How to be Humble

0:06So I don't know if you have an admin that works for you. I know Pastor Rod and I have Kelly and she does a great job for us. And there are times that we have to get things ASAP. So the American Association or American Society rather of Administrative Professionals says, here's how to be humble. Be aware of your own shortcomings, strengths, and limitations.

0:24Okay. Know yourself. That's helpful. Recognize and acknowledge the strengths of other people. That would be a hallmark, I think, of humility.

0:32Yeah. Work towards putting other needs before your own.

0:38Be a good listener and ensure others feel heard and understood. Be appreciative of others and express gratitude often. Be open to constructive criticism and feedback. Own your mistakes. Continue learning and educating yourself in your career.

1:01And be open to changing, shifting, and adapting even when it's challenging. Those are helpful. And in fact, maybe some of those you heard and you thought, that, that sounds a lot like what I read in some passages in the Bible. And honestly, if we took those 9 principles and began to apply them to our lives, we would probably find that they help us in our pursuit of humility.

1:25But see, the problem with the world's pursuit of humility is that it can only go so far. The reason being is that true humility is only found in relation to Jesus Christ. If we don't know Jesus, we can't truly know humility. In our passage that we're going to look at together this morning, John the Baptist is a paradigm for us, a model for us, an example for us of true humility because John the Baptist came to understand his own identity in light of his relationship to Jesus Christ. That's where true humility begins, understanding who we are in light of Jesus Christ.

2:11For you as a follower of Jesus, if that's you this morning, your primary purpose in life Your main goal in life, the reason you are here, is to make much of Jesus. In fact, church, that's the reason why we're here. We are here corporately to make much of Jesus. And so this morning, as we look at John chapter 3, I want us to look at how we should be praying that we can be effective in doing that, that we can be a humble church that makes much of Jesus. Take your Bibles and open to John chapter 3, if you will.

2:42John chapter 3, we've covered a lot of ground so far. We're going to finish up the chapter together this morning. But John chapter 3, if you can remember a few weeks back, opened with Jesus' interaction with Nicodemus. And then there was the passage, the most famous verse in the world, John 3:16, for God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him would not perish but have eternal life. And then there was the continuation of John's commentary on that.

3:06And now the scene shifts back in verse 22. To the narrative of John's Gospel and we pick back up with Jesus but also with John. Now not John our author but John the Baptist. And so we begin in verse 22 and read the first few verses, it says this: After this Jesus and his disciples went into the Judean countryside and he remained there with them and was baptizing. John was also baptizing at Aenon near Salim because water was plentiful there and the people were coming and being baptized, for John had not yet been put in prison.

3:39Our text opens with, after this. It's a time marker. After what? Well, after Jesus' time on the Temple Mount. You remember that's where he had encountered Nicodemus.

3:47He was there. Why? He was there all the way back in chapter 2 because it was the time of the Passover. And so he went up to the Temple Mount there as all Jewish males were required to do by law. He went to observe the Passover.

3:58He encountered, remember, the money changers. He cleansed the temple. And then during that same season, during that same stretch, that time there, Nicodemus approached him at night. He had that conversation there. Well, our narrative picks back up.

4:09It says, after these things, after this, we don't know exactly how long it was, but sometime after that, while he was still down in the southern portion of Israel in Judah, he and his disciples, it says, went out to the Judean countryside. Now that would have been east of the city of Jerusalem there. So if you look in the back of your Bible, some of you have maps back there. You can pull it up. One of them will be a map of the time of Israel during the time of Jesus.

4:33If you look at the map of Israel, I'm going to do this from your perspective, not mine. Um, so I need to think backwards for a second. Okay. So you've got Jerusalem here. You've got the Dead Sea down south here of Jerusalem, just south of Jerusalem.

4:46And then you've got a river that goes north from Jerusalem all the way up to another body of water called the Sea of Galilee up here. That river is known as the Jordan River. The mouth of the Jordan River is all the way at the top of Israel, up near Dan is the city that marks the the mouth of the Jordan River. Well, the Jordan River comes down and it goes all the way down and ends down in the Dead Sea. So Jesus and his disciples from Jerusalem would have gone out east of the city there over to the Judean wilderness over by the Jordan River and they were, it says in the text, baptizing there.

5:21So that's where Jesus and his disciples are at this point. And they go out there and they begin baptizing. Well, John 4:2 makes an interesting note that's worth our attention. So if you'll jump down in your Bibles to verse 2 of John chapter 4, it says, although Jesus himself did not baptize, but only his disciples. So when we read back in our text and it says there, after this Jesus and his disciples went into the Judean countryside, and he remained there with them and was baptizing.

