Passover is ended, so the Bible says after these things, Jesus and His disciples came into the land of Judea, and there He was spending time with them in baptizing. John also was baptizing because there was much water near Selene, and they were coming and were being baptized. John had not yet been thrown into prison. There arose, therefore, a discussion on the part of John's disciples with a Jew about purification. They came to John and said to him, Rabbi, he was with you beyond the Jordan to whom you have born witness behold. He's baptizing and all are coming to him. John said, a man can receive nothing unless it's been given him from heaven. You yourselves bear me witness that I said, I am not the Christ, but I have been sent before him. He who has the bride is the bridegroom, but the friend of the bridegroom who stands and hears him rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom's voice. And so this joy of mine has been made full. He must increase. I must decrease. He who comes from above is above all. He who is of the earth is from the earth and speaks of the earth, but he who comes from heaven is above all. What he has seen and heard of that, he bears witness, and no man receives his witness. He who has received his witness has set his seal to this, that God is true, for he whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for he gives the spirit without measure. The Father loves the Son and has given all things into his hand. He who believes in the Son has eternal life, but he who does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him. Now my God bless this reading of his holy and infallible word, truly the grass withers in the flower fades, but not the word of God. Know the word of God stands forever. Man, be seated, please. You know, as you're seated, I just want to give you a chance to pray. Would you do that? Would you just bow your heads? Would you make this your prayer? Would you ask God to be your teacher as we study the Bible? The one who stands before you is thick of mine, his tongue is slow, his spirit is weak, it's Jesus we need, it's the spirit we need, it's the Word of God. Would you ask God to enlighten your mind and make your heart soft that you might meet him now? Would you ask that? Lord, you must love it when your children say to you, speak Lord, we're listening. And so do that, we pray, in Jesus' name, amen. On a quiet Saturday afternoon, a fourth year medical student in Dallas came across a man dying in a VA hospital, suffering from a rare cancer and hooked up to an oxygen tank, the man in Orthodox Jew could barely breathe let alone speak. There were no friends or relatives by his bed to comfort him. When the young student walked into his room, the man looked at her and said, Now that I'm dying, I realize I never really learned how to live. It's tragic, isn't it? Come all the way to the end of your life to realize that maybe you have days, maybe you have hours and say I missed it. I never really learned how to live. I never have been really alive. Henry David Thoreau wrote, I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately. And not when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. You can be alive, but not live well. If you might remember at the end of the movie Braveheart, the story of the Scottish liberator, Freedom Fighter, William Wallace, he's in prison, he's going to be executed. The Princess of Wales comes to him and begs him to swear fidelity to the king to be exonerated and released. And Wallace will not do it. She says, if you won't do it, then you'll die when Wallace responds, every man dies. But not every man really lives. What does it mean to really live? After all, who wants to live if you're not going to really live? In John chapter 3, we meet a man at the end of his life. We meet a man who's going to live a very short life, John the Baptist. And yet when he comes to the end of his life, he can say what? My joy has been made full. This is a man who's going to die, he's going to be beheaded, he's going to be in prison, he's been rejected most of his life for the message that he brings. And he can stay at the end of his life. My joy has been made full. I have had a full and satisfying life. What would it mean to be able to say that? I have learned to live well. Take your sermon outline and follow along and we'll study together. Now, to live well, and you might know that I've altered the outline just a little bit, to live well is to embrace purity as a gift of grace. Follow me now, to live well is to embrace purity as a gift of grace. What does it take for a man to be right with God? What's it take for someone to be pure, right before God? To have their sins removed, to have nothing between them and God to be a peace with God? Surveys show that it's the most common question today that people would like asked if they went to church. I'd like to know how to be right with God. If I went to church, those who don't go to church say, that's what I'd like them to tell me. I'd like to know how to be pure, how to be right with God. It was the big question 2000 years ago, you can see it