Partaker or Believer — Major Ian Thomas

Faith Lets God Be God in Our Experience

Partaker or believer. From the epistle to the Romans, those few verses were read to us in the 10th chapter. The righteousness which is of faith, what says it? The word is nigh be even in thy mouth and in thy heart.

That is the word of faith which we preach. In other words it's a message that is characterized, the apostle tells us, by faith. And there's quite a lot of misunderstanding about faith. I think perhaps one of the simplest definitions that I know of faith is simply this, that faith lets, faith lets God be God in your experience.

I don't mean by that that faith lets God be God because God is God whether you believe it or whether you don't. If you don't believe it, God is still God but you won't know it. That doesn't prove you're smart, that just proves you're ignorant.

In the same way, faith lets the Lord Jesus move redemptively into your experience. And I don't mean by that that faith lets Christ be the redeemer because he is the redeemer, he's the lamb slain from the foundation of the world and God has never ever changed his mind as to how guilty sinners can be reconciled to a holy God.

I simply mean this, that faith lets the Lord Jesus be the redeemer he is in your experience. If you don't believe it, he's still the redeemer but you won't. Faith invokes the activity of a second party, it brings somebody or something into action on your behalf.

Faith allows God to bestow upon us the wealth of that salvation that was accomplished in the person of the Lord Jesus who died for us that whether we wake or sleep, reconciled to a holy God indwelt by his spirit, we might live together with Christ.

And that ought to be exciting. As creature man on earth, actually to share the life of your creator, God in heaven. But nothing less than that is involved in salvation. It isn't just a tidy little theological concept that you tuck away at the back of your mind.

Hearing the Word of God

The Christian life is a spiritual union into which we enter through faith that actually allows the Lord Jesus by his Holy Spirit to clothe his activity on earth now with your humanity in mind. And inevitably of course that lifts us up into the timeless purpose of a timeless God and all of life begins to add up and make sense.

You have a sense of direction, you no longer are the victim of drift. You know where you're going because you know where he's going and you know that he's got what it takes to get there. Faith allows the Lord Jesus to become tangible and touchable and audible in terms of your flesh and blood.

Allows him afresh incarnate in your humanity to walk the streets of this city, to sit at your breakfast table, to work in your office, to converse with your neighbors down the street. Faith. Where does that kind of faith come from?

Well we're not left in any ambiguity about that in the same chapter. The 17th verse of the 10th chapter of this epistle and the 17th verse says this. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God.

Not by listening but by hearing. Remember how many times the Lord Jesus said, He that has ears to hear, let him hear. He knew lots of people had ears to listen with but few people had ears to hear with.

He once had to turn to the Pharisees and he said, you listen to everything I say but you don't hear a word. That baffled me once a little bit until I was in central Africa and one of the missionaries turned across to me and said, Do you hear French?

I said, I beg your pardon? She said, Do you hear French? I said, No, I don't think so. Can you? No, she said, I didn't mean that, I mean do you hear French? She'd picked up in service in that country the context in which they use the word to hear.

To hear means that you understand. Not just that you're listening to sounds but those sounds are meaningful and they penetrate. What she really meant was, Do I understand French? Why didn't she say so?

Then I would have understood English. Now that's exactly what the apostle means here. He says faith comes by hearing. Not just listening to any old Tom, Dick or Harry. This theologian or that reading this book or the other.

Pausing to consider or meditate upon this particular philosophy or somebody else's. No, no, no. He says faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. Words giving God time enough to talk to you long enough then you'll know enough.

And that's the best cure for ignorance. Because you see all unbelief stems from ignorance. There are some who imagine that to be cynical is to be smart. But having the understanding darkened through the ignorance that is in them.

Because of the blindness of their hearts. Being alienated, cut off, detached, severed from the life of God. Who walk in the vanity of their minds. Congratulating themselves in their own arrogance and conceit.

Who walk in the vanity of their minds. Having the understanding darkened through the ignorance that is in them. Because of the blindness of their hearts. Being cut off from the life of God. Because they never gave God time enough to talk to them long enough.

So they never knew enough. And so they never through faith entered into that spiritual union that restores the relationship between man and God and God and man. And makes man, man again. As God intended man to be.

