Covered 1978

From Romans 13 13 Let us conduct ourselves becomingly as in as in the day Not in reveling and drunkenness not in debauchery and licentiousness Not in quarreling and jealousy but put on the Lord Jesus Christ and Make no provision for the flesh to gratify its lusts the Spirit of the Lord has been Unfolding a truth to us in our life as a fellowship Which I believe will be absolute dynamite when the day comes That this truth is it actualized in our daily living. The truth is that we have been called As sons and daughters of heaven to Function and spend ourselves and live in two places In our life here in this world First We are to live in the blazing unshielded presence of a living God and Secondly we are called to dwell in the unmodified presence of human anguish Among people who in some way are hurting and knowing a lot of people want to have you know They want to walk in the presence of God, but they don't want to get near human pain They want to talk about healing but they don't want to talk about or get near the pain and the problems But when the day comes that we as believers together as a people are living and spending ourselves in these two places We will see the kingdom of God as we have never seen it before And we will have the power to minister that kingdom so effectively the chains will break Captives will be set free and the eyes of those who are hungering and longing for God will see him, but It's so much easier to talk about coming into the presence of God and to actually get there and To truly reach out and touch the human anguish that afflicts our race all of us in the places where it's really getting to people Involves a great deal more than walking through a convalescent home once in a while or sitting in a skid row bar in order to come into God's presence and In order to touch the human heart where it hurts we ourselves have to Have a covering as the Old Testament Saints would talk about for instance in his mercy and for our protection God has set an angel with a flaming sword at the doorway to the garden because if we were to go in there in our natural state our very bodies would be seared with the intensity of the light and Our minds would wither and our spirits would faint when Adam and Eve became conscious of the fact of That they were naked after they ate the forbidden fruit. The first thing they did was cover themselves And then when the Lord began to draw near to them in the cool of the day in the garden they realized that the covering that they had put on themselves was not enough and they ran into the bushes so to speak and If you're having difficulty getting near to God Consider that it may possibly be that God in his mercy is holding you at a distance until you are properly covered So that you can safely come into his presence and boldly approach his throne of grace and find help in time of need The Old Testament Saints understood this very clearly they would never even dare to approach Yahweh without some kind of covering Kafar as they call it an atonement and they knew that an atonement had to be blood And you and I cannot possibly draw near to God in a real way without that covering Moreover God in his mercy is also watching over our movements out in the world among men Because the minute we begin to in fact expose ourselves to human need we instantly come under attack from every direction Physical danger hatred Discouragement The temptation to jump down into the mud bath again ourselves For we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers and world rulers of this present darkness And it's necessary if we're going to exercise any kind of effective healing ministry among men that we ourselves are shielded Protected covered there's no way we're going to draw near to God or draw near to the heart of human need without that covering The the priestly robes that were worn in the Old Testament were symbolic of this you know and people get all upset about the fact that the priests got all dressed up in the Old Testament as That as though that was something terrible, but it wasn't they weren't getting all dressed up to prove that they were priests They were wearing this clothing at the command of God as a sign that they had to come into his presence Clothed with a righteousness, which was not their own They also wore this garb as they came out from God's presence and ministered God's mercy to the people now the covering which was symbolized By the Old Testament priestly robes became real in Israel the day that Jesus came up out of the Jordan River from his baptism And began to minister as the Messiah Jesus was experiencing then a threefold covering as he went off into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan and then to come forth and Revealed God to Israel he was covered first of all with the water of his baptism He who was without sin and yet became sin for us and commanded that he be baptized to fulfill all righteousness Also, he was covered with the Holy Spirit Who came down upon him as he came up out of those waters in the form of a dove and was the anointing oil making him? the Christ the Messiah He was also covered with blood his own blood and That blood was effective every time he forgave sin or touch somebody for healing For he entered once for all into the holy place Not with the blood of calves or goats, but with his own blood thus obtaining eternal redemption So so covered our Lord came as the Son of Man into the presence of the Holy God for us Came out from God's presence To minister as he does right now eternal peace for those who will receive it.

But what about our covering? When we get put on to put on ourselves as we approach God and as we move out among men We also need the water Which is a symbol of our death in Christ And we need the Spirit Who is the sign of our life in Christ? And we need the blood our forgiveness in Christ and this threefold covering actually becomes ours when we take Jesus himself To be our covering his person and most of us have no conception of how Extremely we can be in fact enveloped in the reality of Jesus And how necessary it is for us to have this You know, we can in fact be dead hit with Christ and God so that our you know Our lives are really wrapped up in him before God and man If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. She is a new creation. All things are passed away Behold, all things have become new We can put on Christ in this way put me on the Lord Jesus Christ and make not provision for the flesh to fulfill its lusts now this covering this enveloping ourselves wrapping ourselves in the reality of Christ is Not something which we obtain by some mysterious spiritual exercises or long periods of fasting or reading certain wonderful books on the deeper spiritual life But rather this is obtained by an act of will an act of faith in each of four Situations we find ourselves in and we do it we put on the Lord Jesus Christ First we we need to cover ourselves with Christ As we draw near to the Father Thomas said to him Lord, we do not know where you are going.

