I am always amazed that people put water up here. Yesterday there were like five, and Dana mentioned that there were six. It is like, are you guys trying to drown us, or what is it that you are really seeking here? So either that, or maybe you want to baptize us. I do not know.
This morning, let us turn to the Word and read these verses.
If thy brother, a Hebrew man, or a Hebrew woman, be sold unto thee, and serve thee six years; then in the seventh year thou shalt let him go free from thee.
And when thou lettest him go free from thee, thou shalt not let him go empty:
Thou shalt furnish him liberally out of thy flock, and out of thy threshing-floor, and out of thy winepress: as the Lord thy God hath blessed thee thou shalt give unto him.
And thou shalt remember that thou wast a bondman in the land of Egypt, and the Lord thy God redeemed thee: therefore I command thee this thing to-day.
And it shall be, if he say unto thee, I will not go out from thee; because he loveth thee and thy house, because he is well with thee;
Then thou shalt take an awl, and thrust it through his ear unto the door, and he shall be thy servant for ever. And also unto thy maid-servant thou shalt do likewise.
Paul’s last letter—2 Timothy 1:12. Paul says:
For which cause I suffer also these things: yet I am not ashamed; for I know Him whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to guard that which I have committed unto Him against that day.
And he that received the one talent came and said, Lord, I knew thee that thou art a hard man, reaping where thou didst not sow, and gathering where thou didst not scatter;
And I was afraid, and went away and hid thy talent in the earth: lo, thou hast thine own.
I think this is probably read at every conference, and so we know it. But hopefully it comes fresh to us today.
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service.
And be not fashioned according to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
Let us pray.
Heavenly Father, we thank You for this new day, and we thank You that, like yesterday, You love us. And today, because You love us, we are again in Your presence. We are asking that again You come and express Yourself to us through Your Word.
Lord, we know that no man can express words from You, or Your thoughts. But, Lord, Your Holy Spirit can take the things of a man and illuminate them so they do express what is on Your heart. And that is what we are asking today: that You would be able to express what is on Your heart, so that You might draw to Yourself those hearts that are willing to come.
Lord, we pray that our hearts will be drawn. We give ourselves to You for this time and to Your Holy Spirit, in Jesus Christ’s name.
Well, this is what we have come for, right? Whose I am and Whom I serve. I still want to deal with whose I am, because I left this guy up in the air yesterday.
He said, “We get to a point of saying, ‘I cannot go all the way.’” But at least the Lord says, “Well, give Me some ground to start with.” Remember, we talked about that ending: “Do you have affection for Me?” If you have affection for Me, if you have a tenderness toward Me at all, then you have given Me a beachhead from which to start My assault, from which to make My way into your heart.
It is just a wonderful thing when you sense an opening. I remember when I was pursuing my wife, and when I finally perceived that she was open to me—what a joy that was for me. I said, “Ah, right, the Lord has given her to me.”
But it is the same way. The Lord rejoices too, and He says, “You have given Me an opening.” Oh, He is just rejoicing.
So this morning, we want to look at getting to the point where we really can say whose I am. I want to deal with this term here: bond servant.
Yesterday, I think I used the word consecration. I was talking with somebody—I do not remember who it was. It might have been the Grecos. We were talking in a meeting, and someone said that the word consecration—and one kid poked the other kid and said, “What is consecration?”
Because we use it so often. It is like, “Oh yeah, well, consecration.” We just flip words around—things we do not know what they mean—and we use them, like juxtapose. “Oh yeah, we will juxtapose.” And we do not know what it means, so we use it out of context.
So we say things and we really do not know what they mean. Just for that purpose, consecration means giving yourself. It could be to a purpose; it could be to a person. But really, what you consecrate is yourself—you give yourself to it.
When I was in high school, I consecrated myself to basketball. I wanted to be one of the best players. When I met my wife and started a relationship with her, I consecrated myself to her in that relationship, and it worked out that we are married.
The end of consecration, as far as a relationship goes, is intimacy. You cannot go any higher than that. And that is really what a bond servant is.
A bond servant is one who is consecrated, who has said, “I do not want to live my own life anymore. I want to be this Person’s servant.”
Now, something about a bond servant: a bond servant is not a goal. A person who is a bond servant does not start out by going, as we read in Deuteronomy 15:12, “He serves you for six years.”
