John 3:22-30: The Joy of a Christ-Exalting Life
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· 7 viewsTrue joy is found in living a Christ-exalting life.
Notes
Transcript
Scripture Reading
Scripture Reading
Colossians 3:1-4 If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.
Intro
Intro
How do you find true joy in your life?
How do you find true joy in your life?
How do you get to the life abundant…the overflowing life...the fullness of life that Christ promised?
I don’t know a single person that does not want a more fulfilled, satisfying, thirst-quenching life.
But how do you get there?
The sad sad state of the church today is that so many Christians, and maybe you today, are looking around at the Christian life wondering, “Is this it?”
Is this all that there is?
We look promises like Psalm 16:9 and 11 which says My heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices…You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore, and we ask, where is that?
How do I find it?
Where is that joy and that fullness of life that my soul is so thirsty for?
John 3:22-31 gives us the answer.
John the Baptist
John the Baptist
John 3:22-24 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 Aenon near Salim, because water was plentiful there, and people were coming and being baptized (for John had not yet been put in prison).
After He cleansed the Temple and had a conversation with Nicodemus about the New Birth, Jesus and His disciples left Jerusalem and went out to the Judean countryside and while there, they were baptizing.
And just a little ways down the road, John was also baptizing continuing the ministry God had given him to do.
Verse 25...
John 3:25-26 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.”
Now, you’ll notice something quite odd about this argument over purification, because if you keep reading the passage doesn’t seem to come up again, at least not explicitly.
But his detail is not arbitrary.
Remember, this story follows immediately on the heels of Jesus’ discussion with Nicodemus about the New Birth where He said you must be born again to inherit eternal life (John 3:3).
And being born again means being born of water and the Spirit.
That is, born again in the New Covenant. Cleansed from sin and made alive again through the work of the Holy Spirit who applies the work of Christ’s life death and resurrection to you through faith.
So when this argument of purification comes up, and John the Baptist, the last and greatest prophet of the Old Covenant, answers by saying He must increase, I must decrease...
The idea is that true cleansing, true purification from sin doesn’t come through keeping the Law in the Old Covenant.
Purification comes through faith in Jesus Christ...
A confirmation from God’s appointed Forerunner to the Messiah that we must be born again if we want to be forgiven of all our sin.
Or, as John the Baptist said in John 1:29, Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!.
That’s why it didn’t bother him when his disciples came to him and said “Rabbi, he who was with you across the Jordan, to whom you bore witness—look, he is baptizing, and all are going to him.”
Verse 27...
John 3:27-30 John answered, “A person cannot receive even one thing unless it is given him from heaven.
In other words, John knew everything we have comes from God.
James 1:17 Every good gift and perfect gift is from above.
Up until now, John had had a booming prophetic ministry.
Mark 1:5 all the country of Judea and all Jerusalem were going out to him and were being baptized by him…confessing there sins.
But now, everyone is going to Jesus.
And what was John’s response? Everything I have comes from God.
All my gifts, talents, abilities.
My calling. Success. Fruitfulness in ministry.
None of its my own.
Its all from God and for God, and He is wise and He is good enough to do with my life whatever seems best to Him.
He was not envious or jealous of Jesus like his disciples thought he would be.
John humbled himself and trusted the will of the Lord with all of his life.
Providence
Providence
This is an important lesson for us if we are going to have the joy John talks about here in a second.
Do we trust the Lord with all of our life?
Now we say we do, but do we really?
Think about it. John is saying this when it looks like his ministry and the purpose he had given his life to is all falling apart.
He is trusting the Lord in a time where everything he had spent his entire life trying to build was slipping out of his hands like water.
How do most of us respond when things don’t go our way?
When we start to suffer? When it looks like life isn’t what we thought it would be?
We get anxious. We question where God is and what He is doing.
We start worrying.
But if our life was really about the glory of God and not ourselves or our comfort, what would we do?
Trust the Lord.
Say, “He is a wise Father. May He do what seems best to Him.”
We would say with Job, Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord (Job 1:21).
Why? Because its not about us. Everything...all of our life is for the glory of God.
