We'll be looking from verse 22 to 36. We sung of how these are timeless words, ancient words, words that are true and always will be true. So let's pray that the Lord would bless them to us as we read. Father, You have spoken, and You have spoken the truth in Your word. So we pray that we would be shaped and formed by Your word this morning, and that we would come not as those who sit in judgment over it, but as those who wish to sit under it. And so teach us, we pray. In Jesus' name. Amen. John 3 verse 22 to 36: "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 Aenon near Salem, because water was plentiful there, for people—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 was with you across the Jordan, to whom you bore witness, look, He is 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 have been sent before Him.’ The one who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears Him, 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 has given all things into His hand. Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him." This is the word of the Lord. There is a fairy tale that that tells the story of a beetle. A beetle who lived in the stable of the king's horses. He was a happy beetle. He lived in comfort. It was warm and dry in the stable and there was a a fresh supply of horse droppings for him to enjoy. But the king didn't pay much attention to the beetle. The king loved his horse. He loved his horse so much that he shod his horse with golden shoes. Um, and the beetle saw this and got upset. He said, "Where are my gold shoes?" And he started saying this to others. He he started talking to the horse and saying, "Look, I'm important too. Where are my gold shoes?" But the horse didn't care to listen. And so the beetle, knowing that he deserved more, left the stable to find somewhere where he would be accepted and praised as the great beetle that he knew he was. He traveled from place to place, telling everyone that he found about how wonderful he was, how he was from the king's stable, how the king's horse got to wear his golden shoes when he wasn't using them. But everywhere the beetle went, the animals and the people treated him like, well, a beetle. The story ends, the fairy tale ends with the beetle finally returning after not finding anywhere where people recognized the greatness that he knows exists within him, returning to the horse's stable, to the king's stable, and landing on top of the horse and saying to himself, "Look at me. I'm like the king sitting on his horse. Look at how important I am." And that's how it ends. It's kind of a a disappointing ending ending in one sense, because we would all want him to actually learn the lesson, right? The lesson of the story is, don't be an idiot like the beetle. Don't think you're you're bigger than you really are. Um, but the beetle never learns that lesson. But the ending of that story is also kind of realistic. Many of us are that beetle. We live in God's world. We eat the food that He provides. We drink the drink that comes from His hand. We live our lives with the skills and the talents that He wove into our being as He knit us together in our mother's womb. We find success as God providentially places us in the right place at the right time. And then we sit there and think that we deserve more. We become discontent, just like the beetle, wishing that those around us would see us as the great people we really are. Or, just as foolishly, we think that we have what we have because we earned it, because we deserve it. I worked hard. I had the ideas that no one else had. I was willing to go the extra mile. That's why I have what I have. So, we might feel content, but we're content thinking that we earned our position and that we earned our relationships and our life. And so we can be just like the beetle if we're discontent, and we can be just like the beetle if we are content. Now, our passage today is not about beetles. Um, but it is about a remarkable man. A man who was about as un-beetle-like as you can imagine. The scene in our text opens up with two people preaching and baptizing. Essentially, we have two open-air evangelists. In the Judean countryside, we have Jesus and His disciples. Jesus was preaching and teaching. He was performing signs, healing, casting out demons, and speaking with such wisdom, clarity, and authority that people were flocking to Him. As they came and heard Jesus speak, they would respond in repentance and Jesus's disciples were baptizing them as a physical sign of their sins being cleansed. About a day's walk north, John the Baptist was continuing his ministry. John's was an older ministry. He had begun preaching and teaching and baptizing some time before Jesus. And John's ministry was very similar to Jesus's ministry in some regards. He spoke, He taught, and He baptized those who repented from their sins. But in other ways, John's ministry was very different. John did no miracles, and although he preached boldly, his words did not carry the same level of authority that Jesus's did. You might say that John spoke in an earthly way, but Jesus spoke in a heavenly way. And so you have these two traveling evangelists. And to begin with, this picture seems fine. Jesus is busy carrying on His ministry, and John is busy carrying on his ministry. But then we arrive at verse 25. All of a sudden, we have a discussion that arises between John's disciples and a Jew over purification. It would seem that this question is