Morning, brothers and sisters. How are we doing this morning?
All right, I have a few verses I would like to read, and then we will pray.
Starting with Revelation 1:9, just for the part of what John says:
I, John, both your brother and companion in tribulation and the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ, was on the island that is called Patmos, for the word of God and for the testimony of Jesus Christ.
Then last week, we read these verses from 2 Corinthians 2:14-16:
Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ,
and through us diffuses the fragrance of His knowledge in every place.
For we are to God the fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved, and among those who are perishing.
To the one we are the aroma of death leading to death, and to the other the aroma of life leading to life.
And who is sufficient for these things?
For this morning, I would like to read three other verses, or maybe four. The Gospel of Luke, Luke 24, which was referred to this morning. I am going to start, just for context’s sake, with verse 13.
Now behold, two of them were traveling that same day to a village called Emmaus, which was seven miles from Jerusalem.
Now, this is after the Lord had been crucified.
And they talked of all these things which had happened.
So it was, while they conversed and reasoned, that Jesus Himself drew near and went with them.
But their eyes were restrained, so that they did not know Him.
And He said to them, “What kind of conversation is this that you have with one another as you walk and are sad?”
Then the one whose name was Cleopas answered and said to Him, “Are You the only stranger in Jerusalem, and have You not known the things which happened there in these days?”
This is the verse I would really like us to know:
And He said to them, “What things?”
So they said to Him, “The things concerning Jesus of Nazareth, who was a Prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people.”
Then I would like to go back to Revelation, this time to Revelation 3, starting with verse 1:
And to the angel of the church in Sardis write,
“These things says He who has the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars: ‘I know your works, that you have a name that you are alive, but you are dead.
Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die, for I have not found your works perfect before God.’”
And then one last verse, Romans 12:1:
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.
Let us pray.
Our Father, we want to thank You this morning for our picture of the Lord Jesus to us. How we worship You for Him and for Who He is.
And now, as we come, Lord, we know the need of You for our speaking and our hearing. Lord, only You can reveal Your Son, and that is all we are asking. We are asking that You reveal Your Son to us in a way that makes Him alive and makes us see what it is that You are desiring in man. We are asking this in Jesus’ name.
All right, brothers and sisters, if you were here last week, I was talking about the testimony of Jesus as a man to other men, and as a man to God. Last time I said there were four things I would like to say, and I only talked about three of them because I set you up for this time.
We looked last time at the Lord Jesus as being a man at rest. He was at rest because He had the rest of sinlessness. We talked about that, and we talked about Him having the rest of a relationship—an unbroken relationship between Him and the Father, as man to God.
Secondly, we saw that He was a man who walked not in darkness. What we meant was that He was a man whose mind was not darkened due to sin, due to the Fall. But He was a man who lived in the light of eternity. In that light of eternity, He walked in the light of Who God is. He knew Who God is. He knew Him. And He walked in the light of the purpose of God—not just the purpose of God for Him, but the great purpose of God, the eternal purpose, we often say.
Thirdly, we looked at Him as a man who held communion with God—not just had communion with God, but held it, kept it, throughout His day and throughout His years as a man.
That is what we talked about last time, and I left it off there. So, if you do not understand these things, just like Floyd Police would say, get the tape. But that is the review.
Today, I want to look at that fourth characteristic that I left out last time: the fourth characteristic of the testimony of Jesus as man to other men, and as man, the new Man, to God.
How did men of His time on earth see Jesus Christ? I brought that verse from Luke because this was how men saw Jesus Christ. We look at these two men just after the crucifixion, on the day of resurrection. They had heard rumors of the resurrection.
But when He asked, “What are you talking about?” the men said to Him, “Are You the only one who does not know about this Jesus of Nazareth, a Prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people?”
So, how did men see Him? First of all, we can say they saw Him as a prophet. When we think of a prophet, we think of one who speaks words that come from God. But they went beyond just a prophet, because He was more than just a prophet.
What I mean by that is, I think we have a tendency to put so much value on spoken ministry. I am not saying that we should not value it, but we put so much value on spoken ministry that sometimes it blinds us to the greater picture of Who Christ was.
