Welcome to Reign of Grace. This
program is brought to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries,
an outreach ministry of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany,
Georgia. It is our pleasure and privilege
to present to you the gospel message of the sovereign grace
and glory of God in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray that today's program
will be a blessing to you. Thank you for listening. And
now for today's program. Welcome to our program today.
I'm glad you could join us. If you'd like to follow along
in your Bibles, I'm preaching in the book of John, the gospel
of John. This is the gospel narrative
that the Holy Spirit inspired the apostle John to write. And
I'm in chapter three, and we're gonna begin with verse 22 of
John chapter three. And the title of the message
is The Joy of Preaching Christ. The Joy of Preaching Christ.
And this is where John the Baptist had spoken of the fact that it
is his joy, this is what makes him happy, to point sinners to
Christ, because that was his whole ministry. And that's the
ministry of every true preacher of God, God-sent preacher. to point sinners to Christ, not
to themselves, not to other people, not to some famous theologian
or saint, but to point sinners to the Lord Jesus Christ for
salvation. And John had been questioned
in this chapter by the Pharisees and different ones. And then
we come in, in chapter two, and then we come into chapter three
where the Lord confronted a man named Nicodemus concerning the
new birth and salvation. He had expressed that God's love
for his people is in him, it's in Christ. And understand that
there's no love from God outside of Christ. There cannot be because
God's love is a holy love. God's love is a just love. You
see, mercy and grace. God is a God of mercy and grace
and love. But to preach those attributes
of God as some kind of a general blanket pardon or some kind of
a universal theme is not biblical. And the reason is, we're gonna
see here in the last verse of chapter three, he talks about
how the wrath of God abides upon those who live in unbelief and
die in that state. And that wrath is the equivalent
to God's hatred. And I know people don't like
to think about God hating anything. You know, I hear people say,
well, God hates, He loves the sinner, but hates the sin. Well,
you can take that too far because, you know, it's not the sin that
perishes under the justice of God, the judgment of God, it's
the sinner. And so if you want to experience
the love of God, That's only for believers. Herein is love,
1 John 4, 10. It says herein is love, not that
we love God, but that he loved us and gave his son to be the
propitiation for our sins. And that word propitiation means
a sin-bearing sacrifice who brings satisfaction. Satisfaction to
what? To the law and justice of God
for the sins of his people. And that's what the gospel is
all about. It tells us how God, who is holy, righteous, and just,
who must punish sin. Let me put it to you this way. He must punish sinners to whom
sin is charged. In other words, if you go before
God in His court of justice, And you have sins, the word is
imputed. You'll hear me use that term
all the time. It's a biblical word, imputation, imputed. It means to legally charge or
account the merit or the demerit of a work from one to another.
And so if you go before God and stand before Him, having sins
imputed to you, charged to you, then you'll perish. There's no
love there from God. And that's why King David, the
psalmist, wrote in Psalm 32, blessed is the man to whom the
Lord imputeth not iniquity. See, that's our only hope, is
that we stand before God not having sins imputed to us, but
having Christ's righteousness, the merit of His obedience unto
death, imputed to us, charged to us. Who shall lay anything
to the charge of God's elect? It's God that justifies. God
was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing
their trespasses unto them. You see, I need a righteousness
I cannot produce. And that's what John the Baptist
preached. Beginning here in verse 22, it says, after these things
came Jesus and his disciples into the land of Judea. This
is John 3 in verse 22. And there he tarried with them
and baptized. And it says in verse 23, and
John was also baptizing in Enon near to Salem because there was
much water there and they came and were baptized. Now this baptism,
this is the ordinance of water baptism and it is a confession. It is a public confession of
Christ and an identification publicly with Christ and his
people. Water baptism, now let me say
this. The ordinance of baptism, it
was never intended for infants. There's no place in the Bible
that it teaches baptizing infants. That's a concoction of the apostate
Catholic church because they want to control over families. They could get the children in
under the threat of death and hell, and they could get the
families. But there's no such, this baptizing
of infidels, it's an abomination. Baptism was for believers and
baptism did not save us. The water baptism does not wash
our sins away. You see, this thing of sin, it
has to do with spiritual issues of spiritual death. And like
I said, running up a debt against God. The water of baptism cannot
wash away sins. There's only one thing that can
wash away my sins. We sing it all the time in that
hymn. What can wash away my sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
It's the blood of Jesus that cleanses us from sin because
His blood is His death, which is the payment The wages of sin
is death. It's the full, complete payment
of the debt of the sins of his people. And out of that comes
that righteousness. So when we're baptized in water,
that is an ordinance of confession. Confessing something that has
already taken place within our hearts. And that's the new birth
that Christ was talking to Nicodemus about. You must be born again.