Faith comes through hearing and hearing by the word of God. Listening to what God has to say. So there's a very simple principle that derives from that fact. Here it is. It's principle number one to which in a moment I want to wed principle number two.

And that will be calculated to confuse you. Because principle number two will appear to be diametrically opposed to principle number one. But we'll discover that the two principles are not contradictory, they're complementary.

What we sometimes describe as a paradox. And when having enunciated principle number one and principle number two entirely confused you. I then use a very simple illustration. And I trust you'll recognize that it's not a bit confusing.

But completely logical. Like the whole of God's revelation from beginning to end. Fantastically excitingly logical. Here's principle number one. It derives from that 17th verse of Romans chapter 10. Here's the verse.

Faith comes by hearing, hearing by the word of God. So the word of God itself. And what I mean by that is the total revelation that God has given to us from Genesis to the last book in the Bible. Not just containing the word of God but being the word of God.

Something that God had to say and something which having said it God wants you and me to know. The word of God itself produces faith, encourages faith, creates faith. The word of God itself produces faith in the truth which the word of God conveys.

Principle number one. The word of God itself produces faith in the truth which the word of God communicates. So if I want my faith to be encouraged, if I want my faith to be undergirded, if I want my faith to be cradled, then in all intelligence I'll give God time enough to talk to me long enough so that I know enough.

The word of God itself produces faith in the truth which the word of God declares. Now here's the second principle which may at first confuse you. It's found in the epistle to the Hebrews in the fourth chapter.

Hebrews chapter four and the second verse. And what the apostle here says is this. Unto us was the gospel preached as well as unto them. In other words we heard it and they heard it. And what they heard was exactly what we heard.

It was as clearly and explicitly explained to them as it was clearly and explicitly explained to us. They heard the gospel. Unto us was the gospel preached as well as unto them. But the word preached.

What kind of a word? God's word. The word of the gospel. God's proposition. The word preached which according to principle one produces faith in the truth which that word communicates. The word preached surprisingly enough did not profit them.

In spite of the fact that the word of God itself produces faith in the truth which the word of God produces. Though they heard says the apostle the gospel the word preached as we heard that word preached.

That word preached to them didn't profit them. Why not? He goes on to say not being mixed with faith in them that heard it. So if principle number one says that the word of God itself produces faith in the truth which the word of God declares.

Principle number two says but the truth which the word of God communicates won't profit you unless you actually mix it with the faith that that word produces. Confused? Alright let me say it again. The word of God itself produces faith in the truth which the word of God communicates.

But the truth which the word of God communicates won't profit you unless you actually mix it with the faith that that word produces. Here's the illustration. Mr. Gilchrist has already indicated that in our home in England we've had a large number of folks staying with us from all over the world.

We've had actually something like a hundred thousand from forty or fifty different countries. And in the twenty seven years in which there as now in all the other places it's been a tremendous delight to entertain these tens of thousands of young folks.

Faith Must Be Mixed With Action

From the very beginning it was my practice and still is to visit just as many as I possibly can. No matter where they come from. But in the early days in particular on the continent of Europe when we had a bunch of young rascals coming from Germany or Austria or Norway or Denmark or Sweden or wherever it may be.

I would travel for a number of weeks by car going from one village to another one town to another one home to another. Proclaiming Christ wherever I had that opportunity and visiting the families of youngsters who had been with us.

Now that involved of course travelling through a great deal of unfamiliar territory. And I'd drive into a city with just no more than the name and the address on a piece of paper and not a clue as to how to get to that particular location.

Now I don't know what you do about it when you arrive in a city like that with no more than an address. But what I would do would be to observe as I drive towards the centre of the city the folk walking along the sidewalk.

And when I recognised what to me appeared to be a particularly unusually intelligent looking face. I'd draw alongside, stop, wind the window down, stick my neck out and say excuse me I wonder if you'd be so kind as to tell me how to get to this particular location.

And I don't know what your experience has been under such circumstances but it's probably much the same. The moment you say that to that very intelligent face, that very intelligent face suddenly becomes totally unintelligent.

Have you noticed that? And the chin drops about three inches and they normally say I'm sorry I'm a stranger too. Well you do that about six times and that gets a bit discouraging so finally you decide to drive into the petrol station and ask the man.

