FBC Sunday Evening Service

All right, good evening good to see you back this evening. Hope you had a good restful afternoon today was a good afternoon to Rest wasn't it be quiet?

Take a nap maybe so Well, let's begin tonight with number 538 538

Chose this song. It's more of a gospel song. It's not particularly a hymn um, but chose it because of the

Uh the story of the gospel of mark. Let's stand together as we sing.

We'll sing stanzas one three and four first third and fourth stanzas

Of to tell the story Of jesus and his glory of jesus and his love

I love to tell the story Because I know it is true

It satisfies my longings That's nothing else can do

I love to tell the story It will be my theme in glory

To tell the old old story Of jesus and his love the third

I love to tell the story It is pleasant to repeat

What seems each time I tell it more Wonderfully sweet I love to tell the story

For some have never heard Of salvation

From god's own home the story of us and his love

To tell the story For those who know it best

Thirsting to hear it like the scenes of glory

I sing the new new song of so long all the stories

Of jesus and his love This is what we testify.

I love to tell the story. We tell it tell it tell it And you wonder, you know mark wrote his gospel in the early 80s 50s

And so that would have been 20 years roughly after jesus ascended so You wonder did the holy spirit just inspire him to get tired of telling the story over and over again?

And he wanted to write it down so that he could just say here. Here's the story. Here's the story the whole story Well, I don't know.

But anyway, let's pray Thank you father for our time together today.

Thank you for this day of rest set aside from the week's cares and responsibilities and so forth we can just Just have a change of pace an opportunity to hear from you and to Explore your word to be challenged by it to be encouraged by it and we we thank you for We thank you for the fellowship that we can have one with another as we

Gather in these occasions. We pray that you bless the service this evening in our time in your word

We ask it in jesus name. Amen. You may be seated So we're doing some psalm reading and that's corresponding to our psalm book

So I want to read tonight psalm 72 Okay, psalm 72 and just the first 11 verses and I chose this psalm because The title of it says it's a psalm of solomon of course the son of david and He is the king to succeed david all of this anticipating david's ultimate son the lord jesus

So psalm 72 verses 1 through 11 Psalmist writes give the king your judgments.

Oh god and your righteousness to the king's son He will judge your people with righteousness and your poor with justice

The mountains will bring peace to the people and the little hills by righteousness He will bring justice to the poor of the people.

He will save the children of the needy and will break in pieces the oppressor They shall fear you as long as the sun and moon endure throughout all generations

He shall come down like rain upon the grass before mowing like showers that water the earth

In his days, the righteous shall flourish and abundance of peace until the moon is no more

He shall have dominion also from sea to sea and from the river to the ends of the earth Those who dwell in the wilderness will bow before him and his enemies will lick the dust

The kings of tarshish and of the isles will bring presents the kings of sheba and seba will offer gifts

Yes, all kings shall fall down before him All nations shall serve him.

So clearly you can see that that psalm attributed or dedicated to Solomon and his reign is clearly anticipating the ultimate reign of the lord jesus where All kings will fall down before him all nations shall serve him

Well the song the psalms the psalter psalm that goes with that is number 153 number 153

Hail to the lord's anointed Sometimes I can just I can just follow along the notes on the melody line and tell whether or not it's a familiar tune

I think this is Do you think it is? Kelly says she doesn't think it is

John, is it it is It is familiar to john, okay John is john's

Familiarity with hymn tunes is far vaster than ours. So I i've got to take my hat off to him Well kelly since since it's not familiar to you, maybe it's not to others.

