God's love is demonstrated through His chastening, which, though painful, aims to bring believers closer to Him. True spiritual richness comes not from perceived self-sufficiency but from acknowledging our need for God and responding to His discipline with repentance and zeal. The sermon emphasizes that becoming Christ-like is not about imitating Him but allowing Christ to be formed within us through the Holy Spirit's work, a process of daily appropriation of His death and life, leading to the fruit of the Spirit. This transformation is a gradual, ongoing process of feeding on Christ, appropriating His life and death, and yielding to the Spirit's work, ultimately fulfilling God's purpose for believers.
Restored with Diffio
Audio restored with Diffio. Diffio processed the original archive recording to reduce noise and produce a cleaner listening version; the original stays available.
Speech quality score (model-estimated, SCOREQ): before 1.94 → restored 4.30
I very much appreciate the other guns willingness to switch places with me, let me speak this morning before I leave you. It's been wonderful to work with him and wonderful to be with you all. I hope you come out to Colorado and see us. I want to go back to the verse that I began with on my part of this conference. the third chapter of the book of the Revelation, where the Lord told the lay of the sins, but they were in very bad condition.
My brother, Mr. Gunn, has been telling you some wonderful things about the Lord Jesus. And I've been telling you some pretty bad things about ourselves. They're just as true of me as they are of you. So easy to get away from the Lord. So easy to get out of touch with. We're so unlikely. And it's so difficult for us to realize. We may think ourselves to be rich and increase of good and have need of nothing. the Lord tells us what our true condition is. And then he adds verse nineteen of the third of the Revelation, as many as I love, I rebuke and chase.
Aren't you glad the Lord loves us? My heart cries out, how can it be? How can it be? And even when he smited, even when he chided, tender is his tone. As many as I love, I rebuke and chase. Mr. Ayn O'Brien used to tell about a man who had had a very hard life, great many difficulties. He was a cripple fellow, and he had a hard time making a living. He was going down the streets of a large city.
lonely and discouraged. When he walked, he slapped his right foot down. And as he's walking down the street, he was thinking about a verse, whom the Lord loveth he chastened. Whom the Lord loveth he chastened. And he stopped and he said, I'm out of bed. Whom the Lord loves, he chases. Whom the Lord loves, he chases. You and I have to go through some things. The Lord isn't doing because he's mad at you. He wants so much to bring us to himself.
As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Be zealous, therefore, and repent. Behold, I stand at the door, and knock. Any man hear my voice, and open the door. I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me, to him that overcomes. And I think that the promises to the overcomers in each of these seven churches are to all true Christians. Because what is it that overcomes the world? That's your faith. If we believe Him, we are overcomers.
I don't think there's a select class of overcomers at all. To Him that overcomes will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame and sat down with my Father in his throne. He that hath a near let him hear what the Spirit says unto the churches. Is it possible that a Christian can be so far away from the Lord that he would have to say to them, I'll spew you out of my mouth, and yet love them so much that he says, I want to come in and sup with you. And then I want to take you home with myself and let you sit on my throne with me.
You don't understand it, and I don't either. We don't have to understand everything. How thou canst be so kind to me and be the God thou art is darkness to my intellect, but sunshine to my heart. It is possible, brother and sister. It is wonderfully possible. to have fellowship with God. Can two walk together except they be agreed? The prophet asked. Obviously the answer is no. So it's possible to agree. Now the Lord's not going to change.
He's right. But with a few changes in ourselves, and maybe quite a few changes, there can be the fellowship that the Lord desires and that you desire. If you're a Christian, you want the Lord's fellowship. If you're a Christian, you want his coming. If you're a Christian, you want this more than anything else in the world, just to be close to him, to be like himself. I want you to turn to the fourth chapter of Galatians, for a verse that I think has been overlooked by many of us.
You know the Galatians were Christians, but they were very carnal Christians. They weren't carnal in the same way as the Corinthian Christians. I doubt very much if there was any drunkenness and uncleanness among them, but they were carnal just the same. They were carnal because they were law keepers. They were trying hard to do the right thing because they thought they should. That isn't spirituality. The Lord doesn't want you doing anything because you have to. He wants you to do what you do for him because you love him.
