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In this episode of the Defender Bible Study, Rick Morton continues our journey through the Gospel of John, focusing on John 1:19-28 and the testimony of John the Baptist. As we explore John’s identity and his role in proclaiming the coming Messiah, Rick delves into the expectations the people of Israel had for a king and the significance of Jesus' fulfillment of God's promises. Join us as we discuss the confidence John had in his mission and how we, too, can be assured in our calling to share the gospel and live as God's chosen people.
LIFELINE CHILDREN'S SERVICES
The mission of Lifeline Children’s Services is to equip the Body of Christ to manifest the gospel to vulnerable children. Our vision is for vulnerable children and their communities to be transformed by the gospel and to make disciples.
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Creators & Guests
Host
Dr. Rick Morton
As Vice President of Engagement, Rick Morton shepherds the ministry’s outreach to individual, church, and organizational ministry partners as well as the ministry’s commitment to publishing resources that aid families and churches in discipling orphans and vulnerable children. Prior to Lifeline, Rick served for 15 years as a college and seminary professor, and he also served local churches in Tennessee, Louisiana, and Mississippi. He is an accomplished writer and sought after speaker. Most notably, Rick is the co-author of the popular Orphanology: Awakening to Gospel-centered Adoption and Orphan Care and the author of KnowOrphans: Mobilizing the Church for Global Orphanology. Rick and his lovely wife Denise have been married for over 32 years, and they have 3 children, all of whom joined their family through international adoption. God has continued to grow their family, and he now enjoys the role of “Doc” to his precious granddaughter!
What is The Defender Bible Study?
The Defender Bible Study is a weekly study of God’s Word as we seek to equip the Body of Christ to manifest the gospel to orphans and vulnerable children. This podcast is a ministry of Lifeline Children's Services.
Welcome to the defender bible study. A weekly encouragement to equip the body of Christ through the study of scripture and prayer to manifest the gospel to orphans and vulnerable children around the world. This podcast is a ministry of Lifeline Children Services where we believe that defending the fatherless begins by being rooted in God's word.
Rick Morton:Hey, there. Welcome back to the defender Bible study. This is Rick Morton. Today, we are continuing our study in the Gospel of John. Last week, Herbie kicked us off in John 1, and we went through verse 18.
Rick Morton:So we're gonna pick up with verse 19 and kind of take that next section down to verse 28 this morning. And our primary focus and our primary concern is with John the Baptist. And so this is what John wrote. And this is the testimony of John when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, who are you? He confessed and did not deny but confessed, I am not the Christ.
Rick Morton:And they asked him, what then? Are you Elijah? And he said, I am not. Are you a prophet? And he answered, no.
Rick Morton:So they said to him, who are you? We need to give an answer to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself? He said, I am the voice of the one crying out in the wilderness, make straight the way of the Lord, as the prophet Isaiah said. Now they had been sent from the Pharisees.
Rick Morton:They asked him, then why are you baptizing if you are neither the Christ nor Elijah nor a prophet? John answered them, I baptized with water, but among you stands 1. You do not know even he who comes after me, the strap of whose sandals I'm not worthy to untie. These things took place in Bethany across the river Jordan where John was baptizing. We sort of come face to face in our study today with the reality that people of Israel had been looking for King for a long time.
Rick Morton:They'd been anticipating the Messiah. They were looking for Jesus as long as they were a people. God had promised a Messiah. And even when the people were unfaithful, God remained faithful to his promise. And the fact that there was going to be one coming who was gonna come and was going to, in their oppression, he was going to take away their greatest enemy, he was going to be a king who was going to establish his rule, that he was going to fulfill all the promises of God.
Rick Morton:And so to understand what the people had in their expectation, we only need to go back to the Old Testament to understand what their interaction with God had been. And so for instance, in 2 Samuel kind of the end of verse 11 through verse 16, this is God's covenant with that he established with David and with David's house. And I will give you rest from all your enemies. Moreover, the Lord declares to you that the Lord will make your house. And when your days are fulfilled and you lie and with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom.
Rick Morton:And he shall build a house for my name, and I will establish a throne of his kingdom forever. I will be to him as a father, and he shall be to me as a son. And when he commits iniquity, I will discipline him with the rod of men, with the stripes of the sons of men. But my steadfast love will not depart from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I whom I put away before you. And your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me your throne shall be established forever.
Rick Morton:Of course, people thought that God was going to bring a literal king and that they were going to be a literal sovereign people and that they were going to become like the Romans and like the Assyrians and like the Babylonians and all these people that had conquered them and had overrun them and that had essentially had dominion over them and at some points had owned them, that their aspiration was they wanted to become like that. They wanted to become the bully. And they believed that God had given them the promise that they were going to get to be the bully. But we know that's not what God was promising at all. And so when John the Baptist came and he was preaching and prophesying, the Jews of that day immediately wanted to see if he fit the bill to be the Messiah.
