John the Baptist: He Must Increase, I Must Decrease

The Baptist gave a three-part response to his disciples’ concern about the Lord Jesus being his rival:
1) All our work comes from God.

“No one can receive anything unless it is given from heaven." (John 3:27)

We like to take credit for what we’ve accomplished, but who gave you your intelligence? Or who gave you your health and strength, your ability to work, and the good fortune that enabled your hard work to pay off? All the credit goes to God.

John the Baptist understood this principle. He knew his role had been given to him by God, it was work that would give him satisfaction and fulfillment

2) The Baptist reminded them that he had always known his role. He was not the Messiah, but the one sent ahead.

"You yourselves can testify that I said that I’m not the Christ but that I’m the one sent before him." (John 3:28)

3) He’s like the best man, and all the people are the bride.

"The groom is the one who is getting married. The friend of the groom stands close by and, when he hears him, is overjoyed at the groom’s voice. Therefore, my joy is now complete." (Jouhn 3:29

Jesus is the groom. It would be crazy for the best man to feel like he was in competition with the groom to get the bride, it would be a total betrayal of his relationship with both the groom and His bride. Instead the best man is joyful for the groom, his best friend

The only way for you and I to have a successful mission is to have the same attitude.

These are the last recorded words of John before his arrest, when he told his disciples that he would have to decrease so Jesus’ ministry could grow. John’s mission was for Jesus to increase and for John to basically work himself out of a ministry because everyone would go to Jesus.

John wanted his followers to understand just how significant Jesus was. For one thing, Jesus came from heaven. He wasn’t simply called from heaven, or empowered by heaven, like John the Baptist was. Jesus actually came from heaven. Since He came from heaven, The Lord Jesus represents God, and to reject His witness is to reject God.

Jesus shares what He has seen and heard in heaven, that’s His testimony. Those who receive Jesus’ witness know that it’s true. You have to receive it, the Baptist was saying, you can’t just hear it.

The Baptist could not have been more clear,

"The one whom God sent speaks God’s words because God gives the Spirit generously." (John 3:34)

God sent the Lord Jesus. God gave Jesus the word, God gave Jesus His Spirit, in fact God gave Jesus everything.

The gospel writer, John, echoed Jesus' words to Nicodemus,

"For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him won’t perish but will have eternal life."
and
"The Father loves the Son and gives everything into his hands. Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life.”
(John 3:16 and 3:35-36)

God loves the world and the Father loves the Son. Whoever receives Jesus’ witness also shares in the love the Father has for the Son, and in this “all things” that has been given to Jesus.

The last verse is actually the only place in the whole gospel that John used the actual word “wrath,” but he again echoed Jesus' words to Nicodemus,

"Whoever believes in him isn’t judged; whoever doesn’t believe in him is already judged, because they don’t believe in the name of God’s only Son."
and
"Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life. Whoever doesn’t believe in the Son won’t see life, but the angry judgment [wrath] of God remains on them."
(John 3:18 and John 3:36)

obeying the Son means believing in Him and receiving Him.

Joy comes from obedience to God’s call, not getting the glory for yourself

This was a perfect setup for conflict, but it didn’t happen because there was no competition between John the Baptist and the Lord Jesus. The Baptist was content with who he was and what his job was. He didn’t have ambition to be or do more than God had given him, and he wasn’t worried about the numbers. He knew that his part was to obey God, and the results were in God’s hands.

I used to belong to a very small church, maybe fifty people on a bumper Sunday. Our building was made out of stucco, and we never did have much money. But we were right next door to a big stone church, beautiful, wealthy and full of people.

Sometimes they would accidentally come into our building, thinking we were like the kitchen or something. But we never felt bad. God had a purpose for us in our smallness. People often joined us for a while who had had bad experiences in a big church, and our church was just like family. We could never have offered them healing and renewal like we did if we had been a big church.

When does your own sense of importance overshadow your service to God? The source of contentment comes from knowing all of us have the same basic job of pointing others to Jesus. How that looks from person to person may be different but the calling is the same. There should be no comparison and no competition.

