Twelve Notches on our Lord’s Shoe Latchet – Acts 13:25

Last Wednesday we looked at our Lord’s shoe latchet from John’s point of view.

Tonight let’s turn that around and think about it from the standpoint of the Lord Jesus.

And let’s use John chapter 1 for the basis of our study.

John was in the eye of an hurricane for a while.

Everyone seemed to be talking about him, all the way from the Roman governor and the Tetrarch, to the High Priests and down to fishermen and tax collectors.

Even though much of his ministry was on the Jordan River near to the Sea of Galilee, there were people coming from every corner of the nation.

People from Galilee were coming to hear him and to be baptized by him.

And people were coming from Jerusalem to find out what sort of things that he was preaching.

Yet despite his fame he kept repeating that he was nobody important.

He was just a voice in the wilderness crying out “Make straight a path for the Lord.”

And when he talked about his Lord, he was quick to say that he wasn’t worthy to loose or unloose the latchets of the Saviour’s shoes.

Wednesday I tried to make a few points about John’s service for Christ.

No service for Christ is too small; no service for Christ is not a revelation of that servant’s heart;

No service for Christ can be done without involving some fellowship with the Lord;

And no service for Christ, properly done, will not be accepted and blessed by the Lord.

But what is it about the Saviour that makes the very best of men feel unworthy?

I could pull out a dozen theology books which give various men’s answers to that question,

But I’ve decided to let the other John, John the Apostle, speak for his friend John the Baptist.

Turn to John 1 and let’s just stroll through the first 30 verses.

No man who understands these verses properly should be able to say, “I AM worthy to loose the Saviour’s sandals.”

Here are twelve notches on our Lord’s shoe latchet.

First, He was in the beginning.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

In this morning’s message I thought about developing a point about the person of “the Word.“

“Men and brethren, children of the stock of Abraham, and whosoever among you feareth God,

To you is the word of this salvation sent.”

When John wrote “word” in his gospel, there should be no doubt, but that he was speaking about the Lord Jesus Christ.

Jesus is the revelation of the Father, and “he that hath seen Him, hath seen the Father.”

While on earth Christ was the very voice of God.

Later John wrote “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life;

That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.”

“For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.”

When John spoke about the Word, he spoke about the Lord Jesus.

“And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.”

So when John said that “the Word was in the beginning,” he was saying that the Son of God, whom we know as the Lord Jesus was there before time, before creation, before everything but God Himself.

Satan was not in the beginning,

And unlike the Mormon heresy, Lucifer and Jesus are not brothers.

Christ created Lucifer who later became the Devil.

No human being was there in the beginning.

The Baptist might have said, “Christ was in the beginning, and therefore I am not worthy to loose his shoe latchet.”

Secondly, He was with the Father.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was WITH God.”

This points out two things, first that Christ is distinct from God the Father.

If the police come and ask me where you were on Sunday night at 6:30, I will tell them that you were WITH me.

But quite obviously, you are not me; only with me.

The Lord Jesus was with the Father at the beginning.

But not only was He present with the Father, He was inseparably ASSOCIATED WITH the Father.

The Father and the Son act in total harmony and utmost unity.

In verse 18 John says that the Lord Jesus “is in the bosom of the Father.”

And in John 17:5 Jesus prayed, “And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.”

He might have said, “Glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which we SHARED before the world was.”

It cannot be said that any man has ever been WITH the Father as the Lord Jesus was WITH the Father.

This put Him in a different league than lowly John the Baptist.

But the third latchet on the Saviour’s shoe is greater than the first two …

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and THE WORD WAS GOD.”

Don’t be upset with past tense of this statement “and the Word was God.”

All we need to do is remember who was the penman of this book and when it was penned.

John was looking back at the person of the Lord Jesus, the man with Whom he ministered for 3 years.

He was saying that even when He was merely Jesus of Nazareth, He was deity.

Jesus’ wasn’t deified half way through His life.

The son of Mary didn’t BECOME God at his ascension into Heaven.

He was the Son of the Highest even before His birth.

When John baptized Christ, he protested and said that he had need to be baptized of Him.

John knew that he was in the presence of deity when he was with his cousin Jesus.

He knew it from prophesy if from nothing else, and we’ll get to that in just a moment.

It’s not the easiest thing in the world to visualize God wearing shoes, but for three decades He did.

And John knew that he was unworthy to loose or to carry them.

And John was not worthy to loose the shoe of the CREATOR.

” All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.”

I remember reading an old story about a man who had been driving a Model A or Model T Ford.

He had been driving it but wasn’t at the time because something had broken and it wouldn’t run.

The man was fussing and fuming, until another Ford drove up and a man got out to help.

He second fella opened the hood, went back to his car, returned with a tool of some sort and in a couple of minutes the broken vehicle was as good as new.

The first man was really impressed and said that he’d like to reward his benefactor, asking his name.

The second man told him to forget about repaying him, but that his name was Henry Ford.

If John had been asked to loose the shoe of the Lord Jesus, he would have been undoing something that in a sense was designed by the Lord.

And the incredibly complex machine that was inside that shoe, the foot and the ankle were actually created out of nothing by the Lord who was wearing it.

John said, “Who am I to loose the latchet of the shoes of the Creator?”

The fifth latchet on that shoe is that Jesus is the SOURCE AND SUBSTANCE OF LIFE ITSELF.

“In him was life; and the life was the light of men.”

There are a lot of unthinking people who claim to be agnostics.

