It's good to be with you again and looking forward to bringing the God's Word to you as we're in the Gospel of John. So if you have your Bible, please open it to John chapter 3. And we're going to be looking at verses 20 through 22 through 36, 22 through 36. Bring you greetings from your brothers and sisters at at harvest. We do, as Mike was praying, we love you folks and are excited to see the Lord continues to bless you. And it's it's just a joy to do ministry together with you. And it's a joy to be here with you tonight. John, Chapter three, beginning at verse 22. and we'll read through the end of the chapter. 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 Selim because water was plentiful there and people were coming and being baptized for John had not yet been put in prison. 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. John answered, a person cannot receive even one thing unless it is given him from heaven. You yourselves bear me witness that I said, I am not the Christ, but I have been sent before him. The one who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom who stands and hears him rejoices greatly at the bridegroom's voice. Therefore, this joy of mine is now complete. He must increase, but I must decrease. He who comes from above is above all. He who is of the earth belongs to the earth and speaks in an earthly way. He who comes from heaven is above all. He bears witness to what he has seen and heard, yet no one receives his testimony. Whoever receives his testimony sets his seal to this, that God is true. For he whom God has sent utters the words of God, for he gives the spirit without measure. The Father loves the Son and has given all things into his hand. Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life. Whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him. Let's ask the Lord to bless his word. Oh, Lord Jesus, we thank you that you are the Word of God, and we pray, Lord, that tonight, by your Spirit, we can hear your voice. And we would, Lord, understand that you are speaking directly to us and that we must respond to you. And I pray, Lord, that our response would be faith and love and hope and joy as we see your supremacy, as you are exalted in our hearts and at the right hand of the Father. And so we pray for your blessing tonight, for your glory, in Jesus' name, amen. Well, if you're familiar with John's gospel, You'll notice that in the first few chapters, certainly, John has been spending a lot of time telling us about who Jesus is. His gospel begins, in the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, and the Word was God. That's who Jesus is. He wants his readers to be perfectly clear about the identity of Jesus. At the end of his book, remember, he says, these things are written that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ. And the reason John wants you to believe that is that by believing, you might have life in his name. John sees this as a matter of life and death. You see, if Jesus really is who John says he is, if he really is the Son of God come to earth, if Jesus really is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, If Jesus really is the Messiah, the God as promised, who's going to inaugurate the kingdom of God, if he's the king who's coming again to judge the living and the dead, if those are not just Sunday school stories, but if that's historic fact, well then we have to pay attention to him. We have to deal with him. This is not something that you can afford to be wrong about. many things in life that we are wrong about and they have minimal consequences. Maybe you forgot that it was daylight saving times this morning. Maybe you forget when a show starts. Maybe you just make some mistake. You bought the wrong car. You bought the wrong house. Those are things that they have ramifications, but they're not that severe. There can be serious errors. There can be things that cause great harm. My brother Randy, his doctor thought that he just had indigestion. Well he didn't have indigestion, he had stomach cancer. And that proved fatal for my brother. But even that pales, pales in comparison to being wrong about Jesus. My brother is with the Lord. If you get Jesus wrong, you spend eternity without God. You spend eternity under His wrath. That's what John says, verse 26, whoever believes in the Son has eternal life. Whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him. You see, the greatest possible mistake you can make in life is to be wrong about Jesus. And in our text tonight, we find some men who, they're confused about who Jesus is. And they're not evil men. They're good men, they're earnest men, they're disciples of John, and yet they're wrong about Jesus. And John here clears up their confusion. So tonight, we'll look first at the confusion, and then secondly, the clarification, and then third, the conclusion. First then, the confusion. John sets the stage by telling us that Jesus, after his meeting with Nicodemus, Jesus and his disciples