Address—Don Rule
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Again, our meeting this afternoon by singing together.
#18 in the appendix, but before we sing it, I would like to read a couple of lines out of the hymn that we began with yesterday afternoon at the address.
Yesterday afternoon, the song that was sung to begin was #330 which begins with these words. What raised the wondrous thought?
Or who did it suggest?
Oh God, the thought was thine.
In #18 in the appendix it says verse stanza one Father of glory thought beyond all thought. Comment I want to make about those two statements is this.
It's a whole lot better.
For us to get God's thoughts than to be occupied with our own. And so it would be my prayer and yours this afternoon that we would be listening for God's thoughts as they concern Him, His Son and us, rather than being occupied with our own.
Because the source of all good thought is God. I don't know that any of us could lay claim that we've ever by ourselves apart from.
Truly getting the root of our thought from God. Could say I had a wonderful thought that God never had.
So let's sing #18 in the appendix together.
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We just sang some words.
And those words to me say some things that I find absolutely beyond me amazing.
That are in give me God's thoughts.
The very first words we sang were.
I shall be like thy son.
It's something I thought.
That's not your thought.
It's the thought of God.
God's thought is that you and I shall be like his Son.
You would never have thought of that. I would never have thought of that.
But that's God's thought for you.
That's God's thought. That's God's purpose for you personally, intelligently.
I God, I'm going to make you put your name in there like my son.
You know, we could stop right now and sit for an hour in silence that each one of us might truly let sink in that simple statement which is profound beyond belief.
Really.
I God, it's my thought that you are going to be like my son.
In addition to that, the song if you look at it this way.
The Lord Jesus says, as it were, God, that's your thought concerning the people sitting in that room in the Sheraton Hotel.
And I'm going to work with you that it be so.
That's going to be the fruit to use this morning's expression from the.
Reading, meeting, that's the purpose that I have to make those people in that Sheridan room like my son and the Lord Jesus, the Son of God says we'll work together.
And I will do what's necessary with you. That that be the end result.
It's pretty nice to be in this room.
To have God think of us that way, and when he thinks something, he has the power to make it happen. So it's gonna happen.
Let's begin.
With a verse or two in Luke's Gospel chapter 3.
Luke's Gospel, Chapter 3.
And verse 21, it says, Now when all the people were baptized, it came to pass that Jesus also being baptized and praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon him. And a voice came from heaven and said, Thou art my beloved Son.
In thee I am well pleased. Or is the new translation reads in the.
I have found my delight and Jesus himself began to be about 30 years of age.
OK, before comment let's go back to chapter.
UH-2.
Chapter 2. Verse 10. And the Angel said unto them, Fear not.
For behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.
For unto you is born this day in the city of David, a Savior.
Which is Christ the Lord? And this shall be a sign unto you. Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a Manger. And suddenly there was with the Angel a multitude of heavenly hosts, praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace, goodwill toward men.
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Or.
Is the Darby translation presents the last phrase using the footnote in it?
Glory to God in the highest and on earth. Peace, good delight.
In men.
Thoughts before?
Me, I trust of the Lord. This afternoon began with the word my.
We're all pretty familiar with the word Mike.
It's a pretty common word in scripture. I decided that I was going to look a little bit into it with the help of a online concordance and I found the word my occurs over 3000 times.
In the scriptures.
I could you could sit this afternoon and take out a pencil and paper and find a lot of fill up, probably quite a bit of space if you were asked to list things that you could put the word my to.
My house, my car, my job, my education, my neighborhood, my country, my whatever.
My friends, my family and you can make a long list.
Of things that you call my.
My interest I was in going through the Word of God was not things that the Bible tells me have become mine, wonderful as some of them are, but I was more interested in the things that God calls His.
So perhaps you could take out a pencil and paper and make a list of the things that God calls mine.
I suspect your list would be shorter.
The second one, then your first one.
Maybe not.
But God takes personal possession or uses that word my with respect to certain things associated with Himself.
