Open—D. Rule, P. Jennings
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325.
Verse three says we wait for these without in here at one our hearts affection 325.
We wait for.
You.
I don't know why.
You're getting it in the end of the day. You're all over the tree and everything.
Turn with me, please, to Genesis chapter 3.
Genesis chapter 3 and verse.
22.
And the Lord God said, Behold, the man has become as one of us.
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To know good and evil.
And now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the Tree of life, and eat and live forever, therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the Garden of Eden to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man, and placed at the east of the Garden of Eden cherubims and a flaming sword, which turned every way to keep the way of the Tree of Life.
It's a very sad day in the history of the world.
God had placed this creature, man on the earth and made every provision for his happiness and his joy, and for fellowship between God and man.
And had come down in the cool of the day to enjoy is the one that he had given a spirit to that they he might know God and God could communicate and share with him.
But as we know, Adam and Eve had disobeyed and brought the sentence of death upon themselves.
And while there were tests, that came later for man.
From God's perspective.
The race of Man.
Was finished.
Very early in its history.
The race about him had no future except that.
Very painful thing for God.
And uh, yet in his holy character here, we see he drives the man out.
From Paradise and further than that, he bars him from access to the Tree of life.
He had death threatened upon himself, and he's now barred from any opportunity that he might have in himself to gain access to the Tree of Life.
In the condition in which he was, God could not righteously have him partake of that tree.
But that is, uh, a little background. You'll see why later. Turn with me now to Psalm 40.
Psalm 40.
And verse 7.
Then said I Lo, I come in the volume of the book. It is written of me. I delight do thy will, O my God.
Yeah, thy law is within my heart.
We know these words speak prophetically of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And the Lord Jesus came into this world.
With life he came into this world with a life that had existed from all eternity. He came into this world with eternal life in his being.
And here as a man in this one verse.
Eight, we see that life in its perfection.
As it would be lived on the earth.
Two things characterize it.
The first is.
As a man, man is to do the will of God.
Adam and Eve had lost their lives by disobedience to God's perfect will when he.
Gave them the prohibition of not partaking of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Here it says in the first of the two sentences or parts of this verse, I delight to do thy will. Oh my God, that's that's perfect life.
Here's a man as a man.
Who found his pleasure?
In doing the will of another of God.
I delight to do thy will, O my God. The only thing that would have been almost intolerable to the heart of the Lord Jesus is if there had been something that would have.
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Enabled him.
Stopped him from doing the will of God.
It wasn't.
Onerous to him, and that is it. It wasn't a problem to him, to his heart.
In every single circumstance of his life to.
Do the will of God. He found his pleasure in that.
The second that's connected with it here, it says thy law is within my heart.
I believe the sense of that is this.
I'll illustrate it this way.
You can take a father and a mother and they have a young child and, uh, they train that child to obedience.
And uh, so when mother, father says do this or don't do that, the child is an obedient child will do it or not do it.
But the very fact that the child requires that kind of teaching and training is due to the fact that the child has a will of its own.
And so it has to be trained to submit its will.
To the authority of its parents.
But don't do. This is something that restrains.
That will that may be present in the child that might otherwise do that.
God had a perfect will for man, and it was expressed to teach man something in the law.
And so man was given the law, and he was told certain things he was to do and other things he was not to do.
Don't steal.
Why? Was there any question about it?
Because there was a will in man that, without the restraint of God, may have chosen to steal.
And so God set forth that which was consistent with himself, God being righteous, and gave him this statement. Don't do it.
This little expression concerning the perfect life of the Lord Jesus says, Thy law is within my heart.
That is.
Every single thing that God required of man under law was already perfectly consistent with this life of the Lord Jesus.
When it said don't steal, he perfectly wanted not to steal even before that prohibition was there.
He really, if I could put it this way, he didn't need a law.
Thy law is within my heart.
Don't you wish you were that way?
Perfectly.
That every single desire of your heart.
Was to do the will of God.
And whenever that will of God was made known to you, that is exactly consistent with what your heart would desire.
That's the life.
That the Lord Jesus lived among us on this earth.
