What Christ Means to Me! — Stan Ford

When I kept silent my bones waxed old, to my roaring all the day long, for day and night my hand was heavy upon me, my moisture it turned into the drape of summer. He laughed. I acknowledge my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid.

I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord, and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin. He laughed. By the way, we will not forget the meaning of the little Hebrew expression, he laughed. I suppose to use it colloquialism, it simply means, what do you think of that?

What do you think of that? And she said, wonderful. Thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin. What do you think of that? For this shall everyone that is godly, pray unto thee in the time when thou mayest defend.

For in the floods of great waters, they shall not turn thy hand to thee. Thou art my hiding place. Thou preservest me from trouble. Thou shalt compass me about with tons of telegrams. And what do you think of that?

May the Lord just add his blessing to the reading of his own precious words. I have been much in prayer and thought about this morning, and I've come to a conclusion, and it's simply this, that I don't want to preach.

I mean, that's an awful thing to do, isn't it, to come to a conclusion like that. But I don't want to preach. What I want to do this morning, if you will permit me, I want to try and share with you what the Christian faith really means to me.

I don't wish to take the word of God and expand its great truth. I don't wish to take a portion of the scripture and point out to you what God is saying to us in that portion. But I want to try and share with you what Jesus Christ really means to me.

Maybe if I can do that, there may be someone here who will say, I've loved Christ to be in that to me as well. And so I've done what I must be doing. I have come to alliterate what I want to say to you.

The Christian Faith Means Never Being Lost

And there are four little things that I want to say that the Christian faith means to me. All it means is that I shall never be lost. Now see, shall I say that again? It is so simple, and yet it is so profound.

It is the truth that brought the very Christ of God from heaven to earth, that men and women should not be lost. The Christian faith means to me, first, that I shall never be lost. The second thing the Christian faith means to me is that if I shall never be lost, neither shall I lack it.

Was it not for promise, he said, the young lions shall lack some tougher hunger, but they that seek the Lord shall never lack any good thing. I shall never lack. The fact which is necessary for life at its fullest, I have found, and will continue to find, is he forgot.

Christ Means Never Being Loveless

The third thing I want to share with you is that if I will never be lost, then I never will be lacking. I will never be loveless. Now you can tell by the somewhat haggard look on my face that I've been married for many years.

Thirty-eight years, it is, that this was when I asked a girl to marry me. I had it all worked out for her. I thought she'd say no, and that would give me time to save up a bit. And I'd ask her the second time, and she'd say no, and it would help me up a bit.

And she must say yes on the third time. Specifically, once she said yes the first time, and then I was in trouble. Yes. But if I had to try, after thirty-eight years, to sum up really what marriage means to me, I think I would say it means this.

It means the thrill of knowing that someone wants you, that they want you. And is it grand to know that Jesus Christ wants us? That we do not feel odd luck. There is someone who cares. There is not a moment in time, or in eternity, when he has not, will not care.

Christ Means Never Being Lonely

The third thing I want to say, maybe as linked up very much with the last one, or the fourth thing, I shall not be lost, I shall not know aching, I shall not feel loveless, but I shall not be lonely. Tell to the parlous long ago gone, O leave me not, and forsake me not, for I have a Saviour who says I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.

The Childhood Experience of Being Lost

First of all, to know Jesus Christ means to me that I shall never be lost. It's an awful thing to be lost, is it not? It's just a wee little tatter. I can't even remember how old maybe I was then, when I was first lost.

I'm not speaking of being spiritually lost, but I'm speaking about just being lost. We shifted down from the place where we were living to another house. Mother never even told us, boy, the address. But being boys, it was a lance before we got under Mother's feet.

And I can see her now, and she didn't stand any higher than this, just a wee dot of a woman was my mother. And I can see her now, and she said, boys, we're going out. And off we went to do some shopping, and we found ourselves in Mr. Woolworth's store.

He has a shop in our place. Wow. I was in Woolworth's for a long time before I was at the toy counter. You know, I was just big enough from the nose to come to the top. And there, the tin toy store, where you could buy a train for six bucks.

