Abraham Kuyper was a Dutch politician, theologian, and author who was born in 1837 and died in 1920. He even served as the Prime Minister of the Netherlands between 1901–1905. One of his more famous quotes for those familiar, comes from a speech that he once gave before a university audience in Amsterdam.

He was arguing that scholarship is an important form of Christian discipleship. Since scholarship deals with God’s world, it has to be done in such a way that it honors Christ because Christ own’s the world, which means he owns everything in it: the church and the academy, and he concludes his speech with these impassioned words: “There is not one square inch of the entire creation about which Jesus Christ who is Sovereign over all does not cry out, ‘This is mine! This belongs to me!’”

This is precisely the truth that John the Baptist had come to know and believe by divine revelation from God. This is exactly the truth about the power and glory and sovereignty of Christ which compelled him to remind his disciples of in our text, today. This is the sublime truth about the immeasurable love of God the Father for His Son, who has given to him all things—all authority—all power—Sovereignty over all—that makes the Father’s giving of us his Son for us, even more unthinkable.

And it is this truth about the all-encompassing superiority and supremacy of Christ that caused John to faithfully do what God had called him to do—to profess—to be a messenger, a forerunner, a proclaimer of the coming of this Majestic Messiah—and as his own ministry is coming to end because the Messiah, Jesus, has arrived—to now confess that it is all about Jesus. He must increase, I must decrease.

And that must be the motto of your Christian life…Jesus Must Increase, I Must Decrease. More Him, Less Me. All Him, No Me…Because Christ is Greater than all. Christ was before all. Christ created all. Christ owns all. And because salvation and forgiveness of sin, eternal life is all wrapped up in him, CHRIST IS ALL!