The Birth of John the Baptist

good morning everyone at this time we're going to go ahead and dismiss our both classes three to five year olds and six to seven-year-olds so they can head out to their class for the rest of us we are continuing in luke today so luke chapter one if you've got your bibles go ahead and grab those turn them on whatever that looks like uh turn to luke one we're going to be in verses 57 and we're going to cover probably the the largest chunk that we will do throughout luke but we will be looking at 57 through 80 as we walk through this a couple of

things before we jump into this one is obviously my voice and so i'm not doing this to try to like you know sound more macho um it just is what it is i lose my voice every once in a while so uh we'll see how far it goes uh second thing i wanted to point out multiple people have asked us this week in light of roe v wade if we were going to make a statement regarding that and so i'm going to give you a half answer based on this the first part is if you want to know where we land as far as just

our position on babies and when is a baby when does life begin go back and listen to luke chapter one uh our our the fourth one this is our sixth one in the series listen to the fourth uh sermon so we walked through uh the whole idea of what we kind of believe about what a baby is and when a baby is so go back and listen to that on that perspective of it on the perspective of women and being pro-woman and being pro-life in that regard as far as our care of women and ongoing care of women we didn't want to just come up

here and just give honestly a half-hearted half-prepared statement in regards to that what we would rather do is actually write out a document that states kind of where we're putting our money where our mouth is our time where our mouth is our energy where our mouth is are serving where our mouth is and we want to be able to actually give you opportunities on what it looks like to actually engage into this thing rather than just being talking points on a social media platform so we don't want to just do that we want to actually show where we are stepping into the needs that are

created in regards to what's going on with with this situation in our current cultural climate so that is a half answer because it doesn't really answer much uh but it does answer the fact that we are processing it thinking through it praying through it and also seeking out all of the opportunities for us to be the church in the midst of needs when it comes to being about life and that is everyone involved from womb to the tomb and so think about that as we just continue and look for that as we shoot those things out and in the coming weeks all right luke chapter

1 verses 57 through 80. we're going to dive into this and this one is a good one because i mean again and it's not that it's also in line with everything going on in our political climate right now but everything has been kind of wrapped around births and and it's been wrapped around uh two births primarily it's been the prophecy of the birth of john the baptist the prophecy of the birth of jesus christ uh both of those two pregnant women coming together and having a celebration and a worship service in their home on on you know what it means to be pregnant and what

it means to have god giving them this gracious gift and what it looks like for uh them just sharing in this joy together and rejoicing with one another uh what it means to be blessed in that regard and so so they've been talking about all of this and basically have been kind of walking through each other's trimesters up until this point now where john the baptist who is again about six months further along than jesus is it's the time for him to come out it's time for him to be born and so that's what we're going to be looking at today and we're going to

be looking at a couple of things here one is uh what is god doing in this like what is he doing with the people around this event that is happening in addition to that what is he doing with john the baptist and primarily the name that is given to him the role that he's going to fulfill and then how does that ultimately impact us as well as far as for us today and so we're going to dive into these things starting with verse 57. here we go now the time came for elizabeth to give birth and she bore a son and her neighbors and relatives

heard that the lord had shown great mercy to her and they rejoiced with her so the first thing that i want you to see out of these two verses one is that good news should be shared good news should be shared all right like and we've talked about it when we talk about evangelism when we talk about anything that you experience that has cause for rejoicing or cause for celebration your natural instinct is to share it what we don't want to do in those moments is is have something that's exciting and then just like i'm just going to keep it to myself i'm not going

to share with anybody i'm not going to tell anybody i'm not going to celebrate this thing no like our we are designed we are wired hardwired by god to be worshipers to be people who express excitement express celebration and that's exactly what they were doing they've been up to this point hush hush about the pregnancy all right because again her being old age and barren she did not want the townspeople making a a joke about her or her being the butt of the joke or anything along those lines so they've kept it hush-hush literally up until this point of delivery to where she now is

