1 00:00:00,383 --> 00:00:01,366 Hey everybody. Welcome back. 2 00:00:01,366 --> 00:00:05,550 Thanks for starting the week with us as we continue through the Gospel of John. 3 00:00:06,983 --> 00:00:10,666 We are making our way through the first chapter 4 00:00:10,666 --> 00:00:13,916 and made the case late last week that we kind of 5 00:00:13,916 --> 00:00:18,716 are beginning to move into the narrative or the story sections, and today 6 00:00:18,716 --> 00:00:21,766 we pick that up in the 29th verse, 7 00:00:22,350 --> 00:00:25,400 probably a little, background here. 8 00:00:26,366 --> 00:00:30,000 John, early on chooses to focus on John 9 00:00:30,000 --> 00:00:33,116 the Baptist is not unknown in the Gospels. 10 00:00:33,116 --> 00:00:35,850 Mark does the same thing. 11 00:00:35,850 --> 00:00:40,500 But John is doing this in a pretty interesting way. 12 00:00:40,516 --> 00:00:44,100 We've talked a little bit about that, particularly maybe last Thursday 13 00:00:44,516 --> 00:00:48,233 if you have a chance, maybe go back and pick up that episode. 14 00:00:48,450 --> 00:00:52,550 So do we join the story today as John is actually 15 00:00:53,750 --> 00:00:55,433 kind of on the scene. 16 00:00:55,433 --> 00:00:57,233 And so we'll jump in here, verse 29. 17 00:00:57,233 --> 00:01:00,233 Then we'll come back and try to unpack some of it. 18 00:01:00,500 --> 00:01:04,050 The next day he John saw Jesus coming toward him 19 00:01:04,400 --> 00:01:08,833 and declared, here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. 20 00:01:09,533 --> 00:01:12,900 This is he of whom I said, after me comes 21 00:01:12,900 --> 00:01:16,200 a man who ranks ahead of me, because he was before me. 22 00:01:16,733 --> 00:01:20,700 I myself did not know him, but I came baptizing with water 23 00:01:20,700 --> 00:01:24,266 for this reason that he might be revealed to Israel. 24 00:01:24,983 --> 00:01:27,383 And John testified, 25 00:01:27,383 --> 00:01:29,416 I saw the spirit descending from heaven 26 00:01:29,416 --> 00:01:32,416 like a dove, and it remained on him. 27 00:01:32,700 --> 00:01:35,600 I myself did not know him, 28 00:01:35,600 --> 00:01:40,800 but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, he on whom you see 29 00:01:40,800 --> 00:01:45,083 the spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit. 30 00:01:45,600 --> 00:01:49,816 And I myself have seen and have testified 31 00:01:50,183 --> 00:01:53,183 that this is the son of God. 32 00:01:53,600 --> 00:01:58,050 And so a very nice interchange intersection here 33 00:01:58,050 --> 00:02:01,966 between theology and story. 34 00:02:02,216 --> 00:02:05,816 So as John tells the story the next day, 35 00:02:05,816 --> 00:02:09,083 and John gives the story a little bit of urgency with that. 36 00:02:09,350 --> 00:02:12,316 John the Baptist sees Jesus, 37 00:02:12,316 --> 00:02:15,800 and in seeing him, he is led to proclaim. 38 00:02:15,983 --> 00:02:21,533 Notice that in unlike we were just in the gospel of Mark yesterday in worship. 39 00:02:21,766 --> 00:02:24,900 Mark keeps Jesus a secret, waiting 40 00:02:24,900 --> 00:02:28,166 for the big reveal at the end with John. 41 00:02:28,350 --> 00:02:31,316 That's not the case. To see Jesus. 42 00:02:31,316 --> 00:02:34,283 To know Jesus is to proclaim Jesus. 43 00:02:34,283 --> 00:02:36,233 There is this. This 44 00:02:37,400 --> 00:02:39,600 intrinsic link 45 00:02:39,600 --> 00:02:42,900 in the Gospel of John between seeing and saying. 