Today being Good Friday, we shall nonetheless continue in our study in God's Word concerning the relationship of perfection to salvation. And I have now come to — I'm not sure whether it's the 21st in this series of regeneration, renewal and perfection. But there are important things that remain to be considered regarding this matter of striving for perfection as God has commanded it for us.
Brother Dennis gave me a hat yesterday, one of these baseball caps, which you will see me wearing especially at the camp and probably well before the camp. I was tempted to come up to the platform today with this cap on, but I thought that being Good Friday, it might be somewhat inappropriate. So I resisted the temptation. But I can tell you that it has a symbol, a badge on top of this cap, which says, "Strive for Perfection." Oh, that was very appropriate. "Strive for" in smaller letters and "Perfection" in large letters, that in a circle, which I suppose also represents perfection. And he said that these caps were issued in his company, in Westinghouse, that all the employees were issued with these caps because they wanted the whole company to strive for perfection in their work at the company.
The reason being that the Japanese — their products are so good and of such a high standard of excellence — that the American companies feel that they are falling behind in this race and can't keep up with the Japanese in terms of quality and excellence of the products. And therefore, everyone was given a pep talk about the importance of excellence and perfection, and then everyone was issued a hat. So Brother Dennis was saying that if perfection could be attained by the issuing of a hat, then progress could be made rather rapidly. However, I suppose that it's intended that when each employee looks at the other and sees this sign there, this slogan or motto or whatever you like to call it, "Strive for Perfection," maybe each could remind the other what they have to do.
And it struck us that even the world, even a secular company, understands that perfection is vital to its survival. That without perfection, it's not going to survive in the intensely competitive world markets. Even they understand this. How is it that Christians are so slow to understand what non-Christians often fully understand without much difficulty? If your product is not perfect, it's not good, you're not going to be able to compete with somebody whose product is far better than yours.
What about us as Christians? We are God's workmanship, we are told. And I wonder if the non-Christian looking at God's workmanship in us wonders what shoddy workmanship God produces. This is what God has produced? This is God's workmanship? Those are Paul's words. We are God's workmanship in Christ. And let's not ever have to shame God that when people look at us, they say, that is God's workmanship? It's a disgrace. The Japanese could make a better radio any day than God could make a Christian. When you turn him on, he sounds all out of tune. You can't hear what the message is coming across. I mean, the high fidelity is not even in question. We can't even hear properly what is the message of newness of life, of regeneration. When you look at the average Christian, it's so warped, so out of tune. And this is God's creation, this is the new creation in Christ Jesus.
So I hope then that — yeah, Brother Dennis was saying that if we need more hats of this sort, he will try to obtain more of these. Maybe everybody will soon be wearing one. I hope they don't mistake us for Westinghouse employees right now. The whole church will — all we need after that is a uniform. We have the Lord's army marching forth. But the importance of it, the seriousness of the message is that, surely, if the world can see how important perfection is to their survival, is it so hard for Christians to see?
Yet, according to most Christians, they think perfection to be a sort of luxury, non-essential to survival. It is a sort of extra, only for those people who have too much time to play around with. All we want to do is get saved, who has time to talk about perfection? If you think like this — a kind of thinking most common among Christians — you haven't understood what perfection is, or the command to perfection. Why did God command us to be perfect? Does He think we all have too much time to play around with? Does He think that we have nothing better to do with the rest of our time than to think about how to polish brass screws, how to make things look a little nicer?
We must clearly understand that perfection has fundamentally to do with salvation in Scripture. And the reason the church is going almost nowhere in these days — where the non-Christian standards, at least in material things, in material excellence, they strive for a level of perfection that Christians don't seem to be even willing to dream about, because the cost is simply too high. But let me bring it right down to the matter of salvation. Without perfection, without grasping what striving for perfection on the spiritual level means, you will not even see the gates of the kingdom. That is a big statement to make, and it is up to me to prove it. And this, by the grace of God, I shall certainly seek to do.
I remind you again, in Matthew 5, verse 48, the Lord's command was, "Be perfect." Imperative case. "Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect." And you will say to yourself, what has all this got to do with salvation? Let us try to understand what that command really means. What is the Lord asking of us? So that we begin to capture the whole inner significance of perfection, or the command to perfection. I stress again and again the command. And failure to obey a command is sin. He didn't say, "I suggest to you that you who are my disciples should consider, when you have a spare moment, to try to obtain a higher degree of perfection." We interpret that passage almost as though the Lord said that somewhere. And if it offends us, we bury it somewhere in the midst of all the words of the Sermon on the Mount. But it stands out like a sore thumb. It stares at us. It is a command. It is not a suggestion.
Let's try to understand what this command really amounts to. What is it that the Lord wants us to understand, to grasp by? Well, first of all, let's think of it. He is perfect and we are commanded to be perfect like Him. He is holy and we are commanded to be holy like Him. He is merciful and we are commanded to be merciful like Him. What does it mean? To fulfill that command imposes what upon us? What kind of demand comes upon us? Well, quite obviously, without going into a very deep philosophical analysis of it, the meaning is quite clear. It means that we are to imitate Him. Is it not? He is holy and we are by command obliged to, required to imitate Him. He is perfect. We must imitate that perfection. "Be perfect." What else does it mean? It means become perfect. Become perfect is the process. We are to take God as our model and pattern ourselves upon that model. It is something that we must imitate decisively. That is, we decisively, because it is a command, we must be committed to, be decisively committed to imitating God.
