Well, good morning, everyone. It is a glorious morning to be alive. I certainly felt like I came back from the dead these last few weeks. You know, the Lord is marvelous. I do not know when I have been sicker, and I do not know when I have gotten closer to the Lord. He blesses all things, and we are thankful.
Today, I am to share my testimony concerning this conference we had in Singapore. Someone asked me if it was a testimony or a ministry, and I would have to say I think it is kind of a combination of both.
Let us begin with a word of prayer this morning.
Lord, as we come to Thee this morning, what can we say? We already have the most valuable thing that any man could ever have: Your life, Lord, Your eternal life. Oh, the gift of God’s Son. What greater gift?
Lord, all of our whole lives are encompassed in this one act of Calvary, in which we became sons of the living God. Lord, this morning I want to say that we are humbled before Thee, because, Lord, we are of a nature that is rebellious. We are of a nature that offends Thee. Lord, we have a nature that runs counter to Your love and mercy.
Lord Jesus, on Calvary’s cross You did such a marvelous, marvelous work, in that You have crucified this old thing that is so unsuitable to Yourself and have made a new creation in Jesus Christ, of which we have become a part because of the shed blood of Jesus Christ.
Lord, if we thanked You for eternity, it would not be enough. Lord, what You have done for us is unthinkable and unfathomable. We can only rejoice and return thanks for Your great, great love.
And Lord, even this very moment, Your love toward us is unknowable because it is so great and deep and sure and steadfast. This love, Lord, will not let us go until You fully accomplish all that You want in each one of us as vessels of Your life.
Lord, I do not know how to stop praying this morning and worshiping Thee. Lord, we just end with this: there is no greater love than Jesus. There is nothing greater than Jesus. There is nothing better, nothing to be desired. Oh, Lord.
It is just that I do not have words, Lord, to express how great You really are. So, Lord, this morning we ask that You would bless this time of testimony. Bless the words that are in Your Word to our hearts, Lord, because they are living words. They are given from a living God. They come from One who has a heart, One who is full of love, One who is full of purpose. Lord, how we thank Thee this morning. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Well, may the Lord help this morning. I thought it would be good for a moment to consider the theme of this conference, which was from 1 Peter 2:5. Maybe I should begin by reading that. I would like for you to read it—I mean, look at it. May the Lord speak to you as we read it.
Ye also, as living stones, are built up a spiritual house,
a holy priesthood,
to offer up spiritual sacrifices,
acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
The theme was actually: spiritual house, holy priesthood, offering acceptable sacrifices.
Now, this little verse sums up our entire life. It tells us what we are, what we are to be, and God’s plan—what God has planned.
Just think for a moment about when you first accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. I do not know how well you remember it. For some who grew up in Christian families, you may not be quite sure of that moment because Christ was always taught to you. You may not remember it. But for some of us, it was a fairly dramatic period in our lives.
I remember when I was twelve years old. I know that seems so long ago now. At twelve years old, I remember getting on my knees because I had sinned before God. I did not know God; I knew about Him. Mom had told me about Him. I got on my knees and asked God to forgive me.
And you know, He met me that day, on my knees, when I was twelve years old. Golly. On that day, I became a living stone. I did not know it. I had never heard of a living stone; I had never heard of this. All I knew was that when I asked God for His forgiveness, He met me there and forgave me.
Actually, it was years later before I really realized what salvation was. Then I realized that on that day God had saved my soul. It was only very, very much later in life that I realized that on that day I became a living stone.
Now, stones by themselves and in themselves are basically just rocks. I do not know what value they have other than to be thrown. We used to do that as kids.
But together, put together appropriately, stones become beautiful architectural buildings, walls, and structures. I think it is interesting that the Holy Spirit, in sharing this through Peter, shows us the way God looks at you.
The way God looked at me when I was on my knees, needing forgiveness, was that He gave me forgiveness and turned me into a living stone. Of course, I did not know that. But I had a purpose.
As you read 1 Peter 2:5, I pray that the Lord will really show us what He has designed for us. Because if we are living outside of His design, we are still living stones, precious in His sight, but that is not what He has desired in His heart for the ages.
