We've been in on principally one text for
about four weeks, Act 17.
I believe we're finishing that text tonight and
moving on to another.
Sound okay?
Those of you who have been in faithful
and regular attendance may have recognized that we
have omitted one last statement at the end
of that precious chapter where Paul had just
spoken about resurrection, about the day of judgment
to come.
And it says, some said they will hear
again of this matter, others scorned those references.
Now when they heard of the resurrection of
the dead, some began to sneer, but others
said, we shall hear you again concerning this.
So Paul went out of their midst, but
some men joined him and believed, among whom
was Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named
Daenerys and others with them.
I love the King James there.
But some claimed unto him and believed.
So precious God Jesus, teach us what that
means.
The man as the message, Lord, the precious
and holy apostolic character of that man, one
with the thing that he speaks.
May we come to that oneness ourselves, my
God.
By virtue of the word that you speak,
bless this night, make it holy, we pray.
We just thank you and praise you for
yet another opportunity to sit at your feet
and to hear from the Most High in
Jesus' holy name.
Amen.
Well, there's a reference tonight about now there's
no condemnation.
I just want to append that to say
that that's not to say that there's no
conviction.
So if you get convicted, don't feel strange.
That's a blessing from God.
I'm presently under conviction myself, and very likely
in some way that's going to be reflected
in this speaking tonight.
So we've talked about apostolic reality and apostolic
perception.
We'll be talking further, but tonight the burden
of the Lord is apostolic character.
And I want to direct your attention to
two texts.
I don't know if I'll get through both
of them tonight.
The first is in 1 Thessalonians, first chapter.
We've already quoted from that text in one
of the earlier meetings about how when they
heard the word of God, they received it
not as the word of man, but as
the word of God, which performs a work
in them who believe that.
And Paul in 1 Thessalonians, speaking to a
people recently saved out of paganism, wholly contrary
to the whole tenor and spirit of the
God of Israel and his salvation and his
way.
I think we just need to have holy
ghost imagination to realize how enormous a transaction
the promulgation of the gospel was to pagan
peoples by Jewish messengers like Paul.
First of all, recognizing the enmity between Gentiles
and Jews, thinking of the antithetical character of
Gentile and Jewish life, the way in which
the one had looked upon the other through
the centuries and then to have a representative
come to them out of that Jewish culture
and their view and mindset, one at whom
they would probably be at arm's length and
be apprehensive, and yet for the man to
break through these cultural barriers and this enmity
and this hesitation or fear is a remarkable
statement about the quality of the man and
of his proclamation.
That's why Paul says in verse 5, For
our gospel did not come to you in
word only, but also in power and in
the Holy Spirit, and with full conviction, just
as you know what kind of men we
prove to be among you for your sake.
It's almost a travesty to move beyond that
one scripture tonight.
It deserves an entire night to itself, but
only to say that we need to at
least notice this much, that the gospel came
with full conviction, and it came in the
power and in the Spirit, just as you
know what kind of men we prove to
be among you.
I think King James says, what manner of
men.
So I want to offer tonight the suggestion
that there's a correlation between the proclamation of
the Word of God in power with full
conviction by the Spirit and the quality and
the kind of the character of the mouth
out of that one from which it comes.
There's a conjunction between character and charisma, between
holiness and power, and it's an emphasis that
needs to be restored to our attention, because
in the giddiness of our own charismatic age,
there has been a diminution or a neglect
of attention to the things that pertain to
character and to life.
And I myself am most guilty.
I was embarrassed before the Lord today when
he quickened this theme, and I had to
apologize profusely.
I said, Lord, I should speak this?
The contradictions of my own life?
The terrible deficits and defects of my own
life?
So I'm not speaking to you from some
Olympian height as one who is looking down
from some kind of fully formed God-likeness
and character, but one who is speaking out
of his need more than out of his
condition that has arrived.
And therefore, I know that the Lord is
speaking to me as well as to you.
The fact that it's coming from my mouth
doesn't in any way alter the fact that
I'm as much on the receiving end as
yourselves.
What manner of men we proved to be
among you for your sake.
If you go through the writings of Paul,
there are only two references that will recur
again and again.
For your sake and for the Lord's sake.
He knew no other sake, certainly not for
his sake.
He never took himself into consideration, nor did
he regard anything else, nor men, nor reputation,
two abiding, powerful motivations in the life of
the apostle that God wants writ into the
church itself.
For your sake, for the sake of those
to whom we're sent, and for the Lord's
sake.
