A model from Los Angeles contacted me on Instagram asking me to give him my Instagram handle name. He wrote, “I’ll pay you for your name on Instagram.” I responded and asked how much he would offer. (I was not going to accept the money, but I was curious how much he’d offer). After he offered several hundred dollars I responded, “I’m a Christian. You can have it for free. Jesus has been good to me and blessed me with so much. You can just have my name for free.”
I used that interaction as an opportunity to point him to the light of Jesus. This is a ministry—pointing others to the Light of Jesus—we all have and it was the ministry of John the Baptist too.
We live in a dark world. Even non-Christians that don’t have faith in God can agree that the world is a dark place. Because of that we need to use every opportunity to point people to the light of Jesus. The people John was writing to understood this too. John the Apostle wrote his gospel at a time when the other original disciples of Jesus had been killed because of their faith in Christ. John was the only one left alive. John writes in his gospel that God sends life seen as light. “In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it” (John 1:4–5).[1]
God sent someone to testify about the light, “There came a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness, to testify about the Light, so that all might believe through him. He was not the Light, but he came to testify about the Light. There was the true Light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man” (John 1:6–9). This man who “testified about Him” (John 1:15a) we call John the Baptist. Now there’s a few important points here we need to understand about John as we relate ourselves to him.
Like John, we are not the Light. Jesus was the Light. Jesus said in John 8:12, “I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life.” Jesus was the light, not John the Baptist. And we need to remember we are not the light, but Jesus is.
Like John, we are supposed to point to the Light. In John 1:7a we are told about John the Baptist’s position, “He came as a witness to testify about the light.” God sent John the Baptist to help the people understand who Jesus was and what Jesus came to do. John was the interpreter for the people. This is a good reminder for us because it’s not enough to just hand someone a Bible and walk off. We can’t just read them a verse and expect them to get saved. We have to help them interpret what they read and hear about Jesus.
Like John, we won’t always be successful, but should always be faithful. John failed, in many ways if you think about it. First, he failed to get the Jews[2] to recognize Christ when He came. John had one job to do: point to the Messiah and say, “here he is!” Many did not recognize Christ when He showed up. Second, John the Baptist also failed because some people started following him instead of looking for the Messiah. In Acts 8:25 and Acts 19:1-7 Paul encounters men who still call themselves disciples of John the Baptist more than 20 years after Jesus’s resurrection and ascension to heaven![3] Even though John the Baptist wasn’t always successful, he was faithful. And we too, should be faithful to our calling to point people to the light. We tell people we are praying for them, we send them cards that have Scripture on them, and we spend time with them.
When I told that man on Instagram about Jesus he did not reply, Yes, I want to follow Jesus. But I was faithful to my calling to point people to Christ—to the light—whenever possible. I did what John the Baptist did: I tried to point someone to the light at every opportunity available. And that’s all our job too!
[1] Scripture taken from the New American Standard Bible, Copyright The Lockman Foundation 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995. Used by permission.
[2] It does not appear that any of the five groups of Jews (Essenes, Herodians, Pharisees, Sadducees, Zealots) alive in the first century followed John the Baptist’s ministry
[3] Those same followers of John the Baptist exist today. They call themselves “Mandeans” and claim to be descendants of John the Baptist.