Principles of Position Lesson 22

So, we are in lesson 22, and we were racing through question 1 last week. And what the question was, maybe to set the tone, 1 Corinthians 1-9, God is faithful to whom you recall under the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ. How would you define the word fellowship and communion? We talked about fellowship and communion with the Father and the Son, having fellowship with somebody else. is to have common thoughts, common affections, and common purposes with them. It can be described as oneness of mind or oneness of heart.

It's to love God with all our heart. So, what we discover as we spend time studying the Word of God, independence upon the Spirit, we're in communion with His thoughts. As we love the Lord Jesus, we're loving the one whom the Father loves with all his heart. Easy question. Why do you love God? Because he first loved us. It's important that that is the understanding.

So, moving to question two. What are the things that we are free from and free to position? We're talking about freedom in identification in our position. Where are we free from? Especially as it relates to sins and that kind of thing. Self-condemnation, a guilty conscience. Does anybody here deal with self-condemnation? I wonder if I can ask this in another way. I think you're absolutely right. If I'm sinning, and you remember we talked about it as we sin, we are convicted by the Spirit of God and also convicted by Satan. And what's the difference? How do you know the difference? Satan always points you to defeat. The Spirit of God points you to restoration in Christ.

So self-condemnation would be a focus on defeat, wouldn't it? Yeah, sure would. You know, oh, I'm never going to be good enough, or whatever it might be. We never are. And that condemnation also comes from God. Absolutely it does. Absolutely it does. Or we're free from a guilty conscience. What's a guilty conscience? What's that all about? Some of you don't have consciences like Courtney, so...

What is it? We talked about what a conscience was. What is it? We said it was a mechanism. Good word for it. And what does it do? It tells us what's right and what's not. Is it always accurate? No. So it either accuses you or it excuses your behavior. That's always evaluating. That's a good way. It's an evaluating mechanism. It evaluates your behavior.

And it's not always accurate. As a matter of fact, before you're in Christ, it's never accurate. Never. Because you haven't got the possibility. But a guilty conscience is always going to accuse you of sin. And not only that, it's always going to accuse you that no matter what efforts you have taken to clear it up in your mind, you're still going to be accused.

I think I used an example last week. There are certain things in my life that I did 40 years ago that every once in a while, here comes the accusation. And the accusation is, did God really forgive you for that? That was a terrible thing you did. And it harmed a whole bunch of people, you know. Did God really forgive you for that? And am I the only one that has that kind of experience? No? No, I'm sure he's not alone. So what do you do with that? Nothing? What do you do with it? How do you deal with it?

I have to give it back to the Lord and reckon it. What you said is true, I forget it. Alright, so let's talk about the first part of your answer. What do I give back to the Lord? Well, I admit with Him, I chat with Him about that. Yeah. The way I feel about it and that I know this and this from the Word, but I feel this and this, which isn't the same and help me to I need to believe you that it's true. I do believe you, yeah.

Thank you that your spirit's with me anyway, even if I'm a louse. Don't you find it interesting how we sort of dance around with God? You know, we try to put a little bit of holy water on our sins and not play them up, you know, and tell God, well, I feel really bad about this. I hope that's okay.

You know, we were talking last night, or this morning, in this kitchen. And my niece is here. She's been in Europe for six weeks with a friend of hers who's on the fire crew with her. My niece asked me what we were studying, what we were teaching. I said, well, we're talking about sins and conscience and confession and that kind of thing.

Donna said, well, Mike asked them last week, the trick question was, if you're convicted of sin, if you feel more sorry for your sin than the person sitting next to you, do you get forgiven first and more thoroughly? Do you? No, absolutely not. But I'm telling you, I've taught some classes where I ask that question in all sincerity and let me have a show of hands. If you feel really sorry for your sins, God's going to forgive you faster than if you don't feel sorry and you're just confessing them. Let me have a show of hands and over half the hands go up.