5:50Well, John 4:2 says that Jesus himself wasn't baptizing, but his disciples were baptizing. Well, why does it seem that the text disagrees with itself? Well, it doesn't. Because the disciples were baptizing on behalf of the authority of Jesus. So as the disciples were administering the baptism of Jesus, it was as though they were administering the baptism through Jesus, on Jesus' behalf there.

6:11But that's significant because in John chapter 4, verse 2, I don't want you to come across that and say, wait a minute, does John disagree with himself here? They're out in the wilderness and they're baptizing people. People are coming to be baptized. Why? What is the deal with this baptism?

6:24We had talked about John's baptism earlier, that John was there to prepare the way for the coming of the Messiah, that John had gone out and he was baptizing and he was calling people to repentance. Repent and believe, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And people were coming out to John to be baptized by John in the Jordan River. John was there to prepare the way for Jesus, but now Jesus with his disciples, they're out in the wilderness and they're baptizing too. What is Jesus doing baptizing?

6:50Well, I think it's a couple of options here. This was not totally foreign in the Jewish world to practice baptism. In fact, a Gentile convert to Judaism, even in the Old Testament, would have gone through a form of baptism to be brought into the community of the believing Jewish population. So this isn't all that strange, but I think there's something bigger that's going on here. And I think the thing that's bigger that's going on here has to do with the book of Ezekiel.

7:17In the book of Ezekiel, one of the Old Testament prophets, we read this in Ezekiel chapter 36, verse 25. It says, I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleanness, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. The text goes on in verse 26, I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you, and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a new heart. And I will put my Spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and to be careful to obey my rules. So you'll notice verse 25 here, I will sprinkle clean water on you and you shall be clean.

7:57Jesus had told Nicodemus, if you'll recall back there, if a person wants to see heaven, he must be born from water and the Spirit. And I had mentioned back then that that alluded back to and was a callback to this passage as well. So what is Jesus doing baptizing in the wilderness? What is John still doing baptizing in the wilderness now that Jesus has come? I think what both of them are doing is in concert with one another.

8:20They are signaling to those with ears to hear and eyes to see that that one that would bring to fulfillment this— this is New Covenant language from Old Testament prophets here— that the one that would bring that to fulfillment had come onto the scene. That the conduit, the path to this new covenant reality had been revealed in the person of Jesus. It's interesting because John's message was repent and believe for the kingdom of God is at hand. Jesus would pick up that same message. John would be ultimately imprisoned and at that same point Jesus begins preaching that same message, repent and believe for the kingdom of God is at hand.

8:59The disciples are going to go out later with that message.

9:03Jesus was trying to communicate. Remember John chapter 1, Jesus— John wrote, he came to his own, but his own did not receive him. See, when Jesus was there saying, repent and believe, for the kingdom of God is at hand, the Jewish people, if they had had the eyes to see and the ears to hear, their Messiah was right there. The one to establish the kingdom and fulfillment of the Davidic covenant from 2 Samuel chapter 7 was standing before their eyes saying, repent and believe, for the kingdom is at hand. And they had no idea how at hand it truly was.

9:33Similarly here in baptizing and calling them to repentance, Jesus is alluding to the reality that the fulfillment of the new covenant is closer than they could have ever imagined. This new relationship with God where he would cleanse them from their sins. And so John and Jesus are out in the wilderness and they're doing this thing to signify, I think, that the new covenant fulfillment, that The reality was that was so, so very near for those with eyes to see and ears to hear. And we know John was there because the text says John was there. It says John was also baptizing, it says here, at Aenon near Salim.

10:11Okay, so geography lesson again. I had mentioned Jesus was down here, right? Southern part of Israel by the Jordan River. Admittedly, we're not entirely certain where Aenon and Salim are, but our best guess is that this was further north in Israel, kind of central in the distance between the Dead Sea and the Sea of Galilee. So John was upriver from where Jesus was, and he was baptizing up there with his disciples.

10:39Jesus and his disciples were down south baptizing east of Jerusalem. So John and Jesus both out there, both doing the same thing, both for the same purpose and the same reason. And then there's the time marker there, John had not yet been put in prison. Why is that time marker given? Well, I think that's given by our author, by the apostle, for this reason.

10:59The other gospels, save for the birth account of Jesus, but the other gospels, when they pick up Jesus' earthly ministry, by and large, they're dealing with events that are taking place after John has been imprisoned. And so John the apostle is writing to let us know, hey, all of this stuff that's taking place, this is taking place before John the Baptist had been put in prison. So it's a helpful time marker just Just to set the context as we're reading the gospel. But here's what I want us to pay attention to in these first few verses. The disciples of John, the disciples of Jesus out in the wilderness doing the same thing, preaching the same message.

