Glad to add my welcome to you tonight,
glad to see you.
Many of you have been here faithfully night
by night and others morning by morning.
Some of you may have joined us for
the first time tonight.
And our concern throughout this week has been
to focus our attention upon the person of
the Lord Jesus as the one who is
not only our Redeemer because of what he
did 1900 years ago when he died for
what we've done, but who is our life
because he rose again from the dead to
indwell us by his Holy Spirit and take
the place of what we are.
So he died for what we've done and
he takes the place of what we are.
To me to live is Christ.
That's why the Lord Jesus said in John
14, because I live, and he was speaking
of his resurrection, because I live, you will
live also.
You will live by virtue of the fact
that I live.
In other words, you'll have a quality of
life that you've never had before.
It will be God imparted life, divine life.
And that is why, in order that we
may understand more fully the content of our
faith, what it really means to be a
Christian, we have of necessity had to focus
our attention upon the one who is our
life.
I am the way, I am the truth,
I am the life.
We expect God to take, we expect people
to take God seriously when the Lord Jesus
says I am the way, and we should
expect folk, and we should expect ourselves to
take him seriously in the same way when
he says I am the life.
But as I trust him to be the
way, for me a guilty sinner back to
a holy God, so I learn to trust
him for what he claims to be, my
life.
He that hath the Son hath life.
He that hath not the Son of God
hath not life.
And we saw yesterday, out of the sixth
chapter of John's Gospel, that the Lord Jesus,
in emphasizing that apart from coming to him
and believing on him, we don't have that
quality of life that he imparts to forgiven
sinners.
If you will remember the fifty-third verse
of the sixth chapter of John, verily, verily,
I say unto you, except you eat the
flesh of the Son of Man, come to
him, and drink his blood, believe on him,
you have no life in you.
You haven't begun to live, you're just existing.
You're subhuman.
You're physically alive, you're soulishly active, but you're
spiritually dead.
Destitute of that content for which God created
you.
You don't have life in you.
You must be born again.
Having been born the first time of the
flesh to receive animal life, you have to
be born the second time of the Spirit
to receive divine life, by the exceeding great
and precious promises, thereby becoming partaker of the
divine nature.
But we saw last night that the Lord
Jesus didn't put a period there.
He wasn't satisfied that we might have life.
He went on to explain the implications of
having life, what it was going to involve
for you and for me.
That the crisis of regeneration would only precipitate
the process of sanctification.
That the act of faith by which we
are redeemed through his death precipitates the attitude
of faith by which we are saved by
his life.
And that to believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ as an act is to precipitate believing
on the Lord Jesus Christ as a process.
These things write we unto you that believe
on the name of the Son of God,
that you may know that you have eternal
life because you have believed, and that you
may go on believing.
Live in the good of that which has
become yours because you have believed.
And you will only live in the good
of what is yours because you have believed
insofar as you go on believing.
So believing on the Lord Jesus Christ is
more than just making a decision, more than
just registering your conversion.
Believing on the Lord Jesus Christ is the
process of a lifetime on into eternity.
And when we see him face to face
we shall go on believing on the Lord
Jesus Christ.
It is, in other words, the reestablishment of
man in his true relationship to God, a
faith-love relationship, a love relationship freely entered
into that is constantly declared by an attitude
of dependence, believing.
And that's going to be the work of
God while we're here on earth.
For in answer to the question, what shall
we men do that we men might do
the works of God, the Lord Jesus said
this is the work of God, and by
this definition you'll know the answer to your
question.
This is the work of God that you
believe on him whom he has sent.
In other words, you recognize that you have
to take every step in an attitude of
dependence upon the one who has come to
inhabit your redeemed humanity and your dependence upon
him, your attitude of faith will release his
divine life.
Then you'll see the work of God.
You'll see things happen that are only explicable
in terms of Jesus Christ.
This is exactly what the Lord Jesus promised.
John 7, 38 and 39, he that believeth
on me, not just has believed, no, he
that believeth on me, the present continuous tense,
he that goes on believing on me, out
of his innermost being shall flow a process,
riveth of living water.
But this spake he of the Holy Spirit,
divine activity, clothed with redeemed humanity, this spake
he of the Holy Spirit, whom they that
believe on him should receive.
For the Holy Ghost was not yet given
because Jesus was not yet glorified.
The restoration of divine life, the restoration of
our divine content, in the person of the
Holy Ghost could only be achieved by the
accomplishment of his decease at Calvary.
