Wonderful fashion and beauty,
Holy Spirit in the mind,
All my nature be fine,
To the beauty of Jesus.
Good morning, brothers and sisters. Let’s have a word of prayer.
Heavenly Father, we want to thank You that this morning we were able to remember You. And, Lord, we do want to thank You for Your love to us—great, great love to us—that paid a great price to redeem us. We’re so grateful.
And Lord, we thank You that You didn’t die just to forgive us our sins, but to draw us to You, so that You could speak to us and have that relationship that You created man to have with You.
And Lord, that’s what we come for right now. We come just to have that fellowship with You through the Word this morning. We ask, Lord, that You would show us the things that please You, and that You would open our hearts, minds, and spirits to You by Your Spirit and through the Word of God.
Lord, I thank You that You’re able to speak through nature, through men, and through Your Spirit. We commit our time and ourselves to You, that we might hear Your Word and speak Your Word. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Okay, I’m going to read a few verses. I’ll start with Psalm 92—Psalm 92, beginning in verse 12.
The righteous shall flourish like the palm-tree:
He shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon.
They that are planted in the house of the Lord
Shall flourish in the courts of our God.
They shall still bring forth fruit in old age;
They shall be full of sap and green:
To show that the Lord is upright;
He is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in Him.
Then, in Luke 13, beginning with verse 6—this is the parable my Bible calls “the barren fig tree,” but I’m just going to call it “the fig tree.”
And He spake this parable; A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came seeking fruit thereon, and found none.
And he said unto the vinedresser, Behold, these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and find none: cut it down; why doth it also cumber the ground?
And he answering saith unto him, Lord, let it alone this year also, till I shall dig about it, and dung it:
And if it bear fruit thenceforth, well; but if not, thou shalt cut it down.
Then, going back to the Psalms again, Psalm 16. This is a Messianic psalm, but I don’t want to use it in that sense. I just want to look at the first part of verse 10.
For Thou wilt not leave my soul to Sheol.
Brothers and sisters, this morning the thing that is on my heart is this: we talk a lot about the Lord’s return. What is the Lord looking for? I’ve been thinking about that—what is the Lord looking for in my life particularly, in the life of our assembly, and in His church, His whole church?
In Revelation 2 and 3, the Lord is in the midst of the churches. He is speaking, and He is telling them what He is looking for. I’ve wondered: if the Lord came to me like that, looking for something, what would He say to me? What would He be after? What would He be after if He came to this assembly? What would He be looking for if He came to His church at large?
He is looking for something. We say, “Well, we want things to be finished so that He can return.” Well, He is looking for something to be manifest. Notice, I did not say “finished”; I said “manifest.” He is looking for the manifestation of something.
I was wondering in my own life, “Lord, what are You looking for in me?” These verses tell you exactly what I think the Lord has shown me as He has been speaking to me: He is looking for fruit.
Now, I want to stop there, because we can get really wonky when we consider fruit. We say, “Oh, that means I’ve got to go out and witness more so I can bring more people to Christ. That’s the fruit of my life.” Or we say, “I need to read more. I need to pray more, so that my life is more Christ-like.”
We look at things as being fruit. But things are not fruit; things are things. He is looking for fruit.
When I say fruit, take an orange, for example. If you open an orange, it has segments. I think a lot of us want to divide the fruit that God is looking for into pieces and say, “Okay, He is working on this stuff.”
For example, we look at Galatians 5, which says that the fruit of the Spirit is these things. Or we look at 2 Peter 1, which says, “Add to your faith this, and add to this that.” It becomes almost like a to-do list: “Okay, if I do this, then next we’ll work on this, and then next we’ll work on this.”
That’s not it. It’s not items. God is not looking for items; He is looking for the fruit—the whole fruit. The fruit has all the items in it, but it is all in one. It is all within that peel, within that rind of that orange. All the segments are there. Nothing needs to be added.
The Lord is looking for the wholeness of the fruit. He wants the whole fruit. So we ask, “Lord, what does it mean? You want fruit.”
Some of us will say, and rightfully so, “He wants to see Christ formed in us.” But that can be really nebulous. What do You mean, You want Christ formed in me? What does that mean? What does it look like?
Those were the questions I had in coming to the Lord and asking, “Lord, what do You want out of my life—what’s left of my life?” Then you have Psalm 92: “They shall still bring forth fruit in old age.”
