Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with a yoke of bondage.
Whom the Son has set free is free indeed.
Lord, as we come to Thee this morning, to this One who is always victorious, and yet, Lord, we know what victory cost You.
And so, Lord, we come back to Thee this morning. I do pray that, Lord, You will anoint us this morning, and that we can hear what You are saying to us. Lord, that You will speak to each and every one of our hearts this morning personally.
Lord, this morning, for some reason, that song, “His Eye Is on the Sparrow,” touched my heart. Lord, I know Your eye is on the sparrow, and I know You watch over me.
Lord, this morning, may Your personal message come to each one of us. I do pray, Lord, that You will be the encouragement and strength of our hearts to receive Your word. We ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Whom the Lord has set free is free indeed. Let me begin this morning by sharing a personal story with you. They say it is a little dangerous to share personal stories, but this is the one the Lord seems to have given me.
When I was growing up, I was an only child, and my mother and father—my dad was in construction—and we moved around considerably. In fact, I went to seventeen schools getting through high school. So we were on the move all the time.
I remember one time I moved to one school and had final exams the next day. It was an interesting life, to say the least—at times disturbing. But the Lord knew the life He had laid out for me.
Also, my mother decided, when I was five years old, to go ahead and send me to school. So I was always a bit younger than the rest of the class. And believe it or not, I weighed 138 pounds. I did not get to 138 pounds until I was about thirty years old.
But just to say that the effect all those things had on my life was, along with my own nature, I was very, very shy—an extremely shy person. And my shyness bothered me all my life.
When I was twelve years old, the Lord Jesus was able to convict me that I was a sinner and that I needed Him. And I did. I came to Him on my knees. I remember one night crying out for the Lord and just accepting Him as my Saviour and sin-bearer.
And, you know, the love of Christ from that moment in my life constrained me. Now, I went mostly in my own way, unfortunately, after that until I got to college. Praise the Lord, just before I went off to college, He grabbed my life once again. I do not know if I would have made it through without that.
But as I went off to college, my shyness was still with me, and it bothered me. I remember, I believe it was around my second year in college, and I cannot remember the specific events that were the trigger, but I remember going back to my room and saying, “Lord, I am so shy.”
“It affects my life. It affects my ability to talk to others, to reach out. I am just shy.”
Of course, we all know that we have different personalities, and no one personality is sinful. But yet I found something within my own personality that was very limiting.
And the Lord spoke to me that night, and He said, “Jerry, you do not have to be that way anymore.” That is all He said.
Now, I did not have a miraculous transformation. But over the next couple of years, there was a transformation. And as you also recognize, I am not quite as shy as I was in those days. But it was an extremely liberating experience in my life.
It seems to me that the enemy had used this shyness in my life to really limit me. And thank God, the Lord, the Son, set me free.
I share that to say that often in our Christian life, we find ourselves in bondage. Sometimes we are in bondage in our souls in different ways—in our emotions.
And we know somehow, often, that we get carried away by our emotions to the point that it either does not edify or limits us in some way from going on with the Lord. Our minds sometimes can be amazing things in the way that they can limit us.
We get these thoughts fixed in our minds, and it seems like the Lord cannot break through. I think, for the non-Christian, there is no God. I mean, there are thoughts that are so limiting—things that we grow up with, things that we experience—and they work into our psyche, into our souls. They limit us, and they are like chains and bondages.
You know, sometimes we have a tremendous self-consciousness. We will come to a meeting, and we cannot pray, nor can we worship the Lord openly. The enemy has worked in some way in our lives.
Our wills—how much do we find how weak our wills are when we consider doing God’s will? Honest chains.
Well, what does this have to do with this matter of warfare? Everything, because the Son died on Calvary to set you free.
To save you to the uttermost. It says that we are in Christ Jesus, and we are complete in Him. God has designed you in such a way that He wants to bring you into fullness in Him.
A liberty that is in Christ—not a liberty to do what we want to do, not a liberty to satisfy ourselves—but a liberty to be what Christ has desired you personally, individually, to be in Him. You will have your own individual personality and character to glorify His name through your life and in your body.
Brothers and sisters, He went to Calvary to set us free from the bondage that we fell into when Adam and Eve decided to live life on their own—that they could be in control of their own life and control of their own destiny, that they could be as God.
That was the failure: the self-life. Their self-life was a shell to them. The life of God, they would not partake of. They did not take of the tree of life.
And they became limited, limited, and they went into bondage. Man is born into bondage because of the sin nature that we have now inherited from our father Adam.
Brothers and sisters, Christ died to set us free—to break the chains, to bring us into fullness that we can only know in Him. And we struggle.
And you know what bewilders me so much sometimes, brothers and sisters? We have been in this way so long that we have accepted it—that this is the way we are, this is the way we have to be.