How can we know the way Jesus said to him? I am the way the truth and the life No one comes to the father but by me and he's not just talking about coming to the father after our death or when the trumpet sounds but now If you ask the father anything in my name He will give it to you and to ask something in the father in Jesus name is to come under the covering of Jesus to Be wrapped in him enveloped in his life Lord God I make bold to draw near to you not on the strength of anything that I am or have done But on the strength of your son Jesus my Lord Covering myself in his righteousness I now make bold to ascend into the deep heaven into the place of eternal light and worship your holiness and lay my petitions before you and The more totally we are soaked Permeated with the Spirit of Christ the more direct and swift is our approach to the father We also need to cover ourselves with the Christ as We move out among human beings among each other and among people out there in the world beyond When I came to you brethren I did not come Proclaiming to you the testimony of God and lofty words or wisdom for I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified Paul Approached those Corinthians Absolutely wrapped up in Jesus The crucified Jesus this was an obsession with him. This was a passion with him. You know, you could say this man's out of his mind So extreme was this and from this obsession flowed light everywhere Paul went and every one of his epistles is filled with this every one of them He Makes this clear that it's impossible To move out among men with any kind of effectiveness in our ministries or any kind of safety From the fear of being clobbered by Satan except as we're covered with Christ.

I Am crucified with Christ. He says in Galatians It is no longer I who live but Christ lives in me in the life. I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me For me to live is Christ and to die is gain he says in Philippians In Colossians, he says you are dead.

Your life is hit with Christ in God And the problem with many of us is that we don't take that covering with us as we leave the assembly Maybe we experience a taste of it when we're you know at the Lord's table, but then when we go out we leave it behind We don't take it into our jobs or into our homes or when we're driving down the highway or visiting in the hospital And we need it we talk about the armor of God in Ephesians 6 put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil What is the armor of God? You know having your loins girt about with truth. The truth is Jesus Putting on the breastplate of righteousness whose effigies Taking the shield of faith the helmet of salvation the sword of the Spirit Beat shod with the gospel of peace. All of these things are Jesus himself.

We have to Be under and enveloped and wrapped in the person the presence the living reality of Jesus himself That we then can go out with something real to offer the people To practice our presence day and night everywhere we are We also need to take to ourselves the covering of Christ When our minds come under the assault of temptation, which they always do Not in reveling in drunkenness not in debauchery and licentiousness not in quarreling and jealousy but put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to gratify its lusts and The mind loves to make provision for the flesh to think ahead to scheme to plan to worry to fret You know to fantasize to dream up all kinds of good and bad It matter, you know, it only takes maybe five minutes and we're two million miles away from anything. That's any good When this happens it's necessary for us to clothe our minds in the sanity which is Jesus himself to bring some kind of order into our mental chaos and This is possible. It can be done It's a matter of choosing His presence instead of these flaky thoughts we indulge in Lord come into my mind What me with your life fill me with reality again take me away from these inmost lives and finally We need and nobody will do this for us.

We have to do it ourselves to clothe ourselves in the covering of Christ as we Approach the real possibility of our own death Which can come at any time? You know, there's been so much talk and it's true the Lord's return is near, you know, but don't forget your death might precede it There's no guarantee that it won't or mine For we know that if this earthly tent we live in is destroyed We have a building from God a house not made with hands eternal in the heavens Here indeed we grown and long to put on our heavenly dwelling so that by putting it on we may not be found naked For while we are still in this tent this body we sigh with anxiety Not that we should be unclothed But that we should be further clothed so that this mortal might be swallowed up in life So that this naked spirit might be clothed in a new body, which is the body of Jesus himself So that the same covering that takes me up into the presence of God Takes me safely out among human beings with something good to give them Protects my mind against the lies that constantly Lamp-assed it now also takes me through the door of death Yay, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil and when I take to myself the covering of Christ the Anxiety and the dread and the terror of death leaves me truly now And I begin to see death as something which is far better Than what I now have And I begin to see that with my heart not just with my mouth That I might depart and be with Christ's Paul, which is far better So if it should be the Lord's will that we remain until the King comes back Good But if it should be the Lord's will that we should be taken in the meantime Praise God that we might be provided. We're covered Called upon with life. So in order for us to live any kind of life that makes any sense at all We have to take the covering That we might clothe ourselves.

God help us to do that today with the presence of his son That we might truly come up into his presence and touch his throne That we might truly go out among men and women and touch their broken hearts with healing That we may conquer the enemy as he attacks our minds and that we may approach our coming death With pure joy If then you have been raised with Christ seek the things that are above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God Set your minds on things above not on things that are on the earth for you have died Your life is hid with Christ in God When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory Let's pray Heavenly Father we just ask that today you would deliver every one of us from the deception of thinking we can be spectators in all this and And The fear of jumping into the pool and Enable us all Lord God to let go of ourselves and get into this life to which you've called each one of us here Father I ask that you'd especially move upon any man or woman a young person Right now who stand at the very door of the kingdom and needs to do that thing today Anybody who longs to repent and come back in again? Father I just pray that nothing will stand in the way and that they will take care of this business Before they leave this place today We ask it in Jesus name