Certainly a great joy for me to be
with you this morning.
I'd like to say how I appreciate the
kindly welcome that has been extended to me
by your pastor, as also to Paul Christensen,
who I know will enjoy this week amongst
you as much as I will.
I look forward to seeing you again this
evening and then as often as possible throughout
the week.
I shall share with you the concern that
was expressed by the Apostle Paul.
Let me read these two verses to you
because this in a sense comprehends what will
be the end target of our explorations together
in the Word of God.
I'm reading this from the Amplified New Testament.
It's in the third chapter of Paul's epistle
to the Philippians in the tenth verse.
My determined purpose, said the Apostle, is that
I may know him, a person, somebody, Jesus
Christ, that I may progressively become more deeply
and intimately acquainted with him, perceiving and recognizing
and understanding the wonders of his person more
strongly and more clearly, and that I may
in that same way come to know the
power outflowing from his resurrection, a power which
it exerts over believers, that I may so
share his sufferings, that is to say be
identified with the Lord Jesus in his death,
as to be continually transformed in spirit into
his likeness.
That recognizes Paul the Apostle is going to
be the progressive consequence of a deeper and
ever more intimate acquaintanceship with the Lord Jesus,
identifying himself with his death and inevitably through
his death identifying himself with his resurrection, continually
being transformed in fuller and ever broader measure
in spirit into his likeness.
That if possible, he then goes on to
say in the eleventh verse, I may attain
to the spiritual and moral resurrection, and notice
there is a double resurrection there, that spiritual
resurrection that takes place when the introduction of
life by the coming of the Holy Spirit
to indwell the humanity of the forgiven sinner
abolishes death.
That's that spiritual resurrection that takes place when
you and I are born again and become
alive in Christ.
When reconciled to God, we become inhabited by
the God who created us.
But that spiritual resurrection, attests the Apostle Paul
here, is designed to bring about a moral
resurrection.
It's calculated to invade our personalities in such
a way that we become an entirely different
race of people.
So that if any man be in Christ,
he's actually, literally, a new creation.
He's been made over.
He's a new creature.
All things that were characteristic of the old
Adamic character have passed away.
And all things, the all things which the
next verse tells us there in that passage,
come from God, the all things have replaced
the old things.
All things have passed away and all things
have become new.
That's the moral resurrection that inevitably is the
consequence of a spiritual resurrection that if possible
I may attain to the spiritual and moral
resurrection that lifts me out from among the
dead, even while in the body.
Even while in the body.
In other words, this spiritual resurrection is to
characterize me by virtue of the fact that
I have an entirely different way of life
as opposed to that which was mine when
I was still spiritually destitute and bankrupt, alienated
from the life of God and dead in
trespasses and sins.
It's going to lift me out from among
the dead even while in the body.
And it will be patently obvious to everybody
in my presence that something radical has happened
in my experience.
That somebody has invaded my soul to whom
I have yielded the right to exercise total
sovereignty who monopolizes now every area of my
being so that my personality is transformed by
his presence and advertises to the world in
which I was born dead that I've come
alive.
Now that will be the purpose really of
our meeting together so that we may discover
more adequately the real spiritual content of our
relationship to the Lord Jesus into which we
entered in the day that convicted of our
sins repenting toward God we first put our
trust in him as Redeemer.
That initial baby act which is called conversion
which introduces us to the thrilling, hilarious adventure
of sharing the life of Jesus Christ on
earth on the way to heaven.
I don't have to tell you that just
to accept Christ as your Redeemer doesn't mean
you're saved.
I'm sure I don't have to tell you
just to know that your sins of ego
doesn't constitute your salvation.
The fact that you happen to be on
the way to hell and don't now happen
on the way to heaven and you don't
now happen to be on the way to
hell that doesn't constitute your salvation.
Your salvation of course derives from the fact
that as a redeemed sinner no longer on
the way to hell but already on the
way to heaven Jesus Christ as God creator
has come to invade your humanity to play
that role in you for which you were
created.
