The following message is by pastor John Piper.

More information from Desiring God is available at

W.W.

Desiring God.

O. R. G.

Welcome to those of you who are worshiping at the Mountsview campus and at the South campus down in Burnsville.

I pray that the Lord would draw you in now

to pray and worship in the hearing of the word of God. So Father, here we are now gathered on these

campuses to hear the word of God. And I pray that you would come, that you would come there in Burnsville and you would come

there in Moundsview and you would come here downtown.

And you would cause us to see the upside down

counterintuitive joy

of this strange man, John the Baptist, and make us like him.

Make me like him. And his joy was now full as he decreased and Christ increased.

Come and do that crazy joy in us. I pray in Jesus name. Amen.

So Jesus is finished talking to Nicodemus.

And the scene changes and he is now in a Judean countryside, it says, baptizing with his band of men.

Although it says in verse 2 of chapter 4 Jesus himself did not baptize but only his

disciples presumably for a reason something like Paul's in Corinth where he was very concerned

that people would brag I got the real deal I got the real baptism from the main man

so I presume that's

that's one of the reasons why he didn't do it himself.

...