Abide: The Word Gives Life
Pastor Rollan Fisher
Psalm 138:2
I bow down toward your holy temple and give thanks to your name for your steadfast love and your faithfulness, for you have exalted above all things your name and your word.
Focus:
Jesus has life in himself, and everyone who hears his word and believes the Father receives eternal life. They have passed from death to life and will not face damnation.
Though they may die, they will again hear his voice and be raised from the dead to everlasting life.
John 5:19-29
So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise.
20 For the Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing. And greater works than these will he show him, so that you may marvel.
21 For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will.
22 For the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son, 23 that all may honor the Son, just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him.
24 Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.
25 “Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. 26 For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself. 27 And he has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man.
28 Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice 29 and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.
The way the author “dances” between Jesus’ dependency on the Father and yet emphasizing his own divine authority is a picture of how the Trinity interacts.
- This demonstrates the uniqueness of Christianity.
The rest of the gospel of John particularizes what it looks like when the Word dwells amongst flesh and reveals God's glory.
Jesus, as well as the majority of early believers and all of the writers of the New Testament minus Luke, were all Jewish.
Jesus was sent first to the lost sheep of Israel, then to the rest of the world.
God’s word speaks about his care for the whole world.
The world is steeped in sin, darkness and death.
Jesus came to bring life to the whole world, and the world would have access to that life by believing his words.
- There are several moments in the gospels when Jesus calls those who are dead “asleep.”
- For him, raising someone from the dead is like me waking up my kids on the morning of Christmas Day or their birthday—EASY!
- That's why dead Christians are referred to as those who "are asleep in Christ.”
Throughout this gospel, Jesus continually asserts that his work is to do the will of the Father (4:34; 5:30; 8:28; 12:50; 15:10).
Jesus' main work is to reveal the Father and bring life to those that are dead in their transgressions and sins.
This will culminate in the final resurrection when he brings those who are waiting for him into the glories of eternal life.
This is where we will finally experience the fullness of all that we’ve been longing for, and many striving for in this life without him.
“The Christian says, 'Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire: well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing. If that is so, I must take care, on the one hand, never to despise, or to be unthankful for, these earthly blessings, and on the other, never to mistake them for the something else of which they are only a kind of copy, or echo, or mirage. I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death; I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside; I must make it the main object of life to press on to that country and to help others to do the same.”
-C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
Turn to Jesus and his word today to experience both the present and eternal life of God!
Second City Church - Pastor Rollan Fisher