The True Lamb | John 1

Trace the powerful connection between Exodus and the Gospel of John, where the shadows of God's presence in the Old Testament find their substance in Jesus Christ. Move beyond recognizing the patterns to embracing the person, Jesus, the one who accomplishes the greater Exodus, bringing us out, bringing us in, and bringing us near to God forever. Well, as you're getting settled, but not too much, let's get our Bibles series guide pen and a heart wide open to the work of the Holy Spirit this morning through His Holy Word.

As you're doing that, imagine you were introducing someone to a room full of people that they had never met. Can you picture that scenario in your mind? Your job is to introduce a pretty important person to a room full of people that they've never met, but there's one catch. You only get one sentence.

You can't give their resume. You can't go through their accomplishments. You can't explain their life story.

You get one sentence. What would you say? That's essentially the situation John the Baptist finds himself in when we come to John 1. Take your Bibles turn there, would you? John chapter 1. We're in week 2 of our series. I wouldn't say through this book, but in this book as we look at eight specific substances that fulfill eight specific shadows in Exodus.

And so this is week number two. We're going to see Jesus Christ the true Lamb, and he's introduced by John as that in this chapter. And he's introduced that way in one sentence.

Now, let me just give you a little more background here. Israel had been expecting their Messiah for centuries. He'd been prophesied.

In fact, this is the reason John was sent ahead of Jesus. He was what we call the forerunner. His job was to announce that Jesus was here, but because there was wrong expectations at times, they were asking John if he was the Messiah.

They were saying, well, who are you? And they would ask, are you the prophet, the Messiah? He consistently said, no, I'm not him. I'm just a voice. I'm just a person pointing to him.

And then comes the one sentence introduction. It's verse 29 of John 1. Will you follow along with me as I read this verse? The next day John saw Jesus coming towards him and said, Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Now in that one sentence introduction, John essentially goes after two overarching broad categories.

Christ's identity and Christ's purpose. You can see them in the verse, can't you? Here is the Lamb of God. That's identity who takes away the sin of the world.

That's purpose. And we could spend weeks on those two overarching categories. What I want to show you is that those two overarching categories are actually explained in this verse.

Through the five, you could use the word phrases or maybe even just segments of this verse that really expand on his identity and his purpose. So I want us to take a minute, several minutes, and look at those five segments or phrases because this verse is 14 English words, but they are packed with truth. They are loaded.

I mean, this is multiple theological explosives that we're dealing with today. And they're going to reveal to us one truth. This is our presence principle.

I want to read it together with you. I want you to watch it unfold in the 14 words that are basically John's announcement. So here's our presence principle.

Say with me, church. God provides the Lamb who bears our sin and brings us into his presence. That's 14 words as well.

Those 14 words are the truth that the 14 words of John's announcement declares. Let's analyze it segment by segment, phrase by phrase, and let's watch our hearts explode with praise. First of all, he says, here is.

Those are the first one or two words there. It's probably just one word in the original. It's two in our language.

But here, John is calling attention to the person that we must see. And so he says, here. Now I'm going to be very pastorally transparent with you here and let you know, I'm not a fan of this translation.

When I say this, I mean, of their use of here. This is the 2017 CSB version. I use the 2020 version.

It says, look. Some of you have a King James version. It says, behold.

Now, none of those are wrong, but I'm going to tell you why I don't like the word here. And that is actually what the word is. It can mean look.

It can mean here. It can mean behold, pay attention. But the word in this case is an imperative, but it functions like an interjection.

And my personal opinion, again, I can't say they're wrong. I can tell you my opinion that I don't think it's a great choice because here lacks some of the punch of an interjection. What the writer, John, is getting at is, are these kinds of words like, Hey, there he is.

Or if you're over 50, it's like this. Here's Johnny, right? I mean, we're not talking about identifying just another person in the crowd. John here is verbally pointing.

So I personally think here's a little subdued for what the context and I think the ambiance of the language is expressing. John is saying, Hey, look, I actually like behold. It's an attention grabbing moment when John is saying there's somebody, one person I want you to see.

In fact, I think this was John's favorite word in this chapter. Perhaps the word see it's closely akin to here or look or behold, but can I just offer you a devotional opportunity for this week? I can't do it with you now, but I would invite you to trace the word see through John chapter one. Here's the verses you ought to trace.

It's John one 29, then go to 32 verse 34, then 36 and 37 to 39. And watch what John does. He really says this.

