Jesus and the Faithful Friend

I’ve had the honor of being the “best man” in a wedding for two of my friends. It is an honor to be there as a support and groom and bride. As the best man, I had a front row seat to the excitement of a new family being formed. While you stand there and as the processional comes down the aisle, you can’t help but think of the weeks, months, and sometimes years that have played into this beautiful celebration. The funny stories that brought the couple together, the moments where everyone “knew” they were going to be a thing before maybe they recognized it… The future is bright, it’s exciting, it’s full of potential. The weddings I have been a part of in this capacity as the best man have been hope-filled joyous celebrations.

Not all weddings are this way… sometimes there is stage fright, nerves, doubts...

John for Everyone, Part 1: Chapters 1–10 The Bridegroom and His Friend (John 3.22–36)

But there is another tension which can creep in, as well as stage fright. Sometimes one set of parents disapproves of the match. Sometimes old friends of either the bride or groom are anxious about it. And sometimes there is someone there who has long wished that they could be marrying this person instead. They may be putting a brave face on it, but underneath they are grieving.

That’s the image that John the Baptist draws on when he speaks cheerfully to his followers about the success that Jesus and his disciples seem to be having in baptizing people. John’s followers seem to be assuming that he will be jealous.

John for Everyone, Part 1: Chapters 1–10 The Bridegroom and His Friend (John 3.22–36)

they were disturbed that someone who had been part of it was now setting up an independent effort. John’s response is not only that it doesn’t matter, but that it has to be this way. Jesus is the one who is carrying forward God’s purposes. He himself has done what he had to do. He is like the bridegroom’s friend, the ‘best man’ as some cultures call it. He has no intention of trying to steal the bride at the last minute.

This jealousy is still happening today. The American church culture has an end, and often times it is not Jesus. I will say at the outgo, I love the church. I love this church. I have given and will give my life to the bride of Christ. I know and believe that Jesus deeply loves His bride, the church. I believe deeply in the church. I know the church in and of itself is deeply flawed. I know the church is beautiful and pure in Christ.

There is an American church culture though that exists that is seeking its own glory but slapping a “Jesus” bumper sticker on it. It is not new. We’re studying church history at our TED Talk this afternoon after service (TED= Theology, Ecclesiology, Discipleship). Even in our text, the disciples of John the baptizer are pointing out to him that his influence, popularity, followers, likes, hearts, viewership, book sales, numbers are going to Jesus.

It’s easy to preach to the cultural moment and say how bad the government is and overstepping, what about our rights, and Bill Gates, George Soros, Q, interment camps for Christians are coming… people eat this up. It appeals to our debase nature of our lust for knowledge, insight, power, control, and sometimes victimhood. But this is not Jesus. This is not the gospel (not even the same area code).

John the baptizer points us (and his followers) again to Jesus. John the disciple brings this discourse directly after the conversation that Jesus had with Nicodemus the Pharisee. You have the Pharisee, the elite class, Nicodemus unable to comprehend the things of Jesus; contrasted with the wilderness witness of John the baptizer (dressed in camel’s hair and who eats bugs) who grasps the things of Heaven, who not only knows who Jesus is but acts accordingly and points them to Him (not the brand of John the Baptizer). Jesus is not a means to an end (power, heaven, brand, etc), Jesus is the end.

If you have your Bibles, or on your devices, would you turn to John 3:22-36. If you are able, would you please stand as I read God’s word this morning.

This is the Word of the Lord. Let us pray.

Please be seated. Thank you.

If you are taking notes, our three points this morning is:

Recognizing the threat

Reorienting ourselves to Jesus

Receiving His testimony

Recognizing the threat

vss.22-26; The followers of John the Baptist saw the gaining popularity of Jesus. Whether they wanted to inform their teacher so he could do something about it, or just to warn him so that he might not get upset, however you read it… there is a threat to what has been happening.

This is the problem. I don’t know if it is human nature, culture, or how we might talk about it. But I’ve seen it in the church and I think it is represented here. God moved in powerful ways, and possibly is moving in powerful ways, how could God move in a different way? We look to the past often to find clarity and understanding of what God has done. We do ourselves a disservice if we look back expect God to move the same way in the present or the future.