right in the scriptures here in verse 25. There arose a discussion, there arose a dispute between John the Baptist disciples and a Jew who was present about purification. Why were they arguing about purification? It's because the ministry of John and Jesus has turned everything upside down. The system of the day was a system of rules and regulations and rituals. If you want to be right with God, then you abstain from certain foods, you abstain from certain behaviors, you abstain from laboring on the Sabbath. If you want to be right with God and you don't touch your life this time of the month, if you want to be right with God, you don't touch your grave, you don't walk through a cemetery. If you want to be right with God, you don't eat this, you do eat that, you tie this, you don't tie that. You must take, there was one sect that said, you've got to take a cold bath every morning. You must do this, you must do that, you must bring the sacrifices, you must honor the feast, you must, you must, you must. On to the scene comes John the Baptist and he starts baptizing a baptism of purification in the wilderness. Now, look far and wide at the Old Testament, you don't find baptism, do you? Where in the world of baptism come from? The only thing we know is that there was a ritual that deduced practice that if a Gentile wanted to convert to Judaism, there was a baptism ritual. But John the Baptist is out in the wilderness and he's not baptizing Gentiles, he's baptizing. Jews, this was highly offensive to the religious structure of the day. That the Jews themselves had to come out and experience this ritual of purification. Jesus begins his ministry and he goes to a wedding and at the wedding they run out of wine. So he turns water into wine and he does it in the large water pots that were reserved for rituals of purification. Jesus is saying, the old ways are over, these pots have a new use. And then Jesus goes from there to the temple and what does he do? He kicks over the tables, he sends out the vendors, he sends out those making animal sacrifice. The announcement is crystal clear, there's a whole new day of purification that's coming. If you want purification, you can earn it. It's a gift from God. Or by grace who you save through faith and not of yourselves it is a gift, not of works. Unless any man should boast it's a gift of God to be made right by God. Listen very closely to what I'm about to say. Our chief failure in learning to live well is that we exhaust ourselves trying to earn what can only be given to us by grace. We exhaust ourselves. We live under constant pressure to perform. All of us, not talking about non-Christians, I'm not talking about this group, all of us. It's in our DNA to try to deal with our own sins, to try to make ourselves right, to try to make ourselves better, constant pressure. The need to perform feels more urgent than the need to know and trust God. Who does that make you think of in the Bible if you're versed in the Bible? Martha, Martha, why are you troubled by so many things? Scurrying around, serving. Jesus has come to our house, scurrying around, fixing, working, working. Come, sit at my feet. Rest, rest. We don't know that. We don't know how to do that. Our bent, we feel it's urgent to perform. We don't feel an urgency to be still and no God. We work to improve and impress and succeed. But we will never become, you know, as hard as we work. Bible verses will learn, you know, principles, resolve, effort, energy. You'll never be that hot. You'll never be God's standards. In fact, you won't even meet your own standards. I'll never do it. Once a 12-year-old girl said it used to be all a little girl needed to be was pretty. Now you have to be pretty, smart, and athletic. Wow, do you know the pressure that children feel? Could it be why so many children are on antidepressants? The pressure of little girls that they feel in this culture? Not good enough if you're not pretty, if you're not smart, if you're not athletic, if you don't have it all. It's not just a young, but all of us feel pressure to make ourselves better than what we are. It's the way of all religion. The fellow just got back from India and he was writing, I just read this week about everywhere you go in India. The Hindu temples, they're sacrificing goats. They cut the throats of the goats, the goats twitch for about 70 seconds as the blood drains out of them. Thousands of goats every day. Why? Because the gods have to be satisfied. If you want the gods to smile on you, you better satisfy the gods. You've got to make yourself right before God. That's the way of all world religion. Every world religion says that. You had better be at it every day when you get up when your feet hit the floor, making yourself acceptable to God. The guy said in the same Hindu temples, he saw a place where they flick butter on two particular gods, a female and a male deities, to keep them cool. Because you don't want your gods hot. There's a lot of ways that we flick butter in our lives as well. We feel that rules and resolve can lead to purity. Just like we think that rules and