This morning I'd like to speak or draw your attention to the fact of the Lordship of Christ as a principle in the life of the believer. And I want to be practical as the Lord enables me, but everything practical must be based upon fact, upon doctrine. We do not base our doctrine upon our experience. We interpret our experience in the light of God's word and God's truth. One of the problems we face today is that there are far too many people looking inside themselves and talking about themselves and their experiences, and then they want to build Bible doctrine on their experience. That's a false foundation. Rather, our doctrine The truth we believe is in the Word of God, and then that Word is to be applied to our hearts. And if we do have certain spiritual experiences, we turn to God's Word to try to understand them. And in God's Word we'll find whether there are false experiences or true experiences which are validated in Scripture. When we speak of the Lord Jesus Christ, of course we've got to consider the fact of the Godhead, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. And this of course is a great mystery. We speak of the Trinity, one God existing in three persons. But having said that, we haven't explained really anything. I've heard dozens and dozens of explanations and illustrations as to the truth of God, one God, existing in three persons, and none of these explanations or illustrations are satisfactory. We are face to face with a great mystery. God is one God, not three gods. Part of our difficulty is that because we're human beings and use these terms, we end up By thinking we have three gods, one who is God the Father, another God is God the Son, another God is God the Holy Spirit, that is heresy. There is only one God, one substance, one essence, one life. But apparently he subsists in three personalities, three manifestations. The Lord Jesus Christ is God the Son, the eternal Son. And the first thing we know about Him is that being God, He always has existed. When the Lord Jesus was born as a baby in Bethlehem, that did not mark the beginning of the Son of God. It only marked that moment of His entrance into human life. But He could say, before Abraham was, I am. And as the Lamb of God, He is spoken of as the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. The Lord Jesus Christ, the one who died for you and me, is God. He is not merely a manifestation of God. He is God Himself. He is worshipped, and He accepted the worship of men and angels. Another fact of Scripture we know concerning the Lord Jesus, that He was the agent of the Blessed Trinity in creation. When we read in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, it was the Lord Jesus Christ acting. And we read of this particularly in three familiar chapters. John one, Colossians one, Hebrews one. all things were made by Him, and apart from Him was not anything made that was made. In Colossians we read that all things were made by Him, and they were made for Him, for God's satisfaction, for God's pleasure, and for God's glory. Therefore the Lord Jesus who died for you and me is the one who made this glorious mountainous valley. He made us. Not we ourselves. The Lord Jesus is God the Creator. But then He is not only God the Creator, but He is Lord over the world, the flesh, and the devil, and of death itself. For He shall reign until all enemies be put under His feet, and the last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. We read in Hebrews two verse fourteen, since therefore the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise partook of the same that through death, his death at Calvary, he might destroy him who has the power of death, that is the devil, and deliver those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. the Lord Jesus Christ in his death and resurrection restored that which he took not away, that which was lost by the first Adam was restored victoriously and gloriously by the last Adam the Lord Jesus Christ, who in his death and resurrection recaptured this world so that he is now Lord of this world. He is victor over the flesh, He is conqueror of the devil and he is the destroyer of that last enemy, the enemy that all of us naturally dread, even though we're believers and even though we know that death is but the gateway into that fullness of joy we've been hearing of this morning, all of us have a dread of that black camel that kneels at every gate. But the Lord Jesus is victor over death and death ultimately will be destroyed. Then you and I know that by virtue of His death, God the Father restored to Him not only His original power and glory, but He had an added glory. He was made a little lower than the angels. He became subject to death. God has given Him a name now. which is above every name we read of in Philippians two, that at the name of Jesus, that earthly name, the name of God incarnate, every knee shall bow, every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. So ultimately there is a day coming when all in heaven and all on earth and all under the earth will confess one glorious reality, in fact, that Jesus Christ is Lord. You and I who have believed in him, in this day of his rejection, in this day of grace, you and I confess today that Jesus Christ is Lord. That is, if we are Christians. And so the Lord Jesus could say, all power, all authority has been given unto me in heaven and in earth. All power, all authority. Authority in heaven, think of it. Authority in earth has been committed to the Lord Jesus Christ. And then ultimately, God the Father As we read in Psalm one hundred and ten verse two, God the Father will say to his anointed Son, the glorified man, Christ Jesus, who at this moment is seated as God incarnate physically at the right hand of the Majesty on high, For let us always remember that the Lord Jesus is not just spirit. He rose again from the dead. I was rather surprised speaking at a conference of missionaries in Italy on the person of Christ, and two missionaries came up to me and said, We never knew before that Jesus Christ had a body today. Well, it's a glorious fact. The Lord Jesus rose physically from the grave. He ascended physically into heaven. And he will return with that resurrection body to this earth. And God the Father in that coming day is going to say to his anointed Son, Rise, rule thou in the