John the Baptizer - Winner

Preached 29 July 2013 @ Christ Church in the Summer series on Winners - a '10 minute' sermon

Reading Luke 3:7-20

Introduction

We have already heard a little about John's life. I hope you have some idea of what he did, you may even have some idea of what he was like.

I'm going to look over what we've heard so far to try to see why John was a winner – at first glance you may not think he was.

Jesus certainly had a high opinion of John, because he said to the crowd (Luke 7:28) “I tell you, among those born of women there is no one greater than John; yet the one who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.”

What was it about John, that so impressed Jesus?

John's appearance

Perhaps it was John's appearance. He wore a fetching camel hair coat.

  You can pick one up on e-bay for USD 35, if you hurry. (I've no idea what the shipping charges would be.) We don't usually picture John as smartly dressed though. 

The point is that he was trying to identify with the people he was preaching to – the poor and underprivileged of Galilee.

John's diet

John's diet doesn't sound too impressive either. He ate locusts [06] and wild honey [07]. We must assume that those were not the ONLY things he ate or he wouldn't have lived very long. He had chosen to live in the desert, where food is scarce, and as he was poor he had to eat what was available. Bear Grills will tell you that locusts are a good source of protein, and honey is a good source of sugar, but you have to get past the bees first.

John's mission

It was John's mission that really impressed Jesus. When he was asked who he was he said, “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord, as the prophet Isaiah said.” (John 1:23) John knew what God had called him to do, so he chose to live in the desert and call people to repentance and baptism.

John knew of his mission even before he was born. (Luke 1:41) [08] and in life he was not going to give up on it. He had come to prepare the way for Jesus. That started in the desert where he invited people to come for baptism to mark their intention to change their ways.

Nothing, but nothing was going to deflect John from his task. He is even prepared to insult those who have come out to see him. “You brood of Vipers”, [09] sounds pretty horrible to us, but to his followers it meant that they were sinners who opposed God. It said they are on the side of the serpent, the devil, the original cause of sin. Not a very nice thing to have to say.

He also gives them an escape clause “Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?” They had found their way to John, and the chance to repent and be baptised. To change their mind – that's what the word repent here means – and begin to behave the way God intended. He then provides them with some very practical advise on how to behave.

“The man with two tunics should share with him who has none, and the one who has food should do the same.”

Tax collectors also came to be baptised. “Teacher,” they asked, “what should we do?”

“Don’t collect any more than you are required to,” he told them.

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.”

Well, insulting you audience is fairly minor, but John was so concerned about the way people lived their lives he told Herod that his marriage to Herodias was immoral [10]– he was not allowed to marry his niece, especially as she had been his brothers wife.

That got John imprisoned, and upset Herodias to such an extent that she engineered his execution.

So we can see that John was very clear, to the point of bluntness about how God wanted people to live their lives, and would stop at nothing to be sure they knew it.

John's Primary Mission

[11] That was not his primary purpose though. As we have already heard his main purpose was to introduce people to Jesus.

[DVD – Chris Froome]

It is a very difficult thing to do to give up winning a race to allow someone else to win instead.

Cycling is a strange sport. Its a team sport with an individual winner.

Probably any one of the sky cycling team could have been the winner of the Tour de France, but the team had settled on Bradley Wiggins. In the clip we saw Chris Froome sticking to the plan – and as a result not have a chance of winning.

For John to make straight paths for the Lord, his own disciples would have to leave him and follow Jesus. [12] When John and his disciples met Jesus, John said “(John 1:36) Look, the Lamb of God!”, as a result two of his disciples began to follow Jesus instead of John. When questioned about what was happening he said (John 3:30) “He must become greater; I must become less.”

What can we learn from John?

Most of us will not know our mission, our ministry, or anything else from birth. We have to find our way to God, just like those two disciples. It's a great help to us if people will point us directly to Jesus. So, if that helps us, that is how we can help others.

In pointing others to Jesus we are doing exactly what the Lord wants us to do. How we do it will be different for each of us, and for each person we meet.

We will also need the other major qualities that Jesus admired in John:

• his straight talking, straight forward approach
• his ability to stick with the task through thick and thin and not to worry about the consequences.
• his acknowledgement that Christ must increase and he must decrease.

John the baptist is a winner in God's eyes, and we can learn a lost from his approach to his mission.