Good morning.
Glorious this morning, wasn’t it? It was glorious to be in His presence.
Let’s read a few verses, please.
Now those who were scattered after the persecution that arose over Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch, preaching the word to no one but the Jews only.
But some of them were men from Cyprus and Cyrene, who, when they came to Antioch, spoke to the Hellenists, preaching the Lord Jesus.
And the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number believed and turned to the Lord.
Then news of these things came to the ears of the church in Jerusalem, and they sent out Barnabas to go as far as Antioch.
When he came and had seen the grace of God, he was glad, and encouraged them all that with purpose of heart they should continue with the Lord.
For he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and faith. And a great many people were added to the Lord.
Then Barnabas departed for Tarsus to seek Saul.
Saul, who would later become Paul, was brought by Barnabas to Antioch.
So it was that for a whole year they assembled with the church and taught a great many people. And the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch.
This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief.
And Jesus, seeing the multitudes, went up on a mountain, and when He was seated His disciples came to Him.
Then He opened His mouth and taught them.
Again, He is speaking to His disciples:
You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden.
Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all those who are in the house.
Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.
Our Heavenly Father, we want to thank You this morning that we sense heaven open to us because of Your Son, Jesus. We rejoice because You have opened heaven to us, and You have allowed us into Your presence. You have come down to be with us, and we bless You and praise Your name.
We tell You how thankful we are to be in Your presence this morning. How glorious it is to know that You love us, care for us, and gave us a Savior—Your Son, Jesus Christ. Oh Lord, we worship You this morning.
Now, as we come to this time of sharing the Word, we ask, Lord, that You would speak to us. Tell us what is on Your heart, and make it real to us. May it be as though You are speaking right to us. May these not merely be words, but may it be You speaking to us.
You can only do that by Your Spirit, Lord. I am a poor vessel, but Your Spirit is glorious, and He enables. Lord, I ask for that enablement today—for myself, to speak these things that You have put on my heart, and for those who listen, that they would not be put off by me, but would be captured by You, by Your speaking.
Lord, it is for Your speaking that we ask. We ask for it in Jesus’ name.
This morning, we have been talking about God’s eternal purpose and about the Lord’s table. Why has the Lord given us this table? Why has He saved us? What does He get out of this? Really, that is what I want to speak about today.
The Lord did not deliver the Israelites from Egypt merely to set them free and say, “Okay, I freed you.” He had a purpose in mind: that they would be a nation unto Him, His own peculiar people. As Peter says in 1 Peter, they were a holy race, a holy nation, a kingdom.
My thought this morning is this: Why has God brought us to Himself? Now that He has made us His people, what is He looking for in us as His people?
I believe that what He is looking for in His people—both as individuals and as a community of believers—He is looking for today. He is not merely looking for it in the last days. He has always been looking for this. This is the passion of His heart; this is the desire of His heart.
He wants a testimony of His Son. That is what He wants out of His people. He wants this testimony to go out to the world, to fallen man, to be seen by heavenly beings. The heavens look down and wonder at the sons of God.
He even wants this testimony among His own people. I would say that today, especially, He wants it among His own people.
Now, what is a testimony? Have you ever been to court before? Have you ever been on a jury, or watched it? I hope you have not been to court because you have done something wrong, but if you have, you have. That is past; that is under the blood.
When they bring you up to testify, they ask, “Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?” That is what a testimony is: telling the truth.
If we look at 1 John 1:1-3, John says:
That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, concerning the Word of life—
the life was manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and declare to you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us—
that which we have seen and heard we declare to you.
Now, that is a testimony. That is really what a testimony is. It is saying the things that are real—the things that I have found to be real. I am declaring to you. I am not arguing about anything; I am declaring that these things are so. This is the truth. This is what I have seen. This is what I have experienced.
And it is not merely testifying about something you have witnessed with your own eyes. It is also testifying of Someone you know—what you know about Him to be true because of a relationship that you have with Him.