“This sin that dominates my heart and soul, I will always be under it. I just have to accept it.” This limiting thing in my life, whatever it may be—I have just succumbed to it. The enemy has kept me down for so long.
It might be condemnation. I know that some of us, brothers and sisters, have committed grievous sins even after we have become Christians, and it seems as if the weight of that never leaves us.
Well, I want you to see: Christ died to set you free from the guilt of sin. Even after we have accepted Christ, we can go back and confess our sins before Him. And at that moment, we have been set free in Jesus Christ from that bondage of guilt and death that hangs on us.
But often we allow the enemy to continue to say, “No, you are still guilty. You are still guilty. You will never come out from the weight of that sin, because I am going to let you know every day of your life what you have done, and how you have offended your Christ, and how you have offended those whom you have sinned against.”
But Jesus Christ says, “My blood is over it. It is gone. It is forgotten. It is over with and through, and you are free in Jesus Christ.”
Now, the Lord Jesus often has to discipline us because of our sins, but we are free. His discipline is so that we might not do that again and be ensnared again and entrapped again. But His heart is to set us free.
There was a tremendous warfare on Calvary’s Cross, brothers and sisters. It says that our Lord Jesus went into hell and took the keys of hell and death from him.
Often we find ourselves as if we are in a cell. We are locked in, but the Lord Jesus Christ has the key of death. Does not death often seem to surround us? But He has the key. And yet we will not use that key to unlock that door.
You know, I saw a movie, I do not know, a couple of years ago. I know some do not believe in movies, but I saw one. It was The Shawshank Redemption.
What struck me in The Shawshank Redemption was the fact that there was an older gentleman who had been there almost all of his life. He was now, I think, in his late sixties—at least it appeared to be that way in the movie.
The parole board, after I think forty or fifty years, set this man free. And unfortunately, he ended up taking his own life because he could not live in freedom.
All of his life he had been in bondage in that jail, and that was all he knew. His whole life seemed to be under this bondage, and he had gotten—not comfortable in the sense that he liked it there—but that was all he knew, brothers and sisters.
And that is what bondage does. It then becomes our own security in life. And liberty—we cannot even enjoy the liberty that was given to us because the enemy has so worked in our lives that we are prisoners. Even though we have been set free, we are still prisoners.
Brothers and sisters, we have been set free in Jesus Christ, and yet we find ourselves often still prisoners.
And there has been a tremendous warfare going on over your life. I think that is why the Lord gave me that thought about “His Eye Is on the Sparrow.” That is how much He is concerned about you and me.
It says not a sparrow falls to the ground that He does not know. His eye is on the sparrow. His eye is on you. And He has died to set you free.
He does not want you to live in the bondage that we subject ourselves to, and even become comfortable with, and which even becomes a way of life. We become passive to our conditions, and we are not even seeking freedom any longer.
I remember those years in college. The only reason I think that I was set free is because my condition bothered me. Somehow the Lord, in His constraining love, would not let me be satisfied with that condition that I was in.
And He stirred up my heart to look for liberty, to look for freedom. And He has provided that freedom at Calvary’s Cross. He has taken the keys of death and hell from the enemy, brothers and sisters, and opened every prison door.
We need to come into that liberty.
That is why I have been sharing on this matter of spiritual warfare. We need to come into all that Christ has designed for us as a free people—free in Christ, not free to do our own thing.
I have been sharing on this matter of how we are now in a warfare. It is an interesting warfare because we know that Christ has won the victory.
But the Lord Jesus said, “Look, this is a victory you have to experience personally. And I will bring up many situations in your life in which you will have to apply that victory to that situation.”
So in the warfare that you will enter, the victory is secure, but you have to stand on My victory by faith, and I will set you free. Then you will know Me. You will know My life. You will know that freeing life.
Otherwise, you would go on in your own self-life, glad that you were free—just like our brother shared about the ten lepers, of whom nine were cleansed. They went on thankful that they were cleansed, but never seeing the One who had cleansed them.
Well, we have been sharing on this matter of the armour of God. May the Lord give us grace this morning for what is on my heart.
We shared about truth—our loins being girded about with truth. And the main thought there was that God is practical. In this warfare that we are in, God is using truth to set you free.
And it is very practical. No truth of God is just a theory. Every truth in the Word of God has to be worked out in your life.
He is your salvation and your Saviour, but until you by faith take Him as such, you do not experience it. He is your victory, but until you come into a place where victory is needed, you will never experience Him as your victory. So we have to have practical experience of the truth.
The breastplate of righteousness—it covers your heart. It is a heart issue, brothers and sisters. Our heart has to get right with God.
