December 15th, 2024
From The Series: John-
So That You May Believe
Part 14 - I Must
Become Less
The Gospel of John John
3:22-36
Mountain View
Evangelical Missionary Church
This morning, we are resuming our
study of the Gospel of John. Chronologically, this account occurs between
Jesus' temptation in the wilderness and John the Baptist's imprisonment. The
other three gospel writers are silent about this period in their
accounts.
In the Bible studies that I lead,
I always encourage the attendees to read the parallel accounts of whatever
passage they are studying in the other gospels. There is a great deal of
overlap in the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke). By doing this, you
will discover additional details that that particular author felt important
enough to emphasize.
If you have a good study Bible,
you will often see the parallel accounts listed in parenthesis after the
subtitle of the passage you are about to read. Some Bibles will list a harmony
of the Gospels in them. Another option is to Google the phrase “Harmony of the Gospels”
and you should come across a free PDF document on the Blue Letter Bible
website. There are also a few copies on the back table under the map.
I encourage you to refer to this
document when you read through the Gospels as it can reveal some interesting
details. Critics of the Bible refer to these as contradictions within the
Bible, but this accusation just reveals their ignorance of the true nature of
the Bible. The Bible is not one book, but rather a collection of 66 books or
letters written by men as they were carried along by the inspiration of the
Holy Spirit. In other words, there are the names of the human authors given to
some books, but God was the primary author of the Bible. If God is the coauthor,
we do not have to worry about contradictions in the Bible, we must rather find
the explanations for the differences, which is most often our failure to
understand the context of what the authors were writing about, or to whom they
were writing.
You will often see listed in a
Harmony of the Gospels that numerous passages of John’s Gospel stand alone. This is most likely because
John’s Gospel was written last and he may have been filling in areas that the
others had missed. This morning’s passage is one of those stand-alone passages.
This particular passage marks a
unique transition in the Gospel of John, we will see a shift from the Old
Covenant to the emphasis on the New Covenant and John does this through the
comparison of the baptisms of John the Baptiser and the followers of Jesus.
This transition points us towards the big idea in this passage as best
described by John the Baptiser, “He must become greater, I must become less”.
The big idea here is “The
greatness of Christ must eclipse our ambitions. By doing this, Jesus is
inviting us to live lives that elevate His name and purpose over our own.”
Let’s read this morning’s passage
and we will examine what this concept means for us in our lives today. Please
open your Bibles or turn on your devices to John chapter 3.
READ JOHN 3:22-36
“22 After this, Jesus and his
disciples went out into the Judean countryside, where he spent some time with
them, and baptized. 23 Now John also was baptizing at Aenon
near Salim, because there was plenty of water, and people were coming and being
baptized. 24 (This was before John was put in prison.) 25 An
argument developed between some of John’s disciples and a certain Jew over the
matter of ceremonial washing. 26 They came to John and said to
him, “Rabbi, that man who was with you on the other side of the Jordan—the one
you testified about—look, he is baptizing, and everyone is going to him.”
27 To this John replied, “A
person can receive only what is given them from heaven. 28 You
yourselves can testify that I said, ‘I am not the Messiah but am sent ahead of
him.’ 29 The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend who
attends the bridegroom waits and listens for him, and is full of joy when he
hears the bridegroom’s voice. That joy is mine, and it is now complete. 30 He
must become greater; I must become less.”
31 The one who comes from
above is above all; the one who is from the earth belongs to the earth, and
speaks as one from the earth. The one who comes from heaven is above all. 32 He
testifies to what he has seen and heard, but no one accepts his testimony. 33 Whoever
has accepted it has certified that God is truthful. 34 For the
one whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for God gives the Spirit without
limit. 35 The Father loves the Son and has placed everything in
his hands. 36 Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but
whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on them.”
PRAY
This passage begins with the phrase, “After this” which is John’s way of
indicating that we are moving on from the encounter that Nicodemus had with
Jesus of Nazareth. This morning’s passage highlights one of the biggest
stumbling blocks for Nicodemus in his acceptance of the teachings of Jesus. The
attitude of John the Baptiser was a direct contrast to the attitude of Nicodemus.
When a few came running to John the Baptiser, he said to his followers, “He
must become greater; I must become less”. Nicodemus was a Pharisee, and despite
wishing to learn more about Jesus in a sincere way, despite coming at night to
learn from Jesus, Nicodemus was curious enough to at least come to Jesus. But
it appeared that Nicodemus hit a bump in the road to his learning when Jesus told
him that he knew lots but understood little.
I’m sure that came as quite a hit to the ego of Nicodemus. The New
Testament presents Pharisees as pride-filled and combative. They were the
“Karens” of the Near Middle East in the days of Jesus concerning themselves
with the “proper” interpretation and understanding the the Law as presented to
Moses by Yahweh. The problem was, that they
got it wrong.