about baptism, a purification ritual. We've already seen baptism mentioned by John several times, and so it seems that these ideas are most likely connected. And as we keep reading, we discover that this question may well have been about a comparison between John's baptism and Jesus's baptism because the debate with the Jew causes John's disciples to come and say this to John in verse 26, "Rabbi, He who was with you across the Jordan, to whom you bore witness, look, He is baptizing and all are going to Him." You can hear the the concern for their master, for their teacher. These disciples of John clearly love their teacher. He told them about the kingdom of God. He's helped them see and address sin in their lives. He's drawn them closer to God. And perhaps they'd been with John in his early days. The glory days of John's ministry when hundreds and hundreds of people streamed down to the Jordan to hear John preach and be baptized by him. They may remember the feeling, the excitement, as they were a part of this incredible moment in history with their master, their rabbi, at the center. And so, as they have watched the crowd slowly diminish over recent weeks, perhaps they've started to feel a little down. Where there were hundreds flocking to John a month ago, perhaps there's just a hundred now, and a few weeks later, now it's dozens, as more and more people travel down to hear Jesus preach instead of John. And then to add insult to injury, they now have this Jewish man questioning them about purification. What's he asking? Is he asking what the point of John's baptism is? Clearly, it's not having the same effect it used to. Are they ask—is he asking why John even bothers now when clearly Jesus's baptism is more popular? Is he questioning which one's more effective? Look, what am I meant to—should we go to Jesus or should we go to John? Which one should we do here? Whatever it was, it seems that the combination of this question, the reduction in the crowds coming to their gatherings, and the increase in people flocking to Jesus has roused some jealousy in the heart of John's disciples, or at the very least, a question. And so they come to their rabbi. Are you are you okay with this, John? Are you all right with Jesus getting all the attention here? Are you okay with your ministry declining, dying? Can you imagine being John in this moment? What what a moment of testing. How is he going to respond? I wonder how you would you respond? I think it's easy for us as we read a passage like this to just assume we would respond like John. We sort of race through the text and go, "Oh, yeah. That sounds like what I'd do." Because we know it's how we should respond. But I want you to just pause for a moment and ask yourself how you would respond. Remember, John has worked hard for his ministry. He lived in the wilderness. He walked around in camel skins. He ate honey and locusts. He sacrificed a lot to be near to God so that he would be able to have a solid ministry. He would have worked long hours preaching and teaching. There were hundreds and hundreds of people coming to him, asking him what they should do. He's counseling, he's addressing sin in people's lives. He has dedicated all of his time to this. He doesn't have a part-time job. He's an evangelist. That's his occupation. And he was so successful that the magazines at the time were reporting on him with headlines like, "Could John the Baptizer be the Christ?" and "Is this man the Messiah?" You can picture his head on Time Time magazine. That's what it would have been like. Like he was seriously popular, and that's the question people were asking. It would have been so, so easy for all of this to go to John's head. But you know, all of this context probably isn't what we need to to get it into our heads and into our hearts because unless I'm mistaken, none of us come close to John the Baptist's success or credentials. And only a few of us will even have any form of public ministry. So I want to try and bring this even closer to home. How would you respond if the church you're going to, this church, for instance, started to have fewer and fewer people come along while the Anglican church over the road there started to have so many people that their cars had to overflow into our car park? How would you respond if some of your friends who were coming here started to go to the Anglican church as part of that mini revival? And the reports you hear from your friends are telling you about a thriving, vibrant church community. Your friends say they're growing in their knowledge and in their faith more than they have for years. Do you imagine that? How are you going to feel then? Or what about this? Imagine a friend of yours who you've been talking to about the gospel for years. You've tried to tell them about Jesus from every single angle you can think of. You've poured time and energy and countless prayers into them, but they just don't get it. Then one day, they call you up and say that they've just met a Christian at their workplace. And they got chatting over lunch, and they've just placed their faith in Jesus. And they tell you about this work colleague and about this conversation they had and just how they just it just made sense when they described the gospel. And they describe this conversation to you and you're like, "I've literally had this conversation with this person a dozen times over the last year." And then your friend says that they're going to be meeting up weekly with