go into the countryside and they are baptizing. If you look in chapter four, you'll see that Jesus himself was not baptizing. Jesus didn't baptize anyone personally. The reason for that most likely is because if someone had received the baptism of Jesus They'd probably be bragging about it for the rest of their life, and you'd probably have a little cult where they're separating themselves and exalting themselves, much like you see in the Church of Corinth. But Jesus is baptized, and of course, this isn't a new thing in the sense that Jesus is doing this. John the Baptist has been doing this for a while. has been out in the wilderness and calling people to repentance. He's calling people to prepare for the coming of the Lord, and people have been flocking to him. And for his disciples, that must have been just a heady experience. Everyone likes to be part of a movement, and John was certainly leading a movement. The power of God was with him. People were hearing his preaching and repenting of their sin. And people were being baptized in great numbers as John preached about the coming of the Lord. It was a wonderful, wonderful experience for these disciples to see the power of God at work, to be part of such a God-glorifying ministry. It was a magnificent experience in all the best ways. But something troubling was happening, and the disciples noticed that the crowds are thinning. And John wasn't the talk of the town as he had once been. Someone else was stealing the spotlight. And in verse 26, you can hear the distress in their voice when they come to their teacher, to John, and they say, Rabbi, he who was with you across the Jordan, to whom you bore witness, look, he is baptizing, and all are going to him. Now, you just put yourself in their shoes. They're disciples of John, I mean, this is John the Baptist, not John a Baptist, John the Baptist. Baptism is his ministry. Baptism is his movement. And now someone else is baptizing. And to their great consternation, the crowds are going and following him. And in their mind, this is clearly not a good thing. It feels to them almost like betrayal. I mean, after all, John was the one who gave Jesus his start in ministry. John promoted him. John baptized him. John even let some of his disciples go and follow Jesus. And now Jesus is stealing John's thunder. Jesus is stealing away John's followers, and in their minds, this is just not right. Something needs to be done. Clearly, they're expecting John to go have a word with Jesus and work this out. The problem, of course, is that they're just confused about who Jesus is. They see Jesus as an associate of John. If John was like Elijah, and many people were saying that he was, Well, then Jesus was Elisha, a good man, even a great man, but not on the same tier as Elijah, the great John the Baptist. And so they're deeply troubled by the ascendancy of Jesus' ministry and the declining nature of John's ministry. That's very easy to understand. People are just people. People like to have their their leader and be part of the group, and we're very competitive in nature. This happens even with Jesus' own disciples. If you remember, in Mark chapter nine, John, the writer of this gospel actually, comes to Jesus and says, Lord, we saw someone else casting out demons in your name, and we commanded him to stop. Why is that? And John says why. Because he was not one of us. He's not part of the brand. He's not part of the inner circle. We don't get any glory if that guy's out there casting out demons too. That's our thing. So it's just human nature. John saw that man as competition and that's exactly how the Baptist disciples see Jesus. Jesus is the competition. And John immediately sets them straight. The clarification has three aspects to it where John just lays things right out for them. Three points he makes. First of all, his ministry is exactly what God had given for him to do. It was exactly what God intended for him. John answered, verse 27, a person cannot receive even one thing unless it is given him from heaven. In other words, John's ministry was given to him from heaven and so what John was doing was exactly what God had given him to do. And Jesus was doing what God had given him to do. It's not a competition. God had given John and Jesus very different ministries. That's an important reminder for all of us. We can easily I don't know, look around and get jealous. We can see a brother or sister with greater gifts, greater opportunities, greater success, and it can be difficult to accept that God has given us a smaller space in life. We see someone maybe who just has more blessings, a better marriage, or they're married and we're not. They have more kids or better kids, nicer house, nicer vacations, whatever. It's easiest for us to look and notice what other people have and notice what we don't have, but we need to remember that Everything we have and everything we don't have comes from God, right? It's according to His purpose and His will. And so John just