Read: John 3:22-30
Sometimes people-pleasing looks like not wanting to say hard truths that others wouldn’t want to hear. Sometimes it looks like making sure you get credit for what you accomplish, or wanting a specific person to admire you or be proud of you. And sometimes it looks like wanting to be popular, famous, or to have a lot of influence.
If we gravitate towards that last one, trying to build a big name for ourselves, then John the Baptist would be an amazing man to take notes from.
John the Baptist was one of the greatest men who ever lived (Jesus himself said this in Luke 7:28). And while there’s a lot we could learn from him, his interaction in John 3:22-30 is particularly compelling when thinking about living for an Audience of One.
John’s whole deal was baptizing people (hence the nickname), and in John 3 word is starting to spread that Jesus was also beginning to baptize people. Now, John had built up a decent following. He had quite a bit of influence among those wanting to learn more about God.
But when Jesus shows up, people are beginning to leave John to go follow Jesus.
So some of John’s disciples show up and give a status report, basically saying, “Boss, we got a problem. You’re losing followers cause they’re all going to follow Jesus.”
What would you have said if you were in John’s shoes? Maybe you would be tempted to be jealous, to start to panic, or to try to rebuild your personal brand to get new followers.
But not John. Instead, he says that he is “filled with joy” because “He [Jesus] must become greater and greater, and I must become less and less.”
What if we could adopt the same attitude? What if we actually saw it as a great thing when we made a smaller splash so Jesus could make a bigger splash? What if instead of trying to make ourselves famous, we focused all of our attention on getting out of the way so we could make Jesus famous?
Perhaps we could impact lives as John did.