He talks about my land, my city, my glory, my people.
And so on.
But in looking at that list.
When I got to the first one that.
We read this afternoon because.
My my beloved son.
In whom I have found my delight. It was a mountain's peak.
All the things that God speaks about as mine.
It seemed to me it struck my soul immediately that there's one that's above all others.
My beloved son, in whom I have found my delight.
It's so wonderful to God.
It's so joyous to God. It's such a delight to God.
That is his thought.
That you find your delight.
In the same thing that he finds his, and that you find it your supreme delight, as he finds it his own.
He's willing. He wants to share with you now, today, tomorrow, next week, and forever.
The same he wants you to experience with him that which he finds to be his. I want to say supreme delight in what he calls mine.
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But also.
Consider this.
The second place we read.
When Jesus was born into this world.
Host of angels got to see their creator for the first time ever.
And they were delighted.
They found some shepherds. They wanted to share the joy that they were having and being able to see their Creator for the first time.
In the one that had just been born.
But they say.
What they thought about it as they saw that site. What would be your thoughts if you were an Angel? Well, they tell us what they thought. They looked at him as having come into this world, that babe.
And they say, glory to God in the highest on earth, peace good, delight in man.
Can I put it this way?
God chose to find his personal joy, his.
Personal delight.
In math.
He had perfect supreme delight in his son. And now his choice, his thought is, I'm going to find my pleasure, my joy, my delight.
I look this afternoon.
On a small sample of.
And it's a pretty awesome thing.
To think that I'm standing here looking at what God has chosen.
You, you, you personally sit in your seat.
As the object of God's pleasure.
Is that a good thought?
Is that desirable on your part? I think so. I hope so.
That you sit here this afternoon.
The object.
Of God, that he looked upon his son and found his delight in his son. And so this afternoon he wants to say to you, I find my delight in you.
And his son?
Says the same.
We won't turn to it, but if we went back to Proverbs chapter 8.
It says of him, the son.
My delights of himself, he says. I was daily his delight.
That is, he had the conscious sense from eternity that.
Speaking in reference to time like we can. We can't speak totally in reference to eternity because we don't understand it yet, but he speaking in a way we can kind of relate to God says the Lord says I was daily his delight.
Rejoicing always before him, and my delights were in the sons of men.
The habitable parts of his earth.
He has a conscious sense of being the delight of his father. He himself had delight in you and me.
And if I could put it this way, the two team together.
To do work.
That that purpose and pleasure in you and me will be so perfect.
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That eventually they will be able to say all of us now together enjoy one another.
With the same delay.
Isn't that a good future? Isn't that a good present?
To have the consciousness in your heart and mind that the Father, the Son and you.
And I are to jointly enjoy one another today, this afternoon, yes, tomorrow and forever.
On the way down here.
Pass through, Uh, people know me. No, I tend to meander on back roads getting somewhere if I'm not in a super hurry. And so we were coming down by back roads.
Through a little town in Illinois and there was a nice sized billboard the edge of one of these little towns and it said this among other things, we all start small.
We all start small.
I would like to trace with you.
The early life of the Lord Jesus.
And see how this one who is first presented to us as a babe is.
Who becomes what is called in the new translation in the chapter.
And it's called a child. He is, it's not mentioned here, but we know we progress on in scriptural language to be youth and from there to adulthood.
God wants to find his delight and will eventually, if not perfectly now.
In you, but presently he's working so that you grow in a way that he can find his pleasure in you.
You know, we won't take time to go back there, but it was referred to the in the reading this morning.
Where Israel and Isaiah chapter 5 was is talked about as a plant from which God wants to have fruit.
And in that chapter he refers to her as the plant.
Of my delight.
That is, he planted her with the desire that he could find his delight in her.
But sadly he has to tell us he couldn't do it.
He wasn't able to find his delight in her as she was.
He did everything he could.
But he had to say ask the question, what more can I do?
What more can I do to the plant of my delight?