A testimony is a declaration of what is true, but it is also a manifestation of what is true. When the Lord Jesus was on the earth, He testified of God not merely by His teaching, but by manifesting a life.
It is this life that the Apostle John said, “I have touched. I have looked at. I have held. And I know it to be the eternal life.”
In Acts 1:8, Jesus said to the disciples before He ascended into heaven:
You shall be My witnesses.
That is an important thing, because the witness is left to us. It is not that we drum up something else; He is saying, “You shall be My witnesses.” We are to be the ones who declare and manifest to the world, to fallen men, to the heavenlies, and to one another, the life of Jesus.
We testify of Jesus. We do not testify of a doctrine or anything else. We testify of Jesus Christ. We are to testify—to declare—Jesus Christ.
In Revelation 1:9, John the Apostle says, “I was on the isle of Patmos for the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ.” He was imprisoned for his testimony, and his testimony was of Jesus Christ.
When we talk about testimony, our declaration is that the gospel is true. What is the gospel? The gospel tells us and shows us that Jesus Christ saves—that He is God’s Savior, sent to save us from our sins.
The manifestation is that we are the light of the world, so that all creation—on earth, in the sea, and in the heavens—can see Jesus Christ manifested in us as individuals and as a group of believers. This is to be our testimony: to testify to the truth of the gospel to the world and to beings in the heavenlies.
We testify of the life of Christ because He has made us light. Now, let us take these one at a time.
We declare that the gospel is true. The youngest believer can do this; it is not a hard thing to do. In fact, when we first get saved, it almost effervesces out of us to say, “Jesus saved me.” It is almost natural to us.
We testify. We do not make a three-point argument to show that this is so. We do not debate somebody; we declare: “Jesus saved me.” That is our declaration.
There is nothing to argue. We know it in our own hearts, and we declare it to others. I think what happens to a lot of our young people is that they think they have to debate. No, we declare. We declare what Christ has done. We proclaim that this is so, and we know it because it has happened to us.
Christ has come in, and He has saved me. He saved me. There is nothing more than that to it. It is a simple thing to declare.
When we first get saved, we are talking to everybody. I do not know about those who grew up in the church, but there is a big difference when they really begin seeing the Lord. They begin declaring things and saying, “I have never seen this before. I have been here all my life.”
But for those of us who did not know, we cannot hold ourselves back. We talk to our friends, our neighbors, the people at school, and the people at work. They cannot shut us up, because there is new life in us.
We are not arguing. Many times, people are asking, “What is different about you? What is going on? Why have you changed? What has happened?” It just opens up, and we say, “Well, this is what happened. I met Jesus, and He saved me.”
I was raised Catholic, and I remember my dad. I think he was disappointed when my brothers and I became Christians. I think he thought it took the aggressiveness out of us.
I remember one time he said to me, “What is wrong with the way I brought you up? What is wrong with the god I had?” I remember saying to him, “Dad, you tell me what your god has done for you, and I will tell you what my God has done for me.”
My dad could always talk about tradition and things like that, but he did not really tell me anything that God had done for him. Then I told my dad, “Dad, God has forgiven all my sins.”
My dad walked away. I know it touched him, because he walked away saying, “Are you telling me my sins can be forgiven?” He would not talk to me anymore about it at that time.
But that is all it is: a proclamation, a simple proclamation.
Even Paul, in 1 Corinthians 15, says, “I give to you what was given to me: that Jesus Christ died for our sins, and on the third day He was raised from the dead.” Simple. It is a simple testimony, a simple declaration. It is not an argument; it is a declaration.
“Christ died for me. This I know. I know this. This I proclaim.”
It is not just that we declare this to the unsaved world. Brothers and sisters, we also declare it in the assembly. We proclaim it in the church.
That is what we were doing today when we came to the table. You were proclaiming the gospel.
I think a lot of young people, and a lot of us who are older, are afraid to open our mouths because we think we are going to say something wrong or because what we say is not high enough.
