Currently attending Hope Community Church

Eagle Brook Church is also amazing, but a little further than I would like to drive now that I moved to Eden Prairie. Hope is a bit of a journey too, but reasonable. Both of these churches offer online sermons!

Hope Community Church was founded under the verse Isaiah 57:14

And it will be said, “Build up, build up, prepare the way, Remove every obstacle out of the way of My people.”

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2014 Dec 07 (last weeks message, 2014 Nov 30)

The Birth of John The Baptist

Gospel of Luke

1:58

Genesis 19:19
Your servant has found favor in your eyes, and you have shown great kindness to me in sparing my life. But I can’t flee to the mountains; this disaster will overtake me, and I’ll die.

Ruth 4:14
The women said to Naomi: “Praise be to the LORD, who this day has not left you without a guardian-redeemer. May he become famous throughout Israel!

Luke 14:12
Then Jesus said to his host, “When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or sisters, your relatives, or your rich neighbors; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid.

1:59

Genesis 17:12
For the generations to come every male among you who is eight days old must be circumcised, including those born in your household or bought with money from a foreigner–those who are not your offspring.

Leviticus 12:3
On the eighth day the boy is to be circumcised.

Luke 2:21
On the eighth day, when it was time to circumcise the child, he was named Jesus, the name the angel had given him before he was conceived.

Philippians 3:5
circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee;

1:60 But his mother answered and said, “No indeed; but he shall be called John.”

Luke 1:13
But the angel said to him: “Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to call him John.

1:61 And they said to her, “There is no one among your relatives who is called by that name.”

1:62  And they made signs to his father, as to what he wanted him called.

Luke 1:22
When he came out, he could not speak to them. They realized he had seen a vision in the temple, for he kept making signs to them but remained unable to speak.

1:63 And he asked for a tablet and wrote as follows, “His name is John.” And they were all astonished.

Matthew 8:10
When Jesus heard this, he was amazed and said to those following him, “Truly I tell you, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith.

Luke 1:13
But the angel said to him: “Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to call him John.

1:64 And at once his mouth was opened and his tongue loosed, and he began to speak in praise of God.

Exodus 4:11
The LORD said to him, “Who gave human beings their mouths? Who makes them deaf or mute? Who gives them sight or makes them blind? Is it not I, the LORD?

Ezekiel 33:22
Now the evening before the man arrived, the hand of the LORD was on me, and he opened my mouth before the man came to me in the morning. So my mouth was opened and I was no longer silent.

Luke 1:20
And now you will be silent and not able to speak until the day this happens, because you did not believe my words, which will come true at their appointed time.”

1:65 Fear came on all those living around them; and all these matters were being talked about in all the hill country of Judea.

Matthew 2:1
After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem

Luke 1:39
At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea,

Luke 5:26
Everyone was amazed and gave praise to God. They were filled with awe and said, “We have seen remarkable things today.”

1:66 All who heard them kept them in mind, saying, “What then will this child turn out to be?” For the hand of the Lord was certainly with him.

Acts 11:21
The Lord’s hand was with them, and a great number of people believed and turned to the Lord.

Colossians 1:5
the faith and love that spring from the hope stored up for you in heaven and about which you have already heard in the true message of the gospel

Random notes

Much more about John the Baptist below

Also known as: Joannes Baptista, John the Baptizer, John the Forerunner, Juan Bautista, Yahya the Baptizer 

Memorial: 24 June (birth) – 29 August (death)

John the Baptist is regarded as a prophet by three religions: Christianity, Islam, and Mandaeanism. He is the forerunner or precursor of Christ and forms a link between the Old and New Testaments. He is considered the last of the Old Testament prophets and the first of the saints of the New Testament, where his story is told. John was the prophet who preached the coming of Christ as the Messiah.

He was born in a priestly family, but he didn’t become a priest as expected. All four Gospels say that John came as a prophet to prepare the way before Jesus. He was the son of Zachary, a priest of the Temple in Jerusalem, and Elizabeth, a kinswoman of Mary who visited her. Jesus Christ and John the Baptist were related. Their mothers, Mary and Elizabeth, were cousins.

John the Baptist was born 6 months before Jesus Christ (as Zachary was ministering in the Temple, an angel brought him news that Elizabeth would bear a child filled with the Holy Spirit from the moment of his birth. Zachary doubted and was struck dumb until John’s birth). Thirty years later, in the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caeser, corresponding to what we would call the year 26 A.D., John began a ministry of baptism. He was a priest and priests began their work when they were thirty years old,  wearing a leather belt and a tunic of camel hair, living off locusts and wild honey, and preaching a message of repentance to the people of Jerusalem. He converted many, and prepared the way for the coming of Jesus.

John was in a wilderness area on the Jordan river. People came from all over, especially from Judah and Jerusalem, to hear John preach and to heed his call to repent of their sins and be baptized. Baptism shows that a person wants the old sinful character to die and be buried and to rise up out of the water a new character, forgiven of their sins and beginning a new life of overcoming sin. The people who were baptized were apprehensive about John’s message. They knew that it was very near the time the Messiah was prophesied to appear. The people asked him, “What shall we do?” He answered, “He who has two coats, freely give one of them to someone who has none. He who has food, give some to someone who has none.”

Seven hundred years before the birth of Jesus, the prophet Isaiah wrote how the Messiah would be “led like a lamb to the slaughter” as a sacrifice to take away our sins (Isa. 53:7). That is why, when John saw Jesus coming toward him, he pointed to Him and said to his disciples, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! He baptized Christ in the Jordan river, after which he stepped away and told his disciples to follow Jesus. John the Baptist is a different person from the apostle John, for whom the Gospel of John is named… In speaking of Jesus, John said: “I have baptized you with water, but He will baptize you with the holy spirit”.

John had publicly reprimanded King Herod for taking his brother Philip’s wife, Herodias as his own, so Herod had him imprisoned. Herodias held a grudge against John for this and greatly desired to kill him. Herod too wanted to kill him but he also considered John to be a just and holy man and the people considered him a prophet so he was afraid to kill him. He also liked to listen to John though he became quite upset when he did.

About a year passed after the Forerunner’s imprisonment, when Herod celebrating his birthday gave a banquet for his courtiers, and officers, and a thousand leading men of Galilee. Salome, the daughter of Herodias and stepdaughter of Herod, also came to this banquet. She danced for Herod, which pleased him and his guests. The dance so delighted Herod that he swore to Herodias, daughter that he would reward her with anything she asked – up to half his kingdom. She didn’t know what to ask so she went out and asked her mother. Herodias told her to ask for John’s head on a platter. So she went back in to the party and demanded John the Baptist’s head. This barbaric request startled the tyrant himself; but governed by human respect he assented and sent a soldier of his guard to behead the Saint in prison. The soldier fulfilled the order of the king, brought the head of John the Baptist on a platter and gave it to Salome, and Salome gave it to her mother Herodias. Afterward John’s disciples buried his body, and went and told Jesus (Matthew 4:3-12; Mark 6:17-29).

Thus died the great forerunner of our blessed Saviour, some two years after his entrance upon his public ministry, and a year before the death of the One he announced.
When his disciples heard of the death of John the Baptist, they came, and took his body, and laid it in a tomb. The date of John the Baptist’s death, 29 August, assigned in the liturgical calendars can hardly be relied upon, because it is scarcely based upon trustworthy documents. His burial-place has been fixed by an old tradition at Sebaste (Samaria). His relics are in Saint Sylvester’s church, Rome, Italy, and at Amiens, France.

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