So you do that apologising first for not buying petrol because you bought it down the road and then I say excuse me but I'm in trouble. I hate to bother you but I've asked about six people how to get to this address and nobody seems to know.

As a matter of fact I'm beginning to wonder whether there is such a place. I wonder if you could help me. And so I thrust the piece of paper into the man's hand and he reads the address and immediately his face lights up with obvious recognition.

Well that's encouraging. He says yes. As a matter of fact I can tell you exactly where that is. By a clear coincidence as a matter of fact I live just about 150 yards from that very house. More encouraging.

So he grabs me by the arm and he takes me to the edge of the sidewalk and he points down the road and he says do you see the traffic lights? I say yes I think I can see the traffic lights. Well he says if you can see those traffic lights don't take any notice of those.

Go straight on until you come to the second lot of traffic lights. Not the first lot of traffic lights, the second lot of traffic lights. Now he says when you get to the second lot of traffic lights turn right and you go down that road as far as you possibly can until you can't go any farther.

It's a T-junction at the bottom. Turn left. And when you've turned left at that T-junction go as far as you can again until you come to a multiple crossing with five roads all coming together at the same spot.

Now you can't miss that because on the corner there's a big store and a gold clock and usually in the middle of that multiple crossing there's a fat policeman. Now he says when you get to that gold clock, the big store and the fat policeman and the five roads go all the way around until you come to the fourth not the fifth or you'll be on your way back.

The fourth road. When you get to the fourth road go down there and take the second on the left and when you've taken the second on the left just about a hundred yards on the right there's a house. That's the house.

Well now if a man talked to you like that with such meticulous accuracy and with such complete conviction wouldn't you finally be convinced that he knew what he was talking about? Well he can see I'm a little simple so he starts all over again until finally I've almost memorized everything he's got to say.

And I'm absolutely convinced that what he says is true. In other words his word has created in me faith in the truth that his word has communicated. I'm a believer in everything he says. Have I arrived?

No. I'm still at the petrol station, petrol pump. And if at that stage I like to take out a flask of coffee, put my feet in the steering wheel and read the newspaper I'd still be at the petrol station.

A believer of course. Not a word I doubt. Absolutely convinced that what he says is true. Because you see although the word that he has spoken has created in me a conviction of the rightness of the truth that his word has communicated, the truth that his word has communicated won't profit me until I now mix it with the faith that his word has produced.

Now the tragedy is that there are countless men and women and boys and girls who go to church, not insincerely. They listen with courtesy and considerable attention. They grasp mentally and intellectually much of what is being said and they tuck it away in the back of their mind and they give consent to it all.

And they believe and do absolutely nothing about it. And it leaves them exactly where it finds them. If I want the truth that his word has communicated to profit me on the basis of the faith that that word has produced, I've got to mix now the truth he communicated with the faith that his word has created.

And I say thank you very much. That was most courteous. You've been extremely kind. I'm sorry to have taken your time but I understand exactly now what you mean. I appreciate it immensely. Thank you. Step back into the car, switch the engine on, engage the gear, put my foot in the gas and I go down the rope, not the first traffic light, second.

And when I get to the second traffic light I turn right and sure enough there's a T-junction. I go left and there's the gold clock and there are the five rope and there's the fat policeman. And so now I drive around the fat policeman until I come to the fourth turning.

I take that, take the second on the left and sure enough there's a house on the right hand side and when I compare the number of the door with the number on my piece of paper, sure enough that matches.

I jump out and I see the name beneath the bell press is the name of the family that I want to visit. I give it a press and before long the door swings open. The young rascal that spent his summer holidays with me in England flings his arm round my neck, introduces me to his mum and dad and before long I'm sitting at their table drinking their coffee.

I've arrived. The word of God itself produces faith in the truth which the word of God communicates. But the truth which the word of God communicates won't profit you unless you actually mix it with the faith that the word of God produces.

In other words having learned that Christ died for your sins you don't tuck it away at the back of your mind and say interesting. You admit yourself to be the guilty sinner that you are and you say thank you Lord Jesus for coming to be the saviour you intended to be.

