The Self-Existence of God

Today we're going to be starting lesson number six. We're continuing our study of the nature and attributes of God, and we'll be looking at the self-existence of God. This is a great subject and it's one that's awe-inspiring to us. So we'll be learning a lot as we look into this. Let's look at number one, Bible point number one.

God has no beginning, that's the first blank, or cause, that's the second blank. God has no beginning or cause. God is the beginning, the third blank, and cause of all things.

God is the beginning and cause of all things. We normally think of things in terms of cause and effect, right? You've learned that all your life in school that for every effect there is a cause. Well, God has no cause. He's the uncaused cause, He's the unmoved mover, He's the uncreated creator, He has always been. God is not an effect, He is a cause. Look at Genesis 1:1. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The Bible just starts off not trying to prove God's existence, but it assumes God's existence. In the beginning, God. And He created the heavens and the earth, that's everything. So nothing was preexistent, just God. He's the only thing that's been preexistent and He is not a thing, He is a person.

Psalm 93:2 says, "Your throne is established from old. You are from everlasting." God has always been and He will always be. His throne is from ever before there was anything, okay?

Naturalists try to explain the origin of creation in the universe apart from God. They will use things such as evolution to try to explain how things came into being. And when you push them on the subject, they will go to what they call the Big Bang. And they will say, in the very beginning, there was a big explosion. And out of nothing, everything came into being. That's nonsensical, isn't it? Because what logic tells you is: out of nothing, nothing comes. Nothing can come from nothing, right? And what's ironic is the naturalists are the ones who will look down on people of faith and will say, "Oh, those poor religious people. They're trying to make sense of the universe by coming up with God as the beginning of all things, when we believe in the Big Bang, right?" But the Big Bang is basically believing in magic because nothing comes from nothing. Now, if you push them on the subject even farther, they'll say, "Okay, we admit that that's kind of illogical, that nothing comes from nothing. But given enough time, perhaps so."

And of course that is totally ridiculous. Let's say this room that we're in here, this worship center — if we were to clear all the furniture out and it would be just a hollow, empty building and we were to seal the doors for 30 days — you come back in 30 days, what's going to be inside here?

Nothing, yeah. There's nothing here and there's nothing there after. We wouldn't expect to see chairs or anything else if it's totally empty, right? Well, let's expand that from 30 days. If this building could last and exist and this world continued on for 30 billion years, if you were to open it up again, there would still be nothing because nothing comes from nothing. The great thinker Francis Schaeffer talked about the naturalist and he said that the naturalist's feet are firmly planted in the air. And what he meant by that is that they have no solid ground to stand upon. They have no explanation for the origin of anything because they're trying to explain the origin of all things apart from God, and God is the beginning and the ground of all being. The application is this, worship, that's the first blank, the creator, that's the second blank, of all things. Worship the creator of all things.

Nehemiah 9:6 says, "For You alone are Yahweh, You alone are the Lord. You have made the heaven, the heaven of heavens with all their hosts, the earth and everything on it, the seas and all that is in them. You preserve them all. The host of heaven worships You." All of heaven worships God, all the beasts of the field, all creation are there for the glory of God because He is the creator of all things. Flip over on the back of your handout.

Hebrews chapter 11, verse three says this, "By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible." This is what we call creation ex nihilo, out of nothing. God created all things from His very spoken word. He spoke them into existence. Psalm 33:6 says, "By the word of the Lord, the heavens were made, and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth." So everything was made. The universe is not self-existent; only God is self-existent. Let's flip back over on the front page.

The second Bible point, number two: the name Lord — notice Lord is in all capital letters. When you see that in your Bible translations, that's standing for Yahweh, the name that God revealed to Moses in the burning bush. He says, "The name Lord means I am."

That's the first blank, I am. God's very name signifies that it is His nature, that's the second blank, His nature, and then the third blank, to be. God's very name means to be, that God is the one who is self-existent.

It's impossible for God not to be — that's who He is. If He were not, then nothing at all could be. If God did not exist, this whole created order would disintegrate, it would fall into chaos, it could not exist, because God is the one who brought it and gave it into this existence, the one who upholds it in existence. God always has been, He is, and He always will be.