That's worldly too. Think of when on a trial and somebody's convicted. gives the raspberry or gives the judge off, ooh, he's a bad guy. But he's very nice and we feel more compassionate for that guy. Even if they both killed somebody, we feel more compassionate for the guy who's a little sorry about it. He's very compassionate. But a guy who's... they both killed somebody. So it's reinforcing the world that if you're a little sorry, oh, okay.

Well, and if you're sorry enough, you might not ever have to go to trial. So, we're also free to be involved in the faithful advocacy of the Lord Jesus. Is there a freedom in that? What is that advocacy? We've talked about that in the past. What is it? How does that work? What's an advocate? Someone who positively pleads your case. Pleads your case, right. We have two advocates, who are they? Christ and the Holy Spirit. Christ is the one that advocates before the Father's throne.

And how does he do it? Oh please, oh please, don't beat up Mike because he's sinning. Don't make him suffer the consequences of his sin. He's really sorry. Is that how he does it? No, it's what he did and who he is. He doesn't have to say a word, not a single word, because when Christ died for the sins of the world, did he cover them all? How about the guy in the White House here that isn't a believer, cover his sins too?

So like I'm talking to my daughter and she's involved with another woman that's trying to give her the Calvinistic viewpoint of forgiveness. You know what it is? That only the sins of the chosen are forgiven, the rest of them aren't. And how do you know that you're one of the ones that are the chosen? It's that you persevere to the end. Yeah, I forget the scripture, but I said no. What was the deal with sin? Who is it a problem for? Who is sin a problem for? It's God's problem. Why? Why is it his problem? Because it offended him. It offended his righteousness and his holiness.

And he had to do something about that offense. And there was only one person that could do it and that was the Lord Jesus. And they worked out the deal. Christ became a man and died on the cross for the sins of the world. The father raised him up and now the father is totally satisfied about the entire sin issue. For every sin ever committed for all time. So how come the guy across the street is going to hell? Because he doesn't believe it. You have to believe it to have it accrued to your benefit.

And it's done by grace alone. Michael, he goes back to our class position. He's not positioned in Christ. That's right. We are. That's why I think the advocacy is, when you say he doesn't have to say anything, he doesn't have to say anything because our position is in him. God the Father sees us in Christ. There isn't any seeing of things or advocacy because we're in Him. Position is the key again. That's where we're at and that's where He sees us. Position is everything. So in Christ... Before you move on, what about the Holy Spirit? What's His advocacy? Well, His advocacy primarily is restoration of the believer from a conditional standpoint.

Back to fellowship, in 1 John 1.9 you confess, and confession means to say the same thing. So the question is, what does the Father say about you? You're a dirty rotten sinner. But wouldn't we say that he is the implicator? He's the one that applies the work of Christ?

That's good. That's really good. Yeah. He convicts and restores. He actually does that cleansing. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, it's really pretty cool what God, the program that God has devised for us not to live in sin all the time. And it's in play all the time.

The problem that we have, like you were saying, if we don't believe it, we can be saints, Christians, and called believers, but if we don't believe stuff like free from, I've died to sin, the whole thing, I've died to self, to nature, to the law, the whole system of law, to satanic slavery, I've died to the world. You don't believe that, you're not going to live in it, even though it's true of you, right? You're just going to be a miserable Christian. Well, it's going to be really hard, because you're going to be trying to get yourself shaped up, get yourself to perform like a Christian. As a believer who's walking in the Spirit, what's he doing? What's going on behind his eyeballs and yours when you're walking in the Spirit? Who is the focus of your attention? The Lord Jesus Christ.

So if I'm the adversary, if I can keep you from doing that, there's a lot of ways to do it. Yeah, you're going to sin, But if I can keep you from being restored through self-occupation, I win. I win. So, when Gail was talking about reckoning, reckoning is so critical right here. I am who God says I am. I'm not who I think I am. Right? Or who I thought I always was, maybe, is a good way to put it. Okay? What's that? Yeah, and really important.

