Wednesday Community Night – January 25, 2012

“Follow His Excellence”

Jeremiah 3: 21 - 4: 2/Psalm 130/1 Corinthians 7: 17 – 23/Mark 1: 14 – 20

Archbishop Loren Thomas Hines, D. D.

We look at what has been given to us so that we stand in the fullness of our character, the fullness of who we are.  When we are not certain of who we are, we are easily deceived by our feelings and by our emotions.  We are easily deceived by circumstances rather than standing in truth.

Last Sunday’s lessons speak to us about the greatness of God and the excellence of God.  In our lives, many of us are seeking for something that we already have been given.  To keep seeking for that which is already given means that we don’t really believe in what belongs to us.

Mark 1 tells us in language that is very clear, “The time is fulfilled.”  It is a statement. It is Jesus Himself speaking, “The time is fulfilled.” If Christ said this, should we not believe it?  Should we not see that the preparation for what God intended to bring into our lives has been complete?

The Old Testament is part of the preparation leading up to a time when that God now proclaims to us, “The preparations are done.”  Mark 1:15, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand.” If we are waiting for the kingdom, then we don’t believe the Scripture.  God says that the time is fulfilled and the kingdom is here.  “Therefore, repent and believe the gospel.” What is the gospel?  It is the good news.

This speaks to us of the hope that we have.  We are not living in oblivion.  We are not living in a state of unknown ability.  God has given to us everything we need. In the writing of Peter, he says that He has granted unto us everything pertaining to life and godliness.  It is already given; therefore, the questions would come, “What are we seeking for then?  What are we looking for?  Are we not paying attention to what God gave us?”

Jeremiah’s writing tells us of the fact that God is setting a course and a direction. If only we would listen to Him, we will find the hope that really belongs to us.  Jeremiah 3:23, “In the Lord our God is the salvation.”   It is not in what I do, in what I can accomplish, not in what I am worth, not in what I am valued at.   Salvation is not from me.  Salvation is in God.  If salvation is in God, I cannot boast in it.  I cannot brag of it because it is all Him, not me.

Jeremiah 4:2, “In Him will they glory.”  This is Old Testament setting the course and God set the course and the direction.  “In Him,” not in us.    We have nothing that we can boast or brag about.  We cannot present our works before Him because those are not the things that are going to bring us salvation. It is Him!  In Him, we glory.  We do not glory in what we do. We do not glory in what we want to do.  We do not glory in our thoughts and our imaginations.  We glory in Him.  We focus on Him because this is where our hope is.  This is where our confirmation of faith is. Mark 1 tells us that the time is fulfilled; the time for this to be fulfilled.  It is the time to be brought out in its fullness and its provision.

The themes for this year are all about excellence.  We need to understand the excellence of our God.  When He does something, He is not like man.  He doesn’t have to do it.  He doesn’t just cover it up; but when He completes it, it is done forever – once for all. God is excellent.  He does not need to repeat it because when He completes it, it is done.  There is no question about it.

The statement that He would say to us is, “What are you doing?  I already took care of this.”  If we were listening to Him, this is probably what we would hear so many times from Him.  He would say, “Why are you asking for this?  I already have given this to you.”  Because we have not understood the character of God, because we haven’t understood His heart and His work toward us, we haven’t totally received everything that is ours.   We haven’t made that which He gave to us a real part of our lives.

Galatians 4:4-7 “When the fullness of time came…” This is past tense. It is finished.  “…God sent forth His Son.”  This is the witness of completion.  He sent forth His Son.  Christmas makes the declaration – the Son has come.  If the Son has come, the fullness of time is now.  “God sent forth His Son born of a woman, born under the Law, in order that He might redeem – not judge, not condemn as John 3:17, “That He might redeem.”  “…that we might receive the adoption as sons and because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son in our hearts, crying ‘Abba! Father!’ Therefore you are no longer a slave, but a son; and if a son, then an heir through God.” You are not a slave to sin, to fear, poverty.  You have been delivered.  You are a son!

It is time that, as God’s people, we begin to recognize and realize what God has given to us. What is ours? Why are we walking around as though we were blinded?  Why are we walking around with fear and anxiety?  We are the sons of God!  God has given to us everything pertaining to life and to His kingdom.

