Thank you, Joy. Good morning.
Let's open this morning's service in our hardback hymnal, hymn
number 70. Seven, zero, 70. Holy, holy,
holy. Let's all stand together. Number
70. Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty. Early in the morning our song
shall rise to Thee. Holy, holy, holy, merciful and
mighty, God in three persons, blessed Trinity. Holy, holy, holy, all the saints
adore thee, casting down their golden crowns around the glassy
sea. Cherubim and seraphim falling
down before thee, which wert and art and evermore shalt be. ? Holy, holy, holy ? ? Though
the darkness hide thee ? ? Though the eye of sinful man ? ? Thy
glory may not see ? ? Only thou art holy ? ? There is none beside
thee ? Perfect in power, in love and purity. ? Holy, holy, holy ? Lord God
Almighty ? All thy work shall praise thy name ? In earth and
sky and sea ? Holy, holy, holy ? Merciful and mighty Please be seated. Good morning. I want to call
attention to our bulletin this morning and encourage you to
read those articles. try to put one in there from
each one of the men that are going to be preaching for us
this next weekend. So it will maybe introduce you
to the ones you don't know a little bit, if you'd like to take a
few minutes sometime and read those articles. We're going to be in John chapter
5 this morning, this first hour. And I've titled this message,
Christ Our Life. Christ Our Life. Let's pray together. Our merciful Heavenly Father,
we take great comfort and joy in being able to join our voices
together in praise, declaring you to be holy. Lord, we know that as you are
holy, so thy dear son is holy, and so is the Holy Spirit holy. Lord, we would not dare come
into the presence of a holy God without knowing that that you've
made a way for us by the work of thy dear son to be not just accepted in thy
sight, but to be counted holy, righteous for Christ's sake. Lord, we pray that you would
be pleased this hour to reveal to our hearts his glory and give
us faith to rest all our hope in him, who himself is our life. Lord, we pray for those in our
fellowship that are in need, and Lord, we pray that you would
minister grace and help, enable them to come before thy throne
of grace, and Lord, provide for the physical needs of your children. And Father, we pray for the men, Sean and Eric and Todd and
Angus, and ask, Lord, that you would prepare their hearts this
week with the messages that we need to hear and that you would
prepare our hearts to hear them. That Christ would be lifted up,
that your church would be built up, that you would unite us together
in the love of Christ. For it's in his name we pray,
amen. You have your Bibles open to
John chapter 5. There's two verses here I want
to begin with. This is the next, actually this
message continues to be repeated for the next couple of chapters
in the Gospel of John. But here they are, verses 26
and 27, for as The father hath life in himself,
so hath he given to the son to have life in himself." All life,
all biological life and all spiritual life, comes from God. Without Him, there is no life. And, verse 27, the father hath
given to the son authority to execute judgment also because
he is the son of man. All the attempts that the natural
man, the unbelieving man, makes to try to discover the origins
of life can never be found. It can't be found by the most
powerful microscope or the most powerful telescope. All the efforts
of man are foolish and futile in discovering the true origin
of life. Now I don't know what the percentage
of NASA's $25 billion annual budget goes to the search for
the origins of life. But I know that it's wasted money
because the true origins of life can only be discovered through
the eye of faith. And here in this one simple verse,
we have the answer as to the origin of life. Let's read it
again. For as the Father hath life in
himself, so also he hath given to the Son to have life in himself. The Lord, in his word, to the hearts of his children The
power of his spirit, the gift of grace reveals himself as our source of life. Our biological life and more
importantly, our spiritual life is in him. Turn with me to Colossians
chapter 1. I'm sorry, Colossians chapter
three, verse one. If ye then be risen with Christ,
seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right
hand of God. Set your affections on things
above, not on things of the earth, for you are dead and your life
is hid with Christ in God. And when Christ, who is our life,
shall appear, then shall you also appear with him in glory. The Lord Jesus is called the
firstborn among many brethren. And he said, because I live,
you shall live also. He conquered death by his own
death. He satisfied all the demands
of God's holy justice by the sacrifice of himself on Calvary's
cross. He fulfilled the law and he made
a promise to all those who believe on him that as I have risen from
the dead, so shall you. John chapter 11, Martha grieving
the loss of her brother Lazarus said to the Lord, I know that
my brother will rise again in the resurrection. And the Lord
Jesus said to Martha, Martha, Martha, I am the resurrection. He that believeth in me, though
he be dead, yet shall he live. And he that believeth and believeth
in me shall never die. Never die. Believest thou this? What Martha say? Yea, Lord. I believe, I believe that thou
art the Christ that should come into the world. This is the record John tells
us in 1 John chapter 5. This is the record that God has
given unto us eternal life and this life is in his son. He that
hath the son hath life and he that hath not the son of God
hath not life. These things I have written unto
you that believe on the name of the Son of God that you might
know that you have eternal life. Resting our hope in Christ who
conquered death and who possesses life within himself and has been
given by his Father all judgment to give life to whomsoever he
wills Resting our hope in Him is the assurance of our life. Outside of Him, we have no life.
