Our Scripture readings this morning, a little bit different than in your bulletin, from Jeremiah chapter 25, and then Mark chapter 6, where we'll find our text for this morning. So, Jeremiah chapter 25. A passage that reminds us that the prophets of God, historically, from the people of God have received a bitter and harsh treatment. Hear now the reading of God's Word. The Word that came to Jeremiah concerning all the people of Judah. In the fourth year of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, which was the first year of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, which Jeremiah the prophet spoke to all the people of Judah and to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying, From the thirteenth year of Josiah the son of Ammon, king of Judah, even to this day, this is the twenty-third year in which the word of the Lord has come to me, and I have spoken to you rising early and speaking, but you have not listened. And the Lord has sent to you all His servants, the prophets, rising early and sending them. But you have not listened, nor inclined your ear to hear. They said, Repent now, everyone, of his evil way and his evil doings, and dwell in the land that the Lord has given to you and your fathers forever and ever. Do not go after other gods to serve them and worship them, and do not provoke me to anger with the works of your hands. I will not harm you, yet you have not listened to me, says the Lord, that you might provoke me to anger with the works of your hands to your own hurt." Turn now in the Gospel of Mark. Gospel of Mark chapter 6, and I'll begin reading at verse 14. Now King Herod heard of him, that is Jesus, for his name had become well known. He said, John the Baptist is risen from the dead, and therefore these powers are at work in him. Others said it is Elijah, and others said it is the prophet, or like one of the prophets. But when Herod heard, he said, this is John, whom I beheaded. He has been raised from the dead. For Herod himself had sent and laid hold of John and bound him in the prison for the sake of Herodias, his brother Philip's wife, for he had married her. Because John had said to Herod, it is not lawful for you to have your brother's wife. Therefore Herodias held it against him and wanted to kill him, but she could not. For Herod feared John, knowing that he was a just and holy man, and he protected him. And when he heard him, he did many things, and he heard him gladly. Then an opportune day came when Herod, on his birthday, gave a feast for his nobles, the high officers and the chief men of Galilee. And when Herodias' daughter herself came in and danced and pleased Herod, and those who sat with him, the king said to the girl, Ask me whatever you want, and I will give it to you. He also swore to her, whatever you ask me, I will give you up to half my kingdom. So she went out and said to her mother, what shall I ask? And she said, the head of John the Baptist. Immediately she came in with haste to the king and asked, saying, I want you to give me at once the head of John the Baptist on a platter. And the king was exceedingly sorry. Yet because of the oaths and because of those who sat with him, he did not want to refuse her. Immediately the king sent an executioner and commanded his head to be brought. And he went and beheaded him in the prison, brought his head on a platter, and gave it to the girl. And the girl gave it to her mother. When his disciples heard of it, they came and took away his corpse and laid it in a tomb. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever. Let's offer up prayer one more time to the Lord. O gracious Father in heaven, we acknowledge before you that because of sin, because of the curse, because of the weakness of our own flesh, We are unable to understand, to comprehend Your Holy Word, for Your Word tells us so. We pray, O Lord, that You would give us understanding this morning, that You would open up Your Word to us, and that Your Word would be to us sweet to the taste, that we would delight not only in the hearing of your word, but that we would delight in you through the hearing of your word. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. What kind of life should we, as the followers of Jesus Christ, expect in this world? It's an interesting question, isn't it? What kind of life should we expect What kind of life should we be anticipating? In other words, what does the normal Christian life look like? Some think of the Christian life as a life without problems, without suffering, a life of health, wealth, and prosperity. Others go to the other extreme and think of suffering and affliction as a means of earning salvation. Neither of those two views is true, but the Bible gives us a very different view, doesn't it? A very different view of the normal Christian life. The Gospel, the Gospel that was taught, that was revealed even in the Old Testament, the New Testament tells us that it was preached beforehand to Abraham. The Gospel confronts us with two apparently contradictory truths. The first truth is that salvation is absolutely free and it cannot be earned. Salvation is absolutely free and we can do nothing whatsoever to earn or to deserve salvation. The second truth is that discipleship following the Lord Jesus Christ is costly. It's costly, and sometimes it's costly even to the point of physical death. Our Savior Himself exemplified that for us. So we come to the narrative in the Gospel of Mark as we've been