Behold The Lamb Of God (part 1) - [John 1:29-34]

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Behold The Lamb Of God (part 2) - [John 1:29-34]

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Have a question for you this morning one that I would often get framed a little differently to me
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You know people would say what's your problem? I'm not gonna ask you that I'm gonna ask you.
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What is your biggest problem? What's your biggest concern? Do you have financial difficulty health problems your own or Someone you care about someone, you know has cancer
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Thinking about even as I say that about my dad Are you upside down in your mortgage?
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Are you not even aware that you're upside down in your mortgage? Do you wish that you could qualify for a mortgage
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There are any number of situations that could cause you to worry that could draw your attention.
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Maybe you need a new car Maybe you'd like to fix your car Maybe you'd like to be able to fix your car.
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Maybe you need a job Maybe you need a better job. Maybe you have some issues with your spouse
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Maybe you wish you had a spouse Maybe you have issues with a child
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With your parents Maybe you are dealing with the death of a loved one.
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Even as we think about prudy this morning. Are you able to care for?
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Or are you having to care for or manage the financial affairs of one of your parents All those things can really weigh us down can draw our attention can
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Cause us to just sort of wallow in them But may
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I tell you with great love and affection that none of those things are your biggest problem
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Because apart from being in Christ Apart from being purchased by him your sin is your greatest problem and God himself ought to be your greatest fear just to kind of catch us up to where we are as I've been working slowly through the gospel of John For some of you.
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I think there are a couple of you who might not be here all the time on Sunday nights a Little review to catch us up where we are
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The gospel of John is different than the gospel of Matthew Mark and Luke and you say sure
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I know that because I'm a biblical scholar. I know about the synoptic issues and I know that the gospel of John was written later
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And we know that John had those Gospels and yet he decided to write his own gospel
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Why because he saw some things that he thought maybe he could fill in the gaps And he wrote to address those issues and his primary theme
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He writes in John 20 verse 31 that he wrote these things that we might know that Jesus is the
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Christ He wants us to know those things each one of the
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Gospels Is written with one purpose and that's that we might believe that Jesus is
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God that he is the only way to heaven That's what each one is for and each one is historically accurate and yet they're written by human authors superintended by the
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Holy Spirit with a different purpose and as I said
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John wants us to believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God and that by believing in him you may have
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Life in his name that is to say eternal life In this gospel
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John presents nothing We don't if you if you went to a Christmas service that was based on the gospel of John, it would be really short
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Because you wouldn't have much of a birth narrative. You would have nothing really to work with and really what we have
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It's just we start almost in the beginning of his of Jesus ministry except for the sort of preamble where he sets forth
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The deity of Christ in fact in verses 1 & 2 alone we see that the word
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Which is revealed in verse 14 to be Jesus because he became flesh and dwelt among us was in the beginning and he was
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God and In the beginning he was or he was with God all those verbs and phrases
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Would lead the original readers the Jewish readers to conclude one thing that Jesus is the ever -existent
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Creator of all things that is to say Jesus is God the second person of the
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Trinity Eternally the Son of God who condescended to take on a human nature by while remaining fully
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God He never ceased to be God and in the last message that I taught from John we saw the beginning of John the
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Baptist's ministry and how he was investigated by what I called the grand jury a group that of Priests and Levites who would be temple workers basically musicians
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Who were sent out by the Sanhedrin the Jewish leadership to investigate John the Baptist? There's a great hubbub a great
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Führer a great crowd gathering around John the Baptist so they want to find out who he is Was John the
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Baptist the Messiah he says no, I'm not Was he Elijah no,
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I'm not was he a prophet Was he a charlatan there were plenty of people running around calling themselves the
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Christ in those times. Who was he and Why was he baptizing people?
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after all Only converts to Judaism that is Gentiles got baptized.
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Those are the only people who got baptized And they baptized themselves. So why is it that John is baptizing people calling for repentance?
