He Becomes Precious

When we give Christ complete control of our lives He becomes precious. How to deal with hurt and anger- turn things over to Him.


Scripture: 1 Peter 2:7, Romans 15:13

Transcript

Alright, thank you very much. And hello again radio friends. How in the world are you? This is your good friend Bob Cook, and we’re back together again looking at the Word of God. I’m so grateful for this privilege. For all of you who are listening, and for the stations that make it possible, for the fellows and gals that are twisting the dials there at the transmitters, (Laughs) you have to listen to us all, don’t you? Oh boy! Well, you know, I often pray, “Lord, if You don’t bless anybody else, bless the people at the station because they deserve a blessing now and again — they have to listen to all this.” So I hope that’s true. How are things going with you, my friend? Everything all right at your house? Well I trust so, bless your heart.

Look with me will you, at 1 Peter 2:7, “Unto you therefore which believe, He that is our Lord Jesus Christ is precious. But unto them which are disobedient, the stone which the builders disallowed, the same is made the head of the corner, and a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense. Even of them which stumble at the Word being disobedient whereunto all so they were appointed. But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people. That ye should show forth the praises of Him who hath called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.” There’s a great passage there.

“Unto you therefore which believe, Christ is precious, precious Savior.” I put that verse on the corner of the photograph I had taken the year I graduated from Moody Bible Institute. You want to guess what year that was? 1930. Imagine! Well, I started when I was just barely 16, so that would have made me, that would have made me 18 that year. And the verse which I chose, and which has been very close to my heart through these intervening years you may be sure, was 1 Peter 2:7, “Unto you therefore which, which believe, he is precious, the preciousness of Christ.”

Want to walk around in that verse for a little while with me? Now the Lord Jesus Christ only becomes precious to you when you commit yourself absolutely to Him. “Unto you therefore which believe…” That word translated ‘believe’ actually has the idea of commitment — turning everything over to your blessed Lord, you see. And letting Him, letting Him control. Greek verb pisteuó which means to, ‘to have faith in’, ‘to commit yourself to’, any of those things. Commitment to Christ is the doorway to a precious experience with Him.

Have you met people who were theologically correct but who seemed cold, and who were strangely unresponsive when you spoke enthusiastically about the Lord Jesus? Pastors, a lot of you preachers listen to this broadcast I know, and I’m glad. You know I always advise your people to take care of you first, don’t you. I’ve had, because I was in the pastorate 18 years, I had a lot of experiences with people who came in and said, “Now let’s all co-operate together.” What they meant was, “Let’s all of you help me do my thing.”

So I’m interested in building the, the Church and the, and helping the pastor, believe me. Well, I threw that in free. Pastors, you know when you go visiting, you ought to make three calls a day, preacher, you know that don’t you? When you go visiting people, you’ll find some who, who are responsive when you speak of the Savior. And then you’ll find other homes where well, they’re, they’re church members, they, they make a profession of faith, they’re in good standing, their conduct is above reproach. But when you speak about the Savior, there’s a strange silence, almost an uneasy silence. Have you, have you, have you been there? Oh yes I’m sure you have, I know I have, hundreds and hundreds of times.

Now what is that? Well just to oversimplify it — my faculty at the college used to say that I oversimplified things too much. Well just, let’s follow that particular fault, shall we, and oversimplify it? The problem is that there’s a lack of commitment to Christ because the minute you commit yourself absolutely to Him, with all of your heart, involving all of your life, He becomes unspeakably precious. And Peter said previously, “Whom having not seen ye love, in whom though now ye see Him not yet believing ye rejoice with joy unspeakable, and full of glory.”

You really can’t describe it all. “Unto you which believe, He is precious.” Well, one of the renderings puts it this way, “Is the preciousness unto you which believe, is the preciousness, Christ the precious one.” Now, how do you approach this whole matter? It’s one thing for Brother Cook to say, “Now you need to commit yourself completely to Christ.” How do you approach it?

Well I think Dr. O. J. Smith my friend of many years who is now with the Lord, founder of the People’s Church in Toronto, I think he had as good an approach to it as any. He said, “Sit down with a, with a package of 3 x 5 index cards and write on a separate card all of the different aspects and elements of your life — your possessions; your money, if you have any; your family; your relatives; your job; your, elements of your character; things you have in your past, some even of which you may be ashamed; your hopes for the future; your property, if you have any; your car; your clothing; your looks; your… every aspect of your life — write these things down on separate pieces of paper, 3 x 5 card is a very good way to do it.