making our way in an expository way through this gospel. We've come to the narrative of the death of John the Baptist. And as we read this, we might be tempted to think that the death of John the Baptist is not normative. In other words, John is a prophet, he's called the greatest of the prophets, and what happened to him is something that happened to him, not something that I should look to as a pattern for my own experience in the Christian life. Perhaps it's instructive, but of course not every Christian is called to be a martyr, which is true. But that statement is actually a one-dimensional cardboard cutout of the Christian experience. Why do I say that? I say that because what Mark is teaching in this passage, what I hope that we will see, is that John's death is instructive for us precisely because it is normative. Precisely because it is a pattern for the Christian life. We're going to see that hopefully more clearly as we focus on three things. First, the world's confusion about Jesus and the Gospel. The second, the world's intolerance of Jesus and the gospel. And thirdly, the world's treatment of those who identify with Jesus and the gospel. That's you and me. So let's look first at the world's confusion. And the truth is, is that the world is confused about Jesus. Do you remember how Mark's gospel begins? It begins with the ministry of John the Baptist. John the Baptist was the forerunner of Jesus. He was sent by God as a herald of the gospel. He came preaching a baptism of repentance. He came preaching the gospel of the kingdom, the same gospel that Jesus himself would later preach. His mission was to prepare the way for Jesus by preparing the hearts of God's covenant people who had been ostensibly, up until that time, waiting for the Messiah. So Mark introduces John the Baptist with some of the very last words of the Old Testament. You remember how he does that? Mark chapter 1. Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way before you. The voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Where does that come from? It comes from some of the very last pages of the Old Testament, the book of Malachi, at least the Old Testament as we would structure it in our Bibles. The Hebrew Bible actually ends with the book of 2 Chronicles, interestingly. But the point is that there had been a gap. There had been a gap of 400 years. There had been no prophecy. And now suddenly an announcement is being made, a kingdom is being heralded, and the king is on his way. And so here in the section of Mark's gospel that we've come to in Mark chapter 6, we've come again to another of Mark's sandwich stories. Children, you'll remember this. I've mentioned it several times already because Mark uses this device several times in his gospel, doesn't he? A sandwich story is simply an interruption by the gospel writer in a story that he's already telling in order to tell another story. So the larger story in which this story is present are the outside ends of the sandwich. And this story is the middle of the sandwich. And so this passage is an interruption to Mark's reporting of the success of Jesus's ministry in Galilee. Remember last time in the preaching of the word, we looked at the commissioning of the apostles. And the apostles went out and they did the works of Jesus Christ in the power of the spirit and had great success. They were doing the very works that Jesus himself had done in order to confirm the message that Jesus preached. And so this passage is an interruption to the narrative about the success of the mission of the apostles. And Jesus, as we will see here, is already well known. He's been preaching in Galilee, Galilee being the northern part of Israel. Judah in the south, and then Galilee or Samaria in the north. He's become well known. His fame, you remember his fame, has spread throughout all Galilee. People have come to understand that a great man has been doing great things. He's been preaching things that we've never heard before with an authority that we've never heard them preach before. And He's been doing works that we've never seen before. He's been healing the sick. He's been raising the dead. He's been healing lepers. He's been showing compassion in a way that we've never seen it shown before. Demonstrating to us the very compassion of our God. So now Mark returns to this point by introducing a flashback. Flashback, you know, you know what a flashback is it's it's when suddenly you're perhaps you're watching a movie or television show and suddenly You're in the midst of something that happened before you're seeing something else that gives context to the portion that you're watching right now and Jesus's ministry is has not escaped the notice of the rich and powerful. That's one of the things that we're gonna learn here in this flashback, going back to something that has happened previously to the sending out of the apostles. Jesus's ministry during that time as the word of God was going out and as miracles were being done and as his fame was spreading throughout Galilee, Jesus has become known not only to the common people, but he has become known even in the halls of power. King Herod, if we look at verse 14, heard of him, for his name had become well known. Well, who's King Herod? There are several Herods in the Bible, and so it can sometimes be confusing as you're trying to figure out who is this Herod and who is that Herod. Well, the name of Herod, you can rest assured, is always synonymous with