Essentials in the Service of God

<time>0:00</time> <p>You&#39;re listening to a podcast by Lance Lambert ministries. For more information on this ministry visit Lance lambert.org. In this episode, Lance shares three essentials that are needed in the service of God. If you will turn to Luke, the Gospel according to Luke, and chapter 24, the last chapter of Luke&#39;s Gospel chapter 24. I would like to bring a word that I believe the Lord has given me. I have called I have called a difference as I was reading it in Siletz Vashon. In modern English for New Testament in modern English, as I was reading it through last night, three little phrases gripped me, I must say, of course, is probably just my own personal opinion. But I must say that I do I much prefer Philips version to the new English, I find it more alive, more gripping, more vital. And I must say, as I was reading through these two chapters 23 and 24. In chapter 24, three phrases took hold of me, and I could not but help feel here was a word from God to be shared. With us all I have called it three is simples, in serving God. Because this week, we, we commence a two week course, on service on the practical aspects of service, we shall, of course, be speaking a little bit to about the heart of the math matters spiritual character. But I want just to bring three what I believe in this chapter we have three is Central&#39;s, in the service of God. Now, I&#39;m going to read to you a portion because that hadn&#39;t really so much to say, I&#39;m just going to underline a phrase and then say a little bit about it, but I&#39;m going to read it. And then we do in Philips version, chapter 24, from verse from verse one. But the first signs of dawn on the first day of the week, they that is the women were the true, taking within the automatic spices they prepare, they discovered, the stone will be rolled away from the tooth, but on going inside the body of the Lord Jesus was not to be found. While they were still puzzling over these two men suddenly stood at their elbow, dressed in dazzling light. The women were terrible if I turn that eyes away and looked at the ground, that the two men spoke to them. Why do you look for the living among the dead, He is not here. He has risen. Remember what he said to you while he was still in Galilee. Now the Son of Man must be betrayed into the hands of sinful men, and must be crucified and must rise again on the third day. Then they did remember what he had said. And they turned their backs on the tomb, and went and told all this to the 11 to the 11 and the others who were with them. It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna married the mother of James and their companions who made this report to the apostles, but it struck them as sheer imagination. And they did not believe that women only Peter got up and ran to the tomb. He stood down and saw the linen clothes line that all by themselves, and he went home, wondering at what had happened. Here&#39;s the phrase, they can&#39;t it&#39;s inverse eight, they turn their backs on the two that absolutely arrested me. They turn their backs on them to the first is sinful in service in the service of God is clear cut determination, clear part determination, they turn their backs on the to the idea here in the world, and I believe this is quite faithful to The original is that they deliberately turned away from the tomb and went straight back to the other disciples. I have called it determinate determination because I think that&#39;s some nothing the words they turn their back backs on the two. There&#39;s a picture of determination, the tomb, and all that it represented of defeat, or failure, of disillusionment, of unhappiness, of misery, of emptiness of vacuum. They turn their backs on it, but then it was a closed chapter, the fruits of Christ&#39;s work on the cross was to be the theme of their preaching, but they turn their backs on what that tomb had represented to them, you see a danger, that they would have had a dead Christ. They were so enamored of the law, and they were going to put those automatic faces upon the body again, they were going to live again as it were to, to embrace once more the dead body of the Lord Jesus Christ. And you know, there are many, many Christians who have a dead Christ, named being truly saved, they have a dead Christ. He is a figure only found on the pit in the pages of this book. He is a person that is preached about that to speak of him in a videogame way, in an intimate way, in a personal way, is foreign to such people. They know the law in that they have met with a risen Christ and have been saying, but he is forever in the realm of books, and must always come to them secondhand. They are always in thrall when they listen to a person&#39;s