To give him the right 24 hours a
day in your business, in your home in
your school, on your college campus whether you're
on recreation in vacation, in business no matter
at any time under any circumstance 24 hours
in every day 7 days in every week
you give Jesus Christ as God the right
to be God in you without reserve.
Then you're beginning to get saved.
That's what it means to become a Christian.
We've conveniently reduced salvation to a moment in
time when we raise a hand walk down
the front or get baptized or have our
name put upon a church roll and we
call that salvation.
Nothing of course is farther from the truth.
That's totally divorced from the revelation given to
us in the word of God which is
our sole guide in every matter of faith.
Salvation involves the reoccupation by God of a
guilty sinner in such a way that Jesus
Christ has the unchallenged absolute perpetual right to
take the terms whereby that individual henceforth will
run his life.
For instance where he's going to buy his
new home what vocation he's going to study
for as a student where he's going to
go next year on vacation how he's actually
going to spend his money who's really going
to run the church that he goes to
all this is embraced in his salvation.
And nothing less than that of course will
do.
Anything less than that short changes Jesus Christ
and cheats him of that for which his
blood was shed.
And I believe that I'll be ministering this
week to a group of men and women
who want to discover with me more fully
what's involved in not becoming a Christian all
of us know that what's involved in being
the Christian you've become which is a million
times more important.
And of course if I'm to discover what
the Christian life is all about there's really
only one person whom I can turn the
only person that ever lived on earth since
Adam fell into sin to his father's satisfaction
Jesus Christ.
There's only one person that's ever been capable
of living the Christian life since Adam fell
Jesus Christ.
And he came very graciously for 33 years
to demonstrate the principles involved.
And having demonstrated those principles involved to his
father's total complete and absolute satisfaction for the
perfect man he was he offered himself to
the father as your substitute and mine so
that the father in his person could execute
in him the judgment that you and I
deserve.
And that laid the foundations of our reconciliation
to God so that now he risen from
the dead might come and perpetuate the life
that he lived then in us now.
So the Christian life of course is the
life that Jesus Christ lived then and lived
now by him in us.
There is no other.
And if your Christian life does not derive
from the fact that Jesus Christ risen from
the dead has come to take up occupation
of your humanity and become in you the
origin of his own image and the source
of his own activity and the dynamic of
his own demands and the cause of his
own effect you've become a Christian but you
haven't yet learned to be one.
Anything that you may produce in the name
of Christianity is a cheap imitation of the
real thing and cannot but be a caricature.
And certainly everything less than satisfactory to God.
Now all of us want to know how
to be to his holy satisfaction what in
his infinite mercy we have become a child
of God through faith in Jesus Christ.
So let's turn our attention at the very
outset this morning to the one from whom
everything derives if it is to be legitimate
if it is to be healthy if it
is to be wholesome and if it is
to be real.
Turn with me to the thirteenth chapter of
Matthew's gospel.
Thirteenth of Matthew came to pass the fifty
-third verse that when Jesus had finished these
parables he departed hence and when he was
coming to his own country he taught them
in their synagogue.
He went to the normal public place of
worship and there he began to instruct them.
And this was in his own home territory.
This is where he had been born rather
not born born in Bethlehem this is where
he had been reared.
This is where they had known him as
a little child.
This is where they had known him as
a school kid.
This is where they had known him grow
up in his trade.
He taught them in their synagogue insomuch that
they were astonished.
And this is what they said.
This was their reaction.
They said whence hath this man this wisdom
whence hath this man these mighty words.
Now what did they mean by that?
This man.
Well this man whom we knew as a
helpless baby in his mother's arms.
This man whom we knew as the little
child who clung to his mother's skirt.
This man whom we knew as a school
boy romping around chasing his friends in the
street.
This man whom we knew when he was
still learning his trade.
This man whom we called when our window
jammed.
Who put the new door in the barn
as a carpenter.
Whence hath this man whence hath this man.
And you see their question was filled with
incredulity.
They were astonished.
They racked their brains and they could discover
absolutely no human explanation for the things they
heard and saw.
