When it is OK to Point!
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Sometimes when you are doing your sermon preparation and you have an outline on Wednesday, sometimes by Sunday it becomes different. That is what happened to me this week, so if you look on your notes, some of the materials you’ll see there you will find won’t be there and you might say, “Oh good!…a shorter sermon. There is a God!” Well there is a God, but I am not sure I can promise a shorter sermon. We will see how that works. As you know, I have been preaching through the gospel of John for quite a while now. I had actually started in Chapter 2 and have come back to Chapter 1 because it is great stuff for Christmas time and Advent. Very traditionally often a sermon is preached on John the Baptist during Advent and, lo and behold, we find and meet John the Baptist in John, Chapter 1. So we will begin. Follow along the various scriptures from Chapter 1 and Chapter 3.
John 1:6-8
6There came a man who was sent from God; his name was John. 7He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all men might believe. 8He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.
John 1:19-32
19Now this was John’s testimony when the Jews of Jerusalem sent priests and Levites to ask him who he was. 20He did not fail to confess, but confessed freely, “I am not the Christ.”
21They asked him, “Then who are you? Are you Elijah?”
He said, “I am not.”
”Are you the Prophet?”
He answered, “No.”
22Finally they said, “Who are you? Give us an answer to take back to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?”
23John replied in the words of Isaiah the prophet, “I am the voice of one calling in the desert, ‘Make straight the way for the Lord.’ ”
24Now some Pharisees who had been sent 25questioned him, “Why then do you baptize if you are not the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?”
26“I baptize with water,” John replied, “but among you stands one you do not know. 27He is the one who comes after me, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie.”
28This all happened at Bethany on the other side of the Jordan, where John was baptizing.
29The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! 30This is the one I meant when I said, ‘A man who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’ 31I myself did not know him, but the reason I came baptizing with water was that he might be revealed to Israel.”
32Then John gave this testimony: “I saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on him.
John 3:22-27
22After this, Jesus and his disciples went out into the Judean countryside, where he spent some time with them, and baptized. 23Now John also was baptizing at Aenon near Salim, because there was plenty of water, and people were constantly coming to be baptized. 24(This was before John was put in prison.) 25An argument developed between some of John’s disciples and a certain Jew over the matter of ceremonial washing. 26They came to John and said to him, “Rabbi, that man who was with you on the other side of the Jordan—the one you testified about—well, he is baptizing, and everyone is going to him.”
27To this John replied, “A man can receive only what is given him from heaven.
Would you pray with me?
Lord God we pray that we might learn from John because he was a witness and we too are called to be witnesses. Be with us now Lord as we hear your word preached. May we each individually hear something we need to hear, that we may grow in knowledge of you and faith in you, and we may walk out of here having experienced you. I pray these things in Jesus’ name. Amen.
John was a witness and this sermon is about witnessing. I think John is sort of the epitome of what a witness is all about, both for us as individuals and as a church. So what do we find with John? Well, we find in John that being a good witness begins with self-awareness. Notice what he says. He talks about Jesus and he says, “He is the one who comes after me, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie.” John knew what he was about. He knew who he was and he knew what he was going to do.
If you look in Romans, for example, you will find Romans 12:3 which talks about how we ought to not have too high a view of ourselves. There is a word in that passage, and the passage goes like this: For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment…” There is a word there called phroneo and it is used in that particular passage four times. It is translated sober judgment or more highly than of yourself; but what it really means is to have a sane view of yourself. Or another way to put it, do not have an insane view of yourself, but rather have a sane estimate of who you are. What does that all mean? Well it means first and foremost don’t forget that you are created. You are a creature and, as a creature, don’t forget that you are made and owned. Now in America we don’t think of our self that way and on a human level that is great. We aren’t. We belong to ourselves; we are equal before each other; but in the eternal scheme of things, we are owned.
I have used this example many times for you. You know just being in the military, when you join up, they own you. They can call you at any time and say, “Guess what? Tag. You’re it!” I have actually made that call to some chaplains. “Hi, I am Chaplain Carlson. Guess what?” I didn’t quite put it that way…. “It is your time to go.” “Oh.” Usually the soldier is not mad at you but the spouse is. Don’t forget that this someone, this God of the Universe, has a purpose for you and that it is not all about you. John, for all the temptations that must have been in his life, was an exceptionally humble man. He could have been otherwise. He had huge crowds, he had adoring disciples, he had a powerful persona so that literally people came to see him by the thousands; and this wasn’t just about driving down to the Target Center. These people had to walk miles to see him, and stay overnight, and they did it. He could have been a man with a very large head but he wasn’t because he knew what he was. He was to be a forerunner, a witness. He kept his mind fixed on who he was and what he was called to do.