submits here to the sovereignty of God and is perfectly content with what God has given him. But second, he points out that he's always been clear about his second-tier status. Verse 28, you yourselves bear me witness that I said, I am not the Christ, but I've been sent before Him. He's telling his men, you shouldn't be surprised that Jesus' ministry is ascending. I've been telling you all along, Jesus is greater than me. In fact, in chapter one, verse 30, he says, after me comes a man who ranks before me because he was before me. And he says, I'm not worthy to tie the laces of his sandals. John has been clear all along about the nature of Jesus' supremacy. and reminds his disciples here, remember gentlemen, we're talking about the Messiah. We're talking about the Christ, the anointed one, the one promised all through the Old Testament. The Messiah has come. Of course the crowds are going to him. It's exactly what you should expect and exactly what you should desire. This is exactly how it should be. And John points out in verse 29, the one who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom who stands and hears him rejoices greatly at the bridegroom's voice. Therefore, this joy of mine is now complete. John compares himself to the best man at a wedding. Back in the day, the best man was responsible to make the wedding arrangements, to make sure everything was put together. Well, it would be highly inappropriate for the best man to be jealous of the bridegroom, wishing that the bride was looking at him with a loving glance, wanting to be in the place of the bridegroom. That's completely inappropriate. And John just points out that the joy of the best man is to see the bride and the bridegroom married, brought together, and to see the bride run to the bridegroom. That's his joy. And John says, that's exactly how I feel. As the crowds are going to Jesus, John sees the bride running to the bridegroom. The people of God running to their Lord. And he says, my joy is complete. This makes me very, very happy. He's not concerned, he's rejoicing. And he recognizes that it's time for his ministry to wind down. He must increase, I must decrease. It's the way it must be. And that word must here is very strong. It refers to God's intent, God's will. Jesus must increase because it is through his life and his death and his resurrection and ascension that God is going to accomplish his redemptive purposes, through whom God is going to save the world, through whom God's going to make everything new. This is what God has intended all along, and therefore Jesus, the Son of God, must increase. He must be exalted. It must happen this way because this is the Father's plan. And John delights in it. D.A. Carson says, John finds his joy, not in grudgingly conceding victory to a superior opponent, but in wholeheartedly embracing God's will and the supremacy it signs to Jesus. You see, John is just saying, he's seeing what's happening and he's saying, yes! Amen, so be it, Lord. Exalt your son, honor your son. May he increase until his kingdom stretches from shore to shore. May he increase until everything is brought under his glorious rule and reign. Yes, Lord, magnify your son. That is the heart desire of every true Christian. If the spirit of God is within you, There is a desire within you that in some way your life would maybe count to that end, right? If your life could in some way bring glory to Jesus, well, that's what it's all about. And if that requires you to suffer, if that requires even you to die, well, that's okay. It'd be vastly better to suffer and die that Jesus would be glorified than to have the whole world and that your life would say nothing about the value of Jesus. We have one life to live, just one short life to live. And if you're a Christian, then within you there's that hunger, God just let my life in some small way Glorify Jesus in some small way. Let my life just point to the value, the worth, the supremacy of Jesus Christ. That's a life worth living. That's what John experiences here. He longs to see Jesus honored and magnified. And then we come to the conclusion. And here I think John the Gospel writer is now writing, I don't think this is John the Baptist speaking anymore, but John the Gospel writer is concluding this matter and just reminding us that we must grant ultimate supremacy to Jesus and delight to do so. And John gives us several reasons why we need to give ultimate supremacy to Christ. First, notice verse 31. Because of his origin. He who comes from above is above all. He says it again at the end of that verse. He who comes from heaven is above all. You see, in the whole history of the world, there's only one person that has come from heaven. There's only one Son of God who came and took on human flesh, and that is Jesus. And that means that Jesus is in a category all to himself, and there are no seconds. He is the supreme man, the one to whom supremacy must be given. We need to give supremacy to Jesus because of his testimony. Look