Know Who You Are Pt. 5 | Malcolm Smith

thank you and it surely is it has been rather for me a very special weekend and it's not over yet and so I want to move away at least in text form from where we've been there in John chapter 14 and in verse 20 we've been there since we got here but I want to look at two other texts and I just feel something should be said about them you know it's going to be insights and thoughts and the first is from Colossians in chapter 3 he says if then and by the way if there does not mean maybe maybe not it's rather better understood as sins or because it's it's not a question mark it's an exclamation point it's saying if you've been raised in Christ I mean it's the the tone that this is a fact since you have been raised up with Christ keep seeking the things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God set your mind on things above not on things that are on earth for you have died notice the finality of that you have died your life is hidden with Christ in God and when Christ who is our life is revealed then you also will be revealed with him in glory okay put that on hold and take special note but it says Christ who is our life then back into the Old Testament and in Psalm number 18 let me read it to you I love the Oh Lord my strength and one point there whenever you see Lord in capital letters in your Bible it should be another word the Old Testament name of God himself given to Moses in Exodus chapter 3 is I am he is I am which is a marvelous expose of the hearts of God the wherever I find myself I see his eyes sparkle and the smile on his face and sometimes the chuckle of divine laughter and he says I am I am he's never and I was he never says wait a bit and I will be always where I am he is I am that's his name and tragically the Jewish people of the Old Testament felt that was too intimate too personal and so they changed it and instead of I am they put the word Lord and Lord is the Adonai it means indeed he means Lord and he is Lord but it's not the name here this is the I am and so listen to it I love you oh I am nice strengths I am is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer my God my rock in whom I take refuge my shield and the Horn of my salvation my stronghold did you hear what's being said there in the two texts Paul in the New Testament he says Christ who is our slash my life David seems to have tapped into the New Covenant in the middle of the Old Covenant and he says I am is my strength he is my rock he is my fortress and I want to look at those words because I believe they contain some tremendous truths you could say I'm gonna speak on is my that would be a good one or maybe I am is my right that on your refrigerator I am is my Christ is my you see we have got to learn to live life now and in these texts especially the some texts every time it says I am is my David is in the middle of life right now David wrote these Psalms and whenever you find that I am is my you can check history and discover he wrote them when he was being threatened when the oppression was upon him this is life now this is him kicking the can down the road and saying when I get to heaven or when the millennium comes or some other Disneyland in the future it is now whatever I am facing in this present moment I hear him say I am is my he all he is is my how can I put this there there is this sense that Jesus comes to rescue us and that's about it you know he's sort of the 9-1-1 paramedic do you remember that terrible commercial on TV where a lady that was almost as old as me she she lowers herself to the ground and then says i fallen and I can't get up remember that then she presses the magic button and amazingly she left her front door open so that the paramedics can and and then attitude toward salvation many times is Adam fell and you know I can't get up and so Jesus the paramedic comes in and he stands him up and then keeps a few tips on how to make life you know that's not the gospel the gospel is that he becomes your very life that you enter into a union with him where he lives inside of you and you live inside of him and therefore for me to live for you to live is Christ and my confession and my announcement my agreement with him is to say Christ is my life and I'm locking into David I say again who seemed to be into the New Covenant in the old when he says I am I am is my and then gives this almost endless list and that's only one verse I'm sure you've already recognized I am is my shepherd I am is my light in my salvation Dave he goes on and on every aspect of life every twist and turn of life he throws out his agreement with God and says I am is my and that's that's what I want to get to that in every heartbeat every pulse of life I am recognizing I am is my life and to recognize I am the God who revealed himself to Moses is the one that was born of the Virgin Mary who took ahold of our humanity and now I am himself dwells in us I am is my is mine it's intensely personal intensely personal at this point he's not I am belongs to the world he does but the David is saying he belongs exclusively uniquely I am is my he's my male I mean feel it's my eye I am speaking there of my core self when I look at I and call I me my it's my most innermost way of knowing myself and I stand as if I were the only person in all of creation and I look into the eyes of God himself and say is my strength is my life you remember the parables that Jesus told the famous ones of the lost sheep and the lost coin and the lost son or sons actually if you noticed something it says the hey sheep who was lost well I guess if your city folk you just pass over that but it but if you go into the country you will quickly realize no sheep gets lost