Are you the One?

Introduction

For the last few weeks we’ve been looking at questions asked of God and this morning we are dealing with the question John the Baptist asks of Jesus, “Are you the one?” Specifically, John is waiting in jail, likely knowing he will die, and he wants assurance that Jesus is who he thought. I think each of us experience a similar hesitation at some point in time in our lives. Is this really true? Jesus, are you really who you say you are? Here Jesus responds to John’s questions and we see that Jesus is the Messiah who judges through showing mercy, but before we read the text let us pray

Because Jesus is the Messiah, you can bring your fears to him

As we begin looking at the text there are three main things I want to point out. Because Jesus is the Messiah, you can bring your fears to him, he will both heal and judge, and we must take him exactly as he is. So we begin with look at the first section, because Jesus is the Messiah, you can bring your fears to him just like John.

There are different ways of seeing his question in verse 3: “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another” or we could also read the last part as “or is it another on whom we must rest our hopes?” Each of these ways involve a degree of fear or doubt or questioning of Jesus. This question points to one central issue: the nature of the Kingdom of God and his expectations.

If you were a Jew at this time, you have gone for 400 years without any word from a prophet of God. There has been no message of salvation and hope. Especially if you were a faithful Jew, you were looking out at the Roman Empire and corrupt leaders wondering, where is our God?

You’re welcome to turn to Malachi 4 but I also have it on the screen. It is a short chapter and really it is the last words we have given from God to his people. “For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble. The day that is coming shall set them ablaze, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch. 2 But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall. 3 And you shall tread down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet, on the day when I act, says the Lord of hosts. 4 Remember the law of my servant Moses, the statutes and rules that I commanded him at Horeb for all Israel. 5 Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. 6 And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction.”

What are the Jewish people looking for? They want salvation from their oppressors. They want deliverance from evildoers. But not only that, they want to see the promised king. They are crying out, “Lord, didn’t you promise us that the house and kingdom of David would be made sure forever? Didn’t you promise that his throne would be established forever?” They are looking for the king who will deliver them and this Elijah is suppose to be sent preparing the way. And so when John comes and is clearly being used by God. Something is going on, but what is it leading to? John is preparing the way, but to what? I want us to look at John because I think we can sympathize in why he asks the question, are you the one.

In Matthew 3 he is depicted as wearing a garment of camel’s hair and a leather belt around his waist (2 Kings 1:8; Zech 13:4), and his food was locusts (Leviticus 11:22) and wild honey. Luke gives us the story of his birth; perhaps we know from the Christmas stories of Zechariah and Elizabeth. The angel appears to Zechariah and says they will have a child even though they are old. This child will be great before the Lord, he will not drink wine or strong drink, he will be filled with the Holy Spirit (Luke 1:16). He will go in the spirit and power of Elijah (Luke 1:17), who is the greatest prophet next to Moses! And his purpose is to proclaim a message of repentance in order to prepare a people for Lord’s coming (Luke 1:17).

In John’s gospel we have three Old Testament texts from Exodus, Isaiah, Malachi weaved together. In Exodus it is the angel that goes before the people preparing their way. In Isaiah it is preparing the way for the Lord, the way through the wilderness he will return and reign. And in Malachi is the promise of the messenger who will prepare the way for God coming to purify the temple and later in Malachi, what we previously read, is the promise of the Elijah to come. John the Baptist is the one going before leading the way into the promised land, he is also the proclaimer of the coming of God, and he is the Elijah who goes before and announces the Lord coming to his temple.

John the Baptist is certainly odd but it all fits with Scripture, and he is faithful and people are hearing about his baptizing and calling people to repent. John is a fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecy in Malachi, he has credibility, and points to the One, the Messiah, the Christ. But John has been in prison, which is more like a dungeon, because he rebuked Herod Antipas for his marital affairs. John sends some of his disciples to Jesus to make something clear. His entire life and ministry rests on this question, and he wants to make sure he didn’t get it wrong. And if John, who has all this credibility and even experienced the baptism of Jesus, can bring his fears to Jesus, you can too.

John, who has preached a message of imminent judgment, is sitting in the prison likely suffering a great deal under his keepers. Probably running through his mind is Isaiah 42:6-7 which speak of the chosen one to come, “I am the LORD; I have called you in righteousness… to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness.” Jesus, I’m a prisoner! I’m in a dungeon! Bring me out!

