This recording is from Willow Creek Church in winter spring, Florida. We're reverend to Kevin Labby as our senior pastor. Today's message is part three in a series on the Gospel of John, titled Abide. This sermon is taken from John chapter 1 verses 29 through 34. Now here's Kevin with today's message. My name is Kevin Labby. I'm one of the pastors here, the senior pastor, and I want to welcome you if you're our guest this morning. We're delighted to have you, as always, if you remember a friend of the church. I hope it goes without saying. We're delighted to see you as well. So much so much fun had this morning in our guest welcome class fusion. If you are new to the church or newer and haven't yet gone through that time, we have a new session starting just a couple of weeks. We'd love for you to contact the church office and make that a priority. As we begin our time in the word this morning, can ask you to turn in your Bibles to the book of John chapter one. We're going to be looking at verses 29 through 34 this morning, chapter one verses 29 through 34, the Gospel of John. This is the word of God. The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. This is the one I meant when I said a man who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me. I myself did not know him. But the reason I came baptizing with water was that he might be revealed to Israel. Then John gave this testimony. I saw the spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on him. And I myself did not know him. But the one who sent me to baptize with water told me the man on whom you see the spirit come down and remain is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit. I have seen and I testify that this is God's chosen one. Let's pray. Our gracious God and Father, we know that we do not live by bread alone, but as your son Jesus taught us in his temptation, we live by every word that comes from your mouth. We pray this morning that you would make us hungry for this heavenly food, that it might nourish us today in ways that we lead to eternal life through Jesus Christ, the bread of heaven. We pray this all in his name. Amen. In our first two messages in this series, we said that it's not always easy to remain hopeful in this world. It's very easy to grow pessimistic and even cynical when you look at the world around you. And if you needed any reminder of that, you only needed to pay attention this past week. Many of you know what I'm talking about, in America's heartland, in Oklahoma, a woman lost her life viciously. We openly wonder if she lost her life to an act of terrorism. The kind of terrorism our troops are fighting now abroad. Was this a harbinger of future terror here in the United States? When you think about those things, it can move your heart to despair if you don't have the hope of Christ and let's be honest, even if you have the hope of Christ, you can move at the very least toward distress, maybe at most, utter despair. And that evil of the world is not only out there, it strikes us here at home. This past week I was at a wonderful seminar led by Keith Getty, the modern hymn writer at Reformed Theological Seminary, Drew Taylor, our director of Children's Ministries, was there along with Jeff Vogan and his wife, our director of worship. Enjoying a wonderful time singing modern hymns, reminding us that God is on the throne and that we are his by grace. But even in the midst of those songs, getting a text from my wife that simply said, did you see the news? My heart leaped in my chest. I didn't know what the news was. So I went to my browser on my phone and kind of shielding it from everybody else, tried to look and see what this news was. And of course, I have the world's worst cell phone provider. So I had no signal in that room. I tried to hold my phone in a certain direction so the signal would refract off the window, off a light fixture to my phone because every once in a while it would work but didn't work very well. All of this just building in my heart with a sense of fear. Another text came through with my wife with a screenshot grabbing the screen of the news report that said that some sick, twisted individual made a threat against the elementary schools in our community. So I got up to leave. I walked out of the building at RTS and I found that there were teachers from a local elementary school already at RTS. Apparently RTS has something to do with their plan in such a situation. And there were many, many police cars out in the parking lot getting ready to direct traffic and evacuate the school. As I drove in my car over to where my kids attend school across town, I was just filled with so much fear. I had a lot of inditing questions enter my mind. I started to wonder openly, what kind of person does something like that? Kind of sick jerk, praise upon children. Then I'll be completely honest. They started to run riot in my mind. What I would do with that person if I were to find them this hour and it wasn't pretty. It wasn't very pastoral. It didn't involve preaching the gospel. I'll tell you that. I think those are understandable responses to the evil in the world around us. I think it's entirely appropriate to wonder why evil finds such expression in some and maybe not in others. In our reformed history, and if that is a term that doesn't mean anything to you, don't panic. It just means that we're not Roman Catholic. We come out of the Protestant Reformation as a church. In our reformed theology and history, we affirm a doctrine called total depravity. That's the teaching that sins affects in our lives are total. That there's not an aspect of our being that's untouched by sin. Sin corrupts are mind, corrupts are soul, our heart, our strength, every aspect of us that reaches there. But the doctrine of total depravity, as we were talking about this past week at our pastor's Bible say, leadership training, is not the doctrine of utter depravity. It's not the doctrine that sin makes us as evil as we could be