Am I free from, as Miles puts it, from the appalling darkness of unconfessed sins and defiled conscience? Am I, or positionally, I better ask it the right way, Am I free from anxiousness and restlessness and self-effort? Am I really free from all of that? You're supposed to be if you don't prevent that from being your state. Yeah.

It's like salvation. Don't you think salvation is way too easy? Ever thought about that? All I have to do is believe and that's it. And I get saved for a... A lot of people use that phrase. Yeah. Now, is confession and restoration way too easy? Yeah, it is. It's really easy. Because you just go to the Father about the issue from your positional standpoint and there's instant restoration. All of this process takes place, but you're instantly restored.

Yet there's this, your conscience is going to try to tell you, well, you know, maybe not. Maybe I'll do some penance. Or you won't be restored until you go and make amends. Right? Or you at least tell somebody you're sorry or ask them to forgive you.

Am I the only one who goes through this song and dance? Doesn't that conscious focus in on one particular life? You were talking about something that happened. Focuses on that and gets your mind off of other things that maybe the Holy Spirit is convicting you. Well, it's interesting. It would appear on the surface that we have a lot of opposition, wouldn't it? I mean, I've got this in nature that's cranking all the time. I have a conscience that's being worked on. I'm living in this wonderful world.

Am I ever going to have victory? I mean, serious, am I ever going to live where I live in, as we talked about last week, in the light? Maybe I'm going to ask this. Define for me what it is to live in the light. Because one of the things we're saved to is we are in the light of His presence to worship Him. What does that mean? That I'm in the light? Am I in the light all the time?

Positionally. So what's real? Position or how I feel? That's going to be Gail's monarch from now on. How do I feel? Position is always the issue. What's that? Position is always the issue. Always the issue. Do you understand that? It is the total issue.

And so when we study the Word of God and we understand this principle of position, It really helps us bring into focus what God has already done, and it gives us the material, the better way to say it, the material for the focus of our faith. If you don't know positional truth, you don't have the material. You can have position and condition, but I think it lies with choice. It sure does. I mean, you can know the two. Some people don't know the two, but if you know the two, then it really falls down to your volition, what you want. to choose. Yeah. Source is everything. Absolutely everything. So without... Yes?

So then if you just trust God with your position, then you're not going to have any trials and suffering? No, you're probably going to have a lot more. I mean, isn't that what the Lord uses? Trials and suffering? Absolutely He does. For growth? Well, sure. How do I say this?

For lack of a better way to put it, we're all in this together, right? We're members of the body of Christ and there's so much scripture about how we are to walk with each other and there's strong believers and weaker believers, but we're a body positioned in Christ in union with Him and that the whole process of our existence is growth. We're growing all the time.

So if the Lord doesn't put Courtney through a trial, then he's not going to be of any use to God when... I'm going to sneeze, maybe. He's not going to be any use to God when Roy comes and says, hey, you know, I'm in the soup. And Courtney says, oh, I know exactly the taste of that soup. I'll come along beside you and we'll walk together in this.

See, that's one of the big reasons, because we as members of the body of Christ, what are we designated to do? We're to be served, servants. Because the Lord Jesus is a servant. Do you picture Christ as being a servant to us right now? I do. I do all the time, because as we grow in Christ, one of the things that's cool about in relationships, As I grow in a relationship with Donna and she with me, what happens to us? I get interested in what she's interested in. I don't like them all. I don't like doing dishes, but I'll do them. That's not one of my interests. But she'll come out and say, can I help you mow the grass?

The point is that when you love somebody, you want to know what their interests are. Then you get to decide what the ultimate goal is. But as you grow in Christ, that same thing happens. You think, I wonder what Christ is interested in. I wonder what he's doing. What is he doing? Where is his interest? Serving the body. That's right. His focus is on the body of Christ. So guess where your focus is going to go? You're going to be interested in whatever he's interested in. And the reason is because you're not having to be interested in yourself anymore. That's the whole purpose. And so that's how the body is to function.