46 00:02:43,200 --> 00:02:48,650 So he he observes Jesus, and he therefore proclaims Jesus and he. 47 00:02:48,650 --> 00:02:52,083 He quotes the line, we've already seen he ranks ahead of me. 48 00:02:52,100 --> 00:02:53,700 He was before me. 49 00:02:53,700 --> 00:02:56,700 I didn't know him, but he 50 00:02:57,016 --> 00:02:58,283 he was revealed to me. 51 00:02:58,283 --> 00:03:02,366 Notice again, we see in verse 32 the word testified 52 00:03:03,050 --> 00:03:06,950 as he tells witness gives witness to what he has seen. 53 00:03:07,283 --> 00:03:12,650 And just to remove all mystery, by the time we get to verse 34 54 00:03:12,650 --> 00:03:16,166 at the end of this passage, I have seen and testify 55 00:03:16,850 --> 00:03:19,200 that this is the Son of God. 56 00:03:19,200 --> 00:03:22,216 So no, no prolonging Michael here, there. 57 00:03:22,216 --> 00:03:27,500 No, you know, putting a guessing or kind of hinting around it. 58 00:03:27,533 --> 00:03:31,433 John just comes right to the front with the declaration 59 00:03:31,433 --> 00:03:34,883 of where we're going in this gospel and who Jesus is. 60 00:03:35,266 --> 00:03:39,416 The introduction of Jesus in John is so fascinating 61 00:03:39,916 --> 00:03:42,916 because we as a reader, 62 00:03:43,583 --> 00:03:48,000 just throw ourself into this story, this huge prolog. 63 00:03:48,016 --> 00:03:49,500 I I've said it many times 64 00:03:49,500 --> 00:03:52,500 now, it's a little bit like a fireworks show at the beginning. 65 00:03:52,500 --> 00:03:54,683 Just so much beautiful language. 66 00:03:54,683 --> 00:03:58,283 There's some philosophy, some history, some theology, 67 00:03:58,500 --> 00:04:02,333 some Old Testament, what we would call Old Testament, some Hebrew Bible. 68 00:04:02,516 --> 00:04:04,316 There's so much packed in there. 69 00:04:04,316 --> 00:04:10,883 And don't miss when we get the first human introduction of Jesus. 70 00:04:11,216 --> 00:04:14,850 His title is The Lamb of God. 71 00:04:14,850 --> 00:04:19,766 And those details would be so easy to just rush by. But. 72 00:04:20,066 --> 00:04:23,800 But John is going to call Jesus the shepherd. 73 00:04:23,816 --> 00:04:28,766 He's going to talk about Jesus being the one who leaves the flock 74 00:04:29,100 --> 00:04:33,233 so that he can go get to the lost one and John is the one 75 00:04:33,500 --> 00:04:38,566 who is also going to display for us throughout the course of the story, 76 00:04:38,850 --> 00:04:44,516 how Jesus is God's redemptive action for all 77 00:04:44,900 --> 00:04:48,566 who believe that there's this amazing introductory 78 00:04:48,566 --> 00:04:53,000 kind of note that we find in that metaphor the lamb, because the lamb is 79 00:04:53,000 --> 00:04:54,466 the thing that is sacrificed. 80 00:04:54,466 --> 00:04:57,900 The lamb is the liturgical practice 81 00:04:57,900 --> 00:05:01,850 of the Jewish religion which God gave them. 82 00:05:02,183 --> 00:05:05,250 Jesus is going to be the fulfillment of that. 83 00:05:05,266 --> 00:05:10,516 There's almost a Hebrews as kind of note to the introduction of Jesus in this book, 84 00:05:10,516 --> 00:05:14,966 and it's an incredible nod to what Jesus is going to teach 85 00:05:15,233 --> 00:05:18,350 and then to what Jesus is actually physically going to do. 86 00:05:18,600 --> 00:05:22,250 And what I think is beautiful about is John the Baptist knows 87 00:05:22,250 --> 00:05:25,516 it, and John the Baptist just says it and claims it right from the start. 88 00:05:25,516 --> 00:05:29,683 There's not that marking hidden secret stuff here at all. 89 00:05:29,700 --> 00:05:31,850 It's always on full display. 