He wants your motives to be right. We often say Galatians is a treatise on law and grace. Galatians is a treatise on motives. Who? Don't you forget that. The book of Galatians was teaching as the right kind of motive. And so he asked for these Galatians something which they were not asking for themselves at all. They were asking that they might force themselves in the line. They wanted to tie the flesh down and make themselves behave. So now look at his prayer for them, his desire for them.
Verse nineteen of the fourth chapter. My little children, of whom I travail in birth again. Do they need to be saved again? Of course not. But he travail in birth again. Hadn't they been born again? Yes. Wasn't once enough? Yes. I often think about C.W. Ross. He never would allow the base voices to bring in the extra again in the chorus of, you must be born again. Again. He said, leave that out. He wouldn't have it.
You don't have to be born again again. You just have to be born again once. He just wouldn't stand for it. That isn't what he's talking about here. He isn't saying, I'm travailing in birth again because you need to be saved over again. my little children of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you. I'd like to talk a little bit about this this morning. You're perfectly satisfied with the Lord Jesus, aren't you? You would want to change and think about him, would you? You sang that song this morning, wonderful, wonderful Jesus.
And I think you may. I have no other friends like that. I can't think of a friend I have ever had that I couldn't wish and change, you see. And most of all, in myself. But I don't know a thing that I want to be different about the Lord Jesus. Wonderful, wonderful Jesus. The Father opened heaven three times to testify about him. Twice he said, This is my beloved Son, and whom I am well pleased. And the third time he said he had glorified his name, would glorify it.
Three times at the beginning of his ministry, on the Mount of Transfiguration, and a week before he was put to death, the Father was perfectly pleased with the Lord Jesus. For the first time in the history of this race, there was a man on earth who had perfectly pleased and honored God. You know, the minute we begin to talk about the Lord Jesus, our own hearts say, well, after all, he was not. This is true. After all, he was perfect, which is true. And then we say, we could never be like him.
I spoke on Christ-likeness one time. I had been having some meetings with our dear brother, Mr. Sheldrake, who's gone home to be with the Lord now, and he had taught the Christians a little chorus, someday I shall be like him, someday like him. Change to heavenly beauty when his face I see. You know the chorus? The nice chorus. But I thought it was a little inappropriate after I'd spent forty-five minutes trying to tell the folks how he could become like the Lord Jesus now. When I sat down, somebody said, let's sing, someday I shall be like you. I just felt like, did I get anything across at all?
It's true that someday you shall be like him. But you won't have anything to do with it. It won't be your choice. It'll be his choice. When he has a choice, he'll make you like the Lord Jesus. But now you and I have the choice. And if you really want to be like the Lord Jesus, it's about time we did something about it now. If you really want to be like the Lord Jesus, why wouldn't you want to be like you now? We say we do want to be like him, and that's what we're trying hard to do. That isn't what our verse says. He doesn't say, my little children, to whom I travail in birth again until you try to imitate Christ.
That isn't what he says. He says until Christ be formed in you. Somebody has to do this for me, and you can't do it. The Book of Galatians shows the absolute futility of expecting anything from the flesh. Paul had learned this. He said in writing to the Romans, I know that in me that is in my flesh, well, it's no good thing. But some of us haven't learned it. We're still trying to improve the flesh. There are few naive people who are still trying to improve the world.
Nobody waste any time trying to improve the devil, but almost every Christian thinks that he can improve the flesh. And it can't be done. Mr. J. and Darby wrote in his sort of stillhood language, the place of the flesh is not to be better, but to be dead. God never expected your old nature to improve. Remember many years ago I was preaching with J.L. Brown, a farmer who came from Iowa and preached the gospel out in the West a good bit. And a young lady came to Brother Brown in tears.
She had been saved earlier in the meetings. And she came to him in tears. And she said, Mr. Brown, I'm so unhappy. Well, he said, I'm sorry to hear that. I thought you had accepted the Lord as your Savior. Oh, she said, I did. And then she burst into tears. She said, Mr. Brown, will I never be any better? J.O. Brown used to say, you know, I got my training as a hog farmer, and I'm not very gentle. And he just looked at her, unaffected by her tears, and he said, nope, you'll never be a bit better. You're beyond hope.