11:312 pockets of light in an otherwise dark world. 2 voices pointing to the hope that we have in Christ. Doing the same thing, quote unquote, pulling the ship in the same direction. Direction. Church, like-minded ministry partners are a good thing to have.

11:52They're a good thing to have. The mission of the church, make disciples of all nations, teaching them, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you. That is a mission that supersedes the ability of any one church to be able to fulfill. We need good, strong, solid, like-minded churches to partner with in ministry. Here you have Jesus and John working together.

12:18And so what I want us to do this morning is to allow that picture of Jesus and John laboring together in the Judean wilderness for the common purpose. I want that to remind us that we need to be praying for the Lord to multiply those who will do the same with us today. Our first point this morning is this: pray for revival in North Texas. Pray for revival in North Texas.

12:42We're not gonna talk about what happened last night in Arlington on a baseball field, that's gonna just stay buried. We'll just talk generally about the team. That team, 2 years ago, the Texas Rangers lost over 100 games, and they looked like it last night. But they lost over 100 games 2 years ago. We get a new GM in, we get a couple of pretty big-time players in, Prospects that are nearing the big leagues, and what happens?

13:08They begin to work to build the team. And so they go out and they sign Corey Seager and they sign Marcus Simeon, and that made a massive splash. But then we went through another losing season last year. Why? Because, well, Corey Seager and Marcus Simeon, they couldn't do it on their own.

13:23They couldn't go out and carry the team on their own. And so then this next year, Adolis Garcia kind of steps in and enters into his own a little bit more. And then we get Evan Carter come out of nowhere. And, uh, and he starts playing well. We get Josh Young, have a Rookie of the Year campaign until he gets injured.

13:39We— I apologize for any of you who don't know anything about baseball. These are— I'm speaking in tongues for you up here.

13:45All that to say, what happened this— between last year and this year to change? They kept adding the pieces that they needed to add. They knew it wasn't one person. It wasn't 2 people. It wasn't 3 people.

13:56It was going to take a full team. It was going to take an excellent team to go out and accomplish an excellent goal. And y'all, we need an excellent team of churches, like-minded churches here. If this is going to happen, if revival is going to take place in North Texas, we need other faithful churches preaching a biblical gospel, calling people to faith and repentance in Jesus. We're not the only game in town.

14:18And so we need to be praying that God will bring other like-minded ministry partners to pull the ship in the same direction, to do this with us. And I believe there are some of those around the area, but y'all, I believe there's plenty of room for more. People would say to us when we came from California out to here to plant this church, why are you going to Texas to plant a church? Don't they have enough churches? And on the one hand, yes, there are plenty of churches here, but are they churches faithful to the mission that Christ has called them to?

14:49Some are, and we need to thank God for them and pray for them. But y'all, we need to pray for more. We need to pray for more. Not only that, but think about the growth that we're seeing all around us right now. We're expanding north so rapidly.

15:06I remember growing up out here. I was— we— when my family and I first moved out here, we were in Plano, right on the border of Plano and Frisco, and nobody knew anything about Frisco. It was farm fields. And now you think about Frisco, and we're sitting in the middle of it, and there's soccer stadiums, and Jerry World Jr. over there where the Cowboys practice to lose, and There's minor league baseball stadiums here and like all of this growth here and it's, it's still going, y'all. If you've been up to Celina and now people are talking about Gunter as though it's a thing, right?

15:39The growth is going. And here's the thing. What are they doing? Well, they're building new Costcos and they're building new Walmarts and they're building new schools. Do we need those things?

15:48Yeah. Are they part of our infrastructure? Yes. Guess what else we need up there? We need faithful churches.

15:54Y'all, we need like-minded ministry partners planting churches north of where we're at. We need to saturate this area with the biblical gospel. And so what does this look like? How should we be praying along these lines? Well, let me suggest a couple of things for you.

16:07Number one, pray for our church. Pray for our church, y'all. We need to stay faithful to the task at hand. We need to stay faithful to the message, faithful to the word of God. So let me ask you and plead with you, please pray for your church.

16:22Pray for us as pastors. Pray that we are always anchored to the word of God, that this is never going to be built on a personality, but built on the person of Jesus. Pray for us. Pray for your church in this. Second, we need to not only pray for our church, but also pray for other believers in our area.

16:39Pray for God to grow Christians in their faith, to deepen their convictions in Christ, to give them a passion and a zeal to reach people for Jesus. And to hear the gospel ring out in all of the neighborhoods surrounding us, which represent individual mission fields.

