— Brother Phil Enlow: There is a resurrection that has been happening ever since the day of Pentecost for people who have heard the voice of the Son of God, and they have believed it, and they have been raised from the dead with Jesus Christ. And there is a life implanted in the heart that can never die!
( congregational amens ).
Doesn’t Revelation say, “Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection.” (KJV). That’s what he’s talking about. I’ll tell you, if you’ve been born of God’s Spirit, you have been raised to newness of life because of Him! You have already been raised to newness of life! Yes, the body is still what it is, but there’s gonna come a day when that will, “…be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye.” Thank God, I want to be part of that first…I’m glad I’m part of that first resurrection!
( congregational amens ).
That’s the one that matters, and it’s happening right now because He was raised from the dead! All right? So here’s kind of…He explains this. He talks about the fact that they hear and they live. “For as the Father…” verse 26, “…as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself.” (NIV).
What’s happened is this. When Jesus walked among us, as a man, He had life in Him, didn’t He? “In him was life; and the life was the light of men.” (KJV). And people saw that life. They experienced it. But yet, we were not fit to have that life reside in us. Didn’t He tell His disciples…talked about the coming of the Holy Spirit and said, “… he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.”
You see the difference of what happened because of the death, burial and resurrection and ascension of our Lord. What has happened is He who had life in Himself, as a man, was raised to a newness of life, full of the brand-new…the life of God, the new creation and ascended to a throne.
Well, what’s He doing on that throne? What does He now have the power to do? He has the power to share that life. The life that is in Him is now able…He is now able to share it with us and we can have a living connection with the Son of God. It has nothing to do with what you can see and feel, in the natural sense. But there is a literal connection where we have the same life in us that He has in Him.
( congregational amens ).
In Ephesians chapter 1, the end of it, I think…1 or 2, somewhere in there. I think it’s the end of 1, where he talks about Jesus ascending. Maybe it’s chapter 4 I’m thinking of. But it talks about Jesus ascending to the heavens, “…that He might fill all things.”
How can an individual…you think about me as a person, how can I fill everything, if he was talking about me? I can’t. But if God lives in me, and He gives me the power to share that life, is that not what Jesus did in the first creation? Everything was created by Him, and though He was an individual, yet, the Father gave Him the authority to speak, and like we heard this morning, galaxies happened. There was something, there was a power that flowed out and made everything that we see.
Yes, it has become corrupted, and there’s a new creation being formed, but Jesus is sitting on a throne today because of what He did. That’s why we worship Him. His Name is above every name. That’s why the apostles were willing to live and die for Him because they knew that there was no salvation in anyone else except the name of Jesus, so they lifted Him up! And the authorities beat them and told them to be quiet, they said we’ve got to obey God rather than men. There’s no salvation in anyone except the name of Jesus.
( congregational amens ).
But oh, there He sits today. Think about this from His point of view. It’s like He’s saying, I’m sitting here. I’m here in this exalted place, and there are my children down there, there are my brothers and my sisters, put it that way. And God has given me the privilege of sharing Himself, His life, all that He is with them.
And the only way they can live the kind of a life that God has purposed, is to open their hearts to that life, and let it fill their hearts, let it fill their minds, let it be the empowerment of what they do, the kind of person they are, the ministry they may have, all these things all come together.
You know, I remember in school, there was a lot of debate among Bible scholars and teachers and preachers and so forth when Jesus was talking in John 15 about bearing fruit. Was He talking about the product of ministry or was He talking about the fruits of the Spirit? Both. That would be my answer, yes.
( laughing ).
Because the fact is, you can’t be the kind of person God called you to be and have those characteristics of the fruits of the Spirit without the Spirit powering that. We can’t imitate that. We can’t produce that out of human nature. It has got to be God or nothing.
But also, when we got out to minister, can we just do it by human ingenuity and build programs to build churches? People are doing it. We don’t need clever programs. We need Jesus!
( congregational amens ).
Because He will call everyone that the Father has given to Him, and He will not lose a one of those that the Father has given to Him.
( congregational amens ).
There’s nothing in that John 15 passage that should cause someone to say, oh my God, I might mess up, and He’s gonna throw me away. I’ll tell you, if you’re His, He’ll prune you. But if there’s a real connection and your heart’s ever been truly given to Him and surrendered, you’re safe in His hands. What He longs for us to do is to understand these things so that we can cooperate more like Jesus did. Jesus did a perfect job of living out that life. Okay?