necessarily. Some people are more evil than others. Some people surrender themselves to evil in ways that others don't. That's for a variety of different reasons. But when we're confronted with evil in the world, it isn't appropriate question to ask, why are some so captivated by it? And it's very, very appropriate to be shocked by it. But in that moment of shock and in that moment of indictment, I found myself having to be really careful. Because in that moment I start to feel really good about myself relative to those other scumbags out of the world who do such nefarious things. I start to create kind of a hierarchy of sin where I'm at the top and there at the bottom and I would never do such a thing. And maybe that's true. Maybe by God's common grace, His restoring work in my heart and mind, by His spirit I wouldn't do those things. I should never kid myself into thinking I wouldn't do those things because of anything in me. I'm a sinner. It's easy for me to point a finger at the world around me. But I always need to be very careful to point that finger right back at myself. The discouragements of this world are not merely external. They're also internal. In fact, and affect us all. I'm compromised by sin and so are you. And any discouragement we have about the world around us as natural as it is should also be discouragement about ourselves. Each of us in one way or another should feel as folded in Roman seven where he openly wondered why it is that the good he wanted to do he couldn't do. And why the bad that he didn't want to do he just kept doing we're divided. Even us in Christ who have been loved so wonderfully by God so graciously by God. Part of us still despise his God and the things of God. Paul testified to that to the Galatian church in chapter five or 17. You don't need to turn there. You remember in Galatians five Paul talks about the fruits of the Holy Spirit. They used to teach a wonderful song to the kids in my previous church in my youth ministry about the fruit of the spirit. I would ask them to say what's their favorite fruit. They would say watermelon or cherries or strawberries and we would say oh the fruit of the spirit is not whatever fruit they said. Fruit of the spirit is not a watermelon. If you want to be a watermelon you might as well hear it. You can't be a fruit of the spirit. Because the fruits are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control. That's the fruit of God's redeeming work in our hearts and our minds and our lives and it radiates outwardly. But then right after that Paul talks about the fruit of evil as well. Darkness in our life. The things that we don't want to do that we even in Christ still struggle with. Listen to what he says for the desires of the flesh. That is the sinful flesh. The part of us that oppose to God for the desires of the flesh are against the spirit and the desires of the spirit are against the flesh. For these are opposed to each other to keep you from doing the things you want to do. The problem's not only out there. The problem is in here. James testified that way to his church in Jerusalem and James 401. He said what causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? That is the church, the saints, the people who have been redeemed by grace. What is it that causes quarrels and fights among you? Is it not this that your passions are at war within you? Thomas Watson was a Puritan, a wonderful minister of the gospel and grace, keen theologian. He warned that we should never be naive about the sin that's at work in us. He warned that we should never be so fixated on the discouraging signs of sin in the world around us that we take our eyes off of ourselves. He warned that we should be vigilant. And then a lesson for the grace of God, our lives would be engulfed by sin. Listen to what he said. He said, Christian, though you do not break forth into a flame of scandal. That is, though your life isn't engulfed visibly by the power of sin in some scandal that the world around could look at and label you a clear sinner. Yet you have no cause to boast for there is much sin raked up in the embers of your nature. I love that image. Many of you have gone hiking as I have or camping and you know what it's like to make a fire the night before. Cook out some hot dogs, some marshmallows, warm yourself by the fire. Have great conversation and put the fire out so to speak as you go back to your tent, only to wake up the next morning and see those embers still smoldering at your sinful nature. It's only out relatively speaking, even when you're at your best, its embers are still warm, ready to fan into flame with the proper cause. That's why Watson goes on to say, you have the root of bitterness in you and would bear as hellish fruit as any if God did not either curb you by his power or change you by his grace. We're not mere observers to the sinful world around us. We are culpable for the world around us. And even though there are more stunning expressions of sin, more scandalous expressions of it we should never kid ourselves to think that we are not at the root of the problem along with everybody else. And thankfully this morning what we're going to see is that Jesus did not leave heaven and come down to earth just to swing at the branches of evil. He came to be a savior, not only to the things out there, he came to be a savior and redeemer to the root of our own lives individually. And as we are redeemed and restored by grace gradually, his goodness enters not only our lives but our world and radiates outwardly but in this present age always partially. And this would give us much discouragement. This would lead us maybe even to despair if we did not know that Jesus redemption is total. And even though we only experienced it in part to this point, it is most assuredly total and in his time will be fully realized. Many of you know several weeks ago I was in Mexico with a team from our church. The first week of that trip we were in Wahaka, the southern portion