Like John the Baptist, our job is to be faithful and to trust Him every step of the way knowing a person cannot receive even one thing, good or bad, unless it is given him from heaven.
This is the secret to contentment and the foundation for a joy filled life (Phil 4:11).
Without it, we will never have joy, but will always be discontent bucking against God’s providence when things don’t go our way.
God is God, and our lives are meant to be lived for Him.
Not our will, our desires, our wants, hopes, comforts, and dreams.
The Bible calls us to bear with patience under God’s providence.
God’s providence is His sovereign government over the world down to the smallest detail of everyone of our lives.
If God blesses with good things and His sovereign will falls for us in pleasant places (Psalm 16:6), it is for His glory.
It is so we might return those blessings back to God in praise celebrating His kindness and goodness with thanksgiving.
But if adversity comes, trials and sufferings of various kings, with the same faith, we should count them all joy (James 1:2).
Those trials are not in vain, they are the very thing God is is using to refine us and make us more like Christ that we might bring glory to His Name.
Romans 8:28-29 We know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son.
All things, good and bad, work together for our good, because God does not waste our suffering, but sovereignly governs it to conform us to the image of Christ and bring glory to His Name.
Now if that is the aim of our life, glorifying God by growing in Christ, then there truly is great joy in our trials.
They are the tool God is using like a master surgeon to give us what we desire most!
But if Christ and God’s glory are not our aim…if we are really only living for ourselves at the end of the day, then there will be no sweetness in our sufferings…There can’t be! All of them will be only bitterness.
As Calvin said No one…has properly denied himself who has not so resigned himself to God that he gladly allows Him to rule Him as He wills (Calvin, A Guide to Christian Living, Banner of Truth, 50).
Without a strong, resolute faith in the sovereignty of God and His goodness, and a desire with all of our life to bring glory to His Name there can be no joy. Only frustration, bitterness, and kicking against the goads.
Wise and Good
Wise and Good
So here’s the principle.
God is infinitely wise and infinitely good.
That is the theology we need to filter everything in our life through whether good and bad because that is the theology we need to live a joyful and contented life no matter the circumstances.
Because He is infinitely wise, God can never make a mistake or choose the wrong thing.
God has never once wondered what would be best or what He ought to do.
Everything He has ever decreed was perfectly good and perfectly best.
And that’s because God is not only infinitely wise, but infinitely good.
Everything God does is not just the right thing to do, its the good thing to do.
God is never unjust, and He cannot be tempted to sin.
So when God governs the world, when God governs and rules over every detail of your life, everything works together for your good and His glory perfectly because God knows how to bring about exactly what He had ordained to do, and He does so perfectly.
So when you put those two together, God is infinitely wise and God is infinitely good, that means that everything, down to the smallest detail of your life, even the hardest things God might ever ask you to endure, comes to you through the hand of your wise and loving Father.
And it is all a part of His perfect plan.
It is the best possible world according to God’s wisdom and goodness that perfectly serves to the utmost your good and His glory.
With a God like that do we possibly have to stress about? What do we have to worry about?
How could we ever grumble against God, which is, by the way, just the sinners’ clever way of making a veiled criticism of God telling Him He’s doing a bad job?
When we grumble and complain all we are saying is God you are not wise and you are not good, and I would be doing a better job with my life than you.
But when we have a God who is infinitely wise and infinitely good, and has proven His love for us by giving His own Son to die on our behalf...truly we can count it all joy and Rejoice always in the Lord…giving thanks in all circumstances and for everything just as God commands us to do in 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18.
Application
Application
How about you? Do you live your life with the perspective that God is infinitely wise and good?
That everything, every detail, the highest highs, the lowest lows, and everything in between comes to you through God’s providential hand to best mold you into the image of Christ and serve His glory?
That is the kind of faith God calls us to, and participate in by aligning the course of our life and the desire of our life to that very end.
This is the secret of a contented life and the foundation for knowing the fullness of joy.
All of my life is from God. A person cannot receive even one thing unless it is given him from heaven.
