GOD'S GREAT NEWS for MAN'S GREAT PROBLEM - Romans 1-8

When Our Most Religious President Became a Christian

The conversion story that has captured my mind and heart more than any other is the testimony of Abraham Lincoln. We all know the general background of Lincoln's life: reading by candlelight in the log cabin of his boyhood; his legendary honesty as "Honest Abe;" his self-education in English grammar; his growing legal practice in Springfield, where he would even remind an opponent of the opposing arguments during a trial; his political losses, with a few scattered victories; his famous debates with Stephen Douglas; his miraculous nomination as a presidential candidate; his election victory in 1860. He left Springfield asking the citizens to pray for him as he faced his greatest challenge.

His mother Nancy Lincoln raised him by teaching him the Bible on Sunday afternoons, emphasizing the Ten Commandments. Her last words to him before she died when Abe was only nine years old became a guiding light in his life: "Abe, I'm going to leave you now and I shall not return. I want you to be kind to your father and live as I have taught you. Love your heavenly Father and keep His commandments." Although he tried hard to keep God's Law, he lived with a lifelong awareness that he fell far short of the glory of God. As a boy he had scribbled in his arithmetic book this little couplet: "Abe Lincoln, his hand and pen, he will be good, but God knows when!" Years later, as President, he admitted humbly and agonizingly, before a group of Baltimore clergymen: "I wish I were more pious." Inner peace eluded this great man, who seemed far more aware of his sin than of his genius in rhetoric and leadership. Thus he lived, under a weight of self-condemnation, until the last 17 months of his life.

The light pierced Lincoln's gloom on two days when he was deeply touched by the untimely deaths of promising young men. The first day was the darkest day of his life, the day when his son Willie, the apple of his eye, died of a fever. In the hour of his grief, Willie's nurse gently shared about her personal faith in Jesus Christ, and commended her Savior to her President. Imagine the boldness of such a testimony, yet she did not shrink from tendering the best hope there is for a hopeless man. Lincoln did not respond to this witness for some time. But a day came on November 19, 1863, when Lincoln looked out over the grim vista of the new National Soldiers' Cemetery on the battlefield at Gettysburg. Moved to the core of his being at the reality of death and personal sacrifice on the part of the cream of his nation, his mind must have shifted to a better sacrifice by a greater young man on a cross centuries before. He later related to a friend what happened that day at Gettysburg: "When I left Springfield, I asked the people to pray for me; I was not a Christian. When I buried my son -- the severest trial of my life -- I was not a Christian. But when I went to Gettysburg, and saw the graves of thousands of our soldiers, I then and there consecrated myself to Christ." Soon he began sharing with friends that he had at last found peace.

Today we are going to speak of the immense treasures purchased for us and freely given to us by our Christ of the cross. All of Lincoln's genius, all of his incredible personal will and self-discipline, all of the benefits of national office and personal influence, could not buy him peace. Only the cross of Christ is legal tender for peace with God. Lincoln worked every day of his life to follow the Ten Commandments and obey God as per the dying words of his saintly mother, but all he knew was how greatly he was failing. He badly needed grace, but where was grace to be found? Only the cross of Christ initiates us into the amazing grace in which we stand. And Lincoln's life was not one of hope until the final 17 months of his life, because it was only through his Christ of the cross that Lincoln discovered the riches of the glory and life of Christ poured into a man, giving him hope beyond those graves, hope beyond the tearing of a civil war, hope in a quality of life that transcends the death in this world. But this most valuable life can only be found at the cross of Christ, where that life was laid down for us, that we might receive it within ourselves when we believe in Him who died for us. Peace with God, the grace in which we stand, and the life of Christ within us as an imperishable hope: these treasures are found only at the foot of the cross of our Christ.

The First Treasure: Peace with God (5:1)

This is the essential message of Paul's great news, summarized for us in Rom. 5:1, 2 and introduced by a weighty "THEREFORE" at the beginning of verse one. Paul tells us in these two verses about the tangible results of our justification by faith in our Christ of the cross. These statements about us are objective facts, true about each one of us who believes. But to call them "results of justification," or "blissful consequences" or other sterilized titles I have read before leaves me a little cold. What Paul reveals for us is the inestimable treasure given to us freely by believing in our Christ who died on the cross and was raised again. This is a catalog of three treasures, not just the tangible results of the cross.