And yet it was not at that point, and in that way he was unable to receive it. So I would say to you and to me, let's not make his job unnecessarily hard. Let's respond to the workings of God with us to bring us into that.
Practical conformity to his son that he can find a full measure of delight in US.
We look here in.
Chapter 2.
And it says in verse 16 they came in haste and found Mary and Joseph and the babe lying in a Manger.
And when they had seen it, they made known abroad the saying which was told them concerning this child.
Verse 19 But Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart.
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And verse 21 and when 8 days were accomplished for the circumcising of the child.
His name was called Jesus, which was so named of the Angel before he was conceived in the womb.
And.
Verse 22 and when the days of her purification.
According to the law were accomplished, they brought him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord.
There's the Mother and the Father of Jesus.
My thoughts were primarily to look at the child and to.
Compare the child to God's work with us. But this morning in the prayer meeting.
Umm.
There was something prayed which brought before me a thought.
It's probably the most humbling thought I've ever had in my life about the thought of being a parent.
And raising children. And so I'm going to share that along with what had been my thoughts up to that point.
So some of these remarks are going to refer to you who are mothers and fathers.
Here's a mother.
Who had the responsibility with the father?
Of being the mother.
With the responsibility to raise.
The child, the babe, Jesus.
What if you mother or?
Father had been given that responsibility.
What if you had been called personally to have the responsibility of raising?
The Babe. Jesus.
Here's the mother that had that responsibility.
And she wasn't different than you in kind.
She was a child of Adam.
Oh, we would say wonderful. Blessed it was, it was.
But think of it in the responsibility side.
Mother. Father.
You have the responsibility of raising a child.
To be in adulthood the delight of God.
That's your responsibility. That was hers.
Is that humbling? It is to me.
And I think back over my parenthood days.
What is the first thing really that she does?
We read it.
It says verse 22.
She brought him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord.
Perfect example isn't it for a parent?
Lord, here's my child. I present him to you. Not when he's 10 or 15 or 20 or about 30.
But a babe from the womb just delivered eight days old.
Presents him.
Tremendous responsibility to raise this child for God.
As she was to do and her husband with her. And so she starts right out and she presents him.
To the Lord.
It says.
Verse 33 after.
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Simeon has made some remarks concerning the child, the babe.
It says in verse 33 Joseph and his mother marvelled.
That those things which were spoken of him.
Is there not reason for a mother and a father to Marvel?
That God has such a purpose for your child.
That he wants him to be like his son.
Pretty awesome responsibility, I think. Pretty humbling responsibility.
She marvels at what God purposes.
That she has heard from another concerning her child.
So should we.
We should marvel.
As we see, maybe they're not all our own in this room, but there are babes in this room.
Or have been babes if they're not here at the moment.
Just little banks.
To be made like Christ. And so it says, she marveled.
So verse 39, when they had performed all the things according to the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their own city, Nazareth.
Verse 40. Then the child grew.
And lack strong in spirit, filled with wisdom.
And the grace of God was upon him.
This is normal proper child growth.
For a child of God.
The child grew.
And we see if we looked ahead for a moment at the rest of the chapter, we we'll get to it little by little. We see them when these words are said. He's not yet 12 years old.
Not yet 12.
This is child growth.
He grew, He waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom. The grace of God was upon him.
Later.
Verse 42 When he was 12 years old, they went up to Jerusalem.
And then after that we find him after 12 years of age, verse 52. He's still increasing, he's still growing.
As a perfect person in this world.
These are words said about him, not in the sense of his Son of God.
But as Jesus.
Child and as a child, even if we can't fully understand his person as we cannot as both Son of God and as Jesus.
Person we can recognize Scripture is presenting to us the growth, his growth in this world as a child.
I'd like to turn back in connection with the 40th verse. The child grew and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom in the grace of God was upon him to the first chapter of Proverbs.
We'll come back here.
Proverbs, chapter one, verse one The proverbs of Solomon, the son of David, king of Israel.
