He Must Increase

The subject for my message today, this first split sermon, comes from John chapter 3, verse 25 through 36, and the word spoken by John the Baptist. So if you'd be turning there as we begin to John chapter 3.

Regarding John the Baptist, Jesus Christ said that—he said this in Matthew 11, 11—he said that among those born of women, there is not risen one greater than John the Baptist.

And both understood—both Jesus Christ and John understood John's role was to prepare the way for Christ. And John also knew that Jesus was greater than he. Now let's start reading in John 3, verse 25. I'm going to take you to the words that I want to have for our focus today as a subject. John 3, 25, then there arose a dispute between some of John's disciples and the Jews about purification. And they came to John and said to him—they came to John the Baptist—and they said to him, Rabbi, he who is with you beyond the Jordan, to whom you have testified. Behold, he is baptizing, and all are coming to him. Now they were referring, of course, to Jesus Christ. And just so we're clear, Jesus Christ himself did not baptize anyone, but his disciples did, and we can see that reference in John 4, too. But let's continue reading in verse 27. John answered and said, A man can receive nothing unless it has been given to him from heaven. You yourselves bear witness that I said, I am not the Christ, but I have been sent before him. He who is the bride is the bridegroom, but the friend of the bridegroom who stands and hears him rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom's voice. Therefore this joy of mine is fulfilled. He must increase, but I must decrease. He who comes from above is above all. He who is of the earth is earthly and speaks of the earth. He who comes from heaven is above all. And what he has seen and heard that he testifies, and no one receives his testimony. He who has received his testimony has certified that God is true. For he whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for God does not give the Spirit by measure. The Father loves the Son and has given all things into his hand. He who believes in the Son has everlasting life, and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him. So John the Baptist had been preaching about the coming of the Messiah for many years. He had preached repentance from sin and baptized many people. Yet he knew and accepted the fact that his role was secondary to Jesus Christ and that the end of his ministry was drawing near. His words, he must increase, but I must decrease, reflect that understanding that Jesus' ministry would grow, increase, but his would lessen. Now there existed no competition between John and Jesus. John humbly and readily accepted God's will. He relished in it, and he continued to stand firm for God in the powerful truth of his law. And as we know, later he was beheaded by Herod, by King Herod. You can read about that in Matthew 14, 1 through 12.

Now John's words of verse 30 should bear important meaning for each of us, and personally. They should remind us of our calling from the Father and what our lives are to be all about. You see, we also should say, he, Christ, must increase, but I, meaning the self, must decrease. In this split sermon, we will consider what these words should mean for us. We'll consider what these words should mean for us. And the title of the split sermon is, He Must Increase. He must increase. I'd like to begin with this question. In our personal lives, how does Jesus Christ increase, but we decrease?

To give you an abbreviated answer, the answer is through the process of conversion. Paul points to the close connection between Jesus Christ and those called of God, who commit themselves to becoming like Christ through God's process of conversion. Let's turn back to 2 Timothy 2, verses 11-13. In 2 Timothy 2, verses 11-13, we read this short passage. Paul describes it as a faithful saying, something we can depend on. It's a faithful saying concerning one's lifelong commitment to God and his process that involves increasing the influence of Christ in us and decreasing the influence of oneself. So here in 2 Timothy 2, verse 11, this is a faithful saying, For if we died with him, we shall also live with him, and if we endure, we shall also reign with him. If we deny him, he will deny us. If we are faithless, he remains faithful. He cannot deny himself. In verse 11, Paul is making reference to baptism, to that outward sign of an inward change of heart and mind. We can call baptism that outward sign of an inward change of heart and mind. Baptism represents death, burial, and resurrection, both of Jesus Christ and ourselves. Baptism shows that we accept the shed blood of Christ for our sins and pictures the death of our former life in the baptismal grave.

If we remain faithful to God, humbly and willingly endure with him until we give up this physical breath, then we will receive salvation. We will reign under Christ in the kingdom of God. Once we make this commitment to God, God is faithful to help us succeed. He'll do all he can to ensure that we will succeed. But we must strive to be as loyal and steadfast to God as he is to us. Over in Romans chapter 6, verses 3 through 6, Paul goes into more detail regarding the symbolic importance of baptism. I'd like for us to read that together in Romans 6, verses 3 through 6. Again, Paul is explaining here some of the details of symbolic importance of baptism. Beginning in verses 3 of Romans 6, Paul writes, Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we were buried with him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been united together in the likeness of his death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of his resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him, that the body of sin might be done away with, and that we should no longer be slaves of sin.

