3.21.10 ayudanos Jesus!

read...

joy from above - andree seu, worldmag, 3.27.10, p83

what a blessing when a sermon is a blessing..

(note: testimonies are a recounting of what one knows to be true not merely conceptually but based upon actual experience. this is akin in the spiritual realm to what was formerly referred to as experimental holiness to differentiate a person's faith (testimony) from simply a mere profession of faith in Christ, the goal being not merely to have a correct doctrinal belief in the person of Christ, but also to have a real, ongoing relationship with Him just as real as that with any other person)

..if the orator has had no living encounter with the material, the parishioners shift in their chairs. if God has done business with the man, we hang on every word. it astonishes. it comes with authority (matt. 7.28-9). it surpasses mere textual knowledge as a road surpasses a map.

the testimony-sermon is the word of God believed, then obeyed, then blessed in obedience, then reported to the congregation. it brings practical counsel from the crucible of personal suffering. it carries 'the fullness of the blessing of Christ' (rom. 15.29), pushing into all dimensions. it lifts off the flattened page, from the realm of Idea to the realm of Incarnation in human affairs, providing entry points for God's kingdom come.

for so God has ordained that His presence with power would be directly related to the praiseful obedience of his people. the testimony-sermon completes the circle of revelation and no longer short-circuits it. the word of God is always truth applied to something, not to nothing.

i can tell when i am hearing a sermon on a doctrine that the speaker hasn't experienced firsthand. it's not that he's lying. he himself does not realize; he believes that when he lays out a homiletically top-rate teaching, he has done all there is to do.

the sermon, as it leaves his lips, makes a hollow sound on the ears of the congregation, but no one realizeds that either. it is homiletically top-rate and three-pointed. they know they should appreciate it if they are spiritual, so they believe they have been well-served. they say, 'it was a good sermon'. if this goes on sunday after sunday, a vague melancholy sets in unawares.

a gap between theology and reality widens and something fascinating occurs; the most doltish man in the pew becomes a linguistic sophisticate. abstract exhortations to 'joy' or 'reigning in life' from the pulpit are transposed on impact from their common meanings to a different category of meaning, what francis schaeffer might call 'upper story' thinking.

but when the pastor is a man who has pressed into believing God's promises in the morning and at noon and in the afternoon and when he meets us at week's end to report the concrete faithfulness of god on his spiritual living, the hearers - and language itself - are revived.

king david hints at the mystery: 'restore to me the joy of your salvation and uphold me with a willing spirit. then i will teach transgressors Your ways and sinners will return to You'. (psalm 51.12-3) there is the sine qua non (without which not). the teaching of transgressors and the turning of sinners must issue from the authentic joy of the emissary.

let us have semons that are testimonies rather than lectures. i want to hear about ll corinthians 3.17 from someone who walks in freedom. i want to hear about romans 5.17 from someone who is reigning in life and who can coach me to do the same.

i'll gladly sit an hour for examples of how the preacher's faith enabled him to extinguish the flaming arrows of the wicked one (ephesians 6.16). thrill my soul with specifics on how moment-by-moment obedience was reworded with God's manifesting Himself to you (john 14.21). what did that look like?

is the pastor experiencing peace because he has been training himself to 'set the mind on the spirit (who) is life and peace' (romans 8.6)? how do you train? has he overcome (revelation 2,3) old sin patters because he has applied galatians 5.16 ('walk in the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh')? provide details.

don't leave out the part of the sermon that sels the deal, that shows the way - the switch on the lamp without which miles and miles of good current are rendered to none effect.

and if the Spirit moves him, God bless the pastor who ditches the script and says, 'brothers and sisters, our condition is desperate. our prayers are anemic. our worship is on the point of being dead. let us cry out to god in concerts of prayer and fasting, day and night, and see if the lord will have mercy and revive us. two or three months seems about right. who will start us off?'

but is there only one person speaking God's word by way of testimony. i wish there were l corinthian 14 meetings among professing believers in Christ. paul says to this very troubled and troublesome group ' i would that you all...prophesied.. v.5 would that God would call forth a group of believers who would all believe this and practice it. that is, that they would meet with regularity to tell what God is teaching them. .

the weekly 'class meetings' of john wesley were somewhat along this line, where believers would first share areas of victory and areas of struggle in living out their faith to be followed with a time of mutual prayer for one another and a general seeking of God's help in being obedient to His will in the week to come. i believe this was also done in e. stanley jone's ashram model started in india and then extended elsewhere.

to extend this further, it would be wonderful to find another person who desired to share openly, that is give testimony along these lines and have a heart to seek God. i , personally, have never had the privilege of knowing such a person. i guess there are others who have this desire. i just have never met one.

in the recent reading thru genesis i was struck by the quickness of abraham to obey God, most markedly in getting up early in the morning to go and offer his son, issac, as a sacrifice. that was overlaid by the remembrance of moses doing ALL that God commanded him in the making and setting up of the tabernacle in the wilderness. it says this a number of times. then the remembrance of noah doing to the last detail exactly what God commanded him in relationship to the building of the ark. most recently i was struck by joseph, the human father of the Lord Jesus who when warned in a dream to take Jesus and mary out of egypt and return to palestine, got up immediately in the middle of the night and left. i am so different. so careless in obeying, so easily given to disobeying. may God have mercy on my soul and awaken me.

from letters written by john newton about his experiences on ship, as a slave trader, etc..