testimony. Here for instance, something exciting, they flock to your bloody sale. We we love to listen to Mary Reese, we love to read about Mary Slessor on Hubzu Taylor on add an arm, Judson abama. And all these things with with thrilled about it on we talk about and works of pace. Well they excite us know when I know people who will take away George Miller&#39;s life and study it and will read his or his little diary, the three volumes of his diary that read it carefully. But as for putting into practice what they get so excited about. That&#39;s all together in another sphere. It&#39;s wonderful to read about it. It&#39;s exciting to hear that there are people who who know Christ like that, but you know, it is a little bit a little bit perhaps stray. A rose reminds me of folk who will listen to someone in the pulpit, and will say wasn&#39;t that ma when you&#39;ve all Mrs. So and so was suddenly to start really get to get getting to know the Lord like that, and wants to start talking about the Lord. That same person would say, there&#39;s something peculiar about I mean, it&#39;s just not done to talk about the Lord in the portrait. It&#39;s all right, as long as we don&#39;t have it every Sunday. It&#39;s all like to have someone in the pulpit now and again, I&#39;ve got an extraordinary story to tell encourage yourself. It helps us to go on, but to find that every Christian could have such an experience that must of necessity be eccentric, is off at age not bound. But you see, I love the way it&#39;s put here. They turn their backs on the two. It was no Daman going to worship anymore a dead Christ. They when they talk about a dead Christ, for them now, they turn their backs on the tomb, and they turn their face toward a living Christ. Now he&#39;s most beautifully put in the other gospels, because you see, you remember the the Mary was with the other two and they went in and they ran back after having seen the angels, Mary also saw and I had never quite understood how she didn&#39;t recognize the Lord Jesus. But fillets again gives us a little clue is when she was fully turned around. You see the Lord was behind you saw the figure there she thought it was the gardener in her grief and she said to wave you put in just tell me I&#39;m going I&#39;ll get the body I&#39;ll take it to when. And all he said was myth. And this is when she was fully to put your foot in. She&#39;s maths. You see, she was looking at the two. But when she turned she found behind the rhythm. Now, you know, in the service of the Lord, we need clear cut determination. absolutely clear cut, determination. clear cut? Well, I think again, it&#39;s in listening not only to termination, they turn their backs, their backs on the two that speaks of determination, clear cut, they turn their backs on the two, there&#39;s something absolutely clear cut about this. They weren&#39;t going to play with it. They weren&#39;t going to compromise with it. They they had they believe what they said. Now, the women were the first to believe not the men. The women were the first to believe. It says quite clearly, then they didn&#39;t remember what he had said, Now, isn&#39;t that wonderful? You see, we all know he tap here. But we although we know he&#39;s alive and Rizal and we can walk with him and know him and poke with him is him say yet somehow another, we are bound to the two were bound to just that empty tomb. And we&#39;re all the time going back there. I got a little bit more rather than just one minute. But you see, you see if they remember what he&#39;s saying. And they turn down that song. Isn&#39;t that one level? Now what is this to? It&#39;s the place of death. It&#39;s the place of defeat. for them. It was the place of frustration. It was the place of heaven. It was the place of disillusion. That&#39;s what the tomb meant for them. It was the now dear child of God, although few of us will have in all our lives there is a there is a place of frustration, a place of disillusion a place often disappoint, a place of defeat and failure. The Devil&#39;s objective is to forever bind us to that to to get us spending our time with other metric space. Carefully looking at the to watching over what belongs in the bound and fit to our sound so simple, that in every lie, it&#39;s there. It&#39;s there. You know we can look at it another way we can say the two represents us cruceta. And there&#39;s nothing more wonderful when it&#39;s seen with the eye and nothing more wonderful to see oneself crucified with Christ. But if you stop there, your life&#39;s going to be negative and colorful and very humble. And very modest. And always sitting at the back and never taking power. And yet never really getting when God wants us to get out of the to into the mission life of clubs. You know, we