John 1 (Part 3) :19-34 • Behold, the Lamb of God

Join me in the Gospel According to John, the Book of John, and we will get into our study here this morning. John chapter 1. This is part 3 of John chapter 1. We're picking it up in verse 19. John 1:19. We're going to read down through verse 34. "19And this is the testimony of John, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, "Who are you?" 20He confessed, and did not deny, but confessed, "I am not the Christ." 21And they asked him, "What then? Are you Elijah?" He said, "I am not." "Are you the Prophet?" And he answered, "No." 22So they said to him, "Who are you? We need to give an answer to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?" 23He said, "I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, 'Make straight the way of the Lord,' as the prophet Isaiah said." 24(Now they had been sent from the Pharisees.) 25They asked him, "Then why are you baptizing, if you are neither the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?" 26John answered them, "I baptize with water, but among you stands one you do not know, 27even he who comes after me, the strap of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie." 28These things took place in Bethany across the Jordan, where John was baptizing. 29The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, "Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! 30This is he of whom I said, 'After me comes a man who ranks before me, because he was before me.' 31I myself did not know him, but for this purpose I came baptizing with water, that he might be revealed to Israel." 32And John bore witness: "I saw the Spirit descend from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. 33I myself did not know him, but he who sent me to baptize with water said to me, 'He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain, this is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.' 34And I have seen and have borne witness that this is the Son of God."" (ESV) Stop there, please. Let's pray.

Father, as we once again dig into the scriptures here this morning, we ask for your Holy Spirit. For we recognize and confess to you, Lord, that it is through the ministry of your Holy Spirit that our hearts are made alive and opened to understand and receive from Your Word. And so we pray that you would do that, Lord, in us. Cause our hearts to really be open and to hear your voice. Your voice, Lord. You are the teacher. Speak to us now we pray, Father. We ask it in Jesus' name, amen. Amen. This section that we're looking at here this morning opens up with a statement that really chronicles what we're going to be doing today. "19And this is the testimony of John," that's the way John the Apostle begins it. "19And this is the testimony of John," referring of course to John the Baptist. And of course, John has some unique things to say about the person and the work of Messiah. So we're going to get into that here this morning. And we find out that he receives this group of people who wants to begin to pepper him with questions and we're told that they were sent. It says "the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, "Who are you?"" And I want you to notice that term the Jews. I remember when I was a new Christian, that kind of messed me up a little bit. It said "the Jews sent" these people and I thought, wait, they're all Jews. So how can we say the Jews sent these men to talk to Jesus? It's like the whole nation of people. No, John's usage of the term the Jews, which by the way is very popular and we're going to run into it a lot in this gospel. His term means the religious leaders. So it's good to understand that. And what we see here is that they come to John and they begin to ask him questions about his ministry concerning who he is. And you'll notice the very first thing that John the Apostle, the writer of this gospel, wants us to know, is that John the Baptist confessed freely, "I am not the Christ." Now we're going to talk here in just a moment about what he is saying or not saying related to that statement. But the first thing I want to do is deal with some wording and particularly the word Christ. Now, I think most of you know that the New Testament was written in Greek, which is interesting because that's not the language they spoke. That's not the language Jesus spoke. It's not the language the disciples spoke. They spoke Aramaic and Hebrew in their regular daily life. But the New Testament is written in Greek. Because that was the language that was most popular in the world. And they wanted the message of Jesus to get out to as many people as possible. The Romans had conquered the known world at that time, and they had propagated the Greek language. And so that's why the New Testament authors wrote primarily in Greek. There is a little Aramaic sprinkled in the New Testament as well. But the majority is Greek. And that's where we get the word Christ, because Christ is the Greek form or translation of Messiah. And so when John is saying, "I am not the Christ." He's saying I'm not the Messiah. And by the way, the Jews didn't pronounce it like we pronounce it. They didn't say Messiah, they said mashiach. And that is in fact the way they pronounce the word Messiah still today. You can talk to a Jew who speaks Hebrew and they will speak of mashiach, which means the anointed one. Same thing as Christ. John very clearly started off by saying, I'm not the one, because they were expecting the Messiah. There had been an expectation in Israel for quite some time that something was happening. Something significant has been happening. And so people were wondering, are you him? Are you the one? And John very clearly said, I am not the Messiah. So verse 21 goes on. "21And they asked him, "What then?" They said, "Are you Elijah?" He said, "I am not."" All right. Now we need to talk about this because this is an important statement that you need to understand. And to understand why they asked him if he was Elijah, you need to know a little bit about your Old Testament as well. Because on the surface of this, this looks like a really stupid question. Elijah has been off the scene for 850 years. So why in the world would these guys come along and say to John, are you Elijah? Well, there's a couple of things you need to know and again, this is where having an understanding of the Old Testament really comes in handy. The first thing you need to know is that Elijah didn't die physically. He didn't experience physical death. He was taken up to the Lord while Elisha looked on. That's the first thing you need to know. You can read about it if you want to in 2 Kings chapter 2. The second thing that you need to know is that God spoke through the prophet Malachi and promised that Elijah would return. And He even said when. Let me put it on the screen for you so we can see it together.