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Why is he doing this and what authority does he have to do it? In a response to those kind of questions
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John the Baptist answers with a kind of a non -answer and Eventually we see in verse 27.
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He talks about This Messiah and he says he calls him Or he refers to him and he says the strap of whose sandal
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I am unworthy or I am not worthy to untie we talked about how
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The idea of this is listen a disciple if John the Baptist was a disciple of Jesus He could be called on to do anything, but only the lowest of the low of slaves would be called to strap somebody's sandal or untie somebody's sandal because the feet are
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Unclean in that part of the world and that's not something that even a disciple a follower would be
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Called upon to do so John the Baptist says listen. I'm not even worthy to be his disciple. I am a slave
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I mean it echoes the kind of Language that Paul would use when he said called himself an under rower
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So we come to John chapter 1 verse 29 The next day he being
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John the Baptist saw Jesus coming toward him and said behold The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world
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This is he of whom I said after me comes a man who ranks before me
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Because he was before me I Myself did not know him but for this purpose
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I came baptizing with water that he might be revealed to Israel and Job John bore witness.
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I saw the Spirit descend from heaven like a dove and it remained on him. I Myself did not know him
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But he who sent me to baptize with water said to me he on whom you see the
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Spirit descend and remain This is he who baptizes with the
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Holy Spirit and I have seen and borne witness That this is the
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Son of God Now this morning in Bethlehem Bible Church tradition
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We're gonna look at one verse and then we're gonna go into the Old Testament and look at a bunch of other verses
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But I want you to see three truths about Jesus about the Lamb of God Three truths that will introduce about that and whatever you are fixated on When it passes some new issue will pop up for your attention
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Some new life -threatening issue will arise But when this problem of sin is dealt with When we understand rightly that it has been dealt with for those of us who love
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Christ The things of this world the problems of this world seem Less important.
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I don't know every problem of everyone here in the congregation But I do know some of them.
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I do know in that list. I didn't just draw those up out of nothing It sounded unusual for me to get a call
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I don't know late Saturday night about one of those exact issues and I still managed to sleep at night
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And it's not because I don't care. It's because I know Christ It's because he has dealt with these things and we need to focus on him so now a little bit of introduction here
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We're on day two in verse 29 of a very special week We see that right there in the first few words there the next day.
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This is the second day on the first day We have the investigation Where the
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St. Hedrid sends their little grand jury their mobile grand jury They get him in the van pool and they go out to find out what
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John the Baptist is all about Sometime after that, I believe if we put all the Gospels together
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We would see that this is the exact time frame where Jesus comes to John the Baptist for Baptism and you say well, why doesn't
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John deal with that the same reason? He doesn't deal with a lot of other things because they're already covered in the three
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Gospels and he's writing decades after that He's got those three Gospels. He knows or he
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Would figure pretty much that the people who are gonna read this gospel will already have access to Matthew Mark and Luke So we have every reason to believe that he was already baptized and we'll see that a little bit later in our text
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I'll be talking about it tonight But Jesus has already been through the 40 days without bread and water and the temptations of Satan all these kind of things have already
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Happened now just for a moment. Let's try to get a mental picture. Let's just paint a picture of what's going on John the
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Baptist is the last of what we call the Old Testament prophets why do we call him the
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Old Testament because the new covenant has yet to be inaugurated and We've had a period of silence where there's been no new revelation for 400 years and here comes
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John the Baptist out of the wilderness Let me read Matthew 3 verses 4 to 6
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Now John wore a garment of camel's hair and a leather belt around his waist and His food was locusts and wild honey
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Then Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region about the Jordan were going out to him and they were baptized by him in The River Jordan confessing their sins
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So there's a pretty good -sized crowd around this man. Why because he comes out of the wilderness. He's dressed funny
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Actually, he's dressed like the Prophet Elijah. We saw that the last time I taught here He's dressed like the
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Prophet Elijah they recognize that the people do they listen to his message repent be baptized for the kingdom of God Is at hand they are coming forward.
