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Hello, everyone. We finished
up our interview with Nicodemus. That was full of interesting
topics. But now it would be real tempting to just move on to Chapter
4 and get to the woman at the well and some more fascinating
topics. But you know, there's this big
chunk in between. John 3, 22 through 36. And out of it are some really
nice quotes. There's some great things, like
a man, verse 27, a man can receive nothing except it be given him
from heaven. Boy, that's full of thought.
And how about verse 30? He must increase, but I must
decrease. And then there's the great gospel.
Theme here verse 36 he that believes on the sun has everlasting life
And he that believes not the sun shall not see life, but the
wrath of god abides on him powerful and important But this isn't
just a sound board to push a few verses And make nice quotes and
make some nice comments There's actually something very important
going on here It's a transition We're looking at a shift from
John the Baptist ministry to the ministry of Jesus Christ.
And this shift represents a transition, a transition from the Old Testament
to the New Testament, the Old Covenant to the New Covenant,
from law to grace. So I think there's some really
good food for thought here, so we're gonna tackle it this morning,
or this afternoon, or you may look at it in the evening, whatever
it is, We're going to tackle this. The ministry of John and
Jesus dovetail. They go together like this. They are inseparable at this
point. But while John was still gathering
people and pointing them to Jesus, we're getting the impression
from many things, but especially John the Baptist himself, is
that Jesus is the preeminent one. If that's too big a word, I can
simplify it. He's first place. He's of top
priority. John's ministry is going to melt
into the ministry of Jesus. John will eventually go to prison,
but Jesus will go to the cross. So let's just take verses 22
through 24. John chapter three 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
Enon, near to Salem, because there was much water there. And
they came and were baptized. For John was not yet cast into
prison. And we know that eventually John
will go to prison and be beheaded. But nevertheless, they're giving
us a hint. Things are yet going to happen in John's ministry.
But we're going to see there's a handing on of a baton, so to
speak. There's a transition about to
take place. So what I just read here, it
tells us that Jesus left Jerusalem and went into the countryside
of Judea, which surrounds Jerusalem nearby. Now, we had looked at
John chapter two. 13 and all the way through to
chapter 3 verse 21 and basic events were that in Jerusalem
Jesus had purged the temple cast out the money changers He did
miracles or signs to establish his power and authority before
the people and then he also had the great interview with Nicodemus
who was a prominent leader among the Pharisees now when we get
to John 3 22 he's Changing direction here. He's going to spread his
ministry elsewhere Disciples are being baptized and we could
look at other churches that would point out Jesus never himself
baptized he had the disciples do the baptizing but nonetheless
They were coming to Jesus and they were being baptized now
to the north of all this in Samaria It says, you know Okay near Salem
where there's much water. I Takes much water to be baptized,
by the way, but we'll skip that point for now. But here, John
was also preaching and baptizing disciples. Now, John the Baptist
ministry, as I've said, is a transition from the old covenant to a new
covenant, and that covenant is about to be revealed. People
don't understand it yet, but Jesus is starting with basics
and working his way to something, and then when he dies on the
cross and rises from the dead, he's gonna solidify what this
new covenant is all about. Now, from the standpoint of John,
we see John as, introducing Old Testament Saints to Jesus Christ
their Messiah their mediator of the new covenant. I'm just
going to take a moment here to put in a commercial for some
outside reading, outside John anyways, it's biblical reading.
But if you want to grasp the significance of what it is to
go from the Old Covenant to the New Covenant, from law to grace,
this transition. It would be good to study Romans
chapters 7 and 8 2nd Corinthians chapter 3 Galatians chapter 3
and Hebrews chapters 8 through 10. This would help to get a
bigger significance of what this transition is all about. It's
a very big deal. And that's why the apostles spent
so much time preaching and correlating this. Jesus, when he rose from
the dead, spent many days teaching them how the Old Testament is
really the New Testament, concealed. And the New Testament is the
Old Testament, revealed. So the transition from John to
Jesus might be compared to launching a rocket. Now, in my day, it
was a really big deal if they launched a rocket into space.
