Count On It

Transcript

Alright, thank you very much. Always nice to be put on the air with a friendly voice. I appreciate my friends at the transmitters. God bless you people. And hello again radio friends. How in the world are you?You doin’ all right today? Well I’m fine, praise the Lord. No complaints. Hallelujah! (Laughs) Nice to be alive and serve the Lord.

Well, we’re looking at 1 Peter. “Who His own self,” Peter says, “bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we being dead to sins should live unto righteousness.” Dead to sin? “Recon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Now there’s the fact of it, there’s the acceptance of the fact, reckon, and then there’s the action upon the fact. “They that are Christ’s…” This is Galatians 5:24. “They that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with it’s, it’s affections and it’s lusts.”

So there’s, there’s three angles of approach to this whole matter. We got into the first part of it the last time we got together. To realize that when the Lord Jesus Christ died on the cross, you believer were nailed there. Paul says, “I am crucified with Christ.” You were nailed there as well, by faith. All of your failures and all of your weaknesses, and all of your shortcomings, and all that, that causes you and me to come short of God’s perfections, and His, and His holiness.

All of that was nailed to the cross. Jesus took it, and we identify with Him at that point. The fact is there. Then you need to depend on that fact. And, and that’s the verse that with which we ended the broadcast the last time we got together. “Reckon ye also, likewise reckon ye…” count on it, in other words, “also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God.

Now this takes some thought. You have to think about a thing before you’re going to act on it. Put in your mind the fact that this will always be true and it must always be counted upon. It’s not very good grammar, but you know what I’m talking about. Something that always will be true, and you always must count on it. How about illustrating that. Now some of you are afflicted with diabetes. And that’s not a pleasant thing to have, although if you keep the rules and stay on your diet, or take your insulin regularly, you can live to be quite an old person. It, it, in other words, if you take care of yourself, you can survive it and go on through life — that’s what they tell me anyway.

Now once you’re diagnosed as having diabetes let us say, it will always be true that you are, you are not capable of handling lar-, large amounts of sugar. Your body no longer can handle that. And so it will always be true that when you sit down at the table, you’re going to reckon on the fact that you have to watch what you eat. A friend of mine who was on a regime of this sort told me that he had certain things he could trade off. You could eat some of this, but you must not then eat any of that — he had tradeoffs. You know, some bread but no potatoes, or some potatoes but no bread and, and things of that sort.

Well, unskilled as I am in, in the matters of diet, I’m simply, I’m simply mentioning this as an illustration of the fact that once a fact is true about you medically, let us say, you always have to count on that whether or not you want to. Whether or not you feel like it, it’s there. You follow me so far? Now Paul says, “Likewise reckon ye yourselves dead unto sin.” Always count on what is always a fact. And you approach then, every situation in faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul says, “You’re alive unto God.” You approach every situation in faith in the Lord Jesus, knowing that He already settled that matter on the cross.

Something comes up and you feel your temper rising, and you know if it keeps on you’re going to explode. What do you do? Just then you whisper a prayer. Say, “Lord Jesus, handle this. You died for this, and I died with you.” By faith you committed to Him. You reckon yourself dead to sin, you understand me?

Would you try that today? Would you try that in the practical situations of life? He says, “Reckon on it.” Count on it, think about it, crank it into your schedule of thinking and acting. You know that’s a wonderful thing. What a release that is to turn your shortcomings and your weaknesses and, and your temper and your resentment and, and your desires, all over to the Lord, Jesus Christ. Oh, do that today.

Then there’s that third approach to this whole matter. He says, “They that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its affections and its lusts, its desires.” Now that says that I have to do something about it. And I’ve just told you what something that is. Commit yourself by faith to the Lord Jesus. This whole matter is a commitment of faith. Just as you were saved, Colossians 2:6, “As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus as Lord, so walk ye in Him.”

Every situation of every day is to be handled in the same commitment of faith that you employed when you came to Christ for salvation. “Nothing in my hand I bring, simply to Thy cross I cling.” You and I don’t have the wherewithal to cope with the pressures of life. You may have an exceptionally strong personality, and you’re able to cope for a while. But then you get to the end of yourself finally and say, “I give up.” Isn’t that true?

And so we don’t bring to the business of living, anything but the capacity ultimately, to fail. And all that we can do and should do as believers, is under the pressures of life to commit ourselves deliberately to Christ — which is what Paul calls in this Galatians passage, “They have crucified the flesh with its affections and its desires.” That doesn’t mean you’re going to renounce living, and be a hermit, and live in a cave somewhere, and just vegetate. It doesn’t mean that you’re going to withdraw from life. It does mean that you’re going to commit life.