“…So He has granted the Son also to have life in himself. And he has given him authority to judge because He is the Son of Man.” Just the same thing we said…that He’s gonna be the judge.
Now, he’s looking forward to the end of time. He says, “Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear His voice and come out—those who have done what is good will rise to live, and those who have done what is evil will rise to be condemned.”
Now, lets find out what Jesus was able, in His flesh, to do and how He was able to do it. He says, “By myself I can do nothing.” Anybody ever feel like that? But think about that? Isn’t that what Jesus said in John 15? “Without me ye can do nothing.” (KJV).
That’s a tough lesson to learn. We’re pretty proud, self-sufficient creatures. We actually think we can do stuff. You know, on a human level, sure, we can do the various activities and all of that, but I mean, when you talk about things with eternal value, there’s not one of us here who can simply take instructions and go out and produce something eternal. It ain’t gonna happen.
And the Lord wants to teach me, and all of His people to learn the secrets that enabled Jesus to be what He was while He was a man. He is our example, folks, of one who needed the Father to live in Him, but He understood that, and He yielded Himself completely to that.
“By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear…” (NIV). Wouldn’t that be a good thing? Aren’t we quick to judge situations and judge things? We need to kind of go slow and say, wait a minute, Lord. Help me to think Your thoughts and see things through Your eyes and be more in harmony with You. Okay?
“I judge only as I hear, and my judgement is just…” Now, here’s a key. “…For I seek not to please myself but him who sent me.” And he said in another place, “I have come…not to do my will but the will of him who sent me.” Maybe it’s in another place in this passage that I didn’t have marked.
But I’ll tell you what, that’s pretty key, isn’t it? Jesus understood what His life was about. He didn’t come here simply to live an earthly life, have fun, have enjoyment and just acquire things and live a life to please Himself and maybe accomplish a few things that people would remember Him for. It was not an earthly existence.
I’m here for…I’m on a mission. I am part of something that does not belong to this creation. I have a ministry sent from God to a dying creation. Everything I do has to do with what He is accomplishing, what His purpose is.
That kind of weighs in on what we live for. If we’re gonna be plugged into the vine, to use modern terminology, whatever you want to call it…plugged in is probably a way we would think about it. They didn’t have electricity in those days, at least not the kind they could do anything with.
The Lord is looking for a people who would say, I’m not here to do my will but the will of my Father who sent me. That’s why He shares His life with us. And if we’re busy doing our own thing, and just kind of running in our own strength for our own purposes, we’re probably producing stuff that maybe, just maybe, has to be pruned?
But I see the Lord, in mercy, reaching out. Surely, He knows. He remembers our frame. He knows we’re dust. He knew everything about the failures that were coming. Peter hadn’t even…He’d even warned Peter at this point, and yet, Peter went right on and did what he did and failed so miserably, and the Lord reached out and helped him, didn’t He…received him? And then, Peter was the one who stood up on the Day of Pentecost.
I’ll tell you, we need…sometimes, we need to get knocked down real good to realize how things really are. Has that ever happened to you?
( congregation inaudible ).
Yeah. That lesson about ‘without Him, I can do nothing,’ how many times have you had to have a desperate sense, or have you had a desperate sense of your own inability and weakness? And, if you’re gonna go by how you feel and how things look and your track record, you’re gonna have to say, oh my God, it’s hopeless. But how many of you know that’s a good thing?
( congregational response ).
If it brings us to a place where we recognize how things really are and it causes us to reach out…I’ll tell you, if you think of God as the angry judge, dictator in the sky, the rule-maker in the sky who wants to wreck your life and make it miserable with His rules, you ain’t gonna go there.
See, that’s people who don’t have that inward relationship. When God comes in, He comes in with what? His love. There’s a revelation of our need, but there’s a revelation of His love and mercy that comes in with it. His love, as Paul said in one place, “…is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost.” (KJV). I’ll tell you, I want to respond to that.
And, as I say, I think the Lord drew my attention to this as much about me as it is about anybody. The life that we live here, how much of it is really having that living relationship with the vine where the life that is motivating us, the life that is powering us is God’s life, and not just us running in our own wisdom and our own strength? Anybody here need the Lord with me on this one?