Dr. Jerry Sittser (theological chair at Whitworth in Spokane) in his book “Water from a Deep Well”, chronicles the movement of God over the last 2000 years. God has moved in unique ways throughout time… from the early Christian martyrs, to the early Christian communities, the Dessert saints and monasticism, to the Holy Heroes in Icons and Saints, the mystics, the preservation of faith through the medieval laity, the reformers, pioneering missions efforts… to finally then ask, where do we go from here… what is it that God is going to do next? Would we recognize it?

Calvary Chapel born out of the Jesus movement in the 60’s and 70’s, not many recognized what was happening until afterwards.

John the baptizers followers here in our passage, the pharisees, the sadducees, the sanhedrin, the religious leaders all did not recognize Jesus when He came. Even the disciples, closest to Jesus sometimes got confused and mixed up.

Dr. Sittser in his book says this, “Every generation of believers faces the risk of becoming a prisoner to its own myopic vision of the Christian faith.” (pg.18)

How does this happen? Every system is designed perfectly to get the results we are getting. Every system exists to make sure that is self-preserves. If it exists than it wants to continually exist, and if it gets threatened than the system will react in such a way to keep itself sustaining. This would be helpful and great if there was no such thing as change. Because change exists, it brings loss… and loss brings instability. This is what happens to many denominations. Church attendance is on the decline in America, part of it is what the church has become over the years, and as the culture changes the church is having a hard time changing.

If we look at the gospels, Jesus heals a few blind people… We see him do it in three ways… none of them are the same, in Mark he spits in their eyes and touches them, and then he just speaks to one. In John’s gospel he spits on the ground makes mud and puts it in someones eyes… has them wash it and they can see. All of this to say, God will not be reduced to formula’s and “abracadabra, thus says a me” mimic approach.

The gospel should never change. But music, aesthetics, format, liturgy, technology, that’s all our methods and practice. Our theology (understanding of God) should inform our orthopraxy (our practice), but the way we do things there is freedom for change that opens up opportunity for others to experience Christ in life-changing powerful way.

All change, even necessary change, brings loss. Loss heightens anxiety, and anxiety can lead people to do and say things that they never thought they would say before.

The important thing to remember is that God is taking us into uncharted territory to transform us. The great discovery in following Christ into his mission is Christ being developed within us.

Dr. Sittser also writes, “What God initiated with Abraham and accomplished in Jesus, He promises to continue in and through people like us, until all things are made well and whole again.” As we feel that threat (oh man… this doesn’t look or feel like before), press into it, pray about it, ask questions, if its not a matter of Bible but of practice, maybe you are being led deeper into the journey of faith in trusting God. Remember, this life we live, “we walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7)

John the baptizer does as much in speaking to his followers.

Reorienting ourselves to Jesus

vss.27-30; John the baptizer reminds his followers of his role. He also reminds us of what it means to follow Jesus. Jesus must increase and we must decrease… CS Lewis would put it that the way in which different characters play their role in Jesus’ story is that they are to play their great parts without pride and small parts without shame.

Peter the disciple at the end of John’s gospel will be reminded that we are not compare parts or roles, but that we are to follow Jesus. John has already told his followers about His role, he has given evidence of who Jesus is (His messiahship), and so if Jesus is prospering, and people are going to him, that means that John (who was to point to Him) should celebrate rather than be miserable or jealous

Comparison is a joy robber. Our culture is inundated with it. We ought not to do it.

Know and believe what God says about you… you are made in His image: “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” The Holy Bible: ESV. (2016). (Ge 1:27).

Know what you ought to do: “Therefore, brothers and sisters, be all the more diligent to make certain about His calling and choice of you.” New American Standard Bible. (2020). (2 Pe 1:10)

Then do it in such a way that reveals the goodness, kindness, and love of God: “and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” The Holy Bible: ESV. (2016). (Eph 2:6–10). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.