She didn't know whether to keep on crying or to get mad at him. That wasn't what she expected at all. She thought somebody would comfort her when she... wanted so badly to be better. He said, nope, you'll never be any better. You're hopeless. But he said, God knew it a long time ago. He put it down in his book and he expects you to believe it. The answer is not in our being better. The answer is in God, the Holy Spirit, forming Christ in us. Now, how could God form Christ in you and me? Well, when we were born into God's family, we received the kind of life that God had.
Now, we don't understand life. Life is a principle. Life is a miracle. We can't analyze life. The scientist is sure that he can produce life and attest to, but he had none yet. You can't even explain or understand the simplest form of life. How then would we expect to understand the principle of eternal life? Ordinary life, life as we know it here on this planet, whether it be plant life, animal life, or human life. always produces after its time.
Here's a little seed. Doesn't look like much, but it has a life principle in it. You plant that seed under auspicious conditions, and that seed produces the same kind of thing from which it was produced. Why? Even if that seed lies for years, it still produces the same kind of plant from which it came. You think it would forget, but it doesn't seem to. And the life that God has put within us is going to produce the kind of person from which that life came. Now, the thing to do is to provide a proper seed bed and proper care for a seed and for a plant and then permit it to produce.
The production of fruit is not an effort. And the Book of Galatians is concerned not with apples, but with fruit bearing. The fruit of the Spirit. Not fruits, don't call them fruits. These are not a whole lot of different fruits hanging on branches. This is the fruit, the increase, the result. The fruit of the Spirit, the result of the Spirit of God living in the Christian's life are these nine things which are just other ways of saying Christ likeness. This is what the Lord Jesus Christ is like. And because it is His life transplanted into you, if given opportunity, this life is going to produce the same kind of fruit that it produced in the person who possessed that life originally, God Himself.
Now, this isn't ethereal philosophizing. I'm not floating around on the pink cloud. This thing's got handles on it. This thing will work. God will actually do in your life what you could never do yourself. I don't have any of the natural, I mean, I don't have naturally any of the lovely traits of the Lord Jesus Christ. David said, Thy gentleness hath made me great. David didn't have gentleness of his own. David was red-headed, you know, and not for nothing. But David said, Thy gentleness hath made me great.
John the Apostle was called the loving disciple, and he called himself the disciple whom Jesus loved. What was he like? Oh, he was one of these quiet boys, didn't he? Anybody who would love to get along with anyone? He was not. When he was a young fellow, they called him and his brother the sons of thunder. They sounded like a babysitter. Why did they call him the sons of thunder? Well, I'll tell you why they called him that. They passed through the city one time of the Samaritans, and the Samaritans said, you can't stay here all night. And he said, Lord, let us draw a fire down from the head, and we'll take them. That's the kind of a man John was.
What made John the kind, loving person who writes for us the gospel and the epistle? The Apostle Paul was not the kind of a person who would win friends and influence people. While they said his bodily presence is weak, his speech is contemptible. But, oh, think of the, think of the power of God in that man. He could stand by, hold the clothes of the young men who stole him to death. Grobly Stephen, and yet his heart bled for those same people of his who were still deluded.
What made the difference in him? Peter the vacillator, he had a rubber band for his spine. He was just, you never knew what he was going to do. He didn't know himself. And then he got saved. But he got more than saved. The Spirit of God came into that man and put a spine in him. And he stood up on the day of Pentecost and defied those very men who had crucified his Lord a short while before. And told him exactly what the case was. Where did he get that from? What school did he learn that is?
Christ formed in you. I wish we would quit trying to be good. This is the thing that's hindering the Lord's people. We're all trying to be good. And God never told you anywhere in the Word of God to try to be good. Trying to be good is law-keeping. What he asked you to do was to permit the Spirit of God to produce in you that Christ-likeness that the new life of God will produce. If you go past a factory and hear all the clank and grinding and the word and the noise of a factory, you say, something really going on in there.
And you come on down to the end of the factory, and here's the shipping room, and you see, you were right. Crates and crates of things are coming out of there, being loaded onto the cars, and moving out. You say, see, I told you something's going on in that factory. They're producing something in there. But you go on out to the edge of the city, and you come by an orchard. Nothing going on here. Sweet of a bird, maybe? No noise. No fight, no grind. Nothing happening here.
