In this sermon, the speaker emphasizes the importance of love and unity among believers. He highlights how love flows within the triunity of God and how God desires for others to experience the same peace and tranquility. The speaker references the Gospel of John, noting that Jesus repeatedly mentioned being sent by the Father. He also shares personal anecdotes of showing love and compassion to others, illustrating the practical application of bearing one another's burdens. The sermon concludes with a reference to John Wesley and his emphasis on Christians gathering together to lay their hearts bare before God and one another.

There are advantages and there are disadvantages in being old. One of the disadvantages, you always say, what did I say? Have I said that before? I was at a service, actually it was a Christmas Eve service about three years ago and there was an English teacher in the congregation and after the service he asked if I would give him one of the little books I'd written. So I did and then he said, will you come, we're going to have a meal in the home, will you come for a Christmas Eve meal? So we went to the Christmas Eve meal and when we were there he said, would you sign the book for me? I said to Dorothy, I've forgotten his name, what's his name? Dorothy said, well I'll find out. So she said, how do you spell your name? He said, B-O-B-BOB. So there's always a way out of it. So I trust you're going to sympathise with me as we go along and we're going to ask the Lord to do something very, very special in our meeting this morning. You're not really strangers to us. The reason you're not strangers to us is because we have met at the throne and I won't remember your names but I do know that when we're meeting some of you we have prayed for you and we've prayed for your ministry and we thank God for the honour, and I mean honour, of being here as God's spokesman seeking to encourage you in the ways of God at this particular time. I feel that God would have me speak on two themes. This morning it will be unfamed love. There's a verse that talks of unfamed love in Peter and this afternoon we'll probably be talking about unfamed faith. It's easy for us to know what love should do and then to mimic it. But it doesn't really come from a heart of love. The psychologist tells us that love works from the outside in. God has made a wonderful provision that true love works from the inside out. And we realise that it's impossible to love unless the Spirit of God has shed abroad the love of God into our hearts. So we're going to look at the book of Ephesians a little bit today and maybe this afternoon we'll look a little bit at the book of Habakkuk. But in both of them we are praying that God will bless you in a very, very special way. We notice that in many of your prayer requests there is the prayer for family, that God will bind the family together in real fellowship and love and togetherness. Different words but the request comes up many times in your prayer cards. We also notice that in your prayer cards one of the requests is that there may be unity in the fellowship where you're serving. And I want to tell you that the theme this morning is the answer to both of those prayer requests. If we really understand the essence of what it's all about. You see in the book of Ephesians Paul is no longer defending his apostleship. He did that in 1 Corinthians. He's no longer battling the Gnostics. He did that in the book of Colossians. He's no longer correcting Judaizers. He did that in the book of Galatians. He's no longer rebuking fickleness. He did that in the book of Corinthians as well. He's come through a long, long journey. His ship has sailed through many dangers and now he's approaching the harbor. And as he's approaching the harbor he's ministering about the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. And really what it's all about, it's all about Jesus. It's not about our service. It's not about what we're doing. It's not really about where God's called us. It's all about him. In the book of Colossians it's Jesus as Lord of the church. In the book of Ephesians it's Jesus as head of the church. The head has no function without a body. And the most wonderful truth is that here we are as the body of Christ through whom the headship of the Lord Jesus can function. In Ephesians 1.23 we read he's head over all things to the church which is his body. The fullness of him who all in all is being fulfilled. The head of him who all in all is being fulfilled. Oregon translated it this way. Christ is fulfilled in all that come to him. Whereas he is still lacking in respect to them before they have come. You and I have the privilege of filling up the lack of the Lord Jesus Christ. Going and bringing people into the body of Christ. The body over which he is the head. Sometimes young people will come to me and I say what are you going to do? They say well I really don't know what I'm going to do. I think I like doing this or I like doing that or I've got an interest in this but I don't really know what I'm going to do. Or they'll say well this is what I'm going to do. This is what I like doing best. And I always say before you decide on it have you ever really asked what God wants you to do? Is he really the head? Is he really the one who is directing you? You see the wonderful truth is that when the Lord Jesus says go he's always behind the one who says go. The call is not really the people to whom we go. The call is the one who says