Transcript of message from TV Broadcast 801 -- taken from Closed Captioning Text

-- Brother Phil Enlow: My God, if we think we've got to somehow qualify for something we don't have, that's terrible. That's bondage, instead of just, oh, praise God! What did Jesus say? "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble..."(NIV). I forget this translation. I'm still learning it. "...And you will find..." What? "...Rest for your souls."

Is your Christian life a terrible burden to you? Is it just a horrible struggle? I know there's battles. I know there are real battles to fight, but the battles we fight are not to somehow attain these things. They're against the flesh and they're against the devil that would be in the way. We want to...we want to learn--learn to let go and let God have His way.

Attaining the things we need in Christ are not a matter of striving and then somehow muster up the strength that will enable us to do it. It's letting go and saying, alright Lord, I give up here. I'm done. You take over. You help me. You live in me, because your life...it can't do anything but please God, but do right and you've given me everything I need. Praise God! Praise the Lord! Well, where do we go from here? As I said, I woke up with nothing this morning and I've still got most of it.

( laughter ).

Well, that's all right. We've got the Lord, don't we? Praise the Lord! I know one scripture I had...one incident I had thought of that kind of illustrates this in a way. You remember the story of Gideon. I won't take time to turn there but Gideon was an ordinary fellow who was just living in Israel at a time when the Midianites had come in and taken over and were making life miserable for 'em. They'd harvest the crops and the Midianites would come and just take it all, leave them impoverished and it was just a rough time. And, the people began to cry out to God and, you know, you get in trouble you want some help, so they did.

And God raised up Gideon, a young man who didn't have any pretensions of being anything. The Lord...an angel came to him and called him a mighty man of valor. And he was looking around to see who was there that he didn't know about. But the Lord meant him.

And you know that's what the amazing thing is. God can say that to anyone of us in spite of what we are. Think about the scripture in 1st Corinthians. You weren't mighty people. You weren't strong. You weren't great. You're weren't the high and mighty of the earth, but I have made you my sons and daughters. I've given you everything. Praise God! Remind me to come back to this because I didn't quite finish that scripture.

But, anyway, here they were. They were...his job was to raise up an army. And so they sent the word out and 32,000 showed up. And the Lord said, this is too many. If I deliver them with this many people they'll think they did it. Has God ever put you in that position where He stripped you of your ability to deal with something? Did He do that to grind you into the ground or did He do it so that he could show you Himself in a better way?

Oh, praise God! I know there's a lot of people who could testify. You've been there. You know what I'm talking about. That's an illustration of how God wants to deliver us. Oh, when we see a need we just, oh...we get so striving in ourselves trying to meet that need and God wants to teach us a better way, a more restful way, where we can have confidence and our confidence is in Him not in us. Praise God!

So, anyway the Lord told Gideon, you've got too many there now. You'd better...everybody who's afraid, send him home. Well 22,000 people went home. Their confidence was not in what the Lord was doing. Their confidence was...they were looking at the enemy and looking at their own inability and that didn't quite match up. They said, I don't know about this. I'm just a farmer. I'm going home.

Well, 10,000 hung around. They were, 'hey, we can handle this.' You know, they had confidence. But, the Lord said, there's still too many. And you remember the test that he put 'em to. He wanted 'em to go down in the valley to the water that was there and drink. And he told Gideon, you watch how they drink. Some of them are gonna be, you know, doing this and they're gonna be watching and others are gonna get their heads right down in it.

And so, 9700 got their heads down in it. Three hundred were lapping like dogs, but they were watching. And I'm sure that if you and I had been Gideon, we would have said, well, there's 300 more gone. I guess maybe we can make it with 9700 here. And what did the Lord say? It's the other way around. You send the 9700 home. I'm gonna deliver Israel with 300 people.

Isn't that something? We've got a great God. He doesn't need our help. He just needs our willingness and our confidence in Him to do what we cannot do. That affects everything in our lives. Praise God! God hasn't called us to be great somebody's in our own strength. He's called us to yield ourselves to Him and be what He's made us. Praise the Lord!

And so, what did they do? The battle plan, of course, was to take a clay vessel of some kind, whatever it was. It was a pot, I suppose, made out of clay and to put a torch in that--inside that thing, and then to surround the camp down there. That must have felt pretty thin with only 300 of them. But, nonetheless, they got all around the camp down there, snuck down there.

