A Call to Decrease

What’s going on Port City family and friends? My name is Tanner and I am excited to be here with you today. What an exciting time of year as we consider Jesus’ first coming and what that means for us as we await his second coming. The God we worship is triune. We worship the Father, through the Son who took on flesh, by the Spirit of God. If Jesus didn’t come, we wouldn’t know God or be able to live with him. And what an opportunity we have this time of year to share the good news about Jesus ourselves and to invite others to come somewhere like this to hear it. To tell people the whole story of the Bible or the significance of Jesus’ incarnation in particular. So I want to pray for us as we are a week away from our Christmas gathering and we have people we are sharing with and inviting to hear this magnificent story. Will you pray with me? Father. We love you. We are grateful to know you. We long for all of our friends and family to know your goodness in the face of Jesus Christ. Give us boldness to share the good news and to invite people to hear it. We pray, in Jesus name. Amen.

Have you guys ever been in a moment that felt like it could go either way? Like something got said that took it in one direction for the better, but had a little slip in the other direction happened, this thing would have looked very different. I remember watching this one season of Survivor. We are Survivor people in our house. A little behind this season so no spoilers. But there were these 2 homies holding it down. Jessie and Cody. And they were thick as thieves. Cody had Jessie’s back so hard in so many instances man. And as is often the case, these two guys knew they would eventually have to get each other. But there have been some seasons where the 2 besties go to the end and see how people vote. So it was starting to feel that way and then Jessie set him up before he was expecting it with maybe 6 people left, and it was shocking. I mean so shocking. How beautifully he pulled the backstabbing vote off without him knowing it, you as the viewer were pretty stunned. And I’ll never forget, after Cody was voted out, immediately Jessie stands up to dap him up. I remember my body cringing. I was like oh snap! I genuinely thought Cody could say or do anything, and I wouldn’t have blamed him. He went into that vote with a good chance at a million, and was besties with this guy, now I’m gone and you want to dap me up? I’ll never forget the camera froze a little as he stood and they locked eyes. And Cody dapped him up. Shout out to Cody. Woo. That thing could have gone either way on live tv, I promise you. We know that feeling of “this thing could go either way,” don’t we?

Well, y’all in today’s text, we are dealing with a similar, this could have gone either way, kind of moment. And in the moment of moments for our guy John, he’s going to say some words that put the spotlight squarely on Jesus and not himself. He’s going to say “he must increase, but I must decrease.” And those words can be more than just words on a page, they can become the way we live our lives. Today’s sermon is entitled “A Call to Decrease” and my prayer is that John’s words in this moment become our mantra and way of life. We’ve got some work to do to understand the context and meaning of decrease, and then we will talk about why we should decrease, why we don’t, and why we can. If you’re ready, let me hear you say I’m ready.

Context and meaning

Our context came in verse 26, look with me. “26 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.” 27 John answered,” So let’s pause. John’s disciples come to him and say, John, they’re flocking to Jesus. What’s the deal? They’re clearly having a jealousy moment and going to their leader. So as John answers, if he does any kind of shading of Jesus, they’ll jump onto that. If he elevates himself or puts Jesus down at all, this thing could have gone either way. I don’t think many people understand how big John was. Y’all look at John 4:1 with me, just a few verses later. Look. “Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John (although Jesus himself did not baptize, but only his disciples)” do you know what that means? It means that Jesus’ ministry wasn’t a threat to the Pharisees until it was on the level of John’s. And Jesus knew it. John was so big, Jesus was irrelevant, until John started making his ministry explicitly about Jesus. So John’s role was to prepare for the Lord, as we’ve seen the last two weeks. But the way God set it up, was that John didn’t explicitly make it about Jesus as the Son of God until He baptized Jesus and he saw the Spirit of God descend on Jesus like a dove. That’s how John’s ministry got so big. No one saw all of the pieces yet. John just preached about people needing to turn to God and repent and was baptizing people. Not so they’d be saved, but as a symbolic baptism to prepare them for the coming of God. It was their way of acknowledging being Jewish wasn’t enough. I need a new heart. Get me ready for the God who will baptize me with the Holy Spirit and give me that new heart. So John’s ministry was booming. He was on the Pharisees radar. And until this moment, Jesus wasn’t at all. So I say again, this thing going into verse 27, could have gone either way. John could have kept the light on himself. He could have downplayed Jesus, even slightly.

So, now that we understand the significance of the moment, let’s begin to zoom in on what he said.

Defining decrease:

27 John answered, “A person cannot receive even one thing unless it is given him from heaven. 28 You yourselves bear me witness, that I said, ‘I am not the Christ, but I have been sent before him.’ 29 The one who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice. Therefore this joy of mine is now complete. 30 He must increase, but I must decrease.”

