The Voice of One Crying
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This was John’s testimony when the Jews from Jerusalem sent priests and Levites to ask him, “Who are you?”
He didn’t deny it but confessed, “I am not the Messiah.”
“What then?” they asked him. “Are you Elijah?”
“I am not,” he said.
“Are you the Prophet?”
“No,” he answered.
“Who are you, then?” they asked. “We need to give an answer to those who sent us. What can you tell us about yourself?”
He said, “I am a voice of one crying out in the wilderness: Make straight the way of the Lord—just as Isaiah the prophet said.”
Now they had been sent from the Pharisees. So they asked him, “Why then do you baptize if you aren’t the Messiah, or Elijah, or the Prophet?”
“I baptize withM water,” John answered them. “Someone stands among you, but you don’t know him. He is the one coming after me, whose sandal strap I’m not worthy to untie.” All this happened in Bethany across the Jordan, where John was baptizing.
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 told you about: ‘After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me, because he existed before me.’ I didn’t know him, but I came baptizing with water so that he might be revealed to Israel.” And John testified, “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and he rested on him. I didn’t know him, but he who sent me to baptize with water told me, ‘The one you see the Spirit descending and resting on—he is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ I have seen and testified that this is the Son of God.”
Morning church! God in his great mercy has given us limits. There is only so long we can go without eating. Only so long we can go without drinking. And only so long we can go without sleep. I have always been a tester of my own limits. I often push myself in unhealthy ways to no one’s insistence but my own. This past season is a perfect example. I decided that I would lead a connect group, which I made into a study, while also doing a church residency and seminary. On top of that I was selling my part of a business, being a daddy with all that entails, and then my wife got injured at church camp and has yet to fully recover.
Within all that, I discovered that I was making our small group, which was intended to be a blessing, into a burden for my household. Upon talking with a brother here recently about the benefits of small groups, and why we need them, and why we should be participating in them, and leading them, he asked, why I was no longer leading. As I begin to explain we both laughed at how I often I said that I was doing more than anyone asked me to. If you asked me why, I would tell you that my intention of doing so much was to honor God through my service. But in reality, I was earning my spot in the kingdom through efforts that no one asked of me. I am always attempting to be the savior in those situations, but I realized in that conversation that throughout my life God has shown me that being aware of my limits is truly God honoring. Believing that he is greater, requires humbling myself to confess and repent of my need to perform. And to trust him as the almighty who is without limits. The God who invites us to unburden ourselves in light of his sufficiency. That is where our text is moving us today. Through the witness of John the Baptist we will see that he who knows himself responds in humility to God, and that he who humbles himself will be exalted by God. So if you have your bibles or your devices would you get them out and turn to John 1 and let’s unpack God’s word this morning.
These last few weeks we have been in the gospel of John, written by John the evangelist who is not John the Baptist, just to clarify. I will distinguish the two John’s from this point on as the evangelist and the baptist. The evangelist wrote so we might know that Jesus is the Messiah, and in that truth find life. In the his prior sermons Pastor Lyndale has shown us through this gospel, that Jesus is greater than everyone and everything, he is the promised light in IsaIan come to rescue all who are trapped in darkness, he is the Word of God, and he is God.
In John 1:6-8 we get a small introduction on the Baptist who we are told came as a witness to testify about the light, so that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to testify about the light. So we have a little background on the Baptist through the Holy Spirit led testimony of the evangelist. But what does the baptist say about himself? Look at 1:19-23:
This was John’s testimony when the Jews from Jerusalem sent priests and Levites to ask him, “Who are you?”
He didn’t deny it but confessed, “I am not the Messiah.”
“What then?” they asked him. “Are you Elijah?”
“I am not,” he said.
“Are you the Prophet?”
“No,” he answered.
“Who are you, then?” they asked. “We need to give an answer to those who sent us. What can you tell us about yourself?”
He said, “I am a voice of one crying out in the wilderness: Make straight the way of the Lord—just as Isaiah the prophet said.”
Notice how he humbles himself. He knows who he is and who he is not. If this was me, I would tell them, I can probably be the messiah if you need me to be. I can be Elijah or the prophet. Putting myself into roles that no one asked me to fill. That’s not the Baptist. He is not looking for any credit or attempting to make some well fashioned argument for God. He is but a voice crying out in the wilderness to make straight the way of the Lord, just as the prophet Isaiah said. If the baptist thinks it best to quote Isaiah here, it is undoubtedly worth taking a deeper look at.
Isaiah 40:3
3 A voice of one crying out:
Prepare the way of the Lord in the wilderness;
make a straight highway for our God in the desert.
There are two words for Lord in Hebrew, one was adon, where the Hebrews get the word Adonai, and can be used for the Lord, but can also be used for kings, and noble men. The other word is Yahweh. A name they dared not to speak aloud, which is why you will always find it with the vowels removed, to make it unsayable. That is the term used here. Prepare the way of Yahweh! God almighty is here. The evangelist already made it clear that Jesus is God. Now the baptist claims the same thing. I am here letting you know that God is with us!
Quick sidebar: I love Eugene Peterson’s paraphrased translation of this verse in the Message version of the Bible.
3 Thunder in the desert!
“Prepare for God’s arrival!
Make the road straight and smooth,
a highway fit for our God.
When I first read this I asked the Lord to show me what Eugene meant when he translated a voice of one crying in the wilderness to thunder in the desert. A few days later in the middle of a drought we heard thunder at our house. Because our land was dry and parched, decaying and dead, we were excited at the sound of thunder in our desert. We knew that it proclaimed that rain was on its way and where there is rain, there is life. What was dead would be restored. The Lord showed me the strength of this word picture by allowing me to experience its meaning. Sidebar over.
Let’s go on to read the next two verses in Isaiah 40.
