Episode Transcript
WEBVTT
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Let's hear God's Word now from John
Chapter One. This is the Fourth Gospel,
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John Chapter One, versus, excuse
me, twenty nine through thirty four.
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Much as the angels proclaimed the entrance
of the Messiah into this world,
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John the Baptist did the same as
Jesus entered into his public ministry. I'm
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here. We have more of John's
proclamation and of our hope in the incarnate
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son of God. Let's hear God's
word now from John One, verse twenty
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nine through Thirty Four. The next
day, he, that is John,
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saw Jesus coming toward him and said, behold the lamb of God, who
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takes away the sin of the world. This is he of whom I said
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after me comes a man who ranks
before me, because he was before me.
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I myself did not know him,
but for this purpose I came baptizing
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with water that he might be revealed
to Israel, and John bore witness.
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I saw the spirit descend from heaven
like a dove, and it remained on
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him. I myself did not know
him, but he who sent me to
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baptize with water said to me he
on whom you see the spirit descend and
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remain. This is he who baptizes
with the Holy Spirit, and I have
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seen and born witness that this is
the son of God. Amen may be
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seated well. There are many parallels
between this passage and and Jesus's birth.
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You remember that when Mary became pregnant, it was a result of the spirit
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of God hovering over her. The
word dove isn't used. They are,
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but there is this kind of bird
like imagery that happens at the conception of
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Jesus. Is a reminder to us
that Jesus is both fully God and fully
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man, and this reminder comes in
the stories of his birth and at the
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beginning of his public ministry and in
many ways that are parallel to one another.
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And this truth about Jesus being fully
God and fully man in our saviors
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is so important. It's so important
because it involves our salvation, our hope
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in this world. Do you have
hope? Are there ways in which are
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there things that you look forward to? And I don't just mean tomorrow or
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the next day or maybe five years
from now if things go according to plan.
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I mean hope, everlasting hope,
eternal hope, hope that satisfies,
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hope that lifts up hope that can
give you confidence even in the midst of
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of death itself. That kind of
hope. Is it yours? I hope
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so, and I hope in a
different way then the hope that is talked
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about in scripture. Sometimes we talk
about hope and the way that I just
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used it as a kind of wish, like I think this will happen or
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I desire that this will happen.
But what you want is more than that,
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I hope, what I hope you
want, what I desire for you
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to want is more than a desire, but certainty, confidence that the Lord
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has given himself to you. Why? Because, as we read at the
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very beginning of this letter, this
one, this Jesus who comes into the
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world, was everything, to remind
you, from the words from the beginning
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of this letter, in the beginning
was the word, and the word was
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with God, and the word was
God. He was in the beginning with
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God. All all things were made
through him and without him was not anything
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made. That was made. In
him was life, and the light was
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the light of men. The light
shines in the darkness and the darkness has
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not overcome it. Jesus is God
himself who is come into this world to
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give us light to shine in the
dark places. He has come in this
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world to give us life, life
even out of out of death. But
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this God who was in the beginning, John tells us in our passage that
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he was also a man. He
says in verse thirty, this is he
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of whom I said after me comes
a man who rinks before me, because
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he was before me. This is
a reference both to Jesus as humanity,
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as a man, and his divinity
as God, who was before John,
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not just a little bit, or
even according to their births, because John
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was born first, or even according
to their ministries, because Gee, John's
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ministry was first, but according to
Jesus's divinity, of course he is first.
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God is always, always first.
And so I want to talk to
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you today about this Jesus, particularly
this Jesus who is both fully God and
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fully man, particularly as John describes
him, as the lamb of God who
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takes away the sin of this world. John, I want to begin by
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thinking about the work of Jesus,
and then we'll think about the manner of
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Jesus, the manner in which he
does the work. The work of Jesus
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is this to take away the sins
of the world. This is how John
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Describes what Jesus came to do.
This is how Jesus begins his public ministry.
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Of course these things were prophesied about
in the Old Testament. The angels
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declared similar things at the birth of
Jesus. And then when Jesus begins his
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work in the world in earnest,
I'm in this particular way, this public
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way, it is announced. This
is what he's doing to take away the
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sins of the world, which means
that the things that John is already told
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us about him being light and life, need to be coupled with this.