That itself is a foundation for character that
could be called apostolic.
You also became imitators of us and of
the Lord.
Again, we're faced with a quandary.
Is this another piece of Paul's arrogance and
presumption to make such statements?
Imitators of us and of the Lord?
How does he dare to link us and
the Lord?
We're in one breath.
Either it's the height of a front tree,
or there's a genius of something spoken in
here that should not escape our attention.
Because we're not talking about self-made men,
or men who take a deep breath and
suck air and bite their lips to affect
their certain kind of Christian conduct and standard.
We're talking about a man who has become
so merged and one with his God that
the character of that God is reflected in
and through the man.
Be imitators of us and of the Lord.
Follow me as I follow Christ.
For Paul, it was not even a hitch
or a hesitation.
It was one and the same thing.
But who of us would dare speak with
the same audacity?
And yet the remarkable thing is, God would
have us, so to speak.
And speak it in truth as the foundational
fact of our lives.
And just as in this and all other
things that God has been speaking in these
nights, he's seeking for an elevation of our
whole perspective of his intention rather than on
that much lesser thing that we have satisfied
ourselves with, which somehow is more in keeping
with the moderate Christian view of Christian respectability
and acceptability, but falls beneath the standard of
God's glory and God's holiness.
I was reminded even tonight before I got
up here of a scripture quoted from reality.
Be holy as your Father in heaven is
holy.
Be perfect as he is perfect.
How we tend to disregard or think, well,
that's a kind of hyperbolic statement.
It's an exaggerated thing.
It's something perhaps to aim at but not
to attain.
If that's what your faith is, you'll not
attain it.
But there's a God that would have us
to attain it.
And I hope I'm not preceding myself to
say that God is waiting for the day
when the church in all its full orbitness
can stand before the world and say to
it, as Jesus said to his own generation,
if you see me, you see the Father.
What we will be saying is, if you
see me, you see the Lord.
I and the Lord am one.
His character is my character.
The imitators of us and of the Lord
is both one and the same thing.
And then Paul celebrates in verse 9 how
they themselves report about what kind of a
reception we had with you and how you
turned to God from idols to serve a
living and a true God and to wait
for a son from heaven whom you raised
from the dead, that is, Jesus, who delivers
us from the wrath to come.
My God, give us hearing ears that this
is not just, what shall I say, posy.
This isn't apostolic flourish.
These are awesome statements that these are not
just men who have accepted Jesus, who have
made a decision.
They have been turned, powerfully wrenched, broken out
of a pagan, self-seeking, freshly sensual, historic,
powerful, time-honored, generational orbit to serve the
living God, to be servants unto the living
God.
This isn't just accepting the Lord or even
salvation, as we have been familiar with the
word, but the profoundest kind of conversion, which
is another testimony to the depth and the
quality of the kind of proclamation that they
heard from Paul in spirit and in power,
in full conviction, just as you know what
manner of men we prove to be among
you.
There's the testimony.
There's the evidence.
They were not just lightly saved.
They were not going to go on just
hanging in by their teeth and their fingernails
in a kind of carnal, no-man's land
of backsliddenness.
They were turned from idols to serve the
living God.
Word to God that that were a statement
of the converts of our own generation, and
to wait for his Son from heaven, well,
waiting itself, and to have this kind of
expectancy of the things that we spoke about
last week, that apocalyptic view, the sense of
the imminence of things that are at hand,
at the door, soon to break in, the
coming of the Lord.
To wait for that is not just the
twiddling of the thumbs.
It's occupying while you wait, but it's a
tension of expectancy that even these early converts
were immediately inducted into, understood and lived by.
That's remarkable.
We need to understand the depth of their
conversion and how they appropriated the whole fullness
of the apostolic view because it was a
word that came to them in power and
the spirit, in full conviction, just as you
know, as we prove to be, what manner
of men we prove to be among you.
And then Paul says in chapter 2 and
verse 3, For our exhortation did not come
from error or impurity or by way of
deceit, but just as we have been approved
by God to be entrusted with the gospel,
so we speak, not as pleasing men, but
God.
I almost have to pause.
Wipe the saliva.
The juices flow when you hear statements like
this.
Not as pleasing men, but God.
Separate unto me.
They keep going back again, echoing back again
the point of our beginning in Acts 13,
the apostolic point of beginning.
Separate unto me.
Not unto men, not unto need even.
Unto me.
And if I didn't say it before, I
want to go on record now.
