John chapter 3 verse 25.
If you've never read John chapter 3 before, I'd encourage you to do that this week.
I would say it's a pretty significant chapter in that it contains one of, if not the most
well-known scriptures in all of the Bible.
Some of you may have heard John 3, 16, for God so loved the world that He gave His only
begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting
life.
And that happens just before what we're going to look at today when Jesus is having a conversation
with a man named Nicodemus, and Jesus talks about the importance of being born again and
receiving eternal life.
And so that's a good lesson.
So I encourage you to read that.
Maybe you've read it before, but you haven't read it in a while.
The events that we're going to talk about today though take place right after that.
And so we'll read through the text.
John chapter 3 verse 25 is where we will begin.
Then a dispute arose between John's disciples and a Jew about purification.
So they came to John and told him, Rabbi, the one you testified about and who was with
you across the Jordan is baptizing and everyone is flocking to him.
John responded, No one can receive a single thing unless it's given to him from heaven.
You yourselves can testify that I said, I am not the Messiah, but I've been sent ahead
of him.
He who has the bride is the groom, but the groom's friend who stands by and listens for
him rejoices greatly at the groom's voice.
So this joy of mine is complete.
He must increase, but I must decrease.
Let's pray.
God, we come to you.
We thank you for your good word.
And I pray, dear Lord, that as we read this word today, that the last statement of John
there would be a statement that we would listen to and that we would live by, dear Lord.
That Jesus would increase in our life, dear Lord.
That we would decrease in ourselves and of the things of the world and the things that
we deem to be important, the things that sometimes we place over Jesus, dear Lord.
I pray that today that you would help us to begin to repent of those things, that our
own desires would decrease and that our desire to follow Jesus Christ and serve him would
increase.
I pray that you would hide me behind the cross, dear Lord, that I would preach and teach in
a way that brings glory to you.
I pray that you free us of any distractions this morning.
I pray that your Holy Spirit would speak through me, that you take away any pride or any fear
I have, dear Lord, that every word that is spoken is for your glory so that we may hear
it and that we may grow in your word.
And I ask these things in Jesus' name, amen.
John the Baptist had come onto the scene right before Jesus began his ministry.
Now, we talked a little bit, very briefly, Wednesday night.
We talked about Elizabeth and we talked about Mary.
Once Mary discovered that she was about to have a child, she went to her relative Elizabeth's
house and it just so happened that Elizabeth was six months pregnant at the time and so
John the Baptist was born not long before Jesus was born.
And this was all prophesied.
There was going to be one who was going to come right before the Messiah would come.
There would be one who would come and prepare the way for Jesus who was coming.
And that one was John the Baptist.
We don't know much about Jesus' life.
After his birth, the scripture only tells us of one short event in his childhood and
then we are thrust into the future when Jesus is beginning his ministry.
And that begins for us in scripture with John the Baptist who is beginning to baptize people
and calling them to repent.
But even John knew that there was one coming after him who was going to be greater than
him and that one had come.
That one was Jesus Christ.
And Jesus Christ himself was baptized and Jesus Christ's ministry began.
Now people had been flocking to John.
A lot of people had been coming to John.
But now that Jesus had come onto the scene, we see that people are beginning to question
what's going on here.
People knew what John had been doing.
There's a man that comes to John's disciples.
They're disputing about something.
We don't really know what it is.
Probably something about the baptism based on the question that we see here and the issue
at hand which is being brought up.
And that is that people were before this point flocking to John.
Now some people probably were still coming to John.
But people were flocking to Jesus now.
And so John's disciples come to him and they bring this out before John.
And John says, look, I am rejoicing because the groom is the one who gets the bride.
Now what is John saying there?
He's saying people are flocking to Jesus because Jesus is the groom.
And those who come to Jesus Christ are the bride of Christ.
We see that language in the New Testament.
We see that as it speaks of Christians that we are referred to as the bride of Christ.
And John says the groom has come onto the scene and now we are getting closer to the
wedding.
