Living Faith

You Are Part of Jesus Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill It seems that all of us have been brought up right from the beginning and indeed, it’s something we have shared when we have been together these years, with the idea that first and foremost we are separate individuals. You know, you’re your dad’s daughter, I’m my dad’s son, and we’re individual human beings. And if we read the Bible, and believe truth, and give our life to Jesus, and repent, then we will enter into Christ and he will enter into us. It seems to me that’s the idea we’ve all had and certainly, the way I’ve shared it over the years. And of course, what we’re all realizing these days is that’s not strictly true. It isn’t true. In fact, reality is that God kind of turned around to his Son and said, “Let us make man in our image.” And then what the Bible says is true, that we are therefore God’s workmanship created in Christ Jesus. Ephesians 2:10, “For good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” And that back then before the world was, Jesus was the first-born of all creation. He became the Son of man back then and his Father made all of us inside him. And what we used to learn in our schools about Wordsworth where in his poem Intimations of Immorality he says, “The child is father of the man,” you remember. And he said, “We come trailing clouds of glory.” And in actual fact, that’s truer than we used to think it because, we each have been made in Jesus and we are part of Jesus. And Hitler was made in Jesus and was part of Jesus, and everything that any of us does is done as a part of Jesus, as a cell in Jesus’ body. And of course, that all comes out very strongly in that chapter, if you want to look at it, that deep and complex chapter in Ephesians 1. You can see it makes sense of it all when you begin to think of it like this. You remember, Paul says, Ephesians 1:3, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.” Has blessed us you know, “Even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.” So you know God planned for us and for our lives in Jesus even before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him, “He destined us in love to be his sons through Jesus Christ”. It even says that, you know, that we are going to be God’s sons and we are God’s sons and daughters because we’re part of Jesus. It’s through Jesus. It’s as if Jesus is our everlasting Father and it’s because we’re in Jesus that we’re God’s children. “He has destined us in love to be his sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace which he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.” So it ties up again with the whole truth that we read that God put us into Jesus even before we were born. “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace which he lavished upon us. For he has made known to us in all wisdom and insight the mystery of his will, according to his purpose which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.” And so it fits in with that whole presentation there that we actually came here to earth as part of our Savior Jesus, that we are part of him. That he is the great human being and all of us are just little parts of him and we are men and women because we’re part of the great Son of man himself. And of course, you see the relevance of that, it’s not that you’re your father’s daughter, you know, or I’m my father’s son. That dear person, and they are dear to us, you know, our dads, or our mums, our grandparents, that dear person was just our elder brother in Jesus. Jesus is our great elder brother but our dads, or our mums, or our grandparents, or our great grandparents were just our elder brothers or sisters through whom God brought us into physical existence here on earth. Actually we ourselves are part of Jesus himself. We are part of him. Even whether we have been to church, whether we know him, whether we believe in him or not, we are part of him and the only reason anyone will miss heaven is not because they are not part of Jesus but because they have refused to remain in him. They have refused to dwell in his harmony. They have refused to dwell in his peace. Do you see why people ask the question, “who am I?” Because, we’ve all been brought up with the idea that we’re our father’s son or our father’s daughter and that’s not real. And the way we know it’s not real is because they die. They leave the earth and then if they’re the meaning of our life where are we? You know, you’re left with nothing. So we’re always asking “who am I?”, because we’ve been brought up to believe that we’re first and foremost our father’s daughter or our mother’s son. We’re first and foremost Irish, or American, or Polish, or German. We’re first and foremost a little human being on its own here on earth and maybe by some spiritual miracle we might become part of Christ, but at the moment we’re just a little bit of flotsam or jetsam, a little bit of waste wood floating on the ocean of humanity and we wonder who are we? We have no anchor, we have no stability and the reason is that we’ve missed the whole of reality. We are an integral part of Jesus. When the Bible says, “You are the body of Christ and individually members of it,” the Bible means that you are part of Jesus. Who are you? You’re Jesus. You’re part of Jesus and our whole life is in him and he has himself things to do, he as the great son of man has things to do in his Father’s world using not this finger, not that finger, but that finger, and that hand, and that foot, using you, you as part of him. But you know that we haven’t really believed that and we haven’t really acted that way and of course, the great danger now is that we’ll kind of grasp it as truth and we’ll say, “Yes, that’s right. It’s a new way to think about it but it’s right and it does fit in with scripture. Yes, that is truth. We must begin to recognize that.” And the danger is that we’ll turn reality into a kind of belief, it’ll be a concept that we try to remember and we’ll end up somehow talking about this dear person of whom we are a part. We’ll start talking about him as an it, you know, or a thing. And I touched last Sunday on the danger we have, you know, of bandying about his name, “Oh the Lord does this, the Lord does that,” or, “I wonder what the Lord wants me to do?” And we’re talking about ourselves, we’re talking about our own dear heart, the one of whom we are a part. And the danger is that now we kind of grasp it instead of living in it’s reality, we’ll treat it as a kind of belief, you know, or a piece of theology, or a piece of dogma instead of actually living in him, living in him wholly and fully and entering into the reality that it is him that has this hand, and him that has these lips so that we’ll never again live apart from him, live that lie that thinks it’s apart from him. It’s very dangerous for me to begin to give examples because then you know, your mind can kind of go on the example and can kind of think, “Oh yeah, well that’s what we should be careful to do,” or, “This is what we should be careful to do.” And so it’s a little dangerous to do it but our prayer is his prayer. You know, the bit in Hebrews where it says, “He ever lives to make intercession for us,” and he intercedes. In fact, his spirit groans within us and intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. Well our prayer is the prayer that he is praying. Our prayers are not, “Lord, dear Father, I want you to do for his sake what I am asking,” or, “Hello God, remember Marty Poehler? Well now his difficulty is this, he is this, and this. Now, will you do that for Jesus’ sake?” You can see the unreality of it, you know, it’s unreal. We are part of him. We are part of our Savior. Our Savior prays through us, says, “My dear Father, here,” and then whatever he says, but that’s the reality of our prayer life. And then when we come together you can see what bursts upon you. It’s not the glory or the magnificence of Saint Peters in Rome; it’s not the wonderful gothic columns of the Reims Cathedral. It’s that we are Jesus. Our Savior is us. Everything we do here is in him. If I speak sharply to you, I have to cut through his dear flesh to get at you. If I think critically of you, I have to tear a blood vessel in order to do it. Then, all of our life becomes holy, and sacred, and sensitive because my lips are stopped. Who am I? I’m part of Jesus. I’m in him and he is in me and he’s all around me. It’s not a very good illustration. An odd time, just an odd time, so it says a lot for our verbal dexterity, but an odd time we can – Irene and I can come to a point in a discussion, or a disagreement where what can you say? There’s nothing left to say so you can only put your arms around each other. It’s that, you know. You come to a place like Thomas where it’s beyond words, where you realize you’re in Jesus and Jesus is in you, and he’s all around you, and you’re life is him, and this is his life, and words fail you which is why I think the quiet times in prayer are not bad. They’re not necessary, they’re not absolutely essential but they’re not bad because there’s a certain power of reality that leaves you speechless. So, in a way you can’t go much further because if you give illustrations of what it’s like to live actually in Jesus as opposed to living beside Jesus, or what it’s like to realize that you’ve been in Jesus from the beginning as opposed to trying to get into him by exercising enough faith, as you go on in illustrations, then you get preoccupied with the illustrations, or with the individual expressions. So you can’t really go much further. About all we can do is say that that is it, that we are not separate little human beings, we are part of Jesus and of course, we can see some of the beauties of it because it means you’re with the king of the castle I suppose, or you’re in the midst of the one that’s running the party, all those wonderful things. But maybe the most precious thing is that he and you are like that and that that’s what life is. You and He are like that, you’re in him and he is in you every moment and then our – not our place, not our responsibility, not our duty, not our obligation, not all those terrible words, but our great privilege, and joy, and delight is to live every second in him because we are in him. And maybe I could just say that, before I think at times we’ve said, “Our responsibility is to live in him, if you live in him strongly enough then you’ll be in him.” Well no, it’s better than that, live in him because you are in him. Any other kind of life is unreality. And of course, that’s why – that’s why anxiety brings gloom. It’s God’s graciousness. He’s saying, “I’m sending you gloom so that you see you’re living in unreality. You’re in my Son, you’re safe and secure from all alarm, don’t be anxious for a moment. I’m sending you gloom so that you’ll know you’re living in the lie. You’re living the lie.” So often we interpret it, “Oh, he’s sending us gloom because we’re not doing what we should do, or we’re not being real.” No he’s sending it to you to say, “My child, you’re part of my Son. I made you part of him out of sheer grace. I saw the way you would go and I destroyed that way in him and I remade you in him, and you’re here on earth now in him complete and well and I have allowed you to see through this glass darkly the life you would have lived if you hadn’t been in him. So you’re seeing that life all the time daily, but your real life, the life that I have given you is in him.” Do not be anxious for anything, what you’ll eat or what you’ll drink, or what you’ll put on. Your heavenly Father knows you have need of these things. So, all through life any strain that we feel at all is just a love message from our Father saying, “That’s not it. That’s not reality. You’re in my Son and will I refuse any good thing to you who have already given you my Son? No.” So every second of our life is here to be lived in reality in Jesus and him in us and that changes everything. Let us pray. Dear Lord Jesus, you walk through this universe majestic and mighty, serene and full of your Father’s love and though we are little cell 10,000,456,579 yet you know us and you love us and you could not live without us, and we share all the riches that you have from your Father and especially your life fresh and springing up and pouring out. Oh Savior, we turn from that lie that we are poor little individual human beings born of our parents, little orphans who might be adopted by you if we believe the right thing. Father, we turn from that lie and we believe Father, the truth that you’ve plainly set forth that out of the great love with which you have loved us, even when we were yet sinners, Christ died for us and even when we were yet sinners you made us alive in Christ Jesus and raised us up, and made us sit with you in the heavenly places that in these coming ages, through which we are passing now, you might show forth the riches of your grace and kindness towards us in Christ Jesus. For we are your workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works which you have prepared beforehand that we should walk in. Lord, we thank you for that. And we, Lord Jesus, bow to you and ask you – we don’t need to ask you, we say, “Lord, live as you now do in us and we will remember that, and we will allow you to be the great subject of every action in our lives in these coming days.” Now may the grace and peace of God be with us now and forever more. Amen.

A Living Sacrifice Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill I awoke early this morning with some words that were in my head you know, and I believe that God puts them there. They were the words in Romans: “a living sacrifice — present your body a living sacrifice” and I immediately thought, “Oh, that’s what Jesus did. Right in the middle of his life, in a sense — at 33 when he was young and full of agility and aliveness — he presented his body a living sacrifice.” I mean, that dear body that was healthy and was well able to live another 40, 50 years was sacrificed on a cross and cut with a spear, or a sword, and nailed into with nails. He willingly presented his body a living sacrifice for our sake. And it seemed to me — you know the way in those moments in the twilight hours either before you wake or before you go to sleep when everything seems very vivid and God seemed to make it very clear to me — that that was a living sacrifice. It was a sacrifice in that – and I always think of sacrifice where either rightly or wrongly in connection with those animal sacrifices — it’s something that involves the destruction of something that is living, alive and whole. In some way, it’s the throwing away or the casting away of something that is valuable. And so when I thought of Jesus, a living sacrifice not a dead sacrifice, not killing the cow and then burning it, but burning it as it was still alive. And suddenly all the terror of that and the completeness of it came home to me, “Yes, that’s what it was, it was a living sacrifice.” And I actually had got as far as “present his body a living sacrifice” and I realized that that’s what he did. He presented his body, a youthful, live body full of strength and life and health — and he presented it as a living sacrifice. He willingly gave up his whole body that was in good shape and could live a lot longer. He gave that up as a living sacrifice. And then it seemed to just burst upon me what was the full verse from the Bible? And of course, you can look it up yourself, Romans 12 I believe it is, and you can see how strongly I felt I should speak on this because I haven’t even looked at it this morning since God showed me these things or emphasized them to me. Romans 12:1, “I appeal to you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” “I appeal to you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” And I think another translation is, “…which is your reasonable service”. And then it came home to me so strongly that that’s what God was saying actually, “I appeal to you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God,” all the mercies that you and I have received from God, you know. I mean, we sitting here in this room can easily see the sunshine outside and the beauty of the azaleas and the flowers, but then we can think of the good brunch we had, and we can think of the nice table we sat at, and we can think of each other, friends, closer than friends, people who love us and care about us, and we can think those are mercies from God. And then we think of our cars, and how much better they are than they were maybe five years ago. And then we think of the motels we stay in, not the bottom of the heap by any means, and we think of our meals that we have, and we think of our clothes that we’re wearing, and then we think of the holiday that we talked of -– “Will we go to France, or will we stay here in America, or will we go to London?” And then you think – I was saying to someone, “You know you think of so many people today who are full of insecurity and uncertainty about the future and wonder what they will do. For example, somebody who had to sell their store. What would they do? How would they exist?” And many people wonder how will we see our way through even to death? And of course, here we are with a family that cares for us and with a future that we know is in the Father’s hands. We can even see some of the ways in which it will work out ourselves. And then you think of the mercies of God. You think of so many people who do jobs that they don’t like and they see no sense in. They’re doing it only to keep themselves alive. You think, “Here we are with something that we believe in, something we see purpose in and something we see that could have eternal results” — and we begin to realize that we’re surrounded with mercies. But then of course, that touches nothing of the real mercy of God that we who have been so filled with selfishness, bitterness, criticism, despair, hopelessness, lack of belief in people, distrust of others, distrust of God, desire for our own way and all kinds of things that we’ve inflicted upon other people in order to get our own way, we see that we deserve nothing but death. And yet, we have not borne one iota of pain for any of those things. Anything that could be called pain, certainly nothing of eternal pain, nothing of eternal darkness and desolation, nothing of, “My God, my God, why has thou forsaken me?” And we will bear none of it, after the moment of death, when we should be cast out into a darkness of space that drives us crazy and insane with worry and with anxiety. You know, they say many people in a plane crash die of heart attack, sure shock as the thing begins to break up. And we won’t bear any of that the moment after death. We’ll immediately go into our Father’s arms. Why? Because, a dear person has borne that for us, has borne us in himself through that dreadful time of desolation and has borne us through to his Father’s home. So it’s as if somebody else has borne the strength, the power, the agony, and the exertion of the journey and we find ourselves at the destination without any trouble — and you realize the mercy of God. Why did he do that? Why did he give us freedom and then himself bear the cost of us exercising that freedom against him? Why did he do that? Just out of shear mercy. So Paul says, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, by all the things that you’ve received, all the things that you’ve got, all the experiences you have, by your very present situation, by those mercies, I beseech you [what?] to present your bodies a living sacrifice.” What does he mean, “Give your body to Jesus as a living sacrifice?” Regard it no longer as your own, no longer as yours to do what you want with and as something that is living. Please, give it while it’s alive. Present it as a living sacrifice. Don’t wait until it’s old and worn, or until it’s dead and in the grave. Present your body as a living sacrifice to God which is your reasonable service, or which is your spiritual worship. So either way you know, when you talk about worship or service, here’s the only way to do it: present your body as a living sacrifice. That is something you regard is gone, something you regard as gone. It’s gone. It is not mine. It is not mine to do what I want with. It is not mine to treat as I want. It is not mine to exercise as I want. It is not mine to speak or to write as I want. It is his to do what he wants with. You can do the application to yourself. I’ll happily do it to myself. It is not mine to determine, “Would I like my greens or would I not like my greens?” It is not mine to ponder, “Would I like chocolate or not chocolate?” It is not mine to ponder, “Will I have Thousand Island dressing or Italian dressing?” It is not mine to ponder, “Will I have another shortbread biscuit or not?” It is not mine to determine, “Would I prefer this to eat or that to eat?” Above all, it is not mine to allow gluttony to drive my actions. I don’t know about all of you, but I see more clearly what gluttony is. I don’t think, for me, it’s eating so much that I grow massive because I don’t seem to grow too massive. Gluttony it seems to me is that little drive that gets going where you just eat this, and eat this and eat this. “Chocolate chip cookies. I eat chocolate chip cookies or shortbread biscuits. I just eat, eat, eat.” It’s almost a compulsion inside that makes you want to do that. I can see that gluttony is kind of a drive that is almost even independent of myself. It’s certainly independent of the Savior but it’s almost independent of myself. It’s almost a thing that goes, “I just want to have that TODAY.” Or, “I most have that.” I see that presenting my body as a living sacrifice is, of course, being free from all those things because you give it away. You give it away. It’s no longer my body. It’s no longer my body to kind of cosset and to nurture, and to soften, and to surround with all the little things that it wants. Similarly, it is not my body to say, “Will I broadcast today or will I not broadcast today?” “Will I write today or will I not write today?” “Will I exercise today or will I not exercise today?” It is a sacrifice, a living sacrifice that I’ve given away to Jesus. And actually, I can see in a sense that that solves a lot of the problems because you don’t have to deal with all those little details. It’s simply a cut and dry business of, “What, Lord Jesus, do you want to do with this thing that is yours”, not, “…with this body that is me or mine.” And it just came home so strongly to me early this morning that it is not much that God is asking me to do, but it is a very definite commitment. It is a very definite sacrifice and I can see that when I’m hemming and hawing, or when I’m saying, “Oh yeah, I have to give this up,” or, “Oh, I’d love to have that.” Wait a minute, WHO’D love to have it? What is this? Are you your own or are you not your own Ernest O’Neill? Have you presented it as a loving sacrifice or is it still very much yours that you have to kind of enjoy or take care of? And I know it’s very easy for us, the whole danger of getting into legalism. I understand that and I understand the whole question that we can level at ourselves, “Well, aren’t we here for pleasure? Aren’t you expected to have some pleasure?” Well, probably the truth is in the light of a bleeding Savior walking down the Via Delorosa with the cross on his shoulders. Probably the answer is, is that a relevant question to his followers? Aren’t you not to have a little pleasure in this life? Well, as I look at his eyes and the sweat dropping off his forehead, and his arms holding the cross I think, where does sanity begin and insanity end? Is this a question that I can ask my Lord? No, not at all. So it came home to me very clearly that God was saying plainly to us, “I beseech you,” asking us always of course, “I beseech you, therefore, brethren, brothers and sisters, by the mercy of God,” not because he has a right to demand it of you. No. Not because he’s Lord God and he’ll throw you into hell if he wants to. No. “I beseech you by the mercies” — by the tender mercies he has extended to you, by the loving kindnesses, and the blessings with which he has filled your life, by his undoubted love for you — “I beseech you to present your bodies a living sacrifice to him which is your reasonable service and is your worship of him.” I could see that that one definite commitment settles all the other stupid things. It’s not a matter of, “Are my trousers shrinking?” It’s not a question of that. It’s not a question of my cholesterol. It’s not a question of, “Am I living the right way?” It’s not a question of, “Am I fulfilling my obligations to God?” It’s not a question of, “Am I being a faithful disciple?” It’s not a question of any of those things? It’s a question of, “Do I hear my Father speaking to me and do I acknowledge his mercies? Do I see that this life is not mine to live as I please? It belongs now to Jesus who presented his body a living sacrifice for me.” Then do I, in a grand, generous and ignoble act, commit the thing wholly to him and never look back? And if ever the question rises and ever a particular instance of it comes up in regard to chocolate chip ice cream, or in regard to whether I stay at home and do my article, or do my broadcast, or whether I go out and do what I like, there is not decision to be made as I have already made it, “Lord, it is yours. It is your body. Let’s go!” And go forward with robust delight in his will so that we too, can say with Jesus, “My meat is to do the will of him that sent me.” But I’ve applied it to myself you know, because I have no right to apply it to anybody else. It seems to me it is a very plain, clear, word from God that is true — whether we enter into it, live it, or whether we walk by the side of it. It is very clear and plain. And to my mind it is reality and it is what God has for us. Let us pray. Dear Father, we thank you for your goodness to us and for speaking through all the shades of grey, and the shades of black and white, and all the deceptive rays of Satan’s false light. We thank you for being kind enough to make things clear to us so that we can rise up, walk forward with light hearts, joyful spirits, and with the obedience that is no burden because it is delight in you and in your way. So Lord Jesus, we would hear your word in our hearts. We would allow it to echo through our whole lives and up to you again in gratitude and love. Now we ask that your grace Lord Jesus, and your love dear Father, and your fellowship Holy Spirit, will be with each of us now and ever more. Amen.

Fear of the World Practical Faith Series Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill Sandra and I were talking a little about reading the newspaper these days and you can only bear to read so much of it because it’s full of so many murders, or so many disasters or so many problems that we face. She said that it’s easy to become almost overwhelmed with it so that you don’t even want to read the newspaper. I can see myself, that if you even begin to contemplate some of the difficulties that you meet in business, or some of the difficulties that we face in our own day-to-day life in the world it’s fairly easy for the moment to be thrown off-balance and to become preoccupied with the powers of the outside world and to actually lose your perspective. It’s very easy to find your own mind preoccupied with what power the government has, or what power other people have, or what power customers have or what power even evil people have. It seemed to me that there is something wrong in either whistling a little tune pretending that it isn’t there or in simply not reading the newspaper. I said to Sandra, “Well, I think in some ways we have to set our mind not on things upon the earth but things in heaven where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.” But I sense that that isn’t simply a trick of refusing to look at the things that are there. There’s surely something more than that to deliver us from fear, because it certainly is God’s will that we should not walk in fear, and that we should not actually even have a moment of fear — even a moment when either there’s something wrong with the car. We might not call that fear but still, there is a little tremor that goes through us. There shouldn’t be a moment of fear at that, nor should there be a moment of fear when we discover that the finances are not what they seem to be, or when we find the income tax people wanting to do an audit, or we find some legal authority coming at us on some subject or other. It seems at that moment there should not be a moment of fear at that time. Then my own eyes went to of course, the basic reason why that is so — and it’s in John 16:33: “I have said this to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” And we know that that is true. We know that before the world was ever created, God crucified not only us in his son, Jesus, but he crucified the world. And it’s because of that, that God can say he was in Christ reconciling the world to himself because God ,in Jesus, put all the circumstances and all the powers of evil that would destroy his will for us, he put them into Christ, he destroyed them there and he remade them. In fact, Jesus has overcome all those forces and all those powers. We know that he manifested that — for instance, see John 20:19: “On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being shut where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews,” — this was after Jesus’ crucifixion of course — “Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, ‘Peace be with you.’ When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord.” That was obviously Jesus overcoming the world. So they put nails in his hands, and they put a spear in his side, and blood and water ran out, so they knew they didn’t even need to break his legs because he was dead. And then a few days later, Jesus is there in front of the disciples showing his hands and the holes still in them, and his side and the hole still in it. Then a few days later, he’s eating fish with them to prove to them that he’s not just a ghost. So obviously, Jesus did overcome the world. In other words, the world could do its worst to him but it did not end his life. It did not stop his life. I think we know that and say, “Yes, we know that Jesus has overcome the world. We know that there’s nothing that can happen in the world that he has not already destroyed and the sting of which he has not already removed.” We know that and we must try to remember that. I think it’s easy for us to get into that old battle again of thoughts, “Yes, I must remember that Jesus overcame the world. Yes, I know that there’s something wrong with the car but let me remember that Jesus has overcome the world. Now, he’s overcome the world but remember that verse: Jesus said, ‘In the world you have tribulation but you will have peace because I’ve overcome the world.’ Yes, Jesus said I have overcome the world. He has overcome the world. He has overcome the world.” And we get into that kind of mantra or auto suggestion battle where we find ourselves almost trying to win a verbal argument with ourselves. Actually, what we’re doing is we’re putting against the powers of evil, we’re putting against them flesh and blood which of course can never beat them. And what we’re really trying to do is to brainwash ourselves, to fill our thoughts with the fact that Jesus has overcome the world and hope that somehow, that will blot out not only the thoughts of evil, but will blot out the evil itself. I think it’s deeper than that. I think the answer to fear of the world is deeper than that. And I think it’s connected up with the things we’ve been talking about. Ephesians 2:10, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” When Jesus overcame the world before its creation as the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world, when he overcame the world, we were in him. We were created in Christ Jesus. We were in him when he overcame the world. Or you remember 1 Corinthians 12:27, “You are the body of Christ and individually his limbs.” We are part of Jesus and when Jesus overcame the world we overcame it too. That’s just a fact. There is nothing that the world can do to us that can destroy God’s will for our lives. Indeed, there’s nothing that the world can do to us that God does not allow to happen because he knows that the effects that the world has in mind for it will not come about. The effects that world has in mind for it is our destruction. It is the absolute removal of the possibility of God’s will being done in our lives. God knows that whatever the appearance may be that now, is no longer possible. In other words, it’s a bit like Joseph, you remember, and his experience where he says to his brothers, “You meant it for evil to me but God meant it for my good.” (Genesis 45) And that seems to me to be the situation we’re in. We are part of Jesus and Jesus has overcome the world. He has destroyed its’ ability to destroy us. He has destroyed its ability to derail God’s will for our lives. He has destroyed its ability to spoil God’s plan for his son’s life in us. That’s just a fact. We are in Jesus and we have overcome the world. It’s not a matter of us saying, “Yes! Whoopity-whoo! I’ll whistle! I’ll say, ‘I’m happy! I’m happy! I’m happy! Because yes, I’ve already overcome the world. I’m really strong and I’ve overcome.” No, it’s not that game. It’s simply a fact It’s just a fact. It’s just a simple fact — we are part of Jesus. You and I are bits of Jesus and Jesus himself is in us. That’s what he said, you remember, “You in me and I in you.” (John 14:20) Jesus is in us. It is us who have overcome the world, there is nothing that the world can do to us that will stop God’s will taking place in our lives. And it seems to me therefore, the answer to the fear of the world is not “Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah, Zip-A-Dee-A” — it’s not whistling a little tune. It’s not even trying to brainwash ourselves into a kind of mantra, a kind of verse from scripture, “I have overcome the world. I have overcome the world.” It’s not that. It’s simply being real. I mean, to use that phrase that is popular, “Get real.” It’s really getting real. It’s refusing to play Satan’s games. If you reflect for a moment — even the fact that it is a game that is obvious to you — the way it works — or for a second, or at the most, for half an hour, you fear the thing and then you get yourself gathered together. Actually, a week later you laugh at it because it’s all over and nothing really happened that was serious. So we refuse to play Satan’s games. We refuse to listen to his first cry of, “Fire, fire, fire!” or “Abandon ship!” We refuse to listen to the momentary deception and the lie. We refuse to allow our emotions to be panicked and we simply stand steady and solid. We are part of Jesus. We look at the waves straight in the face and the waves are meant by Satan to create panic in our “beasties” like a little mouse. But we look at those waves and we stand solid because we are in Jesus. Jesus is in us and he, of course, made the waves. He makes them obey him. Therefore, he has overcome any apparent power they have to drown us or to destroy God’s will. I felt there were three important examples that we should look at — and that one was the first. The first was actually, in a way, the more serious because it was apparently the ability of the waves to destroy. So maybe you’d look at it. It’s Acts 7:54, “Now when they heard these things they were enraged, and they ground their teeth against him. But he, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God; and he said, ‘Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing at the right hand of God.’ But they cried out with a loud voice and stopped their ears and rushed together upon him. Then they cast him out of the city and stoned him; and the witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul. And as they were stoning Stephen, he prayed, ‘Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.’ And he knelt down and cried with a loud voice, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.’ And when he had said this, he fell asleep.” And I think it’s a plain example of the world thinking that God had failed Stephen because, after all, he died. And it seems to me it’s popular with us today to take the same approach to say, “Well look, he died. Where was his God?” Yet, it’s obvious from the words there, even the final words, “and he fell asleep,” it’s obvious that to Stephen it was no horrifying terror-stricken experience at all. It was very comforting, “Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing at the right hand of God.” And then he says, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” And then he says, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” It’s obvious to anyone reading those words that Stephen was not all taken up with his own death and he was not all preoccupied with the pain he was experiencing. In fact, he seems to have experienced no pain and the dying was not a terrible retching and a crying out in panic. It says, “And when he had said this, he fell asleep” — just like that. I got a glimpse of it sometime last week. It seemed to me that death is going to be a very easy thing. I suddenly saw that our dear Father — who will not quench the flickering torch, and who knows all our infirmities, and who has been with us for so many years, and knows the first moment our little hearts feel fear — has all that arranged. The last thing that he will do at that moment is to leave us in the darkness. The last thing he will do at that moment is to allow us to experience any fear of infinite spaces, or any fear of the unknown. The last thing he will do at that moment is to allow us to exist even for a second in some kind of limbo. Rather, it will be like Stephen’s experience. It’ll just be a moment you’re looking there — even if it has dear hearts like our own around us and dear friends to comfort us – and the next moment will be so much brighter, and will be so much warmer, and will be like coming into a wonderful party with all kinds of dear friends around us. It seems that God, our dear Father, who knows every weakness in us, and who knows all our infirmities, will ensure that our passing into life will be as easy, and as joyful, and as free from our own fears for ourselves as Stephen’s was. So it seems to me that even if it is death, we look at it with confidence. What is dying? Jesus is dying — a part of Jesus. This part of his limb that is called Sandra, this part of his limb that is called Irene, this part of his limb that is called Ernest, this part of his limb that we are is dying? No, it cannot die. It has already died once and shown that it was just as alive as ever — so this time it will be no different. So it seems there’s no place for fear even when it seems that the world has ended our lives. Actually, all it’s done is open the door into the life that we’ve been looking forward to for so long. But it does seem in all other situations, Jesus has overcome the world. Often, he will not allow it to go to the point of death though finally he will out of love for us so that we may be with him. Acts 16:16-40: “As we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a slave girl who had a spirit of divination and brought her owners much gain by soothsaying. She followed Paul and us, crying, ‘These men are servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to you the way of salvation.’ And this she did for many days. But Paul was annoyed, and turned and said to the spirit, ‘I charge you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.’ And it came out that very hour. “But when her owners saw that their hope of gain was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the market place before the rulers; and when they had brought them to the magistrates they said, ‘These men are Jews and they are disturbing our city. They advocate customs which it is not lawful for us Romans to accept or practice.’ The crowd joined in attacking them; and the magistrates tore the garments off them and gave orders to beat them with rods. And when they had inflicted many blows upon them, they threw them into prison, charging the jailer to keep them safely. Having received this charge, he put them into the inner prison and fastened their feet in the stocks. “But about midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them, and suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened and every one’s fetters were unfastened. When the jailer woke and saw that the prison doors were open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, supposing that the prisoners had escaped. But Paul cried with a loud voice, ‘Do not harm yourself, for we are all here.’ And he called for lights and rushed in, and trembling with fear he fell down before Paul and Silas, and brought them out and said, ‘Men, what must I do to be saved?’ And they said, ‘Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.’ And they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all that were in his house. And he took them the same hour of the night, and washed their wounds, and he was baptized at once, with all his family. Then he brought them up into his house, and set food before them; and he rejoiced with all his household that he had believed in God. “But when it was day, the magistrates sent the police, saying, ‘Let those men go.’ And the jailer reported the words to Paul, saying, ‘The magistrates have sent to let you go; now therefore come out and go in peace.’ But Paul said to them, ‘They have beaten us publicly, uncondemned, men who are Roman citizens, and have thrown us into prison; and do they now cast us out secretly? No! let them come themselves and take us out.’ The police reported these words to the magistrates, and they were afraid when they heard that they were Roman citizens; so they came and apologized to them. And they took them out and asked them to leave the city. So they went out of the prison, and visited Lydia; and when they had seen the brethren, they exhorted them and departed.” There’s no reason to be in fear of authorities whether they’re police, or tax authorities, or whether they are customers, or our suppliers, or the customs people, or anybody because Jesus has overcome the world and he is able to do this kind of thing when necessary. He is able to do this kind of thing for us and whether it happens as dramatically as this does or not, we are in Jesus and we are part of him, and he has overcome the world’s ability to derail his Father’s plan for our lives and there is no reason for even a moment of anxiety, or a moment of fear. So it seems to me that our victory over fear of the world is the reality that we are part of the Savior, that we are part of him himself and that the world cannot destroy him — and cannot even prevent him doing what God has planned for him to do in us. So for us, it is irrelevant what the apparent power of other people have to spoil our lives. It’s an irrelevance because Jesus himself has destroyed that power in them and has overcome it. And it’s the same — if you would just look at the last one — it’s Acts 9:32-43 — and of course all these miracles were done with the same attitude in the disciples, in the name of Jesus Christ. “Now as Peter went here and there among them all, he came down also to the saints that lived at Lydda. There he found a man named Aene’as, who had been bedridden for eight years and was paralyzed. And Peter said to him, ‘Aene’as, Jesus Christ heals you; rise and make your bed.’ And immediately he rose. And all the residents of Lydda and Sharon saw him, and they turned to the Lord. “Now there was at Joppa a disciple named Tabitha, which means Dorcas. She was full of good works and acts of charity. In those days she fell sick and died; and when they had washed her, they laid her in an upper room. Since Lydda was near Joppa, the disciples, hearing that Peter was there, sent two men to him entreating him, ‘Please come to us without delay.’ So Peter rose and went with them. And when he had come, they took him to the upper room. All the widows stood beside him weeping, and showing tunics and other garments which Dorcas made while she was with them. But Peter put them all outside and knelt down and prayed; then turning to the body he said, ‘Tabitha, rise.’ And she opened her eyes, and when she saw Peter she sat up. And he gave her his hand and lifted her up. Then calling the saints and widows he presented her alive. And it became known throughout all Joppa, and many believed in the Lord. And he stayed in Joppa for many days with one Simon, a tanner. “ Obviously Jesus manifested his victory over the world right there, and they were able to overcome death in another person and they were able to raise a person who was paralyzed. And so it is with us — Jesus is in us. I think where a lot of this gets contorted is where we think we have the right to heal everybody that needs healing, or we have the right to pray for everybody that dies. I think that’s where we lose the whole truth of the matter. The truth of the matter is that Jesus is the one who is living in this world. He is the one who has this body and these hands. He alone can decide what he wants to manifest of his victory over the world. He alone can determine who he wants to heal or who he wants to raise from the dead. He alone has that right. We don’t even have to think about that. Our only place is our preoccupation with him. Our realizing moment by moment, “Lord Jesus, this is your life, these are your hands. I do not even live — I have been crucified. It is no longer I that live but it is you that lives in me. This is your life. Lord, that’s reality.” As we dwell deeper and deeper in that reality it seems to me fear of the world fades away in the distance. Then he, himself, is able to overcome the world in the instances and in the ways that he chooses. Sometimes it will be by allowing Stephen to fall asleep in absolute peace and rest even in the eyes of the world it’s death. Sometimes he will raise Dorcas from the dead. Sometimes he will heal Aeneas and make him well. Sometimes, he will open the prison doors. Sometimes he will speak to the magistrates and influence them so that they’ll free us. Sometimes he will work around the circumstances so that they do not bring about what Satan intended. But always, he, himself, has the control of the world in his own hands. What we do need to be very clear about is when we look in the waves and look in the face of the people who are angry with us, and look into the circumstances that seem to be falling apart — we look right through them and into his face and we see, “Lord, we are in your hands. We are not in their hands. We’re in your hands. This is your world. This is my Father’s world and it is under the control of my Savior who loves me.” Let us pray. Dear Lord Jesus, we thank you for making us part of yourself. We thank you Lord, that this is your life, this is your body, these are your hands and everything that this person that has our name meets are circumstances and situations that you have already passed through your hands. There are things that you have already overcome. And we thank you Lord, that though all around us may be afraid, though a thousand may fall out our side and ten thousand at our right hand, yet it will not come near to us — to bring about the same results in us — because you, yourself, have control of the situation and the circumstances and have overcome the world. So Lord, we do thank you that there is no reason for even a moment of fear — even when it concerns mighty powers and governments, you, yourself, are in control and have overcome the world. We thank you, Lord.

Who is Your Father? Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill Who is your Father? The answer is of course in that piece that we all know from Handel’s “Messiah”. It’s Isaiah 9:6, “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government will be upon his shoulder, and his name will be called ‘Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.’” It startled me when I first read “Everlasting Father”. This piece is obviously the prophecy of Jesus’ birth, the Messiah, and you’re used to Jesus being called the Prince of Peace, or even Wonderful Counselor, or even Mighty God — but you’re not used to him being called Everlasting Father. It struck me that there was some kind of misunderstanding here because God surely is the Everlasting Father and Jesus is the Son. But in fact, because Jesus is God and wherever God is Jesus is, and whatever God is Jesus is, all that God is Jesus is also. He is certainly our Everlasting Father in a special way too, because he is really the one who begot each one of us. I don’t want to bore you with it, but I did this little diagram to remind you of it: I’ve used the mathematical sign for infinity here, but this [pointing to diagram] is eternity and this is eternity, and in between is this little piece of time. You remember the way we’ve often talked about it — we’ve said that wherever we cannot talk about the beginning when God was, we don’t know about that, but in eternity somewhere God IS and He conceived of creating the world. he conceived of people like himself in that world. Of course Colossians 1:15 states that Jesus was actually the first born of all the creation. God actually took his only begotten son whom he had begotten in eternity and he asked him to become the first born of all creation. Jesus therefore became the first one to be born in that creation and God conceived of that. This presumably we think of as a millisecond in God’s mind. He conceived of it, he did it and he completed it all in a millisecond. We just talk about it in terms of “stages” because of our finite minds, but God conceived of a creation and of people like himself whom he could love, and he conceived of his only begotten son becoming the first born of that creation, becoming the first man. Romans 8:28 says, “All things work together for the good.” And “the good” is we might be conformed to the image of his son in order that HE might be the first born among many brethren. So God conceived of his own son becoming the first born of creation so that HE would be the first born among many brethren. I think often we go a little astray because we think, “Oh yes, he did it for us, he did it for us.” Well, in that he loves us, yes, but first and foremost, he did it for his son — that his son might be the first born of all creation. For that reason he created us. Ephesians 2:10 says, “We are God’s workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works which he has prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” God conceived of creating us in Jesus that we might do many mighty works that he had prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. He conceived of that taking place and then realized of course, that we would be free to do what we wanted to do. We would be free to dwell in Jesus and to be what he wants us to be — or we would be free to refuse him, and reject him and to oppose him. At that moment God knew that he would have to change all that he had made –for as many of us that wanted to change he would have to change us — and he would have to crucify us and begin to make us all over again. That is what happened according to Revelation 13:8, “That the Lamb was slain from before the foundation of the world.” God conceived of all of that in a millisecond. Presumably, he didn’t have to speak to his son, but in our human terms it was like him saying to his son, “My son, this is what will take place. Are you willing for that to take place in you? Because, the only way these dear brethren that I am going to make inside you will ever be able to be like us is if you are prepared to bare the destruction of what they become and their recreation again in what I want them to be.” Of course, the Savior lovingly said, “Yes.” Then in the beginning, God made the heaven and the earth. Then God began to play that all out in time. Of course the part that he has allowed to play out that we can see so clearly is this downward path. This is what we see around us: we see what our life would be if we had NOT been crucified in Jesus and the Lamb slain from before the foundation of the earth and made again anew in him and recreated in him. If we hadn’t done that this is the kind of life we would live — and this is the kind of life that the world would live until there is a new heaven and the new earth. Of course, when we are born of God, what happens is we do what Jesus said: we repent and believe the gospel. We change our mind about the way we think of our past life. We stop thinking, “I am my father’s son. I am my mother’s son.” “I am my father’s daughter. I am my mother’s daughter.” We begin thinking, “I am Jesus’ son.” “I am Jesus’ daughter. Jesus is my Father. I was created in him. The reason I was created was so that he would be the first born among many brethren. I belong to him. My father and mother were only the means by which God brought me into physical birth, but I belong to Jesus. I am part of him.” We change our way of thinking — and at that moment what happens is all of eternity here, by the Holy Spirit, is brought into our lives and we are born of God. Has each of us here accepted that? I would to take you back to a very real experience that I’ve had over the past couple of days — and that everyone in London will understand because we spent so much time on computers. For two years, believe it or not, I’ve been trying to get a program that would do what we call in computer language, “multitasking”. It would mean that people like my dear wife would be putting in a sales order in the computer and someone would call and say, “How much do I owe you? What is my debt to Crown Jewelry?” And she would be able to hit one key and it would immediately replace that sales order module on the screen with the customer file and would show her immediately the credit. Or, if she thought in the middle of entering the sales order she wanted to do a fax to Dan in Thailand to order some more of a certain item, she would hit a key and it would flip over immediately into the fax program. Now, believe it or not, that’s very difficult to do with computers. The way we do it now is that we have to withdraw from the sales order module and have to go back to the main menu. From there we go into the Windows program and into WinFax and we write the fax. You actually have to come out of one program, go into another program — and it all takes time. Multitasking is the ability to switch from one thing to the other. They call it multitasking because for that to happen, the computer has to keep all of them up at one time. It has to keep all the programs open. That’s very difficult for a computer. For two years I’ve been working with a complicated IBM program called OS2 because it will be able to do that — but, it’s not able to do it just yet. On my little computer I have had 50 megabytes set aside for that program and I’ve been playing along with it all the time. I’ve been trying to make the DOS programs work for all of you and for London when they need it. I’ve always had in my mind, “OS2 is the answer. OS2 is the answer. I have to somehow wait till all the systems get refined enough so that it will work.” That was the situation. Then they came out just a month ago with the new “DOS 7” program. It arrived and so it was wonderful. I thought, “Great! I can put it onto my computer and I can once and for all ‘leave my earthly father behind’. I can go with a whole heart into what now is a workable situation with this DOS 7.” So I have to make changes to my computer but I thought, “Yeah, but shouldn’t I try to keep this old OS2 up just in case this doesn’t work? Maybe I’ll go back to the original idea.” So yesterday, I started to work on it. In the course of it all, something went wrong in the computer. I have in my portable computer all kinds of things: all the work I was doing with Mary in London, the International Secretary of CCI stuff, all the projects that we have in Thailand, all kinds of faxes, the cash flow — which fortunately I’ve copied off onto another computer — but I had everything up. Then, something started to eat away at all the stuff on my computer! It was dreadful. It was like being driven back into a corner. I would try one program and another. We have a program that doubles the disk and I had to unstack it — I had to make it not double. Of course when you have twice the stuff on it the disk, you have to put it somewhere, so I tried to put it onto another part of the disk. I kept working and working, and the thing kept eating up more of my information, and more programs failed and more programs failed! Before I started the whole thing, God had spoken to me and said, “Have you absolutely burned your boats? Are you no longer your father’s son? Are you only my Son’s son? Is He your real father? Do you see your life only as HIS and not in any way as outside Him? Are you ready in this computer business to leave aside what you’ve been fiddling along with for two years?” He said that before I ever started all this, and it was as if He started to eat the stuff away. I couldn’t believe it because I was losing precious stuff – and it took me hours — it will still take me hours to put a lot of it back. I couldn’t believe and I couldn’t understand why it was happening because I’m not dumb as far as computers are concerned, and it shouldn’t have happened. More and more of my 240 megabyte disk started to be eaten away and more programs disappeared. My dear program, “Sidekick”, that I have all kinds of appointments and phone numbers on disappeared. I couldn’t get into it! Then at one point the computer asked, “So that I can rescue the rest of the disk will you let me delete those files?” I said “yes” because I couldn’t do anything else. I deleted 1,700 files! I just got back and back into a corner. I thought, “Lord, am I willing?” It was parallel with, “Who’s Your Father? “Am I willing to let this go and start anew — to put all my eggs into this DOS 7 basket and go with it– and go with that life?” “Am I willing to forget all the past, to forget all the things — even the nice things that I think about my father and my mother, even the enjoyable things about the past — am I willing to forget about it all, the good and the bad, and to go ONLY with Jesus? ” Of course, while this computer thing went on until about five o’clock, it was dying. The whole thing was just dying. Finally I said, “Yes, Lord, yes I am. I’ll put this DOS 7 on now.” I couldn’t get the DOS 7 on until I had all the rest prepared but I thought, “I’ve nothing left. I’ll put the DOS 7 on.” So, I put the DOS 7 on. I don’t have every program back, but I have a lot of programs back like Sidekick and Manage Your Money. I’ve lost a fair bit of stuff, but I’ve got a lot back. I do not know why. I don’t think it’s an angel. I don’t know why, but I do know what God said to me very, very clearly, “Who is your Father? Are you willing to forget all – just to leave aside all the make do’s and the self-help things that you’re holding onto — all the little bits of self-effort, all the virtues that you think you might have brought from the past — are you willing to leave all those make-do’s aside and let them be buried and destroyed for ever and go only as a son of my Son?” I just got it very clearly. I’d feel this way even if I hadn’t the programs back. It’s just a mystery as I don’t know how the programs got back, I don’t know how they came back. Obviously, it’s something that is very clear and probably very simple to some other person who knows better and certainly very simple to God. The message I got very clear in my own heart, and that’s what I want to say to you, “Who’s your Father?” Are you still kind of saying, “Well, I mean the heavenly Father is my Father, but my father is my father and my mother is my mother and I owe a lot to them. I’m them. I’m part of them and I like them.” Well are you or are you not? Has that life died and has it been crucified and destroyed? Is it no longer reality? It was never reality. Are you no longer treating it as reality? Are you in Jesus ONLY and is he everything to you? I can see that it takes a VERY definite step into that. To be translated from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of his beloved Son is a very deliberate step from a life that WAS into a NEW life. It’s very much connected with what we are thinking this moment and what our attitude is. So I’d ask you, “Who’s your Father?” Have you really died to all that the world knew you as, and even your parents knew you as? Have you really seen that all that is a life that was planned from the very beginning to be replaced by the real life — you as the part of the body of Jesus himself — that you are nothing but a part of Jesus? You’re just a little bit of Jesus. You’re not a little bit of Mr. Blomfield, or not a little bit of Mrs. Livingstone. You’re a little bit of Jesus and that is all you are — but that is EVERYTHING you are. Are you living like that? Have you really accepted that? Have you burned your bridges? Have you let go of all the past or are you still trying to hold on to a little bit of something that you might be outside Jesus because you’re hanging on to something that will disappear as quickly as my old programs disappeared on my computer? Jesus is in fact, our Everlasting Father. Let us pray. Dear Lord, we see Lord Jesus, that there is nothing outside you and that we do not exist outside you. What the world sees of us, of our face, and our hands, what the world hears of our voice is like a cinder, a burned out cinder that will collapse the moment someone touches it. It is something that has been, that has been crucified with Christ, that no longer has any real existence. The real existence that we DO have is that we have been created by you in Christ Jesus for good works which you have prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. That’s our only purpose here in this life, to walk in those works with clear hearts, free minds, and with joyful feelings. Lord, we would embrace that with all our hearts. We would walk forward into that with our whole heart Lord and say, “Lord Jesus, you are our Everlasting Father. We are members of you, limbs in your body. Let’s go, Lord. Let us go. Take us forward. Walk into the good works through us that you’ve prepared beforehand. We cast away all that is past and we walk now in a glorious liberated present for your glory, and the love of God.” Amen.

Beside Ourselves 2 Corinthians 5 Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill There’s an interesting verse in 2 Corinthians, a strange verse really, and maybe you’d look at it 2 Corinthians 5:13, “For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you.” If we are beside ourselves it is for God, and if we are in our right mind it is for you. And no doubt Paul was trying to answer some I suppose gibe or criticism that was leveled at him by the opponent saying, “They’re crazy,” or, “They’re mad.” Along the lines I suppose that the people used when they saw the Apostles being filled with the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, they said, “They’re drunk with new wine,” and presumably it was that kind of gibe you know, “Oh the fella’s crazy.” But I thought that the English idiom that is used brings home part of the real truth, that is the English idiom for being crazy, he’s beside himself, implying he’s not really himself, he’s beside himself. And yet Paul takes that and he says, “If we are beside ourselves it is for you.” And then it is interesting of course, that this piece follows Chapter 4, you remember, where he says in 2 Corinthians 4:10, “Always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For while we live we are always being given up to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you.” And then what follows that verse, we are beside ourselves is down there you remember, in 2 Corinthians 5:17. 1 Corinthians 5:17, “Therefore, if any one is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come.” And then it is all summarized in the famous verse that we all know, “It is not I that live, but Christ that lives within me.” And it brings home to you that that is the truth of reality that we are to live beside ourselves. We are to be beside ourselves, or another way to put it is, we’re to be outside ourselves. We’re to be outside ourselves, we’re to live apart from ourselves. In fact, this is not our life any longer. I just thought again you know, how real that is, the center and the heart of living here on this earth. That not another hour are you to live inside your own body. Not another hour am I to live inside my own body. This is Jesus’ life and it’s really probably the plainest way to face what living for God is about, simply deciding in your own heart, “Am I actually ready to get out of this body? Am I actually ready to give up this life? Am I really prepared to hand this over to another man? Am I actually ready to let Jesus who made me admittitedly, he made me, I know that, and he made me in himself, so I suppose I am part of him and he certainly says he is in me, he said, ‘You Father are in me, and I am them,’ so he certainly regards himself as being in me. But am I actually ready not anymore to live this life as if it were mine?” And I think that’s the heart of everything. I mean, that’s the heart of our whole existence here. And I was just thinking of it when I considered often what we feel is our concern for each other. I can see how it is good, it is good to love each other, and it is good to be concerned for each other, and it’s good for you to ask me, “Well, how did you sleep?” Or, “How do you feel?” Or, me to ask you, you know, “How your week went?” And that is good, but I can see too that if we find ourselves being preoccupied with, “Oh well, how do I feel today?” Or, “What should I eat tomorrow?” Or, “What kind of thing do I like?” Or, “Am I really a blue person or a green person?” Or, “Am I really an ice cream person, or not an ice cream person?” I can see that in a way there’s something there that is – that does not gel with the fact that this is not my life. In a way I can just see that if this is really Jesus’ life then I will want to know, “What would you like to do Lord? What do you really like? Are you a blue person or a green person? Are you a yogurt person? Are you a selling person?” I can see that that is more the response that comes from our hearts. I know it so well because sometimes I think Irene can be a bit cut and dried, you know, “Well, just get up and get out,” you know, whereas at times I would be an old Northern Irish guy whose, “Oh, I’ve got a sniffle of a cold today.” And she would say, “Oh shake yourself and get out,” and all that kind of thing. And I can see that in a real way at each point in our daily lives, there is an opportunity to sink back into the fantasy that I’m on my own, that I have this life to take care of myself, that I have to make what I can of it, and I ought to enjoy all I can, and get all I can from it. There’s an opportunity at every moment of each day to sink back into that fantasy, and that lie. Or, there’s an opportunity to step out into the broad sunlit upland that this is Jesus’ life, and Lord what would you like? I don’t know if you have ever felt it, I have on occasion glimpsed what another person – what another person’s life was like, at least I thought that’s what I was glimpsing. What I was actually seeing was their life from the outside. But I would think I was glimpsing their life and I would think for a moment, “Oh it would be nice to live as separate, as enjoyable life, and yet as detached as that.” And then I’ve realized I’m not actually seeing their life as they see it. Their life as they see it from the inside, is as preoccupied with themselves as mine is, I just happened to be looking at theirs detached from the heart of their concerns. And I would see for a moment what it would be like to actually let Jesus live, and be beside myself. Be actually outside this life, and let him be living it, and me just taking part with him. And I can see that that is the heart of reality, this is Jesus’ life. This is his life. I think maybe there comes up in our minds a little bit of a feeling, “Well wait a minute that sounds a bit crazy,” or, sometime we might say it sounds too easy, but often we will think, “Oh it’s kind of miserable.” And we’ll think, “Well it’s impossible to live like that, and any way I don’t want to live that way. And any way, where would I be, where would I be if that happened? I mean, where would I be floating out there in space somewhere and he’s in here enjoying it, or doing what he wants to do? It would mean I would cease to exist.” And don’t you think that’s the whole fear that Satan plays on and that Jesus answers when he says, “If you lose your life for my sake you’ll save it. You’ll save it. You won’t be lost. You will be unconscious of yourself and unconscious of your own concerns, and your own interests, and your own desires, you will be, but you’ll still be alive. You’ll be alive in me. I won’t let you fade. I won’t let you disappear from existence. Trust me, just trust me. I will keep you in existence. Actually you’ll be more alive than ever before. You would enjoy yourself far more if you weren’t in the center of things the way you are, if you’d let me be in the center of things. You would actually enjoy yourself more, and you’d be freer to do what I want to do.” So it seems to me the heart of our whole life here on earth is the reality with which we actually hand our life over to reality, or the extent to which we ourselves simply enter into reality, and it seems that that is Jesus’ will for us you know. That in a sense we are beside ourselves, because it is not I that live, but Christ that lives within me. So maybe you’d think of that as I’m trying to think if it, and begin to live that, “Lord Jesus, am I or am not I? Are you – are you going to have your life, or am I going to keep on playing this game here where I kind of let you have a little word in here, and a little opinion there, but really it’s my place, it’s my place. Or, is this yours? In which case every second a thought of self occurs I reject it.” And then of course Satan can get in and say, “Well wait a minute, I mean, you have to take care of yourself. You have to look at after your clothes, you to-” well of course we all know that but that’s, that’s living at him for Jesus’ sake. We want him to look well, we want him to dress well, we want him to be seen well, so you can take care of all those things without it being attached to me, me, me. It can be attached to Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. So really there’s no contradiction between taking care of ourselves and our appearance, and the things that are needed, and yet doing it as unto Christ, because it’s his life and we want him to look well, and we want him to be comfortable. But I can see how every time the thought occurs to us, “Do I feel tired?” I can see that immediately the right question is, “Lord Jesus, what do you want to do? Whatever you want to do, you have energy to do so, what do you want to do?” I can see how it affects all those questions. And of course it especially effects the questions like, “What a way to speak to me? What disrespect that person has shown me. How offensive they have been to me in the store or over the phone.” I can see that those questions immediately you reject because this is not you, this is Christ, and you guard him, but you have no interest in guarding yourself because you’re beside yourself. It’s no longer you that are alive this is Christ’s life, and it’s him, and his Spirit, and his heart that comes out in the same meekness and loneliness that he exhibited in Galilee. So I can see that every time a question comes to us that concerns our own comfort, or our own position, or our own happiness, every time that kind of question comes to us there is only one response that is real and that is rejection of it completely, and looking to the one who is really alive here, and saying, “Lord what do you want to do?” So I think probably we’ll have to decide you know, is this case of a mystical experience and a kind of psychological game, or is this fact? Is this really Christ called by the world, Sandra Tomczyk, or is this Christ called by the world Ernest O’Neil, or is this Ernest O’Neil or Sandra Tomczyk, or Colleen Donahue, or Myron Kliewer, pretending to like Christ, or trying to be like Christ? It seems to me one is a mystical psychological experience the other is simple factual reality, and we need to decide which it is for us. And it seems to me that there is only one thing that is real, and that is part of what Paul means by saying, “We walk by faith and not by sight,” because sight is a temporary fantasy that is passing away, and what is by faith is real and eternal. And the real eternity is that you and I are part of Jesus, and he is us at this moment in this life. Let us pray. Lord Jesus, we see Lord, that you are here and that this is your life. We see Lord, that every moment that our emotions or our mind respond as if it is our life, we bring a great strain of futility into your dear heart. We cause you to bear our sins. We see Lord, that every time we respond inappropriately every time we respond verbally, or emotionally, or mentally, or spiritually as if this is our life, we see we tear your limb from you. We bring pain to you, and because you dearest Father, love your son Jesus, we bring pain to you, because we are part of you Lord Jesus, and this is your life to live, and you have things to do here on earth using this body and this mind. And as you do those things so delight will come to your Father, glory to you and wonderful fulfillment to us. So Lord, we come to you now to renew our covenant with you, but more to renew our surrender of everything that we are and have to you, for you to use as you please so that we may get out of it all, so that we may be transferred from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom our Father of your beloved Son for his glory.

