Created or Uncreated
Life 2
Something that has
taught a lot of us during these years that we’ve been together has
been the reason why we were alive at all. That really was a great
deliverance for many of us -- that we weren’t alive just to make
money, in order to have children, so that they could get a good
education, so that they could make money, and they could have
children, and they could get a good education, and they could make
money, and they could have children, and on, and on forever. It was
difficult in our society to escape from that viscous circle. So it
was really a great deliverance when we discovered that God had really
made us because he wanted our company.
It delivered a lot
of us from an old inferiority complex, because a lot of us felt that
we were no use at all to anybody and that nobody would ever want us
because of our looks, or because of our lack of ability, or because
of our appearance, or because of the way we talked. It was just a
great deliverance when we realized that the Creator of the whole
universe had made us just for one big reason -- and that was so that
he could enjoy our company and our friendship.
Many of us really
have become utterly convinced that that is true. We see it there in
1 John 1:3. God just says it so plainly: “That which we have seen
and heard we proclaim also to you.” Why? “So that you may have
fellowship with us.” What’s your fellowship about? “And our
fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.”
In other words, we
were really made to have fellowship with God and to have fellowship
with his Son Jesus. Two Sundays ago we talked about the trinity
family. We said that God didn’t make us because he was lonely. He
didn’t make us because he was in trouble for friends. God already
had Jesus with him and the Holy Spirit. Most of us know the verses:
“In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God.” And
we know that Jesus was with God at the beginning. You only have to
go to the second verse of Genesis and you find that the Holy Spirit
brooded upon the face of the waters.
So God, and Jesus,
and the Holy Spirit were already a trinity family of love before we
ever entered into the picture. But it was because they enjoyed the
love and the life that they had with each other so much that they
made us so that we would enjoy it too. That’s why we were made.
As for all the other
things -- I’m with you -- we have to make our living. We can’t
live off society. We have to make our way in life. But all that is
subservient to the main purpose that God created us for -- to be with
him and his trinity family forever.
I’d risk saying it
again: you are an end in yourself. Do you see that? For God you are
an end in yourself. For God you aren’t a bread earner. You aren’t
a provider for the family. For God you aren’t somebody to keep him
company. For God, you aren’t somebody who fulfills some ulterior
motive.
For God, you are an
end in yourself. Your Creator loves you for yourself. It doesn’t
matter whether anybody thinks you’re worthwhile. It doesn’t
matter if the whole world tramples over you. God sees you as an end
in yourself and that’s why he made you.
We discovered that
God made us in a certain way because he wanted us for that purpose.
He wanted people who would be able to share with him the things that
he was interested in. For that reason he made us like himself.
He was a trinity, a
Father, a Son and a Holy Spirit, and he made us a trinity. He gave
us this body here with these hands, and he has a spiritual body. He
gave us a soul inside with mind, emotions, and a will -- the same as
he has mind, emotions, and a will. And he gave us a spirit inside.
You remember that he made us look like himself. He made us with a
capacity to be exactly like him -- except for one big thing that he
didn’t give us. He didn’t give us exactly the kind of life that
runs through him, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
He gave us created
life. He made us with a body that will last 70 years, or 80 if you
look after it, and maybe 90, but not much more. He gave us mind,
emotions, and a will that will only last so long.
But he also put
inside us a spirit that is capable of receiving the special life that
he shares with the Son and the Holy Spirit. Now that life is
different from the life he has given unconditionally to all people.
So everybody that lives in the world has created life. Everybody has
a life that will last 70 years and go out like that. {He snaps his
fingers.} Every one of us has this kind of life. But there’s a
special life that enables us to be like God himself that he simply
made available to us but that we have to choose for ourselves.
Now why did he do
that? So that we’d have to use our free wills. So that we’d
have to opt in to the trinity family. How many of us at times have
said, “Oh, I had no control over my birth. I couldn’t help being
born in the family I was born in.” God didn’t want us ever to be
able to say that. He wanted us always to be able to say, “I chose
to be born into this trinity family.” So we were all created with
just created life -- and God made available this other life to us.
This is new to some
of us, so maybe it would be good to look at it in the Bible itself.