John straight up says in verse 28, I am not the Christ, but have been sent before him. I’m not the chosen one. I’m not the guy. Verse 29, I’m not the bridegroom. I’m the friend. I’m rejoicing at his voice. Therefore, this joy of mine is complete, he must increase, but I must decrease. Given the opportunity to complain about Jesus’ ministry taking over, he says, this is the exact reason I came. Jesus is the guy. I’m glad he’s taking over. That’s why I came. He must increase. Literally to say that means his ministry must take over and mine must take backstage. So in one sense this phrase about Jesus increasing and John decreasing is a onetime phrase in world history that only applies to him. John’s ministry has to shrink in order for Jesus’ to take off. In another sense, though, this is true of every human being. If John’s role was to prepare the Lord and he needed to get out of the way, how much more all human beings in all times at all places? We exist for Jesus to take center stage. These words of John can become our mantra. So let’s talk about Jesus increasing and us decreasing.

Decrease: Why We Should

Jesus is the Christ (v. 28)

28 You yourselves bear me witness, that I said, ‘I am not the Christ, but I have been sent before him.’

John isn’t the Christ, Jesus is. Christ is a title. It literally means anointed one. He is the chosen one. The King. The promised one. When we say Jesus Christ we almost make it seem like Christ is his last name. He is Jesus, the eternal Son of God, who took on flesh. He has no beginning. He is eternally begotten. He is the promised One who will crush Satan. Who will make all things right. Who will rule as King David did over his people from Zion. He will unite heaven and earth. He will reign. He is the Christ. Full of the Spirit of God.

Jesus is the bridegroom (v. 29)

The one who has the bride is the bridegroom.

Jesus is the bridegroom. This is a rich biblical metaphor that I don’t have ample time to really unpack as much as I want, but the basic idea is that God made us in His image, and he desires to relate to his people collectively as a husband does to a bride. He cares for us. Protects us. Leads us. This imagery is rich in the Old Testament. When the people of God are unfaithful to the covenant they have with YHWH He invoked a lot of idolatrous language of infedelity; the way an unfaithful spouse would be talked about if they stepped out on their marriage. That’s how God spoke. And by calling Jesus the bridegroom, he’s saying, in the person of Jesus, the Christ, the one full of the Spirit, chosen and sent by God the Father, the groom is here for his bride. Which invites us to be thinking, who is the bride? That’s the church. When is the marriage? That’s what the second advent is all about. In the first advent, in Jesus’ first coming, He came to die on the cross to purchase for himself a people from every tribe, language, and nation on earth who would put their trust in him and repent of their sins, and be made ready for his second advent, where all sad things come untrue, and we are fully united to him forever as his bride. There will be a feast. God will redeem the earth and make it new. And Jesus our groom, will reign as King over a renewed earth. This is the good news of the Bible. Christmas is a promise about Easter which is a promise about Pentecost which is a promise that the ultimate marriage supper of the Lamb is coming!

Jesus is from above (v. 31)

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.

There is some debate amongst scholars of whether John the Baptist says verses 31-36 or if John the author of this book, one of the twelve, who walked with Jesus, said these verses. I think either view is fine. Based on some textual clues, I think it’s more likely that the author wrote them. Which is awesome because it makes “He must increase, but I must decrease” the last words of John the Baptist in the book of John. So John is here riffing off of what John said. He says “he is above all.” Y’all, Jesus is not like us. He’s not like us. Hey! He’s not from here. He isn’t playing our game. He is different. I encourage you to go check out Romans 5:12-21. It’s important theologically that we understand that Jesus is man in the sense that he is born of a woman, but he is God and he is from heaven. He isn’t born with a sin nature as we are. We are like Adam. Jesus came the way Adam originally did, before he fell. He’s not like us. He is from above.

Jesus testifies to the truth of God (v. 33-35)

33 Whoever receives his testimony sets his seal to this, that God is true. 34 For he whom God has sent utters the words of God, for he gives the Spirit without measure. 35 The Father loves the Son and has given all things into his hand.

Jesus testifies to what he has seen and heard. He is the eternal Son of God. He was sent by God the Father. God is one essence subsisting in 3 persons. They have one will. There are not 3 wills. They’re not on the same page, they are one. So when we trust Jesus, we are setting our seal to God being true. He’s true. He’s triune. The Father has given all things into the Son’s hand. The Father and the Son give the Spirit without measure. There is an eternal one in three and three in one nature to God. A giving to one another and divine unity that we call TRIUNE. When we trust Jesus, we are saying this eternal God who is one in three and three in one is true. That’s who He is.