He hears of the deeds of Jesus and he is probably asking himself, “Is this what the Messiah would do?” Jesus is simply moving among ordinary men and women, teaching them the things of God, healing the sick, having friendships with the “worst” of sinners. Surely the Messiah would set John of all people free, and here Jesus is preaching to poor people. There is no reason to think John doesn’t like what Jesus is doing. It isn’t as much about what Jesus is doing, but what he is not doing. How have you painted your portrait of Jesus? John, the Pharisees, and the disciples know the Old Testament probably better than all of us put together and they still did not fully understand what the Messiah was going to do. Do you read and skip parts of Scripture or do you soak it all up and allow it to shape your picture of who Jesus is? Are you seeing that Jesus is regularly becoming bigger and his glory growing? Do we think of what Jesus ought to do or what he has said, what he has done, and what he has promised?

Seasons of struggle and doubt can come upon even the most devout or experienced believer, especially in the midst of challenging circumstances and disappointments. We have the tendency when things are tough to grin and bear it, but when we are disappointed we tend to ask questions of God and his goodness because we think things should be different. I want you to see John, the cousin of Jesus and one who was filled with the Spirit, asking a question of the character and work of Jesus because he is struggling. He needs assurance in order to face what he knows is coming next. But in the face of certain death, he asks the most important question. John will be comforted in knowing who Jesus is. He will be reassured that he is the Messiah because he brought his fears to him. Because that is true, you can bring your fears to him as well.

Because Jesus is the Messiah, he will both heal and judge

The doubts that John and we have are usually because we don’t understand who Jesus is, which leads us to Jesus’ response in verses 4-5. Because Jesus is the Messiah, he will both heal and judge. Look at what Jesus says, “And Jesus answered them, Go and tell John what you hear and see: 5 the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them.”

Jesus understands that John was not expecting what he has heard about, so what does he do? Jesus is gracious to John, and He takes him right back to the Old Testament and reminds him of something that even the great John the Baptist has overlooked or misunderstood. Jesus invites these disciples of John to look at the work he has done and report that directly to him. The blind receive sight, and the lame walk. Jesus invites them and John to look back at what the Scriptures say the Messiah will do. “Think about what you have seen. Think about what the Scriptures say, and you tell me, am I the Messiah?”

Jesus gives John and his disciples assurance by giving them a lesson in how to interpret the Bible. John’s message was one of judgment, and the expectation of Jesus was to be the triumphant, victorious king. John is not entirely wrong, for the king will come and judge because he knows Isaiah 35:4 “Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God. He will come and save you.” But John is like a lot of us when he was reading too quickly and skimmed through the next two verses. “Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; 6 then shall the lame man leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute sing for joy.” Jesus says, “what have you seen me do?”

John not only expected the Messiah to have a different focus, he also expected he was going to come in a different way. Jesus goes right to the heart of what is concerning John. It is helpful to see John’s similarities to Elijah because in many ways he is like the spirit of Elijah. The one thing Elijah never understood is why God didn’t judge all the wicked and he asks God why he hasn’t judged everyone. So God tells Elijah to go outside of the cave because God was going to pass by. Elijah goes outside and sees these demonstrations of power, a great wind came by and the Lord was not in the wind, then a great earthquake, then fire, but God was not in them. Then Elijah heard the sound of a low whisper, and it was the Lord speaking. God was telling Elijah, that “I will come not in strength and power, but in my own way, a silent, seemingly weak way.”

This is why I was asking what your portrait of Jesus is like. Jesus came with message of mercy and grace. Jesus, the second person of the Trinity, entered into our world and knows deeply of our sufferings. But do not for one moment think that Jesus did not come with a message of judgment. We cannot separate the miraculous healings and judgment.

Just before this passage in Matthew 10:34 Jesus says he didn’t come to bring peace, but a sword. The division that occurs between those who will follow him and those who reject him are the beginning of his judgment. Isaiah 61 is another example where Jesus is fulfilling all the themes of restoration and healing that Isaiah foretold, but within it, he is also bringing the vengeance and judgment that John the Baptist foretold. By sending the disciples back to John with this message, he’s telling John, “It may not come when and how you like, but I will fulfill everything.”