I've seen Jesus. I want you to see him as well. And really seeing is one of the things kind of underneath this, which is why John would say, Hey, there he is.

Look, behold. I think what you'll see, quote unquote, is that that word is doing substantial theological work throughout this opening chapter. And because John wants them to see what he has seen, he says, look, or here he is.

There he is. And so that word is not a filler word. Like I think the sense is perhaps in this translation of 2017, it just seems almost like here, here, here you go.

And that's not the point or the sense of the, of the moment. Like I said, John's verbally pointing. He may even be physically pointing.

By the way, this is John's posture all the time. Pointing. You look back in verses six to eight of this same chapter, John would say about John the Baptist that he came as a witness to testify about the light so that all might believe through him.

He was not the light. John the Baptist took great pleasure in making sure you knew who he was not. I'm not the one, I'm a voice.

I'm not the light. I'm pointing to the light. John's entire ministry is one of pointing.

Look at the lamb. Now I might not like this specific word translated here in this year's translation. I know it's not wrong.

I have an opinion, but can I say to you, even if it is here or look or behold, I love the simplicity of this verse. I mean, and John's not using 10 paragraphs to try to say one thing. He's not inventing words.

He's not trying to find the largest word. John just says, hey, look. Like that's simple.

Like that's my kind of language. That's my kind of directions. I'm going to point.

There he is right here. Look. John's not saying look at your accomplishments or your morality.

He's not saying look at your religion. He's saying, look at Jesus. Here he is.

As I was just contemplating this, I thought about parades that I would sometimes go to. Jill and I would take our kids to parades. We always went to the Summerfest parade and sometimes they were really small.

So you want to get there early so they wouldn't be blocked by an adult or a big kid. You get there on the front for the candy, right? So we try to get there early as well, but sometimes you just have to put the kid on your shoulders. You point and you say, there's the band or there's the firetruck or there's the folks with the candy.

I've never had one of my kids say, hey dad, nice finger. Dad, that's a beautiful arm. Because the point is not the pointer.

The point is the object you're pointing to. Hey, listen, listen. John was doing his job.

He was pointing to the lamb. And can I just be very frank with you here? That's good preaching. Preaching is all about pointing to the lamb.

Look, there he is. That's actually good evangelism. That's actually a good church because we are not fixers.

We're simply pointers. You'll find great disappointment in the church if you come expecting to be fixed by some human or man or group or tactic or strategy or song or style. But if you come and look to the lamb, you will never be disappointed.

Can I ask you a question? Where are you looking? You're looking at circumstances and thinking, well, if this changes, I'll be okay. I'll probably be good enough to get in. Maybe you're looking inside yourself and thinking, have I done enough? Am I worthy? Do my good works pile up enough to where they outweigh my bad works? Maybe you're looking at religion and things like charitable giving or attendance patterns, morality or knowledge about certain facts.

You're thinking surely something in that list will make me acceptable to God. Can I say to you, stop looking at everything but Jesus and look at the lamb. There he is.

But notice that John, when he says here he is, there he is, look, he doesn't say, hey, just look at any lamb. He actually specifies the lamb to look at. Notice the second segment or phrase.

He says, here is the lamb of God. And in this phrase, John's identifying the substitute God provides. And maybe you're thinking, why, Todd, do you think this means a substitute? It's because in this simple phrase, there's a convergence of the entire biblical story.

So this is a meaningful moment that I want you to grasp. This is a converging moment for John, especially to Jewish listeners. I think he's using very loaded language when he says, here he is, look, behold the lamb of God.

Every Jewish listener would have immediately thought of about two or three things in their head. They would have thought, first of all, about their father. I'll use that in the Father Abraham way.

Because in Genesis 22, God asked Abraham to sacrifice his son. They go up Mount Moriah. And just before he's about to sacrifice Isaac, God stops him and says, no, I see now you're willing.

I'll provide for you a lamb. This is exactly what Isaac had asked when they were making their way up the Mount. Isaac said, Genesis 22, hey, where's the lamb, dad? And Abraham says to him, God will provide himself a lamb.

Very interesting phrase. That was Genesis 22, hundreds of years before John 1. You go to Exodus 12. I think a Jewish listener is thinking about when they were delivered from Egypt, the night before judgment fell on Egypt.

God said, the only way to escape is to take a lamb, sacrifice it, and put the blood of the lamb over the doorpost. And when you do that, the death angel will pass over you. You get to Isaiah 53, prophecies about the suffering servant who in Isaiah 53 is called a lamb.