can see what the cost is. And it&#39;s some Oh no, we can we can stop with the tomb. Stop with the tomb. And we can we can somehow our spiritual life can come to a hole at the point where we were buried with Christ. Let me put it another way. Some of us are so bound route old men, our old natures our old life all that is old about us. That all the time we are we are we are going back to what we are. We do not seem to be able to come on Hold that binds us to ourselves now. And so we must continually go back to the tomb to view ourselves dead. We have to go back and just see you. And I, and our point all the time is oh, we can&#39;t do it all in ability, the impossibility of it all, how how, how failing I am. God doesn&#39;t want us to sing continually eulogies over ourselves. He doesn&#39;t want us to weep over our misery, over an hour failure. He doesn&#39;t want us to hug our paths. God never expected any single person in this room to be anything else, but a failure. Now, if only we could just take it. God never expected anyone in this room to be anything else, but a failure. What a wonderful thing that what that is. Isn&#39;t it wonderful? Don&#39;t you think? It&#39;s, it releases us It frees us like birds from a cage, suddenly we know the Lord knew I was going to be a failure doesn&#39;t expect me to be a failure, I should always be a failure. If I think God expects anybody else of me, then failing, then sooner or later, I should be bound. Because it is the very nature of our life, the nature of our old life of the old man to fail. When it comes to the things of God, he is a miserable, vacuous failure at all, there&#39;s not enough that we can say about the old man in that way. He is impossible, even when he is at his most notable. And when he is it is at his most distant, when it comes to the service of God, he is an abject failure. God doesn&#39;t want great gifts and our great talents they do a lot of they often cause a lot of turmoil in the service of God. That&#39;s why it&#39;s a clear cut determination. The first thing God must do with this is break us up as a very costly business. And that means the two, we have to be broken up. God told Moses here was a noble man here was a gifted man here was a man of natural character of natural strength and forcefulness. And you know what he did when he saw that man wrestling with a Hebrew that Egyptian is fluid. Because he believed he was the chosen leader of the people of God. But the Lord had other ideas for Moses, he took you into the backside of the desert and left him there for 40 years looking after sheep. And after 40 years with the sheep, Moses was a very different man. I don&#39;t know whether the desert had got into Moses or what it was. But he was a very different man. When when the Lord appears to Moses, Moses, now instead of saying I&#39;ll go, he says, instead, Lord, I can&#39;t speak. And the only way and it may shock some that the only way the Lord could get Moses into his service was by a tweak. He said to Moses, do you want to live with the Lord and dungeons and tricks? The Lord said to Moses, all that Moses all night, take care of him he&#39;ll speak. And that was the only way that the Lord got Moses into his search. And do you know that the animal never spoke? As the only thing Moses did all the speaking? Errol never spoke, but the Lord God, Moses into his service by turkeys. If you can&#39;t speak, you bounce back. I believe what the Lord was saying, as it were to the aims of him saying, Now look at that, just look at that. There&#39;s a bit of successful work. You say, he doesn&#39;t even think he can speak now. By then Moses is no good saying he can because he really doesn&#39;t believe he can. I&#39;ll say to him take out on take Adam. So Moses entered into the real service of God. And of course, once he was there, he depended on the Lord and he found he could speak, but it was independence upon the law. Now, you see, there was a true in Moses experience. There was the desert for 40 years, it was a tomb. And you know, there came a day when Moses had to turn his back on the tomb. You delete that and go forward knowing that he was a failure, knowing that he couldn&#39;t do anything he had to go forward. We need clear determination to turn on our backs on the tomb, and face of resume crimes. If we want to serve the Lord, then this is one of the most essential things we&#39;ve got to learn, we&#39;ve got to cut the call with the past with what we are, let me say it again, God never expected any single person in this room to be anything else, but an abject failure in His service. So there you are, relax, just relax. That&#39;s all relax, you&#39;re a failure. All right, you&#39;re a failure. But that doesn&#39;t mean that you can make that an excuse for not