Ephesians1:10, “…The summing of all things in Christ.”  The completion of all things.  All things gathered together are brought to its fulfillment in Christ.  Everything is brought to its height of completion; its excellence in the work of Christ.  If man could have redeemed himself then God would have not needed to send His Son. The fact that He had to send His Son was a statement of where we were in our inabilities to be obedient to God.

We can’t do it on our own.  We can say all we want, “I wanted to do this.  I desire to do that.  I want this, I want that.”  We can’t do it.  It is time for us to recognize that we cannot. It is Him!  Our whole salvation is in Him. Our whole strength is in Him. Our wisdom and confidence is in Him.  Everything is in Him. There is nothing that we could ever bring us to a point of being accepted by Him.  It is He who has come to complete us and to bring to fulfillment His words, His confidence, His requirements for salvation.  We could not do it!

Christ came to complete our redemption.  Jeremiah 3 says, “The Lord will be the salvation of Israel.”  It is not man, but the Lord.  Our salvation is in Him.  It is not my weakness, my inabilities; it is not anything that I can do that separates me from Him because Christ brought me into relationship with the Father.” Romans says that nothing can separate me from the love of God.  It doesn’t matter my failure, my inabilities, my weaknesses.  I have nothing to boast of.  Everything that I have, everything that I will ever have comes from Him.  He is the Source of my life.  If we are required to meet this standard and we can’t meet it, this is the reason He came.  He came to fulfill us to a point and a level where we are acceptable by God – not in what we are, but in what He has done for us.

The term excellence means to bring to a full end.  It is an accomplishment; it is complete.  This is what Christ has done:  He has brought completeness.  When it talks about the fulfillment of time and all the other things that Christ fulfilled, it means that He brought it to an end for us.  He gave us the results of His life and of that which He brought to us.  “Summing up of all things.”   When God says all, it is what He means. All things in Him!

In our own minds, we have all these problems and all these things that we feel about ourselves and about others.  Scriptures says not to look around you.  Keep your mind on things that are above because it is there where our salvation is. It is there where our hope is. It is there where everyone else has the same hope that we have. It is the joy of knowing God; the summing up of all things.”

1Timothy 2:6 says, “He gave Himself as a ransom for all, the testimony borne at the proper time.” God knew what He was doing.  When He reached this point, He says, “This is it. I am now going to redeem My people. I am not bringing back My kingdom to Me.  I am now establishing that which I intended man to be from the very beginning.  I am not letting this go on any further.  The time had come.”  God says, “At the proper time.” God knew the timing.  God knows the timing of all things.

Sometimes we get so upset because something doesn’t work out the way we want it to.  Maybe the reason is it is not God’s time yet.   Put it all in God’s hand because when God does it, it is perfect.  We are human beings.  We struggle and battle against circumstances and situations; but remember, God’s timing is perfect.  When things don’t go our way, we immediately get all upset; we get frustrated.  We say, “Why this?  How come that I work so hard for this? Why did it not happen?” Maybe it wasn’t the time.  God knows our weaknesses and He knows that sometimes if things come before we are ready for them, they may destroy us rather than help us.

Scientists tell us that we only use ten percent of our brain.  Maybe, God has set it that way right now because He knows if we could use our whole brain, we would have a mess in our hands. We will be doing things that we shouldn’t be doing because we don’t know how to discipline ourselves.  We do not know how to listen to Him and follow Him rather than just doing what we want. God said, “If you say to this mountain, be cast into the sea,” the mountain will be cast into the sea.  Can you see the massive ability that God has given to man, and yet we are not ready to handle that because we don’t even recognize who we are yet?  This is the potential that God has given to us.

Revelation says that the day is going to come when there are going to be no mountains.  This is maybe because the Church has come to its maturity and will say to the mountains, “Get out of my way. I want just plain, flat land because it much easier to handle.”   This is not literal, but it is given to us in symbols and we use this to understand what God does for us – the power and the ability of God in our lives.

Titus 1:3, “At the proper time.”  Mark 1 says “At the fullness of time.”  At a proper time, God manifested His word.  What was His word? “Salvation will come from the Lord,” and so Christ came.  What for?  John 3:16-17 says not to condemn, not to judge, but to restore or redeem.  The fullness of time.  We are not waiting for anything.  God is waiting for us to believe and to walk in the provision that He has given to us. The kingdom of God is at hand.  I am glad that I am a part of the kingdom.  How can you condemn someone without evidence?  With God, He has planned everything out perfectly.  Only at the right time will He do something.

