Christ Our Life, John, 1:4; 5:26; 17:3

Good morning. Today we're going to talk about life in Christ. Several months ago, when Vern said, gee, I'm going to be out of town, and Hal said, me too, I thought, oh boy. So I thought about what to, you know, when you have a long time to think about what you're going to talk about, you get ideas that as you get to working on them, you think, why did I pick that? It's not a difficult subject, but it probably indicates either that you have been growing spiritually or that you haven't grown at all. We want to talk today about life in Christ, what it is, how do I get it, what it isn't, which is probably as important as what it is, and what does it look like every day if you see it worked out.

Interesting definition, that what it is, is that this is eternal life, that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. It's interesting that the definition has to do with knowing. Eternal life can, the two Greek words are zoe, which in this sense means, in an absolute sense, it means the source of all life, and I have no idea how to pronounce that word, A-I-O-N-I-O-S, which means eternal.

And when we're talking about God's life, it means that it's not affected by any limitations of time or any, as we're going to see in a minute, or any other factors. That because it's God's life, it's unaffected by any outside influences. Now, a couple of verses. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And then the other verse, for just as the father has life in himself, even so he gave the son also to have life in himself. So whatever God is, that must be what life is. Wouldn't that make sense? That you can't separate what life and God is. So the very essence of God has to be this life. And because it is the essence of God, it has its own characteristics.

It's unique in that sense. It has its own forms. It has its own meanings. It has its own standards. It has its own objectives and its own objects. It has its own mentality. It thinks only a certain way, unique to him. It has its own reasons. It has its own ways, and it has a mind of its own. So there's nothing really like it, and there's nothing... It takes its own course.

Now, I'm kind of emphasizing this because we as believers have two lives in us. We have the natural life and this resurrected life of Christ. And we have a tendency to want to meld them together or to get them to sort of work out a deal. If this life is this way, there isn't any working out of any deal. All other ways and all other mentalities are other indeed. They're all together. There's no correspondence between the natural life and eternal life. They don't sit down inside of you and work out a transaction and how it's going to go. They're contrary to one another.

This life is also holy. It's righteous. It's without mixture. It's totally pure. It's light. There's no darkness. There's not even a suspicion or a suggestion of darkness. There's no cloudiness and it's all transparent. and its truth. And these are characteristics of the life that's Christ, characteristics of what that life is like. And that life is a person. So if it's unique, what kind of an effect would it have on us?

It can't coexist or have fellowship with anything that's of nature. Or maybe put it this way, it's not of its same kind. It doesn't function in conjunction with any other Your natural life isn't a friend of divine life and divine life isn't a friend with your natural life. The other interesting thing about natural life and divine life is that they both function by fixed principles.

They demand their own direction and they have their own relationship. And because it is God's life, it is wholly of him and only about him. So if that's true, how do I get it? Because it seems important that I ought to have it. John 3.36 says that he who believes on the Son has eternal life, and he who does not, the version I use, use the word obey, which really means not to allow oneself to be persuaded or believe the Son shall not see life, and the wrath of God abides on him. So the way you get it is by faith in the person who has it. and the work that he did.

And there's a union there. It is even likened by Christ to the union that exists between the persons of the Godhead. In John 17, there's lots of discussions about the Father and the Son being one. And then the Lord Jesus prays in that chapter that we would be one, that we all may be one, Father, as you and I are one, that you all may be one in us. One in what? One in life. One in life. Not one in viewpoint, not one in the same fraternity, but one in life. And it's unique, as we've said before. So, by that union that we have, by faith in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ, we share his resurrected life, and we're made partakers of that unique life.

In Colossians 127, Paul says, To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery amongst the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. So this uniqueness of life that was to be in human beings was a mystery, and a mystery is something that's just not been revealed before. It isn't like an Ellery Queen novel. It's something that just hasn't been revealed. And the mystery is that God would share his very own life with his creatures.

So since the Father and the Son have life, to know them is to have their life, which is to have eternal life. So you now have, as believers, this very unique life that is Christ himself. And that's why it says that they might know thee, the only true God, in Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. That's what eternal life is, is to know God. We would think in our minds that getting eternal life would be acquiring it somehow, adding it on to us, going out someplace and purchasing it. The Word of God says that having eternal life is knowing a person. Now, that alone should tell you that there's kind of a uniqueness in the modality of how eternal life functions and what it is to have it. It all relates to knowing a person.