Paul tells us of the first treasure in the first verse: "Therefore, having been declared righteous by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." The first great treasure is PEACE WITH GOD THROUGH OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST.

But what does it mean to have peace with God? Peace means the eternal end of all hostilities. The internal war is over, our raging conflict to find peace and rest is resolved in Jesus Christ Himself, who is our peace and rest. This is the magic in the phrase "through our Lord Jesus Christ." This looks far different than the sham peace between Israel and the Palestinians just now. It is real peace rooted in Jesus Christ Himself. Jesus Christ's death on the cross paved the pathway of peace for us, because it removed the barrier of sin. The cross purchased the reconciliation that bought our peace with God.

But it is more than the cross: it is His life infused into us that brings real peace to our hearts. He is our peace and rest. The battle is over because the Victor now lives in us. We are on the same side both now and forever. His victory over sin and death becomes our victory over sin and death. The peace and rest we could never find in ourselves or in our circumstances is discovered to be resident within us in Himself. When Jesus said to all the weary soldiers and seekers of the world, "Come to Me, and I will rest you" in Matt. 11:28, He offered Himself as their rest. Now, by faith in Jesus Christ, by the transference of life that takes place at the foot of the cross, His life and peace and rest become my life and peace and rest. I have peace with God because God is one with me through my indwelling Christ. There is no more distance, there is no more aloneness in separation from Him, there is no more searching for "I don't know what" to find peace. The "I don't know what" we had been searching for all our lives has been found in our indwelling Christ. It was not a "what" we were looking for at all; it was a "Who." And that Who is Jesus Christ Himself. He Himself is our peace, as Paul says in Eph. 2:14.

Practically speaking, this peace through Christ inside is a sweeping, very real sense that "all is well with me and God." If God be in me and for me, who can be against me? If God be in me and for me, 24-hours-a-day, come what may, where is the debilitating power of loneliness? If God be in me and for me, is there any ground to fear anything in this world? No. Peace reigns within because Christ resides within. All is well with me and God, because God is well within me.

Notice that Paul is proclaiming this peace as an objective fact, which then issues forth in a sense of overall well-being within us. It is not merely a subjective feeling that leaves us with a "peaceful, easy feeling" as the old song goes, based on nothing but emotion. This peace is based on the objective truth of Christ within. This is peace that lasts forever, perfect peace.

To grasp the meaning of this peace, reflect back over your life to the utter absence of peace in your life before Christ was inside you, and the amazing presence of peace in your life now that Christ is inside you. I remember very distinctly a time in my life where God sovereignly revealed the total absence of peace and rest in my life. It was during the month of March in my senior year in high school. That month was the month before I heard from all the colleges to which I had applied. My life, my identity, my worth, literally all of myself was on the line at that time: would I get into the college of my choice? Or would I be banished in disgrace to some school out in some wilderness? I was scared to death, because I felt myself to be out on a limb. I was consumed with worry to the point of total daily irritability. It seems utterly silly now, but during that month, I felt as if my whole life hung in the balance. And during that month we had one of my spiritual heroes staying with us, Major Ian Thomas. And he was like the hound of God, ruthlessly raising his foot and stiffening his tail to point out my absolute lack of rest. His questions still ring in my ears: "Why does it matter so much what school you go to? Why are you so anxious?" He saw me and my total absence of peace, and called it what it was through the gentle but searching question, much like God Himself.

But contrasting to that anxious month has been this most recent peaceful summer. This time, the stakes are truly much higher: I am a father of five, I have moved across the country, our world has been totally shaken up, I am having to begin anew after thirteen years of investment in one place. I have "bet the farm" on the Lord Himself in moving here. I am looking to Him to care for us, to keep us, to meet our needs, and to show Himself mighty in and through us. And I can say I have never felt the deep river of His peace flowing within me more than I have felt it during these months. He has put a song on my heart almost constantly during this time, the opening and closing lines of which are these: "Like a river glorious is His perfect peace ... those who trust Him wholly find Him wholly true." During one of the greatest upheavals of my life, He Himself has been my peace. He has been mighty to allow me to minister out of His rest and peace, not out of my anxieties. He Himself is the difference between these last three months of peace, and that month of pure anxiety fifteen years ago. Where He is inside, there is peace within; where it is only I myself inside, there is no peace. He Himself is our only peace.