The groom has come and now the bride is beginning to seek out the groom.
Those who know about the Messiah, those who hear the teachings of Jesus, they're beginning
to follow him.
And John tells his disciples, this is a good thing.
He says, look, the friend of the groom should not be jealous because the groom is getting
the bride.
But the friend of the groom should rejoice.
And that's exactly what John does here.
John says, look, I am rejoicing.
And then he makes this beautiful statement that we're going to talk about for just a
minute today.
He makes this beautiful statement here in verse 30 where he says, he must increase,
but I must decrease.
Now we need to think about that statement.
We need to ponder on that statement.
We need to let that kind of simmer in our minds this week.
That needs to be our attitude and that needs to be our mindset as Christians.
That our goal should always be that in everything, Jesus is increasing in our life.
That in everything we do that it is to increase the gospel of Jesus Christ.
It is to work on increasing the kingdom of God.
And in the process of Jesus increasing in our life and our life increasing in things
that draw us closer to Jesus, everything else in our life needs to decrease.
And that's our real struggle because there's a lot of things in our life that we want to
increase that involve us.
Now think about John here.
John had a lot of people coming to him.
And all these people or some of these people were no longer coming to John.
Now let's think about that maybe in some modern times.
Let's just kind of loosely make an illustration here.
Imagine if you're a pastor of a church and another pastor comes and starts another church
down the road.
And people that once were coming to your church begin to go to another church but they're
going to another church and they're growing in Christ.
And their walk with God is better and their service of the community is better and these
people are growing.
But in some way you might kind of get jealous because you say well then people used to come
here and now they're going there.
And sometimes maybe we are jealous, maybe you're not a pastor, but maybe there are other
areas in your life where you find some parallels there where we get jealous of certain things.
Well here in John's case he didn't say wait a minute I want the people to come to me.
No what John said was I recognize that Jesus is greater than I am.
And so my main concern in life is that Jesus is increasing in my life and increasing in
the lives of others.
And so as brothers and sisters in Christ we all work together.
John had a job to do and that was to prepare the way for the Messiah.
But John recognized that Jesus was far more important than he was.
What about you and I?
And do we recognize that the desires of God, that the will of God, that the desires of
following the example of Jesus Christ, what Jesus wants us to do, do we realize today
that what Jesus wants us to do is more important than what we want to do?
And sometimes there's a conflict of interest there because many times the things that Jesus
calls us to do are not the things that we want to do.
And many times in our life we want to increase our self and we want to increase our fame
and we want to increase our wealth and we want to increase our, just that everybody
would pay attention to us and what we do.
But in our life if we really want to serve the Lord and grow in him then we have to begin
to decrease, not seek what's going to promote us but seek what's going to promote the kingdom
of God.
And John recognized this truth.
John didn't say I'm jealous, I want the people to come back to me.
John said no, I'm not living for me, I'm living for Jesus.
Who are we living for today?
It's easy for us to tell based on the things that we do, what we spend our money on, what
we spend our time on.
You can take a test real quick, you can tell pretty quick what's important in your life,
what are you focusing on in your life.
And John recognized what he needed to focus on and he knew that Jesus needed to be what
was the increase in his life.
You know we're in the midst of a season of increase, Christmas I think you could call
that a season of increase.
There's a lot of things that increase during Christmas season, one of which is going to
be your credit card bill.
It's going to increase this month, I guarantee you.
You go buy some toys, you go buy some new clothes, you go buy your groceries that you
going to cook, credit card bill is going to increase, your waist size is probably going
to increase between Thanksgiving and Christmas.
You're going to be eating a lot of good stuff, a lot of pies, a lot of turkey, all your favorite
stuff, a lot of sweets.
It's going to be an increase there.
The amount of stuff you got is going to increase because people are going to buy you lots of
gifts.
You're going to have more stuff on December 25th than you do today because people are
going to buy you some new stuff.
Whether you need it or not, you're going to get it.
There's going to be an increase in your material wealth, your material gain.
