John 3:22-30 (He Must Be Greater!)

Perhaps the most famous words that John the Baptist ever uttered were also the last words that he ever spoke.

He said, he must increase, but I must decrease.

And what he's talking about there is Jesus's kingdom. Of course, when John says he, he's talking about Christ, the son of God, the lamb, the heaven sent

Messiah, who has come to inaugurate a brand new kingdom, a permanent kingdom to which the old

Testament looked forward to. And the reason that Jesus comes is because the old

Testament was limited, of course, but he also comes at the specific time that he comes at, because the old

Testament covenant in first century, Israel was being perverted. The Jewish leaders had stiff necks, hard hearts, and wicked heads.

They continually turned away from the good commands of the Torah that were given to them in the old Testament.

And they fell into idolatry, religiosity. They were hurting people and they were dishonoring

God. So Jesus came not to reinvigorate the old Jewish covenant and not to reinstate national

Israel. Jesus came to bring a new kingdom, a new covenant, something that would never end, that the gates of hell would never stand against.

So that kingdom needed to increase at all costs. That kingdom needed to go on and continue to go on.

And John knew that his ministry needed to bow down and decrease in light of who

Christ was. Now, if you've been tracking in the gospel of John, this is exactly what's happened.

John announces Jesus in John chapter one, we have two Johns, you have John the Baptist and John, the gospel writer,

I'll do my best to differentiate those today. John, the gospel writer talks about John the

Baptist who announces Jesus Christ to the people in John chapter one, and a couple of disciples follow him a little bit later in John chapter one, a couple more disciples end up following him.

So Jesus is increasing. His kingdom is growing. It's small at first, just like Daniel says, it's a little rock that grows into a mighty mountain.

It's like five or six people in John chapter one, John chapter two, Jesus goes to a wedding and he turns six empty water pots into 120 gallons of the greatest wine that had ever been produced, demonstrating the superiority of his kingdom over against the emptiness of the

Jewish religion. Their purification pots could do nothing, but Jesus made water out of, or made wine out of nothing.

The end of John chapter two, Jesus goes into a temple and he flips over tables and he goes against the religious leaders who were abusing the people of God.

Jesus's kingdom is increasing here in Jerusalem. He's preaching to large crowds of people at this point.

He's performing signs and wonders and miracles. His kingdom is increasing while in the background, John's ministry is decreasing.

John chapter three, where we've been in the last several weeks is where Jesus educates and re -educates one of the great religious leaders of the

Jewish period, Nicodemus. Who comes to him at night,

Jesus's kingdom is increasing. Now today we're going to be in verses 22 through 29.

I was a bit ambitious and thought we were going to finish chapter three. God said, no, this aren't the sermon long enough.

You'll thank me. And in this versus Jesus leaves

Jerusalem, he goes into the hill country of Judea on his way back to Galilee.

That's where Jesus's base of operations is going to be. Now, the purpose of today's sermon,

I'm going to give it to you right up front, is to look at John's response to Jesus.

Because when we see John's response to Jesus, it's going to be informative for us on how we should respond to Jesus, on how we should respond to his ministry.

He must become greater in our life as well, and we must become less. So what we're going to do is we're going to lay a little bit of a foundation.

We're going to go through some context. Then we're going to talk about four things that John believed about Jesus that we ought to believe about Jesus.

And then in the end, we're going to make that practical to our lives as Christians today, 2000 years after this text was given.

So let's with that turn to the text. We're going to start with verse 22. Hear the word of the

Lord. After these things, Jesus and his disciples came into the land of Judea and there he was spending time with them and baptizing.

John also was baptizing in Anon near Salim because there was much water there and people were coming and were being baptized for John had not yet been thrown into prison.

Now, when John says after these things, he means after the events of Jerusalem, he means that Jesus had this whirlwind weekend where he did all of these things.

And then now he's retreating into Judea. Judea was like the county.

Nol, for instance, would be the city. Jerusalem is the city. Judea is the county.

And he's in these rural regions here with his disciples. Now, I want to bring up an interesting point here.

It's a side point. It's not necessarily connected to the narrative, but I think it needs to be made.

Why would Jesus leave Jerusalem if he wanted to start a religious kingdom? That would be like someone leaving

Silicon Valley to start a tech company. That'd be like somebody leaving Paris to start a fashion industry.

I'm from the South. That would be like leaving Nashville to become a country music singer. You just wouldn't do that. You'd wait tables.

You do whatever you can. You'd spend every waking moment in the city of Nashville to become a country music singer.

You would spend every waking moment Silicon Valley to try to become the next big startup. You wouldn't leave those cities because there is where everything that you need is located.

Well, why would Jesus leave Jerusalem? It's the religious capital of the nation. It's where the temple is.

It's where the leaders are. It's where he would make connections, where he would rise the corporate ladder and he would gain notoriety and influence.

Why would he leave Jerusalem? Because I think that Jesus's kingdom is greater than our worldly kingdoms.

It's wiser than our worldly kingdoms. In Jesus, his ways are higher than our ways and greater than our ways.

And look at this 2000 years later, there's no temple standing and there's no kingdom of Israel. There's a national

Israel, but it's not like it used to be. There's no Rome, no Roman empire. Nations have risen and fallen, but yet Jesus's kingdom still remains.