There is a powerful story in American history that illustrates this beautifully. The most intractable of the American Indians was Geronimo, the proud Chiricahua Apache leader. He raided and raised havoc in southern Arizona and New Mexico for years, long after most other Indians had succombed to the inevitable. Whole armies of cavalry were dispensed to find him in the mountains, but chasing him was like chasing the wind. Finally, a small party of about five men went to find him. Their leader was a strong Christian man named Captain Gatewood. Gatewood and his men tracked Geronimo and his starving band to the top of a high mountain. Gatewood then single-handedly climbed the mountain, and when he made it to the top, he was immediately taken prisoner and brought before Geronimo. The two had met before when Geronimo had given himself up at one point to try reservation life. At that time, Geronimo had given Gatewood a handsome turquoise rock, special in the religion of his people. As Gatewood faced Geronimo, he boldly removed the cross that hung around his neck, and offered it to Geronimo. He said, "This is a special sign in my religion. My God is not a God of death, but a God of life. He is not a God of war, but a God of peace. Let us make peace." Geronimo was so moved by this man's bravery, and the truth of his words, that he relented and returned to the reservation with Gatewood. Gatewood had it right: our God is a God of peace, the guarantee of which is the cross of Christ.

So, the first treasure is peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. He Himself is our peace. And He Himself is our peace because He is the One who said for all of us on the cross, "It is finished!," the greatest cry of victory the world will ever hear. The one who said it now lives within us, whispering the same thing within our souls: "It is finished!" The war has ceased; peace is found in Christ within.

And this peace is very real, even in the midst of terrible sorrow. One day, a young mother named Louisa Stead, her husband and their little daughter, were enjoying a picnic together on the beach. Suddenly a boy drowning in the surf screamed for help. The young husband jumped up and ran out to save him, but the boy's panicky grip pulled the man under. Both drowned, the wife and daughter watching helplessly from the shore. During the days that followed, the words of this well-known hymn came from Louisa Stead's pen. She wrote:

'Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus, just to take Him at His word, just to rest upon His promise, just to know, 'Thus saith the Lord.'

O how sweet to trust in Jesus, just to trust His cleansing blood, just in simple faith to plunge me 'neath the healing, cleansing flood!

Yes, 'tis sweet to trust in Jesus, just from sin and self to cease, just from Jesus simply taking life and rest and joy and peace.

I'm so glad I learned to trust Thee, Precious Jesus, Savior, Friend; and I know that Thou are with me, wilt be with me to the end.

With me ... in me ... to the end. That is peace, the peace of Christ in me. That is our first treasure.

The Second Treasure: The Grace in Which We Stand (5:1)

The second treasure Paul unwraps for us is an unexpected gift. Through Christ, "we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand." The word for "introduction" here is often found in the Greek version of the OT, the Septuagint, referring to bringing persons and sacrifices before God for acceptance. This is critical to Paul's meaning here: the picture he draws is of Jesus Christ bringing us before the Father, and we find perfect acceptance before Him. Our condemnation while under sin is removed, and only divine acceptance remains. We have a position in Christ by which we can stand before God forever, feeling the greatest gift of all: His unconditional acceptance of us, because Jesus Christ offers us to Him and Jesus Christ made us acceptable to Him by the sacrifice made on the cross.

Consider for a moment the depth of meaning here: that we stand before God and find our Father's unconditional acceptance. The yearning for a father's acceptance, a father's blessing, may be the deepest current running in our psyche. Little girls grow up being their "Daddy's girl," and a word of encouragement from Daddy means the world. But how many little girls grow into searching women who never felt their father's full acceptance, so they look for it from other men, seeking it in bed after bed. But all too often the men they so easily sleep with despise them afterward, causing the yearning for a father's acceptance to hurt all the more acutely, and the search to be redoubled. Thus have many women down through the ages spent their lives and their very selves, in the ceaseless search for a father's acceptance.

