Well, good morning. Happy Resurrection Sunday. We want to welcome you to Woodside Community Church. We do want to give a special welcome to those of you who are visiting here with us today. We are very glad that you are here. This is the part of the service where I talk for a long time. I have been asked to talk for not quite so long a time today, so we'll see how that goes. But we are gathered here on this Sunday and every Sunday because we really believe that there was a historical figure. There was a real man who actually lived, and then he died, and then he rose from the dead, and who is very much alive today. And we believe that that man is Jesus Christ. And that is why we are here. He is what I want to talk to you about for a few minutes this morning. And I want to do that from the Gospel of John. The very last verse from the book of the Gospel of John. John 21-25 is going to be our text today. Let me encourage you to open up a Bible and look at it. There are some there in the pews in front of you, if you would like. Our text can be found on page 908. John 21-25, page 908. I have the spiritual gift of making simple things complicated. I want to try to be very simple today. Here is all that I want to communicate to you this morning, and it's this, is that Jesus is big. That's the whole point of this message. Jesus is big. And here's why that's important. You need big. You were created for big and you know it, though I will attempt to show it to you this morning. Jesus is big. That's the sermon. He is great. He is vast. He is transcendent. He is immense. He is infinite. And all that I hope to do with this not-so-big sermon is to encourage you to consider this big Christ. If you are visiting this morning, if someone in the choir twisted your arm and dragged you here and you felt guilty and you're like, fine, I'll come, I'll come. Good work, choir, and good work, you all, for coming and listening. Thank you. But if this is all strange and weird and new to you, then all I want to do is briefly introduce to you the person of Jesus Christ. and encourage you after you leave here to give a little time to considering this Christ, to try looking into this one that we believe is Lord and life. And if you are always here and you are always hearing me and already believing, all I want to do this morning is to encourage you to consider Christ more, to remind you that he is far bigger, and far better than you think, that He is far bigger and far better than your life, your thoughts, your feelings reveal Him to be. Consider Christ this morning. Consider the big Christ. I want you to see, and I want to make it clear that Jesus is big, and I want to make you feel small. Not in the patronizing, put-down-I'm-better-than-you way that we use that phrase. I am small. I don't always see that, and I don't always believe that, and it is very good and helpful. when I do. I learned a new concept just recently that I love. There's a psychology professor out at the University of California. His name is Paul Piff, and that is a great name. It sounds like a Marvel name, Peter Parker, Paul Piff. And I don't know much about the guy. I'm not promoting all of his ideas, but he researches and he writes about what he calls the small self. And I like that. As we consider the big Christ this morning, I also want us to consider the small self. As I commend to you the big Christ, I also want to commend to you the small self. And we're going to do that from just this one verse in the Bible while also looking back over John's Gospel. And we're going to do that with three quick points. I want us to see the things, plural, that Jesus did. And then we're going to look briefly at the thing, singular, we have done. And then we'll close by looking at the main thing. The thing that Jesus has done. So let me encourage you to give not me, but Christ your full attention. Try to set aside any preconceived notions you may have of Jesus and try and openly consider this man who is without question the most important and significant man who has ever lived. So let me read our verse for you. It's just one. John 21, 25. Pay attention. This is what God wants to say to you this resurrection day. 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. Bow with me and let me first pray for our time. Father, you have been very good to us already. Father, it's good simply to be gathered together. It is good to see all those beautiful little faces, all those little lives that are your creations created in your image and likeness, singing and proclaiming your praises. It is good for us to have read your word, to pray, to sing your praises together. Father, you are great, you are big, you are glorious. Father, your word makes all of that very clear. I pray that you would help me to make that very clear in this time. We ask that you would show us Christ. We ask that you would give us eyes to see him for who he is and all his greatness and all his glory. And I pray that you would use this time to glorify your name and use this time to draw people to Jesus. We ask this all in his name. Amen. Point number one, we start with the things that Jesus did. Now, we talk a lot around here about the gospel. That word gospel just means good news. It is the good news about this man, Jesus Christ. Or you could say the gospel is the good news about the things that Jesus did. And they are big things. They are beautiful. things. We are beginning here with the very end of John's gospel. This is it. This is the last verse. These are the last words that John wrote in his gospel. And as we saw last week from verse 24, John has written these things to to bear witness and that his witness is true. So John simply writes to tell you about Jesus. He writes to reveal Jesus to you. Here's who this man is. Here's what he's like. Here's what he did. So this whole book is about. But it's a short book. John has been very selective about what he writes down and records. He gives us just 21 short chapters. I've always been very fascinated by D-Day, the 80th anniversary. It's coming up in June. My dad gave me a book, Band of Brothers, years ago, and I've been obsessed ever since. So I have many books, thousands of pages, about this one day. Here we have just a handful of pages covering three years of a life. So this is very short and it's very selective. You could read the whole of John's Gospel in less time than it takes me to preach one sermon, often on one verse of John's Gospel. Why is that? Well, look at our verse. 