So given a set of trials and circumstances, like I've had a lunch with my friend Peter who's going through this radiation chemotherapy. We were chatting a little bit, and I said, I hope you realize that what you're going through is not only for you, but for somebody else coming up behind you.

2 Corinthians 1.3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our afflictions, that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. What I noticed too, this will sound like a criticism, but it's more of an observation.

As you get older, things hurt more. And more things hurt. And there are a lot of believers and non-believers alike that they get really self-centered as they get old because they get pain all the time. And they live a woe-me kind of existence. Whereas the growing believer begins to set that aside and be focusing on what Christ is focusing on, which is the body, which I think is really cool. If there's ever a conditional observation in people's lives as they get older, where is their focus? At Ben's funeral yesterday, lots of people got up and talked about Ben suffered a lot in the last few years of his life, but where was his focus? It was on helping other people. It's what he did. It never was about him.

That's really a cool thing, I think. Because you don't realize that you old guys have a lot to give. So we're free on the positive side, on the plus side, we're free to commune with God. We're free to do that. And by commune or fellowship, I don't mean we're always begging them, we just get to hang out. You know, people in your life that are close friends of yours, every time you see them, you're not always asking them for favors, are you?

No, you just want to be around them and hang out with them, even if you have to sit quietly. I think it's really a cool thing. What was that? I've been looking at one of those chairs that if you have arthritic knees, it shoots you out. Hit the button, bang, and you're out.

We're free to grow in Christ. You ever think about that? We're absolutely free to grow in Christ. We're free to do that. That's a great freedom. We're brand new creatures in Christ. Brand new. Free. So as we study who the Lord Jesus is, we start to find out who we are in Him. That's one reason why we study Him. I had one of the first guys, the guy that led me to the Lord, he used to tell me, when you're studying Paul's epistles and you read about the Lord Jesus Christ, you're reading about yourself, too, you know. I thought, well, that was kind of interesting, so I'd look in there and, well, I'm not divine or anything, but all this cool stuff about him, that's true of me, too.

It's true of you, you know. When he says in Colossians that in Christ Jesus dwells a fullness, of the Godhead bodily, and then it says you're complete in Him. Wow, am I really? Yeah. Okay. We're at liberty to gaze upon Him in the full love of hearts and minds. We have just quiet rest in Him knowing that our life is hid with Christ and God. Do you ever think about that?

I love that verse, Colossians 3.3, that my life and your life is hidden with Christ and God. Hidden from what? What am I hidden from? From this world and all its things. It's not a hidden that you can't be seen. Right. It's a hidden that you're safe. I'm safe?

Here's the thing about this life. This life that we have in Christ is a glorious life. And until that glory is revealed, it's going to be hidden. That's the part that's hidden. It's the glory. The life itself is not hidden to us, but it's hidden to others. Yet sometimes you'll see that some believers will be used of God to draw people to Christ based on the Spirit showing them that life in somebody else. But the life itself is really hidden. It can't be touched. You know? I think it's kind of cool that it's like that. Just a thought.

When we come together, we have the glory. We have this life hidden in Christ. And because of the spiritual eyes that we have, we can see it in each other. We can see His glory that is being manifest. to the degree that the Holy Spirit has been working in each of our hearts.

It's true, unless one of you is cranky. Is that right? You still see God's personality. No, you're right. No, I hear what you're saying. And it's like you're walking around in a bubble, and when you come together with another bubble, you recognize the commonality there. Yeah.

Now in this room we've got an essence of realizing that this is real, that this is who we are. That goes back to the fellowship and communion. We were having dinner on Monday night, Tuesday night, with a young couple in the Lord, I'll call her a woman. She's a lot younger than me, so I think she's a girl.

But she's a brand new Christian. Within her first year of Christianity, one of the things that she's not really struggling with, but that's kind of an enigma to her, is that all of her worldly friends are sort of sneaking out the back door. And not only that, she does feel a bit of uncomfortableness with them. You know, because her mindset's different now. And she thinks that all these nerdy Christians are pretty cool. And she was wondering if that was kind of the way it goes.

