Christian Life According to John (Part 2) — Denny Kenaston

Hello, this is Brother Denny. Welcome to Charity Ministries. Our desire is that your life would be blessed and changed by this message. This message is not copyrighted and is not to be bought or sold.

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These messages are offered to all without charge by the freewill offerings of God's people. A special thank you to all who support this ministry. Amen. My heart unites with the words of that psalm this morning.

Greetings in Jesus' name. It was a good day yesterday, wasn't it? I love Bible school time. I get to be alone for many hours every day during Bible school. I love that. I appreciate the challenge that God gives to me to get something from Him to give to you.

Okay, so, let's bow for prayer and we'll get into our subject again this morning. Father in heaven, we love you this morning, God. Our hearts agree. Our hearts run to the words of that psalm, Lord. Solid words.

Oh God, solid words. Nothing else, Lord. Nothing else do we want to worship but Thee. Nothing else do we want to stand in the way of our worship of Thee. Under You, Lord, we yield ourselves, Lord, completely today.

God, we recognize that's true worship. Father, today we pray that You will be merciful to us, Lord, and open up our eyes and help us to see Your plan for our lives, our Christian lives. I pray this in Jesus' name, Father.

The Christian Life as John’s Life

Amen. The Christian life, according to John, is our subject. The Apostle John was partial to this word, life. He used it five times more than any of the other writers of the New Testament. You will notice, if you study John at all, that you will find that he was partial to certain words.

And it's that way also with the other apostles. But this is one of John's words, not that no one else used it, but John used it 75 times. Life. And I believe he used that word because he lived in such a beautiful and a powerful reality of that word, life.

He used that word because there was no other word that could describe the experience that he had with walking with Jesus for 60 years. Life. Life. The highest quality of life. That's what that word, life, means.

75 times. To John, it was a deep word of reality that gave clear definition to this new way that the Lord Jesus brought us into. It is a life, but it's not just a life. It is His life. John goes on to describe the Christian life, which is His life, which leads us to our third point.

A Whole New Way of Worship

The Christian life is a whole new way of worship. John chapter 4, if you want to turn there, we're going to be in John 4. To begin with, making our way through the book of John. And we will by no means touch everything in this book, but we're just taking glimpses into the Christian life.

John chapter 4. Jesus is winning us all here. He uses simple everyday illustrations to get this lady's attention. The woman at the well is what everyone says. This is the woman at the well. Not realizing that day that there would be two wells there, not one.

But she is the woman at the well. Hallelujah. Jesus speaks to her in simple everyday illustrations in John chapter 4 and verse 13. We're breaking into the middle of His soul winning experience and He says these words.

Jesus answered and said unto her in verse 13, Whosoever drinketh of this water in the well that you're looking at shall thirst again. But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst.

Now that would be enough. But the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life. There's that word life again. As I see it looking at these verses here, it is a matter of fountains and water.

Which fountain are you drinking out of? And what kind of water do you want to drink this morning? There's two fountains here in this text in John chapter 4. Which fountain are you coming to and what kind of water do you want to drink?

Let's look at her fountain first. It's still water. It's down in a hole. You have to carry a pot with you to get some and you have to let your bucket down into the hole and you have to draw it back up out of the hole and carry the water away and tomorrow, bless God, you have to go do the same thing all over again.

Which fountain? Young people, let's look at the fountain that Jesus presents. No pot, no bucket. Praise God. No pot, no bucket, no hole in the ground. Instead, an artesian well ever bubbling with cool, fresh, living water.

Which to drink out of, young people? I wonder what you're drinking this morning. Are you drinking the water of honor? Are you drinking the water of riches? Are you drinking the water of popularity? Are you drinking the water of worldly friends?

Are you drinking the water of cars and trucks and toys and hunting and romance novels and pretty little clothes? What kind of water are you drinking this morning, young people? What kind of fountain do you want to drink from?

Jeremiah said it this way. God said it this way through the prophet Jeremiah. In Jeremiah chapter 2 and verse 13, He said, My people have committed two evils. They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water.

