A doctor told one of his patients, “I'm afraid you only have three weeks to live.”
“Okay then,” the patient replied, “I'll take the last two weeks of July and the week between Christmas and New Year's.” (Van Morris, Mt. Washington, Kentucky; www.PreachingToday.com)
People want to have the time of their lives in the time they have left. The question is how? How can you really live? How can you enjoy a full life? How can you have the life?
Consider what Dave Barry has to say. He’s a nationally syndicated columnist, now in his 70’s, who has gained a lot of wisdom over the years. Some time ago, he wrote a column called, “Things that It Took Me 50 Years to Learn.”
1st, Never, under any circumstances, take a sleeping pill and a laxative on the same night.
2nd, If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential, that word would be “meetings.”
4th, There is a very fine line between "hobby" and "mental illness."
5th, Never lick a steak knife.
And finally, a person who is nice to you, but rude to the waiter, is not a nice person. (Dave Barry, Things That It Took Me 50 Years to Learn, www.PreachingToday.com)
That’s pretty good advice, but I think we can do better. If you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn with me to 1 John 5, 1 John 5, where the Bible tells you how to have the life.
1 John 5:5-12 Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? This is he who came by water and blood—Jesus Christ; not by the water only but by the water and the blood. And the Spirit is the one who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. For there are three that testify: the Spirit and the water and the blood; and these three agree. If we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater, for this is the testimony of God that he has borne concerning his Son. Whoever believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself. Whoever does not believe God has made him a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony that God has borne concerning his Son. And this is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life [literally THE LIFE]; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have [the] life. (ESV)
Do you want to have the life? Then you must have the Son. And if you want to have the Son, then you must...
BELIEVE.
You must believe in Jesus as the Son of God. That is to say, depend on Christ as your Lord and Savior. Trust Him to be your Leader in life and Liberator from sin.
First, believe in Jesus as God Himself in the flesh.
1 John 5:5 Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? (ESV)
To say that Jesus is the Son of God is to say that He is God! In Bible days, when people wanted to describe the nature of someone, they would often use the phrase, “son of...” For example, Judas was called the “son of destruction” (John 17:12), because he was destructive by nature and headed for destruction. Joseph, in the book of Acts, was called “Barnabas”, which means “Son of Encouragement” (Acts 4:36), because he was always encouraging somebody.
He encouraged the church in Jerusalem by selling his land and giving them the proceeds of the sale. He encouraged Paul, who at first was rejected by the church, to become a world-wide missionary and church planter. He encouraged John-Mark, a washout in ministry, to become a leader in the First Century church and the writer of one of our Gospels – the Gospel of Mark. Barnabas was called the “Son of Encouragement,” because he was an encourager by nature.
In the same way, Jesus is called the Son of God, because He is, in His very nature, God Himself! He is God in the flesh!
I like the way Steven Smith describes it in his Dying to Preach. He says:
While Christ took on the form of a human, he set aside his rights as God. In other words, all of Christ's time on earth he was always Godlike. When he was tried in Samaria, he was all-powerful; when he was asking questions in the temple, he was all-knowing; and when he was present in a particular place, he was omnipresent. It is simply that he made a choice not to take hold of what was always, and always will be, his—namely, his God-like properties.
Imagine that you are visiting a hospital. You cannot find a parking place close to the hospital, so you park way in the back, and now you are lost. You stop another driver in the lot to ask directions, and he kindly says that he will just park beside you and walk with you to where you need to be in the hospital. Now suppose that as you get to the front of the hospital, you find out that this man is actually the chief surgeon of the hospital, and as you near the door, he adds, “Oh, yes, and this is my parking place.” He had a superior advantage because of his status. However, in deference to your needs, he did not take his rightful parking spot but walked with you the whole way. So here is the question: As he was walking with you, did he stop being a doctor? No. Did he have a parking place? Yes. He had all of these things and at any time could have laid hold of those things and used them, but for your sake he just chose not to in that particular moment. (Steven Smith, Dying to Preach, Kregel, 2009, pp. 105-106; www.PreachingToday.com)
That’s what happened when God became a man. He did not cease to be God. He simply chose to lay aside His privileges as God so He could walk with you in your need.
