Thank you, David. Thank you, Praise Band. If you'll open your Bibles with me to John chapter three, verses 22 through 31 will be the focus of our study this evening. We're really going to be exalting the supreme plan of God, what he has for each of us. And we're going to take a look at that through John the Baptist and his ministry. John's really fascinating in that as his ministry is winding down, his recorded ministry in the Bible, His response is very humble. He says he, Jesus, must increase and I must decrease. So we'll see tonight, through the example of John the Baptist, God's supreme plan for us. We'll start off in verses 22 through 24 tonight to get a look at the setting, if you will, of this account. There's a time period that's recorded here by John in which Jesus's and John's ministry overlap. John records 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 Anon near Salem because water was plentiful there. and people were coming and being baptized, for John had yet been placed in prison. So there is overlap here between the ministries of Jesus and John, and this is the setting that's in place when a Jew and some of John's disciples come into a little bit of a discussion, a little bit of a debate about ritual cleansings, purifications, and as debates, arguments tend to, they quickly escalate and get out of hand, and it's pretty clear that somehow they got onto the topic of comparing John's baptism to Jesus' baptism, and if you will, which one was superior. Picking up at verse 25, 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. So in the mix of this discussion between John's disciples and this Jew, they've learned most likely from this Jew or Jews that Jesus and his disciples are baptizing. They're baptizing, and not only that, John, they're taking your ministry, your ministry of baptism. They over-exaggerate here, saying all are going to him, even though scripture clearly states that Jesus and his disciples were baptizing, and at the same time, John's disciples were baptizing as well. And we'll see a beautiful, wonderful response here by John the Baptist saying that John answered, a person cannot receive even one thing unless it is given him from heaven. And further, John says, you yourselves bear witness that I said I am not the Christ, but I have been sent before him. He who has the bride is the bridegroom, but the friend of the bridegroom who stands and hears him rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom's voice. So this joy of mine has been made full. He must increase, but I must decrease. John recognized that his ministry and all that he had came directly from heaven or directly from God. He had been in the wilderness for most of his life before his public ministry, relying on God for his daily needs. And so his ministry was just an extension of that. He recognized that God was sovereign. God had a plan. And in that plan, all John could do was receive that which God had given him to do. To help us get into John's mind on this, John the Baptist, we have to understand five points about God's supreme plan, his sovereignty in the world. First, his power. He is powerful enough to do all that he wishes to accomplish. Jeremiah 32, 17 says, Oh, Lord God, it is you who has made the heavens and the earth. By your great power and by your outstretched arm, nothing is too hard for you. There is nothing that God cannot accomplish due to some limitation of his power. He is supremely powerful and supremely capable of accomplishing all that he sets out to accomplish. Not only that, the second thing is that God is perfectly good. He is good in that all he does utilizing this power. Deuteronomy records chapter 32, verse 4, the rock, his work is perfect for all his ways are just. A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and upright is he. First John 1 5, God is light and in him is no darkness. So not only does God have the power to do all that he wills to do, all that he plans to do, but he has the goodness, the perfect goodness, so that the use of that power is always just. It is always good. We can see that in the preservation of his creation. Not only did God create, but he preserves, he has sustained his creation day to day to continue his good work. Nehemiah records nine six, you are the Lord, you alone, you have made heaven the heavens of heavens with all their host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them. And you preserve all of them and the host of heaven worships you. So he preserves his creation, he preserves his creation in it, worshiping him. Psalm 104 verse 29 emphasizes this for us. It says, when you hide your face, they are dismayed. His works, his creation is dismayed if God holds back his presence for them. Because it says, when you take away their breath, they die and return to their dust. So if God were to ever not continue his sustaining work, were he to not preserve all that he has created, all things would cease to exist. All living things would die and cease to exist. Fourthly, there is a plan. God has a purpose for his creation, for all that he has planned to do. This goes down into the smallest, the tiniest, minute detail of our lives. Proverbs 16, 33 says, the lot is cast into the lap, that is a dice roll, that is common chance. But it's every decision is from the Lord. So even things that we think about as just mere random chance, happenstance, these are all decided by the Lord and are part of his overall plan for his creation. This continues into our day-to-day lives, his personal plan for us, each of us. Psalm 139 verse 16 says, your eyes saw my unformed substance, in your book were written every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them. So