In his sermon, Scott Brown delves into John 1:29-34, focusing on the declaration of Jesus as the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Brown emphasizes that this passage encapsulates the gospel's essence, highlighting Jesus' role as a sacrificial lamb, drawing parallels between Old Testament sacrifices and Jesus' ultimate sacrifice on the cross. He discusses the significance of Jesus' baptism and the Holy Spirit's descent, marking Jesus as the Messiah. The sermon stresses the necessity of recognizing the seriousness of sin and the magnificence of God's grace, cautioning against minimizing either. Brown calls for Christians to focus intently on Jesus, urging them to spread the gospel globally and to embody forgiveness as demonstrated by Christ's sacrifice. The message concludes with a call for believers to embrace their mission of proclaiming Jesus' redemptive work to the world.

Good morning. We are in John chapter 1 verses 29 to 34. The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. This is he of whom I said, After me comes a man who is preferred before me, for he was before me. I did not know him, but that he should be revealed to Israel.

Therefore I came baptizing with water. And John bore witness, saying, I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and he remained upon him. I did not know him, but he who sent me to baptize with water said to me, upon whom you see the Spirit descending and remaining on him, this is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit. And I have seen and testified that this is the Son of God. Let's pray.

Father, we again thank you for this opportunity that we have to be here today. Father, we pray a blessing upon Scott as he brings your word, your truth to us. Father, we're grateful for the many many hours of preparation and prayer that have gone into this time. Father, I ask that you help each and every one of us to be involved today in this service with our listening. I pray that your Holy Spirit would move upon us and just give us open ears and open hearts that this word would penetrate us today.

We thank you Father. Amen. The whole the message of the whole Bible is loaded into our text today, John 1 29 through 34. These verses record one of the most dramatic events in the history of redemption, where John announces that Jesus Christ is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. And he also announces the global need for the gospel to be spread throughout the whole world.

And it's my objective this morning to help two kinds of people who minimize the grace and the mercy of God and the sacrifice of Jesus. Because there are two ways, there are two effects of minimizing the grace and the mercy of God. And one way of minimizing the grace and the mercy of God is to care nothing about sin, to care nothing about your sin at all. And the other way to minimize the grace and the mercy of God is to forget the magnificent work, the comprehensive work of the grace and the mercy of God. I've done both of those, and I pray that God will help us to see the magnificence of His grace.

And my whole objective this morning is to help us to have a laser beam focus to look intently at one thing. In some ways, I want to ask you to turn off your peripheral vision for a minute and look at this one thing. Can you turn off your peripheral vision and look at Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world, to look at His forgiveness, to have a very highly focused look. You know, we're always looking in this world. But here, I'm just asking that we would somehow look intently, to look unreservedly at Him, and to consider Him.

And John says, Behold, which means to look. And That's what I pray we can all do this morning to look to turn off the peripheral vision to look intently at Jesus Christ as the Lamb of God to gaze at him not just a glance it's easy to glance on a Sunday morning and to keep your eyes bouncing around this world. It's... It's... I'm asking us to stare, to stare at Him in this element of the Lamb of God.

You have an outline in front of you where I have really identified the things I want us to gaze at. First, Jesus is the Lamb of God in verse 29. I'll spend most of the time right there, just so you know. And then Jesus is preferred, verse 30. And then thirdly, Jesus is anointed, verses 31 through 33.

And then fourthly, Jesus is the Son of God. So, now, John is answering the most pressing question of all of life, and that is, who is Jesus? How you answer that question is the hinge point upon every upon which everything turns. Who is Jesus? Who do you think he is?

And in the prologue in verses 1 through 18 already We've learned that He is the Word, that He's God, that He's Creator, that He's life, that He's light, that He's the only begotten of the Father, that He is the glory of God, that He's full of grace and truth, that he's the only begotten son. And now in these verses before us, he is two things. He's the lamb of God and he is the son of God. And now this is also the high point of the ministry of John the Baptist. This is why John was born.

John was born for this moment to say, behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. And I would just like to say, That is the purpose of every Christian's life. That is the holy moment that we've all been placed in. Every hour of the day, every week, every month, every year, for this we have been born to say, behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world." This is our mission statement, is to do this very thing here. And here John is fulfilling his mission and he's speaking of what happens to the guilt of sinners.