The world today, when they look at Christ, looks at Him as a great teacher. They are not talking about His deeds. They look at Him as a great teacher, and they leave out most of His teaching. They say, “Oh, you know, He is one who taught love and everything, and Jesus does not judge.” Well, who talked about hell more than Jesus Christ?
There is a flaw in that. They are darkened in their understanding, just like all men are, except those who are born again and now have in them the light of Christ.
But He was more. Jesus Christ—the man Jesus of Nazareth—was more than just a man of words. He was a man of deeds. That is what it says when we look at that verse. It says that He was a prophet of God, and then it says that He was known for His deeds and His words. Notice what came first: His deeds.
Brothers and sisters, this is to be our testimony also. We are not just to be those who are mainly words. We are not supposed to be that. We are not just arguers with people about the divinity of Christ or things of that nature. That is part of it, but what speaks louder than words?
Actions do, do they not? I can say all the greatest things. I can tell my wife, “I love you so much.” But when it comes down to it, actions speak louder than words.
Even in that little verse we read from Revelation—and please do not take me as saying that I am talking about this assembly or anything—the church as a whole must consider whether this is what the Lord is speaking to us. He says to Sardis, “You have a name that you are alive, but you are dead.”
What does that mean: alive and dead? Well, we are alive positionally. We come before the Lord, and we are alive positionally. We have the righteousness of Christ. But then He says, “But you are dead.” How does that work out?
How can you tell that someone is dead? They do not move. It is simple, right? In CPR training, what do you do when you see somebody not moving? You go to them and say, “Hey, are you doing okay?” Because they are not moving. Something is wrong.
Another way you know someone is dead is that first you find out whether they are breathing, and then you look at the heart. Is the heart beating?
Oh, brothers and sisters, you are alive and you are dead. What does that mean? You are not moving, and your heart is cold.
So we are talking about deeds. It is hard to talk about deeds because so many people, especially Christians, feel that when you start talking about deeds, you are going against grace. We all know that you are not saved by your deeds.
The deeds we are going to be talking about today are not deeds that save you. One deed saved you, and that was what Christ has done.
But these other deeds show that Christ lives in us. As a matter of fact, I do not even want to say merely that Christ lives in us, because we can take that and spiritualize it and do nothing. “Yeah, Christ lives in me. Amen.” But how about Christ lives through me?
Not just Christ living in me, but Christ living through me to the glory of God. “Greater works you will do, because I go to the Father.”
We are talking about the testimony of Jesus Christ, because Jesus Christ was a man of deeds and words, as a prophet.
Now, when we start thinking about this, I know people will start running around saying, “Oh man, we have to do deeds now. What is this guy telling us? We have to run around and scurry around to do deeds because we think we have to please God in that way.” That is not what I am saying.
It is not that we go around and cut off our heads and do these things. But I think there is a movement in Christianity today because Christianity has become a passive thing—passive as far as deeds go, but not passive as far as teaching goes.
There is a generation coming up that is asking, “What do we do? All we do is believe? What do we do?” We have gotten to a situation where people say, “Let us get away from doctrine and just do what Jesus did.”
So they are trying to imitate Jesus, and that is not what we are called to do. We are called to have good works, but it is not just any good works. It is not simply, “That sounds like a good work. I will go do that.” Or, “I read about Jesus feeding the poor. I am going to go feed the poor.”
That is wonderful; you can do that. But not all good works are the good works that God has for you. You might think they are good works, but you may not be in contact with God to find out what works He wants you to do. That is the difference. Are you in contact with the Lord?
I want to read a couple of verses to clarify this. When we are thinking about doing deeds and works, we need clarification, because it is not just going out and doing what I feel God wants me to do or what I feel is the right thing. How do we know?
In Ephesians 2:10—right along with the verses that say you are saved by grace, not of works, Ephesians 2:8-9—verse 10 says this:
For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
So they are not just any works. They are the works God has prepared beforehand for us to walk in.
Then in Hebrews 10:5-7, the writer writes:
Therefore, when He came into the world, He said:
“Sacrifice and offering You did not desire,
But a body You have prepared for Me.
In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin
You had no pleasure.
Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come—
In the volume of the book it is written of Me—
To do Your will, O God.’”
If you take out the phrase “when He came into the world,” it says, “Behold, I have come to do Your will.” I have come to do Your will. So these things have to be His will, something He desires—not just something we decide to do on our own.
If you read Matthew 7, at the end of the Sermon on the Mount, there are those who say, “But we have done this for You. We prophesied in Your name. We healed. We cast out demons in Your name.” And He says, “Depart from Me. I never knew you.”
What does that mean? It means, where were you in contact with Me, where I told you to do these things? You have done some great works, but I did not ask you to do them. You did them on your own.
The whole thing is this: the works we are asked to do are the works He wants us to do. The only way we can find out what He wants us to do is by being in contact with Him. We have to do it out of the relationship that we have, that personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ, Who is our Lord.
These works are prepared beforehand. In doing them, we become His hands and feet, making them His work. So when you see, “A body You have prepared for Me,” yes, we could say He gave Christ a body of flesh and blood at that time. But what about today? “A body You have prepared for Me”—who is that body? It is us, the body of Christ.
The body of Christ is not just a meeting place. It is God’s hands and feet to do the things He wants to do. We need to understand that, because sometimes we live in such a passive Christianity, a meeting-centered Christianity.
I am not getting down on meetings or anything, but that is the way it is. We go and we listen, we listen, we listen, we listen. But where is the outlet? Where is the obedience to what we hear?
I think that is what God is looking for most of all in these days. He is looking for those who hear and then do.
A lot of us are like people who hear a message, do not hear it for a while, and then hear it again three or four years later. As James said, we are like people who look in a mirror, go away, and forget what we look like. Then we hear it again and come back saying, “Oh!”
But thank the Lord, He is here to speak to us so that we might do. Amen. That is a good thing.
We are not doing these things to make ourselves more like Christ. Do you understand that? This is not something we do to try to transform ourselves. This is part of the transformation that comes when we hear the Lord and obey Him.
That is how we are transformed: from faith to faith, from glory to glory.
How are we to know these works? That is the big question. That is the question younger people always want to know, and it is what we always seem to leave off.
Young people, you need to understand this: there is never going to be a how-to for you. There is not a little system—“This is how it is done, blah, blah, blah”—that you can follow. That is not how it is done, because there is no system.
There is relationship. Out of that relationship these things come. It is not just out of our personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Himself in our quiet time; it is also out of our relationship with Christ through the assembly.
So do not think that you can bypass the assembly in any way. There are a lot of things we do that we think are the right thing to do, and they may not be. You may be doing them out of fellowship, and therefore there is no anointing for them.
Not only that, if you are not doing what you have heard from the Lord, and there is no amen to it, you are doing things on your own. Then all of a sudden different things come out of it than what you thought should come out of it.
When we talk about relationship, our relationship includes devotion. It is not just that we have a quiet time, reading and praying; now we are devoted to Him. Out of meeting Jesus Christ, out of meeting this Person, we become devoted to Him.
We become committed to Him. We have a commitment, and that is shown by obedience to what He is speaking to us through His Spirit.
We find ourselves being moved by the Spirit, and through faith. If those are left out, there is no faith in it. I doubt it is the work of God, or a work of God. If it is not moved by the Spirit, who is it moved by?
Now, here is the thing: we want the system. But Christ makes His will known to us. That we can count on. Christ makes His will known to us. He is not going to have us be people who walk in darkness. He will make His will known to us.
If we want that will to keep shining bright, we react to it. We respond to it. We do not just lay it aside. We do not turn our backs on it. We have to respond to it.
Look at Acts 10. Remember Peter before he went to the house of Cornelius. How was the will of God made known to Peter? Peter went up to the rooftop to pray. He went in his quiet time, he went to pray, and the Lord spoke to him. The Lord gave him a vision.
When the men came from Cornelius, Peter went with them because he was obeying what the Lord had shown him in that vision: “Do not be afraid to go with them.” That is in Acts 10:9-22.
Or consider Saul and Barnabas: “Set apart for Me Saul and Barnabas.” Who said that? The Holy Spirit said it. To whom did He say it? It came through the assembly.