John 1, verse 4 says, in Him, Christ is life. And the life is the light of
men. So the only way that our eyes
can be opened to see the truth is to have Christ. The Lord Jesus in interceding
on behalf of his church in John chapter 17 said, and this is
life. And there's the one few places
in the scriptures where eternal is not put in front of life.
Usually when we read of eternal life, it's in that order, eternal
life. But in John chapter 17, verse
four, the Lord Jesus said, and this is life, eternal. that they might know thee, the
only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent." To know
Christ is to believe on Christ. And to have Christ is to have
life. By nature, the scripture makes
it clear that we are alienated from the life of God. That's
how we come into this world, dead in our trespasses and sins,
but we are quickened or made alive by the Holy Spirit. And
that's what the Lord Jesus was saying to Nicodemus. Nicodemus,
except you be born from above, except you be born of the Spirit
of God. You cannot see the kingdom of God. Why can't you see it?
Because you're dead. Dead people can't see. They can't
hear. Seeing the truth of who God is
and who we are and how it is that God remits sin, believing
on the Lord Jesus Christ, is not the cause of our life, it
is the result of it. We see, we believe, we hear,
we speak, we follow, because we are alive, not in order to
become alive. We must pass from death unto
life. In order for that to happen,
God has to do for us what he did for Adam in the garden. He
formed him from the dust of the earth, and then he breathed life
into his nostrils and Adam became a living soul. You know, I've always thought, God
breathed life into Adam's nostrils. The scripture speaks of the gospel
as being a sweet aroma. You know, when God looks down,
the scripture says in Romans chapter 3, when God looks down
our throats He sees into our hearts and he
calls it a open sepulcher. Our throats are an open sepulcher.
Out of our mouth, we speak and we reveal what's in our hearts.
So it only stands to reason that God would not breathe life into
our mouths. If you were going to give someone
mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, you would try to force air into
their mouth. The Lord breathed into our nostrils
and that's exactly what he does spiritually now. When the gospel
of his free grace in Christ is preached, the Spirit of God makes
that alabaster jar that's been broken open and it's a savor
and that word savor means a sweet smell. We use the word savor
as a taste In this scripture, it's a savor of life or it is
a savor of death. In other words, when the gospel
of God's free grace is broken open, the alabaster jar is broken,
some will say like Judas, that's a waste of money. Though the
whole room be filled with this sweet smell and aroma, for some
it'll be a stench to their nostrils. To some, it will rob them of
their righteousness. To others, it'll be life. Life. Oh Lord, give me more of that
breath of life. Everything that goes in and out
of my mouth. Not what goes into a man's mouth
that defiles him. What comes out of a man's mouth
is what defiles him. And by your words, you shall
be justified. And by your words, you shall
be condemned. How oftentimes our words reveal
so much about us. Might God give us words of grace
to be able to speak to one another, to be able to speak to him. might
we be quick to give to the Lord Jesus Christ all the glory and
all the praise and all the honor for all life is in him and apart
from him we have no life, no life. The theory of evolution
has one objective and that is to deny God as the origin of
life. Takes a whole lot more faith
to believe in evolution than it does to believe in God. The faith to believe in God is
a miracle though, isn't it? It's a miracle. The Lord Jesus
said, the words that I speak unto thee, and here's where the
gospel, this is where the scripture, this is the means by which the
Lord gives life. The words that I speak unto you,
they are spirit. They can only be heard and believed
by the power of the spirit. And they are life. They are life. So we just keep looking to God's
word We look to his written word to reveal the living word of
the Lord Jesus and we never separate the two. Proverbs chapter 16 verse 22
says, understanding is the wellspring of life to them that have it. What do we understand? Well,
we understand that The Lord Jesus is the tree of life. The first
reference to him as life is the tree of life that's in the midst
of the garden. And he's revealed there and then
what does God do? When Adam sins and he's cast
out of the garden, God takes cherubims with flaming swords
and places them at the gate to the garden to do what? To protect
the way or to keep the way, that's what the scripture says, to keep
the way to the tree of life. The tree of life was in the garden.
