Our Fullness is in Christ

[00:00:00] I'd like you to turn to deuteronomy, chapter 31. [00:00:06] Deuteronomy, chapter 31. [00:00:12] From verse one, I'm going to read from verse three. [00:00:21] The Lord thy God, he will go over before thee. He will destroy these nations from before thee, and thou shalt dispossess them. And Joshua, he shall go over before thee as the Lord hath spoken. And the Lord will do unto them as he did to Zion and to earth the kings of the Amorites, and unto their land whom he destroyed. And the Lord will deliver them up before you, and ye shall do unto them according unto all the commandment which I have commanded you. Be strong and of good courage. Fear not, nor be affrighted at them. For the Lord thy God, he it is that doth go with thee. He will not fail thee, nor forsake thee. [00:01:09] And we have been thinking very much in these past few days of the fullness of Christ, of all that is ours in the Lord Jesus Christ. Infinite fullness, inexhaustible fullness, all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden in Christ, all that exceeding and surpassing power that is ours in him. There is nothing that God has not given us in Christ. It is all ours. And we must never think that we shall come to an end of the resources in the Lord Jesus Christ. I dont just mean down here in this short life, but in all eternity we shall never exhaust the fullness that is in our Lord Jesus. [00:02:04] Inexhaustible. Our minds cannot comprehend or grasp all that is ours in the Lord Jesus Christ. And all you and I have got to do, if were born of gods spirit, if we're really children of God, is to receive all the time by faith, to receive, to just simply take what we need and to take more and more and more and more. [00:02:37] The Lord wants to give and give and give and give. And he wants us to learn, to receive and to receive, and to receive and to receive in order that we may give and share with others. It's all ours. And of course, the picture in the Old Testament, one of the pictures of the fullness of the Lord Jesus Christ is the promised land. [00:03:04] And the Lord had to say to Joshua through Moses, fear not. [00:03:11] Now look at all that the Lord has promised that he will do. He'll dispossess that land of every satanic power. [00:03:21] He will dispossess it of everything which is wrongly there. He will go before his children, and he, as it were, will simply make a way for them as they stand by faith and fight through faith, he will make a way for them and they will possess everything. And yet the Lord knows our heart so well that he has to say fear not. You would have thought that if the Lord said, this is all the equipment, this is the power, this is what I'll do for you. That there was no need to say fear not. [00:03:57] But I think the Lord knows our hearts and he has had to say fear not. [00:04:05] And he's saying it to us this morning again, fear nothing nor be affrighted at them. [00:04:14] For the Lord thy God, he it is that doth go with thee. He will not fail thee nor forsake thee. That's wonderful. He will never fail. [00:04:28] No, not in any instance at all will the Lord fail. And he'll never forsake. [00:04:36] That is what the Lord has declared. He will not in any way fail to do. He will do it and he will certainly not forsake us. He will not leave us to the end. Even sometimes when we ourselves have failed and sinned in the grace of God, he will not forsake. Now I just have been. They have come to my mind last night, yesterday evening and through the night, just four little instances in scripture of this word fear not. And I thought it might help us if we were just to look at them. The first is in Genesis and it's to do with the land, it's to do with Abraham. [00:05:31] Genesis 15 one, fear not, Abram, I am thy shield and thy exceeding great reward. [00:05:47] And you know, you know, poor Abraham had been told, get out of ur, the Chaldees. He had to leave everything that was his now market. He had to leave all his security, he had to leave behind everything that for him was permanent. It represented permanence and security and as it were, a settled habitation with a settled business life, he had to leave it all. [00:06:16] And he had to get out into what the New Testament was called and elsewhere a waste, howling wilderness. [00:06:25] And there he had to find the lord was going to lead him to a land. [00:06:31] And you know, poor Abraham, he'd been a rich man, he'd been an educated man, he was, his family had a reputation in her of the Chaldees. And now he had to move about in a land like a Bedouin. He had to move around as a pilgrim, as a sojourner. Nothing was his. And you know, the