that work colleague to grow as a disciple of Jesus. They're so excited, and they don't even acknowledge that you'd told them anything. Or imagine a family member, perhaps your spouse, your brother, or your your daughter. They've been a Christian for some time and you've been talking to them over the last few months about a particular struggle in their life. You've taken them to the Bible. You've prayed with them. You've done research. You've given them books. You've talked them through with your best wisdom and advice many, many times. Then one day they come home and tell you about a podcast they just listened to that really helped them in that area that they've been struggling in, and guess what? They describe the conversation, and it's the same conversation you've had with them a half dozen times. These things happen. This is what's happening to John. How would you respond in these circumstances? Are you just happy that your friend or family member has grown closer to Jesus? Or are you just a little bit annoyed that they didn't learn it from you? Even though you clearly had all the answers that they needed. As we think about this, we come to John's answer to his disciples as they worry about his success slipping away with Jesus arriving on the scene. And John's answer is best summarized by the middle of this this passage at the end of verse 29 and the start and verse 30. These words, "This joy of mine is now complete. He must increase, but I must decrease." That's the summary of John's answer. In other words, my disciples, you've completely misread this situation. I am not at all worried about people running away to Jesus. In fact, this news makes me happy. Not just a little happy, but full of joy. My joy is complete. I couldn't want anything more than for everyone to leave me and go to Jesus because He must become more while I become less. Now John's answer is bigger than that. It runs from verse 22 through to verse 36, although I will note there's some debate as to whether or not verse 31 to 36 is John the Baptist or John the writer of the gospel. But either way, verse 22 to 36 is still speaking about this same issue, and so we can take it as one answer. And as I mentioned, the crux of it is right at the center, which is very, very common for the way that John thinks. Now, around this central point that John's joy is complete because he must—Jesus must increase while John decreases, there are several points that John makes as to why he thinks this way. And I want to take you through some of those reasons now. There's six of them that we'll look at. There's a few others, but we'll just stick to these six. The first is, in verse 27, that all success is given from heaven. See, he says there in verse 27, "A person cannot receive even one thing unless it is given him from heaven." Now, it's a little unclear here if John is speaking about Jesus. You know, Jesus can't receive anything unless it's given to him from heaven, or about himself. Hey, my disciples, I wouldn't have received anything unless it was given to me from heaven. Either way, both are true, and they're both rooted in the same fundamental reality: All of our success, all of our provision, all of our talents, everything is given to us by God. And all of the glory that Jesus has and deserves is given to Him by God. Not only that, so everything I have is given to me from God and everything Jesus has is given to Him from God. Not only that, but everything anyone else has. Any success anybody else has, any following anyone else has, any talents anyone else has, they're given to them by God. Understanding this is absolutely fundamental to having the sort of attitude that John has. If everything is gift, then everything is to be received with thanksgiving, not with entitlement. Not as something guaranteed, not as something deserved. And if everything that we have is a gift, not something we deserve, then we cannot begrudge God when He takes it away. That's what Job says, right? The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of God. He understood the same reality that everything we have in life, talent, success, influence, provision, relationships, family, you just keep listing, everything is gift. A person cannot receive even one thing unless it is given him from above. The second thing that John points out is that he understands who he is in the story of the world and who Jesus is in the story of the world. In verse 28 there, "You yourselves bear me witness that I said, 'I am not the Christ, but I have been sent before Him.'" In the story of history, there is only one savior. There's only one God. There's only one provider. There's only one creator. There's only one King of kings. When John uses the word "Christ," he's referring to a character in God's story of history, a character God has been speaking about since the very beginning. Since he said that one of Eve's children would crush the serpent's head, He'd been talking again and again about a Christ, a chosen one, a messiah, a king who would come, who would defeat sin and Satan, who would save his people and would rule and reign in righteousness, peace, and prosperity. The Christ is the lead role in the story of the world. He's the the main actor. If you were to play the movie of the world, the Christ would be the first name that appears on the credits. And John's humility stems partly from the fact that he knows that he's not the Christ. And Jesus is. And so, as the lead role in all of history, it's