one thing. opposition to Jesus Christ and the gospel. Herod the Great ruled Judea on behalf of Rome at the time of Jesus' birth. It's called the great because he was very well known. In the Bible he's known particularly for one thing, the massacre of the children under age two in the city of Bethlehem because Herod could not tolerate any claim to any throne that might, he could not tolerate a claim to the throne. which he believed the idea of Jesus' kingship was. And so when Herod the Great died, his kingdom was divided among four heirs. One of those heirs was a man named Herod Antipas. Herod Antipas was a tetrarch of the region that Jesus was ministering in, Galilee and Perea. Now a tetrarch technically is really not a king. Why is that? Because ultimately, the all authority belonged to Rome. A tetrarch was really a governor who had certain privileges granted by Rome, but he's popularly called a king. So that's why the scriptures refer to him in that way. And Antipas, Herod Antipas, was the puppet ruler of the area of Jesus's early ministry. So what's interesting here is that Jesus has now become so well known that Herod Antipas has heard of him even in his palace. And it's clear that he hears that Jesus is an extraordinary man, isn't it? He hears that Jesus is doing works of power. Not only does he hear the reports, but he believes them. You see that so clearly there in verse 14, wherein he says, and he said, John the Baptist is risen from the dead. Why do I know that? These powers are at work in him. He didn't disbelieve that Jesus was doing these great and mighty works, even this hard-nosed politician. So he hears that Jesus is doing miracles. He believes the report. It's not that he doesn't believe these things, but his interpretation that's the problem. And isn't that always true? So many people that we meet and that we talk to will say wonderful things about the Lord Jesus Christ. They'll say that he's a great teacher. They'll say that he's a great moral example. Their interpretation in one sense is true, but it's not enough. That's the question that Mark has been dealing with throughout the gospel. Who is this Jesus? And apart from the Holy Spirit, no man can call Jesus Lord. No man can know who Jesus really is. And so the interpretations of men are always, always either wrong or fall far short of the truth. And Herod leaps to the conclusion that John has risen from the dead. He's confused about Jesus. But he's not the only one. There are wild rumors being circulated about Jesus. We read of that in verse 15. Some thought that he was the prophet Elijah. It was a popular belief in Judaism. that since Elijah didn't die and since Malachi prophesied that Elijah will come before the great and dreadful day of the Lord, it was a popular belief that Elijah himself would return in person to usher in the messianic kingdom. Now Jesus actually refers to John the Baptist as the Elijah who is mentioned there later on. But many believed that Elijah would come. Others thought that, well, he's probably not Elijah, but maybe he's that great prophet that Moses spoke about in Deuteronomy 18, that prophet that Israel ought to hear and to listen to. Of course, John the Baptist himself said, I'm not that prophet. I'm not the Christ. I'm just a man, and I'm just a man crying out in the wilderness. There are all kinds of wild rumors that were circulating, but Herod insists that it must be John the Baptist, verse 16. And the focus of his speculation really tells us a lot about the state of his heart and mind. It tells us a lot about what we would call today his psychology. It tells us what's going on inside. Because Herod, like all men, has a conscience. He has a conscience and his conscience is troubled. He's confused about who Jesus is, which again is true of the world today. People have heard of Jesus, they think they know something about him, but they really don't know him. They don't know him because they don't know who he is and who he's revealed himself to be in the scriptures. And they don't know him because they don't want him to be who he is. They don't want him to be lord of lords and king of kings. They don't want him to rule over their hearts and minds and lives and absolute sovereignty. By nature, none of us wants that. They prefer their own ideas about Jesus to what his word says. And yet, nevertheless, deep down inside, Herod, and everyone that you speak to who does not believe in Jesus Christ, deep down inside, despite their confusion, when you speak about Jesus, a nerve is struck. Why is that? Because all men, all women, all boys and girls, every single human being is created in the image of God with a conscience from God that testifies of God and of his truth. Well, For Herod, it's not just that he's guilty of killing John the Baptist. That's not the only reason that he has a guilty conscience. He realizes that there's a connection between the John whom he's killed and the Jesus whom he's hearing about. And when Jesus is sent to him by Pilate much later on in the Gospel, what is he going to do? What is Herod going to do? You see, Herod was the ruler of Galilee. It just so happens in God's providence that Herod was in Jerusalem when Jesus was crucified. And Pilate sends Jesus to Herod, who up until that time was his enemy, sends Jesus to Herod. And what does Herod do? He mocks him. His conscience, which had been stricken, is now hardened to the point of mocking the only hope of salvation that this world will ever have. And