Transcript of message from TV Broadcast 818 -- taken from Closed Captioning Text

-- Brother Phil Enlow: Oh, I'll tell you what, we spin our wheels. We strive...we try to do so many things and we need God's grace. We need His strength. We need His help. Oh, praise God. I don't know where to go with this. I just...looking to the Lord, because I am completely, completely without anything. I have nothing to give you unless He does it. But I know that there's a secret here in our dependence upon God that we need to get a hold of more than we know, more than we do. I'm gonna go ahead and just give you a Scripture. Please stop me if this dies and doesn't go anywhere. But I just had a Scripture come to me a lot of times recently and it just keeps coming back to me.

And I'm not sure what it's for, whether it's for writing or preaching or when...but there's a phrase out of a Scripture in Isaiah 26 that relates very closely to what we're talking about here. I don't know, I had this come to me several weeks ago. In verse 12...there's a testimony about God's grace and about God's work and God's people. And it's looking forward to a time when there is a people who will say a certain thing. And this is the thing that they're saying.

"LORD, you..." in verse 12, "LORD, you establish peace for us; all that we have accomplished you have done for us." (NIV). Now think about it. It says, we've accomplished these things. He just using this term 'all.' All that we have accomplished...so he lets you know it's not just some of it. All that we have accomplished, You have done.

And do you see there is a secret to effective service. There is a secret to effective living. There is a divine secret in the simple fact that God does not just simply hand us a bunch of rules to live by and say, this is how you succeed in the Christian life. It is a divine partnership in which God extends His strength and His grace. But it's more than that. It's not just God helping us...it's God doing it.

( congregational amens ).

You see the difference? God just doesn't send you on a mission and say well, you go and I'll help you. It's God who goes in us. What a difference! We're gonna get to the other end and we're gonna see that everything that is eternal, everything that will last into eternity is something God has specifically done, personally done.

There's gonna be a lot of religious efforts that you and I have expended and many others that will be burned up because it was us doing it and not the Lord. I believe God is wanting us to understand this...well, I had this expression that came to my mind several times recently. I don't know how totally apropos it is, but I'm gonna use it anyway. It's a hand-in-glove relationship. Now you see a glove reach out and touch you but, I'll tell you, there's a hand in there. The glove didn't do it. If I take a pen and I write something, that pen can't stand up and say, boy, look what I wrote. Isn't that great? I'll tell you there's a hand that holds that pen. And God wants us to occupy that kind of a relationship with Him.

What did Paul say? "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live..." How? "...By the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me." (KJV).

( congregational amens ).

Christ in me. I can't stand here today and tell you that I know all these secrets, but I believe that there's something that God would set before us that would give us a whole different perspective on how to live. It isn't just ministry, it's life. We spin our wheels and try to do so many things and God wants to bring us to a place of rest and fruitfulness to where what we do matters. It lasts and His hand is not short. His hand is not unable to do things. The problem is we're not in sync with Him most of the time, I'd have to say. We're not in sync with what God's doing.

Look at John chapter 5--John chapter 5. And Jesus has just healed a man on the Sabbath day which didn't make Him too popular with the religious people. And they were just so scrupulous about their particular traditions of how things ought to be done. And the interesting thing is that Jesus went to a place where there was a large crowd of sick people. It wasn't just one man, there was a large crowd and he singled out one man and healed him. And he did it on the Sabbath and as I say, they didn't like it much.

And so this is what he's...this is the context. Verse 16. "So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jews persecuted him. Jesus said to them, My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working." (NIV). There is always, at every point in history, God is actively doing something in history and what he is doing as Ecclesiastes chapter 3 says, whatever God does is what?

( congregational response ).

It's forever, isn't it? And so Jesus is saying, God is actively working and the reason I did what I did is because I'm in harmony with Him. That's the reason and that's the explanation for why He healed one man and not the rest. That's because that was the Father's purpose and Jesus had a knowledge of what the Father was wanting to do and He yielded Himself to it and He did it. And so He said, the "...Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working." So, of course, they didn't like that much, 'cause He was bringing Himself up to level of the Divine.

