Over the next several weeks I want to take a look at John the Baptist and the model of leadership in the forerunner ministry. In these days the Lord is raising up leaders all over the earth who will prepare the earth for the second coming of Jesus, just as John the Baptist was raised up as a forerunner to prepare the way of His first coming.
Today I am going to introduce the passage that we will be using to find our leadership principles and giving the context for understanding the passage.
25Therefore there arose a discussion on the part of John’s disciples with a Jew about purification. 26And they came to John and said to him, “Rabbi, He who was with you beyond the Jordan, to whom you have testified, behold, He is baptizing and all are coming to Him.” 27John answered and said, “A man can receive nothing unless it has been given him from heaven. 28You yourselves are my witnesses that I said, ‘I am not the Christ,’ but, ‘I have been sent ahead of Him.’ 29He 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. So this joy of mine has been made full. 30He must increase, but I must decrease.” (Jn 3:25-30)
In this passage John the Baptist’s disciples come to him concerned with the fact that his disciples are departing from him to follow Jesus. John had come in the wilderness preaching repentance and the coming of the kingdom of heaven. From this one man’s preaching in the Judean wilderness, all of Judea and Jerusalem heard of him and began to come out to the Jordan River valley to hear him.
As some heard him, he began to take for himself disciples. The Scripture says that he took disciples for the very purpose of pointing them to Jesus. Yet, as his ministry began to grow there was fervor around John’s ministry. The commotion continued to grow until the religious leadership of Jerusalem sent a delegation out to the wilderness to ascertain his identity. To put it shortly, John was quickly becoming one of the most popular men in Israel.
After the baptism and temptation of Jesus, John began to point his disciples to the Lamb of God. Yet, even by John 3, several of his disciples have not left to follow Jesus. It is these disciples who come to John concerned that Jesus is taking all of John’s disciples for Himself.
John’s answer to his disciples gives us unique insights into how John saw himself before the Lord, as well as how he saw his ministry before Jesus. Over the next several weeks I want to discuss several paradigms that are found within this passage pertaining to leadership and ministry. I believe that the Lord will bring forth men and women throughout the earth as leaders with these paradigms.