2125. With such a short account, such a short book, of course Jesus also did many other things. But John doesn't leave it there. He goes on, were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written. That is quite a claim. That is a big claim. And you know that I love big, bold, sweeping, hyperbolic claims. That Tarheel loss was the most painful loss ever. Big claims. That chip cookie is the best cookie in the world. The Alcove's chimichurri truffle fries are the greatest french fry ever made. Big, bold, grand claims. sweeping statements. Is that all that this is? Is John just using intentional exaggeration for effect? It's possible. Some think that he is, but I don't think that he is. I actually don't think that John is exaggerating at all. I think John is excited. I think he's enthusiastic. I think he's effusive. But how could it possibly be said that the whole world could not contain the books that would be written about the Christ? There are about 2.2 million books published every year. There's no way to know exactly how many books there are in the world, but Google estimates as of October of last year that there are 158,464,880 unique books in the world. That's just the unique originals. That's not counting the copies. So some of those books sold millions of copies. So there are billions and billions of books in the world and there's plenty of room for more. So how could this possibly be true? Well, this is the last verse of the book. And this verse is true because of the very first verse of the book. This is the end Well, the beginning tells us the big idea of the book. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. These are words about the word Jesus Christ. Our words reveal one another to each other. Our words are how we relate to each other. So words reveal and relate. John is claiming that Jesus is the one who reveals and relates God himself to us. And that's because Jesus is God himself with us. The infinite and eternal God. And that's how it wouldn't be possible for the world to contain all that could be written about the Christ, because Jesus is this big. If I counted correctly, I have preached 126 sermons on the Gospel of John in the last three years. At 6,000 words per, that's over 756,000 words about Christ from the Gospel of John. I may have exhausted some of you in this long sermon series, I have not even come close to exhausting John, much less to exhausting the Jesus that John reveals. Though his time on earth was not of infinite length, and the deeds that he did and the words that he said were not of infinite number, they were all of them of infinite significance as they were all the words and deeds of the infinite Lord. And thus, we could speak and we could write about them forever. No one has been written about more than Jesus Christ. No one has had more words written about than Jesus Christ. And more and more and more and more could be written forever. And John, most wants you to know that this man, Jesus, is God himself and nothing finite can record or contain something infinite. Jesus is big. In the early stages of World War II, the German tactics were referred to as the Blitzkrieg. That literally means lightning war. They struck fast, and they struck in great number. They won quickly, particularly in Poland with this kind of fast, overwhelming show of force. I'm going to give to you a John Blitzkrieg. But John is a assault of great speed and force. This is going to be an account of the things that Jesus did, his words and his works, an explanation of his bigness with great speed and force. Don't try to write all this down. I want you to just sit back and I want you to sit in this and I want the vastness of what John has revealed about this man, Jesus, overwhelm you. and fill you with all. In this one book that's very short that we have been spending three years on, what does John tell us? What are the things that Jesus did? Who is this Jesus that the choir is about to sing about? Here's what John says. He is the Word. He is God. He is Creator. He is the Light. He is that Word become flesh dwelling among us. He is full of grace and truth. He is Himself fullness. He makes the Father known. He is the Lamb of God. He is the Messiah. He is the caller of His people. He is the Son of God. He is the King of Israel. He is the Master of the Feast who provides the abundant and better wine. He is the Temple. He is rabbi, the teacher come from God. He is the son of man, the true and better bronze serpent, the one who will be lifted up. He is the only begotten son given as the revelation of the father's love. He is the savior of the world. He is the bridegroom, the one who must increase. He is the one who comes from above and is above all. He utters the very words of God. He is the giver of the spirit of God. He is the son loved by the Father, the one into whose hands all things have been given. He is the living water. He is the Christ who lovingly comes for the unloved Samaritan woman. He's the healer of the official's son. He's the healer of the man lame for 38 years. He's the one calling God his own father, making himself equal with God. The son who works in perfect accord with the father. The one who gives life to whom he will. The one to whom all judgment has been given. The one to whom all honor is due. His words when heard and believed give life. He is the one the Father bears witness to, the one the whole scripture