Is not this verse 55 is not this
the carpenter's son?
Is not his mother called Mary and his
brethren James and Joseph and Simon and Judas
and his sisters are they not all with
us?
Whence then hath this man all these things?
And they were offended in him.
In other words because they could find no
tangible human explanation for the quality of the
things he said and did they said he
must be a phony.
This man.
Why were they astonished at Jesus Christ?
Well of course the most natural answer that
you might come up with almost instinctively they
did not know that he was God.
But if that is what you think you
are wrong.
It is true of course that they did
not know that he was God but that
is not why they were astonished.
They were astonished because they did not know
that he was man.
Not man as they were as men.
But man as he as God created man
to be.
That is why they were astonished.
Because there he was ministering in the midst
of a people who had never come to
grips with the reality of what God demands
in a man's humanity.
And for the first time they were in
the presence of a man who was being
man according to those principles that should govern
man's humanity.
As he Christ as God had created man
to be.
For the first time they were in the
presence of a real man.
You see when God created man when our
Lord Jesus in co-equality with the Father
and the Holy Spirit in the triune Godhead
when he as God made man he created
man so that man should function exclusively by
virtue of the fact that God through the
Holy Spirit inhabits his humanity.
In other words God to a man is
as imperative as oil is to a lamp.
God to a man is as imperative as
gas is to a car.
If you have an oil lamp and it's
got no oil you've got an oil lamp
but it won't behave like one.
And for all the light you'll get you
might as well put it in the trash
can.
If you've got a car and you detach
it for the gas and some of you
have tried that to your embarrassment especially if
it's on the freeway take a car and
detach it from gas and you've still got
a car in your hand but for all
the good it will do to you you
might as well just keep chickens in it.
It just won't behave like one.
And of course if you detach man from
God which is exactly what happened when Adam
fell into sin you've still got a man
in your hand but he won't behave like
one.
And as I trust we shall discover during
the week he won't even be able to
behave like an animal.
He won't be that competent.
He'll neither be able to behave like an
animal nor will he be able to behave
like a man.
You see, no animal as God created animals
to be is as stupid as man.
Have you ever seen an alcoholic horse?
Ever seen a drug addicted dog except some
evil man has injected him so that he'll
win the race?
No, animals aren't that stupid.
And when man lost God he could neither
behave as intelligently as an animal nor could
he behave as intelligently as man because he
lost what it takes to be a man.
The only thing that you can do for
an oil lamp that hasn't got oil is
put oil in it.
And the only thing you can do for
a car that hasn't got gas is to
put gas in it.
And the only thing you can do for
a man that hasn't got God is to
put God in it.
Then you'll have a lamp that shines.
Then you'll have a car that goes.
Then you'll have a man that behaves.
He'll behave as God intended man to behave.
And when you put the oil in the
lamp it isn't so that the lamp can
try harder.
And when you put gas in the car
it isn't so that the car can try
harder.
And when through spiritual new birth God gets
back into the man it isn't that the
man might try harder.
You put oil in the lamp so that
the oil can be oil functionally.
You put gas in a car so that
the gas can be gas functionally.
And you put God in the man so
that God can be God functionally.
In other words, spiritual new birth is designed
to let God be God in a man's
human experience.
Once more, from his human spirit to which
he is restored, invading his soul, recapturing his
mind, recapturing his emotions, recapturing his will, so
finally through mind and emotion and capturing his
will, recapturing his behavior, so that everybody in
that man's presence recognizes that God is in
residence and God is in business.
And for the first time in this village
these people listened to a man preaching and
saw a man behaving who was man as
he as God created man to be.
A man who was prepared to let God
be God.
That's why they were forced on him and
they were offended.
Jesus said unto them, A prophet is not
without honor save in his own country and
in his own house.
And it says, He did not many mighty
works there.
Why?
Because of their unbelief.
He did not many mighty works there because
of their unbelief.
He didn't get into action because they didn't
get into faith.
He did not act because they did not
believe.