Malachi 4:5-6 (ESV) "Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the LORD comes. And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction." Malachi chapter 4 verses 5 and 6 says, "Behold," (Lord says through Malachi) "I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the LORD comes. And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction." Now we're going to leave this passage up on the screen for a bit because it gives us some important clues as to the timing of when Elijah is supposed to appear. The first thing I want you to notice are the words the "day of the LORD." Did you see that in there? "Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the LORD" now, that term "day of the LORD" is one that we use a lot. And we've looked at a lot in our Old Testament studies. Is a reference to Jesus' second coming and the events surrounding His second coming. Then the next thing is how he describes the day of the Lord. Elijah will be sent prior. Look at in the ESV anyway, it says "the great and awesome day of the LORD" we use the word awesome today to mean really cool or spectacular or something that's really good. But that word awesome can have other connotations. I'd like to show you how two other Bible translations render this passage. Malachi 4:5 (NASB) "Behold, I am going to send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord." Malachi 4:5 (NIV) "See, I will send the prophet Elijah to you before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes." The New American Standard Bible says, "Behold, I am going to send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord." And the NIV says the "great and dreadful day of the Lord" isn't it interesting that we see these descriptive words speaking of the day of the Lord, and we wonder here, so what is this talking about?

Well, it looks like it's talking about that Elijah is going to be sent just prior to the second coming of Jesus Christ. Because when we talk about the first coming of Jesus Christ, we don't use words like dreadful or terrible. In fact, we don't even call it the day of the Lord. The day of the Lord has to do with the end times. So this sounds very much like it has to do with the second coming of Jesus. And we would probably think that was what we were talking about completely were it not for some words that our Lord Jesus said. He said: Matthew 11:13-15 (ESV) "For all the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John, and if you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah who is to come. He who has ears to hear, let him hear." "For all the Prophets and the Law" (this is Jesus talking) "prophesied until John, and if you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah who is to come. He who has ears to hear, let him hear." Okay, now we're kind of a little bit confused because the Malachi passage sounds very much like the second coming, that Elijah is going to come right before the second coming. And Jesus says, concerning John the Baptist, if you're willing to accept it, he is Elijah who is to come. So I guess we're going to have to go with Jesus on this one. Right? I mean, Jesus, pretty authoritative, I'd say. When you're looking at people who have authority, I'd say He's right up there at the top. So we're going to go with that, right? Well wait a minute, because we still have to consider those other two issues. The first one is Malachi, as we saw on the screen, said that Elijah would return before the great and dreadful or terrible day of the Lord. And then there's that other issue that's kind of a little sticky thing as well. They asked John, are you Elijah? I am not. So we're left in a little bit of a quandary here related to this, and we kind of say, what's going on here? What we're seeing in these passages is another example of what we've seen many many times in our study through the Old Testament, and that is we are seeing the Law of Double Reference. And if you don't know what that means or you're not very familiar with that, I'll put a definition up on the screen.

