If you would turn with me to the Gospel of John, chapter 11.
Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life:
he that believeth on Me, though he die, yet shall he live;
and whosoever liveth and believeth on Me shall never die. Believest thou this?She saith unto Him, Yea, Lord: I have believed that Thou art the Christ, the Son of God, even He that cometh into the world.
And then, if you will turn to the first letter of the Apostle Peter, chapter 1. We will read from verse 3.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy begat us again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,
unto an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you,
who by the power of God are guarded through faith unto a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, ye have been put to grief in manifold trials,
that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold that perisheth though it is proved by fire, may be found unto praise and glory and honour at the revelation of Jesus Christ:
Whom not having seen ye love; on Whom, though now ye see Him not, yet believing, ye rejoice greatly with joy unspeakable and full of glory:
receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls.
And then lastly, if you will turn to the letter of the Apostle Paul to the Ephesians, chapter 1, from verse 15.
For this cause I also, having heard of the faith in the Lord Jesus which is among you, and the love which ye show toward all the saints,
cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers;
that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him;
having the eyes of your heart enlightened, that ye may know what is the hope of His calling, what the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints,
and what the exceeding greatness of His power to us-ward who believe, according to that working of the strength of His might
which He wrought in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead, and made Him to sit at His right hand in the heavenly places,
far above all rule, and authority, and power, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come.
Beloved Lord, we are so thankful, when we come to the ministry of Your Word, that You do not leave us to our own talents, or energy, or knowledge. You provide us with an anointing.
And that anointing, grace, and power which You make available to us makes all the difference.
We do not want to just speak words, translate words, and hear words. We want to meet with You. We want to receive from You. We want that Word of Christ to dwell in us richly.
We want to hear Your voice this night. We want to be touched by Your Holy Spirit. And therefore, Lord, by faith we stand in that anointing which You have provided, both with the speaking of Your Word, the translating of Your Word, and the hearing of Your Word.
Lord, fulfil Your design and purpose in our being together tonight. We ask it in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
My responsibility in these times together in the Word of the Lord is knowing Christ in His resurrection. I cannot think of a more wonderful theme.
Stephen is going to speak of knowing Christ in His death, and Brother Christian of knowing Christ in His ascension. My responsibility is resurrection.
Now, what poor people we are if we do not know the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. We are simply nominal religious Christians. It is just a question of ritual; it is just a question of doctrine. But to know Christ in His resurrection—that is the dividing point between religion and experience.
It is a most remarkable fact that the Lord Jesus never spoke of His death without at the same time speaking of His resurrection. In other words, His death was to accomplish something that, in His resurrection, He could make real in every one of us.
The Bible is all about life—life, and life, and more life. Death is only a means to life.
Everywhere you turn in the Bible, you will find life: not just flesh-life, but spiritual life, eternal life, the life of God—undying life.
At the very beginning of the Bible you see the tree of life, and at the end of the Bible you have the tree of life. You go from the river of life to the river of life. It is life everywhere.
All I want to be able to get to you by the Spirit of God is how wonderful it is to be a child of God.
To be a child of God, you must have been born. You are not stillborn. You are born alive. It is therefore tremendous, this matter we are dealing with.
Wherever you look in the Bible, it is a matter of a fruitful life, the power of life, life more abundant.
The first thing I want to underline this evening is in John’s Gospel, chapter 1, verse 4. It is speaking about the Lord Jesus:
In Him was life; and the life was the light of men.
This life is the life of God—undying life, if I may so speak of it; life that has no beginning and no end.
This is why God is called simply the living God. All other gods are gods of stone, or wood, or gold, or silver, or something else. There are demons behind them—there is no doubt—and spiritual forces, principalities, and powers behind them. But God always reveals Himself as the living God.
When He revealed His name to Moses, and Moses asked, “What is Your name?” He said, “My name is I AM.” Not, “I was.” “I AM.” The living God.
When you realise that, it is tremendous to hear these words: “In Him”—that is, in the Lord Jesus—“was life; and this life was the light of men.”
