I would just like to say how very glad I am to be here in this part of God’s family. I am sure the Lord will meet with us.
I would like to read a few Scriptures, first from the letter of the Apostle Paul to the Philippians, Chapter 3. We will read from Verse 10:
That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, becoming conformed unto His death.
Then, in the Roman letter of the Apostle Paul, Romans 6:4-5:
We were buried therefore with Him through baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life.
For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection.
Then, in the Gospel of Mark, Mark 8:31-37:
And He began to teach them, that the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders, and the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.
And He spake the saying openly. And Peter took Him, and began to rebuke Him.
But He turning about, and seeing His disciples, rebuked Peter, and saith, Get thee behind Me, Satan; for thou mindest not the things of God, but the things of men.
And He called unto Him the multitude with His disciples, and said unto them, If any man would come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.
For whosoever would save his life shall lose it; and whosoever shall lose his life for My sake and the gospel’s shall save it.
For what doth it profit a man, to gain the whole world, and forfeit his life?
For what should a man give in exchange for his life?
We will just have a further word of prayer.
Beloved Lord, we thank You that You have gathered us together in Your presence this evening. We worship You, Lord. We have been worshipping You in song, and now, Lord, we come to the ministry of Your Word.
Lord, we know that we can hear many truths, but if there is no anointing upon the speaking of Your Word, and no anointing upon the hearing of it, it will all amount to nothing.
Therefore, beloved Lord, we come to You in all our weakness and need, both in speaking the Word, translating the Word, and hearing the Word. Lord, we want to say to You: we need that anointing, that grace and power You have provided for us.
We now stand by faith. Let a double portion be upon the speaking, the translating, and the hearing. We shall be careful to give You the praise and thanksgiving in our hearts for answering this prayer.
And we ask this in the name of our Messiah, the Lord Jesus. Amen.
I want to speak about a very, very simple subject: How can I live the Christian life?
It could not be anything more simple than that—or more kindergarten.
If every Christian was living the Christian life, this world would be turned upside down. If every person here this evening was living the Christian life—living it as it ought to be lived, in the power of His resurrection, in the power of the Holy Spirit—unsaved families would come to know the Lord. Unsaved relatives and unsaved colleagues at work would come to the Lord. Our church, the whole assembly, would be filled with the presence of the Lord.
What is wrong with us? For the most part, we know defeat or failure, or a self-life that dominates our so-called Christian life.
Most so-called Christian lives are Christianized self-life. They are the self-life dressed up with Christian phraseology.
Oh, the self-centeredness, self-glory, self-advancement, self-interest—all dressed up with Christian phraseology, biblical language. But it is not the Christian life. Essentially, it is the world dressed up as a Christian.
How, then, can I live the Christian life?
There is, of course, no such phrase in the whole Bible. It comes as a shock to some Christians that there is no such phrase as the Christian life, even in the New Testament.
Does that mean that there is no Christian life? No. We sing about it in our hymns. We study it in our Bible studies. It is extraordinary that the phrase the Christian life does not appear once, though people are called Christians.
The phrase the Christian life does not appear once in the whole Bible, in its sixty-six books.
What we call the Christian life, the Word of God calls eternal life. Every time you read in the Bible the phrase eternal life, that is the question before us.
Now, this eternal life—the Lord Jesus said that He was that life.
I am the bread of life.
I am the way, and the truth, and the life.
I am the resurrection, and the life.
Everywhere you turn, He did not say, “I point to it,” “I preach it,” or “I give it.” He said, “I am it.” He is the Christian life.
Now, this is utter simplicity—so simple that most Christians miss it. We are looking for something far more complex, far more difficult, far more convoluted.
If Christ is the Christian life, when we are in Him, we have entered the Christian life. And when He is in us, He lives the Christian life.
You know a very well-known verse:
For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have eternal life.
Let me put it another way: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but should have the Christian life.”
There is a little Greek preposition which the original translators into German, French, and English found very difficult to translate. Literally, this is how it should read:
For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth into Him should not perish.
It is a preposition of motion. It is not that I am here and believe in Jesus there. When God gives me living faith, I have moved. The Spirit of God joins me to Him. I believe into Him.
