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

Do you understand anything I’ve said so far? You sure? You want to talk to me? Have I lost you? This is important to me. Are you understanding? I’ve heard the illustration of the brother…by the way, I happen to know him…he used this illustration. He went out to the backyard and called his little boy. His intent in calling the little boy was to go to town. That was his intent. He went out to the backyard, and the little boy was in a mud pile. He now had two intents. Take the little boy to town. Clean him up first. So, he brought his little boy in and cleaned him up; got him all pretty and nice. Came back a few minutes later and called the little boy. He didn’t answer. The little kid had a toy, and he was very intent on the toy, and he was totally distracted from going to town.

Now that’s a really simple illustration, isn’t it? The little boy was dirty and needed cleaning before he went to town, then he got distracted by a toy, and that’s where his thoughts were. He wasn’t going to town. He wasn’t thinking of going to town. His father’s first intent was to go to town. Can you follow the meaning of that simple, simple illustration, that the father had an intent? Something happened. He did not give up his intent. The church of God gave it up.

We live in a day when it is almost impossible to comprehend how utterly His intent has been lost. How many of you used to be Southern Baptists? Will you raise your hand really high? We got…yeah, we’re all over the world, folks. Us Baptists and ex-Baptists, you know, I just don’t know of anybody in the world who has so feasted and so fasted for so long on salvation as us Baptists, and we lived for the revivals that came in the third week in August, and we rejoiced in our salvation again and again and again. Boy, that’s all we had. That and a lot of law and pressure put on us. Brothers and sisters, that gets so old. I’d say rejoicing in your salvation is pretty good for about four years; it’s great for about six months, but it gets old fast when there’s nothing else. However, there is something else, and that is the very thing He saved you for.

Now what did he save you for? You think I’m just going to tell you in a sentence in a whole week, maybe a month, two months. Sure, I will. He saved you for himself. But oh, that gets so big. It gets so glorious and so wonderful. Why don’t you say Praise the Lord? Would you, Scott, get your mouth open a little better in there? Say praise the Lord. Can you folks say anything? You don’t have to say Praise the Lord. You can say, “Wow, gee golly.” Okay. Then will we do Him an injustice by turning away from the self-centeredness of salvation and what He has done for us, and turn our eyes toward Him on what His passion is and what He wishes? I want you to know, I’m going to stay with this theme. I’m going to stay with this until it runs out of your ears. When this conference is over, we’re going to keep meeting in homes. I’m going to keep talking to you. There isn’t a reason for the Ekklesia outside of his original intent. The Ekklesia is for Him. It is not Him for us. It’s us for Him.

By the way, I left off two points. I’m going to do a little parenthesis here from last night. Don’t come here if you want community. A lot of people want community. We will have community, but we’re not here for community. Don’t come here for community. You will be very disappointed. Community is the worst thing you can do to yourself, one thing. Has anybody ever done it? Say amen. Boy, you are a quiet bunch of people. Would you open the door a little? The other one is, don’t come here for spiritual warfare…and one of them I left out.

And I need to tell you something. And this comes back even to the matter of God’s purpose. There is a great deal of centeredness on ourselves. Oh no, it’s just total. It is a gospel that is self-centric, but boy, I’m always stunned also at an element of the Christian faith that is so taken up with Satan and the need to fight him. I would like you to know that this does not reflect me; I am really not interested in Satan or the devil or Lucifer, and I will not give him credit for anything. But doesn’t he do things? Not without permission, he doesn’t. And from where does the permission come? It comes from the hand of God. Then why should I fear him or be taken up with him? And I go a little bit further and say God has already dealt with him. I think the best thing I can do with Satan is ignore him. Thank you. Do you think he appreciates that? I bet it really drives his gizzard.