One commentary writer put it this way, “For centuries the children of
Israel lived under the burdensome covenant God made with their fathers at Mount
Sinai. As well as being God’s absolute law of righteousness, reflecting His holy
nature, it also contained the unique marks of their national identity as God’s
chosen people”[1]
God even told them this very
thing in Deuteronomy 7:6, “6 For you are a people holy to the
Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the
face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession.” Here’s the
problem, their pride got in the way and instead of remaining humble and dependent
on the mercy of God, they determined that salvation could be earned from God
through the strict observance of the Law.
An observance that was so strict, that the
Pharisees added to the burden of the people of Israel by misapplying the Law
and misunderstanding the intent behind the original use of the Law. God
presented three main categories of laws each it its intended purposes.
First, there was the Moral law. These
were laws that reflected God's character and design for the world. Examples
include the Ten Commandments, which prohibit murder, adultery, theft, and other
sins. These were foundational laws needed for a just society. A society that
reflected the character of a just God. These guidelines have become corrupted
today in our society as evidenced by some of the soft-on-crime sentencing that
is happening in the court system. We see in the crime statistics that relatively
few repeat offenders are often responsible for the majority of crimes such as
theft in a given area.
Second, they were given the Ceremonial
law. These were a set of laws for the nation of Israel as a theocracy, a
country that looked to God as their leader rather than a human King. These laws
covered topics such as how to perform sacrifices, cleanliness, dietary laws,
and festivals. These were the set of laws that were intended the most to
separate the nation of Israel and her people from the surrounding pagan
cultures the most. These were the laws intended to sanctify God’s chosen
people. Do you remember what the definition of sanctified was that we used
while studying the Old Testament texts? Sanctified means an item, person, or
group of people set apart by God, for use by God. Jesus is the one who
sanctifies through His mercy. The ceremonial laws were intended to reinforce
the idea of God’s people being set apart from the surrounding cultures.
The same principle applies to
Christians today. We are called to emulate Jesus, not follow the ways of the
World and its culture. The sacrifice of Jesus on the cross freed us from the
dietary laws. We are free to eat whatever we desire, but we are not free to act
like the rest of the world. The same principle applies to the concept of
multi-culturalism. It is fine to understand and appreciate other cultures. We
can experience their foods but we are not to accept their understanding of God
or their cultural practices of worship. For some time now, in the name of multiculturalism,
we have accepted various concepts such as karma into our mindsets. Another
thing that has become widely accepted in the West without fully understanding
it is yoga.
Yoga is one of the six schools of
philosophy in Hinduism and is also a major part of Buddhism. Indian deities are
an intrinsic part of yoga and can be encountered in many ways, such as in the
name or symbol of a yoga studio, an image on the wall, or a mantra chanted in
class. Some yoga poses are based on the worship poses of Hindu gods:
Hanumanasana: Also known as
"the splits", this pose represents the monkey god Hanuman, who
represents devotion, selfless service, dedication, and power.
Natarajasana: This pose
represents the cosmic dancing form of Shiva, which represents the dance of the
universe and the rhythm and cycles of nature. These concepts are antithetical
to Christianity and they fly directly in the face of what the Bible reveals
about who God is and the nature of all of Creation.
The final component of Yahweh’s
revealed laws was the Civil law. The civil laws were intended to help deal with
disputes between citizens and enforce morals. Many civil laws for Israel dealt
with how to punish or make restitution for breaking God's moral laws.
The mistake that the people of
Isreal made in the observance of these laws was the assumption that they were a
means of salvation. This was never the intent of God. God’s purpose for these
laws was to confront sinners with a reflection of God’s absolute holiness,
demand that they keep the law perfectly, and leave them facing their inability
to keep it. This realization of their inability was intended to drive them to
God to seek His mercy.
Paul put it succinctly in
Galatians 3:24-25 when he wrote, “24 So the law was our
guardian until Christ came that we might be justified by faith. 25 Now
that this faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian.” Some translations use the word
tutor instead of guardian. The Law was our tutor until Christ came. Some people
make the mistake of thinking that now that we have accepted Jesus, we are no
longer under the tutoring or guardianship of the Law.
This is not wholly accurate. While it is true
that we now enjoy some freedoms under Christ, freedoms that release us from the
ceremonial food restrictions against pork or shellfish, and laws such as the
mixing of fibres in the making of fabric for clothing. These laws are no longer
binding on us, this is true. But that does not mean that we should completely forget
the leading of a good guardian or the teachings of a good tutor. In our freedom,
we should have the wisdom to know which laws apply to us and which have been
fulfilled in the work of Jesus Christ. For Christians, the law is our guardrail
to keep us out of the ditches that are on either side of this narrow road that
we are called to travel.
The old covenant was unable to justify anyone.
