We will turn to the scriptures, to John chapter one, and we'll be taking a look at a very important figure, and very specifically, something that this important figure said, and this is John the Baptist. He is attested to in all four of the Gospels, and we wanna answer some questions about it. First of all, who is this guy that he's featured in all four Gospels? Why is his ministry so important? And why did he call Jesus the Lamb of God? And those are very important things, critical to our faith, the answers to those things. And it all has to do with what John put forth as his purpose in John chapter 20 when he said, these things are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. So the occurrence of John the Baptist and his gospel, the featuring of him at the beginning of it, is intended that we would believe and that we would have eternal life. So it's very critically important and we're going to enjoy it. So far in the prologue, in the first 18 verses of chapter one, we looked at Jesus as the word, how he's that preexistent word through whom everything was made. We saw that he is the only son of God, and we saw that he is the light of the world. And all these things designed to help us believe, to encourage our faith, to strengthen us in the knowledge of who he is so that we can be saved. Now, John is a short book. If you really look at it, it's only 21 chapters. As far as books go, in our modern reckoning of books, he spends a great deal of time on John the Baptist, almost a chapter. And so it's worth a very good look at what he does and see how he fits in, and see how this will help us to believe. So we're gonna start in chapter one, and we're going to start at verse 19. And it starts like this. And this is the testimony of John. When the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, who are you, he confessed and did not deny, but confessed, I am not the Christ. And they asked him, what then? Are you Elijah? He said, I am not. Are you the prophet? And he answered, no. So they said to him, who are you? We need to give an answer to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself? And he said, I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness. Make straight the way of the Lord, as the prophet Isaiah said. Now they had been sent from the Pharisees. They asked him, then why are you baptizing if you are neither the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the prophet? John answered them, I baptize with water, but among you stands one you do not know. Even he who comes after me, the strap of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie. These things took place in Bethany across the Jordan where John was baptizing. The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him and said, behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. This is he of whom I said, after me comes a man who ranks before me because he was before me. I myself did not know him, but for this purpose I came baptizing with water, that he might be revealed to Israel. 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. And I have seen and have borne witness that this is the Son of God. The next day again, John was standing with two of his disciples, and he looked at Jesus as he walked, And he said, behold, the Lamb of God. The two disciples heard this, heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. Let's pray. Father God, we thank you and praise you for bringing us together in this word, this time to meet, this time to worship you. We pray, Lord, that now you make yourself known through your scriptures. Help us to understand the role of John and how it helps us to believe. We thank you in Jesus' name, amen. Okay, so here we have John the Baptist. Here we have many things we could learn from him, but we wanna answer two basic questions first. Who was John and why did he call Jesus the Lamb of God? And so if we look at this, who was John the Baptist? The first thing we wanna understand was, well, he was a prophet from the line of priests. You can read about him in Luke chapter 1. You can read about his father being approached by an angel in the holy place and the announcement being made, you're going to have a son and he's going to be this voice crying in the wilderness. And it's interesting that the role of priest was to teach the people of Israel, the law of God, not only were they serve at the temple and to make sure that everybody was following the things that God had ordained for worship, but they were also to be the instructors. And when you read Luke chapter one, you read about what John was to do and who he was going to be. And the things that his father said regarding him are very profound in describing what his ministry is. He preached in the Jordan River, baptizing people for repentance. And as I mentioned before, he's mentioned in all four Gospels. He's also mentioned in the Book of Acts. And so the question comes, then why was John necessary? Why was it necessary for this God John to come? And this is something that I didn't really understand as a child, when I was a child and I was in church, You know, those interim years between being a child and the Lord bringing me into the fold, it didn't really matter to me. But when I was a child, I'm like, you know, all the Gospels, they talk about this guy John. I really don't understand why he's even there. And then as you look back on it, and I studied the Gospels and everything else, you realize other than Jesus, John's spoken about more than anyone else in the Gospels. And so I find that to be profound, because we always think, oh, who are the big characters other than Jesus in the Gospels? Oh, there's Pilate. He plays