And then he's explained this way. He's the one the Lord will punish for the iniquity of us all. So if you're a Jewish listener, you're thinking about how the lamb was personified as a person who will suffer the iniquity for us all.

He'll take our punishment. It'll be much like the lamb of Exodus 12, the lamb of Genesis 22. And now you're hearing John say, look, there's the lamb of God.

And everything's converging now. And you're realizing that what Genesis 22 anticipated, what Exodus 12 pictured, what Isaiah 53 explained, now John 1 fulfills. Here's the true lamb that God promised and now that God is providing.

God is himself giving himself. That's the provision he makes. Jesus is the lamb of God.

Jesus is God. So God is giving himself. It's a beautiful moment of fulfillment and convergence.

And that's why I want to make sure we don't move past the words of God either. Yes, he's our lamb. He's the true lamb, the fulfillment of all those pictures and types, but he's the lamb of God.

And this matters because hear this, everyone. The gospel isn't you devising a way to get your way to God. The gospel is God giving of himself and coming to you.

It's God providing himself a lamb. It's Genesis 22. It's Exodus 12.

It's Isaiah 53. The lamb is God's and the gospel is God's. Imagine if you were owing a large debt.

Some of you won't have difficulty imagining that, right? You don't see how you're going to pay it. It's a mammoth. It's crushing.

But then you discover that the person to whom you owe the debt is also the person who graciously supplied the payment for the debt. That concept is fundamentally different than a payment plan. You don't feel the weight of a payment plan per se because you're doing it incrementally.

But who bears the burden still? You do. But in grace, God provides the payment. He doesn't put the plan on you.

It's his plan, his payment. That's biblical Christianity. The gospel's not God saying, here's what you owe.

Start working. I'll track your progress. I'll give you your debt chart soon as you pay it down.

It's God declaring instead, I've provided what you could never provide in my son, the true lamb. Hallelujah, church. This is why John would say, here he is.

Look, behold, the lamb of God, the ultimate, final, true one from God to be the sacrifice for our sin. Well, these first two phrases are segments of this announcement. I think they do speak to his identity, who he was.

The last three really are aimed at his purpose. Let's look at the third phrase or segment because here it's interesting. This lamb of God that we're to look at, the verse says he takes away.

That's an interesting verb. I think linguistically in the Jewish culture, and I would say even the biblical New Testament culture, it rang differently to them than us. I want to make sure I explain this properly to you.

This is a theological moment. You'll need to have your brain in fifth gear. You do that great.

Let's just all stay really clued in here. The verb here means to remove, to carry, to bear. When we hear that as Americans, and I'm going to use this illustration.

I've used it before. We often think about Santa Claus, like, oh, this is a good day. He brings us stuff.

He's bearing gifts or he's taking something. You have a guy carrying a bag. It's outside of himself.

You think a lot of the guy, you're glad for him. He's doing a good thing, but he's not doing anything internally. It's all externally.

We often think when Christ carried our sins to the cross, when Christ removed our sins, you think about him taking something outside of himself and saying, I'll go to the landfill for you. I got you covered. Don't worry.

Dump on your sins off. That's not theologically accurate. That's not the Bible's description.

Here's the Bible's description of Christ taking away your sin. Second Corinthians 5, 21. And this is, it's emotional because we have a hard time finding a framework for this.

But the Bible says this, God made him to be sin for us. Something internal is happening on the cross. When as Peter would say, listen to this, he himself bore our sins in his body on the tree.

Christ became sin for us so that you could become the righteousness of God. It's all, it's hard to explain or describe, but I'm so thankful for the theology of divine substitution. Aren't you? The truth of the great exchange that Christ didn't just pick up your sins externally, drop them off and say, Hey, don't worry about it.

God didn't pretend they disappeared. He didn't act like it never happened. God put your sins in and on his son.

And Jesus Christ, the lamb of God bore in his body your sins. And when he was sacrificed willingly, when he gave his life for us, when he shed his blood, he removed sin. He paid for sin.

Jesus, the historical God, man in time and space, in reality, visible sight, the lamb of God, he took our place, paid our penalty. He was our physical substitute. That's the cross church.

That's why forgiveness is yes, it's free to us, but it costs Jesus his life. It was Jesus, the lamb who took away our sin by taking it upon himself. And this is why as a church and as a preacher, we will never settle or stand for a crossless Christianity.