In connection, one more passage in connection with his life that we find in Isaiah chapter 50.
Teaches us a little bit more about the character of his life.
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Isaiah chapter 50 and verse 4.
Again, these are words which.
Present the Lord Jesus to us.
In a prophetic way.
Lord God Verse four Isaiah 50 Verse 4 Lord, God hath given me the tongue of the learned.
That I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary.
Awakeneth morning by morning he waketh us. Wakeneth my ear to hear as the learned.
It's been said, and rightly so, the Lord Jesus had no will of his own.
He, His will was perfectly expressed through the will of the Father, is of God.
But we also noticed something else about the Lord Jesus here that's important, and that is.
The always and ever.
Waited upon.
Instruction from God for every step of his life.
Every single morning, I believe of his life, he got up morning by morning to hear.
To receive.
Instruction for the day, for his life.
Perfect life.
Actually an eternal life.
That was being manifested, as in manhood, in the place which he had taken as a man.
Would you like to be like that?
Did we practice that in our lives this morning? Did we get up this morning to hear?
From himself.
For our day, in every detail of it.
Umm, let's turn over to averse in second.
And Titus I think it is.
No, it's not just a moment.
Yes.
Titus found it. Titus, chapter one.
And verse 2.
In hope of eternal life, which God, which cannot lie promised before the world begins.
Not the emphasis. So we'll just make a few remarks rapidly here.
Lord Jesus had his interest in you and I, His desire for you and I before the world began and, uh.
God in response to that desire.
Gave us.
Individually to the Lord Jesus.
Because we have in John 17.
But here we have something else in connection with that that was determined before the world began.
God said to his son, Son, I promise.
That we will give to those that I give to you your life.
Eternal life.
You just heard a description of that life.
That's your life.
You as a child of God.
Have a life.
But the lights to do the will of God.
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That does seek direction.
As to how you are to go, you do have the law of God written in your heart.
We find that we'll come back to it, perhaps.
Uh, but just I wanna refer to one verse in first John chapter 5 connection with that life.
The Epistle to 1St John is a five chapter description of the life we've been talking about very briefly.
And umm, at the end of that outline of the life that has been given to us, uh, wanna notice one point in connection with it?
Verse 18 of chapter 5 We know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not.
But he that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one, that Satan touches them not. And we know that we are of God in the whole world, lieth in wickedness, or in the wicked one.
The life that has been given to you is a life that Satan can't touch.
Because there is absolutely nothing in that life that responds to Satan or to lust of any sort.
That's your life.
That's your life. That's my life.
Satan can't touch that life because there's nothing in that life that responds to Satan.
That's one of the characteristics of the life.
That you and I possess in Christ.
Now turn over to John's Gospel, Chapter 15.
To get just to where we wanna get to I wanna read the very end of verse 11, the Lord Jesus speaking to his disciples here and he says to them that your joy.
May be full.
His desire for them was we've had joy before us this weekend was that their joy be complete, be false.
So to that end, to that purpose.
He says to them prior to that statement.
Verse 9 As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you. Continue, ye and my love.
If you abide in My commandments, you shall abide in My love, even as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in His love.
These things I have spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.
We often rightly speak of the Lord Jesus as a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
His life was full of grief and sorrow because he lived in a world full of sin and the great sensitivity of his love.
Constantly being exposed to the effect of sin upon mankind gave him a life of sorrow.
And, uh, constant need to be occupied with grief. And he felt it when he went out to the grave of Lazarus. He wept.
As he saw what sin had done and the effect it had brought upon a person he loved.
But that doesn't mean that he was not also a man of joy.
His first state said.
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Here it says my joy.
My joy.
The Lord Jesus in his perfect life.
Found Daily Joy.
In doing the will of God.
I delight, as we read in Psalm 40, to do Thy will, O my God.
There was a constant positive pleasure.
In his soul.
To do the will of God.
That was his joy.
As I say, I'll say it again, The only thing that, if you might say, might have robbed him of that joy was if something had happened that would not enable him to be able to do the will of God.
That's your life.
You sit in this room with that light.