sharing the news so much so that her neighbors and relatives heard that the lord had shown great mercy to her and they rejoiced with her so it's a simple point but sometimes we make it very difficult we need to share good news there's a proclamation going on here i mean this is this is her feeling and experiencing james 1 17 that every good gift and every perfect gift is from above coming down from the father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change this is a good gift that they are experiencing and they don't want to just keep this gift

to themselves they want to share this gift with others and so not only are they rejoicing but because of their great news the people around them their neighbors and their relatives now also have an opportunity to rejoice again this is romans 12 15 that gives us language where it says rejoice with those who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn or weep with those who weep how do you know when to rejoice and when to weep with those whom you're in community with well like you have to be in community with them you have to share what's going on in your life you have to

share news about your life and so like this weekend our uh shepherd turned two so we had a birthday party and we had a birthday party where people like we shared the news like we shared the good thing and we then went to another birthday party and more people there we shared good news that we rejoiced with one another about a good thing that was happening in addition that there are times when people are mourning and they're weeping and we are to enter into that and so what we should be thinking at all times as a church is we need to carry with one another

our experiences and so if there's something that you're rejoicing about don't just keep that for yourself but rejoice with others like invite people to rejoice with you and if you're a person where you're like right now in your life i don't have anything to rejoice about i have nothing in my life to celebrate well then look for it in someone else's life look for something to celebrate in someone else's life look for something that god is doing in someone else's life that is cause for rejoicing and enter into their rejoicing thank you god that you are doing this for them that you are being good

to them that you're being gracious to them that's hard for us to do because again why we're selfish people like we want it all for ourselves and sometimes the way god actually brings rejoicing for you is when you see it happen for someone else and you're like well that one kind of stings a little bit like i want it to happen to me again god is god god loves you god's going to provide for you we've talked about that matthew 6 don't look at like don't look at the birds of the air they never seep nor they never get my words going out right they

don't have to worry about where their food's going to come from all right like they don't have to worry about that what we do is we don't have to worry about what god's going to give us or not give us we seek first the lord and we trust that we know that he will give us what we need in time when we need it and so we can rejoice with others when they do receive what they need in times when they need it we can rejoice when we are there life may not be easier but it should feel lighter because we have others carrying it

with us you see the beauty in carrying things with one another is that the burdens do feel lighter and the celebrations feel deeper like that's the beauty of when you have others that rejoice with you is the rejoicing is deeper because you're feeling it and you're experiencing it among multitude of people that's one of the reasons why again we love corporate gatherings and worship is because worshiping alone is one thing but worshiping together is adding volume all right it's adding fuel to the fire and the same thing is in rejoicing and weeping mourning and loss i guess when you're able to come together and celebrate

with others it feels more expressive when it's collective and the same time when you are weeping and mourning and you're experiencing loss and you're experiencing despair and heartache and you invite others into that and they come alongside you and they say we know we know we've felt this before we've gone through this before we've walked through this before we've seen god's faithfulness here before it feels lighter if god was faithful to you he will also be faithful to me we can experience that and so good news must be shared share our experiences that's exactly what they're doing here the second thing i want you to

see here is that they give him a name that is worthy to be called a name worthy to be called and i'm going to give you the name first before i read it john all right they give him the name john you might be thinking well that's a fairly common name nothing too important about it sorry john in the back but i mean we literally refer to people unidentified as john doe like it's it's it's one of the most common names that can be out there and so what's what's the fuss about the name john well for starters it means this jehovah is a gracious

giver god is a gracious giver look at the text verse 59. and on the eighth day they came to circumcise the child and they would have called him zechariah after his father after his father but his mother answered no he shall be called john and they said to her none of your relatives is called by this name and they made signs to his father inquiring what he wanted him to be called now remember zechariah he he still rendered mute all right so like full term nine months not a word came out of his mouth all right because of when he was questioning god back during

the prophecy of when gabriel showed up and said y'all will have a child and he's like we're old impossible not going to happen he just questioned way too much and god said just be quiet all right and be quiet for like nine months okay and then at the end of that we'll we'll see what happens so he's still he's still hush hush over here so uh they made signs of his father inquiring what he would call him and he asked for a writing tablet and wrote his name is john straight to the point and they all wondered all right there's some confusion going on and

immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue loosed and he spoke blessing god and fear came on all their neighbors and all these things were talked about through all the hill country of judea and all who heard them laid laid them up in their hearts saying what then will this child be for the hand of the lord was with him so a couple of quick points here first of all people are by nature just skeptical all right people are by nature skeptical everyone in conversation are wondering what is true and what's a lie all right like if you go golfing anytime with any of us

and and you're kind of like maybe ahead of the person you're looking back and they're hitting a tree and they're hitting this tree and they're hitting across and then they get up there and they're like yeah man i i got par we're like no like they're you're skeptical all right you're like let me hold on let's get let's start counting these back like by nature that's how we are with everybody when someone's telling a story i mean it's like and kelsey i mean she gets onto me for this all the time but she's like every time dwayne tells a story that story gets more exaggerated

um every single time like there's details that get added in i was like well maybe i'm now remembering more details about whatever the event was but by nature we are skeptical people and so as they are naming this child the community around them they're like hey this isn't what we traditionally do this isn't how this is not the way that the child should be named tradition is zechariah names the child but he's mute so they're having to ask elizabeth elizabeth what's the name of the child and she's like his name's going to be john and they're like we still can't trust her okay so let's

go back over here it's like someone get this guy a pen and stone and so that he can write down what the name of this child is going to be and he's like she's right it's john all right like they're just skeptical people and so we're all on this process of trying to figure out like what is the truth and they're in this moment trying to figure out this is a significant birth what's the truth behind the name because names matter names matter when they give a name to somebody it's it's almost like this is going to be your job description for the rest of

your life whatever your name is going to be so they want to make sure that they get it right in naming him and so again he just continues on doubles down his name is john not only that but god is finally going to loose my lips lose my tongue and allow me to be able to speak blessing this so that was again part of their tradition was that the father would actually be the one to give the blessing for the name in order for it to um to to be bound i guess in order for them to name the child that so he gives them

the name john which again means jehovah is a gracious giver god is a gracious giver so then they ask this question if you're saying that god is a gracious giver and that's the name that you're giving to this baby then then then what should come of this child like what's going to happen with this child that's going to literally be the job description god is graciously giving something to us and that's where we land next and there's six things that we'll see out of zechariah's prophecy that he gives here six things that we'll see where god is a gracious giver where he's taking prophecy and

he's providing fulfillment and these are again six beautiful truths for us to just continue to meditate on on a daily basis of just god's goodness and his faithfulness to us as a body the first thing is is that god actually does give us prophecy all right he gives us prophecy the simplest way to define prophecy is literally a prediction all right a prediction but when it comes to god's prophecy he's not predicting the future as a gamble like he he's not going on to any of these like gambling sites and saying like i predict you know the the spurs to win all right predict the

cowboys win the super bowl like he he's not like just questioning gambling he's not just saying i'm predicting this to happen but i'm not really sure if it will happen that's not what prophecy is what prophecy is is god predicting the future by just letting us in on early what's actually going to happen like that's all prophecy is god's letting us in on early on what's going to happen in the future and that's exactly what he does through zechariah here with john the baptist on what john's going to be and what that means for you and i today and so here begins his prophecy verse

67 and his father zechariah was filled with the holy spirit and prophesied saying blessed be the lord god of israel for he has visited and redeemed his people and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant david as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old that we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us to show the mercy promised to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant the oath that he swore to our father abraham to grant us that we being delivered from the from the

hand of our enemies might serve him without fear in holiness and righteousness before him all our days well what zachariah is is ultimately declaring here is that the gods that god's promises from the mouths of the prophets of old which again you got to remember this is not just like talking decades we're talking centuries and even millennia here all right there's been 400 years of silence since god last spoke to the people through a prophet so what's happening here is remarkable like the united states of america is not even 400 years old all right so we're talking this is this is a long time that