"Jesus gave them this answer: I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself." Now that's an amazing thing. It says the same thing over in verse 30. But that's a statement not of His will--I won't do anything of Myself--He says, I can't. That's a little different picture than you get many places. But Jesus is the One who said this, I didn't. A theologian didn't say it.

Jesus said, "I can of mine own self do nothing." (KJV). Jesus is saying I don't have the power to heal anybody in Myself. I don't have the power to walk on water. I don't have the power to raise the dead. I don't have the power to do anything that is of eternal consequence. Think about that. Let that sink in...'cause, that allows us to relate to Him, because you and I can't either.

That's what Pablo was saying. He felt his weakness. I can tell you in this ministry in the Philippines, I felt...Jimmy and I felt our weakness continually when it came to ministry. It was just, oh God, what am I doing here. I can't do anything...and then experiencing His strength begin to take over and do something. Oh, what a joy it is when you see God do something because that matters.

( congregational amens ).

Nothing I do matters. But Jesus was absolutely declaring His own human inability to do what God had sent Him to do. And so how did He do it--how did He do it? He did it because He yielded Himself to the Father. "...He can only do what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does." (NIV).

Do you think there's--you think there's a place where we need to be seeking God and finding out what He's doing and what He wants? Oh, how often we see a situation and a need and we go trying to figure it out. We go trying to fix it, instead of saying, oh God, show me what to do. I don't know. I'm like a child. You're gonna have to show me.

We don't like to take that place and it's against every natural inclination to say, oh God, I need You. I need Your grace. I need Your strength. I need Your wisdom. But you know when...have you ever experienced...and many of you I know have. You've struggled with something. You've tried. You spun your wheels and finally you give up and throw up your hands and then the day comes when God somehow leads you to begin to say just a simple word or just to do some simple little thing and boom, it works. Suddenly the situation is all changed. I'll tell you, we got in tune with God just for a little bit. What do you suppose would happen if we, as people, would begin to learn? You know, I wish there was some experience we could all come down here and get and suddenly we'd just be there.

( snapping fingers ).

We'd have the full-blown knowledge of this. We could operate like Jesus. But you know, we're gonna have to learn. We're gonna have to learn to seek God. We're gonna have to learn to say, oh God, I can't...but I need you. And when You live Your life in me, it's gonna be effective. If I need deliverance, whatever it is that I need that I can't do in myself...you know, like the scripture Douglas read, "Oh wretched man that I am..." (KJV).

Well, that's a pretty good picture. Who was it that said that? Paul. Now we usually reckon him to be way up here spiritually. Well, do you suppose that might apply to us in some ways? How about a 100 percent? We just need God. If you and I are gonna live for God, if you and I are gonna matter, if you and I are gonna do what matters in eternity, we're gonna need God to just come in and live His life through us. Oh, what a joy that is when we suddenly become an instrument of something that we see God work and we know that it's not our power. We know that our wisdom didn't do it. We know nothing. But we see God move.

Oh I'll tell you, we need God to work in our lives. We need God to work in this church in greater ways than He ever has. We need to pray, but you know, we need to believe that God can change things. And that only God can change things. We need to be willing to be patient and wait until we sense and see God moving.

Now I know Jesus operated in a realm that we don't at this point and may never...certainly, we're never gonna rise to His level, to the fullness of His level, but I'll tell you, the same principles need to operate in us...because, they did in Paul--they did in Paul. Paul, in his ministry, he was a worker together with the Lord, wasn't he? He sought at every point for God to be the one to work through him and to do what he did. And that's where he got his power.

Constantly you will see the testimony of how weak and how beaten down and how oppressed and how all these other things...those were things his flesh experienced. And in the very face of that, God's power flows. I'll tell you, I want God's power. I want God's life to flow through me so that what I do matters, because it's tiring to beat your head against a wall and not see anything really change. I see a few heads bobbing. I don't believe you're just doggies in the window...in the back window of a car. I believe some of you know what I'm talking about. Many of you do.

