Good evening, brothers and sisters.
I’d like for us to look tonight at the theme verse in Colossians chapter 1.
Colossians 1:17
He is before all things,
and in Him all things hold together.
Then I’d like for us to read a few verses in Colossians chapter 2, beginning in verse 1. We want to see what Paul is wrestling about, and indeed, he is wrestling for the Colossians to know the Lord—to really know the Lord.
Colossians 2:1-3
I want you to know how great a struggle I have on your behalf,
and for those who are at Laodicea,
and for all those who have not personally seen my face,
that their hearts may be encouraged, having been knit together in love,
and attaining to all the wealth that comes from the full assurance of understanding,
resulting in a true knowledge of God’s mystery, that is Christ,
in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
Then let’s turn over to John chapter 16. The disciples are stirred up. Jesus has announced that He will be leaving them. There are so many more things that He could share with them by way of knowledge, but they cannot bear it. They do not have the spiritual capacity at that moment to bear it. They would not understand it until certain things happened.
So, in John 16:12, He speaks about the Holy Spirit, who comes to bring this full knowledge of Christ.
I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.
But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth;
for He will not speak on His own initiative,
but whatever He hears, He will speak;
and He will disclose to you what is to come.
He will glorify Me, for He will take of Mine and will disclose it to you.
All things that the Father has are Mine;
therefore I said that He takes of Mine and will disclose it to you.
Father, we come to You tonight in Jesus’ name and want to give You thanks for the Holy Spirit, who is here among us to guide us into all the truth, that we may know fully our Lord Jesus.
We’re so thankful that we gather with many hearts who have a deep desire to know Him more and more. We pray that, as we’re together in this time, we’ll encourage one another’s hearts, even as Paul prayed for the Colossians, that their hearts would be knit together and encouraged in order to come into a fuller understanding of Christ.
And so, Lord, we ask: would You teach us? Would You show us Your ways, that we might know You? In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
A lot of gizmos up here.
Christ, our vision. We’re talking about something that’s very comprehensive. Vision of Christ gathers things under it, and we want to know this Christ in ever fuller ways.
We understand, of course, the simple truth that we do not have to be speaking this weekend if it is understood: if you see Christ, you’ll know Christ. If you know Christ, you follow Christ. If you follow Christ, you’ll see more of Christ; and if you see more of Christ, you’ll come to know Him more.
These are all part of a life together in Christ. This is a grand theme. I do not know if it is our grandest in all these years, but surely this is a great sum of the Lord’s burden: how much the Lord wants us to know Him.
There were many men in the Old Testament and New Testament who knew things about the Lord. When you think about Job, he certainly knew a lot about the Lord; but when he saw the Lord, he became a son. The Lord wants sons, but sons are those who know the Lord.
And even beyond that, when we take this knowing to its fullest degree, those who know the Lord in the end will be the bride, who will know Christ Jesus—using this term spiritually, which is used in the Old Testament of a man and a woman who join together: they know each other. So intimate will be that knowledge of the bride and the Bridegroom.
This is the knowledge that we desire: to know Him, to really know Him; to watch His features, to understand His ways, to enter more deeply into all of this wonder of who Christ is. This is our theme.
Tonight I want to do a Bible study, as it were, in Colossians, because here in Colossians we find Paul revealing Christ in a most marvellous and spectacular way. All of you who have studied this book realize the tremendous revelation that Paul gives to the Colossians here.
But let’s talk for just a moment about what the problem is. You see, the Colossians knew the Lord just like we know the Lord, and everyone who is born again has seen into the kingdom of God. At least we have seen the King.
The Colossians knew the Lord as their Saviour, and certainly more, because Paul, through Epaphras and his other coworkers, had been teaching them on the things of Christ. But the church had come off centre. It is possible for the church to get off centre.
This Colossian church, rather than being centred in Christ, had gotten off centre into religion. On the one side was sort of an intellectual thing; on the other side was sort of an extreme holiness thing. You know, it is possible for the saints, and for the church, to get off centre.
And so Paul is trying to bring them back to understand that Christ is the centre. Listen to Colossians 1:17 again:
He is before all things,
and in Him all things hold together.
In Him, all things hold together. If I could put it this way, Christ is the gravitational sun holding all of us in orbit, in a proper relationship. He is holding it all together.
But then how do we get off centre? Of course, every Christian is in Christ positionally, but how do we get off centre? It is because Christ needs not only to be our centre—we are in Christ—but we also need to be under Him.
The Colossians were not holding fast to Him as Head. Or again, we look at it in this way, as mentioned in Colossians 1:17:
He is before all things.
That puts us under Him. That puts us behind Him. Oh, blessed is the gathering of people who are centred in Christ and not off on a tangent, something to the side; who are under Christ, listening to Him, obeying Him.
