Word of Salvation – Vol.45 No.14 – April 2000
Jesus Teaches Us To Live Again
An EASTER Sermon by Rev P. Kossen on John 20:24-31
Scripture Readings: Revelation 21; John 20:24-31
Suggested Hymns: BoW 144; 443:1,3,4; 72:1,6; 440; 531; Rej 436; 355
Brothers and sisters in our Lord Jesus Christ.
Boys and girls, have you ever played Monopoly? It’s fun isn’t it. You have to go around the board, buying land, and houses and hotels, train stations, light and energy and so on. Every time you go around the board, you collect your money at ‘Go.’ And then you have your chance cards, and your other cards where you might get lucky, or, might get unlucky. If you are like us, you put the collected money in the middle, and then race around to try and land on ‘free parking’.
But at the end of the game, what do you do? You put it back in the box. It doesn’t go on forever. It’s only a game. And then, it doesn’t matter if you win or lose, because, everything goes back in the box. The train stations, the money, the houses and hotels. At the end of the game, it all goes back in the box.
Sometimes life, too, can seem like a monopoly game. We just keep going around the board. One year after another. There is that bumper stick which says, “He who dies with the most toys, wins.” Life is almost like a race for success. We have to keep running until we retire, and then for a few golden years enjoy life. And then, just like that monopoly game, we have to put it all back in the box again; everything we worked so hard for. Sorry, the game’s finished — back in the box. Everything we lived for and found our happiness in — sorry, it’s finished. Back in the box. All of us have to put it back in the box again. And then what? Will that be hard to do — to lay it all aside, to let it all go?
I heard of a doctor to whom patients would go, and he would say, “Why have you come to see me?” They would answer, “We want to get well.” “Very interesting,” he would say. “But why do you want to get well?” What would you say if your doctor asked you that? The doctor might be able to fix you up — but is it worth his time? Why do you want to get better? Why do you want to live?
What, really, is life all about? To answer that question, I want us to think of that day when we as Christians will have to put our lives back in the box. What will life in heaven be like, boys and girls? We talk about a life of perfection, a life of eternal joy. No more sin or mourning, or crying, or pain, or tears. The old order of things will have passed away. There in heaven we will come to life as it was meant to be.
The very centre of heavenly life will, of course, be God Himself. In that creation we will all find it our highest joy to Glory in the Lord. We shall, finally, see Him in all His Glory, as He is, and just seeing that Glory, we will bow down in utter amazement before Him. We shall not be told to worship, for we shall not be able to do anything else. It is just like when an object of incredible beauty is revealed. So it is with Him. His Holy beauty will overcome us completely. We shall see clearly the depths of the heart of our God. And we who have found our salvation in Him, shall be brought to our knees in adoration.
In that creation, we will no longer look for any source of joy from within our own lives. We will not be able to, for God in His Glory will be our only focus. His Glory will, if you like, draw us, all our thoughts, all our energy, our whole heart, towards itself. In the same way, we will no longer look for any help and strength and joy in our fellow creatures around us. Oh yes, we will enjoy standing by each other, worshipping this God together, but we will not need each other, as the source of our happiness or strength or joy. For again, God Himself will be the fountain of our life, the fountain of our joy, our peace, our strength, our happiness. We will find everything we need, in Him.
And it is the Glory of God which is the reason there will be no sin. His light will purge away all darkness. On the day we die, all our remaining self-centredness will be burned away, for God will stand at the centre again. Our materialism — because God is the only One that we will want. Our evil desires — for all our desires will be for Him. Do you see it? We will find God to be so full and complete, that nothing else will matter.
And I spend so much time now talking to you about life as it will be because I want you to see that for you as a Christian, this is life as it should be, already, today. This eternal life of which I have been speaking is not something that just begins in heaven. It begins the moment that we first believe. Because already now we have begun to see what we will see in all its clarity in heaven — the Person of our God.
First of all, in our text, I want you to see how Thomas responded when he understood. You all know, boys and girls, the story of “doubting Thomas.” He wasn’t there when Jesus first came to the disciples. And he said, “I will not believe, until I put my fingers in the holes in his hands.” And the very next Sunday Jesus did come and said, “Thomas, put your fingers in the holes in my hands. Put your hand in my side. Stop doubting, and believe.” And at that moment, Thomas stopped doubting. He believed. He couldn’t do anything else. And finally when the message of the Gospel clicked, he worshipped. “O my Lord and my God.” Also with this, Thomas couldn’t do anything else.