Boy, God bless that place. That was real funny. But poor. And there I got occupied with the tin toys, with the toys. And like most boys, it wasn't long before I said, Mom, can I have that? And there was no reply.

And looking around, I looked. Mother wasn't there. She thought I was following, and she'd gone on in the other parts of the store. Now, you'll have a job to believe this, but it's true. I've always been blessed with a good pair of lungs.

And I opened my mouth. Oh. And I was saying, and I'll tell you this, that over the years, well over 50 years have passed, and still remember the awful feeling as a wee lad he loved to play with the tin toys, with the little things that would attract for just a few moments until I broke them.

And being separated from the person who bestowed upon me her love, who provided all I needed, as she provided for her boy. And I remember as a man, not as a boy, the awful feeling of knowing that I was lost.

Sin, Separation, and the Need for Salvation

Lost to God. Lost to good. Lost to heaven. Lost to any aspirations that I had for myself. Suddenly realizing before God that it was then I stood condemned. That the word of God was true, although I knew not the word of God.

That all had failed and come short of the glory of God. Oh, never let us forget this, that God dares to tell us that if we are separated from Christ, then we are lost. ...story told of a weak boy who was crossing London Bridge.

Of course, it's no longer in London now, is it? You bought it and put it up in, where was it? Somewhere away in the desert in America. You took it down stone by stone. But there's a story told of a little boy who was walking across London Bridge and he was looking this way and he was looking that way and he was looking the other way and a big English bobby saw him.

He came over and said, son, are you lost? He looked up and in his real cockney voice he said, no, I ain't lost, governor, but I don't know where my mother and father have got to. Where's God in your life?

Oh, let's face it now. You and I change day by day as we move in this scene that there is one who cares, that there is one who can't, and he is our saviour. Or have we to say, I don't know where God is in my life.

I begin every day with my wife and family. I begin every day with my husband and children, with my mother and my father. But as far as God is concerned, I don't know anything about him. He's not real to me.

And surely that is the proof that as far as God is concerned, you have to wonder is there that the Christian faith tells me that I need not be lost. For down from his glory ever-living story, my Lord and saviour came and Jesus was his help.

And when I open my Bible and I read again the glorious words of the 19th chapter of Luke, this is what I read. The Father's name came to teach and to save that which was was lost. Was lost. I don't know if I'm using so many little stories this morning, but years ago I was travelling down from Norwich on the east coast of England.

I was due to commence a series of services the very next day in our own county town. If you can tell by my dialect, at least really I'm the only one without a dialect here, but I come from the west country of England.

And I was due to commence a series of services the next night in the county of Georgia. And so I travelled down through the night for I wanted just a few hours home with my wife and children. As we drove down the great A11 road towards London and we came in the early hours of the morning into London, I looked around and somehow I'd taken the wrong turn.

I didn't know where I was. And as I was driving, I suddenly saw by the side of the road a fellow walking and I pulled up and said, Hi Jimmy, what would you like to say? I knew the same but I was on my way home and I knew the way from there.

He looked and said, I'm going that way to have a look. Jump up. I'll be jumping. Straight down here. Round to the left. Round to the right. Up over the hill. Round to the left. Right. I was driving and looking and suddenly we came to some light.

Before you could say Jack Robinson, he'd opened the door and he'd jumped out and he'd said, good morning. Suddenly I looked and there was an English policeman. And I said, sir, can you put me round? I'm trying to get a change.

Change? He said. Well, where am I? It will mean nothing to you unless you're here in London. I said, you're at the elephant in purple. I couldn't have been further. All I know is this. I dropped him very near his home.

I was lost. And I listened to the advice of a man who said he knew the way. Imagine he was there. He might have known the way but he hadn't told me the way. Why are we lost when there are hundreds and thousands of different voices saying this is the way, this is the way.

God knew that and God knew that there were men and women in those days that are long past that were deceiving men and women. They were telling them that this was the way and that was the way but men were lost.

Christ as the Way to God

Jesus came not just to tell us the way but to lead us. He came where we were. Let there be his name. He came where we were that he might in his mercy show the way to God and lead the way to God. For him that way meant hell to stop.