No? On one of these days, the truck's back up there, too, don't they? And they haul away a lot of things, don't they? lovely things, the fruit that's been growing because there was light there. And every one of those things in the hallway has the ability to reproduce that same kind of light, too. That's the wonder of it. Until Christ be formed in you. I want to raise the question first of all, is it possible?
Is it possible to be Christ-like? But you say, I've tried it and I can't do it. No, I'm sure you're perfectly honest when you say it. And I feel sorry for the people who are still trying. But is it possible? If it isn't possible, there isn't any use to waste the rest of the time. We just all go out and pick horseshoes. But if it is possible, let's go ahead and talk about it. Is it possible? Does God hold this out to his people? Does he offer to make us like Christ? Does he offer to form Christ in us? Is the fruit of the Spirit a possibility in the Christian's life?
Well, it's not only a possibility, brother and sister, but it's an absolute entirety. We have not fulfilled that for which God has left us here unless we're bearing fruit. Now I object to that chorus that says we're saved, saved to tell others. But don't let that worry because I object to lots of songs. I object to that song because that's all that it said. If there were two or three other verses that said that we are saved to help each other, we are saved to bring forth fruit unto God, and so on, well then I might buy.
But I object to it because it seems to say this is the only thing we're here for. I heard a man on the radio a while back say, Christian, are you bearing fruits? And then he said the only fruit that a Christian bears is the reproduction of soul. If you haven't led the soul to Christ this last week, you haven't borne any fruit. That's perfectly ridiculous. There are men whom God has called to feed and help his children. They have almost no contact with unconverted people, and almost no time to deal with unconverted people. Are they not doing the work of the Lord when they're shepherding the flock, when they're feeding his sheep and his lands?
There are Christians who are laid away on beds of sickness. I remember a dear sister in Houston, Texas, with all of us who knew her loved to go to visit. She was a real time. I went the first time to try to comfort her. After that, I went back to get comforted. Oh, she was a lovely soul. Fifteen years, an arthritic sufferer. Totally helpless. poor as could be, nobody to look after, but the neighbors. There were some Christian neighbors who lived nearby, and a Christian man used to go in in the morning with his wife. His wife would take care of her, and the man would lift her up in the bed so that she could be propped up on pillows.
And then he went to work, and his wife went to work, and there was nobody to speak to her. if she needed to change her position during the day, she just didn't have anyone to help him. But at night they'd come back again, and then he'd lay her back down on the bed, and she'd get some rest through the night. Our dear brother, Mr. Stark, who's a good friend of mine, went to see her, and he read to her from First Peter, Chapter One, Where ye are in heaviness, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations. And he stressed those three words, if need be. Now he said, My sister, I can't tell you why it needs to be.
He said to her, I know you never see anyone except these two neighbors who come in, and occasionally some preachers rot the sea. I know you feel there isn't much you can do for the Lord. But he said, Think of the privilege of intercession. There are so few Christians that pray for others. Oh, she said, I'm so glad to hear you say that because that's all I can do. All day long, she said, I just think of different Christians and pray for them. I really felt lost in the Lord at that sister home because she had put my name on her lips. And I needed it. She was so helped by his little study on the words, if need be, that she said, you know, Mr.
Hart, I would just love to have those words up on the wall at the foot of my bed so I could see them. So he said, I'll see that you get them. He came directly from there to our house. He was telling me about it. And I said, let me take care of that. I have a friend who is a sign writer there, and I had him make the little text and frame it and send it down to it. The next time my wife and I were there and we went to see her. And here was the sign on the wall, if needed. Are you going to say that that dear sister doesn't bear fruits? I would like to have, to my account, the fruit born by that life lived for God. I object to this kind of thing.
It's taught. This works. off-center kind of thing that says, this is it. The only thing that counts is saving souls. Oh, it's wonderful to reach souls. If you're not reaching souls, you ought to confess it as a sin. I mean, if you're not interested in reaching souls. If you don't care about the souls of the unsaved, you ought to confess it as a sin. But that is not fruit-bearing. Fruit-bearing is the reproduction of Christ in the life. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, goodness, gentleness, faith, meekness, temper, or self-control.
