John 1:19-34 • Make Way for the Lamb
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Transcript
(This transcript was prepared using software tools and has not been reviewed for complete accuracy.)
Let me ask that you look in your Bibles at John chapter 1. I think you've seen from some of our announcements that my plan is to start a series on the gospel of John because it introduces us to the Lord Jesus in a very personal way. And I want to talk about what it would mean to meet Jesus, not just in terms of a history lesson or a theological debate, but an actual personal encounter then and also now as well. What would it mean to actually meet Jesus?
You know as I think about meeting people, I think how so many of you have met Kathy and me, typically we meet with someone else introducing us. Someone will say to Kathy, to me, they'll say something like, "This is Joan Miller.
She's an engineer at Caterpillar.
This is Jane Weeman.
She's a med tech at OSF.
This is Jack Kramer.
He's an engineer at Caterpillar.
This is William Stouffer.
He's retired.
He was an engineer at Caterpillar.
This is Bill Stout. He's a missionary to Malta.
And he was an engineer at Caterpillar.
Now, I'm teasing you intentionally. I recognize and you do too. The blessing and privilege it is to be in a town with a world-class company that cares about the city and cares about its people.
But what's happening in John is that John the Baptist is acting as our introducer to the Lord Jesus. And you know the words that he is about to say.
"Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
This is the fulfillment of the ages for the salvation of the people of God."
This is how much the King of Heaven cares about you, to send his Son as a Lamb.
Here he is.
Let's read the words. It's John chapter 1.
And as we're reading, I will focus particularly on verses 19 through 34.
And this is the testimony of John when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, "Who are you?"
He confessed and did not deny, but confessed, "I am not the Christ."
And they ask him, "What then are you, Elijah?"
And he said, "I am not."
Are you the prophet? And he answered, "No." So they said to him, "Who are you? We need to give an answer to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?"
He said, "I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness.
Make straight the way of the Lord as the prophet Isaiah said."
Now they had been sent from the Pharisees. They asked him, "Then why are you baptizing? If you are neither the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the prophet?"
John answered them, "I baptize with water. But among you stands one you do not know, even he who comes after me, the strap of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie."
These things took place in Bethany across the Jordan where John was baptizing.
The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him and said, "Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. This is He of whom I said, after me comes a man who ranks before me because he was before me.
I myself did not know him, but for this purpose I came baptizing with water that he might be revealed to Israel."
When John bore witness, "I saw the Spirit descend from heaven like a dove and it remained on him. I myself did not know him, but he who sent me to baptize with water said to me, "He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain.
This is He who baptizes with the Holy Spirit and I have seen and have borne witness that this is the Son of God."
Would you pray with me?
Heavenly Father, we ask the blessing of Your Spirit upon Your Word.
We recognize that something very special is happening in that very passage of Scripture when you declare Your Son to be the Word that was in the beginning and by whom all things were made and then came as a Lamb to be known by humanity and crucified for it.
Would you open our eyes with the life that you give to see the reality of the Lamb of God made present for us, not just then, but now?
Would you, Father, may we be so bold to ask, help us meet Jesus today?
This we ask in Jesus' name, amen.
There is an old parable that tells of a king who wanted to test the loyalty of his guests
and so he had a craftsman prepare a golden goblet, large and ornate, a goblet that could be filled with the finest wine that was intended to both please and intoxicate.
Because as the guests were being tested by the king, he would drink of the great blessing that the king were offering, not recognizing that at the very bottom of the goblet, only to be seen after the wine was drained, was an emerald serpent with diamond eyes of incalculable value.
The intent with the one who had drunk, now whose will and mind had been weakened, was to see if there would be a temptation to steal from the king who had been so generous.
The parable is not without application in the Christian life.
For after all is it times when we have drunk most deeply of the blessing of the Lord that we become the most vulnerable to temptation. You would think it the opposite, that when you're on some spiritual high having just experienced some great blessing or won some great spiritual battle, that you would be at the absolute point of strength but somehow lifted high we are often on a cliff ready for a spiritual fall.
What John is telling us through the example of John the Baptist is when you have drunk
deeply of the blessing of the Lord, been tempted and even fallen at the bottom of the cup is mercy.
The way we see it is maybe through an unlikely person. We think of John the Baptist as being such a hero, a warrior for the Lord. After all he is the one intended to announce who Jesus is. And he begins with great humility, declaring who Jesus is by first declaring who he, John the Baptist, actually is not. You may remember the account as John is explaining who he is, people come and ask him and he confesses verse 20 of chapter 1, "I am not the Christ.
