Joy Now Complete - John 3:22-36 - April 12, 2026

Blake Hickman: Good morning everybody. Good to see so many of you today. ⁓ If you are new since November, my name is Blake and ⁓ it is my joy to be able to be here with you today to open God's word for you today to worship with you. I had the privilege for many years, my family and I, of being a member here at Harvest and being able to serve and it is great to be back. It's great to see so many faces that I love dearly, that my family loves dearly, and I'm excited to be able to be with you guys, not just today, but next Sunday as well, to open God's Word for you. excited to be here. Let me pray for us, and then we'll look together in God's Word. Father, thank you so much for this day. Father, thank you for this opportunity to lift our voices and sing to you. Father, what an incredible opportunity that we have to be able to praise you, to declare your goodness, to declare your righteousness. your your justice, your mercy, your grace, how you show that to us, how you pour that out to us. Father, you have invited us here this morning to have not just a quote unquote experience with you, but to have a reality of who you are and how you have moved to provide Jesus to save us and draw us to yourself. Father, I pray that you would work through great weakness in me today, that you would work through weakness in all of us here, Magnified we ask all of this in his name. Amen. If you have your Bible turn to John chapter 3 So we will be continuing through the book of John as you guys have been doing ⁓ And as you go there so between my junior and senior year of high school That was this summer that God really? ⁓ Grabbed my heart and started to draw me back to himself I came to faith in Christ when I was nine years old and just through some ⁓ middle school and early high school stupidity, had wandered away from him. And that summer was really when he started to draw me back to himself. And I needed money. And I needed money desperately. I had been unceremoniously dismissed from my part-time job at the local JCPenney there in Birmingham, Alabama. And I was in between a rock and a hard place. was trying, was actively searching for job, but it was not going well at that moment. And I needed money in like three days. Back in those days, we didn't have Google. You couldn't just open your phone up and do a quick search for things. So I had to grab our local paper and flip to the WAN ads to try to find a job that would be able to give me some very fast money. And I stumbled upon a local temp agency. Now, if you are unaware of what temp agencies do, it's pretty self-explanatory. They provide you with temporary work. So I looked. I made a phone call. They said, yes, you can come in. We'd like to get to meet you, get to know you, and find out a little bit more about you. And so I dressed as my dad and my granddad had trained me to dress for a job interview. And it didn't take long, not even into the parking lot, to realize that I was very overdressed for the occasion and for most of the people that was there. That actually was good. It played into my favor. And so I went in and I got to know the people. I got to meet the people, had a conversation. And I was given two assignments. that would take place over a weekend. One would happen on a Friday morning during the day, the other would be Friday night and on Saturday night. One was a large scale laundry facility and the other was working third shift for a local printer for two nights. And I did my weekend and it wasn't awful. Thankful I have never had to go back and do that again in my life, but it wasn't entirely awful. ⁓ And the temp agency told me that they would gladly find other jobs for me if I was in a pinch again. and needed money in the future. But one thing that they made clear to me, and they made clear to me this to me from the first phone call through the interview and even as I was leaving my time with them was no matter how well I did my job that they assigned me, that my role was totally temporary. That I was always going to be holding a spot either for someone who was out for an extended period of time or I was going to be filling just the basic necessities of a job. until they found somebody that was more qualified and more skilled to do that permanently. It didn't matter what I was doing, I was temporary and I was going to be a placeholder. Now as an 18 year old young man, that did not mean a lot to me. That relationship was very transactional. I need money, you provide work, you give me money, we're both happy. But to some of the people that I worked with that weekend, it was soul crushing. These were adults that had families and had responsibilities. These were good people who did good work, but the best they could hope for was to be a placeholder for someone better eventually. And this is a normal human reaction when we are faced with this reality. Every single human being wants to feel valued, and they want to add value. We want to feel needed, we want to feel important. We want to feel that we matter and that the work that we provide and the care that we give and our presence by itself, that it is vital and that it is necessary. And when we hear that we are those things, but it's still not enough. And that as much as we have brought to the table that they're thankful, but it's just temporary and a placeholder for someone else, our natural human response can be, why did I even do this? Like, what was this all for? Why did I allow myself to go through this? Our text today from