Let me put it another way. When you believe, when you have the gift of living faith, God repositions you.
He repositions you. You are delivered from the power of darkness and transferred into the kingdom of His dear Son. You are taken out of the world, out of a self-life, and into Christ. From then on, God sees you in Christ.
The original English translators had a problem. They felt they could not say, “Whosoever believeth into Him,” because it was not good English. So they came up with a new phrase: “believe on Him.”
But when I hear the phrase “believe on Him,” I have to move. It is a phrase found nowhere else in English. It is everywhere in the King James Version. Sadly, in modern versions, they have discarded it.
The Word says that when you are born of the Spirit of God, you have moved your position—from the world, from self, into Christ.
Now, here is something more wonderful. When the Lord Jesus came to the last great declaration, “I am,” in John 15, He said:
I am the true vine, and My Father is the husbandman.
Then He said this in John 15:4:
Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; so neither can ye, except ye abide in Me.
I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in Me, and I in him, the same beareth much fruit: for apart from Me ye can do nothing.
Did you hear that? Apart from Him—nothing.
You can be Christianized, but you are not possessing the Christian life. Now, you are to remain where God has placed you.
The Lord Jesus did not say, “Fight to get into Me. Struggle to get into Me. Do everything in order to get into Me.” He said, “Abide in Me.”
The word is remain. Dwell in Me. Stay where God has positioned you until you die. If you remain where God has positioned you, Christ is everything in you.
Christ is the centre and circumference of the Christian life. All the gifts are in Him. All the fruit is in Him. Everything is in Him. He is the centre, and He is the circumference.
Therefore, the apostle gives this extraordinary testimony in Philippians 3. He counts everything but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus:
That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection.
Christ is the centre and circumference of the Christian life. Therefore, we have to get to know Him—not know about Him, but know Him.
There is a vast difference between knowing about the Lord and knowing Him.
Let me come back to this matter: How can I live the Christian life?
Wherever I go, young people ask me this question: “I find it so difficult to live the Christian life. When someone hits you on the cheek, you turn the other one. If they take your coat, give them your cloak. If you are forced to go a little way, go even further with them. Oh, that is impossible.”
They say, “That is an ideal. There is no possibility of its reality. We have to wait for the millennium. Then we can turn the other cheek. Then we will give the cloak.”
No, no, no. It is now.
How can I live this Christian life? This is not the problem.
I will repeat it. Please wake up for this statement: it is not a problem of how to live the Christian life. That is not the problem. The problem is how to die.
Did you get that? The problem is not how to live the Christian life; it is how to die. Then the life takes care of itself.
Like a great Amazon River, it will flow out of your inner being. It is all in His life.
The problem is not how to live the Christian life. It is how to die.
If you have a terribly difficult relationship and you become bitter, there is no Christian life until you learn to die. This is the problem.
You see, here we have this wonderful verse. I have already quoted it:
That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection.
Will you please note something? Paul never said, “That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings,” as though the fellowship of His sufferings were merely an afterthought. He said:
That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings.
That implies a death. You cannot know eternal life without the death of the Lord Jesus.
How did you receive eternal life? Not by your tears, your devotion, your knowledge of the Bible, your feelings in your soul, your Christian parents, or all your knowledge. How did you come to taste eternal life?
By the blood of the Lamb.
That is why, in the Book of Revelation, when everything is summed up, it says:
And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb, and because of the word of their testimony.
They overcame by the finished work of the Lord Jesus, and by the word of their testimony. That is the confession with the lips of what is absolute truth: there is no way to God, no way to serve God, no way to be saved, and no way to be changed into the likeness of the Lord except by the blood of the Lamb.
That is just another way of saying the death of Christ—the finished work of God.
Do you begin to see something?
You see what Paul wrote in Romans. He said in Romans 6:5:
For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection.
The verse before, Romans 6:4, speaks of walking in newness of life. That is the Christian life: walking in the newness of His life.
Walking in the newness of life—a new life, another life, resurrection life. What does that mean? The whole Christian life is found in the resurrection life of the Lord Jesus.