Some of them say things like:

“There may be a god, who created things, with or without evolution, but now we are left on our own.

“No truly loving God would permit an Ivan to cause $10 billion in damage, and to kill so many people.

“No there is no god in the universe today.”

Not only does the Bible teach the direct creation of life by the Hand of God,

But it also teaches that life is still a part of the authority of God.

Furthermore it says that it is the Lord Jesus who is the light and the LIFE of the world.

It says that at His side hang the keys of death and of Hell.

It is the Lord who makes the appointments that regard our birth, our lives and our death.

That we have life and dexterity in our finger, sufficient to open and close a latchet, are ours by the divine decree of God.

Who am I to loose the shoe latchet of that God?

The sixth latchet is found in verse 5.

“And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.”

The Lord Jesus Christ is the light of the world.

As I said this morning, Satan “the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not.”

We are a people who walk about in spiritual darkness because of sin.

But as Isaiah has declared, “The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined.”

And that great sin piercing-light is the Lord Jesus.

John the Apostle, John the Baptist, Ken John-son and every other gospel preacher, merely hold up tiny mirrors to reflect a small portion of the glory of the Saviour.

John the Baptist “came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe. He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light.

That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.”

Later when he said that he was not worthy to loose the shoe latchet of the Saviour, he might just as properly said, “I can’t hold a candle to the Lord Jesus.”

What point is there to a tiny flashlight while in the glorious sunshine of a July afternoon?

The seventh shoe latchet of Christ is His DIVINE AUTHORITY.

“But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God.”

What do you think that would happen to us if I took you to my bank, and

If I stood on the table where they keep the deposit slips, and if I declared in a very authoritative voice,

“Hey everyone, I am declaring my friend here to be the new president of this bank.

You may all give your money to him”?

Someone inside that bank would push the little red button under the tellers window and the city police would be on the scene in about two minutes.

Would I have any more authority to say that you were God or even a son of God?

Not only does Jesus have the authority to say that people are sons of God, He has power to make it so.

The word “power” is “exousia” and speaks of AUTHORITY.

Christ Jesus has the authority of Heaven to announce that sinners like John and you and me, are children of God.

That would be insane or criminal, if it wasn’t actually so.

No wonder John says that he shouldn’t be permitted to loose the shoe latchet of so great a person.

Verse 14 says that the Lord Jesus, the Word, bears THE GLORY OF GOD the Father.

“And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.”

What exactly does that mean?

Well, I’m not sure that we are capable of understanding it on this side of our own glorification.

But there are some scriptures which might help.

In the next chapter of John the Lord Jesus went to a wedding and performed His first miracle.

Verse 11 says, “This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and manifested forth his glory; and his disciples believed on him.”

Apparently the ability to work miracles and to do things which only God can do is a part of this glory.

Then in chapter 11 where Lazarus was sick and died there are references to the Lord’s glory.

Verse 4: “When Jesus heard that, he said, This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby.”

And then later Jesus said to Mary, ” Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God? And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth.

And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes.”

In chapter 14 Jesus told Thomas, ” I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also: and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him. Philip saith unto him, Lord, shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us.

Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father?

Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works.

Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me: or else believe me for the very works’ sake.

Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father.

And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.”

Just about everything that the Saviour did brought to Him the glory of the Father.

John knew that this would be apart of the Saviour’s life and therefore he said, “Behold, there cometh one after me, whose shoes of his feet I am not worthy to loose.”

And there is the shoe latchet of verse 17.

“For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.”

Gill says, “By grace and truth, is meant the Gospel, in opposition to the law.”

Through the Lord Jesus, the Father has made a declaration of His love,

And through Christ he has poured out His salvation on some of the sons of men.

And of course Christ is Truth, because there is nothing false in Him,

And because through Him sinners have been given truth that they couldn’t have had in any other way.

For example, in the Old Testament, the Jews had all the information that they needed about the Messiah,

But when He arrived they didn’t recognize Him.

They needed more, but without Him they remained blind and deceived.

But there were exceptions, and John the Baptist was one of them – by the grace of God.

The tenth latchet on the shoe of the Saviour is the related idea that Jesus is the revelation of the Father.

“No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.”

And the eleventh is that CHRIST IS THE LORD.

The priests’ ambassadors came to John and asked him:

“Who art thou? that we may give an answer to them that sent us. What sayest thou of thyself?

He said, I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord, as said the prophet Esaias.”

This may be one of the most important statements about the Lord Jesus ever made in the Word of God.

There should be no doubt that John was speaking about Jesus, Who was just about to begin His public ministry.

John said that he was nothing more than the forerunner of Christ.

But then he pointed to the scripture in Isaiah 40 which says,

“Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God.

Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned: for she hath received of the LORD’S hand double for all her sins.

The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain:

And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it.”

What both John the Baptist and John the Apostle were saying was that they believed that Jesus Christ is the Jehovah referred to by Isaiah.

And can any human being, no matter how great, be worthy to loose the shoe latchet of Jehovah?

The twelfth latchet is that Jesus is the Lamb of God.

Verse 29: “The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.”

Need I say anything more than to read this verse?

Can I say anything to expound this verse which you who are Christians already know to be true?

We are wretched sinners deserving the wrath of God for all eternity.

But it was Jesus, the cousin of John, the son of Mary, who bore the weight of our sins.

“He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.”

Is there any service which we might do for the one who died for us, which is worthy of that relationship which we have to Him?

“Behold, there cometh one after me, whose shoes of his feet I am not worthy to loose.”