Why? Because he was building the kingdom of God and he wasn't building it off of worldly means.

Jesus does everything that no one else would have done. He leaves Jerusalem. Then he goes to Samaria, a place where no faithful Jew would have ever went.

And then he goes into Galilee, a place where no king would have ever ventured. And then he talks to a woman at a well, something no male in Jewish society would have ever done.

He heals a Roman centurion, the occupying army soldier, something no patriot would have ever done.

Jesus is doing everything opposite of what the kingdom of man would say to do.

If you could go to the first century Barnes and Noble, I don't even know if that's still a thing. Maybe, maybe COVID has shut it down, but if you could go to their bookstore and you were to buy a book on how to start a kingdom, this would not be the way that you would do it.

It just goes to show the infinite wisdom of God. He knows exactly what he's doing because as we've said, 2000 years ago, his kingdom still stands.

He built a kingdom that does not employ, borrow from, or bend to the ways of the world, but instead it's built on truth and righteousness.

The same is true today. The kingdom that Jesus Christ is building is not built on the methods of the world.

It's not built on the means of the world. It's not built on the tricks and the schemes of the world. The world laughs at the kingdom of God because they cannot understand it.

It doesn't look like the world's kingdom. It's not built like the world's kingdom. It doesn't use the tools of the world's kingdom, and yet it's lovely to the people of God.

See, we live in a kingdom that's built on truth and a truthless culture. It's not like the world would have built it.

It's built on a gospel message and a fake news culture. It's built on conviction and a compromising culture.

It's built on honor and a shame -ridden culture. It's built on worship and an idolatrous culture. It's built on righteousness and a rioting culture.

It's built on obedience and a lawless culture. It's built on purity and a perverted culture.

It's built on faith and a fickle culture, and it's built on service and a selfish culture. This kingdom is fundamentally different than the world.

So therefore, why do so many churches bow down to the means of the world in order to build a church?

The world wouldn't build a kingdom this way, but God does. The same God who left

Jerusalem is the same God who today who's building his kingdom with the only thing that matters, the truth of the word of God.

Now, the Jerusalemite crowds laughed at Jesus back then. The secular people of the world will laugh at us today.

I've said this recently, evangelical Christians today will laugh at you for building a church based off of the word of God alone.

But the true sheep of Jesus Christ hear his voice and the true sheep of Jesus Christ love it when the word is read and they thrive when the word is sung and they they grow when the word is preached.

Jesus says, my sheep hear my voice. They follow me. We don't need skinny pastors, celebrity pastors in skinny jeans.

We don't need attractive worship leaders. We don't need cool modern spaces or million dollar buildings in China today or tomorrow.

People will be meeting in underground rooms with barely lit lights, and yet Jesus is enough.

In other countries in the world where it's illegal to be a Christian, Jesus is enough. Why can't we get back to a culture where Jesus is enough and we don't need all of the pomp and circumstance and we don't need all the bright lights and fog machines and we just need

Jesus? That's what John believed. If a church uses worldly means in order to attract the world, it will have to continue using worldly means in order to keep them there.

But if a church in humble submission to the word of God just simply preaches it, you don't have to be a professional.

You don't have to be an expert. We get slides wrong. I almost break my lungs singing sometimes.

We trip all over ourselves here, but we know where the power is.

The power is in the gospel of God. It says it's the power of God for salvation to those who believe, not all the stuff.

That's who we delight in. And if you do that, if you just preach the word of God, lost people will be found.

True sheep will rejoice in worship and they will grow deep in Christ and the church will flourish.

Now, I don't want us to get lost on that point because again, it's a side point. Jesus left Jerusalem, not a popular move in his day.

Jesus goes to Samaria and Galilee showing that his way of building a kingdom is fundamentally different than the world. And I believe that today we have to recover that spirit of trusting in the way that Christ builds his kingdom instead of the way that the world does.

Now let's get back to the text. It says, after these things, Jesus and his disciples came into the land of Judea and there they were spending time with him after baptizing and they were baptizing.

Now imagine the crazy schedule that the disciples have just underwent.

They meet Jesus. They walk to Jerusalem. He makes the whole city mad, except for those who are cheering for him.

They're caught up in a frenzy. They're probably at his coattails saying, Jesus, tell me what your favorite color is.

They haven't had time to talk to him. They haven't had time to spend time with him. So after all of this stuff, they go into Judea and it says that Jesus was spending time with his disciples.

He was training them. He was pouring into them. He was discipling them and he was giving them ministry opportunities.

It says that they were baptizing. They were baptizing in the method of John the

Baptist. Now I want to make this point. Jesus is not the one baptizing here, although the text reads like Jesus is baptizing here and I'll show you why.

It says he was spending time with them and baptizing. Sounds like Jesus is the one doing the baptizing, but in John four, it says this, therefore the

Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John.

Although John tells us he himself was not baptizing, but his disciples were.

I bring this up again, it's a side point, but I bring this up because people who hate truth and hate the

Bible will say that this is a contradiction. John three says

Jesus was baptizing. John four says that he wasn't. So if John can't be trusted with the normal everyday details of the text and how can we trust him when he talks about salvation and how can we trust him when he talks about new life and being born again?