And these cherubims with flaming swords were keeping the way to
the tree of life. Adam and Eve had to experience
physical death in order for them to be restored in the fullness
of life. Their bodies had to die, their
bodies were sinful, their bodies were fleshly just like ours and
their bodies had to die. Had they been given access to
the tree of life they would have lived in a sinful state for all
of eternity. So God put these cherubims at
the gate to the garden to keep the way to the tree of life.
But there's more to it than that. The cherubims are messengers,
they're angels. And every time we declare the
scriptures and the gospel and the word of God, we are acting
as an angel, as a messenger. And the sword of the spirit is
the word of God. And so just as the cherubim were
wielding And that's what the scripture said. They were wielding
the sword, the flaming sword, to keep the way to the tree of
life. What are we doing? We're making
straight and plain the way to the tree of life by the word
of God, the sword of the spirit. And we're saying with our brother
John the Baptist, behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away
the sins of the world. Make the way straight. And then when we look all the
way through scriptures to the book of Revelation, we find that
that tree of life is mentioned again in the book of Revelation.
In the early chapters of Revelation, I think it's in chapter three,
the tree of life is mentioned as being on both sides of the
river. Just as the children of Israel
crossed from the wilderness, 40 years, that's a generation,
walking in the wilderness, and Joshua had to divide the Jordan
River in order for them to enter into the promised land. We've
done that spiritually in our Joshua, the Lord Jesus. And one
day soon, one day soon, the Lord will take us. across that river
into the land flowing with milk and honey, that place that he
has prepared for us. So the tree of life in the book
of Revelation is seen on both sides of the river. We're on the east side now and we're getting all of our
sustenance for life from the one who possesses life and who
is himself life and who is himself our life. And one day we'll cross
that river and we'll have the fullness of
that life in the tree on the other side of the Jordan. The Lord Jesus is referred to
as the water of life. There's no life without water. And when the Lord was talking
to that woman at the well and he said to her, if you knew who
it is that saith unto thee, give me to drink, you would ask it
of him and he would give you living water. If you knew who I was, you'd
be asking me. Isn't that amazing? If we know him, we're gonna ask
him. It's just that simple. Only those who know him ask him.
The evidence that we know him is that we've asked him. Those
who don't know him have no interest. Oh Lord, give me that water.
And the Lord Jesus said to her, he that comes to this well, All
the wells of water that men drink from in order to try to find
life will thirst again. But he that drinketh of the water
of life, the water of life that I shall give him, out of his
belly will flow rivers of living water. There's our hope. There's our hope. Turn with me to Revelation chapter
21. Revelation 21. Verse six. And he said unto me, it
is done. It's finished. Oh, one of the
simplest illustrations I've ever heard, and you've heard it, the
difference between the gospel of God's free grace in the glorious
person and finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ and a gospel
of man's free will and works is the difference between do
and done. It's just that simple. Two simple
letters, N-E. Men are looking for life by something
that they do. Well, if you do this or if you
do that or you abstain from this or abstain from the other, if
you pray this prayer, if you make this decision, something
you have to do in order to get life. God will reward you with
life if you get the right formula and do it right. Tell them this, it's done. It's done, it's finished. The
work of redemption is accomplished. The law has been satisfied. Justice
has been fulfilled. Everything, everything that God requires.
