For the call to worship, we'll
be reading from 1 Chronicles chapter 16. 1 Chronicles chapter
16, picking up in verse 34. 1 Chronicles 16, 34. Just read a few verses here. Oh, give thanks unto the Lord,
for he is good, for his mercy is forever. And say ye, save
us. Save us, O God of our salvation,
save us, and gather us together and deliver us from the heathen
out of idol worship, that we may give thanks to thy holy name
and glory in thy praise. Blessed be thee, Lord God of
Israel, forever and ever. And all the people said, amen,
amen, and praised thee, Lord. Let's pray. Oh, our Father in heaven, we
bow now and give thanks unto thee, Lord, even the God of our
salvation, the Lord Jesus Christ, who is our salvation, who gathers
his people and delivers them from the worship of idols, gods
of our own making. He is God, and there is none
other, so we pray, save us, oh God, save us. You have saved
your people, and how we pray you'll save us now through the
gospel preached, that we might yet be saved through death and
the resurrection of these mortal bodies, and bless thee, Lord
God, forever and ever, amen. Let's all stand together again,
hymn number 186 in your hardback teminal, 186. The church's one foundation is
Jesus Christ, her Lord. She is his new creation by water
and the Word. From heaven he came and sought
her to be his holy bride. With his own blood he fought,
and for her life he died. He lacked from every nation yet
one for all the earth. Her charter of salvation One
Lord, one faith, one birth One holy name she blesses Partakes
one holy food And to one hope she presses With every grace
and duty With toil and tribulation and tumult of her war, She waits
the consummation of peace forevermore. Still with a vision glorious,
her longing eyes are blessed, and the great church victorious
shall be the church at rest. Yet she on earth hath union With
God the three in one, And mystic sweet communion With those whose
rest is won. O happy ones and holy, Lord give
us grace that we Please be seated. Let's open
our Bibles together to John chapter three. John chapter three. I've titled this message, The
Way Down is Up. I preached from this text before
and I think the last time I did I titled the message, The Way
Up is Down. But looking more carefully at
the verse and thinking more properly about how salvation works, the
way down is up. The only way that we're going
to be able to see ourselves for what we are, left to ourselves
by nature, the Bible says we're sinners. We're sinners. We have no righteousness and
we have no rights before God. The only way we're going to be
able to see that is if God's pleased to reveal himself. And only in being able to look
up do we see things as they are down. So the way down is up. The problem with the other way
around is that we could very easily make a work out of repentance. we could make a work out of penance. I grew up as a Roman Catholic
and we were given penance to do. And you see it in all forms
of religion where men have to punish themselves with certain
afflictions in order to be able to get right in the sight of
God. And so, if we say the way up
is down, then we run the risk of thinking that the only way
that we can see God for who he is is to first put ourselves
in a position of humiliation and humility and self-sacrifice
and all of those sort of things. No. The way down is up. God must reveal himself. And if he does, if he makes himself
known, the rest of it will just be the natural consequence of
that. You see, it's cause and effect,
isn't it? It's cause and effect. The cause is the revelation that
God makes of himself. That's why we preach Christ. Paul said, I determined not to
know anything among you save Jesus Christ and him crucified. If the Lord Jesus is lifted up,
if he's lifted up and he's pleased in the lifting up of himself
to lift himself up in our hearts, then We will see ourselves for
what we are and confess, confess our absolute, complete dependence
upon him for all of our salvation and all of our righteousness
before God. The way down is up. That's what John's telling us.