I am going to announce him, but I am not he."
Who is the Christ? That Christ that the people are expecting is the fulfillment of the promise to David that there would be a king from the line of David who would have an eternal kingdom to save God's people. And the people, the Jews have been looking for centuries for this Christ to come. And now as John is with great power in the wilderness declaring the word of God, people are saying, "Are you the Christ?"
And John the Baptist says, "I am not he. The one who comes after me is greater than me because he was before me. The true Christ is not me." Then they said, "Well then are you Elijah?" Do you know why they ask the question, "Are you Elijah?" Because if you're not the Christ, maybe you are the prophet who is meant to prepare for him.
Some of you will recognize that the very last book of the Old Testament is the book of Malachi.
And in the very last book of the Old Testament, the very last chapter of the Old Testament, the very last verses of the last chapter of the last book of the Old Testament is a promise.
Elijah will come again to prepare for the very great and awesome day of the Lord. He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the children to their fathers. There will be great repentance in the kingdom as God is preparing a way through his prophet. And now as John comes preaching repentance to the leadership and the people of Israel, people say, "Are you Elijah? Are you the one that God would send to prepare the way for the great Messiah at the end of time?"
And John the Baptist says, "I'm not Elijah either."
Then are you the prophet? Now the words don't mean much to you, but to the Jews they knew exactly what was being asked.
Moses, way back at the beginning of this writing of God's plan for his people, said that when he, Moses, would gone, ultimately God would send another prophet like Moses to whom God would give the word and deliver his people. And so now the question is, if you are not Elijah and you're not the Christ, are you that prophet who is going to be giving us the word of God in such a way that creation itself would be changed by the ultimate coming? And Elijah said, "John the Baptist says, "I'm not the prophet either."
Well who are you then? If you're not him, well John the Baptist says, "I'm not the one who has the ability of the Christ." And this is said in very special language.
If you look in your Bibles in John chapter 1, you may remember in verse 26 of chapter 1 of John, John answers having said he's not Christ, not Elijah, not the prophet, he answered them in verse 26 saying, "I baptize with water.
But among you stands one you do not know, even he who will come after me whose sandal I am not worthy of latching."
Now you say, "Why is John making a point that his baptism is with water?"
Baptism as we know it was not an unusual thing in Jewish households or practice. We don't recognize it so much anymore, but baptisms of various sorts were a regular purification practice in ancient Jewry so that there were many forms of baptisms. You may remember at one point Jesus and his disciples got in trouble, think of it now, because they did not baptize their hands before they ate as the Jewish leaders expected them to do. Well, they were expecting a purification ritual where people would hold at their hands and water would be poured over their hands. Even the tables were to be "baptized." The tables were to be washed with water. And of course if you were to go up to the temple, it wasn't just tables or pots and pans or hands that were to be washed, you yourself were to be washed before you could enter the temple to pray or to offer sacrifice. There were many types of "baptismas," baptisms, some sprinkling, some pouring, some immersion, various ways in which the people of God would be purified externally, temporarily to honor God.
John says, "I baptize with water." But if you look at verse 33, he says that the one who is coming will do something else. Verse 33, "I myself did not know him, this one who is to come, but he who sent me to baptize with water said to me, "He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain, this is he who baptizes with what?"
The Holy Spirit.
This is something different, not external and temporary.
But there is one who comes to baptize, to cleanse with something that will be internal and life-giving. There will be a Holy Spirit who comes and this cleansing experience will be absolutely life-changing as new life is imparted by the baptism of this Messiah, this Christ who is to come.
"I am not he.
I am not that Christ. I have certain ability, certain gifts, certain calling, but I am not the Christ.
Only he can give life."
Now as familiar as these words are to many of you, I want you to recognize their power in perhaps an unusual way. Kathy and I have a friend who when he teaches this portion of Scripture to ministry students actually has them go down the line of each desk in the class and repeat these words of John the Baptist.
"I am not the Christ."
Which you might think is not a bad thing for ministry students to learn.
I have gifts, I have the Word of God, I can preach, I can teach, all these are anything, but I am not the Christ. I am not the salvation of God's people. I just point to another. But of course it's not just a good lesson for ministry students, it's a good lesson for the people of God.
Think about it. About ten days ago, 260 of this church's leaders gathered together to think about our future. What does it mean to plan to do God's will going forward into another generation? And we divided ourselves and will continue to be in various committees talking about major issues that this church needs to be thinking about. And you know, I am so encouraged as I think about who is on those various committees, different people of different backgrounds, ages, all kinds of different talented, smart,
able, opinionated people who are being put on those committees.