Jesus is Our World Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill If we talk about this piece of paper — I think we’re all used to probably speaking what we would call the “scientific method” of looking at it — Irene describes its whiteness. Sandra describes its touch and I describe its texture. We discuss it and we say, “Oh yes, that’s an interesting piece of paper. It’s white and it feels like this, and it has this kind of touch when you touch it and this kind of shape.” And we have no difficulty discussing it because it is an “it” and we are superior to it because we’re persons and we’re able to talk about it in an objective way. It’s a little more difficult if we say, “We’ll talk about Irene” because immediately, if Sandra and I are going to talk about you [Irene] it’s impossible for you to talk about yourself in that same way. Then if we try and talk about you we’re faced with, first of all, you’re right here and what can we do? We can’t kind of take a part of you and say, “Oh now, look at this finger — this is interesting. It’s this shape,” or, “Look at this ear.” It is just very difficult to talk about any one of us here in that way partly because the person is right here. You can’t treat them as an “it”. In some way, you’re very conscious that they are listening to what you’re saying about them. For one thing, it brings a certain amount of restraint to you and leaves you not quite as free as you are when you discuss this piece of paper. Of course, it’s even more difficult if we ask Irene to take part in the discussion and talk about herself because she’s very aware that she’s trying to talk about herself as if she were not herself. So obviously, it becomes a little more difficult when you’re studying people. It does seem to me the more I read and the more I think about the way I talk about God, we have great danger of falling into an unreal attitude. That is, we’re in great danger of talking about God as if he’s this piece of paper — as if we are in some way his masters or superior to him — in some way as if we can discuss his whiteness, or his texture, or the way he deals with people – as if we can talk about him as if he was an “it”. Therefore, we actually talk about nothing. Actually what we’re doing is being utterly unreal and unrealistic and he has every right to look down upon us and say, “What are you little children playing about? I mean, you’re not talking about me at all. You’re talking about a concept of me in your mind. You’re talking about an idea as if it’s me — but you’re certainly not talking about ME.” Really, it’s much the same reaction that Irene would have if we started to talk about her here. I mean she’d say, “Well you’re not talking about me — I’m here. Why don’t you talk to me? That’s what is normal. That’s what is realistic. It’s not realistic to talk about me as if I’m not here. You’re engaged in some kind of game.” I think often we may be engaged in some kind of game. Even in our sermons and our services and particularly in the way we think about God. We may be involved in something that is very unreal. I often think about it when either you or I, any of us here, are trying to make a decision about summer holiday or what we’re going to do and we say, “I want to find out what God thinks about it.” But as you’re saying that you’re saying it with the tongue that he enables to wag. You’re saying it with the breath that he is actually creating directly through his son. Moreover, he himself is all around us at that moment. So it’s like me saying to you Sandra, “Well, I want to know what Irene thinks about that.” Your response would be, “Go ask her — she’s right there.” And me kind of saying, “Well, no — I know she’s very close and right here but no — I’ll have to think out what she probably would like me to do.” And you’d say, “Why not ask her? Ask her!” And I’d say, “Well, yes I know she’s very close and at times she’s right next to me and maybe she is in this room at this moment but no, I’ll have to think about it.” I think we may do that with God. We may somehow believe in him without really treating him realistically as being here every second. In some way we may talk about Jesus missing completely the reality that we are actually part of him and that HE is everything. Irene and I joke about when we talk about the little fellas that I used to look after in the poor children’s home on summer holidays. There would be one that would always hold on to the ball and wouldn’t pass it to anyone else. He always wanted to score the goal and the other little fella said, “Oh yeah, he thinks he’s the fella in the big picture.” Well the big picture was in those days in Belfast the main movie, the main feature program. In theaters you’d have the main film and then you’d have supporting films — sometimes news programs, or sometimes little light comedies or cartoons. So “the fella in the big picture” was the main star in the main feature. The little fella was saying, “Oh that fella holds onto the ball because he thinks he’s the fella in the big picture. He thinks he’s everything and none of us are important.” I think we are in danger of getting into that where we think of ourselves and we talk about Jesus and God as kind of peripherals, as people on the edges. We talk about them always from our point of view. We always talk about how we can get closer to Jesus, how we can feel Jesus’ presence more, how we can please Jesus, how we can please God, how we can do God’s will — we, we, we, we ! But God himself is not the subject. He is kind of just on the peripheral and we’re kind of still in this position of the masters looking down on the piece of paper. In some way we’re missing what reality is and I think that a lot of our problems come from that. I think a lot of our difficulties in the Christian life come from the fact that we think of it as something that WE do in order to please God. It’s something that we undertake, and we rule, and we run, and we operate with his help — but we are the doers. All the time we’re doing it as if he isn’t here. So that’s what I’d hope, if I can do it properly, I would like to talk about over these next Sundays. Maybe a good place to start is John 8. Most of these verses are verses we’ve talked about before. Certainly, they’re ones that we know. John 8:57 — it’s the time when Jesus is making reference to Abraham and of course, the Jews are questioning him in a hostile way. John 8:57, “The Jews then said to him, ‘You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?’” In verse 56 Jesus said, “Your father Abraham rejoiced that he was to see my day; he saw it and was glad. The Jews then said to him, ‘You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?’ Jesus said to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.’” It’s good to pause on that and think of what that means. Jesus was saying very definitely and clearly — and remember Abraham was about 2,000 years ago — “Before Abraham was, I am.” It’s interesting that he says, “Not before Abraham was, I was” — but, “Before Abraham was, I am.” He’s really saying, “I am now and before Abraham was I still am. Everything is present for me. Everything is present. What seems to you 2,000 years ago is present with me at this moment. I actually exist in such a state that everything that has been and everything that will be is present with me now. I am not bound by time. I am beyond time. I exist and have existed always.” And that’s what he says again in John 17:5, “And now, Father, glorify thou me in thy own presence with the glory which I had with thee before the world was made.” So Jesus is saying, “Father, glorify me with the glory which I had before you made the world, before the world was made.” Jesus is making it very clear that he existed before the world was made. He was in existence before this world ever came into being. I think you can see very clearly that obviously, Jesus is older than all of us and obviously, he transcends time — and you and I don’t. We don’t. We can hardly transcend more than 70 years of it let alone transcend years and centuries and centuries. So it seems that Jesus is implying he existed before the world was. Colossians 1:15 summarizes this: “He is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation.” We’ve talked about that before, that Jesus was the first-born of all creation — that before the world was made he was the first-born of all creation. We’ve talked together quite often how God probably, because we can only surmise, but God probably said in a millisecond to his son, “I want others like you my son — and to be like you they have to be part of you because you are your own self, dear and precious and unique. You’re my only begotten. So to be like you they have to be part of you — so I want to make them inside you. You must be their father. I must make them inside you. Now, you will be the first-born but they will be made inside you and they will be part of you.” It’s in that sense that Jesus is called “the first-born of all creation”. In Colossians 1:16, “For in him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities.” Spiritual powers, angels, archangels, you, me, the earth, the soil, the sky, the planets, oxygen, molecules, “All things were created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” Everything holds together inside Jesus. It’s evident that when we talk about Jesus we’re in – I don’t want to say a very embarrassing position — but we’re in a sense an impossible position because we’re talking about HIM of whom we are a part. We are a part of him. HE is the real us. If we are anything, we are only little molecules inside Jesus. We’re only cells inside Jesus –obviously very privileged and infinitely loved by him — I mean, beyond what love have you for that little piece of skin? Well you know, if you get cut [your hand] you feel it and you like it, and you try to take care of it, but you wouldn’t say you love it. You wouldn’t give your life for it. You certainly wouldn’t give your life for it because it would be a contradiction. But obviously Jesus has infinite love for each of us. So even though we are just little specs and little cells, we are infinitely loved by him because, of course, we are HIM. We are him. The amazing thing is that little piece of skin there does not contain your brain or does not contain my eye. But of course, when he looks at one of us we contain a great deal of him. In some strange way, all of him. In a remarkable way I suppose, we’re not everything that he is but we’re a unique expression of him. His whole personality is in some way in us even though the whole perfection of his personality is not in us. There’s part of him that is in us that isn’t in anybody else. There is that difference that when he looks at us he loves us as his own self because we are a unique expression of him that nobody else is — and yet, we’re only a tiny part of him. Our existence is utterly dependent on him, himself. So you can see what I’m saying when I say we need to go cautiously, thoughtfully — finally you can only say worshiply and reverently and respectfully whenever we ever think of talking about Jesus because we’re talking of our world. HE is our world. He is our existence. We don’t have an existence without him. Every word we speak he knows it before we speak it — of course he hears it when we speak it. So in every way we are encompassed by him, surrounded by him, supported by him — without him we have nothing. That’s, you remember, what is said so plainly in Ephesians 2:10. Ephesians 2:10, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” It’s just simply stated, “We are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus.” So whether we can tell how God did it or not, it’s stated very plainly that God made us in Christ Jesus. He made us IN Jesus. So we, in no way, exist apart from Jesus. But you see, I think often in the way we talk about our Christian faith — we often talk as if we are separate from Christ. We’ll often think of it in that way, “How can I get into Christ? How can I get into Jesus? How can I get into that place where I’m crucified with him?” The question is rather, how can you get out of him? It obviously is possible by stubborn resistance, by a determined persistence in thinking of ourselves separate from him. It obviously is possible in some way to withdraw yourself or to refuse to face reality. It’s in some way possible to refuse simply, “I do not believe that I am in Christ. I do not believe that I was created in him. I do not believe that I am part of him. I do not believe that what happens to him happens to me. I do not believe that. I am a separate entity on my own.” Of course, it’s laughable. It’s ridiculous. It’s like a cartoon — to see a little fly on the planet earth saying, “I am independent of the earth. I do not need it.” Of course it’s foolishness — it’s obvious that it’s a lie. It’s unreality. Often it seems to me, even in our Christendom, in our Christianity, in our Christian way of talking, we talk of ourselves as if in some way there is a Christian and then there is Christ. We regard Christ as an intellectual concept, an idea that we discuss: we discuss Christ and we discuss how we can follow Christ – then, we obviously are thinking of ourselves much in the same way we are in relationship to this piece of paper. We’re thinking of the piece of paper as an “it” that is separate from us. We are in some way superior or at least separate from the piece of paper and we have an existence apart from it — except that with Christ we have no existence apart from Christ. We don’t have an existence. We don’t have a separate existence. We are nothing but part of him. When we pretend that we are something apart from him we are creating a lie that has no relationship to the larger environment that surrounds us. So it is important to begin to see that Jesus is our world — that we are not so much “Ernest O’Neill”, “Sandra Tomczyk”, “Irene O’Neill” — those names just express the reality that we are different from everybody else in the universe. Those names just express that we are a part of Jesus that nobody else is. But, they do not express that we are separate beings and have a separate existence from him. Of course that’s why they would talk about the “Christian name” when they baptized people. You receive a “Christian name” because the name that you had was looked upon as a pagan name because it expressed the whole unreality of the pagan fallen world that you were a separate individual, that there was no God and that you had your own existence and were a self-made person. So when you were baptized into Christ’s death and baptized into his resurrection then you were born again, rose up into reality and you were given a Christian name. Really, it would have been better to say, “You are ‘Sandra Jesus’ and I’m ‘Ernest Jesus’ and you’re ‘Irene Jesus’.” That’s really what they meant. They were giving you the family name of Jesus — the Christian, Christ. You could say it would be like “Irene Christ”, or “Sandra Christ”, or “Ernest Christ”. It meant that because we had no separate existence — because the reality is that we don’t have a separate existence. And that, you remember, is what is brought out well clearly in 1 Corinthians 12:27 — but of course we again, because of our way of talking about Christianity, we have gone and misinterpreted and under-interpreted all these verses. 1 Corinthians 12:27, “Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.” Of course we go off into our little enthusiastic explanations and our very clever charismatic expositions that, “Oh yes, this means the church is really the body of Christ — and what we normally mean is it’s like the body of Christ. It isn’t of course the body of Christ but it’s like the body of Christ. You all have gifts.” Then we get on to our “gifts”. Isn’t it incredible how we talk about the gifts: “What gift have you? What gift have I?” It would be like us looking down at our toes saying to each other, “What gift have you?” Jesus must think, “What are you talking about? Gift? You have no gift. It is my life blood that is flowing through your big toe and little toe. It is my energy that enables you to be where you are. What gift have you? You talk about how cleverly you can put a sock on? No, I put the sock on. The gifts are mine. You exercise them together with me or I exercise them through you.” So often we misinterpret, “You are the body of Christ.” We end up interpreting it as meaning, “We perform the functions of Jesus.” Whereas the Bible doesn’t say that. The Bible doesn’t say, “You perform the functions of Jesus.” The Bible says, “You are the body of Christ.” Christ expresses himself through you. You are the outward expression of him. You are individually members of him. Each of you is a different part of him. Each of you actually is a unique part of him that nobody else is. You are part of Christ. Christ is the real being. He is the real entity. Maybe where we should finish today is — though there’s a lot more and we can talk about it next Sunday — how everything conspires to bring us into that reality. It’s in Romans 8:28-29, “We know that in everything God works for good with those who love him, who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the first-born among many brethren.” Really, it’s that famous verse that we know from the King James version that runs, “All things work together for good to them that love God.” Everything in this present life is working together for good to those of us who love God — and what is “the good”? That they might be conformed to the image of his son. We usually stop there and we say, “Yes, yes.” We feel that’s very unselfish of us to say, “Yes, everything that is happening in our lives is working to make us like Jesus.” “Make us like Jesus?” Again, we somehow get ourselves into the center of picture. We make ourselves “the fella in the big picture” because we say, “Yeah, yeah, everything is providence, all the events and circumstances that take place in my life, all the disasters, all the moments of happiness and triumph, all the moments of failure — all of those are working together to make ME like Jesus so that I will be Christ-like.” And of course we forget that the sentence goes on, “So that he might be the first-born among many brethren.” In other words, everything is working together in our lives so that Jesus himself will BE and be seen to be what he is, the first born among many brothers and sisters — but HE is the one in whom they all live. So everything in our lives works together towards that. I think often we have great difficulty with the things that happen in our lives, especially our frustrations, our failures, our difficulties, because we think to ourselves, “This isn’t making me happy.” What’s the big deal? You are not God. Maybe it isn’t in order to make you happy — that’s not why they all take place. Sometimes we also think — I have certainly often thought — “This isn’t making me Christ-like. I see myself as more miserable, and retched, and selfish, and stubborn than ever before.” Well, that’s not the big thing. The big thing is that Jesus might be the first-born among many brothers and sisters — that he might have his own body completely in harmony with himself, that we might take our right place in him, and that he above all may be all-in-all to us, and may be seen to be all-in-all by all the universe. So, there’s a lot more that maybe we can begin to talk about next Sunday. The way Barth put it was, “Theology is talking about God in the presence of God.” Well, not only that, but believing in Jesus is BELIEVING in Jesus — that is, INSIDE Jesus – believing, not pretending, you’re outside and believing as if you’re some kind of free agent: “I choose to believe this. I am in Jesus and I am believing.” He is our world. He is everything. We are nothing apart from him. What happens to him happens to us. Let us pray.

What is Happiness? Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill You could call this morning’s subject, “Happiness: “What is Happiness?” The title isn’t important. God did seem in the night to make a phrase real to me — though like so many other things you wonder, “What did he say to you?” But it certainly was very real when it seemed Jesus spoke of himself to me. It’s the phrase in John 15 — and it isn’t even the first part of it – he first says, “Abide in me. I am the vine and you are the branches.” He then says in 15:11, “These things I have spoken to you.” That is, “all those things that I just said have spoken to you.” But what he seemed to say to me, somewhere in the twilight hours or in the middle of the night, “That my joy may be in you and that your joy may be full.” It just seemed to come so vividly to me that that’s why I’m saying it this morning because I want to share what God says and not what I say: “That my joy may be in you and that your joy may be full.” It seemed obvious to me that he was seeing the joy that I have. That’s the joy that is to be in you: “My joy and then, your joy. Your own joy will be full.” And that’s the way our life will work together. I looked up the Greek word for “joy” and it’s “chara” in English. It means “cheerfulness or calm delight”. Of course, it’s not whoopity-whoop joy but it’s just a calm delight that is always with you whatever. Jesus is saying, “That is the joy that I have and that is the joy that is in you if you are in me — and you ARE in me, so that’s the joy that you will have, my joy.” I think our trouble is that we’ve been used to eating the food that the swine eat. I think we’ve been used to make-do joys so that we’re almost addicts to those joys — not only addicts but it’s a bit the same story as they found in introducing instant coffee here in America. Eventually, when somebody brewed real coffee Americans thought, “That isn’t real coffee,” because they got so used to instant coffee. It’s a bit like that. We get so used to the substitute joys that we can’t conceive of the real joy. Often the real joy doesn’t seem terribly joyful to us despite of the fact that the substitute joys that we have turn out to be very superficial, shallow and transient, too. But we kind of get used to them and we get addicted to them. So this joy that Jesus talks about at first sight seems kind of boring: “a calm delight” — that’s what it is you know. Indeed, one of the definitions is “cheerfulness”. We kind of think, “Oh, cheerful!” We used to have a program on English radio and this person used to say, “Oh, it’s being so cheerful that keeps me going,” — and of course, he wasn’t cheerful at all. So often we think of cheerfulness as kind of, “Oh yeah, keep your heart up. Be as happy as you can.” So often we think of “cheerfulness” or “calm delight” as, “Well, it’s okay you know, but it’s not nearly as wonderful as a great football match or an exciting ride on water skis or all the other wonderful things we could do here on earth.” I think that a great deal of our difficulty in finally going for Jesus’ joy is that we have so many other joys that we’ve kind of got used to – yet, we know in our hearts that they are often based on no reality. They are often based on just the fact that this experience is new to us. Paris is exciting the first time you see it, but you get used to it after a while. Many of what we call “joys” are kind of transient things that are almost more dependent on the surprise factor than on any real deep reality that is in them. We joke with each other about treats, “Oh, I’ll have a little frozen yogurt,” or “I’ll have this little experience or that little experience,” or “We’ll have our chocolate chip cookies,” or something that will give us a little bit of a lift. We have all kinds of little things that we kind of live off — and yet, they have shortcomings, too, because there are certain situations that occur in our lives that they don’t succeed in helping us with. There are certain dreadful experiences – well, we call them dreadful experiences — or disasters, or death of people whom we love, or difficulties with finances, or problems with our job, or all kinds of other little issues — and those joys are no use to us at that moment. They do not provide the calm delight that is able to face everything with absolute equanimity and peace. We know in our own hearts that the joys that we’ve got used to don’t actually succeed in helping us when life gets hard — but, we are used to them. I think that’s one of the reasons why we have difficulty with this joy that Jesus talks about. HIS joy is absolutely and utterly different from what we, in this fallen world, call “joy”. And what I saw was that part of our difficulty is right there. We keep thinking, “Oh well, surely the things that we think of as joy, surely there is some element of real joy in them?” Well I think there isn’t! I think probably there isn’t. The joys that we fallen people in this fallen world have got used to appreciating or have got used to living off, are utterly different from the joy that is real, and true, and lasting. That is the joy that Jesus talks about. I think that’s the first important thing to grasp, that the joy that Jesus talks about here in this verse, “That my joy may be in you and that your joy may be full,” — the first truth is the joy that he’s talking about is UTTERFLY different from the joys that we talk about. The little happiness that we have, the little satisfactions that we have with this experience of this nice meal, or this exciting ride in a glider, or these nice people that we have conversation with, or these circumstances that seem to be going well for us financially — it’s utterly different from all those things that we often call joy. We’re probably all prepared to call them “happiness”. We say, “Oh yes, happiness is satisfaction with what happens to you.” So often that is what we human beings are talking about when we talk about joy. We’re talking about “happy happiness” rather than joy. That’s the first thing I think — the joy Jesus has is utterly different from the joy that we talk about. I think that’s why the Bible so often connects HIS joy up with sorrow and sadness. I think the Bible is always – or God in his word — is always trying to point out to us: “Look you’re never going to seek true joy, the joy that is in my heart and the joy that is in my Son’s heart, and the joy that actually, because my Son is in you, I have planted deep down within you, too. You will never seek that. You will never experience it or enjoy it UNTIL you’ve put away those other joys — until you have in fact, come into mourning for sadness as the world calls happiness.” I just have a few of those verses: John 16:20, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice; you will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy.” And I won’t begin to interpret all the complexity or depth of that verse, but you can see that God is saying, “There has to come a time when the world rejoices and yet, YOU are not rejoicing. You’re sorrowful. Because you are sorrowful and aren’t rejoicing in the way the world rejoices, you, yourself, will eventually experience joy.” I won’t go on with that verse because it’s obviously deep, but at least God is saying, “There is going to come a time or there has to come a time in your life when what makes the world rejoice does not make you rejoice. Indeed, you actually come to the place where you SEE those things are no longer the source of joy. “Those things are no longer the things that give me joy.” Indeed, you have to come to the place where those things no longer do give you joy — where you come to the end of the happiness, or the contentment, or the satisfaction that those things bring you and you face nothingness. It’s as if God is saying, “You come to a place of reality where you see that there IS no truth in all those things.” “Yes, the chocolate chip cookie gives me a momentary satisfaction, or water skiing gives me a little bit of a thrill, or having a nice conversation with people gives me a little enjoyment” — but eventually, you come to the place where you say, “No, I’ve experienced those things before. There is a limit to how deep those can go inside me. There’s a limit to what happiness those things can bring me. No, all of that is meaningless.” People pass away. Conversations pass away. Indeed, the little bit of excitement or interest that I get from those, I can see that it’s just temporary. It’s just a little kick. It’s just a little thrill. It just passes. If you said to me, “Do you mean that we would ever come to a place where we’re kind of bored with all those things?” Irene [my wife] and I often joked about George Saunders. He was a British film star who was very smooth, a very smooth sophisticated gentlemen. He did everything just smoothly. He always had the flowers for the lady and always handed her the drinks in the right way. And of course, as I would tumble over something or be clumsy about something, or as I would go into a restaurant and either hold Irene’s chair or know what the waiter was saying to me or not, I would say, “Yeah, George Saunders all over again!” But eventually when he died, Irene quoted what they said in the newspaper — he said, “I’m so bored with life.” And of course, to us it seemed dreadful because we don’t think he said it from the point of view of belief in God at all. We thought it was a tragedy. The man had spent maybe his whole life – it’s not fair to judge him — but maybe he’d spent a lot of his life on the surface, or enjoying what the world calls “happiness”. If you say to me, “Do you mean that you have to perhaps come to a place where you get bored with it all BEFORE you’ll seek the joy that Jesus has?” I think that’s perhaps true. I think that perhaps is true. I know we all like to think we can have our cake and eat it. That you can keep your cake, keep it complete and full and yet, eat it at the same time. We know the danger of our society is to persuade each other that of course, you CAN do wrong and still live — you can have everything. But Jesus doesn’t say that. He often says, “Look, if you love father or mother more than me you are not worthy of me.” He’s always saying, “You have to choose this or that.” And the Bible itself is saying, “If Baal be god, then choose him. If God be God, then choose him.” That’s at the back of these verses in the Bible that say, “First, you have to come to the place where you mourn, or you are sorrowful, or you see that the joys that you’ve lived off so far are meaningless.” At last, you see that they’re meaningless. Lo and behold you see, “Then what is there?” There’s nothing. Until we come to that, we probably will not seek the joy that Jesus himself has. Probably the truth is we will only finally go to Jesus when we’re desperate because we see, “To whom else would we go, Lord? Thou has the words of eternal life.” Only then will we come to him with such a whole and complete heart and hunger that he will actually manifest his joy inside us. Think about it. There are many other verses, but I thought I’d just mention a few because it is so startling the way God juxtaposes joy with sadness. 2 Corinthians 7:4, “I have great confidence in you; I have great pride in you; I am filled with comfort. With all our affliction, I am overjoyed.” Again, it’s that juxtaposition of the affliction. Obviously it was the persecution and the trials that Paul was going through, and he said in the midst of all the affliction, “I am overjoyed.” We here in this room — we know ourselves well and truly — we know that is where the rubber meets the road. That is exactly where we live. We find that when affliction comes the joy goes. We’ve often said to one another, “Well, now I know God is in charge. I know he’s in control and I have faith, but it’s just, you know, it’s just …,” and we get to that, “but, it’s just…” “I mean — I was caught off guard. Things seemed so black. It seemed things were not working out,” or whatever it is. We find that the joys of the chocolate chip cookies, or the joys of the good conversation, or the joys of the friendship, or the joys that we experience on holiday — all the things that we call “joy” — they seem not to be present in the midst of affliction. We seem NOT to be able to say with all of our affliction, “I am overjoyed.” We rather say, “With all affliction, I forget all the joys that I’ve had and somehow, I do not have a calm delight in the midst of my affliction.” It seems that in some way, God is saying, “The joy that my Son has is a joy that continues in the midst of affliction.” It is something that is independent of the so-called “joys” that we are used to. Unless you put away those toys, a bit like, “When I was a child, I spoke in childish ways. But now I’m a man, [now I’m a woman] I’ve put away childish things.” (1 Col. 13:11) Or, “Unless you’ve put away those childish toys, you cannot enter into the manhood or the womanhood of my Son”. You cannot. Hebrews 10:34, “For you had compassion on the prisoners, and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property.” For example, I think it was you, Sandra [ jewelry sales representative ], who had jewelry stolen. Any of us could think of moments when we’ve either lost jewelry or lost something of our own, but we’ve experienced a plundering of our property. [Do we react] joyfully? Joyfully? Oh, if we’re honest with each other, we probably would all say, “Well, I wouldn’t say ‘joyfully’. I wouldn’t say I joyfully accepted the plundering of my property. I’d say after the first shock and moment of worry and anxiety, I probably gathered myself together and thought, ‘Well, trust in the Lord and don’t despair. God knows all things and he will supply all my needs.’ I’d probably gathered myself together and philosophized a bit and got some peace about it – but joyfully accepted it?” “Joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one.” But you can see that in the Bible, God is always juxtaposing this joy — not with good circumstances, not with good things happening to us which is usually the way we think of joy — but he’s always juxtaposing it with things that mean the DESTRUCTION of what we call “joys”, the elimination of what we call “joys”. He’s always talking about his joy as something that blossoms in the midst of an absence of what we call “joys”. You can see that it’s really different. There is a great contrast. It’s very difficult to say, “Jesus’ joy is something that he kindly adds to our joy as kind of icing on the cake.” As if we have all this and heaven, too. We have all this fun and we get heaven as well. In no way is this what God is talking about when he talks about joy. He’s obviously talking about a deep joy that is only possible to people who have finally come to the place where they don’t regard those things as joys — where they do not get their kick from those things — where indeed, they have come to the place where they see through all those things. Not only do they see the terrible emptiness of those things in a kind of philosophical safe secure way — but they see the emptiness of them with eyes that have been drained of the happiness that comes from those things. If you like to say, “Do you mean like George Saunders on his death bed?” I think that it is that kind of thing — where you come to the place where you see, “This holds nothing for me. This is kind of boring. This isn’t happiness. Is there happiness anywhere? Is there anything lasting?” Then a voice comes, “My joy will be in you and your joy will be full.” It seems to me that’s it. I don’t think it’s any less than that. James 1:2 is a well-known verse: “Count it all joy, my brethren, when you meet various trials.” Well, I don’t know how often you’ve quoted that verse. I know the hundreds of times I’ve quoted it verbally and to myself. “Count it all joy, my brethren, when you meet various trials.” It just seems an absolute paradox! It just seems incomprehensible. However much you try to encourage yourself to see, “Well, that’s God’s word, you know, and we ought to believe that and that’s the way we ought to think”. It just seems so – I cannot say the word because it’s his holy word, but it seems so “stupid”. It seems that can’t be true. Count it all joy when you meet various trials? It’s a contradiction! “Trial” means “unhappiness”. “Trial” means “a lack of joy”. How can you count it as joy when you enter into various trials? But do you see that it is God saying so plainly: “That real joy that is in my Son’s heart is only possible when the trials that you are going through have separated you absolutely and utterly from any hope of happiness in this world.” For all of us in this earthly world, “trials” mean things that take away from us the normal comforts, or the normal encouragements, or the normal reassurances that we receive from the world. It usually means the failure, or the absence, or the disappearance of some of the things that we normally depend on. A financial trial is when we don’t have the money that we need. A family trial is when family suddenly seems no longer to be our stay, and our strength, and our comfort. A friendship trial is when you lose a friend. Normally what we mean by trials, we mean things that take away from us the worldly circumstances, things and people that make life bearable. God says, “Count it as joy when you come into that situation. Only then will you be in a position where you are able to hear my Son. Where you are able to hear my Son speak to you,” and where you are able to suddenly see that HIS joy is the ONLY joy in the whole universe. You can have that joy only because you are part of him — part of his heart — and want to feel what his heart feels and want to experience what he experiences. Only when you want him as badly as that will his joy begin to be manifested in you. There’s no mystery about his joy. His joy is not in ice cream. His joy is not in loyal, faithful friends. His joy is not in a comfortable living situation. His joy is not in security about his worldly future. His joy is not in this experience of thrill or excitement. HIS joy is in one place only. I would say there are almost as many verses that say this as talk about joy being juxtaposed with affliction and with trial. “Rejoice in the Lord always.” In the “Magnificat”, Mary rejoicing in God my Savior. All through the Bible, Jesus enjoys his dear Father. He is FULL of joy in his Father. He is full of joy in his Father. His joy is in his dear Father. That is the only joy that is possible and it’s as bewildering and baffling and beyond explanation as the joy that one person has in falling in love with another person. It’s the joy that friends have when they sit opposite of each other and they’re not getting anything from each other. They’re not giving each other money. They’re not giving each other ice cream. They’re not giving each other thrills and excitement. They’re just there with each other. It’s that joy that Jesus has. The whole purpose of this world was so that we would look through all these things: look behind Santa Claus’ beard, look behind his red cloak, look behind his reindeer, look behind his trees, look behind his lakes, look behind his skies, look behind the gold and silver and his money, and his rivers, and his oceans, and his waves, and see, “There he is, my dear” – and forgive me using the word – “my dear and darling Father! There he is! There is my Father.” We are part of his only begotten son Jesus. As we YEARN for Jesus and hug him to our hearts because we have nothing else — (and that’s the only way we’ll ever grasp him in that way — we hug him to ourselves with ALL our being) — lo and behold, his joy in his Father fills our hearts. We find ourselves enjoying the joy that Jesus has in his dear Father. That’s it. That’s it. It won’t come any other way because that joy is joy in God. You and I can’t get that joy from trying just to get through the beard, and the red cloak, and the waves, and the trees, and the mountains — we can’t get through that with our miniature minds. We can’t get through that to our Father. That’s why there is no way to come to our Father but by Jesus. There is no way through to the Father but by Jesus. We cannot get straight to him. We hug the Savior to ourselves. Hug him? We don’t need to! He is in us! He said, “Thou Father art in me and I am in them.” He said to us in John 15, “Abide in me and I in you. My Father has created you in me for good works which he has prepared beforehand that you should walk in. You are in me. You are individually members of my body. You are part of me. Remain in me. Seek me alone with all your heart and my joy will rise inside you.” I think we are made so that we have to first say, “No” to the other joys. Until we’ve really come to the end of those, I don’t really think we can hear him speaking. I think we hear the words, “My joy may be in you and your joy may be full,” and we think, “Oh goody, goody! A little of that will help, too. But we’re glad we’re pretty happy despite some of the evil things in the world. We’re reasonably happy, but that’s good — I’m glad that I’ll have a little of this, too.” So I think that the only way that we’ll be finally happy is if we come to the place where we hear Jesus himself say to us, “My joy I give you. My joy is in you and your joy now will be full.” Let us pray.

Stale Manna Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill Why I read Exodus 16:9-36, the part on manna, was because of the experience that I told you we had just about three days ago when Irene [my wife] encouraged me to get rid of all the old sound and video equipment that we brought from Campus Church. I brought it because I thought the camera and the equipment was very expensive and cost us a lot of money. I thought, “Well, eventually, it’s still good enough to perhaps do the videos in Russia or the training videos that you have been doing for the road rep profession.” I always thought, “Oh well, we can use them for something.” Then gradually, I began to realize myself that this little Sony microphone that we have, because of it’s advanced technology, is far more efficient and precise than most of the good mics we used there. In fact, I’ve held on to some of the mics — but the little video camera we have here is probably as good in resolution as the big expensive $60,000 camera that we originally bought for Campus Church. So Irene said, “Let’s throw it away. Let’s get rid of it. Let’s not hold on to it.” It was at that moment that I realized that I still thought while we had that stuff, in a way, we were kind of carrying on some of the advantages that God had given us in Campus Church. I suppose I would have persuaded myself, “Well, we’re being faithful with money that loved ones gave to God’s work and we’re not throwing away money.” Yet, I can see that it is no longer worth that kind of money. In fact, the big camera, as elaborate as it is, requires a lot of adjustments by technicians two or three times a year to keep it working. It would actually cost us more to keep that operating than it is to run these little Sony video cams that we have. The same story is true of the sound equipment and of most of the other things. Did we have an argument over getting rid of that stuff? We certainly had — and of course, I fought every step of the way. You can see in the garage I have still retained an odd bit that probably should be given to the Vietnam vets — I shouldn’t say thrown away – but given to the Vietnam vets because maybe some of them can use it or maybe some company that is producing little league videos can use it. Well, I wasn’t happy with my own performance and wasn’t happy with Irene’s performance. I did what I try to do all the time, be honest before God. “Stale manna” came into my head very clearly – “stale manna”. You remember, the Israelites were told, “God will give you this manna. It will lay on the ground like hoarfrost, coriander seed. It will lay on the ground every morning that you are in the wilderness except on the Sabbath.” I suppose it would be their Saturday. “On the Sabbath there will be none, so gather enough on Friday” — or the day before the Sabbath. “Gather enough to do you that day and the Sabbath day and that will keep overnight. So what you gather on Friday will keep overnight for Saturday and you’ll be able to eat it on the Sabbath. But then each of the other days, just gather enough for that day, because if you try to keep it till the next day, it will grow stale, and foul, and there will be worms in it.” And that’s probably what Jesus is emphasizing when he taught us in the Lord’s prayer, “Give us this day our daily bread” — just give us enough for today. If you gather some for tomorrow you’ll have stale manna on your hands. It will not keep. I suddenly realized that the “equipment” wasn’t the stale manna but my hoping to carryover some of the advantages, or the gifts, or the money, or the equipment that God had given us for a PAST ministry. I was hoping to carry that over into the PRESENT ministry — and for what purpose? “Oh, to aid the present ministry — to make it more possible, to save us spending money that we didn’t need to spend.” Of course, it came right to my heart, “I will give you manna for today. I will give you the manna that you need today — and indeed, that is the only manna that you’ll be able to use and that you’ll be able to be nourished by is the manna that I give you today.” I think we have said it in past times, “Yesterday’s manna cannot be used for today.” We often say, “Yesterday’s experience of God will not do us today. Yesterday’s grace cannot be used today.” In fact, I saw that insofar as I was trying to preserve yesterday’s manna or to use it, I was in a sense taking over control of the operation myself and trying to ensure that we could do this bit — maybe without God’s provision — or maybe with what he provided years ago. That comes home to me in our own experiences. It came very plainly to me that you cannot live off yesterday’s experience of Jesus. You cannot live off yesterday’s insights. You cannot live off the experience that you had years ago. You cannot live off the light that you had years ago. You have to move on. You have to move on if you’re going to receive today’s manna. If you’re going to be alive, spiritually fresh in Jesus, then you have to receive from him what he has to give you TODAY. What he gave you yesterday was not bad. What he gave you two weeks ago was not bad. What he gave you years ago was not bad — but it was right for that time. Now just as a river is always moving on and you cannot step into the same river twice, so in our own experience with Jesus, you cannot live off what he showed you yesterday. Yesterday was baby food compared with the food that he has to give you today. Yesterday was for the little light that you had THEN. TODAY you have more light and he has more light to give you. If you live off yesterday’s light, you’ll begin to have staleness in your own life today. I saw that — probably in my own heart. It’s up to all of you what is in your hearts. I saw that the life with Jesus can get stale and dry if you’re not sinking your roots deeply into him. If you’re not sinking your roots deeply into Christ, your experience with him can get dry, run-of-the-mill, a bit of a burden — even to the point of uptightness and some frustration and great weariness and tiredness. I don’t remember the details of artesian wells. We studied it a little in geology — but I believe an artesian well is underneath the surface of the ground — that’s what comes to my mind. Jesus has promised us living water. You remember, he says, “Out of the depths shall flow rivers of living water.” (John 7:38) We know just from our experience these past two weeks that our well out there has to go down 270 feet before it hits a vein of water. Unless we sink our roots deeply into Christ himself, we will not get living water. We will end up living off the stale manna of yesterday. I began to see myself, that it is so easy to try to live by “the letter of the law” — not just in the sense of, “We ought to do this if we’re going to be Christian. We ought to believe THIS if we’re going to be Christian” — not just that. Therefore, not just a life of law and a life of doing things that you ought to do if you want to be like Christ — but also, in the early stages of life with God, you can live a little bit preoccupied with the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. You can be preoccupied with, “Now this is what we should do if we’re going to live consistently in Christ.” “This is what we should believe when we come into this kind of situation.” “This is the way to deal with temptation when it comes about.” “This is the way to get guidance when you need it. So when you come into this situation you ought to do THAT. When you come into this situation you ought to do THAT.” All of that is fair enough and true enough in its way. If you say to me, “Is it wrong to share that with another person?” Probably at times it might be helpful. At times it might clear up confusion. At times it might clarify things for a baby Christian, but it’s death to remain on that level yourself because that level is strictly a level of knowledge of how to live close to Christ. It’s very easy to keep dealing with those “how’s” and if you then never do them or do them in a mental way. It’s a bit like me saying to Sandra, “If you want to have a good conversation with Irene, here are the things she’s interested in and you could talk this way. I should tell you she really is an enthusiastic republican in politics.” I can explain just how you do it — or I can explain to Colleen, “Now, Sandra is really interested in running, so if you want to have a good conversation with her, she’s interested in running — and remember she’s Polish – and, etc.” — then Sandra never having that conversation with Irene, or Colleen never having that conversation with Sandra. In other words, it’s possible to be very clear in your mind, “How to live the Christian life”, but actually, never to touch the Savior, himself — never to sink your roots deeply into Christ and draw up living water and eat fresh sweet and energizing manna. I saw that yes, it’s easy to live off stale manna. It’s also easy to try to live off the insights and the truths that you saw for the first time two years ago. They’re really stale manna. What I saw was it’s very easy for so many of us in Christendom to be living off stale manna throughout our whole Christian life — that is, to be always preoccupied with, “Here’s the way to deal with temptation.” “Here’s the way to get guidance from Jesus.” “Here’s the way to love people and here’s the way …” The Savior stands here and says, “Thou Father in me and I in them.” HE’s standing here saying, “Abide in me and I in you.” God is saying, “You are my workmanship created in Christ Jesus”– and all the time, we’re ignoring him, thinking only that we are ourselves and trying to work out how to do what would please him. We’re trying to work out what John Wesley did when he was used by God and trying to do the same thing – or we’re trying to work out what Frances Havergal did and trying to do the same thing. All the time Jesus is saying, “You search the scriptures, you search the books, you search your own mind — and it is those things that bear witness to me — but you will not come to ME that you may have life.” I saw again that there’s a depth that can be found only in the Savior himself. If we do not sink our roots deeply into Jesus himself increasingly as the days go by, we will find ourselves eating stale manna and it will make us sick. We will be starving. We will be dry, thirsty and hungry and life will be rather a burden. I’d just remind us again of the verses that we’ve said repeatedly (I don’t think they bore you because they’re so true): Ephesians 2:10, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” John 1:3, “Everything that has been made was life in Christ Jesus.” 1 Corinthians 12:27, “You are the body of Christ and individually members of it.” We are part of Jesus. He is us. “It is not I that live but Christ that lives within me.” (Galatians 2:20) All we need is Jesus himself. We need Jesus himself. If you all said to me, “Do you mean we don’t need Oswald Chambers? We don’t need Watchman Nee? We don’t need Hudson Taylor? We don’t need John Wesley? We don’t need John Calvin? We don’t need the good books on spiritual life?” That’s right — those we can do without. We can do without all those if we have to. We cannot do without Jesus. He said, you remember, “Abide in me and I in you and you will bear much fruit. But without me you can do nothing.” And it came home to me again you know, that that’s his promise, “Abide in me and I in you and you will bear fruit and by that my Father will be glorified.” (John 15) It’s interesting that verse doesn’t run, “Go and preach the gospel to all nations and you’ll bear much fruit.” The verse doesn’t run, “Go and witness for me to others and you will bear much fruit.” The verse doesn’t go, “Bring many into the kingdom and you will bear much fruit.” In fact, in John 6:44, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.” So actually, it’s only God who can draw people. Yet, we still have the idea that bearing fruit is going out and doing something to bring people to Jesus — and that will be fruit. Jesus said it very simply. It’s in John 15, and you should look at it, “Abide in me and I in you and you will bear much fruit and by that my Father will be glorified for without me you can do nothing.” Without Jesus himself we can do nothing. Maybe you should look at that — it’s John 15:5, “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.” “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in him.” In our prayers, in our prayer life, sitting in the car — maybe it’s a little bit more difficult when we’re eating — but certainly when we’re sitting, thinking, or when we’re going to bed at night, “Savior, Lord Jesus, we need you. Lord, I need you. Lord Jesus, come. Lord Jesus, bring your heart into me now. Lord, what are you thinking in me? What are you feeling in me at this moment?” Abide in him and let him abide in us and then we will bear much fruit. Him abiding in us is what we touched before. Speaking as he speaks, talking as he talks, speaking his word AFTER him, speaking his word WITH him — it’s both a prayerful thing and it’s an active thing. It’s living in Jesus. It’s letting him live in us. It’s not abiding by his principles. It’s not trying to think — as we used to say or at least I used to say — “If you’re ever uncertain what to do just think what would the Lord Jesus do?” It’s true in a way, but too easily it gets into, “Well, the Lord Jesus would do what Wesley did.” “The Lord Jesus would do what Paul did.” The Lord Jesus is in you. He is here — you can ask him himself. You can sink your roots deeply into him and he will express his words through you. It’s what is, “Lord Jesus, this is your life — go, do, speak, act Lord. Here are my hands. Lord, do what you want with them.” It’s an active thing. Then in prayer, a quiet thing, a sinking your roots deeply into Jesus through your hungering and thirsting for him — aware that without him you can do nothing. If you say to me, “Well, what’s the heart of that — I mean, it sounds a bit mystical?” I think the heart of it is that the Father is involved all the time every day in getting us to turn from the world and to turn from each other, and to turn from every other source of strength. I think that’s what he’s about. I think that’s why we have a lot of our frustrations and a lot of our deep sadness and deep sense of futility at times. It’s the Father graciously showing us, “There is nothing there. There is nothing there. They are dear people. This is a dear organization. This is a dear operation. This is a dear world — there is much beauty in it, there is much kindness in it — but it’s dead. Without ME you can do nothing. The only thing that is good in all this that you see around you is ME. That’s what gives it life. If you ever look to the creature or the creation rather than the creator, you’ll find yourself dead, dry, starving and hungry. Sink your roots deeply into me.” I suppose one of the benefits of praying either early in the morning or late at night, or even in the middle of the night, but certainly when you’re very much alone on your own in the darkness, is that somehow God is able to show you there is only one world. There IS only one world — in here, inside — you’ll forgive me as Jesus is beyond “man” or “woman” — inside Jesus’ womb. That’s the only real world — inside Jesus. HE is the only real world. Inside him — that’s the only real world. The rest he made and it has flavors of him in it — but it’s still fallen and therefore, it’s somewhat contorted, somewhat perverted and somewhat diluted. HERE, inside him, is all I need. “In him is all I need. In him is all I need.” [ a hymn refrain] Stale manna tires you and wearies you. Eventually, life becomes utterly unbearable. God is in the business of exposing to us and giving us our fill of stale manna so that we will sink our roots deeply into Christ himself and live off HIM. You remember, he said the same thing in those verses, “Our fathers ate bread in the wilderness. They ate and died, but I am the bread of life and he that eats of me will never die.” (John 6:49) Don’t be cast down every time you discover that you’ve been eating stale manna. Rejoice in God’s goodness in showing us that — and turn to our beloved Savior who has waited so long for us to come into his arms and to embrace him every moment.