The finished work, whereby through his shed blood
we would be reconciled to God and he
being raised from the dead and glorified in
his father's right hand, the father would implement
the promise that he, the Lord Jesus, gave
to his disciples that the comforter should come.
So that the spirit whom they had recognized
with them in his person might thereafter be
as from Pentecost in them.
Do you remember the promise?
John 14, verily, verily, verse
12, I say unto you, he that believeth
on me, the works that I do shall
he do also, and greater works than these
shall he do for this good reason.
I go to my father.
Verse 16, and I will pray the father,
and he shall give you another comforter that
he may abide with you forever.
I will pray the father, and he shall,
future, give you another comforter, that he may
abide with you forever.
I'm with you for a little while, but
he's going to be with you forever.
Even the Spirit of Truth, the Holy Spirit,
whom the world cannot receive because it seeth
him not, neither knoweth him.
That constitutes the world.
The world is that mass of humanity uninhabited
by God.
That's the world.
And that mass of humanity uninhabited by God
is uninhabited because sin isn't forgiven.
You pass out of the world, translated out
of the power of darkness, the world into
the kingdom of God's dear Son, the moment
you claim forgiveness through the shed blood of
Christ.
The moment you claim forgiveness through the shed
blood of Christ, on the grounds of forgiveness,
the Holy Spirit is restored to you, become
inhabited by God, and thereby you're translated out
to the power of darkness into the kingdom
of God's dear Son.
The Spirit of Truth, whom the world cannot
receive because it seeth him not, neither knoweth
him, but you know him, he says, he,
the Spirit of Truth, dwelleth with you because
I have presented my body through the eternal
Spirit to my father without spot.
So you know that he has been with
you.
For he, the eternal Spirit, through whom I
have presented my body to the Father, is
the one who has displayed the glory of
my father, so that when you have seen
me, you have seen the Father.
When you've heard me speak, you've heard my
father speak.
When you've watched me do, you've seen my
father do.
For my father who dwells within me, through
the eternal Spirit, doeth the works.
He dwelleth with you.
He shall be in you.
The one who has been dwelling with you
is going to be in you.
Chapter 16, verse 4, these things have I
told you, that when the time shall come
ye may remember that I told you of
them.
And these things I said not unto you
at the beginning, because I was with you.
But now I go my way to him
that sent me.
And none of you asketh me whither goest
thou, but because I have said these things
unto you, sorrow hath filled your heart, as
though I came for any other purpose but
for this.
Nevertheless I tell you the truth.
It is expedient for you that I go
away, for if I go not away, the
Comforter, the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of Truth,
my other self will not come unto you.
But if I depart, I will send him
unto you.
For the Holy Ghost was not yet given,
because Jesus was not yet glorified.
Sinful humanity could only be re-inhabited by
God, when sinful humanity became redeemed humanity.
So the Lord Jesus Christ says, I must
go away.
If I don't go away, the Comforter never
can come.
Because unless I go away the way appointed,
unless I accomplish my death at Jerusalem, he
can never come and inhabit you, redeemed sinners,
as he has already been inhabiting me, the
sinless incarnate Word of God.
In other words, if I may repeat this
again, the life he lived, in his sinlessness,
qualified him for the death he died, that
the death he died, in its atoning efficacy,
might qualify you and me to become the
recipients of the life he lived.
That's the whole purpose of Christ coming into
the world.
Not just that you might get to heaven,
but that your, your redeemed humanity might become
re-inhabited by God, the temple of the
living God.
So the Holy Spirit might come back into
your human spirit, and from your human spirit,
as we saw last evening, he might invade
your human personality, recapture your mind, and your
emotions, and your will, for the sovereignty of
Jesus Christ.
So that the Lord Jesus may live his
life again on earth, in you, and through
you, today.
John's Gospel, chapter 12, and
verse 23, And Jesus answered them, saying, The
hour is come, that the Son of Man
should be glorified.
The hour is come.
But didn't the Lord Jesus Christ live for
33 years on earth?
What then was the significance of this hour,
that he should call it the hour?
The hour is come, that the Son of
Man should be glorified.
This is not the first time that the
hour is mentioned.
If you look in the 7th chapter of
John, and the 30th verse, Then they sought
to take him, but no man laid hands
on him, because his hour was not yet
come.
But was the one hour in the life
of the Lord Jesus Christ that had greater
significance than any other hour?
Chapter 8, and verse 20, These words spake
Jesus in the treasury, as he taught in
the temple, And no man laid hands on
him, for his hour was not yet come.