Because, you see, for him to get into
action demanded of them the same disposition towards
him as that disposition that allowed the Father
to get into action in the Son.
Now, this is the mystery of the Gospel.
That is, the Lord Jesus in the perfection
of his humanity was in the Father and
the Father as God was in the Son.
So there is to be reestablished that relationship
that existed between the Son and the Father
and the Father and the Son.
There is to be restored that relationship between
you and me and Jesus Christ and between
Jesus Christ and you and me.
That by our disposition toward the Lord Jesus
he will be able to be in action
in and through us as by his disposition
towards the Father the Father as God was
able to be in action in and through
him.
Now, this is the theme that runs right
the way through the New Testament and that
is so marvelously illustrated right the way through
the Old Testament.
It simply governs the principles that relate man
to God and God to man.
That it takes God actually God himself not
what God has to say not God's example
not God's precepts not God as a far
away ah object of our emulation or worship.
It takes God himself in a man to
be a man.
And that's why as we shall discover it
will take Jesus Christ not his teachings not
his preaching not his sublime example not the
beautiful life that he lived not the doctrines
that he promulgated it will take Jesus Christ
himself a person to be a Christian.
It takes God to be a man it
takes Christ to be a Christian.
We shall discover that it is Christ himself
in the Christian that puts God himself back
into the man.
And that's exactly what it takes and that's
what the gospel is all about.
That's why the Lord Jesus died upon the
cross.
As I was telling some folk earlier this
morning in the earlier service the Lord Jesus
died upon the cross not so that you
might have the convenience of escaping hell and
getting to heaven.
That is gloriously true but it's purely incidental.
The Lord Jesus did not shed his blood
so that you could have a release from
a guilt complex so that you might escape
the punitive consequence of your sin.
The Lord Jesus died upon the cross not
just to get you out of hell and
into heaven he died upon the cross to
get God out of heaven and into you.
And the measure in which you are saved
is the measure in which God out of
heaven in you is in function.
Actually calling the shots.
Actually controlling what you do with your hands.
Actually controlling where you go with your feet.
Actually controlling what you say with your lips.
Actually controlling what you think with your mind.
Actually controlling the decisions that you make.
That is the measure in which you are
saved.
So don't kid yourself that because ten years
or fifteen years ago you walked down the
aisle or raised your hand and you've been
playing your tithe and you've been through the
tub don't fancy that constitutes your salvation.
There are hundreds of thousands of men and
women who troop to church every Sunday who've
gone through all of that and they're not
even regenerated.
They're unsaved believers.
They're conforming to denominational patterns that have become
a substitute for a personal spiritual relationship to
Jesus Christ and they know nothing nothing really
of the life that is the birthright of
the newborn.
And there are going to be some tragic
surprises.
In the day the dust has settled said
the Lord Jesus I cannot get into action
until you get into faith.
He did nothing there.
Because the nature of faith is that it
is a disposition towards God that lets God
get into action.
That's the nature of faith.
Faith is not believing verses in the Bible.
Faith is not saying the Bible says it
I believe it that settles it.
That isn't faith.
Faith is an attitude toward God that allows
God to get into action.
The simplest definition of faith is this faith
lets lets lets somebody something get into action
on your behalf.
Faith does not involve in the first instance
activity on your part.
We've been brainwashed into that idea but it
isn't true.
Faith if it is faith invokes the activity
of a second party somebody else something else.
That's the nature of faith.
In other words faith is not demonstrated in
you by what you are doing.
Faith is demonstrated in you only by what
God is doing.
Because God gets into action in response to
faith.
So faith will elicit not your activity faith
will elicit God's activity.
Faith lets Christ be the redeemer that He
is in action in your experience.
Faith doesn't let Christ be the redeemer because
He is the redeemer whether you believe it
or whether you don't.
He's the Lamb slain from the foundation of
the world.
Faith simply lets Him be the redeemer that
He is in your experience because you've let
Him.
If you don't believe that Jesus Christ is
the redeemer He is still the redeemer whether
you believe it or whether you don't but
you won't know it that's all in your
experience.