resolve can lead to good diets and good exercise and it just doesn't work. We don't have it within us. You know, these abstinence education is a good thing. Let's teach children that in sexual education, they ought to abstain from sexual practice before marriage. They did a study in Northern Kentucky University on 600 students who made the pledge abstinence of the 600 who pledged high school students to abstain from sex until marriage after one year, 81% of them had broken the pledge. Rules and resolve will not make us pure. We cannot make ourselves pure. It cannot be done. Trying hard doesn't lead to a life well-lived. It does not lead to rest and peace. It leads to exhaustion and fear. Most people who go to church in North America find it to be exhausting. Most people who are practicing North American Christianity find it to be exhausting. Fearful. They don't find it to be a thing of rest. Purity is something that is a gift. Look at verse 27 of chapter 3. How do we stand pure before God? A man can receive nothing unless it is given to him from heaven. It's a matter of grace. We must be washed and clothed by Jesus. You cannot make yourself clean. Only Jesus can clean you. Your sins are attributed to him. You cannot make yourself pure. Only Jesus can. His purity is attributed to you. All the performing that needs to be done has been done by Jesus and we get credit for it. That's the message of the Bible from end to end. A woman came up to me after the last service, tears rolling down her face. She said, I've gone to church all my life and I have been so filled with guilt and duty and obligation. Jesus did for me everything that I could not do. And I am supposed to rest in what he did not try to do it myself. This is the most radical thing I've ever heard. It is. It's called the gospel. It's not like Christianity is just one other in a whole panorama of religions. Are you kidding? There's no other religion that would propose anything like this. The God himself would enter into the world and keep every law for you that you could never do. The Marine Corps, there's a Marine Corps commercial that shows the Marine Corps sword and underneath are the words boldly emblazoned, earned, not given. Want to be a Marine and you sweat and you labor and you discipline and you work. You earn it, buddy. It's not given. But what would be the Christian motto? Earned. It's earned, too. Earned by Jesus and given freely to you. Earned by Jesus. You know, that's an important point because a lot of people just think the Christian motto would be given, not earned. And I know it's earned. Every day of his life, Jesus kept the law. He built a perfect record. And to live well is to trust that record, not yours. Hear me again. Most North American church goers are exhausted with duty and obligation. What did Jim say? He talked about people serving at harvest, serving here, serving there in the church. That's not always a good sign. The question is, what compels them to serve? Are they compelled to serve out of duty and obligation and fear and guilt? Or are they compelled to serve out of the wonder of love and grace and mercy that God's forgiveness and purity has been bestowed on them? And they have it at no cost to them. A man went in the commissary on the military base to get his groceries. All he was getting was bread and milk. And when the woman at the counter said, hey, there's this big thing here. And you can pick a ticket and you win. You get your groceries through. Well, at a waste. I mean, he looked around. The woman behind him had cleaned out a whole section of the store. She had a DVD in her cart. She had blue jeans and clothes and household products and food. She was just, this looked like a once-a-decade shopping trip for this woman. So he asked the lady at the checkout counter. He said, how many tickets in here are winning tickets in the thing? She said, just one. Well, it was huge. So he reached his hand and picked it out and handed it to her and she said, you won! Now, this is a quick-thinking guy. He's got his bread and his milk. He turned around to the woman behind him and said, honey, we won! We won! And she's standing there stunned with a quizzical look and he's winking as rapidly as he can. We won! We won! All this is free! And so she quickly got in the act and came up and gave him put her arm around him and said, we never win anything! This is great! We won! And they got it all free and they went outside in the parking lot and they, she gave him a big hug and kissed. And she went on her way with all that stuff free. I don't like the illustration pastor. They stole. It's just a story. So relax. And the point of the story is this. Is that you're somebody's bride. And it probably ought to be just about as that sudden to you and that's surprising. That you're somebody's bride and you're not somebody's bride for just a moment. You're somebody's bride for all eternity. And because of that, you get it free. You bring nothing into the marriage but you get it free. That's what it means to live well. What it means to live well is that I rest in Jesus. I don't labor to