The Voice of the Lord: Tomorrow

Scripture: John 1:29-42

John 1:29–42 NIV

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 meant when I said, ‘A man who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’ 31 I myself did not know him, but the reason I came baptizing with water was that he might be revealed to Israel.” 32 Then John gave this testimony: “I saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on him. 33 And I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, ‘The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.’ 34 I have seen and I testify that this is God’s Chosen One.” 35 The next day John was there again with two of his disciples. 36 When he saw Jesus passing by, he said, “Look, the Lamb of God!” 37 When the two disciples heard him say this, they followed Jesus. 38 Turning around, Jesus saw them following and asked, “What do you want?” They said, “Rabbi” (which means “Teacher”), “where are you staying?” 39 “Come,” he replied, “and you will see.” So they went and saw where he was staying, and they spent that day with him. It was about four in the afternoon. 40 Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, was one of the two who heard what John had said and who had followed Jesus. 41 The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, “We have found the Messiah” (that is, the Christ). 42 And he brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said, “You are Simon son of John. You will be called Cephas” (which, when translated, is Peter).

1/18/2026

Order of Service:

Announcements

Opening Worship

Prayer Requests

Prayer Song

Pastoral Prayer

Kid’s Time

Offering (Doxology and Offering Prayer)

Scripture Reading

Sermon

Closing Song

Benediction

Special Notes:

Standard

Opening Prayer:

Gracious God, we confess that we too often resist Your call. We seek our own way instead of trusting Your plans for us. Forgive us of our brokenness and help us to follow the Lamb of God wherever He leads. We pray this in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Call to Worship

Leader: I waited patiently for the Lord; He inclined to me and heard my cry.

People: He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God.

Leader: Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!

People: We come to follow Him and proclaim His grace.

Leader: Come, let us worship the one who calls us by name.

All: We lift our voices in praise to Jesus, the Lamb of God!

The Voice of God: Tomorrow

Introduction

This month, we've been looking at the ways God speaks to us. I hope you have heard me repeating that one of the best, clearest ways God speaks to us is through Scripture. That is him speaking to us from the past, from our yesterdays. It's so good because it's tested every day by everyone who picks it up and reads it, trying to hear his voice.

There is no book, no prayer, no sermon, no little snippet of wisdom that has been scrutinized and criticized and run through the wash to be sure that it's true, as true as true can be. Nothing has been tested as much as the Scriptures in your Bible have— and they've been tested for thousands of years. The power of Scripture is not found in the translation, the wording, the study notes, or even your own Bible knowledge, important as those pieces are. The power of God's word in Scripture, spoken yesterday, is that it still speaks to us today.

Last week, we talked about the shared testimony of listening and living out God's word together. That testimony fills in some of those gaps and gives us a clear sense of God's voice today.

Today, we're going to look at one final aspect of God's voice, a specific and often challenging one: Prophecy.

The idea of prophecy is mysterious at best, and it is often confusing. In the worst cases, it can cause us to struggle with our faith, in Scripture, and with God himself.

Prophets and Prophecy

We've grown up with too many pagan notions about what prophets are. These notions put images in our heads of seers and madmen, of Isaiah marching into the king of Israel's palace, his eyes rolling back in his head, muttering as the armies of the world stand at the gates, ready to march in and take over. The king and those in the courtroom lean in to hear what Isaiah says. He mutters something about God coming to deliver them before the Virgin gives birth to a child named Emmanuel. Then he shakes his head and comes out of his trance. The king asks, "What does that mean? What are we supposed to do?" Isaiah responds, "That wasn't for you. That was for people 500 years from now. I don't know what you're supposed to do."

That's not what prophets are, and that's not how God works.

A more accurate way to picture prophets is to think of them as lawyers. God created a covenant for his people, Israel. More than a contract, maybe even more than a marriage. As you well know, God's people frequently do not hold up their end of the relationship. So God would send in his lawyers, his prophets, to remind them of the covenant, of the agreement they made when they agreed to be God's people.

As you read through the prophets, you'll begin to see them pointing out specific commands that God's people broke or failed to uphold, and the consequences that followed. If you go even further back to the books of the law, where that covenant relationship was laid out, those consequences are right there in the agreements.