at verse 32. He bears witness to what he has seen and heard, yet no one receives his testimony. Whoever does receive his testimony sets his seal to this, that God is true. And then look at verse 34, for he whom God has sent utters the words of God, for he gives the Spirit without measure. Notice what John is saying about Jesus. Jesus utters the words of God. Consequently, when you're hearing Jesus, you're hearing God himself. And so John says, whoever receives Jesus' testimony sets his seal to this. that God is true. Whoever receives the testimony of Jesus is saying, I believe God. I believe that what God says as Jesus is speaking to me, He's speaking the words of the Father, I'm convinced it's true. This is the truth of God. These are the words of God. Conversely then, to reject the words of Jesus is to reject God. It has to be that way. He's uttering the very words of God Himself. And when Jesus speaks, you have one of two options. You can accept what He says as true and believe in Him, or you can reject what Jesus says and you can disobey Him. And your eternal destiny hangs in the balance. There's no other Choice that you can make in your whole life that has this kind of ramifications. What you do with the words of Jesus determine your eternal destiny. John says, verse 36, whoever believes in the Son has eternal life. Whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life. But the wrath of God remains on him. Now notice how John sets that up. He could have said whoever believes the Son has eternal life and whoever does not believe the Son shall not see life. That's not how he says it. He says whoever believes has life and whoever disobeys. Now why does he say it that way? Well because to disbelieve is to call God a liar. D. A. Carson says, Jesus so completely says and does all that God says and does, that to believe Jesus is to believe God, and conversely, not to believe Jesus is to call God a liar. So if you don't believe, so if God says, right, this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased, and you don't believe that Jesus is God's beloved son, his one and only beloved son, you're saying to God, you're a liar. And if God says, I so love the world that I gave my only son that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life. And if you say, I don't believe that, you're just calling God a liar to his face. When Jesus speaks the word of God, if Jesus says, come unto me all you are weary and heavy laden, I'll give you rest. If you don't believe that, you're calling God a liar. If Jesus says, right, whoever believes in me has passed over from death to life, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, if you say that's hogwash, you're just saying to God, liar, liar, straight to his face. You should not be surprised if God is offended. You see, we get confused about this. in our relativistic, pluralistic, you-do-you world, where people are convinced that they have the right to believe or not to believe, and no one can fault them. We get to choose our own truth, right? Well, actually, no. You don't get to choose your own truth. And the reason is you live in God's world. And you're God's creature. And God gets to determine what is true. And you can either, again, submit to that truth, or you can reject that truth and disobey God. You can reject it. Left to ourselves, we all would. But John says, then you will not see life. The wrath of God will remain upon you. You see, friends, unbelief is not a little sin. People think it doesn't even strike them as a sin at all. And John wants us to be very clear. It's a grievous sin. God is highly offended when we call him a liar and refuse to believe his word. And so if you're here tonight and you're not a Christian, I just beg you to pay attention to what the gospel writer is saying here. You don't want to spend your little life here on earth calling God a liar and then stand before him on the last day. But you see, it's not just unbelievers in general who are guilty of this sin. Christians commit this sin as well. We can reject God's word in a variety of ways, right? God says, I am with you, I love you, I forgive you. You don't need to be afraid. And yet how often in life don't we live as though God doesn't love us, and we don't feel forgiven, and we believe our feelings more than we believe what God has said, and we're anxious because we don't believe that God is with us. What God has said just doesn't have weight for us. Our feelings have weight for us. And we don't take comfort in his promises. We hold on to our fears and our wounds and our failures and our losses as though God were lying when he says all things work together for good for those who love him. And we refuse to take comfort there because it doesn't feel good. And so we say to God, I don't believe you. I don't believe you. You see, our unbelief is also a grievous sin. Just invite you to think about your own life and where your unbelief lives. Where does your unbelief express itself? Maybe it's just