Pointing to Christ
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Recap of Last Week
Subtitle: The Reality of Repentance
Big Idea: Sincere repenters seek ways to live anew
When repentance is preached,
There are spontaneous responses
Egotistic people become benevolent
Malcontents find fulfillment
This Morning we focus on 15-17
Big Idea: Preachers of the Gospel must point to Christ
Only Jesus is the Christ
Christ must increase while the preacher decreases
Jesus’ baptism is of fire
Next week, Lord willing, we will look at the consequences that can come with bold preaching.
He said therefore to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?
Bear fruits in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham.
Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”
And the crowds asked him, “What then shall we do?”
And he answered them, “Whoever has two tunics is to share with him who has none, and whoever has food is to do likewise.”
Tax collectors also came to be baptized and said to him, “Teacher, what shall we do?”
And he said to them, “Collect no more than you are authorized to do.”
Soldiers also asked him, “And we, what shall we do?” And he said to them, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or by false accusation, and be content with your wages.”
As the people were in expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Christ,
John answered them all, saying, “I baptize you with water, but he who is mightier than I is coming, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.
His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”
So with many other exhortations he preached good news to the people.
But Herod the tetrarch, who had been reproved by him for Herodias, his brother’s wife, and for all the evil things that Herod had done,
added this to them all, that he locked up John in prison.
Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heavens were opened,
and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form, like a dove; and a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”
Big Idea: Preachers of the Gospel must point to Christ
Only Jesus is the Christ
Christ must increase while the preacher decreases
Jesus’ baptism is of fire
As the people were in expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Christ,
The people of Israel had been waiting a long time for the Messiah. Even today, devout Jews who do not believe Jesus is Messiah continue to be in expectation of the Christ. The Jewish people had a long history already by this time of wars, and oppression, slavery, and exile. So they most certainly had been hoping and in expectation of the arrival of the Christ, the Messiah, who would bring them into a new era of peace and prosperity.
These people, then, watched each time a dynamic person arrived on the scene, and would wonder if this was the Christ. In fact, some had claimed to be prophets and some had claimed to be the Christ, but so far, there had only been disappointment. Now comes onto the scene one who Jesus later would say was the greatest prophet: Matt11.11
Truly, I say to you, among those born of women there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist. Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.
Jesus would go on to say that John was the Elijah who was to come. John was an interesting character. In many ways he resembled the Old Testament prophets. He was in the wilderness, he was dressed in camel’s hair, he had a strange diet. His preaching was getting attention. It got the attention of the sincere as well as the insincere. It isn’t surprising, then, as John the Baptist’s fame became greater, and as we understood from last week’s sermon, that something real was happening, so it was not surprising that people began to wonder about this question, whether John was the Christ.
So they were questioning in their hearts, and then most certainly asked out loud, and discussed with their families and friends, and the question on everybody’s mind was, “Is this the Christ?” And in John’s gospel, (and let us not confuse John the writer of the gospel of John and Disciple of Jesus with John the Baptist), in John’s gospel we see more details about this:
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.”
So they said to him, “Who are you? We need to give an answer to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?”
He said, “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’ as the prophet Isaiah said.”
(Now they had been sent from the Pharisees.)
They asked him, “Then why are you baptizing, if you are neither the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?”
John answered them, “I baptize with water, but among you stands one you do not know,
even he who comes after me, the strap of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie.”
These things took place in Bethany across the Jordan, where John was baptizing.
Big Idea: Preachers of the Gospel must point to Christ
Only Jesus is the Christ
Christ must increase while the preacher decreases
Jesus’ baptism is of fire
John had a very important role. To be one that had been prophesied in scripture, a forerunner, a way-maker for the Christ, the voice of one crying in the wilderness. But as much as John the Baptist must have sensed the importance of his role, he himself remained a humble servant, one who simply was proclaiming the truth that comes from another. One who simply points and says, “Here he is!”. And in this role, John did an exemplary job.
