The True Secret to the Christian Life (It’s Not What You Think)

You say, they’re watching Him read the Bible. He didn’t read the Bible; He wrote the Bible. He prayed a little bit, but He said once, “I’m only praying for your benefit; it’s not necessary.” His prayer was His fellowship with the Father. That was His prayer. That was almost all of His prayer. Take out Gethsemane and a few other crisis experiences in His life.

His prayer was His fellowship, and they’re watching him. They’re watching this Christian, and they’re watching this Christian live the Christian life, and they are impressed. They are overwhelmed. And He says to them, I’ve got something you can’t have. You’re going to read your Bible, and you’re going to pray, and you’re going to speak in tongues, and that’s how you’re going to live the Christian life. Right?

Right? No. I’m going to say something that may not make a lot of sense to you, but hold it for a moment anyway. What the Father is to the Son, the Son is to you. You got that? What the Father is to the Son, the Son is to you. Praise the Lord. Who is living inside the Son? The Father. Who’s living inside of you? Jesus. At least Jesus. Yeah. Oh, but Gene, come on. He didn’t reestablish that same eternal relationship in me, too, did he? Amen, he did.

Listen, we’re talking about an ancient habit here. We’re talking about a habit of eternity, a habit he lived out for 30, 33, 33 1/2 years upon this earth. He did the same thing on earth that He did in eternity. Did He pass that on to those twelve illiterate disciples? Yes!

I’m going to stop this message right here, but I’m going to prove that point to you with a story, and I’m going to have you impressed, and I want you to know I have been faithful. I have shown you the secret of the Christian’s life. This is how he did it, and you should pitch your tent here.

Did it really come on through the third stage? The Lord Jesus Christ dies. He rises from the grave. He blows into the disciples His very life and nature. They now have him dwelling in them. They’ve been watching him live by the Father for three and a half years. They watched how he did it. Now he says to them, He who dwells in Me dwells in you. And they’re going out to tell us to pray and read our Bible and speak in tongues, to a world that also is illiterate.

Alright, here’s my story. The death of the Lord has come. The resurrection has come. The Lord has ascended. 49 days have passed. Pentecost came. The church was born. And the disciples tell 3000 people: “You show up tomorrow morning, the day after Pentecost; you show up at Solomon’s Porch. We want to talk to you.”

Okay, join with me for a moment. It’s about 4 a.m. The apostles…all of the apostles, get up. It’s Monday morning, the day after Pentecost. They get up, and they go to Jerusalem to pray. And Peter says, Let’s go up on the wall right over the porch, Solomon’s porch, where everybody’s going to gather, and let’s pray. So, they get together, and they’re scared. Twelve scared men. They’ve got to take care of 3000 people, and about 5 a.m., the sun starts to come up, and the people start trickling in, and in a few minutes, it’s 1000, and then it’s 2000, and it’s 3000, and goodnight, it looks like about maybe 4000.

They all sit down kind of like this. Peter peeps over the wall again. James looks over the wall. Oh, oh, oh. John peeps over the wall. Oh, no. And then Peter says, “What are we going to tell them?” James says, “I’m not the leader. You tell me what we’re going to tell them.” Peter says, “Oh, what are we going to do?” And John looks up again. He says, “Peter, I’ve got an idea.”

That which we have seen and heard, let us declare unto them that they may have fellowship with us. For our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ. And those twelve men walked into Solomon’s porch, and it wasn’t the Bible, and it wasn’t prayer, and it wasn’t tongues, and it wasn’t all of these other things. They declared to those people the fellowship of the Lord Jesus Christ with His Father while He was on this earth, as they beheld it, and as they now had that fellowship within the bowels of their own bosom.

They declared to them the eternal fellowship of an eternal Father with an eternal Son, and then they declared that fellowship of an incarnated Son upon this earth in fellowship with the Father, and then they declared the beholding of that fellowship with the Father and the Son in Galilee as they beheld it. And then they declared unto them that they had joined in that fellowship and that they had entered into the fellowship of the eternal Father and the eternal Son, and they were there, beholding with them that fellowship. Eternal. Free of time and outside space. And it moved to its fourth stage: the people in Solomon’s porch joined in that fellowship. Well, saints, it’s time some of us became motion number five. Say amen.

Okay, now, I’m through. What on earth are we going to do? We’re going to pray and read our Bible. Let’s begin talking. I tell you what, let’s do something really simple. Let’s fellowship with the Father and the Son, and let’s stay out of it just as much as possible. Now, wouldn’t that be neat? Now, wouldn’t that be neat to get it away from you onto Him? Alright, I’m going to take this week to help you do that, and I’m going to help you by doing something else first. I’m going to do a little weeding; by Tuesday morning, there won’t be as many of you here as there are tonight. Just a second. Peter, can I still do this? Yeah.