How Jesus, Mary Magdalene, and Peter Obeyed the Gospel of the Kingdom (Part 2)

(continued from Part 1)

Are you following me at all? Brothers and sisters, as long as I have that hope, I’ve got demands I cannot make. Now, I don’t know exactly how to do this, but I’m going to appeal to my weaker nature. One of these days, that retirement fund’s got to go. I understand there are ways to get it out, and the only way to get it out is to quit teaching. And if I quit teaching, I’ve got another problem. If I quit teaching, then I’ve lost my testimony. So I’ve got two divergent problems, but one of these days, I’m going to quit teaching, and that fund has got to go.

I can’t afford the privilege of dying with security. I can’t afford the privilege of knowing that I can live now without owning anything. I can walk around this earth pretty much naked and make all sorts of demands of the Lord’s people, but know that when I get old and decrepit, I’ve got security. Then I live a lie. Is it not true? It’s true. When I get old, I’ve got to have nothing. If the Lord lets me live, I’ve got to die by God’s faithfulness…and no other way. He will be faithful in my old age and my death, just as he has been in my youth.

I haven’t made my point yet, but I’ve made several points. Simon Peter didn’t have a thing in this world. I want to go back to Simon Peter. Here’s the commercial fishing business on one side, and here is his Lord on the other. And here’s Simon, and here’s the gospel of the kingdom. You give up everything, and you turn around, and what do you do? Don’t put it that way ever. You gain Jesus Christ.

When I passed the book out to you recently, I didn’t pass it out until I had spent one month dealing with this. Quite frankly, I don’t ever want to see anybody attain this without doing this first. Because it is against God; it’s merchandising Jesus Christ. Quite frankly, you can’t gain this in its totality until you have done that. You know that’s true; something deep down inside you knows it. There is no common ground between the kingdom of this world and the kingdom of God. And brothers and sisters, that is the kingdom of God.

What is the kingdom of God? The kingdom of God is simply gaining Jesus Christ. I do not mean salvation; I mean gaining Jesus Christ. To have Him and to know Him the way Simon Peter knew Him. Simon is the prototype of all who would be in the kingdom. Why would I say it’s Simon Peter? Because God gave him the keys to the kingdom. He gained Jesus Christ.

I would like to press the world system. I desire to challenge its ways, its systemizations. I want to walk away from that thing and say, we went to the heart and core of your being, and we defied it.  We broke your power in our lives, but that is not our purpose for being here. We will not do the second part of the kingdom until we have dealt with the first part.

Now, brothers and sisters, you were given a book. You consider that book a precious commodity in your life. I would beg you now: have you gotten through the conversations of Brother Lawrence? And I asked you to go no further? You begin reading the letters one day at a time, okay? I would ask you to read them slowly, out loud, and be careful because some of those sentences you pass over that just look so mundane are very important, and pray those pages.

Now, praise God, Simon Peter stood up in front of 3,000 people. Had he experienced giving up everything? I ask you another question: had he experienced living commonly? Yes or no? You bet your life, for three years he put up with eleven other ugly boys. Yeah, and the treasurer was the thief. Okay. Brothers and sisters, had he gained the right to be in the Lord’s kingdom? Yes or no? Was he a great sterling example of how to get there? Absolutely not. John the Beloved was a sterling example of how to get there, but John the Beloved was not handed the keys to the kingdom. I mean, he was not made the foremost apostle. Simon Peter kicked, clawed, screamed, fell, and backslid his way into the kingdom of God. Three cheers for Simon Peter. He got there the way you’re going to get there.

And now Simon Peter stands up in front of 3,000 people, Jews to the last man. What does he say? What does he say? He says, chuck it all. Chuck it all. The other day I said to the single brothers, “You’re going to have to raise the standard.” Single brothers, raise the standard for us, would you? Raise the standard for chucking it all, would you? Is that all Simon Peter did? Was this all he did? What did he do? He said, “Lose it all.”

I’m not even going to answer; I’m going to illustrate it. It’s Tuesday morning. Pentecost is Sunday morning. Monday, that’s the chucking of it all. Tuesday, they’re meeting back in Solomon’s Porch. It’s the first time they’ve met in Solomon’s Porch; it’s Tuesday morning.