Church Sermon - December 11, 2005

GIVE WAY TO CHRIST

Rev. Mark F. Bartels

Epistle Lesson; 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24
Old Testament Lesson; Isaiah 61:1-11
Sermon Text; John 1:6-28

John the Baptist must have been an exceptional, phenomenal, outstanding preacher! John the Baptist must have been so exceptional, so phenomenal, and so outstanding as a preacher, that probably in this world there may not be a preacher who would compare to John the Baptist!

You need to remember that John the Baptist preached out in the wilderness, by the Jordan River. And yet, the Bible tells us that people came to hear him, from Jerusalem, from the Judean countryside, and from all the region of the Jordan River. And, that was not a small journey. We are talking about one, two, three, four days’ journey, just to hear John the Baptist! And yet, word about him had spread. His preaching was so outstanding, so phenomenal that the Bible tells us that all Jerusalem, all Jerusalem, went out to see him! All of the Judean countryside went to see him! All from the region of the Jordan went to see him! He was so outstanding that people went to hear what he had to say.

He was so outstanding that people from every class of society went to see him. The city people from Jerusalem, and the country people from the Judean countryside went to hear him. We know that the Pharisees went to hear him. We know the Sadducees went to hear him. We know that tax collectors, who were considered sinners, went to hear him. We know even the Roman Soldiers, who should have not had any interest in what John had to say, went to hear John the Baptist.

He must have been an outstanding preacher. In fact, his preaching must have been so outstanding, so phenomenal that he was paid a ‘compliment’ that was far beyond a compliment. Do you know who people thought he might be? Word was going around that he might be the Christ. He was so phenomenal, so outstanding in his preaching that people began to wonder if he was God, in human flesh.

Can you imagine the compliments that must have been paid to John the Baptist, when he would preach a sermon? I can imagine people said to him, "That was the most outstanding sermon I have ever heard!" "That touched me to the heart and core." "The words you said have changed me."

He must have been a man who received great praise and many compliments from many people. And so, in today’s scripture reading, we find people coming to him, addressing him as someone very, very great. A delegation was sent to him with a simple question. "Who are you? Who are you?"

John did not just reply, (because he knew they thought he might be the Christ), the Bible says he confessed,

"I am not the Christ."

He did not want people to think he was the Christ.

Then they went a notch lower, and they asked, "Are you Elijah?"

Now remember, Elijah had gone up to Heaven in a fiery chariot. And they thought maybe John was actually Elijah who had come down from Heaven to preach to the people. "Are you Elijah?"

He said, "I am not."

"Are you the Prophet", the great prophet they had been waiting for that was to come after Moses, who would be like Moses?

And he answered, "No."

Finally they asked, "Who are you?" Who are you?

I want you to see how John the Baptist, (who could have taken all kinds of honor to himself, who certainly could have been tempted to let himself be perceived as someone great), John the Baptist totally yielded to Jesus Christ. He totally gave way to Jesus Christ. He totally submitted himself, in absolute submission, to Jesus Christ. John the Baptist did not want people to look at him. He did not want people to think that he was great. John the Baptist simply acted as a signpost. He said, "I am the voice of one calling in the desert, ‘Make straight the way for the Lord.’"

He was pointing to the Lord, not to himself.

He said about Jesus, "among you stands one you do not know." (Jesus was in the crowd that very day.) Then he said, "He is the one who comes after me, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie."

There, John the Baptist was saying, "If you think I am great, if you think I am someone special, there is someone so much greater, so much more profound than I, who stands in your midst." John the Baptist yielded to Christ. He gave way to Christ. His life was nothing more than a finger, pointing away from himself, and toward Christ. His life was nothing more than a mouth and a voice, proclaiming Jesus Christ.

The question you and I should ask ourselves is, "Do we yield to Jesus Christ? Do we, in our lives, give way to Jesus Christ? Do we, in our lives, point away from ourselves and point toward Jesus Christ?"

Certainly, with our mouths, we confess and we yield to Jesus Christ. We confess that He is much greater than we are. We confess that He is as far above us, as the heavens are above the earth. We confess with our mouths that we are not worthy. We are not worthy to unloose the thongs of His sandals.

How do we confess that, with our mouths? With our mouths, we confess who He is. In the Nicene Creed we say, "We believe He is God of God, light of light, very God of very God, begotten not made, of one being with the Father, by whom all things were made, who for us men and for our salvation came down from Heaven, was incarnate by the Holy Spirit, and was made Man."

There we, with our mouths, confess the greatness of Jesus Christ compared to ourselves. There we confess that He is God of God, very God of very God, begotten not made, of one being with the Father. He is God, equal to the Father, who came down from Heaven, was incarnate by the Holy Spirit and was made Man. We confess that He is God and Man in one person. By that you and I confess with our mouths the greatness of Jesus Christ.

When we confess He is God, we are confessing that He,

We confess with our mouths the vast greatness of Jesus Christ compared to us. But, my question to you is, "When we confess, do we yield to Jesus Christ? Do we give way to Jesus Christ? Do we confess with our actions?" Oh, we confess it with our mouth, but do we confess it with our actions? Do we yield, do we admit that He is so great we don’t even deserve to unloose the thongs of His sandals? He is LORD. He is Master. Do we confess that with our actions?

When you get into a tense moment with a member of your family, (your mother, your father, your brother, your sister, your husband, your wife, your son, your daughter), you know what the Lord, what our Master, what Jesus expects of us. Our Savior, who is far greater than we are, tells us that we should forgive seventy times seven. We should forgive, as He forgave us. Our Savior tells us that we should confess our sins to one another. Our Savior tells us that we should love, as He has loved us. That means that even if someone treats us in a way that we could treat them back badly, we are to show unconditional love, and love them with no strings attached, as our Savior treats us. And, we are to yield to Jesus. We are to give way to His Will.

