And when you talk about Christian life and
Christian lifestyle, it would be better to term
the whole thing behavior, in learning to behave.
I think it's mothers that use the phrase
more than any, why don't you learn to
behave yourself?
And I think, personally speaking, if the Lord
was to suddenly appear in the midst of
us, one of the things he would tend
to say to an awful lot of Christians
is, when are you going to start behaving
yourself?
And all of the apostles and writers in
the New Testament are agreed in that respect,
in that the outcome of the enjoyment of
the life of Christ within a person is
that they will be a behaving person.
They will have a life and lifestyle that
speaks of the faith you claim you have.
Now, the kind of life and lifestyle that
the Bible's talking about is one that's so
down to the earth and practical that you
could almost say that Christianity is like a
pair of cowboy boots.
People seem to concentrate in the fancy leather
uppers.
But when it comes to living and lifestyle,
it's talking about the souls that the people
don't see that hit the road, the practical
outworking of this Christian life of Christ within
you manifesting himself through you.
And he does it in behavior.
And one never need ask oneself, am I
spiritual?
Nor do you require to go up and
challenge other people as to whether or not
they are spiritual.
One of the greatest means of discerning the
spiritual content of any believer is just to
take your eyes out of the hymn book
and your eyes off them on a morning
of praise and worship and laudation and just
look at their Monday to Friday behavior.
In some cases, Saturday and Sunday as well,
because everybody knows how to behave for one
hour on Sunday morning and get away with
it.
But real behaving behavior behaves throughout the entire
week.
And Paul, for instance, he speaks of the
principle in Romans 12.
Now these verses in Romans at the beginning
of Romans 12 are common knowledge to most
believers.
But unfortunately, because a chapter and verse division,
we very often alienate 12.1 from 11
.36. And 11.36 is almost putting together
the Lordship lessons of the Lordship of Christ
that you looked at the last two weeks.
For of him, Jesus Christ and through him,
Jesus Christ and to him, Jesus Christ are
all things to whom be glory forever and
ever.
Amen.
So how much does that leave you to
do?
And the answer is very little.
In fact, nothing because of often and through
him and to him is everything.
Everything you ever need in the way of
Christian living is of him and through him
and back to him.
I beseech you, therefore, brethren, because of often
through him and to him are all things
by the mercies of God, the opposite of
what you deserve, because that's what mercy is,
that you present your body.
In actual fact, that is exactly what is
being requested, not your spirit, your body.
The spirit person is a person as a
believer that's all bound up in the heart
of God.
His spirit witnesses with your spirit that you
are a child of God, that's settled.
And there's absolutely nothing that anyone can ever
do to you that could ever reach the
realm of you spiritually.
The spirit of God is sealed within you.
Christ is sealed within you.
The Holy Ghost is sealed within you.
The father is sealed within you.
Now you don't feel that seal.
The sealing of the spirit of God in
your life is almost intangible.
It's like a flimsy little bit of wire,
but it guarantees the security of the believer
in the realm of the spirit.
If you've ever gone down the motorway behind
some of those massive trucks, you'll see some
of them with the letters TIR on the
back, which means transport international response.
Now that was all designed to overcome the
chaos of customs and excise in bringing wagons
from a long distance.
In the past, before they had that agreement
between nations, if you loaded a wagon of
oranges in Israel, by the time they got
up to the Lebanese border, they had Lebanese
customs and excises, what you got in there,
and you said, oranges, and he says, get
them out and let's see.
You had to open the wagon and unpack
the lot, and he examined every crate and
counted it up, and he packed them in,
locked the wagon up and drove it up
through Lebanon, and you went up towards Turkey.
And when you got there, they said, what's
in the wagon?
And you said, oranges.
They said, well, get them out and prove
it, that there's no guns in there, smuggling
people, dope, drugs, anything.
So you unpacked the whole wagon and repacked
it.
Now take that right across Europe, through Yugoslavia,
Austria, Germany, Belgium, Holland to the coast.
And by the time you got to Dover
and the customs officer said, what's in there?
He said, orange juice.
Man, those things had been bashed about that
much, there wasn't just pulp left.
So they agreed on a wonderful system, and
that is where the customs officer watches the
wagon being loaded, checks the manifest that that's
all that's gone into the empty wagon, and
when they shut it and put the locks
on, he goes then, he goes forward with
a thin bit of wire, almost like fuse
wire, you could break it in your fingers.
But that's not the important thing.
And he'll feed it through the lock and
through the chain and gather the two ends
together inside a little lead pellet, and with
a special customs official pliers with a hallmark
on it, he squeezes the lead pellets together
around the wire and leaves his mark on
it.