The Lie of Loneliness Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill “The Lie of Loneliness”. That might be good to use as a title, “The Lie of Loneliness”. I think many of us have had this kind of feeling, “I’m my mother’s son”, or “I’m my father’s daughter — that’s where I came from — and now they’re either dead, or they’re far away from me. Here I am, kind of on my own. I know from what I read in the Bible and what others say, that somehow, I can be part of Jesus and therefore not quite be on my own. That seems to me the ideal. So, I ought now do everything possible that I can see and that the Bible tells me and that others advise me. I ought to do everything I can to get into Jesus so that somehow, I will be part of somebody — or I will have someone who thinks about me so that I won’t feel lonely or feel that I’m on my own.” I think maybe most of us have had those thoughts or those feelings at times. We know fine well ourselves that society certainly has those feelings. Most of the people in society try to exchange a father or a mother for a friend, and then a friend for a husband or a wife. So often, it then goes on to exchange the husband or the wife for the children. But whatever they try, it always ends up rather unsatisfying because either the husband dies, or the wife dies, or the children marry and they go, or the friend ceases to be as close to you as they used to be. So, most of the people in society end up continuing to feel pretty lonely. I’m thinking even more of ourselves here. I think it’s possible to have that feeling that you are on your own and that if you can possibly get into Jesus, then you won’t any longer be on your own. What I’d like to share is that is NOT reality. That isn’t reality. I want to share that not so much from the point of view of me trying to kind of jolly you up, or make you feel better, or make myself feel better — “Oh, you’re not on your own.” We used to joke and I’ve told you about it before: there was a minister that we knew in Ireland and he had three children. Two of them were little girls and the third was a little boy. The girls were maybe eight and six years old and the little boy was three. Of course, one night he couldn’t get to sleep as he was afraid of the dark. He wanted his sister to come in with him so he wouldn’t be so scared. And of course, she would come in and she would say, “David, you’re alright. God is with you. Jesus is with you.” Then of course she would kind of throw in for good measure, “And Mary is with you, and the angels are with you. You’re alright. Jesus is here.” And of course, David lifted up the bed clothes and said, “Get out, Jesus! Get out! I don’t want you. I want so and so.” I think often we talk to each other and it seems as if we’re kind of jollying each other up: “I don’t want you to feel lonely anymore because God is really with you. You ought to remember this. We’re all with you.” That’s not what I’m trying to say. What I’m saying to myself and to you all is, from the best information in this book, it is a lie that we are on our own. I don’t want to say that it is a lie that we have been taught to believe. It is a lie that we have almost believed from the first moment we were conscious of thought — it is a lie that we are on our own. That is a lie. I’d just remind you why it is so plainly a lie. It is because you are “God’s workmanship created in Christ Jesus. “ (Ephesians 2:10) If you’re uncertain about that or you say, “Oh I know you’ve said that before,” or, “You’ve quoted that before” — I’d point out to you all the other verses that say not only, “You are the body of Christ”, but “You are Christ here on earth and you’re individually members of him.” In other words, you’re not just generally the body of Christ with all the others that are the body of Christ, but you, yourself, are an individual part of Jesus. I’d just remind you again what is said in the verse we read in Colossians, “Everything holds together in him. He was the very first-born of all creation.” Then there is another piece that says, “All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.” (John 1:3) The correct Greek translation is, “Everything that is was life in him.” In other words, each of us here was made in Jesus and are a part of Jesus from before the foundation of the world — from the very beginning. There are so many verses. Just as you think some of that over a little, look at that piece in Ephesians 1:4, “Even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. He destined us in love to be his sons through Jesus Christ.” Remember how I tried to put it in as simple terms as I could think, not just for your benefit but for my own, because I want to try and understand this clearly. You remember that I said that it seems from what you read in the Bible — I know this sounds incredible — that God at the same moment begot his son (and we talk about Jesus as his only begotten son). The best that the theologians have come up with in past centuries is that Jesus is eternally begotten of the Father. They put it that way because they say the Father is obviously the FIRST one. The Father is the beginning of everything. That’s part of why he is called the Father and presumably, part of why he is called the Creator and God, though in some sense, he is obviously preeminent. Yet we cannot tell from our little finite temporal position, “Oh yes, but in this moment in eternity God begot his son.” We cannot do that because you can’t be talking about time and eternity that are contradictory things. You’re kind of saying there’s eternity — which is at least timelessness, though it seems more than that — and then at some point in eternity, God begot his son. So the theologians say, “Well you can’t say that. So all we can say is Jesus is eternally begotten by the Father. That is, at some place somewhere in eternity, which you and I cannot understand, God begot his only son Jesus.” But here’s the truth from the Bible: that at that moment, he knew that his son, Jesus, would not only be his only begotten son and be divine like him and have the powers of knowing the future and the past as he did — (I know it sounds so wild and I’ve mentioned it before, but even as I say it, it stills seems wild to me — wild, I mean, in a sense of unbelievable) — but at that moment, God knew that his son also had to be a man. He also had to be a human being. In a way, you can think of that because you know fine well God conceives of everything in a second. God doesn’t conceive of, “Oh, first I’ll make a world. Now, I’ll have to make people to put in it,” and, “Oh, now they’re going to maybe sin and so, I have to provide some way … what will I do? Yes, my son — here he is — I’ll send him.” Obviously God doesn’t think like that. God conceives of everything in a second. The same second or millisecond as God conceived of having his only begotten son — that same millisecond — he conceived of having others in his son who would be like himself. That same second he conceived that those people would have to have the same free will that he had and those people could reject and could destroy everything. They’d have to be remade and given another chance where they could see, “Oh we can go this way or we can go that way.” At the same moment, he conceived that the only way for that to happen would be for his son to have them all inside himself — for his son, in other words, to be the great human being and all of them as part of him. So in a deep way, away in the depths of eternity, God conceived of you and me as being part of his dear son. That’s why the Bible (Ephesians 1:4-5) says, “He destined us from before the foundation of the world to be his sons through Jesus Christ.” ( I mean his sons and daughters — the Bible just used “sons” to mean children.) From the very beginning, you and I were made by God, in his son, Jesus, to be part of himself. You can see what a lie it is that we have grown up with. I don’t know about you, but I did not think of myself that way. I did not think of myself as God’s child from before the foundation of the world. I thought of myself as, a little skitter-scatter part that was produced by an Irishman and woman in Belfast: “Here I am, a little bit of flotsam or jetsam, a little bit of wood floating on the ocean of life and the world — and oh, there’s a rock there called Jesus. If I can scramble on to that somehow, then at least I’ll be kind of a part of that rock.” But even then I tended to think, “Well, I’ll be kind of a part of him. I kind of will be adopted by his Father as a kind of second class citizen.” It’s a wonderful surprise for me to see that, no way was that the way it was — no way that all that is a ridiculous lie that the majority of the world has chosen to believe because they want to be independent. There is no independence. There is no independence. There are no people outside Christ. There are people who think they’re outside Christ. There are people who think they’re independent. Part of the loneliness and desolation that comes upon them when they think that way is because there is no such thing as independence. There is no such thing as independent life outside Christ. That independent life has been destroyed in Jesus from before the foundation of the world. The only real existence is in Christ, inside Christ. There are people who accept that, believe it, and live in it. There are others who still pretend that they aren’t in Christ and that they have an existence of their own and a right to live their own life, independent of whatever “being” or “force” produced them. That’s why they feel such loneliness because that doesn’t exist. That’s why they feel such darkness at times or such despair. It’s a reflection of the nothingness in which they think they can live. What has come home to me is, “I’m not on my own. I am not on my own. I am not a little bit of humanity that is trying to link up somehow with the great eternal Being behind the universe. I am not a little piece of nothing that has nobody who really feels close to me. I am part of Jesus. I was made part of Jesus from the very beginning. I was created by God. I am “his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works which he’s prepared beforehand that I should walk in.” That’s who I am. I am the body of Christ. I am individually a member of Christ — that is, I am a part of Christ. I am a little nail on his little finger, or I am a little piece of skin in the palm of his hand, or I am a little cell inside him — not just a nothing but a living person because he’s a living person. I am a part of him, part of him, himself.” I can see it just changes the whole way you think of yourself. You no longer think of yourself as “poor me”. I can see that in myself. I no longer think of myself as “poor me” that maybe has this disadvantage compared to other people or this advantage compared with other people. I’m no longer “poor me” who the last time I was close to anybody was at two-and-a-half years old when my mother cuddled me to her breast. I’m no longer “poor me” who is not close to anybody. My Lord, my Lord Jesus feels for part of his arm and I’m part of what he feels. I’m part of what he feels. He feels me. He feels me as part of him. He thinks of me as part of him. I belong to him and he belongs to me. I think that that is reality. I can see such a difference in waking in the morning. I can see such a difference between, “Oh, here I am. The day’s ahead and I’ve this to do and that to do. I have this thing to face and that thing to face and this problem to solve. Yet Lord, you said, ‘Thou I’m with you always’. Lord I know you’re with me and that’s a great help and encouragement. I must try to remember that more.” I can see the unreality of all that and the weakness of it and the diluted lukewarmness of it compared with reality: My eyes waken, “Savior, isn’t this a day! Lord, what are your thoughts? What do you want to do? What have we to do? What do you want to do? The good works that you’ve prepared beforehand that I’ve to walk in — Lord Jesus, let’s go!” Somehow, immediately the Savior’s heart rises within you and begins to lift you up with his attitude to his Father. Suddenly, you’re in a big world. Suddenly, you feel a big world developing inside you and opening out. Suddenly, it’s no longer this pokey little creature that is on its own trying to grab at Jesus to kind of get some feeling that somebody’s with me. Suddenly, the center of your heart is not about you at all. It’s about him and with him. It’s about all of the world and all of the Father and all of heaven. Somehow everything floods into your heart and life lifts and is bright. There’s a total difference. I can see that loneliness is a lie. It is a lie. The despair, the fear and the anxiety of loneliness is there because loneliness is a lie. There is no such thing as loneliness. There is no life outside Jesus. The Bible says, “Because he lives, I live also.” And if Jesus doesn’t live, I don’t live. Even those who feel lonely feel lonely because they believe that they’re on their own. They’re NOT on their own. The Lord Jesus, of whom they are a part, still feels they are part of him. Part of the strain that they feel comes from the fact that they are at loggerheads with reality. They are in controversy with God, with Jesus himself. That’s part of the strain and stress that they feel. This morning at breakfast, we were talking about the Italian idea of family (“famiglia”), or the Polish idea of famiglia or family, or the Irish idea of famiglia or family. We all have our versions of it and I can see that it’s a bitter sweet concept. “Blood family” is only God’s way of getting us born into the earth. “Blood family” is only a poor shadow of reality. Reality is that “in heaven there is no marriage or giving in marriage. Who are my brothers and sisters? Those who do the will of my Father. Who is my Father? Did you not know I would be about my Father’s business.” ‘But your father’s a carpenter.’ “No. My Father is the Creator of the universe.” That is our Father. That is our Father. Our dads were dear or are dear but they are only a shadow of reality. They themselves are sons. They themselves are sons. They themselves are part of Jesus and that is the reality. In other words, when Jesus was born of his Father we came into existence. You’re right — we only appeared in time here in the earth in whatever year you were born or I was born. But the fact is that when Jesus came into existence, he came into existence as the Son of God and also as the “first-born” of all creation. As the “first” — and indeed the only human being — and all of us are part of him. So you can see why loneliness is such a lie. Please, I’m not saying it to help you or to help me with my psychological life. I’m not saying it because I think, “Oh, don’t we all feel lonely at times?” I’m saying strongly that that is an utter and absolute lie. We are being downright unbelievers and we are living an unreality. I’m not saying, “Now listen. Let’s all have a little more faith or let’s zippity do-da, zippity yea. Let’s sing a little song and make ourselves feel happier.” Or, “Here’s a thought that will help you in your times of loneliness.” I say to myself and to you, we are downright living in unreality when we feel lonely at all because that’s the LAST thing we are. We are part of Jesus. We are a part of God’s only begotten son. He thinks of us that way. Jesus thinks of us that way. That is reality and we are close to the heart of the whole of reality because we are in the Son who is the apple of our Father’s eye. That dear Savior loves us more tenderly and more personally than any of our earthly parents or our earthly relatives – more than our earthly friends can ever love us. Each morning when the sun comes up he is here ready to live his life here in this body using these arms, these hands, using these eyes and these ears — he wants me to enjoy the ride. That’s what my life is today. I think you need to think it through for yourself. I’d remind you of Colossians 1:15, “He is the first-born of all creation.” I’d remind you of the verses in Ephesians 1 where “we are destined through Christ to be God’s sons from before the foundation of the world.” I’d remind you of John 1:3, “All things were made by him and without him was not anything made that was made.” I’d remind you of 1 Corinthians 12:27, “You are the body of Christ and individually members of it.” And dozens more verses that make it clear — John 15, “Abide in me and I in you. A branch cannot bear fruit neither can you unless you abide in me. Without me you can do nothing.” All of these verses make it absolutely clear that reality is that when Jesus was born the only begotten of his Father, he was born also as the great human being. We all were created inside him so that he is, in a sense, our eternal Father and we belong to him. We are not on our own — in no way. If you say to me, “Well, how do you deal with loneliness?” It seems to me there’s only one way and that is to reject it outright as a downright lie, as unreality — and not yield to any self pity or to any of the tricks that Satan plays to get you to think that the way you’ve been thinking all your life is really right — and you are on your own. I think there’s only one attitude to take, that this is downright sin — but not just sin that I ought to pull myself up by the bootstraps and avoid — but this is unreality! This is not reality. This is not reality. “Lord, Savior, this is your life — let’s go.”

Praying God’s Way Matthew 6:1-2 Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill Could you please take your Bibles and turn to Matthew 6:1-2, “Beware of practicing your piety before men in order to be seen by them; for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. Thus, when you give alms, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by men. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by men. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you And in praying do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.” So those two verses are important for us here at prayer times and, “In praying do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.” So just look at that last verse which I agree brings problems to all of us, “Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.” But I think we should take those words honestly and simply. I’ve always felt there’s something not quite right, really still I’m not sure what it is but there’s something not quite right in Saturday after Saturday saying, “Lord, help Dan to know that you are with him and help him to remember that you are there and you are enabling him to see what he needs to see in all the workers heart.” You know how that would go on, I don’t need to elaborate. But I’ve always felt – I know what we mean and I know what I mean but I’ve always felt there’s something not quite right about it. And I’m sure it has echoed in the back of my mind what I learned at Sunday school that your Father knows what you need before you ask him. And I’ve thought you know it’s a bit like dinging into his head. Here Jesus says clearly, “Your Father knows what you need before you ask him,” and yet you kind of think, “Well yeah, but I’m not going to have anything to say then. I mean, it’s going to be very quite prayer time if I just accept that.” And yet I’ve still felt there’s something not right, there’s something not intelligent about it, there’s something just not right. Please, I’m not absolutely clear of the answer myself but I have felt often when I would pray that way or when you would pray that way that there is something we’re not really dealing with what God says there you know. Jesus says, “Look your Father knows what you have before you ask him,” and so you ask him and we ask him. And then I’ve felt we compounded the problem because it says in the previous verse, “And in praying do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard for their many words.” And then I think we’re often saying the same words over, and over, and over again, you know. And Saturday after Sunday, indeed you might say day, after day, after day we’re saying the same words over again. And sometimes you even think yourself, “Well, I ought to say them because kind of if I say them God will know that I’m concerned.” And so we hesitate to say, “We will add to the worth of our prayers.” We hesitate to say, “We will pile up our petitions before God so that he can’t ignore them.” But there’s a little of that in our minds. We think, “Well yes, but if I keep on asking he’s bound to realize how serious I am,” as if you know he could realize before we asked. And so we keep on maybe Saturday after Saturday, Sunday after Sunday, Tuesday after Tuesday, Friday after Friday, saying the same things. And of course I think you know yourselves where it becomes ridiculous is where you find yourself or you suddenly are conscious of somebody else giving God details about what he should do, you know, as if he might not know and you wanted to outline the thing completely before him. All of that I think bring some question into your mind if you’re at all reflective and if you try to take scripture seriously, you feel there must be something better than this. And yet, we carry on doing it and we continue to encourage each other because we’re not quite clear why or what else you should do. I would just remind you of the reality that we shared last Saturday, it’s the reality in Psalms 139:16, though as you know from the verses we just erased on the white board it occurs in all those other places that you probably took down or know about. Psalms 139:16, “Thy eyes beheld my unformed substance; in thy book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.” So, “Thy eyes beheld my unformed substance; in thy book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.” So every day that we have had and every day that lies before us, God has already formed it for us. So it’s all settled out. Yes, it is true that we have a free will but somehow you know he has that lined up. Yes, we turn that way, that way, that way, but we never go outside that you know. Somehow in his miraculous way he’s arranged our free wills, we may vary but inside this there is the counsel of God’s will and he works everything according to that counsel. [Ephesians 1:11] He does it so that our life is planned for us and that means he has foreseen all the difficulties that we face, all the problems that we face, and he has solved them. There is a resting in that contentment that is the heart of true prayer. There’s a resting, there is a deep resting in that contentment that enables God to beget true prayer within us. Now, I think I speak better than I know there because I can’t explain that completely but there is a deep resting in that truth that God has planned our life and he has dealt with it all in Jesus, and he has reconciled it all to himself, and it is a known way. There is a deep resting in the contentment of that that enables true prayer to come from us. In other words, true prayer comes from absolute confidence that God has everything answered and dealt with in Jesus and that in a sense nothing more needs to be done. And from that there issues true prayer. And true prayer starts with one person, that person you’ll find clearly indicated in Romans 8:34. “Who is to condemn? Is it Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us?” True prayer begins with our Savior who is at the right hand of God interceding for us. And that’s really the only prayer that is real and that has any meaning in it, the prayer that Jesus is praying now at the right hand of his Father. The only prayer that is worthwhile in us is the prayer that he prays within us. We abide in him and he abides in us and in us he wants to pray the prayer that he prays at his Father’s right hand. In other words, prayer is really, so that you remember it vividly, prayer is really Joe with his cool sunglasses on and standing on the ironing board. Do you remember that? Catching the wave, the surfer catching the wave — we catch the wave. We catch the wave — the heartbeat of Christ. We drop a stone into the pond there in the middle and then the ripples ripple out and we out here catch a ripple, and somebody else catches a ripple. That’s what prayer is. So prayer comes from a great contentment, a life that is content and at rest. It cannot come from a life that is discontented, or is worried, or is anxious. It cannot come from a heart that is trying to do great things for the Lord, and Lord help me to do great things for you. It cannot come from that. The heart of the eternal is wonderfully kind and the heart of the eternal is utterly at peace. The heart of Christ is utterly at peace because all has been done, the battle is over, the victory has been won, all the lives have been reconciled, all the complex circumstances at Bosnia and Herzegovina, all the complex circumstances of our own lives have been reconciled in Jesus and brought together and culminated in him and he is now at the right hand of his Father and he intercedes there for us in the only way that is right and proper and real. And we catch the wave of that prayer. And that’s the all important thing. In other words, the important thing to the Father is that you know his heart, that you know his heart and understand his heart, and feel with him, feel with him. So arrangements have been made for Christmas day, or for the play that we’re going to see, or the outing we’re going to have and then if you keep asking me, “What’s going to happen Pastor? What are we going to do? What are we going to do? What are we going to do? Could we do this or could we do that?” I know you know nothing about my love for you, you know nothing about what I’ve arranged, you know – don’t you know that all that is settled? So it’s only insult to God to keep on, “Well, could you do this? Could you do that? Could you do this?” He says, “My children, it’s all done. It’s all done. I want you to rejoice in that. I want you to enjoy the wonder, and the peace of that that is not only in my heart but that was done so that it would be in your heart. I want you to enjoy that. I want you to enjoy that.” So there is a place sometimes the Savior will prompt us to thank God for something that he has done but it’s not that game we used to play with the man’s doctrine of praise, you mean power through praise. You know, where we thought, “Oh if we thank God that he has done it then that’s a real prayer then he’ll answer that prayer.” It’s dreadful. It’s dreadful. It’s manipulation of the most wretched insulting kind to the Supreme Being of the whole universe. It’s not that kind of thing. It is a joy, a contentment that wells up within you that is just enjoyment. And yet it is not just choosing whatever you want to thank God for, it is the Savior that brings that within you. Now, I venture to say if you’re not content enough or at peace enough with him for him to beget in you a true prayer from his own heart, I venture to say we’re heaping up phrases and we’re just filling – in fact, often – sometimes it can be worse than filling the air with noise. We can often by our noise be distracting others from something they actually might be getting from Jesus’ heart. Now I understand absolutely with you that whether it’s the things, some of which are true I’m sure and some of which are untrue, whether it’s the things that are reported in the Renewal Magazine about people roaring and crying and rolling on the floor, and I’m sure some of that may be right, but whether it’s that or whether it’s us with our ideas of what a good prayer meeting is, or what a lively prayer meeting is you can see all those things have nothing to do with prayer. Nothing at all, they’re just noise; they’re just filling the air with wind. Prayer only comes from one heart and that’s from Christ. And Christ’s heart prays to his Father in the light of the fact that all has already been done and all is accomplished. So if you say to me, “Then probably a lot of prayer would be kind of really praise, or thanks, or just rest?” Yeah, I would suspect it is. I’m hesitant to say because the last thing we want is to set up a set of laws where we kind of tick off okay Thomas’ prayer was okay, that had the right words in there. Marty said, “Help Dan to do something,” so that’s wrong. Well then that’s a killer, you know, then we all clam up and get paralyzed with fear and self conscious and preoccupation with ourselves rather than with God which is the whole point of coming together. But as far as I can see, prayer is something that comes from the Savior’s own heart to our heart. It first exists within our heart and then we express it. But, it comes from within it has nothing to do with what Christians ought to do or how we ought to pray, or what this prayer meeting needs to really liven it up. It has nothing to do with all that stuff. All that is just idle worship and is just waste of time and worse than that is a dreadful insult to our Father. So if you say to me, “What do you think the heart of prayer is?” I suspect the heart of the prayer is our Father’s heart. I suspect that the heart of prayer, the heart of prayer is a delight that comes to him as we come into this parallax, we call it in a camera, you know where if you have one of those things on your camera where it tells you whether you’re exactly in focus, the parallax the two images come together, I suspect that is what it’s like. That prayer is really two hearts coming together, your heart and God’s heart and it’s there that the peace, and joy, and harmony that he longs for is felt and that prayer is mostly that. Prayer is mostly a love affair. It’s mostly a love conversation with our dear Father through Jesus. I would rather say it’s Jesus in a love conversation with his Father in our name. That’s what it is. It’s Jesus loving his Father in our name and that’s the heart of it. Now I am sure there are more and more and greater and greater depths to it, but I think there’s enough there to rescue us from just light verbal prayers that obviously are telling God things he doesn’t need to know. And then you may sit here you know, particularly if we just begin to move in this direction, at the beginning you may sit there and think, “Well, I haven’t a thing to say.” Maybe you shouldn’t have a thing to say. Maybe it’s right, maybe we’re too self righteous to say, “Well, I know I’m a good prayer and now this makes it impossible for me to.” Well, maybe you’re not a good prayer. Maybe it’s time to be still and know that I am God. I agree with you, there’s a silence of death and there’s a silence of worship. You can’t do much can you? I mean, you can’t sit there and decide this is the sounds of death so we whoop it up with a song, or this is sounds of death so I better pray, or why aren’t some of the others praying. I mean, if it’s the sounds of death it’s the sounds of death. Let’s accept it, let’s face it and let’s start there. Presumably God can show us how to get up from the grave eventually. But I do think there’s no sense in bringing superficial band-aids to the situation. If there is a great gaping wound there is only one who can heal it and that is Jesus himself. It does seem to me that we should think about those things. I’m not asking you to accept it all, I’m asking you to think about it, to consider these things, and to consider it in the light of scripture and most of all I think to see our lives are already solved and reconciled by God. That all is done. That’s all done. And it’s from your faith and confidence in that that prayer issues. Prayer cannot issue from a heart that has not really come into rest about itself. Prayer, true prayer, comes from a contented heart that is at peace. So probably one of the early things is to settle, “Lord, you mean you really have solved all the things in my life and it is all really settled, and all this has been reconciled and worked according to the counsel of your will? And I’m on track and you have me right in your sights and you have me ready to come through the gates into your home? Is that reality, Lord?” And then when you rest in that then out of that the Savior who is within those gates is able to pray through us. Let us pray.

Christ Living in You Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill Many of us have got used not only to this abbreviation. It is really what we were taught in seminary but many of us have not only got used to it. We have made it a kind of metaphor for our own Christian life, “Christ in you.” And I think up till recently probably, most of us have not seen any difference between thinking of it metaphorically and thinking of it actually. In other words, if I had said to you, “Christ is in you and you are in Christ.” You would have said, “Yes, that is the basis of all Christian faith. We know that.” But it seems to me we’re not beginning to see that this is true in actual fact. That in fact, these verses state very clearly that we were created in Christ Jesus. And this verse states very clearly that we are actually Christ’s body. You, yourself, are here so that Christ himself could live a life in you that he will not live in anybody else and that you were thought of by your Father before the foundation of the world because he had a certain glory of his only begotten Son that could be expressed only in you. And that’s why you exist. So, I think we’re all beginning to sense that there is a difference between thinking it metaphorically, “Oh yes, we’re in Christ,” that is, we think about the things that Christ thinks about and we look at politics, and we look at finances, and look at business in terms of Christ’s philosophy and therefore we’re generally in Christ. That’s the metaphorical way of looking at it. But I think many of us are beginning to grasp, no, this is not a metaphor. This is not just a nice thought but in fact Christ is in me. In fact when Paul said, “I live, not I but Christ lives in me.” He was not simply making a dramatic point but he was stating very clearly this is not my life. I have been bought with a price. This is not my life to live the way I want to. In fact, I have died and my life is hid with Christ with God [Galatians 2:20] and now Christ in his Spirit is living a life that he had planned to live years ago. He’s living it in me. And you remember, I tried to use the term that we so often use, we say that we do this in Christ’s name rather it is Christ is living in our name. Christ living in the name of Irene O’Neill. Christ living in the name of Ada Luo. Christ living in the name of Thomas. Christ living in the name of Joe. That is it. It is Jesus himself living in us. Old Barth puts it this way, he is of course what we call a reformed theologian or is certainly thought of as that. As I would often deal with Wesley, of course, he would often deal with Luther. So he quotes Luther in this little book. It is not the greatest, I think. It’s alright but I think really his, I know you won’t like it, but Barth’s 12 treatises in volumes, I think are better if you can struggle through them. But he says, “For a Christian life,” this is Luther, “For a Christian life exists wholly in practicing and experiencing the things that one hears and reads from God’s word daily.” And so that kind of makes you feel good because you feel, “Oh yes, so we read the word. We study the Bible, and we study its principles, and we study the things its saying and then we live by those.” Except it goes on, “Therefore if thou does so seek to know properly and hit upon and give the definition of what a Christian may be or whence a man may be called a Christian, then there must not tramp across to Moses’ law, papal rule, or to any man whatever, not even to the holiest saints, life and sanctity.” It’s quite interesting, he says, “No wait a minute, when I say you’ve to live daily by God’s word, I don’t mean you’ve to study Moses’ life or study Moses’ law, or even so much just study Christ’s life or study Paul’s life. And you’ve certainly not to study the rules of the Benedictine order,” who I’d like to mention this evening. “And you’ve not to study the life of Hudson Taylor, or the life of John Wesley, or the life of Martin Luther, or George Mueller, this is not how to live the Christian life.” “Or to any man whatever, nor even to the holiest saint’s life and sanctity but only to Christ’s word when he says, ‘My sheep hear my voice.’ In short, nothing that can happen in and by us makes a Christian, only this does it, that this man is known. That one holds by him and turns to him for what one wants to have of Christ. That he is the good shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep and knows them. Therefore I say on no other way does a man become a Christian except he hears this voice alone.” In other words, you don’t live like Christ by studying the Bible. He himself said that, “Search the scriptures; it is they that bear witness to me. If you think you’ll find an eternal life but you will not come to me for it. You will not live the Christian life by studying the Bible, or by studying the lives of the saints, protestant or catholic saints, or by thinking through the principles of Christ. You will only live a Christian life if daily you hear the voice of Jesus within you. If daily you hear the voice of Jesus. If daily you wait upon him until his Spirit becomes clear to you. If daily you quiet your heart, and your mind, and your emotions, and your spirit, and your body and you wait long enough not for the time that you have set apart for him, the quiet time, but if you go before him early enough or late enough, whichever is your time, and you wait upon him to catch his voice in you. He actually quotes Arius who said, “Who us fits to God,” who adjusts us to God. The Holy Spirit adjusts us to God. If you would wait upon the voice of Jesus, the Holy Spirit, he will adjust you to God daily. Daily and that is the only way to live a Christian life. You have to throw away that phrase. That is the only way for Christ to live each day in you. In other words, Christ lives when your tongue speaks what he speaks. Christ lives in you when your hands do what his hands are doing. That can only come if daily you are touching him. If daily your spirit is being adjusted to his Spirit. And that is the Christian life. Now you can see the life that we are living now. It’s a coarse approximation to that. It is coarse. It is a joke because so often we study the Bible to get some good thoughts, get some good insights. “Oh, I never saw that before.” But so often it is something that we take upon ourselves, we are the masters of it. “Ah, I’ve seen that. Now, I have to apply that here, and here, and here in my life.” And that may produce a virtuous life, and may produce a religious life, and may produce an ethical life. But it will not produce a fragrance that Christ himself produces in you as his Spirit pervades your spirit as you catch the fragrance and the sweetness of his own heart. And that only comes, and you know it’s – well, it’s good authority, the best authority is scripture but it’s good authority for saying it, but the only way the Christian life can be lived is if we are daily touching Christ’s own heart and spirit. Then, somebody then knocks at your door at 5:30 or 4:30, or 3:30, or whatever time you get up and calls, “Joe, are you ready?” And then instead of oh going out of the door, out of your ears, and out of your head, and thinking, “Oh, that’s Trish,” or, “That’s Marty. Oh, okay I’m coming.” Instead of that, Christ can respond and you experience that and you feel his peace, and you feel it is him responding and you feel his heart. Then as the day goes on it becomes so much a part of you that you’re not thinking, “Oh this is Christ.” It’s you yourself have been taken over by him and it’s his voice, and it’s his fragrance, and it’s his Spirit that speaks forth from you as the day goes on. And of course, the important thing we all know is when the day gets hectic and paperwork is flying in all directions at the office, it’s him, it’s him and his Spirit that prevails miraculously. And if there’s a second when, you remember, Greg used to produce the theology of “losing it,” whether you lose it three ways and when you begin to lose it, it’s recollection, a moment of recollection, “Savior, you alone matter.” I’ll go to the bathroom or wherever so the crew will not just think I am sleeping, but I go somewhere and I come back and I retain the fragrance that Jesus gave me in the morning. But that’s the life of Christ. It’s the touch of his Spirit, it’s waiting upon him. Please, I understand many of us have got so coarse in our spirits that we hear this, but you’re like the man that Jesus touches. You say, “Yes, pastor I see men but as trees walking. I can kind of hear what you’re saying and I can kind of catch at it but I can barely catch at it.” I don’t blame you because our spirits have got so coarse and we are so utterly convinced. But the Christian life is something that we live with a little help from our friend, Jesus. We live with a little help from the Spirit. But it is us that does it, and for many of us it’s just an elevated kind of ethical life. So, I understand that our spirits have gotten very coarse and very strong so that we can hardly distinguish between our soul and our spirit and we can hardly determine when we’re running the thing for Christ and for God’s glory and when it is Jesus. So, I know that but the Holy Spirit, if you begin to yearn for this, will fill you as Jesus said, “That you are blessed if you hunger and thirst after this for you will be filled.” [Matthew 5:6] This is the Christian life and the purpose of our businesses is not simply to give honest value for money in the food we cook in the restaurant, in the oranges and apples that we sell. It is not even to be kindly to people, or to be mannerly. It is not even to be people who simply don’t swear at each other, or don’t lose their temper, or seem even to love each other. It is not that. The purpose of the business is nothing short of this — that Christ himself would serve each person who comes into the café. Not in the sense that you would do it in Christ’s name. Not in the sense that you would do it as patiently as Christ would do it. Not in the sense that you would do it as lovingly as Christ would. Not in the sense that you are doing it for Christ’s glory and not for money. Not that at all, but Christ himself, his own Spirit would serve people so that they would go out of the door and would have touched something that they can’t even define themselves because it is a spiritual thing that is perceived spiritually. It is probably true that just as the only authentic part of a painting is that which cannot be expressed in words. Also, the only authentic part of a sculpture is that which cannot be expressed in any other art form, and the only authentic part of a piece of music is that that cannot be expressed by any other means. It is probably true that the touch of Christ and his life can probably not be expressed in words. And he’s probably the reason why often you might feel, even about a preacher, and we would certainly feel it about each other in conversation. Stop. Stop, you’re not speaking of anything real. You’re losing it. You’re just filling the air with words. This is not true spirit. Just let’s be quiet. So, in our businesses the purpose for them is that what you would say is true that the man or the woman would fade and Christ himself would step forth and touch the person. That will not come about by a simple discipleship approach to Bible study, or a simple picking out of principles from God’s word. Or even from the life of George Mueller. All that itself is a dead Colleen. Only Christ himself, his own Spirit can bring life. Only if you and I touch Christ daily will Christ himself speak with our tongues and act with our hands and that is the Christ life. I have used the term to you that Martin Luther said, “The aim is to have new Christs.” I thought, “That’s a good way to put it.” Old Barth of course is always splitting hairs until you see the hair is trimmed and smoothed after he’s finished with it. And he says, “No, there’s only one Christ, there cannot be many Christs. There is only one Christ.” But that Christ is going to live a unique life in you. So, there are many expressions of Christ but it is Christ himself in you, it is not you as another version of Christ. It is not you as another picture of Christ. You are not just an “It”. That’s the incredible thing. You are not actually just a channel in a sense, you are Christ himself in a way that no one else is. Of course, it can only be that as you hang on him daily. I don’t need to elaborate why it’s necessary to hang on him daily, because the pressure of the outside world is so strong that we are always slipping into the half life that is lived here on earth. So you cannot afford to go a day without waiting upon him. I know we’ve all had our struggles with quiet times. Please, it is not something that we have to do to be in Christian Corps. It is not something you have to do if you are a Christian — it is not something you have to do if you want to be in good spiritual health. It is not something you have to do if you want to get to heaven. Quiet time is quiet, a time of quietness when you can wait on Jesus’ Spirit himself and let him fill you and fill your personality with himself. And as much as we say, Mary, Jesus’ mother, was there at some moment and at some moment the Holy Spirit came in. But who can tell when that moment is. Who can tell when the Holy Spirit came in and began to create something inside you? No one can tell. No one has ever attempted to tell when that occurred. So it is with Jesus, himself, in our quiet times. All we can do is wait upon him and be aware that this is what we were made for and this is the only thing that we need. Then as we hunger and wait upon him, then we know he comes in. I believe at several elders meetings and I think we knew, I mean, one time it was after three hours, but I think we knew when Jesus comes and when we cease from our own works and we cease from our own thinking and our own strife and the quiet Savior comes. And it’s in that, that God has given us the privilege of living and that’s what the Christian life is. That’s what we have been giving this year for, so that Christ Luo, Christ Overby, Christ Poehler, could live so that Jesus himself would live in places we find ourselves through the days of this year. I would just say that cannot be unless we ourselves refuse to begin our daily lives unless he is here, unless he’s here. And I would say every day we go forth without him is a day that may as well not have been. Because it’s him and his Spirit that lives the life of God here on earth and gives us a sense of fulfillment in our own lives. So I’d ask you to deal with him this day and especially to look out on this year and decide is it going to be “you” again? Is it going to be you again fitting him in where you can? Or, regarding your main job as doing what you are supposed to do here in Christian Corps. Or, is it going to be you saying, “Savior, not a step today without you — not a step. Lord, if I have to wait here all day, not a step until you are here and until I have stopped myself and you have begun to live.” Let us pray.

Jesus is our Real Father Colossians 1:15-29 Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill Please turn to Colossians 1:15-29, “He is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation; for in him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities – all things were created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the first-born from the dead, that in everything he might be pre-eminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. And you, who once were estranged and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and irreproachable before him, provided that you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel which you heard, which has been preached to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister. Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church, of which I became a minister according to the divine office which was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known, the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now made manifest to his saints. To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Him we proclaim, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man mature in Christ. For this I toil, striving with all the energy which he mightily inspires within me.” May God help us to understand these words. I’d like to share about the consequences that I can see of the things that we’ve shared over the past few weeks and the first is this – I’m sure none of us have any trouble thinking of our dads or our mums and immediately their dear faces spring to our eyes, and we know exactly and I can smell my dad’s tobacco and so we all have no trouble thinking immediately of our dads and our mums. And that governs a great deal of our living even after we’ve married and we’ve our own children and all that kind of thing. Still, that governs a lot of our lives and what I can see is that that’s not reality. That isn’t reality. So I’d just point you to some of the verses that we’ve already dealt with in the past but Ephesians 2:10 is an obvious one. Ephesians 2:10, “For we are his workmanship,” that’s God’s, “Created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” That’s the reality. We were not first created in our mum’s womb, but we were created first in Christ Jesus. And please, I’m with everybody here that things, “But that’s metaphor, metaphor, metaphor, that’s just a metaphor.” Well, you know, as we’ve studied it, it isn’t just a metaphor. Right throughout the Bible you read, “All things were created by him and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life and the life was the light of men.” [John 1:4] So repeatedly in the Bible we see that it is true, everything was created in Jesus, not least of all us, ourselves. It’s very easy for us to take the attitude, “Oh yes, you mean the first little amoeba on the first little pond was created in Jesus, and of course, we eventually came from that somehow.” Well no, according to what God has told us, it’s a much more personal thing than that. And it’s back in Psalms 139 which we looked maybe about a month ago almost most. Psalms 139:13-16, “For thou didst form my inward parts, thou didst knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise thee, for thou art fearful and wonderful. Wonderful are thy works! Thou knowest me right well; my frame was no hidden from thee, when I was being made in secret.” You know which is obviously different from my mother’s womb. “My frame was no hidden from thee, when I was being made in secret, intricately wrought in the depths of the earth. Thy eyes beheld my unformed substance.” Not talking about embryo or anything but an unformed substance, “Thy eyes beheld my unformed substance; in thy book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.” And you can see the whole thrust of that is that God saw each one of us long before we appeared in our mother’s womb and long before we appeared on this earth. God saw us and saw us made and it should be no surprise to us with the computers and our own ability to foresee things that he foresaw what was likely to happen. It’s quite interesting I found a bit in one of the old church fathers that Barth quotes. It is Athanasius, whom some of us know him from church history studies, and he says, and puts it really as some of these old guys do very simply, later on I’ll read his complex abstract statement first, “The God of all things who created us by his word knew what should befall us better than we ourselves. And he foreknew that after our first righteousness which should transgress his commandment and that because of our disobedience we should be expelled from paradise for that reason in his loving kindness and goodness he prepared beforehand in his word by which he created us, a provision for our salvation. He did this so that even if we fell deceived by the serpent, we should not finally be destroyed but possessing the redemption and salvation prepared beforehand to the word should rise again and live forever.” [The Incarnation of the Word, Athanasius] And then he has this little example, “Now wise master builder when he undertakes to build a house, considers at the same time how he may repair that house should it fall into decay after its erection. And weighs up what preparations must be made for that purpose, supplying the foreman with the materials necessary for such repair and thus making all the preparation for renovations even before the house is built.” And we know fine well ourselves, you prepare, Yeah, “I’ll fly to the States in June, but if Continental goes bust I’ll…” and we line up the contingencies. And so it’s not remarkable that our God who has an infinite mind, who can see far beyond where we can, that he would, when he first conceived of his only begotten Son and conceived at that same moment of bringing about our existence in his Son and created us in his Son that he foresaw that if he was going to give us the same freedom that his Son had then we could abuse that freedom and then all would have to be done again. Then he determined that his Son, and his Son was pleased to agree with his Father, that whatever we did he would hold us inside himself whatever the cost. Even if it brought about the agony that was expressed on Calvary. You know I have likened it to us having a virus inside our own bodies or a cancer eating away inside all the time. That’s really what he bore. It’s in that sense that he bore our sins, he kept us inside himself whatever the costs and he still at this moment does. Even for the guy that murdered somebody yesterday in New York, he keeps him inside himself and bears that in order to do everything to give him a chance of coming into heaven with him. But, God foresaw that and he created us in his Son. You can see what I mean — you’ve guessed it at times yourself — I’m sure you’ve thought as I have thought, I mean my dad and mum are dead now but I did think, “What would happen when they die?” I thought the world would end when they died but then when they die and then their memory is very vivid. Then I used to think of my dad when he was my age, how did he forget his mother and think of me so much. And of course, it’s just a fact that as the time goes by they fall into the right place. They fall into the place that God gave them. They were God’s method of bringing us to earth. That’s all they are. And when we see them again, well we’ll still know them as dad and mum but we’ll all be the same age, or we’ll all be beyond age and so in that sense, just as there’s no marrying or giving in marriage in heaven, so there will be in a sense no father, and mother, and son, and daughter. We will all be the children. Ridiculous though it sounds because you’re – well, you know better than to say, “Yes of God,” we will all be the children of Jesus. We will all be the children of Jesus . I’d just remind you of the piece there, I think it’s in Isaiah isn’t it, it’s Isaiah 9:6, that remarkable piece of Isaiah that is used in Handel’s Messiah and we all sing it confidently, gaily ignoring its meaning, of course. Isaiah 9:6, “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government will be upon his shoulder, and his name,” this is Jesus we all know that, he is the son that was born. “And his name will be called ‘Wonderful Counselor,’” and we agree with that, “Might God,” and we agree with that, “Everlasting Father.” No, no, God is our everlasting Father. But no, in God’s inspiration of Isaiah he expressed the reality that Jesus is the Everlasting Father. You know, wherever God is Jesus is and wherever Jesus is God is wherever the Holy Spirit is God is. You know, the trinity means that wherever one is present they are all present. Of course Jesus is our Everlasting Father because we were created in Christ. So that’s a different way to think. If you, and I know you do want to live in reality and I want to live in reality, I can see that I have to live in that reality that Jesus is my Father. That Jesus is my dear parent. That he is the one who has begotten me and the things that I have are the things that he has. They are not the temporal things, some of them weaknesses that we inherited from our dads and mums. They are not even the strengths, some of which we inherited from our dads and mums, but we are Jesus’ children. He is our dear Father, we owe him everything. So, I don’t know about you but I certainly always wanted to please my dad, you know, and I wanted him to be proud of me and all that sort of thing and I’d imagine you’re the same with mum or dad. And please, I’m not saying that the Savior did not show some of himself through them, I’m not saying that they aren’t as precious as we are, but they’re precious because of Jesus in them and Jesus is our Father even above them. I remember, having a real struggle, I was a dumb guy, I mean, I was not as mature presumably as I should be, but as I came up into the teens I felt it was a real competition to have a girlfriend. I mean, how could I love my mother and have a girlfriend at the same time. I was not a mommies’ boy by any means, I was dad’s boy probably if anything. But I felt great loyalty, you know, to my parents. Well, now you couldn’t divide your loyalties and so when I began to try to think of God and my parents then I saw, “How can you divide your loyalties?” How can this be your dad, your dear father and how can Jesus be your dear Father? But in reality that is the truth. Jesus is the one who has begotten us he is our real father. He is the one to whom we owe everything. And can you see what I’m saying that he in a way, it is reality that he takes the place of our Father in not only our affections if you’d like to put it, but in our efforts in this life. It’s to please him. It’s to make him proud of us. It’s even more than that and I’ll try to come to that in a moment, but he is the one under whose influence and care we live, and under who’s upbringing and education we exist, and he is the one who’s praise we want, and he is the one whom we want to be proud of us, and he is the one we want to please. And that is actual reality. Please, I’m not advising you to do this. I’m just telling you the best that I can understand of this book [Bible] and of this presentation of reality is that that is reality, that we are actually Jesus’ children and every moment of our life is lived in reality if it’s lived with him as the over shadowing over sheltering surrounding person who loves us. I still remember, I mean, we all have so many funny little things about our dads and I think I’ve told you before, it was wonderful to fry, fry in Ireland, everything was fried. And of course that fried breakfast I told you – oh Shelia I should remember that there’s someone here to corroborate or contradict me now because my wife wouldn’t dare. But we used to have for Sunday morning fried soda bread, fried pancakes, fried potato bread, fried plain bread, fried pan bread, fried vita, everything fried plus the bacon and the eggs. But to me there was nothing as wonderful my stuff was okay, but if dad, you cut soda bread you’d cut it in strips and then we would put bacon on it and tomato ketchup and it was just wonderful and to eat my dad’s sandwich was more wonderful than mine could ever be. And so I know what we all probably have felt about our mums and dads, we have all kinds of dear things that we respect them for tremendously but after all that’s said and done I know that those of them who are in heaven at this moment are saying the same thing to us, “Yes, Jesus is your Father. He is everything to you. He is the one who gave you life. It is his blood that flows through your veins. It is his air that you’re breathing. It’s him that holds everything together at this moment.” And that seems particularly strong to me in that piece in Colossians where, “In him all things hold together.” [Colossians 1:17] In him at this moment our bodies hold together, our brains hold together, the air around us, the bricks of this chapel, everything holds together in Jesus. It is in him that everything has existence and so reality is living with him as our dear Father. Now, the other side that I saw was that we have not only thought of our fathers and our mums as the people we should please, but of course, ourselves. And indeed they in their innocence often encouraged this because they said, “Now son,” or I don’t know that they called you daughter but they called us son, “Now son, you’re going forward into life now it’s up to you to make of it what you can and you’ll have to plow out there yourself, get a good education, good job, and do well. But you’ll have to stand up for yourself and you’ll have to make something of yourself.” And they did that in good faith. But of course, after we get through our high school years and our teenage years we have converted that all into me, me, me, me, me, me. I mean, everything is judged on the basis of me and how it affects me and am I going to fulfill myself in this job? Am I going to be totally fulfilled? Are my brilliant talents going to be used properly to the benefit of society and me and we all think in terms of me, me, me. And even those of us who think of ourselves as unselfish find that our thoughts are always judging how do I feel this morning? How will I enjoy this day? What am I going to do this afternoon? It’s all from the point of view of me. Now of course, what we’ve been seeing is that in a way there is only one human being and that’s the importance of that, what to me seemed a ridiculous verse, I would just ask you to look at it again because I ignored some of these verses for years. I just ignored them because what could you make of them? They didn’t make any sense. It’s Colossians 1:15, “He is the image of the invisible God,” and that was no trouble because I was always taught Jesus was the son of God and was the revelation of God. But the next phrase, “The first-born of all creation.” I just couldn’t make sense of it at all. Jesus, the first-born of all creation? First of all, if you think of him born as a little baby and 4 BC or 6 BC or not BC, whatever it was, that wasn’t – he wasn’t the first born. There were thousands and thousands of years of humanity before him so, how could he be the first-born of all creation? Yet that runs right through you know, in Verse 18, “He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning.” He is the beginning. “The first-born from the dead, that in everything he might be pre-eminent.” And so you’re eventually driven to see that, if you like there was a millisecond when God was, then the next millisecond he conceived of his Son, his only begotten Son and that same millisecond he conceived of him as being a man. As being a man who would live on earth and not a man who would live on earth for a short time as we all kind of thought but a man who would continue to be a man even after he came back from earth. So that when the Bible talks about judgment day it says, “Not when the Son of God comes in his glory and all his holy angels with him before him will be gathered all the nations and he will separate them as the shepherd separates the sheep from goats.” But, “When the son of man comes in his glory and all his holy angels with him.” [Matthew 25:31] So, obviously, Jesus is a man forever. He’s the son of God he’s the complete and only begotten son of God in a way that you and I never can be but he is a man forever. He is a human being. He doesn’t just come down visit us, and then go before his Father and say, “I represent these human beings.” But he himself is the human being. He was the first-born human being. Abraham was not our original father, Jesus was our original father not only before the creation but as the first human being. It was in him that all human beings were born on earth. I agree with you, he appeared not to come to earth until 6 BC but even that is questionable because you remember Daniel walking in the lion’s den they say, “We beheld somebody that looked like the son of man.” So often we talk in the Old Testament of times when there are these appearances of God that are unknown. There are these remarkable figures that we cannot identify. So Jesus himself was the first-born of all creation and out of him came all human beings. In a sense God sent his son to complete the creation that he and his son came first as whoever Adam was and then came as Adam’s son, and then came as Adam’s grandson, etc., etc. Then he showed who he was by coming as himself in Galilee for 33 years and then left the earth and continued to live in different men in his spirit. But he is the great human being and we are his body. That’s it. That’s what the Bible says so clearly. You are the body of Christ and individually members of him. Individually limbs of him. And I sympathize with everybody here that has been taught as I was taught a kind of a team idea. We were taught the body of Christ is a kind of community, it’s a kind of a church, and it’s a kind of team. We’re all on a team, that’s the way you’re the body of Christ. You’re part of not this club or that church but you’re part of this club which we call the body of Christ. Except that’s not what the Bible says. If it does say that, it’s ridiculously literal in its interpretation of the metaphor because it goes on in detail in 1 Corinthians 12 to say, you know, “The eye can’t say that it has no need of the hand and the hand can’t say it has no need of the foot.” Well, if this was just a general kind of metaphor then of course it wouldn’t deal with it as literally. But in fact, it’s very clearly stated that Jesus himself is actually in each one of us. You know that’s in several places but you can find it certainly in John 17:23. Jesus talks about his life before the world was. Verse 22, “The glory which thou hast given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and thou in me.” “I in them and thou in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that thou hast sent me and hast loved them even as thou hast loved me.” But that Jesus is in each one of us and we are his body here on earth and that’s it. That it’s not you plowing out trying to prove yourself or trying to do something worthwhile that will make your wife proud of you or will make your mother proud of you. It’s not you here on earth trying to fulfill yourself. Each of us is part of Jesus. It is him who has a work to do here on earth that can only be done through each of us. What makes sense to me is I can see why we are all different. We can see why we’re all different. I mean, it is quite remarkable that even identical twins are different from each other in some way that even their mother and father at times can’t see, but everyone of us is different because Jesus himself is so glorious and so many faceted that he can only show himself as he is which is what showing his glory is. It’s showing him as he is. He can only show himself as he is through millions of people like us who will express a part of him that nobody else can express. So, of course, reality is that Jesus is in each of us and that we are here to do works, actually that that Ephesians passage says, “He has prepared beforehand for us to walk in. For you are God’s workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works which God has prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” And so you and I come here with an agenda that Jesus has and things to do that he has planned to do from before the foundation of the world. Of course it transforms all we do because if all you do throughout your whole life is brush the floor of this chapel, that is a work that God prepared beforehand for you to do. That’s why it makes sense to me, Apinya or Ada, when I think of the millions of little ones, they’re here in England too but it’s just in China or in Asia we think of them more. There are millions, and millions of little ones but nobody knows what they’re doing and they’re doing all kinds of things, they suffer all kinds of things, they bear all kinds of things that nobody knows, that nobody talks about. There are no psychologists to ask them if they’re being fulfilled, or there are no sociologists that are tabulating them. There are all kinds of little hearts all through the world that live and die and nobody seems to care or know them. But they have fulfilled a work that God prepared beforehand for his son to do. And so each one of us are in that situation. That we’re here not for ourselves and it’s not me, and it doesn’t matter actually anything about me. Would I rather be me, a miserable little creature that does some of the things that thousands of others could do or would I rather be a tiny little cell in the one unique person in the universe? Well, I know what I’d rather be. It’s obvious you’d far rather be what God has made us, a vital part of his own son. I’d just say one more thing, I think it’s very easy for you to sit, and me to sit, and me to stand and listen to this and think, “Oh yes, you mean I kind of do something that Jesus wants to do?” No. You are something that Jesus himself is. You are a part of Jesus. You are not just a tool, an extension of his hands, you are a part of him. That’s what it says. He says, “Abide in me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself neither can you unless you abide in me. If you do not abide in me you have no life in you.” Barth says, “He lives and I live also.” That’s it. Jesus lives and because he lives I live also. If he would cease to live I would cease to live. I am part of him. If you say, “A cell in his body?” Well, that’s the way I’ve put it but that’s not enough because we are not conscious of every cell in our bodies. So it gives you a wrong idea. We are – more if you’d like to say an eye because we’d know if we lost an eye. In other words, we are dear in Jesus. We are a dear part of him. Indeed, we are more than that because we can think a cell doesn’t apparently have a brain or emotions but each one of us have all that Jesus has. So we are in a sense a full replica of Jesus and yet we’re only part of his beauty and part of his wonder. But it means that each of us here exists for him to speak and do what he has planned to speak and do in us. So, of course, it just, it just blows you out of the whole egotism stuff you know. All I could say to you is the best that I can see is that is reality and all I can see is each of us, if we want to live in reality, need to be willing in every little detail no longer to think of ourselves but only of him. And though we have kind, and loving, and grateful thoughts towards our mums and dads, in a sense see that they are older brothers and sisters, but that he is our dear Father and we owe everything to him. And reality is living like that. Living in that certainty that he is our dear Father and he is watching us and looking down upon us, proud of us, watching every step and providing all that we need and he himself is in us and has things to do today that we alone can do. Let us pray. Holy Spirit, without you we see no hope. Our minds are so small, our habits are so engrained, and without you we see no hope of living in this reality. But with you, we know that that is possible. We know Father, blessed Lord Jesus, we know that you do not mock us, you do not create a reality in which we cannot live. We know you are all wisdom, and reason, and order, and whatever you have created as reality you’ve created it so we would live in it. Holy Spirit, we can only throw ourselves before you. We can only open our hearts and our whole lives to you and say, “Holy Spirit, you who are Jesus, because we know the Lord is the Spirit, you are our Lord Jesus in us.” Holy Spirit, will you lead us into this life of reality so that we live it every second of every day and through the night hours as we begin to discover the wonder and the safety of having you as our dear Father Lord Jesus. You who have begotten us, you have borne us inside yourself at great pain and you who continue to lovingly keep us in your arms even as we smash you in your face. And then Lord Jesus, that we begin to live in the reality that this is your life not ours. That this is your body, and your fingers, and your eyes, and not ours. And that you have something to do through us in our life here on earth and something to be that you cannot be or do through any other person. Now the grace of our Lord Jesus, the love of God and the fellowship of the dear Holy Spirit be with each of us today and throughout this week. Amen.

