A God-Sized Statement

By Pastor Justin Cooper  |  Gospel Light Baptist Church  |  The Gospel of John, Part 5

Try to answer one simple question and watch what happens to your mind: how big is God? If someone asked you to describe it, where would you even begin? Most of us start where it seems natural to start — with the biggest things we can point to. We say God is as big as a mountain. And that sounds right, until you remember who put the mountain there. We say God is as vast as the ocean. But God could hold every ocean in the hollow of His hand. We reach all the way out to the galaxies stretched across the night sky, and even then we have to stop, because God is the One who stretched them out and keeps every star in its place.

Do you see the trouble? You cannot measure the Maker by the things He made. Every comparison we reach for runs out of room. Take whatever is biggest in your imagination, add a million more of it, and you still have not come close to describing how big our God really is. Job discovered the same thing when he tried to put words to it, and finally admitted that even the mightiest works of God are only the outer edge of who He is.

There is one place, though, where the size of God comes into focus better than any mountain or ocean ever could. It is a single sentence, tucked into the second chapter of John's Gospel — a statement so large that only God could make it.

The Problem the Statement Reveals

The chapter had begun with joy — a wedding in Cana, where Jesus turned water into wine. But by the end of that same chapter, Jesus is already at odds with His own people. He walks into the temple and finds it turned into a marketplace. Men have set up tables to sell sacrificial animals, charging so much interest that they are essentially robbing the very people who came to worship. What God intended as a place where heaven and earth met had been reduced to a transaction. So Jesus takes a cord, drives out the money changers and the animals, and cleanses His Father's house.

The crowd is stunned, and they demand a sign: "What sign showest thou unto us, seeing that thou doest these things?" And Jesus answers with words that must have sounded like madness to them: "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." But listen to the first thing that statement exposes. The people had already destroyed their temple — not with hammers, but with their hearts. They had made it callous and cold, ritual and routine, driving out the Spirit with the flesh. They had turned worship into self-worship.

"No longer is it about worship. It's about self worship."

The Plan the Statement Reveals

When Jesus said "destroy this temple," He was no longer pointing at the building. He was pointing at Himself. Everything about the tabernacle and the temple — the mercy seat, the table of showbread, the lampstand, the colors and the glory — was always a picture pointing ahead to Him. The people looked through a glass darkly and missed it. But on this side of the cross, we can look back and see it clearly: if you don't see Jesus in all of it, it's because you're not looking.

And here is the weight of it. Just as they had destroyed their temple with their sin, one day they would destroy the Lord in their sin. The thorns on His brow, the scourge on His back, the nails through His hands — that was the temple being torn down. But Jesus was never caught off guard by any of it. Before the foundation of the world, this was the plan.

"Jesus is not an afterthought. Jesus wasn't plan B."

The Power the Statement Reveals

"Destroy this temple," Jesus said, "and in three days I will raise it up." That last phrase is where the size of God comes roaring into view. Nothing declares how big our God is like resurrection. Any man can die — death is the one appointment all of us keep. But only God can lay His own life down and then take it back up again.

He went down into that dark tomb, but He did not go there to stay. On the third day the stone was rolled away, and Jesus came walking out on triumphant resurrection ground, having conquered death, hell, and the grave. So how big is God?

"He's resurrection big. That's how we describe him."

The Promise the Statement Reveals

And now the statement stops being history and starts becoming personal. If God is big enough to raise a body from a sealed tomb, then He is big enough to reach into whatever you have already given up on. That is the promise buried inside these words.

"If it's dead, it don't have to stay dead. If it's destroyed, it could be built back up again."

Don't you think the same Jesus who walked out of the grave could walk into a marriage you feel is falling apart — and walk you out the other side on resurrection ground? Don't you think He could reach the person you've been praying for who still isn't saved? Could He step into the diagnosis, the burden, the situation that lies in pieces at your feet? If He got Noah through the flood, if He walked out of the tomb, He can walk into your life today. And if you're tempted to wave a white flag and surrender ground to the enemy, remember this: the devil's ground is God's ground anyhow.