Faith lets the Lord Jesus Christ risen from
the dead moved by His Holy Spirit into
your experience regeneratively.
Faith lets Him come and share His life
with you on earth.
And whether you let Jesus Christ move into
your experience and share His life with you
on earth or not He's still alive.
It's simply that if you don't let Him
share that life with you on earth He
is still alive but you won't know it
in your experience.
That's all.
Faith invokes His activity.
Faith is like the clutch in a gearshift
car.
It relates the engine under the hood to
the power of the engine under the hood
to the wheels on the road.
Don't tell me the clutch is making the
car go.
No it isn't.
All that the clutch does in a gearshift
car is to allow the power under the
hood to be translated into action on the
road.
That's all.
Now there's all the power under the hood
in the world maybe and there are wheels
on the road but there'll be no action
invoked of the engine unless the clutch is
engaged.
That's all.
And if you don't engage the clutch you
can put it into first gear and you
can rev the engine until every window in
the district vibrates and the city is lost
in a cloud of dust.
But when you take your foot off the
gas and the dust is settled you'll be
exactly where you started.
Right?
Now that's faith.
All the power in eternity is vested in
the person of God's own dear son redemptively
and regeneratively and you and I have been
given a moral option whereby we may adopt
a disposition toward Jesus Christ called faith that
allows him to demonstrate his redemptive efficacy and
that allows him to demonstrate his regenerative efficacy.
That is to say his power to reconcile
you to God and having reconciled you to
God his power to enable you for service.
But all in response to faith.
It doesn't bring you into action on his
behalf it brings him into action on your
behalf.
That's the nature of faith.
You see here's a young fellow he's got
a new gear shift European sports car and
he invites his chum to come for a
run he drives down the road wind streaming
through their hair 60, 70, 80 if nobody's
looking 90 miles an hour 100 miles an
hour and you can imagine the excited boy
turning to his friend and said boys, boys
man!
He said what a clutch!
Is that what he'd say?
Well of course he wouldn't.
The clutch isn't giving him motion.
He'd say man!
He'd say what an engine!
What an engine!
He doesn't congratulate the clutch.
It's the engine that's putting power behind the
wheels.
Now that's the nature of faith.
That's why you can never be congratulated on
your faith and you should never under any
circumstances congratulate anybody else on their faith.
The clutch is imperative to motion as faith
is imperative to God's activity in your experience
and mine.
But it isn't faith that saves you.
Nobody was ever saved at any time or
ever will be by faith.
Only Christ saves.
If faith can save you then you have
every right to congratulate yourself on your faith
that saved you.
And there's only one person to be rewarded
when you get to heaven yourself because you
had faith that saved you.
Dimetrically opposed to the revelation of God's Word
but we've become accustomed to that kind of
talk that is so loose and so untidy
that we've almost settled for it.
The only person that can save a sinner
is the Savior, Jesus Christ and that's why
His Father God sent Him into this world.
All that faith does is let Him be
the Savior in your experience and mine that
He came to be.
That's all.
So you don't congratulate yourself on your faith
like anybody else because faith didn't save you
only Jesus Christ.
You see, although faith is as imperative to
the activity of God in your experience and
mine as the clutch is to bring the
activity of the engine onto the road and
translate it into action although it is imperative
and without faith nobody can please God we've
got to avoid the error of deifying faith
and making faith itself the object of our
idolatry so that we congratulate ourselves because we
are believers.
Because we are good sound, conservative Bible believing
believers.
So we congratulate ourselves and consider ourselves very
superior to anybody else who doesn't believe what
we believe as if our beliefs did anything
for us.
Our beliefs do nothing for us only God.
That's why there is only one person to
be congratulated God.
Never congratulate another person on their faith in
God.
Please don't talk about my what a man
of faith.
God doesn't deserve that kind of an insult.
If you were to tell me that you
were going on vacation in your car around
the United States and you were going to
travel some 10,000 miles and I say
well that's going to be very exciting let
me see the car you're going in and
you point at a car a battered thing
on the side of the road with dents
all over it smooth tires I say I
congratulate you on your faith.