Nobody could touch him, because he was living
his life according to program, according to a
divine schedule.
His hour had not come.
In the 17th chapter, and the first verse,
John 17, verse 1, These words spake Jesus,
and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and
said, Father, the hour is come.
Glorify thy son, that thy son also may
glorify thee.
What was the hour for the Lord Jesus
Christ?
The hour without which he would have lived,
to live in vain.
Jesus answered them, saying, The hour is come,
that the son of man should be glorified.
Verily, verily, I say unto you, except a
corn of wheat fall into the ground and
die, it abideth alone.
But if it die, it bringeth forth much
fruit.
He that loveth his life shall lose it.
He that hateth his life in this world
shall keep it unto life eternal.
This is the hour without which the Lord
Jesus would have been born and would have
lived for 33 years on earth in sinlessness,
in vain.
When the Lord Jesus Christ was here on
earth, we discovered the other night, that his
whole life was synonymous with that righteousness that
the Lord demands.
Romans 10 and 4, he was the end
of the lawful righteousness.
He satisfied every demand of the Lord.
In him there was no sin.
And even
if Jesus Christ had not been God, which
he was, even if he had not been
the Creator, which he was, even if he
had not been in the beginning, as man,
he would have had a perfect right to
step right out of time into eternity, straight
from heaven, straight from earth to heaven, on
the basis of the law.
Oh, yes.
In his own right as man, Jesus Christ
would have had the right to go to
heaven, even if he hadn't been God.
Because the only thing that keeps man from
heaven is sin.
The only thing that keeps man from the
presence of a holy God is sin.
And in him there was no sin.
And Jesus Christ would have had the right
as man to go straight from earth to
heaven.
At the end of 33 years, he might
have said to his father, Father, I'm coming
home, straight home.
And supposing he had done so, without the
cross, would his father have received him?
Oh, yes.
Before Pontius Pilate, the Lord Jesus said, one
word from me and my father would send
ten legions of angels.
You say you have power to slay me,
you have power to crucify me, or you
have power to release me, said Jesus Christ,
you have no power.
And if I gave my father one word,
that was no idle boast on the part
of Jesus Christ.
He meant every word of what he said.
He never said words he didn't mean.
And if the Lord Jesus Christ had said
the word to his father, and his father
had sent the ten legions of angels, and
he had been received straight away from earth
to heaven, without submitting to the cross, he
would have been received by the father, for
what he was, perfect God and perfect man.
And he would have had the eternal right
to remain with the glory, and enjoy that
glory with the father that he had had
before ever the world was.
But he would have remained alone, eternally
alone.
For the life he lived on earth, thirty
-three years, being the complete fulfillment of the
righteousness demanded by the law, could only have
condemned you and condemned me as the law
condemns you and the law condemns me.
The life he lived for thirty-three years
on earth could never have got you or
me to heaven, could never have atoned for
our sin.
It could only have mocked us for our
moral depravity and our spiritual destitution.
Reading from the Amplified New Testament in John's
Gospel, chapter 12 and verse 23, back to
the passage that we have just been considering.
John 12, 23, and Jesus answered them, the
time has come for the Son of Man
to be glorified and exalted.
I assure you, most solemnly I tell you,
unless a grain of wheat falls into the
earth and dies, I want you to listen
to this particularly carefully, it remains, it remains
just one grain, but it remains, never becomes
more, but lives, goes on living, by itself,
alone.
That's a grain of wheat.
If it doesn't go into the ground and
die, it remains, one grain, never becomes more,
it lives, and goes on living, by itself,
alone.
That is why the Lord Jesus spoke of
the hour, without which he would have been
born to live in vain.
He might just as well have stayed in
heaven as come down to earth, to live
a life like that and go straight back
to heaven.
He could have been as sinless in heaven
as he was sinless on earth, but he
came to live that kind of life on
earth that by virtue, that you and I
might become the recipients of the life he
lived.
That was the hour for which he was
born.
Because you see, in his utter sinlessness, God
added to him your sinfulness.
God made him to be sin for us
whom you know sin, that we might be
made the righteousness of God in him.
What the law could not do through the
weakness of our flesh, what it could do
through the sinlessness of Christ, what the law
could not do through the weakness of the
flesh, God sending his own Son in the
likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, condemned
sin in the flesh.
Had the Lord Jesus himself sinned, he could
only have incurred himself his own penalty.