And he's, I think he's speaking really on two planes. What do unbelievers think about their sin and what do believers understand about their sins? And it's possible for a believer to lose touch with the magnificence of the grace of God. It's so easy to lose a sense and to underestimate the grace and the mercy of God. And so John is recording this scene.

He's recording this scene for a very specific purpose. He says in chapter 20 verse 31, I write these things that you might believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and that believing you might have life in His name. This is why John has recorded these words, behold the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. Now, as you know, if you've been with us, you know we have progressed beyond the prologue. The prologue, verses one through 18, speaks of who Jesus is and where he came from.

In verse 19, we begin the whole narrative of the life of Jesus. Now we're into the stories of his life. We're gonna see what he did. You need the prologue to understand how did he do these things? But now we'll see what He did.

And in our last time together, beginning in verse 19, we realize that we're encountering four days in the life of John the Baptist and Jesus. And on day one, in the previous section, John says, I'm a voice, I am not him. And we recognize that the heart of the Christian life is humility to point to Jesus. And then now we're in day two in verse 29. You see those words?

The next day. And then in verse 35, and again the next day we'll engage that. And then the following day, the fourth day, in verse 43, and those days where Jesus gathers his disciples. So in this message, we're talking about the second day that John records in the life of Jesus Christ, and John is still baptizing beyond the Jordan and Bethabara and There are these these four things that we must see about Jesus and the first is in verse 29 And that's that Jesus is the Lamb of God. The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

So I just want to make a quick comment that this is a historical event. He says the next day, this is a day in the life of a real person in a real year and in a real place, and John sees someone walking to him on that day. This is a historical record. This is not mythology. This is something that actually can be documented geographically and in a sequence of time.

And so these verses are presenting us with one of the most dramatic moments in the history of John's life and in the history of the whole Bible. And John is fulfilling his mission here by saying these things. Now he says that he is the Lamb of God, but he uses this word behold. John regularly uses this word behold. He wants you to look.

He wants you to look in a certain direction. In some ways to turn off your peripheral vision and look. Look at Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God. You know, this has always been the characteristic of John's life when John was a baby and he was filled with the Holy Spirit he leaped in his mother's womb when he was with Mary who is carrying Jesus. John's heart was always leaping toward Jesus.

It is what defined his whole life and his existence. He's leaping. And I, you know, When I think about it, I just wonder, is our heart leaping today as we behold the Lord Jesus Christ? There's nothing sweeter in life than your heart leap from within. When you hear the voice of Jesus Christ as we do here.

Now Jesus is yielding his life the just for the unjust, the pure for the defiled, And he is doing this to bring us to God, to set us free. And John is announcing this very thing. John understands that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever would believe in him might not perish but have everlasting life. John's gaze is upon this one. And, you know, this idea of the Lamb of God, Jesus as the Lamb of God, just didn't come out of nowhere.

John didn't make this up in the moment. John was trained as a priest. He understood the law of God. He understood the historical context of Jesus. And so he rightly and theologically correctly declares that Jesus is the Lamb of God.

It didn't come out of nowhere. This term Lamb of God, it speaks to the continuity that exists between the Old and the New Testament and that all the Old Testament sacrifices for sin were fulfilled in Jesus Christ Himself. And so when the Old Testament was speaking about lambs, It was speaking about Jesus who would fulfill all righteousness. And the sacrifice of the Lamb was at the heart of the Jewish sacrificial system. And so John doesn't make up this word.

He doesn't concoct this scheme. He's not playing to the crowds. He's coming up with something that that has been for thousands of years. And he connects the Old Testament sacrificial system with Jesus, who is pictured in many places. It's pictured at the very beginning with Abel, who is sacrificing the firstborn of his flock.

He was a sheep herder, and he was sacrificing, and his sacrifice was accepted. He was referring to the Passover, which was a message of deliverance from captivity, where the lamb was slain in Jewish households and the blood was spread on the doorposts of the house and the death angel passed by the households who had the blood spread on the doorposts. But those who did not have the blood spread would have their firstborn die that night. It was reflective of the tabernacle and the cleansing of the sacrifice of the lambs and the burning of the fat in the tabernacle and of the temple, it looked back to Isaiah, particularly in the suffering servant Psalms there, that section beginning in Isaiah 42, that culminates with Isaiah 53, which speaks of the suffering servant. It connects even ahead with the Lamb of God who's the victorious Lamb of God.