god has been silent uh which again is is kind of peeking you into this idea of zechariah being silent for nine months it's a fulfillment of even god opening his mouth and no longer being silent to prophesy about what he is ultimately going to accomplish and do god is the one breaking the silence here it puts his mouth being rendered mute during the pregnancy into a bit more perspective as though god himself was mute for 400 years so they've had the knowledge of hope and what to expect and now they're starting to feel hope they've had the knowledge for 400 years of what they're to

look for and what they are to expect but with this child showing up in zechariah giving this prophecy all of a sudden now the people are beginning to rejoice they're beginning to feel the fulfilling or the fulfillment of the prophecies that they have been given in the past so god gives us prophecy through father zick and now he is also graciously gives us a new prophet through his son john as we see in verse 76 look at it here and you child will be called the prophet of the most high for you will go before the lord to prepare his ways so this is the

second point that god gives us again jehovah god is a gracious giver god gives us a prophet now this right here is literally job the job description for john the baptist you've got one job go before the lord to prepare his ways go before before the lord to prepare his ways make sure that the people know what to look for when jesus shows up make sure that the people know what to look for when jesus shows up make sure they don't miss him make sure that they know that their savior that's been promised to us from the mouths of the prophets of old is literally

going to be here soon all right he's like he's six months behind me okay like that's what john the baptist has literally declared his life is dedicated to preaching and proclaiming is that he must increase i must decrease probably the most famous line that has come out of john the baptist's mouth jesus must increase i must decrease and if there's anything going on in our cultural climate that should be what we are proclaiming at every moment in this moment jesus must increase i must decrease jesus must increase i must decrease that's him coming as a prophet a mouthpiece of god and why does he come

as a prophet because god wants to give us even more than that he wants to graciously give us knowledge you see this in verse 77 to give knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of their sins this is important because knowledge is not something we are born with okay nobody in this room is born a genius like you you get that right you might have natural tendencies and and and dna or whatever that that might help you get along and how you learn but no one's born a genius you have to process information that comes in the form of knowledge that that lands

in your mind that you're able to categorize and inform thoughts and then have a conclusion like that process has to happen for every person that is born and so god here is a gracious giver of knowledge leading to what we ultimately need to understand in order to receive his salvation which is the forgiveness of their sins that's why romans 10 talks about how well how we can't believe unless someone informs us like we we can't we're not born with this just uh innate ability to just believe that jesus is lord like no one has that innate ability no one is born with quote unquote faith

to believe like we have to have the knowledge of who jesus christ is as the son of god who has come down from heaven who has lived the perfect life who has died the perfect death who rose three days later to guarantee for us a new life as we put to death our old life that knowledge has to come to our minds in order for us to understand it and dwell it down into our hearts so that we are rebirthed into faith in jesus christ we have to have that knowledge again why romans 10 tells us like how can you um how can you believe

unless you've heard and how can you hear unless someone teaches you someone gives you the knowledge of what we are proclaiming this is why matthew 28 and our our mission statement as a community of faith as a church is to go and make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the father the son the holy spirit teaching them to observe all that i have commanded you like that's not like just this little add-on to the great commission that that's not like hey once you get them saved this just keeps you busy until he comes back no like this is foundational to the

great commission is teaching people who jesus christ is and what the bible says about him what the bible says about god's creation the fall redemption and restoration and the consummation of all things in the end what is the whole picture teaching us what is god teaching us and communicating to us through his word we are to proclaim that and teach that because again he gives us knowledge of our salvation to the people in the forgiveness of their sins now this forgiveness of sins is tied to god being a gracious giver of mercy this is number four god gives us mercy verse 78 says because of

the tender mercy of our god whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high this might be one of my favorite verses in describing the mercy of god and the way it feels when we receive it first of all luke tells us that the mercy of god is tender now many of us don't think about god in a tender way towards us when we are in need of forgiveness like that's just not our our first posture our first posture is probably if we're in need of forgiveness it's because we've done something wrong and typically when we do something wrong we're we're receiving discipline we're receiving