And that's evidenced by faith in Christ and repentance of dead
works. So when we're baptized in water,
we're immersed because we died with Christ, we're buried with
Christ, and then we come up out of the water, we're risen with
Christ. That's what that symbolizes.
And that's what Christ himself was baptized. It symbolized his
work, the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. So they
were baptizing because this was how believers confess publicly
their identification with Christ. And it says here in verse 24,
for John was not yet cast into prison. You know, later on, John
was arrested by Herod. and he was put in prison and
eventually he was executed. They cut his head off. Well,
verse 25, now listen to this. Then there arose a question between
some of John's disciples and the Jews about purifying. Purifying,
now what are they talking about? How is a sinner purified? Purified
from sins, cleansing, that's what that's talking about. Now
the Jews, they had several ideas about cleansing under the law.
There were all kinds of baptisms, plural, which involved the washing
of water, which they did. For example, they accused Christ
and the disciples of breaking the law because they ate with
unwashing hands. They weren't concerned with hygiene
there. They were concerned with their
ceremony. What purifies you? And the Bible teaches us that
the only way a sinner can be pure in God's sight, again, is
through the blood of Christ. Christ as the surety, Christ
as the substitute, Christ as the redeemer of his people. Cleansed
and purified. Now the heart, the Bible also
speaks of the heart and the conscience being purified by faith. And
what does that mean? Does that mean that we're purified
by the act of believing? The answer is no. To be purified
by faith, cleansed by faith, is the application the Spirit
brings to our conscience, our mind, our knowledge, that the
blood of Christ is the only way of purification. So they argued
here about, they had a dispute, it says, concerning purifying. And it says in verse 26, and
they came unto John and said unto him, Rabbi, that's a word
for master, teacher, he that was with thee beyond Jordan,
to whom thou bearest witness, that's Christ, behold, the same
baptizeth, and all men come to him. Now, when he says all men
come to him, he's not talking about everybody without exception
there, but they're speaking in a human way of hyperbole or exaggeration. Everybody's coming to him. You
know, the Pharisees, the Sanhedrin one time, when they had John
and Peter and I think James with them, he said, you've turned
the whole world upside down. Well, they hadn't turned the
whole world upside down. but he turned their world upside
down. So that's speaking in exaggeration. And so what these disciples are
saying is that everybody's going to him instead of you. This is John's disciples. Well,
listen to what John said. And this is great. This is beautiful. He said in verse 27, John answered
and said, a man can receive nothing or take unto himself nothing
except it be given him from heaven. Now, my friend, that's the gift
of God. Whatever I have as a preacher
of the gospel, it's a gift from heaven. It's not natural to me. Even
faith is not natural to us. Faith is a gift from heaven.
Repentance is a gift of heaven. Perseverance is a gift from heaven. So whatever a man has, he can
receive nothing of himself except to be given him from him. Now
what he's talking about is whatever a person has that's glorifying
to God, that involves salvation and what is our part in this. And the point he's going to make
is that whatever this man Jesus of Nazareth has, concerning his
person, who he is, and concerning his work, it came from heaven. Man didn't give it to him. And
he says in verse 28, you yourselves bear me witness that I said,
I am not the Christ. My gift from heaven is not to
be the Messiah. And that's the way I am. My gift
from heaven is not to be a savior. I cannot save you. I can't even
save myself. I'm in need of salvation. And
he says, but that I am sent before him. Now there's John's gift. John was the forerunner of Christ. And he came before Christ to
bear witness of Christ. And then he says this in verse
29. He says, he that hath the bride
is the bridegroom. The bride there is the people
of God, the church. The bridegroom is Christ. But
the friend of the bridegroom, which standeth and heareth him,
rejoiceth greatly because of the bridegroom's voice. The friend
of the bridegroom. What does he rejoice in? He rejoices
in the bridegroom's voice, and he says, this my joy therefore
is fulfilled. Here's what John is saying to
his disciples. They were jealous, and they said,
well, the one that was with you in Jordan, the one you baptized,
he's baptizing too, and all men are coming to him. And John says,
that's what I want. I told you, I'm not the Christ.
