John's Final Testimony

Tom Shrader walks through John 3:22-36, where John the Baptist responds to his disciples' jealousy over Jesus gaining followers by declaring, 'He must increase, and I must decrease.' Shrader uses John the Baptist as a model of steady, ego-free service, contrasting his humility with the natural human tendency toward rivalry, pride, and self-promotion. Drawing on Philippians 2 and the example of Christ emptying Himself of glory, Shrader argues that genuine humility is not a goal to achieve but a byproduct of fixing one's eyes on Jesus, and that it shows up most clearly in how believers treat one another in relationships.

“He must increase, and I must decrease — there's the screensaver reminder for your computer that there's great joy in our life as we experience this transformation, that naturally we think about me, myself, and I, but supernaturally we begin to think about Him.”

— Tom Shrader

Series: Standalone Teachings

Recorded: 2004 at East Valley Bible Church

Duration: 39 min

Themes: humility, pride, jealousy, rivalry, service, self-promotion, ego, fixing your eyes on jesus, struggling with pride, dealing with jealousy, navigating rivalry at work, feeling overlooked, minister or pastor, mentor, new believer, young adult finding identity

Scripture: John 3:22-36, John 3:16, John 4:2, Matthew 3:5, Matthew 3:7, John 1:19-20, John 1:29, 1 Corinthians 3, Philippians 2:3-8, Ephesians 4:1, Colossians 3:12

Theological Themes: kenosis, christ emptying himself, sanctification, christlikeness, biblical humility, servant leadership, gospel of john, decreasing self

Full Transcript

John the Baptist: Setting the Scene

We will continue our study in the life of Christ tonight. Open your Bibles to John chapter 3, verses 22 through 36. I have titled this "John's Final Testimony." The John I am speaking about here is different than the Gospel writer. We have two different men by the name of John: John the Baptist and John the Gospel writer. This is John the Baptist's final testimony.

I come into this pulpit every Sunday with varying levels of inadequacy. Some weeks I feel a little more up to the task than others. This is one of those weeks where I know I am not near fit for this. The reason is I really think this could become very academic in its study, and I do not want it to. I relate to the dark side of what is in this story, and that is why my admiration is so great for John the Baptizer.

You see him as a model of steady, bold, constant service to the Lord Jesus Christ. Remember last week we looked at verses 10 through 21, and we said tucked in the middle was this little gem — John 3:16: "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life." This little jewel is tucked in the middle of our passage today, and indeed it is the secret to a real, genuine Christian life.

This passage also honestly depicts jealousy, rivalry, envy, and competition. Perhaps that is why I identify with it. So let us break this apart.

Jesus and John Both Baptizing

"After these things, Jesus and His disciples came into the land of Judea, and there He was spending time with them and baptizing." If I had only that verse, it might look as though Jesus Himself is doing the baptizing, but John goes out of his way in chapter 4, verse 2 to clarify that Jesus Himself was not baptizing. F.F. Bruce says this baptismal activity seems to have been an extension of John's ministry.

Jesus has burst onto the scene. We have seen that some of John the Baptizer's disciples have left him, changed jerseys, and are now following Jesus. Jesus is either displacing or replacing John in people's minds.

John is also baptizing, as verse 23 tells us, in Aenon near Salim, because there was much water there. I do not know why, but it makes me laugh every time I read it. I suppose if you are going to baptize, you go where there is a lot of water. We do not know exactly where this location is — we cannot pinpoint it. And the people were coming and being baptized. John had not yet been thrown into prison.

Many of you know the end of John's life. He is arrested under the tyranny of Herod. He is imprisoned, and one night Herod's stepdaughter performs a dance. Herod stands up and says he will give her anything she wants, and she says, "I want the head of John the Baptist." That is how John meets his end. John the Gospel writer states rather plainly that that time had not yet come.

Running Through the Tape

What is happening is this: John was the man. John was headline, front-page news — and now that is Jesus. Jesus has assumed that place, and John has simply begun to shrink away. Yet you see him diligently going about what God called him to do. He is working. In racing terms, he is running through the tape. He is finishing the swing, completing the task, working all the way through his life.