wonderful thing about it, the wonderful thing about it is this. The Lord said, fear not, I am thy few and thy exceeding great reward. Now there may be some here in this room this morning and the Lord's been dealing with you about certain things. And you're having to let go of all your own self energy and self sufficiency. All that represents for you security and permanence. [00:07:37] And as it were, you can get your hands on it and you know where it is or where you are. You've got to let it all go. And you're walking out, as it were, into the unknown with the law. You're going out into almost a waste, howling wilderness. The Lord said, he's taking you into the land and you're very fearful. You think, well, what will people think of me? I shall be greatly misunderstood. What security have I got? Supposing, just supposing, the Lord doesn't really carry me through. The Lord says, fear not, I am thy shield. The Lord promises to come between you and the enemy. The Lord promises, as it were, to be your covering, your protection. But more than that, in the end, when you're in glory, you'll never talk about the cost. [00:08:32] Some Christians seem to have a cost mentality. [00:08:37] They cannot do anything else but talk about how much it's cost them to be Christians. It's cost them this, it's cost them that, it's cost them the other. Those people have never seen the Lord. [00:08:48] They've never seen the greatness and the glory of the Lord. When we're in glory, one day we shall not all be saying to each other, you know, I had to give up so much. It was. It was really terrible. I had to give up this and I had to give up that and it cost me this and cost me that. My. I think we should be saying to each other, isn't the grace of God. Amen. Amazing that he's got me here. This exceeding great reward, the fullness of this man, the treasure that is mine all I am. Thy shield and thy exceeding great reward. Those that honour the Lord. The Lord honors the Lord is no man's debtor. You must never think that if. If he puts his finger upon something, you've got to let go of that. Somehow or other, the Lord's in your debt. In the end, you will discover the law will repay in such a way that you are everlastingly in his debt. [00:09:51] Everlasting. You'll never have cause to say to the Lord in the end, well, Lord, I put you into a position. I did you a great favour, you know. You told me to let go of that and I let go of it and you told me to let go of that and I did it myself. And I believe now that you're indebted to me. Never, never. [00:10:10] The Lord is our shield and our exceeding great reward. And then another scripture is in Isaiah 43, so well known. Isaiah 43, one, fear not, for I have redeemed thee. I have called thee by thy name. Thou art mine. When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee. And through the rivers they shall not overflow thee. When thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned, neither shall the flame kindle upon thee. You know, in this land there are many rivers to be crossed, many waters to be faced, many fires that we've got to go through. If this land is going to be possessed, there's going to be a lot of conflict in it. There are going to be a lot of natural barriers and obstacles. And the only way that the land is going to be possessed is true. [00:11:14] It's not by standing saying, lord, do something about this river. [00:11:19] Get rid of it all together. Lord, no. The only way the land can be possessed, the only way you can come into an experience of the fullness of Christ, of all that is yours in him, is to go through the waters, through the rivers and through the fires. [00:11:38] Of course, there are wonderful times when the Lord completely, as it were, just blows upon these things and they dissolve in front of our eyes. But I am saying that if you and I are going to really experience the fullness of Christ and all that God has given us in him, then our way will undoubtedly lie through deep waters and through unfordable and uncrossable rivers and through fires that to our eye, would simply destroy us. [00:12:15] They would simply destroy us. But the Lord says, fear not. [00:12:23] I have redeemed thee. I have called thee by thy name. [00:12:31] Now look at it. I have redeemed thee. It's not a thing. [00:12:38] It's not a teaching. [00:12:40] It's not an experience. [00:12:42] It is a person. [00:12:45] I have redeemed it. The Lord himself says, I have redeemed it. Now look at it another way. It's not just a general redemption. It's not just a great, vague, abstract redemption that we're all in, as it were. We've all been saved in a general way. And the Lord looks upon us as