The Witness John 1:6-8
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· 11 viewsThe Purpose of every believer is to be a witness pointing others to Christ
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The Witness
In his autobiography, Just as I Am, Billy Graham talks about his relationship with President John F. Kennedy.
“On the way back to the Kennedy house, the president stopped the car and turned to me, and said, ‘Do you believe in the Second Coming of Jesus Christ?’
I said, ‘I most certainly do.’ And he said, ‘Well, I don’t think my church does because, ‘They don’t preach about it,’ he said. I’d like to know what you think.’
I explained what the Bible said about Christ coming the first time, dying on the Cross, rising from the dead, and then promising that he would come again. ‘Only then,’ I said, ‘are we going to have permanent world peace.’
‘Very interesting,’ he said, looking away. ‘We’ll have to talk more about that someday.’ And he drove on.”
Several years later, we met again, at the 1963 National Prayer Breakfast.
“I had the flu,” Graham remembers. “After I gave my short talk, and he gave his, we walked out of the hotel to his car together, as was always our custom. At the curb, he turned to me.
‘Billy, could you ride back to the White House with me? I’d like to see you for a minute.’
‘Mr. President, I’ve got a fever,’ I protested. ‘Not only am I weak, but I don’t want to give you this thing. Couldn’t we wait and talk about it later?’
It was a cold, snowy day, and I was freezing.
He said ‘Of course,’ he was always so gracious.”
But the two would never meet again. Later that year, Kennedy was shot dead. Billy Graham said, “That still haunts me to this day. What was on his mind? Should I have gone with him? It was an irrecoverable moment.”
Have you ever had unrecoverable moment. A moment when you had an opportunity to tell someone about Jesus that could have changed their life forever?
We all know Billy Graham was an incredible witness to the world and he led millions to Christ, but it was that one blown opportunity that stood out in his mind. I think that is supposed to be the way each one of us think as Christians.
Just as I Am, Billy Graham[1]
[1]Galaxie Software. (2002). 10,000 Sermon Illustrations. Biblical Studies Press.
I have come to realize that Loving Christ and loving People is what Christianity and the church are all about. That unless we have compassion for people and we are sharing our faith we are missing out on God’s mission is for us in the world.
God doesn’t need us but He invites us to participate with Him in building the Kingdom of God. We are all called to share God’s love with the world.
The purpose of every believer is to be a witness to the world of the glory of God in Jesus Christ.
John 1:6–8 (NASB95)
There came a man sent from God, whose name was John.
He came as a witness, to testify about the Light, so that all might believe through him.
He was not the Light, but he came to testify about the Light.
In our passage this morning we are introduced to a new character and a new concept in the gospel of John. We are introduced to a man named John the Baptist who was a witness to the world of the Lord Jesus Christ.
But why would John the apostle, the author of this gospel, introduce us to John the Baptist at this point in the story. This whole chapter has been about the glory of God in Jesus Christ.
Verses 1-5 teach us about the unique relationship Jesus has with God the Father. He is the eternal Son of God and the second member of the Trinity. They teach us about His unique relationship with the world. He is the Creator and the light and life of man.
So why now, at the beginning of a story that is all about the glory of Christ Jesus does he stop and introduce John the Baptist?
Because John’s entire purpose in life was to bring glory to God as a witness of Jesus Christ. And John the Baptist serves as a great example for us of what a believer is supposed to be.
The purpose of every believer is to be a witness to the world of the glory of God in Christ Jesus.
The first thing I want you to see in this passage is The Commission, Vs. 6, “There came a man sent from God, whose name was John.”
John the Baptist was commissioned by God, to go and to tell the world about Christ, and the same thing is true in the life of every believer. God has chosen to use people to reveal His Son to the world.
Now there are three important things about John the Baptist in Vs. 6 we need to see.
First of all, He was a man. And the emphasis here is on the fact that he was only a man. There is a great contrast here between John and Jesus.
Jesus was in the beginning. Jesus was with God. Jesus was God, but John was just a man.
John had a beginning. He was born into the world like the rest of us. John had all the same limitations that you and I have.
There was nothing special or divine about him. He was not an angel. He was merely a human being. He was a man.
However, John was sent by God. He had a special calling on his life and special mission in the world.