So when the prophets came to the people and brought them the word from God, they weren't telling them anything new. They were reminding them of what had been given to them at the very beginning, both the good and the bad. The hope and purpose of God sending these prophets to them was that the people would recognize their faults, repent, and return to living out that covenant with God. Because God is merciful, he oftentimes offered to reduce or even eliminate the consequences of those relationship failures, of those sins against him.

So prophets were not strange mystic travelers hearing words from beyond the stars, predicting the future. They were legal representation from God in the very best sense of that term, reminding people of what God had said in the past, how it applies to them today, and helping them see how the choices they make today will affect their future.

So how do we know if what we're hearing is true prophecy? We discern it by finding its connection with Scripture and the way it continues to be lived out today in the testimonies of the Body of Christ. These are the connection points of the voice of God yesterday and today. If a prophecy contradicts Scripture or is not shared in the testimony and experience of the Body of Christ, we are probably hearing or interpreting something incorrectly. If you're not sure where to find that connection, search the Scriptures and ask your brothers and sisters in Christ for guidance. God has given us each other for exactly this reason.

John the Prophet and the Lamb of God

Today, we have the gospel of John's perspective on the baptism of Jesus and the testimony of John the Baptist, one of the greatest prophets who ever lived. We know there's a family connection between John and Jesus, which we heard about a month ago in the Gospel of Luke. These men grew up in different parts of the country and may not have seen each other for years, if ever.

John is there as God's legal representative, helping people repent of their sins, renew their covenant relationship with God, and giving them counsel on how to continue living in that relationship rather than falling back into sin.

In the midst of that work, he looks up and sees Jesus coming. He points to him and says, "Look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world."

Those words may not have been put together quite that way before, but they point back to a very clear representation from God's Word in the past. The biggest representation of that is the Paschal Lamb, the lambs sacrificed during Passover, whose blood was put on the door frames of the Hebrew people's homes so that when death passed through the land of Egypt, taking the firstborn of all people and animals as a punishment for the sin that had covered the earth, those lambs' blood marked the homes that would be spared. The lambs gave their lives so that God's people would be spared from his wrath and have an opportunity to come back into a right relationship with him.

Once they were set free from Egypt and went out to worship, those sacrifices for the sins of the people continued, because God's people continued to struggle to stay in right relationship with him. It was always a spotless lamb, a perfect sacrifice that was asked of the people. But the Passover in the time of Moses was not the first time a lamb was offered up as a sacrifice. I can take that back to Father Abraham. On Mount Moriah, God asked Abraham to sacrifice his son, and Abraham, down to the very last minute, was ready to go through with it. When God saw his willingness to give up the thing he loved most in this world out of faithfulness and obedience, God was pleased. In exchange for the life of Isaac, God provided a lamb as a sacrifice. This one was not a sacrifice to take away sin in the same way. It was a gift, a provision from God because of the faithfulness of the one he called to follow him.

Now the prophet John looks at Jesus and sees all the sacrificial lambs that were ever offered. All of them were initially provided by God, given to his people, and then returned to him with their pleas for forgiveness and desire to be in a right relationship with him again. In Jesus, John sees all of that Scripture being fulfilled, coming alive in a new way.

The Messiah and the Spirit

That phrase, "Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world," is a calling that Jesus had on his life, and John simply spoke it aloud. It's so fitting for the one born in a manger, visited first by the shepherds, who would die that sacrificial death on the cross, take that Passover meal centered around that sacrificial lamb, and claim that to be his own story. But Jesus is more than that.

John tells everyone around him, "This is the one I meant when I said, 'A man who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.' I didn't know him, but he's the one who is the reason that I came here baptizing in the first place." We can get a little lost in the prophet's words there. Maybe he got a little lost in awe of being able to see Jesus, perhaps for the first time, and recognize him for who he truly was.

Just as all the prophets of God do, he looks to the past, brings it into this moment in the present, and points us toward the future. This Jesus before him is greater than the greatest prophet. This Lamb of God is much more than a one-time sacrifice. He was there in the beginning, and he is the one who will endure until the end.

John had an incredible calling, an important role in his life, but it was temporary, a moment in time. He recognizes that the work he had done in his life was there to prepare the way so that people would see Jesus for who he truly was.

John baptized with water, but here was the one who would baptize with the Holy Spirit. To do that, you had to be chosen by the Holy Spirit, and John saw the Spirit of God descend and remain on Jesus. It didn't just touch him for a moment. It joined with him. He was not just a chosen one; he was THE chosen one. There had never been a messiah before him, nor would there ever be another after him. He was the one and only begotten Son of God.

