Listen to this portion of God's words as it found in the Gospel of John chapter 1 verses 19 through 28. 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 asked him, what then? Are you Elijah? 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. This is the word of the Lord. Praise be to God for that. At this time our children up through 3rd grade can meet Drew Taylor, our director of Children's Ministries in the back of the worship center for time of children's worship. If you their parents would like and if you'd like your children to stay here, we always want to reiterate they're more than welcome to stay, but we want to make sure that you know they're welcome to that time and that time is designed for them to encounter the truth of God's word in their own way and we try very hard to keep things in sync here so that what the kids are learning goes very nicely with what we're sharing a time in this morning. Before we go to the Lord in prayer, let me just reiterate something that pastor Kent soon to be pastor Kent. His ordination is going to be in October here at Willow Creek. We'll advertise that and invite you to that. As Kent shared before, Wednesdays at Willow started this past Wednesday night and I'm just going to speak very honestly from my heart and tell you that that first night of Wednesdays at Willow exceeded all of my expectations and hopes. We had so many people come out and I was especially gratified to see that it was a cross-section of the entire church family whether you are an infant all the way up to being retirement age and elderly. Anybody is welcome to that time and I hope that you'll take the time to fellowship with your church family. The meal that runs from five to six just want to clarify. That's come as you are come as you can. If you show up at 5.45 that's fine. You'll just have to eat quickly. If you come at 4.50 you can help us set up. We'll take you whenever you get here and that time is a lot of fun. Great fellowship. The other thing that I thought was so great about that dinner was we had invited our dinner at the Creek friends. People we've enjoyed ministry with for several years, once a month offering a meal for folks in the community to come. They'd like fellowship and enjoy a meal together with us. We invited them to come to Wednesdays at Willow and they did. It was wonderful to see them interfacing with their entire church family. After that at 6 o'clock we broke into different groups. We've got a children's ministry, brand new midweek children's ministry called Ignite. We've got a nursery that can accommodate those little ones. So if you are a mom, a dad, you've got the littlest children and you find it hard to connect with your church family because of that. We've got child care. Come on up. We'd love to have you. For the middle schoolers, we have J.I. switch, our youth ministry over in the block. For the adults and senior high students, we have variety classes. I was so encouraged at my leadership training, pastors, Bible, state, Jeff Smith and I are leading that together. We had high school students in that. Oh, it's just so great to see them sitting alongside other adults in the church learning together. It just felt great to be a whole church family. And if you're new to Willow Creek, I want to inform you that that's really a centerpiece of our life and fellowship together and want you to encourage you to come out when you can. If you can't make it every week, that's fine. If you have to come a little late, that's great. You've got to leave a little early. That's fine too. We'll take you whenever we can get you. We love you and we want you to enjoy that time together. Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Our Father, we thank you this morning for your word and we ask that you would open our hearts and minds by the power of your Holy Spirit. That is, the Scriptures have been read and are preached now proclaimed that we may hear with joy what you have to say to us and that it might transform our lives for your glory, for the good of your people and the good of the world that you created. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Last week we said that it's very difficult to remain optimistic in this world and for a variety of reasons. Theologically we know this world's fallen. It's not the world as God originally created it. It's not got the world as God designed it to be and all we need to do to confirm that is turn on the television or open up the newspaper. There are a variety of evidences that this world is not what it should be. We can read about things like the Ebola outbreak in western Africa. We can read about ISIS working its way from Syria into Iraq. We can read about the Russians now in Ukraine. We can think of our own nation. The things that are going haywire here of many people commenting that the United States of America is more philosophically polarized, that at any time in its history and all of the manifestations of broken fractured relationships that result from it, all of those things can be very discouraging. If they become our reality, our soul focus, the context in which we see our lives, it's no wonder we move from optimism to pessimism so quickly and so easily. Some of us move from pessimism to cynicism, maybe even despair. It's understandable. There are a lot of influences in this world that are not the way they should be. And when we look at our lives, we can feel the very same way. Maybe you are like so many others who turn away from the world in its news, even national news. You don't watch cable television news network. You don't listen to talk radio. You don't open the newspaper for that very reason. Well, cause for pessimism can't be fled. Sin affects every dimension of our lives, every dimension of our being, every dimension of our world, you might know your own struggle with difficult circumstances and finances and relationships and health. It doesn't take long to have something come into our life that erodes our joy, takes away our peace, chokes the life of what God designed for us in our faith in the church, in our home, in every dimension of our being. Very, very understandable. Last week we said it becomes all the more understandable when you realize that one of the reasons we so quickly turned to pessimism is to hedge our bets, to approach life with a little less lofty expectation so that when those hopes aren't realized, we don't fall quite as hard. If we don't lift the gaze of our expectations too high, if they're not realized, we fall a bit but not as hard as we would fall if we had loftier ambitions