Perhaps we can slightly turn down the volume of the microphone as there is a slight ring there which some of you might find unpleasant. Thank you.
Now, I'd like to consider together with us all today: what did Jesus come into the world for? You say, well, that's easy. I mean, I've been a Christian a long time and this kind of question is simply too elementary for us. The fact is that the answer to that question as to why Jesus came into the world is by no means so evident to the average Christian, and even less so to the non-Christian. Why did Jesus come into the world?
Now, most Christians will say, well, he came into the world to die for our sins. We've got it all ready on the tip of our tongue. Indeed, he came to die for our sins, and that is true. But that answer hardly covers the entire truth. If all that mattered was his death for us, I wonder why we need the Gospels at all. In fact, why we need four Gospels. It seems one would already more than have sufficed, and we don't really need four of them. Why do we have the life of Christ given to us, not just in stereo, but in four dimensions?
Why do we need to know his life at all, for that matter? It seems all we need to know is that he died for us, and that's enough. And in fact, we don't even need to know how he died. Just so long as he died and he died for us, that's good enough. In fact, maybe the only book we might need is part of the book of Romans. We don't really need the rest of Scripture, if the only reason he came into the world was to die for us. And all we need is the last few chapters of one of the Gospels, and that will be enough to tell us that he died, maybe even how he died, though we don't really need to know how he died. And maybe we need, as I say, just some parts of Romans and some parts of Colossians or Ephesians and some of those other books. But we don't really need to know all the other details.
Why do we need to know about his compassion towards the sick, the dying, the poor, the weak? Why do we need to know these things? As a matter of intellectual interest? Why do we need to know how he reacted towards the Pharisees, to the hypocrites, of which there are still a lot in the world today? Why do we need to know why he cleansed the temple? What do we need to know that for? In fact, why do we need to know any of those things, if all he came was to die for us and all we need to do is believe that he died? It's all that's necessary. Then we don't really need most of the Bible, do we? In fact, we wonder why we need the whole Bible at all. Why do we need the Old Testament for?
You see, when I said, do you know the answer to the question, why did Jesus come into the world at Christmas time, why does the answer still seem very obvious to you? To die. Indeed, to die. That is truth. That is true. But is that the whole truth?
Jesus came into the world to bring us life. The life from God. A life from the heart of God to the heart of man. A life of God's own life to us. We have physical life, but we don't have the life of God until he gives it to us. And this life that he gives to you, assuming that you have received it, is a life of a different quality from the kind of life that you are living in your body right now.
God gave us the finest Christmas present that anyone could ever possibly receive. The gift of physical life is quite a valuable gift, obviously. And how people try to cling on to this physical life, even as it fades away from us. Even like sand, while you are hanging on to this physical life, it's seeping away between your fingers. And you find that age is catching up with you. You find yourself getting weaker and older. And this life is seeping away, no matter how much you try to hold on to it. It's valuable. That's why we try to hang on to it. But God gave us something even better than that. Eternal life that seeps not away, that passes not away. And not only in terms of length of time, it is a totally different quality of life, which, alas, for the majority of Christians, they have not even begun to experience.
And I say majority of Christians, and you raise your eyebrows. I say, yes, Christians. How many Christians come to me and tell me they were baptized here and there and everywhere, and they lived a life no different from a non-Christian? There's no difference in the quality of the life that they lived before baptism and after baptism. These Christians in name — Christians who don't know what it is to live eternal life, who don't know what it is like to have the life of God operating in their souls, who don't know what it is to live in fellowship with God in this newness of life, who don't experience this new quality of life. The church is full of them, and how pathetic it is.
Jesus came then to bring that life, and in your case, he will have failed of his mission if you are not experiencing what that new life is in your own experience. What a precious gift, but how few have received it. And many reasons for not having received it. Because the church has tried to, in many parts, distribute this life at cut price. They tell you that there are next to no conditions besides believing that Jesus died for you.
