Sunday Worship Service December 15, 2024

Prelude
Call to Worship Psalm 32:11
Lighting of the Advent Candle (Joy)
Hymn JBC # 173 O little town of Bethlehem
The Lord’s Prayer
Hymn JBC # 301 Amazing grace ! how sweet the sound
Offering
Scripture John 3:22～30
Prayer
Sermon “He must become greater; I become less”
Prayer
Hymn JBC # 160 It came upon the midnight clear
Doxology JBC #679
Benediction
Postlude


Today is the third Sunday of Advent before Christmas.
At the beginning of the service, the third Advent candle was lit. The fire of the third candle represents “joy”.
The event of Christmas, that Jesus Christ was born into the world as a human being, is our great joy. The source of our joy is Jesus Christ.
Where Christ is, there is joy. Where Christ is, and where He is recognized and praised by people, there is joy.

　Today in our church, through our worship, we want to acknowledge Christ as the Lord God, praise Him, and share the joy of His presence with us.
Today's Bible passage is from the Gospel of John 3:22-30.
Today's passage begins with the following sentence

22 After this, Jesus and his disciples went out into the Judean countryside, where he spent some time with them, and baptized.

Jesus went with his disciples to the countryside of Judea, stayed there and baptized people.
Last week, a sister was baptized in our church. Baptism is a ceremony in which a person confesses and declares that he or she believes in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and that he or she will walk as a Christian.
We, the Christian church, are commanded by Jesus to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ to people and to baptize those who believe.

In Matthew 28:19-20, it says

19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
　
Thus, it is a command that the Church, as a community of Christians, has received from Jesus to preach His teachings to the world and baptize those who believe in Him. (It is called the “Great Commission.”)
In today's passage, Jesus by himself baptizes people. Jesus took His disciples and went out into the various regions of Judea to preach about the Kingdom of God.
There Jesus met various people, preached the Kingdom of God to them, and baptized those who believed as a sign of their faith.
Having seeing Jesus himself baptizing people, I think that his disciples would later remember Jesus’baptism when they themselves came to baptize people.
I believe that Jesus was preparing for the time when He would eventually be taken up to heaven and would no longer be with His disciples on earth.
I imagine that when Jesus was with his disciples, he was teaching them by actually showing them “how to preach the kingdom of God” and “how to baptize”.

I am now serving the church as a pastor. And my current work as a pastor is based on what I learned from my own pastors (pastors of churches I belonged to in the past).
　I believe that the way Jesus himself preached and baptized was passed on to his disciples, and that what Jesus' disciples learned in this way has been passed on to the Christian churches till today over the generation.
As believers living in the present time, I would like us to continue to study the content of evangelism and faith inherited from the past, while keeping our eyes firmly fixed on the reality of the present time.

Verse 23 says the following.

23 Now John also was baptizing at Aenon near Salim, because there was plenty of water, and people were coming and being baptized.

This John was an evangelist known as John the Baptist. John the Baptist was one of the religious leaders of Jesus' time in the New Testament who also baptized Jesus.
John the Baptist was probably a very influential and popular leader in his day.
However, today's passage describes a clear difference between Jesus' baptism and the baptism of John the Baptist.
That is, Jesus was baptizing by the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God, on His own authority as the Son of God, while John the Baptist was baptizing merely by water.
In John 1:31 and following, John the Baptist says, “I baptize with water. But He (Christ) who sent me to baptize with water baptizes with the Holy Spirit.”

　John the Baptist's baptism was a baptism by human hands (whose real authority rests with God and not with man).
We, the Christian church, as God's agents, so to speak, still baptize with water. But it is Jesus Christ who truly baptizes by the Holy Spirit.
We want to keep in mind that when we believe in God and are led to be baptized, it is the God of Jesus Christ who is truly baptizing them with the Holy Spirit, it is not through the authorities of churches or pastors.

　Let's look at verse 26 of today's passage.
　 26 They came to John and said to him, “Rabbi, that man who was with you on the other side of the Jordan—the one you testified about—look, he is baptizing, and everyone is going to him.”

　John's disciples were apparently moved by jealousy when they saw so many people being drawn to the new leader, Jesus.
John's disciples must have seen Jesus as a rival to their teacher, and they must have thought of Jesus' followers as competing with them.
John's disciples must have been frustrated by that“our teacher was more popular, and more people would be following our group, but now many have gone to the new leader, Jesus”.
This kind of rivalry or vanity is something we too all have in our hearts. John’s disciples’ figure would be the figures of ourselves too.

But John's response to his disciples was as follows.
A person can receive only what is given them from heaven.

We receive various good things from God in heaven. We receive our abilities, talents, and all other good things from God in heaven.
John the Baptist was convinced that it was God the Father who gave him the gift of evangelism or the mission itself.
John the Baptist found joy in simply following faithfully the mission that God the Father had given him, using the gifts he had been given.
Because they are God-given gifts, there is no need at all(nor should there be) to compare them with the gifts given to others or to compete for superiority.
We want to be those who can appreciate and rejoice in what God has given to each of us according to His plan.
We also want to treasure the gifts we have received and use them to serve in the missionary work of the Kingdom of God.
Furthermore, John compares himself to the role of a bridesmaid (“the friend of the bridegroom”) who brings together the bride and the bridegroom (v. 29). Christ is the bridegroom, and those who believe in and follow Him are likened to His bride.

　John the Baptist was shown that his mission was to prepare the way for many people to believe in and follow Christ.
John was convinced that his mission was to lead people to believe in Jesus Christ, not to make them follow him (John).
Therefore, the fact that many people (brides) were going to Jesus Christ (the Bridegroom) and receiving His teachings was a joy that John could not be more pleased with.
John says, “I am filled with joy” (v. 29). He says that he is filled with joy at the coming of Christ and at the sound of His voice.
We, too, are filled with the greatest joy when we hear the voice of Jesus Christ, when we hear His voice as the Word of life that gives us life and leads us.
Let us always listen to the Word of God, the Word of Christ, which fills us with joy, nourishes us, and gives us strength to live our lives.

Let us read the last verse of today's passage, verse 30.
30 He must become greater; I must become less.”

That One” is, of course, Jesus Christ. The greatest joy for us is to see Jesus Christ flourish, His name be praised, and He believed.
When Christ is glorified in us, when He is magnified in us, we ourselves become small and weak.
We are self-centered, so the thought of “I, I, I (me)” inevitably comes first. Even if it is not so obvious, our honest feeling is “I must be first”.
Therefore, when our needs are not met, when people do not do what we want, we are dissatisfied.
When we don't get our way, we would complain even to God.
But when Christ becomes the greatest in ourselves, His thoughts, God's will, become the most important thing.
　If Christ grows and flourishes in us, His thoughts become far more important and precious than our own.
Our greatest concerns will be “What would Jesus think of this, and how would Jesus want me to live”.
Let us have faith that Christ is the one who flourishes most in each of us and in our church.
Christmas is coming again this year when we remember that the One who should be most glorious among us, the One who should be most praiseworthy, the Lord of glory, was born into this world as a little boy.
Let us welcome this year, too, with thanksgiving, the Christmas when we rejoice in the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ into the world.
And Let us pray and seek that Christ may always be the most praised and most glorified among us.