And whether good or bad, whether God gives or takes away, I can trust His will down to the smallest detail of my life because of His wise and good providence.
In all circumstances, Blessed be the name of the Lord, and may all things including my life, serve His glory.
That’s the secret John knew even when it looked like his ministry and purpose he had given his life for seemed to be waning in influence.
He knew His life was for Christ and nothing more.
That’s why he said...
You yourselves bear me witness, that I said, ‘I am not the Christ, but I have been sent before him.’
I am not the Christ.
I’m not the point. The purpose. The end all be all. He is!
I have been sent before Him. My life and all that I do is for Him.
And then John gives a parable to illustrate just how he sees himself and the purpose of his life.
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.”
The friend of the bridegroom would be probably the closest today to a best man at a wedding.
But they were so much more.
The friend of the bridegroom would actually bring the bride to the groom to be married, and that’s just what John did.
He prepared the way of the Lord. He made His paths straight.
His whole purpose was to bring people to the Messiah. God had set him apart from the womb for this very task.
And now it was happening.
In the Old Testament, Israel, the people of God, were called the Bride of Yahweh. The Bride of God Himself.
They were His people and God loved them and cared for them as a husband does His wife.
Hosea 2:19-20 I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy. I will betroth you to me in faithfulness. [in other words, I will betroth you to me in covenant] And you shall know the Lord.”
Ezekiel 16:8 says You became mine.
Now what John is saying is amazing.
Jesus is Yahweh, God, in the flesh, come to save His people and take them to Himself.
Christ, the Bridegroom, betroths His people to Himself forever just as God had promised in the Old Testament in an everlasting covenant where he cleanses all our sins to be remembered no more (Heb. 8:12).
Ephesians 5:25-27 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.
The very purification we talked about earlier.
The purification only Christ, the New Covenant Bridegroom, could bring by offering His life as a sacrifice on the cross for all our sins.
And that’s what gives John so much joy.
He says the friend of the bridegroom…rejoices greatly.
And therefore, because people are going to Christ the whole purpose of my life and ministry, this joy of mine is now complete.
Fulfilled.
Made full. Overflowing. Not lacking in anything.
Why? Because Christ was being exalted.
That’s why John says He must increase, I must decrease.
His joy is only made full the more Christ increases and the more he decreases in his life.
And this takes us to the big idea and what we’ve been driving towards this whole time.
Big Idea
Big Idea
How do you find true joy?
True joy is found in living a Christ-exalting life.
True joy is found in living a Christ-exalting life.
Its found in living for Christ and not ourselves.
John’s joy was made full the more Christ increased. The more Christ was exalted.
And the more he decreased. The more he was less and less center stage of his own life.
Now the way people usually approach this passage by focusing on John’s humility in ministry.
And that’s true.
However we are serving the Lord in whatever role the Lord has given us in the Church its not about us.
Its about Christ, not ourselves.
But I think we can take that principle of He must increase, I must decrease, and expand it beyond ministry.
I think that narrows it too much.
Remember, John’s ministry was not just His ministry.
It was the purpose of his entire life.
For John to taking a step back in ministry wasn’t just taking a step back, it was letting go of everything that Christ might be preeminent.
And in doing this John said Therefore this joy of mine is now complete.
This is the secret to the fullness of joy and the abundant life.
He must increase, I must decrease.
True joy comes in Christ increasing and us decreasing in more and more of your life.
When we live more and more of our lives for him and not ourselves.
A Godward, God-honoring, God-glorifying life is a life marked by an ever increasing of Christ and an ever decreasing of ourselves.
The more Christ increases, the more Christ is exalted, the more our joy is complete.
That is a life that leads to fullness of joy.
So the question every Christian should be asking is how is Christ increasing more and more in every area of my life?
Where in my life am I failing to live wholeheartedly for His glory and robbing myself of the fullness of joy that can only be found in Him?
And that’s my hope for you today. To help you live more and more of your life for Christ glory...
To strive to see Christ increase and you decrease in your life that your joy may be complete.
So what does it look like?
We’ve already talked about the foundation we need to have.
