Thoughts About Life — John 1

0:00 Perhaps more that's bigger than that. And I was thinking of John one, I was reading John one this week. And I was kind of struck as I read in John one with the thought that he says, John one in verse four, In him, that's in the Lord Jesus, In him was life. And the life was the light of men. Life and light.

0:44 We saw those concepts, Bob kind of tied those together earlier. He talked about glory. Glory, by its very definition, has in it the concept of light, of shining forth, of greatness. And so here John ties together these ideas of life and light. And I would, I've kind of was just trying to understand, get my mind around that verse.

1:10 What does it mean that the life was the light of men? I'm not sure I fully understand that still, but I would submit to you that the concept of life involves the ability to perceive or to understand. If something's alive, it can see, not necessarily physically see, but it can perceive or understand things that are going around, on around it. It's conscious of those things. And the life was the light of men.

1:50 So to be alive involves a consciousness. To be spiritually alive involves a consciousness of spiritual things, the ability to perceive spiritual things. And So that's the first thought about life is sort of the definition of life that involves a spiritual consciousness and understanding of who God is and of sin and of so many different things that that's a part of life. And the life was the light of men. The second thought I had was about the source of life.

3:16 You have the words of eternal life. Also, have come to believe and know that you are the Christ, the son, and my dad actually quoted this wrong when he quoted it. Quoted it from memory wrong. It says, the son of not just God, but of the living God. Alright?

3:40 It's the living God. It's an important point, right? The sort, who, The living God. John starts off his epistle in John one. He says, In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God.

4:00 He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him and without him nothing was made. That was made in him was life. So it's that, from the very beginning, what is the source of life? It is God himself.

4:16 He is the living God. He is the one who is alive. Scientists like to imagine that somehow life can arise from non life. As Christians, we believe that life arises from life. Life itself came from God.

4:38 In the beginning, there was someone that was always alive. As far back as you can go, there was someone who was alive. And our life proceeds from his life, both biologically and spiritually. It comes from him. The source of life is Lord Jesus.

4:55 The loss of life, the loss of life comes through sin. You know, in the Garden Of Eden, there was a tree. The tree was called the tree of life. It's a remarkable fact. From the very beginning, life started.

5:18 There's a beautiful place, a wonderful place and there's a tree there. They can go and eat from it. It's the tree of life. And the remarkable thing is when man sins, what is he's taken away from all the beautiful things in the garden, but what is one the main things that he's taken away from? God says, he doesn't want him to eat from the tree of life.

5:48 We need to get him out of the garden so he doesn't eat from the tree of life. There's that loss. God says that when you the day that you sin, you'll die. Die spiritually that day, you begin to die physically that day. Man sinned, there's the loss of life.

6:39 He says, I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me may die, though he may die. He might die physically, but he's not really gonna die. He shall live. And whoever lives and believes in me shall never die.

7:01 Do you believe this? It's one of those remarkable questions. We've had this question brought up several times. Is this really, this word, is this really what we believe? Is this really what we believe?

7:14 That though we may die, yet shall we live. And then we have the thought of the different aspects of life. There's eternal life, a life that lasts forever, but there's also the quality of life. The fact that even though we may have eternal life, yet we may have our senses dulled, our senses deadened in such a way that we're not cognizant of what God wants to do in our lives. To be alive, we must have our hearts open to what God is speaking to us.

7:58 So there's, as Christians, there's that thought of the quality of life that we're living and walking with God. And then finally, I was just reading to my son yesterday the last chapter in the book of Revelations. And I was reading it and it really just jumped out at me. Revelations chapter 22. And he showed me a pure river of water, of life, clear as crystal proceeding from the throne of God and of the lamb.

8:49 So the first thing is that there's a river. And in this river, there's water that they call the water of life. Don't Revelation is a book that's filled with symbols and pictures. I don't know how literal this stream is. But there's something that's called there's something that's the river of life.

9:21 It's gonna, there's gonna be water. And then he says, also in the middle of the street and on either side of the river, there's something else. There's the tree of life. There's a tree of life. So all that God's taken away is restored.

10:10 And Father, we thank you for spiritual life. That because of your word and of your Holy Spirit, we can have life. Father, we thank you for eternal life, a life that lasts forever. Father, I pray that we would trust you, that we would open, be open to what You would be speaking to us. We pray that Your Spirit would be working in our lives so that we would know You and the power of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus personally in our experience each moment as we live our lives.

11:04 And father, just thank you so much for your love for us. We pray father that if there's any person in this room that is not trusted in you, trust in the Lord Jesus as their savior, that they would do so today. We just pray these things in Jesus name, amen.