Well, it's my privilege once again to introduce
Major Ian Thomas.
Major Thomas is the founder of Torchbearers, which
has a literally worldwide influence for the Gospel
of Jesus Christ.
I shared yesterday, but many of you are
new tonight.
That is, when I first started growing as
a Christian in the middle 70s, the very
first book I read was The Saving Life
of Christ by Major Ian Thomas.
And quickly afterwards, I read his other two
books, If I Perish, I Perish, The Mystery
of Godliness, and I would strongly encourage you
to get a copy of each of those.
We're about sold out, as I understand here,
but you'll be able to pick them up
other places.
But what I discovered, and it's been a
foundation for the whole of my life, is
that there is a wonderful simplicity to the
Christian life, and it's simply the person of
Christ.
Christ for justification, Christ for sanctification, Christ for
service.
And it's Satan himself who tries to make
it more complicated than God ever made it.
And I so appreciate Major Thomas's just relentless,
relentless focus on this great message.
So, would you come bless us again, Major
Thomas?
I certainly feel it's a very great privilege
to be allowed to share this hour with
you and this platform with distinguished guests, and
not the least the Chancellor and General Howard
Graves.
What a lovely thing it is to be
one in Jesus and to know that he's
the only one who matters.
The same yesterday, today and forever, never changes.
He is the truth, the ultimate truth.
Fantastic.
Nothing more boring than being religious.
Nothing more exciting than being a Christian.
The sad thing is that countless religious people
don't know the difference between being religious and
being a Christian.
And one of the greatest discoveries a redeemed
sinner can make is that there's only one
person who could ever and ever did or
ever will live the Christian life, and his
name is Jesus, because he is the Christian
life, the way, the truth and the life.
Wonderful.
So, the privilege that all of us have
is to introduce boys, girls, men and women
of any nation, kindred, tribe or tongue or
race or creed or class or colour to
Jesus, so they may know him as the
one who not only gave himself for us
as he did, absolutely essential if we are
to become a Christian, but infinitely more important
even than that is that he rose again
from the dead to give us not only
himself for us, but himself to us, so
that we can say and know that it's
true to me to live is Christ.
If I'm alive at all in any genuine
sense, it's only because he, as my creator
redeemer, has come to take up residence and
live his life in me and through me.
That's what it means to be a Christian.
Christ clothing his deity on earth today with
our redeemed humanity as he once then two
thousand years ago allowed the father to clothe
his eternal deity with the humanity of a
sinless saviour who was born alive.
The only man who was ever born alive
since Adam fell.
And Adam wasn't born, he was created.
So the only man who's ever been born,
a real man, is Jesus.
That's why he's called in the Bible the
second Adam, the Lord from heaven.
And to know him is life eternal.
Fantastic.
Well, in the last couple of days we've
been talking about the early believers.
And they were a pretty pathetic bunch until
they made the great discovery that totally revolutionized
their lives.
Most of them from the beginning were trying
to live a life they hadn't got because
they didn't know what it meant to be
born of God.
They didn't realize that after the death of
Jesus, which they finally discovered was the means
of their redemption, what mattered most in their
Christian lives was that their humanity was made
as available to him now as God in
them as the Lord Jesus in real humanity
made his humanity available to his father.
Then the church sprang into life.
Terrific.
And we've talked about it.
How they first had to rediscover the Lord
Jesus as the risen Lord, not a noble
idealist who paid the price of being too
progressive for his day and age, misunderstood by
his peers and done to death by his
enemies.
The disciples finally discovered that it was part
of the plan.
That it was to that end he was
born and for that cause he came to
the world to lay down his life a
ransom for many.
And that was a wonderful discovery.
It took them a long, long time to
accept it.
Finally did.
But that wasn't enough.
They had to rediscover him as the risen
Lord.
Peter and others on the road to Emmaus,
bumping into the Lord Jesus, didn't even recognize
him because so far as they were concerned
he was dead and buried.
But they all looked miserable and they deserved
to.
Anybody deserves to look miserable who hasn't discovered
that Jesus is the only one who can
live the Christian life and are prepared to
let him do it in and through them.
And so said the Lord Jesus, Why so
sad?
What's your problem?
What's bugging you?
And said they, Don't you know what happened
in Jerusalem?
And Jesus said, What things?