a big role. There's the king. Of course, there's Peter. A lot is said about Peter. He's always speaking up. And he's got quite a bit of material dedicated to him in John. And yet John the Baptist holds more text than the rest of them. And I think this is profoundly important, but the question still remains, why then is he necessary? Well, I can think of at least four reasons. First of all, he fulfilled the role prophesied to precede the Messiah. And this is what we find in John 1, verse 23. where it says this, he says, I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, make straight the way of the Lord, as the prophet Isaiah said. So he is quoting from Isaiah chapter 40, a very key chapter, and we'll see why that's important later, and he was to point the way to Jesus, his self-described job. He says it again in verse 31, this way, I myself did not know him, but for this purpose I came baptizing with water, that he might be revealed to Israel." And we even have an account in the other Gospels that as his disciples met Jesus after Jesus had been baptized and his ministry became public, he encouraged his disciples to follow after Jesus instead. He said, he's the one that's important, he's the one that must increase, I myself must decrease. And John is so important to this pointing the way to Jesus that John calls him in his prologue, the light. He says, there was a man sent from God whose name was John, came as a witness to bear witness about the light that all might believe. He was not the light, but he came to bear witness about the light. And it's John who bore witness about it. He who comes after me ranks before me because he was before me. Now that might not seem like an interesting saying, But for those that knew John and those that knew Jesus, they understood the order of things. And you'll find it in the book of Luke, that John is older than Jesus by about six months. And yet John says, he came before me. Therefore, he takes preeminence. And so even John understood this to some extent, that Jesus was this preexistent word. Now he was to fulfill these prophecies, and he was to fulfill these prophecies to show that God was working. Here's Isaiah chapter 40 in verse three. It says, a voice cries in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. And you say, okay, that's an interesting kind of saying, But to understand where it falls is so critical. When you read the book of Isaiah, you can't help but feel like you're reading this book about all the coming judgment and hints of a coming restoration and improvement of Jerusalem and the nations being brought in and many wonderful things. And then you get to these narrative portions where God delivers the people from Assyria, but right on its heels, the next problem is on the horizon in its battle. And those are chapters 37 through 39. But then all of a sudden, I almost said the gospel of Isaiah. It really is. I believe there's a book entitled that, The Gospel According to Isaiah. But the book of Isaiah takes this turn at chapter 40, and look how it begins. Chapter 40, it says, comfort, comfort my people, says your God. OK, we just learned about how the Assyrians nearly totally destroyed the southern kingdom. They destroyed everything except for Jerusalem. They completely destroyed the northern kingdom. And then were revealed that Babylon is eventually going to come, destroy them, and take them out of the land, too. And so chapter 40 is kind of a shock, because it says, comfort, comfort, my people. Calm down. Hold on. Don't despair. There's good news. And then comes this voice crying out in the wilderness. Her warfare has ended. Her iniquity is pardoned. She has received from the Lord's hand double for all her sins. He's speaking of a time in which sin will be atoned for. Sin will be done. It will be paid for. It will be accomplished. And there'll be a restoration. There'll be an end of war. And then we have this, and God puts this here by the prophet Isaiah for John the Baptist to take up later. He says, I want them to know when that time has come, and that time has come when John the Baptist comes. There's another prophecy that refers to him, and it confuses people here in Malachi 4, 5. And as we saw, they asked John the Baptist straight up, are you Elijah? And he answered, no, because he's literally not. Now, Jesus does tell the disciples when they ask about John and his ministry and things, he says, if you're willing to accept it, he is the Elijah that's to come. Well, how do we understand that? Well, first of all, we take that part of our brain that's been molded and shaped by the culture we've been immersed in for about 300 years, that totally naturalistic side of us that really doesn't understand imagery or poetry or anything, And we shut that down for a second, and we look back here in the Old Testament where it mentions it, to Malachi chapter four, verse five, where the Lord says, behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. And we understand that in the prophets, very often things are spoken of as a type of something, as a representative of something, as a symbol of something. So they asked John the Baptist, are you Elijah? He's like, no, because he literally wasn't, but he symbolically absolutely was. When you think about it, you chase down the parallels. We don't have time to do it here. We'll probably do it in the evening session. He dressed like Elijah the prophet. He ministered where Elijah the prophet ministered. He said some of the things Elijah the prophet said, and he even got in trouble with the king, like Elijah the prophet was always in trouble. There's many fascinating parallels. But if you ask John the Baptist, are