I say what am I telling you about
your car a whole mouthful I congratulate you
on your faith.
If you can go on vacation in that
man you're a man of faith.
Right.
When you congratulate a man on believing in
God when you say my what faith you've
got in God what are you saying about
God?
Just as much about just about as much
as I would be saying about your car
you'd say if you can trust God I
want to congratulate you.
How small is God that we have to
be congratulated because we trust him.
God doesn't deserve that kind of an insult.
Faith recognizes that God is as big as
God is and lets him be that big
to move redemptively to reconcile us to himself
to move regeneratively and to restore his presence
to ourselves.
I didn't see all of you coming to
this church in fact I hardly saw any
you saw me come but I didn't see
you come.
But had I been here and watched you
coming I don't think in all probability I
don't think I'd have seen one boy one
girl one man or woman get down on
their hands and knees and examine the bench
you're sitting on.
Did you?
Why didn't you?
How did you know it was strong enough?
Oh well you say I've got faith in
that bench.
I've sat on it many many weeks and
many many months and perhaps many many years.
It would have been a sheer insult if
you'd got down on your hands and knees
and tried to examine the strength of the
bench.
Supposing you invited me to your homes maybe
perhaps you will or maybe you won't now
but supposing you will so to do.
And you say please come here and take
a seat and I get down on my
hands and knees and test all the chairs
that's where I sit.
I want to be absolutely certain I don't
land on the floor.
Now you didn't test the strength of the
bench because you have become acquainted with the
bench and you are adequately convinced now that
it is strong enough.
But you see that bench is only being
a bench in your experience by virtue of
the fact that you're letting it now support
your weight.
The moment you came in without a moment's
thought you sat down.
Because you see the more confident you are
in the object of your faith listen carefully
the more confident you are in the object
of your faith the less conscious you are
of the faith you're exercising in that object.
That's why when you came to the church
you didn't even give a thought as to
whether or not you should sit down on
that bench.
It never dawned on you if I hadn't
mentioned it it would never have passed your
mind.
You came in and you sat down and
you exercised faith and you let the bench
support your weight.
And some of you exercise more faith than
others.
But that's the only way you can let
a bench be a bench in your experience.
I believe in benches I'm absolutely orthodox about
benches.
I'm perfectly certain I could stand here and
talk to you for ten minutes about a
bench and examine it and with you and
explain it and just explain the principles that
governs it.
I'm a believer.
But at this moment I'm not exercising any
faith in any bench in this chair for
a very good reason.
You can't exercise faith in a bench standing
up.
I can only exercise faith sitting down.
But the moment you see I exercise faith
and sit down on that bench my faith
does nothing more for me.
Absolutely nothing.
The bench comes into action because I have
invoked its activity.
And if I don't land on the floor
don't congratulate me on my faith because it
is not my faith it is sustaining my
weight.
Have you ever tried to sit down on
faith?
It is the bench that is sustaining my
weight.
That is all.
And if I sit on it by faith
and the bench sustains my weight and I
do not land on the floor that does
not demonstrate the strength of my faith it
demonstrates simply the strength of the bench.
And if I sit on a chair and
I land on the floor surrounded by the
little bits of chair that does not demonstrate
the weakness of my faith it simply demonstrates
that my faith strong as it may have
been was exercised in the wrong object.
It simply demonstrates the weakness of the chair.
This is the nature of faith.
Faith simply lets something or somebody demonstrate the
truth of what you might otherwise not be
inclined to believe.
Faith invokes the activity of a second party
brings somebody else or something else into action
which demonstrates not the strength of your faith
it demonstrates the strength of that other party
that other person or that other object.
You might say to me where do you
live?
I say I live in England.
As you may well have gathered.
Are you married?
Yes.
Is your wife travelling with you?
I'm sorry to say she isn't.
I wish she were.
When did you leave home?
Well effectively apart from just two or three
hours in the middle of the night I
left home on the 5th of September to
go to Sweden and then later to the
United States.