And you know, all of us have strong thoughts, strong feelings about what we think ought to be the right way to go, and many good things will be discussed. But each one of us needs to be on our knees first before God saying something. What is it?
I am not the Christ.
If it doesn't go my way, if it's not my opinion, if it's not entirely my way, if I haven't got the final word, I am not the Christ.
And of course it's not just for people in leadership, it's parents.
It's youth leaders.
It's those of us in any way responsible for other people's lives, or sometimes we see them going headlong into what we believe is folly. And we can do our best to share with them the thoughts that we have, the wisdom from God's word. But ultimately we must say, "I am not the Christ.
I must pray for the one who is to work in your heart to do what I cannot do. Ultimately it is not my power, my wisdom, my strength, my talent. I am not the Christ.
And so I get on my knees and I pray for something greater than me to accomplish what God must in this church." I'm going to ask for you to do it now. Can you just say these words with me? I am not the Christ. Say it again. I am not the Christ. It drives you to your knees.
Because if I am not the Christ, I need Him to navigate my life, to help get wisdom for other people's lives. I just begin this walk that John the Baptist is leading my own by echoing his own words, I am not the Christ.
I need Him.
So much does John want us to hear that. He declares not only who He is not, He is not the Christ. He declares who He is. Do you remember? That's verse 23. "I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, make straight the way of the Lord as the prophet Isaiah said." Why would John have been sent by God out into the wilderness to declare the coming of Jesus? I mean why not in the city, in the place of population?
I think I had some sense of it a few years ago when I was with a team and we were establishing a school in very rural Kenya.
We were three hours beyond the very last rail stop. All paved roads were many, many hours back behind us. We were way, way out in the bush.
And because we were establishing this theological education school where there had not been one previously in Kenya's history, we actually got a visit from the vice president of Kenya.
Now he did not come along the dirt trails that we had followed.
He came in a helicopter with a military escort.
And I cannot tell you what it does to you when you are out in the middle of a jungle which you think you're hearing lots of noise because of the animal noises, but it is nothing like the thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump of the military helicopter that is coming. And I am telling you it is shattering. You just want to tremble as you start hearing these military helicopters come through the jungle. The noise that would be drowned out in a civilized large city you hear unfiltered and straight when you're in the wilderness.
John is saying in the wilderness, "You make straight. You make a way for the one who is coming."
And then tells us who he is.
You know these words, they are verse 29 and Scott mentioned them earlier.
The next day he that is John the Baptist saw Jesus coming toward him and said, "Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world." Why lamb?
Why should the Prince of Heaven be identified as a lamb?
Well, because he's the fulfillment of prophecy. You may remember the words of Isaiah that are being cited here. Isaiah speaking of the coming Messiah says, "He was oppressed and afflicted, yet opened not his mouth like a lamb led to slaughter and like a sheep before his shearers."
What Isaiah is saying and John is quoting is the way in which salvation will come through this Christ that God has promised is through suffering and sacrifice. The King who comes will be wounded deeply. It's really the fulfillment of the promise that we talked about that began at the beginning of human history. As God having said, "I must rescue a people who've been led astray by their own selfishness," made a promise. Speaking actually to Satan, "I will put enmity, antagonism between you and the woman, between your seed and her seed.
You will strike his heel.
He will crush your head.
You will in fact wound him before he has the victory over you." That is the message that is fulfilled as we understand it by all that Christ would do, that he would come to defeat sin and Satan in our lives, but it would be through his own wounding, through his own sacrifice. He would have to become a lamb. And the archetypal illustration, the most typifying example of that in all the Bible is the Passover lamb. Remember the account? As the people of Israel are in slavery in Egypt and as Moses, the prophet is sent to deliver them. He begins to tell Pharaoh, "Let my people go," but Pharaoh will not let them go until the very last of the plagues. As God finally to break the will of the one who holds his people captive says, "You tell Pharaoh that I will require the firstborn of all the households of Egypt, but to my people say this, you take a lamb without blemish and sacrifice it and put its blood on the doorposts of your house." And God says, "When I see the blood in which you have put your faith, I will pass over you."
It is the message that God's people claim ever since, that when Christ came as the unblemished lamb, the one who was without sin, the one who was innocent and yet would take upon himself our sin, that what would occur would be a great exchange.