if one sheep gets lost the whole jolly herd gets lost because they all follow each other there never one she'd get lost never if you watch a herd of sheep and you see one beginning to wonder the others will stop eating and look at and a bit number must be something over there and off say Oh God then why why does Jesus who is speaking that in a very the Sheep orientated society why would he say one sheep in order to tell us incredible as it is that he would relate to you as if you were the only one of course beyond that every one is part of his relationship but these particular tests they open up to me this uniqueness and I'm not just part of a holy model I'm not even at this point part of the church I am me my he knows me and he relates uniquely to me and only in that sense I'm out of him part of you who have had the same experience me did you realize you didn't have to get saved for him to know you and Jeremiah it says that before we were born he knew us now there's the thought before you were conceived you were known by this incredible God and then when you were in the womb if you read Psalm 139 he attended to every detail and he says that his fingers rash in Jews and he delights over you as you were beginning to take on formation understand it takes more than your parents to make you that you come from the hand of God and he knows you and knows you intimately and then when you were born David said I was cast out of the womb which is an expression used to throwing dice I'm cast out it's it's up for grabs what's gonna happen to me but then he says and you caught me he says you you were in front of the gynecologist as I came out of the womb you got a hold of me I was cast upon you from my mother's womb he knows you he knows you knows you intimately knows you personally and he knows you when we say Christ in us and now you think of that it isn't that he's in me as a sort of tube that I you know he just sort of fits into me like a tube full of water I I was preaching with some person and they were I mean speaking a lot of truth but they tried to illustrate this with a song and they put their hand in the sock and I the puppet and and they said that's Christ in us you say well I knew which they were trying to say but the fact is and that puts me out of the picture because I'm now just a sake I'm just I'm something on children's TV no is he come he comes into me into me so that he dwells in every cell but I have not been excluded I'm not out of it I'm still my he is he and he is my I'm really here and you realize you are a lot more than your body you do realize that there's your body and we talk in the weight of our body in the height of our body and the place that we fill within time and space but you are a lot more actually in terms of the the person you're about what six feet out and you know it you do you know that when you come to a person you can immediately feel the energy of that person if they've just had an argument you slam right into that even though you haven't touched them yet you you know that and if they they're in a state of ecstatic joy you walk into that and it's like walking into a fountain there was an energy right at this moment I've expanded I'm filling this whole room right now and when we are meeting each other at an invisible level you see when he comes and and says the Lord is my it is in my core being it's in every cell of my being it's in every cell and interstate highway that runs through my brain he's in me and he's sharing my life as I share him and in every part of my body I am meeting the reality that he now lives in me and I recognized as I walk I am tenten's in the presence for that's all me that is in him and he is in me and David said this is where I am I'm my very DNA he's a dwelling he's transforming me at my very deepest being my personality my will my emotion I have become in goddddd and so now the challenges of life and the opportunities of life have become doorways in which he who is my very life can be expressed and I meet him and others meet him in me in the middle of circumstances we've got this idea then it comes I could give you the date back there in ancient history when the Western Church stated the most abominable thing that to be really holy you had to become a full-time minister and full-time ministers had a higher code because they could become holy and they they could reach the heights of expressing Christ but as for Upolu well I mean you're you're so ordinary there's nothing much left for you and back then when they stated that they said the best we can hope for the laity the non full-time ministers the best we can hope is you can have a go at keeping the Ten Commandments and that was it and so us guys the full-time ministers we were called holy we were called Saints you huh forget it no Yoda currently the Ten Commandments I say that was damnable that's one of the most filthy things that ever came out of the church in those terrible ages because it's still with us today you really think you really think that because you work at an office then there's something less about your life than if you were in full-time ministry oh no if you really want to know God you've got to go to a malarial swamp in the middle of Africa and then you have now your your you just might make it to a Saints you say that's all a lie terrible lie do you realize he is my and that includes wherever I happen to be it includes whatever I'm doing he is expressed in that whatever happens to us in the depth of our lives then I'm going to discover what he looks like and feels like in where I find myself if I could be terribly personal as many of you know I lost my wife in April and she had been what we were bonded in ministry as well as any other