Being Of One Mind — Randy Krahn

Good morning. Lord, just open up the scriptures to us, and I pray that the words that would be spoken wouldn't come from my head, but would come from the Spirit. May you administer to each one, Lord, in a special way, Lord, that we would know you more, and our love for you would grow.

Pray for those not with us, that you would be with them, you would encourage them, you would remove discouragement from them, that they would look to you and be radiant in Jesus' name. This morning I was spending some time reading, and I'd remember that I got a text early in the week from a fellow that used to fellowship with us.

He lives in another town now near Alberta. There have been a lot of people come and go from our fellowship over the last 20 years. They stay for a season, and then they get a job somewhere or they leave for different reasons and move on.

Sometimes it's peaceables. Most of the time it's hurtful, painful. It's kind of like watching children leave home. You're hoping that you can bless them on their way out, but sometimes it's kind of hurtful.

And then I thought, oh, I didn't respond to that brother's text, and I thought, man, I kept coming back to mine. I thought, well, I need to spend some time. I need to text this brother. And I text this brother, and immediately when I texted him, he says, I was just thinking about you.

That's how the Holy Spirit works. The Holy Spirit is global. It's not, you know, just working here. You're not just working in some other place. He's all over the place, and he's able to prompt us if we have his heart, if we have the heart of the Father, if we have the heart of the same spirit, kindred spirit.

You cannot see someone for many years. I haven't seen this brother for many years, but immediately there's fellowship. Because our fellowship isn't in, oh, you know, we both all like trucks, or oh, you know, we both are in construction, or we can relate, we're businessmen.

Our fellowship is in the Son. That's where true fellowship is, in Jesus. And we can find that common denominator of grace and humility. I was reading something this morning that says God is opposed to the proud.

You know, we've had some different people, even we're dealing with some people in our fellowship who are proud. You try to help them, give them some advice. They swear to you, or they tell you how they experience you, and you can't help them.

And if we're like that with the Lord, you, God cannot help you. He's opposed to you. He's opposed to the proud. But when after we go through some things, and we find ourselves licking the pavement, and we get real low, all of a sudden He's there to help us.

All of a sudden He's able to, to lift us up when we get our eyes off of ourself, off of our rights, off of our doctrine, off of all these things. I'm not saying doctrine's not important, but I'm saying we get our eyes off of dotting I's and crossing T's, and we get our eyes just on Jesus.

And then He can help us. And you can have all the doctrine all piled up like one Saul of Tarsus did. And all of a sudden he had to go into the wilderness for a period of time to go and relearn all that doctrine.

And all of a sudden it became real to him. Spent his lifetime devoted to it, and he missed Jesus. And that's what Danny shared. This church doing all the right things and missing Jesus somehow. And Danny shared about losing your first love.

Returning to Our First Love

The Scripture actually says you left your first love. I came home, we were out with the family, and my son was sitting on the couch there, and I see he left his phone in one spot, he left his earbuds in one spot, and he left his wallet there next to the fireplace.

I said, you left that thing there. He's going to lose it. And he's sitting there, and I'm talking to him, and he's busy doing something. And I said, you know your wallet and your stuff is there, right?

Just so you know it's there. Because I don't want you to lose it. He left it there. And some of us, we've left our first love. We've gotten distracted with other things that are good things. Maybe it's in seeking out the right doctrine, maybe proper theology, maybe in our discernment, maybe in our church work, maybe in our serving.

We're doing all the right things, and somehow we've missed our love for Jesus. Better to just have that simple childlike love for Jesus than all the other things, if that's the only thing. Because that's the thing that matters.

To love the Lord your God with all your heart. Doctrine is important. Teaching is important. It says by it you'll save yourself and them that hear you. But loving Jesus, that's the first thing. And if we lose that, or we leave that, then all your church work will amount to a zero.

He says, repent, or I'll come quickly and remove your lampstand. Some say, well that's your witness. It is your witness. It's more than that. Imagine inviting everybody to your church and you sit in the dark.

It's like a blind man leading a bunch of blind men. I talked about listening to 50 characteristics of a Pharisee from Zach. We revisited that this week, and we listened to the first, I think 18 or so.