Rick Morton:Because they'd been waiting and they'd seen a long line and a long string for 100 and for more than 1000 years of people that had come and gone who had claimed to be the fulfillment of the prophecy, who had claimed to be the one that Isaiah was talking about, that was going to be the king, that was going to lead them out of oppression, and the one that was going to establish Israel as the dominant force in the world. And so that's what the Pharisees were wanting to find out is, was he in fact, John the Baptist? Was he that person? Was he that king? And so because they were tired of being dominated, they were tired of being miserable, and they were ready for relief.
Rick Morton:And what they saw as their opportunity for relief was a warrior king that was going to beat back all of their enemies and was going to establish Israel finally as a as a world power. And so in John the Baptist's response, we find two things for certain. John is confident that he's not the Messiah and he's confident that he's been given the role of proclaiming the Messiah's coming and that he will do and be everything that God has promised. And so John was confident in the Lord and in the word of the Lord. John knew very securely that that he was not the one who was to be the fulfillment of prophecy, but that God had given him the task of proclaiming about the one who was going to be the fulfillment of the prophecy and really everything that Israel had hoped for, even if it wasn't in the way that they hoped for it.
Rick Morton:And I think we can take something from this as we think about the role of John the Baptist and as we think about the role that we've been given on the other side of the cross, we can be confident in 2 things as well. None of us are Jesus. None of us have the ability to be able to live the life that Jesus couldn't live. He took our sin upon him. He went to the cross as the propitiation, as Paul tells us, the propitiation for our sin as the sin offering for us.
Rick Morton:He got up out of the grave, and rose again to show that he had sovereignty over death and hell and creation and everything in it. And he reigns today alive because he is the only one, as the as the one true God who has the ability and has the purview, over all of those things. And so he defeated sin for himself, on our behalf, and ultimately, for our good. And so, in that confidence that we have about those two things, about the fact that we're not the Messiah and that God has given us a role in proclaiming that the Messiah has come and that he's sufficient for everything that the world longs for, we just know that we're looking back at a true reality about who Jesus is and what he's done and we're just supposed to use everything that we have to be able to fulfill that mission. And so, John was confident about who he was and what God had called him to do.
Rick Morton:And so before we close today, I want you to to take a look at at a verse in in 1st Peter, 1st Peter 2, verse 9 to help us to remember as we start our week and as we launch into another week, what we're called to do. 1st Peter 29 says, But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light. And so there's some truths that, that Peter writes to the church here that I think we can grasp onto and remember as we're seeking to do this thing of, 1, reminding ourselves that we're not Jesus, that we need Christ remember that that ultimately, we are a people that has been set aside for a purpose which is to tell the world about the glorious grace that we know that comes only through Jesus. But in that we're not the just broken, fallible, messy people that we are without resource in order to do that. Because Jesus has saved us, he's also brought us into the family of God.
Rick Morton:And we've been given relationship that includes the Holy Spirit. And so what do we need to be reminded of today? Well, first of all, Peter says that we are people that are chosen. We need to remember that Ephesians 1 says that we were chosen by God before the foundation of the world to be the heirs of God, to be the the family of God, for God to be our Father. So what does that mean?
Rick Morton:Well, what it means is and there are various ways that theologians and churches and theology systems have thought about this idea of choice and what it means to be chosen by God. But the thing we all can agree on is that there's a that God did something in his sovereign will that we can't we can't deny. That he created a scenario where Jesus stepped out of heaven, that he chose to came to come, he chose to pursue us, that he came after us, and that that we're chosen to to be in the family of God, that we have a choice place because God has chosen us as an adoptive parent. You know, one of the things that we still continue to deal with, in our lives and in the lives of our kids is the wound that at some point they were placed for adoption. And that brings questions and that brings doubt and that brings, you know, a sense of that things aren't the way they should be.
Rick Morton:And our kids wrestle with that at times. But I think one of the beauties of being an adoptive parent is also to help our kids wrestle with the other reality, which is that they were chosen, that we chose them, that we came after them, that we pursued them. But the truth is that our kids were chosen by people that are broken, infallible, and messy just like they are. And so they can't really afford to put their hope in us because we're not really hopeworthy. But God is hopeworthy.
Rick Morton:And we can put our trust and faith in Him. And His choice does matter in an eternal sovereign sense that you and I were chosen, to be part of His family. And so let's act like that today. Let's live as people who who were who were picked out by God, who who have been brought in by God, and who ultimately are heirs of the king, as a result of what the king has done. Second thing, we're a royal priesthood.
