When you hear the phrase, Lamb of God, what's that make you think of? How is Jesus like the Lamb of God? What did Jesus do that was like a lamb in the Old Testament? You know what? The people that John was speaking to would not have thought what you just thought. Why? Because what we know about the Messiah and what they expected from the Messiah were two largely different things. Even John appeared to have some doubts as news about Jesus kept trickling in later in John's life. In Matthew 11, verse 2 and 3, it says, now when John heard in prison, John was in prison at the time, about the deeds of Christ, He sent word by his disciples and said to him, are you the one who is to come or shall we look for another? This has got to be the lowest part in anything we're told about John the Baptist. But anyway, John had wrongful expectations of the Messiah, much like everybody else or nearly everybody else at the time. And Jesus wasn't living up to what he expected in a Messiah. When we hear Christ proclaimed as the Lamb of God, we know that it's a messianic term. We immediately think of a sacrifice for our sin. We think of a suffering and sacrificed Savior, and so we should. That's true. The Old Testament had no clear reference like this that the Jewish people would have seen as a clear reference to a Savior being a Lamb of God. We understand Isaiah 53, at least we do very clearly, as speaking of the Messiah, where he was led like a lamb to the slaughter. But this passage at the time would have confused most Jewish readers. They didn't know how to take it. They may not have considered that a Messianic prophecy. I think when John made this proclamation about Jesus, he was saying more than he knew. we probably have a much more accurate understanding of what John said and all the implications than John did. And those listening, they would not have jumped to the conclusions we do when we hear it. They may have simply thought, huh, waiting for a sheep? There's an application point here. What God plans to do for us may not meet up to our expectations of what God will do or should do. But when that's the case, it's only because we don't know what's best for us. And Christ, for sure, does. If God were to meet our expectations, instead of carrying out his plan, if he would submit his his actions to our expectations, we'd find that a bitter disappointment when we were finally able to compare what happened with our plan to what would have happened had he carried out his plan. His plan's always better, no matter how it feels right now. Imagine that Christ had come and defeated the Romans and made Israel the ruling political nation of the world, like most people expect it. What a terrible disappointment that would be for everyone. We would still be lost in our sins and the fix would have only been temporary. How much better it was that the Messiah came to conquer sin and death instead of conquering the Romans. We always do well to trust God and accept his plan, and we waste our time being angry with God. It just displays a prideful self-confidence that says that I know what's better for me than God does. Verse 29, the next day he saw Jesus coming toward him and said, behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. We find more of the story in the other Gospels. Matthew 3, 13 through 17, then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John to be baptized by him. John would have prevented him saying, I need to be baptized by you and do you come to me? But Jesus answered him, let it be so now for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness. And then he consented. And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him. And behold, a voice from heaven said, this is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased." Now this is a little confusing, but at some point before today's text, John had already baptized Jesus. John is now fully aware of who the Messiah is because he saw the sign. He was given some indication evidently prior to baptizing Jesus that was not in the sign because John resisted baptizing Jesus. So either God had told John beforehand, or John just suspected that Christ was the Messiah. Because he held off, he didn't want to baptize Jesus, but he hadn't seen the sign yet until Jesus came out of the water. So we don't exactly know what happened there. But there is no doubt, after John baptized Jesus, John now knows that Jesus was the one that God directly told him about. So John and his disciples are there and John sees Jesus coming. And what does John do? Well, think about this a little bit. What do you do when you know someone important? Isn't there often a little desire to get attention for yourself by hobnobbing with a big shot? There's no doubt that John could have taken advantage of this relationship that way. But there's no sign of self-seeking in John. Everything in his life is pointing people to Jesus and not to himself. He looks at Jesus here. Maybe he points to him. And he says, behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Well, there goes a big portion of the John Baptist followers. There go all of his Facebook likes. There goes his mailing list and his financial donors. There goes his big crowds that come out to see him. Now they'll go to Jesus. And John's telling them to. We've got to admire that attitude. And we might imagine ourselves to be just like John the Baptist. We were talking about this in Sunday school. We might think, boy, I'm just like that. You know, I do the same thing. But what do we choose when talking about Jesus is going to make people like us less? In relationships, as we're talking about Jesus, and we're running it through in our heads, this person isn't going to like Jesus. They're not going to like what I'm going to say, so what am I going to do? What do we do? We show in those situations whether we have John the Baptist attitude or not. Will we point to Jesus at the risk of losing popularity? Will we point to Jesus with the risk of gaining disfavor? John would do that in a heartbeat. He saw his purpose in relationships was to get people to Jesus. How do we see our purpose in relationships? Would we rather have the, you're okay in my book? That kind of camaraderie? Or would we rather they follow Jesus, even if it means thinking less of us? John always