Do you think at the beginning of those six years that person said, “Oh, my goal is that once this guy lets me free, I want to work for him forever”? I do not think that was his goal. I think he was going, “Oh man, six years. One day at a time, okay?”
I think for us to understand that, we cannot go with, “I want to be a bond servant,” because it is not a goal. A bond servant is a response. It is a response to something—to Someone.
Because of what you know about this person, and how you have experienced this person as a master, you say, “I do not think it can be any better than this.” By faith, you may not know what the economy is going to do or something like that for this guy, but you can say, “I do not care what happens in the future. I know that if I am with this guy, I am going to be okay.”
That is what it is. It is just a response, and you cannot conjure up a response. You can tell when a response is fake. It is called sarcasm. But when a response is real, you cannot simply say, “Okay, I will be a bond servant.” You are responding to Someone when you are a bond servant.
It is interesting that the writers of the New Testament called themselves bond servants. Paul, in Philippians, calls himself a bond servant. A lot of times he starts, “Paul, an apostle,” but in Philippians: “Paul and Timothy, bond servants.”
And the wonderful thing is that yesterday we talked about Peter saying, “I cannot get this high.” Yet both of Peter’s letters start out, “Peter, a bond servant.” The Lord said, “I will take your affection, and I can move you now.”
The Lord moved him to the place where he could finally say what he said out of himself in Luke 22: “I will even die for You.” And the Lord said, “Well, you really do not know yourself.”
But in the end, he did die for the Lord. He did go to the cross, literally for the Lord, as a bond servant. He did not go because he was forced to go. He went and died because he loved the Lord.
There is something else we have to do. When we are looking at this, here is another thing that we do as young people—and I am telling you, even when you get my age, this is the way you think.
Let us just put it this way: I am not the center of the process in becoming a bond servant. That is pretty clever, is it not? See, the “I” is not in the center. I have to explain it to you. I thought you guys were gifted. Man. That is why I am a teacher.
But we have this idea, and it comes from day one. When you are born, you are the center. Your parents are so happy to have you—unless you are about fifth or sixth out of ten.
Especially the firstborn. The firstborn comes and everybody is so happy. The parents are like, “Oh, they are the center. We will do anything. We will buy this; we will do this.” The grandparents too. And now you know why teachers have a hard time.
That kid comes to school and thinks he is the sun. He thinks he is God’s gift to the earth. That is what we think. We get saved, and all of a sudden we think, “Hey, we are the center of God’s purpose.”
We are not the center of God’s purpose. Someone read yesterday, looking at the universe, David said, “What is man?” If you look at the whole universe—the geocentric theory, where Earth is the center of everything—have you ever seen a map of the universe? Neither have I.
But in a map of the universe, do you think our galaxy, the Milky Way, is smack-dab in the middle of it? I have no idea, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it is not.
Yet it is interesting that, even though it is probably not the center of the universe, God—the Creator of the whole universe—focused in on the planet Earth out of all these things, and then focused in on little people in the midst of it.
And then think about this: He chose to have something to do with people and creatures that would have nothing to do with Him. We are just not the center, but we have been brought into something that is great, and we do not have to be the center to enjoy it.
So, in understanding what it means to be a bond servant, it was not about that bond servant. Before he was a bond servant, he got into a place where it was not about him.
If you go back to Deuteronomy 15:12, it starts out, “He serves you for six years.” It does not say, “And you served him for six years.” The servant serves the master for six years.
So really, in order to understand being a bond servant, it is not about you at all. The bond servant becomes a bond servant because he sees something in the master. It is not that the master sees something in him.
Remember: “What is man, that You even think about him?” But it is the Master whom that servant sees and says, “This One, I want to stay with.”
It is the servant’s experience of that master that leads him to become a bond servant. It is not like he read a book about his master and never saw his master. Orders come down; they text him, “Do that.” He never sees the person’s face, never hears the person’s voice—just gets a little text: “Clean your room.” “Okay.” “Do that.” “Okay.”
But it is an experiencing. It is a personal experience. This servant would have a personal experience with the master. He would see that master around the house. He would get orders from him, and when he did not have orders, he might see him doing something.
He might see him with his kids. He might see him giving him a Christmas bonus or something like that. But the thing is, he had an experience of that master. It is that experience of the master that drew him out to say, “I want to be with this One forever.”