In other words, I’m not off the hook.
You know, I looked it up. A fruit tree bears fruit for about twenty-five years. I passed twenty-five years a couple of times. But the fruit that God plants is eternal fruit; it is eternal life. So it bears fruit even in old age, all the way through.
Look at the fruit that God wants—the whole fruit. Its source, its life, is divine. Its source is divine; its scope is eternal. It is so great that we cannot even fathom what it is.
But this is the very thing He is looking for in us, because in everybody who is born again is the seed of this divine nature—the divine nature that was meant for man to have from the beginning. God meant for man to have this life in him.
The whole thing is this: this life is in us. He implanted it in us when we were born again.
What does it say when He created the fruit trees in Genesis? He says, “Let it have its seed in it.” Out of that tree, from that seed, is reproduced everything that comes out of that tree.
That is why, when Kenny was teaching us in Romans 9, 10, and 11, we thought about being grafted into the olive tree. We have been grafted into that life.
The Lord can expect that life, because that is why He implanted this life in us. There is an expectation in Him that the divine nature implanted in us would grow into the very thing it is meant to be: humanity with that life in it.
We want to look at the Lord Jesus, because really, the fruit the Lord is looking for is the Lord Jesus. We talk about being conformed to the image of Christ. Where do we look to find out what we are being conformed to? We look at Christ Himself.
We can see Him as the risen Christ, and we can see Him as the lowly Christ on earth. But the life is the same. That life is eternal, and that life is divine.
I am not saying that we become God—notice that—but that life is divine. It comes from God. That is what I mean by that. His life comes from God.
As we look at the Lord Jesus, I want to say there are three marks of this life. The first mark is this: when we celebrate the Lord’s table, this is the mark that should be upon us.
When the Lord Jesus lived on earth, read the Gospels and look at Him in His life—not just His words, His preaching, His parables, and those things. Look at His life. Look at the way He lived.
When you behold His life, scrutinize it, and really look into it, you want to see who He is. Throughout the Gospels, you see a Man who lived with nothing between Him and God.
There was nothing between Him and God. There was no sin.
Now, we are plagued with that sin nature. But for Him, there was no sin. Don’t think, “Oh, it is because He was God.” He laid His divinity aside and lived as a man. He lived as a Man with nothing between Him and God.
When you have nothing between you and God, that means not only no sin. There is a little chorus we sing: “In my secret heart, no other love competes.” He had no other loves.
We say, “I want this. I have to choose between this and this.” He loved God. He loved His Father. No other love competed with that. That was foremost in Him.
Then there is the other line: “No rival throne.” He had no rival throne in His life. Think of the temptations of the Lord Jesus in Matthew, Mark, and Luke—how the devil tempted Him in many ways, even offering Him the kingdoms of the world.
He said, “I do not desire those things. I desire the will of God. I desire to worship Him. I desire to live before Him.” That was it.
Now, I have to caution us: this is not saying, “You need to do these things.” I am saying, “Let’s look at His life,” because this is the life that is implanted in you.
This is the life described in Philippians: it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work, for His good pleasure. This life is seeking to work itself out in you.
So don’t go home and say, “Okay, now I have to do this, this, and this,” because that is not what I am saying. But I am saying, let’s look at the life our Father has given us in Jesus Christ, in having Him dwell within us by the Holy Spirit.
Please, don’t put yourself under some rule of law. This is not a rule of law. This is life, and life works itself out.
There are two other marks, and they can be summed up in the two greatest commandments:
Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength.
Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.
These are the two things that marked His life. They come out of the fact that there was nothing between Him and God. Therefore, He was free to love God.
He was not under the shadow of death. He was free. He was free to do the will of God. If you read Romans 6, that is what it is saying to you: you are now free to do the will of God because the old man has been put aside; the old man has been crucified. You are now free.
We want to understand that the fruit God is looking for—He is coming to look for it in our lives, in His church, and in His people. He is coming to you looking for these things.
Again, this is not to put you under a guilt trip. This is not about that. But this is His desire.
I remember one time I planted popcorn seeds. Every day I watered them and watched them, until I forgot, because it was taking too long. Then one day I was out mowing the lawn, and I noticed they were growing.