That is what the Apostle Paul says. That is exactly what the Apostle Paul says. Let us turn for a moment to Ephesians chapter 5 verse 1. And you will see exactly those words. Ephesians chapter 5 verse 1. And this is what we read here: "Therefore, be imitators of God, as beloved children." Be imitators of God. There again is the command. Paul tells Ephesian Christians, we are called to, or put under the command to, imitate God. Oh, that is a tall order. But let's not come to that point first. Let's just stick with this point: that being a Christian puts us under the obligation to imitate Him.
Now the significance of this is so profound that I am going to try, the Lord helping me, to try to get it across to you what this means for the Christian life. How it's going to affect every part of the Christian life, and how it is so vital for the Christian life, that if you do not fulfill this, you will never know. I am making sweeping and very strong statements, without any hesitation. If you do not follow this command, you will never know the power and the meaning and the reality of the Christian life. And as I said, I am going to demonstrate this to you from the Word of God.
We shall see, the Lord helping us, that this matter of imitating Christ, of imitating God — because Paul sometimes speaks of imitating God, sometimes speaking of imitating Christ, and sometimes he says imitate me, and sometimes he says imitate the churches. Why does he say that? The reason is because sometimes our spiritual perception is somewhat dull. We don't know how to imitate God, we don't know how to imitate Christ, but we see a true servant of God somewhere, and we can imitate him. Paul says, "Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ." And if Paul is not around, then what do we imitate? Then he says, in Thessalonians, imitate the church — the churches, in fact. Those churches in which you can see the life of God clearly manifested. We are told to imitate those too. We shall come to these point by point.
But now, there is another way this is put in the New Testament. The Lord Jesus says, "I am the way." And it is well known that in the Acts, the whole Christian community, the whole church is called, the whole teaching of the gospel is called "the Way." They are followers of the Way. Now notice, followers of the Way. Now what do you do on a way? All of you who walk on the streets, who drive a car, find this very easy to understand. What do you do on the way? You believe in a way? No. Of course you can believe in the way, but you don't get anywhere by believing in it. You've got to follow it.
Did anyone ever come to church today simply by sitting in your room and believing that there is a road that comes to church? Did salvation ever get to you because you believe there is a road? Brother Dennis arrived from Columbia to Montreal because he sat in Columbia, concentrated hard and says, "I believe in Highway 81." All I do with all my heart and with absolute sincerity. And suddenly he opened his eyes and he found himself in Montreal, right? You say, how absurd. But why do we understand worldly things so clearly, but we cannot understand spiritual things? When Jesus says in John, "I am the way, the truth and the life." What did He ask for? That being a way we just close our eyes and believe in Him and therefore we arrive at the Father? Well, you say, yeah, that's right, that's right, that's right. We are saved.
Sometimes it's critical, when you come to spiritual things, people are so dull, so dull. When they sit in their lab, they are geniuses. Oh, they can reel off their chemical formulas or whatever it is they have to reel off. But when it comes to spiritual things, it's so hard to understand. What do you do with a way? Let me ask you again — I'm almost like a Sunday school class. What do you do with a way? To follow it. Right. You say, who raised your hand? I follow the way. That's it. So when the road turns left, you turn left. When the road turns right, you turn right. You follow the way wherever it goes. And by this means, you arrive at your destination.
When Jesus said, "I am the way," what did He expect? Follow me. When I turn left, you turn left. When I turn right, you turn right. When I go straight, you go straight. Then you will come to the Father. Right? So, follow it. What is a disciple? One who follows. What is a disciple of the Lord Jesus? One who follows Him, who is the Way. That is discipleship. Follow it. You pattern yourself, not only along the way, but you even follow the lines along the way. So that through day or through night, you stick with the way. Please notice the word, with — the way. I shall come back to this word "with" in a moment.
Just now, Brother Tacky pointed to us in Romans chapter 6 verse 5: "If we die with Him, we shall also live with Him. We shall also be raised." Notice the word "with." The only way to go anywhere is to stick with the road. If you take another junction, you go up somewhere else. I don't know where you'll go to, but certainly you won't go to the destination you were originally heading for along the way, if you get off the Way. You have to stay with the Way.
Now, let's come back and think carefully on this matter. And hopefully, think spiritually. Think spiritually. We are commanded to be like Him. Means, He is the goal. He is the way. And we will follow His pattern. Follow His model. He is perfect. We follow the pattern: perfect. I hope this much is clear.
What is emerging then, is to realize that there is one fundamental concept in salvation that the majority of us as Christians have either not been taught or have not understood, even if we have heard it. And that is that salvation has to do with a commitment, not just to believe something to be true, but to model our lives upon the pattern of that truth. Notice: model our lives on the pattern of that truth.
