Denny Kenaston 02 — Denny Kenaston

Righteousness by Faith Rather Than Religious Formality

Focused, concentrated on being found in Him. And he goes on to say, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but the righteousness of God, which is by faith in Jesus Christ. You see, Paul's talking about two kinds of righteousness here.

And we may sit here this evening and say, oh yeah, that's for the formal church out there, that's for the Church of Scotland, that's for this church, yeah, they're legalists, they're this, they're that.

That's not what Paul's talking about. Paul is saying, I don't want to be found having my own righteousness. You see, we can have our own righteousness. We can go to church, and we can read our Bibles, and we can go through the motions, and we can praise God, and we can worship, and we can do all the things that our religious formality allows us to do.

We can do all those things, but not be doing it in reality, and if we're not doing it in reality, it's simply righteousness which comes by the law. It's just different laws, that's all. We have a law in our church, you say amen every now and then while the preacher preaches, so you say it, even though it doesn't buckle down in your heart.

It's righteousness by the law. To be found having my own righteousness, I want to be found having the righteousness which is of God by faith. And brothers and sisters, I don't believe Paul was just talking about justification in that verse there.

He was talking about the reality of a righteousness which flows out of a life that is in Christ Jesus. Paul was concerned about. Paul wanted to bear fruit in his life, and Paul knew there's only one way to bear fruit in my life, and that is that I abide in the vine, that I live in Christ, that my heart's desire is after Christ every day.

All I want to do is stay right with God. It's Paul's heart. This is what made him beat. Not everyone, but a righteousness which comes from within me because Christ is living inside of me, and he has the freedom to live his life out of me because all is clear and open.

Heaven is open over my life. My heart is an open face. My conscience is clear. Remember the words of the apostle Paul, hearing have I exercised myself to have a conscience void of offense toward God, and man, that's what he was doing right here, and it was the passion of his life, and brothers and sisters, his passion was not just to keep his conscience clear.

His passion was Jesus. He wasn't wrapped with Jesus Christ or anything within me. It was his motivation. He goes on to say some beautiful things which we do not have time to say to you this evening or address, and he goes on to say that just sharing the longing of his heart that I may know him.

Knowing Christ and the Power of His Resurrection

Now, wait a minute, Paul. If anybody knows you, if anyone knows him, you know him. What are you saying that you may know him? And I believe all he's simply saying is how do you ever get to know all the ocean?

And you see that God is great. He's unfathomable, unmeasurable, infinite. I believe we'll spend all of eternity getting to know him. Here's Paul, stretching at the surface of the beautiful life of Jesus and the knowledge, that excellent knowledge of Christ Jesus and his heart is saying, oh, I wanna know him.

I wanna know him. I wanna know him more. You know, that's the heart that we need to have, to know him, I wanna know him more. I'm not satisfied with how I know him. I wanna know him more. I'm not satisfied with where I'm at.

I want more, that I may know him, that I may know the power of his resurrection. Amen, Paul. I count all these things but done that I may know the power of his resurrection. And you talk about walking in the power of the Holy Spirit.

That's what he was doing. And I count everything but this. All I want is the power of Christ to rest upon me. This was the secret of Paul's strength. Fellowship of his suffering, being made conformable unto his death.

If by any means I might have taken him into the resurrection of the dead, he just keeps going on and on there. And I'm not going to take the time to address all of those points because I have other things I feel the Lord wants me to say but I just wanna lay a little bit of a foundation that we can see that this is what God is after.

You say, brother, those are some pretty strong words. That's a pretty high standard you're giving us. I know that, I know, but we're talking about God. We're not talking about Christianity, we're talking about God.

And should not that beautiful God that we heard about give our hearts love, hearts love, fire of our love? You know, he had it once. For some of us here, he had it once. Remember? Remember how flame burned up inside your heart those first days when first you knew the Lord?

You had no problem with that. Paul goes on in verse 12 and I'm so glad he puts verse 12 in there for all of us because if he just stopped there in verse 10, we'd probably all be discouraged and say, it's too much for me.