perform, to earn God's pleasure. I have it because I have Jesus. And I rest in that. I rest in that. Do you think that'd be a good thing to work on? Do you think that'd be a good thing to try to grasp? Let me tell you, you're looking at somebody who has wrestled his whole life with anxiety. Has wrestled his whole life. Sometimes I sit in that chair on sunny morning and I say I cannot walk up there and do what I'm about to have to do. God, I can't do it. I am so afraid how much I need to learn this truth. Jesus, I am resting, resting in the joy of what thou art. I am finding out the promise of thy loving heart. I'm finding out the greatness of thy loving heart. Do you know what it means to rest in Jesus? To rest in Jesus is to live well. Second, I want you to see in John the Baptist we find that to live well, you've got to know your place. You've got to take the lesser place. John the Baptist disciples are angry and bitter. You can see it right here, it's about verse 26. They came to John and they said to him, Rabbi, he was with you beyond the Jordan to whom you have born witness. Behold, he's baptizing and everybody's going to him. They're saying, John, you used to be the man. You used to be the headliner. You used to be the hottest ticket in town. They used to be lined up to bleach your standing room all the way to see you do your thing. And now they're all leaving. And now they're all going to Jesus. I mean, he was nothing. He would have been nothing if you hadn't have blown his trumpet. If you hadn't have heralded him. And you can see their words are filled with jealousy and envy and bitterness. Hey, listen. If we can understand that, can't we? We ought to be honest about that. In our hearts of hearts, we want to be heralded in our heart. If you've been a Christian church girl a long time, you don't like to say that. But inside, we could jealous when others are promoted, when others are praised, when others are recognized, or when their kids are. How can that coach not see that my kid is an excellent bronze age? How can they not see that? The kid is, okay, they can't make anything and they can't walk without falling down. But I know they're potential. Why is that kid third chair in the orchestra? They're brilliant. We want to be pushed to the forefront. We want to be recognized. You know what John, however, says to his disciples, he says to them, I am not the Messiah. I'm not the Christ. I am not the groom. I'm the best man. It'd be utterly unsavory for the best man to show up in the wedding dressed better than anyone else in the wedding party. It'd be unsavory for him to make his way down the center aisle to stand above the groom, to kind of pose and present and steal the show, wouldn't it? That's not the place of the best man. And what would really be unsavory is if the best man did what? It started to make eyes at the bride. If he started to try to steal the bride away, if he wanted the affection of the bride for himself, so John the Baptist says, I'm not the groom. The love and affection of the church is not for me. It's to be for the groom. I'm the best man. My job is to make the groom's day. I must decrease. He must increase. Now there's the calling upon our lives. My life's role is to be, John the Baptist, his star is not only going to decline, they're going to take him away and they're going to cut his head off and he's going to be dead. He had no family. He had no wife. He had no children. Soon he will have no life. He gave it all up for Jesus' sake. And when he could see all of his life being spent for Jesus, all of the crowds that used to follow him leave, he can still say what? My joy is made for him. Now I just want you to stop and listen. Put your books down. Put your pens down and zone in for just a minute. He who wants to find his life will lose it. North Americans could, God, by his spirit, help you to hear that. He who wants to find his life will lose it. If you want to live life, the way that you live life, is the, I must decrease, he must increase life. We are so fooled. We are so captured. I'm telling you, nobody comes back from a ski trip and says, that changed my life. That changed my life. You can sometimes send somebody for it. Two hour stint at the, at the, at the, at the food bank and they'll come back and say, I'll never be the same. Why is that? It's because the one who humbles himself will be exalted. The one who, um, exalts himself will be humbled. You want to be my disciple? Deny yourself. Take up your cross and follow me. Now my preaching gives us life of abstinence and suffering and pain and a hardship. Maybe? Down the Baptist went to prison. Every other disciple was murdered. And when they died, they said, what? My joy is made. This is the best life. Ask people who have suffered for Jesus what they say. What would they say? I wouldn't do it any different ever. This is the best life. Gosh, this is the hard one for us in North America, isn't it? Because we've been told a bill of goods. We've been told it's about the nice house and the, and the Labrador Retriever and the fence and the SUV. Let's go down to international