Who’s #1?

       President Reagan’s Secretary of State, George Shultz, kept a large globe in his office.  He would test newly appointed ambassadors: “You have to go over to that globe and prove to me that you can identify your country.”  They would go over, spin the globe, and put their finger on the country where they were sent.”  They always knew where they were going.

       Former Senate majority leader Mike Mansfield was made ambassador to Japan,   Even he was put to the test.  Mansfield spun the globe and put his hand on the United States.  He said, “That’s my country.”    

       Shultz later told this story on C-Span. “I’ve told that story to all the ambassadors going out, ‘Never forget you’re over there in that country but your country is the United Sates.  You’re there to represent us.’”

        That’s important for us too.  Paul writes in Philippians 3:20 that, as Christians, our true citizenship is in heaven.  Yes, we may be proud citizens of the United States.  But we placed in this country as ambassadors of for Jesus Christ.  That’s what Paul tells us in 2Corinthians 5.  We are here to represent God and be a part of what God is doing. If we remember that then we won’t be confused about what we are doing and why we are doing it.  We’ll keep our hands on the right place on the globe.  And we will keep our egos out of the way. 

       John the Baptist always knew who he was and what he had been called to do.  That is how he is able to withstand the drive for public acclaim.  He shows us what it means to be a servant.  He gives an unforgettable lesson in humility in the service of God and His people.

Read John 3:22-30

         After his famous nighttime conversation with Nicodemus, Jesus leaves Jerusalem for the countryside.  There Jesus’ disciples begin to baptize.  At the same time John the Baptist is also baptizing.  So suddenly we have two bands of baptizers, the John group and the Jesus group.

       For some reason, an argument arises between John’s disciples and a certain Jewish man. Verse 25: “Now a discussion arose between some of John’s disciples and a Jew over purification.”  We can only guess what this dispute is about.  Maybe this man says to John’s disciples: “Look, you are baptizing lots of people.  But even more people are going over to that other group gathering around Jesus. So what’s the deal with His baptism and your baptism? Does His work and yours not work?  Is Jesus baptism the new and improved one?  Does His make people 100% pure and yours only 70% pure?”

       The big issue for John’s disciples in this is that they are suddenly made aware of threat -- a new ministry in town they see as a rival.  So they hotfoot it to John to try to involve him in a turf war.  “Rabbi, He who was with you beyond the Jordan, to whom you bore witness, behold, He is baptizing and all are coming to Him.”

       How do the disciples of John expect their teacher to react? 

        Well it’s obvious that they want him to buy into their anger and defensiveness.  From their point of view, John has been very generous in bearing witness to Jesus.  They see Jesus’ popularity as a direct result of John endorsement. “Who ever heard of Jesus the Baptist?” they ask.  “Jesus the Presbyterian sure, but not Jesus the Baptist.  He’s stealing your thunder.  He’s set up a competing baptismal shop.  You have rights.  At least you should control the Jordan River franchise.”  John’s disciples are frozen in the past.  They assume that John started the ball rolling so he should be the one to receive the public acclaim.  They think that Jesus should put up a banner reading “Here’s Jesus,” in little letters and, “brought to you by John the Baptist,” in great big letters.

       John’s disciples are concerned with the old numbers game. Who gets more? Who is the most popular? Whom do the crowds go to hear and follow?  Who’s number one in baptisms?

       In trying to promote professional jealousy between preachers, the disciples of John are planting in traditionally fertile ground.  There’s a lot of jealousy going around.  I have seen church staffs where the senior pastor would not have anyone on staff strong enough to challenge his or her leadership or sole popularity with the congregation.  In every community there are pastors who encourage their people to avoid events where another Christian pastor is speaking. 

       Competition is one of the most dangerous things to enter the family and people of God.  People can become jealous of other’s gifts, roles and the reception they receive.  So they despise their own gifts and their own roles.  Envy is always destructive.  So I wish I could honestly say I was immune but that wouldn’t be true. 

       On an intellectual level I know that we need more and even more effective ministries in this area if we are going to reach all people for Christ.  I know that if we reach our maximum potential here at MPC that we will make only reach about 4% of the community. I know this.  In obedience to Jesus’ words in John 4, I do “pray for the lord of the harvest to send more laborers into the harvest.”  I want more churches to start up and I want them to do very well.  I want us to assist them as a church any way we can.

       But that doesn’t mean that I don’t feel more than a slight twinge when someone leaves this church to go to this or that other church where the pastor “really preaches the gospel” or “really communicates.”  A sense of rivalry between ministries is one of the devil's most effective tools to impede the progress of the gospel. So I need this text too

        Winston Churchill’s daughter once described her father as wanting to be the center of every event he attended.  “He wanted to be the bride at every wedding,” she said, “and the deceased at every funeral.”

       John the Baptist is not like that. 

       It would have been very natural for him to buy in to his disciples’ anger.  He has spent many years of loneliness and self-denial in the wilderness.  He has experienced rejection and alienation.  Now, having experienced headline success, he sees it suddenly begin to fade away.   It would have been easy for John to yield to a very natural impulse to assert himself.  But He remembers that he is there to represent God, not himself.  He is there to carry our God’s agenda, not his own.  So he responds to his disciple’s anger with three great affirmations.

       The first affirmation is found in verses 27 and 28: “A person can receive nothing unless it is given from heaven.”

       Many people think they have won their way to power by their own efforts, by their intelligence, their hard work or their cleverness.  Do you believe that?  Do you plan to have “I Did it My Way” played at your funeral? 