Now, if I have this life, and I do, does it maintain its own characteristics in me right now? Does it continue to function according to its own principles in me now even though it may not be apparent. Because it is God's life, because it is divine life, and it is God's life alone, it can't be related to anything else. It's got to be its own unique life. And it doesn't work, as I've said before, it doesn't work with anything else. It only works in relation to God, which is good news, not bad news.

This is life in Christ Jesus, and here's another aspect of it. It works via, and I use the word, the hands of the Holy Spirit. He is the one who implements the life, even though the life is in Christ. This is kind of a repetition, but this life, in dealing with it and with the Holy Spirit, and dealing with the Lord Jesus Christ, it has its own essences. its own unique characteristics, its own forms, meanings, and standards. Have you not discovered that yet in the study of the Word of God, that the standards and the meanings and the forms are unique to this life alone?

It has its own objective. We were studying in Sunday school this morning that God chastens every son that He brings to Himself for what purpose? That He might be partaker of His holiness. What's His holiness? It has its own mentality. It thinks its own way. And it has its own reasons for doing things. It has totally its own ways.

So if that's true, it means it doesn't coexist with anything else. It doesn't have fellowship with any other life that's not of its own nature. So the verse that we quoted a minute ago, that if a man does not believe on the Son of God, he can't even see it. He doesn't even know it's there. So once eternal life is acquired, once we get it, is that it? Is it kind of like put in a little black box and stuck inside you someplace like a heart monitor or something like that and it just sits there?

As we've said before, there are principles involved in this life and Romans 8, 2 talks about, for the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death. is always acquainted with the law of sin and death. Your old man functions by the principle of sin and death.

That's all he can do. People say, well, you know, I walked in the flesh last week and I sinned a couple of times. If you're in the flesh, you're sinning 24-7. That's all it knows how to do. That's all that life knows how to do. Contrary to that, the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has its own fixed and established principles. It means that if you're adjusted to it, if you're subject to it, that it's going to govern you and it's going to have... the end that it has in mind is inevitable. Just like if you're walking in the flesh, the end that the flesh has in mind is inevitable, which is sin and death, is it not? Do you ever escape that?

It's the same thing as being in Christ. Eternal life is in Christ. In order for one to have eternal life, you must know Him. And in order to know Christ, one must believe in the person in work. And this eternal life functions by established and fixed principles, which is really good news. It's great news, because if it didn't function that way, then we would have to be working pretty hard.

Who implements the principles? The principles are implemented by the Holy Spirit through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the implementer. Your role is faith. He's going to conform us to the image of His Son, but He's going to do it by faith. That's your role in it. He's God. This unique life, because He is God, dwells in each believer. And that life will abide in each one of us forever. And it's a relationship of life. And it will always be in you and you will always be in Him. You can't change it because the principles can't be changed.

So, well, if that's the case, how do I come to know Christ as my very life? How do I do that? The most important aspect of that is this, is the Word of God. Because the Word of God is unique in that, I don't want to use the word instruction manual of the new life, because it isn't like that. The Word of God is designed specifically to reveal a person to you. When you study the Word of God, it isn't so that you can cram your head full of biblical facts.

You're there because it is the mirror that reflects this person, the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. And He is the truth. And so as you come to know the truth by the Spirit, When the Spirit of Truth has come, He will guide you into all truth. And what did the Lord Jesus say truth was? He said it was Him. So it's a revelation of a person.

Now let's say you don't go there. Let's say that that doesn't make any sense to you or you walk away from it. The problem is if you leave it, the realm of Spirit-taught, Rodman-taught Word, of truth that in an effort to know Christ some other way, some other personal way, or through some seeming angel of light, or some, as I put in there, denizen of the dark, or an overheated imagination, which sometimes could be appealing, you'll end up having a Jesus who isn't really the Christ. He isn't really the life. The Holy Spirit and the Word of God are critical in those two things. Now, we've talked up to this point about what life in Christ is. Let's talk about what it isn't. And I think it's as critical to know what it isn't as it is to know what it is. And it's because it's fixed and because life in Christ has these principles that can't be altered in any way, it has nothing out from self as a life attitude.

Nothing. Nothing of your self contributes to the life or even has any companionship with it. That life doesn't consult self. It doesn't check self out to see how it's doing. It won't even consider. And why not? Why wouldn't the life of Christ spend any time seeing how self is doing or considering it? Because from this word, We're told that your old man has been crucified. So from its viewpoint, there's nothing to consult with. It doesn't have to. It wouldn't.