Our brother Stephen shared on this matter of the spiritual house, and the first ministry was on God’s heart. As we look at that, let us turn to Isaiah 66:1.
Isaiah 66:1 is in the very last chapter of this prophetic word given by Isaiah. Such great prophecies are given of the coming kingdom and of the coming Christ. “Unto us a Son will be born,” and, “They shall call His name Immanuel.” Just tremendous prophecies that God gave through this man.
And at the end of all of this, God speaks something out of His heart—just one little simple verse. He uncovers something deep in His heart, what all this seems to be about.
Thus saith the Lord,
Heaven is My throne,
and the earth is My footstool:
where is the house that ye will build unto Me?
and where is the place of My rest?
Heaven is His throne, and the earth is His footstool. You would think that certainly would be a satisfying place. All of heaven is His throne; the earth is His footstool.
As our brother shared on this, he shared a thought that really impacted me. He said, “Now, what does that sound like to you? Here is One sitting in the heavens on the throne. The earth is His footstool. God is in His office. He is doing business.”
But He does not have a home to go to. And that is what He desires.
We have been created as vessels according to His purpose and grace, and we can be built together into that home. That is unfathomable to me. But the point is that this is a deep desire in God’s heart.
All those other prophecies really deal with us, mostly. We certainly need a Savior. We need Christ as a Redeemer. But He is saying, “Look, I have given up My own Son for something that is deep in My heart, and it is really deep in the Son’s heart as well—the reason that I have created all things.”
“I have something on My heart, and I want to share it with you.” That is what He is saying. He shares this thought: “I have all this. I have this business office where I am doing business all the time, but I just do not have a home to go to.”
I think that is absolutely amazing. There is just nothing like home. You know, all our homes are certainly far from perfect. There are many, many problems. But this thing of home is ingrained in us.
Even in homes that are not well sometimes, people can still get “home” out of their heart. I think, in all honesty, it is just that little thought that God plants in every little living stone: God is looking for a home. It is just that simple.
That is His heart. That is God’s passion. What is our passion?
Heaven does not satisfy God. Neither does the earth. What satisfies God is that He can have a home, a place of His rest.
Golly, as we look at the church, which we know is this home that He is building, we say, “My goodness. Golly, Lord.” But you know, our God—let me put it this way—your past, your present, and your future are all present with God.
So He can see the finished product. He can see that New Jerusalem already. In Revelation, He sees the finished bride. But, oh, the work that He has to do to get there.
Brothers and sisters, I think that is where our responsibility comes in. How much are we cooperating with the Lord? Not just to meet our need. I know that most of the time we spend the majority of our lives asking the Lord to meet our needs, and we have great needs, each one of us. That is for sure. The Lord is so gracious; He does that.
But occasionally He shares His heart. Now, I want you to understand how important this is to the Lord.
In 1 Corinthians, Paul said, “I preached among you nothing but Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.” The fundamental of the faith—that is all that God could share with those people.
The Corinthians were gifted. They had all the gifts, and they were highly intelligent people. But if you read about the Corinthian church, you see that there was much flesh and self-life among them. So the Lord was only able to share with them the fact that His Son died for them, that He was crucified there for their souls, and that they were crucified with Him.
But they struggled in accepting that part of God’s salvation, and they fell short in that area. Therefore, we see the manifestation of much flesh there.
The point is that when you get to the church in Ephesus, it does not say much about their spiritual gifting or anything else. But God shared His heart with the Ephesian people about His desire for this house.
The Ephesians were not more gifted, neither were they more intelligent. But there was one thing they had that the Corinthians were lacking, and that was love. They just loved the Lord.
Because of their great love for the Lord, the Lord began to share His heart with them. He could share the deep things in His heart with them.
You know, it does not matter. You do not have to be a spiritual giant for God to share His heart with you. All you have to do is really love Him, really want Him, want Him to be your life and your everything.
Then He can begin to share His heart with you, and this issue of the place of rest that He is looking for becomes your heart as well. So heart is really the beginning. It takes heart.
Our brother Stephen began that first message with the vision of Jacob. At Bethel, which means “house of God,” Jacob had a vision.
