Look at these words
I. As the language of true nobility of character. Is it not refreshing to come across a really great man, a man who has too much of Christ within him ever to be ignoble? John's language here is not the language of sullen acquiescence. It does not need any grace to talk in that strain. It is not "Well, He must increase, and I must decrease; and I cannot help it." No, it is the language of joy, "This my joy, therefore, is fulfilled." It is the lack of this spirit which gives rise to so many splits in our churches. It is the want of this great-heartedness which takes away the power for testimony, and causes that wretched smallness of soul which cannot rejoice in the success, or the greater success, of another.
II. As the language of prophetic utterance, "He must increase on and on and ever increasing and I must decrease." John was the last of the prophets who foretold the coming of the kingdom of Christ. He was the forerunner, the herald of Christ, and now that the Messiah had come forth to found His kingdom, John's mission was fulfilled. This is his last sermon. He cried, "Behold the Lamb of God!"
III. As the language of a believer's heart. We commence life with all of self and none of Christ. It is the "I" in our aims, in our thoughts, in our conversation, in our actions, it is self we worship, self we admire, self we seek, and self we serve. But in the day of conversion Jesus Christ comes into the heart, and then there is Christ and "I" within the same breast. There is a new nature, and there is an old. It is the house of David waxing stronger and stronger, while the house of Saul waxes weaker and weaker. If I am being sanctified, Christ will occupy more and more of my thinking power. Thoughts concerning Christ and His kingdom will flow with ever-increasing volume through the channel of my mind. As Christ increases self must decrease.
A. G. Brown, Penny Pulpit,new series, No. 1,065.
This text contains a great principle the principle on which God governs His children, always and everywhere. God's manifest purpose is, to keep His children humble, to make our Saviour everything and ourselves nothing. We are empty; in Him dwells all fulness. We are weak, in Him is Almighty strength. We can bring to Him only our guilt, our cares, our sorrows, our poor unworthy selves. In Him is everything grace and peace and hope and life, wisdom and sanctification and complete redemption. And it is a great and happy Christian attainment, if we can with our whole heart assent to this. We have in these words
I. The way to be saved. You know how natural it is for us all to think that we can do something or suffer something that may recommend us to God; that may make some amends for our sin against Him. We must decrease from that; that would be saving ourselves. We must learn and feel in our heart, that we can do nothing to make amends to the law we have broken; that we must be forgiven, if forgiven at all, of God's free grace, and for our Redeemer's sake. We must decrease, as regards our merit before God, and as regards our estimate of our merit and ourselves before God to nothing; and our Saviour must increase till He is felt to be all in all.
II. The rule of a holy and happy life. Here is the secret of great usefulness. Here is the thing that will keep us kindly, unenvious, and unsoured in spirit; to utterly cast our self-seeking, self-assertion, self-conceit, to quite forget ourselves and our own importance and advancement, and with a single heart to think of our God and Saviour, and of the advancement of His glory in the saving and comforting of souls. Just in proportion to the degree in which you cease to think of self, and with a single eye make your Master's glory your great end, will be the good you will do. There is nothing that goes home to the hearts of people you try to influence for good, like the conviction that you are not thinking of yourself at all; but that you are thinking of them, and of Christ's glory in their advantage and blessing here and hereafter. It is not the fussy person trying to do good, but with much self-consciousness and self-conceit mingling with all his doings it is not that man who will do most good. It is rather the humbler servant whose whole life says, "Now I am not working for effect; I don't care what you think of me;I am aiming at your good and Christ's glory only." For that humble servant, without perhaps ever thinking of it, has caught the sublime spirit of one concerning whom his Saviour said that a greater was never born of woman; and whose words about his Saviour were these, spoken ungrudgingly and with all his heart: "He must increase; but I must decrease."
A. K. H. B., Graver Thoughts of a Country Parson,2nd series, p. 36.
Let us try to enter into the spirit of that deep and affectionate loyalty to our Lord, which is everywhere to be seen in the Holy Baptist's character. I mean his not thinking of himself, but of his Master; giving up everything to His glory; rejoicing, as he went on, to find that Jesus Christ every day was showing Himself more and more glorious above him, and throwing him quite into the shade. His "burning and shining light" was to be put out and disappear, like a star, when the sun arises. And he is glad and thankful to have it so; like Jonathan, who truly rejoiced in seeing David by degrees mounting up to the kingdom which, according to earthly ways of thinking, Jonathan might have looked for himself.
I. This loyal and self-devoted feeling St. John here expresses in words; but his whole life and conduct before had expressed it, to a considerate mind, quite as clearly. All his doctrine ran upon this; that neither his preaching nor his baptism was anything at all in itself, but only to prepare the way for the perfect Gospel, the spiritual Baptism, which Jesus Christ should set up afterwards. It may seem suitable to this dutiful temper of mind, that St. John, when the people asked him what they should do, referred them always to the plainest and simplest duties, the very thing, as it were, which came next in each man's way. In every instance the advice which he gives was as plain and simple as could be, not at all leading them to think of him, nor of any particular wisdom or goodness that was in him, but only to glorify God in their stations by sincere obedience. So again, the Baptist never shrank from showing people the severe side of the truth. "The wrath to come," "the unquenchable fire," "the axe laid to the root of the tree," these are the things of which he continually kept putting people in mind; but these are not the subjects on which he would have delighted to dwell, had he desired to please and attract his hearers, or to obtain personal influence and authority with them. But in this respect, as in all others, the Forerunner of Christ was like His Apostles after Him: he preached not himself, but Christ Jesus the Lord.
II. Finally, in the last of his trials, his imprisonment through the malice of Herodias, we find him still of the same mind, still careful to turn all, as well as he could, to the preparing of Christ's way; still anxious to put himself down and exalt his Master and Saviour. For this purpose, having heard in the prison the works of Christ, he sent two of his disciples with the question: "Art thou He that should come, or do we look for another?" He could not be ignorant who Jesus was, after what he had seen at His Baptism; but no doubt his intention was, to show his disciples the truth concerning Him. Thus he died, as he had lived, pointing out Jesus to men. Now there is one point in particular which we may well learn this day, from considering John the Baptist's character; namely, that in such measure as we are duly preparing to meet Christ when He comes to be our Judge, in the same measure we shall be still practising to humble ourselves more and more to think less of what we do or have done, and more of Him and His unspeakable mercies. We shall no longer anxiously and grudgingly count the minutes, the hours which we spend on serving Christ in His Church, but every little time we can win for that holy employment, away from the world, we shall reckon it clear gain. The more we can give, the more yet shall we contrive to spare; every step in any kind of holiness will be to us like a step upwards on a high mountain, revealing to our sight fresh blessings and fresh duties beyond what we had ever dreamed of, until the last and most blessed step of all shall land us in the Paradise of God.
Plain Sermons by Contributors to "Tracts for the Times,"vol. vi., p. 129.
References: John 3:30. F. D. Maurice, The Gospel of St. John,p. 101; J. A. Hessey, Church of England Pulpit,vol. vi., p. 8; H. M. Butler, Harrow Sermons,p. 202; Preacher's Monthly,vol. iv., p. 301; J. Keble, Sermons for Saints' Days,p. 268; J. E. Vaux, Sermon Notes,4th series, p. 84; Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xvii., No. 102. Joh 3:31-36. Homilist,3rd series, vol. x., p. 14 3 John 1:3 Homiletic Magazine,vol. xii., p. 109; Clergyman's Magazine,vol. i., p. 239.