For him that way meant bearing the punishment of that which is hath raised from God and that that we should be lost in time as it had turned. And I thank God that there came a time in my life when by faith I placed my hand in his.

By faith I asked him to be my saviour and my lord and to show me the way and oh hallelujah none of the ransomed ever knew how deep were the waters crossed or how dark the night that the Lord passed through ere he found the sheep that was lost.

But praise God the sheep knew that it was found and I know I did not. And I say that the Christian faith means not only that one need never be lost but it means that one need never be lacking. Need never be lacking.

Christ as the Believer's Sustainer

Thou art my hiding place thou shalt preserve me from trouble. For our men and women may be in this service this very morning and you have said to yourself many a time look I should be a Christian I know I should vow to the Lord Jesus to be my saviour.

I know I should bow my knee with repentance in my heart towards God and in faith in Jesus Christ trust him. I come across so many men and women they call me they're Christians and I look at their life and if anything to that which I would call a Christian they show no sign of being found.

Above all else I don't wish to be a hypocrite but if there's one thing God doesn't wish you to be a hypocrite either. If there is one thing I am certain of that there is enough in Jesus Christ not only to save us but keep us that there's enough in Jesus Christ not only to find us when we're lost but minister to our needs day by day bounce up not less.

I sometimes get somewhat upset when I hear men and women call him such a friend they say well I'm not going to be a Christian look at those hypocrites. It doesn't mean anything really does it? I remember an occasion when in the city of Glasgow I was walking down Argyle Street with a good Baptist minister a friend of mine and as we walked down Argyle Street I will never forget it he said to me just a moment Sam there's one of my I think he called him parishioners I'm not very up in these things but something like that anyway and we stopped in front of a gentleman and I thought now I'm going to have a lesson in partial work.

I'm going to be a Jesuit isn't I? And so I listened. You shouldn't listen to other people's conversations really did you? But I did. And the good Baptist minister friend said to this man calling him by name he said we haven't seen you along the church lately.

Oh said the man I'm not going there anymore. I'm not going there. How's that? Oh he said you had too many hypocrites there. And just like that just like that my friend said well let that keep you away we can do with another one.

You see what I mean? Do you not think that the most hypocritical thing is to say that I'm not going to trust the Lord because I don't think I can keep it. When you know deep within your heart that you couldn't keep it.

If you were the greatest saint in the world I wouldn't keep you. Thou art my hiding place. There is a hiding place but thou art my hiding place. Thou shall preserve me from trouble. Oh I thank God in Jesus Christ there is one who lives.

If there was a burden in our worship this morning it was surely this that the one we worship is the Christ who lives. Blessed be it then. And that one as I have said night by night is available for every one of us in the service.

And I thank God there came a time in my own personal experience when I had my knee and I said Lord I'm lost. Oh I didn't use those words. I didn't know those crazy oddities. I've never been to church at all a Sunday school in my life.

Did I know this? I bowed my knee and I said God I must entertain me. I admonished that I was lost. I want to say this that I have a savior who not only has saved me but has preserved me. One has not lacked anything that one has found necessary to live out one's experience for Jesus Christ.

Oh he's a wonderful savior. A wonderful savior. Friend I don't like speaking of friends. I am not unmindful that when again and again and again in the epistle to the Romans in that great eighth chapter we hear or the great sixth chapter we hear I I am not unmindful of the fact that Paul sums it up and says oh wretched man that I am.

But I'm trying to share with you what Christ means to me. I thank God there came a time when I bowed my knee. And if you think it's easy to be a Christian then there's one thing you can say. You've never tried it.

Just not say that it's easy to live for him. And he says all that you need is time with him to live out that experience. I soon found out it was not easy to live for the Lord. I had to go back to the boxing booth of a fairground and tell a crowd of fellows with whom I'd been fighting for years that there was going to be a change for I trusted Christ.

Justification, the Cross, and Christ Within

May I say something more? That not only knowing Jesus Christ means that I shall not be lost. Knowing Jesus Christ means that I shall not lack. For not only did he die upon the cross for me but was raised again because of my justification and gives to those that trust him his Holy Spirit that in the words that were sung I live yet not I Christ lives within me.