Jesus gives life (v. 36)

Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.

Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life. The best synonym for belief is trust. Whoever trusts in the Son has eternal life. Whoever trusts in Him, believes him, goes to him, loves him, runs to him, is satisfied by him; has eternal life. John 17:3 tells us that eternal life is knowing God. Trusting God through Jesus. Knowing Jesus. That’s eternal life. We say a lot here; eternal life isn’t something you get one day that doesn’t apply now. Eternal life is in progress the moment you know God. It culminates one day in heaven with God, but it begins when you live with God now. It’s a now with later implications. Not a later thing only. I like to say, eternal life, if you got it, you’ll get it. If you don’t got it now, though, you won’t get it then. You won’t get then what you don’t got now. So if you got it, you’ll get it. Stop living to get then what you don’t got now. But get what God wants to give you. Then John switches it up on us. He says whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life. Does that mean we have to obey God a certain amount to be saved? No. Notice the interchange of belief and obey in John’s mind. If you read John beginning to end you’ll see his disciples are some fools and mess up a lot. However, they love Jesus. They trust Him. They know him. They follow Him. They are changed. Transformed. And the obedience they give to Him isn’t in order to get a reward later, but the result of their presently knowing Him. So he uses those terms interchangeably because people who trust Jesus or believe in Jesus obey Jesus. To trust is to obey. To believe is to obey. And those who don’t trust or believe or obey Him don’t have life now and won’t see it at any point now or later because the wrath of God remains on Him. Remain. That word means something was there and stayed. So, let’s follow the logic. People who follow God must not have that wrath remaining on them. They had it, now it’s gone. So if believing in Jesus is currently eternal life; that wrath must already be gone. How can what remains on one group be gone from the other? We will come back to that, but it has to do with who Jesus is and what He did; not with us.

Okay that’s why we should decrease. Let’s talk about why we don’t.

2. Decrease: Why We Don’t

We want to increase (John 3:25-26)

We are just like John’s disciples, aren’t we friends. We want John to increase. We want his story to get bigger, not Jesus’. And some of it is they need to be taught by John in this moment and subsequently will follow after Jesus. But in general, there is this heart in us, to be near Jesus, but to keep the spotlight on us. Notice, the issue if John says the wrong thing about Jesus in this moment, which he doesn’t, but if he did wouldn’t be outright Jesus’ denial and hatred, but just decreasing him. You see, if Jesus isn’t his proper size, we have decreased him in some sort of way. If he is his proper size, we fit in his orbit. If He isn’t unleashed to be who He is in our lives, we have decreased Him in order for Him to fit our orbit. When we are at the center, Jesus can play a part. But He can’t be the main point. At our dinner table sometimes we play a game of guess the character. We each take turns picking a character from a movie and then the others ask questions to figure out who they are. The funniest thing has been trying to get my kids to understand the difference between a side character and a main character. So if you say main character and then Lion King and I say “Simba” and you say “no” I’m thinking “we’re still missing it.” We all know the difference between a main character and a side character, don’t we friends? I remember when I was first becoming a Christian the friend who led me to the Lord would ask this question; “if your life was a movie, who would be the main character, you or God?” For people who know they’re far from God, that’s an easy question. They’d say me and maybe be proud of it. I was there at one point. For those who grew up in church, that can be trickier. That question can annoy us a little bit. I’m giving money. I’m giving my time. I’m doing the things. But if you want me to be dead honest, yes I’m at the center, what’s the big deal? And I’ve been asked that question about the movie many times in my life now even now that I follow Jesus. It’s such a good question. And there are times where my heart knows that I’m living as the main character and I’m annoyed by the question. I think that’s a big sign that you’re not healthy and need to repent. In our sin we all push to try to live at the center; but people who have the Spirit indwelling them want Jesus back at the center. They fight sin and repent and beg Him to get back. If there is a heart in you today that knows He isn’t, and you’re annoyed at the thought of being asked to decrease, it’s time to fall on your face in repentance and ask the Lord to create in you a clean heart.