Now there's the little flap that goes over
it, and as they come to the border,
they don't have to enter the wagon, he
just goes around the back, lifts the flap,
shines his torch, even if it's night time,
shines his torch, just to see if the
little bit of wire is still intact and
hasn't been tampered.
I mean, the wire wouldn't stop anybody from
going in, you could just open it, but
it means the seal has been broken.
Flimsy, but guaranteeing nothing's been tampered with and
secure.
Now the very spirit of God within you,
Christ coming into your heart as you ask
him in to be your personal saviour, at
that moment you are sealed with the spirit
of promise to the day of redemption.
It's like feeding a little bit of wire
around the realm of your spirit life and
sealing it with the spirit of God.
And from there until you get into the
presence of the Almighty, God just checks up
that the wire's not broken.
That area can't be tampered with, it's secure.
God's the one that does the sealing, the
Holy Spirit's the seal, and the Holy Spirit
is there within you, the one who's sealed
within.
So the realm of the spirit's never touched.
And that's why I'm always amazed that people
over-occupied in trying to prove the spiritual
when the word declares it.
That you are a spiritual house, Christ does
live in you by the Holy Spirit that's
sealed in.
But here it's not asking for the presentation
of spirit activity, here it's asking for a
body.
Because it so happens that Jesus Christ wants
to reproduce through you what he did at
one time as God in a body on
the earth in the person of Jesus of
Nazareth.
No man had ever seen God at any
time.
So how are they going to know what
God behaves like and what God is like
in his life and lifestyle as a person?
So Jesus came into the world and he
said in Hebrews 10, a body hast thou
prepared me to do thy will oh God.
Here's the body, you do what you like.
And the father says thank you at last
I have someone in whom I am well
pleased.
Now maybe you'll understand what he was meaning
when God cried at the baptism of Christ.
This is my beloved son in whom, not
with whom, but in whom I am well
pleased.
At last I've got a body on the
earth through whom I can behave.
So everything he said wasn't him saying it,
it was the father expressing it through Jesus.
That's why he could constantly and confidently say
to people the words that I speak are
not mine.
It's the father speaking through me.
When you see me open the eyes of
the blind, it's not me opening the eyes
of the blind for God, it's God the
father happening to use my body as a
means of opening the eyes of the blind.
He's doing the works through me.
I can do nothing of myself.
I've given him my body that God can
live in me and through me.
And Philip said to him show us the
father and we'll be satisfied.
He says how long have you seen me
and you haven't seen the father.
Don't you know that whoever sees me behaving
sees the father behaving because all I am
is a suit of clothes for God to
wear.
God the father in me is looking at
people through my eyes, listening to people through
my ears, speaking to people through my lips,
going to people with my hands to help
them, going to people with my feet to
be near them, giving them the human compassion,
touch, caring, love, everything they ever need.
Now that was Jesus confined to one body,
God confined to one body on the earth,
but he says look we'll never get this
job done if I've got to be just
God in one body in the earth.
Imagine having bodies all over the earth in
whom the same system can be reproduced.
The behavior of the Lord manifests in the
bodies of believers.
So that just as God clothed himself with
the Lord Jesus, the Lord Jesus wants to
clothe himself with you.
But what he doesn't need is for you
to behave for him, but to give him
your body that he might behave through you
by faith.
And it produces a behavior that everybody that
notices it says, that has to be God
in that person, couldn't be them.
Humans don't live like that.
You can't take the battering and the suffering,
the kicking that that human being's getting down
at the church and come through it just
on a human level.
That would have broken me.
This person, I don't know quite what it
is, but there's something that person had and
what they're observing is the behavior of God
through a human body.
Maintaining them, giving them as their days, so
is their strength, so that they will fulfill
his will.
He says present your body a living sacrifice,
holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable
service for the only thing you can do.
It's all he's ever asked you to do
because of him and through him and to
him is everything, so he doesn't need your
help, he just needs your body.
And just as I wear a suit, the
suit has life, but it's totally dependent upon
me.
If I take the jacket off and I
just simply say, all right jacket, live, come
on live, wiggle your arm about.
And even though beforehand it might have boasted,
I've driven a car, down the motorway you
know.
Have you really?
Yeah.
Been all up and down England I have.
Really?
Yeah.
I've even been overseas, didn't you know that?
Flown all over the world I have.
Have you really?
Yeah.
Well demonstrate some of this miraculous ability you've
got.
You find the jacket just sits there doing
nothing.
You get a jacket on, just move your
arm.
Oh just a minute, hey here, here.
I want you to watch this example.