Christ's Care for the Believer

Praise God I shall not be loveless. Know that there's someone who cares. Someone who is there. My good friend, forgot his name but my good friend brought me last evening two letters from home. You know I've been here a week and I haven't had a letter from home.

I was getting just a bit anxious and I wouldn't tell you how many times I've read them since they arrived. I could tell every word that's in them. Know there's someone who cares. I thank God I have a letter.

I thank God that it comes from heaven. I thank God that it tells me of one who is interested in me. Could not be more interested in everything that I want to know of heaven. Everything I want to know of him.

When my wife writes to me she tells me about the children. She tells me about the grandchildren. She tells me about the garden. She tells me about the house. She's reminded me in this one that I promised to paint it and hadn't done it.

I mean that's the sort of thing. I've got a God who tells me about his home. He tells me about himself. He tells me about his family and what a family. He tells me of the things that happen on life's journey.

The Church's Responsibility to the Lonely

He tells me he cares. It's some 32 years that I've been serving the Lord in this and maybe some 30 in more other countries I preach the gospel. I don't know if I come across anything more bitter. I have to be careful in what I say but in general terms I don't know if I come across anything more bitter than when I come across a person who desperately loves me.

Desperately loves me. And it is a fact there are some like that. There are some separated from friends, from loved ones. Others have left their mark upon and they're lonely. And oh it's the biggest condemnation to the church of God that we allow men and women to be lonely.

Every church should surely have a visiting program that if there are lonely souls at least there's someone who knocks the door and says I care. Yet in its deepest sense in its deepest sense to know Jesus Christ means one has never left.

Christ's Loneliness and His Compassion

I know what it means to have the loneliness of faith. Since I came to know Christ I've never known what it means to have the loneliness of faith. The Lord Jesus knew something of loneliness didn't he?

That we might be delivered from it. If ever there was a person who knew loneliness it was the faith. When you open your Bible and you think of him as he sought to speak to his disciples of the reason that he came into this world.

Why one of them had to say to him get thee behind me Satan. Had one turn and rebuke him. The Lord told of going to Calvary of suffering for men and women and that man Peter rebuked him. Jesus had to say get thee behind me Satan.

How lonely was Christ without a person who fully understood him. Only once did the Lord Jesus in thirty three and a half years have an intelligent conversation with anyone as to the real purpose of his coming into this age.

And on that occasion God had to lift the ledge of eternity and summon a prophet and a patriarch to speak of the deceit that he should accomplish at Jerusalem. There on the banks of transfiguration with the only time in thirty three years that Jesus Christ spoke to anyone intelligently about the real purpose of his coming into this age.

He knew loneliness because he knows what loneliness means. Praise God he can deliver us from loneliness. That's the thing that counts isn't it. How many of you dear souls when someone has been speaking to you have said that you don't understand.

You haven't been there. But he's been there. Hallelujah he's been there. To know Christ means that I shall never be lost. I shall never be lacking. I shall never be loveless. I shall never be lonely. Lonely.

Eternal Loneliness and the Hope of Heaven

That one shudders to speak of. But I think this morning we need to speak of it don't you. To an eternal loneliness. I've heard so many men and maybe in their factories I've been speaking to them of the Savior.

They will say well if I'm going to hell I'll have plenty of company. Would you remember there's no company in hell. It is the great tragedy of an eternity when I cry. Not only is there the loneliness of no Savior but there's the loneliness of no one really.

It was said that Judas he went to his company in the caverns of the law. Come to his glory. All of wonder and awe. Do you know when I open my Bible to the last chapter of that wonderful book I'm sorry that yes the last book of that wonderful Bible I get thrilled.

The book of the revelations. And I hear one man praising God unrelentless for my sins. Suddenly I find out that my God too is a one man. So I find there are four that are referred to as my new creatures.

At Mr. Quartermaster they make a quartet. Unto him who loves it. My God's too big for four. And I see suddenly there are four and twenty elders. So it starts with one it continues with four. Now there are twenty for four and twenty elders.