That was God's controversy with the children of Israel in Jeremiah's day. That applies pretty good in this day and age that we live in. Now, this conversation led the Samaritan woman and the Lord Jesus into a discussion about a whole new way to worship.

And young people, the Christian life is just that. It is a whole new way to worship. But the question is, what is that whole new way of worship? We need to consider that. The word worship has been twisted and distorted, and it has been accosted, and it has been mixed up, and it has been confused in this day that we live in.

But just because that has happened to that word worship, that doesn't mean we throw that word out the window. It's a word in the Bible. Amen? And we simply need to go back to the book. And if you go to the book, you'll get a clear understanding of what Jesus was talking about when He presented to this lady at the well a whole new way of worship.

By the way, it is this bubbling fountain within that is the true worship, and that's where it begins, with this bubbling fountain that is within. I wonder how it is. You know, how you look at worship.

Maybe if you were sitting here this morning, you know, it would be an interesting question to ask if we would have the time to say, OK, what is worship? You know, and just throw it out to let you say.

I wonder how many of you would say, would think in your mind, worship is what we just did when we sang that song. And you wouldn't be wrong if you said that. But, oh, my dear young people, worship is way more than that.

It's way more than that. Oh, that is worship. No question about it. And I love it. And I entered into it with all my heart. But worship is more than that. Maybe you think, oh, worship, that's going to church, that's singing songs.

And Jesus begins to speak to this lady, and this lady speaks to Him on the subject of worship. And she says, Our fathers worshipped in this mountain. This is in verse 20 of chapter 4. Our fathers worshipped in this mountain, and ye say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.

Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither worship in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem. The hour cometh when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father.

Something different is coming, said Jesus. This lady's mind is a lot like a lot of people's mind today. Oh, worship. We go to church and we do that. Oh, worship. We worship in this mountain over here.

Oh, worship. You worship over there in Jerusalem at the temple. Worship. No, Jesus said. A whole new way of worship is coming. A whole new way. Jesus goes on to say, Ye worship ye know not what. We know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews.

But, the hour cometh, and now is, when thou, and here Jesus brings out a beautiful word. Because remember, they've been talking about worship. So now He has to qualify and put another word in front of that word, worship.

Because He understands that her view of worship is way off. So He puts another word in front of it and says, True worshipers. It is good for us to put that word in front of the word, worship, today also, young people.

True worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth. For the Father seeketh such to worship Him. God is a spirit. And they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. Even today, young people, as we sit here, the Father seeketh such to worship Him.

In spirit and in truth. God broods over His people. God broods over us as individuals. God, the God of the universe, is seeking such to worship Him in spirit and in truth. Are you willing to take that challenge this week, young people?

He's brooding over this place and seeking out true worshipers. And please note, the very fact that true is there, means that there's a possibility of worship which is not true, which is not real. Let me give you a definition of worship.

I like this. To kiss toward. To toward. With bound, obedient reverence. Worship. To kiss toward. With bound, obedient reverence. Scripture says in Psalm chapter 2, you know the verse? Kiss the Son, lest He be angry with you.

That's quite a challenging verse, isn't it? In other words, if you don't kiss the Son, He will be angry with you some day. And some day when we stand before the Son, and we see Him in all His glory, and we find out just who Jesus really was, we will wish we had kissed the Son with bound and obedient reverence all the days of our life upon the earth.

Young people, one glimpse of the glory of His Son, we will wish we had kissed the Son. Webster's 1828 Dictionary. Listen to this one. Chiefly and eminently paying divine honors to the Supreme Being. That's worship.

To honor with extravagant love and extreme submission with a lover. Listen to that. Find these young couples courting. Find these young couples just getting married. To honor with extravagant love and extreme submission as with a lover.

I will do anything for her. Amen? Or Him. That's a good definition of worship, isn't it? True worship is in the Spirit from a true heart that is surrendered. Paul said it this way in Philippians. We are the circumcision which worship God in the Spirit, rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh.

