His Instrument

When your life is especially filled with God through the Holy Spirit indwelling you, then you become an extension – a pierced Hand.


Scripture: Ephesians 1:2

Transcript

Alright, thank you very much. And hello again, dear radio friend. How are you? Or as I always say, how in the world are you? You can be in the world but not of it. Thank God. Nice to be back with you. And I want to turn with you now to the book of Ephesians. We started to walk around in some of that truth a day or so ago, and I want just to stop on one phrase at the end of Verse 1 Chapter 1 before we go any further. We pointed out that the moment you commit yourself to the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior, the moment you commit yourself to the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, God calls you his saint. Sanctification is a point action and a lifelong process. And so the moment you commit yourself to Jesus as your Lord, that moment you become one of God’s saints.

Now not all of us act like saints assuredly. But the fact is, if a person is truly born from above, the Holy Spirit of God has come to dwell in your heart and God says you’re his saint and the Spirit of God continues his work of sanctifying all the way through the life process until you get safe home to glory. And then the Bible says, “We shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as he is.” That’s saints, then he said, “Faithful brethren in Christ Jesus.” And I pointed out… This is all review. Well, we take a minute just to get a running start into the truth here. I pointed out that faithfulness is your job and mine. “It is accounted among stewards that a man be found faithful,” the Bible says. “Well done thou good and faithful servant,” said the master at the evaluation of his servants according to the story the Lord Jesus told. In the book of the Revelation, you find these words, “Be thou faithful unto death and I will give thee a crown of life.”

Faithfulness is your job and mine. Now assuredly, the Holy Spirit of God enables us to be faithful. One of the fruits of the Spirit, according to Galatians 5, is faithfulness. And so, as you yield to the work of the Spirit of God in your life, he produces in you the ability to obey the commands of God, to stay at the job God gave you until it’s finished and to be loyal to the one to whom you owe it all. Faithfulness is staying on the job, doing what you’re told to do and being loyal to the person who told you to do it. That’s faithfulness. And the Spirit of God does that very thing in your life. Hallelujah for that, huh?

Now he says the faithful in Christ Jesus. True faithfulness as a believer is found only in dynamic union with Jesus Christ. True faithfulness as a believer is found only in a dynamic life-giving union with the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul said the secret, the mystery that we preach among the nations is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Paul the Apostle said of himself, “I’m crucified with Christ. Nevertheless I live yet not I,” not the old Saul of Tarsus with murder in his bones, “but Christ liveth in me. And the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith,” or you could say faithfulness, “of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.” True faithfulness is found when the life of Jesus Christ becomes your life at the exchanged life, someone has called it. Where, by faith, you put yourself in the hands of the One who died and rose again for you and his life then becomes your life and his desires become your desires and his purposes become your long range plan. And the very life of Christ becomes the motivation and the power to follow out that motivation.

Now that’s what Paul meant in 1 Corinthians 1 where he says, “Of him are ye in Christ Jesus who of God is made unto us.” He becomes unto us in other words: Wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. The faithful in Christ Jesus. Faithfulness comes through a dynamic relationship with Christ. And when you have that dynamic relationship with Christ, which comes about through simple surrender by faith of yourself to him. When you have that dynamic relationship with Christ, then what? He becomes your wisdom. Wisdom is the ability to know what to do with what you know. God will never do your homework for you. He will never do the studying for you. I tell our students here at the college that a red hot prayer meeting is no substitute for doing your homework because God will never in answer to prayer help you remember something you did not first forget. You have to put it in the computer before God will help you crank it out, so to speak.

However, the Holy Spirit of God dwelling within you reduplicates the life of Christ and he becomes then, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1:30, “He becomes wisdom.” Wisdom is the ability to do the right thing with what you know. And then he says, “Righteousness.” Righteousness is the ability to do the right thing. The spontaneous goodness of a heart that is right with God. Righteousness not only imputed to us or God declares us righteous for Jesus’ sake but now imparted to us because there is a different person living through us. The fact that you and I may have a righteous character is not to our credit at all. But it is rather for the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is our righteousness.

And when your life is full of Him, then your conduct is full of right things. Righteousness. Then it says, “Sanctification,” and that is simply the quality of being set apart for God’s special use. The quality of being set apart for God’s special use. This is something that you and I ought to think deeply about and as a result, find the Spirit of God doing a very special work in our lives. Now, God is not in the process of creating hermits and recluses. That is not His special business with you and with me, rather He wants us to be in the world but not of it. That, as you know is the basis for my little corny greeting day by day, “How in the world are you?” God wants us to be in the world but not part of it in terms of partaking of the smearing and the soiling influences of an evil world system.

So, then what? Well, sanctification is the quality of being set aside for God’s special use. Paul the Apostle says in Timothy, he said, “If a man, therefore, purged himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honor, sanctified and meet for the Master’s use.” Sanctified and meet for the Master’s use. And that word, meet for the Master’s use… If I remember my Greek New Testament right, it means easy to use. Euchrestos is the word easy to use. It is the term that you apply to a favorite implement of some sort. We have two pancake turners at our house. One is fairly new, it has a plastic handle and a little small blade that looks very neat. And another is older, has a bigger blade on it, a longer handle, and then the wooden part at the end of the metal handle is all chipped and the paint is off and it’s a little bit shabby. Now, can you guess when Bob Cook makes pancakes… Pancake making is my special job now and then. Can you guess when Bob Cook makes pancakes, which pancake turner he might use? Do I take the little new one with the plastic handle, or do I take the older one with the chipped and faded wooden handle? Well, I’ll tell you what I’d do. I’d take the older one because it is euchrestos, it’s easy for me to use. [laughter]

I told you a while back that when I was in the garage business as a college boy, I had some tools that were my pet instruments in my pet tools. One of them was a half 9/16 wrench with a little offset on each end so that it would be easier to work. And I told on the radio maybe a year or so ago how that I would always have that half 9/16 wrench on the side pocket of my coveralls, down about 4 inches above my knee on the side pocket there so that I could easily get to it, and nobody dared even to borrow it because that was special. Well, Ed Robertson heard me talking about it and went to his favorite snap-on wrench dealer and sent me a beautiful brand new half 9/16 wrench. [laughter] Oh, that’s great. I carry it around in my car. Haven’t used it much because my garage days are over. But I’m very proud of having that special pet wrench once again.

Now, dear friend, could you say that you are God’s pet wrench, so to speak, huh? Faithful in Christ Jesus. When you’re in Christ, the Holy Spirit of God sets you in a position where God can especially use you. And you may not know it at the time, but God may use your casual words or your attitude in any situation, sometimes situations involving pressure, or irritation, or whatever. Your attitude in certain situations, or a casual word, or glance, or just the unspoken language of your personality coming into a situation, whatever. When your life is especially filled with God, when you have this dynamic relationship with Jesus our Lord through the Holy Spirit indwelling you, then my friend, you become an extension, so to speak of the pierced hand. And God uses your life as a special instrument. “Meet,” it says, “for the Master’s use.” Easy for God to use.

Oh, I wanna be that kind of person, don’t you? In Christ faithful, in Christ faithful, that’s my job. In Christ, that’s the power to do the job. Philippians 2:13 says, “It is God that worketh in you, both to will and to do of his good pleasure.” Today, as you look heavenward and pray from time to time, pray your way through the day. Don’t let a minute go by but that you’re in touch with your Lord. As you look heavenward in prayer, won’t you just put yourself by faith in those pierced hands and say, “Lord, you supply the power, I’ll be faithful. I’ll do what you tell me to do.”

Dear Father today make us faithful people, easy for God to use. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

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



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