Living Proof

Transcript

Alright, thank you very much. And hello again, dear radio friends, how in the world are you? Thank God we can be in the world, but not of it. Aren’t you glad? You don’t have to be smeared with the world’s corruption. You can be kept, as Peter says, “Kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed at the last time.” God keeps you ready for his inspection. Isn’t that great? [chuckle] Oh, I’ll tell you. In this old world, people scurry around to get ready. I came into the bank one day and people were busy, so busy, so busy, and I said to one of them, I said, “Oh, what’s going on here?” Oh, they said, “The examiners are coming.” [chuckle] Get ready. And of course, any of you who’ve worked in a corporation, or a manufacturing plant, you know that when it’s inspection time everybody shines, everything up and gets it all ready for the boss to see.

Well, that’s how things are in life. But I want you to see this, the verse that I just quoted for you from 1 Peter says, “You can be kept by God’s power every day in a dirty world, so that you’re always ready for inspection.” Fellows who were in the military would tell me again and again how when an inspection came and they had to present their M-1 or whatever it was they had and the inspector would be wearing white gloves. You remember that fellas? And he would run the tip of his white gloved finger along the edges of that weapon and if it wasn’t clean, if some smudge came off, Oh boy, you were in for it. Inspection.

Hey, isn’t it great that God keeps you and me ready for inspection. Ready to be revealed at the last time. Oh, that’s the kind of a life that you and I want to live everyday, kept by the power of God. Well, that’s all in this little phrase that I use, as we come on the air, how in the world are you? God can keep you in the world, you don’t have to be of it, you don’t have to be smeared with the world’s corruption. You can be ready at any moment for your blessed Lord to come and to inspect your life. It’s great, isn’t it? Well. That wasn’t in the program. I just threw it in free. [chuckle]

We’re looking at Colossians 3:16, “Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly” where dwell means be at home in, make a home in. And so he says, “Just make a home for God’s Word in your heart,” and then the word richly means relate God’s word to every factor. Every sector, you may say, of your daily life. We talked about that the last time I got together. Do you remember?

Now he says in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another, the process of teaching people. It’s all through the Bible. Samuel said to Saul, as they were going down to the end of the city, Samuel said, “Bid your servant to pass on before us, but stand out still a while that I may show thee the Word of God.” Now, God’s word for Saul at that point was to get on about his business, he was going to meet some prophets, he was going to be among them. The Spirit of God was gonna come upon him and he was going to prophesize as they did.

So that people would all be saying, “Is Saul also among the prophets?” They’d be surprised at it to see what God was doing in the young man’s life. He was teaching him about the plans of God for him. Now, you and I are not given details in God’s Word. God’s Word doesn’t say next Thursday you’re going to Chattanooga, it doesn’t say that, but God’s Word gives us operating principles so that we can know God’s will for us at any given time. What a wonderful relationship that is to know that as you are and where you are and what’s going on, and where you are is in the will of God for you and you can prove it as you read His blessed Word and it’s reinforced by the indwelling Holy Spirit.

So Samuel was saying to Saul, “This is what God has in mind for you. When you teach other people, you teach them principles by which they can operate their lives, without being presumptuous. I have to tell you that this is my fondest hope and prayer in these broadcasts, that as you listen to the truths that I find in God’s Word in which I share with you, you’ll be enabled to order your own life properly as a result. Now, your cards and letters many of them attest to the fact that as you heed what you find in God’s Word, it does help to straighten out affairs in your life. And I rejoice with you about that.

In 2 Kings, you find one of the priests whom they had carried away from Sameria, taught them how they should fear the Lord. Here’s another kind of teaching, the teaching that involves the effect of reverential awe and trust in God, as it impacts upon your daily life. To fear God does not simply mean to bow in his presence, now and again, and sing “Holy, holy, holy,” to fear the Lord really means to love Him enough to want to obey Him, and everything. And when you teach other people, a part of your teaching has to be that the most important thing in all the world, is to love God enough to obey Him. And to be respectful, and to have that sense of reverential awe in his presence. We don’t rush into God’s presence like some heavenly supermarket with our laundry list of things we want. We approach him reverently and then awe because he is almighty God. We can approach confidently, because the Lord Jesus has opened the way. We can approach boldly, as the Bible tells us to do, “Come boldly to the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need,” but we also know that He is Almighty God, and we approach reverently. This is part of the teaching that you are going to give to others.