I'm not the Messiah. I'm not the Savior. I'm not the
one who dies for your sins and put away those sins by the sacrifice
of myself. I'm not the one who brought forth
an everlasting righteousness of infinite value by which God
can be just to justify sinners. He is, Christ is. And this is
my joy, John said. The fact that all men are going
to him for salvation, for truth. That's my joy, John said. If you divided over between me
and him, if you made us in competition, that wouldn't give John any joy
or any happiness. That would grieve him. So he
says, you've heard that I've told you I'm not the Christ,
but I'm just a voice crying in the wilderness. I'm just a signpost
pointing sinners to Christ. And when sinners are brought
to Christ by the power and grace and goodness of God, to believe
in Him and rest in Him for all salvation, for all forgiveness,
for all righteousness, for all eternal life and glory, that's
what gives me joy. That's what makes me happy because
not only is He their salvation, He's my salvation. Not only is
He their Lord, He's my Lord. He's the Lord of glory. So this
is the joy of preaching Christ. And listen, you know, the Bible
teaches that when we preach Christ, Christ crucified, the preaching
of the cross, it's called, preaching the glory of his person and the
power of his finished work, that whoever preaches Christ according
to the wisdom of God and the word of God, that person is successful
no matter how sinners respond to it. Now think about that. Paul wrote that in 2 Corinthians. He said, if Christ is preached,
we're victorious. He said, some don't believe,
some do. To some, we're the saver of death
unto death. That's those who refuse to believe. And to others, we're the saver
of life unto life. Those are sinners saved by grace,
brought to Christ by God-given faith. But he says, whether they
believe or don't believe, we're victorious because God is glorified
in the preaching of Christ. And that's a joy. I think about
Noah who preached righteousness, which means preaching Christ,
salvation conditioned on Christ, salvation by the grace of God
in the promised Messiah. And Noah preached that for 120
years. And as far as we know, no converts. And that's sad,
but it was a joy to preach Christ. I think about Stephen when he
preached in Jerusalem. Not one person at that time believed,
but they picked up stones and killed him. Well, Stephen was
a victorious preacher because he preached Christ. But when
we see people walk away unaffected by the preaching of Christ, it
makes us sad. And when we see people brought
to Christ by the power of God under the preaching of the gospel,
that's a joy. So we understand that. How we
feel about it is not the issue, but it's a joy to know that Christ
is preached and that sinners are brought to salvation by God's
grace and power to Christ for salvation. And so, this my joy
therefore is fulfilled, John the Baptist says. And he says
it this way, here's the issue of it, verse 30. Christ, he,
that's Christ, Jesus Christ, must increase, but I must decrease. Now what a statement that is.
That's the joy of preaching Christ, that Christ is increased. His,
the glory of His person. How can I describe it in words,
human words? We try, and we do, but to see
the greatness of that, and we see it more and more as we grow
in grace and in knowledge of Christ. He's increasing. Our
value of Him increases. Our joy in Him increases. That's
what growth in grace is. and we must decrease. I don't
get joy from looking at myself in the mirror or taking self
inventory as far as salvation, as far as righteousness and a
right relationship with God is concerned. Because I'm only,
we sing at Him, only a sinner saved by grace, only a sinner
saved by grace. This is my story. To God be the
glory. I'm only a sinner saved by grace.
I don't want to come on this program or stand in my pulpit
and brag on what I've done or how many messages I've preached
or how many people that come to know Christ under my preaching,
how many people I've baptized. There's a famous preacher who,
I think he was in the Southern Baptist Convention and they kicked
him out. And his defense of himself is
that he's made more disciples and baptized more people than
anybody else. I get no, if I were in his position,
I pray to God, I wouldn't get any joy out of that. Now, I do
joy that people come to Christ, don't get me wrong. But that
doesn't, that's to increase Christ, not me. You see, one old preacher
that I used to follow and listen to his preaching, he said, preach
Christ and get out of the way. That's what we're to do. So in
my preaching and the joy of preaching Christ, I want Christ to increase. I told our folks this past Lord's
Day, I said, I don't want you to walk out of this service feeling
good about yourself. I want you to walk out of this
service feeling good about Christ and the glory of God in him.
