Christian Responsibility — Alan Redpath

Good evening, everyone. Good evening, everyone. Thank you very much. I'll just chat to you for a moment, so that you can get used to a British accent, at least a little bit. Having lived several years in Chicago, the worst of it's brushed off, but since going back again, some of it's come back.

Every time I come across to this country, I, in my mind, spend the six hours in the plane rehearsing certain words, which I mustn't use in the States, which we use in Britain. And then going back again, I do the procedure in reverse.

Quite an exercise of your mind. I won't tell you what the words are, but they're quite interesting, really. I was telling the pastor of the Evangelical Methodist Church yesterday that shortly after I came to Chicago to pastor at Moody Church, I was showing a Nigerian through the customs.

He couldn't speak any English, and he'd come to Chicago to learn the language and to study. And I'd arranged to meet him at the airport. Well, when I helped him through the customs, the customs officer looked at his passport and said to me, what is he?

Well, I said, he's a clerk. I didn't know that in Chicago that word was pronounced clerk. So he said, he's a what? I said, he's a clerk. Well, he said, what does he do? Well, listen, I don't know. All I know is he's a clerk.

And the customs officer said to me, Jimmy just goes tick-tock, tick-tock. This poor Nigerian man must have thought we were absolutely nuts, because he imagined we both spoke the same language. Well, I don't think anything like that will happen tonight or during this week, but I realize it's a bit of a test to have to put up with a Britisher.

And if there are some words I use that you don't understand, you can ask me what they mean. Seriously, though, it's a tremendous thrill to be here. I was thrilled by that music. Absolutely thrilled. So glad that young people today are getting with it.

Just a few days ago, near us, we have what we call a motorway. You use the term expressway. Restaurant. And at Capenry Hall, we took over a restaurant and a motorway and had music groups just like this.

And took the whole place over. It was seven or eight hundred teenagers. Many of them had never heard about Jesus before. And these young people sung their way into their hearts. And their message was supported by a strong gospel presentation and many found Christ.

So I felt completely at home tonight. Thank you so much. And then, of course, it's a tremendous thrill to be back in this country and to find myself involved a little bit in this K73 about which I'd heard but not a great deal.

Mobilizing Every Christian as a Personal Witness

I think it's a tremendous project. A generation, this country, indeed the whole world, but especially this country, has been blanketed with evangelism. But this is something different. As I understand it, this is really mobilized to evangelize.

This is every Christian being involved. And that's what really counts. We've seen a great deal of mass evangelism. And I'm a believer in it. But inevitably there are casualties. And inevitably many people are never touched.

And the only hope for the church is that every Christian gets on the ball and is a living personal witness to Jesus Christ. So I find myself 100 behind this from the very outset. But in four evenings all I can do is to seek to underline some principles which we must bear in mind if we're going to achieve our objectives.

And therefore our subject tonight is the Christian's responsibility. And I'm going to speak to you on this passage of scripture which we read together in Acts chapter 13. If you care to turn to your Bible, if you can see it.

I can scarcely see you, but I should imagine you've no problem about seeing me. Whether you can read the Bible out there or follow it, I wouldn't know. But before I turn to the Word, let me turn to the Lord of the Word and ask you to do the same in a moment of prayer together.

Will you echo in your heart the prayer which I offer on my behalf and on your own. Speak, Lord, in the stillness while I wait on Thee. Hush my heart to listen in expectancy. Speak, O blessed Master, in this quiet hour.

May we see Thy face, Lord, and feel, and feel Thy touch. For Jesus' sake. Amen. Tonight I want to talk to you about the Christian's responsibility. Tomorrow, the Christian's renunciation. And on Wednesday, the Christian requirement.

And on Thursday, the Christian's resources for involvement in this tremendous project that we face. Tonight, my responsibility as a Christian is set out for me in Acts chapter 13 and verse 47. So has the Lord commanded us, saying, I have set thee to be a light of the Gentiles, that thou shouldest be for salvation unto the ends of the earth.

Everybody here is either a missionary or a mission field. May I just repeat that so that you can get over the shock, but it's true. Everybody here is either a missionary or a mission field. If you know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, you are a missionary.

If you don't, you're a desperately needy mission field. You don't become a missionary by getting a passport and going over to the Orient or to South America or anywhere else. You're a missionary right where you are.