only right that He gets the most stage time, that He gets the most attention, that He gets the most followers and the most applause. It is so important that we recognize this fact as well. None of us are the savior. None of us are the Christ. This means that you and I don't have to be instrumental in the salvation of all of our friends. You don't have to be the person everyone goes to for advice. I don't have to even be the person that my wife or my kids come to for advice all the time. You and I have a minor role in the story of history. We appear in one very short act. We have very few lines, and almost no one will notice our acting. Once we understand that, once we understand that Jesus is the leading role in the story of history, then our role becomes clearer. Supporting roles are there, and there's still a role. You still have a role. It's just a supporting role. And they're there to make the lead shine. That's the job. John then, thirdly, introduces a metaphor to illustrate, in verse 29, "The one who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom's voice. Therefore, this joy of mine is complete." Now, I I've only once had the opportunity to be best man at a wedding. Anyone else been like a matron of honor or a best man? A few people. Okay. We're not used to interaction. That's all right. Um, I I really enjoyed the experience. I tried to view it as my job to ensure that everything went smoothly for my friend. I tried to be a step or two ahead of him, you know, handing him the water before he needed it. That's that's sort of stuff. But the wedding day was not about me. I didn't end up married. Well, I was already married, but I didn't end up married again, thankfully. No one noticed me. I expect that no one other than my friend and perhaps Shamira even remembers that I was there. But as I watched my friend's bride walk down the aisle to my friend, I was so happy. My joy was complete. It really was. And it made no difference whatsoever that I got no attention, no bride, and no audience. Once again, you see, it's about understanding the role that we play. That's what John understood so well. He's the groomsman, not the groom. And there is a joy, a serious, full, overwhelming joy in seeing your friend get married. And that's what we should be like with Jesus, because Jesus is the groom, and His people are His bride. And when we see people coming to Jesus, drawing nearer to Jesus, learning more about Jesus, we should be so happy. Even if nobody remembers our name, nobody remembers we were there, nobody remembers anything we did or even comes to our church, we're just overjoyed because they come into Jesus. Fourthly, John spends a lengthy amount of time in verse 31 to 34 pointing out that Jesus really is something special. He starts off by saying, "He who comes from above is above all." He goes on to talk about how he who comes from heaven is above all. He bears witness to what he's seen and heard. He's sent of God and utters the words of God. He's from heaven. That's the point. Jesus comes from heaven. He speaks about things that only heaven could know. In contrast, in verse 31, John says, "I'm from earth. I speak in an earthly way." Tim Keller suggests that we should think about this idea in this way: Who would you like to receive your traffic update from? You know, as you're driving into work and you turn the radio on, you get the traffic update. Do you want the guy on the radio who's giving the traffic update to be on the M7? Is that the best place to report from? Or do you want him to be in a helicopter, looking down, seeing what's going on? When John says that Jesus comes from heaven, he's showing us that Jesus's words are far more important than his words because Jesus has a better vantage point. He has greater knowledge. He has deeper understanding, richer wisdom, more clarity, because he's from above. Another way of thinking about this is, who would you go to for information on how to fix a car? Would you go to someone who's driven the car every day? Or would you go to the guy who designed it and built it? You go to the designer, right? Jesus comes from heaven. He comes from the engineering office of life. He knows how life, reality, and everything works. And that's why John the Baptist was more than happy for people to leave his teaching and go to Jesus. You know, I I I feel this myself often. You know, people might come to you and tell you problems in their life or they might ask you questions about reality. Do you ever have the feeling, "Why are you asking me? What makes you think I know the answers to your problems? What makes you think I understand how reality works?" That's the idea here, right? John spoke and he spoke what he knew. He spoke good words, good, solid, true words, but they were earthly words. Ultimately, we need words from heaven. We need words from Jesus Christ Himself. And our job as Christians is not to have people think that we have all the answers and that we have all the words that they need to hear. It's to point people to Christ, who speaks still through His word, by the power of His Spirit, in a way that transcends what we can communicate. We need people to meet Him. Fifthly, John affirms the preeminence of Jesus in verse 35. He says, "The Father loves the Son and has given all things into His hands." Why would John expect to maintain a huge following when he knows that the Father's plan is to give Jesus everything? Right? And what's so wonderful about John is that he's totally