John Meets Jesus

John 1 & 3:22–36 | Stefan Van der Merwe

Who of you have ever met someone that made a big impact on your life? Sometimes it doesn’t even take long for someone to make an impact on your life. A brief meeting, a smile, a word from that person and you almost feel changed!

This summer, our sermon series will focus on the book of John and more specifically meetings that different people had with JESUS! I think we all can agree that no matter how much of an impact certain people may have on us, it still pales in comparison with the impact that Jesus had and still has in our lives. I truly hope that we can learn from these meetings and see what impact Jesus had on the people he met. I also want to challenge you to learn more about the character of Jesus as we go along.

We start today with the first chapter of John and in the first chapter apostle John describes a meeting between John the baptist and Jesus. But let us first take a look at how the bible in other passages prepares us for this meeting between John and Jesus by looking at who John was. The introduction to John today will be much longer than the introduction of other people that will meet with Jesus in future sermons but as we go on you will understand why.

1. The birth

The circumstances before his birth were extraordinary

• Although the bible says that both his parents (Zecheriah a priest and his wife Elizabeth) were righteous in the sight of God (acc. to Luke 1:6) and were already advanced in years (Luke 1:7), they were childless.
• Then one day an angel from God appeared to Zehariah while he was serving as a priest in the temple. Let’s read it from Luke 1:11–13

“Then an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing at the right side of the altar of incense. When Zechariah saw him, he was startled and was gripped with fear. But the angel said to him: “Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to call him John.””

We see here a few interesting things;

1. First, his birth was announced by an angel — how amazing is that
2. Zechariah, was gripped with fear when the angel appeared.
3. His parents did not give him a name, but God himself did — as delivered by the angel from God’s presence.

Because Zechariah did not believe the angel at that moment he was struck with muteness and was not able to speak. Luke 1:22 says:

“When he came out, he could not speak to them. They realized he had seen a vision in the temple, for he kept making signs to them but remained unable to speak.”

B. Extraordinary things were said of him before his birth

We can read about this again from the 1st chapter of Luke. And as we read these verses, remember that these are the words of an angel speaking. We can start with verse 13 again that we read before:

“But the angel said to him: “Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to call him John. He will be a joy and delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his birth, for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He is never to take wine or other fermented drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even before he is born. He will bring back many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God. And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the parents to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous — to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”

Wow! This is quite the introduction I would say.

Let’s look at this introduction list:

• He will be great in the sight of the Lord.
• He is never to take wine
• He will be filled with the Holy Spirit even before he is born.
• He will bring back many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God.
• He will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah
• He will turn the hearts of the parents to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous.

From this list we can clearly confirm that this introduction of John before his birth certainly meant that this was no ordinary man and that his presence would definitely be felt in his generation.

C. His birth contained an extraordinary events

We read in the bible about the excitement of the community when John’s mom finally gave birth to him and according to the bible the community was so involved that they even decided on a name for him on the eight day after his birth when he was to be circumcised and it almost led to controversy…let’s read from Luke 1:57–66

When it was time for Elizabeth to have her baby, she gave birth to a son. Her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown her great mercy, and they shared her joy.

On the eighth day they came to circumcise the child, and they were going to name him after his father Zechariah, but his mother spoke up and said, “No! He is to be called John.” They said to her, “There is no one among your relatives who has that name.”

Then they made signs to his father, to find out what he would like to name the child. He asked for a writing tablet, and to everyone’s astonishment he wrote, “His name is John.” Immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue set free, and he began to speak, praising God. All the neighbors were filled with awe, and throughout the hill country of Judea people were talking about all these things. Everyone who heard this wondered about it, asking, “What then is this child going to be?” For the Lord’s hand was with him.

We see here how God does a miracle and returns Zechariah’ speech to him but even more we see here how the expectations of John are now not only introduced by the angel, but also shared by the community. They start asking the question: “What then is this child going to be?”