When are you going to be back?
Well, middle of December.
You mean over three months away?
Yes.
Do you often do this?
Quite often.
At least two sometimes three times a year.
And you mean she lives in England and
you are here in the United States?
Yes.
You mean about 5000 miles apart from each
other?
Yes.
And then you say three months?
Yes.
Can you trust your wife that long?
I'd like to congratulate you on your faith
in your wife.
Do you think she'd be flattered?
Do you think I am?
And if you went and said I wish
I could trust my wife as long as
that you'd be saying to me about your
wife a whole lot.
I think probably if you talked to me
like that I'd say, excuse me I think
you need to get acquainted with my wife.
Then you wouldn't congratulate me on my faith
you'd congratulate me on my wife.
Don't you think it's time we stopped congratulating
each other on our faith and began to
lift up our hearts in worship and congratulate
God on being as big as he is.
If you're still preoccupied with your faith how
much faith you've got if you're still preoccupied
with other people's faith how much faith they've
got you need to get acquainted you need
to get acquainted with Jesus Christ.
You need to come to know him more
deeply and more intimately because you see the
more confident you are in the object of
your faith the less conscious you are of
the faith you're exercising that object.
I have to fly a very great deal
constantly every week I'm in the air thousands,
tens, hundreds of thousands of miles and I've
now developed a strong confidence in the planes
that have taken me literally all over and
all around the world again and again and
I'm not quite frankly I'm not conscious of
the faith that I'm exercising when I get
on board I am obviously exercising faith when
I get on board a plane as I
did in San Antonio yesterday with Paul to
come here I bet my life on it
literally I bet my life on it I
exercised faith in the competence of the pilot
in the adequacy of the equipment in the
ground crews the radar if anything had gone
wrong with anything of that I would have
paid with my life don't tell me I
wasn't exercising faith but I wasn't conscious of
it because I've become so accustomed to flying
in those jet liners I've become so accustomed
to the competency of your pilots I've become
so convinced to the adequacy of the ground
control and radar aids that I'm no longer
aware of the faith I'm exercising is this
your relationship to Jesus Christ or are you
busy all the time digging up your faith
and seeing if it's still there some time
ago I had to fly from Chicago no
it was from Toronto in Canada to Boston
in Massachusetts because I had a series of
meetings in Nashua in New Hampshire Boston was
the nearest airport and I booked on an
American Airlines four engine jet never gave it
a thought just made the reservation that was
it but I got a letter I got
a letter just a day or two before
I was due to take that flight from
the pastor of the church and it filled
me with horror do you know what he
said he said I've just got my pilot's
license wouldn't that have filled you with horror
I knew exactly what he was going to
write after that I could hardly dare dare
read the letter do you know having just
got his pilot's license he went on to
say he'd be so very happy if he
knew when I was going to arrive to
meet me in Boston and fly me to
Nashua and he had just got his pilot's
license the ink wasn't even dry on the
paper and he was going to come in
one of those potty little Cessnas that goes
by elastic and goes pop pop pop pop
and any time it'll stop popping and he
was going to come to Boston and pick
me up and fly me to Nashua I
changed my flight plan I took a later
flight and arrived after dark that kept him
on the ground terra firma and the firmer
the less terror now I was quite wrong
in my attitude towards that man I discovered
later I'd been twice to that church and
he's an excellent pilot he's still alive and
the chances are that if I'd flown with
him that day I'd be alive still too
well why wasn't I prepared for it because
I had no confidence in the object of
my faith I didn't know him well enough
I hadn't got adequately acquainted I wasn't deeply
personally acquainted with him if I had known
then what I know now I'd probably have
said fine, great, be delightful now my dear
Christian friends this is the nature of faith
and if you're not converted if you're not
yet a Christian this is the nature of
the quality of faith that will bring the
Lord Jesus redemptively into your experience if you're
a boy or a girl or a man
or a woman and you don't know the
inner assurance that their sins are forgiven I'll
tell you you can do absolutely nothing whatever
about your redemption it's already been accomplished nearly
two thousand years ago upon the cross the
Lord Jesus said it's finished it's all over