That if we are going to be attenuated
to need at the end times, if we're
going to be moved by every need, and
I tell you that they're multitudinous, we will
have a kind of ministry that might ameliorate
some human needs, but it will not be
a ministry unto him.
And not to be a ministry unto him
is not to be in the power and
in the spirit and in the full conviction.
Paul's ministry was an enormous blessing to these
ex-pagans from Thessalonica because it was not
as pleasing men, but as pleasing God.
We've got an orbit ourselves to be broken
from and to be radically turned to from
man-pleasingness to God-pleasingness, which itself is
a statement of apostolic character.
Are you there?
Are you a man-pleaser or a God
-pleaser?
You say, you have pleased us in these
days.
That's not because my intention was to please
you.
My intention was to please him, and in
pleasing him, you've been pleased.
The whole tenor of the world is this
syrupy man-pleasing sentiment, and we hear it
in the voices of our pastors, and we
see it everywhere about us.
That's why Paul was approved by God to
be entrusted with the gospel, not something to
be bandied about, not a cheapy little thing
that he employs at his will to facilitate
his ministry, to be entrusted.
The very vocabulary of Paul opens up a
whole perspective that either he's deranged and out
of it and peculiar in his whole perception,
or we are vastly from the normative place
that God intends for the church.
For his exhortation did not come from error
or impurity or the way of deceit, with
regard that that were a statement today of
every ministry.
I wrote at the bottom of my Bible,
how many of us who would be scandalized
to be found in error are not as
much affected or concerned about impurity or deceit.
We want to be doctrinally correct, but are
we as concerned to be free from impurity
or deceit or guile or subtlety or manipulation
or the use of your voice to evoke
certain responses?
Paul's word was pure, both in the word
itself and in the spirit of the speaking.
Nothing was insinuated with it.
There was no self-serving end that was
threaded through that redounded to him.
It was a ministry unto God who entrusted
him with the gospel.
And isn't it a remarkable thing that he
says in verse 8, having thus a fond
affection for you?
My God, how does a Jew come to
a fond affection for ex-pagan Gentiles from
Greece?
And he's not just a wolfen.
This isn't just a little sentimental aside.
This is not a condescension to men.
Paul doesn't know what condescension to men is.
It's a genuine fondness.
And elsewhere here he talks about mothering them
and lavishing love upon them, even giving them
his own life as well as the gospel.
He wasn't just an agent for the dissemination
of the gospel, some kind of impersonal instrument
that God employs to bring the word where
it's needed.
He was a living, palpitating, feeling, loving man
who brooded over the souls to whom he
was brought.
He was not just an antiseptic disseminator.
He was incarnate, a flesh-encased piece of
heaven.
He was the humanity coupled with God, which
was the message itself.
And disarmed these pagans from their enmity and
suspicion of a Jew who would approach them
with a word that was totally alien in
terms of their whole consideration and culture.
To be such a one.
And yet the remarkable emphasis in our own
generation is ministry, ministry, ministry.
What's your ministry, brother?
What's your calling, brother?
What are you doing?
And you shall be witnesses unto me.
Never occurs to us.
We somehow think that was an error somewhere
in transmission and that what it really should
read is, and you shall do witnessing for
me.
You shall be witnesses unto me.
The greatest witness unto Jesus Christ is the
character of a people who are like him.
The doing will come of itself.
What kind of character did Paul display to
a people of whom he says in verse
8 that he imparted not only the gospel
but also our own lives.
Working night and day so as not to
be a burden to any of you, we
proclaim to you the gospel of God.
I want to tell you, it's not that
working night and day we then proclaimed.
Working night and day was the proclamation of
the gospel as well as the gospel itself.
It was the statement of the kingdom.
It was a demonstration of a man who
wanted to be free from all deceit and
all error, all misapprehension, not in any way
having to look to the saints to sustain
him as if something could be said about
his reputation or his character, that he was
in this for a money-making purpose or
to advance his own ends.
How could that ever be conceived?
Working with his hands even to sustain those
who will wish him night and day proclaiming
the gospel.
So please, let's remove the separation, the artificial
distinction between working night and day and proclaiming
the gospel.
Working night and day was a proclamation, was
a statement, was a testimony, was the very
thing fleshed out and set before these people
to fulfill and confirm the words that they
heard.
And that's what's been lacking in our generation.
We've been hearing correct things, technically correct things,
but we have not seen the conjunction between
correct things and the correct life.