He knew a whole bunch about what had
happened in Jerusalem.
It was through his wrists and through his
ankles they drove the nails.
It was onto his head they put the
crown of thorns.
It was into his face they spat.
Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who
doesn't know?
Wasn't that pretty stupid?
Their risen Lord.
But they didn't know that he was alive.
Hadn't recognized it and weren't living in the
good of it.
But they made the supreme discovery that a
Christian can make.
And in rediscovering Jesus, a new joy, a
new Bible, a new message, and a new
responsibility.
And by the gift of the Holy Spirit,
through whom the Lord Jesus clothes his deity
with our humanity, a new enabling.
Living in the power of his divine presence,
through whose indwelling we enjoy the illimitable resources
of deity that he, God, makes available to
every forgiven sinner, boy, girl, man or woman.
All there is to be had in Christ,
in whom dwells all the fullness of the
Godhead bodily, and in whom we are complete.
Can't have more?
Need, never enjoy less.
All you've got to do is take and
say thank you.
That's the Christian life.
That's all that Jesus did.
He took and said thank you.
In every situation, threat, promise, responsibility, opportunity, suffering,
he just said thank you, Father.
And let the Father be God in him.
As he now, as God, wants us to
allow him to be God in us.
It's all so simple.
Once you let God be God, to your
amazement you discover that he's big enough for
the job.
And wonder why you were so stupid as
to try to keep him in business.
And sweat it out and be like Jesus
and do his thing.
He's done his thing.
So that he can be who he is,
living where he does, in the heart and
clothed with the humanity of every forgiven sinner.
That's the gospel.
So, once they had rediscovered Jesus and discovered
that the Christian life wasn't a religion but
a person, they only had one thing to
talk about.
And we talked about that last evening.
The message of the early church was not
Jesus died 2000 years ago, but Jesus is
alive, here and now, right now.
In all the fullness and power of his
deity, and revelation, resurrection life.
Tremendous.
That's when the Christian life really becomes exciting.
When you discover who is the Christian life.
And share his life on earth on the
way to heaven and then forever.
That's why it's exciting to read about the
early church in what in our Bibles is
called the Acts of the Apostles.
It's a misnomer because it isn't the Acts
of the Apostles.
Let's turn to the first chapter of the
Acts, the book of the Acts.
It was written by inspiration of the Holy
Spirit by Dr. Luke.
And Dr. Luke, by inspiration of the same
Holy Spirit, was the one who gave us
Luke's gospel.
So, the Acts, as it's called, the Acts
of the Apostles, is a second book that
Luke was inspired to give from God to
you and to me.
And he says this, first verse, first chapter
of the book of the Acts, The former
treatise, or book, have I made, O Theophilus,
of all that Jesus began to do and
began to teach.
That's what Luke's gospel is all about, what
Jesus began to do and began to teach.
Now he says, I'm going to write you
another book.
And this book is about what the same
Lord Jesus continued to do and continued to
teach.
No difference.
Same Jesus, by inspiration of the Holy Spirit,
the one who was the author of Luke's
gospel and the one who is the author
of this book called the Acts.
The only difference was the body in which
the Lord Jesus did it.
It's very clearly spelled out in the fifth
chapter and the twelfth verse.
It's your commission and mine.
Twelfth verse, fifth chapter of the book of
the Acts.
By the hands of the apostles were many
signs and wonders wrought among the people.
By the hands of the apostles, just their
hands, his to work with, their feet, his
to walk with, their eyes, his to see
with, their ears, his to hear with, their
lips, for him to speak with, so that
he could give utterance to the eternal truth.
Their hands, their feet, their eyes, their ears,
simply their humanity made available to the one
who continued in and through them to do
and teach the things that he had begun
to do and begun to teach in the
body that the Father God was pleased to
give him when as a little baby he
was born at Bethlehem.
No difference in the author of either of
the books, simply the body in which he
lived.
And of course that is the incredible understanding
that you and I should have of the
Christian life, that he has a new body
on earth of which you and I, if
we are redeemed, not otherwise, if we've been
born of God, not otherwise, but if we
have in true repentance said thank you for
what he did and lived daily in the
power of who he is, we are members
of his body.