So, in looking at this, do we see our Master?
If you read the Old Testament, especially Genesis, you find God receiving all these strange names. The Lord Tsidkenu—what a weird name. It has some meaning. But, just for example, El Roi was the name given to God by Hagar. It means, “The God who sees.”
All these names that come up in Genesis come out of that person’s experience. In other words, they found God intervening in their life, and all of a sudden they said, “That is who God is.”
Hagar said, “He sees,” because Sarah had cast her out. There she was, wondering what she was going to do, and the Lord saw her. He came to her and said, “What are you doing here? Go back.” She named that well after Him, saying, “He sees.”
That was her experience: He sees me. We sang a song like that—“He sees me. He knows my every thought.” Same thing.
Moses made an altar in Exodus and called it the Lord Nissi. It has nothing to do with cars. It means, “The Lord is my banner.” They had just won a great battle against the Amalekites, and Moses said, “The Lord is my banner. The Lord is my flag going into battle.”
In other words, the Lord helps me in battle. He fights for me. That was Moses’ experience of his Master. It was not just something he read and said, “Oh, I think I will call Him this.” No, it was his experience.
Abraham found the Lord to be the Lord who provides. When he was taking Isaac up, Isaac said, “Dad, I see the fire and everything else, but where is the sheep?” Abraham looked at him knowingly and said, “The Lord will provide.”
And He did. The ram was found in the thicket, and the Lord pointed it out to him. Abraham’s experience was, “The Lord provides the things that I need.”
Then there are times when God simply breaks in and says, “This is who I am.” For example, in Genesis, when Abram received the promise that Isaac was going to be born, God came to him and said, “Abraham, I am God Almighty. I can do anything.”
Abram was saying, “How am I going to have this? Let me be satisfied with Ishmael. How can Sarah have a child?” And God said, “Hey, I am God Almighty. I can do anything. I am just letting you know that.”
Or to Moses, at the burning bush, He let him know: “I AM.” “What is Your name?” “I AM.” “I AM what?” “Well, what do you need? I am that.”
The reason God has to come and tell us these things is that it inspires our faith in Him. Sometimes we learn Him through experience, and sometimes we are afraid to move, so He shows Himself to us and says, “This is who I am. Trust that I am this.” Then we go out and step out in faith.
So, when we consider being a bond servant and say, “Hey, I think I want to be a bond servant,” we have to get out of that mold. We have to say, “Am I knowing the Lord? What am I knowing of the Lord in my life? What am I experiencing? What is He showing me through my experiences of life? What is He revealing to me about Himself?”
From the beginning, once you are born again, the Lord starts to prove Himself. Remember when Israel was ransomed from Egypt? They put the blood on the doorpost and the lintel, and the angel of death passed over them. They thought, “All right, this is great.”
Then the Egyptians came after them, and they thought, “What are we going to do?” The Lord said, “Let us get up to the Red Sea. I will get you through.”
Then they got across, and they were in the desert: “We do not have any water. What are we going to do?” The Lord said, “Water out of a rock.” Not just once—twice.
Then they said, “We do not have anything to eat.” Quail. Manna. There you go. “We do not know where we are going.” A pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.
They had these experiences of God. In other words, God was saying, “I am bringing you out here because I want you to know Me.”
It was not as though He said, “Well, I did not think about the Egyptians coming after you. Oh my goodness, I thought they were too far away. It would take days for them to get here.” Or, “Oh wow, I thought there were wolves out here. Where are those angels? Come here.”
“I did not think about feeding six million.” It is not like He is caught unawares. He brings us out there so we will know who He is.
In knowing who He is, we begin to trust Him with our lives. Because we have experienced Him this way, when we get into a fix, we can say, “The Lord was there last time. He has got to be here this time.”
These things are for that purpose. What leads us to commit ourselves and our lives to God is our perception, through our experiences, of who God is. We begin to perceive that He is faithful.
That is why Paul could say, “I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded.” That is a wonderful word. Because I know Him, I am persuaded to trust Him.
I have no worries about my wife going out on me while I am up here in Toronto. You know why? Because she has shown herself to me to be faithful. When I leave, I can trust her because my experience has been that she is faithful to me.
It is the same thing with God. Some of us have a perception like the one-talent servant: “I knew You to be a hard man, so I hid these things.” And so all You get back is that little soul You saved.