John chapter three, from a human perspective through purely human eyes and a human lens, it doesn't make a lot of sense to us. It goes against what our natural human response would be. It wars against our need to leave a mark and to make a difference. And that is what makes it beautiful. In our text today, we are going to see Jesus's ministry beginning to take shape and grow. We are going to see some confused people in John the Baptist, disciples and followers. We are going to see John the Baptist himself with some wonderful humility and self-awareness. This text is going to be convicting in how it shows to us our own human flawed and sinful hearts. It's gonna be comforting in how it points us to who Jesus is and how we should respond to him. And it's gonna show us clearly how to find life both now and for eternity. So let's read our text and let's see what it has for us this morning beginning in verse 22 of John chapter three. says after this Jesus and his disciples went into the Judean countryside and he remained there with them and was baptizing. John also was baptizing at Enon near Salem because water was plentiful there and people were coming and being baptized for John had not yet been put in prison. Now a discussion arose between some of John's disciples and a Jew over purification. And they came to John and said to him, Rabbi, he who is with you across the Jordan to whom you bore witness, look, he's baptizing and all are going to him. John answered, a person cannot receive even one thing unless it is given him from heaven. You yourselves bear me witness that I said, I am not the Christ, but I've been sent before him. The one who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom who stands and hears him, he rejoices greatly at the bridegroom's voice. Therefore this joy of mine is now complete. He must increase, but I must decrease. He who comes from above is above all. He who is of the earth belongs to the earth and speaks in an earthly way. He who comes from heaven is above all. He bears witness to what he has seen and heard, yet no one receives his testimony. Whoever receives his testimony sets his seal to this, that God is true. For he whom God has sent utters the words of God, for he gives the Spirit without measure. The Father loves the Son, and he's given all things into his hand. Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life. Whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him. And it's right from the start in verses 22 through 26 that I just read there that we see our first point today. And our first point today is that we see confusion. Now, it's going to get confusing, okay? We have John, the writer of this gospel, the disciple that Jesus loved, and he is going to be telling us this story. We also have John, the Baptist, who John, the beloved disciple, never refers to in that way. So, I'm going to be careful to identify who I am speaking of as it relates to each of these men, okay? So, from the very beginning here, John, our writer, sets up the scene very, very well. Jesus has begun his earthly ministry. Jesus' disciples are baptizing in response to Jesus' teaching. Now I know that it says there that Jesus was baptizing. We will get to that more and what that means next week when we get into chapter four. But it really was Jesus' disciples that were doing the baptizing with Jesus giving authority over it. At the same time, the ministry of John the Baptist has not stopped. It is still going. We look at this and we see this is an amazing thing. John is still preparing the way and he's sending people to Jesus. Jesus is now doing the work that he was sent to do. What could be wrong here? But this is where things take a turn. Some of John's disciples have a conversation with an unnamed man here in the text over purification. And basically what they're having a conversation about is the method and means of baptism. What it means, what it points to, what it actually provides. Is it something that is larger or does it provide ritual purification? And we don't know all the ins and outs and the details of the conversation. We don't know if they were being challenged or if the man was just curious. And honestly, we don't know because it's not really what's most important here. But apparently from that conversation, John's disciples now have some unease about what is going on with Jesus. They say to John, the Baptist, in essence, the guy that you baptized is now baptizing. And instead of people coming to you for baptism, they're going to him. What is going on here? To John's disciples, there's a good deal of confusion. They don't seem to understand what John himself has already communicated to them. At minimum, maybe they just do not have all of the necessary information. There's an information gap. There's a little bit that's been left out. All of the dots have not been connected. They've been given high-level information, but they don't have everything that they need for it to make sense. At maximum, There is bitter jealousy that is growing in their hearts and they are becoming angry and they see Jesus as an opponent and not as somebody that is with them. John, our writer, does not tell us which it is. He leaves that to the imagination, but we can see from here that these are men who are obviously upset and they are very confused about what is happening here. We should rightly question why this would be so. After all, these men most likely would have been with John when he was questioned by the religious leaders back in chapter one. I know that