so many digits, so many figures. No, listen. I have called thee by name. [00:13:18] It's as personal as that. The Lord has redeemed you and he's called you by name. Now, what is the basis for the Lord being with us? You see, he says, fear not. Why doesn't he say, fear not, I'm with you? No. He says, fear not, for I have redeemed thee. I have called thee by name. When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee. [00:13:45] Now tell me, what is the Lord promising? Is he saying, now, look, if you're a good christian, if you're very noble, if you're up to standard, if you never fail and never fall and never sin and never doubt, then I will be with you. With you. When you're in the waters and the rivers I'll see there don't overflow you. And when you go to the fires, you'll not be burned, and the flame won't kindle upon you. That's how many of us subconsciously read it. The Lord never said that. [00:14:22] The wonder of it all is this. The Lord got down onto the deepest level it's possible to get down upon. When he said, fear not. I am with you. Fear not, for I have redeemed thee. [00:14:41] Redeemed. [00:14:43] That's the basis. The Lord says, I know what you are. I know you better than you do. You're failing, you're forke, you're doubting, you're fearful, you're weak. [00:14:57] Oh, but I'll tell you, I am with you. Oh, didn't Peter find that when he jumped over onto the water. And began to walk towards the Lord? And he might well have said, now, lord, my faith is so great, I'm walking on the water. Thou art with me, Lord. I'm on the water. My faith. It's helping me to walk on the water. And because thou my faith, I'm exercising my faith, Lord, thou art with me. And then he began to sink. [00:15:26] And when he began to sink, the Lord came to him and took his hand and said, why did you doubt? [00:15:35] And put him into the boat? Now, isn't that wonderful? You see, the Lord didn't say, oh, Peter, drown. [00:15:44] I'm tired of you, Peter. I'm really tired of you. You shouldn't have got out of the boat anyway. If you got. If you were so presumptuous and you thought your faith would carry you through. I'm rather tired of you. You've got to learn, Peter. You've just got to look. Swim back to the boat. No. The law was saying to Peter, fear not, Peter. [00:16:06] I've redeemed thee. I called thee by thy name. When thou passest through the waters, I will be with redemption. Is the ground for the Lord to be with us? Isn't that wonderful? Now, I'm not saying we can abuse the grace of God. That we can just send it to our hearts content. Not at all. Not at all. But what I am saying is this. Knowing what we are, how unworthy and weak and sinful we can be, the wonder is this. The Lord says, fear not, for I have redeemed thee. I have called thee by thy name. Thou art mine. Oh, dear brothers and sisters, we are the Lord's, and he won't let us go. We're precious to him. He won't let us go. In the waters, he will be with us in spite of our own foolishness. When we're in the rivers, he won't let them overwhelm us because we're so precious to him. When we're in the fire, he won't let us be burnt, nor will he let the flame even kindle upon us. Isn't that wonderful? Redeemed by the law. [00:17:23] Fear not, says the law, for I have redeemed thee. Thou art mine. Don't. There are some scriptures on another level. But isn't this wonderful? The law has come down to this level. [00:17:39] Wouldn't it have been not so comforting if the Lord had said to us, fear nothing. [00:17:47] I am with you. I will bless you. If he had not said, for I have redeemed it, why are we not to fear? Because the Lord has redeemed us. [00:18:01] His redemption is so full, his blood so powerful and so precious. [00:18:09] Oh, the wonder of it. His righteousness so absolute, that we can go through all these things, and the Lord will be with us. Now, if some of you are teetering on the brink of a river and you're waiting for the Lord to take away the river, he won't do it. He won't do it. You put your foot out, and the river will come down to a level that will not overwhelm you, and you'll go across, and when you're on the other side, you'll say, well, isn't that the mark? But I don't know how I've done it here. I'm on the other side. The Lord's done it. That's the miracle of it. The Lord's done it. I'm here on the other side. And when you're in the waters and swimming heavily and wondering, you'll find the Lord's there, right there with you in the waters. And you won't find the Lord, sort of with you, necessarily in a very big way. Before the fire, as it were, trying to just help you in to the. [00:19:08] As it were, helping you in. But you'll find that when you're