Series: N/A
Service: Praise and Preaching Service
Type: Sermon
Speaker: Dwayne Gandy
Greater Than John the Baptist
John the Baptist was sitting in prison.
Outside those walls, Jesus was doing incredible things.
Near the city of Nain, Jesus encountered a funeral procession. A widow had lost her only son, and the people of the city were walking with her as she went to bury him. Jesus saw the grieving mother and had compassion on her.
He walked up and touched the open coffin.
Everyone stopped.
Then Jesus said to the dead young man, “Young man, I say to you, arise.”
Imagine standing in that crowd. Jesus has just stopped a funeral procession and spoken to a dead man. At that moment, there seem to be only two possibilities. Either this man has done something unbelievably cruel to a grieving mother, or everyone standing there is about to witness something they have never seen before.
The young man sat up.
And began to speak.
Jesus presented him alive to his mother.
The crowd responded exactly as we might expect. Fear came upon them, and they glorified God. Some said, “A great prophet has risen up among us.” Others declared, “God has visited His people.”
Word spread throughout the region.
Eventually, the news reached the disciples of John the Baptist.
And they carried it back to John.
In prison.
When What You Know and What You See Do Not Seem to Fit
By this point, John may have been imprisoned for quite some time. Day after day, he remained confined while reports reached him about the extraordinary things Jesus was doing.
That created a dilemma.
John knew who he was.
His entire life had pointed toward one purpose: prepare the way for the Coming One.
Yet here he was in prison while Jesus was outside performing miracles, teaching multitudes, and moving forward without him.
Something did not seem to fit.
So John called two of his disciples and sent them to Jesus with a remarkable question:
“Are You the Coming One, or do we look for another?”
“The Coming One” was loaded with meaning.
Ever since sin entered the world, God had been promising Someone who would come. The promise could be traced through Scripture. The offspring of woman would crush the serpent. Through Abraham’s family all nations would be blessed. The ruler would come through Judah. A descendant of David would sit upon the throne.
Generation after generation waited.
Someone was coming.
John knew his role was to prepare the way for Him.
So his question was not casual.
Are You Him?
Are You the One I have spent my life preparing people to receive?
Because I know who I am. I know what God called me to do. But what is happening to me does not seem to fit with what I thought God was doing.
Perhaps you have experienced your own version of that dilemma.
You believe God.
You believe Jesus is the Son of God.
You know what Scripture says.
But then something happens in your life that does not seem to fit.
If God is good, why is this happening?
If I am trying to serve Him, why am I here?
Why hasn't God done what I expected Him to do?
Sometimes our circumstances and our understanding of God do not seem to fit together.
John the Baptist knew that feeling.
Jesus Gave John Evidence
When John's disciples arrived, they delivered his question.
Jesus did not immediately give them a theological lecture.
Instead, He gave them something to see.
Luke tells us that during that very time Jesus cured many people of diseases, afflictions, and evil spirits. He gave sight to the blind.
Then He told John's messengers:
“Go and tell John the things you have seen and heard.”
The blind see.
The lame walk.
Lepers are cleansed.
The deaf hear.
The dead are raised.
The poor have the gospel preached to them.
Jesus was doing more than providing John with a list of impressive miracles. He was pointing John back to Scripture.
Isaiah had described the coming age of salvation with language like this. Isaiah 35 spoke of the eyes of the blind being opened, the ears of the deaf being unstopped, and the lame leaping like a deer. Isaiah 61 spoke of good news being proclaimed to the poor.
Jesus was telling John's disciples, in effect:
Go tell John what you saw.
He will know what it means.
John had questions, and Jesus gave him evidence.
That is important.
Jesus did not humiliate John for asking.
He did not say, “After everything John has seen, how could he possibly have questions?”
He gave John what he needed to continue believing.
There may be times when we have questions too. Faith does not require us to pretend that we understand everything. God is not threatened by our questions.
But our questions should send us where John's question sent him.
To Jesus.
And Jesus points us toward the evidence God has provided.
“What Did You Go Out Into the Wilderness to See?”
After John's messengers left, Jesus turned to the crowd.
This is significant.
John had just sent messengers asking, “Are You the Coming One?”
Jesus could have allowed the crowd to walk away thinking less of John.
He did the opposite.
“What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind?”
Certainly not.
John was no reed.
He had stood before ordinary people, religious leaders, soldiers, tax collectors, and even a king and told them the truth.
“Repent.”
“What did you go out to see? A man clothed in soft garments?”
No.