See the authority of the Bible is at stake and I'll tell you that this is not a contradiction for a couple of reasons.

First, the text is perfectly capable of saying that Jesus was baptizing if he was overseeing his disciples doing the baptism.

He's the leader, they're the followers. The second thing I would tell you is that there's a rule when interpreting the

Bible and I want you to memorize this. If you have a pen and paper, write this down. When you're interpreting complicated passages, you always interpret them in light of the easier and more clear passage.

You don't interpret the easy passages through the complicated passages. You interpret the complicated passages from the easy ones.

Now let's make this an example. John three is a little confusing. John four is really clear.

John four then will help us understand what John three means and John four is more clear.

So we go with that. It doesn't mean that the text is in contradiction. It just means that one passage helps us understand more clearly and helps us get to the meaning of the truth of the other.

That's the second thing I would tell you. The third thing I would tell you about why this is not a contradiction is because Jesus's ministry is on the increase.

John's ministry is on the decrease and here they're meeting in the middle. Here you have this moment where they're in the same geographical region and Jesus, John has already told us, is bringing a different baptism.

John says in John one that he brings a baptism of water, but Jesus brings a baptism of the spirit.

So Jesus is not going to baptize with water because he's bringing a new covenant, he's bringing a new kingdom, he's bringing a new baptism.

But Jesus also was in a particularly interesting situation because Jesus wanted to verify and validate the authenticity of John.

John was a prophet. Jesus loved John. So what does he do? He has his disciples as their first ministry exercise, baptizing the baptism of John.

He validates John's ministry, but yet Jesus withholds performing the baptism because he is waiting for that moment where he baptizes people with the spirit of God.

We see Jesus in Matthew do this in a different way in the

Sermon on the Mount. Jesus says, repent for the kingdom of God is at hand. That's exactly what

John the Baptist said. See, if you study Jesus's sermons in his early ministry, they looked like sermons from John the

Baptist, why? Because Jesus is honoring his forerunner, he's honoring the man who is going to announce him to the people and there's this overlap in their ministries.

John doesn't announce Jesus and then immediately fade away. John announces

Jesus and there's this six to nine month gap where they're both ministering at the same time. Jesus honors

John. He honors John in the way that he preaches, he honors John in the way that his disciples baptize and it's a way of just showing that John is a faithful man from the

Lord. That's what he's doing. Now let's continue. John was also baptizing in Anon near Salim because there was much water there and people were coming and were being baptized for John had not yet been thrown into prison.

Therefore, there arose a discussion on the part of John's disciples with a Jew about purification and they came to John and they said to him, rabbi, he who was with you beyond the

Jordan to whom you have testified, behold, he is baptizing and all are coming to him. It's a fascinating passage.

What's happening here is a debate between Jesus and a Jewish scholar and what's interesting, if you've ever been in a lot of debates, they're emotional, you can get frustrated, you can go home and complain,

I can't believe that person, they really had a cheap shot on that argument or whatever and here they're discussing a pretty contentious topic, baptism.

Christians have turned against one another over this topic. Martin Luther, the great reformer said that his brother in the

Lord, Ulrich Zwingli was conceived in a spawn of Satan because he didn't agree with him on baptism.

It's a contentious debate, I'm not saying Luther was right, Luther was a little dramatic at times but this is a debate that's causing the disciples frustration but what

I find so fascinating about it is that they don't go to their master and Rabbi John and complain about the debate, they go to him and complain about Jesus which is a fascinating point.

They just had this debate, they're upset and you would think they would go complain about that but they complain about Jesus, why?

Sometimes when we're upset what's really in our heart gets revealed, there might be something that's affecting us on the outside but what's really deep inside of us is what comes to the surface.

There's an old phrase that you really don't know what's in an orange until you squeeze it, there's things that are deep down inside of these disciples that this particular situation is squeezing out of them and it has really nothing to do with that situation, it's just the catalyst that brings it forward.

I'll give you an example, let's say a husband forgets to do the dishes at night, next morning there's dishes all in the sink, there's fruit flies swarming around and the wife comes down and she says, you didn't do the dishes and what about that time last week where you forgot to mow the yard and you didn't clean the table on Thursday and you left the gas tank empty three years ago and remember that time you didn't stand up for me in front of your mother and the kids don't listen to me and the house is a disaster and nobody loves me.

The husband's like, I thought this was about the dishes. No, there's things that were under the surface that have been bothering her for years, the dishes just pulled them out of her.

There's things in these disciples of John that are bubbling under the surface and it was just this debate that brought it forth.

It was just this debate that caused them to say what actually was on their hearts. They say, Jesus's ministry is growing larger than ours, why?

Now, let's transition now to what John says, the disciples are jealous, the disciples are angry, the disciples are frustrated.

John, what gives? Your ministry was first, you should be greater. You started, you're the one who gave

Jesus the introduction. Why is he growing larger than you? That's what they're saying. Let's see what John says and it's here we're going to learn four things.

John answered and said, a man can receive nothing unless it has been given to him from heaven.

You yourselves are my witnesses that I said, I am not the Christ, but I've been sent ahead of him.