But because of the life he lived in
sinlessness, he was qualified to die for you
and for me, to take our place vicariously,
and there was imputed to him your guilt
and mine.
And God executed in his person our sin.
So that when you and I give ourselves
to Christ, we give ourselves to him that
being identified with him in God's economy, we
might be executed with him and buried.
Then God raised him from the dead.
That you and I might become the recipients
of the very life he lived.
So that the Holy Spirit, who occupied his
whole yielded humanity as he was a man
on earth, might come and occupy our humanity
now redeemed through the death he died.
That qualifies us to be re-inhabited by
the one who inhabited him, the Eternal Spirit.
So that the very life that he possessed
on earth, becomes your life and mine.
That's regeneration.
That's new birth.
So the very life that a forgiven sinner
receives, the very instant that he's born again,
the very instant that he's redeemed, that life
is the identical life that Jesus Christ lived
1900 years ago.
That's the sublime genius of our salvation.
That's why God never expects you or me
to be made perfect in the flesh.
That's why God abhors every attempt on your
part or mine to re-educate an old,
wicked, fallen nature that God executed and sentenced
to death and carried out that sentence in
the person of his son 1900 years ago.
It grieves God.
It offends God.
It's in defiance of God's wisdom and God's
whole redemptive plan and purpose, when you and
I try to re-educate a fallen nature
to live like Christ, when God says, I
have sentenced that old, wicked nature of yours
to death, and I have executed in the
person of my sinless son, that you, by
virtue of his death, on your behalf.
That's why the Lord Jesus Christ said, the
hour has come, for which I was born
and for which I have lived, that by
my death taking you into death, you might
become the recipients of what I am.
Life, by the exceeding great and precious promises,
becoming partakers of the divine nature.
That's the whole principle of life out of
death.
Here's a grain of wheat.
It has life.
However, will that life that is contained within
that grain of wheat ever become another grain
of wheat?
However, will that life ever be reproduced by
copying it?
Did you ever produce another grain of wheat
by copying one grain of wheat?
Was ever a harvest weeped by copying grains
of wheat?
Never.
Every harvest that is reaped is harvested from
a graveyard.
I could copy a grain of wheat a
thousand times, and plant a thousand copies that
I have made, and every copy will be
sterile, because it does not contain the life
of the original grain.
And that is what the Lord Jesus meant
in John 6 when he said, until you
have come to me and believed on me,
you do not have any life in you.
You can copy me, you can emulate my
example.
But you won't have life.
You will be a sterile copy, never capable
of growth and never capable of reproduction.
You will be dead.
Now that's nominal Christianity.
Just a copy of the real thing.
Except a grain of wheat fall into the
ground and die and abides alone.
It remains just one grain.
Never becomes more.
But lives by itself, alone.
When they opened Tutankhamen's tomb, and other of
the ancient Egyptian pharaohs, they found corn and
wheat that had been placed in the tombs
in their superstition, imagining that they were providing
food for the late deceased.
It had been there in the tomb for
thousands of years.
And yet the amazing thing is this, when
they took those grains of wheat out of
the tombs where they had been buried for
thousands of years, and planted them in the
earth, the grains of wheat which had remained
alone, all those thousands of years, in the
darkness, sprouted, grew and reproduced.
The life germ in a grain of wheat
is the nearest thing to eternal life that
you can imagine.
But it will remain alone.
Never be more than one grain.
It will live by itself until it dies.
Until it relinquishes what it is, it can
never become what it was intended to be.
And if the Lord Jesus Christ had not
relinquished himself into death, he would have remained,
he would have lived, he could have gone
straight back to heaven, he would have been
welcomed by the Father, he would have had
the glory with the Father that he had
before the world was, but he would have
lived by himself, alone.
He would never have been called in the
Bible the first fruits of many brethren.
He would never have been described in the
Bible as the first begotten from the dead.
He would have been born, he would have
lived, gone straight to heaven, eternally lonely.
And he would have left you, and he
would have left me on earth, and the
whole fallen race of the fallen seed of
Adam, dead in trespasses and sins.
Maybe hopelessly trying to copy, hopelessly trying to
emulate the matchless life of the perfect example
that was exhibited 1,900 years ago, but
a message only of frustration and despair would
be the invitation to fallen unregenerate men to
live the kind of life he lived 1
,900 years ago.
For what the law could not do through
the weakness of the flesh, his life could
not do through the weakness of the flesh,
unless that life somehow could be reproduced, imparted
to you and to me.