Rick Morton:And so what that means is that we're a kingdom made up of priests. And you say, well, gosh, what does that mean? It means that we're citizens of the kingdom, that we don't belong in this place where we are, that there's a there's a reality that there's an eternal kingdom that you and I are a part of if we're in Christ. And and so that changes the way we look at this world because it's not our home, it's not our destination. But what we do here is we represent our king.
Rick Morton:But we represent our king not as not as peasants that are that are way far on the outside only dealing with sort of the declarations that the Sovereign King makes that we're subject to the proclamations of God. We're a priesthood, which means we get to commune with God, we get to talk to God, we get to listen to God, we get to be close to God, That we get to have we get to live in relationship with God. And so we're people today that are able to go to the word and we're able to go to the Lord in prayer. And we're able to know the heart of God and to commune with the heart of God. And ultimately, when when we're in difficulty, when we're in trial we're able to seek out the heart of God and we confidently know that not just do we make our petitions to God, but that God speaks to us.
Rick Morton:He speaks to us through the through His word. He speaks to us through His Spirit because we're a royal priesthood. Peter also says that we're a holy nation. And that means that we're set apart for relationship with God. Being holy means that we're set apart.
Rick Morton:Right? We're different in the same ways that we're going to be different in the same ways that God is different, that God has a different character, that He has an upright character and life, that God is the definition of rightness. And that we get to live as His people, as His nation in relationship with Him in that difference. And that we must live that way. We must strive to live that way.
Rick Morton:And that our sin wars against that and fights against that. And then finally, Peter says that we're a people for his own possession. We can't forget that we were bought with a price, that God did what he did at great cost to bring us into the family of God. And that ultimately our ownership that we're not self determining, that we are owned, that we are possessed in this relationship with God. And so it's a glorious possession.
Rick Morton:It's an amazing possession. It's a wonderful possession. But nevertheless, that we we're not self determining. And then we find out what did he call us to do? Well, he called us, as Peter says, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
Rick Morton:So we're supposed to use everything that we are and all that we have and all that we can do to testify to his reality that he's real, that he came, that he died, that he rose again, that he's reigning and that he will return, that that we're supposed to use every opportunity. And that's our our family, that's our job, that's our our our sports teams and affiliations, that's a part of everything that we are to His reality and to testify to His greatness. That there was no other king that could do this. There was no other one who was qualified to take away the sins of the world. There was no other one who could bear our sin because he was sinless.
Rick Morton:There was no one who got up out of the grave, except Jesus. There's no one that that reigns sovereign over the earth except Jesus. There's no one that continues to reign and and continues to dwell in us and with us by the power of the Holy Spirit. And there's no one that's gonna come again and establish his kingdom and fix everything that's broken and and ultimately restore things to to God's perfect created order. So where do we find ourselves today?
Rick Morton:Well, I think we find ourselves today in a place where God's calling us to be like John the Baptist, to be people to recognize that we're not the Messiah but we need the Messiah and ultimately that we're called to proclaim the Messiah. As Peter said, that we're called, to proclaim the excellencies of him who called us out of darkness and called us into his marvelous light. So let's use every conversation, every email, every interaction, every opportunity, let's use everything, to do just that today. Thanks for joining us again on the Defender Bible Study. We're appreciative to have the opportunity to be able to interact with you to study the word together a little bit.
Rick Morton:And we would just ask that you would pray for us here at Lifeline that we would live this reality and live this into the world that we have an opportunity to with birth parents that are they're finding themselves in crisis with adoptive families that are somewhere on the road to adoption or somewhere on the road in adoption. That we would support families well. That we would provide resources for families who are under resourced and that Lifeline would be that friend that comes alongside them and their church in order to do adoption well. That we would care for kids that are out of their home placed in foster care, and that we would care for their families. But primarily, we would do that by engaging the church to engage with them in order to bring the gospel to bear in their lives.
Rick Morton:And that we would do that, all these things that we've been called to do, that we would do those things here in the US well by coming alongside churches. And that we would do that by coming alongside churches around the world to see that happen in communities all over the world. So that we have an opportunity by caring for orphan and vulnerable children through the church, that we have the opportunity to testify to His reality, and to His greatness, and the excellencies of Him who called us out of darkness into marvelous light. Hope you have a great day.
Herbie Newell:Thanks again for joining us for the Defender Bible Study. If you enjoy making this podcast a part of your weekly routine, we'd love for you to take a moment to subscribe, rate, and review the Defender Bible Study to make it easier for more people to find. For more resources and information on how you and your church can partner with Lifeline, please visit us at lifelinechild.org. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter by searching for Lifeline Child. You can email us directly at info at lifelinechilddot org.
Herbie Newell:We look forward to seeing you again next week for the Defender Bible Study.