Brother Tacky reminded us that we are told these days all so often, "How are you saved?" Well, you are saved by believing that Jesus died for you. Is that so? You know, to check this out, I took out my concordances to look for such a statement in the Scripture. I searched through all the lists in case I missed something somewhere along the line. "We are saved by believing that Jesus died for us." It is a cliche that we are so accustomed to hearing, we hardly bother to question it. I was sharing with Brother Dennis in the last two days, that all our doctrines, all our thinking, has to be subject to the rigorous scrutiny of the Word of God. We must ask, does the Word of God say such a thing? Have you ever bothered to check your Scripture on this point? Can you show me one passage in the New Testament, anywhere you like, which tells us that we are saved by believing Jesus died for us? Does that surprise you? Kindly name a passage to me, because I failed to find such a passage in my search.
Where does the error come in? Where did it come in? It comes in a lot of logical errors, especially in the spiritual life. Jesus came into the world to die for us. True? True. True. True. Yes. Yes. Yes. But the combination is wrong. First of all, in Scripture the death of Christ is never an object of faith. It is Christ Himself who is the object of faith. We put our faith in a person, not in an event, not even in an historic event. Only God in Christ is the object of our faith.
Secondly, the error comes because we have put the whole thing in the wrong combination. Let me illustrate it like this. A human being has a head, right? A human being has two arms, right? Right. We're back to Sunday school again. Basic lesson in logic. A person has two legs, right? Right. Two segments. A human being has head, arms, legs, right? Therefore, conclusion being drawn, a man is composed basically or solely or exclusively of head, arms, legs. Try to picture that. A head, two arms and two legs is a human being. You say ridiculous. Of course ridiculous. Why? Because the separate statements were true but put in that combination is false. You have missed something out in the process. Oh yeah. There's something called the torso. The torso. The main part of the body we left out. So you ended up with a head and two arms and two legs — not a human being, but what Isaiah would have called a monster.
And therefore in the statement, "We are saved by believing that Christ died for us," this is an incomplete statement. What you have done is you have distorted the whole thing. That's not the whole truth. As Tacky rightly pointed out, we are not saved simply because Christ died for us. That is true. But that isn't the whole truth. We are saved because we died also with Christ. We died with Christ. You know what that means? No. You wouldn't know what that means. Not until you understand what striving for perfection means.
You say, what's the connection? Connection is precisely this. Think back again. Perfection. The striving for perfection means we imitate Him. We identify with Him. We identify fully with Him. This word "identify" is very important. Let me give you the Oxford Concise Dictionary definition. Identify. This is how the Oxford Concise Dictionary defines it: "Associate oneself inseparably with." Notice the word "with." "Associate oneself inseparably with a party, policy, person, whatever."
To identify with Christ, therefore, means associate oneself inseparably with Him. To identify with God means associate oneself inseparably with Him. If I'm going to become perfect, how am I going to become perfect? Study Him through binoculars at long distance? Go and look up the Encyclopedia Britannica on the word perfect and I'm going to become perfect like this? No. How? You associate with Him inseparably. How? He goes here, you go there? No. How do you learn from a person who is perfect? You follow His every move.
Every writer in the New Testament has a different way of putting it. Paul uses the word "imitate." The Apostle Peter uses the word "follow His footsteps." How do you become perfect? Well, when He puts His footstep here, you look exactly where His footstep is and you put your foot in His footstep. And He takes the other step and you follow in His footsteps. That's what you do. You are inseparably associated with Him in all that He does.
I told you I used to play softball, baseball. And I played the position of pitcher. And I used to go playing against another team. And the pitcher of that team demolished us. He simply destroyed us. He just wiped us out. Because his ball that he threw was so fast. As I shared with some of you before, that before you had time to raise the bat, let alone swing it, the ball was past. All you could hear was the clap in the catcher's glove. And he was just utterly frustrating. How do you hit a ball that comes to you at that kind of speed? How do you do it?
Well, if you have watched sometimes a baseball game, you know that these people are professionals who are paid astronomical figures for hitting a little piece of leather thing here. And some of us wondered why we spend years studying when all we've got to do is swing a piece of wood against a piece of leather and earn a hundred thousand or what kind of figures that they earn for doing this marvelous job. And they don't even do it properly. They can't even hit the thing. And you sit there and you say to yourself, this guy gets paid a hundred thousand dollars and he can't even hit the ball. Well, I explain to you why. You just stand there yourself and try hitting it when the ball comes to you at 95 miles an hour and see if you, being paid two million dollars, could hit the ball. It's simply too fast.
And so I stood there, looking like a complete clown, because I saw him wind up for the pitch, I raised the bat and I heard, clack, in the glove. I had not even come to the dignified position of swinging the bat back. Never mind missing it. I didn't even have a chance to swing it. So what did I do? I said, well, there's only one way to learn. What did I do? So I bought a book on baseball pitchers and I studied the book, right? Of course not. I sat down beside the field and I studied his every move, every move to the minutest detail. How he moved his foot. Exactly how did he place his foot? How did his body wind back? How did he hold the ball? How did he deliver? How did he swing forward?
