It's good to be here with all of you. I love Fairhaven Baptist Church, I think as much as I love my own church. My formative years came right here. I'm grateful to be a graduate of this college. The impact that this church had on my life, my family, my wife and I. It was our privilege after we graduated to stay here for a couple of years. I felt that I needed A couple of extra years to prepare before I went in the ministry and just to be here in the church among the people and get to know the church like I did not when I was in college was such a blessing to me. And I looked around this room and see so many people who made such an important impression on me and my life and who are still here, still serving the Lord, still faithful. And I thank you. I thank all of you. Every time I come here, I want to make sure I say that to you. You've been faithful, and that's made a big difference in my life. I'd like to joke around with you a little bit, but I don't have time to do that. Pastor Dameron believes that there are 14 graduates who can preach for 30 minutes. I'm not sure that there's one, but... Anyway, I have introductions that are longer than that. John chapter 3 and verse 30 is my text, but I want to read beginning in verse 22. After these things came Jesus and his disciples into the land of Judea, and there he tarried with them and baptized. And John also was baptizing in Anah near to Salem, because there was much water there. And they came and were baptized. For John was not yet cast into prison. Then there arose a question between some of John's disciples and the Jews about purifying. And they came unto John and said unto him, Rabbi, he that was with thee beyond Jordan, to whom thou bearest witness, behold, the same baptizeth, and all men come to him. John answered and said, A man can receive nothing except it be given him from heaven. Ye yourselves bear me witness that I said, I am not the Christ, but that I am sent before him. He that hath the bride is the bridegroom, but the friend of the bridegroom which standeth and heareth him rejoiceth greatly because of the bridegroom's voice. This my joy therefore is fulfilled. He must increase, but I must decrease." That's my message for this morning. Let's pray. Lord God, I pray that you would help us. You are God. You're exalted. You died on the cross for us. And we all struggle just to carry the cross you've given us. But You died in our place and for our sin. And You are Lord and exalted. And yet, Lord, so often we take our eyes off of that. We're concerned with our own prominence instead of Your preeminence. And I pray that You would change that about us. I pray that You would help me that I could preach this message and preach it sincerely without presumption, without pretension, and without hypocrisy. And I ask this in Jesus' name, Amen. John the Baptist was not a shrinking violet. When it came to taking a stand, John knew what it was to take one. When the Pharisees came around, they saw the popularity of his ministry. They wanted a piece of the action. John did not patronize them at all. He responded instead with a scathing rebuke and a call to repentance. When Herod Antipas stole his brother's wife, John did not hold back even though it eventually cost him his life. But of all the stands that John the Baptist ever took, none was stronger than the stand that he took right here in this passage. Because in this case, John the Baptist stood against himself, against his own legacy, against his own ambitions. even against his own status among his disciples. John's disciples, you see, became a little bit peeved, a little bit angry at the growing success and influence of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. It was not all that unusual at that time. for the disciples of one great teacher rabbi to become a little jealous and envious of Another great teacher and to cast stones at the rival of their teacher It happened then it happened in the early New Testament Church we know for certain that it happened in Corinth where there were factions of those who followed Paul and Apollos and and Cephas and of course Christ, you know, you always win if you're on Christ's side, right? It happened even then. It happens really universally. It happens everywhere, I think, except in independent Baptist circles where we never do that kind of thing ourselves. Still, I think it's a little bit scandalous for us to hear That this sort of thing went on even with John the Baptist's disciples and that the rivalry they had was with Jesus himself. What were they thinking? They had a problem with Jesus. But when it happened, John didn't flinch. He didn't hesitate. He didn't give lip service to Jesus while maintaining his own influence with his disciples. He didn't give any kind of pompous or condescending answer. He just made it clear. that if all men were to turn to Jesus, that's what I'm here for. That's what I'm all about. Because Jesus is better than me. And His ministry is better than mine. In fact, John reminded them that from the beginning, he had been telling them that His ministry was simply to point His own disciples and the whole world to this Jesus of Nazareth. Look at verse 28. Because John is very emphatic here. Ye yourselves bear me witness that I said, I am not the Christ, but that I am sent before Him. So I'm not bothered that men are following Him, because that's what I wanted. This my joy therefore is fulfilled. Now leaders appreciate the loyalty that people give them. Pastors appreciate it. I think it's a good thing. But if we're not careful, if we're not careful, we'll begin to try to maintain that loyalty at all costs. And at times then, we become envious of the affection, the admiration that people give