This week I was in the bookstore in the Chinese history section — I have not the foggiest idea why, as I never really spend time in that section. I found a book called *Jesus in Beijing*, written by the Beijing desk editor of Time Magazine. I have only had the opportunity to read about 80 pages of it, but it is the most engaging book. He is talking about Christianity in China and what he perceives as a great opportunity there. He is not dismissing the persecution, but in the middle of the introduction he has a section called "The Patriarchs."

He identifies five or six men who are now, I would say, all 75 years of age and older, men who spent 25 to 30 years of their adult lives imprisoned. Yet in these interviews, do you know what they are doing? They are doing what they did when they were 20 years old. They are teaching the Word. They are gathering a church together. There is not a hint of animosity, bitterness, or anger in them. They are praying for their enemies. They are just running through the tape.

They have a perspective on this life and see it as temporary. They know that the suffering they endure is for God's glory and that God will use it. Even those who are martyred — it is the blood of those martyrs that, in a sense, becomes the lifeblood for the church. That is John the Baptist.

Who Was John the Baptist?

Verse 25 tells us: "There arose therefore a discussion on the part of John's disciples with a Jew about purification." Let me remind you who John was, because I want to make sure we understand the full weight of this moment.

First, he was enormously popular — not an ancillary figure. Matthew chapter 3, verse 5: "Then Jerusalem was going out to him, and all Judea and all the districts around the Jordan." They were all going out to seek him. He was the buzz, the talk of the town.

He also pulled no punches in his message. Matthew 3:7: "When he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said, 'You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?'" He shoots straight with them.

John the Baptist's Humility and Self-Understanding

There is judgment coming, and people need to be prepared for it. John redirected people toward Jesus and resisted the temptation to take the glory and the honor for himself. In John 1:19–20, when the Jews sent priests and Levites to ask him, "Who are you? Are you the Messiah? Are you Elijah?" he answered plainly: no. He understood his role and was not confused about it.

Here is what John said: "I am a voice of one crying in the wilderness, make straight the way of the Lord." He declared that there was someone coming whose sandal he was not worthy to untie — the lowest of jobs — and he meant it. He had an exactly accurate assessment of who he was. And when they came to see whether the person at the center of this extraordinary movement was the Messiah, John did not claim that title. Instead, he identified the Messiah. In John 1:29, seeing Jesus coming toward him, he said, "Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world" — the sin of the Jew, the sin of the Gentile. There He is.

That is John the Baptist. And if we need any further endorsement of his character, we get it from the lips of Jesus Himself, who said that no one who has ever lived was greater than John the Baptist — not David, not Abraham, not Joseph, not Moses, none of them.

The Danger of Rivalry in Ministry

Back in verse 25, there is a dispute, a discussion. On the surface it appears to be about purification, but when we get to the real heart of the issue, John's disciples come to him and say, "He who was with you beyond the Jordan, this Jesus to whom you have borne witness — behold, He is baptizing, and all are coming to Him." Do you see what is going on? They were all coming to us, but now they are all coming to Him. We were the focus; we were the center of attention. But not anymore. Now it is Jesus.

These disciples were jealous and competitive, and it is easy to identify with them. Ray Stedman writes that competition is one of the most dangerous things to enter the family and the people of God, and that a sense of rivalry between ministries is one of the devil's most effective tools to impede the progress of the gospel. This dynamic can appear even in something as simple as East Valley Bible Church, where one ministry, by nature of what it does, is more visible than others, and rivalries between ministries can easily take root.

We saw this early in the church in 1 Corinthians 3. Paul hears about this church, and here is what they are saying: "I am following Apollos." "I am following Peter." "I am following Paul." And Paul responds: one man plants, another waters, but it is God who causes the growth. Our natural instinct is to want the attention. There is the story of one of the German Kaisers who loved the attention of others so much that he wanted to be the baby at every christening, the bridegroom at every wedding, and the corpse at every funeral. That is us. That is the way we naturally are.