He who has the bride is the bridegroom, but the friend of the bridegroom who stands and hears him rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom's voice.

So this joy of mine has been made full, he must increase and I must decrease.

This ends the words of John in the gospel, it's the last thing John says, John the

Baptist. The first thing that he points to when life gives you lemons, when it doesn't turn out the way that you think it should, when other people around you are frustrated, the first thing that he says that you must be anchored to if you're going to have hope and if you're going to have joy and if you're going to have faith is the sovereignty of God.

John trust and rest in the sovereignty of God. That's the first thing that he says. He responds to his disciples who are looking and they were complaining and they are bitter and they're grumbling.

And he says, our situation is in the hands of God, my brothers. Jesus ministry is growing because God has decreed it.

Our ministry is declining because God has declared it. Everything that is happening to us is not ultimately in our hands.

No one receives anything in his life unless it comes from God. What John is saying, and this is a powerful point, if you can grab hold of it, it will change your life.

What John is saying is that the good things that you received are a gift from God to make you rejoice.

And the bad things that you receive in this life are a gift from God to make you grow. Everything that you and I have been given is from the hand of God and we should praise him for both good times and bad rich times and poor.

Everything that comes into our life is a gift from almighty God. And we're like the disciples of John.

We often don't praise. When bad things happen, we grumble. When situations that we don't like happen, we murmur.

John's disciples had seen a growing ministry. They had seen life change. They have seen excitement. They knew the

Lord's hand was on their ministry. And in their mind, why would God want to shut this down?

This must be Jesus's fault, which is an interesting thing to say.

God is blessing my ministry. It's Jesus's fault. He's God. John's answer is to say that we received this ministry from the

Lord. We received its increase and we praise God for that. And now as this ministry is dying, well, we have the character to celebrate that knowing that that too comes from God.

What John is saying is that God is sovereign, that God is in control. If you're not familiar with that term, sovereignty just means this.

God is in absolute control and nothing in our lives happens outside of his will.

Nothing. There's no accidents. There's no surprises. There's no outcomes that are unseen by God.

He is using all of them in your life to bring you, if you're a Christian, into the image of Christ. Good, bad, up, down, all of it.

Louis Burkhoff wrote a thousand page systematic theology.

I'll tell you one quote from it. God's sovereignty is his dominion over the whole universe that he has created his rule over all things as to secure the accomplishment of his divine purposes.

What Burkhoff is saying in his really ivory tower theological language is that everything

God intends to do, he does everything. There's nothing in your life that's an accident.

There's nothing in your life where you can say, God, why did you allow this to happen? Or God, did you miss this?

Or God, were you not paying attention? There's nothing like that because everything that happens now that has profound implications.

There's a lot of things in our life that happens that we don't like, just like these disciples.

They didn't like that their ministry was dying, but John points them to a truth. No one can receive anything unless it comes from God, the good and the bad.

And if God is infinitely wise and unbelievably intelligent, then everything he does, he does for our good, even if we can't understand it.

There's this wonderful passage in the book of Job after Job has just spent chapter after chapter after chapter complaining about why these things are happening to him.

God pulls back the cosmos for a second and says, where were you when I created the world? Where were you when

I did this? Where were you when I did that? And Job, in the midst of that, in the midst of his suffering, in the midst of his pain, in the midst of the most horrendous part of his life, he says,

I have spoken about things that are far too wonderful for me to understand and I repent.

What Job is saying, what John is saying is the world is more complicated than you and I could ever imagine. We live one life.

We live one second by one second. Imagine God managing seven billion lives that intersect with one another constantly over the course of all of human history, being outside time, infinite in knowledge and knowing that he knows all things.

I believe we can trust him. Even when our life feels painful, even when things happen that we don't like, we can trust that the

Lord is in control. The Bible talks about God's sovereignty a lot. I'll read you a few examples.

Psalm 115, three says, our God is in the heavens. He does all that he pleases.

Or another way to say that is everything God does is for his pleasure. Daniel 4, 34 through 35 says his dominion is an everlasting dominion and his kingdom endures from generation to generation.

All the inhabitants of the earth are counted as nothing. And he does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of earth.

He does according to his will and none can stay his hand or say to him, what have you done?

No one can look at God and say, why did you do this? Because he's infinitely intelligent.

He's infinitely wise. And who are we to make such accusations of God? Ephesians 111, this is the last verse

I'll share with you says, in him, we've obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things, according to the counsel of his will, everything that God intends to do, he does.

So therefore John is rebuking his disciples and saying, why are you upset about a declining ministry?

When you've read the scriptures, maybe they didn't read Ephesians that wasn't written yet, but they read the

Psalms. They read Daniel. They knew that God was in control of all things. Why are they frustrated that Jesus's ministry is increasing and their ministry is decreasing?

Why aren't they praising God? That God is in control. John appealed to them with the sovereignty of God.

And this is the same doctrine that I think the modern church today needs to recover. I think this is the same doctrine that we need to understand.

I've shared this story before. I'll share it again. About nine months ago,

I fell off of a house at a construction job by God's grace.

I had been thinking about sovereignty that whole week. I'd been thinking about God being in control.