And that could only be possible by virtue
of the fact that he died the death
he did.
Make sin for us that we might become
the righteousness of God in him.
Our sin was imputed to him that his
life might be imparted to us.
That's the gospel.
Acts chapter 30 and
verse 28.
And though they found no cause of death
in him, for you see he was sinless,
that was the life he lived, which qualified
him for the death he died.
Yet desired they Pilate that he should be
slain.
Verse 29.
And when they had fulfilled all that was
written of him, in the volume of the
book, that's why he came, they took him
down from the tree, and they laid him
in a sepulchre.
And the perfect sinless grain of wheat, the
incarnate word, whose seed remained within him, who
did not and who could not sin, was
buried.
He relinquished what he was, but God raised
him from the dead and made him what
he was intended to be, your redeemer and
mine.
Keeping your finger in Acts 13, turn with
me to the epistle to the Hebrews.
Verse 8 of chapter 5.
Hebrews 5, verse 8.
Though he were a son, yet learned he
obedience.
As we discovered last night, as the Son
incarnate humanity, the Son can do nothing by
himself.
I can only take every step in an
attitude as man of total dependence upon my
Father.
Though he were a son, yet learned he
obedience by the things which he suffered, and
being made perfect, he became the author of
eternal salvation unto all them that obey.
How did he become the author of eternal
salvation?
By the obedience that led him to Calvary,
where he relinquished what he was, that he
might be the author of our eternal salvation.
Had he never relinquished, he could never have
become.
He, being made perfect, became perfect in vocation,
as he was already perfect in his person.
And his vocation was to lay down his
life a ransom for many.
And by his obedience to his vocation, he
became what he could never have become if
he had not been prepared to relinquish what
he was.
He was made sin, and he relinquished his
sinlessness to be made sin.
He relinquished his right to step straight from
earth to heaven, to go by way of
the cross, that he might become what he
was intended to be.
This was his hour, without which he would
have been born to live for thirty-three
years in vain, to be eternally lonely.
Back to Acts 30, verse 30.
But God raised him from the dead.
He was raised by the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit, whom he relinquished when he
was made sin, was the one by whom
we are told, in Peter's epistle, he was
quickened.
1 Peter, chapter 3, and
verse 18.
1 Peter 3.18, For Christ also hath
once suffered for sins the just, relinquishing his
justness for the unjust, being identified with all
man's sin, that he might bring us to
God, that he might become what he was
intended to be, the author of our eternal
salvation.
Being put to death in the flesh, but
quickened, how?
By the Spirit.
God raised him from the dead.
Acts 13, verse 32.
Acts 13, 32.
And we declare unto you glad tidings, how
that the promise which was made unto the
fathers, God hath fulfilled the same unto us,
their children, in that he hath raised up
Jesus again.
There were certain promises made to the fathers
in the Old Testament in the volume of
the book, which he came to fulfill, presenting
his body to the father through the eternal
spirit without spot.
There were certain promises made to the fathers
that were fulfilled when God raised up Jesus
again from the dead.
Now this may be a surprise to you.
This may be an unusual interpretation, but it
isn't mine, it is the interpretation of the
Holy Spirit, given to you here in the
record, the 13th of Acts.
It came as a surprise to me, because
I, without reference to the interpretation given by
the Holy Spirit in the book of Acts,
had interpreted my own way, the way that
seemed to be most logical, without thinking.
God hath fulfilled the same unto us, their
children, in that he has raised up Jesus
again, as it is also written in the
second psalm, thou art my son, this day
have I begotten thee.
Did you ever read the second psalm?
And when you read the second psalm, and
you read, thou art my son, this day
have I begotten thee, what day did you
think of, automatically, instinctively?
Christmas day?
I did.
This day have I begotten thee, and I
thought of Christmas day.
Bethlehem.
Of course, that was the day when Jesus
Christ, God's son, was begotten.
But was it?
According to this scripture?
We declare unto you glad tidings, how that
the promise which was made unto the fathers,
God hath fulfilled the same unto us, their
children, in that he hath raised up Jesus
again.
He's risen, as it is also written in
the second psalm, thou art my son, this
day, the day that God.
The Lord Jesus was begotten from the dead.
And the day he was begotten was the
day God raised him from the dead.
And don't you see that if the Lord
Jesus had only been born in Bethlehem, he
would have been the perfect grain of wheat,
remaining just one grain, never more than one.
He would have lived by himself forever.
Born never to be begotten.