I'm simply waiting for any boy any girl
any man any woman anywhere at any time
to look to me and by a disposition
towards me that exposes their guilt and is
unquestioningly satisfied about my adequacy to redeem all
I'm looking for is that boy that girl
that man that woman who'll look at me
and say Lord Jesus I can't but you
can that's all I need to know and
I trust you now by my disposition of
dependence on you to move into my experience
come into my heart cleanse me from sin
reconcile me to God and then in fulfillment
of your marvelous promise by the gift of
your Holy Spirit come and live within me
and clothe your life on earth with my
humanity then I'll know that no situation to
which any step can ever take me at
any time will be a situation for which
you as God in me as man will
be less than big enough now that's the
Christian mind a disposition that allows Christ to
move redemptively into your experience and reconcile you
to God a disposition toward the Lord Jesus
that allows him having redeemed you to come
by his Holy Spirit and dwell your human
spirit invade your soul capture your personality and
every moment of every day demonstrate in terms
of your flesh and blood that Jesus Christ
is alive he's in very good health and
he's very much in business saying where do
you get that quality of faith that lets
the more confident you are in the object
of your faith the more conscious the less
conscious you are of the faith you're exercising
in that object when you get confident in
the object of your faith by acquaintanceship getting
to know it where do you get the
quality of faith that takes Jesus Christ for
granted that refuses to be congratulated because you
trust him because you would look almost defiantly
into a person's face and say don't you
dare ever, ever again congratulate me because I
trust in Jesus he is God how do
you get to know Jesus Christ like that
I'll tell you faith comes by hearing and
hearing by the word of God that's where
you get acquainted that's why we're having this
Bible week and I'll tell you those who'll
be participating throughout the days of the week
those who want to get acquainted those who
want their Christian life to be something more
than a procedure and I'll tell you something
because I don't kid myself though it's a
delight for me to be here with you
this morning it's going to be a delight
for me to be here with you tonight
and it's going to be a sheer delight
for me to be with you every night
of this week to share with you the
things of our wonderful Saviour as we turn
to the book and get acquainted with Him
so that it'll become the most natural thing
in the world as natural as breathing to
trust Him I'm going to say goodbye to
some of you today and you're never coming
back that's a fact in my experience in
a normal Sunday service I may anticipate to
see about 10% of the congregation throughout
the week we've been house trained that way
we've been brainwashed that way brainwashed into the
idea that once you've registered a decision and
been to the house of God on Sunday
that's it so I'm saying farewell to some
of you it's been lovely to meet you
I shall never see you again but to
those of you who are interested in the
Christian life who want to know the real
spiritual content of your faith who are going
to let God loose so that some boy,
some girl some man or woman into all
eternity will thank God they ever passed you
away it's going to be great to meet
you as we turn to this book together
and listening to what he has to say
through it we get to know Jesus Christ
in such a way that as naturally as
breathing we shall trust him and every day
will become the sheer adventure of letting God
be God in all we do and say
now now let's pray thank you Lord Jesus
for what you did upon the cross to
make all this possible I thank you for
those whom I've met this morning whom I'll
never see again I trust that your hand
may be in blessing upon them to lead
them into that fullness of life that derives
from your presence as God within their humanity
thank you Lord Jesus for that boy, that
girl that man or woman who this week
is going to come alive be born of
the Holy Spirit cleansed in your blood and
has begun to begin begin the adventure of
sharing your life on earth thank you for
those hungry hearted men and women who have
a deep love and concern for you and
a deep hungry appetite to grow in spiritual
things and allow you to be as big
as God is in their daily experience thank
you for the marvelous things you've got wrapped
up for each one of us though none
of us deserve it in these days that
we're going to spend together keep us each
with an open receptive heart that will yield
obedience to the truth that will allow the
Holy Spirit to translate it into the flesh
and blood of our humanity we ask Lord
Jesus for your name's sake Amen