Spiritual Mathematics

Spiritual Mathematics 

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John 3:22-30

The New Testament in a Year sermon series

Rev. Brian North, Westminster Presbyterian, Chehalis, WA

December 18th, 2011

How many of you like to cook food from scratch? Not many of you have raised your hands. What do you eat? I like to cook, though the range of things I’ve tried cooking is somewhat limited. But there’s one principle that anyone who has cooked knows: If you’re going to adjust the amount of whatever it is you’re cooking – such as doubling the recipe – you have to double everything. So if you’re making pancakes, and you double the amount of flour you put in, but you only increase the water or milk by 50%, then your pancakes are going to come out more like muffins. Everything has to remain proportional. It’s simple mathematics;

I actually learned this the hard way a number of years ago when I made waffles for the first time. I decided that I wanted my waffles extra sweet, as if syrup, strawberry jam and whip cream weren’t enough. That’s one of my many weaknesses: sugar. So I added sugar, when the recipe didn’t even call for it. So this wasn’t just violating the cooking principle of keeping things proportional, this was going a step further, and introducing a whole new ingredient into the mix. Well, when the first waffles were finished and I went to take them out of the waffle maker, they stuck to the waffle maker like you wouldn’t believe. The sugar had turned into glue, and the waffles were a complete disaster, as they ripped apart, leaving most of the waffle in the waffle maker. I think Gwen and I ended up eating cheerios or something like that instead.

This principle of proportion is true in a lot of spheres of life: if I want to give a big gift, I need more wrapping paper and ribbon to wrap it; if I buy a car with a big engine, it will take more gas to power it; if I gain weight this Christmas because I eat too many sweets, my clothes will need to get bigger. It’s simple math, and it applies to a lot of life.

Well in this morning’s passage we see John the Baptist telling some people that when it comes to our relationship with Jesus, things don’t work like that. And isn’t that so often the case with Jesus?: that things are counter-intuitive, counter-balanced, and counter-cultural. Spiritual mathematics are different than the simple mathematics of cooking and so forth, because: In spiritual mathematics, we decrease as Jesus increases. They’re not proportional to each other; rather they’re inverse of one another. It would be a horrible way to make pancakes – increase flour and decrease water – but it’s exactly how it works when in our relationship with Jesus: He increases, and we decrease.

First service: We see this in this morning’s passage that we just read.

So listen to this morning’s passage from John 3:22-30, and see what John is talking about:

After this Jesus and his disciples went into the Judean countryside, and he spent some time there with them and baptized. John also was baptizing at Aenon near Salim because water was abundant there; and people kept coming and were being baptized— John, of course, had not yet been thrown into prison.

Now a discussion about purification arose between John’s disciples and a Jew. They came to John and said to him, ‘Rabbi, the one who was with you across the Jordan, to whom you testified, here he is baptizing, and all are going to him.’ John answered, ‘No one can receive anything except what has been given from heaven. You yourselves are my witnesses that I said, “I am not the Messiah, but I have been sent ahead of him.” He who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice. For this reason my joy has been fulfilled. He must increase, but I must decrease’ (John 3:22-30).

So John is still baptizing people and has people coming to hear him and his message. But others are going to Jesus, which is fine with John, but not with some of his disciples. And so some of them come to him and say, “Hey, everyone’s going to that other guy, Jesus, about whom you testified and pointed people to.” You don’t have to read between the lines much to realize that some of John’s disciples are jealous of Jesus, on behalf of John. In fact, just a few verses later in John 4:1, we see that Jesus and his disciples were baptizing more people than John was. And all of this bugs John’s disciples, and they come to him to let him know.

Then, in John’s response, we see two related points that he makes about what it means to be in relationship with God and doing God’s will. First of all, we see that: John never expected anything more than to be the forerunner of Jesus. John never thought that the spotlight would be on him for long, and in fact his calling was to put the spotlight on Jesus and point people to him. We talked about this some a number of weeks ago, when I said that John is to Jesus as Ed McMahon was to Johnny Carson. Or think of the great running backs in the history of the NFL: Walter Payton, Emmitt Smith, Barry Sanders, Jim Brown, Eric Dickerson, and many others. Who paved the way for all the yards that they ran? Their fullbacks. Their offensive linemen. They didn’t score the touchdowns. They didn’t run for 15,000 yards in their careers. But they never expected anything more than to be the forerunners and the road graders for the running backs.

John uses his own metaphor about being the friend of the bridegroom. This is a technical term (Hebrew: Shoshben) that referred to a particular person whose role in a wedding included inviting the guests, arranging for the wedding ceremony, preside at the reception afterwards, and so forth. Essentially, this person’s job was to bring the bride and groom together. This is not a new metaphor he’s using, either, as the Old Testament often refers to Israel as the Lord’s bride (Hosea 2:16-20, Ezekiel 16, Malachi 2:11). John is comparing himself to that kind of role in bringing people to Jesus. He has no further expectations.

Mary, the mother of Jesus, has much the same attitude as John. She’s just there to do what she’s called to do, and doesn’t expect any more. When she found out from the angel Gabriel that she would give birth to a son and name him Jesus, and so forth, what was her response? “I am the Lord’s servant. May it be to me as you have said” (Luke 1:38).