you Elijah the prophet? Well, no, he's not. Is his life and his position a lot like Elijah the prophet? Absolutely. And look what it says in verse 6, that his ministry was, he will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction. In other words, I'm going to teach people to look back to the beginning. And I wanna teach people to care about the future through this guy who is the voice of one crying in the wilderness. He was a prophet, and that is something important for us to understand. He indeed was a prophet. and he called people to repentance. And interesting, the prophet is a similar role to the priest in that the priest was the intercessor for the people. The prophet spoke for God to the people. The prophet often educated the people, reminded them of what God had spoken before. And a great deal of the role of a prophet was to call the people to repentance, to call the people of Israel back to faithfulness to their covenant. That is a call of repentance. Ezekiel and Jeremiah, interestingly, were also priests, but they were also prophets. And in chapter one, verse 23, John made it very clear where he said, I'm the voice of one, make straight the way of the Lord. When he said, I'm the one who's supposed to reveal Jesus to the world. And sure enough, he does. And he points to Jesus, and he endorses Jesus, and he baptizes Jesus. And Jesus does what? Jesus comes, he starts preaching the same thing. The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel. So John the Baptist is a prophet. He's to pave the way for Jesus. He's to fulfill the prophecies that point at, yeah, this is the time when you ought to be expecting major, major things. And that's why he was kind of the trigger to get everyone's attention. Look, God said major things are coming on the first sign. And he's also gives this link between the Old Testament orthodoxy and tradition to Jesus. And he serves as a slave because he's truly the last Old Testament prophet, because he obeys the law. He strictly adheres to the law. And when we do research on John the Baptist, who he was and where he lived, it looks like he was part of a community of Jews that were particularly faithful. They saw through the nonsense of some of their leadership. They saw through the nonsense of the illegitimate king they had on the throne, and they were faithful to God through the Torah. And so John is that link then because now he says, okay, and this is Jesus and y'all gotta listen to him. And we know Jesus just radically turns everything if Jesus had shown up without this link without this 1 who was a respected and known profit. then it would have been like, well, this guy's just on his own out here. He's just gone off the rails. And it's like, yeah, but they would have understood in the time. Yeah, but John the Baptist said he was important, said he was the guy who really deserves a hearing, if for no other reason than John. So some of the reasons of John the Baptist. Another one was he came to establish another witness to Jesus' claims. And this is where we want to really take a look at the scriptures here, and something Jesus says about John the Baptist. He says this in John chapter 5, starting in verse 30. He's talking about doing the Father's will. He says, I can do nothing on my own, as I hear I judge, and my judgment is just, because I seek not my own will, but the will of Him who sent me. If I alone bear witness about myself, my testimony is not true. Now, he's appealing to something in the Israelite law here. In the Israelite law, when it came to their civil law and how they're going to keep order and how they're going to do court, they said all facts must be established by two or more witnesses. Now, our law code was designed much the same, but if you've paid attention the last several years, the last probably 40, 50 years, we don't adhere to that so much. We'll rely on other evidences, we'll rely on other things, and ultimately that's why we end up with so many people falsely incarcerated. He comes and he appeals to this. I can't bear witness by myself on my own. I've gotta have someone else back up my testimony. And then he lays on them several so that there's not just two, there's many, because look how he says this in verse 32. There is another who bears witness about me, and I know that the testimony that he bears about me is true. You sent to John, and he's borne witness to the truth. Not that the testimony that I receive is from man, but I say these things so that you may be saved. He was a burning and shining lamp, and you were willing to rejoice for a while in his light. But the testimony that I have is greater than that of John." So he appeals to John as that first-line witness. He's my other human witness. I say and he said. But then he begins to add things that he calls greater. The testimony I have is greater for the works that the Father has given me to accomplish. The very works that I am doing bear witness about me that the Father has sent me. And the Father who sent me has himself borne witness about me. His voice you have never heard, his form you've never seen, and you do not have his word abiding in you, for you do not believe the one whom he has sent. And so he appeals not just to John, he appeals to the works he's doing, he appeals to the father who actually did speak from heaven on behalf of Jesus at the baptism with John also present. And then he appeals to another witness and that is the scriptures themselves. You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life. And so you see, John is prominent among the witnesses, the things that bear witness to Jesus Christ. It was his sole purpose to point the way to Jesus, and his