This is the life of God in the Lord Jesus, and that life becomes light. Jesus put it another way:
I am the light of the world: he that followeth Me shall not walk in the darkness, but shall have the light of life.
Not the light of knowledge—the light of life. One kind of knowledge is up here; another kind of knowledge is here. Do you understand?
That is why the Apostle Paul prayed for the church that the eyes of their heart might be enlightened, that they might know what is the hope of His calling. Not know about it—that is theology—but know it.
There is nothing wrong with pure theology. I think it is quite essential. But there is a vast difference between studying theology and knowing the Lord.
When you know the Lord, there is an impact on you. What you see in the Lord has an effect upon you. You can study something just as a doctrine; it can leave you cold, your life unchanged. You just have a little more knowledge, and it is only mentally in your head.
But when you see the Lord, it is the knowledge of life. It changes you. Your whole life is changed. You are redirected. You cannot be the same.
This matter is so important.
Do you see in John’s Gospel again, chapter 14, verse 6? This is how the Lord Jesus declared it:
I am the way, and the truth, and the life: no one cometh unto the Father, but by Me.
Jesus said, “I am the life.” He did not say, “I declare the truth.” He said, “I am the truth.” He did not say, “I point to the way.” He said, “I am the way.” He did not just say, “I express the life.” He said, “I am the life.”
I think this is tremendous once it dawns on you.
You know, I have said it before, and I will say it again: the term Christian life is nowhere found in the Bible.
The term Christian is found only a couple of times, but the term Christian life is nowhere found in the whole Bible—Genesis 1 to Revelation 22. Yet book after book has been written on the Christian life, conference after conference, convention after convention, all on the Christian life.
And the term never comes once in the New Testament. Well then, does it mean there is no such thing as a Christian life? Of course not.
The Word of God calls it eternal life. That is the Christian life.
Now you can turn to 1 John, chapter 5, verses 11 and 12.
And the witness is this, that God gave unto us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.
He that hath the Son hath the life; he that hath not the Son of God hath not the life.
Let me put it another way to bring it home to you: God gave unto us the Christian life, and this Christian life is in His Son. He that has the Son has the Christian life. He that has not the Son of God has not the Christian life.
Now just wait. I do not want to upset anybody, but I have to be very clear on this. You can have baptism and not have eternal life.
You can have the Lord’s Table, the bread and the wine, and not have the Christian life—not have eternal life. You can be on a church membership roll and still not be a possessor of eternal life.
Only a living experience of the Son, only a direct relationship to the Lord Jesus, brings you to be a possessor of eternal life.
Your great-grandfather might have been a wonderful Christian, born of God, walking with God, hearing God, bringing others to the Lord. That does not make you a Christian. Your mother may have been a wonderful Christian. That does not make you a Christian.
I remember Billy Graham putting it very simply: if you were born in a garage, that does not make you a car.
There are a lot of people who, because they were born in a Christian family, think they are Christians. But they have never had a saving experience of the Lord Jesus. Only those who have had a saving experience of the Lord Jesus are Christians.
We have to make it as clear as we can.
I once went to a church—it was actually in Kentucky—and I noticed that the whole assembly was bursting with life. I asked the pastor, “What happened to this place?”
He said, “My predecessor had a week of meetings and brought in a very well-known evangelist. They told all the church members, ‘Bring in people who are not Christians.’”
The first night, there was no one there but Christians. The second night, there was no one there but Christians. The third night, there was no one there but Christians.
So the evangelist said to the pastor, “Shall I go over to teaching?” But the pastor said, “No, no. Maybe tomorrow they will bring people.”
But the evangelist was a real servant of God. On that fourth night, he preached on making your calling and election sure.
Then he said, “If there is anyone here who has been baptised”—this was a Baptist church—“if there is anyone here who has been baptised but who feels in their heart, ‘I do not think I know the Lord’—perhaps there are others of you here, and you are even teaching in the Sunday school, but you feel, ‘I am not sure that I have a real experience with the Lord Jesus’—please get up.”
