Dynamic Faith

Transcript

Alright, thank you very much. And hello again, dear radio friends, how in the world are you? Are you doing alright? I’m fine except I’m singing base this morning, but then that happens to us all once in a while, doesn’t it? If you can stand it, I can, all allright? [chuckle] We’re looking at Colossians Chapter 2. Paul says, “I want you to know what great conflict I have for you and for as many… For them at Laodicea and as many as not seen my face that their hearts might be comforted, being knit together in love unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding, of the acknowledgement, of the mystery of God and of the Father and of Christ. In Him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” Now, we talked about the fact that praying, interceding for others is work, sometimes it’s a battle, and the thing that we pray for the most as Paul did, is that hearts might be comforted, knit together in love. The full assurance of understanding, the assurance that God gives the believer is just wonderful. Full assurance of understanding, full assurance of faith, full assurance of access into the presence of God.

Now, I said to, unto, what’s the result of our praying? The acknowledgement… Now that word acknowledgement simply doesn’t mean nodding your head and say, “Yeah, yeah.” That isn’t it. Acknowledgement means, that’s true because I know it to be true. That’s the force of that word. When you acknowledge something spiritually speaking here in the Bible sense, you say, that’s true because I know it to be true in my own experience. You see, it’s one thing to profess being a Christian and to agree technically with all of the doctrinal points. There are millions of folk who do that, who are not saved. It’s quite another thing isn’t it, to be able to say, “I know Him, I met Him. He’s in my heart by the Holy Spirit who indwells the believer, and the Word of God speaks to me from its infallible pages. I do acknowledge Christ as my Lord and the truth of all of this is real.” That is quite another thing isn’t it? Yes, it is.

So he says to the acknowledgement of the mystery of God and the Father and of Christ in Him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Now in the Bible, the word mystery, when it’s used in the New Testament, particularly in the Epistles, it means something that was hidden before but now revealed. Something that was hidden before but is now revealed. For instance, let me just tick off some of these verses that will help to explain what we’re talking about. May I? He says, great is the mystery without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness. God manifest in the flesh, who’s that? That’s the Lord Jesus Christ, isn’t it? The mystery of godliness is God manifest in the flesh, justified in the spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world and received up into glory. The mystery of God and the Father and Christ in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. The mystery of godliness is that Jesus, our blessed Lord came down the stairways of the stars to be born of the Virgin Mary, born and cradled there in the manger at Bethlehem. Living a perfect life, dying a perfect atoning death as God’s Passover lamb. Attested to by the voice from above, “This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased, hear ye him.” Attested seen of angel, it says the angels were looking on and in the Garden of Gethsemane an angel came to comfort and minister to our Lord Jesus in his agony and preached on in the world, believed on and received up into glory the Lord Jesus, God in the flesh.

This is the nub actually of the Gospel and it is incidentally the point at which the unbelieving world turns away. Many years ago, Merrill Dunlop and I took off from Haneda Airport in Tokyo to go on around to Calcutta, and we had some stops on the way, because we were flying DC-4s, a lumbering old plane that didn’t make too much time, but was very dependable, happily. And so, we stopped at Bangkok and other places and finally at… Between 3:00 and 4:00 in the morning, the plane touched down at Dum Dum Airport in Calcutta. An unearthly hour of the morning to get anywhere. We sat for some time in the breathless heat of that early morning hour, because it gets very hot in India, as you know, in some parts of the year, and we were getting there in April.

And sat for a while, and finally the customs people came on and said, now you will go out, after we check your passports, you’ll go out to customs. And there was some more waiting, and finally I would suppose it would have been about 4:30 or quarter of 5:00, we left the plane and walked single-file across the tarmac on over into a building. There was some of the military with machine guns, mind you, pointed in our direction. I remember saying nervously to one of them, “Be very careful with that thing won’t you? I’m the only me, I have.” [laughter] And we went through the formalities, which took a while and they impounded one of my suitcases I remember, which had in it some photographic film, and some other things which they thought I might be smuggling in, so they impounded that. I came the next day and said, “I’m here to claim that suitcase that I left here yesterday,” and somebody said, “Yes, sir,” and brought it out to me. [laughter] But anyhow, anyhow, we got out there in the pre-dawn darkness and who should be waiting for us but Hubert Mitchell and Dick Riley?

They had been there all night, because they knew the plane was coming in very early in the pre-dawn hours and they wanted to be there to meet us. And so, they took the last bus out from the city, which happened to be 10 o’clock, got out to the airport and spent all night in that place. What had they been doing? Well, they had been witnessing one by one to all of the workers and they had had some success in presenting Christ to some, but they had had no success in presenting the message of salvation to some others. In fact, there was one conversation where the man looked at them and said, and I’m quoting this as accurately as I can remember it across 40 years. The man looked at them and said, “If you say that Jesus was a good man, a prophet, a teacher, a wonderful person, I will be your friend. But if you say that Jesus is Lord of all, I will fight you until you’re out of India.” Isn’t that something?

Why? Because the heart of the Gospel message is that God Himself came to be in our world, to wear our kind of body, to feel our kind of woe, to die our kind of death, because He loved us. “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” Oh, the offense that the Gospel gives is focused. One might say, focused at that very point, the mystery of Godliness. God manifest in the flesh. Jesus is His name and he’s your savior. The moment you acknowledge Him as Lord and call upon Him for salvation, He’s waiting to move into your life dear friend and to be your Lord and your Savior. Yes, He is, believed on in the world. God is waiting for you to receive His salvation, so freely offered by the Lord Jesus Christ, God in the flesh. The mystery of Godliness, the mystery of salvation is in Colossians 1:27. You, His saints, to whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles which is Christ in you. The hope of glory.

The dynamic of the Christian life is not a religious point of view. When your Christianity becomes merely a point of view, something you join, something that you hold to by way of a doctrinal commitment, when it becomes only that, I’m not downgrading doctrine, you know that, but when it becomes only a point of view, then it’s dead. The dynamic of the Christian faith is a person beloved. A person who lives by His Holy Spirit in your heart and life, Christ in you, the hope of glory. That’s the essence of the mystery of… and the dynamic, I may say, of the Christian faith. Then in Ephesians 3:4-6, let me turn to that passage. And we find here the mystery. Let me read it. “Whereby when you read, ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ, which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto His holy Apostles and prophets by the Spirit.” What is it? That the Gentiles should be fellow heirs, and of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ by the Gospel.

The gentiles, that’s most of us, I’m a gentile. So are many of you. And so that the revelation that God gave to His ancient promised people, the Jew. And from which we have our treasured Old Testament. Every time you talk with a Jewish friend, you ought to thank that person for the Old Testament, because all of the truths of the New are hidden in the Old. Isn’t that true? And we got that great portion of our Bible from God’s precious chosen people, the Jew. And so, it was a kind of exclusive revelation before Calvary, but now, he said this mystery, which has now been opened up, so to speak, to us is that the gentiles are fellow heirs. You, my friend, and I can have a perfect full share in all of the riches and blessings of the body of Christ, fellow heirs of the same body, the body of Christ, the church. All the ground is level at the cross.

Dear Father, today, may we be aware every moment of the presence of the Lord Jesus, in His name I pray, Amen.

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