A faith that actively trusts God is infinitely wise and good in every circumstance of our life that we might give Him thanks in everything and learn to be content.
Everything in your life down to the smallest detail, good and bad, is working together for your good to make you more like Christ and exalt His glory.
That should be the heart and aim of every Christian and if that is what God promises to accomplish in His providence, we can patiently endure any trial or suffering that comes our way.
But on top of that foundation, we need to build a God-honoring, Christ-exalting life, and that takes two things.
Number 1…You Must Resolve to Strive for the Glory of God with All of Your Life
And number 2...You Must Wage a Relentless War Against Your Sin
This is how you strive for joy and exalt Christ with all of your life by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Number 1...
I. Resolve to Strive for the Glory of God with All of Your Life
I. Resolve to Strive for the Glory of God with All of Your Life
Ephesians 5:15-17 Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.
Paul says look carefully. Take notice. Keep a watch on how you walk on how you live your life.
Not as unwise but as wise. How?
By making the best use of the time.
In other words, to redeem the time. Make the most of your time.
And this is a discipline that many Christians have fallen out of today.
We all do. We all grow lax and squander the time God has given us to serve His glory.
Consider this.
Number the Days
Number the Days
Psalm 139:16 Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.
Job 14:5 His days are determined, and the number of his months is with you, and you have appointed his limits that he cannot pass.
The number of days, and the number of hours, and the number of seconds that we have to live on this earth have already been sovereignly preordained by God.
Before the foundation of the world, before you had lived one day upon the earth, God had already determined the moment of your birth and the moment, down to the second, of your death.
Therefore wisdom says, Psalm 90:12 Teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom.
Teach us to see we only have so much time on this earth so that we can make the best use of the time and glorify you!
God in His infinite wisdom and goodness has given us the perfect number of days to most glorify His Name, but only if we avail ourselves to it.
You…and I…and everyone here does not have a second to waste to live with any other intention or goal that to glorify God to the utmost.
Question 1 of the Larger Catechism says: What is the chief end of man? What is his ultimate purpose?
What has God put you on this earth to do?
To glorify God and enjoy Him forever.
We must strive every second of every day, to live all of our life for the glory of God.
But how?
Resolutions
Resolutions
Jonathan Edwards is the greatest American Pastor and Theologian that has ever lived.
And as a young man, he wrote 70 Resolutions. 70 guiding principles for his life and his wisdom is crucial for us today.
How does Christ increase and we decrease? Strive to live for the glory of God with all that you are.
Resolution 1
Resolution 1
Jonathan Edwards wrote Resolved.
I love that word. It means to be determined. Bent. Decided. Strong and resolute to accomplish something no matter the cost.
Half hearted commitments will not get you anywhere.
Half-hearted resolve will not go very far or endure very much for the sake of Christ.
You have to come to a decision point. A fork in the road and say, I’m going to follow Christ.
From this point forward, with all the intentionality and focus I can muster, I’m going to live for Christ.
Uncompromising. Unyielding. We must be the tree in the storm.
The wind blows and the limbs shake, but the tree stands firm.
If you want to do anything for Christ, you must make a resolution. Be resolved with no going back.
You must say this is where I’m going and nothing, not Satan, the world, laziness or my own flesh is going to stop me or hold me back.
That must be your Christian life. I’m living for Christ, and nothing else.
Resolved, That I will do whatsoever I think to be most to the glory of God.
The guiding question that should determine every decision, every work, every moment of our day should be…What will bring God most glory?
What will increase Christ?
What will most glorify God?
That should be the lens through which we are striving to see every aspect of our life.
Resolution 2
Resolution 2
Resolved.
You hear it again.
To be continually endeavoring to find out some new contrivance and invention to promote the aforementioned things.
Now many of us went to public school so here’s what that means.
As I’m striving to live all of my life for the glory of God, what will launch toward that end? What will help me mack that happen?
This is where the spiritual disciplines come in.
Someone who is resolved to live all of their life to the glory of God will use all available means at all times to grow in godliness.
Reading the Word.
Listening to sermons.
Reading solid, Christ exalting books like the Puritan Paperback series from Banner of Truth Publishing.
