The apostle John was convinced that he had faithfully and truthfully shared the story of Jesus. He had witnessed the life of Jesus up close and in person, and what he saw convinced him that Jesus was, in fact, the Word of God that became flesh and dwelt among us (see John 1:14), and so, he shared what he saw, heard, and experienced.
For three years Jesus had lived among his disciples and the people of Palestine. John pretty much saw it all, and tells his version of the story in his Gospel. When he gets to the end he knew that there were many things Jesus had done that didn’t get recorded, so John wrote as his last sentence, “And there are also many others things which Jesus did, which if they were written in detail, I suppose that even the world itself would not contain the books that would be written” (John 21:25).
How does one tell the story of Jesus? Perhaps by simply telling the truth. And apparently, a lot of people for the past two thousand years have told the story; today the telling of the story comes down to us.
On the day of Pentecost Jesus would fill His faithful followers with the Holy Spirit so that they would be empowered to tell the story of Jesus wherever they went. They weren’t super men and women; they were simply men and women who had encountered the living God in Jesus. It shook the core of their being, set their hearts on fire for God, and changed the trajectory of their lives.
They couldn’t do it on the strength of their own lives. They needed the Holy Spirit. It was the Holy Spirit who was the driving force in them. God worked so powerfully in the early church that on one occasion it was said, "These men who have upset the world have come here also” (Acts 17:6).
Church, let us live truthfully and faithfully, filled with Holy Spirit, as we seek to tell the story of Jesus in our day. It is a complicated time in which we live but the church was born in complicated times. We are built for complicated times. We are created to tell the truth and to live the truth. Like the early church, we don’t have a chance of success unless the Lord Jesus Christ fills us up with the Life of His Holy Spirit. So, may we yield to the plan and purposes of God, and be the Church of which Jesus said, “the gates of Hades will not overpower it” (Matt. 16:18).
In these complicated times may we live uncomplicated lives, and live in the love, forgiveness, and grace of God. “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Hebrews 13:8). He can handle the heat of the complicated times in which we live, and He is still Lord of lords and King of kings.
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