mall. Let's do lunch. This is the life shopping. Dietrich Bonhoffer, when War broke out in Europe, who was so disgusted with the German's church cowardice in the face of Adolf Hitler, that Bonhoffer went to England to pastor. There he found a community of Germans who wanted to be serious about the faith and serious about the church. It would be a safe harbor during those turbulent war years. Until a letter came from Carl Bart, famous German theologian to Bonhoffer, which said, you are a German. The German, the house of the German church is on fire. You are bright enough and powerful enough to do something about it. Get on the next ship and return to your post soldier. Life in this world is not finding, but now I want to find a nice place for my family to live. Gosh, when I hear seminary students say that, I want to take a baseball bat to their knees. I'm telling you. Oh, we found a great place to go do ministry. They got a mall, they got a gap. The turn to your post soldier. The church has the need of the Bonhoffer went back. He actually tried to assassinate Hitler. He planted the bomb under the table. Hitler didn't die. Bonhoffer went to prison. When the allies were liberating the camps of prisoners as they moved in on Berlin, the last prisoner executed by the Germans on Hitler's order, Dietrich Bonhoffer. Pure hatred. He was hung with piano wire. Bonhoffer said, when Jesus calls you, he bids you come and die. Why is it that those who get that have the best life? When Jesus calls you, he bids you come and say, I must decrease. He must increase. It's his glory. It's his honor. So that working at harvest, driving your neighbor to the doctor, giving your life away, going to clear water to help a friend in the church is grieving at our mother's funeral, going to Gainesville and praying for Dana Wilkes and visiting him in the hospital, giving your life away is life. Two or three weeks ago, I was with my daughter and we went to a movie. This movie was so bad that I think it was released in two theaters in America. It's called Beyond Borders or something. Nobody went. Matter of fact, we weren't a theater about the size of this room and my daughter and I and two other people on the opening night. And it was all about refugees taking care of refugee war orphans and refugee camps and other parts of the world. And when the movie was over, my daughter sat there speechless and she said, I love that. She said, when I am involved helping the poor, she said, I feel so alive. And God gives us eyes to see that the way up is down. It's to become less. It's to be the best man, not the grown. Third, last. You want to live well? You live well when you become less, that Christ might become more. As we just said, you live well when you understand the purity of the gift of grace. And you live well when you embrace Christ alone for life. It's Christ and Christ alone. It's the way to life. There's life in Christ and there's life in no other. We live in a culture that says believe in yourself. You know what the Bible says? Don't you dare. You're not trustworthy. Don't believe in yourself. Believe in Jesus. Believe in your faith, your whole trust and faith in Him. Your faith, your convictions, your moods, your experiences. They're worth about this much. Put your faith in Christ. Trust Him. Don't trust yourself. Spirit to sanctuce non-escepticists. The Holy Spirit is not esceptic. His assertions are truer than faith in life itself. You're having some life experience and it's giving you doubt. Trust the word of God more than you trust what you see or what you feel or what you experience or what your friends tell you. Trust in Jesus. Put your trust in it's the one sure thing. It's the sound of life. We live in a day in which we're told you're not allowed to have convictions. You're not allowed to believe in absolute truth. It's arrogant to do that. You're supposed to doubt everything. Doubt everything about yourself. Doubt nothing about Jesus. John the Baptist didn't. He's facing death. Look at verse 33 and following. He has received his witness and said his seal to this that God is true. For he whom God has sent speaks the words of God that he gives the Spirit without measure. The Father loves the Son and has given everything into the Son's hand. He who believes in the Son is eternal life. He who does not obey the Son shall not see life. Put the wrath of God abides on him. You don't know how unpolitically correct Jesus and John the Baptist are. John the Baptist says that if you have Jesus, you have life. If you don't have Jesus, you don't have life and the wrath of God is on you. How popular is the notion of the wrath of God. We live in the day where we're to be inclusive. We're not allowed to say that there's anything, any behavior that's wrong, any belief that's wrong because to say that is to be arrogant. Yet John the Baptist says if you have the Son, you have life. If you don't have the Son of God, then the wrath of God is upon you. Wrath, not very popular. I was in the airport in Atlanta a couple of weeks ago and I was buying a book at the newsstand and the lady checking me out