John 3:22-36
Notes
Transcript
We’ve come to the end of John 3, looking at the last verses of this chapter which focused mainly on Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus.
In our text for this morning, we find our pal, John the Baptist. And we will see that Jesus surpasses John the Baptist and any baptism or rite of purification.
We’re meant to see, at every turn of the page in John’s Gospel, that Jesus is supreme, superior, all-surpassing.
This morning, the hope is that we respond to Jesus rightly. I’m going to give us 5 words that should help us focus on Jesus and respond to who He is.
We’ve circled back around to John the Baptist here at the end of John 3.
The shift from John the Baptist’s ministry to Jesus’ ministry wasn’t a sharp break. There was an overlap between John the Baptist and Jesus.
John the Baptist is still preaching repentance, preparing the way for Jesus. John is, as his name suggests, baptizing people as a preparatory ritual for the new birth granted by belief in Jesus.
John the Baptist still has ministry to accomplish.
The Messiah has arrived and the word of that is spreading, but it’s going to take time.
In the meantime, there’s an argument that takes place (v. 25). And, by his response, I think this may be John the Baptist’s finest hour.
If you have your Bible (and I hope you do) please turn with me to the Gospel of John. John 3, beginning with verse 22:
22 After this, Jesus and his disciples went out into the Judean countryside, where he spent some time with them, and baptized. 23 Now John also was baptizing at Aenon near Salim, because there was plenty of water, and people were coming and being baptized. 24 (This was before John was put in prison.) 25 An argument developed between some of John’s disciples and a certain Jew over the matter of ceremonial washing. 26 They came to John and said to him, “Rabbi, that man who was with you on the other side of the Jordan—the one you testified about—look, he is baptizing, and everyone is going to him.”
27 To this John replied, “A person can receive only what is given them from heaven. 28 You yourselves can testify that I said, ‘I am not the Messiah but am sent ahead of him.’ 29 The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend who attends the bridegroom waits and listens for him, and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom’s voice. That joy is mine, and it is now complete. 30 He must become greater; I must become less.”
31 The one who comes from above is above all; the one who is from the earth belongs to the earth, and speaks as one from the earth. The one who comes from heaven is above all. 32 He testifies to what he has seen and heard, but no one accepts his testimony. 33 Whoever has accepted it has certified that God is truthful. 34 For the one whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for God gives the Spirit without limit. 35 The Father loves the Son and has placed everything in his hands. 36 Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on them.
May the Lord add His blessing to the reading of His Holy Word!
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John the Baptist was baptizing people with the help of some of his followers. Some of John’s disciples complain that Jesus is baptizing, like He’s invading their territory.
John 4:2 “in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples.”
All the same, John’s disciples are bothered.
Remember, at this point, some of John the Baptist’s disciples had already transferred their loyalty and had started following Jesus.
Think back to John 1. John the Baptist pointing people to Jesus:
29 The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!
36 When he saw Jesus passing by, he said, “Look, the Lamb of God!”
Upon hearing John the Baptist’s proclamation, two of his disciples left John the Baptist and went to follow Jesus. One of them was Peter’s brother, Andrew.
40 Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, was one of the two who heard what John had said and who had followed Jesus.
This was the natural thing for Andrew to do. He couldn’t not follow Jesus.
John the Baptist is pointing people to Jesus, encouraging people to follow Jesus.
Yet, here in chapter 3, we see that John the Baptist still had disciples of his own. People who followed him. People who would call themselves disciples of John.
These were followers who hadn’t yet transferred their allegiance to Jesus. They were intensely loyal to John the Baptist, intensely loyal to what they knew.
The disciples of John the Baptist were gripped with envy as they saw their ministry and that of John the Baptist’s lose its popularity to another ministry.
Seems to be the human condition. We envy. We covet. We want what others have.
We have to fight against those tendencies and learn, somehow, to be content with what we have, to be content with what the Lord has given us.
John’s disciples aren’t content. They don’t like what’s happening; they don’t like what they see. So they tattle:
26 They came to John and said to him, “Rabbi, that man who was with you on the other side of the Jordan—the one you testified about—look, he is baptizing, and everyone is going to him.”
It sounds a little whiny, doesn’t it? It’s couched in concern—concern for themselves; they don’t want anything to change. They like things the way they are.
