The Greatest Endorsement

If you have put your faith in Jesus, your faith is well-placed. You can trust in him even when the doubt creeps in.

Note: This transcript was auto generated and may have errors.

Well, last week we ended our time in Luke talking about what I call unhitching your life from the fear of death because of Jesus. And I want to pick up right where we left off there again, because it’s the motivation behind our passage this morning. So for review last week, we watched as Jesus walked into a funeral procession, told the mother of her deceased son not to weep, and then raised the young man back to life and gave him back to his his mother. He restored not only this woman’s joy, not only made her happy, but also gave her her future, because as a widow, she she had backed the one son that she would be able to count on to provide for her. Basically, by his word, Jesus turned this whole woman’s life around. And the major point of of that, that passage for us is that for those who have Jesus, we don’t have to fear death because we have the one who can undo it. That’s what we have in Christ. The world drags around the fear of death all the time. They see it as an end. But the. But Jesus demonstrated that that he is the Lord over death. He’s come to unravel death. And so he has come to give hope and peace and life and a future to all of those who trust in him. So we no longer have to fear difficult circumstances or death suffering. That’s why Jesus can say to this woman and can say to us, even in the midst of a tragedy, do not weep.

And if you’re saying, Kyle, that’s not really where I’m at. I don’t I don’t know if that’s where I’m at yet. I don’t know that I trust Jesus so completely that that I, that I don’t have to look anywhere else for hope and peace. And if that’s you this morning, if that’s how you’re feeling, if you’re not quite there yet, you are in the right place this morning, because today Jesus is going to have a conversation with a person who’s just like that, who’s who’s wavering a bit. He’s going to build someone up who’s struggling to put all of his hope in Jesus. And if you find yourself in that place of wrestling, sometimes wondering whether your trust in Jesus is well placed, well, I can tell you this morning, based on our passage, that you are in good company because this conversation Jesus has is with no less a man than John the Baptist, the prophet who was sent to prepare the way for Jesus, the guy who baptized Jesus and taught people to follow Jesus. This guy is going to waver a bit in whether or not he was right to trust that Jesus is the one that God has sent. Jesus is, is is not only going to reassure John, but he’s going to use John and his faithfulness as a model for us.

If you have put your faith in Jesus. Your faith this morning is well placed. You have well placed faith. You can trust him even when the doubt starts to creep in. If you have your Bibles, go ahead and open them to Luke chapter seven. Luke seven. We’re going to begin in verse 18. I’m going to read the whole passage all at once because it’s a little bit longer. It also won’t be on the screen because it’s a little bit longer, so you may want to turn there. Luke chapter seven, verse 18. We’re going to see a very passionate, committed, faithful man who who loves the Lord and obeys him even when it costs him his life. We’re going to see that man struggle with his trust in Jesus, and then we’re going to watch Jesus not only alleviate that struggle, alleviate John’s struggle, but explain that everyone who follows him will be like John the Baptist. So pick up with me in verse 18. The disciples of John reported all these things to him. And John, calling two of his disciples to him, sent them to the Lord, saying, are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another? And when the men had come to him, they said, John the Baptist has sent us to you, saying, are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another? In that hour, he healed many of many people of diseases and plagues and evil spirits, and on many who were blind, he bestowed sight.

And he answered them, go and tell John what you have seen and heard. The blind received their sight, the lame walk. Lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have good news preached to them. And blessed is the one who is not offended by me. When John’s messengers had gone, Jesus began to speak to the crowds concerning John. What did you go out in the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind. What then did you go out to see? A man dressed in soft clothing. Behold, those who are dressed in splendid clothing and live in luxury are in King’s courts. What then did you go out to see? A profit. Yes, I tell you. And more than a profit. This is he of whom it is written. Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way before you. I tell you, among those born of women, none is greater than John. Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he. When all the people heard this. And the tax collectors too, they declared God just. Having been baptized with the baptism of John. But the Pharisees and the lawyers rejected the purpose of God for themselves, not having been baptized by him. To what then? Shall I compare the people of this generation and what are they like? They are like children sitting in the marketplace and calling to one another.