go. And the Lord Jesus himself responded to the call when he was in heaven before ever the world was created. There was a perfect harmony of fellowship and love. There was perfect tranquility, perfect peace, perfect accord. Love flowed from member to member and from office to office in that marvelous triunity of God. There was never anything that ruffled the scene but in God's heart there was a desire that others may share such tranquility, such glory, such peace. And he came to the place where he created time. In the beginning. Time began. Out of eternity God moved into time. In the beginning. After the beginning and after God had created the splendor of the world and the universe and the marvels of all that we see in creation. After he had created man in his own image then there came a moment where the Lord Jesus heard of the Father go. How do I know that? I read through John's gospel last night and I noted I think it was 33 times that the Lord Jesus said the Father hath sent me. The Father hath sent me. A continual repetition of a phrase the Father hath sent me. How do you send somebody? You say go. And the Lord Jesus in a sense came into a world of suffering and woe as he came to express the love of God. I want to turn with you if you will please to the book of Ephesians and that's where I believe that God would have us share today. In Ephesians chapter 3 I want to read to you from verse 13. The apostle Paul now was as I say writing to the Ephesian church to establish Christ as the head of the church. And he said wherefore I desire that ye faint not at my tribulations for you which is your glory. It's interesting that the apostle Paul was not concerned with his circumstances in this letter. He was not telling the people to whom he wrote what was happening to him as he was in that rat infested dungeon in Rome. He was not complaining about the circumstances that he found himself in. His whole concern was for the church not for himself. And that's why of course in the opening phrases of the book of Ephesians he was able to say three times over in verse 6 to the praise of the glory of his grace. Why are we here today? Why are we giving reports in different parts of the world as to what God is doing? To the praise of his glory of his grace. He also says in verse 12 that we should be to the praise of his glory. And in verse 14 again he says we may be the purchased possession to the praise of his glory. I sometimes go to a platform feeling very inadequate to minister. Felt it again today. The verses that came to me today was I came not unto you with the excellency of man's speech but in fear and trembling. And there is a sense in which it is an awesome privilege one that is too much for me to handle to be before you precious missionaries and you devoted souls who are longing to move forward with God. But the apostle Paul said our sufficiency is of Christ. And that's the only sufficiency with which I stand before you today. But I'd sometimes pray Lord Jesus, today I give you permission to glorify yourself at my expense. That's what it's all about. It's not about God producing wonderful preachers wonderful teachers wonderful missionaries successful evangelists master church builders. What it's all about is that through the body the Lord Jesus Christ himself may be glorified. And that often means that it's at our expense as we begin to enter into the fellowship of his sufferings as we understand in a new dimension what it means to experience the conformity to his death. Lord glorify yourself at my expense. Indeed the Lord Jesus when he was facing Calvary his whole purpose as he opened the prayer in John 17 was not first of all for the church nor for the people who would be led to Christ through the church that would be established. He said, Father glorify thy son that thy son may also glorify thee. He said what I'm praying for is not anything less than that the glory of God may be manifest as I go forward to bear all the unthinkable unprintable filthiness of hell itself. And as my spotless soul is going to be separated from the eternal God with whom I have known eternal fellowship in the tranquility and peace of eternity and now oh Lord that's going to be severed and brokered but that's not what I'm concerned about. What I'm concerned about glorify thyself Lord. Overshadow me today Lord as I speak to these precious people overshadow me by the outshining of thy glory that the consciousness may not be of a message from a messenger but I pray that it may be the consciousness of the voice of God getting through all the clutter of our circumstances all the joy of our interaction and fellowship together and that we may in this solemn morning hour hear the voice of God penetrating. There's a verse in 1 Peter 1.22 of baying the truth through the spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren. Seeing that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently. I love to refer to John Wesley. I've read so much of his material in the course of my life. Realize that God moved in those days in a humanistic age where a country was on the brink of revolution and God moved in such mighty power as he said I went up and down the British Isles offering Christ to the people. But after people had come to Christ then he established weekly meetings and there was one that was called the Oxford Club and every week Christians had to gather together the men separated from the women and they had to lay their hearts bare in the presence of one another in the