And we were laughing. Yes, that's the way, exactly how it goes. You know, you get in a room, you get in a room with believers and you feel comfortable there. Because you're sharing the same life. We've experienced that on like vacation times. You go into a church. You can, there's a commonality with some. Yeah. Yeah. That just right away you recognize. Yeah, that's right. I agree. I don't think you meet new Christians. I just think you discover them when you're around. You meet them and it doesn't really matter what their doctrine is at first.

I think the flip side too is the reason why they leave is the light exposes the darkness. That's true. They feel uncomfortable. Even if you don't say anything, you're just there. And you're not participating in their acts. Right. If you go along, it's fine. But if you don't, as it's on the drill rig and other stuff where if you don't participate in it, it's a little different.

The light exposes their behavior, and that's uncomfortable. And even if you don't really say anything or just don't participate, I think it's the light exposing the darkness, that's why they depart. And that light and that exposure comes from not your trying to produce it, it comes from your intimacy with Christ.

Because of who He is in us. And what He's doing. And what He's working. Yeah. Next question. So, being free, what is God's purpose for us now? We're free. So does God have a purpose for us in our freedom? And if He does, what is it? To glorify Him. Ultimately, yeah. To be conformed to His image. Yeah, to be conformed to His image. He's made us high priests. We're ambassadors of the reconciliation. But being free, being free from all of the conscience and sin and all this other stuff that we're talking about, does God have a specific purpose in our life? He does. To know Him. And knowing Him results in what? Conformity to His image. The sequence is like this.

We learn in Romans 8.28 that God works all things together for good. To those who love him, I'm one of those. To those who are called according to his purpose, is everybody in this room called according to God's purpose? Yes, we are. And then he says that those he foreknew, he foreordained, here's the purpose to be conformed to his image.

That he might be the firstborn or have the first priority amongst believers. So I find that out, that God is busy conforming me, and that's one of the big works of the Holy Spirit, conforming me. But then I begin to wonder, well how does he do that? How does he do it? And you have the answer. How does he do it?

He does it through, I think the best verse is 2 Corinthians 3.18, Beholding us in the mirror of the glory of the Lord. What's the mirror? The Word. So here I am, studying Christ.

I am changed, transformed with unveiled face. I'm changed or transformed from one state of glory to another state of glory. Now what's cool about that? It does not say that I'm transformed from a guilty conscience to glory. It says I'm transformed from one state of glory to the next state of glory to the next state. So we start with glory because we're in Christ. That's the starting line.

Even that's by the Spirit of God, and that's who's doing the work. This is for a question from Courtney's computer. The verse you had about being conformed, isn't that a pivot, the same verse that somebody would say, that a legalistic viewpoint would say, to be conformed they're supposed to themselves do that? Right. Whereas other perspective is that God, the Holy Spirit does that to you. Isn't it in the tense of the verse, tense of the verb, confirmed, conformed? Whether it's done to you or done, you do it? It's the active voice, middle voice, or passive voice, conformed, yeah. Who's doing the work?

I think the verse itself tells you, even as by the Spirit. I understand it from my perspective, but people are looking at it from their perspective, from their viewpoint, and they're using that same verse. And we're using it from a different viewpoint, same verse. Yeah, you know, Marla says so many verses are like that.

It goes back to the Greek. It goes back to the Greek, and it goes back to whether we're living under grace or under a law system. Right. And you know, it's sad to say that the majority of Christians do live under a law system, not only doctrinally, but personally. You know, if I've got a guilty conscience and I think it's up to me to fix it, I'm under law. If I think I've got to do anything, I'm under law. And the one thing God wants us to do, when God says to obey me, what does he want us to do? That's it. And you know what's cool about faith? It's a non-meritorious act. It fits right in with the paradigm. It's perfect. Faith is a non-meritorious act. So who gets the credit? The focus of our faith, the position. God gets the credit.