As I told some of you too, after I tried his movements, I found myself all twisted up and awkward. I can't throw a ball like this. It's impossible. I couldn't even throw it at 20 miles an hour, never mind at 90 miles an hour. But I kept working at it. I said, his moves — every move has a reason in it. And that's the reason I can't throw the ball at his speed, because I hadn't understood his moves. So I copied them. I copied them to the last detail. And my balls became faster and faster and faster. And the first days I was aching all over, but never mind, I persevered. Copying, copying, imitating. There is the word. Every move. Until the day came when other people had the same problem as I had. They raised their bat and the ball was gone. And you saw the puzzled look on their face. Where did the ball go? And it came to the point that very few people could hit the ball that I threw for the same reason. And I had imitated to perfection the moves of this pitcher, whom I accepted as my teacher. In fact, the day came he was playing on the same team with me, but only as my assistant pitcher. Because the day came when I could throw it even faster than he could, and even more accurately. But before we can reach the level of our master, we have at least to imitate him to the minutest detail.
Now, this matter of imitation, as Paul says, "be imitators of God," is that for those who have nothing better to do with themselves? No. These words in Ephesians chapter 5, verse 1, should be deeply imprinted in your mind. Because it has vitally to do with the whole process of salvation. The Lord Jesus taught exactly that. Exactly that, right at the beginning of His teaching. Let us go back to the Lord's teaching first. To Luke chapter 14, and verse 27. Let me read this to you. "Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me — bear his own cross and come after me — cannot be my disciple."
Such a person cannot be my disciple. He cannot be a Christian, as far as the Lord Jesus is concerned. Who becomes a Christian? The person who bears his own cross and comes after me. Can you grasp the principle more clearly now? What else is He telling the disciple to do but imitate me? Is that a difficult thing to understand? But look at the picture. It's so easy. Here is the Lord Jesus in front, bearing His cross, and He says, "You, if you are going to be my disciple, take up your cross. Follow me." Follow. Imitate. Follow the road. Follow the Way. I am the Way. If you come after me, you will be my disciple. You will be where I am. You will go where I go. Until then, you don't know anything about discipleship. You don't know what it is to be a Christian.
Imitation. The imitation of Christ. It's thought to be a spiritual exercise, isn't it? Written, for example, by people like Thomas a Kempis, who tell us something about the higher stage of Christianity, right? Wrong. We are talking about the basics of being or not being a disciple. You want to be my disciple? You want to be a Christian? As we know by now, "Christian" was simply a name for disciples in Scripture. Then you take up your cross and follow. Where I go, you go. As I carry the cross, you carry the cross. Where I put my foot, you put your foot. Whatever I do, that you do. And the works that I do, you shall do. And when my Spirit rests upon you, the Lord Jesus says, even greater works will you do. But you must first begin by doing what I do. How can you do greater works when you don't even begin doing what I do?
There is, brothers and sisters, the essence of the Christian life. From day one of the Christian life, from the day you begin as a Christian, you are commanded to take up your cross. The instrument of your own death. Your own cross. And you follow Him. That is the challenge, the beauty, the exciting aspect — if you can use the word exciting — why shouldn't we? Only the world has a monopoly on excitement. The exciting reality of the Christian life.
Let me put it to you, brothers and sisters, very simply like this. I doubt not that for most of you here, you believe with all sincerity, from your heart, that Jesus died for you. Right? With all sincerity. And therefore you think that you are a Christian. Right? You think you are a Christian. Are you a Christian? Have you taken up your cross? Answer, in all honesty to the Lord. Have you taken up your cross and followed Him? Don't say to me you don't know what that means. Do you know what it meant for the Lord Jesus to do it? He left His home in glory. To lay down His life for the likes of you and me. You don't know what it means to take up your cross? To turn your back upon the world? Let us not fool ourselves. We know what it means, but we don't want to know what it means. Because we say the cost in that case of being a Christian is simply too high.
It's cheap to believe. It costs you nothing to believe. It costs everything to follow. It costs everything to imitate. It costs nothing to believe. Let us not deceive anyone. Because the ones we will deceive is ourselves. There you see the fundamental difference between the two positions. A believing which costs nothing, and therefore also you will find produces no spiritual results in your life. Or an imitation of Christ — not merely in the sense of Thomas a Kempis — but in the scriptural sense. Follow Him wherever He goes. That's the mark of the saints in Revelation chapter 14 verse 4: "They follow Him wherever He goes." And you are going to tell me you don't know what it means? Of course you do. You don't want to know what it means, if it costs you everything. Isn't it? Therefore you are content with a salvation by believing. Or what Bonhoeffer called "cheap grace." Cheap grace.
Let me tell you that there is no cheap grace that ever saved anyone. There is no grace that ever was cheap. So if we want to caricature grace, no one will get anywhere. Let me just quote those words of the Lord Jesus. They are not my words. I beg of you to understand. I didn't invent any of this teaching. Those are the Lord's words. And my task is simply to bring out what the Lord said. "If you are going to be my disciples, you take up your cross." It is repeated so many times in the gospels that we must be willfully blind not to hear what He is saying. "Except a man deny himself and take up his cross," the Lord says in Matthew, "he cannot be my disciple." Deny himself. You don't know what that means? Let's be honest with ourselves. I am sure we are not that dull in our understanding.
