The words the Spirit of God gave me to express the wonder of this were very deep indeed. The Word became flesh and lived among us and I could say from the heart, we saw His glory. Welcome to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith, I’m David Pick and today we’re starting a new series called Christmas Stories and we’ll be taking a look at the Christmas Story through the lives of people who were there. Yeah, and doing it in the first person, trying to stand as it were in John’s shoes when he says we saw His glory. What it was for these disciples to see the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ and you know one day we are going to see His glory and what a day that is going to be. My prayer for the program today is that you by faith will have a glimpse of the glory of Christ as we take our stand with the Apostle John. So we’ll be going to the first book of John, chapter 1, as we begin the message entitled John’s Story. Here’s Colin. Now in my day, people had all kinds of ideas about Jesus just as they do today. Some regarded Him simply as a great teacher, others regarded Him as one of the prophets come back to life. Others just shrugged and came to no particular conclusion. It’s always been like that. One day Jesus asked us who we thought He was and Peter said, you are the Christ, you are the Son of the living God. We were convinced that He was the one who had been promised from the beginning of time who would be the Savior of the world. But what happened a week later put it beyond all doubt for me. Jesus said that He was going up a mountain to pray and He wanted Peter and James and me to come with Him. It was a fair bit of an old climb and when we got there we were tired and we decided that we would lie down for a rest. So Jesus began praying on His own. I will never forget what I saw when I woke up. The whole appearance of His face changed. His clothes began to shine, they were brilliant, radiant, light, dazzling. As if light were radiating from the very essence of His being. So bright that I could hardly even look at Him directly. There’s only one word that I can use that would even begin to describe what I saw to you. Glory. What I saw was glorious. We saw His glory. And I knew right then that I was standing in the presence of God and telling you what I saw. Then a cloud appeared, moved towards us. Now there’s nothing unusual about a cloud coming towards you when you’re on the top of a mountain, but this was no ordinary cloud. I knew from the Old Testament that when God’s immediate presence was right there with His people, He came down in a cloud of His glory. In a matter of seconds, that cloud enveloped us. We were in the cloud, it was absolutely terrifying, I can’t tell you, and I heard an audible voice. The voice said, this is my Son, whom I have chosen, listen to Him. Telling you what I heard and telling you what I saw. It was the voice of Almighty God affirming that Jesus is indeed His one and only Son, and that we and everyone else are to listen to Him. I fell to the ground, so did Peter, so did James. He immediately thought that this was the end of our lives, we were right there in the presence of God, and there was so much that was wrong with us. But the cloud passed. I’ll never forget it, Jesus touched my shoulder, He said, get up, do not be afraid. When I got up, the cloud had passed, the brilliant shining had gone. The face of Jesus was the familiar face that I knew once again. That day I knew for sure who He is, God in the flesh. God made accessible to us, we saw His glory. The glory of the one and only who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. But I have to tell you, it is still beyond my grasp how one who has such glory should hide it, veil it, and be born taking flesh like ours, lying in a manger, and living an ordinary human life so that we should have the opportunity of calling Him our friend. Not long after that, we were all together in Jerusalem for the great festival of the Passover. We were tired after a long day, and nobody could be bothered as we sat down for a meal to wash the other’s feet, but when Jesus got up from the table and began washing the feet of the rest, everybody was embarrassed. You know, He washed my feet. It gives me goosebumps even to think about it now. And He said to the group of us, you are all clean. It’s one of the most beautiful things He ever said, clean, I think of all that’s wrong with my life, clean. It’s the amazing thing, when you were next to Him, you always felt that you had so far to go, so much to be forgiven for, and yet you knew that you were forgiven, and that He was leading you forward from where you were. I was sitting next to Him that night, we were all kind of reclining as we did in those days around a low table, enjoying the meal, great celebration it was. But at one point in the meal, it seemed as if a great sense of trouble and of sorrow came upon Him, like a cloud coming down on Him. It took us all by surprise when He said, I tell you the truth, one of you is going to betray me. Everybody was astonished, of course, they all began saying, is it me, is it me? I was sitting, as I said, next to Jesus, and so Peter, a little further away, caught my eye, he said to me, ask Him who it is. So I leaned back and said quietly, Jesus, who is it? And he said to me, it’s the one to whom I will give the piece of bread after I have dipped it in the dish. Then he took a piece of bread, dipped it in the dish, and he handed it to Judas, and he took it. It was almost as if something seemed to come over him at that very moment. Jesus said to him, what you’re going to do, go and do it quickly. The rest didn’t really know what he was talking about, thought maybe he was telling Judas to go and get some bread, but Judas got up and he walked out. I knew, because Jesus had told me about the bread he would hand over. He spoke to the rest of us for a long time after that. We sang a hymn, and then we went out across the valley to a garden called Gethsemane. Once again, Jesus separated the three of us from the rest of the group and asked us to pray. And then he went a little further and he prayed alone. I’ve got to admit, this is a little embarrassing, I didn’t actually hear what he was saying when he prayed for the simple reason that I fell asleep, which is one of the reasons that I’ve not recorded that story in my gospel either. Peter and James also were asleep, it has to be said, I was not the only one. And so in fact, the only way that we know