Please, believe it if you want to have the life. 1st, Believe in Jesus as God Himself in the flesh.
Second, believe in Jesus as your Lord and King. Trust Him to be the Leader of your life.
To say that Jesus is “the Son of God” is to say that He is King! In Bible days, many kings had as one of their titles, “Son of God.” In fact, God Himself, in 2 Samuel 7, says of each of Israel’s kings, “I will be his father, and he will be my son” (2 Samuel 7:14). So to call Jesus “the Son of God” means that you claim Him as your King, your Lord, and the Leader of your life. It’s the only way to have the life! You must let Jesus put your life in order.
Some time ago, Mike Silva and his family were staying at a hotel in Nigeria, West Africa. In the morning, they heard a knock on the door. Mike opened it and found a smiling Nigerian gentleman ready to clean their room.
Mike was embarrassed! His family had travel bags, curling irons, and crumpled clothing sprawled across their unmade beds. Wet towels were all over the bathroom floor. Mike apologized profusely, but the young man replied graciously, “No problem, sir. For this reason, I have come, to put your things in order.” (Mike Silva, Would You Like Fries with That? Word Publishing, 2005, p.42; www.PreachingToday.com)
And that’s why Jesus came – to put your life in order. Don’t try to clean up the mess on your own. Let Him do it for you. Acknowledge Jesus as your Lord, and let Him put your life in order. It’s the only way to have the life. 1st, Believe in Jesus as God. 2nd, Believe in Jesus as your Lord.
And third, believe in Jesus as your Savior. Trust Him to deliver you from evil.
That’s what the people of Israel were looking for in their Messiah, their anointed King. They were looking for a King who would deliver them from tyranny and oppression, but Jesus came to deliver them from their sins, as well.
Before Jesus was born, the angel announced to Joseph, “You shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21). When John the Baptist saw Jesus at the Jordan River, he announced, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29). Jesus, as the Son of God, is God, King, and Savior – the only One who can deliver you from sin. Trust Him to do it for you!
Denise Peraza, a survivor of the 2015 San Bernardino shootings, recalls how Shannon Johnson saved her life by shielding her body with his own. She says:
Wednesday morning at 10:55 A.M. we were seated next to each other at a table, joking about how we thought the large clock on the wall might be broken because time seemed to be moving so slowly. I would have never guessed that only five minutes later, we would be huddled next to each other under the same table, using a fallen chair as a shield from over 60 rounds of bullets being fired across the room. While I cannot recall every single second that played out that morning, I will always remember his left arm wrapped around me, holding me as close as possible next to him behind that chair. And amidst all the chaos, I'll always remember him saying these three words: “I got you.” (Todd Wilson, The Gift of the Son: Everlasting Father, www.Preaching Today.com)
That’s what Jesus, your God, your King, and your Savior says to you, “I got you. I got you. I got you,” as He wraps His arms around you to shield you from the bullets of your own sin. The Bible says, “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed” (1 Peter 2:24). Please, trust Jesus to do it for you. Trust Jesus to save you from your sins, so you can live for Him.
If you want to have the life, believe in Jesus as the Son of God. That means trust Him as your God. Trust Him as your King, and trust Him as your Savior.
But don’t believe in Jesus just because I tell you to, no. Believe the testimony of three very important witnesses – the water, the blood, and the Spirit.
1 John 5:6-9 This is he who came by water and blood—Jesus Christ; not by the water only but by the water and the blood. And the Spirit is the one who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. For there are three that testify: the Spirit and the water and the blood; and these three agree. If we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater, for this is the testimony of God that he has borne concerning his Son. (ESV)
On three different occasions, God Himself testified that Jesus is His Son – at Jesus’ baptism (the water), at Jesus’ death (the blood), and by His own Spirit in our hearts.
So believe the testimony of the water. Trust the testimony God, the Father, gave when Jesus was baptized in the Jordan River. That was the beginning of Jesus’ earthly ministry, and that’s when the heaven’s opened up, the Holy Spirit descended on Jesus in the form of a dove, and the Father’s voice boomed from heaven, “This is my beloved son, with whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:16-17). God Himself testified that Jesus is His Son in the waters of baptism. So believe the testimony of the water.