It is my belief that many people in life do have an insane view of themselves. I don’t mean that people are megalomaniacs by any stretch, but what I mean by that is because many people, including Christians, live as though their lives are their own. They forget that they are owned and sort of have this view of I can do whatever I want with my life. On one level you can, but on an eternal level, no. What does that mean? Well, I would simply say to some of you, if you are in high school or college you should start thinking now about what God wants you to do, not what should I do with my life? No, it is what does God want me to do with my life? There is a huge difference; a huge difference. In one sense you are just terribly confused. What do I do? What do I do? But if you put yourself in God’s hands, he will lead you to what you should do.
If you are working or living your lives, we should always be asking that same question, on a regular basis: Am I doing what God wants me to do at this moment? I am not talking about any particular thing. God may call you to be anything, any kind of job, but are you doing what God wants you to do? Or if you are retired you need to ask that question: Am I doing what God wants me to do? Because so many people just retire. You know in the Army we call people ROAD Colonels. You know what ROAD means? It means Retired On Active Duty. They are getting a paycheck, but they are retired – not doing anything. Are we ROAD Christians? Are you doing what God wants you to do or just cruising; and what happens to all those gifts, those hard won experiences that people have as they live?
Have a sober judgment of yourself. As John said, “you yourself can testify” he said it again and again and again. “I am not the Messiah. I am not the Messiah.” Everybody said, “You are the Messiah.” “No I am not the Messiah.” My job is simply to be a witness.
The second point for John is, and for us, is a lot of witnessing is about pointing. You know, as youngsters we are taught to point is rude. But there are times when we ought to point, and this is one of them. We are to be pointers to Jesus Christ. Look at what John did: John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look the Lamb of God who is coming to take away the sin of the world.” I want to say something to you. If you are a Christian, you are saved. You’re saved and that is a forever kind of thing, and you can’t get out of it. There is nothing you can do. It means that it is written in his blood and not yours. It means that he holds you and you do not hold him. He has got you. It means that if you have sincerely repented and turned to faith in him, it is a forever thing and won’t go away. But that begs a question. If we are guaranteed to go to heaven, in Christ, why are we still here? Why hasn’t God come to get us? It is better there. Why hasn’t he come to get us? It is because we are called to point. We are called to point. We are called to point to Jesus. That is our job.
Look at John’s job description. There came a man who was sent from God; his name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all men might believe. That is our job too. That is why we are still here, that is what it is all about. We are called to point.
Steve Brown tells a story about when he was a kid how he and his buddies used to do a prank and that was the old prank of going out into the midst of a bunch of people and looking up to the sky and pointing as if something was up there. They would go, “Do you see what I see?” He said it was inevitable, sooner or later, sooner of later, everybody else started pointing too. “What’s up there? What’s up there?” Even if nothing was there. He goes on to say, “That is what the world does. It points to nothing and pretends that it is something.” We are called to point to Jesus Christ and that Jesus Christ is the sole and only answer to the world’s problems.
Here is the serious question: What does your life point to? Our lives always point to something whether we intend for them to or not; they always do. People can look at us and notice what our main themes are, what we are really after. It is easy to see. Most people can look at you and tell. What does your life point to? For some it is your abilities, some it is wealth, sometimes it is what we have, our intellect, for others, success, for others it is just them. The question for all of us is what do our lives point to? Or perhaps another way to look at it, what do others see when they look at us? Ian Thomas asked this question: What is it in your life that people see that can only be explained by the supernatural? What is it in you life that can only be explained by the supernatural? You know I think that is a question that we ought to ask as a church, as well. What do people see when they look at Faith Church?