And I think it's got everything to do
with the issue of power.
And I'm almost suspicious to see what purports
to be a demonstration of power without the
appropriate and seemingly apostolic character.
In fact, I can put you on alert
that that will be the very deception of
the end times.
Signs and wonders, deceiving signs and wonders, lying
miracles, not that people will not be healed,
not that there will not be authentic power
being displayed, but what will be conspicuously absent
is appalling character, apostolic integrity, apostolic meekness, apostolic
quality of life.
You'll see hot shots, lots of bravado and
slapdash and great celebration of themselves and people
loving it, diamond studded rings and $300 suits,
men of faith and power, but you'll not
see apostolic character.
I'm suspicious, God help me if I'm leaning
too deeply here, to see the lack of
conjunction between character and power, charismatica and power
and character.
You are witnesses, he says in verse 10,
and so is God.
Here again Paul, always living in the consciousness
of a God who sees all things and
before whom everything is transparent.
How devoutly and uprightly and blamelessly we behave
toward you believers.
You know what the beauty of this is?
I don't think that Paul ever imagined when
he had this letter written that that was
one day going to become part of the
holy writ, the scriptures.
This is a piece of artlessness.
This is a man who's just writing out
of his heart.
This is a man reminding the Thessalonians what
happened when he came, what they perceived and
reminding them by that to be imitators of
him and at the same time imitators and
followers of the Lord.
You are witnesses and so is God.
In the mouth of two witnesses it is
established.
I can say that with complete audacity, without
a tremor of vacillation in my voice, with,
gee, is it so or not, with complete
certitude, and you are witnesses and so is
God.
You know how blamelessly and uprightly we behave
toward you believers, imploring each one of you
as a father would his own children so
that you may walk in a manner worthy
of the God who calls you into his
own kingdom and glory.
Here's one of the greatest, most powerful incentives
for apostolic character, for integrity, for meekness, for
purity of life, that you may walk worthy,
in a manner worthy of the God who
calls you into his own kingdom and glory.
This is more than Christian respectability.
This is more than keeping your nose clean.
This is more than avoiding conspicuous sin or
allowing yourself the certain luxury of modest backsliding
from time to time.
It's the incentive of walking in keeping with
the character of God's kingdom and God's glory.
And the fact that this was not just
a mere phrase for Paul, a mere piece
of eloquence, that it was the abiding fact
was demonstrated by the character of his own
walk.
Follow me, imitate me and the Lord.
You like this?
I love it.
I'm so far from this.
I'm embarrassed.
I'm ashamed to be standing here as if
my speaking is the statement that indeed I've
arrived at these very things because look at
the anointing and the authority of which this
man speaks.
But I'll tell you that the greatest deception
for men like myself and you also is
to think that the anointing that attends our
ministry is a statement of the approval of
God upon our life, our conduct and our
character.
It has nothing to do with it.
A.
Allen was anointed by God to the day
of his death.
I don't know that he ever had a
meeting in which people were not powerfully delivered
and saved but he died an alcoholic.
But he was anointed.
They had to carry him up to the
platform and steady him sometimes in order for
him to preach.
And the anointing was always on his preaching
but not on his life.
Well, we're impressed.
There were people delivered and saved but what
might have been the fuller, deeper, more penetrating
internal value of that work if his character
was consonant with his ministry.
I don't want to be satisfied.
I love the anointing of God.
My God, I wouldn't dare come off the
seat to stand if we were not there.
But to have his anointing on your life
as well as on your ministry is supremely
and ultimately the apostolic statement to which God
calls an apostolic church.
Why is God celebrating all this tonight?
Not to celebrate Paul or to give us
wistful reminiscence of what once was in the
early church but to raise for us the
standard to which he would draw us now
that the church at the end of the
age might be as glorious as the church
at the commencement of the age.
That the men who stand as our foundation
the apostles and the prophets, Jesus Christ being
the chief cornerstone do not just serve us
the doctrines of apostolicity but that their foundation
was their life and their character, their model
and their example follow me, imitate me as
the Lord.
That you may walk in a manner worthy
of the God who calls you into his
own kingdom and glory and not into the
Lutheran denomination and not into the charismatic movements
and not into the assemblies of God and
not into so and so's ministry into the
kingdom and the glory of God.
Hallelujah.
You'll never walk worthy.
You'll never walk like this except with that
conscious understanding and motivation.
Well, praise the Lord.
Can I turn you to Acts 20, Paul's
farewell address?