Likewise, how many men in this room have felt their father's acceptance? How many men in this room have ever heard their father say "I love you"? If you did, how many years did you have to wait? How many of us men feel affirmed by your own father, felt as if he saw your coming of age as a man and rejoiced with you, willingly passing his mantle of leadership onto your shoulders amid pronouncements of blessing? Wouldn't it be nice?! So few of us have a father that accepted us at all. Most were distant and very hard to please. Virtually none of them accepted us unconditionally, and thus we find ourselves unsure of ourselves in the world of men, staying mostly to ourselves, not getting too close to other men because we see in them the potential for the very same rejection we received from our fathers. This world full of men who are loners is a world full of men who never received a father's blessing, who never felt accepted by their father.

But over and against all this heartache and searching is a real answer. Jesus Christ joyfully introduces into the very presence of the greatest Father of all, our eternal Father and Maker. Because Jesus Christ introduced us based on His cross and our faith, our truest Father welcomes us with open arms, and we stand before Him forever in a state of unconditional acceptance. We stand before Him in grace, which is His freely given gift, the gift of His unconditional acceptance. And note that we STAND before Him as adult sons, as justified members of His royal family, not crouching on all fours like abject slaves before a tyrannical master, not hanging back by the back door ready to fly in case he rages at us, not lying face down on our bellies begging for mercy. No, no, no! We STAND, having been presented for God's acceptance by the risen Son, and we find there an eternal standing in the freely given gift of God's unconditional acceptance. And the beauty of this stance in the gift of His acceptance is that it is not just a beautiful passing vision: it is a stance that lasts the rest of our lives on this earth, and the rest of eternity after we die. It is our standing, our rightful place purchased by Christ on the cross, introduced by Christ and certain because of the Father's acceptance. Whether we realize it or not, this is our position forever; it will not change, no matter what.

The glory of this beggars the imagination. Whereas by the end of Rom. 3:9-20, we found ourselves face down in the severe courtroom of God, unable even to cry for mercy, under a pile of sin that was crushing us, we discover that Christ has lifted us up to our feet, positioned us before God, who looks upon us with eternal kindness and proclaims with a loud drop of the gavel that the case against us is closed, and we are accepted into His family forever as one of His own. The turnaround in our fortunes before Him from Rom. 3:9-20 to Rom. 5:1, 2 is mind boggling: it is the effect of the cross of Christ in our lives. From whipped sinner to winsome son; from sinful pauper to Spirit-filled prince; from guilt to glory. This is the grace in which we stand.

This truth is one of the chief glories of Romans chapter five, which announces the grace in which we stand through Christ in vs. 2, and concludes with a triumphal statement of the eternal reign of grace through Christ in vs. 21. Paul sees this standing in grace as one of the most priceless treasures of the Christian life.

Enjoying and relishing our standing in grace is also a hallmark of Christian maturity and stability. In an article summarizing the life of J. I. Packer, entitled Surprised by Grace, Packer describes the secret of his life and ministry: "I am a shy, freaky, bookworm type person whom God has taken and set upon a rock. My stability comes from an ever fresh realization that God is my Father and I am his child. Adopted. Assured. Therefore I'm living in a less nervy, more relaxed way." I doubt if I have ever heard a better summation of our standing in grace.

Standing in grace is marked by deep thankfulness, because you come to know in an unshakable way that this unexpected gift of God's unconditional acceptance had nothing to do with anything you did, and everything to do with HIM. All we did was sin, sin, sin; what Christ did was love, love, love, to the point of death on the cross. He paid it all, He did it all, then when we believed in Him, He introduced us to a loving Father who blessed us with total acceptance. You end up living a life of deep thankfulness because you realize everything in your life is a profound gift, undeserved, incomprehensible, and thoroughly wonderful. And you remain thankful because your continual standing is not dependent on you either, as if you could somehow walk out of grace on your own. You didn't walk into your standing in grace on your own, and you can't walk out on your own. You stand in grace positionally in Christ for all eternity, a life of eternal receiving, a life of understanding everything as a gift, a life of enjoying the Father's greatest blessing, His unconditional acceptance of you, for all eternity.