The moment you know Christ personally as Lord and Savior of your life, you're a missionary. Until that moment, you are a mission field. You may be a church member, but you're still a mission field. And this is highlighted for us in this verse that I've read, I have set thee to be a light to the Gentiles, that thou shouldest be, you should be for salvation to the end of the earth.

Reflecting the Light of Christ

Let me just get the significance of that statement, a light. Do you remember that the Lord Jesus himself once said, I am the light of the world. He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.

I am the light of the world. Then he turned to a little group of men who followed him and said to them, Ye are the light of the world. That must have shaken them to the core. Ye are the light of the world.

And do you remember that Paul writes to the church at Philippi, he reminded them that they lived in a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as light in the world. Now, this is a phrase constantly coming up in the Bible, and the thing that I want to be quite clear is that we understand how it is that Jesus is the light of the world and we are the light of the world.

How can that be? I think an understanding of that fact is absolutely essential. Let me draw upon my very limited knowledge of astronomy. When God created this world as we know it, this solar system, we better stick to the one we know about, he put in it a moon and a sun.

A sun, the greater light to rule the day, and a moon, the lesser light to rule the night. A few years ago, I was visiting in Central Africa Republic where my daughter is a missionary, and it was a wonderful moonlight night.

The stars were shining and the moon was full. It was a tremendous night, there wasn't a cloud in the sky. The sort of night that makes people who are in love want to hold hands. Because they tell me that moon controls the tide as well as the untide.

I can assure you it was my daughter I was walking with, and as we walked together along that little jungle path she said to me, Daddy, isn't the moon shining brightly tonight? And I said, yes dear, it is.

And then I stopped and I said, you know, how stupid. We're both wrong. The moon is utterly incapable of shining. Astronauts have confirmed that. It's only a lump of lackluster material which has no capacity to shine at all.

But it's in orbit in relation to the sun, and as it turns its face heavenward it catches the glow, catches the brilliance and the warmth of the sunshine and reflects it into the darkness of this world.

The moon is a reflector of light. Now, when Jesus says, ye are the light of the world, that is precisely what he means. We have no capacity to shine for him. Nothing in us at all that can make us capable of doing it.

But, when I turned my eyes upon Jesus and looked full in his wonderful face, then something happens. I catch the glow, the reality, the warmth, the love. Somehow his light begins to shine through your life.

Now this thrills me. Because, you see, there's nobody else, there's no society in all the world can compete with the Christian, with the Church. We're not in competition with anybody. No educational system can.

No philosophy of life can. Nothing in the world can bring any light into the darkness on the problems that really hit us day after day, except a Christian. A Christian who is in right relationship with God.

A Christian who has come to know Jesus personally. He begins to shed light, wherever he goes. You know, I found that fantastically true in these days. I have to travel a good deal nowadays. I don't like it, frankly.

You may think there's a lot of glamour in travel. I don't like it. But in the last five years, I suppose, I've been preaching in about 45 different countries. And there are most extraordinary things happening.

Wonderful things happening today, that simply didn't exist ten years ago. Let me just mention one or two of them. You go down to a country like Brazil, and you find that 75 of the evangelical life of that country is in the Pentecostal Church.

And it's growing faster than the birth rate of the population. I find that exciting. Wherever I go, there's fantastic changes taking place in the Roman Catholic Church. A great friend of mine is Dr. Stephen Offord of Calvary Baptist Church, New York.

I was in his church recently at a convention he was having. And in the congregation, there were several Roman Catholic nuns. Afterwards, one or two of them came up to his apartment and had supper with himself and his wife.

And I was in the party. And they invited him afterwards to come and speak at a Roman Catholic nunnery, seminary, whatever you call it. And he was given carte blanche to say exactly what he liked. And he preached, he told me, to about 700 nuns in training for the ministry.

And gave them the gospel. And they welcomed it. Fantastic. And then, what do you make of the Jesus Movement? We haven't got Key 73, but we have Spree 73, spiritual emphasis and renewal and emphasis. And do you know who's heading that up?

A group of people under the heading of Festival of Light, who were all Jesus people. Years ago, absolutely addicted to drugs. Way out, drop out. And who have been wonderfully converted and brought to a saving knowledge of Christ.

And are really making a tremendous impact on the youth of our country. Of course, when you read the newspaper, you never read anything about these things. You only read the bad news. But the Christians are filled with the good news.

And this is some of the wonderful things that are happening in the world. And especially in our countries. The Jesus Movement, as you know, began in California, spread throughout this country. A friend of mine, who is a minister in California, about five years ago, he was about going round the bend or climbing up the wall, wherever you like, about his evening service.