Lord, help me from breaking up and not
crying over this.
Here too, Paul didn't premeditate what his final
remarks would be to men with whom he
labored and to whom he poured out his
life in Ephesus when he called for the
elders of the church bound in the spirit
going to Jerusalem knowing that trials and afflictions
waited him there and that he didn't have
the time to stop but he sent for
them, it says in Acts 20.
He called to them and it says in
the 17th verse and from the latest he
sent to Ephesus and called to him the
elders of the church and when they had
come to them, he said to them, dot,
dot, dot he called to them and when
they had come to him no ifs, no
ands, no buts no question about, well, hey,
Paul, don't you recognize that the Greyhound bus
isn't running and that there's a strike at
the airport or there's a fuel crisis or
we have to go by mule or donkey
or walk that Miletus is not just around
the corner that this is going to be
a sacrifice and an exertion maybe even a
peril or a danger he called for them,
they came he said, boy, this guy must
have really cracked a whip not at all
he was cherished, he was esteemed he was
loved because he set before them not only
the doctrines but the awesome reality of the
living God in his own person he demonstrated
what our God is to the Goyim, to
the Gentiles to the castaways, to those whom
the Jews had despised at whose homes they
could not even enter to eat he called
and when they had come to him, he
said to them now we're going to read
it, unpremeditated, just out of the heart praise
God for a Luke who records this for
us how does it begin?
verse 18 when they had come to him,
he said to them you yourselves know from
the first day that I set foot in
Asia how I was with you the whole
time from the first day, you know from
the first day until the time I left
how I was with you the whole time
you know what manner of man that I
was with you from the first and remain
to be so long as you knew me
one consistent, unchanging thing how do you like
that for consistency?
let's call it apostolic consistency no rising and
falling of moods no up days and down
days good moods, bad moods no being eloquent
at the pulpit and then smiling afterwards you
know what manner of man I proved to
be with you from the first day to
the last I was one consistent thing through
and through serving the Lord, not men serving
the Lord with all humility I remember picking
up a brother's writing about the tabernacle of
David and he had one phrase that leaped
right off the page and struck my heart
it will never cease resounding he said, apostolic
meekness with all humility and yet this is
a man commanding men, giving orders beseeching, imploring,
calling them to go do this, do that
taking up sums of money for the aid
of the church in Jerusalem warning, rebuking exhorting,
threatening, must I come to you if my
apostles are not, must I come in my
own bodily presence, serving the Lord with all
humility somehow there is a conjunction between humility
and authority that was true of Moses it
was true of Jesus, it needs to be
true of us learn of me, take my
yoke upon you for I am gentle and
lowly I am meek and lowly of spirit
learn of me, Paul evidently did and you
know what God has been breaking in my
heart in these days, you haven't done this
art you leaped over the gospel foundations the
teachings of Christ, the doctrines of Christ the
example of Christ, the sermon on the mount
the being holy, the being perfect, you leaped
over and you've graduated yourself into the apostolic
things you thought that the gospel was kid
stuff preliminary, and you wanted to swim in
the headier things of the Pauline epistles and
the apostolic writings, but where does one learn
of him, and how does one obtain what
is gentle and lowly and meek except by
that yoke and except by that union and
except by that relationship God has just sent
two brothers to me one from New Zealand
and one from Africa by way of Switzerland
to say the same thing, immerse yourself in
Jesus meditate upon his word upon his way,
upon his example learn of him that you
might be like him and as these men
were ministering to me something leaped into my
own understanding I who have spoken four powerful
tapes on the subject of false apostolicity and
have warned the church everywhere to beware of
false apostles, for if we lose the authenticity
of that word, we lose everything and in
danger of becoming one myself what is the
danger?