serving God. God knows you&#39;re a failure. He doesn&#39;t expect you to be anything else, but a failure. I remember the reliefs that came to me when I when I first heard that, that God had never expected me to be anything else, but a fairly I hardly lad to confess anything to the law, because I always thought that he thought so highly of one and was I was hoping such big thing as a one. Now when almost sort of crept into His presence of trade every night, to say anything too much. And just a kind of vague, unconstant conscious idea that the Lord hadn&#39;t seen that failure and witness and that their Lord doesn&#39;t expect anything else. But he does expect that he expects you to remember what he has said. And to turn your back on Mattoon. As all, it needs clear determination on your part, turn your back on the doom and face arisen cries. In the next passage, we cannot read it all. I&#39;d love to read it all. From verse 18. You know, the story of the walk from as they stopped, their faces drawn with misery, and the one called ClearPass replied, You must be the only stranger in Jerusalem who hasn&#39;t heard all the things that have happened here recently? What things asked Jesus, all about Jesus from Nazareth, there was a man a prophet strong in what he did and what he said, In God&#39;s eyes as well as the people&#39;s. Haven&#39;t you heard how our chief priests or rulers handed Him over for execution, and had Him crucified? But we were hoping he was the one who was to come and set this feel free. Yes. And as if that was not enough, it&#39;s getting on three days since all this happened. And some of our women folk have disturbed us profoundly. For they went to the tomb at dawn. And then when they couldn&#39;t find his body, they said that they&#39;d had a vision of angels who said that he was alive. Some of our people went straight off to the tomb and found things just as the women had described them, but they didn&#39;t see him. Then he himself spoke to them. Aren&#39;t you failing to understand and slower to believe in all the prophets have said, was it not inevitable that clash of satellite data, so find his glory? Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets explained to them everything in the scriptures that referred to himself, they were by now approaching the village to which they were going, he gave the impression that he meant to go on further, as beautiful. But they stopped him with the words do stay with us. It&#39;s nearly evening soon the day will be over. So he went in doors to stay with them. Then it happened. While he was sitting at table with them, he took a load of gay dates, broke it and passed it to them. Their eyes opened why, and they knew him. But he vanished from their sight. Then they said to each other, weren&#39;t our hearts glowing while he was with us on the road when he made the Scripture so plain to us, and they got to their feet without delay and turn back to Jerusalem. Now, the little phrase that gripped me, I don&#39;t know whether it&#39;s scripture, as I read it was this one, then it happened. Then it happened, verse 30, do stay with us, they said, it&#39;s nearly evening and soon the day will be over. So he went indoors to stay with them. Then it happened. While he was sitting at the table with them, he took the low gate and broke it and passed it to them. Their eyes opened wide, and they knew the second central in the service of God and His spiritual revelation. Spiritual revelation. Oh, what a need that is a spiritual revelation. Not just knowledge up here, but something revealed to the heart and mind by the Spirit of God. They had walked with clients, they I had talked with clients, they had heard Christ&#39;s word. They had seen Christ&#39;s work. And still, it hadn&#39;t got into the heart, my dear friend, you and I, we can we can know so much about Christ, we can know so much about the book we can there&#39;s so much about doctrine, we can be almost a tome of theology, on legs. And yet, and yet, in spite of that, that we know firmer, and we can see even preach Soma. We could have seen Christ working, we can have heard him speak. And yet unless it is spiritually revealed, it never gets into the heart. No. How many times many of us have read, I have been crucified with Christ nevertheless, I live yet on high but Christ lives. We don&#39;t really know what it means to be in reveal how many times we read about power from on high that we might be witnesses under has never been revealed to us. So we&#39;re not living in the Goodlett. We&#39;ve read so many times, Abide in Me and I in you and has never been revealed to us. So that we&#39;re not really in the corner that we know it up here, but not here. Isn&#39;t that lovely? Those little words, then, then it happened. You mustn&#39;t