In Revelation, the Lamb of God actually destroys the devil And so it connects with the marriage supper of the Lamb. This whole continuity from the beginning to the end of human history has a central focus on the Lamb of God. John wasn't making this up. He was pulling from what is the continuity of Scripture. And so, lambs lambs are part of the history of redemption going all the way back to the beginning.

You know, there were the lambs of the burnt offering that were offered in the morning and the evening for the sacrifice. It's recorded in Leviticus 1, 4, and Exodus 29, 38. But they were the burnt offering. And then there was the trespass offering. And these were offered when somebody violated the law of God.

They couldn't come into the temple until they had offered their trespass offering. It could have been a sin against another person. It could have been a secret sin. It could have been all manner of things. It could actually include making restitution to someone, but a trespass offering was required and the lamb was slain and the blood was sprinkled on the altar and it would and then the the high priest would touch some of the blood on the right earlobe and the right thumb and on the right big toe, you know, covering the entire scope of the body.

And These lambs were sacrificed for the person who wanted to come back into the worship of God. These lambs were slain to help Israel realize that sin is so serious that something must die. We so minimize the grace of God when we don't realize that our sins are so great that something must die in order to atone from them. That's how great they are. And you can minimize the grace of God either on that side, not recognizing the seriousness of your sin and that something must die, or on the other side not recognizing the magnificence of the grace of God that he really has covered all of your sorrows.

And so we minimize the grace of God in different ways. And I pray that God would bring us before that question, do I minimize the grace of God on either side? Because this language that John uses of the Lamb of God answers the question of that. And then of course the Passover is such a tremendous picture of this. In Exodus chapter 12 verses 12 and 13 We read about the departure of the children of Israel.

They're escaping the bondage of Pharaoh, the bondage of Satan, the great abuser of the soul and the body. He is a figure of Satan and they're being rescued there. But God is gonna come and he's gonna kill the firstborn of all of Egypt unless you believe in him enough to sacrifice a lamb and spread it over the doorposts of your house. That was an expression of true belief. It was an expression that you believed that sin was serious and that something had to die and so In in the Passover there in Exodus in 1445 BC They sacrificed this lamb Now the Jews after Passover continued to celebrate the Sabbath, they were commanded to do so and and and the Passover lamb was offered once a year for a sin offering And the Apostle Paul makes this connection so clearly in 1 Corinthians 5 verse 7, he says, for indeed Christ our Passover was sacrificed for us.

So now the Apostle Paul, after John says, Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, the Apostle says Christ is our Passover. And that is so vividly true in the way that Passover was celebrated and also the way that the crucifixion played out in its timeline. Because by the time we get to the crucifixion of Jesus, the Passover was celebrated in a particular way. It was celebrated on the 14th day of Abib, and this was on 33 AD. We know when it was, and at the third hour On that day, at 9 a.m., Israel's high priest would tie the Passover lamb to the altar for the sacrifice.

And at that exact moment, Outside the city walls of Jerusalem, Jesus Christ was nailed to that cross at 9 a.m. And he hung there for six hours. And finally, at the ninth hour at 3 p.m., the high priest ascended up into the altar of the temple and he sacrificed the Passover lamb. He killed that lamb in the temple outside the city gates at three o'clock in the afternoon. Jesus Christ died and just before he died he cried out, it is finished.

And that's why Paul says Christ is our Passover. These things are connected. John is not making this up. He's pulling, He's pulling all the way back from Abel, all the way to the Passover lamb, and all the way through the sacrificial system. But he's also pulling from a remarkable moment in the life of Abraham, when God called him to sacrifice his son.

And he packed everything up and they were going up to sacrifice. Abraham believed that God would resurrect his son from the dead if he actually killed him. And his son says, Father, where is the sacrifice for the burnt offering? And Abraham said, God will provide. That was a prophecy.

That was a prophecy of John the Baptist saying, behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. What is the center of the Bible anyway? Is it when Isaac asks, Father, Where is the sacrifice for the burnt offering? Is that the center of the Bible? Is it the Passover?