Two-thirds of the assembly went forward. Suddenly, people in all kinds of offices in the church found the Lord.
The original pastor was very angry. He was very upset. He wanted to stop the meeting. But something happened in the assembly, and he could not stop it.
I discovered that many of those people had come into the church at four years of age or five years of age by putting their hands up and being baptised the next week. No one had ever sat down and talked with them, making clear to them what the gospel really is.
You and I must make our calling and election sure. We do not put our faith in ceremonies, important as they may be. We can only put our faith in the Lord Jesus.
Every single one of us needs our own experience of His saving grace and power.
This Christian life is not something artificial. It is not something projected. It is something inside. You yourself begin to experience the Lord. You do not just read books about others who have experienced the Lord. You and I begin to experience the Lord ourselves.
The Word begins to live to us. We hear the Lord. Do you understand? It is a tremendous thing we are talking about.
Some people think that because they have Christian parents or Christian grandparents, they are Christians. But it is very interesting the way the Apostle Paul put this to Timothy.
He said, “The faith that is in you, which dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and thy mother Eunice.” It was not second-generation or third-generation faith.
As someone has said, God has no grandchildren. He has only children. What dwelt in your grandparents and dwelt in your parents must dwell in you.
You may have known these things from a little child, but the Holy Spirit has to make them real to you. This is tremendous.
Now I want to say something else. Jesus said, as it is recorded in John’s Gospel, chapter 11, verse 25:
I am the resurrection, and the life.
Have we got it wrong? Should He not say, “I am the life and the resurrection”? But He said, “I am the resurrection and the life.” Why did He put it that way?
If you look at the Scripture we read together, it is interesting:
He that believeth on Me, though he die, yet shall he live;
and whosoever liveth and believeth on Me shall never die.
Why did the Lord Jesus put resurrection first and life afterwards?
For this eternal life to be yours, someone had to die. In other words, I cannot become the possessor of God’s eternal life unless it begins with a resurrection. Someone had to die for me, and then, in His resurrection, I am saved.
I am talking, of course, about the atoning death of our Lord Jesus. There was no way that you and I could become possessors of God’s life apart from Him.
The Christian life is not dressing up a person who is unsafe. It begins with being born again.
If you look in Romans, chapter 6, verse 23, we read:
For the wages of sin is death; but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Maybe you could say, “Why is he preaching the gospel to us? We are all believers. We know this.” It is very important to get this absolutely clear.
Consider Romans, chapter 5, verse 10:
For if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, shall we be saved by His life.
When the Lord Jesus died, through His blood you and I have been justified. More than that, the alienation—the divorce—between us and God has gone. We have been reconciled.
Now all the glorious power of life can be ours. We are saved in His life. Love, joy, peace—all the wonderful things—everything is in that life.
His death clears the ground, but in the gift of His life is everything you and I need. All practical, genuine experience of the Lord begins here.
Let me take you to the first letter of Peter, chapter 1, verse 3:
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy begat us again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
By the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead—what an amazing phrase. Unto an inheritance incorruptible; unto a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.
Do you realise how marvellous it is to be born of God? When you are born of God, the Spirit of God is shed abroad in your heart, crying, “Abba, Father.”
You know, Abba is Hebrew. The French say “Papa,” and you Chinese say “Papa.” It is so simple.
Do you realise what happened when you were born again? The Spirit of God was shed abroad in your heart, and you have a direct, personal relationship to Him.
Some children of God are so afraid to begin to stand on the promises and appropriate what is theirs in the Lord Jesus. They feel they are not worthy. They feel somehow or other that they are more distant relatives.
But the Spirit of God has been shed abroad in your heart. You are not a cousin a thousand times removed. You are a child of God. You have been born again. You belong to Him. You belong to His family. You belong to the household of faith.
He loves you. He wants to hear you. He wants to speak to you.
What a wonderful thing birth is.