“Then,” said he, “take each card, hold it in your hand, pray about it, and say, ‘Lord, in Jesus name I, I commit this to you.’ And so you take this card and, and you, you pray about it. And you face up to the fact that it may well be that you’ve never given the Lord Jesus Christ really complete control over that area.” There’re certain big drives in our lives that, that we, we keep holding onto for ourselves — isn’t that true. You have to give the Lord Jesus Christ complete control over the drives and appetites and desires, as well as your hopes and fears, as well as your memories of the past — some good, and some that make you wince. You take all these things one by one, and you face them with God.

Here’s something that you haven’t ever told anybody else. But you wrote it down on the card there, and you hold it out. You say, “Oh God, you know about this. Thou God seeist me, you know, and thou knowest my downsitting and my uprising said the psalmist. There’s not a word in my tongue but oh Lord thou knowest it altogether.” So you say, “Lord, you know about this. And I have held it to myself all these years. And now by faith in the Lord Jesus I’m going to turn it over to you.”

Now I want to talk especially to somebody who’s carrying a deep hurt in his or her heart. And you know, all the talk that I might make on the radio isn’t going to make you feel different. You know, if you’re crying and somebody comes up and pats you on the shoulder and says, “Don’t cry, don’t feel bad,” that doesn’t help you. It just makes you, makes a little, just a little resentful because you think, “This bird doesn’t know what I’m going through.”

Well, somebody’s hurting deeply. Somebody’s disappointed you. You thought maybe that you were doing what, what was the will of God, it turned out it you had made a mistake — a human mistake. Why does God let me make mistakes when I so want to do the right thing? Well the Bible says, “Therefore will the Lord wait that He may be gracious onto you.” God loves to hear your cry for help, and to pull you out so to speak, and pull you through. “When thou passest through the waters, they shall not overflow thee,” it says in Isaiah.

So you’re hurting. And all my talk isn’t, isn’t doing anything except to make you a little impatient with me. And you say, “Cook doesn’t know, he doesn’t understand.” Well that’s true, I don’t live inside of your skin, do I? How could I understand it all? But I want to tell you something: you take that particular part of your life — oh how it hurts, and it makes you angry because it happened. And you think, “Where was God when I needed Him?” And you think, “I thought I was doing the right thing, and it turned out I made a mistake.” Oh boy, that’s rough isn’t it?

Now what do you do with it. You take all of that and you bring it to God, say, “Lord, you know about this. And I want just to hand it by faith over to the Lord Jesus Christ. I don’t know what you’re trying to do in my life, and I can’t say that I enjoy it. But I want to give it to you by faith, I want to turn it all over to you so that I can say, ‘It’s in God’s hands.’ I can say that I’ve committed it to you, Lord.” You pray that prayer in, in real faith and sincerity, I can guarantee you one or two things right away. Number one, the bitterness will go out of life’s cup. You won’t be bitter, and you won’t be resentful because you’ve accepted what He has for you.

The second thing is, all of a sudden you’ll have hope for tomorrow. “See, now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing,” Romans 15:13. “The God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing.” When you commit yourself to the Lord Jesus Christ in specific areas, I mean to say, then he says that, “Ye may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost.” All of a sudden you’ll find you have hope for the tomorrows; you haven’t given up, life didn’t fall apart, there is a tomorrow with God, God is still working in my life, I can trust Him.

Hope springs up in your heart when you commit yourself in the Lord Jesus Christ. “Unto you which believe, commit, turn things over to Him, He is precious.” Now another thing that’ll happen when you do this — remember what we’re talking about now. Write the different aspects of your life out on separate cards or pieces of paper. And then hold them in your hand and pray honestly, honestly that is, about them. And turn the control of that life, that situation, that tendency, that habit, that memory, that old hurt — whatever it is, turn it over to the Lord Jesus Christ.

And when you do, you’ll have an immediate awareness of how much more wonderful the Lord Jesus Christ is, than you ever thought He could be. See, you don’t generate love for Christ by talking. Love for the Lord Jesus Christ is generated by obedience. You find in a, in a succeeding verse here, a reference to disobedient. See, “But to them which be disobedient, the stone which the builders disallowed has now become the chief cornerstone.”

So the key, the key to making the Lord Jesus Christ to be really precious in your life is to turn things over to Him and start obeying Him. Whenever you pray about a matter, there will always occur to you something that you can do by way of obeying God. Maybe a very small matter. But the Holy Spirit is faithful, He’ll always suggest to you something you can do by way of obedience. Why don’t we get at the rest of this the next time we get together? It’s good stuff, isn’t it? I love God’s Word.

Dear heavenly Father, today help us to have the good sense and the consecration to commit matters in our lives to Jesus. Thank you for Him. Amen.

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



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