       If that’s the way you want to play it then I have bad news for you.  You are in trouble.  Because one way or another, in ourselves, we all decrease. 

       I remember when I worked at Bel Air Presbyterian visiting a rest home with some junior high students.  There I met a man in his mid-50’s with a familiar name.  I had seen his name emblazoned in huge letters on fancy restaurants in the best parts of L.A.  But now there he sat in his wheel chair totally incapacitated by a stroke.  No one ever came to visit.

       We will all decrease unless God intervenes.  So Jesus says that strangely enough the only way to go up is to go down.  Jesus says that if we are wiling to serve God’s kingdom and His righteousness, then we ultimately will have it all.  That’s not our instinct.  That’s not the way of our world.  But it is the way of God and that’s the only way that works.      

      So if God called you into His office and told you to place your hand on the kingdom you represent, where would you honestly place your hand? 

       Would it be the kingdom of your own ego, pride and self-assertiveness?  Would it be the kingdom of your drive to win?  Would it be your kingdom or would it be His? 

       British art critic and social thinker John Ruskin once observed:  “I believe the first test of a truly great man is his humility. I do not mean by humility, doubt of his own power, or hesitation in speaking his opinion. But really great men have a feeling that the greatness is not in them but through them; that they could not do or be anything else than God made them."

       John the Baptist applies this to his own life:  ‘A person cannot receive anything unless it is given him from heaven.”  If Jesus is winning more followers, it is not because He is stealing them.  It is because God is giving them to Him.  John doesn’t live for the past.  He lives for the future – for God’s future. 

       John is very aware that he is not the light.  This is important because all successful witnesses to Jesus Christ must start with this self-realization – that Jesus is the light and any light we have is only reflected from Him.  So John uses his disciple’s anger as another opportunity to point to Jesus - to say that He has experienced the fulfillment of his own life in welcoming the one who is destined to be the central focus of humanity. 

       John says, “You yourselves bear me witness that I said, ‘I am not the Christ, but I have been sent before Him.’” God sent John for this. This was God’s plan. John was to gather a people and then give them up.  That’s the plan. John knows the plan. And as he sees the plan unfold his joy increases.

       John’s third great affirmation is found in verse 29: “He who has the bride is the bridegroom; but the friend of the bridegroom who stands and hears him rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom’s voice.  And so this joy of mine has been made full.”

       John uses a rich image to describe his role.  One of the great Old Testament pictures is of Israel as the bride of God and God as the bridegroom of Israel.  The union between God and His people is so close that it is described as a wedding.  The New Testament picks this picture up and speaks of the church as the bride of Christ.

       This is the picture John has in mind.  Jesus is the bridegroom of Israel and of the church. 

       But there is a spot John claims for himself.  He calls himself the friend of the bridegroom. 

       The friend of the bridegroom, the shosben, had a unique place at a first century Jewish wedding.  He acted as the liaison between the bridegroom and the bride.  He arranged the wedding, took out the invitations and presided at the wedding feast.  And he had one other duty that opens up this verse.  It was his duty to guard the bridal chamber and let no one else in.  He would only open the door when in the dark he heard and recognized the voice of the groom.  When he heard the bridegroom’s voice he went on his way rejoicing.  His task was done.

       So, far from being bad news, the report of Jesus’ growing ministry is exactly what John has been waiting to hear.  John assures his disciple that the reception of Jesus is a sign that he has done his own job well.  

       John says in verse 30: “He must increase but I must decrease.”  The Bridegroom is getting all the attention. The cameras are flashing all in that direction. The rice is all flying in that direction. The honeymoon is in that direction. John’s on the sidelines.  John’s response to this?  “This great joy of mine is now complete.”

       “Jesus must increase.”  That’s the attitude we all need to be effective servants. 

       Up on our pulpit I have had for a number of years some words from a great Scottish theologian, James Denny, who put it this way: "You can never at the same time convince people that you are a great preacher and that Jesus is a great Savior." It is one or the other. So I hope that my own heart echoes this word of John the Baptist, "He must increase." And I and all other preachers must decrease.

       Most of us are probably not familiar with the life of Sadhu Sundar Singh who died in Tibet in the late 1920s.  Like the apostle Paul he started out as a persecutor of the church in India.  But then he met the Lord and eventually became an extremely effective missionary in India and all around the world.  After he had completed a tour around the world, people asked him, “Doesn't it do harm, your getting so much honor?"

      Sadhu's answer was: "No. The donkey went into Jerusalem, and they put garments on the ground before him. He was not proud. He knew it was not done to honor him, but for Jesus, who was sitting on his back. When people honor me, I know it is not me, but the Lord." 

       John the Baptist said of Jesus, “He must become greater; I must become less.  Selflessness always advances the kingdom.  Selfishness always destroys it.

      So let me make this even more personal as I close.

      For myself, I recognize that I will not be your pastor forever.  There will come a time when I will certainly decrease.  If you’ve already noticed a lot of decreasing, please let me know.   The last thing I want is to be here five years longer than I should be.  The last thing I want is to retire a few years before I actually leave.

       But what do I want for this church after I am gone? 

       Well I want your next pastor and the next one after that and the next one after that to be so effective that no one ever longs for these as the “good old days.” I want these years we are together to be just the foundation – a good foundation, yes, but still just the foundation. And I want these future pastors, capable as they will be, to always preach Jesus and not themselves.  I want them to say of Jesus and mean it, “He must increase and I must decrease.” 

       Then you will be in good hands – both Jesus’ and whatever donkey He chooses to ride on here next.