John 21:25

0:00 good evening i recently finished reading the book dune that's the one that all the movies have came out based off of so i figured i'd give it a shot and what really stuck out to me was the ending because it was horrible like truly horrible like i read it and i was like surely that cannot be the ending and then i thought maybe i'm the problem maybe i just don't get what the author is doing but i read it three or four more times and i was like no it's still really bad i would share it with you, but it's just, I'm afraid I would get a little bit in trouble if I shared with you the last line, so I won't. But it got me thinking, why is it that no matter how good of a story it is, we almost always hate the ending? I'm sure I'm in a room full of people who have really strong opinions about Star Wars Episode IX, for example. You know, we saw like 60 years of this great galactic tale unfold, and all of a sudden, it ends really, really badly. Indiana Jones 4 was so bad that they had to come up with a new, even more fake plot, and it was worse.

0:58 The last three minutes to How I Met Your Mother were so bad, the producer tried to go back in, take out the last three minutes, and pretend they never happened. But everybody saw it, and everybody hated it. I kind of liked it, though. The point is, though, I think there's a pandemic in the writing community that no matter how good of a story you write, as soon as it comes to the ending, the author is just completely checking out. Or, it's just really hard to write a good ending. I think it's so hard to write a good ending because you need basically two things that to get them together are nearly impossible to get, right? So for a good ending, you need it to be short and sweet and concise, right? You need a nice little wrapping over the present, you need a little icing on the cake, just here's this wonderful story, it's done now. You also need something that is deeply profound, that goes above and beyond the actual story you're telling. So you want the reader to be like, aw, and then go, oh, kind of like that.

1:53 You see what I mean? So aw to oh. And it just so happens that the ending of the book we are looking at tonight absolutely nails both of those. So turn with me, if you will, to John chapter 21, verse 25. It is at the front of your bulletins, or it is in chapter, or it is on page 908 of the Red Pew Bibles in front of you. 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. Main point of this passage, there is no end to Jesus's mighty acts, and we're going to talk about that in two parts. Point one, no end to Jesus's mighty acts in the grand story of the Bible, point one, and point two in our lives as well. Very quickly, the Gospel of John is a collection, a detailed account of the person and work of Jesus that is all structured kind of in service of chapter 20, verse 31. You don't have to turn there. I'll just read it. John says, these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by

2:56 believing you may have life in his name. So everything that John writes is written towards that aim. Up until verse 31 of chapter 20. We are now, I think, at more of the epilogue to the gospel of John. So we're in chapter 21. These are kind of his last final reflections. You can imagine John kind of towards the very end of his life, putting together his last final recollections of the person and work of Jesus. And so you get a couple of cool stories here. You get that beautiful passage we read this morning about Jesus and Peter being restored. And then we just get this last line, this last verse 25, just these last kind of thoughts that John has about Jesus, that there might truly be no end to Jesus's mighty works. It's short and it's concise, and it also has profound implications for us so point one in the story of the bible there is a lot of stuff that john leaves out as he is writing his gospel which is an interesting thing that in the quest to prove that jesus is the son of god he leaves out the transfiguration

4:00 for example he leaves out the part where jesus goes up to the mountain and transforms into his glory and appears with moses and elijah john leaves that out he also leaves out the temptation of Jesus in the desert. He leaves out the Sermon on the Mount. He leaves out parables, for example. There is so much that John leaves out. He didn't forget it. That's ridiculous. No. He's doing something different. So this is what I think he's doing. So in the journalism world, they talk about stuff that's above the fold and below the fold. So if you were to walk into a gas station, you would see a newspaper. There'd be the big headline, the most important story, like Ohio State wins national championship or something like that. So that's the most important story. You put that on the front, that's what's going to sell. And then you open it up and you get like new ace hardware opens up or something like that. So we know all the above the fold moments in Jesus's life from the synoptics. We know about the transfiguration. We know about the temptation in the desert.

4:57 John is going deeper. He's going to the below the fold moments. Instead of the institution of the lord's supper we get jesus washing feet for example instead of the temptation in the desert we get a samaritan woman at a well and jesus asking for her a drink and the interesting is though they might be below the fold they are just as glorious and it turns out what john is proving is that at each and every moment of jesus's small minuscule moments in his ministry they are glorious after glorious after glorious, there is something that is worth a book at every moment in Jesus's life. And if you think about it, think about how much do we actually know about Jesus's earthly ministry, or like his life for that matter. We know a little bit about his birth. We know that weird scene when he was a teenager at the temple and he said, I was at my father's house the whole time. We know a little bit of ages 30 to 33 until he was crucified, but think of what was left out of that. You know, people have tried to fill it in, but we just don't know all that Jesus did.