of Mexico. And we all had many different jobs we were doing. The place where we were staying didn't have a lawn mower. And so my son along with some other kids on the trip were taking machetes and mowing the grass with machetes. It was long, arduous work. But for them it was kind of novel, so kind of fun. They don't need to do it weekend and a week out. They rather enjoyed it. My job was to go into a bathroom that they had recently constructed and placed drywall in and joint compound over the seams between the different boards of the drywall. And my job was to sand those down along with some others from the church. And by hand meticulously I sanded this down and all of the gypsum dust from this joint compound. When all over my body I was filthy, I was sweaty, I was disgusting. And one particular night all I wanted was a shower to clean myself off. But showers sometimes where we were staying were hard to come by. Sometimes the hot water would run out. Other times the water would run out. And I went upstairs to the room, went into the bathroom, stripped down for the shower. I turned the knob to nothing. I was just filthy and gross. I had to sleep that night in my filth. It was a bad scene. As the week unfolded I had little shower here and there but I never got to a place where I felt completely clean. So I was really excited toward the end of our trip when one of our elders and I traveled up to Mexico City to visit a church planner, Victor Cruz, and to stay at his beautiful apartment with its beautiful bathroom that I similarly destroyed. I remember walking into that bathroom. It was beautiful white tile, white tile on the walls. It was just gorgeous. And it had many, many lights in it. The kind of lights where you can almost see your atomic structure in the mirror. They're so bright. Now I thought that I was dirty when I arrived there. But when I thrown all those lights and looked at my face in the mirror I realized how deep the stain went, how filthy I really was. In verse 29 of our passages morning we read something very, very interesting with a very strong implication that might not be immediately apparent. Listen to what John said. He said, the next day John that is John the Baptist saw Jesus coming toward him and said, look the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
Sin in the scriptures is any want of conformity to the law of God. Any way in which we have transgressed the law of God either by committing acts of unrighteousness or omitting acts of righteousness. Any time we fall in short, we've sinned. The Bible tells us we're conceived in sin. And because we're born in a position of enmity to God, our sinful nature finds expression in so many different ways. And the Bible goes on to describe that sin as a stain, as a filth. So compromised by sin, Isaiah says that even our acts of righteousness are filthy before God. We are more sinful than we have ever dared admit or imagined. We are more sinful before a holy God than we can even conceive of. Why do I say that? Because verse 29 tells us that Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. In describing Jesus as Lamb of God, John is calling to memory. Something that would not have been a memory for those who originally read it or heard it, it would have been a present reality. And that is in the temple in Jerusalem there were sacrifices offered day in and day out. Sacrifices that reminded the people of God that they were sinners before an angry God. Sacrifices that were offered to remind the people of God in the Old Testament that the wages of sin is death. And that we are so compromised before a holy God so much rebels against His will that even our righteous deeds are like filthy rags so much worthy of His wrath that day in and day out sacrifices would be offered. Some offering them properly for a time testifying to their belief that one day the true sacrifice would come. And many people offering them inherently mistakenly thinking that what they offered and what they could do religiously would cleanse themselves of their sin. Many people believe that through their religious obedience through sacrifice, through service that they could wash themselves clean. When John the Baptist says that Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, the strong implication of what he says is that every other sacrifice that came before never did that. That every other religious obligation observed by God's people never in and of itself accomplished anything. The writer of Hebrews in chapter 10 describes that very thing. If you have your Bibles you can turn there. Hebrews 10 verse 1. You'll find the writer saying this for since the law the law of God, all of God's righteous requirements revealed through Moses and in the Old Testament has but a shadow of the good things to come. Instead of the true form of these realities it can never by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year make perfect those who drawn here. Otherwise they would they not have ceased to be offered since the worshipers having once been cleansed would no longer have any consciousness of sins. But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year for it is impossible. Listen, it is impossible for the blood of Boles and goats to take away sins. Now the Old Testament's sacrificial system was very very important and I don't need to minimize it in any way. It was revelatory. It was showing forth that God's people could only be redeemed by the shedding of blood but it wasn't the blood of the Boles and the goats that were offered. It was what they were foreshadowing, what they were hinting at, what they were shadows of, the blood of Christ. The importance of that is to recognize that if anybody could have ever removed their stain of corruption before the throne of God would it not have been God's covenant people who for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years were so meticulous to observe the commandments and statutes of the Old Testament but here in Hebrews we