presence of God. And one of the questions that they had to answer each week was is there somebody whom I fear? Is there somebody whom I dislike? Is there somebody whom I disown? Is there somebody whom I criticize? Is there somebody whom I hold a resentment toward? Is there somebody whom I disregard? Would you allow the Holy Spirit to penetrate honestly into your mind today as you're thinking about a new baptism of love in your heart? Would you begin by confessing and telling God that there are those people whom you disregard, there are those people whom you disown, there are those people whom you criticize. There are those people whom you hold a resentment toward. Because before ever we can be filled with love we have to be emptied of self. I often say that we want the fullness before we want the emptying. I've got a cup of vinegar here and if I nudge it, vinegar is going to overflow. But I don't want it to be full of vinegar with all its bitterness. I want it to be full of sweet, lush, orange juice. The only way I can fill it with orange juice is to empty it of vinegar. And most of us want orange juice flooding a life that's already got vinegar within it. You see the Spirit of God not only sheds abroad in our hearts the love of God by the power of the Holy Spirit which is genuine love, unfeigned love but first of all he has to empty the vinegar. For in Romans chapter 8 we read if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body you shall live. And it's the same Holy Spirit who mortifies the deeds of the body, the deeds of the self-life. And it's nothing that you and I can do for ourselves it's something that only the Holy Spirit can do. Imagine a man before a court and the judge has to sift the evidence because he's been accused of murder. And after he's sifted the evidence he has to establish the guilt. And after he's established the guilt he has to pronounce the punishment. And the judge says, I've sifted the evidence this man is guilty of murder. And the punishment is this man has taken a life therefore this man is condemned to death. Now if the judge were to take a pistol out from under his bench and kill the criminal the judge himself would be guilty of murder. What does the judge do? He hands over to the executioner and the executioner performs the guilty verdict. And if you and I are here today and we begin to sift the evidence and we begin to say Lord there is in my heart criticism. There are people whom I disown I don't feel they really are going to be very important in my fellowship therefore I can't use them therefore I'll ignore them. If there's that attitude of mind that lingers as we plan our work and we're only looking for the people who are going to be useful to us then it's the first operation that we take is to hand over to the divine executioner. And through the spirit he is the executioner we mortify the deeds of the body. And we say Lord I can't, you can. And the tense isn't the perfect tense it's a continuing process it's not the once and for all. When I was first converted I used to come home from business and there was one two week period when I would go into the drawing room in our house and I'd get on my knees with my bible open and I longed to be a holy young man. I longed to be able to resist the temptations that were in the office and all the lewd pictures that hung around. And I would pray night after night Lord, Lord, sanctify me. And I thought that if I prayed and waited long enough there'd be one little click and I'd become a super sanctified synthetic saint. And then it would be plain sailing from that moment on. But you know it wasn't. And it's only moment by moment handing over to the spirit of God slay it Lord, bring it to death. There's a critical spirit Lord, slay it. Before ever you can put in the orange juice Lord empty the vinegar. Take out of me everything that I am that you may be in me everything that you are. That's what the gospel's all about. God never expects you to live the Christian life. He never expected me to live the Christian life. He knows it's a total impossibility. There's only one person who can live the Christian life and that's the Lord Jesus. And he's transferred the responsibility of Christian living to somebody else. He's transferred the responsibility of Christian living to the one who's condescended to come and take up his abode in my heart. Christ in me, the hope of glory. So you nudge a cup that's full of vinegar and bitterness falls out. And you nudge a cup that's full of luscious orange juice and sweetness and nourishment falls out. And that's what Ephesians is all about and particularly these verses. He says for this cause in verse 14 I bow my knees unto the father of our Lord Jesus of whom the whole family in heaven and in earth is named. The very concept of fatherhood is derived in the eternal annals and nature of God the father. In all of the world, all the families of the world when we talk of a father we derive that concept from the fatherhood of God. But then he goes on and he says that God would grant unto you according to the riches of his glory to be strengthened with might by his spirit in the inner man. What the apostle Paul is about to say I've got something so staggering to tell you so shocking, so unreal to the natural mind that if you're going to understand it you need to be strengthened by might in your inner man by the spirit of God. You're not going to pick this up by reading a book on love. You're not going to pick this up by going to a