ministry was so widespread and so influential that he's even mentioned by the Jewish secular historian Josephus. Or John the Baptist is mentioned, and he's given as much text as Jesus. And so these are profound and important truths of why he came. And when we read the gospels and we're confronted with John up front, we understand, okay, this is important. This is our link to the Old Testament. This is the fulfillment of prophecy that God set up. Hey, this is gonna come at that time of comfort. This is going to come in the great and terrible day of the Lord. This one is going to bear witness about what is to come. So why did he call him the Lamb of God? Why call him the Lamb of God? Well, first of all, there's general biblical imagery to be conveyed here. And there's two basic ways that lambs were used in the Old Testament to give us a sign of something. The first is a lamb was used because of their nature, because of the way they act, to convey gentleness or dependence or innocence. And you'll notice that when it speaks of the people, that they're spoken of as sheep because they have a tendency to go astray. They need constant tending. They need constant help. We love Psalm 23, the Lord is my shepherd, which puts us in a position of a lamb or a sheep that ought to be following after him. And these are important images. But some of those images also point to Christ, like Isaiah chapter 53. Verse seven, as we read this morning, he was oppressed, he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth, like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. He did not protest about going to the cross. He did not set a defense for himself in front of the others. He occasionally pointed out something they were doing wrong, but he did not defend himself. And so he fulfilled this scripture. Also in Acts chapter eight, verse 32, says this about him, the passage of scripture that the man was reading, the Ethiopian eunuch was going down the road and the Lord sent Philip down there to explain this to him. What's he reading? He's reading from Isaiah 53. Like a sheep that was led to slaughter. And that's mentioned in the book of Acts. So that's one aspect in which he fulfills this Lamb of God motif. But the more important one, and the one that most people talk about, is the idea of sacrifice, that he was going to be used in sacrifice of some kind. Now, when are lambs important in sacrifice? Well, they're important in places like Genesis chapter 22, where Abraham offers Isaac, and we're tipped off by the New Testament that, hey, this is a picture of Jesus. In fact, the book of Hebrews assigns to Isaac the name Monogenes. We talked about that's the word for the only son, or the one-of-a-kind son. And so this is a picture of Jesus, and in verse 7, when we take a look at that, As they're going up the mountain to the sacrifice, Isaac says, my father, here I am, my son. He said, behold the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offer? They understood this would be an appropriate offering to God, would be a lamb. I don't see one here. Maybe Isaac's getting a clue what's going on at that point, because the Lord had told Abraham, go and sacrifice your son, your monogamist, your only son, up there on the mountain that I show you. So they go up the mountain. And what happens? Well, as he's about to strike his son, Abraham lifted up his eyes, and an angel shows up and says this. The angel of the Lord called to him from heaven. He said, Abraham, Abraham. He's literally, he's raised the knife. He's ready to do the deed. And he says, here I am. And he said, do not lay your hand on the boy. or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, seeing you've not withheld your son, your only son, from me." So Abraham looks and what's happening? A ram, which is a grown-up lamb, caught in the thicket. A grown-up male literally takes the place of Isaac. And we're given this beautiful picture of Christ being crucified in our place. Another place people's minds go to when they're studying the Bible and they're trying to understand this idea of Him being the Lamb of God, a natural place to go is Exodus chapter 12. In Exodus chapter 12, you know the story, the people have been in Egypt. The Lord begins to send Moses, and he sends curses upon the people of Egypt, saying, let them out of the land. And Moses keeps going to Pharaoh, let my people go. And he keeps refusing or changing his mind on his offer. I'll let you go and sacrifice. No, never mind. And the final judgment that comes upon them is the death of the firstborn for anyone who does not slaughter a lamb and paint the blood of that lamb on their doorposts. Think that's a picture of Christ? The one who brings eternal life, the one who faith in him brings life? Because think about it, it took faith to follow the instructions the Lord gave to the people. What's gonna happen tonight is something's gonna happen in which all the firstborn, both men and animals in the land of Egypt is going to die, unless you paint the blood of a lamb on your doorpost. So you're thinking to yourself, okay, come on, this is kind of crazy. How's the blood on the... How's this gonna stop this judgment? But yet, it took an act of faith. I don't know, we better do it. Moses said, Aaron said, we'll do it. Another place people go is to Leviticus. And Leviticus, and in general, in Exodus of Leviticus, over 80 times a lamb is mentioned in the sacrificial system that they were given. Some of these sacrifices were for sin. Some of these sacrifices were for other reasons. But nevertheless, the picture of a lamb being sacrificed on behalf of the sins of the people was something so clear to the people who received