You know what the Greek word is for obey? It simply means to hear under. The only way you can obey is to be under Him and hear His voice and respond to it. Because when you hear His voice, there is also the grace to obey.
This Colossian church—we do not know that much about what it was like—but we know that Paul is struggling and wrestling to bring them into a knowledge that will re-centre them into this: Christ is your fullness. Christ is all and in all. Can you get back to that, Colossians? For this, Paul is struggling.
Christ is our centre. We see that this is a relationship. To have Christ at the centre of our life means that we are in a relationship with Him that is central to us. And when that is allowed to happen, then He is also Christ of the circumference—every aspect of our lives.
I asked our brother if we might not sing that last song, “Himself,” because A. B. Simpson discovered in a most amazing way that when Christ is the centre, He is all: everything in Jesus.
Now, how did it happen to him? He was a wonderful preacher. He came to New York City, and he was a wonderful preacher. People came to hear him for miles around, but he had this chronic fatigue syndrome. He had to go off and rest for six months. He would come back and serve and preach for two or three months, and then he would have to go off for another six months.
By the time he was thirty-two years old, his career was over. He was exhausted. There was no strength in him. At that time, in his desperation, he began to hear such men as A. J. Gordon and others who were preaching a gospel that included healing. So he sought healing.
Did you notice that in that song? But he did not get healing until one day the Lord said, “You don’t want healing. You need the Healer.”
“I am Christ, your Healer.” And he claimed that by faith, and there was his healing. He learned a lesson: the things of our Christian life—“Oh, I need peace. Oh, I need love. Oh, I need power. Oh, I need the Holy Spirit. Oh, I need righteousness. Oh, I need healing”—are all about a Person.
It is finding Christ as your righteousness, Christ as your wisdom, Christ as your healing, and Christ as your righteousness—all of these things. “Oh, I wish I had peace.” Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts.
Some Christians spend years trying to balance all the different parts of their Christian life—all the problems they are having, all their responsibilities, and everything—and it just wears you out, until they make Christ all and in all.
They find themselves yielding to Christ and saying, “Lord, I can’t do it.” Then He begins to show His life able to do all these things. So, when we are talking about Christ, our vision, we are talking about something that focuses on Christ in such a way that all the things that need to be done get done, and yet not by your strength or your wisdom, but by Christ.
Christ, our vision. Wonderful message: Jesus, everything.
Paul wants us to see—or more specifically, he wants the Colossians to see—that knowledge is more relational than intellectual.
We say we want to know Christ, and indeed there are theological books written just based on the high Christology of Colossians. But Paul is not after their intellectual acumen. He wants them to be in a relationship of knowing Christ, because that is what will bring them back to the centre.
As a matter of fact, if I may put it this way, it was pursuing the tree of the knowledge of good and evil—that is, pursuing knowledge to try to understand the Trinity and who Christ was—that led them out into Gnosticism. Knowledge by itself will take you off centre.
Knowledge given us by the Holy Spirit, leading us into it, will bring us more deeply into a knowing of Christ.
Now I want to do a little Bible study, just to give you a touch of how important Paul thinks it is for us to actually live in this Person, Christ Jesus the Lord. You know, one of his favourite phrases is in Christ, and also Christ in you. In Christ, in Christ.
Let’s look at Colossians and see what he is trying to tell the Colossians. Why are you off centre? Why are you running after theology? Why are you going back to religion, offering sacrifices, doing extreme things to your body, thinking that will do you some good? Get back and look at Christ. Your whole life is in Him.
Colossians 1:14
In whom we have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of sins.
Two very popular things, which are necessities for our Christian life, are, number one, believing in the forgiveness of sins; and number two, believing we are under the blood of Jesus. When we struggle regarding our sins and various things, these are two things we often confess.
It is one thing to confess, “My sins have been forgiven because I have confessed them.” It is another thing to be in Christ and know your forgiveness. Do you see the difference?
It is one thing to say, “I am under the blood. I claim the blood. I claim the blood of Jesus.” It is another thing to be in Christ and to know that effectual power of His blood protecting you and cutting you off from the world.
You see, relationship with Christ is very important. You cannot divorce that from knowledge of Christ. If you are in Christ, if I could put it this way, and you look up into His face, you will find forgiveness. You do not have to talk about something you know about, because you know the Christ who is the Forgiver. Right?
Let’s keep on going. Colossians 1:16.
Now, the first phrase here—I have two New American Standard versions—and one version says, “For in Him were all things created.” Then I have the later revised, and it says, “For by Him,” and the later one is wrong. Actually, in the Greek it is in Him, but people cannot understand what this means. How could all creation be in Him?
All right, let’s listen to it.
For in Him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones, dominions, principalities, or powers: all things were created by Him, and for Him.