The light was all hidden and then on a pre-arranged signal they were to break those clay pots and all of a sudden everywhere they looked there was lights all around 'em. Lift up the lights and shout, "The sword of the Lord and of Gideon" (KJV), I think is what they shouted. You can look at the story later.

But, anyway, when they did that the Lord stepped in. They didn't even have to fight. Praise God! The Lord put such confusion in their minds. All of a sudden they woke up in the middle of the night. My God, they've hired an army and they've surrounded us. I don't know what they were thinking but, whatever it was they just starting fighting. Everybody killed each other. And, so the Lord won a great victory with 300 people who were willing to believe Him and just do things His way.

That's a great lesson for us. That's all we need is the Lord. Praise God! If we have His wisdom and His revelation of what to do and we're just willing to commit ourselves to Him, He can do anything. Praise God! We think we're real small and we're, like we said Wednesday night, we're easily intimidated and we don't want to be like Timothy who was...you know, Paul warned him, don't you be timid. Don't you give in to a spirit of timidity that makes you feel like, well I'm nothing. I can't handle this. I'm overwhelmed. I'm...the task is too great. I've...this is...the Lord's asking too much of me.

God...that spirit doesn't come from God. God has given us the spirit of power and of love and of self-control. We have what we need to serve God if we would just quit our panicking and say, oh God, I believe you. I'm in a battle here, but my eyes are on you. We're crossing the water here and there's a storm that's come up, but I believe your Word that says we're going to the other side. I'm not gonna be intimidated by that storm that the enemy throws in my path. Praise God!

But, the thing that...we've used this before, but the illustration that I see in that incident with Gideon, the light was there, wasn't it? When they...the breaking of the pot didn't create the light, it revealed the light. And so that's what our Christian life is about. God has got to do something to these vessels so that the light that is in there will come out.

We sung the song "So that men may plainly see." See, the Lord arranged even the songs this morning. And that's what God is wanting to do. If you have Christ in you, you have everything you need. The problem is you've got a clay pot that's in the way and so do I. And God has to break that. And the answer to so many things in our lives is not, oh, God, give me this thing. It's Oh God, get me out of the way. Help me to humble myself and to surrender to the things that you do to break me of this self dependence, this pride, this...all of these things that are part of my natural makeup that just get in your way.

Lord, teach me how to let go. Teach me how to submit to you breaking me as I need to be broken and to realize that you're not doing this to hurt me. You're doing it because you love me. You're doing it to set me free from the tyranny of all the very things that have got me in so in a tizzy. Oh, I'm so anxious because I see these needs and I feel these weaknesses in me and oh, God if I could just muster up the strength to fight and overcome this thing. Oh, God help me.

God's already helped you. He's given you His Word. He's given you His Son. You've got the best He's got and so do I. If you've got Christ, you've got everything you need. We don't have to beg. We just need to come before Him and say, oh, God, help me. Open my eyes. Give me the Word that I need right here, right now, because that's where it comes, doesn't it? That's how He reveals it.

It's like taking that book that's just full of money and the Lord says, turn to page so-and-so. Oh, there's exactly what I need and you've got a treasure. But the treasure is better than money. The treasure is some truth that shows us what He's done for us, shows us what He's like. And basically says, if you will just believe me, I'll live in you. You can step back and let me live. Praise God!

I know that it sounds...it sounds vague in many ways, but I'll tell you what--there's a secret here that God desires us to understand. What you need is not out there somewhere. If you know Jesus, it's in here. The reason we don't have more of Jesus showing forth is 'cause we've got too much of us. And, so our Christian life is a matter of allowing this life in here to grow and develop and become a lot better than an NFL football player. Become more like Jesus. You know, He doesn't have to become more like Jesus, does he? He is. The life that we have in here is already exactly like Him. We just need more of that to be in manifestation in our lives. Praise the Lord! Praise God!

The part that I didn't finish in 1st Corinthians chapter 1 there, part of the chapter: After he talks about how he chose all these weak things "...So that no one may boast before him." (NIV). Verse 30, "It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus...." Praise God! It wasn't some quality in us. It wasn't something that we brought to the table. This is an act of God's mercy to open your mind and heart and show you what you are and then show you what his Son is and to cause you to put your hope in Him. That's God's work. God did that. That reveals the kind of a God that we have. Praise God!