We had to shut it off. Our wagon was loaded. He said, you'll see, you might see a Pharisee, and he's a blind man leading 50 blind men. He said, don't follow him. He said, you'll never see it, but just picture it for a moment.

That's someone who loses their first love. You can have all your doctrines right. You can have all your ducks in a row. You can have it all figured out. You can have lots of discernment. You can even have the gifts working.

But if the lampstand has been removed, try going to work with the lights out in the warehouse and see how much work you get done. Not much. Not much gets done. Jesus is the light of the world. City on a hill can't be hidden.

The Love of Jesus as a Visible Witness

People aren't going to come to your Jesus because you have all your doctrines right, because all the bones are put together properly in the body. They're going to come to Jesus because they see the love of Jesus in you.

That's what's going to attract them. All the teaching and preaching we do up at the creek. I don't know how much they remember. There is seeds planted, but they remember the love. They remember if you're glowing.

They remember if it's working for you. That's what Sean remembered when he saw my brother. He didn't remember the CD, threw the thing in the garbage. What he remembered was the love. He remembered that he was glowing.

There was something different about the guy. And that's what we need. In him is life. And that life is the light of man. And he says we're not to walk in darkness. We lie and don't practice the truth.

If we walk in the light as Jesus is in the light, he is the light of the world. And if that light is in us, then we will be lights. Light in a dark place. So wherever we go, we can be a witness, a testimony of Jesus Christ, and ready to give an answer of what?

Why are you so radiant this morning? Why are you so joyful? It's Jesus. I remember Duncan Campbell saying in one of his testimonies, his daughter was 16 years old and she came. He heard her singing up while he was having a devotion or whatever he was doing.

And he heard her singing about Jesus and she was just singing. And it was just flooding his heart with joy to see his daughter just joyful with Jesus. And she saw him and said, why are you so joyful this morning?

Oh, I've just spent an hour with Jesus. I spent an hour with Jesus. That's where our life is. Maybe we don't have time to do all the reading. We don't have time to do all the studying or getting into our concordances.

But do you have time to just come and spend time with the one who gave his life for you? So as we go, we share the testimony of Jesus Christ with perishing people. Our faces need to be radiant, not ashamed.

We have to have confidence. Otherwise, we'll put a bowl on our head. And a city on a hill can't be hidden. You don't light a lamp and put a bowl on the head. What kind of testimony is that? We have to have confidence.

Our confidence is that as he is, so are we in the world. We need him to do something in us so that we have confidence. And if we live by rules and religion, we do not have confidence. I'll read something in 1 Corinthians chapter 1.

Unity Through One Mind and One Spirit

Paul comes to talk to the Corinthians. I'll start in verse 10. Now I plead with you, brethren, in the name of Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, that you all have the same mind, that there be no divisions among you, that you be perfectly joined together in mind and in judgment.

Why is that important? You say, well, we know we're all unique and we're all individually uniquely made. But we're all to speak the same thing. We're all to have the same mind. We're all to have the same discernment, the same spirit.

Because that is where our fellowship is. If we have the right spirit, our fellowship is in Jesus. If we're all talking different things, we're going to be confused. And it can happen in a fellowship that we get caught up because of pride.

A lot of times because of knowledge. Knowledge can puff up. Love builds up. We need knowledge. It's important to have knowledge. But you know what? If I have to choose one thing, if I have to choose knowledge or I have to choose to love for Jesus, I've got to take love for Jesus every time.

When I first came to Jesus, I didn't know anything. All I knew is I was this horrible person and he had no business loving me because I was his evil. And I just remember that he called me, that he chose me when I was a young boy, when I used to play piano and the tears would run down my face.

And now I'd become somebody in this world. And I'd behaved so terribly and become worthless to God. So I thought, and while I was yet a sinner, I got a revelation that he died for me. Not just for me, but for you.

He died for the ungodly. And then I came to him. And then there was a reminder, remember, you never chose me. I chose you. And I appointed you that you go and bear fruit and that your fruit lasts, because that's what gives me glory.

You know, and I just purposed it in my life that I wanted to live my life for Jesus. And it's been a journey and I've, because of the lack of knowledge, I've made some bad decisions. But you know what?