That's a beautiful definition, isn't it? I thought about Africa as I was pondering this matter of worship and how it's been distorted in this day that we live in. I thought about Africa. Those demons over there that hold whole villages in bondage, you won't get away with worshiping them without obedience and total surrender.

Those demons over there will not allow you to worship them if you don't surrender to them. But where have we gotten the crazy idea that we can worship God and go and live our own life and not surrender to Him when He is not a little devil running around on the earth, but He's the God of the universe, the supreme God of the whole universe.

Somehow we've gotten it in our mind that though the demons require surrender and sacrifice to them, God does not. Open my eyes, Lord. Open my eyes to see what that really means. I studied the word truth here in this text, and I was shocked at the modern commentators.

They took the word truth of the text and they replaced it with the word reality. Well, pray tell me, what is reality if you don't have truth to define it? I agree. We need to be worshiping God in reality.

But the word truth defines what is reality. What a watering down of the truth again in the Word of God. Reality. Reality of truth in a surrendered heart. Reality, a true, sincere and an honest heart coming before God to pay obedient reverence to Him.

Reality, worshiping according to the true nature of the God that we worship. And that true nature of the God that we worship is revealed in this book called the Bible. Amen? That's what worship is. True worship.

Young people, God is the most high and holy person in the universe. His holy character emanates from His being. And to give worship and praise to this God in pretense, without the reality of truth in my heart, without a surrendered life, is one of the most dangerous things that you can do.

And I guarantee you, you couldn't get away with it if God dropped you right in front of Him in Isaiah chapter 6 type of an experience. You couldn't get away with it. And I'll say more about that later.

There is a plague in this land that we live in. This plague. This confused worship thing. It's a plague. They worship a God after their own imaginations. They say that you can worship and go live like you want the rest of the week without a surrendered heart.

But you can't, young people. You can go through the motions. You can do something that you think is worship. But you cannot worship the God of the universe without a surrendered heart. It's impossible.

Paul said it this way in Hebrews chapter 10 and verse 22. Let us draw nigh with a true heart. Amen. That's the only way to draw nigh to the God, the living God. With a true heart. A true heart is a heart of genuine love for God.

A true heart is a heart. A wholehearted heart. A true heart is a yielded heart that is given up to God. Delightfully given up to God. A true heart is a clean and an honest heart. Let us draw nigh unto this God with a true heart, Paul says.

Think about it. How can you truly bow before the God of the universe and worship without this kind of heart? The time is coming and now is that the true worshipers will worship God in spirit and in truth.

I want you to notice also that this worship is all the time. You know, this lady, she had in her mind what worship was. And to her, worship was over there in the mountain. And that's something you did when you go to that mountain.

And the rest of the time you don't. And so, every now and then we go to that mountain and worship. And you Jews, every now and then you go to Jerusalem and you worship. But this worship that Jesus is talking about, oh, it's very, very different than that.

It's not dealing with places. It's not dealing with forms. It's way beyond that. It's a life of worshiping God. A life. It is a life of kissing the sun in submissive adoration. Hallelujah. I like that.

A life of kissing the sun in submissive adoration. Consider the deception of the modern worship service, if I may pay my respects to that here this morning. An emotional atmosphere is created, and I might say in many, many places, in sincerity, but sincerely wrong.

An emotional atmosphere is created by the heavy use of instruments, by the heavy use of mushy emotional songs that are sung with very little meat in them. In fact, they're so mushy, and they're so emotional, that you can sing them to your boyfriend just as easily as you can sing them to God.

Many times, the pop, the artists pop over onto the pop side and go up the records and get lots of people listening to it. The world out there, it sounds like, you know, I Love You songs, and they start buying them and listening to them because it's an easy crossover, because there's no meat in those songs.

These mushy emotional songs, forgive me for my emphasis on mushy, these are repeated over and over again until the feelings ride high. Emotional feelings. This emotional atmosphere is called the Spirit.

This emotional atmosphere is an atmosphere. You can go, listen young people, you can go to a funeral, you can go to a Catholic funeral where there's very few people who have been born again, but because of the emotional atmosphere, you will feel an atmosphere in that funeral.