seminar. You're only going to pick this up as God by his spirit comes into your life at this moment and so strengthens you that you may be able to comprehend this staggering, incomprehensible humanly speaking, reality of the love of God. Oh Lord, I pray that you may do that in this congregation this morning. The apostle Paul, he talked in terms of if any man thinketh he knoweth anything he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know. And every one of us here this morning thinks we know something. And God turns round and says really you know nothing yet as you ought to know. Because if you gain knowledge without brokenness you get academic understanding. But it's devoid of spiritual reality. So when you listen to the word of God it's not that you may learn some new truth it's not that you may learn some new principle in the word of God. It's that as you sit here the Lord Jesus may increase and I may decrease. And that's what ministry is all about. Not some bit of information not some new insight not some new illustration that we can use in our ministry but somehow or another we don't know anything yet as we ought to know until we have decreased in the presence of God and been broken before him. The most staggering times of ministry that I've ever seen in my life has been when people have been broken before the Lord. And the most staggering times of sorrow and sadness in my life is when some people have resisted that brokenness and gone out with academic information that's devoid of spiritual reality. My man goes to a service in Victoria out in Canada many years ago. God had been moving and the church was now the venue for all the churches in Victoria to come and we were packed out night after night. And this one particular night I said we will not listen to a sermon we'll let God speak to us through his word. And the principle of the book Food for Faith which is here is what we use that night. What is God saying to me out of this verse? Is there a promise to claim? Is there a new thought about the glory of God? Is there a new command to obey? And all these questions we said we'll read it verse by verse. Now you shouldn't do this with a congregation of twelve hundred to fifteen hundred people. Just open it like that. But the spirit of God was so much in control. And the reality of the presence of God was there in such power and glory. You see the word of God is not the word, it's not, the Bible is not just a manual. It's not just a textbook. It's a word. And when I say a word I'm expecting you to say a word back to me. Prayer is not a monologue it's a dialogue. Prayer is me being on my knees before the Lord with an open Bible and saying Lord speak to me today. Not a thought that I'm going to have to preach. But a word from heaven that I'm going to have obey. Bishop Taylor Smith used to go to a conference. He'd get down to the breakfast table and he'd say And now my boy what did Jesus say to you this morning? And if you got any sense you'd say well Bishop what did he say to you? And that would last the rest of the breakfast. And that would get you off the hook. But I want to tell you that's what it should be. It should be what did the Lord Jesus say to you today? Has the word of God been living to you today? You see it can only be living when I'm broken before him. Best of all on my knees. And always responding to what he has to say. Now I don't know how I got on to that. But there we are. He goes on and he says That God would grant unto you according to the riches of his glory To be strengthened by might in his spirit in the inner man That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith That you may be rooted That means that you may go deep And grounded That means that you may be secure That you may be deeply secure In love And he says I pray that this may happen As Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith You notice in these verses there's first of all the Father mentioned And then there's the Holy Spirit mentioned And then there's Christ mentioned This is not one aspect of the triune Godhead moving The whole family on earth is named as the Father We get our concept fatherhood from his eternal fatherhood The Spirit of God shed abroad in our heart who makes Christ real The ministry of the Holy Spirit is ultimately to glorify the Lord Jesus Christ I was reading as I was going through John last night That once again the Lord Jesus said when he the spirit of truth is come He shall glorify me That's why we're here today That the Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified Not that we may become successful in our ministries But that as he's filling up that which is behind the body of Christ And as he's bringing in the last members into that body And as we realize the head is useless without a body And we are his body Moving in harmony with heaven And when love begins to flow moving in harmony with one another That you may be able to comprehend with all the saints What is the breadth and the length and the depth and the height of the love of God Is the spirit of God strength in you or in a man? That you may begin to comprehend in a new way What is the breadth and the length and the height and the depth of the love of God What about the breadth? That's the geographic concept of his love God so loved the world That's why we're here today Because of the breadth of his love It's not isolated to the California bubble It's not only for the little fellowship of believers in a church Who get into a friendly holy