The two are active. He's doing it. It's not in the conformed, but it's the predestined, and that is the verb where it's, that's aorist tense. So he is the one doing it to us. So in the Greek there is no essence verb there? Like being conformed or just conformed? It's just conformed. It's a plural accusative. So it's an adjective. Interesting. Does that answer your question?

So, keeping in mind that God works all things together, all things, for good, and the good is a conformity to Christ. I was just thinking about what she said, in that people have a different perspective in the same verse. Are we coming from the scriptures or are we going to the scriptures with the human perspective versus taking from the scriptures God's revelation of himself. That perspective is critical because the reality that we share is God's Word. And the moment that we say I've got something in common with you on a human level, It better be something that God has put there, otherwise we're interjecting something into the reality of what is true, what is really the testimony of God.

And I think that's one of the huge differences. The biggest difference in my mind between what is known as Dispensational Theology or Reformed Theology, Dispensational Theology is the only form of theology that I've ever seen that does that one thing. If you're an adherent to Dispensational Theology, you go into the Word and you let the Word teach you. You don't go in there and try to find verses to back up what you already think. You let it teach you no matter what it's going to say to you.

And that's an attitude that the Spirit of God will work into a believer, I think, and say, okay, all I want to do is I want to know the truth, and I don't care what form it comes in. The only one that can teach me is your spirit, and I know a lot of these positions, but I want you to teach me, because I recognize that the truth is not an abstract, it's a person. So when I really say I want to know the truth, what am I saying? I want to know Christ. Because he said I'm the truth. Pretty neat, the way he's got it set up so that it's like all roads point to Christ. No matter what track you're on, you're going to end up knowing Christ. To some of us it will be a big surprise. To others... I'm kidding.

Okay, so my next question was, read 2 Corinthians 3.18 and then explain the phrase, it is the look that justifies, but it is the gaze that sanctifies.

Okay, so 2 Corinthians 3.18 says, but we all, again, that's every one of us, with unveiled face, no impediments, nothing to hide your face or God's face, Beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord.

So when we're spending time in the Word, which is the mirror, what are we looking for? We're looking to see the Lord Jesus Christ in His glory. Our being transformed into the same image. Whose image? The Lord Jesus. From glory to glory, just as from the Spirit. So, the look and the gaze. I thought this was a really cool thing that was in Miles' book. The look is seeing him as savior and believing. What's the gaze? As he put it, it's beholding him on a greater continuum resulting in conformity.

Now let me ask you just a real basic question here. Is it possible, is it probable that we as believers can actually do this? Can I sit down with the Word of God and just start reading like in Paul's epistles and can I realize that while I'm doing that I'm really beholding the glory of the Lord Jesus? I'm dealing with a person here way beyond the scriptural facts. The facts are important, the doctrine is really important, but that's not why I'm there. I'm there to learn the person of Christ.

Do you think that's probable? Do you think he's really going to do that or do I have to put a notebook together and memorize and sound smart so that I can get all these verses down? How much do you need all these spirits? That's what it says. It's the Spirit who does it. So what's the Spirit's main job? To make you biblically smart? To make you biblically smart? To reveal what God wanted you to have. Which is what? What does He want me to have? To make you free. To make me free. He wants us to have freedom.

What's the greatest possession we have? Christ Himself. So when we sit down like Roy's talking about, what are we sharing? We're sharing the person of Christ. That's what we're doing. And I think what we find out in our associations, it's not how smart are you doctrinally, but it's how well do you know Christ. And the better we know Him, the freer we are.

Absolutely. Conditionally, there's no question that we are. I think the back half of that is the facts, but the other is faith. It always comes down to believing. You can read it in the facts. The Holy Spirit's job is to convince us the truth. is believing what he's told us.

I was listening to a guy on the radio the other day. I forget what he's talking about. But he made an interesting point. It wasn't a Christian discussion. It was a secular one. But he said, you know, some people listen. We all listen. How many of us really hear? I thought, oh wow, that's kind of a cool distinction. All believers read the Word of God, supposedly. How many of them hear it? I mean, really hear what it's saying. And when we hear it, we only have one response.