God drew me back to just the simple gospel of loving Jesus with all heart. I'm just coming to simple childlike faith and just not leaving that first love. Just remembering that in him, we move and breathe and have our being in Jesus.

There were divisions in the church in Corinth. He said, Chloe's household, there's people who talk to me that there's contentions because some people say I follow Paul and other people say I follow Apollos and other people say I follow Peter.

And some people say, hey, I'm following Jesus. Everyone's at a different place in their spiritual walk. Everybody has a different spiritual father. Paul said that he was a spiritual father to many of them.

You know, if you were born, someone gave birth to you, you can deny that you have a father or you have a mother, but they gave birth to you. They raised you up as best they knew how. They might've made a mess of it, but they can't change the fact.

And if you got born again through somebody's testimony, you can't change the fact that they're a spiritual father to you or a spiritual mother. Paul says, I was among you as his nursing mother, gentle.

And how do you want me to come to you that way? Or do you want me to come and deal it to you straight? How do you want it? And he says that he was a spiritual father to them. Well, yes, the scripture says you shouldn't call anyone father.

That doesn't change the fact that someone is your father. It's not the title that we honor, but it's respect that we give to someone who prayed for us, perhaps someone who made sacrifice for us and got up in the morning and went to work and put food on our plate.

Someone who put some clothes on our back. You can say, well, my father was horrible, but you know what? He's still your father. And there's a scripture that says we're to honor our father and mother, which is the first commandment with promise that you might live long in the land.

You don't get snuffed out early. And it's important that we understand these things that some people where they're at, they say, hey, Peter's my father. Or you know what? Because he laid his life down for me.

He come to visit me when I was at this place and that place. And he poured his love into me. Hey, I follow Peter. If Peter says it, that's what I'm going to do. Another person says, I follow Paul because you know what?

Paul's a spiritual father to me. Another guy says, I follow Paulist because you know what? Paulist was laboring in my life. And he, he poured into my life. And I'm telling you, if there's a church split here, I'm going with a Paulist.

And then another brother has a revelation says, hey, listen, we're following Jesus here. These are good brothers who led you. They might be your spiritual father, but Jesus is our heavenly father. He's the one who we ought to follow and gather around.

Honoring Spiritual Fathers Without Dividing the Church

This shouldn't bring division. It should unite us together that we would all speak the same thing. We'd all have the same mind. We would have the same love one toward another. We wouldn't allow these things to divide us because we're all in different places.

We all do things a little differently. And we're all born again through a different people. Someone brought the word of God to you. Someone led you to Christ. Don't despise them. They might not have the same teaching as you.

Say, thank you, Lord. You brought that person. The person that brought Jesus in my life was a prosperity preacher. I got born again in that. And the Lord brought me out of that. I don't want to despise what God did through that person because I found Jesus through that testimony.

May the Lord have mercy on us. So he goes on from there, but I wanted to read something. Sometimes we despise our parents. We despise our spiritual people who have brought Christ to us. I want to take you to an Old Testament passage, Deuteronomy chapter 21, I think it is.

It says in verse 18, Deuteronomy 21, 18, if a man has a stubborn or rebellious son who will not obey his father or his mother, you know what I think of? I think of Moses in the wilderness. I think of Korah, Dathan, Abiram, these rebels.

Here now you rebels. These guys were people that God had called, who had given them a stewardship of the Levitical priesthood. There were 250 priests there. They were called, they were chosen, they had an inheritance.

But you know what they did? They disrespected God and they disrespected Moses. Here's a scripture that says, touch not my anointed, do my prophets no harm. Moses was a prophet. We have to be careful how we speak about people that God has put in authority.

Even if we find fault with the way they're doing things, even we see things a little differently, or maybe we even have more light. We have to do things in the right way. I believe that. He says, if a man has a stubborn or rebellious son who will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and who, when they have chastened him, they've disciplined him the best they knew how, the boy still won't listen.

The girl still won't listen. Then the father and mother should take hold of him and bring him to the elders of the city, to the gate of his city, and they shall say to the elders of the city, this son of ours is stubborn and rebellious.

