Sunday 16th November 2025

The one who comes from heaven is above all.
He testifies to what he has seen and heard…
John 3:31b-32a (NIV)

The One from above

Even after living in this great city of Birmingham for over twenty-five years, I’m painfully aware that there are large parts of the city I hardly know.  I have a decent working knowledge of how to get around some of south-west Birmingham, but much of the rest of the city is largely unknown to me.  You may be able to do better than I can.

You wouldn’t want me as your guide if you were to venture into other parts of the city.  You’d want a local, someone who had lived there for some time, perhaps even grown up there.  They’d be a much more trustworthy guide than I would be.

It’s like that with God.  When it comes to knowing the things of heaven, the things of God, we want someone who has been there to be our guide.  And that’s exactly what Jesus promises to do.  He is “the one who comes from heaven,” and the only one to come from heaven.  When “he testifies to what he has seen and heard,” he is speaking of what he has seen and heard in heaven; he is speaking about God and making God known to us.

You would think that that’s the best news ever.  Who wouldn’t want to know about God?  Wouldn’t you expect people to rejoice at the news that heaven is open to us, and that we can now not only look in but even go in ourselves, into the very presence of God?

It comes as rather a shock, then, to read on and to hear, “but no one accepts his testimony” (verse 32b).  Why is that?  How could that be?  It’s because, when God reveals himself to us he also reveals what’s in us, and we start to see what we’re really like.  We’re exposed before him, and it’s uncomfortable, to say the least, to discover that we’re not as good as we’d like to think we are and want others to see us – unless we’re prepared to accept what he says about us and to turn to him for help.

Thankfully, “the one who comes from heaven” has come not only to reveal God to us but also to rescue us from ourselves and for God: “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (verse 16).

Prayer

O God, ‘to you be the glory, great things you have done, you so loved the world that you gave us your Son; he yielded His life an atonement for sin, and opened the life-gate that all may go in.’  Amen.

Yours warmly, in Christ,

Chris Hobbs (Senior Minister)