Move your arm.
Now you see how that man did that?
Did you see that arm going up and
down?
That was a sleeve, see just like this.
Got it?
Now you do the same.
Now come on, I'm showing you an example.
Try hard.
The only thing that'll happen is the jacket
will get frustrated.
It's no use showing them an example.
You can't run around showing jackets examples of
other jackets that are living, moving, have substance,
have body in them.
Because of themselves they can do nothing.
The only reason his jacket arm is moving
is because he is blending his life, body,
substance and arm to the empty sleeve.
Now if I put my Clint Eastwood type
of physique into this jacket here, you'll find
that the jacket now takes on that body,
that substance and it can now move and
have movement and life.
But it's only allowing me to fill it
with my life.
And if somehow or other we could see
ourselves as empty suits that Christ wants to
behave through, it would make such a tremendous
difference.
He says, and be not conformed to this
world, as another translation puts it, and don't
let this world squeeze you into its own
mold.
You see, it's useless for me to give
this jacket to some other person because they'll
discover that we're not the same shape.
It's made to fit me.
And it wouldn't really be at home in
another person.
It's custom built for me.
And it's no use me running around wearing
everybody else's suit or them wearing my suit
and thinking that that will make them a
good Christian.
No, that doesn't work.
Be not conformed to this world.
Don't let this world squeeze you into its
suit, its own mold.
You are a unique person with God in
you, but be transformed by the renewing of
your mind, by the renewing of your mind.
Constantly teach yourself this new principle.
It's not me going out to try to
be good for God.
It is allowing God to be good in
and through me.
It's not me trying to go out and
love the neighbors to say, God, am I
becoming loving?
But it's letting God love the neighbors through
me.
Because if you go out to love neighbors,
you usually pick the neighbors you want to
love.
But if God loves neighbors through you, he
picks the ones you've hated.
That usually makes a difference.
Because even then you're just as surprised as
they are that you achieved it.
But you'll know it's not me achieving it,
it's God achieving it in and through me.
And that makes such a tremendous difference.
That you may approve what is that good
and acceptable and perfect will of God.
Everybody's always looking for the will of God.
Well, there it is.
Hand over your body and say, now, Lord,
would you mind having a good time behaving
through me and flixing?
Just imagine the effect you could have on
your family, your community, if Jesus Christ was
allowed the right of access to your body
since he's in you to control it and
behave himself through you.
And you see, that is actually how you
praise God.
Now, most people presume that praising God is
standing in a meeting saying, hallelujah.
They think that's praising God.
They say that to stand up and say,
oh, bless your name.
Hallelujah.
Praise the Lord.
Glory be to the Lord.
That's praise.
Yes, it may be verbal praise, but there's
an actual behavioral praise that actually convinces the
world you possess God.
In Peter's first epistle in the second chapter,
he puts it this way.
Having shown you in the first chapter that
you possess Christ, laying aside all malice, he
goes on to the inside of a life
and all guile and hypocrisies, pretense, envies in
all evil speakings as newborn babes desire the
sincere milk of the word that you may
grow thereby if you have tasted that the
Lord is gracious to whom coming as unto
a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but
chosen of God and precious.
You also as lively stones, you're living stones,
not bricks, but stones are built up a
spiritual household, a holy priesthood to offer up
spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.
And Paul says the sacrifice is your body
and acceptable thing.
Verse nine, but you're a chosen generation, a
royal priesthood, a holy nation, a special people
to what end that you should show forth
or demonstrate the praises of him who called
you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
Now, please note that the ultimate outcome of
being saved, having Christ in your heart by
the Holy Spirit, being made a special person,
a royal person, a holy person is in
order, not that you might sit in your
church and say, I'm spiritual, how about you?
But that you might be used as a
means of showing forth or being a means
of communicating or demonstrating the praises of him
who called you out of darkness to his
light.
Now, how do you show forth praises in
a practical Christian life and lifestyle day to
day in your daily living?
Well, he tells us in verse 11, dearly
beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims
abstain from freshly lusts that war against your
soul, against your mind, will and emotion.
Do you know one of the things that
will make it very evident that you have
a Christian lifestyle that stems from Christ giving
out his life in you to show forth
the praises of him that called you out
of darkness to light, and that is that
you will have the capacity without struggle to
abstain from the things of the earth that
war against your own mind, will and emotion.
It's very practical.
You don't blow up the bookshop because the
sell a rotten book.
You go in there and you say, Lord,
how about you choosing the reading?
See that hand, see these eyes, you're in
me.
Would you mind being my life and lifestyle
with regard to my reading material?