We played the flute for you and you did not dance. We sang a dirge and you did not weep. For John the Baptist has come eating no bread and drinking no wine. And you say he has a demon. The Son of Man has come eating and drinking. And you say, look at him! A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners. Yet wisdom is justified by all her children. Well, you might recall that John the Baptist has been thrown into prison because he called out Herod. He called out Herod for his sin. Some people just can’t tolerate hearing someone tell them the truth about their sin. They just they just can’t take it. Somebody comes and says, here’s what’s going on in your life. This is a problem. Here’s where you’ve gone wrong. They can’t they can’t hear that no one, no one likes hearing that, of course. But but for some people, they would rather attack the person that tells them the truth than to actually listen to the truth. And that’s what that’s what Herod did. He had he had John put in jail because back in chapter three, we saw that John rebuked Herod for marrying his brother’s wife, and for, quote, all the evil things that Herod had done. By the way, public rebuke is one of the roles of a prophet, so he’s not doing something outside of his normal role.

When John did this, this is what he’s supposed to be doing. So John has been sitting in prison, and we know, actually that he will never get out of prison. We know that he actually dies in prison. He’s killed in prison. But during this time he has access to his disciples because that’s how prisons worked back then. If you were in prison, your friends and family had to come to the prison to take care of you. They didn’t feed you or give you the things you needed. You had to have friends and family come and do that for you. And so John has his friends there, and John’s friends have brought word to him about what Jesus has been doing. They they tell him all these things. It says in the passage, and of course, these things are the things that we’ve been looking at in the in the Gospel of Luke, Jesus teaching on the plane, his resurrection of the widow’s son, all the different miracles that we’ve been looking at. And John then sends two of these disciples to directly interview Jesus. He’s heard the stories. He’s heard what’s going on with Jesus. Now he wants to send two to go ask a very direct question. And they go him. Go to him and ask a question that is so important that it’s repeated twice in our passage.

Do you see it there in verse 19 and 20, back to back passages? We have the same wording, same question. It’s that important. Are you the one who is to come or should we look for another? Now that’s surprising because. This is John the Baptist. Okay. This is this is not just some guy at the back of the crowd who was passing by, happened to hear Jesus say something interesting and went, hey, is that the guy that we’re supposed to be looking for? No, no no no. This is John the Baptist. This is the one who, from his birth, was declared by an angel to be the herald of the Messiah who would come and save the world. This is the guy who lived in the wilderness and gave his life to two eating bugs with honey on them, and baptizing people for their sins to prepare them the way for the coming of the Messiah. This is the guy calling people for out for their sin and calling them to repent and to prepare their hearts for God’s salvation. This is the guy who baptized Jesus. He he saw the heavens open up. He saw the Holy Spirit descend on Jesus like a dove. And he heard a voice from heaven revealing that Jesus is God’s Son. How could this guy, how could this guy wonder whether Jesus is in fact the one that he’s been waiting for? How could there be any doubt in his mind? How could he have any doubt about whether his trust in Jesus is well placed? Well, that question of how could John be in this situation is a is a question that’s handled differently by different theologians.

But I would submit to you this morning, Calvary, that based on the rest of the story, that the reason John sends an envoy to check with Jesus about his identity is because John is a normal guy. He’s a normal guy. He had a great calling. He’s the herald of the Messiah. He he had a great love for the Lord. He had great faithfulness in his work. But now he’s sitting in a prison cell because of his faithfulness in his work. Now things aren’t going very well for him because of his faithfulness and his work. And when the heat turns up and the trials come. That’s when you want to know that your convictions are well rooted. That’s when you need to hear it. Church is not it’s not explicitly said here, but I think what’s happening here is that in his hour of distress, John needs to know that Jesus is more than just a good man. He needs to know. He’s more than just a good man. He’s more than just a good teacher that he is. God, come to save us. He’s unhitching from the fear of prison, from the fear of Herod, from the fear of death.

And the only way to do that, the only way you can really, truly unhitch yourself from those fears is if you have a hope. That is sure. And John isn’t questioning God’s existence. He’s not. He’s not questioning God’s goodness to him. He’s making sure that when he trusts in Jesus, he’s trusting in the in the true God sent salvation so that he can endure this hardship of prison and the eventuality of his own death, knowing that he has nothing ultimately to fear. So what does Jesus say to assure him? Well, what he does is he has these friends. These two friends that came from John. He has them hang out with him for a little while. Verse 21 says that Jesus got to work in that hour, meaning in the hour that the two arrived. They got he got to work. And these guys then saw Jesus heal people and cast out demons and and give blind people their sight back. That had to be impressive. But, you know, here’s the thing about that. It’s not really a direct answer to the question, is it? He just said, hang out with me for a little bit. Watch me work. And then Jesus turns to them and he and he says, go and tell John what what you’ve just seen and heard. Go, go, go. Say to them what it is you’ve seen. The blind have received their sight. The lame walk.

The lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them. Along with all of that, they are hearing good news. I think if I were these guys, I would have liked a clear yes or no to go along with what I had just seen, wouldn’t you? But Jesus is actually doing something far better here, far more comforting, more affirming than just saying yes. These things in the list here were expected by the one that God would send to bring salvation. They’re all listed in various places in the book of Isaiah. We heard some of this read earlier in our service today. So Jesus is isn’t just saying he’s powerful. That’s the key. He could have said yes, but he says, you know what? Why don’t you watch it happen? Why don’t you watch the pages of Scripture come to life in front of you? Why don’t you see it? He’s not just demonstrating, by the way, his power. He’s not just saying he’s powerful or demonstrating his power. He is showing these friends of John that he is healing and preaching the good news, and that that is a direct fulfillment of the Old Testament promises, which John would know very well. He would know exactly what to look for when the Messiah comes. So Jesus is saying, yes, I’m the Messiah without actually saying those words. He’s letting his ministry do the talking for him, and then he caps it off with a challenge.

Blessed is the one who is not offended by me to be offended by it. Jesus is to see Jesus miracles, to hear his gospel teaching about the kingdom, to to assess his claim to be the Messiah, and then to reject it. It’s to consider Jesus and then to pass judgment on him. Okay. Yes. I’ve looked at what you are. I’ve listened to who you are. I’ve. I’ve seen who you are. But you know what? I don’t I don’t want to follow you. I won’t stand with you. That’s what it means to be offended. His encouragement to this man who is faithful but needs reassurance is see the fulfillment of Scripture with power here the authority of God in my teaching. And if you see that and you hear that, you’ll know that your trust is secure in me. And if you stay firm in your trust, you’re going to be blessed. You’ve probably heard a little lately about this trend of Christian leaders publicly rejecting the gospel. Have you heard about this? There’s this sort of this popular trend of Christian leaders, pastors, these folks walking away from Christ and the and the church. There are some famous pastors in there. There’s writers. There are some, I guess, just quote unquote, Christian personalities who are now publicly signing off from Jesus, and they’re disassociating themselves from evangelical Christianity. Sometimes these folks are being called evangelicals, which is a clever way of putting it, I guess.

I would argue that this is not really new. I know it feels new. It seems new. It’s like a newer trend, but it’s not really new. If you just look at the course of history, that’s just the way it’s been. There always been people who walk with Jesus for a time and then then they don’t anymore. It’s just that more people are now known because of social media. It seems like more people than ever who you would never have heard of, ever in your life. You now know about them because of social media platforms. And so when they make a change in their views, they can get a lot of other people to listen to them who would never otherwise have heard what they had to say. And also, it is it’s now cool to reject your faith in Jesus so more people are emboldened to speak about it. I could go on. There’s lots of things that influence this. I bring it up because the pattern of what they’re doing aligns with what Jesus is saying here. For a while, they listened to the gospel. They traveled with the church. They benefited from being near Jesus. But almost to a person, every one of these rejections of Jesus is fueled by some embarrassment over what following Jesus requires, compared to the ever shifting values of the culture. There’s a point in which these folks decided that they could no longer stomach Jesus call to come and die, to listen to and to obey the hard words of Scripture against the sins of our day.

And so they became offended by him. They became offended not at the rejection of Christ, but at Christ himself. They decided that Jesus is not who he claimed to be. Church. There are going to be times when it’s going to be hard to trust that the hope you have in Jesus is sure there are going to be times when it’s it’s it’s harder. You probably won’t ever find yourself in prison like John. Or maybe you will. I don’t know, I don’t know where all this is going. Seriously, I don’t know where we’ll end up, but you will definitely find yourself in places where it is not easy to say. As the old hymn goes, my hope is built on nothing less than Jesus blood and righteousness. You know those words? You know that song. You know the next words. I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus name. That sweetest frame part always gets you a little bit because you’re like, what is that? Well, a frame is a structure. A frame is something that holds other things, its supports. So the sweetest frame, the best frame would be the structure that looks the strongest. Nothing else is going to hold you up through those difficult times.