Is it when Abel was sacrificing and his sacrifice was acceptable? Was it throughout the routines of the priests? Was it...what was it? It was the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross. That is the center of the history of redemption.

And so this is such a dramatic moment and of course you know the book of Hebrews is the greatest testimony of how Jesus Christ fulfills the entire sacrificial system. In Hebrews 9 verse 15, we see the intimacy of the connection between the high priest and what he did and Jesus Christ as the sacrifice. In Hebrews chapter 9, but Christ, verse 11, but Christ came as high priest of the good things to come, with the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is, not of this creation. Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with his own blood he entered the most holy place once for all having obtained eternal redemption for if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of the heifer sprinkling the unclean sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God. And for this reason he is the mediator of the new covenant by means of death for the redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant that those who are called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance.

And so he is the Lamb of God. I think that perhaps one of the most vivid descriptions of this comes out of the prophecy of Isaiah. In Isaiah chapter 53, he speaks of this where he says, surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. And then in verse 5 of Isaiah 53, he was bruised for our iniquities. And then he says, By his stripes we were healed.

All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him the Lamb of God, the iniquity of us all. He was led as a lamb to the slaughter. As a sheep before it shears is silent, so he opened not his mouth." So God in his wisdom gives an illustration of a lamb slain in order to tell the story of the magnificence of God's mercy toward sinners. He gives us this earthly thing, a lamb, to help us grasp this eternal thing, this heavenly thing, this man who was sent from heaven, Jesus Christ, who came as the lamb of God.

He is the Lamb who is slain for sinners. Now notice John says he is the Lamb of God. He's not a Lamb of God. There is only one means of forgiveness of sins. There are no other means.

Your good works don't cancel out your bad works. There is no atonement through your good works. You can't do anything in order to provide for your own atonement. You can never be nice enough, you can never be good enough, you can never be obedient enough to earn your salvation. You know people have always been very creative to try to find a means of salvation.

You know you can find salvation through your philanthropy or your kindness or your giving to the poor or your or by having the balance of karma or having you know the devotion of jihad or having the nothingness or of nirvana or have the moralism of evangelicalism none of this can save you and that's why john says he is the lamb of god he is the only one there is only one name under heaven by which men can be saved and it is jesus christ the lamb of god Can you turn off the peripheral vision to see Him? Do you see Him? Don't put off seeing Him. He became sin for us so that we would be declared sinless. And that's why Paul says in 1 Corinthians 5, 21, for he made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God.

In other words, there is no salvation in anyone but Jesus. He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Peter says that we were not redeemed by corruptible things but with the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb without blemish and without spot who was foreordained before the foundation of the world and was first manifested in Genesis 3 15 and enabled sacrifice there and right at the beginning of time. Now notice it says here that he takes away the sin of the world. This language is very important.

This speaks of lifting out of the way, taking it out of the way. And he's speaking of a continuous action. It's happening all the time because we need it all the time. And He, being mediator between God and man, takes away everything which stands between us and God. And the mediator takes away the sin so that the sinner can have access to God.

That's what a mediator does. He makes a way for access to God, and he takes away the wrath that we deserve. Now, when you read, He takes away the sin of the world, I think it's really important to recognize that God uses probably dozens of really graphic images to describe this. And I want to give you several of them. Because what does it mean to take away?

Because there are several, you know, what God does is he describes things in Multi-facets he explains things from different angles. He doesn't God is kind. He doesn't just give you one answer He gives you a thousand ways to see the glory of Jesus Christ. He gives you a thousand ways to praise Him. He gives you a thousand ways to understand His glory.

He doesn't just give you one answer and walks away. He shows you the whole diamond, every facet of it. And on this earth, not every facet of it. In heaven, every facet of it. But until then, we have many, many ways.

Let me just walk through some of these images. In Hebrews 9.28, he bears it, your sin. In Hebrews 9 28 he bears it your sin in Isaiah 43 25 he blots it out in Hebrews 9 26 he stops it In Isaiah 38 17 he throws your sin behind his back. In Micah chapter 7 verses 18 and 19, he casts it into the bottom of the sea. 118 and John 1 9 He washes it and Isaiah says he washes it white as snow In first Corinthians 6 9 through 11 in Hebrews 10 22 and Revelation 1 5 and 6 He washes it off, just washes it off.

