All Your Life

Transcript

Alright. Thank you very much and hello again, radio friends. How in the world are you? Yes, this is your good friend, Bob Cook, and I’m back together with your for a few precious moments in the Word of God. We try to put a handle on it so that you can get hold of it for yourself.

We’re finishing up the Book of I Peter. Maybe I’ll just go right on into II Peter after we finish up. Would you like that? Well, anyway, he says in verse 12 — oh, I wanted to finish 11. “To Him be glory and dominion forever and ever.” What makes the glory of God shine out of you? It’s whether or not He has dominion. Now, God will get His will done somehow whether it’s with you or without you.

I remember my old prof in seminary, Dr. John B. Champion, great giant of a man with a head that had lost most of its hair and a voice like thunder and a heart to match. A great servant of God he was. But he would oftentimes say, “God will have His will done either with you or without you for He is God Almighty.” Well, I believe in the sovereignty of God and so indeed do you. The fact is, however, that your experience of the glory of God and your transmission of the glory of God depends on whether or not He has dominion over you. And so Peter says, “To Him be glory and dominion forever and ever.”

Make the Lord Jesus Christ lord of your life. Let me just run down some of the areas in which that lordship should show up and for this purpose I’m going to turn you to Philippians 2. 2:16 says, “God has given Him a name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God, the Father.” That’s Philippians 2:10-11. Lordship. Now, if I ask you, do you believe that Jesus is Lord? I’m sure you’d given affirmative answer. “Of course, Brother Cook, I do.” But if I were to ask you how and in what way is He lord of your life? You might have to think a bit to get an answer. Let me help you along that line by looking at the second chapter of Philippians.

First, make Him lord of your feelings, therefore, any consolation in Christ, any comfort of love, any fellowship of the Spirit, any compassions and mercies. These are all inward emotional experiences. Make the Lord Jesus Christ lord of your feelings. Now, the fact is that you make many, if not most, of your day-by-day decisions on the basis of how you feel about things. Now, some people may be rational enough to think everything through logically but not many of us. Most people feel like doing something and they do it or they don’t feel like doing something and they don’t do it. Isn’t that true? These are feelings. He talks about comfort, fellowship, compassion, mercy, feelings. Make the Lord Jesus lord of your feelings. I sometimes use the illustration of feeling afraid.

When I was a little boy growing on an Ohio farm living with my aunt and uncle, Frank and Esther Setzler were their names. They long since gone to meet the Lord. But in those days, they were hard working farm folk of German extraction and I was a little strubbly-haired, runny nose boy living on the farm there for a year or two at a time. And when it came bedtime I had to be put to bed as they say and so somebody would take me up the stairs into a large bedroom with a big old four-poster bed with a straw mattress. So there was always some straw that came through the covering of the mattress and tickled you. [Laughter] And if you ever sleep on a straw mattress, well I would get into bed and someone would close the door with a resounding thump and then I’d be alone. And there was a pine tree outside the branches of which would rub against the siding of this farm home.

And have you ever heard of a tree rub its branches along the wooden siding of a house in the nighttime? It kind of groans when it does it and it scared me. And then if the moon were shining, it would come through the branches of that gnarled old tree and throw terrible shadows on the wall and that would immediately make me sure that something was coming to get me. And I would make little whimpering little voice sounds until someone came up, generally, my uncle Frank who would come stumping up the stairs and say, “What’s the matter with you, boy?” Always called me “boy” like one of the comedians says he couldn’t remember my name. He’d say, “What’s the matter with you, boy? You’re a big boy now. You shouldn’t be afraid. Don’t be scared.” Bang! Went the door and downstairs he went. Well, that didn’t make me feel any better but I had to keep still, scared of the dark, scared to be alone.

But then when my father would come to see me now and again, he lived in Cleveland, Ohio, and he would come and see his boy, and he would stay overnight with me and he would bed down with me in that great big four-poster bed with the straw mattress. Strangely enough I wasn’t afraid at all. And the same pine tree was outside rubbing its branches against the house and groaning and the same moon was shining through the gnarled branches and making fearful shadows on the wall but I wasn’t afraid because there was a person there that made the difference.