He doesn't listen. He's doing his own thing. He will not obey our voice. He is a glutton and he's a drunk. He's bringing shame on the family. Then all the men of his city shall stone that boy to death with stones.

So you shall put away the evil from among you, and all Israel shall hear and shall fear. Like, can you imagine if that happened to you or it happened to me? There was no one more rebellious than me. And if they were following the old Levitical law, and my parents were done with me, they finally had enough of me, I used to get the beats like something fierce.

Three, four days a week I'd be disciplined because I was disobedient. They did the best they knew how. And they just bring me to the gate of the city with the elders, and they say, you know what, we're done with this boy.

You deal with him. They call everybody in town, everybody gets a big rock from the gravel pit, and they just start smashing them with stones. They get some good fear. And all the other rebellious boys that are not listening to their parents, you say, hey, you know what, you better just be careful because, you know what, we don't want to bring you out to the city.

We don't want to bring you out to the gate. When I was growing up and I was rebellious, my grandfather would say, hey boy, he says, you're going to keep up like that, we're going to take you to Siberia.

I didn't know getting out of Siberia. He came from Russia. When the men, they would gather the men, they take them to work camps, they go to Siberia. Very few people came out of Siberia. And so I always got fear because he was telling me stories about Siberia, and the men that were taken there.

And he says, you're going to be rebellious, boy, you're going to go to Siberia. I put some good fear in me from my grandfather. Fear is a good thing if it's used properly, just like the law is a good thing if it's used lawfully.

Redemption from the Curse of the Law

We don't want to live by the law. We want to be redeemed from the law. And that's what Jesus did. I want to read about that. Go back in 1 Corinthians. Well, rather, we look at Galatians in chapter 3. Galatians, Ephesians, after 2 Corinthians.

Galatians chapter 3. Let's look at verse 8. For the scripture foreseeing that God would justify Gentiles, of which we are, by faith, he preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying, in you all the nations of the earth shall be blessed.

So then those who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham. So our righteousness is by faith in Jesus Christ. And the promise is to Abraham and to his seed, which is one, which is Jesus. And so if we believe on Jesus, we shall be saved.

Whoever calls on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ shall be saved. But he goes on from there and he says, but as many as are of the works of the law are under a curse. Now I just want to talk a little bit of what Dan shared.

We can do all the right things, not from faith, not from love, from a good conscience, and from sincere faith, but out of duty, out of works. Because it's the right thing to do, because we have all the doctrines, we know it's right.

Like Dan shared, it's good to submit to your husband. You'll do it, but you won't like it one bit. But to do it from love, it's a total different deal. To obey from the heart, that form of teaching. To love from a pure heart, from a good conscience, from sincere faith.

He goes on from there. He says, for as many as are of the works of the law are under a curse. And he goes on to say, for it is written, cursed is everyone who does not continue in everything that is written in the book of the law to do them.

But we know that faith came before the law, and the law was added 430 years later because men were rebellious and were doing their own thing. And so they needed a knowledge of sin. Remember we said that it's good to have knowledge, but it's better to have love.

To love God and to obey God because you love him. Not because you have to, or you're going to get punished, or you're going to get sent to Siberia, or you're going to be stoned, but because he first loved us and gave his life for us.

And not only that, what does it say here? But that no one is justified by the law and the sight of God is evident, for the just shall live by faith. If any man shrinks back, it says in Hebrews in chapter 11, I believe at the end, my soul, or 10, my soul has no pleasure in him.

But we're not of those that shrink back. When are you going to shrink back? When you're looking back. You're going to go sideways. But when you're looking ahead, fixing your eyes on Jesus, we're going to continue on in the faith.

We're going to press on in the faith. Maybe you've backslid. Maybe you've fallen back. Maybe you've tried to be a good person and it hasn't worked. There's a curse on you. You've got to get the curse off.

Looking to Jesus for Salvation and Transformation

How do you get the curse off? In the Old Testament, I was reading, and we're going to come back to this, but I want to turn there in Numbers chapter 21 and verse 4. Now as they journeyed from Mount Hor, this is the children of Israel, they'd come out of Egypt.

They were in the way by the Red Sea. Numbers chapter 21 verse 4. They go around the land of Edom and the soul of the people came very discouraged on the way. Now when discouragement comes into your spirit, sin's not far away.