In the last few months we have, as you know, been going through a visioning process, and, I know, I know, that word vision has become a bad word for some because it means change. We have had some painful things happen, or some hard things, because of the vision. Well let’s talk about it as a destination. Well, we have three rocks as part our destination. We have Worship. We have Discipleship. Worship is what we are doing now, and we are working on that; we are working towards something with that. We are working toward the idea of having a joyful celebration when we worship. Discipleship is our Family Ministry, but it is so much more. But there is also Service. You know I was thinking about service this week. You know, we have worked hard on the first two and we are beginning to start going toward the third thing. I went to see a man this week named Tom Correll. Tom is the Missions minister for Wooddale Church. He has been doing that for 25 years. He was very nice to give me an hour with him. We talked a little bit about the missions program. You know Wooddale Church has given about five million dollars to mission projects all over the world. Now that is 25 years of doing this and that is how far they have gotten. I, of course, asked the question, “What do we do as a small church, you know, we are not Wooddale. What do we do?” He gave this advice. He said, “You know what it is really about is the kingdom of God and the church as individuals we need to ask, what are we doing if it’s one or two or three things that has a tremendous impact on the kingdom of God that has something that lasts into eternally?” Now I was reading this week that someone gave the illustration about people who have really made a big difference in the world and they lifted up the names like Alexander Graham Bell. You know he is long dead but people still use the phone. Or Thomas Edison, he is long dead but the lights are still on. Or Wilbur and Orville, they are long dead but the flights are still flying. These people had an influence that will last in this world forever. We are talking about that in the same kind of way accept in a kingdom way. What are we doing?
I would ask would you support a church that chose to do that kind of thing? I think that is where we are going. We are going to take care of the small ministries we have been doing, but what about the orphans in Tijuana or Africa? What about the AIDS crisis in other places? What about some of the battered women’s shelters in our own time and other places. You know, our Service is not just about going out and painting the underpasses of the highways, that is not a bad thing, or cleaning up the parks. What are we doing that can only be explained by supernatural? We are going to do some of those things, will you support it? Now I know what some of you are thinking: “He is about to ask us for money.” No, you know, money follows vision. I am not asking you for money. I am asking for commitment. Will you commit to our church? You have to ask God what God wants you to do. It is not up to Chris. It is not really following Chris, either. It is about what we are doing here, hopefully. We are stumbling, we are finding our way; but I think we are going in the right direction. What are we doing that someone can point to us and say, “That is a supernatural thing, that is a God thing?”
I am going to combine number three and four points. Witnessing includes explaining things and witnessing means keeping the main thing, the main thing. I heard a man express a quote he had heard at a Missions conference and it is a quote that I have heard one way or another, so it is very common. A missionary got up and said, “We must always remember the cosmic Christ.” What that means is is that he believed that Christ or the Spirit of Christ was in all religions and we should just affirm that. The only problem with it as nice as it sounds is that it is just not true. Jesus is the way. You know a lot of time when we think about when we witness for Jesus Christ, it is saying that just pointing means that he is over there and praise the Lord. We have to think in terms of who Jesus is. Saying “Jesus loves me this I know,” is great but that is not enough because who is Jesus, and there is a gazillion interpretations about who Jesus is out there. John the Baptist didn’t fail in his preaching. He talked about things that were difficult. He talked about repentance. He talked about how Jesus was going to come with the Holy Spirit and with fire. He talked about repenting from sin. He talked about who Jesus was as “the one who was before me.” All of that are truths that we affirm. We often heard the quote from St. Francis: “Witness always, and occasionally use words.” You know, I agree with that.
I remember seeing a man who I thought was one of the most handsome people I had ever seen. You know, he was one of those people when you look at them and go, how can anyone look that good? But then he opened his mouth and sort of ruined the effect. Sometimes as we heard, they won’t let you in the choir, sometimes we need to witness quietly. The whole point is it isn’t just about pointing in silence; we have to also talk to people about who Jesus is in one way or another, as a church and as individuals. Keep first things first. The first thing is Jesus. As we go forward whatever we do, wherever we go, we must be Christ-centered and keep Jesus at the center.
The great Ed Sullivan was asked one day how he had become so successful and he said, “I am a pointer. I point to other people who are successful.” And that is what we are. He must increase. He must become greater and we must become less, because it is all about him.
Would you pray with me?
Lord God, thank you for Jesus, and John, a man who was great in your sight; but he didn’t let it go to his head. He remembered who he was; he remembered what he was supposed to do. I pray Lord that we would also do that because the temptations are myriad that we would get off track. Keep us on track of pointing to Christ with words and deeds. May we Lord have the goal of doing significant things in this world for you and that people may look at us and look at our church and know that you are there. I pray these things in Jesus’ name. Amen.