You see it there in Genesis 2:7, -- the created life. Genesis 2:7 is
the record of God creating us and making us with created life: “Then
the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground,” -- physical body
-- “and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life;” --
created life; the capacity of spirit -- “and man became a living
being.” The Hebrew is “nephesh,” and it means “soul.” Man
became a living soul, as mind, emotions, and will were formed inside
him.
Then it says in
verse 9, “And out of the ground the LORD God made to grow every
tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of
life also in the midst of the garden.” Now that life was different
from the life that he had made us with. Otherwise, there’s no
sense in just making available more and more created life to us. But
this tree of life contained the supernatural uncreated life that ran
through God’s own veins. It was the Father’s desire that we
would, by our own free will, choose to receive that life. That life
would come into us, would enable us to be born again of his spirit,
and enable us to be born into his family. In that way we’d become
exactly like the members of his family. Now that was God’s plan.
You know if you look
at your sons and daughters, or if you look at your dads and mums,
everybody has the same bump on their nose. Everybody has the same
kind of hair. The same kind of qualities that your dad and mum have,
you have to some extent. Really, the only way to be absolutely like
another person is to be born of the same father or the same mother.
Now that was God’s plan for us. He made us all with created life,
with spirit, with mind, emotions, and a will, and a body. He also
made available the spirit of uncreated life to us, and he expected us
to receive that life into ourselves and to allow it to make us
exactly like him.
You know the story.
God presented it in the form of a tree to mankind in his childhood --
because mankind at that age would understand it better that way. I’m
sure he would do it differently with us today. Probably today he
would just do what he did in the first century. He would let Jesus
walk among us, because the tree of life is really Jesus. And Jesus
would walk among us with this only begotten life inside him that
contained the very genes of the Creator of the universe. We would go
to him and receive that life from him.
That’s why Jesus
so often said, “I have come that you might have life. That’s the
very reason I came. I didn’t come here to show you how to live a
good life. I know you can’t do it because you have only created
life. I came to give you uncreated life.”
You remember again
and again God said, “He that has the Son has life.” It’s not
such a big deal that he has salvation, or that he has his sins
forgiven, though that is great. But the big thing is he has life.
He has uncreated life that makes him like God the Creator and enables
him to live forever. That was the Father’s plan for us.
It was God’s will
that man would work that way. It was God’s will that he would tell
Adam in the morning, “Adam, I want you to prune that tree,” and
Adam would use his mind to decide, “Oh yeah, you want me to prune
it. Now, is this the way?” “Yeah, that’s the way.” “Okay.”
So he’d prune the tree.
Then God would say
to Adam, “Alright, I want you to dam up that river there.” Adam
would use his mind and say, “Do you want me to dam it? Yeah, I’ll
do it this way.” “Yeah, that’s right. Do it that way.” And
God would have absolute control of his universe through his children.
Then he would as a
result make available the needs that his children had. He would make
available the physical supplies. He would say to Adam, “Okay Adam.
That tree over there makes oranges. You can get oranges for
breakfast. Okay, now Adam, you can get more food over here.” And
it was the Father’s will that he would dominate and bring under
submission to his will the whole universe through his children, and
in return he would let them know where they would fulfill their
physical needs. The children as a result would have found full
enjoyment in using their faculties in this way. They would get full
satisfaction from bringing the world under submission to God’s will
according to God’s directions.
That was God’s
plan. You know what happened. Man decided, “I’ll do it on my
own. This created life that I have is enough. I can get what I need
using this created life. My arm is strong -- I can get food for
myself in my own way. I don’t have to keep listening to this voice
within me. I can get enjoyment in my own way without him giving me
enjoyment. I can decide what to do myself. Okay, I’ll note he
told me to prune that tree this time last year. Okay, I’ll decide
when to prune it myself.” That’s really the heart of what we
call the fall of mankind.
It wasn’t that
Adam and Eve were sexually promiscuous. It wasn’t that Adam and
Eve did some sin -- got drunk or something like this. It was that
Adam and Eve just decided to do without uncreated life. That was it.