I don't want you to have more information, feel better about yourself, or just find a little encouragement. I want you to see a bloody heel called Calvary. We're in time and space and real history.

Jesus Christ, the God, man, physically, willingly gave his body to be scourged, tortured and crucified. And he suffocated in blood so that you could experience freedom from the power and penalty of sin. That actually happened.

You can't have Christianity without a cross. You can't have Christianity, not biblical Christianity, without blood, the blood of Christ, because something has to be taken away by a qualified substitute. And the only one qualified is Jesus.

He bore our sins. He removed our sins. He carried our sins.

That's what the true lamb did. Now you notice in there, I've already kind of moved forward to the next segment of words, haven't I? He's taken away, he's born in his body, he's removed our sin. And so that's the fourth phrase here.

And this really clarifies the problem he solves. And again, do not rush past this set of words. Two words here.

One is a definitive article and the other is a noun. But notice something. Don't miss this.

Every eye, every ear listening. That's a singular noun. John does not say, look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.

He doesn't say that. He says something fundamentally different. He says, here is the Lamb of God who removes and carries and bears the sin of the world.

What's up with that? Now, I don't want to overload this moment. I don't want to be a grammatical steroid, so to speak, okay? But I don't want to overlook it either. There is something particular happening here.

And here's what I think is going on. John is getting beneath individual acts. He's going below that to the fundamental human dilemma.

What do I do about my sinful nature? You see, a lot of folks, they believe this. I commit sins and so I must be a sinner. It's actually the opposite.

You are a sinner and so you commit sins. If you deal only with the externals, I'll call them the plural aspect, you'll always be patchworking your life. You'll be trying to fix this and fix that on the outside.

You'll duct tape your life to death because you're not willing to deal with the internal root issue. And here's why a lot of folks duct tape themselves to death because they can't deal with the root issue. I mean, who can deal with our fundamental problem, which is that we have a sin nature and that sin has separated us from God.

How can any sinner fix that? Now let me reason with you for a bit. If you're an agnostic or a skeptic, maybe you're an interested person, you're just curious and you're here for your first week or maybe it's your 10th week, but you're checking out Christianity. Can I reason with you for a minute? Good works and working your way to heaven is the most predominantly held belief among most people.

They have different names for it, but at the root of it is this idea that somehow I can earn enough to where God would say, Hey, you're good enough. I'll do something. I'll give something.

But here's the problem with that. God's standard is perfection. And if what John is pointing to here is our fundamental issue that we are sinners, we have a sin nature, even in your best deeds, even in your best efforts, guess what? You're stained and tainted.

There's nothing perfect. Even if your score is 99.9 and you can extend those nines out as far as you want. If it's not perfect, listen, I'll say this politely, but I'll say it clearly.

You don't get in. God is holy, which is why there's, you know, it's not a matter of how good or how bad you are. Romans 3.9 echoes this use of the singular word.

When Romans 3.9, Paul says this, we have concluded that all Jews and Greeks are under sin. So how does a sinful person deal with sin? They can't. You can never make yourself righteous enough or holy enough to please God because he's perfect.

I mean, there's no sin in God. He dwells in unapproachable light. He's sinless.

So even in your best effort, you have a sinful nature. Guess what? You don't come to God. So we need something outside of us to bring us to God.

We need someone outside of us to bring us to God. And his name is Jesus, the true lamb, who was God. And suddenly it begins to make theological and logical sense that there's no amount of good works that can bring me to God because every one of my good works, no matter how good they are, are tainted and stained.

But Jesus was God's son. He was God. And yet he was man.

He was human. And he's the perfect mediator because he was God and he was man. So he can get me to God because he's perfect.

He's holy. He's sinless. And this is why the Bible calls all men and women everywhere to repent and believe in the name of the son of God, because only the son of God, the lamb of God, can fix what's really deeply, truly wrong with all of us, our sin nature problem.

How does he do that? He gives us a new nature. He gives us his righteousness. And in all frankness, these new, these natures will battle while you're on this earth.

You are on this earth when you are a believer and you have two natures, you are free from the power of sin and the penalty of sin. Those are true realities now. You don't have to sin.

Christ is greater. He is stronger. What you're not free from yet is the presence of sin, which is why often we do sin.

But there's a day coming when the lamb of God returns and you'll be free from even sin's presence. Hallelujah. Praise God.

