3. Can I Get a Witness? (1:6-8)
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Streamer X Main: [00:00:00] We don't always understand what we're looking at. For example, imagine getting this notification on your computer, kiss your password goodbye, use your face to sign in. Like the first part of that would have me, you know, panicking and then it's like, Oh, we've got a new feature for you. It's like, well, that was a little misleading.
Like thank you for the, you know, the heart attack there. Like maybe don't communicate it that way. Some things are communicated in a much more clear way, like this sign. Not only will this kill you, it will hurt the whole time you're dying. I don't know about you, but I'm convinced, you know, like I got it. I clearly understand what you're saying and I want none of that.
And I appreciate the way you're communicating that. Now we're going to go back to John chapter one as we continue this series. We're looking at the Bible in 10 minutes or less and we're going to look at a new person introduced in chapter one. This is John the [00:01:00] Baptist, not John, the author of the book, John the Baptist.
And John is like the second sign we just saw. He does a really good job of clearly communicating. And what he's communicating is who Jesus is. He is pointing people to Jesus. Let's look at John chapter one verses six through eight. It says this, God sent a man, John the Baptist. Now, depending on which version you're using, I'm reading out of the new living translation.
Uh, the text doesn't actually say John the Baptist, just as a man named John that's later added in for the English readers. That'll be important in a second. John the Baptist to tell about the light, So that everyone might believe because of his testimony, John himself was not the light. He was simply a witness to tell about the light.
Okay. So we have John introduced here. And the way the author John is going to emphasize who John the Baptist is, he's going to talk about his purpose far more [00:02:00] than his identity. Okay? The other gospels talk more, especially Luke about John the Baptist, his birth and his life. John's going to get bound down to business here of like, here's why he came.
Here's what he's all about. And unlike in Matthew and in Luke in the actual text, he's not called John the Baptist. The version I read is only in English. The original does not say John about just says John. Well, the reason why is because he's the only John mentioned in the book. We talked about this in week one, but our author never reveals himself, never refers to himself.
By his own name and so this is the only John in the book is John the Baptist Now, why does verse eight that we just read clarify that he was not the light, that he just was pointing people to the light? That's because John the Baptist was a really big deal and he's going to show up a number of other times.
We're going to see him in chapter three, chapter [00:03:00] four, chapter five, chapter 10. Uh, we're going to see him again in chapter one. I mean, John the Baptist was a huge influence on what was going on around Jesus's ministry. In fact, he shows up in other books as well. In Acts chapter 19 verse 1 says, while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul took the road through the interior and arrived at Ephesus.
There he found some disciples and he asked them, did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed? They answered, no, we've not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit. So Paul asked, then what baptism did you receive? Well, John's baptism, they replied. Amen. And Paul said, John's baptism was a baptism of repentance.
He told the people to believe in the one coming after him. That is in Jesus, which means John's baptism was so significant that people had that and thought we're good. Like we'd been baptized by John. We're good. And so Paul's got to come on and go like, no, that was great. But John was trying to point you to [00:04:00] Jesus.
Like, keep going. Don't get stuck. there and John the Baptist teaches us an important lesson that you and I as believers today can really take to heart that you should point your life to something bigger than yourself. John is a model of this to the reason so many people today feel hopeless is because their life is only about them.
The reason so many people today feel bored. It's because their life is only about them. And the reason so many people today feel overwhelmed is because their life is only about them. That there's something that happens inside of us when we point our life to something beyond just ourselves. The actor Jim Carrey said it like this.
I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of so they can see that it's not the answer. Right? Like if we just focused on our own world and even if we could [00:05:00] get everything we ever wanted, we would at some point realize that wasn't it. It's gotta be something beyond us.
And studies have shown this as well. There's been a variety of studies done. They found that people who have a purpose in life, something bigger than themselves, they sleep better at night. They have a longer life. They're four times more likely to be engaged at work. They are 50 percent more likely to be a leader.
And they have 64 percent higher level of career satisfaction just having something bigger than you. One author, Alice Walton was summarizing these results and she said this, why am I having a life purpose lead to all these health benefits? For one, it takes the focus off ourselves, which seems to be health giving in more ways than one.
And John models, this John's life as we're going to see throughout this study models how to live for something [00:06:00] beyond yourself. So here's my question for you today. What is your life pointing to? If you had to answer this for yourself, we're all pointing somewhere. We do this in what we do. These are our actions and we do this in what we say with our words.
We are pointing people somewhere. Um, where, where are you? Pointy people. Now, if you are not currently following Jesus, uh, first off, let me just say so glad that you are a part of this with us. You are absolutely welcome here with your questions, with your doubts, regardless of where you're at on your own journey with Jesus.
But I want to talk to you for just a moment. If you're not currently following Jesus, have you ever felt like your problems are bigger than you? Like if you just felt like, man, I'm doing everything I can, uh, trying to figure this whole thing out and it just seems like it's beyond me. Have you ever felt hopeless or bored or overwhelmed?
Well, I have learned that a problem bigger than you [00:07:00] requires a solution bigger than you. And that's one of the reasons why I continue to put faith in something beyond myself. Cause I realized I cannot be all that I need in my world. There's gotta be something more. And that's what I have found in the person of Jesus.
Now switching gears for those of you who are Christians. So you go, yeah, I'm following Jesus. Who was it who introduced you? Like, if you have met Jesus today, who introduced you? To Jesus. Someone pointed you there at some point along the way. When I think about my own journey, it started with my parents raising me, teaching me from a young age who Jesus was.
And, and so I grew up with a knowledge of Jesus. But it didn't start there. I had a friend named Paul who continues to be one of my closest friends today, who was like an older brother to me. He helped point me to Jesus in different ways. I had a friend who was a student pastor when I was in high school that pointed me to Jesus in some [00:08:00] pivotal key moments in my life.
I had a spiritual mentor in my twenties who really helped me work through some ideas as I took my faith to another level. I mean, all these people helped to point me to Jesus. And it reminds me of the arrow illustration I showed you in week one of this series, that arrow that always points to one way, that this is what we can be for other people.
We can be the reason why they see Jesus because we pointed them there. Now that doesn't make you the Holy Spirit. It doesn't mean you're responsible to convert people or do anything weird like that. You and I are just responsible to point people in that direction. And if we live in accordance with who we see Jesus to be, our lives will naturally point them in that direction.
I'll close with something that Karen Swallow Prior said. She said, we cannot desire what we cannot imagine and we cannot imagine [00:09:00] what we have not seen. Let's show people the Jesus that we have experienced. We'll see you next week on rebuilding faith.