We are from below (John 3:31)

Y’all we are from below. He is from above. People from below play the below game. The saints of old used to call it being “worldly.” And they could go a little too far and say you’re worldly if you do x activities or say y words, but the idea at its core is good. Christians aren’t from here anymore. We’ve been saved. Once you’re in Christ, you are a citizen of heaven. And what that means is, like Jesus, we live for that kingdom. Which can’t be seen or shaken. It has different values and norms than the earth does. We don’t squeeze every dollar out of every situation. We aren’t concerned with our image. We value the poor and broken. We move towards brokenness, not away from it. We seek God’s glory, not our own. We embrace purity and speak the truth in love. And in so doing, even though we aren’t from here anymore, we love here more by living according to heaven’s way of operating. But the world doesn’t do that. Things of this earth, or from the world, are worldly. They all have self at center. They appeal to the flesh. They are rooted in comfort. Pleasure. Pride. Ego. Guys I use examples like this a lot because we need to audit our values regularly. Right now, an impoverished Christian in South India is really close to God’s heart. They’re fighting for their life. They’re probably sharing the gospel with muslims and Hindu friends who think they’re crazy. They’ve lost respect in their community by following Jesus. If this person wrote a book about how precious Jesus is, and how to follow him when it’s hard, we should line up for 100 miles to read it. They have so much to teach us. Many in our community do too who follow Jesus at a great cost to their image and despite not having comfort. But we tend to fill our lives with hacks about how to get skinnier in 2025 and squeeze 5 more minutes out of our day in efficiency. It shows how from below we really are many times. Some of us need to hear this, maybe that don’t follow Jesus. You weren’t made to live off of the earth. You weren’t. Your true self is hidden in God. You find the real you when you give your life to Him. Trust the one from above. Not the ones who are from below.

3. Why We Can Decrease

Our text has pointed out a few things to us that if we piece them together shows us something beautiful. We saw that Jesus is the bridegroom. He’s the one. The people of God are the bride. He’s the bridegroom. We saw that Jesus is the Christ. He is the Chosen One to reign as King over the earth as David reigned from Jerusalem. And we saw that those who trust Jesus have eternal life now, and those who don’t obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on Him. So check this, I left you hanging a bit. How is it that for one group they have eternal life, now and into eternity. And the other, doesn’t? Seems unfair. How can the wrath of God remain on them? Here’s the good news family. Jesus came to bear the wrath of God on the cross. Jesus came to become the bridegroom through his bearing the wrath of God on the cross. Jesus is the Christ, the Chosen One, who chooses to lay his life down, it isn’t taken from Him. He is the One who gave it all up in order to take the wrath of God so that when God looks at us, there is no wrath left, but it was embraced by the Son. But He is also the risen from the dead bridegroom awaiting His bride, who has made his bride worthy through His own sacrificial death on her behalf. And here’s the thing friends, Christmas is a big deal for this reason. If Jesus was only God dying and becoming the bridegroom and all that, it’s no good for us. We needed someone to be the Son of God in the flesh as human. What that means is that when He died on the cross, He died in our place. He didn’t die some abstract heroic death for some abstract villain. No. He lived the life you and I never lived, and in His death and resurrection offers to exchange places with us. Jesus is the Son of God who lived with God and neighbor at the center of His life and not His own ego. Jesus lived that God the Father and others might increase, and He decrease. So hear this, you can decrease so that God might increase. But you don’t have to do it from fear that if you don’t God won’t love you. God already makes much of you before you ever make much of Him. He died for you. The Father sent the Son and empowered Him by the Spirit to live out this rescue mission. He died your death with you as the center of your own movie. He did that for you! And was crushed. Absorbing a Holy God’s jealous and just wrath towards the sin we’ve piled up with self at center. Indeed, no Christmas, no Easter. No Easter, no second advent.

Application:

If you’re not a Christian, you are invited to set your seal to this, that God is true. God has done it all. He created you. You sinned. You blew it. You can’t decrease your way into God’s good graces. You are on the outs. The wrath of God hangs over your life. Ouch. That’s the truth. In your sin nature and status you are under God’s wrath. Even if you are an extremely nice person. Sin isn’t just the individual mistakes we make or think but the very nature we are born into. We are God’s enemies and His wrath is upon our lives. It remains on you. And your role isn’t to do anything. It’s not to put yourself at center and impress God with good deeds. Nope. It’s to acknowledge your sin. I’ve lived with me at center. You are central. I’m not. Forgive me. I want you to take over. Repent. Believe in Him. Trust Him. Obey Him. Follow Him. Your life could go either way. This is your moment. This season in your life. God is after you. He wants to live life with you. Don’t ignore Him drawing you.

To followers of Jesus, you get the joy of decreasing so that Jesus might increase. Specifically, I would suggest that you do an audit of your life. Where are you central, and God isn’t? Each day. This meeting. God you must increase, but I must decrease. Someone say must. He must. Must. What in your life gets that word must? Must? Like I must take this medicine or I die type must. Is brushing your teeth a must? Showering? Getting dressed? He must? Let me ask you this: does God increasing feel optional to you? Or vital? It’s vital friends. To your joy. To His glory. He must increase. He must. You must decrease. You must.