I think some of that is because we misinterpret some of the things we see God doing in our lives. Because we misinterpret them, all of a sudden we say, “God, You are not who You said You were.” I will bring that out as we get into this—how that can be misconstrued.
What I want to do is take five people’s experiences of God, in short view, just to let you know that God, in our experiences, is out to show us Himself. When we get that experience of Him, we are able to trust Him, rest, and say, “I can trust You forever.”
Look at the first guy here. This is Joseph. It is a blurry picture of Joseph because the early cameras back then did not have the digital thing. This was just like a cardboard box and a pinhole. But there is Joseph. They did have Technicolor, because he has his coat of many colors.
Joseph had dreams. You can see those dreams there: the stalks of grain bowing down to him, and the stars, sun, and moon bowing down to him. God was saying through those dreams, “I have a purpose for you.”
There is always the beginning for us. Some of you older people remember Campus Crusade or InterVarsity. You would get to college, and they would say, “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.”
That is true. He has a wonderful plan for you. You are not the center of that plan, but He has a wonderful plan for you. I am going to harp on that: you are not the center, but you are included in the plan.
Joseph was going, “Hey, brothers, come here. I want to tell you my dream. You are all going to be bowing down to me. This is God’s purpose for me. I am going to be ahead of you guys.”
Then he went to his mom and dad: “You guys are not going to be telling me what time to go to bed. That is right, man. I am going to be telling you, ‘It is time for your bed,’ but I am staying up.”
God had a purpose, and Joseph went out thinking grand things. “Oh, these dreams! God spoke to me. He is going to make me something great.”
Then there was a process by which the Lord carried out His purpose. It started like this: his brothers threw him in a ditch. That is part of the book, right? “It is going to be great. I am going to rule. They are going to be bowing down to me.” Well, they threw him in a ditch.
Then they sold him. Then he went to jail.
This is what I mean: sometimes we think God has shown us something that He is going to do, and all of a sudden we start to go through things like this. We begin to misinterpret what God is doing and who God is.
How would you feel if the Lord gave you these promises, you really felt the Lord was doing this, and then you got thrown in a ditch by your brothers? They are talking about killing you. You can hear them: “Yeah, well, kill him and have done with him.” It does not look good, does it?
How do you feel? Right there, this is me: “Where are You, God? Where are You? You said You were going to do this. Where are You? I knew You to be a hard man.”
Then he was in prison. Remember, when he got into those places, this is the thing about Joseph and what he knew about the Lord: when he got into those situations, he was kept.
I want to tell you, what kept him was not his fortitude. It was not, “Well, I will show them. They threw me in a ditch. I am going to show them. I will rule over them anyway. You just wait.” It was not his fortitude.
Let me read one Psalm—Psalm 105. It talks about Joseph, starting in Psalm 105:17:
He sent a man before them;
Joseph was sold for a servant:
His feet they hurt with fetters:
He was laid in chains of iron,
Until the time that his word came to pass,
The word of the Lord tried him.
The king sent and loosed him,
Even the ruler of peoples, and let him go free.
He made him lord of his house,
And ruler of all his substance.
There is that little phrase: “The word of the Lord tried him.” It means that he was tested. But it also means this: the Lord kept him true.
Let me give you an example. I am a schoolteacher, and every once in a while I give what you guys hate: a pop quiz. Ten questions—just a little pop quiz. My kids hate it too. “You are going to drop one grade or the other at the end of the semester, are you not?” No. “You give extra credit, do you not?” No.
You know why I give them that? It keeps them true. You know what you guys do: you wait until the last minute. “Oh, a quiz is Friday. Okay, I can put it off until Thursday night or early Friday morning. I will read it on the bus.”
The reason we know how you are is because we were students too. We know all the tricks. The whole thing is, by doing this, the kids are kept on task. They are kept true. They have to be up to snuff. They have to be current.
That is the whole thing about Joseph. These dreams, these words that God had given, were kept current. They were ever before him. They were the things that strengthened him.
He could say, “Well, I am in prison. What am I going to do? Well, the Lord said He is going to make me this, so I might as well make the best of it.” So he served Potiphar in such a way that God blessed him. He did a good job, and Potiphar said, “This guy is great.”
When he went to jail, the same thing happened. The Lord blessed him because he kept current. He kept those things before his face: “Lord, this is what You said. I am trusting that You are who You say You are.”