to other pastors. It should not surprise us that preachers will sometimes belittle other pastors in order to maintain their own status and their own position with their own people. And John the Baptist would have no part with that. When his disciples began to resent the rising popularity of Jesus of Nazareth, John the Baptist gave his decided opinion. Jesus is better than me. I am not worthy to unlatch His shoe. John illustrated what he meant. And the illustration that he used was the illustration of a wedding ceremony. And John said, I'm the friend of the bridegroom. I'm not the bridegroom. Jesus is the bridegroom. Nobody goes to a wedding to see the best man. The best man shouldn't try to steal the show or be the center of attention. The best man is there to rejoice with everyone else in the bridegroom's happiness. And in the verses that follow, John shows why Jesus is the better man. Because he's from above. It might seem obvious to us today, of course He would say that. Who wouldn't say that? We would all say that, right? I mean, He's Jesus. He's God. He died for us. He is the Word made flesh. He's the second person of the Trinity. He is very God of very God. We can go on and on, right? We might be tempted to think that the stand John took against his own disciples was an easy stand, a no-brainer. But we would be forgetting that in His day, the question of Jesus' true identity was far from settled. The people certainly did not believe it. John's disciples didn't believe it. Jesus' own disciples wavered on the question of who Jesus was. John the Baptist himself, later on, would send his disciples to verify that Jesus was, in fact, the Christ. But really, we shouldn't be thinking that this would be an easy thing, even in our day. We who know who Jesus Christ is, still struggle to defer to Christ. Now, of course, we give Him the lip service that we're expected to give Him. But even in our own churches, there's a kind of tension, an ongoing rivalry between us and Christ at times. It's all about Him, but it's all about us. We promote Him, but really we're promoting ourselves. He's the head, but we make all the decisions. We consider ourselves professionals, not servants. CEOs, not pastors. We place a higher priority on impressing our guests than with pleasing the Lord. We think more about what the visitors think of us than we do about what Jesus thinks of us. And we praise and honor and welcome them more than we praise and honor and welcome our Lord. And so on this occasion, John the Baptist took his hardest stand. The stand that I think would have been the hardest for anyone. He stood against himself. And in doing so, he nails down the point of Christian ministry. This is what we're here for. This is what it's about. It's not so that I can be great. It's not so that I can make a name for myself. It's not for the sake of the impression that I make on other people. The point of Christian ministry is just this, that Jesus Christ would be seen to be greater, that He would be magnified, that He would be exalted, and that I would fade into the background. He must increase, but I must decrease. In the time that I have left, I hope to show you what this means and how it happens. Let's start with what it means. Jesus must increase. Now, there's a sense we know in which Jesus cannot increase. He is great. He cannot be greater. He is glorious. Nothing can be added to the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. Nothing at all. But Jesus cannot be made to be greater. We cannot increase Him. We cannot add to His greatness, His glory. But, Jesus must be seen to be greater. We have to show it. His glory has to be declared, shown, believed on in the world. We have to see Him as everything and learn to look at Him until He is. So John didn't say that Jesus needed to be increased. He said He must increase. And He must. And He will. And God promises it. Isaiah chapter 9 verse 7, Of the increase of His government and peace there shall be no end. And the zeal of the Lord of hosts shall perform this. God promises that this will happen. He must increase. And that means that Jesus Christ must be important. He must have first place. As Paul said it, that in all things He might have preeminence. That's the battle. That's the battle. And it's a battle we fight not with the world. It's a battle we fight with ourselves. And it's a difficult battle. I believe the hardest battle we ever fight Because the flesh does not go down easily. The flesh wants to be important, wants to feel important. Wherever we seek to do something for God, the self rises up and seeks credit. Now, of course, we don't want all the glory. We just want our part of it. We want our share of it. Nobody needs to put a plaque on the wall of us. We just need to know that the right people are impressed with us. And that's the battleground. Do you really mean it that He must increase, but I must decrease? Then that part of yourself, that part of yourself that is a hound for glory, that part of yourself that seeks recognition, that wants to make an impression, the part of yourself that looks to boost your status in the church and among God's people, that part of yourself must be crucified. Nothing else will do. Because Jesus must have first place in all things. He must have preeminence. I want to give two illustrations here this morning that I think will expose our thinking when it comes to this particular area of ministry. Because we like to think that Jesus has first place, but in reality, He often does not have it. First of all, it seems to me that if we ever succeed in our work for the Lord, immediately we begin to look in ourselves for the reason why I succeeded this way. It's because I'm such a prayer warrior. It's