way and it was such a shock and I realized within just a few hours of that that's what I've been preaching is the truth and therefore this I could have now proved it at this level and my words were what do you look like Jesus when you are dwelling in and expressing your very self through someone who has suddenly been plunged into aloneness and suddenly their world is falling apart what do you look like him that did you understand me I'm plunged into an adventure now in discovering Jesus at a level I've never discovered him before I I am walking into every moment and recognizing he is my life but my life at this moment is as I've never known it before so I'm discovering Jesus as I never knew him before I've known the love of God at one level but now I'm discovering the love of God at a level I've never known before did you understand it's got nothing to do with food ministry you can change jobs and discover Jesus at a new level all together your world can fall apart and you can discover Jesus in the broken bricks and he's rebuilding already it's who my it's mine he's in this unique person I've said all this weekend he refuses to be God without you he delights to come inside our personality and he he's being God through our uniqueness hmm my that that's a possessive word you know this this is my New Testament same it's mine it's not sort of general public it's mine whenever you say my and you learned it around two years old it means has mine it's uni it's got my name on it it's mine it's got my shape in it he says the I am is my yeah how could her hell can I say this it's always too big for words but he gives himself to me and says I am your God you are my people it's an exchange of possession and that means it is so utterly real he's joined to me and he is uniquely mine so that every thought we've ever had of separation that he's up and over and all that sort of stuff that's that's gone you cannot ever think that again for he has given himself to the point where you lay hold of him and say my his what can I say he is not a dislocated gift he's not he's not giving you an impersonal gift is I'm not coming somewhere there there now he's yours and a walk away and you might not see me again no when he when he gives well put it this way the gift he gives is himself he doesn't give us an end he doesn't give us an impersonal thing called love well an impersonal thing called strength he gives himself to us and he is love but he's giving himself into us so that I am actually now expressing love which is beyond natural ability it is God's love that's really become mine and I am now giving that to you and you know it's got Malcolm written all over it and Malcolm says yes but with a wink you see because I know I live but not I its Christ who lives in me see and that is what I said last night you know the person you go to and say thank you for that ministry thank you for that song and they look Oh silly like a bloodhound and say it wasn't me it was the Lord no you missed the whole points he gave you the gift he's imprinted himself into you and is you now but express him this is who you are this is this is not deeper life this is Christianity 101 that there's no separation it's a seamless union he said I am the vine you are the branches tell me have you ever seen a vine with our branches huh what he said I am the vine he includes the branches and you try and tell me where does the brunch begin and where does the vine begin it there I mean there's a branch and there's the vine yeah but try and explain that it's seamless for me to live is Christ Christ who is my life said pole separation the very idea which spewed out of Satan's mouth in the Garden of Eden is now canceled our eyes are open there never has been separation they cannot be separation this God he will never leave us he will never forsake us have you ever read that in the Greek in the amplified bible that diversa alan quoted I will never leave you in the Greek it is such emphasis that we cannot translate it into English without almost ridiculous amplification it is I will never I will never I will never under any circumstance under any situation I will never I will never leave you we can't say it in English it's too strong it's in the Amplified Bible he has bound himself up with you because there is no other place in all of the universe in all of creation there is no other place that God would prefer to be than in your body in your person in this seamless beyond separation relationship with you you were the dwelling of God do you not know that your body is the Holy of Holies where in the Shekinah glory the Holy Spirit dwells it's no wonder you a curse you did notice you know when you read the New Testament you guys are called Saints really I mean I'm not in any way kidding here this you begin he's addressing the believers in Ephesus and he calls them saints and Holy Ones okay he did anyway we we've got separation has been stamped into us and so we see him separated from us and then you separated from anybody who seems to be more successful than you and so it goes around that it isn't so it isn't so and there's there's no no struggle to get into him you were no help that what I just said that was a turning point in my life to realize I didn't have to struggle to get into him see I knew I was a branch and he was the vine but how do you become a branch so yeah he said abide in me but how'd he get into him maybe he never went through that but I I knew all occur you know Christ in you but because the Bible never tells it it's just too soon you are in Christ no when I say stop stop stop how did you get there what what great act of dedication took you there how did you find your way into Christ there's only one verse that