If you decide to move away from Jesus because you’re offended by him, there’s nothing else that is going to support you. Not even the most attractive, the sweetest frame. There is no other structure. What we see in Jesus, what we hear him preach, the the pictures of sin and death undone by his miracles. All of that, all of that testifies to the truth that Jesus is worthy of our unending trust. He is the frame that will hold us. He is the structure who will support it. His gospel will actually bring us through. So what? What do you make of someone like John? What do you make of someone in his position? Maybe. Maybe his. His wavering means that he’s not as strong and as worthy of our respect as we as we first thought. Well, after John’s disciples leave, Jesus turns to the crowd to help them understand how to think about John. And he makes a very interesting endorsement here. But then at the end of this endorsement, this really nice endorsement that he gives to to John, he seems to negate everything he just said. And so it gets a little confusing if you just read straight through it, you go, well, he just said something nice and now he’s saying sort of the opposite here. What’s he talking about? To really understand what Jesus thinks of John, we have to remember that John lived in a unique time in history.

See, John was the last of the Old Testament or the Old Covenant prophets before the arrival of Jesus. So he kind of serves as a bridge between the Old Testament people of God and the New Testament kingdom of God. Jesus says, among all the people born in the world, there is no one greater than John. That’s the first part. That’s the big endorsement. That’s the really great thing he has to say. And that’s, that’s that’s verse 28. And that is quite a statement, right? World’s greatest human being. You might know someone who thinks he’s the world’s greatest human being, but Jesus says it’s John. John is the world’s greatest human being. What makes him so spectacular? Well, Jesus tells us in a series of rhetorical questions. Hey, crowds of people, when you went out to see John, what did you go out to the Jordan River to see? Did you think that that John was a weak man, like a reed shaken by the wind? Did you think he’d just sort of bend and flex and fall down and break? Did you think he was just some sort of a sort of soft, milquetoast religious guy who says nice things and tries not to hurt anybody’s feelings? Is that who you thought you were going to see? Because that’s not John. That’s not John. John told people the truth. He told people the truth. Don’t act like you love the Lord and then spend your time living in sin, living for yourself.

Don’t do that. Repent of your sin. Bear fruit that aligns with that repentance, or else the axe will be laid at the root of your life, and you will be cut down and thrown into the fire of judgment. That’s what John said. Greatest human being in the world said that. If you were hoping for something soft that would make you feel good about yourself, then you went to the wrong guy. Jesus said. Or. Okay, how about this? Did you think that you were going to go out there and see some someone royal? Someone very self-important. Jesus says, if you want to want that, you have to go to the king’s courts. You see the self-important people there who are living in luxury. People, people thought riches and power made a person great back then, just like we do today. Just like we look up to. It seems people with great riches and great power. If someone has followers, if someone has a platform, if someone has prestige in a position, we think that that person has made it somehow. That’s the person we ought to be listening to. But Jesus says that’s not where greatness comes from. You went out. If that’s what you thought you were going out to see, you were going out to see some sort of a worldly greatness, but not actual greatness. John, the greatest man who ever lived, wore camel hair, clothes and a leather belt.

So. So he was a tough dude. He said hard things and he looked rough. What about this guy? Makes him the greatest of all people who ever lived. Well, Jesus says that they went to see him because he’s a prophet, but he’s even more than a prophet because he’s the prophet who will pave the way for Jesus. John is the last and the greatest of the prophets of his category. Okay, so he’s the last and the greatest of the prophets, the Old Testament prophets of his category, you know, how do you know? At the Olympics, every year when we have the Olympics, they run the torch. You know what I’m talking about. They run the torch usually through the country where the, the, the Olympics are being held. And they do this over the course of several weeks, and they keep handing the torch off to the different athletes and the different famous people. And they they take the fire all the way to the great Olympic torch to light it right during the opening ceremony, they’re going to light the torch. And I remember in the 1996 Olympics that were held down in Atlanta, there was this big mystery as to who was going to be, who was going to be that final person, who was going to be that person that was going to take the torch and light the big torch right at the end.

And it was a really amazing buildup, sort of an emotional buildup that all came to Muhammad Ali. Muhammad Ali was the guy, and he took the fire and he lit the wick, and then it shot up and the whole torch sort of exploded in fire. It’s pretty dramatic. You can watch it on YouTube if you want to. It’s kind of a cool moment. John the Baptist is kind of the Muhammad Ali in that moment. Okay. John the Baptist is kind of like Muhammad Ali. He’s the final carrier of this light. You can watch the light of the gospel being passed by the prophets, basically through the Old Testament, all the way up to John the Baptist and then John the Baptist. He’s the one that sort of lights the final torch, the big explosion that led up to the final prophet, Jesus. Ali was famous for saying that he’s the greatest, and Jesus says that John actually is the greatest. But then he then he says something that’s a little bit confusing. Right? After saying that, he says something that’s just a little bit confusing about John. Look at verse 28 again. I tell you, among those born of women, none is greater than John. Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he. Mm. It’s a little confusing, right? Is he. Is he just being mysteriously contradictory? Is that what’s going on here? Well, what he’s saying here is that the key to understanding why a guy as great as John could also be the guy who needs assurance in the times of struggle.