It won't enter into arguments with self, although your self might try to do it. But from his perspective, there won't be any arguments because there's nobody to argue with. It won't take into consideration your self-desires. It won't deal with the fact that you have a self-will no matter how strong it is. And it does not function in any sense independent from God. And that's what your self-will does.

It tries to use God to function in and of its own. So this new life will not take into consideration any of these elements. And I know in my Christian life as I grow, It's almost like the Lord has to convince me of each one of these things one at a time. Because I'm always thinking, well, God and I are going to, I'm going to sit down with God and we're going to work things through.

No, He's not going to do that because He won't consider that life that I have doesn't take self into consideration. If God is the final court of appeal in any matter, then he isn't going to make his decisions based on my convenience or my comfort or my advancement or my good. That's bad news. He's not going to do anything for my self-realization or not even for my purposes.

He's not even going to do it for the benefit of my natural life. God functions primarily for the purpose of glorifying himself. And He put this new life in Christ in you to glorify Himself. That's why He did it. And He won't take any of these things into consideration.

Do you agree with me if I say that one of yours and my biggest problems in spiritual growth is right here? We think that God put that life in us so He could help this and us get along. That life is going to contribute to this. It's increasingly and paramount important, I think, to every growing believer to understand this principle, that this new life in Christ doesn't consider these things. I know it's a real shock when it first dawns on you, wait a minute, God means it when he said, I recreated you in my Son for the purpose of glorifying myself.

So, if that's true, then the Adam life is an illegal cohabitation. It's spiritual adultery to function out of the old man. Put it another way, if the believer has been married to another, even to him who raised Christ from the dead, that he should bring forth fruit unto God, then who's the usurper inside of you? The new man or the old one? It's the old one. The new man is who you really are.

So here the growing believer discovers several things. He discovers that there really are two natures in him, and that one of them is the spirit of life in Christ Jesus that functions by its principles. The other one is sin that functions by its principles. And then he discovers that God's glory is the only goal that the spirit of life in Christ has, and that sin has one goal, and that's self-aggrandizement. Both of them end in inevitable results. One is life, the other is death. It's a real simple equation. It's either the spirit of life, God's glory in life, or it's sin, self, and death. And they don't do this. They don't do this.

So you've got a dilemma. The dilemma is, I know that I've died to the old nature on the cross with the Lord Jesus, and I confidently reckon upon the liberating truth. But I'm not so clear about the second half of the reckoning. I seem to know more about the work of the cross than I do about my new life in the risen Christ.

Is that a true statement? I think so. Well, there's a process that's going on, and that process really is to encourage us. And God always is systematic in what he does. He takes things one step at a time. The cross comes first. The cross is the death to the old precedes the manifestation of the life of the new. Death works in me so that there might be life in you. I'm crucified first, then resurrected.

The problem with that is that positionally it's all true of us the instant that we believe. But from the time that you believe to the time that you begin to settle down in this, it would take more than four weeks of being a father. There really are years of struggle and frustration and failure, and all of it's been governed by God, a loving God who's preparing the hungry hearts for an exchange that's coming, a conditional exchange. There comes a time when the failing believer begins to realize that living in and relying upon the old nature really is sin.

That's really what he's doing. It isn't that he's doing a bunch of bad things. It's that he realizes that that old life only produces sin and death. And it's just not a disappointing inconvenience, your old man. At first, I think you think, well, boy, that was really inconvenient.

From there to death is 25 years. But we're going to learn, and he's going to learn, that in him, that is, in his flesh dwells no good thing. Now, I've been a believer, I don't know, 27 or 28 years, I'm still trying to work Romans 7-4 into a percentage. 75% bad, 25% good. No, no good thing in my flesh. Even my righteousness is filthy rags.

This is a really important realization because it provides a necessary hatred of the old man so that you don't have a desire for change, but the desire is for exchange. You stop trying to change the old life, and you exchange it for the new that you have. But what about this life in Christ Jesus? It's interesting. In Him, we are totally recreated. We're just not new creatures. And as we go, I think it gets clearer. Then, in Christ risen, we are totally regenerated, not just renovated.

And, you know, you hear a lot of people use the example that a butterfly or a... what's the word I'm looking for? A chrysalis that turns into a butterfly really is an example of the Christian life. No, it's not. Because a butterfly is a new creature.