And you know perfectly well where the magazines
are that you used to look at.
You know, in every shop that you can
go in and look at the stamp magazine,
knowing they're just up there, but you're making
sure nobody's around before you have a wee
look up, you know, and you know they're
there.
But this time it's no struggle because you
have a Lord that you've heard about the
last two weeks and you allow him to
be master of your choice and say, would
you mind using my hand to choose a
book?
And I've never known the Lord yet to
choose a rotten book.
His hand always goes out and picks up
Donald Duck, Tom and Jerry, some wholesome story.
It never goes straight to the junk, straight
to the dirt because Christ never reads dirty
books, only clean stuff.
You don't shut the shops.
You just simply allow his life to control
you and he always chooses a good book.
When you go to a movie or turn
on your television, there's no problem there.
You don't have to start praying, blow up
the studio, kill the actors with bubonic plague,
oh let the curse of the black plague
fall on them for that rotten program.
No, you just simply say, Lord, would you
take care through my body of this issue?
And he says, yes, there's a switch down
there that says off and he uses your
hand.
You see, everybody wants the big miracle to
blow up the studio.
He says, no, I just want the right
to use the same fingers just to switch
it off or change the channel too, to
turn to another program and if none of
them are good, switch it off, go read
a book.
There's other things you can always do.
You could always even let me use your
body to go and see a lonely person
instead of polluting your mind with that stuff.
Abstain.
You have the power to.
Christians can actually say no.
They can actually say, I discovered after 50
years that I could say no to sugar.
Do you know it took me 50 years
to do it?
But it's just this last year while I
was in Norway, up in the mountains, mountaineering
and speaking to a group of students in
the mountains that the first day I was
there, I said, what's this?
They said, coffee.
I said, where's the sugar?
They said, what's that?
And I thought, oh, oh, I'll never survive
till tea time.
But do you know, I came down out
the mountains a week later, a lot fitter.
And do you know, I got home and
I just never touched it again.
And I sit in my office and I
say, isn't it remarkable that after 50, you
can actually still say no sugar, thank you.
Something you haven't done for 50 years.
And I praise God for the capacity and
the ability still to change my mind at
this age, instead of wallowing in the good
old pity party that says, oh, well, I'm
too set in my ways.
At my stage in life, you couldn't alter,
you couldn't change now.
Oh yes, you can.
All the way to heaven you can.
So not only do you show forth the
praises of him that called you out of
darkness to marvelous light and demonstrate his power
in life and lifestyle in the community by
abstaining from all the rot that destroys you
physically, mentally, emotionally.
But you'll notice here in verse 12, it
says having your behavior honest amongst the pagans.
Now that's a great place to show forth
the praises of Christ amongst pagans.
Imagine being honest among the pagans.
I mean, it'd be great if Christians could
be honest amongst Christians for a start.
I mean, that's always a good place to
start is being honest amongst Christians.
But I find there's so much dishonesty amongst
Christians that it's no surprise to me that
we can't start amongst the pagans to be
honest.
But I'll tell you something, honesty amongst pagans
is really appreciated.
And they'll even test you as a Christian
to see if you are honest.
And if they find out that your test
that they gave you to find out if
you were honest backfired and you proved you
were dishonest, they'll never listen to your preaching,
your testimony or read your tracts.
And I've had it tested.
I've had people actually put me to the
test to see.
I can remember on one occasion being given
a job to do and I did it
rather badly as a projectionist and me taking
care of a film.
And the one thing you never do is
misrepair a film so that it breaks in
the middle of the show.
That is the unpardonable sin of cinema projection
is that the movie should break the illusion
in the middle by a white screen in
an oops, pardon, wait till we rethread it.
The public hate that, especially the pain for
it.
And I had prepared that film and there
was a weak joint at one of the
parts of the film and in the afternoon
while I was showing it, it broke.
I quickly rethreaded and got it going.
And as soon as the show was finished,
I remember clearing out and clearing off down
the street because I knew that in the
in-between performance, the chief projectionist would arrive.
And I wanted to be able to walk
in and pretend that I hadn't even noticed.
And I marched in that night and came
up to the projection booth and they said,
did you hear there was a break this
afternoon?
Now I could easily have said, well, I
wasn't here chief, it must have been one
of the other guys and just lied my
way out of it.
And I said to him, yes, I did.
I made the break.
I forgot to examine that joint the last
time I rewound it.
And it was my carelessness.
To my surprise, instead of firing me, he
said that's okay.
And later he told me he'd already been
speaking to the doorman who had already told
him who was on duty.
