John was saying two things to his disciples. The first message was that he could not teach them anything more. He had taken them as far as he could; it was time for them to follow somebody else. John pointed them in the direction of Jesus and told them to follow Him. Later on, when Jesus began His ministry, He too could be seen baptizing people in the Jordan River. Somebody came up to John and said “That man named Jesus that you just baptized the other day is now across the river doing what you are doing, and a lot of people who were coming to you are now following after Him.” At that point, just to make sure that everybody around him understood what was going on, John said, “I must decrease and he must increase."

This is good advice for disciples of Jesus in every generation; we need to stop following anybody and everybody but Jesus. I may read something about what Oprah or Dr. Phil said; but I am going to follow Jesus. I may have been a follower of some other religion at some earlier point in my life, but from now on I am going to follow

Jesus. I may get a lot of advice from commercial advertisements, or partisan political appeals, or infomercials on TV, but I am determined to follow Jesus.

Not only that, but it is important for me to tell other people not to model their lives after me in any way, shape or form. Do not try to preach like me, or dress like me or do anything like me. Take your eyes off me and follow Jesus. He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world; follow Jesus. He is the sinless savior who redeems us from the grip of hell. He is the way, He is the truth, He is the door, He is the light of the world, He is the bread of life. Follow Jesus.

Not only should we follow Jesus and nobody else, but once we start to follow Jesus we need to do what Jesus Himself was willing to do. There are two passages of Scripture I invite you to consider today. The first one is found in Phil. 2:5-11: “Your attitude should be the same as Christ Jesus, Who, being in very nature God, Did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, But made himself nothing, Taking the very nature of a servant, Being made in human likeness, And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled himself and became obedient unto death, Even death on a cross…”

The Greek word that is translated as “your attitude” is the word phroneo and it carries the sense of a mindset or a way of thinking. In essence it says that we should have the same mindset as Christ or we should think in the same way that Christ was thinking in this passage.

Consider the full implications of what is being said here. It begins by saying that Jesus could count equality with God as something He already possessed. Jesus was already co-equal with God in the power and mystery of the Trinity. Jesus is the preexistent person referred to in Gen. 1:26 when God said, “Let us make man in our own image and after our likeness.” Jesus is the eternal logos, the eternal truth mentioned in John 1:1-3 that says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.” Creation begins with Jesus sitting at God’s right hand. Jesus did not need to be invited into God’s presence; He dwells in the presence of God at all times.