Brothers and sisters, that’s it. You cannot watch and look for something to happen, because life happens without your noticing. It just comes.
The life He is looking for is a life in which there is love for Him, and a life out of which there is love for fellow man. When I say fellow man, I do not mean fellow Christians. I do not mean fellow monotheists. I mean fellow men. That includes everybody.
When Jesus was on the earth, He was not just with the Jews. He went among the Samaritans. He even went up to Caesarea, where there was a Syrophoenician woman—my gosh, a Gentile. Fellow man. What a big scope.
This life is not contained. It cannot be contained.
How did Jesus love God? What do we have that shows us that Jesus loved God? There are a number of things if you really look for them. I am not going to read a bunch of Scriptures; I will refer to books in which they might be found.
How do you love God? Number one: He drew near to Him. He drew near to Him.
Look at the beginning of Mark 1, I think verse 35. After He had healed all these people, the next morning they went to look for Jesus, and He was gone. Where was He? He was out in a lonely spot, having fellowship with His Father.
From there, it was, “Okay, let’s go on from here.” But the whole idea is that He drew near to God.
That is one of the things James tells us to do, isn’t it? “Draw nigh to God, and He will draw nigh to you.” I want to change that a little bit: draw near to God, and you will find that He has already drawn near to you.
He is already near. The whole thing about drawing near is: how do we draw near to God? A lot of it is through our times alone. We might call them devotional times.
I hate this, because sometimes I speak at youth conferences, and I hate how they shorten it to “Devo.” That just bugs me. “Hey, did you have your Devo?” Devo was a little song group that wore flowerpots on their heads.
It just does not do it. It cuts off the whole root of the word. “Devo” is “devote”; it is devotion. It is saying, “I want to have this relationship with You. I am devoted to it. That is why I am here. I am coming here because I am devoted to having a relationship with You.”
How many of us who are married did not have a devoted time of courting our wives or husbands? That would never happen—unless you are in one of these places where they have child marriages.
But for us in the Western world, we spent time courting our spouses. We devoted time. We set aside time to be there. But it was not just time to go to a movie. It was time to be with that person so you could interact with one another and see what that person was like.
In the same way, our prayer times are not just times when we ask for stuff, or even ask for things that are needed. Our prayer times are also times when we are drawing near to God.
We are saying to God, “Lord, I would like to be with You. I would like to know that I am with You. I would like You to speak to me, and I can wait for You.”
Sometimes our devotions are not only prayer, but also the Word. We ought to open the Word and say, “Lord, speak to me.”
Not so that I can get a message. This has been one of the biggest things for me to deal with. “I’m not looking for a message, God. I want You just to speak to me. I want to know what You see. I want to know what You want. I don’t want it for any other purpose than to know You and to do Your will. That’s all I want.”
I think that was the Lord Jesus. The Lord Jesus wanted to know His Father’s will. He spent time in prayer all the time.
The disciples asked, “Teach us to pray.” I wonder if they ever asked, “How come You pray so long? What are You doing?” “I’m waiting on My Father. I’m waiting to hear Him.”
That brings us to a second point. As He drew near to God and had fellowship with His Father, out of that fellowship He walked in harmony with God.
Jerry Lindenberg used to make fun of me when I was first dating Barb. I have long features, and when I would walk, he would say, “You’re walking, but Barb is going like this, trying to catch up with you.” That is not walking in harmony.
Walking in harmony is like dancing. Of course, I am sure we as Christians do not dance, do we?
For love of my wife, I did take ballroom dancing with her for two summers. I will never dance at somebody’s wedding, so do not look for me, because I am not a very good dancer.
But in dancing, that is what it is: you are walking in harmony with one another. One is leading, and one is following.
My wife had danced with somebody a long time ago, and she said, “The person knew what he was doing, and all I had to do was follow. It was so easy, and it was so nice.”
One time, for our final in our little class, we actually had to go to a ballroom and dance. For me, it was humiliating. But we saw this one Black couple. It was like they were floating, just gliding all over the place. Huge smiles were on their faces. They were looking at one another.
I was thinking, “What step? Am I doing the right stuff?” I had that bad look on my face. But these people were in such joy.
That is the whole thing: when you walk in harmony with the Lord, it is not a hard thing. There is an ease to it. There is a joy in being with one another in it—something that, unfortunately, Barb and I never got to know in dancing.