Exodus 6:2 through 3 says, "And God spoke to Moses and said to him, 'I am the Lord. I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, as God Almighty, but by My name, Lord, I was not known to them.'"

Moses is doing something here — God is revealing an even greater revelation of Himself. He says that the forefathers knew Me as Elohim, Almighty, God Almighty, but now you'll know Me as the one who is I Am. He's not just a mighty God, because all the pagan gods claim to be mighty, right? You read in the scripture the Baal was symbolized by a bull, a mighty animal, right? But God's more than just might, Almighty. He's the one who is I Am, the one with the very ground of existence, the cause of all things. Flip over on the back.

Micah 5:2 is a scripture we normally read around Christmastime because it speaks of Christ, and says, "But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of you shall come forth to Me the one to be the ruler in Israel," speaking of Christ, "whose goings forth are from old, from everlasting." Christ came into this world in the incarnation, but was that Christ's beginning? No, He's always been. From old are His goings, right? Isaiah 9:6 is another passage that we often read around Christmastime. It says that His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. We don't think of Christ as being Father, but He is in a sense, in that all creation was mediated through Christ, right? Through Him and for Him and of Him are all things. And so Christ has existed from the very beginning, right? Just as the Holy Spirit — all three members of the Trinity that we discussed a couple of weeks ago, when we discussed the triune nature of God, share this quality of having self-existence in and of themselves. Flip over back to the front.

The application is this: God always was, that's the first blank, always is, that's the second blank, and always will be, that's the third blank. Jesus says in Revelation 1:8, "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end," says the Lord, "who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty." In the Greek alphabet, the very first letter is Alpha, right? And what's the last letter? Jesus just said it. Omega. Exactly right. So Jesus is saying, "I'm the very beginning of all things, I'm the end of all things, and I'm everything in between. I'm the sum of everything." Revelation 22:13, the very last chapter of the Bible, again Jesus says, "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last." He's the supreme being, the sum of all existence, okay?

Bible point number three: God's self-existence means that He alone, that's the first blank, has the ground, that's the second blank, of existence, that's the third blank, in Himself, that's the fourth blank. There's going to be a lot of blanks in this one. Let me reread that. God's self-existence means that He alone has the ground of existence in Himself.

Continuing on, God is the living, the next blank, the living spring of all life, that's the next blank, and of all being, that's the next blank.

God's existence is a necessary existence, that's the next blank, necessary. Then the last: our existence is a contingent existence. Let me read that through once more. God's self-existence means that He alone has a ground of existence in Himself. God is a living spring of all life and all being. God's existence is a necessary existence. Our existence is a contingent existence. So let's go through each line. God alone has a ground of existence. All being comes from Him. Theologians often refer to this as what we call the aseity of God. That's a word we don't use a lot, but it's spelled A-S-E-I-T-Y. It's a Latin word: "a" meaning from, and "se," meaning self — that God has existence in and of Himself. Do we have existence in and of ourselves? No, exactly right. We're totally finite, totally dependent upon our creator. We're mere creatures, but God has the ground of all existence in and of Himself. He is the living spring of all life and all being. Everything comes from God.

God's existence is a necessary existence, but our existence is a contingent existence. I have a customer that called me yesterday. You know, I service swimming pools for a living, and his home has been on the market, and a buyer is now giving him a contract. But the contract offer on his home is a contingent offer, which means that the buyer was willing to buy my customer's home as long as he can sell his own home first.

So that puts him in a position: do I go ahead and accept this offer and take my home off the market, hoping that another buyer is going to buy his home first? Because apart from that contingency, this offer is no good. Or do I leave it on the market, hoping someone will come and buy it without a contingent offer, right? We are contingent beings. In other words, our lives are a derived existence. We draw our breath, our life, all things from God. He alone is a necessary existence, right? So what separates, in part, Him from us is that God is like no other being. He is a necessary being, okay? Colossians 1:16 through 17 says, "For by Him," speaking of Christ, "by Him, all things" — that's not some things, but all things — "were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers." It means every animal, everything we can see with our eyes, even the unseen realm was created by Christ. "All things were created through Him and for Him." So you see: by Him all things were created, through Him all things were created, and for Him all things were created. "He is before all things, and in Him all things consist."