I do not know if any of you have a controversy with God today, but you need to get it straight. It is a heart issue. If our heart is not right with the Lord, brothers and sisters, the breastplate is off. You have no protection.
The enemy can assault you. The enemy can fire his fiery darts at you, and they have a place to strike. Get right with God—a heart issue.
And of course, it is the breastplate of righteousness. That means, brothers and sisters, that yes, we can take Christ as our righteousness. But as we live this daily life practically, the righteousness of Christ should be worked out in our lives. We should be living a righteous life because His life is in us.
We talked about the feet being shod with the gospel of peace. Brothers and sisters, has peace come to your heart? When you are in harmony with the Lord, do you know when you are in harmony with the Lord? Is there harmony or disharmony in your life?
The God of peace—I think it is interesting—it says that the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly. What in the world? He is talking about the God of peace, and He is talking about warfare with Satan, that He will bruise Satan under your feet shortly.
Brothers and sisters, it is Satan who has created all the discord in your life. And the opposite of discord is peace—harmony.
It does not mean that we are without trials and tribulations. We can still be at peace in the midst of trials and tribulations as long as we are in harmony with our Lord Jesus Christ.
So the discord that is resting within our lives, that keeps us from this full association with our Lord and Saviour, we need to go back to Him for those issues, that where we walk in our daily life, we are at peace with Him.
And we talked about the shield of faith: entire trust in Him, faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.
I shared on this matter of what is against us. We have the sin nature that still lies within us. We have the world that is opposed to us and that we so love dearly and tenaciously hang on to.
The flesh—the self-life—the life that wants to live on its own. Yes, it wants God’s help. It wants to be set free from trials and troubles and tribulations, and after that, be left alone to live for itself. It wants God to do one thing for it. It is self-centred.
And of course, we have the devil himself working with all of these things, seeking to destroy us, seeking that we never know the liberty and the freedom that we have in Jesus Christ.
As I was preparing to go into the helmet of salvation, the Lord brought me back to the shield of faith. So this morning, I have got to share a little more on this matter of the shield of faith and on faith itself.
For by grace have ye been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.
I say that to say, brothers and sisters, it is the grace of God that works in our lives. It is the grace of God to set us free. And He is working to set you free by His grace, by His doing.
But there is a little element that has to come in, and it is called faith. Do you want the grace of God to work actively in your life? Then faith will have to come into your heart, even as a grain of mustard seed.
Oh, brothers and sisters, we talked at our last Friday-night meeting. It was mentioned about the scribes and the Pharisees—how they had rejected the Lord, how they were testing Him, trying to entrap and ensnare Him, never seeing the grace of God that was in our Lord Jesus Christ.
And yet it was the poor and the destitute that opened their hearts up to the Lord Jesus Christ. Do you know why? Because they had a desperate need in their lives.
They knew that their lives were not right. They knew somehow, by the grace of God that had been able to touch their hearts, that their condition was not right, that they needed Someone to draw them out of their condition.
Yet the scribes and Pharisees felt like they were okay. “Oh, I might need a little adjustment to my life, but I know the Scriptures and understand them, and I am certainly a man of God.”
There was no faith there, brothers and sisters. It was to those who were seeking, those that were hungry, those that were dissatisfied.
It is not bad to have a dissatisfaction. It is not bad to understand that there are needs and bondages in our lives, but we cannot stop there. We cannot continue to live in those. It requires faith—the shield of faith, brothers and sisters.
Part of the great deceptive warfare of our adversary is this matter of deception.
Somehow inside, we know that we need to be released in whatever way it is, and yet the enemy keeps saying, “In that case, it is okay. It is okay. You need to accept the fact that this is the way you are. You need to accept the fact that this is what you are going to have to live with.”
Just sin.
Reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God in Christ Jesus.
And yet we find ourselves dominated by our own sin.
Sin shall not have dominion over you.
Listen to those words: “Sin shall not have dominion over you.” God sets free from the power of sin. It does not mean we will not fall, but it says sin will not have a continuing dominion over your life.
Brothers and sisters, is this truth real in my life, in your life? Do we believe Jesus? Do we believe the Word of God? The Word of God says sin shall not have dominion.
Why do we not believe it? Why are we still overcome? Has it not been, brothers and sisters, that Satan has been working on the lusts of our flesh and convinced us otherwise—that we are hopeless?
That we will always be ensnared and trapped in this sin from which there is no escape? “I struggle. I try to pray, and there seems to be no escape.”
Brothers and sisters, may God give us faith to believe His Word. Sin shall not have dominion over you. Be set free in Christ.
The world—brothers and sisters, we know as much as we love the Lord Jesus Christ, the world has its grips on our hearts. It is the things of the world that we seem to go after. It is the ways of the world we often find ourselves walking in instead of Christ.