16:56We need to pray for the believers in our area. Third, we need to pray for the local churches in our area. Pray that they will be faithful to what a church should be and the message that a church should proclaim. And pray that God will keep them that way.

17:11Pray for, as well, not only just the churches in general, but their pastors. Their leaders, that God will protect them and their families, that God will keep them from temptation, that God will keep them preaching the Word and only the Word. Pray for them to hire the right people to add to their team as these churches continue to grow.

17:32Pray for these pastors as well.

17:35Pray for future church plants. I mentioned we need more churches. We do need more churches in this area. One of our distinctives at Compass Bible Church North Texas Is that we will always be working to plant more churches. Listen, some of you in this room may be involved in a future church plant from us as we send out people to go and plant a church somewhere else in this Metroplex.

17:53I know right now that's hard to think about. It's hard for us to think about. But man, I'm excited. I can't wait to get there. I want us to get there as fast as we possibly can because that's one of the fastest ways to spread the gospel in any given region domestically is to plant more churches.

18:07So we need to be praying for God to plant like-minded churches.

18:13Yeah. A while ago, Pastor Rod sent me a link from a study that was done in 2002 from Ligonier Ministries, and it was on the state of the Bible, state of theology amongst evangelicals. So, these numbers all reflect evangelicals, quotes appropriate.

18:36What did evangelicals say about the Bible's literal truthfulness? Well, in 2014, it said 41% of evangelicals surveyed agreed with that. We moved on in 2016, 44% agree with that. Oh, sorry, this is negative. I have that— that frames things a little bit better.

18:54You're like, this is a good thing, right? It's going up. No, no, these are people that believe the Bible is not literally true. They might say it's God's word, but not literally true.

19:042018, 47% surveyed said, yeah, the Bible is not literally true. 2020, 48% agreed with that. 2022, 53% of evangelicals surveyed said they did not believe that the Bible is literally true.

19:22There were more questions. How about this one? Gender identity is a choice. Evangelicals were surveyed about that. Do you believe that gender identity is a choice?

19:292016 to 2020, 38% of evangelicals surveyed said, yeah, we believe that gender identity is a choice. 2022, it jumped to 42%.

19:41Again, these are evangelicals.

19:46Homosexuality is not a sin today. This was another question on this survey.

19:532016, 42% agreed that it's not a sin.

19:572018, that number jumped to 44%. 2020, it dropped a little bit to 40%. Maybe this is an encouraging thing. Unfortunately not. 2022, the number was back up 46%.

20:08And we see that. We see that.

20:15God accepts all forms of worship. It doesn't matter what religion you are. God is going to accept your worship. Again, here we have evangelicals surveyed. 2016, 48% agreed with that statement.

20:282018, 51% agreed with that statement. 2020, the number dropped again. I find it interesting that 2020, something happened in 2020, I can't remember what it was, that people began to rethink some of these positions. Unfortunately though, in 2022, it's way back up. 56% of evangelicals are not willing to say that Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father but through him.

20:51Jesus was a great teacher but not God.

20:572020, 30% agreed with that statement.

21:022022, 43% agreed with that statement.

21:07If Jesus isn't God, we— he's not risen from the dead, and as Paul said, we of all men are most to be pitied.

21:17We need like-minded believers. We need like-minded ministry partners. Do those numbers resonate with you? I hope they do because that's what we're up against. And listen, we are— we need to be aware rather that just because we are in what has traditionally and historically been the Bible Belt, that doesn't protect us from these things creeping into the churches around us.

21:37In fact, I think even more so we need to be vigilant and aware that we live in a culture that makes it easy to say, yes, I'm a Christian, because you live next door to a church. That's not what makes you a Christian. Following Jesus makes you a Christian, and adhering to His teaching in the Word of God makes you a Christian. So we need like-minded ministry partners, but what does that mean? What— how do we define that?

22:00Well, 3 things that we need to hold fast to together with these other churches, and that is, who is God, what is the Bible, and what is the gospel? Okay? Those are what I'm defining as our parameters for a like-minded ministry partner. Look, we may disagree on some tier 2 issues. We may disagree on a lot of tier 2 issues, okay?

22:25Continuation of the gifts, women in ministry, different things like that. We may disagree on those things, but if we agree on these 3 things, we know we're pulling the ship in the same direction. We're working together to see lost come to faith in Jesus and be saved. And so we're praying that God will raise up and multiply like-minded ministry partners in this area because we're praying for revival in North Texas. We need it here, y'all.

22:50We need it here. And we need to feel that. John and Jesus working together, same message out in the wilderness, both baptizing. I mean, talk about a power team.

