All right, you can turn in your Bibles to John 1 John 1 we're gonna jump in Continue our series called priest tonight and if you remember last week We had vision Sunday and that was so fun to share 2021 vision with you and then we talked about the word for the year Do you guys remember it raise the white flag and this this call this invitation that God is giving to us as a community to to surrender to his leadership? And we're choosing to go. Hey, I'm not gonna lean on my own understanding I'm gonna actually surrender the ways of the world and I'm gonna choose to follow in your way Sometimes it feels a little foolish, but I'm gonna I'm gonna be like a child I'm gonna pray a little bit more leaning on you in whatever season that the Lord has us in as individuals But then what he's calling us to corporately is this I'm just gonna surrender to you I need you to be the leader I want to be the follower and I need you to be the leader and we're just gonna continue to ask and Lean into the Lord and go Lord. What do you mean by that?
What are you what are you saying about raise the white flag for this year? In a couple weeks before that we were in we started the pre-series and we talked about the history of worship You guys remember that we talked about Adam and Eve in the garden and God gives them the call to be priests and kings that they're supposed to be Stewards of what we called the overlap remember the dwelling place of God heaven and then the dwelling place of man earth and God's Intention from beginning to end the storyline of human history is that they'd be overlapping that heaven and earth would overlap And we even see that in in the gospels when Jesus says this is how you should pray on earth as it is in heaven It's this like resounding from the beginning to end God's desire Oh that there'd be an overlap of our dwelling place That's the end of the story and and then we talked about David and his extravagant worship remember the four thousand musicians 288 singers for 33 years day and night worship and prayer We talked about Anna who gave her 30s and her 40s and her 50s and her 60s and her 70s to the Lord in fasting And we talked about Joshua remember how he was found lingering in the Lord's presence Just like staying a couple more minutes just to be with him a little bit longer And then and then the next week we talked about the hindrances to us actually walking out our priestly identity You guys remember the the fire alarm story remember the chirping and on that me on the swivel right remember that oh man And we talked about how there's this constant chirping of shame and guilt that the enemy is trying to Trying to remind us of our old nature, but our old nature got killed our old nature got crucified It's in the trash can we need to rip the battery out and silence the chirping of accusation the chirping of shame the chirping of guilt And we actually need to go into the presence of God with full boldness encourage right? Oh, this is where I was meant to be this is my ground that he bought for me And I get to actually step into it as a priest and this week I want to talk about our call as priests to follow in the footsteps of John the Baptist John the Baptist what a man so What's happening in this passage? We're gonna start in verse 29, but before we do what?
What's preceded this passage is that John the Baptist? He's born within six months of Jesus when Jesus was born and there's this whole storyline of Zechariah and Elizabeth John's parents And then Mary the mother of Jesus and they're in relationship. They're connected in the family We think that John the Baptist and Jesus are actually distant cousins and and they get born in the same year and There's all of these prophecies about John the Baptist and his call that pairs up with this passage in Isaiah 40 That he would be a forerunner that he would prepare the way of the Lord that he'd prepare and remove all of the obstacles before the king coming And it was Jesus and so his whole life if you can just picture as a little boy You know I just picture Elizabeth and Zachariah They're like singing lullabies to John and it's all about his calling to prepare the way for Jesus You know Elizabeth and Zachariah we don't see this on the page, right? But just picture it Elizabeth and and Zachariah just saying John this is your call your call is to prepare the way For the coming king the Messiah.
He's coming and God's raising you up as a prophet. He's raising you up John Would you just listen to me? This is who you are and they're infusing him with identity infusing him with this call And so John turns 30 and he launches into his ministry And he he launches into his ministry about six months before Jesus launches into his ministry Because if you're gonna start that the ministry as a rabbi you had to wait till you were 30 years old So John the Baptist starts his ministry at 30 six months before Jesus launches into his and all of a sudden John the Baptist He's like exploding onto the scene I mean if it was modern day It's like Instagram starts banning his account because there's so much action on what he's there's like the institutions of the religious are getting concerned about John He's he's ruffling some feathers. There's people around there They're starting to send like secret agent Levites and frees to go and do homework on Johnson What is he doing?
