WHAT IS IMPORTANT?
Brent D Morris
John 3: 16
I have a very simple question, and that is: what is important to you? In the last six months we have all become more acutely aware of the things that are important to us in our daily lives. There may be some things that we are actually quite glad that we no longer have to deal with, such as the commute or traffic jams. There may be other things that we quite miss, such as being able to gather socially and in large groups. I would like to draw our attention to something that is more important than all of those things. I would like to speak about how each of us as individuals is important to God; and then about why it is imperative that God and the work of the Lord Jesus Christ should be important to you.
I was struck afresh by the first part of what we read, “For God so loved the world”; that is how important you are to God. As we have sung,
God, from His throne on high,
Gave His own Son to die,
(Hymn 245).
Although there are many things that we think are quite important to us, none of those things are as important as the Lord Jesus was to God. He was His only-begotten Son; the most precious thing that God had, and yet He gave Him up for you and for me. It is often said that, even if it was only for one person, such was God’s love, so important are you to God, that He would have given up that Object most precious and important to Him to secure you. What affection there is in that.
Why was it necessary for that precious One to be given up? As we have at the end of the passage we have read, it was that those who believe “may not perish”. Each and every one of us has a stain upon us because we are sinners; we have committed acts against the will of God. Your sins are like a scarlet stain on the soul; it is a bright, vibrant colour, something you cannot miss; and in our own power it cannot be washed out. God cannot have that in His sight; there is nothing that we can do to change that. The current public health situation really shows the true meaning of helplessness. It is hard to fathom what it means to be truly helpless; but the virus is going around, and none of us is able to create a cure on our own. The best we can do is run and hide and bunker down. We are entirely helpless; we are dependent on something else to be saved from this peril. How much graver and how much more important is the peril addressed in the glad tidings. The danger you face is one that you are utterly helpless to resolve yourself, or to save yourself from. In that helpless state you would perish, and this is not to perish in an earthly sense. This is a far graver thing: this is to perish in an eternal sense, to spend eternity in the lake of fire and brimstone, Rev 20.
There will be a day for every one when they come before God and it will be reckoned to each according to whether or not they are saved. If you come before God without being saved, the lake of fire and brimstone is your eternity. That is the peril. You can do nothing in your own power to change that, which is why it is necessary for God to have given up this very precious One to give you the opportunity to change that. That shows how very important you are to God. God loves you so much that He does not want that peril to fall upon you; He wants you to have a route to salvation. It is the opportunity for salvation: the decision as to whether to be saved or not rests entirely with you. The work of salvation is complete, but the decision rests entirely with you.
This brings me to why it is imperative that God is important to you. We read that “whosoever believes on him may not perish”. It is as simple as that: “whosoever believes on him”. I appreciate it is far easier to say than actually to come to it yourself to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
I would like to delve into what it means to believe on Him. Firstly, it is an act of faith. Faith is a very important thing. It is accepting something as true that you may not be able to prove by natural means. I was trained as a scientist; in science, you do an experiment and if you get the same result every time, you know something is true. You cannot do that with faith. You have to accept that what is presented to faith is true, and then prove it yourself. In doing so you will prove that those things are true, but the first step is the act of faith. You can look around those in the room, and they will all testify to the fact that the things of faith are true, and what you are asked to put your faith in is true, but for you yourself to know it: you have to first take that step. That is faith.
Then we have “believes on him”. What does it mean to believe on Him? The very first step of this is to accept as true that you yourself are helpless, and that you yourself in that helpless state are eternally lost, which is a very sobering state. Then you accept as true that the Lord Jesus Christ has the power and ability to save you from your sins, because He is perfect, He is the only Person who walked this earth who was without sin; and therefore, when He was put on that cross and His blood was shed, death had no claim on Him. The Lord Jesus suffered the penalty for sin for you, for me, making provision for the entirety of mankind throughout human history and as far as the future is concerned; Christ bore the penalty that whoever “believes on him might not perish”. This is important, because God is righteous, that same righteousness that bars you from the presence of God in your sins, demanded that the penalty for sin and sins had to be dealt with. Your needs could not just be swept under the carpet; they had to be dealt with. How wonderful it is that the Lord Jesus Christ, because He was perfect, was able to bear the penalty for our sin; and therefore the work of salvation is finished. That is also assured because Christ is risen. Yes, He died, but then He rose again on the third day; and that is something that we have great evidence for. He appeared many times - to a few people and also to large groups. This is Someone who endured the worst method of execution that the Roman Empire knew at the time. He was put into a tomb; then Joseph put a huge stone over it, and the Jews sealed the stone and put guards over it so that He could not escape. Man tried everything they possibly could to keep Christ in the grave. What happened? His own found the stone rolled away, the garments lying there (John 20); and Christ was not in the grave, Christ was risen. You can take assurance from that; you may therefore have assurance that, in putting your faith and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, the penalty for your sins has been completely dealt with.
What does it mean to believe on Him? It is that act of faith that your sins can be forgiven: you have complete assurance when you put your faith and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ that the penalty for your sin is gone, as it says here: “may not perish, but have life eternal”.
Having secured this salvation, salvation from the greatest peril you will ever face, God in His love - because you are so important to Him - does not stop there. He has this also in mind, “have life eternal”. As I said earlier, we will all appear before God in a coming day, and those of us who have put our faith and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ will be able to point to the atonement in His blood. Your eternal outlook goes from the lake of fire and brimstone to sharing eternity with Christ in heaven. What a blessing God has in mind for those who put their faith and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. How wonderful it is; and it is not just an abstract future thing, it is something that we can enter into the joy and benefit of now.
When we gather together with believers, we get glimpses of what that future will be like. The Lord is risen and seated at the right hand of God, but He does not leave us on our own down here. While we await His coming, He has provided the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is yet another blessing from God that is freely given: you only need to ask. How wondrous that is, and how important you are to God; not only does He provide for your salvation, not only has He secured your eternal destiny, there is also this gift that you can enjoy down here now. Having accepted the gift of the Holy Spirit, there is then the Lord’s request that you should remember Him in the breaking of bread. What a precious thing it is, for when we break bread we “announce the death of the Lord”, 1 Cor 11: 26. We are publicly committing ourselves to Him with an announcement to the world that Christ is important to each of us; that we have accepted Christ as Saviour, and are looking forward to that day when that One who is so important to us will appear, and that we expect to be spending eternity with that One, who holds us also so dear. It is a very mutual relationship that then exists between God and you.
As I said at the beginning, I had two things I wanted to impress you with. The first was that you are important to God. God has provided the source of your salvation. He has provided for an eternity in heaven and He has provided the Spirit for you while you are down here. The second thing I sought to impress you with is that it is imperative that Christ and God are important to you, because without Christ being important to you, without you putting your faith and trust in Him, eternal perishing is your future; but by the simple act of faith you can take hold of salvation that God has provided.
I trust that it is the portion of each and every one that not only is Christ essential to you, but you also have a sense, an appreciation of how important you are to God, that He has gone to such great lengths to secure your affection and that you are looking forward to that day when you shall be with Him for eternity. I trust that is the portion of each and every one.
May God bless the word.
Sunbury
25th October 2020