So why don't you play it for us? Okay All right, it's a good deutsch song you see down there at the bottom

It's a traditional german song or tune from the 17th century pretty simple I think to to learn and to sing so let's try it together hail to the lord's anointed

Hail to the lord's anointed Great david's greater son

Hail in the time Appointed His reign on earth begun

He comes to break oppression To set the captive free

To take away transgression And rule in equity

He comes with comfort speedy Needy to those who suffer wrong

To help the poor and needy And bid the weak be strong To give them songs for sighing

Their darkness turned to light Whose souls condemned and dying

Dying are precious in his sight He shall come down like showers

Upon the fruitful earth And love joy hope like flowers

Spring in his path to birth Before him on the mountains

Shall peace the herald go And righteousness in fountains from hill to valley

Simple tune easy to learn

And we'll come back to that i'm sure Well, I do want to give you some opportunities to share a testimony or two tonight so we'll do that in just a moment, but a reminder that Those in the finance committee meeting the finance committee will meet for a few minutes after the service

Go over the report from let's see. What month is this may from april And look at that tonight

And then wednesday night this a little different kind of get together. We have a meal at six o 'clock for those who would like like to partake

I think the menu includes Uh sloppy joe's and corn casserole and some kind of chips and um

Cookie bars some kind of got to have some sweets to go with it. I mean it wouldn't be a baptist meeting without without the sweets so if you haven't signed up for that do so tonight on the way out and uh, then the the

Service or program or whatever that we're doing wednesday night Um starting at 6 45 so the children will go do their thing and then the adults will meet here in the auditorium at 6 45 and i'm

I've got a I got a topic that I I will address in that. Um That time together that I think it will be beneficial to to all of us to be beneficial to all so um, if you're not in the

Ymsa group, don't worry about that. You will You will gain some benefit from that on wednesday night

All right next week will acquits, uh scott and victoria in the morning Looking forward to them being here.

Victoria is just so you know, victoria is going to play next sunday morning. So She'll play the piano and do some offertory prelude stuff.

So she's that's her that's her bailiwick and um Then scott of course going to bring the morning message and then update us on the pep ministry in Sunday school,

I think one of the things he's going to do is tell us Maybe in a little more detail than he that he can as he can in a private sort of private setting

What he knows about what's going on in myanmar Because he's been to myanmar Three different times and I think the one of the last trips he was able to take before the covid

Stuff hit was in myanmar So he's gotten to know a lot of believers and he has some communication with a lot of believers there and they are

They are in some real dire uh dire circumstances, so It'll be good to to get a more

A little more of a firsthand kind of account what's going on in myanmar All right.

So I wonder any uh word of testimony tonight to Share with us. It's been going on how the lord's blessed and worked the prayer request

Jody this afternoon had a cat scan done and the purpose of it was to See if there's any neurological damage and so forth that was at 2 15 haven't heard any response from that results from it

Rebecca did mention that this morning. She was really restless and Yet later on calmed calmed down so she just prayed that she asked us to pray that she jody remained calm and um

That's that's probably one of the most important things um Let me i'm trying to remember

Bob sent me a text this afternoon and um I don't know much to How much to say we are we are live streaming this and what what's heard from here?

What's said from here can be heard on the live stream what you say out there it isn't but um, one of the things they were concerned about is that maybe she's having so much restlessness problems because of the

Long -term use of the uh fentanyl And how that's just a terrible thing to get off of once you've been on it for a long time

So anyway, we've got some things to continue praying about for her All right, so who will share word of testimony tonight

Anybody? All right

Okay, don't send and give you an opportunity All right. Let's turn to uh in your supplement book then number 22

Supplement I I didn't mention it when you were coming in anybody need one of these blue books. I think you got them

All right number 22 fullness of grace Um Often think of this as a song at christmas time

But gospel of mark it's talking about the the life and ministry of jesus And this song in its entirety gets

You know deals with that. So let's stand together as we sing We'll sing all three stanzas fullness of grace

Fullness of grace in man's human frailty. This is the wonder of jesus

Laying aside his power and glory

Humbly he entered our world Chose the path of mean -ass worth

Scandal of a virgin Birth born in a stable cold and rejected

Here lies the hope of the world Fullness of grace the love of the father shown in the face of jesus