There's so many people coming out to the Jordan River and getting baptized by this guy and he's wearing weird clothes and he's eating insects for food and he's like into bees he's like a beekeeper It's like what is going on with this man? And yet there's so many people that are coming out to get baptized by John because he's preaching a message of repentance and John is He's a man on a mission He has this vision of my parents told me who I am the father and heaven told me who I am What I'm supposed to look for and he was like his forehead like flint on this destiny that God had given him and all of a sudden He sees Jesus walking towards him Jesus just took a road trip from his hometown Nazareth And there he is he took a couple day walk and he shows up to the Jordan River and there John is and he sees Jesus and John He sees him and John or Jesus walks up to John and Jesus says John I want you to baptize me now Why did Jesus need to get baptized a lot of times we learn that that baptism is this picture of our old sin nature dying and getting buried and crucified And then us getting raised to newness of life with a new nature the Holy Spirit on the inside, right? Jesus didn't have a sin nature so why does he need to get baptized as a representation of that sin nature getting he doesn't need to get baptized for that because what was happening is Jesus knew Biblically the tradition was that if you were gonna be a high priest you actually got baptized into your ministry and that was the inauguration of your ministry was you would get baptized and then you'd get invited into being the high priest of Israel and so Jesus comes up to John and John knows exactly what Jesus is doing and And John's like I'm not even worthy to baptize you into your ministry and Jesus like no this is your call and And so John the Baptist baptizes Jesus Jesus comes up out of the water Do you guys remember this he comes up out of the water and I like one of my favorite passages in the Bible and God the Father takes back the curtain of heaven and he splits open the sky the phrases rend which means rips open he rips open the clouds and Heaven and he shouts from heaven and he says this is my loved son who I really delight in who I really like and Jesus it says that the Holy Spirit descended on him and rested on him and then what does he do? He goes into the wilderness for 40 days and he fasts and prays he doesn't eat or drink for 40 days and Then I just want to picture just picture with me John the Baptist He just saw what he was waiting for it says in the Bible that John was waiting For the one that would have the spirit to send on him like a dove or to send on him and stay and remain and God the Father told John he said John John I want you to know that the one that the spirit rests on and stays on that's my son That's the son of God.
That's the Messiah. That's the coming king John are you listening? And so John is waiting for that moment and All of a sudden he sees it and it's Jesus and for six weeks John doesn't see Jesus Can you imagine that your whole ministry is wrapped up into preparing the way for the son of God for the king and all of a sudden It happens and then you don't see him for 40 days for six weeks And I just picture John the Baptist for six weeks mauling over and Meditating on what just happened? Can you picture him waking up in the morning and John the Baptist being full of zeal and passion waking up early getting Revelation on the call of Jesus and how he gets to continue to prepare can you imagine John the Baptist in those six weeks preachy?
What was he filled with you're talking about momentum? What was happening as John preached on the river on the side of the river? Oh my goodness the burning man He was just burning in the wilderness Preparing the way for Jesus. He's like I'm not done.
I'm just getting started He was just it was just like stirring just that revelation of what he just witnessed just stirring up God was in the mood Just on him and then what let's just look what happens. This is mind-boggling to me here. We go verse 29 The next day so John 1 verse 29 says this the next day he saw Jesus after six weeks and Jesus was coming toward him and John 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 God to baptize with water said to me He on whom you see the spirit descend and remain this is he who baptize with the Holy Spirit and I've seen and born witness that this Is the Son of God? The timing of this whole scene is actually about a week before a day where it was four days before Passover and four days before Passover Every single year it was called the day of lamb selection I don't know what it's called in Hebrew But it's the day that everyone chose the lamb that they were going to select to be slaughtered over Passover and Passover is the storyline of the nation of Israel being in slavery and getting set free from slavery is freedom, right?
And so as John is he's seen Jesus and Passover on the eve of Passover just a couple days to this day where you're going to choose the lamb And John resounds with this one cry aloud. He's saying behold He's the lamb. He's your Savior. He's your key to freedom He's the deliverer from slavery the slavery that you've been living in he's actually the one the key that the key to set you free from slavery I just I just see that that John Again, he's being reminded of the Isaiah 40 that his dad told him about the behold your God that was to be his his life storyline The behold your God in Isaiah 40 and John's reading the pages of the prophet in the synagogue and he's going this is me This is my call.
This is my moment. Let's continue. I just want to read in verse 35 here. We're going to continue The next day so so a day after that so it's like six weeks of silence Then he sees Jesus and he says behold the lamb then the next day happens and Jesus sees him again And look at what John does again.
He says the next day again, John was standing with two of his disciples Then he looked and at Jesus as he walked by and said behold the lamb of God And the two disciples heard him say this and they followed Jesus and Jesus turned and saw them following and said to them What are you seeking? And they said to him Rabbi which means teacher where are you staying? And he said to them come and you will see so they came and saw where he was staying and they stayed with him that day for it It was about 4 p.m. One of the two her John speak and followed Jesus was Andrew Simon Peter's brother He first found his own brother Simon and said to him we have found the Messiah which means Christ He brought him to Jesus.
