I’m With Him

Transcript

Alright thank you very much, and hello again dear radio friends. How in the world are you? Doing Alright? Oh, bless your heart. I’m glad you’re there, I’m glad I’m here with you. I’m feeling fine. Somebody asked, “How are you?” Well, I’m alright. Feeling fine, full of bounce to the ounce, a little too much ounce, but lots of pep and lots of ginger and lots of joy and the peace that passes understanding, and so grateful for the love of Christ, my Savior. And grateful I may also say, for the unspeakable privilege of sharing God’s Word with you. I shall never get over being thankful for the privilege God has given me in these years, twenty-five of them now I guess, nonstop, of sharing God’s Word with you.

So, we rejoice and we love each other in Christ, and we go on serving our Lord as we live by the truths of His blessed Word and that reminds me then let’s get into the Word in chapter 3 of Philippians. We’re looking at 3:10, “Oh, that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings being made conformable unto His death”. What does that mean? The marks of Christ-likeness, the marks of the cross Paul said in Galatians, in the closing words of the book of Galatians, do you remember that? From now on he says, “Don’t, don’t bother me because”, he said, “I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus”. Well he can say that literally because he had been beaten and, and harassed, and, and stoned, and shipwrecked and all the rest. So he had a few scars.

Well what does Christ-likeness mean to you and to me? Obviously, I think we have to go back to the, the Galatians passage that gives us the fruit of the Spirit, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith. That’s our idea faithfulness, meekness, temperance, self-control against such there is no law. What is Christ-likeness? It is His character re-duplicated in you and in me, by the Holy Spirit of God, who indwells the believer and who applies the Word of God to our lives. “That I may be made conformable”.

Now, he says, “Conformable unto His death”. What is the what is the mystical meaning of all of this? Does He expect me to die? No, not yet. What does He mean? “Conformable unto His death”, means identifying with the Lord Jesus as He dies for sin and arises victorious over the grave, and over death. “Conformable unto His death”, means to me, to live as Christ died, I died with Him, I rose with Him, to me to live as Christ. Identification with Christ.

I go over to first Corinthians 1 where Paul says, “Christ is made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption”. Wisdom is knowing what to do with what you know. Righteousness is being spontaneously good. Sanctification is being holy without being pious. and redemption means wrapping up the whole package of life and, and living it as a God given miracle while you’re on your way to the heavenly kingdom. “Christ is made unto us that”. In other words, you identify with Him and you begin to experience then what He is in that particular relationship of life. You identify with Christ.

Now, how can I, can I illustrate His word of identifying? Here’s a little boy, he’s six. His father is a professional tennis player. This little boy is sitting right behind the, the judges stand there, in the middle of, of, the the tennis court. He is watching each play, his head is going from side to side as he watches the ball flying back and forth. He listens carefully to the call. Finally, the match is over. His father has pulled it off, his father has won, and the little boy goes out hand-in-hand with his dad, meets somebody who wasn’t at the game who said, “How did it come out?”, and this little six-year-old says, what does he say? “We won!, We won”! Now had he, had he, had been in the game, no he hadn’t been in the game, didn’t touch a racket, never hit a ball, never gave a decision, just sat there and yelled at the right time, but now he’s coming out, his hand in his dad’s hand and he says, “We won”!

Revelation chapter, I think ought to be 12, isn’t it, “They overcame by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimonies and they loved not their lives unto the death”. “They overcame Satan by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimonies and they loved not their lives unto the death”. Do you identify with that at all? See, you don’t have to fight the battle. This is the point I’m making. You don’t have to fight the battle You don’t have to try to act like a Christian. To try to act like a Christian puts you as the, as the victim of a terrible hypocrisy. You get tired of putting on a front, finally give up and then you become your old, unpleasant self. You don’t have to win the battle, you don’t have to try to act like a Christian, all you have to do is to identify with the one who can win the battle and who can live the Christian life through you. The secret, Paul says, “The mystery that we now preach among the nations is Christ in you, the hope of glory”. “Being made conformable unto His death”, means learning that the Lord Jesus settled it all of Calvary, that He’s alive today to be your living Savior and that you can identify with Him and that He can become by faith–now stop her a minute. How did Christ become your Savior? Did you do something or pay something or promise something? No. What did you do? By faith you received Him into your life, did you not? Come into my heart Lord Jesus, forgive my sins, make me a child of God.