God wants...this isn't just, as I say, this isn't just ministry, God wants to so live...Christ wants to so live in us, that we become sensitive to Him, so that we know when to be quiet. Some of us don't know when to be quiet. Oh, we've just got to...there's a need, oh I got to do something, I've got to...no, we've got to trust God.

We're gonna say, God, you're able to do what needs to be done. You know what needs to be done. You know where it needs to be done. Oh, God, take over and help and work in this situation, Lord. I mentioned the other night in the prayer meeting the experience of Jehoshaphat that we know so well of how he was facing an overwhelming army. And God allowed the situation to be that dire, so he knew...I mean it was obvious to anybody that there's no way that we can out-strategize and out-smart our way out of this situation. There's nothing we can do.

But, do you know something, there's a God who doesn't save by the size of your army. There's a God who isn't bound by your limitations and mine. There's a God who can do anything. Oh, praise God! Praise God! If we could come to a place where we cry out to Him and we reckon on who He is and we realize how much He loves us and how much He wants to work in us and through us, we'll come to a place where we say, Lord, just help me, just take over. Show me what to do and when to do it and how to do it. Help me to be faithful to learn to be sensitive to what it is that You want to teach me to do.

I'll tell you, I believe we're gonna see God work. We have already seen some mercy drops. We have seen God step in when it was obvious nobody did it. It was obvious no human instrument was responsible, but God convicted people's hearts. And God can...God's the only one that can change people's lives. Come right back to it, it is grace. It's grace from start to finish.

You know, I mentioned Paul. Let me just give you one scripture, where he's speaking in Colossians chapter 1. Paul is talking about proclaiming the hope that we have which is Christ in you the hope of glory, in verse 28. It says, "We proclaim him, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ. To this end I labor..." (NIV). Now he says, "I labor." I'm working. I'm expending some effort here. I'm doing all of this, but he says, "...struggling..." How? "...With all his energy, which so powerfully works in me."

So Paul understood how things happened. He knew that there's a place where I know what it is that God wants me to do, and so I'm able to do it with a confidence, but I also do it with a knowledge that when I do it, it's not just me doing it, God is at work--God is at work. That's the secret of the early church. God was in their midst. They knew they needed Him.

They knew...I'll tell you, religion teaches us wrong. Religion teaches us to become self reliant. It teaches us to become bound by tradition. I'll tell you, one thing you learn from watching how Jesus did things in the Scriptures. It's like He never did the same thing twice. He'd heal one person this way and he'd heal somebody else another way and he'd heal somebody else another way. The common denominator was He was doing what the Father told Him to do. God, are we bound by method? We think religion is a formula. It becomes a religious culture. We know what to do. I'll tell you, we need to be set free to say, God show us what to do.

( congregational amens ).

We need you to move upon hearts.

( clapping hands ).

God break us out of just treating religion as though it's a formula, a lifestyle for us to follow. We just need God to be in our midst in a real way and change hearts and change lives, beginning with this one. Don't you think there's a God who longs for that? Who longs to fill us with Himself and work through us to do His work? He wants the same relationship with us that the Father had with His Son.

And I'll look at a scripture just briefly that we know very well. I've used it many times. I don't know how theologians miss something like this but, it's something. In John chapter 14, verse 9...of course, Philip had just said, "Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us. Jesus answered: Don't you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father."

Boy, wouldn't it be nice if we could say, anyone who has seen me has seen Christ. That's what the Lord's after. But, he goes on. "How can you say, show us the Father? Don't you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me?" Now he explains that by saying this, "The words I say to you--the words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work." Who is it that has been charged with building God...building the Father a kingdom? Whose job is that?

( congregational response ).

It's Christ's. How does He do it? He does it by indwelling His Body. He does it by working through us, by inspiring, by teaching...but bringing us to a place where the words that we say, the deeds that we do are not our deeds and words, they're His.

( congregational amens ).