23:02But as often happens when 2 people are doing ministry in close proximity, the enemy's ready to try to divide, isn't he? Pick back up in verse 25. It says, 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's baptizing and all are going to him. John answered, a person cannot receive even one thing unless it is given to him from heaven.

23:31You 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.

23:46Therefore, this joy of mine is now complete. He must increase, but I must decrease. So a discussion arose. That word discussion there is a loaded word. It's a word in the Greek that means a hotly contested debate.

24:00This is an argument. And it arises between the disciples of John and a Jew over the rite of purification. So essentially what's happening here is that the Jews What seems to have happened is one of the Jews from Jerusalem had stumbled upon what was going on and went to investigate. And going to investigate, he saw that they were carrying out this baptism. And you'll remember, John had already been confronted by a delegation from the Jewish people earlier.

24:23You remember that? They had gone to him and said, are you Elisha? Are you the prophet? Who are you? John had said, I'm not any of them.

24:28And they said, then what are you doing baptizing? Well, they're still stuck on that. And so this guy comes to them and begins to argue with his disciples over the Jewish rite of purification. It wasn't so much that they had a problem with baptism, because remember baptism was known amongst the Jewish community. It was that they were doing this and carrying this out away from the priestly system.

24:46They were doing this away from the authority of the temple system. And so this Jew had gone to the disciples of John saying, you guys have gone rogue. What are you doing? Well, in the midst of this argument, in this discussion, this debate, it appears that this Jew had given them knowledge that Jesus was also baptizing down south. And by the way, Everyone's going to Jesus.

25:09Well, the disciples go to John and they come to John and they say, Rabbi, he who was with you across the Jordan, the one you baptized, implied there is, shouldn't this one be deferential to you, John? You were the one, you baptized him. He was the one that you revealed. Shouldn't you be the one, John? See, I think they're jealous here, not necessarily for themselves, but for their rabbi.

25:36I think they love John. Now they haven't been listening very closely to John, but they say, look, he's baptizing them and all are going to him. All are going to him. This is a great reversal because in Mark 1:4-5, we read that John the Baptist had been out baptizing. And as John the Baptist was out baptizing in Mark 1, it says that all Jerusalem and all Judea were going out to John to be baptized by him.

26:07Well, now that Jesus is on the scene, these disciples of John are confused and they're concerned that now everyone is going to Jesus.

26:17Everybody is going to him instead of coming to us, is how one translation translates this.

26:23These disciples had been with John for some time and they loved their rabbi. And they had seen the impact that he had had on people and they were concerned that he was going to lose that impact.

26:33Y'all, when our ministry focus becomes more horizontal than vertical, we're tempted to play the same games. We're tempted towards jealousy; we're tempted towards conceit and that can be incredibly damaging to the overall mission of the church. The temptation that John's disciples gave way to is still a temptation for pastors and Christians today. And we have to remember, church, what our ministry is about and pray that God keeps us from unhelpful ministry competition, that God keeps our focus where it needs to be. And here it is, point number 2: pray that Jesus always gets the glory.

27:13Pray that Jesus always gets the glory.

27:21There is a man whose name is Count Zinzendorf. His first name wasn't Count, but he was a count. Count Zinzendorf, Nicholas was his first name. And Nicholas Zinzendorf is ironically famous for a statement that he probably, if he was aware of what is going on now, wishes he had never made because it is a self-defeating statement. Here's what Count Zinzendorf said.

27:47He said this, I want to preach Christ, die, and be forgotten. I want to preach Christ, die, and be forgotten.

27:59I've always loved this statement. And again, the irony is this is why we remember Count Zinzendorf.

28:08But church, that should be our aim.

28:12This isn't about building a legacy for a human; it's about building a legacy for Jesus.

28:20Faithful churches should be known far more for Jesus than their pastors.

28:25Jesus gets the glory.

28:28Thankfully, Jon was having none of it here in projecting anything. He was going to— he was like, no, we're not going to project— there it is, never mind, it's back. Thankfully, John was having none of it. He was not going to put up with this. And so his response to them is apropos.

28:42And he says, look, there's going to be 2 ways for you and I to make sure that we are always pursuing Jesus getting the glory. And here's the 2 ways. Way number one is we need to adjust our perspective. And way number 2 is we need to adjust our expectations. So way number one that we can always pray that Jesus gets the glory and see that that's true is by adjusting our perspective.

29:04John says this, a person cannot receive even one thing unless it's given to him from heaven. In other words, John understood that the success that he and his disciples had enjoyed together was simply because God had granted it. See, church, God doesn't need a particular personality or an individual to accomplish what he desires. He doesn't need a certain brand or look or anything like that to do what he wants to do. The power is in God and him giving the fruit of the ministry.