There was a sister at our Tuesday-night Bible study when I first got saved. She was a simple sister. She was a little older than me, but she was not somebody who knew what we might call higher truth. Still, she came to the meetings and enjoyed the Lord.
Sometimes she would say, “This is way over my head.” But every once in a while, especially in a Sunday meeting, she would call a hymn. It was hymn 282, and that hymn was her declaration.
I am not skilled to understand
What God hath willed, what God hath planned;
I only know at His right hand
Stands One who is my Savior.
The hymn says:
I take Him at His word indeed:
Christ died for sinners; this I read;
And in my heart I find the need
Of Him to be my Savior.
And was there then no other way
For God to take? I cannot say;
I only bless Him day by day
Who saved me through my Savior.
That He should leave His place on high
And come for sinful man to die,
You count it strange. So once did I,
Before I knew my Savior.
And, oh, that He fulfilled may see
The travail of His soul in me,
And with His work contented be,
As I with my dear Savior.
Yes, living, dying, let me bring
My strength, my solace, from this spring:
That He who lives to be my King
Once died to be my Savior.
Brothers and sisters, that is saving knowledge. That right there is salvation. That is all you need to know to be saved. You do not need to know anything else. The Lord can lead you into all those other things, but to save you, this is all you need.
Every time she called that hymn, it humbled those of us who thought we were so smart, who thought we knew so much and had so much light. When she called that hymn, there was just a fragrance of Christ—just so simple.
It was as if the Lord was saying, “You complicate so many things by your great knowledge. It is simple: I died for you.”
So we declare it, and we declare it in the assembly. Nobody here should be afraid to be simple when giving thanks to God. That is all you are doing: giving thanks and declaring what He has done for you.
It edifies everybody. It builds us up. You may think, “I do not have very much,” but when you bring that little portion, someone who has perhaps more understanding can lift that portion with a prayer or a Scripture. Then someone else picks up on that, and it goes a little further.
You have a fuller expression of the Lord simply because you opened up. That is what it is all about. That is the testimony to God. That is the testimony He is looking for in us: simply declare.
Now, we also testify or declare with our lives. We cannot leave this out, because we tend to be those who just like to speak. We are to confess and testify with our mouths, but we also declare these things with our very lives.
What do I mean by that? It is not that I am going to hammer us. No. How do we testify? By living in the truth—living in the truth. I did not say by living the truth; I said by living in the truth of the gospel.
What does that look like? It means that I live as one who is free. I have been set free.
I have been set free first from the penalty of sin. There is no more penalty for sin for me. I should be living in the freedom of that. Does that not take a load off you?
When Israel came out and wandered thirty-eight years in the wilderness, they finally came into the land. They celebrated Passover, and they came to Gilgal. Gilgal was the place where the reproach had been rolled away.
Brothers and sisters, are you living as though the reproach has been rolled away?
How many of you have read The Pilgrim’s Progress, the old English version? Do you remember when Christian comes to see the cross? Before he comes to the cross, he has a huge burden on his back. He asks, “How do I get rid of this burden?”
He tries to go up the hill of legality, but nothing happens. Then he finally comes to the place where he sees the cross. What happens? The burden falls off him. He does not throw the burden off; the burden falls off him.
Brothers and sisters, the burden has fallen off us. Why do we pick it up? It is not ours to take anymore. It has been taken from us. We are to live in that freedom. We should be rejoicing.
It is not like the old Greek story of the sword of Damocles, where a sword hung by a hair over a man while he ate. He could not enjoy anything because he thought the hair might break at any moment. Some of us as Christians live like that—as though God is just waiting to hammer us.
Brothers and sisters, Christ died for our sins. We are free from that load. We do not have to carry it anymore. I should be at peace with God. I should be at rest with what He has done for me.
I should not be looking for something else, saying, “What else can do it? This does not seem enough. I keep falling.” I should be at rest with what He has done. That is enough. As far as my sin is concerned, there is nothing else that can be done; it has been taken away.