Now, Paul, in that one phrase, puts to death Gnosticism. This Gnostic knowledge that the Colossians were pursuing had Jesus in a hierarchy of principalities and powers. Paul, in one word, says all that was created in Him, and by Him, and for Him; and all is subordinate to Christ.
You see that? He is just touching again on in Him. Verse 18, Colossians 1:18:
He is the head of the body, the church;
Who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead;
that in all things He might have pre-eminence.
There again, in all things is talking about church life. We must be centred, holding fast to the Head.
Verse 19:
For it pleased the Father that in Him should all the fullness dwell.
Now that just takes in everything: all is in Him.
Colossians 1:27
To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
Now that has become your centre: Christ in you, the hope of glory.
Colossians 2:3
In whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
We just read the verses around that, and we understand that He is our resource for wisdom and knowledge for our lives.
Colossians 2:6-7
If you have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him;
rooted and built up in Him,
and stablished in the faith, as ye have been taught,
abounding therein with thanksgiving.
There we are, walking in Him—His life lived out in us.
Colossians 2:9
For in Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.
Now, do you want to know God? Look at Christ. When Jesus came to earth, He revealed two things about God in a unique way. Number one, God is our Father. Number two, “I am going, but the Holy Spirit is coming to you.”
As He spoke, He revealed the Father to us. He revealed the Holy Spirit to us. In that Godhead, you discover the Father and the Holy Spirit. So, Colossians, stop running around trying to figure out God. Look at Christ. You will see Father, Son, and Holy Spirit there, represented in Christ.
Colossians 2:10
And ye are complete in Him, which is the head of all principality and power.
You are full in Him. You have found your centre in Him. There is no need to chase insecurely after other answers. You have been made complete in Him.
Well, in Him, in Him, in Him. Now, this is not a doctrine; this is a relationship. Are you in Him? Are you centred in Him? Are you under Him? Have you consecrated yourself this morning on the altar, under Him? In Him is the relationship.
As if in Him is not enough, just one more Bible study. Paul says that the totality of our spiritual experiences are experienced in union with Him. Now we have another preposition: with.
Notice Colossians 2:12:
Buried with Him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with Him through the faith in the operation of God, who hath raised Him from the dead.
Now, you will not know Galatians 2:20 until you see that. You have been buried with Him, and you have been raised with Him. It is wonderful, but it has to be with Him. You are not raised on your own. You did not die on your own. It is in union with Him.
Colossians 2:13
And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath He quickened together with Him.
There you go again. Colossians 2:20:
Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances?
Okay, now, we have just read that verse. Do you believe it? Do you know that you are dead with Christ from the world? Paul says, “I am crucified to the world, and the world is crucified to me.” Now, we can say that, but have you experienced that in Christ?
What Paul is saying is, “Well now, I thought you knew that you were dead to the world. Now why are you running after world religions? What is wrong here?” You see what I am saying? It is one thing to have some knowledge. It is another thing to know this union with Christ.
Colossians 3:1
If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above.
Colossians 3:3
For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.
Now, where is your life now? You say, “Well, it is all Christ. That means it is none of me. I am dead. I am gone. There is no more Dana here. This is Jesus.” No, no.
There is a you. You have been buried with Him, but you have been raised with Him, and now your life is hid in Christ—hid with Christ. Now, you will have a life, and that life is going to be known by Him. But right now it is hid.
But notice verse 4:
When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory.
Isn’t that wonderful? When He makes His glorious appearance—well, John says, “We do not know what we are right now, but we know when we shall see Him, we shall be like Him.” When that appearance moment comes, we will be standing right there with Him.
Of course, I think He is going to get all the trumpets, you know, and we will just be there on the side. But there you are going to be. You will be with Him.
Since you have come into Christ, more than anything, Jesus Christ wants you to be with Him through all these spiritual experiences. Oh, praise God if you realize you have been crucified with Christ. Oh, praise God if you realize there is resurrection life with Christ right now. There are so many precious things there.
But not just a, “Oh, I know that one. I heard a sermon on that.” No, no, no, no. Do you know it?
So now we come to some understanding here. All of these things—well, here is the way John summarizes. He always takes a different tack, right?
Here is how John talks about our life in relationship to Jesus. As Jesus is praying to the Father just before Calvary, He says, “This is eternal life.” Do you know how to finish that?
To know Thee, the only true God,
and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent.
This is the sum of life. Now, He is not saying this is how you get into eternal life. It is, actually, by knowing Jesus Christ and knowing the true God. But it means that your life is now lived in another dimension—this life called zoe aionios, eternal life—and you are living in it now as you know the true God and Jesus Christ. That is our life now.
This is very relational. It is very wonderful. Maybe you say with David, “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; I cannot take it in.” Everything in Christ—I am completely in Christ, Christ is in me, I am in Christ—all these things sound so wonderful.