Look with me at John chapter three. We looked last Sunday
at verse 27, a man can receive nothing except it be given to
him from heaven. Everything that we have from
the very next breath that we draw into our natural lungs to
the breath of life that we receive from the Holy Spirit in our immortal
souls and spirits is a gift of God. James put it like this, every
good and perfect gift comes from our father above, the father
of lights, in whom there is no variableness, neither shadow
of turning. In other words, his light is
not like the natural light of this world. The natural light
of this world rises and sets, light and darkness, shadows,
degrees of brightness, that's not God's light. God's light
is perfect. It's perfect, and what we receive
from Him is perfect. And if we're able by His grace
to receive Christ, we have a perfect substitute, a perfect advocate,
a perfect sin bearer. And in Him, in Him, Scripture
says that we are perfect. As he is, so are we in this world. Oh, that the Lord would remind
us often that all that we have is from him and give us the grace
to be thankful in all things. John's disciples are objecting
to the fact that some of the disciples of John, who they believed
to be a prophet sent from God, and he was, were now leaving
John and going and following the Lord Jesus. And they're thinking,
if John's a prophet sent from God, and this is the Messiah
sent from God, then we should be working together. And so they go to John and ask
him, what's going on? And John says, a man, he's speaking
of Christ. He said, a man can receive nothing
except to be given from him from heaven. John knew that the Lord
Jesus had received the anointing of the Holy Spirit and the declaration
of God that he is the Christ. And John saying that he did not
take this upon himself. God made him this way. In verse 28, he says, you yourselves
bear witness that I said, I'm not the Christ, but I am sent
before him. I was the forerunner. I was the
one who was sent by God to say, behold, the Lamb of God, which
taketh away the sins of the world. And now he has been revealed. He has been lifted up. John's identifying himself as
the friend of the bridegroom. Look at verse 29, and he that
hath the bride is the bridegroom. The bride is the church. John's saying, I don't have the
bride. The bridegroom, the husband,
has the bride. But the friend of the bridegroom,
that's who John is. the friend of the bridegroom,
which standeth and heareth him, rejoiceth greatly because of
the bridegroom's voice, this my joy therefore is fulfilled. I am but the voice of one crying
in the wilderness. Behold the Lamb of God. It has
been my joy to be His forerunner. It has been my joy to be sent
of God, to point to Him as the Anointed One, the Christ, the
Messiah, the Savior of sinners. And I rejoice now. My work is
done. That's what He's saying. My work
is done. Look at the next verse. And this is our text. He must increase. But I, and notice the word must
is in italics. One of the reasons why I like
the King James is because when the translators inserted words
that were not in the text, they put them in italics. and more
times than not the italicized words are not only unnecessary
but actually weaken the meaning of the verse. Because the literal translation
here is he must increase but me decrease. If he increases I will decrease. Now the value and the beauty
and the power of the Lord Jesus Christ is infinite. Infinite. He cannot increase in his essential
nature. He is the fullness of the Godhead
bodily. All the attributes that belong
to God. Sovereignty, omnipotence, immutability. The things that
only God possesses, the Lord Jesus possesses, and all of those
attributes are infinite in their nature. You can't add to infinity. So John's saying, he must increase,
but me? The way down is up. The Lord Jesus cannot be added
to or taken from. He is immutable. Nothing else, nothing else is
immutable. He's omnipresent. You know, we, Psalm 139, David speaks of going
into the heavens and he's there and going down into the pits
of the grave and he's there and going to the east and to the
west and he's there. And he's speaking of the omnipresence
of God. He's everywhere. And that's true. But be careful, be careful in
thinking about him that way that we don't lessen the size of our
God. Because the truth is that yes,
anywhere we go in the universe, he is there. but it's not because
he inhabits all the universe, it's because, it's not because
he's everywhere in the universe, it's because the universe is
in him. You see that? The universe is in him. That's why we cannot escape his
presence. If we think about God just being
everywhere in the universe we might run the risk of making
him smaller than he is. Oh, he's bigger than the universe.