And then he adds, with great restraint, against such there is no law. You don't need a law for this. This is Christ-likeness. This is what the Spirit of God produces in our heart. Now, I'd like to say a little bit about the process, because After all, we're in much use talking about something we can't reach. The process, first of all, is dependent upon the Spirit of God Himself. This you are not responsible to do. However, there is human responsibility here because Paul said, I travail in birth, so there was concern on the part of the Apostle.
And since this is a hereditary epistle, an exhortation, there is responsibility resting on the Galatians and the Minnesotans and the islands and the rest of us. There is responsibility resting on us, too. Otherwise, there wouldn't be an exhortation about these things. You and I have some responsibility. The Spirit of God will do His work. You don't need to worry about that. He's here for that purpose. He is more interested in glorifying Christ than ever you could guess. There's nothing the Holy Spirit wants so much as to glorify the Lord Jesus Christ.
And He'll be glorified when He is formed in you, when there is the reproduction of the life of Christ in the life of the believer. What's our responsibility? I spent a little bit of time with you yesterday talking about identification with the death of Christ. I'm not going to go back over that ground again. The six, seven, and eight chapters of Romans tell us that we must know certain facts and reckon them to be true and act upon them by yielding ourselves our instruments, our bodies, our faculties, all the parts of our being to the Lord, and obeying His will.
Christ-likeness is achieved then through the process of the reckoning of ourselves to be dead as to our former life, and making room for the Spirit of God to live out the new life within us. Now, there are great many of us who are just living for old Adam's descent. There are many of us who are just building our lives around our own selfish desires. We're far more concerned about a few things. We're far more concerned about materialism and materialistic interests than we are spiritual interests.
unless we're honest about this, unless we get before the Lord in honest confession and self-judgment about this, we're not likely to get very far in Christ-like. Can you think of anything more un-Christ-like than covetousness? Can you think of anything more un-Christ-likeness, un-Christ-like than... self-aggrandizing, seeking a place for self, wanting to be somebody. And those are the drives for the human race, the desire to get more and the desire to be more. Now, these things have been the drive in your life.
Get before God and acknowledge them as sin and judge them and turn from them. and believe God that he has put this new life within you, which means that you have new interests, new motives, and all that goes with it. But now I want you to look at the sixth chapter of John and see another way in which you and I can cooperate in this matter of becoming a little more like the Lord Jesus. John chapter six. This is the favorite chapter of the boys out at our children's homes. It's all about eating. This chapter tells us about the feeding of the five thousand, and then it talks about the feeding of the people in the wilderness.
And then the Lord led them from that to tell them that He Himself was the bread of heaven. He said this several different ways, several different times. He called Himself the true bread. He called Himself the... bread of life. He called himself a bread that comes down from heaven. And he told him that there is no other way to be fed except on himself. He reaches the climax of his talk in verse fifty-one by saying, I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever, and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.
The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat? Gross materials. Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except you eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink his blood. He have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood dwelleth in me, and I in him. As the living Father has sent me, and I live by the Father, so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me.
I'm not a Greek scholar, but I can read English even if I can't speak it, and I have found out that we have verb forms here that mean a little different. First of all, in verses fifty to fifty-three, the verbs are in what they call the aorist, which means that this is something which is done and then the effects continue but that this changes to the present participle in verses fifty four to fifty seven and it means he who is the eater or he who continues to do this thing He who is characterized by this kind of doing.
This will happen to Him. Now let's consider these two. First of all, there is something which you and I need to do. Let me say this. Leave the Lord's Supper out of the sixth chapter of John. It's not there. Some expositors have brought the Lord's Supper into the sixth chapter of John. I heard a man, one of our meetings, get up and flub the whole thing up by talking about the bread and wine as being the flesh and blood and so on. Now, it's true that in the eleventh chapter of First Corinthians, he talks about the bread and wine being the picture of his body and of his blood. But he isn't talking about that here at all.