In Leviticus 16, 25, and Malachi 3, 3, he burns it in the fire. In Isaiah 43 25 he sweeps it away. In Galatians 5 24 he crucifies it. In Romans 6 6 he does away with it. In Isaiah 6, he purifies it with a hot coal.

In Psalm 103 verse 12, he removes it as far as the east is from the west. In Micah 7, he treads it underfoot. He stomps on it to destroy it in in Micah 7 10 He throws it in Romans 4, 7-8, and Psalm 32, verse 1, He covers it. In Colossians 2, 14, He cancels it. In Isaiah 53, He lifts it from your shoulders.

In Isaiah 53, he takes it upon his own shoulders. In Psalm 32, and in Romans 4, he does not charge us. In Isaiah 53, he lets it fall on him. In Isaiah 55, 7, he pardons it. In 1 John 2, 1, he argues against it, like in a courtroom, as an advocate.

In Ephesians 1, 7-8, he lavishes it with grace. This is what God does with sin, with the sins of sinners. In Isaiah 44-22, he hides sin behind a cloud. In Colossians 2, 13 and 14, he nails it to a cross. In Hebrews 8, 12, he wipes it out.

In Hebrews 8, 12 and Isaiah 43 and other places, he forgets it. In John 1, or 1 John 2, he destroys the anger and wrath of God over it through propitiation. In Leviticus, he sends it away. The high priest would put his two hands on the sacrificial goat. I know it's a goat, not a lamb, but it's the exact same principle and idea and he puts his hand on the sacrificial goat and he confesses the sins confesses all the sins of his people and then he sends the goat off into the wilderness, never to be seen again.

In 1 John 1.9, he forgives it. You know, There are so many images. I want us to grasp that this morning. I want us to somehow just settle in for a minute and turn off your peripheral vision and consider the greatness of the mercy of God towards sinners. And I don't know whether you're on the licentious side of the problem and you need to hate your sin more, or you need to love the grace of God more.

One of those two. You know, when John says that he forgives, you know, if we confess our sins he's faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. The word that he uses for forgive is very much like the way John explains it, takes away the sin of the world, except It's like lifting it off. It's like taking it off the hook. You're taken off the hook for your sin.

You've been taken off the hook for your sin if you believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and you love Him with your heart and you're following Him. John Bunyan picked this up in Pilgrim's Progress, you know, the main character Christian, he realizes that he has a huge burden on his back. It is a gigantic burden. It weighs him down wherever he goes. It's the burden of sin.

And then he comes to the cross, and his burden falls off his back and it rolls down a hill and it just disappears into an empty tomb and is gone. You know, John Bunya didn't make that up. He really got that from the whole testimony of the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, who covers it, who throws it, who crushes it, who stomps it, the one who buries it in the bottom of the ocean, the one who burns it. That's what God does with your sin. And I as a church, you know, is it possible that there's a corrective that needs to take And that we should soak in the matter that he does take away the sin of the world.

You know, David spoke of the happiness that comes from that. He said, happy is the man, or blessed is the man, whose sin the Lord does not impute iniquity. There's real sin, real sin, and God does not impute iniquity. He takes it away, He carries it, He buries it, he stomps on it, and he throws it behind his back. You know, here we are gathered as a little church here, and it's really important that we understand what God has done for us.

It's really, really remarkable what he has done. Matthew Henry said that Christ will either take your sins away or he'll take you away. It's so serious. Now notice the scope. Who takes away the sin of the world.

Now, what does this mean? Now you find this language, John uses this language, the sin of the world. We'll get to it when we get to John 3.16. For God so loved the world, What does that mean? Now, what he is saying is that whoever believes in him anywhere in this world, from any tribe, any tongue, from any nation, those are the ones whose sins are atoned for.

He's obviously not saying that everyone in the world will have their sins atoned for. The Bible speaks so clearly against that, so he's not saying that. But he's saying that the gospel is for the globe. The gospel is for every tongue and tribe and nation. There are few passages of Scripture that should motivate us to world evangelization than this passage.

This takes us to the world. This says that the gospel applies to every person who's ever been created, Every color, every culture, every language, everyone. There is no one that's outside the blessing of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Forget all of our prejudices. Jesus would destroy all of our prejudices against cultures and colors and tongues and nations.