As we looked at last week, Paul’s letter to Timothy and Peter’s letter to the church, we live in such a way that in season (prepared, ready, and appropriate) and out of season (unintended, impromptu, unplanned) we are to be able to give a reason for hope within us.

If we are so fixated on the person next to us or across from us, or the one who we are envying… we miss out what’s right before us.

John is celebrating this good work that Jesus is accomplishing. As he should be.

This is what it means to see Jesus increase, is to celebrate His win, His joy, His work more than our own.

It takes practice to do this. We are by nature self-centered. It takes practice to celebrate others. We strive to do that as a church and in our interactions with one another. When we become people who affirm and speak life in others by pointing out how God is working and how you see God in their life, it’s transformative. You can do it… you have to be intentional… but look for ways to speak life into others… not flattery, but as you catch them doing something great, let them know you see them.

In the same way, as you see God do something great, praise Him. Let others know what God is doing. As you catch God being heroic, worship Him. Tell others how God has moved and done great things. In this way, He increases. It’s beautiful two how praising God and blessing others are tied together. Our ministry approach at City Chapel is “love God, love others, share the gospel”. We can’t fully love God unless we love the things that He loves, people. We can’t love or know how to love people well until we love God. It is this beautiful relationship that gives us the privilege and honor of sharing the good news, the best news, to those who will listen.

We must orient ourselves to Jesus.

Receiving His testimony

vss.31-36; The last paragraph of the section has sometimes been seen as the continuation of what John the Baptist said to his followers, but it’s much more likely to be the writer’s comment on the whole chapter so far. (The same problem occurs at several points in this book, where a long speech seems to merge effortlessly into the writer’s comment. In fact, the second section of the chapter (3:14–21) has sometimes been seen, as a whole or in part, as the continuation of Jesus’ speech which began in verse 5.) When we meet a passage like this, we should take it slowly and prayerfully; it is the writer’s way of saying ‘So: where are you in this picture?’

He is contrasting ‘the one from above’—Jesus, in other words—with ‘the one from the earth’. This doesn’t mean John the Baptist; he, after all, was ‘sent from God’ (1:6; 1:33; 3:27). There are plenty of people whose life and teaching are ‘from the earth’, and a good many of them were competing with Jesus and John, and with the early church, for the ears, minds and hearts of both Jews and Gentiles. So too, today: who do people trust? Who do they listen to and follow?

All too often they trust those whose message has no breath of heaven about it, no sign of life from the hidden dimension of God’s world. Meanwhile, as we saw already in 1:10–11, most of those to whom Jesus was sent did not, and do not, receive what he says. The end of that road is wrath, not because God is a tyrant or a bully but because earth, and all that is earthbound, will corrupt and decay. But anyone who does receive his word—who accepts that God has spoken truly in him, is giving the Spirit through him, is pouring out his love through him into the world—such a person already has within himself or herself the life that, like the Son, comes from heaven.

Wright, T. (2004). John for Everyone, Part 1: Chapters 1-10 (pp. 37–38). London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.

As we think about how John the disciple wraps up this chapter, we see that there is an element of faith at play. As I mentioned before, John the baptizer and Nicodemus the pharisee are contrasted in this passage. One is walking by certainty (which is hanging him up, not allowing him to receive what Jesus is saying to him) and one is walking by faith.

English Standard Version Chapter 11

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

The temptation is to rely on those things that we know. That we’ve seen God move and do things in the past, it has transformed and affected our lives, but to then move that into the realm of this is how God works concretely takes our faith and moves it into the category of certainty… because we’ve seen it, we need no longer trust, that is just how it is.

What John the disciple is calling us to is that continual life of faith where like Abraham, we’re not quite sure where we are going but we are confident in Who is leading us there.

Would you stand with me. Let us pray.

If you need prayer, there will be those up front to pray with you.

We know there is more… as we look at church history, what it declares loudly is that there is more! The faithfulness of God in the past invites us to drink more deeply from the well of faith in Jesus. He promises to satisfy the deepest thirst in all of us a thirst that is part our our very nature as human beings how been created by God and for God but who have rebelled against God and tried to find satisfaction in something less worthy. Only God, the triune God, can satisfy our deepest longings.