Well, it is actually very wonderful, and it is too much for our natural minds to grasp. That is why we praise God: He has sent the Holy Spirit to make all of those things real to us.
Oh, one more Bible study in Colossians, and then we will really move somewhere else, okay?
Paul uses a phrase which, in my translation, is called true knowledge. Other translations call it full knowledge, and yet some others call it real knowledge.
Let me just explain the difference between knowledge and true knowledge—real knowledge. There is that word for knowledge, from which we get the word Gnostics: it is the word gnosis. They do not actually say “gnosis,” but it is like a gnat. Have you ever had gnats? Well, they are gnats, right? So it is gnosis.
True knowledge is the Greek word epignosis. Epi is a prefix which means upon, like epidermis—it means upon your skin. Epignosis means upon knowledge. The idea is that you have knowledge, and then knowledge upon knowledge, and then knowledge upon knowledge. The more knowledge there becomes, the more real it becomes to you.
You might not believe this, but I graduated with a bachelor’s degree in economics. Economics. I studied economics. As a matter of fact, I won the economics award in the university—number one student in the class.
The only trouble is, I had never had any experience. I knew the books, but I did not know the business. Until I went into business with my father-in-law, and I learned business.
Before, when I had my bachelor’s degree, I knew all things. Yeah, yeah. Then I went into business, and it was a whole other level of knowing.
Now, we all know Jesus because you have come into Christ and you have been saved. The Holy Spirit has revealed as much as He can reveal, but He can only reveal as much as we are able to bear.
Paul is praying for these Colossians that they may come back to the centre of Christ—or, as Paul is going to put it, the true knowledge: knowledge upon knowledge, full knowledge. Do you understand? Okay. I am sure the translator is having a really good time with that one.
Let’s just look at a few verses. Colossians 1:9. Paul is praying for the Colossians:
For this reason, since the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you,
and ask that you may be filled with the full knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding.
Now, our knowledge is not full knowledge until we understand God’s will. You see that?
Verse 10:
So that you may walk in a manner worthy of the Lord,
to please Him in all respects,
bearing fruit in every good work
and increasing in the full, true knowledge of God.
Now, what does that mean? Well, this is what our brother David was sharing this afternoon. As we follow the Lord, as we walk with the Lord, we get to know the Lord more—a real knowledge of the Lord.
No longer just theoretical: “He loves me.” You have walked with the Lord a little ways; you know that He loves you. You can talk about His mercy. You walk with the Lord a little while; you know He is merciful. It comes from walking with the Lord.
Colossians 2:2-3
That their hearts may be encouraged, having been knit together in love,
and attaining to all the wealth that comes from the full assurance of understanding,
resulting in a true knowledge of God’s mystery, that is Christ,
in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
Now, this context here, if you look carefully, is actually Paul talking about our life together. Do you want to find some more treasures of wisdom and knowledge in Christ? Do you know how you will find it? When the body is knit together and growing together, they discover together this great mystery: Christ, in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge for us.
So there is a corporate deeper knowledge. Can I put it simply? If we live together with Christ as our centre, we learn things about the Lord from one another. It is wonderful. It is wonderful.
And one more: Colossians 3:10.
And have put on the new man, which is being renewed unto true knowledge after the image of Him that created him.
Now here is that one new man. Again, Paul here is talking about the corporate man. Whether it is Jew or Greek, et cetera, it is one new man. We put on that new man, and we are being renewed into a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him.
We are being created together as the body into the image of Christ. We are being renewed, more Christ-like—a true image, not just some sort of partial image.
That is why the body of Christ needs to be one in spirit. Because listen: no matter where we came from, as our brother said this afternoon, no matter where our alpha began, the more we deeply come to know the Lord, the more we will come into the unity of the faith and unto a mature man.
The unity of the faith comes among us as we mature together, as we really get to know the Lord.
So, the Colossians wanted this deeper, fuller, true knowledge of the Lord, but they were being led away. They had been taken off centre.
Intellectual doctrines often take us off centre, even when the doctrines may be true in themselves. If they are plucked from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they end up dividing us.
Our knowledge needs to be under the mastery of the Holy Spirit. Head knowledge is not yet true knowledge.
So, on the one hand, we want to encourage everybody to study their Bible as much as they possibly can. But we also see in Scripture that some guys really studied the Bible, but they did not know the Lord, right?
Some of the best Bible students that Jesus confronted were those Sadducees who came up to Jesus and said, “Hey, what about marriage up in heaven? This guy dies and does not have a kid.” Jesus said to these guys who had the first five books of the Old Testament memorized, “You are wrong because you do not know the Scriptures.”
Why do you not know the Scriptures? Because you do not know the power of God. You know, the Scriptures by themselves are just dead letter unless the Spirit blows on them—the Spirit of life. The Sadducees had no idea.