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John the Baptist: Contentment, Not Competition

Since John was writing about stories that he wanted to be read side by side to reveal something, he reminded the reader that this next story actually happened a little while before John had been put in prison, before John had been arrested.

For the few months until John the Baptist was arrested by Herod and put into prison, his ministry overlapped with the Lord Jesus. The Baptist did not really want to have followers. His whole ministry was about pointing to the Lamb of God and urging people to trust in Him.

But when two popular leaders are involved in a similar work, there’s bound to be trouble.

Evidently a Jew, we don’t know who, but John uses that word to mean a Pharisee or Scribe, got into a discussion about baptism and purification with the Baptist’s followers. Something must have been said in that conversation that made the Baptist’s followers feel like John the Baptist was getting compared unfavorably with the Lord Jesus.

They were upset about it. They started feeling a sense of rivalry with Jesus’ ministry because everybody was going to Him now, and He was even baptizing people, which had been John the Baptist’s special thing.

Competition is one of the most toxic forces to enter the Body of Christ.

Rivalry between ministries is one of the wedges Satan, God’s enemy and ours, uses to alienate Christians from each other, undermine projects in churches and block the progress of the gospel.

Who might you be feeling in competition with, or comparing yourself to? John’s disciples had gotten caught up in the numbers game: Who Had The Bigger Ministry.

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Blended Gospels: The Last Episode In John The Baptist's Ministry

After this Jesus and his disciples went into the Judean countryside, and he remained there with them and was baptizing. John also was baptizing at Aenon near Salim, because water was plentiful there, and people were coming and being baptized (for John had not yet been put in prison).

Now a discussion arose between some of John’s disciples and a Jew over purification. And they came to John and said to him, "Rabbi, he who was with you across the Jordan, to whom you bore witness — look, he is baptizing, and all are going to him."

John answered, "A person cannot receive even one thing unless it is given him from heaven. You yourselves bear me witness, that I said, 'I am not the Christ, but I have been sent before him.' The one who has the bride is the bridegroom.

"The friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice. Therefore this joy of mine is now complete. He must increase, but I must decrease."

He who comes from above is above all. He who is of the earth belongs to the earth and speaks in an earthly way. He who comes from heaven is above all. He bears witness to what he has seen and heard, yet no one receives his testimony.

Whoever receives his testimony sets his seal to this, that God is true. For he whom God has sent utters the words of God, for he gives the Spirit without measure. The Father loves the Son and has given all things into his hand. Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.

[John 3:22-36, ESV]

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Jesus and Nicodemus: Fourth of Four Illustrations

Being reborn is like turning the lights on in a darkened room.
4) light and darkness: Just as, in Genesis, God’s word divided the light from the darkness, so now Jesus, the Light of the world, came into the world and divided those who love the Light from those who embrace the darkness.

It isn’t really intellectual issues with complicated concepts that keep people from trusting in the Lord Jesus. According to this passage, the real problem is moral and spiritual blindness that keep people loving the darkness and hating the light.

Nobody really likes being shown to be wrong. That’s why it can be so hard to change. What have you been defending, and resisting changing with every last ounce of your strength? The light of God’s truth exposes what’s wrong within you and me and that truth presents a dilemma. Acknowledge we’ve been embracing sin, or change.

Verse 21 is the key

Whoever does the truth comes to the light so that it can be seen that their actions were done in God. (John 3:21)

In other words, if you are willing to begin obeying the truth, even when that means that sin will be exposed in your life, then change will take place.

This is called repentance.

When you acknowledge that something is wrong, and it has to change. This process begins with a recognition, a conviction deep inside, that something is not right in your life and you want it to be right. There is only one person Who can make it right. The Lord Jesus Christ.

In order to love the light you will have to hate the darkness

You can’t love what’s wrong and love God at the same time. You can’t love Jesus and your own sin.

The bottom line is that you and I have to pick, and what we pick carries immediate and eternal implications. To pick Jesus means coming into the light, knowing that God’s light will expose the sin in your life. There will be some painful times involved in that, in fact, the Bible describes it as being like dying. But what will really happen is that you will be freed from corruption and death, and you will have, starting now, eternal life.