and hopes for the world in ourselves. It becomes even more difficult to turn away from pessimism even within the church when you realize that many within the church have developed a theology that seems to justify pessimism. There are many biblical teachers today. Many of you were raised in churches where you were taught not to expect anything good from the future. You were taught to believe that this world will invariably go from bad to worse and that's the best that we, as Christians, can hope for, that one day Christ would return that we would be raptured out of this burning building of a world and that anything we do in the world to improve its condition or to transform its cultures is somewhat akin to polishing the brass on the Titanic. This thing's going down. The only thing that we can do as believers is head for the lifeboats. Many Christians live their lives that day in ironic or that way and ironically they produce the very situation that they lament by becoming pessimistic and as a result very passive toward the world isolating themselves rather than integrating themselves. pessimism leads to passivity and passivity can even be justified by recasting our theology to think that it's what God intends for us. That was actually the challenge facing the Jewish people in the 400 years from the conclusion of the Old Testament leading up to the start of the New Testament. You may not realize this but there's 400 years between the close of the Old Testament writings and the appearance of John the Baptist. Malachi prophesied that prior to the coming of Jesus Christ would come one in the spirit and power of Elijah to prepare the way for him and from that prophecy to the appearance of John the Baptist was 400 years some call it 400 years of prophetic silence. 400 years in which God did not speak through a prophet, add any more writings to the scriptures. Those of you who grew up in the Roman Catholic church know that the Roman Catholic scriptures include the apocrypha. Those are writings from that inter-testamental period. We do not believe that those are inspired biblical writings though they are helpful writings to understand the history of the Jewish people in the days leading up to Christ. Those 400 years no prophet in that sense was given to Israel and in that 400 years a lot of discouraging things happened. God's people you'll remember in the Old Testament grew to be a singular kingdom united under King David all of the tribes affirming him as their king and then due to David's sin the kingdom would be torn apart but not through the reign of his son Solomon. Solomon was able to build the temple for God a dwelling place for God among his people but at the close of Solomon's life the kingdom was torn into northern tribes ten of them to the north never followed God never had a good king were always apostate always wandering they were eventually conquered and carried away and even the nation of Judah and the south that was faithful to God from time to time oftentimes with wonderful kings was eventually conquered as well because of its sin and rebellion carried off by Babylon and the Assyrians and then God's people were able to come back and rebuild and they enjoyed a little bit of a remnant of renewal and the Old Testament closes and then in those 400 years you see Alexander the great the Egyptians and then the Romans all having a hand among God's people in their homeland oftentimes ruling them oppressing them and God's people doing two things that we oftentimes do when reality and our hopes diverge some people simply gave up hope they stopped looking for a Messiah they stopped looking for a supernatural power to give them a hope not only for their own lives but for all of life into the future forever and ever some of you remember the Sadducees do you remember the old children's eye I wouldn't want to be a Sadducee because then I'd be sad you see Sadducees were sad you see because they denied the supernatural they didn't really even believe in an afterlife many times people believe the Pharisees the Sadducees the Sanhedrin that Jewish body of leadership was remarkably uniform in its beliefs they were not the Pharisees and the Sadducees were very different from one another the Sadducees had an anti supernatural kind of bias in their thinking they took their eyes off the Messianic hope they were no longer hoping for the same thing what the Sadducees were doing was colluding with the Roman Empire to carve out for themselves a good life the best life they could have in that area they had lowered their gaze and tried to make peace with the world as they understood it a place in which the Jewish people were oppressed which hopes seem to be vanquished and you had another group the Pharisees who did not give up the Messianic hope but in waiting for the Messiah to appear recrafted the Jewish faith to become works based they took their eyes off of God and recast their faith to become a very works oriented righteousness God won't deliver us by grace we must work out our own redemption by works and so they built a weight of human tradition of laws and regulations to follow meticulously and in so doing felt that they were carving out a position of acceptance before God and a position of superiority before others to become arrogant and haughty and their self-confident religion one choosing the path of irreligion and turning away from the Bible and its truth another choosing the path of religion both of them turning aside from God during that very discouraging time in which God's people appear to languish the world seem to come apart the church today does the very same thing looking at the world around it the culture around it changing many in the church today just simply give up what the scriptures teach our biblical hope they recast their faith by getting rid of everything that seems to stand in opposition to the culture around and try to carve out an uneasy but but ultimately hopeful peace with the world that's the path of the liberal church they've given up their hope and God they've forsaken the truth of the scriptures they've sought to make do in this present age and taken their eye off of other things but others seem to recraft the faith to say something the other us say something other than what the scriptures teach to make sense of the world to relieve its tension to relieve the difficulty many today looking for an easy redemption where Jesus just appears jettison's us out of the world in a glorious rapture and we should just bite our time here because it's just going to go from bad to worse anyway there's no point in