A New Heart – Pastor’s Hospital Miracle Ezekiel 36:26 Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill Would you take a Bible and look at Ezekiel 36:26, “A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will take out of your flesh the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” I want everybody to know I’m actually kind of playing games with that verse but reminding you that that is God’s promise. He will give us a new heart. That is, he would change the attitudes and the feelings we have towards each other and the motives that govern our lives. He would change how we feel inside about things. He would take out of us the selfishness that governs us apart from Jesus and he would put in us the pure heart of Jesus. In other words, he would give us the whole truth of the clean heart that God has promised us. And then what I’d like to try to do in a realistic way this morning is to relate it to a blessing that God has brought to us. If I cry at all it’s not because of any sorrow but it’s just because of the wonderful thing that God has done in me and I think in us as a family. This is about the 19th of March. Just about a week ago God just gave me a new heart and I’ll tell you about it. I’d like to point out to you why I think it happened. And I hope that it’ll bring home to you God’s ability to give us not only new physical hearts but new spiritual hearts. He is able and had already done the same work in Jesus for us. He is able in the same way to make that real in us as he did in fact make real the physical heart that he gave us in Jesus, and specifically in me, these past few days. So I’ll try to tell the story quickly without a whole lot of detail and fuss. If I falter at all my wife will have to step right in and tell. I know those of you who love me must have thought when you heard what happened to me, “Is that poor guy still alive at all?” And you can see I’m very much alive and Jesus has done a great work. I think you all knew I had trouble sleeping over the past year or so. I attributed it to jetlag. After 30 years of back and forwards to England and then to Thailand I thought that the body was getting out of synch with itself and never knew when to sleep. So often I would waken up in the mornings with a kind of restlessness. I would say it was a restlessness rather than strain or pain — just a restlessness. But admittedly in past months I would have felt just a little strain. At times Irene would waken up and I’d be kneeling at my bedside about four o’clock in the morning and she’d say, “Are you praying?” And I’d say, “Yes, I’m okay.” And I would get into bed and say, “Yes, God has given me release.” Then I’d often sleep the rest of the night. So that was going on and I was very tired. I came back from England this last time still tired and disappointed at feeling so tired after what was really a vacation. So Irene of course in her great kindness said, “Why don’t you go down to Florida for a week or a couple of weeks.” And that’s what I did. I had a nice quiet time there and came back here probably two weeks ago. I was preparing to go and visit you all in London and felt, “Yes, I’m ready for it and that’s good.” I admit I still was not sleeping wonderfully but I thought, “Yes I can handle it.” So I was looking forward to going to England. But last Thursday morning I woke at four o’clock and felt some pressure in my ears, my chest and in my head. I prayed and Jesus gave me relief. I got into bed again and Irene realized I had got in but then she found me out again on my knees at about a quarter to five. She asked me what was wrong. I said, “I still feel that pressure in my head and my ears. I suppose there’s a little pressure down my arms but I’m not very aware of it. I don’t seem to be able to get relief now. It seems to be getting worse and it seems to be getting out of control.” And that’s when I felt it was a pressure (I could hardly even call it pain) but a pressure or a strain that was beginning to build out of control. Over the past years even though I had approaches to this kind of feeling, I hadn’t had it as bad as this. So Irene said, “Do you think we should go to the hospital?” And I was ready to go to the hospital by that time. I said, “Yes, I think we should.” We got into the car about 5:30 AM. The roads were pretty clear as we headed down to the hospital in Raleigh. At one point I remember Irene said to me, “Why did you do that?” I had put the hazard light on in the car and she said, “Why do you do that?” And I said, “Because I can’t wait any longer we better get there fast.” We were stuck at a stop light. Anyway, we ended up at the Raleigh Hospital, and went in. They’re dear people and they welcomed us in. I explained the situation. The doctor gave me a nitrite which is apparently for angina and heart strain. That eased it a bit and so we began to feel that maybe this wasn’t anything big. He took a few more details and they then did an EKG which is putting little plugs on you all over to check the heart, the activity of the heart, the electrical activity of the heart. The results looked alright, dead on. And so they generally felt, “Maybe this is just a little angina you’ve had and it isn’t very serious. We’ll give you something for it, you’ll have to take care a little but you’ll be okay.” And so that’s the way it was set. And that’s where I’d like to make plain to all of us the miracle of timing. It was a miracle of God’s timing because at that moment we could have just as easily gone home. I was there on the bed in the Raleigh Hospital and they had the EKG on me. The tension or the strain rose again inside me and at that time I think a cardiologist had come by because the doctor said, “Well, you could go home but we have a cardiologist who will be by here in an hour so you might as well stay on.” And so I stayed on even though I could easily have gone home. The doctor sent the cardiologist over and he is watching the EKG at the very time that this pressure or tension rises. He contacted Irene who had gone back to the office to open things up and get the business going. He said, “I think you should come by because I see something strange on the EKG and it doesn’t look normal. Come by and we’ll talk it over.” So Irene came by and they talked it over. He said, “I would normally say, ‘let’s watch him all day.’ But, it is coming to the weekend and I hate to do that because on the weekend there’ll be nothing we can do and I’m going off for the weekend. So I think we should do a catheterization.” Catheterization is putting a tube in your thigh area with a little telescope. It goes up your artery and into your heart. They can actually look and see what’s happening to know what the situation is. The doctor said, “Normally you have to line up for this thing but it so happens that there’s an opening right now at the big hospital he calls it – The Wake Heart Institute across the state. There’s a spot and we could get you in right in now.” That’s why I think it’s the Father’s timing. So before I know it, we’ve agreed upon that and I’m on a trolley into another ambulance. Three people are monitoring me and the heart is now beginning to defibrillate — which is a fluttering like that. They were calling to the other hospital and saying, “The heart’s in defibrillation, da-da-da.” After about 20 minutes we got there and the catheterization team was ready to go right away. Everything was going like a ballet. In fact, the cardiologist said several times to us, “It doesn’t normally go like this. It doesn’t normally go like this.” But everything just went smoothly. I went straight to catheterization. They had that ready. They started to it, while Irene met with another cardiologist there at the Heart Institute. He said, “This is probably nothing. We’ll probably go in, have a look and we might see maybe a little occlusion. You know the way the cholesterol closes down the arteries. We might see a little occlusion in one of the arteries that supplies the muscle of the heart — not the heart itself because the heartbeat seems strong. But we might see something there, have to put a balloon up so as to open it out and then you’ll be home by the weekend.” The cardiologist came out after 15 or 20 minutes and he said, “O’Neill”? And of course Irene stood up. He said, “This is very serious. One artery is 95% blocked another artery is 90% blocked and the third is 85% blocked. The back one is clear, it’s clean but it’s very serious. There could be a catastrophic heart attack.” So he said, “We have to do something right away.” Irene is sharp and knows about medical things and she says, “Bypass?” And he says, “Yes, we’re prepping him now. There’s a surgeon standing by. ” This was miraculous because he was set to do an operation but that operation was cancelled. God’s goodness is what amazes me. It was God’s kindness because the whole thing was just set. Irene said, “Yes, let’s go for it.” Then of course they go immediately into action. He had great love and sympathy for Irene and said, “If you want to see him he’ll be going by like the queen. He’ll be going by at this corner.” Irene saw me as I was going by and said, “It’ll be okay. Everything will be okay.” And I said, “Yes this side or the other.” But Jesus gave us great peace and great rest. It is the enormity of the situation that day that makes me weak now rather than any sorrow, or fear, or terror — because we didn’t have any. Jesus just made everything so dead easy. I went into the operating theater and shifted myself over from the table because I felt for the nurses trying to lift me. They put a catheterization tube in and showed me my own heart on a little screen. They showed me a photograph of my own heart and I could see the thing. I think the amazing thing was it wasn’t the heart itself. The heart itself seemed to be in good shape and all through it he said, “You’re in good shape. Your breathing is great, your lungs are great. But the muscle of the heart is fed by four blood vessels and one of them is absolutely great but the other three are almost completely blocked. What we have to do is take an artery out of your leg with two round the back of the heart and replace those three. And that’s what we’ll do and it will take four hours.” And so they just went to it and that was it. That’s all the fun and wonder of it because all the rest is just the misery of the post op thing. Anyway that was Friday night. So I was out on Friday night. I couldn’t talk because they put tubes down your throat which is why I’m a little horse. They put tubes down the throat so you can breathe and then you’re full of all kinds of other tubes. They obviously split you open so you have to drain all that. You’re obviously quite a mess with pipes coming out your plumbing. I think a miracle after the operation. But anyway Irene saw me on Saturday and we could talk to each other. Then Sunday she brought the computer up and I did some computer work. And Monday we got a little better. Monday I was walking around the hospital. Tuesday was the last day and Wednesday I came home. And here I am gloriously, almost within a week. I’m walking a mile three times a day. Oh yes, and those of you who wonder, “Yes, but will the poor old guy make it for much longer?” We asked him. I said, “Well, in a way I suppose it’s as good as new?” And he said, “It’s better than new. It’s better than new because the arteries you had were filled up with cholesterol and had been filled up over years and years. Now you have three absolutely new ones, clean ones, and you have the other one that was not blocked at all.” And that’s why I say, “And I will give you a new heart.” If you say to me, “Well, the pastor didn’t come and lay his hand upon you and say, ‘In the name of Jesus be healed.’” No, but would I be alive today if everything had not worked exactly as it did? I don’t have any doubt; no doubt, that if the timing had not gone as it did I would not be here. It was God’s miracle. Finally, you must admit that what this man did was sew the arteries around on to the heart. He sewed this up, that’s all he does. It is the Savior’s heart and whole new body that fills in here. I go back to him in two or three weeks time and he’ll hardly be able to see my stitches. He’ll hardly be able to tell that anything has been disturbed in here and yet he hasn’t done anything to it since he operated last week. He hasn’t done anything. It is Jesus’ body that has filled in here. I wanted to share this because I want us to be real about our attitude to Jesus and our trust in him to every practical situation. But I wanted to share this especially so that you might be able to see what I was beginning to see that it’s a miracle whether the surgeon does it and we happen to understand it or whether it is done by God and we don’t even know about it. It is God that does it all the time. I can understand John Wesley through all kinds of heart aches and pains — we don’t know what kinds of miracles God did in him when the surgeons did not know enough to do it. Now the surgeons know a little more and they are able to do some of the things that God has taught them. But it is still the Father that arranges everything so that things fall in line exactly. I’m very aware that God intended us to continue as a family together, and with me as part of it. As long as God wants us to be here and to be together, we will be together. He will insure that, however he has to do that, however he has to manipulate this operation that has to be done or this surgeon that must be on hand, or this man that happens to notice a little thing or this person that happens to say that little thing. God will insure that all falls right for our sales, and for all hundreds of things needed. God will be faithful. He will continue to apply the miracles of Jesus to us in a way that we need at that time. He will do that not only for our physical hearts and health but he will do it for our clean hearts – so that we are clean inside, so that we can love as he loves and obey as he obeys. He will do this so that the Lord Jesus will be lived fully in you and me. It’s just a wonder, a great joy and delight, with all the fuss here – it’s a great reassurance for all of us in Christian Corps that God is saying, “I know you’re there, I know what you are doing, I know what you need and it will be there. Everything you need, every miracle that you need I will do, on time and without fail. You can depend upon it. And you know, I don’t have to do anything except take 2 baby aspirins a day and go to lots of movies my wife says. I’ve been back swimming and I seem to have no limitations. I’m hoping now that the jet lag will be no problem as I think the sleep problem came from the deteriorating heart rather than from the jet lag. So, I’m looking forward to being with all of you. Let us pray.

The Rest of Faith: Pastor’s Heart Operation Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill I don’t want to drag this one out or get every ounce out of the exciting operation that I had, but I did think there were things that came to me. I would have to say there are confirmations of reality that are so clear to me in this whole experience that I felt it was worthwhile mentioning them again together. I should say to you who are watching, that this is the 26th of March and it was the 10th of March that I had the exciting triple bypass. So I’ve been home about 11 days. You can see I’m feeling much better. I should say that I can’t thank God enough for Jesus, for all of you, and then for the four dear ladies that live with me. I need to say that not only about my wife but Sandra has just been a strength. Yesterday, I rode the new tractor lawnmower, and Sandra and I cut the grass. She did most of the hauling of grass and the hard work, I just drove the tractor. And we’re walking two miles a day every day. And of course I couldn’t say enough about Colleen, the dear card she sent me beyond what anybody could expect. And then Lucy comes in with $7,600 in sales last week. And she made me chicken soup. Jesus has just surrounded me with more love than I could ever expect. I’m feeling good and organized again even though it was only two weeks ago since the operation. There were some things in this that I thought are an encouragement to all of us in the family that I thought it would be good just to mention them very clearly. And the first one is in Psalm 139. And Irene read it for the scripture reading. It’s Psalm 139:16, “Thy eyes beheld my unformed substance,” and then this part in particular, “In thy book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.” “In thy book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none.” And I know we’ve talked about that verse before but I’d just remind you what Jesus in his kindness did for me and for us. On the 10th of March at 4AM God awakened me and 16 hours later he had replaced three blocked arteries in my heart muscle with the aid of the surgeon that he had already prepared for the operation before any of us knew it was going to take place. And that’s the reality of it. I woke 4AM on the 10th of March and a matter of 16 hours later that day, about 9PM Friday night, the operation was all over. I had three blocked arteries replaced with parts from my leg and the rest of my body by a surgeon that God had prepared and appointed. And I’d just ask us each one to look at the miracle of the thing. I’m sure it was two or three years ago that I fainted on a plane going to Paris. Some of you may remember it. I fainted, fell, hit the seat and cut my head open, that little gash up there. And Irene thinks of that as one of those times when I would have said I had a sinking feeling, as if all my blood pressure was just draining away. And she thinks that long ago back then there was something a little strange happening. And I’ve told you all that for years I’ve attributed the difficulty with sleeping to jet lag. And I cannot tell you the difference it is now. I breathe a breath and I get air. Now my lungs were good — I was always breathing plenty of air in but the oxygenated blood was not getting through to my heart muscles because these three arteries were blocked. So my heart was strong, my lungs were strong, but the heart muscle itself was not getting enough oxygenated blood because of these three blocked arteries. Well obviously, we can all see that has being happening for years. I don’t know how many years, but at least as far back as that flight to Paris, if not before. And yet, God awakened me at 4AM on the day when I was going to die. That’s it. I know it sounds a bit dramatic but I think that’s what the cardiologist virtually said to Irene, “He’s on the edge of a catastrophic heart attack.” Well you and I know how those pencil thin arteries, how long it took them to get thinner, and thinner, and thinner until the blood could no longer get through and the muscle was about to stop controlling the heart. And yet God was not a moment too late. So I think it’s very important for us to see that. “In thy book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.” That’s the only explanation I could give you. If God had not awakened me at 4AM; if God had not got Irene to take me to the Raleigh Hospital; if God had not had there a cardiologist who even though he had not all the equipment to do it saw me at that time; if God had not prompted my system to go into spasm again so that he was able to notice on the EKG something strange; if God had not arranged a gap in the group that was being catheterized that day in the Heart Institute across the city; if God had not governed the three dear hearts that took me in the ambulance and noticed that my heart was going into defibrillation again and called ahead; if God had not after the catheterized was done and they saw that there were three arteries blocked and that immediate bypass was needed; if God had not had a surgeon who had had a cancellation and was ready to go into action immediately; well, you can see if God had not, if God had not, if God had not. I don’t know what all you think. I don’t think it’s me that God is saying this alone, I think he’s saying to each one of us, “I have your days arranged each one of you. I have your days arranged. Nothing will stop the plan I have for your life. You will not come to me here in my home before it’s time. You will not leave there before it’s time.” I think there is great encouragement for us to rest in faith, just to rest in faith. Our Father will not let anything happen to us that he does not include in his plan. And he is able, by hook or by crook, to look after us. I think you can all see that. And I would go on even to the next stage. I know Myron, Irene and Sandra know, and maybe many of you know — that though I wasn’t feeling great coming back from England after a great Christmas time I had decided that I can’t wait around for the jetlag to disappear. I’ll just go for it and trust God to give me strength for this. So I said to Irene one day in February, “Let’s set the thing up. Let me go to England for three weeks and let’s get going on this Internet, and some of the things Myron and I wanted to do together. Let’s go for it. Let’s just buy the plane fare and set it up so that three weeks later I go to Thailand. And that was the arrangement. It was Friday that the thing happened and I was to go to you all on Monday. Well, don’t you see the same thing as I see? Couldn’t it have happened on the plane on Monday? You don’t know it but in trying to get myself kind of built up for the English trip, Irene suggested I go down to Florida for a couple of weeks and so I did. I was down in Florida and came back on the Tuesday before the thing happened on the Friday. Couldn’t I have been in Florida on my own? Couldn’t I have been on the plane to London? Couldn’t I have been on the plane to Thailand? Dan McCarty and Amy know what it would have been like if I had been in Hong Kong or Bangkok. I would have been a goner. God will not allow even the plans that we have made in good faith, if they’re made for his glory, God will not allow those even to prevent his will being done. I mean I didn’t believe I would be the person who would be able to prove this so clearly. And I thank God for allowing me to be that person but it is so clear to me, that Romans 8:28 is right. Romans 8:28, “We know that in everything God works for good with those who love him, who are called according to his purpose.” “We know that in everything God works for good with those who love him, who are called according to his purpose.” Or we all know it from the King James Version, “All things work together for good to them who love God.” It’s just so plain. Or you remember, the other verse, “God works all things according to the counsel of his will.” Well it has to be obvious to all of us who know and love each other, who know these facts that that’s what God did. And all of us can see it, that there was a very, very small window of opportunity. There was a very tiny window of opportunity to save this old Irish guy from death, a very, very small window. And I didn’t know any more than to kind of move all kinds of things around it. I had all kinds of flights arranged, all kinds of plans made that would have put me in positions where if that rising up that took place inside my heart (I suppose it’s angina that gave me that pressure and tension in my head, my ears, and my arms), if that had happened on the London flight there would have been no chance. You can see that from 4AM until 9PM on Friday are really only 16 or 17 hours. And that would have been enough to finish me. During that time they even gave me nitrite to kind of hold the thing in order. So God does what God thinks according to the counsel of his will. I think of all the things that we’ve all talk about. Both brothers and sisters have often talked about marriage and said, “Oh yes, it doesn’t matter if you’re in one country and another person is in another country. If God wants you married he will bring it about. You don’t need to make sure that you’re both in one spot at the same time.” And this seems to be so plain now. And what about all the other ifs and buts that we arrange? “How can this happen in my life if I’m leading this kind of life? How can I achieve this if this is happening? How can I have good sales if this is the economy that we’re operating in? Or, how can we succeed if this is the stage at which this product is in its lifecycle? How can this happen if this is the case?” Answer: “God works all things according to the counsel of his will.” Answer: “All things work together for good to them that love God.” Answer: “God is working his will for good for those that love him.” God will bring it about. And if we doubt it look at this creature. Look at this creature alive after he should be dead two weeks ago. This is proof. Our Father has everything planned to the very last detail. He has everything planned and he will not let us drop. He does know when a sparrow falls to the ground and we are of much more valuable than many sparrows. So for me, there’s a clear word from God. It’s Psalm 37:5. Psalm 37:5, “Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him, and he will act.” “Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him, and he will act. He will bring forth your vindication as the light, and your right as the noonday. Be still before the LORD, and wait patiently for him.” “Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him, and he will act.” It just seems to me so plain in this situation. You commit your way to the Lord. We give our lives to him with all our hearts for him to do what he likes with. We lay out our life and our plans as we see he wants done. And then we put our trust in him. And do you doubt that he will act? I don’t. I don’t doubt it. He will act. Whether you’re asleep, whether you’re half dead, whether you’re in the right place or the wrong place, “Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him, and he will act.” It’s interesting what comes home to you at a time like this. I feel, “Sure I’m an important part of the family of Christian Corps and yes, I’d be kind of missed as many of us would be missed.” There’s a great temptation to feel, “Yes, yes, I must stay alive to do the things that God wants us to do. I must keep going.” No. No striving, no straining, it is Jesus in us. All we have to do is commit our way to the Lord, trust in him and he will act. We don’t need to try and make sure that this or that is done. It is not us but him that works within us. It is Jesus. What we’ve to do is to commit our way to the Lord, trust in him, and he will act. So it is a wonderful time, it is just a wonderful time. And then it’s a great opportunity for us together to look up and thank our Father for reassuring us that he knows we’re here and the he will not let anything happen to us that is not inside his plans and that our joy and privilege is to delight ourselves in him, to commit our way unto him, and trust in him, and he will act. We don’t need to strive. The Lord Jesus is in us and he will strive for his Father. But his striving is just loving his Father. That’s what God has called us to do. Let us pray. Dear Father, we thank you. We thank you now Lord, for the glorious way that lies before us. We thank you Lord, for speaking to all of us. Thank you for making us dear to each other so that if one member suffers the whole body suffers and if one rejoices the whole body rejoices. But we thank you especially Lord that you’ve brought us close enough to each other so that what one of us experiences we all have experienced. And where one of us receives from you a clear assurance that you know we’re here and that you act to deliver us, we all know that. What you’ve done for one you will do for all of us. Indeed you, who have not spared your own son, will not fail to give us every good gift. Father, we thank you. We thank you for the wonder of these days and for your own dear kindly heart, and for giving us the courage to rest in you — to rest deeply in you and to trust you every moment of our lives knowing that you will not let anything drop. You will not let our hearts miss a beat. You will prepare the way before us so that we will walk every step in peace and rest. Thank you Lord, thank you. And now the grace of our Lord Jesus, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with each one of us now and ever more. Amen.

Is Jesus Preeminent in our Lives? Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill Philippians 2:1-13 says, “So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any incentive of love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfishness or conceit, but in humility count others better than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” May God help us to live like that. Shall we try loved ones the hymn #166. You kind of look at that hymn and you think, “Oh, he must have been a very childlike simple man.” And one of the most advanced books we studied in English literature in university was “The History of English Literature” written by Stafford Brooke so he’s a very sharp guy. But it’s interesting that he had that relationship with Jesus. It’s very easy I think, to keep thinking that our life here on earth is to do things for Jesus. It’s very easy to think that. And we think, “Of course that’s what it’s about. Of course we’re here to do things for Jesus. He has done everything for us and now we’ve to do things for Jesus and that’s what we’re about here. We’re trying to do things for him in his service.” In particular analysis in English, “we” would be the subject. We “do” would be the verb, the predicate, and the “things” would be the object. We do the things. And that’s what’s wrong about it all. I know it’ll sound terrible to you but that is sin. WE are the doers. And you can see it among ourselves that we tend to be preoccupied with what we are doing for Jesus. Actually, it leads to something that is really threatening for those of us who try to lead. Because as WE are important and do the things so the “WE’s” in us (that make a lot of the decisions), we become important and so we lionize each other. We lionize especially our leaders but we even lionize each other. And it’s not long before the whole air is filled with “us” in spite of the fact that we say, “The Lord of all, the one who is preeminent among us is Jesus.” Somehow or other we still end up rather concerned with what WE are doing for Jesus and what we think we should do for Jesus, or what we think our leaders should have us do for Jesus. But somehow or other we end up like the little fellows in Belfast, at the holiday home that we use to run for the children from the slums. There were two little fellows playing soccer. And one of the guys was mowing through everyone else, kicking everyone else around, and just blasting through. The other little fellow said, “He thinks he’s the fellow in the big picture.” The big picture for us was the main feature in a movie show. The fellow in the big picture was the main actor. So he thinks he’s the fellow in the big picture. We don’t want to be the fellow in the big picture. We want to be servants of Jesus. But somehow or other we tend to end up the fellows in the big picture, or the girls in the big picture. We tend to end up rather preoccupied with what WE are doing for Jesus. I think it goes back to us not understanding the whole set up at all. I think it’s because from when we were born, we were brought up to believe that we are separate entities. We are separate entities. Our moms love us, and we were all the world to them. We were all the world to our parents and they thought the world of us. Of course everybody makes a lot of a little baby. Then the little baby grows a little more and you’re proud of him. In North Carolina we have a bumper sticker that says, “I have the most terrific kid in our high school.” Yes, we put that on our bumper. I would feel kind of dumb if I saw my mother with that on our bumper. It’s for the best reasons. We all want our kids to grow up balanced and not with inferiority complexes. We want them to feel they’re whole people — competent and capable. But somehow the result of it all is that we tend to think of ourselves as separate entities who are here to do some great things. We get some of that knocked out of us as we go through school, university, and we go to work. But still we’re generally left with the feeling that we are here to do something. And when we give our lives to Jesus, then we’re here to do things for Jesus. And the fact is it’s not true, it’s all upside down. I’d like to show you the first clue to it in John 8:58. John 8:58, is one of those baffling sentences that we have all read at different times but tend to just set it aside because it’s a baffler. What does it mean? It just is senseless. Either the tense is wrong or Jesus is saying something far deeper than we know. John 8:58, “Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.” And it looks silly grammatically, “Before Abraham was, I am.” “No Lord, you should say, ‘Before Abraham was, I was.’” But of course Jesus is saying, “I am here. My Father conceived of me in one second in eternity. And in the second second, (the number two second), he conceived that within me Abraham would be created. And so I didn’t cease to be the moment Abraham was created in me, I am here and I saw those two seconds. So I am this second and I am this second. Before Abraham was, (and I’m talking about 20 AD), because he was back there and we are here, Jesus says, before Abraham was, I am. I am there.” It’s a bit like that illustration you remember, of the procession through the little town and there were two brothers watching it. One was a little guy, six or seven years of age and he could just see through a little hole in the fence. He could stand at that hole, look through and see just what was passing in front of his eyes. The band was passing so he could see the drummers, then he could see the ones that were playing the pipes, and then he could see the marchers that came after. But he could just see the little bit in that hole. His brother was older. He decided he would climb on to the roof of the shed in the garden. So he climbed onto the roof and could look over the fence. He could see not only those people who were passing, but he could see the ones that were still coming way down the street. He could see the ones that had past, and the ones way out that way, where the little guy could just see those passing. So Jesus, in that one second in eternity, sees all of time, just in one great moment. And not only did he exist there, not only did Abraham exist, but look at the verse that we looked at before it’s Ephesians 2:10, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” Because, we were created in Christ Jesus and so not only did Abraham exist in Christ, but we existed in Christ and we were created in Christ. And when God conceived of his son he conceived of him also as someone who is of all things – well, you can see it in Colossians 1:15. Colossians 1:15, “He (Jesus) is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation.” And so the first second God conceived of his only begotten son and the second second he conceived of him as the first-born of all creation. We always think of Jesus as being just the divine son of God that had nothing to do with earth. But here God is saying, “I conceived of him as the very first man, he was the first-born of all creation, he was the father of all of you.” Because that’s what that verse says in Colossians 1:16, “for in him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities – all things were created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the first-born from the dead, that in everything he might be pre-eminent.” The truth is that all of us were created in Jesus. We were created in him so that he would be preeminent. But we have the idea that even though we were in Jesus, he threw us off almost like a planet throws bits into space. So, he threw me off here and now I’m out here trying to do something for him. And someone else is out there trying to do something for him. And we’re cast off into time to fiddle around for 70 years or so and we do our best for him. Then somehow we get back together with him. No. There’s nothing in the Bible that says that. In fact, the Bible says the opposite. The Bible says, “You are individually parts of the body of Jesus. You are the body of Jesus. You’re Jesus’ body now. “I created you in my son and you are his body here on earth.” Jesus himself stresses that. He says, “Just as my Father is in me, I’m in you. I’m in you and you’re in me.” And then he says, “Now, stay in me, abide in me. I never threw you out, I never cast you out, you’re part of me.” But we have missed that. When you think of it the church tried to get that over to us in some way. It wasn’t just chance that they baptized babies. It wasn’t just because they’re not evangelical enough that they baptized babies. We baptize babies to make it clear that this person was in Jesus. Now, sooner or later they either accept that and live like that or they reject it and don’t live like that. But the truth is they were created in Jesus, they were part of Jesus, and that’s where they are. I agree with you that in the church we baptized the baby but then we fell into living the way the rest of the world lived. We than began to treat them as individual little creatures that had their own rights. And indeed, some of our own pride and our own independence got into it. We wanted them to succeed. In fact, we wanted all kinds of things that we didn’t know whether Jesus wanted or not. But the fact is, you don’t have an independent existence. The only way in which you and I exist is that we’re part of Christ. And the truth is that we are part of God’s son whom he has sent to earth to bring the world into order. And that explains the rest of that verse, “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good words, which he has prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” In other words, God has an infinite mind and he doesn’t have to see you born and then pass through adolescence and then come into some kind of adulthood before he knows the kind of person you are going to be. We’ve said it before that even our computers enable us to foresee what our needs for gasoline will be 20 years hence. Even our computers can tell us what the population of the world will be in the 2000, or the year 2020. Well, how much more can the infinite mind of God see everything in a second so that he foresees and can see all that will take place? He himself has seen all that in his son. He has foreseen the creation of each one of us in Jesus. He has foreseen the creation of the world. He has seen how the world will go. He has outlined the whole thing. It is laid out and there are good works prepared beforehand that we should walk in. And all the time it’s one person walking. It’s Christ himself. He has walked this road already. In two seconds he walked it. He bore all the pain and the agony in two seconds and now for our little minds he lets that be played out from whatever it is — 4000 BC or if they want to say 25 million BC to what it is going to be in 2000 AD or 5000 AD. But to them he’s playing it right out. It’s all set for us and it’s Christ himself who will walk that way. And so you and I are part of Christ and that’s our meaning. That’s the purpose of our lives. So you can see how ridiculous it is when we have this attitude that we are here to do something for Christ when we are part of Christ and it’s Christ in us that is doing the thing. We are not here to do something for Jesus. We’re not here to try and set out some kind of life for ourselves that will be fulfilling or will leave the world a better place than we found it. We are here only for one reason, for Jesus himself to live the life that he planned to live in us and to do the works that he has already done. We simply walk in those works. But it changes everything, and sets everybody free. It sets us free. I mean, it’s not Marty Overby trying to work out, “Well, I hope Myron Kliewer, Pastor, and my wife care about my abilities and what I can do. I hope they sense the kind of hopes I have for my life. I hope I can find something that I can do that’s useful for God and I’m going to try.” No. The Savior knows what he has already done in your life and through you and he will reveal those works to you so that you can walk in them. And I think that’s the wonder of it. It’s not Ada this little Chinese girl and I’m Ernest O’Neill having to think out how she can be used to expand Christian Corps or to do wonderful things for God.” That’s such an insult. It’s an insult to you, and to me too. It’s such an insult that we try to run each other’s lives. No, no, the wonder and the dignity, why I’m excited that you’re here, is that Jesus has a life that he has already planned to manifest in you and he will show you each step. And so there are things that the Savior can do through you that I have no idea of, Myron has no idea of, Marty has no idea of, and Joyce has no idea of. It’s exciting to see those things being unfolded. And it gives you a freedom and a liberty in Jesus that is far beyond being a worker in some little company or some little missionary organization. It’s the wonder of Christ himself living a life in you that he has already planned, has already laid out, and the thing is already achieved. You have all the excitement and the wonder of manifesting it here in time. That’s what it’s about. That’s why in the early days after Jesus’ resurrection there was that sense of excitement. I always think of it in a funny way, “They seek them here, they seek them there, they find them anywhere,” — Scarlet Pimpernel. I sometimes think it’s like that. It was like that with Christ. He came through that wall last night in our time and he appeared to the disciplines on the lakeshore, where will he be next? And so there was an awareness that Christ was right there, right there. And that’s what God’s will is for us, that we would be a community that would hang on our Savior. That we would be motivated by him and would worship him, so that as the Bible says, “He would be pre-eminent.” There would be therefore an awareness, a restraint, and a faith. It would be the obedience of faith. Not just obedience, but the Bible talks about the obedience of faith. That is, the obedience of faith that knows that Christ is in me and that I am part of Christ and that Christ himself has things to do through me today and I obey him. Because, you remember, the Bible says, “The Lord is the Spirit. The Spirit within us is Jesus alive.” And that’s the obedience that we’re called to. If you say to me, “Does that result in obedience to one another?” Yes. It results in being mutually submissive one to another in Christ. So there’s a mutual submission to one another in Christ but that isn’t the big submission, that isn’t the big obedience. The big obedience is not me obeying Trish, or obeying Mary, or them obeying me. The big obedience is to this dear Savior of whom each of us is a part. That’s the obedience that counts. And I’d just put it to you a bit as I’ve put it to others at times. Is Jesus the big person to you? Is Jesus the big person in your life? Or is somebody else the big person in your life? When you think of what you should do who immediately do you think of? Well there is only one. You’re part of one person and he’s the only one that knows what he wants to do through you and none of the rest of us really do. Do you know that’s why Paul said, “The spiritual man is judged by no one.” That’s why he said that. The spiritual man is judged by no one because he’s responsible to one preeminent person, the person in whom he was created, the person of whom he is a part. And whenever we live any other way but that, there comes a deadness and a sense of coldness into our lives because it’s unreal. Because, that’s a whole life that has been destroyed and crucified and cast out forever. And so, whenever you live like that you feel a deadness, a lostness, an anxiety, and a worry, wondering what you’re going to do, and how you’re going to get through the day. The reality is that you’re part of our Savior; you’re part of Jesus himself. You’re part of God’s only son. You’re a part of his son that none of the rest of us is. So actually our moms and our dads were right. We are very important but not in the way we all thought. But you’re invaluable. Do you realize that God himself thought of you a second after he thought of his son? God thought of you, he saw your life a second after he conceived of his son. I agree with you it’s almost inconceivable, but that’s the truth. God thought of you. That’s how much you mean to him. That’s how intimate and inherent a part of his life and mind you are. That’s how important you are. It is overwhelming. There’s a line of poetry that we use with each other and it’s, “Tread softly; I shall layout my dreams before you.” He says that I suppose to his loved one, “I shall layout my dreams as carpets so tread softly because you tread on my dreams.” So that’s why we walk carefully with each other, because when I touch you I touch the Savior. If I touch your life, I’m touching Jesus. So it’s very important that I don’t make you a robot. It’s very important that I don’t make you preoccupied with me and what I think you should do. It’s very important that I do not for a moment draw your attention off the blessed Savior because it’s you and it’s him that I’m touching. So it brings a great holy reverence and respect for each other. It brings a gentleness and a restraint with each other that then in its turn encourages each of us to look to Jesus himself. Then, that sparks renaissance. That sparks the exciting creativity of the body of Jesus. That sparks all the life that produced the Shaker’s furniture, all the life that produced the Quaker village that became Welwyn Garden City. That sparks all the life that was in the old Mennonites, all the life that is in Ignatius and St. Theresa when they founded the settlement houses. That sparks the creativity of whom? — The blessed Savior himself. Every time he comes the lake lights up with the sunlight that he brings and is turned into gold. Everything that Jesus touches turns into gold. And so when you get a body of men and woman who live in reality you get the life of Jesus multiplying. And that’s actually what happens when revival comes, the life of Jesus multiples the loaves and fishes. What have you to do? Oh just have this mind in you which you already have in Christ Jesus. You have this, you’re in Jesus. You’ve been created in him and he’s in you. Live that gloriously. Live that and let him reveal to you and through you to us what he’s doing and what he wants to do. And that’s life, and that’s the wonder of it. But you do see that he then becomes preeminent. And you’re no fools, you know fine well we’ve only to look at a lot of the religious operations and religious movements to see they’re lionizing like that. They lionize this leader, and that leader, and this preacher, and that preacher. They lionize him, make him great and then in the shadows there is a one who says, “I am meek and lowly of heart and you shall find rest unto your souls.” He’s in the shadows and we are out there, the supermen and superwoman. No, he is the king of kings, he is the Lord of lords, he is all of us. All of us are in him; we can’t breathe if he didn’t breathe today. We couldn’t see if he had not eyes today. We are him, we are in him, and we have no existence apart from him. Because he lives, we live also. Let us pray. Dear Savior, we are ashamed how we have thought of you as the third person, a he, a him, up in heaven at our Father’s right hand all the time we have been this little cell inside you. All the time you have been bearing us, feeding us with your breath, giving us life with your blood, giving us ability to see with our eyes. All the time Lord, we’ve been in you as you’ve been in us. Savior, we see how we have sunk into ourselves and sunk into each other so that everything has become important but the one who is important, you yourself. Oh Savior, we would embrace you today and enter into life and let you unfold the good works which you’ve already done and which you want us now to walk in. Holy Spirit, will you lead us in this? Our habits have been long established and they have a grip on our minds and emotions, and on our very bodies, so will you lead us out? Lead us out of this wilderness where we’re preoccupied with ourselves, and with each other, with everybody but the one of whom we are part, the one whom is our life. Oh Holy Spirit, lead us back now to the loving Shepherd in whom we have been created and in whom we now live and have our being. Holy Spirit, lead us now into reality. We hardly know how to change or what to do so we ask you Holy Spirit to show us. We don’t know what changes these things will bring about in us but you know. You, our Savior has told us, will take of the things of Christ and impart them to us. Holy Spirit, will you do that? Will you take of the things of Jesus and impart them to us so that we can turn this into actual actions, and words, and thoughts that will enable you Lord Jesus, to manifest the life that you have already lived. We do thank you Father, for assuring us that you have numbered all our days. Before there were any of them you have numbered them all. You have seen them all. And so the way is sure before us and is plain, and is seen by you, and has been lovingly planned by you. Lord Jesus, take back the life that we have wrenched from your grasp. Take back the life Lord Jesus, that we have often unknowingly but sometimes knowingly, the life we have grabbed to ourselves and turned into nothingness. Lord Jesus, come and live the life that you have planned to live, that rich life that has your creativity and your direction in it. Thank you Savior, thank you that we each one have a life that is rich and full that you have planned. Thank you Lord that it’s far beyond anything that we have seen with our own little human eyes. Lord Jesus, come and live now in us and live in us together so that we not only have your mind Lord Jesus, which is already ours because we’re in you. We don’t only have it in ourselves and think of things the way you think of them, but we also have this mind among ourselves so that we live this way with each other and you yourself are exalted. Above all you are lifted up and you will draw all eyes unto yourself. Lord, we thank you for this day. Thank you for all the wonder that lies before us and for all the enjoyment of these next few weeks. Above all Savior, we look forward now to you living your life in us as part of you for your glory. Amen.

Communion: Jesus in You and Me Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill We went to see the museum at Olney where Cowper and John Newton lived and it’s very good. There’s this garden where he wrote the hymns and a desk where he wrote certain ones that we know well. He seems to have been a dear man. They pronounce his name Cooper and not Cowper. There’s a tendency for us all to come back from holiday and think, “Great, let’s get at it and let’s do all the things that we’re able to do.” And I think it’s just good to see that that isn’t what we’re about at all. It’s not about you using your talents and me using my talents and us all doing the things that we think we should do. It’s far more exciting than that. And the truth is, left to ourselves like that in the midst of our own hearts we’re kind of boring people. We don’t think of many new things. We just keep going through the motions. And the fact is that it’s not that at all. It’s that each one of us here is in Jesus and he is in us. I can’t even apologize for the boredom of these sermons where I keep saying this. That’s it, that’s all of it. He was the first born of all creation and everything that is made was made in him and everything that is created hangs together in him and he was before all things. And that’s it. We don’t have any existence apart from Jesus. We don’t. We’re all little bits of Jesus. And it’s not that you’re not an important bit because no other bit of Jesus is like you. Jesus has things to do in you and through you and through me this coming year that nobody on earth knows. That’s the great thing, nobody actually knows except that he does. He knows what he wants to do through you. And I could share all kinds of thoughts I have about the Internet and about radio and the businesses but really it will all come about if you do just one thing — honestly see that you are in Jesus and Jesus is in you. He has thoughts and ideas to impart to you, things to do through you, and words to say through you that he cannot say, or do, or think through anybody else. I do believe if each of us would tackle every day like that you’d begin to see beauty coming up where you never expected to see beauty. We’d see things happening with some of us on the Internet, some of us in business, some of us on the radio, and some of us in the newsletter, that would just surprise us. I don’t think for instance that Martha would have to prod us for the newsletter, including me. I don’t think that would happen. I don’t think Myron would have to say to this person, “Now will you do that, or will you do that, or will you do the other?” I think that the anointing that Jesus gives enables us to move according to his Father’s will spontaneously and yet somehow miraculously together. And that’s the greatest thing that I’ve to say to you. You don’t need to look at it but it is that verse in Colossians 1:15, that Jesus is the first born of all creation. When he became God’s son he became the first man at that same moment and at that moment God foresaw all that would take place. He foresaw every action that his son would have to do, every pain he would have to bear, every resurrection that he would have to experience, and he saw all that happen in him. That’s why you come across a verse like that one in Psalm 1:37 that says, “God has everyday of our lives numbered in his book before there were any of them.” That’s why you get those strange verses that we’ve joked about as being the wrong tense you know, “God who is rich in mercy out of the great love with which he has loved us even when we were yet sinners made us alive together with Christ and raised us up with him and made us sit with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” And you think, “Well wait a minute, that hasn’t happened yet. Isn’t that all to happen?” But that’s why that kind of verse occurs because it has all happened. Christ has already been raised and us with him. And if you say to me, “Well why are we still here?” We’ve said it before, so that God who conceived the whole thing in one millisecond could make it clear to us over years, and years, and years. It’s so that we would see it, understand it and know why we were here and why we were his children and what we were together for. God lovingly created time so that we would have time to realize all that. What Satan tries to get us to believe is that time is just a long, long, long endless train of years where we have to struggle as best we can with this world and make something of this life. And of course that’s not it at all. The fact is that God has already done it all. He has already seen it all done. The works are prepared before hand and we have only to walk in them. So really what I’m encouraging you to see when you come back into things now is all we have to do is walk in works that God has already done in his son. That’s all we have to do. We don’t have to strive and strain. We just have to walk in the works and do a work of faith. A work of faith is a work that you do because you know it’s already been achieved by Christ and so you’re just walking through it. That’s a work of faith. We think a work of faith is that I exercise my mighty faith like George Mueller and I bring about a tremendous revival. It’s effort, and striving and straining. That’s not a work of faith. A work of faith is something that you do that God has already achieved in Christ. He has already overcome the world; he has already reconciled the world to himself. It’s the kind of thing that Moses did when he stretched out the staff over the sea. He stretched it out but that didn’t cause the sea to go back. The sea had gone back in eternity in Christ Jesus and he was simply walking in a work that God has already done. That’s what we’re called to do. So I don’t want it to come as a law or a burden to you. I don’t want this to be a cause of condemnation for you, but really there’s no reason why we shouldn’t walk gaily through life and through each day. There is not. There is no reason why we shouldn’t walk through a day and be as tireless at the end of it as we were in the beginning because the works have been done. Why we get tired is because of the anxiety. The self likes the feeling that we’re achieving something. We’re doing something usually because we want to exalt ourselves or we want to make ourselves virtuous. Let’s cast it all away and let’s see we’re a little bit of Jesus, Jesus has already done it all and we have the fun of walking through it — cutting the grass here, arranging the apples there, hitting the computer keys there, and at times apparently lifting mighty weights which aren’t mighty. God gives us the ability to do what we have to do. So I’d encourage you to see it differently, maybe it’s the way you’ve always seen it, but to see it differently when you get back into things now. This is Jesus’ work. This is his work, his business. He has already achieved all that needs to be achieved. He’s giving us the fun of walking through these things. And if you want the scripture for it here it is, Ephesians 2:10, “We were created in Christ Jesus for good works, which he has prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” And that’s all he calls us to do, just walk through those works listening to him. Listen each morning, “Lord, what is it today?” The glory and the wonder of it is that he won’t even give you the burden of a list at that moment. He won’t even say, “Yes, number one you have to do this, number two….” He will take you at your word and you’ll get up and you’ll walk out in him and his life will begin. So it’s a wonderful thing. Let us pray.

Sin is Slothfulness Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill Loved ones, we are in the position that we sin and we don’t realize that we’re sinning. That’s because, we have a very definite idea of what sin is. We think of it in the way the old classical authors thought of it. You remember, they told the myth of Prometheus snatching the lightening out of the God Zeus’ hand and asserting himself, and his own power, and his own rule, and his own will. And I think it’s very easy for us to think, “That’s what sin is. It’s what is spoken of in Genesis 3 when Satan said, ‘When you eat of this you’ll be like God knowing the difference between good and evil.’” And we then tend to think of sin as something assertive where we assert ourselves, we assert our own wills, we reject God and we say, “We’re going to do what we want to do.” And we think that that is the only thing that sin is. And all the time we’re being held captive by sin which is also the very opposite of that. The reality is that you are God’s workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works which he has prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. The reality is that when we all turned against that, God crucified us in Jesus and our old self was crucified with Christ. The further reality is that God who is rich in mercy towards us out of the great love with which he has loved us even when we were yet sinners made us alive together with Christ and raised us up with him and made us sit with him in the heavenly places. So that every morning when we open our eyes we know that the day has been planned for us, all the crooked things have been made straight. There are works that are prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. The world has been overcome and all we have to do is get up and rejoice in that. And to that spirit of truth and reality we say, “Let me alone. Let me alone. Let me alone. I don’t feel good today and I have a right to my own feelings. I know what the day holds and it’s filled with burdensome tasks. Let me alone.” Carl Barth says, “Sin is sloth.” It was so strangely put when I first read it that I almost didn’t take it seriously until I began to see that this is exactly the sin that holds many of us captive. The sinner is not merely Prometheus or Lucifer, somebody rising up and exercising his own will against God. He is also, and for the sake of clarity, and to match the grossness of the matter, we will use rather popular expressions. He is also a lazy bone, a sluggard, a good for nothing, a slow coach, and a loafer. I never thought of it that way, but that’s it. The reality is that we have not only been created in Jesus but we’ve been crucified with him, and we’ve been raised with him, and we’re sitting at the right hand of God with him far above every rule and authority and dominion and power and above every name that is named not only in this age but in that which has yet to come and he has put all things under his feet and he has prepared the way ahead for us each day. And we say, “Let me alone. I don’t want that. I want to look into myself and I want to look at my melancholia and I want to look at my own self centeredness and I want to think what I’m thinking and what I really feel about this world. Let me alone. I don’t want to rise up into that. I don’t want to be raised up and made to sit at God’s right hand. I don’t want to be victor over all these things. I don’t want to have authority over this and that. I want to huddle myself down here and think about myself and dwell in my own thoughts, and work things out for myself.” I think that some of us maybe doing that and not thinking of it as sin at all. And all the time we think that sin is evil action and we don’t see that sin is also evil in action. It’s a failure to live in the reality of our position in Christ. It’s not only a failure but Carl Barth points out that it’s actually unbelief. It’s not just a failure to live in that but it’s a rejection of that. He says, “At every point this is the strange inactive action of the slothful man. It may be that this action often assumes the disguise of a tolerant indifference in relation to God.” So you may think, “Oh no, I’m just indifferent to that today. That’s what’s wrong; I just don’t feel it as strong as I usually feel it. But in fact it is the action of hate which wants to be free of God, which would prefer that there were no God, or that God were not the one he is. At least for him, the slothful man, that God was not this act of Christ that has overcome the world and has taken us with him in his overcoming and now has things that he wants to do through us that day in joy and delight and freedom. This hatred of God is the culminating point of human pride too. The over winning pride of man which consists in the fact that he wants to be and act as God may it a pinch be understood and this is perhaps the reason for its sinister beauty, as a perverse love of God who’s frivolous encroachment and usurpation, who’s illegitimate attempt to control its object do of course culminate in a desire that the object should disappear as such. That there should be no God or that God should not be God. That man should be able to sit unhindered on his throne. But sin as man’s subservient and obsequious sloth is from the very outset his desire not to be illuminated by the existence and nature of God. Not to have to accept and be without God in the world.” There is something in us that on the outward thinks it’s wonderful to be in Christ, it’s wonderful to be raised up. But inside there’s a whole of our own being that doesn’t want to be bothered with it. We want to be able to creep into the day on our own terms, to look around and see how we feel, to get what we think we need to get, and to try and tackle the difficulties as well as we can. But we don’t want to be out there in that fresh spring like air at the right hand of God with authority over all things and joy in our hearts. We’re slothful. We don’t want to be wakened up from our sleep. Some of us feel, “Yes but I really love God. I like worshiping God.” And Carl Barth points out that that’s often the situation. “He will never seriously or basically reject altogether religion or piety in one form or another. Nor will he finally or totally cease to exercise or practice them in an open or disguised form. On the contrary, an escape to religion, to adoring faith and a congenial higher being is the purest and ripest and most appropriate possibility at which he grasps in his sloth, and cannot finally cease from grasping it as a slothful man.” But it’s his God; it’s the God that he wants. It’s an idol that he makes in his own image. It’s a God who rules the world and provides for him at times but above all, a God that does not demand that he reign with Christ, this warrior, this victorious Savior who has overcome the world. He does not want to be disturbed so that he has to reign with him and walk with him. He loves worshipping God as long as it’s a God who doesn’t bother him, who doesn’t require him in the morning when he’s just wakened with the sleep in his eyes to suddenly rejoice. And rejoice and again I say rejoice and rejoice that he is in Christ and that he is above the world and that today is a wonderful day with works prepared beforehand that I should walk in them and will victories that are already won so that I just have to walk forward. He doesn’t want that God. That God he does not like. That Christ he wants to get rid of in his sloth. And so it is consistent with worship but it is totally inconsistent with the way the person lives. And so he worships the God that will leave him alone and he prays to him, and he sings hymns, and he reads the Bible, but in his own life he lives inside himself like a prickly hedgehog that will not let Christ rule in victory and joy. In that situation you can pray for revelation your whole life. You can pray that God will give you revelation but the Father is saying, “Revelation — my son bleeding and dead, my son raised from the dead, my son that has already done miracles through thousands of people down through the years, and you want revelation? What more can I give you than I have given you?” And that’s why Barth says, “It’s the sin of sloth.” It’s a refusal to live in Christ night and day. It’s a desire to keep this little bit of yourself for yourself — where you can get angry, where you can get offended, where you can feel self pity, where you can worry through the massive task of trying to find the truth in this world. It’s dreadful and filled with sloth, filled with self, filled with egotism, and nothing to do with reality. I think often you’ll say, “I’ve been slighted.” Or, “I’ve been criticized.” Or, “I’ve been offended.” And the reality that you’re in Christ says, “No, you’ve been loved and you’ve been exalted and you’ve been favored and blessed.” But you keep saying, “No, I’ve been criticized and I’ve been offended and I’ve been ignored.” And reality in Christ says, “No, you’ve been loved, and exalted, and accepted.” “I face a burdensome life this day filled with tasks that I cannot see how to do.” No, in Christ those tasks have already been done. The world has already been overcome. The works have already been prepared beforehand that you should walk in them. “No, I have things to worry through this day. I have things that I don’t know how I’ll do them. I don’t know how I’ll get through the day.” No, those things have been done in Christ. See, it’s a constant rejection of reality. The sin of sloth is a constant withdrawing back into self and keeping all of reality out there and saying, “I wish I could believe it. And when God gives me revelation of it I’ll be able to live in it.” And Barth says, “No, that’s the sin of sloth. It’s a refusal to enter in to what reality is this day for you.” I wonder if any of us are involved in it — involved in just the simple sin of sloth. I don’t know about you but so often you’ve probably thought as I have thought, “Oh when you talk about sloth you’re talking about laziness, you’re talking about somebody who won’t get up in the morning, somebody who won’t work, and all that kind of thing.” But this you can see is the real sloth. The real sloth is not living this very moment in the joyful reality that you are in Christ. God created you in Christ. He crucified you with Christ. He raised you up with Christ. He made you alive together with Christ. He’s put you at his right hand in Christ far above all rule and authority and dominion and power. That’s where you are, now live in it. Live in it. And it’s a bit what Huldrych Zwingli said, “For God’s sake do something brave.” Stop thinking about it, stop meditating about it, stop looking into yourself to see if it’s true or something. “For God’s sake do something brave.” Be what God has made us in Christ. Live in the glorious freedom that we have in him. And you know we each face it every morning, as soon as that alarm goes off. At that very moment you make your choice; you either sink into sloth, and please I know you eventually get up I understand that, for all kinds of reasons you eventually get up. But the battle is lost because you’re already operating in sloth. There is only one clear act the moment our eyes open. It’s not just our lips that speak as they did in the monasteries when they said, “Rejoice in the Lord always and again I say rejoice.” Or, “This is the day that the Lord has made” and up pops a monk. No, it’s not that. It’s the heart rising, springing up and immediately acting in accordance with reality that you are actually in Jesus and Jesus is in you. He has a day to live that he has already prepared for you. The crooked things already have been made straight, the rough places are already made plain and all you have to do is walk gloriously forth. Anything other than that is sloth. I wonder if there are any of us who are actually living in the sin of sloth. And that’s why we’re not enjoying all the glory of this life. Because God who is rich in mercy out of the great love with which he has loved us, even when we were yet sinners, Christ died for us and God made us alive together with Christ and raised us up with him and made us sit with him in the heavenly places far above every rule and authority and dominion and power. That’s where we are at this moment. Let’s live in it. Let us pray.