As Christians, we should believe that, and our lives should show it.
Like the hymn “It Is Well with My Soul.” If you look at the second verse:
My sin—oh, the bliss of this glorious thought—
My sin, not in part but the whole,
Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more.
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!
It is well with my soul.
How many of us, when we come to that part of the song, cannot help but stand up? How many of us cannot help but lift our hands because of the truth of this?
We should be living in the truth of this, living as though it is true, because it is true. Get rid of that weight. Praise the Lord. This is our joy: that our sins are taken away, judged, and borne no more.
Our circumstances are not our joy; they change. Our possessions are not our joy; they fade, get old, or get stolen. Our accomplishments are not our joy, because they fade and rust.
But this gospel of Jesus Christ—this is our joy. The gospel is first that our sins are forgiven, because that allows us to enter into the rest of the gospel.
It is not only that we are forgiven and justified, as glorious as that is, and reconciled to God. Being free from that penalty, I come to find that there is more of the gospel to experience.
That is Romans 3, 4, and 5. But what about Romans 6, 7, and 8? There we find out that I am dead to sin—that not only has the penalty of sin been taken care of and put out of the way, but the power of sin has been defeated. Not weakened—defeated.
That is what Romans 6 is about. I am dead to that power.
Brothers and sisters, we all go through Romans 7. Paul did; he wrote about it. That is the beauty of it: even someone like Paul went through that time of saying, “I want to do good, but I do not do good.”
But we come to find in Romans 8 that God does not leave us as orphans. An orphan is simply someone who is not provided for or cared for, left on his own. But after He forgives us, after He takes away our sins, He gives us a new life.
Brothers and sisters, that is the testimony to the world. First of all, we find out for ourselves that we are new creatures. We are a new creation made after Christ—a creation where sin no longer has power over us, as long as we walk in the newness of that life.
When people see that, it is a testimony to them. It is a testimony to brothers and sisters. They may say, “I know you. How can you do that?” And the answer is, “Christ in me. It is Christ in me.”
Our lives are to testify of that life—the life of Christ in us. It is not obedience to rules. It is a life in us, a life seeking to live, moving in our hearts, spirits, and minds, saying, “Live. I want to live. In Me is power to overcome this.”
Have I come to see that God has not left me an orphan? Have I found that He has provided everything that I need? Am I finding this to be so? Am I beginning to experience these things?
Secondly, there is the manifestation of this life. We declare the life and declare these facts. Sometimes, brothers and sisters, when we are not making it, it is time for us to come before the Lord in prayer and declare, “Lord, I am Yours.”
“I see different things happening, but I am Yours. I need to declare it. I need to declare to You that I am Yours, and I need to declare to myself that I am Yours.” Does it not say, “Let the redeemed of the Lord say so”? I am Yours.
Like the movie of Martin Luther, when Luther was saying, “I am such a crummy guy,” his spiritual father told him, “You go to God and tell Him, ‘God, I am Yours. Save me.’”
It is a wonderful testimony: “I am Yours. You save me.” You are saying, “I cannot save myself.” Brothers, when you come to that place, it is just like, “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” You realize, “I just cannot do it.”
But when you come to that realization that you cannot do these things, you look to God, and you find that He has provided for you. It takes these things for us to look to God, but when we do, we find He has provided.
How do we manifest this gospel? How do we manifest Christ? Jesus said to His disciples, “You are the light of the world.”
We may say, “Well, I am to be light.” No, it is not that I am to be light, because then I will ask, “How do I become light?” He does not say, “You are to be the light of the world.” He says, “You are the light of the world.” That is a big difference, is it not?
How can I be the light of the world? Because Christ, who is the light of the world, is in you. That is how you are the light of the world.
This light is not a reflected light. It is not that we are merely reflecting the light of God. Think of Moses in Exodus 34: he met with the Lord, came out, and his face shone. But he put a veil over his face because the glory was fading.