It's because of that misunderstanding that some ritualistic churches have taught that if you take the Lord's Supper, you'll get eternal life, or you get a little more of it anyway, that here's an opportunity for you to come to the means of grace and so on. And this is what it means at all. What does it mean to eat his flesh and drink his blood? Well, flesh and blood separated, of course, tells us of death. And eating tells us of appropriation and assimilation. When you take to yourself the dead... of the Lord Jesus Christ you eat his flesh and drink his blood I appropriated this in nineteen hundred and eleven for the first time and when I did so the Lord gave me eternal life you remember when you did this you remember when you received the Lord Jesus as your Savior you ate and you drank you took to yourself the sufferings and death of our Blessed Lord.
That's wonderful. But now he changes the thought in verse fifty-four, verse fifty-six, and he says, He that eat of my flesh and drink of my blood dwelleth in me. He abides in me. Now, John's Gospel has a great deal to say about abiding. That is, keeping close to the Lord, keeping in touch with Him, being friends with Him, being in fellowship with Him, whatever you want to call it. There's a great deal said in John's writings, not only in the Gospel, but in the epistles about abiding.
Here's one of the ways in which we abide. We abide by daily appropriation of the death of Christ. But he said, I don't just understand. How could you do that? After all, if you take Christ for your Savior once, you don't get up every morning and say, now, Lord, I take you for my Savior again this morning. That isn't what you do. Of course not. But the daily appropriation of the death of Christ is a daily appreciation of what He did for you on the cross. A daily reckoning that this was for me. Do you ever use a hymn book in your daily devotion? If you don't, let me recommend it.
Many of our hymns will be of great help as you spend time alone with the Lord, each morning or whatever time of the day you do it. Whenever you meet with the Lord for a little time alone with Him, you'll find that the hymn book will be a real help in your devotion. Some of these hymns that express what the Lord Jesus has done for us will help to melt that hard heart of yours and perhaps bring a few tears to your eyes to wash away the dust of this world and make you appreciate the Lord Jesus a little bit more. The hymns are great help. I especially enjoy...
the use of the Old Believers hymn book. I was brought up on it. I sort of feel like the Old Lady, if it was good enough for the Apostle Paul, it was good enough for me. I just sort of enjoy the Old Believers hymn book because I know just where to find the hymns and where they look at where they are on the page and so on. I have nothing against our new hymns of praise and worship. I think it's a wonderful improvement, but I still feel sort of attached to the Old Book. Anyway, the hymns will help you in this. Your meditation of the Lord, your thanksgiving. I hope your communion with the Lord consists of more than just reciting a little prayer.
Mr. Gibbs says many of us could have our prayers framed and just wave at them as we get into bed and say, Lord, then it's my favorite. But I hope that you really have some time with the Lord. You really talk to us. And when you do, I hope you tell him again and again that you appreciate what he did for you on the cross. But now the appropriation of his death, let me suggest, is a step further even than this. You see, if I really believe that Christ died for me, then I got to believe, according to Romans chapter six, that I died with him. And the appropriation of the death of Christ must include the appropriation of that death of Christ for me and my death with Him.
You see, the more you think over these things, the less you'll have to do with this world. The more you believe what God has said about your new position, the less interest you'll have in your old position. Nothing will wean you away from this world than meditating in the shadow of Calvary and realizing what God has done, not only to Christ, but what He has done to you. But this was not only the end of your sins, this was the end of you. The trespass offering in the Old Testament was Christ dying for the bad things that I've done. But the sin offering was Christ dying for the bad thing that I am.
And you must realize that Christ had to die because you are dead, and that therefore he counts his death to be your death, and he puts you to death at the same place. But then verse fifty-seven is a step further, as the living Father has sent me. Put the accent on the word living. He called him Holy Father in the seventeenth of John. Here he calls him the living Father. To the Lord Jesus Christ, his Father was always living. The living Father. As I live by the Father, so he that eat of me, even he shall live by me.
And I have a note here that Mr. Darby says, that This should really read, by reason of what the Father is and his living. By reason of what the Father is and his living, I live by him. Because the Father is who he is and is alive, that gives me life. Well, you say, how could that be? The Lord Jesus was the self-existent one. He was the eternal Son. Yes, but he took the place of man.
Remember that the place the Lord Jesus took was not a place of inferiority as to be. He says the Father is greater than I. That doesn't mean that the Father was a greater person or that the Father was more God than he was. What it just simply means that he took a place in this economy of subjection. He took the lower place. He took the place of being a man. He came down to this world to accept what man should have accepted, the will of the Father for everything. And he never made any decisions for himself.