It has something to do with what I was just saying before, boys and girls. When you, for example, have a really beautiful picture under a veil, and then you pull the veil off, people will look at it and be filled with praise for it. But what we have here in the Bible is not a beautiful picture, but a Most Beautiful God.
Often, because of our sinful darkness, we don’t think about the utter Majesty of God. But the Beauty of God is so great beyond what we can imagine. Will not the Creator of all beautiful things Himself be utterly beautiful? If some things on earth are irresistibly beautiful, will not God Himself be completely, irresistibly beautiful. You all know beautiful people — I’m not talking about the beauty of outward appearance, but the inner beauty of the heart. And so is God. He is so completely different to what we often imagine. He is the lily of the valley, the bright and morning star, the fairest of ten thousand, the desire of the nations.
God is so beautiful that everyone would run to Him, if only they would see. The only reason people don’t run to Him, is because our sins have blinded us. The sun can shine in the middle of the sky, but it doesn’t make any difference, if you are blind.
The beauty of God, has everything to do, with who God is. He is the Great and Mighty and Eternal God, the Creator and the Ruler of the Universe. The God who is awesome beyond imagination. He is also the God whose love and compassion is so great, that in the Person of Jesus Christ, He died for us. There is here the incredible picture all on the one screen, of Majesty and Meekness; Justice and Mercy; Kingship and Servanthood; Judge and Saviour; and they all meet together, in this Person, the Creator and King, who has holes in his hands. And when Thomas put his fingers in those holes, he had to worship: “My Lord and my God.”
The second thing I want you to see from our text is that God wants us all to see exactly what Thomas saw. Several times I have talked to you about the sovereignty of God. And I have asked, how could a sovereign God allow sin into His perfect world. And I have pointed out also that from the beginning, God has been doing one thing. He has been showing us who He is. And it all began in creation. Anyone who looks at the beautiful world that God has made with open eyes can see the utter Majesty of God. And in the Garden of Eden, Adam could see God in all His outward beauty. But Adam did not yet see the inner depths of God’s heart. He could not see it. Only when Adam fell away from God, and God came back, did he begin to see. And as we see at what price God came back, that is when we begin to glimpse into the deepest depths of what lives in the heart of God.
Now, if the purpose of everything is that God is showing us who He is, doesn’t it follow, that God wants us to see that? God is not revealing Himself into the darkness of the universe where there are no eyes to see. No, He is revealing Himself, so that we may see!! And so often we in our sinfulness think God is the hidden God. But He is not. In verse 31, we come to the central verse in John’s Gospel, and also, the central verse in the whole Bible. “But these things are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing, you may have life in His Name.” You see, it is a very beautiful thing that God acted out these things in history. But it is not only for the people then who saw it all happen before their eyes. No, He especially had it written out, so that the world may know. The very reason for the Bible is that we may know what God has done.
And, in fact, the whole of the Bible message, from Genesis to Revelation, can be summed up in two words. Jesus Christ. In the whole of the Old Testament, God has been reaching out to His People with this message of His inner being. Yes, even already when Adam and Eve first sinned, God was reaching out. “Adam, where are you?” And through the whole Bible God has been saying, “This is who I am, the gracious and compassionate and merciful God.” Come back to Me. Why will you die? And the whole of the Old Testament is fulfilled in the New Testament, when God no longer just tells us who He is, but shows us who He is by coming to us in Jesus. Do you understand? The whole of the Bible is written so that we may know. Yes, we walk in a world of great darkness. But that doesn’t matter. The lights are on.
God is not the hidden God. He never has been. But God, from the beginning, has been reaching out to us, calling us back to Himself, calling us back, through all the clouds of our sinful darkness, to see Him as He really is. And Thomas, even so close to the centre of the Gospel message, could not see it. And Jesus came to Him, “see here, put your fingers in my hands. Believe.” But Thomas’ unbelief, is not just for himself. That, too, is so that all of us who doubt, like Thomas, may look at ourselves in Thomas and may rise by faith to put our fingers, too, in the holes in the hands of the Lord of the Universe. “Blessed are those,” says Jesus, “who do not see, and yet who believe.” We may see these things, not with the eyes of our head, but with the eyes of our understanding.