4 Every valley will be lifted up,
and every mountain and hill will be leveled;
the uneven ground will become smooth
and the rough places, a plain.
5 And the glory of the Lord will appear,
and all humanity together will see it,
for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.
Moments ago we heard John the Baptist say he was not the one they were looking for, but he was a voice, sent to testify that the Lord is here. So the first thing I wanted us to see is that John humbled himself. He didn’t claim any authority he did not have, and emptied himself to become what any of us could be, a voice. The next thing I want to show us through the text in Isaiah is that John the baptist is not a lone voice with his own agenda.
5 And the glory of the Lord will appear,
and all humanity together will see it,
for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.
The voice of the one crying out that God is here is in response to God’s voice. We just read it. For the mouth of the Lord has spoken. Our God is the God who always goes before us and leads the way. This is why John says that “After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me, because he existed before me.” The Baptist’s voice is in response to the voice of God.
After these religious leaders found out that the man they thought might be an end times figure was just a loudmouth with a big following, they proceed to interrogate him further.
24 Now they had been sent from the Pharisees. 25 So they asked him, “Why then do you baptize if you aren’t the Messiah, or Elijah, or the Prophet?”
26 “I baptize with water,” John answered them. “Someone stands among you, but you don’t know him. 27 He is the one coming after me, whose sandal strap I’m not worthy to untie.” 28 All this happened in Bethany across the Jordan, where John was baptizing.
There were baptism rituals around at this time, so the idea of baptism wasn’t as radical as John the baptist’s presentation. And because of that, if he was not the messiah, Elijah or the prophet, these Pharisees wanted to know where he got his authority to baptize. Again he humbles himself by pointing out that his baptism is symbolic of a need to clean yourselves for the one whose sandal he is not worthy to untie. At this time, given the dirtiness of people’s feet, this was the lowest task a slave could perform, and John says he is not even worthy to carry out this lowly task on the one he is proclaiming. This also foreshadows the power of Jesus’ foot washing lesson in John 13.
29 The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! 30 This is the one I told you about: ‘After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me, because he existed before me.’ 31 I didn’t know him, but I came baptizing with water so that he might be revealed to Israel.” 32 And John testified, “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and he rested on him. 33 I didn’t know him, but he who sent me to baptize with water told me, ‘The one you see the Spirit descending and resting on—he is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ 34 I have seen and testified that this is the Son of God.”
Here again, John the baptist tells them that God is here! He has provided where we could not. The provisional lamb to save his people. A word picture that certainly would have brought to mind the image of the passover lamb. He points again to his inability to stand before him in rank, and even answers the questions of why he baptizes, which is so that Jesus might be revealed to these people and who gave him the authority to baptize…which he tells us was God, who would reveal the one who would not only baptize symbolically, but would baptize with the Holy Spirit of God. Not washing us outwardly, but transforming us inwardly. He says that he did not know him, which does not mean that they did not know each other, but rather, John didn’t know him as the Messiah until God revealed it to him. This all took place after his baptism of Jesus which is not recorded in this gospel, only alluded to. But the baptist tells us that God would signify who Jesus is by the Spirit descending and resting upon his chose one. And John finishes his thought with the two perfect tense verbs. Seen and testified that this is the son or chosen of God. He has been given clarity and conviction that God is here and a new age is dawning under the Holy Spirit baptism of Jesus Christ.
John’s entire ministry was to see, hear, proclaim and baptize so that Jesus would increase and he would decrease. This is what we’re called to Christian. To be a voice in response to God’s word. This is why we preach on Sunday morning. We are a voice crying out that God is here! Make a way for his restorative, redemptive word which brings life! But it is not only the job of the preacher. You also are to be a voice, a witness, in your sphere of influence that cries out, God is here! John the Baptist showed us how to do that with humility. He humbled himself, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.
13 But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, because your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you will name him John. 14 There will be joy and delight for you, and many will rejoice at his birth. 15 For he will be great in the sight of the Lord and will never drink wine or beer. He will be filled with the Holy Spirit while still in his mother’s womb. 16 He will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God. 17 And he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of fathers to their children, and the disobedient to the understanding of the righteous, to make ready for the Lord a prepared people.”
“Truly I tell you, among those born of women no one greater than John the Baptist has appeared, but the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been suffering violence, and the violent have been seizing it by force. For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John. And if you’re willing to accept it, he is the Elijah who is to come.
9 As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus commanded them, “Don’t tell anyone about the vision until the Son of Man is raised from the dead.”
10 So the disciples asked him, “Why then do the scribes say that Elijah must come first?”
11 “Elijah is coming and will restore everything,” he replied. 12 “But I tell you: Elijah has already come, and they didn’t recognize him. On the contrary, they did whatever they pleased to him. In the same way the Son of Man is going to suffer at their hands.” 13 Then the disciples understood that he had spoken to them about John the Baptist.
What is incredible about John’s ministry is that when he was asked if he was Elijah he said no. In fact everytime he answered the Pharisees he wanted them to quit looking at him and to turn their eyes toward Jesus. But we’re told, more than once, that not only was John the baptist Elijah, but he was the greatest man ever born of a woman. God in the flesh, saw more significance in John the baptist’s ministry than John ever did. This man who spent his last days in prison, only to be executed by a seduced coward knew there was more than this. He knew his God to be faithful. And he believed Jesus was greater, than even death. Praise God in heaven, he was right. When we humble ourselves church, God will exalt us. God is not as concerned with our fruitfulness as he is with our faithfulness. Believe that Jesus is greater. Know your limits. Trust his voice. Jesus doesn’t want us to be his defense lawyer. He wants us to be thunder in the desert. He wants us to be voices crying out in the wilderness. He wants our stories. He wants our lives. To remove obstacles, and straighten out paths to help people know that God is here.