To know wisdom and instruction. To perceive the words of understanding. To receive the instruction of wisdom, justice and justice, judgment and equity. To give sub subtlety or prudence to the simple to the young man. Knowledge and discretion. A wise man will hear and will increase learning, and a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels.
To understand the proverb in the interpretation, the words of the wise and their dark sayings.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction. My son, hear the words of instruction of thy Father, and forsake not.
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The law of thy mother.
The child waxed strong in spirit.
The Spirit is that part of us that is God conscious.
And the number one beginning.
Point of growth.
In a child of God has to do with their relationship to God.
In the God conscious part of their being.
And here's a child, a babe, really. A little boy.
That from the very beginning, his mother and his father were bringing him into that sense of his relationship to God.
Tremendously important.
I can't say it without thinking when I said it. The very first conference I can ever remember being at in my life, and I was a preschooler.
Saint Louis.
Probably most of you weren't there at that conference.
But this the first conference I ever remember in my life being at was here in Saint Louis when I was a preschooler.
I thank God that my mother and father.
It meant enough to them to bring me.
Into the presence of the Lord, that I might.
Have my spirit connected with my God.
Child, but he became strong.
And that first beginning of life.
It also says in where we are reading, he waxed. He was filled with wisdom.
This is not speaking about him as Son of God.
This is speaking about a child.
Who started small?
But these first verses of Proverbs say the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, and later on in Proverbs it says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
The foundation of God being able to have delight in US.
When we have become children of God.
Is that God have his right place in our hearts.
And other things flow from that.
This child.
As it says.
Was filled with wisdom. That's the beginning of it.
To have a sense in my heart of my relationship to God and the importance of it and how I felt with God.
Here's a little boy that was filled with that.
I don't know how old you are.
We're not talking in these matters, only the mothers and fathers who have biologically young children.
We're talking about our Christian lives too, and there might be babes in this room that were saved last year. And you're a babe, spiritually speaking.
You have to grow.
Whether we're saved at 5 or 10 or 50, we start out babes and we gradually grow. And at whatever biological age we are, when we accept the Lord Jesus, one of the very first things we want is to give God His right place in our thoughts and in our hearts.
The fear, that is the reverential respect that we give to God.
Is going to determine how we see things and how we live, and if that's not right, nothing else is going to develop properly.
I say with some sadness, I've seen young people among about properly can be called gathered Saints whose head knowledge far exceeded their heart knowledge and when they got tested as young people, they didn't do very well.
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Because what they knew up here had not gotten down here in the heart, which is the true place of knowledge. Scripture doesn't talk about this as being the important spot of knowledge. It's the knowledge of the heart. And sometimes the knowledge of the head gets ahead of the heart, and it's connected with not truly accepting the fear of the Lord, and it has its consequences.
So it then says.
The grace of God.
Was upon him. There was a sense in this child that God was for him.
Tremendous important thing to learn.
Right at the beginning of life, spiritual life, Is it gods for me?
Just because he's for me. Because it's in his heart toward me.
To have that sense, no matter what God's forming.
And the child Jesus had that.
Let's go back for a moment. You can keep your finger here. We're coming back to Proverbs chapter 2 in a moment. But if you want to go back to Luke chapter 2 again.
We find as it says in first.
42 And when he was 12 years old, they went up to Jerusalem after the custom of the feast, and after the feast they start home. Verse 45 they realized Jesus is not with them, and they turned back to Jerusalem, seeking him. And they came to pass. After three days they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors and both hearing and them and asking them questions. And all that hurt him were astonished at his underst.
And answers.
Here's a boy, 12 years old.
He's making progress in his life as a child.
Here he is asking questions of those that are older than himself.
And he's growing by it.
Turn back to Proverbs chapter 2.
Proverbs chapter 2, verse one. My son of thou wilt receive my words, and hide my commandments with thee, so that thou incline thine ear unto wisdom, and apply thy heart to understanding. Yeah, if thou cryest after knowledge.
