In John 1:19-28, we have seen one who is determined to make sure no one thinks of him more highly than he truly is. This is because, even though he had a very significant ministry, he was not given a named role. He merely considered himself a voice crying out in the wilderness. This disposition led him to conclude that he isn’t even worthy to be a slave of the One he serves. It’s the humble, “I am nothing; He is everything” attitude that shows itself in a striking way.
Consequently, John the Baptist fully exemplified Jesus’ teaching to his disciples in Luke 17:10 So you too, when you do all the things which are commanded you, say, ‘We are unworthy slaves; we have done only that which we ought to have done.’ This is in contrast to desiring or even demanding that God give us earthly praise and recognition. If we do that, we turn this teaching on its head—”when we have done anything the Lord commanded, we are worthy of praise because we went above and beyond what is required of us.” What we have to understand though is that anything less than full obedience to Scripture is disobedience.
This means that if we begin to fulfill our God-given role in marriage or adopt a biblical parenting paradigm or start to sacrificially love others in the body or talk about the gospel with the lost people in our lives, we are merely doing that which we ought to have done all along.
It’s a lot easier to maintain that perspective as we strive to consistently consider our worth as it relates to Christ: Are we worthy of his grace? Worthy to bear his name? Worthy to be adopted into his family? Worthy to be heaven-bound to be with him forever? It might be easy to think rightly about these answers regarding our pre-converted lives, but we start getting way off-base on this topic when we acquire a level of maturity and see some growth. It’s at this point when we tempted to think that we have earned our spot in the kingdom at least in some way and that Christ does in fact make good choices since he found such a worthy candidate to bring to himself.
It’s right then that we need to remind ourselves of what John the Baptist said at the pinnacle of his ministry—”I am not worthy to untie the Messiah’s sandal.” This kind of humility is so essential to maintain so that we can fulfill our God-given purpose in such a way that all the glory goes to Christ.