The Law of Double Reference is the tendency of prophecy in the Bible to sometimes refer to two events or two people simultaneously – one relevant to the general time of the prophecy and the other relating to the distant, far-off future. And this prophecy regarding Elijah's return from Malachi fits into this category of prophecy. John the Baptist partially fulfilled the prophecy of Malachi. Why? Do you remember when John the Baptist's father Zechariah was ministering in the temple, he was in the priestly line, and he was burning incense in the temple (Luke 1:5-25). You remember that an angel appeared to him? Gabriel appears to him and says, Hey, you're going to have a son. Your wife's going to have a baby. And you'll remember, Zachariah didn't believe him. He was like, you must have me mistaken with some other person whose name starts with 'Z' because my wife is way past childbearing years. And you remember how the story goes because he didn't believe the angel, he couldn't speak for the next 9 months. But one of the things the angel said to Zechariah was, your son shall go forth "in the spirit and power of Elijah," (Luke 1:17). Now, he didn't say, your son is going to be Elijah. He said, your son will go forth "in the spirit and power of Elijah," I believe that is why Jesus said, if you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah. But right after saying that, Jesus said, let him who has ears to hear, hear. In other words, listen carefully, listen close, because we're dealing here in this situation with the Law of Double Reference. And there is coming a greater fulfillment of the Malachi prophecy when Elijah himself, we're told in the Bible, will return before the great and dreadful day of the Lord. And as a side note, there are many believers who hold to the idea that Elijah will be one of the two witnesses that is talked about in the Book of Revelation. My response to that is we'll see. Next they asked John, and this is another interesting one, where it pays to know your Old Testament. They asked John at the end of verse 21, ""Are you the Prophet?" And he answered, "No."" Who is this prophet that they're asking about? Well, to understand this question, you have to know and understand that Moses had actually spoken of the coming of a prophet, and it's recorded in Deuteronomy up on the screen.

Deuteronomy 18:15 (ESV) "The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers – it is to him you shall listen – " "The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet (Moses said) like me (but then he said, he's going to be) from among you, (he's going to literally come) from your brothers – (which of course what does that tell you? He's going to be a Jew. And he says) it is to him you shall listen – ". It is to him, you shall listen. Well, the Jews remembered this statement by Moses, and they thought that the prophet was going to be yet another person who appeared before the coming of Messiah. The fact of the matter is Moses was referring to Messiah in Deuteronomy. He was talking about Messiah, but they thought it was somebody else. It's interesting, isn't it, that Moses said at the end of that, God's going to raise up this prophet from among your own brothers. Listen to him. Now, do you remember when Moses and Elijah appeared with Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration? What did God say? "This is my beloved Son, listen to him." (Mark 9:7). The same thing Moses actually said regarding this one who was to come. So Moses was referring to the Messiah, but the Jews got that mixed up and they thought it was going to be somebody else. So they come to John and they say, are you the prophet? And he says, no, I'm not. And he doesn't take the time to correct them, but he just says no. Well, John hasn't been giving them much satisfaction for all of their questions. So if you look with me in verse 22, it says they get a little frustrated with him and they said, well then who are you for heaven's sake? ""We need to give an answer to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?"" And John's response very simply comes from Isaiah, where he says, ""I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, 'Make straight the way of the Lord,' as the prophet Isaiah said."" And then John the Apostle adds parenthetically that these people who had questioned him were sent from the Pharisees. Now, what John is doing here, he's quoting Isaiah. I'll show you the passage. It's from Isaiah Chapter 40. Isaiah 40:3 (ESV) A voice cries: "In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD; make straight in the desert a highway for our God."