More than that, believe the testimony of the blood. Trust the testimony of those who saw Jesus shed His blood on the cross. That was the end of Jesus’ public ministry. From the cross, He cried, “It is finished.” He had accomplished what God sent Him to do. At the time, the sky turned black, an earthquake shook the earth and split the rocks, and the curtain of the temple was ripped in two from top to bottom. When one of the soldiers who nailed Jesus to the cross saw it, he said, “Truly this was the Son of God!” (Matthew 27:54).
Just a few days before His death on the cross, Jesus cried out in public, “Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But for this purpose I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven: “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” The crowd that stood there and heard it said that it had thundered (John 12:27-29).
At the beginning and at the end of Jesus’ ministry, God Himself testified that Jesus was His Son. So believe the testimony of the water. Believe the testimony of the blood, and believe the testimony of God’s Holy Spirit to your own heart.
1 John 5:6 says, “The Spirit is the one who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth.” And verse 10 says, “Whoever believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself.” Every believer knows that Jesus is the Son of God, because the Holy Spirit within tells him so.
Christianity is not a blind faith. On the contrary, there is very good evidence that Jesus is indeed the Son of God. That is to say He is God Himself in the flesh, your King, and your Savior from sin.
That’s what Lew Wallace, Governor of New Mexico, discovered over a century ago. He said, “After six years given to the impartial investigation of Christianity as to its truth or falsity, I have come to the deliberate conclusion that Jesus Christ is the Messiah of the Jews, the Savior of the world, and my personal Savior.”
He had started out to write a book disproving the existence of Jesus Christ, but in the process came to believe that Jesus was indeed the Son of God.
Robert C. Ingersoll, a famous agnostic and a good friend had challenged Wallace, “See here, Wallace, you are a learned man and a thinker. Why don't you gather material and write a book to prove the falsity concerning Jesus Christ, that no such man has ever lived, much less the author of the teachings found in the New Testament. Such a book would make you famous. It would be a masterpiece, and a way of putting an end to the foolishness about the so-called Christ.”
The thought made a deep impression on Wallace, so he told his wife what he intended to do. She was a member of the Methodist Church and did not like his plan, but Wallace decided to pursue it anyway. He began to collect material from libraries in the United States and in Europe covering the period in which Jesus Christ, “according to legend,” should have lived.
He spent several years working on the project and had written nearly four chapters when it became clear to him that Jesus Christ was just as real a personality as Socrates, Plato, or Caesar. The conviction became a certainty, and Wallace said, “I knew that Jesus Christ had lived because of the facts connected with the period in which he lived.”
He found himself in an uncomfortable position. He had begun to write a book to prove that Jesus Christ had never lived on earth. Now, he was face to face with the fact that Jesus was just as historic a personage as Julius Caesar, Mark Antony, Virgil, Dante, and a host of other men who had lived in the past. Wallace asked himself candidly, “If [Jesus] was a real person (and there was no doubt), was he not then also the Son of God and the Savior of the world?” Gradually, Wallace came to believe that since Jesus Christ was a real person, he probably was the one he claimed to be.
At that point, Wallace fell on his knees to pray for the first time in his life. He asked God to reveal himself to him, to forgive his sins, and to help him become a follower of Christ. Wallace says, “Towards morning the light broke into my soul. I went into my bedroom, woke my wife, and told her that I had received Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior.”
“O Lew,” she said, “I have prayed for this ever since you told me of your purpose to write this book, that you would find him while you wrote it!”
That’s exactly what happened. Lew Wallace changed the book he was originally writing and used all his research to write another book. Later, the book became a movie starring Charlton Hesston. Those who have seen the movie can’t forget the scene where he races four magnificent white horses in an amazing chariot race. The move, of course, is Ben Hur, the story of a Roman soldier, who like Wallace had come to believe that Jesus is indeed the Son of God. (David Holdaway, The Life of Jesus, Sovereign World, 1997, pp. 42-43; www.PreachingToday.com)
Please, you believe it too! On the basis of solid evidence and testimony, trust Jesus as your God, your King, and your Savior. Just believe and...
