By Jared Warner
Willow Creek Friends Church
December 14, 2025
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Matthew 11:2–11 (ESV)
2 Now when John heard in prison about the deeds of the Christ, he sent word by his disciples 3 and said to him, “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?” 4 And Jesus answered them, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: 5 the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them. 6 And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.” 7 As they went away, Jesus began to speak to the crowds concerning John: “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind? 8 What then did you go out to see? A man dressed in soft clothing? Behold, those who wear soft clothing are in kings’ houses. 9 What then did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. 10 This is he of whom it is written, “ ‘Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way before you.’ 11 Truly, I say to you, among those born of women there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist. Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.
John was out in the wilderness, standing in the middle of the river just outside the land promised to his ancestors. He stood there crying to the multitude, Repent! Turn away from the life and lifestyle you have been leading and return to the ways of God.
He was not crying to the ones standing in the wilderness. He was crying into the land of promise. He was crying toward those who claimed to be living for God. It was the faithful he was calling to repentance.
This thought has been running through my mind all week. Yes those that are not following the ways of God, those who do not claim the name of Jesus, need to change directions. But so do we. We can get comfortable in our own minds. Justifying actions that we condemn in others. We see this all the time. Nearly every week there is some scandal within the church that rips me apart. There are several YouTube channels dedicated to criminal activities committed by church leaders and how they have been justified by governing bodies. We need repentance. We need to be called out just as much as everyone else. We need to repent.
John spoke these words boldly. He knew them intimately. He was raised in the religious machine that was Jerusalem’s temple. He watched leaders, he was trained by those leaders. He had learned to read the teachings God inspired Moses to record from the leaders he was not crying out to. And it broke him.
John faced what we might call deconstruction today. John saw the hypocrisy within the industrialized religion and he left. He went out into the wilderness. He rejected every benefit his position as a son of a priest might have and he went to the desert mourning over his people.
He faced this crisis, and yet he knew that there was something more. He knew the story of his own birth. When your parents are older than your contemporaries’ grandparents, you cannot question the validity of the story. And everyone told the same thing. John knew the miraculous events surrounding his life intimately. And he knew that his parents were some of the few leaders that he could trust. Why else would God bless them with this gift of life in the golden years?
This did not change the reality of their culture. Some understood that God was at work. And this inspired them. They had received a sign from God when the priest was unable to deliver the blessing to the people. The age of quietness had ended. Unfortunately the excitement soon went silent and everyone returned to the routine they were familiar with.
This happens often in life. Our students go to church camp in the summer. They are excited for God, and then the PlayStation or the soccer teams draws them back. They once had a discipline to pray, study and read scripture, but the struggles and routine of everyday life returns and they are back where they started. We saw this shortly after the attack on the world trade center. Churches throughout the country were filled with people wanting to pray, but all too soon those prayers became quiet as people again began to travel. This is was happening in Israel. They were excited, and then the busyness of life once again took hold.
John left the house of the priest and entered the wilderness. He went out into the unknown. He went to find what was once lost. He had to go out because he could not find the whispers of God within the religious system. He was seemingly alone.
But he had a cousin. Not many talked about him in polite places, but his mother spoke of him with words of awe. His cousin Jesus, confounded him. As they grew, Jesus was right there with him. He answered the questions asked by their Rabbi with conviction. Yet he was often overlooked because people questioned his heritage. John listened and observed. He watched as this wise child grew, his character was such that many forgot all about his questionable origin but then just as they were ready to give him a blessing, they were reminded of the past.
Imagine living your entire life like this. John’s mom would talk about Jesus with reverence, and others would often spew venom under their breath. Yet John saw. He observed.
Now they are adults. John had returned from his wilderness wanderings, and stood on the banks of the river. He stood just outside the land of promise, crying out for repentance. And he did not hold back. He looked beyond facade that was often raised. He did not let people overlook the shortcomings of their leaders. And he bold exposed that their current king, was not worthy of to hold a position of authority over the people of God. He had stolen his brother’s wife while he remained living, and he had a tenancy to lust after his own step daughter and niece. This king had disqualified himself from leadership. He was a vile predator willing to justify any action as long as it gave himself the benefit.
King Herod Agrippa is a corrupt, greedy, pedophile.