Emotions create an atmosphere. And I'm not against emotions in worship. Please don't misunderstand me. I believe in them. But they need to be in their place. In spirits, flowing out into my soul, which is emotions.

And, yea, even sometimes my body as I raise my hands to God in worship. But, oh young people, it must start in the right place. Otherwise, it's soulish worship. So, this emotional atmosphere is called the Spirit.

And it is also called reality. It is, in fact, a worship experience. But is it the Spirit? Worshippers step out of their carnal, selfish, self-centered world, with unholy hearts, with no desire to walk in the truth, with no glad surrender to God, and go through this modern worship service, feel good, and leave that Sunday morning saying, God came and we had a powerful service.

But did they have a powerful service? If we are not worshiping God according to the nature, His revealed nature, which is in this book, then we are not worshiping. It is not the true worshipers that Jesus is speaking about in this text this morning, young people.

It is not. Not long ago, a modern worship leader wrote a book on this subject. It's in the back. Why I Left the Contemporary Christian Music Movement. That's a mouthful. He was a worship leader. And all of a sudden, after a few years of hopping this thing up every Sunday, and watching the people live in carnality on Monday and all the rest of the week, all of a sudden it dawned on him, something is major wrong with our worship.

And he bailed out the whole thing. And he wrote a book about it. Pretty much all of it is pretty good. It's just what I'm telling you. He saw we're just doing this emotional thing, and everybody is feeling real good about it.

Oh, I love you. I love you. I love you, Lord. I love you. I love you. Oh, I really feel good. I love the Lord. No, you don't. Not if you haven't surrendered to Him. No, you don't. Not if you're not willing to crucify your life and walk with Him every day of the week.

You don't love Him. Even though you've said it over and over and over again, and convinced yourself that you do, you don't love Him. You don't love this awesome, holy, righteous God, without coming to grips with His holiness and His righteousness in your own life.

You don't do it. You can't do it. It's a lie. One last thought on worship. The very nature of God demands that the worshippers surrender with a true heart. There are many examples in the Bible. Look at Isaiah.

I mean, look what Isaiah did. Look what his response was. He got into the presence of this God that we're speaking about this morning, and all he could do was fall on his face and say, Woe is me! What does the modern worship movement do with that?

Woe is me! Why? Because the very nature of God demands that. Demands it. John saw the Lord Jesus there on the Isle of Patmos. What did he do? He fell down like a dead man. Why? Because the very nature of Jesus, in all of His glory, in all of His power, and all the holiness flowing out of Him, all John could do is fall down like a dead man.

So now today, we can live in a flesh, and we can live in sin, and we can live our own selfish lives, and think that we're going to come to God on Sunday morning and clap our hands and say, I love you.

And we go home feeling good about it. But this is not the worship that Jesus is speaking about. They fell on their faces in utter abandonment. What else could they do? They were in the presence of God.

Think about Judgment Day. It says there in Philippians, that every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess. Think about Judgment Day. Judgment Day is that day when every human being born on the face of this earth is going to stand before Almighty God.

And I'll tell you, young people, there won't need to be any angel standing there to tell you, bow now! Get down on your knees and confess! The very nature of the God that you will be standing before will cause you to bow down, and whether you blaspheme Him all your life, you will say, Jesus Christ, you are the Lord!

But you know what? It will be too late. It will be too late. So you can take your pick, young people. You can make it a glad surrender now in this life, or you can wait and make it a sad surrender someday in the life to come.

Either way, every single one of us is going to surrender to this God whom we say we are worshipping. Which one would you like to choose? A glad surrender today, and the joy and the grace that flows into your life because of it, or a sad surrender in the days to come?

Which one would you like? Worshipping God in spirit and in truth. This is the Christian life. It's a whole new way to worship. It's a whole new way, young people. Point number four, following on the points yesterday and the ones here today.

A New Level of Communion with God

The Christian life is a new level of communion. We're in John chapter 6 now, if you want to turn over there. We'll be going different places in this chapter. Our Lord had quite a discussion here in John chapter 6 with the Pharisees about bread.

