Well, Billing, next week I want
us to look at the necessity of the link between eternal life
and justification. There is, in Romans
5, it's called the justification of life, and so eternal life
is the gift of God, but all of that gift comes to us through
the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. to know God is
to know God as a Saviour who saves and I love Jeremiah chapter
31 where he says shall be the covenant that I
will make, Jeremiah 31-33, with the house of Israel. After those
days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts
and write it on their hearts. And I will be their God and they
shall be my people. And they shall teach no more
every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying,
Know the Lord. For they shall all know me from
the least of them unto the greatest, saith the Lord. Why? What's the
basis for his revelation? and him revealing himself and
them knowing him. Four, because I will forgive
their iniquity and I will remember their sin no more. No more. We know God by revelation. This is how we know Him, as He
reveals Himself to us. And when He reveals Himself,
He's here to reveal Himself as a Saviour who really saves, as
one who bears our sins in His own blood and washes us clean. So all true faith comes as is
the fruit of knowing God. We can't have any knowledge of
God by some inward imagination or some idea of our own. It's
only as he takes his word. And don't you love the fact that
he's written it down, and we can go back again and again and
again, and we can read and read and reread and reread, because
we forget and we forget and we forget. And we can see that that's
what he said, and we can say, yeah, that's just what he said.
It's extraordinary what he's saying, but he keeps saying it
over and over again. The Lord has been pleased to
reveal himself by his spirit through the scriptures. And may
the Lord make us believers and not just reasoners. believe. I want us to look at
a couple of other aspects of eternal life and I want us to
look particularly about the operation of that eternal life in the lives
of his people. But we must know him. The only
true God is God the Father. For Him to be our Father in the
Lord Jesus Christ that He has loved us with an everlasting
love in this life, this is life eternal. It's to know the Son
as one with the Father, the same in essence as the Father, that
He was set up to be the God-Man for everlasting life. This is
life eternal, knowing Him, to know the Holy Spirit. It's distinct
from the Father and the Son, yet the same. It's to know and
to declare and to love a triune God. And this knowledge comes
just from God. and it comes through the preaching
of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Faith comes by hearing.
I'll just read some scriptures that are so good. He says in
Jeremiah 24 7, I will give them a heart to know me. Eternal life is knowing the only
true God. And Jesus Christ to him, he said,
I will give them a heart, Jeremiah 24, 7, to know me that I am the
Lord, and they shall be my people, and I will be their God, for
they shall return unto me with their whole heart. Psalm 25,
14 says, The secret of the Lord. his covenant. As John 6 45 says
and Isaiah 40 is quoting Isaiah 54 13 all thy children shall
be taught of the Lord and great shall be the peace of thy children. Ezekiel 9, 11, 9 says, And I
will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within
you, and I will take the stony heart out of your flesh, and
I will give them a heart of flesh. You can read about it again in
Ezekiel 36. Jeremiah 9, 23 says, Thus saith
the Lord, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither
let the mighty man glory in his might. Let not the rich man glory
in his riches, But let him that glorieth glory in this, that
he understandeth and knoweth me, that I am the Lord which
exercise. Don't you love that word? He actually does it. Loving kindness,
judgment, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things
I delight. saith the Lord all true faith
in God must be the fruit of knowing God we can have no knowledge
of God unless he reveals himself to him and mercifully he does
mercifully he does the only true God eternal life is union with
God in the Lord Jesus Christ he is that life and in him we
have that life in him is life your life 3 & 4 when Christ who is our life appears
we will appear with him in glory he prays in this prayer he says
all thine are mine and all mine are thine and I'm glorified in
them eternal life as we saw earlier is the gift of God eternal life
turn with me to Titus chapter 1 it's just these are wonderful
verses of scripture talking about eternal life Titus 1 He says, Paul, a servant of God
and an apostle, a sent one of Jesus Christ. Titus. A servant of God and an apostle
of Jesus Christ according to the faith of God's elect. Faith is in the scriptures, both
a verb, a doing thing, and faith is a noun, Titus 1.1, according
to the faith of God's elect. God's elect have a faith. God's
elect have a faithful one that they are chosen in. God's elect
and the acknowledging of the truth which is after godliness. that cannot lie promised before
the world began. Don't you love the fact that
God cannot lie? What a book we have. What a God
we have. He cannot lie. He cannot lie. He cannot deny himself. promised
before the world began, but hath in due times manifested his word
through preaching, which is committed unto me according to the commandment