The universe is in him. And if that be true then how
can Christ be increased? If he's immutable, he's eternal,
he's infinite... How can we increase God? Growth in grace, and that's what
John's talking about, is the increase of God in our estimation
of him. It's not the increase of who
he is. It's the increase of our estimation of him. The truth
is for every one of us, our God is too small. He's just too small. He's bigger
than we think He is. Oh, if we believe that He is
who He is, we would bring everything before Him in prayer. We would
never worry about anything. We would never be afraid. You see? You see, our God is too small,
isn't He? He's so much greater than
we think He is. And so John's saying, He must
increase, not in who He is, But in how I see Him and how the
world sees Him, He must increase in His glory and in His righteousness
and in His power. He must increase in our estimation
of Him. And as He does, to whatever degree,
by God's grace, the Lord Jesus grows in our estimation of Him. In that degree, we will grow
down in the estimation of ourselves. Growth in grace and in the knowledge
of the Lord Jesus Christ is seeing more and more my need for grace.
It's seeing more and more of who he is. You see, the way down is up. We're a lot less than we think
we are. And he's a whole lot more than we think he is. And
one of the frustrations of preaching is that I've never been able
to preach him high enough. And I've never been able to preach
me and you low enough. And I've never been able to preach
grace free enough. He must Increase. He must increase. He must increase
in your heart. He must increase in my heart.
And as he does, me, that's what John's saying,
but me, decrease. I love that story in 1 Kings
10 when the queen of Sheba all the way down there in southern
Sinai Peninsula, she hears about this king in Israel who is wise
and wealthy beyond imagination. And the queen of Sheba takes
an entourage and she goes all the way up to Israel to meet
King Solomon, the richest wisest man who ever lived. And after King Solomon reveals
his glory to her, she says this, the half was not told me. The stories that I heard about
you were not half true. I didn't believe them. I couldn't
imagine someone being as wise and wealthy as you are. But now that I've seen it with
my own eyes, the half was not told me. And that's our progress in grace. We catch glimpses of his glory. Oh, but the half has not been
told to us. His wealth and his wisdom is beyond measure. It's beyond measure. He must
increase. And if he does, we will decrease. The Queen of Sheba went on to
say, happy are the men and happy are thy servants, which stand
continually before thee and hear thy word. She'd never met anybody
like that in her life. And she said, oh, you've got
the happiest servants. You've got the happiest men because
they get to stand in your presence and hear the wisdom of your words. Solomon, the man of peace, clearly
a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace. And the
only hope that you and I have to having peace with God is to
hear His Word and to give to Him all the glory and all the
honor and all the praise. And if we do that, oh, We'll come to a very clear conclusion
about who we are and what we are and what we have. You see,
the only reason that a person has a hard time in believing
that they're sinners is because they've never seen God. They've
never seen God. If God has ever been pleased
to reveal a glimpse of his glory you will come to one conclusion.
I'm a sinner. Apart from the Lord Jesus Christ,
all of my righteousnesses are as filthy rags. I have no, I
have nothing to offer God. I'm completely dependent upon
him. He depends upon me for nothing. He must increase. And if he does,
I will decrease. We are proud, we are self-righteous,
we are independent, and we are rebellious by nature. That's how we come into this
world. We come into this world spiritually blind and spiritually
dead. The scripture calls it dead in
our trespasses and sins. We have no ability to see God
or to worship God or to know God. We died in our father Adam
as a result of the fall. The fall did not just make us
crippled. It didn't just make a kill day
in the day in which you eat of the fruit of the knowledge of
the tree of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. You shall surely
die. And Adam died. He didn't die
physically. He died spiritually. Was cut
off from God. and all of Adam's prodigy, every
single one of us born into this world have inherited the nature of
our father Adam. He is our seminal head. We were actually in the loins
of Adam. When Adam sinned, we sinned and
we died in our father. And someone objects to that and
says, well, I don't like being held responsible for something
that someone else did. Two questions I have for you.