leaping over the foundation that is in Jesus,
in his life in his character, in his
example in his doctrines, and going directly in
to the apostolic swim learning to be conversant
with the heady phrases and missing the foundation
that can only be laid in Christ, for
on no other foundation can any man build
but Christ Jesus and I'm wondering if this
is just a defect with me, or is
this shared in the large church and
now he says in verse 22 bound in
spirit and mind my way to Jerusalem not
knowing what will happen to me there except
that the Holy Spirit solemnly testifies to me
in every city saying that bonds and afflictions
await me but I do not consider my
life of any account as dear to myself
in order that I might finish my course
in the ministry which I receive from the
Lord Jesus to testify solemnly of the gospel
of the grace of God I love these
references of Paul the gospel of the grace
of God my gospel he says there is
such a sense of endearment there is such
a sense of the gospel as being something
profoundly personal to Paul it's not just a
collection of doctrines that are correct that needs
to be promulgated to the unsaved it's something
dear, it's something intimate it's something that's writ
in his own life at the very foundations
of his own being it's the gospel of
the grace of God who took a murderer
and a persecutor and made him the chief
apostle to the church who took a proud
rabbinical pharisaical character and made him the apostle
to the goyim, to the gentiles he knows
the gospel of the grace of God really
knows it that's why he can say my
gospel it's not a formula, it's an intimate
revelation of the genius of God as was
revealed in Christ Jesus taken into the life
of a man that becomes his foundation so
he's bound in the spirit he doesn't know
what's going to happen to me he doesn't
have to know because what happens to him
is completely incidental it's a secondary matter he's
been warned that trials and tribulations await him
there but I do not consider my life
of any account as dear to myself for
whom else then is it dear?
can we say that tonight?
don't answer me, but let's contemplate this rhetorical
question r-h-e-t-o-r-i
-c-a-l what does that mean, rhetorical?
it means it's a question raised not to
be instantly answered, but to be considered can
we say that I do not consider my
life as dear unto myself what then have
we been pampering and powdering and treating with
such elaborate concern and attention why then are
we so fearful for our own insecurity or
future he doesn't know what's going to happen
to him there he doesn't have to know
he goes not knowing, just like Abraham when
he was called went forth not knowing, doesn't
have to know what's the difference, whether it's
this manner or that what detail of that,
whether you're shot or whether you're going to
be drowned or burned at the stake or
be set free or go on or be
cut short everything is in the hands of
him with whom he has to do the
gospel of the grace of Jesus Christ you
could do nothing to me except it were
given you from above Jesus said and Paul
believed and such a man can walk through
the world freely and even go bound in
the spirit to Jerusalem not knowing and it's
all the same because he does not hold
his life as dear unto himself he's one
who's been brought back from the dead no
longer to live unto himself but for God,
a servant no wonder that such a man
can convert Thessalonians from their idols to serve
the living God and not count their lives
as dear unto themselves all the freedom of
not counting your life as dear to yourself
but as dear unto him who gave it
don't give me this women's lip stuff and
this abortion stuff and it's our body and
we'll do with our pregnancies what we will
whoever said it's your body it's God's who
gave it who drew you from your mother's
womb for his purposes and we should not
hold our life as dear unto ourselves but
unto him who gave it for his eternal
and glorious purposes my God if there's any
one thing calculated to break the power of
our mundane and ordinary Christian I almost said
Lutheran living it's that to know that we
were called out of our mother's wombs that
we've got the wart in this place and
that color hair and this makeup and disposition
and frame because of the design of God
for an expressed explicit purpose pertaining to his
kingdom and his glory that we shouldn't hold
this life as dear unto ourselves what a
freedom he who seeks his life will lose
it but he who loses it for my
sake will find it and this like so
many other of the teachings or the doctrines
of Christ we've heard, we've read and we've
passed over and we're graduating to apostolic things
and we need to go back to the
milk of that word and the foundation that
is to be found in Christ and do
it what a freedom which is reflected further
in verse 27 for I did not shrink
from declaring to you the whole purpose of
God I don't care whether you liked it
or you didn't like it there are the
good parts you liked the faith, the prosperity,
the health, you liked that part but the
cross, the suffering the suffering that remains you
didn't like but it didn't in any way
affect him in proclaiming the whole counsel of
God you got the good parts and the
not so good you ate the whole lamb
roasted with fire you didn't just pick at
the dainties he wasn't turned away because your
face changed and your expression changed and you
began to shrink back when he gave you
some hard things about the necessity of suffering
he gave the whole counsel of God I
did not shrink that's the freedom of a
man who does not hold his life as
dear to himself and of course if his
life is not dear to himself what shall
we say of his reputation once you've come
to that fundamental ground of what shall you
be afraid of what shall you be compromised
imagine a whole church like this my God