You make the Lord Jesus lord of your feelings and He will make a difference. Make Him lord of your resentments and make Him lord of your hurts and make Him lord of your hopes and make Him lord of your failures and make Him lord of your fears. You make Him lord of your feelings. That’s the first thing there. And then verse 5, make Him lord of your mind. You have a big computer between your two ears and more complex than anything that man has able to build, billions upon billions of electrical connections in your brain; and the Lord Jesus Christ needs to be lord of that computer. So you program into it that which is His Word and his will.

Paul says in II Corinthians 10 that “we’re to bring every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. Make Christ lord of your mind and then make Christ lord of your motives. Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory but in lowliness of mind that each esteem other better than themselves. Look not every man on his own things only but every man also on the things of others. Do all things without murmurings and disputing that you may be blameless and harmless.” Make the Lord Jesus Christ lord of your motives and the crowning motive is to help and serve other people. “Look not every man on his own things only but every man also on the things of others. Let each esteem other better than themselves.”

Have you ever wondered what your motivation is for doing — do you ever stop and ask yourself a question and say: Well, now, why really am I doing this? What am I going to get out of it? Or what result is it going to have? Stop and examine your motives and sometimes it will give you pause and you may rearrange your priorities as a result. And make Him lord of your message and your methods, holding forth the Word of Life. He said, “blameless and harmless the sons of God indeed without rebuke in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation among whom you shine as lights in the world.” The Lord Jesus said two things about believers. They’re to be salt and light. Neither one makes any noise. Salt doesn’t and light doesn’t make any noise but my, what a difference they make. And here Paul uses the figure of speech of shining, “among whom you shine as lights in the world holding forth the Word of Life. Make the Lord Jesus lord of your methods and your ministry. What are you to do? You’re to shine. How are you to do it? Hold forth the Word of Life.

You see, preacher, you’re not required to be clever. A lot of us waste time in trying to be clever. Now, it’s good to be able to quote different authorities. Do your homework and come up with quotations that help to ventilate the point that you’re making. It’s good to use the illustrations that help to show what the truth is. All of these things are good and you can’t just preach a hip pocket sermon and get away with it. You and I both know that. Having said that, when you boil it all down, your job is to shine and the way you shine is to hold forth the Word of Life. How do you hold it forth? (1) You live it (2) You speak it (3) You apply it. This is part of the lordship of Christ that every knee should bow and every tongue should confess that Jesus is Lord to the glory of God, the Father.

Now, I’ve just skipped around in the first part of that second chapter of Philippians just to give you an idea of what we mean by the lordship of Christ. And if you’re going to bring glory to God — see, we’re back in I Peter 5, “To Him be glory and dominion.” If you’re going to bring real glory to God there has to be the dominion of the savior, that is to say the lordship of Christ in your life. Make him lord of your feelings, lord of your motives, lord of your mind, lord of your methods, and lord of your ministry. That’s what we’ve said to each other today. It’s a pretty good idea too, wouldn’t you agree? “To Him be glory and dominion forever and ever.”

I think that it’s time for all of us who are in Christian work to reevaluate our programs in terms of the question: How does this glorify God? It has to be admitted that oftentimes what passes for Christian programming is uncomfortably close to a show business kind of motive. They call it production. There’s a fine production. Well, I’m in favor of good production. Good production means use the best hardware and plan your program well so that you don’t have any dead air and keep the interest flowing and keep the variety that is necessary to maintain audience interest in it, all of that, good production. I believe in that and so indeed do you. But when it comes to sort of showing off in a show business kind of a way, then that gives you pause. And so it does us good it seems to me to ask the question: How does this, this servant, this musical program, this broadcast, this plan for the building of an edifice, this organization, this committee meeting and its results?

Well, say what you will. How does this glorify God? He’s called us to his eternal glory. That’s our calling. We’re called to bring glory to our Lord. And so the question then that we have to ask is: Before we hit upon something, how will this glorify God? That doesn’t mean you have to go around and be religious about everything. It’s impossible to pious about everything in life. You know that and so do I. It’s impossible to be pious about everything in life but you could be God glorifying in everything in life. There is the difference. You want to think about that and pray about it so that every element in your life is calculated to bring glory to the one who is lord of your life, lord of your feelings, lord of your motives, lord of your mind, lord of your methods, lord of your ministry. Make him lord and live for his glory.

Dear Father, today help us glorify thee by the indwelling Holy Spirit, by the power of the Word, or by the way we live. In Jesus’ name I pray this. Amen.

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