He took that place of complete subjection to the Father. He wants you and me to do that, too. He says, the Father is living, and I'm conscious of it all the time. I'm conscious that I'm dependent upon Him. I'm conscious that I'm responsible to Him. I'm conscious that I'm here for Him. I'm conscious that I'm on my way to Him. This is why the Lord Jesus had peace. He said so himself in the fourteenth chapter of John. He said, I've got peace and I want to give this peace to you. And I have this peace because I belong to the Father. I know the Father. I please the Father. I'm on the way home to the Father.
The Father is everything to me. Because this is true, I have peace. I want you to have the same kind of peace. So he's saying to us here, I want you to live. by reason of who I am and the fact that I live in the same way that I live in dependence upon, in subjection to, in anticipation of meeting the Father. The Lord Jesus said, as the axe is laid to the root of the tree, and he used a word there that means a motion tore. And then he said... I am come to the Father and I go to the Father.
The same thing. As the axe moves away from the tree, it's really moving toward the tree. You pull the tree back to the axe back from the tree because you're headed toward the tree with it. And the Lord Jesus came down to this world, but it was all one motion. He was headed for the Father. Everything in his coming here was simply a part of the course of his going to the Father. His whole thought went out to his father. He says, that's the way I want you to live. You see what this will do for you? You see that the whole course of your life is bent toward him, what it will do for you? Now, this is appropriation of the living Christ.
The Lord Jesus is alive. He's my high priest. If I appropriate him as my high priest... I'm not going to start out in my own strength. The Lord Jesus was alive as my advocate. If I appropriate him as my advocate, I'm not going to sit around and mourn over my mistakes. I'm going to go to him and expect that he can restore me to the Father. The Lord Jesus was alive as my forerunner, entered for us within the veil. If I believe he's there for me as my forerunner, am I not going to follow him inside the veil? I believe the Lord Jesus was there as my morning star. If I really believe he's my morning star, am I going to be very much concerned about what goes on in the United Nations?
Am I going to be too badly troubled by conditions when blustery Mr. K gets on rampage? Am I going to be too upset if war comes? If I really believe that the Lord Jesus is my morning star, that He's coming back as the Restorer of all things, if I appropriate Him day by day, if I feed on Christ, what will happen? Well, it certainly won't feed the old nature, but it will feed that new life that God has put within it. And gradually, because Second Corinthians chapter four tells us this, read this when you have time. Second Corinthians chapter four says, let's turn to it.
Second Corinthians chapter four, verse sixteen. Second Corinthians four sixteen. For which cause we faint not, But though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. Now how does the outward man perish day by day? How is the inward man renewed day by day? How does the old body in which I live, the outward man, how does it deteriorate? Well, not like the one Roshay, just all of a sudden go to pot, go to pieces. It doesn't work like that.
It's a gradual process. I only see you folks about once a year or every two years. And, brother, can I see the changes? But if I lived with you, if I were with you day by day, I probably wouldn't see those changes. because it is a gradual thing. You don't see it yourself. You don't see it in those with whom you're associated. Deterioration of the human body and of the human frame is such a gradual thing. Now he says, in the same way, the inward man is renewed day by day. It isn't something that's going to happen to you overnight. Christ didn't go to be formed in here just like that. You're saved one day and the next day you're Christ-like.
No. The next day you're still a baby. But if you grow from babyhood to young manhood to become a father in the true sense of First John II, if you're growing and developing, it will be a gradual day-by-day process. As I eat and build up my body, sometimes farther than I ought to, I am adding little by little to my body. As I feed on Christ, I am adding little by little to the formation of Christ in my being. Not the reading of the Word alone, but the appropriation of Christ through the Word.
Not the learning of facts. That will stuff your head. But the learning of Christ in your life. The appreciation of His. The desire to be more like him, the desire to have less and less here and more and more there. This, brother and sister, is the process by which God makes us a little bit more like Christ. This is that for which the Apostle prayed when he said, My little children, whom I travail again in birth until Christ be formed in you. Our Father, we thank you for thy word.