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I want to invite you to take, if you have a Bible, to take it out and turn to the first chapter of the Gospel of John. Hold your place in John chapter 1 verse 29. This is Holy Week and we began Holy Week last Sunday with our celebration of Palm Sunday, the celebration of Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey.
And it goes all the way to Resurrection Sunday. And between Palm Sunday and Resurrection Sunday, we have tonight, Maundy Thursday, the night wherein we celebrate the Passover, a special time of communion for all believers.
And in each of these services, we're going to open the Word together, because it's in opening up the Word together that not only are the saints instructed, but sinners are brought to a place where they're confronted with the Gospel.
So we see this as a time for instruction, edification, and evangelism. We hear the Word together and confront with the Word. And there is a thread which is going to be weaved throughout all of the messages.
And it is this thread, 1 Corinthians 2, 2. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. So as we examine the events of Holy Week, we start tonight on Maundy Thursday, tomorrow's Good Friday, and we're going to worship again, we're going to hear the Word again.
And then on Sunday morning, two services, Resurrection morning, we have sunrise service and then service at 1030. And we're going to weave that thread through all of the messages, Christ and Him crucified will be our focus.
And tonight we're going to look at John the Baptist and his announcement of Christ and regard to his purpose in coming into the world. And it is our tradition here at Sovereign to stand as we hear the Word of God.
So I encourage you to stand with us. John chapter 1, and we're going to read only one verse. Verse 29 says, The next day he, this is John, saw Jesus coming toward him and said, Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
Our Father and our God, I thank you for your Word. I thank you for this opportunity to study it again. I pray that you would first and foremost keep me from error, as I am a fallible man. I'm certainly capable of preaching error.
And for the sake of your people, and for the sake of my own conscience, and for the sake of your glorious name, keep me from error. And Father, as your Word is preached, I pray your Holy Spirit would apply the truths.
For Lord, if your Holy Spirit is not among us, then I'm just a man shouting from a platform. So Lord, I pray that your Holy Spirit would be among us, that He would do that work that only He may do, that only He can do.
And that is applying the Word of God to the hearts of His people. And it's in Christ's name we pray, Amen. I imagine that this particular passage of Scripture is one with which we are all at least somewhat familiar.
John the Baptist is doing what his namesake implies. He's baptizing. He's doing the ministry of being the forerunner to the Messiah. He's out telling people to prepare. The Messiah's coming. And he's telling people to be baptized for the repentance of their sins.
He's coming and He's saying, I'm baptizing you with water, but there's one coming after me who is greater than I, of whose sandals I'm not even worthy to stoop down and untie. And when He comes, He's going to baptize you differently.
He's going to baptize you with fire and the Holy Spirit of God. And so here John is out proclaiming that the Messiah is coming. He's proclaiming this great event which is about to take place in the midst of all of these people.
And lo, here Jesus comes. And John says, look. The word behold, I think sometimes we give it, you know, it's a little, it's a sort of gravitas, you know, behold, you know, but it really just means look.
Give your attention to, here, look, there He is, behold, the Lamb of God. He has come to take away sin. Now, the problem with this passage is that it is very familiar. And sometimes when we come to passages that are familiar, we overlook their significance.
In fact, it's often that way. So tonight I want to, I want us to imagine if it's possible, don't know that it is, but I want us to imagine that this is the first time we're hearing this. Maybe imagine yourself as one of those men and women who are standing on the bank of the Jordan with John, and he says, look, this is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
What would be the questions that would come into our mind if it was the first that we'd heard of such a thing? And so considering the original hearers, considering hearers of today that have never heard this, I want to answer three questions that I think are brought out from this passage, because again, sometimes, and this is important, especially you Bible teachers.
Oftentimes we assume things when we're teaching, we assume people know things, and so we go right past the, and we assume that they know when we say stuff and go right past them. So a lot of times what I do when I'm preparing my messages, I'm preparing sermons, if I'm preparing a Bible study, I say, what would be the question I would ask if I'd never heard any of this?
What would be the, if I was an unbeliever, if I just stepped off of the back of a truck from a totally different area and I'd never seen anything or heard anything about this, what would be the questions that this statement or this passage would arise in me?
So we're going to ask three questions. If you're writing them down, I'll give them to you. The first question is simple, and you might say it's too simple, but I challenge it's never too simple. The first question, what is sin?
What is sin? The second question, how does a lamb take away sin? And the third question is, for whom does he take away sin? Because I think that those would be a natural questions that would grow out of somebody said, look, there's a lamb of God, he takes away the sin of the world.
Somebody who doesn't know anything about that would say, well, what is sin? How does a lamb take away sin and for whom? Who is this world of which you speak? So that's our goal. In the short time we have, I normally preach for about an hour, so I'm going to give you a break.