Stooping to bear the weight of humanity Walking the calvary road

Oh christ the holy innocent Took our sin and punishment

Fullness of god despised and rejected crushed for the sins of the world

Fullness of hope in christ we had longed for promise of god in jesus

Us Through his obedience We are forgiven opening the floodgates of heaven

All our hopes and dreams we bring gladly as an

Offering fullness of life and joy unspeakable god's gift of In the world

Very good. You may be seated. Let's turn to mark chapter one mark one and Read the first eight verses these first eight verses are

Preparatory their preparation Hence the message tonight preparing for jesus

Mark 1 verse 1 Says the beginning of the gospel of jesus christ the son of god

As it is written in the prophets Behold, I send my messenger before your face who will prepare your way before you

The voice of one crying in the wilderness prepare the way of the lord make his paths straight

John came baptizing in the wilderness and preaching a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins

Then all the land of judea and those from jerusalem went out to him and were all baptized by him in the jordan river

Confessing their sins Now john was clothed with camel's hair and with a leather belt around his waist

And he ate locusts and wild honey And he preached saying There comes one after me who is mightier than I Whose sandal strap

I am not worthy to stoop down and loose I indeed baptized you with water But he will baptize you with the holy spirit

Just a brief prayer My father I pray that we would gain an appreciation for this ministry of preparation

Tonight we ask it in jesus name. Amen I'm, sure everyone here has done something by way of preparation and sometimes all of that preparation that you

Went through for that event or that project You were so glad that you did all the preparing because it went off like a hitch

But there are other things i'm sure you prepared for That after all the preparation never materialized a couple years ago

Well several years ago five six years ago. I had this dream of Hiking the long trail in vermont, you know 280 miles from the border of massachusetts to the canadian border and I kind of set that up as a as a goal as a dream, you know for You know before I get to be too old and I can't navigate those mountains and so forth

And uh, so a couple years ago. It looked like that was the time set the time aside prepared for that prepared for it with the church and met with the deacons and set up the time and all that kind of Stuff and I said, oh, yeah, great.

Go go for it. Etc. Had the time set aside And spent a lot of time and energy preparing for that trip

Bought all of the uh I I have a I have a credit card that gives reward rewards for rei.

That's a Outfitter kind of a place and so I used all my reward dollars that year for purchasing the dehydrated meals

To take on that trip And it's a I mean, it's a 28 day 30 day trip if you're

You do about 10 miles a day Uh, so I needed to have 28 of these things 28 of these meals so I had those

I had those all figured out and I picked out the Appropriate variety so I wasn't having the same thing every day

And then I actually created an excel spreadsheet to prepare for this where um

You know, I said how far I was going to go in a particular day what shelter I was going to stay at Which meal

I was going to prepare? And and then I and then I had to prepare by buying all the materials for mixing up Like breakfast every day.

It's like some kind of an oatmeal thing or whatever and you know mixing those up I had to prepare by um

Figuring out where I was going to mail To send um

Resupply stuff. I mean because you don't leave You know get there and carry 30 days worth of food on your back.

I mean you just couldn't do that So you carry five days or four or five days and you have a place where you resupply?

So I had to figure out where those resupply places were going to be And what was going to go in those boxes, etc, etc.

I booked. Um I booked a couple of hostels to stay at on particular days and so on Uh, and then it never happened

All that preparation all that work all that time all that energy Expended and and i've still got the box of dehydrated meals which may be good because you know,

I hear inflation is going to kick in and And and food is going to be so expensive We won't be able to buy food and well, we'll have at least a few days worth of dehydrated stuff.

We can Uh, so all that preparation And it didn't really materialize it.

It was seemed like it seemed like for naught Well, these first eight verses are really about preparing for jesus.

Is this going to actually materialize all this preparation? That john is going to go through Is this going to actually materialize?

