John, the Witness

Ive always thought the man that invented the umbrella first wanted to call it the brella but he hesitated.

I got a ticket last week for impersonating a politician.... I couldn’t believe it, I was just sitting there doing nothing.

Crikey! That was the exclamation of one of my favorite reality televisions stars… Steve Irwin was a man’s man… He loved the outdoors and all that nature had to offer…Steve grew up in a zoo, that was owned and operated by his father… which he eventually came to own.. .Irwin met his wife at the zoo when she was there for a trip… the zoo and the animals became so much of his life it even invaded his honeymoon when he married his wife Terri...

Appropriately, Steve and Terri spent their honeymoon traveling around Australia trapping crocodiles for relocation. Then they got a call “that there was a crocodile that needed help,” Terri recounted to Scientific American. “We dropped our honeymoon, we went to north Queensland, and we helped this crocodile and filmed a documentary on the premise that the cameraman just chases Steve around. Steve hadn't been to acting school, he had no preconceived notions. His background was exactly what you see on television, he's done that all his life. We thought we'd do one show. What happened was, it did really well, so we did a part two. And from then on, we found that Steve's natural behavior in the wild happens to be fascinating!” Recognizing that Steve’s enthusiasm would be a huge draw for audiences, Animal Planet picked up The Crocodile Hunter as a regular series.

And this character… this man, is kind of like a modern day John the Baptist… but his message was that of animals and saving their homes and protecting them and loving them for who they are… and this message differed from the message of John the Baptist… but in both cases it consumed their lives and would eventually lead to their deaths… Steve by the barb of a stingray that pierced his heart, and John the Baptist at the end of a decree by Herod. Here is what we learn about John the Baptist, in John’s gospel. No relation .

What we are about to see is John is going to show us how this word relates to the world around us, how it is meant to save us and he is going to begin that in the life of John...

John 1:6–7 ESV

6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him.

The word here, sent, comes from the greek word apestalmenos which means to send out, but it has this idea that you are commissioned representative… that you you are an ambassador… furthermore

Because he was sent or commissioned by God, what we realize is that he was sent out by him, and it that day what you would realize if you are sent out to do the work you have the same authority, so when John spoke he spoke with the authority of God.

We see that he was sent on a mission… God commissioned him for a mission, and that mission is described in verse seven....

John 1:7 ESV

7 He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him.

to bear witness… that all might believe through him… are you seeing what is happening here… thew reason that John came was to bear witness to what Jesus was and what he was there to do… and this is important because in the ancient world there had to be at least two witnesses for a story to be believed to be true and John the Gospel writer is setting up here the idea that there are witnesses… he is establishing validity to truth here…

Scholar Leon Morris said this, “He is insistent that there is good evidence for the things he sets down. Witness establishes truth.”

but there are a couple of things I want you to remember from the life of John.

You too are called to be a witness.

Acts 1:8 ESV

8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

John being the first called to bear witness to what Jesus was doing and what he needed to do I think we can learn that he was an example of how we should bear witness to the Gospel of Jesus. On your way out this morning we have everyone a John the Baptist starter set filled with camels hair, a leather belt, locusts and honey. No.. its deeper than that… so we are supposed to share like him, but what does that mean for us.

A. The message was given

What you realize is that John didn't have to come up with his message all on his own, the message that he was sharing was one that was given to him by God, he didn’t have to depend on his own thoughts and ideas, His message was Christ, the Light of the world.

For many of us we don’t want to share because we feel we don’t know the right message, or have enough words and don’t feel qualified… think about this for a second, when John was sharing about Jesus Jesus hadn’t even began his ministry yet… he was sharing the message that was given to him by from God, that Christ was the light of the World… that he was the messiah. that he was the one they had waited on...

Here is the problem… for so many of us we allow or witness to just be the words that we share… and that is what James Boice warns us of in his Gospel of John volumes.... he says

“It is possible for a person to become so mechanical in his witness that he can go through all the motions of witnessing without actually looking and praying for the response to Christ in faith by the other person. If we could remember this, we would find witnessing exciting, and we would learn that winning the argument often becomes far less important than winning the person to the Lord.”

SO before we even go into it we should be praying the Lord would give us people to share with and to that their hearts would be receptive.

He will give us the words to say.... look at Luke 12:11-12

Luke 12:11–12 ESV

11 And when they bring you before the synagogues and the rulers and the authorities, do not be anxious about how you should defend yourself or what you should say, 12 for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say.”

And I hear all of you out there this is a different context… this is talking about… so you’re saying you think he will give it to you if they may kill you but now when you are sharing with friends? The easiest way for the enemy to keep you from sharing your faith is to keep you thinking you are unqualified… I love what Andy Stanley says when he talks about this… first century church… I walked/.

In fact here is what Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones put it this way:

“We are meant to talk to people about the Lord Jesus Christ and to tell them he is the Son of God and that he has come into this world in order to save men and women… We are meant o tell men exactly why the world is as it is; we are meant to tell them about sin in the human heart and that nobody and nothing can deal with it save the Son of God...

We are very ready to talk about our doctors, and to praise the man who cure us when so many failed; we talk about so business which is better than others, or about films and plays and actors and actresses, and thousand and on other things.

We are always glorifying people, the world is full of it, and the Christian is meant to be praising and glorifying the Lord Jesus Christ.”

And this is for us to realize we want to glorify different things, but we are too scared to glorify Christ for what he has done in our lives… that is your witness that is what you share that can be so effective… how god has changed you… what he has saved you from… the hope that he gives you… praising and glorifying him is what sharing looks like

B. His Purpose was clear.

To bear witness to the light so that all might believe…

This should be the purpose of us as believers… to lead men to believe in Jesus.

It should not be our purpose to build ourselves up… or to get more things for us… but to lead people to christ… here is what I find very interesting too… he doesn’t say his purpose is to preach, administer, oversee, teach… and some of you are getting up in arms… but hear me out… all of those things are good and needed… but all of those things are the methods that you would use to lead people to Christ… they are methods… not purpose… his purpose was to lead people to believe.... and he may have to do that through any of those methods… and the same is true with you.. there are a ton of different ,methods that you may have to use to lead people to believe in Jesus… but our purpose is clear

John 1:7 ESV

7 He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him.

C. He was humble.

John 1:8 ESV

8 He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light.

There is one thing that John was certain of, he was not the light....

John 1:20 ESV

20 He confessed, and did not deny, but confessed, “I am not the Christ.”

SO the whole time that John was ministering he was certain he was pointing to someone else, he was not allowing anyone to point to him as the one who was to come… he knew the ministry wasn’t about him… and listen i am the first one to defend pastors… it is in my nature as a pastor to WANT to believe the best in other guys… that they started humble… and even if something goes wrong, it wasnt their initial intentions… and here is what we see… for some of them what happened is they forgot it wasnt about them...

Look at people like Mark Driscoll…

James Boice again says...

“Whenever a Christian layman, minister, writer, teacher, or whoever it might be, gets to thinking that there is something important about him[self], he or she will always cease to be effective as Christ’s witness.”

And what we realize is we become less effective as we make it about us… and that is one reason John was able to stay so effective… he never thought it was about him or his ministry… his ministry was always pointing toward Jesus and preparing the heart to make this happen....

And we have to be sure that we are doing the same thing… always point toward Jesus and not ourselves… this is the problem with lots of people that have healing ministries… it doesn’t become about Jesus… but its about THEM and what THEY can do… and not what Jesus is doing..