A Man Can Receive Nothing Unless Given from Heaven

But not John the Baptist. In verse 27, John answered and said, "A man can receive nothing unless it has been granted and given to him from heaven." He is talking here about ministry itself. It is amazing — absolutely fascinating — who and what God chooses to bless in terms of ministry.

A pastor came to church a couple of years ago for two or three weeks. He led a good church in town of three or four hundred people. He came to speak with me and said it was frustrating to come to East Valley Bible Church. When asked why, the essence of what he communicated was that he taught better, was smarter, and could not understand why the two churches were different sizes. The honest answer was: there is no explanation. God simply does things in ways that confuse our categories, and we can easily mistake numerical size for spiritual size.

These arguments go on endlessly, and there is no clean resolution. But it is striking that God uses someone like Spurgeon in a particular season, and then that era closes. One man can teach and people are deeply blessed; for another, it does not happen that way. It is not technique. It comes back to this: a man can receive nothing unless it has been given to him from heaven. God simply does it. You cannot explain it.

John's Joy in the Bridegroom

Here is what John goes on to say: "You yourselves bear me witness that I said I am not the Christ, but I have been sent before Him. He who has the bride is the bridegroom, but the friend of the bride — the best man — who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom's voice. And so this joy of mine has been made full." John is telling his disciples they missed the whole point. He had told them from the beginning it was never about them. He was nothing but a bulldozer, clearing the way. And while his disciples are discouraged that all these people are now going to Jesus, John's heart is filled with joy over it.

How can John say that? Consider what it would mean to put yourself in his position. You have been the person. You are the expert in the office. You have been salesperson of the year for so long they engraved your name on the plaque through 2010.

He Must Increase

All of a sudden there is a young hotshot in town, and it is not you anymore. They were all listening to you, and now nobody listens to you. You were the guy, you were the person, but not anymore. How do you make that transition? Here is the answer, tucked away in this verse: John said, "He must increase, and I must decrease." That is the screensaver reminder for your computer — that there is great joy in our life as we experience this transformation. Naturally we think about me, myself, and I, but supernaturally we begin to think about Him, and something starts to take place.

The real question we want to get at is this: how can John say that? Why must Jesus increase? Why is that appropriate? There are five reasons in the next five verses, and we will go through them quickly. First, in verse 31, it is because Jesus is from heaven: "He who comes down from above is above all. He is from the earth, speaks of the earth, but Jesus is above all." Second, He possesses the mind of the Father — He has seen and heard these things firsthand. Someone has not merely told Him about them. That is why He is superior; He always agrees with the Father.

Third, verse 33 tells us He has sealed that what God said is true. Fourth, He has received the Spirit without limit: "He whom God has sent speaks the Word of God, for He gives the Spirit without measure." There is no limit here. And fifth, Jesus is declared supreme by the Father's decree — the Father has given all things into His hand.

So here is the scene. John's disciples come to him and say, "What is going on? They were all following us, and now they are following Jesus." And John is saying, "Boys, you are missing the whole point. He is superior to us. Our job was simply to point to Him. He must increase. We must decrease."

Belief That Transforms a Life

Look at verse 36, and it is the statement that now comes through John's gospel continually. Remember, John is writing this gospel. He has hand-chosen these miracles, signs, and wonders to demonstrate to us so that we will look at them and believe that Jesus is the Son of God. John says, "He who believes in the Son has eternal life. If he does not obey the Son, he will not have life, and he will experience the wrath of God." That is what John has been saying. That is what Jesus said: "God so loved the world, whoever believes in Him won't perish but have eternal life." Here it is said again.

That is the issue in front of us. That is what John wants us to understand. The beginning of the Christian life is to believe that Jesus is who He said He was. It is not just intellectual assent, not just accepting it, but a belief that transforms a life — a life that begins to change before your very eyes. If it does not change, then we really have to wonder what this belief is. Maybe it is nothing more than superstition, or nothing more than intellectual assent. But real, genuine, true, honest belief changes a life.