I come back to this phrase. Let me ask this question. If you have life, what exactly do you do with your life? The question is not merely that God gives us life. The question is, what do you do with that life? I wonder what you are doing, even with your earthly life right now. Do you know what to do with it? The tragedy is God gives us a gift, and most people don't know what to do with that gift. He gives you a gift of life. You may have 40 years, or 50, or maybe 70, if you are a strong man. You might even survive to 75. But that period of time, that time of life, most people don't even know what to do with it.
Well, we start out rushing to get ourselves an education. And you work very hard to get yourself a degree, in the hope that you can get a good job with it. And then you try to make a living with it. And all of life ends up going to office in the morning and coming back in the evening, and it's all the same routine, going round and round and round. And you certainly have stopped and asked yourself, "What am I doing all this for? What am I doing with my life? I don't even know what life is about." It seems it's all a race, from hand to mouth, trying to get food to put into my mouth. And I put some on the side, so that one day when I haven't got any job, I've got something to draw on. Well, no one says there's anything wrong with having a job. But if that's all life is about, if all life is about is getting an education, getting a job, and getting old and dying, then you are quite right to wonder, what is this all about?
And after all, if life is simply about getting more money so you can get a nicer car and drive a faster car — well, what's the use? You have a 55-mile speed limit on it in the States, and here you've got 60-some miles you can do. What can you do with a high-powered car? You can take off from zero to 100 in nine seconds. Well, that's great. That's great. What do you want to do? You want to burn your tires up? What exactly do you want to accomplish with this? So, the idea simply is: what is life for?
In the same way, we must ask the question, because what life is for and whether you receive it is also a connected question. God is prepared to give you the gift of new life, this eternal life that passes not away, provided you know what to do with it. Supposing today, in the grace of God, you get the best Christmas gift of all. You got eternal life today. And what are you going to do with it? How will your life be different from tomorrow as compared to today, when you've got the new life? So now you've had trouble enough knowing what to do with your earthly life. How are you going to figure out what to do with the eternal life? You don't even know what to do with your earthly life. Now you've got to figure out, what am I going to do with eternal life? Now you've got a double problem.
God gave us life for a very specific purpose. And wretched is the man who doesn't know what to do with this precious gift of life, as most people don't. And wretched is the Christian who, assuming he did get that gift, doesn't know what to do with it, and he lives no differently from the non-Christian. And I hope that today we'll look at some of the answers to these questions as to why God gave us life.
Now when the Lord Jesus came, he did come indeed to die for us. But he also came to live for us. The reason why we have the Gospels, to answer my own question, is to tell us how we are to live. He's not just saying, "I died for you." But he's saying, "I'm going to die for you and give you a new life, and I'm going to tell you what you're going to do with that new life. I've got a whole program in front of you, and I want you to follow behind me. I'll show you the way to go. And I'm going to take one step, and you take one step. And you're going to follow in my footsteps. I'm going to set an example for you. I'm going to put a pattern in front of you, and you watch that pattern and you follow me."
Ah, now I still know what I've got to do with a new life. Before I get a new life and I wonder — I'm going to sit here until I die, and then I'm going to get to heaven. And when I get to heaven, I'm going to wonder, what am I going to do in heaven? And some people say, when I get to heaven, what do I do? Do I start taking a course in harps? And the thought of playing harps for the rest of one's life is not exactly very appealing, unless you happen to be a harp fanatic. And you wonder, what am I going to do in all eternity? I'd be bored to death. Is there a television in heaven? I mean, I spend most of my life looking at television. When I get to heaven, there's no television. I'd be so bored. It looks like the only program there is in heaven, according to most people's knowledge, is music. And if you don't happen to major in music, I think you'll really have a hard time.
What then do we do with this new life? What is the purpose of it all? Jesus said we have a task to fulfill: to carry out the will of God in this world. Now we have to know what that will is. And he doesn't just sit down and teach us the will of God and say, "Now the will of God is this and that." He lived a life before us and said, "Look at this life that I am living. Can you see what it means? Do you see what I am doing? Now when you see what I am doing — I am giving you this life — you take this new life and you follow after me."
The teaching of discipleship has all but vanished. And a church that doesn't know discipleship will die, because it doesn't know what to do with the new life. It has to die, because it doesn't know what to do with it. It becomes frustrated. A Christian who doesn't know his direction becomes frustrated, disorientated, demoralized, and will not survive for long. Not survive for long.