Now, discipleship then means imitating Him. Not externally. Please. I beg of you. Let us not start kidding ourselves. Imitating Him doesn't mean that because He combed His hair like this, we comb our hair like this. That He wears gold-rimmed glasses, so we put on gold-rimmed glasses. That He wears a striped tie, so we put on a striped tie. If He wears a checkered tie, we put on a checkered tie. We are not talking about the externals of these things. The Scripture doesn't tell us what kind of hairstyle the Lord Jesus has. And thanks be to God for that. Because everybody is going to have all these long curly things down here. And soon we are going to have a whole church full of delightful hippies.
# The Relationship of Salvation to the Imitation of Christ
Internal imitation. Now the Apostle Paul was saying the same thing as the Lord Jesus, but he says it in a different way. And that's why I was saying to Brother Tacky just now, he already gave the introduction to that part of my message. And we need to turn to this passage again in Romans chapter 6 to look at this matter very carefully. What does it mean to take up your cross and follow him? Well, if you still have any doubts as to what it means, the Apostle Paul will clarify the situation for you.
Five times in five verses he uses the word "with Christ." It comes again and again. Five times in five verses. Let me read to you these five verses from Romans chapter 6, verses 4 to 8. "We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death." Notice, buried with him. Did you notice those words? With him by baptism into death. So that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. Now notice the words "with" — two times in verse 5. "For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his."
"We know" — I'll come back to this word "know." This is the Greek word ginosko, which means know by experience. Not know simply by teaching, which would be covered by a word like oida. But know by experience. Ginosko. "That our old self" — do you know by experience that your old self was crucified? Do you experience the reality of the old self being crucified? Do you? I think the majority of Christians today in the churches would have to say no. Honestly, no. You have experienced the death of the old self? "We know," Paul says with complete confidence. We know experientially that our old man was crucified with him, so that the sinful body might be destroyed and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. Experientially you know whether you're a slave or not. That is not a theoretical matter. If you're a slave, you know you're a slave. You can't do the good that you would do. Verse 7: "For he who has died is free from sin. But if we have died with Christ, we believe we shall also live with him."
Oh my beloved, I hope you understand this. It is absolutely vital. Here we are talking about imitating him, when as mature Christians we know at the very point of the very beginning of the Christian life. How does the Christian life start? We believe that Christ died for us. Yes. But that's not going to save us. It's not going to save us. You believe it with all your heart. Yes. It won't save you. Do I need to prove it to you? Or don't you know it from your own experience? For those of us who are pastors, we are exhausted sometimes with counseling people who have been Christians for years and years and years, and I don't know how many years, and who simply do not experience the reality of the Christian life. Who know in themselves that they are not free from the power of sin, from the power of the self, from covetousness, from love for the world. They know it's not real to them, and they come to me after years and say to me, "You know, I have discovered I am not regenerate." How many years do you have to wait to discover that you are not regenerate, you are not born again, you are not a new creation, you do not walk in newness of life? How much longer will it take for you to discover this?
Why did they discover it? Because they realize that their daily life was really no different from that of a non-Christian. In substance they are not free from the power of sin. They live with a sense of defeat, of frustration. When sin comes, they collapse. They cannot resist the power of sin. Do they really believe? Of course they really believe. Do they really believe that Jesus died for them? Of course they really believe. I would not question the sincerity of their faith for one moment. Then why are they not regenerate? Here is the answer, beloved: because they believe that Jesus died for them, but they never died with him. They never identified with him in his death. His death, in other words, never became a reality to them.
We are talking about Good Friday today. What am I going to give you? Another message about how Jesus hung on the cross and bled for us? That bleeding, that dying, that suffering will mean nothing to you in terms of reality, in terms of experience, until you have died with him, until you know what it means. Oh, teach me what it means. Teach me what it means that you died for us. Teach me not that by reading some book, by touching my emotions with another touching story about how the nails were driven into his hands and his feet and his side, but teach me because I have known what it is to die with him.
How does a thing become real to you? Let me ask you this: how do you know that a thing is real? There are two ways: you read a book about it, or you experience it. When you read about it, it doesn't become real to you. It becomes head knowledge. You know about it. Only when you experience it does it become real to you. Is Australia real to you? I didn't ask you, do you know about Australia? I'm sure you know. Every kid in school learns about Australia, I'm sure. And what does it have? It has kangaroos, it has koala bears, and other nice little furry creatures that run around in Australia. And it has other interesting features like great deserts and so on. And you might not like deserts, but you like the koala bears. And so there's Australia. So, you know Australia. It looks like this shape, and it has a barrier reef in the northeast. So it has very interesting features. You know Australia? You know Australia? No, you don't know Australia. Have you been there? No. So what do you do? You know about Australia. You have never experienced Australia. Australia is a piece of knowledge, a picture on a map. You don't know Australia. In fact, you've never been there.
What do you mean by knowing Australia? You go to Australia, you look around, you talk to the people, you listen to the accent, you see the wilderness, you go around, and then you begin to know Australia. You begin to know it because you are now experiencing it. There is a difference. Do you know Jesus? Do you? What do you know about Jesus? Oh yes, we all know he died for us, he rose. Do you know him? That is my question. No. How many Christians really know him? But if you don't know him, you are believing in somebody who is not even real to you. How can Jesus be real to you when he is a name in the Bible? Oh, nine hundred, sometimes thousand, of course you know his name, but do you know him?