punishment we're receiving uh time out we're receiving spankings we're receiving whatever whatever it was like in your life growing up that's kind of how you project that onto god is this is what i'm going to receive we don't think about it in a in a tender way a merciful way we think about it rather and what do we deserve and and and if you have a good view of the bible romans 6 23 says that when you sin you deserve death like you deserve punishment like that that technically is what we deserve that's what the wages of sin is is death and so if it's

death and and god is the one who's going to give the death then then kind of what i feel like is that i'm on death row that i'm i'm going to be receiving capital punishment from the lord when i sin and so when i if i'm having that view of god as a judge and executor he's going to kill me when i sin if i don't have a good view of his tender love and his mercy because of the work of jesus christ then i will run from god rather than run to god and so it's super important for us to to build this into

our theology this tender mercy of our god because it's with that posture in mind it's hard for me to to get to a place where i view god as tender with regards to his mercy he extends to me like i i think about my own children when they act um like little anarchists in our home and and i just want to lose my cool like um and i'm like oh you're crying now like i'll give you something to cry about i never say that to them um maybe sometimes but i mean like you you think you're a patient person and then you have kids and

you realize how how much of a not patient person you are and and it's hard for me to look and view god in this way and so when i start to view god i'm like god help me like more often than not i don't come across tinder when dealing with their shenanigans and yet the way god deals with me when he extends his mercy to me when he does it he doesn't give me something to cry about he does in the most tender way possible he knows down and he holds me through my sin because of the work of jesus christ and he comforts me

tenderly as he is forgiving me because of his son jesus and luke says it's like you're experiencing the warmth of the sun rise for the first time when you've been in nothing but darkness of night i'm more of a sunset guy rather than a sunrise guy i think literally the only time i see the sunrise is on sunday morning because i get here before it and so i get here and and and even like this morning i in light of this was experiencing it a little bit different where like i i see the sunrise fill this room as i'm in here just kind of walking

through this and and and it just it did it felt warmer this morning of just knowing that that just like that warmth that comes in the heavenly father envelops you tenderly as a gracious good father who forgives you of your sins because of what his son jesus has done he's tender in that way number five god also graciously gives us the way verse 79 puts it this way to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death to guide our feet into the way of peace what is the way of peace that god is so gracious to guide us into

we just see this in john 14 1-7 as jesus speaks of this idea of being a guide and being the way he says let your hearts not be troubled believe in god believe also in me in my father's house are many rooms and and you can actually change the the language of many rooms to be abodes okay abodes if it were not so would i have told you that i go to prepare a place for you a way of peace and if i go and prepare a place for you i will come again and will take you to these abodes which he refers to as

myself that where i am you may be also and you know the way to where i am going and thomas said to him this is doubting thomas lord we do not know where you are going how can we know the way how can we be guided how can we get there this is part of john's job verse 6 he says jesus said to him i am the way and the truth and the life no one comes to the father except through me if you had known me abiding in me you would have known my father also from now on you do know him you do

abide in him because you have seen me and you abide in me so this is the context of abiding in christ where he refers to himself as this guiding principle as this guiding light as the way in order to get to the father and and to receive this gracious gift that he is providing to us and he says this in three three ways he that is the way the truth and life we want to know the way to peace everyone is working their lives in such a way that it fulfills their idea of peace of happiness a fulfillment of the good life a sense of

nirvana whatever it might look like everyone is trying to live their life in such a way that it is the way the way to peace the way to life and jesus says i'm that way not only am i that way but i'm going to be the truth that you need to understand what that way of life looks like because of that we're trying to make sense of everything that happens with us we what is truth who is right who is wrong on which standard are we measuring right and wrong again the current cultural climate is is that truth is relative you get to dictate what

you deem the absolute truth what is what is your truth what is my truth you can't tell me what my truth is and jesus in heaven is sitting on his throne looking at his father and saying i think now is a good time for me to go tell them what the truth is like that that's what he's doing now he's going to come and do that in a tender and gracious and giving way but he's going to tell us this is the truth this is the standard by which god created everything in order for it to design in such a way that leads to life