God’s Theatre and His Players Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill If you know anything about Shakespeare you probably know what the Globe Theatre is. The Globe Theatre is the theatre that Shakespeare built for his players in Stratford-upon-Avon. They are building a new Globe Theatre at the moment in London. The Globe Theatre was built like a round tower that had a proscenium stage that stuck out into the middle. It was planned for his plays. Shakespeare obviously spent some time designing the Globe Theatre and having it built. Now can you imagine what would have happened if he had designed the theatre, supervised the building of it, at last got it built, and then gone back with Anne Hathaway and lived the rest of his life quietly and done nothing more. You would say, “Well, he wouldn’t be Shakespeare. We wouldn’t know of him, we wouldn’t have his plays. He would have missed the whole point of his life if all he had done was build that theatre. That theatre is only a place where his plays could be acted and all civilization would have missed the whole gift that God gave to us in Shakespeare if he had only built the theatre. The only reason for the theatre is that it was a place where his plays could be acted out.” It’s very easy, to think without business Christian Corps wouldn’t exist. That’s right. Christian Corps in a way is business. Business is our ministry. But it’s very easy then to think, “Ah, that’s why I’m in Christian Corps. I’m in Christian Corps to do the things that Christian Corps does. I’m in Christian Corps to carry on business. I’m in Christian Corps to help run things here, to keep the garden organized, to keep the house clean. I’m in Christian Corps to design jewelry and sell jewelry. I’m in Christian Corps to take part in prayer times and take part in services. I’m in Christian Corps to do all the things that Christian Corps does.” If that’s what you think, then that is like Shakespeare building his theatre and then going home and doing nothing else. It’s very easy to fall into that trap. Because I think we all like to control (and I know it sounds ridiculous), but we like even to control our own service of God. We like to be able to control our own discipleship and in a way that’s what we can do if we make the main purpose of our life doing the things that Christian Corps apparently does. That is, if the big thing in our minds is, “Well, I have to sell Jewelry today in Edinburgh.” Or, “I have to sell Jewelry today in London.” Or, “I have to get to the warehouse and get out this amount of shipping.” Or, “I have to get to the Garden Café and make these dishes to serve these people, and then I have, and then I have, and then I have.” And if my whole mind and heart is filled with those things then I’m like Shakespeare building a theatre and never putting on a play. Because that’s not what you’re here for at all and it’s certainly not what I’m here for. If you say to me, “Isn’t it vital for Christian Corps that we have businesses?” Yes, it is. If you say to me, “Isn’t part of the Christian Corps ministry the newsletter?” Yes, I agree. If you say to me, “Isn’t part of Christian Corps prayer times and chapel?” Yes, it is. But after you’ve done all of that you still have not begun the real purpose for which God made you. He did not make you to be fodder for Christian Corps guns. He did not make you to be workers for Christian Corps or for Fish Enterprises. He did not make you so you could run the radio programs in China. He did not make you so that you could run the jewelry operation. Each one of us here in this room have been created so that a certain person could live a life that he cannot live through anybody else. That’s the whole reason for us being together. All the rest of the things we do, they’re just a framework, they’re just a Globe Theatre. But the whole purpose for your existence and for my existence is so that the Savior could actually live his life in your name here on earth and that’s a very different task. You may say, “Well yes, that sounds great and I’m really for it.” But I think deep down we’re not so much for it as we think. It means you letting Jesus speak what he wants to speak and think what he wants to think through you. I think there’s a danger of us listening to that and saying, “Well yes, you’ve said that before and I know that. I am to live by the principles of Christ. I understand that it’s not just coming to prayers, it’s not coming to chapel, it’s not running the businesses, it’s not keeping the garden organized, it’s not keeping the house clean, and it’s not having meals together. It’s that I must live the way Jesus wants me to live.” Do you see that that’s why Paul said, “I live yet not I, but Christ lives within me.” It’s very easy for us to say, “I live,” and not to say, “Yet not I.” It’s very easy for us to say, “I live by Christ’s principles, that’s what I have to do here. I have to study what Jesus wants to do with a guy like me, or what Jesus wants to do with a woman like me, and that’s what I’ve to do.” No, no, because that’s still you. It’s still you trying to do it. It’s you trying to work out, “Now, what would Jesus do?” In our teenage years in Belfast, we used to say, “That’s how I decide whether a thing is right or wrong. I ask, “What would Jesus do?” That sounded so solid and so right. But it’s not that because it’s still you in the middle. It’s still you thinking, “Now, it’s really my life here but what would Jesus do if he were me?” It’s still that kind of attitude where we need a consultant. “Lord, come in I need your help here. What should I do in this situation?” I don’t know if that’s present in your life but I was surprised how much of that attitude was in me. That’s really what we mean by living by the law. A lot of us think that living by the law is living by the 10 Commandments in fear of a mighty God that is going to strike you down if you disobey. Or, living by the law is trying to live by all the laws of evangelism, or all the laws of the Jewish Torah. No, living by the law is you yourself doing the living — trying to live by whatever advice you’re receiving either from the Bible or what you believe you’re receiving somehow from Christ. But, it’s you doing the living, it’s not Jesus. In other words, letting Jesus live in you means a very intimate immediate awareness of the Savior, an awareness of Christ. Indeed, it’s such an awareness that you forget yourself. It’s such an awareness that he’s the only one you’re thinking of. You’re forced to say with Paul, “For me to live is Christ.” That’s what living is, to Christ. Thinking is Christ, breathing is Christ, speaking is Christ, talking is Christ, working is Christ, walking is Christ, driving is Christ. To me to live is Christ. That’s what living is. Christ is everything to me, he is my whole world. He is the world within which I exist. He is the atmosphere in which I move.” That’s what it means — a very intimate, sensitive closeness. You can’t say closeness because it’s closer than breathing. It’s the fact that he’s here, he’s all around me. It’s him when I put out these hands, I’m putting out his hand, his hand is there. That’s what affects our living together. The reason we can say something critical about somebody else, or what is worse is thinking something critical because the mind is where the real problem is. The real problem isn’t thinking. The acting and the speaking is just a consequence of the thinking and the attitude. So if the attitude is critical, or the thoughts are critical it’s because at that moment we have said, “Get lost. I think this is about this person and I have the right to think this about this person and this is my considered opinion and it makes me feel good anyway to be able to see some fault in somebody else that I apparently haven’t got and so that’s what I’m going to do.” And for that second, even a half second, Christ is crucified and he does not live in you. It’s you that’s doing the living. And that’s what makes life so old and heavy. You crawl out of a period of discouragement, because discouragement or depression is the same as being critical. You crawl out of a couple of seconds of discouragement or depression and then you start trying to live in Jesus and then you fall down into another couple of seconds of discouragement, or of pride, or of jealousy, or of self pity and then you crawl up again and you live another day. That’s what makes the life so heavy. Whereas when it’s Christ’s life he’s up all the time, he’s rejoicing in his Father every moment. The birds that he’s made are only singing delight and joy that is filling his own heart and you’re buoyed along by him and indeed, he’s the only one you think of. And so you think, “Lord, what do you want? Ah yes, you want that.” And the moment a thought comes into your mind from Satan it comes in and you see it as an alien and a dark thought and you have no time for it because everything is the Savior. It’s Christ only that matters and he fills every one of your thoughts. And you have no time for yourself. You have no time for yourself, you have only time for him because it’s his life and he has said, “Abide in me and I in you. Just as you Father abide in me I will abide in them and it will not be them that live but it will be me that lives.” That’s what we’re called to. That’s why I think it’s interesting. I think it’s exciting. The moment one of you begins to see, “This is your life Lord Jesus. It’s not me, it’s you. What do you want to do today?” The moment we begin to do that the whole thing begins to be exciting and something that you cannot foretell what will happen. I know we’re not the same as Christ but it’s like 15 Christs. It’s like 15 versions of Jesus living and doing all kinds of things that the poor old creatures, the poor old Leitschuh’s and the O’Neills, the poor old Overby’s that were born into that old dead world would never have thought of doing. It’s these exciting new people with Christian names, as they used to say, because we were given new names because we were new creations. It’s these new exciting Christs. That’s why I’ve said to you at times it’s Greg Christ or it’s Joanne Christ. That’s what it is and that’s why we’re here. If you say, “Is the Internet exciting?” Well yes, in the sense that the world gets excited about things, it’s exciting. But what’s really exciting about it is we don’t know yet what Jesus wants to do in the Internet through each of you. Is the newsletter is exciting? Well everything’s exciting today. Everybody says, “Oh it’s exciting. That’s an exciting dessert. That’s an exciting movie.’” It’s exciting in the sense that everybody says everything is exciting. But what is exciting about the newsletter is what the Savior may think up and have in mind to write through you in the newsletter. That’s it. I think it’s dead easy for you to hear that and say, “Oh yes, I know what you mean Pastor. You mean that my mind is going to try to think the thoughts that Jesus thinks and now I’m going to try to write.” No, no, it’s going to be Jesus himself. You’re here to step back out of the life and to let Christ live in you. I think this guy is right, he says, “Human beings don’t really like that. They don’t really like that idea.” He says, “Man does not want this Christ to live in their place. He loves piety, he loves being pious, he loves doing religious works, he loves being part of a religious organization, he loves trying to do the things that God wants him to do but he will not have this Christ live in his place. He does not want that.” And I think you see, unless you see something of that I don’t know that you’ve really seen what it means for Jesus to live in your place. But in fact, I think there’s something in us that does not want that. We talk about the carnal nature. You remember, Watchman Nee said, “An errant passion is worse than hatred.” We used to talk about it in sexual relationships. An errant passion, a wandering passion, a passion that is out of control or an affection that is not under the control of Jesus’ Spirit is worse than hatred itself. The reason for that is that the carnal nature actually doesn’t want Jesus to have his way in that situation. The carnal nature actually doesn’t want Christ to be able to do whatever he wants. The carnal nature wants to give over 99% of its life to Christ but not 100% of its life to Christ. So when you’re talking about letting Christ live instead of you, it means everything. I think that’s something that many of us have come up against. “I have no time to myself. I can’t get any time for myself. I have no time to do the things that I want to do.” But wait a minute, you mean Christ has no time in you to do the things that he wants? “No, no I have no time.” Oh, YOU have no time. You have no time to do the things that Christ wants you to do? “Well, yes, it’s kind of that. But I don’t feel I have any time. I don’t feel my time is my own.” But you are not your own, you were bought with a price. “Yes, I know.” See what I’m saying? The carnal nature doesn’t like the idea of Christ alone doing the thinking. If you say to me, “How do we get into trouble with our thought life?” Because a thought pops into our mind that is wrong, “Why do you ask me to do this? Why am I always asked to do this? Why doesn’t somebody else have to do it?” Or, “Why does this person always keep telling me to do this thing?” Or, “Why does Marty drink his soup so noisily.” I don’t think he does, but these are the ridiculous little things that you think, “Why? Why?” Because at that moment Christ is nowhere in your thoughts. He’s nowhere in your thoughts because you’re back in charge. You’re not letting him live. He hasn’t a chance of living, because your mind and your thoughts and your will is governing everything. But the reason for us being here is so that Jesus could live and paint a picture of his Father here on earth in you that he cannot paint in anybody else. That’s why you’re here. You’re not here to run Christian Corps, and you’re not here to bring people into the kingdom. You’re here for a far more glorious purpose than that. You’re here to let Jesus live, be himself in you, speak the words he wants to speak through you and give the thoughts out that he wants to give through you. Together in his name doing that, you get the Holy Spirit moving in joy and delight in that fellowship, and in faith, and in buoyant love. Commit sin? Forget it, it has no chance. Who would have sin when we have Jesus? And it becomes like that. But that’s why we’re here. I think it’s very important to be very clear in our own minds, yes the business, the house, the chapel, the garden, Myron, Joanne — all those things are like the Globe Theatre. But the purpose for them all is that you yourself would allow Jesus to live in your space and to create a whole new life that nobody has ever seen here before. That’s why Paul talks about it in those terms. It is a remarkable thing when you see a little baby come from a mother’s womb. It’s remarkable because it’s a whole new little life, fresh and new and clean. It looks as if it has nothing inside it but newness, youthfulness, and young life. And that’s what Jesus has in mind for you and for me. Let us pray. Lord Jesus, we see that it’s like trailing one leg that is crippled when we try to live like you, when we try to serve you, or when we try to do all the things that everybody wants us to do. It’s like trailing behind us a cripple leg. It’s like having a heavy weight that we have to carry with us everywhere. We see Savior, that you’re saying, “Come to me, all that you that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me for I am meek and lowly of heart and you shall find rest unto your souls.” “So lay aside every weight and the sin which does so easily beset you and run with patience the race that is set before you looking unto Jesus the author and comforter of our faith.” Oh Lord Jesus, we would open our hearts to you and not only our hearts but every moment of our days and our thought life. Lord come. Come Savior and sweep clean all the murkiness, all the grayness, all the places where we have delved into unlawful thoughts. Lord Jesus, come now. Come dear Spirit of Jesus, and fill the whole room of our heads and our hearts with the beauty of your own heart, your own mind, and your own life. Savior, come and live in us. Take this life now and be yourself and bring your own brightness into this family and into this business. Wherever we go Lord, even where we’re lying in bed just alone with our own thoughts, let the whole mind be enlightened by you. Let our hearts be lifted up even as we go to sleep at night with your heart. Lord Jesus, we feel dreadful that we proud little beings would thrust ourselves in front of you and make our concerns more important than yours. Savior, we have no time but the next second that you, out of your love, chose to give us. We have no time Lord that is our own. All the time that we have is your time that you’ve given us. Savior, we have no right to think thoughts that are not your thoughts. Our minds have been given us by you. The only mind we have is the mind that is in you Lord Jesus. We would no longer pollute it. We would no longer crucify it. We would let your mind dwell in us Lord Jesus. We would let your peace Lord Jesus, rule our hearts. Savior, we thank you for the family. We thank you for the operation. We thank you for the businesses, and the chapel, and all the other things. But Lord Jesus, most of all we thank you for the chance that you have to live in our name here on earth. Oh Savior, live now from this day forward and be yourself and teach us this very day second by second through your dear Spirit. Teach us what you want to say at each moment so that our words may be filled with the fragrance of our love and the optimism of your dear heart. We ask this for your glory. Amen.

Jesus Before Time and Space Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill The center of a dark hole is very dark. Its solid solid matter that has shrunk into itself until it’s more dense, the scientists say, than anything else in the universe. So it’s as if there’s a whole lot of matter out here and then it shrinks, and shrinks, and shrinks into a dark hole. And that in a sense explains all the analogy of that. Explains better the whole creation because in fact, the whole creation came out not so much out of a dark hole, but of the infinite mind of God where everything was concentrated into – well you know, it’s silly to talk in temporal terms, but into one second. But obviously it wasn’t even one second it was a millisecond and obviously, when we begin to talk about that with our childish minds, we almost make it a circus. But in some sense, in order to understand the stability of our lives, we need to see that because if we keep on looking at it down here from our little temporal viewpoint, you have the feeling more and more that your life is like a fiddler on a roof, you know, you’re not – well, we’re not sure, “Yes, well we could go this way, we could go that way,” and it’s all decisions that we’re making for the first time ever, and nobody has any control of it, and we don’t know where it will end up, “Who knows what will become, whether we will go to heaven or hell, whether we’ll die or live.” And the whole of life become meaningless if you look at it just in the little particular few seconds that you and I live. Because of course, it is true that even as you – I don’t know if many of you have read any of the authors that have written books about time, along the lines of course, of the Hawking’s articles, where they bring it out very clearly that it’s almost – I mean, it’s almost like a fire there and a spark. That spark exists for maybe 20 seconds and during that 20 seconds it flies up there and disappears and another spark and that’s Lucy, and that’s – that our life is more like that. It’s more like a spark that just is alive for a matter of seconds and then it’s gone. And of course, if you look at it from that point of view then life almost becomes meaningless and you become very unsure, and very uncertain, and very insecure, and actually very irresponsible because you tend to take the attitude, “What can I do? I’m around here for a few seconds and I’m out.” And it’s very important to see that that’s not it at all. You begin to get a hold of it when you think about Christmas and you read that piece in Matthew, the birth of Jesus Christ took place like this. And you read about Joseph and Mary in what, 4 BC or 6 BC and them having their little baby boy. And of course, if you see it only as that it really makes the Bible more and more meaningless because there are all kinds of things in the Bible that imply that this baby boy did not just originate at that moment at all. And he himself in his own prayer says, “Father, restore to me the glory which I had with you before the world was made.” And it’s then that you start to realize what we’ve talked about before, that Jesus did not just start in 4 BC or 6 BC, but in fact, he says, “Restore to me the glory which I had with the before the world was made.” Before there was ever any world, Jesus was alive. He existed with his Father before there was even a world and it’s there that you begin to see, “Yes, yes, there’s something back here that took place that is governing all that’s being shown on this screen,” because of course, that’s very much what it’s like. It’s very much like the projector back here and the operator Marty, there he is, and here is the screen and it’s projecting on the screen what is in some tiny little reel of film or little cassette there. And that’s really what we have on this timeline of history. And this is I suppose infinity, and this is as far as we’re concerned, infinity, and then you know, maybe we’re maybe 1995 is somewhere about there. And everything that is taking place is projected out here so that we little time creatures can understand it. Everything that takes place there took place here in a millisecond and you begin to get a feel for that when this man Jesus says, “Father, restore to me the glory which I had with thee before the world was made.” And then you begin to think, well then he pre-existed. He pre-existed Jesus of Nazareth. He says, “I before you made me,” so it’s obviously him he’s talking about so in a way Jesus himself existed in his Father’s company before he existed here on earth. And you start to realize, “Yes, so there was an existence that he had before he came into time.” And it’s then that you look at some of the other quotations that you get in scripture and you can see that in John 1. It’s one that we all know very, very well John 1, and it just states what Jesus stated in his prayer in John 17 where he said, “Restore to me the glory which I had with thee before the world was made.” And John 1:1, runs, “In the beginning,” in the very beginning, “Was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” And of course, further down you know, in Verse 14 it’s obvious who the word was. Verse 14, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father. (John bore witness to him, and cried, ‘This was he of whom I said, “He who comes after me ranks before me, for he was before me.”’)” Well, that’s obviously Jesus. The Word is Jesus. So back to Verse 1, “In the beginning was the Word,” in the beginning was Jesus, “And the Word,” Jesus, “Was with God, and,” Jesus, “Was God. He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.” And you see that Christmas is only the temporal expression of something that happened in what we call eternity which is the name we give to the place beyond time and before time. Then you know, it doesn’t end there, you know that. Then there is that just bewildering verse that Jesus was the very fullness of God and he was the first-born of all of creation. And it just throws you into mental summersaults. “Wait a minute Jesus existed before the world was made. Okay, but he was the first-born of all creation? But I thought he was the only begotten Son of God?” “Yes.” “But he was also the first-born of all creation? But there was no creation when God begot him no, that’s right.” So he was the only begotten Son of God before there was a creation but then when there was a creation he was the first-born of all creation. In other words, this Jesus was not simply the heavenly only begotten non-human Son of God, but he was actually the first-born of creation itself. That is, he was the first-born human being. And of course, you almost get lost in it because you think, “Oh, oh, he was the only begotten Son of God there and then down here he was born of all creation.” But, no the Bible says he was the first-born of all creation and you start to see that Jesus, when he was begotten of God, was at that same millisecond conceived by God as the first-born human being. In a way it helps us because you can see a little more what it means that we were all made in Jesus, because you can start to see, “Oh yes, so the whole human race did come not just from two people as we argue in our creation debates, but the whole creation came from one person, from one human being and that human being was Jesus.” And of course, that makes more sense too of the verses like, “When the son of man comes in his glory and all his holy angels with him, then we’ll be gathered before him all the nations and he’ll separate them one from another as they separate the sheep from the goats.” And you see that that refers to the son of man and you start to realize, “Oh, that’s Jesus. Jesus will be the judge of all the nations as the son of man.” In fact, he is the son of man eternally. He became a human being eternally and that’s what we have trouble grasping because we keep on thinking, “Well, Jesus is the only begotten Son of God and he’s very different from us, and he did become a man like us for a short time, and now he’s gone back up to be the only begotten Son of God. And we’re really grateful to him for helping us in that way, and he did suffer for us and die, and we’re grateful to him for giving up all of heaven so that he could do that.” And then it just strikes you like a thunderbolt, but he didn’t just do that. He actually became a human being as well as the Son of God he became a human being eternally. He became a human being forever. He has – he has in a sense, you could say, sacrificed eternally. He has determined – not you might say, “Well, do you think he gave up some of his divinity?” No, he didn’t give up some of his divinity but he did take upon himself the incredible burden of not only being a human being but of all the human beings that then were created in him and he has taken on that burden eternally. And so then, that’s where you start to see that Christmas is your birthday. That Christmas is not just the birthday of Jesus. And you know the reason we say that, it’s Ephesians 2:10, and it’s just maybe good just to have it open anyway. Ephesians 2:10, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” Because you see it says, you, Martha, you Ernest, you Marty, you are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that you should walk in them. Each one of us was created in Christ Jesus. In Christ Jesus the great human being, we were created in him. And you know, it makes sense of things like, “We’re the body of Christ and individually members of it.” It makes sense of, “Without me you can do nothing,” you know, because it implies that you have no existence apart from Jesus. That OJ Simpson has no existence apart from Jesus; Hitler has no existence apart from Jesus. Not just the saints but nobody has any existence apart from Jesus because we were all created in Christ Jesus. And as we’ve said before he is in fact our everlasting Father and all this – and here’s – here’s what just startled me, all this took place then. I know it doesn’t make too much sense to us because we’re in time at this moment, but the fact is this all happened in God in a millisecond. And I hope you understand why I say that. You know, God doesn’t have to work it all out with square and with little objects. He doesn’t have to work it out – he doesn’t have to, “Oh, I wonder what will happen in 2000 BC? Oh well, it’s going on, I see. Oh now, it’s 1500 BC. Now, I wonder what will happen now. I wonder what Caesar will do. Now, he’s charging against the old Gauls. Oh, there he did it.” You know, it’s obviously; it’s silly to think of it that way. God does not – God conceived the whole thing in a millisecond. In one millisecond he sees all the things that will happen, sees your grandmother, sees your grandchildren, sees everything, he sees everything in one millisecond. It’s all in a moment, even we – you must admit even we with our silly little minds have that ability. I mean, that’s what drives us crazy at times in worrying at night, isn’t it? Isn’t that what worrying does? “Oh, I’ll do that, do that, do that, do that,” and it’s you know, the nightmare – you remember, I always think of – there’s a funny opera, you remember, and there’s a very funny song, we must play it sometime so that you hear it but the fella goes on, “Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da,” and the mind is turning, and turning, and turning, and it drives you crazy because you have the ability, it’s interesting, isn’t it so kind of God because we’re made in his image, we have some of his abilities, you know. We have the ability to conceive 20 years in one second and actually, when you think back, “Okay, think a five year old, think a seven year old,” pictures flash into your mind in a moment, well how much more the Father – the Father sees all of that in a second and he sees us created in his Son, and he sees – does he need to wait to see what we’ll do? No, he can see it all. The miracle is not that God can see it all, the miracle is that the Father has so worked things, beyond our understanding, has so worked things that in spite of the fact that he can foresee it all he has given us free wills and he has ensured that our free will truly does operate as free will even though he can foresee it. We of course, have trouble with that because when we can foresee a thing, we’re determined to stop it happening. We’re so dominating in our own attitude that we can’t think of being able to foresee a thing and give a person the freedom to put a knife in us. God, out of his great love, is able to foresee everything that we will do in our life and yet is able to so restrain his own omnipotent powers that we still have the free exercise of our free wills. It’s a miracle that we can’t completely understand. We can understand it a little. We do understand it a little because the whole of computer technique is based on the ability of the programmers to foresee some of the choices that each person will make so to a certain extent we do it. We can say, “If you choose one it will go that way, choose two it will go that way, and I can kind of warn you on two what you’ll come up against. So I can kind of foresee and help guide you.” That’s a crude form. God in his great infinite wisdom is able to give us complete freedom even though he created us in Christ Jesus and at that second saw our whole lives line out before us and of course, you and I know, saw what would happen. Saw what we would do. Saw that in fact, in some sense not that we had to do it, but in some strange way we had to be able to conceive of it, we had to be able to conceive what life would be like if we rejected the whole show. If we rejected all of reality, if we rejected the fact that we were made as part of his Son, if we rejected that we had no life outside his Son, if we rejected any belief at all that he existed or that he had made us for certain purposes for Jesus to fulfill in us what would happen. In some sense we had to see that and so he actually made that possible. But he saw also that if he made that possible everything was lost. Everything was lost. We’d destroy ourselves, we’d become nightmarish maniacs who would consume each other and we’d eventually destroy the whole universe, certainly the world or the planet that we were on. And do you see that if this is all real, if God actually did conceive us in his Son Jesus, do you see that he couldn’t just say, “Oops, well I don’t want that to happen. Okay, back it all up, back it all up. We’ll play it again the right way and we’ll ensure that it goes right.” If this was all taking place actually in our Father and in his Son, he had to experience all that. Now we know a little of that sense of responsibility ourselves. We know a little bit of it because sometimes we’ll say to each other, “Well, you did it, you have to pay for it.” And in a sense we feel that’s right, you know, we feel, “Yeah it makes life meaningless. We would all become utterly irresponsible, life would lose it’s meaning if we could just do something, see something disastrous happen and then just change it around and go the other way as if it didn’t happen.” In some sense we feel, “No, if there’s to be any sense of responsibility in the world at all we have to pay for our mistakes and we have to bear them. We have to bear the consequences.” In other words, life becomes meaningless if the cause/effect relationship is broken. If you once stop a cause having effects then there’s no sense to life at all. So in a deep sense, God himself had to bear the consequences of giving us the freedom to do what we wanted and that’s why we hear those verses in scripture, “The lamb was slain from before the foundation of the world,” because at that millisecond, God saw all that and then saw, “Then the whole human race has to be destroyed and I have to bear the pain of that destruction and have to bear it all inside myself and my Son, and has to be recreated.” And that’s why that verse runs, “God who is rich in mercy out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were yet sinners” even when all that had happened “made us alive together with Christ and raise us up with him and made us sit with him in the heavenly places” and all that took place in the Lamb that was slain from before the foundation of the world. The Lamb who had glory with the Father before the world was made. The Lamb in whom we were all created for good works which he had prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. And all that took place there. That’s why we say Christmas is our birthday, because you and I as human beings actually came into existence in Jesus before the world was made and when his birth was manifested here in 4 BC, 6 BC, whatever it was back then – actually you could say that that was when we were born upon the earth too. For us, Christmas is a wonderful time because it’s not just the birth of Jesus, it’s God’s gracious conception of human beings. It’s God’s gracious conception of humanity. It’s the expression in time of what God did back there away at the beginning. Even as I think of even though I love you and I use your name I think, it’s almost bewildering to say that Peggy Coleman exists – well, you hold back because your lips will hardly pronounce the words, because who are we? What pitiful pathetic specks of dust, little sparks that go out in a few seconds and we’re saying that there you were – well – but of course, you see what it does, it doesn’t matter how short you are, it doesn’t matter how small we are or how pathetic we are, we were part of the Father before any of this. And what we’re seeing here is just the little few seconds of life that we have, but our own life is there permanent forever. Our life is there. Here we have a few seconds. So, are these few seconds – it’s what 2020 or whatever it will be, but these few seconds, they are full of meaning. The Father’s eyes are upon that little speck, that little Irish speck, that little Chinese speck, little French, little Ukrainian speck, the Father has all that planned. He has works prepared beforehand that we should walk in. He has done it all, we now are to walk. And then tying up with what did he do, how did he show physically the choice that we had, because he gave us a choice, how did he manifest that choice? He let us live this life on earth. And so this life on earth is a picture of what our life would be if there were no God, if we were not in God, if we were not in Christ. If we were not made in Christ for certain works that God has prepared beforehand that we should walk in them, this life is that. So my wife read out yet another of those meaningless events that take place that the newspaper reports, just more of the general meaninglessness of life, the ridiculous confusion between right and wrong, all that kind of thing. Well we say so often, “Isn’t it a meaningless world?” Of course it is, because it’s a fallen world, because it’s the picture that God gives us, it’s the choice. It’s him saying, “You were made in me and in my Son. If you reject that this is the life that you will live. This is the life that you will live. Now of course, all of us will – those of us in Northern Ireland know we didn’t say que sera sera because we didn’t know Spanish, but we did say, “Well, it was meant to be,” you know, “Well, it was meant to be.” In Belfast, many of us – I’m sure maybe Sheila didn’t, but many of us said, “Well, it’s meant to be. You know, if it happened it was meant to be.” And in Asia we have the same thing, “Well, it’s fate. It’s fate. Fate just dominates my life I can’t do anything about it that’s it.” And of course, that’s the trick Satan has played. He’s taken this picture of what is the second choice of what God is showing us would be the situation if we were not actually in him and in his Son crucified and raised in him and he’s saying, “This is what would happen.” And of course, the fatalist people take hold of that and they say, “Yeah, this is meant to be. You can’t stop this.” So it’s a trick of Satan and a lie that gets hold. But it gets hold of all of us. You don’t have to be Buddhist, you don’t have to be people that speak Spanish/French/Spanish to do it, you can just be an ordinary person like us who say, “Well, I mean, I was born that way and I can’t do anything about it. This is my life.” And it’s such a lie of Satan but we all get into it and we almost – to back it up we point, “Well, see I’ve been doing this for years. I’ve been doing it for years. My father did it before me, my mother did it, I was born this way, this is it I can’t do anything about it.” And it’s Satan taking what God has set forth – what God has said, “This has already been destroyed in my Son. I’ve already dealt with this miserable existence that you try to live as if you’re separate from me. This I have destroyed. This is the life that I made. You were created in my Son Jesus for good works which I prepared beforehand that you should walk in them. That’s the real life.” And so he’s saying, “Walk in reality.” Satan comes in with his fatalism and says, “No, no, the life that you have now that’s fate. That’s determined for you from before the beginning of the earth.” The Father says, “That’s a picture for you to see what your life would be like if I had not made you in my Son, crucified you in my Son, raised you up in my Son, and set a life before you of works that I have prepared that my Son would do in you.” So loved ones, Christmas day is a big thing for us. And of course, you see what it is for all of us; our life is not the life of a fiddler on a roof. Our life is not a little life comme si comme ca, you know, oh it may go this way it may go that way, or it doesn’t matter. Our life is something that God has planned in his own Son and he has a way for us to go that we can walk in. So, I’d encourage each of us, especially when that fatalism gets a hold of you and you think, “No, I can never, I can never,” remember it’s the enemy of your soul that is painting that picture to you. It’s the enemy of your soul that is saying, “No, no what you are, is what you’re supposed to be. That’s it you cannot change it.” And God is saying to you, “That is the absolute opposite of reality. What you see unfolding in your life so far is the life that you would have lived if I had not changed you in my Son and put my Son within you. But my Son is within you and he has a whole series of things that he wants to do and say through you that will enable you to enjoy what he enjoys with me.” And that’s it. So Christmas is a – if you’d like to say it’s a new beginning for all of us. It’s our new beginning. It’s the reality that we have been created in Christ Jesus and that God saw each one of us even before we were in our mother’s womb, before we had any living substance, God saw us and he had every day of our lives written in his book before there were any of them. So, does it matter if your mother forgets you? No. Does it matter if your father forgets you? No. Does it matter if all of us forget you? No, because there is one place where you cannot be forgotten because you are part of his very heart. Let us pray.

Using Our House of Clay Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill In a poem there is a line “mildly he lays his glory.” John Milton was a poet, a 16th Century I think, one of the greatest English poets that was produced in this land. And one of his early poems – he was a great Latin scholar and Greek scholar and so his English is full of those compound sentences that it takes your mind to stay very alert to understand. And one of his early poems runs, “That glorious form, that,” talking about Jesus, “That glorious form, that light insufferable, and that far-beaming blaze of majesty, wherewith he wont at heaven’s high Council-Table, to sit the midst of trinal unity, He laid aside; and here with us to be, forsook the courts of everlasting day, and chose with us this darksome house of mortal clay.” And you probably got the gist of it, that Jesus laid aside all the wonder and the brightness of sitting with his Father and the Holy Spirit in heaven in order to take unto himself this darksome house of mortal clay. And that’s we know what actually happened. We were born in him, he was born in us. From the very beginning he took upon himself the darksome house of our mortal clay, not only the darksome house of our physical body but you know where you’ve been and I know where I’ve been. We’ve all been places we would hope that nobody else here knows about. We have all been places in our minds, and our feelings, and our bodies that we hope nobody else knows. He took that upon himself. He dwelled in that. He has experienced that. He came to dwell in the darksome house of our mortal clay. The worst thought that you and I have had he has borne. The worse imagination that you’ve had, the most miserable that you and I have ever been, the most wretched, the lowest place that you and I have ever got to in our experiences, or in our minds, or in our feelings, or spirits, he has been there with us. He has gone down into everything with us and that’s what it means. And it’s important at Christmas to see that it was not just the stable, and the straw, and the dirt, and the cattle, it was us he was born in us and he has endured the very worst in us. So we owe him great gratitude. No one else, even our dads and mums, no one else has been with us in everything. No one else has seen the bottom of our hearts the way he has so we owe him a lot. And of course the reason he came and endured all that was for one thing, because he has a life that he wishes to live in you and me. And so he has borne all that. So often he has stood not even being recognized by us, not even being given a word of acknowledgement by us, he has stood inside us and borne, and borne, and borne, and waited, and waited, and waited. And what I want to say to you and to myself is, let’s now end the waiting for him. And I’ll tell you what I mean. He has things to do through each of us. We can see some of the things pretty obviously, some of them are plain. We’re going to call the newsletter the Christian Business International. There are articles that he has to write. I’m speaking to you for a moment just as an ordinary school teacher. I know from experience that if you have above average intelligence you can do most things. You won’t discovery the theory of relativity, perhaps but you can do most things if you’ve above average intelligence. All of you have. There are articles that Christ wishes to write in the Christian Business International that he can write through you. I’m asking you will you give yourself to learn to write. Will you stop saying, “I’m not very good at writing.” I know you’re not very good at writing, I understand that. But it’s not you that’s going to write. All the Savior is asking is will you fit yourself; will you get the equipment so that he can write those articles through you? Will you use Word in the computer and use the thesaurus, that is the little list of words that give you synonyms, you know, other words that will say the same as the word you’re thinking of and will give you variety in your vocabulary, will you use that? Will you give yourself to making yourself not a great writer; you don’t need to be Shakespeare but a good writer? And I’m saying will you let Jesus write through you? I think that’s one of the places you may say, “Oh, listen this is more like a commercial.” No, this is fact, Christ is in each one of us and we have certain ways here that we can express him to the world. One of them is that newsletter. And we do need a variety of us to be doing it every month because we saw the way it works when you don’t do it every month; it almost disappears from the earth completely. We had three publications last year. But I’m saying to you, forgetting about whether we publish or not that’s not the issue, the issue is will you let Christ live in you. You have things that he can say through you that he will not say through any of the rest of us. There are little articles in the newspaper and in the magazines that you will spot just because you come across them and nobody else will. Cut them out, put them in a notebook, and ask Jesus to give you light as to how you could use those to express to some business people in the world some of the ways in which God and faith in God and trust in him and respect for his commands actually enables business to be operated more effectually. But will you let Christ live in you? That’s it. I think you understand that even though it kind of shocks you a bit me hitting you on the Business International, I think you know in your heart that I couldn’t care less about the Business International. I couldn’t care less about the newsletter. What I’m saying is Jesus has chosen the darksome house of mortal clay in each of us and has borne in us all the dreadful things that we know he has borne. I know certainly in myself and I’m sure you’re not so very different from me, I know the things he has put up with in me and borne in me. And it was all so that someday I would stop thinking of myself as Ernest O’Neill with these inadequacies or these limitations and I would stop all this stuff about I don’t know how to do this, I can’t do this and I would say, “Lord, I will make myself available. I will fit myself as well as I possibly can.” And I would say to you that you’ve probably found the same as many found in the early days in Bethany Fellowship. I remember asking Paul Strand who was one of the first children there, “Well, were you a good singer?” And he said, “No, none of us were good singers but we all became good singers because we were the only ones to sing.” And that’s it. You become whatever you need to become. Christ enables you to do what needs to be done. I remember Carol Brown a little Minnesota lady who had that little phrase, “We do what needs to be done.” And she really had very little education of any kind but she did what needs to be done and that was the attitude. And that’s what I’m saying to you, will you let Christ begin to live in you, begin to do the things – you don’t need to think a lot about, “Well, I wonder what he wants to do? Does he want to go to Mars in me?” Well he obviously doesn’t want to go to Mars in you because you’re not a space person and you don’t know how to get up there yet. But you do have some obvious things that you can do and the Christian Business International is an obvious one. And you are in the midst of London, you’re in the midst of one of the financial centers of the world, and one of the business centers of the world. You’re in a situation with lots of libraries and lots of newspapers with lots of businesses going on, with the financial news coming out every day. You’re in the middle of it all and you can get the information that is needed even if you say, “I don’t know anything about business.” You know a lot more about business than most people just because of practical experience. But the big thing is Christ can guide you to the right information and he can enable you to write clearly. And if you don’t know grammar you can get to know grammar. That is one thing. The radio is a great opportunity for us. I can’t do all the speaking, it’s very obvious. For one thing I don’t last forever, but I can’t do all the speaking even if I do last a long time. That’s why I urge you and encourage you in the Homiletics class; we’re going to run it again this next quarter, let Christ live in you. Sure you can’t speak, none of us can speak, we’re all like Moses, and we all have our excuses. I stammer, I can’t speak loudly, I can’t speak clearly, I haven’t the flow of language that this person has or that person has. No, but you have a voice and you have a good mind, and you have a basic education and Christ is able to make you better and better because speaking is a matter of practice. It’s a matter of doing it again, and again, and again. And if you say, “Oh, but aren’t there outstanding speakers?” Well there may be some outstanding speakers but frankly, I think most of us are in the same boat, we’ve become what we are by doing it. There’s great opportunity for each one of us not only to prepare so that we can make presentations on radio but also so that we can make presentations to other people about living in Jesus in business. There are great opportunities there. If you keep on saying, “That’s for Myron to do, or that’s for pastor to do, that’s for Greg, or Marty to do.” Christ cannot become himself in you. You will forever live inside your own inadequacies. So please if you’re saying to me do you think I can do all those things? No, but I think you can do all those things through Christ who strengtheneth you. And most of us are in the same boat, we’re very shy, we’re very uneasy with public performance. Most of us would rather sit in a corner and be not noticed. But Jesus requires a face. He needs a face, he needs eyes, he needs a tongue and you have all those and he says, “Will you lend me these? I have given you everything I had; will you lend me these while I’m here on earth in you?” That’s it. So Christmas for us is a very personal thing. It’s will you let Christ do what he wants to do in you? Will you let him live in you? It ties up with our time. I feel very strongly that we ought to be guided by the inner light of Jesus’ Spirit within. I think that’s right. I don’t think we should be some corporate body that moves according to certain corporate principles and moves when the general says we should move. I think that each one of us should be moved by the Spirit of Jesus who always of course moves in harmony in his body but we should be moved by the inner voice of Jesus. But our time is not ours to harvest, and to keep, and to protect, and to defend so that we can hear that in their voice. Our time belongs to him. If he wants us to pray then we need to pray. If he wants us to be alone in our room we need to be alone. But it’s not for us to determine, “Oh my time, I need to protect my time. I need to keep my special private time. I need to get away from everybody else.” I’ve always felt this, you can say it’s just the discipline of the ministry, but I’ve always felt if Jesus has a prayer time going, or if he has a meeting going, or if he has something where everybody else is there and they would like me to be there, I’ve felt that’s where I should be. You may say, “That’s dreadful. That’s a dreadful way to run your life.” Well, that’s what I’ve always felt our life was in Jesus. Our life was at his disposal, it wasn’t for us to do what we wanted with it was for him to do what he wanted with. I’m sure I might prefer to be alone in my room at that moment but he wants to be out among the others in me and that’s where I should be. So our time is his it’s not ours. Our time is not ours to do what we want with it belongs to him. He has given up, he has forsaken the courts of everlasting day and chose with us this darksome house of mortal clay so he has given up all of eternity, constant brightness around him all the time and dwelled with us in all kinds of little shadowy places. So it’s nothing to say, “Lord Jesus, this life is your life. This time is your time.” If you say to me, “Oh, we’ll become a nothing” that’s right you lose your life and you’ll find you’ve saved it. You’ll find that there is rising up within you a new person that is different from you and that is more glorious than you. And yet, you find that you are becoming your real self in the midst of him. And that’s what that verse means you remember, we are most truly men when we are him and he is us. So you can think of other things you know, you can work out other things. But I think that’s what Christmas day means. Jesus is saying here in this chapel in different ways to different people here, “May I?” And you have to answer. Let us pray.

1996 Covenant Service Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill We all know the numbers of times we have thought, “Well, this is certainly one of the stops on the road of life.” You think of marriage as one, you know, you think of a funeral as another, some of us think of a birth or a baptism as another, some of us think of our graduation from high school or university as another. But at different times we feel this is an important moment and often we feel this about the new year, we feel this is an important moment for us and we try to rise to it. And I just want to make the point without sentimentality without emotionalism because you can see I feel better than I’ve felt in my life for a long time, but I just want to make the point very clearly that it was let’s say interesting to me to see how quickly the end comes. And that it’s quite important for all of us even at the relatively young ages we are, it’s quite important for us to see that it ends very, very quickly. That it just comes and it’s gone and you don’t realize it. And I think we have a tendency to think it’s going to go on forever and ever. And we have a tendency to think, “This year we made resolutions, we made decisions, and we kept some of them and some of them we didn’t, but we’ll have another year, and another year.” And I just want to make the very plain and obvious point that at March 10 as we sat at the stoplights and I said to, “Irene I think love, put the blinkers on and let’s blast we don’t have a lot of time.” It goes very fast. And the same time will come for you. And it maybe March 10th and not at the beginning of the year it would be nice if God arranged it, just the 31st of December and you’d be ready for it. So it is very important that we stop messing about. That is it is very important that we stop saying, “Oh yes, yes, yes I should come to breakfast every morning with Lucy,” or whoever might be the guest. Or, “I should be pure in my heart, and my thoughts, and my body.” Or, “I should be disciplined.” Or, “I must start to pray every day.” Or, “I must get back to my disciplined bible study.” Or, “I must stop being cutting in my words to this person.” Or, “I must…” and it’s on, and on, and on. There comes a time when we have to see plainly that we are wrapping Christ in such tight swaddling clothes that he is not able to be seen. And what people are seeing is us, us with all our failings, with all our inadequacies, with all our disobediences, with all our eternal resolutions. You remember, what we’ve often quoted, that it’s no use having a good intention if it does not translate into action and the life then Christ is not seen. He is wrapped in swaddling clothes or he is wrapped in a shroud, in grave clothes. And so often I think we would all say that what people are seeing in us is not Christ in all his beauty. It’s not Christ in all his liberty and his freedom; it is Christ bound up in our repeated failure to take action in this bible study, our repeated failure to take action in this practice or habit that we know is not expressing him. Well I’m saying you can see is you’re going to find yourself in the spot I was in last March but without the right surgeon at the right moment, or with God deciding that’s enough that is it. Come and join me. And that will be this life over. And that I thought was the great benefit of that thing in March. Nothing sentimental, nothing emotional about it, but just that all of us here we’ve had it – some of us have had it with our dads and mums and here it was our very own family you know, one of us. I mean, I say it was me in this case but if it was Marty it would be the same thing, one of us who is blood of our blood, bone of our bone, and is as far as we know with us forever. And suddenly that life ceases and that’s what it will be like for each of us. So I bring that before you to stress to each of us that there is only one way to live and that is that verse of scripture Philippians 1:21, “For to me to live is Christ,” because really what we are doing is we’re wrapping Christ in swaddling clothes, we’re wrapping him in grave clothes and we’re saying, “Me first.” You know that, you know that, that’s what we’re saying. When we say I prefer this rather than that, we’re saying, “Me first.” You can see it in this pitiful creature, I mean, did I like chocolate mousse, you know. Does a bunny hop as they say? So you know all that and we all know the story, we told the same story about Perry Mason’s side kick you remember who smoked all his life until of course it was declared that he would die in a few weeks or months of cancer. Then he went on television you remember, speaking about cigarettes. Of course we know it. Can we stop? Of course we can stop. The examples are all around us everywhere with this chocolate mousse lover, or bacon lover, or whatever. Of course we can stop. The issue is not will we stop, the issue is, is it to life is Christ is that living for us? Or is living me first, me first, and my pleasures, myself indulgence, my enjoyment, my life? Is that first or is Christ? That’s it you know. We ought to just be sane and sensible about it, that will Christ’s life be ministered in the Garden Café, will Christ’s life be ministered in the store when you go in? Of course, if Christ is bursting out from you and Christ will burst out from you if he’s the only one that counts, of course. You won’t have to think of ways to bring up Christianity or ways to share the gospel, or ways to talk about the bible, or talk about Christian Corps. You won’t need to there will be such a life, such a rising joyous life of Christ that will enter that store, there’ll be such a spontaneous spirit of victory in the Garden Café that people will sense it, they’ll know it because it will be Christ. And what they’re seeing is a pitiful shadow imitation of Christ in us, or they’re seeing Christ wrapped in swaddling clothes so that they cannot recognize him. That’s what it is, it’s not better ways, it’s not more knowledge of Schaeffer (a theologian), it’s not more understanding of Barth (a theologian), it’s not more cleverness with our words, it’s not all those things. It’s Christ living glorious instead of us. And what I’m saying to us is what prevents that is all the little things that we’re playing games with, because that’s all we’re doing. That’s what I’m saying, we’re playing games, you know. Once a guy takes a knife and cuts you down there and then you say, “Are you going to stop eating chocolate mousse?” “You better believe it, yes, yes because I don’t want any more staples down here.” But I’m not doing anything you wouldn’t do, you’d do it. What I’m saying is we are able to do it by God’s grace. We are able to change, we are able to stop doing the things, we are able to lift out of this stupid crawling mole like life. You remember the guy who says, “We burrow like moles through the ground and we should be flying like eagles over the mountain tops.” And we are able to exchange that bluff, oh great discipleship life you know, great Christian life. “I’m a disciple, I’m trying to follow.” Its foolishness, just foolishness and you know it and I know it. And I’ve said it to you before. “Lord I’m stopping, I’m going to stop. I’m going to stop Lord; I’m going to stop Lord. I’m going to stop, stop thrusting the sword into your side. I am going to. I am determined.” It’s madness you know, it’s just sickening, it’s just – we just know we’re hypocrites pretending. So that’s why I bring this before you. It’s covenant service. There are transactions to be done between each one of us and our Lord during this service. And then there’s a life, a glorious life to be lived. Will you decide does my physical satisfaction either in food or in lust, or in passion, or in friendship, or in happiness, does that come first or is it for me to live is Christ? Lord, you go for it, forget all, forget even that I exist, forget even that I feel tired this morning, forget that I don’t like that or that thing is dead. Lord, it’s you, let’s go. And go for it with all our hearts, that’s it. That’s what he’s saying to us today. So really, it’s a very easy, simple, straightforward, honesty between you and the one, who has not hesitated, has not hesitated for a moment. Let us pray. Lord Jesus, we hear the words now of your invitation. Dearly beloved Christian life to which we are called is a life in Christ redeemed from sin by him and through him consecrated to God. Upon this life we have entered having been admitted into that new covenant of which our Lord Jesus Christ is mediator and which he sealed with his own blood that it might stand forever. On one side the covenant is God’s promise that he will fulfill in and through us all that he declared in Jesus Christ who is the author and perfector of our faith. That his promise still stands, we are sure for we have known his goodness and proved his grace in our lives day-by-day. On the other side we stand pledged to live no more unto ourselves but to him who loved us and gave himself for us and has called us so to serve him that the purposes of his coming might be fulfilled. From time-to-time we renew our vows of consecration especially when we gather at the table of the Lord. But on this day we meet expressly as generations of our fathers have met that we may joyfully and solemnly renew the covenant which bound them and binds us to God. Let us then remembering the mercies of God, and the hope of his calling, examine ourselves by the light of his spirit that we may see wherein we have failed or fallen short in faith and practice. And considering all that this covenant means, may give ourselves anew to God.