6:03 Suddenly you realize, maybe there is something to this. Maybe if we had all the little below-the-fold moments, maybe John's right. Maybe the world actually couldn't hold all the acts that Jesus did. That's not the only thing that John is doing, though. He's not just saying, you know, look at the below-the-fold moments. They're just as glorious. He is also kind of reframing the redemptive history of God around Jesus. So he tells the story of Jesus feeding the 5,000, which is totally true, and we saw that in synoptics. But then he takes this step deeper, and he goes, I am the manna that fed Israel in the wilderness. Eat of me or die. With the woman in the well, she said, are you greater than our father Jacob? And he kind of said, yeah. And that was kind of the thing. I am greater than your father Jacob. And then we get this kind of climactic statement before Abraham was I am is John hinting at that through the entire story of the people of God there is a mighty act of the son of God hiding behind it kind of I mean you can you can think about John 1 with the act of creation he was there at the act of creation he was there

7:08 when the Red Sea was split he was there when Sennacherib's men were slaughtered before they could take Jerusalem at each and every step of the people of God there has been a mighty act of the son ascribed to his name oh snap maybe he's right you start thinking about this a little bit bigger a little bit bigger maybe there really couldn't be enough space in the world to fill up the mighty acts of Jesus even in the below the fold moments and as history has moved forward since the resurrection of Jesus.

7:44 His history has moved forward as empires have risen and fallen, as the people of God have been held together as, you know, it's expanded to the world. You just see yet another mighty act of Jesus carrying it through. Sometimes there's a temptation to feel like maybe we're kind of always in a below-the-fold season of life. You know, we haven't gotten to make any cool requests at evening service recently. We haven't gotten to post anything cool on Facebook.

8:16 Like, everybody's doing all these cool and exciting stuff, and it really just seems like I wake up, I go to work, and that's it. You know, a season of meh, if you will. Do you have that temptation, maybe, in your own life, to kind of see your life as a series of below-the-fold moments? Don't buy into that temptation. Every single day you wake up, you are a blank canvas on which Jesus performs his mighty acts. There are no meh moments in the kingdom of heaven.

8:48 Jesus does not deal in below-the-fold moments because at each and every moment he is doing something powerful and glorious. And that's worth worship. Point two, so in our lives as well. So let's imagine for a second that we're kind of in this metaphorical library John's talking about. He said, you know, the world itself could not contain the book. So let's say we were on a world that could. And you walk into the library and you see stuff, you know, like parables, calling disciples, miracles concerning bread, different categories in the book.

9:19 And then you get to one and it's just called his acts of love for his people. And you could read about stuff about how the son of God left heaven, took on the form of a man because he loved his people. About how he was beaten and scorned and despised and rejected and cast out. Because he loved his people, because he loved you. About how he died a horrible, shameful death next to two petty criminals. Because he loved his people.

9:53 And how he died in the grave, and not even the grave could keep him from his people, but he rose again because he loved his people. And I know there's a few Protestants in the room that are going to say, well, he did it all for the glory of God. And I would say, absolutely, but his love is his glory. At the end of the day, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord and he loves his people. Do you get that?

10:25 Because I feel like I just have a little suspicion I'm in a room full of people who think they have really boring testimonies. You know, like I was saved when I was eight. I wasn't cool enough to be offered drugs in high school. Now I'm a Christian. You were saved when you were a powerless child and the entire forces of hell conspired to rip you out of the hands of Jesus and throw you back into the pit you came from. And every single day from then, your Savior has shut those gates for the sake of his glorious name and his love.

11:00 You don't have a boring testimony at all. day after day Jesus' faithfulness fills up just yet one more book in your life day after day as history moves forward he fills up just one more book of course if you're not a Christian currently those books next to your name say something different I mean as far as we know at this moment all the books really say is and then God held out his hand to you. Dot, dot, dot.

11:39 And now you have the invitation. You can decide, is that going to be a book ascribed to his mercy? Are you going to be another book, another library filled with Jesus' acts of love, or will it be a book ascribed to his just righteousness? I mean, that's the choice we have, right? As we talked about this morning, the call is wide open. And that book, no matter how dark your life might seem right now, that book of your life is not finished. There is grace for you. There is hope for you. And as soon as you accept that hand of Jesus reaching out to you, he will fill that book and fill libraries upon libraries of his love and grace for you.

12:31 Lastly, this call here, this verse is not just a verse, you know, a last little concise thing or even a profound thing. It is above all an invitation, you know. It's an invitation to stop seeing the world the way Satan wants you to think. It is kind of this ball of chaos floating through space with really no means of anything like that. and it's a call to see it for what it is as the canvas for which the Son of God is showing his mighty acts day after day after day from the start of history until he calls us home that's why he says he's prepared for us a new heavens and a new earth because as he said this world cannot hold all his works and so we await that day for the new heavens and the new earth where the world plenty big enough to praise him for all of his wondrous works Let's pray.

13:27 Our Father, we praise you. We praise you for your goodness and your love and your kindness, but above all, Father, we praise you for your love. We praise you for your son's love. Father, we thank you that from every step of history, there is yet one more mighty act, one more mighty act ascribed to your son's name, showing his love for his people. God, if we're ever tempted to think that maybe our lives are just a series of below-the-fold moments, God, help us to turn away those temptations and instead cling to you.

14:00 God, we thank you so much for your grace and your kindness. Be with us this week as we seek to worship you and love you with everything we do. In your sense, then we pray. Amen.