They just decided to go it on their own, to live independent of God.
You see what
resulted. Their lives began to be dominated by the needs that God
would have fulfilled for them. You can see it there in Genesis 3 why
they went for knowledge at all -- why they wanted more knowledge. It
wasn’t just to be able to bring the world under submission to God’s
will. They went to knowledge for one purpose -- to fulfill their
needs that they would have had fulfilled by the Creator.
Genesis 3:6: “So
when the woman saw that the tree was good for food.” Man began to
realize that he had to use his knowledge to get food, and his life
began to be dominated by his physical needs. He had to give all his
time to getting food, shelter, and clothing.
Don’t you see that
hundreds of us today are trying to get over the crest of the hill?
Isn’t that right? We’re always saying, “Ah, just one more week
and I’ll be over the hill. Yeah. Just one more deposit in the
bank account and we’ll be over the crest of the hill. We’ll be
able to forget subsistence living.”
But it’s amazing
how many of us in the richest country in the world are still
preoccupied with going for food, shelter, and clothing. It happens
that way because we don’t have uncreated life. If the Holy Spirit
of uncreated life was flowing into us we would find that life would
take on a right balance, and God would begin to fulfill these things
in us.
I don’t mean that
we would live off society. God has taught us here in the body: if a
person won’t work let him not eat. But we do mean that if you
receive the uncreated life of the Holy Spirit into you, suddenly life
begins to work smoothly and the right way. It’s not that life
outside meets no obstacles. But it’s that life inside suddenly
begins to flow with a smoothness that is supernatural.
That was God’s
plan -- that we would receive that uncreated life of the Holy Spirit
inside us and it would make the mind, and emotions, and the will, and
the body work in complete harmony. So your life would begin to find
its needs fulfilled.
You find the next
reason: “And that it was a delight to the eyes.” From that
moment on when man decided to live with just created life, he began
to be dominated by getting things that were a delight to the eyes.
He wanted to enjoy himself all the time. He lacked any emotional
satisfaction for his emotions. That’s what happens when you try to
live life with simply created life. You begin to be dominated by a
desire to fulfill your physical needs, your emotional needs, and your
mental needs.
You see what
happened to man’s mind: “And that the tree was to be desired to
make one wise.” It was God’s desire that the Holy Spirit would
flow through us and that the mind would be used to work out his plans
in deductive detail for the universe. Instead of that, man turned
his mind round into perversion, and he began to use his mind to get
one up on everybody else. He lacked the approval of God so he had to
start using his mind to get everybody else’s approval. Isn’t it
true that so often our educational establishments are not involved
much in a pursuit of truth?
You know that
graduate schools and faculties are dominated by the old piece of
advice: publish or perish. You have to publish something new or
you’ll perish. You’ll be off the faculty, or you’ll lose any
gain that you’ve made with your doctorate. It seems that the mind
began to be perverted after man refused the uncreated life of God and
he began to use the mind not to discover truth, but to get one up on
everybody else.
And isn’t it true
with ourselves? So often we use our shrewdness or our cleverness to
get round people, or to manipulate people, or to change circumstances
so that they’ll go our way. That’s the resulting situation that
has come about by refusing God’s uncreated life.
Now do you see that
the big thing Jesus came to give us was that uncreated life? That’s
why Jesus came to the world. He came not to die for our sins
primarily. The only reason he died for our sins was that God could
not give his uncreated life to anyone that had sinned. So Jesus died
for our sins so that God would be free to give us this uncreated
life. But the real reason Jesus came to the world was to give us
this uncreated life of the Holy Spirit that makes life run right.
That’s what Pentecost last Sunday was all about.
The life of the Holy
Spirit is not all about tongues. Don’t you see that? It’s not
all about tongues, or about a whole lot of emotionalism. Sometimes
it brings emotion. Sometimes the Holy Spirit brings gifts. But the
Holy Spirit is here to give us the uncreated life of God. That’s
the difference between Christianity and all the other religions. The
Holy Spirit is Jesus’ successor. Jesus did not leave us alone.
That’s what he
says plainly in John 16:7: “Nevertheless I tell you the truth: it
is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the
Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.”