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They're being baptized. They're confessing their sins and the Jewish leaders take notice of this and That's why they went to investigate him
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Luke 3 verse 15 Again talking about John the
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Baptist as the people were in expectation. There were all these messianic Expectations this was the end time.
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There were all kinds of signs and everything going on this was the time where the Messiah was going to appear as The people were in expectation and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John whether he might be the
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Christ this is why he gathered such a crowd to him a lesser man
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One less sure of his calling one less filled with the Spirit of God might have stumbled he might have said yet It's me.
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Thanks for coming out Drop your money in the offering plate That wasn't
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John the Baptist Look at the text in John 1 Look at look what he does
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Verse 29. This is what John says Behold, and it really is kind of an exclamation and a pause there.
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It's like look just look That is the
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Lamb of God as he sees Jesus Coming behold the
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Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world And just at the time where we might expect humanly speaking the
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John the Baptist to promote himself gain He's gaining crowds. He's Greek gaining popularity. He's got disciples.
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We know that if we read in other texts There's all kinds of controversy about what he's doing.
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He sees Jesus approaching and like as if with a megaphone He just says look at him
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That was John the Baptist ministry that was his entire purpose for life We know that from John 1 8 says this he was not the light talking about John But came to bear witness about the light that was his singular
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Function in life, and he never veered from it. He was entirely faithful to it
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Now why does John the Baptist refer to Jesus as the Lamb of God?
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I'm gonna give you three reasons three reasons this morning first Jesus is the sacrifice
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He is a sacrifice for sins that word translated lamb
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Occurs only two times outside this immediate context in the New Testament the Greek word occurs only twice outside of this passage
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One is in first Peter one these passages You don't have to turn to because we're gonna turn to a few passages later
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But first Peter 1 18 to 19 Knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers
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Not with perishable things such as silver or gold but listen But with the precious blood of Christ like that of a lamb without blemish or spot
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Peter says you were bought back you were ransomed out of the marketplace of sin and What what was the price nothing
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Perishable like silver or gold the things that we invest ourselves in But with the precious blood of Christ Again that idea of a lamb being having his blood shed to redeem others
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The other time it occurs is in Acts 8 We have the account of the evangelist
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Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch and if you recall the Ethiopian is riding through basically a wasteland and He's reading
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Isaiah 53 in Acts 8 32 we read this now the passage of the scripture that he was reading was this
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Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter and like a lamb before its shearer is silent
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So he opens not his mouth Philip is brought to him and He says do you understand what you're reading because the man the
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Ethiopian eunuch is reading aloud So Philip says to him. Do you understand what you're reading?
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And what does the eunuch say? He says how can I unless someone explains it to me and so Philip goes on to Explain the gospel explain who
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Jesus is and in both instances where we have that word lamb it is the idea of a
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Sacrifice a ransom paid for sin, which is precisely what John the Baptist is talking about here in John 1 verse 29 and that concept of a sacrificial lamb of a lamb being
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Sacrificed to pay the price for something else is first introduced and this is where I want you to turn
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Genesis 22 Genesis 22 verses 7 to 14 and we see the narrative of Abraham and Isaac Now for those of you who aren't familiar with the the story of Abraham and Isaac Me one thing we have to keep in mind here
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We don't have when we when we come to the story of Abraham and Isaac we don't have a temple
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We don't have a Jewish religious system. There's no nation of Israel. That's still yet. That's yet to come
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What we have though is a promise that God made to Abraham And he said that he would make of Abraham a great nation well
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Abraham Had no children He and his wife Sarah had no children and they get older and older and older and things aren't going well they're they're just not having any kids and they even get to the point where they devise this scheme and Sarah pushes it right along where they are going to have
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Abraham commit adultery with Their servants so that they can have a son
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They are unfaithful, but God is faithful and eventually in their old age even as we would learn from Hebrews 11 when they are past the age where they should have been able to have children they have one and they name him
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Isaac and as we come to this passage, we see that God has commanded
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Abraham to sacrifice His only begotten son which by the way means not that he only had one son
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But that he was unique he was special because we already know Ishmael was already born
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Genesis 22 verses 7 to 14 and Isaac said to his father Abraham my father and he said here
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I am my son He said behold the fire in the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?