bears witness to, the one Moses wrote about, the one who walks on the stormy sea, the one who feeds the 5,000. He is the bread of life, the one who has the words of eternal life. He is the true drink and the giver of the Holy Spirit. He is the light of the world. He is the Son who sets you free. He is, I am. He is the giver of sight to the blind. He is the Good Shepherd who lays down His life for the sheep. He is in the Father and the Father is in Him. He is the resurrection and the life. He is the triumphant King. He is the washer of the disciples' feet. He is the glorifier of God. He is the lover of His people. He is the way, the truth, and the life. He is the vine. He is the one who lays down His life for His friends. He is the sender of the helper, the giver of His own joy, the giver of His own peace. He has overcome the world. He is the one whom knowing is eternal life. He is the betrayed one, the arrested one, the denied one, the beaten one, the mocked one, the crucified one, the risen one. He is present with His people. He restores His people. He commissions His people. He is Jesus the Christ, the Son of God, the one that by believing you may have life in His name. That's the Gospel of John. And that's the Jesus that John reveals in 595 words. Those are the things that he has done. And there were many other things. He is big. And you were made for big. You were made for him. And yet, what have each of us done with all of this? Or point number two. My points get quicker, don't worry. Point number two, the thing we have done. We've done many things. I want to try to boil it down to one thing, the thing. If this man is God come in the flesh, the question is why? Why has God become man in the person of Jesus? The Bible's answer is very clear and simple. And John tells us early from the lips of another John, John 1 29, when he sees Jesus and he says, behold, look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. This is Easter. At Christmas we focus on the birth and we are told in Matthew 121, you shall call his name Jesus for he will save his people from their sins. The name Jesus or Joshua or Yeshua means Yahweh, God saves. And Jesus is how God saves. And sin is what God saves His people from. But what is sin, really? Well, most simply, sin is any breaking of God's law or failure to keep God's law. Okay, but what does that really mean? I'm going to come at it from a different angle. Turn to John 5, 44, if you would. Page 891. John 5, 44. I think this is one of the most important verses for the times that we find ourselves in. In John 5, 44, we see that Jesus has come to save people. People are not believing. They're not receiving Jesus. He's claiming, verse 24, that whoever hears his word and believes has life. The implication to hear and not believe leaves one only with death. So if Christ is correct, the stakes are as high as possible, life or death based entirely on believing him. And yet the people do not believe him. Why not? Verse 44. Jesus says, how can you believe when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God? I want you to think of the thing that we have done today in terms of glory. the production that the choir is about to sing is titled Glorious Day. I want you to pay attention to the glory. What is glory? It's honor. It's renown. It is a high opinion of something that results in a focus and attention on that something. I just summarized Jesus in John's gospel in 595 words. We could summarize it in one word, glory. When John writes in 114 that the word became flesh and dwelt among us, he says, and we have seen his glory. Glory as of the only son from the father, full of grace and truth. John, in writing to reveal to you the Christ, writes to reveal to you the glory of the Christ. Originally, glory was a weight word. In its original, it means weightiness, as in the most significant. The sun is the center of our solar system as the weightiest thing in it. The mass of the sun is over 99.8% of the mass of our whole solar system. And that means that everything else depends upon it and revolves around it. Glory. I've been using the term big. The sun is so big and beautiful that it must be the center of everything else. And so it is with God. The glory of God is all that He is as God in His bigness and beauty. The glory of God is the showing and the shining forth of all of that. God made us. And He made us for Him. And He made us for glory. He made us to be dependent upon Him. and to revolve around Him and to find life in Him because He is life. And so the thing that we have done is a glory thing. The Apostle Paul explains it like this in Romans 1. He says that we all know God. What can be known about God is plain in the things that God has made. Everything reveals. that there is a big and glorious God. This beautiful day screams that there is a big and glorious God. All these beautiful children scream that there is a big and glorious God. But Romans 121, although they knew God, they did not honor him as God. or they did not give him glory. Verse 23, they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man. That's what sin is. God is infinitely glorious and good, and we know it, and we refuse it, and we reject it. We refuse to honor Him. We refuse to live in accord with reality. God is infinitely glorious, and we know it. But instead, we choose to trade the immortal glory of God for the mortal supposed glory of man, of self. And there's nothing more ridiculous, there's nothing more unjust, there's nothing more evil than to know the glorious God and to say no. to the glorious God, and instead choose to glorify self. That's sin. That's it. Sin is self. There's a fancy Latin phrase. Sin is incurvitas. You hear the word curve? It is curved in on one self. We were made to be outward oriented, to love and be loved by God, to love and be loved by others. And instead, in sin, we choose only to love ourselves and live for ourselves and seek honor and glory for ourselves. To sin is to live for self and the glory of self. And so Jesus says that you can't even believe because you're so caught up on and focused on yourself and your own glory. That is the thing that we have done. God has said very clearly, I am everything. I am glorious and good. I am Lord in love. I have made you. I have given you everything. And we have said, no, thank We hate you. We want nothing to do with you. We are everything. We are glorious and good. We are Lord and love. We have made ourselves. We have given ourselves everything. And it is insanity. It is infinite insanity. It is sin. And the wages of sin is death. You reject the glorious God of life and you are left only with the eternal disgrace of death. This is the thing that we have done. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Were I the all glorious God, the creator of all, the giver of all, deserving of all honor and praise, and this is what you had done to me, I would have been done with you. But thankfully, I am not God. And thankfully, God is not like me. What has God done? Point number three. Yes, the gospel is about the things that Jesus did, but it is first and foremost about the thing that Jesus has done. We have sought to better understand what sin really is. Now we can go back to the glorious good news that Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. That sin that is so wretched and ridiculous, that sin that rejects and separates from the God of life, that sin that is death, He takes it away. How does He do that? as a lamb. That's weird. What were lambs for? Lambs were for dying. God's people had created a problem and God had provided a solution and that solution was substitution. That solution was something else dying in the place of sinners. Something else taking on the penalty that sin deserved and that penalty was death because sin separates from the God of life. So how good is this then? We sin against God. We hate Him. We run from Him. We reject Him. He loves us. He runs to us, He accepts us, and He does it all through this Jesus, the Christ, the Son of God who became flesh. And so Jesus says in this book, in John 10.10, that He came that we may have life and have it abundantly. Wait, how? I thought we were all sinners. I thought sin separates us from the holy and just God. I thought sin must be paid for with death. Exactly. And so Jesus goes on in John 10 11 to say, I am the good shepherd and the good shepherd lays down his life for. the sheep. That's the thing that Jesus has done. Death is the thing that Jesus has done. And on this day, we celebrate that he also rose again, defeating death, proving that the price had been paid and proving that the work it is finished. He died so that we could live. The gospel that the choir is about to sing to you is the good news of substitution. Jesus takes my place. I sin. I deserve to die. Jesus comes. Jesus dies for me in my place. And I receive that and the benefits of that. I get the forgiveness of those sins and I get life eternal based upon nothing that I do. but based entirely on what Christ has done for me. He does it all, and I receive it all through what Scripture calls repentance and faith, which means I turn away from that sin and self that is death, and I turn to the grace and the Christ that is life. I was talking with a lady Friday. I was trying to get her to come to the cantata. She had to work, but so she was trying to clarify. So she asked me, so she said, wait, so she said, so you believe that you do bad and then you go down there. And she was a little embarrassed by that. Like you do bad things and you go down there and then you do good things and you go up there. And I tried to explain very clearly. No, no, I did bad. And I go up there because Jesus did good. And Jesus went down there for me, in my place. I'm not good. He is. I am small. He is big. The gospel is the good news of a great and glorious exchange. The glorious Son of God died the most inglorious death for us. the biggest dying for the smallest. And that's big. That's glory. That's what you need. And we all know that we need something else and that we need something bigger. You know this. It's why we're constantly looking around and constantly trying everything and nothing satisfies us. You can get everything that you think that you want and it will not make you happy because you are made for something bigger than even this whole world can offer you. So if you find yourself constantly going from one thing to the next, constantly dissatisfied, constantly thinking that just maybe this next thing will be it. Then today, let those desires, let that lifelong unsatisfied pursuit point you to the fact that there is something bigger, that there is a God of all glory and grace that made you for him. that you rejected and traded him for your own self, but who offers to every single one of us today. Come, come to this Christ who is the son of God. Become man to save sinful rebels like us. See God's glory in God's grace. See how big he is. See how small we are in comparison and how wonderfully amazing it is that this big God comes for us. The biggest coming for the smallest. I encourage you to consider the glory of Christ as the choir gets ready to come now and sing of the glory of Christ. We're going to be around afterwards hanging out and fellowshipping, and I would love to talk with you afterwards about the glory of Christ if you have any further questions about anything that I said today. Let me pray for you. Let me close this time of the service, and then we will continue. Father, give us eyes to see. Give us eyes to see your glory. You have revealed Yourself very clearly in Your Son, Jesus Christ. So we ask that You would help us to see Him. Help us to see Him through the Word read and proclaimed. Father, help us to see Him in the songs that are about to be sung. We pray that all that is done here will be done to Your glory. In the name of Jesus, we pray. Amen.