Life of Christ #5 – The Secret of the Christian Life: Living in Fellowship With God

He’s about to introduce these very principles into time and space, and a pattern is consistently developing. I am awestruck over the fact that the first Christian, the first Christian worker, and the first member of the church that you can find visibly…is sun-tanned. Has splinters in His hands. Is incredibly unreligious. Has something almost no preacher today has. You know what He’s got? He’s got a job. He’s got a skill.

The two gentlemen who went to the temple have become so religious that the possibility of being spiritual is almost out of the question. Did you understand that? Does that make sense to you? They have become so religious that the possibility of being spiritual is almost out of the question. They pass a harlot on the street, and they are mortified. That’s right. You know why they’re mortified? It looks like it’s because they’re so self-righteous. The fact of the matter is that they’re really…down deep inside…they’re still two kids who are scared silly about their own fleshly weaknesses. And well, they should be, because religion cannot save them.

The Lord is perfectly at home with ordinary people. Thieves. Are thieves ordinary people? Well, let’s see. How many of you in this room have never, ever stolen anything? Raise your hand. Do you realize that I am addressing a room full of thieves? If one of you had raised your hand, then I would have asked the question: How many of you have never lied? He knew humanity. He knew human beings. He knew ordinary people. He was at home with them. The dreadfully sinful person. He was not frightened by them. He had a high humanity. He was at home with them. He is about to pass this on to some illiterate fishermen who will be the first Christians…visible Christians. The first church members…and the first workers. Praise the Lord.

Now that’s the humanity He brought to them. I told you something…now there was a lot more I told you, and you’ve forgotten it all. One other really blessed thing I told you…you all kind of responded to this. Do you remember how you responded to that? I said there was one wonderful thing about that. This wonderful humanity He is about to put before them and stage before them, show and illustrate and exhibit to them for the next four years.  Something really wonderful about that humanity. This divinely controlled humanity. This humanity that is subject to divinity. This humanity that is living by divine life. When the Lord woke up in the morning, He woke up and lived by divine life. I wake up in the morning, and I live by human life. He got up in the morning; He lived by divine life. It’s His business to make sure that I can learn to follow in His training, to wake up in the morning and live by a life not my own.

Something else I also told you. When Jesus Christ saved you from your sin, and He came into your being as the indwelling Christ, He brought not only His divinity into you, but He brought into you that high and glorious humanity of His. He brought His total being into you in spirit. You know, He didn’t visibly cut you open and step inside, but He came into you by spiritual means. He brought His full divinity into you; He also brought His full divine humanity, divinely human humanity, into you. Isn’t that wonderful? Isn’t that encouraging, that when you draw from the Lord Jesus Christ within you and the life He gave you, you draw His divinity, but you also draw on sinless and perfect humanity. Praise the Lord. This is what He is about to offer 20 men. Isn’t this getting exciting? This is really wonderful.

Now, brothers and sisters, He’s on His way out into the hot, burning desert. He’s closed up His carpenter shop. He’s going out and getting baptized. Alright, we’ll go over that part. He gets baptized. He goes to leave. A couple of fellows are really interested in this strange young man that John has just baptized; an unusual person, to say the least. What are their names? Does anybody know their names? Philip and Andrew.  And Phillip will get Nathaniel. Andrew will go and get Peter. Alright, these two men, they’re going to live with Him for the next three and a half to four years.

I want you to think about this; I want you to think about Zephan right now. Can you think about Zephan? Here he is. He’s just about to graduate from the temple. God is like this; I know God is like this. And there’s Laophas over there, “and God is like this,” and He better not sin. Oh, they’re really pickled pusses by now. They are unhappy now. His emphasis is the big black robe, and Zephan is dressed up in his little trinkets and colorful garments. He’s a real parade when he walks around Jerusalem, and they have been intellectually studying about God to learn what God is like. You know what? If they had any sense, which they don’t, they could leave the temple, walk out of Jerusalem, go to Galilee, and have breakfast with God if they wanted to, and really get to know Him.