So through baptism we symbolically put to death our old self, our old self with its proclivities of yielding to sin, giving into human weaknesses. And that's how, through baptism, that's how we make the commitment to no longer be dominated by sin, but to submit ourselves to God and Christ, who live in us through God's Holy Spirit, which we receive from God with the laying on of hands through God's ministers. And so baptism, receiving God's Holy Spirit, enduring faithfully with God our vital steps that we must take for Christ to increase and for self to decrease.

Our commitment at baptism also expresses our willing desire to deny the self and overcome our human weaknesses, and so bear our cross as our duty in following Jesus Christ. Let's turn to Matthew 16, verse 24 through 26, and like to read here what Jesus said about our duty to bear our cross. Matthew 16, verse 24 through 26. Matthew 16, 24. And then Jesus said to his disciples, If anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever desires to save his life, Sukei, life, or self, will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul? And here again the word is sukei. Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?

To bear our cross means to bear the burden of our duty in following Jesus Christ, regardless of what people of the world may think of us, regardless of the ridicule, regardless of them thinking we're foolish, we're wasting our time, it doesn't matter.

Christ expects us to be faithful and obedient to his instructions in the Scripture. And though, as verse 25 relates, we must be willing to lose our lives to die for the sake of Christ. We must also be willing to deny ourselves the sinful pleasures of this physical, mortal existence. We have to give that up. And so, as he makes clear here, compared to what the world offers, allowing Christ to increase and the self to decrease is more valuable by far than anything that the world could possibly give us, greater than anything we could possibly have, own, or be. Now, by turning to other passages in Matthew, we find many other examples of Jesus instructing his followers in how to live life God's way, and contrary to the ways of our carnal, our carnal self-centered human nature. In foundational, the living life God's way, of course, is the keeping of God's Ten Commandments. It's foundational to our life in Christ, our life of following Christ. Let's turn to Matthew 5, verse 17 through 20.

Let's read Matthew 5, verse 17 through 20.

You know, many theologians, many religious-minded people, we've heard them through the years, many people that don't truly understand and know God believe that Jesus Christ does not require that we keep the Commandments of God, the Ten Commandments of God. But they're wrong.

Christ himself is very clear about it. We take our authority from Scripture. Here's what we read, Matthew 5, verse 17. Jesus said, Jesus did not do away with or make void humanity's need to obey the Ten Commandments. The word fulfilled means, carries the concept that he kept God's law to the fullest extent of their meaning. And as he himself clearly states, Jesus says his purpose was not to destroy or make, in other words, make void God's Commandments. Neither did he complete them in our stead. I've heard people say that. He kept them so we don't have to. That's not right.

And if you look outside your window, if you're near a window, you'll probably see that, yes, heaven and earth still exist, and so do God's Ten Commandments remain in effect. We must still be keeping them. There's really no other honest way to understand the meaning of Christ's own words in these verses. Obedience to God is vital to our existence now and forever. Now, what Jesus did do, however, what he did do was to expand the meaning of the Commandments in a broader, deeper, we might say, spiritual sense and beyond the more restrictive reading of the scribes and Pharisees whom he mentions. The scribes and Pharisees tended to emphasize the external actions of obedience, what we often would call the literal keeping of the law. They emphasized the external actions of obedience, but essentially ignored the thoughts and motivations behind those actions. By expanding the scope of the Ten Commandments, however, Jesus revealed more ways about how we must be denying and decreasing the influence of the self. To decrease the influence of the self takes more than a simple obeying of God's law according to the letter. And so he revealed new and wonderful ways of how we must allow him to help us rule over our thoughts, over our words, and over our actions. Notice, for example, how Jesus expanded the Sixth Commandment, you shall not murder. He goes far beyond what the scribes and Pharisees thought of that meaning. They simply thought it meant they followed it according to not to take the life of an innocent person. That's murder, literally, to not take the life of an innocent person. Jesus expanded that meaning. Let's notice here, still in Matthew 5 verse 21-22. Jesus said, You have heard that it was said to those of old, you shall not murder, and whoever murders will be in danger of judgment. But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment, and whoever says to his brother, Raka, shall be in danger of the counsel, but whoever says, You fool, shall be in danger of hellfire. Here the word is Gehenna, fire.

