He Must Increase
He Must Increase I Must Decrease!
John 3: 30: "He must increase, but I must decrease."
A man, writing a letter to a friend, described his feelings of escaping to the country
for a week-end of rest after months of the rat race in the big city: "After seeing the green fields
and the blue skies, I felt I had looked God in the face, and have been refreshed."
That is the effect of this text.
To hear such words in a world that is stuffy with the stale atmosphere of self-interest and
self-assertion is so refreshing.
It is like looking God in the face, and being refreshed.
If John the Baptist had never spoken another word in Scripture but this, it would have labeled him
as a true saint.
I am sure that there are many Christians here for whom the great battle of life is just to bring
themselves to say what John said here.
Consider the circumstances.
Here was a successful man.
His name was on every lip.
Crowds followed him everywhere he went.
He was popular.
Then one day, a young carpenter from Nazareth appeared on the scene, and the crowd was gone.
John stood, and watched them go.
All he said was: "He must increase, I must decrease."
Isn't that magnificent!
This young Nazarene appeared, and John's time on the scene was done.
Three things must have made this a terribly difficult experience for John the Baptist.
He had given up everything for his life-work.
John was a homeless dweller in the desert.
He might have had comfort, ease, and security, but he sacrificed them all.
Now it was all gone.
Also, he probably knew that the crowd was gone for good.
He could have consoled himself with thought, "They will come back again. I'll just wait.
They will be back."
But that would never happen.
They were gone for good.
Not only were the crowds gone, but his best friends -- his most promising disciples had left him,
and joined Jesus, and he was left alone.
This must have been terribly hard, the kind of difficult experience
which tests a man to the very roots of his being.
He could have truly hated Christ.
He might have begrudged Him every disciple He made.
He might have belittled Christ's achievements.
He could have been torn by jealousy.
He might have done all that.
Many have done these things with far less reasons.
But he just stood there!
He mastered his soul, and said: "He must increase, but I must decrease."
How could John manage to do that?
He was able to because his life was rooted in God.
If John had not had his life rooted in God when this crisis came, he certainly would
have gone to pieces.
If your life is not rooted in God, and someone else gets that on which you had your heart set,
it can be a devastating experience.
Living in a world without your life rooted in God can crush the life with depressing disappointments.
It is terribly difficult, if not impossible, to keep your poise when something has happened
to cut you to the very soul, if you do not have God in your life.
God never told us that the Christian life would be easy.
But a life rooted in God does give us a foundation to stand on for the inevitable fights and battles.
The life God gives, enables us to have a strange serenity and peace in the midst of the fight.
To have Christ in our lives means that we now have the certainty that, whatever happens to us,
we have a heavenly Father in control of everything.
He understands.
He holds us in His strong hands.
He will never let us down!
To have our roots entwined round the everlasting rock, which is God, is the most steadying
thing in the world.
This kind of relationship with God is the only thing that can adequately equip any of us for the
strains and stresses of this difficult, and sometimes hurting life.
That was the secret of John the Baptist's victory -- his personal faith in the everlasting God.
There was another reason why John the Baptist was able to speak the self-denying words,
"He must increase, I must decrease," and it is this: he saw something in Jesus,
which he himself did not possess.
John's preaching had been all sternness and thunder, lightning and denunciation,
but when Jesus preached people were conscious of a tender, loving note they had never heard before.
The deepest difference that John had discovered was that he was just a common sinner
like the people to whom he had preached.
He knew enough about his own nature and his own weaknesses to realize
that he stood with the rest of humanity.
He also knew that Jesus had no sin in Him.
Jesus could lift men up to God, as John the Baptist could never do.
So John looked at Christ, and the thought came to his mind, as it must come to every preacher
of the gospel today, "Who am I that I should even try to talk of Him?"
God pity me! I am not worthy to touch the feet of Christ!
"He must increase, I must decrease."
There could be a third reason that John would speak these words.
John had the grace to see that it did not matter who did the work, as long as the work was done.
What does the messenger matter -- if the message gets across.
Let my name be obliterated forever, if only people are pointed to God, and the Lord Jesus Christ
is enthroned.
That was his attitude.
It must be our attitude!
We must remember the great principle that we just said: It does not matter who does the work,
as long as the work is done!
John Whittier said:
"What matter, I or they?
Mine or another's day,
So the right word be said,
And life the sweeter made?"
How slow we are to realize this!
How often our attitude is, "It does matter who does the work -- it is going to be done by me!"
Christian service too often gets mixed up with questions of precedence, and Christian people
grow sensitive about these personal things.
Christians, too often, forget the first essential, which is self-denial.
It does not matter who does the work, as long as the work is done.
We must come to realize this or we are not going to make it!
There are some religious denominations who need to realize this.
Some believe that no one is truly saved, unless they have been saved in their church.
That attitude goes back to the early church.
Remember Corinth?
One sect said, "We are of Paul."
Another said, "We are of Apollos."
Another said, "We are of Cephas."
The implication was, "If you do not belong to us, you are not the real thing!"
Do you remember Paul's reply?
"Is Christ divided?"
"Who is Paul, who is Apollos, who is Cephas, but mere instruments in the hands of God?
The instrument is nothing: God is everything."
He must increase!
It does not matter who does the work, as long as the work is done.
This applies to our individual service.
Suppose, you are trying to help someone who is finding life tangled and difficult.
You bring that person face to face with Christ.
Nothing less than that can be our intention.
Then, Christ will take charge.
From that point on -- Christ is to increase, you are to decrease.
The question is: when you reach that point, where Christ is really seen, will you have
the grace to step back?
As parents will you step back, and give your children room to develop his or her own personality?
Bring them to church -- yes!
Bring them to Jesus -- definitely!
Train them -- yes!
Then step back, and leave them in the hands of Christ to find their own place in life.
As a church worker, are you willing to do the things God lead you to do?
Are you willing to stand in the shadows that Christ may stand in the light?
If you are a friend, trying to help a friend; will you remember, that the greatest of all helpers is Jesus?
Will you step back and say, "Don't look at me, look at Him?"
Our Christian service may be diligent and zealous, but it is nothing, and will come to nothing
without self-denial.
Our service may be unseen.
Our name may be forgotten.
But, if we have led one soul to discover Christ, the work will have been done!
"He must increase, I must decrease."
These words should be the motto of our Christian service.
They must be the keynote of our inner life.
I'm sure, that in everyone of us at this very moment there is something of self, and in every
Christian, there is something of Christ.
We must say, "He must increase, but I must decrease."
"O the bitter shame and sorrow
That a time could ever be
When I let the Saviour's pity
Plead in vain, and proudly answered,
All of self, and none of Thee!'
Yet He found me; I beheld Him
Bleeding on the accursed tree,
Heard Him pray, Forgive them, Father!'
And my wistful heart said faintly,
Some of self, and some of Thee!'
Day by day His tender mercy,
Healing, helping, full, and free,
Sweet and strong, and ah, so patient,
Brought me lower, while I whispered,
Less of self, and more of Thee!'
Higher than the highest heaven,
Deeper than the deepest sea,
Lord, Thy love at last hath conquered;
Grant me now my supplication,
None of self, and all of Thee!'"
Sermon by Dr. Harold L. White