That humanity on earth that the Lord Jesus
occupies so that he may continue to do
and continue to teach the things that he
began to do and began to teach, that's
the incredible and indescribable privilege of being a
Christian, a member of the body of Christ.
Look in the same chapter, the fifth chapter,
believers, verse 14, were added to the Lord,
multitudes, both of men and women.
What did it say?
They became Baptists?
No.
Presbyterians?
No.
Lutherans?
Uh-uh.
Presbyterians?
Uh-uh.
Plymouth brethren?
Oh no.
Do you know what they became?
Members of his body.
Multitudes, believers, added to the Lord.
That's what a believer is.
You've been added to the Lord if you're
a believer.
You've become a member of his body, corporate
on earth, a member in particular of that
body corporate, the flesh and blood with which
he is now today pleased to clothe his
divine activity, the miracle of being a Christian,
God in action.
I've reminded you that Philip came to the
Lord Jesus and said show us the Father,
that suffices, that's all we need.
And the Lord Jesus, have I been so
long time with you?
And hast thou not known me, Philip?
He that has seen me has seen my
Father.
My Father, God, clothing his deity on earth
with my sinless humanity because I deliberately chose
for that reason to be born a human
being and accomplish in that humanity that for
which as creator God I first made Adam.
To bring an invisible God out into the
open where he can be seen, an inaudible
God out into the open where he can
be heard, so that he can be known
and loved and served.
So Philip, when you look at me you
see my Father in action.
That body with which he is pleased at
this moment to accomplish the redemptive act and
the reconciling act that will precipitate that regenerated
purpose, Philip, that allows a holy God without
doing violence to his own righteousness to restore
to man the life he lost when man
believed the devil's lie that he could be
a man without God.
Humanism, that's where it all began, in the
stupidity of Adam when he believed the devil's
lie and substituted that for God's truth.
And man has been stupid enough all down
the centuries to do the same and still
does today.
Added to the Lord, a member of his
body.
How can you be a member of his
body?
These fingers don't belong to you, they belong
to me.
What's the seal of the fact that they
belong to me and not to you?
Because they possess my life.
You don't boss my fingers around and I
don't boss your fingers around.
They're only members of my body because they
possess my life.
Without my life they're not members of my
body.
In World War II, serving in one of
the most famous of the British regiments, the
Royal Fusiliers with headquarters in the Tower of
London, the only regiment allowed to march through
the city with six bayonets, the only regiment
to which the king, who then was the
colonel of the regiment, gave the privilege of
not standing up when an anthem was played.
He said, your loyalty, gentlemen, is never in
doubt.
Please remain seated.
That was all right, so I always do,
just to demonstrate my loyalty.
But in the Royal Fusiliers, in which I
served during World War II for seven years,
and remain still a commissioned officer in the
regiment, in the Battle of Monte Cassino, there
was a tank on the other side of
the valley, German tank, on the other side.
And one of my men, stupidly enough, exposed
himself.
And so the tank took a shot at
us, but he knew he couldn't hit us
with an armor-piercing tank shell.
It would just go for miles.
So, wisely, he put in a high-explosive
shell.
But it would travel at the same speed,
of course, as an anti-tank shell.
It was a Panzer, used also by the
Germans as an anti-aircraft missile.
I said, just a minute.
And he didn't wait.
You see, the problem about a shell, high
-explosive or armor-piercing, fired from a Panzer,
is that it travels faster than the speed
of sound.
So if it's a high-explosive shell, you
hear it burst, and then you hear it
come, and then you hear the gunfire, and
that's a little late to duck.
So it killed the man who exposed himself,
took the leg off another, wounded one of
my men twice, and missed me, until he
reloaded, as I knew he would, and fired
again.
And a white-hot, jagged fragment of that
shell just removed half of my finger.
Still got a little knuckle.
Sometimes, to amuse kids, I give it a
couple of eyes, so that it looks better.
Kids love it.
My four boys, and all my sons are
boys, they used to bring their kid friends
just to see my finger.
Well, that was pretty stupid.
How could they see a finger that wasn't
there?
But they loved it.
Now, it doesn't embarrass me at all.
If it did, I know I could find
somebody who would manufacture for me an imitation
finger and stick it on, do it so
well that nobody would even know that it
wasn't a proper finger.
Would it be a member of my body?
Well, no.
Just an imitation, a rubber dummy.
Lifeless.