okay with that. He's good with the plan. And if we just stop and think for a moment, we will recognize that we should be okay with that as well. I think often in our discontentment, we want more and more and more, more responsibility, more stuff, more relationships, more more whatever it is, more influence. And we don't realize that every asset is a liability. Everything you're given comes with a cost. Right? Anyone own a house? It's a there's a cost associated with owning a house. You want a wife? There's a cost associated with that. You want a family, kids? There's a cost associated with that. You want to run a business? That's going to cost you. Someone comes to you and and you you get put in the place of a teacher and and people look to you and they want teaching, there's a cost. You know, you have to have something to say. To own everything is to have a huge responsibility on your shoulders. Imagine what it would take to provide for 7 billion people. Right? Not to mention all the animals. And imagine then not just providing for physical needs, but providing for emotional and spiritual needs as well. In John's case, every follower is more work, more wisdom, more patience, more effort. And it's not that he resented the work, it's just that he understood it wasn't ultimately him who's going to shoulder all of this burden and all of this responsibility. He's just a caretaker for the real owner, for Jesus. And if we understand that, then we can hold things more loosely. We can do what we can with what we've been given at the time, and we can let it go when God takes it away. The last reason John gives us as to why he must decrease while Jesus must increase is that our response to Jesus is what determines our eternal fate, not our response to John. You see that in verse 36, "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." John the Baptist did not live his life thinking that the eternal destiny of his hearers depended on how much they believed him or obeyed him. Not at all. The eternal destiny of his hearers depended on how they responded to Jesus. If they believed in Jesus and obeyed Jesus, then they would have life. But if they did not believe in Jesus, then they would remain under the wrath of God and face eternal judgment. So when people stopped following John and started flocking to Jesus, John didn't get upset that no one was listening to him anymore because he could see that they were going to the one who really mattered. We see in Paul's life that this is true even about people going to other teachers. Right? You might say, "Oh, John John's an exception because people are actually going directly to Jesus in that case." But look at Paul when he's in a Roman jail and writing to the Philippian church, he says, "Some preach Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from goodwill." And then he goes on to say, "What then? I don't care. Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed. And in that, I rejoice." You see? It doesn't matter if they go elsewhere. It doesn't matter if they learn from someone else. It doesn't matter if they get their answers from the podcast. As long as they are going to Jesus. As long as they're drawing near to Him. Because ultimately, that's all that matters. It doesn't matter if someone responds to you. It doesn't matter if they believe your words. It doesn't matter if they understand that you have wisdom. It makes no difference whatsoever to their eternal fate. What makes a difference is if they receive Jesus. When you see this picture, this glorious Christ, it all makes sense, right? Of course John's happy to see people go, because Jesus is that good. He's the main guy. He's the one who owns it all. He's the one whose how we respond to him is what really matters. But you know, I find John's humility to be quite incredible. Is it just me, or is that—is his humility incredibly attractive? You read that about John, you know, the way that he responded and go, "Wow. I like that guy." Imagine if John wasn't humble. If instead of responding the way he did, he he became defensive of his own ministry, grabbing and grasping for ways to differentiate himself from Jesus, devising methods to make people dependent upon his teaching so they wouldn't feel but would—so they wouldn't leave, but would feel like they have to keep coming back to Guru John for advice. That'd be ugly. That'd be a horrible picture. That sort of man would be unappealing. He would appear small. He'd be just like that beetle from the king's stable, foolish and idiotic in the minds of everyone but himself. So if John's humility is so attractive, then how are we to think of Jesus? Because the whole point of John the Baptist's ministry and the whole point of John's gospel is that no one eclipses Jesus. Jesus is, as we've seen, the heavenly Man, the bridegroom, the Son of God Himself, the owner of all. So is Jesus going to turn out to be some kind of self-important preacher and teacher who just wants everyone to follow Him? You see the conundrum? We like John for his humility. We see that Jesus deserves to have the sort of ministry that John doesn't deserve to have. But are then are we going to find that Jesus is quite unattractive because he's the one who everyone's meant to go to? Well, here's what's so amazing about Jesus. From John's perspective, Jesus must increase, but from Jesus's perspective, He came to decrease. He came to do the Father's will. Over in John 12, we see Jesus speaking about His death. In