be afraid of knowledge. As if knowledge in itself is wrong. God gave us mind. It gave us intelligence. He gave us the book. We&#39;ve got just we must study in reliance on the Holy Spirit. But if we&#39;re going on with the law, there will always be times when it can be written. Then it happened. Sometime, not only one many times in our lives, we have to say, then it happened. And when we look back, we say well, where our hearts not blowing. When he spoke with us earlier. I thought there was something but then it happened and judo. That in one single minute, second or two time something can be revealed to a person that they&#39;ve spent their life studying. And in that flash, so great is our eternal things. So great is the ever present being of God, that in one single moment, you can open our eyes. And what we&#39;ve studied for years gets into the heart, we suddenly see. And when we do see, we&#39;re staggered over well, we just fall back. You just hold that guy. No. The day I first saw off the church, but it was walking down at the villa here at the Thames, wrestling with a phase of a book that I&#39;ve written which I&#39;ve got very annoyed with the books just said the churches Christ, and I shocked because of our anymore that rubbish. Because I said any Christian, any Christian knows that the church isn&#39;t Christ. The Church is the Body of Christ as the head. But that morning, I had really one Corinthians 12, the liberal phrase, and as the body has many members, but as one so also is placed. And it&#39;s just that&#39;s is what that book was saying yesterday. And I studied and I looked it up in the different versions to see because I was for the version must be wrong. But it wasn&#39;t. Then I had an argument with the law that I thought there must be something wrong here. It is evidence that a mistake has been made in God&#39;s word. Because the body can&#39;t be Christ. How can you because I was just I wondered work then at all. And I was walking along by the middle of Thames just with this mind says suddenly in a flash it came to me as if a voice suddenly said that love is your head only Lance Lambert or your body and I saw it of course Lance Lambert is hidden body. Gosh. So God gives the name Christ to hidden body were all part of Christ. We are abiding in human he and us. Isn&#39;t that wonderful? We are partakers of the divine nature, we become members of Christ. Now when that happens, it&#39;s a single flash. But in that slash, you see what the years you&#39;ve only studied or read in one plan. Doesn&#39;t that doesn&#39;t that happen at all? Oh, serve in the service of God. We&#39;ve got to really spiritually see these things. We need spiritual revelation concerning the class. We need spiritual revelation concerning Pentecost. We need spiritual revelation concerning the church. We need these things to be revealed to us in verse 14, verse 47, I think it is 48. The Lord says, You are eyewitnesses. Now, of course, we are not eyewitnesses in the way that they were eyewitnesses, they actually saw the risen body of the Lord Jesus. But you know, it is true, we are still witness. We are eyewitnesses of the Lord Jesus in a spiritual way we can proclaim we&#39;ve met with the risen Christ, Risen Christ, as many met with us. We are witnesses. And this is surely one of the essential oils in service. What is it to serve the Lord, it is to be a witness to him, to his character, to his person, to his work, to His purpose, to His glory, for everything to do with the Lord Jesus. This takes in everything it takes in evangelism in case in teaching ministry takes in pastoral work, it takes in everything we are witnesses, the best way I can help you, the best way you can help me is by sharing what you know of Christ. We all know what just to suffer under people who tell us from up here, they will cause us to do so and so and so. So it says so in the Word. And you know, it doesn&#39;t really help. But when someone speaks from the heart, we know it, don&#39;t we, when they are witnesses of Christ, and from the heart, they fare with what they have learned and experienced and seen at him, then it is still a word of God. That is, it is from a heart that is in a living relationship with the living world. All the difference in the world. So this is an essential game. In service, we may be witnesses. And lastly, in the last part, I won&#39;t read all of it. But just this 48 and 49 when the Lord Jesus appeared to them all in that upper room, he said this URI witnesses of these things, now, I hand over to you the command or commission of my father, stay in the city then until you are closed with power from on. The third thing that gripped me was this phrase closed with power from closed with power. From on the high, the thirst to send for clear