He wanted people to know that only Jesus is the Christ. Well, certainly it may have tempted many modern preachers, if the crowd around began to ask whether this is our savior, many preachers in our time and throughout history may be tempted to say, well, yes, I am a sort of savior, or they may even say they are the savior. But John shows as an example to every preacher who would come after him, the type of humility that should be found among those who preach.
John answered them all, saying, “I baptize you with water, but he who is mightier than I is coming, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.
Again in John 3.28-30
You yourselves bear me witness, that I said, ‘I am not the Christ, but I have been sent before him.’
The one who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice. Therefore this joy of mine is now complete.
He must increase, but I must decrease.”
John says not only that he is not the Christ, and apparently he answered this question many times. And he was adamant. I am not the Christ. he who is mightier than I is coming, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie.
To fully appreciate how self-deprecating John is being in this moment, we must understand what it meant in that society to bend and untie someone else’s sandal. I have heard folks over the years who say we should study nothing but the bible. However, when we use other information, such as other historical facts, and learning about the geography of the areas described in scripture, when we learn more about the culture and customs of the time, we can have a more full understanding of what a text means.
In Bible study, which we call hermeneutics, we include this as one of the major understandings of how we are to understand scripture. Some of you came to my class on Sundays evenings some time ago on the Bible, and I taught this, that our first goal in scripture is not to immediately jump to the point of application, in other words, we do not want to read a passage and right away talk about what it means to me personally.
Rather, we must try to understand what the passage meant to the original people who would have heard or read the passage. And after doing that, then we see what it means to us. And this is because one major rule in bible interpretation is that the passage can not be read to mean anything other than what the author intended it to mean to his original audience. That is not to say we cannot attempt to apply it in our own situation, but we must always do what we can to consider the time and customs and traditions of the time in which it was written.
So we look at other writings and histories of that time to learn more about what certain things mean. In this case, we are helped by Jewish writings, particularly concerning the duties of slaves. And in a home at that time with servants or slaves, it was demeaning to be asked to untie someone’s sandals. In fact, a Jewish person may even have a Jewish servant, but he would never be asked to do this.
What John is saying, then, is that in comparison to Jesus, he is the very lowest, the most humble servant, the most wretched slave. In comparison to Christ, whatever power the people perceive John to have, whatever anointing, whatever commissioning from God, he is next to nothing. Was he really nothing, of no value? of no repute? No, certainly this is not the case. Remember what Jesus himself said of John. No one greater has been born among women. Jesus certainly did not think very little of John. Jesus knew John had a very significant role in the redemption plan.
God highly favored John the Baptist. He was filled with the Holy Spirit from his mother’s womb. He was set aside for what we could for certain say is one of the top five jobs in all of scripture. Because John understood all this, because he had been filled with the Holy Spirit and had this empowerment and the wisdom that comes with one who is filled by God’ Spirit, he understood, though, that he is still a mere creature, he is not God, He is not godlike, he is not a little god, or a demi god, or any such thing. He is merely a servant, and compared to his master, he is not even worthy to do the most humiliating task, that of untying the sandals of his Master.
Big Idea: Preachers of the Gospel must point to Christ
Only Jesus is the Christ
Christ must increase while the preacher decreases
Jesus’ baptism is of fire
So John sets the example for preachers today to point to Christ. And how does the preacher point to Christ? How does the preacher lift Christ up? How does the preacher magnify Christ? By preaching the Word of Christ. All of scripture speaks of Christ. So the preacher must make his life’s work a study of God’s Word. He must be in the Word so deeply that his every thought must return to the Word and it’s influence. He must do the hard work of researching the scripture, finding out what those words mean. He must become a master of the doctrines of the church, not doctrines of men, but those doctrines set forth in the Word of God.
Every Word of Scripture preached should ultimately point to Jesus. The sermon is not to entertain, it is not to give you warm tingles, it is not to make you love the preacher. The sermon is to set forth the Word of God in such a way as it brings glory to Christ, and lifts him up, so that men will be drawn to Him. Yet this is not done by the cleverness of the preacher, it is not done by his charisma, it is not done by shouting, it isn’t done by getting a piano player to play nice chords as the sermon wraps up.