Engine given of God.
And the Lord Jesus here expresses to his disciples, and he would express it, I trust to you this afternoon if he were physically present and would say to you, I want you to have that joy in your daily life.
I want you to experience that joy as I experienced it.
And so to get on, if you will, to little to the practical side of it.
He first of all outlines a couple of things that are essential to having that joy.
The first one that he says.
Continue in my love.
I continue in the Father's love.
Each day of my life. And if you're going to have that joy, you too are going to live, if I can put it this way, in the sunshine of my love for you.
I want you every day.
To consciously know my love for you and live in it.
He also says here.
Keep my commandments.
And you shall abide in my love.
If you don't keep my commandments, then we can't have fellowship in that. And you won't enjoy my love to you, you won't continue in it.
This joy.
Is inseparable from obedience.
Lord Jesus, life was one of perfect obedience as a man.
And.
We have already seen his life, that he delighted in obedience, and this points out the essential importance of that.
Obedience, but he also mentions commandments.
We can illustrate it in his temptation.
For Satan.
Satan presents three different temptations to the Lord Jesus.
And the Lord's answers all begin with three words, at least in some of the passages that present them.
What are those first three words that he responded to Satan in every instance?
When presented with something that would take him out of the will of God.
Which would have him do something that would be disobedience.
To his Father's commandments or God's commandments.
It is written.
It is written.
Our lives.
Our eternal life that's in US is to be lived by those 3 words.
It is written.
Every activity of our lives.
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Alright, I think I would say at least from practical side of it.
It's impossible to live the life without feeding on the word.
It's the food of the life.
It is written.
Thy word.
Just the food on which we feed. We had lunch, we had breakfast, most of us I suppose, and so on, and anticipate supper is the food of our natural lives.
The life that's been given to us takes food as well, and it's it is written and here the Lord Jesus.
He is saying to his disciples, I want you to enjoy.
He then goes on on the matter of law and, uh, part of his command is love one another.
Lord Jesus came into this world with a law that perfectly loved every man that he ever met.
Lord Jesus never met a man in his life that he didn't love.
Every single soul, including Judas.
Was loved intently and personally by the Lord Jesus.
He has given you a life that loves every single person that you meet.
You'll never meet a man. You'll never meet a woman. You'll never meet a child that you don't have a life that doesn't love that person.
That's fine, and it's the life that brings joy.
I'm not gonna go too much on the other side of this matter, which is very, very important and was brought out in yesterday afternoon in Romans Chapter 7, particularly in chapter 6 as well. So I'm not gonna repeat that. I'm not trying to say something to counter that at all.
It's absolutely vital and important what we had yesterday afternoon.
The difficulty we have is that we still have the deadline.
In US and it's in conflict with what we said and our experience. We experienced that conflict and it's real and it can be very depressing and all the rest of it, but it's it's important to see the life we have and enjoy that aspect of it. I just want to add a few more remarks we said yesterday and it's I believe the truth of God, the power.
Of the life that we've just described this afternoon is by the Spirit of God.
But I wanna say a little more about that.
As was mentioned yesterday afternoon, it's very easy for us to try to think about the power in the way of we control it.
We do not.
The Spirit of God is not controlled by us and is not subject to our control.
We are to be controlled by the Spirit of God and subject to that control.
But I would just like to make a few remarks into the manner in which.
The Spirit of God works with us in power.
And they're not things that we associate in our minds with power, but they are, they're tremendous power. The 1St is given that I'll remark on and we won't take the time to turn to it, uh, in Rev in Romans chapter 8.
And the the Spirit witnesses to our spirit that we are the children of God, and we cry ABBA Father.
That's a work of power.
The Spirit of God working in our life gives us the conscious realization that we're God's children. That's the work of the Spirit of God in US.
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Taking the Word of God and the statements of the Word of God, the Spirit of God makes it a conscious reality.
That we say Father.
And we live in the sense of that relationship that is maintained as a work of God.
And so that's one aspect of it.
That the Spirit of God works for us.
The Lord Jesus and John with respect to the Spirit of God said I'm going away, but I'm going to send.