There's going to be an increase in your schedule.
There's going to be an increase on your calendar of events.
Oh wait, we've got to go, we've got the lighting of the church tonight, we've got to go do
that.
Oh we've got the Christmas social coming up.
Oh we've got to go play bingo.
Oh we've got to go to my wife's family's.
Oh we've got to go to my husband's family's.
Oh we've got to go to grandma's house.
Oh we've got to do this.
And there's just an increase in our activities and with that comes an increase in our stress.
We're stressed, we're running out of time.
Christmas is only a week and a half away and I ain't even started my Christmas shopping
yet.
I've got stuff coming on Amazon and it says it's lost.
When's it going to get here?
And we just stress and there's an increase of all this stuff during this season.
There's an increase in our life.
Christmas comes along in our lives and perhaps for some Christians, maybe many, maybe most
Christians, perhaps Christmas is a time that we sit and reflect on Jesus Christ.
Perhaps Christmas is a time that we think about who Jesus is and we praise God that
He sent His only Son for us.
Perhaps that's what the majority of Christians do.
But then again, perhaps not.
Perhaps for many people, Christians included, Christmas is just the time of year that we
decorate a tree, time of year that we hand out gifts, a time of year that we eat food
and none of those things in and of themselves are bad.
And we do all these things and perhaps Christmas is a time that we do all of these worldly
traditions that we just make up.
Perhaps Christmas is a time that we do all of these things and we somehow try to pretend
like we're going to put Jesus in there and try to time in but it really doesn't work.
And perhaps Christmas is just a time for ourselves where we really don't spend any time thinking
about Jesus at all.
And in that sense, perhaps Christmas is not so unlike every other day of the year for
us.
Perhaps we need to spend more time not just on Christmas seeking Jesus, but perhaps we
need to spend more time the other 364 days of the year seeking Jesus.
Because it's not just at Christmas that our stress increases and we eat unhealthy and
we spend more money than we should and we forget about Jesus and we kind of try to stick
him in but not really.
For many of us, maybe most of us if we're honest, there may be a lot of days of the
year that we do just that.
And maybe this Christmas is a good place to start but it should not be where we finish.
It should not be just one day a year that we choose to reflect on Jesus whether it's
December the 25th or March the 17th or July the 4th.
It should not make any difference.
It should be every day in our life that we should be striving that Jesus would increase
in our life, that our desire to serve Jesus would increase in our life, that our desire
to live for the world and do the things of the world would begin to decrease and our
relationship with God and our love for him would begin to increase, that we would begin
to live by the word of God and listen to the word of God and put God first and put Jesus
Christ at the top of our list and not just live for ourselves and the world and then
try to just find some way that we can tie Jesus in there.
And many times I fear that that's what Christmas has become.
And that doesn't sadden me just because we do it one season of the year.
It saddens me because maybe if we're honest we do it lots of seasons of the year.
We get so caught up in getting the things we want to get and doing the things that we
want to do and living for ourselves that we find the least amount of time that we can
find and we give that to Jesus.
But maybe today, maybe this Christmas season is a good time for us to flip the script.
Maybe our time with Jesus needs to increase.
Maybe our time in prayer needs to increase.
Maybe our time in scripture needs to increase.
Maybe our time serving our brothers and sisters in Christ and serving our neighbors and serving
the poor and needy needs to increase.
Maybe the amount of money we spend on ourselves needs to decrease.
And the amount of money we use to help those in need and the further the kingdom of God
needs to increase.
Maybe these words of John today are words that we need to think about this week.
That we need to have a heart like John.
That we need to know that there is one who is more important than us.
There is one who is more important than anything in this world.
There is one who is more important than our Christmas lights and our decorations and our
time with family and the good food that we will eat.
And that is Jesus Christ and He must increase.
But we must decrease.
That's the hard part.
We don't like to decrease.
We want to have our cake and eat it too.
But we only have so much time.
We only have so much energy.
We only have so much money.
And how much of it are we going to use for ourselves and how much of it are we going
to use for the kingdom of God?