Perhaps the best story of someone thankfully rejoicing in this standing in grace comes from a hard-bitten seaman named John. He had left his family at the age of eleven, to find his fortune on the high seas. Eventually he rose through the ranks to captain his own ship, and he made his money on a vile cargo: he captured African men and women and sold them as slaves in ports around the world. One day he was lost himself on the African coast, but was picked up by a compassionate sea captain. John boarded the Greyhound, and offered his services as a navigator. Soon even the hardest sailor on that ship shook his head at the way John loudly and openly cursed God. The captain even warned him against his cursing, saying no good would come of it. Several days later, a fearsome storm ravaged the ship, ripping the sails, rendering them virtually useless. After the storm, the ship entered a deadly calm, and for seven days the ship was dead in the water. The food dwindled down to one handful of salted codfish. One man died.

Finally the captain called the men together. He said, "Men, ye know we picked this man up on the African coast, and since then we've had nothing but trouble, trouble, trouble. He says he's a freethinker. I know his father never taught him this way. His blasphemies are enough to make the sea cough up her dead. Like Jonah in the Bible, I think he's a curse on us." The other sailors agreed. John flexed his muscles and held his ground against them. Would they throw him overboard? Several tense seconds passed. Then the captain said, "We'll wait. But John Newton, ye'd better join us in prayer if ye value your hide." John balked, going back to his post. On the way, a verse he knew from childhood came back to him: "If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him?" John prayed, "God if You're true, You'll make good Your word. Cleanse Thou my vile heart." Four weeks later, the Greyhound lurched into an Irish port, and John Newton went right away to church and professed salvation.

He later entered the ministry at age 39, taking a small church in the town of Olney near Cambridge. There he wrote these most famous words about grace:

Amazing grace -- how sweet the sound -- that saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see.
'Twas grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace my fears relieved;
How precious did that grace appear the hour I first believed.
Thru many dangers, toils and snares, I have already come;
'Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home.

And Newton marveled at this amazing grace throughout the course of his long life. In one of his final messages, he is quoted as proclaiming this in a loud voice: "My memory is nearly gone, but I remember two things: That I am a great sinner and that Christ is a great Savior!" Not a bad combination of things to remember. Shortly thereafter, grace led him home.

So, we have two treasures: peace with God through Jesus Christ our Lord, and this amazing grace in which we stand in our Father's unconditional acceptance. These are great riches to possess, but the best treasure of all is found in the final phrase of Rom. 5:2.

The Best Treasure: Christ Himself In Us, Our Hope of Glory (5:2)

So, Paul reveals this best treasure to us with somewhat strange language at the end of Rom. 5:2: "and we boast in hope of the glory of God." Wait a minute, you might say, since your version says "rejoice in the hope of the glory of God" or "exult in the hope of the glory of God," not "boast." The idea of boasting here seems somehow unsuited to the glorious truth Paul describes. But boasting is bad only when the object of boasting is unworthy. The boastfulness of man in sin is ugly in Rom. 1:30 because sin ought to be confessed, not boasted about. The Jew's boasting in God and boasting in the Law in Rom. 2:17, 23, is suspect because it is a thinly veiled boast in the self, a self-righteous pat on one's own back because of one's external qualifications. Paul leaves no room for question when he silences this negative form of boasting in light of the cross of Christ in Rom. 3:27, and Abraham could not boast of his works before the God who justified him on the basis of faith alone in Rom. 4:2, 3. Paul does a very systematic job of destroying false bases of human self-confidence in all its forms in Rom. 1-4. But when the object of the boasting is worthy, then the boast itself is worthy.