Walking in harmony means what Jesus Himself said: “I do nothing of Myself, but what I see the Father doing. I speak nothing but what I hear the Father speaking.”
Where did He hear this? The Lord Jesus was in a relationship with His Father in which He drew near to know Him. He saw God, His Father, in nature. Look at the parables: you can see Him seeing God in nature.
He also saw Him in the Scriptures. I always think of what He said: “The Lord causes His rain to fall on the just and the unjust.”
He saw that God was not a respecter of dry land, desert, or fruitful plain. Rain comes on both of them. You might not get much rain in a desert, but rain comes. Sometimes you can see the cactus flourishing, and if you go into the California desert in the spring, you see the poppies bloom. It is amazing.
He was saying, “As far as your actions are concerned, I can see God being good to both evil people and good people. You ask Me why I eat with publicans and harlots? Can’t you even see in nature that God gives to these as He gives to the righteous? Can’t you even see that? I see it.”
The third thing is this: He did His will—but not merely that He did His will; He did it completely. He took His will to its end.
For us, that meant He died on the cross. But it was not just that He died on the cross. His dying on the cross led to the end of what God wanted: to raise Him from the dead and seat Him at His right hand.
When you look at Him obeying His Father’s will, you see it all through the Gospels. You see it even when He was a child.
In Luke 2, He goes to the temple and is questioning the teachers of the law. His parents find Him there and ask, “What are You doing here? Where have You been?” He says, “Did you not know that I must be about My Father’s business?”
Now, where He was supposed to be was back home in Nazareth, because He went back to Nazareth and put Himself under His parents. He then put Himself under being a breadwinner, because Joseph did not live that long. We do not see Joseph when Jesus begins His ministry. Who would take care of the family as the firstborn Son? He put Himself under those things.
We see it in His baptism. He was obeying His Father. He was identifying and aligning Himself with His mission, with God’s purpose.
At the transfiguration, some commentators say that at that moment He could have walked right into heaven and not gone to the cross. Here was a Man after God’s own heart, pleasing to God. He could have walked right into heaven, like Enoch.
But He did not. Why not? Because He saw that God’s will was not just one Man in heaven, but many sons. So He turned His back on that and set His face toward Jerusalem, because that was where He was going to be crucified.
All through the Gospels, they tell us that He went to the cross in obedience to God His Father and to the purpose God had for Him: to be the sin-bearer.
But it was not only that He would become the sin-bearer. It was so that He could be exalted, raised from the dead, seated at the right hand of God, King and Lord of all forever, and give His Father all that He had won and all that was under His reign.
All of that is included in going to the cross. The Gospels tell us of the cross; Acts and the Epistles speak especially of His going to that place at the right hand of God. God has made Him both Lord and Christ. Wow.
This is the way the Lord Jesus, as a Man, loved His heavenly Father. Well, how did He love men?
There is a starting point for His love for men. He went to the Samaritan, the centurion with a servant, and the Syrophoenician woman whose daughter was demon-possessed.
The starting point of His love for man is centered in Psalm 8:
What is man, that Thou art mindful of him?
The Lord Jesus, because of His fellowship with His Father, knew what man was in the eyes of God. He knew why God was mindful of him: because God had purposed in His heart that man was to be the bearer of that divine life.
Our brother last week talked about God tabernacling with us. He was supposed to tabernacle in us. That is what man was meant to be: a vessel, a channel to all creation of who God is—a manifestation of who God is.
Jesus knew what God created man to be, and He knew that man was lost to God for that purpose. He knew that God wanted to bring men back to Himself and back to the purpose for which He created them.
Because of that, all the Lord’s actions toward men and all His attitudes toward men were based on this: God wanted man back in the purpose He originally had for him.
How did He love men? His every action toward men was based on goodwill toward them. God has goodwill toward man.
Isn’t that one of the Christmas carols? “Peace on earth, goodwill to men.” Every action God has is full of goodwill toward man.
John 3:17: we all know John 3:16, but not many of us look at the next verse because we think He said it all in verse 16. But in verse 17, He says that He did not come to judge or condemn, but to save. Goodwill toward man. “I am not here to condemn you; I am here to save you.”
What a different attitude. We look at the world today and see the horrible things going on, and we do not have goodwill toward the men creating those things. Yet God would save them.