picked Jesus. We should think about this the next time we get in a real conversation with an unbeliever. where we recognize here is opportunity. How much are we willing to risk relationally to have them follow Jesus? John the Baptist made it look easy, but it isn't always so easy. So what about this lamb of God? Someone has pointed out an interesting progression of the need for a lamb in Scripture in the Old Testament. So there was a seed that they may have followed, you know, a very adept student of Scripture. First, we read in Genesis 22. Remember the story where Abraham took his son of promise, Isaac, and he took him up to the mountain? And Isaac is watching Abraham prepare a sacrifice, but he's puzzled. Genesis 22, seven says, and Isaac said to his father Abraham, my father, and he said, here I am, son. He said, behold, the fire and the wood, but where's the lamb? Where's the lamb for the burnt offering? And Abraham said, God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son. So they went both of them together. Well, God provided something that day, but he provided a ram, not a lamb. If I understand it properly, he didn't provide a lamb. The name of the place was called God Will Provide. That's the name of it. So we're left with the question that lingers all through the Old Testament. Where is the lamb that God promised? Where is the lamb for the sacrifice that God will provide? then here in our passage we receive the answer. Behold the Lamb of God. Here he is, here is the Lamb that God promised that he would provide to Abraham back on that mountain. But a time's coming when all of those who are saved by this Lamb of God will sing this song. In the four Gospels, the emphasis is after you have trusted in Him, you sing with the heavenly choir, worthy is the Lamb, worthy is the Lamb. That's what we all sing in Revelations 5, 12. Worthy is the Lamb who was slain to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing. So this theme of the Lamb of God runs all through the history of God and his people, even though it would have been difficult to see it as clearly in the Old Testament. So the phrase Lamb of God is found one more time in the book of John, and then the word lamb referring to Jesus is mentioned seven times in Revelation. No other New Testament writer refers to Jesus as the Lamb. at least if I've got that right. So John has been setting the stage for who Jesus is. And this Lamb of God idea is one of the important titles for Jesus. Now, John is gonna string together quite a few titles for Jesus fairly quickly here. Lamb of God in our text, Rabbi in verses 38 and 49, Messiah in verse 41, Son of God in 34 and 49, King of Israel, verse 49, son of man, 51, and him of whom Moses in the law and also the prophet wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph. So John is very, very intentional about glorifying Christ in this story right off the bat. He doesn't want anyone to miss the significance that Jesus is special. Jesus is that one. He is the Messiah. Now, How should we think of Jesus being the Lamb of God? Well, let's look at this first. In Leviticus 1711, it says, for the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you on the altar to make atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that makes atonement by the life. So the principle here is the blood is for a sacrifice, and the sacrifice makes atonement, and the atonement is for sin. Now, the Jewish people would have understood that. Sacrificial lambs were a common feature of the old covenant worship. And we can get pretty specific about that. The Jewish people knew about Abraham's confidence that God would provide a lamb. They understood that. They heard that. And then remember that a lamb was sacrificed every Passover for every family. And there was also a lamb sacrifice every morning and every evening at the temple, still. And this was still going on. So even on the day that John calls out, behold, the lamb of God, a lamb had died that morning for the remission of sins. Another one would die that evening for the remissions of sins. And they all knew that. And that was also sacrificed as a sin offering by individuals, if they could afford it. Sometimes they would use birds, but if they could, they used a lamb. So the Jewish people understood the connection of a lamb to the forgiveness of sins. The Jewish people would have known of this prophecy that we referred to earlier in Isaiah 53, where he was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth, like a lamb that's led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that's before shears is silent, so he opened not his mouth. By oppression and judgment, he was taken away, and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people." So here you have the lamb sacrifice in a person. The person described in Isaiah acted like a lamb being led to a slaughter and his slaughter was because of the sin of his people. And then later we read in Isaiah 53, Verse 11, out of the anguish of his soul, he shall see and be satisfied. By his knowledge shall the one righteous one, the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. So this lamb that suffered for the people's sins will make many to be accounted righteous, and he will take upon himself their sins. We understand that clearly, at least I sure hope we do. That's the Lamb of God. John the Baptist got it perfectly right, even if he may not have understood exactly how, that Jesus was the Lamb of God. Now back to verse 29, who takes away the sin of the world. John may have understood takes away different than we do. We understand that Jesus took them from us into himself so that he could do business with them. John may have understood that Jesus would be a leader who would not abide with wickedness. He would take away that sin. He would make it stop in his kingdom. That's at least a possibility. We aren't sure how John saw it, but we know exactly how we should see it. Even if John's sight might have been a little blurry. You and I understand that Christ took upon himself and suffered the wrath of God so that we could take Christ's righteousness upon ourselves and experience the favor of God. That is how the Lamb of God takes away the sin. Now notice, it says the sin of the world. The sin of the world. We need to think