The story is told of a Sunday school teacher who had just finished telling his class the Christmas story, how Mary and Joseph went to Bethlehem and how Jesus was born in a stable and laid in a manger. After telling the story he asked, “Who do you think the most important woman in the Bible is?” Of course, the teacher was expecting one of the kids to say, “Mary.” But instead, a little boy raised his hand and said, “Eve.” So the teacher asked him why he thought Eve was the most important woman in the Bible. And the little boy replied, “Well, they named two days of the year after her: Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve.”¹

You see, any task, any service done for the Lord is important and needed. It’s been said that “All service ranks the same with God,” and Mary and John the Baptist knew this.² Mary did what she was called to do. John did what he was called to do. Neither expected anything more. Neither tried to be the savior. In fact, it’s a common theme throughout Scripture that everyone who did something for God – whether “great” or “small” they simply did what God asked them to do. And it’s true for us as well. If each of us stays focused on what God has called us to do – in our church, in our homes, in our places of work, and in our faith, then God can work in and through us most effectively. And in that process we’ll grow in faith and we’ll point others to Jesus, too. So, let’s do what God has called us to do, and expect the spotlight to be on Jesus, not on us.

Secondly, we see that: “No one can receive anything except what has been given from heaven” (John 3:27). Any talent, any spiritual gift, any material blessing, anything we have to offer in pointing people to Jesus is a gift from God himself.

In the early 1900’s there was a Methodist Pastor by the name of William Spence. His life in ministry and with his family was chronicled in a book called, “One Foot in Heaven” which was turned into a highly acclaimed movie in 1941 and received an Academy Award Nomination for Best Picture. (First service: It lost to “How Green Was My Valley” and over time three other movies have had more staying power: “Citizen Kane” and “The Maltese Falcon” as well as the original “Dumbo” movie.³)

Well, the story is told that at one time, the church that William Spence pastored was growing, full of people and full of vibrancy. But as the years passed along, many of the people drifted away. A church that was nearby started growing, with many of the people form Pastor Spence’s church ending up at this other one. One Sunday Pastor Spence looked out over the small congregation and asked, “Where have all the people gone?” There was kind of an awkward silence. Then someone said, “I think they have begun going to the other church to hear their new, young pastor.” Pastor Spence was silent for a moment. Then, he is reported to have said, “Well then, I think we ought to follow them.” And he descended from the pulpit and led his flock to the nearby church.⁴

That is a humble man who knows that he can only receive what God has given him. For a time, God brought people to his church and it grew. And he rested in that blessing and treated it as a gift. John was much the same way, too, and we see it in his response. And it seems to me that God is telling us through this that: We could avoid a lot of jealousies and resentfulness of other people in our lives if we only remember that their successes, as well as our own, are a gift from God. We take what God gives us, treat it well, we treat it as a gift, and celebrate the gifts that He bestows upon others, too. Comparing gifts – whether that’s material gifts, spiritual gifts, relational gifts, or anything else – only breeds jealousy and rivalry, and steals from our ability to thank God for what He’s blessed us with.

My kids are going to have to learn this someday. For instance, just this past week one of my daughters was looking at a photo album of her first three months after being born. And there were a few pictures of Blakely, her older brother, holding her, hugging her, and so forth. And I said to her, “Isn’t that so sweet! Blakely loved you even when you were just born.” And my daughter replied, “Yeah. He knew even then that he wanted to marry me.” Well…someday she’s going to have to learn that “marriage to her brother” is not a gift God has planned for her. God has given him as a brother to her, and that’s going to have to be gift enough. I just pray she won’t be jealous of the woman he marries some day! 

So: We simply receive what God gives us, treat it as the gift that it is, and use it for his glory. That’s exactly what John does. He had many gifts: He was a powerful speaker. People flocked to hear him. They responded with a desire to be baptized. Those are three tremendous gifts that were given to him by God. But he didn’t use them for his glory. He pointed people to Jesus. John cast the spotlight on Him.

We see in all of this that: What decreases is our desire for our will to be done. And what increases is our desire for the will of God to be done; our pursuit of Jesus increases, and helping others to pursue Jesus and His will for their lives increases, too. As I said at the start: It’s backwards math, because the proportions change over time, rather than staying consistent as in cooking. So what does it mean for us to decrease and for Jesus to increase?

This means that we do what God has called us to do, and receive the gifts he’s given us, and use all of that to grow our own faith and point people to faith in Jesus Christ. This means that we seek to be holy as God is holy. It means asking for his mercies to be made new every morning. It means putting his will for our relationships – in the home, at work, at church, with our friends – putting His will first, above our desires. It means serving people who are in need – be it physical, emotional, spiritual, relational need, or something else. It means decreasing our selfish desires, and increasing our love for Jesus and his call upon us. It means forgiving and being forgiven. And as we do this we will grow in faith, we will do God’s will and we will point people to Jesus. We will take the gifts that God has given us and use them to bring glory to Him. As one of our confessions says, “What is the chief and highest end of humankind? Answer: Our chief and highest end is to glorify God and fully enjoy Him forever.”⁵ We decrease, and He increases.

So this Christmas, as we’re baking cookies, preparing Christmas meals, and measuring everything out carefully…let’s engage in some spiritual mathematics, too, and remember that they’re a little different than the math we use in the kitchen and in other spheres of life. Let’s live like John did, and make his statement our own: “I must decrease, and Jesus must increase.” Let’s pray…Amen.