John Testifies Again About Jesus | John 3:22-36

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So thank you, Alex, by the way, and go Lions and woo. So whenever we get up here, at least I watch Alex do this week after week, and I think some of our other pastors do it as well.

We always get up and we say, how are you today? And I hope you know that's not just cliche to us, that we really mean it. We gather here, as I think you know Intuit, not just to learn, but to care for our hearts. And to tune in to whatever. We're not just thinking, but whatever we're feeling and actually wherever we find ourselves.

So where do you find yourself today? And we want you to know, and I want you to know as representative of our entire team, our entire staff, that we see you, that we love you. We're not here to talk at you. We are truly with you. To that end, I think we know by now with all the great talks we've had on the gospel of John, that John's gospel is not just teaching us about Jesus, but.

John's Gospel is inviting us as we saw last week with Nicodemus into a deeper healing experience of him and with him. So to that end this morning, what I'd like to do, I think it's what all of our pastors want to do when we stand in front of you, we want to give you God's heart through our hearts for your heart.

And this morning. We're gonna return to John the Baptist after being gone from him for a couple of chapters back into the middle part of John chapter three. And maybe just as a precursor to what we're gonna share let me just repeat what probably has already been stated before about the setting for John's Gospel.

I don't know how many of us know this, but Israel had only been back in its own land for about 500 years. They had been delivered from exile in 5 38 BC by Cyrus from Persia. But even as they came back into Israel, they were ruled as a vassal state by the Persians. By the Greeks, by the tomes, by the Lucid.

And then in 63 BC the Roman Empire came into power. So now in the position where John finds himself writing this book about Jesus of Nazareth they're under the rule of Rome. So here's what you need to know, the story, the stories we've been looking at and the story you're gonna hear this morning about life in Israel.

They aren't simply challenged life. There is dark. It is desperate. It is hopeless. I think sometimes we have a tendency to idealize Bible times. That they all walked around with halos because in medieval art, they're often painted with halos. But can I tell you, these were real human beings.

They were overcome with poverty in Israel in this era. They were overcome with disease. They were divided spiritually in at least five different ways. The Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Herodians so they were a spiritually divided community. They were experiencing what you might call cultural depression.

That's not even to mention the fact that they were ruled by her of the great sons who were. Really, basically just nut balls. All right. Including Herod Anus, who eventually is the guy that sends John the Baptist in our main character this morning to prison and eventually takes off his head. To add to this, God has been silent for about 400 years.

Israel has not heard from him since the prophet Malachi. They feel not only the hopelessness of their situation, but they feel abandoned by God. So into this situation, this new prophet comes out of nowhere and he is wearing a camel hair suit and he's eating locusts and honey. So he's he's his own version of prophetic Nutball himself.

And so when he comes out, people are going, who is this? And why should we listen to Kim? His name is John the Baptist, and he begins to proclaim our long promised deliverer. Not just the deliver of Israel, but the deliver of the world. Remember, the promise to Abraham was, I will not only make you of you a nation, but it'll be a nation that will bless all the nations of the earth.

So this guy comes out after 400 years of not hearing from God, 540 years of vassal rule with all of this mess that they're experiencing, and he has the audacity to say, the deliverer has now come, and his name is Jesus of Nazareth. Can you imagine for the thinking human beings living in Israel in that day that it would be understandable that they might feel some confusion concerning Jesus', true identity.

They might even find themselves going back and forth and back and forth about what they think about him and what they believe about him. So the question on the table for many people in that era, even John the Baptist followers, is this. Just exactly who is Jesus. And again, John the Baptist followers who are questioning his identity in this passage, we might tend to think of them as bad guys, but they were the good guys.

Not everyone in Israel was so spiritual that they were really even looking for the coming deliverer. Many were just trying to survive, just like you and me today, were just trying to get by into the next day or into the next week. But John the Baptist followers were some of the good folks. I don't mean good folks.

They were the ones that literally were spiritually living into anticipating the coming of this deliverer, this Messiah, and yet they're having some doubts in this context, I want you to notice that John, by the way, in chapter one, has already in multiple ways, told them who Jesus is. Remember this famous phrase he said in chapter one, behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.