huddle after the church is over And people pass by untouched because we weren't sensitive to befriend them It's moving out from California It's going to the far reaches of the world The breadth of God's love Dorothy and I will never forget years ago in Kenya When we were to minister to a hundred pastors in the bush Many of them converted three, six months only Many of them without even a bible Walking through the equatorial sun Beginning at four o'clock in the morning And cramping through the noonday sun To get to the evening meeting But as we went, it was like a torture chamber Dorothy being in this particular wagon She has a neuromuscular problem that has tremendous complications So we decided the last little bit through the bumpy road in the Kenya bush That we would walk And we saw this lady Those of you from Kenya have seen it many times And on her back she got a great huge bundle of sticks Her head was bowed and she was looking down And as she passed, we were going to this meeting We weren't far off now The minister's wives were there in their nice dresses All ready for the special meeting But as we were going Dorothy looked into the eyes of this lady She had to look down, to look up into her eyes She was bent over and huddled And she took one of the sticks She said, I want to tell you about a stick And as she began to tell about the one who made the stick The lady fell back Her back cracked on the bundle of sticks And as she did so, Dorothy stood on the little hill And she began to tell about the creator of the world Who made the sticks And how some of the sticks he made Became the very cross upon which he died for sins And other people came down the trail And they all fell back on their little bundle of sticks And we said, we'll be here again tomorrow night The ladies in their nice clothes came out Said, what happened to the meeting? They said, this is where the meeting is We'll see you tomorrow night again And by the time the week was over There were four or five hundred ladies Who were meeting on the hillside And when we gave the appeal on the last day You've never seen it So many of them In fact, I think almost a hundred percent of them Gladly responded to the Lord Their husbands had come out to see what their wives were doing Dorothy saw them peeping through the bushes One tooth, black faces Gnarling Dorothy said, I see we've got some honored guests here She said, we must give them the first place Come and sit at the front So the men came and sat at the front All of them came to Christ And the translator Charity She continued with them For many, many months going through the navigator course Teaching them, instructing them in the Lord Jesus But I tell you this story for this reason I'll never forget it On that last day These wives with nice clothes Coming for a special missionary meeting In the bush When these ladies tried to get the bundles back on their back Here they were getting their dresses dirty And lifting up the bundles And helping them carry them And I'll never forget as the sun went down That African sun The shadows got shorter And we saw them disappearing into the twilight We could only think of Bear ye one another's burdens And so fulfill the law of Christ The breath of his love It was in Nairobi That we were passing by a man in the gutter He was the subject of polio Spindles of legs Sitting there just desolate Dirty clothes And as we passed by Dorothy noticed he got bloodshot eyes She said go and get your eye wash And I came back and there was Dorothy sitting on an orange box beside him And she bathed out his eyes and we began to talk to him And found he was a brother in Jesus He loved Jesus Everything he owned was in a dirty little haversack on the back of his back He got one or two tracks that people had given him He said I don't beg He said I sit here So somebody comes and puts me under a corrugated iron roof at night And we found he was a lovely believer And when we passed by we'd look for Shadrach And we'd give him little bits of this We gave him a bible He hugged the bible, he said I've given him a million dollars He kissed it, he didn't know what to do He got a bible And we were going to leave And he was sitting in the gutter And I said Shadrach You're not respectable Your clothes don't cover you It's a shame And I said Shadrach you know and I know that I could give you money That you could buy a shirt and buy a pair of trousers But if I'm your source of supply when I go Your source of supply will go as well So Shadrach got down on our knees in the gutter And we said Lord Jesus you know all about Shadrach You know he needs a brand new shirt and a brand new pair of trousers Give it in such a way That he knows it comes from you and not from us We saw him once more His face was beaming And we went over to him and he pulled out his dirty haversack And out of it he pulled a brand new shirt and a brand new pair of trousers He said I don't know where it came from He said I don't know who it was He said it might have been an angel I don't know But he said as he passed by look what he dropped in my lap And he pulled out this brand new shirt and this brand new pair of trousers You see God looks with love And you know this beloved You have a multiplicity of stories That you could share to the praise of his glory Because nobody can be congratulated when God does something The only person who can be congratulated is God who does it The breadth of his love, the length of his love If the breadth is his geographic love the