of God our Saviour. I want us to look, before we
come to the Lord's Supper, I want us to look at faith this eternal life to be evident in the children
of God I'm going to take you to some of my favorite scriptures
if you turn with me to Galatians chapter 2 Paul describes what it is to
live he says in verse 19 he says for I through the that I might live unto God, I
through the law. The law put me to death when
it crucified and put to death the Lord Jesus Christ. And he
says in speaking of that union that we looked at earlier, I
am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, But Christ
liveth in me. That's eternal life. Christ liveth
in me. And the life which I now live
in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me
and gave himself for me. I do not frustrate the grace
of God, for if righteousness come by the law, if there is
any righteousness in anything that you do, then Christ is dead
in vain. So how do we live? Listen to
how Paul lived. It's faith, isn't it? As I said
earlier, the one glorifying attribute of faith is that it finds all
that it needs in Christ and it finds all of its satisfaction
and all of its comfort in the finished work of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Titus says it's our hope. What's
our hope? The Lord Jesus Christ is our
hope. But he will do as he's promised. What is it to live
eternally? For me to live is Christ. And to die is gain, Philippians
1. He says you are dead and your
life is hid with Christ in God. What's your great desire, Philippians
3? I want him just to find the Lord
Jesus Christ. Because my life is hidden with
him. We are dead and our life is hidden
with Christ in God. But listen to what Paul says
here. He says, I'm crucified, Galatians 2.20, I'm crucified
with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth
in me, and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by
the faith, or the faithfulness of the Son of God, who loved
me and gave himself for me. As we've seen earlier, there
is, according to the Lord Jesus, there is a content, there is
an object of faith that is given to us, the revelation of the
Lord Jesus Christ as He really is, and God the Father and God
the Holy Spirit as they really are, according to the Word. But for the child of God, the
evidence is in Him. Faith, Hebrews 11. Faith is the
evidence. Faith is the evidence. Faith
looks out of ourselves and it looks to Him. Saving faith looks
to Him. Assurance looks to Him. Peace with God looks to Him. Peace in this world looks to
Him. I was challenged some little
time ago, and I've been challenged several times about not saying
thanks in public when you're at restaurants and things, or
in other situations you don't give thanks enough, and I was
thinking about how if Christ is my life, no matter
how many times I give thanks, and we want to be thankful, and
we want to be publicly thankful to the Lord for all of the provisions
that he brings us. And it's no harm in declaring
it, but there's a lot of religious significance for some people
in doing these external things. But I was thinking, isn't that
wonderful? If Christ is my life, when did I give thanks to God? When did I really give thanks
to God for the food? The Lord lifted up his eyes to
heaven and thanked his Father, didn't he? When he ate, when
he broke those loaves. Who else thanked God in a way
which is perfectly acceptable to God and perfectly glorifying
to God? Everyone in him, everyone in
him. We look into ourselves, don't
we? And we say, well, I don't read the scriptures enough and
don't know them well enough. He did. He did it perfectly. I don't pray
enough. I don't pray well enough. But
what do we have here? He prayed. He prayed. Who's praying for me now in heaven? and they're washed clean in my
blood. And they're made perfect to be
on my side. People look into themselves and
they say, well, I don't give enough. He did. I don't love enough. I'd love
to love more. I'd love to love you more. He did. He loved. Do you see what I mean? This
is what Paul's saying, isn't it? Paul's not living on the
basis of what he did. He's living on the basis of what
the Lord Jesus Christ did. And no man in all of this gospel
age has had more reason to credit himself. He wrote half the New
Testament and planted churches all over that part of the world. He did the most remarkable things. And yet he tells us that all
of his hope and all of his assurance and all of his peace with God
And all of his eternal life is wrapped up in the Lord Jesus
Christ, isn't he? We might say, well, we don't
serve enough. He served. He serves. Right now he serves, doesn't
he? He serves by bringing us his
word. He serves by giving us faith.
He serves us by showing us again and again that he said it's finished. You might well say, well I don't
walk as I should in this world. And I'd love to walk more faithfully,
I'd love to walk more lovingly. I walked for 33 and a half years
on this earth with perfect love for God, perfect love for all
humanity, perfect love and obedience to the law of God. We love the
law of God. We want to honour the law of
God. We want to fulfil the law of God. And we have in Him Isn't it? My life is hid with
Christ in God. That's where my life is hidden.
And the less I get to look at my life, and the more I see it
hidden in him, the more peace I have. I can just go back to
his word and say, he said it's finished. He says it's done.