Now, this is quite a statement. The sin, the brokenness, the way we've hurt one another. All wars, all personal division shame, guilt, all of it can be taken away by this one brother who's going to provide a sacrifice. That's the image of the lamb for the entire. World, the entire cosmos. I think John's point is very clear in chapter one, and the disciple just happened to have forgotten it by chapter three.

I want to use an illustration to drive this home about what John was saying. I don't know how many of you remember this movie, in fact, raise your hands if you will. Do you remember this? 1999 The Matrix. Not enough to make this illustration work, I don't think. But in fact, this morning I was saying to my wife, I said, I just love this illustration.

She goes, do you think people will have seen that movie? And I said. Basically too late because this is my illustration. So in this particular movie, which is such a good watch, especially the first one, there's three of 'em. And with as with most sequels, I think they get increasingly not as good. But with the first one, humanity is at war with machines and humanity has become desperate.

And there's, they're living actually in this computer generated dream world made up by the machines that is intended to control humanity, and indeed is controlling humanity. And there's a prophecy that begins to float around about a deliverer. Someone who is going to come and set things right.

He's gonna write the brokenness, he's going to heal the pain, he's gonna take away the sadness. The injustice and bring back freedom to humanity. And so remember, Lawrence Fishburn plays this. Again, most of you don't remember, but those of you do remember and the others just trust me. Lawrence Fishburn plays one who is believing in this prophecy and he gets in contact with his name is Morpheus.

He gets in contact with this young man played by Ke Reeves named Neo. And there's a moment when he's trying to convince Neo he is the one. He is the deliverer. And Neil's not buying it, and yet as he grows and learns, maybe much in some ways, like Jesus, I'm not sure if he knew at five that he was the coming Messiah.

There was a growth process that we don't know a lot about, but at a certain point when Neil is fighting the henchman of the matrix and all of a sudden this day they got these guns, they're going pop. And this is one of those moments when Neo, he gets it. That he's the one, and he just puts that, you could see the slide.

He puts his hands up and those bullets literally come to him and stop in midair. And in fact, one of my favorite moments is when he takes one of those bullets and he looks at it curiously, as if it was anything that it should have ever threatened him. Because you see now he begins to understand that he's the one.

This is what John the Baptist was trying to say into the confusion, the understandable confusion. Early on, when Jesus comes out of nowhere, let alone John the Baptist, coming out of nowhere, he's trying to say he is the one who has come. There is no other. He is the one. He's not one of the ones. He is the one to set things right.

So basically in this story, John's disciples. Are basically saying to John and then there's some, there's a verse there that none of the commentaries know how it connects with what's really going on. They start to have an argument with some of the religious leaders about ritual washings. When we hear the word baptism, we think Christian baptism, but the word baptism simply means to immerse.

And in Jewish culture there were several different kinds of immersions. And here comes John the Baptist, giving a, an immersion of repentance. And some of the religious leaders are going, what? Gives you the right, we have these other baptisms. How do you know? And somehow out of that context, we don't really know the connection.

The Baptist followers come to John and say, have you noticed, speaking of baptisms, that Jesus and his folks, his closest followers are baptizing right alongside us, and now the people that were coming to us are now following Jesus instead. And so what they're saying that they don't say to John is, are you really sure that Jesus is the one or is he just one of the ones

that I've come to believe in my 71 years on the planet? Never more than this very moment. Is the question of the ages, is Jesus just one of the ones, kinda like a Western Civilization's Buddha

or another kind of Muhammad Islam says he's one of the great prophets. Is that who he is? Is that all he is? Unless we judge John's disciples, you would never judge them. But I did early on when I used to read this text. What do you mean? He's already told you personally this morning.

We're in a church that lifts up Jesus. We just sang songs about Christ alone. So for most of us, not maybe all of us today, there might be some who are just saying, I want to check this out. I don't know what this is about. Welcome, but for many of us, we would probably say is Jesus. Of Nazareth. Of Nazareth, the one we would probably personally say, yeah, except if we're gut level, honest with ourselves.