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Committed to make this sacrifice for sin, but where's the lamb? Abraham said
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God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering my son So they went both of them together
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When they came to the place of which God had told them Abraham built the altar and there laid the wood in order and bound
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Isaac his son and laid him on the altar on top of the wood It's just a word here
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There there are many thoughts about how old Isaac was. Here's a few things.
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We do know Whether you believe he was young whether you believe he was around 30 like I probably think he was
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There's absolutely no doubt. He could have got away from Abraham because Abraham is old. I can't even imagine tracking down You know, let's say
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Isaac was 12 at my age. I couldn't track him down at Abraham's twice my age. He's an old man
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So this is not only an act of faith and obedience on the part of Abraham But also on his son
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Isaac But listen verse 10 then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son.
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Why because God told him to But the angel of the Lord and make no mistake about it
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That is God and we will see why in just a moment, but the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said
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Abraham Abraham and he said here I am He said this is the angel do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him
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For I know that I know for now, I know that you fear God Seeing you have not withheld your only or your son your only son from him from God No from me the angel of the
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Lord is the pre -incarnate Christ You have not way you fear God why God commanded you to sacrifice your son and you obeyed
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I? Am here to stop you the angel of the Lord God verse 13 and Abraham lifted his up his eyes and looked and behold behind him was a ram caught in the thicket by his horns and Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son so Abraham called the name of that place the
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Lord will provide as It is said to this day on the mount of the Lord. It shall be provided again, this is a remarkable illustration of obedience and faith on the part of Abraham and Isaac and Not knowing what would transpire
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Both said about obeying God. They just trusted God completely and Abraham was not
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Or was commanded not to sacrifice his son after he was commanded not to sacrifice his son He was not left to his own devices.
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He didn't have to look around for some sacrifice Yahweh the covenant -keeping
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God himself made provision for the sacrifice Abraham had been commanded to make
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God provided what a substitute a substitute
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God provided the sacrifice Does that sound familiar? God provided the sacrifice
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God provided a substitute a sacrifice Sounds very familiar
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Hebrews 922 would tell us that there can be no forgiveness of sin without the shedding of blood and In everyone's sins right and in a fair system we would each pay for our own sins
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Here's the problem That's a price. None of us can pay Not one of us is worthy of paying for his own sins.
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And that's why Punishment for sins is eternal But God provides the
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Lamb in fact back in John 129 It's not behold the
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Lamb Who takes away the sins of the world? It's the of God Lamb Even if we went back to the back or to the front of John's gospel
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He is sent by the Father He is commissioned by the Father. We can look at Isaiah 40 48 16 where it says that Where Christ pre -incarnate
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Christ again is saying that God the Father sent him Over and over and John's gospel.
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He says that the Father sent him But Jesus was not only a sacrifice
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He was also a sin -bearer. He was not only a substitute but also a sin -bearer listen
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Well, in fact turned to Isaiah 53, we're gonna look at that He's a fulfillment of many
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Old Testament prophecies. Jesus is including Isaiah 53 Referred to often as the suffering servant.
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There are I believe seven servant chapters in Isaiah and this is by far the most well -known and Just in this as an aside if you want to see if you have
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Jewish friends You want to see their eyes get really big you read them this passage Isaiah 53 and I'm going to read verses 4 to 10 and Listen to the substitutionary language listen to this sin -bearing language listen to how
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Jesus pays the price for our actions Surely he has borne our griefs
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And carried our sorrows yet. We have seen esteemed him stricken smitten by God and afflicted
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But he was pierced for our transgressions he was crushed for our iniquities
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Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace and with his wounds.