And what does the Lord say?
Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world.
My kingdom is not of this world.
Brothers and sisters, we need to realize—may the Lord give us new revelation—that His kingdom is not of this world. This world we live in is passing away. It is His kingdom we have got to learn. We have got to learn the ways of His kingdom instead of the ways of the world—the ways of the King.
He says we have been translated out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light. And yet we feel like we live in so much darkness, do we not, sometimes?
But He says, “No, you have been translated into the kingdom of light.” Do you believe this, or do you begin to accept the darkness that seems to encompass your soul as a heavy cloud or a heavy weight? And we just live under that.
We have been set free in Christ.
The flesh and self. I mean, name some people you will be familiar with: Cain, Korah, Achan, Saul. All these had a relationship with God, and all of them failed. And they failed because of self-desire.
Think about it. They failed because of self-desire. Self—such a foe.
How marvellous to be free from this outlaw called self. And I call it an outlaw because it is outside of the realm of the kingdom. The self-life has nothing to do with the kingdom of God, no matter how good and righteous it may be.
You know how hard self fights to live. It will say, “I will be good as long as I can live. As long as I can still be in control, I will be good. I will lead a righteous life. I will go to fellowship. I will pray. I will raise my hands. I will be good. Just let me be in control.”
It will do anything. It will go to any extreme to survive. And only the Cross of Calvary can take it down. It has come under the curse of the cross.
There has been a deep wound to the flesh on the cross, brothers and sisters, from which it cannot survive. Praise God. But we find ourselves subtly living by our self-life, and it is bondage. It is a heavy, heavy weight, brothers and sisters.
The rich young ruler failed to follow Jesus. Remember, the rich young ruler came to the Lord and said, “Lord, what do I need to do to follow You?”
The Lord looked on him and loved him. Then He said, “Give up all you have. Sell all you have, give it to the poor, and follow Me.”
He failed to follow the Lord, brothers and sisters, because he could not deny himself.
If any man would come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.
Do we not find the same chains of not being willing to deny self in our lives? And yet the Lord Jesus says, “I have crucified the old man on the cross.” That is our salvation, and yet we find it so hard to believe.
Because when we look at our lives and when we look at our failures, we say, “This is impossible.” Now, we know it is the Word of God, so we would not really say that this is impossible or that it never happened. But in our own lives, the way in which we live, we find that we are not free in that way.
Can I say something? I think the self-life creates the heaviest burden in our life. As long as we are living for ourselves, we are living out of the will of God. And it is a tremendous weight and a tremendous burden.
If we live by self-life, brothers and sisters, not only do we find ourselves alienated from the Lord, even though we are His, we find that it alienates us from our families, from those with whom we work, from those we live around, and from those with whom we worship.
Because we have such a heavy burden and bondage because of self, it creates all kinds of difficulties and problems.
But listen to what the Lord says:
Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Why are we so exhausted? It is because we are living for ourselves. We are wanting to satisfy ourselves, are we not? Let us be honest with the Lord. The thing that is important to us is that we have self-satisfaction.
And He says, “That is a heavy burden.” It is a heavy weight.
Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
But we want to take hold of our lives, brothers and sisters. We want to defend self instead of deny self. We want to live for self instead of living for the Lord. We know we are guilty, and it creates such a heavy burden.
At first it seems good to be able to have it our way. But eventually it is a burden that we cannot carry. And if we find ourselves in that condition today, that we have been going our own way, the Lord would say to you today, “Come to Me, you heavy-laden one.”
“I have deliverance. I have crucified self on the cross. Can you believe that? Can you believe I have dealt with this very difficult weight in your life? Let Me set you free.”
And then He says, “This is what you need to do: take My yoke upon you.”
Take My yoke upon you. The Lord Jesus, brothers and sisters, has a yoke upon Him. That yoke is the will of God. He said, “I have come to do the will of the Father.”
And as the Father’s will is for Him, it is supposed to be for Him in our own lives. And He says, “I have this yoke on Me.” And He says, “Get in the yoke with Me.”
Now, for you it may seem very difficult. We are used to doing our own will, and the Lord says, “No, you have to lay down your own will, and you do that by getting in the yoke. Get in the yoke.”
My yoke is easy, and My burden is light.
Get in the yoke with Me. It is the will of God for your life, but I want you to know I am in there with you. I am yoked with you, because God’s will—the Father’s will—is for you, and that yoke is upon Me as well.
Get in the yoke with Me. Do not struggle against the yoke. Just walk with Me.
That is what Christ has said. He is the One that set us free, and He says, “Take My yoke today. Take My yoke upon you.”
“I have been talking to you about My will for your life, and I want you to take that yoke. I want you to get in the yoke. I will never force you.”