How are you doing on your own? And the second, if you don't
bear responsibility for your father's sin, you cannot bear
the credit of your savior's righteousness because you don't have anything
to do with that. There's the gospel. We're blind, we're ignorant. If God doesn't open our eyes,
if he doesn't come down, if he doesn't rim the heavens, if he
doesn't speak to our hearts, and he speaks by his word, our
prayer every time we come together, Lord speak, speak to me. The Pharisees objected because
of their self-righteous nature, because of their religious zeal. They thought that they were right
with God. They objected to the Lord Jesus
suggesting that they were blind. And just to clarify what he was
saying, they asked him, are you saying that we're blind? We're
blind? And the Lord looked at them and
said, if you were, then you'd be able to see. But because you
say that you can see, therefore your sins remain. There's no
blindness so blind as the one who thinks he can see when he
can't. We come into this world blind,
dead, separated from God, without any life, without any hope. and
the seeing eye and the hearing eye and the hearing ear are both
from God. They come in the miracle of the
new birth. They come in regeneration and
a man can receive nothing except it be given to him from heaven.
He must increase. Me, decrease. Oh, the spirit of the Pharisee,
I'm not blind. Well, I thank God for the grace
of a seeing eye. But even those who have been
given sight, they know where that sight came from. They're
not presumptuous about that sight. They're completely dependent
upon the Lord to keep them seeing. Oh, how often we feel like that,
you know, the things that we've seen, we're on the verge of losing
any time. Lord, give me eyes to see. Lord, open the eyes of my understanding. We don't, what sight I have,
God gave me, but Lord, if you don't, if you don't keep the
light of the gospel shining in the face of the Lord Jesus in
my heart, I'll go blind. I'll go blind. Oh, John said, he must increase. He must increase. In my estimation
of him, he must increase. My God, your God is too small. You, me, are too big in the estimation
that we have of ourselves. Don't think, don't think that
somehow, well, you know, if I can just If I can just wallow in
the shame of my sin and guilt and be repentant and do penance
and be sorrowful enough, then the light will come. No. That becomes a work. Now I've, I think I've told you all this
story. I went into a, remember back when the Russians first
attacked Kiev, there was a reporter that
was standing in front of an old church with a gold dome. 1991, right after the wall came
down, I was in Kiev and went to that church and went in the
basement of that church and they've discovered in the
basement of that church some tombs where the priest would
put themselves in a little cubicle and allow themselves to be fed
through a little box until they died in that cubicle. And then they filled it up with
dirt and that became their tomb. I've seen that with my own eyes. Thinking, well, you know, if
I can just, if I can just suffer enough, if I can, you know, the
way up, the way up will be down. If I can just do enough to, you
see the works mentality of that. No. No. The way down is up. He must increase. I decrease. One, the second comes as a result
of the first. And the first comes as a result
of divine revelation. And that divine revelation comes
through the preaching of the gospel. Right now, as we try
to lift up Christ, And as I said, I've never lifted him up. You
know, I know every time I get up here in this pulpit, I'm doomed
for failure. I know that. I'm never gonna
be able to be successful in doing what I ought to do, in doing
what I want to do. And that's why we're depending
in what we're doing right now for God to take our frail, faulty
efforts and make them effectual by his grace. Paul said in Colossians 3, Christ
is all. And then in 2 Corinthians 12,
he said, I am nothing. The same man that said Christ
is all said, I am nothing, nothing. The Lord Jesus Christ, is holy,
harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners, and higher than
the heavens." Higher than the heavens. The universe is in him. We, Paul said, This is a faithful
saying and worthy of all acceptation. Christ Jesus came into this world
to save sinners of whom I am chief. The more he increases. Paul made
that estimation of him. He didn't say of whom I was chief.
He said of whom I am chief. He made that estimation of his
life just before he went to Rome. and was put to death. That was
one of his last letters that he wrote. And before that he
said, I'm the least of the apostles. And then that was the first thing
he said about himself. And then the second thing he
said about himself is I'm the least of the saints. And then
the third thing he said about himself late in his life was
I am the chief of all sinners. Now there's growth in grace. There's the Lord Jesus increasing
in one's estimation. And as he increases in one's
estimation, the estimation of that person decreases. These two things go together.