Reflected light fades. Brothers and sisters, a lot of us live by reflected light. We meet the Lord, receive a blessing, run off that little blessing for a while, and try to do things in our own flesh. But because we are trying to do things in our own strength, the glory fades. It cannot stay on the flesh.
But this is a transfiguring light. When the Lord Jesus was transfigured on the mount, the light came out of Him. It was within Him, and it came out. It is the same with us. It is the Lord Jesus, whose life is in us, who shines forth out of us.
Yes, light has shone into us, but it shines out of us because Christ is in us.
This message that we are light was spoken to disciples. What are disciples?
We can have two definitions. One is that disciples are learners. The other is that disciples are followers. I do not want to use the idea of disciples merely as learners, because we are in a generation of Christianity—and of people generally—that likes to learn. But that is all we do: we learn and learn and learn.
We learn so much that we do not know what to do with it, so we invent games like Trivial Pursuit, because what we are learning is trivial. We learn all these things because we are full of knowledge.
I teach gifted students, and they know a lot because they read a lot. But because they think they have learned a lot, they often think there is not much more to learn. Or they think the way you learn is simply by reading a book or going to a lecture.
I was grading a quiz, and one question was, “What is an absolute ruler?” About twenty kids wrote down something I had said in class that was not the definition. But they wrote it because I had said it. They had learned it from me without really thinking through the question.
So I want to stay away from the idea of disciples merely being learners. They are learning, but they are not just learning book knowledge. They are learning a life.
I want to look at disciples as followers.
They follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth.
We do not have the physical Lord Jesus leading us around as the twelve disciples did, but we do have the life of the Lord Jesus in us to lead us. The Lamb we are to follow is the life of Christ in us, and we are to look to that life.
That does not mean that we merely allow the life of Christ to live in us. This idea of “allow” is so passive. We are not passive. Disciples are not passive followers.
If you are going to follow someone, you have to get up and follow them. We may say, “I follow his blog,” or “I follow his teaching because I read his book.” But we are not to follow a teaching; we are to follow the Lamb.
To follow means that we do not merely allow; we must bow the knee. We have to bow to that life. We have to give in to that life and follow His lead.
When you follow that lead, the life of Christ leads us down two avenues. These two paths bring out the light that is in us.
The first path He leads us on is the path to the cross. I am not talking about the cross of Calvary; we have already passed that. The burden has already fallen off. There is no question of our sins keeping us out.
But as we follow this path of the cross, we find there is much more in us that was dealt with at the cross, though we are only realizing it now. He leads us to the cross, and that means death to self—death to ourselves ruling our own lives.
We are no longer in control. We have another King in our lives.
The cross, in one sense, is a refiner’s fire. It brings us to situations where it is my way or His way. We find out what our way really looks like: it is dross.
Dross cannot be melted into what God is making. When gold is melted, the dross rises and must be taken out. The refiner stirs the pot, and the dross begins coming up. Then we are exposed to ourselves: “This is what I am dealing with. This must be gone.”
Then it is up to us to say, “No, I will not give it up,” or, “Yes, Lord. Yes, Lord.” That is bowing the knee. I am giving in to Him, and He takes the dross out.
This happens as the fire gets hotter. He has the tools to do this. We do not go looking for the cross; we are led to it.
The instruments of the cross—the instruments of death to self—are familiar. They are other saints, family, jobs, and our very habits. All these things are ways the Lord makes these things known to us.
Then we have to come to the place of saying, “It is odious to me. You are better than this thing. You are better than this habit. You are better than this characteristic. I no longer want this. Take it away.”
We have often heard that we are not willing, so we say, “I want to be made willing.” Well, when you pray that prayer, He will bring you to the place of being made willing, so that thing can come out. But remember: you have to be willing. You have to bow the knee. It is the cross.
That is one avenue: the cross. Our part, in being led, is simply to open our hands when He says, “This is the cross. This is where you are nailed to the cross.”
Like He said to Peter, someone will take you and tie you and bring you to a place you do not want to go. Brothers and sisters, none of us wants to go to the cross. There is not a single person here who wants to go.