Jesus expanded the commandment to prohibit being angry and hateful against another person without cause. Now, anger without cause would include anger that is unjust, anger that is unwarranted or rash. Anger without cause would include anger when there's no offense, when no offense has been given or no offense was intended. Jesus was not speaking about anger against the sinfully wicked, however. It's okay to be angry against wickedness. It's okay to be angry with those who do evil. And if you remember, like I do, Jesus Christ was very angry with hypocrites. He was very clear about his anger regarding the hypocrisy of the Pharisees. So Jesus's prohibition was also against expressions of contempt, these words he mentions here of St. Raka, your fool, and so on.

He did not want us to be using expressions of contempt or of wickedness. All these were added to the literal letter of the law meaning of that commandment because Christ wants us to be addressing what's in our heart. He wants us to be concerned about our motivations, our thoughts, the emotions from which our heart speaks, from which our actions take root. He also expanded the meaning of the seventh commandment, you shall not commit adultery. Reading verse 27-28, he said, you have heard that it was said to those of old, you shall not commit adultery, but I say to you that whoever looks at a woman who lusts for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

Again, he expands the meaning of the commandment, in this case, to include spiritual manners of that heart and mind. The Pharisees and scribes typically considered the commandment violated only when the external actions were observed. Scholars say they really cared little, it seems, about the internal thoughts, motivations. They didn't care what your imagination was doing. God does. Jesus Christ makes that very clear.

Christ directed sin towards itself in one's lustful thoughts and desires with regards to the seventh commandment. Now, in addition, verses 29-30, Jesus added this warning in general about yielding to sin's pleasures. Verse 29, if your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you. For it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish than for your whole body to be cast into hell, into Gehenna.

If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you. For it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish than for your whole body to be cast into hell. Now, Jesus did not intend that people literally maim themselves. We don't chop off body parts for the actions, the sins we commit, but he was using this graphic hyperbole to make a very powerful point. He's using it for emphasis. In other words, if the dearest things we have, such as would be something akin to our right eye or our right hand, are very important to us.

If it causes us to sin, then we should give them up rather than continue in that sin, in its ways which eventually would bring about our total destruction if we'd fail to repent. And so his point is, self-denial is by far preferred over the devastating effects of sin. Controlling the self, decreasing the self is preferable than giving in to the devastating effects of sin. But just as he teaches our need to deny the self to decrease its dominion over hearts and minds, Jesus also teaches us to yield to God, to allow him to reign in us, and so express his loving presence in us through acts of godly love towards all people.

Let's continue reading here in chapter 5, now in verse 43-48. Again, expanding the meaning of God's way of life. Matthew 5, 43, you have heard that it was said, You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies. Bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you.

That seems pretty tough. That seems like a tall order. And why, though, verse 45, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. For he makes his Son to rise on the evil and on the good. He sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward have you?

Do not even the tax collectors do the same? Of course, we understand tax collectors rather despise people in the culture of that time. Verse 47, if you greet your brethren only, if you only say hi to your friends and ignore everybody else, for example, what do you do more than others?

That's not the way we're to live, Jesus says. Tax collectors, people we don't like, do that. Why would we want to do something like that? Verse 48, the bottom line, he says, Therefore you shall be perfect just as your Father in heaven is perfect. You shall be perfect is the word telios. It does mean perfection. But it also points us to being like God, being holy. That is the ultimate goal of God's law, to be like God is, to be holy, just as your Father in heaven is perfect in those ways.

So Christ's admonitions again reveal more about God's love and compassion. That's for all people. His same love and compassion that we must allow to increase within us and express through our own words in our own actions. God does want us to be holy. He does want us to be righteous like he is. But no one can please God or fool him by pretending to be this way. God knows the heart. Those who know God and love God will be those who believe God and strive to do what he says. Let's notice Matthew 7, verse 21-23. Matthew 7, verse 21-23.

And this is a serious warning. We should take heart. Jesus said, verse 21 in Matthew 7, And not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name, cast out demons in your name, done many wonders in your name? And then I will declare to them, I never knew you. Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness. Practice suggests they're not just slipping up and doing this every now and then. This is their lifestyle. This is their way of life, a lifestyle of lawlessness, of rebellion, and disobedience to God. Christ's words then bear a grave warning to us. If we know to repent, but don't really try or ignore it, or even seek or even try to get God's help in repenting, he may not recognize this in times to come. We must not allow that slip on our part, perhaps, from time to time. We must not allow it to become a practice, a way of life.