actually says that it says that God himself placed you in Christ so you open your eyes and realize that's that's who I am I I didn't have to get a ticket as a tourist to get in there I didn't have to struggle up the mountain and find it was at the top I'll open my eyes I'm at the top how'd you get there God put me in Christ so I am he is my he is mine that's where I belong and that may sound very obvious to you but the the culture that I was raised in it wasn't if you'd asked any pastor that I was under in those early days how do you operate in Christ how do you get there I can tell you they were telling to read my Bible more say because obviously the rate I was reading it you didn't make it into Christ but if you'd read it more and then you're gonna pray more old night prayers will be handy at that point how about some fasting you know if you really want to make sainthood how about a forty day fast I mean let's get serious about this yeah I'm not kidding I remember as when I first came over here in the mid 1960s I remember being in Tacoma Washington sitting down with a group of pastors and we were more sincere and intent on what is the formula for successful ministry there's got to be a formula there's something we're not doing and urea we sat there till the Sun came up looking and it included all of the above and when we went to breakfast that next morning we were as ignorant and as frustrated as we were at supper last night did you ever go through that how do you make it to this sacred place I come to tell you open your eyes you're already there sir supposing supposing I mean let's let's get the stupidity of this supposing I say to this front row will you please sit down didn't you hear me try dedicate yourself to this act of sitting sit down you'll have to pray more to understand this sitting business you've got to sit down wouldn't it be a marvelous revelation that they already are because by the tenth sermon on you've got to sit down they will be in a state of frustration to the max they would thin themselves slightly insane and that's what thousands of believers are going through right this morning they're being told to try and be better try and get into Christ try and make this happen and I wanna come shout it you're already there God placed you in Christ yes he is my he is mine he is mine he is there's something very restful about is he is he is my sort of a settled realization it is Sunday I mean wouldn't be terrible if you try and make it Sunday is it okay I'll go what I have to do to make it Sunday it is you know that chair you're sitting on is the chair and it is in the right place you don't have to wander all over the auditorium to try and find a problem to knit um I know this sounds crazy but that is it is a chair it is in the right place and you is you sit back here certainly you never have to think about it again because it is it is it's settled relationship it's a state of being which means it isn't a goal to arrive at you're not trying to get there it is it is it becomes my starting point to an alaria snoo life discovering everything that's wrapped up in his but I'm not trying to get there it's not a point up in the future where if I do this and do that then I'll get there no I start there I'd be there I is there one thing that has been very precious I would say I used the term advisedly it's very precious if the Sun was streaming through a window you know it's bordered by curtains and so it's got a very exact shape to the Sun beam you could stand over in the corner and look at that Sun beam and begin to analyze what sunbeams are and everything that's happening between that Sun beam and the Sun and you could write a paper on it and get a degree at MIT it's or you could walk over and stand in the middle of the Sun beam and just be warmed by that Sun and you could know the Sun beam in a totally different way to the student who's been studying it to understand that you enter into it's is I'm not there to study its origin are not there to discuss what's happening to my skin as I stand in it I just is it and I just let its beams penetrate my body and I'm warmed and actually I'm being healed and I'm receiving vitamins that I need just by being there there's a flowing river and you could analyze the water and discuss h2o in great detail or you could just jump in the water and swim you know what I'm saying and it was precious to me when that dawned on me that that where it says in Ephesians that you might know know and it's that word we discussed last night know by personal experience know by personal observation know to the point of uniting with that you might know the love of Christ which surpasses all other knowledge and just knocks it down and I I am a student and I love to delve into books and when there comes a moment of seeing seeing some of the stuff I'm talking about I have to start because I'm drifting toward writing a thesis about I've got to get in that water ugh I've got to actually feel that water against my naked skin I've got to feel what it's like to slide through that water and of course it's the river of life and therefore to get into it is to be liked and I leave my studies about it in order to plunge into it did you understand what I mean to leave my study of it and go and stand in the Sun beam of God's love and feel his embrace and to know that I am known now it's safe to go back because I'm not looking at an it I am speaking and knowing from within it I'll put it this way if I was speaking to you this morning about gravity you know gravity I'd be interested in wouldn't it because I'm talking about it but while I'm talking about it grab is holding this pulpit in place right don't you understand you didn't know gravity holds stuff