I suppose that is the junior choir is it sir? By the choir I say unto him who loves it. And he's too big for that. We come across the fact that there are thousand times ten thousand. Before I come to the end of the fifth chapter it's not one and it's not four and it's not twenty four and it's not twenty eight and it's not ten thousand times ten thousand.

It's all creation crying worthy of friends. The wonder is this that for those that love the Lord Jesus there's no loneliness in it now. It's to be with the host of the How about you? I told you I didn't want to preach this morning.

I just wanted in some small measure to share with you. But to know Christ is real what is vital. Who will grant that we shall be never lost laughing, loveless. And of course the great question is this.

Repentance, Faith, and Confessing Christ

How can I know it? How can I respond to that person? How can I receive him? And the answer is so clear. We sing with the children sometimes, don't we? A little children's chorus. A simple as can be. His aim, his aim to save his life he gave.

To rescue you and me. Well let's take that A, B, C, shall we? You will pardon me for speaking to you as though I were speaking to a Sunday school class. Let's take that A, B, C. Is there someone this morning that wants to know that saviour?

That saviour that will grant that they shall never be lost or laughing or loveless or lonely? And here's the A, B, C of it all. Abandon sin in Christ. Abandon sin. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his fault and let him return unto the Lord and he will have mercy and unto our God and he will abundantly pardon.

What he wants us to do is use the word repentance towards God. Repent! Speaking with my dear friend Jacob Maurer last evening and dear Ben Allen, he reminded ourselves of the words of your great movie.

When asked what repentance was, he said, repentance is not saying I sinned. Repentance is not saying I'm sorry I sinned. The double-minded Philemon said that and Judas said that. But repentance is hating your sin long enough to give it up.

Here's the first A of trusting the Lord. To abandon that which will separate us from God. To believe one life. To sit at ground to believe on the Lord. If a person believes on someone, then he believes what that person says.

It is useless for me to come to you and say do you know sir, I believe you. Accept what you say and act upon it. To know that the Lord Jesus has told us why he came. Why on Calvary's cross he would die.

The way of salvation. He asks that you and I shall trust him. We shall believe on him. Shall believe his word. The rest are all upon him. It is not just to believe intellectually. It's wonderful to believe intellectually.

I did not commit intellectual suicide when I trusted Christ. But it's more than that. The devil believes, he fears and trembles. The salvation is to trust one's life to him. Lord take me. Take me as I am.

I only plead Christ died for me. Lord take me as I am. But not only to abandon sin. Not only to believe in Christ. But to confess him. If thou shalt confess with thy mouth. Jesus is Lord. You like that don't you?

How awful I question oh I love it. You know the bible. How awful I question says if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus. The revise says if thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus is Lord.

For that's what it means to confess the Lord Jesus doesn't it? Jesus is Lord. Tomorrow morning when I go to my business, Jesus is Lord. If there's something in my business that is not what it should be, I'll confess Jesus is Lord, the Lord of my business.

In my home confessing is Lord. If Jesus confesses Lord, I tell you something my brother, you won't crawl with your wife. Madam you won't crawl with your husband. You children if you confess Jesus is Lord, you'll remember that he said children obey your parents in the Lord.

Of course you will not forget will you? That Ephesians 6 and 1 is hollow. When my daughter was just born, I remember once someone saying to me, how Janet I said oh she's wonderful. Wonderful? She's at last found out the answer for Ephesians 6 and 1.

Children obey your parents. If parents provoke not your children to act, there are two ways to it. And if Jesus is Lord that's what we'll do isn't it? It'll affect our business, it'll affect our family life, it'll affect our school life, it'll affect our political, social life.

If Jesus is Lord oh this is the way of salvation. And ABC to offend and sin to believe in Christ and to go to confession, to live out that life. Friends if you've never done that desperately solemn isn't it?

Sing with me just two verses of a hymn. Number 236. Two verses of a hymn just said to Jesus. Then why not take it now, come and lie ten confessing. Thou shalt receive a blessing. Reject the mercy he freely offers thee.

The first and the last verse.