Or perhaps you prayed the publicans prayer, “God be merciful to me, a sinner, and save me now for Jesus’ sake”. Whatever, this was an act of faith, wasn’t it? Could you touch Him? Could you see Him? Could you feel Him? Could you promise anything to make yourself more acceptable to your Savior? No. “Nothing in my hand I bring simply to Thy cross, I cling. Rock of ages, cleft for me, let me hide myself in Thee. Just as I am, without one plea but that Thy blood was shed for me, that Thou bidest me come to thee, oh Lamb of God I come”. That’s how you did it. Didn’t you? Incidentally, if you’ve never made the Lord Jesus your Lord and Savior by faith you better do it right away. I’ve just told you how. Talk to Him. Ask Him to come into your heart and life by faith, trust Him, He will answer, I promise, because He’s promised.

Well then, how did you become a Christian? By faith. How do you appropriate the reality of the Lord Jesus who died on the cross for our sins and who rose again to be our living Savior and to justify us? How do you do this? By faith. “Christ is made unto us wisdom, by faith, He’s made unto us righteousness, by faith, He’s made unto us sanctification”, so you can live a holy life, “by faith, He’s made unto us redemption”, which wraps up the whole process of living in makes it a continuing miracle. By faith. Have you learned that yet? Oh, try this on for size for yourself. It’s such a wonderful thing to trust the Lord Jesus to be in you and for you and through you, all that He wants to be. Identification with Christ. “Christ in you the hope of glory”.

Paul says in Galatians 2, “The life I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me”. You trust Christ to do it. You trust Christ to work God’s will in you and to do God’s will in you. It’s a matter of surrendering yourself to the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, surrender is oftentimes linked to conduct. It’s one thing to say, I surrender, while it’s another thing to do it.

I heard Stewart Hamblin tell how he finally found peace with God. There in the middle of the night, around two or three in the morning, he couldn’t sleep. He got his dear wife Suzy awake and they dressed and went across the city of Los Angeles, this would of been back in 1949. Across the city of Los Angeles to a place where brother Billy Graham and Cliff Barrows were staying. Woke them, got them out of bed, and as Billy came to meet Stewart, Stewart says, “He reached out his hand and said, ‘Billy pray for me’”. Now, Brother Graham has a good deal of steel in his backbone, of a good deal of wisdom from God, as you know. He looked, Stewart said, “He looked at him and said, ‘Stewart I won’t pray for you. I’m not going to give you another chance to lie to me and to my God. It’s not going to help until you’re willing to get right with the Lord”, or words to that affect. And Stewart said, he got down on his knees for himself, and he took, one by one, the things that he had not been willing to yield to the Lord Jesus Christ, he said, “I told him about my horseracing and I told him about my dirty stories. I told him about my drinking, my gambling, and he said when I finished that long list of things that stood between me and God and given them all over to Him”, Stewart Hamblin said, “I heard that heavenly switchboard click in the skies”. He has a beautiful way of expressing things and that’s what he said on that occasion. I heard the heavenly switchboard click in the skies”.

In other words, he knew in his own heart, that he’d found peace with God, that he was accepted in the beloved one, the Lord Jesus Christ. I say, faith in the Lord Jesus, this matter of appropriating, identifying with the Lord Jesus, is oftentimes connected with some bit of conduct, and I have to be willing to face up to that in order to know the thrill of His complete Lordship in my life. That’s something that you and I better think about and pray about, isn’t it? To be willing to face up to the area of conduct which exemplifies the unwillingness of the human spirit to let Jesus be Lord. It’s not that by stopping doing something or starting to do something else you become more holy. That isn’t the point. The point is that there are certain areas of my life that stand between me and God, and I have to yield to Him if I’m going successfully to identify with Him. Do you follow that? “Being made conformable to His death”, means I have to go to Calvary and there, pour out before Him, all of my needs, my weakness, my failures, my sins, my hopes, my ambitions, my longings. Bring it all to Jesus and let Him be Lord of all. Then you can say, “Christ is made unto me wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption”. Wrap up the whole package of life and make it a continuing adventure, a continuing miracle as you walk with your blessed, living Lord. Hallelujah! It’s a great truth isn’t it?

Dear Father today, I pray that we may identify with the Lord Jesus all the way, in His name I ask, Amen.

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