Jesus Is Everything
John 1:29-34
The Lamb of God: Making Jesus Central to Our Message
Have you ever wondered what John the Baptist meant when he pointed to Jesus and declared, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world”? This powerful declaration reveals not just who Jesus is, but transforms how we should live and share our faith with others.
What “Lamb of God” Meant to First-Century Jews
When John the Baptist called Jesus the “Lamb of God” in John 1:29, this wasn’t just a cute metaphor. For Jewish people who had grown up with the Old Testament laws, this title carried profound significance.
“Imagine with me you are a Jewish person who for your whole life learned of the Old Testament laws. Imagine with me at this time that you were part of the temple sacrifices. Every morning and every evening there was a sacrifice of a lamb for the forgiveness of sins,” as described in Exodus 29:38-41.
A lamb to these people wasn’t cute and cuddly—it was a sobering reminder of their sin. These daily sacrifices reminded them “that sin is ever present in our lives because we’re born in sin. We don’t sin because we want to. We sin because we are born in sin. It’s who we are. It’s our nature.”
They would also recall Abraham’s words to Isaac in Genesis 22, that “God will provide for himself, the lamb for a burnt offering.” And they would remember Isaiah’s prophecy about the coming Messiah in Isaiah 53:7, “He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth like a lamb that has led to the slaughter.”
Jesus: The Perfect Lamb
What makes Jesus the perfect Lamb of God? Unlike every other human, Jesus “was born without a sin nature. And he lived a perfect, sinless life, unlike any other human has ever lived, so that he could be the sacrifice, the lamb who was perfect, who didn’t have his own sin to pay the penalty and the consequence and the price for. So he paid it for us.”
This Lamb didn’t come without cost. In the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus was “so anxious and so just, full of fear of what this would mean. Not just the physical act of his crucifixion, but his separation from the Father. And the Bible tells us that he had such pressure on him that he sweat drops of blood from his pores for you and for me.”
Our Message Must Be Jesus
John the Baptist shows us what our approach should be. “What John is doing here is what we all must do. We must pull ourselves out of the gospel and push Jesus to the forefront in every conversation we have.”
“Our message is Jesus and Jesus alone, because Jesus is everything. Without Jesus, we have nothing. Without this Messiah, this Savior who saves us from our sins, we are lost in our sin with no hope.”
As 1 Peter 2:24 reminds us, “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.”
Water vs. Spirit Baptism
John makes a crucial distinction when he says in John 1:33, “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.'”
While John could only baptize with water—cleaning the outside—Jesus baptizes with the Holy Spirit, transforming us from the inside out. As John 6:63 tells us, “It is the Spirit who gives life. The flesh is no help at all.”
Putting It Into Practice
How can we make Jesus central to our message?
- Examine your conversations: If people observed your life, would they say Jesus is your central message? Or are you living for something else?
- Share what Jesus has done: “We get to share with others what Jesus has done in our own lives. And then through that, we can say who he is.”
- Remember it’s Jesus who saves: “If I’m scared to give the gospel, it’s probably because I think that I need in some way to save those people, that I need to have all the right answers. But it’s Jesus who saves.”
- Look at others with compassion: “Do we look at people who we disagree with politically? Do we look at people who we see doing things that we know the Bible says is wrong? And do we judge them in such a way where we’re like, ‘Oh, they’re terrible’… Or do we say they need Jesus?”
The truth is, “We would be just like them, if not worse, but for him saving our soul. It changes the way we think. It changes our motivations, and it changes the action in our life. When Jesus is our message.”
As we go through this week, may we follow John the Baptist’s example, pointing away from ourselves and declaring with conviction, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29).
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Bearing Witness In A World Of Skeptics
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Full of Grace And Truth
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When Light Broke The Darkness
We hope you enjoyed the sermon and would love to see you in person. Plan your visit to Community Baptist Church in Spring Hill, Tennessee today!