Come quickly, Lord Jesus. So are you tracking me? You can't even deal with sin's power and penalty until God births you from above, as we'll see next week, regenerates you until you're born again, until you're saved. And multitudes of people are trying to fix themselves, work their way to heaven, duct tape their life with all kinds of effort.

All they're dealing with are sins. Jesus came to remove, carry away, bear in his body sin, which means he will give you a new nature, a new heart. He'll bring you to his family and he will free you from sin's penalty and power immediately and from sin's presence eventually.

That's why everyone should believe in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, because the central issue isn't, watch this, sins. The central issue is sin. This is why Jesus Christ did not come as a political reformer.

He didn't come as a social commentator or influencer. He didn't come as a therapist or a life coach or some kind of moral example. Jesus Christ, the lamb of God came as a savior.

This is what the angel told Joseph. And can I just belabor this a little more? It's such an important point practically and theologically. This really is where Exodus, we just see this fulfilled so beautifully in John.

Because you remember in Exodus, it was clear that it was sin that was barring them from God's presence. They were unholy. He was holy.

Even in their best days, they couldn't approach God. They were barred. There was a veil, a curtain.

Eden showed this, the tabernacle showed it, the priest showed the sacrifices. All of those were pictures that something has to happen to sin. This eternal dilemma that all of us are in naturally, this sin nature, we call it total depravity.

Not that we're as bad as we could be, but every bit of our will, being, affections, desires, body, mind, it's tainted by sin. There's not a single part of us not sinful. What do we do about that? And throughout the Old Testament, it was sacrifices and substitutes.

And for hundreds of years, and just hang with me here, they would offer a lamb, the sacrifice that its blood would cover, it'd be sprinkled on people. And then they would bring a goat and the priest would lay his hands on the goat and they would send the goat off. It's called the scapegoat.

The lamb pictured a substitute bearing our sin. The scapegoat pictured a substitute carrying off our sins. All of that's contained in the word takes away.

But none of those were final. And this is where I just would admit to you, and I think you would admit with me, it had to be frustrating in those days of the Old Testament. Every year, there's another day of atonement.

Every season, there's another sacrifice. There's another animal to die. There's another scapegoat to be sent.

The repetition itself testifies the problem has yet to be dealt with once and for all, which is why Hebrews would say it's impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sin. They could only point to the real lamb, the true lamb. They can never be the answer, but they could say, here's the answer.

And all of Exodus is a pointer. John the Baptist is a pointer. Here is the lamb of God who bears and takes away and removes our fundamental problem that we are separated from God by our sin.

Jesus has dealt with that. If you're thinking, that's great news, Todd. I'm glad that's available for some people.

Then you're missing the last phrase of this beautiful announcement. Because John would write something staggering as he finishes his one sentence introduction. He says this, here is the lamb of God who takes away the sin, say at church, of the world.

Now again, I want to keep this in context. This is startling to a Jewish listener because they've been waiting for a Messiah. They weren't sure who it was.

John's introducing him to them and they probably were expecting, here's the lamb of Israel to rescue Jews. And what does John say? Here is the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. This is fabulous news.

Now you may think it's fabulous because it means that everybody's automatically saved, I guess. That's not what this text says. It's not really what John ever says.

I'd remind you in John's book, as well as the whole Bible, believing is essential. Here's John 1.12 in this very chapter. But to all who did receive him, he gave them the right to be children of God, even to those who believe in his name.

Here's John 3.16, most famous verse in the Bible, many people's most favorite verse, that God loved the world in this way. He sent his one and only son and then all who believe in him will never perish but have eternal life. So believing is required.

What John is saying here is believing isn't restricted to a certain class or ethnicity or certain kind of person. It's wide open to the whole world. The lamb, which we're saying, yes, look at the lamb, is sufficient for every nation, language, tribe, and tongue.

There is no kind of person, no kind of people that are limited from looking to the lamb. Anyone and everyone in the whole world is invited to look. John will keep using that language about the world throughout his book, by the way.

I mentioned John 3.16 that God so loved the world. In John 4, he says that Jesus is the savior of the world. John 6, he gives life to the world.

John 8, he is the light of the world. And so again, we find this moment in which John expands all those Exodus shadows and we see all of their fulfillment in Christ, especially in regards to the lamb. Because in Exodus 12, watch this, it was a lamb for a household.

Now, John 1, it's the lamb for the whole world. I hope the words the world will weigh on you in this moment because there's folks in this room, there are folks listening. It may be you and you're wondering, not for me, I'm too sinful.

