and stress piles upon you what do we almost immediately assume? We assume that I’ve done something wrong. If our life is going good we assume I must be good. If our life is going bad, I must be bad. But that is not true.Trials are designed to teach even the perfect, dare we say, especially the perfect.So let’s review. John’s birth was foretold, he was born, he began his ministry, he confronted the Pharisees and Sadducees, he baptized Jesus and Jesus was thrust into the wilderness. All that happened before we even open up the book of John. In fact this is the exact point where John begins his narrative. He picks up where the synoptic gospels leave off. The synoptics bring us to the temptation in the wilderness. And John says, “Let me tell you what happened after that.”John’s Testimony of HimselfSo John opens up with what we talked about last week - the Pharisees send their entourage and question him about his credentials. By what authority do you baptize? Are you the Messiah? Are you the Prophet? Are you Elijah? John says, “No, I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness,” linking himself to the prophesy in Isaiah 40, the one who would prepare the way of the Lord. And that Lord is LORD, that’s the tetragramaton - YHWH. He says, “One is coming whose sandal I am not even fit to untie.”And then we get to our text for today. The text says, the next day (that is the day immediately following this interview by the entourage from the Pharisees) Jesus emerges from the wilderness.Keep in mind how this sequence of events appears to John. John baptized Jesus. The Spirit drove him into the wilderness and John probably was wondering, where did he go? There’s an awkward period for John where he’s identified the Messiah but he doesn’t know where he went. You can see that in the language of John. He says, “One stands among you.” He’s here somewhere.After the 40 days go by and a period of recooperation and two months later, suddenly he re-appears! And John identifies him. There he is! There’s the lamb of God! Now that’s from John’s perspective.What about from the perspective of those listening? Imagine listening to John’s message for weeks and months and getting excited that something big was about to go down. Imagine further that your sense of the kingdom of heaven was a King like unto David that would deliver Israel from the Roman oppressor. Imagine further still that since you didn’t know what David was like, your cultural conception of a king would have been Caesar, chariots and horses, purple robes, armor, Phalanx shields. What type of person would you expect John to identify? You might picture in your mind a warrior on a white horse? Perhaps a strong, fierce looking, tall, armored champion? If you had to describe this deliverer-King with an animal, what animal would he be? A bear? A shark? An eagle? A lion?John points to Jesus, who mind you has just undergone the physical effects of a 40 day fast. What does a guy look like after not eating for 40 days? He probably didn’t have a lot of fat on his body to start with. He would have been on the brink of death. He would have been a skeleton with skin on it. Now granted, the angels had come to minister to him, but it would have taken a while to be fully recovered. And instead of saying, “Behold the Lion of God. Behold the Great White Shark of God.” He says, “Behold, the Lamb of God.” That’s a weak, helpless, sacrificial animal that is killed on an altar. And I think people are looking at Jesus going, “Huh? That’s the guy? How in the world can that be the Messiah? He looks like he couldn’t even lift a sword much less wield it.” And I think that’s what’s behind what John says next. John bore witness. He puts himself under an oath because of the incredulity he sees in people’s eyes. They don’t believe him. That can’t possibly be Messiah.Now I don’t know if it’s reading too much into this, but I can’t help but marvel at what’s going on here. John has been preaching and baptizing thousands of people in the Jordan river. It had to have been thousands to cause a stir clear up in Jerusalem. And he’s been doing this for months. And when John identifies Jesus, two guys follow him? Two? Perhaps this is an indicator of just how uninspiring he was. At any rate, we get into this section where Jesus calls his disciples.This is classic Jesus. What are you looking for? It’s incredibly simple and yet it’s challenging, probing. It challenges us as well. What are we looking for in Jesus? Are we looking for an entertaining story? Are we looking for some tips, some life hacks? The Logos-Messiah confronts all of us who make any show of beginning to follow him and demands that they articulate what they really want in life. What’s your goal in following me? What can I do for you? And if we answer, “Can you help me live a better life,” he’ll say, “Sorry, I can’t do that; but I can give you a new life.” The disciples answer, “Where are you staying?” It’s an exploratory question. If I express interest in following Christ, what will be the response? And they, just like we, are welcomed as they seek.Thus begins the long, unbroken, extremely effective tradition of men pointing other men to the all-satisfying person of Jesus Christ.The command is simple. Follow me. It’s so basic. Here’s what it means to follow. You just do whatever the guy in front of you is doing. Following means you surrender your own personal decision-making autonomy. You don’t even bother to ask questions. That doesn’t mean that questions won’t arise. You’ll see something and say to yourself, “Wait, this doesn’t seem right. It seems like we’ve lost the way.” Following means you have a settled way to silence those very natural voices. This doesn’t look like the right way, but I trust the character of the one leading me. This doesn’t feel right but I know this guy has been here before. This is painful and feels unloving but I believe that this is for my best interest.That’s what it means to follow. It’s not blind faith. It’s a faith that has learned to trust based on experience, reason, and evidence. It’s the point we made last week. I don’t believe in the theory of relativity because I understand it. I believe in relativity because smart people I trust tell me it’s true. That’s what happens to Nathanael. He sees Jesus and when he convinces him, he’s all in. I love this guy.It was common for those in the region of Judea to criticize those living in the region of Galilee. For us it would be like someone living in New York to laugh at those simpletons who live in Idaho. But Nathanael was from Cana of Galilee. Both Nazareth and Cana were in Galilee. So this would be like someone in Boise saying, “Can anything good come out of Parma?”Messiah from Nazareth? Give me a break. Nathanael may have been blunt in his criticism of Nazareth, but he was an Israelite without duplicitous motives who was willing to examine for himself the claims being made about Jesus. This is what I love about the guy. He’s honest. He was perhaps the only one viewing the world with the honest cynicism it deserved. But you have the same invitation. Come and see. Now Nathaniel was skeptical but he wasn’t an incurable skeptic. An incurable skeptic wouldn’t have responded to the invitation.An incurable cynic loves the feeling of being cynical. They love just poking holes in things. They like sitting in their suspicion and always having questions but never allowing for answers. In fact, a cynic is a person who doesn’t want an answer because the only thing that makes sense to them is a world doesn’t make sense and that everyone is just as jaded as they are. This kind of world allows them to feel in control. Nathaniel wasn’t an incurable cynic. He wanted an answer. He was skeptical but wanted truth. His world view allowed for a cure. And when he saw the cure, his world turned upside down. Cynics turned Christians make the best Christians.Do you see how dramatically Nathanael turns to Jesus. He calls him King of Israel. That’s a bold allegiance in a nation where Rome crucified people who voiced such loyalties.So this is the opening ministry of Jesus. A poorly fed peasant from Nazareth, introduced and identified as lamb by a man dressed in camels skin subsisting on a diet of grasshoppers and honey. And this newly identified Messiah-King attracts a few peasant disciples. What a strange way to begin a ministry. And yet we see in this section a lengthy list of titles applied to Jesus that the rest of John will develop:Lamb of God (1:29, 36),the Elect One (the most likely variant of 1:34),Rabbi (1:38, 49),Messiah/Christ (1:41),Son of God (1:49),King of Israel (1:49),Son of Man (1:51)‘the one Moses wrote about in the law, and about whom the prophets also wrote’ (1:45).