because I go soul winning so much. It's because I've done such a great job with my family. We like to take the credit for it. You know, as it turns out, Christianity is a merit-based system after all. You know, we need grace up to salvation, but then after that, it hinges on my own worthiness and efforts. And to illustrate, Once upon a time, I preached a message from the story of Gideon. I called it, The Man God Uses. In that message, I drew points of application from the 300 men God chose to deliver Israel from the Midianites. I pointed out that, you know, God chose those who are courageous and bold because the others all went away, right? But then my best point of the message was on the 300 that, you know, scooped the water out and lapped like a dog. Because they were vigilant, I said, and that's why God chose them. It was, of course, a wonderful sermon. Revival broke out, you know, thousands were saved. But then later on, I stopped and I thought about it. I mean, you know, we preachers, we like to find something that'll preach and people will be wowed by. But then I started thinking, what exactly is the virtue of lapping like a dog? And how does that make me vigilant? How does it mean that? Well, when I was a boy in Sunday school class, I always pictured those guys, you know, kneeling down and keeping their eyes out and looking around and not really even looking at the water, just scooping it out. And so I tried that one time myself. You know, I knelt down at the water and I tried to drink that way. And I just got it all over myself and licked my wet hand. When you look at the story of Gideon, the point is not that God chose the 300 best men. That's not the point. God was making a point to Israel, and His point was, I don't need you. That was His point. I don't need you. And I'm going to show you that right here. But we miss that. Because we're always thinking, I'm the one God can use. Because I'm vigilant and courageous. Well, not really. Not really. Let me give a second illustration. Another way that we show that the preeminence, the first place, really belongs to me. I want it. And I must have it. is in the way, sometimes, we, whether pastors, Christian workers, work with someone, some young Christian, baby Christian, new convert, and work with them in such a way as to make them dependent on us. So that their entire Christian life will be dependent on me. Pastors are guilty of it. Soul winners are guilty of it. Trying to make a soul dependent on me for their walk with God. You can't walk with God without me. When you do that, you become a thief. You rob that person of their own personal walk with God. And this is exactly the kind of thing that John the Baptist was confronting with his own disciples. Because the point is not for you to be loyal to me and to be faithful to me and to follow me. The point is that I'm only here to aim you towards the Lord Jesus Christ. And when I've done that, then I've succeeded. Jesus must increase. And I must decrease. And I want you to consider how this happens. And first of all, let me say to you that Jesus does not increase by your decreasing. That's not what the Bible says. But that is an idea that we have today, is that I have to decrease so that Christ can increase. Let me just say this, that Christ does not increase by your decreasing. Let's don't flatter ourselves that our greatness could ever eclipse His. I say this because there is this notion, popular in some revivalist circles, that the way to revival is through brokenness. As if God can work only if I can reach the right intensity of guilt and shame and sorrow and pity for myself. You know, God is not moved by your tears that way. Revival is not achieved by getting your teardrops to measure a certain diameter. Christ does not increase because I decrease. Superficial efforts do not cause Jesus to increase. Jesus Christ does not increase by means of my suffering. We might think that personal suffering and affliction will bring the right diminishing of self. Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way. Far more often, suffering leads to a rising of self in anger, frustration, bitterness, sometimes entitlement, even pride in achievement because I've suffered what others have not. Jesus Christ does not increase by means of myself. Jesus Christ increases. Jesus is seen to be better when the Bible is preached. See, that was the entire ministry of John the Baptist. He preached the Bible and showed men how it pointed to Jesus of Nazareth. And you and I are commanded to do the same thing. The reason that Jesus Christ does not increase in our churches today is because we don't see Him as He is. We don't put His glory on full display. And the reason we don't see Him the way He is, and the reason we don't put His glory on display, is because we never look at it in the Word of God. We find a verse, a phrase in Scripture that'll preach, and we preach that. If we put His glory on display, then He will increase. And He must increase. And as I said, the only way to do this is by preaching the Bible. I met a young man a few years ago. He was helping us out with some things. And after we had been working on some things for a while, He told me, he said, you know, I grew up in a church like this, an independent Baptist church. He told me what one it was. I knew the church. I think a number of you would know the church. He said, when I was a boy, he said, one week, I got in the car and I said, Dad, three weeks in a row, three weeks in a row, I didn't need to open my Bible once. What does that mean, Dad? He said, and then he made this comment to me. He said, we knew every opinion our pastor had, but we did not know the Bible. Unfortunately, that same commentary could be