May God teach us. May God teach me. You know, it's scary to preach something like this. You know, you have nightmares of standing up and trying to preach a truth like this and it just be you. But I pray that, in spite of me, in spite of the limitations that I have, that God will...God will just somehow convict us and convince us and show us.

This is your everyday life as well. Are all of our deeds, His deeds? May God help us. We would spin our wheels a lot less if we would just constantly have our eyes upon Him and saying, Lord, I need You to live in me today. I don't need to go my way. I don't need to figure everything out. I just need Your wisdom and Your strength. And I need to be free to serve You and to say a word when it's right, and yet, not to go jumping in trying to fix things using my own zeal. I need to learn how to just to walk in harmony with You every single day. Oh, You're able to work.

I'll just refer to a scripture. You know, you could take a long time with a subject like this and I don't want to belabor it this morning. I think what's been said, perhaps, is enough. But you know there was a great prophecy to a man named Zerubbabel. Do you remember who Zerubbabel was? Some of you Bible scholars? He was a man who, I think it was with Joshua, a priest, who was charged with rebuilding the temple after the Babylonian captivity and many years had gone by.

The temple had been destroyed completely and he was charged with rebuilding it. And, of course, there was a lot of obstacles to overcome, a lot of difficulties, but you know God gave him something to help him. And that something was a couple of prophets, Haggai and Zechariah. And they had words from God and they gave forth those words with power and they instructed him what to do.

But, oh, they weren't just words, there was a flow of something that went to him that gave him strength. He didn't just know what to do, he had strength to do it, because it was in harmony with God. It was something that God was doing. It wasn't just, here, you go do that and come tell me about it later. God was actively involved. It was the deeds of God Himself.

And so he had a vision of two olive trees. Those olive trees were feeding...there was a pipe that was connected with a bowl and that bowl was connected by pipes to lights upon a candelabrum. And he said, do you know what this means? He said, this is the Word of the Lord to Zerubbabel. Not by might, not by power, but by My Spirit, says the Lord. You're gonna say to this mountain, who are you, oh, great mountain to think you can stand against me. I'm paraphrasing a little bit. It's Zechariah 4, if you want to look it up.

But what a prophecy of the...literally the Spirit of God coming in and absolutely, not only telling him what to do, but enabling him to do it. That's what we need, today. Oh God, deliver us from simply preaching traditions and doctrines that we know are so, but the life is not there. We need God's power and God's life.

We need to pray and call on the God who's the same yesterday, today, and forever! He's never changed! The same God they had on the day of Pentecost is here! And I believe He longs to work and change hearts. We know there's people right here, right now, that are in great captivity. We know of others that are in great captivity. Only God can set 'em free. Oh, I'll tell you what, He's able. He's able and He doesn't need our help in the sense of us trying to figure it out and strive to get it done. He needs us to call on God and just learn how to be workers together with Him...'cause He's the only one who knows what to do.

Everything we do is gonna be burned up. Everything He does is gonna last forever. And that's what I want. I believe that's what He wants. I believe there's a whole lot of people here that want the same thing. May God just teach us.

As I say, this is just a direction. This is a way of looking at life and ministry and all the things that we need. But it's something we need to pray and say, oh, God, I don't know much about that, teach me. At least, that's what I'm praying. I don't stand up here as some kind of expert, but I see the pattern in the Scriptures. Everything that happens was an act of God. He never did give people something to do and say, you run off and do it now. It was God in them, working.

And I believe He longs to do it today and I believe He's doing it here and He's gonna do it in a greater way. So let's just call upon Him. But let's believe Him! He's not telling us these things to cause us to be dismayed by the mountains. He's causing us to lift our eyes above the mountains and say, there's a God who is not subject to any of the limitations that we see and think about. He can do anything.

Lord, our eyes are upon You. This is beyond...everything we see is beyond us, but it's...nothing is beyond You. So Lord, come, stretch forth Your hand and do Your work in our midst, I pray. Praise God!

( congregational amens ).

Return to Transcripts Page

---

---