Then he finally came before Pharaoh, told the dream, and Pharaoh put him in the driver’s seat. He was only in the driver’s seat for a little while, and there his brothers were before him.
Did God keep His promise? Yeah. The brothers were bowing before him. He had everything he went through. Now, what did Joseph learn? What was Joseph’s experience of God in this?
You do not get one experience and suddenly know everything. Joseph knew this: he got a dream at the beginning. God started the story, and then God was writing the story.
Joseph was not offended by how it was going. Have you ever read a book and said, “I cannot read this anymore,” because you are upset with what the author is doing with the characters? “I cannot believe that.” “Oh, just look at the end.”
Sometimes we are just in the middle of that writing. Have you seen the movie Stranger Than Fiction? What are you guys watching movies for? But in that story, the character is in the middle of the book, doing everything the writer has written, and then he finds out that he is going to die at the end. “How do we change this?”
One of the things Joseph found out through this experience is that God is the Author and the Finisher. God finishes what He begins.
There are no unfinished symphonies, like Schubert had because he died, because God does not die. It is in His heart to finish. The only thing that will stop Him from finishing is that we say, “I do not want anything to do with You anymore,” when we harden our hearts.
That is why we have that warning: “Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts,” like the children in the wilderness. Harden your heart against God, and that happens—the book ends there.
But the purpose of God is to finish what He began. When we read verses like Philippians 1:6—“He who began a good work in you will complete it”—that is because that is who God is. He is not One who starts something and does not finish it.
His intention is to finish it. That is His will.
But further than that, Joseph found out who God is—the Person. That is really what the Lord wants.
We talk about God having a purpose for your life. A lot of us will say, “Oh, the eternal purpose is the church,” and things like that, and that is true. But if we bring this down to an individual level, the eternal purpose of God for you is that you know the only true God.
That is why you have been born again: so you would know Him.
If Abraham did not know God, he would never have obeyed Him when it came to saying, “Take your only son.” But because Abraham knew Him, he figured, “God promised me seed through Isaac. He is going to have to do something really different if I have to kill him.”
Hebrews 11 says that Abraham figured God would raise Isaac from the dead. Why? Because He is El Shaddai—God Almighty. That is what He had revealed Himself to be.
“If I can bring a baby from a woman who is barren, can I not raise the dead?” So Abraham’s faith was in that.
Now Moses. If you read the Old Testament, you will find the word holy in the Pentateuch almost as much as you will in the prophets. God is holy.
We think of holy and imagine a glowing person who is untouchable and unreachable. But what does holy really mean? Yes, we can say it means separated—separated to a purpose.
When I was looking at these things, I saw that all the things that went into the tabernacle, into the holy place and the holy of holies, were called holy. What does that mean? It means they are devoted. They are only for that use.
I want to take that word and say this: Moses found out that God was devoted.
What do you mean, God was devoted? God said, “Moses, I am going to take these people, deliver them from Egypt, and take them into this land I promised their fathers. I am going to see to it that they get there. I am devoted to that purpose.”
That is what Moses found out. He found out how devoted God was. “I will take them on. I will feed them. I will do everything. I will protect them. I will do all these things. I am devoted to this purpose of bringing them where I promised I would bring them.”
Moses saw that. Because of that, his life went around that. “If God is so devoted, then I will devote myself to the place of leading them. I will devote myself.” It says he became the servant of God.
Moses does not get much ink time. Last year I talked about this person here. This is Mimosa. Actually, it is not Mimosa, but it is the closest I could get to what I think she looked like. It is my image, if you know.
I am going to suggest that you get that little book, Mimosa, and read it. It is a wonderful book about this little girl. I do not know, she must have been six or seven years old when her father brought her and her older sister to the school in Dohnavur, where Amy Carmichael, the missionary, was.
They were dropping her sister off at school, and Mimosa got to be there. They went into a little room—I guess they had Bible lessons—and she saw God. God revealed Himself to her heart, and she went home.
She had never read a Bible before. She did not have a Bible, and there were no Christians in her village anyway. The rest of that book is how God kept her. It is such an encouragement when you read it.
I suggest a little chapter a day. They are only about two or three pages, maybe four pages. It is great little devotional reading.