In Matthew 13, I'd like to have us turn there, please. In Matthew 13, this understanding of how God must increase and the self must decrease, we find this idea also in two brief parables here in Matthew 13. Both parables implicitly give us Christ's admonition for his followers to deny themselves, decrease the self, increase what truly matters. It also forces us to ask, how much value do we place on our salvation? How much value do we place on this calling from God? Let's look at Matthew 13, verse 44. Here's the first parable. Again, Jesus taught, Again, the kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and hid. And for joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. And following immediately behind it, verse 45 through 46, Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking beautiful pearls, who, when he had found one pearl of great price, he went and sold all that he had and bought it. These parables tell us that God expects us to value his treasure of salvation, to value it far more than anything else in our lives. There's that idea, that theme again. Our esteem for the things of this world, including the self, must decrease, and our desire to worship and please God must increase. Nothing we are or possess of ourselves compares to the riches God offers to those who willingly choose to submit to his will and to follow Jesus Christ. Now, Paul expresses this similar necessity, this need to have a change of heart and mind in Ephesians 4, 17 through 24. I'm aware that we've considered these scriptures several times over this past week of Unleavened Bread, the services we've had leading up to it, but let's look just briefly at it. Ephesians 4, verse 17 through 24. We're not going to read this whole section, but this is a passage of scripture that explains how we must no longer walk according to the ways of the Gentiles. In other words, according to the ways of the world, according to those who do not know God, but follow their own self-desires, the lusts of the flesh, and other, such as we heard recently from Dr. Ward in his sermon. Now, what Paul does describe here in verses 22 through 24 especially is that three-step process which will cause the self to decrease and Christ increase in us. This is a process I'm thinking we've become rather familiar with during these days of Unleavened Bread, but we want to remain familiar with and keep practicing. Let's read then Ephesians 4, verse 22. Paul urges us that you put off, that we put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man, which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lust, and be renewed with the spirit of your mind. We need to yield to this new spirit, God's spirit, influenced by his holy scripture, too. We have to put in this new mindset. Verse 24, that you put on the new man, a new self, which was created according to God in true righteousness and holiness. We must put on the mind of Christ.

And so whatever causes us to waver, whatever causes us to doubt, whatever causes us not to place more, and even what we really aspire to is total faith and trust in Jesus Christ, we must not allow those things to rule over us, that keep us from believing and from obeying him.

What sort of things would hold us back? What would cause us to waver in our faith, in our commitment?

Could it be our doubts caused by sins, our doubts caused by human weaknesses, so that we just can't quite believe that God would love us as much as he says, that we can't quite trust God as much as he says, that we can't quite believe that God would actually forgive us for the terrible things we did? Those are doubts and fears we must ask God to help us dispel. That's part of that part of us that we must get rid of. What other things may cause us to waver? Could it be things we've struggled against all our lives? These strongholds of sin, these strongholds of old habits. Sometimes we grow up thinking about ourselves in a certain way. People around us have defined for us who and what we are, and sometimes we're held captive by that, by other people's ideas, even by our own ideas, which are not true. There are all many things that could hold us back, cause us to waver, that makes it seem so hard for us to repent or let go of the things that have weighed us down in the past. But we can let these things go. We can dispense with these things.

What we need to be doing, we must be doing more and more to stay close to God. Ultimately, we must do what it takes so that we would quit being reticent or hesitant about doing what we know we must be doing. I think we all know from pretty clearly at times what we need to do, what we need to do to fight sin, what we need to do to conquer self a little bit more each day, but for whatever reasons we might be hesitant to do it. We procrastinate. But that's what our old rebellious self wants us to do. Our old rebellious self does not want to give up its ways. It does not want to quit doing what it has always done and gotten away with doing. We all have the similar challenge, but only you yourself and God knows what you exactly face in your life, what you exactly need to do. What are some things I'm talking about? We desire to trust God totally, and yet we fear to release whatever we keep holding on to. That's the sum of it. We fear to let go of what we know and to trust God faithfully and fully. We want to walk on water. We want to walk on water.

We have committed ourselves to trust God totally. Our sincere endeavor as a matter of faith and obedience to God is to do all that God would have us to do. We want to walk on water, but we stumble and we doubt. Why? If we could be completely honest, or would be completely honest, with ourselves and with God, we will admit that we often hesitate to go all the way in with God. We just do. There's something in us that's resistant. That's that old self.

Peter walked on water. Let's think about him. Peter actually walked on water. He did it.