We have attitudes about nations, don't we? We have attitudes about things, and it's the gospel that comes to destroy the negativity, and he comes to incite within us a desire to present the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. That's what they need. This is the most needful thing in the world. The United Nations will tell you that the most pressing problems in the world are poverty, education, and women's rights.

That's what they're spending their billions of dollars on. We're gonna spend our hundreds of dollars, maybe it could turn to billions of dollars, into spreading the gospel throughout the whole world. That's what the world needs. The solution to the world's problems is the solution to sin in Jesus Christ. So he is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world." What an amazing language.

Now, he's also preferred, verse 30. John says, This is he of whom I said, after me comes a man who is preferred before me." Which is speaking of higher rank, for he was before me. So John here again is just affirming the superiority of Jesus Christ. And he's, remember, what does John do? John is simple, he's a simple man.

He points to Jesus Christ, That's what he does. He calls to repentance and he points to Jesus. That's his whole deal. And he doesn't want people to remember him. He wants people to remember Jesus.

And then thirdly, we learn that he is anointed, verses 31 through 33. And John bore witness, saying, I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove and he remained upon him. I did not know him but he who sent me to baptize with water said to me upon whom you see the Spirit descending and remaining on him this is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit." So John is revealing really the importance of the baptism of Jesus. And John, he says something twice here. He says, I did not know him.

He says it twice in these verses. What does it mean that he did not know Jesus? Well, he was Jesus' cousin. He leaped in his mother's womb when he was near Jesus. So what in the world can this mean?

We do know that John spent his years out in the wilderness, not where Jesus was, but the way to interpret this is that God arranged a relationship with Jesus so that he did not know Jesus as the Messiah until his baptism. Did he know about Jesus? I'm confident he knew about Jesus. But he did not know with certainty that he was the Messiah until his baptism. John's whole life was waiting for the Spirit to descend upon somebody.

Did he baptize thousands or tens of thousands of people? Probably. He probably baptized tens of thousands of people. And with every baptism, I think John was wondering, is this the one? That's why John was baptizing, in order to identify the Messiah.

And then it happened. And so John, I think, puts a confusing time frame in here. You have the idea that John sees Jesus and he announces him as the Lamb of God and baptizes him. That's not how the narrative goes. John, the apostle, is skipping a part of this.

John doesn't record that right after Jesus' baptism that he went into the wilderness for 40 days. So Jesus has gone into the wilderness for 40 days and now he's back so it's at least 40 days before that this baptism that's why John says I saw he's talking about something in the past 40 maybe 52 days in the past something like that I saw him I saw the Spirit descending upon him like a dove. So John is saying, behold the Lamb of God. I saw, I saw that he was the Lamb of God back when I baptized him. And he says the Spirit descended from heaven like a dove and remained on him.

And so the Spirit is hovering like a dove and then lands, actually lands. But he's hovering, that's the word that he's using. You know, in Luke, In Luke 32, we also read that the dove descended bodily. When all the people were baptized, it came to pass that Jesus was also baptized. And while he prayed, the heaven was opened, and the Spirit descended in bodily form like a dove upon him.

And a voice came from heaven which said, You are my beloved son in whom I'm well-pleased. That's the moment The dove descended and remained on him. And you know, why a dove? We're not particularly told here. We do know that in scripture, a dove is a picture of meekness and mildness and gentleness and love and it's so is it is he making a connection Is he trying to teach us something about the Holy Spirit?

Doves are mentioned about fifty times in the Bible. Doves in almost every culture are pictures of love and peace. In almost every culture it's like that. Even in ancient Greek pagan culture, a dove was a symbol of some kind of affection. For some reason, doves are always seen that way in cultures.

And even Solomon, in the Song of Solomon, he likens the dove to love. And Solomon is talking about the Shulamite woman and he says, my love, your eyes are like the eyes of a dove. Her eyes toward him were like the eyes of a dove. It really is a symbol of love. He says, behold you are fair my love.

You have doves eyes in Song of Solomon 1.15. Now, but in the Gospels, and this is recorded in all four Gospels, the dove is the symbol of the Holy Spirit. That's what we can determine without question. And the Spirit hovered over Jesus in the same way that the Spirit of God hovered over the waters at the beginning of the book of Genesis. It was the Spirit of God who's always at work.