I am alpha and omega. Now that's the first and last
letter of the Greek alphabet. You know that. But spiritually
speaking, it's talking about election to glorification. I am your life in election when
the Lord Jesus became the lamb slain before the foundation of
the world and became the hour representative before his heavenly
father. He's on the alpha. In him is
life. I am your life in election. I
am your life in redemption. I accomplished what God requires
when I redeemed you. I bought you with the price of
my precious blood. I am your life in regeneration.
I'm the one who arrested you on your road to self-destruction
and revealed myself to you and made you to believe on me. Made
you willing to believe on me, I should say. I am your life and sanctification.
I'm the one that keeps you from falling. I'm the one who continually
causes you to come again and again and again and again. And
I will be the one that will take you safely to glory. I'm your life, it's done. How
do I know I have life? Because I'm looking to Christ
for all my life. I can't... Add to that, if Christ who is your life, when
Christ who is your life, didn't we just read that in Colossians
3, 4? When Christ who is your life shall appear, then you shall
appear with him in glory. It is done, I am Alpha and Omega,
the beginning and the end. You see, the Lord just defined
what Alpha and Omega is. And everything in between. I will give unto him that is
a thirst. What do they say, you can really
lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink? Lay a salt
block out there and let him lick that for a little while and he'll
wanna drink water. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
salt of the gospel. He's the one that makes us thirsty.
He's the one that makes us want to come to the water of life
and drink freely. Freely, you see that right there,
freely. It's a fountain. We have those springs all over
this area of the world, don't we? I mean, I think about Blue
Springs. I think there's a hundred million
gallons of water every 24 hours that boils up out of the aquifer.
And as long as we've known history, it's always been. It just keeps
coming. There's no stopping it. He's not a broken cistern of
polluted water that we drink from and get sick. He's a fountain
of living water, always a full supply. Never can drain it dry. The water of life. You're there in Revelation. Turn
over just one page to Revelation chapter 22, verse one. And he,
the angel, showed me. And that's what has to happen.
God has to show us. He has to open our eyes and he
has to reveal it to us. You know, let me just pause here
for just a moment, I just thought of something. The word, we've heard this word a lot in
response to the California fires, apocalyptic, it's apocalyptic. And the reason that word really
has changed meanings from where we have it in the scriptures,
it's in the scriptures. But because most men think that
the book of Revelation, and our hearts go out to those folks
in California, I hope they get that fire out soon. It's very
sad. But it's not apocalyptic in the
sense that they think. The word for this book that we're
reading right now, Revelation, is the word apocalyptic. Well,
it's a different version, but it's the word from which we get
our word apocalyptic. And people read the book of Revelation
and they think it's nothing more than just a revelation of end
time events when the fire of God will fall and this world
will be destroyed. But the book of Revelation tells
us in the very first verse, this is the apocalypse of the Lord
Jesus Christ. Revelation 1.1. This is a revelation
or an unveiling of Christ. And that's what the whole book
is. We could call this book the apocalypse. The word Bible just means book. It is the book of God. But here,
Revelation 22, he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear
as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the
Lamb. That's where that river comes
from. The river of life, it proceeds. In him is life, and the life
is the light of men. All life comes from God. All
life. The most powerful electron microscope
and the most powerful Hubble telescope, maybe they've got
one even newer than that now, will never find the God particle. They will never find the origin
of life. It's not gonna be found because
the origin of life is God and he can't be put under a microscope
and he can't be seen in a telescope. Now I'm thankful for whatever
true scientific discoveries are being made where our lives are
improved by them. But as far as the origin of life
is concerned, it's God, period. He's the water of life, pure
as crystal. He's the book of life. Turn with me to Job, Job chapter
19, right before the Psalms, Job 19. Job's friends, and I put that word in, well,
Kind of like Facebook friends, most of them don't care a bit
about you. Job's friends were in fact miserable
comforters and they were accusing Job, Job the reason why you lost
everything and you're losing your own life because of your
sin. Job says in Job 19 verse 23,
oh, that my words were now written, oh, that they were printed in
a book, that they were graven with an iron pin and lead in
the rock forever. My brother and my friends, there
is a book, there is a book, it's called the book of life, it's
called the Lamb's book of life. And it's been written by the
very finger of God, an iron pin in a rock forever. Here's what the names of those
in the Lamb's book of life say. For I know that my redeemer liveth. I know that the Lord Jesus Christ
is the only hope that I have of being redeemed, being bought
from sin and from death. And I know that he's alive. I
know that he conquered death. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?
