Our True Need: the Lamb of God

Introduction

I think most people come to church because the church is a place that fulfills a need in us. For some people that might be companionship, for others it might be a sense of spirituality. Some people might come for emotional encouragement. There are some of you that come to please your parents or partners. But there’s also a real practical benefit in coming to church because especially for Koreans, the Korean church becomes a place where a community is formed and you can form networks and connections with people who can be really helpful in your everyday life: even at our church, we have electricians, nurses, pharmacists, doctors, restaurant owners, supermarket owners, real estate agents, musicians, the list goes on!

But is that the whole point of church? Did Jesus establish the church just so that you can get can get a discount at the korean supermarket? No, Jesus established the church to address a much deeper, greater, and desperate need, and that is what I want to talk about today through this passage in John 1:19-34.

We do not know what we need

But before I really get into what John tells us in terms of our true need, John first illustrates to us how often we get it so wrong. Let’s read John 1:19–21 together: “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.”” Here we see the Jewish religious leaders coming to John the Baptist and asking John who he is. Now, this question of ‘Who are you’ isn’t just a simple question of ‘Oh Hi John, let’s be friends, tell me more about yourself!’. It’s actually an extremely loaded question.

Now what do I mean by that? To give you an example, I’ve got a dog at home, her name is Princess Peach. (show photo on slide). She’s cute sometimes, and half the time she’s well behaved. The other half of the time, she can be… misbehaved. So a few days ago, I got back home, and she had been home by herself for a few hours. Normally when I get home, she’s normally running up to me, jumping on me and everything, but when I got back this time, she wouldn’t really come near me, and when I looked closer, I noticed all around her mouth it was all wet! So I asked her ‘What have you done??’. It’s an extremely loaded question, there’s so many questions behind that question, and obviously a lot of emotion behind it as well. Well to finish the story, she had gone through the bin again (this happens quite frequently), and I think she ate like pork belly or something, I don’t know, but she ended up being fine.

So anyways, why do I say that the Pharisee’s question is extremely loaded? Well, the Jews of the time of Jesus had strong expectations and deep yearnings for the Messiah and the Kingdom of God to come. For hundreds of years, they had been ruled and enslaved by other nations. They were reminded of this painful truth everyday because even though the Jews could now live in Jerusalem again, it was under Roman Rule, and everyday things reminded them of their state of oppression: taxes to Caesar, the Roman soliders wandering around the city keeping it under their control, Pilate being a Roman governor ruling over Jerusalem, Herod the king of Jerusalem was just a puppet king. In addition, even a few decades prior to the time of Jesus, there was a period where the Jews did establish their own kingdom, by their own military power - the Maccabees rebelled against their Greek rulers (the Greek Seleucid empire), and for a short period of time, they had their own independent kingdom. So the Jews of Jesus’ time were desperately wanting their own kingdom to come, and they were expecting a Messiah to come and establish this kingdom for them - for them, what this ‘Messiah’ meant was someone to come and overthrow the Roman rulers, either through warfare or a divine apocalyptic intervention, and establish the final end-time kingdom of God. That’s why they ask ‘Are you Elijah’ in verse 21, because Elijah was associated with this final kingdom coming in Malachi 3-4. And that’s also why they ask ‘Are you the Prophet’ because Deuteronomy 18:15-22 talks about a final prophet like Moses who was associated with the end times.

So the Jews have a very clear idea about what they think they need. They think they need to be freed from the Romans, and have their own kingdom, like the days of David and Solomon. But is it what they truly need?

Well, if you look at what they think they need, it’s very much shaped by what they want. On a human level it’s very understandable what these Jews wanted, because of their individual life experiences, their history of being oppressed, what they see before their very eyes in the form of Roman rule. And based on these things, what they want is political freedom from their Roman oppressors. And as a result, when they approach God, they come with this very specific agenda. What’s even more interesting is that they even incorporated the Scriptures to justify their needs and expectations, like Malachi and Deuteronomy, but without the Holy Spirit to reveal to us the true meaning of the Scriptures, we can see how even the Bible can be manipulated to falsely justify our own requests and expectations of God. Unfortunately these Jewish leaders have confused what they want, with what they truly need, and as everyone here knows, what we want doesn’t always align with what we truly need. You may want the latest iPhone, or car, but that doesn’t always match up with what you truly need. Political victory is not what God ultimately had in mind for them because God knew that this was not their true and deepest need in the lives of these Jews.