“I don’t know who this fellow is. You said something about him down by the river, but we weren’t really paying attention. He’s stepping on our ministry; we’re the baptizers. That’s our thing!”
John the Baptist doesn’t echo the envy or distress of his disciples.
John wasn’t upset. He wasn’t ticked off by the attention being given to Jesus. John wasn’t phased.
John is pleased. John is all about it.
John instructs his disciples through why.
John tells his students: “A man can receive nothing unless it’s been given to him from heaven.”
John had received his God-given vocation and position with joy.
Precisely because John trusted the Lord’s will and the Lord’s timing, John was delighted—DELIGHTED—to see Jesus’ popularity growing and his own popularity declining.
28 You yourselves can testify that I said, ‘I am not the Messiah but am sent ahead of him.’
John knew and shared openly the fact that he was the one Isaiah prophesied about, the one who would cry out in the wilderness.
John knew he was not the Messiah, rather a herald of the Messiah and the coming Kingdom of God.
John was not the king; he was a forerunner of the King. It wasn’t about John. It was about Jesus.
John wasn’t the groom. It wasn’t his wedding; he was merely the best-man, the friend of the bridegroom.
The people of God were often referred to as the bride. The OT looked forward to this and the NT refers to the Church as Christ’s bride.
John was saying, “I’m not the groom. The bride isn’t mine. The bride is His, but I’m the best man, and I get to go to the wedding feast and stand right next to the groom as He enters into the joy of this wedding.”
This was, for John, an unspeakable privilege—immeasurable joy, matchless joy. John says this:
29 The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend who attends the bridegroom waits and listens for him, and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom’s voice. That joy is mine, and it is now complete.
Here’s the first word for us:
REJOICE
REJOICE
John expresses his joy at his place in Jesus’ story. He says he is “full of joy” and that his joy “is now complete.”
John the Baptist means that he has the satisfaction of knowing that his God-given ministry has been successful.
The rising prominence of Jesus, as upsetting as it may have been to some of John’s disciples, floods John himself with surpassing joy.
We are meant to rejoice! Jesus has, for us, become flesh. He lived for us, died for us, raised from the dead for us, ascended to the heavens for us.
Ours is to rejoice. This is our task.
Our response to Jesus is to rejoice—in who He is, in what He has done.
We rejoice, like John, because of all Jesus has done and is doing and will do.
REJOICE!
John was not envious of Jesus. John didn’t covet Jesus’ bride.
John was delighted to play his small part in the wedding. He had received a mission from God and it was his great pleasure to fulfill his role and then to step off stage.
His place was never in the spotlight; his place was making sure the spotlight shined fully, brightly, clearly on Jesus.
MAGNIFY
MAGNIFY
If Jesus is so spectacular, and He is, our task is to magnify Him.
If you’re looking for a sentence to guide your life, there is probably no better than John 3:30.
In one of the most famous statements that ever fell from his lips, John the Baptist made his place and his purpose clear:
30 He must become greater; I must become less.”
Few greater motto texts for ministry have ever been uttered. I can think of few more clarifying and important reminders for ministry, for a church’s worship and mission than this.
In all things, we must become less and less. He must become greater and greater. He’s worthy.
John summed-up his teaching in these famous words. It was necessary that Jesus would take precedence over him. He MUST become greater...
Jesus’ becoming greater, John becoming less—this is a divine necessity.
This is a good, lifelong reminder for each of us.
I know of someone who has this as their computer password. In order to log-in, they have to type “hemustbecomegreaterImustbecomeless” every time. What a good reminder.
Write this verse on your bathroom mirror with a dry-erase marker. Print it out and tape it to your computer screen.
Jesus, His rule and His reign, are supreme. Nothing we desire, nothing we want, nothing we’d like to hang onto with a death-grip, nothing is greater than Jesus.
We are made to magnify, not ourselves, but Jesus. This is our role, just like it was John’s.
Jesus is the Hero of the story; we must resist making ourselves or anyone else the hero.
Only Jesus. Magnify Him!
We who live here on earth cannot have preeminence over One who has come from heaven. As verse 31 states: The One who comes from heaven is above all.
Jesus came to us, took on flesh and walked among us, and declared the very words of God; indeed He was God Himself.
But no one paid attention. No one much cared what Jesus had to say. For so long, and even still, we have elevated ourselves and have attempted to move Jesus to the side, to move Him backstage so that we could be in the spotlight.