made on many independent Baptist churches today. The reason so many of our own children reject Jesus Christ when they're older is because they don't know Jesus Christ. They don't know Him. Nobody ever told them about Him. They've been shown Christ, but it's a false Christ. It's a watered-down Christ. They've sometimes even been taught vicious lies about Jesus Christ. How so? Because we preach our opinions. We don't preach the Bible. We preach our notions about the Bible. But we don't preach the Bible. We preach sermons. But we don't preach the Bible. We tell stories. But we don't preach the Bible. We find a verse that'll preach. And we write a great sermon. But we don't preach what the Bible says. You know, you wouldn't drive east to find the Pacific Ocean. Anybody knows that, but so many people are looking for Christ in all the wrong places. They're driving east and thinking they'll run into the Pacific Ocean that way. If you want to find Jesus Christ, you have to look where He is. And Jesus Christ is in the Word of God. That's where you see Him. I know, you know, we all love the touchy-feely, I saw Jesus in you. But I don't see Jesus in you. I see Jesus in the Bible. I see Jesus in the whole of Scripture, not just in scattered verses and proof texts here and there, but I see Him in the whole of Scripture. And that's what we have to do. That's what we have to preach. We have to preach all of God's Word. Too many texts have suffered and bled and died under the hands of preachers who for an hour torture a text in front of the congregation Be faithful to the Word of God so that Jesus Christ can be seen to be better. I must be crucified with Christ. And that's not the same thing as importing brokenness into my soul or ripping open my chest to show my pitiful, bleeding heart. I'll now preach a whole sermon on what it means to be crucified with Jesus Christ. Paul said it this way. He said, But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world. The world crucified to me and I to the world. Now, we always think that means that I'm not going to wear baggy pants, you know? I'm not going to wear any kind of worldly styles. You know what it means? It means I'm not going to seek the praise and applause of men. I'm going to preach God's Word. And what drives our life and our ambition must shift from pleasing men to pleasing God. A man who lives to please men, whether those men are preachers, faithful Christians, or something else, that's a man who lives for himself, not for God. And there must be a shift in our life focus. This shift in our life focus can only come when the Word of God is preached with power. And when that happens, at some point along the way, we will be overwhelmed with the idea that only God matters. Only God matters. And this truth begins to work its way into our thoughts and feelings, into our values and judgments, into our priorities and ambitions. And soon, We only want one thing. One thing. And that is to please God. Then and only then can we honestly join John in saying, He must increase, but I must decrease. We must be crucified. When Jesus Christ heard that John was beheaded, He paused. And he considered the worth of John the Baptist. It's familiar to us, I know. He said, Verily, I say unto you, among them that are born of women, there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist. Notwithstanding, he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. Even so, I would like to end this morning with a word of encouragement for all those who labor in obscurity. Do you know what was great about John the Baptist? He was satisfied to serve God the way God had ordained him to serve. He was not grasping. He was ambitious, but he was ambitious for one thing only. And that is for the glory of God. You know, the God who raised up Elijah also raised up 7,000 who did not bow the knee to Baal. There was one Elijah there is in most generations. There were 7,000 of the other. Be content to be one of those. If that's what God has for you, I can't help but think of the Jerry Stonehouses of the world. I doubt that very many people in this room would know Jerry Stonehouse. He moved to Logan, Utah in the early 1980s. There he planted Grace Baptist Church. And for 30 years, he labored in that church in obscurity. He's never been in demand as a preacher. I doubt that he's ever preached an important conference. He's retired now, and I doubt he will be. You know, he just preached Jesus Christ, knocked on doors, battled Mormonism for 30 years. If anyone qualifies as the least in the kingdom of heaven, it's Jerry Stonehouse. He would be mad at me if he heard I said that. He's not here. When we get to heaven, I really believe that God will have a different way of measuring greatness than the who's who of fundamentalism. I think if there's a hall of fame in heaven, there will be found there many Christian laymen who have not thought their life too great to sacrifice for Jesus Christ and labor on in obscurity. I think that it'll be filled with ushers, janitors, and nursery workers, and secretaries, and maintenance men, and bus mechanics who honored God and served Him. You know, in this life, if I can be personal for a moment, in this life, I highly doubt that anyone will write the biography of Todd Wright or John Hull or Tom Kelso, or Tom Haiti. We can all praise the Lord that there are Christians who are content to decrease and to work their whole life so that Jesus Christ will increase. Aim for Christ's preeminence instead of your own prominence. And then you also can join John and say, this my joy therefore is fulfilled. Lord, I pray that you would help us that we would follow the example we've seen here in this passage. And I ask this in Jesus name. Amen.