And I want you to notice that right off the bat in the first couple of verses That the beginning as john talks about or as mark writes about it

The beginning is about the preparation The beginning of the gospel of jesus christ the son of god is about the preparation

For jesus actually coming in his ministry And it is the preparing for something quite significant hence the term gospel

And we I mentioned this last sunday night that that word gospel It's not it's not a strictly biblical term

It's a term that was used in the culture in the greek language at the time and it Spoke of any kind of an epic making event any major Empire wide event that would uh, you know

Like rattle people or excite people or whatever that would be considered a gospel some kind of world changing historical event

It also was used the term was used for something new and something significant

And I mentioned the uh the birth of the roman emperor augustus And the word was spread this gospel

Event in the roman empire this good news event the uh

The the emperor the new emperor has been born So this was a preparing for something significant for the gospel the good news

Related to some one significant So the preparation wasn't just about something significant it was preparation for some one significant

It is the good news of jesus christ the son of god the good news of jesus speaking of his work of salvation the name itself meaning yahweh is

Salvation the lord. Jesus is our savior The the name christ or the title christ is referring to his role as the messiah the anointed one

The the promised son of david who would come to rule and to reign on the throne

It's the one he's the one messiah is the one everyone in israel has been looking for and longing for and and truly uh, even today the

The religious jews And there are plenty of jews who aren't religious, but the religious jews are still looking for their messiah

They haven't accepted the fact that he's already come But this is the one that is being looked for christ the messiah

He is jesus christ the son of god and this of course Is an assertion of his deity that jesus is god.

He's equal with god And we we we get that from john chapter 5

In john 5 verse 18 The jews sought to kill jesus because he not only broke the sabbath but also said that god was his father making himself equal with god so this title

Of son of god is one that asserts the deity of christ But it's also a foundational truth that jesus christ is the son of god.

It's a foundational truth because that person

Who is the son of god? Is is absolutely vital that jesus

The anointed one is the son of god is absolutely vital for the satisfactory work

That he carried out on the cross How could the death of this man on the cross satisfy

The wrath of god against the sins of mankind if he was but not but a man He wasn't but a man.

He was the son of god So this beginning of the gospel of jesus christ is about the preparation itself

And this preparatory work this preparation Is a work that was prophesied verse 2 tells us as it is written in the prophets now

The place of this prophecy is really kind of interesting. There isn't a one place to go to Notice how he says it's written in the prophets plural

And it's not written in the prophet as if This is a quotation from one prophet in fact look all the way back to to um the book of exodus chapter 23 exodus chapter 23

And we're going there because exodus of course was written by moses and When you think about the place of Prophecy that is fulfilled in the new testament, especially the coming of christ oftentimes

We have the phrase as it was written in moses and the prophets

Let me give you a couple examples of that in Luke 24

Luke 24 27 remember this is uh, jesus as he encountered those two disciples on the road to emmaus in luke 24 verse 27

He's uh He says to them Luke records that beginning at moses and all the prophets

Jesus expounded to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself so What jesus was telling these two disciples is that look?

The truth about me of my coming and my my work and and so forth is written in moses and the prophets moses and the prophets and then in john chapter 1 verse 45

John 1 45 45 um philip um

Again, some of you are watching the chosen so you can you can remember this scene in the chosen philip found nathaniel and said to him

We have found him Of whom moses in the law and also the prophets wrote jesus of nazareth the son of joseph so Again, the assertion that jesus coming was prophesied

In moses and the prophets Now in exodus 23, the reason I mentioned that is in exodus 23 and verse 20 uh, you have this

Beginning phrase that shows up again in the preparation for the coming of messiah where the lord says to moses

Behold I send an angel or a messenger before you Now this he's not talking about john the baptist but he's talking about the truly the messenger that's going to be before them and lead them and so forth every way that the

Every way that they're to go But it's a it's a bit of a precedent if you will that the lord sends before his people

A preparatory messenger i'm sending before you a messenger now the wording that mark uses in his gospel

As a fulfillment of the prophecy is a combination of two different prophetic passages first of all matthew or malachi chapter 3