So let us turn to Hebrews chapter 10, as we are going to base our exposition on this passage. Hebrews chapter 10. And we read from verses 5 to 7 of Hebrews chapter 10. Verse 5: "Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, 'Sacrifices and offerings thou hast not desired, but a body hast thou prepared for me. In burnt offerings and sin offerings thou hast taken no pleasure.' Then I said, 'Lo, I have come to do thy will, O God, as it is written of me in the roll of the book.'"
What a marvelous passage is this! Taken from the 40th Psalm, verse 6 onwards, Psalm 40:6. And the writer to the Hebrews said those are the words of the Lord Jesus as he comes into the world. At Christmas, as he comes into the world, he is saying these words to the Father: "Sacrifices and offerings thou hast not desired, but a body hast thou prepared for me." What for? Verse 7: "Lo, I have come to do thy will, O God."
Can you let the power of those words sink into your mind? "You have given me a body — a body hast thou prepared — and I have come into this world to do your will, O God." I meditated on this passage until the tears came to my eyes, because I began to see a dimension of the Lord's life that I had not seen with that clarity before: the Lord's absolute commitment, and the absolute intensity of that commitment, to the will of his Father. His whole life was focused into one intense focal point: to do the will of God.
The problem with most people in this world is they will never accomplish anything in this world. And I wonder whether you are going to accomplish anything in this world, or whether you are going to be just one more name of an endless list of names. And there are three and a half, maybe four billion names in the world today, who passed through this world in this very century alone, who never knew what they came for. As the Lord Jesus said to the people he spoke to, "You don't know where you come from and you don't know where you are going." Do you know where you come from, and do you know where you are going? You don't know where you come from and you don't know where you are going. But he goes on to say, "I know where I came from and I know where I am going." To live a directionless life — is that not pitiful?
And there are countless Christians who have gone through baptism, and they have gone through churches and churches and more churches. They don't know where they are going. It's pitiful to think upon it. They will never accomplish anything in this world. Will you accomplish anything? Will your life have any significance whatsoever? I would to God that everyone in this church — I beg it of God — that no one will have passed through this world without having accomplished the purpose that God has for you. Because I am saying this to you with certainty: he has a job for you to do in this world. And woe betide you, you don't want to get to heaven unless you have done that job. Let me tell you, you don't want to get there, because you don't want to see his face. Imagine you get to heaven and he says to you, "What happened to the job I asked you to do?" "Job? What job?" What job? Look at this Bible. How many pages are there in here? And you don't know what's your job? What have you been reading the Bible for?
There are Christians who tell me they read this Bible a hundred times, and I don't see anything in their life that's revealing of the glory of God. The reason why most Christians — and I won't even speak of non-Christians now, because their life obviously is going absolutely nowhere; they don't know what they're living in this world for — and may it be that God will grant to them that life is more than eating and drinking and dying. May it be that you will know, if you're a non-Christian, that God is the one who has given a present to you at Christmas, and never on that day when you see his face at the judgment say, "You know, I wasted my life because, I mean, you didn't do anything for me." He did nothing for you? Let me tell you, he has done for you everything that he could possibly do. We'll come back to this later. But let me speak to the Christians, because if you squander the life that God has given to you, you will be without a shred of excuse. Because in your hands you hold the book that tells you what God wants you to do with your life. And unless you're totally blind, it's standing there in his word telling what he wants you to do.
But the reason why most Christians will never accomplish anything — I can say that with confidence, I don't have to be a prophet — most Christians will never accomplish anything in this world, even if they claim to have that eternal life from God, that God-empowered life, that Godlike character of life, that life that passes not away. Even if they have that, they will accomplish nothing. You know why? It's because that life is not focused into one sharp point: the will of God.
Look again at the life of the Lord Jesus. He set us an example. The Gospels, all the Gospels, are telling us about the character of Jesus' life. And when you look at the Gospels, you will see this one thing emerge, summed up in these phrases: "I have come to do your will, O God. And I delight to do your will, O God. My whole life is centered in this delightful direction, in this wonderful direction, to do your will, O God." Is it delightful to you?