You remember Paul one time—I love the message he gave in Antioch of Pisidia. This is in Acts 13. He was there in the synagogue preaching, and the Jews were getting furious at him. Eventually they stoned him because he said this: “Your leaders, your religious leaders in Jerusalem, read the Scriptures every Sabbath, but they cannot hear the voice of the prophets.”
Meaning, they could not understand about the suffering Messiah. So they fulfilled this suffering Messiah by crucifying Jesus. Isn’t that amazing? Those were rabbis reading the Scriptures every week, but they did not have any idea what they were about.
Thank God for the Holy Spirit. How we need the Holy Spirit to translate this knowledge for us so that we can understand.
The Colossians had that problem. How about the Corinthians? Can I say that this can be a problem? Sometimes too much knowledge hinders us from real knowledge.
I think in the case of the Colossians, we could make that case: they had gone off into intellectual things. Colossae, that area there, was very strongly Greek. It was saturated in Greek philosophy.
You can imagine the Colossians in their natural tendencies saying, “Paul talks about the Trinity”—well, he does not talk about the Trinity. Paul never said the word Trinity. He talked about the Father and Christ the Son and the Holy Spirit, but how does that all relate?
Then the Gnostics come around and say, “Oh, now we can relate all of that intellectually. Yes, the Father is actually the Logos, and the Demiurge is over here, and wisdom is here, and here is Logos. Ah, now I understand.” You go right into the shadows. They were taken right off with a false doctrine.
It is easier to have a doctrine of how God fits up in the hierarchy in the sky than to say, “I believe in the mystery of the Trinity.” People who are headstrong do not like mysteries. So every Monday at the end of the conference, they always ask that question: “Yeah, but what about the Trinity?” Some people just have to know. The Colossians just had to know. It took them off centre.
How about the Corinthians? Paul said of the Corinthians, “In everything you are enriched in Christ, in all speech, in all knowledge.” But what happened to the Corinthians? Paul said, “Boy, you have got a lot of knowledge, but it is not true knowledge. I cannot speak to you in true knowledge because you are babes.”
Because you are proud, all you are doing is fighting over each other. You are fighting for this preacher; you are fighting for that preacher. Your knowledge is puffing you up.
As a matter of fact, he says, as regards those of you who think you have knowledge, you do not know as you ought to know. That is an interesting statement, isn’t it?
Oh, they had a lot of knowledge. I think maybe Corinth was the smartest church Paul went around to, but their smarts were all in the way of them being one in the Spirit and of them growing in the real knowledge of the Lord.
Paul says, “I wish I could tell you more about this mystery of Christ, but you cannot take it, because you have a baby brain full of natural noodles.”
Until you humble yourself, there is nothing more I can do except proclaim to you a cross upon your knowledge. Until you see your wisdom through the way of the cross, you will not understand this.
Well, let’s go to John chapter 16, this precious promise of the Lord Jesus. Let us look at some of its aspects regarding coming into a deeper knowledge of the Lord.
It is important to notice, first of all, that the Holy Spirit reveals truth to us as we are able to bear it. How much of the truth can we bear?
First of all, our minds can receive knowledge. They were made to do that. We can study the Bible and gain knowledge.
Well, something got puffed up there. I do not know.
First of all, let us look just for a moment at the sort of mechanics of deeper knowledge. Our minds understand things. The Lord uses our minds with understanding. But the first key to our growing knowledge is that the Holy Spirit has to give us the intuitive knowledge to go with our intellectual knowledge.
You all know that we know not only with our mind, but we also know with our spirit. I know probably everybody in this room can testify that, at some point, you knew something from the Lord intuitively before you ever had the knowledge of it in your head.
The Lord—the Holy Spirit—takes knowledge, many times things that we have stored up. That is why it is so precious in our various classrooms here with the kids: they are learning and memorizing Scriptures and storing all that stuff up in their hearts. Then the Holy Spirit can take those things and breathe on them one at a time.
That is why I wish, when I was a child, I had been a Christian. I see some Christians whom the Spirit has breathed on through so many words that they learned when they were little kids. Then the Spirit comes and makes it real. Isn’t that wonderful? Now you have intellectual knowledge, but also spiritual knowledge backed up.
Another problem with knowledge is that true knowledge must be seen in the light. Jesus says, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” God speaks of Himself as light.
If we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we learn more about Him in the light. Now, let us suppose—just a possibility—that we learned something from the Lord in the light, but right now we are off centre. My question is: do you know that, or do you not know that?
Something was real to you when you were in the light, but now you are out in the shadows. You still remember that and can even describe it, but is it real?
The Lord is not so interested in your being able to stack up a lot of intellectual knowledge in your mind. Our real knowledge comes as we walk with the Lord, who is light. That is when we really learn the truth.