Where might you be habitually choosing to scoot away from the light of God’s truth because it’s uncomfortable, and you don’t want to change? To reject Jesus means to stay in the darkness, stay under the condemnation of God’s judgement against sin, and to remain under the wrath of God, which will deal with all sin, ultimately.

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Jesus and Nicodemus: Shocking Revelation

Here was Nicodemus’ next shocker,

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him won’t perish but will have eternal life. (John 3:16)

Pharisees despised all Gentiles, and held a very low view of most Jews. In fact the only people Pharisees really respected was each other. But God loves not just Jews, children of the promise. God loves the world, Gentiles included.

In fact, think about it. --> Everyone starts out in life as spiritually dead. But God sees the awfulness of sin. His wrath is poised to cleanse all of creation from sin, and He wants to rescue people because He loves people.

The rescue was going to be costly. It cost God pain, separation, being beaten and mocked, descent into darkness when the Lord Jesus, God the Son, was made sin for us in our place. It cost death. And He did all that so that people would not be corrupted by sin anymore, which would end in death, but could be cleaned, healed and have eternal life.

“Have” is immediate. Eternal life doesn’t just describe the duration, forever, but the quality of life, having the same spiritual life as God Himself.

The next verse gives you and me crucial insight into how we should be approaching people with the good news about Jesus

God didn’t send his Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through him. (John 3:17)

The Pharisees were expecting the Messiah to come as judge, to condemn all evildoers (the Gentiles and bad Jews) and destroy them, and restore Israel to its full glory.

How many people see God as mean and distant judge, never satisfied, not approachable? One of the main criticisms nonChristians have about Christians is judgmentalism, this constant sense of being disapproved of by Christians, being uncomfortable in church settings because of this pressure to look and act a certain way.

This isn’t God’s way at all. His way is love and compassion and understanding. Jesus did not come to condemn, or to point His finger at people and tell them what terrible sinners they are. Instead Jesus’ way with even blatant sinners was always sensing their hurt and their need, and their shame and loneliness.

This doesn’t mean that the Lord Jesus was indifferent to sin. He knows we can’t be free until the sin issue has been solved in our lives. Jesus came to free us from the bondage of sin.

This is God’s gift, given in love, but His gift still requires a response

Whoever believes in him isn’t judged; whoever doesn’t believe in him is already judged, because they don’t believe in the name of God’s only Son.(John 3:18)

The Bible takes the position that humankind is living under the wrath of God all the time. He sees the evil that mars His creation and destroys the people He loves, and God intends to get rid of it. God’s wrath consumes evil and wickedness not as the opposite of His love, but as the expression of His love. God will protect and set free the object of His affection.

It’s not people God seeks to destroy but the sin that destroys His people. In that sense God’s wrath is far more a cure than it is a punishment. It’s primary purpose is not to hurt us but to heal us.

But that’s not to say that God’s wrath doesn’t ultimately consume people as well. His wrath has been described as a refiner’s fire that purifies. But sometimes God’s presence also brought the end to people’s lives when He was dealing with their sin. God’s wrath, as it consumes sin will also consume people who have become so ensared by sin that they are no longer interested in reaching out to God’s mercy.

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Jesus and Nicodemus: Third of Four Illustrations

Jesus had given Nicodemus two real life, earthly illustrations. Now they were going to move into theology. Since Nicodemus was a devoted teacher of the Bible Jesus moved to scripture by first identifying Himself as the Son of Man, a phrase that clearly indicated Jesus was the Messiah, and then giving Nicodemus his third illustration,

No one has gone up to heaven except the one who came down from heaven, the Son of Man. Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up so that everyone who believes in him will have eternal life. (John 3:13-15)

3) Snake: This story is found in Numbers 21:4-9

The Israelites had to go around the territory of Edom, so when they left Mount Hor, they headed south toward the Red Sea. But along the way, the people became so impatient that they complained against God and said to Moses, "Did you bring us out of Egypt, just to let us die in the desert? There's no water out here, and we can't stand this awful food!"