The word “sent” here is the Greek word “apostello.” Which is where we get our word apostle from. It means to be sent out or to represent the King. To go as a special ambassador or envoy carrying the Kings message.
There are three things that are true of every person who is sent by God; They belong to God. They are commissioned by God, and they possess the power and authority of God as one sent to carry His message.
We might not be called apostles today because that became a term specifically used of the twelve disciples who were with Jesus when He walked the earth but, in a very real sense every believer today is an apostle, because every believer is one who is sent by God.
Matthew 28:18–20 “And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.””
These are the marching orders of the church. This is the great commission and the implication is that God has empowered us; the church, believers in the world to be modern day apostles.
We are to go out as ambassadors and carry the good news to the world. We are to go out and make disciples.
We do that by telling people that God loves them and wants to fix what sin has broken in their lives. That is the gospel, that is the good news.
Jesus has come to bring forgiveness and grace to the world and you know longer have to live with the guilt and the shame over the mistakes you have made in life, but you can be set free.
Now it is up to each one of us to recognize our unique calling, and how we accomplish sharing the gospel. Some of us will be preachers, and some of us will be teachers, and some of us will be missionaries, but all of us are sent by God, commissioned to go and proclaim the Gospel.
Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation,
namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation.
Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.
You see all believers are called to carry the message of reconciliation.
The third thing we need to see about John the Baptist in Vs. 6 is his name. The name John means gracious. He was a man sent by God with a name that matched his message.
Nothing in the Bible is wasted. Everything has layers upon layers of meaning. Here we see the grace of God was coming into the world through Jesus Christ and God’s very first ambassadors name means gracious.
If there was ever any indication in the Bible of how a Christian is supposed to act this is it.
I read a story this week about a man who came out of his house on the way to church on Sunday morning, just as his neighbor came out of his with his golf clubs. The golfer said, “Henry, come play golf with me today.” Henry, looked at him in horror and said, “This is the Lord’s day, and I go to church. Certainly I would not play golf with you.”
After a moment’s silence, the golfer quietly said, “You know Henry, I have often wondered about your church, and I have admired your faithfulness. You know this is the seventh time I have invited you to play golf with me, and you have never once invited me to go to church with you.”
Don’t allow your heart to become so bitter by the world that it prevents you from sharing God’s graciousness with them.
The next thing I want you to see in this passage is The Mission, Vs. 7, “He came as a witness, to testify about the Light, so that all might believe through him.”
John was a man on a mission. And it is a mission that we should all be on. Notice two points from this verse.
1. He was a man who came to bear witness of the Light.
God had given John a message to proclaim. specifically that Jesus Christ had come into the world as the Light of God.
What does that mean? That means Jesus is the very quality of what life. He is what life is all about. Without Him life has no meaning or purpose, we only exist.
But with Him, life is complete, it’s satisfying, it’s fulfilling.
John was a witness of the Light. A witness is someone who reports what they have seen and experienced. When the news wants to report on an event they interview witnesses. When the police conduct an investigation they interview witnesses.
And we accept the testimony of credible witnesses. John was a credible witness. His testimony was accepted and his message was heard.
And we have been given that very same message to proclaim. We haven’t been left to come up with this message on our own but, we have the message of Jesus Christ the light of the world, and if you know Him today then you have been called to the witness stand.
Also, notice John’s mission had a purpose. “That through him all might believe.”
It is important we understand John’s mission wasn’t to start a movement for God. It wasn’t to organize a church, or build a good program to get people involved in. It wasn’t even to preach. His purpose was to lead people to believe in Jesus.
This word “believe” is repeated 98 times throughout the gospel of John, and it doesn’t mean to just accept some idea about who Jesus is in your head, but to come to trust Him with your heart.
John the Baptist’s mission was to point people to Jesus and help them grow in their commitment to Christ. To become disciples. And that is still the primary purpose of Christians today.
Our goal is not to oversee, organize and manage a church. This building and organization is a tool. Our goal is to be on a mission in this world to make disciples.
Everything else we do is a method to accomplish that goal. We preach, we teach, we have V.B.S, we have small groups and fellowship dinners all of those things are just methods we are using to try and reach lost people of the world and lead them to saving faith in Jesus Christ.