John says, "He is the Lamb of God who would take away the sin of the world, but the way that he takes away the sin of the world is by taking it on himself.
And what happens is that your sin and mine is made right before God because Christ took the penalty in his sacrifice. It is the thing that you and I must say to one another, to those who do not know the essential message of the gospel, that what God would do through Jesus Christ is he would let his Son suffer for your sin and for my sin. And as we believe that, as we believe it was his blood that makes us right with God, faith in that has our sin taken away. The great exchange takes place. And it's why I say to you, to any who would hear today, if you don't know that, if you don't understand it, it is the faith that is the core of what we believe, why we gather here, not because we are good, not because we are better, but because we believe that when we trust in the blood of Jesus Christ that the wrath of God passes over us, not our goodness but his. We trust in the blood of an innocent shed for us, and as a consequence, our sin is taken away by the promise of God. Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, he is my Jesus. That is why I believe in him. He did this for such as I.
Now, for many of you in the room, that's the old, old story.
And we love it, and it is wonderful.
It is not the end of the story that you need to hear.
What I've read to you is the most familiar portion of the life of John the Baptist as he is declaring the wondrous truth of the Lamb of God.
But Paul Harvey, some of you in the room will know who that is, used to always end his news broadcast by saying what, now you need to hear the rest of the story.
And for that, I'm going to ask that you look at another place in your Bibles, that you look at Matthew, chapter 11. As we, in your pew Bibles, by the way, that's page 816.
816, which is Matthew 11.
As we look at what now happened to John the Baptist, the one who has had such power and privilege in announcing the Lamb of God, what's the rest of the story?
Matthew chapter 11 and verse 2.
Now when John, and that is John the Baptist, now when John heard in prison about the deeds of the Christ, he sent word by his disciples and said to them, "Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?"
And Jesus answered them, "Go and tell John what you hear and see." The blind receive their sight and the lame walk. Leopards are cleansed and the deaf hear and the dead are raised up and the poor have good news preached to them.
And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.
Did you get it?
The very one who has early in the ministry of Jesus said, "This is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. And by the revelation of God, I declare to you, this is the Son of God."
We're now two years later in the life of John.
Where is he?
He's in prison.
And he sends some of his messengers to ask Jesus a question.
Really?
Really?
Are you the one?
Or are we supposed to look for another?
The very one who's had such privilege and power in declaring who Christ is has now fallen off a cliff of spiritual confidence.
And he asks this terrible question.
Are you really the one?
Now, to think of what betrayal that question is, what doubt is revealed, you have to think back through the life of John the Baptist to what you actually know about him. You may remember that his mother was Elizabeth who is related to Mary.
So what actually happens is that when Mary, the mother of Jesus, goes to tell Elizabeth that she is expecting the child of promise in ways that we don't quite understand, John the Baptist gets it. He is still in his mother's womb. And what does the Bible say? He did what? He leapt in his mother's womb for joy because he heard that the Messiah was coming. Now this is truly what is known as getting the early news report. I mean, you know, what it means that he leapt in the womb for joy, we don't know, but we know he knew early. Now what it meant for these, you know, these two young Jewish boys who are now cousins growing up together, we don't exactly know. Did they play hide and seek? Did they play capture the flag? We don't know, you know. But they have this relationship. And John says clearly in that portion of John 1 that we just read, "I didn't know who he was, but God revealed it to me." Do you remember how?
He says, "God said, the one on whom you see, the Spirit of God descending like a dove and remaining on him, that is the Lamb of God who is the Son of God."
Now this ends amazing privilege.
John the Baptist gets a call of God.
And later Jesus actually comes to be baptized by John the Baptist who is doing this baptism of repentance out in the wilderness. And John the Baptist baptizes Jesus, apparently still not understanding who he fully is. And then something amazing happens.
The Spirit of God descends like a dove upon Jesus and remains upon him.
And then there is a voice from heaven from God the Father that says, "What, this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased."
It's one of the great expressions of the Trinity in all the Bible that there you have Jesus and the Holy Spirit and God the Father all present and recognized at the same moment. And John the Baptist has this great evidence of who Jesus is.
He has more than that.
You may remember here in Matthew chapter 11 and verse 2 we're told more. "While John was in prison he heard about the deeds of Christ." What were the deeds of Christ?
Well, we're told that. Verse 4, "Jesus answered them, Go and tell John what you see in here, the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised up and the poor have good news preached to them." John has the early news report. He has the great evidence in his own experience of the Trinitarian witness to the presence of the Christ among him and then he has knowledge of the miracles that Jesus is performing including raising people from the dead.
