John 21:25
Now there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.
There’s a sense as John closes his gospel that the life of Jesus is in the past, but that’s entirely wrong. The point of what John is saying is that he’s been selective in reporting the details in order to provide you and me with just the right amount of material so that we will repent of our sin and believe on Christ. That’s the reason he’s written the gospel in the first place (20:31). Sure, John is historic, as he points out, but its intensely evangelical as well as an apologetic (a reasoned and logical defense over against critics) too. In fact, anyone who wishes to do the work of evangelism must remember that it’s Jesus Christ he/she is preaching and not some kind of vague deism.
So, there are many other things that Jesus did during His earthly ministry that aren’t included. We imagine that by the time He ascended there was nary a handicapped person left in all Israel. For three years He walked among them, healing all who came in faith. We do well to remember the lesson of this.
For all the great physical benefits He brought – the miraculous food that fed so many thousands, pleasing them, filling them, and astonishing them – and for all the relief from earthly maladies, they yet crucified Him. Yes, they murdered Him, their great benefactor. And none of those that were healed or fed were there to deliver Him. Indeed, we do well to meditate upon this truth because we can rightly conclude that no man was ever served a hotter dish of betrayal than the Lord. Such ingratitude! Such rank hypocrisy and evil from the rabble. Where were the former blind? Where were the cripples that could now run through the summer fields with joy? Where were the lepers that had known no human touch but could now hug and kiss a loved one? Where were those that he’d raised?
When we see the riots in our cities and streets, and watch a business burn because of anger or ignorance, we wonder. Man’s revolutions never fix man. We’re convinced our problems are outside of us, not our sinful hearts, so we tear through the world, devouring one another through greed, lust, envy, strife and even murder. But there hangs Jesus on the cross. He went there willingly because no power under the sun could have conquered Him. No. He went, thank God, because of His love and that love means that He hates sin and sin is only defeated this way – at the cross, through faith and faith alone.
Do you still harbor, after all this, some shadow of hope in the world? Do you still cling to your passions and think man needs politics or wealth or some other earthly thing to fix him? Do you still lie to yourself, whispering to your heart that if only this or that would happen, then you’d be all right? Well, then you’ve lost your way because you’ve fallen for that lie, that insidious falsehood that ensnares so many, that Christ died only because He loved you and not because He had to. Your sin and my sin had to die on the cross, Christian! There was no other way. What would it profit you if He came again and paid off your house, or gave you that job, or got you that woman or man you want? Is that what your soul craves? Then you still don’t understand. Do you see it? You could be crippled on Monday, healed and walking on Tuesday, and yelling, “crucify Him, crucify Him,” on Wednesday.
The church has lost its way because we’ve been convinced that Jesus is like any other possession we have. We speak of Him like we speak of our other things. We say, “oh, I got my degree and have my job and that’s my church.” My church? What a vacuous and dangerous thing to say. The only thing that’s ours outside of Christ is our sin. And unless we repent of this sin, this self-reliance, this self-absorption, and come to Him in faith, we have nothing. But when we do…oh! The blessing it is to come to Christ and know Him as Lord and Savior is far greater than getting any of those things we think we need to be happy. Sinners, after all, are never really happy in the way they think they’ll be. Christians achieve peace and joy; Christians, in Christ, by grace alone, have that great possession called blessedness and that’s not dependent on our circumstances, but on the unchangeable Christ. When we give our life to Him, we find it at last. He’s not, we must remember, an absentee savior/landlord. He’s the sovereign Lord of all.
So, the life of Christ isn’t over…it’s not in the past . Your life now is in Christ and you need to live it in faith. So many waste their talents in this world because they insist on living for Christ according to the world. They are scholars in the world’s marketing, experts in the schemes of man, masters of worldly business, but babes of Scripture. They don’t think that sin is important and it’s all depressing nonsense, then wonder why they are, in fact, depressed. They refuse to think of what it means for Christ to hang there, nailed, hammered into a tree…for them…for their sin…and, therefore, lose the whole context of their life. They let the world, not God, tell them what sin is. They let the world tell them that they can conform to the standards of society and thus be declared righteous by the social media minions while ignoring what the Bible says. There’s no power in the church precisely because we won’t preach about sin and without acknowledging sin we can’t see grace. This is the beauty and excellency of the cross. It shows us how we’re so prone to play one attribute of God over against another. It shows us that God’s love isn’t compromised, but rightly understood, in His hatred of sin. It levels everything. It’s foolishness to man because he’s convinced that he can fix the world through the latest scheme. But each attempt to unify only divides because it starts with the false premise that we aren’t sinners, but that they are. False gospels abound and they all have that one thing in common: you can stay the way you are but insist on fixing the world.
When you know this, and know that your greatest enemy – sin – is defeated by Christ, you can go out the door this day and say to the world, “do your worst!” What mealy-mouthed Christianity there is because Christians are more afraid of sinners than God. What mewling babies we are when we walk like “secret agent Christians” amongst the world instead of never letting the Word of life depart from our mouth. The level of fear and reticence you have over speaking the Word of God in public is directly proportional to your understanding of what happened at the cross and on that first Sunday morning. That’s the whole point of this study. Don’t go about things as before when you lived small, and wandered in a lonely universe without purpose or direction. Your walk now is in Christ. Follow Him and abide in His word and know that He is Lord over everything, every detail, every inch and corner of your life. Learn that His sovereignty is the greatest thing about your life now that you’ve come to Him in repentance. What Christ has done for you should empower your every day and every action but you must do it on His terms and know that the greatest act of heroism you’ll ever make is in rejecting sin and praising Him. Do it all in His name. Love your family in honor of Him. Go to work in honor of Him. Do every little thing in honor of the God who died for your sin and your life will be transformed. “I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father” (John 14:12).
Christ is risen. Live like it!
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