Are we going to be content with Jesus Christ?
Are we going to be content with living for Him knowing that He will provide for our needs
and knowing that He has come, praise the Lord, that He was born and that He did die and gave
His life on the cross for you and I so that our sins could be forgiven?
Perhaps today we need to re-shift our focus from the things of the world to Jesus Christ
so that in our life Jesus will increase.
Maybe you look at your life today and you say, if I'm honest, Jesus has not been increasing
in my life.
Maybe He's been decreasing.
And it happens.
We really have to stay on top of it.
It's not easy.
It's not like we all come in here today and say, yep, Jesus is at the top of my list and
I'm doing great.
Maybe there are some of you that can say that or maybe there are some of you like me that
has to acknowledge that, man, this world gets in and our desires get in and our busy schedules
get in and all of a sudden these things kind of begin to rise to the top and Jesus begins
to decrease.
But praise the Lord that we have this beautiful, beautiful scripture.
Praise the Lord that we have the words of John here to remind us that Jesus must increase
and we must decrease.
Maybe today is the day.
Maybe today God's spoken to you.
Maybe today the Holy Spirit's speaking to you and maybe He asked for the last few days
or the last few weeks and maybe you know that you hadn't been living for the Lord the way
you should.
Maybe today you've never lived for the Lord at all.
Maybe you realize that you've never put your trust in Jesus Christ.
Well, I pray that today that you would, that today that you would trust Jesus Christ, that
He would cleanse your heart and forgive your sins and that today would be the day that
the increase of Jesus Christ begins for you.
And for those who are in Christ, our prayer today should be that our relationship with
Jesus Christ would increase, that our desire to live for Him would increase, and our desire
to live for ourselves would decrease.
Let's pray.
God we come to you, we thank you for this simple truth today that John tells us.
God that we can't be concerned about ourselves and our desires, that it's not about what
we can do or how good we look or how much attention that we get, dear Lord.
I pray today that you would help us to know that truth, that God, our life is about you.
It's not about us and about our needs and what we want.
It's about you and what you desire and what you want, dear Lord.
And so I pray that you would help us to see if we've been living for ourselves.
Maybe there are some in here, God, for their whole life they've been living for their self.
They have been living for their self in every way and never once considered Jesus Christ.
Well, I pray God today that they would realize that they are a sinner, that every one of
us in this room is a sinner, that we say and we do things that we shouldn't do, we just
think things were just evil to our core, dear Lord, if we're honest.
But we thank you that you sent Jesus Christ all those years ago to be born on this earth
to be our Savior, dear Lord, to give us hope.
And so God, I pray that if there is some in this room that do not know Jesus Christ that
today that they would repent of their sins, that he would begin to increase in their heart,
that the love of Jesus Christ would increase, dear Lord, that the peace of Jesus Christ
would increase, God.
Maybe there are some in this room and they are yours, dear Lord, but maybe the life has
just gotten away.
Maybe they're seeing in our life that just does not need to be there, that we just need
to repent of, that we just need to say no to, that we need to say enough is enough and
maybe today is that day, dear Lord.
And I pray, dear Lord, that you would just help us to see that, that we would begin to
decrease, that we would not think too highly of ourselves, that we would not think too
highly of our desires, that we would not seek to live for ourselves, God, but that we would
seek to live for you.
So I pray, dear Lord, in this time that, God, if there's something on our heart that shouldn't
be there, that even now, God, that we pray to you.
I pray that we would decrease, dear Lord.
And I pray most of all that Jesus Christ would increase, that we would trust him more than
we ever have, God, that we would seek him more than we ever have today, that we would
know it's not about our will, but about your will, dear Lord.
And your will has been accomplished through Jesus Christ.
So I pray, God, that in Jesus Christ today our love would increase, our peace would increase,
our joy would increase.
We thank you, dear Lord, for these good words.
I pray that we would remember them, and I pray that we would live by them.
And I ask these things in Jesus' name.
Amen.