90 00:05:31,850 --> 00:05:33,650 And from the very first introduction, 91 00:05:33,650 --> 00:05:37,466 Lamb of God is supposed to resonate in our minds. 92 00:05:37,516 --> 00:05:39,050 How is he the lamb? 93 00:05:39,050 --> 00:05:40,616 Why all these references to lamb? 94 00:05:40,616 --> 00:05:44,366 And we're going to see that fleshed out and really not just fleshed out. 95 00:05:44,550 --> 00:05:49,400 We're going to see that becoming embodied in the story as we go on. 96 00:05:49,966 --> 00:05:54,600 Yeah, we mentioned we mentioned last week, Michael, the the kind of. 97 00:05:57,000 --> 00:05:57,866 Interplay 98 00:05:57,866 --> 00:06:00,866 between John the Baptist and Jesus here. 99 00:06:00,866 --> 00:06:05,000 And there's some very interesting threads. 100 00:06:05,000 --> 00:06:09,383 I think, that move us in that direction as we get to a text like this. 101 00:06:10,466 --> 00:06:13,466 First of all, notice that in John 102 00:06:13,516 --> 00:06:17,633 the gospel there's not a mention of Jesus being baptized. 103 00:06:17,900 --> 00:06:19,850 Now, if you know the other stories 104 00:06:19,850 --> 00:06:22,850 from the other gospel, you can kind of infer that, right? 105 00:06:23,150 --> 00:06:24,866 We get told in other places. 106 00:06:24,866 --> 00:06:30,833 It's as it's in the baptism that this dove shows up. 107 00:06:31,283 --> 00:06:34,200 But that's not explicitly said here. 108 00:06:34,200 --> 00:06:39,050 And again, some would speculate that that's to minimize John the Baptist's 109 00:06:39,050 --> 00:06:39,566 role. 110 00:06:39,566 --> 00:06:42,916 It's not as though he has something over 111 00:06:42,916 --> 00:06:46,016 Jesus or that he needed to do something for Jesus. 112 00:06:46,433 --> 00:06:50,700 And again, we said last week, the speculation is that perhaps John, 113 00:06:50,700 --> 00:06:53,600 the gospel is written to a group of people 114 00:06:53,600 --> 00:06:56,633 who elevated John the Baptist pretty highly. 115 00:06:57,116 --> 00:07:01,516 And so John, the gospel writer, is toning that down a little bit. 116 00:07:01,516 --> 00:07:03,350 You see another evidence here. 117 00:07:03,350 --> 00:07:06,150 I myself did not know him. 118 00:07:06,150 --> 00:07:10,816 In other words, even John the Baptist has the Christ revealed to him. 119 00:07:11,116 --> 00:07:14,483 It's not something that he understood or discerned on his own. 120 00:07:14,866 --> 00:07:16,350 It was shown to him. 121 00:07:16,350 --> 00:07:21,116 And so, just in these subtle ways, a way of elevating 122 00:07:21,116 --> 00:07:25,966 Jesus and maybe moderating slightly John the Baptist role. 123 00:07:26,250 --> 00:07:29,100 Although another interesting thing about this 124 00:07:29,100 --> 00:07:32,100 introduction Jesus doesn't speak. 125 00:07:32,100 --> 00:07:37,366 We get told that John has encountered him, but we've not yet heard from him. 126 00:07:37,366 --> 00:07:40,366 That handoff, if you think of it almost like a relay, 127 00:07:40,500 --> 00:07:43,766 that handoff is going to happen in tomorrow's passage. 128 00:07:43,766 --> 00:07:46,766 But here the only voice we hear 129 00:07:46,850 --> 00:07:49,850 is John's, and it's the voice of witness 130 00:07:50,416 --> 00:07:53,416 and of faith and of surety. 131 00:07:53,633 --> 00:07:57,166 I have seen I myself, and in Greek. 132 00:07:57,166 --> 00:07:59,633 That's a way of intensifying the language. 