It had dropped to 30 people. The church holds over 2 ,000. He was in despair. He had no idea. I'm sure it came from God. He scrapped his order of service entirely. He got three robbing microphones. Gave them to three of his church officers who went round the building.

Went round the 30 people and said, Have you any questions? Anything to share about what Jesus has done for you this week? One after another they stood up and they gave a testimony. Someone told what Jesus Christ had done for them.

Someone had come to know him personally that very week. And that service began to take life. Do you know, tonight? Every Sunday, it's full. More than 2 ,000 people there. A lot of them from the Jesus Movement who've come right inside the church and found the church that cares and is alive.

And you know, when they pass the offering plate around, would you believe it? You can either take out or put in. Just what you like. If you're in need, help yourself. If you feel out of love you want to give, put it in.

An absolute sense of love and unity and revival in that church today through very largely the ministry of young people who were way out in rough house, just lost to the world and to society. These things are happening.

I hardly dare mention it here, but I shall have more to say to it later in the week, about it later in the week, and the charismatic movement. In 45 countries where I preach, it's in every one of them.

And whether you like it or not, you cannot deny the reality of many people in their faith in Jesus Christ which has taken on a new sense of liberty and freedom. So all these things are taking place today, testifying to the fact that Jesus lives.

And if I was a minister of a church, I'd just be afraid that I was so occupied in doing my thing, that I let all these exciting things bypass me. You're the light of the world. A reflector of light. The only kind of person that because you're in touch with God, because you're in relationship with the living Christ, you can bring to bear light upon the problems that beset the whole human race today.

It's a wonderful thing to be a Christian in a day like this. Tremendous. I'm so glad I'm alive. So glad that God has spared me to live, to see a day like this when things are moving and God is at work and Jesus is alive and people are really turning to Him.

Proclaiming the Word of God

Now if I want to take my share in all this, and if you do, then I think there are one or two things that are laid down for us here in this passage of scripture that we can't possibly escape. And I want you to look at them very carefully a minute.

If you're going to shine for Jesus, if you're going to be a light, a reflector of light, if you're going to know what it is to catch something of the glow of heaven, not by education, not by philosophy, not by theological training, but if you're going to catch the glow of the reality of Christ, then there's a message that you must proclaim.

In this little passage of scripture, did you notice it? The phrase occurs, the word of God. Verse 44, the whole city together to hear the word of God. Verse 46, the word of God. Verse 48, they were glad and glorified, the word of the Lord.

Verse 49, the word of the Lord. The word of God, the word of God, the word of God. This little band of disciples who already had experienced the thrill of multiplication were really on the march, on the move for the Lord, and everywhere they went they were triumphant, and this was the message that had burnt their way, burnt its way into their hearts.

The word of God, the word of God. It wasn't simply they had systematic theology. It wasn't simply they had doctrine. As a matter of fact, I imagine that most of us knew, know a lot more doctrine, or think we do, than they did.

They had experience, and that experience needed doctrine in order to explain it. We have doctrine, but so often we have no experience to explain. But this early church simply thrilled and were alive with experience, and they were proclaiming the word of God.

Well, you see, you say I don't see anything wonderful about that. That's what our church stands for. We're an evangelical church. We proclaim the word of God. Now hold it just a minute. Hold it. Are you quite sure that the message we proclaim through our lips, through our pulpits, through our lives, today as the gospel of Jesus Christ is what it was in the days of the early church?

Are you sure it has the same emphasis, the same tang, the same punch, the same thrust behind it? This word of God had burnt like a fire in the hearts of these men. They couldn't keep quiet about it. We must obey God rather than men.

That was their slogan. Nothing could keep them quiet. Have you found, my friend, that it's one thing to go through your Bible? It's quite another thing when the Bible begins to go through you. Have you made that discovery?

When somehow it gets hold of you and grips you and you discover that you're under the authority of it and under the power of it and the conviction of it and it's gripped your heart and you can't keep quiet about Jesus.

There's something wrong when we can keep quiet about him. I know that the most embarrassing question any man can ask a congregation from a platform is the one that I'm going to ask you, but you've often been asked it.

How long since you sat down beside someone else and thought from the word of God to lead them to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ? Done it this year? Done it a year ago? Ever? If not, why not? Because simply, we have the theology of the thing which is somehow, it never has gripped us.