We all remember Jacob’s life—how he stole the birthright from his brother and created a lot of animosity by the way he did it. His brother was after him. He was halfway on the run and also looking for a wife, because his parents had told him he needed to find the right wife.
He fell asleep and laid his head on a rock. I have always thought that was interesting. I think I would have just pushed the sand up and laid on that. But anyway, he reclined somehow on this rock, fell asleep, and God gave him a vision.
You remember, it is called Jacob’s ladder. He sees a ladder going to heaven and touching the earth, and there are angels going up and down this ladder. Just look at it—Genesis 28:12.
And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth,
and the top of it reached to heaven:
and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it.
And, behold, the Lord stood above it, and said,
I am the Lord, the God of Abraham thy father,
and the God of Isaac:
the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it,
and to thy seed.
And thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth,
and thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east,
and to the north, and to the south:
and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed.
And, behold, I am with thee,
and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest,
and will bring thee again into this land;
for I will not leave thee,
until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of.
And Jacob awaked out of his sleep, and he said,
Surely the Lord is in this place; and I knew it not.
And he was afraid, and said,
How dreadful is this place!
This is none other but the house of God,
and this is the gate of heaven.
And he called the name of that place Bethel—house of God.
“This is a dreadful place.” That was Jacob’s first reaction. He sees this ladder, and the ladder—God’s connection between earth and heaven—is Jesus Christ. The ladder is Jesus, and at the top is God the Father.
He sees this ladder connecting to earth, and he makes this statement that does not seem to fit with anything. He says, “This is a dreadful place. It must be the house of God.”
You would have expected him to say, “Boy, this is great. This is the stepladder to heaven. I can just get on it and go.” The escalator, maybe. But no, he makes this declaration that this is the house of God.
He had revelation in his heart. He did not know anything about the house of God. Think about that. The tabernacle did not come until Moses. But he sees through God’s eyes and says, “This is the house of God. It is a dreadful place.”
Now think for a moment: why was this such a dreadful place to Jacob? Because Jacob did not belong there. He belonged there, do not get me wrong, but he was not ready.
This was a house of God, and it was a dreadful thing to Jacob because Jacob was a man of the flesh. Everything he tried to get, he got for himself. He was a selfish person. He was self-driven. His whole life was centered around himself and getting his blessing.
The bottom line was that he was in the house of God, but he was not fit for the house of God.
So he bargains with God, if you read the whole story, and he leaves. I cannot go through the whole thing, but God worked on Jacob for another twenty years.
You remember the story at Peniel, how Jacob hung on to the angel, and He touched his thigh, which represents the strength of our life. He was touched there, and he finally humbled himself before God. He was ready for the house, and God took him back to Bethel.
In other words, God dealt with this living stone for twenty years to get him ready for the house. God does the same thing with you and me.
I think it is interesting to realize, brothers and sisters, that vision alone is not enough. Jacob had to be dealt with by God for twenty more years before he was really suitable for the house of God. His name was changed from Jacob to Israel.
That is why it was a dreadful place to Jacob. There was so much flesh; he struggled. But God brought him back. That is the point. Do you not see? God will not fail.
Now, Jacob was not very cooperative with God, and God had to deal severely with him. May that not be our own history, brothers and sisters. It does not have to be that way. There is Jacob in all of us, but if we will just submit our lives to Christ, then we can become suitable material, and God can find His rest.
My brother also shared something from David in that message. He went to the psalm where David said, “I cannot give sleep to mine eyes, or slumber to mine eyelids, until I see the house of God built.”
Now, the whole thing of that first message was this: Have you yet been touched by God? Has God shared His heart with you yet?
For some of us, we may have heard this for many, many years. But there is a tremendous difference—a wide gap—between knowing about something all your life and coming to that day when God wakes you up, as He did Jacob, and says, “This is My house. This is My place of rest. This is what is on My heart.”
Think about Jacob for just a moment—how bad Jacob really was, how devious he was. God even shared His heart with Jacob. But Jacob did not realize what was going on. He was so selfish, so self-centered. It had not yet hit him what he had actually seen there that day.
But from God’s point of view, He had His plan for Jacob. Thank God He was faithful.