So he says he must increase because he's our salvation. He's the
Lord, my righteousness. He's the way of forgiveness.
He's the one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. He's God manifest in the flesh. He's the one who died for the
sins of his people and secured the salvation of every sinner
for whom he died. They're called his sheep, his
church, and they're identified with him and by him. So he must
increase and I must decrease. So in verse 31, John goes on,
he says, he that cometh from above is above all. Jesus Christ
came from above in his deity. The Bible says in Isaiah chapter
nine, verse six, unto us, a child is born, that's his humanity,
but a son is given, that's his deity. And he came from above
and united himself with sinless human nature created for him
in the womb of the virgin. And so he came from above. And then he says, he that is
of the earth is earthly. That's where we come from. And
speaketh of the earth, he that cometh from heaven is above all. Christ came from heaven, he is
above all. He came from the Father. In the
fullness of the time, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman,
made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law.
And He's above all. He's been given a name that's
above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should
bow. Every tongue confess that He is Lord. In verse 32, John
says, And what he hath seen and heard, that he testifieth, and
no man receiveth his testimony. Christ had first-hand knowledge
of the Father's purpose and will before the foundation of the
world. And no mere man of his own free
will, as we say, will receive his testimony. The natural man
receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, neither can he
know them. They're spiritually discerned. But verse 33, he says,
he that hath received his testimony hath set to his seal that God
is true. In other words, if you receive
the testimony of Christ in the gospel concerning the glory of
his person, concerning the power of his finished work, you are
testifying openly that God is true. Now, what does that tell
you? If you don't receive his testimony
in the gospel, who Jesus Christ is, what he did and why he did
it, where he is now, the finished work of Christ, you're calling
God a liar. Now this is how serious this
is. He says in verse 34, for he whom God hath sent speaketh
the words of God. This is what Christ spoke, the
word of God. Now, if I'm preaching to you
from the Word of God, the same is true of me, I'm speaking God's
Word. And I've had people, I've just
read certain scriptures to certain people and they get angry at
me. And I tell them, I say, well, I'm just reading you what God's
Word says. Your argument's not with me, it's with God. So if
I'm preaching God's Word, but Christ always preached the Word
of God. He never made a mistake, and
it says here in verse 34, he whom God hath sent speaketh the
words of God, for God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto
him. He had the fullness of the Spirit
because He is the second person of the Trinity. God the Father,
God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. We have the Spirit in measure. As God deems it so, He gives
the Spirit to us. The Spirit indwells us if we're
saved, if we're regenerated and converted. But we have the power
of the Spirit in measure. Christ had the fullness of the
Spirit. And so he says in verse 35, the
Father loveth the Son and hath given all things into his hand. This is how high he is, how he
must increase. And so he says in verse 36, he
that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life. Can it be any plainer than that?
If you have Christ, you have life. This life is in His Son. Now notice it does not say, now
I want you to notice this, verse 36, it doesn't say he that believeth
on the Son hath attained life or hath earned life. or hath
acquired life. It says he that hath believeth
on the Son hath everlasting life. Believing on the Son does not
earn life for you or for me. Believing on the Son evidences
that life has already been given by the grace of God through the
Son who is our righteousness. The Bible says in Romans 5.21
that as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign
through righteousness unto eternal life through Jesus Christ our
Lord. You see, believing is not the
cause of our salvation. Believing is not the ground. It is the fruit. And then he
says, and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but
the wrath of God abideth on him. If you live in this life, go
through this life in unbelief and die in that state, you die
in your sins and the wrath of God abides on you forever and
ever. That's the sad state of those
who die in unbelief. But my friend, look unto Christ,
the Lord of glory. This is my joy. Hope you'll join
us next week for another message from God's Word. We are glad you could join us
for another edition of Reign of Grace. This program is brought
to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries, an outreach ministry
of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany, Georgia. To receive
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today and may the Lord be with you.