In coming together with the saints, sometimes the will of God is made known to us and to the other brothers. They amen it, and they send them off in prayer, in the Holy Spirit.
These are works prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. That means they are not works of our own choosing.
We might choose some of the works God prepares, but I think we do not start choosing them until we have had some experience and can say, “I know this is the Lord.” We only choose it because we know it is the Lord. But it is not always our choosing.
For example, I do not think Paul said, “Hey, Lord, I want to be the apostle to the Gentiles.” If you read Philippians 3, he said, “I am a Hebrew of Hebrews. Look at me.” I do not think it was Paul’s choice to say, “Hey, Lord, send me to the Gentiles, where I really want to go,” because to him Gentiles were untouchable.
Or consider Ananias, who went to lay his hands on Saul. Do you think that was his choice? He said, “Lord, have You not heard about this guy? He is bad news.” The Lord said, “No, you go and lay your hands on him. I have things for him to do.”
Or Peter going to Cornelius. He said, “I do not go to the unclean. They are unclean. I do not do that.” But the Lord said, “You just go.”
And an Old Testament example is Jonah going to Nineveh. Jonah did not want to go to Nineveh. “They are the enemies. I am not going to Nineveh.” He tried to get out of it, did he not? But he was brought around.
Sometimes we are like Moses. “Oh yeah, this is what God wants me to do,” and we try in our own flesh to do it. The Lord has to say, “Wait a minute, Moses.” He slows him down. He puts him on the back burner for a while, and then brings him up when he has lost all that self-will and self-energy to do the will of God.
Then the Lord comes back to him, and Moses says, “Can You not send someone else?” The Lord says, “No, it is you.”
Works chosen beforehand. This is not God’s sense of humor. “Oh yeah, you are the Jew of Jews, right? You are the Hebrew of Hebrews. I will send you to the Gentiles.” This is not God’s sense of humor. This is His sovereignty, and this is God having a vessel prepared.
We are His workmanship. So all the things happening in our lives are part of that workmanship. “School is too hard. I want to quit. Life is too tough. My marriage is too rough. My kids—” All these things are part of preparing the vessel.
The brothers and sisters I meet with, the people I work with—“Get me out of here.” The Lord says, “You just hold still.”
These works also take us beyond ourselves. By beyond ourselves, I do not necessarily mean beyond our capabilities; I mean out of our comfort zone.
“I am not comfortable doing this.” The Lord says, “That is okay. You do not have to be comfortable. Just go and do it, and you will find that I am with you.”
The reason for that is so that it can be seen as a work of God—not necessarily by other people, but by us. We begin to realize that it is not us doing this. It is God. God has orchestrated this whole thing.
When those things happen, we fall down and worship. I remember telling you that I was talking to a guy at a lunch table at college. In high school and college, I was very shy. This is my work persona, okay?
But I was talking to this one guy, and I started sharing the Lord with him across the table. All of a sudden there were about ten people around, and they were listening. You know how you can kind of stand outside yourself and say, “What is going on here?” I remember that happening and saying, “What is going on?” Everybody was just listening.
It was scary, and I was just sharing the Lord. I remember going back to my room and falling down, saying, “What are You doing, God? This is too great.”
That is the whole thing. It is out of your comfort zone. It is out of yourself, so you know it is God. It is God doing these things. It is not you, and it is not about you. It is all about Him.
These works are not dead works. What I mean by that is that they do not give us any merit with God. We do not get points. “Oh, Jim did that. I am giving him five points for that. That puts him above Kenny.” You know what I mean? That is the way we think, is it not?
So they are not dead works. They do not gain us any merit, but they bear fruit. That is the big thing. If you want to know that what you are doing is the will of God, there is going to be fruit to it.
I remember, as a young man, a number of us lived in one house. We were thinking, “We have to do stuff for the Lord, so what will we do? Let us get involved in prison ministry.” We got involved in a prison ministry.
As we were doing it, Wednesday afternoon would come around, and we would start feeling it in the pit of our stomach: “Oh no, we have to go to prison ministry.” Well, that sounds like it is a work of God, does it not? “Oh no.”