It's not a new creation. When you and I were recreated in Christ, we didn't become butterflies, a new creature of the same old creation. we entered into an entirely new, in kind and quality, creation. And the life that we have is consistent with the new creation that we are. So our new life and nature are completely new. All things have become new. All things are of God. And that life that's in us is of the new creation.

But why do you have both lives in you then? Well, we've kind of touched on it a little bit, I think that God uses that old life to teach us not to rely on it and to get us ready for the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. Because all that old life does is generate needs in you. Somebody asked me early on in the Hebrews class downstairs, well, what if you don't have the desire to grow in Christ. You know, what is God going to do about that? I said, that's the class upstairs. It's called suffering and...

The thing is, is that reliance on this old man begins to develop in you an incredible desire to leave him. The more you know Adam, the more you want to get away from him. That creates the motivation. and the hunger to leave Him. It creates the desire in you to want to behold the glory of the Lord Jesus.

And you discover in the Word, I think, that you've learned the principles, you've learned the verses, you've learned the doctrine, and then you come to this verse and it says, well, that we all, with face unveiled, we behold in a mirror the glory of the Lord.

We're transformed continually into the same likeness, the life of the Lord Jesus. And it begins to dawn on us that spiritual growth is exactly the same method and the same principle that you got saved. You got saved. Eternal life is to know Christ, right? Spiritual growth is the same thing.

It's beholding Him. It's knowing Him. The more you behold Him, the more that you become like Him, or, to put it another way, the more the life of the Lord Jesus becomes manifested in you and the conformity process takes place. you rely on good old non-reliable Adam. So the key is to know the new.

It is not for naught that John said, and this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent. And he didn't mean just for salvation. Because Paul says after 25 or 30 years of his Christian life that I may know him. Paul understood, and so did John, that eternal life was to know Christ, and life isn't just a sound bite or a two-second flash.

Once it begins, it begins to function by the principles that are inherent in the life, and God intends for every believer to live by the principles of that life, and those principles are just knowing Christ. and being conformed to His very image. So the one reason for our existence as believers is to come to know the Lord Jesus Christ more and more every minute.

And it's through this knowledge that we come to know the Father. If you didn't have the life in you that was unique, you would have no chance of knowing Christ or the Father at all. You could know about Him, but you wouldn't know Him personally. And it's personal. It's a oneness of nature kind of a knowledge, not just knowledge about Him.

Entering into this world of fellowship, of union with Him, is going to require the best of our attention here and all of it for eternity. I stole that from Miles Stanford. What's interesting about that is that as the Holy Spirit works this life in you via beholding the Lord Jesus, What you begin to realize, I think, is that even though it's kind of intermittent here as you go along, in eternity your beholding Christ and this life never stops. It's a 24-7 thing.

And Christ is of such a character that for all eternity you will never exhaust who He is and who this life is. It never stops. You know, 40 jillion years down in eternity, you're going to say, OK, I've had enough of that, let's do something else. That won't happen. Christ, for all eternity, will continue to fill you to overflowing as you expand to contain more of Him.

What a prospect. So in summing up, let's just take a look for a second what that life looks like in action every day. The Lord Jesus is kind of a prism through which that the components of that life work out in operating every day. And it is the law or the principle of life in Christ Jesus.

Can you see that okay? The spirit of life in Christ Jesus, the first thing, as I spent some time on this, was that if you have the life, which you do, the very first thing you're going to come in contact with is conflict. You think about it. When the Lord Jesus Christ was on the planet, he was instantly in conflict because he is this life and he's in an environment that is against his life. This life enters into you with all of its principles and what does it enter into or alongside of?

It enters into or alongside of the old man's life and so there's conflict. So one of the things that you need to be aware of as you grow and know is that conflict is going to be part of this, because even though you've been separated positionally from that old life that's in you, it doesn't know that, and it still wants to rule and reign, so there is going to be conflict. But at the same time, the spirit lusts against the flesh, and the flesh against the spirit. They're contrary to one to another. The spirit has strong desires to do what? To conform you to the image of Christ. That conformity means that the principles of life in Christ Jesus will be manifested in your everyday activities.

The third thing I think it does, and which is, I probably wouldn't have put this one in here if we hadn't been studying Hebrews, is a good conscience towards God. I think one of the problems growing believers have is this conscience keeps them from approaching God because their conscience says to them, well, you know, you haven't been doing so good lately, I'm not sure God wants you around. But Hebrews says that the blood of Christ cleanses your conscience from dead work so that you might approach Him, so that you might draw near. So this life draws near to God. It always is drawing near to God. It recognizes and understands that the source of its life is God Himself, and so there's always a drawing and your conscience is clear.