And the rest of this chapter highlights the relationship between judgement and mercy. Jesus has instructed his disciples to shake of their sandals at any city that does not repent. We didn’t read this entire chapter because it is simply too much but I want this is in your portrait of Jesus. Verse 20 says “then he began to denounce the cities where most of his mighty works had been done, because they did not repent.” Then in verse 24, speaking of Capernaum he says, “But I tell you that it will be more tolerable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom than for you.” They are receiving a message of mercy and salvation but they are rejecting the Lord.

What comes next is a prayer from Jesus to the Father where he thanks the Father that he has hidden these things from the proud and “wise” but revealed them to the little children. All things have been handed over to Jesus. And he invites us to take his yoke, his teaching, and he will give us rest. This question sheds light on grace and judgment. Rejecting mercy, rejecting the easy teaching of Jesus, is the path to judgment. And the judgment occurs in the separation of people in their response to Jesus’s words and he will bring vengeance. He will bring punishment. Not a wild reactionary judgment, but a just punishment. Hebrews 10:28-31 says, “28 Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses. 29 How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has spurned the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace? 30 For we know him who said, Vengeance is mine; I will repay. And again, The Lord will judge his people. 31 It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”

Jesus doesn’t stop here and teach John the distinctions of his first and second coming. But know that Jesus will come again one day, at a time we cannot know or predict. As we often recite, “He will come again to judge the living and the dead.” Is this in your portrait of Jesus? When you think about Jesus and are thankful for your salvation that he gives, do you think that the salvation, the deliverance is from his wrath? You and I are not excluded from judgment. But because we are in Christ, because we have been cleansed by his blood and clothed with his righteousness, he will pass over us. He has taken it upon himself and received our judgement on the cross. This is why we join with Paul saying, “But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.”

Don’t separate these healings and works of mercy from Jesus’ judgment; they go together. Jesus is saying, I am the one. I am the one who brings peace and healing. I am the one who will judge all things. Because Jesus is the Messiah, he will both heal and judge.

Because Jesus is the Messiah, we must take him as he is.

Look at verse 6. Jesus provides encouragement in the form of a beatitude. It doesn’t really matter whether you think this is a rebuke of John or just a statement of blessing to those who will truly understand what is taking place. “And blessed is the one who is not offended by me” or “And blessed is the one who is not tripped up on account of me” or “scandalized by me.” Many would like to get rid of different sections of Scripture because we are more intelligent and enlightened. But perhaps it isn’t the miracles that trip you up. Perhaps it is his ethical teaching. Perhaps it’s his exclusivity. Perhaps it’s because he just said it will be worse for some than it was for Sodom.

Jesus says no, you cannot have the things of the kingdom, you cannot have the salvation and restoration and hope that comes with the kingdom of God and be embarrassed and offended by its king. Even the disciples are offended by the idea that Jesus would die because they don’t understand who he is and what he has to do. Are you scandalized by Jesus or do you take him exactly is? Are you offended when he says you are forgive seventy times seven? Are you offended when he says “No one can serve two masters… you cannot serve God and money.” Are you offended when he says, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” Are you offended when he says it would be better to cut off your hand or gouge out your eye if it causes you to sin because it is better to lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell”? Jesus is the Messiah, and we must take him exactly as he is.

Conclusion

If John can struggle, you can struggle. In fact, if John can struggle, you will. Peter denied Jesus three times and struggled with the opinions of others even later. When you struggle with questions of his goodness and faithfulness, take them to him. If you aren’t sure exactly how, read the Psalms for they regularly deal with knowing that God is good but in their experience they wrestle with whether God will care for them and deliver them. There are regular prayers for God not to abandon them. It is okay to have questions because Jesus many hard things. Bring them to God and bring them to people you can trust like Robert. Get to know the elders and deacons of our group and bring your questions.

Jesus deals with fear and doubt tenderly. He does it in a way that helps John understand a message he was missing. Jesus is different than what John was expecting, he was better. It’s always that way with Jesus. Perhaps the idea of Jesus as judge is a scary thought. But the whole reason he came, the whole reason we have this book, is because he has prepared a way to salvation, and it’s through himself. And as you come to him, you take him exactly as he is, and he will give you rest.