29:38In fact, the Apostle Paul wrote about this in 1 Corinthians chapter 1, verse— verses— or chapter 3 rather, verses 5 through 7. Here you have the Apostle Paul in this great passage and he's confronting the Corinthian church because they're factionalizing. They're saying, well, I'm of Paul, I'm of Apollos, I'm of Pastor Rod. And so everybody's getting together in their cliques and Paul says, Hold on a second. And he says this, he says, what is Apollos?

30:05What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. God gave the growth. So Paul says, so neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.

30:26Church, any success that the Lord brings to us here at Compass Bible Church, and even looking out of this room, the humbleness, the humility I feel of just realizing that we came here with 50 or 60 people and God is growing our church week after week. That's him. That's him, right? God is the one that gives success. The church is not built on a personality.

30:47The church is not built on a preaching style. The church is built on the word preached, proclaimed, and realized in the person of Jesus. That's what the church is about. God gives the growth. And so our perspective needs to shift.

31:00We need to embrace, as James says in James 1:17, that every good gift, every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there's no variation or shadow due to change. Y'all, that includes ministry success. Every good gift is from God. God takes the word, applies the word, grows the word, and And causes it to bear fruit in our lives. And so the first way that we make sure that Jesus is going to get all the glory is we adjust our perspective and we remember, look, God is the one that's doing the heavy lifting here.

31:34We are, as Paul says, we are his servants through whom we pray that God will cause many more to come to faith. But we are the servants. He causes the growth.

31:46Perspective shift. Second is our expectations need to shift. Our expectations need to shift.

31:53John said to his disciples, you yourselves bear me witness that I said, I am not the Christ, but I have been sent before him. In other words, John's calling them to remember, remember what I've been telling you this whole time, that it's not about me, it's about him. Remember what this has been about from the very beginning. Have you ever gone to the grocery store and bought milk a few days before the expiration date and only realized it when you got it home? Oh man, milk's not going to be good in a few days.

32:25And so you just have a lot of cereal in a short amount of time.

32:31But imagine going and buying milk a few days before the expiration date, realizing that, intentionally going, yep, this is going to expire in 3 days, taking it home, putting it in your fridge, and 4 days later pulling it out and getting angry that it's already expired. Wait, what?

32:50What did you expect? You bought milk that was going to expire in 3 days. Guess what it did in 3 days? It expired. John had an expiration date to his ministry, and he called his disciples with that in mind.

33:03I'm here to do a job. My job is to point people to Jesus. Guess who's here, y'all? Jesus. Guess what?

33:10We're winding down. We're winding down. Adjust your expectations is what he's telling them. In other words, we're not here to build our brand, our kingdom. We're not here to make it all about us.

33:21We're here to make it all about him. Did you think I was joking? Right? You can kind of hear that in John here. You yourselves bear me witness.

33:28This is what I said. Is this thing on? As he's tapping his microphone.

33:33John's entire ministry purpose was to prepare the way for Jesus and then to get out of the way, to get out of the way. That's why he gives the illustration of the best man. He says, 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. John uses this parable to drive home his point.

33:55He says, no one shows up at the wedding excited about the best man. Except for maybe his wife, hopefully. But you're not at the wedding for him. You're not at the wedding for the wedding party. You're at the wedding for the bride and the bridegroom.

34:09And Jesus is the bridegroom of the church, the bride. And John is trying to get his disciples to understand he's here. Why would you be focused on me? I'm just the friend of the bridegroom. And guess what, y'all?

34:20I'm excited that he's here. Therefore, I greatly rejoice. Why was John so excited? Well, let me call your attention to a passage that you probably don't have memorized from Hosea. I don't have it memorized either, but it says this in Hosea 2:19 through 20.

34:35It says, I will betroth you to me forever. He's God speaking to Israel. You notice the marriage language here. I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you to me in righteousness, in justice, in steadfast love, and in mercy.

34:51I will betroth you to me in faithfulness, and you shall know the Lord. Therefore, this joy of mine is now complete. Why? Because this was being fulfilled. The bridegroom had come.

35:03And John is trying to get his disciples to understand that, to adjust their perspective and to adjust their expectations. Their expectations is not about building success, something successful here about us, but looking forward to the full reality of being with the bridegroom. That day is yet future for us, church. But when Pastor Rod and I first sat down and started thinking about planting this church, we started to think to ourselves and say, okay, well, what kind of a church do we envision having? What do we want this church to look like?

35:30And we said 3 things. One of the things we said, we want to equip our church to do the work in the ministry. We want to be a church-equipping church. In other words, Ephesians 4, we want that living out here. Another thing that we said is we want to be a culture-engaging church.