And lemme just say, I can tell you this is true of me. Even though, I've done the seminary thing, I've done the ancient language thing. I preached for 35 years in three different churches. Now I have a ministry, two pastors. There are moments in tough and anxious times when I can very quickly, I wouldn't speak it, but I know what's in my heart.

I can throw him under the bus and begin to throw down with another.

Now that other might look very much like Jesus in some ways, have some connection to Jesus. It could be a person. It could be a movement. It could be an ideology. John the Baptist was, you can see why people got them confused. Strong, true, prophetic. Speaking like a true Israeli prophet of old Jesus was the same.

So I can see why the John the Baptist followers might go, yeah, but you're, I'm not sure. All I'm suggesting is that we might, sometimes, I'll say this, I sometimes do the same. I might be unconsciously or even consciously following one in a time of stress. It seems to gimme some stress relief, and it might remind me of the one, but they're not the one.

So this is what John says to his disciples, and I thought. Frankly this passage was a bit dense, so I want you to know, I'm not trying to do your own homework for you, but I'm trying to call out in these next two mo few moments. What, in my study, in my ex of Jesus, I've come to believe that John the Baptist and then John the disciple who wrote the book, is trying to say, so this is John The Baptist's reply to his disciples, number one, I am not the Messiah.

And by the way, he said this four times in John chapter one. This shows you how confusing it must have been for John's disciples. They still can't get it, and so he says it again, I'm not the Messiah. I'm the one sent before him. I'm a forerunner. I'm paving the way for the one who is the one. Secondly, I'm not the bridegroom but the best man.

He's pulling out a metaphor that is not simply a cute little illustration. When the disciples of John heard this, they would be thinking about Old Testament literature, which constantly lifted up Israel as the bride of God. If you go back to, if you, in your spare time read Hosea one and two where it talks about Israel going out with other lovers and leaving her husband.

God, Yahweh behind and how God the husband continued to pursue her. So this is not just a cute little illustration, this is a powerful metaphor that John is bringing to his disciples. And he's saying, you know that you know the deal. Here we are God's bride. I am not the bride groom of the bride. You might think that I am, you might be confused, but I'm not the one.

In fact, my job. Like any best man in any wedding is to prepare space for the bridegroom and the bride when they come home. And then lastly, and these are the words, one of my favorite old commentaries on John, a guy named Leon Morris, said, these are some of the greatest words spoken by one of the greatest men in all of history.

And he says, with all this attention on him. Him, he could have just taken it and run with it. He says, you don't understand brothers. He the one who is the one must increase and I, the one who is not the one must decrease. And even though the text goes on to say some other things, most. Commentaries believe that these are the last words spoken by John the Baptist.

The words to come will be by the one who wrote the gospel. John the disciple. Can I promise you by him saying he must increase and I must decrease? These are not John's expression of his low self-esteem. He knew exactly who he was. He loved who he was, which by the way, I hope you know who you are today, even if mom and dad couldn't get it done to tell you who you are to reflect to you who you are, and no matter who else loves you, I hope you know that you are loved.

John knew that, but he also knew that he was not the one. He knew that Jesus was the one, and so there was only one option. When you're in the presence of the one, and that is to surrender all. Some of us might say,

not so easy for me, but John was a Bible guy. John the Baptist was a Bible guy. And again, the old Halo effect. We read about Bible stories and we read yeah, easy for them to say. He must increase. I must decrease. Not so easy for me to say that lives in the world, real world is if the Bible people didn't live in the real world.

This is what Richard Roar says. He says, I don't care who you are. The ego hates losing even to God. I don't want you to miss this little phrase that I haven't mentioned yet, which is a kind of a pathway into John the Baptist psyche in this moment. When he says he must increase and I must decrease.

This brother so much knew who he was and who he was not, loved who he was, but also knew the ultimate object of his love that he said. When I am simply the bride groom preparing the way for the bride, my joy is fulfilled. Do you know there's something in all of our brains that not only is sensitive to pain, but our brains are made by God to look for joy.