and life abundant life that is flourishing life that is holy life that is righteous life that is good life that is cause for rejoicing life that is cause for celebration if we don't have an absolute truth by which all things are measured against then we actually do live out of relative anarchy which is a state of disorder due to absence or non-recognition of truth and authority jesus is essentially no matter what is going on jesus is our true north he's our true north he's our true north that's why again when we find ourselves in difficult situations like navigating the roe v wade decision we don't

turn to our truth we turn we don't turn to our feelings on the matter we don't even turn to science or statistics we must first turn to the absolute truth in the person of jesus christ because he says i'm the truth i'm the truth and jesus christ is the standard of righteousness that gives us the way to live the truth about how we live and the life that leads to flourishing again jesus is good he's good that's why he says in john 10 10 the thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy i mean right now that's what that's what both sides of the

coin are saying the other is causing right both sides are saying the other is causing you you're you're stealing my life you're killing my life you're destroying life both sides of the coin are literally accusing each other of the exact same thing jesus is the only one who says that i came that they may have life and have it abundantly he's saying i came that they in the womb will have life and have it abundantly he's saying i also came that women will have life and have it abundantly jesus is the only one who can be neutral in the the conversation and actually provide life

to everyone involved everyone involved so if he has the answers if he's the way the truth and the life we have to first go to him and filter everything through christ through christ so we've got work to do in that and if you're wondering where to begin the last thing we see in this passage is an example for us god graciously gives us an example in the birth of john the baptist see verse 80. it says then the child grew and became strong in spirit and he was in the wilderness until the day of his public appearance to israel church john was leaping for joy

in the womb which meant as it already said he was already filled with the holy spirit and yet even he still needed to grow and become strong in his faith and in the spirit of the lord what we need to see from that and this is for every person in this room every person in this room i don't care if you're an elder or if you're an infant in someone's arms right now every person in this room needs to grow and continue to become strong in the faith that we have you never stop growing in your faith you never stop growing in the knowledge of

how to be more fruitful christian and christ following i don't care again if you were raised in your church and you know your bible you don't you don't i mean every week there's still people who ask me questions hey what do you think about this and i'm like i don't know like let me go study let me go look it up like that's the most gracious thing i can give you is and i don't know let me go study forum uh form an idea around what other people have said about the topic as well and bring it to you and say let's look at this

together that's the most gracious thing i can give to you not a let me pretend that i already know what i know that i don't know and then just tell you no if i'm informed on the i'll i'll tell you but i'm also hope that you would say where do you get that from where do you get that from we are all growing and need to continue to grow in the knowledge of the lord being taught all that jesus has commanded us so that we become strong in spirit what we don't need are stagnant not growing anymore weak in the faith believers that's not what

the church needs right now that's not what the community needs right now that's not what the world needs right now what the world needs right now if if again if we're sitting in this room and we're believing what the book says which is everyone is born a sinner and because of that again you can look romans 3 23 so if you're where do you get that romans 3 23 um everyone ascend like that's just what it says there's not one person who has not sinned except for jesus christ no one is righteous no one seeks after the lord everyone goes their own way everyone does

evil that's romans 3 23 and then moving into romans 6 23 reasons the romans wrote here as they used to call it romans 6 23 is because all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of god romans 6 23 is is the wages of sin is death so all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of god and therefore deserve death so if we believe what the book says that's bad news for everyone in the entire world it's bad news for everyone but if we believe what the book says there's good news that john the baptist is born to proclaim is that he's

preparing the way for his cousin who's coming along after him jesus christ who's going to live perfectly because we couldn't all of sin and volunteer of the glory of god he did not sin he met the glory of god because he is god he's the only hypostatic union fully god fully man to ever exist he is living perfectly the righteous standard of god and because he's earning that righteousness he's earning that position for us the good news is is that he then offers substitution he offers an exchange and and again if we believe this he says i'm going to take your wages of sin death