this psalm states that before we were created, before we took our first breath of existence outside of our mother's womb, God had planned for us. God knew all of our actions, all of our steps before we walked in them. This extends into the greater world around us, into nations and into organizations and groups. Daniel chapter four, verse 34 through 35 records, For his, that's God's dominion, is an everlasting dominion. And his kingdom endures from generation to generation. All the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing. And he does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth. And none can stay his hand or say to him, what have you done? His power is so complete. His plan for his creation is so complete. No one can accuse him of having done something and not having a purpose for it. No one can question him and say, what have you done? The fifth and final and most important thing that we have to understand to really get into the mind of John the Baptist here in his humility, in his statement, about God's sovereignty, about God's plan, is that it is for His glory, His glory alone. All that God has created, its primary purpose, its highest purpose is to glorify Him. It is right and just that a good and perfect God, that His creation, that it worship Him, that it praise His name, that it lift up His name in glory. Revelation chapter 4 verse 11 says, Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created. So this is the mindset of John as he's stating this, his response to these disciples that want to argue, make an issue, want to boast and be jealous about the ministry of Jesus. He understands the plan of God is perfect and that God is perfect in his execution of it. The testimony of John has always been clear. He's already told his disciples, he tells them in chapter 3 verse 28, you yourselves bear witness, me witness, that I said I am not the Christ, that I have been sent before him. John reminds his disciples, you already know what you need to know in order to work out this dispute for yourselves. You're worried that Jesus is ministry is growing beyond mine. You're worried that mine is is being reduced. Have you not heard me say that? I am not the Christ. I am not the coming king. I am his herald. I am the man that is to come before him. And I am to point to Israel that this is your king. This is your God that you are come to to come towards. Have you forgotten this? John the Baptist also in the Gospel of John says, this was he of whom I said, he who comes after me ranks before me because he was, he existed before me. Verse 27 of chapter one, even he who comes after me, the strap of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie. John goes on to say, to give them an illustration, to help them understand this, he says, he who has the bride is the bridegroom, but the friend of the bridegroom who stands and hears him rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom's voice. So this joy of mine has been made full. Now, in a Jewish wedding ceremony, the bride came to the bridesgroom. It wasn't like today in terms of our focus is very much on oftentimes on the bride. What is the bride going to wear? What's her wedding dress? What are the bridesmaids going to wear? The focus was actually flipped in Jewish times. The bridesgroom really took the focus, took the emphasis. He went to his bride and or his father went to the bride and arranged and made it clear that a wedding was upcoming and the bride was to keep herself ready for news of the bridesgroom being ready and the wedding being ready to come to the bridesgroom, to the bridesgroom's house, to his father's house and to come meet him there. And so this picture is very clear to John's disciples. John is just the friend of the bridegroom. He can't take the bride of God. He can't take Israel to himself away from Christ any more than a man who is a friend of the bridegroom would have a right to take a bride from a bridegroom in a Jewish wedding. That would be nonsensical. That would be an embarrassment to everyone's families. That would be deeply wrong and against the order and structure that's been set forth for weddings. So John's saying here, it's no different for me. I'm the bridegroom. I hear, or excuse me, John the Baptist says, I am the friend of the bridegroom. And I hear his voice and I hear that the bride is coming to the bridegroom and so I rejoice. My cup runneth over with joy. It is fulfilled in the bridegroom and the fact that the bride is coming to the bridegroom. The bride is coming to Jesus Christ. And so John has deep humility. Here has a deep understanding of his purpose. Extreme service, humility is his only right. It's his only privilege in this situation. He says, he must increase, Jesus must increase, but I must decrease. This is not just a natural happenstance to John. There's emphasis here. He must increase. That is the plan and the purpose of God in heaven for the Christ, for Jesus, is for him to increase, for his ministry to reach its full fulfillment. As a herald comes before a king, It is my duty. I must, in the purposes of God and his economy and God's economy, I must decrease. I must go into obscurity so that the king, the coming Christ, may have his full fulfillment. John chapter three, verse 31 here, is likely not a continuation of the words of John the Baptist, but an interjection of John the Apostle writing this gospel account in order to clarify for us what the purpose is of this testimony, of the testimony of John the Baptist here in between an account of Jesus and Nicodemus. And really, the emphasis is to put forth the superiority of Jesus. That John the Baptist himself testifies to