And verse 1 Malachi 3 And verse 1

Where the lord says through malachi behold I send my messenger and he will prepare the way before me

Now malachi's prophecy goes on with further material

But mark zeros in on that. I send my messenger and he will prepare the way before me and He also incorporates isaiah 40 and verse 3

Isaiah 40 and verse 3 Which says

The voice of one crying in the wilderness prepare the way of the lord make straight in the desert a highway for our god

All right. So going back to mark chapter 1 you look at our text and verse 2

Behold I send my messenger before your face who will prepare prepare your way before you mark is quoting

Mark is quoting Malachi 3 verse 1 he continues the voice of one crying in the wilderness prepare the way of the lord make his path straight

He's quoting isaiah 40 verse 3. So mark is fusing these prophetic passages together as he records this

Statement of this prophecy of preparation And he says it's written in the prophets.

So the place of Prophecy here is significant. It's been hundreds of years

Since this these prophetic oracles were announced Now, let's look at let's look at the content of the prophecy itself

He says the prophets say A messenger would come and that messenger

Look at the wording look at the wording. It's carefully and notice the Precise things that are said the messenger is one who would be sovereignly chosen and sent behold

I send My messenger I send him so this this john the baptist who's

Doing the work of preparation for the messiah He he's not one who got up one day and said, you know,

I think I I think I want to be a I think I want to be like a spokesperson who's going to announce messiah's coming sometime

No This is the sovereign work of god to prepare for the messiah's arrival

Sovereignly chosen and sent and he is this messenger uniquely

God's He says i'm sending my messenger He's my messenger

And then he he declares that he will be this messenger a herald a herald

He will be a voice crying in the wilderness and what he cries is

Prepare the way of the lord make his path straight. Now. What's the point of that the point of him being a herald?

This work of preparation for the messiah is not a political work

He's not he's not preparing by doing something political you know in the the politics of our day

There are campaign strategists And they organize these events for the

Candidate to attend and to speak at and all this kind of stuff And there is a ton of front work that takes place to prepare for the political speech

Or whatever that the candidate is doing There's all kinds of political preparation

For a candidate before he ever gets into office. That's not what john's doing It's not military preparation either

Again, you know before uh before a military campaign to bring

You know to conquer a foe There's a ton of preparation that goes into that before there's ever the

Blowing of the trumpet or the sounding of the alarm or the issuing of the order to charge to attack a lot of preparation militarily

None of that's going on None of that's going on. There's no economic preparation You know, john doesn't go around judea and galilee and transjordan and and passing around his hat and saying come on you need to contribute to you know,

We we want the messiah to come don't we we got to have enough money You got to have enough money for him to come this is an economic preparation

This is strictly Verbal preparation he's heralding

A message he's preaching a point So the messenger is to herald

Well, the message would then confront He says I will send my messenger before your face before your face

It could be interpreted a couple different ways It could mean the messenger will come in front of the face of the one who's behind him

You know see i'm leading his way or it could It could be referring to i'm going to send my messenger and he's going to come

Right in front of your face. He's going to come in your face. He's going to get in your face And confront you

With what's happening next with what is to come? So the messenger would confront and this messenger

Would also be very inconvenient Of all places he doesn't go to the cities

It doesn't go to the populace the populated regions of of palestine

Where does he go? He goes out in the wilderness And it's interesting that this preparation is going to take place out in the wilderness and people are going to be drawn to him

For that confrontation that's going to take place And the messenger of course his work is to prepare

The work itself will be preparatory you see this at the end of verse two I send my messenger before your face who will prepare your way before you

So the work itself is preparatory But there's also the preparation that comes in the challenge that the messenger issues

At the end of verse three this voice crying in the wilderness is going to say announce

Prepare the way of the lord make his paths straight And what he's doing is he's calling upon his hearers to remove whatever obstacles are in the way for the the reception of their anointed one the messiah

Now with all of that said about the prophecy as preparation as preparation

There are a couple of lessons we can get from this prophecy And I want us to catch this If you go all the way back to The initial statement in exodus to the lord to moses i'm sending my messenger before you

And then you couple that together with malachi's prophecy isaiah's prophecy. You look you look at that.