Now, if you took a metal bar — a heavy metal bar — and you go out to a tree out there, and you're going to swing this round heavy metal bar at the tree — are you going to cut that tree down with it? No matter how strong you are and how heavy the bar is, you're not going to bring that tree down. No way. Your arms will be aching, your hands will be agonizingly painful after a few smashes against the tree. That tree will stand only with a few marks on it. You will not bring it down. But if you concentrate that metal into one sharp point, which is what an axe is all about, you can bring that tree down in a relatively short time. The whole weight and power is concentrated into one sharp point, and a few strokes and it's cutting right in.
If you hold a piece of paper under the sun, you can hold it all day long — nothing will happen. You put a magnifying glass there, and the rays of the sunlight concentrate into one sharp point, and soon you will see the smoke rising from the paper, and soon the fire is catching on. Jesus is the light of the world, and what is the power and intensity of that light! But you and I are lights of the world too. But how weak is that light. How small. How weak. But do you know what a weak light can accomplish if focused into one sharp point? It's amazing. Really amazing.
Some of you know that I took up scuba diving, diving underwater with all these tanks and equipment on. Now the last time, when you all kindly sent me away on holiday — I felt myself being sent away on exile for some reason, with what pressure I was being pushed out into the holiday — but I do appreciate your love. But last time, when I was on holiday, I did something I had never done before, and that was to dive at night.
Now, we were taken out in a boat to a shipwreck, a place where a ship had sunk in 50 feet of water. And it was raining, and it was windy, and the waves were battering the boat, and it was all pitch black. The water looked like ink out there. And we were going to dive into this pitch-black, inky water — something I hadn't done before. So the guide teased us, all this group of divers on the boat, and said, "You people really want to go into this water in this kind of weather?" So no one was about to change their minds. So he said, "You have a good look at that water again if you really — it's not only black, but it's windy and it's raining." But nobody was about to change their minds.
So he asked us all to put on our equipment, our tanks, our mask, gear and all that stuff. And one by one we jumped into this inky water, into 50 feet of water, to go down and explore this sunken ship below. And as each person took their turn to jump, we were handed a little torch. Now I knew that we had to go down with torches into this water, but I expected to see a big, powerful thing. What was my surprise when I was handed a tiny little thing like this — small, round thing like this, not more than six or seven inches long. And I thought, we are going to jump into the ocean, into this ocean, in this kind of weather, with this tiny light? I mean, what am I going to be able to see down there with this little light?
But well, you grab your light and you jump. And when we descended in the water, I was amazed that this tiny little light could throw so powerful a beam — one shaft of light in one concentrated beam. I could see 40 feet away in the light of that one beam from that tiny flashlight, not much longer than the palm of my hand. Now if you had unscrewed that cap on top and switched it on, you would have seen a very weak little light underneath, and you wouldn't have seen much at all. But the secret of that light being able to accomplish its job in the murky waters of the ocean was because it was all focused into one sharp beam.
And as I meditated on it, I thought: a weak light — how can we accomplish much? But if it is focused into one sharp beam, how powerful is that light. How far that light can go. How clearly you can see in that clear beam. What a parable when the life of the Christian is focused wholly and with single-minded devotion upon the will of God. The power of that light which comes from God — the light in our life is God's light — but it is up to us to focus it into a sharp, clear beam. And how much can be accomplished through even a weak light. It's really amazing.
Now, when we look at the Lord Jesus, we begin to see the whole secret of his life. His life was far more powerful, far more bright in its glory. And think what happens when he focuses that light into one clear beam: "I have come with one single-minded purpose, one dedicated aim, one goal, burning with intense heat — I have come to do your will, O God." What could stand in the way of that concentrated power, of that concentrated light? What darkness could hold that light back? Wherever he turned his life, wherever he turned his light, there people turned to God. Some, of course, were disturbed by that light. Some became hostile. Not everyone will be favorable. Some will love you, some will hate you. Some love the Lord Jesus, some will hate the Lord Jesus. They hated him enough to crucify him. Because the intense power of that light can make a person exceedingly uncomfortable if he has a lot of things to hide. But for those who stumble in darkness and seek a direction and a way — how welcome is that light! A beam in the dark pointing the way to God.