The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law.
Thanks be to God, through Christ Jesus, We have the victory. He satisfied the demands of the
law and he put away our sin. And he satisfied all the requirements
of God the father so that the father could not allow his holy
one to see corruption, but the father rose him from the grave.
And he calls himself the firstborn among many brethren. And the
hope of our resurrection is because he conquered death. and sin and hell and the grave. That's what Job's saying. I know
that my Redeemer liveth. Can you say that? And that he shall stand at the
latter day upon the earth. He's coming again, not as a suffering
servant, but as a conquering Savior. and gather his people
unto himself. In the world to find out what
an apocalypse is then. And though after my skin, worms
destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God. This corruptible
flesh is going to be made incorruptible. This mortal body is going to
be made immortal. There's my hope that I'm going
to be changed in the twinkling of an eye. Whom I shall see for myself and
mine own eyes shall behold and not another. I'm not looking
for another. Though my reigns be consumed
within me. And then he goes on to say to
his friends, though you persecute me, this is my hope. This is
my hope. All the death that I see around
me, all the corruption that I see in my own body and in my own
flesh, Christ is my life and he's my hope. And that's what
the Lord Jesus is saying in our text in John 5, 24. In the Father, or John 5, 26,
in the Father is life. It's called the spirit of life.
The flesh, the flesh profiteth nothing. We can't get to life
through any fleshly methods. It is the spirit that giveth
life. That which is dead cannot produce
life. Life can only come from the Spirit
of God. We must be born of the Spirit. And the scripture speaks of a
crown of life. I love what Paul says to Timothy. He says, there is laid up for
me a crown of life. He calls it a crown of righteousness.
which the righteous judge shall give me, and not to me only,
but to all them that love his appearing." How do I know if
I have life? We have affections in this world. We have needs and desires in
this world. We're in so many ways attached
to the things of this world. But when I look outside of those
things, right now, as we're talking about Christ being our life,
I love the thought and the truth of his appearing. I love it. Oh, what a glorious day that's
going to be when the eastern sky splits and the trump of God
sounds and the dead in Christ are raised and those of us which
are alive should be called up together with them in the air.
What a, oh Lord. Come Lord Jesus, isn't that what
John said? Come Lord Jesus, even now come. What am I saying brethren? How
do you know if you have life? Because in your heart of hearts,
You are looking for, loving, and longing for the fullness
of your life to be revealed in the coming of Christ. He has laid up for me a crown
of glory, a crown of righteousness, and not for me only, but for
all them, that love is appearing. It's called the grace of life,
it's called eternal life, it's called everlasting life, it's
called the newness of life. The Lord Jesus said, I have come
that you might have life and have it more abundantly. I've known that verse for a long
time. Before the Lord gave me life, I knew that verse. And
I thought it meant that, you know, I'm just going to I'm just
gonna enjoy fat and happy experiences all throughout my life in this
world. If I can just somehow look to Jesus, all my experiences
will be happy and fun and he's gonna give me abundant life.
I'm just gonna be filled with life. Now there's some, Those who have
life have some trials and troubles in this world, don't they? This word abundant means without
measure in its fullness. I have come that you might have
life and one day you're going to have it abundantly. One day you're going to have
it without measure. Right now, we have it by measure. And one
day, it's gonna be the fullness of God's abundant life. That's our longing. Let's read our verse, our text,
one time before we close. I promise just to read them.
John chapter five. John chapter five. Verse 26, for as the father hath
life in himself, so hath he given to the son to have life in himself,
and hath given him authority to execute judgment also, because
he is the son of man. Amen.