And he already knew I had been in
and he deliberately asked me to see if
I would lie my way out of the
mistake to save my neck or whether I'd
be honest.
And when I decided to be honest, he
ended up saying, you keep your job.
It's still yours.
And thanks for being honest.
And I'll tell you something, non-Christians appreciate
honesty.
They appreciate it.
I've even had honesty tested by Christians, an
accidental amount turning up in your wage packet.
And the easiest thing would have to conclude
that, Hey, I must have got a rise,
but I didn't.
I went straight through to the treasurer and
said, do you make a mistake in my
wages this week?
Why?
There's extra money in there.
Was there a rise?
No, there wasn't.
Sorry.
It was a mistake and took it out.
That happened two weeks running, two weeks running.
I took it back.
And then the third week I discovered I
was being entrusted with the accounts.
I was being tested to see if I
would be an honest Christian.
Because it's one thing to stand in a
meeting and sing praises and play a guitar
and have a great time.
But are you going to be honest?
And you see, when Jesus Christ is in
control of a life, you don't have to
listen to the gift of tongues.
You don't have to listen to people running
around yelling and shouting.
Just examine their honesty.
And if you find there is an appreciation
of the pagans and the community of a
Christian, because of the Christian's honesty and reputation
for being honest, that is showing forth the
praises of him who called you out of
darkness to light.
Because there's so few people that are honest,
that when they meet an honest person, they
really appreciate it.
That whereas they speak evil against you as
if evildoers, they might criticize you.
They won't want to lose face in front
of you, but they may buy your good
works which they shall behold.
Oh, but father, I was living a good
life in front of the neighbor, but they
never noticed.
No, they're not going to tell you.
You don't think for a minute any non
-Christian that you're showing forth the praises of
Jesus to by your honest and good behavior
in life is going to turn around and
tell you that you're communicating, you're getting through.
No, they won't.
But they'll go home at night and cry
themselves to sleep because your life and lifestyle
has spoken to them of a different quality
of living.
And they'll see it.
They're not going to let you win.
They'll even do their best to pull you
down.
Even as a very young Christian, sitting in
my room in the air force, reading my
Bible for the first time, and the door
would open, and then would walk a bunch
of wags, and they'd sit down, and they'd
put the whiskey bottle in front of me.
Now, if it'd been any whiskey, it wouldn't
have mattered, but it was vat 69.
Oh, it was like a door to a
treasure room.
The corksniff would have been enough, and they
would open it, and a clean glass, and
they'd let me hear it going in.
Oh, you know, you could just, oh, you
could almost taste it shutting your eyes.
And they'd sit it in front of me
and shove it across to me, fold their
arms and look at me, and say, go
on, have it on us.
We are paying, and that's music to a
Scotsman.
You know, and they would do it night
after night, week after week, when I first
got converted, to try to get me to
take a drink again.
And I just used to always say, excuse
me while I check it up with my
Lord.
Lord, shall I have this or shall I
not?
And every time I opened my eyes after
a prayer like that, they'd gone.
So'd the corks, so'd the glass, so'd the
bottle.
But you know, they never gave up.
They tried everything every day to see if
they could trap you.
But the amazing thing is, the minute they
were in trouble, did you know they never
went to see the chaplain?
They came to see the Christian.
They'd knock on your door and say, I'm
having problems, my granny's not well, do you
think you could say a wee prayer for
me?
And I'd say, why me?
Why come to the Christians to do that?
Well, I don't know about you, but no
matter what we do to you, even if
it's rotten, you never give in.
You still stick to your faith.
We've never broken you.
And they appreciate that.
And they sense that you've got something there
that they don't have.
They see it in your behavior, and whenever
trouble hits their door, they come for the
Christian, even if it's just to get you
to listen, because that's the day they're getting
a visit of God.
Did you ever realize that that's their day
of visitation, God is visiting them?
If every time you people realized that when
you do a house-to-house visitation for
the church, and somebody in the community opens
the door, and you say you represent St.
John's, you know, come in and speak to
you for a minute or two, and they
say yes, you know, in a minute you
cross that threshold, God is visiting that home.
He just happens to be using your suit
and your body, happens to be using your
dress, your face, your kindness.
And they are aware of the fact this
person's different.
They're being visited by God.
And you'll notice in verse 13, another way
of demonstrating a good Christian life and lifestyle,
and that you're under the control of the
Lord, the Holy Ghost, is you'll submit to
every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake,
whether it's to the King of Supreme, or
to governors, or unto them that are sent
by him for the punishment of evildoers, and
for the praise of them that do well.
You'll actually obey local law.
How are you getting on with the local
law?
Do people realize, well that's a Christian down
at St. John's.
