Lessons from John 3: Serve Others
Which description characterizes your life: eternal life or condemnation? Light or darkness?
If you are a believer, how and with whom are you sharing God’s light?
We are not told what happened that night after Jesus met with Nicodemus, but we do know that in John 19 Nicodemus was one of the people who took Jesus’ body off the cross and carefully prepared His body and gave Him a burial place.
Also, we are told that Nicodemus did not vote with the Sanhedrin to put Jesus to death. It appears that he took hold of the light that had been given and is now in heaven with His Lord and Savior!
New Focus and Joy
After this, verse 22 tells us that Jesus and His disciples went out into the Judean countryside where Jesus spent some time with them. He was also baptizing people. While this was going on, John the Baptist was nearby also baptizing people because, as the scripture tells us, there was plenty of water. People were constantly coming forward for baptism.
And it appears that some of John’s disciples were jealous and concerned for John’s ministry (and probably more likely his popularity). They thought that he and his ministry were being set aside, or replaced, by Jesus.
If truth be told, they were probably really concerned about their own popularity in serving alongside John. We really don’t know for sure. However, John immediately refused the temptation to elevate himself or his ministry. Instead, he immediately turned their eyes to the one from which his power to teach others had come. It came from God who was over him.
And he reminded them that he was not the Christ, but merely the one sent ahead to point to Christ. John compared himself to a friend of the bridegroom who attends or helps the bridegroom. He said his job was to wait and listen and when he hears His voice, rejoice that joy is his, and it is complete. John stated that His main aim was to decrease so that Christ would increase.
John stated in verse 36 that whoever believes Jesus, not John, has eternal life. But whoever rejects Jesus will not see life, for God’s wrath will remain on them.
Believers’ joy increases as we focus on Jesus Christ rather than on ourselves.
In what way will you choose to decrease so that Jesus can increase in your life today?
Are you, like John, content with the place God has given you to serve or are you unhappy because you would rather have someone else’s job?
Does your attitude reflect discontentment and lack of joy?
If this is you, won’t you seek God and ask Him to renew your joy and confess your sin of discontentment in what He has given to you?
And then will you choose to follow John’s example of contentment and give God thanks for wherever He has placed you to serve others?
Terri Hamman
Faith & Fitness Coach