Now look at the Lord's life, and everywhere you will see the same thing. When he was only twelve years old, he was in the temple, and his parents couldn't find him, you remember. But they finally searched all over Jerusalem and eventually they decided to look in the temple, where they should have looked in the first place. And they said, "We've been looking all over the place!" And he said to his parents, "Do you not know" — twelve years old, my dear — "do you not know that I must be about my Father's concerns, my Father's business, my Father's house?" Which is to live according to the will of my Father. At twelve years old, the Lord Jesus was already entirely focused. You could see his life was already one concentrated beam. And some people think they can't be Christians until they are much later. They don't even know what they are doing. He knew exactly what he was doing.
And when he cleansed the temple — one of the first things in John we are told that he did in his ministry — to cleanse the temple of the religious commercialism. Being a Christian has nothing to do with religion. It has to do with spirituality. It has to do with the life of God. Being a Christian is whether you have God's life or you don't have God's life. It's not whether you're religious. It's not commercialized religion — this business of forever building new church buildings, collecting money for this and collecting money for that, and forever collecting money. Some people say, is Christianity a money-collecting organization? To make the point that it is not, you will notice that in this church we never take a collection. Being a Christian has nothing to do with commerciality. It has nothing to do with a religion in your soul.
And it says there, when he cleansed out all this commercialism from the temple, when he drove out the money changers, the observers said that one verse of Scripture came to their minds. You remember what is that verse? "Zeal for thy house has eaten me up." Can you feel the intensity? "Zeal for thy house has consumed me." Zeal for your work, O God, for your will, for your purpose, burns in my heart with such intensity that it eats me up. Where do you find such Christians today? All wishy-washy kind of things, all easygoing, playing around, social gatherings. "Zeal for your house, for your will, burns with the intensity — it literally consumes me."
Let me say this to you, brothers and sisters: you will accomplish absolutely nothing — and I mean absolutely nothing — in this age, in this generation, with the life that God has given to you, until you can concentrate it by the grace of God into that kind of intensity. May the Lord save us from superficial Christianity, which is a curse of all time. This commercialized, easygoing, socialized Christianity — I don't mean there is no social aspect to Christianity, but it is not what Christianity is about.
What is your Christian life like? What is more, you will know that your Christian life will be very weak and miserable when it is not concentrated. It is going nowhere. It serves no purpose. I almost suggest that you might as well forget about being a Christian at all, because on the one hand you are going to disgrace the Lord with the kind of life you live. Because when your life is not concentrated into one — being a scattered Christian life does not reveal the glory of the Lord, cannot accomplish his purpose, it cannot fulfill his will. And if you cannot fulfill his will, it means you are living in disobedience to his will. You will be constantly failing, and the same whimpering is what we hear all the time: "I can't do his will. I don't know what his will is." And the same story goes on and on. How can you honor the Lord your God when you live in this way?
And look at the whole intensity. That's why we have the four Gospels. We get the picture of the life of the Lord Jesus steadfastly setting his face towards accomplishing God's purpose.
# I Have Come to Do Your Will (Part 2) - Knowing and Doing the Will of God
...that it even frightened the disciples. They walked behind him and they suddenly got something about his presence, and the powerful concentration of his commitment to God's will began to scare them. For this cause, the Lord Jesus says in John 12:27, "For this cause came I to this hour" — to fulfill the Father's will in my life. And you read through the Gospel, it's always like this. Even at the last hour he is saying, "Not my will but yours be done." It's always the will of God that he is concerned about.
In his teaching it's the same thing. He said, "Don't think that because you call me 'Lord, Lord' you are going to enter the kingdom of heaven. Don't think because you believe in me and can do this and that you will enter the kingdom of God." What kind of people enter the kingdom? There it says in Matthew 7: those who do the will of my Father. That's the only kind of people who enter the kingdom of heaven — those who do his will. I wonder how you perceive your own life to be.