you guys have walked through that a few weeks ago, but if you do not remember, there John himself, John the Baptist very clearly stated, I am just a placeholder. I am purely temporary. I am here for a specific purpose in preparation for the one who is coming. They most likely would have been there when John baptized Jesus and stated out of his own mouth to everyone within earshot, John 1 verse 34, I have seen and born witness that this is the Son of God. That seems a pretty clear statement to me. Nonetheless, they're confused. And do we not see this in our day as well? We have the fully revealed Word of God to show us and the world who Jesus is. We have 2,000 years of church history of careful doctrine and theology and faithful proclamation of the gospel. We have churches that love Jesus and are filled with people that love Jesus. And yet in so many ways, people are more confused today about who Jesus is. And this should remind us that no matter how clear the message is about Jesus, there are people who, for many reasons, will never be satisfied with him. Maybe it is their history with the church or with people in the church who claim to love Jesus. Maybe it is because they do not want to count the cost of what it means to forsake all. any previously held worldview, any previously held position, any previous idea of what is allowed and not allowed, any previous notion of identity or concept in their brain to forsake all and follow Jesus. Maybe it's because the real Jesus and his real message of life being only found in him wars against the life they long to dream and build for themselves. We. humans here on this earth, finite beings may never know why and in what ways confusion creeps into the hearts and minds of people. But what we must know is how to respond in the most grace-filled and gospel-drenched way possible. And this is exactly what John the Baptist does in these next few verses. In verses 27 through 29, the very beginning of it, I'll read this for us again. John says, starting in verse 27, he says, John the Baptist shows us here a kind and proper way to respond to the confusion of who Jesus really is. Notice here, he does not yell or raise his voice. He does not belittle or make people feel small. He does not mock their ignorance or make fun of them. No, he carefully repeats what he has said before and he patiently walks them through who Jesus really is. It's interesting that John the writer does not give us a picture of how these men respond to what John the Baptist says. He doesn't tell us what the follow-up looked like or how they reacted to his reiteration of what he had already told them about Jesus. And that really is kind of the point. We have no control over how people will respond to the message of the gospel. We have none, no control. You or I, no matter how clever we may be, no matter how well we can craft and string words together, no matter heartfelt or tear-filled or pleading we can be, you or I have zero control over the human heart. We only have control over how we present Jesus. That's the only thing we have control over. And John the Baptist does that so very well. And John does this by telling his followers who Jesus is. And he does this by telling his followers who John the Baptist is not. He tells his followers, guys, I've told you, I am not the Christ. I'm not him. I'm not the Messiah. I'm not the one who was sent here. That's not who I am. I'm not him. I'm just here to fill a very important role until he gets here. I am temporary. But now, he is here. He's here. You can look, you can see him. You have seen him. You know where he is. You know the work that he's doing. He is here. And I rejoice greatly, greatly that my eyes and my ears have been opened to see him and to hear his voice. There is so much humility and self-awareness from John here. Imagine you are John. Just imagine. For years, people have been flocking to you. You read about him in the other gospels. It says people from everywhere. are coming to Him to hear His message, a hard message by the way, of repentance and turning from sin and confessing sin and being baptized and placing their faith and hope in someone that they didn't even know if He was here or not yet. And people are lining up to come and hear this message and be dumped by Him in a river. This is what is happening here. They want to hear your message. They want to respond. They're being drawn to respond to your message. And understand, if you are John, you know you are not a normal human being. Aside from the fact that you have a God-given, God-spoken job to do, you eat very large insects and wild honey for your diet. You wear clothing made of camel hair. You live a nomad's life in the desert. You're not normal. And even with all of this, people line up and flock to you to hear your message. Crowds, innumerable, waiting to hear what you have to say. If this were in our day, think about this. You have somebody like that that's drawing that attention. Well-meaning people would be creating social media accounts touting the locust and wild honey diet. Everybody would be talking about, it increases your complexion and your hair, it's so shiny. Forget the thing sticking out of your tooth. Peta would be protesting every time he spoke because of the camel hair and the leather belt. He's not normal, yet people are lining up to hear what he has to say. Like if this were me or you, would we not be tempted to let our hearts give in to the admiration of all of these people? Would we not be tempted even a little bit to make much