But the bible also tells us of a second extraordinary thing happening when John was circumcised. His father, Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and started to prophesy: Let’s read that from Luke 1: 67–79

67 His father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied:

68 “Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, because he has come to his people and redeemed them.

69 He has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David

70 (as he said through his holy prophets of long ago),

71 salvation from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us —

72 to show mercy to our ancestors and to remember his holy covenant,

73 the oath he swore to our father Abraham:

74 to rescue us from the hand of our enemies, and to enable us to serve him without fear

75 in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.

76 And you, my child, will be called a prophet of the Most High; for you will go on before the Lord to prepare the way for him,

77 to give his people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins,

78 because of the tender mercy of our God, by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven

79 to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death,

to guide our feet into the path of peace.”

Can you imagine the expectations that people had listening to Zechariah that day as he prophesied about his son? It seems as if everything happening before, directly after his birth and circumcision, was leading up to something and the people themselves were starting to ask the question: Who is this guy?

Remember, that the last prophet Israel had was Malachi that prophesied about 450 years before the birth of Jesus and in approximately 500 years there was no word about a Messiah until these circumstances around John the Baptist birth. Can you imagine the expectations they might have had when John’s father, a priest, were prophesying things like “He has come to his people and redeems them also and rescues them from the hands of their enemies”.

Some might have even remembered the words of the prophet Isaiah 40:3

A voice is calling,

“Clear the way for the Lord in the wilderness;

Make smooth in the desert a highway for our God.”

His father Zechariah might also have recalled the words spoken by Malachi in 4:5–6 because they echoed similar words of the Angel that introduced the birth of his son to him when was said:

See I will send you the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes. He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers…” (Mal 4:6 & Luke 1:17)

Can you feel the build up of this story? It’s interesting that after all this hype before and after John’s birth the only thing we know of his childhood is written in Luke 1:80

“And the child grew and became strong in spirit; and he lived in the wilderness until he appeared publicly to Israel.”

Not much here to see, his childhood seems to be very eventless and he even moved to the wilderness for a time until he started to minister publicly to Israel, and that brings us to his ministry.

2. The controversial preacher

As the public ministry of John the Baptist commenced you could quickly say that he was not going to be one of those run of the mill preachers that preach only what people would like to hear.

To begin with, the book of Matthew teaches us that the clothes he wore was made of “camel’s hair, and he had a leather belt around his waist. His food was locusts and wild honey”. Pretty weird right?

His main message contained mainly two important parts:

Repentance for the forgiveness of sins

In Luke 3:3 we read:

“He went into all the country around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.”

He really got around and as he fearlessly preached his message he never minced his words but with the authority that the Holy Spirit gave him always called a spade a spade in regards to sin. He became so popular that whole crowds went out to meet him in the desert where he was mainly preaching from and according to Luke this crowd even included tax collectors and soldiers that went out asking him questions.

We read of one off the exchanges in Luke 3:7–14

7 John said to the crowds coming out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? 8 Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. 9 The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.” 10 “What should we do then?” the crowd asked. 11 John answered, “Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none, and anyone who has food should do the same.” 12 Even tax collectors came to be baptized. “Teacher,” they asked, “what should we do?” 13 “Don’t collect any more than you are required to,” he told them. 14 Then some soldiers asked him, “And what should we do?” He replied, “Don’t extort money and don’t accuse people falsely — be content with your pay.”

Suffice to say that with this kind of preaching John was certain to make enemies too and as it happened also led to his death eventually.

According to Apostle Mark, John opposed the marriage between King Herod and Herodias because she was actually the wife of King Herod’s brother Phillip and he also told King Herod that openly. In the end Herodias plotted with her daughter to request the head of John the Baptist in an answer to a promise that King Herod made to Heriodias’ daughter.

These are things that you only hear about in films right? It seems as if John the Baptist’ ministry was actually really short lived and that he died much quicker than anyone expected because he preached the message of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. He was such an influential preacher that people in those days even started to ask the question if he could be the Messiah that Israel was waiting for for so many years.