If you were hoping for something, you were hoping something was going to come through for you, you're hoping something was going to work out your way, you're going to get accepted into this thing, or you're going to do this thing, or then all of a sudden discouragement comes.

Sin's crouching at the door. Don't let discouragement swamp you and take you back to your old life. So this is what happened. They became discouraged on the way in the wilderness and the people spoke against God and they spoke against Moses.

Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness for there is no food, no water, and our soul loathes this useless, worthless bread, this manna? Why did you bring us here? Where are you actually taking us?

We're discouraged by this whole thing. We don't like this thing that's going on. We thought we were going to a land flowing of milk and honey and we're not there yet. And I don't think we're ever going to get there.

Why did you bring us out of Egypt? He's angry, they're angry with God, they're angry with Moses, they hate the bread, this loathsome manna, they have no water, they have no food. You want to know what happened to them?

Now the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people and bit the people. May as well say they bit them in the face. The serpents just bit them, all these sheep. And you know what happened? Many of the people in Israel died.

You wonder why? Because they sinned against the Lord, they grumbled against the Lord. They were not thankful. And it can happen today. We can get in a place, in a spiritual headspace, where discouragement comes and then next thing you know we're not thankful, we're grumbling.

You know, we don't have this, we don't have that. This is not working out, that didn't work out. You know, what in the world are we doing here anyways? What in this and that? Next thing you know, we start speaking against God, we start speaking against the people in our life who are who are guiding us spiritually.

And next thing you know, God allows serpents to come and bite us, even bite us in the face. I got this article this week about that. And many people died. Not a few people. Many people died. Therefore the people came to Moses, now they're sorry.

Oh man, we're getting bitten. We sinned, we've spoken against the Lord, we've spoken against you, now they're confessing. We're gossiping about you. Pray to the Lord for us. We're sorry we we said evil of you.

Now pray for us that we don't die. Pray that he takes away the serpents from us. So Moses prayed for the people. It's like one of those plagues that was in Egypt. The thing come on them. The thing that they feared came on them.

Then the Lord spoke to Moses. He says, this is what you do. He said, make a fiery serpent, set it on a pole, and it shall be that everyone who is bitten when he looks upon it shall live. And Moses made a bronze serpent and he put it on a pole.

So it was if the serpent had bitten anyone, when he looked at the bronze serpent, he lived. Now back in Galatians 3. This is a picture of Jesus. We can say all kinds of things about what happens if we get bitten by the serpent, but you know what?

If we look unto Jesus, if we cry out to Jesus to have mercy on us, he will save us. He will help us. You get into discouragement. You get into despair. Get your eyes off of your circumstances and stop grumbling about everything that's going wrong and start thanking Jesus.

Like Dan shared earlier, he said just start remembering some of those good times. Some of those small things where he did great things and just say, thank you, Lord. Where would I be without you? Where would I be?

Everything's passing away, but you're there. I still have you, Lord. And he goes on from there and he says, speaking about verse 11, that no one should be justified in the sight of God through the law, for the just shall live by faith.

Yet the law is not of faith, because it says the man who does those things shall live by them. Keeping of rules, regulations, dotting i's, crossing t's, trying to be perfect in the sight of men, but not in the sight of God, because the law only deals with the outer man.

Rules only deal with the circumcision of the outer man. It doesn't deal with the heart, which is rebellious, which is proud, and which wants to even boast in how good we do things compared to other people.

And God is opposed to us in that place. And we think that we're cleaning ourselves up and making ourselves acceptable to God, maybe to people, but not to God. And having this revelation that we need to have a love for God that comes from a pure heart, from a good conscience, and from sincere faith, even if the outward things haven't taken place yet.

Circumcision isn't cutting off the rod, or it is cutting off the rod on the outside, but it doesn't deal with the inside. Only Christ can deal with the inside, and the message of the cross deals with the inside.

It's foolishness to those who are perishing, but us who believe it's the power of God, and it's the wisdom of God. The cross deals with the sin nature. The cross deals with the flesh. It deals with our pride.

