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"Jesus Christ: God’s Answer to Man’s Need"
I appreciate the opportunity to share what I have seen around the world about what the Lord has done for those who trust in him. I chose the title quite deliberately because I know it is true not only in my own life but in the life of so many who are finding him and finding in him the life that we have all the time been looking for.

But I would like to begin by telling you a story about two brothers. And this happened in early 1738. These two brothers returned from the mission field, feeling utterly defeated and disillusioned. Three years on the mission field had convinced them that there must be more to Christianity than morality and high ideals. Now there was a deep longing in their hearts and they really wanted to experience the real thing.

On May 24 that year, John Wesley came to a personal trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, and experienced the forgiveness of sins for the first time. It happened at a meeting in Aldersgate Street, London, where a Moravian pastor named Peter Boehler was preaching. Three days earlier his younger brother, Charles Wesley, had also come to a personal faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, with the help of the same pastor.

The change that took place in the lives of the Wesley brothers was immediate. Having found in Christ the reality they longed for, John Wesley declared that from now on he had only one ambition: "to promote so far as I am able, vital, practical religion; and by the grace of God to beget, preserve, and increase the life of God in the souls of men."

What God did through the lives of the Wesleys and their associates, both in England and the rest of the world, is evident to all.

Today, as in their day, we too could not ask a more important question than they did: What is the source of "vital, practical religion" which Wesley sought and found? How does one "beget, preserve, and increase the life of God in the soul?"

In his sermon on the day of Pentecost, Peter gives us leads which we must explore (Acts 2:22-24, 32-39).

First of all, our attention is turned to the Lord Jesus Christ, and what God has done through him, for us. His life of perfect submission and fellowship with God the Father is the model of the relationship which God wants each of us to enjoy with him. For that is eternal life - to know him, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom he sent. Christ's miracles were God's seal of approval on his beloved Son in whom he was well pleased.

The unusual circumstances surrounding Christ's death were also in perfect harmony with God's plan. In the Jewish sacrificial system, God had prepared his people to expect the perfect "Lamb of God", who would come and who would take the full penalty of mankind's sin and rebellion against God upon himself. Christ's death fulfilled the sin-offering, and opened the way for God to forgive all who turn to him for mercy. For "He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed."

When you settle an important debt, you expect a receipt in acknowledgment. The resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ was God's acknowledgment that his Son has fully paid for the salvation of all who trust in him. The historical rising of the Lord Jesus from death was the high point of the apostles' witness. Without it there would be no grounds for faith or hope! In their risen Lord, the disciples saw with their own eyes the new dimension and quality of life which they must have read about as Jews and had expected all through their history.

Suddenly through the logic of the Lord Jesus Christ, they could see this new dimension of life confronting them face to face. So that was what the resurrection meant to them. They saw the Lord whom they had known all through his ministry. Suddenly he appeared before them. They could identify with him, but they could also see that something different was here.

Then came the day of Pentecost; and the objective reality of Christ's risen life became the inner experience of the disciples. The Spirit of the risen Savior indwelling them, came upon them, to live in them permanently, as the Lord had promised. The Holy Spirit enlightened the disciples to appreciate the kingly authority and honor with which Christ is invested at God's right hand. In fact the Spirit himself is the "coronation gift" of the ascended Christ to his people (the church).

The Lord had commissioned his disciples to go and tell the good news to all mankind and that was precisely what they did. But before they could do so, their eyes had to be opened to a new dimension—this new dimension of life which they had experienced. They had to understand it. The Lord had so promised that when the Holy Spirit came upon them, they would understand some of the things that they found it difficult to understand while he was still with them.

So the Holy Spirit came to enlighten the disciples so that they might appreciate who the Lord Jesus Christ really is, and they began to realize that they were confronted by a king, for he was the Lord of authority. He had kingly authority. They discovered that he had now been invested with power from on high, and was seated on the right hand of the majesty on high.

Now all these things the Holy Spirit had put in their eyes to see. In fact, they saw in the Holy Spirit the coronation gift of their Lord who is now on the throne at the right hand of the Father.

This is what true Christianity is all about. This is the "vital, practical religion" which Wesley sought and found, and preached with all his might! It is the life of God dwelling in us by his Holy Spirit, subduing our sinfulness and empowering us to do good, and to please the Lord, our God.

The climax of Peter's sermon came with this royal proclamation: "Let all the people of Israel know for sure that this Jesus whom you crucified, is the one God has made both Lord and Christ."

And it is as the reigning Lord and Christ he has made stupendous promises to all those who will personally trust in him.

Here are his royal promises: forgiveness of your sins. What that means is this: we are cleansed from sin's guilt and so we are relieved of sin's power and control in our lives. For when the Spirit comes, he breaks the power of sin in our lives.