And we could talk about the characteristics of doves. It's interesting. Doves don't have any peripheral vision. They can only see right in front of them And when they fly their wings are back like this, but when they hover their wings Turn forward like this and they point like this This is what that dove was doing He was pointing he was looking intently at this one object the Lord Jesus Christ And so the Spirit is likened unto a dove. In the book of Acts, the Spirit is characterized very differently.

When the Spirit of God falls upon the Apostles and the believers, it's like tongues of fire. So the Spirit of God manifests itself in different ways, but here the Spirit manifests himself like a dove. And the work of the Spirit in the heart of the believer is always a work of love. Love always dies when we quench the Spirit. Jesus was the quintessential example of love.

Everything he did was for love. And so he was anointed by the Spirit. The Spirit descended upon him and it was a spirit of love for sure. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. That was Jesus.

And that's how the Spirit manifests itself in our own lives. You can always tell when the Spirit of God is not working, because it's not doing those things. Now, verse 33, we learn that John did not know him, and we understand why. Verse 33, I did not know him but he who sent me to baptize with water said to me upon whom you see the Spirit descending and remaining on him this is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit. John was waiting for the Spirit to descend because God revealed it to him that with among all those people he was baptizing, one, two, three, ten thousand and one, ten thousand and two, and all of a sudden the Spirit descends and now he knows.

That's why John can say, I did not know him. He did not know him particularly as the Messiah and and the Spirit of God rested upon him. And then the final way that we see Jesus here is as the Son of God. We've seen him as the Lamb of God, we've seen him as the Preferred One, we've seen him as the Anointed of the Holy Spirit. And now he's revealed as the Son of God, verse 34.

And so John says in verse 34, and I have seen and testified that this is the Son of God. Now you remember why John is writing chapter 20 verse 31? These things I write to you that you might believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and in believing in Him you might have life in his name. That's why this is being said. This is why John says that he is the Son of God.

The Apostle Peter later on makes this declaration in Matthew chapter 16, verse 16. He says, thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. Again, everything hinges on who you think Jesus is. Who is he? Is he just a man?

Is he just this religious person you've been reading about in church? Your mom and dad have been forcing you to come Sunday after Sunday to hear about Jesus. Is he just a religious routine? Is he a myth? Or is he the Son of God?

And John has proof here that the Lamb of God has taken away the sin of the world, that we might believe that he is the Son of God, that he came in the flesh to take away the sin of the world. Now, I'd just like to just pull back and just try to talk about applying some of these things. I think first of all, how important it is to see Jesus Christ in his glory in the church. We're not doing that to minimize the seriousness of our sin. We must turn away from sin and we must help one another with sin.

Set that aside. That's not the focus that I'm really calling for. We know that's true. We know that we need to mortify the flesh. We know that we need to flee from sin.

We know that. But let's recognize how serious sin is. It is so serious that God would send his Son to stomp it, to burn it, to crucify it, to nail it to a cross, to bury it in the bottom of the ocean to separate it from you as far as the East is from the West that's how serious sin is and it's so important that we have a consciousness of the devastation of sin and the restoration of Jesus Christ the man who became sin for us. And I, you know, that we would just rejoice, rejoice in his plan today. We would have that sense of freedom.

Do you have that? Do you feel free? Can you say, Jesus has separated me from my sin as far as the east is from the west? And can you hang with that? Well, as it turns out, it's hard for us to hang like that.

But it's where he would have us hang here, not rejecting the seriousness of sin. I think we can rejoice that it's taken away. Also, this message of the Lamb of God who takes the sin of the world, it should launch a thousand ships. It should push a thousand airplanes down the runway. And this is universally applicable to every nation and every people.

And then finally, this Lamb of God has come for one of the most practical, everyday matters. And that is, he has come to make a people who are a forgiving people. And so That's why the apostle Paul says to the Ephesian church, he says, be tender-hearted, forgiving one another. Can you finish the sentence? Just as God in Christ has forgiven you.

Forgive one another? Well, how? How? Just in the same way that God in Christ has forgiven you. And how did he do that?

Well, as it turns out, He put your sin as far as the east is from the west. He nailed it to the cross. He stomped on it. He burned it. He buried it in the bottom of the ocean.

