Charged Up

Transcript

Alright, thank you very much. And hello again, radio friends. How in the world are you? Oh, it’s such a joy to come back and be with you for a little while, sharing from the Word of God. I look forward to these times, they do something good for me, and I trust there’s blessing in it for many of you.

John chapter 15 is the passage in which we’re walking around and we’ve come now to in our discussion of what it really means to abide in Christ. To this matter of obedience, we talked about fruit bearing, answered prayer, divine love shown in and through our lives. Now, we come to the matter of obedience. And remember the standard that our Savior is setting, he said, “As the Father hath loved me, so I loved you. Continue my love.” The standard of love. Now there’s the standard of obedience, “As I have kept my Father’s commandments, abide in His love. So if you keep my commandments, you’ll abide in my love.” The standard that the Savior raises in each case is His relationship to the Father, and that involved, now we’re talking about verse 10, involved obedience.

What does it mean to obey God? Number one, we have his written Word, the Bible. God will never lead you to do anything that contradicts the written Word of God, the Bible. Inerrant, infallible, eternal Word that has been given to us as God’s revelation of divine truth. That’s the first thing. And if you find it in the Bible, you better obey it. You need to know, of course, to whom these various things were written. You’re not going back into the Old Testament and try to obey all the Mosaic Laws because Paul the Apostle said that the Mosaic Law was done away with at the cross. Our Lord Jesus nailed the ordinances, said he, to His cross. And so we have that delicious freedom in Christ, the freedom of being saved by grace through faith plus nothing. “But,” says Paul in Romans 8, “The righteousness of the law is fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit,” and so we have a new dynamic in our lives. Those of you who have made the Lord Jesus Christ Lord of your life and have trusted Him as Savior, and have taken refuge under His precious shed blood at Calvary, you have a new dynamic. “Christ liveth in me,” said Paul, “and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me.”

“The message we preach among the nation,” says Paul in Colossians 1:27, “Is Christ in you the hope of glory.” So there’s a new dynamic, you’re not any longer digging the will of God out of the old ordinances, but you are discovering the will of God in His Word as the Holy Spirit guides you. The Spirit of God even tells you how to pray. “We know not what we should pray for as we ought,” Paul says in Romans 8, “but the Spirit Himself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered, and he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit because He, the Spirit, maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God.” You wanna stay in the will of God? You wanna obey Him? Learn to pray in dependence on the Holy Spirit, learn to look at the Word of God as His revelation of what He wants for you. Whenever you read your Bible ask this question, “Lord, what do you want me to do about this?” You’ll find that the Bible becomes a book that’s alive if you link it to obedience. That’s the first thing, the Word of God and the indwelling Holy Spirit.

“If ye keep my commandments.” Now, if you wanna make it specific, go through the gospel records and find what the Lord Jesus Christ said. “My commandments,” said He. Find what the Lord Jesus Christ has said, and list the things He gave as a command. “Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart and ye shall find that my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Ye shall find rest unto your souls.” Come, learn, and serve. Commands— not an option. “Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.” A command, that’s not something you can say, “Well, I’ll get at it when I think about it. “That ye love one another,” there’s another command that we were talking about just a moment ago in verse 17. A command. So he says, “I’ve kept my Father’s commandments, and you keep My commandments, and in so doing, you’ll stay in love with Me.”

Disobedience cuts the cord of love. Or to change the figure of speech, it short circuits the switchboard of your soul so that God’s love can’t get through. Disobedience is a deterrent to spiritual motivation. You wanna be spiritually motivated? Start straightening up things where you’ve been fighting God. It’s that simple. Start straightening up areas where you’ve been disobeying God and fighting His will, you will be spiritually motivated, the voltage level in your soul will be turned up, you will begin to shine for God, you’ll enjoy His presence, the joy of the Lord will be your portion.

Romans 15 says, “Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing that ye may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost.” And this word ‘believing’ is our idea of commitment. When you commit yourself completely to the Lord Jesus, then joy, and peace, and hope, and abundance is yours because the Holy Spirit of God has a chance to work in you. How often we shut off God’s power through our own willfulness. He hasn’t moved nor has He changed. “I am the Lord, I change not therefore, ye sons of Israel, Jacob are not consumed,” said He. He hasn’t moved and He hasn’t changed, and His attitude of love is the same but we shut off his power by our willfulness. Things get in the way.