and i'm going to place myself on the cross in your position and then i'm going to give you everything that i earned righteousness i'm going to make that great exchange second corinthians 5 21 he who knew no sin jesus goes to become sin for us on the cross so that in exchange we become the righteousness of god we get to experience the tender loving mercy and grace of god forgiving us of our sins past present and future and then the father adopts us into the family as he raises us to a new life he raises us to a new life where we are considered saints

we are considered righteous we receive a new identity that is the identity of jesus christ himself so if he's able to look upon jesus at jesus we'll get to this but when he baptizes jesus which which john does that john baptizes jesus and when he baptizes jesus the heavenly father looks down at him and says this is my son in whom i'm well pleased that identity the way god sees jesus when jesus comes to live in us that abode that abiding relationship i in him and him in me god now looks at us like he looks at jesus this is my son in whom i'm

well pleased this is my daughter in whom i'm well pleased forgiven he now delights in us no longer in the position of wrath no longer in the position of wages of of sin is death but now you get to get life and life abundant bad news becomes good news becomes good news if we believe that the most cruel thing that we could possibly ever do is withhold that information from others john is an example for us his entire life is devoted to making sure people don't miss jesus to withhold that knowledge again that god graciously gives to withhold that knowledge is to actually damn other

people that's what it is and that's what you're right now you're like that's that is that that's right that's heavy that's hard what i'm hoping for us as a church is i know the excuses well i'm not comfortable sharing what if i lose a friend over the matter what if they hate me what if they you know persecute us what if uh what if they have questions that i don't have answers to like we know all of the excuses we know them and that's why we're calling us as a church to do as john did to continue to grow and be strengthened in the spirit

of the lord that's it so that those excuses begin to get smaller and smaller and the confidence and the rejoicing in this good news gets to that place where you can't wait to share it again because this is the greatest thing that's ever happened to you i mean if someone were to ask you what's the greatest thing that's ever happened to you i hope it's not your wedding day i hope is not the first born or the first time that you had a child that was born i hope it's not a career advancement that you had i hope it's not a reconciliation that you had

within a family strife issue or whatever it might have been i hope it's not a christmas present that you received i hope those things that we are experiencing on this earth that are temporary and material are not the greatest things that have ever happened to us if someone were to ask you what's the greatest thing that's ever happened to you my hope is that you were to say it's the day that i met jesus and he forgave me of my sins and i no longer will spend an eternity in hell but i will spend an eternity in heaven with him as my gracious father that's

the greatest day of my life that's the greatest day of my life and a combination of a fifth grader next door to me when i was in seventh grade who came outside and said can you create that bush and i'm like what no he's like i know who can and i know who did but also this bush is broken it's actually not the way it should look because of sin in the world there's sin in the world that breaks things you're broken because of your sin but god is good and gracious because he sent jesus to save us of our sins and forgive us do

you want jesus to forgive you of your sins that was again that's why we do what we do in little district because a fifth grader is the first person that shared the gospel with me and i'm a seventh grader in the position of influence all right at that time all i'm watching is like simpsons and ren and stimpy and like it's my dad was taking me to like kiss concerts and acd like it was i'm not saying those things are like all wrong but at the same time like that was my upbringing and experience i'm in the position of hey let's get in trouble like

i'm the negative influence to him next door and as a fifth grader it would be easy for him to be like i want to be like the cool kids not saying i was a cool kid but i'm just saying he's like i want to be like the cool kids next door but no he was so confident and so rejoicing in his savior that he shared him with me that he shared him with me and in that moment i could have been like you're a little idiot punk fifth grader like next door like i don't want anything to do with your jesus i'm never gonna hang

out with i mean he was risking everything he's risking wiffle ball in the backyard he's risking us playing hockey in the street he's risking all of it to share christ with me and to this day he and i still talk because he's he's now gone on to plant churches in florida as well as coming back to tennessee and planting churches in tennessee we call him big red like he's an awesome dude that i owe my life to in the sense that he's the first person to share with me jesus christ and then later to invite me to his church where more conversations continued about who