And so we can go on. "My food," he says in John chapter 4, verse 34, "my food is to do the will of him who sent me." What sustains me, what empowers me, what strengthens me like food is to do his will. Most people find doing his will very exhausting. It's like having eaten the food, you're burning up the energy. But for him, doing the will of the Father is the food. Isn't that amazing? It strengthens him as he does it. John 5:30, "I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me." Or John 6:38, "I did not come to do my own will but the will of him who sent me." You see that constant, intense concentration upon the will of God — all through his teaching, all through his life. Is that the way you live? Is that what describes the quality of your life?
Why is he so concerned about the will of the Father? Because he tells us in John chapter 8, verse 29, "I always do the things which please my Father." And why does he want to please the Father? Why is this such intense concern to please the Father? Hard for us to understand, isn't it? Because he loves the Father so much. His whole being is filled with this powerful love for the Father. If you love someone so much that you are concerned to do nothing other than that which pleases him, that tells of his love. That tells of your love. But how weak is our love? How feeble is our concern for his glory? How little do we care whether we please him or not? We want to please ourselves. And so we are going to pass away, leaving not a mark upon the sands of this world. The winds will blow us away. You take your choice. You want to live for yourself, and you will be blown away. You live for God, and you abide forever. He who does the will of God, the Scripture says, abides forever. Eternal life is a lifestyle. It's a lifestyle of being committed to the will of God.
But here we come to the question. Those who say, "Well, you see, yeah, I'm willing sort of to be concentrated in the will of God. But you know, my problem is I don't know what his will is. Ah, you tell me what his will is and I'll do it." You don't know what his will is? Is it possible that we don't know what his will is? Look again at this Bible you have in front of you. Every page tells you what his will is. And how is it possible we can read this Bible and we don't know what it is, unless you've been reading it by some other means and looking for something else? If you ever read this Bible asking this question, "Lord, what is your will for me?" that answer will be shouting back at you from every page. It will be speaking to your heart at every page. Or can it be that you have always thought that the Bible is there to speak to somebody else? It's the guy next to you, not to me. If the Bible doesn't speak to you, then who is it speaking to? Who is this next guy the Bible is speaking to? Who does God speak to if he's not speaking to you?
Let us not deceive ourselves. Let us come to understand clearly that God is speaking to us very, very precisely, telling us what is his will, what he wants us to do. The problem is that we don't really want to know his will, do we?
George Muller, that great servant of God, was once asked how he knows the will of God. Well, let me read to you his answer, how he knows the will of God, how he discerns the will of God. He says: "I seek at the beginning to get my heart into such a state that it has no will of its own in a given matter. Nine-tenths of the trouble with people is just here. Nine-tenths of the difficulties are overcome once our hearts are ready to do God's will, whatever that will may be. When one is truly in this state of being ready to do God's will, it is usually but a little way to the knowledge of his will."
He is saying — the problem then, what George Muller is saying is — the reason you don't know his will is basically because you don't really want to do it. If you really wanted to do his will, you would know it. And he said, most people are saying, "What is the will of God?" because they really just want to find out what it is and then decide whether they want to do it or not. I said before and I say it again: God's will is not subject to our inspection. Unless you come totally committed to do that will, whatever it is, you're never going to know it. He's not going to tell you what that will is. But once you come with the readiness to say, "I have come, O God, to do your will," the will of the living God will be very clear to you.
Why is God not real to so many Christians today? Because you don't want to do his will. I dare you, whoever you are, to stand here today and say, "If there is a God — although I'm not a Christian, I don't know God — but if there is a God, I will do his will, whatever that will is." I challenge you to try that. And he will tell you what his will is, as clear as day is from night. But if you are not sincere in saying this, and you dare to play around with the living God, you will be in so much trouble, you don't want to know about it.
God is the living God. Being a Christian is not a matter of religion, it's not a matter of philosophy, it's not a matter of ethics. It's a matter of the living God and having his life. God is the living God. And if you are serious about wanting to know God, just say one thing to God. Just say one thing. I dare you to say it. Just say to him, "I have come, O God, to do your will." That sentence is so powerful, I tell you, it will terrify anyone who doesn't dare to do God's will, who doesn't want to know the truth. But if you dare to say it in all honesty, even though God at this moment is not real to you, if you dare to say it, he will reveal his will to you with such clarity as will quite terrify you. And I think that's precisely why — because the carnal man is terrified of God. He doesn't even dare to know what the will of God is.