this that when John says the lamb of God, what had to have crossed their mind was lamb. Why, we thought Messiah was going to be this king. We thought he was going to be a conqueror to come and throw the Romans off and take over the nations. And all the nations are supposed to flow to him and everything else if they understood the Bible. How is it that he's a lamb? Nevertheless, John says it. And nevertheless, the New Testament picks up on it. He is this lamb of God, according to John, who takes away the sins of the world. So when he connects this lamb idea with taking away sins, now he has made crystal clear to his observers, to his listeners, to his disciples, this is very clearly a sacrifice for sin. Peter looks back on it like this when he speaks of the giving of Christ. He says, with precious blood of Christ. Well, what with the precious blood of Christ? Let's back up a little bit. He says, you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. Paul says it in the first letter to the Corinthians in chapter five. He speaks about cleaning house, so to speak, because there was a lot of sin and a lot of strife and a lot of difficulty in that church. And he says, you got to go in there like it's Passover, because you remember the Lord told him at Passover, you go into house, you take all the yeast out of the house, all the leaven out of the house. He was making it as a sign for the people representing sin. Yeast represents sin. Let's get it all out of here. And then Paul picks up on that. He says, you know what? He says, your boasting's not good. Do you know that little leaven, that is yeast for bread, leavens the whole lump? Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump. I've been called a lump before, but not a new lump. That's a Paul thing. He calls us a new lump. As you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. There he calls him very clearly, the Passover lamb. So Paul's pointing to chapter 12 of Exodus. He is the lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world, and lamb imagery is used for Jesus, as we saw here, we saw it in Peter, we saw it in the book of Acts, where it's picking up on this idea in Isaiah 53. And interestingly, and here's something you really ought to be paying attention to. Because remember, we said, where was it that he was mentioned as the lamb? Well, it was in Isaiah 40, which is really key to a turning to a new activity by God to bring the great restoration, to bring all things to fulfillment. It's all downhill after that. You've reached the top of the roller coaster. And it's all let loose when this one comes, who's the voice of the one crying in the wilderness. And it's all downhill and excitement from there. He's also mentioned in Isaiah chapter 53, which is about the suffering servant of God, the one who's going to precipitate all this, the one who's going to do all this. And when else is this one John the Baptist mentioned? He's mentioned in Malachi chapter 4, verse 5. And if you know the sorting out of your Bible and you have kind of an idea and you've studied it before, the entire Bible was put together and originally written and inspired and everything prior to the exile into Babylon. And during the exile in Babylon, we have just a few pieces of work. We have Ezekiel, and we have Esther, and we have a couple other things. And then after the exile, there's only a few books that take place between the time of God bringing them back to Israel, to Jerusalem, and the time that comes when Jesus comes. And that was three prophets and three books of history. Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther are the three books of history. Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi. All after they were brought back to the land. Why is that important? Because being brought back to the land and this restoration of Jerusalem, the rebuilding of the temple, and the rebuilding of the city walls was all wrapped up in everything God said he was going to do. from that moment forward, the final judgment, the total restoration of Jerusalem, complete world peace and ending to all wars, the nations coming to the Jews for salvation. All these things were wrapped up in that. But once they get settled back in the land, Once the temple's rebuilt, once the walls are rebuilt, he sends this last prophet. It's the last book in your Old Testament, and it truly is the last one that was inspired by God until Jesus came. And he sends this guy Malachi, and this guy Malachi says all this great stuff's going to happen... later. But first I'm going to send the Elijah. And John shows up. dressing like him, ministering like him, stomping the same ground Elijah stomped, stepping on the same toes that Elijah stepped on. And they should have seen it. But you know what one place in the New Testament speaks of Jesus as a lamb more than any other? As we're so familiar with Jesus being the Lamb of God, do you realize in the Gospels there's only two places that he's ever called the Lamb of God? That's here in John chapter 1. What other place in the New Testament describes him as the Lamb of God, and it does it way more? The book of Revelation. So let's think about what that tells us. In Revelation chapter 5, verse 6, it says this. Between the throne and the four living creatures. And among the elders I saw a lamb standing, as though it had been slain, with seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent down into all the earth." And this is very clearly Jesus. When you read on, this is clearly Him. And 28 times in total, the Book of Revelation assigns to Jesus a description of lamb. Only the images of him in the Book of Revelation are not this quiet, you