I'm gonna use the word the scripture says comforter. I'm gonna use the word life manager.
I think it gives something of the sense of it.
It's not comforter in the sense of when you're saw when you're all those Spirit does help us in that, but it's not the primary idea that when you're sad, the Spirit of God came to make you feel happy or to comfort you in your sadness. But it has more the sense of one that will direct the affairs of our lives for us because we're not capable properly of doing it ourselves. And so one of the ways that we need.
Provision for is we need understanding and knowledge of things, and so he's called the spirit of truth.
And one of the ways that the Spirit of God works in power in us, I'll illustrate it by something I appreciate, Gordon Hayhoe said at Otter Lake many, many years ago. He said, if you say something and I'll say in a meeting like this, he said, and someone else says something that's not in agreement with it, don't contend about it.
No, my thoughts, right, He said. If they can't both be consistent with the truth of God. He said the Spirit of God and each person is the one that will give affirmation to their soul of what was the truth.
Not you.
That's a tremendous work of power of the Spirit of God in your life and mine. The Spirit of God works in our lives that when we are exposed to truth.
The Spirit affirms that's true, and when we are exposed to error, the Spirit of God does not affirm it.
Thank God for that work of the Spirit in US.
In addition to that, the Spirit of God works.
To guide us into truth.
Brings the Word of God to us.
And gives us the understanding of it. That's a work of power.
You can find people that are the most intelligent people in the world and they can open this book and it makes no sense to them.
They have no idea what it means.
But you can take a simple believer in the Lord Jesus Christ and they can read a word of scripture and the Spirit of God says that's what it means, and they can respond properly to it. He shall guide you into all truth.
A little illustration of it to my own heart was that I saw that, probably heard me say it before, but there was a place in England and they were having a group of people together. I don't remember for what reason, but some very accomplished Shakespearean actor was present, and someone on that occasion suggested that he read to the audience the 23rd Psalm. And he did.
Beautiful rendition of words, I suppose.
There happened to be present at the same gathering a rather humble man, not very educated.
And someone asked him to read the same Psalm, and he did.
And it had a totally different effect upon everybody present. And, uh, what the actor had been able to do was put totally in the shame shade, if you will, with what this humble, I think it was actually a shepherd, uh, Don. And someone said to the actor, why did what he have to read mean so much different upon us than what you read? And he said because he knows the shepherd.
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He knows the Shepherd.
That's the work of the Spirit of God.
To help us to know the Shepherd, to know God through his living Word.
And uh, consequently to direct and I suggest to you it's a mighty work of power we find in also in Romans chapter 8.
It says the spirit of health, the Spirit itself helpeth with our spirit, Uh.
Uh, and things that we can't even express.
I'll just put it this way. The Spirit of God works in us in a way that we can't even be conscious of.
Helps us in our affirmative.
But God has said the Spirit never occupies us in in his his work in us with ourselves or himself either. We don't consciously say, oh, that's the Spirit of God doing that in me or something like that. That's not the way Scripture teaches us. And consequently, you might say in that sense, we're not conscious of the working of that power and it's not intended that we be so.
But it is that work.
Which and one other aspect of it.
When we're obedient.
The Spirit of God brings us joy and fellowship with God.
When we're disobedient, our fellowship is broken, and then the Spirit of God works in us to occupy us with that which is hindering that fellowship, so that we would recognize it, judge it, and that enjoyment of abiding would be umm.
Restore.
Thank God for the Spirit, brethren, because without it.
We would never get back to fellowship once we send.
We would be never in ourselves. He restoreth my soul, and it's a work of the Spirit of God to produce that in US. It's a work of power.
And it's a needed and blessed work of God. Well, there are other things too that could be added, but.
It's the perhaps the positive side of that which lifts us out of ourselves to live the life in spite of the fact that we do have in us that awful thing called sin that's been condemned and is in constant effort to bring us down in the other way.
But nonetheless, let's enjoy.
I'd like to add two more thoughts re regarding the Spirit of God. Enjoyed so much what Don brought the course and have just remained in the same chapter that he was in in Romans 8.