the world would have to stand up and
take notice that to be free in Christ
is free indeed so
he commends them to the word of his
grace which is able to build you up
saying in verse 33 I've coveted no one's
silver or gold or clothes you yourselves know
that these hands minister to my own needs
and the men who are with me in
everything I showed you that by working hard
in this manner you must help the weak
and remember the words of the Lord Jesus
here we go again he himself said it
is more blessed to give than to receive
he is not just a man who parrots
gospel statements but that he has so thoroughly
internalized them and taken them into himself that
it's reflected in his conduct, his character and
his life it's a standard to which God
calls us you yourself know in everything I
showed you I demonstrated I didn't just verbally
make the statement based on the words of
Jesus I worked with my hands to help
the weak and when he had said these
things he knelt down and prayed with them
all and they began to weep aloud and
embraced Paul and repeatedly kissed him everything must
have broken loose in heaven the angels must
have been freaking out falling all over themselves
to see the sight of this this Jew
being kissed by these Gentiles falling all over
him and weeping him and loving him and
bathing him in their tears because they knew
and grieved especially over the word which he
had spoken that they should see his face
no more there's nothing impersonal about this he's
not just some winged disseminator he's not the
guy who bruises into the Holiday Inn and
speaks that night at your big meeting and
then runs off with the offering there's something
profoundly personal there's a love, his life was
given he was a demonstration as well as
a proclamation of the God who had come
to them in an incarnate way in this
man grieving that they should see his face
no more I forgot what time I started
so I don't know how long I should
go on when you start yawning I'll stop
just looking at notes now to be reminded
of the one true thing that Paul was
day in and day out in season and
out consistently one thing you know what manner
of man I was among you and God
knows there's
one explanation only for the phenomenon of Paul
it's the continuation of the crucified and resurrected
Christ if we attribute the glory of Paul
was to Paul we miss the whole thing
we're guilty again of celebrating a man rather
than the God that that man reflected and
we love to do that we love to
think that our pastors are somehow super spiritual,
we can relax in our carnality they somehow
have a mystique, a pastoral mystique and that's
why of course they're required to maintain a
certain distance lest you see the flaws and
the cracks and the same kinds of struggles
through which you're passing but if we can
keep them in that kind of celebrated mystique
of a super spirituality which we can't hope
to attain because we're only the laity we
perpetuate a filthy and vile system that has
kept us from the apostolic reality in our
own time Paul is the foundation of a
church but the church must be like him
or it is not apostolic and what's the
key?
it's the continuation of the crucified and resurrected
Christ it's death that worketh in me, Paul
says for me to live as Christ, in
him I move and live and I have
my being in him, in him, in him
is the most frequent phrase of Paul if
we attribute to Paul's genius his distinction or
to Paul's Jewishness or to his brilliance or
to his Jewish upbringing or to his education,
to his intellect anything that has redounded to
the church we have missed it those are
the very things he comes and has done
that he might win Christ that he might
know him and make him known why have
we not stumbled upon this stupefying requirement to
live the crucified and the resurrected life because
we have lived beneath the apostolic level because
there's nothing in the character of our modern
Lutheran, charismatic, Pentecostal, evangelical and fundamental Christianity
that requires of us such a quality of
conduct and life that would make us aware
that we must be in him, or we
of all men are most to be pitied
because our present Christian life is so timid,
so unrequiring so established in a cycle of
services and dollar in the collection plate responses
that you don't need the power of the
resurrection life to perform it you could be
a nice guy and relatively ethical and moral
and get by and if I were to
hoist the national motto of the United States
it's not in God we trust, it's get
by I had seven years as a high
school teacher and I know every year, every
semester how many students would come up to
my desk, Mr. Katz and say, what's the
minimum amount we need to do in order
to get by they're only reflecting their parents
who have lived in a get by Christianity
all their life long we're going to need
the power that Paul knew the fullness of
that life if we're going to move into
this apostolic realm and to the degree that
we will, we will find elicited and provoked
against us reaction rebuke, persecution confrontation all the
more reason for moving in the power of
that life is our gospel going forth in
the power of the spirit and in full
conviction I'll leave that with you as another
rhetorical question but just consider as I've mentioned
before what the character is of modern gospel
proclamation are you saved, will you accept Jesus
think of the benefits that will accrue to
you health, prosperity this is wrong, that's wrong,
accept Jesus it will all be turned right
is somehow another kind of gospel another kind
of motivation, another kind of appeal and that
kind of appeal so ensconced in the spirit
of the world in the egocentric interests of
men does not have to come in the
power of the spirit and in full conviction
knowing what manner of men we were among