Over the months we were there, there was no fruit. The Lord was teaching us: it is not any work; it is what I call you to. That is what I am showing you. You do not just pick something out. But we learned that lesson, and it was a good lesson to learn.
There were other people serving on the same day as us, and they were having fruit, but we were not. What does that tell you? Maybe we were not doing the works God wanted us to do. Does that mean we were failures? No, it means we learned a lesson.
No joy in what you are doing, no fruit from what you are doing—that should be a big light to you.
He draws these works out through placing us in different places. For example, the job you have. Some of the works He has planned for you come through putting you in that place of employment. Why? He has something for you to do.
Again, from experience, I remember one job that I hated. I had middle-school kids who had been kicked out because of behavior problems, and I hated that job. I remember praying with a guy who did the morning shift while I did the afternoon shift: “God, get us out of here. Please, just get us out.”
I remember that brother saying, “Hey, what if God wants to do something through us?” “Oh, it cannot be. No way.”
So we started praying that way: “Well, God, get us out, but if we have to do something, let us do something.” Later on, I remember we had all these wannabe gangbangers and things like that.
It led to my sharing the gospel with kids in the class. “Mr. B, you are always talking about the Bible, this Bible, that Bible. What is in the Bible?” Man, is that an open door?
I had about six kids, and we were about five miles away from the administration building. We were meeting in a shower room from an old high school. Who is there? Boy, what an opportunity.
I remember another kid, a big wannabe gangbanger, Cesar Rios. I did not know what to do with this guy. Anyway, his mother came in because she was worried about Cesar. She said, “Yeah, I do not know what to do.” I said, “You know, I do not know what to do either. Do you want to pray?”
There was Cesar, saying, “Do not you pray for me. Do not you pray for me.” And we were just praying. The rest of that year, Cesar Rios—it was wonderful. Is that not amazing?
Why are you there? It is drawn out by the Lord putting you in certain places.
Or consider the assembly you are in. He puts you in an assembly—why? Because He wants you to do something. He does not just want you to sit down. He does not just want you to sing hymns or say a prayer. He has you there to meet people, to be built together with people for a purpose.
He places us in the communities we live in for a purpose. There is purpose for all these things. Through that, He draws out those works He planned beforehand for us, that we might walk in them as we are moved by the Spirit of God.
Let me share a couple of things with you. When the Lord Jesus first started His ministry, if you remember, in Luke 4, He quoted from Isaiah 61. In Luke 4:18, He says:
The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me,
Because He has anointed Me
To preach the gospel to the poor;
He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to the captives
And recovery of sight to the blind,
To set at liberty those who are oppressed;
To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.
Notice the words: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me. I am moved by the Spirit. He has sent Me.”
That is it. We are moved by the Spirit; we are sent by the Spirit of God. That comes out of our relationship.
I want to look at some works. When we are looking at works, I do not want you to start picking and choosing. I just want to look at some of the things. What is behind some of these works? Part of it is the heart behind them.
We studied Matthew, right? That is where I want to look at Matthew 25:34-36. This is where He is calling in the sheep and the goats:
Then the King will say to those on His right hand, “Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:
for I was hungry and you gave Me food;
I was thirsty and you gave Me drink;
I was a stranger and you took Me in;
I was naked and you clothed Me;
I was sick and you visited Me;
I was in prison and you came to Me.”
The whole thing about this is: what is the spirit of us? A lot of times, the works we are called to are simply the love of God being poured out through us.
When you see these things, these are all works of charity. When I say charity, what do I mean? “Now abide faith, hope, and charity”—which is what? Love. These are works of love. This is the love of God being poured out through us.
We are moved by the love of God for the saints as well as for the sinner. God causes His rain to fall on the just and the unjust, and He will choose who we are to minister to.
In this case, you have people visiting, feeding, and giving hospitality, all out of the love in their hearts which has been put there by God. These are works. These are good deeds.
We are men and women; we are saints in the body of Christ for Him to extend Himself to others, showing love and care for people.
I am not saying this is for everybody or that it is the social gospel. It is not some program that we are all going to jump into. No, it is what we see in our own hearts through our relationship with Christ—our personal relationship with Christ—that we are moved to do, or that we are moved to do as an assembly.