And as my foot slipped off the top rung of the ladder, and as I fell 20 feet to eventually be met by the softest concrete you would ever imagine,

I wasn't afraid, wasn't of my strength, wasn't of my will.

I remember thinking to myself, God's a better husband than me. God's a better father than me.

God's a better, he's better able to deal with my affairs than I can. I'm going to trust him.

If I wake up in heaven, I'm going to trust him. If I wake up and I'm broken all to pieces and I can never walk again,

I'm going to trust him. If I wake up like I did and stand up to my feet and wonder what just happened,

I'm going to trust him with that too. You see, if we really truly know who

God is, we're not going to be frustrated when things don't go our way. We're not going to be angry when someone else has more than us.

Comparison is one of the ugliest sins because it'll steal your joy in a heartbeat.

Someone else has more than me. Someone else is better than me. Someone else looks better than me. Kill that sin before it kills you.

So -and -so is more successful, they're better looking, they're more likable. All those things are affronts to your relationship with God.

There are things that will steal from you, that will lie to you, and it'll make you miserable, especially when

God, the truth is that God is totally in control. You look exactly how you look by the sovereignty of God.

You have exactly the same spouse that you have by the sovereignty of God. Maybe you're angry about that. I don't know.

God's good. He provided with you the exact person that he wanted you to have, for you to love and for you to care for and for them to care for you.

You see, if we look at our life and we look at our circumstances, then those things, as Derek said earlier, those anthills become mountains in our lives.

But if we look to the infinite God who has no limits, as we sing in the song, those things fade in the light of his glory and grace.

So what I want you to remember is I want you to remember the doctrine of the sovereignty of God. I want you to remember that God is in control and that everything in your life right now has been given to you for a purpose.

And if you're struggling with that, I invite you to repent. It's not an ugly word, it's a glorious word.

Repenting means turning from the direction that you're going and turning back to the direction that God would have you go.

If you're a person like me who sometimes bottles up and compartmentalizes your frustrations, repent of that. God is sovereign.

If you're a person who's prone to grumbling and complaining and gossiping and being filled with bitterness and disappointment, repent of that.

It'll steal from you. It'll kill your relationship with God. Repent of that and trust in the

God who's sovereign. If you're a person who's rattled with fear and uncertainty, repent of that, stand up and live boldly for your, for your

God, who is sovereign over all things. Three ways that you can repent is to rest in what

God has said, receive the new life that God has given you and remember everything that is happening to you right now is for a purpose.

Rest, receive, remember. That's the first point that John brings out. God is sovereign.

The second point he brings out is that he trusts that Christ is superior. He trusts that Christ is greater, that Christ is better, that Christ is infinitely higher.

He isn't just appealing to the sovereignty of God. He's appealing also to the superiority of Christ. Look at what he says.

A man can receive nothing unless it has been given, given to him from heaven.

I find this passage so fascinating because look at what the world has been given in Christ. A man can receive nothing.

Think about our salvation. A woman, a man, a child can receive nothing unless it is given from God and God and the greatest gift because he so loved the world, gave his one and only son who came from heaven down to earth to rescue and redeem sinners.

Just like us. We could not do that on our own. We couldn't receive anything on our own. We are totally indebted to the grace of God who brought the superior

Christ down from heaven to save the inferior wretches like us and give us new life.

He is superior. John is looking at his disciples and I wrote this down as a quote.

It's not actually what John said. Don't look in the Bible for this. This is kind of what I think John would say to his disciples.

Stop looking at a successful ministry as your means of your identity. That is nothing in comparison to who

Christ is. If you really know Christ, success in ministry is nothing but filthy rags.

If you really know Christ and success at your job is nothing but filthy rags. If you really know Christ and vain beauty and anything else that you could ever imagine is nothing in comparison to the glory of knowing

Christ. When you truly know who he is, he becomes everything to you.

And if you have absolutely nothing, it's totally fine because you know who Christ is.

If you have Christ, you have everything. And if you don't have Christ, no matter what you have, you actually have nothing.

John's disciples like us were struggling because they thought Jesus was just a man.

I'll tell you this. Almost every heresy that has ever affected the church of Jesus Christ has to do with this principle.

Jesus is both God and man at the exact same time. That's called the hypostatic union.

If you say that he's not fully God, you're a heretic. If you say that he wasn't truly man, then you're a heretic.

Just this week, multiple examples of Christian pastors saying that us as Christians now have become just like Jesus, that we're both

God and man in one body. No, we're not. The incarnation and the dwell in the indwelling of the

Holy Spirit are not the same things. They're not. We are not fully God. Even though the

Holy Spirit has indwelled us, we are not little gods. We are sinners saved by grace.

We are wretches that the song talks about that are saved by pure grace. If you don't understand who

Jesus is both fully God and truly man, you'll have theological error in your life that will that could damn you to hell.

It's important to understand who he is and it will affect your joy. If you believe that Jesus was just a man and right standing with God and that his miracles he did because he was obedient.

Now I have to go out and do miracles too because I'm just like Jesus. You're going to live with the pressure and a weight that you can't bear.

You're going to have a millstone around your neck that's going to paralyze you because you can't live like Jesus. That's the point of the gospel.