And lifted up thy voice for understanding. If thou seekest her as silver, and searches for her As for hid treasures, then thou shalt understand the fear of the Lord, and find the knowledge of God. For the Lord giveth wisdom, and out of his mouth cometh knowledge.
And understanding.
This characterized this boy.
He valued what came from God.
And he wanted to learn.
Because he valued it.
He sought it, you know.
I doubt not.
That the words that we're reading this afternoon, this boy read.
As a child.
I'm quite confident personally that the words we're reading.
Jesus, the boy read before he was 12 years of age.
He listened.
He learned.
He asked questions, he was asked questions, and he responded to questions asked of him.
He sought.
He laid it to heart.
These words were written 1000 years before he was born.
But he wanted to know God's thoughts.
You want God's thoughts.
Are they important in your life?
Where are you going to get them?
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Where are you gonna get them?
He wakeneth my near morning by morning to hear.
Says prophetically of him in Isaiah 50.
He could say to his Father, I delight, Father was to find delight in him. He could say of his own, I delight to do thy will, O my God.
Did you and I delight this morning to get up?
To open God's thoughts.
And read them.
Because we want to know them so that we can have the joy of doing them.
This boy did.
This boy did.
We might listen, you might listen to what's being said to you or you say here this afternoon and they may be things are in the reading or at other meetings. It won't always be perfect.
When it's man's thoughts mingled with God's or man's understanding.
Here's Jesus the boy reading Proverbs given by Solomon 1000 years before he was born.
And he I doubt not.
Recognized, because he had the rest of the Old Testament to read, that he could look at this man Solomon's life, and he could have said quite rightly, Solomon, you didn't follow your own instructions.
You said this, but you did that at a certain point in your life. Did he say, well, can't follow that man? No, you can't follow that man. But God's thoughts were given to that man.
Are you going to follow what God gave him, or are you going to make excuses and say, well, you know those people, they're not perfect. I'll have to find some perfect people or I'll have to follow my own ideas? No, Jesus didn't do that.
He didn't reject what Solomon said because Solomon's life was not perfect.
But he recognized it was God speaking.
And he grew by it. He valued it.
Facts, Chapter 3 for a moment, and we're going to come back to Proverbs.
Proverbs. I'm sorry, Luke chapter 2 and verse 51. Umm.
Verse 50 They understood not the saying which he spoke unto them, and he went down with them, and came to Nazareth, and was subject.
Unto them. But his mother kept all those things in her heart.
True mothers, isn't it fathers too? Sometimes after a while, when your kids start to grow up, you just ask the question. I don't understand them.
In one way or another. And they might say I don't understand you too in one way or another, But did that stop the pattern of growth? No, it did not.
Mary was not a perfect mother.
Even herself.
But the experience, she grew by it. The child grew by it.
She pondered it in her heart. She learned by it.
He says verse 40.
Wish ye not that I must be about my father's business. He's 12 year old boy. But by the age of 12, one who has been growing will start to express their own thoughts. Given from God we trust.
And not accept everything that's simply given to them by mother and father or other influences like at schools.
You might say they start to think and act a little on their own and that's proper. That's proper normal growth.
But at the same time.
Proper normal behavior is he was subject to his parents.
A word to you that are maybe teenagers here this afternoon and I was there once.
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Sometimes, as teenagers, we tend to speak and all the confidence of our own lack of understanding, of our own ignorance.
We may think we know it all.
And what our thought of knowing it all is only an expression of our ignorance at that point in our lives. The Lord Jesus doesn't wasn't to know it all as.
He was still growing, listening and being subject.
It's the perfect wisdom of God to grow spiritually.
For each one of us.
So it says in verse 52. And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man.
Turn back to Proverbs chapter 3.
Proverbs chapter 3 and verse one. My son, forget not my law, but let thine heart keep my commandments.
For length of days, and long life and peace shall they add unto thee. Let not mercy and truth forsake thee. Bind them about thy neck, and write them upon the table of thine heart.
And directly related to the verse in Luke. So shalt thou find favor and good understanding in the sight of God.
And man.