35:42In other words, we want a message That's going to go out and penetrate this culture, that's going to reach people for Christ. We want to know what's going on in our world and how God's word speaks into that reality. But you know what the first point was that we said we want? We want to be a Christ-exalting church. That's what we want to be.

36:01That's what we wanted to be from the very outset. That's what we still want to be. And I pray that's what we'll always want to be. And so that means that that needs to be the aim of our preaching, that Jesus is exalted. That needs to be the aim of our worship, that Jesus is exalted.

36:12We're singing songs.

36:15Christ alone, cornerstone. That needs to be the aim of our community groups. As we gather together, we're encouraging each other to love Jesus more. It needs to be the aim of our kids' ministry, the aim of our student ministry. Christ exalting needs to saturate everything about who we are as a church.

36:34That's another reason why we're starting with the Gospel of John, because John wrote that we might believe that Jesus is the Christ and that believing we might have eternal life. John wrote to exalt Jesus. This church, the church, belongs solely to Christ. And so we must have this mindset, He must increase, I must decrease.

36:58We have to guard against drifting from this, y'all. 3 ways I want to suggest this. Go ahead and throw them all up on the screen right now just for sake of time. We need to pray for Christ-exalting devotion. That's you individually, personally.

37:12As you're thinking about what role do I have to play in the church making sure that Jesus always gets the glory, we need to be a church of individuals who are always pursuing the glory of Christ. So in your personal relationship with Christ, your time in the word, your time in prayer, we need to make sure that our aim, our focus is Jesus and his glory. Christ exalting devotion. Second, we need to have Christ exalting community. That this is not just a one-stop shop where you come on Sunday mornings and you listen to a sermon, then you turn around, you leave, and you go.

37:37We want you to get connected. We want you to build relationships with other people in this church. We want you involved in a community group where people are going to spur you on to love Jesus more and you can spur other people on to love Jesus more. And then third, we need to have Christ-exalting pastors. Please pray for that.

37:52Please don't take that for granted that that will always be the case. By God's grace, yes. But please pray for that. Pray for this to be a hallmark of my life and Pastor Rod's life. Pray that we will have a Christ-exalting devotional life.

38:05We need those prayers because we always want to be a church where Jesus gets the glory. Pick back up in verse 31, John's commentary now resumes. So John the Baptist is done speaking at verse 30, he must increase but I must decrease. Now John the Apostle, our author, steps back in and kind of gives summary of everything that we've been reading and studying in John chapter 3 and he says, 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.

38:33He bears witness to what he has seen and heard, but no one receives his testimony. This is similar to what John wrote in John chapter 1, where Jesus came to his own, but his own did not receive him. Came to the world, but the world did not know him. Whoever, though, does receive his testimony sets his seal to this. In other words, signs off on it, gives his legal stamp of approval to this, that God is true.

38:55For he whom God has sent utters the words of God. This is Jesus. For he gives the Spirit without measure. The Spirit given to Jesus without measure. This is in contrast to the Old Testament prophets.

39:06The Old Testament prophets received the Spirit. The Spirit of God would come upon them from time to time, and they would prophesy. They would speak the Word of God. Jesus is different. Jesus is continually speaking the Word of God because the Spirit is given to Jesus without measure.

39:20And so there were times that Jeremiah was speaking and not speaking the inspired Word of God. Jesus was always speaking the inspired Word of God because He gave— the Father gave the Son the Spirit without measure. Verse 35, 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.

39:46Again, this is John's summary statement of everything that we've been studying in John chapter 3. And he sums it up by returning to this twofold choice, this twofold decision that people will have to make about Jesus that we talked about a couple weeks ago. Everybody decides about Jesus. There's no neutral when it comes to Jesus. You either believe or, as he puts it here, you disobey.

40:09Whoever does not obey— why does John use obedience? Let me suggest to you it's because this: the first act of obedience of a believer is faith. Is faith. And so the disobedience in view here is not implying that we earn our salvation through our works. It's simply John identifying the seriousness of rejecting Christ, that it is disobedience to, to choose not to believe in Jesus.

40:402 choices. This again is a reminder of the mission that you and I have. The mission to go and make disciples, the mission that overflows from our second point that we want Jesus to get all of the glory. One of the ways that we do that, church, most effectively is through making sure that we are staying on mission to reach the lost around us. Third and final point this morning is this: pray we remain laser-focused on the mission.

41:09Pray we remain laser-focused on the mission. Focused on the mission.