length is his historic love I don't know how long it was that God communed with Adam and Eve In the Garden of Eden I do know that he named the stars, we read that In Psalms God named the stars Dr. Dwayne Spencer has said on that verse that it's interesting to note That though there are different names for different animals around the world The one common denominator is the stars are the same in every tribe and culture And they all have the same name because God named the stars And how long he spent with Adam and Eve talking about the stars And talking about his creation Telling about how to cultivate the ground I don't know And God loved that time of communion with Adam and Eve Now he'd created man in his own image And there was that creature who was able to share the creator's glory And God loved him There came a moment as you know When Eve and Adam ate of the forbidden fruit And there was a flaming sword And God was no longer to be found But the wonderful thing is that in the historic love of God He loved Adam and Eve as much after they fell as he did before they fell And he loves you and me as much now as he did before we blew it And he loves Samson as much after he had become a wicked adulterer As much as he did before And when Samson had his problem dealt with Because his problem was his eye And he couldn't keep his eye off the women And God took care of his eye And with a right heart I and his eye were seared out And when God took care of his problem with the power of the Holy Spirit Searing out his eye Then he said oh Lord let the spirit of God Doesn't matter what happens to me now Lord I'm expendable God loved him as much and even through his failure He used it, you see Churchill said defeat is never fatal Success is never final He said it's courage that counts But I want to say it's faith that counts It's rebound that counts The length of his love that stretched down throughout the Old Testament The length of his love that reached out into the Apostle Paul The length of his love that saw the briny tears of Peter Splashing down his broken repentant heart It's the love of God that looks with you and me today The length of his love But there's more than that The length of his love The depth of his love If the breadth of his love is his geographic love And if the length of his love is his historic love The depth of his love is his hypostatic love When God who was never less than God Stepped into a human body and became man You and I need to be strengthened by a might in our inner man To be able to comprehend the significance of it That he was never less than God While he walked on earth But there were times when he only acted as man He says in John 5 and verse 19 The son of man can do nothing of himself Now as God he could have done anything of himself But as man he renounced the right of independent action And he said I'm dependent upon my father to do my work In verse 30 he says I can of my own self do nothing That's what faith is all about That's what the Lord Jesus showed us when he came in his being And renounced his right of independent action And became totally dependent upon his father And I'm asking you this morning in the presence of God beloved To say oh God I'm renouncing the right of independent action What I'm doing from this moment on Is going to express total dependence upon your adequacy Upon your sufficiency Upon the fact that you are Lord in me Everything that I'm not And I can say Lord as I become dependent upon you I can do all things through Christ Who strengthens me The depth of his love But the depth of his love is not only to express his concern As he became man The depth of his love is not only that he may go to the cross To take care of your sin and mine And shed his precious blood That our consciences may be free And we may have faith and a pure conscience when we come to God But the depth of his love means that at that moment of his dire distress And extreme suffering He embraced into that cross You and me that we may die with him The old negro spiritual says Jesus were you there when they crucified my Lord There is a sense in which every believer was there When Jesus was crucified Because at that moment God not only took care of the punishment of my sin But he also took care of transferring me Translating me out of the kingdom of darkness And through the death of Jesus He delivered me from my Adamic heritage In Christ I died In Christ I rose In Christ I triumphed all my foes In Christ in heaven I took my seat And heaven rejoiced at hell's defeat The depth of his love Beloved he not only took care of your sin when he died He took care of your self life The self life is the essence of sin The self life is the core of hostility The self life is the very essence The very substance out of which hell is made And God took care of it at the cross Will you say the prayer I've prayed so often and I've heard it prayed by others Lord Jesus Throw your arms of love around me Hold me to the cross Love me to death That it may no longer be I But Christ who lives in me The depth of his love What about the height of his love? Well there's an organic love of God There's not only a geographic and historic and hypostatic But there's an organic Like we were baptized into the body of Christ That's not just nice terminology That's spiritual reality In Christ The wonder of the truth is that he is in me But the wonder of the truth is that today I'm in Christ And where is Christ? Verse 9 of chapter 4 Now that he ascended is that he