There's a span of a thousand years You know between those things

And from the end of malachi's prophecy right now watch this from the end of malachi's prophecy

Until john the baptist shows up and says hey prepare the way of the lord you're talking about 400 years

You know, you know I I I say that and it just rolls so easily off the tongue doesn't it?

but do we Do we get the sense of that Do we get to get a sense of how long that actually is 400 years

I mean, how old is our nation? Our nation hasn't even been around 400 years Right so it's so so my point is this the the the last word of this prophecy that There was a messenger that was going to come to prepare the way of the lord and to announce prepare the way of the lord

This from the The last of that prophetic announcement until the fulfillment of that prophecy four centuries pass

Now the point is the point is that we're

We tend to be so impatient Don't we? We tend to be so impatient

We want to see the we and experience the fulfillment of all god's promises now

We want to see them now I was watching a uh an interesting little lesson video lesson, um

John piper did on the subject of providence the other night And he says, you know the thing that astounds me about providence

Is uh the the god's providence in redemption how that he

He went in in genesis chapter 12 after all the events of After creation in the fall all this time passes and finally in genesis chapter 12

He reaches down and picks out this guy abram Out of the pagan ur of the chaldees

And he says i'm going to make you a great nation and all the nations of the earth are going to be blessed in you and he says

He does all of this through the jews But it takes so long

For that to happen You know thousands of years from the time abram is picked until messiah comes.

He says this is the strangest thing in our mind It takes it just takes so long.

Why didn't why didn't god just do it? Why didn't he just do it? We don't have answers to all those kinds of questions do we

All we have is the record And the record is that God issues these kinds of prophetic announcements and it can take centuries

To see the fulfillment of those prophecies it can take a long time to experience the fulfillment of some of god's promises one of the commentators

That I read on this subject His name is english he said this

He says patience in christians is part of our response to the sovereignty of god think on this

Only god knows the time place and circumstance for things to happen in our lives

Often because we know some of the context We imagine that we know it all

How often the moment must have seemed right to the prophet? But god knew better the best the best answer to some of our prayers is wait and sometimes no

No Not because god doesn't love us But because the time and circumstance are not right just now in a go -getting instant culture

We do well to cultivate the christian quality of patience Over against the constant pressure for success results and fulfillment four centuries

Four centuries go by and finally in verses four through eight The prophecy is fulfilled and notice how john fulfills this prophecy

By by being a unique a most unique messenger in verse six Clothed with camel's hair with a leather belt around his waist and he ate locusts and wild honey.

I'm telling you the one of the uh Stories and maybe lynn can bear this out but one of the stories that captures the

Imaginations of these little kids in children's church and these young class sunday school classes is the story of this this odd guy

Who's living out in the wilderness and he's wearing this this this coat of camel's hair and um

And he and he eats these bugs. He doesn't even have them chocolate covered. I mean these they eat these locusts

Put some honey on them to kind of mask the bitterness of the flavor, but you know the little kids.

They just Wow, they just eat this up. How do I know that because I remember that as a kid. I remember that story

I remember thinking wow, what kind of a guy this must have been He was a unique messenger but what

What the the thing about john the weirdness of it all to us? What it's communicating

Is his set -apartness That he is god's messenger. No, he's not like every other guy running around the streets

Something different about this guy And the different thing about him is he's god's unique messenger

And he fulfills this prophecy the first part of verse 4 tells us By being in the wilderness just as the prophecy said he'd be a voice crying in the wilderness and he came baptizing

In the wilderness and issuing his message and he came fulfilling this prophecy by being a voice a voice

There would be a voice of one crying in the wilderness and sure enough Verse 7 tells us he preached saying