Look at you all sitting here in these seats. So many years ago, all of you were this size. You came out of your mother a tiny little bit of flesh. Now look at you. Just look at you.
All of what you have now came from that little bit of flesh. The wonder of birth is amazing.
When I was first born, my eyes did not open for a couple of weeks, and I was a lovely kind of tomato red. My mother said to my father, “I think they have mixed up the babies.”
She said, “You are so good-looking, and I am not bad myself. How could we produce something like this?” I had a big head, so my mother had a very hard time.
But I was born, all those years ago, and everything I have today came from that—except the clothes, of course. Isn’t it amazing? The wonder of birth.
To be born again is to have a relationship to God.
Now, what are the evidences of birth? First thing—not thirsty, first thing—you breathe. Very simple thing.
I think everybody in here is breathing. It is so simple, and yet you cannot live without breathing. You were not told by your mother, “Now begin.” You began breathing.
The nurse took you up and whacked you, and you began to breathe.
Second thing: you could cry. You could make a noise. Is that not true?
Third thing: your eyes opened. A new world. Suddenly your eyes opened. You could not focus too well, but little by little your eyes focused.
Then you began to hear. Before long, you could tell your mother’s voice from a thousand other ladies’ voices. You could tell your father’s voice. You began to distinguish between your uncle’s voice and your father’s voice, your mother’s voice and your grandmother’s voice.
The evidence is that you are alive.
If someone does not breathe, they are stillborn. If the eyes do not open, if the ears do not start to hear, they are dead. If they do not ever cry—what baby does not cry? Some more than others.
I cried so much that my mother took me to a specialist. After all the examinations, he said, “Mrs. Lambert, you have a very, very strong-willed son. You ought to wheel him down to the bottom of the garden and leave him there.”
But I had great allies in the neighbours who, when they heard me yelling at the bottom of the garden, went all the way round to the front door and rang the bell. They said, “Mrs. Lambert, your son is crying down the bottom of the garden.”
My mother would say, “I know he is crying down the bottom of the garden, because I put him there.”
Well now, listen carefully. Are you spiritually breathing?
Have your eyes opened to a new world? Then you are a child of God.
Are you speaking? That is, do you feel a need to pray? That is an evidence that you are born of God.
There are some other things as well. The sign of a healthy child is that the child has an appetite and thirsts.
What kind of baby would it be that has no hunger and no thirst? If there is no hunger and no thirst, there is some disease. Something is wrong.
There are thousands of Christians who do not hunger for the Lord nor thirst for Him. They do not feed on the Word. They do not drink of the Spirit. Something is wrong.
Isn’t it an amazing thing that, when you were born, before very long, without reading a book, you stood up?
The first time a baby stands up, it is excitement in a family. Everybody is on the telephone. They go out to the neighbours: “Little Tommy has stood up!”
What is so remarkable about that? Millions and millions of human beings have stood up. But it is a sign that something is happening. Someone is growing.
Then they take their first steps. They start to walk. What is so remarkable about that? Millions and millions of human beings walk.
And then they run. And then they fight.
But the Scripture speaks of standing in Christ, walking in Christ, running the race, and fighting the good fight. These are the evidences that someone is born of God.
Of course, when you are first born, we do not expect you to stand, or walk, or run, or fight. We do not expect you to eat a steak when you are one week old.
But when you are twenty years old in the Lord, and you cannot pray, and you cannot hear the Lord, and you cannot walk with the Lord, and you cannot run, and you cannot fight the good fight, something is wrong.
Dear folks, what an amazing thing this is. Isn’t it interesting what the Apostle Paul said in that amazing testimony recorded in Philippians, chapter 3?
He counts everything but loss:
That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, becoming conformed unto His death.
Now note the order: “That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection.” That has to come first. You cannot know the fellowship of His sufferings if you do not know the power of His resurrection.
To enter the fellowship of His sufferings without knowing the power of His resurrection would spiritually finish you.
It is amazing what the Lord trusts to some of His children. The key to it is knowing the Lord Jesus in the power of His resurrection.