( congregational response ).
Yeah. I thank God. But I sense, in the Lord drawing my attention to this, not a voice of condemnation or what’s the matter with you, straighten up, and fly right, but a voice of One yearning, a voice longing for us to get this, because He wants to be more real. He knows that there’s not one thing that we can do to be the kind of people He wants to be, or to do the things that He’s called us to do, unless we get the strength for Him.
Jesus understood that, and that’s why He had that 24/7 connection with the Father. It never wavered. Thank God for what He has done for us. Thank God!
And, you see how the Lord had to bring others, like Paul, for example. How many times have we used the fact that Paul came out of a religious background and had a lot to unlearn, and how God brought him to a place where he just cried out, oh God, who’s gonna rescue me from this body that is so addicted to sin. It has no power. There’s a law operating here. I am not strong enough to beat it! No matter what I do, I can’t do what I’m supposed to do. Or I do what I’m not supposed to do.
And then, the Lord reveals to him in Romans 8. Yeah, my plan is not to get you to live by rules in your own strength. My plan is to give you My Spirit. If you yield to Me, and you draw upon My strength and My ability, you can do whatever.
I mean, look at the relationship that Jesus paints in that passage in John 15. Verse 7, “If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.” Now, this is not talking about being religious and saying, okay, I can ask for what I want. Give me Cadillacs, give me, you know. This is not that kind of self-seeking spirit.
But this was the relationship Jesus had. He was so geared to, Father, help Me in this moment. Lord, show Me what to do today. He said on one occasion, the Father tells Me what to say and how to say it, in one of the translations. Boy, wouldn’t it be nice if we had that kind of a connection to where everything that we did was an expression of what God wanted us to do, and God actually could live in us, to a greater degree? I’ll tell you, God wants to power the Body of Christ, not with religion, but with Himself.
( congregational amens ).
And, the thing that I see about this, is this is not just some, obviously, it’s not automatic. Why would He tell them to abide, over and over again? Remain in Me, or abide in Me. There’s obviously a part we play in this, isn’t there?
This gets down to choices that we make. Do we really want His will? Maybe that’s a place to start. Lord, I want to want Your will. Lord, bring me into harmony where I understand what my purpose is in being in this world. It’s not just to live for me. It’s not just to be a citizen of this world and to live my life and die and then, go to heaven one day, because I’ve got a ticket in my back pocket. Folks, we need to learn to walk with Him.
( congregational amens ).
We need to learn to understand what our purpose is in the world, need to be in agreement with it and ask God to help us where we aren’t. And then, we need to actually spend time with Him and expect Him, believe His promises. Didn’t Peter say He’s given us, “…great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature.” (KJV). Yeah.
Those promises are there. He has given us everything, but there’s a part that we play. And so, that’s why Jesus was saying so many times, remain in Me, remain in Me, remain in Me. You can’t do anything by yourself. Remain in Me. Let My life be the thing that powers what you are and what you do, and you will bear fruit.
How can we not if it’s Him doing it? Nothing we do will ever last for eternity if it’s just us. But everything He does is forever. Whatever God does is forever. Isn’t there a scripture in the Old Testament that says that? Whatever He does is forever.
So, I sense God’s heart reaching out to every one of you, wherever you’re at. If you’re in a weak place, if you’re discouraged, look up. This is the Lord’s invitation to you. He’s saying, I’ve got what you need. Wherever you’re coming short right now, wherever things just don’t look or feel right, just get your eyes on Me. Look to Me. Believe that I’m for you, that I’m able to fill you with Myself and make you into the person that I want you to be.
Don’t be afraid to come to Me like you are. I love you. I provided everything when Jesus went to the cross. He said, it’s finished. It’s accomplished. Do you believe that? Do you believe that when He died, you died? Do you believe we have a ground that we can stand upon and say, no, to what is wrong?
It doesn’t mean we always do it very well. We need to learn. We need to grow. These are areas where we need to grow. But everything has been provided, and we can do all things through Him who strengthens us.
But it comes not rules and religion, it comes by the life of Christ that He shares with us so freely. And so His call to every one of us is to remain in the vine, and fruit is gonna happen in every one of our lives, whatever that looks like, wherever we’re at. Praise God!
( congregational amens ).