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In other words, when Jesus brings
light into the world, he doesn't just
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bring a nice thing, but he
shines in the darkness, and that darkness
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is to be understood in moral terms, among others, in terms of our
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sin. You know this, I
think, from experience. Sin Is attached
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to darkness, isn't it? What
do we often do with our sins in
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our sinfulness? We hide them,
we cover them, we put them away
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where they can't be seen, we
try to protect them, we move away
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from God, who is light and
life. Of course we describe our sins
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in terms of darkness as well.
When when we think about an evil when
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we think about the Prince of darkness, Satan himself, when Jesus comes into
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the world shining his light, he
does so to remove the darkness. This
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is what light does. It's the
nature of light, right. You go
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into a room and you turn on
the light and where does the darkness go?
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It's gone. It is overcome by
the light. It's the same thing
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that Jesus does. And in our
hearts, in our in relation to our
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sin, Jesus comes to take away
that sin, the things that we would
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protect, the things that we would
hide, the things that we would cover
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up. He exposes, not to
shame US and leave us in our shame,
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but to remove our shame. He
doesn't sort of take us and expose
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us in our sins and point a
finger and say look, there he is,
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look how awful is, look how
disgusting he is, look how despicable
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she is. You can't stand or
can you? That's not what he does.
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He doesn't merely expose our sin,
but he takes it away. Remember
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the words we read earlier in Psalm
fifty one. He makes us clean and
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is white as the snow. He
doesn't just rip open our hearts so that
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all the pollution and putrification can be
seen and mocked and laughed at, but
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he opens up our hearts so that
he can get in there with a surgeon's
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knife and clean it all out and
put new life in there, so that
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on the day of Resurrection, we
don't stand before the judgment seat shaking in
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our boots, wondering whether or not
will be saved. We stand before the
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judgment seat as saints in light,
as those who have already been justified,
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as those who are so obviously the
sons and daughters of God that no one
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can deny it. He takes away
our sins. This is why Jesus comes
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into the world. This is why
God, who was from the beginning and
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even before the beginning, comes into
the world and takes on human flesh.
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Well, that reminds us of the
humble way in which he comes and helps
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us to understand how John Describes this
met the manner of Jesus's work. He
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describes him as the lamb of God. Behold, he says, it's not
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just a Bible word, by the
way, that actually means look at it,
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but look at him, pay attention
behold, take notice, the lamb
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of God who takes away the sins
of the world. The work that Jesus
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does is described by Jesus as being
the lamb of God. That's a striking
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and unusual phrase, isn't it?
The Lamb of God. If you have
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some familiarity with the Old Testament,
you might say, well, it sounds
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a little familiar. I remember that
there are animals and the Old Testament that
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are important, particularly for sacrifices and
other things, and a lot of commentators
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will go back to the Old Testament
and say, well, what is John
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a talking about here? What language
is he picking up? And there's all
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kinds of different attempts to think about
what is John mean when he calls him
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the lamb of God? Maybe he's
referring to the morning and evening sacrifices that
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were offered at the temple, or
maybe he's referring to the Passover lamb,
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or perhaps not even to a lamb
directly, but to the ram that God
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provide bided so that Isaac would not
have to die, or maybe the scapegoat
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that was that took on the sins
of God's people and the Day of Atonement,
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the thing is, when you go
to each of these various connections with
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the Old Testament, you try to
say, is this the lamb that's being
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talked about? Is this the thing
that Jesus is from filling? None of
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them really fit quite right. And
the answer is that Jesus is is like
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them, but he's also different.
He is a lamb of God, but
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he's not just the new kind of
lamb. He takes all of these other
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things and he fulfills them all together. Jesus is a lamb of sacrifice who
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will give his life for the sins
of the world, but he's not just
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the fulfillment of this sacrifice or that
sacrifice or that one either, but of
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all of them. Jesus takes the
whole sacrificial system in the Old Testament,
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all of the various types and shadows, and he fulfills it all in himself.
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He is the lamb of God,
but he's a new kind of lamb,
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a better kind of lamb, and
the whole Old Testament system and worship
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is found in him, not just
part of it, all of it.