LIVE!
Trust Christ with your life and have the life. Depend on Christ as your Lord and Savior and really live.
Put your faith in Christ and live forever.
1 John 5:11 And this is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. (ESV)
Find eternal life in God’s Son.
In the movie Corrina, Corrina, jingle writer Manny Singer and his young daughter Molly are heartbroken after their loving wife and mother has passed away. They hire a housekeeper, Corrina (played by Whoopi Goldberg), to help them around the house.
In an early scene, deliverymen arrive with furniture ordered by Mrs. Singer prior to her death. When they ask for Mrs. Singer, Mr. Singer says, “She's in the bathtub right now.” This sends Molly running anxiously to the bathroom in hopes of finding her mother there.
Later in the movie, Molly is lying in the grass with Corrina beside a dress that belonged to her mother. Corrina says, “You know what I think, Molly? I think your mom is looking down at you from heaven right now. And if you look really close, I'll bet you'll see she's waving.”
Manny overhears and pulls Corrina aside. “Corrina, uh, I really appreciate everything you're doing here. And whatever you believe in is fine. Your heaven is fine for you. Molly's mother was an atheist and so am I, and I don't want you telling her she's somewhere she isn't. Okay?”
Corrina says, “Yes, Mr. Singer. I'll just continue to tell Molly that her mother is in the bathtub!” (Corrina, Corrina, New Line Cinema, 1994, written and directed by Jessie Nelson, 00:25:27 to 00:27:02; www.PreachingToday.com)
How sad! I don’t know how those who have no faith in Christ deal with death, certainly not very well. But those who believe in the Son of God have the assurance of eternal life! So believe and live forever!
More than that, believe and live fully. Trust Christ with your life and live a full and meaningful life now. Rely on Jesus as your God, your King, and your Savior and have the life today.
1 John 5:12 Whoever has the Son has [THE] life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have [THE] life.
It’s that simple. Those who have Jesus as their God, their King, and their Savior have the life. Those who don’t have Jesus, don’t have the life.
Bryan Wilkerson, pastor of Grace Chapel in Lexington, Massachusetts, talks about Charlie and Agnes, some of the meekest people he says he’s ever known. Charlie is a bright, energetic, hard-working man who could have been successful at just about anything he set out to do. What he set out to do was mission work. He spent his entire career working with some of the lowliest people on earth—alcoholics on skid row. For many years he was director of Pacific Garden Mission in Chicago, and then in his retirement years he went to work for the McCauley Water Street Mission in New York. At a time in life when most people his age were playing golf or taking cruises, Charlie would commute every day to minister to homeless men on the streets of New York.
Bryan says, “You don't get rich doing mission work your whole life, but every once in a while, Charlie and his wife, Agnes, would get to do something special.” One year they invited Bryan and his wife, Karen, to join them for a night on the town. Someone had given them tickets to hear Handel's Messiah at Carnegie Hall. These were not the cheap seats, oh no! They sat in velvet covered seats in a private booth. It was a great night, and they all enjoyed it.
As Charlie and Agnes drove the Wilkerson’s home that night, Karen and Bryan were sitting in the back seat. Bryan says, “I was admiring Charlie and Agnes. They were all dressed up for their big night out. She was sitting close to him, like they were high school sweethearts. They struck me in that moment as two of the happiest people on earth.” That’s when he noticed a little plaque they had stuck to the dashboard of their old Chevy. It explained everything: “God always gives what's best to those who leave the choice to him.”
Bryan says, “Charlie and Agnes had long ago given up striving, fretting, and demanding things from God and from life. Instead, they had surrendered to God their talents, their careers, their safety, their material needs, and even their retirement. Instead of chasing the abundant life, they waited for God bring it to them. (Bryan Wilkerson, in his sermon In God We Trust, Though We'd Rather Pay Cash, www.preachingtoday.com)
You do the same! Stop chasing the abundant life and wait for God to bring it to you. Just believe and live! Surrender to Jesus as your God, your King, and your Savior and have the life.
