First Baptist Church
September 22, 2002
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John 3:22-36
When you think about words, the word "DOWN" doesn’t have many positive meanings. It’s a word reserved for cowards, losers and bear markets. It’s a word that is to be avoided or ignored. When you attach it to other words it brings them down, such as — down and out, down hearted, downfall, down-scale, down hill, downer and down under. Of course, what’s worse for the word down is its opposite, "UP".
The word UP has many positive connotations. It’s reserved for winners, heroes and bull markets. Add the word "up" to other words and look what happens — upscale, up and coming, upwardly mobile, upper class, and upstanding.
When we think about our present world, we have been deluged with the philosophy that our sight should be to move up in the world. It plays into our egos and delights us to no end. Up is a word that signifies one who has power. It’s assumed that the direction of greatness is always up. UP, UP, UP! People rise against the odds, they ascend to fame and power.
Yet, with that in mind, the words of John the Baptist startle us. John tells his disciples "Jesus must increase and he must decrease." It would seem that the greatest oxymoron would be the phrase "DESCENDING into GREATNESS." It seems absurd, yet that is exactly what John was saying to his disciples.
As we look at the yearning of our souls, what will it take to open the eyes of our heart and soul and scream out to God to fill us, fill us until we can’t take it anymore. Have you ever laughed so hard that you couldn’t take anymore laughter? Have you gotten to the point of laughing so hard that your stomach hurts, your eyes are tearing? It feels so good, yet anymore laughter and you think you’ll burst!
That’s the type of filling in our souls and hearts I’m talking about. Not a cheap imitation, but the real thing. You see, we have a lot of choices out there. We can take a lot of imitation or generic products. Some of them may make you think they’re the real thing, but your soul knows the difference. (Butterscotch example)
In this instance, notice that the real butterscotch looked better and tasted better. By itself it is an obvious choice. However, once you wrap that around some flour, sugar, vanilla, eggs and make it into a desert, it is much more difficult to tell which is the real one.
The same holds true in the world. When we stop and look at Jesus, we believe and are certain we should have all of Him. We should invite Jesus into our lives and submit ourselves to Him. And that’s what God intended for us. Yet, we become so caught up in the world and all that it offers us, and pretty soon we forget about "Jesus alone" and we become consumed with the desires of the world and before we know it, everything becomes blended. We aren’t sure what’s true and what’s false. Everything has become so clouded and in a strange way, we may find that we’re comfortable. But that comfort lasts for only a short while and we end up with a longing, and this time it’s even deeper than before.
Now we have a choice. . . do we go forward with reckless abandon and embrace Jesus, or do we settle for what we already have, simply because we know that this is far safer than grabbing hold of Jesus.
Let me stop here and ask you, are you with me? Do you know what I mean about that choice? Because the deepest desires in our heart are predicated on what choices we make.
So now, let’s look at John the Baptist for a few moments and see what we can learn from him.
This passage occurs immediately after Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus. During that conversation, Jesus told Nicodemus that he needed to be born again and of course Jesus said the most famous verse in the Bible, John 3:16.
After that conversation Jesus and His disciples traveled about 50 miles to an area called Salim. It was located along the Jordan River and this is the only recording we have of Jesus baptizing people. John the Baptist was at the same place, baptizing people on the other side of the Jordan River. An argument developed between John’s disciples and another Jewish man. We aren’t certain what it was about, but the end result was that John’s disciples came back to John and questioned what Jesus was doing.
They told John, "that man who was with you on the other side of the Jordan -- the one you testified about -- well, he is baptizing, and everyone is going to him." You see, these men were loyal followers of John the Baptist. Now this new guy comes into town and they didn’t like it one bit. To them it was competition. If you owned a store and it was the only one of its kind in town, and suddenly someone else opened a competing store, you may not be very excited about it.
Notice how John’s disciples referred to Jesus. They don’t call Him by name (Jesus), nor do they refer to Him as the Messiah, even though that is how John referred to Him. Instead they speak of Jesus as "the one who was with you, … the one you testified about." I believe they actually came to resent who Jesus was. His identity and His success are related. John knew who Jesus was, the disciples did not. John knew that it was time for Jesus to gain in popularity and for John to begin to diminish in popularity. But John’s disciples didn’t understand what was going on and frankly they were jealous of Jesus’ success. Notice that they told John EVERYONE IS GOING TO JESUS.