Has God shown you His heart? If He has, it is a tremendous responsibility that we have to give our lives back to Him so that, as living stones, He can build us in as He chooses.
We are no longer individual stones, but we are built together as a spiritual house.
Then our brother shared on the pattern for the house. I will keep this pretty simple. A lot of people are looking for the pattern of the New Testament church, or the Old Testament church, or the Orthodox church, or whatever.
Our brother made a very profound statement—at least it was to me. He said, “You know, when God’s people lose the reality, what they tend to do is go back to the shadow.”
They want to go back to the things, the traditions. He pointed out very clearly how, in Christianity today, most of Christianity has returned to a form of Judaism. There is a special priesthood, choirs, robes, everything official. The positions within the church are official; they are not really those raised up by the Lord.
He said, “We have gone back to the shadow because we have lost the reality.”
So what is the pattern? It is not really Old Testament Judaism, nor is it a New Testament arrangement of pastors and deacons, or whatever.
I will never forget years ago when I was in the old Baptist church. Kenny and I had been meeting with some others for a few months, and the pastor heard about this and came to my house. He said, “Jerry, I have come here to straighten you out.” Boy, what a task he did not understand.
He said, “I understand you have been going somewhere else in the afternoons on Sunday.” I said, “Yeah.” So I shared with him that we just met together. It was the first time in my life I had really ever worshiped the Lord. It was this little group that we were meeting with Sunday afternoons.
Oh, to worship the Lord was a marvelous thing. I have never forgotten that. Maybe because I never knew it and did not grow up in it, it has stayed with me—the preciousness of the opportunity to simply gather around the Lord and tell Him how much you love Him. Golly, something so dear.
We would get together and sing some songs. He said, “Look, who is the preacher?” I said, “Well, we do not really have a preacher.”
He said, “Well, how about deacons? Do you have any deacons there?” I said, “No, no deacons.”
He looked at me and said, “That is not a church.” I said, “You know, I do not know what it is, but the Lord has shown me one thing.”
For where two or three are gathered together in My name,
there am I in the midst of them.
I said, “I know that is the essential thing of what the church is. It is the basic element.” Now, he did not understand that. He understood the words, but he did not understand what God had shown me. He did not understand that God was looking for a house. I did not either, very much, at the time.
But that is the world’s view of the church: an organization with a pastor and some deacons, and everything very official. That is the New Testament pattern they were trying to follow. But that is not the pattern for God’s house.
He emphasized very much that when God came to the pattern for His house, He was very exacting. He went back to the tabernacle and Moses, and to how detailed God was. Everything had to be exactly how God wanted it.
Moses was an architect in his day; he would have been considered an architect. Most of the time, if you engage an architect, you give them some ideas of what you are looking for, and they take all their talent and come up with a design and show it to you.
Boy, Moses was not allowed to do anything on his own. Nothing. The pattern had to be exactly perfect according to God’s design. That is how much God looks at it. So pattern is important.
What is the pattern for the church? The pattern is found in the Gospels, not in the Epistles. Read the Gospels and you will find the pattern. The pattern is Jesus Christ. It is His life.
Anything that is not His life is not going into the house. Only what is of Christ will go into the house. The pattern is Christ. So, if you really want to know what the house is, what the house is like, you have to look at Jesus Christ—Him alone.
In the Gospel of Luke, the Lord said He came to seek and save the lost. Thank God, He came to seek and save the lost.
In the Gospel of John, we know that as you read that Gospel, you touch who God is. You touch not only what God does, but Who He is and what is deep in God’s heart.
If you read the Gospel of John, you find that Jesus said He came as a bridegroom. He reveals His heart to be a bridegroom. This church, which is to become His bride—the matured church—will become the bride.
The Lord is building, but it is only with Himself that the materials come from Him.
The third lesson he gave was on how God builds His house. He pointed out that after God had given the pattern on the mountain to Moses, and they came down, unfortunately the first thing the people built was not the tabernacle. They built a golden calf.
Boy, how many golden calves have been built down through the ages?
After God had given instructions, after He had dealt with the matter of the golden calf, He called for a freewill offering, a love offering from the people, to gather the materials together to build a house.