so his guilty conscience is crying out, even at this point, as a witness against him. But he doesn't repent. He silences his conscience. He stops his conscience. He pushes it down. He suppresses the truth in unrighteousness. Instead of repenting, he silences his conscience. And with the whole world Jews and Gentiles, together, he eventually becomes guilty of the murder of the Lord of Glory. He becomes a willing accomplice in the death of Jesus. Do you ever try to silence your conscience? Do you ever try to suppress the truth in unrighteousness? I'm speaking to you as Christians. Do you ever do that? When you sin, do you ever think, well, that's not that big of a deal? That doesn't really matter too much. There are other people who sin much worse than that. I don't need to worry about that. I don't need to confess that sin. I certainly don't need to bring it out into the light. When you harden your heart against your conscience, you harden your heart against the Lord who made your conscience. And ultimately, that is why men killed the Lord Jesus Christ, because they didn't want to hear the truth. because they didn't want to know the one who was the embodiment of all truth. And so the light came into the world and men loved darkness and not light. And that explains why the world has always and will always refuse to tolerate those who love the light. So that brings us to our second point. The world is not going to tolerate Jesus. It's not going to tolerate him. It's interesting, especially in our own times, that the world prides itself on tolerance. But the world's idea of tolerance means only one thing. You must tolerate me by tolerating my sin. You must tolerate me by tolerating my sin. That's the world's idea of tolerance. And if you do, I will tolerate you. But if you do not, then you are not worthy to be tolerated. That's the world's idea of tolerance. That's the kind of tolerance that we read about here in verses 17 and 18. For Herod himself had sent and laid hold of John. and bound him in the prison for the sake of Herodias, his brother Philip's wife, for he had married her. Because John had said to Herod, it is not lawful for you to have your brother's wife. You see, John had faithfully preached the law of God, preached both the law and the gospel. The law of God applies to rulers, and no one is above the law of God, and ministers especially, but all Christians. have the duty to speak, as it were, truth to power, to speak the truth of God's Word, no matter whose ears might be hearing at the moment. We have to be ready to face consequences. And our passage today is as relevant today as it was when Mark wrote it, because we face Issues today that are exactly the same. In a sexually obsessed age, there is nothing new under the sun. We need to speak the truth so that men might hear, and so that men might be saved. The ESV translation brings out the imperfect tense of verse 18. What it says there is John had been saying, Not that he said it one time, but repeatedly, over and over and over again, John was speaking the truth, not caring who might hear it. In fact, hoping that all men would hear the truth, that they might be changed and transformed by the Spirit of God who works with His Word. You see, under Jewish law, The only proper marriage to your brother's wife was what was called a leveret marriage. That's the only proper marriage. That would require two things. First, your brother would have to be dead. That would be the first thing that would have to happen. In this case, it wasn't true. The second thing is that your brother would have to have no living seed. In other words, the leveraget marriage was in order to produce a lineage so that your brother's name would not be wiped out from the face of the earth. It was a provision in the law of God that was a very kind and gracious provision from God. The Leverett marriage had the purpose to preserve the lineage of a deceased brother. And in this case, neither condition is fulfilled. The brother is still alive. And so that made the marriage between Herod and Typus and Herodias adultery. Now, the interesting thing here is that in the preaching of John the Baptist, you have specific application of the word of God to a contemporaneous situation. And so often we hear, don't we, that when the word is applied too sharply, sometimes we even hear a phrase, legalism. That's legalism. When sin is pointed out very sharply and very pointedly, then that is called legalism. But if that's true, then John the Baptist was a legalist. Jesus then would have been a legalist. That is not legalism. In fact, J.C. Ryle says this, he says, here is a pattern that all ministers ought to follow publicly and privately from the pulpit and in private visits. They ought to rebuke all open sin and deliver a faithful warning to all who are living in it. It may give offense. It may entail immense unpopularity. With all this, they have nothing to do. Duties are theirs. Results are God's. And so the world's intolerance boils over when God's truth is preached. That's true in every single age. That's true especially in our age today. So that's what happens here in verses 19 and 20. Therefore Herodias held it against him and wanted to kill him, but she could not, for Herod feared John, knowing that he was a just and holy man, and he protected him. And when he heard him, he did many things. and heard him gladly." You see, Herod is a conflicted man. He's a conscience-stricken man. Herodias wants to kill John, but