The thing about Mimosa is that she got to this place of saying—she always called God Father. Maybe at school they talked about the heavenly Father. Maybe they gave her these verses. Maybe this is the story she got, but I do not know.
She had this idea in her head, this conception that had to be put there by God: that He was Father.
In Matthew 6, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus teaches:
Therefore I say unto you, Be not anxious for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than the food, and the body than the raiment?
Behold the birds of the heaven, that they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; and your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are not ye of much more value than they?
And which of you by being anxious can add one cubit unto the measure of his life?
And why are ye anxious concerning raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin:
Yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
But if God doth so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall He not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?
Be not therefore anxious, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?
For after all these things do the Gentiles seek; for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.
But seek ye first His kingdom, and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.
If you read that little book, there are times in Mimosa’s life when they are without food; times when she gets sick and cannot move out of her house; times when hard things happen. You find her coming to the Lord and saying, “You are my Father. If You are my Father, You are good. So anything You allow to happen to me cannot be bad, because You are my Father and You are good.”
What a faith. She had nobody preaching these things to her. It was just what the Lord had revealed to her heart, even without Scripture. That is how great God is. She knew Him as Father.
Then we have this next one. We will center on this guy here. We will just call him Mr. X. See what happens when you age?
This guy found out that God is willing and able to recover. I want to give you two stories out of his life.
One time, he had asked a young lady to marry him. She was the one he had been praying for. “This is the one.” She agreed. Then a couple of months later, she said, “You know, I think I am in love with someone else.”
Mr. X was really upset. He was not really upset with her—although, you know, a little bit—but he was really upset with God. He said to God, “How can You take from me the very thing I wanted? I want nothing to do with You anymore if that is the way You are going to be.”
He went on with regular life, but he was miserable. One New Year’s Eve, because he lived in California, he went to the New Year’s parade in Pasadena. Everybody was gathering, and he was miserable, doing things he should not have been doing.
A person saw him—a person he did not know, but who had known of him and knew he was a Christian. She looked at him and said, “This guy looks bad. He is in bad shape.”
She called a friend of hers who happened to play basketball with this guy on a junior-college team. She said, “Hey, I saw Mr. X at the parade last night. That guy is in bad shape. Why do you not give him a call?”
Mr. X never knew who that young lady was. He will know in heaven, though.
A guy named Dan Carroll called Mr. X and said, “Hey, Mr. X, I heard you are not doing too good. Why do you not come to church with me?” Mr. X was low enough that he said, “Yeah, okay, I will go. Where do you go?”
Dan told him, and it was a church that met in the park. It was all hippies, so Mr. X kind of fit in there.
All during the time, Mr. X was thinking, “I do not know why I am here.” There was a skinny little guy with long hair giving the Lord’s table. It was weird—a little hippie church—but they had the Lord’s table every week.
This guy based his sermon on a song from an album by Captain Beefheart—his famous album, Trout Mask Replica. Mr. X knew of Captain Beefheart because he had the album.
Before the table, the speaker took the words of a song. The song was, “I Love You, Big Dummy.” He described somebody working the graveyard shift, hearing the song on pirate radio: “I love you, big dummy.” Then the guy played harmonica for a while, and then said it again: “I love you, big dummy.” Harmonica. “I love you, big dummy.” Harmonica.
Now this guy who was working was saying, “Oh, why is he loving me?” The next verse was, “Do not ask why. I love you, big dummy.”
That spoke right into the heart of Mr. X, because Mr. X was thinking that God would have nothing to do with him. But God said, “I love you.”
Mr. X was recovered.
There is another thing that happened to Mr. X. Mr. X really loved basketball. There was a time when he had a decision to make. He was just getting grounded in the Lord and in a fellowship, and he had an opportunity to go play basketball.
He took the opportunity. It was not sin or anything. It was just something he loved, and he wanted to give it a shot and see what would happen.
But he was miserable, because there were no Christians out there. He was just getting to enjoy the body of believers—young people his age. They had traveled all the way to New Zealand. He was ten thousand miles away from home.
It was ten o’clock at night, and the sun was still out. No one was around, and he was sitting there crying because he was a big baby, saying, “God, I am so sorry. I messed up really bad. I do not know what to do.”
The Lord was so gracious to him. He read a book that he got while he was there. Then they were flying in an airplane, and the airplane was going to land, but it was so foggy. They were still in the middle of the ocean, between islands, and everybody thought they were going to die.