..when we came into this port, our very last victuals were boiling in the pot. before we had been there two hours, the wind began to blow with great violence. if we had continued at sea that night in our shattered, enfeebled conditionk, we would to all human appearance, have gone to the bottom about this time i began to know that there is a God who hears and answers prayer. who many times has He appeared for me since this great deliverance! yet, alas! how distrustful and ungrateful is my heart unto this hour!..

..imagine a number of vessels, at different times and from different places, bound to the same port. there are some things in which all would agree - the compass steered by, the port in view, the general rules of navigation, would be the same for all. in other respects they would diffwer. perhaps no two of them would meet with the same distribution of winds and weather. some we see set out with a favorable wind; but when they almost think their passage secured, they are checked by adverse blasts. after enduring much hardship and danger, and frequent expectations of ship wreck, they barely escape and reach the desired haven.

others meet the greatest difficulties at first. they put forth in a storm and are often beaten back; at length their voyage proves favorable, and they enter the port with a rich and abundant entrance. some are hard beset with cruisers and enemies and obliged to fight their way thru. others meet with little remarkable in their passage.

is it not thus in the spiritual life? all true believers walk by the same rule and mind the same things: the word of God is their compass; Jesus is both their polara star and their sun of righteousness; their hearts and their faces are all set zion-ward. they are as one body, animated by one spirit; yet their experience, formed upon these common principles, is far from being uniform the Lord in His first call and His following dispensations, regards the situation, temper and talents of each and the particular services or trials He has appointed them for. all are exercised at times, yet some pass thru the voyage of life much more smoothyl than others. but he ' who walketyh upon the wings of the wind and measures the water in the hollow of His hand', will not suffer any in his charge to perish in the storms, though for a season, perhaps, many of them are ready to give up hope.

take heed, lest any of you be hardened thru the deceitfulness of sin! sin first deceives and then it hardens. i was now fast bound in chains; i had little desire and no power at all to free myself. i would at times reflect how it was with me, but if i attempted to struggle, it was in vain. i was just like samson, when he said, 'i will go forth, and shake myself, as at other times'; but the Lord was departed and he felt himself helpless in the hands of his enemies. by the remembrance of this interval, the Lord has often reminded me what a poor creature i am in myself, incapable of standing a single hour without continual fresh supplies of strength and grace from the fountain-head.

..from that time, i trust i have been delivered from the power and dominion of sin: though, as to the effects and conflicts of sin dwelling in me, i still 'groan being burdened'. i now began to wait upon the Lord. though i have often grieved his Spirit and foolishly wandered from Him since...His powerful grace has preserved me from such black declensions as this i have last recorded. i humbly trust in his mercy and promises, that he will be my guide and guard to the end.

...a dissenting minister, named smith, who, by what i have known since, i believe to have been an excellent and powerful preacher of the Gospel. there was something in his manner that struck me, but i did not rightly understand him. the best words that men can speak are in effectual till explained and applied by the Spirit of God. he alone can open the heart. it pleased the Lord, for some time, that i should learn no more than what he enabled me to collect from my own experience and reflection.

...(referring to the first meeting of his future wife who he eventually married 7 years after he met her)how easily, at a time of life when i was so little capable of judging (but a few months more than seventeen), might my affections have been fixed where they could have met with no return, or the heaviest disappiontment! (at 17 he had absolutely no heart for God, she did) the long delay was a mercy. had i succeeded a year or two sooner, before the Lord was pleased to change my heart, we would have been mutually unhappy, even as to the present life..

...i began to keep a sort of diary, a practice which i have since found of great use. i had in this interval repeated proofs of the ingratitude and evil of my heart. a life of ease in the midst of my friends and the full satisfaction of my wishes, was not favorable to the progress of grace..

my principal trial is the body of sin and death, which makes me often sigh out the apostle's complaint, 'o wretched man..!' with him likewise i can say, ' \i thank God thru Jesus Christ our Lord.' i live in a barren land, where the knowledge of and power of the Godpel is very low, yet here are a few of the Lord's people. this has been a useful school to me, where i have studied mor leisurely the truths i gathered up in london..i brought with me a considerable stock of notional truth, but have found that there is no effectual teacher but God we can receive no more than He is pleased to communicate; no knowledge is truly useful but what is made by experience...

reading newton's words has been a well in the desert. i so wish i had a similar person to talk with...but in saying this i am reminded that i have better.

hope you have a good week. love, dad