However, it pointed to the coming Saviour, through whom sinners could be
reconciled to God. This was not just a concept that was taught at the time of
Jesus or just after His death, burial, and resurrection. Approximately 600
years before the Saviour came, Gold told His people about the new covenant
through the prophet Jeremiah.
Keep your finger here in John, and turn with me
to the book of Jeremiah. Look at Jeremiah 31 starting at verse 31. You will
find Jeremiah 31:31 on page 644 of the Pew Bible.
“31 “The days are
coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the people of
Israel and with the people of Judah.
32 It will not be like the
covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to lead them
out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them,”
declares the Lord.
33 “This is the covenant I
will make with the people of Israel after that time,” declares the Lord. “I
will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their
God, and they will be my people.
34 No longer will they teach
their neighbour, or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’ because they will all
know me, from the least of them to the greatest,” declares the Lord.
“For I will forgive their wickedness
and will remember their sins no more.”
That was written more than 600
years before the time of Jesus so the concept of God no longer remembering
their sins would have been unthinkable to the Jewish people. Yet, as a species,
we have this unique talent to inflate our sense of value and our ability to
rescue ourselves.
Turn back with me to this
morning’s passage. Look at verse 27, John the Baptiser explains to one of his
followers, “27 To this John replied, “A
person can receive only what is given them from heaven.” This is one of the fundamental
truths that we continue to forget or willfully misunderstand, that faith and
salvation are the work of God alone. It is our human pride that insists that we
have a significant role to play in this salvific story.
It was God who created the earth and all that
it contains. It is God who permits the reproduction of all living things on the
earth. Scripture tells us that one man plants the seed and another water, but it is God who delivers the growth. This
is not just a metaphor for spiritual growth, it is also a recognition of what
God is doing in our lives.
It is God in the form of the entire Trinity who
formed the perfect plan to bring rebellious mankind back into a reconciled
relationship with their Creator. A plan that was so perfect that man plays no
significant role in our own salvation.
It was the unique divine person of Jesus Christ
who agreed to step into His own creation and to add humanity to His already
complete and perfect divine form and become the fully unique, fully human,
fully God being known as Jesus the Christ.
Once fully human and fully divine, Jesus agreed
to restrict, for a period of time, some of His divine attributes and to live a
perfect and sinless life, despite being faced with all the same temptations
that we fall to in our lives. Only Jesus could be the suitable sacrifice to pay
our sin debt to the Father in such a way as to allow the Father to no longer
see our sins, but only see the righteousness of the Son.
When we attempt to stand before a Holy and Just
God clothed in our righteousness, the Father sees our works as filthy rags, yet
when we follow the promptings of the Holy Spirit and accept the gift of Grace
that Jesus extends to us, we become clothed in the righteousness of Jesus
Christ. We can then stand in the presence of God today through our prayer life,
and one day in the future, when we go on to Glory and spend eternity with the
follower.
It is important that we follow the example of
John the Baptiser which he sets here for us in this passage. As a son of the
priest Zacharias, John would have been familiar with the role of the coming Messiah,
and John would have recognized his own role as simply the herald, the one going
before the king announcing His arrival.
This is our greatest task as well, to remain
humble in the receiving of this gift of Grace and to be willing to be used by
God to spread this message to others. We are to remain obedient to the
promptings of the Holy Spirit after we receive the indwelling of the Spirit
when we come to Jesus. We should be magnifying Jesus and emphasizing the
supremacy of Jesus as the Messiah and source of eternal life.
It is the work of Jesus that we should be
amplifying so as to further the Kingdom of God from a sense of appreciation for
what we have already been given, rather than seeking some sort of reward from
the Heavenly Father for our poor attempts to bring about our salvation.
This is the mystery of the Bible revealed: the
overarching message of the entire collection of the 66 books of the Bible is
the redemptive work of Jesus Christ bringing us back into the right
relationship with the Father. The New Covenant is Jesus Christ. It’s not
a contract it is the creator. It is not a method it is a man. It is not a
process it is a person. The New Covenant is the one-of-a-kind fully divine,
fully human Jesus Christ. He is not just a man, He is the means to get
back to the Father. It does not depend on what we can do, it depends on what He
has done. As Jesus proclaimed from the cross, “It is finished”.
Look with me at verses 31-36. “31 The one who comes from above is above
all;” who is John referring to here? Jesus the Messiah. “The one who is from the earth belongs to the earth, and
speaks as one from the earth.” This refers to those who do not
have the Holy Spirit and are still in rebellion against the Father and the Son.