People on the plane were doing weird things that you see in movies. The only thought on Mr. X’s mind was, “Oh Lord, I have not been able to do anything for You, and I am so far away from You.”
Then the Lord spoke into his heart and said, “You cannot get any closer to Me than you are now.”
Peace flooded this man. When they got to Australia, the Lord brought him among a bunch of Teen Challenge people who took him in, loved him for a week, and recovered him.
This is kind of what he got out of it. This is a song written by Lamb, paraphrasing Hosea 14:
No more will you turn to another for help,
Nor will you turn to yourself, nor will you say, “Our God,” to another.
In Me you find mercy.
I will heal your wrong ways.
I love you so freely.
You will dwell beneath My shadow.
O Beulah, you are My people.
You shall blossom as a lily.
Your beauty shall be like the olive tree;
Your fragrance as Lebanon.
You shall dwell as a well-watered garden,
And you will flourish like the vine.
That is wonderful recovery, is it not? That is at the end of Hosea. Hosea is speaking in that book to a people who are double-hearted, whose hearts are far away from God. At the end, God says, “I will love you so freely. Just come back to Me.” And He does.
Finally, the apostle John learned that he was loved by God. The reason I know that he learned this is, first of all, if you read the epistles of John, that is all he talks about: love one another, love God, God loves you. All love.
It is amazing because John did not have that personality. I do not think John was one of those guys who was always like, “Oh, I just want to hug you.” He was the son of thunder. You know what that probably means? He had a temper.
Remember, one time when the Samaritans would not receive Jesus, John said, “Hey, do You want us to call fire down from heaven? We will fix this, Lord. Just call it right down.”
So I do not think he was that cute, cuddly guy, all warm and fuzzy. Mess with him, man, and you got it.
But if you read John 13, it is the most intimate picture of Jesus Christ that you have in the whole New Testament. John 13 through 16 shows the apostles in the upper room during Passover.
During that time Jesus said in Luke, “With desire I have desired to eat this passover with you.” Jesus really opened Himself up in a wonderful, beautiful way in those chapters.
In John 13:23, it speaks of “the disciple whom Jesus loved,” who leaned his head on His breast. I think where John puts this is interesting, because I think it tells the whole deal.
You do not hear John saying, “I am the apostle that Jesus loved,” until after something happened. Put it in context: this is the most intimate time with the disciples, the most intimate interaction of Jesus with His disciples.
At the beginning of the chapter, Jesus washes their feet. You do not have John saying, “The disciple whom Jesus loved,” until after Jesus washed his feet.
I think there are times when we know ourselves. It is the feet—that is the dirtiest part of you. If you walk barefoot, or some of you have flip-flops, or I have my little sandals here, you know it is dirty.
Here is the Lord saying to John, “Just give Me who you are. Let Me handle you. Let Me wash every little spot. It is not for you to do. Let Me wash it.”
You know something? That humbles you. In a way, that is humiliating. Someone is taking all the things you think, “Oh, this is bad. Oh, they are seeing—oh my gosh,” and you are letting them touch that.
But it is that intimacy that really lets you know that He loves you. You can say without doubt, “The disciple whom He loved.”
Then from that, John went out and said, “It is not that I loved the Lord. I would not have loved the Lord, but He loved me first.” It is a response. All I can do is respond to Him. I love the Lord now.
What about you and your experience? How have you seen God in your life? Dana talked yesterday about how we can look back at things. Some of us are older; we can look way back.
But you do not have that many defining moments. Look at Abraham. It was not every day that God was doing something new. He had about six experiences that were really defining things.
The whole thing is that you can look back and see God doing things. There is a hymn that begins, “Have you seen Him, heard Him, and known Him?” Then it asks, “If you have, is not your heart captured?”
From what you have experienced of Him, has your heart been captured?
Some of you are really young and say, “Well, I do not have any experience.” I remember Bill Cosby had a thing about getting his tonsils out. They tell him, “Count back from one hundred,” and he goes, “One,” and he is out. He said, “My whole life flashed before me,” and he was only six years old. He said, “I had to call for a rerun.”
But some of you younger people say, “Well, I do not have any experience.” This is what I challenge you to do.
Go back and—Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote a poem, “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.” I say you should go to the Lord and say, “Lord, how have You loved me? Help me count the ways.”