It is the worthy form of boasting that Paul describes in Rom. 5:1-11. The verb "boast" appears 36 times in the NT, and in 30 of those 36 cases it is simply translated as "boast." That is 83% of the time this word appears. Furthermore, every time this word has appeared thus far in the book of Romans, the translators chose the word "boast." Why they chose a different word here, I don't know, but their choice seems to me to be unfortunate, expecially in the case of "exult." "Exult" is a nice religious term which is never used in normal 20th century conversation outside the driest of theological circles, if even there. "Rejoice" is a bit more familiar, but is still not quite accurate. Paul is speaking in bold, clear terms from daily life about where our confidence lies, because boasting is simply the outward expression of an inner confidence overflowing in words. What we boast in reveals where our confidence lies. To bring this all together, the best definition of this term I came across was a "triumphant, rejoicing confidence." So, behind boasting is confidence, and Paul is telling us here where we find real confidence.

But what are we confidently boasting in? The text says "we boast in the hope of the glory of God." Since this is the cornerstone of our confidence as Christians, let's look at this little phrase word-by-word. First, we can boast confidently in "hope." This is the same term we studied back in Rom. 4:18: NT hope carries unconditional CERTAINTY within itself. Our hope in the modern world is more of a wish than a conviction, something that "might" happen rather than a certainty. But, this word means a certain hope, a sure expectation. It is also a hope that is living actively in the present, not just a hope that someday we will share God's glory up in heaven by-and-by. This hope is a confident, sure expectation of divine intervention in our lives, both now and in the future. It is a living hope, a sure expectation, in the now and in the then.

But a sure expectation of what? The glory of God. But what on earth is that? The first clear picture of this in the Hebrew Scriptures is in Ex. 40:34-38, where the glory of God filled the tabernacle the Israelites constructed in the wilderness under Moses. Lest we miss this point, the phrase "the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle" appears verbatim twice, once in Ex. 40:34, then in vs. 35. This "glory" is where God made Himself visible "in the sight of all the house of Israel," as a cloud covering the tent by day and a fire filling it by night. Later, on the day the ark is brought to reside in Solomon's temple in I Kings 8, we discover in vs. 10 that "the cloud filled the house of the LORD," with the recapitulation in vs. 11, "the glory of the LORD filled the house of the LORD." Later, in Ezekiel 10, disaster strikes the nation when in vs. 4, "Then the glory of the LORD went up from the cherub to the threshold of the temple ..." with the final departing of the glory in vs. 18: "Then the glory of the LORD departed from the threshold of the temple and stood over the cherubim." Thus, the glory of God filled the tabernacle, filled the temple, and then departed from the temple. It didn't return until Jesus Christ as a living temple filled with the Spirit of God entered that temple to teach.

Moving into the New Testemant, we always interpret OT terms, symbols, figures and concepts in light of Jesus Christ, either by how He interpreted and applied them or by the way the NT writers interpreted or applied them in the light of Christ. We discover in this way John's transition verse between the OT concept of the glory of God and the NT reality of the glory of God in Christ in John 1:14: "And the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth." Thus, where the glory of God filled tabernacles and temples in the OT, the glory of God filled Jesus Christ the man in the NT. And the glory of God is still resident in Christ, and with Christ resident in us, the glory of God now shines in us. As Paul succinctly puts it in Col. 1:27: "To whom God willed to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory." This is the parallel passage to Paul's phrase here in Rom. 5:2: "and we boast in the hope of the glory of God." In other words, we boast in, delight in, place the full weight of our confidence in, our living Christ within us. He is the certain glory of God residing in us: He is our greatest treasure.

The greatest treasure is Jesus Christ Himself, living within. He is the pearl of great price, the riches of God's glory ... and we can have unswerving confidence in Him shining the life and glory of God through us today and every day, without fail. This is now who we are, and we can boast in Him within, because when He is the object of our boasting and our confidence, our boasting and our confidence are rightly placed indeed!! Paul is so absolutely confident in the living reality of Christ and His victory residing in us that he sees no defeat for us in any circumstance whatsoever. Paul simply thanks God for Christ's life and victory in us, in II Cor. 2:14, 15: "But thanks be to God, who always leads us in His triumph in Christ, and manifests through us the sweet aroma of the knowledge of Him in every place."

Thus, we have a confident hope, a sure expectation, that the glory of God will be revealed in us in the sight of all the world as Jesus Christ lives out His life through us. He Himself is our certain hope, our guarantee of the glory of God in us. He is our life.