And then sends a message to Jesus that says, "Are you really the one?
After all the privilege, after all that he's got, how could that possibly be?"
Because there is a lot of pain in John the Baptist's life. After all, he sends messengers why he can't go, where is he, he's in prison.
In fact, from the biblical record, if you trace the history, you would recognize almost within weeks of that moment that John said, "Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world." He then preaching repentance actually speaks to the authority, the king of the Jews, Herod, who's the puppet king under the Roman authorities. And he says to Herod, "Stop living with your brother's wife."
And Herodias, the wife of the brother, gets embarrassed.
And so she has John put in prison and for the last two years he has languished there. You know what was going through his mind. Jesus, I announced you. I said that you were the son of God.
And yes, I understand that you give sight to the blind and I recognize that you give the ability to walk to the lame and I recognize you may even raise the dead. But Jesus, remember one of those Old Testament prophecies? It says when you came, you would give freedom to the prisoner.
And I've been here two years and nothing's happening. And my life is getting more threatened every day. If I am faithful to my God and I say what is true, I am about to get a death sentence and you and I recognize what will happen. He ultimately will have his head severed and presented to that same king on a platter.
Jesus, where'd you go?
I know it's a simple truth, but it's one we need to hear. Pain makes you forget.
And there's all kinds of pain in the life of John the Baptist where he has had great witness to the power and the privileges and the wonders of the son of God's presence. But at the same moment, life is still fallen and it's still broken and it's not going the way that he wants it to go.
And so John asked these terrible questions. Are you really the one?
And unless you just kind of be too hard on John the Baptist, you should recognize that this is a continuous pattern throughout the course of the Scriptures. I mean, the very one that you recognize had his life kind of being presaged or given foreshadowing by another prophet was the prophet Elijah.
And the very same things happened to Elijah. Remember the story?
There were the 400 plus prophets of Baal, right, who were saying, you know, "We'll get our God to act." And Elijah says, "Well, go ahead, you know. Oh, your God is not burning up your sacrifice. Where is He? Is He on vacation? Is He gone? Where is your God?" Then Elijah says, "I'll show you my God." Remember what Elijah does?
He begins to douse the sacrifice three times. Douse it. Make it wet. Make it wet. Fill up the trench around it.
Start from heaven and consumes the sacrifice and all the prophets of Baal are killed. Elijah has a great miracle in his own life. Once King Ahab has seen, you know, that this great miracle of God is gone, he wants to get back into his castle. And who races him back to the castle on foot?
Elijah races him back and wins the race because he's got supernatural power of God.
And then something happens when you get back to the castle.
Saul says, "What?
You hurt my priests.
I'm going to get you."
And Elijah, who's had this great spiritual victory, who has seen supernatural power of God in his life and in his body, what does he do?
He runs and hides.
"Oh, no. She'll get me."
Peter has been with Jesus three years.
He's had the great declaration of Jesus upon him. As Peter at some point declared to Jesus, questioned, "Who do men say that I am?" And Peter goes through the same thing. Some say that you're Elijah. Some say that you're a prophet. And Jesus says, "But who do you say that I am?" And what was Peter's great declaration? You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus says to him, "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for heaven and earth have not revealed it to you, but my Father who is in heaven. Therefore I will build my church upon this testimony that you have given." You are that privileged. You are that powerful. And then what will happen just a few weeks later?
A little girl will say to Peter, "Are you the one that was with Jesus who's currently being tortured in Caiaphas house? And what will Peter say?"
I never knew him.
In each case, you have this huge spiritual blessing and victory only to be followed by this great fall of which there would be great shame for any who even now would hear me telling you of the accounts of theirs that are in the Bible. After all, you may recognize that by merely asking the question, "John is discrediting Jesus."
You must. I mean, you just imagine that your spokesman, your announcer is now questioning who you are. I don't want to trivialize it at all, but I recognize, and you do too, that our nation right now is on the threshold of war.
And our president is making major decisions and all kinds of questions about what is his authority and what are the limits of what he can do and not do. Just imagine that his new secretary were to stand up in front of the nation and were to say, "Mr. President, do you really have the authority for what you're doing?" His press secretary? He has no right to be asking those questions. He's supposed to be representing him.
And of course it's worse because John the Baptist is not just questioning Jesus. He is discrediting him by his position.