was really very nice. I guess I looked awfully weary because she looked at me and she said, damn hard week, huh? And I said, yeah, I'm tired. I'm ready to get home. And she said, well, what is it you do? Well, actually, I'm a preacher and all the blood just drained right out of her face and she said, well, how about I just take back that little D-A-M? And I said, that's okay. And actually, that D-A-M, that's a biblical word. She said, well, thanks for being professional about it. Damnation is a biblical word. Listen to what I'm about to say because you walk out of here and you won't understand you'd be mad if you don't. God is not inclusive. In fact, if we could say anything, he's all exclusive. All across the board, everybody falls short. Nobody measures up. We live with this notion, and I hear it all the time. People say, come to God just as you are. He loves you just as you are. If he loves you just as you are, why that little untidy business about the cross? If you're lovely just as you are, then Jesus wouldn't have bothered, would he? But the fact is, is that we are foul as we are. In Christ, if there was any other way, would have found it. But he comes and he lays down his life and he dies for us, because it's the only way to redeem us and make us acceptable to God. The message of Christianity has never been, God loves you, no matter who you are, and how you behave. The message of Christianity has never been, come to God as you are. The message of Christianity has always been, come to God with Jesus. Come to God with the covering of Jesus. Just as I am without one plea, except that thy blood was shed for me. It's not come as you are because he loves everyone as they are. He loves no one as they are. But he loves his, what does he love? He loves his son. So if you come to God with his son, then he's not about you. And that's utterly inclusive. Anybody can come, no matter how rotten you are. Just look around the room as proof. If you'll go with Jesus, if you'll go with Jesus, anybody can come, because you contribute nothing and he contributes everything. A man went to Bill Bright, the founder of Campus Crusade for Christ, and was interviewing him about the great success of that ministry. And when he got to the end, he just said he asked Dr. Bright, what does Jesus mean to you? And he said Dr. Bright couldn't answer. He just wept. I would like to live like that. What does Jesus mean to you? To be able to say, you know what Jesus means to me once I was lost? Now I am found. Once I was blind. Now I see. Once I had no family. Once I was an orphan. Once I was in the dark. Now I am a son of the living God. What does Jesus mean to me? I couldn't even begin to tell you. That's living well. You know what it means to live well? It's to believe that you have a heavenly father. Who wants in your relationships. He wants in your meals. He wants in your eating. He wants in your marriage. He wants in your parenting. He wants to do all of life with you every day. He cares about your health. He cares about your grandkids. He cares about your boyfriend. Your girlfriend. He cares about that test you have tomorrow in school. He cares about it all. That's the life well to believe that. It's to know that. Last Saturday night. I didn't come to church. It was a big weekend at our church. Consecration going over the new building and everything. And I wasn't here. And I felt bad about not being here. I wanted to be here. It was an important weekend. But there was something more important. Last Saturday night. My daughter's volleyball team. She plays on advanced to the state playoffs. And I look back because of Saturday night church. When she gets dressed for prom. I don't get to see her. I'll dress up. I'm a church. When she gets dressed for homecoming. I don't get to see it. I'm a church. When she had senior night. Her last home volleyball game. I wasn't here. I was on a church trip. And I said, I'm not missing this. If I have to, if I'm not here for building dedication Sunday, whatever, I'm going to go to this game. And then wherever it is. Well, then it ended up in Carabell, Florida. Wherever that is. It's just the other side of the moon. Carabell, Florida. So we drove, we drove, we drove, we drove. We went to the game. And I want you to know that at that game, something was unleashed in me. I stood on the bleachers making an absolute with some of the other fathers, an absolute obnoxious fool out of myself. Jumping up and down, stamping on the bleachers, banging the side of the gym with every play. You know, hitting the aluminum on the side of the gym as loud as we can't throw my hand was just swollen. Just an absolute idiot out of myself. Mission accomplished. Because if I'd like anything for my daughter to know, it'd be to look back someday at her old man and say he was ridiculously in love with me. He'd make a fool out of himself for me. Because he's for me. Living well means you believe that you have a God who would make a fool out of himself for you. He might even hang on a cross naked. For you. That's how crazy he is about you. For you on that, you'll live well. Amen.