"A voice cries: (Isaiah writes) ""In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD; make straight in the desert a highway for our God."" And John saw his ministry as this preparatory work. And we know how (we talked about this last week) how did John prepare Israel to receive her Messiah? Well, he told them to repent of their sins. And we're told in Luke that those who repented received the Lord and heard His words and believed and so forth. So, this answer from John is still not terribly satisfying to these individuals sent from the Pharisees. So in verse 25, they kind of changed up their question a little bit and they said, well, ""Then why are you baptizing, if you are neither the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?"" And you need to understand what they're asking here because these guys were really hung up on authority, and we're kind in charge, we're kind of the religious elite around here, and I don't remember giving you any sort of permission to come out here and start dunking people. So if you're not the Messiah and you're not Elijah, and you're not the Prophet, what gives you the right to gather all these people and baptize them here in the Jordan like you're some kind of a big deal? And that's essentially what they're asking. And they're all hung up on this whole authority business. And I love John's answer. He starts off by saying, ""I baptize with water," and then immediately he says, "but" and you guys, I'm sure you remember your early school grammar, the word 'but' tells you that you're about to be introduced to a contrasting statement. But I'm just out here dunking people in water. That's all I'm doing. But, and then he begins to talk about the significance of the one who's going to come after him. And it's kinda like John is saying, why are you taking all this time and effort to talk to me about what I'm doing, baptizing people in water. Don't you realize something bigger is happening here? Don't you realize there's something bigger going on than me? You're making a big deal of me and I am not a big deal. I'm only baptizing in water. But John goes on to say, "but among you" (and that means He's already here) "among you stands one you do not" (even) "know," (you don't even know him.) And he says in verse 27, and here you are making all this big deal about me and I'm not even worthy of untying this guy's shoes, this one who's coming. So don't you think maybe you should change your tactic a little bit and begin to focus on the things that are really truly important. You know what's interesting about this conversation between John and these religious leaders? And this is classic. I mean, this is just classic. This is really a good example of what I've been saying to you guys for so many years about formalized religion. Formalized religion gets in the way of walking and serving and loving Jesus Christ. Can I just say that? It gets in the way. And formalized religion has this propensity to elevate things that shouldn't be elevated because they're not in the Bible. And they have this tendency then to ignore the things that they should be focusing on. Do you know how much time I spend talking to people about breaking free from the constraints of formalized religion? I mean, it happens every day, all the time. Because formalized religion and all the traditions that go along with it that we've added, you know, we've added, those just take hold of people. And it is so hard for people to break free from that whole idea of this is what I've got to do. I mean, I see it in a lot of different sectors and groups. Roman Catholicism is huge. I mean, the people who will write, 'Pastor Paul, are you telling me I don't have to confess my sins to a priest?' Yeah, that's what I'm telling you. There's nothing in the Bible about that. Nothing. 'And you're telling me when I took my first Eucharist, that wasn't the time that I was saved?' Yeah, that's what I'm telling you. And this is what formalized religion has done, though. It has placed all these constraints and these rules, and certainly Roman Catholicism isn't the only group that's done this. There's been many many groups. But the whole point is to lock people in. And you got to do it this way, you have to do it just this way. And if you don't do it this way. . . and people don't stop to ask themselves the question, 'Is that in the Bible? Is what you're telling me actually in the Bible?' Because if they did, they'd find out it's not in the Bible. But formalized religion has come up with all these things and then they fixate on them and they focus on them when they're unimportant. And it really is kind of incredible. And this is what we're seeing in this conversation that John's having of these religious leaders when he's telling them, you guys, I'm not the big deal. But He's coming. In fact, He's here. You don't know Him. You don't recognize Him. I'm not worthy to untie the Man's shoes and you're talking to me. I'm nothing. That was John's heart. He was a very humble man. So, when people say to me, 'Well, I'm not religious.' I go, 'Good.' I do. I say, stay away from that, man. Religion will mess you up. You just press in on Jesus through His word. You'll have everything you need. Right?

Verse 29 goes on. "29The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said," (oh, I love this.) ""Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!" I could spend a year teaching and preaching on this single sentence. This is so amazing. I love it so much because in this single statement that John makes, he captures the essence of what Jesus came to do and to be. But he also captures our greatest need. The world tells us there's a lot of things you need and they try to find ways for you to provide for those needs. But there's really only one thing you need, and that's Jesus and His forgiveness and to accept and receive what He did on the cross. That is your number one need. This statement captures that and it captures it beautifully. But what's interesting to me is that John didn't have to say this. He could have said so many things, you know, when he saw Jesus walking by. He could have said, 'Behold, the great teacher.' He could have said, 'Behold, the sinless Son of God.' Or, 'Behold, the King of all Kings.' He could have said all those things and they all would've been true. But instead, he said, "Behold, the Lamb of God," and this is particularly interesting and important. Because you see this whole idea of the Lamb of God. This was ingrained in the Jewish heart and mind. I mean, they'd been raised with a scripture. They'd been raised with the feasts, particularly the Feast of Passover, where the Jews remembered that they were celebrating God's deliverance of the Jewish people from their slavery in Egypt. And how did He do that on Passover, that first Passover? They were told to take a lamb, a year old male lamb, and slaughter it and take its blood and literally paint it on the frame of their door. So that night when the angel passed through the land and put to death the first born, all those who were sheltering under the blood of the lamb would be saved, spared. So the Jews understood what it meant for there to be a sacrificial lamb that saved them. But they also knew about another incredible statement made by the man they believed to be their father, and that was Abraham. Do you remember when God called Abraham to go out and literally sacrifice his son. It's a fascinating story, and it's too good just for me to share it with you casually. We're going to read it together. This is from Genesis chapter 22.