Now you see, Paul zeroes in on the things that really, that really bug me. He says, “Affections…” What do I really like? “You commit that to Jesus. Is God going to take away from you things that, that beautify your life? No. “In thy presence there is fullness of joy, at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.” God isn’t going to rob you of any legitimate pleasure. He’s going to sanctify your life so that it doesn’t go off on a sinful tangent.

By faith you commit your affections. That is, the things that, that you like, the things that stir you emotionally. You’re going to commit them to Jesus, moment by moment. Then he says, “They have crucified the flesh with its affections and lusts.” That’s our word ‘desires’. My desires are things that sometimes I can’t handle. What do I do about it? Well, if I try to handle it myself I, I am on the way to defeat inevitably. So what do I do? He said, by faith you nail those desires to the cross and say, “Lord Jesus, you handle it.”

Is all desire bad? No. Good desires however, when they get out of hand, can lead you to catastrophe. And so they need to be under the control of the blessed Christ of God. I am crucified with Christ. What does it mean? I’ve taken all the things I like, that stir me emotionally, and I’ve taken all that I desire as a human being, that drives me, and I’ve turned it over to the nail-pierced hands of Jesus, my Lord, so that He can control me. That’s what it means.

He bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we being dead to sins…” What does it mean? That you’ll be sinlessly perfect? No. It means that you’ll let the Lord Jesus handle your, frail, sinful, human body every minute of every day. And as He controls you, the holiness of God shines through you. And Jesus your Lord gets the glory. Amen.

Oh I love the Word of God. It talks to me. You’re dead and your life is hid with Christ, in God. He said, “Knowing this, that our old nature is crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, and that henceforth ye should not serve sin.” Now that then is the glorious result of what I’ve been telling you. There’s the fact, there’s counting on the fact every minute of every day, there’s the deliberate personal exercise of your will in placing yourself by faith, under the control of the crucified Christ of God. Then he said, henceforth you’re not going to have to serve sin.

“Whoso commiteth sin is the servant of sin,” the Bible says. But you don’t have to serve sin. You don’t have to be a slave to sin. Why? Because the Lord Jesus Christ settled that on the cross. He got the victory. “Thanks be unto God which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Now how does it work? Minute by minute is how it works. Minute by minute. When something comes up, that’s the instant when you turn to Christ and say, “Lord Jesus, you handle this. You died for this. By faith I trust you.” You understand me?

Don’t wait until everything’s over and you may have slipped and failed in something; and then say, “Please Lord, forgive me.” That’s all right. “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness,” John says. That is, is right and good, and necessary. But don’t wait until you slip and fall in the mud puddle. The minute the pressure comes on, the minute the temptation appears, the minute the feeling arises in your heart; that instant, turn it over to the Lord Jesus Christ.

Would you do that? Try it today and experience for yourself the delight of what it means to be crucified with Christ. “Who His own self bore our sins, and His own body on the tree that ye being dead to sins should live unto righteousness.” There is this miracle of divine life. “Christ,” Paul says in Galatians 2:20, “liveth in me.” Colossians 1:27: “The secret, the open now revealed secret that we preach among the nations is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Come ye out from among them. Be ye separate, and I will dwell in you and walk in you,” God says in, in, in Corinthians.

The indwelling Holy Spirit of God. As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they’re the sons of God. And if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he has none of His. The indwelling Holy Spirit of God came to live in your heart when you trusted Christ as Savior, to manifest the Lord Jesus Christ through you, that we should live unto righteousness.”

There’s another passage that says, “Ye died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live for themselves, but for Him who died for them.” You, when you commit yourself to the Lord Jesus, you gain a different reason for being. This one of the profound, thrilling, mysteries of the Christian faith. When you commit yourself to the Lord Jesus Christ, you gain a different reason for being.

The question that the teenager who is struggling with an identity crisis sometimes asks, “Why am I here and, and what, what of it, and, and where am I going.” All of these matters of identity are settled when you turn your life over to the Lord Jesus Christ. Should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him. See, live unto righteousness. A reason for living is given you when Jesus becomes Lord of the details of your life. Hallelujah. It’s a precious truth, isn’t it?

Lord Jesus Christ, be Lord of the details of our lives today; our affections, our desires, our everything. Amen.

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