He had an attitude of grace that led to how He treated men. Grace—not just unmerited favor, but graciousness in all His actions toward men. Even in rebuking Pharisees, there was grace in it.
“I desire mercy, not sacrifice. I desire lovingkindness. I desire goodness, and not sacrifice.”
He accepted invitations to people’s houses. For me, it is easy to invite people to my house, but it is hard to accept an invitation to someone else’s house. Do you find that so with you?
Unless I am visiting some Chinese family, I cannot take my shoes off and put them up. It is hard for me to go to someone’s house. But the Lord Jesus, when He was invited somewhere, went. He went right into their house, whether it was a rich man or a sinner.
Look at these things in the Gospels. In Luke 7, He goes to Simon the Pharisee’s house. Simon is judging Him all the time, but He still went to his house, ate with them, supped with them, and spoke with them.
Yet He also went to Levi’s, or Matthew’s, house—a tax collector’s house—or to Zacchaeus’ house, or to the house of Jairus, the synagogue ruler whose daughter had just died. He went to the house when He was invited, on all occasions, even to the wedding at Cana. He went where He was invited. How gracious.
He listened to men and conversed with them. He listened.
My oldest daughter, Katie, got me good once. She came home one day and was telling me about her day and the problems she had. I was not even letting her finish; I was trying to fix things. “Well, if you do this—”
She stopped me and said, “Dad, I don’t want you to solve my problems. I just want you to listen to me. The Lord is going to help me work out the problems. I just want to vent it off. I just want you to listen to me.”
Boy, I was put in my place, because that is the way men are. Men, we listen in order to solve. “Okay, I know what the problem is. Here is what you do.” No, that is not what listening is.
But the Lord Jesus listened. He listened to Martha when she complained, “My sister needs to help me.” He listened to her.
In John 5, there is the man who had been a paralytic for thirty-eight years. Jesus comes to him and asks, “Wilt thou be made whole?” Then the man goes on with this big old spiel about how there is nobody to help him.
If it were me, I would have said, “Look, all I asked you was, do you want to be healed or not?” But the Lord Jesus listened to his whole spiel. He let the man tell Him his condition. Then He looked at him and said, “Rise, take up thy bed, and walk.”
Jairus—He did not stop him. The centurion came concerning his servant, and He let him talk. He let him draw out his faith.
“I am not worthy that Thou shouldest come under my roof, but I am a man under authority. If I say this to somebody, he does it. I know that Thou, as a Man of authority, if Thou sayest something, it will be done.”
What did Jesus say? “I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel.”
So He listened to men. He listened to the Samaritan woman at the well. He listened to the Syrophoenician woman after He said, “It is not meet to take the children’s bread and cast it to the dogs.”
He listened as she said, “Yea, Lord: even the dogs eat of the crumbs.” And the Lord said, in effect, “I’m not going to give you crumbs.”
He was entreatable. He was not too busy to respond to you.
He allowed Himself to be pressed upon to minister to the needs of others. He allowed Himself to be pressed upon by others. He was available to others.
It was not, “Well, I need to minister now. I need to have some time for my ministry.” No. He lost sleep. He set aside sleep—not that He might prepare for His ministry, yet He was in total rest.
He was charitable, generous. You might say, “Well, Jim, where do you find that in the Scriptures? I don’t see anywhere that says that.” Well, it is inferred.
In John 12 and 13, Judas was in charge of the money box. In John 13, when Jesus tells Judas, “What thou doest, do quickly,” the other disciples thought He was telling Judas to take the money box and give to the poor.
In other words, He was generous. He was charitable. He gave of His substance to others. He did not deny them. When someone asked, He gave.
The owner is seeking figs from his tree. God is seeking this life in His redeemed people. This is what He is looking for in His church.
We so often stop with Revelation and say, “First love.” But you have to take Revelation as it speaks to all the churches as a whole. There is much more than just first love, because first love includes finishing the works that you started. That is why I said that He did the will of God completely. All these things are in there.
Back to the situation in Luke: for the owner of the fig tree, there was an expectation of fruit. He expected it, and he was right to expect it.
He probably planted that fig tree looking forward to it bearing fruit. He planted it in his own vineyard, where it had all the protection and everything it needed. It probably had everything it needed to bear fruit.