Now the Holy Spirit
is Jesus’ successor. It’s as if Jesus made a will when he died
leaving to us all the power, and the life of God himself. But the
Holy Spirit is the executor of that will, and we cannot enter into
any of the benefits of that will unless the Holy Spirit makes those
benefits real to us.
The Holy Spirit is
Jesus’ successor. You can see the difficulty under which many of
us who are Christians have fallen. We have believed that Jesus died
for our sins. We have really repented of our sins and given our
lives to Jesus. But we have thought that from this moment on we
ought to try to obey Jesus as best we can.
You cannot obey
Jesus on your own. What Jesus wants us to do is to receive the
person that he has sent to us, and treat that Holy Spirit as the
disciples treated Jesus himself, with the same sensitivity, love, and
respect. But you know that many of us who call ourselves Christians
are just miserably dead human beings. We have no sense of dynamic in
us at all, because we have no sense of a living person inside us --
because we have not taken seriously what Jesus said: “Listen! If I
go I will send the Holy Spirit to you.” Do you see what Jesus said
about the Holy Spirit? “The Holy Spirit will take of the things
that are mine and he will impart them to you.”
Now it’s the Holy
Spirit who makes Jesus real to us. I used to sit in audiences in
something like this on campus in Ireland and listen to some boy
describing all about the Christian life. And he’d describe it in
glowing terms and it sounded great. Then I went home and I tried to
make it real and it was just a miserable mess. I decided the guy is
just exaggerating. He’s just full of a lot of poetic illusions and
exaggerations. It isn’t real or true. Because I never realized
that there was a real supernatural person who could make this stuff
real to me in a deeper way than I could ever perceive it with my
intellect. Do you see -- that’s what Jesus means about the Holy
Spirit?
The Holy Spirit will
come and make the things of his life real to you. You may know
nothing about the love of Jesus, or the love of God, or the joy of
God, or the peace of God. Even though you’ve been a Christian for
years, you can’t know it unless the Holy Spirit makes it real to
you.
I’ve used the
illustration before. You all go out, and while you’re out I put
all the big masterpieces of the art world round the walls of the
theater. I put The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci, The
Crucifixion, Return of Marcus Sextus, St. John of the Cross -- all
the great masterpieces around the walls. Then, I turn the lights out
and I bring you all in and I say to you, “Aren’t those beautiful
paintings? Aren’t they beautiful art work?” And you say, “I
can’t see a thing. It’s dark.” Do you see it’s the same
without the Holy Spirit?
People can talk
about the beauties of God. They can talk about the greatness of the
Christian life, and you can be a poor old soul who has been a leader
in the church for years, or you can be a young person who did all the
things that a young person is supposed to do in their church -- and
none of it has become real to you. You’ve heard about it all but
there is not light. Only the Holy Spirit can take of the things of
Jesus and make them real to you.
Do you see that it
wouldn’t matter? The atmosphere covers the earth, about 125 miles
thick I think it is. It wouldn’t matter if there were 125 miles of
atmosphere. Nothing would grow if there was no sunshine. Now it is
so with Jesus. You can build Bibles, and New Testaments, and
gospels, and ideologies of Christianity 125 miles thick over the
whole earth -- and if there was no Holy Spirit none of it would ever
become real to anybody.
We don’t need more
knowledge. We’re up to here with knowledge. We hear it. We turn
on the radio and we hear knowledge about God. We read books and we
read knowledge about God. We go to church and we hear knowledge
about God. What we need is revelation. We need someone who will
please make all this real to us. That’s what the Holy Spirit does.
The Holy Spirit is the uncreated life of God. He flows into you,
and he makes all this real by revelation deeper than your intellect
or your emotions would ever understand it.
What does the Holy
Spirit do? He takes Jesus himself and makes him real in your life.
For instance, he takes the love of Jesus, and he makes that real in
your life by a miracle. Now a lot of us misunderstand that. A lot
of us think, “No -- you have to practice love. You have to work up
love inside you. You have to govern your minds so that you begin to
love.” You’ll produce “philia” love like that -- love of
brothers for brothers, or you might produce “eros” love like that
-- sexual love -- -- but you will not produce real divine love by
working it up inside you.