Look what he goes on to say in verse 12. Not as though I already attained, either or already. You see, he's helping us to see. I've not attained, I haven't attained all these things. And that's all God asks of all of us.

Beautiful words. He's just saying, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. Paul's passion again. I want to apprehend all that God apprehended me. That's what Paul is saying there.

I mean, God apprehended him on the road to Damascus. God apprehended me in the front seat of my car 36 years ago. When did God apprehend you? Is it five years ago? Is it seven years ago? Is it 40 years ago?

Pursuing God's Purpose and the One Thing

But the question this evening is, am I apprehending that which God apprehended me? I'm fulfilling the will of God. You know, I've noticed something about revival. When revival comes to a man, or revival comes to a church, or revival comes to a country, all of a sudden the purposes of God, the will of God, the heart of God, the longings of God, they just begin to be meaningful.

And I want to listen, you know, if you've lost sight of that which you were apprehended for. I mean, God doesn't save anyone that he doesn't have a plan for. Right? God don't waste his time on anything.

If he saved you, if he washed you in his blood, he's got something that he wants you to do. He's got a plan coming at you. It's a new day. I want to fulfill the will of God. All you can do is yield to Christ.

All you can do is make him number one. All you can do is give him his rightful place. All you can do is get rid of anything that would stand in the way of that. And then the purposes of God begin to just unfold in your life.

It doesn't matter who you are. Sunday night, I had the blessed privilege of going, and maybe some of them boys are here tonight, but I had the blessed privilege of going over there to this ambassador hall where these poor souls, all messed up on drugs and things like that, and there they sit, and you know, they probably can hardly even think the thought that God might even have something for them.

God can save you from the gutter most to the uttermost. And you say, how, how? He's God, and when God comes to the inside of you, I don't do it, I don't care. God, it's not just a matter of going to church and singing my songs and reading my Bible, it's a matter of what can control my life.

And that's revival, isn't it? We know that's what. So Paul goes on to say in verse 13, brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended, thank you, Paul, but this one thing I do. And see, this was Paul, he was a man of one thing.

He didn't have 10 things that he was doing. He had one thing that he could do. He was, maybe he was a bit simple-minded, like I can't do a whole bunch of things at once, but I can do one thing real loud.

Maybe he was that way, but he was a man of one thing. This one thing I do, Paul says, forgiving those things which are behind and reaching forth into those things which are before. I press for the mark, for the prize of a high calling of God in Christ Jesus, and that's all I want.

Oh, brothers and sisters, is that all you want? Or are there some other things over here that are tearing away, pulling you back? You know how it is. We all live in a real world, amen? Paul's a man of one thing.

I struggled a bit this afternoon as I thought about some of these things that I was gonna say, and I thought, oh Lord, I don't wanna blow these people away. I don't wanna think, whoa, what is this man saying?

But dear brothers and sisters, we're talking about God. This isn't some religion. This is the Lord Jesus Christ, the only true and living God, and beside Him there is no other. Surely He should have everything.

Surely that would be a right way to get this conference started, amen? That He would have everything in all of us. Let us therefore as many as be perfect, and that means upright, up to date. Are you here tonight and you're up to date?

Everything is clear, heaven is open. Let us as many as be perfect. If you're here tonight and your heart is, have this kind of mind, Paul says, the same mind that I have, and he goes on to say some beautiful words.

He says, and if in anything you be upright,.

God shall reveal even this unto you. And I thought about that, you know? If that's where our heart is, if our heart is focused like that, if we have a single eye that's fixed upon Christ, yeah, anything that comes into our life that is otherwise minded, God will take care of it.

God will reveal it to you. And the Spirit of God is very faithful, isn't He?

You know, all you need to do is drop down on your knees and say, Lord, what's wrong?

Walking Closely With God and Hearing His Voice

Possess you, control you. He wants to be glorified through you, even you. So because of that, if in anything you be otherwise minded, God will reveal even this unto you. Do you see? We get so far away from this reality, it takes us a few weeks to figure out what we want.

But God wants us to walk close to Him. And you walk close, you hear that voice. You hear it, and He says, words you just said, they went where they should have gone. Oh, He's faithful. The problem is that we live pretty far away from this.