A tree will not grow closer to heaven without putting roots
down deeper into the earth. It happens simultaneously. The light of a candle, as it
burns and we benefit from its light, consumes the wax of the
candle. And so it is in our growth and
grace. The more light that comes, the
more of us is consumed. He's sinless. We're sinful. He's holy. Holy, holy, holy is
the Lord God of hosts. Heaven and earth is filled with
his glory. Why is heaven and earth filled
with his glory? Because he consumes heaven and earth. I'm unholy. What did Isaiah say
when he saw the first five chapters of the book of Isaiah? Isaiah
is a prophet of God, speaking for God, and speaking the truth,
says to the children of Israel, woe unto you, woe unto you, woe
unto you, six times the number of man. And then in chapter six,
verse one, Isaiah, in the year that King Uzziah died, Out of
desperation and fear that God was going to take his hand off
of Israel, Uzziah died a death of shame as leprosy, trying to
usurp the authority of the priest. And Isaiah, as the prophet of
God, thought, oh no, God has taken his hand off and he went
to seek the Lord. And in the year that King Uzziah
died, I also saw the Lord. And he was high and lifted up.
And the seraphims hovered over his throne and they cried, holy,
holy, holy is the Lord God of hosts. Heaven and earth is filled
with his glory. And the doors of the post shook. Oh, and the temple was filled,
filled with his train, with his glory. There was no room for
anything but him. And the next word out of Isaiah's
mouth is not one to you, The next word about Isaiah's mouth
is, woe is me. I'm undone. I'm a man of unclean
lips. I live among a people of unclean
lips. My eyes have seen the king. My eyes have seen God. How can
I stand in the presence of a holy God? There's nothing in me like
him. He's holy and I'm unholy. And
one of the seraphims took a coal from off the altar and touched
his lips. and purged him of his sin. That's the fire of God's
wrath that fell on the Lord Jesus at Calvary's cross. The only
hope that you and I have to stand in the presence of a holy God
is that the sufferings of the Lord Jesus would be sufficient
to put away our sin. You see, the way up is not down. We can't suffer enough to get
to heaven. He suffered for us. The Lord Jesus is riches unsearchable. What did the Queen of Sheba say? Oh, the half has not been told
me. Look at the wealth of this King and the riches of his grace
and of his glory and of his peace, of his hope and comfort in life.
Oh, they're beyond measure. I, on the other hand, am bankrupt. Bankrupt. I don't have two cents. Not only do I not have any money,
I'm in debt to God. I've got a debt to pay that I
can't pay. What am I going to do? His unsearchable
riches are sufficient for that. That's what he came to do. You
see, yes, he's sinless and I'm sinful. Yes, he's holy and I'm
unholy. Yes, his riches are unsearchable
and I'm bankrupt and here's the glory of the gospel. He traded
places with me. He became bankrupt. God made him who knew no sin,
sin. that we might be made the righteousness
of God in Him, in Him. He is worthy of all glory. I am worthy of hell. So I'm worthy
of, I get what I deserve. Now you hear people say, well,
that's not fair. You don't want fair from God.
You don't want fair from God. You want grace. You want grace. The only way God can be fair
is by the Lord Jesus going to hell for us. And that's what
he did. That's what he did. The justice of God was satisfied. He is eternal life. and I am
dead in my trespasses and sins. He is all powerful and I am without
strength. Without strength. And when we
were yet without strength, Christ died for the ungodly. There's
the gospel. You see, you can't have one without
the other. That's what John's saying. He must increase. He
must increase. And as he does, me, decrease this is growth in grace that
the estimation of him in our hearts will become greater and
greater and greater and that our pride oh how proud oh how
we I mean we have peacocks out here in our parking lot they've
got nothing on us we can strut among the best of them we're
watching some peacocks the other day the males you know they when
they were dancing all over the place. We do the same thing,
don't we? We can be so proud and so self-righteous
and we want other people to see, you know, and one of the biggest
problems that men have with one another is somebody will rob
from someone else their accomplishments and take glory to themselves.
