The Forerunner of Hope

***Due to technical difficulties we had to use a backup iPhone recording of this sermon. Our apologies for the poor audio quality. Quality improves somewhat after about 45 seconds.***

Last week we began a series of sermons on the topic of Christmas hope. We said that the hope of Christmas was God’s commitment to send His Son into the world to set everything right. As the Old Testament anticipated this hope the New Testament unfolds its fulfillment. And this morning we want to look at the forerunner of that hope in the person of the birth of John the Baptist. John the Baptist was truly a great man and his greatness prepares the way for the ultimate fulfilling of hope in the person of Jesus Christ. We will explore this forerunner of hope, drawing applications from three perspectives on this hope and his greatness. We will see how this hope is (1) Out of the box. (2) Out of this world. And (3) Out of the Ordinary. In other words, it is unexpected, supernatural and other-centered.

John is great, and John is the forerunner of hope because his entire life is one of pointing to Another. As he put it himself in John 3:30, “He must increase, but I must decrease.” The consuming passion of John’s life was Jesus Christ. He truly lived his life for another and in that he was not only great but also prepared us for the hope to come. That hope is never in ourselves. If it were it would not be hope. It would not be secure. It is only to the degree that we are consumed with the greatness of Another, namely Christ, that our lives will be filled with hope.