The stakes are huge. Our lives are touched when we hear of an incident like the one that happened last Thursday — something so out of what we expect. You do not expect a sixteen-year-old to die. But by the same token, death in a person's life is not unexpected. I assume you understand that you are going to die. The evidence is certainly overwhelming that you will. And the stakes are where you are going to spend eternity — either experiencing the wrath of God, separation from Him, hell, or eternal life with Him forever.

It is an amazing thing to think about. You look at life, you look at what you are going through, the good and the bad, and you understand that in some period of time — not long from now — that is all going to end, and you will be with Him forever. It is a fabulous thought. I wish it had happened at 5:12 on April 25th. I wish it were right now. But it is not, and He left you here for a reason and a purpose.

Pride: The Complete Anti-God State of Mind

So how do you grow in that? I want to go back to John 3, verse 30, for just a few minutes. "He must increase, I must decrease." What we are really looking at there is pride. C.S. Lewis said pride is a complete anti-God state of mind. In *Mere Christianity*, he has that marvelous sentence we have quoted here so often: it was through pride that Lucifer became the devil.

Lewis illustrates it this way. He says he knows a man who would take another man's girlfriend — not because he needed a girlfriend or wanted a girlfriend, but just to prove that he could. That is pride.

Now this is where it becomes personal, because you need to apply this in your own life. What we are talking about is your heart condition — your motivation, why you do what you do. I am convinced, of all of you — some I know not at all, some a little, some pretty well, some very well — that your besetting sin is pride. When I am dealing with somebody and something is going on in their life, almost always pride is at the center of it.

In biblical counseling, they always say: when I am sinned against, I tend to have a sinful response. When somebody sins against me — legitimately, you have legitimately been harmed — our instinct is to respond sinfully. Why? Pride. "I don't get mad, I get even." You can just feel that growl even in the saying of it. I lived by that for thirty years. You want to mess with me? I will get even — in spades.

Pride: The Hideous Vice

Pride is a sinful response, and it is hideous. It is almost self-defeating to teach on, because the moment you do, every person in the room begins thinking of illustrations from their own life where they have seen the teacher operate in a prideful way. I am not suggesting I have this mastered, but I will say I have become proficient at recognizing when I am beginning to respond in a prideful way.

You see it in silly things. I will be sitting with a guy who has been a Christian a few months, and we share some truth together. A month later, ten of us are in a room, and this guy says something profound, and nine people stop and say he is incredible, brilliant, and remarkably wise. And everything in me wants to say, "I can tell you how — I told him all that." That is pride, and it is remarkable that we are wired that way.

I have really learned over the years to check myself in those moments. I have been teaching something for six months, and everything in me wants to say, "Let me give you a tape." But instead I say, "What book was that in? Show me that." I can see it in my own life.

Pride and Whether We Truly Love Our Kids

Here is a statement that will shock you: I do not think very many people even love their kids. If you loved your kids, you would act like it. I need to qualify that — I am not necessarily saying this about the people here, but at large.

I hear people talk constantly about how much they love their children, yet so many choices tell a different story. I will ask a kid what he is doing this summer, and the answer is a long sequence of camps — basketball camp, cheer camp, ski camp, music camp, one after another. How about staying home? How about loving your kid and simply being with him? The real test of love is not whether you would die for your child — it is whether you will live for him.

And even some of the good things parents do for their children, they are really only doing for themselves. A teacher will say that thirty kids come into kindergarten, and twenty-seven of them, by their parents' estimate, are gifted. Every child is gifted. One child is ten and knows his colors — unbelievable, apparently. But even if a child is a little bit ahead, a week of good teaching and every other child catches up anyway. We do not have Mozarts around, and it is painful to acknowledge that, because in your mind your child being average means you are average too — they have your genes. That tension is exactly what I am describing. Pride is sick.