Do we know that we need to go? Yes. But do we want to go? No. It is not like Black Friday, where everybody says, “Yeah, I want to get to the store and get this.” Nobody says, “Oh yeah, I want the cross.”
We pray as the Lord prayed: “If this can pass from Me.” But for a long time, our prayer is simply, “If this can pass from me,” without saying the other part. We just want it to pass.
The Lord will bring us around in a circle to the same place again. Finally, He hopes and waits for us to say, “But not my will; Yours be done.”
We have to have our Gethsemanes. He will bring us around to that garden. It was a garden. I do not know if you have ever thought about that: the place where Christ had it out there was a garden.
How unassuming. Before you get to the cross, sometimes you know you have to give up. But when the Lord is asking you to go to the cross, there is a fragrance there—a fragrance to draw you on. He is saying, “I have this for you.”
Some of you younger ones may say, “Gee whiz, I do not want to deal with these things until I am older. I have life to live. I want to sow my wild oats,” or whatever. I understand, because I was that way too.
But we do not know what tomorrow brings. You do not know.
It is better to say, “Lord, I do not want to do these things. But by faith, I am going to say that what You have is better. I am going to believe You, and I am going to trust You by going into this death.”
“I am counting on You to bring me out of this into another, higher part of life, where I can see how much better it is because I have given myself to You.”
The second road we go to is the road of service. It is His life leading us, because His life is saying in us, “I must be about My Father’s business. I have come to do Your will, O God.”
That is what His life in us says. Again, we have to bow the knee to it, because it is His service, not the service that I want. It is service unto Him because it is service He is asking you to do.
It is what He chooses. He is choosing your place of service.
The place He chooses for you to serve is always beyond your own strength and capacity to serve. I am sorry to tell you that. He wants to manifest His power in you.
When He calls you to do something, He knows you cannot do it. But if you faithfully go on and say, “Lord, I do not have the wherewithal, but I am going because You have told me to go,” then you find His provision.
John Ecklin, who was here from the Bay Area, went down to a little place in Mexico called Mascota, where believers from the Bay Area and San Diego occasionally go to strengthen a small group of saints.
I asked him about it, and he said, “It is a scary thing to go down, even when you know it is the will of the Lord. It is a little more comforting to know it is the will of the Lord that you go, but it is still scary.”
As you are going, you say, “Lord, what am I going to do? I do not know what You can do with me.” But he said it is always wonderful to find that when you get there, you step out and find the Lord filling you for that service and enabling you to bless.
It may be through exhorting, praying, healing somebody, preaching a sermon, or simply comforting somebody. But it is the Lord strengthening you to do that.
Sometimes you may think people who come up here are really confident. We are not. If we are confident in ourselves, it is a bomb, and no one knows it more than we do—unless we are fooling ourselves.
I remember the first youth retreat at Alhambra. Floyd Police had been asked to speak three times. The retreat was to start in a few days, and Floyd called me on Sunday night. He said, “Jim, I am not feeling very good. If I cannot make it up there, will you go in my place?”
What do you say to Floyd? “No, Floyd, find somebody else”? It is like saying to the Lord, “Lord, find somebody else.” Is that not what Moses said? “Find somebody else.”
For some reason, I said, “Yeah, Floyd, I will do it.” Then he called on Monday and said, “I cannot make it. You have to have three messages.”
What do you do? Do you know how long it sometimes takes people like me to prepare a message? Ask my wife. I go to bed on Saturday night still preparing.
I went there with just a few thoughts. I remember driving down and feeling as though I was driving to my death. One time, John Ecklin was driving with me when I was supposed to speak on a Sunday, and he looked at me and said, “Jim, you look like you are going to be executed.”
And yes, you die. I was driving with a few thoughts, saying, “Oh, what have I done?” But then I began going to the Lord. I said, “Lord, here I am. I do not know what else to tell You. Here I am.”