People wearing expensive clothing lived in kings’ palaces.
John lived in the wilderness wearing camel's hair and a leather belt.
So why had people gone into the wilderness?
To see a prophet.
Jesus said John was more than a prophet. He was the messenger foretold in Scripture who would prepare the way for the Lord.
Then Jesus made an astounding statement:
“Among those born of women there has not risen one greater than John the Baptist.”
Think about the people included in that statement.
Abraham.
Moses.
Samuel.
David.
Elijah.
Isaiah.
Jeremiah.
Daniel.
Jesus says none was greater than John.
But then He says something even more surprising:
“He who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.”
How can that possibly be true?
To understand it, we need to understand John's story.
A Child Born to Prepare the Way
For centuries, Israel had waited.
The Old Testament ends with Malachi and the promise that God would send someone ahead to prepare the way.
Then came approximately four centuries without another recorded prophet.
One day an elderly priest named Zacharias entered the temple to burn incense.
This was an extraordinary privilege. Priests served in divisions, and the opportunity to offer incense in the temple could be a once-in-a-lifetime assignment.
While Zacharias was inside, an angel appeared.
Gabriel told him that his wife Elizabeth would have a son.
His name would be John.
His birth would bring joy. He would be filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother's womb. And then Gabriel connected this unborn child with the promise Israel had been awaiting.
This child would prepare people for the Lord.
Zacharias struggled to believe the announcement. He and Elizabeth were old. As a sign, Zacharias was unable to speak until the promise was fulfilled.
Elizabeth conceived.
While she was pregnant, Mary came to visit her. Mary herself was carrying Jesus. When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, John leaped in her womb.
Before John ever preached a sermon, before he baptized a single person, before he stood beside the Jordan, his life was already pointing toward Jesus.
When John was born, the family gathered for his circumcision and naming. Everyone expected him to receive a family name.
Elizabeth said, “He shall be called John.”
When they appealed to Zacharias, he wrote:
“His name is John.”
Immediately his tongue was loosed.
Zacharias praised God and prophesied concerning his son. This child would be a prophet of the Highest. He would go before the Lord to prepare His ways.
Imagine growing up hearing that story.
John knew who he was.
And, more importantly, he knew why he was here.
“Prepare the Way of the Lord”
Eventually John emerged from the wilderness preaching.
“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!”
People came from throughout the region to hear him.
John did not preach a vague repentance. When people asked what repentance should look like, he told them.
If you have two tunics, give to someone who has none.
If you collect taxes, collect no more than you are authorized.
If you are a soldier, do not intimidate people or make false accusations; be content with your wages.
When religious leaders came without genuine repentance, John called them a “brood of vipers.”
John was not a reed shaken by the wind.
Eventually, his preaching brought him into conflict with Herod. John condemned Herod's wickedness, including his unlawful relationship with Herodias, his brother's wife.
John told the truth even when the truth could cost him his freedom.
Eventually, it did.
But before John's imprisonment, something happened that confirmed everything his life had been preparing him to do.
Jesus came to him.
“Behold! The Lamb of God”
Jesus asked John to baptize Him.
John objected.
“I need to be baptized by You, and are You coming to me?”
But Jesus told him to permit it.
John baptized Jesus.
Then the heavens opened.
The Spirit descended upon Jesus.
And a voice came from heaven:
“This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”
John had been given a sign. The One upon whom he saw the Spirit descend and remain was the One.
Later, when John saw Jesus approaching, he declared:
“Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”
John had seen the evidence.
He had identified Jesus.
He had pointed others toward Him.
Yet sometime afterward, John was arrested.
And that brings us back to the prison.
Even Great Faith Can Have Questions
This is what makes John's question so powerful.
The man asking, “Are You the Coming One?” is the same man who baptized Jesus.
He saw the Spirit descend.
He heard the voice from heaven.
He called Jesus the Lamb of God.
And still there came a moment when his circumstances left him struggling to understand.
John's problem was not that he knew nothing.
His problem may have been that he knew enough to recognize that something did not seem to fit.
He knew he was supposed to prepare the way for the Messiah.
He believed Jesus was that Messiah.
So why was the one preparing the way sitting in prison?
Why wasn't Jesus doing something about it?
The answer Jesus sent back was not, “John, I am coming to get you.”
Jesus never promised that.
Instead, He essentially told him:
Look at the evidence.
God is doing exactly what He promised.
John's circumstances did not determine Jesus' identity.
God's Word did.
That remains an important lesson whenever our lives do not make sense.