see they could never take away sins. And nothing you do can ever take away your sins because your sins are so much greater than you have ever admitted or could even conceive. Standing before a holy God none of us have any hope in and of ourselves or what we can do. The only hope we have is the hope to which John points and says look the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Now this would all be very discouraging if we did not have that hope and that hope gives us a second companion truth that many others have said and precisely this way. Not only are we more sinful than we ever dared acknowledge we are secondly more loved than we ever dared hope. Verse 30 this is the one I meant when I said a man who comes after me his surpassed me because he was before me. I myself did not know him but the reason I came baptizing with water was that he might be revealed to Israel. There's three things I want to draw your attention to in these verses. The first one is John is acutely aware of Christ divinity. John the Baptist understands that Jesus Christ is God. When he says a man who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me. If you're a student of the scriptures you know that Jesus did not come before John the Baptist in birth order with regard to his humanity. You'll know that John the Baptist was conceived prior to Jesus. John the Baptist is not referring to Jesus in the flesh. He's referring to his divine nature. He surpassed me because he was before me. That is he's eternal. He's everlasting. He's the great I am who's taken on flesh and dwelt among us. And his divinity lays the foundation for his divine work on our behalf. In verse 31 the second thing I want you to see is that John the Baptist says he did not know him and that might cause you some confusion if you understand the scriptures and read these things before because you know with regard to the flesh that John the Baptist and Jesus were related. They were cousins. How could John the Baptist say that he did not know Jesus? That's really a quick answer when you understand that what John the Baptist is referring to is not knowledge of Christ existence as a person but his divinity and his status is the chosen one of Israel. He says the reason he came baptizing with water was that he might reveal him to God's people. And that's the third thing I want you to see is that we're more loved than we ever dared hope. Why did Jesus enter the world? The Bible tells us because God loved us. For God so loved the world he sent his one and only son that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life for God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world but to save the world through him. Sometimes I think in our circles we're so much enamored with our unworthiness before God that we imply that we're worthless before God. Unworthiness before God does not mean worthlessness before God. We were created in God's image. None of us are worthless. And the one who gives us and imparts to us are worth is the God who loves us. Not because we're deserving of his love but because of his sovereign grace to rescue what's been lost. The Bible tells us that in God's eyes we are not just collectively but individually his treasured possession. When Jesus says that God the Father has every hair on your head numbered that's not just an expression of the omniscient mind of God who knows all things. It's not just a declaration that God's really good at trivia. It's a declaration that God so loves you that he knows everything about you. That like a loving earthly father knows the quirks of his little children, the heavenly father's knowledge, love and delight for his children. The depth of it can't be plumbed. And so Jesus in loving deference to the Father and his love for a world that had gone awry, Jesus left his throne and glory. And in love for the Father and in love for what the Father loves he entered this world. And he lived a life we couldn't live died a sinner's death though he knew no sin that we might become the righteousness of God and be redeemed. Why? Because we're loved. And so even though we're overwhelmed at times with our knowledge of our sinfulness and our unworthiness, we should be greatly comforted that by God's grace we're not worthless. That God has made us his treasure and that God who loves his children will never leave them, never forsake them. He will never let them go. This past week one of my children was remembering a verse of scripture for school that had to do with Christ being the good shepherd, the good shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep. But one of my other children remembered that one of the principal expressions of God, son being the good shepherd is that he would leave the 99 to redeem the one. Because in his family every child is loved. Every child is loved, unworthy yes, loved, definitely. And so in verse 32, we see something that fits in the natural flow of what we've seen already. We see a promise that because of God's great love that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. But now that Christ is ascended, he's not left us alone. Verse 32, then John gave this testimony, I saw the spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on him. This is John testifying that he not only knew of Christ's identity as a person, he understood his unique office as the son of God, Savior of sinners. I saw the spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on him. And I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water told me the man on whom you see the spirit come down to remain is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit. And I testify that this is God's chosen one. John the Baptist baptized with water and his baptism was called in the scriptures of baptism of repentance. It was an outward sign, an outward signal that a person was being prepared and acknowledged that they were a sinner. That they were maybe even a greater sinner than they had ever acknowledged before and that