He's the originator of all things, the architect of all things, if you will. He's the administrator of all things, and He's the aim of all things. Christ is all in all, and without Him, we would not be, okay? Acts 17:28, Paul says, "For in Him we live and move and have our being."

We often think that we live in our own little world, right? You live in Clermont, you live in Winter Garden, I live in Mount Dora. But truly, the Bible tells us that we live in Christ; we have our being only as He wills and gives us breath. We've all heard of people, or maybe we know someone, who's just dropped dead — someone who was healthy, didn't seem sick at all, but one day their breath gives out, their heart stops beating. Live long enough, you'll see it happen, right? And it happens to young people, it happens to old people.

Doctors are amazing. They know so much about the human body, but they haven't figured out where your battery is, what causes your heart to tick, what causes your breath to come out of your mouth. It's God. He's the ground of all existence; all things are in Christ. The application is this: live for Christ — the first blank is "live for Christ" — who created us for Himself, that's the second blank, Himself. If Christ is the one who holds our very breath and life in His hands, doesn't it make sense to live for Him, right? Because He's the one to whom we owe our all. Colossians 1:18, "And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He might have the preeminence." Christ is before all things, and all things are for Him. He is to have the preeminence in all things. In every part of our life, we are to live for Him, as He is the author of our life. Flip over on the back.

Let's look at the references for number three here. We all know John 1:1, "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was God," but look at verses three and four. "All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and that life was the light of men." It says nothing was made that was made.

Have you ever read in the newspaper an article that says scientists are on the verge of creating life — that this laboratory has taken their petri dish and put some kind of enzymes in it, and they have something that seems to look like life? They'll never be able to accomplish that. They may be able to have a close approximation, they may be able to have something that tricks you, so to speak, but they'll never be able to create life, because existence comes from the very hand of our Lord Jesus Christ. John 5:26, Jesus said, "For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son to have life in Himself." What Jesus is saying is, just as the Father has the original, underived life in Him, so do I, the Son, Jesus says, because the Father and I are one, right? So where should we look to for life? Who should we pray to for life? Only God, right, because all life is in Him. Romans 11:34 is this high crescendo of praise from the apostle Paul. He begins in verse 34 by quoting Isaiah 40, and then in verse 35 he quotes Job 41, and he says, "For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has become His counselor? Or who has first given to Him that it shall be repaid to him?" Have you given anything to God, truly?

No, anything you have, He's given you. He's endowed you with it. He's created you. All the gifts and the abilities, even your very breath comes from Him, so it's the very least we can do is render it back to Him. Look at verse 36, "For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever." We're here to glorify God forever because He is the source of all things, right? Of Him are all things; through Him — He's the originator of all things. And to Him — He's the end of all things. So He deserves all of our glory and all of our praise. Look at the top on the back, 1 Corinthians 8:6,

"Yet for us there is one God the Father, of whom are all things, and we for Him. And one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and through whom we live." We are made to live a life in service to our God, right? He is our creator.

Let's look back on the front. We're going to go to Bible point number four.

God's self-existence means that He is self-sufficient. "Sufficient" is the blank there. God's self-existence means that He is self-sufficient. When we say that God is self-sufficient, we mean that God never has any lack.

He never has any need. God has never come up short on payday, right? God has everything, with no dependence whatsoever. Acts 17:24 through 25, Paul speaking to the Athenians says, "God who made the world and everything in it, since He is the Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands, nor is He worshiped with men's hands as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things." God needs nothing. Flip over on the back.

Isaiah 40:12 through 17 is a great passage that glorifies God for His self-sufficiency. It says, "Who has measured the waters in the hollow of His hand, measured heaven with a span?" Back then they didn't have measuring tapes like we like to carry around with us, but they had their hands, and you can measure something by the span of your hand. And here He is measuring the heavens with just a span of His hand.