He issues this pronouncement. He's a voice He's a voice He came baptizing or he came baptizing and preaching preaching a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins

So he fulfills the prophecy by being a voice And he fulfills the prophecy of preparation by preparing

By preparing by preparing the way Just as he used to do at the end of verse 2

He will prepare a way before you at the end of verse 3 His announcement would be to prepare the way of the lord and to make his paths straight now

Look what was what was not needed here? What was not needed?

and I want to take a minute on this because of what What I often come across as a pastor where i'm told you need you need this in your church

You need this in your ministry And if you run across it through the four decades of pastoral ministry, you know these all these different ideas or things that i'm, you know pressured to You know you need this

What was needed what wasn't needed was a polished image Where image is everything?

What kind of image does this guy have? this You know scraggly guy out in the wilderness wearing a camel's

Hair coat and and eating locusts and all this kind of stuff. What kind of image?

Is he portraying? No, he doesn't have to have a polished image I'm, not suggesting that i'm not suggesting that those of us who are followers of christ

Shouldn't care for appearances and things like that, but that's that's not the important thing. That's not the important thing

Again, I mentioned that because I I served in a ministry where that seemed to be all that was really important the image the image and there have been too many too many cases in the last few years that we've heard about read about where Uh sins and so forth were covered up in within the church because The thing that was concerned that was a great concern is the image

The image now what's needed is not a polished image. What was needed is not a glitzy package

You got to package everything really glitzy you know you got to have the latest uh stuff up on the screens and all this kind of stuff and And people have to come in and be wowed by the glitz and the glamour and it goes like wow

You guys are really with it. You're really up in the you know The 21st century and I mean this looks like something right out of hollywood or whatever.

Really? Is that what's needed? No What's also not needed is a popular appeal

That's interesting because john ended up appealing to the masses But he didn't set out that way

And and it certainly wouldn't be thought of as this this guy being one who would appeal to the masses Now what's needed is not a popular appeal what's also not needed is a a kind of tailored approach to a particular demographic

You know like okay. Well, you know we've got over here in this in this area in our community

We've got uh this kind of people And so we got to tailor everything to that kind of people if we're going to be able to reach that kind of people

No, you know john just it's just out there in the wilderness. He's preaching this this message Of of repentance and he's calling people to repent and it didn't matter who they were

No matter where they came from didn't matter if they were Uh, you know pharisees scribes commonplace ordinary

Jews Didn't matter if they were low lifes high lifes. It didn't matter same same approach repent

Repent and prepare the way You notice how he didn't focus on felt needs either well

What do you think you need? How do you feel? What do you feel that you need?

No, he said look this is what you need whether you know it or not This is what you need whether you agree or not.

This is what you need whether you like it or not This is what you need No, what wasn't needed is all that stuff.

What was needed? Is what he is what is recorded for us in verse four.

What was needed is a proclamation of the truth. He came preaching he came heralding proclaiming

The truth what was needed is a confrontation with sin Pete preaching a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins people need to repent

And they still do That hasn't changed It's still needed But he also came

And gave what was needed which was an invitation for baptism Which is to say this is an invitation for Commitment and change commitment and change now admittedly the baptism that is spoken of of john's baptism is different from When jesus said go into all the world, you know make disciples baptizing them in the name of the father son and holy spirit

It's a different purpose of those baptisms But the point is still the same the baptism marks a commitment and change

The old is dead a new has come and i'm committed to it And that's what was needed

And he invites them To do that to follow that need and then what also was needed

Was and still is is an elevation of jesus An elevation of jesus.