And as Christians, we still do this today. We come to church and God, and want certain things and so we pray about those thing. We come to God with a certain agenda. We may even put Bible verses to it to reassure ourselves that our desires and needs are ‘biblical’. We may be thinking that we need more fellowship with one another in the church. We may think we need better church equipment for better worship. We may think we need more teachers to make our Sunday School run more effectively. We may think we need more church services. We may come to God with something more personal: please help me with my depression and anxiety, give me meaning and direction in life.

And I’m not saying all these things are bad things. These are all wonderful and highly necessary things in our lives as believers. But when we come to God, we need to examine ourselves very carefully - are my requests things that I truly need, or are they things that I just want? Because, in fixating on these things, we may be missing the bigger picture: the solutions to our individual needs, are actually just the fruits of the solution to our deepest need; when your deepest need is met, the fruits of that will meet a lot of your other needs. Don’t confuse the fruit for the tree - it is only in fulfilling our deepest need itself, that our individual needs are also met. There is an order to our ‘needs’ as believers. (And unlike our individual needs which vary, depending on each of our different lives, our deepest need is singular, perrennial, and common to all mankind.)

Only God knows what we truly need

So how do we even know what we truly need? The Jewish leaders couldn’t identify their true need because they couldn’t see beyond their ideas of a Jewish king and defeating the Roman Empire.

John the Baptist however was different. In John 1:26, John states "I baptize with water, but among you stands one you do not know.” What does John’s baptism mean? The gospel of Matthew in Matthew 3:11 states ““I baptize you with water for repentance” - so through baptism, John identifies the most important singular need of mankind: repentance for sin. However, John’s baptism does not actually provide repentance and forgiveness. In fact, John himself doesn’t actually know how, or who will bring repentance for mankind. See John 1:33 “I myself did not know him, but he who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain, this is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’” This verse states that John did not know him. But how did he find out? Through the Holy Spirit. It is through the Holy Spirit that God reveals to us our deepest need. Through all the messiness of our lives, through all the difficulties and struggles, the Holy Spirit shows us our first and foremost need, which comes before all our other secondary needs. And unlike our other needs, this need is not a what, but it is a who. We need Jesus Christ. Here, John reveals to us the final member of the Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Last time, we talked about knowing God, knowing the Father, and the way you know the Father is through the Logos, Jesus Christ the Son. They are so close that if you know the Son, you know the Father. And you get to know the Son through the Holy Scriptures which talks about Him. But it is the Holy Spirit who reveals Jesus to us, so even in our reading of the Scriptures, we require the Holy Spirit to reveal Jesus to us through the Bible (John 14:26).

And why do we need to know Jesus Christ? Why is he our deepest need? John states in John 1:29 “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”. Jesus is described as ‘the Lamb of God’. Jesus is the Lamb of Genesis that was provided for Abraham so that he would be sacrificed instead of Isaac. Jesus is the scapegoat of the Day of Atonement in Leviticus that took on the sins of Israel. Jesus is the Passover Lamb of Exodus that took God’s judgement instead of the firstborn of each family. Jesus is the lamb of Isaiah 53, that was killed and slaughtered instead of us for our sins, even though he had no sin himself. So if John’s baptism of water only pointed to the need for repentance, then Jesus’ baptism with the Holy Spirit is the one who completely changes us, brings forth genuine repentance, forgiveness of sins, leading to eternal life.

If you have been in church long enough, you have heard this time and time again. Christ died for our sins, even though we were undeserving. And it is easy to understand it just in our heads, it is easy to think of it as just cold doctrine, and it is easy to just keep this as a distant cold piece of knowledge in our minds. But our salvation does not depend on having the right concept in our heads. Christ needs to be your lamb. Christ died on the cross specifically for you and for your sins. Christ was resurrected to secure eternal life for you. It is a wonderful and amazing truth that we are so undeserving of, and you can only obtain this truth for your life if you truly know your deepest need: the forgiveness of your sins. If this is something that is foreign to you, if you feel like ‘I’m OK’, if this is something that you don’t quite yet grasp, pray that the Holy Spirit would come into your life, convict you of your sins, and point you to the One who can fill and solve your deepest need, Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God.