"And calculated the dust of the earth in a measure, weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance? Who has directed the Spirit of the Lord? Or as His counselor has taught Him?" This is what Paul had just quoted; we read it a minute ago in Romans 11. "With whom did He take counsel, and who instructed Him and taught Him in the path of justice? Who taught Him knowledge and showed Him the way of understanding?" Does God need us to teach Him anything? No, He has no dependence. He has all self-sufficiency. "Behold, the nations are a drop in a bucket and are counted as the small dust of the scales. Look, He lifts up the isles as a very little thing. And Lebanon is not sufficient to burn, nor its beasts sufficient for a burnt offering.

All the nations before Him are as nothing, and they are counted by Him as less than nothing and worthless." God is not dependent at all on His creation. In fact, it's the opposite way around — we're totally dependent on the Creator, right? The application is this: God needs nothing, that's the first blank,

but desires our hearts. That's the second blank. God needs nothing but desires our hearts.

Isaiah 66:1 through 2 is such a beautiful passage. It says, "Thus says the Lord, 'Heaven is My throne and the earth is My footstool. Where is the house that you will build for Me? Where is the place of My rest? For all those things My hand has made, and all those things exist.'" He says, "Everything that you could give Me comes from My hand, and My hand has made them and gives them existence." But then verse two, He says, "But on this one will I look: on him who is poor and of a contrite spirit, and who trembles at My word." He's saying, "Do you want My attention?

It's not what you can do for Me." We often think, if I just build a really big ministry or a big church, then wow, God will have favor on me and my life will be worthwhile in His eyes, and He'll say, "Well done, you good and faithful servant, because you put together this ministry or you put together this program for me, right?" What does God desire? He tells us right here. He desires a poor heart, a poor and contrite spirit, and one who trembles at His word. To be poor in spirit, as Jesus said in the Beatitudes, is to have the attention of God, because one who is poor in spirit is spiritually bankrupt. He or she has no righteousness, no merit, nothing to offer God. And that's the way that they come and approach God, as we sing, "Nothing in my hand I bring, simply to Thy cross I cling." Totally depending on God for righteousness, for merit, for favor, for everything, right? So we can give God our broken heart, right? A poor heart. And we can also give Him a broken or contrite spirit. To be brokenhearted means to be grieved over sin. It means to take God's cause over and against the world's cause, right? The things that the world revels in and rebels against God — we're to hate those things, and it should break our heart when we participate in them or when others participate in them, right? But one who has a contrite spirit is broken before the Lord. It says, "Lord, I need Your mercy. I need Your grace. I need Your love." And then, one who trembles at His word — this means to fear Him. This means to honor Him, to respect Him, to be in awe of His word. Are we in awe of the word of God?

We should be, right? And this is what God desires. This is the one on whom He looks — the one who is poor in spirit, the one who's brokenhearted over sin and sinners, and the one who trembles at His word. And that's something that each and every one of us can do, okay?

Let's look on the back for number four.

Actually, we already have — I apologize. That was Isaiah 40. So let's flip back on the front. Bible point number five.

God's self-sufficiency includes His self-contentment. That's the first blank.

Contentment.

His self-exaltation, that's the second blank, exaltation, and self-giving, that's the third blank. So God's self-sufficiency includes self-contentment, His self-exaltation, and self-giving. We normally think of self-sufficiency as, "I just don't have any need. I've got all the wealth I need. I've got a full belly. I've got a roof over my head." That's what I think of materialistically when I think of self-sufficiency. But self-sufficiency is bigger than that. It includes self-contentment, self-exaltation, and self-giving with God. Let's look first of all at self-contentment with God. 1 Timothy 6:15,

speaking of the return of Christ, it says, "which He will manifest in His own time, He who is the blessed and only Potentate." Potentate is a big word; it means ruler or sovereign one. "Who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings and the Lord of lords."

What it says describes God as blessed,

and that has three connotations. It means, first of all, to be happy.

Secondly, it means to be fulfilled.

