Patience Of The Saintly

Transcript

Alright thank you very much, and hello again dear radio friends. How in the world are you? Doing alright? Well, this is your friend Dr. Cook and I’m speaking with you as usual from the little room at the end of the hall on the second floor of the big white house. I’m in a room that used to be occupied in the old days when people of considerable means lived in this home. It was servant’s quarters, well I’m God’s servant so I guess I fit here, it’s a little room but it’s my size. And I’ve got the microphones, and the big timer, and the tape eraser, and some magic markers, and some stickers, and some cassettes, and some patch cords, that’s a cord to use to connect one recorder with another, and pencils and pens, and a Greek New Testament and several versions of the Bible a lot of other comfortable junk around me. And here I am talking with you my precious friend, nice to be back with you.

Turn with me if you will please, to the book Ephesians. Yesterday we talked about being in the will of God in terms of your daily work. If you want to get God into your job, number one pray about the content of your job before you start it. Number two, do the individual items of your job prayerfully as unto the Lord. Number three, look for ways to honor you Lord in the daily go around of activities. And number four, always give your Lord the glory.

Your job whether it’s brick layer, or basketball player, or teacher, or a physician, or attorney, or whatever it may be. Your job, my dear friend, is part of God’s will for you. Paul an Apostle by the will of God, now he says, “the Saints that are at Ephesus and to the faithful in Christ Jesus”. Saints at Ephesus, this book was written to saints, and it’s an interesting concept to realize, that when you and I receive the Lord Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, we become God’s saint. You don’t have to wait until you’ve been dead 400 years to be beatified by somebody’s edict. The moment you trust the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior that moment you become what God calls, a saint.

Paul writing to the people at Corinth, who was chewing them out about some of the things that were wrong with them and he said, he mentions some awful sins and he said, “And such where some of you but ye are sanctified, ye are justified, and ye are sanctified”. Here they were; they had problems there at Corinth. There were morality problems. They were quarrelling with each other, they were split into factions, they were so angry with each other, they were actually going to law with each other, all sort of problems, and yet Paul said, “In such where some of you but ye are sanctified”.

You see God makes you a saint, He make you His saint when you trust the Lord Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, Hallelujah for that. Now it’s, this then it’s not something you do, it’s something God does. “Therefore being justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” And, God gave the Lord Jesus Christ to die for you and for me, Paul says, “That he might be just and at the same time the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus. God hath set forth Christ to be a propitiation through faith and his blood to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are passed to declare at this time his righteousness that he might be just and the justifier which believeth in Jesus.”

So God declares you righteous, when you commit yourself to the Lord Jesus Christ as your Lord and as your Savior. There is however something that you and I need to do and that’s mentioned in the last part of this first verse of Ephesians 1, “To the saints at Ephesus and he said to the faithful, faithful in Christ Jesus, be thou faithful unto death and I will give you the crown of life”, our Savior says. Well done good and faithful servant is the word of commendation that comes at the judgment according to the word of our Savior.

Faithful it is required among stewards that a man be found faithful, says the apostle Paul. What is this all about? It’s simply is this; that God declares you to be His saint but He leaves it up to you as to how faithful you’re going to be to Him. Have you found the difference there? Have you marked down in your own thinking, the line of difference between what God does and what you and I must do? There is a difference, God gives you freely these blessings that are eternal in nature. Notice, 2 Peter 1, “According as His divine power hath given unto us”, you didn’t know anything to merit it, God gave it to you, “hath given unto us all things that pertain on to life and Godliness through the knowledge of Him that hath called us to glory and virtue”.

God has given you everything you need to live the Christian life you got it right now, that’s what Peter says. All things that are pertaining to life and godliness He has given them to you because of Jesus and also He’s giving you his word, whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises that by these you might be partakers of the divine nature having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. So you have the Lord Jesus Himself, you have everything you need live the Christian life and you’ve got the Word of God, these wonderful promises that can actually modify human behavior and keep you clean in a dirty world, that’s what Peter says, it’s all yours, God gave it to you. Hallelujah.