Yet with this expectation of fruit, there is also a consequence. If the fruit is not found, there is a consequence. He says, “Cut it down.”
Now, that seems to us really, really drastic. And it is. It is severe. We cannot water this down. It is a severe mercy.
We might say, “Well, that is not grace. How can You cut it down? Grace is undeserved favor. You should be giving undeserved favor to this poor fig tree. After all, I bet it is giving You shade.”
A fig tree is not made for shade, although it can give shade. That is a byproduct of it. But the number one reason for planting a fig tree is for the figs.
“Not grace?” Well, on the contrary. When Strong’s Concordance defines grace, it says that grace includes not merely unmerited favor, but also the idea that receiving grace will affect you and be reflected in your life.
Grace has an effect on you. If you have been shown mercy, it has an effect on you—especially if you know you do not deserve it.
The Lord has parables about these things. Remember the man who owed a huge debt? “Oh, please forgive me, and I’ll pay it all back to you.” The lord had mercy on him.
What was the effect of that mercy on that man? He went out and throttled a man who owed him some money. Word got back to the man who forgave him, and what did he do? They put him in prison. Severe, isn’t it?
Or what about the parable of the talents or the minas? You have the two who go and work, but the one who does nothing—what happens to him? “I’ll take away what you have and give it to the one who is going to do something with it.”
God expects an effect from His grace, a response to His grace.
“Cut it down.” Now, brothers and sisters, I do not think that “cut it down” means a loss of salvation. But I do think it means a loss of place, a loss of vocation.
That is what Kenny was speaking about when he was doing Romans 11. They have been taken out of the olive branch, out of the olive tree. But they can be restored to that place.
This is a harsh thing. You have to consider Israel in that. That is our reality. We may not be saved from the consequences of our lives, of our sins, or of living for ourselves. We are secure in His love, but there are consequences for not responding to the Lord.
Just as there is a consequence for the man who does not respond to God’s gospel.
In other words, this parable speaks of seriousness—the seriousness of God’s expectation and His right to act as He will: His right to act as Sovereign, His right to act as God.
It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
We want to take parts of God and disregard other parts of God. Some of us read The Knowledge of the Holy, which is about the attributes of God. The thing Tozer says in that book is that you cannot slice up God and say, “Okay, this is good, and I do not want this part of God.” He comes as a whole.
Yes, He has grace. Yes, He has love. Yes, He has mercy. But yes, He has righteousness. Yes, He has judgment. Yes, He has holiness. You cannot throw those things out.
This is serious stuff—not to scare us, but to sober us.
Even the enemy of God wants us to be cut down. He wants you to be cut down. In doing that, he will even take parts of God—His righteousness and His vengeance—and say, “This is what God has for you.” He takes parts of God, and that is how he condemns us.
But God is a whole, and His righteousness comes with love. Even His judgment comes with grace and mercy. It is all worked together in God to one thing. Nothing is overruled in its character; it is all one.
Finally, we come to the vinedresser.
There is an instrument of breaking into the situation at hand, and that is the vinedresser. He is the instrument of breaking into this situation.
In the Old Testament, it was prophets who came to a rebellious Israel. Remember, Israel was looked at in Isaiah 5, I think—the parable of the vine. God did everything for that vine, yet it produced wild grapes.
He sent prophets to Israel. But in the end, since they did not listen to the prophets, He took down the hedge and let the animals come in and tear it up. Those were the nations, and Israel went into exile.
Here we see the vinedresser, who is intimately related to the owner of the fig tree. You need to understand that. This vinedresser is intimately related because he can speak directly to the owner.
What does he say? He intervenes—not merely for the sake of the tree, but in appeal to the owner.
What is at stake here is the satisfaction of the owner. That is what the vinedresser wants: “Let me do this to satisfy you, to bring about what You want, to bring about Your will.”
We find that this vinedresser is an intercessor—an intercessor who comes in, not generally for the sake of the people, but for the sake of the owner.
Have you ever noticed in the Old Testament how many times a prophet or someone interceded on the basis of God’s character? He was not merely pleading, “Just have mercy on these people.”
For example, Abraham pleaded for his nephew Lot: “Wilt Thou indeed destroy the righteous with the wicked?” What will men say of You?
Or Moses, after the golden calf. God said, “Stand back, Moses. I am going to let them have it.” Moses interceded and said, “Why should the Egyptians say, ‘He brought them out to kill them’?”