Not a member of my body.
It looks like it.
Could be accepted as such by those unwitting
and in ignorance of what happened there at
Monte Cassino.
Lifeless.
No more a member of my body than
you are a member of the body of
Christ, unless you've been born again.
Unless you've been redeemed on God's terms, the
shed blood of his incarnate, sinless Son, who
died, that you and I might be forgiven.
So, I never got an imitation finger to
stick on there because it wouldn't be worth
it.
It wouldn't do as I told it to
do.
It would be constantly disobedient.
You could stand on it all day and
I wouldn't complain, but if you trot on
my little finger, I'd say, pardon me, you
are treading on me.
And you'd say, oh no I'm not, I'm
only treading on your little finger.
I'd say to you, I couldn't care less
whether you're treading on my little finger or
my face.
Get off!
And if you didn't get off, I'd give
you, mobilizing all the other members of my
body, some needful assistance.
Do you get the point?
How do you become a member of the
body of Christ?
Only on God's terms, by having restored to
you the life that man lost in the
day that Adam fell.
New birth.
Regeneration.
Not by any works of righteousness that we
have done, Titus 3, 5 and 6.
According to God's mercy he saves us by
the washing of regeneration, the renewing of the
Holy Spirit.
God giving us back on his terms the
Holy Spirit whom God withdrew from Adam in
the day that he believed the devil's lie
and substituted it for God's truth.
That's the gospel.
Can't make it simpler than that.
You'd need a theologian to do that.
That's why we have them, to keep the
other theologians in business to explain what they
make complicated.
The simplicity which is in Christ.
Isn't it gloriously simple?
Liberating, emancipating, to know that he came, born
at Bethlehem, to give himself for us, simply
that risen from the dead he might give
himself to us.
So that every moment of every day, now,
not then, only or in future days, but
right now, every forgiven sinner can live in
the power of his divine indwelling.
It was the one cherished ambition of the
Apostle Paul as he puts it in the
20th verse, the 10th verse of the 3rd
chapter of his epistle to the Philippians and
the 11th verse, that I may progressively come
to know and become intimately acquainted with the
Lord Jesus and enjoy the outflow that comes
from his resurrection.
Paul lived in the power of the resurrection
life of Jesus.
That's why he tells us, Galatians 2.20,
I, for what I was, am fit for
nothing but what happened to the one who
took my place, sentenced, executed and buried.
I, judicially executed and the person of my
substitute, am crucified with Christ.
Nevertheless, please don't get me wrong, I live,
but not I.
Christ lives in me.
And the life I now live in this
body, the flesh, I live by simple childlike
trust in the one who gave himself for
me, gave himself to me and who loves
me.
That's the gospel.
Wonderful.
Well, it took a number of years for
the early church to discover the true Christian
life.
Not a religion.
It was religion that crucified him, nailed him
to a cross, spat in his face and
mocked.
If your God come down from the cross...
He could have done that and made fools
of them.
He didn't have to and didn't want to.
It's because to Pontius Pilate he said to
this end I was born for this very
cause that I came into the world to
lay down my life.
Nobody takes it from me.
I lay it down of my own free
volition.
A ransom, purchase price that is calculated all
down the centuries to set men, women, boys
and girls free from the load of guilt
that they've earned by being the heirs of
a fallen Adam, perpetuating the disobedience that has
left this world bleeding and broken and still
does.
Early church didn't come alive until they recognized
that Jesus had come alive and that they
could share his resurrection every moment of every
day.
Well, many were being added to the Lord
and the chief priests of the Sadducees who
didn't believe in the resurrection, didn't believe in
the spirit of God, didn't believe in angels,
didn't believe in anything that was beyond the
capacity of man's own intellectual ability.
That's why they were so miserable.
As I told the folks yesterday evening, that's
how they got their name.
They were sad, you see.
And anybody who doesn't believe in the resurrection
life of Jesus and live in the goodness
and power of it, deserves to be sad.
You see.
So what did he do?
Well, he came full of jealousy because of
the things that were happening to ordinary people
through a very ordinary person, Jesus.
So he threw them into jail.
That didn't faze them too much.
They were accustomed to that kind of accommodation.
Again and again they were thrown into jail
and delighted, reveled in it, privileged to suffer
for Jesus' sake.