And at the end of His discussion, He shocked them with words that have staggered many a searching heart for the last nearly 2 ,000 years. Yet these words that He used should shock those Pharisees and even confuse the disciples and even cause His own apostles that were very close to Him to wonder what He meant.

Those words are a definition of what the Christian life is all about. He said them here this way, Verily, verily, I say unto you, except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, ye have no life in you.

Thirty references in John chapter 6. You will find thirty references to eating in this chapter. The Lord Jesus. We know the beginning of the chapter. That's the chapter where He fed the 5 ,000. He fed the multitude with five loaves and two fishes and broke the bread there and fed them.

And you know, they wanted to make Him a king. The Bible says that. You know, they thought, wow, this is really something. This guy, we've got somebody on our hands who can take two loaves of bread and feed 5 ,000 people.

Let's make Him a king! Oh, it shows the delusion of the natural man so clearly there. Let's make Him a king and He'll feed us the rest of our lives. But they did not understand who He was. You know, the question is what do you want?

Do you want a king who can feed 5 ,000 people a piece of bread whenever they get hungry? Or do you want a broken king who can feed multitudes with His very life, which is all you need? And it's eternal.

Which one do you want? Do you want a physical king who can work a big miracle for you and get you to flip-flop inside your heart and say, boy, isn't this guy great? Or would you like a broken king who can feed the multitudes for 2 ,000 years?

Everyone who comes in with a hungry and a thirsting heart, believing on Him, shall be fed with manna which is out of heaven. Which kind of a king do you want? And the people, they wanted an earthly one because they didn't have a clue what Jesus was all about.

John chapter 6 and verse 50, reading from there, this is the bread which comes down from heaven that a man may eat thereof and not die. Then He gets even more bold. I am the living bread which came down from heaven.

If any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever. And the bread that I will give is My flesh which I will give for the life of the world. The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying, how can this man give us his flesh to eat?

Sounds like chapter 3, huh? Nicodemus, how can this be? This doesn't make any sense. No, it doesn't make any sense in the natural. But let's look at it with eternal eyes this morning. Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, ye have no life in you.

Whoso eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood hath eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For My flesh is meat indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. He that eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood dwelleth in Me and I in him.

As the living Father hath sent Me and I live by the Father, so he that eateth Me, even he shall live by Me. This is that bread which came down from heaven, not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead.

He that eateth of this bread shall live forever. Now, these may seem like difficult words to some of you, but basically what Jesus is trying to do is open up their understanding that these men might understand and see that there is coming through the cross a life of deep, continual fellowship with God.

See, Jesus knows. He knows what He's going to do. He knows where He's going. He knows the price He's going to pay. He knows what's going to happen. He knows that through His broken body and His shed blood, He is going to open up a way that man can come into the very Holy of Holies and have fellowship with the living God.

And that way, dear young people, is open today. A new level of communion with God and intimacy with God which He described in such graphic words as eating His flesh and drinking His blood. Communion, young people.

Communion with God. This is the Christian life. Jesus was saying, I personally, I God, am the living bread. Eat and drink of Me continually. This is the Christian life. Young people, that is why we have gathered you together in this place.

We want you to taste this. We want you to taste the reality of deep communion with the living God. Now, I don't know what you're going to do with it. I don't know what you'll do a month from now, but at least we want to help you to get to that place where the heaven is open over your life and you are tasting the sweetness of deep communion with the living God.

You'll have to do what you want with what you've tasted later. So blessed by a young lady that I was talking to a couple of days ago, she said these words, I never knew you could fellowship with God like this.

I never knew what it was like to walk in the Spirit, but I've learned what it's like and it's beautiful and I want more. It's like one of those satisfied, unsatisfied souls to me. But you know, young people, that's what we're after.

But your heart would be, all of you, but if just a few would be able to say that a year from now. I touched God. God touched me. Cleared my life. And I have never been the same. And now I know what it means to walk in the Spirit like Brother Craig challenged us last evening.