And that leads me to our third point. Those who believe shall find life in His Name. Earlier on, boys and girls, I talked to you about the purpose of life. And I made you think about the future life in heaven. We saw then, that when we come into heaven, there will be only one thing of importance — and that is God Himself. We shall then see Him in all His Holy Beauty; we shall see that most awesome Being, the Lamb looking as though He was slain, upon the Throne. And we who were sinners but have found our forgiveness in Him shall not be able to tear our eyes away from Him. He will be the centre of our joy, our peace, our love, our attention. He will be our only focus.
We shall be utterly overawed by Him, and this is not something that will last for a moment, but shall go on for eternity. For this is the new creation. This is the fulfilment of the ages. It is in this creation that God will have completed everything that He has been doing in all of time and history. He will have completely revealed Himself in all His Majesty and Glory. And the Glory of our God will fill the temple of the new earth for eternity. We shall never be tired of worshipping Him, of looking at Him, of being overawed by Him, of bowing down, adoring Him, and pouring out our lives in grateful devotion. In that new creation, no one will ever need to say to us, “serve the Lord”, “obey the Lord”, “love the Lord”. No, for these are the very things which we will want to do with all our hearts.
And again, I say to you, this for us as Christians is not just future. But this is the future which has begun. This God, who will be our desire for eternity, should be our heart’s desire today. You see, in heaven, we will not see anything new. Philip asked, “Lord, show us the Father.” Jesus said, “Philip, don’t you know Me.” Creation may be a beautiful pointer to the Majesty of God. But Jesus Himself is the Image of the Invisible God.
God spoke of old through the prophets in many ways. But in the New Testament He has spoken to us in His Son. God cannot tell us anything more than He has, for He has said it all, in Jesus Christ. For God was with us in Jesus Christ. And so, for us, heaven begins the moment we recognise the Glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
Life begins the moment we also in that moment of awesome recognition bow down before Him: “My Lord and My God.” Life. Real Life. Not the empty circling of the monopoly board. Not the empty vain life of those who do not know God, the empty life of materialism and self-centredness and self-focussed living. But life which has God at the centre again. Life which centres in worship. Life which draws all its strength and joy from out of His fountains of mercy and grace. Life which has as its only focus, to live it unto Him.
O, brothers and sisters, what a life it will be. But sometimes, how far we are from that today. When I look among the people of God, I see so many encouraging things for which to give thanks to God. But I also see many struggles among you. Some of you are sad within yourselves, a sense of disappointment with yourself. Some of you lack joy with your brothers and sisters, who in one way or another disappoint you. Some of you lack joy in your marriages and homes, where your partners disappoint you.
And while I am sad with you in your sadness, I am also glad for you. Because what sometimes seems to us to be so evil and wrong, God uses for the good. He is teaching us over and again that first commandment: “You shall have no other gods before Me.”
You see, our joy as human beings was never meant to be in our brothers and sisters. O yes, we can give thanks for them, and enjoy them, and enjoy worshipping with them. But our joy is not in them. Our joy is in God. Also our joy as human beings is not meant to centre in our husband, our wife, our children, our work, our wealth, or anything else. No, our joy, our hope, our peace, our future, our focus, was always made to be in God.
And when we find that centre, no longer will we be trying so much to find happiness and joy within, nor find it in those around us, but we shall find it our greatest joy to find our everything in Him. And that is life. That is eternal life. Yes, the life of heaven, but the life which begins now, and goes on forevermore, life centred, not in this world, but centred before the Throne. That is where life begins. That is where it will continue. And that is where we find the joy and the strength to rise above our circumstances, to rise above ourselves, to rise above all the things of this world. It is like the living water Jesus spoke about. Drink from it and you will never thirst again. It is like the precious pearl of life. Find it and you will never want to let it go again. For here is the fountainhead of our humanity.
I mean that. We are not talking religion. We are talking about reality. This is where it all began, so many years ago, in God, around the Throne, and this is where it shall be, for eternity, in God, and around the Throne, and this is where we today in-between the times, may find that one place alone which is the anchor for our soul.
Everything else drifts on life’s restless sea. The thing or the person which today is our source of joy tomorrow is our source of disappointment. Everything else moves and fluctuates. But God doesn’t. And here is the centre of human life, as we find our eternal happiness and joy, in Him, alone.
We, as human beings, bowing before the Eternal Throne, will know the joy of being home with Him, who is the Father and the Lover of our souls. And with Christ at the centre of our vessel, we may smile at the storm. With my God, I can leap over that wall. I can slay those 10,000 at my right hand. Bowing before the throne, I may find that most marvellous grace of being content, rejoicing whatever circumstances, good or bad. For in everything, I shall have found Him to be everything to me. And that is life.
Amen.