But add another Scripture, from the Galatian letter of the Apostle Paul, Galatians 2:20:
I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me: and that life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God, Who loved me, and gave Himself up for me.
The Lord Jesus gave Himself for me. That is the only way I could be saved, the only way you can be saved, the only way we can receive eternal life.
But then there is this other side: “I have been crucified with Christ.” He not only died for me; He died as me.
It is exactly there that we have the biggest problem. We do not want to die.
As far as God is concerned, if you are a child of God, if you have been born of the Spirit of God, then you have died with Christ. He finished with that old life. It is historic—historic. It is already a fact.
When you got saved, you may not have realized it, but as far as God was concerned, when Christ died, you died. Most of us enter into this later. I do not know if I am making myself clear enough.
Eternal life is received on the basis of Christ’s death and is given to us as God’s free gift. But that eternal life can be limited by our own self-life.
The whole meaning of becoming a Christian is that you have surrendered your self-life:
It is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me.
Here is the problem: “I do not want to die. I do not want to be a living sacrifice. I do not want to humble myself. I want to be in charge of my own life.”
“I want to be a Christian. I want to be saved. I want to go to heaven. But I do not want the Lord over me. I am more capable of looking after myself.”
That is what many people think. “If He is Lord, I will not be able to get married. I would rather be in charge of my own life.”
Shall I tell you something? You have already made a mess of your life.
Unless you are too young, most of us have made a mess of our lives. And the older we become, the greater the mess we make of it.
It is incredible. So insidious is this poison that it destroys everything. It is “I.”
You know what Satan said? “Did God really say that you would die?” No. He was afraid you would become as God. You will be the big “I.”
“I will. I will. I think. I know. I am right, and you are wrong.”
This “I” is the real problem in living the Christian life.
You can dress it all up and make it look like a sweet little Christian. You sit in these lovely blue chairs. Such a dear thing. But the “I” is there.
You are learning your Bible. You are even sometimes praying. You may even sometimes be witnessing. But it is all “I.”
This I-life, this self-life, began with the fall of man. It took another position from what God intended.
If you look at human history, it is all the evidence of self-centredness, self-aggrandizement, self-glory, and self-power. It is the story of this world.
Listen, dear child of God: if you have become a Christian and allow that self-life still to reign, there can be nothing but a civil war in your life. You cannot live the Christian life. It is impossible.
Now, this is a very unpopular message. One of the most popular books now in Christian circles is how to improve yourself.
I do not know where it comes from. It is another gospel. You do not improve yourself; you have to let it go.
This is what Jesus said when He began to tell His disciples that He was going to die and on the third day be raised. Peter said, “No, Lord. We will not let You.”
Looking into Peter’s eyes—and Jesus noticed the other disciples were all there, so this was a lesson—Jesus said, “Peter, get behind Me, Satan. You think only of the things to do with self, with man, not the things of God.”
I have said it before; let me say it again. If I looked into your eyes and said, “Get behind me, Satan,” you would go to the elder brothers and say, “Do not ask that brother back again. Do you know what he did? He called me Satan. That is disgraceful. I am a child of the Lord. I am a disciple. How could he look into my eyes and say that?”
If He had only said, “Satan is troubling you,” I could have accepted it. Every child of God knows something of how Satan troubles you. But He looked into Peter’s eyes and said, “Get behind Me, Satan.”
Then He explained: when you mind the things to do with self, you take sides with this world, with fallen man. The poison that is in you through the fall runs through your whole bloodstream.
Then Jesus called the whole multitude, with His disciples, and said:
If any man would come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.
Did you hear it? Deny himself. Take up his cross, and follow Me.
If any man would follow Me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Me. There can be no real discipleship without a denial of self and the taking up of the cross. It is impossible. It is impossible.
Listen to the Lord:
Whosoever would save his life shall lose it; and whosoever shall lose his life for My sake and the gospel’s shall save it.
Now, in the Greek, that word life is psuchē. This is the word from which we get psychology, psychiatry, and all those strange things. It has to do with the soul.
If any man seeks to save his self-life, his soul, and whosoever loses his self-life for My sake and the gospel’s shall save it.