I don't plan to go for a whole hour tonight. We'll make it just 55 minutes. No, we'll preach, I'll preach as long as it takes. But we'll for the I just want to focus our time on those three questions.
The first question may be simple to us because most of us, I think, in here have been to church before. And the question, what is sin? And you might say, well, boy, that's a simple question. Let me tell you something.
There's never been a time in the history of our nation that I think that that question is is more confusing to people. So you might say, boy, pastor, you asked me what is sin? I know. Well, yeah, if you're in church, you probably have an idea of what is sin.
But I'm telling you, there are people in this world that if you talk to them about sin, they have no idea. I spent time in a conversation with a lady yesterday on social media who could not express herself as a sinner.
She could only express herself as a person who makes mistakes. And let me tell you, Jesus didn't come to die for your mistakes. He came to die for your sins. And that's important to understand that there is a distinction that needs to be made because the Bible tells us that sin is a breach of the law of God.
There's not just a mistake. It's not just a character flaw. It's not just being born that way. And we glorify sinful behavior. Our world and our nation in particularly glorify sinful behavior. We condone sinful acts.
We celebrate sinfulness and we're dangerously close. If we have not already jumped this cliff, we stand dangerously close to the precipice of the of the condemnation of Isaiah 520, which says, Woe to those who call evil good and good evil.
If we haven't already jumped into that river, we stand on its banks just ready to dive in as a nation. And sin has been redefined by the world. It's also been redefined by the church. If you go into many churches, you won't hear the word sin.
I remember years ago, there was a person in this church and she decided that she didn't want to hear it anymore. She actually started calling people in the church and she said, I don't need to be told every Sunday I'm a sinner.
Thankfully, there were people that were smarter on the other end who were willing to say, yes, you do. And so do I. You do need to be told that you're a sinner. You need to be reminded of this reality because that is the foundation of the gospel.
And we need to not only preach the gospel to others. We need to preach the gospel to ourselves daily because it is an understanding our sinfulness. It is an understanding who we are and from where we came, that we truly learn to appreciate and grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.
The most dangerous thing in the world is self-righteousness. Jesus, when he came into the world, he ate with tax collectors and sinners, but he condemned who? The self-righteous. When he told the story of the Pharisee and the publican who went into the temple to pray, who was it that left justified?
It was the publican. Who was it who was unjustified? The man who said, God, look at me for all the good that I have done and all the good I continue to do. And I'm not like other men. When we adopt an attitude where we can't appreciate and understand the depth of depravity that God saved us out of, we have reached a level of self-righteousness, which is not only unhealthy, it's damnable.
So I've used the word sin many times. I've already defined it. Sin is a breaking of the law of God. If you want scripture for that, I'll give it to you. First John three, four. It's one of a good it's a good memory verse.
Everyone who makes a practice of sinning practices lawlessness. Sin is lawlessness. King James Version says it even a little better, I think. Whoever commit a sin transgresses, I can't say it, transgresses the law.
Sin is a transgression of the law. The catechism that we use says this, sin is any want of conformity to or transgression of the law of God. That might sound kind of funny, but it's very good definition.
Sin is any want of conformity to. That means any lack of conformity to the law or any transgression of the law is sin. And that's what the Bible defines as sin. And the law that John has in view in First John is not the civil law of Israel.
And it's not the ceremonial law of Israel. It is the moral law of God. And it's given to us most clearly in his commandments, the Ten Commandments. One of the pastors, I was just at a Bible conference, and when I come back from a Bible conference, I'm usually excited to preach.
So I apologize. I'm all like ready to go. You caught me on the first night back. But one of the one of the Bible teachers there, I believe it was Earl Blackburn. He was saying there was a time that he was in a group of pastors, men, Ph .D. level guys, guys who've been in school.
They got degrees on their degrees. And he sat in this group of guys and they're talking about the law of God and the subjects like theonomy come up in this. And if you don't know what that is, don't worry about it.
But there are things that came up all about the law of God and questions. And he said, let me ask you this. Of all you men, how many of you can give me the Ten Commandments in order? And he said, not one of the group of men that sat in that circle with him, some Ph .D. level theologians could give to him the Ten Commandments in order.
You see, the moral law is important, but we've abandoned it as a church. The moral law is important in bringing sinners to Christ. The Bible says the law is our schoolmaster, which leads us to Christ.
But we have abandoned it. We've replaced it with everything else in the world. We've replaced it with asking Jesus into your heart. We've replaced it with praying a sinner's prayer. We've replaced it as the tool, Paul says, that leads sinners to Christ.
But we've abandoned it. And we say, no, we're going to use another method. We're going to use a worldly method. We're going to save people with pizza parties. We're going to save people with smoke machines.