But, do you do that in your actions? Do you do that in your actions, or do you hold a grudge? Do you refuse to say that you are sorry? Do you say things that are hurtful, painful, and inflect harm to your loved ones?

When we do that, who is yielding? Are we yielding to Christ, or are we making Christ yield to us, making Christ give way to us? And then, who are we treating as the greater one? Are we treating Christ as the greater one, or are we treating ourselves as the greater one? We yield to Christ with the confession of our mouth, but do we yield to Him with our actions?

When you see someone who is worse off than you are, (maybe they don’t have any friends, maybe they are by themselves on the playground or at the bus stop, maybe they are forsaken or forlorn), you know the Will of our Master, the One to whom we are to yield. We know His Will is that we befriend them, that we take them under our wing, that we treat them kindly. Jesus says, "Whatever you do to the least of one of these, my brothers, you do it to me." We are to yield to Jesus Christ. We are to submit to Him, because of who He is. We are not even worthy to unlatch the thong of His sandals.

But, do we yield to Him with our actions? Or do we avoid those who we think are less than us? Do we leave them by themselves at the bus stop, with no one to talk to? Do we leave them on the playground, because they are not as good as we are at this sport or that activity? Do we leave them by themselves at work, because they are not as productive or not as popular as the rest of the people at work?

There, who is doing the yielding? Are we yielding to Christ and His Will? Are we giving way to Christ and His Will? Or, are we making Christ yield to us and our will, making Jesus give way to us? We confess with our mouth that Jesus is greater than we are, but with our actions we often act as if we are greater than He is, because we are going to do it our way, not His way.

When you look at your life, and how our Savior wants us to use His Word, He is very plain and very clear to us. He says,

"Blessed are those who hear my Word and keep it."

He tells us His Word is the one thing needful. We know that to yield to Jesus, to submit to Him as the greater One, is to take His Word and use it in our lives, on a regular basis. And yet, do we yield to Christ, by our actions? Do we go for a week or two, and at the end of that time say, "Boy, we have never cracked open the Bible in our home this week? We have not looked at devotions. We have not been at church."

Why is that? Who is doing the yielding? Are we yielding to Christ, or is He yielding to us? Are we giving way to Christ, or is He giving way to us? Who do we treat as the greater? Do we do things Jesus’ way, the Master’s way, the One who is God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten not made, of one being with the Father, by whom all things were made, who for us men and our salvation, came down from Heaven, was incarnate by the Holy Spirit and was made Man. Do we do things His way, or do we do them our way? We all have to confess, that we, in our actions and by our actions, do not yield to Jesus, submit to Him, or give way to Him the way we ought.

That is why we need our Master and our LORD to also be our servant. And that is exactly why Jesus came to be your servant, not just your Master, not just your LORD.

The One who is God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten not made, of one being with the Father, one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made, came to be your servant. Though He is far greater than you, than we, can imagine, He came to be our servant. He came to do our dirty work. God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God came to do YOUR DIRTY work!
Our sins, our filthy, dirty sin, (which should separate us from God, the sins which we long to be gone), God, Himself, came to do our dirty work, to be our servant, to be the lowliest, humblest servant. And He took our dirty, filthy sins to Himself, as His own!

And that makes our hearts skip a beat. Our Savior, God, LORD of lords, took our sin, and as our servant, not as LORD or Master, but as servant, went to the cross!

John the Baptist came to point to the greatness of Jesus Christ, by saying, "Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world." Jesus is our LORD, but He is also our servant.

And, because He has become our servant,

And so, how willing we should then be to become His servants. How willing we should say, with John the Baptist, "I am not worthy to even untie the thongs of His sandals. I want, in my life, to yield to Jesus Christ. I want to give way to my Master, the One who redeemed me and the One who is God of God, LORD of lords, very God of very God, begotten not made, of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made. I want to yield to Him. I want to yield to Him by the way I dress. I want to yield to Him by the people I associate with. I want to yield to Him by the words that come out of my mouth. I want to yield to Him in my business practices. I want to yield to Him in the way I spend my money. I want to yield to Him in every area of my life."

When we do that, we become like John the Baptist. We decrease and Christ increases. Like Martin Luther said, we become the finger of John the Baptist, and the mouth of John the Baptist, and voice of John the Baptist. And we point attention away from ourselves to the greater One, to Jesus Christ.

Jesus tells us that by the way we live our lives, men will see our good deeds, and glorify our Father in Heaven. We are to be a light, a city set on a hill, a light that does not have a bushel over the top of it, but a light that is burning brightly. By the way we live our lives, we are to yield to Jesus Christ, our Master, give way to Him, so that we point to Him, not to ourselves, as Savior, LORD, Master, and the greater One. We are to yield to Him with our mouths. We are to confess Him, as St. John the Baptist confessed, (not just talked about Him, he confessed Jesus Christ). We are to be like the voice and mouth of John the Baptist and confess Jesus Christ, pointing people away from us, and to Jesus Christ, our Savior. Jesus tells us that we believe, therefore we speak. He says, "If you confess me before men, I will confess you before my Father in Heaven."

We must decrease and

Christ must increase.

By God’s help and through faith in Jesus, as our Savior, let us yield to the greater One, let us give way to the greater One. Let us point to Him with our fingers. And with our mouths, let us proclaim Him!

Amen.

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