But while they were in jail, an angel
came and opened the door.
The high priest and his friends laid their
hands on the apostles, put them in the
common prison.
But the angel of the Lord came by
night and opened the prison door and brought
them forth.
And he had a message from God.
He said, go, just two letters, stand and
speak.
That's all the angel had to tell them,
go, stand and speak.
Go where you're sent, stay where you're put
and give what you've got.
Those are his marching orders for you and
for me, still today, administered by the Holy
Spirit who bears witness to the fact that
ours are the only hands today on earth
he's got to use.
Ours are the only feet with which he
can walk, the lips to speak, the eyes
to see, and ears to hear, minds to
think and hearts to love.
Go.
Go stand and speak.
Go where you're sent, no matter where.
Stay where you're put and then give what
you've got.
And all that you've got to give is
all that God has given you himself.
Nobody can have more, nobody need ever enjoy
less.
Go, stand, speak in the temple to the
people all the words, beautiful description of the
gospel, which is largely forgotten today, the words
of this life.
Not the life to come, not pie in
the sky when you die, not heaven when
you're dead, a new destination instead of hell.
Uh-uh, that isn't the gospel.
All the words of this life.
What life?
His life, God's life, Christ's life.
That's the gospel.
That's why Jesus said, I've come, I've come
that you might have life and have it
more abundantly, an entirely new dimension, a dimension
that a sinner born dead has never tasted
until they've come and said, thank you, Lord
Jesus, for the blood you shed on the
cross to reconcile me to a holy God
so that by your indwelling in the person
of the Holy Spirit I could be recreated
and restored to function and given by your
divine indwelling all that it takes to fulfill
the mission for which man was created in
bringing an invisible God out into the open
so that he could be seen and an
inaudible God out into the open so that
he could be heard.
These are your marching orders.
Go where you're sent, stay where you're put
and give what you've got.
Life.
All the words of this life, not the
life to come.
The gospel has very little to do with
getting out of hell and going to heaven,
though I'm delighted that I am going to
heaven and not to hell.
I never had too much ambition about going
to hell.
But that isn't the gospel.
That's the good news, the reconciling work of
Christ dying in our stead, satisfying the demands
of a holy God.
But that isn't salvation.
Don't just say, I'm saved because I'm going
to heaven instead of hell, because that isn't
salvation.
You're redeemed and reconciled to God on the
absolutely indispensable sacrifice of the Lord Jesus, his
death upon the cross, but only so that
you and I on the grounds of that
redemptive transaction might be qualified to become the
recipients as forgiven sinners of his indwelling resurrection
life.
Then you can say to me to live.
Now to imitate or echo, God didn't intend
us to try and copy him or just
quote his language.
Otherwise he'd have made us apes or parrots.
And God didn't create me just to be
an ape to copy God or copy Jesus
or a parrot simply to quote verses from
the Bible and think that's my spirituality.
The devil knows the Bible and believes it.
And the Lord Jesus constantly quoted him.
But he wasn't God because he could quote
the Bible.
He was God because conceived of the Holy
Spirit a little baby was born nearly 2
,000 years ago.
And God was in Christ reconciling the world
unto himself.
Where was God when Jesus was born?
In Christ.
That's why Jesus was the only man born
alive.
Because he was the only one who was
indwelt by deity from the moment of conception.
Fantastic.
So he preached.
They preached the word of life.
And told boys, girls, men and women why
don't you come to the Lord Jesus?
You were born dead, alienated, cut off, detached
from the God who made you.
But Jesus has died in your place so
that he can come and share his resurrection
life with you.
To every boy, girl, man and woman they
told the good news.
Come alive.
That's what it means to know God for
yourself.
For to know God for yourself is eternal
life.
They were on the job.
And they were real.
And that was the stamp when finally the
early church rediscovered Jesus' reality.
Why doesn't your dad go to the church
my dad goes to?
And the little friend says he belongs to
another abomination.
Well I've preached in almost every denomination or
abomination under the sun.
All over the world, literally.
That's been my parish.
But the gospel and the fellowship of forgiven
sinners indwelt by a living risen Savior isn't
an abomination.
It's precisely what it's intended to be.
A fellowship of forgiven sinners enjoying the life
of Jesus and making themselves available to him.