You see, it's only by experiencing — I just want to drive home this one simple point — it's only by experiencing somebody that he is real. Why was Jesus so real to the Apostle Paul? Well, he started out by meeting him there on the Damascus Road. I mean, once you have experienced him in this sort of way, of course he is real. But you see, is that kind of experience limited to the Apostle Paul? Most certainly not. How then do we find spiritual life real and not just so much knowledge tucked away that we all learn from Sunday school days to now and what Samson did and the like and so on? No, it becomes real because you have experienced it. There is no Christian for whom the spiritual dynamics of Christian life are unreal who have truly known what it is to have died with him and lived with him.
The whole Christian life is about this. Five times in five verses. Let us look at these passages that none of us will be in doubt as to what this means. Let's look at it. For it says in verse 4, "We were therefore buried with him." Now how do you get buried? Well, you've got to die first, unless you get buried alive. You die first. We die with him. Let's not go around with these phrases. Let's pin the meaning of this thing down as clearly as possible.
And let me take you to look at these verses now. Any of you who know some Greek will be interested that in all five places here in the Greek, you have the word syn — translated s-u-n, sometimes by the necessities of Greek it comes as s-u-m, sometimes s-u-n, sometimes s-u-s — but it is syn, "together with." Together with. And it comes as a prefix in most of these cases to another word. That's actually one word. To die with Christ is one Greek word: synapothnesko. Synapothnesko. To die with him, or to be crucified with him — these are all one words in the Greek. And we want to look at these words because it's a great favorite of Paul's. He's always using this word "with," because it means identification with, associating inseparably with Christ.
Now in Romans chapter 6 verse 4, the word suntapto — suntapto means to be buried with. Now let's start with Romans 6:8, where it has to do with our dying with Christ, having died with him. How do we pin down the meaning of this? How do we die with him? Well, what is the meaning of "to die" here? It means specifically to die to sin. It says in verse 10, "The death he died, he died to sin once for all, but the life he lives, he lives to God."
Now what happens when you are going to imitate Christ in his death? And Taki reminded us in verse 5 of chapter 6, it is not dying his death. We can't die his death. But "in a death like his." Notice the copy. Let us read verse 5 again: "For if we have been united with him in a death like his" — not united with him in his death. Let's not get this thing mixed up. "In a death like his." As he died to sin, so we, when we die with him, we also, like him, die to sin. That means, in imitating him, there is a resolve, a commitment, in which I say before God and by his grace, "Here, now, at this moment, I once and for all finish with everything that is opposed to God." What is sin? Sin is all that is disobedience to God, all that is opposed to him. I finish with it once for all. No one should take the step of baptism who is not determined once and for all to finish with sin.
But Paul in Romans tells us that sin is lodged in the flesh. "If I do what I do not wish to do, if I sin when I don't want to sin, then it is not me that sins but sin that is in me, that is in my flesh." Therefore to finish with sin is not just to finish with the concept of sin — we are back to the intellectual business again. It is to finish with the flesh. What does it mean to finish with the flesh? It is to finish with all that is carnal in me. It is to finish with the whole way of carnal thinking. It means, in practical terms, I am committed from now on to be living spiritually.
Now let's pin this down even more to daily life. That is, whenever I am thinking about this practical detail, I am being prompted by the flesh to do something. "Except a man deny himself and take up his cross, he cannot be my disciple." It means, as soon as I am prompted to be proud, I cut it off. As soon as I am prompted by the flesh to be envious, I cut it off mercilessly. As soon as I am prompted to be covetous — I want this money, I want this car, I want this house — I cut it off. These are all to do with the flesh. I finish with whatever has to do with the flesh. Oh, this thing of dying to sin is beginning to get wider and wider. It's going to cover everything that has to do with the flesh. It has to do with my life in this world as a whole. You got the picture? You got it?
That takes us to the second point: buried with him. Now if you want to get a graphic picture of this, dig a hole in the ground and put the mud over you and get a feeling, an experiential feeling of what it is to be buried. What happens when you are buried with him? You are finished with this world. The whole world is finished to you. To die is the end of everything we have to do with in this world. Think of it. When you die, what happens to your money? I guess somebody else walks off with it. What else happens? A dead man no longer has any use for money. He doesn't think of money. He doesn't remember about money. Somebody — it's gone.
Oh, you say, "Wait a minute, wait a minute, I'm beginning to get scared of what you're implying." That's right. You have the right to be scared. I told you: believing costs nothing; imitation is going to cost you everything. When the Lord Jesus, as we are told in Philippians chapter 2, what did he do? He left his home in glory and he came into this world. You're going to follow him? Will you, my dear ones? You'll follow him?