You understand what I am saying? If we are out of the light, we can hear great teaching, we can even learn great teaching, we can read great books. But isn’t it better to be led by the Spirit as to what book you read?
Have you noticed sometimes how the Spirit leads you to read a book? I have this shelf just loaded with books, and I have read a lot of them. Every once in a while, one of them kind of sticks out of the shelf. It does not really, but it seems like it goes, “Boing!” I say, “You know what? Maybe I will read that book.”
And wow, the Holy Spirit brings me into the centre and into the light, and I see the Lord. I say, “Oh, that is so wonderful.” I read that book six years ago, but now, with more knowledge, you read that book. Maybe ten years from now, you will really read that book.
I was only saved three years when I read The Spiritual Man. I had no idea what it was about. Now, when I read it, it is much more interesting, because our knowledge of the Lord enables us to understand the things of God. Right?
Okay, so now the Holy Spirit wants to lead us into all truth regarding Him. He is going to disclose to you all things. Having said that, I hope you are encouraged by that. We have to spend the remainder of our time basically saying this: the first thing that the Holy Spirit has to do is bring the word of the cross to all of our knowledge.
Our knowledge has to go through the cross in order for it to really become true knowledge. Now, what do I mean by that? There are several things here.
Real knowledge always involves decrease.
The knowledge that the Corinthians had puffed them up. But a true knowledge of the Lord always comes at a time of decrease. Pride stands in the way of us knowing the Lord. The Lord resists pride, but often pride keeps us from knowing the truth.
About the time I went to seminary to study for the ministry, some guy handed me this book. It was like he was handing me something illegal. He pulled it out of his coat and gave it to me. I was in a Baptist church. He did not want any Baptist to see Normal Christian Church Life.
It was a little book. This fellow knew I was going up to seminary, so he gave me this thing. Well, it blew me out of the water. It was a book by Watchman Nee. I think it was called Concerning the Church, or I forget, but Normal Christian Church Life was the book I read.
One of the things it said immediately was this: the church has got it wrong about having a single pastor leading. A pastor is not a one-man leader. There are shepherds, not pastor; and there are elders, not elder. There is a plurality of leadership in the church.
I saw that it was so clear, the way Brother Nee spelled it out in the Word of God. But I went to a seminary that said, “Well, you are going to have to learn how to be a pastor. The buck stops with you. You are running the church, and that is the end of it.”
It took me eight years before I could obey that truth. I saw it, but I could not do it. It was the end of my career as a pastor. It was the end of my salary as a pastor. It was the end of my status as being the big guy in the church. I could not give it up.
But the Lord has done this a number of times in my life. I do not know about your life, but He says to me, “If you compromise, you cannot have Me.”
So, the fateful day, I resigned as a pastor, never to become a pastor again. Well, as you see, I have not died of starvation yet.
But my pride was in the way. Now I see so clearly the benefit of the church having a true plurality of men of spiritual responsibility and substance. It is so beautiful to see that.
Why would we want something so skinny, where it is one guy’s one little angle and position on Christ, when you can have a plurality with a greater wisdom? Now I see it. It is so clear. But back then, oh man, I had to wrestle that, you know?
The Lord has to trim our pride. He cannot bring us into a deeper knowledge if we are full of pride. There are some Christians, and the only thing I can say about them is they always have to be right. I tell you, you cannot come to really know the Lord if you always have to be right.
Humility. Oh, if the Corinthians only had humility. But they would rather argue and even say, “Paul is not a true apostle,” than receive from the ministry of this amazing apostle.
Self-confidence. Who do you know who is hungry for the Lord and hungry to know the truth, who has self-confidence?
If you have self-confidence, you are not really very hungry—satisfied with the way things are going. That is why the Holy Spirit has to pull the rug out from under us once in a while, in order for us to understand, “You know, I really need the Lord. I do not understand this. Lord, what are You doing?”
That is usually the first question that happens when the Lord pulls the rug out, you know?
I say there is almost a principle about ministry, and here it is: you go and minister; you get yourself in a mess; you cause all kinds of problems; you finally lay down, give up, quit; and the Lord says, “Now serve Me.”
You serve with no confidence, and the Lord does something. It is almost a principle that we will go out and do something, and He will have to correct us and hem us in and deal with us, because we are ready to serve.
I remember, you know, I am so thankful that I had the opportunity of knowing my brother Stephen over these years. When I first heard him speaking on the church and church life and organic life and Jesus in the midst, I was so excited.
I was down in North Carolina at the time, and there was a retreat at a campground of charismatic college students who really loved the Lord. I went off to that retreat and preached to them that the church, the organism, and Jesus were all one. Man, I spent a whole weekend, you know, and these charismatics kind of looked at me like, “Ah.”