41:19The enemy would love to see us become a personality cult or a political cause or a social movement rather than a Christ-exalting church. And so he's going to try. He's going to try to derail us. And one of the ways that I think churches are more derailed than anything else is they become so inward focused that the mission of the church is totally lost. Y'all, we can go 100 miles deep in our theology and our understanding and our preaching, but if we aren't reaching 100 miles out and trying to see people come to faith in Christ, then we've been derailed.

41:57We're a fading lampstand at that point. Think of the history of some of the major institutions in our country. Princeton University.

42:07One of the presidents of Princeton University was Jonathan Edwards, albeit for a very short amount of time. But Princeton University was founded in deeply theological convictions. It was made to be a place where people were trained in Scripture, in theology. It's meant to be a place where pastors were trained. Guess what they're hosting last week?

42:28An anti-Israel, pro-Hamas protest, pro-Palestinian protest on their campus.

42:34There's an example of an institution that's drifted.

42:39We can think of many others. Watching these HGTV shows that my wife sometimes ropes me into on occasion, there are these shows that are like, I live in the weirdest things. Have you ever seen those? They're fascinating. People take firehouses and turn them into their home or like a school or a school bus or whatever.

42:56The ones that make me sad though are the ones where you find a family living in an old church.

43:02Because there's a church that the lampstand was put out. I don't know why, but it was. And now you've got a family living there. And where the word was once preached, where the bread of life was once offered, now they're buttering their bread in the morning for breakfast. It's a sad depiction of the danger that faces us if we don't stay laser-focused on the mission church.

43:27There's no guarantee that we will continue. And if we drift, I think there's a great chance that we won't. We need to remember what we're here to do. As John summarizes this, he says, he who came from above is above all, and he's speaking things from above.

43:47Don't be sidetracked by these earthly things that people from the earth want to talk about. Don't be sidetracked by all this stuff over here. Remember, the focus over here is him. In how great he is and what he has done. And he's calling us to a decision to either believe or the opposite, tragically, is to not believe.

44:05Church, we have to stay laser-focused on mission in calling people to believe. And if we don't, the danger for us is the same danger that faced the church at Ephesus when Jesus wrote to them and said, I have this against you. You have abandoned the love that you had at first. Remember therefore from where you have fallen, repent and do the works that you did at If not, I will come and remove your lampstand from its place. Sometimes we refer to the church as a lampstand, and it comes from passages like this.

44:36Y'all, we need to remember the first love. This was a doctrinally sound church. The church at Ephesus was one that you and I would feel comfortable in. We would walk in and we would listen to the sermon and we would amen the whole way through. But they left their first love.

44:47What does that mean? They left their zeal for Christ and making him known. Some of you are wearing a shirt this morning. It says, to know Christ and make him known on the back of it. That's our mission here.

44:57We got to stay on that. We got to make sure that that is always our mission. Remain laser focused. If not, we won't be any better off than Ephesus.

45:07And so church, pray for us. Any church that seeks to put the spotlight on something or someone other than Jesus is doing it wrong. We need to pray that we remain laser-focused on the mission. Well, somewhat like Count Zinzendorf, John's humility was ironically one of the most admirable traits about him. The one who said, he must increase but I must decrease.

45:35And this is the one of whom Jesus said, among those born of woman, there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist.

45:42But what made John that way was an all-consuming passion for the glory of Jesus.

45:50There's no surefire 9-step program to become humble, but if you will desire and if you will develop and if you will pursue the same passion for Christ's glory that we see in John, it will quickly teach you how to be humble.

46:08Why don't you stand with me as I ran over a little bit. Let me pray for us and then we will go ahead and be dismissed. There's refreshments, there's donuts, there's coffee in the back. Please grab those and stick around and let's fellowship together.

46:21Let's pray.

46:25Father God, we thank you so much for who you are. We thank you for Christ. We thank you for saving us through Jesus. God, we thank you, I thank you for this church. I thank you for those in this room and what a joy it is to be here and to be with them week in and week out.

46:42God, I pray that you would continue to be kind to this church and be gracious to this church. I pray that you would continue to bring the growth as we seek to humbly be your servants and bring the message of hope in Christ to those around us.

46:56Lord, guard us from going a mile deep and only an inch wide.

47:03We want to do both and do both well. We want to dive deep into our knowledge of who you are in order that we might go out and convey that knowledge to the world around us.

47:12So Lord, keep us fixated on Jesus. Keep us desiring that he would get all of the glory. Keep us laser-focused, God, on his mission and raise up other churches in our area to bring revival to this place. We know you can, we trust and believe that you can, and we ask that you would. We pray this in Jesus' name.

47:33Amen. Amen. Thanks, y'all. We'll see you next Sunday.