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I think this is the best way
to understand John's reference to Jesus is the
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lamb of God and in particular,
to prophecies that are mentioned in Isaiah one,
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in particular Isaiah fifty three seven,
where we read this. He was
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oppressed. Yet when he was afflicted, he did not open his mouth,
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as a lamb that has led to
the slaughter, and as a sheep that
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is before it shears his mute,
he did not open his mouth. Here,
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Isaiah is not describing a particular lamb
with a particular sacrifice. He's talking
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about the coming Messiah and the way
in which this Messiah will be quiet and
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gentle and peaceful in his obedience,
which is an amazing thing, considering that
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Jesus is obedience required so much difficulty, including being led to the slaughter,
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hung on a cross with a crown
of thorns on his head and being whipped
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on his back, mocked by the
government and the leaders that were supposed to
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be supporting him and helping him,
left by his disciples and abandoned. This
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Jesus did willingly, obediently, quietly. There is a gentleness in his suffering
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that is important. Jesus didn't go
kicking and screaming to the Cross. Even
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when people asked him direct questions,
he didn't use it as an opportunity to
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stand up on a soap box and
push his weight around, even rhetorically.
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It's not that Jesus never said anything. It's not that Jesus didn't, wasn't,
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wasn't clear about his message and his
mission. If you eat the Gospel,
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and we will continue to go through
John, Jesus was extremely clear,
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especially as he got closer and closer
to the cross, about why he came.
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Indeed, John is clear. He
says behold the lamb of God,
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who takes away the sins of the
world. He's saying it right there in
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the waters of Jordan as the Holy
Spirit himself descends upon Jesus, and John
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is and and is God. I'd
rather in the other gospels we read,
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says this is my beloved son day. Frederick Dale Bruner, a commentator,
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makes this connection there, puts it
this way and connects this with the spirits
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descending as a dove. He writes
that the spirit comes down like a dove.
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Corresponds nicely with the earlier fact that
the savior came on earlier as a
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lamb. No lie in there,
no eagle here, but dove on lamb.
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Surely these two animal pictures seek to
depict the gentle, Nonviolent Messiah from
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the Synoptic Gospels, that is Matthew, mark and Luke so massively spell out.
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Gentleness, not obvious power, seems
to be the most authentic mark of
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Christian messianism. All the Gospels Unite
here. Jesus comes with great glory,
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right, the angel singing in the
sky, the the wise men traveling from
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afar, this miraculous birth and concern
and conception, all of these things.
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And yet at every point there is
great humbleness in them well as well,
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gentleness right, we don't have the
the mighty army of angels riding up over
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the hill into Jerusalem with Jesus on
his horse. Slang the thousands as he
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comes. They go out to shepherd's
foreigners Mary. There's Jesus wrapped in swaddling
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clothes in a manger. Here's Jesus
and his own cousin. He says,
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I didn't even recognize him until God
said the one on whom the dove or
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the spirit descends like a dove,
that's the one who's come. His own
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cousin didn't recognize him as such until
God revealed him this way. That's always
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this way, and it's this way
for a good reason, because God comes
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to those who are in need of
a savior. If Jesus came and all
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of his glory and majesty and Power, without any humility, without any suffering,
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we would simply be among those who
are slayed. We would simply be
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the dead body is on the battlefield
as the Lord and conqueror of the world
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takes away sin, deals with the
sin problem that is in the world.
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Jesus does take away the sin of
the world, but he does it by
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removing it from US rather than simply
removing us as he will on the last
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day of his great judgment. It
is a blessed and wonderful thing that Jesus
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comes as a lamb to take away
the sins of the world. What are
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you supposed to do with this news? Imagine yourself as one of the people
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who had heard about John had gone
out to the Jordan to see with all
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the fuss was about, or maybe
even to repent of your sins. And
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here is this great prophet, it's
Great Old Testament, profit in a way
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belonging to that old covenant period,
standing and pointing at Jesus and he says
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there is the one of whom I
said, he who comes before me,
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or he who comes after me,
who was before me. This is the
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lamb of God. What do you
say to that? What do you do
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with that message? You go that's
interesting, or that John, what a
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funny guy, and walk away.