And therefore, it may take us a few weeks before we figure out what happened. Things are a little cloudy in my life these days. What went wrong? Yesterday, today, I thought about you all. You know, again, I'm just kind of catching up as I'm here these last few days.

But I understand that most of the churches are small, not a big group here, a big group there. I thought about you all as I thought about this message. You know, the Lord Jesus, He said some powerful words to Peter that I believe we can take into our own hearts this evening.

He said to Peter, on this rock, I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And you know what that rock was? That rock is Christ. This Christ that the Apostle Paul is talking about, that rock is Christ.

And you see, what Jesus was saying is this. Wherever there's a group of people who come together, who are willing to build their lives on Christ in this manner, I will build my church. And I'll build such a church that the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

And brothers and sisters, pull back, go back through the pages of Christian history, and you'll see it over and over and over again. God is not a respecter of people. He's not a respecter of lands. It doesn't matter who you are.

You can be an ignorant Chinaman who doesn't even know how to read.

But if there's a few of you, get to it, we'll begin to build a church in heaven. And we live in Scotland, or maybe England, or Ireland, or Wales, and it's just a little group, a beautiful church, a glorious church, a church militant, a church that will get the respect of the community or the persecution of the community one way or another.

And I don't mean by going out and being unkind to people. I mean because of the anointing and the holiness in your life, they don't want to have anything to do with you. That's the kind of church that God wants to build.

That's the kind that Jesus built in the book of Acts, which, by the way, is the beginning of the fulfillment of that prophetic promise that he gave back there in Matthew chapter 16. On this rock I will build my church and the gates of hell shall open.

Amen. Oh, brothers and sisters, do we believe that verse anymore? Is that for some other age? Is that for the people back there? Is that not for the people in Scotland? Did Jesus still not do those things today?

A Testimony of Revival in a Small Church

I'm telling you, he'll do the same thing today that he did before. Yes. He can do it again there. He can do it again. Oh, God, give us another chance. This is a little testimony. 20 years ago, our little church back in Pennsylvania was a little church.

We started with five families and five years later we had 10. Not very good church growth figures, is it? To 10. Oh, and by the way, we lost one and gained one and lost one and gained one through the years.

We believed in revival and we believed in the promises of revival and we believed that God was a covenant-keeping God. And for those five fumbling years, we prayed revival. Here, years, we decided to have a little week of meetings for the community.

Oh, that'd be nice. We'd invite the community into our church and God sent us an evangelist who was a little bit different than the status quo. On Monday night, he preached on sin. On Tuesday night, he preached on sin.

On Wednesday night, he preached on sin. I mean, he just kept putting that gospel plow down a little deeper every night. But you know what happened? All of a sudden, things started to break up in our nice little fellowship of people who looked so right and so nice on the outside.

And junk started coming up and sin started coming up and sins of witchcraft and immorality and all kinds of stuff that I thought to myself, these are my people, I'm the pastor of these people. Look at how they're living.

But you know what? Night after night, as the people began to get honest, and I mean, we went to like one o 'clock in the morning every night dealing with these people. Every night, the atmosphere got clearer.

You know what I'm talking about? And the presence of the Lord just started to hover there. Thursday night, sin Friday night, more sin Saturday night. And by Sunday night, the presence of God was so real in that place that the preacher didn't want to get up to preach.

You know how that is? You think, I'm not gonna touch this thing. I may mess it up. God is here. Who needs a preacher? Amen? Amen. But you know, by Sunday night, it's as if God was watching, and he was.

And he realized, now I can entrust these people with the community. And the community started to come. They started coming. And hardened sinners started coming. And that husband that that wife had been praying for for 10 years started coming.

And another one came, and another one came, and beautiful things began to happen. And the presence of God just continued to draw closer and closer. One visitor came in, he snuck in a little bit late. He didn't want anybody to see him going to these odd meetings.

And he snuck in a little bit late, and came in the back door, and went down through the basement. And he was gonna go upstairs, and he heard a prayer meeting going on over here in this room. And he stopped over there and put his ear up against the door.