Everybody wanted to cover it on TV, and we all watched, and
we heard narration. and we watched this rocket would
go up and the payload is at the top. Now the first payload I
remember was a chimpanzee and then they started putting a person
in it then eventually three people in it and then they they went
to the challenger things and they'd have I think seven people
in them. But what's important is at the
top of the rocket And when the rocket takes off, it gets lifted
with tremendous momentum, just lots of fuel. They've got to
get up to 25,000 miles per hour to break Earth's gravity hold
on them. And so these large rockets with
large amounts of fuel would get used up in moments. And when they spend their fuel,
then the staging rockets would drop off. Leaving the upper part
to go on into space So that's kind of how I see John the Baptist
in his ministry is he gathered people who had repented other
sins Their hearts were turned to expectation of the coming
of the Messiah And as John was gathering up this momentum among
the people of Israel. It was all for the purpose of
Promoting Jesus Christ and not himself When John's purpose was fulfilled,
he would go to prison and, I told you, he would later be executed.
People needed to move forward with Jesus Christ. Who would
later go to the cross to die for the sins of his people? I
think that's a good indication of what we ought to do today.
We need to stay focused on Christ and his cross. Many other teachings
of the Bible are very important, and there's important issues,
but if we get sidetracked and become specialists in different
other doctrinal things, we really miss the important part, and
that is the life-changing truth that Christ died for our sins
according to the Scriptures, was buried according to the Scriptures,
He rose from the dead, and now justifies all those who believe,
and He ever lives. to make intercession for his
saints and one day he's coming back for us. But we need to stay
centralized on that truth. And it would do a good bit of
help to unite Christians if they would all stay focused on this
as the most important preeminent truth. Okay, to further illustrate
what we're talking about here about transition, we look to
verses 25 and 26. Then there arose a question between
some of John's disciples and the Jews about purifying. And
they came unto John and said of him, Rabbi, he that was with
thee beyond Jordan, to whom thou bearest witness, behold, the
same baptizeth, and all men come to him. OK, this discussion between
John's disciples, and it's probably a Jewish person who was attended
by, with a whole bunch of other Jewish people, but one was the
spokesman. And I bring that up because if
you look in some Bibles, it says they disputed with the Jews,
or some Jews. And then other translations say
a Jew, a certain Jew. And what usually is happening
in a situation like this is there was probably a whole group
of Jews and one of them was a spokesperson. He was the prominent one and
the others were backing him up and witnessing to what was being
said. But whatever, if you see a discrepancy
like that in the Bible, don't throw your Bible away and think
it's a problem, but probably that's what's happening. A prominent
Jew, it wants to debate with the disciples of John, and other
Jews are with him. So nevertheless, the discussion
was about purifying, and we're probably talking about ceremonial
forms and rituals. There was lots and lots of purification
rites amongst the Jewish people. And so this debate took place. Now, it caused the disciples
of John to come to John, and they wanted to express their
concern that Jesus was getting more attention, more people were
coming to him, and amongst Jesus' people, there's more people being
baptized than what they're getting to do. And this is making them
worried, distraught. And we have this problem all
the time in religion when we get too focused on numbers. Now,
you know, David numbered his men and got in trouble for that. On the other hand, One of the
first early books of the Bible is called the book of numbers
Numbers are important, but numbers is not always the way to gauge
whether things are going well or not We have to worry about
that. I Minister up here in northern,
Wisconsin and there's a few larger churches by some people's standards.
They're all small Our church is real small and it isn't that
I don't care about growing and reaching more people but I can't
I can't decide whether God's using us or not by just simply
the amount of people. Because if you get real hung
up on this, then every Sunday, oh no, we're down. Oh, there's
less than before. And we can get so distracted. We're not just simply letting
God have the results. They're His anyways. I think
some statements that John's going to make will help us. With things
like this, but nevertheless this gave John the Baptist opportunity
to say some very important things And then just make some comments
with not a whole bunch of side references Have his chance that his ministry is diminishing.
Let's give it some good focus while we can, and I think we'll
benefit from it. I start with verse 27 of John
chapter three. 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 has the bride is the
bridegroom. But the friend of the bridegroom,
which stands and hears him, rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom's
voice. This my joy, therefore, is fulfilled. He must decrease. Excuse me.