“I will only ask you with My constraining love, which I poured out for you at Calvary’s Cross to set you free. You are not free to take the yoke because of the self-life, but I have crucified the old man. Believe that and step into this yoke with Me.”
It takes the cross, brothers and sisters, and it is very personal. He will not force it upon anyone, but He is calling to you today: “My loved one, get in the yoke. Be set free from this heavy burden that self-will has brought into your life.”
And He says, “I will give rest to your soul.”
How marvellous, Lord, coming to rest in our souls. Do we believe? We have been Christians so long. Do we believe? Do we have faith—the grain of mustard seed?
Well, the other enemy, of course, is Satan. He uses all these other things in our lives, but he himself is the great schemer.
Have we fallen under the wiles of the enemy? Has he oppressed us so long that we now passively accept his will for our lives—his will to keep us in bondage? That is his whole desire.
He lost the battle with the Lord Jesus Christ, and now he is coming after you. He does not want you to enjoy Christ. He does not want your life to reflect Christ. He wants to destroy your life in Jesus Christ.
That is his goal. That is his passion. And often we find ourselves passively submitted to his attacks and to his oppressions, and we just lie there—somehow hoping, I think sometimes even without hope.
But brothers and sisters, the Word of God says Christ was manifested to destroy the works of the devil—manifested to destroy the works of the devil.
Do you know this earth had become completely corrupted, without form and void, because of the fallen angels that had been cast out in this realm we call the earth? With their disharmony, with the sin that rested in it—God is love.
Satan himself, if you get to the essence of Satan, is self. And brothers and sisters, think of that. That is why this earth came into such chaos and darkness.
Yet the Holy Spirit could not abide any disharmony in God’s creation, and He moved upon the face of the deep. Before He created man, He restored this earth.
A tremendous battle has been going on ever since. That is why the enemy attacked Adam and Eve immediately—to destroy God’s work, to end all of this harmony.
And it was man who was supposed to overthrow the adversary. He put man on the earth to have dominion, and man gave it up because of his own self-desire, brothers and sisters.
Well, how are we set free? It is faith that sets us free. Where does this faith come from?
Looking unto Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith.
By grace are we saved through faith. That applies to everything, not just to our initial salvation.
Looking unto Jesus. Is not our Lord so simple? We do not have to figure out any mathematical equations. We do not have to do any particular hoop-jumping or law-obeying things. He says, “Look to Jesus.”
Now, Darby was very good at translating the Greek. And what this actually says in Greek is: looking away from other things and fixing your eye exclusively on One.
Looking away from other things and fixing your eye exclusively on One. That is why our faith is brought to us. That is the way our faith is strengthened and built up.
Looking away from other things—even yourself, even your failures—and looking unto Him. And I would say fixing your eye on Him, but it says fixing your eye exclusively on Him.
That means, brothers and sisters, He now is the centre of your heart and thinking. That means that you are fixed on Jesus.
Yes, you have all of these things, but He has made provision at the Cross of Calvary to set us free from all of them. And He says, “Just keep looking at Me. Keep your eyes fixed on Me.”
Brothers and sisters, as I thought about this, I said, “Lord, I have to admit, I find myself only glancing at You. I am dealing and struggling with all these things, and occasionally I will glance up at the Lord.”
No, it is fixing your eye exclusively on One.
You know, I think the men could have some appreciation for this. I do not know—maybe some of the ladies. Did you ever watch Tiger Woods, particularly in that Masters match, the first one that he won?
I happened to see a review of that recently, and it really struck me how intense this young man was. He was able to share with the commentator what he was thinking, and he remembered what he was thinking on every shot.
He was so intense. You would see him get down and look at the putt, and he was always thinking. He said, “Okay, on this drive, I need to hit the green on the right side because it rolls to the left, and the grass is cut in a certain direction. Therefore, it is going to make the ball go this way.”
How intense. He knew exactly how far he was from the hole on every shot. He knew how the grass was cut. He knew whether it was wet or dry. He was intent. He was focused, and there was only one thing that he was focused on.
And he set a record. He just blew the competition away.
That is how it needs to be. If we want faith, brothers and sisters, that sets us free—because Christ has set us free—we need faith. It is looking on Jesus, really.
“Lord, my circumstances and conditions might be tremendous, but my eyes are on You.”
I think of Michael Jordan. For those of us who remember Michael Jordan and got to see him play, the man was always amazing. You know, he always knew where the basket was.
He was an extremely intense basketball player. It seemed to me he always had that uncanny sense that when the other team started making a run, he knew he had to make a big shot, and he would pull up and throw a three-pointer and devastate the other team.
The point being, he was always aware. He was always focused. I do not care if he was doing a 360-degree spin; he knew where that basket was.