Do we believe it or not? We might not. I mean, we've just had this discussion about beholding the Lord Jesus and being transformed from one state of glory to another. I mean, if you try to empirically figure that out in your mind, it's like it's idiocy. Is that really what's going on?

I thought Christianity was, I just had to be better. how to avoid the bad things, do the good things, don't sin as much, pray a little more, write more checks, whatever. I look around and I see what other Christians do and I better adopt what their behavior pattern is. The problem with beholding the glory of the Lord, I can look at you and have no idea what you're doing. If you're beholding Christ's glory and you're being transformed, how do I see such a thing? I don't. But I do see it in the way you live your life. And you can see it in the way I live my life, without effort.

And it better be Christ you're looking at. We only have one responsibility in this entire equation, and that's to believe Him, to trust Him, to rest in what He tells us. And it's interesting, we do start out questioning the facts, and how is this going to be And then, eventually, I think you kind of spiritually evolve to, well, Father, whatever you say is okay with me.

I don't care what it is. You show it to me. You tell me. I'll believe you. And I don't need any hats and horns or open or closed doors or anything. I just trust you because you've been so faithful to me. I trust you. And when you do that, that's an appropriating action on our part. The door opens up. Here comes the Spirit. But if you don't do it, say, well, you know, this, I don't think this is really what you're doing, Father. You're not going down that road.

You know, it's all true of us, but we don't get to abide in it conditionally unless we do believe it. And sometimes you just have to take God at his objective word without a whole lot of understanding. You know, the Spirit of God will Make it clear to you. But sometimes you just do. You see something and you say, wow, that's different. Better trust you about this one, Lord. I do. That kind of thing, see?

In this case, the spiritual growth too. You know, all that can happen at one time. You don't go from two years old to eighty years old in one step. The Spirit is working these things into you gradually, slowly, in a growth process. The Spirit is working on it, convicting, convincing you of it. You're growing just like a child does. You're growing in spiritual maturity.

That's what his job is. He took an order to it. Very much so. I'll tell you where you really see it. If you get invited to a Christian funeral like Ben King's yesterday, it's very quickly obvious by the people who talk. And then afterwards you have a fellowship time and you get to chat with people who are tracking and who aren't. Because are they joyful? Or are they woe-me's? You know, Christians, I think, are the only people that can be completely joyful and sad at the same time. We're the only ones that do that. Because, yeah, we miss them.

But, boy, it's a really exciting time. Because here he is. He's home. I told you the story about going to see him. I said, how are you doing, Ben? He said, waiting. Well, he's not waiting anymore. He's where he wants to be. And look what God did in that man's life. Over the last 25 years that I knew him, he got him ready to go to glory and he couldn't wait to go.

Yet there were people I met yesterday that just were so sad about this thing. Which is fine, but it tells you something about understanding. If I'm going to be separated from Donna for a month or two, all I think about is next time I see her. And the great thing about us as believers is we begin to know and experience what this beholding is like.

It creates a greater and greater desire to be with the Lord. Can't wait to go. But at the same time, you realize that I'm here to serve Him, so whatever you want there is okay with me, too. Does that make sense? And it's all based on intimacy with Christ. I think the whole thing is based on that. Everything we do is based on the fact that, why do I love God? Because He first loved me. And oh, by the way, I really know what that's like.

No one loves me. Donna's dad used to have this dog named Farr We got him at the Dumb Friends League and he was one of those dogs that just loved everybody. And her dad would come over and he'd say, nobody loves me as much as Farr. Nobody loves me as much as the Lord Jesus. Nobody. I don't care who it is.

Let's close. Father, how we thank you for your Son, the Lord Jesus, and your Spirit that you are constantly initiating propagating this intimacy with the Lord Jesus so that we might know Him and grow in Him and rest in Him, Father. We thank you. We pray in His precious name. Amen.