The Joy of the Spirit Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill I’d like to try to talk about the joy of God that he has for us, the joy of God. And I thought a good place to begin was Romans 14:17 or God thought a good place to begin. Romans 14:17, “For the kingdom of God is not food and drink but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” Joy in the Holy Spirit. And the introduction is useful for us to notice, “The kingdom of God is not food and drink,” Paul is talking you remember, about one person eating meat, another person eating vegetables, and all that kind of thing and that you should not do anything to make your brother stumble so really it didn’t matter on the whole because all things were clean. I think it’s quite important to see that the kingdom of God is certainly is not food and drink and the kingdom of God is not just a matter of an efficient business community. Or, the kingdom of God is not just a nice home such as we have with nice cars. The kingdom of God is not even living with dear people that we love and good friends. The kingdom of God is not that plus nice holidays and able to go out to shows, and have really all the things when you think of it that the people of the world want and regard as good. The kingdom of God is not that. And I think it’s important maybe to say that because it is very easy, I think anybody here would agree, it’s very easy to slip down into that and for your whole mind and all your life to be taken up with those things because you can be. You and I know that, we can go – you waken in the morning and from the moment you awake there’s something to do, at least brush your teeth, or put your clothes on and have your quiet time and then you have to get breakfast and you have to – you know it better than I do here. Then you get out into the car, and you have to get downtown at a certain time, and you get in – well, is there a moment, once you arrive at work is there a moment when you can even reflect? No, you go right to it and then people start coming into the business and you start serving them, and well you know. But the kingdom of God is not that and it’s very easy for it to slip into that. And it varies a little in the stores, in the life in the stores, and to a certain extent you have a little more freedom in some strange ways than we have back in the office and back at home. But actually it can be the same thing, you get up in the morning, immediately your mind is working, you’re getting your breakfast, and you’re getting out and you’re meeting people all day and it is very easy for the kingdom of God to become that for us. That is the kingdom of God in the sense of quite a satisfying life. Quite a satisfying life not totally satisfying but quite a satisfying life in that it uses our abilities quite well and we work in pleasant circumstances and we certainly work with pleasant people who care about us and it’s very easy to say, “Well, we have so much more than the world has,” and of course we have because the world often is filled with loneliness and often has people that they’re competing with in their jobs and businesses. So it is very subtle and very easy to begin to regard the kingdom of God as the good situation that we have here and that’s not the kingdom of God. And we need to awaken at times and see that. The kingdom of God is not food and drink and I think you would agree it can even deteriorate further with us; it can deteriorate into our little treats. “Alright, well the kingdom of God yes, it isn’t that but it’s that plus treats because after all you need something to lift you a little and if you can get a little chocolate chip ice cream and have a little something else then it makes life worthwhile.” But it is surprisingly easy for life to slip down into the kingdom of God being that pleasant kind of life. All the time of course you feel there is something empty about it and indeed, I think we have often talked – certainly Myron and I have talked a lot and I’ve mentioned it here and I think we’ve all talked about it, that it is very easy for life to become just a constant drive. It is very easy to be part of a team that is obviously very successful. Anybody in the world would say, “You’ve got a very successful team here, a very successful family, a very successful business, a very successful community.” It’s very easy for that to be the driving force so that we are driven all the time by the needs that we have and the purposes and the goals that we fulfil every day. So much so that I think at times we’ve all felt probably a little frayed a times. Just felt a little, “This is driving, driving, driving and how do you slow it up? How do you stop it? It’s successful, it’s obviously successful, and it’s great.” But, there is s drivingness about it that makes it quite difficult to have fresh ideas. Indeed, we haven’t much time fresh ideas for you to come in we’re too busy; our attention is utterly and completely on what we’re doing. Now, what we need to see is the fault is not with what God has set up graciously. The fault is not with success. The fault is not with all the wonderful things that we have. The fault is actually with our eyes. Our eyes have started to get used to those things as the kingdom of God. And when somebody says to us, “The kingdom of God is not a matter of food and drink but it is righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost,” we say yes well we do have some measure of peace, and we certainly have joy. We have joy in all the things that we do and all the things that we’re achieving, and we have joy too at times when we get little treats and we have joy at times when we’re with each other. We do have joy. Joy in the Holy Ghost, well I think that will come to us probably in our later years and as we get on we’ll have more joy in the Holy Ghost. But it is joy in the Holy Ghost that is everything. It is the key to everything. It is the source of all God’s creativity and life and I think often we leave no room for the joy of the Holy Ghost because of course the joy of the Holy Ghost is something that the Holy Spirit himself brings into us from Jesus’ heart. We do not create the joy of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit brings that joy from Jesus’ heart into us. Sometimes it’s a serenity, a deep quiet serenity. Sometimes it’s a bubbling thing that is just bubbling inside us. It bears some relationships to animal spirits but it isn’t animal spirits. I don’t know if little Irish boys are always like this but of course, eight, nine, 10 year old I would delight in coming down and clunking my mum you know and then pulling her apron strings, “Hi, mum.” Well, those are animal spirits, it’s nice and you can’t hold it back you know, it’s just there. You can’t think what to do to let it go except tell her to shut up, but there’s just delight inside. But that’s not joy because actually all of us know that isn’t under control often. Often it isn’t even under our control but if it was under our control it’s certainly not under Jesus’ control and there’s nothing – there’s something in it that’s fun but it hasn’t the sweetness and the fragrance of the joy of the Holy Spirit. And so when I say the joy of the Holy Spirit is bubbling underneath all the time it’s like a power and a life that is coming from somewhere else. So it’s the gift of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit brings joy, brings joy into us. I didn’t go too far in the meaning of it at all. I didn’t look up much it’s chara but it’s chara mia mine and it’s obviously it’s chara – then if you did charismatic so it obviously ties up with the gifts and of course, if you look into the saint’s lives the key mark of the saint’s life is joy. Joy that is just there all the time whatever you’re doing whatever your situation is, whatever your circumstances are, there’s just joy that you don’t know where it’s coming from but it’s just there. It’s a delight in all of everything in the bad and the good. It’s a delight in God. You can’t just say in God as if he’s just an invisible being, it’s the whole thing. It’s somehow the classic philosophers used to talk about the spheres as having a music you remember, and you get it in John Milton you know, his poetry, the music of the spheres and the whole belief was that there was a harmony, such a harmony in the universe as the spheres as the different planets and stars turned and orbited. There was a music they created, a harmony in the universe. It’s something like that. There’s a joy and very harmony of all that God has done and that is given by the Holy Spirit. To whom is it given? Well, Matthew 13 gives – there are some of these clues that we know from Sunday school days but we somehow forget them or think we’ve gone past them. Matthew 13:44 “The kingdom of heaven,” you see the kingdom of God, “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.” The Holy Spirit gives joy, now we learned this from Sunday school days, the Holy Spirit gives joy to the person who finds treasure hidden in a field and then sells all that he has to buy that field. And I mean, we all remembered that and we say, “That’s what we did when we gave our lives to Jesus. We saw that we’d to give everything up for him only.” But I think as we walk on after our Savior we get distracted with all kinds of other things and we forget that and it’s so easy to fall into all this and heaven too. And then all this becomes more important than heaven and before you know it you’ve ceased to sell all that you have and you’re beginning to try and get back some more things for yourself. And the Holy Spirit cannot give joy to anyone of us that looks for the many substitutes for joy that the world has and that Satan has. And we need to see it here. It’s easy to think, “Oh, but we’re all traveling to Zion and we’re all walking together in Jesus, surely we cannot be tempted to some other substitute joy?” Of course we can. We live in the world and we live in the midst of these substitute joys. Moreover, because we’re in business we’re involved in chocolate covered cherries. We’re involved in all the things. We’re involved in cars, and motorbikes, Fire Blades, and BMWs and all the other things so of course, we’re walking in the midst of these things. We’re smelling them every day. It’s very easy to step back from the position you took when you first met Jesus where you were ready to sell everything and you did sell everything in order to buy that field so that you could have that treasure but it’s very easy to begin to treasure other things as well as that and then it soon becomes treasure other things more than that and the Holy Spirit has to withdraw himself and has to withdraw the joy of Jesus. And so further along you wonder why life has become dry and that’s the mistake probably we make, we tend to say, “Well it’s the work. That’s it, we’re working too hard,” or, “Well, it’s too organized,” or something else but it’s none of those things. It’s that we have taken our eyes off our Savior and things and really what we need to do is go back – my two ladies were Mrs. Keith and Miss McDonald, they taught senior infant Sunday school, go back into Mrs. Keith’s class, go back into your Miss McDonald’s class, whoever yours were, and hear again Jesus telling this parable and saying that, “You must give up everything in order to have him.” And I think that is where the joy goes. I think that we begin to satisfy ourselves with our cameras, or satisfy ourselves with our cars. Just washing the cars, you may say, “Is it the comfort?” No, it isn’t the comfort of the cars at all, just operating all of these things is fun. Just doing the things that we do, working the computers, selling the jewelry, it’s very easy to get satisfied with those treating ourselves as if we’re little monkeys that get our satisfaction out of hitting little keys on computers, or putting little jewelry pieces into boxes. But that’s not what we were made for. We were made for Jesus and only when we turn away from those substitute satisfactions will the Holy Spirit begin to pour into us again the joy of Jesus. So the next verse here again you’ll know it from your Miss McDonald’s class or your Mrs. Keith’s Sunday school class, Verse 45, “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, who on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it.” And we all know it, we think that’s what do we call it in America, Philosophy 1 or whatever, but that’s course number one, that’s a basic class that we all did when we met Jesus, you have to sell all your pearls to buy the one pearl of great price. But then we begin to – we buy that pearl and then we begin to see other little pearls and we think, “There’s no harm in picking up those little pearls,” and we don’t really think we’re getting much of our satisfaction from those little pearls but bit-by-bit they become satisfying and we begin to be satisfied with either the exercise of our own powers, and abilities, in an operation as full and as complete and rounded as this one, or we begin to look for other little things that we haven’t got. That’s often a measure of where we are in regard to this, are you satisfied or are you dissatisfied? You know, do you find yourself – you obviously don’t find yourself trying the old marijuana, but do you find yourself trying to get other little things, “Oh, if I could just get a little something, a little something that would give me satisfaction. Maybe I’ll try this, maybe I’ll try that.” All you’re doing is you’re starting to look for other little pearls and the truth is that the Holy Spirit gives the joy of Jesus only to those who have nothing else, who have made no other arrangements, who want only the joy of him and that only and they turn away from all other joys. If you say to me, “Does that mean you have to stop being married? Does that mean you have to stop going out with each other as friends?” No, no, no it doesn’t mean all of that but it does mean you settle in your own heart what you cannot do without. And it’s easy enough to find out that because if you still feel some resentment, some dissatisfaction, a little bit of discomfort when somebody doesn’t do exactly what you want them to do, or go out with you when you want them to go out, then that’s indication, alright that unrest comes because your joy is coming a bit from that and you’re dissatisfied because you’re losing that. That’s why the next verse is one again, that we know well, Luke 9:62. Luke 9:62, “Jesus said to him, ‘No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.’” And I think that’s what happens, we put our hand to the plow and we surrender all to Jesus and then we look back and we see something and we think – we don’t think that’s bad. I don’t think we would touch it if we thought it was bad, but we look back and see, “Well, that was quite nice, that I had before I gave everything to Jesus and it’s not bad so I think I’ll enjoy that a little. Jesus would want me to; he wants me to enjoy all good gifts.” And so we look back at something that we stopped thinking of years ago, or months ago, or weeks ago and we look back and we begin to hanker after it again and we’re turning back from the plow and the Holy Spirit is grieved and withdraws the joy of Jesus, because, the joy of Jesus is delight in his Father. Jesus made all the elements that we haven’t yet discovered. Jesus made all the planets that we have not yet seen. Jesus made the Pacific Ocean; he made the ski slopes in Switzerland and in Colorado. He made all those things, he knows they’re nothing. He knows his Father is the heart of everything and all joy and Jesus’ joy is in his Father. And when we turn back to something stupid that we have turned away from years ago, we’re turning back to foolishness and stupidity away from the king of glory. And the Holy Spirit cannot of course – you can’t have the joy of Jesus unless you have the attitude of Jesus. You can’t have the joy of Jesus in his Father if you are treasuring something that he regards as a little nothing that he turned out in a millisecond. And so when you turn back from the plow it seems to me the Holy Spirit withdraws the joy of Jesus. And then do you see Luke 18:16, “But Jesus called them to him, saying, ‘Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them; for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.’” And a little child, we’ve said it often, a little child, when you were a little one that’s five or six years of age you did not care what John Major did or didn’t do, or what Roosevelt did or didn’t do, or what Heath did or didn’t do, you didn’t. And you didn’t worry, “Well, I’m worried about where my next meal is coming from, that’s my problem.” As a five year old or a six year old, you were just delighted. Your dad and mum took care of everything and the big thing was where are you going out to play today and life was filled with trust in your dear father and mother, and that’s what Jesus wants. “My joy,” he says, “Is given by the Holy Spirit to those who treat life the way a little child does. You’re children of my Father, look at the lilies of the field, they toil not, neither do they reap and yet Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Look at the birds of the air, they don’t sow, or reap, or gather into barns and yet your heavenly Father feeds them will he not much more feed you oh men of little faith?” And so when we have that attitude of a little child the Holy Spirit gives the joy of Jesus to us and I think a lot of our trouble can come from we have enough money but really it’s not the amount of money you have, sure it’s not it’s whether you’re pressing that to the limit and if you’re pressing it to the limit then you haven’t enough money. And it doesn’t matter how much money you have, if you press it to the limit you really don’t have enough money and you’re always hoping for some more. And a little child is not like that, whatever his dad gives him that’s great, it’s just wonderful. It’s just wonderful, it doesn’t matter how silly it is in the world’s eyes, if his dad gives it to him that’s great, that’s just what I want. And that’s part of where the joy of the Holy Spirit comes from. I’ve tried to put down a couple of things that I thought made it very clear. The joy of the Holy Spirit is given to a person who has summed up what life is about who has got to the bottom of life, a person who has died and whose life is hidden with Christ in God. A person who has summed up what life is about, who has settled what life is about, and who has got to the bottom of it. This means a person who does not hope for anything from life but looks to God alone for whatever he is pleased to give. This means a person who does not hope for anything from life but looks to God alone for whatever he is pleased to give. And I think when you are looking for something from life I think you will not be able to be filled with the joy of the Holy Spirit. I think when you’re still looking for something. If you say to me, “You mean, when I do a sale I shouldn’t even feel satisfaction that I did that sale?” Well, to tell you the truth probably even that is dangerous but the big thing is sure, maybe you have some satisfaction in that but if you dwell on that you soon begin to exclude the joy of the Holy Ghost and you soon begin to substitute for the Holy Ghost’s joy your satisfaction in making that sale. And us being human beings as we are, it’s not long after we take our eyes off of Jesus, that we’re beginning to not only be satisfied with a sale but to think, “Pretty clever I was, pretty clever, pretty capable.” And it’s not long after that before your eyes go to the figures and the additions for the week and then for the month and then it’s all downhill after that. So yes, I suppose there is a momentary satisfaction but it seems that if you let your eyes remain on that joy it’s not long before Satan has a way of stealing from you then the joy of the Holy Ghost. This means a person who does not hope for anything from life but looks to God alone for whatever he is pleased to give. A person who no longer thinks of himself the way his relatives and friends do but regards Christ only and cares only for his wishes and desires. A person who no longer thinks of himself the way his relatives and friends do but regards Christ only and cares only for his wishes and desires. So it is – you can see it’s a radically different life. You no longer think of yourself the way your friends and your relatives do or the way even the other people in this family do but you care only for Jesus and for his wishes and desires. Now, here’s what I want to tell you, to such a person the Holy Spirit gives this joy and there is nothing like it. It is everything. It is everything. The joy of the Holy Ghost is everything and it is what we were made for. We were not made for all these other little substitute things, even how – you know, I have to repeat what that dear Mrs. Stinson quoted, “I dare not trust the sweetest frame but wholly lean on Jesus’ name.” I dare not trust the sweetest frame, the Greg Leitschuh that I married. I dare not trust Martha, the sweetest friend I have. I dare not trust Marty, the dearest man. I dare not trust the sweetest frame but wholly lean on Jesus’ name. Not because we don’t love each other but because only Jesus is reality. He is behind everyone. Martha is just a little – has her beauty from Jesus. Marty has his beauty from Jesus. It is Jesus that is behind each one of us and when our eyes are on him, the Holy Spirit takes the joy of Jesus and infuses it into us. Now, out of that comes beauty and creativity, and energy, lightness of heart, brightness of eyes and mind, tirelessness in whatever situation. Out of that joy comes the sweetness that takes away the dryness of routine work. From that joy comes the deep satisfaction that wipes away all the sense of being driven. This joy alone will take away the drive out of our lives, the driveness. Do you see that that gentleman does not want the driveness anymore than you want the driveness? I’m willing to take it on myself, when I drive I don’t want the driveness anymore than you want the driveness. But only the Holy Spirit can bring into us the joy of Jesus. The peace and joy in the Holy Ghost that is the kingdom of God. What is the kingdom of God? Well, I mean you know it but dominus is the Latin word, that gives us dominate. Oh, I’m sorry dominus is Lord, dominate. So you know, you can see it yourself king dom, it’s the dom of the king. It’s the domain of the king; it’s the rule of the king. So, the kingdom of God is the rule of Jesus in our hearts and our lives. And you can see the rule of Jesus in our hearts can only take place where we have stopped ruling them ourselves or where we have rejected the rule of Satan in our lives, or the rule of candy, or the rule of human fulfillment or satisfaction, or the rule of pleasure in our bodies or pleasure in our feelings. Where we have rejected those rules then the king himself comes and rules, the kingdom of God comes and the kingdom of God is not food and drink but is righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. And the joy of the Holy Ghost is what brings a sweetness and a fragrance. Martha, every one of us, there isn’t one of us here that does not feel at times we get into ways that we do not know how to get out of. They aren’t even obviously evil ways, they just seem driven ways and we don’t want them. The joy of the Holy Ghost. So each of us individually has responsibilities. You can’t bring it about by fear; you can’t change it by just deciding here. Each of us here, each of us here has a responsibility to get back to selling all our pearls to buy the one pearl. Let us pray. Lord Jesus, we fill our lives with teas and meetings, and work, and books, and computers, and things to do. And we see Lord, that all these things can so preoccupy us that we have no time for you yourself. And we see Lord, that you are right when you refuse to give us your joy just because we seek you for half an hour, or because we make an effort and give two or three hours to meditating. We see Lord that you are right, you always do the right thing, and you are right not to reveal yourself to us unless we are ready to sell all the pearls for the one pearl of great price, unless we are willing to put all these things back into their proper place, to do them but to give our hearts to you, to look to you only for satisfaction and happiness in this life and the life to come. Oh Holy Spirit, we ask you to help us now each one of us, we hardly know what we’re praying about but Holy Spirit, you know. And you know how to lead us into the joy that you bring from the heart of Jesus into anyone who will give up all substitute joys and seek Jesus only. Holy Spirit, we know the joy of Jesus is there and is indeed all around us and through us at this moment but we need eyes to see and we need to open our mouths to receive. We ask you Holy Spirit, to lead us in so that that word may become true for us, the kingdom of God is indeed righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.

Picture Perfect – A Life Surrendered Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill You’ve seen it yourself sometimes, and sometimes it’s just a spring morning in the sunlight and sometimes it’s a painting and it just takes your breath away. It just surprises you, you know that all things were made by him and without him there is nothing that was made. And that Jesus and some little guy, I forget his name, he’s not well known to us all, in some little garret somewhere wrote those notes. And then I believe its Sutherland, a lady that is not really naturally physically beautiful, she’s an Australian you remember. Retired now I think from opera singing but so big and ungainly that they thought she could never be in opera or be on the stage and of course she is one of the singers, I think it’s called the Flower Duet. And then when Jesus marries those two voices together with this little guy’s music and creates something. I hadn’t heard it, I think maybe years ago I heard it, but it just was startling in our bedroom you know, when it was playing last night. And that was made by Jesus and so were you and so was I. Because you are and I am; we are God’s workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good words which he has prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. And you are here for the same purpose as that piece of music, to show the beauty of Jesus, that’s it. It obviously hasn’t much to do with how beautiful we are, whether our noses are the right proportion, or our bodies because there was no beauty in him that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. We esteemed him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted. So it’s not the outward appearance but it’s your life and my life, it was made by Jesus inside himself to be a thing of beauty. And I know it’s a cliché you now, isn’t it Keats (poet), “A thing of beauty is a joy forever” but that’s why you and I were made. To be a joy forever to our dear father, to be a piece of his son that filled the world with beauty and that filled his Father’s eyes with pleasure and that’s why we’re here. And that’s why the little shop is important, or the café, or the cars, or the jewelry, or this chapel, or the house, it’s all like you it’s just a frame inside which God is painting a picture of his son that would otherwise not be seen. So there’s a beauty – we were talking you remember about Pierre Koffmann (famous chef) and La Tante Clair Restaurant and Mary was reminding me this morning that there is a piece in that that he says, “Why do I think the work of a chef is unimportant? Because, he spends hours over it but it’s gone in a gulp.” And then he says, “You can never describe it.” You can never describe the taste as it’s tasted, you can never describe the look of it, so it’s something that exists in that piece of food for a moment and then it’s gone. And you feel that, that you can’t paint that, there’s something in that music that you can’t paint. And you can talk about it but you can’t describe it, you have to hear it. And you remember, someone has said, “The only authentic part of any art form is that which cannot be expressed in any other art form.” And so a piece of sculpture can express something to the touch that cannot be expressed in a painting because you cannot touch it, and it cannot be expressed in a poem because you can’t touch it. And then of course the other is true with a poem or with a painting. But that’s what we are; you’re a part of Jesus that cannot be expressed in any other way. And if you say to me, “Are we meant to be perfect?” Oh, you better believe it, you’re the only version, you’re the only version we have. Yeah, and you better be perfect. Don’t argue about, “Oh does this mean I’ll never make a mistake and all that kind of stuff?” But see that yes, you have just the same responsibility to make it as perfect as you possibly can just as Pierre Koffmann does. You have a beauty of Jesus that can only be seen in you and that’s the purpose of our lives. And yet you know you’re right we do have this treasure on earth in vessels, that’s right. I don’t know if you remember the piece you know, in Philippians that Oswald Chambers uses, he says, “Work out your salvation with fear and trembling because it is God at work in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.” And of course Chambers points out, “That’s it. God works his son into you but it is your responsibility to work it out through you.” And I suppose the first step you have to take each one of us here is, well are we ready for that? Am I ready to admit that I’m only a bit of Jesus? Am I ready to admit that I was created in Christ Jesus so I’m part of Jesus? And it says in John that I was made of his very own life so I’m made of him. Am I ready to be just a bit of Jesus? The Bible says, “You are actually the body of Jesus and each of you is a different part of that body.” And each of us has to decide are we ready to be that? And when somebody criticizes you, or looks down upon you, or ignores you, that’s a moment of reality when you have to say, “Amen.” Or you have to stand up on your own hind legs and substitute all your ugliness and your horror for the beauty of the one who said, “I am meek and lowly of heart.” And who walked down the Calvary road and allowed them to beat him really to death. So in a way that’s a very important issue. We often talk about that as the crisis work of sanctification but the name doesn’t matter, the important thing is that you have to decide are you willing and am I willing to be just a bit of Jesus not to be myself. Am I willing to accept that my old self, the way I used to be was crucified with Christ and that is dead and gone in the lamb that was slain from before the foundation of the world and that I am no longer alive and it is not I that live but it is Christ that lives within me? Am I willing for that? And that’s very real and that’s why I present it to us often and repeatedly over the years because it’s a position that you have to hold to it if it’s going to be real. And it’s not a bad thing to examine ourselves year-by-year day-by-day, am I willing to be just a bit of you Jesus? Am I willing not to be treated as different from you at all? Am I willing to be here and let you paint your picture in me? And it seems to me that’s where our will, because it’s mainly the will that is concerned in that crisis work of sanctification, that’s where the will repeatedly is concerned because you have to decide, “Am I willing to let Jesus do what he wants? This is not pleasant; this is not what is normal. I have a right in this situation to turn, a worm even turns. I have a right to turn. I have a right to stand up for myself. I have a right to insist that things go my way.” So repeatedly you have to be willing, if you want to live in reality to say, “Yes Lord, whatever you want to do.” Because I think he takes us down pathways that we’re not expecting and that we think are a bit off. I mean, we think it’s just a bit much. And you must admit, when you think of it the moments when we get into trouble in our relationships are when we think they’re gonna step too far and we better stop this. Those are also the moments when the whole thing falls apart. And if you reflect in those moments, if you bow the head at that moment and say, “Into thy hands I commit my spirit.” I don’t know what it is, I don’t know that you know what it is, but it’s miraculous. The mighty providence of God seems to work things out and you don’t lose, or if you do lose you don’t know you’ve lost and it doesn’t matter to you. So usually it’s at those moments when we want to take the thing back in our hands and we say, “Yes, I’m part of Jesus but even Jesus would not put up with this.” It’s usually at those moments that Jesus would go another step. That’s part of his beauty. The other part that I’d like to mention a little to you is that beauty of Jesus is within us and that wants to express itself outwardly. And that’s the part that is talked about you remember, in 2 Corinthians 4 it is, where Paul talks about our outward man being destroyed and our inward man being renewed every day. It’s the part where he says, “Death is at work in you but life in them.” It’s the part where he says, “You bear about in your body the dying of the Lord Jesus.” Of course we’ve talked often that our outward man is certainly our body and if the beauty of Jesus is to come through you and me every day it has to get through our body. It has to get through our body. That’s what people see of us, they see our bodies. I’m not talking about beautiful body, or slim body, or a strong body, I’m talking about our face and our hands, the part of us that express our heart and our life, that has to be under the control of Jesus. I think all of us had good mums and dads but they had all kinds of mannerisms many of which we look on their face and we inherited that. It’s so funny if you look at the little guy, indeed if you look at dog, you can see him imitating his master. But certainly a little guy or a little girl you’ll see him – I mean, it’s very funny if you see a little boy with his dad and his dad does something and the little boy does it too. So it is with us, we’ve inherited all kinds of expressions on our faces, all kinds of ways. I’ve inherited a joke with a joke with a jag. I’ve inherited all that Irish humor that as a little bit of a dig in it. That isn’t – I don’t think it is good. But you’ve inherited things too. We’ve all inherited things too. Some of us have inherited loud voices, some of us have inherited soft voices, some of us have inherited fluent tongues, some of us have inherited stammering tongues, we’ve all inherited different things. That’s part of the outward man that has to die day, by day, by day, by day and that the Holy Spirit works out in each of us. You know I’ve talked about this before because it concerns particularly living with each other. And that’s where those things show up, the outward man, the body for one thing, the inability of the body to express the love, or the kindness, or the immediate care of Jesus, or the words, or the clarity of Jesus’ mind at that moment. That’s what wears us all out. We wear each other out by our mannerisms, by our inexpedient ways. By the way we move our hands, by our inability – if you like to think of weep with those that weep, by our inability to weep with those that weep often because we’re stiff and starchy, or we were brought up never to cry, we never cry, we just bite our lip or keep a stiff upper lip. And so it goes on. Or, our fathers were facetious so we’re facetious; we always make jokes at the wrong time. We say the wrong thing at the wrong time. That whole realm of the outward personality, that’s part of what Paul is talking about when he says, “Our outward man is dying away day-by-day and the inward man is growing strong.” The Holy Spirit is constantly working the death of Jesus into us in those things. What I’d love us all to remember is there’s a beauty that Jesus has to create in you that you yourself have not seen and that I have not seen but it’s a beauty that he knows how to produce and to do it he has to change the mannerisms and the ways a lot of us speak and think. And it is not un-American to do that, or un-South African, or un-Taiwanese, or un-Irish, it is not a shame to do that it is a glory. So in a way, the progressive work of sanctification is that breaking of that outward shell. And of course you all know that inside the shell of the body you, is the shell of the soul with usually we talk about the mind, and the emotions, and the will. And you can see too that if in here in our spirits Jesus is, “I in them and they in us Lord,” he said to his Father, the Spirit of Jesus to get out certainly has to come through the body but has to get through the soul. And the soul of course has all of its mannerisms too. Our minds are used to thinking in a certain way and our emotions are used to feeling in a certain way, and our will is often used to being an absolute slave to the body so there’s a whole turnaround that has to take place there. And this is the realm of course, that affects mostly home living, family living, and businesses. Now, my countrywoman has not to be embarrassed because it’s just an illustration but Sheila was in the café, I think one time last year or her first year, and she was cleaning away some stuff and there was one of those dear customers that don’t care about anybody, and she kind of said, “Take that away.” Something like that, I may have got it wrong, but I know Shelia felt just utterly offended. It just makes you feel like a nothing, you’re just there to be ordered around. But I think all of us have that. I think all of us have that. And some of it, there’s something good in it when it takes place under the control of Jesus but at that moment the Savior bowed his head, and so did you actually, you bowed your head. That’s what I mean. The mind is trained in all kinds of ways, some of which are helpful to Jesus and some of which are inexpedient. That’s what God is working at continually in us, breaking this outward man so that the mind and the emotions are directly an expression of the heart of the Savior who is within us. And of course you can see that when these things are unbroken and Jesus is in there, then it doesn’t matter you know, what you say but he is buried, he is buried in there. And that’s why in a sense you remember it’s often said that there is no static state for the spirit. The Father loves the son through the Holy Spirit and the son loves the Father and that’s how we ourselves are part of that family. But the Spirit is always moving and where he isn’t moving he’s grieved. And usually there is a lack of life. But you can see that unless the Spirit is able to move out through our souls and through our bodies, there isn’t a movement of the spirit within us and that’s when you find lives, Christian lives that are static and dead, that are frozen like fossils. In a life that is moving in Jesus there is a movement within it, every day it is being given up to death for Jesus’ sake. Every day the strength of the mind, of the emotions are being more and more molded into Jesus’ own heart so that they are effective servants. And that’s what we call a progressive work of sanctification; that God is working every day when you deny yourself daily and take up the cross and follow him. But what I would say to each of us is, our conversation at table, yes the way we set the apples into the baskets, yes the ways we get into the cars each day, I know it sounds crazy, but the way we punch the PDT’s, Christ means that to becoming more and more a picture of himself every day. He means it to become more and more beautiful, more and more gracious. Just the way you remember the old preacher said, “The Holy Spirit when he comes makes woman ladies and men gentlemen.” The Holy Spirit of Jesus is working all the time on this picture of which you are the frame and only one dear person is the picture and he’s working all the time to bring that about. So what we heard there is what God is doing in you. And that’s why our home life is meant to become more and more beautiful, more and more gracious. And the way we speak to each other is meant to be more and more uplifting until yes, until Jesus is wearing your shirt and wearing your stockings, and your hair, and has my suit, and is coming into this chapel and then that’s glory. But that’s what it’s meant to be, it’s mean to be that and nothing short of it. We ourselves, well in Ireland we would say we’re a pack of egets, but we ourselves are a bunch of hams, but he can make beautiful what is here and that’s what he’s doing. Let us pray.

Displaying God’s Generosity Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill You know how many think Jewish people are kind of mean and miserly and grabbing and greedy. But there is in them great generosity and you find that many of the libraries and many of the public institutions have received a lot of gifts from Jewish people. And I think it’s because there’s great generosity in the law. We always think of the law in the Old Testament as very don’t do this, do that, don’t do this but there’s great generosity built into it. And it’s interesting if you read it carefully you find that. There’s a kindly heart behind God’s commands. Deuteronomy 24:10, “When you make your neighbor a loan of any sort, you shall not go into his house to fetch his pledge.” So he presumably gives you something, “I’ll give you this money and I’ll take your coat as guarantee.” “You shall stand outside, and the man to whom you make the loan shall bring the pledge out to you. And if he is a poor man, you shall not sleep in his pledge,” it’s interesting if it’s his coat, or if it’s his blanket you won’t sleep in it. “When the sun goes down, you shall restore to him the pledge that he may sleep in his cloak and bless you; and it shall be righteousness to you before the Lord your God.” Just very kindly, you know. “You shall not oppress a hired servant who is poor and needy, whether he is one of your brethren or one of the sojourners who are in your land within your towns; you shall give him his hire on the day he earns it, before the sun goes down (for he is poor, and sets his heart upon it); lest he cry against you to the Lord, and it be sin in you. The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, nor shall the children be put to death for the fathers; every man shall be put to death for his own sin. You shall not pervert the justice due to the sojourner or to the fatherless, or take a widow’s garment in pledge; but you shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt and the Lord your God redeemed you from there; therefore I command you to do this. When you reap your harvest in your field, and have forgotten a sheaf in the field, you shall not go back to get it; it shall be for the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow; that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands. When you beat your olive trees, you shall not go over the boughs again; it shall be for the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow. When you gather the grapes of your vineyard, you shall not glean it afterward; it shall be for the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow. You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt; therefore I command you to do this.” So it’s interesting, God reminds them, “You were nothing but slaves and I lifted you out of it and really I have been generous to you, that’s the way I want you to live.” Shall we with grace sit down? Loved ones, will you look at Leviticus 19, it’s another repeat of that sentiment that we read before Leviticus 19, and it’s to the old farmers. Leviticus 19:9, “When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field to its very border,” so you know there was kind of a field like that you see, and God was saying, “You know, don’t reap right up to there. Leave this bit, leave this bit. Don’t reap it right up to the very edge.” So there’s the edge you see, and he was saying, “Don’t reap it right up to the edge when you harvest your field.” “You shall not reap your field to its very border, neither shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest,” and the farmers know it better than me but I take it the gleanings are what is left over after the first time they take the reaper across the field. Then they go back and pick up the little bits. He said, “Neither shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest. And you shall not strip your vineyard bare; neither shall you gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard.” So presumably you have a tree and you’d have all kinds of grapes on it and God was saying, “Don’t take it absolutely bare to the branches. No, no, leave some grapes on it and there are grapes that fall down here, don’t gather them, you see, leave them.” “And you shall not strip your vineyard bare, neither shall you gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and the sojourner: I am the Lord your God.” So that’s it you know. I think it’s easy for us who call ourselves Christians not to do that. You remember there was a book that came out Kids of the King or The Kings Kids and it was one of those modern slang American books that emphasize that we’re the kids of a millionaire father, of a very rich father. We are the children of a father who is very rich. I think it’s very easy for us to miss this whole reality. I think it’s very easy for Christians to get a name for, “Boy, reap it right up to the edge. That’s good stewardship. Reap it right up to the edge, that’s good stewardship. Get everything, after all God has given it all to us and we need to get every bit of it and that’s just good farming, to reap it right up to the edge. And this business, this is important, these little grapes that fall or the grapes that we missed on the first time we picked the trees, go back and pick them all. After all, they belong to God and they’re his gift to us, we ought to get everything we can.” I’m not sure that we do that because of those reasons. That is, I’m not sure that we really do say, “Now God has given us all this so we ought to be careful with it,” because in all kinds of other ways we’re often wasteful. I think we do it because we’re mean. I better say in America we mean, mean is cruel and ugly isn’t it but I mean, mean in the British sense miserly. I don’t know what it is Orest (a member of the audience) in Ukrainian, miserly. When you’re miserly with money but you’d have to think of the word and help Oksana with it. But I think we who are God’s children are often miserly. That is I think we reap it right up to the edge because we don’t want to miss anything that God has given us. And often we clothe it in holy terms and we say, “Oh no, we’re doing it because after all the Lord has given us all this field and we ought not to leave any of it.” But here he is right at the beginning you might say, of time and saying, “Look, don’t reap your field to the very edge, don’t reap it to the very edge. Look at the hills, have I counted the daffodils? Have I counted the number of daffodils I’ve put on each hill? Have I counted the grass under your feet? Have I numbered it all? Is there anything where I have not at times wasted you would say, wasted? How many little turtles are born and how many actual survive? How many birds are born and how many survive? How many insects or worms do you think there are under the earth? Would you notice if there were a million or two less? No, you wouldn’t. How many colors have you seen under the ocean? Do you know that there are colors there that none of you will ever see? I am full of love and of a desire for beauty and I scatter it everywhere and your whole world is proof of that. You have far more sea water than you need; you have far more wind than you need. You have far more richness in the earth than you need. That is my heart to you. Think how much money you have wasted in your own life, think how much time you have wasted. I have not held back. I have not numbered and counted it out to you. So you, don’t reap it right to the edge. None of it is yours; I gave it all to you. Don’t reap it to the edge; leave the edges for poor people who have no field, for others to gather. Yes, leave the edges out of shear generosity even if nobody gathers it. Have a generosity in your life and a generosity in your heart. Don’t count every penny. I have not counted every penny to you.” And of course it’s the same heart you remember, you get in Jesus. Remember that piece in Philippians, “Have that mind in you which you have in Christ who counted not equality with God a thing to be grasped but emptied himself and became as a servant.” And it seems to me God is saying, “You can have to two minds,” in Ireland it’s a saying we have if you ask us, “Are you going to the movie tonight?” We’ll say, “Well, I’m in two minds. I’m in two minds whether I’ll go or not.” And what we mean is we have two attitudes about it. We’d like to see the movie but we don’t know if we could be bothered going out on such a wet night to see it. And it depends on which side you look at it what attitude you have towards it. Well, that’s what God is saying, “Have the mind in you which you actually have in Jesus.” That is, “I have made you in my son and you’ll find inside yourself at times this kind of mind operates in you, this kind of spirit rises up inside you.” You feel, “Yeah, let’s be generous,” and God is saying, “Have that mind. Go with that mind. Go with the mind of Jesus. Be like Jesus. Be like me; don’t go with that other mind, that narrow little mean squirrel like mind that says, ‘Well, I can’t be sure where I’ll get my next meal. I can’t be sure if I give this away whether I’ll get anymore. I’m really dependent on my own cleverness here, on my own earning ability, on my own ability to make do with the little that my mean miserly Father has given me. I’m dependent on that and so I better be careful that I don’t waste any of it and by waste I mean give any of it away. I don’t give any of it away. I hold onto it.” It’s possible for us to be like that. I was in the ministry, well, you know I was in the ministry and so I know the attitude that we Christians can often have. We can often take the attitude, “Well, I’ve been called to the Lord to this work and this is a good work, a godly work, and it’s for his sake and for his glory, and I’m already giving my whole life to it, and so really that’s my giving taken care of. I mean, my whole life is given to God. I mean, I work here in businesses that are for his glory. I live together with other people in a house that is lived in his presence so I’m giving everything to him. So any little bit of money that I get as an allowance, or a salary, or wages well, surely that is my own to do what I want with.” There is hell. There is hell. There’s hell. That’s hell right in the middle of heaven. That’s it. That’s it. Why I feel it so strongly is maybe you say because I feel everything strongly, but because I know that spirit so well, I know that attitude so well because I was brought up in that kind of Christian dedication. It was very noble in many ways but at its heart was a self pity, a preoccupation with self, at its heart was a lack of faith in God. That was it, a lack of faith in God. I can’t remember what we all get, but I count up my 100 Pounds, or my 200 Pounds, whatever it is, I count up my money that I get each money and I carefully put it out. You know how I joke I say, “When my wife and I fell in love I had 100 Pounds saved and that 100 Pounds went like that in a matter of six months.” And that was my little dried up heart. And I was regarded as one of the conscientious members of the seminary. But I see it now it was a little dried up heart that lived as if it was going to virtuously make do with the little that God had given me. In other words, it was basically an attitude of unbelief, an attitude of atheism. A feeling that, “Well, we Christians we’re here to do a great work for God and we don’t have many resources. We don’t have as many resources as those miserable old sinners out there who get out and make a mint and make a fortune. We virtuously do on this little bit that this Father of ours gives us and now we have to make that eek out.” While George Mueller is sending gifts to Hudson Taylor and he’s sitting down at a table in his own orphanages with 100 children around him and no food until somebody knocks at the door. So of course it’s obvious, God’s children are men and woman who have God’s generous heart. And the reason they have God’s generous heart is not because they say they ought to have but because they are in Jesus and Jesus’ heart rises inside them and Jesus’ heart says, “Give, give and it will be given unto you.” And if it’s not given unto you give anyway because God knows you have given and he will watch over you, and he will either give you grace to do without or he will provide for you. But be generous; give as he has given to you. And then that affects everything, it affects everything. It affects our holidays, it affects the way we deal with each other, it affects our readiness to give whether we have it or not, to give because that’s realty. That is reality. We are a miserable crowd. If you look over all the things you’ve done in your life and I look over all the things I have done, and we look over all the things that we have had and we’ve been given, we could not have foreseen it, we could not have brought it about. We’re amazed at how God has provided for us, how we’ve had many things that we never dreamed we’d have. So we know fine well that it is God’s goodness that has given us everything. It is not our own cleverness. Many of our own ideas have not worked out right. Many of the things we thought would make us money, they haven’t made us money. But he has in fact, arranged our circumstances so that here we are today with all that we need. And so that’s reality and what Jesus says today is, “Have my mind inside you. Let my mind work its way out through you, don’t let that old worldly mind,” yes worldly, “That old worldly mind of religion take over. That old miserly religious mind of the world that says, ‘Now listen you’ve already made a big enough sacrifice by giving your life to Jesus now you don’t need to continue to give the little that you get.’” Rather Jesus says, “I’m here on the cross and I’ve been given everything, everything. I’ve been given everything.” As the blood flows you know, “I’ve been given everything and I give everything to you because I need nothing because my Father has given me all I need.” That’s it. So I think that’s what Jesus wants of us. Jesus wants that of us in our home life together, in our holidays, in our business, we’re to give, give little things, give little things to each other not spoil it all by saying, “Well, look we all have equally little or we all have equally much,” or, “That other person has more of me than I have in this respect.” No, if Jesus’ heart moves within you, give, give. Even if the other person is far better off than you in some ways. If Jesus’ heart moves in you, give because that’s his heart and that’s the heart of God and that’s what brings joy and delight to him. And that’s what keeps us clear of this old miserable legalistic we call it evangelical but it’s not evangelical. “Evangelion” in Greek is good news, good news. “Eu-aggelion” is messenger, news, “eu” as well, somebody who has good news for other people. Let us be truly evangelical. Let us let Jesus’ generosity show through us so that every time anybody comes into the Garden Café they sense a generosity not just because our portions are good portions because that doesn’t cost you or me anything it just costs the business, but because they are being dealt with by people whose hearts flow with generosity and who have a generous spirit in their own everyday lives. Let us ourselves begin to enjoy all the liberty and joy of generosity. Sometimes I think we miss it. Sometimes I think we miss it. Sometimes I think you get too uptight. Funny, me a little miserable Belfast boy saying that, but sometimes I think you get too uptight. You cut it too fine you know. “Well, I have this amount for this, this amount for this, this amount for this.” Well, it’s good to be organized but if it organizes generosity and the free spirit of Jesus spontaneous love out of you what good is it? It seems to me a lot of the joy is in going out for ice cream and you pay for it, you know. And you don’t know where it’s going to come from but you pay for it. And then of course the next time somebody else sees that and they say, “Oh, we’ll pay for it.” So there is a place for saying, “Oh, now we all ought to divide up.” There is a place for that but that should be almost the exception. And the norm is meant to be Jesus giving freely and then the world will stand and stare because it will see a generosity beyond even its generosity. And it’s quite interesting if you look around, I don’t know how many of you who have studied investments have seen that, but it’s remarkable how many secular businessmen show immense faith. They put thousands, millions of dollars into things and they have no guarantee that it will come back but they somehow feel it will go, it will work. And it’s amazing how many secular businesses show a generosity, just a free generosity that actually it’s very hard to trace a market purpose in it and yet they do it. And actually that’s what God prospers. God prospers his son’s heart wherever that heart is expressed. Let us pray.

Eternally in Jesus Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill Would you turn to Colossians 1, and that’s where I thought of starting. It’s that piece you know, that I think we read in the commissioning service. Colossians 1:15 and it runs, “He is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation; for in him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the first-born from the dead, that in everything he might be pre-eminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.” And it’s not hard to see from the piling up of sentence after sentence that Jesus is everything, he is everything. And he is the first-born of all creation and in him everything holds together and we ourselves hold together in him. It seems to me important to see that because almost the emphasis in our day of how big we are, how important we are and what do I feel I should do with my life. And particularly, well we know from the me generation, what do I want, what do I like? We joke even about the waiter in America who comes up and presents the menu to you and says, “My favorite is.” Why, who wants to know what your favorite is and probably we’re in the same boat, “It’s my favorite that counts.” So it seems to me in that way we’ve all got very big in our own eyes and as we grow big in our own eyes the problems grow and we tend to get preoccupied with the very inabilities we have to do the things we want to do. And it seems to me so true and so stabilizing, and so reassuring, and so sane to see that Jesus is the first-born of all creation and that we ourselves are God’s workmanship created in Christ Jesus and that we are part of Jesus. Then it seems to me important that even with the difficulties our finite minds have about predestination, it seems very important for us to step right back and look at this whole situation and see, “Now alright I can see God does not have to think A, then B, then C. I mean, God’s mind is infinite and he doesn’t even need to think sequentially. Indeed, obviously the meaning of eternity is that there’s a timeless state that does not have A, then B, then C, but it has all A, B, C, and D all in one moment.” So obviously when God conceived of this whole plan he conceived of it like that. It’s quite important it seems to me that we see that that is reality. That God conceived; we can’t tell what God did before Jesus but obviously the moment he conceived his only begotten son, in that same moment he conceived all of us because it says Jesus was the first-born of all creation. And it implies that from the moment God conceived of having an only begotten son he conceived of that only begotten son being a human being. And he conceived at that same moment of all us human beings being begotten or created in his son. It just stands to reason if you and I can look at even a little dog and see that it can either do what we tell it to do or not do what we tell it to do, we know fine well that human beings once you give them free will they can either obey you or not. And God obviously saw that in that same second, he saw that his son was going to be filled with lots of little independent creatures that just wanted to do what they wanted to do. And it seems to me at that very moment he was faced with the issue do I want this and am I willing to bear this or am I just going to crush them and force them to be what I want them to be? It’s either that or I’m going to have to bear them and their rebellions, and their independent wills inside myself and to bear it, and bear it, and bear it until they see what I’m like and until they welcome the position that I’ve given them and they rejoice in me. And so it seems to me that’s why the Bible says, “The lamb was slain from before the foundation of the world.” And it seems to me that’s why, if you just glance at Ephesians 1, that’s why those statements are made that are so baffling in a way in Ephesians 1:3, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even has he chose us in him (in Jesus) before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. He destined us in love to be his sons through Jesus Christ.” It seems to me that’s the meaning of it all. And it goes right down to that Verse 9, “For he has made known to us in all wisdom and insight the mystery of his will, according to his purpose which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.” That as far as God is concerned the crucifixion and the agony of the crucifixion took place you might say in the second he conceived of Jesus. In that millisecond that he conceived of his only begotten son he conceived of all the rest. And he conceived that in himself he would have to bear all the consequences of these millions of little creatures having their own way, doing their own thing, and he obviously knew his plan with the world, and the earth, and the planets by that time. And knew, could see in a millisecond all of the consequences of us wanting our own way. It didn’t matter what it did to the rest of the ocean, and destroyed the wildlife, we would do it. We would have our own way. The man who wanted to get drunk would have his own way, and beat his wife, and abuse his children. God saw all that, conceived of all that. You see in some way, in some way we have to step back and I know this is shattering to you. But there’s some truth in the idea that we have to step back and say that God conceived of all that and said, “Behold it is very good.” See, to us it’s unthinkable but in some way God saw that he was rectifying the whole thing in his son. He was going to bear us in his son. He was going to continue to bear us and he was going to hold on to us and he himself in his son was going to bear the pain that really we would have – well pain isn’t the word for what would have happened if he had rejected us from Christ, we would have ceased to exist. We would have lost everything, we would have lost life itself and so when he saw all that he in fact bore all that in that second. And if you like to say it, the rest is history. The rest is history. The rest is the working out of that. The rest is just the working out of it. He obviously had to allow the world to come about as it is now with us all doing our own things, with us all having our own way, with us slaughtering each other and destroying each other, and causing pain to each other. He had to allow that to happen because that was a part of the reality of free will and we had to see that. We had to see what life would be like apart from him, what life would be like if it was not in him. And so that’s the purpose of this world. That’s why in a way when we talked this morning, its right to say we cannot actually convert this world into the kingdom of God. It would actually be against God’s very plan to do it. And to the extent that we all get wrapped up as against Jesus’ own words, “If my kingdom were of this world my disciples would fight.” To the extent that we get wrapped up in trying to make the world like heaven, in a way we’re opposing the very plan that God has because every time a thing goes wrong here on earth it is because the rectification of that has taken place already in Christ. God has already born that and turned it around in Jesus. And so he is only letting the negative be seen because the positive is already created. He has already created heaven. He has already ended this whole miserable succession of evil that has taken place in our universe and he has already created heaven. And indeed the proof of it is, is there are people there now enjoying heaven. And so everything that is negative here is negative simply so that we will see, “Ah, not just this too shall pass away but this too has passed away.” God has already changed this and turned it around. That’s why the Bible says, “God has reconciled the world to himself.” God could not live in peace if all these things had not been solved. He could not live in peace. That’s what it means when Jesus says, “Behold I have overcome the world.” And why Revelation talks about over comers. God has already born all this in his son, born it into destruction and raised it up as he meant it to be in his son who sits now with him at his right hand and us in his son with him. And of course, why I thought it was important to say that today was that speaks right to our condition at this moment. This has not come upon us without God not only knowing it but being willing for it. This whole situation is God’s, he knows this. And the only reason he has allowed it to take place is because he has already turned it around in his son. He has changed it and used it. So why I wanted to put it to you this way was too often we shared with each other as, “Now encourage your heart, keep your heart up now I’m sure good will come out of this.” Forget that. Of course good can only come out of it because good has come out of it, already God has dealt with this whole situation and has turned the whole thing around and he has no doubt. See why otherwise could God rest in peace at this moment because he loves us so much? How could he rest in peace if he thought, “We’re not sure how this is going to turn out. We’re not sure.” The only reason he can be utterly at peace is that he has reconciled the world to himself. He has overcome the principalities and powers. He has turned the whole thing around in his son Jesus and Jesus being raised from the dead and overcoming death is all of us little creatures inside him being raised from the dead and overcoming death. And in fact, when you say, “Jesus is the first-born of all creation,” he includes all of us and what has happened to him has happened to us. And so what has happened to Ada, what has happened to Dan, what has happened to Amy, what has happened to Dan, all of that has happened in Jesus and has been turned around in him. But it does change vitally even the fine for speeding you know. I certainly agree we’re not encouraged therefore to be careless, or to be easy going, or to say, “Oh, well God will turn it around.” Because that in itself is almost proof that we’re not responding to the truth that he does love us and he does care what happens to us. But still he does enable us to deal immediately with the unpleasant things that happen or the things that we feel are not the best. “Alright, but God saw that too. Alright, so it was my fault in this way or was this person’s mistake in that way; alright, but God saw that and God has it turned around.” And I sometimes think even when you think you know, 150 pounds it sounds so terrible and we get all wrapped up and really we know a year down the way and we’ll have forgotten it. And what the Father wants from us is that joyous quick adjustment to reality immediately the thing happens because he knows the only reason he let all the negative occur at all is so that we would see what life would be like apart from him and we would see, “Ah, you mean God has triumphed over this also that’s the only reason for it.” But of course we live in a world where they have no concept of that and everybody thinks when the thing goes wrong, with things falling apart, this shouldn’t happen. Well actually it should happen, it’s the only thing that can be expected to happen and it’s what will happen right through our lives here on earth. But when we see the reality of it and when we see, “Wait a minute Jesus did not stay in the tomb. He actually rose against death and he actually overcame death. And we are individually members of his body and have been created in him and God’s word assures us that if Christ rises from the dead we also rise with him. Then I see we have been lifted out of it.” So we are like men and woman who look back, we’re looking back. In fact old Barth has a funny phrase that I felt myself described the thing but it sounds funny. He says, “After Jesus everything is downhill.” But he means it’s kind of just a cruise you know, it’s just easy going. It’s just the working out of something that has already been achieved. So it is important for us to see that’s the reality of our present situation and it’s the reality with the fine for speeding, it’s the reality for the little heart thing, it’s the reality of everything that occurs to us. The only reason God allows negative to be seen at all is so that we’ll see what life apart from him is like but that life has already passed and what we are seeing is just the temporal playing out of something that is already completed in eternity and settled. Let us pray. Dear Father, we are so small in our minds and so slow to see reality in the brightness of truth but Lord we do thank you for it. We thank you for your patience with us. And we thank you Lord Jesus that you are the most compassionate heart that we could ever know and yet you are rejoicing at this moment. You are filled with Joy and it is only because you know that all things have been already turned around, that our God has not put us down here to fight it out for ourselves or to sort it out but he has put us down here in a situation that is already solved. Where we see the black moments as just little secondary events and the brightness of the sunlight is what is reality. Oh Lord, we thank you for that. We thank you that that’s the truth of our situation and the truth of Dan and Dan, and Amy, and Ada’s at this very moment that you have in fact foreseen all that would happen this day. You saw it centuries ago and you have already planned for that and you have already redeemed that, and you have really brought out of it the good that you saw was possible right from before the foundation of the world. So Father, we would look up to you and we would rejoice that you have already overcome the world and that you have changed everything and turned everything around. We would thank you for the light that will come into each of our brothers and sisters hearts during this very day and in the coming days. And the new closeness and the new commitment that you bring about in each of us to loving each other and walking in the light with each other and encouraging each other and building each other up in our most holy faith for your glory. Now the grace of our Lord Jesus, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with each of us now and ever more. Amen.