Yet Jesus didn't baptize anyone with the Spirit right away. He waited until he died and rose again before breathing that Spirit upon his disciples and sending them out.

The Holy Spirit goes ahead of us, and often our water baptism is a response to what God is already doing in our lives and the lives of our families. Whether we're baptized as infants or adults, baptism is always a response to God's work and our desire for a relationship between him and ourselves and those we love.

That may be the big difference between water baptism and the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Water baptism was meant to be a one-time pledge. The baptism of the Holy Spirit, coming and joining with us, is about building a relationship more than having an experience. God gives that Spirit to us through Jesus, before and long after our water baptism, and every day in between.

John takes two of his disciples with him and points Jesus out again, reminding them who Jesus is. He gives them that gentle nudge, letting them know it's okay for them to stop following him, because someone greater than him has arrived. With that, the prophet takes his bow and fades into the background.

Prophecy Today

But the work of prophecy doesn't end when John steps aside. It continues through Jesus himself.

Just as John voiced the calling on Jesus' life when he named him the Lamb of God, Jesus voices a call on the life of Simon, the brother of Andrew. He tells him, "You will be called Cephas," or Peter, which means rock or stone. Just as the word lamb had so many connections to what God spoke in the past, in Scripture, so too does the word stone.

In the most ancient days, Abraham and his descendants, at holy moments with God, set up stones as monuments to show that the God of Heaven had touched the earth in that place. Jacob set up such a marker after wrestling with God and having his name changed to Israel in Genesis. The Hebrew people set up twelve stones, one for each of the tribes of Israel, as a monument when they first crossed the Jordan River into the promised land.

It was stones that were used in building the temple of God. Years later, when Jesus looked at that temple, he would mourn and say that there would come a day when not one stone would be left standing on another. But Jesus was raised by a carpenter, and carpenters and masons often worked hand in hand. So even as Jesus mourned, he told them he would rebuild it in three days.

What was he going to use to rebuild that place where people came into the presence of God? Stone. Stones like Simon Peter. With the word given as a new name, a name that Peter had not even learned yet, let alone understood what it all meant, Jesus voiced the calling that God had on Peter's life.

That calling was brought out in the Scriptures, brought to life in that moment, and Christ would empower Peter by the Holy Spirit every moment thereafter.

That same word continued to feed and lead Peter throughout his entire life.

That is the power of prophecy.

Pagan psychics and spiritualists focus on predicting the future and communicating with spirits. But true prophets connect what God said yesterday to what he is saying today and give us words that continue to lead us into every tomorrow.

Reflection Questions

Brothers and sisters, what word has God spoken to you that you find rooted in Scripture, that has spoken to you in the past and continues to speak to you today, and leads you into the future?

When God speaks to you, what does he call you?

When you look back at all the things God has asked you to do, how is he pulling that all together to show you who you are in him?

God wants to give you the same Holy Spirit that descended upon and remains with Jesus. That Spirit is far more than a source of power, like a battery. It's a connection to the one who was, the one who is, and the one who is to come. Through that connection, the Spirit transforms us. It washes and sanctifies us until we become the people God always intended for us to be.

Our callings are all similar, but they're not the same. You could say we're all stones in the great house Jesus is building. None of us is quite like Peter. Someone had to be the first. God has a purpose and a place for each one of us. As he continues to speak to you, what is he telling you your place and purpose is?

Closing Prayer

Lord, we thank you for your voice. We thank you for your voice that can cut through all the noise, cross any barrier, and reach us in any language or way we need. Thank you for the words you've spoken in the past, which continue to guide us. Those precious words have been preserved for us in Scripture so that we can plant them into the soil of our hearts and minds and lives.

Allow your Spirit to watch over us and nurture us, help us grow, and bear the fruits of righteousness for you. We thank you that your word doesn't fail and doesn't stop, that we never fall too far away or grow beyond the call you have in our lives.

While what we do with you changes from season to season, who we are in you is something we grow more and more into each day of our lives. Keep speaking to us, Lord. Help us to clearly see and hear how the truth you've given us in Scripture is brought to life in us by the power of the Holy Spirit and guides us forever.

Amen.