Now, this was a freewill offering. There were many offerings in the Bible, but this was above and beyond everything else. It was to be out of the people’s hearts. They could give what they wanted to; it was totally up to them. Everything that came in had to be out of love, and that was the only thing acceptable to God to build His house.
The point is, brothers and sisters, God is looking for a freewill offering to build this house. He wants you to be the freewill offering. He wants you to give yourself to Him. That is the freewill offering—not out of duty, but out of love.
He says, “I have just given you everything.”
Stephen pointed out that when the children of Israel left Egypt, they left rich. God is a just God, and they had worked for four hundred years for nothing. But when they got ready to go out, He said, “Ask the Egyptians to give you their riches,” and they did. In other words, God saw that they got paid.
Actually, that provision was from God’s hand. Everything they had at that point was because God had given it to them. God was just saying, “All right, you can keep it for yourselves. I am asking for a love offering.”
Today, that love offering is you. You can keep yourself for yourself. You can keep yourself to serve your own ends and your own desires. But God is saying, “I am in a house-building business. I need material, and I need it to be given to Me freely and in love. It is the only thing acceptable in My house.”
The second thing He did was appoint artisans—people with special talents and gifts in silversmithing, goldwork, and tapestries. He gave gifts to these people, physical gifts.
Today God has given spiritual gifts for the building of His house. He has given some apostles, pastors, and teachers for the building up of the body of Christ, in order that through the joints it might build itself up in love.
So the Lord has given spiritual gifts and talents for the building of His house. The Lord has called the craftsmen in.
I do not know where you think you fit in this. I have a feeling that most brothers and sisters just do not feel like they have any gifts. Somehow, in our mentality, gifts seem to be limited to speaking, maybe. But that is a far cry from the gifts available in the body of Jesus Christ.
I guarantee you, give your heart to the Lord, and He will give your heart to your brothers and sisters. They will receive gifts from you that you never knew you had—special little things.
There are times when a brother or sister can come up to you and not have to say anything, but you know their heart is linked with yours in whatever situation you are in. That is a great comfort, is it not? And that is a gift.
It is a spiritual gift given in His body, that it might be enriched and the house built.
Lastly, of course, was the cross. The house is built with the cross.
You remember in the temple, the stones were quarried first. They did not bring them to the temple site and start hammering them out and chiseling them. They did all that at the quarry. It says there was not a sound of the hammer when the temple was built.
That is the work of the cross. It is mostly a hidden work in our lives. It is that deep work that the Lord does in your heart to strip away your own opinions, to strip away your weaknesses, to strip away your limitations, to strip away your self-confidence, to strip away your self-desire—to strip away self.
It is a deep work. Jacob understood that for twenty years.
Brothers and sisters, the cross was not an event just two thousand years ago. It is an active part of our Christian life, which the Lord uses to build His house.
So we should not run from the cross. We really should embrace it—the Lord’s dealing in our lives. If we humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God, He will raise us up when He chooses to. But let Him do it. Do not struggle to maintain yourself. It is the last thing God wants, and it certainly will not go into His house.
Those ministries come down to this: Is your heart after God’s heart? That is the whole thing. It is a heart issue.
The other messages were given by Christian Chen on holy priesthood. Let me read a verse from Ephesians 2.
Not only are we called to be a house, but we are called to be a holy priesthood to serve Him.
His key verses were Ephesians 2:13-16.
But now in Christ Jesus ye that once were far off are made nigh in the blood of Christ.
For He is our peace, Who made both one,
and brake down the middle wall of partition,
having abolished in His flesh the enmity,
even the law of commandments contained in ordinances;
that He might create in Himself of the two one new man,
so making peace;
and might reconcile them both in one body unto God through the cross,
having slain the enmity thereby.
Now, brothers and sisters, I do not know if I ever came away from a message more thankful that God has made me a priest. Think about it.
He said that in this chapter, the ones who were far off were the Gentiles. That is you and me, for the most part, unless we have some Jewish lineage here. We were far off. The ones who were near were the nation of Israel, the Jews.