Okay. If you if you understand the dynamic of what’s being said here in this verse, you’ll get why a guy as great as John could be sitting in prison, struggling with his faith in Christ. Now follow me here. When Jesus comes, there’s a shift in the way that God relates to his people. See, before Jesus came, God used priests to run the temple. He used prophets to speak to the people, and he used kings to lead the people. But now that Jesus has come and he’s he’s our prophet and our priest and our king, there’s no longer a distinction of greatness within the people of God. Everyone who trusts in Jesus enters and enters by faith into the spiritual kingdom of God is the same. We’re all the same now. The Holy Spirit once worked in certain individuals at important times. But now what’s happened is that the Holy Spirit now indwells everyone who trusts in Jesus. There is no specially Holy Spirit indwelled person that every follower of Jesus. And so, while from a human perspective, John had a very important role as the last prophet to testify to the coming of God’s Messiah, he’s just one of the many people in the Kingdom of God. Do you know what that means? Do you know what that means? It means that none of us are special.

No one is special. You’re not special. I’m not special. No one is special. It’s like the opposite of a mr. Rogers episode. Nobody. I’m not saying that you’re not valuable in God’s eyes. You’re of great worth to God. You’re of great worth to those who love God. You’re of great worth to people. But faith in Jesus brings you into God’s kingdom and in God’s kingdom. All all the labels of human greatness no longer matter. It doesn’t matter in the kingdom of God, where the the, the greatest in the kingdom of God is the servant of everybody else. That’s how the kingdom of God is set up. And so you can be a great prophet who needs assurance when he’s struggling. You can be both. You can be a pastor who deals with the anxiety of living in a difficult world, and wonder whether God is going to come through, as I often do. You can be a mom who loves the Lord, but struggles to love her kids and to love her husband well. You can be a small group leader who counsels other people in God’s Word, but also struggles to apply God’s Word consistently in your own life. You can be both. You can be a great missionary. You can be an elder, you can be a leader. You can be faithful to Jesus, passionate in your commitment to the Lord, and still need to reach out to the Lord in prayer and in his Word.

To know that your trust in Christ is well founded. You know who that’s good news for? You know who? That. That’s good news. That’s good news for sinners. That’s really good news for sinners, people who know how messed up they actually are. Jesus, good news is good. If you have the proper view of your own greatness, which is to say, for people who know that they’re not great, it’s good news for you. If you recognize how flawed you are, and you look to Jesus for assurance that his great work of salvation can heal you, then you’re in a good place. There’s there’s no independent greatness within the kingdom of God. Everyone there lives in daily reliance on the saving work of Jesus. That’s good news for sinners. But do you know who it’s not good news for? It’s not good news for self-important people who think they’re already great. It’s really bad news for you. You could be the one who always thinks that you know how people are supposed to be acting. No one measures up to your view of how they should be acting. That’s what Jesus is saying here about the children in the marketplace. That seems a little strange to us, but he’s saying that about the children in the marketplace who who think that everyone else ought to behave the way they think. I did this for I did this.

You didn’t do this, he’s saying. John has a very strict life. They say he has a demon. Jesus comes along, he goes to parties and they say he’s an overeating drunk with all the wrong friends. See, religious people are never satisfied with the behavior of other people. It’s never good enough for them for their standard, because they have a very high view of themselves, because they have a high view of their own greatness. Their view of their own greatness requires constantly showing how they’re better than everyone else. But I want you to be encouraged today. I want you to be encouraged today. Those of you who love and follow and trust in Jesus. But you’re struggling. You’re having difficulty, maybe even trending into some doubt. Am I well-founded when I trust in Jesus through this? Be encouraged today when you are in the hardest moments, I want you to go back to the truth of who Jesus is the Son of God, confirmed by his miraculous power, raised from the dead as testified by the eyewitnesses of Scripture, who were there, who saw him, who are sharing Christ with the world, the Christ that has transformed our world. Be encouraged today. He came to save you. A sinner saved by the grace of Jesus, ushered into the kingdom of God. Blessed with life and hope and peace, if that is you. No matter what you’re struggling with today, you have nothing to fear. Would you pray with me?