In our culture, we may bring charges against someone but it takes a year to bring them to trial and to prove that it is true.  How unfair; how unjust! Delayed judgment is a curse; it is death.  When justice is delayed, it is not justice at all but persecution.  Why do we delay things?  Why do we not believe that now is that appointed time?  Now is the time for the Church to rise up!  Now is the time for me to be fulfilled in all that God has given to me.  It won’t happen overnight, but we set our course and our direction.

Someone said, “Perfection is not attainable, but if we choose perfection, we can catch excellence because we are looking for something that is great.”  We may never get there but we will achieve the excellence of finality – the completion because we have aimed for that which was perfect.  This is God.  It is God’s gift to us – the perfection of our salvation; the perfection of our lives.  When we aim for the perfection, we achieve excellence.  It is habitual; it is something that comes automatically in our lives. We reach to it as the goal of all that we are.  We don’t go half way.  We don’t react before we are supposed to.  We wait for the proper time so that when we do act, it is complete.  It is what God has intended us to be.

The time of preparation in the Scriptures is fulfilled.  God has laid it out; set the course and the direction.  Now is the time for Christ to come. In the fulfillment of time, all the plan of God brought to its perfection.   We are struggling to get to that place, but yet the foundation, the plan has been fulfilled and He will manifest it in our lives.  This is why Romans 12:2 says to renew your minds. Set your minds and your hearts and set your course, “I can because God has sent Christ to accomplish this for me.  I can’t do it on my own. It is not me that is going to do it.”

We might think that we can give our whole being toward accomplishing this. But let us be honest, we don’t give our whole being to anything.  We have many things that we have in our lives and we divide ourselves and our time, so we cannot say, “I give my whole heart.”  It is not there and this is why Christ came to fulfill this for us.

Matthew 5:17 says that Christ came to fulfill the Law.  He did not come to abolish the Law, but He came to fulfill it.  What does that say to us?  We could not achieve the Law.  We could not live by the Law, therefore we were lacking in our ability.  Christ came to fulfill the law for us.  In Him, the Law is fulfilled.  “I am not guilty of breaking the Law anymore because He fulfilled the Law for us.” If I set that in my mind, you will be surprise how that the things that used to control us – the fears, the anxieties, the failure –knocks at our door.

When we set our mind properly, we would prove the will of God.  He did it for me. I don’t have to struggle with this.  I don’t have to fight with it.  I have to walk in it by faith.  I have to realize what God did for me.  Now, I take the steps of faith, and when I do, it is amazing what God can do in my behalf.

Bishop Ariel and I came back from India. We are dealing with a group of Indians. They have very strong personalities – very straightforward; they don’t minced words.  On top of it, these people were a part of the Charismatic, the Pentecostal Church who are very dogmatic and straightforward.  Almost everything that we have taught then in the past, they have an objection to it. They think that the Catholics are demonic.  They think that the Catholic principles are evil.  Even though we are teaching, it is like talking to a wall and expecting that wall to respond.

When we were getting ready to go, in my own heart I thought, “I don’t want to go through this anymore. I am tired.  I have tried.” It is like I can’t get through to them.  I told God, “God, You have to do this.  I can’t.”  I went.  I had to fight battles to get permission to go as far as visas are concerned.   I fought the battle to go even though I did not want.  But there was a breakthrough.  They began to realize that the Bible is not Roman Catholic.  This is the Word of God.   This is what God set.  It is not the Roman Church.  The Bible is what God set; the Roman Church only copied it.   Yes, they made some mistakes with it, but so have we.  Nobody is perfect, but God did the work.

What a peace and a joy could come over us because we saw the change of countenance and of attitude. No longer were they fighting against us.    Now, they were one with us. They were excited.  They were so excited that they wanted us to come back in few weeks. I told them that, “We can’t do that.  Your government office will not allow us to come back in a few weeks.”  They wanted us to come back right away to let the rest of the things to be in their hearts so that they can have true worship of God. It was not like the last time that we were there.

There may be the delay, but maybe the delay was the timing of God – at the right time; at the proper time.  I was frustrated.  As I made promises to them, I couldn’t keep them.  It is not because I did not want to, but because the visa provision of their Counsel would not give us any. You are only allowed what you are allowed to do and we did it, but God was at work.  God did the work.