"It's because of him..." that's God, "...that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God...." Do you need wisdom? Well, I do every day. But, if I have Him, I have what I need. I need to learn. I need to grow. I'm like that little child. You know, I think we're probably beginning to learn to crawl, don't you? But the Lord is so faithful to teach us and to help us to grow up in Him. And, you know, the wonderful thing is, we can look down to the end of the road and see how this is all gonna come out.

And, you remember how Paul ended that passage at the beginning of the chapter...back in the beginning of chapter one there, verse 9. "God, who has called you into fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, is faithful." That's what's gonna make it happen. Praise the Lord! So I know if I'm gonna be like Christ, He's gonna have to do some work on me. Thank God, he's not raking me over, he's making me over.

( laughter ).

My flesh might want to call it raking sometimes, but it's because the flesh--our flesh just, its natural instinct is to want to live and to want to do things our way. But, if we will just learn to humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God, He'll take care of the exaltation part. It's not my job to worry about the second half, that's His part. My job is to just say, Lord, have your way in my life. Teach me your ways. Help me to learn, today, what I'm supposed to be and to realize that I don't have the strength. I just have to let you live your life in me. Praise God!

"It's because of Him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God, that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption." Well, that kind of takes everything into account, doesn't it? Just a complete job, everything we stand in need of. I mean, you can go right from one end of the Bible to the other and everything God desires, everything God exhorts us to be, the way to be that is to say, Lord, I can't, but you can. Help me to humble myself and to believe your Word and your promise. Praise God!

Let's go to another scripture and you'll see this tied in. I think this is the answer to how you reconcile this principle of us having everything with Paul reaching forth. Because it sounds like a contradiction in terms, but it isn't. Look at Philippians chapter 2. All right, this is the passage where Paul talks about the great humiliation that Christ endured. He literally came to earth--our creator came here to live among us, not even as a king but as a servant and died the most humiliating painful death that could be inflicted in that world. And He did it for us.

And he says, God--because He's done this for us, God has highly exalted him, given him a name above every name. Praise God! There's no devil in hell that can oppose us and overcome and just say, Christ, you're not strong enough to save that one. Get out of my way. I'm more powerful than you. That won't happen if we put our hope in Him. He is Lord and Master of heaven and earth. He's earned that place. Praise God! We rightly give Him praise.

"And every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Therefore..." in view of what Jesus has done, not what we have somehow done, "Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed, not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence, continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose."

Now do you catch that? Salvation--the salvation that you and I need today in our lives, whatever we're wrestling with, whatever aspect of this salvation that we need to experience today, is not something that's out there somewhere, is it? He says, work it out. Well, you can't work something "out" that isn't "in." In other words, God's given us all that we need but that needs to be worked out in our lives. We're not begging God for something we don't have. Oh, if you'll just give me this then I can be a successful Christian. It's working out what we already have on the inside because He's put it there. Do you see the difference?

Work out your salvation with fear and trembling. There is a part that we play, but the part is to lay hold of the things that we already have in Christ by faith. And, of course he says that--the second half of this, "...for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose." We have God on our side in this process. This is not something where He just hands down a bunch of rules and say follow my rules and you get to go to heaven. This is a God who puts His Son in our hearts and says, you need to learn to live the life that I've put in you every day and as you do I'm gonna be with you to help you. He's given us everything that we stand in need of in Jesus Christ.

And I just...I pray that He will teach me. I pray that He will teach you to learn to rest in Him and to believe. I know the scripture that I was thinking. Thank you, Lord. 2nd Peter chapter 1, because basically, this is...in a different way Peter expresses the same truth. I'll go ahead and start in verse 1, "Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who through the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ...."

Now whose righteousness is this based on? On His. He doesn't say based on your righteousness He's done all of it. He says, through His righteousness. "...you have received a faith as precious as ours." You know, that's the thing. You don't even have to come up with your own faith. If we're willing to humble ourselves to God, He gives the faith that we stand in need of to be saved or to do all the things that happen along the way. Faith is His gift. Praise God!