“Why will You besmirch Your own testimony of who You are—a great Deliverer? Why will You do that? You cannot do that.”
At Kadesh-barnea, when the spies came back, Moses said, “The Egyptians will say You were not able to bring them into the land, and You hated them.” This was the intercession of Moses for the people: pleading to God for God’s sake.
“For Your sake, Lord, save them.” That is one of the things we read in this morning’s passage at the table: “I will do it for My sake.” I created man for this reason, for this purpose, and I will save them for this purpose—for My sake.
Israel was in exile, and the Lord, speaking through Ezekiel, said, “You dishonored My name, so I sent you away into exile. But I will bring you back for My name’s sake.”
There is this further grace for us: we have an intercessor.
Yes, we celebrated this morning that we have a Savior who took our penalty and saved us from the penalty of sin. But we should also praise the Lord that, having paid that penalty and having been raised to the right hand of God on high, He ever lives to make intercession.
He intercedes for us. When He intercedes for us, it is always for God’s will.
He is praying for God’s will to be done: “Lord, You had this people. You created this people for this purpose. Let Your will be done. I stand before You with My wounds, speaking for them.”
“Now bring about Your will for them. Your will is total deliverance—the total place where, in them, they manifest that life that is divine and whose scope is eternal.”
So He says, “Let Me dig. Let Me fertilize. Let Me do what You sent Me to do.”
We would ask, “Can these bones live? Can this tree live? Can this tree bring forth fruit?”
When God asked Ezekiel, “Can these bones live?” what did Ezekiel say? “O Lord God, Thou knowest.”
We look in ourselves for some redeeming quality: “Okay, I am going to get my act together now, and these things are going to happen.” There is no hope in our flesh. We know that.
How many times have we tried to start by the Spirit and finish by the flesh? Times without number.
But here is a wonderful verse. This speaks of the Lord Jesus, but let’s apply it to us:
For He grew up before Him as a tender plant,
And as a root out of a dry ground.
Isn’t it wonderful to know that the root of this life that is divine can grow up out of dry ground?
That is where I want to leave us: with that hope that Messiah, the Christ, can grow up out of dry ground—the dry ground that we are in ourselves. Isn’t that wonderful?
That is the aim of His intercession: for His church, and for us as individuals.
Do you think that God is looking at us and saying, “Oh, these guys, I can’t—”? No. He is looking at us, praying, “Lord, let that root come out of dry ground. You are able to lift this up. You are able to bring this life out of death.”
So we have the intercession. Next time, I will talk about the result of that intercession—the digging and the fertilizing. Let’s pray.
Lord Jesus, heavenly Father, we want to thank You that You have purposed for us to have this wonderful life—this life that has no barriers between You and me. Oh, Lord, that is too wonderful to think of.
Lord, I want to thank You that this is what You have bought for us through Jesus Christ: implanting Him in us. Oh, Lord, we were happy enough just to have our sins forgiven, but that You would come and dwell in us—oh, Lord, we thank You.
Lord, we do not want to look in ourselves and say, “I’ll do better.” We just want to look to You. We want to come to You and say, “I know myself. Lord, I am just so fruitless. I am so barren.”
“I cannot produce anything You want from me. There is no fig. I cannot even produce shade. But Lord, how I thank You: You create. You create life out of nothing.”
Oh, Lord, I just put myself in Your hands. Your hands, Lord—that is where I want to be. I just want to be in Your hands.
We want to be in Your hands as Your church. We want to please You. We want to give You the things that You have meant us to have: life, and life eternal; life which is the light of men; Lord, that life which glorifies You.
This is our desire—my desire. How I thank You, Lord, that You have not only given me a Savior from sin, but You have given me a High Priest who intercedes for me, who knows all my temptations and all my faults, and yet will not turn me away.
When I come to Him and say, “You know I am a leper. Who will touch me?” He says, “I will; be thou made clean.”
Lord, we thank You for who You are, and for who we are. We do not want to be in ourselves, thinking about these things. We just want to come to You and be in You, because that is where You mean us to be.
So here we are, Lord. We are coming just to say, “Lord, I belong to You. I belong in You, and You belong in me. Have Your way. Have Your will.” In Jesus’ name. Amen.