Years ago when I was a boy, they told me that something, and I don’t suppose this could happen today in today’s scientific machinery and plumbing and all of that, but when I was a boy they told me that there was one area where the people simply, all of a sudden, their water supply was shut off. They called the water company and the pressure was alright at the main out of the street. And so they had to start digging up and dig they did until they came to a place where the stoppage had occurred. You know what it was? [chuckle] It was a frog that somehow had gotten into [laughter] that pipe. I don’t know how, and it’s been a long time ago. I was six or seven, I guess, when I heard the story. But there it is, something in the way stopped the flow of pure water in that case.

Well, what’s in the way, beloved? What’s in the way? “Let us lay aside every weight and the sin which doth so easily beset us,” says the writer to the Hebrews. When I start straightening up with God, I will be spiritually motivated and the power of God will start to flow, the love of God will start to fill my life, and I’ll become effective once again. It’s that simple. Jesus said to the church that had lost its first love. It was busy, it was orthodox, it was fiercely against all evil but it had lost its first love. He said, “Repent and do the first works.” Oh, what were the first works? Surrender, prayer, worship, obedience, service, witnessing. You know, straighten the thing up and your whole life will be motivated.

“If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love.” How to stay in love with Jesus? Well, I’ve told you. It’s a very simple matter. He hasn’t changed. You and I oftentimes have done the changing and so all we need to do is to come back to the basics: Start to obey Him, start to worship, start to praise, start to witness, start to yield to His will as He reveals it to us. That word ‘keep’ of course is our concept of obey but it also has wrapped up in it the idea of hanging on. Let me look at the Greek verb here in my… Yeah, it’s the verb ‘tereo,’ to hang on to, to cherish, to hold, and to obey. Keep, hold on, cherish, obey.

How do you hold on to the Word of God? Well, [1] you read it, [2] you memorize it. You memorize a verse of scripture one a day, one a week, whatever you can manage. Write the verse with the reference, always put the reference with it. I learned that from the Navigators, they call it fore and aft. Say the reference before you say the verse, and then the reference afterwards and that fastens it in your mind. Write the Scripture on a small card, half of a 3×5 card will serve very well, and put the reference on it as well and then have it with you throughout the day, and say it over, and think about it. Read the Word of God, memorize portions of it, and then think about it. The Bible calls that meditate. Chew it over like the cow chews her cud. Think about it during the day. Put it in your wallet, or in your hat, or you ladies put it inside of your compact so every time you powder your nose you’ll look at that verse. And you’ll find that it fastens itself upon your mind and memory, and then becomes part of your unconscious mind, the computer portion of your mind so the blessed Spirit of God can crank it out into consciousness when you need it. A blessed wonderful process. Abide in His love.

How to be conscious of God? [1] Straighten up the things that you’ve been fighting Him on, [2] Go into His Word so He can talk to you, [3] Memorize words, the Word of God, passages of the Word of God and meditate on them, [4] Pray your way through the day so that you’re constantly referring to your blessed Lord so He can guide you. He said, “I will guide thee with mine eye.” Well, you can’t be guided with His eye unless you’re looking in His direction. These are the simple ways, beloved, to keep real with the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now remember He said, “Even as.” It’s a high standard. The Lord Jesus said, “I do always those things which please my Father. I delight to do Thy will O my God, yea Thy law is within my heart,” the Messianic psalm speaking of our Savior. “As I have kept and I abide, so you do the same thing.” It’s a high standard but it’s not unreachable. Why? Because the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. God moves in to your life by his blessed indwelling Spirit to produce in you the ability to obey His will. This is the miracle of the Christian life. You don’t try to act like a Christian. You yield to the Lord Jesus and He moves in by His blessed Holy Spirit and lives his life through you. Hallelujah. Now we go back to John 15 the next time we get together.

Dear Father, today, oh may we obey Thy will and enjoy Thy presence. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Till I meet you once again by way of radio, walk with the King today and be a blessing!