But if you don't want to know his will, you don't dare to know his will, don't come to me and tell me that God is not real. Because the moment you are committed to do his will, he sure will tell you what the truth of the matter is. That's the words of the Lord Jesus himself in John chapter 7, verse 17: "If any man's will is to do his will, he will know of the truth." He will know whether what I say is true or not. It will be inescapable.
I hope you did not come to church today just to have been able to say, "Well, it's Christmas today, so he has been in church." I want you to be on this Christmas day faced with the reality of these words — whether you are willing to say on this Christmas day, whether you are a Christian or a non-Christian, whichever way: "I have come, O God, to do your will." I came to this church — maybe I didn't know what I came for in the first place, maybe I came because it's Christmas day — but now before I leave, I am willing to look at this challenge. I am willing, O God, to do your will, whatever it is. You will be on the way to eternal life. You are going to live in the new quality of life.
And if this were not true, if I didn't speak from my own experience, if I were talking through my hat — I am sure you can discern whether I speak the truth or not. He is the living God. You just say it quietly in your heart to him: "God, I don't know you now, and the reason I don't know you is because I haven't been doing your will. I haven't been wanting to do your will. But now I come, O God, to do your will, whatever that is." You will know him. You will know whether he is the living God.
And there are Christians here today who don't know the living God. They are professing Christians. They got baptized, they went to church, they did this and that, but God is not real to them. Why? Because they are still struggling with the question of whether they are going to do his will or not, whether they will do his will fully or not. There is only one way to do God's will: you either totally commit to doing that will, or you don't do his will. Because no partial doing of his will is going to be acceptable to him. Don't say, "Well, I did this part of his will, I did that part of the will." You are going to do his will as a whole, or you don't do it at all. God does not settle for half measures.
I speak as one by the grace of God, unworthy as I am, who know this to be true. And I wish that every Christian would know on this Christmas day what it means in your own experience — not just to read it here in the Bible, because the Bible is meant to be turned into experience, something that you know to be true through your own life. I know this to be true because I lived it, and by the grace of God I am still living it. "I have come, O God, to do your will." Any such person who lives according to these words of Christmas — why Jesus came — will know the living God. I guarantee it, because the Word of God guarantees it.
But one last point, and we must close as our time is pretty nearly gone, and it is this. Someone will say, "Yes, well, it is okay for Jesus to do the will of his Father, isn't it, because he knows the Father. I mean, after all, the first chapter of John tells us he was face to face with the Father. If I had this face-to-face experience with the Father, I am most probably doing his will too." You would have to say probably, I dare not — you would not dare to say, "I am sure." I certainly will. The Lord Jesus knew him face to face. He talks with the Father face to face. You know him that well, there is a very high probability that you will do his will with that kind of intensity, isn't it?
And maybe you are saying to yourself, "Yeah, well, you see, my problem is, it is okay for you. You stand there saying, you know, you concentrate and all this about doing the will of the Father. I mean, you have been walking with the Lord 20, 30 years." No, not quite 30 years. Thirty years — I am giving my age away. Must be coming close to 30 years, I have to confess. "That's okay, so you know the Lord perhaps at a level that we don't know. So it is okay, you are very concentrated." It is not that way. It is not that way, because I did not know him at the beginning either. We do not know the Father. We do not know God.
That is amazing. I was meditating the other day, and the more I meditated on this point, the more surprised I was. I came to one remarkable conclusion, that actually I know more about the history of God's dealings with men, I know more about God's character and God's ways through his dealings with men, than I even know about the life, the biography, the history of my wife. Amazing. And the more I thought about it, it is true. I know more about God and his dealings and his character than I know even about my wife, the closest person to me.