Why?
They always obey the local law.
They don't circumvent their taxes.
They don't cheat the government.
They're always at the right place at the
right time to vote.
They're taking an active part in community affairs.
And whatever the law is, they submit to
it.
Now I usually find Christians grouting about the
laws these governments pass.
The funny thing is I never find the
Christians galloping down to offer to go into
politics to sit in the government and bring
in other kind of laws.
And personally, if you won't go down there
and become a member of parliament, quit grouting.
If you don't like the laws they're passing,
go become a parliamentarian and get in there
and bring in your vote, bring in your
voice, bring in your Christian opinion.
They do start the government with prayers every
morning.
It would be nice if a Christian did
it, instead of it being tradition.
Oh yes, submit.
Giving in, I once took a whole bunch
of kids to Germany.
I couldn't believe it in the way back.
They'd listen to me preaching for 14 days
on Christian life and lifestyle.
And I'm standing on the deck of the
boat, looking at the up and coming White
Cliffs of Dover, and suddenly became conscious of
some of them talking along the rail as
the ship neared the coast.
And I couldn't believe the conversation.
Well, I've stuffed it down the stocking.
Have you really?
Yeah, I don't think he'll ever look there.
And you know, I was listening to Christians
discussing and planning with each other how to
get things through the customs without paying duty.
And I looked at them and I thought,
yeah, and that was the group that sang
the loudest.
It's always the same.
Always the same.
And you know, people would know that and
see that.
For so is the will of God, that
with well doing, you may shut up the
ignorance of foolish men.
Do you know how to shut up the
critics of Christianity and flixing?
By doing good.
Do you know there is no answer for
good behavior?
There's no criticism for good behavior.
Nobody yet has ever thought of bringing in
a law to stop these people that are
being good down our street.
Everybody, even if they never say thank you,
appreciates a Christian life and lifestyle in a
street that's always good.
As free, but not using your liberty for
a cloak of maliciousness.
Yes, at liberty in Christ to do what?
To serve.
At liberty to serve.
Even Paul agreed with that in Galatians.
Use not your liberty as a cloak of
maliciousness.
Use it to serve one another.
You're actually free in Christ to let him
as Lord take a control of your body
so that your daily Christian life and lifestyle
is occupied with other people serving other people.
Yeah, but what am I going to get
out of it?
Nothing.
Oh, I was in this Christian bit for
something.
I thought I was going to get something.
What do you get?
You don't get anything you give.
It's a great obsession.
Giving.
Honor all men.
You mean not just the pastor?
Not all of them?
Even that neighbor?
Have you seen the neighbor I've got?
Boy, if he puts that stereo on just
once more tonight and the floorboards move and
my bed goes across the floor again, I'm
going to be knicked out.
I'll honor him alright.
I'll crown him.
Yes.
Isn't it amazing?
Honor all men.
Love the brotherhood.
Yes.
Honor the king.
Fear God.
Servants.
And here's a tough one.
Be subject to your masters with all due
respect.
Honor your bosses.
Not only the good and gentle, but the
awkward beggars.
That's a tough one.
Do you know how to manifest the praises
of him that calls you out of darkness
to his marvelous light?
Honor an awkward boss.
That is really putting it on the line.
You see, this is where you've got to
come to the conclusion, Lord, you're going to
have to do that for me.
I could gladly wring his neck.
It'll have to be off him and through
him and to him are all things because
I couldn't.
And he says, well, I could.
I could.
There was one last that wanted more than
anything in one work to go to the
last night of a Billy Graham crusade and
she had an awkward boss and the girls
in the office knew that it was a
night off and she was planning to bring
in her clothes, tidy up and have a
wee nibble to eat in the kitchen and
in the office and then hightail to get
to the last meeting and suddenly at the
last minute that afternoon, he opened his office
door and said, you come in here and
bring your pad and pencil.
And you know, she got up and looked
at the clock and went in and he
sat there and he dictated letters that weren't
even important.
They could have waited a month and he
just kept at it and at it and
at it.
Never even looked at her and she kept
taking it down and he looked at the
clock and he made sure he dictated till
it was impossible for her to get to
the rally.
And then he stopped and said, that'll be
all.
And she went out, she went to the
washroom and she had a good cry.
Thoroughly disappointed.
And she went back to her desk and
started typing.
A minute or two later, his office door
opened and he said, could you come back
in?
And she went in.
He says, sit down.
She sat down.
He says, you wanted to go and hear
Billy Graham tonight, didn't you?
She says, yes, I would have liked to
have done that.
He says, why didn't you complain when I
called you in to do letters?