I said that wrong. He must increase. Jesus must
increase. But I, John the Baptist, must
decrease. He that comes from above is above
all. He that is of the earth is earthly,
and speaketh of the earth. He that comes from heaven is
above all. And what he has seen and heard,
and that he testifies that no man, and no man receives his
testimony. He that has received his testimony
has set to his seal that God is true. For he whom God hath
sent speaks the words of God, for God gives not the Spirit
by measure unto him. The Father loves the Son and
has given all things into his hand. He that believes on the
Son has everlasting life, and he that believes not on the Son
shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him. Now, it's probably not that important
to us. Some commentators don't think
John said all of that. They think maybe, rather, John
the disciple made commentary. But we're going to go with the
idea that this is John the Baptist all the way. There's no real
break in this discussion. In verse 27 he has just told
us that all true ministry is the result of God's direction In verse 28 of John
3 John never claimed to be the Christ He never tried to get that preeminent
position. John was sent to go before him
and prepare people for him. He's an announcer, okay? Verse
29, John described himself as the friend of the bridegroom.
This is like being the best man at one of our weddings. The best
man helps the groom, but the groom gets the bride and the
attention moves on from there to the bride. bridegroom and
his bride, not the best man. Okay, that great verse in verse
30. He must increase, but I must decrease. John knew that his
job was to give the attention to Christ and not himself. Christ
and his ministry must move forward. The friend of the bridegroom
must step back from the attention. Verse 31, Jesus is heavenly,
spiritual, and holy. And we could say much more than
that. But enough said so that we can warn that Jesus is the
preeminent one, the first place, the top priority. And that is
because he comes directly from God and speaks for him. Okay,
verse 32, earthly humans cannot naturally understand and receive
the testimony of Christ. And that's a big discussion throughout
scripture. We'll see it in John chapter
one. And we just got done seeing it when Jesus was talking in
Nicodemus. You might wanna go back and look
at John 3, 11 through 13. And John 3, 32 sounds a lot like
the same discussion. But in John 3, 33, those who
have the grace to receive his message are confirming what God
has said from the beginning concerning his son. And again, this is a
very powerful message. 1 John 5 tells us that if we
believe that Jesus is the Son of God, we're confirming what
the Father has said. And if we deny that Jesus is
the Christ, then we deny the Father and make a liar out of
Him, because God, in His Word, revealed Jesus, and it's called
the record that God gave of His Son. You can check that out in
1 John 5, 9-12. Okay, in John 3, 33, those who
have the grace to receive His message are confirming what God
has said from the beginning concerning His Son. But now that we have
the testimony of the Old Testament, and that's like the Father telling
us, look at Him, He is the Son of God. But Christ Himself, and
He said this in more than one place, Christ's words are God's
words. Jesus is united with the Spirit
of God and that unity has no limitation. Some of your Bibles
will read differently there in verse 34. They'll talk about
the Father giving the spirit to his son without measure, without
limitation. And some refer to Jesus having
the spirit without limitation. Nevertheless, we know this, Jesus
just didn't have some portion of the spirit. We get used of
God's spirit and and for a while we're filled with the spirit
and we get to do a few things But Jesus has complete oneness
with the father and with the son So when he speaks it is the
word of God and and he makes that very important as a gospel
Prerequisite if you're gonna believe on the son, you gotta
believe everything the father said about him You gotta believe
what he said about himself too and many times people haven't
It seems like they haven't fully read what Jesus said about himself. Because some of the arguments
I hear about Jesus and who he is, they don't match up with
some of his more difficult statements that many people must be overlooking.