Matthew actually says that Herod did too, very interestingly. Mark doesn't bring that out. Until now, it hasn't been the politically expedient thing for Herod to do, but political expedience isn't the only thing that has stayed Herod's hand. He sees something in the character of John, doesn't he? Something that demands respect. You see, John is described as a just and holy man. It's significant that we read here that Herod feared John. Notice it doesn't say Herod feared those who had been baptized by John, the crowds, the multitudes. It doesn't say that he feared them, although that's probably true. But the emphasis of the text is that Herod feared John. The world will always fear holy men and holy women and holy children. The world will always fear holy men because holy men remind the world of the holiness of God. And so that is why when you're in your workplace, when you're at school, when you're around neighbors who don't know and love the Lord Jesus Christ, and you display in some measure the holiness that God is calling you to live by, which is really an act of love towards your neighbor. When you display that holiness of love, Unless there is repentance, your neighbors, your friends, those around you will be inflamed, if only in their hearts, by the holiness that they see, because that holiness is a reflection of the holy God, whom all men hate by nature, as the word of God teaches. It's very interesting that Herod is willing to hear John preach. We're even told that he did many things and some commentators, it's very vague, but some commentators think that this could mean that he was affected enough by the preaching of God that he did change some things in his life. That happens sometimes through the preaching of the word. Someone can hear the preaching of the word and not truly know the Lord Jesus Christ, not be changed in their heart, not be born again, and yet make some outward attempts at penitence or outward attempts to conform their life to standards of righteousness. But there is one thing that Herod is not going to give up. He's not going to give up Herodias. He's not going to give up his cherished sexual sin. He's not going to give it up. Is there some sin that you cherish like that? Some sin that is so dominating in your life that despite every effort of friends and relatives and pastors and elders, despite every effort, despite everything that you hear in the preaching of the Word, despite everything that you read, you just will not let that one cherished sin go, and you make excuses for it. It's just a little sin. Herod's problem is that he loved sin more than he loved the truth. He heard the word preached. He heard it gladly. He enjoyed the preaching of the word. That's actually what the text says in the Greek. He enjoyed it. But he didn't put himself under it. He didn't submit himself to it. He didn't allow himself to be ruled by it. And when the time came to choose, he chose death rather than life. Verse 21. An opportune time, opportune day came when Herod on his birthday gave a feast for his nobles, the high officers and the chief men of Galilee. When Herodias' daughter herself came in and danced and pleased Herod and those who sat with him, the king said to the girl, ask me whatever you want and I will give it to you. Birthdays were often celebrated by rulers in Rome. Those feasts often descended into drunkenness and debauchery. These feasts were famous or infamous for that. And in fact, Jews would not even attend such feasts because of the open door that it would produce for temptation and sin. And that's what happens here. Those present are the rich and the prominent men of the region. It's like a state dinner, perhaps an inaugural ball. The prominent men, the rich men, and Herod decides to ingratiate himself to these men by gratifying their lust. And he uses his wife's daughter, I put wife in quotation marks, he uses his wife's daughter as a political and sexual object, verse 22. When Herodias' daughter came herself in, she danced. That's really what we're to think here, that this was an erotic kind of dancing, that this was a sexualistic kind of dancing that provoked lust in these men. And Herod's own lust has him in its jaws. So what does he do? Verse 23, he asks the girl to name her price. She's not even named in this account. She's not even named in the Bible. She's named elsewhere in historical records as Salome. He asks her to name her price. What's interesting is that Herod promises here what he can't possibly give. I'll give you up to half my kingdom. Well, Herod is a governor, not a true king. His kingdom is occupied by Rome. He can't give even a square inch of territory away. It's hard to know exactly what's going on here. Some say that it's a proverb of the day. My own thought is that it's probably a clue that Herod is drunk. But drunk or not, he realizes he's sworn a binding oath. And the interesting thing is that an oath was taken far more seriously in the ancient world than it is today, even by ungodly men. So he's sworn an oath, and he must do what he said that he's going to do. He doesn't really have to, because to swear an ungodly, unlawful oath is ungodly and unlawful. So we should never swear that way, but if we do, we should not keep those vows. Just as the reformers in the time of the Reformation didn't keep the ungodly vows that they had made to the Roman Catholic Church, vows of monasticism and poverty. They broke those vows. Why? Because they understood the freedom that