“Show me in my life where You have intervened. Maybe it was in my family. Maybe my dad was out of work, and You intervened by doing something. Because of that, You provided for me, so I am still doing well.”
Maslow said that as long as you are stuck on survival, you cannot think any higher. That is what we learn in school. That is why they have people give school meals and things like that, so the kids do not have to worry, “Where am I going to get my meal from?”
They have clothes, coats, and things like that, so now they can concentrate and think higher: “Now I can concentrate on who crossed the Delaware”—you know, the important stuff.
When you think about that, how has the Lord freed you so you do not have to worry about where you are getting your next meal? Go back and say, “Lord, help me. Show me how You have done this, so my heart can be won.”
The rest of us have to go back and say, “Lord, let me consider. Let me meditate.” I heard a great definition of meditation. You know what meditation means? It means seek comfort. It does not mean merely think about something. It means seek comfort.
Meditate on how the Lord has been in your life. Seek comfort from saying, “Oh yeah, He really was there.” If you are like Joseph, you say, “Well, I am in prison.” Then you say, “Well, but He gave me this dream. He promised me this.”
Because when you see Him, your heart will be captured, and then you can respond. That is how bond servants are made. They are not produced in any other way than by seeing how wonderful the Master is.
You notice in Romans 12:1, it does not say, “Because it is your duty, offer yourself as a living sacrifice.” It says, “By the mercies of God.”
Because of the mercies God has shown you, and because He is showing you that He is worthy, that is why you should offer yourself as a living sacrifice. That is bond service.
With this in mind, you say, “Well, this is what I see in God.” I just want to close with this, okay? I have to hurry because we are late.
See this phrase: the God of Jacob. This is how God sees things. This is how God sees you.
This is God’s favorite name in the Old Testament. Of all the people you can think of—Moses, Daniel, Ezra, Abraham—God is called “the God of Jacob” more often than any other name.
You look at Jacob and say, “What is special there?” God just loves him. “Jacob have I loved.” It is a great verse, is it not? He does not give any reason. “Jacob have I loved.” No reason for it. Just, “That is who I am. I love Jacob.”
He knows everything. Jacob was called by two names: Jacob and Israel, because God knew Jacob’s nature. He knew everything.
A sister read these verses today. I want to say that this is how God looks at us. Isaiah 43:1-4 says:
But now thus saith the Lord that created thee, O Jacob,
And He that formed thee, O Israel:
Fear not, for I have redeemed thee;
I have called thee by thy name, thou art Mine.
When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee;
And through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee:
When thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned;
Neither shall the flame kindle upon thee.
For I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour;
I have given Egypt as thy ransom,
Ethiopia and Seba in thy stead.
Since thou hast been precious in My sight, and honorable,
And I have loved thee.
In other words, “I know who you are. I am not shocked and saying, ‘Oh my gosh, that is what you are? I did not know.’ No, I know. I created you.”
“Fear not, for I have redeemed you. I have called you by your name. You are Mine.” When you pass through the fire—not if you pass through the fire; incidentally, this is very prophetic—it says, “When you go through that fire, I will be with you.”
When the rivers overflow, you will be okay. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned, neither shall the flame scorch you, “for I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Saviour.”
“Oh, brothers and sisters, that is how God sees us.”
Frances Ridley Havergal wrote a whole song that says, “I love, I love my Master. I will not go out free.”
Brothers and sisters, if you experience the Lord and let Him show you what He is doing in your life, and you understand that this is how God feels about you, how can you not be like Frances Havergal, who says, “I love my Master. I will not go out free”?
That is a bond servant. It is just a response to Him. It cannot be drummed up. It is a response because you see Him as He is, because He already sees you as you are.
Let us pray.
Oh, heavenly Father, what a great love You have for us. How we thank You. How we cannot hold our joy in, to know that You love us the way You do and that You act on our behalf to draw us to Yourself. Who can be against us?
Oh Lord, we pray that our eyes would be open to see You as You are acting in our lives, to bring us to the place You want us to be in that great purpose of Yours.
Oh Lord, we thank You. Lord, we tell You: we have an affection for You. Please bring us to fullness, to that full place where we can say, “I will not go out free.”
We commit ourselves to You for our keeping, in Jesus Christ’s name. Amen.