Umm, Romans 8 and verse 9. Something that is meant a lot to my soul.
And uh, just wanna since we just haven't met it or two here, just like to share it with you.
Umm, Romans 8 and verse 9 says that ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit. It should be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the spirit of Christ, he is none of his.
It's really instructive here how the the Spirit of God.
Umm.
Starts with the Spirit of God and ends with the Spirit of Christ.
And the the subject of Roman Romans 8 is the is the power of our new life.
And that is the Spirit of God.
But the effect of the spirits working in our life produces the spirit of Christ.
And so how important it is for us.
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I speak to myself.
To allow liberty for the Spirit of God in our lives.
Because if he has liberty, then what is going to be produced from our lives will be the Spirit of Christ.
And that is the only thing that can bring God any glory at all.
Is for our lives. Display the glories of the Lord Jesus. And as Don was saying, that is a wonderful, powerful thing for us to be able to display despite who we are and ourselves.
Despite how we may fail.
The Spirit of God has liberty.
Price is gonna be seen, His Spirit is gonna be seen. So that's the effect of the Spirit of God in that verse. We turn over to 1St Corinthians. There's another very similar verse that I've enjoyed in First Corinthians chapter 2.
What was going on here in Corinth?
Was.
There was something hindering the Saints of God.
And it was the spirit of man.
They didn't understand.
That they had their eyes on man.
And one was saying I am of this man, and another was saying I am of that man.
And what was resulting was division.
And Paul, in his love for them, he instructs them in a way which which turns their eyes away from man, and he places himself in that same.
Place of get your eyes off of me.
Chapter 2 He's Speaking of the importance of, not what he said or how he said it.
He gives, he speaks to them of the importance of the teaching of the Spirit of God.
And he says no man. It says in verse 11, For what man knoweth the things of man, save the spirit of man which is in him. Even so, the things of God knoweth no man.
But this but the Spirit of God, so he's diverting the attention of these believers that have had their focus taken away from Christ and their focus shifting to man and what was possibly palatable.
About each one of those servants of God they were starting to.
Be attracted to men. They were starting to decide, well, this man has this certain quality and I like that certain quality. So I'm going to I would like to associate myself with that person.
The apostle Paul says, you know, I came to you and I spoke to you.
But I just preached the cross. I just sat before you how the cross has.
Taken man out of the picture.
And.
Set Christ before you, and you haven't learned anything because of me. You have learned that which is of God because it's the Spirit of God that knows the things of God.
And if the things of God have been communicated to you, it is because the Spirit of God has communicated them to you.
And that's the way it is. That's what Don was telling us.
That if we sit here this this this afternoon and we've taken in the things of God.
It's because there is a power that has been given to us. Who knows God?
He, he has his spirit, he understands the things of God and it's, that is the only reason why the things of God are ever communicated to us is because they're communicated to us by the Spirit of God. I'd just like for us to look at verse 16.
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This says, For who hath known the mind of the Lord?
That he might instruct him. But we have the mind of Christ. We learned in Romans 8 that the Spirit of God produces the Spirit of Christ in each one of us. That's the only reason. That's the only way that Christ can be reflected through your life and mine is because the Spirit of God produces the Spirit of Christ and us.
But this verse speaks about the mind of Christ.
How do you and I?
Come up with the mind of Christ.
While the Spirit of God is the subject of this chapter, First Corinthians chapter 2 Spirit of God is the subject of this chapter. And if you and I.
End up knowing the mind of Christ.
Is it is because of the activity of the Spirit of God?
What a wonderful thing it is to think, you might say, to think as he would think, the mind of Christ. I know there may be other thoughts with regard to these things. I have a tendency to see things in rather simple ways.
But.
I I can't tell you how encouraging it has been to me to understand a little bit of the importance of the Spirit of God. You know, sometimes we feel like we.
We, we, we just don't know very much or or we don't know how we're gonna, we're gonna make progress in our souls what we have the resources.
That are limitless.
We have limited unlimited resources in the Word of God and in the Spirit of God to teach our souls to give us both His spirit and His mind.