As I look back and I thought about it, I knew next to nothing about the first 20 years of my wife's life. Well, I know she went to a certain school. I know — I met her parents, I met a few of her friends, I know where she lived in Hong Kong. These things I know. But I know relatively — if I put everything I know about my wife, the first 20 years of her life — she's still very young, of course, but the first 20 years of her life, because when I first met her, not that long ago, she was only around 20 then, you see. And I look back, and if I put down everything I know about my wife's life and biography, I wonder if I could manage to fill even one sheet of ordinary letter paper. But I know about God in such detail and immensity. Why? Look at this book, the Bible. I know God in all his dealings with this person and that person, and with this nation and with that nation, what he did and what he said. I don't know a single thing that my wife ever said in the first 20 years of her life. I don't have a quote on it. But look at what the Lord said — I have volumes and volumes, pages and pages of what the Lord said, what he taught the Israelites, what he commanded them to do, where he led them to go, the things that he did. I know volumes and volumes of things that he did. And yet the person closest to me, I don't know half as well.
In fact, I realized that I could predict the Lord's doings and actions far more precisely than I could predict what my wife would do in a given situation. I could guess — she would most probably do this — but I couldn't say for certain, because she might forget, as most people often do forget. She might forget this or forget that, or she might just happen not to do what I expect her to do at that time. But God, because he's the same yesterday, today, and forever — when you know him well, you could predict his actions with astonishing accuracy.
My wife herself is a witness to that. As I shared — one striking example was when I predicted the exact timetable of what the Lord would do in a given situation. I said to her, "In three days' time the Lord is going to do this," and I told her the whole timetable: "He's going to do this, and then the next day he's going to do this, and the next day he's going to do that." And I said, "I'm telling you this in advance. You're going to be my witness, because if I tell you afterwards and I said, 'You see, I thought so,' there's nothing there. But if I tell you three days in advance what he's going to do and that timetable, you will be my witness whether this is true." And she is my witness — it came to pass exactly as I said it would, on the third day, on the fourth day, on the fifth day, exactly as I predicted he would do it, he did it.
So how is it possible for you to know? I know. That's why we have the Bible in front of us. I know exactly how his character is. I know how his mind works — I mean "exactly" in so far as, by the Lord's grace, I'm able to discern it from Scripture. It's an amazing thing to realize that I know God better than anyone else in this world, and you can too. Amazing. And it struck me the other day, and I was filled with joy as I paced up and down in the kitchen. I said, "Amazing — the closest person to me in this world, I don't know as well as I know God." I could not predict what my wife would do with that kind of accuracy. That's sure, she will understand, and you will understand — you can't predict anyone's actions with that accuracy. But because God is unchanging in his inner character, and because the whole Bible has revealed him to me in such detail, if we only bother to study the Scripture with that accuracy, you would know God in so intimate and so precise a way that you couldn't believe that there's anyone in this world that you know so well as God.
And so let's look at the picture again. You say, "Well, if I knew God, I would do his will." You don't know God? What do you got a Bible for? What is the Bible doing in front of you? It's there telling you what he is like. It even quotes his words. It tells you how he acts in this way, how he reacts in that way, what he does in this situation, what he does in that situation. And you still don't know what God is like? And I wonder what you've been reading.
Isn't that wonderful? Isn't that exciting, that there is one person in this world — and the one person that really matters — who has revealed himself completely to us? Jesus, we learn, came into the world, in John chapter 1, verse 18, he came into the world in order to do what? To reveal the Father to us. He has revealed the Father to us. If the rest of the Old Testament was not enough, then he has revealed himself to us completely in Jesus. Now what more can you ask for? Of course, if you want to experience him, the only way to do that is to be committed to do his will. Only when you are unconditionally committed to do his will, all these things you read about will become part of your experience. Otherwise they will just be some knowledge that you don't even know what to do with.
May it please the Lord then that God accomplish his purpose in each one of your lives at this Christmas and every other Christmas. I hope you will remember these words again: "I have come, O God, to do your will." Why did he give us a new life? So we can twiddle our fingers and wait till we get to heaven, and then when we get to heaven we don't know what to do there? There is a whole program for us. But we must first be committed unconditionally and without reserve to do his will, and then you will experience his power in your life, and then you are going to know him as the living God. You will have the gift of life, and through that gift, the experience of the living God. Let us pray.