what Jesus said when he was praying then is that there was a young man who was hiding in the bushes. Mark doesn’t actually name himself in his gospel, but he was there, and that’s how we know that when we were asleep, he prayed, Father, if it be possible, let this cup be taken from me nevertheless. Not my will, but yours be done. We couldn’t remain sleeping for long because there was a terrible noise as a mob arrived. They had swords and they had clubs and they had come to arrest him. Can you imagine this? The one who radiated glory when it was revealed was now being tied and bound and led away. Judas had identified him with a kiss and the rest of us just ran for our lives. The next day he was crucified. I was there at the foot of the cross. I can’t describe the agony of his suffering, but I can tell you what I heard him say. When they raised him up, he said, Father, forgive them. They do not know what they are doing. As Jesus’ agony increased, he cried out, I thirst. They brought some wine mixed with vinegar that they put on a sponge on a stick and held it up to him. It was a kind of mild anesthetic that they used to offer people in the terrible barbarity of that suffering. But, you know, he did not take it. He experienced every dimension of that suffering in full. Then he looked down at Mary, the mother in whose arms he once lay. I was standing next to her. I can’t describe the grief that was tearing her heart in two. There was compassion in the eyes of Jesus as he looked down to her in her suffering. And looking at her and then looking to me, he said, Mother, behold your son. And looking at me, he said, Son, behold your mother. It was incredible that in the extremity of his suffering, his compassion was poured out towards the woman from whom he took his flesh, now being crucified, and trusted the care of the one who had brought him into this world, to me. And then the sky grew very, very dark. I’m telling you what I heard. I’m telling you what I saw. He entered into, it seemed, a whole new realm, dimension of his suffering. It was as if all the devils of hell itself had come and congregated at that one lonely hill. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me, he cried. But then the light returned, almost as if the Father were saying he had not forsaken the Son. And then Jesus cried out in a loud voice, one word as we heard it, Tetalestai, which means in your language, it is finished. He said that with a note of triumph. Then he said, Father, into your hands I commit my spirit. He said that loudly. He said it with authority. He said it with finality. I’ve seen other people die. Death overcame them. But he was not overcome by death. It was as if he marched into it and laid down his life at the moment of his own choosing. A guard who was standing right next to me saw it and was so astonished, he said, truly this is the Son of God. We had no idea what to do next. So we went back to the room we were staying in in Jerusalem until Sunday morning when we were awakened by Mary Magdalene. She was in a terrible state. She had gone to the tomb and said that the body of Jesus had been taken. Peter was off like a shot, but between you and me, a little bit out of shape, Peter. And so I got to the tomb first. Let me tell you what I saw. The cloth that had been wrapped around Jesus’ body was just lying there. I stood at the entrance. Then Peter comes along puffing and panting, pushes past me. He goes right in there. When I followed him in, we could both see not only the strips of cloth, but the square sheet that had been used to cover Jesus’ head. It was folded, looked like a pillow discarded and placed on the stone. I looked and I knew he was alive. We wondered what would happen next. We knew there could be trouble and we were afraid that the mob who had demanded the death of Jesus might now come after us, so we locked ourselves in an upstairs room. But that very evening, the same day, Jesus came and came right into the room where we were sitting there just talking. He was there. He walked right into the very center of the group and he said, peace be with you. We could see the wounds in his hand, his side where that spear had been thrust. He said, as the Father has sent me, so I am sending you. I’m telling you what I heard and telling you what I saw. Of course, that’s the reason I wrote my gospel. So that you may know that this Jesus whose birth you celebrate at Christmas is indeed the Christ and the Son of God. That’s why it doesn’t surprise me that on the night when he was born, that angels filled the sky and that God set a star in the heavens to guide even kings to come and worship him. The words the Spirit of God gave me to express the wonder of this were very deep indeed. The word became flesh and lived among us and I could say from the heart, we saw his glory. You’re listening to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith and the message John’s Story. It’s part of the new series, Christmas Stories, looking at the Christmas story through the eyes of different characters in the Bible who were actually there to see it. People like John, Simeon, Mary, Joseph, and even King Herod. And if you ever miss one of our broadcasts or if you’d like to go back and listen again, you can do that by going online. Come to our website, openthebible.org.uk and you can listen to any of the messages which have already been broadcast there. Back to the message now. Here’s Colin. That just leaves one more thing before I’m through. Why did he come? And why is it important to folks like you now living 2,000 years after he came into the world? I want to answer that question with just one word that I used over and over again in my gospel and in the letters that I wrote, words that Jesus spoke so many times and I recorded what he said. Life. Life. All of us are looking for life. You’re not the first folks to do that. We’ve all been doing that throughout the generations. Not quite know what it is that we’re looking for, but we have a sense that there is something more that we were created for some greater and higher purpose than just to be born and eat and sleep and learn and work and love and play and get old and die. We know that there must be more than this and we are searching for it. We are looking for life. God has implanted that searching within you. That’s why Jesus said that he had come that we may have life and that we may have it to the full. He said, and I wrote it down, I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me will