jesus was that then led to me having conversations with my mom and my dad and my brother so that when i was a freshman in high school as a family we all got baptized on january 26 2002 like it all happened because someone was willing to get out of their comfort zone knowing what they were risking to share this good news john the baptist is an example what we need to do is we need to grow in our understanding of the gospel so that we can be strengthened in spirit in regards to the gospel so that we can prepare the way for others to receive

jesus christ when we teach the good news to them and we share it with them so that their eternity is now abundant abundant let's pray and then we'll head into communion father we thank you so much for your your message through john father i wanted this message to focus more on the gift that you give versus the person of john the baptist the reason why is because i believe that's exactly what he would want me to do jesus must increase he must decrease john the baptist is not the great gift the great gift of god being a gracious giver is the fact that he is

sending people to prepare the way for the ultimate gift which is jesus christ that he is tender merciful and gracious to us that he loves us and that he forgives us he forgives us and that is cause for rejoicing it's cause for rejoicing father continue to grow us in our knowledge of you if that's helping us to rework our schedules so that we can enter into bible studies with one another or enter into institute classes so that we can just continue to inform our minds and be taught all that you've commanded us then god help us give us that conviction in addition to that lord

just continue to strengthen us in spirit may your holy spirit just guide us and help us to set aside any of those anxieties that we have when it comes to sharing this good news for it's in your son's beautiful name that we pray in the name of jesus amen as we come to this time of communion i'm going to go ahead and have you stand if you go ahead and go back and get the elements if you don't have them and then come back to your seats as we partake of this together if you're not a believer in the room and you're still kind of

wrestling with that process we we ask that you abstain because this is a meal for believers if you are like hey i'm not a believer but i'm believing in jesus today i'm trusting in him for the first time i'm understanding his good news for me then we invite you to partake of this because it's also a proclamation that jesus has died for you that he is forgiving you of your sins and that you do get to receive this meal as a celebration and remembering what he has done for you and one of the things that i did a few weeks ago is is to kind

of add a little bit more weight to what we're doing so that it doesn't just constantly become repetitious is i want us to think about the things this week maybe it's been an argument that you've had with somebody i mean there's cause for arguing this week apparently so maybe there was some arguing that was going on and you're like you know what i might not have had the best posture i might not have have reacted or or maybe i did react in a way that was not christ honoring that was not christ-like maybe there was truth spoken but it was done in a way that

was hurtful rather than tender and loving so maybe this is a moment where we can take that sin and we can place it on jesus because that's why he crushed his body and that's why he shed his blood maybe this week there's other things going on in your life where you know hey these are some things that are weighty for me these are some things that that i just constantly keep feeling like i don't like this about myself i want to be more disciplined in this way but i keep giving myself over to laziness or i keep giving myself over to indulgence or whatever it

might be and i just want to just get rid of that this is a this is an opportunity for us to take those sins and again because jesus crushed his body and because he shed his blood he can remove those sins from us and we can walk out with clean and clear consciences in regards to that so i want you to hold that wafer in your hand right now and whatever those things are that feel crushing to you i don't like this about myself i i i sinned i send and it's crushing like it just my spirit is crushing for i received from the lord

but i also delivered to you that the lord jesus on the night when he was betrayed he took bread and when he had given thanks he broke it and he said this is my body which is for you do this in remembrance of me he crushed his body for you partake of the cracker now in the same way also he took the cup after supper saying this cup is the new covenant in my blood do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me for as often as you eat this bread and you drink the cup you proclaim the lord's death until he

comes those sins that we've committed this week that he is crushing his body for at the same time the wages of sin is death and the way that god signifies life and death is blood if there's blood in the veins and it's pumping and moving there's life and the spilling of blood represents death that's why jesus went to the cross and that's why his blood was shed so that it would be spilt representing his death he's putting to death your sin by the spilling of his blood that's why we remember that by partaking of the juice so drink it in remembrance of him let's continue

now to worship as we proclaim this good news back to him and say thank you