“The one who comes from heaven is above all. 32 He
testifies to what he has seen and heard, but no one accepts his testimony.” No
one accepts His testimony without the assistance of the Son and the Holy
Spirit. We cannot grasp and understand all that Jesus has accomplished without
the assistance of God. “33 Whoever has
accepted it has certified that God is truthful. 34 For the one
whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for God gives the Spirit
without limit.” By accepting this gift of Grace we prove that the plan
is heavenly sent. I have said many times in the past, that this plan of
Salvation determined by the members of the Trinity, goes against our natural
inclinations that we must have some contribution to this rescue.
Immediately before I was saved, I was studying
Buddhism which was the latest in a string of attempts to look for God. I was
experiencing what Pascal wrote about. Blaise
Pascal was a mathematician and physicist in the 1700s. He is credited with the
quote "There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot
be filled by any created thing, but only by God the Creator, made known through
Jesus Christ". The created things that I was trying to fill this hole with
were man-made religions. The fact that Christianity taught that there was
nothing that I could do to earn favour with God was the very thing that
proved the truthfulness of Christianity for me. All other false religions, have
a basis of works to them to earn favour and salvation from God, or an
improvement in your lot in your next life.
“35 The Father loves
the Son and has placed everything in his hands.” Whose hands? Identify the pronoun here, in
whose hands has the Father placed everything? In Jesus’ hands. Everything, not
just some and some in man’s hands. All has been placed in the hands of
Jesus. What greater way could the Father show the love and appreciation for
what the Son has accomplished? “36 Whoever believes in the Son has eternal
life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on
them.” Woe to those who still face the wrath of the Father. We saw this
last week that salvation is not universal. Universal Salvation flies in
the face of the Holiness and Justness attributes of the character of God. It is
only through the Mercy of the Father that not all are condemned for eternity.
Notice the contrast that John the Baptiser is
emphasizing here. There is a distinction between Earthly things and Heavenly
things. A difference between false earthly teachings and truthful heavenly
teachings. A difference between earthly wisdom and the gift of heavenly wisdom.
A difference between earthly pride and heavenly humility.
Throughout history, mankind has attempted to
elevate themselves to an equal status with God. We have done this by inflating
our own abilities and knowledge or denigrating the uniqueness and specific
commands of God. We either elevate mankind or attempt to tear down Jesus to our
level.
What a disgrace and what a dishonouring of what
Jesus has accomplished for us.
Look at verse 30, “30 He
must become greater; I must become less.” John knew what the mission was. He could have
allowed himself an inflated sense of self-worth. Here He was a messenger, one
sent by God to proclaim the coming arrival of the Messiah, a heaven-sent King.
John was amassing followers and he was baptizing them, preparing a group for
the King who was to come.
John would have heard the
prophecy proclaimed by his father, speaking of the one from the Tribe of Judah,
the House of David, the fulfillment of many prophecies, and Yahweh chose John
the Baptiser to be the one to tell the Israelites of the Christ’s pending
arrival. Did he allow it to go to his head? Did John allow this honour to puff
himself up? No, we read a few weeks back what he asked by the Jewish leaders,
John denied being the Messiah or even a prophet, instead, he humbly proclaimed,
“27 He is the one who comes after me, the
straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie.”
What a wonderful example for all Christians to
emulate. If we wish to be used by God, if we wish to be sanctified, “Set apart
by God, for God” then we must first increase Jesus Christ and make Him evident
in our lives for others to see and then decrease ourselves so that we may used
as servants in the expansion of the Kingdom of God and His work.
The Navigators are well known for
their emphasis on having a servant attitude. A businessman once asked Lome
Sanny, president of the Navigators, how he could know when he had a servant
attitude. The reply: “By how you act when you are treated like one.”[2]
CONCLUSION
Corrie ten Boom was once asked if it was
difficult for her to remain humble. Her reply was simple. “When Jesus rode into
Jerusalem on Palm Sunday on the back of a donkey, and everyone was waving palm
branches and throwing garments on the road, and singing praises, do you think
that for one moment it ever entered the head of that donkey that any of that
was for him?”
She continued, “If I can be the donkey on which
Jesus Christ rides in His glory, I give him all the praise and all the honour.”[3]
I often say that if the Lord can use Balaam’s
donkey, then perhaps he can use me as well.
Doxology:
Let me close with this
doxology:
24 “The Lord
bless you and keep you;
25 may the Lord
make his face shine on you and be gracious to you;
26 may the
Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace."
Go in peace, you are
dismissed.
Pastor
Paul’s Points:
1) The Old Covenant pointed forward.
2) The New Covenant is Jesus.
3) We must become less in our own eyes.
Questions
to meditate on this week:
A. Do you have a servant’s heart?
B. Are you a Christian to “get” or to
“give”?
[1]
MacArthur, John The MacArthur New Testament Commentary: John 1-11, pg 122.
[2]
Michael P. Green, 1500 Illustrations
for Biblical Preaching (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2000),
200.
[3]
Michael P. Green, 1500 Illustrations
for Biblical Preaching (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2000),
199.
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