133 00:07:59,633 --> 00:08:01,916 I myself, I like. 134 00:08:01,916 --> 00:08:07,166 I've really seen him, and I testify that this is the Son of God. 135 00:08:07,166 --> 00:08:10,016 So a lot of threads coming together here, I think. Michael. 136 00:08:10,016 --> 00:08:14,783 Well, note here, Clint, that the beautiful image that we have here 137 00:08:14,783 --> 00:08:19,350 of the spirit in verse 33, so he on whom you see the spirit 138 00:08:19,350 --> 00:08:23,700 descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit. 139 00:08:23,700 --> 00:08:28,283 And that's really, really important towards your point of humanizing John 140 00:08:28,283 --> 00:08:33,116 the Baptist, making it clear that his baptism of water is for repentance. 141 00:08:33,116 --> 00:08:37,700 But Jesus Christ baptism is something entirely different. 142 00:08:37,700 --> 00:08:40,433 It has an entirely different kind of force. 143 00:08:40,433 --> 00:08:43,783 And for all of the emphasis that we have put in John 144 00:08:44,116 --> 00:08:48,500 on the singular importance of Jesus Christ, we really cannot over 145 00:08:48,766 --> 00:08:52,766 estimate or over speak how significant Jesus 146 00:08:52,766 --> 00:08:56,566 is in John's understanding of God's salvific work in the world. 147 00:08:56,566 --> 00:08:59,416 But but that being said, 148 00:08:59,416 --> 00:09:03,450 we already have that Trinitarian language being brought to bear here. 149 00:09:03,450 --> 00:09:07,366 This idea of the Holy Spirit, God's presence 150 00:09:07,366 --> 00:09:11,816 not only that, lives in His Son, but of course, we're going to see 151 00:09:12,000 --> 00:09:12,950 in the book of acts 152 00:09:12,950 --> 00:09:17,216 how that spirit takes up residence within the Christian community itself, 153 00:09:17,216 --> 00:09:21,800 the Spirit of Christ that enables the church to go into the world. 154 00:09:21,800 --> 00:09:22,550 To do what? 155 00:09:22,550 --> 00:09:25,850 To baptize in the name of the father, the son and the spirit. 156 00:09:25,850 --> 00:09:29,716 And and here we can see how the gospel writer 157 00:09:29,716 --> 00:09:33,316 John is just effortlessly well, it's 158 00:09:33,316 --> 00:09:36,683 with great effort, but to the reader it just seems effortless. 159 00:09:36,683 --> 00:09:39,866 How we transition from Jesus Christ, 160 00:09:39,866 --> 00:09:44,450 the one who's baptized and the one on whom the spirit descends. 161 00:09:44,450 --> 00:09:48,616 This is the very one who sends his church into the world to baptize, 162 00:09:48,616 --> 00:09:54,116 which should inspire within the believer a kind of resonance within ourselves. 163 00:09:54,116 --> 00:09:58,433 To say we too should be drawn to baptism, the baptism of the Holy Spirit, 164 00:09:58,433 --> 00:10:02,633 because in that baptism, in the moment in which we are cleansed by the water, 165 00:10:02,633 --> 00:10:05,850 we are also indwelt by the power of the risen Christ. 166 00:10:05,850 --> 00:10:06,183 But that. 167 00:10:06,183 --> 00:10:10,200 So John is once again describing this thing that had happened, 168 00:10:10,500 --> 00:10:14,666 giving teaching that includes who Jesus is and the Spirit of God 169 00:10:14,900 --> 00:10:17,266 who lives on and in him. This Trinitarian language. 170 00:10:17,266 --> 00:10:18,300 And also, Clint, 171 00:10:18,300 --> 00:10:23,300 I would want to make the case points us ahead to the the future Christians 172 00:10:23,416 --> 00:10:27,383 who will also be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, and will do 173 00:10:27,383 --> 00:10:31,400 so in the name of the Holy Spirit, and who will continue to live in that spirit 174 00:10:31,883 --> 00:10:34,950 well beyond the days that this book was written? 