Present at the Birth (Part 1): The Fellowship of His Purpose

It’s very, very difficult to stand here and look at you and know what I’ve got ahead of me right here, because what I’m going to seek to do is totally reorientate all your thinking in every way, and hope by the mercies of God it will remain permanent. Now the chances of that are pretty remote. I don’t know if you realize how much the typical Protestant Christian, and I’m going to say evangelical Christian, has the way of a mindset. Let me just run it by you. We get saved because Jesus died for us, He cared for us, He loved us, He died on the cross for us, and He forgave our sins. If we believe in Him, He will save us. Change our lives inside, internally. We’re not talking about a moral change here. And then we will love Him, and we will serve Him, and He will be good to us. And we’ll, you know, the other things that get involved, but He will love us, and we will love Him, and we’ll pray, and whatever else, and then we will die and go to heaven. Now, that’s pretty much it, isn’t it?

You know, none of that’s really very scriptural. Oh, it is. It really, really is. But it isn’t. The truth of the matter is that it is an orientation that has come to us as Protestants. I think one of the first recollections I have of a little sense that there’s something to miss here was when I was no more than 17 years old. It was the year I got saved, and I was reading the book of Ephesians. I didn’t understand anything in Ephesians. Like, you know, when you read Ephesians and you don’t understand anything in it, it just seems to be words piled up on top of one another, a vocabulary of which we know nothing. It bothered me that I was hearing some real basic, and if you don’t mind, objective things. Very objective – object things. And here was all this world that I kept stumbling across in the New Testament.

Well, listen. The orientation of the Lord Jesus Christ was to the Father. And something of this orientation was passed on to the disciples, and they had an orientation that was also away from themselves. The Lord Jesus had an orientation away from Himself. Boy, if you don’t understand me at any time, will you throw a hand up? I want to be clear. And the early writers of the New Testament had an orientation that was away from themselves. I don’t know any simpler way to put that.

Now then, the gospel that you and I get preached is a gospel that is an orientation toward you and toward me. Are you following me? Well, can we break that? Can we break that and come out into a whole new realm, a new place to stand? We’ve got to, and I’m here to help a little group of people begin meeting in Atlanta in a very simple way. And I’m saying to you, as I said last night, you ought not to come here. I am taking a stand with the brothers and sisters I will be working with, a unique stand. I have not done this before. This is new for me. I’m growing. It will be a fellowship of believers whose orientation is not toward themselves. I am not promising you a rose garden. I’m not promising you anything for yourself. And before this week’s out, it’s going to get tougher and tougher, but I would like to show you a little bit of the Lord’s orientation, which was to the Father. And the early Christians whose orientation was to the Lord. It’s all in the New Testament; we somehow just don’t seem to catch it. But brothers and sisters, it’s a lot more than this. It’s entering into an eternal plan, and that plan becoming your life. That your orientation be for Him, to Him, by Him, and through Him. By Him, for Him, through Him, to Him. Actually, if we have any other starting place, we will always end up in the wrong place. You begin the wrong way; you end the wrong way, like in, uh, back in the days of Galileo, and, and, uh, what was the other guy’s name? Copernicus.

People always started with the Earth as the center of the universe, and no mathematical equations would work out. Finally, one of these guys got down and made the sun the center of the universe, and everything worked out mathematically. Well, my dear sisters and brothers, if you start with an orientation of God toward us, and that is definitely the gospel we have always been preached. It is extremely us-centered. Nothing ever really works out. It has to be lifted totally out of this sphere.

Now, how shall I begin, what shall I say, and what shall I do? I’ve done this before. I hope most of you have never heard it. Well, let’s just ask some very basic questions: why did God create? It’s not a question often dealt with. What is man’s destiny? Those are two good questions: why did God create, and what is man’s destiny? The New Testament is very clear about this, both of them. Don’t come here if you’re here to go to heaven, here to enjoy meetings, here to be blessed, here to have your prayers answered, here to enjoy our meetings. Right now, they’re not very good, so you don’t have to worry, but they will get better, and that’s what I’m afraid of. They become some of the most beautiful meetings you’ve ever seen, and you’ll want to warm your hands at the fire of the meetings. Don’t come. And don’t come for you. This one is for Him. For Him. For Him.