If you could have, you would have because you couldn't have he died. That's what the

Bible says. We have to understand who Jesus is and we have to understand that he is infinitely superior to us.

So in light of that, John looks at them and he's like, why would you ever be prideful? Do you not know who

Jesus is? His ministry must increase. Our ministry must decrease because of who

Jesus Christ is. If you don't know him, then you'll be confused about that. But if you truly know him and his, his ministry must increase.

And when that happens in your life and in my life too, if Jesus increases in your life and more of you decreases in your life, you'll have more joy.

You'll have more happiness. You'll have more pleasure in God because it's no longer about you.

When we make our faith about us, it poisons our faith, but we make it all about him and not us.

We are set free to have the greatest joy and the greatest pleasure in Christ that has ever been found.

The Bible says that Jesus is a treasure that we find that we're willing to give up everything in order to have because he's infinitely superior.

There's nothing at all that you could ever cling to in this life. Not relationships, not people, not beauty, not anything else.

There's nothing that you could cling to that will ever give you the kind of lasting joy and peace and pleasure that is found in Jesus Christ.

He is superior in all things. That's the second thing.

Jesus is superior. He's sovereign and he's superior. The third is that John trusted

Jesus's authority. He didn't get upset like his disciples did. He didn't get jealous like his disciples did because he trusted

Jesus's authority. He says, you yourself are my witnesses that I said to you,

I'm not the Christ, but I've been sent ahead of him. Do you see how

John's rebuking his disciples here? He says, guys, don't you remember what

I said in chapter one? He didn't say that the book wasn't written. Then he's saying,

I stood before the Jews and I profusely said that I'm not the Christ. I said that I'm not the Elijah.

I said that I'm not the prophet. I said that I'm just a voice, the one crying in the wilderness and fulfillment of the

Isaiah passage. My role is just to get ready for him and get out of the way.

That's what John is saying. He's saying my baptism is of water. Jesus's baptism is of the spirit.

I love the last thing that John says. I'm not even worthy to untie his sandals, which means that he doesn't even believe that he's worthy to be the lowest slave in comparison to who

Christ is. He trusted Jesus's authority, his infinite authority.

John's challenge to his disciples is why would you be prideful if we are not even worthy to be called his slaves?

It's as if John is saying, I am elated just that he would even look at me. I'm overjoyed just that he would even use me.

I'm blown away that he has a plan for me. He doesn't have to do that, but he does out of grace.

John and his disciples now get to see Jesus's plan unfold right before their very eyes.

And John says that it's glorious. John says that as Jesus's ministry increases, he couldn't be more thrilled because it's not about him.

I believe John in his heart, his head was thinking, guys, we're getting to see the one that Moses prophesied about.

Why are you upset? We're getting to see the one that is going to crush the serpent's head.

Why are you dismayed? We're getting to see the one who is going to be the child of Abraham, who's going to bless the entire world.

You need bigger vision. We're going to get to see the one who fulfills the law, who is the true high priest, who's our true and great sacrifice that will forgive us of all our sins.

And we won't have to ever go back to this temple again and offer another lamb. He's the great judge who, because of his sacrifice now, has dropped the gavel of freedom down for you and said, you are clean.

Enter into my rest. He's the final prophet. He's the true and greater king.

What John is saying is this Messiah we must make way for.

We must get out of the way for because he is both sovereign, supreme, and his authority is infinite.

Why are you dismayed? That's the third point.

We don't get our identity from our possessions and our status. We don't get our identity from living in a favorable country that just loves

Christians and loves everything that we have to say. We don't get our identity from that. If you're single, you don't get your identity from being married.

If you're married, you don't get your identity from being single. You don't get your identity from having kids or jobs or wealth or health or prosperity.

You don't even get your identity from Joel Osteen's new inspiration cube that just went on the market for $39 .99.

We have everything that we need in Jesus Christ. We don't need anything else.

And when we forget that, we grumble. And when we forget that, we complain.

And when we forget that, it robs and steals from our relationship with God. There's freedom in knowing who

Christ is and there's freedom in knowing who we are. That's the third point. The final point.

I love the story that John tells here. The final point is that we must understand our role.

The first three have had to do with belief. Knowing his sovereignty, knowing his superiority, knowing his authority. Those are beliefs.

I can teach you those things. You can take notes. You can listen to the sermon again on podcast.

You can go read a book on it. Those are things we can learn. The last thing is you have to know your role. That's something

I can tell you, but that's something you have to walk out in your own life. Let's look at what John says. He who has the bride is the bridegroom.

But the friend of the bridegroom who stands and hears him rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom's voice.

So this joy of mine must be made full. He must increase. But I must decrease.

This is the last point. So I want to give us a little bit of a context. Why does John compare himself to a wedding?

And he doesn't even compare himself to a bride. He compares himself to a friend. I think it's because he uses wedding language, because the

Bible uses wedding language all over the place, because Christ came to have a bride.

He came to this earth to bring the church and to write fellowship with him so that she would be called his one true bride.

That's the mystery of the gospel that Paul talks about in Ephesians 5. But John doesn't cast himself as the bride, which is a fascinating point.

He doesn't say that he's a part of the church. He says that he's a friend of the bridegroom.