of ourselves and let our heart be drawn into that level of praise? But this never gets to John. Or better said, it never gets to his heart. It never gets to his heart to win his heart over to love of self over love for God. He stays true, he stays faithful, he stays steadfast, he stays committed, and he knows that he is temporary. And John gives us a beautiful illustration of a wedding here, and in doing this, he defines his relationship to Jesus. in a way that would make sense to the people of his time. ⁓ For those that have been around Harvest for a long time, when I was here, ⁓ my wife Amber and I, have five sons, our oldest son Asher, he and his fiance Skyler, they're getting married in June. And Amber and I are so excited, like we are just filled to overflowing with ⁓ excitement. We love our son, we are so grateful for all the work that God has done in Asher's life. We love our soon to be daughter-in-law, my wife is thrilled that another female is being added to our family. to lower the testosterone and craziness that happens in our home. And we are involved in the planning to some degree as much as we can, but Asher and Skyler are really doing a lot of it on their own. And as a dad, and Amber would say as a mom as well, this makes me so proud of them and for them. They are learning so much about real life, but they are also learning so much about what it means to love each other and to love other people well. Well, in John's day, and in John's story here, John the Baptist that is, the friend of the bridegroom would have been the one handling all of the details. And in many cases, he would have been footing the bill for the entire wedding. And he wasn't just doing this on behalf of the groom, he was also responsible for taking care of the needs of the bride as well. His job was immense. He wasn't just the best man that gets some token present on the day of the wedding. No, he really was there to handle everything. so that the bride and the groom only had to worry about the day. But his job, the ultimate point of his job was to make sure that no matter what, that the bride would meet her bridegroom on their wedding day and that that day would be the best day possible. And as John describes it, when the bridegroom is able to say, am here for my bride, That was the sign that the friend had done his job. And John is here saying, I can hear his voice and he is calling his bride. His call is the one that matters. His call is the one that is ultimate. Open your ears and hear his call. In our day, a little different than in John the Baptist's day, weddings are all about the bride. Now to be clear, and I need to say this very, very carefully, okay, I am in no way saying that is a bad thing, okay? As a man who's been married for almost 27 years, as a dad who is instructing his oldest son, my goal on my wedding day and what I'm telling Asher to think about on his wedding day is that our job is to do whatever possible to make sure that that day is a tremendous blessing to his soon-to-be wife as I tried to make it to Amber. Think about this. Nobody stops and stands up and gives all of their attention when the groom walks in. Doesn't happen. But when the back door opens and mom of the bride stands up, every eye looks to the bride. Nobody talks, people hold their breath. They cannot wait to see her. And that is always so, so beautiful. But I want you to see this. What John is saying is that when Jesus showed up at his first appearing and when he comes again at the end of all things, all attention will not be on the bride that day. Everything will be about the bridegroom. John is saying to his followers, guys, I have seen this. I have seen this, he is the bridegroom. It is time to look to him. It is time for all of your attention to focus there. It is time for all of your energy to be pointed there. It is time for you to run there. And this fills John's heart with joy, with overflowing joy. And that leads to our final point, completion. ⁓ First, let's look at the end of verse 29 and verse 30. John says, this joy of mine is now complete. He must increase, but I must decrease. Look at John's response in these verses. This joy of mine is now complete. He must increase, I must decrease. It's as if he is saying to his disciples, guys, you see this as a bad thing. You think this is horrible and that this is awful. You think that something bad is happening to me. You think that this is not helpful for me. I am telling you, this is the best thing in the world. This is amazing. He says, I am overflowing with joy. You don't get it. My joy could not be more full and it is time for me to fade away. It is time for me to shrink back. It is time for me to become nothing. He is here. It's time for him to increase. There is so much humility here from John. What he is saying here is that he knows that this is not about him and it never was about him. It was never about him that these crowds were showing up. It was never about him that people were lining up to be baptized. It was never about him. It was always about Jesus. It's always been about Jesus. What John the Baptist is saying is I have always made it clear, always made it clear. Do not put your hope in me. I am finite. I will fail. I am a sinner. I'm temporary. My time will end. Put your hope in him. And now he's here and he's telling his followers, join me in my joy. You are missing out on joy. Join me in my joy by worshiping him. And this will challenge us to ask ourselves, who is Jesus to us? Who is he to you individually? Not just who he