Born never to become what he was intended
to be.
The author of our eternal salvation.
That's why the Lord Jesus, again and again,
is called the first begotten from the dead.
In the Colossian epistle, chapter 1, verse 18,
Colossians 1.18, he is the head of
the body, the church who is the beginning.
He's the beginning.
He was the first perfect grain of wheat.
The beginning.
That is where the whole life of the
church stems from.
Given just one grain of wheat, in the
course of the generations of grains of wheat
that have relinquished themselves that they might become
what they were intended to be, we could
have a million grains of wheat, but the
life continues.
Isn't that right?
And he was the beginning.
In the beginning was the Word, and the
Word was with God, and the Word was
God by him.
This life was the light of man.
He was the life from the very beginning.
But, in Adam's sin, Adam forfeited the life
of the one who is the beginning.
And the purpose of God in Christ was
that we might receive again the life of
the beginning.
The Lord Jesus said, I am come that
you might have life.
I am the life.
You had the life until your forefather, Adam,
sinned.
But I have come into the world so
that you may have life again.
The first Adam was a living soul, but
he died.
The last Adam was a quickening spirit.
One who could raise dead men to life
again.
Who is the beginning?
The firstborn from the dead.
That because the sinless grain of wheat that
came from heaven, the Word incarnate died identified
with man's wickedness, sin, guilt, and shame.
All who put their trust in him as
Redeemer, accept his vicarious, substitutionary, atoning death, might
become the recipients again of the life he
lived, the original grain of wheat.
And so we could go through the scriptures.
If you look in the Revelation, chapter 1
and verse 5, from Jesus Christ, who is
the faithful witness, the first begotten of the
dead, the prince of the kings of the
earth.
In Adam, all men became the heirs of
death.
In Jesus Christ, the last Adam, all men,
if they so will, may become the heirs
of life.
But don't you see every boy, every girl,
every man is
redeemed in the blood of Jesus Christ, receives
the very same life?
The life of the beginning.
The life of Jesus Christ.
Ephesians and chapter 2.
Better read just a verse or two from
the first chapter to get the true context.
Ephesians chapter 1 and verse 18.
By having the eyes of your heart flooded
with light, so that you can know and
understand the hope to which he has called
you, and how rich is his glorious inheritance
in the saints, so that you can know
and understand what is the immeasurable and unlimited
and surpassing greatness of his power in and
for us, who believe as demonstrated in the
working of God.
Paul says, if you want to know what
is the immeasurable, verse 22,
he has put all things under his feet,
Jesus Christ.
Has appointed him the universal and supreme head
of the church, which is his body, the
fullness of him who fills all in all,
for in that body, the church, the fellowship
of forgiven sinners, lives the full measure of
him who makes everything complete and who fills
everything everywhere with himself.
Isn't that tremendous?
His body, the fullness of him who fills
all in all, for in that body, the
church of Jesus Christ, the invisible true church
of Jesus Christ, that comprehends every boy, girl,
man, and reconciled to God, in that body
lives the full measure of him by
the process of life out of death, who
fills everything everywhere with himself.
Chapter 2, verse 1, and you, Christians in
Ephesus, and you, Christians in Lubbock, he made
alive, who were dead by trespasses and sins,
verse 4, but God, so which is he
in his mercy, because of and in order
to satisfy the great and wonderful and intense
love with which he loved us, even when
we were dead by our own shortcomings and
trespasses, he, God, made us alive together in
fellowship and in union with Christ.
He gave us the very life of Christ
himself, the same new life with which he
quickened him.
So the Lord Jesus, the perfect grain of
wheat, taken down from the cross, was buried
in the ground.
God raised him from the dead.
And there was fulfilled the wonderful promise, this
day have I begotten you.
Obedient unto death, he became the author of
our eternal salvation.
And the first ear of corn was reaped.
It was a very fat, healthy ear of
corn that was reaped of that first sinless
grain that was laid at Calvary into the
tomb.
For on the day of Pentecost, we are
told, some 120 men and women waited at
Christ's command to receive the firstfruits of his
death and resurrection.
And on the day of Pentecost, their redeemed
humanity was suddenly re-inhabited by the same
spirit by whom he was raised from the
dead.
And the life of the Lord Jesus Christ
that he had lived on earth in his
own humanity was imparted by the Holy Spirit
to them.
And the life of the original grain was
now reproduced.
And the life of Peter and James and
John and the other apostles waiting at Christ's
command to be endued with power, life from
on high, the lives they lived were not
imitations according to a certain
mold that was projected upon them.