Now then beside this he said, “giving all diligence you add to your faith”, you add to your faith, virtue that’s spontaneous goodness. Knowledge and that’s the word means a personal awareness of God’s truth. Temperance, that’s inner God control, patience that’s the ability to stay down not to give up or blow up, godliness that’s the quality of God in everyday living, brotherly kindness that’s our word Philadelphia — love of your brother, and a brotherly kindness love, “Agape” John 3:16, love. He says, you do the adding, God has given you Himself, He has given you everything you need to live the Christian life and He’s given you His precious promises that can modify human behavior and make you what you ought to be, now he says, you work at it, that’s what Peter is saying.

Alright back to Ephesians 1:1, “Saints and faithful people”. When you give yourself to the Lord Jesus Christ you become a saint. You my friend if you know the Lord Jesus as your Savior you are a saint, Saint John, Saint Rachelle, Saint Margarete, Saint Hazel, how about that? You are a saint because you know the Lord Jesus Christ. Well then, “What are you getting at Brother Cook,” you say? I’m getting at the fact that there are some things you and I need to work on. We need to work on the areas of our life that are tagged, “faithfulness to Christ.”

How do you do that? Well, I think you realize that there are some things that God will give you only as you trust Him by faith, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance, and that word faith can be read faithfulness look it up in your Greek Lexicon you’ll find that’s true. How then do I become faithful? I first of all open my heart and mind and life to the blessed Holy Spirit of God who has as his special ministry, reduplicating the life of Christ in me.

If I want to be a faithful person let me get in touch with the person who can make me faithful, the Holy Spirit of God. You know people don’t change much by themselves. As the years go by we don’t change we just become a little more obvious. I think there’s nothing more pitiful than a person who has grown old without the redeeming and changing and transforming work of the Holy Spirit of God in his or her life. An old man who has never learned the control of the Spirit of God over thoughts and words and deeds and desires, is a pitiful person because he reveals to everybody who looks at him, the weaknesses that he has been carrying all his life, it’s true isn’t it?

A person who has lived for money becomes pitifully money hungry in the latter years. A person who has lived for pleasure becomes pitifully pleasure bent in the latter years. Oh maybe arthritis has slowed him or her down, can’t move around very much but the desire is still there. A person who has been dishonest and devious in early years, and God has never done anything in that life, is still devious but now it’s obvious to everybody and it’s pitiful, it’s an object of ridicule and pity. We don’t change much humanly by ourselves and that’s why I’m advising you, and me, all of us, to get in touch with the blessed Spirit of God because he does changes, the fruit of the Spirit is faithfulness among other things.

Oh, to be a faithful servant of God, I need the person dwelling within me to make me faithful. Paul says in Philippians 2:13, “It is God which worketh in you, God worketh in you both to will that take care if they want to and to do that takes care of the performance of His good pleasure”. So open your heart and life to the blessed Holy Spirit. Do this by faith just as you trusted Christ as Savior, so look up and say, blessed Spirit of God I want to offer my whole life to you and then day by day trust the spirit of God to prompt you to do and say those things that are obedient to God. Faithfulness often times takes the simple form of obedience. To be a faithful servant means to do what you are told.

And so as we look heavenward we need to pray, Lord not my will but Thine be done, what is it you want me to do today. I have good news for you at this point, whenever you look heaven word and ask for God’s direction He’ll give it to you. Proverbs 3:6 says, “In all thy ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct thy paths”. If you want the will of God and ask for it He’ll give it to you on time. Now waiting for the answer may be extremely trying, because many of us are like the man who said, “I prayed for patience and I said Lord I want it right now”. We want our answers in a hurry, but I have to tell you God will give you your answer, He will guide in His will and He’ll always be on time, you needn’t worry about God being late. If you want to do the will of God tell Him so, ask Him what He wants you to do and then take the first step of obedience and you’ll find that He’s guiding you.

Faithfulness number one, starts with the Holy Spirit of God in your life. Number two, continues with step by step obedience. And number three, to be faithful means to keep your heart warm toward the Lord Jesus. Don’t get cold toward Him. Oh, the complaint of the Savior as He spoke to this very church at Ephesus said that, “You’ve left your first love”. You’ve left your first love, don’t let your heart get cold toward the Savior, okay? God makes you a saint. Your business is to see to it that you’re faithful. Put the two concepts together and you have a wonderful life for the glory of your Savior.

Dear Father today, Thou us made us saints, help us to be faithful, Amen.

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