He is in prison because he is questioning the leadership. Now you know what I expect you to do? You say, "Well, that's no discredit." I mean, that's not John's fault, not John the Baptist's fault that he's in prison. It's not John the Baptist's fault that because of a silly king's promise carried away by his own lust that he makes a promise to a girl to give the head of John the Baptist. I mean, it's not John's fault that his ministry ends so abruptly and that he's in prison for so long and discredited before the nation. That's not John's fault. He shouldn't be ashamed.
Well, I hope you'll forgive me.
The fact that it's not John's fault, what in the world does that have to do with shame at all?
Listen, victims feel shame as much as sinners do.
I think you know that.
Guilt is about sin.
Shame is about disappointment.
Life not going the way I expected.
Things are not the way they were supposed to be.
And you may feel shame over things that you have done wrong.
But people who feel shame are those who have been abused and assaulted.
Victims who did the absolute best job that they could and whose kids experienced and have done terrible things.
The faithful spouse to a divorce.
The job performed well for decades and then let go from a company.
And there are people who are not guilty at all who feel deep and abiding.
Shame.
Because victims feel shame as much as sinners.
Even though John the Baptist is not guilty for being in prison, you must know that this is not the way he meant the story to end. Nor would have wanted it. Surely he would have not just wanted to be the voice in the wilderness. Surely he would have wanted to be the voice in the temple at some point saying, "This is the one." And yet it doesn't happen. It doesn't go the way it's supposed to. What do you do when shame happens and you need the Lamb of God?
One of the more powerful expressions of this is from a man named Jerry Sitzer who wrote a book called "A Grace Revealed After a Car Accident That Claimed His Wife and His Mother
and His Daughter" all at the same time.
He wrote these words.
When the time comes to enter the darkness in which we are naked and helpless and alone,
in which we see the insufficiency of our greatest strength and the hollowness of our strongest virtues, in which we have nothing of our own to rely on, then we find whether or not we live by faith.
I thought it peculiar the first time I read that, that here was a man who had lost everything through no fault of his own and he starts talking about nakedness and being alone and not being able to rely on your own strength. They give their words of shame.
And you're saying, "But you didn't do anything wrong.
Why do you feel shame?"
Because life is not gone as you expect. There's the shame of not being alone, of not having said, "I loved you enough" when they were here, of not seeing ahead, of not being with them, of the anger at them and eating of a god for whatever lack of care let it happen.
I know I shouldn't feel that way, but I do.
Somewhere in the tragedy of all of our lives is shame that we don't quite know what to do with because we're not guilty of it, but we know we shouldn't be feeling it.
A brother in prison, a family not unfolding as it's supposed to, a daughter estranged,
a son who is not living out the honorable life that we expected he would, though he demonstrated it so clearly in his youth.
Fear of what the hospital is going to say, anger that the hospital said what I never wanted to hear, and I know I'm not supposed to feel any of those things. What do I do with that?
Sitzer comments, "I honestly wish there were another way.
I wish I could assure you that the story of your life would unfold as conveniently and happily as the plot of a boring novel.
But we have no choice but to let the mystery unfold which requires faith.
We choose to believe that God is working redemption when nothing in the world assures us that he is. Why would you believe in the midst of what brings you tears and shame that God is still working?
Because of the Lamb of God who not only takes away the sin of the world, but embraces the people who did not deserve his coming nor know how to handle it when it happened." I want you to hear clearly what I'm saying. The antidote to sin is forgiveness.
But the antidote to shame is acceptance.
And the fact that God would send his son as the Lamb means that he would look at people who are torn apart not just by their sin but by their shame and saying, "I will make a way for you."
It's so clearly stated in this Matthew with the 11th chapter when ultimately recognized John has sent his messengers to ask the awful questions, Jesus ultimately responds and says in verse 11 of chapter 11 of Matthew, "Truly I say to you, among those born of women there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist.
Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he."
John the Baptist has failed so much of the test and yet Jesus looks and says, "And there's still no one greater than he. He did what he had to do. He did the hard stuff. He's a great man." But listen, in the kingdom of heaven, even the least of its citizens is going to be greater than John the Baptist. That would possibly be because of the great exchange because what we tremble about and are guilty of and are ashamed of has been exchanged for the honor and the righteousness and the goodness of Jesus Christ. Behold what manner of love that God has lavished upon us that we should be called the children of God, that he who knows the worst of our sin and the worst of our shame sent for us
the Lamb of God.
And when we know that and trust him, we don't just have forgiveness.
We have acceptance.
Behold what manner of love he has lavished upon us that we should be called the children of God. And that is what you are as you believe in the Lamb of God.