J John said, and I don't think this was just for him. When we understand, even though we've been created just a little lower than the angels, and we are God's beloved, sons and daughters, and Christ died for each of us as if there were only one of us. We are not the one. He is the center. We are not. And when we learn to surrender to him, even in the darkness, there's a strange thing that begins to happen like it happened with John.

Our truest joy in the intimacy of that relationship begins to be fulfilled now. John, the gospel writer weighs in. Again, we don't have time to get into all of this. Hope you can read it. Take a picture if you can't, and enlarge it. Read it later. Here's what John, the gospel author basically says, to follow up with the Baptist words.

He basically says, verse 31. Jesus is the one. Who comes from above and is above all. And whenever you see that word all used about any character in history, you can promise In Hebrew culture it was used of God. So basically, John here is implying we only talk about God as being all of anything. And now he's saying this one who is his beloved son is above all.

He is the one who testifies about what he has seen in glory because that's where he came from. He has eyewitness testimony of. Of eternity. He is the one who speaks the words of God. When he speaks. He's not just speaking out of his own human spirit. He's the one who has the full measure of God's spirit.

In the Old Testament, prophets had a half measure or a certain measure of God's spirit. Here John is saying he's not just one of the prophets, he is the prophet. He is the one who now has the full measure of God's spirit. He's the one who has be given all things by the Father. There's that key word all again.

He is the one who is especially loved by the Father. In the mystery of the Trinity, the Father looks at the son and says, I love you, son. And then in John 15, nine, a few chapters later, John talks about this again when he says, when he has Jesus saying, as the Father has loved me. With this special love.

That's how I'm loving you. Make your home in my love. What would our lives be like if we knew that the specially loved son, loved by the father this morning right now, whatever circumstance we find ourselves in is taking that love and he's offering it to us. In our brokenness, no matter what mom and dad gave, no matter what the workspace did for you last week or didn't, no matter how your kids treat you or how your illness is treating you, or the pain of life, to know that the one who is the one especially loved by the father is the one who gives you all of that love for his relationship with you.

And then finally, he is the one who alone gives eternal life. Are you catching this?

And then just to pile on, and again, we don't have time to go into this deeply, but this is what the rest of John says about the one he is the eternal Lagos coexistent with the Father in Eternity Pass. He's the only begotten son. He's the Lamb of God. He's the true temple. He's the son of man, the true temple, by the way, the place where heaven and earth finally meet.

That's why he cleaned out the mess from the temple. He's saying this age has passed. I am the temple now. He is the son of man quoted right from Daniel seven, the one who receives the kingdom from God the father. He's the messiah of the Savior of the world. He's the bread of life. He's the living water quenching Our thirst.

The bread who gives us what we need to eat and sustain. He's the light in our darkness. He's the door of the sheep fold. He's the good shepherd that loves the sheep. He's the only one who is absolutely one with the father. He's the resurrection in the life. He's beaten death. He's the way, the truth in the life.

The true vine, the one who loves us perfectly with God's love. He is the king. It out of the words of doubting Thomas who said, prove it to me. When he saw him, he never had to stick his finger into his side. We think that he did. And then he said, oh, yeah, now I, no. And all it says is Jesus appeared.

He said, I gotta feel it. I gotta see it. Jesus appeared. He knelt down and said, Lord and God,

he's the one. He must increase, we must decrease. So I've only got 45 minutes left. And it's funny, that's an old preaching joke. Alex has told it so many, and yet we laugh every time, don't we? It's always nervous. Laughter. What if they mean that? What if

no I get the drill. When I was pastor in my own church, deal with it, but I'm not I'm under authority here, so I try to be respectful. So to me, the obvious question is, what does this mean? Hopefully you're already feeling something. I honestly, I don't want you just to have a head full today, left brain.

I want you to feel something. These gospels are written to help us not only learn here left brain, but to experience something about Jesus that John is talking about. So this might seem oversimplified, but this is what I've come away with from myself. See if it help helps you. First of all, what does this all mean?

Maybe pretty clearly follow the one.