Genesis 22:1-8 (ESV) After these things God tested Abraham and said to him, "Abraham!" And he said, "Here I am." He said, "Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you." So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and his son Isaac. And he cut the wood for the burnt offering and arose and went to the place of which God had told him. It goes on saying: Genesis 22:1-8 (ESV) On the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place from afar. Then Abraham said to his young men, "Stay here with the donkey; I and the boy will go over there and worship and come again to you." And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son. And he took in his hand the fire and the knife. So they went both of them together. Look at this last part: Genesis 22:1-8 (ESV) And Isaac said to his father Abraham, "My father!" And he said, "Here I am, my son." He said, "Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?" Abraham said, "God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son." This is a story every Jewish person knew. Do you know that Jewish children would be taught to read from the Torah? So this is something they would know from their earliest days. And the word rang in their minds, God will provide Himself the lamb. God will provide the lamb. God will provide the lamb. And when Jesus is on the scene, John says, Behold the Lamb. "Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!" Those were some of the most important words he would utter. Behold the Lamb. Oh, it doesn't get any better than that. Verse 30 says, "30This is he of whom I said, 'After me comes a man who ranks before me, because he was before me.'" We talked about what that statement means last week. He says, "31I myself did not know him, but for this purpose I came baptizing with water, that he might be revealed to Israel." 32And John bore witness: "I saw the Spirit descend from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. 33I myself did not know him, but he who sent me to baptize with water said to me, 'He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain, this is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.' 34And I have seen and have borne witness that this is the Son of God."" And when John talks here about the Spirit descending and remaining on Jesus, he's talking about what happened when Jesus was baptized by John. You remember that story? Actually, John the Apostle doesn't tell that. Matthew, Mark, and Luke tell the story of Jesus' baptism. John only refers to the words of John the Baptist and what he testified when Jesus was baptized. And you'll remember when Jesus came to be baptized, John took one look at Him and said, this isn't right. You come to me to get baptized. I need to be baptized by you. And Jesus said, it's okay. We must fulfill all righteousness (Matthew 3:15). And so Jesus went through the baptism of John. And it's interesting, there's a lot of baptisms. Have you ever noticed that in the Bible? There's a lot of baptisms. And I can see why people can get things kind of mixed up. You got the baptism of John, which is the baptism of repentance. Then you got believers' baptism. And then you got the idea of baptism as it relates to Christians. Both being in Christ and being empowered by Christ. And they're all made reference to by the word baptism because you need to understand something. When you see the word baptism or baptized in your Bible, it's not always referring to water baptism. Sometimes it's just referring to being in Christ. Because the word baptize is Greek for immersed in. That's why we say baptized in water. Immersed in water. But you can be immersed in lots of things. If somebody was just caught up with their music, you could say that person is immersed in their music. Well, the Greeks would use the word baptized to describe that. So the word baptized doesn't always refer to water baptism. There are references in the Bible where it simply talks about being in Christ. And the word baptized is used to speak of being in Christ. Because when we come to Him, we are immersed into Him. And that's one of the reasons we go through water baptism, because it's a picture of being immersed into Christ. But as the Christian Church, you know what we've done? We've made baptism an end in itself, when it's supposed to symbolize the reality of what happens when a person comes to faith in Jesus Christ. You are immersed into Jesus. But we, no no no. We made it an end. You got to get baptized. You got to get dunked, or you're not going to heaven. That's totally wrong. Baptism is something you do when you get saved. And you picture what happens spiritually when you get saved. You become immersed into Jesus. And water baptism is a beautiful picture of that. It has other pictures. It has the pictures of identification too. People will ask me sometimes, 'Why did Jesus submit to water baptism under John? That was a baptism of repentance. Jesus didn't have anything to repent about. He's sinless. What is He going in and getting dunked by John for?' Because He's identifying with sinners. Jesus came to identify with sinners. He came to identify with you. So he went into the waters of baptism, of repentance, to identify with you. Why do you get baptized? Because you're identifying with Him. In His death, burial, and resurrection. Which is all pictured in baptism, water baptism. And it's beautiful. It's absolutely beautiful. But it's not an end in itself. It's a picture. But you see there are some other aspects to baptism. Again, I want to show you a passage from Galatians. Paul says: Galatians 3:26-27 (ESV) for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. Paul's not necessarily talking about water baptism here. When he talks about being baptized into Christ, he's talking about being immersed into Christ. That's what happens when you get saved. You are immersed into Christ. Water baptism is just the picture of that. So there's that aspect, baptism. But then there's this other aspect about baptism that I want to talk about, because this is what John was referring to. He said to the religious leaders, I baptize you with water. That's not a big deal. But there's coming someone who's going to baptize you with the Holy Spirit. That's a big deal. And that baptism is what we call the baptism of the Spirit. And it's referred to in Acts chapter 1. Let me show you this: Acts 1:4-5, 8 (ESV) And while staying with them he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which, he said, "you heard from me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now." "...you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth."