Just give emphasis.
How do we keep it?
Where do we keep it in the heart?
Let thine heart keep.
Write them upon the table.
Of thy heart.
The truth that's going to control your life is that which governs your heart.
And if your heart is governed by something other than God's thoughts and God's thoughts for you, you're going to experience the consequences of it.
And so there can be periods.
Of discipline.
Or Jesus did not have to go through that.
Because He didn't resist. He was the perfect child. But you will find that if you resist God's purpose for you to find His delight in you, that you will go through the experiences necessary to bring you to submit.
And.
If you do, you shall increase in wisdom and structure and in favor with God.
Unmanned.
Paul said to Timothy, Be given to these things that you're profiting appears to all you know, sometimes it's pretty obvious when you find a person growing spiritually.
It they may not know it, sometimes I hope they don't. They're better off many times. As it says in the proverbs, be not wise in thy own eyes. Don't go around with the idea I'm pretty smart.
I've got it all figured out. You're not, if you think that way, pretty smart, because you haven't got it all figured out. The Lord Jesus, from the first day of the baby and when he became old enough to express his own will until the last day of his life, submitted himself perfectly to somebody else's thoughts and will, not his own.
And we see it.
His favor?
With God.
And as a growing up child, his favor with man, he increased in wisdom and stature and in favor with God.
And man.
So it says where we started in chapter 3 verse 23. I'll just reread it. You don't need to refer to it. Jesus began to be about 30 years of age.
Just like to make this comment, we passed briefly with a few glimpses of the life of a person that was growing spiritually.
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And the things of God is a perfect man.
What was it to God?
For those 30 quiet years to watch this boy, this babe become a boy, to become a youth, to become a man we know from scripture he had brothers and sisters to interact with.
We know that he followed his father in becoming a Carpenter, undoubtedly learning the trade of being a Carpenter from his father. And so he went about everyday life.
But isn't it nice to think that every day, in every circumstance of that life?
God was able to watch him grow.
And find pleasure.
And delight in that light. Nothing recorded for us about it. Normal, everyday human life.
And yet, for the eye of God, it was a pleasure to watch that light.
Your life may be very ordinary from first maybe to last. It may not be anything in the eyes of men.
But it does that mean that your life, in its everyday character, lived out, perhaps very quietly?
From man's eyes.
Is not to be a daily joy to the heart of God. It is. It is. And God wants to see in you each day a little bit of maybe not, you're not conscious of it necessarily, but a little bit of that same pattern of growth.
So that when the end of the work is done.
And it will be done at the moment you go to glory. Let's hope that the change on the last day or the last moment doesn't have to be too big.
That the work has gone on to the point where each day you might say God, with less reservations about certain things, can find more and more pleasure in your life. And when the final change, when the flesh is taken out of you.
And you are, because you already have your life. That's not going to change. You're not gonna go to heaven and have a different life than you have right now. If you're the Lords, you already have a perfect life. Life of Christ is your life. May it not be to God's pleasure that each day as he looks at you, he sees more of His Son and you.
Christ, who is our life, and so.
As the non Christ things drop off, as there is that pattern of growth, then He will be able to have His satisfaction. And I say to you the measure in which it's taking place, you too are growing. In finding your joy in exactly the same things that God finds His joy in, you find your delight.
In exactly the same things that the Lord Jesus is finding his delight in today.
Is it not important is this day, when it comes to its clothes, that there might be the thought in you that the Lord and I enjoyed the same things today? That God and I enjoyed the same things today?
That there not have to be some little bit of your day that.
They couldn't participate in.
That you had to, although you wouldn't do it. That's why you say sorry, Lord, but I got a few of my own interests here. I'm going to put yours aside, and there's a few things on the Internet right now that I need to see that. I know they're not your things, but you know, that's me.
Don't go there.
If you can't bring the Father's joy, the Son's joy, into it, leave it alone.
Wherever you go today and your thoughts, your heart, your eyes.
Say, father, son, let's do it together.
And find our joy together.