“The Messiah Complex Shunned!”

Well, a good Thursday morning to you. This is Maundy Thursday, as it's called, and tonight at 7 o 'clock we're having a Maundy Thursday service, and I hope you can make it if you're in the Sterling Rock Falls area for this very special service.

You'll be reading a lot of scripture, singing some hymns that are related to that Last Supper night as well as to the crucifixion, commemorating the Lord's Supper together, and all of this will end this evening with the crucifixion of our Lord and his burial.

And that, of course, prepares us for Resurrection Sunday in just a few days. So again, this is a great service. We always enjoy this very sober, but necessary, reminder of our Savior's work. You can make it at 7 o 'clock this evening.

Look forward to you doing so. Well, today we're reading in Joshua chapters 3 and 4, the first chapter of John and Psalm 69. I want to focus on John the Baptist in John chapter 1. Let me ask you this. Have you ever been a part of a church where some of the leadership in the church, maybe the pastor, I hate to say that because I don't want to be disparaging of my calling or anything, but I've seen too much of it myself, where pastors can get a big head and have sort of a Messiah complex, that anybody who's going to get any of their problems in life solved, they have to come through that pastor.

I know of a pastor one time, for example, who demanded that people in his congregation actually get his permission to go away on vacation for the length of time that they were hoping to go away, and so on and so forth.

They had to get his permission if they were going to buy a new car. They thought they needed a new car. He demanded that they go to him for those kinds of decisions that had to be made. That's a guy who thinks way too much of himself and has a Messiah complex.

Well, it would have been easy for John the Baptist to get a Messiah complex. John doesn't tell us this in his gospel, but Matthew does. In Matthew chapter 3, it talks about John the Baptist, who was just clothed in camel's hair and so on and so forth.

It says in verses 5 and 6 that Jerusalem, all Judea, and all the region round the Jordan went out to him and were baptized by him in the Jordan, confessing their sins. You get the impression that that's an awful lot of people that are flocking to John the.

Baptist.

They want to hear what he has to say. They want to do what he tells them to do, to be baptized in the Jordan, and so forth. A guy meets with that kind of success and has that kind of attention, it would be pretty easy for him to get the Messiah complex.

But John 1 tells us that that's not the heart of John. He's a true servant of Christ. The true servant of Christ will reject such notions that he is the Messiah. He is the necessary one, and he will consistently point people to the true Messiah, to the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world.

So we see this in John 1 verse 20, where John confesses and denies that he is the Christ. He says, I am not the Messiah. I am not the Christ. And people are saying, well, who are you then? Are you Elijah?

No, he says, I'm not. Are you the prophet? Speaking of the prophet that Moses prophesied would come that would be like him, he says,.

No.

And they say, well, who are you? And he says, well, I'm just a voice crying in the wilderness, prepare, make straight the way of the Lord. He's just ready to point people to Jesus is the idea. And then in verses 35 and 37, the next day, it says, John stood with two of his disciples and looking at Jesus as he walked, he said, behold, the Lamb of God.

And the two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus. You see what's happening here. John is pointing people to Jesus and turning them away from himself, having them follow.

Jesus.

That's not what a man with a Messiah complex is going to do. He's going to do everything he can to hold on to his crowd, to hold on to his followers. That was the problem, too, with the Pharisees, wasn't it?

Why they got so mad and angry and jealous of Jesus, because the people were flocking to him, flocking to Jesus. And in the same time, they were turning away from what the Pharisees were having to say.

Now, somebody who has a Messiah complex is not going to be a true servant of Christ, not going to point people to Christ. He's going to point fingers to him, point people to himself. Come, you need to be loyal to me.

I'm the one that has the answers to all your needs. I'm the one that can tell you whether you should go on vacation and where, and for how long. I'm the one to tell you what kind of car to buy, how much to spend for it.

You need me to tell you those things. No, not the true servant of Christ. The true servant of Christ says, behold, the Lamb of God takes away the sin of the world. So let's turn our attention to our Savior.

Our Father and our God, we thank you for the Lord Jesus, the Lamb of God, who has dealt with our sin, and I pray that those of us who are claiming to be ministers of his would make less of ourselves and more of him.

We pray it in Jesus' name. All right, well listen, have a good rest of your Thursday, and again, if you can make it to the Maundy Thursday service tonight, I hope you will. We'll look forward to seeing you.

Good day.