At Herod’s temple, if you approached the temple, there was a court of the Gentiles. The Gentiles could enter the temple area, or the courtyard, but they could only go so far. Then there was a wall about four feet high, and it said, “Anyone going beyond this goes under the pain of death.”
In other words, the Gentiles could go no farther. God’s presence, of course, was not there at that time, but it represented God’s presence, and the Gentiles could not enter in on pain of death. They were limited.
That means, brothers and sisters, most of the world was outside of that provision of being able to enter in. They were far off. We were far off. We had no hope.
Only the nation of Israel could come nearer. And in the nation of Israel, there was the women’s court. If you were Jewish and a woman, you could come at least to the women’s court. You could get closer than the Gentiles could get, but you were still limited.
Then came the men. Those who were Levites could go on into the men’s court—if you were a Levite. Boy, that did narrow the number down, did it not?
Then the next area was called the priests’ court. To go there, you had to be of the family of Aaron to serve in that part of the temple. We know that once a year, of all the Jewish priests, one was chosen by lot to enter into the holy place.
That is how limited and limiting it was for anyone to approach God. We were far off. They were near, but they were only so near. There was really only one, once a year, who could really get close and approach God.
It is not that God totally abandoned everything. He did meet Zacharias there in the temple—John the Baptist’s father—and spoke to him there.
But the whole point is this, brothers and sisters: today you and I are Gentiles, but we are no longer far off.
We can come into that courtyard. We can cross that wall. Brothers and sisters, not only can we cross the wall, but we can go into the holy temple. Not only there, but we can go behind the veil into God’s presence.
Think of that.
Oh, I do not know. Only the Holy Spirit can touch our hearts with how precious the priesthood is. We are all priests because of the blood of Jesus Christ.
But you see what Christianity has done, brothers and sisters. It has been limited mostly to ministry of the Word. Where are the priests? Where are the priests?
God has made us all near. That middle wall of partition is down. The Gentiles can enter in, and we will not die.
Oh, what a privilege to be a priest, to serve in the house of God. It may be a small service, but it does not matter. If it is what God has you to do, that is all that matters.
How much do we give up our priesthood? This is our service to God, brothers and sisters. I almost hate to use the word despise, but despise means that you think little of something. Do we not despise the priesthood in our lives sometimes?
I think for many of us it is because we do have this sense of unworthiness—and we are unworthy. But you have been made acceptable in Jesus Christ. You have been made a priest. You can come before Him.
If there is sin in your life, you can confess it. He has promised to forgive us. But let us not take advantage of that. We should be coming because we love Him, just because we want to be there in His presence.
How much do you enter behind the veil? It is a great privilege. We think so little of it. May the Lord touch your heart. We who were far off have been made nigh, and there is no middle wall anymore.
Hosea shared on acceptable sacrifice. We are to offer up spiritual, acceptable sacrifices to God. Let us turn to Genesis 4:3-4.
So, we are a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, and we are to offer acceptable sacrifices.
And in process of time it came to pass,
that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord.
And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock
and of the fat thereof.
And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering:
but unto Cain and to his offering He had not respect.
And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell.
Acceptable sacrifice. Here you have two sacrifices: one is acceptable and the other is not.
Let me tell you this. In Leviticus 3:16-17, God declares that all the fat is the Lord’s, and that when they offered up the sacrifices, the fat was offered up as a sweet incense to the Lord. The children of Israel could not eat the fat, nor could they drink the blood. Those are two things.
Now, when you look at Abel’s sacrifice, which was acceptable, it says he brought the firstlings of the flock and of the fat thereof. Hosea pointed this out, and it had never impacted me this way before. He said, “Look, notice there is no mention of blood here. What God emphasizes is the fat.”
Obviously, a lamb had to be slain; blood had to be shed for this sacrifice to be brought. But in this case, when God is talking about acceptable sacrifice, the emphasis is on the fat.
We are accepted in Jesus Christ because of His shed blood. You are made accepted in Him. That solves your problem and mine. Because of the shed blood, we are accepted.
But God is looking for acceptable sacrifices. There is a little play on words here: the difference between being accepted and being acceptable.
I thought this was really profound to me. Maybe it shows how simple I am.