That's what the rich young ruler said, "No, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" The Lord said, "Well, you've got the commandments." He says, "Yeah, yeah, I know about the commandments." And he says, "Well, I'll tell you how to put the commandments into effect. You follow me." "Oh yeah, oh good, I'm going to follow you." "So go and sell everything you have." "I thought I'm just going to believe in you. Believing you is fine. Sell everything and follow you?" Imitating him. He left everything to come into this world. He says, "You want to follow me? You want to inherit eternal life? I'll tell you the way to eternal life: you go and dispose of all you have, come with me." And now this is reaching fanaticism. This is going too far.
Just now we were talking about a dignified doctrine of belief by which I can sit in my study and in a most dignified fashion say, "I believe. Amen. I put my hand on this Bible here, so help me God, I believe." And now you're going to get me to do all these ridiculous things? With him? Die with him? If the rich young ruler was prepared to die with Christ, why should he worry about his possessions? Can you explain it to me? Do you want to die or don't you want to die? Make up your mind! I say this particularly to those who want to get baptized. Please don't kid me, because you're going to kid yourself. Do you want to die or don't you want to die? If you don't want to die, don't turn up for baptism, I beg of you. Because if you die, your whole relationship to this world, by definition in the word "die," is changed. You cannot be the same anymore. If nothing changes, then you are not a Christian either. There's a change, or there's no change. Because otherwise you are going to be one of those who are going to come to me in two years' time and say, "You know, I was baptized two years ago, but now it strikes me I'm not regenerate." Why? Because nothing has changed. You know nothing has changed.
Let me repeat it at the risk of repeating myself: believing changes nothing. Imitation, identification, association, being with Christ in his death and in his life, will change everything. It will turn your whole life upside down. It will cut your link to the world with one sharp knife, one blow, and cuts your link to the world forever. Everything changes when you have died with Christ. You look at this world, you look at it with different eyes. You are now — he is perfect. We are following him, imitating him in his perfection. Where he stands in the world, there we stand in the world. As the Apostle John says, "As he is, so are we in the world."
This is very dangerous doctrine. You thought that he is teaching something very dangerous, and you are absolutely right. But I beg of you, I beg of you, let me remind you, I didn't teach this thing. It's here in the Word of God. It is Paul who said we die with him. We die with him. And don't talk glorious things about dying for him. Those are far down the road. Those who never died with him never have to worry about dying for him. We are not going to become martyrs who are not even willing to part with the world now. When will we part with it later?
Buried with him. And then what it says here: crucified with him. Verse 6: "We know that our old self was crucified in him." That would make nice theological doctrine: in him. He did all the dying and I do all the living. That would be perfect, isn't it? I died in him, in the representative man. Oh yes, the theologians would like to get us there too, because it will leave us in our dignified seat in our ivory tower where we can still be nice Christians and don't have to change one iota. Let me tell you, God is not going to finish with you until he has changed you so thoroughly that you don't even recognize yourself by the time he's finished.
We die not just in Christ. We are not crucified in Christ so he does the dying so we can do the living, all right? And we can live in sin if we like, according to some teaching, because you're always going to be saved. Once you are saved, always saved. So he did the dying, we do the living. We do the living in sin and we're still going to be saved. Well, you can teach all kinds of doctrines that you like, but I don't see this in Scripture. "I am crucified with Christ," Paul says in Galatians 2:19 — I should say 2:19 in the Greek, 2:20 in English — "I am crucified with Christ." What's the result of that? The world is dead to me. I am crucified to the world and the world is crucified to me.
I wonder how many of you could, in all honesty — I mean honestly — say that this is true in your life. Because if it's not true in your life, then what has changed since you became a Christian? Has anything changed? The answer is no. Nothing would have changed until you have died with him.
Now we want the power of the resurrection in our lives. We want to experience the reality of his living power in us. How many Christians do you know of whom you could say, "I see the power of God in his life"? How many do you know? Can you give me a few names? Very few. Read again verse 8: "If we have died with him, we shall also live with him." You are not going to live with him. You are not going to experience the triumphant power, also spoken of in verse 5, in this resurrection life, now, until you have known what it is to have died with him.
There are many Christians even in this church of whom I could easily say, of whom you would honestly easily say of yourself, you don't know what it is to live in the resurrection power of Christ. You don't know what it is because you have not known what it is to have died with him. Your life hasn't changed. You are a Christian on paper. You are a Sunday school Christian, perhaps. You are a baptized Christian, perhaps. A Christian on paper. No change. You behave like any non-Christian. You think like a non-Christian. You love thoughts of sin in the secrecy of your heart. You play with sin, delight in sin, come to church and you speak high-sounding things so that people believe that you are really a good Christian of some sort. And God looks into your heart and he knows. He knows nothing has really changed. Nothing has changed. But he who has died with Christ, for him everything has changed.
You've got to make a decision by now. You'll see what imitation means, what identification means. Now I hope you begin to see why everything hangs on the understanding of salvation in the matter of salvation, that is inseparable from the need to obey the command to be like him. To be perfect as he is perfect. To be holy as he is holy. To be merciful as he is merciful. Our whole life is patterned on him. We follow in his footsteps from the first step to the last step. From the first step of stepping into our death, down to the grave, being crucified with him, where people ridicule him, we stand there to be ridiculed with Christ. As it says in Hebrews chapter 13 verse 13, "Let us go out of the camp to him and bear his reproach," that when they spit on him, they can spit on us, because it doesn't matter to us what the world thinks of the likes of us. We have finished with the world.