in the fire, the fourth one appears, and he is there beside you and with you now that's a wonderful thing. So let's praise the Lord together. And then another scripture. Isaiah 41. [00:19:29] And here's another one. Wonderful scripture, verse 14. Fear not, thou worm Jacob. [00:19:36] I will help thee, saith the Lord, and thy redeemer is the holy one of Israel. Behold, I have made thee to be a new, sharp, threshing instrument, having teeth. Thou shalt thresh the mountains and beat them small, and thou shalt make the hills as char. Thou shalt winnow them, and the wind shall carry them away, and the whirlwind shall scatter them, and thou shalt rejoice in the Lord. Thou shalt glory in the holy one of Israel. Here's the next. Fear not. That has come to me with great blessing. The Lord says, fear not, thou worm. I have made thee to be a new, sharp threshing instrument, having teeth. Could there be anything more different? A worm, soften, pliable, and so well it lives in the dark. [00:20:29] And a new, sharp, threshing instrument having teeth. [00:20:35] I don't know whether worms have teeth, but I know one thing, that there could be nothing more different than a worm. [00:20:43] And what the Lord says, he's made us. [00:20:46] And the Lord says to us, fear nothing. Fear not. Now tell me, do you fear about the impossibility of your own nature? [00:20:57] Do you fear about some of the things you see within yourself, your circumstances and you feel, it was all right for Luther, but it's no good for me. It was all right for Wesley, but it's no good for me. It's all right for brother Sansa and sister. Sons are in the company here, but not for me. It's impossible. Now listen, the Lord says, fear not. And what he's really saying is, fear not. [00:21:23] I have transforming power. [00:21:29] I have transforming power. I can change you from glory to glory into the image of the Lord. [00:21:41] Well, isn't that wonderful? You know, some of us are holding up the Lord because we won't believe. [00:21:47] We won't believe. We just. We can do nothing because of our unbelief. We just simply say, lord, I'm impossible. [00:21:55] You're quite right. You are impossible. But I have power to somehow tackle the impossible. And if only you believe me, I can do something in the impossible in your life. [00:22:15] Of course, I must point out to you that the necessary prerequisite is to be a worm. [00:22:24] That's the prerequisite. It's a necessity. You must be a worm. Now, many of us take a long time getting to that place. [00:22:34] It takes us a long, long time to get to the place where we can honestly say we're worms. We haven't got any spiritual backbone. We haven't got any spiritual stamina. We haven't got any spiritual character. We're just worms, that's all, just worms in ourselves. We belong to the earth. That's our habitat. We sort of live in the dark and belong to the earth. But how few of us come to that quickly and how necessary it is. Most of us think we are rather noble, really, that we've got a lot of very good qualities, that there's things about our character which the Lord could well use, and so on and so on. But it takes a long time to get us to the place law. Worm Jacob. [00:23:25] Thou worm Jacob. But when we've got there, the Lord says a wonderful thing. He says to us, I will make you to be a new, sharp threshing instrument, having teeth. And I have just told a lie because he didn't say, I will make you to be. He says to the worm, I have made thee. [00:23:49] I have made thee. Here is the miracle of it all. In the authorized version, it was I will. But all the new versions, all the revised versions have corrected the tense. I have made thee a new, sharp fishing instrument. The Lord's done it. It's yours. Step into it. There are works prepared beforehand of God in which we can walk, and one of them is transformation. [00:24:15] The Lord will go on with this work of transformation if we will keep our eye upon the Lord. [00:24:22] All we've got to do is behold, as in a mirror, the glory of the Lord, and we get changed. Well, I've seen some people change more quickly in the last two weeks than they have in the last two years. [00:24:37] And all that's happened is the simple fact they've started to look at the glory of the Lord. As simple as that. Before they were looking at the devil, or they were looking at themselves, or they were looking at the world, or they were looking at the impossibility of everything. And suddenly the Lord lifted up the chin and they began to see the glory of the Lord. As in a mirror. One of those mirrors that you don't see over clearly in, you know, one of those metal mirrors. But my word, if the glory of the