Presenting their bodies a living sacrifice wholly acceptable
unto God which is their reasonable that is
only intelligent service because it's the purpose for
which they were created.
Wonderful.
So you put what do you mean put?
Well are you completely convinced that whoever you
may be and in whatever vocation you may
be you're in the place where God has
put you?
If not, then you're a very unhealthy member
of his body.
I expect my fingers to be where I
am and tell them to do what they
are supposed to do and expect them to
do it.
That's Christian.
I don't expect my fingers to get into
committee in the morning under the joint chairmanship
of the thumbs and decide what they're going
to do on my behalf.
That's the popular idea of being a churchman.
You get into committee an enormous number of
committees and decide what you're going to do
for Jesus.
He having said without me you can do
nothing.
So my fingers get into committee under the
joint chairmanship of the thumbs and at ten
in the morning when I want to blow
my nose they scratch my back because that's
what they decided in committee.
Now today is the church it's called the
church.
Can you imagine that?
The Bible doesn't call it it calls it
the body of Christ.
Pulsating with the divine energy of a living
Lord clothing his deity with their activity.
Marvelous.
But the origin of that activity has always
got to be Christ himself.
He's got to be in us and we
shall be talking before the end of this
week a little more about this.
He's got to be the origin in us
of his own image.
He's got to be the source in us
of his own activity.
He's got to be the dynamic in us
of his own demands and at all times
exclusively he's got to be the cause of
his own effect.
So if a person is normal he's been
restored on the grounds of redemption and new
birth to function.
There's only one person to be congratulated Jesus.
Of whom through whom to whom are all
things and to whom alone be glory.
A redeemed sinner whose humanity is available to
the Lord Jesus.
Put in the place where he was sent.
Excuse me Paul.
Why are you in the ministry?
They call you an apostle a teacher and
a preacher.
Why are you in the ministry?
Put.
What do you mean put?
Well I was sent and went.
Do you know where to find that?
In Paul's epistle to Timothy.
Third chapter.
First epistle.
And you'll find it in the Bible.
A man who was sent and who went.
Excuse me licking my fingers.
It's the only way I can turn the
pages.
And every now and again I run out
of licks.
Because this hand is paralyzed.
That's why with my thumb I keep making
holes in the pages of my Bible.
It's more like a sieve than a Bible.
So, 1 Timothy chapter 3.
I beg your pardon, chapter 1.
And the 12th verse.
1 Timothy 12.1 I thank Christ Jesus
my Lord who has enabled me for that
he counted me faithful putting me into the
ministry.
So, if you ask Paul why he's in
the ministry what would he say?
Put.
Not because I deserved it or I was
smart or holy.
I was before, verse 13 a blasphemer.
I was a persecutor.
I was injurious.
People got hurt when I was around.
I consented to the death of Stephen when
they stoned him to death and relished every
moment as his blood ran in the gutter.
But I obtained mercy because I did it
in unbelief.
My mind was still blinded by Satan.
But I was sent and I'm put.
No longer soul of Tarsus arch enemy of
the early church but Paul the apostle.
Tells us a bit about it in the
26th chapter of the book of the Acts.
Acts in verse, chapter 26.
And in a moment I'll be there.
And we'll let him tell you what he
had to say at that time.
26th chapter book of the Acts and he
tells us his vocation.
At Middale King speaking before the Herod I
saw in the well light from heaven shining
about and above me as we journeyed.
And when we were all fallen to the
earth I heard a voice speaking unto me
and saying in the Hebrew tongue Saul, Saul
why persecutes thou me?
It's hard for you to kick against the
priest.
A guilty conscience.
I said, who are you Lord?
He said, I'm Jesus whom you persecute.
But rise, stand upon your feet for I
have appeared unto you for this purpose to
make you a minister and a witness both
of these things which you have seen and
of those things in which I will yet
appear unto you.
Delivering you from the people.
Delivering you from the Gentiles unto whom now
I send you to turn them from darkness
to light.
From the power of Satan to God that
they may receive forgiveness of sins and inheritance
among them which are sanctified by faith that
is in me.
I was sent and King Herod I went
and I'm put.
And that's why King Herod you do not
frighten me.
Paul the apostle he was sent and went
and he was put.
Do you remember the time it's described for
us in the book of Acts when forty
men covenanted to murder him, assassinate Paul on
his way to be judged by the Roman
Emperor.