The lives they lived on earth were the
life of Jesus Christ.
The very same life of Jesus Christ.
Now clothed with their humanity.
For the life he lived had been reproduced
in them.
They became partakers of his divine nature.
Life had sprung out of death.
And the life that had been imparted to
them by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit
was in its turn imparted to grow and
to reproduce.
And on that very same afternoon the life
of the Lord Jesus clothed now with the
humanity of 120 men and women redeemed in
his blood and re-inhabited received the Holy
Spirit.
And the life that the 3,000 others
received was identical with the life that was
lived by the original perfect grain of wheat.
And all down the centuries life has sprung
out of death.
Until you and I today here in Lubbock
if we are redeemed in the blood of
Christ are the possessors of the same life
of the original grain of wheat, the Lord
Jesus.
So we may say to me to live
is Christ.
What then is the object of the preaching
of the truth?
For the believer.
The object, of course, of the preaching of
the truth to the unbeliever is that they
might be convicted of the fact that they're
dead.
Conviction of sin.
And in repentance toward God they may put
their faith in Jesus Christ the Redeemer and
obtain the Holy Ghost.
This is the spiritual ministry that we might
obtain and be governed by the Holy Ghost.
So the first ministry of the gospel is
that unregenerate, unconverted, unforgiven sinners might obtain.
That's the first object of preaching truth.
That men might obtain what by nature they
don't have.
Life.
But what's the full measure of the purpose
of the preaching of the gospel?
Not only that men and women and boys
and girls might obtain, but that they might
be governed by the Holy Ghost.
Tell me this.
How much good in terms of reproduction is
the grain of wheat that has never submitted
itself to death that it might be governed
by the life within?
How much jurisdiction, how much sovereignty how much
control does the life germ within a grain
of wheat exercise over that grain of wheat
until the grain of wheat dies?
None.
For over a thousand, for three, four thousand
years there were grains of wheat in the
Pharaoh's tomb.
And yet the life germ for all those
thousands of years didn't make the slightest difference
to the behavior or conduct of those grains
of wheat.
The hidden life germ exercised absolutely no jurisdiction,
had absolutely no control over the shape of
things to come.
Not for thousands of years.
And then suddenly those tombs were opened up,
the grains of wheat were put into the
ground, they died and suddenly fashioned
the shape of things to come.
See the point?
You're born again.
That means you've been born of the Spirit.
That's what you are.
Have you ever become what God intended you
to be?
Have you ever been begotten?
The Lord Jesus could have been born without
ever having been begotten.
If he had chosen never to die but
just go straight to heaven.
Don't you see how tragically possible it is
for you to be born of the Holy
Spirit and have an imputed righteousness that will
make you fit for heaven and gives you
the right by virtue of the righteousness with
which you have now been imputed, the righteousness
with which you now are clothed, you have
the right as a born again redeemed sinner
to go straight to heaven and live forever
alone.
If as the recipient of the life of
Jesus Christ you are never prepared to die
to yourself, you'll get to heaven.
If you've claimed cleansing in the blood of
Christ, you'll get to heaven.
You don't deserve it, but you'll get to
heaven.
That's why he died.
And because your sin is forgiven and you're
fit for heaven by the imputed righteousness of
Christ, there has been imparted to you the
life of Christ.
But if you want to, you can live
for 33 years on earth with the life
of Christ imparted, never to be revealed.
That life imparted to you never allowed to
exercise any jurisdiction, never allowed to shape the
things to come, never allowed to play any
role in your life, never allowed to exercise
jurisdiction or sovereignty, and you will get to
heaven alive, remaining just one to live
by yourself eternally alone.
For if you hold on to what you
are as a forgiven sinner, you will never
become what God intended you to be.
You will never be declared to the world
for what you are.
How many believe that Jesus Christ really was
God's son?
There were some who said they believed, like
the apostles and the disciples, but when he
died, what then?
They all ran away.
And they said, we trusted that it had
been he that should have redeemed Israel.
We were mistaken.
Even after 33 years of sinlessness and perfect
ministry, nobody convinced.
Not even Peter, James, and John.
So that when the Lord Jesus, risen from
the dead according to program, stood in the
midst and showed them his hands and his
feet and said, be not afraid, it is
I myself.
Handle me and see, they all thought they'd
seen a ghost.
When was he convincingly declared to be the
son of God with power?
Romans chapter 1, verse
1.
Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to
be an apostle, separated under the gospel of
God, which he had promised afore by his
prophets in the holy scriptures concerning his son,
Jesus Christ, our Lord.
Get the significance of that, it's so easy
to read a verse and you don't quite
get what it says.
Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to
be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of
God.
That's the thing to remember.
Paul was separated unto the gospel of God.
His vocation was to declare the gospel of
God, verse 3, concerning God's son, Jesus Christ,
our Lord.
Paul was separated to the proclamation of the
good news concerning God's son, Jesus Christ, our
Lord, which was made of the seed of
David, according to the flesh.
When was he made of the seed of
David, according to the flesh?
Bethlehem.
That is when he was born.
Verse 4.
And declared to be the son of God
with power, according to the Holy Spirit, by
the resurrection from the dead.
What happened on the day he was resurrected
from the dead?
He was begotten.
Was he declared to be the son of
God with power?
Oh, no.
He was declared to be the son of
God with power on the day that he
was begotten from the dead.
And when risen from the dead, he stood
in the midst of his disciples and showed
them his hands and his feet, the hallmarks
of his saviourhood, and said, Handle me and
see.
It says that the gloom was banished.
Not until he was raised from the dead.
How long have you been born?
Into the family of heaven.
How convincing to the world around you has
your claim to sonship been?
How convincing amongst your friends?
How convincing amongst your business associates?
How convincing amongst your own family?
How convincing amongst your fellow students?
How convincing in the school classroom has your
claim been to sonship?
You have given testimony.
You've given witness.
I'm born again.
I'm a son of God.
I'm a daughter of God.
I'm a I tell you this, that your
claim to sonship will never be declared with
convincing power until you by faith in you
and through you until you have allowed the
Holy Spirit who has come to indwell your
human Jesus
Christ.
Then at last your testimony will be convincing.
When what you are and what you do
is explicable only in terms of Jesus then
your sonship will be declared with power.
Then you will begin to live supernaturally.
A life that isn't yours.
Then you will be legitimately numbered amongst those
who by a moral and spiritual resurrection have
been lifted out from among the dead even
while still in the body.
And your friends and your family and your
school chums and your fellow students will scratch
their head and your business associates and they
say I don't know really what that chap
is talking about but one thing I know
is this there's no explanation for that fellow's
life, there's no explanation for that boy's life,
that woman's life, that girl's life but Jesus
Christ.
Then your sonship will have been declared with
power.
Born and begotten.
You're a Christian.
Well thank God for that you've been born.
Have you ever been begotten?
Is the resurrection life of Jesus Christ manifestly
obvious to the world around you?
To you unconsciously declaring your sonship, the life
you live being a million times more compelling
than the word you speak because what you
are in terms of human character is only
explicable to the world around you in terms
of Jesus Christ.
That is normal Christianity.
That is what it means to be a
healthy member of the body of Christ that
is filled with the full measure of himself
who fills everything everywhere and that is why
he died and rose again.
That was his and to live anything less
than a life like that is to cheat
Jesus Christ of that for which he was
born, lived and died and rose again.
Tomorrow evening we're going to pick up the
threads from there and I suggest that in
anticipation you take the trouble to read the
first dozen verses say of the 55th chapter
of Isaiah Isaiah 55 and in our closing
message tomorrow night after a simple demonstration that
I shall give you in terms of pictures,
these aren't pretty pictures, they're not designed to
entertain you they may even be some of
the pictures I showed you last year because
I've only brought a very small selection as
I'm travelling rather a long way and to
save weight but after a simple illustration of
the principle in terms of these sequences that
I shall show you the latter part of
the meeting we shall explore what really happens
when a grain of wheat grows into the
ground and dies in other words when a
Christian yields to the demands of discipleship the
sheer thrill of it the sheer privilege of
it the sheer inevitability of blessing inherent in
it it should send us away hilariously happy
more than conquerors through him that loved us
to be normal Christians instead of subnormal now
let's bow our heads in prayer Lord Jesus
we thank thee for thy obedience unto
death we thank thee for thy willingness to
relinquish that thou mightest become just what we
need the author of our eternal salvation and
how we bless thee tonight that we possess
thy life that thou art for us the
beginning the first begotten amongst many brethren how
we thank that we may be numbered tonight
amongst the many brethren of whom thou art
the first begotten who share the life with
which thou thyself was raised from the dead
we pray that we may be declared in
our sonship with power by the Holy Ghost
and for thy name's sake Amen