you it can come in a flashy way
through a supercilious character with his fingers loaded
with rings promulgating a message of accept but
we're not going to see men turn to
serve the living God our standards have fallen
wretchedly we are content if men will only
accept Christ and then continue to attend Christian
services it's a kind of statistical Christianity about
how many decisions have been made of men
who yet remain pagan still remain in the
world, still loving the things of the world
for none of these things move me for
I do not count my life as dear
unto myself none of these things move me
show me a man who's not moved by
things and I'll show you an apostolic man
love not the world nor the things that
are in the world and I'll tell you,
have they ever gotten slick have they ever
gotten chromed and polished and sophisticated and alluring
they smell good, look good they appeal to
every sense in us Paul was not moved
by any thing there's only one thing that
moved Paul it was the spirit of the
living God whose servant he was there's a
certain sense of apostolic selflessness an abandonment to
the purposes of God a mindlessness about one's
security one's condition, one's pleasure it doesn't matter,
it's all the same none of these things
move me none of these things to touch
the world and to use what's needful and
yet not to be moved by it not
to be impressed by its fashions and its
fads not to palpitate for the latest design
I am amazed, 57 years of watching the
rise and fall, the jerks, the liftings and
strings of tightening the cuffs and loosing them
of raising the hem and lowering it of
this variation and that and watching the saps
like flies fall by the ton to have
the latest thing moved by the thing such
a one will never be bound in the
spirit going toward Jerusalem, not knowing neither count
I my life dear to myself this is
a heavenly man finishing the ministry given to
him from the Lord we need to begin
it in a character in keeping with the
call walking worthy in the manner of him
who called us to his kingdom and to
his glory I am not going to finish
this either in one night he was therefore
now conviction no condemnation but conviction to those
who are on Christ Jesus praise God for
his convicting spirit praise him for setting a
standard above what we have thought to consider
who are so pleased with ourselves after all
we have avoided conspicuous sin we have not
fornicated, we have not committed adultery, we have
not stolen but where it said be perfect,
we just kind of took that with a
grain of salt where it said if you
seek your life you will loose it but
if you loose it for my sake you
will find it we didn't really deeply regard
and take in to our spirit and believe
and do what that word said we went
on beyond Christ without having his doctrines deeply
internalized into our being and his example and
his meekness forged in our character by union
with him in obedience to the word which
he spoke I want to pray for that
kind of revival, that kind of restoration that
kind of character, what a precious standard praise
God that we have a scripture that is
not just a fiction, it's not just an
imagined artistic rendering of what some writer supposed
a figure like a fictional Paul might have
been this was a flesh and blood man
like as we his stomach rumbled when he
was hungry just as we, fasting was as
costly for him as for us, denial was
the cross as for us, but he bore
it and he suffered it because he did
not count his life as dear unto himself
he cherished the gospel of the grace of
God he knew himself to be profoundly a
murderer and a persecutor saved and profoundly turned
by a Christ who appeared to him in
the way may that revelation come to an
unwary world today through us who have this
character established in us may it come to
me, let's pray precious God Jesus, we talked
about our repenting earlier tonight and Lord we
do we repent for being content to be
nice guys as if being a nice guy
somehow fulfilled the requirement of God we repent
that we may the Christian respectability and the
absence of conspicuous sin to be somehow the
fulfillment of your intention for the saints we
repent that we have celebrated Paul and celebrated
certain men of God as if somehow they
should be in a super spiritual category but
after all we're just pew sitters, we're just
laity we're just humdrums, we're just the workaday
world certainly don't expect that of us, do
you?
when you said if any man would come
after me you cannot be my disciple except
we thought somehow it would refer to another
we've given our mouths to scorning and to
railing we have disdained and we've had content
we've spoken in unseemly ways we've not kept
our hold on our spirit we've taken liberties
in our conduct, our speaking, our thought life
we've allowed ourselves indulgence in the things that
are private and personal that we didn't think
anyone else saw or knew that we could
enjoy because somehow maybe God didn't see either
or if he did, it didn't really matter
we've sinned against the body of Christ because
we thought that our sins did not affect
the whole body and that a little leaven
does corrupt the lump, precious God help me
help us, Lord help us to the grace
of which Paul spoke that we might know
the gospel of his grace because you set
a standard that is holy that we should
be like you give us the grace to
attain it give us the grace to repent,
my God for being satisfied with a lesser
standard restore again apostolic character to an apostolic
church that you might restore with it the
power of the spirit unto full conviction to
the turning of men from their filthy modern
day idols to serve the living God and
we will profoundly and continually thank you and
give you the praise the honor and the
glory for so high a great calling in
Christ Jesus and God's people said, Amen