I'd like to say that the answer is
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plain and obvious, but of course
it's not always plain and obvious. The
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reason for this is that pride and
self righteousness and confidence in our goodness is
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like mud in our eyes. It
makes us totally unable to see the truth.
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Or, we're to use another analogy, we might say that our pride
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is like putting on virtual reality goggles
or something like that. Our pride enables
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us to see something that isn't real, something it isn't true. It distorts,
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it changes the truth, but of
course not really, not. Ultimately,
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there is a real truth, a
true with a capital t, just
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not the one we're perceiving. If
you think that you are healthy and strong
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and capable and full of goodness and
spirituality, then the fact that Jesus comes
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to save the world will sound like
good news. Right, but distant,
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not relevant to you. Important perhaps
in some way, but really unimportant ultimately
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to you, into the things that
you're doing and the goals that you have
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and the life that you're living in
this world under the Sun. Important,
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interesting, fascinating maybe even, but
kind of a non priority. Let me
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use another example. Let me say, let me let me put it this
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way. Let's say I introduce you
to a heart doctor. You're we're at
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a party or something like that,
and I introduce you to this heart doctor
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and you say, Oh, nice
to meet you, and I try to
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impress on you and say no,
this is this is the greatest doctor in
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the world. He has a hundred
percent success rate at curing all problems related
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to the heart. You might shake
his hand to say wow, that's really
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amazing, that's very impressive. If
there's any way I can support what you
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do, let me know. You
might support him, you might compliment him,
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you might be amazed, you might
tell someone else I met this heart
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doctor at a party, was just
fascinating. Hundred percent success rate. And
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this is how some people treat Jesus. This is how non Christians eat Jesus,
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at least at their best. Christians, however, see Jesus as people
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who are lying on a table with
a heart problem, who then is introduced
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to somebody who walks into the room
and says I have a hundred percent success
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rate working on hearts. It's not
a Oh, it's nice to meet you,
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or a Oh, I'd really like
to support what you do, but
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it's Oh, thank God. Literally
we don't. This is why we don't
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simply praise Jesus, compliment Jesus,
support Jesus and his fine work. We
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worship Jesus because he doesn't just say
of our physical hearts and our physical bodies.
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He does that, but he saves
all of us and completely. He
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promises that on the last day we
will be resurrected with new bodies, just
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like him. We will have eternal
life, just like him. Christians worship
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Jesus because when they were introduced to
Jesus, they were clutching their hearts having
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a heart attack, or rather they
were already dead lying on the table,
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and then they wake up and he
says I just saved you. Isn't that
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amazing? This is why Christians are
willing to die for Jesus, why Christians
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are willing to give up their lives, because they already belong to him,
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they already have he already has them. It's why we can look at the
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governments of this world, or the
economic systems of this world, or our
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personal difficulties and troubles, are sins
Satan himself, and Shrug and say not
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my problem, I belong to Jesus, the savior of the world, who
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takes away the sins of the world. Do you see Jesus in that way?
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If you don't, then you have
a pride problem and God is opening
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your eyes to see that. Ask
him to open them all the way to
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see your blindness, to see your
sin, to do whatever it takes to
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reach out and accept the life that
he is giving to you. If you
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think of sin is a minor thing, a simple problem, something that you
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have to deal with from time to
time, then the announcement that the lamb
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of God, who takes away the
sins of the world, is now here
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will be rather unimportant. But if
you're like me, like those who profess
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their faith is this morning, and
the others who are sitting around you who
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have been brought from death to life
by the savior of the world who took
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away their sins, then you will
give him praise, you'll live with him,
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with all that is in you.
You will have hope and certainty in
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the goodness of his promises. Sin
Is not a minor thing, nor is
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our savior. Let me finish by
reading from First Peter to Twenty one through
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twenty five. That describes John's words
in another way. Peter says, Christ
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also suffered for you, leaving you
an example so that you might follow in
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his steps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth.
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When he was wrought reviled, he
did not revile and return. When
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he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued in trusting himself to him
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who judges justly. He himself bore
our sins in his body on the tree
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that we might die to sin and
live to righteousness. By his wounds,
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you have been healed, for you
were straying like sheep, but now I've
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returned to the shepherd and the overseer
of your souls. Let's pray