And third, it means to be content. God is happy, He is content, and He is fulfilled in and of Himself. He's described as the blessed God from all eternity. That's a characteristic of God. He did not need creation to amuse Him; He did not need to create us because He was lonely. As we discussed a few weeks ago in the nature and attributes of God, we discussed the triunity of God, and we saw that God, before He created anything, had perfect fellowship, perfect self-giving, perfect contemplation, perfect transparency within the three persons of the Trinity — the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And creation was just an overflow of that, to exalt His glory, because He had perfect satisfaction within Himself. So God doesn't need any external things to be content with, right? His perfect contentment is in and of Himself. It doesn't take much for us to become malcontent, does it? You wake up in the morning and maybe you have a crick in your neck, right? Sets you off on a bad day. You're in a hurry and you only have cold coffee from yesterday and you burn your toast. And then the traffic is terrible on the way to work. And then your boss gives you the stink eye for being late when you get there. And someone's curt with you and things just aren't going well, right? And all of a sudden you're very discontent. God never knows such things. His perfect self-contentment — that's part of His self-sufficiency. Also, we see that God's self-exaltation is part of His self-sufficiency. Look at Isaiah 48:8 through 9.

"For My name's sake I will defer My anger, and for My praise I will restrain it from you, so that I do not cut you off." He's talking about His people, Israel, here. And He's saying, "For My name's sake I'll defer My anger. And for My praise I will restrain it from you." He says, "I should wipe you out, but for My praise and for My name's sake, I will not."

God exalts Himself in everything that He does.

The reason why Christ came into this world to save us ultimately is for His glory, for His exaltation.

Now you may think, well, isn't that a little bit narcissistic, that someone would live for his own glory?

For a human, yes, but not for God.

God is perfect, right? Perfect in all that He does, perfect in every word, perfect in every act, and He's worthy of all praise and all glory. And so here we see in Isaiah 48 where God saves Israel for His own praise and for His own name's sake. We see that God's glory and our highest good are intertwined, are they not? When God rescues His people, when He saves us, we exalt Him and we praise Him, lifting Him up so that others will see Him as Savior and others will be able to be redeemed, right? So His exaltation is our highest good, right? His grace and His glory are forever bound together. So it's our highest good to see God exalted, and God's exaltation is for our highest good.

We even see that in Psalms. I think of Psalm 23, it's one that most of you know by heart. "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures, He leads me beside the still waters, He restores my soul." Verse three, "He leads me in the paths of righteousness" — for what?

His name's sake. It's for His glory

that He does all things. So His contentment and His self-exaltation are part of His self-sufficiency. We also see His self-giving being part of His self-sufficiency. Look at John 17:23. This is Christ's high priestly prayer, and He says, speaking to the Father, "I in them" — talking about us, His people — "and You in Me, that they may be made perfect in one," be brought into completion in Christ, "that the world may know that You have sent Me and have loved them as You have loved Me." He's saying, "God the Father, just as You and I are one, the people You've given Me are in Me, that they may be brought into this triune glory, that they may be brought into this relationship through Me, through the Son of God. And that they may know that You have sent Me and have loved them as You have loved Me." God's greatest good — the greatest thing that He could give you — is Himself.

It's not how we often think, though, right? If I asked you if you could have anything in the world right now, we'd often think of material things, right? A bigger house, a better job, a better car, a friend — well, whatever it is. And those are maybe real needs that we have, perhaps, but there is no greater need than God, right? And the greatest thing that He can give us is Himself, the fount of all being.

The application is this: we find sufficiency in abiding — that's the blank — abiding with Christ. John 15:4 through 5 says, "Abide in Me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me and I in him bears much fruit, for without Me, you can do nothing." The source of all fruitfulness, the source of all blessing, is in Christ alone. So it is in Christ that we find sufficiency, because in Him — He's the only one who is self-sufficient, the one who has all things. Flip over on the back.

Bible reference point number five on the back, Colossians chapter 2:8 through 10,

says, "Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world and not according to Christ." In other words, don't let anybody swindle you, don't let anybody cheat you with the rules and traditions of men. This is verse nine, "For in Him," that is Christ, "dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily." All the fullness of God is found in Christ. And verse 10, "And you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power." We're only complete in God. We often think if we just had that better job, then we'd be complete. Or if I just had a significant other, right? And we glamorize that in Hollywood movies — "You complete me," right? No person can ever complete you except for the divine person, Jesus Christ. For in Him the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily, okay? Flip back over on the front.