cut determination, turn our backs on the tune face. So isn&#39;t Christ the second spiritual revelation? Then? The third thing, dynamic mean? Dynamic mean? Oh, with power from on Hi. God provides dynamic memes for his service. Biases so much against us. There&#39;s so much against them. You will see the Christian life is basically a supernatural life. We must have supernatural resources for a supernatural life. The service of God is supernatural service. It can&#39;t just be a man in the flesh cannot serve God. That&#39;s why Paul said well there&#39;s I serve the Lord in my spirit. We cannot serve the Lord without sniffling with our old nature. No, not at all. But if we&#39;ve gone to the tomb, and we&#39;ve said goodbye to the tomb, we&#39;ve turned our back on it. And if God has revealed to us something of the nature of what is ours in Christ, we need the dynamic mean to go forward. To see that you&#39;ve been crucified with Christ and buried with him and even to see that you&#39;re raised with Him as one thing but you know you need dynamic means to God service. Why? Because we have a dynamic enemy. That&#39;s why the devil is no more named mangy little Minion. The devil is a very big intelligence and power. He is in one sense a Dynamic, dynamic games. He&#39;s not asleep, not one of the sort of half awake. So, he has like a big business tied to at his desk all the time off him. Or his his his aim is World supremacy. And his aim is to undo as the child of God and in so undoing frustrate concerning Christ, well, let&#39;s live we&#39;ve got a terrible fate, we have dynamic means to fight a dynamics. And greater is He that is in us and he that is in the world, isn&#39;t that wonderful? We are we can be clothed with power from on high. This is the whole point supernatural service demands supernatural means. And the supernatural means are given to us. Now there are people who start to argue immediately you talk about the enclosed with power from our heart. They ask you, do you mean the baptism of the Spirit? Or what do you mean by that? All right. All right. Let&#39;s leave that for a moment. Let&#39;s leave that. You know, if I want to get from here to Brighton, I&#39;m not going to argue about what what is the most important part of a car, whether the wheels are more important than the steering wheel. I&#39;m not going to argue what I do want to know is is the petrol in the tank. Most of all, because we need we also we need a steering wheel, but we need petrol in the tank, otherwise to sit down and have an argument that wheels and steering wheel is ridiculous. The point is this idea a child of God, if you had no power in your life, no power, to live the Christian life, no power to serve the Lord, no power to witness at home or in the office or out in the streets, no power to be holy, no power to be separate from self, and from the world. No power to love, no power over a wicked town. No power over evil for it. If you and I have no power, let&#39;s not argue about the science. The technical side of it. Let&#39;s ask the Lord to clothe us with power from on high. That&#39;s what&#39;s needed. Dynamic means for his happiness. Well, here it is given to us. He indeed gives us the power not only the Holy Spirit to dwell within, and from within, to transform us into the very image of Christ power, like codes like a row that comes upon us in which by which we can serve the Lord. Do any of you feel naked? When it comes to witness? That&#39;s just putting it into words you feel naked, you feel somehow self conscious as if people are looking at you as if you haven&#39;t got any clothes off. And so you can&#39;t really speak about Christ, you can&#39;t really witness to the Lord, but you need to be close with power from on high. It&#39;s therefore it&#39;s not as if God&#39;s got to do something more. God has given it door given it&#39;s all our but over AI is to be opened, oh for heart to be open over a faith that will reach out to the law. Dynamic means Rob service needs dynamic means and pays him he has provided dynamic means The tragedy is that so few of us are availing ourselves of the dynamic means therefore, if we turn our backs on the two if we have rarely seen to ask been granted spiritual revelation, not just once, of course, that I&#39;m increasing. Then we need power from on high, that we may go home with a reason and do is well. How are we? And Dear Lord Jesus, we do pray together that thou was blessed. went to us this morning. And make us a people Lord who really seek the full and complete claim, how we need the Lord, how we needed everywhere. All apply Thy Word to our hearts and grant the Lord, that we may go forward with the we ask it in thy name may you turn your back on the tune. May you know the deep deep love of Jesus</p>