"By grace you have been saved, through faith...." It's by grace through faith, but that not of yourselves. It's the gift of God and it's not based on works, because if it were, you'd boast. Praise God! Every part of salvation...oh, I'm so glad. It just takes such a load off my shoulders to realize that I can just believe Him and rest in Him and watch Him work. Cooperate with Him. The power just comes into play as He works.

"Grace and peace be yours in abundance through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord." There's the thing--that's what we need. A lot of times it's just sheer ignorance. There's stuff we gotta learn, just like that little...that little baby's got a lot to learn. Now everything he will ever become is in there, but as he learns, as he grows, as he eats, that body begins to fill out. He begins to exercise his capabilities. They begin to grow. What you're seeing is not the acquisition of stuff out here, it's the development of a life he already has.

Praise God! Isn't God wonderful, what He's given to us? But here's the part where we need to learn. It says, "His divine power has given us everything..." You see he's saying exactly the same thing. He "...has given us everything we need for life and godliness..." But now how do we lay hold of what He has given us? He says, "...through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires."

So how do we become like him? By trying real hard. No. It's by laying hold of His promises. How many times in your life and mine have we reached a point where God...where we've struggled and we've struggled and we've struggled with something that is a present tense issue and suddenly the Lord will give a scripture? There'll be some wisdom that comes to us through the Word and all of a sudden the light turns on and instead of struggling we simply say, thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. I believe your promise.

Praise God! That's a whole different way to live, isn't it? It's laying hold and coming into possession of these incredible riches that we already possess, in one sense. But yet they grow in us and we become...they become more what we really are in a practical sense as we are able to lay hold of His promise, and say, all right, Lord. I've been doing it my way, now let me just humble myself and do it your way and believe your Word. I'm gonna trust you to work this thing out. You've allowed me to beat my head against this wall long enough to show me that I can't--that I can't handle this situation. I can't handle this need in my life. But, now you've shown me in your Word how you mean to handle it. Okay. I'll take my hands off. You work it out.

Something dies. Something lives. Something grows. And, that's the process, step by step by step. Little by little He's changing me. Has the Lord been doing some changing in your life? Praise God! I'm so thankful He's doing it in me. Sometimes it feels like oh, my God, we'll never get there. You know we want to say like the little child, are we there yet?

But, you know, praise God! Who's the faithful one here? He's faithful. He will never ever deviate from His purpose to bring you and me all the way through. And the life He's put in us cannot be corrupted. He's gonna do what He needs to do to kill out the things that hold that back to set us free so that we can be to that light that's in...that he's put there by grace, not because we earned it--so that light can shine forth. Praise God! There's a lot more rest this way than in our striving to somehow be something that we just aren't anyway. That's just foolish to try to be what we aren't.

Oh, I'll tell you what, what a glorious gospel we have, what riches we possess. And what's needed is not to somehow get 'em but to somehow unlock them. And, as we learn, as we grow, as we believe His promises and then step out in faith believing that we're gonna see God do changes...produce changes in our lives that we've never imagined could happen. But, oh, I'll tell you the one who could spread the stars across the universe, He can take care of us.

We are the first fruits of a brand new creation. Well, Christ was the first fruit, but I mean, beyond that, it's what He's doing in us. I'll tell you, the minute He gets done with His sons and daughters, making us like Jesus completely, then we're gonna see Him bring forth a beautiful new creation and we won't be able to corrupt it. We won't want to.

Adam corrupted the first one by his disobedience, but, I'll tell you, this is one that's gonna last forever. All that was lost in the beginning and more is ahead. The ages to come he's gonna be showing the kind...the riches of his kindness toward us. But, oh, we need to be encouraged today to learn how to rest in Him, learn how to believe in what He's already given us. Not to just vainly reach and try to earn it, try to deserve it, but to say Lord, I believe what you put in me. And so, this day I'm gonna trust in you. Live your life in me and help me. Show me what's you and what's not. All the things I need to learn, Lord, I'm a student. I need to learn from you and you're a willing teacher.

Praise God! So, we have everything that we need in the Lord Jesus, don't we? Praise God! Let's just learn how to rest in Him. So, whatever burden you're carrying, it's not...the answer's not out there. The answer is in Jesus. If you have Jesus you've already got the answer. God is just wanting to make that known, make that manifest in your life and mine, and he will. Praise God!

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