Then the LORD sent poisonous snakes that bit and killed many of them.

Some of the people went to Moses and admitted, "It was wrong of us to insult you and the LORD. Now please ask him to make these snakes go away."

Moses prayed, and the LORD answered, "Make a snake out of bronze and place it on top of a pole. Anyone who gets bitten can look at the snake and won't die."

Moses obeyed the LORD. And all of those who looked at the bronze snake lived, even though they had been bitten by the poisonous snakes.

Lifted up had a dual meaning.
--> The first was Jesus being lifted up on the cross. The people had sinned, and they were under the condemnation of God because of it.

The snakes were their judgment. There were too many serpents, and they were too deadly to try and kill them. There was no known antidote They couldn’t just pretend they weren’t there -- like we try denial today, ignore a problem, maybe it will go away. Passing anti-serpent laws wouldn’t change anything. There was nowhere they could go, nowhere they could hide. They were unable to rescue themselves, and everyone would have died.

The bronze snake, nailed to a pole, was their only hope of rescue. It was the image of their sin of not trusting God, and calling His provision for them detestable. They had to look to that symbol of sin and judgement, and believe God’s promise in order to literally be saved from dying.

Jesus was saying “When Moses lifted that serpent in the wilderness, he was displaying a symbol of Me. I will be made sin for the sake of saving the people from eternal death.”

--> Jesus also made an allusion to the other time He would be lifted up off the earth, when He would rise from the dead and ascend into heaven, where He would be raised to all authority, and currently rules as the king in the kingdom of God. Believing in the cross and the resurrection is the same as believing in the snake in the desert.

One day Nicodemus would remember all this when Jesus really was nailed to the pole of a cross and lifted up to die.

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Jesus and Nicodemus: Second of Four Illustrations

In order to help Nicodemus understand the concept of being born of water (God's word) and the Spirit (of God), Jesus gave His second illustration, concerning the Spirit,

2) Wind:

"God’s Spirit blows wherever it wishes. You hear its sound, but you don’t know where it comes from or where it is going.” (John 3:8, first half)

The word “wind” in both Hebrew and Greek is the same word for “spirit.” As Nicodemus felt the wind brush against him, and saw the leaves fluttering in the trees Jesus explained that like the wind the Holy Spirit is invisible but powerful, and you can’t predict, explain or control the movements of the wind.

"It’s the same with everyone who is born of the Spirit." (John 3:8, second half)

Regeneration is partly a mystery, it’s all internal, you can’t fully explain it, and there are no physical steps you can take to make it happen, God does it, but you and I can see the evidence of it.
Nicodemus could hardly take it all in. “How could this be?”

But Jesus wouldn’t let him off the hook. If Nicodemus was the teacher of Israel, then he had all he needed in the scriptures themselves to know what Jesus was talking about. He should know that
Isaiah spoke of new life from God;
Jeremiah had predicted a new creation that would be given;
Ezekiel had said God would take out the old heart of stone and replace it with a new heart and His own Spirit.

How often do you and I study the Bible with a preconceived idea of what the answer is, rather than really reading what it says? What have you been trying to understand using your own intellect, without God’s guidance and the help of His Spirit?

To enter the kingdom of God, you must be born again

What spiritual issues have you been trying to solve with earthly solutions? In our natural state people can’t understand spiritual truth, or comprehend the kingdom of God. So often you and I get hung up on behavior before we start talking about the gospel. You have to be born again to even understand how behavior relates to the inner person.

The Pharisees spent all of their energy on the externals. Good behavior was the important thing to them, not what was going on in their hearts. It made me think about my own parenting.

Think how discouraging that is to require good behavior from someone who isn’t good – how often have you and I done that to ourselves, to our children, to others in our lives, setting an impossible standard of good behavior without addressing the need for a changed heart, filled with the goodness of God?

Good behavior doesn’t make you or me a good person. Only being born again can accomplish that by receiving God’s goodness within, in new life.

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