A Man Sent From God Series

Journeying With John - It’s a Trip (JWJ-04)

A Man Sent from God

John 1:6-8

This morning I want to talk with you about the greatest man who ever lived. Do you know who that is? It is not Jesus. That is a good answer - but He is, after all, God. Do you know who the greatest man was who ever lived? His name is John, John the Baptist. I say that because that is what Jesus said.

Matthew 11:11 “Truly I say to you, among those born of women there has not arisen anyone greater than John the Baptist!”

I want to talk with you about the greatest man who ever lived, and then I want to tell you how you can be greater than that.

Our series is entitled “Journeying With John, It’s a Trip.”

Open your Bibles with me, if you will, to the Gospel written by the Apostle of Light, the Apostle of Life, the Apostle of Love. We discovered last week that biblically it is appropriate to refer to John using those three terms. John and this first chapter.

There are not many people that the Bible gives us as much detail on as John the Baptist - yet his ministry probably only lasted about 6 months. He was unlike anybody else in the Bible - would strike fear in the average pastor now-a-days. They say that nothing strikes fear in the heart of a pastor like a wild eyed Charismatic woman who introduces herself as an intercessor that God has called to his church (that will scare even the most hardened of us) - but I think John the Baptist would have sent even the best of us looking for cover.

He was crude, strong, yet humble. His diet was very weird and his wardrobe very limited. He had godly parents (Luke 1:5-6); a supernatural birth (Luke 1:7) and was filled with the Spirit (Luke 1:15). The spirit of Elijah was on him and he was the for-runner of the Lord (Luke 1:17). He would not have lasted one Sunday in most churches in the West. Yet Jesus calls him the greatest man who ever lived. So I want to talk with you this morning about A Man Sent From God.

John 1:6-8 - Read - Pray.

There are a number of things I want to encourage us from John - I believe these are amongst the reasons Jesus said he was the greatest man every born. I also believe that these keys are exactly what you and I need as we pursue God. Are you ready. If we are you pursue God we need . . .

1. A Clear Sense of Divine Call

Our passage reads, “There was a man sent from God.” (John 1:6)

John himself describes himself in Isaiah’s words; “I am the voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way for the Lord!’” – John 1:23

John understood that he was not simply here on this earth to make a living and get by in life. He was here with a distinctive and a divine call.

You see my friend, when God wants to do a thing, He equips and He calls a man or a woman. Every child of God is unique and has a unique calling on his or her life.

There was a man sent from God - an ordinary man. God did not send and angel dragging a banner behind him or a fiery chariot blazing a message across the skies. He sent a man, an ordinary man. That is what He always does.

When God has a task He wants done, He seeks a man to do it . . . or else He leaves it undone:

Eph. 4:1 “Therefore I, the prisoner of the Lord, implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called.”

Precious believer - its time to walk your call, walk your call.

I’m just a teacher, or I’m just a plumber, or I am just a stay at home Mom - you are never just an anything. You are what you are and do what you do by the call of the sovereign God of the universe.

Now this is important and I would hate for you to miss this. What made John the Baptist special was not that he had a special call - what made him special was that he was John the Baptist. It is not your call that makes you special. God made you special and put a call upon your life.

God has endowed each and every one of His children with the gifts, talents and abilities they need in order to fulfill a unique and a divine calling. Inside of you may be a preacher, a prophet, a singer, a dancer, a teacher.