Well, verse 35, the father also is united with his son in a bond
of love. Therefore he has entrusted his
son with all authority to do his will. Let me refresh our
memories here. Verse 35, the father loves the
son and has given all things into his hand. And that's gonna
be said at the very end before Jesus departs to be with the
father after he's risen from the dead. All power, all authority
is given to me in heaven and earth. Oh ye therefore. Well,
verse 36, he that believes on the Son has everlasting life,
and he that believes not the Son shall not see life, but the
wrath of God abides on him. It does not say it will abide
on him, it does abide on him. So to believe on the Son of God
is to immediately have everlasting life. That begins now, not someday
after you die. But consequently, or conversely,
to not believe on the Son of God is to remain in the state
of condemnation and spiritual death. Very similar statement
said to us earlier in John 3 Verses 16 through 18 for God so loved
the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believes
in him should not perish but have everlasting life For God
sent not his son for 17 here for God said not his son into
the world to condemn the world but that the world through him
might be saved and He that believes on him is not condemned, but
he that believes not is condemned already because he hath not believed
in the name of the only begotten Son of God. So this is the tough
news we have to give to people that they don't want to hear.
Many people like to hear that God loves them, but they need
to understand that at the same time He is loving them, they're
in a position of condemnation. It's because they're sinners.
We all are. But we don't have to do anything
else except nothing, and just for the fact that we're sinners,
we're condemned. The good news of the gospel starts
with this, that all have sinned and come short of the glory of
God. The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal
life through Jesus Christ our Lord. To think that you can immediately
transition from death to life, that's wonderful. That's wonderful
reminds me of another place. Jesus spoke in John 5 verse 24
Barely barely I say unto you he that hears my word and believes
on him that sent me has everlasting life. He has everlasting life
There's closure to this and he shall not come into condemnation
that has passed from death life Okay What do we learn from John the
Baptist's testimony? What kind of questions should
we ask ourselves? I got four, just gonna ask them. You'll have to answer them. Number
one, am I united with the father and his son? Am I truly a believer
and have eternal life? That's not an iffy kind of answers
here. Yes or no. And you can know,
and you can have that transition right away if you turn to Christ.
And truly believe who he is, and what he's done for you, and
receive him. Okay, so, the next question. And our aim is particularly at
believers, people who profess faith in Christ. Do I live my
life in harmony with the words of Christ? They've been given
a lot of priority here. Is my life in harmony with the
words of Christ? Number three, do I seek to give
glory and honor to Christ to point others to Him? In a sense,
all of us have a way that we could say, he, Jesus, must increase. I must decrease. I must lose
my life in him. I must give the attention to
him. I must be willing to pass on the attention that others
might know the Lord and love him. And I'm just a staging rocket
here. It's helping to boost the message
of the gospel to get people to know the Lord. And it's not all
about me. And the last question is, do
I go to a church that has these same priorities of revealing
Christ, of calling people to surrender to him, to become followers
of Jesus, to reach out and get the salt out of the salt shaker
and start blessing others around us with the truth of the gospel?
And then, does my church have a priority with the words of
Christ? Do we do what he says? Or do
we just call him the Lord with words only? Matthew 7 has something
to say about that. Do we seek to give glory and
honor to Christ? Is it about him or is it about my church
and our wonderful programs and our beautiful building and our
really great music team or our pastor or this or that, blah,
blah, blah. Are we trying to draw people
to Christ or to our church? Does my church have these priorities? That's food for thought. That
is a discussion that you can have now with the Heavenly Father.
As you ask yourself these questions, as you look how John graciously
is stepping back, fulfilling his purpose and stepping back
and giving the attention to Christ, may that be true for us as well. Heavenly Father, please use these
thoughts Please speak into our hearts. Please transform us by
your truth. Make us more like Jesus. And
may we always be recommending him to others. May we always
be representing him to others. May we be an example, reflecting
him to others. And help us, Father, to assemble
one with another for greater purposes than any individual
that Jesus Christ truly may be preeminent in the church. And
may you get the glory, Father. In Jesus' name, amen. Thank you
very much.
John Yields to Jesus
Series The Gospel of John
The ministries of John the Baptist and Jesus dovetail. John was gathering people and pointing them to Jesus. Jesus is the preeminent One. John's ministry will melt into the ministry of Jesus. John will eventually go to prison, but Jesus will go to the cross.
| Sermon ID | 119231840434691 |
| Duration | 26:21 |
| Date | |
| Category | Bible Study |
| Bible Text | John 3:22-36 |
| Language | English |
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