Count It As Joy

Count it all Joy

Good evening to the Lord’s beloved. Would you please open to Hebrews 12? I “joined” church when I was 10 years old. Back then it meant the same thing as accepting Jesus. I started out as a baby. I didn’t know anything about being a Christian. That was 57 years, six months and 72 days ago. I am finely aged! And even after all these years, I am still learning to live the life of a Christian.

Probably the first 25 years of my Christian life, it was like God knew that it would be a period when I would learn very little about Him. And I say that somewhat in jest because I grew up in a Baptist church where preaching was emphasized, evangelism was emphasized, but getting into the Word to find out who you were as a son or daughter of God was not emphasized.

It was until, and I’m being very serious here. In 2002 when I came here on a Saturday morning to meet with Pastor Jim about Grace Ministries Bible College. Now, don’t get me wrong. You do the best you can with what you have. I was studying the best I could. I used the Strongs Concordance and other study tools. It wasn’t like I wasn’t trying to move forward in Jesus but until someone can help you understand how to do it, then you’re going to be at a place where you’re floundering.

And the reason I bring this up is because I realized after some time that I didn’t learn a lot about how to be a Christian. After all, there was no one who could teach me how to be a Christian.

For example, no one helped me understand that when I got born again and received the spirit on the inside of me, I knew right from wrong. No one told me “Barry, if you are thinking about doing something wrong and there is something on the inside of you that says, ‘Don’t do it,’ that is God.’” No one ever told me that.

And no one helped me understand how important that still small voice on the inside of me was because if I had listened to it time and time again, my life would be different. Don’t get me wrong. I love my life. I’m happy where I am. But there would have been some things in my life that I would have done differently.

One of the things most Christians don’t understand is what it means to be a citizen of the kingdom. That was Barry. For all practical purposes, I could have been in an orphanage spiritually even though I was in a family and didn’t know who my Father was. But, praise God! I do now.

The reason I am talking about this is because I’m reminded from time to time that when I read the scripture, the things that the Bible says are to be normal for us as Christians are not always normal for Barry.

For example, Jesus says that if you believe on Me, John 14:12, our Bibles should fall open to that chapter. Jesus says “Verily, verily I say unto you, if you believe on Me [and we say that we do] the works that I do, ye shall do also.”

There was no waffling in that. There were no question marks after that. Jesus says that is the way your life is supposed to be. How many of you, don’t raise your hands – I’ll do it – that is the way your life is?

Pastor, I hope what I am about to say doesn’t disqualify me from you asking me to minister again, but my life is not John 14:12 yet. Barry hasn’t raised the dead yet. Barry hasn’t healed all manner of sickness. Barry hasn’t had people knocking at his door asking for healing. Barry is not there yet. But this is one thing in Barry’s favor: he knows he’s not there and he understands what needs to be done to get there. I didn’t have that as a new Christian, ladies and gentlemen.

We come to this church, and we get teaching. We come here on Sundays and Wednesdays and the Lord’s table is laid before us. And we know that what is laid before us, we can freely eat. How many of you come here expecting to eat at each service? How many of you leave each service full? If that is not who you are in this church, what that means ladies and gentlemen is you are taking what we receive here for granted.

For many of us, we receive the teaching, but it never walks out of the door with us. Until that happens, ladies and gentlemen, John 14:12 is not going to happen in your life.