Jesus looked at him and said so you are Simon the son of John you shall be called cephas Which means Peter John comes out of the six weeks burning with one message One meditation on his heart behold behold look take notice wake up You you need to wake up the alarm needs to resonate and resound it through and reverberate through your soul wake up beholden look Wake up and have your eyelids open up and look at him And I just pictured John for for days and weeks Many think that John was orphaned and that his parents died and he was orphaned and I just pictured god the father fathering him Days and days against the backdrop of pain John John the Baptist going oh, I'm waiting for something the father told me and then Six weeks of meditation and all that comes out of his mouth is behold the lamb Look and his disciple. I mean we're talking about a ministry that's going like hey, it's going good. We're getting the followers And he has two disciples right andrew and another guy andrew It has a brother named simon and andrew and simon have a dad there they're all fishermen so they grew up fishing and andrew somehow I don't know how this happens, but andrew got the internship with john the baptist right so john the baptist is like hey Yeah, you can follow me and and andrew has been following john the baptist He's on like the cutting edge like the new hip thing in israel is to be following john the baptist andrew has been hanging out with him I don't know if it's hip. You're the one you're following is eating locus, you know is andrew like Like trying to is he having to do everything?
Yeah, you do everything that your rabbi does right and so Andrew has been hearing john preach for the last six weeks And john is over and over and over again talking about the son of man coming And all this and john points at jesus as behold and andrew and his friend are like yeah I guess that's our cue and they leave john and they start following jesus And what happens is that andrew right away he goes into evangelist mode You see that he's like I have to tell my big brother I have to tell my big brother. This is the guy and so andrew leaves and he goes and finds simon I found him I found him and simon's like bro come on man and and and he's like okay I'll come see and simon walks in Simon walks in and jesus all of a sudden it goes from john saying behold and then andrew saying come and see Right he goes into evangelism. He goes into mission outward and then peter or simon starts Having a conversation with jesus and what does jesus do he gives them the download? This is who you are This is your identity.
I see you. I know you need does that with nithaniel write a couple versus forward He does the same thing nithaniel's like who who who can come from nazor and then all of a sudden Jesus starts dropping bombs of like I see you. I know you. I know your identity.
I know who you are But we're not just talking about any person. We're talking about peter We're talking about the guy that actually gets out of the boat We have a storyline in our faith history of a man actually walking on water and it wasn't god in the flesh Peter We have peter the the one that denied jesus three times And then god made him a spectacle of his grace and kindness by visiting him as the first disciple that would see him after the resurrection We have peter the one that that had never preached a message before and he shows up in the book of acts And he preaches his first message and 3000 people coming to the kingdom Peter the man that reaches down to a crippled man a paralyzed man and says at the beautiful gate Come on. Let's stand up and the paralyzed man starts walking peter the one that starts walking and shadow starts healing people on the streets Peter the one that we wouldn't even be here Because him and paul were the ones that opened the door to the Gentiles so that all peoples could know him This is peter the rock And how many of you know that without john the baptist for six weeks mulling over in secret waking up early Meditating on the man jesus. They just baptize.
It's all the spirit rest on it started with john's behold Peter wouldn't even be part of our storyline except john the baptist was a wild man and started to behold god in secret How many of you know that his beholding in secret? Turned into a beholding with just a few and that beholding with the few 10 20 years into the future looked like peter standing in front of At pinnikos and saying repent it was the same message And it started with that man That wild man in the wilderness against the backdrop of pain against the backdrop of being misunderstood and he was the one His beholding Part of our story. How many of you know that god is calling forth Those that wouldn't just have second hand beholding experiences I believe that god's inviting us past just the second hand stuff Just receiving from somebody else the second hand revelation the second hand Knowledge of who he is the second hand moments of I hear a story of a person encountering jesus No, god is actually calling all of us in a first hand beholding And i'm telling you all of us we know who we are we know that we're not that great But god's not calling all of us to be messengers and and preach and thousands come to the kingdom He's going after the ones that he's going yeah you you you the beholding ones that have influence of one or two for the rest of your life That's how the kingdom is going to explode in the earth is the one or two the ones that have influenced like you and me We just influenced a couple of people Oh, can you imagine 97 of the body of christ getting activated into influencing one or two But it starts it doesn't start with evangelism and starts away with a behold And I believe god is raising us up as those that would be hold the beholding ones I'm just so stirred that god is giving us invitation as as a church community to raise up the standard of beholding him That there the thing that would become popular is simple beholding That this uncommon call that john had this uncommon simple call of beholding god Would actually be the thing that we start getting addicted to it's so countercultural There's so many things to behold so many things to distract us so many screens that want our attention so many billboards so many marketing Strategies and god is actually sitting and he's going would you be holding me? Would you lock eyes with me?