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We are healed This doesn't sound fair But nobody complains about this verse 6 all
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We like sheep have gone astray We have turned everyone to his own way and the
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Lord has laid on him that is on Jesus on this servant the iniquity of us all
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He was oppressed and he was afflicted yet. He opened not his mouth like a
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Lamb that is led to the slaughter and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent so he opened
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Not his mouth By oppression and judgment. He was taken away and as for his generation who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living stricken for the transgression of my people and They made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death
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Although he had done no violence and there was no deceit in his mouth He never sinned verse 10 yet.
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It was the will of the Lord of the covenant -keeping God all capitals Yahweh To crush him.
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This was God's will to crush The Sun he has put him
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Jesus to grief when his soul makes an offering for guilt He shall see his offspring
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He shall prolong his days and the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand
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One commentator says this he says this is what the entire sacrificial system is about Making it possible for sinful humans to have fellowship with a holy
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God He talks about other sacrifices the sacrifices of typical animals do not mitigate the temporal effects of sin.
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So what do they do? They deal with the spiritual effects of sin They address the truths that the soul that sin shall die and we're reminded again and again in the
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Old Testament that sin Demands payment and that payment is death
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But is only through substitution the substitutionary death of Christ His sin -bearing on our behalf that fellowship between humans and God is possible a
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Lamb a regular lamb cannot die in a human's place but a perfect human could and if that human there are no perfect humans other than Jesus a
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Perfect human who is also God he could die for every human sin And that provides us with the extent we know that the death of Christ if there were an infinite number of planets and an infinite number of people the death of God on a cross is
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Sufficient to pay the sins for every single one of those people this servant
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In Isaiah 53 has provided for your every spiritual need he's carried your sorrows
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He suffered for your transgressions and iniquities. He received the penalty that you deserved if you are in Christ You are no longer estranged from God no longer at war with him all because of the work of this servant
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He did not defend himself verbally or physically he went peacefully to a horrible death why
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I Read in Isaiah 53 because it was the will of God To crush him and what does he say over and over again in the
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Gospel of John? I'm here not to do my own will but to do the will of the Father To be crushed just a little bit further down in verse 11
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Second half of the verse by his knowledge shall the righteous one my servant make many to be accounted righteous
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Make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities He will make many not all to be righteous, but many to be righteous
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He shall bear their iniquities so John the
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Baptist Introduces Jesus as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world now.
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It's shocking again Let's just think about where we are. We're we're early in the ministry of Jesus. There's all this tumult going on about Messiah's about all manner of speculation about who
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John the Baptist is and he says the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world not
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The sin of Israel not the sin of the sons and daughters of Abraham. This is what the
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Jewish mindset This is what they would expect They would expect to hear that kind of thing, but what does it mean that he takes away the sin of the world?
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Well that verb takes away means to lift off to carry away to remove entirely So we have the idea that the
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Lamb of God removes entirely sin from those For whom he dies but Does this mean when it says he takes away the sin of the world does that mean that he pays the penalty for?
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The sin of every person ever born Well, it cannot if it meant that if Jesus was the
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Lamb of God who took away the sin of every person without exception Then why would anyone go to hell?
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The answer is no one would What manner of wickedness would it be for the
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Son of God to pay the price for sin in your place? Only to have the father refuse payment for it.
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That's madness There is no disagreement or disharmony within the Trinity So what does the world mean is?
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It conditional. Is it a conditional payment? No, he absolutely takes away carries away bears away those sins and in fact
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Looking back at the word. You'll notice that it says he takes away The sin of the world and the sin we would expect him to say the sins, but it's not it is singular
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It is one block of sin You say well,
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I've got more than one sin in my book So do you pastor? Yes, I do
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But Jesus paid the price the penalty for sin as one block one time.
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It's a one Time deal he paid it all Jesus paid it all all to him.