Anyway, I preached away, and I saw Brother Stephen the next weekend. I said, “Wow, I went out to this camp with those brothers and preached the church to them.” He said, “Well, you know, if you preach the church, you get the cross. If you preach the cross, you get the church.”
And boy, did I find out. If you preach the church and people are convinced that your way of the church is right, boy, you guys are headed for the cross.
But if you are self-confident all the time—“Ah, yeah, I know what I am doing. I know what this Word says”—there are so many times I thought I knew what the Word meant, and it did not mean that at all. It meant the opposite.
I remember hearing a preacher preach one time, and he said, “Hear that verse where two or three agree on anything, I will do it, says the Lord? Here is the problem: we are so ornery and so independent that we cannot do anything, but if He can just find two or three people, that is all He needs and He will do it.”
So, if you want something—if you want a Mercedes-Benz—find somebody to agree with you and pray about it. It will happen. At the time, I thought that was good advice.
You know, true knowledge goes by way of the cross. As Paul said to those who were puffed up with knowledge in 1 Corinthians 8, “If you think you know, you do not know as you ought to know.”
There is a whole process that you are going to go through: discipline, difficult times. Sometimes our blessings prevent us from knowing the Lord.
I remember this brother in North Carolina. I was in a church and ministering there, and this man had such a hunger for the Lord. You know, one of those people who really has a sincere hunger to know more about the Lord.
I could not quite figure the guy out. He wore very expensive shoes and nice pants. He wore a suit and always had a nice shirt on and everything, but he had nothing.
Finally, one day I drove with him somewhere. We were going to a meeting or whatever. I said, “Brother, tell me about your life.” Basically, he said, “I had everything. I was rich. I became an alcoholic. I lost my wife. I lost my kids. I lost my home. I lost everything. I went bankrupt. I have nothing. But I sure want the Lord.”
You know, Paul could have spent, I suppose, hours writing of his heavenly visions, of his being caught up in the third heaven, and seeing things and hearing things sublime. But you know how Paul really got to know the Lord? When that thorn got in his side.
He could not get up out of bed unless the Lord got him up out of bed, and he had to trust God’s grace sufficient for him. Now, a person who is down and struggling, going through difficult times—if you humble yourself before the Lord—you will get to know the Lord.
The Lord often takes such situations, and you often see saints going through very difficult times. In those times, you discover that these people have really come to know the Lord. Isn’t that wonderful?
Have you met somebody who has really been through it, and how much more they know of the Lord? In our younger days, we are so self-righteous. We wonder, “What is the matter with all the other Christians? Why are they all backslidden when I am on fire?”
Yeah, give yourself twenty years of going down and making mistakes and blowing opportunities and failing the Lord, and you will see a lot more mercy coming out of your life.
Because when you really get to know the Lord, He is not self-righteous. There is not a self-righteous bone in His body. He is merciful and ready to come to the aid of anybody. That is what He wants to make you, but He has to deal with us, or else we are just not that kind of material.
That is why Peter says in 1 Peter 5:
Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God,
that He may exalt you at the proper time,
casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you.
Let me say it this way: do we really want to know the Lord? Then you consecrate yourself to the Lord. You remain faithful to Him even when you do not understand Him.
You will go through times—sometimes dry times, sometimes difficult times, sometimes times alone—but you are never alone. Through these times, by the arrangement of the Holy Spirit, He will bring the things of Christ before you. He will disclose Christ to you.
That is why there are passages in the Bible that are precious and special to all of us. If anybody has gone through a hard time, a difficulty, a tragedy, or anything, you know how you latch on to certain verses that become real to you.
That beginning of 2 Corinthians, where Paul said, “I had given up all hope. I was at my wit’s end. I was at the end of my life. But that is where I met the God of comfort, so that now I can comfort you.” This is real, real knowledge of the Lord.
What the Lord wants is saints who are not just satisfied with the shallows. So He has to deal with our self-sufficiency, our self-confidence, our pride, our stubbornness—“This is the way I am going to go. I do not care what.” The Lord has to break all of that before we can really come to know the real knowledge of the Lord.
I know many of you saw our brother Lance in the last few years of his life, struggling so hard just to get up to the rostrum and speak. His mind would labour to try to remember what he should say. But I must say, as I spoke to him personally, he was more dependent on the Lord than I had ever seen him.
I understand from a sister who was with our brother just before he passed away: she came in and talked to him. He could barely speak, but he said, “I am in the grace of God.”
Now, do you know what it means to be in the grace of God? Of course. But we will all know what it means to be in the grace of God.
He reveals Himself. The Holy Spirit wants us to know this Christ, and He wants us as a fellowship to be summed up in Christ.
You know that wonderful passage in Ephesians 1, where it says God, now at the fullness of times, is gathering all things up into Christ? That is what He is doing with us. He is gathering us up into this wonderful Christ, our vision.