also descended First to the lowest part of the earth And he that descended is the same also that ascended Up far above the heavens That he may fill all things Where is Christ today? He's above all things in the heavens Everything is under his feet It was the waves that threatened Peter That were already under the feet of the Lord Jesus And what a joy it was when Peter looked at the Lord Jesus And the waves that were now under Jesus' feet Were also under Peter's feet And the waves that threaten you today The problems that you face, the perplexities of yours The lonely decisions, the inner feelings That are not conveyed in the smiles and the laughter And the fellowship in this congregation Those deep, deep rooted questions that you've got I want to tell you they're under the feet of Jesus Chapter 2 verse 6 And hath raised us up together And made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus You see, I'm not only co-crucified with Christ I'm not only co-buried with Christ I'm not only co-risen with Christ The reality of the fact is I'm co-risen with Christ Seating today in heavenly places It was a very, very rainy morning In Washington State I got a long journey but there's a small Commuter plane That goes from Bellingham into Seattle It was dark, it was windy, it was rainy And there was a little old yellow Volkswagen That took me to the airport The windshield wipers went clonk, clonk, clonk And we plowed our way through the rain and the wind And we got to the airport, I thought what a nasty day When we got to the airport we had to run Across the runway to get in, it was a ten seater plane And we were all damp and disheveled Just shoulder to shoulder I thought what a nasty day And then the pilot said, you know, I want to warn you This is a British built plane, it is fuel effective But it's very noisy So we roared down the runway and the wind was lashing The rain against the windows, I thought what a terrible day Eventually we took off and we went through the clouds And we penetrated the clouds just as a great ball of yellow fire Was rising over the horizon And gradually the clouds were shrouded with gold and silver And had a beautiful perspective I said to myself, what a wonderful day to be alive It was the same day It was all a matter of perspective And you'll find days when you'll say, nasty day And then you'll realize your life is with Christ in God And you'll say it's a wonderful day But it's more than that, it's a spiritual battle In the war, before America came in There was the battle of Britain And the planes were going to come over and bomb And the cities were being destroyed one by one And the Spitfires were on 24-hour alert Because the Messerschmitts, the planes from the German Air Force Were preceding the bombers And England had developed in Scotland the radar system And they began to get advance warning of the impending doom and catastrophe And they would come on the little aerodromes The word SCRAMBLE And all the pilots would scramble to the Spitfires And they would roar down the runway And they would go up and up and up and up and up Because they knew that altitude made all the difference In their fight against the enemy And God has known that And he's given you altitude in Christ Let all the powers of hell be hurled against you Remember that your life is hid with God in Christ Remember that as he ascended You are part of that organic body You are part of that that's reigning in the heavenlies with Christ And what's under his feet is under your feet Because the battle has been won The conquest has been gained The victory is complete and established Yours is not to fight a fight Yours is to enjoy a victory And that's what faith's all about Enjoying the victory of where you and I are In the person of our Lord Jesus Christ Time has gone but there's another verse that's even more important I think Probably the most difficult verse in the Bible to expound Because it says to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge How can you know something that passeth knowledge? Well you can know it cognitively We've been thinking about it in our minds But he's saying the love of Christ which passeth knowledge Now to know it experientially There's all the world of difference You can know all about the love of Christ but then you know it experientially It passeth knowledge It goes beyond the human measuring stick It goes beyond the loss of loved ones It goes beyond terminal cancer It goes beyond the wife sitting at home alone when her husband's out in the ministry It goes beyond death It passeth knowledge Where you sit in those circumstances and you say Jesus loves me This I know For the Bible tells me so You need to be strengthened by might in the inner man To experience that kind of love Let us pray together Father we're here Over 30 countries are represented here today Behind these precious servants of yours There are untold numbers of souls Created for eternity Who are still in spiritual darkness I pray now In the name of the Lord Jesus Because of the finished work of Calvary that cannot be added to and cannot be taken from It's complete Because of that precious blood that was shed That we can rebound By faith in your presence I pray now Lord at this moment That you will give a baptism of heavenly love A renewed infilling of the very love of God To fill, to overflow To demonstrate In a loveless world What true love is all about That we may go from this place and say not I But Christ Liveth in me In his precious name we pray