My sense is yes, but it can be difficult because there are so many imposters and they're slick. We get worried about Halloween because, oh, ghosts, and lemme, can I tell you not to try to get into the head of the powers of darkness, but Halloween, I think they're like, please focus on Halloween.

Please. Because they don't care. Angel of light. The ones we tend to leave Jesus for usually look fairly compelling. Not like some dastardly ghoul that wants to, eat us for lunch. So this is what I've come to call these these angel of light specters that want to take us away from following the one I call them Barbie Doll.

Jesuses. Now stay with me here when my girls were young. They had every kind of Barbie imaginable and I could know what kind of mood they were in. If I walked downstairs and saw how they were dressing up their Barbies,

there was Malibu Barbie feeling some kind of this way, you know about their lives. There was Cowgirl Barbie. Those are the only two I remember. I'm sure there were many more. When the guy that does my slides for me put these up, I thought, look, they kinda look like all the same kind of Barbie to me.

But can I tell you, as if you know anything about Barbies, there are more outfits that you can imagine that fit the mood of the one who's dressing them up. Do you know that with all that we're reading about in John's gospel, there's no mistaking what John is saying 300 years later. We had so dressed up Jesus in unrecognizable garb that we had to call a church council in three twenty five.

It's called the Council of EA to re-up on who he is.

So you're here are a few of my other favorites, vanilla Barbie. Jesus. You choose Jesus. I choose Buddha. All is well. They're both the same. We're following their teachings. Can I just promise you that John's Gospel does not leave that as an option. This is not to dis other religious expressions. I've come to believe that you can find pieces of the true God in almost every religious expression 'cause it's humanities reaching out to the divine that they may not quite understand.

So I'm not dissing any religion, but can I tell you, Jesus did not say, glad to share the stage with Buddha.

He was saying, I'm the one I must increase. You must decrease. How about this one? Christianity Barbie, Jesus.

The word Christianity, I think is a fine word, came to us in Antioch, the church in Antioch, 2000 years ago to describe the Christ ones.

Today there are 40,000 denominations. I know that's true because I read, I saw it on the History Channel. So if you don't believe what I'm saying, you can check it out with them. I can tell you this, I know to be true. 200 kinds of Baptist, say Baptist, which kind. So can you imagine if we get. Christianity is good.

The theology of Christianity as I understand it, at least in its purest form as we try to work toward that purest form, we keep working is good, but can be so confusing when slowly but surely we throw away or begin to leave behind our image to the one or our homage to the one and begin to align with some certain church.

I've thrown down with South, this is my fellowship. Can I promise you, however you are of benefit to me and I'm of benefit to you not because of the label or the building, but because you are the body of Christ. So as you embody the one, and I sense him when I come in and you sense him in me, then this is valuable.

But we have to keep remembering. We assemble bowing the need to the one. Yeah. We are not the one, even South Fellowship, I pastored three churches and there were, I can promise you in my arrogance as a younger guy, there were days when I really thought Jesus is lucky to have us. I had unconsciously thrown away my, the hu, the humble allegiance to the one and said, thank you for letting us somehow stumble our way into representing you each week.

I started to try to construct all the right programs so that we can just make sure that people wanna come. Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's about Jesus too. When people come in here, I can promise you they appreciate everything the staff does, everything that the volunteers do to, the food pantry and other things.

Please don't hear me not saying that, but those things are valuable as they help people see and sense the existence of the one who will deliver them from all. Amen. That has been oppressing them.

When my oldest daughter, who's sitting here today when she was four and I was dropping off a guy, one of my elders at his house and I said, see you later brother. And she said that she was sitting right next to me back before we had car seats. She's four facing the windshield. Some little seatbelt on.

What in the world will we doing? But anyway, sorry babe. She looked at me and she said, spontaneously, daddy, he's not your brother. I said, I'll never forget it. I said, babe, you're right. But in one sense he is because we both I,

I believe in Jesus and she said, I believe in Jesus Daddy. Of course I vetted that to see whether she's trying to please her dad or really finding him pretty quickly. I realized, look, she didn't put a trust in Christianity that day. That church ended up really messing up our family's existence. She put a trust in the one when I came to Jesus at five Guy sit, standing up there telling me I didn't know anything about the atonement.