175 00:10:35,116 --> 00:10:39,950 I think simultaneously affirming what John has been doing and. 176 00:10:42,050 --> 00:10:43,200 Essentially 177 00:10:43,200 --> 00:10:46,550 suggesting that Jesus will do more, that 178 00:10:46,550 --> 00:10:51,600 what Jesus does is above even what John has been doing. 179 00:10:51,866 --> 00:10:56,716 John's been baptizing with water, but the work of Jesus will be different. 180 00:10:57,016 --> 00:10:59,816 It will be Holy Spirit work. 181 00:10:59,816 --> 00:11:02,183 It will be, 182 00:11:02,183 --> 00:11:04,416 even more, 183 00:11:04,416 --> 00:11:06,566 an announcement and a pronouncement of 184 00:11:06,566 --> 00:11:09,683 who God is and what God is and what God is doing. 185 00:11:10,050 --> 00:11:14,000 And I was doing a rough count, Mike, I think, you know, plus or -1 or 2 here 186 00:11:14,483 --> 00:11:18,050 just in the first chapter, as we've gone through some of the John 187 00:11:18,050 --> 00:11:21,050 the Baptist language, I think we've run into the word 188 00:11:21,166 --> 00:11:24,150 testify or testimony six times. 189 00:11:24,150 --> 00:11:29,266 And when you start a biblical book, the first chapter is a good place, 190 00:11:29,400 --> 00:11:32,966 often to look for themes that are going to be important. 191 00:11:32,966 --> 00:11:36,316 And bells that the author is going to ring repeatedly. 192 00:11:36,566 --> 00:11:38,366 And you'd have a hard time missing this one. 193 00:11:38,366 --> 00:11:42,266 I mean, if you get to verse 34 and you haven't noticed 194 00:11:42,700 --> 00:11:46,366 what this word testify pops up a lot, well, 195 00:11:47,033 --> 00:11:50,033 you're going to want to pay attention to that because this is 196 00:11:50,400 --> 00:11:53,400 this is a fundamental thing that John is trying to do. 197 00:11:53,400 --> 00:11:57,466 John himself is testifying, John the Baptist is testifying. 198 00:11:57,650 --> 00:12:00,566 And later Jesus is going to call people 199 00:12:00,566 --> 00:12:03,350 to testify and to say what they've seen. 200 00:12:03,350 --> 00:12:07,516 That's one of the repeated themes that's going to work its way through this book. 201 00:12:07,666 --> 00:12:13,133 So, Clint, that's one of the potential pitfalls of reading, John, 202 00:12:13,666 --> 00:12:18,200 is that you get on autopilot because you can come into a section 203 00:12:18,200 --> 00:12:22,550 like this and to your exact point, testimony, testimony, testimony. 204 00:12:22,550 --> 00:12:25,850 And at some point, your brain just flips over into that mode 205 00:12:26,066 --> 00:12:30,150 where you're reading words, but you're not really hearing those words. 206 00:12:30,150 --> 00:12:33,600 And the real power of John's 207 00:12:33,600 --> 00:12:38,966 clarity is to emphasize these themes in such a way that you understand 208 00:12:39,150 --> 00:12:43,966 the force of them, and the force of testimony is so essential 209 00:12:43,966 --> 00:12:49,250 because it is a ongoing, never ending Christian practice. 210 00:12:49,300 --> 00:12:52,733 There's never been a generation of Christians that don't live 211 00:12:52,733 --> 00:12:55,733 inside the testimony community. 212 00:12:55,733 --> 00:12:59,933 We are those who give witness to what we have seen, and this book is here 213 00:13:00,083 --> 00:13:05,300 to give us the the witness to who Jesus was, that we might have a testimony. 