Body of Christ Disciplines Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill 1 Corinthians 12:14, “For the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot should say, ‘Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,’ that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear should say, ‘Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,’ that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would be the hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the organs in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single organ, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you,’ nor again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you.’ On the contrary, the parts of the body which seem to be weaker are indispensable, and those parts of the body which we think less honorable we invest with the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving the greater honor to the inferior part, that there may be no discord in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together. Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then workers of miracles, then healers, helpers, administrators, speakers in various kinds of tongues. Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret? But earnestly desire the higher gifts.” I thought that an important verse was say 1 Corinthians 12:15, “If the foot should say, ‘Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,’ that would not make it any less a part of the body.” So just because you say, “I’m not part of the body,” it doesn’t make you less a part of the body. In other words, we are God’s workmanship created in Christ Jesus and whether you believe it or I believe it, or whether you even act like it or I act like it, the fact is we are created in Jesus and we’re part of Jesus and that’s reality, that’s a fact. And that’s just a fact that will not change just because you say it’s not true. You and I are just bits of Jesus. And it came to me in the first prayer there that we are perky conceited little asses, because we really think always, almost always, in terms of ourselves, “Well, I’m myself you know and yes, obviously the Lord Jesus died for me and I certainly worship and love him and I ought to praise him every day.” But we act as if we are apart from him. We act as if we have some existence on our own and if you reflect on your own attitudes, and your own decisions, and your own actions in your life, I think you’ll find that a lot of our life if not all of our life, is lived actually as if, “I’m Ernest O’Neill. I’m Lucy Blomfield. Yes, I have various talents and various gifts and I may not be as considerate as everybody else but I well, I have my own life and yes I will give it to the Lord, you know.” And it’s so conceited. There is such an inborn conceit about us that is virtually insufferable. When you reflect that in actual fact we’re not existing on our own. We are not apart from God. We are actually part of Jesus and the only reason we are able to have another thought or to be conscious of anything else this next second is because Christ’s invisible life is in us. I was saying to Marty, oh that one of the philosophical points that they make to us or they made to us in Philosophy One at university was simply questioning the law of cause and effect, which of course, I as a 17 year old coming from high school thought, “Well you can’t question the law of cause and effect obviously, there’s cause and effect.” And then of course, the old Macbeth, his name was Professor Macbeth, started with the billiard balls and you hit the white ball with your cue and it rolls over and hits the red ball and knocks the red ball into the pocket. And we say of course, we brought that about, we with our cue carefully directed the white ball so that it hit the red ball exactly at the right angle and shot it off at an angle into the pocket. And then of course he says, “Yes, but what if those events were just concomitant?” Concomitant means if they just happen together. “What if those just happen together? What if just some other force just arranged that when your cue would hit the white ball a couple of seconds later that white ball would roll over, hit the red ball, and then the red ball would go into the pocket. But that this other force actually arranges the red ball to go into the pocket, that it’s not your white ball hitting it that knocks it in. The red ball just happened to go in at the same moment as the white ball hit it.” And of course, once you begin to analyze cause and effect as carefully as that it becomes quite difficult to prove that a cause had a certain effect. It becomes impossible to prove it when you and I realize how many things had to be held together, molecules, protons, neutrons, just to keep that red ball looking like a red ball because we know it’s a lot of little electrical charges spinning around each other. And obviously, the only way that red ball appears as a red ball to us is because some force keeps all those protons, neutrons, spinning around in that shape and it’s the same with the white ball. In other words, we know that everything there on that billiard table is held together by, well the Bible says it clearly, “All things were created in Christ and without him nothing was created. And all things hold together in Christ.” And so the whole universe holds together in Christ so it becomes more and more obvious that what we say is our cause brought about this effect is almost not worth saying because there are so many other things that are held together by God himself that one has to say, “No, God himself gives the appearance of us doing things but actually we do very little.” Of course, the proof of it, or the evidence, or suggestion of it is in all our lives because we know how we work, and work, and work. And we know that sometimes the work produces sales and sometimes it doesn’t produce a thing. And we thereupon of course, begin to work out, “Oh yes, it was because I didn’t make the presentation right.” Or, “It was because of this, or because of that.” Until we run out of all the reasons because we get such a conglomeration of reasons, “Why did the silver go? Or why does it not go?” Or, “Why did the enamel sell in this shop and it didn’t sell here?” And after you’ve gone through all your arguments you at last finally give up and if you were really honest you’d see it’s almost impossible to explain. But of course, we’re not really honest, we want to hold on to our own little conceited ability to do things. But the truth is that everything is actually in the hands of Jesus and we do not cause anything. He allows us, for the sake of our sanity I suppose, or for the sake of teaching us something about order, he allows us to think that we bring about certain things but actually we don’t. We are all just part of him and of course, you can see the real danger in us getting caught up with running our own lives. The real danger of thinking, “I caused this and I cause that, I bring this about therefore I ought to in the next weeks bring this about.” And it’s not long, we’ll those of us who try to lead would see that whether we lead or not we all see it in our own personal lives how you can get utterly caught up. You feel, “The thing is getting out of control, it’s out of control.” Out of control? It was never in control. But, we kind of persuade ourselves that we have some things in control and there are a few that are out of control and we get worked up or exacerbated. Actually, we should be batty and insane every moment of every day because we don’t control anything we are just part of Jesus and we’re part of his life and it’s him that brings about a semblance of order in our lives. But how often, how often when you turned a corner in the car and the other thing has been coming straight towards you? How often has the bike started to slide? How often have so many things? How often has your body almost stopped working and the Father steps in, Jesus steps in and lifts the whole thing? How many of us here would say we would be alive just because of our own care and own careful driving? No, all of us would say, “At some moment we missed it. At some moment we went over the crown of the road and if the other guy had not been awake we would have been dead.” So we are just part of Jesus but you can see how insufferable we are, how insufferably conceited little independent creatures we are that we keep on in a sense negotiating from this kind of little fortress we have called Ernest O’Neill, or Marty Poehler, this little self with its walls and yes, we’ll reach out, we will reach out to Christ. It’s ridiculous, a little fly on here says, “I will reach out to Ernest O’Neill.” That’s, “You’ve finished reaching out fly.” That’s all God has to do. So it’s important for us to see that because we say, “We are not part of the body.” Or because we think as if we aren’t part of the body, that doesn’t make us less a part of the body. We are a part of Jesus. We are part of him. We are a little bit of him and what I thought he wanted to say to us today was “What then is our life to be?” What then is our life to be, our daily life, our moment-by-moment life? If that is the case, what is our life to be? Because we can see it can no longer be the life that we normally live. I mean, that’s a meaningless life where we – well, it’s a life without order. I mean, the world tries to pretend that there’s an order to it, you go and you get your money after you’ve done your work and then you buy your food with your money and you buy clothes with it. The world tries to give us a feeling that there’s some kind of order but we see, no there is no order because repeatedly that whole thing would have broken down completely if some other power or force had not stepped in. So what is our life to be? If it’s not to be that getting us spending we lay a waste our days, if it’s not to be that tomorrow I will go to such and such a city and do this thing and that thing, if that is in fact a meaningless pretense then what is our life to be? And I mean, the Savior said, if you look at John 4:34, even his life, even his own life had a very clear purpose. John 4:34, “Jesus said to them, ‘My food is to do the will of him who sent me, and to accomplish his work.’” “My food is to do the will of him who sent me, and to accomplish his work.” I mean, that’s what Jesus is here for. But of course, it doesn’t take a genius at logic to see that if we are part of him that is the purpose of our lives. That’s the purpose of our lives. And that’s why he says food, I mean, can you see how conceited we are. We say, “Oh yes, my food is to do – yes, it would certainly be much healthier for me to spend my life doing the will of the Lord. That’s a healthy thing it’s psychologically healthy. That’s what it means, it’s my food you know, to do that.” Or we say worse than that we say, “Yes, yes, Jesus was certainly dedicated to that and we should make that our very food. We should make that our very food. Yes I am rather arbitrary about that I just think oh well I’m doing something good for God, or I’m paying him a compliment by trying to do his will. Really, my attitude should be that that’s the very meaning of my life.” I don’t want to say go to hell but I say what bluff. Our food is to do the will of him who sent me? It’s our very life. It’s our very life. There is no point of us being here. It is mad, it is foolishness the eating, the sleeping, the fun with the chocolate sorbet and all that but it’s nothing there’s no point in it. It’s death, it’s emptiness. Our food is to do the will of him. Our food, our very life and I’m not saying our life as Christian Corps, that’s stupid that’s a nothing. Christian Corps is a nothing. I’m saying each one of you and me, our very life, our life does not exist unless it is doing what God sent you to do. You, you, each one of you and me not you as a member of Christian Corps, not you as a sales person, not me as whatever I am, not that, that doesn’t matter two bits. But Jesus exists in each of you here in this room, you are part of him and he has a will of his Father to do in you and it’s not just so often we say, “Oh yes, overall, overall Lucy contributes this to it.” And we’re so stupid you know, Christian Corps, Christian Corps, Christian Corps, and Lucy contributes to this. Or, Fish or Crown, Lucy contributes this you know, she’s design. Now Mary she contributes this, you know. Now Myron he contributes this.” No, no, each moment of every day independent of what everybody else here thinks you contribute or what does it matter what they think, each moment of every day Christ himself has a work to do through you, through you. He has things for your hands to do, things for your eyes to do, things for your tongue to speak and every time our tongue is babbling, mine especially, every time our tongue is babbling and our eyes are flitting around, and our thoughts are wandering everywhere, every time that’s happening we are doing nothing but wasting time, nothing but wasting time. We’re just blowing in the wind, that’s all we’re doing because each second of every day Jesus himself has a word, a thought, an attitude, an action to do through us and he has it and it will flow out through us. And that’s why I think it’s right to say the arm does what the head of the body wants done and the eye does what the head of the body wants to do. So you know if you say to me, “Your right eye is blinking.” Well, yes that comes from my mind. My head determines my eye blinks so Jesus is the head of the body and he determines what you do and that’s why it’s so important to see that your life and mine is to act, and speak, and think, and live from Jesus’ heart, from Jesus’ heart. Our life is to live from the heart of Jesus which is always why I find it a little tricky, I found it always a little bit – it just didn’t seem right to me when of course at seminary, I’m sure it’s like doctors, and medics, and nurses, and everybody who is trained in a profession, when you’re away from patients, or you’re away from church or whatever it is, you joke about the things that you’ve learned to operate and you’ve learned to control. And I always had difficulty doing it. It’s the same today when I know we kind of – we kind of say it lightly and part of fun but that’s – we have done it where we talk about something serious and then somebody jokes about it afterwards. Well, I mean I understand the attitude and it’s kind of the attitude lighten up buddy and that sort of thing, but I’ve always found it a little difficult because I think we’ve to live from the heart of Jesus. Where we talk about things as ethical actions that we ought to do I kind of agree with you, we can joke about those you know, but it seems to me there’s a fine line there where you go over, when you joke about certain things, you go over that fine line from joking about even the way the person has expressed it, you go over then into touching something holy, the heart of Christ. It seems to me that’s why the only point and purpose of our life is to live every moment from Jesus’ heart. I don’t think that will be as solemn as we all think. I think he may smile and laughter and jokes and I think that’s why old Francis and the guys were so good, the guy who turned backwards summersaults out of his joy of the Virgin Mary. I think the religious life is far different from what we all say it is but it seems to me our life is only real if it’s lived from Jesus’ heart and Jesus’ heart is not the list of things that we think Jesus would do. It’s not that, it’s a closeness to Christ. It’s a oneness with him so that he feels something, we feel it, we do it. It’s that. It’s that kind of immediacy. I think I’ve bored the old Catholics enough with this but of course the thing we had great trouble with when we came to a Catholic home, I told you about it, it was a big picture of Jesus and then his breast open and his heart it seemed sometimes bleeding but then it was called the sacred heart of Jesus and of course we – oh, the sacred heart of Jesus. That is it. That is it. I mean, I don’t know all that it means in the Catholic Church so I understand how it can become dead tradition, the sacred heart of Jesus, that’s the meaning of our life; the sacred heart of Christ, living from the sacred heart of Christ. And it seems to me that brings glorious diversity and great beauty in individual’s lives and of course, a freedom from the dreadful agony that that dear brother of ours Dan McCarty, obviously got under. Because of course, it takes away all this pressure and feeling of burden, and strain, and stress and takes away all this fear of man and all this desire to please this one or that one. Oh, it just frees you from the whole – all the human pressures that can take place when you’re part of a community because of course the community falls back down into its rightful position and raised up in your head and your heart is this wonderful master, this wonderful Jesus of whom you are part and he becomes everything to you and your whole life and every day is built on what he’s saying to you. And of course at times he speaks through a bird, and at times through the sky, but it’s a glorious continual communion with him that becomes the very meaning of your life, the very heart of your life. And it seems to me that is what our life is to be. It’s to be a life lived from the sacred heart of Christ, from Jesus’ heart. And I think that’s part of the meaning of those who belong to Christ have the spirit of Christ. I think it’s the whole spirit of Christ that issues from us day-by-day. And I suspect that that then would blossom forth into new jewelry and all the rest of it, all the new designs and all that. I don’t want to be ridiculous but when we talk about, “Well, I’m trusting God for new designs.” Ah, forget it you’re no where near getting new designs, you’re trusting the Lord for new designs. New designs come bursting out of the joy of Jesus’ life in us. I mean it’s nice and holy to say, “Yeah, I’m trusting the Lord for new designs.” Well you don’t need to talk about it, you don’t need to say, “Lord Jesus, don’t forget I’m trusting you for new designs. I’m gonna trust you. Okay.” And he says, “Okay, you can trust me.” No, I mean, it’s a glorious loving friendship. I hesitate to say this one but it just sticks in my mind even though it’s not the most holiest poem by any means, but it’s a modern poem and a little sexy I think, really. But the guy says, “Lovers in the act dispense with the meum-teum sense.” Meum in Latin is me, my. Teum is you. Lovers in the act dispense with the this is mine this is yours of course because in the sense it is biblical that the husband is the master of the wife’s body and da-da-da but that’s what it is in Jesus. We are lovers, see. I think that’s what Francis and Saint John of the Cross touch and what is so alien often to us with our hardness and with our mental Christianity. And we often aren’t quite comfortable with that. We wonder, “Now these guys they weren’t married. I wonder what attitude had they.” But actually, they were lovers of Christ because he is our lover and he loves us and has taken us to himself and opened his very heart and body to us and we are perched in there kind of with our clothes on you know, negotiating out with him who has already exposed himself in nakedness on the cross. And then of course, opened his whole heart to us and wants us to move with him in love day-by-day and moment-by-moment. And we of course push off and, “No we will live by your laws Lord, we will follow your example.” And he says, “I don’t want that. I want you to know my heart. I want you to feel my heart, and act from my heart, and speak from my heart. That’s what I want. That’s why I did all this. That’s why I made you.” And it seems to me that’s what it is, that’s what our life is about. Let us pray.

Our Small Little World Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill Would you take a Bible please and turn to Psalm 139:1, “O Lord, thou hast searched me and known me! Thou knowest when I sit down and when I rise up; thou discernest my thoughts from afar. Thou searchest out my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, lo, O Lord, thou knowest it altogether. Thou dost beset me behind and before, and layest thy hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain it. Whither shall I go from thy Spirit? Or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend to heaven, thou art there! If I make my bed in Sheol, thou art there! If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there thy hand shall lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. If I say, ‘Let only darkness cover me, and the light about me be night,’ even the darkness is not dark to thee, the night is bright as the day; for darkness is as light with thee. For thou didst form my inward parts, thou didst knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise thee, for thou art fearful and wonderful. Wonderful are thy works. Thou knowest me right well; my frame was not hidden from thee, when I was being made in secret, intricately wrought in the depths of the earth. Thy eyes beheld my unformed substance; in thy book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them. How precious to me are thy thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! If I would count them, they are more than the sand. When I awake, I am still with thee.” God help us to live in that reality. Amen. I’d like to talk about what is reality, what is reality. What is reality? And I think it would be good for us to look first of all at what unreality is. Unreality is the world and Trish, or any of us, Orest or me, or Marty. We’re that size compared with the world. Big, that’s unreality. But just think for a moment how much that is a picture of our own mental life and our physical life. How everything is in terms of me. Everything is in terms of me. Is it a nice day? That means is it a day that I like? Is this a nice lunch? That means is it a lunch that I like. “That was a funny tone of voice that person used, it showed what they thought of me.” “This conversation that’s going on, I’m not taking much part in it.” Or, “Why did he say that?” “How am I feeling? Oh, I’m feeling tired. This has been a hard day. I’m worn out I just need to get sleep tonight. It doesn’t matter whether the lunch, or supper, or whatever there is, it doesn’t matter whether they need me or not, I need to get done what I want to do.” I dare to say to each one of us here that a lot of our life is passed like that. Whatever we’re claiming for ourselves spiritually a lot of our life is lived in total unreality, or in partial unreality. That is the whole world is judged by us in terms of us and we’re exactly in the position of that verse, you don’t need to look at it I’ll repeat it to you, Satan said, “God knows that when you eat of this tree of the knowledge of good and evil you will be like God.” And a lot of our life is lived as if not only we were like God but we were God. That is, we are the most important person in the universe to us, to us. And if you reflect our depression comes from that, our anxiety comes from that, all our discomfort comes from that, all our worry comes from that, all our uneasiness comes from that, all our irritability comes from that, all our temper comes from that, all our depression comes from that, everything comes from that. From the fact that we live all the time looking out seeing through our eyes and ears how things are affecting us and judging them always in the light of us, us, us. And it’s a long, long time from we lived that glorious life that we experienced once in a while when we were little children when our dad and mum took us to the seaside or took us to the lake and we just enjoyed life and we never thought of ourselves for a minute. So that’s unreality. And loved ones, when I say its unreality what you’re going to see about reality will show you that that’s what it really is, it is unreality. It isn’t just bad, you know. We have a tendency to say, “Oh yeah, you’re saying that’s bad, and that’s not Christian, and that’s not the mature way.” No, I’m saying that is unreality. That’s not reality. You are not that big. You are not that important. That is not the heart of your fulfillment. You keep thinking it is. You say, “No, I have to fulfill myself, I have to satisfy myself.” That’s not the heart of your fulfillment, that’s unreal. At the end of a life lived like that you will be dissatisfied, you will not be fulfilled. And yet I put it to you day, by day, by day forget whether you’re claiming to be sanctified, or justified, or forgiven, or a Christian, or baptized with the Holy Spirit or whatever irrespective of all those terms that you use if our life is lived like that it’s a life lived in unreality. I feel for us because I think we’re brought up that way. The whole world lives like that and we’re brought up to live like that and everybody is asking us, “What are you going to do with your life? You must fulfill yourself and you must really do all you can in this world and you’re really worthwhile.” And again, and again we’re built up, built up, and we’re brought up to think that we are the center of everything and that everything should be judged from our center. It will drive you insane if you keep at it. It will drive you insane because its total unreality and it won’t work. What is reality? That’s time, that’s time. It goes into infinity and infinity and God sees all of time in one second. God sees all of time in one second. That’s part of what that verse means, “A thousand years in your courts are like a day.” God sees all of time in one second. There is this year 1996. There is 6 B.C. when many people say Jesus was born. There is the year 2080. People vary about when the first man occurred but let’s say creation took place there, sometime before 2000 B.C. B.C. is Abraham and obviously either hundreds of years, or thousands of years, or millions of years though that’s unlikely, before 2000 B.C. the creation took place. Here Colossians 1:15, maybe you’d look at. Colossians 1:15, “He,” that is Jesus, “Is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation.” The first-born of all creation, there before the creation in eternity God begot his son Jesus. God the Creator begot his son Jesus in eternity thousands, millions, billions timeless years before creation, God begot his son Jesus. And at the same moment as God begot his son Jesus as his only son he begot him also as the first-born of all creation. At the very same moment as Jesus was begotten as the son of God he was also begotten as the son of man. He was the first-born of all creation at that moment in eternity. But there was more to it than that in Verse 16, “For in him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities – all things were created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” So in his son Jesus, God made everything. God made everything in his son Jesus. And his son Jesus therefore became not only God’s only son but he also became the first man, the very first human being. Indeed, he is the human being; he is the great human being. You and I are human beings because of Ephesians 2:10 and you should look at Ephesians 2:10. But I think sometimes we don’t realize that, that the reason we are human beings is because of Ephesians 2:10, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” “We are his workmanship,” God’s workmanship, “Created in Christ Jesus for good works.” In other words, long before creation we were created in Jesus and we were created as part of this great human being, this one man. And the reason you and I are human beings is because we were made in Jesus who himself had become a human being and at that very moment God saw everything. He saw the end from the beginning. He saw that if we were going to be like him and his son and have free wills, and have free choice, then he knew that we had to be free to choose to reject him and to live that unreal life that we had on the board a few moments ago. To live as if we were on our own, as if this life that we lived was just up to us and it was up to us to do what we wanted with it. He saw that we would do that and we would chose that and he had to decide that at that moment would he wipe us out and destroy us and stop the whole plan or would he bear that in his own son and allow that to take place in Jesus, and would he bring about the destruction of that and yet bear that destruction himself? And that’s why the Bible says, “That the lamb was crucified from before the foundation of the world.” You remember, I think its Revelation 13:8, “The lamb was slain from before the foundation of the world.” And so even before the foundation, before the creation there, all this took place. We were created in Jesus, and we were crucified in Jesus, and we were raised up in Jesus, and then Christ came to earth in Adam as the first Adam and he bore Adam and bore his sin, and he bore Adam’s children and bore their sin, and their children, bore their sin, and bore, and bore, and bore, and bore because he himself is the great human being and we are simply members of his body. And that’s why Ephesians 2:10 says, “That we are God’s workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which he has prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them,” because God and his son saw all this. They saw all this. They saw our whole lives and they walked through it all. Christ has walked through every day in your life. He has walked through it already. He has seen it all. He doesn’t have to see what is Sheila going to do tomorrow? What is Joanne going to do next week? God sees the end from the beginning. It’s quite important that we see that. It’s quite important that we don’t toy with God or pretend that God is not that wise because if that’s the case you have to think, “Well, is there anybody who knows or is there such a thing as chance?” If there’s such a thing as chance then it’s greater than God. But if God is the God of the whole world and the whole universe, he certainly knows all the potential and all the possibilities and foresees it all and yet can maintain our free will despite all that. But that’s why we say that we were created for good works which God has prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. Christ himself is working through his body every moment. There is Sheila. There is Trish. Only, we’re not as big as that. We’re not as big as that. But, that’s what we are. We are part of this glorious Jesus, this glorious son of man who is really the human being who is subduing the world and bringing it under God’s control day-by-day and has already done it. Has already done all that, all he’s doing now is manifesting this because God sees all that in one second but he spins it out over these years. Why? So that we can say, “Yes, Lord. Yes. Yes, that’s what we want to do, that’s what we want to be.” So that then he will have a great body of his son who want to love him and want to be with him. But that’s reality. It is all a glorious plan that is laid out for us. We are not these massive creatures that we think we are, on the world deciding what we’re going to do with our lives and trying to work out what we have to do. No, we’re part of this glorious son who is striding through the world through each year in thousands of human beings and is acting and operating through them as they allow him to and as he has planned to. And so you are in that same position and you’re not and I’m not the great person in charge of everything. We are just part of this dear man that has the whole thing planned and has things that he wants to do through us day-by-day and moment by moment. So when we get up in the mornings it’s very much, “Lord, I open my heart and my mind to you because you are everything that I am and more than I am and you’re everything, and your great mind has all the things planned for this day’s world and you know what’s going to happen and here I am in you. And I have the joy and delight of going out with you. And you are going to do certain things through me and show me certain things.” But that’s it! Not “Oh, how do I feel? Oh, I have to do those bills today. I have to do that. My mouth feels funny and I hate the breakfast.” It’s so unreal. Do you see it? It’s like little silly mice in a little corner when in actual fact you are part of Jesus, of God’s son. You are part of the prince of the universe. You are part of him in whom all things hold together and he is standing up. That’s the glorious thing I think about that “Awake, awake to love and work”, you know. “The Lord of life as he goes meekly by”, you remember. The whole scene of Jesus the Lord of life striding through the world and what we need to see is here is Marty in the blessed Savior. As the Savior swings his arm, there’s Marty swinging along and looking out. See, completely – wonderful you know, glorious and so much bigger than our petty little silly stupid wanting to be gods, building ourselves up and thinking everything depends on us and everything concerns us. No, no, the Savior is getting up each morning and you are in him and that’s what the life is about. So it is a glorious life. So that’s why, I know – I think of Clint and Adam and I think of any of you who are now younger than me, though I don’t think you’re younger than me. But I think of all my own vanity back then and I’m sure I have a lot of vanity still but the vanity is so stupid. The vanity is so foolish. Showing off and wanting to be big in each other’s eyes, it’s so stupid. It’s so unreal. None of us are big but we’re all far bigger than we think we are. That’s it. What is it, “I’d rather be a doorkeeper in the house of the Lord”, I’d rather be a little cell in the son of God who will live forever than a huge Adonis, or a huge body, or a huge human being here on earth, far better than that. So I would say to you actually you’re not thinking enough of yourself in a way. Actually you make yourself smaller than you are. But you’re being a big fish in a little pool, and it’s unreal, it’s utterly unreal. This is reality and this is what daily life is about. I asked Irene to read the “Breastplate of Saint Patrick”. It’s an interesting prayer and then I have copies of it for you. And it’s interesting because I think it expresses this. “I arise today through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity, through belief in the Threeness, through confession of the Oneness of the Creator of Creation. I arise today through the strength of Christ’s birth and his baptism through the strength of His Crucifixion with His Burial, through the strength of His Resurrection with His Ascension, through the strength of His decent for the Judgment of Doom. I arise today through the strength of the love of Cherubim in obedience of Angels, in the service of Archangels, in hope of resurrection to meet with reward, in prayers of Patriarchs, in predictions of Prophets, in preachings of Apostles, in faith of Confessors, in innocence of Holy Virgins, in deeds of righteous men. I arise today, through the strength of Heaven; light of Sun, radiance of Moon, splendor of Fire, speed of Lightening, swiftness of Wind, depth of Sea, stability of Earth, firmness of Rock. I arise today, through God’ strength to pilot me: God’s might to uphold me, God’s wisdom to guide me, God’s eye to look before me, God’s ear to hear me, God’s word to speak for me, God’s hand to guard me, God’s way to lie before me, God’s shield to protect me, God’s host to save me: against snares of devils, against temptations of vices, from everyone who shall wish me ill, afar and anear, alone and in a crowd. I summon today all these powers between me and those evils: against every cruel merciless power that may oppose my body and my soul, against incantations of false prophets, against black laws of pagandom, against false laws of heretics, against craft of idolatry, against spells of witches and smiths and wizards, against every knowledge that corrupts man’s body and soul. Christ to shield me today against poison, against burning, against drowning, against wounding, so that there may come to be abundance of reward. Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ on my right, Christ on my left, Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down, Christ when I rise, Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me, Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me, Christ in every eye that sees me, Christ in every ear that hears me. I arise today through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity, through belief in the Threeness, through confession of the Oneness of the Creator of creation.” Let us pray.

Carrying Jesus Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill Carrying Jesus is that rest you know, carrying Jesus. I’ve said several times this week that that’s what our life is. Each of you and I, we each carry Jesus. We carry him. We carry him where he does not want to go or where he does want to go but that’s why we’re alive, to carry Jesus. And when you carry Jesus you are in that rest because he is living in you and through you. And it’s very different from believing in Jesus and trying to follow him, you see. It’s very different from that. We’ve all been taught that that’s the normal Christian life; believe in Jesus and try to follow him and of course that’s a very burdensome life. It’s a life that is always confessing its sin and asking forgiveness, a life that is always falling and failing and being defeated. A life that is full of trying, I’m trying to witness, I’m trying to pray right, I’m trying to be like Jesus. That’s a very different life. It’s, if you like, the lower way, it’s the way that the Bible describes as the carnal way. It’s the way where you say, “The good that I would I cannot do and the very evil that I hate, that’s the very thing I do.” That’s that life where you believe in Jesus and you try to follow him. Very different from the higher way where you carry Jesus within you, where Jesus lives the life and he actually carries you. And I understand very well that you must wonder in your hearts, “Well, how do you carry Jesus? I mean, I’ve tried during the past few days to do what you say. I’ve tried to remember that I’m carrying Jesus. I’ve tried to do it. Behind the counter there in the Garden Café I’ve tried to remember, ‘Now remember, Jesus is in you,’ and I’ve tried to make it real.” You’ll never do it by concentrating on yourself, by looking into yourself and trying to make it real, you’ll never do it. It’s very difficult to sit on a winter’s day in a cold bus in London and think what it’s like to be in the Florida of the sunshine. But it’s very easy if you can step into the Florida sunshine. The object of reality makes the inside subjective experience right. It’s the objective reality that makes the inside subjective experience right. And I think that’s what each of us needs to do. We need to see clearly what the objective of reality is and set our eyes upon that and from that will come the reality of Jesus within us. The killer is that each of us have a very contorted view of reality. What I joked about yesterday about “look he’s eating his teddy bear”, that is very much the reality for us, we have been brought up to have our names on our cufflinks, you know. We have been brought up, “This is my suit,” and, “This is my car,” and, “This is my life,” and we really are the big people in our view and we’ve been brought up to think that. And that’s part of why it makes it impossible for us to live reality because we have such a twisted view of what reality is. We are encouraged to think from we’re little babies that we are the center of the universe and we battle against the fact that other people don’t think we’re the center of the universe all through the rest of our lives and we just cannot understand how they cannot see that we have a view of life that nobody else has and certainly they don’t have and we are quite remarkable little beings and we don’t like the idea that they don’t think that about us and we feel we’re very much the center of things. We’re not. We’re not, we’re not. God had Jesus first. God had Jesus first. Before he had anything he had Jesus. In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. Jesus was there before any of us. Maybe a millisecond but he was there first. He is God’s only begotten son, the only one that was directly begotten by God. That’s Jesus. So there was just God and there was Jesus. That is reality. That’s reality. That’s the heart of everything. Now I agree with you that if you like to say, “In the next millisecond in eternity God then begot his son as the first-born of creation.” So first he had him as his only begotten son and then the second millisecond if you like he begot him as the first-born of all creation, but he was the first-born. He was at the beginning before everything else and everything that followed was made in him. So Jesus is everything and all the planets came out of him. That’s what John says, he says, “All things were made by him and without him was not anything made that was made.” So Jesus himself is the one that made everything. Everything was made out of him, out of his life. His Spirit became matter, his Spirit became earth, his Spirit became space, his Spirit became oxygen and hydrogen, and all the elements. Everything was made out of Jesus. So there’s nothing around us these bricks, and these lights, and this wood, there is nothing around us that is not made out of Jesus. And then you remember what Colossians says, “That all things hold together in him.” Everything holds together in him. Not only was everything made in him, but everything holds together in him. So, this table is held together in him, it is his power that holds the table together, the wood that is made up of millions and millions of protons and neutrons flying around like that in space, those are all held together in this shape by him. He has only to will for a billionth of a second and this all would disappear. So everything is held together. This challis is held together by him, everything holds together in Christ. I think, dare I say that you’re the same as me; we’re not brought up really to grasp that. We think, “Oh yes, Jesus is God’s only Son, you know, and he gave his life so that we all might live.” But we don’t see not just that, he is everything. Jesus is the source of everything. There’s nothing on this earth that was not made by him and through him and out of him, out of him. And all of that is held together by him. And of course, that’s why we preach Jesus so enthusiastically and so committedly. He is far different from Mohammad, far different from Buddha, far different you can’t put them together. He is not just the Savior of the world he is the whole source of everything that is in the universe. He is next to God. He is part of God. God is in him, where Jesus is there is God. Where Jesus is there is the Holy Spirit. Jesus is everything. So, we are very small minded you see when we glorify Jesus because he’s our Savior. We’re always singing you see, “Oh, we glorify him because he’s our Savior, because he’s died on the cross.” Our Savior, he is us, he is everything because you are God’s workmanship. You too created in Christ Jesus. And so, each of us were created in Jesus, created in him and created out of him, and the Savior has used our mums, and our dads, to manifest us in this world but does it not make you wonder the miracle of even human birth, doesn’t it make you wonder? Alright, we talk about the seeds and the semen and all that stuff but really we do not have a notion how it all comes to be a human being. It’s just still a mystery and a miracle whether it’s an animal being born or a human being being born. And the fact is that Jesus simply used our mums and our dads, and our grandparents, and our great grandparents as a way of manifesting us in this world. But each of us was made in Christ and any good desires that you or I have are there because of our Father. Our Father Christ the Everlasting Father, you remember, he is described in that piece of Isaiah that Handel uses in his Messiah, the Everlasting Father he shall be called Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. Jesus is our Everlasting Father. We belong to Jesus. Not just because he’s the one who begot us. It is him that runs through our whole being. It is his blood that runs through our blood. Your very characteristics that make you different from the rest of us in this room, those are the characteristics that Christ has to manifest in this world. They’re from him, you got them from him and not only did you get them from him but you’re still in him. Do you see that? See, I know it’s hard and I know our conscious rebels against it and sometimes our self-righteousness rebels against it, Hitler was in him. Hitler was in Jesus. I know, we feel, “No, no, no, you mean that prostitute that I saw downtown?” Yes, yes. We of course are so nicey nicey and so self-righteous that we cannot imagine connecting people like that with our Lord, but that is what reality is. Jesus holds all of us inside himself even at this present time. And so even though Joe looks to be a person apart from the rest of us, and Marty looks, and I look, and we seem to be different, we’re separate and independent, we’re not we are still in Jesus. We are held inside him. We are part of him. Of course part of the difficulty you can see that we get into in trying to carry Jesus, we think of ourselves wrongly. We think of ourselves as separate people, independent people who have to be born of God, and have to be justified, and sanctified before we can get into Jesus. Well, we do have to be those things before we’re at peace in him and before we’re at one with him and can live with him forever, but the fact is we’re in him now at this moment. We are in him and what we are doing we are making him do. But that’s an objective fact. It’s an objective reality that all of us were created in Jesus and we are part of him. That’s why Paul says that so clearly, “You are the body of Christ and individually members of it.” We of course, mutilate the verse. We make it small, we tie it down to our little church games and we say, “Oh yes, it means we’re the actual church of Christ, you know, all of us put together. Marty can sing and Sheila can sing, and Joanne can play the organ, and this person can read and preach, and so we’re all performing the function of Christ’s body.” And suddenly we’ve lowered the whole thing from the reality that the scripture states, you are the body, the actual body of Christ. You are Christ’s body, his body. You are his fingernail, you are his second finger, you are his leg, you are actually Christ’s body and individually each of you is a different member of that. And we get member, “Oh, I’m a member of this church or that church.” No, member in the sense of limb, you are a limb; you are a part of Jesus himself. At this very moment you are a part of Jesus himself. And the point is you are, whether you like it or not and whether you believe it or not. You are. That is the way God has made the whole situation. He has made all of us in his Son and his Son has lovingly held onto us whatever we have done. And part of the bearing of our sins comes from the fact that he keeps holding on to us. I don’t know if you’ve seen a mum with one of those little two year olds who is just determining that life should be lived independently and the little two year old is kicking like mad and sometimes kicking the mum. And she holds onto him. That’s what Jesus is doing except that we’re not just kicking, at times we’re stabbing. At times we’re tearing apart his insides but he holds onto us. All the time he holds onto us. So we’re in him whatever we’re like. But that’s the reality of it, that we are in Jesus and each of us remains in him and he holds onto us. And when he was crucified before the foundation of the world, it was because his Father in that millisecond saw what would take place and asked his Son, “My Son, will you bear this?” And Jesus said, “I will bear it.” At that moment he was crucified. At that moment you in him were crucified. At that moment he was raised up. At that moment he bore all the pain of the crucifixion and experienced all the joy of the resurrection and us with him. And that is now reality, that each of us in Jesus has been raised up and are beginning to live again. Unless, we fail to see that or fail to believe that and pretend that we are not in Jesus, and pretend that we are what the world thinks it is, independent human beings who maybe will get into Jesus if they believe the right thing, or if they’re born of God’s Spirit. You are in Jesus. You may not be at peace in Jesus, you may not be in love with Jesus, you may not be willing to live with him after this life, but you are in Jesus. It is no mystery that you are carrying Jesus around. You can do no other because his words apply to all of us when he said, “Apart from me you can do nothing. You could not even curse me without me. You couldn’t even swear at me without me. Apart from me you can do nothing. I am your life. I am your very body and your mind. You have been made out of me and in me you hold together. If for a second I withdrew my love from you, you would explode, or you would disintegrate, or you would just disappear. In you I dwell and I live not in your spirit just, not in your mind just, in every part of your being. In fact, it is me that is there and your name that the world has given you is just a name that they know that being as. But I have a name that I have given you and that is in my heart and that is the name that you will be known forever in eternity. And that name is dearer because it’s part of me.” And of course the early church was trying to get at that when it gave us Christian names. But there is a being in Jesus that is real forever and that is the being that you are. And can you see clearly what sin is? Sin is living as if that isn’t true. Sin is actually living apart from God. We always think of it as, “Oh yeah, you mean apart from God in an immoral life.” No, no, just living apart from God, just living even as a good person but as if you are not in Christ at all, as if he is not in you, thinking of yourself as your own, as someone that can do good or someone that can do bad. But sin is actually not in itself immoral necessarily. You can see that clearly when Jesus rebuked the Pharisees who were very righteous. Sin has the meaning of the old Greek and Hebrew word missing the mark. There’s a bull’s eye and you shoot and you miss the bull’s eye. You miss the heart of what you were made for. You miss the center and the full purpose and reality of your origin. That’s what sin is. It’s living as if you’re outside Jesus, as if you’re apart from Jesus. And so when you live in sin you’re living as if you do not carry Jesus and really as if Jesus does not carry you and its just untruth. It’s untruth and that’s why it’s not real and that’s why it brings coldness, and darkness, and loneliness, and frustration, and all the other things. But those are details, you see, all that comes from the fact that the objective reality is that you and I are in Jesus. We’re measured in Jesus; we have no life apart from Jesus. That’s why the Bible says, “He lives and because he lives I live also. If he didn’t live I wouldn’t live.” But we have fallen into the trap of the godless who believe that, “Oh yeah, we do have life apart from him.” We don’t. The very life that we have at this moment is his life. So, you can see when you get up in the morning, I mean, it’s just craziness to think, “I am Ernest O’Neill,” “I am Marty Poehler.” It’s almost as if the Savior has to whisper, “I don’t know you.” I don’t know the English word to use to get it over but he must answer something like, “You’re Marty Christ I thought? I know you as my finger.” But that’s the reality. So it’s a total unreality loved ones, that’s why we have trouble with the idea of carrying Jesus, we’re trying to create inside ourselves a feeling that would naturally flow from us if we set our eyes on these great verses. And I didn’t quote them, I have them all down here but I didn’t – but they’re Ephesians 2:10, “You are God’s workmanship created in Christ Jesus.” Colossians 1:15, “He was the first-born of all creation and in him all things hold together.” They’re all just those verses that are so plain. Ephesians 1 is clear, “He destined us in love to be his sons through Jesus Christ. From before the foundation of the world he destined us in love.” So before the foundation of the world you were created in Jesus. You were made to be God’s sons and daughters. So the reality of it is everywhere. I’d encourage you to look at those verses and to dwell upon it and think about that rather than the other, “I must remember Jesus is in me.” I mean, it’s like saying, “I must remember I’m standing on the earth.” You’re standing on the earth you don’t have to remember it. That’s reality. So really what I’m saying is the key is to see what is reality and set your eyes on it and fill your mind and your heart with it. And if you say to me, “You mean do that little and I’ll be okay?” It’s reality every second, every second. Every second that’s the reality. Jesus is in you and he has a life to live. Look out and see that the whole world lies before you or to choose your place of rest. The whole life is before you. Jesus has a life, a new life to live in you and through you. He has things to do that he’s interested in. A life that he has planned you to live, that he has designed you specifically for. But the reality of it all comes with our eyes full of Jesus. But you see the difference? You see the difference between that and our usual attitude, our usual attitude we are the centers and we must set our mind from time-to-time on Jesus. He’s out there somewhere at the right hand of God and we ought to look up to him because he’s our Savior. It’s ridiculous. It’s not reality. Reality is, “Savior, I am in you. You are in me and all around. This is your life Lord, let’s go.” That’s it and that’s what he has for us. Let us pray. Lord Jesus, we see and glimpse some of what we can see is really obviously true but our eyes become so darkened that we can hardly tell truth from untruth. But Lord Jesus, we do see that in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. All things were made by him and without him was not anything made that was made. We do see that Lord Jesus, that you had a glory with your Father before the world was and before we were you were with your Father and we thank you. And we thank you for receiving us into yourself and we thank you that your Father made us, we’re his workmanship and we were created in you Lord Jesus. And we thank you for that. We thank you that before the foundation of the world we were destined to be God’s sons through you. And we thank you Lord that you were the first-born of all creation and that in you all things hold together. So Lord, we see that we are nothing but your body. We’re your outside expression and each of us is individually a part of you that the others aren’t. And this is your life with good works that you have prepared beforehand that we can walk in but that you yourself have done. Oh Lord Jesus, we would start looking forward to such a holiday. Such holidays, such holy days, as lie before us. Holidays where we dwell in the rest, the second rest, reserved for the people of God where we too rest from all our labors and our false striving and we allow you, Lord God, to work in us that which we work out through our lives. Lord, we thank you for the glory and the wonder of it. And Lord Jesus, we open ourselves to you and Savior, we see not a second can we afford to think apart from you. Not a second can we afford to spend outside you in unreality. And we see that every second, every millisecond is only reality if we are living it inside you where we really are and where we’re seeing you and not the illusion of an independent self that we have so often looked upon. Lord Jesus, we thank you that as we carry you from place-to-place this afternoon, you in reality are carrying us. You are holding us in your arms and keeping us close to your breast. We thank you Lord. Amen.

Martyn Lloyd-Jones on Ephesians and the Spirit Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill Martyn Lloyd-Jones in his book has certainly several chapters on Ephesians 1:13, which goes, “In whom also after that ye believed ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise,” and we have the RSV translation, “In him you also…were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit.” In connection with that, he starts this way: “We have dealt with this subject at this length because it seems abundantly clear from the New Testament and from the long history of the Christian Church, that there is nothing which is so essential from this standpoint of Christian witness and testimony as this experience of sealing.” Now remember, this is Doctor Martyn Lloyd Jones, the ex-medical surgeon, the man who preached for years in the center of London at Westminster Chapel. He is regarded by all conservative Evangelicals in England, and I would presume America also, as one of the chief and most reliable expositors of God’s word. And as a very balanced, intelligent, cold, calculating man who was trained scientifically and carried that detailed analysis of scripture into his preaching. He’s not thought of in any way as anywhere near a Pentecostal, and always thought of as someone who would deal with this kind of subject very much down the middle of the road. So I went to his book really thinking, “He’ll be very good on Ephesians, and it’ll be good just to see what he says, and then to go to my own explanation as I preach on Ephesians.” But I really didn’t expect this kind of presentation on the baptism of the Holy Spirit. I did begin to suspect a little he could take a different viewpoint than I expected, when he quoted several experiences of men actually in his own tradition. I don’t know if you know much about Jonathan Edwards, but Jonathan Edwards is looked upon as a very strong Calvinist, and a very strong scriptural expositor — but not at all as a man who is favorable towards the kind of emphasis on the Holy Spirit that God has shown us. But he tells of Jonathan Edwards’ experience. “Jonathan Edwards describes the same experience as follows, ‘Once as I rode out into the woods for my health in 1737, having alighted from my horse in a retired place as my manner commonly has been, to walk for divine contemplation and prayer, I had a view that for me was extraordinary of the glory of the Son of God as mediator between God and man, and his wonderful, great, full, pure, and sweet grace and love, and meek and gentle condensation. This grace that appeared so calm and sweet appeared also great above the heavens. The person of Christ appeared ineffably excellent, with an excellency great enough to swallow up all thought and conception, which continued near as I can judge about an hour — which kept me the greater part of the time in a flood of tears and weeping aloud.’” I just didn’t think that Lloyd-Jones would even use that kind of example. He quotes Wesley’s experience, and then he quotes Edwards, and then another Puritan. So it’s with that background he says about Moody, “Let us now turn to a very different man, DL Moody, who was not a philosopher and nor in any way a great intellect. He writes, ‘I began to cry as never before. The hunger for this increased. I really felt that I did not want to live any longer if I could not have the power for service. I kept on crying all the time that God would fill me with his Spirit. Well one day, in the city of New York, oh what a day! I cannot describe it. I seldom refer to it. It is almost too sacred an experience to name. I can only say that God revealed himself to me and I had such an experience of his love that I had to ask him to stay his hand.’” So it’s those kinds of examples that he has used. We then find him going on and making this point that there is nothing which is so essential from the standpoint of Christian witness and testimony as this experience of sealing. Maybe you didn’t go to Westminster Chapel, but I should explain to you the atmosphere in that place, because Irene and I before we went to America were in London. We went there not many Sundays but a few Sundays, because I heard about Martyn Lloyd-Jones through our fellowship conferences. And as we went in, we were very aware that these were the most professional of the Londoner’s going in. In those days, you could tell this guy is a lawyer; this gal is a teacher; this guy is a businessman. So you had a real feeling that these were thoughtful, intelligent, reflective, and analytical people. Then you got in and it had two balconies, and the whole place was full. There was an organ playing but no great choir. Then this little bald-headed man, with the kind of gown I wore as a teacher, comes in and sits down, and we sing a hymn and he prays – forever — and then we sing another hymn, and then he stands up and he virtually reads the whole sermon. He goes in detail for about 15 minutes over what they did last Sunday, because he was at that time not expounding Romans, but I think it was Philippians. But it was verse-by-verse, and he just virtually read the sermon. He would look up at times, because he obviously had lectured at university at some time in his life. But he would virtually read the sermon. Of course, it was great, very detailed exposition of God’s word. So that was the kind of background that you have and that’s the people that he delivered this to. So it’s maybe good to remember that he had plenty of people there that were very –don’t even use the word Pentecostal — were very skeptical of anything that wasn’t strict Orthodox Evangelical Christianity. He said, “There’s nothing which is so essential from the standpoint of Christian witness and testimony as this experience of sealing. It is possible to witness in a mechanical manor, but that has very little value. Only those who know this sealing are really effective witnesses. That is why our Lord told his disciples to stay at Jerusalem until they had received it. It is not only the highest experience a Christian can ever have, it is the way to make us effective as Christians, to make us alive and radiant. This is proved in every period of spiritual wakening.” Now we would never have thought of that coming from Martyn Lloyd-Jones. And I think John Stott would not stand in the same place, even though he regards Lloyd-Jones as his mentor. So with that I’d like to go to what I thought was an important emphasis that he brings out. Lloyd-Jones says, “The remaining question which many ask is, ‘Are we to seek this sealing?’ My answer, without any hesitation, is that we should most certainly do so. As we must be careful about the way in which we should seek it. It is wise to start with a negative.” “There is nothing in contemporary Christianity which is so dangerous and so unscriptural as the teaching that with regard to each and every blessing in the Christian life, all that we have to do is to take it by faith and not worry about feelings.” I would have said, “That’s what all your congregation will say, Martyn.” I couldn’t believe it, because this man with his medical background obviously had done courses in psychology. So it was natural for him then to do a fair bit of counseling. He was known as a very sharp guy in psychology. So I should read it again, “There is nothing in Contemporary Christianity which is so dangerous and so unscriptural, as the teaching that with regard to each and every blessing in the Christian life, all that we have to do is to take it by faith, and not worry about feelings.” Now he’s not saying faith has no place. But you can hear him yourselves: “This is taught with regard to conversion, sanctification, assurance, and physical healing. Dreadful tragedies have happened in every one of these realms as the result of such teaching. Let me give certain examples.” Of course what kills you is he hits your heroes! “The late gifted Andrew Murray of South Africa, at one time was a great believer in what is called faith healing, and he taught it in the manner which we are criticizing. If a Christian were taken ill, he should read the scriptures, and believe their teaching to be that is it God’s will for a Christian to be always healthy. He should then go to God and tell him that he believed the scriptures and this particular teaching, and then ask him for healing. But the vital point was that he should get up from his knees believing that he had already been healed. The fact that he did not feel better made no difference. He must take his healing by faith and proceed to live his life as if he were perfectly well.” Now we should be very clear, he is not at all saying that you should not believe that God has already done everything in Jesus and in his death that is needed to be done. He’s not saying that. That is the basis of faith. But he’s saying that there’s a place for that faith experience being manifested in your present life by the Holy Spirit. And of course there are those who are just absolutely coldly intellectual about it. They say, “No, I just believe it in my head, and I have no experience of it in my life. But that’s OK. I’ll just keep going.” That’s what he’s fighting against. “The fact that he did not feel better made no difference. He must take his healing by faith and proceed to live his life as if he were perfectly well. But there came a time when Andrew Murray ceased to believe after this fashion, and his biography explains how this happened.” “He had a favorite nephew who was suffering from a certain chest complaint,” probably tuberculosis. “Andrew Murray was due to go on a series of preaching meetings in a certain part of South Africa and the nephew was anxious to go with him, but in his ill condition he was not fit to go. The two men believed the same teaching about healing by faith and they both went on their knees together and asked God for healing. They rose to their feet both believing that the young man was healed. They packed their bags and went off together, but they had only been away for a short time when the young man died.” This is quite interesting, so I’m not asking you to be blown away with this, but I’m asking you to take these words into consideration — just as you continue to think about God and you beginning to approach him, about this. “Let us be clear in our minds then, that we do not receive this blessing in that way, and apart from feelings. When we are sealed with the Holy Spirit of God we shall know it. It is not to be accepted by faith, apart from feelings. You must go on asking for it until you have it, until you know that you have it. The teaching of take it by faith is responsible, I believe, for much of the present undesirable state of the Christian church. Many seem to go through the entire course of the Christian life in that way, saying, ‘We do not worry about our feelings. We take it by faith,’ with the result that they never seem to have any experience at all. They live on what they suggest to themselves. It is a kind of odd autosuggestion or kooaism.” I don’t know what “kooaism” is, but it’s presumably some philosophy of positive thinking. “But when God blesses the soul, the soul knows it. When God reveals his heart of love to you, your own heart is melted by the experience. The Apostles and others who were filled with the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost were radiant, taken up above and beyond themselves, and they spoke with an amazing authority and assurance, and all who saw and heard them were amazed and asked, ‘What means this?’ Let us be careful lest we rob ourselves of some of God’s riches blessings.” “When God seals you with the Spirit, you will know it. You will not have to take it by faith irrespective of your feelings and your condition and simply keep on saying, ‘I must have had it because I believe. I have taken God’s word for it.’ You will not have to persuade yourself. The persuasion will be done by the Holy Ghost, and you will know something of this rejoicing with a joy unspeakable and full of glory. I am not suggesting however, that we should indulge in what have been sometimes called tarrying meetings.” Now I don’t know if you’ve heard of that, but when I first came into the reality of the Holy Spirit, the old Methodists would talk about tarrying meetings, which were really close to prolonged altar calls. They would go on and on. I certainly myself have been involved in altar calls that have gone on until three or four o’clock in the morning. I’m not saying that that’s all wrong, but that’s what he’s talking about — tarrying meetings. “There was a sense in which those who started such meetings were right. At any rate they realized that such a policy was something experimental.” Experimental — something that you experienced. “But they were wrong when they went on to say, ‘Let us meet together, and let us wait until we have had the blessing we seek.’” And there’s that demand upon God in that — that is not the submissive absolute faith in God’s sovereignty, and his power to do it. “They were wrong when they went on say, ‘Let us meet together, and let us wait until we’ve had the blessing we seek.’ They would wait for days and sometimes weeks with the result that time and again, certain unfortunate results tended to follow. This was more or less inevitable, as they were creating certain psychological conditions. If people wait in that manner without food and drink and in an intense atmosphere, there is always an enemy on hand who is ready to produce a counterfeit.” I think that might help some of us who wonder, “Well what about some strange things that we know happen?” He’s certainly very aware of counterfeits and the pretence of Satan to produce things. “And there is always our own psychology, the power of persuasion, and the danger that people may work themselves into a false ecstasy. This danger became especially real when they said, ‘I will not go out of the building until I have the blessing.’” Well, you kind of almost feel, “God I’m holding you ransom,” and it doesn’t seem to me the attitude of the suppliant to the Father. “Furthermore, there is the very real matter of the sovereignty of God. It is he who decides when to give this blessing. It is he who decides whom to give it. We cannot command it, and we must never adopt the attitude of saying, ‘I am going to fulfill the conditions and wait until it has happened.’” Because of course, that’s creating the idea that this is a mechanical thing: “If I fulfill the conditions it’ll happen.” Whereas it’s not this — it’s a relationship with the dear Savior himself. It’s our Savior. This is our friend we’re talking to. This is his blood that we’re asking for. It’s not put the penny in the machine and blood comes out. This is our Savior’s blood – the life of his Holy Spirit. “That is unscriptural. It is not God’s method. He certainly told the disciples to tarry at Jerusalem until the Day of Pentecost, for he had determined on that particular day, as he had revealed already in the Old Testament, to the Old Testament saints, but it supplies no precedent for tarrying meetings.” In other words he’s saying, “God had determined to give the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost. That’s why he gathered the disciples together in that way, and that’s why he told them to wait, because it was God himself telling them.” But it’s different from us telling ourselves, “We’re going to wait until he gives it to us.” “What then should we do? Let me summarize the answer. Search the scriptures. Search the scriptures for the promises, those exceeding great and precious promises of which the Apostle speaks. Realize what God means you to have, and what he offers you.” “In the third chapter of our Ephesians epistle, Paul says that he is praying for his friends, ‘that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith, that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge.’” “You and I are meant to know something about this love of Christ, which passeth knowledge. Do you know it? You are meant to know it. So I say, read the scriptures, and as you read the scriptures say, ‘That is meant for me. I am meant to know that Christ loves me in that manner. I believe it but I have never known it. I have never experienced it. But I am meant to do so.’ Then go on to say, ‘I should have this. I ought to know this.’ That will stimulate you to pray.” “The next principle is: make sure you are seeking the right thing. We are not to seek experiences and phenomena as such. We are to seek the Lord, to seek to know him and his love. It is almost insulting to him to seek his blessings and not to seek him. He has done all this for us in order that we might know him, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom he has sent. Seek him. Seek the knowledge of him. Seek his righteousness. Seek his holiness. Seek all these and you will never go astray. But if you seek ecstasies, and visions, and feelings, you will probably have them, but they will be counterfeit. Seek him and you cannot go wrong.” Of course some of this is old stuff to us, because God has been good enough to teach it to us plainly. “The next step is to do all that we can to prepare the way. ‘Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth,’ Colossians 3:5. We must be cleansed, and must cleanse ourselves if this lovely guest is to enter in. Mortify therefore your members. Get rid of sin. Purify your hearts. ‘Get rid,’ says Paul, ‘of all filthiness of the flesh and of the spirit.’ ‘Purify your hearts, you double-minded,” says James. Then take Peter’s advice in the first chapter of his second Epistle, ‘Add to your faith virtue,’ and so on. ‘The man who fails to do this is short sighted,’ says Peter. He does not see afar off. He does not realize that he was purged from his old sins. But if you do these things you will make your calling and election sure, and an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We must concentrate on making our calling and election sure.” “Then positively, as we have seen, we are to put into practice the virtues which the Apostle Peter mentions in detail, ‘Add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; and to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; and to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity (love).’ Peter exhorts to do these things. He does not merely say, ‘Go to a meeting and wait for it, or receive it by faith.’ We have to furnish out our faith, to fill it out with these other things. We are to labor at it, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.” It’s much of what we have shared — the need to ask the Holy Spirit to show you, “Is there any way in which I’m not fully surrendered to you? Is there any way in which you are not able to enter me, because of some attitude I have?” It’s full consecration. “If you read the lives of the great men of God, whose experiences I have quoted, you will find that they all follow these injunctions. They were all men who labored in reading the scriptures and trying to understand them. They purified their lives by self-examination and mortification of the flesh. As you read the biographies of Whitfield, Wesley, and Jonathan Edwards, and John Fletcher of Madeley, and others, you will find that all these men gave themselves to spiritual exercises. They did not take it by faith, and persuade themselves that they must have received it. They gave themselves to seeking God.” All of this of course leads invariably to prayer. “You must pray for this blessing. I like Thomas Goodwin’s word here. ‘Sue him for it,’ he says. ‘Sue him for it.’ ‘Give him no rest,’ as Isaiah says.” “I know of no better prayer to offer than that found in one of the hymns of William Williams, the Welsh hymn writer, which has been translated thus: ‘Speak I pray Thee, gentle Jesus! O, how passing sweet thy words, Breathing o’er my troubled spirit Peace which never earth affords. All the world’s distracting voices, All th’enticing tones of ill, At Thy accents mild, melodious, Are subdued, and all is still.’” Tell me Thou art mine, O Savior, Grant me an assurance clear; Banish all my dark misgivings, Still my doubting, calm my fear. O, my soul within me yearneth Now to hear Thy voice divine; So shall grief be gone forever, And despair no more be mine.’” Interesting to hear an old Welshman go to one of his countrymen! “That is the way. Offer up that prayer to him, until he has answered it. ‘Tell me thou art mine, O Savior, grant me an assurance clear.’ Has he granted you that request? Has he whispered to you? Has he spoken to you? Pray for his blessing. Seek it. Be desperate for it. Hunger and thirst for it. Keep on praying until your prayer is answered. Take time, in other words. Take time, not only take time to be holy, but take time to seek this sealing with the Spirit. Keep on, never cease, and your experience one day will be, ‘Sometimes a light surprises the Christian while he sings; it is the Lord who rises with healing in his wings.’” “This may well happen when you least expect it. The lives and the testimonies of the saints throughout the centuries are agreed in saying that God tends to do this for us at certain special times. Sometimes when a man has to go through a very great trial God gives him this blessing just before the trial comes. How kind is our God! What a loving Savior! What a loving Father. When he knows that something is about to happen to you that will test you to the very depth of your being, he grants you this blessed assurance so that you can go through the trial triumphantly. It may happen after a period of apparent desertion, sometimes after a time when the fig tree was not blossoming and all the trees were bare, when all had gone wrong. Suddenly the light breaks, and he speaks and he whispers his love to us, and gives us the white stone with a new name, and feeds us on the hidden manna.” “Many Christian people have only known this just before their death, and they have agreed in saying that it was their own ignorance that prevented their receiving it earlier. They had not sought it as they should of done. They were good men. They had lived the Christian life. They had even been used of God. But they had never heard his accents mild melodious. He had never whispered in their hearts. Their desire for the blessing had been too spasmodic. They had not longed for it and sought it as they should of done.” “But face-to-face with the end they have sought it with a new intensity and he has heard them, and spoken to them. There are many such Christians. God has granted them this blessed direct assurance just before he took them to himself forever. So I say again: seek it. Be satisfied with nothing less. Has God ever told you that you are his child? Has he spoken to you, not with an audible voice, but in a sense in a more real way? Have you known this illumination, this melting quality? Have you known what it is to be lifted up above and beyond yourself? If not, seek it, cry out to him, saying, ‘Speak I pray thee gentle Jesus,’ and sue him for it, and keep on until he speaks to you.” I thought it was remarkably strong and clear in its emphasis – in his emphasis on a definite experience, and you know yourself best where you stand. It seems to me the only basis on which we can do anything is the strong firm basis that we have stated. This is incredible, but God, out of his great graciousness whether we enter into this or not, he has created us in his Son. He has borne with us, and he will take us to himself in his Son — because that’s what we ourselves believe. So he is so kind. He will take us at the end to himself whether we enter into this or not, but what Lloyd-Jones of course is making very clear is that there is a time when God wants us to draw close to him, and to experience that. He has one little illustration that might express it in a different way. He talks about a father and a son, and talks about how they were quite close to each other, but then the son did something wrong. “There is a very beautiful illustration of this aspect of the truth in the words of the saintly, the heavenly,” Doctor Richard Sibbes, another of the great Puritans of 300 years ago. “Doctor Sibbes says that the difference between the conversion experience and the sealing can be stated thus: ‘It is like a child who has been a little mischievous and disobedient, who has a sense of guilt and is unhappy, and who keeps on running back to his father. The father receives him but he does not smile much at him. This is the father’s way of reprimanding him, and of punishing him for his disobedience. But the child by running back gets a certain satisfaction when he is with his father.’” “’This may go on for some time. Then one day as they’re walking along a road together, the child presses near to his father and touches him. The father continues just to look at him, but then after a while the father takes hold of the child, lifts him up and fondles him in his arms, and showers his love upon him.’ That is the difference. Without the sealing of the Spirit you can know that your sins are forgiven, but not in this special and certain manor. This goes beyond the initial experience of forgiveness. This is God, if I may so express it, endearing us and showering his love upon us — overwhelming us.” So it’s something dear, and it’s a privilege, and it’s something precious that our Father has for us. It’s not something that we have to beat ourselves into or threaten ourselves with damnation if we don’t enter into it. But it is something precious that God has for us. And it seems that’s the way we should seek it. This is our dear and loving Father, who wants us, really along the lines of this morning’s presentation, to experience the reality of the position that he has given us next to his heart in his own dear Son. And really, what is being asked of each of us tonight is, have we an experience of that closeness to him? Have we felt overwhelmed by his love? Let’s pray.