us working for justice and mercy in the world to transform things we can't transform the world but that's not the teaching of scripture as we showed last week Christ entered the world in order to transform the world and even though we won't see the perfect transformation of this world in this present age make no mistake Jesus had an audacious plan for the world Jesus did not resign himself to see his church fail in the world he wanted to see his church prevail in the world in a counterintuitive way to be sure not through physical might and power not through domination but through service and sacrifice that enabled by God's Holy Spirit becomes the counterintuitive way that people are transformed become followers of Christ and then the radiating implications of their faith affecting every sphere of life that they touch think about how Jesus talked about his kingdom certainly he was not naive about the presence of evil in the world he said that that tears or weeds would grow up right alongside the weeds in one of his parables saying that the world is divided there's a presence of good and evil in the world but what we should never lose sight of is Jesus wasn't talking about a weed field he was talking about a wheat field in which the harvest is plentiful but the workers are few many people coming to faith in Christ we need to go out and gather them in remember when Jesus said that his kingdom in the world would be like a mustard seed the smallest seed of all the garden plants that nevertheless grows to be the largest plants in the entire garden do you remember when Jesus said his kingdom is like yeast that works its way through the entire lump of dough signaling a pervasive effect of his kingdom in the world do you remember when Jesus gathered the disciples together and said go into all the world and make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit teaching them to obey everything I commanded Jesus was audacious and he expects his disciples to be tenacious God has a wonderful plan so we shouldn't wither back as we wait for his glorious return rather we should be bold we're more than conquerors we're commanded time after time in the scriptures to not be afraid as we sang just moments ago we don't have a spirit of timidity the Bible tells us we have a spirit of power of love of the sound mind we have feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace we have a shield of faith the sword of God's spirit we're the children of the living God but we're also the armies of the living God we don't fight with the weapons of the world we don't put a knife to people's throats and tell them to convert to Christianity or we're going to chop off their heads we serve them we sacrifice for them we show them the love of our Savior and through that the light of the gospel first forth into the dark places and remember what we read last week the light shines the darkness is not understood it but it can't overcome it either Jesus doesn't bow down to anybody and when he sends his forth his church in the world he sends them forth in hope that what they do will accomplish a great purpose now I want you to see how this 400 years of silence where in God's people we're growing increasingly discouraged how it comes to a close verse 19 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 asked him what that are you Elijah he said I'm 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'm the voice of the 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 John the Baptist was not a guy you could ignore John the Baptist was the kind of guy that when you see him you stop the car you roll down the window you turn to your wife for your husband say look at that look at that but don't let him catch you look at him that dude looks weird he wore a camel hair shirt he ate locusts and wild honey why never touched his lips and he preached the coming of the kingdom of God the immanence of the kingdom of God he said repents for the kingdom of God is near when the religious leaders eventually came out to be baptized he read them the riot act who warned you to flee the coming wrath you brood of vipers that guy got a lot of attention what he signaled was the end of that supposed silence God was speaking again in the world through a prophet the last of the Old Testament prophets the final link in the chain the one who would point to Christ and say behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world let all your doubt be removed heath the one toward whom you're looking they're looking they want to know who he is are you the Christ no are you Elijah no do the Pharisees really believe that he's a candidate for those two offices no they would have gone out themselves if they believe that they sent emissaries because they don't believe in John the Baptist whoever he claims to be they just want to know what particular brand of nut job this guy is so they can marginalize him before the people insecure their own position they want to be able to say he claims to be the Christ but we know he's not the Christ because before the Christ comes malice I told us Elijah would come when he says he's not the Christ and are you Elijah no I'm not Elijah well he can't be that either are you the prophet that Moses mentioned in Deuteronomy 18 the prophet who would come and be greater than even he no I'm not him oh no well then who are you I'll tell you who I am I'm the one that Isaiah spoke of the one who would come in the desert and preach the kingdom of God is here make way for the Lord he's coming if you read that passage in context Isaiah says that the day is coming when the high places will be brought low and the low places brought high and what he means by that is every impediment to the plans and purposes of God in the world will be removed God's purpose will be achieved and if you go on to read that chapter Isaiah 40 you recognize that what God is achieving is a renewal of the world he's not rejecting the world he's not casting it aside he's making it new again and those who are part of God's kingdom come alongside God in that great work now later on Jesus will say that John the Baptist is the one who came in the spirit and power of Elijah and therefore fulfilled Malachi 4 and served that purpose so when John says he's not Elijah he's not lying he's not a resurrected Elijah but he stands in the spirit and power of Elijah and Harold did the way of Christ so with his identity kind of established though not satisfactorily for the emissaries of the Pharisees the next question is his involvement what are you doing they ask him then why are you baptizing