Justification by Faith and Saving Commitment

The reality of it, the experience. To what experience am I referring? Well, just this. You find, and I haven't time to enlarge upon this, you can check me by reading it for yourself, that in the Acts of the Apostles especially, whenever this early church went to bat, went to preach the word, they fired the gospel on a double-barrel gun.

First of all, they preached justification by faith. That a man can be right with God through faith in Jesus Christ who gave himself for us on Calvary. You find that here in verse 38, for instance, in this sermon preached by Paul at Iconium.

Be it known unto you, therefore, men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins. And by him all that believe are justified from all things from which he could not be justified by the law of Moses.

Now, I don't suppose any of us have any problem about that. I imagine, however, if I asked you what it means to have eternal life, I'd get some extraordinary answers. I believe, I hope I'm not doing you an injustice, but I believe that many people would say, well, you know, that means life when we get to heaven.

Oh, it doesn't. Eternal life is not a duration, it's a quality, it's a depth. And when I receive Jesus Christ into my heart, I receive eternal life, the life of God himself indwelling me by his Holy Spirit.

And faith means commitment to a person. F-A-I-T-H. Forsaking all, I take him. That's faith. Not mere intellectual assent to a creed, but commitment to a person. You know the story often told of the famous tightrope walker Blondin going across Niagara Falls on a tightrope.

And before he got on, there was a little boy in the crowd watching with his eyes wide open. Blondin stopped and looked at him and said, Say, son, do you believe I can walk on this tightrope across Niagara?

Sure, son, I do. Son, do you believe that I can carry you on my back on this tightrope across Niagara Falls? Oh, yes, sir. Well, jump on my back. And that little boy turned around and fled for his life.

All that in your mind. And come with me, would you, in imagination, to a little village I know quite well in Kentucky called Viper. Strange name. A little old grocer's store, not much else there. An old, old village.

Very sweet place. One day a grocer is down in his cellar checking his stock. He's removed the trapdoor. He's gone right down to the cellar. Then he's taken away the ladder and he's looking round the shelves and the little trapdoor is open.

And his boy sees him or wants to see him and he comes to the top of the trapdoor and he says, Daddy. And the grocer comes right in after the semi-darkness and looks up at him and sees him there standing up above.

Yes, son. Daddy, I want to come to you. Well, jump. Oh, but Daddy, I can't see you. Never mind, I can see you. Jump. And the little boy jumped and he fell into the arms of his father. Now, relate those two stories together.

Blondin's boy believed all the facts about Blondin. But he wasn't prepared to commit himself to Blondin. That grocer's boy believed all about his father but he went further and committed himself to his father and fell right into the arms of his father.

Faith, saving faith, is a step into the dark onto a rock. And that rock is Jesus. A step into the dark, beyond reason, beyond intellect, beyond understanding, right into the dark, onto a rock. And that rock is Christ.

I am justified from all things by taking that step from which I could not be justified by the law of Moses. Now, many of us would argue with this. But the second battle on the gun is a bit more difficult.

The Lordship and Sovereignty of Christ

And always in the Acts of the Apostles I find the early church preaching that were justified by grace. In order to learn to submit to government. It was always preaching the sovereignty of God. And if you check, for instance, this chapter through on your own tonight, you would read how over and over again Paul was referring to the sovereignty of God in human experience and history.

Now this is an essential part of salvation. The Christian message. If we are really going to get anywhere with this tremendous project of Key 1973 I suggest to you that this message is right down to earth and absolutely essential.

We are saved by grace for submission to government. Jesus is Lord. I cannot know Him as Saviour and then subsequently, if it suits me and when more convenient, I may have Him as Lord. You see, sovereignty is an essential attribute of deity.

You cannot divorce one from the other. An essential attribute of the deity of God is sovereignty. He is Lord before He is Saviour. Turn the cassette over now for the continuation of this message. When you encounter Jesus, you encounter Him as Lord and He comes right crashing into your life.

And it's very disturbing and very inconvenient and very revolutionary. But He has come to set up in my life and in your life the Kingdom of God. To demonstrate to society today society that won't acknowledge any authority the sheer thrill and the sheer joy of living day by day in my life under the authority, the sovereignty of Jesus Christ.

This is a completely new regime that has set up in our lives. It is the end of one regime when I try to run my own life and the beginning of another regime when Jesus takes over control. I wonder if in your home you have any wedgewood china.

Maybe you do. Perhaps you like it. Well, I could take you to the place where it's manufactured. There's a town in the Midlands in England, a very dirty town, very smoky town, but out of it there comes this beautiful china.