I didn't know anything about church history. All good things to know, but what I sensed was he was talking about this guy named Jesus who loved me, and I came home like this to the one, and then I got swung back out into, can I just say there are better and not so better versions of Christianity in terms of representing Jesus.

I got sucked into a version in a church that tried to convince me that they were the one by the age of 36. I wanted to take my own life. Can I tell you who rescued me is not a better version of Christianity. The one came to me and saved my life, took me home to my daughters and my wife since that day, and I'm not trying to be coy and I'm not trying to tell you how to live your life.

This is my story. When somebody comes up to me, if I'm studying the Bible, I have this. This Bible out somewhere. First of all, they probably ask me, what did you do to that sacred book? But as I'm studying, if they might come up to me and say, what are you? What are you doing? They wanna know if I'm a Lutheran, they wanna know what set them apart.

I'd never fall into that trap since that day when I was rescued from a near suicide attempt. What I tend to say is, thank you for asking. Would you really like to know? And if they say yes, I say I follow Jesus of Nazareth and I love him because he is the one to me. He is my life. This is why the worship team wrecked me this morning.

I think you wrecked some of you 'cause in your hearts, we're singing about the one and then there's democracy. Jesus look. Don't you dare get me in the foyer and start talking to me about this. I love democracy. It's the best of all the failed systems. I've been to socialist countries. I've done my homework.

Historically, democracy will not deliver us from what plagues our hearts. And then there can be the USA Jesus. I've been to 15 countries. I'm always glad to get home to the old good old USA. And I honor all who have given their lives in service to our country that we hold dear. I hold the United States of America dear, but I can promise you the United States is not the one.

And then of course you've got the far right Barbie Jesus and the far left Barbie Jesus. And you know what makes me sad today? I hope it makes you sad. We've got so many of these Barbie jesuses floating around the broken world, can't see Jesus.

And then of course, we've got, and some of you don't be offended, please. You can, but let it go. Let it go. We've got Bible Barbie, Jesus, two chapters later, the Pharisees, who were like combing through the scripture, and it's a good thing to comb through the scripture. All scriptures inspired by God.

And given to us for our prophet comb through it. But remember what Jesus said to the Pharisees? You search the scriptures because you think they can give you life. These scriptures talk about me. Yeah, you want, you don't wanna come to me to have life. When you get here, find him the one because he's here.

If you have me preaching on Leviticus in two months, I can promise you I will find the one, because that was God's heart to give us. The one who must increase, will we decrease secondly, quickly. Keep following the one. Why would I say after? Follow the one. Keep following the one because if you haven't noticed, life is really hard.

There's a little throwaway line that Alex read earlier in the text for John had not yet been thrown into prison. Go back there in this moment, in John three he says. He must increase. I must decrease because he's the one. Do you know what happened? A few months. I don't know really chronologically how long it was, but it was after this when he got thrown into prison by Herod Anus.

You can see this in Matthew 11. He takes his disciples and said, go ask Jesus if he's the one or should we look for another? I can't tell you how many times over the years because of some pain in life, I don't have time to get into my own personal experiences. I have said are you the one.

So many times, even in my marriage, and you know how much I love my wife, we did a marriage thing with the community a few months ago and I hope it loses out of our pores. I'm absolutely in love with my wife, but she is her and I am me, and as much as we've tried to mold one another into our own images, it has never happened this week.

48 years of that, I can't tell you how many times we're at impasse. Just a couple of weeks ago, can I tell you I have been to marriage counseling. I would go back. Can I tell you what unstick us 100% of the time is when we're in the mode of trying to convince very passionately the other of the other's agenda when we bow the knee and seek the one he always meets us.

Most of the time he tells Carla that I was right. And so

you are sworn to silence. You must not share this with her. Are you kidding me? So many times, men, quite the opposite. As I bowed the knee and got out of my agenda before, the one who must increase. Even in my marriage, especially in my marriage, he comes. And he shows us the way Peter experienced this, just three chapters later when there was a bunch of people leaving Jesus 'cause of his hard teachings.