Eternal life is given His people eternal life. Thank God for the
gift. Thank God for the giver. Thank
God that the giver always causes the gift to be received, otherwise
it's not a gift. We live, we live not on the basis
of our works and not on the basis of our activity. We work, we
give. has done. When the Gentiles heard
the words of eternal life in the gospel of the Lord Jesus
Christ, Paul and Barnabas in Acts chapter 13, Paul and Barnabas
waxed bold and said, it is necessary that the word of God should first
have been spoken to you. These are these Jews. But seeing
that you put it from you, May that never be us, brothers and
sisters, seeing that you put it from you and judge yourselves
unworthy of eternal life. Lo, we turn to the Gentiles. That's us, except Cole. We turn
to the Gentiles. For so hath the Lord commanded
us, saying, I have set thee to be a light for the Gentiles.
Eternal life is a light shining in a dark place, a light of the
knowledge of the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ, God in the
face of Jesus Christ. I have set thee as a light for
the Gentiles, and thou shouldest be for the salvation unto the
ends of the earth. How do believers respond? And when the Gentiles heard this,
they were glad and glorified the word of the Lord
and as many as were ordained to eternal life. Dear Lord, they
just believed. Faith is the evidence, brothers
and sisters. This is the record. I'm trying
and we try, all of us here and our brothers and sisters, brothers
throughout the world who preach the Gospel, we're trying to just
give the testimony of God. We're trying to say this is what
God says. We're trying to get out of the way altogether. We're
trying for people not to see us but to see the Lord Jesus
Christ. We desperately and anxiously spirit and life for us. Christ who is our life will appear We're going to participate in
the Lord's Supper and we do this in remembrance of Him. And what
we are doing is eternal life is in the finished work of the
Lord Jesus Christ. And He said, when He'd given
thanks, 1 Corinthians 11, 24, when He'd given thanks, He'd
break it and said, take, eat. Don't you love that the Lord's
Supper is a commandment? this is my body which is broken
for you this do in remembrance of me and after the same manner
also he took the cup and when he had stopped saying this cup
is the New Testament this cup is the new covenant the eternal
covenant in my blood this do you as I For as often as you eat this
bread and drink this cup, you do show the Lord's death. We as a congregation, believers
throughout this world, we are declaring the Lord's death, together
and to each other. until he come. We're doing it
with the earnest expectation and hope that what we have by
faith now and his eternal life is going to be realised in the
most remarkable ways. I'm looking forward to seeing
my friends in heaven. I'm looking forward to seeing
those that I have loved and those who have encouraged me in faith. I'm looking forward to seeing
them in heaven. But the one side of heaven that
fills all of the hearts of all believers here, and will fill
them all there, is the side of Him. I will see Him as He is. that there is in the Lord Jesus
Christ. So much for the nonsense and
the rubbish of this world, isn't it? We have eternal life here,
now. We have eternal life in His presence
when we leave here, brothers and sisters who believe. We have
eternal life, a resurrected life, in a new creation. Resurrection
bodies, like His glorious to be in his presence forever. We eat and drink worthily when
we eat and drink in faith. Faith lays hold of eternal life. Let me close where we've been
in 1 John a bit today. He says, behold what, verse chapter
three of 1 John, behold what manner of love So what is the
heart of all eternal life? It's love, isn't it? A love union
between God the Father, God the Son, and the Holy Spirit. A love
union between God the Father, God the Son, and us. What manner
of love the Father has bestowed, you didn't know that, he bestows
it on you. That we should be called the
sons of God. Don't expect them to know, because
it knew him not. Beloved, listen to what he says. This is the testimony of God
about our Saviour and us. But beloved, now are we the sons
of God. Not might be in the future, now
are we the sons of God and it does not yet appear what we shall
be but we know we know that when he shall appear we shall be like
him And every man that hath this
hope in him purifieth himself even as he is pure. May God grant us the joy and
peace of believing. the hope of eternal life. Let's
pray. Our Heavenly Father, we thank
you that the glories of your grace in the finished work of
the Lord Jesus Christ are bestowed upon us, our Father. We pray
that you might cause us to be expectant and glad and loving recipients of these extraordinary gifts
that you've given your Son, our Father, to wash us from our sins
that we might be presented holy and unblameable and unreprovable
in your sight. May we, Heavenly just rejoice
that your side is the one side that matters. And right now. your son in his glory. May we find our peace and satisfaction
where you find your satisfaction in your dear and precious son
and his glorious finished work. May we, Heavenly Father, be enabled
to eat and drink in faith, in the hope of eternal and precious
Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Bless your word to our hearts,
cause us to be believers, Heavenly Father, and to keep coming and
calling and rejoicing in our glorious Saviour. For we pray
in his name and for his glory. Amen.