It isn’t found in the fanciness of the stage, or the lighting, or the ambiance we create in the room. The impact of the preaching will have most to do with the work behind the scenes. The prayer for the church, the concern for souls, the personal evaluation and repentance of sins, all of that to prepare for what scripture calls the labor of the word.
Yet many in pulpits do not do this hard work. You should know that there are resources by which preachers can buy subscriptions online for sermons. Sermoncentral.com. They can buy outlines of sermons, or entire sermons pre-written. There is an appalling laziness among preachers today. Yet there are also those who strive to do the hard work. I promise you, I will never ever preach a sermon that someone else wrote. And I promise I will do the work to study the scripture. The sermons preached at Oasis church will have been prepared and studied. And I ask for your prayers for those times, when my week has been difficult, and my temptation is to be lazy about my studies. Please pray for me.
There are always distractions that come, that is to be expected. Distractions often turn out to be good opportunities for growth. But amidst distractions, just like each of you have to push forward and do the work, so do I. Now, Alistair Begg has said what a difficult thing for the preacher to preach about preaching! Because you may be sitting there and saying to yourself, “well that is all fine and good, pastor, now why don’t you do that?”
The answer is I can’t. I can’t without the Spirit of God to help me. I can make no impact without His Word. No one will come to Christ, ever, because Jason Hovde was in the pulpit. No one will move forward in their faith in maturity and growth because Jason Hovde was in the pulpit. This does not depend on me. The rise or fall of Oasis Church in it’s sanctification, or maturity, does not rest on whether Jason is preaching or not.
But we can expect no growth, no maturity, no further sanctification, without God’s Holy Spirit, using the means he has determined, and that is the folly of preaching. God’s Spirit, plus God’s Word, plus the prayers of His people, and our reliance on scripture, are the means he chooses to use to do his work here. In reality, I fully realize that I can do nothing outside of Christ, and neither can any of us.
So John demonstrated an attitude that every preacher must have, and that is complete humility before Christ. I wish I could say I do this well all the time, but the truth is I am tempted to give myself a pat on the back from time to time. I do tend to compare myself and my ministry to others. I find those in ministry I think are not doing as well as me and look down on them. I find those so high above me and get jealous at times. If I were to try and say I agree with John the Baptist perfectly, I would be lying. My attitudes do not always match my professions. My life does not perfectly line up with the truths I preach.
Yet by God’s grace, in his plan, to use imperfect men to preach his perfect word, He blesses my poor efforts and at times does amazing things through this preaching. So Christ must increase, and Jason must decrease. If you invite someone to your church, be sure to tell them that there are very flawed people here, of whom I am the most flawed. Yet tell them that Christ is here! Tell them the Word of God is taught and preached here! Tell them that God in his mercy has brought together all these different people at Oasis to grow together to be more like the Head of the Church, who is Christ.
This Morning we focus on 15-17
Big Idea: Preachers of the Gospel must point to Christ
Only Jesus is the Christ
Christ must increase while the preacher decreases
Jesus’ baptism is of fire
Now let us speak for a moment about the comparison John makes between the baptism he offers and the baptism of Christ to come. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire:
His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”
Now, for many of us, when we hear the words baptism of fire, we think of the Day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit fell on the disciples and appeared as tongues of fire on them. And that is a nice story. It should be an exciting story to us, about what happened that day, when the church was sort of born. But if that was where we left it, we would miss the intensity of what John is saying here. You see, the baptism of the Holy Spirit and fire is not only about being empowered by the Spirit for ministry and to help us and comfort us. Those are all wonderful benefits we receive from God through His Spirit.
In fact, some folks in the church get so caught up in having an experience like we read about in Acts, that unless they see some sort of powerful manifestations of the Holy Spirit, they think God is not moving. I have had people leave my ministry before, saying “I just don’t feel the Holy Spirit at this church”. What they are specifically looking for, I do not know, but I have my suspicions. But we must remember that God does indeed choose certain times that He will move in a very unusual or powerful way. That is up to Him.