It is not some big program: “We have to have somebody do this, and somebody do that.” No. It is all out of the life of Christ in us, the life of Christ moving us, whether as individuals or through the whole assembly.
It is good work.
Brothers and sisters, there was one in our assembly who is not here anymore. If you remember, a few years ago we had a brother who got into drugs, had an accident, and was incarcerated.
There was a brother among us who went weekly, if not daily, and visited that brother and encouraged him. He even brought him up at the end of every prayer meeting: “Let us not forget this brother. Let us pray for him.”
That is a good deed. That is a good work. That was someone who was moved by the Spirit of God in him to do that.
When someone is moved to do something like that and brings it up, the rest of us can suddenly be shaken up and say, “Oh.” We are shaken out of our passivity and realize, “Oh yeah, there are other things out there.”
Giving hospitality—oh, brothers and sisters, I know hospitality is work. I know some people feel, “That is out of my element.” But when you find yourself in the midst of giving hospitality, and it is the right thing to do, you find the blessing of God upon you.
You find the people to whom you are giving hospitality blessed. When they leave, you might be going, “Whew,” but in other ways something has been given to you because of it.
It is almost like the Lord saying, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” Then He brings someone else to your door because He has found you faithful.
That is what God is looking for. He is looking for those who, in doing something, will be faithful. Will you be faithful? I put this before you. Will you be faithful? “Oh, it is too small.” Be faithful in little things before He gives you big things.
These are works that witness and testify to the kindness and mercy of God. If you remember, Jesus said this twice in Matthew, so it had to be important. He said to the Pharisees, “Go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice.’”
These are works that meet a need: visiting, feeding, giving hospitality. They meet the needs of somebody. They do not meet merely wants. “Oh, I want this. I want that. I wish I had this.” No, they meet needs.
That is what a father does. A father meets your needs as a child. We are to be the hands and feet of our Lord.
Works are manifested through our jobs, our relationships, our places, and our assembly—all those things.
But these are not the only types of works. There are works of sacrifice and obedience to God. There are good works that result in the spreading and furthering of the testimony of Jesus in the world and in the church.
Some of those works are missionary work. People are sent by God as missionaries. They give their whole lives to serve, and in serving they are sent by God. They are not just sent because they think, “This is the thing I should do.”
If they do go without being sent by God, they will learn a great lesson. A lot of people who go out to serve God without being sent by God wear out really fast, because they are not going in the strength of God.
Giving is another work—giving money or giving goods. Some people give money to the works of God. They have money to give, and because they are faithful in giving, God gives them more money.
We have heard over and over about Lady Ogle, who had two fortunes, two estates, and she gave. She had first been told, “You do not give it indiscriminately. You wait until I tell you to give; then you give.”
It was not only her money. Remember, later on she became a missionary. So it is not just giving money, but sometimes giving oneself and sometimes giving goods.
Or Hudson Taylor, for example. If you read the story of Hudson Taylor, he said, “Lord, I am not going to ask anybody for anything. You know my needs, and You will take care of me.”
He was working for a doctor, and the doctor had not paid him for three or four weeks. One night, as he was going home, there was a man begging on the side, and Hudson Taylor had one gold coin left. He thought, “Oh no,” but he felt that he should give it to him.
Now he was broke. He went to bed and said, “Lord, You know I am broke down.” The next day the doctor came in and said, “Hey, listen, I have not paid you in a while, have I?”
The whole thing is that he gave without knowing what would happen. He gave, trusting that the Lord would take care of him. That is the whole thing: trust in the Lord.
“I am giving because I feel the Lord would have me give. I have that sense from the Lord that I should be doing this.” Then the Lord blesses, and you continue giving. You become a joint of supply, whether through money, time, or whatever. You are a joint of supply because the Lord is able to use you in that way.
Prayer. When I talk about prayer, I mean not just prayer for one another, though that is a good thing. I mean prayer for the kingdom of God to come.
Prayer for God’s purpose in the world, but not just in the world—in the community; in the church, but not just in the church—in the assembly. There are those who are given to this prayer. This is a good work.