Witness to others what they need

Finally, it is not just about our own needs, but also the needs of others. We are called to be a witness to Jesus’ wonderful work on the cross, because Jesus is also the deepest need for everyone around us. And John the Baptist is the one who shows us perfectly how to be a good witness and tell others about Jesus. The word ‘witness’ repeatedly shows up when John the Baptist tells others about Jesus:

John 1:32 “And John bore witness: “I saw the Spirit descend from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him.”

John 1:34 “And I have seen and have borne witness that this is the Son of God.””

What is the main characteristic of John the Baptist in his work as a witness to Jesus? Absolute and total humility. And this is surprising because John had all the right credentials to boast. He was a Nazirite, set apart to be pure and holy from birth; he was a well respected teacher; he was famous and had numerous discples and followers; Jesus himself said in Matthew 11:11 “Truly, I say to you, among those born of women there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist.” But John the Baptist knew Jesus: in John 1:34, John points to Jesus and says that ‘this is the Son of God’. In the face of the perfection and utter supremacy of Christ, John, despite all his merits and credentials, recognises how much infinitely lower he is compared to Jesus Christ. And this is the very heart and attitude he adopts as he acts as witness to Christ.

He says in John 1:27 that he is not worthy to even untie the strap of Jesus’ sandal. This doesn’t seem like much to us, but in the culture of the time of John the Baptist, this was the equivalent of John saying that he is not even worthy to be Jesus’ slave.

And this theme of Jesus’ being utterly superior to John has come up in other places numerous times in chapter 1 so far (John 1:8, John 1:15, John 1:30).

And why is this humility so important? This is because the role of a witness to Jesus is to merely point to him. This is in complete contrast to the Pharisees, the religious leaders we saw earlier in the passage. The Pharisees through their meticulous obedience to the law tried to manipulate God to cause the Messiah and God’s kingdom faster. Whereas the Pharisees try to bring the kingdom of God themselves, John the Baptist merely points to it.

(this is also why John is merely the ‘voice’, not the Logos/Word).

And as witnesses, that is our role as well. We also need to adopt a posture of complete humility, because salvation and the forgiveness of our sins, our deepest need, doesn’t come from within us; it only comes through Jesus Christ. The less and less we become, the more and more Christ is magnified, and the more of Christ people see in us. People need to see less of us, and more of Christ. That is why John famously says in John 3:30 “He must increase, but I must decrease.” We don’t try to win people over by showing them how great we are, how righteous we are, how holy we are. We win people over to Christ by showing how great, wonderful, attractive Christ is. It is pointing people to the greatest help and power that is only found in Jesus, in the midst of our complete helplessness and powerlessness to save ourselves.

Conclusion

So make sure you know your deepest need in life - don’t confuse the who for the what. You need Jesus Christ, not other things, as he is the only true Lamb of God, and Son of God, who takes away our sins. And it is only when we truly experience this for ourselves, that we can be effective witnesses for Christ. It is only when we realise our desperate need for the forgiveness of our sins, that we are truly humbled, as we realise our helplessness and powerlessness for salvation. And it is this very humility that lets Christ increase in our lives so that others may see Christ and we can truly be the salt and light of the world.

Order of service (and things needed for PowerPoint)

1. Welcome (maybe just make a general opening slide, with the words ‘KPCM English Worship session’ + date)

2. Call to worship – Psalm 113:1-3

3. Opening worship songs:

a. Here I am to worship (in D)

i. Verse 1

ii. Chorus

iii. Verse 2

iv. Chorus

v. Bridge

vi. Chorus

vii. End

b. Be Thou My Vision (in C)

i. Verses 1, 2, 3, 4

4. Prayer

5. Bible reading (John 1:19-34)

6. Sermon (need following slides)

a. Title: Our True Need: the Lamb of God

b. Main point 1: ‘We do not know what we need’

i. John 1:19-21

ii. Photos of Peach

c. Main point 2: ‘Only God knows what we truly need’

i. John 1:26

ii. Matt 3:11

iii. John 1:33

iv. John 1:29

d. Main point 3: ‘Witness to others what they need’

i. John 1:32 & John 1:34 (same slide)

ii. Matt 11:11

iii. John 1:34

iv. John 1:27

v. John 3:30

7. Closing worship song:

a. Nothing but the blood of Jesus

i. Verse 1

ii. Chorus

iii. Verse 2

iv. Chorus x2

v. End

8. Closing prayer