the anger that you carry because life isn't the way that you think it ought to be and you refuse to accept that God is sovereign and God is good and God knows you and loves you and has your best in mind and you just flat, the Bible's full of that message, but you just don't believe it. Maybe your life is full of anxiety because no matter how often God says, don't be afraid, I am with you, you don't actually believe it. Maybe you're holding on to old losses or wounds. You can't forgive because it's very hard for you to believe that God has forgiven you for your sin. And God promises that he's forgiven you. He promises that he loves you. And yet in your life, you don't act forgiven. You don't look like a person who's deeply loved. You look anxious and worried and impatient and angry. You see, we have all of our own ways of not believing. And in our unbelief, friends, we just gotta be clear what we're doing. We're just saying to God, I do not believe you. I think you're lying. I don't accept it. But friend, this is also the glory of the gospel, isn't it? Because God sent his own son from heaven precisely for people like us, for the disobedient, the doubters, the deniers. He came to save people like us from the wrath that we absolutely deserve. You see, the wonderful thing about the gospel is that despite our unbelief, no matter how many times we, and how many ways we say, I don't believe it, Despite our unbelief, Jesus remains what he's always been, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. He doesn't change. And he always invites us to come and confess our sin, to confess our unbelief. And he promises every time to forgive us. If we'll just come and embrace his truth as the truth, and abide in his truth, and take what Jesus says to be the absolute foundational reality of our life. You see, when we come to Jesus that way, friends, we'll actually find hope and joy and peace because every promise of the gospel is yes and amen to us in Jesus Christ. And when you make that the actual functioning truth of your life, when you begin to say, what would it look like today if I believed that Jesus really loved me, and if I believed that Jesus really, truly forgave all of my sin, not one of them clings to me. And what if I believed today that God was actually gloriously, sovereignly for me, and that I have an internal inheritance with Jesus Christ that nothing can take away? What would my life look like today? When we stand on the truth, you see, that's where the hope and the joy and the peace begin to flow. And the reason we can stand there with confidence is because Jesus said it, and he speaks the very word of God, and God cannot lie. Remember the story of the man that Jesus met who had a son in trouble, and he asked, Lord, if you can, If you're willing, if you can, would you heal him? And Jesus says, if I can. And he says, if you would believe, all things are possible to him who believes. And the man immediately sees his error and says, Lord, I do believe. Help my unbelief. That's the prayer of every Christian. Lord, I do believe. I do believe. But I know that my life is just shot through at the same time with unbelief. So help my unbelief. I would, friend, encourage you. Get on your knees, ask the Holy Spirit to identify the areas in your life where unbelief reigns, and then say, Lord, I do believe. Help my unbelief. As you pray that in faith, you can have every assurance he'll answer it. He said he would. Amen. Let's pray. Father, I thank you for Jesus who loves us. I thank you, oh Father, for your promise that you forgive us all of all of our sin, that you are for us forever in Jesus, that no harm can come against us, that nothing can touch us apart from your fatherly care and hand. And yet, Lord, we so often live impatient and anxious lives. We have bitterness and anger and fear because we don't take those truths to heart. And Jesus, we wanna confess our sin. We wanna confess our disobedience. We wanna confess how we offend you when we don't believe you. And Father, I just pray that we would see our unbelief as a grievous, grievous sin. And that, Lord, you would, by your Spirit, help us to see the places in our life where we fundamentally do not believe what you've said. And that you would give us the grace to confess that as a great sin. And that we would have the joy of knowing that we are forgiven as you promise If we confess our sins, you are faithful and just to forgive us our sin and cleanse us of all unrighteousness. Father, make us a believing people and may that change us in a wonderful God-honoring way. In Jesus' name, amen. We're gonna sing a hymn together, Ancient of Days. Every place where you see God in that hymn, I just want you to think Lord, because that's who Jesus is, the Ancient of Days. And I think it just helps, you'll see how this song really applies to this service, this sermon, I'm sorry. Jesus is the Ancient of Days, and none above him, none before him. And we can trust ourselves to him. Let's stand together and sing.