The more we see of Him, the more we find ourselves being gathered together. The more we will know the truth—the true knowledge.
I was not a Christian until I was twenty years old, but I am sure thankful I met some Christians who understood this truth. They could speak to me the truth of the gospel, and I would reject it as false, but the truth that they knew about Jesus came through even when I did not believe their knowledge.
You understand that? I have met people who had a real knowledge of the Lord. They talked to the Lord like He was right there. It was real. You did not have to preach something about that. That is what I wanted: to really know the Lord like those people.
This is what the Lord wants us to be like. That is why He is dealing in our lives in so many ways.
Usually, I will end with this thing. The church, like Colossae, needs to be centred in Christ.
The tabernacle, spiritually speaking, was built around the Ark of the Covenant. Everything was built out with that in mind—what was in the centre. The presence of God was to be at the centre of the tabernacle.
All of the furnishings, all of the curtains, all of the preparations, and all of the silver feet for the poles—all of that—if you take away the presence of God and the ark, all of that becomes emblems and symbols, and nothing.
The Lord wants us to be a people of God that have Him at the centre.
If we do not, then we are prone. Could you imagine? The different furnishings were all taken care of by different families. Now, the Condon family—we took care of the snuffers, things that snuffed out the wicks, let us just say.
Now, I believe the most important part of that tabernacle is snuffers. I preached on snuffers.
Somebody else had to carry that big brazen altar, and so they believed the biggest thing was the gospel. “The most important thing is the brazen altar.”
Somebody else says, “No, no, it is the laver—sanctification. That is the most important part.” Another body says, “No, no, no, it is the bread. We have got to have Bible studies.” Somebody says, “No, no, no, we need revelation—the candles.” “No, no, no, no, it is worship. Today it is worship. We need the altar of incense.”
You know, all of that is nothing without the presence of God in the midst. With the ark in the midst, all of that makes beautiful ordered sense.
The whole camp of Israel—have you seen pictures of how the tribes, not just the tabernacle and the Levites and the priests around the tabernacle, but all the tribes went out north, south, east, west like this, all in perfect order?
When the Lord is in the centre, and the cloud and the fire are there, whenever there was trouble in Israel, it was when somebody got out of order.
It is interesting that they called those who got out of order the mixed murmuring multitude. They are in the church, and there are some saints out of order in the church: “Murmur, murmur, murmur, murmur, murmur, murmur, murmur. Rebel, rebel, rebel, rebel, rebel, rebel. The Lord is not doing anything right. We need to go to Moab. Forget this Canaan land.”
People telling the Lord what to do, people mad, different tribes fighting each other—and they were always on the outskirts. You notice that?
The Lord sometimes sent a fire and judged some of those murmuring multitude, the mixed multitude. They were always on the outskirts—never ordered, never where they belonged.
But the Lord wants to be in the centre of His people, for us to be centred in Him and for Him to be over us.
So, our verse:
In Him all things hold together.
If we do not have a sun, our solar system is doomed. Your assembly, my assembly, without that gravitational force of the Lord in the middle, just spreads apart.
Not only is He the centre, but He has first place in everything. “Well now, we want to do such and such, but maybe we had better check with the Lord, because we are behind the Lord.” He has first place. He is our Head. We had better be sure.
Now, how many assemblies here could have benefited from asking the Lord before you did something stupid? Well, do not raise your hand. Already some hands have gone up. I am not going to give an invitation for people who have done stupid things.
But His wisdom is before our wisdom. His amen is before our actions. He is first.
Paul presents a Christ who is what? He is centre of the universe, centre of creation, centre of the church, centre of redemption, centre of our lives. Christ—that is our vision.
The gathering central force of our whole life. To know Him is to be in Him, where He can deal with us by the Holy Spirit in the light.
Even when we see knowledge, even when we see the truth, we always have to be adjusted to that truth. Have you ever noticed that? When we really see something that is true, there are immediate adjustments necessary in our life.
That is why the Holy Spirit only leads us in as we are able to bear it. Well, I am glad He did not take us in on the express train. He wants to lead us as we are able to adjust, to walk in it.
So we see Him, we know Him, we follow Him, and we enter into more and more of the truth of who He really is.
We need saints with true knowledge today—true knowledge, knowledge upon knowledge through experience. May the Lord help us. The Spirit is working mightily upon us even in this day.
Lord, we thank You so much for Your love for us. You sent the Holy Spirit to disclose You to us and to lead us into all the truth, until we know You so well that You know us and You say, “Come forth, My bride.”
Oh, we want to know You more deep within our soul. We want to know You. We want to know You in our spirit, deep within our spirit. We want to be able to walk in that light and in that life that You have given us to live.
Oh Lord, we are seeking higher ground. Lord, just a closer walk with Thee—grant that, Jesus. That is our plea. Amen.