So in verses seven and eight, what does john do? He says hey, look at me I'm what you need I'm all important You know everything revolves around me

Which reminds me of a a ted talk I saw the other day Of a woman and was really sad

It was really really sad because The woman who was speaking was um

Her story was that she grew up uh, her parents were Jesus people from the 70s hippies, you know from the 70s

Uh, they got they got converted out in california and hate ashbury or whatever in in that period of time and um became followers of jesus

But what happened was so many of the jesus people in in that time was they they lacked solid biblical discipleship

And so her parents without that grounding and getting up becoming a part of a good

Local church where they would be discipled and and taught and trained and so forth uh, her her grandfather her father and her grandfather started their own ministry called the assembly

And it was A sense it was it was a christian and she called it evangelical christian assembly

But it had a bunch of weird little nuances to it And this this woman was talking about Uh how

She called it a cult She called it a cult And she called it that because you know for a lot of reasons

But one of the things she said that stuck out to me was that everything revolved around the grandfather her grandfather everything if you had an idea that was

Contrary to the idea of grandfather you were You were you were put down you were silenced

If you wanted to do something you had to get the approval of the grandfather And this was everybody in the church not just her but because the grandfather was was central grandfather was central so,

I mean she it would took her a long time to To find out that you know

It really is not sin for a girl to have her ears pierced, you know and and and it really she she talked about how she um

She uh was sent to get her hair cut to this one place and when she came back her grandfather was

Horrified because her hair was cut too short I mean Only men have their hair cut short like, you know

How in the world could you and she's five years old? So anyway, the point is that everything revolved around the grandfather

What's john doing? What's john saying? He's saying hey everything revolves around me.

You run everything through me. No, no, no, no. No, he's saying look I'm i'm getting out of here

Because there's somebody coming after me that I who as he says in verse 7 who is mightier than I I'm, not even worth i'm not even it's not even worthy of me to stoop down and and and loose the straps on his sandals

I'm, just baptizing you with water That's a nothing He is going to baptize you with the holy spirit.

He this one coming after me. Jesus is a far superior Person than I And he will do a far superior work than mine

Well, what is the effect of all this preparatory work of john? Does it have any effect at all?

Yeah, it does in verse 5. It seems to the impact was huge all the land

You know everybody heard about john Everybody wants to go out and see john.

Everybody wants to go out and hear john And the the impact of his preparatory work was life -changing because verse 5 says

All kinds of people from all the land of judea and jerusalem. They went out to him and they were baptized

In the jordan river. This was a life -changing thing for these people They were communicating.

Hey, look something big has happened. They're saying this i'm changing i'm going in a different direction

I'm i'm counting on the coming of the messiah very quickly that he's already on the scene.

He's right behind this john guy And i am confessing my sins

They confessed their sins so the impact wasn't just It wasn't just numerical even though it was

And it wasn't just life -changing for a few people It was life -changing for a lot of people the impact was a spiritual impact confessing their sins so this preparatory work of this strange guy out in the wilderness near the jordan river a couple thousand years ago

It was really profoundly important work of preparation For the lamb

To whom he was going to point so our father in heaven, we thank you for John preparing the way for jesus

That led to the conversion of so many when jesus did come on the scene and begin to preach the gospel of the kingdom

Lord we can also learn so much from his From his example and from his work preparatory work to point to the lamb of glory

And we thank you for it in jesus name. Amen So let's uh, let's close this evening with number 183 and that hymn the lamb of glory

Number 183 Oh poor kelly's got to do a sprint coming down Number 183 let's stand shall we as we sing 183 hear the story

From god's word that kings and priests and prophets

There would be a Sacrifice and blood would flow to pay sin's price

Precious lamb of glory Glory love's most wondrous story

Heart of god's redemption of man

Worship the lamb of glory On the cross god loved the world while all the powers of hell were hurled

One there could Understand the one they saw was christ the lamb

Precious lamb of glory Love's most wondrous story

Worship the lamb of glory

Just the lord to give you a good week and that Since this is the first day of the week.

It's gotten off to a good start for you So father in heaven bless as we go from here to our homes and then to our various arenas of responsibility

And calling in life That you've given to us may we be faithful and If you give us the opportunity help us to prepare

The way for the lord jesus in the hearts of those around us we ask in jesus name.