down right without gravity this podium would float off into outer space it's held down here by gravity so if I will lecturing about gravity I'm being held on the platform by gravity see I'm talking to you this morning about is my but as I'm speaking to you about that he is is my I'm being held in place by is my as I'm telling you about is my we're in the middle of this I am talking to you about you this is you do you remember that TV show back in the 1800s whether they would come and say mister so-and-so this is your life well that's my business huh I'm coming here to say this is your life this is who you are this is this is speaking of you this is who you is the is I'm not coming to challenge you to now there's a great duty to be performed this is a um you ought to do this you should do that you must do that and if you're ever gonna get this this is what you must no no no no no no I come to tell you that by the grace of God by the sheer grace of God you is you is says my is my huh isn't he's not a visitor in the old testament if you just read the old testament there there's a sense in which the the Holy Spirit was the visitor they lived in a visitation society he would you know so that God showed up and when he showed up he just had a knapsack on his back because he'll be gone tomorrow and so he came upon them for certain he was with them for sure he's very real but Jesus said now the Holy Spirit there this newness is that she'll be in you you shall be in him and from there we begin as where we start we're not always trying to start we begin by recognizing he's in us that's where we we is we start from that peace there's nothing I have to do to make it happen though he has done it all and he has placed me there so now the rest of my life is to discover all this incredible glorious life that is contained in is I am no longer in a state of panic frustration anxiety of trying to get there I am there now let's explore that let's walk around this vast residence in which I have been placed it is so that's why the Holy Spirit is called the teacher an interest to me is not a Western teacher an Eastern teacher such as they knew in the Bible you you passed when you could become a teacher they said you never know anything until you're doing it yourself it's all there funny things they do in schools today you know get a true-false true-false yeah and I guess half of them but in in the Hebrew in the Hebrew school of the Old Testament when the teacher taught you you you passed when you had become the teacher because you don't know anything - you're living it and so the Holy Spirit has assured you you is we're here we've arrived now let me show you how this works in every area of your life let me come into your imagination let me come into every detail of your thought process let me be your teacher until it can be truly said as he is so are you in this world as a teacher and then he says he's the guide and the the emphasis there is a guide into unknown territory and I've had a good few experiences of that to go into territory that is totally unknown to me and I'm trusting in that guide who's going to point things out to me who is going to teach me how to be in that situation it's the Holy Spirit taking us our beginning point is is we move away toward the discovery rather than spending our life trying to get there we're there and we move on from there I am or the New Testament says I am Incarnate Christ is my that's pretty heavy I am is my as I said he the giver is the gift but now let's look at it from this point that that be in the case my life is not a poor shabby human imitation of Christ Christ Himself is my did you understand that because the the key word for many believers is that I'm trying to be like Jesus we're trying to follow Jesus and all the other expressions that go with it where no is that what that separation anyway good I mean let this sink in I am Christ in our humanity is my so that my is actually the very presence of Jesus being made manifest in and through my mortality so it's it's his love not my poor imitation of trying to love it's his strength not my cursing my teeth and trying to be strong it is he and it's right now you see I heard it you you said when I get home I'm gonna I know it her works you hear this in immediately you've gone into the future modes click this down the road but to think of right now as I just said now he is the fullness of Christ is in you through you and you can never earn it you can never deserve it but then of course if you could it wouldn't be a gift with it this is God's gift into you it is who you are and as you realize who you are you move into the glorious world of becoming that's what it is there's no delay here there's no same will I am NOT there's no saying I'm not enough we're not living from a poverty mindset we are living from the riches that he actually has deposited his very self within us and David in his situations I said and it would be a marvelous look for you go through the Psalms of David and see every time he says the Lord is my or you are my it would go on and on and on but notice every time he said it he was in a position of threat so many of the Psalms that are heavy in those expressions were the sums when his father-in-law Saul was trying to kill him and he was a refugee in the caves in the south of Judea hiding from his father-in-law when he wrote those Psalms and feeling the absolute weakness he's alone and a king wants to kill him and the King's got all his armies coming to find him you couldn't be much more alone and he writes the I am is my shepherd I am is my light and my salvation I am is my strength I am is my refuge in in a threat in this present moment David is agreeing with God they understand