Actually, you cannot experience His resurrection life and power without being conformed to His death. But the only way any child of God can know what it is to be crucified is through His resurrection life. Otherwise, it becomes just dead religion.
Not know about Him, as I said already, but know Him.
I want to finish by pointing out to you, in the Ephesian letter, how amazing the Apostle’s prayer for the church at Ephesus is.
He knew that what he was writing could easily just become a truth, pure doctrine. It was not that he was afraid of pure doctrine or sound truth, but he wanted more than that.
He wanted them to experience what he meant when he prayed that the Lord would grant them a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus.
Revelation. Illumination. When God opens the eyes of the heart, what you have known up here, suddenly you see here.
What is up here leaves you untouched. But when it comes here in the heart, it comes out all over you. You are stunned.
That is what it means. Then you are filled with a sense of awe and wonder: “Oh, how great the Lord is. How amazing what He has won for us.”
The eyes of your heart enlightened, that you may know what is the hope of His calling. That will take a whole lifetime.
And this has to do with His inheritance in the saints. You may know it up here, but when you know it in the heart, it makes all the difference.
And then this:
What the exceeding greatness of His power to us-ward who believe, according to that working of the strength of His might which He wrought in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead.
The whole of hell was mobilised to keep Christ in the tomb: every demon, every principality, every power, every world ruler of the darkness. They were all focused on one thing: keep Him in the tomb.
Oh, the power that God wrought when He raised Jesus from the dead.
Now listen. It is the same power available to you.
But many of us are so sorry for ourselves. “Oh, it is all very well for him to talk. If he only knew what I am suffering. If he only knew the circumstances that I have, all the situations that I have, the problems I have, the obstacles in my way at present. If he only knew my husband. If he only knew my wife. If he only knew my parents. If he only knew my children. He would understand. I am a special case. It is too much for me.”
Of course, we would never say it like this, but this is what we are really thinking: “I blame God for this. He has put too much on me. He has allowed too much to happen.”
But to know Christ in His resurrection—the same power of the Spirit of God that raised Jesus from the dead is the power that is working in you. Believe it.
If you could say tonight, “I have tremendous problems, but greater is He that is in me than he that is in the world.”
Go to the Old Testament:
The Lord of hosts is with us;
The God of Jacob is our refuge.
That is a wonderful term. The Commander of the armies of heaven is with us. The God of Jacob is our refuge.
To know the Lord in this way is something so real.
You may say, “I do not think He would do it for me. I am not a very exceptional or significant person.” I think you are.
I am not trying to inflate your pride. Let me tell you something: God so loved you that He gave His only begotten Son for you. How can you be so insignificant?
The price God placed on you is the worth of His own Son.
You say, “I cannot believe that.” Well, that is the problem: you are an unbeliever. You are a Christian unbeliever. It is tragic.
You say, “I do not think I am worthy enough.” But He loved you and gave Himself for you.
I would have thought if the Son of God loved a person, that person had to be significant.
When the devil comes to you again, do not listen to him. He does not know what he is talking about.
He says, “You know yourself. You know you are insignificant. You know you are unworthy. You know you are not very special.” But listen to me: the Word of God says He loved you and gave Himself for you.
You can never explain the love of God. It is totally beyond explanation. He loves you because He loves you. That is the only explanation.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the Holy Spirit could touch your heart tonight, and you could hear the Lord saying to you personally, “I love you”?
And wouldn’t it be wonderful if the Holy Spirit could touch your heart and your ears, and you could hear the Lord Jesus saying, “I loved you, and I gave Myself for you”?
What would your response be?
Oh dear Lord, we do pray this night that You will touch our hearts. It is not our heads, Lord, that need to be touched, but our hearts. Lord, touch our hearts and somehow reach us this night.
We want to know the Lord Jesus in His resurrection. We want somehow the wonder of that resurrection life of our Lord Jesus, which is ours, to become a reality.
In Your great mercy and love, we ask it in that name of Yours. Amen.