John’s words caused discomfort among the people. He is our king, he is chosen by God to lead them they might have said. I do not agree with all his policies but his heart is in the right place others might defend. His father funded the remodeling of the temple we should give him some respect. Everyone was making excuses but John did not. He instead cried out in the wilderness, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
His words had consequences. The broad of vipers struck and attempted to silence the prophet. They imprisoned him because his words offended the leaders.
Jesus though had begun to emerge. John had watched him grow. He watched as this cousin of his was so often overlooked, yet he continued to live a life blessing others. He had heard the stories his mother told him. He remembered how his mom once said that Jesus’s mother was visited by an angel just like John’s father, and this angel said, “Do not be afraid because you have found favor with God. And you will conceive a child by the Holy Spirit and this child will be called Jesus for he will save his people from their sins.”
John heard the stories. The praises from his mother and the gossip from the community. He watched as Jesus did not let the gossip hinder him from living well. Once Jesus came out to visit John while he was preaching in the river, he came out into the waters and wanted John to baptize him. John said, “I need to be baptized by you, yet you come to me to be baptized?” John knew Jesus in a way we cannot know him. He saw Jesus completely. He saw him as the child, the young man, the adult. He knew Jesus was honorable, and John knew that Jesus was a better man than he was.
John is now sitting in prison. He had announced to all the people that were around him, “Behold the lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world.” Yet, he is in chains. John had given his entire life to this moment. He had given up the lifestyle of respect and honor that was offered to priests. He spoke truth to power and now he sits condemned by the world.
He watched his people move to God and fall away. They still claimed faith, they still performed the rituals but his cry for repentance still rang true. He stood for truth, he stood for righteousness. He boldly called sin, sin. And he was judged by the world. But he knows Jesus.
He sends his few disciples to talk with him. These disciples were likely disciples of Jesus as well, but he sends them with a question. “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?”
We often ask this question. Maybe not in the same words, but we ask it. In essences he is asking am I doing the right thing? Have I followed the proper path? Has this been worth it?
We can easily question our faith, because life is hard. John had literally given everything to pursue and answer the call God had placed in his life even before he had been born. Yet John is human. The voices all around him were saying he needed to change his tone, maybe round off the edges a bit. They wanted him to stop calling the leaders a broad of vipers, because they were basically good people and no one is perfect.
The messengers deliver the question to Jesus. They like John, wait in anticipation. They too yearn for the advent of Messiah. But they did not know everything that John had known. They did not know the full family background, they had not seen the full life that Jesus had lived. All they know is what is right before them. And Jesus is different than John.
Jesus does give them an answer. “Go and tell John what you hear and see; the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them. And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.”
Tell John what you hear and see.
I want us to think about that answer for a moment. We cannot know the fullness of someone’s soul. We cannot know their intentions, or their reasoning behind the decisions they make. All we know are the things that we can hear them say, and what we see them do.
I do know my wife loves me. Yet there are times I question this. I question because I do not hear the things I once heard, and at times I do not see her doing the things she did when we were first married. I question because I cannot know what is going through her mind and what dwells in her heart. All I can do is respond to what I hear and see. The worst part though is I am nearly deaf and blind, and too aloof to notice things.
But this is what is going through John’s mind. He knows Jesus, John had proclaimed to everyone once that Jesus was the one. Yet he has questions. Doubt is part of life. It is not a sin to doubt. In fact it is one of the most honest aspects of faith. When we doubt we force ourselves to look at things more closely. We begin to listen for the nuances and compare against what we have observed. We seek and we find.
All too often we criticize and condemn doubt. When someone expresses doubt we get scared and we challenge them, we ridicule them, and chastise them for a lack of faith. This is worse than the doubt itself. Because those that have doubts, are listening and observing us. They are yearning for us to give them something to believe, and they do not know how to express what they are looking for.
Jesus tells us how to approach those that doubt among us. Tell them what you hear and see. Show them what you believe through your actions.