How much does your property mean to you? Nothing? No? I see. Could you prove it? Oh, nothing has changed in your relationship to your property. How much does your family mean to you? Nothing? Not much? "He who loves father or mother or brother or sister or son or daughter or wife more than me is not worthy of me." Our relationship even to our dear ones changes. Everything changes. It doesn't mean we love them less, but we love them differently. And in that different love, we love them more deeply than they can know. But it is a different kind of love. Even the way we love has changed. Our ambitions for them have changed. Our ambitions for ourselves have changed. Everything changes. And in that change comes the transforming power of God.
Our time is gone. We must close. But I hope by now you can see what I meant when I said at the beginning that this command to perfection is a command to imitation, a command to follow in his steps, a command to identification in every detail of our daily lives. Take up your cross daily, the Lord says in Luke 9, and follow me. Every day, so that the cross will change your thinking and your relationships every day. And then, because we die with him, made conformable to his death, as we have in Philippians 3:10, then we experience the fullness of his power in our daily lives.
We either want to be Christians or not. We either want to inherit eternal life or not. But after today, let no one say to me, "I don't know. I don't know how to be a true Christian. I don't know how to triumph in the Christian life." You follow him day by day, moment by moment. You follow the pattern of his thoughts. You follow the purpose of his life. You look at everything from the goal of the salvation of mankind, just as our brother Taki reminded us. He died not for himself. He died for others. We don't need to die for ourselves. Christ died for us. But now we live and die with Christ for others. That's what Paul says. He died for us, that whether we live or whether we die, we live or die with him. With him. Not just for him. With him. Constant association. Constant identification.
This is the command. This is our call every day: consciously to be conformed to him in all our thinking. Every time a thought comes to your mind — Paul says, "I bring every thought to the obedience of Christ." Do you know what that means? It means conforming every thought to him. Every time you're going to think about your job, you say, "How does Christ think on this?" Every time you're going to do something else, you say, "How would he do this? How does he want me to do it?" For that you have to stay in constant living relationship with him. And in that living relationship comes communion. In that communion comes power. People look at you and say, "He's different. He really is different." Not just in some superficial sense, not just because you're a nice guy, but because they sense the power of God's presence in you. Do they sense that?
I'm sure many of you in your place of work, they think of you as a nice guy. "He's really nice." They're non-Christians who are also nice guys. Does that make them Christians? No. Being nice is not what a Christian is about. Your presence might make the other person highly uncomfortable. It convicts him of sin. He may not think you're nice, but that's what makes you a Christian, because it's God's presence in you, his holiness in you, that has a striking effect.
You see the change in the way you think? How do you think right now? Self-centered? You're conscious about yourself, about your nervous tensions, about your needs, about your this, your that, until the day you've died. You've forgotten about yourself. If you haven't died, you're always at the center of your own thinking. Do you see the beauty of imitation? It makes Christ the center of our thinking because we are imitating him. Our thought is away from ourselves. It's focused on him. "Looking to Jesus," as it says in Hebrews chapter 12, verses 1 and 2. The whole Christian life is looking to him. What do you want to look to him for unless you're imitating him? You're following the pattern of his life.
So that is why salvation is focused in this teaching, the command of perfection, because it turns our whole attention away from self to him, to our pattern, our goal, the way, the truth, and the life. If your life is focused on yourself, you know you haven't changed. You are unregenerate, basically. But if your focus is on him in everything, the center of attention is away from yourself.
You know, in practical terms it does remarkable things to your life, even in daily life. It changes your life in such a way that even you forget about nervous tension. You lose nervous tension. You know why people are nervously tense? Because they're always conscious of themselves. People who have problems with nervous tension because they're turning in on themselves all the time. The moment you forget yourself and you focus yourself wholly upon Jesus as the pattern of your life, it does marvelous things. You suddenly have a goal outside of yourself. Your life turns outward. You don't remember yourself, your needs. You think of others. You think of the needs — to weigh priorities. Sometimes an individual makes demands on you. Sometimes the whole church. You have to weigh up which is more important. You may have to put the interest of the church before the interest of the individual, and that individual feels rejected. Your conscience is clear. You did not do these things for your own sake. You did it for the sake of the church.
Certain individuals might be unhappy with you. The individual might be your husband, your wife, your father, your mother. Others means the general good of the most people. We have to make a choice. But your life is always focused, following his pattern for the sake of others. Suddenly your nervous tensions disappear. You find that you can sleep better. Even your headaches disappear. Even your tiredness is less. I find many times when I'm really tired, the tendency is to focus in on myself, on my tiredness. And I must consciously say, "Lord, I am exhausted, and I'm going to turn my heart and my mind deliberately to yourself, that as you lived, as you died for others, I am here to live and die for others." I forget about my tiredness. I forget about everything else. I live for them, for your sake. And suddenly even the tiredness is not so tired anymore. Even the weakness becomes strength again. It does wonderful things. It does wonderful things to focus upon our pattern, Jesus himself.
Let us be quiet before God in prayer.