I always say these are the same conditions that we now face but there is now someone else with us to help us to overcome.

He also promises us the gift of the Holy Spirit. So it is the gift of life for he is the spirit of life in Christ Jesus. He comes to live in us—the presence of Christ.

He gives us an awareness of the Lord. But he also comes to enable us to know our Lord and walk with him in friendship so that he is not just an idea which comes to us, he is not an influence that comes upon our lives. He is the presence of Christ with us. He is the presence of his power in us. And he is the presence of his friendship with us.

There is a wonderful fullness and universality about the promise. However, we are told by Peter that it is for every people of every generation, for Jew as well as Gentile, for those who are "afar off" as well as "near", and for all and "as many as the Lord our God shall call to himself."

This was something which dawned with freshness upon Charles Wesley as he sang in one of the verses of his hymn, "Jesus, the Name High over All":

Oh that the world might taste and see
The riches of his grace,
The arms of love that encompass me
Would all mankind embrace.
Now here is the experience of someone who had experienced it for himself, and he wished that the whole world would come to experience the same life which he had found in the Lord Jesus Christ.

But you see those promises, though rich and royal, are promises to be received in order to be enjoyed!

And the response that the King requires is this: that we repent and that we believe in him. That is the twofold response he requires from us.

What is repentance? Well, repentance is a turning from as well as a turning to. We are to turn from our sins and our sinful way of life, the self-centered, self-satisfied life, the self-reliant life that we live - and keep God, as it were, out of account. All of us know that we have need. All of us feel the hollowness of life without God. But there is this pride in us that we can make it. And even though we are needy people, we find it so hard, don't we, to confess our needs and cast ourselves upon the only one who is able to help us.

Repentance means that we say that now we recognize that we are needy and we need our God to help us. If we turn from our sin-centered way of life, our way of life that is self-centered, and turn our faces to God in personal trust, we find that we come into this relationship with him which he has promised to all who seek his face.

So he only requires of us a repentance, a turning away from our sins and self-centered life, and the turning is simple trust, a personal trust, in the Lord Jesus Christ.

That is all the King requires of us. It is like reaching out a beggar's hand to receive from the King that which we could never have for ourselves. But to all those who do that, he promises forgiveness and he is able to fulfill his promises.

When we confess our need of him, we find that he is so near. He is nearer than we have ever thought. He is always ready to receive us when we come to him in repentance and personal trust in this way.

So these early disciples, whenever they came to the Lord in this way, received their commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ in baptism, and that still is valid today. If we want to show that we really have trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, we must also be obedient to him and testify to our faith and trust in him as our new Lord and Savior through baptism. Turn to him in repentance and be baptized for the forgiveness of your sins and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, whom he has promised to all who trust in him.

Now there are questions we need to ask of ourselves. The Wesleys sought it and found it. But others before and after the Wesleys have sought and found the same Savior. Do we know this new dimension of life for ourselves? Do we know the reality of God's life in our soul? He said that we will find it if we seek it. He is ready to give it to us. What stands in the way of your entering into this new dimension of life? What stands in the way of your experiencing God for yourself and finding that there is more to Christianity than just the formalities in establishing a real and personal relationship with the Lord our God?

The Lord Jesus Christ in his earthly ministry was so concerned that people should not just hear about him and his teachings, and then go away and lose the whole point of the life that he had come to bring. He told the Jews and shared with Christians, "you seek, you search the scriptures, because you think in them you find life as these are they which testify of me. Yet you will not come to me and receive the life."

And what he said to the Jews then, he says to us too. There are so many you know in the Christian church today who sit under the sound of the gospel Sunday after Sunday. Many of them have done it all through their lives and have never yet tasted the reality of this eternal life. They have never yet experienced God for themselves. They have never yet entered into this new dimension of life because they have never yet repented personally and they have never yet placed their faith personally in the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord is concerned that we should not just know about it but experience it.

I would like to use this analogy in order to bring this point home. He told this story about the two buildings. One was built on sand and the other on solid rock. And many of us can be building on sand and it may look outwardly like a house built on rock until the storms come, until the difficult days of life come and we find that we have no foundation.

He also told us that we can be like wheat; that we also can be like tares. They grow in the same soil, and yet one is wheat, the other is tares. And they are a world apart. Wheat is not tares and tares are not wheat - yet they grow in the same soil. And we can be together with God's people in God's house, walk with God, receive the kinds of things they receive, and yet really not become one of God's people because we have not yet placed our faith in Jesus.

His disciples were also quite concerned that we should experience this for ourselves and not just know about it. John, the apostle, said, when he was writing his epistle, that he wrote to those who know about Christ that they might believe that he is their Savior and may have the assurance of salvation.

I just pray and covet that you will also experience the same thing for yourself.   

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