Once you let go of your self-life, do you not give up all right to yourself? That is another way we can translate it: “If any man would follow Me, let him deny himself.” Give up all right to himself.
If we are prepared to do that, we find ourselves under a new management.
The big “I” becomes the broken “I,” the surrendered “I.” We find that self-life under the lordship of Jesus.
This is the gospel. Why do you think Jesus brought together the multitude? Why do you think He brought that great multitude of the unsaved together with His disciples?
Eternal life is the free gift of God, given to us by the grace of God on the basis of the finished work of the Lord Jesus. But you cannot take many steps to follow the Lord before you come face to face with the cross.
You cannot avoid it. If you do, you have a defeated life. The power of His resurrection is lost on you—limited, neutralized.
Dear child of God, the Lord loves you so much.
When the Lord calls on you to give up all right to yourself, to take up the cross—He calls it your cross—and to follow Him, He has all your best interests at heart.
It is not as if the Lord wants to make your life a misery—unhappy, unfulfilled, unsuccessful. That is how we think: “Oh, the Lord wants to take the laughter out of my life. He wants to give me bad times.”
You have bad times because in the world you will have tribulation. But it is not the Lord’s doing; it is what He uses.
Come back to this: if any man gives up all right to himself, takes up his cross, and follows Me, then you find fullness.
Then you produce fruit. Then the blessings of the Lord become yours. Then you find eternal life like a river flowing out of your inner being. This is the Christian life.
So when someone says, “How can you live the Christian life?” that is not the problem. The problem is how to die.
When you die, God takes care of the resurrection. Isn’t that amazing?
You can stand at this point, and you know the Lord is speaking to you. You know you have had a defeated Christian life. You know that the power of God in you is limited. You are not where you should be. You are not fulfilling the ministry you should have. You are marking time.
When the Lord faces you with this, it is a challenge. I am going to put it in a childlike, childish way: you wonder, “If I die, will I live again? If I humble myself, will I ever be lifted up?”
Now you understand what it is to live by faith. Every time you die in a situation, it is living faith. “Will I ever come up again?”
But you will come up. That is the amazing thing. And you will come up with more than you ever had before.
That is overcoming. It is not that you do not go down. In fact, to go up, you must go down. To live, you must die.
For summer fruitfulness, you must know winter barrenness. For much fruit, you must know pruning. It is His cross.
Do you understand now? The problem is not how to live the Christian life; the problem is how to die.
Now, if there is anyone here who wonders about that, let me put it very simply. Only the Lord, by the Holy Spirit, can open the eyes of your heart to see that you were crucified with Christ. Only the Holy Spirit.
But there is one thing the Lord waits for, one thing which you alone can do: surrender to Him.
Not I, but Christ. When you take that position, then the Holy Spirit can begin to recreate and remake your whole life. It is the lordship of Jesus instead of the lordship of self.
Now, we live in a democratic country, so you can disagree with me. But let me prophesy: you will make a mess of your life, and everyone else will see it. It is as simple as that.
Remain in charge, bossing yourself—you are the boss—and you will make a mess of your life, an ever greater mess.
The challenge is simple: will He be Lord, or will you be lord? Who is going to be in charge of your life?
May the Holy Spirit touch you, because in years to come you will remember that strange preacher from Jerusalem who said, “You will make a mess of your life.” Would to God that everyone could be saved from that.
May the Lord touch us. Shall we pray?
A moment of quietness.
You know the life that you are living. You know very well whether it is the Christian life or just a façade.
You know very well whether you are in charge of your life, or whether the Lord is.
In the quiet, why do you not surrender? He died to save you. In one sense, it is immaterial to Him whether you submit or do not submit. It is for your good.
He would save you from so many tears and so much unhappiness.
Beloved Lord, You know every heart here. You know wherever there has been a heart that has said, “Lord, in all my folly, ignorance, and stupidity, I come to You. I surrender.”
And in some very real way, let that resurrection power of the Lord Jesus begin to flow in my life in a way that it has never done before.
Lord, in the name of our Lord Jesus, we pray. Amen.