Especially when you saw that what I was
doing was unimportant.
She says, you are my boss and it's
my duty as a Christian to obey my
boss.
He says, even if you're awkward like me?
She says, even if you're awkward like you.
He says, well, do you know what I
want you to do tonight?
She says, what's that?
He says, would you mind telling me about
your savior?
And she looked down and said, pardon?
He says, I've been watching you for months.
I've been deliberately being awkward to you because
I wanted to see if it was real.
I wanted to see what you're made of.
And he says, you know something?
You're the most real person I've ever come
across.
And I think if anybody's ever earned the
right to preach to me, you have.
Now you have my undivided attention.
Go ahead.
And she talked to her boss that night
about Jesus Christ and how to come to
know him as his personal savior.
I'd love to make it romantic and say,
and he fell to his knees and became
a Christian, but I don't even know the
outcome.
That's not the issue.
Here was a simple Christian girl that could
have had nothing but absolute hatred and bitterness
for that man.
But she was yielded to a Lord, a
living sacrifice to show forth the praises of
him in her daily lifestyle, to the extent
that she would be respectful and obedient, even
to an awkward boss.
And notice what it says in verse 19,
for this is thankworthy, thankworthy.
Do you want to do something that's really
thankworthy?
For this is thankworthy of a man for
conscience toward God, endure grief, suffering wrongfully.
For what glory is it if when you're
punished for the mistakes you make, you take
that patiently?
Well, anybody would.
You'd say I deserve it.
But if when you do good and you
suffer for that and take it patiently, did
you know that this is acceptable to God?
For even here unto where ye called, because
Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an
example that you should follow in his steps.
Who did no sin, neither was guile found
in his mouth, who when he was reviled,
reviled not again.
When he suffered, he threatened not, but committed
himself to him that judges righteously, who his
own self bear our sins and his own
body on the tree that we being dead
to sin should live unto the righteousness by
whose stripes we are healed.
And finishing where we began tonight in Romans
12, Paul confirms the same closing thought of
a Christian life and lifestyle.
There is a behaviorism on the earth that
shuts the mouths of ignorant people, is a
visitation of God to them when you meet
them and convinces them God is in you
living his life through you.
In verse 16 of Romans 12, be of
the same mind one toward another, mind not
the high things, but condescend to men of
low estate and don't be wise in your
own conceits.
Recompense to no man evil for evil.
Provide things honest in the sight of all
men.
Two entirely different apostles, but agreeing on the
outcome of Christian life and lifestyle and behaviorism
in the world.
And if it be possible as much as
life in you, live peaceably with all men.
Oh dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather
give place to wrath.
For it's written, vengeance is mine.
I'll repay, said the Lord.
There's not one person going to smack you
in your teeth, but I'll note it.
And what they've sowed, they'll reap.
Therefore, if your enemy hunger, feed him.
If he thirst, give him drink.
For in so doing there shall heap coals
of fire on his head.
Don't be overcome of evil, but overcome evil
with good.
You know, I used to think, and with
this I'll close, I used to think Christian
living was doing right from wrong.
And it was a way back in 1958
in America that I learned that text in
its full import about behavior.
I happened to be staying in a home
where they invited me every evening to speak
after dinner to the entire household of students
and people who lived there.
And I was speaking the very first night
about Jesus Christ's life being my life.
And that I in myself don't have patience,
but he's my patience.
I don't have goodness, but he's my goodness.
I don't have self-control, but he is
my self-control.
And I laid my life on the line.
I said it.
And when I finished, the girl who'd been
serving the meals suddenly came forward and everybody
sort of looked at her.
She was earning her money to go through
college by being a sort of maid in
this house where people lived and lodged.
And she said to me, excuse me, but
can I ask you a question?
I looked up at her and I said,
certainly.
She said, do you really mean that?
That Jesus Christ is your Christian life and
lifestyle and controller of your behavior and he's
your patience and your durability and your long
-suffering and your goodness and self-control?
And I said, yes.
She said, that must be wonderful.
And she picked up a jug of milk
and she just poured it all over me.
Now, in those days I was living on
a shoestring.
I was living on scents, praying every scent
in and unable to work.
I was on a student visa and without
soliciting, not even sending out prayer letters in
my room, kneeling down, I had to look
to the Lord for provision and I didn't
have a lot of clothes.
And she just poured this milk all over
my hair and all down my clothes.
Well, I gritted my teeth and did the
right evangelical thing and not the wrong evangelical
thing.
And I thought, I'll show her.
So I smiled and excused myself from the
table, went upstairs and shut my bedroom door.