Ezra, we read, prepared his heart to seek the law of the Lord, and to do it, and to teach in Israel statutes and judgments. To seek the law of the Lord, and to do it and to teach. Let me stop here long enough to remind you that effective teaching of other people has to start inside your own heart, you cannot effectively teach another person holiness or victorious praying, or sacrificial giving, or patience that endures, or grace that sweetly takes the rough things in life. You cannot teach these spiritual lessons unless indeed you’ve been in God’s Word, you have sought His will, and then you’ve obeyed yourself. People watch to see how real your religion really is and the reality of your faith is tested not in church on Sunday morning, but in times when trials come and unexpected reversals not to say sorrow and heartbreak as well. People watch to see how you react then. What is your God going to do for you when your tears are falling when some loved one has been snatched away, by the grim reaper? When your job is in jeopardy and when your health begins to fail, what does your faith do for you then? That’s what people watch to see, and what you’re going to teach effectively depends upon what you’re going to live before you teach.

Sunday school teacher and pastor and missionary and Christian worker, and parents as well. Will you examine your life to see whether you are providing the proper basis for teaching by a life that is experiencing the blessing and the power of Almighty God? I think one of the great examples of teaching is found in the life of our Lord as well. In Matthew 5, it says, “He opened his mouth and taught them saying, Blessed are the poor in spirit,” and so on. We have what we call the Beatitudes, followed by the rest of what is called the Sermon on the Mount, the teaching of our Lord Jesus. And he goes right to the heart of matters that involve our everyday life poor inspirit, people that hunger and thirst after righteousness, the meek, the merciful, the peacemakers, the persecuted and so on.

He goes to the heart of circumstances that you and I face. Temptation, the lusts of the flesh, the temptation to criticize, and to be unforgiving and to be hate-filled, and all of that, the temptation to modify and to change and to trim the absolutes of the Word of God, the temptation to show off our religion so that other people will comment on how holy we seem to be. The temptation to let other people know how much we’re giving and for what. The temptation to build a life on superficial things rather than on the solid rock of the Word of God. Now, I’ve just touched as new Bible students know on a few of the things that are in the teachings of Jesus, there in what we call the Sermon on the Mount. But listen, these teachings, involve life situations. And so as you teach, he says, in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another. As you teach, remember number one, to relate your teaching to the Word of God, number two, to relate that content to life situations. Jesus talked about seeds and sparrows, and farmers and soil and weeds, and thorns and birds of the air and so on. He talked about very common things didn’t he?

Relate your teaching to life situations. And when I’m talking about, for example, when I’m talking about being easy for God to use and I’m talking to a man who loves tools, I will immediately say to him, “Have you got a special wrench that you like to use?” And his face will brighten up and he will say, “Why, of course.” I’ll tell him that my special one when I was in garage work as a college boy was a half, 9/16 wrench that had an open end on one end and a boxed-in on the other end, and it was such a handy thing to use that I put it in the side pocket of my coveralls and always had it with me. That man brightens up as you talked to him about something he knows about and then you relate that truth to a spiritual principle, easy for God to use. “If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honor, sanctified, and meet for the master’s use”. That word, meet is efchristos in the Greek, which means easy to use. Alright, you have related then, what you’re saying not only to the Word of God, but to life situations, that’s what it means to teach God’s blessed Word.

And then of course you help people to understand God’s word better. The Priscilla and Aquila took mercy on this young upstart preacher Apollos, and when they had heard him, they took him and expounded unto him the way of God more perfectly. Now, this needs to be done with considerable finesse and certainly with compassion and love. If you’re going to help a person understand better about the things of God, you don’t come to Him and say, “Now listen here buddy, you’re all off, your way off base your way out in left field, let me straighten you out.” No, you don’t do that. In love and in courtesy and in kindness and as Priscilla and Aquila did take the young man home to dinner, and after you fed him then suggest some things to him. Teaching involves enlightening, and opening things up so that people can understand as it says, “more perfectly” in all wisdom teaching. Now, the next time we get together we’ll think about that word, admonishing, and see what it means.

Dear Father today, wilt Thou grant to us to be good teachers of Thy Word, Amen.

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