We're going to save people with skinny jeans because that's how people get saved. And beloved, it's it has abandoned the truth and we've abandoned the law and we've abandoned the one thing that God says is what drives a sinner to repentance.
It's his understanding of his own sin. And we cannot know sin if we know not the law. So what is sin? And Dr. R .C. Sproul said this sin is cosmic treason. That's what sin is. You want to know why people go to hell because of sin?
Because sin is an affront to a holy and infinite God. Sin is the worst thing in the world. Sin is sin is horrible. And because of the severity of the sin, the breach of God's law, there's a severity of punishment.
And that's why hell isn't just a day or a week or six months. It's forever without parole, without pardon, without extinguishing. There are some who believe that hell only lasts a little while and God extinguishes people.
It's not true. Jesus said in that place, the worm never dies and there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth forever. You say, well, how can God punish infinitely with finite sin? Because our sin is finite, it only lasts as long as we last.
How can God punish someone forever if our sin only lasts a short time? And the answer is simple and take this home. If you don't get anything else tonight, take this home with you. Why do you think that sin stops in hell?
Do you think that the person in hell stops hating God? They continue to hate God for eternity and continue to make themselves worthy of hell for eternity. You think they go to hell and get saved? You think they go to hell and repent?
No, their hatred of God continues forever and thus their punishment continues forever. So what is sin? Sin is transgression of the law of God, broken out of a heart that hates God. That's what sin is.
You say, well, I know a lot of people who don't go to church and don't believe in Jesus, but they don't hate God. Yes, they do. Tell them about him and you will see how quickly they hate him. Talk to them about the commandments and you will see how quickly their hatred comes out of them.
Their hatred will spew from them. The reason why people don't hate God is because we don't tell people about the real God. We tell people about the God of pixie dust and fairy tales and we don't tell them about the real God of the Bible.
And when we do, they get offended and they don't come back because they say, oh, that preacher, he's just hellfire and damnation. If your house was on fire, I'd tell you about it. If you were walking into a house that was about to collapse, I would tell you about it.
Why would I not preach hell? Why would I not preach damnation? Why would I not preach these truths? I love you more than the skinny jeans guy who's telling you how much you need to get a better job and a better house and a better parking spot, because that's God's will for your life.
I love you more than that. And God loves you more than that. So what is sin? We know what sin is now. How does a lamb take away sin? That's only point number two, I got to hurry and get moving. It's interesting when we see the title lamb used for Jesus, because if we see the title lamb, behold, the lamb of God, he didn't say behold, the son of God.
I've always thought that was interesting because it's interesting how many times the son of God is used in John the gospel to apply to Jesus, you know, for God to love the world. He gave his only begotten son.
That's a passage most of us know. And yet in this time, he doesn't say behold, the son of God who takes away the sin of the world. No, he says it's the lamb. Why? Because everyone in earshot of John would have known one thing.
Lambs are what go to the slaughter. Lambs are what go to the sacrifice. Lamb is the sacrifice. In fact, in the in the Old Testament, on the Day of Atonement, they sacrificed goats. Actually, one goat, they had two goats brought out.
One goat was prayed over and sent out into the wilderness. The other goat was killed and his blood was put on the mercy seat by the high priest. And that was called Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. But then there was also like what we just celebrated with the Seder.
That meal was a lamb. Every household got a lamb. They took the lamb, they killed him. They took the blood of the lamb, put it on the doorpost. Why? So that when God saw the blood on the doorpost, he would pass by and not enter into that home and strike down the firstborn.
And there was also a daily offering that was made. Often that was a lamb that was given. In light of all these sacrifices, the prophet Isaiah said this. He said that the Messiah in Isaiah 53, and this is what I'm preaching tomorrow night, Isaiah 53, he said in Isaiah 53, he said he'll be like a lamb that has led to the slaughter.
He's talking about the Messiah, he's going to be like a lamb. So I believe that John, when he said, behold, the lamb, he's referencing not only all of the sacrifices of the Old Testament, but I think he's referencing specifically the sacrifice recognized in Isaiah.
Isaiah said the Messiah is coming. Isaiah said the Messiah will be a lamb led to the slaughter. Behold, here's the lamb. Behold, here he is. This is the one we've been waiting on. Seven hundred years ago, Isaiah told us there's a lamb who's going to be led to the slaughter.
Here he is. Now, when we discuss the subject of sacrifice and atonement, two technical terms arise. And the technical terms expiation and propitiation, expiation means to take away or remove guilt, propitiation means to to satisfy guilt.
OK, now those I don't bring out big phrases to confuse, and I certainly don't want to confuse anyone, but it's essential that we understand that in the sacrifice of Christ, both things happen. We see in the sacrifice of Christ, God removes our guilt.