And I believe he's setting apart a people that would be like a remnant of beholders That wouldn't just settle for that second hand. I sit in the pews hook up my feeding tube to the pulpit and get my nourishment But that god would go I want I want ones that would find their manna just you and me in secret I want I want to establish under the stairs of houses in the little attics of houses all around the city those that would be holding Secret beholding corporate beholding god is actually marking us as a people I just feel it and maybe you're going. I don't I don't know I just grew up going to a non-denominational church And I'm just like a good event job. I'm telling you you're a son or a daughter You're made for so much more and this is what happens it turns from beholding as a priest Into like john the baptist where he starts actually being a prophetic messenger He starts turning into a messenger and listen.
It doesn't have to look like wild crazy john the baptist I know that he's like weird. I know I'm telling you it's the influencers of the one or two It's not it's please. It's not street evangelism though That's good because it catalyzes us and it like activates us in a boldness It's okay. It's just one or two, but god is marking us and I it's it's priest first I'm telling you we're called to be kings.
We're called to be royalty We're called to be prophets to declare the word of the lord to prophesy to be messengers like john But god is calling us again. You are my priest you are my behold You're the one that has been called to actually lock eyes with me get fascinated with me and go oh, he's the lamb He's my lamb. It's me. It's my it's personal There's there's personal revelation.
See I think we forget that god actually wants to be found God wants your heart fascinated I think I think some of us have never thought about this the lord wants to reveal revelations to you that maybe hasn't shared with anyone else There's there's bible passages that you're gonna study and he's gonna show you intricacies about who he is That no one else is maybe ever thought about He's he's so good He takes your story and he starts weaving it in to how he wants to show you about himself And you will think thoughts that no one has ever thought before as you're with him in secret You're a beholder at who you are Worship team you guys can come to the front. Let's all let's actually all stand out. I want to just respond to the lord tonight You can spread out if you want to we're gonna go into a time of worship I'm just so Filled with with anticipation tonight If you showed up to church, I just believe that you're a hungry one You're a hungry one that is not content with status quo Maybe you don't even feel the hunger right now But I believe that that God has actually put it in you and many of you I just as I was preaching you're going that's what I want I could just feel I could just feel it in the room as we're in the living room And I'm casting vision for I just sense that there's hunger on the inside of of so many of you And and this call of beholding It's actually hitting on something inside of you and that thing that it's hitting on It's like a battery ram and the thing that's going on that's beating in your chest is actually eternity It says in Ecclesiastes 3 that that that God put eternity in the hearts of man He put eternity in the hearts of man and then John and John 17 Jesus says this is eternal life that they would know me What's what am I saying that eternal longing that's on the inside of you is to know him It's to be hold him and the thing that you're feeling the thing that is kind of pulling out of you That thing that you're sensing is a longing to know him It's just to behold him and know him And what I want to do is I want to make a call tonight For those of you even if you're if you're on youtube and you're tuning in or in the room that that God is wanting to actually mark us with hunger tonight He's wanting to mark the hungry ones and it doesn't look we don't need a new baptism We just need we need to feel what's already on the inside The longing to know him and have that behold there's actually it's it's in you and it's wanting to come out And maybe your story is like john the baptist in 2020 was difficult and it's against the backdrop of pain It's against the backdrop of difficulty. Maybe there's great loss in 2020 Maybe there are some surprises in 2020 Maybe even the start of the year has been a difficult year, but i'm telling you this There's a whole story that we're getting swept into as a community We're putting our stake in the ground that we're actually going We're going to be a part of his storyline of beholding I just want the twin cities.
I want Minneapolis and St. Paul to have this thing on us As a city as the corporate church in the twin cities This divine beholding that there'd be this beholding that we get arrested with with what john the baptist had that we'd follow in his footsteps and go Oh, I just have to be holding him and that the that the private beholding would turn into a public beholding Private and secret. I just I see so many of you starting secret rhythms of of private beholding of god Simple things not getting religious on it, but it's all about love I just see love and hearts tonight love and hearts tonight longing lovers mary's mary's that are like john Mary's that are like john. They're going.
I just want to sit at his feet I want to behold him. I want to take the place at his feet I want to sit at his table with a shepherd. I want to I want to be hold tonight And I just want to encourage you if that's you as i'm talking I just want you to just pause and I want you to say is that me and if that's you that you're going I don't know. I felt disqualified whatever but but I do have that longing.
I just want to behold him And you want to respond to the lord tonight and you want to say this me I want to follow in the footsteps of john the baptist. I just want to encourage you just come to the front