I was in that town just recently and at a young people's meeting on a Saturday night a Salvation Army officer was giving his testimony. Great big man he was. He carried his presence well in front of him.

Very large. And he said, you know, he gave the story of his conversion. He was converted at a Salvation Army opener meeting on a Saturday night. And the next morning he went to their holiness meeting and he came back absolutely miserable.

And his wife said to him, what's the matter with you? I thought you were converted. Oh, yes, he said I was, but everybody else in the hall had a red jersey on, but me, I felt so out of place. Oh, she said, don't worry, I'll knit you one.

So she knitted him a tremendous sweater, a great big thing, like a tent. And he went out on the next Sunday and when he came back he was more miserable than ever. She said, what's the matter? Well, he said, you see, everybody else's sweater had white letters on it.

Mine hadn't, it looked so odd. Oh, she didn't know what to do about that because poor woman, she couldn't read or write. But the next morning, the Monday, a man brought a ladder and climbed up outside a shop and began to paint a sign above the shop window.

And she said to herself, I know what I'll do. I'll copy everything that man's putting on that sign onto my husband's sweater. And she did. And he went out the next Sunday and came back absolutely ragged.

And he said, you've done it again? Everybody said I'd got the best sweater on, the whole lot of them. Do you know what it had written on it? This business is under entirely new management. Now, my friend, seriously, that's a Christian.

That's a Christian. The message that I must proclaim, Jesus Christ is Lord. And because he's Lord, he rules my life. I am here to display in a godless society which has rejected all thought that the only way of happiness and peace and joy and satisfaction is permission to the Lordship of Jesus.

That's a revolution. When I bow out and Jesus bows himself in. The message I must proclaim. A free salvation which demands his full control. And, of course, that is exactly the message of the New Testament.

It was Jesus himself who said, not everyone that saith to me, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Why do you call me Lord and don't do what I tell you?

I've never been able to answer that question. Have you? For I have once in your life said, Paul, grace, sin reigns unto death. Now, grace reigns unto eternal life. One or the other must reign. And so this message has got to get back, I believe, right into the heart of our daily living.

Because it's the beginning, the really beginning, of Jesus beginning to shine through my life when he takes control. When I'm no longer playing church. I'm no longer just doing my thing, but I'm really excited at the revolution that has happened in my life since the day that Jesus took over management.

Opposition to a Gospel That Demands Submission

The message I must proclaim. Now you notice from this chapter 2 something else here, what I would call the movement that I must precipitate. Here it is. The Jews, verse 45, were filled with envy and spake against those things which were spoken by Paul.

The Gentiles heard this, they were glad and glorified the word of the Lord. Now isn't that interesting? You see, some people were glad, some people were mad, but nobody was neutral. Everybody jumped off the fence of mutality.

And I am telling you that if this project is getting underway, immediately, immediately you get out where the action is and you bear testimony to the lordship of Christ, immediately you run headlong into opposition.

And do you know where it will come from? It won't come from the, may I use such a word, I don't mean it in an unkind sense, it won't come from the outsider. It won't come from the person who has never darkened the church door.

He'll be thankful at last that he's met some people who mean business. And some people are real. He's met somebody who isn't playing church, whose Christianity means something seven days a week. But do you know who it'll come from?

It'll come from the people who occupy a pew every Sunday in our churches and do no more about it. It'll come from people who are really good church members but have never, never submitted to the lordship of Jesus.

I know that. Because after 28 years in pastoral ministry, I know what happens. When this message grips your heart and you know that this is the word of God and has to be pertained, immediately people take sides.

And they'll perhaps come up to you and say to you, Pastor, don't you think you could preach a nice little comforting message and then after about 20 or 25 minutes give a five minute gospel application to the unconverted and get them saved.

In other words, take the heat off us. Over and over again I've seen men with a real burden. Men who I would describe as prophets in this country have to empty their churches before they tell the truth.

One such man was Dr. A. W. Telzer of Chicago. The greatest preacher in my judgment that America has known for this century. Soon after my arrival at that city, he called me on the telephone and he said to me, you will perhaps have a difficult time in your church.

He said, I would love it if you would come and have some fellowship with me sometime. He said, you'll find me any morning between April and October, any morning on the south shore of Lake Michigan from five o 'clock till eight.

I didn't go too often. It was holy ground. But this is not pulpit rhetoric. This is actual truth. When I did go, do you know what I used to find? I used to find A. W. Telzer flat on his face on the sand of Lake Michigan with his open Bible for three hours.