There are those who give themselves to it because they feel God is calling them to do that, and they respond to it. It is not that the Lord says, “Hey, Jim, I want you to pray.” Rather, as you begin to pray, you find the Lord putting things on your heart. What do you do with them? You start praying for them.
As I am reading the Word, the Lord says, “This word is for that situation. Pray. Go ahead and pray these things.” This is where you get your intercessors.
We may not all be intercessors like Rees Howells, but does that mean we do not intercede? Prayer is a good work if we see that prayer through to fruition.
We need to do that. When the Lord lays something on our heart, let us keep at it until we see the Lord answer or the Lord says, “Okay, stop.” Prayer is a good work.
A lot of times, as we get older and begin letting younger brothers and sisters take places of responsibility, we become those who are called to prayer.
A lot of times it is hard to give up a place, you know what I mean?
As a teacher, I find it interesting: have you ever looked at Renaissance paintings? One difference between Renaissance paintings and, say, medieval paintings is the intricate background.
It is not as though the artist says, “God, I have all this paint left. What am I going to do with it? I know, I will just paint it there.” No, it is all planned to be part of the background.
For some of us, as we get older, it is for us to step back in the assembly and take that place of prayer—prayer for the others, encouragement to the others.
I know that happened with Floyd. I know there are people in Pointy Valley who, all of a sudden, through age, could not do other things. So what did they do? “Oh well, gee whiz, I have nothing to do.” No, they went to pray.
Then there is the work of overseeing the assembly. Paul said to Timothy:
He who seeks the office of overseer desires a good work.
That is 1 Timothy 3:1. He desires a good work. The work of oversight—what is it? “Tend My sheep. Feed My lambs.”
How do you do that? You get before the Lord and say, “Lord, make me aware of their needs.” As the Lord makes you aware of need, you look to the Lord and say, “How can these needs be met?” Maybe it is through ministry of the Word. Maybe it is through visiting them. I do not know, but it is tending the flock. That is a good work.
Seeking ministry, even for your times on Friday nights, is also a good work. It is not that you are seeking merely because you want to speak, but seeking to have something that blesses the saints—something that has been revealed to you and that you can share.
That is really the beginning of ministry. You are a participant in a lot of meetings, and all of a sudden people start recognizing, “Hey, that brother, that sister, there is something there.”
I know I never asked to be a teacher or anything like that. It was the assembly that came and said, “Jim, why do you not do this?” It was a shock to me, because I told you, I am basically a shy person.
Faithfulness—that is a good work. Being faithful, being faithful to your relationship with Jesus Christ, is good work. And it is work.
How many of us have to work at our relationships with our spouses, our children, those at work, and those in the assembly? It is a good work: faithfulness.
I want to be faithful. I want to be there. I want to be always ready. As Floyd would always say, you have to be ready to preach, pray, or die. Always ready—ready in season and out.
Do you know what faithfulness does to younger saints and older saints, and to those who are on the periphery or on the fence? It acts as an encouragement to them. They see someone who is faithful, and they see God’s blessing upon them.
Or it is an admonishment to them. It says, “Brother, sister, you need to get your act together.” But your faithfulness is something the Lord uses as a good work. Others see it.
Then you have works that are spontaneous outflowings. How many of us could not stop witnessing when we were young Christians? We could not help it. It was spontaneous. It was life just bubbling out of us.
It just happens, or the Lord spurs us on. Because you are holding fellowship with Him, because you have that fellowship held, He is able to speak and say, “Hey, this situation right now.” Boom. Spontaneous. The Lord speaks to you right then, and you do that.
There are works where we are called to stand. We are called to stand for the Lord.
When I talk about this, we are not standing up for the rights of Christians. Do you understand that? This is not a political thing.
But there are times when we must stand up for the Lord, and we must stand up for righteousness, even if that means loss to us—the loss of our livelihood or the loss of our place—because we stand for the Lord, because we stand for what is right.
It means suffering. It means suffering for us. But 1 Peter 4:14-16 has a wonderful passage:
If you are reproached for the name of Christ, blessed are you,
for the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.
On their part He is blasphemed, but on your part He is glorified.
But let none of you suffer as a murderer, a thief, an evildoer, or as a busybody in other people’s matters.
Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in this matter.
Brothers and sisters, it is coming more and more that we are in a place where, in standing up for Christ—not demanding our rights, but standing and saying, “I am standing because this is right”—we are going to suffer persecution.
We should arm ourselves for that. We should arm ourselves for that. If we are going to stand for Him and the Lord says, “I want you to take this stand,” then we need to stand with the full armor of God and suffer for His name.
All these works involve the cross. My wife was coming out of the parking lot yesterday, and another sister asked her, “What is the fourth one? It has got to be the cross.”
Well, yes, all these things, all these works, involve the cross and the cross being applied to us. It is that personal cross. It is that personal acceptance of His rule in my life, saying, “Jesus, You are Lord.”
It is choosing to follow the urging of the Spirit, to do the will of God as it is made known to us, over our own will. It is choosing His way of doing things instead of our way of doing things.
This is what is meant by presenting our bodies a living sacrifice. Paul says, “Present your bodies.” We present our minds, we present our spirits, but where is the body part? The body has to do things. That is the body. I have to go out and do things, but do things as God is bringing me to those things.
Good works are part of the beauty of the church. That is found in Revelation 19:7-8, when it is talking about the bride:
Let us be glad and rejoice and give Him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has made herself ready.
And to her it was granted to be arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright, for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints.
It is a big thing. What clothes us? Yes, we have the clothing of Christ. That is true in His righteousness, and that is positional. But we are also to be clothed with the acts of Christ—the acts that He puts before us to obey Him, to have those good works.
That is something that arrays us as we go to be before Him, clothed not only in that position of righteousness, but in deeds of righteousness. It makes the bride beautiful to Christ.
It is a beauty that is seen. It is a beauty that is recognized for what it is, and what it is, is Christlikeness.
Not only that, it cannot be denied by a fallen world, even as that world slips away into God’s judgment.
As we look at these things, then, and at the testimony of Jesus—which is to be our testimony—it is all these things. It is not just one or two or three of these things; it is all of them.
It is not just the things we are talking about today without the things we talked about last week. It is all of them.
This is the testimony of Christ in us: that Jesus is mighty in deed and word before God and all the people; that we are a people at rest; that we are a people who do not walk in darkness; that we are people who hold communion with God; and that we are people who love, not in word only, but in deed and truth.
When I talk about love, I am not just talking about loving the other people around us. I am talking about loving God.
This is one of the ways we show our love to Christ. This is one of the ways we show our love to God: by obeying Him and following after Him into the works He has prepared for us beforehand.
That is not merely our reasonable service of worship, that we offer our bodies to Him. It is also our showing of affection and love to God for what He has done for us.
He has brought us into His kingdom, not to sit in heaven with harps, but He has things for us to do—to magnify Him, to manifest Him on the earth and to other people, to unbelievers as well as believers.
All of this is the bride of Christ in all her adornment and all her glory, for her adornment is Christ. Christ in us is the hope of glory, and Christ through us is the manifestation of these works.
I want to leave you with the beginning of a song. You probably do not know it, because I asked Ken. Some of you might know it. Dora might know it, because Dora knows the songs I know. It is not in the blue book either; I looked for it.
It is “Jesus, Rose of Sharon.”
Jesus, Rose of Sharon,
Bloom within my heart;
Beauties of Thy truth and holiness impart,
That wherever I go, my life may shed abroad
The fragrance of the knowledge of the love of God.
Jesus, Rose of Sharon,
Bloom within my heart.
Let us pray.
Heavenly Father, we want to thank You that You have called us to testify of Your Son. Lord, we are amazed that You would charge us to carry the testimony of Jesus.
Lord, it is not that You merely charge us, but in charging us, You equip us and enable us. Really, all we need to do is respond to You positively.
Lord, we fight You. We fight You. That is our nature.
Lord, I know I ask forgiveness for that. I ask forgiveness that You are not first. But I thank You that You are calling me to let You be first.
You are calling all of us, even as an assembly—as individuals and as a whole assembly—to let You testify of Yourself through us.
Lord, we want to rise up to that. Please give us the grace to do so. We ask in Jesus’ name.