And a little boy, his nephew got wind
of it and let the folks know and
he was saved from assassination.
How did they save him?
Well, the other believers, the other disciples stuck
him in a basket and led him over
the wall of Samaria.
And you might have seen him there sitting
in a basket and you might have said,
Paul, what are you doing in that basket?
I mean, you look like a dozen eggs.
What are you doing there?
And Paul would have said with a grin
on his face, put.
What do you mean, put?
Well, it's the only safe place to be.
There are forty men waiting to kill me.
And the only safe place for me to
be in the city at the moment is
in a basket.
So I'm happy to be put and stay
where I'm put until God has accomplished his
purpose in my life.
It doesn't matter where you are as long
as you're put.
Do you remember when he was shipwrecked on
his way to be judged by the emperor?
He had warned them that there was going
to be a terrible tempest but they laughed
at him because the wind blew gently.
How many people have been deceived by a
gentle south wind in the face of a
coming storm?
They were in a panic.
The crew had already thrown the cargo overboard
and now they were throwing the tackling overboard.
And in panic.
And then suddenly somebody remembered, Paul's on board,
he knows God, maybe he can do something
about it.
Where is he?
They couldn't find him.
So finally somebody went down below and there
he was in the hole.
And they said, Paul, Paul, the ship is
sinking.
All he was doing was eating his sack
lunch.
And so when they burst in and said,
the ship is sinking, he said, so what?
Well, if the ship sinks, we'll sink, you'll
sink, we'll all sink.
Uh-uh, said Paul.
God has told me that I'm going to
preach the gospel in Rome.
Say, you can sink if you like, but
I'm not going to sink.
I'm the unsinkable sink.
And the ship did sink.
And Paul preached the gospel in Rome.
That's why you have the epistles of the
Romans.
The only safe place is in the place
where God puts you.
Are you Jesus Christ?
Well, yes.
I mean, do you say that you're the
Son of God?
That you created the universes and put them
into space and the stars into the far
corners of the night?
That nothing was made that you didn't create?
You say you're God?
Yes.
Co-equal in deity with the Father and
the Holy Spirit and the triune God, did
you say that?
Yes.
Then what are you doing on that cross?
Why that hostile crowd milling around that Roman
gallows, shouting away with him, crucify.
What are you doing there?
Put.
What do you mean, put?
Well, I was sent.
And I went.
My Father sent me.
Oh, by the way, as my Father sent
me, so sent are you.
Any questions?
Lord Jesus, no questions.
In the light of all you are and
all that you have done, no questions.
How could there be any questions?
I realize, Lord Jesus, there are no questions
for me to ask, only instructions to obey.
The Coast Guard saw the colored flare that
indicated that a ship was floundering.
And immediately giving the signal, he called upon
the lifeboat to launch and go out in
rescue.
And just quite a short time later, the
crew turned up, launched the lifeboat, and in
the crew there was a kid of barely
16 years of age.
He looked out into that wild night, heard
the wind howl around his ears, and saw
the mountainous waves crashing on the shore.
He grabbed the bosun, an old veteran of
many such a call, and grabbing him by
the arm, he says, Sir, we can't go
out in that, we can't.
We can't go out in that.
We'll never come back.
Putting his muscular arm around the kid's shoulder,
he said, Son, out there men are perishing.
We must go out.
We don't have to come back.
Our business is to answer the call.
It's your business and mine.
We don't have to come back.
Because one day there's going to be somebody
waiting for us.
And we'll see him face to face.
And we will have been restored to function.
We will see him as he is.
And we'll be like him.
Restored to image.
Man again.
As God intended man to be.
Lord Jesus, thanks.
We don't have to come back.
All we have to do is go where
we're sent.
Stay where we're put.
And give what we've got.
And we have the greatest gift that we
as human beings could put on offer in
the name of our wonderful Redeemer.
Cleansed in his blood, indwelt by his Spirit.
Sharing his life.
Living every new day, one step at a
time.
Enjoying all the illimitable resources of deity.
Letting Jesus be God in us.
We just want, Lord Jesus, when you come
to find us where you put us.
Not with empty hands, but those that you
were pleased to fill.
And share with a needy, lost, fallen world.
Thank you.
Feel for it.
Amen.