Humility: The Ultimate Virtue

The flip side of pride being the ultimate vice is that humility is the ultimate virtue. It is where the Christian life begins. I need to humble myself. I need to understand who God is, who He is, and respond to who He is.

Yesterday, Rick Holland was teaching, and he said something very simple: the essence of the gospel is humility. Jesus humbles Himself, and we humble ourselves. We understand who we are. We acknowledge that we are unworthy and undeserving, and that God died for sinners like us.

A.W. Pink writes this: "Humility is not the product of direct cultivation, but rather it is a byproduct. The more I try to be humble, the less shall I attain unto humility." What Pink is saying is that you do not set humility out as a goal. Here is a bumper sticker: humility happens. It just does.

The Trap of Self-Conscious Humility

The classic example of this is Benjamin Franklin. His friends were telling him he was proud and arrogant, so Franklin — being the list man that he was — made a list, and his goal for the week was to be humble. He sat down on Saturday night, as he regularly did, and evaluated all his goals. He came to the goal of humility and assessed that he had, in fact, been humble that week. He wrote in his autobiography, "I immediately became proud of how humble I was." That is how hideous this thing is.

I have friends driving around in old, beat-up cars simply to signal their humility — look at me, I am so humble. That is not real humility. Real humility is what we genuinely strive for, what we desire.

Pink says: "If I am truly occupied with that One — Jesus, who is meek and lowly in heart — if I am constantly beholding His glory in the mirror of God's Word, then I shall be changed into the same image from glory to glory." Humility is not produced by pursuing humility. It is produced by pursuing Him.

Evaluating Humility in Your Own Life

Let me say a word about how we can begin to evaluate whether there is humility in our lives. I cannot look into your heart — you are the one who must draw that evaluation. But let me add something that has bothered me since I became a Christian, a load I have been carrying for twenty-four years: you cannot evaluate humility by the task.

Humility Is a Heart Condition

I will get people saying, "Oh, he's cleaning toilets — he's a humble man." I can be cleaning toilets and, in my heart, be saying, "I'm way too good to be cleaning toilets." It's not about the task. Humility is a man or woman using their gifts and talents, as God has given them, for His honor and His glory — and it is not described by the task. I can be cleaning a toilet with the wrong heart. I can be preaching with the wrong heart.

It's about the heart condition, and you have to examine your heart. Scripture keeps driving us toward this, and it will be evidenced in the way that we handle relationships.

Humility Evidenced in Relationships

I want to invite you to turn to Philippians chapter 2, verses 3 through 4. As you do, let me read two other passages to you. Ephesians 4:1 — Paul has laid out this beautiful doctrinal treatise, and then he says, "Walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you've been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing tolerance for one another in love." Colossians 3:12 — Paul says, "Put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, bearing with one another and forgiving each other."

Apparently, humility is really evidenced in our relationships with other people. Paul also talks about patience — and when we speak of perseverance, that is us standing firm against circumstance, whereas patience is us dealing with interpersonal relationships. So Paul says in Ephesians 4 and in Colossians 3 that we are to be gentle and humble, to be forbearing, to be kind-hearted, to be tolerant.

Philippians 2: The Mind of Christ

Now it is the same idea in Philippians 2: "Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit." That word translated "empty conceit" is the only time it appears in the New Testament — it is also translated in the King James as "vain glory." Paul combines these two things: selfishness, our selfish ambition, our personal self-centered goals, and empty conceit, our desire for glory and acclaim. He says don't let that be the motive that drives you.

Instead, with humility of mind — lowliness of mind, the opposite of pride — we are to regard one another as more important than ourselves. Pride is a sin that is always separating, but humility moves us toward one another. "Do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others."

And then comes verse 5: "Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus." Think as Jesus thought. Have the same grid of evaluation, the same mindset. Think like Jesus — who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped. Jesus had all the rights, the privileges, and the honors of His deity, and yet in verse 7 He emptied Himself — not of His deity, but of His glory and His independence — and He submitted Himself to the Father. He took the form of a bondservant, being made in the likeness of man, and being found in the appearance of man, "He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross."