carefully about this. What does this word world mean? How is this used in scripture? Where else do we see this word world used? Where do you see the word world used? And most of us, I would think, would think of John 3, 16, right off the bat. For God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. Okay, there are many that say that the world means everyone, okay? The world means everyone. Christ died for everyone, they say. But that creates a problem in our text, a big problem. Our text says that the Lamb of God takes away the sin of the world. If we're to be consistent in how we apply the word world, we'd have to say Christ died for everyone and Christ took away everyone's sin. How we define the words the world is very important. Because universalism is a logical impossibility by John 3, which is where we find John 3, 16. Because it goes on to say, God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. So is the whole world saved through him? No, whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already because he has not believed in the name of the only son of God. We see here that Christ does not save everyone. He cannot take away the sin of everyone because some are condemned. And if they had their sins taken away, they would not be condemned. He only takes away the sin of those who believes and not everyone believes. So we can logically assume then that whatever the world means, the world, it cannot mean every human being born on the planet, which is a pretty helpful thing when you're discussing this idea of Arminianism versus Calvinism. In the whole context of the Bible, we see the bigger picture. There are people in this world who God is going to call to himself. And there's only one way in this world for a person to be saved. He must go to this world's sin taker. And Christ is the only one who can take away sin. If you are to come to God the Father, you must come through the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Since you live in this world, you have to come to this world sin taker. Also note that John said the sin of the world. It's important that John did not limit that scope. We should be very thankful here. He did not say that he'll take away the sin of the Israelites. He didn't say he'll take away the sin of the Baptists. No, the scope was global. The sin taker has a global ministry. It's not limited by tribes. There are no limitations to the expanse of this ministry. He will save people from all over this world. Verse 30, this is he of whom I said, after me comes a man who ranks before me because he was before me. John's making it clear here that he has identified the Messiah, the eternal Messiah. Now, John used to say, one's coming, and he's a big deal, and you better get baptized. Well, now John's saying, Jesus is that guy that existed prior to being born. Before I was born, he was, and he was born after me. Then John lets us know something interesting. He begins to talk about how he went through the process of discovering who the Messiah was. Verse 31, I myself did not know him, but for this purpose I came baptizing with water that he might be revealed to Israel. John's saying that prior to some recent point, a point where God has revealed the Messiah's identity, John himself did not know who the Messiah was. This doesn't necessarily mean he had never met Jesus. They were cousins, so he may have, but he for sure did not know that Jesus was the Christ until it was revealed, and it was revealed at a very specific time. I think part of what he is saying is that I have not been doing this ministry because cousin Jesus and I worked it out ahead of time. No, I was doing this ministry because God told me to do it, I did it completely apart from the person who would be revealed as the Messiah. I did it because of the position, not because of the person. I did not know who the person was, but I knew what the position meant. My ministry was to prepare people for the Messiah and then reveal who the Messiah is. I baptized a repentance of sin, a plowing up the ground of people's hearts, and we know what that's like, hopefully, of coming to the place in your life where you just surrender it all, and you lay it out clearly, and you confess your sin, and you see your sin for what it is. We go through that on a daily basis, and sometimes we have seasons where we're particularly taken with the dreadfulness of our sin and our need of repentance. But anyway, he was doing that ministry, preparing them to receive the Messiah. And then when the Messiah showed up, John says, I was to point to him and tell everyone, behold, the Lamb of God. He's the one. I can't think of anyone in scripture, other than Jesus himself, who ever did a better job of doing his job than John the Baptist. What an excellent example. Verse 32, and John bore witness, I saw the spirit descend from heaven like a dove and it remained on him. I myself did not know him, but he who sent me to baptize with water said to me, he on whom you see the spirit descend and remain, this is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit. So let's start there with verse 33. So John didn't know who the Messiah was. There had to be some kind of sign so that John would know. And that's what he's emphasizing here. This couldn't be left to perception or intuition. It couldn't be, oh, I feel like that must be. No, God was gonna provide a sign that John could then tell later, I saw it. And there's no mistake in this, because this doesn't happen to everybody. This only happens once. He couldn't just feel that Jesus was the one, there had to be a clear sign. And not only that, we can see from this that God clearly communicated to John the Baptist. How did John know? God told him. Now, I'm often cynical when a person says, God told me. I mean, I usually give them the benefit of the doubt. I think, well, you've got a perception and you think it was from God, and I respect that. Some people seem to be better at discerning that than other people. I don't know. But when they say God told me, I take it with a grain of salt, and he didn't tell me, that's for sure. But with John the Baptist, he would have said, yeah, God spoke to me. I heard it. I heard him with my own ears. This wasn't an internal perception, I don't think. He told me something like this. You're