Bristol Conference 1975-01 gal.2:16 - Yet Not I — Stan Ford

Yet Not I: Justification and Life in Christ

Thank you. It's a joy to be here, and it's a joy to have the responsibility of this first gathering. The words of John 3 and 30 above me are some of the most cherished words in the whole of the Bible.

And while I'm not going to preach from them this evening, the very theme of them I want to share with you. In the course of the week, we will be looking together, day by day, into the epistle of Timothy.

But for this first talk, I wonder if you would turn with me into the second chapter of the epistle to the Galatians. Galatians chapter 2. Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ.

Even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law, for by the works of the law shall no black be justified. But if, while we teach to be justified by Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners, is therefore Christ the minister of sin?

God forbid! For if I build again the things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor. For I am to the law and dead to the law, that I might live unto God. I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me, and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

I do not prostrate the grace of God, for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain. The Lord will add, which we will make reference this evening. I will talk, if I may, on that very simple phrase, yet not I.

The Problem of Self and Christ's Increase

Not I. ...of the first epistle, and we're going to think of the words of one who could dare say, I laboured for abundance, and they all yet not I. Then we're going back into the seventh chapter and 1 Corinthians, and we're going to read some of the most marvellous of words, as the apostle writes again to this church and dares to say, I have learned in the school of Christian experience, it is this, it is making ourselves known.

It is the matter, and the more I read my Bible, the more I understood of the most difficult thing for any one of us to learn. It was Bishop Horton, of no doubt you know, who played a little golf. I sympathise with him in that.

Whatever big, grown men find chasing a little ball about, I'm not quite sure. But, nevertheless, Bishop Horton played a little golf, and one time he went out on the cold street, and one of his acquaintances said, Bishop, what's your handicap?

The great man looked at the person that asked the question and said, myself. What's yours? Isn't that it? You found that the greatest problem in life is that person's relationship with Christ. He must increase, and I must decrease.

John the Baptist and the Supremacy of Christ

I don't want any one of you to think that I am saying he was the great man, that is a myth. He was the man that could control the Lamb of God. He was the one who wondered why it was that John the Baptist never followed Christ.

He often wondered why it was that he didn't flee the vast height of the desert, and walking company with the Lord Jesus. I sometimes, when speaking to instruct young men, say this, you know, I believe that if John the Baptist, he would never have lost his head.

Well, you take that one out. It was the right to be the head, both of the church and of all men. John the Baptist dared to say that there cometh after me one, the latter of whom choose I am not worthy to understand.

He dared to say of him that this was the one who was prepared before him, because he was before him. He knew that Christ had the right to be his head. Yet, in a prison cell, for another, I suggest to you that it was not only the problem of John the Baptist.

Human Recognition and the Lordship of Christ

You will find me that it was the problem of the latter, the twelfth chapter of John, it is. You will remember in the eleventh chapter, Jesus was crying with a loud voice. Lazarus, the man that was raised from the seat of the table, with him, not only his acquaintances, but many of them.

And those parables, look at the Lord Jesus. Men and women, so he did to Jesus, so he did to him. The whole world will grant me that it was the problem of the man that we know as Pontius Pilate. And he looked into the face of the Lord.

He perceived the message of his wife. Has that nothing to do with this God's man? Oh, I suffer. In these coming days, we are going to have a... If the Lord is going to have... And at the end of the week, ten years ago, in the junior Bible reading in Scotland, night by night, we had a crowd much larger than this, of young folk, and day by day, who had come from all over Scotland.

God Working Through Personal Testimony

And I was teaching the epistle to the Philippians. And we would gather in the main auditorium. And before I even rose to speak, of what I know not who it was, that after we parted, one of you sat there listening, proud of teenage, and early 20s, in your lunches.

There's no rest as it were. And I dare believe this, that I believe God spoke. And I believe that God spoke. And I dare say this to you, that if every one of us will pray, Lord, you can have your way with the Lord.

Faithful Labor and the Authority of Spiritual Elders

And I believe that God is going to work in our hearts, and the assembly from which we come will feel the impact. Yes, we do. In the fifteenth chapter of the epistle to the Corinthians, we have, once more, the tremendous fact of the secret, the secret of faithfully.

We labor faithfully. I believe when we come to the seventh chapter of 1 Corinthians, it is not the secret now of providence and success. It is the secret of supervision. And speaking indeed about a man's relationship, and he dares to take a league among God of men and women who will know him and their authority.

And I believe, you older brethren and sisters, that the secret of it is this, that the law has made a demand, and demand will do our part.