Hannah Whitall Smith Testimony Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill If we once settle that our salvation is because of what God has done for us and to us in Jesus — that he’s created us in Jesus, he crucified us in him and he’s raised us up in him — then we need to go on to what you would call holiness or sanctification. But, we need to go on into it by faith — because if you go at it by works it’ll drive you crazy and wear you out. Of course, it can even unsettle you in your own salvation. So it’s very important to go on, but it’s important to go on in faith. Now the other side of it is, sometimes I thought that some of you got so preoccupied with having an experience, a definite experience, that that became uppermost in your mind. So, I thought it was very important that that didn’t happen, and that we saw that everything is in Jesus; everything is Jesus. And I thought it was very important too that we didn’t get preoccupied with words, and formulae, and I didn’t see any need to hold to Wesley’s words, or the Methodists’ words, anymore than the Pentecostal words, anymore than the words that Sir Thomas a Kempis would use to emphasize the crucified life. I thought, “That’s unimportant.” So I was very interested in us entering and seeking after Jesus himself in all his fullness, and going for that. But I do see that it helps a lot to have something definite to believe for. And I do see that if you drift into thinking, “Well I don’t believe my heart is cleansed. I don’t believe I am filled with the Holy Spirit. But I think that it’ll come gradually upon me.” Then I think year after year can pass, and because you’re not believing for something, nothing can happen to you. So I do see that it is important to believe definitely what God has done for us in Jesus, and to believe definitely what has happened to each one of us in Christ. So I think it’s worth reading experiences like this, because it keeps bringing that before you, and I think it opens the way for God to do all that he wants in us. We’re going to look today at part of a book called, “Forty Witnesses.” In it the editor tried to present it as practically as he could. I would say a quarter of the testimonies are Baptists, and about half of them are Methodists, and a quarter are friends {Quakers}. It’s that kind of division as far as I can see. He explains the basis of the book. He says, “I ask them to give their testimony, these people,” and the one I’m going to read to you, Hannah Whitall Smith, of course has died. She is a friend — a Quaker. He says, “I asked them to give their testimony and I laid out some guidelines. Number one, a brief account of your conversion giving the dates and places of your physical and spiritual births. State whether your conversion was instantaneous or gradual, clear or dim, calm or demonstrative. Two, an account of your regenerate life, your experience with the carnal mind. Number three, an account of your sanctification or second experience, stating whether it was gradual or instantaneous, quiet or emotional, whether you mistook earlier blessings for the completed work. Four, a full but concise account of your life of sanctification, your lapses, the causes thereof, the frequency perhaps, the difficulties and triumphs in becoming established in holiness.” “It seems to me there is great need of candid testimony at this point. Evident, open-faced, not too discreet frankness is always a great power in testimony. Who can read or hear the painful tearful witness of a broken and contrite heart, without that melting sense of kinship which draws us closer to each other, and to our sympathetic High Priest?” And then, “Number five, no argument, exhortation, or controversy. Number six, give full dates throughout if possible.” And he said, “This book is not to be denominational. It is to be simply an apostolic experience meeting on paper. Witnesses will be sought from every church.” So that’s the basis of it. I think testimony to definite steps in your life with Jesus, is very helpful for all of us, because it gives us some kind of guidelines about what other human beings have experienced. I would say this — I see that some of the comments in the preface mention (and this book was produced in 1888) that there’s a great dearth of this kind of testament. Now I would say since then — there’s been almost an absence of it. I don’t know if you all have sorted the thing out, but these men and women of course would have no doubt what the heart of the problem in Campus Church was. They would simply say that more and more people began to stay around instead of get on and do what God wanted them to do. But they didn’t enter in to the victorious life. Of course, you can’t stand to continue to hear of it. A preacher who keeps preaching it to you is like Chinese torture to you. You have to get rid of him at all costs. So of course, they would have no doubt what the explanation is of it. I think it’s very important that we realize that God has given us something very precious and very valuable, and that the world is dying for it, and that it’s not only our society that is grossly immoral, but the normal Christian life is lived at a very low ebb in these days. Here’s Hannah Whitall Smith’s testimony: “I was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania second month, seventh day, 1832. I was converted in Philadelphia in 1856, in my 26th year. My conversion was very clear and unmistakable. After long years of legal striving in which I resorted in vain to every expedient my soul could devise, for gaining the favor of God and the forgiveness of all my sins, I was taught to see my own utter helplessness in the matter, and to trust in entirely and only to Christ to save me. I knew that I was born again; and never from that time have I doubted this. Never have I had a moment’s fear about my acceptance with God, or my present possession of eternal life. As time passed the Lord graciously led me into the knowledge of much truth. My guarded education in the Society of Friends, of which I was at the time a member, had already separated me very much from the vain fashions and amusements of the world. And my chief interests were all centered around the religion of Jesus Christ, as the only object really worthy of serious thought or attention. But my heart was ill at ease. That I grew in knowledge I could not deny, but neither could I deny that I did not grow in grace. And at the end of eight years of my Christian life I was forced to make the sorrowful admission that I had not even as much power over sin as when I was first converted. In the presence of temptation I found myself weakness itself. It was not my outward walk that caused me sorrow, though I can see now that was far from what it ought to have been; but it was the sins of my heart that troubled me — coldness, deadness, want of Christian love, intellectual apprehension of truth without any corresponding moral effects, roots of bitterness, want of a meek and quiet spirit — all those inward sins over which the children of God are so often forced to mourn. I could not but see that although I was not under law but under grace, still sin had more or less dominion over me, and I felt that I did not come up to the Bible standard. The Christian life contemplated there was a life of victory and triumph; my life was one of failure and defeat. The commands there given to be holy, to be conformed to the image of Christ, to be blameless and harmless, the sons of God without rebuke, seemed almost a mockery to me; so utterly impossible did I find it to obtain any such standard, for I made very earnest efforts after it. At times I went through agonies in my efforts to bring about a different state of things. I resolved, I prayed, I wrestled, I strove, I lashed myself up into the belief that all I held most dear in life could continue to be mine only as I attained to more faithfulness and devotedness of walk. When sickness came upon any whom I loved, many were the vows recorded in the depths of my soul that, if God would but spare their lives, I would henceforth serve him with all my heart. But all was in vain, and it seemed even worse than vain. “When I would do good, evil was present with me,” {Romans 7:21} and I could see no hope of deliverance except in death, which by destroying the body of sin to which I was chained would thus break the yoke of my bondage. At times some new discovery of the truth of God in the Bible would seem for awhile to carry me above temptation, and to make me more than conqueror. And my heart would rejoice at the thought that now at last I had found the secret of living, and that henceforth my continued defeats would be turned into continued victories. But after awhile as the aspect of truth in which I had been rejoicing became familiar to me, I found to my further sorrow that it seemed to lose its power, and I was left as helpless as ever, only under deeper condemnation because of the increased responsibilities of increased knowledge. There was also another thing that troubled me. I had been taught, and I found in the Bible, that it was my privilege to know the indwelling of the Holy Spirit as a leader and guide to my soul, and I believed that he was indeed dwelling in me, but I felt that experimentally I knew very little about his teaching, and had no actual consciousness of his presence. That it would be an inestimable blessing thus to know him, I realized more and more as I discovered the utter powerlessness of my own wisdom and judgment to guide me aright, and felt increasingly that only as the Spirit accompanied and energized my service, was it ever of any avail. But here, too, all my efforts seemed worse than useless, and I found myself only involved in continually increasing perplexity and darkness. At times the belief forced itself upon me that all Christians were not like me, that the lives of some were full of a degree of devotedness and depth of communion to which I was a stranger, and I wondered what their secret could be. But supposing it could consist in nothing but their greater watchfulness and earnestness, I knew of no resource but to seek to redouble all my efforts, and to go through the same weary round of conflict and struggle again, only of course to meet with the same bitter defeat. Such was my life, and in spite of much outward and earnestness and devotedness I felt it to be a failure. Often I said to myself that if this was all the gospel of Christ had for me, it was a bitterly disappointing thing. For though I never doubted the fact of my being a child of God, justified and forgiven, a possessor of eternal life, and an heir of a heavenly inheritance, still when my heart condemned me — and this was almost continually — I could not have confidence toward God, and I was not happy. Heaven itself seemed to lose its charm to the heart that was far off from God. I began to long after holiness. I began to groan under the bondage to sin in which I was still held. My whole heart panted after entire conformity to the will of God, and unhindered communion with him. But so thoroughly convinced was I that no efforts, or resolutions, or prayers of my own would be of any avail, and so ignorant was I of any other way, that I was almost ready to give up in despair. In this time of sore need (1863) God threw into my company some whose experience seemed to be very different from mine. They declared that they had discovered a way of holiness wherein their redeemed soul might live and walk in abiding peace, and might be made more than conqueror through the Lord Jesus Christ. I asked them their secret, and they replied, ‘It is simply in ceasing from all efforts of ours, and in trusting the Lord to make us holy.’ Never shall I forget the astonishment this answer gave me. ‘What?’ I said, ‘Do you really mean that you have ceased from your own efforts altogether in your daily living, and that you do nothing but trust the Lord? And does he actually and truly make you conquerors?’ ‘Yes,’ was the reply, ‘The Lord does it all. We abandon ourselves to him. We do not even try to live our lives ourselves; but we abide in him and he lives in us. He works in us to will and to do of his good pleasure, and we hold our peace.’ Like a revelation, the glorious possibilities of a life such as this flashed upon me, but the idea was too new and wonderful for me to grasp. I had never thought of Christ as being such a Savior as I now heard him described to be. I had known indeed that he gave me life in the first place as a free gift without I myself being able to do one single thing toward obtaining it except to believe and to receive. But that he should now live my life for me in the same way, without my being able to do anything accept believe and receive, surpassed my utmost conceptions. I had learned how to trust him for the forgiveness of my sins, but I had always trusted myself to conqueror them. I had seen the sad error of legality as regarded my redemption, but I was altogether legal in my thoughts as regarded my daily holy living. I had never dreamed of trusting the Lord for that, and I did not know how to do it. So I went to work harder than ever. Over and over again I tried to dedicate myself to God. I sought to bind my will with chains of adamant, and to present it a holy offering before the Lord. I lay awake whole nights to wrestle in prayer that God would grant me the blessing he had granted these other Christians. I did everything, in short, but the one thing needful. I could not believe; I did not trust; and all else was worse than useless. But perhaps not altogether useless, for it taught me very effectually one necessary lesson, and that was my own utter and absolute helplessness. At last, however, I saw clearly that I was indeed truly nothing; that I needed the Lord just as absolutely for my daily living as I had needed him in the first place to give me life. I discovered that I was just as unable to govern my temper or my tongue for five minutes, as I had been long ago to convert my soul. I found out, in short, the simple truth, which I ought to have learned long before, that without Christ I could do nothing; absolutely nothing. I saw that all my efforts, instead of helping, had only hindered the work. Then I began anew to search the scriptures. I found that the salvation he had died to procure was declared to be a perfect salvation, and that he was able to save to the very uttermost. I found that he offered himself to me as my life, and that he wanted to come into my heart and take full possession there, and subdue all things to himself. I felt that this was indeed a gospel to meet my utmost needs, that such a salvation as this would satisfy the widest limit of my longings, and unspeakably I desired to appropriate it as mine. But here I was met by another enemy, whom I thought forever slain. It seemed as if I could not trust the Lord, as if I was actually afraid to do so. Legality had been met and conquered, but unbelief still remained and threatened to shut me out altogether from the promised land of rest. Although God had declared the Lord Jesus to be a perfect Savior sufficient for my daily, and hourly needs, I could not believe he would really prove to be so. It seemed too great a trust to repose in anyone, even in the divine Savior. But in his infinite love he broke down this last remaining barrier also. He sent to our house (in 1864), a young man whose soul was in great darkness because of doubts concerning his salvation. It was my privilege to point him to Jesus Christ as a Savior just suited to meet his needs, and to tell him of the completeness and present reality of the salvation purchased by him. And as I talked to him and set forth the boundless love of Christ and his divine power to save to the uttermost all who come unto God by him, my heart was rebuked for my own unbelief. Could it be that the Savior who was willing to forgive the sins of the rebel would be unwilling to deliver the longing soul of one who loved him, and panted to follow him from the present power and dominion of sin? Was I to urge another to believe that his prayers for forgiveness were answered, when I did not believe that my prayers for conformity to the image of Christ were or ever would be? My heart shrank back at the thought of such inconsistency, and the last barrier of unbelief was broken down. The Lord revealed himself to me as so worthy of my utmost confidence that I could not help trusting him. He showed himself to me as a perfect, and complete, and present savior, and I abandoned my whole self to his care, telling him that I was utterly helpless, that I could not feel, not think, nor act for one moment as I ought to do, and that he must do it all for me — all. I confessed my own absolute inability to dedicate myself to his service, my powerlessness to submit my will to his, and I cast myself as if it were headlong into the ocean of his love, to have all these things accomplished in me by his almighty working. I trusted him utterly and entirely. I took him for my Savior from the daily power of sin with as naked of faith as I once took him from my Savior from its guilt. I believed the truth that he was my practical sanctification as well as my justification, and that he not only could save me and would save me, but that he did. The Lord Jesus Christ became my present Savior, and my soul found rest at last. Such a rest that no words can describe it — rest from all its legal strivings, rest from all its weary conflicts, rest from all its bitter failures. The secret of holiness was revealed to me, and that secret was Christ. Christ made unto me wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption. At first my faith was but a weakened, wavering one. Almost trembling I hung onto Christ moment-by-moment, saying continually in my heart, ‘Lord I trust thee. I trust thee. Look, Lord, I am trusting thee.’ But I found to my astonishment that it was a practical reality that he did deliver me. When temptation came, I did not try to conquer it myself, but at once handed it over to him saying, ‘Lord Jesus, save me from this sin. I cannot save myself, but thou canst and wilt, and I trust thee.’ Then I left it with him, and he fought for me while I stood by and held my peace, and he always came off conqueror. Thus daily my faith grew, and I was able to apprehend more and more of that for which I was apprehended of Christ Jesus. I longed to grasp the utmost limits of the deliverance from sin, purchased for me by the death of Christ. Just what this limit was I did not understand, either in its nature or extent, but I could leave it all to him. I did not indeed know what was the meaning of that scripture wherein we are told that the body of sin was destroyed by the crucifixion of Christ, and where we are commanded therefore to reckon ourselves dead to sin. But I did know that it meant something which would enable us henceforth not to serve sin, but to bring forth fruit onto holiness, and also that it must mean something which would please and satisfy God. And since this was God’s purpose in the death of Christ, I saw that it must be my privilege to enter into it, although in myself so vile and unworthy. And I saw, also, since Christ had finished the work God gave him to do, that my part in it could only be to accept the gift from his hand, and that that gift therefore was mine the moment I trusted God for it. I did therefore trust him definitely for this very thing. And I, even I, was enabled to ‘reckon myself dead indeed onto sin, but alive onto God and Jesus Christ my Lord.’ Thus that flesh, which I had discovered to be so utterly corrupt and incapable of improvement, I now found could be reckoned to be dead, and consequently abandoned. Necessarily I had, at first, only a very imperfect comprehension of what this meant, but practically I found from the very first, that just in proportion as by faith I did abandon the flesh or carnal nature in me and reckon it to be dead, so also did the flesh lose its power over me to conquer or enslave. And “according to my faith” I have found it done unto me, ever since. Whenever I, by faith, reckon myself to be dead, I find I am practically dead. In putting off the old man by faith and putting on the new man, I find that the one is actually put off and the other actually put on. My soul has entered into that interior rest or “keeping of Sabbaths” which the Apostle Paul, in Hebrews 4:9, declares “remaineth for the people of God” and I am dwelling in the “peaceful habitations” and “quiet resting places,” promised in Isaiah 32:18. Not that there are no conflicts. Ah no! But the battle is no longer mine but Christ’s. Ah, no! But the battle is no longer mine, but Christ’s. And now, if I’m asked what is my life; with a deep and abiding sense of my own nothingness, I can only answer that, insofar as I am faithful, Christ is now my life. Once I had truth about him, but now I have himself! Once I tried to live in my new nature independent of him, now I am joined to him in a oneness that is indescribable, knowing that I have in truth no other life but his, and seeking more and more to live only there. Not that I never leave this blessed abiding place and walk in the flesh again, to my unspeakable regret. But Christ is always the same, and the way of access by faith is always open. And thanks be unto God, he is faithful to keep that which I have committed to him, and more and more does he confirm my soul steadfast and immoveable in him. All the former period of my Christian course seems comparatively wasted. I was a child of God, it is true; but my growth was stinted and my stature feeble. But when this secret of faith was revealed to me, I began to grow, and the dedication which was before impossible to me became the very joy of my heart. Since the time of my entrance into this life I have gone through many experiences and have outgrown many dogmas, and in some respects my views have greatly changed, but through all my attitude of soul has remained unchanged. I have sought to keep a continual spirit of surrender and trust, and have tried to be obedient to the best light I knew. When I have failed, it has been the result of either disobedience or lack of faith, and it has needed only a return to the place of perfect surrender and entire trust to restore my soul again to its place of rest. At every moment when surrender and trust have been active, the Lord has never failed to respond with his wondrous grace. Moreover, he has never failed to make even my mistakes work together for my eternal good. In short, I have found it to be more and more true, every day of my life, that Christ is a complete and ever present savior, and that if I but commit all my interest to him, I have as a dear child once said, nothing to do now but ‘just to mind.’ To say ‘thy will be done’ seems to me more and more the sweetest song of the soul. The deepest longings of my whole being are met and satisfied in God. He is enough! Believing, resting, abiding, obeying — these are my part. He does all the rest. What heights and depths of love, what infinite tenderness of care, what wise lovingness of discipline, what grandeur of keeping, what wonders of revealing, what strength and weakness, what comfort and sorrow, what light and darkness, what easing of burdens I have found; what a Savior, no words can tell! ‘Whom have I in heaven but thee? And there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee.’” Let us pray.

In Jesus at God’s Right Hand Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill You remember I shared with you some of the verses I put on the board like Colossians 1 where it says that Jesus was the first-born of all creation. And we talked about how probably some of you had the same idea as me that Jesus came down to earth and became a man, and then went up and became God again and that was it. And it’s rather startling to find some of the verses of the Bible that implies he is man forever. That he is both son of God and he is man forever. And you remember, I mentioned verses like, “When the son of man comes in his glory and all his holy angels with him, then will be gathered all the nations and he will separate them as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.” And it implies that the last judgment will be done by the son of man. Well, why call him the son of man if he has nothing to do with man anymore? And in fact that Jesus is man forever. And then you remember we talked about Colossians 1 where it says that Jesus was the first-born of all creation. And so he was really the first man. Indeed, he is the great man, he is humanity. And it certainly hits you on the head, “You mean our God, our God has committed himself to becoming man forever in his son Jesus?” And that’s what we said He does not cease to be God. He does not cease to be the son of God, but he has also become man. So he’s permanently chosen the same kind of humanity really as we have even though it can exist without a physical body. And then you remember that we said there’s that other verse in Ephesians where it say that, “We are God’s workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works which he has prepared beforehand that we should walk in them” and that all of us were made inside Jesus. And it kind of startles you because we knew, “Oh yes, all things were made by him and without him was not anything made that was made.” But it’s a new thing to think that we were actually created as God said, “In Christ Jesus.” In other words, that Jesus was born as the first human being and then we were all created inside him. Inside him, much as a little baby is created inside our mother’s womb. So we were all made inside Jesus. And it helped to explain you remember, verses in the Old Testament where he calls Jesus the everlasting Father and you think, “No no, he’s the son and God’s the Father.” But he is the everlasting Father in that he’s really in a sense our mother. And we always go back and forth as old protestants and Catholics but you can see what we were trying to get at in the Catholic church with the virgin Mary, we were trying to get at something of the truth that God is in a sense our father or our mother, that in Jesus we were all created. And so we all started off as part of Jesus. And then you remember the next piece is difficult because I said to you that according to the Bible, God has foreseen everything. And that’s very reasonable you remember, I gave an instance of the caches that we use on computers that try to foresee how you’re using your hard disk and try to get as many hits therefore as possible to save you going to the hard disk all the time and that we with the computers can see an amazing amount by studying what has happened in the past. And of course, God who made us can foresee and foreknown what will happen. Without making it happen he is able to foresee it. He obviously has given us free will because he says, “I would have often gathered you as a hen gathers her chickens but you would not.” So God has given us free will but he’s able to foresee what will happen. And of course, he first saw that we would want to go our own way, and that we would tear the place apart to get our own way. And he said to his son, “The only way that they will ever stay with me is if you are prepared to keep them in yourself even as they try to kick you to death.” And in fact, that’s the real bearing of sin that Jesus does. The expression of it on Calvary is just an expression in space time of what Jesus bears every time we kick against God. Every time we rebel against him, it’s inside much worse than a baby kicking her mother. Much worse than that, it’s a bleeding and a tearing apart of Christ himself. And you remember, I said that he bears that for everyone, even for Hitler. Even Hitler was in Jesus and the only reason he will not be in heaven is because he has never believed that. But, he is part of Jesus and Jesus has born his pain and his agony. And so we said that and then you remember, I mentioned to you, maybe we should look it up so at least you have time to pause in this. You remember, Ephesians 2:4, “But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with him, and made us sit with him in the heavenly places.” And really what it means, I’m sorry I can’t draw properly to represent the Savior, but really what happened was all of us were in him and then God saw us rebelling, and saw us destroying, and saw us that the only thing he could do was remake us and he put his son and all of us on the cross and destroyed us all and raised us up with Jesus to his right hand even when we were dead through our trespasses. That was all done. And so in a sense the elevator is there of Christ and it is going up there to the right hand of God whatever we are like down here and that is our situation. And if you say to me, “Oh yeah, well what about this present life that is so full of our own will and so full of our own selfishness?” You remember, I said its God letting us see what it would have been like had he not done this. And I mentioned to you that there are many good things we’ve had from our parents and our mums and dads, and many good things I’ve had from my mum and dad, and many good things have happened to us in our school life and in our past life. But the fact remains that it is very full of our own selfishness too and very full of all kinds of unhappinesses and that has been given to us to let us see what we would be like if we had never been put in Christ and raised to the right hand of God. And of course the tragedy is that that life that we have been living up to now is so real that we think, “Oh well, yeah I know what you mean but let’s face it this is the real life down here. I mean, this is the real life. I mean, that’s the heavenly life and we get there when we get to heaven and we should certainly try to live there as much as we can but this is the real life.” And of course it’s upside down; it’s the other way you know. This is the real life and this is a fantasy life that has already been crucified by God in Christ and it’s finished. But I think part of our trouble is we keep thinking, “Well, yeah I know that’s a tricky little mental way to look at it but let’s face it this is pretty real. I mean, if I pinch Paul I mean, he wonks me or something, but this is a real life here so this is it. But I see what you want me to do, you want me to try to imagine that this is the real life.” I’ll tell you about Plato, old Plato was amazing he wrote – oh we studied in philosophy one in university, the Republic Study of Government but Plato’s looked upon as one of the wisest old Greeks. And he lived about 400 B.C. and he actually was very interesting. Obviously, Jesus was not alive so anything he got he must have got from Old Testament people. I always presumed he had no contact with Old Testament writers at all because of course he wasn’t a Jew, he was a Greek. But he said, “This table here in heaven,” and he talked about heaven. It’s incredible, God obviously revealed things to people who have nothing to do with Christianity or Judaism at all. “This table in heaven there is a perfect from of that table.” I mean, he did this all through shear logic and philosophy. But he said, “Everything on earth, there’s a perfect form of it in heaven.” It’s kind of, it’s very close. He told a story that I think I’ve mentioned to you before, he said, “We human beings are like people inside a cave and there’s just a tiny little hole at the mouth of the cave and the sun shines through that hole and as people walk past outside the sun casts the shadow on the wall of the cave but we are looking at the wall we’re never looking out.” And all we see is shadows and we think this is the real life and it’s not the real life at all it’s just shadows of the real life that is out there but we never look round to see the real life. I mean, you wonder will he be in heaven because the dear fella I don’t know how he got hold of it. But, that’s the situation. I mean, it’s hard I know to face it, but into the van in the morning, or the car nowadays I suppose, into the car, “My eyes are so full of sleep I just did not sleep properly last night, and my mouth it has no sex appeal there’s no tooth paste worthy of the name, and today is Monday and I have to get all that stuff done.” And we treat that as the real life and that is the life that is past, that’s the life that is past. That’s the life that has been crucified. That’s the life the transient life that God has allowed us to see what life would be like if we were not in Jesus. And this life that we call the real life is the fantasy life. It’s a life already crucified with Christ. You remember, Paul said it, “The cross of Christ by whom the world is crucified to me and I to the world.” That life and this life that we live has already been condemned. We can see it of course because we can see the old world breaking up in all kinds of ways and we can see so many imperfections in family life, in our work life, in society’s life, everything is going in all directions so there are signs all over that the Creation as the Bible said you know, is in continual – it’s groaning, it’s groaning until it eventually is released. So we know there are indications that this world is not perfect but we still keep thinking, “Yeah, yeah, but this is the real world.” And what I felt I should say to you this morning was Jesus is pleading with us, “Follow me. Follow me up. Follow me up. I mean, get into the elevator and follow me up and live there. Live in reality with me, stop living down there in fantasy thinking that that is reality,” especially in our thought life. And you remember, the way I said to you that we tend to think that in those terms, “How does my mouth taste? How are my eyes feeling? What am I going to face today?” I, I, I, how is this going to affect me? The weather, is it the weather I like? The meal, is it the kind of food I like? These friends, are these the kinds of friends I like? This marriage, is this the kind of marriage I like? This future, is this the kind of future I’m looking forward to?” It’s all I, I, I and Jesus is saying, “Look, leave that. Leave your nets that are entangling you. Follow me up and begin to live where I am.” Here’s the verse if you’d like to look at it. It’s Colossians 3:2, “Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hid with Christ in God.” But verse 2 “Set your mind on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.” In other words, do you not think that it’s time to turn your thought life upside down and to take hold? That’s why I got these old military hymns. I am not wild about military hymns but I thought, “Jesus is really saying, “Look take hold and live the way you say you believe and stop getting into the car in the morning and thinking me, poor me, what am I going to do – why doesn’t that guy get out of the way, oh I’m out of gas. Stop, stop, stop thinking unreally as if you are your own little person trying to make your own little way here when I have in my own body borne all the pain of your death and raised you up with myself to our Father’s right hand and we’re sitting there together. Will you please follow me? Will you please begin to live here with me in your thought life?” See I think we’re making it hard for ourselves because I think what we’re doing is we’re living down here in our thought life and then we’re thinking, “How do I get up there? How do I try to get up into Jesus? How do I try to get up into heaven?” When you do it just by faith and faith is thinking what is true and thinking what is real. And so I’m really saying to each of us and myself as well, are you – I mean have you changed the way you’re thinking? Because the other verse I’ll show you, it’s Luke 9:23 that we read there. Because I agree with you it is not simple, or easy, or it’s not certainly the life of an armchair chocolate soldier because Jesus’ call is very much a call to military service really when you look at it. Luke 9:23, “And he said to all, ‘If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.’” And that Greek word for deny is not, “Oh, I’ll deny myself candy for lent,” or, “I’ll deny myself smoking for lent,” or, “I’ll deny myself eating chocolates for lent.” It’s not that kind of denying. The Greek word means if you will make nothing of yourself, deny yourself, say, “That is not me. That is not me.” And I agree with you, I think it’s hard because you know, “Oh you can’t deny yourself, and you must maintain your self esteem and you must face reality.” Except, that’s the trick you know we say, “Face reality. You face reality yourself that’s the real you.” Well Jesus is contradicting that he’s saying, “That isn’t the real you. The you that people have seen up to this present moment is not the real you. That’s the you that has been crucified with me. The real you is here in me. I have a new creation that I want to live in in you and I want to start living it now. Please, let’s start.” I think he’s often crying that, “Let’s start. Let’s begin. You know that I made you so that I could live my life anew inside you. Now please, can we start now?” And he’s saying, “Will you deny yourself? If you want to follow me you’ll have to deny yourself. You’ll have to say, ‘I know not that man. I know not that woman. I do not know that Ernest O’Neill that fiddled his way through life so far. I deny that that is me. I am a new creation, a part of Jesus, a part of him with him in his Father’s home and that is my life.’” And that’s what Jesus means, “If you want to come after me you’ll have to deny yourself. You’ll have to regard yourself as non-existent, as me only existing inside you and then take up your cross daily.” And that’s why I’m bringing home to you the daily thing because it’s no use us all agreeing, oh yes, this is a nice theory and this is good, and this is true. If you don’t do it each day, it doesn’t become real. And so what I’m saying is would you begin each day seeing yourself in Jesus and seeing Jesus in you, and seeing that that’s a whole new life that the Holy Spirit is going to unfold to you and that will be kind of fun. That it will be enjoyable. I keep thinking of Vincent Peale, he told a story of this American lady. Well, he was an American he was getting at the Americans so he said, “This American lady was coming to speak at oh some kind of show, a garden show or something. And so the chairman gave her a very, very flowery introduction about who wonderful she was and she got up and said, “I’m so excited I can’t wait to hear what I’ve got to say.” And I think that’s the kind of thing it is. “I can’t wait to see what Jesus is going to do today. I can’t see Holy Spirit, what you are going to do today. I can’t wait to hear what you’re going to say through me today.” That’s what the faith is like. But you can see it’s a definite change, I mean, it’s a taking hold of your own thought life and it’s seeing this life down here that we’re living as the unreal life that is already gone. And of course, you question if it’s gone, well I wasn’t always that color and some of us weren’t always that color so there are indications that it is already going, you know and that it’s on its way and that it really is a kind of downhill thing and that there is a real life that is eternal in the heavenlies and that is ours at this very moment. And if you say to me, “Do you really mean that it’s God’s plan that we live up there down here?” Right, right that’s a winner. I mean, it transforms everything. It changes your whole domination by circumstances whether it’s the weather, or the finances, or the people around you, it changes the whole domination of your life by those outside things and you begin to live aggressively inside with a positive center of motivation that is greater than yourself and that begins to produce a life that is bigger than you are. And that’s part I think of what Jesus is saying. He’s saying, “Follow me. Follow me now. Start following me now. I’ve put you in the elevator, I have taken you up, now will you live there?” And you have to decide will I live there or will I just respect that whole theory. And it starts this afternoon because it’s – I mean, it’s so close to us. “This afternoon? Oh, I was looking forward to this afternoon too.” And you know our dear little minds just spill it all out. We have programs for ourselves that are all connected with what we’d enjoy and Jesus is saying, “I never once thought whether I would enjoy this or not. I never once thought would I be happy doing this? I thought of you.” Let us pray. Dear Lord, we know that in our deepest hearts we know that that’s true, that you never did give one thought to yourself and the only reason you did any of it is for us. When we see what selfish little egotists we are, and we see how miserable too we are in our egotism, and we see Lord that we’re no different from Peter, and James, and John as you walked along the beach and said to them, “Come, follow me.” We see Lord, that just as they had nets that they depended on for their income and for their livelihood so have we. All kinds of self interest, all kinds of preoccupations that circle around us and what we want and what we prefer. And we see Lord Jesus that this is what you died to destroy so that we could have the chance of living the life that you and your dear Father planned for us, the life that you yourself intended to live in us. We see Lord, that that’s why we were created not that we would live our own little lives but that you would be able to live a unique version of yourself in us. Lord, we see that it’s far past time when we began to do that. When we began to exercise faith right now and to make our thoughts and our intellects fall in line with what we believe, and to exercise our wills so that we will no longer think first of ourselves but we will regard ourselves as gone forever and you inside and think, “What would you like to do? What would you prefer this afternoon? What have you planned to do in us from before the foundation of the world?” Lord Jesus, we would begin to set our mind on things that are above not on things on earth and we would stop looking at the shadows on the wall and we would begin to look at life as it really is as it is eternally and forever and therefore as it is right now. Amen.

The Miracle of Jesus Alive in Us Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill What we’ve been saying about God’s foreknowledge is that God foresaw all that would take place. And I think we can all see it is very reasonable because we ourselves can foresee some things and many of our engineering feats are based on either the built in obsolesces of certain equipment or certainly the recorded age of switches, and breaks, and tires. And so in all kinds of ways, in our ordinary everyday life, we do foresee things and we could not do without some degree of foreknowledge. Where we have real trouble is when we begin to try to extrapolate, that is induct, induce from our foreknowledge up to God’s foreknowledge. And then of course we have to realize that he is infinite and that he has created everything that we see including ourselves. And of course his foreknowledge is perfect. And you understand the difficulty that probably all of us have about this, “Well, how can he have foreknowledge without predestining us to things irrespective of what we do with our own free wills?” And that is a mystery of his heart, and his mind that we are unable to plumb at all. If you say, “But then can we be sure that he has not predestined us all to do things that we have to do whether we want to or not?” Well, yes because of the Savior and because of the kinds of words that he spoke when he looked at Jerusalem and said, “Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem how often would I have gathered you as a hen gathers her chickens but you would not.” And it seems to me there is infinite mind and power standing over against the creatures that he has made and saying, “I wanted you to do this but you would not. And I have given you the power to do what you want to do.” So it seems to me that when you try to sort out in your own mind from your own experience of foreknowledge how God could possibly have perfect foreknowledge and yet refrain from making us do what he wanted to do, we have to look not at the abstract philosophical problem so much as to look at Jesus himself and then to look at our dear Father and see that often he has wept over Jerusalem and often he has wept over the things that have happened and yet has allowed them to happen. So his is obviously a love that is beyond ours. We are encouragably dominating and dictatorial. And we think of mums and dads who find it hard to take their hands off their children but we ourselves find that it is almost impossible to take our hands off things and let them have their way. And yet as you enter more and more into Jesus I think that’s what you’re able to do. But that whole truth that God has foreseen everything and has actually played the whole thing through in his own great mind so that he does not face emergencies and he is not facing an unknown strange way, that whole truth changes the meaning of Christmas. Do you see that? It changes the meaning of Christmas. What do we normally think of Christmas as meaning? Well, at least one of two things, God the Creator became a man. There was a creature that existed in the first century that was both God and a man. That’s what most of us think of Christmas as being. And we say, that is unique, that’s what sets God and Jesus apart from Buddha, and Mohammad, and Hinduism and all the other religious leaders because none of them claim to be God. But Jesus, our Savior is God and at Christmas he came to earth. Except that that is not the deep meaning of Christmas, or the central heart of Christmas. Some of us have said, “Well, God was in Jesus.” And as he was in Jesus at Christmas or on the day that we remember as Christmas so he is able to be in each of us. That’s the meaning of Christmas. And that in itself would set the whole thing apart from other religions because though every religion believes that you can get some help from an outer power, no religion believes that the Creator himself could dwell in you and so that is remarkable. But I think you’ll see if you reflect that that is not the miracle of Christmas. The miracle of Christmas is that Jesus who was the first-born of all creation, who was born as not only God and God’s son but who was born as a man in eternity, before the world was ever created, because that’s what that verse you remember, means in Colossians 1:15, “Jesus is the image of the invisible God, and he is the first-born of all creation.” That means he was first-born, he was born before Abraham. Indeed, he says that you remember, “Before Abraham was, I was.” He was born before Adam. But not only did he come into existence before them because we all have known of Jesus’ preexistence but he was actually born as part of creation. He was conceived by his Father as the only begotten son of God. But in the same millisecond God conceived of him becoming what this strange humanity is. And so he was the first-born of all creation and in him we were all created. That’s what Ephesians, you remember, 2:10 says, “For we are God’s workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works which he has prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” So at that same moment we were created in Christ Jesus. And at Christmas we came to earth. At Christmas we came to earth. In other words, Christmas is the physical expression in time and space of the miracle that God wrought when his only begotten son also was the first born of all creation and in him all of us were created. Christmas is the physical expression of that just as Christ was crucified from before the foundation of the world. You remember, Revelation 13:8, “Jesus was slain before the foundation of the world.” But it was expressed in time and space only what 29 A.D., the year of the crucifixion. So is Christmas, Christmas is the expression in time and space not just a metaphor, not just something unreal because his flesh could be touched but it is that massive change that took place from the world that was invisible into the world that is seen. Suddenly Jesus and his place as the first-born human being was expressed in time and space. And so for us, Christmas is our birth. It’s our birth in Jesus. It’s our creation in him. It’s Jesus setting forth the fact, “I am not only one of you but you are part of me and my Father made you in me.” Christmas is really the explanation of our existence. It is God saying what we’ve said several times, “You were not created for the first time in your mother’s womb. No, you were not created first by what we joke as the twinkle in your father’s eye. No, that was just the time space expression of you and your existence here on earth, but you were created in my son Jesus and it is him that gives you life and you were made in him. Apart from him you have no life.” Of course it’s tragic I mean it’s tragic what has happened because we have all started to pretend that we have an existence part from Jesus and that’s where we all get into trouble. I mean, we think that it’s possible to say, “In Jesus now. Not in Jesus now. Well, if I were a Christian I’d do this. Well, if I weren’t a Christian I’d do this.” Well it’s possible, there is no such choice. We are created in Christ Jesus, we are part of him, we live in that reality or we don’t live in that realty but there is not another choice. You can’t be out of him, you’re only in him. You’re either in him adding to his pain of his crucifixion or you’re in him adding to the joy of his resurrection, but we are part of him. I’d just like to share one other thing with you. When do you think God thought of Joe? Did he think of him a second before his mother bore him in a hospital somewhere in Minnesota? Did he think of him when God made the world? He created him in Christ Jesus. He thought of him a millisecond after he conceived of his only begotten son. I mean, it’s incredible. We have done despite to God that we have done – we have insulted him because we all the time think, “Oh yes, God made all the planets, all the stars. He had his only begotten son and then he did all kinds of other things. And then he made the earth, and then after he made the earth and it had been going for years, and years, then he made the first man. Then after the first man then he made another man, then another, and then right on down to about maybe 40 or 50 years he made me.” And God conceived of you and me from the very beginning. We are not an afterthought of God’s. Jesus was not an afterthought of God. Jesus’ death was not an afterthought of God. God did not suddenly get caught out and find that we were all sinning and invent a way of deliverance for us on Calvary. God conceived all of this from the very beginning. That’s why it’s so impossible and so wrong when we think, “Ah, I’m nothing. I’m nothing. I’m nothing. I am just a wee Belfast boy,” or, “I am just a wee Minnesotan girl. I’m nothing. I’m just a little bit of dust.” It’s an absolute and utter lie. You are someone that our Creator thought of a millisecond after he begot his son Jesus. Christmas for us is the setting forth of the truth that we are part of God’s only begotten Son and therefore, we occurred in God’s mind centuries ago, ages ago. And of course you know why that all is possible, because really time itself is just an accommodation that God has arranged for us in our finite minds to be able to appreciate what he has done in one second in eternity. So of course, for God it is all one moment. I don’t know if you’ve wondered why it is that I think more of the cells seem to die than are renewed after you get to a certain age. And so it does seem that life is going faster, and faster, and faster. I think its part of God’s beautiful plan so that when we get there and just hop over it will be just one present moment and it’ll all be there all the time. It will be like a continual, wonderful Saturday morning or whatever is the pleasantest time that you have in the week, but it will be just one moment and that for God it is one great present eternal now. And so all this is taking place. Of course, he has kindly implied that to us when he puts in the mouths of the prophets words like, “With God a thousand years are as one day.” That it’s just a day a thousand years. And so we here are maybe about two seconds after the moment when God conceived of his son Jesus and so it is all one great eternal present and that when we come to Christmas it’s not just the birth of the little baby in the manger. It’s not just the birth of Jesus. It’s not just God, though that is wonderful coming down to earth as a human being, but it is our selves in Jesus. It is the birthday of the human race, it is our birthday, it is God saying, “In my son you came to earth and you are here as part of him.” And of course that’s what makes our life so filled with meaning, because you’re not just here to find out if you’re good at engineering, or if you’re good at music, or if you’re good at sales, or if you’re good at drawing or designing. You are here as a limb of Jesus, you are here with something that Jesus has planned to do in the earth through you that he cannot do through anybody else. So of course our life is already laid out before us and that’s why the future too is different for us. The future is not, “I wonder what will happen? I wonder who I’ll marry, I wonder where I’ll live, I wonder what things I’ll do in Christian Corps?” It is not that at all. You are not here to sort out your own future, you are here to walk in works that God has already prepared beforehand for you and so the future is assured and the way is clear before you and the miracle of it all is that God lovingly and graciously leads you along his path at the same time he allows you to exercise your free well. Now, that is a miracle and that is the pickle he has wrought. It’s even more wonderful when you think of today. You will speak certain words today and so will I. As you speak them the Savior speaks them. You can see there are two alternatives here, one that you say, “Well, I’m part of Jesus and he has things to do and say here in this life through me so I better not say anything in case it’s not what he wants.” So eventually you become permanently dumb because you just sit around in passivity and you wait for Jesus to somehow use your mouth and your tongue. That’s one alternative and it’s obviously an impossibility. Or, you speak and because you are part of the Savior, I know it sounds almost dangerous, you force him to speak. And that is actually the tragedy of it, you make him speak. What you speak Christ speaks. That is part of his suffering or part of his glory. What you speak you make him speak. You are in him, and everything you do, and say, and think he has to do, and say, and think. You might say whether he wants it or not except that in his great wisdom he has foreseen these things and has said, “I will bear that. I will bear that.” But do you see the importance of our words, and our actions? It’s not so that we’ll get saved. It’s not so that we won’t feel condemnation or feel guilt. It’s not even so that other people will be blessed. It’s not so that we’ll do the right thing and avoid the wrong thing. That’s silly petty stuff. It is so that the Savior in you and in me will be fulfilled. So that he will be fulfilled. So that we will be – that’s the tragedy of our upside down generation. “Well, I want to be fulfilled.” It’s not that we would be fulfilled it’s that Jesus would be fulfilled. It’s that he would fulfill his eternal plans that he has looked forward to fulfilling in us for generations so that today the words we say, the things we do, the thoughts we think, our blessed Savior thinks those too and either takes delight in them or bears the sin for us. So Christmas for us is far more than this business of God coming to earth as a human being. Christmas for us is the reality that Christ is the first born of all creation and in him we all were created and his coming to earth is simply an expression of the reality of how we got here and what we are doing here. So Christmas and Christ Mass is our birthday, our birthday as part of our Savior, our birthday as part of the one human being who will go into heaven that is Jesus. And I remember using the illustration you know, it’s like him having a big cloak and we’re all hiding underneath and he goes through. Except that it is more than that. We are in him. We are in him. It’s not a cloak in which we’re hidden. We are in him and he knows everything about us and continues to carry us in him and will do that, carry us into his father’s presence if we are willing. Let us pray. Savior, the word is nigh thee even on thy lips and in my heart the word of faith. We see that Lord, we see that the moment we speak you are speaking. We see Lord Jesus, the moment we mention your name we mention it with your breath, with your tongue, with your understanding and your intellect, nothing that we do can be done without you or is done outside of you. You are closer than breath, closer than breathing. Lord, we can only be silent before you and thank you and rejoice and lighten our hearts, and cast away all the heaviness of the autonomous life, and turn our backs on all the lie that we are independent little creatures with lives we have to sort out ourselves as best we can. We see Lord Jesus, that all of that is fantasy, that we are part of you, a part of you that you know and a part of you that your Father has planned from before the foundation of the world, and we have a place in you because God has created us in you. And we thank you Lord, for showing us that our faith simply recognizes that, it does not create that. It does not even make it possible, that has taken place whether we know it or not, whether we believe it or not. We see Lord that you have given us these precious years on earth to get used to living as part of you and saying Amen to that. And therefore, setting our seal on what our Father has done. Lord, we thank you for it. We thank you for this day, for all the things we’ll do. But now we see Lord Jesus, that as we joke and have fun, and enjoy the food, and make comments to each other, your mouth moves as ours does, your tongue moves as ours does. What we speak you speak. What we think you think. Oh Savior, we would give you joy this day. We would give you fulfillment, or allow you to fulfill yourself in us so that this may be a glorious birthday and so that the rest of our lives may be a continual rejoicing and delight in you and a celebration of your life for your glory. Amen.