We're glory hogs, aren't we? If he increases, we will decrease. He must increase in our hearts
as to our estimation of his righteousness. There's a spirit of of self-righteousness in every
one of us. Thinking that's something we
can do. And only if we're hearing the
gospel we, oh Lord, forgive me. No greater, you know, the world
thinks of horrible sins as the shameful things that men do to
one another in the flesh, and those things are horrible. But
before God, the greatest sin of all is self-righteousness. Robbing from him his glory and
taking it to ourselves and thinking that we can obligate God somehow
and denying Christ the glory that he got to himself on Calvary's
cross. Oh, let him that glory glorieth
in the Lord. Jeremiah chapter 22 says, this
is his name whereby he shall be called the Lord, our righteousness. We are all as an unclean thing. And all our righteousnesses are
as filthy rags. God said that. Don't try to do penance. Just
believe God. You can't see your sin as bad
as it is. You don't wanna see your sin
as bad as it is. Just believe what God says about
it. Turn with me to Romans chapter
three. And this is a quote from Psalm
14. Romans chapter three. Look at verse nine. What then? Are we better than they? Paul had just painted a picture
of these godless pagan Gentiles who had no word from God, they
had no revelation from God, and they were just living their lives
as natural men do, indulging themselves in all the pleasures
of the flesh. And the Jews reading this would
have said, give it to them, Paul, that's the way they are, and
that's the way the self-righteous religionist is. You know, most
preaching against sin in religion is the stuff that's going on
out there. Aren't you glad you're not like them? And so under the inspiration
of the Holy Spirit, Paul says this, are we better than they? No, in no wise. For we have before proven, both
Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin. As it is written,
there is none righteous, no, not one. There is none that understandeth. There is none that seeketh after
God. They are all gone out of the
way. They are all together become unprofitable. There is none that
doeth good. Oh, in case you missed that,
no, not one, not one. This is a universal decree. There
is no exceptions. It is God's declaration of what
we are left to ourselves. If anyone objects to what God
says, he's a fool. We must be found in him. not
having our own righteousness which is of the law, but that
righteousness which is by the faith of the Lord Jesus Christ.
We must be found in him. The old writers used to call
it an alien righteousness. A righteousness that's outside
of yourself, looking outside of yourself to another. And you
know what the natural man will do? He will believe in aliens
from outer space before he will embrace the truth of an alien
righteousness. He will hold his own righteousness
up. And here's the truth. All without exception of the
unrighteous believe themselves to be righteous. And all of the righteous believe
themselves to be unrighteous. He must increase, but may decrease. Our heavenly father, thank you. Thank you for the revelation
of your righteousness in Christ. Thank you for the accomplished
work of thy dear son, who was successful in putting away our
sin and presenting himself on our behalf before thee. Lord,
we ask that you would grow us in your grace. We ask that you
would increase in our estimation of thee more of your glory, more
of your righteousness, more of your power, more of your authority. Lord,
we know that as you do, we will decrease. We ask it in Christ's name, amen. 226 in the hard back 10 row,
let's stand together. I am not skilled to understand
what God hath willed, what God hath planned. I only know that
His right hand is one who is my Savior. I take Him at His
word indeed. Christ died for sinners, this
I read. For in my heart I find the need
of Him to be my Savior. That he should leave his place
on high, And come for sinful men to die. You count it strange,
so once did I, Before I knew my name. And, O that he fulfilled, may
see, The travail of his soul in me, And with his work contented
be, As I with my ears say, Yea, living, dying, let me bring My
strength, my solace from this spring That he who lives to be
my King Wants I to be my Señor