God's plan, testifies to God's coming kingdom and says that Jesus is superior. He is the Christ. He is the Messiah. You should look towards him. Not only is he superior, Because he comes from heaven and he is above all, he is superior to John the Baptist in his humility. He is superior to John the Baptist in his humility, his submitting himself to God's plan. Mark records for us as Jesus is preparing his final steps towards the cross, towards finishing out his work, his ministry of the coming Christ, the coming Messiah. Jesus said, Abba, Father. All things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet, not what I will, but what you will. So in a way that only John the Baptist could imagine, he was fulfilling, he was being humble in submitting all that he did to the glory of God, to God's purposes, God's plan. Jesus is superior in that as well, as he stepped forth to die on a cross for our sins. That was God's plan for John the Baptist. What can we take of this that is God's plan for us, God's plan for our lives? How can we live out this truth in our own lives so that we may honor God, we may glorify him in a pattern after John the Baptist and after Jesus Christ? The first one is ministerially. It is in a broader picture of our ministry or particularly those that are called to ministry. That's important in this account because we see this dispute among disciples of John and some Jews and how it's very easy for us in ministry. We can fall into a pattern of upholding one man's teaching above another person's teaching, or thinking more of ourselves because we have a greater ministry in length or breadth or depth than another man. Or we can bring ourselves down because we see another man's work in ministry, we see another man's work in life, and we feel like we're not living up to what we should. John presents for us a great and humble example that that's not the way that we are to be. We are to be humble because God is ultimately the one that has given us our ministry. God is the one that gives the increase in his kingdom. Paul says, What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered. but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. For we are God's fellow workers. You are God's field, God's building, God's growth. God's fellow workers, God's field, God's building can't be clearer than when we're doing God's work, whether it's here in this church or it's out in the world, that it's God's kingdom that we're working in. We can only do the things that he has given us to do. We can only accomplish those things. And when we get down in our ministries and we don't praise him for what he's given us, or we boast of ourselves that somehow our ministry is greater than another, we dishonor his kingdom. We dishonor his great work that he is completing in creation. We can take this upon us personally, each of us in our lives. Paul goes on to say to the church at Corinth, I have applied all these things to myself and Apollos for your benefit, brothers, that you may learn by us not to go beyond what is written, that none of you may be puffed up in favor one against another. For who sees anything different in you? What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it? And the counter thought there is. Why do you grumble? Why do you dismay? As God's people did in the wilderness under Moses. If God's given you everything you need, if everything you receive is from God, where is the praise? Where is the glory for God instead of a focus on yourself? James helps explain this for us further in chapter four, beginning with verses one through three. He says, what causes quarrels and what causes fights amongst you? Is it not this that your passions are at war within you? Your passions, not your desire for a godly need, something you need in your life, but your passions, your wants, they fight amongst you. And not only do they cause, as we're going to see in the subsequent verses, fights amongst you as brethren within the church, they cause a fight within yourself, your passion struggle once one upon another. You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive because you ask wrongly to spend it on your own passions. When we're tied up in these kind of inner passions, these desires, when We boast because we received something great from God in our own eyes, in our own mind. Or when we get low because we're in a situation in life that we don't want to be in. There's something we want that we can't have. This is where we're at. Our passions struggle amongst us and we do not receive because we do not pray in God's name. We do not pray seeking his glory. And we often we pray for things that would be negative for us unknowingly. And what kind of good and just father would God be in heaven If he asked you for a snake or you asked him for a snake and every time you asked for a snake, he just gave you a snake unwittingly. It's merciful and it's good of God that he provides for us. He has a provision for us, a plan for us in our lives. And it's up to us to live in that, to honor that and praise him through any circumstances we're going through. James further highlights the arrogance of man in verses 13 through 15, saying, Come now, you who say today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit. Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, if the Lord wills, we will live and do this or do that. We have to plan our purposes with a desire for God's glory and doing the best we can given our own understanding of God and our own understanding of our circumstances, but we shouldn't ever get so prideful as to start making calls as to outcomes. We have to remember that our heart sets our course. Our desire set our course, and that's the direction in general our life is going to go. But God determines our steps. He determines how our life is going to turn out. And oftentimes, when we are most against God, when we are most defying his plan for us, and we're rebelling, we're doing that which we know we should not do, is the time that at most things don't work out for us and we keep turning in circles and things don't turn out for us. We should seek God and seek his glory and his will in things at the utmost. Finally, tonight we see that He has a plan and purpose for salvation. He had a plan and purpose for the coming of Israel to Jesus Christ, for his church, and that, now that we're on the individual level, we need to recognize that includes, in the greatest possible work of God's plan for us personally is our salvation. That's our greatest gift that we receive, of which we cannot boast of. We cannot boast and say that our works or some act that we did had anything to do with it. For Jesus says, this is why I told you that no one can come to me and let us. It is granted by the father. And Paul clarifies in Ephesians chapter two, verses eight through nine, saying, For by grace you have been saved through faith and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. So before us tonight, we have to ask ourselves, do we take full joy in the plans of God for our lives? Is that the pattern of our day-to-day life? Can we say with John the Baptist that we recognize that we must decrease and he must increase? Because Paul states in Galatians chapter two, verse 20, I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me and the life I live now in the flesh. I live by faith in the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. Do we recognize that? that he must increase in our lives. He must take greater and greater priority in our lives, not just outside of us, but within us. The old self is crucified, is dead, buried to sin. We are raised to new life. We are a new creation in Christ. Is that what's going on deep inside each of us? We have to ask ourselves that tonight. Externally, do we see God's supreme plan? Do we? Are we a witness for that to others by honoring God and submitting to him daily? Proverbs chapter three, verses five through six commands us trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding in all your ways. Acknowledge him and he will make your path straight. Is this the daily way that we're living out our lives? Do we choose option A over option B because it gives God the most glory, because it's what keeps us on a path of following his commands? Or do we often choose B Because it's for us, because it's what we want, it's because it's what we desire. Are we living this out in our day-to-day lives? Lastly, are you saved through faith tonight? Are you saved through the only source that's been provided in God's supreme plan, in God's kingdom for your salvation? Are you under condemnation tonight? You shouldn't be if you're a believer in Christ, for there is no condemnation for those that are in Christ. But if you are here tonight or you are hearing this message and you are, I would implore you to turn to God, turn to his plan, turn to his ways as supreme and superior and greater than anything you could conceive of in your own mind and in your own heart. Psalm 18, verse 30 says, This God, his way is perfect. The word of the Lord proves true. He is a shield for all those who take refuge in him tonight. Seek his kingdom. Seek his plan for your life. Seek his refuge in a time that you need him to shield you. You need him to give you encouragement. He is all powerful. He is good. He is just. He is preserving us at this very moment. And he is lifting us up. He is building us towards a climax of history. to give him glory and to bring glory to his son, Jesus Christ. Lord, we thank you this evening for your plans, for your infinite intellect, your knowledge that has planned out our ways before us. We thank you so much for that, Lord. We thank you that we can trust in your goodness, that we can trust in your perfect plan. We thank you that in your love for us, you have chosen to share with us, share with your humble creation, even a small amount of what your plans and purposes are, Lord. We were never worthy to receive it. We were never worthy to call you friend and to know your plans and purposes. And what a privilege it is for Jesus to call us friend, to call us one who knows what he is doing, knows what the master is about and what the master is accomplishing. We thank you for that, Lord, tonight, and we pray for your glory. We pray that all that you are, all of your goodness, would be lifted up by the message tonight, by our praise tonight, by our interactions with each other tonight, Lord. Help us to live out This message in our lives as we go forth into the world this week, help us as we minister to other lords, help us to be humble. Help us to recognize that all that we receive is from you. Help us to do your will each day in a spirit that is honoring of you and is pleasing to you so that we When it comes the end of our race, when it comes the end of our time on earth, Lord, we don't have to stand in judgment, ashamed of what we have accomplished for you, Lord. But we stand only on what you'd planned for us. We stand only on your son, Jesus Christ, and his salvation and his work for us. Thank you, Lord. Praise you and we lift up songs in your name. David will lead us in a song of invitation this evening. If there is anything that is on your heart or mind, the altar is open for you to bring it before God. There's myself, Pastor Allen, Pastor Doug, Jim, many others. If there's someone that you need to speak to.