The only way you can
experience love is the way God said in Romans 5:5 -- the Holy Spirit
sheds abroad in our hearts the love of God. One of the things the
Holy Spirit does when he comes into us fully is he fills us with the
love of Jesus -- with just a supernatural love. It’s described
there in 1 Corinthians 13:4. This is the kind of love that the Holy
Spirit gives: “Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or
boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its
own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at
wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes
all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”
Now do you see that
you could put Jesus’ name in place of the word love? Jesus is
patient and kind. Jesus is not jealous or boastful. He is not
arrogant or rude. He does not insist on his own way. He is not
irritable or resentful. He does not rejoice at wrong but rejoices in
the right. Jesus bears all things, believes all things, hopes all
things, endures all things.
Now you can tell
whether you have received created or uncreated life inside you by
putting your name in place of love. That will tell you whether the
uncreated life of the Holy Spirit has come within. So can you say it
about your relationships with your brothers and sisters, with your
dorm mate, with your roommate, with your husband or wife or children?
Can you say these things? “I am patient and kind. I am not
jealous or boastful. I am not arrogant or rude. I do not insist on
my own way. I am not irritable or resentful. I do not rejoice at
wrong but rejoice in the right. I bear all things. I believe all
things. I hope all things. I endure all things.”
The Holy Spirit
takes the love of Jesus and makes it real inside you by a miracle.
So do you see if you can’t put your name there you don’t start
trying to imitate a child of God? You don’t try to imitate one who
is filled with the Holy Spirit. You simply go to God and say, “Lord
God, I’m not like that. I agree with those virtues but I myself am
not like those. I am often impatient. I’m often irritable. I’m
often bad tempered. I’m often resentful and filled with grudges.
I’m not like that. Now, will you show me how I come into an
experience of yourself?” But do you see that is the approach?
If you wanted to
talk like me you could imitate me for a while but it’d get sort of
boring and rather tiresome. The only way really to speak like me is
to be born of an Irish mother. Maybe you’re glad that you weren’t
born of an Irish mother. But do you see it’s the same with God?
The only way to have those things in your life is to allow the Holy
Spirit to fill you completely. The answer is not to go back to a
life of struggling.
See, it’s silly if
you go out of the theater this morning and say, “Yeah, I want to be
that -- but I’m not that. But I am a Christian. So I’m going to
try harder.” No, the only reason you’ll try harder is because
you’re second, not because you’re first. And the only way to be
first is really to be born of the Holy Spirit and filled with the
Holy Spirit. When the Holy Spirit fills you with himself, he imparts
to you the love of Jesus. He imparts to you the purity of Jesus.
A lot of us brothers
in this ridiculous unbalanced society have real trouble with our
minds and with controlling the minds and controlling the thought
life. Brothers, do you see that that’s a miracle that the Holy
Spirit works within you? He imparts to you the purity of Jesus’
mind. It is a miracle. He makes the purity of Jesus’ mind real
inside you. The Holy Spirit takes the patience of Jesus and makes it
real inside us.
The Holy Spirit
takes the forgiveness of Jesus and makes it real inside us. Many of
us are incapable of forgiveness. We think forgiveness is wiping out
the memory of the face of the one who offended us. That isn’t
forgiveness -- that’s a bad memory. But real forgiveness is
receiving the person back into a relationship with yourself as if he
had never done anything against you at all. Now that can only happen
when the Holy Spirit makes the forgiveness of Jesus real in your
life.
In other words, do
you see what we need is the uncreated life of God? And if you don’t
have that uncreated life of God flowing through you freely, you’re
like a person who is trying to run a high compression engine on
regular gas. It is hopeless. The thing is pinging like mad. You
know it in your own life. If you’re trying to run the mind, and
emotions, and the body, and all the challenges of life on uncreated
life -- you’re just making heavy weather of it. You’re just
fighting it all the time. Trying to control that old mind with the
wrong thoughts; trying to control those emotions from getting
irritable at her; trying to control the feelings from losing the
temper. You’re at it all the time trying to get it to go because
it doesn’t come naturally.