Preparing the way for the coming Lord

The answer that John gave the people about this question leads us to the second part of his message and although this did not directly lead to his death later, was even more important than his message of repentance. Let us read from John 1:19–26

19 Now this was John’s testimony when the Jewish leaders[c] in Jerusalem sent priests and Levites to ask him who he was. 20 He did not fail to confess, but confessed freely, “I am not the Messiah.”
21 They asked him, “Then who are you? Are you Elijah?”
He said, “I am not.”
“Are you the Prophet?”
He answered, “No.”
22 Finally they said, “Who are you? Give us an answer to take back to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?”
23 John replied in the words of Isaiah the prophet, “I am the voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way for the Lord.’”[d]
24 Now the Pharisees who had been sent 25 questioned him, “Why then do you baptize if you are not the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?”
26 “I baptize with[e] water,” John replied, “but among you stands one you do not know. 27 He is the one who comes after me, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie.”

These words were the emphasis of John’s main ministry here on earth. Never did he ever meant for people to exalt him or worship him as if he was the anticipated Messiah that Israel was waiting for. Instead he clearly told them.

“I am not the Messiah”

You see the role of John was to Prepare the way for Jesus to come. Like a man, blasting a trumpet before the triumphant entrance of a King, he was supposed to make people aware that the Messiah is to come and having said that we FINALLY get to John meeting Jesus while he was preaching both the aforementioned messages to people and baptising them in the river Jordan.

3. The meeting

Let us read from John 1:29–31

29 The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! 30 This is the one I meant when I said, ‘A man who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’ 31 I myself did not know him, but the reason I came baptizing with water was that he might be revealed to Israel.”

The moment John saw Jesus he knew, that this is the moment his whole life was waiting for. The moment his whole ministry led up to. He finally gets to see the man he was preparing the way for his whole life and the beautiful thing is here that he confesses it immediately to the people he surrounded him with. No matter how famous he became as a preacher and how many people came out to see him in the wilderness or how many people he baptised with water, the MOMENT he saw Jesus these were his words:

“Look, the Lamb of God who takes aways the sins of the world!”

“This is the one I means when I said: ‘A man who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me’”

His baptism ministry all led up Jesus being revealed to Israel

Jesus is God’s chosen One!

The ministry that John had up to this moment was nothing less than extraordinary but in his own words, everything he did up to this point was done so that Jesus would be revealed to Israel. His whole life was one big trumpet telling people that the Messiah is to come.

Apostle Matthew in chapter 3:13–17 tells us that Jesus specifically went to John to be baptised by him. We can read about this meeting:

13 Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized by John.14 But John tried to deter him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?”

15 Jesus replied, “Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness.” Then John consented.

16 As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. 17 And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”

This meeting with Jesus asking John to baptise Him was the ultimate confirmation for John that He was indeed the chosen Messiah because he saw the Holy Spirit descended on Jesus like a dove and alighting on Him. Apostle John recalls the testimony of John the Baptist in this regard when he said in John 1:32–33

32 Then John gave this testimony: “I saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on him. 33 And I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, ‘The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.’ 34 I have seen and I testify that this is God’s Chosen One.”[f]

Wow, what a meeting! You could say that John’s whole life’s mission was completed on that day. The bible recalls that John also started to lose his own disciples on that day as they started to follow Jesus and he was more than happy to let them follow Jeus instead of Him.

Conclusion

I want to conclude today’s sermon with a quote by John the baptist in John 3:30

“He must become greater; I must become less.”

No matter how important and famous John the baptist became and how many followers he had, his whole life mission was for people to see Christ and not Him.

I pray that this will the cry of our hearts as well, that Jesus will become greater and we will become less.

It was not until John actually met Jesus and had the privilege to baptise Him that he found the ONE that would fulfill his life’s mission! I also pray that we might have the privilege to introduce many more people to Christ, because as HE meets people, their lives will be changed forever. AMEN!