The fourth element of this life is that it functions only by faith. Faith is one of those things that whenever I ask a question in Sunday school, it's either Jesus, faith, one of those pat answers. The interesting thing about faith is that if you spend time studying the life of Christ, One of the questions you're eventually going to ask yourself is, well, if this is going to really happen, if this life is really going to be lived through me, it's going to need some power to do it. Because I'm discovering that this old man I have is a very powerful creature, or a critter. The thing is that believers need to understand is that faith is the most powerful thing there is. There is no greater force in all of the universe than faith. And the faith that has Christ as an object will overcome anything. If you study Hebrews chapter 11, in there it talks about that God even created the universe by faith. That was what He did. He spoke it and it was so. So God informs you through His Word the facts. And as you believe Him, the power to live this life in the Holy Spirit is there.

Fifth thing it does is it creates a new sonship. How many of you think of yourselves as sons of God? Legitimate, organic, spiritual offsprings of God himself? Or maybe you feel like you're just adopted. Maybe we'll have you over once in a while. Are you a son? Do you think like a son? Do you consider yourself a son of God?

Same life. Same life. Sixth thing is that as you grow in this life, what happens is that you begin to serve the body of Christ. And let me tell you why. If you have this thought in the morning, tomorrow morning when you get up, think about this. What is the Lord Jesus focused on today? What's he doing today? What are his intentions? What is he going to carry out today? His whole focus and his whole agenda is his body. That's what he does. He serves the body. He gives life to the body. He gives life to every person in this room. And he is all the time focused on his interest, which is you.

As you grow in the knowledge and grace of the Lord Jesus and you're conformed to His image and the principles of this spirit of life in Christ Jesus begins to bubble up and be part of your interest, what do you think you're going to be interested in? You're going to have to be interested in the same thing Christ is interested in because it's the same life. You see that? So one of the principles, one of the ways that this life works out is that there is service to the body of Christ.

It isn't something that's I've got to serve so that people think I'm a believer. It is just the principle of the life is service. It's just there. It isn't service that requires any energy of yourself. The life functions that way. And the last thing is the way of suffering to the throne. It takes a little explanation here.

You and I as believers, As Peter and James and the writer of Hebrews say, we're not from around here. We're termed sojourners and pilgrims. I say a lot of sojourner is a guy who's passing through, a pilgrim is a guy who's passing through that bought a house and he's going to stay a while. But neither one of those guys are from here. And given the opportunity, they're going to leave and go home. That's what you and I are. We're pilgrims and we're sojourners, and we really do abide.

Our home is in the throne where God is, because that's where the life is. Well, your journey home, and Brian was talking about it this morning, the race that is run by believers to glory includes, and part of it is, suffering. Because you're in an environment where you don't belong, I shouldn't say don't belong, you're here because God has placed you here, but this isn't your home. There isn't anything in this environment, the world, the flesh, the devil, your sin nature, that contributes to this new life.

As a matter of fact, it's totally opposed to it and would get rid of it as soon as it possibly could. So here's the dilemma you've got. As you grow in the conformity to the image of Christ, you're going to consequently grow in rejection from the world. If they see him in you, you're in trouble, because they don't want him around, because he's holy, he's righteous, he's good, and he convicts them. So if that happens in your life, as you approach God, as you're on your way to glory, to the throne, the same thing's going to happen to you. There's going to be suffering involved. It's just part of the life. I want to read one last thing and then I'll close.

A man named H.J. Hewlett said this, We see Jesus crowned with glory and honor. This is all our need. Let us rejoice in the vision glorious and with the pilgrim steps follow the captain of our salvation to the land where he has gone. For God who commanded the light to shine out of the darkness has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. No future but glory. Jesus Christ have we. For man is in glory already in thee. The brighter the glory that shines from thy face, the clearer our title to glory through grace.

You only rest here, your only rest here is the rest you have there. Let's pray. Our dear Father, how we are thankful you have gone way beyond our even imagination to give us your very own life which is in Christ. And then to take it upon yourself to cause us to grow in that life, in the knowledge and grace of your dear son, the Lord Jesus. We're thankful for that. It's a little overwhelming sometimes to realize what great glory you have planned for us as you manifest your own glory through us in eternity. Father, we're thankful. We look forward to growing in Christ. We look forward to knowing him more intimately every minute of every day. We pray in his precious name. Amen.