And then we read this account here in a bit. We can see that it was an aspect of his increasing faith and trust in Christ. Now, later on, he'd be strengthened even more so by faith of Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit. But we find no other person accepting Jesus Christ who walked on water. Peter, in fact, was doing really great. He was doing fantastic in that moment until he panicked. He panicked and began to sink. And then Jesus reached out and saved him. Let's read that account. Let's read back in Matthew 14. Imagine yourself in Peter's place. Matthew 14, verse 24 through 33. Matthew 14, 24. The disciples had went out on the lake while Christ remained on land, praying most of the night. We were told. But then in verse 24, I'll begin somewhat after this narrative has begun, verse 24 of chapter 14 in Matthew. But the boat was now in the middle of the sea, tossed by waves, for the wind was contrary. Now in the fourth watch of the night, Jesus went to them walking on the sea. And when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, It is a ghost! And they cried out for fear. But immediately Jesus spoke to them. He said, Be of good cheer. It is I. Do not be afraid. And Peter answered him and said, Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water. And so Jesus said, Come. And when Peter had come down out of the boat, he walked on the water to go to Jesus. But when he saw that the wind was boisterous, a Greek word means stormy, even violent. When he saw that the wind was boisterous, he was afraid. And beginning to sink, he cried out, saying, Lord, save me. And immediately Jesus stretched out his hand and caught him and said to him, O you of little faith. That word, little faith, there's a Greek word, oligopto... Yeah, that one's hard. Oligopto... meaning lacking confidence. He lacked confidence. He didn't have all the faith he needed. He trusted too little at that moment. And Jesus said, Why did you doubt? Doubt means to waver. You were going well. What made you hesitate? What made you waver?

And we don't get the answer, specifically. And when they got into the boat, the wind ceased, then those who were in the boat came and worshipped him, saying, Truly, truly you are the Son of God. So what did cause Peter to waver at that moment? What might explain Peter's lack of confidence, his lack of faith or trust, at that moment? What might have caused him to doubt and waver? Well, I can't know for sure. I know he was human. Human weaknesses like we all have. We could speculate, perhaps. Perhaps it's Peter's lifelong experience as a fisherman. Perhaps it is his lifelong experience as a fisherman that suddenly alerted him to the fact that he shouldn't be out here on top of the water in the middle of a stormy sea at night. And he looked down and here's all these violent waves. Surely, maybe he went back to an automatic pilot, so to speak, and was terrified, afraid he was about to drown. The natural fear of drowning, the sense of sudden death, may have overtaken his momentary burst of faith, this burst of powerful faith and trust he had in Christ, and he wavered and he lost his confidence. I think we can understand that.

But God wants the faith of Christ and faith in Christ to increase in our hearts and minds.

He wants us to trust him more, and we typically do as we yield ourselves more to his Holy Spirit, that wonderful comforter that he has given us. And while we learn to believe God's Word more fervently and to practice it with more devotion and more diligence, we then are allowing Christ to increase. We are allowing Christ to increase in us. A lesson we have been learning and relearning during this week of the Feast of Unleavened Bread is that Christ must increase, but we must decrease.

As we yield to God's will and mind in us, we will be allowing Christ to increase. And then, through belief and repentance with the help of God's Word and his Holy Spirit, we must keep whittling away, little by little, never quitting, never giving up, we must keep whittling away at that old self, striving relentlessly to decrease its influence in our lives while Jesus Christ's powerful influence increases and increases in its place. And then, ultimately, doing that, we will find ourselves resurrected with immortal, glorious bodies at Christ's return, and Christ establishes God's kingdom on earth. We anticipate that time. If we would have Jesus Christ increase in us and never remain at one with him and God our Father, ever be at one with the church, with the body of Christ, and never be of God's family, ever be of the kingdom of God, that encourages us to be doing two things.

Every day, we must partake of that true bread of life, Jesus Christ. Main theme of this holy season, we must partake every day of that true bread of life, Jesus Christ.

Compleg or high water, we get no days off from our need to eat of that life-giving bread.

Secondly, every day we must choose to do what Christ instructs. By faith and obedience, let us allow Jesus Christ to increase his presence in our lives.

If we desire to be among the first fruits of his kingdom, as we surely do, then let us always eat of that true bread. Let us always choose life of obedience.

So, brethren, I encourage us all, I encourage each of us to put to heart those vital words we've discussed today. He must increase, but I, we, must decrease.