Now, we'll get into this a little bit more in a moment on what that role actually entailed.

But I think John here is prophesying his own death. John is saying that he's going to die before the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

That's when the church began. He's going to die before Pentecost, where the

Holy Spirit came down upon the believers. He's going to die before they were even called

Christians. He's going to die before Peter preached his great sermon.

He's going to die before the church age begins. So he's not going to call himself the bride, but he is going to tell you a little bit about his role as the friend of the bridegroom.

Now, Derek read this passage earlier in Matthew 11, or he referenced it. Truly, I say to you, this is

Jesus speaking, among those born of women, there is not one arisen that is greater than John the Baptist. In the Old Testament era, there's never been a greater man than John the

Baptist in Jesus's account, which means that it's truth. Moses wasn't greater than John the

Baptist. David wasn't greater than John the Baptist. In the Old Testament era, in the temple era, in the old covenant era,

John the Baptist was the greatest. And yet Jesus says, the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.

The thief on the cross, Jesus is saying, is greater than John the Baptist. Now, what

I want you to understand here is that Jesus isn't talking about salvation. We're going to meet

John the Baptist in heaven because of the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. Because Jesus can die and forgive people moving forward,

Hebrews tells us that he can also, in his death, apply his blood to those who were in the old covenant who were faithful,

Abraham, Moses. Matthew says that when Jesus resurrected, tombs were opened and saints came out of the grave because Jesus's blood effectively saved them too.

So this isn't talking about salvation. So what does it mean that John is lower than even the least in the kingdom of heaven?

Well, I think it means he's not going to live a single moment knowing what it feels like to be indwelled by the

Holy Spirit. He's not going to be able to see the

Samaritans being converted. No one would ever believe that would have happened. He's not going to get to see the Gentile explosion that happened under the ministry of Paul and the planting of churches.

He's not going to get the joy of seeing 3 ,000 people come to know Jesus Christ. And they're so filled with the spirit that everyone thinks they're drunk.

And then they go off to all the parts of the Roman empire filled with the spirit of God. He's not going to see that.

He's not going to see the spirit of God heal people in Jerusalem. He's not going to see Peter preach a sermon.

He's not going to see Paul's apologetics. He's not going to witness that. We'll see him in the eternal kingdom. We'll see

John the Baptist in the new Jerusalem, but he doesn't get to live in this kingdom. I think that's what Jesus is saying. John was the greatest representative of every one of the old covenant, but now a new covenant has come.

Now, what does it mean that John is the friend of the bridegroom? What does that mean?

Well, at this time in history, again, I think this is such a cool, I love history.

So maybe you're like, this is the worst part of the sermon. I think this is the best part of the sermon. In that time, the best man was known as the friend of the bridegroom.

The friend of the bridegroom was the most important position in the entire wedding. We learned about in John two, the head waiter.

The friend of the bridegroom was more important than him. The head waiter made sure that all the guests had joy, which is an important role.

The friend of the bridegroom made sure that the bride and the groom had joy and it was his job to fight for the joy of the bride and the groom.

And we'll understand what that means. Now in a Jewish wedding, there were two phases.

In America today, we do everything on the same day. People get married, they say their vows, they have a party, you go home and then it's over.

In Israel, it wasn't like that. It was a two phased approach. There was a procession where the groom and his party would walk from his house to her house in order to pick her up and carry her away to be his bride.

And then after that, after the marriage was consummated, after everyone had celebrated, there was a seven day party where everybody feasted and everybody rejoiced over what

God had done. There was two phases. Now, the friend of the bridegroom would have a role in both phases.

In the seven day party, he would make sure that little events were taking place, little events were taken care of.

He was like the fixer. He would go and he would do things to make sure that the party went off without a hitch. But by far, his primary role was in the first phase of the wedding, was in the procession of the wedding.

His job was to ensure that the bride was protected and made ready for her husband.

This is how it played out. After a period of engagement, which would be agreed upon by the husband, the future husband and the father, after that the wedding day would start.

And what would happen is that the bride would be busy making herself beautiful for her husband.

And she would have virgin maids that were helping her. She would be bathed. She would be perfumed and oiled with spices.

Her hair would be fixed. And much like what happens today, where you look in the back room of a wedding ceremony where the wife or the bride is getting ready and her friends are there doing her nails and makeup and everything, all of that would have been happening.

But the friend of the bridegroom would have been standing guard outside of her home. He would have been making sure that no person illegitimately came in and defiled this woman before her wedding.

Now in this time period, this may seem a little bit foreign to us, but a woman on her wedding day was particularly vulnerable because all of her childhood, she would have been under the protection and the authority of her father, but yet she's engaged now.

She's getting ready to be married and that authority is fading. And she's not quite yet under the protection and the authority of her husband.

So that protection is not quite there. And men, wicked carnal men for power plays, if they had an enemy, they would go and they would defile his bride, his future bride, so that he could cause harm and wickedness upon that man.

So this role of the friend of the bridegroom became a necessary thing where he would stand guard literally outside of the door so that if anyone came and tried to harm the bride or do evil things to her, then he would kill them.

When she was ready, the bridesmaids who were also virgins would grab their oil lamps because this was around nighttime when this was happening.