Communion with God. You may say, oh, Brother Denny, that's for the older Christians. Oh, really? Give me a verse for that. I'm young. No, young people, that is not biblical. This is for every child of God.

And if you'll stop and think about it and remember, remember how it was when you were born again. Remember how it was with your first love. Remember? Remember the open heaven? Remember how sweet God was to you?

Remember how easy it was for you to pray? Remember how you just found yourself praying all the time everywhere you went? Remember? Remember how excited you were to read your Bible? Remember how excited you were to go to church?

Remember how much you loved those things? That was eating His flesh and drinking His blood, young people. But maybe you lost it. Maybe you lost your way. Communion. Sweet communion. Daily, hourly, moment by moment.

Communion. I want you to notice the present continuous nature of some of the words in our text where we read in verse 53 through 58, you will notice the words that Jesus uses many times in there. He uses the word eateth and drinketh, eateth and drinketh.

Down through there you'll find those words. I want you to note, young people, what that means. Eateth and drinketh and believeth and commiteth. Whenever you see that E-T-H in the Bible, that is a present continuous word.

That's not just old English for eat. It is a present continuous word. So really what Jesus is saying, whosoever eateth and eateth and eateth my flesh and drinketh and drinketh and drinketh my blood hath life in him.

I dwell in them. He dwells in me and I dwell in them. That's what Jesus is saying. It's a present continuous word. That's a real challenge to every one of us, not just you young people sitting here today.

Eateth and eateth and eateth and drinketh and drinketh and drinketh. A simple key to the understanding of what Jesus meant is found in verse 57. Look at this verse. He says there, As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father, so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me.

So what Jesus is saying, He's saying, I'm not asking you to do something that I haven't showed you what to do. That's how I'm living here on this earth. These three and a half years of my life and my ministry, I am living off of the Father.

I am eating and drinking of the Father. That's why you see this life, you see, because I'm receiving it continually from my Father. And that's the key to this whole matter of what it means to eat and drink.

And in chapter 5 and verse 30, he explains what that means. Chapter 5 and verse 30. Just one glimpse. There are many, many in John, by the way. You'll find about 20 verses just like this one. But listen to what he says.

I can of mine own self do nothing. What? Jesus, you are the Son of God. You are God in the flesh. What do you mean you can't do anything? I can of mine own self do nothing. As I hear, I judge. And my judgment is just because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me.

The Son can do nothing of Himself, verse 19, but what He seeth the Father do. You see, Jesus didn't just live His own life, even though His life would have been a good life. He lived the life that His Father wanted Him to live.

And He lived it by the grace of God as He communed with His Father continually every day. And Jesus is saying, that's the same thing I want you to do. That's the same thing. Deep words. Brother Denny, those went right over my head this morning.

Well, let's look at it with some practical applications of what it means to live this life. I have four of them. First of all, what Jesus is saying by these verses, He's saying, I am Spirit. You must be in the Spirit to eat.

I am Spirit. Verse 63, He says to His disciples, who are also trying to figure out what He just said, He says to them, It is the Spirit that quickeneth. The flesh profiteth nothing. The words that I speak unto you, they are Spirit and they are life.

And Jesus is saying to us, I am Spirit. You can all eat of Me all at the same time, but you must be in the Spirit to eat. John said when he was in the Isle of Patmos, I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day.

You must be in the Spirit to eat, young people. We'll say more about that later in the message today. Number two, I am the way. Keep coming through My broken body and My shed blood. I am the way. That's how you come to the Father.

Every morning you can come. In the middle of the day you can come. You're facing something, you can come through the broken body and the shed blood of Jesus Christ. The new and living way is open, young people.

Number three, I am the Word. Feast on Me through the Bible. Now that's very practical, isn't it? Very practical. And number four, Take time to eat. Pretty simple statement, isn't it? And for some reason, nobody has to tell you every day, no one ever has to get up and remind you, take time to eat.

On the natural side, nobody has to do that. Most of the time, we all find ourselves making our way to the dinner table without anybody coming and saying, please come and eat, please come have this nice, juicy hamburger with cheese on it and french fries next to it.