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I owe They might be sitting here saying well the John the Baptist really understand all of this when he wrote this
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Or when he said this, you know behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world I don't know if he understood all of it, but I guarantee you who did
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John the Evangelist the man who wrote this inspired by the Holy Spirit I mean what we see is a progressive revelation
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Even those who walked and talked with Jesus who ate breakfast with him every day who listened all his sermons
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They didn't fully understand until after they saw the resurrected Christ and were commissioned by him
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But it's safe to say that again that John the
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Evangelist he understood that so now the last aspect we're going to look about about this
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Lamb is that he is salvific. That is he brings about an actual salvation an actual salvation
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Turn if you will to the back of your Bibles to Revelation chapter 5 Revelation chapter 5 beginning in verse 6 again developing this theme of the lamb and what it means and Between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders.
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I saw a lamb standing as Though it had been slain With seven horns and with seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out to into all the earth and he went and took the scroll from the right hand of him who was seated on the throne and When he had taken the scroll the four living creatures and the 24 elders fell down before the lamb
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Now it doesn't take much thinking to think okay, who would it be? Okay to fall down before You can't worship.
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Just anyone you can only worship God Each holding a harp and golden bowls of incense
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Which are the prayers of the Saints and they sang a new song which is emblematic of God's salvation
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We see that over and over again in the Old Testament saying worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals for you were slain and By your blood you rams
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Ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation.
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That is the world When he takes away the sins of the world, he's talking about people from all over not every single individual but from every tribe and language and people and nation and You have made them a kingdom and priests to our
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God and they shall reign on the earth Then I looked and I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the elders the voice of many angels
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Numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands saying with a loud voice Worthy is the lamb who was slain to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing and I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea and all that is in them saying
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To him who sits on the throne and to the lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever and Again, and the four living creatures said amen and the elders fell down and worshipped
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That's what the lamb of or the death of the lamb accomplished People from every tribe and language and people and nation were ransomed or purchased for God They were redeemed their sins were paid for That's the heavenly picture that's we've kind of looked at the past what a lamb represented and now we see into the future what he actually
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Has accomplished One man said this
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Jesus bears the consequence of human sin in order that its guilt might be removed and that's exactly
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What he did now to the original audience to this Jewish audience the idea that the
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Messiah would have come For more than just the nation of Israel would have been shocking It would have been contrary to what they were taught by the rabbis of that day.
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It's not contrary to the Word of God It's just contrary to the religious traditions of that day now getting back to the text and John and This question whose sins did
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Jesus the Lamb actually removed or remove? again, if it's everyone's if that's what the world means then no one goes to hell if some or As Isaiah says if many
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Then those whose sins he removes right? He lifts them off. He carries them away listen
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Cannot be subject to hell Cannot be subject to hell for he has paid the price for their sin.
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He has redeemed their lives from the pits Some will say maybe even some here today that he removed the sins of everyone
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But those who fail to repent and receive him Those who do not choose of their own free will to choose him
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Their sins will return to them And I can only say with all due love and respect
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There's no condition present in that verb There's no if there's no possible condition in that verb.
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He takes them away. It is effectual The Lamb does not attempt
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Jesus does not attempt to take away the sin of the world He takes it away It cannot be thwarted the will of God is never stopped.
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This is not some kind of tug -of -war. It's not a 50 -50 Situation. It's not a jump ball salvation is of the
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Lord He always goes first and he always redeems the objects of his love without fail.
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I used to teach At our former church a class called fundamentals of the faith and I had a man one day challenged me
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I think it was about the third time. I had gone through the the class and he says, you know what he says
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You always bring up the verses that stress the sovereignty of God and salvation How come you never talk about the free will versus?
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And I said well really that's not true I do talk about the free will versus like we see the effects of free will in Acts 5 with Ananias and Sapphira They exercised their free will and I said to him
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I said, okay, let's go to your freight for your favorite free will verse And it was right about that time that the crickets started chirping and there was
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We have a will We do have a will I want to be clear about that But our will before salvation is enslaved
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In fact, even repentance which we are commanded to accomplish is a gift from God. We know that from 2nd
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Timothy 2 25 God does not repent for us sinners must repent So, how is it that?
