Less of Me and More of Him

INTRO

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been asking you (and asking myself) what God might do in 40 days if we commit to seek after Him?

During the past couple Sunday’s messages, I’ve shown you how God can use this time to not only reveal to you His will for your life and for our church, but also how we wants to REFINE you during this time so you are fully committed to do His will.

I want to really quickly talk about that refining process once again. Last week we looked out the 40 days Jesus spent in the wilderness, and I explained to to you the importance of the word wilderness. It is God’s holy place of speaking. It’s the place where he talk and you hear.

As I mentioned last week, the wilderness, is a wonderful place, but like I also said, it is a hard place, and unpleasant and even painful place. You come out of it better than how you went in, but the time spent there is far from easy.

What makes that time so difficult? A lot of things, but I think one of the toughest aspects of having a “wilderness” experience is that you will be confronted with some uncomfortable truths. It is the place where God speaks, but that doesn’t mean you’re going to like what He has to say. In fact, my personal experience has taught me is that what God shows me and tells me in those moments is exactly what I need to hear, but at first those truths from God sting greatly.

During these 40 days, one of the truths I hope God reveals to you is that you’re not as important as you think you are. I’m not saying you aren’t important, for I believe you are VERY important to God, but I am saying that sometimes God needs to remind us that we put ourselves on too high a pedestal, that we often take Him off the throne and put ourselves there in His place.

I hope that in these 40 days, we are finding fresh perspective and being reminded of our proper place in God’s plan. I pray that we will gain a new heart that cries out for “Less of Me and More of Him.”

INTO Passage

John, a man who was no stranger to the wilderness and had obviously learned to discern God’s will in that place, teaches a great lesson about how to deal with the choice of putting us or God first.

READ Passage

Explain background.

John was popular, but now his popularity was being eclipsed by Jesus.

Some of his followers questioned him about this, almost hurt that their leader’s ministry was waning.

John’s response was awesome

2 Important Truths

The reason John could handle this so well was because he understood and accepted 2 very important truths

Truth #1 - John understood the Supremacy of Christ

vs. 27 - “A person can only receive what God has given Him.”

John affirmed that anything he had, any success in ministry, and notoriety, any blessing, was not his in the first place. It had come from God. Therefore, when he doesn’t have those things, he can’t complain about not having them.

We all struggle with this. Why? We LOVE to take credit. We love to talk about the things WE have, things WE have done, blessings WE have received. We LOVE talking about ourselves.

Illus - Talking about the Cowboys and always saying “We won. We lost. We. We We.” Last time I checked, I’m not on the Dallas Cowboys payroll.

When we stop and realize who owns it all, we start to find a new perspective.

Read vs. 31-36

Truth #2 - John understood His Place in God’s Plan

What was John’s role? Let’s look at the illustration he used in vs. 29

John talked about a wedding, about the bridge and the groom, and the friend of the groom. In modern day terms, he was talking about the best man.

At a wedding, the best man IS important, but the wedding is certainly not about him.

Think about it, when’s the last time you attended a wedding and went home saying, “Did you see that best man? That was the best best man I’ve ever seen!” It’s not about him! It about the bride and groom coming together as one. The best man is honored to serve his friend and be there for him and with him on that joyous day, but he’s not the one in the spotlight.

John understand that his job is to point the light not to himself but to Christ.

He says the he MUST decrease and that Christ MUST increase. It was part of God’s divine plan.

The Apostle Paul puts it this way in Philippians 1:21 - to live is CHRIST. In other words, this life I have is not about what I can gain or what I can accomplish, but instead how I can best display Christ.

What this means for you

When you take time to learn and internalize these two truth (the supremacy of Christ and your subservient role in God’s plan) you will begin to see you need to make some changes. That’s why I told you that this is hard.

I want you to use this time to learn how to be satisfied with second.