gonna see something like you've never seen before, and this is what it is. The Holy Spirit's gonna come down from the sky and it's gonna remain on the Messiah, and you're gonna be able to see something that makes you think of a dove. The way John reported it, the Holy Spirit descended like a dove and it remained on Jesus. Now, in the movies, they usually make it a dove. So you got this dove fluttering down, landing on Jesus. But that's not what it says. It says it was like a dove. Maybe what he saw flitted back and forth in descent like a dove does. Maybe it made a swift descent and a quick landing like doves do. We don't know. But the descent reminded John of a dove, and it was supposed to. and the Spirit remained on Christ. We don't want to miss this. The Spirit remained on Christ. John was doing something day to day with physical people and physical water. He was taking physical people and he was dumping them under physical water. For many, it was an act displaying something spiritual that was going on in their hearts, but for John, John was just preaching and dunking. Those things are not in and of themselves spiritual, unless they're accompanied with the Holy Spirit. But Jesus was going to have a very different ministry. He had the Holy Spirit remaining on him, and his ministry would be spiritual at the core. The dunking that Christ was going to do was purely otherworldly. He was going to baptize not with water. He was going to baptize in the spirit. Jesus was going to be doing visibly spiritual work. Jesus used the word spirit often in John. You've got to be born again of the spirit. The spirit is like the wind. You can't see it, but you see its effect. It's the spirit who gives life. The spirit of truth dwells in you. My helper, the Holy Spirit. Receive the Holy Spirit. But ultimately, Jesus was going to baptize all the believers in the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. The Holy Spirit, who's already present on planet Earth, or no one would ever come to Christ, was poured out in a way that was brand new. There was a flood of the Holy Spirit that was poured over everyone at Pentecost. And through this empowerment, an instant witness of Christ surrounded that area, and evangelism broke out. And Jesus was the one through whom this wonderful dramatic move of God would happen. It would make the baptism for repentance seem like child's play. Just as much as the person of Christ was so much greater than John the Baptist, so was the ministry of Christ so much greater than the ministry of John the Baptist. And John the Baptist knew it. He knew it, and he appeared to like it that way. Then John says this, John the Baptist, and I have seen and have borne witness that this is the Son of God. John is saying, I saw it. I actually saw it. I saw God give this sign. There was no mistaking it. This was nothing unclear. I saw it. Jesus is the Messiah and I know it. I've testified accordingly. Things are established in Jewish law on the basis of multiple testimonies. We have that, you know, we see that often in the Old Testament scripture. John is saying, I'm one of them. I'm one of those testifiers. If you want to know, is Jesus the Messiah? I testify, he is. Because I saw the sign. And that's good, because that was half of John's calling. He was to make known who the Messiah is. I don't know how we could have a better application than this from our passage. Now, the Lord might provide you with one you need more. He's like that. But man, what a great job John did at doing his job. Here's a man who is doing his work for the primary purpose of pleasing God. And you can see that because he doesn't have any of the selfish stuff that comes out when a person is serving selfishly. We know because John didn't stray from the path in the ways that we might be tempted to stray. And there were lots of them. He didn't fall into the trap of telling Jesus what he ought to be doing. You notice that? He didn't try to use his influence as being a fellow minister to do what Martha or Peter or Jesus' family did. No, John never communicated his expectations in a way that he was expecting Jesus to live up to them. He just accepted Jesus' plan as being the right one, and John accepted his role in that. Oh, he had questions that he needed to ask, but that's the most he did. John did not whine when all the attention was pulled from John and went to Jesus. He didn't even, you know, he didn't say, well, at least I could have got a thank you card. That wasn't in his mindset. John didn't try to maintain his position of prominence. John treated his notoriety like a hot potato, tossing it to Jesus as quickly as he could. That is quite remarkable. John never expected any kind of tribute for all the work that he'd done up to that point. He didn't join the Jesus tour so he could be a guest speaker. And John didn't give up the ministry that he was doing, even though it was already shown to be second rate. I use those words loosely, but it was no longer the importance of Jesus, even after Jesus was revealed. Why? Because God had not told him it was time to quit. John's quitting time would come after a girl dances for a political big shot, and he probably didn't see that one coming. John never gave up to the allure of popularity and importance. Even when the religious leaders showed up, he was always the same guy. He never kowtowed to big shots, but he preached the same message of repentance in preparation for the Messiah, and he told everyone who the Messiah was. So what job has God given you to do? We know there are plenty in Scripture, plenty of tasks that we're assigned, we know that. Will we do the jobs that we've been given in the selfless kind of way, not looking for a payoff with people's applause and people's acceptance? Will we do that job the way John the Baptist did? Simply because God told us to do it and pleasing him is good enough. Why should we? Jesus is worthy of all worship. and worship is living in a way that shows worth to God. That's where John the Baptist came from. That's where we should be coming from as well. He must increase, I must decrease. May we all go from here and proclaim that Jesus is the Lamb of God, like John the Baptist did, in the same attitude, as he had. Let's close in prayer. Lord, we thank you so much for your kindness