All I can say is that the Lord did a wonderful thing. He gave me a wonderful word. I think it was one of the best things I ever did. But it was simply because it was His service, His call, and He was looking for someone who would say, “I will go.”
We are called into service. Generally, service is not something we would naturally choose. But we choose it because God is burdening our hearts to do it.
It may be going out to a brother or sister. It may be taking someone out to lunch. It may be one-on-one ministry, ministry like this, or going out to preach the gospel. I do not know. It can be any type of ministry.
But it is always according to the new heart He has given us. He has given us a heart that wants to do His will.
There is work that we choose to do ourselves, and we quickly find out it is not His service because we have no joy in it, no peace in it, and a waning desire to continue doing it. We finish that ministry and say, “I am glad that is over.”
But the ministry He gives us may leave us saying, “Boy, I really stunk it up today.” A lot of times we do. We go home and say, “Yeah, I was such a failure.” Yet the Lord fills you up and sends you out again, saying, “Okay, here is another place to go.”
He wants you to be faithful in your service. If He is calling you to do it, be faithful. Yes, be prepared, but be faithful.
Service leads you back to the cross, but this time it is not the cross of refining. It is the cross of laying down your life for the brethren and laying down your life for the unsaved.
It is a different type of cross, but it is the same in the sense that you are dying to yourself so that Christ can come through and minister to others.
Service is obeying His call and His leading, and finding His provision in that service. Service is an offering of love. It is not something I begrudge.
“Here is my time. Here are my hands. Here are my feet. Here is my mind. They are Yours. Do with them as You want. I want to serve You.”
To be light, then, is to testify that Jesus is Lord.
Brothers and sisters, this is what God wants. He wants this testimony: that My Son saves and that My Son is Lord. These are the two things God wants from His people: a testimony that His Son saves, and a testimony that He is Lord in us first, before He is Lord of everyone else.
Everyone will one day bow the knee, but now is our time to bow the knee. This is what God is asking of us. This is what He is waiting for.
Why is He delaying? Because we have not bowed the knee. We are not bowing the knee to Him so that He can have a testimony of His Son through us.
He has provided everything so that there might be a testimony through us. Is that not a wonderful thing? It is not that He is knuckling us under or shaming us. He is simply saying, “Look what I have given. Look what I have for you.”
“If you will just bow, it is yours. If you will bow the knee, you will find that it is yours.”
This is His offer to us. When He offers us His Son as Savior and we accept that, the whole rest comes with it. The whole rest is there.
I think we often get enamored with the turkey on the table and forget that there is other food there. It is all meant for us, and it is all meant to strengthen us so that we can go about and do His business.
A lot of us say, “I fall so short.” Yes, we do. What are you to do about it? Tell the Lord that you fall short. Confess it. Go right to Him and say, “God, I have fallen short.”
“I find that I cannot help myself from falling short in just that way.” We confess it, and we repent.
Repentance means more than changing our mind. Repentance means we fall before the Lord and say, “I want You to be Lord.” Repenting is saying, “I do not want to be king anymore. I want You to be King.”
Then we go and do. We rejoice too. We need to rejoice that this is our calling—that God is wanting and willing to entrust this calling to us who have Christ in us.
This is the marvelous thing. We should be rejoicing, and we should be embracing this calling. Let us embrace it and say, “Lord, yes, this is what I was meant for. I was meant for this. I want this.”
“I want to embrace it, even though it costs me. I want to embrace this.” Let us be willing in this way. Let us go in that way.
Heavenly Father, we just want to thank You. We want to thank You for so great a calling. You call us to it, and You have provided everything.
Lord, we want to stop short. We want to say, like Moses, “I cannot do it. Send someone else.” But Lord, You want to show us that You are our salvation, that it is You who are able to do all these things.
You are our Savior. You are our Sanctifier. Oh Lord, we want our eyes opened to these things.
We come to tell You this morning, Lord, that we are Yours. Save us and bring us into this ministry of testimony to You, to Your glory forever. Amen.