verse 23 to 28, He says, "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified." You see, He understands He's going to have glory. "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone. But if it dies, it bears much fruit. Whoever loves his life will lose it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. If anyone serves Me, he must follow Me, and where I am, there my servant will be also. If anyone serves Me, the Father will honor him. Now my soul is troubled, and what shall I say? Father, save Me from this hour. But for this purpose I've come to this hour. Father, glorify Your name." Did you catch the dynamic there? Jesus is saying, "Look, it's my time to be glorified, but what's my glory going to look like?" It's going to look like a seed descending into the ground and dying. Not only that, but I haven't come just to make myself happy. "Father, glorify Your name." This is the dynamic we see all through Jesus's life and in Philippians 2, which we read earlier. Jesus is the Son of God. All people will bow their knee to Him, and yet He is humble, seeking not His own glory, but the glory of His Father. Paul puts it this way in in Philippians 2, "Christ Jesus did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, humbling Himself by becoming obedient to His Father to the point of death." Jesus, as it turns out, is a little like John the Baptist, or perhaps, more accurately, John the Baptist is not displaying in our passage a characteristic that is only able to be shown by creatures. God Himself has this same sort of character. So John the Baptist is humble and willing to decrease because he's reflecting the image of Christ, who is humble and who is willing to decrease and to submit Himself to death in obedience to His Father so that all may come not so much to Him, but to His Father. But as we keep reading Philippians 2, we find out that because otherwise you start getting this cascading problem. Is the Father just like this self-aggrandizing person now, right? How can this—which one which one is it? But as we keep reading Philippians 2, we discover that the Father is actually just like the Son. "Therefore, God, the Father, has highly exalted Jesus and bestowed upon Him the name that is above every name so that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord." You see you see what's happening here? So Jesus decreases so that His Father might be glorified, and as a result, His Father says, "No, I'm going to lift you up so that you will be glorified." God, as it turns out, is a glory-deflecting God. Right there inside the Trinity, no person in the Trinity is grasping for glory. No person in the Trinity is trying to be bigger than they are. In fact, they're always trying to glorify the other. But you know, our God is even more amazing than that because Jesus didn't just come to glorify the Father, and the Father didn't just work to glorify the Son. But they are both at work to glorify His bride. And this takes us back to our text because just in closing, I want to point out a connection between two ideas in John chapter 3. Remember, this passage started with Jesus and John baptizing, a ritual washing for purification. And John's disciples had that discussion with the Jew about purification. The other picture is a bridegroom and a bride. Jesus is the bridegroom and He's and He's the one who gets the bride. And the connection between these two ideas is made for us by Paul in Ephesians chapter 5, verse 25 to 27, when he says, "Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her, that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that He might present the church to Himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish." You see what's happening? The bridegroom, Jesus, takes upon Himself the job of purifying His bride so that she would become splendid and beautiful and glorious. This purification is not something that can be achieved by water. It's a purification from sin, and sin stains the soul, not the skin. It can only be cleansed through dramatic means: the sacrifice of Christ, the word of God preached and taught, the Spirit of Christ at work in the heart. This is what Jesus came to do. Right? He came to lift up His bride, to present her as glorious. This is the humility of Christ that we saw in Zechariah 9 when we read at the begin—that we read at the beginning of the service. In Zechariah 9, the savior of Israel comes humbly riding on a donkey. A king, humble. And he comes, Zechariah 9 tells us, to make his bride glorious, like the jewels of a crown they shall shine in his land. That's his goal. And so what? Does his bride then sit there and and revel as the jewels? No. They push it straight back to him and they say, "How great is his goodness and how wonderful is his beauty." Why why do we do this dance? Because it's what God is like. This dance of of deflection of glory and humility and and willing to descend and have others increase, that's the dance of God. It's the dance that He's built into this world. It's why this works. And it's why we sang earlier that the bride doesn't look at her own beauty but at her bridegroom's face. And so even when we get to glory, even when Christ exalts us as His unworthy people that He has glorified, we won't look at our own glory. We will look at His, and He will look at ours, and we will look at the Father's, and the Father will look at the Son's. And there'll be much rejoicing. Our joy will be complete. Because He will increase as we decrease.