This is the greatest glory of God's great news in Romans: it is Christ in you, the hope of glory. This is the grand theme of the whole New Testament. Last year, as I studied book-by-book through the entire New Testament, I prayed that God would show me a unifying theme around which the books revolved, and to give it to me in a few simple, memorable words. As I studied and prayed, the theme began to emerge out of the pages of book after book, in five words that I hope to be the five word theme of all the teachings in this life: JESUS CHRIST IS MY LIFE. The Gospel of John propounds "the life" as its main theme, the life of Christ becoming our life. Colossians tells us to hold fast to Christ, who is our life. Ephesians speaks to us about our identity in Christ, our life and identity coming from Him within. Revelation concludes the NT with Jesus Christ revealed, as High King of Heaven, as our eternal life.

One of the wisest men I know has discovered this great and mysterious treasure, and he lives by it. I invited him to speak to some students last year, and we were all struck with the weightiness of how he introduced himself: "I am 79 years old, I have walked with Jesus Christ for 49 years, and I am one of the original elders of Peninsula Bible Church, serving the Lord's church at PBC for 40 years as an elder ..." I was watching the faces of those students, and every fresh young face was riveted on the old man's aged face. He had words of wisdom for a younger generation.

This man has also played a key role in my life in recent years, as an older brother for whom I have deep respect. Whenever I am with this man, I listen closely to every word, to learn whatever I can from the Lord through this man. What has intrigued me most about this man is the way he refers to his own life. When I ask how his life is going, he ruminates for a while on "the life." He says something like this, "Well, this is the life: there are meetings with younger men and young couples, there are many opportunities. The life keeps on going." He refers to "the life," not "my life" or "I," or "me," but he constantly talks about "the life." He has understood the basic principle of the New Testament: it is all about "the life." My friend Charlie knows the life, the only life, and he bears witness to that only life lived out in him. It is his life, but more than his life. It is THE LIFE. For Charlie Luce, the life of Jesus Christ has so completely superordinated "his life," that now at age 79 he speaks only of THE LIFE that was introduced in Jesus Christ and has become the life for all who believe in Him. There is only one true life: the life of Jesus Christ. Life is found nowhere else.

As I thought about this, all the great men I have known have discovered this greatest of truths. This is the secret of the Christian life. The most famous book written by my first mentor, Major Ian Thomas, was entitled The Saving Life of Christ, in which he brilliantly expounds the life. He speaks of the same life Charlie knows: the saving life of Christ residing in the Christian through the Holy Spirit. The most famous book of another mentor of mine, Ray Stedman, is on the same subject, entitled Authentic Christianity. Ray writes on page 12 of that book that "True Christianity in certain circles is equated with doctrinal purity, and whenever true teaching is adhered to it is very difficult for those who view life this way to accept the charge that they are not yet living an authentic Christian life. But it must be remembered that true Christianity is more than teaching -- it is a LIFE. 'He who has the Son has life'!..." And a much older mentor of mine, a man whom I have always wanted to be like, teaches the same thing in his most important book, entitled The Gospel of John: "And this is eternal life, that they may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent."

He Himself is our greatest treasure, this same Jesus Christ who is our life. May we not be distracted by all the false images of "life" presented by this world: materialistic images of "life" cast in seductive forms by sleazy advertisers; accounts of "life" as others supposedly live it on TV and in the movies; "life" as the magazine LIFE might cast it in photogenic ideals. No, all those things are mere distractions, just human smoke and mirrors. There is only one life, Jesus Christ who is our life. Everything else is a cheap imitation.

Conclusion: Abe Lincoln's Treasures

I want to return to the testimony of Abraham Lincoln. Here was a truly great man, a "man for the ages" as he has been called. He lived from 1809 to 1865, some 56 years, depositing some mighty treasures: he acquired immense learning by teaching himself; he developed unparalleled skill in the use of the English language in rhetoric and writing; he built a reputation for personal integrity unmatched in the modern world; he achieved the highest station in the land, the Presidency. Yet for him there was no peace, no standing in grace with a Father's unconditional acceptance, no Christ within. Before that day at Gettysburg, before Nov. 19, 1863, Abe Lincoln was an impoverished man.

But oh my, what treasures he had from that day onward!

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