if you're neither the Christ nor Elijah nor the Prophet John answer them I baptize with water an emblem of the spirit to be sure but a symbol of cleansing of purification you remember in the Old Testament the old the Israelites had to go through cleansing rights before they would enter into the fellowship and worship of God but among you stands one you do not know even he who comes after me the strap of whose sandal I'm not worthy to untie these things took place in Bethany across the Jordan where John was baptizing so John says to them what am I doing I'm baptizing they probably knew that John was the son of a priest and had some claim to that particular thing but at the very least he is outside the mainstream baptizing signaling that the people now need to consecrate themselves they need to set themselves apart through repentance and faith to receive the gift that's not only coming but what should have sent chills down the spine of everyone who heard him is already here there's one among you who you don't know I'm not even worthy to untie the strap to his sandal and he's here now the axe is at the root of the tree judgment and mercy are here mercy to those who receive him judgment to those who do not be of good cheer God's not giving up on you he's come for you the implications of this passage are so many we can never talk about all of them today but let me just give you three as we close the first one is this during that 400 years of prophetic silence God wasn't silent even though there were discouraging circumstances and no prophet writing books of the Bible God was still at work in very counter intuitive ways see that's one of the things you need to understand as a believer and Christ God does not ensure that your life is going to be perfect he does not ensure in any way that your life is going to be without trials in fact God ensures the exact opposite he tells you in this life you'll have trouble but take hard I've overcome the world I'm working in your trouble to accomplish good for you and for the kingdom because you and the kingdom your faiths are intertwined my glory and your good are intertwined because I'm your God you're my people in that 400 years God was working in dynamic ways you remember I mentioned that the Jewish people during that time were overrun by Alexander the greats by the Egyptians later the Romans you know when Alexander spread his kingdom over the known world Alexander's desire was not simply to conquer them have them pay taxes tribute dwell together with order as the Roman desire was Alexander wanted to build a global culture a Hellenistic culture Greek culture so we wanted his entire empire to speak the language of the Greeks to have Greek culture to understand what it meant to be Greek and in as a result the entire world was more or less Hellenized you realize the significance of that during this 400 dark years God was giving the known world listen a common language through which the gospel of Jesus Christ could be preached from one end of the empire to another end of the empire would God abandon his hope in the world no he was seeding the world with a language that would make the gospel intelligible to anyone the Romans overran the Jewish people but also built a system of roads over the entire known world through which the gospel gospel could pass peacefully and safely they built a postal system through which letters like letters to churches could be sensed to the Jewish person living in those years it looked like oppression it looked like darkness but God was bringing his light into the world and you in your own life it might look like darkness the diagnosis the balance sheet the family broken us but don't think for a second that God is not at work in fact God does some of his greatest stealthy work when it appears he's absent the second thing we can see is that God has a much bigger plan for our lives than any of our plans the reason we are so oftentimes get depressed is because our agenda is not being realized but notice John the Baptist agenda by God's spirit that filled him from even before birth his agenda became the kingdom's agenda whatever it took now did he have moments of weakness sure he did he even had moments of doubt later on the gospels we read them but the fact is the general trajectory of his life was one of hope and deference to God's plans and purposes even if it meant for him suffering God might take us through the valley of the shadow of death but we don't need to fear evil his rod his staff they comfort us why because they're with us God never leaves or forsakes his people his plans and purposes are far bigger than anything we have in mind and so don't build a vision of Christianity of your faith that's so narrow that it relieves the tension surrender to the fact you're part of a much bigger narrative what God is accomplishing is broader deeper than anything your mind could understand and even though you don't know what God is doing throw yourself at him he loves you the third and final thing is that God opposes the proud it gives grace to the humble God doesn't require that we know as much as the Pharisees or the Sadducees God doesn't require that we have the lofty positions and authority in the face of the world God doesn't require any of these worldly powers and qualifications what God desires and requires is humility if we humble ourselves before God confessing to him even in those moments of confusion and weakness that we are as we are weak and in need he exalts those who are humble but he opposes the proud it's so sad the Pharisees the Sadducees those whose life and training was religion missed the Christ but those who were humble who knew they were broken who knew that in life's trials and tribulations they didn't have all the answers and sometimes were prone to fear they found him because they saw him with humility don't be discouraged whatever your circumstance be encouraged be strong and courageous God is working in hidden and secret ways to advance his kingdom and his kingdom in you father we thank you for this time in your word and we pray that you would encourage us that we are never alone though awful things happen in this world even to us individually you are setting the stage for glory the glory that is ours in Christ the glory that is now revealed in him through the spread of the gospel by the power of your spirit the same spirit that was at work in John the Baptist now being at work in us father would you produce humility the humility to trust even in dark times that you're working for us not against us we pray it in Jesus name amen