214 00:13:05,566 --> 00:13:08,516 And I just think we should not 215 00:13:08,516 --> 00:13:12,616 get to the end of this section, verse 34, without having slowed down 216 00:13:13,466 --> 00:13:15,916 and just know this thing, 217 00:13:15,916 --> 00:13:19,166 relishing maybe even pausing upon this idea. 218 00:13:19,583 --> 00:13:22,583 I myself that intensification you spoke of. 219 00:13:22,583 --> 00:13:25,766 I myself have seen and have testified, 220 00:13:26,100 --> 00:13:28,883 this is the Son of God. 221 00:13:28,883 --> 00:13:32,700 Jesus is not only the lamb, not only the redemptive one, 222 00:13:32,700 --> 00:13:36,016 not only the one who will restore the world to right order. 223 00:13:36,266 --> 00:13:39,950 He is nothing other than the Son of God. 224 00:13:39,950 --> 00:13:41,266 We had that whole. 225 00:13:41,266 --> 00:13:43,433 The word was with God in the beginning. 226 00:13:43,433 --> 00:13:47,483 We weren't explicitly at that point yet talking about Jesus. 227 00:13:47,750 --> 00:13:51,566 But when Jesus arrives, the connection is now firm. 228 00:13:51,566 --> 00:13:52,966 It's unquestionable. 229 00:13:52,966 --> 00:13:55,966 John has made it abundantly clear that word 230 00:13:56,100 --> 00:13:59,633 capital W is the Son of God. 231 00:13:59,633 --> 00:14:03,416 God has taken flesh, and his name is Jesus Christ. 232 00:14:03,466 --> 00:14:06,200 Yeah. And I think to your point, Michael, 233 00:14:08,850 --> 00:14:11,850 just trying to verify that this is accurate. 234 00:14:13,766 --> 00:14:16,766 Verse 29. 235 00:14:17,900 --> 00:14:21,016 Jesus, this is the first time I think we encountered the name. 236 00:14:22,166 --> 00:14:23,783 Yeah. No. No backstory. 237 00:14:23,783 --> 00:14:28,283 Just John sees Jesus coming, which again, kind of presumes that John is 238 00:14:28,283 --> 00:14:30,233 less interested in the backstory, 239 00:14:30,233 --> 00:14:33,266 probably writing to people who know the story he's telling. 240 00:14:33,650 --> 00:14:37,166 He's not introducing where Jesus came from or how he got there. 241 00:14:37,166 --> 00:14:38,850 Just he saw Jesus. 242 00:14:38,850 --> 00:14:43,883 And when he saw Jesus, he testified, this is the Lamb of God, the one before me 243 00:14:44,150 --> 00:14:48,083 and all of the rest, baptizing with the Holy Spirit and on and on. 244 00:14:48,083 --> 00:14:54,800 So Jesus just kind of drops into the story in a really interesting way here. 245 00:14:54,800 --> 00:14:59,216 And that's kind of characteristic of some of the stories that John will tell. 246 00:14:59,216 --> 00:15:01,550 And we'll try to point them out when we get to them. 247 00:15:01,550 --> 00:15:01,883 Okay. 248 00:15:01,883 --> 00:15:06,166 So very, very, very briefly, this is a devotional turn 249 00:15:06,166 --> 00:15:07,283 in the reading of this text. 250 00:15:07,283 --> 00:15:10,616 This isn't what John is writing about, but I just I want to point out 251 00:15:10,616 --> 00:15:14,783 and I think it's really interesting that there are no celebrity 252 00:15:14,966 --> 00:15:18,383 Christians, though some traditions have saints and things like this. 253 00:15:18,383 --> 00:15:22,316 But but John the Baptist sees Jesus for who he is. 254 00:15:22,316 --> 00:15:23,850 He calls him the Lamb of God. 255 00:15:23,850 --> 00:15:27,983 John is as bad as high in the Gospels as you're going to get in terms of the 256 00:15:27,983 --> 00:15:29,716 the witness of faith. 