Now John explains to his disciples that he is not the Christ, but he was sent to come ahead of the Christ. John gives an illustration about a bride and groom. When the wedding came it was the responsibility of the best man or best friend of the groom to take care of many of the details surrounding the wedding. The friend would act as a liaison between the man and the woman. In essence, the friend arranged the wedding, delivered invitations and presided at the wedding feast. Kind of like an M.C. He also had one final duty, when it was time, he was to guard the bridal chamber, so that no false lovers could get in. Once he saw the groom and heard his voice, he let the groom into the room. Now the friend’s job was over. This was a joyful job for the friend of the groom. He did not begrudge his friend, instead there was joy in the completion of his task. His job was to bring the bride and groom together, and once that was accomplished, his job was to fade out of the picture.
John’s disciples would understand that analogy. John’s task was to bring Israel, the bride and Jesus, the bridegroom together. Now that this job was complete, John was happy to fade into the background. So it was not with envy or bitterness that John said, "JESUS MUST INCREASE and I MUST DECREASE." John would have said it with joy. Not with anger.
I truly believe that when we want to find the kingdom of God, when we want to find heaven, right here on earth, we have to be willing to do exactly as John did. We must descend into greatness. I don’t think there is any other way to do it. We can’t get there by going half-way. That will never work. You know and so do I.
But there are risks involved. The risk is that we have to submit our lives and even surrender ourselves to God. We can’t give God just a little bit, like sticking your legs into the water, and that is all of God that you want. We must jump back in. For without jumping in, without giving all of ourselves to God, we will never experience the true joy, grace, peace and love that God has in store for us. And if I were to guess what the deepest longing in most of our hearts and souls would be, I would assume it to be one of those 4 items.
The risk is that we become more Christ-like. And it is a risk because when we become more like Christ, we are faced with greater challenges. We are faced with fighting off the powers of evil, that are certain to come our way. The more we walk with Christ, the more satan will throw our way. I am certain of that. We will have greater temptations, yet we’ll have greater joy when we resist those temptations.
The beauty of Christ increasing in our lives, is the way we live our lives, it is the way we experience life, and it is the we others will see how we live life. When we have Christ increasing our soul will be more satisfied, even in the midst of pain and suffering, trials and tribulations. We will experience greater joy, greater love, greater peace and greater grace. Others will look at us and marvel and how our spirit is so good. Not that we are no longer sinners, that is a daily occurrence, but others will see how can defeat those who are against us. They will be witnesses to our ability to destroy evil with good, to defeat temptation and to overcome the pain of living life.
It is being humble, when it may surprise others at our humility. I love it when athletes and other entertainers give thanks to God for their accomplishments. When it is done with sincerity it is another example of a person who has decreased, so God can increase.
Think about some current examples in our world. We have the President and Vice-President. As powerful as the Vice-President may be, to a certain extent he still has to decrease; so that the President may do what is necessary to run this country. It is very rare to hear of a Vice-President who makes the news because of what they are doing. More often than not, we hear very little about the Vice-president.
Do you remember who the St. Louis Cardinals were playing when Mark McGwire hit his 62nd home run? Of course, you do. . . they were playing my Cubbies. There was an intense battle between McGwire and Sammy Sosa to see who would break the record first. After McGwire hit his home run and the crowd went wild and McGwire picked up his son at home plate and there was a great celebration . . . who ran in from right field? Sammy Sosa. In many respects, at that moment, Sosa had to decrease so McGwire could increase, in other words, receive the attention that was due him. You remember Sosa jumped up on McGwire in genuine joy for what he had accomplished. They celebrated and the game continued and Sosa later remarked, that ‘McGwire’s the man.’
That is an image of what it means to decrease so that someone may increase. So, what does that mean in our lives? It means that we continue to die to Christ on a daily basis. This means that every morning when we wake up we go through the dying process again and again. We resubmit ourselves to Jesus. We proclaim Him again as Lord, as Savior, as Forgiver, as my Lord and my God. We may think because we have called Jesus our Messiah, that we are in, that there is nothing left to do. But when we think that way, as I really think so many are apt to do, we end up feeling alone, and have a deep hole in our spirit.
But the way to fill that longing is to call on Jesus. It is to call decrease more in this life, so that He can increase more in your life. It’s as Paul said, for when I am weak then I am strong. It makes no sense at times, but when we are weak and recognize it, then we can rely on only one thing, and that is the power of Jesus.
Dear friends, what longing do you have today that needs to be filled? Don’t accept any imitations. There is only one way to fill our soul. Call on Jesus, if you have to, get on your knees, fall face down on the ground and humble your self before the Lord. No matter how you do it, call on Jesus, shout to Him to fill you . . . and He will.