We have to have the confidence.  It is in Him.  I may not feel like it; I may not even think that it is possible, but if God said it, I am going to do it.  He is the One who is going to accomplish, not me!  We have come to this stage to see that when we do things, God will respond to us.  No, He has already responded to us before you wanted Him to.  He came even when we rebelled against Him and crucified His Son.  We weren’t looking for Him to help us.  We thought we were, but why do we kill Him?  He did it anyway because He understood His own principles of creation.  He did not allow the circumstance to control Him. He knew that if Christ did this, there would be the results that would bring into our lives new life.

Jeremiah 4 says “They will glory in Him.”  In Him will they glory.  Not in themselves, not in what they can offer, not in what they have done.  They will glory in Him because it is in Him where our salvation is.  It is in Him where our deliverance is.  It is in Him where our healing is.  It is not what we do, but what He has done for us.  He gave them to us as gifts.  We glory in Him.  Our whole worship should be focused on Him. We do not have anything to boast about. We have failed in every corner and every part of our lives.  We have fallen short of His glory. Our worship is in Him because He has brought to us new life.

Many Scriptures tells us that it is all in Him.  He set it at the proper time.  The fullness of time for us.  We are the fulfillment of the Scriptures in Him. 1Corinthians 1:31, “Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord.”  It is God who did it.  Many times, people will say to me, “Thank you for doing this.”  I say, “It is not my fault.  It is His.  He is the One who has accomplished this.  Whatever I do, it is because of Him. It is not because of me; of anything I have done. It is all in Him.”

This is what the Scriptures are talking about when it talks about the excellencies of God.  He did not do things half-way; He did them completely.  He fulfilled them in our behalf so that we would have this new life in Him.  He came not to abolish the Law but to fulfill it for us.  How perfect is it?  It is so perfect that the Holy Spirit can dwell in us.  In the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit dwelt in the Holy of Holies and no one could go in there that had any sin in their lives.  The confrontation of the sin and the Holy Spirit brought death.  This would mean that if the Holy Spirit can dwell within us, the sin has been wiped away. Otherwise, if the Holy Spirit dwelt within us, we would all be dead.  But our righteousness, our salvation is in Him – what He has done for us.  This is not for us to get arrogant and all puffed up about but it is recognition.  It is realization that it is Christ. It is not me!  It is Him! He did this for me.

This gives us the security and the serenity and the confidence to walk in excellence because He is the Source. It is Him, not us. If He did this for us, then we can walk that way – changing from glory to glory.  When we see Him, we will know Him, because we are like Him. Finally, we have achieved how we were created.  He has done the work. Now, it is up to us to be faithful and have faith in what He has given us.  Situations may seem that it is impossible.  Just trust Him; He will do it.  He won’t fail you.  He is a great One and His love is for us.

This is fullness of time. This is when the Church is supposed to rise to the place wherein the rest of the world says, “The world is failing.  Let us go to the Church and let us have the Church teach us His ways.”  This is the time, the time where this is supposed to be taking place.

Bishop Ariel and I, in going to India, are beginning to realize that they are seeking the Church – Christ in us!  They may not have known and understood what they had, but as we share with them, they are beginning to break.  They are beginning to feel like, “This is what God gave us.  There is no reason for us to struggle and battle the way we had – trying to prove ourselves because God has already done it for us, through Christ.   Now, they want to get busy; they want to go out.  We are not finish with our lessons yet, but they want to go out and tell the rest of the people there.  They said, “Can’t you come back sooner so that we can come to this point where we can start teaching the other people?”  I said, “No, you can’t do it yet.”

There is the timing of God.  Why is the Embassy putting all these requirements there?  It is not because they want to be obstinate but it is because of the timing of God. It is God’s time.  God knows how to handle things.  We don’t.  If we would have our way, we would have been pushing and pushing, and it would have failed.  But when it is God’s timing, when it is God’s way, it works.

We have much to rejoice about.   We have much to give God thanks for because He has done everything for us.  How great is our God! How great is His commitment and His love for us.  This is where our hope is.  It is in Him.  His life in us is the hope of glory.  Christ in us, the hope of glory.  Not in my ability, not in my desires but in Him.  Let us give Him and recognize Him as the Source of our lives, and the Source of our sonship, Amen.