And they would grab their lamps and they would make sure that they had enough oil. If you remember the parable about the foolish virgins who didn't have enough oil, this is what this is talking about.

And they would do that so that they could help the groom find the bride. They would leave the bride and the friend of the bridegroom would stand outside guarding her while the virgins ran away with their lamps.

And they would go to the home of the bridegroom and they would tell him that the bride has been made ready for her husband and he would come out and under the flickering light of those small little lamps, he would make his way to his bride step -by -step.

She would be wearing a veil in celebration of her great -great -great -grandmother

Leah who wore a veil on her wedding. He would be led specifically to the right room because remember, if you will,

Jacob found himself the next morning beside the wrong bride. So they would lead him.

There'd be singing, there'd be dancing, there'd be joy. There'd be all kinds of noise that was happening in the streets.

And the friend of the bridegroom would stand guard waiting to hear the voice of the bridegroom. He would stand there waiting to hear,

I've come, it's me. And when he heard the voice of the bridegroom, he stood aside, he opened the curtain.

He let that man come in and pick up his bride and carry her step -by -step back to his house so that the marriage could be consummated and so that they could live happily ever after forever.

His only responsibility was to protect the bride until the bridegroom came.

Now think about John the Baptist here. John the Baptist is saying, my only role was to get the bride ready.

It's my only role. And now that the groom has come, now that Christ has come for his bride,

I need to get away. I need to fade into the spotlight. This is important because too many pastors today have fallen in love with Jesus's bride and they've made an adulterous relationship out of the church.

It's not your bride. It's Jesus's bride. John the Baptist understood it rightly.

I need to get out of the way so that Christ can have his bride. Now let's close with this.

It's gonna be an interesting conclusion because my printer didn't print the last page. So here we go. These four things in this passage matter to us as Christians.

If we don't trust the sovereignty of God, then we'll live every day of our life in fear.

If we don't know that God is in control, then we'll have no hope.

If we don't understand that Christ is superior, then we'll continue to believe that our life, our plans, our vision, our relationships, and everything that we believe matters more than Christ.

If we don't understand that it's his authority that's at work in us, we'll live weak and timid and afraid.

But if we understand that it's his authority, we'll live boldly for Jesus. We'll live victoriously in this culture for Christ, which doesn't mean that you're gonna have wealth, health, and prosperity, but it does mean that you'll be faithful and you'll be courageous.

And if we don't understand our role as Christians, like John the Baptist, this is a unique role that John the

Baptist plays. It doesn't repeat. We're not waiting for Jesus to return his first time to set up his kingdom.

That already happened. But we can learn from John the Baptist. John the Baptist pointed people to Jesus and he got out of the way because it's not about us.

This life is not about us. This ministry is not about us. Your faith is not about you. It's all about God.

So here's the point. If you're a young Christian in this room and you wanna be mentored, find a

John in your life. Find someone who will point you to Jesus and get out of the way. Find someone who will teach you and train you and will point you to the scriptures and will spend time with you and who will develop you and who will teach you and who will help you grow, but doesn't make it about them.

Find someone like that in your life if you're young in Christ. If you're mature in Christ, do not sit on the sidelines any longer.

If you've been walking with Jesus for a long time, there are plenty of weak Christians in this world who need someone to come alongside of them, who need someone to pour into them, my generation and my parents' generation failed in this regard.

They were waiting for someone to come and mentor them when they could have been mentoring the younger generation.

There's people like me who didn't grow up being discipled by anyone. And I think that's a tragedy. If we wanna see this world one to Jesus Christ, if we wanna see the gospel go forward in powerful ways, if we wanna see the church healthy and vital or having vitality, then us who are mature in Christ have to be praying,

Lord, help me find the person that I'm supposed to be spending time with. Help me find the person that I'm supposed to be pouring into and discipling because Jesus commands it.

It's his last command, go make disciples of all the nations, teach them to obey everything I've commanded. He just commanded make disciples.

So we should teach everyone to obey that command. You see, John understood the point of ministry and the point of the church is that the younger people will be trained up by the older and the older people will train up the younger and we will all grow towards maturity in Jesus Christ.

And we will get out of the way because it is not about us. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, thank you for this passage and thank you for the example of John.

Lord, you say he's the greatest man that's ever been born of woman. And yet he didn't live in his pride.

He didn't have a chip on his shoulder where he was like, you know, arrogant and sassy to other people.

He just simply understood that you are greater. He is lesser. And in that beautiful dichotomy, he found freedom and hope.

Lord, I pray for us. I pray that we would find freedom to live every single day of our lives knowing that you are greater.

Lord, I pray that we would find joy knowing every single day of our lives that we must become less. Our values, our opinions, our priorities, our passions, everything must be submitted at the foot of the cross because you are greater.

Lord, I pray that we would know that. We would know that down in our bones. Lord, I pray that we would live that way.

And Lord, I pray that we would have joy in a world that has none. And Lord, I pray for us as little lampstands, little nights that get to go out into a dark world.

Lord, I pray that you would cause us to shine. Lord, I pray that you would cause us to shine for Jesus and that the world would take notice.

Lord, help us as we end this service to magnify your name, to make you greater even as we become less.