257 00:15:29,716 --> 00:15:33,500 And what's fascinating is how he, over and over and over again, 258 00:15:33,500 --> 00:15:39,150 points back to Jesus and affirms with humility, I'm not the one. 259 00:15:39,150 --> 00:15:40,833 I'm not put together. 260 00:15:40,833 --> 00:15:42,650 I'm not able to do it myself. Right. 261 00:15:42,650 --> 00:15:46,700 So the text, though John, is rightly 262 00:15:46,700 --> 00:15:49,700 one who we could and maybe even should lift up 263 00:15:49,700 --> 00:15:53,266 in his ability to see Jesus and claim Jesus. 264 00:15:54,016 --> 00:15:57,650 Yet John is very intentionally willing to admit his brokenness. 265 00:15:57,650 --> 00:16:00,866 I'm willing to admit when he doesn't have it right, 266 00:16:00,866 --> 00:16:04,500 or put together, or can't go the whole way for himself and Clint. 267 00:16:05,000 --> 00:16:06,616 If we were going to look at this devotional, 268 00:16:06,616 --> 00:16:09,016 I think some of us could use that message again. 269 00:16:09,016 --> 00:16:13,916 Sometimes we begin to take faith as a long list 270 00:16:13,916 --> 00:16:16,916 of things that we need to and should do. 271 00:16:17,216 --> 00:16:20,100 And the temptation of doing that is to forget 272 00:16:20,100 --> 00:16:23,066 that none of us are capable of saving ourselves. 273 00:16:23,066 --> 00:16:25,316 That none of us are John the Baptist. 274 00:16:25,316 --> 00:16:29,366 We've never, I never will hit that level of faith in our lives. 275 00:16:29,366 --> 00:16:33,983 And yet, not even the John the Baptist can live as a person of faith 276 00:16:33,983 --> 00:16:40,050 without complete humility, to admit that I am unworthy to even untie his sandal. 277 00:16:40,050 --> 00:16:40,250 Right? 278 00:16:40,250 --> 00:16:43,366 That John recognizes that Jesus is first. 279 00:16:43,366 --> 00:16:46,800 And because Jesus has done something for us, he's the lamb and we're not. 280 00:16:47,033 --> 00:16:49,816 He's done something for us that we couldn't have done for ourselves. 281 00:16:49,816 --> 00:16:55,133 And so maybe a way that we could read this text emotionally is simply to say that 282 00:16:55,766 --> 00:17:00,750 while we should always be growing in faith, our expectation should never be 283 00:17:00,900 --> 00:17:03,800 that we would outpace 284 00:17:03,800 --> 00:17:07,066 the one who is the culmination of God's plan for us. 285 00:17:07,066 --> 00:17:10,883 Jesus has done and is who we need to have as a Savior. 286 00:17:11,116 --> 00:17:14,933 And there's not some kind of scorecard about whether you're good enough 287 00:17:14,933 --> 00:17:19,200 or have ever arrived to the point of faith that you can then receive him. 288 00:17:19,583 --> 00:17:22,066 Jesus is a gift to us. 289 00:17:22,066 --> 00:17:24,233 Day one, and that's enough. 290 00:17:24,233 --> 00:17:24,533 Right? 291 00:17:24,533 --> 00:17:27,566 And, you know, similar to John, our our task 292 00:17:27,566 --> 00:17:30,566 is to recognize him and proclaim him. 293 00:17:30,833 --> 00:17:32,183 So. Yeah. 294 00:17:32,183 --> 00:17:34,066 Well, thanks for being with us here today, friends. 295 00:17:34,066 --> 00:17:38,416 I hope there's something, interesting, challenging in the, study today. 296 00:17:38,516 --> 00:17:41,250 If you did, we'd love to have you give us a like. 297 00:17:41,250 --> 00:17:43,166 It helps others find this particular study. 298 00:17:43,166 --> 00:17:45,150 Subscribe so you can follow along with us 299 00:17:45,150 --> 00:17:47,816 through the book of John and many other studies like it. 300 00:17:47,816 --> 00:17:50,066 And we look forward to seeing you tomorrow. Thanks, everybody.