He was always aware, always focused. Brothers and sisters, I cannot tell us how much this little, simple message in the Bible—looking away from other things and fixing your eyes exclusively on Him—means in this matter of faith.
In Luke 22:31-32, the Lord Jesus said, “Simon, Simon, Satan has desired to sift you as wheat.”
But listen to His words: “Simon, I have prayed for you.” Satan has desired to sift you as wheat. Some of us in this room know what it means to be sifted as wheat in our life. And He says, “But I have prayed for you.”
Listen to this: the Lord Jesus had already prayed for Simon before Simon even experienced the trial he was going through. It was not in the midst of the trial that the Lord said, “I have prayed for you.” It was before the trial had even begun.
The Lord Jesus said, “I am praying for you, Peter.” I want you to know this, brothers and sisters: when you were formed in the womb of your mother, the Lord Jesus Christ was praying.
When you grew up as a child, the Lord Jesus was praying for you. And He prayed until that day of that glorious salvation in your life, and He is still praying for you.
What am I saying? Be encouraged, brothers and sisters. Fix our eyes upon Jesus. He is praying for you.
He has never stopped praying for you. Listen to His words to you today: “I have prayed for you.” That is personal. That is not a general statement. “I pray for you. I pray for you, Jerry. I pray for you.”
What was His prayer? That your faith fail not. That is what He said to Peter: “I pray for you, Peter, in this trial that you are going to go through, because I am going to go after that self-confidence in you, Peter. I am praying that your faith fail not in this trial.”
Now, that is serious, brothers and sisters. It is serious business. It was so serious that the Lord Jesus Christ Himself knew that He had to pray for Peter’s faith. He understood the seriousness of this trial.
He understood what Peter was going through in his heart, and He says, “I am praying for you, Peter, and I am specifically praying that your faith fail not.” Because, brothers and sisters, without faith, we are in the chains of the enemy.
“I have prayed for you.”
And, you know, I cannot help but believe that Peter thought there was no hope for him. He had denied this One—denied the Lord before everyone.
Do you feel that way today? Do you feel like you have so let down the Lord that it is absolutely hopeless?
“I cannot come and pray openly. I can hardly pray in private. And to worship You openly, Lord, is impossible because I have failed You so much, Lord.”
The Lord says, “I have prayed for you, that your faith fail not.” Faith is so critical, brothers and sisters. Faith is so critical. And yet that faith comes from looking at Him, depending on Him.
But we know the story of Peter. Grace touched Peter because the God of resurrection, when Christ was raised from the dead, went back in a private session with Peter and restored Peter.
It was personal. We do not know what was said to Peter in that time because it was personal—something the Lord did not want to share with us.
But one thing I do know: that tells me it was extremely personal. And this matter of sustaining Peter’s faith was critical to the Lord, so that when He rose from the dead, He had some business to take care of, and one of them was Peter.
He loved Peter, and He was going to restore Peter. He was not going to let Peter’s failures destroy his faith totally.
You know, sometimes it is that way. Sometimes we do not have the heart to lift our head. I tell you what: the Lord is praying for you, and He will touch you.
Faith is so critical for Him.
He is able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him, seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for them.
Able to save to the uttermost. Have you ever thought about being saved to the uttermost? Are we kind of satisfied with our spiritual condition where we are? Are we satisfied even with the bondages? We kind of learn to live with them.
And He says, “Look, I can save you to the uttermost.”
He is able to save them to the uttermost that come to God by Him. Listen to this: seeing He ever lives to make intercession for them.
You know what that means? That means this morning He was praying for you when you got up. He was praying for you as you came here, and He is still praying for you. He will be praying for you tomorrow intensely, and He wants you saved to the uttermost.
And He will not be satisfied with anything less. But we find ourselves satisfied with less.
Saved from the power of sin, the dominion of the self-life, love of the world, oppression of the devil—saved from all that we are—set at liberty in Jesus Christ.
Fix our eyes exclusively on Him. He is praying for you, brother. And there is something else, even more: His life is in you.
When you accepted Jesus Christ, His life was quickened within you. You have this resurrection life within you.
And it wants to operate, but without faith, the power is limited. Without faith, it recedes in our heart.
Remember when Jesus said He could not do many works in His hometown—many signs or miracles—because of their unbelief? The lack of faith limits the power of God being able to work.
I do not know, brothers and sisters. The power of that life is resident within us.
Because I thought about sharing today, I said, “Lord, I honestly have to say to You that I am ashamed, because I believe the resurrection life operating in my life is so little. I have only touched a very limited amount of the power of that resurrection life.”
I have just been living by my own life so much. In fact, my whole life almost seems I have spiritualized and said, “It is the Lord.” It is not. It is resurrection life, brothers and sisters, that we have within us.