Prayer.
Coming to church and gathering with the saints to worship.
Family worship and praying with your children.
Use all necessary means to grow in Christ and see Him increase in your life.
And a note on the disciplines.
They are means not ends.
What I mean by that is many Christians look at the spiritual disciplines and treat them as ends of themselves.
That being Christian means you read your Bible, go to church, etcetera.
But disciplines are means by which we can see the glory of Christ.
We read the Bible to know Christ and His will for our life.
We pray to plant the seed of the Word deep in our hearts asking God that it might grow.
We come to church to celebrate Christ with all His people.
Don’t make your spiritual disciplines ends in themselves.
If you do, they will become tidy, religious check boxes that eventually become little more than duty and a trudgery, instead of God’s appointed means to know and enjoy Christ.
Instead, disciplines are the coals the Holy Spirit uses to breath into flame godliness and a love and and zeal for Christ.
But are we continually endeavoring, using all possible means to live for the glory of Christ?
We know and its obvious that it takes great pains to grow in riches on this earth. How much more heavenly riches as we grow in grace in Christ.
Resolution 3
Resolution 3
Resolved, If ever I shall fall and grow dull, so as to neglect to keep any part of these resolutions, to repent of all that I can remember, when I come to myself again.
Any moment we grow weary or lukewarm in our striving and the means of our striving, the spiritual disciplines, to immediately repent and commit ourselves anew to living all of our life for the glory of God.
Resolution 4
Resolution 4
Resolved, Never to do any manner of thing, whether in soul or body, less or more, but what tends to the glory of God.
That our goal the the best that we are able, is to only do that which honors God in body, that is what we do, and in soul, the inner part of who we are.
And never do anything otherwise.
Resolution 5
Resolution 5
Resolved, Never to lose one moment of time, but to improve it in the most profitable way I possibly can.
This is making the best use of the time.
Thomas Watson said What are our golden hours for, [our precious hours, our free time], but to attend to our souls? Time misspent is not time lived, but time lost (Watson, Godly Man’s Picture, 224).
That’s the idea Edwards is getting at here.
Every spare moment not assigned to some other duty God has given us should be used to grow in godliness and increase in Christ.
Well what about recreation? There’s a place for that.
God commands the Sabbath in the Bible to remember His glory as Creator and the rest He gives our souls from all our works in Christ.
Sabbath rest does glorify God.
But its not a life of recreation God calls us to, but diligence. All things for His glory.
This would impact how use our time every second of every day.
How much television you watch.
Social media you scroll.
When you go do sleep.
What you read.
When you pray.
How much you read the Bible.
How much you practice family worship and engage in spiritual conversation.
If we saw our time as sands in the hour glass, we truly would improve it the most profitable way.
Say, How can I best use this time, this moment I have, to best serve the glory of God?
Reverse Engineering
Reverse Engineering
You Must Resolve to Strive for the Glory of God with All of Your Life.
A helpful way to think about this and put it into effect in your life is through a process called Reverse Engineering.
Basically you sit down, as a man, woman, child, family, church whatever it is…and you say where do we want to go?
What do I want my life to be? If I were to glorify God with all of my life, no exceptions, what would that look like?
And then you map out the steps it would take to get you there.
I want to be a godly member of a biblical church.
I want to be knowledgeable in the Word.
I want to raise godly children.
I want to be a loving husband or submissive wife.
Whatever it is you say what does that person do?
What do they look like?
What are their habits?
How do they spend their time?
And then you ask what is it that they do, that godly ideal of what you hope or should be, that I can’t do right here, right now?
That I can’t start today?
Reverse engineering.
You chart a course, and you follow it the rest of your life.
Reverse engineer your life.
Ask yourself what do I want to be, and what stopping me from being that person today?
And then, resolution 6, you strive for that with all that you are.
Resolution 6
Resolution 6
Resolved, to live with all my might.
This is how you make the best use of the time.
God has ordained our days, and wisdom says you do not have one second to waste to glorify God to the utmost.
For all of us, every man, woman, and child, our goal should be to live a life without regret.