The truth is that the Holy Spirit is always present in the reading of God’s Word among God’s people. If you want to be sure the Holy Spirit is active in your life, read the Bible. Yet many believers have been convinced, I would even say lied to, that unless they have certain feelings in the church service, or in their private prayer time, then the Spirit is not there. Don’t fall for this lie. There are severe consequences when someone believes that the only way to know the Holy Spirit is active in their life or in their church is when they feel certain things. So what do they do?
They try to stir something up. When I was in Bible college, the chapel there had a balcony, and because I was in North Dakota in the winter, and it was too cold to walk outside, but I liked to get some sunlight, I would go up to that balcony and walk back and forth and pray, because there were windows up there. One time when I was up in the balcony, a young man came in to pray, and he didn’t know I was there, and I was not trying to eavesdrop, but I also did not want to interrupt him. And for 20 or 30 minutes, this young man, who seemed desperate to feel something, swayed back and forth for a while, paced like a lion for a while, made gestures, as he prayed. I would almost use the words violent prayer.
He really wanted God’s attention, and He clearly wanted God to make him feel something. He wanted to feel something from God. My heart broke for him. And yet he was young, so I prayed for him. But my entire sense of it was this. He was trying, by the intensity of his words, by the aggressive actions of his movements, he was trying to make something happen.
Sometimes God does not give us the experiences we want. Sometimes he just guides us through His Word. So if you are having that sense that you aren’t feeling it from the Lord lately, you should pray, but just as importantly, you should read his word. Our own hearts are deceitful. People says things like “I sense in my spirit...” How can you be sure? What if what you sensed was your own will, not God’s? We are well capable of fooling ourselves. If you want to be sure you have heard from God, read your bible. If you want to hear God’s Word audibly, read it out loud.
But John is not referring to experiences like Pentecost when he refers to the baptism of fire. More likely, he is referring to something like Mal2.2-3
But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap.
He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, and they will bring offerings in righteousness to the Lord.
God refines people through fire. We have the fire of trials, which we should rejoice at, as James tells us to rejoice. He refines through his word. And yes, He refines with his Spirit. Luk3.17
His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”
The sense here is a complete clean-up. His threshing floor is not merely going to be tidied up, but completely cleansed. The chaff will be burned away completely. This allusion to fire is seen throughout scripture. Fire is a cleanser. And Luke, who wrote the account we are studying, by no means took this as a bad thing or a scary thing. In fact, he considered it to be encouraging:
So with many other exhortations he preached good news to the people.
It was among other exhortations, or positive encouragements, and this was part of the good news. Remember from last week. What was John’s main message? Repent. Repent. Do you see? The message, the call to repentance, is good news. Why? Because true repentance is the pathway to mercy and grace, that are given by God to all the elect.
This Morning we focus on 15-17
Big Idea: Preachers of the Gospel must point to Christ
Only Jesus is the Christ
Christ must increase while the preacher decreases
Jesus’ baptism is of fire
Jesus himself would later use the phrase unquenchable fire. Mark9.42-48
“Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea.
And if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than with two hands to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire.
And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life lame than with two feet to be thrown into hell.
And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into hell,
‘where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.’
This is a strong warning about sin. Jesus is warning that sin has consequences. The unquenchable fire in this case is the eternal wrath that sinners who do not repent. So in a sense, you could say all people will encounter unquenchable fire. For those who put faith unto salvation in our Lord Jesus Christ, the unquenchable fire will be like that John is preaching about, a fire of cleansing. In John’s case, it is a metaphor that refers to the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit. That means that God continually brings us closer to Christ-likeness. But the fire Jesus speaks of in Mark 9 is the everlasting unquenchable fire of hell, where the unrepentant will suffer with conscious torment forever.
So then, we have a choice, to be baptized by fire figuratively, the sanctifying flames of the Holy Spirit baptism that cleanses us from our sins, or the eternal flame that punishes us for our sins.