John Never Left the Prison
John's story does not end with his release.
Herod held a birthday celebration. Herodias' daughter danced before him, and Herod rashly promised to give her whatever she requested.
After consulting her mother, she asked for the head of John the Baptist on a platter.
Herod gave the order.
John died in prison.
The one who prepared the way for Jesus never lived to see the cross.
He never stood at the empty tomb.
He never heard Peter preach on Pentecost.
He never saw the kingdom established in its fullness after Jesus' death, resurrection, and ascension.
John's work was finished.
He had said it himself:
“He must increase, but I must decrease.”
And he did.
Why Was John Greater?
So why did Jesus call John greater than all the prophets who came before him?
It was not because John had more faith than Abraham.
It was not because his heart was purer than David's.
It was not because he demonstrated more courage than Elijah.
John's greatness was not based upon outperforming everyone who came before him.
His greatness was defined by his proximity to Jesus and the kingdom.
Abraham saw the promises from a distance.
David lived roughly a thousand years before Christ.
Isaiah prophesied about the Servant who would suffer, but Isaiah never saw Jesus fulfill those prophecies.
John did.
John stood at the edge of the kingdom.
He announced that it was near.
He saw Jesus.
He baptized Jesus.
He pointed at Jesus and said, “There He is.”
No prophet before John had been given that privilege.
That is what made John great.
But that also helps us understand how someone in the kingdom can be greater than John.
We Live on the Other Side of the Cross
Peter wrote that the prophets searched carefully to understand the salvation about which they were prophesying. They were serving generations yet to come.
Hebrews 11 describes men and women of extraordinary faith and then says:
“And all these, having obtained a good testimony through faith, did not receive the promise, God having provided something better for us.”
Something better for us.
We live after the cross.
We live after the empty tomb.
We live after Jesus defeated death.
Hebrews tells us that through death Jesus destroyed the one who had the power of death—the devil—and released those who had lived in bondage through fear of death.
John preached that the kingdom was coming.
We can live in that kingdom.
John announced the Lamb of God who would take away the sins of the world.
We can know the completed story of how He did it.
John stood before Jesus before the cross.
We can be clothed with Christ, cleansed by His blood, and live in fellowship with the risen King.
We have a merciful and faithful High Priest who took on flesh, experienced temptation and suffering, and can aid His people.
We have boldness to approach God through the blood of Jesus.
The veil has been torn.
The sacrifice has been offered.
The King has conquered death.
The kingdom has come.
Perhaps we imagine reaching heaven and finding Abraham because we have so many questions for him.
“What was it like to leave your homeland because God told you to go?”
“What was it like to wait for Isaac?”
“What was it like to climb Mount Moriah?”
But consider this:
Abraham might have questions for us.
What was it like to live after the Promised One came?
What was it like to know how the promises were fulfilled?
What was it like to live knowing that Jesus had conquered death?
Isaiah might want to know what it was like to read his prophecies while knowing the name of the suffering Servant.
David might want to know what it was like to live under the reign of his promised descendant.
John might want to know what it was like to live in the kingdom he spent his life announcing.
We have received something they longed to see.
Are You Greater Than John the Baptist?
That brings Jesus' statement directly to us.
“He who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.”
Are you greater than John the Baptist?
The question has nothing to do with whether you are more courageous than John.
You probably aren't.
It has nothing to do with whether your faith is stronger than Abraham's or your heart is better than David's.
That is not the kind of greatness Jesus was describing.
The question is about your proximity to Jesus.
Are you in His kingdom?
Paul wrote:
“For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.”
That is the privilege offered to us.
John spent his life preparing people for Jesus.
We have the privilege of being in Christ.
Covered by His blood.
Forgiven of our sins.
Citizens of His kingdom.
Living on this side of the cross and the empty tomb.
And when our circumstances do not make sense—when what we know about God and what we see happening around us seem difficult to reconcile—we can do what John did.
Take the question to Jesus.
Go back to the evidence.
Listen again to God's Word.
John's prison cell did not mean Jesus wasn't the Coming One.
And our difficult circumstances do not erase what God has revealed about His Son.
John was a great man.
Jesus Himself said there had been no greater prophet born of woman.
Yet you have been offered something John never experienced during his earthly life.
You can live in the kingdom for which he prepared the way.
You can know the completed story.
You can know the crucified and risen Christ.
You can have your sins washed away by His blood.
You can belong to the King.
Our greatness is not found in being better than John the Baptist.
It is found in being close to Jesus.