And he looked at Peter and said, are you gonna leave me too? And Peter says, where else can we go? Because you alone are the one. You alone have the words of eternal life. Don't shame yourself when you doubt. Own it. And after a period of time. Come home to the one who will not have left you. He will have been right where you left him, and he'll be there waiting for you with his profound love every single time.

Finally, share the one with your world. This is where I think we get mixed up. We think that people are looking for something besides him. Everything that we're looking for is in some ways, and yes, we all need food and shelter and clothing and relationship, yes. But in some way, every one of those needs is proxy for looking for the one.

So this is a picture of Ian Sy Ali who was. A former Muslim, and then she became a new atheist along with Christopher Higgins and Richard Dawkins, that whole crew in the early two thousands. She now has come home to Jesus because read her testimony. She's written about it because of Jesus. She couldn't get him in any of those other spaces, and this is what her heart was longing for.

This is Hatoon Tash, a former Muslim who did some exploring because her Imams couldn't answer quite the question. She was anyway, she found her way to Jesus and this is what got her. When she read that he died with open arms for her. She said, why would he do that for me except for his love? And she came home to the one.

This is my brother Samson. If you've read any of things that I've written about him. He, this has taken just a couple months ago. He just got out after 13 years in prison. This young man was one of the most broken human beings I'd ever met in my life. I don't have time to get into his story, but think Broken and his name is right next to it.

Family of Origin, the neighborhood he came, grew up in so much.

He came home to the one well see in our church. He sat on the back row and listened to my profound sermons that were asked. They were, we were, I was answering every theological question. No, that is now. He came home. He came home because of the love of that woman right there, a recovering heroin addict herself who loved him, Monique.

Head of our nonprofit who met him at the door and loved him. My wife, Carla, who he wrote a letter to her one time when he was in prison when she had cancer, and said, I would be willing to die for you if this cancer would go away. 'cause he knows the one. And he came to the one because of the love of the people around him who were living out even in their broken ways, the love of the one.

And then one last illustration. I cannot tell this. I've been listening to this podcast called The Surprising Rebirth of Believing God by a young British leader. And the statistics say that the younger generation is coming home, especially young men. That's another conversation looking, I think, for something to stand on, looking for who am I as a man?

But there's out of that need in the younger generation, especially Gen Z, in to lose France. There's been like this spontaneous in the last couple of years of spontaneous youth movement under a father Antonio, I think, and last year or the year before when they had their opening mass in the cathedral, seated about 2000, they had about 2000 students at that mass.

It wasn't a mass that might necessarily have attracted their demographic if you were just thinking about demographic. They just did the mass, some Latin, a few words in Greek, some in French, and when the priest. Lifted up the words of institution and don't get lost here in whether you believe in the Council of Trent or if you believe in the reformers and what they think about the words of institution.

Feel. This illustration, when the priests lifted up the sacrament, the blessed sacrament, and gave the words of institution that in the Catholic faith, in the Roman faith, they believe that this literally becomes. The body and blood of Christ at that moment. Speaking those words, 2000 students dropped to their knees

because they believed they were in the presence of the one. He must increase. We must decrease. I'm gonna leave you with this. As Aaron comes up with his team,

this is an image of Jesus that reminds me of John 1 29.

He's the lamb of God who comes to take away the sin of the world.

Jesus is holding this broken young man. It could have just as easily been a broken young daughter, and you notice he has a mallet, a hammer in one hand and a spike in the other. The imagery is quite clear that in our brokenness and in our sin, there's a very cosmic but very real way that all of us. Put him there, and he was there on that cross for us as the only one who could have been there.

There weren't any others that could have sacrificed for our sin. He was the perfect lamb of God, who because of his love, fought the shame with you and me on his mind, and took the burden of our sin. And in some cosmically true way that I'm still seeking to try to understand that death via love trumped the powers of darkness and their desire to hold us handcuffed for all eternity.

And he broke the chains and set us free because he's the one he must increase. We must decrease. Put your mind on him as we sing this song together.