Someone will inevitably ask me, “Why do you spend so much time talking about witnessing and sharing your faith?” The answer is; if I don’t the church will suffer mission drift.
We will forget why we are here. We will begin to act like it is all about us. We will begin to make the mission church, instead of Christ and we can’t let that happen.
That is why the evangelism training we just had is so important. That’s why on August 2nd we are going to have a booth at the county fair. Because we have to look for opportunities and take advantage of God’s calling on our lives.
Now, I sometimes wish God had chosen another method, because sharing our faith is not always comfortable, especially in the culture we live in. I sometimes wish God would just send angels to proclaim the gospel but He didn’t He chose to use us.
We are on a mission with Him in this world to lead people to Christ.
The final thing I want to show you in this passage is The Position, Vs. 8 “He was not the Light, but he came to testify about the Light.”
This was John the Baptist position and this verse speaks of the humility it takes to be a witness for Jesus Christ.
Our job is to point people to Jesus not to glory in ourselves or in the gifts that God has given us.
To many Pastors and leaders are exalted in the eyes of the church today, and it leads to incredible abuse and misfortune.
James Montgomery Boice said; “Whenever a Christian layman, minister, writer, teacher, or whoever it might be, gets to thinking that there is something important about him, he or she will always cease to be effective as Christ’s witness.” (James Montgomery Boice, 1999, the Gospel of John, 5 vols, Baker Publishing, Grand Rapids, 1:53)
John the Baptist was a great man. He was an extraordinary leader but He was not Jesus. Jesus Himself said;
Matthew 11:11 (NASB95)
“Truly I say to you, among those born of women there has not arisen anyone greater than John the Baptist!”
Yet John’s entire purpose was to point people to Jesus.
Many times when we witness today, we talk about ourselves. We call it giving our testimony. We talk about how our life has been changed by Christ and how we are not the same person we used to be. That is great, but your life can be changed by diet and exercise. Any religion of the world is going to change your experience in life.
I mean if you become a Jehovah’s Witness your going to begin walking around your neighborhood passing out the Watch Tower magazine, that would be different.
Our witness must be centered on the facts; that Jesus Christ has come into the world to save sinners like you and me and now through faith in Jesus Christ we are forgiven and free, and we can spend eternity with God in heaven. Our witness must be centered on who Jesus is, and the change in our life is secondary.
In John 5:35 Jesus said that John the Baptist was a burning and shinning Lamp to the world. Well a lamp doesn’t burn on it’s own. It relies on a supply of oil, that has to be continually filled or else it will burn out.
And the same thing is true about us. Our witness depends on our fellowship with Christ. It depends on spending time in His presence, in prayer, and in His Word.
John 15:5 ““I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.”
A good illustration of this is the moon and the sun. Both shed light on the earth but the moon is a dead world in space. It is just a lifeless chunk of Rock. But It works like a reflector. It picks up the light of the sun and relays it to the earth. It’s not the light itself but it bears witness of the light. (John Phillips)
The point is Christ supplies us with everything we need but evidently there is some cooperation required on our part.
To abide means to be connected. Many people wonder why they are not an effective witness well the answer can only be that you are not connected enough to Christ to be a light to anyone else.
Also, our witness should not be something we do out of obligation, but it should come out of the overflow of our heart.
I don’t know about you but obligation never made me do anything but rebel. But the love, peace, and joy of Christ is something I want to share.
Jesus said, “Out of the mouth flows the abundance of the heart.”
If you go to a good doctor or if you know of a good restaurant, don’t you recommend that to your family and friends? Well, I highly recommend Jesus to the world because He is good.
Conclusion
The purpose of every believer is to be a witness to the world of the glory of God in Christ Jesus. John the Baptist is a great example of that.
The author of the gospel of John puts this right here at the very beginning because being a witness is such an important aspect of being a Christian.
It is the very purpose of the church and the great commission Jesus gave us before He ascended into heaven. The marching orders for every Christian is to “Go and make disciples.”
But making a disciple must first begin with being a disciple. So, if you have never given your life to Christ and began to grow in a relationship with God, do that now. Don’t wait
God wants to use you and me to build His kingdom. Together we can make a great difference in the world by reflecting the light of Christ in our lives.