It is the same life that spoke and said, “Let there be light.”
It is the same life from which Jesus Christ rose from the dead and afterwards was able to walk through walls and yet still had the appearance of a man.
I do not know how to say it other than this: this is the life God has called us to. This is the life that is within you. This is the overcoming life.
You know, I hope you do not mind, but I used an illustration of a hummingbird many years ago. I was trying to think of another illustration.
Last weekend—actually, two weekends ago—I was wondering when the hummingbirds were coming. I knew it was starting to get warm.
And last weekend, as I was considering preparing for the helmet of salvation, I went back in the house and Anne said to me, “Jerry, guess what?” I said, “What?” She said, “The hummingbirds are back.”
I said, “They are?” She said, “Yes, he came up to the window. He saw me at the kitchen window, and he came up to the window, got right up to the window, letting me know he was here.”
He was back. Now, these guys are really intelligent. I am telling you, I am amazed at hummingbirds.
Whenever the little vials of sugar water get low, they will come to that kitchen and just stay there and flap. And once they see, particularly my wife, because they notice she is the one that does all the things, they will come to that window and let her know that the stuff is wrong.
These little birds are absolutely amazing to me. Hummingbirds are an absolute miracle.
Because if you—being an engineer, an aerospace engineer—I know that they cannot fly. That is what science says: they cannot fly.
You take these little dinky wings they have, little flimsy wings on this little body. The body is not big, but look at the wings compared to the body. Even if you could apply all the formulas, you would have to determine that it is impossible, humanly speaking, for a hummingbird to fly.
But they fly. You know, they do not worry about the laws of aerodynamics. They do not care that they cannot fly, because they do it. Why? Because they have this hummingbird life.
They have hummingbird life, and they are living by that life. They are buzzing all around the yard and just having a great time—eating and sleeping and buzzing. And that they do.
It is a marvellous life because these hummingbirds live. And you know what? Not only does flying itself seem to be impossible, they can do something no other bird can do.
They can fly straight up. Even helicopters do not really fly straight up; they go a little forward. But hummingbirds fly straight up. Or they can fly straight down.
And you know what? Those little birds can fly backwards. They really can. I am not lying. They can fly backwards.
It is hummingbird life. And they just live in that hummingbird life. And it is marvellous. They are free.
And you know what? Science finally discovered why they can fly. You know, most birds, when they fly and flap their wings, on the downstroke they get lift, and then they will sail. Then, on the next downstroke, they get their lift.
Well, the hummingbird, because of the flexibility of its wings, is able to adjust its wings so that it gets lift on the upstroke as well as the downstroke. That is why they can fly.
It is amazing. This hummingbird life is so designed that they get lift in both directions.
It is almost like these machines that never can run forever. I mean, it sounds impossible, but they can fly backwards.
I have hummingbirds in the yard. They will come right up within two inches of my face. They are not the least bit concerned about me or frightened by me.
There is no fear in this hummingbird life. Nobody can catch them. I mean, you try to catch one—they are gone. They just go backwards, or up, or down.
You know, I do not know if a hummingbird ever gets discouraged, because he has this hummingbird life, and it is just this marvellous life. Would you not like to have hummingbird life?
See, you have resurrection life. That is the point.
Brothers and sisters, we have a life within us that is far more amazing than hummingbird life, and we just have not touched it.
We need to look off unto Jesus. He is praying for us. He can set us free. And we have this resurrection life inside, and faith activates the resurrection life. That is the point I am making.
Without faith, that life is dormant. But with just a little grain of mustard-seed faith, that life is released and we are set free.
And brothers and sisters, we can do the inhuman. We can do what no other man can do. We can do God’s will.
And we are set free. In the midst of great trials and difficulties, we find ourselves ascended to the throne because we have resurrection life.
How often we find ourselves on the earth, lying in the dirt with tons of weight on us, and the Lord Jesus says, “You are seated with Me in the heavenlies,” and you say, “Right, I do not think so.”
Well, you have resurrection life.
Now, I am not saying we do not go through difficult times and get weighed down, but brothers and sisters, God has set us free even from the weight. I want you to know that.
I wish I experienced more of it in my own life personally. That way I could really share it with you. But the one thing God has put in my heart this morning is that this resurrection life is for you, and we need to learn to live by it.
And it is lived by faith. Faith comes by looking off to Jesus. And if that still discourages you, He is praying for you right now—praying that you will come into this place of resurrection life.
I want you to know something, though: faith is not the power. Faith only releases the power. The power is the life of Christ within you. It is resurrection life, but it takes faith to release that life.
Brothers and sisters, we need to have—yeah, pardon me, but I need to finish—we need to have active faith. Often the shield of faith, we have laid it in the dust, and it needs to be active.