live forever. On another occasion he said, when you hear my word and you believe in my name, you cross over from death to life. That’s what happened to me. I look back and I see now that my life before I started following Jesus was really only a shadow. I began to follow him and I discovered what I wrote, that in him was life and that life is the light of men. A lot of people think that eternal life is like some kind of possession that you add to your list of assets, like a pension policy or an insurance or something, you know the kind of thing. You know, I have a four bedroom house, a good job in the city, a Lexus and a good pension and eternal life. Listen, eternal life is not like that. Eternal life is a relationship, it’s what Jesus taught us. This is eternal life, he said, to know the true God and Jesus Christ whom he has sent. The way to life now and the way to life forever beyond the veil of death is to know him and to follow him. I’d always believed in God, like most of you, but when I started actually following Jesus, I realised that I was coming to know God. It’s all the difference in the world. The amazing thing is that that relationship never ends. I followed Jesus for about 60 more years or so after the resurrection and then the time came when I faced death. You know what it was like? It was just like walking through a curtain and then on the other side, I was right there in the presence of Christ. I’ve been there for the last 2,000 years, your time, though nobody’s counting up there of course. And the joy is indescribable. It is unspeakable. I’m not allowed to tell you about it, but even if I was, you wouldn’t be able to understand it. It’s beyond what you’re able to grasp. And you know all the talk and all the anticipation up there is about the day when he’s going to come for you. We’ll be with him then, of course, those of us who’ve already experienced the sheer joys of his presence. We will come with him and those who are alive at that time will be caught up in the air and we will meet together, the whole church, the whole of his people. We will enter into the fullness of the new life that he’s come to prepare for all who love him. That’s my life message. I want you to know that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. And the reason I want you to know that is so that you, by believing, may have life in his name. And I think there’s a lot of folks who don’t really understand what I meant by believing. See, a lot of you maybe think that believing is just accepting something that you didn’t actually see for yourself. It doesn’t make any difference to your life and it doesn’t make any demands upon you whatsoever. That’s not what I meant by believing. When I speak about believing, here’s what I mean. I mean a commitment to follow. So when Jesus said to me, follow me, and because I had put my trust in him already even at that time, I began to follow him, to grow and to learn living life his way. If it is indeed the case that Jesus, whose birth you celebrate, is the Son of God, and if he came so that you may have life in his name, then there is no greater calling on your life than that you should know him, that you should follow him. And there is no greater time for you to begin than this Christmas as you celebrate his coming into the world. And I tell you, if you begin to follow him, it won’t always be easy, but there is no greater joy in all the world. That’s what happened to me. Has it happened to you? You’ve been listening to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith and our message, John’s Story, part of our series, Christmas Stories, all about the Christmas story. And this message is through the eyes of the Apostle John. And don’t forget if you ever miss one of our broadcasts, you can always go online to catch up or go back and listen again. Come to our website, that’s openthebible.org.uk, and there you can listen to any of the previously broadcast messages. Open the Bible is supported entirely by donations from our listeners, and we’re very grateful for that. And if that’s something you haven’t done up till now, but you feel you’d like to begin doing it, we have an offer for you this month. If you’re able to set up a new donation in respect of Open the Bible for the amount of five pounds per month or more, we’d love to send you a book of prayers. It’s called Valley of Vision. And Colin, how might we benefit from reading this book? Well, I think this is a book that will really help folks to pray. And you know, as a pastor over the years, I’ve found that that is a question that people want to ask more than any other. I’ve quite often over the years just said to people when there’s opportunity for an open conversation, hey, what do you want to talk about? And I’ve given some suggestions. And the most frequent question that I get asked is, can we talk about prayer? People want to know how to grow in our prayer lives. And the Valley of Vision is a collection of prayers that has come down through the centuries that are really, really helpful for stimulating prayer. They’re organized according to different parts of prayer, worship and praise, asking and interceding and also confessing and just the richness with which they’re written. So I mean, here, for example, are a couple of lines out of one of the prayers for purification. Deliver me, O God, from attachment to things unclean, from wrong associations, from the predominance of evil passions, from the sugar of sin as well as its gall. Boy, now that would just make you think, wouldn’t it? There’s a sugar in sin as well as a gall, and we need delivered from both. Well, you know, that’s just picking one little phrase out of this. It’s so rich. As you read through these prayers, you’ll find your own heart to be stirred and your own prayers to be stimulated. I find this book immensely helpful. It has helped Christians for generations, and I think it will be immensely helpful to you. Well, we’d love to send you a copy of this book as a way of saying thank you for setting up a new donation in respect of Open the Bible in the amount of £5 per month or more. Full details of this offer on our website, openthebible.org.uk. For Open the Bible and Pastor Colin Smith, I’m David Pick, and I hope you’ll be able to join us again very soon. Simeon was an ordinary man who had the extraordinary privilege of holding Jesus in his arms eight days after he was born. Hear his testimony and discover what he said about the Son of God. That’s next time on Open the Bible.