they had in Christ and the fact that we should never make vows that we cannot, according to God's law, keep. But it doesn't take Herodias long to decide what she wants, verses 24 and 25. She wants the head of John the Baptist because that's what her mother wants. Her mother's rage is like that of Jezebel toward Elijah in the Old Testament. But it's nothing new, it's nothing different. It's how the world always treats those who love Jesus because this is how the world is going to treat Jesus at the cross and all through his life. You see, John's ministry and message is a simple foreshadowing of the ministry and message of Jesus. And now his death, likewise, is a foreshadowing of the death of Jesus Christ. And if you're a disciple of Jesus, this is what you can expect, too, from the world. Our third and final point, the world is going to treat you and me like Jesus. You see, Herod has no way of knowing that he will later have a role in Jesus's death. He doesn't have any idea that what he is doing right now has cosmic significance. Testimony of Scripture is that he begins to regret the killing of John, verse 26. He's weak. He's a tool of the devil. He's caught in the tentacles of his own sin. He never seems to ask, what is the right thing for me to do? He simply asks, what will these men think? And so Herod submits to the will of Herodias, verses 27 and 28. And the contrast between Herod and John could not be more stark. That's what I want you to see this morning, the contrast between Herod and John, and ultimately the contrast between the world and Jesus Christ, between the world and his church. You see, one of these men is willing to take life, to satisfy his wife's lust for vengeance. The other is willing to lay down his life for the sake of Jesus Christ. And that is the essence, the heart, as we've been looking at the Gospel of Mark, we've seen it over and over and over again, this is the heart of discipleship, a willingness to lay down your life for Jesus. We have a promise from Jesus that we will be hated in this world precisely because of our willingness to put him first before every other love. We will be hated because he was hated. What Herod hated so much about John is that he saw Jesus Christ in him. If the world sees Jesus in you, you will. You must be hated by the world. What does Jesus say? What words of comfort does he give? In the Sermon on the Mount, he says this, blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for my sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven. For so they persecuted the prophets who were before you." John's disciples. Our last verse teaches us this. John's disciples understood this. What was their response? Their response shows that they had learned from a master teacher, verse 29, When His disciples heard of it, they came and took away His corpse and laid it in a tomb." Why do they put their lives in danger to go to Herod's palace, to go to the dungeon to retrieve the body, not knowing whether they themselves too might receive the same treatment? Why do they do it? Because they want John's body to be properly buried. Why is that important? because in doing so they testify to the hope of God's people in every age, the hope of the resurrection, a hope that will be fulfilled in Jesus Christ. John Calvin says that though the honor of burial is of no importance to the dead, Yet it is the will of the Lord that we should observe this ceremony as a token of the last resurrection. And therefore God was pleased with the carefulness which was manifested by the disciples when they came to commit to the tomb, the body of their master. Moreover, it was an attestation of their piety for in this way they declared that the doctrine of their master continued to have a firm hold on their hearts after his death. the normal Christian life. It's one of suffering, loss, even death. It's a life of laying aside every weight and running with endurance The race that is laid out before us, that Jesus Christ himself has already run for us, all the way through death, all the way into the very presence of God the Father. It's a life of costly discipleship. The life of discipleship is costly. And at times it can even appear to be tragic. the light, but the death of John the Baptist and the death of Jesus Christ are by no means tragedies. John's life was not a tragedy. He was foreshadowing the greater sacrifice of Jesus Christ at the cross in a light of whose death we may take heart no matter what comes in this life. And even when we're on that hospital bed even when we're facing death itself. Because death could not hold Him. Because death is swallowed up in victory. And because to live is Christ, to die is gain. Let us pray. Our great God and Father, how we thank You, O Lord, that You've set before us In the life and death of John the Baptist, such a picture of the life that we are called to live by the grace that you have poured out on us by your Spirit in the Lord Jesus Christ. Help us, O Lord. We are too, too weak to live this kind of a life in our own strength. We cannot do it. In fact, the Lord Himself told us that we could not do it. But He said that if we abide in Him and in His Word, that He would do it in us and through us by the power of His resurrection, that we might enjoy what Paul calls the fellowship of His sufferings. Oh, help us, Lord, to see that as a great privilege. to lay down our lives for Jesus Christ, to lay down our lives for one another in him. We pray in Jesus name. Amen.