This is what he did with our sin. And the apostle Paul is saying, you do that same thing with others and you forgive them that same way. That's very practical for all of us every day. Because as it turns out, most of us from time to time maybe even daily are talking junk about other people because we Haven't let them off the hook. We haven't separated we have we we haven't Forgiven them.

We haven't let them off the hook Jesus spoke About this Peter Peter came to him and he said, Lord, How many times am I supposed to forgive my brother? How many times? Like, obviously Peter had a brother, Peter had somebody in his life that was sinning against him a lot because he said, how many times? How many, I mean, how many times until I'm done? Okay, that was his question.

Have you ever heard anybody say, I'm done? That's what Peter was wanting to know. When are you done? Okay, and so Jesus, you know, replied to him, but Peter said, like, what if I forgive him seven times? Can we be done?

At seven. Well, you know, he's counting, right? He's counting Count in fractions, count them one by one. You know that song. And he said, well, how about seven?

And Jesus said, not seven, but 70 times seven. How about that? Seven, and of course Jesus wasn't giving him a number when he's done. He was giving him a number that's so far out there, you ain't gonna be done. You're not gonna be done.

You're gonna keep forgiving. 70 times seven. And then he says the kingdom of heaven is like a certain king and he tells this story of this man who had a servant and the king wanted to settle accounts because there was a man who owed him an enormous amount of money billions of dollars and he it was in those days 10, 000 talents 10, 000 days of work it's a lot of money depending on how much you make every day, right? Take the average of how much everybody makes a day here and throw it in there and multiply it by 10, 000. It's a pretty serious change and so that's how much he was owed, but he wasn't able to pay it back.

He didn't, something happened to that money. And he didn't have the capital or the resources to pay him back. It wasn't there. He had nothing with which to pay him back. And so his master commanded that he would be sold with his wife and his children and all that he had.

And the servant says, Lord have mercy on me, have patience with me, I'll pay it. And then that man had compassion on him And he said, okay, I'm done. I forgive you. You don't have to pay me a penny. Go free.

Can you imagine that? If you owed somebody a few billion dollars and you didn't have any money at all and somebody said it's okay. You don't have to pay me a penny and so the servant goes out and he finds one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii which is not very much money and he grabs him by the throat and he says pay me what you owe me it's just such a crazy comparison isn't it and So the man he's got around the neck falls down on his feet and begs him and says, have patience with me. I will pay you all. But even though he said that, he went and threw him in prison.

And there in debtor's prison, he was gonna pay the debt. So everybody around was looking at this, was just grieved. And then the master said to the man who was forgiven so much. He says, You wicked servant, I forgave you all that debt because you begged me. Should you not also have compassion on your fellow servant, as just as I had pity on you?

And his master was angry and delivered him to the torturers until he should pay all that was due him. And then Jesus says after telling this story he gives the doctrine. He says so my heavenly Father will do to you, if each of you from his heart does not forgive his brother of his trespasses." And so this whole matter of the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. It always, His love always has a double application. It's designed to relish in, it's designed to rejoice in, and to find your peace in that.

But it's also designed to turn you to your brother the same way, and to recognize that when he blotted out your sin, that's what you do for your brother. When he threw it behind his back, that's what you do with your brother. When he casts it into the bottom of the sea, that's what you do with your brother. When he burns it with fire, you do the same thing, or sweeps it, or crucifies it, or purifies it, or treads it underfoot, or covers it, or cancels it, or forgives it. And so we've been given the Lamb of God to teach us how to be happy in this world.

First of all, to know the peace that passes all understanding, to know that you've been set free. And also, to know what love looks like in the world. And to be representatives of Jesus in this world. So do you know the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world? Have you turned to Him?

Do you believe in Him? Do you want His authority in your life? Do you want to turn away from your sin and toward Him because you believe He's the best thing that there ever is. Settle that now and don't delay. And if you've turned to Jesus Christ, behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin in the world.

And oh Lord, that you would give us such a sense of that today in this church, that it would form the culture of this church, that it would guide every heart in this church, that the forgiveness of Jesus Christ would be ours, and that we would find ourselves free with everlasting mercies heaped upon us by the Son of God who takes away the sin of the world. Amen.