But he also punishes our guilt. That's why it gets to be removed, because God can't just take away our guilt and not punish it because he's just. So God takes our guilt and he puts it on someone else and our guilt becomes his and he bears it for us and he holds it for us.
And tomorrow night we're going to read about by his stripes, we are healed. That's what that means. By his punishment, we receive healing. And I'm going to talk about tomorrow. That ain't what most of the word faith people think it means.
They want to apply that to every type of healing, except the healing that it means. And that's the healing of the relationship between God and man. That's the healing that takes place in the atonement.
He's the lamb who takes away our sin. So tomorrow we'll deal more with propitiation. But tonight, I just want to talk about the fact that our sins have been taken away. The guilt of our sins have been placed upon him.
This is what John says. He is the lamb who takes away our sin and mounts his dictionary, mounts as a Greek scholar and his dictionary. He says this, he says what that word means when John says takes away, it means to lift up, to raise, to bear, to carry or to remove.
He takes it from us. And the only way I could think, and I thought, I prayed and I said, how can I explain this? How can I describe this in a way that we would understand? And I thought about like an army medic.
Kind of made me think of Richard a little. That's what Richard did in the army. If you think about a soldier who's coming out of battle and he's got his pack on his back and his legs are wobbly and he's got blood and sweat pouring off of him and he can't bear it anymore, his weight is just too heavy and he falls down to his knees and he collapsed under the weight of his pack.
And there the pack is suffocating him. And along comes that trusty medic and their job is to come out and save those guys, to keep those guys from dying on the battlefield. And he grabs that pack and he pulls it off of the man's back and he puts it on his own and he holds it himself.
He bears it for him. Beloved, that's what Christ did for us. He takes the weight of our guilt. And he bears it himself, the burden of guilt that we all have as believers has been given to Christ, like the song says, it has been nailed to the cross and I bear it no more.
Praise the Lord, O my soul. Right. So that's how the lamb takes away sin. And finally and thirdly, for whom does he take away sin? This is the most important, because this passage clearly says that the lamb takes away the sin of the world.
And that has led to some very wrong theology. There are theologians out there who call themselves universalists. If you don't know what a universalist is, it's pretty self-explanatory. But I'll tell you, it means that every person in the world will go to heaven, that every person in the world will be saved because the sacrifice of Christ has been made for all people.
But beloved, that cannot be. It just can't. The scripture does not bear such a teaching that every person will go to heaven. If that is true, then the vast majority of what Jesus said about hell and about damnation and about the way of sinners and the way of the righteous, all of that was for naught if there is no hell, if all will be redeemed.
So what must be understood in this word world is that what John is doing with this word is he is removing borders because the Messiah did not come to save only the Jews. He came to save men and women and children from every tribe, tongue and nation of the world.
And every one of you should say amen, because I don't see any of you who were born a Jew. Now, you may be, but I know I wasn't. Praise the Lord. Men and women and children from every tribe, tongue and nation.
If they will call upon the name of the Lord, they will be saved and they don't have to be circumcised first and they don't have to go through the Jewish ceremonies first. They go right to Christ. As we see in Galatians, the Apostle Paul condemns those who say you have to become a Jew before you can be a Christian.
No, you come straight to Christ out of whatever paganism you've come out of, out of whatever false belief system you've come out of, out of even if you've never had a religion before. You don't have to go through any other way but Christ, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
So how can we know? How can we know if that's us? How can we know if our sin has been taken away? By placing our trust in the Lamb of God, tomorrow evening, we're going to see that not only does Christ carry our sin, but he also experienced the wrath for it, and that's how he was able to carry it.
He experienced the wrath for it. But I don't want you to wait until tomorrow for you to ask this question. Has Christ borne your sin? Has Christ taken away your sin? Do you know that the guilt that you have for breaking God's law has been placed upon him?
The Apostle Paul describes it like this. He says, and you who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven all of our trespasses by canceling the record of debt.
There's that law. We had a debt. We were debtors to the law. Having canceled our record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands, this he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He set it aside.
Our guilt has been nailed to the cross. Can you see yourself in that passage? Can you see yourself in the words of Paul? Do you know that your debt has been settled? Do you know that your guilt has been taken away?
Do you know that you have peace with God? If so, rejoice in God's amazing grace. And if not. I say with John. Behold, the Lamb of God. He taketh away the sins of the world. Father in heaven, I thank you for your word.
I thank you for your truth. I pray that your truth has been glorified and exalted tonight. I thank you for every person who's come. I thank you for every every heart that has been touched. And I pray, Lord, that if there is an unbeliever among us, since there are unbelievers, Moses always are.
I pray, oh, God. That you would convict and convert. And Lord, God, challenge the believers. Toward a closer walk with you and to exalt Jesus in all that we do. Is our prayer in his name. Amen.