Do you see there’s
only one way to make it natural? That is to allow this uncreated
life of God to flow into you and make you like Jesus. Now that’s
what the Holy Spirit is all about and that is what Pentecost is all
about. There isn’t one of us who can do without this kind of life.
How do you enter
into it? Well, it’s really easy. It was explained clearly by
Peter on the day of Pentecost. People came up after he had preached
and said, “Now what must we do?” And then in Acts 2:38: “And
Peter said to them, ‘Repent, and be baptized every one of you in
the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you
shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.’” So that’s the
way. The Holy Spirit of uncreated life flows into you whenever you
do what God, through Peter, said.
Now you may say,
“Ah, I’ve done that. I’ve done that. I’ve often repented.
Indeed, I repent every day of my bad temper. I repent continually --
but this has not happened to me.” Do you see that there is a
repentance that you have never, ever dealt with at all in your life?
If you’re having trouble with bad temper, or with irritability, do
you see that the repentance needed there is a “metanoia” -- a
changing of your way of living for yourself?
You get bad tempered
because you’re living for yourself. We get bad tempered because we
think things are getting out of our control and we think the bad
temper will pull them back in, because we believe we are in charge of
our own lives and can do whatever we want with them. That’s the
kind of repentance that is needed if you’re having trouble with the
old bad temper.
It’s a repentance
that is deeper than just stopping the thing for a day and then doing
it again the next week. Repentance means that you stop doing the
thing that you’ve been doing for years. That’s real repentance.
Not only feeling sorry, not only crying, not only resolving to do
better next time. It’s not remorse or regret. Repentance is you
stop doing the thing.
In the case of a
thing like bad temper it’s just not repenting of the bad temper.
Do you see that? Do you see there’s something very shallow in
saying to God, “Oh, sorry I lost my temper again.” And a week
later, “Sorry I lost my temper again.” If you really feel that
temper is putting a sword into Jesus’ side you’ll want to find
out what causes that bad temper. You know that the reason we lose
our temper is we feel we have a right to control things the way we
want them. We lose our temper to try to get them back under our
control.
The reason we have
grudges and cold wars with each other is to try to bring the other
person back to heel like a dog, because we feel we have the right to
control our life, and to control every other person that we come into
contact with. Do you see that repentance means repenting of that
desire to be God in your life and in everybody else’s life?
Then it goes a bit
further: “Be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ
for the forgiveness of your sins.” Too many of us have got caught
up in all kinds of self-righteousness.
I was a Methodist.
I’m not for infant baptism, but we were taught it in seminary and I
didn’t know much better at that time. I agree with you that on the
whole adult baptism is the practice in the New Testament, but I think
that many people allow their children to be baptized as infants not
because they believe they’re becoming Christians at all, but just
because they feel they’re receiving them into the company of the
friends of Jesus. However, leave that aside. Do you see that many
of us get self-righteous about baptism? Many of us who are Baptist
say, “Yeah, I’ve been baptized. I’m baptized by immersion and
so I’m a real child of God. Yeah, I lose my temper but I’m a
child of God because I’ve been baptized. Yeah, I do get irritable
or resentful. But I’m glad that I’ve experienced scriptural
baptism.” Now do you see it’s not right to argue on that
superficial way about baptism? Nor is it right for us Lutherans and
Methodists to argue the other way.
Do you see that the
heart of baptism is deeper than that? You remember Paul explained it
in Romans 6:3: “Do you not know that all of us who have been
baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were
buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ
was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might
walk in newness of life.”
That’s what
baptism really means. The reason many of us have not been filled
with the Holy Spirit, the reason many of us have entered into half a
Christian experience, is we know our sins are forgiven, but we have
no experience of uncreated life flowing through us, and controlling
us, and imparting to us the qualities of Jesus -- because we’ve
never really been willing to be baptized into Jesus’ death.
Do you remember what
Jesus’ death meant for him? He was hanging on the cross. For one
thing, he was only facing one way. On a cross you can only face one
way. In Jesus’ death he faced only towards God. He cared nothing
about himself, nothing about what people were thinking of him,
nothing about what they would do to him. He cared only for God.