Brothers and sisters, it is a marvelous, tremendous thing to be accepted in Jesus Christ. But God is looking for an acceptable sacrifice. He is looking for you to bring Him the fat. You approach by the blood, but He is looking for the fat.
So what is that? What is the only sweet savor that God ever knew? His Son, Jesus Christ. That is what the fat represents: Christ.
God is looking for you to bring back to Him Christ in your life, to offer back to Him something of His own Son—something of the character or the nature of Christ. Something out from Christ is the acceptable sacrifice.
Brothers and sisters, you yourself are to become the acceptable sacrifice by allowing Christ to work into your heart, so that the life of Christ would be so manifest in your heart that it would be a sweet savor unto God and He could see His Son in you.
Tremendous difference between being accepted and acceptable.
In Romans, it says we are to be a living sacrifice, does it not? Which is your reasonable service. So it is Christ in our lives that God is after.
Our life before the Lord as priests is that we can come back to our Father with something in our lives of Christ and offer it back to Him.
Those were the three messages. I do want to say this much, because I think sometimes when you share what is acceptable, some of us tend to think, “Well, that is unreachable except by very spiritual Christians—that I can even come and offer God an acceptable sacrifice.”
I tell you what: you do not have to be advanced at all. You can be a brand-new Christian.
God gave me an example, I think. The reason I say “I think” is because it is about my grandson. But he has become a wonderful example. Children are wonderful examples, I think.
When that little baby was first born, they brought that baby out and showed him to me. Man, I was thrilled—absolutely thrilled. That is the way God looks at His new babes in Christ. When we first accept the Lord, He is just thrilled.
It is an acceptable sacrifice there. He sees that the life of Christ has touched us in our heart, and He can accept that.
Of course, the little baby was not able to do anything for himself, which is okay for a while. But then his life started to grow.
Very recently, he was just about nine and a half months old. He was starting this process of life that you naturally grow into at that age—standing up and trying to walk a little. Of course, parents and grandparents particularly are trying to urge them along, knowing that once they can walk, you cannot stop them.
But there is that life there, growing, and you are so thrilled. I tell you what, it was so funny. My wife went out and bought him a toy. She saw that he was trying to walk.
I think she was going to give it to him later, but she said, “I just could not resist, Jerry. I had to give it to him now.” I said, “That is okay, of course.”
It was a little toy about that tall, with a handle, a wheel in the front, and two out the side. He could stand right up there and hold that thing.
I took that toy over to this little kid, and he pulled up on that thing and it started moving. Boy, within an hour he was all over the house with this little toy.
You know what? I do not know how many millions are in this earth, but it was worth it all just to see him doing that. It was a thrill to me.
I have been sick for about a week, but I understand he can actually take some steps now.
The point is, we do not have to be super-spiritual Christians. But where we are in the Lord, when the Lord sees that life, that newness of life coming forth, it thrills Him.
It is Christ working in your life. He sees something that the Lord does in your life, and you come back to Him and give Him thanks, and it thrills Him. He is watching this whole thing develop. He is watching you personally.
He is watching you personally, and He loves you. Yes, He groans at times. He knows all the problems we can bring to Him. But every once in a while, He sees us grow up a little more spiritually. We take that next step in life—spiritual life—and it thrills Him.
I am convinced of that. He is a loving Father. He loves us all. He has something on His heart. He wants to build a house. He wants us all to be a part of it. May He bless us all.
Lord, we thank You for this ministry that You gave in Singapore. My heart is, Lord, that that ministry would touch many, many hearts, and that what You shared there would not be lost.
May You really use it to touch the hearts of all the saints, encourage the hearts of all the saints, strengthen the hearts of all the saints, and bring about the building of Your house.
Lord, we have to say we are thankful that, in some small way, You shared a piece of Your heart with us, and we do not want to take that for granted.
So, Lord, we look for Your grace and mercy in these days, that we would not fail You. But Lord, we just want to come back and offer ourselves to Thee for Your service.
Lord, thank You for my acceptance in Jesus Christ. But Lord, I want to offer acceptable sacrifices to Thee. In Jesus’ name, amen.