Lord is so wonderful in one of those kind of mirrors, what's it going to be when we're face to face with him? It's going to be tremendous. Well, I can only see. I've seen something of the glory of the Lord in the last few days, and I don't know why. [00:25:20] I suppose, really, I'm the worst sinner here in many ways. Lord knows that. But I began to see something of the glory of the Lord I'd never seen before, and it just enthralled me. I can truthfully say my heart, it does dance at the sound of his name. Every time I hear the name of the Lord, something in me just wants to do a jig all round and sort of say, well, praise the Lord. Isn't it wonderful just to be saved? The glory of the Lord. But you know, if you and I will only look at the glory of the Lord, we'll be changed. The right time's gone. And I really want to give you another scripture. And it's in revelation, chapter one. [00:26:03] I just mention it to you, verse 17. Fear not. [00:26:10] I am the first and the last and the living one. [00:26:14] And behold, I am alive forevermore. And I have the keys. [00:26:20] And I thought to myself, oh, isn't this a wonderful fear not, as we see all that lies ahead of us in these days. The greatness of Christ. Oh, to see something more of the greatness of Christ. The first, the last, the beginning, the end, the alpha, the omega. There's nothing outside of him, nothing as great as that. All God's language consists of Christ, his alpha and omega and every letter in between. [00:26:58] He's the first and the last. All God's works consist of Christ. He's the first and the last and all between. [00:27:06] Everything God does begins with Christ. It goes on through Christ, and it ends with Christ. Oh, the greatness of the Lord Jesus. The greatness of the Lord Jesus. And when you see this book of revelation, you see poor John. Oh, what a depressing, what a depressing state it all was. The church is turning back. The vision coming in, error coming in, Satan's power rising, as it were. Fury. Everything could not be worse. And the Lord showed John vision after vision where he could just see the power and fury of Satan. [00:27:49] He saw a vanquished church. He saw a counterfeit church of Babylon. [00:27:59] He saw all this, all this. [00:28:03] But the wonder of it was this. At the very beginning. The Lord said, I am the first and the last and the living one. Behold, I am alive forevermore. And I have the keys. [00:28:18] I have the keys. So before ever he could show John anything of the depressing side of it, of the satanic side of it, he said, don't fear nothing. I have the keys. I have the keys. And then John begins to see vision after vision in which it looks as if the enemy is triumphant. And then the Lord has the key he unlocks the door, the door opens and defeats, turns into victory. And the Lord Jesus comes out on top every time. Isn't that wonderful? That's what you and I need today. Why? Just think of what the situations we are in. Just think of the international situation. Think of the state of the church. Look at the ecumenical movement. See the Vatican Council. Look at the superficiality and division amongst us who are God's children. Look at it all. Oh, hallelujah. The Lord says to us, fear not. I am the first and the last and the living one. Behold, I am alive forevermore. And I have the keys. [00:29:27] The devil has not got the keys. [00:29:32] Do you know what that means? It means the Lord has to open the door before the devil can get through it. That's all. He's the one who opens the door. No man shuts and shuts the door, and no man opens. Well, isn't it a wonderful thing to see the Lord on the throne? Not only to see that the Lord is our shield and our exceeding great reward? Not only to see that he is our redeemer. Not only to see that he is the one who can transform us, but to see he's on the throne. We're on the winning side. We can't lose. [00:30:04] We can't lose. It doesn't matter whether they take our lives or what they do. We cannot lose. In the end, we're on the winning side. And the Lord Jesus has the key. [00:30:20] Has he the keys in your life? Yes, he has. If you'll only let him unlock the things that abound and bind the things that should be restricted. He's got the keys to every hell bent situation, every death locked situation. The Lord Jesus has got the keys. Right? Then go to him. Go to him and you'll discover that you have no cause to fear. No cause. [00:30:51] I'm convinced that John had to be reminded of that. A lot of times he wept once or twice. He was horrified once or twice. But again and again he came back to his fear. [00:31:03] I am the first and the last. I have the keys. Shall we pray to.