"And while staying with (the disciples, Jesus) ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which, he said, "you heard from me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now." (And then Jesus said, He described what's going to happen when that baptism takes place) "...you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you," (not in you.) The Holy Spirit comes in you when you get saved. The Holy Spirit comes upon you when you become empowered. And this happens repeatedly in the life of the believer. It's not a one-time event. The Spirit coming in to indwell, that's a one-time thing. You get saved, you are a temple of the Holy Spirit. He lives in you. But there's another work of the Holy Spirit, which Jesus was telling His disciples about. He says, guys, stick around. How do we know this is a different work of the Holy Spirit? Well, because on the resurrection night, the night that Jesus emerged from the tomb alive in His resurrected body, do you remember He appeared to His disciples? Do you remember what He said to his disciples? It says, "He breathed on them and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit." (John 20:22). They received the Holy Spirit. They were born again through the Spirit that night. But now Jesus says to them, now guys, there's another work of the Spirit that you need to hang around and make sure that you don't run off before this happens to you. You need power, guys, because you're going to run into situations that are way beyond your ability to handle. So you're going to need 'dunamis.' That's that Greek word that we translate power. You need the dynamite of the Holy Spirit, and that's what you need to hang around and wait for. And that's what happened in Acts chapter 2 when the Holy Spirit fell upon the assembled believers and they began speaking in languages they'd never heard before. And that's part (not in any way all), part of that dunamis power that we still need today. In fact, we really need today the power of the Spirit. We're living in dark days. We need to be empowered by the Spirit. And that's what John said Jesus was going to do. That's what Jesus came to do. And that is available to us. People ask me all the time, 'Pastor Paul, how can I be baptized in the Holy Spirit? How can I receive power from the Spirit?' You ask. By faith, you ask. And it should be almost a daily prayer. Lord, today I need your power. I might run into people, talk to people, want to know and understand things about . . I need your power. I'm going to be dealing with things that are outside my comfort level. They're outside my understanding spiritually. I need power from on high. People, it's not weird. I know that there are Pentecostal churches around that have made it weird. And I'm sorry about that. But we cannot throw the baby out with the bath water. This is something Jesus talked about. This is something Jesus wants to do. And when you are baptized in the Holy Spirit, it doesn't make you weird. It just gives you power. He gives you power from on high. Amen. Let's stand together. We're going to close in prayer. As we do while we're praying we'll have some couples come down here. We call them our prayer team, and they're available to pray with you. If you have a prayer need this morning, I would encourage you to grab them and just have them pray with you. Father, thank you so much for Your Word. Thank you for the Gospel of John. Thank you for the scripture. Thank you for the wisdom and insight and grace. And understanding that we get from the words. And I thank you, Father God, that you are standing at the ready to empower us every single day to speak to this dark and lost world and say, Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. Father, give us the strength and power to preach the gospel. Help us, Lord, to break free from the constraints of any kind of a religious system that violates or goes against Your Word. But help us, Lord, to stay on track with what the scripture says. To go with the Word of God and to trust in you completely. We thank you and praise you in the name of Jesus our Savior. And all God's people said together, amen. God bless you. Have a good rest of your day.