I'm one of the sinners you died to redeem. Thanks. You are in business. That's faith. And of course that's where the gospel begins. At this stage may I pause to ask you a question. Are you a believer at the petrol pump giving mental consent to all the facts upon which as yet you've never acted.

Redemption Begins With Reconciliation

Brought up perhaps as a youngster in a Christian home. Nothing you don't know about what Jesus did when he died upon the cross and rose again from the dead. You can recite John 3 .16 and whole hunks of the Bible.

But you've never been redeemed. If I were to ask you when you became a Christian you'd go red and feel embarrassed. You'd either have to say I'm sorry I'm not yet a Christian or you'd lie to escape from your embarrassment or pretend or have you arrived and you are already seated at his table and feasting on the banquet that God has spread.

Well it's with redemption that the Christian life begins. The word preached didn't profit them. What's the word preached? Well in the few moments that we've got let's have a quick rundown. Here's the first word of the gospel you'll find it in the second of Paul's epistles to the Corinthians and it's in the fifth chapter.

2 Corinthians chapter 5 and the 19th verse. Familiar words to many of you. To wit that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself. Not imputing their trespasses unto them. Not charging them with their sins.

Not imputing their trespasses unto them. And hath committed unto us as the apostle Paul here's the first word of the gospel the word of reconciliation. That's the first word of the gospel. It's the word of reconciliation.

Reconciliation that simply means the reestablishment of peace between two parties. The reestablishment of peace between God the innocent party and man the guilty party. The reestablishment of peace between God as the offended and man as the offender.

Reconciliation. Another word of course forgiveness, cleansing, acceptance in the beloved. A word of reconciliation. Now then he says we are ambassadors for Christ. We've been given this royal privilege to represent him.

Ambassadors for Christ. There has been vested in us that authority whereby we may speak in his name. We're ambassadors for Christ as though God did beseech you by us. We pray you in Christ's stead be reconciled to God.

As though God himself was speaking simply making himself articulate in terms of our humanity. Allowing us to fashion the words that impinge upon your ears that communicate to you his truth. In Christ's stead as though he himself was standing here as indeed he does say that he's given to this man or that.

The fantastic privilege as a redeemed sinner to clothe his divine activity with their redeemed humanity. Marvellous. That's the privilege of any preacher in the pulpit. It's the privilege of any mother or father as they whisper to their child by their bedside and communicate the truth to their heart.

It's the privilege that any business man has when he speaks to his associates or the doctor to the patient in his consulting room. To be that humanity through which the Lord Jesus today can make himself articulate as once nearly two thousand years ago his was the humanity in which the father of God in heaven could make his voice articulate.

The words that I speak unto you said the Lord Jesus I speak not of myself the father that dwelleth in me he does the work. Ambassadors. In Christ's stead the apostle says be ye reconciled to God for God hath made him Jesus to be sin for us who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.

There is the basis of this reconciliation that may be so gloriously affected that God made him our Lord Jesus in the sinlessness of his humanity who knew no sin. God made him to be sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.

In other words God was prepared to impute credit to us the righteousness of his son in that on the cross he imputed or credited to the Lord Jesus our sin. Because the sinless savior died my sinful soul is counted free and God the just is satisfied to look on him condemned and pardon me in peace let me resign my breath and thy salvation see my sins deserve eternal death.

But Jesus died for me that the basis of reconciliation justification justified God looks at me in Christ just as if I had never sinned and God looked at Christ as it were clothed with me on the cross just as if he committed all my sins.

That's the first word of the gospel. I'm not asking you tonight whether you've heard it. I'm not even asking you tonight whether you've believed it. I'm simply asking whether you've done anything about it or are you still a believer at the petrol pump an unsaved believer.

God hasn't provided any alternative means the Lord Jesus declared I am the way the truth and the life no man no man cometh under the father but by me. There is none other name given under heaven among men whereby we may be saved.

Jesus Christ our advocate the propitiation for our sins 1 John 2 verse 2 and the propitiation for the sins of the whole world. For those who in faith will call upon his name and invoke his activity and allow him to move redemptively into their experience.

Did you ever do that? Or are you still trying some alternative measure? It's amazing how our conceit, our pride, our arrogance, our ignorance will assist on trying to find some other way that will bypass, bypass God's way.