they were ready in seeking and looking for the one that God would send his chosen one. The water baptism of John never took away sins any more than the blood of Rams and goats could take away sins. The only one who could take away sins was the one coming, the chosen one who would baptize not only outwardly, not only cleanse outwardly, but cleanse and purify inwardly by the Holy Spirit. We're never alone. Even in our struggles with sin, even in our warring of our passions, even though part of us seems to be opposed to the things of God, even as part of us longs to know the things of God more fully, even though he or God never turns his back on us, God never leaves his children as discouraging as you might feel in your own private struggles with sin and with iniquity. Not to mention even the things outside of you in the world, no matter how discouraged you might be inwardly, never, ever, ever lose the ground of your hope, that God loves you despite you and that because he loves you, he sends us on Jesus. Jesus is now ascended to the right hand of the Father in intercedes for you there. He has sent to you another comforter, the Holy Spirit, the one who baptizes, who takes away a heart of stone and creates their heart of flesh, the one who transforms over time. Now, let me close with just three encouragements in this regard because you might be thinking to yourself, well, I can agree with all that Kevin propositionally. I've been in the church since my childhood up to this present day and everything you say, I know it rings true to scripture and to sound doctrine, but the fact of the matter is, all of that can be true, but I don't feel it. Right now, I don't feel very loved. Right now, I don't feel anything but alone. Let me encourage you that God's ends require his means, that God desires you to know the joy of your salvation or the things of God true, whether you feel them or not, absolutely. What is true of your relationship with God cannot be compromised no matter what you feel like. Your feelings don't make something true, but your feelings do matter. God wants you to know who you are and to feel deeply who you are and that end requires the means that he's appointed to achieve that end. If you don't exercise the means, you shouldn't expect to enjoy the end. What are the ordinary means by which God brings you a sense of the joy of your salvation? The first is God's word. Jesus is the word of God. And the word of God as it's read, preached, studied, privately in small groups, in studies like Wednesday night, in other places, becomes God speaking to you. There's so many Christians today that are looking for God to speak on billboards, in songs and radio. For miraculous mystical experiences with God, they're looking for some word from heaven. God spoke in his word. And as you read his word, his spirit that's baptized you. That's now your comforter sent from God the Father guides you in all truth and illuminates the meaning of that word. Not only for the church throughout history, but for you. The second means that God gives for you to enjoy this wonderful position and status is prayer. As you pray to the Lord, be mindful of what God's promise. Don't be anxious about anything. But by prayer and petition, Paul wrote, with thanksgiving to God, for all that he's done, for all that he's made true, whether you feel it or not, with thanksgiving to God, make known your requests to God. And the spirit of God, the peace of God rather, that transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. So oftentimes, one of the reasons we feel alone and dry spiritually is we're not in the word. We're not praying. We're not availing ourselves to the means of God's grace. The third means of God's grace is the fellowship of the saints. Every believer around you this morning has the same spirit of God at work within them. And they are a means of God's grace in your life. God never intended Christians to live their lives in isolation. We're image bears. We're created in the image of a triune God, a God that exists in eternal fellowship. And God calls us to enjoy fellowship not only with him, but with one another. Sometimes Christians deceive themselves into thinking that the church is an add-on, an accessory to the Christian life and isn't vitally at the center of what it means to be a Christian. The church is the fellowship we have, the writer of Hebrews, don't neglect the fellowship of the believers. Why? Because it's a means of grace when you are wavering and feeling weak. Your brother in your sister is there to remind you of what is true of you, whether you feel it or not. To expound to you, to explain to you, to encourage you in the word of God and to pray for you. And these wonderful means of grace enabled and powered and encouraged by the spirit become channels of God's blessings into your life to remind you that though you are more sinful than you ever dared met, you're more loved and you could ever possibly imagine and that you are never alone because God is into the world in the sun, Jesus. And now by the spirit, he's entered you. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your many blessings. And we thank you this morning that we're never alone, though we might feel alone. Father, would you by your spirit remind us that even though we are in and of ourselves objects of wrath, justly, more sinful than we ever dared admit, that because of your great sovereign love, we are more loved than we can ever imagine. And Father, when we run low in our reserves, when our tank runs dry and we feel lifeless, Father, would you by your spirit cause your means of grace to become channels of your mercy, to rejuvenate and to refresh? That we would see the embers of our sin die more and more every day. And the embers of our new life in Christ, fan into flame. Father, we pray in Jesus' name, amen. Willow Creek Church is a congregation of the Presbyterian Church in America. Our website is www.WillowCreekChurch.org and our phone number is 407-699-82-11.