That's what made him the man he was. And when he came into his pulpit, oh, everybody got in his neck, said he was a recluse, wouldn't cooperate with people, etc., etc. Now that he's gone to heaven, of course, he's wonderful.

And his books are the best sellers. Everybody's after him. But then they tore the hide of him. It's best to you that you who go out with the message, Jesus is Lord. That's where your first opposition will come.

You know, don't get excited. Now take it easy, take it easy. Just take it easy. Don't get religious mania. Just take it quietly, quietly. Don't get too excited. People roar their heads off over several people knocking about an inflated piece of rubber on a football field.

And they're so excited, they think it's thrilling. Well, my friend, do you pardon me if I find Jesus exciting? And I let people know it is. Not a phony to me. This is reality. This is reality in my life because I know, I know that the Lordship of Christ alone has meant my deliverance.

I know that I need every day, 24 hours of the day, the sovereignty, the authority of Christ exercised in my life. And if you say that's legalism, I say it's blessed legalism. It's a legalism which I can't do enough as I learn to submit every day of my life to Jesus as Lord.

Daily Surrender to the Lordship of Jesus

I want to tell you that I've been on the way for 40 years now as a Christian. I'm ashamed of the times that I have rejected that Lordship. He was Lord at the very beginning. Can you go back to the day of your conversion?

Do you know the day, the time, the place? Not your baptism. I didn't say that. I said your conversion. When you are born of the Spirit of God. Do you remember? It doesn't really matter. Some people never can remember.

Doesn't matter really. As long as you know you are now. There's no such thing as a gradual conversion. Maybe a gradual recognition of it. But no such thing as a gradual conversion. There was a moment when you stepped from death to life, from darkness to light, and you became a child of God.

Remember the time? I remember the time. I remember the day I was there when it happened. And I remember the man who led me to Christ. He gave me Romans 8 chapter 1 as my life verse. There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus.

And I was so excited that I underlined that little word now so heavily that I went right through to the Epistle to the Philippians and ruined my Bible. But it was worth it. The sheer thrill of knowing that now no condemnation to them who are in Christ.

Oh, I tell you that Jesus was my Lord that day. With all my heart I loved him and thanked him and rejoiced in such a wonderful salvation. But it wasn't long before he would be saying to me, don't you do that again.

This way, not that for your life. Not that friend, but this. And he began to interfere. And I found it somewhat difficult and somewhat painful. And somewhat costly. And I rejected it for years. Seven years I lived in a hopeless wilderness of complete failure and absolute defeat.

For I would refuse to submit to the Lordship of Jesus. Oh, how glad I am today that there is a love that will not let me go. I tried to run away from God, get away from him in all different kinds of ways.

But there came a day when he brought me to the end of my rope and right down to rock bottom and brought me to period. And when I'd ended the battle, Jesus Christ became Lord again. But that wasn't the end of it.

Every day, the older I get, every day, some things, some issues which the Lord Jesus could test. In me I'm inclined to resist and choose an easier path. And he says, no, not that way. Find that in your life.

Christlike Reactions in Christian Community

And when you live like that, my friend, other people are never neutral in your presence. They can't be. Because they're watching the reaction of Christ in you. No longer I, as we were reminded in that lovely solo tonight, not I, but Jesus.

And since he took over and lived and demonstrates his life in me, his reactions become mine. At the best, you and I are only stepping stones to Christ. And stepping stones are for walking on. And you often get walked on.

And it hurts. Especially if the people who walk on you are your friends. But I'll tell you something. When the man who's crucified with Jesus is walked on, he doesn't hit back. Jesus reacts in him and loves.

That's what people begin to notice. Whereas normally you'd blow your top and give the other fellow such a raking through. But, oh, you're not a sissy. You're not weak. But you've learned the only peace of heart is meekness.

Meekness is not weakness. Try being meek for a week and you'll soon find that out. Meekness is strength. It's from the Lord himself. It derives strength from him. And that, of course, is what Christianity is.

When our strength is self-reliant, is self-confident, it's weakness. When it's derived from dependence upon a living Christ, it's strength. And Jesus never answered back. You go throughout this project and throughout Dallas and elsewhere and listen.

Treat every fellow Christian as though he was Jesus. React to every fellow Christian as though you were Jesus. Get it? Treat every fellow believer as though he was Jesus. React to every fellow Christian as though you were Jesus.