The way of the cross. I'm sure you heard of the small boy who displeased his mother. Don't know what he had done but diplomatic relations had been severed. There was a sort of cold war in progress. And after a bit the atmosphere somewhat icy and tense began to bear down upon the boy and he thought he ought to take certain steps in the direction of appeasement.

Try to reestablish peace between himself and his mum. So he went up to her and he said, shall I mow the lawn? And without a smile his mother said, no thank you. 20 minutes later he went back and he said, shall I wash the car?

No thank you. 20 minutes he was back again and most unusual suggestion, would you like me to sweep the kitchen? No thank you. Progress was not what you might describe as sensational. Half an hour later he crept to his mother's side just the suspicion of a tear in his eye.

He said, mum, I'm sorry. And for the first time there was a smile on his mother's face. She said, Bill that's all I've been waiting for. Now you can mow the lawn, wash the car and sweep the kitchen. You see he didn't get out of that.

But he had to begin at the right place. And you and I are perfectly prepared to give God the world. If only we don't have to admit that we're sinners. We're prepared to do this, that and everything else.

If only we don't have to bow our head and say, God, that's your verdict upon my fitness for your heaven. Your son dying on a cross. Shedding his blood for the cleansing of my guilty soul. I'm sorry. But I don't have to say that.

I'll do anything. I'll go to church. I'll write out my checks. I'll become chairman of this, that and the other. I'll launch every kind of benevolent society or enterprise and I'll promote this, that and the other.

Anything please. Anything. But admit myself to be the guilty, dirty sinner that I am. In the sight of a holy God. Ladies and gentlemen, there is no other way. And no matter how you try, one day the door will shut.

And though you come hammering upon that door as the Lord Jesus indicated so clearly and say, Lord, Lord, you've made a mistake. You've left me out. I went to church. I adopted all kinds of responsibilities within that church fellowship.

I held office. I even taught Sunday school. Sometimes I stood in for the preacher. And Jesus said, in that day I will reply, depart from me, you workers of iniquity. I never, ever knew you. Because there's only one rendezvous between a holy God and guilty man.

Beneath the shadow of that cross where Jesus died, that we might be forgiven. Who suffered the just for the unjust to bring us to God. Ever mix that with faith? Or as you sleep tonight, will you sleep unforgiven, lost, the wrong side of heaven.

Because you're the wrong side of the cross. A word of reconciliation. That's the first word of the gospel. Only brief reference to the next word, which is found in the first chapter of James epistle. Here it is.

The Word of Truth and the Unchanging God

Let me cite it for you. Every good and every perfect gift. James chapter 1 verse 17. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above. It cometh down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.

That's the nature of God. He never changes. He is eternally and timelessly and unchangingly true. That's the nature of truth. Never changes. Nothing can happen tomorrow. Nothing can be discovered tomorrow that will change the truth.

Something may happen tomorrow. Something may be discovered tomorrow that will prove to you that you never knew the truth. But it won't change the truth. That's why nothing ever changes God. In him there is no shadow of turning.

In him there is no variableness. He doesn't change his theological opinions at the whim of a permissive society of his own will. Verse 18. Begat he us, made us his children. How? With the word of truth.

With the word of truth. The last verse of the seventh chapter of a little prophecy called Micah in the Old Testament says this. Thou will perform the truth to Jacob and the mercy to Abraham. Do you see the significance of that statement?

When God promised Abraham, a Chaldean, that in his seed all the fams of the earth should be blessed, Jesus, born of the tribe of Judah, one of the grandsons of Abraham, born of Isaac, of the house of David, two thousand years ago, finally born at Bethlehem, when God made that pledge to Abraham, he need never so have done.

He uttered that promise in mercy. But the moment God spoke in mercy, it became the truth to Jacob and truth to a thousand generations. Because God doesn't play the fool. He means business and says exactly what he means and means exactly what he says.

Truth. And of his own will he begat us with the word of truth. Turn over the page just to the first chapter of the epistle of Peter, the very next little book and in the first chapter and the twenty third verse, you'll read being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible by the word of God which liveth and abideth.