Being baptized into Jesus’ death means that. It means dealing with
the other things that we live for: the money, the success, the
happiness, the comfort, all those things.
I know they’re all
necessary. We get round it by saying, “Oh, but those are
necessary.” They are necessary, but it’s not necessary to live
for those above God himself. And to be baptized into Jesus’ death
is to face only one way, towards God -- irrespective of what happens
to all the other things that would normally be added onto us.
On the cross Jesus
had no future. Another hour at the most, but no future. Being
baptized into Jesus’ death means dying to our own futures.
Do you realize that
you and I get irritable more often than not because we think someone
is destroying our plans for our future? Isn’t that right? Why do
we get irritable over discussing the vacation with her? Why do we
get irritable when the parents or the children disagree with each
other about something in the future? Usually because we feel we have
a right to control our future. That’s why we get irritable. We’ve
never really died to our future. We’ve never really handed it over
to God. We say, “Lord God, we’ll do anything for you as long as
you give us a minimum level of subsistence.” But being baptized
into Jesus’ death means dying to the future.
Then on the cross,
you remember, Jesus was between two criminals. Two men that were just
ordinary criminals -- thieves. So he had no reputation. He was not
the mighty Son of God on that cross. Everybody looked at him and
thought, “He’s just a criminal.” On the cross Jesus died to
his reputation. He died to what anybody thought of him.
Now that’s what it
means to be baptized into Jesus’ death -- to die to what our
friends think of us, to die to what our parents or our relatives
think of us, to die to what anybody thinks of us. Then when we’re
really ready to die to self with Jesus in those areas, the Holy
Spirit is able to flow into us completely and fully and make real in
us the uncreated life of God. That’s really the miracle life of a
Christian.
Why do I share it?
Because I think a lot of us have put Pentecost into the church
calendar, or into emotional southern churches, and have failed to see
that many of us, though we’re good believers and believe the
orthodox doctrine about Jesus dying for our sins and have even
repented of our sins, and have even been born of the Spirit – many
of us have not gone the whole way and really taken part in Jesus’
death and really identified ourselves with him in his death.
Therefore we have no experience of identification with him in his
resurrection. Therefore, we have little experience of uncreated
life.
Uncreated life has a
power in it that is beyond anything that we experience in psychology.
It is just a different supernatural kind of life, and it’s God’s
plan that we should experience it.
So if you’re
reading this and you’re saying, “Well, yeah. I’d really like
that.” Do you see what you need to do? Acts 2:38 -- you need to
really repent. Really repent of the real causes of the things, not
just the symptoms. Then really ask the Holy Spirit, “In what way
have I not died to self with Jesus? In what way have I used Jesus’
name continually, but not been prepared to die to self?” As the
Holy Spirit shows you -- then enter into it yourself quietly, and
allow the Holy Spirit to fill you. He’ll fill you with the very
life of Jesus. And it’s just a different kind of Christian living.
It’s just an
effortless, victorious life. It’s a freedom from that old, “The
good that I would I cannot do, and the evil I want to avoid -- that’s
the very thing that I do.” {Paraphrase of Romans 7:19} It’s just
a deliverance from that kind of defeated Christian life and it is
God’s plan for us.
So will you think
about it, and would you act on it as God guides you? Because really,
there’s no point in going half of the way with God. Half of the
way is worse than no way. I think many of us have felt that at
times. But going the whole way with Jesus’ death brings his
complete resurrection life inside us.
Let us pray. Holy
Spirit, if you see any of us here this morning who are making due
with created life and as a result are living an up and down kind of
Christian life, Holy Spirit, if you can see some of us here who are
living for something other than God, then we would trust you to make
that clear to us now this morning. And Holy Spirit, we want to know
exactly why you are not able to fill us with yourself. Please show
us where we are living for ourselves, and are not willing to die to
ourselves, as you died on the cross. Show us where we are unwilling
to live only to God, and to die to our own lives and our own futures.
We ask you to do this, and to bring us the uncreated life – the
very life of Jesus – that you wish to bring us. Amen.
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