Nearly four hundred years ago a young man named George Fox had doubts. It is said that he was a tenderhearted man, he came from a good family and everyone called his father Righteous Christer, because George’s dad reflected Christ through his life. Yet George struggled. He traveled throughout England looking for answers, wanting to know, wanting to have a reason to believe. Yet the answers he received we platitudes. You should just find a wife, then you would stop worrying about faith because you would be distracted. You should partake of the latest medical advancements, which at that time was blood letting and smoking. You should join the military and get some discipline in your life. And one priest yelled at him before he could even ask his questions because he had stepped off of the path and crushed his flowers.
Fox recorded these accounts in his Journal, and I am often reminded of them. George had extreme doubts and unfortunately the church was not helpful. In despair George took his book of scripture out into a field alone. And he sat in that field completely rejected and lost. When you read the journal it almost seems as if George was in such despair that he was contemplating ending his life. And in that stillness, alone with the scriptures he heard a voice crying out in the wilderness. “There is one, even Christ Jesus, that can speak to your condition.” And George said his heart leaped at that moment. In that moment everything changed. He began to look deeply into the life and lifestyle of Christ. He began to formulate every aspect of his faith and his life to reflect the things he learned through what he heard and saw through the testimony of scripture, and listened to the Spirit that Jesus promised would come and never leave us.
There were moments where he challenged traditions, and he was imprisoned. There were moments where people were silenced through his words. And there were times people tried to set him up to sin, yet what they saw and heard resembled one another.
The blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them.
John sat in the prison doubting. And Jesus said to look at what you see and listen to what you hear. Are these things reflecting what you have known about the teachings of the prophets and the commandments given to Moses?
Jesus responds, not with condemnation, but grace and encouragement. What drove John out into the wilderness? What drove the people out to listen to John? Did they go out because they wanted to be pat on the back for being good people? No, they went out because they knew something was not quite right in the world and they wanted a reason to believe again. They wanted to know that the kingdom was at hand. They wanted the world to change and for messiah to come.
Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?
I said last week that John lived during an era of history that is often reflected today. It is reflected within every generation that has ever existed on this earth. There is this cosmic battle between good and evil waging all around us. And at times it is difficult to see who is on what side. Jesus does not condemn the doubt, he instead encourages us to listen and observe, but not merely observe instead to join and participate. Jesus asks John, what are the things the Messiah is supposed to do? Who are the people that the Messiah is supposed to care about? What does God care about throughout scripture?
The nations are judged based on justice. They are judged by how they respond to the widows, the orphans, and the foreigners living among them. These are the people that are the most vulnerable within society. They are the ones that have nothing. No one to care for their needs, and are often exploited because they have no advocate to speak for and with them. Jesus later says that the poor will always be with us. Does this mean that they are sinners? No, it means that there will always be exploitation in the kingdoms of men. There will be leaders within the kingdoms of men that will use their power to take advantage of others, that will neglect those in need, and will claim righteousness even when their lifestyle goes against everything they claim they believe.
For George Fox, he formed a religious society where people would wait in expectancy for the Spirit to speak and lead. He waited. He yearned to know the ways of God. He like John was asking, “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?” Fox and the early Friends, did not celebrate Advent, they lived it. They waited in expectancy, and they examined what they heard and saw. They compared it to what they knew, and what the observed and then they acted.
It is ok to doubt, as long as you continue to seek. It is ok to try and to fail. It is ok to ask questions and to find answers. But as we go let us go, Loving God, embracing the Holy Spirit, and living the love of Christ with others.
Previous Messages:
Straight Path in the Wilderness
By Jared Warner Willow Creek Friends Church December 07, 2025 Click here to join our Meeting for Worship Click to read in Swahili Bofya kusoma kwa Kiswahili Matthew 3:1–12 (ESV) 1 In those days John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea, 2 “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” 3…
One is Taken and One is Left
By Jared Warner Willow Creek Friends Church November 30, 2025 Click Here to Join our Meeting for Worship Click to read in Swahili Bofya kusoma kwa Kiswahili Matthew 24:36–44 (ESV) 36 “But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only. 37 For…
This Will Be Your Opportunity
By Jared Warner Willow Creek Friends Church November 16, 2025 Click here to join our Meeting for Worship Click to read in Swahili Bofya kusoma kwa Kiswahili Luke 21:5–19 (ESV) 5 And while some were speaking of the temple, how it was adorned with noble stones and offerings, he said, 6 “As for these things…
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