My point in saying that was: here are two brothers who are about to get to know God in a visible, physical form. They’re going to live with Him for three to four years. Now then, is my Lord going to change His habits? Habits that He established in eternity past. That’s several zillion years at least. At least that long, isn’t it? Plus, that time of reestablishing His relationship between the ages of His birth and 20, and now His growing divinity, His fellowship with the Father, His growing humanity underneath His divinity, subject to His divinity, His fellowship with the Father. Will He now suddenly change this relationship as He draws 20 people to Him? Is He going to demand the temple experience of them suddenly? 20 young men and women, get your nose in the Bible. You’ve got to know the Bible. I know the Father; you know the Bible, and I want you to pray for Aunt Nellie and Uncle Joe.

What is He really going to present to them? That’s important, because whatever He presents to them is what they’re going to present to us. Is that not true? Gene, He really did teach them the Bible, didn’t He? I don’t think so, because most of them couldn’t read and write. Isn’t that wonderful? Isn’t that encouraging? If I am to read what is written in Acts correctly, then I have to believe that Simon Peter was a man who could not read a single word. To call a person “unlettered” literally means he doesn’t know what a letter means, and that’s not a letter like stationery. I mean, that’s a letter like H, T, Q, P. He was an unlettered man. He was illiterate. That’s wonderful. God trusted an illiterate man with His gospel. That is just really wonderful. That shifts my Christian life from knowledge to an indwelling God.

My Lord is 30 years old, and He’s used to an indwelling Father. This is where He has put His everything. He has staked His all in a God within. The indwelling, eternal Father. Well, Gene, what about prayer? I don’t doubt they prayed a little, but I doubt they prayed much. I’m sure it wasn’t the kind of praying that we pray today. Oh, Gene, haven’t you ever heard of the Apostles’ prayer? Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on the earth as it is in the heavens. Give us our daily bread. It’s repeated all over the world and has been in Christendom for what? Sixteen, seventeen hundred years. Now, that is the biggest waste of time imaginable. Don’t you believe in the apostles’ prayer? No. And neither do the apostles. It astonishes me that we would be praying that prayer today. They came up to Him and said Lord, we are impressed with Your relationship to the Father. Will you teach us? He said Sure! You pray this prayer.

What kind of a God do we have? Do you think that at the end of 2,000 years, He hasn’t answered that prayer yet? Listen to that prayer. Our Father in another realm, hallowed is Your name. Get the kingdom out of that realm and bring it to this Realm. We’re living in common with the Lord Jesus Christ; we’ve left everything; just give us something to eat. We don’t have anything but the shoes on our feet and the clothes on our bodies; just make sure we have something to eat. As Your will is being accomplished in our Lord, accomplish in the same way Your will is inside us. We’re sinners, forgive us. If you will forgive us, we will forgive, for we have been forgiven. Your kingdom come. Your kingdom, get out of that realm into this realm. Your will be done; as it’s being done in our Lord, so it be done in us. For Yours is the kingdom…and the rest isn’t even in the Bible. We invented it. The power and the glory forever and ever. Amen. Well, twelve men prayed that, and on the day of Pentecost – on the day of the resurrection, and on the day of Pentecost – that prayer was fulfilled and answered. It’s a good prayer, but it’s been answered. His kingdom got out of that realm and came into this realm. The Father provided their food, and on the day of Pentecost, when they were stuck with 3,000 people who didn’t live in Jerusalem, they knew exactly how to take care of them because they had been cared for the same way in Galilee. We see the pattern continuing.

I am telling you this: the reason they came to Him and asked Him to teach them to pray was that they were overwhelmed with the uniqueness of His praying as opposed to the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the scribes, and the Baptists, and the Methodists, and Christians in general, because of what they saw in His life in the way of spiritual fellowship. I’m going to say it again. I’m after everything. I’m here to destroy in order to rebuild. I want to impress you with a new relationship that’s as old as eternity. My Lord did not sit around with His nose in a book. He did not sit around praying the kind of prayers we pray. He did not sit around speaking in tongues. Well, Gene, He did witness. Yes, I agree, He witnessed. He witnessed of the Father. That’s right. He was the witness, the only physical witness to the existence of the Father that we have.