Last time I talked about doubt, oppression, fears, bitterness, domination, offense, sin, the self-life. We need to look off from these things to Jesus.
And as we do, faith will begin to rise in your heart. He is the Author and Perfecter of faith, and He very simply says, “Look off unto Me. Fix your eyes on Me, not just an occasional glance.”
“Not just in the morning and at night when you go to bed. You need to be focused on Me. Focused on Me. If you are focused on Me, you will have faith. I am praying for you.”
And then we can exercise that living faith.
I am very concerned about—obviously, I have mentioned this matter of being passive many times in ministry—and it is still my burden that we not let passivity keep us in bondage, brothers and sisters.
The Lord Jesus said Himself:
Seek, and ye shall find.
He did not say, “Sit in your chair and complain.” We have to be active. We have to be before the Lord. We have to be looking unto Him. We have to be searching and seeking.
Remember, I said I really believe the only reason I was set free from this extreme shyness was the fact that I was dissatisfied in here, and I would seek a way out.
No credit to me. It was the grace of God, the constraining love of God. But we have to be seeking.
In our brochure for the conference this year, we talk about redigging wells. Have you found that the well of your life has been filled up?
You know, Isaac had to redig the wells that Abraham had created. I know it was exciting for Abraham. He dug those wells, and for the first time there was water springing up out of those wells—the wells of life.
But when Isaac came along, everything was provided for Isaac. In other words, brothers and sisters, Jesus Christ has already dug the well.
When you accept Jesus Christ, His life is in you. That wellspring of life is in you, and we touch that in the beginning of our Christian life. But somehow over the years, that well is kind of silted in.
God says, “You have got to redig those wells by faith.” Looking unto Jesus—that is the way we redig those wells, brothers and sisters.
And when we do, we uncover the wellspring of life once again in our hearts. It is like the hummingbirds—it is automatic. Once you get the silt out of the way, then the well springs up.
But it is interesting: you cannot just sit at the top of the well and look down about two feet and see the silt and say, “Well, Lord, I know there is water down there. One day maybe somehow this well is going to open up. I am just going to go about my life. I am going to live under my bondage. I am just going to go on the way I am.”
No, you cannot do that. It is active faith. Faith says, “Oh, the wellspring is there. Oh, I may be feeling heavy. I may be feeling burdened. I may be under bondage, but the wellspring of life is still there. It has never abandoned me.”
“Yes, Lord, forgive me. I have allowed it to be silted in in my life, but I intend to have it dug out. Lord, give me faith.”
In the Song of Solomon, our brother shared last week on the Song of Solomon. Remember the maiden? What was the Lord of resurrection doing? Leaping on the mountains and skipping on the hills.
And the maiden was at home in her bed, walled in in her condition. The Lord comes up to the lattice and peeps through, and He says, “I am not in there with you. I am out here.”
This resurrection life loves to leap on the mountains and skip on the hills.
Imagine, Lord, just leaping and skipping. I say, “Lord, I do not want to face the mountain. I do not even want to face the hill. If I can find a way around the mountain, that is what I want to do.”
But the Lord says, “Look, that is not My life. That is not the life of the Lord Jesus Christ. Resurrection life leaps. I want you out here with Me, leaping on the mountains and skipping over the hills.”
Now, brothers and sisters, I have to say that sounds impossible. But you have hummingbird life. You have resurrection life.
Oh, may God give us faith. May He give us faith.
But you know what the Lord did that was amazing? He left her. She lay there and lay there and lay there, and so she realized He was not coming back.
You know what she did? She got up out of her condition and went out among the city and began to seek Him. She began to seek Him.
And in seeking Him, she found Him. She found this One once again, the One full of resurrection life. She had to become active.
Brothers and sisters, it is one step at a time, one day at a time, but we need to fix our eyes on Jesus.
“I have prayed for you, that your faith fail not.”
The Lord can save us to the uttermost.
Whom the Lord has set free is free indeed. Brothers and sisters, I think the Lord would say to us today, “I can change your life. I really can. Can you believe it? Can you believe it?”
“I do not want you in there. I want you out here, skipping on the hills and leaping on the mountains with Me.”
The key has been given to us, but He is faith. He is praying that our faith fail not.
Lord, we just come back to Thee today. Lord, I thank You that all my life You have been praying for me.
I thank You, Lord, that it is Your heart that I and all my brothers and sisters be completely set free from all the chains and bondages in our lives.
Oh, Lord Jesus, forgive me for only glancing at You. Lord, forgive me for not being focused on You and You alone.
Lord, I thank You for this resurrection life, this marvellous life. It does the impossible. It causes us to fly.
In Jesus’ name, I pray.