that don't tell me he felt like it he had feelings he felt the threats but he chooses to agree with what he has learned of God in covenant language and and says I stated it's another way of saying confess which means to say together the same thing we've got to learn forever not to live in our feelings but to live in the Word of God that is given to us and agree with it and confess it and declare it and dance in it and our feelings will join us did you understand when you're in a threat when the pressures on before you pray if you prayed right away it would be a prayer out of fear and anxiety but it but if you hold on that and start with the confession and the agreement with God that God Himself is my strength in this situation he is my peace he is my joy even at this time he is everything I need to hold me up he's my refuge round about me what are we seeing he's closer than my skin he is never leaving me never agree with God and you begin to feel now you're feeling the very reality that he is my and out of that piece then you can pray but this is where we live this is where we are and it's not a mr. I know that for some micelles like a great mystery I know who would have to be in a crowd this size that some of you never heard this before well the concept but let me tell you it isn't a mystery it isn't something so weird on a holy that it would take you forever to get into it cuz it already is don't you realize that right now is a great party of rejoicing going on inside the Holy Trinity and it's all about you he said rejoice with me I found my sheep which was lost and it's going on right now and all I have to do is allow the Holy Spirit to open my eyes and i'm reaiiy i'm in the middle of a party i've been going on since the resurrection come and join the party is it's not right you don't have to climb the mountain to get there it is and it's now in progress if you got is to hear you can hear it and hear the holy dance for whenever the door cracks into the heart of god there's singing and shouting you ever thought about that well if you read through the psalms they know rowdy you know load of noise going on is bang everything that could be banged blow everything that can be blowed you know trying on every guitar don sing jump the word rejoice means leap into the air and spin around as you do it i mean reading the Psalms is like you've had some new name move in and they're making a racket there is a party going on of extreme joy that has no connection to events happening but is a joy that rises from the very heart of God and you have been caught up in to that I say yield to the Holy Spirit to open your eyes and come and join the party that is in effect right now in the earliest church when they celebrated Easter they celebrated Easter Sunday which was a very joyful affair but on Monday they had the Easter laughs and they would slap each other on the back and they were laughs and they would laugh because he rose from the dead and they laughed and said can you imagine that Satan killed him and it was the death of Jesus that killed Satan ah ha ha ha and I'm not this is in history they told jokes on Satan it's a stupid Satan's fancy can you imagine it was through death that he conquered him who had the power of death and it's and I come and I start talking about my sin and my failure know not what I should be and I hear him laughing he's not laughing at me he's laughing that everything I've said in the last five minutes of all my confessions and sins and failures have already been put into the grave and he's already risen and we don't talk about that anymore ha ha ha it's I know that this isn't religion and I know that but this it is so the party is we learn to laugh the laugh of God because it is so it is so come and join as the younger brother joined the party the elder brothers stood on the porch because it offended him we joined the party well it's some it means actually that my whole view of life is changed forever you'd only know that when when you get into the swing of it and realize how much of your life before was trying to get what you already have in Christ and you were trying to get rid of what is all barely being gotten rid of to move into is is to move into incredible boundless freedom and then you look at others as I'm looking at you right now and you see them as they really are even if they don't know it that radically changes your relationship and you're no longer that miserable creature that comes to the office and says you gotta get saved are you go to hell rather your whole being is to you know who you are tastic Christ is your life it's the truth you look back on your life and realize that now from where you stand you'd better edit that past because what you thought was so terrible you recognized was in fact a beautiful pathway to where you are right now and you would never be where you are right now but for that life that you looked at with disgust and horror and condemnation now you're giving thanks to God you were there too I didn't recognize you but you were there it's the truth because if he is my then I realize he is yours and I realized that he didn't start using me this morning yeah that's where I've been no better understand that so the past is no longer a source of pain and misery out of which I live but realize I live out of the praise of him who disguised himself as my life then the one who is my life now and therefore of course I am in assurance he shall be my life unto the ages of Ages I think I've said enough I think it would be good to step in join the party and Christ who is my life amen

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Length: 55min 12sec (3312 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 24 2019