And then I thrashed around in there with
myself, got the clothes off and said the
usual evangelical phraseology.
Washed and got myself dried and I had
to go and get the clothes clean.
And I borrowed other clothes from a guy
that came up to see how I was
getting on.
And I came back down and sat at
the table and she marched forward and she
says, you did that quite well, didn't you?
And I looked up and I says, it
was the Lord.
She says, oh, well, if you did it
once, you can do it again.
And she poured water on me.
Water.
And that finished it that night.
I left and didn't come back down again.
Do you know that, listen, listen, that was
Monday.
Do you know that Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday,
she did the same every night.
I would come into the dining room and
as quick as the door opened, I was
met with a deluge of water before I'd
even sat at the table.
Now I'll tell you by Saturday, I did
not want to eat.
And I remember kneeling at my bedside in
my room saying, Lord, I've done everything right.
I haven't given into wrath.
I haven't given into punching her, kick it
for her.
God, I've done everything right.
I haven't done wrong.
I haven't been losing my temper.
I've done all I can to display the
Lord and my behavior in front of her.
And you know, he just broke through to
me with those scriptures and made it plain
to me, Billy, you're not safe to do
right from wrong.
You're safe to do what I would do
in this situation.
And you just haven't poured any coals of
fire on their head by being good.
And you know, it even sounded ridiculous, but
I got a bucket and I filled it
with water and I marched into the dining
room and she was standing there with a
jug of water in her hand and everybody
looked at my bucket and they looked at
her water jug and they thought, well, that's
justice.
He's got about Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
in there.
And I marched up to her and she
was sweating.
And I said, Ruth, I want to apologize
to you.
I said, for some unknown reason, that's only
known to yourself, you've seen fit to deluge
me with either milk or water night after
night.
And I've been rude enough to make you
supply your own water to throw at me.
And until you have come to a conclusion
of this experimentation, that's only known to you
while you're doing it, I'm sorry I've made
you supply your own water and I brought
you enough for tonight and for the next
week.
She sat down and cried.
And I said to the others, could you
leave us alone?
And they left the room and I said,
now, what is it?
And she says, well, all my life as
a Christian girl, I have struggled with sin
and I've struggled to live the Christian life.
And every time I've gone to pastors, Sunday
school teachers, I've gone to different big quote
unquote speakers.
They've all told me to try better, try
harder next time, do better next time.
If you had a better prayer life, a
better Bible reading life, a longer quiet time,
it would make such a difference to your
life.
And she says, I went, I listened to
every new program people gave me, went out
and tried it and it never worked.
And last week I heard you talk for
the first time.
It's the first time in my life I
ever heard somebody tell me that you didn't
have to do the living or the trying,
but present your body a sacrifice to Christ
that he might live his goodness, self-control
through you.
And I thought it sounds new.
It's something I've never tried, but this time
I'm going to test it first before I
try it.
And I just happened to be the lame
duck in the middle.
Do you know that that girl is a
missionary in India today and she's never come
home?
She even married an Indian, went to India
and has stayed there as a missionary to
Indians.
And the whole turnaround in their life was
when she had a visitation of God, because
for once in my life, I did the
ridiculous thing.
I avenged not myself, but I rendered good
instead of evil, but it was hard to
do it.
It cost a lot of money cleaning clothes,
but what a result.
She's now a missionary.
Hey, sometimes there's no other way to learn
the lesson, but the hard way, but I
wouldn't have missed it for all the tea
in China.
And it's marvelous to see what God can
do.
And you can actually live a different kind
of behavior in the world that will astound
people and it will bring them to Christ
far faster than a lot of meetings.
Behavior.
Well, I'll stop there.
And before we hand back, any questions on
that tonight that you would like to ask
me?
Well, it's very plain from scripture.
You can have all the knowledge.
Paul said in 1 Corinthians 13, yea, though
I have all knowledge, all prophecy, all utterance,
all the gifts of the spirit and have
not a practical outworking manifestation in love one
for another.
He said, you're just nothing.
It profits nothing.
And there are people who do come to
places of worship and they're always taking in
the theories.
They're taking in the heavenly messages.
They're able to repeat them.
They know them.
They tell you, I've heard all this before.
You're not telling me anything new, brother stack,
and I've got it before.
But the one thing they've never done is
go out and actually do it.
And it's the doing of it all the
way through the Bible.
James agrees.
He that's a hearer, not a doer is
a waste of time, deceives his own heart.
And all of the apostles agree with that.
But it's not enough to have a head
knowledge.
There has to be the transmission into practice.
And when that's done, people see the difference
and it makes a difference.
Any other thing back to you.