How long for? Forever. It's the ever living word and it's the everlasting word. For as much he tells us in verse eighteen, you know that you were not redeemed with corruptible things like silver and gold or what you may imagine silver and gold can buy education or respectability or influence that will never redeem you.

There's no way to heaven that way. You were not redeemed with corruptible things of silver and gold from your vain behavior. That's only received by tradition from your fathers. But with the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb without blemish and without spot who bore our sins in his own body on the tree, the word of reconciliation, Jesus, the way being born again on that premise, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible.

Verse twenty three, the word of God, what he had to say and what God wants you to know, that word which lives and that word which abides forever. And this, this, verse twenty five, this is the word which by gospel is preached unto you.

That's the gospel. It's timeless truth, ever living, everlasting. It's that to which the Lord Jesus referred in the eighth chapter of the gospel, where his conversation is here recorded as he spake these words, verse thirty, of John eight, many believed on him.

Then verse thirty one, John eight said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, if you continue in my word, then are you my disciples indeed and you will know the truth. And the truth will make you free.

If you listen to what I have to say, give me time enough to talk to you long enough, you'll know the truth. And the truth will set you free. And thirty six, if the son shall make you free, the eternal timeless word, the incarnate son of God, the one who is the creative deity, who is in the beginning with God, was God and by whom all things were made, in whom was life, which life is the light of men.

When he speaks and you listen to what he has to say, you know enough to know the truth and that will set you free. You don't have to grope in the dark any longer, you don't have to try to find some vague meaning to life, you don't have to say who am I.

At last, instead of building on sand in a perishing society, you're on solid rock and all history and all eternity is on your side. Jesus said, I am the way, behold my hands and my feet, but it is I myself, look at the wounds, see the print of the nails.

The word of reconciliation incarnate. I came to implement the promise of my father God, that those who call upon my name should have forgiveness. I died that you might be forgiven. Jesus, the way. A word of reconciliation, but said Jesus, I am the truth.

I didn't come just to tell the truth, preach the truth or even just to explain the truth, I came to be the truth, I preach, truth will set you free. The way, a word of reconciliation, the truth, a word of emancipation.

Partaking in the Divine Nature

And the last word, you'll find it in the second of Paul's epistles to the Philippians, where he addresses himself to some new converts, they've only just come to Christ, but he's encouraging them to discover how inexpressibly wealthy they became in the day they were converted.

And bear in mind that if there was ever a man whose life was radically revolutionized, it was that of Paul the Apostle. I hardly need to tell you, I'm sure, that he once was the arch enemy of the early church.

If in those days we had been here and Saul of Tarsus would have been around, he would have surrounded this building and had us all in jail before you could flick your finger. Scattered in the streets when they saw Saul of Tarsus, a woman's face went white as a sheet and she rushed home, warned her husband and slammed the door and ran home the bolt when she saw Saul of Tarsus.

He was dangerous, but something happened on the road to Damascus. He met the way and the truth and the life. As a voice from heaven said, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? He said, who are you, Lord?

Jesus, whom you persecute. You're on the losing side, Saul of Tarsus. It's hard for you to kick against the pricks. All history, all time and all eternity, Saul of Tarsus, is against you. And he capitulated and became Paul the Apostle.

And now he says to these new converts, just discover for yourselves that everything that God ever gave to me, unworthy as I was and unworthy as you are, he's given to you. For in the day that I claim redemption through the shed blood of my risen Lord, he came by his Holy Spirit to inhabit my humanity, as in the day that you claim redemption through your now risen Lord.

He came by his Holy Spirit to inhabit your humanity. Everything that God gave me in Christ, he's given you. That's why the Apostle Paul in this chapter, chapter 2 and verse 12 says,. Wherefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, work out now much more in my absence your own salvation with fear and trembling.

Discover that you don't need me. I'm not your crutch. You don't have to lean on Paul the Apostle. You've got the Lord Jesus who gave himself for you and has now given himself to you by the exceeding great and precious promises.

Peter says, second of his epistles and the first chapter and the fourth verse,. By the exceeding great and precious promises you are made partakers, partakers of the divine nature. Jesus Christ himself as God has come to clothe himself with your redeemed humanity so that you can step out into the dawn of every new day knowing that your humanity has become on earth the temple of the living God.