And the only way to do that is striving to live for the glory of God with all of your life.
Second...
II. Relentlessly Wage War Against Your Sin
II. Relentlessly Wage War Against Your Sin
Romans 8:13 For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.
There is not living for Christ while we are living for our sins.
We don’t have the time to say all that I would like to say on this subject, but the only way to truly live and to experience the fullness of joy we have in our salvation is by putting sin to death.
Every single one. Big and small.
No quarter given.
Everywhere you find sin in your life, must be put to death.
We are called to a relentless, total war.
Puritan William Gurnall says Those sins which have lain nearest to your heart must now be trampled under your feet (Gurnall, The Christian in Complete Armor Vol. 1, 30).
No mercy given.
Here’s the lie of sin. It will give you life. It promises the fullness of joy.
The wine of temptation sparkles in the cup.
It looks good to the eye and sweet to the heart, but what goes down in sweetness comes up in bitterness.
Sin never satisfies.
God says it is a broken cistern that holds no water.
It promises to quench your thirst in the barren wasteland but it can never deliver.
The only one who can truly satisfy is the Fountain of living waters, God himself.
And so, to see Christ increase in your life, you must put your sin to death by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus said, Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation (Matthew 26:41).
God calls us to a life of constant vigilance.
To put every sin and temptation to death no matter how small.
That’s the subtlety of sin. It desires to corrupt to the uttermost.
God told Cain Sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you (Gen 4:7).
The idea is that sin is a wild animal ready to devour.
Whatever that sin is, no matter how small it might seem, its seeking to grow and spread death everywhere in your life.
That’s why we must put our sin to death at the very outset of temptation.
Take every thought captive and make it submit to Christ (2 Corinthians 10:5).
When temptation comes take hold of it, wrestle it ot he ground, and force it into submission to Christ.
Godliness, the Christian life is a call to a life of holy violence.
How often do we toy with our sin or play with our sin buying into the lie that it is just a small one and we can keep it in secret.
This is a heart that will never honor Christ.
How you anything is how you’ll do everything. All sin must be put to death in your life.
So, at the first sign of temptation knocking at your door, do not answer it.
Flee to Christ!
Yielding to any sin trains your soul to yield next one, leading your own destruction every step of the way.
If you do not want to yield to sin, do not give it the occasion.
Again Gurnall, Do not look on temptation with a wandering eye if you do not wish to be taken by it, nor allow your mind to dwell on that which you do not want lodged in your heart (Gurnall, The Christian in Complete Armor Vol. 1, 85).
At the moment of temptation, take it to Christ.
Draw near to the throne of grace to find mercy and help in your time of need (Heb. 4:16).
This is putting your sin to death by the Spirit.
Give no temptation, not matter how small, any quarter.
Take it captive and make it submit to Christ!
Conclusion
Conclusion
True joy is found in living a Christ-exalting life.
True joy is found in living a Christ-exalting life.
A life where Christ ever increases and we ever decrease.
The Eternal life that Jesus gives in the New Birth is a life of utmost, joy but only to the degree that Christ increases and we decrease in every area of our life bringing all of our life in submission to Him.
The fullness of joy, life abundant starts the foundation of an absolute faith in God’s wisdom and goodness in every single detail in your life.
A person cannot receive even one thing unless it is given him from heaven (John 3:27).
And from that foundation:
1. You strive to live for the glory of God with all of your life...
2. And you relentlessly put your sin to death.
How is Christ increasing in your life?
Are you striving with all that I am by the power of the Holy Spirit to see Christ greater, and yourself lesser in every are of your life?
We don’t have a day…an hour…a second to waste.
He must increase, I must decrease.
A Christ exalting life is the only way to have the life abundant.
Everything else is a lie.
And to the extent that Christ increases, the more our joy will be complete.
Its a promise. Whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again (John 4:14).
The more we follow Christ the more joy we will have so what do you have to lose?
Your sin and living for yourself can never satisfy you anyway.
Why not strive for Christ with all of your life?
As Jesus said These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full (John 15:11).
Let’s Pray
Let’s Pray