know, guy that came the first time, the one who, you know, didn't lift his finger against anyone, didn't even defend himself. No, the Lamb is terrifying in the Book of Revelation. Terrifying to those who don't believe, worshipped by those saints that are in heaven. And what that should tell us is the same thing it told us when John the Baptist came. The fact that the Bible, if they really examined it, if they really looked at this guy, Messiah, and when and how he's going to come, they would have seen all of a sudden there's going to be this voice of one crying in the wilderness, that he's going to come like Elijah came, and he's going to tell us things, and then is going to come everything else. It's just going to tumble forward and happen. And how much more, when we get to the New Testament, we have the New Testament open with him, with John the Baptist, that we get to the Book of Revelation and we see the Lamb again, referred to over and over, do we understand things are going to happen rapidly at his return? This is so important for us to understand because he fulfilled those key Old Testament passages and the images of Lamb that we talked about. And what happens here is John clearly intends, John the Baptist and John the Apostle writing the gospel, both clearly intend to connect Jesus to a sacrifice for sins. The word that we use for that is atonement. And atonement is way too big a topic to cover here, except to say He is the Lamb of God. He laid down His life for the sins of the world. All those who believe will be saved. And he did it without a fuss. He did it without a big fuss. He came and he preached what he preached and he stirred things up for a little while and everything else, but he didn't gather armies, he didn't break down the walls of the city, he didn't gather together nations for battle. He laid down his life, taking the place of those who believe in him. just as the ram took the place of Isaac on that altar on the same mountain in the time of Abraham. So Jesus took our place on that mountain for sins. He's provided all that's necessary for salvation. And by submitting to John's baptism, Jesus realized he was... See, John was baptizing for repentance. Jesus never sinned. He had no need for repentance. He didn't need to go to John and say, gee, I'm really sorry. I've not been a Messiah. I should be. I'm trying, but it's just falling short. But I repent of that. Why don't you baptize me? No, he comes to John, and John says, no, no, no. I should be baptized by you. And Jesus says, no, let's do this to fulfill all righteousness. So John does. And that's when he sees the Spirit descend visibly upon him like a dove and rest upon him. You know what Jesus was doing? I'm going down in the water, just like one of you. I'm going to be thinking about sins. I'm going to be thinking about all that has gone wrong. When we go down the water, we think about what we've done wrong. When he went down the water, he thought about all the things the world's done. He was identifying with us. And when we take baptism, we affirm that. We say, yes, I identify with him. Paul says in his death and his resurrection, and just as he came and identified with us taking a baptism, he didn't need to take. He began to walk at that point as one who was going to ultimately take our place under the wrath of God. He puts no qualifiers on what he's done. other than faith. There's no sinner too low. There's no righteous person too high. There's no socioeconomic boundary. There's no ethnicity. There's no age. There's no boundary whatsoever to those who would come by faith to Him. He is the one. And for someone to do something with us, for us, on our behalf, requires two things. It requires willingness and ability. And he was the one who was willing to lay down his life. And he had the ability to take it back up again and therefore give life to whoever will believe in him. And so when we come to Him, we come to Him realizing, I'm lacking, I'm not a very good person, I don't know if I can walk the way I should as a Christian and everything else. Yes, but this One who has the power to raise you from the dead again, He's going to put that same Spirit within you to help you overcome whatever it is you think disqualifies you. And if you think something disqualifies you, from being a believer in Jesus Christ and from following him, you have just raised your judgment above his. Because he put no such boundary, just faith in him. Let's pray. Father God, we understand that you are under no obligation. to make any other way to know you. For Jesus has paid the ultimate price, that he has provided a way of salvation that is open to all people. There is no other name under heaven by which to be saved. So we call upon the name of Jesus. I pray, Lord, that you would minister to all of us now to receive this teaching with gladness, receive the life offered by Jesus Christ through faith. And I pray, Lord, that you'll help us take that next step with you, understanding that Jesus came, that he bore the sins, that he trudged through this earth, that he faced rejection, and he faced difficulty. And yet he didn't sin himself. So he demonstrated his willingness and He has the right and authority to take up life and give it to whom He will. Help us understand these things, Lord, for we are spiritually weak, but Jesus is strong. Send the Spirit to give us understanding, to take us to the next step in our faith, to bring us into a better realization of who Jesus is and better walk with Him. I pray, Lord, You'll accomplish these great things, as You have so promised in Your Word. And according to your gracious will, we praise you and thank you in Jesus' name, amen.