And it scared him, what he heard in there. Because he'd never heard anybody praying like that, you know? He'd heard lots of, you know, now I lay me down to sleep prayers, but they were praying in that room.

They were interceding in that room. That's what they were doing. This went on for two more weeks. Finally, at the end of these three weeks, one o 'clock every night, one o 'clock in the morning, one o 'clock in the morning.

Finally, we were, we were wore out in no time. We closed the meetings. But the church has never been the same since then. All of a sudden, singing turned into worship. And prayer became intercession. Oh, yeah.

And the presence of God was in the meetings. And the church became a body.

And I could go on and on and on.

But from that day till this, the church has not stopped growing in numbers, in maturity, and in faithfulness. God can do that in your church. Maybe your church is small. Maybe it's just a little handful.

God doesn't care if it's a little handful. God can take a multitude out of a handful. He can do it through God, you know. And this is a corporate thing. It's not just put it on your preacher, you know.

Come on, preacher, be a hot servant of God, and then stay prayed up and give us good service. I'm telling you, that's not Christianity. That isn't. If that's your mindset, if you come to church on Sunday morning and say, okay, bless me, preacher, you don't understand that the body of Christ is out of your head.

He's all of us getting in. He's all of us saying, okay, God, all for you and nothing for me from this day forward. And when you start doing that, he can take 10 and turn it all. He'd delight to do it, wouldn't he?

Wouldn't he delight to do it in Scotland? Yes, he would. These were at the Revival Conference in Georgia last month or so.

Returning to the Lord and Seeking Revival

And I just thought I'd read them to you in the book of Hosea. You want to turn in your Bibles, you may.

God has a controversy with his people here in the book of Hosea. He's pretty burdened about the way they're living. They've lost all that they have. And he's talking about judgment, bringing judgment upon them.

And at this stage, God's still wanting to give them a chance. You know, that's the way God is. He's very patient and he's very merciful. And he wants to give us another chance. But he says this in chapter five in verse 15.

He says, this is what I'm gonna do with the children of Israel. I will go and return to my place. My place, says God, till they acknowledge their offenses and seek my face. In their affliction, they will seek me early.

God knows. And God knows we'll rise up. Chapter six, verse one, it says, this is terrible. Any longer. Let's return to the Lord. See that element of faith rising up in their hearts? They remember the mercy of God.

They know what God will do when they get serious. They know what God will do. In two days, will he revive us? And in the third day, he will raise us up. Shall we follow on? If we follow on to know the Lord, we shall follow on and keep on following on.

And more and more, that's what that verse is saying. Back to the apostle Paul. His going forth is prepared as the morning. He shall come unto us as the rain. As the latter, the former, to still stand tonight, brothers and sisters.

The Lord is not slack concerning his promises to us who believe. He's not slack. He's still the same. And I wonder, wouldn't you think it'd be a good idea if we just, I mean, let's get serious on Tuesday night.

Do believe we won't die. Man, it's beautiful. Some of the prayers I heard, the prayer that just broke my heart as I heard you, dear people, praying for your country, just broke my heart. Let's just start right here.

Responding to God's Call in Personal Surrender

Go out to his place. He's left you there. I'm gonna do this thing in trying to get it going and trying to be what you're supposed to be and trying to read and go to church and there's nothing on the inside.

Build a field, reality of God. I'm gonna try to do this Christian thing. We're gonna get an invitation this evening. That's what these chairs are up here for. So you saw that. For any of you who wanna do business with God, and you know, this isn't a group of people off the streets, you know.

I don't think we need to sing a song and play some music and all that stuff. We need to do business with God. Just come. Just come up in front here. Kneel at the altar. Thank you for your beautiful word.

Thank you for being an example of the life of the apostle Paul. Oh, Father, we pray this evening, God, that you will have your will in your way. Lord, in us, do not pass us by, dear Lord. Yes, Lord, we want a visitation in Scotland.

Oh, God, we need a visitation right here in this place. Come sing. Now, if you can do that, you're so wonderful because that's really what it's all about. That's what it's really all about. And maybe you just need to kneel right there in your seat tonight and talk to God.

This one thing I do, I said, I want this Christ.