Now, my question is just as simple as it can be. Did God create the universe in order to save us from our sins? That’s a little difficult, isn’t it? Because we were not here yet. But boy, here is a big question. And that question is, was his purpose stopped by the fall of man? Was his purpose stopped by the fall of man? Was his purpose altered by the fall of man? Say it. No. No, it was not altered by the fall of man. Therefore, this wondrous, glorious thing we have of redemption, which we spend so much of our time and effort on, is in fact a small part of a far greater whole, and that greater whole is that which he intended before He created. And my word to you is simply this: we’re here to discover that purpose, to plunge into that purpose, to make His purpose our purpose, to become one with that purpose, and to live for that purpose. And not only live for that purpose but live for the God of that purpose. To join into His heartbeat, His care, His passion for what He’s concerned about.

Now, wait a minute, Gene. If I knew that and I come here, who’s going to take care of me? If we’re all here, it’s turning away from our own center to a God­centeredness, a really profound God-centeredness. Words are cheap; anybody can say God­centeredness; words are cheap. But if we turn from a self-centric, not self-centered, self-centric reference to “God’s intention” center, who’s going to take care of us? Well, have you got any volunteers here? Have you got any possibilities? What? Huh? I really am afraid that’s true. And that’s not very trustable, is it? If God’s going to take care of us, you know, God, He’s not really very dependable. I mean, do you really believe He’s faithful? You really believe that? Phooey. You think God’s faithful, go talk to Prem Pradhan. Don’t tell me God’s faithful, Prem, I know how many years you’ve spent in prison. God didn’t come take him out of prison. God really mistreated Prem Pradhan. Would you agree to that? Oh, yes. Say yes. Don’t do that. Yeah. Yes. He’d better never treat me that way. Huh? Yeah, I know. Just a different level. Different approaches. Same God.

Now, brothers, I’m trying to tell you that God’s standard of how He’s going to care for you, and your standard of how God’s going to care for you, are two different standards. Two, really, totally different standards. Brothers and sisters, I do not know how to issue forth this burden tonight: that God had an intention before He created, and that intention has been so incredibly neglected, overlooked, and forgotten. And we, as God’s people in every generation, and certainly in this one, and I don’t guess this one’s any worse than any other, have almost literally lost the ability to contact that intention and to embrace that intention. I have read, I suppose, what little has ever been written about this. I’m sure there are things I have not read, but I think one of the things that has always bothered me is the men who wrote…they wrote so long ago…were so optimistic that God’s people were going to see God’s greater and greatest intent, and that the church would change as she began to enter into the very heartbeat and purpose of God. And those books are old, and I tell you that sometimes you feel like that flame is flickering out.

Praise the Lord, God will raise up somebody someday somewhere, but right now, if it goes out, He’ll relight it. Right now, right here in this town, I would like to say to the 15 or 16 people who are going to make up the basis of this town and this little group, and their fellowship, I want you to consider seriously rethinking your being here because we will not pursue the avenues we normally pursue. The messages will not be toward you. The ministry will not be toward you. The ministry will not be for you. The ministry will be toward Him. The experience that we will enter into will be toward Him. The message will be toward Him. It will be to Him, and it will be for Him, and if we can pursue far enough, it will be through Him and by Him. It will not be aimed at you, your needs, and so forth.

Gene, how am I going to get my needs met? I don’t know. I honestly don’t know. I figure if we will glorify Him, if we will know it’s more than glorify Him, if we will enter into His passion, His eyesight, His vision, some way or other, He’ll manage to take care of us. I mean, brothers and sisters, we will meet and we will discuss, and we will search out His intent, and then we will, early in the mornings or in the afternoons or in the evenings with one another, we will pursue a touch with Him toward His intent. And that’s where we will pursue our spiritual life. It will be oriented to Him. It will be oriented as coming from Him. It will be toward Him, and if He lives, it will be from Him, for He will respond.