You don’t any of you know this, I’ll tell a little worldly story here. Back when this young kid, who’s about my age, by the way…he’s dead now…first person in my generation to become nationally famous. First person my age to become nationally famous. And he was selling records faster than anybody had ever sold records. Elvis Presley. And he just left all the other great singers, well-known and really good singers…they could actually sing…behind, and one of the old-time greats recorded a song that outsold one of Elvis Presley’s, and Elvis Presley was dominating. I think he just did everything that was being sold was Elvis Presley. Anyway, this fella did it. He outsold Elvis Presley. They were afraid nobody could do that anymore. And they threw him a party. They threw this fella a party, and they put this…and everybody came celebrating the fact that he had outsold Elvis Presley’s records. They put this great big bear up in the room that said, Elvis who? And I want you to know that that is my attitude toward the devil. “Satan who?” The church will do warfare, but it will not go to seed on warfare. It will go to war when there is war, but it will not make up war, and we are not going to be centered on the devil and we will not fear him, and we will discuss him an absolute minimum. And as far as I’m concerned, I don’t ever want to hear anybody say that was really of the devil. For one thing, I’ve heard too many people say that of other Christians. That man is really of the devil. How do you feel? I tell you, that’s the work of the devil. Yeah, and that’s not good. We Christians ought not to talk that way. Sure, the devil does a few things, but not without the permission of him who is totally sovereign.

I’m off the track. My parentheses ended. Let me go a little bit further. I want to take a few minutes to just look at a few passages of Scripture you may have never noticed. I want you to watch the reference of the early Christians. I think you all know, for instance, Romans 6, 7, and 8 are the great passages Christians turn to concerning the secret to the victorious Christian life. And chapter 6 is about reckoning yourself dead, dead to sin and alive to God. It is a very difficult concept to get over, which has changed the lives of thousands of Christians when they have recognized that they are not going to be, but are dead to sin, and therefore they reckon themselves dead. But if you live long enough, you find out there are a bunch of people walking around going, I reckon myself dead, I reckon myself dead, I’m dead, I’m dead, I’m dead. I’m just reckoning this situation; I’m dead to sin. I’m reckoning myself dead to this situation here now. And you know, it’s not there.

Again, our orientation is toward a very self-centeredness. Would you like to turn to Romans 6? Well, it’s a long, long, long, long, long passage. I’m not going to read it all, but I’m going to read 10, 11, 12, and 13. For the death that he died, he died to sin once for all. But the life that he lives, he lives to God. Even so, consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body that you should obey its lusts. And do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but presenting yourself unto God as those who are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.

There are just some very simple words I would like you to look at. For the death that the Lord Jesus died, He died to sin. He did it once, and He did it for all of us. But the life that He lives, Christ lives unto God. Will you say this with me? Christ lives unto God. Christ lives unto God. He lives unto God. Alright? Even so, consider yourselves to be dead to sin. Oh, boy. Praise the Lord. If we can just understand re-radiation. You didn’t think this up, being alive unto God. The first person who was alive unto God was Christ. Now, where are you? Say it. You don’t have to spend your life reckoning yourself dead. Look at the rest of the verse…but alive unto God in Christ. Alive unto God, alive unto God, say it again, alive unto God.

Now, brothers and sisters, we in this fellowship can make a lot of approaches to the Christian life and the living of the Christian life, but I’m telling you, this is what we’re going to do. We’re not going to look at ourselves dead. We will see Christ’s death. You understand? Then we will see Him alive unto God. And we will look at His death. And we’ll look at Him alive unto God. And you know what else we’re going to do? We’re going to look at ourselves in Christ. And it’s going to be Christ, not us in Christ, that we will concentrate on. And we are alive unto God in Christ. We are in Christ, who is alive unto God.

Now you want to go a little bit further? We’re going to remember what book we read this out of. Now, can anybody follow what I’m saying? If you can, I want you to raise your hand right now and acknowledge it. We’re going to remember which book we read this out of. Can you stick your hand up and say, ‘I think I know what you mean,’ Gene? Okay, we got Judi, we got Arlene, we got Tim, and Arlene’s been so good to me, I’m going to embarrass her. Arlene, what book are we reading this out of? Not good enough; the living Word, Christ, but for me, more important.