The lamb came to deal with sin. No, Todd, not to me, I'm too far away. The lamb came near and brings us near to God.

Maybe you're saying, Todd, I'm in the wrong place or country, I have the wrong background. No, the lamb is for the world. So here might appeal to you for a moment, church.

It's not about religious or irreligious. It's not about moral or immoral. It's not the church kid or the prodigal.

It's not the person who's known the Bible since they were a child or the person who can't even open one or doesn't even own one. It's not about the successful businessman who has everything together, looks like he's got his, everything's perfect on the outside or the addict who can't even keep anything together. Or the faithful wife who's quietly followed Jesus for 50 years or the woman carrying a pass she hopes no one ever discovers from just a few years.

It's not about our status or who we are. It's not about the teenager wondering whether Christianity is really true or the senior adult wondering if Christ will actually hold them all the way home through widowhood and dementia, Alzheimer's, cancer. It's not about the person who sins everybody knows or the talk of the town or the secret sins that the influential person has that he hopes nobody or she hopes nobody will ever find out.

Whether you're ashamed or angry or skeptical, self-righteous, sexually broken, financially successful, poverty-ridden, socially respected or publicly disgraced, red, yellow, black or white, the Lamb came for the world. Aren't you glad that no ethnicity is excluded, no nationality, no social class, no generation, no past is too stained, no guilt is too great, and no distance is too far? So whether your sin has left you broken and you know it, or whether it's left you proud and you don't know it, whether you spent your life running away from God or trying to impress God, or regardless of you, here's what John would say, look to the Lamb. He came for the world.

Church, the invitation of the gospel is as wide as the human race. So there's no corner of this world where Jesus cannot or should not be proclaimed. There's no kind of sinner to whom Jesus cannot be offered.

There's no person sitting in this room or any of our campuses who can legitimately say, surely John didn't mean someone like me. Oh, he actually did when he said, here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Jesus came for you.

No wonder Charles Wesley would write, oh, for a thousand tongues to sing. Have you ever thought about those words? We're not going to sing it today. Some of you thought I was going to move to a song.

I'm not, actually. I just was thinking about those words. I feel that today.

I felt it this week, like I want a thousand mouths to sing praise to the Lamb who has dealt with my fundamental issue, and He'll do it for anyone who asks. I want to praise God for that. So church, here's what we've seen.

The words here is, that's the person we must see. We must look. Who do we look to? The Lamb of God.

That's the substitute that God provides. What does He do? He takes away. That's the work He accomplishes.

What does He take away? Our sin. That's the problem He solves. And for whom does He do this? Anyone who asks in the world.

That's the people He came to save. So can we say this verse together? And can we let the 14 word announcement wrapped in this verse make us wish for a thousand tongues to sing? Let's say it church. The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and he said, here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

So let me end where John began. I just want to point. I just want to take a look.

I just want to say there He is. I don't want to point at myself. I don't want to point at our church because I can't take away your sin.

This church can't take away your sin, religion, morality, your promises to do better, your remorse. None of those can take away your sin. Only the Lamb of God.

So I'm going to point. I'm going to point you to Jesus. For some of you, I'm pointing to Jesus, the Lamb who bears our sin and died in our place and took away our sin, removed our guilt and our punishment.

I pointed to Him because for the first time, you need to look to Jesus for salvation. You've been on that treadmill. You've been peddling so fast.

You're trying to fix what you cannot fix. You're sure that you can get a high enough grade where God will, okay, I'll make an exception. You're in.

But you'll never solve it because you can't undo your sinful nature. And today you've realized that. And you are sensing the Holy Spirit drawing you to God.

He's lifted up Jesus in front of you. You see the Lamb of God and His death and burial and resurrection as the only way you'll ever be forgiven and saved and right with God. And for the first time, you're like, I believe.

I want God to save me. Will you right now just ask God, God, save me through Jesus, your Lamb, your Son. The fact that you're desiring that is evidence that that's happening in this moment.

And I just may ask you to mark this moment with that simple confession and prayer. Look to the Lamb. He saves anyone who asks in the whole world.

The vast majority of you, probably though, haven't looked to the Lamb. But in all frankness, your attention has been redirected. Your gaze has gotten fuzzy and blurry.

I want to invite you now to rededicate your life to the Lamb and live from the Lamb. Wipe away the fog. Lift your eyes and keep looking at the Lamb.

Live your life from the Lamb. Regardless of who you are, guess who we're looking at? The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.