In Jesus’ day, there was widespread opposition to Him; the religious folk of His time rejected Him almost universally.
But amid the opposition, there were those whose eyes and ears God had opened to see and hear the truth of Jesus’ words, and they received His teaching.
By accepting Jesus’ testimony, the believer does something incredible. It sounds a little boring and business-like, but it’s right there in verse 33:
33 Whoever has accepted it has certified that God is truthful.
We rejoice and magnify and
CERTIFY
CERTIFY
By accepting the testimony of Jesus, the believer—the Christian—has certified that God is truthful.
Not just that Jesus is truthful (He is), but God is truthful. Everything God has said and done is truth.
We, by accepting what Jesus has said, are certifying the truth of the gospel.
I’m not trying to brag here, but this is going to really impress you: I, Barrett L. Case, am a notary public, licensed in the State of Missouri.
My job, like other notaries, is to stamp and sign documents certifying that the person signing said document are who they say they are.
By notarizing a contract or document, I’m saying, “Yep, this person is who he says he is. Yes, that’s her.” We certify that what’s been documented is true.
To listen to the truth about Jesus, about God, and to accept it is to say, “Yep, that’s the truth.”
We certify that Jesus is the One promised of God. We certify that every promise God made has come true in the person of Jesus.
We certify. We say, “This is the truth.” And then we pass it on. “This is the truth, the only truth that can set us free.”
34 For the one whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for God gives the Spirit without limit. 35 The Father loves the Son and has placed everything in his hands.
Everything is in [Jesus’] hands. Jesus is everything. He has eternal life; it comes from a relationship with Him. Jesus is everything.
We certify this is true.
John 3:36 is a fitting climax to the entire chapter.
By laying out the only two alternatives—genuine faith and defiant disobedience—this verse once more brings to the forefront the threat of looming judgment:
36 Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on them.
Our greatest need is not to know more. To acquire more information. To memorize a bunch of facts.
Our greatest need is to:
BELIEVE
BELIEVE
We are saved through faith alone in Christ alone. Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life.
Our greatest need is to believe: believing in Jesus, trusting Jesus to give to us every good thing and life everlasting.
Remember the reason this 4th Gospel was written? John 20:31 “these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”
Believe in Jesus. Put your faith and trust in HIM.
Part of believing Jesus expresses itself in obedience.
We believe Jesus and we
OBEY
OBEY
This is doing what Jesus tells us. Trust Jesus and do what He tells you.
Do what you have seen Him do. Walk the way Jesus walks. Live the way Jesus lives.
Do you remember those old ‘WWJD’ bracelets? “What Would Jesus Do?” they asked.
When I was at Manhattan Christian College with my friend and future brother-in-law, Matt, he laughed at how, during the height of his religious fanaticism, he wore more than a dozen WWJD bracelets at a time.
WWJD? It’s not a bad question, but we have a book that tells us exactly what Jesus did; we have the answer to that question right here before us.
We need to spend less time asking WWJD and more time doing what He did, obeying Jesus.
Obeying Jesus—for the rest of our lives in the strength that He supplies.
All of John’s Gospel, specifically all of John 3 teaches us to look to Jesus—to put our faith and trust in Him.
He gives us life, new birth.
By believing in Him, we have eternal life.
He is the light and life we desperately need.
He is our salvation—our only escape from judgment and condemnation.
Our response is to:
REJOICE in Him
MAGNIFY His name
CERTIFY that Jesus is the Truth
BELIEVE in Him alone
OBEY Him
If you’re anything like me, this makes sense. And some of it comes naturally.
I’ve never had a hard time believing in Jesus. I can, most of the time, do a decent job certifying that what God has said is true.
That much is easy enough… but then there’s some of this that is difficult. I struggle at several points.
Often times, I do what I want to do and not what I know Jesus would have me do. I’m not as obedient to Jesus as I should be. My disobedience betrays my belief.
I don’t rejoice in Him as I should. I need John the Baptist to teach me here. To rejoice in Jesus—who He is and what He has done—regardless of what’s going on around me. My joy is meant to be found in Him!
Tempted as I am to magnify myself, to puff myself up, to make certain I look good, I need the reminder “He must become greater, I must become less.”
Here we have our task laid out in front of us: REJOICE, MAGNIFY, CERTIFY, BELIEVE, and OBEY.