is, who is he to harvest church? Who is he to you, believer, sitting here? Who is he to you, unbeliever? Maybe for the first time being exposed to the teaching of who Jesus is, who is he to you? What does he mean to you? How would you define who he is? If life for Jesus, Meant you being called to live in the desert, to be called to eat nothing but locust and wild honey, to be called to wind up in prison because of your commitment to the gospel, to be called to have your life ended because of your commitment to the gospel. Would you commit to that life? Would you devote yourself to that message? Would you give yourself to that mission? Would you still place your faith and hope in the one who was calling you to those things? Think far too often we are far too comfortable with fitting Jesus into how we want our lives to go. Instead of asking Jesus to show us how he wants our life to go, are we complete in our joy when everything that life has meant to us and we hold dear is fading away? Are we filled with joy when life in Jesus is increasing, but all the things in this world that bring us happiness are decreasing? John is clearly saying here that he knows that his platform and time for ministry is over. He's saying, my time is done. The crowds aren't gonna follow me anymore. There's not gonna be people lining up anymore. Trouble is sure to find me now that he is here and I could not overflow with more joy than I am overflowing with right now. This is what John is saying. He must increase, I must decrease is easily stated. We're taught to memorize that very early in the church. typically because you got a little too much arrogance and pride in you and they wanna knock you down a few pegs, right? No, he's got to increase, you've got to decrease. I don't think we take time to pause to comprehend the fullness of what John the Baptist is saying when he is delivering this message. This is not just you getting a little more Jesus in you today. This is everything about you being sacrificed so that only Jesus is in you today. This is what John is saying here. To have full joy while we are decreasing is much more difficult. And to be clear, it was difficult for John the Baptist. We haven't touched on verse 24 much yet, but John, our writer, says it parenthetically there that John had not yet been put in prison. But you need to know that John the Baptist would end up there. And while he was in prison, John was confronted by his own doubts and fears. He wasn't a man of confidence and bravery and boldness when he was there. No, there in that prison cell, life got very overwhelming. And it got very, very fearful. Matthew and Luke record this in their gospels. We're going to look and see what Luke had to say to us. The verses will be on the screen, but if you wanna flip there, go to Luke chapter seven, as I am flipping there myself right now. And this is what the gospel of Luke is going to tell us. about John the Baptist towards the end of his time on earth. We're going to start in verse 18. This is what it says. It says, disciples of John reported all of these things to him, most likely the same ones that are here confronting and encountering John about Jesus right now. And John, the Baptist, calling two of his disciples to him, sent them to the Lord, to Jesus, saying, are you the one who is to come? Or shall we look for another? Now I want you to think about this for a minute. This is John who just over here in John three, before he is in prison, verily clearly says, I'm temporary, I'm not the guy, that's the guy. And my joy could not be more full than it is right now. And here he is in prison and he's sending his followers to Jesus saying, did I miss this? Look what it says, it says, when the men had come to him, to Jesus, they said, John the Baptist has sent us to you saying, are you the one who is to come or shall we look for another? And see this starting in verse 21. In that hour, Jesus healed many people of diseases and plagues and evil spirits. And on many who were blind, he bestowed sight. And he answered them, go and tell John what you have seen and heard. The blind received their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear. The dead are raised up and the poor have good news preached to them. And blessed is the one who is not offended by me. Now understand this, John the Baptist is scared, he's most likely facing the question of did he get it right? Is Jesus really the Messiah? Maybe he is struggling with things like many of us do when life gets bad about why things are going so poorly for him, especially if he did what God asked him to do with a high level of faithfulness. We don't really know, we don't get a lot more context in Matthew and in Luke about all of the emotion that John is feeling, but Jesus' answer to him is so tender and wonderful. He's questioned by John and he just simply says, He shows John's followers, this is what I just did. And he says, this is what you tell him. Blind can see again, lame can walk again, deaf can hear again, lepers, they don't have skin disease anymore. Dead people, I'm raising them back to life. And the poor, the destitute, those that go without, they're hearing the good news. Jesus says to John's disciples to say to John, John, You have nothing to fear. I am increasing. I'm increasing. Exactly what you said about me is true. And it's growing and it's moving and it's spreading and you have nothing to fear. And then notice what Jesus says about John, verse 24. of Luke chapter 7 when John's messengers had gone Jesus began to speak to the crowds concerning John what did you go out in the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind? What then did you go out to see? A man dressed in soft clothing? Behold, those who are dressed in splendid clothing and live in luxury or in king's courts. What then did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. This is he of whom it is written, behold, I send my messenger before your face who will prepare your way before you. I tell you, among those born of women, none is greater than John. Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he. Notice what Jesus says about John. He says that everything that John the Baptist did, he did faithfully and he did well. Now friend, let me encourage you today. If you find yourself here and life is overwhelming you and you are in a place in your life where you are doubting the goodness of God and you feel you have been running after him with everything you can as faithfully as possible and that joy level is shrinking and moving down. Jesus did not forget about John the Baptist just like Jesus has not forgotten about you. He must increase and you must decrease. Those are not competing ideas. The more the trappings of this world fade away from us, the more the inexpressible joy of Jesus rises up in us. And that is what he wants us to see today. And then finally in verses 31 through 36, in these verses, John, our narrator, takes back over to give us a summary of everything that we have been reading up to this point. And in verses 31 through 36, if what John the Baptist says, starting in verse 27 through verse 30 ⁓ is true, then these verses make sense. And what is said in these verses is said for us to be able to know how to make the gospel clear and at the same time, how to find fullness of joy, joy that is complete. In verses 31 and 32, it states that Jesus is who he said he is. And it also tells us that people have always doubted him. Look at verse 32, it says, he, meaning the one who is from heaven, not the one who is from the earth, he bears witness to what he has seen and heard, yet no one receives his testimony. No one receives his testimony. Why? It is a hard testimony to receive. It is a difficult message to accept. It will cost you everything, but it is worth more than you could ever imagine. And this is the message, John is telling us, the writer is saying, this is the message that Jesus proclaimed. He was from heaven, not of the earth, and it was a difficult message to hear. Verse 33 states that there are those who do hear and understand, and they know this by having been sealed with the hope of who Jesus is. Look at verse 33. It says, whoever receives his testimony sets his seal to this that God is true. It's an understanding and an acknowledgement that even if it doesn't make sense and even if it is still confusing, we believe, as Peter said, that Jesus and Jesus alone has the words of eternal life and that what he says is true, even as we're trying to sort it out and figure it out. Verses 34 and 35 show us that all we have, we have in Jesus for he. whom God has sent utters the words of God, for he gives the Spirit without measure. The Father loves the Son and has given all things into his hand. John the writer here is telling us that everything you are looking for in life, it is to be found in Jesus. You will find it in him. Will it make all of your earthly cares go away? No, it won't. Will it answer every question that you have? No, it won't. But everything you need in life is found in him. God the Father held nothing back from the Son. If we're united to God the Father through Jesus the Son, we are adopted into his family and we share in everything that he has given to Jesus. And finally, verse 36 makes it clear that life alone is found in Jesus and there is no life and only wrath. Look at verse 36. John, our writer, is not being mean here. He's not trying to beat you up with the message of the gospel. He is trying to point you to the only place that you will find joy that will never run out. He is trying to point you to the one, the only one that can allow that joy to increase in you. He's trying to point you to the one that can remove everything in this world that wants to hang on to you, to keep you from Him. He's trying to tell you, want life. You want joy, you want fullness, you want happiness, you want joy, you want peace, you want all of these things. This is where you look for Him. And He is here for you. He has been made clear. He has been shown. There is a way to get to Him. through his sinless life and dying a sinner's death and then rising again on the third day, conquering sin, death and the grave. Jesus makes a way for us to get to the Father through faith in Him. And this is what John the Baptist and John our writer both want us to know. Jesus, would you increase? Would we decrease? for the glory of your name and for our eternal joy. Let's pray. Father, thank you so much for your word. Thank you for this text. Father, thank you for the humility that we see in John the Baptist here showing us what it looks like to live a life of humility and self-awareness. Thank you also for what he shows us. about the humility to wrestle when life is tough with who you are. And Lord Jesus, thank you for your kindness in the way that you gave assurance to him, the same way that you give assurance to us who are yours through the power of your spirit today. May we rest in that assurance more and more and more. In your name we pray, amen.

John 3 · chapter mention John 1:34 Luke 7 · chapter mention