Jesus emptied Himself of His glory and became obedient. He didn't demand His own rights. He was killed not for any sin of His own, but for the sin of you and me. Paul says: there is your role model.

Applying the Mind of Christ

If you want to understand humility, you will see it in the way you view others. Don't think more highly of yourself than you do of them. Don't be driven by selfish ambition or empty conceit. Even in performing good deeds, do them with a spirit of humility and not with a sense of pride — not thinking, "Look what I've done, look at this bag I'm bringing in for this M25 project, I must be a remarkable person." Begin to think like Jesus, who humbled Himself and set aside His own rights.

I guarantee you that if a husband and wife come into our office and sit down and say, "We have a problem," most likely both of them are concerned about themselves — their rights and their privileges — and are frustrated that the other person isn't doing what they think they should do or acting how they ought to act. The last time I had a husband and wife in, she was saying, "Here's what he said to me this morning — he said this and this and this and this, and it just tore me apart." And I'm sitting there thinking, "That is exactly what I said to Susan today."

I will drive home from those conversations thinking, "How come this couple is in here and we aren't?" The answer is that Susan is not consumed with her rights and her privileges. She knows that when I act that way I'm being foolish, and she overlooks it and loves — and she has the mind in her that is also in Christ Jesus. Periodically, I rise to that level myself. That is what this is about. That is how it plays itself out.

A Mirror for the Believer

A great way to determine whether you are a humble person is to look at your relationships. Sometimes you can fall into a trap and say, "Obviously I have aggravation in my life because of these unbelievers when I share the gospel." So set the unbelievers aside — how are you doing with the brothers and the sisters? If there is strife, if you are not getting along, if there is this tension that is present in virtually every relationship and never seems to go away, let me be so bold as to suggest that the remedy —

Humility as a Byproduct, Not a Goal

The transformation He calls us to might lie in seeing a radical change in your own thought processes and your own heart. That is what John is saying: He must increase, and I must decrease. I found a quote that makes me laugh. William Carey, the father of modern missions, said, "When I'm gone, don't talk about William Carey. Talk about William Carey's Savior. I desire that Christ alone might be magnified."

You might ask how that could make me laugh. What makes me laugh is that here we are, talking about William Carey. That is how sick this thing is. The moment we see somebody who operates with some measure of humility, it is so foreign to us that we want to exalt that person right away. Is that not amazing?

It is a very dark side of our nature, and I may be overreacting here — I may be tipping my hand too much — but I discover, at least in my own life and in the lives of so many people I come into contact with, that pride drives so much of our behavior and so much of our thought process. We are so worried about what others are going to think about us, so worried about our own reputation, so worried about getting our piece of the pie.

It starts with humility. I come in repentance and faith, and then as I grow, the only way I am going to grow is when I internalize the fact that He increases and I decrease. A.W. Pink is exactly right: it is not a worthy goal — it is a byproduct.

The Heart, Not a List

I will tell you what I like. Give me five things. Give me seven things. Give me 157 things. Give me a list. But there is no list here. This is your heart, my friend. This is your mindset. This is how you are thinking. This is what is at the very core of your being.

How much time do you spend frustrated and angry because your rights are getting trampled on? "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus." There is no checklist that produces that. It is a matter of the heart.

Closing Prayer

Father, thank You for this message. I confess total inadequacy in this thing — I just don't have a clue, and I cannot give any direction beyond what has been said. I recognize it and I see it in my own life, and God, I pray that I am just like everybody else in that sense, that we can all see it. Help us empty ourselves of ourselves. Make us concerned not about our rights.

God, help us have an attitude that says Jesus must increase and I must decrease. We ask You to do that huge work in our lives, that supernatural work. Help us be men and women, students, and a church that operates not naturally but supernaturally — and this is an evidence of that.

God, we pray for Jack and Jan Decker and for their family. We pray for this week and all that You might do out of a tragic event to turn it into something that brings honor and glory to You. Father, we ask this of You in Jesus' name, amen.