Bible point number six: God upholds, that's the first blank, upholds His people. They will never be moved. That's the second blank. God upholds His people; they will never be moved, because He is the ground of all being and the ground of all existence. He must uphold us. We can't uphold ourselves. If we were standing on our own, we would slip and we would fall. But because God upholds us, we will not be moved. Look at Psalm 66:8 through 9.

"O bless our God, you peoples, and make the voice of His praise to be heard, who keeps our soul" — "keeps our soul" here, literally translated, upholds our soul — "among the living and does not allow our feet to be moved."

Think about Jude, how he closes Jude, Jude chapter 1, verses 24 and 25, "Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy — to God our Savior, who alone is wise, be glory, majesty, dominion, and power, both now and forever, amen." God is able to keep you from stumbling. God is able to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy. You're not able to do that yourself, but God is able to present you faultless, okay? The application is this: only God can give physical and spiritual life. The first blank is physical, the second blank is spiritual. Only God can give physical and spiritual life.

Doctors can do great things with medicine to treat you, but they can't make you live a second longer than what God has ordained, right? The best doctors in the world will sometimes come to you and say, "I can't treat you. I can't do anything to extend your life." Only God gives us physical life, and only God can give us true spiritual life — can renew, can take a dead heart, dead in sin, dead as stone, and make it a living stone, right? Make it alive. Only Christ can give us life. Psalm 34:9 through 10 says, "O fear the Lord, you His saints, there is no want to those who fear Him." Fear in the Old Testament is a word that basically means to trust God, to honor Him, to reverence Him. "There is no want in those who fear Him. The young lions lack and suffer hunger, but those who seek the Lord shall not lack any good thing." Isaiah 43:25 says, "I, even I, am He who blots out your transgressions for My own sake, and I will not remember your sins." You cannot blot out your own transgressions. You cannot rid yourself of your own sins, but Christ can blot them out, and He will remember them no more. Flip over the back. We're going to close with these three passages from the Gospel of John. John chapter 6, Jesus says, "As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on Me will live because of Me." He's saying, "Feed on Me if you want to live." He's not saying, "Eat My body literally," but by feeding on Me, He means, "Trust in Me. Have a part in Me. Have a piece of Me, so to speak, by trusting and putting your faith in Me." This is that famous passage where many people, many of His disciples, quit following Him because they took Him literally. They thought He meant eating His flesh and drinking His blood, and they went away. And so Jesus turned to His twelve and said, "Will you also go?"

And remember what Peter says? That great statement of faith: "To whom shall we go? Only You have the words of life, right?" John 11:25 through 27, this is Martha's great confession when her brother Lazarus had died. Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?" The question that Jesus asked Martha is a question that we all are being asked today by Christ. "Do you believe this, that if you believe in Me, you'll never die, you'll have eternal life, everlasting life?" And of course Martha's answer was a beautiful confirmation. She said to Him, "Yes, Lord, I believe that You are the Christ, the Son of God, who has come into the world." I pray that that will be your answer to Christ as well, right?

John 14:19 through 20, this is just before Gethsemane, where Christ is within just a short time — just a few hours he's going to be betrayed by Judas, and He'll be on the cross by nine o'clock the next morning.

He says, "A little while longer and the world will see Me no more, but you will see Me. Because I live, you will live also.

"At that day, you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you."

Before His greatest tribulation there in Gethsemane, and then on the cross the next day, Christ was thinking about being with you forever, saying, "I'm going to be with the Father, and you in Me, and I in you." He was speaking about our union with Christ that happens the very moment we place our faith in God, that we are born of God, that we receive a new nature, and we are adopted into His family. We can call upon God as Father, and Christ as an older brother, and the Holy Spirit comes to live within us, mediating the presence of God the Father and God the Son within us. He's saying, "I'm going to be with you forever, because I live, and because I am in the Father." Okay? So God is the ground of all existence, and graciously He extends that to us. Thanks for coming out today.