We have to die to what we're held by. And if we get in that place where we get bitten in the face by a serpent, or we get bitten in the leg, or in the foot, the serpent strikes us in the heel. He goes on to say that Christ, having redeemed us from the law, having become a curse for us, for it is written, cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree, that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.

Repentance, Grace, and the Inner Man

Jesus took the curse for us. When we grumbled, and we got into despair, and we got into that headspace that was bad, and we did things that we're ashamed of, we can't right the ship, but we can repent.

And we can say, Lord, what shall we do? Pray for us that none of these things come upon us, like that Simon the sorcerer said. Repent and look to Jesus. Have mercy on me, son of David. I remember this brother that called me.

He got back into a prominent position up in the oil field. He went into places he shouldn't have been. He left fellowship, and he got into a bad way, and he started using drugs again. When we met him, he was just free from crack.

He was on heavy depression pills, trying to cope. And that guy became so gloriously born again. His name is Danny. And that guy, he got a gift of prophecy, and he would prophesy accuracy. But the thing is, his heart became proud, and he started to look down on other people who were not doing things the right way.

And we all can be subject to that, and what happened was he got bitten by a serpent. And that thing led him on a path so that he ended up back in the place where he was before he knew Christ. And he texted me this morning.

He said, I was at seven treatment centers, and if you share this morning, tell them that all the psychology, all the sociology, all the doctors, all their wisdom, and all those things only deal with the outer person.

But Jesus Christ deals with the inner man. And he said, encourage the people to look to Jesus. Don't trust in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. The cross deals with the whole man. And when he changes the outer man bit by bit, so eagerly we wait for the hope of righteousness, which is by faith in Christ.

Let's look to Jesus. Let's stop trying to dot I's and cross T's and try to look good to men, but rather let's humble ourselves under the heavy hand of God so he can lift us up. So if then we've been buried with him in baptism, we want to be lifted up with him.

Jesus said, if I be lifted up, I'll draw all men to myself. Jesus, having become a curse, he took the curse. He took the fall, that bronze serpent that was lifted up in the wilderness. It's a picture of Christ.

You know what the people did? They made that thing into an icon. Today, you know, my son, he plays on a ball team and the guys, they'll have a cross on their neck or they'll do this thing becomes an idol.

It's an idol. We gather around the cross. Nobody's willing to get on it. Are you willing to die to what you're held by? You're willing to lay it down, give it all up, or are you just going to try and keep it under control?

That's circumcision. That's the law for sure. Trying to control circumstances by what you're willing or not willing to surrender to Christ. But from love's sake, when you realize you were a dead man apart from Jesus, and now you died and your life is hidden with Christ and God, and what do you owe him?

Everything. And anything short of that is religion. You can do all the right things with all the right doctrines, but you know what? You left your first love. There's nothing I wouldn't do for Jesus when I got born again.

Nothing. I would do whatever. You need to have that encounter with Christ. You get so gloriously born again that there's nothing you wouldn't do or give up or go places to go for Jesus. I remember he taught me something.

I said, I just drop it and go. That's a bond servant of Christ. That's what we want to be. And we can lose that, but we can leave it. Get preoccupied with other things. You know, we used to have a guy come to our place.

He'd come in and we'd try and have fellowship, and he'd go to the mantle, he'd pick up something shiny, and he'd hold it in his hand, and then he'd go put that down, he'd go over to the thing, he'd hold that in his hand, and he'd go all over the place.

And whatever was shiny, whatever was colorful, whatever was looked precious, he would go and hold that thing in his hand. I'm like, why are you doing this? Just unconsciously doing this thing. We do that.

We say we'll have fellowship with Christ, but yet wherever we're going, we're always picking up something shiny, and it's drawing us away from Christ. We think we're having fellowship, but our heart is for all these other things.

You may have those things, but do they have your heart? And you're slave to whom you obey. It's like the tail wagging the dog. You ever seen a dog chasing his tail, just absolutely exhausts himself, passes out, pants like crazy, gets up again, chases it again, thinking he's going to catch it.

You won't catch it. You'll tire yourself out trying to catch it until you look up, or acknowledge I'm a dog. Jesus, I'm a dog. I want to become a son. Dogs go back to their vomit. Sows, pigs, having been washed, go back to their mud.