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Getting back to John. How is it that Christ can bear away your sins and yet?
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You die in them and are judged and go to hell That cannot be if the
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Lamb bears them away then they have been removed as far as east is from the west John Stott said this
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How then can God and this is important to think about the love versus the holiness of God?
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How then can God express his holiness that is that he hates sin? without consuming us and His love without condoning our sins
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How can God satisfy his holy love how can he save us and satisfy himself simultaneously
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We were play at this point or we reply at this point only that in order to satisfy himself
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He sacrificed indeed substituted himself for us
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That's the gospel that's the gospel Left to our own devices our
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Sin, if we were to stand before God someday and he were to say why should I let you into my kingdom?
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We would say What? We would have nothing We can't merit we can't earn
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Salvation the gospel is that God takes Undeserving wretches those who deserve nothing, but his judgment and hell eternally
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He sent his son Jesus Christ the second person of the Trinity Into this world to live among us to live among sinful people to live a perfect life and then to die a
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Substitutionary effectual death on behalf of all those who would ever believe then he raised him on the third day
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That's the gospel the gospel isn't about Jesus making some kind of Possible payment and then we have to appropriate it by faith
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That is nowhere presented in the gospel and again in this passage. He bears away the sins.
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He carries them away. They're gone No, some of you this morning are hearing this message and thinking well
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How's it possible that these people heard John the Baptist make this proclamation this audience that would have been around him?
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They may have seen Jesus get baptized Certainly throughout the years then they would see the
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Lord's miracles experienced divine wonders and Yet, they didn't believe how is that possible?
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I'd just say is that really so shocking? What was the last week? We talked about people seeing
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That what the ground open up chorus rebellion the ground open up and swallow people in the next day
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What did the Israelites do they were complaining? What do they do after he delivered them out of Egypt they complained?
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The whole book of Numbers wandering around the wilderness for 40 years. Why did it happen because they complained against God the book of Judges It's all about this cycle
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Israel sins Israel is disciplined by the Lord Israel cries out for deliverance The Lord hears their plea and he sends us deliver and then what happens they sin again.
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They commit idolatry again the Bible is not the story of good people who are in need of a little assistance a
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Little nudge a little push It's the story of God Resolutely redeeming his fallen people there are some here this morning who have heard what
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I've said and Intellectually, they agree with me that John the Baptist or about what
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John the Baptist said sure Jesus is the Lamb of God Yes, he takes away the sin of the world. And what are you gonna do about it tomorrow?
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Absolutely, nothing How's it gonna change your life tomorrow? Absolutely nothing. It's gonna do nothing.
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I'm still gonna be unhappy I'm still gonna be fixated about my problems. I'm gonna go to work tomorrow I'm gonna stay at home tomorrow with my kids and I'm gonna think exactly the same thoughts.
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I was thinking today That is not Christianity We are to be transfixed.
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We are to marvel at the Lamb of God who takes away our sins Who died for our sins who died for our plate in our place?
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Friends you think you have troubles I Tell you Christ has overcome the troubles of this world that the afflictions of this life are but a moment's trifle
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Compared to the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus you have one problem sin and If Christ has dealt with it if Christ is born it away
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You should rejoice You should absolutely rejoice God offers one and only one solution
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Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Let's pray
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Our Father in heaven what a great God you are Loving us to the uttermost even sending your son to die on our behalf
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Lord, what a blessing it is to think we don't deserve it There's nothing we could do to make ourselves right with you.
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We are rebels by nature rebels by choice sinners
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But you condescended you loved us and sent your son to redeem us
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You sent this perfect spotless lamb to die in our place Father for those who don't know you for those who don't know
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Christ for those who are not saved today. I Would pray that even today would be the day that they would be so Transfixed by this idea of a lamb who would take away their sins that they would bow the knee
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Father there are many who are not here our friends and family Father, I pray that you would find us faithful to proclaim this lamb that we might say
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When we're with them not complaining about our problems would just say behold look see the