midst of thine enemies. And God the Son will descend from the throne of heaven to this earth. And he will reign on this earth for a thousand years. Of course, I know those who try to spiritualize these things and say that we are in the millennium now, that Satan is bound now. Well, if Satan is bound now, he must have a mighty long chain, for he certainly can wander around and create a lot of havoc. And if this is the millennium, today, this horrible, putrid mess in which we are living... then I'm afraid I don't seem to see the thing that I read of in God's holy word. But there it is, there are good, sincere Christians who are rejoicing today in the millennial reign of Christ. I think they must have a very low understanding of the Lordship of Christ, the authority of Christ, the glory of Christ in his earthly reign. But this is the Lord Jesus Christ. He is Lord. is he your Lord day by day? Now the first thing I want to draw your attention to is the fact of the Lordship of Christ in the matter of salvation. I sincerely believe that very often the Gospel is inadequately presented and Christ is not presented as Lord in the preaching of the Gospel. He's presented only as Savior. But if we notice the terminology of Scripture, the Bible repeatedly refers to not Savior and Lord, but Lord and Savior. There are those people who interpret their experience and have built a false doctrine and made a false dichotomy. because they have had the experience of accepting Christ as Savior, because they heard a gospel message that was not a full gospel message, they were truly saved because they accepted Christ, but they had not realized He was their Lord. And then subsequently they surrender themselves to Him. They yield to Him as Lord. And therefore, on the basis of their experience that they had two steps They build a doctrine falsely on that. And so they say you can be saved by accepting Christ as your Saviour, and He need never be your Lord. You do not see that in the Word of God. First of all, I would remind you that salvation is not a bun on a plate that you can take. You do not take it. Salvation is a person. the Lord Jesus Christ. You cannot separate salvation from the person who saves. It is Christ who saves. His finished work on the cross is the ground, the legal ground of our salvation. But we are saved. We are regenerated when we receive a person into our hearts by faith. It is Christ Himself who saves us. His salvation is based upon His glorious finished atoning work on the cross. We receive Christ the person into our hearts by faith. There is something to be believed, the truth of the gospel, the facts of the gospel, but there is a person to be received, even our Lord Jesus Christ. You cannot have salvation without Christ. Now who is this person we receive into our hearts? He is the one who is the Lord of the ages, the Lord of eternity, the one who has been declared Lord overall by God the Father, the Lord Jesus Christ. When we receive the Lord Jesus Christ into our hearts, We are not receiving, I don't wish to speak irreverently, some person or other. We are receiving none other than the second person of the Triune God, the eternal Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. We are receiving God, not a man merely, but God, the God's man, God incarnate. It is this God-man, God-manifest in the flesh who died for us, and He, the Blessed Lord, is the one who saves us. It is God Himself that we receive when we receive the Lord Jesus Christ. even as by the gracious work of the Holy Spirit in regeneration, we are made partakers of divine nature. We are born into God's family. We are children of God by the new birth, and He gives us the adoption of sons. But this is all ours in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Apostle Paul makes it abundantly plain in Romans ten, when there is dealing with the facts of salvation doctrinally. He says, if we're going to be saved, two things are necessary. We must believe that Jesus Christ is alive. We must believe that God raised His Son from the dead. For it's the living person who saves us. If Christ is not alive, there is no salvation. Salvation cannot be separated from the person, the Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, if I'm going to be saved, I must believe that the one who created this world in me, the one who died for me at Calvary, that God raised him from the dead, always think I serve a living Savior. But do we really, really believe? that the one who walked up and down the land of Palestine is living today, the Lord Jesus Christ. Unless I am absolutely sure that Christ is living, there is no salvation for me. I must believe in my heart that God raised His Son from the dead. Then I must turn to Him and I must confess Him as my Lord. That is the correct translation of that verse. Confess Christ Jesus as Lord. This, in this instance, is not a confession I make before men. This is something I say to the Lord Jesus by faith. I am saved on the ground of his atoning death. But Christ becomes mine as I am convinced he's alive, and by faith I turn to him, and I say, Jesus Christ, thou art my Lord. In saying that, of course, these are not empty words. For if they have a content in reality, it means that I commit myself to him. To say Christ, to confess Christ as my Lord, is to commit myself in the totality of my being to the person, the Lord Jesus Christ. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. And then God becomes my Father. He is not my Father until Christ is my Savior. Christ becomes my Lord and my Savior, and the Holy Spirit becomes Christ's advocate, Christ's representative in my heart and life. Now then, if this is true, then the fact of the Lordship of Christ should be a practical reality in my life. But I'm sadly afraid we are living in a day in which the Lordship of Christ is but a symbol, but a phrase. but a sentiment there's not much reality the burden on my heart this morning is for me to ask myself afresh and that you would ask yourself afresh is Christ actually my Lord for the Lordship of Christ is a principle in the life of the Christian of every Christian you see it's very very easy for us to use the words the Lord Jesus Christ Personally I don't like to have our blessed Savior referred to unless he has his full title. But what a travesty, what a hypocrisy if I use those words and I mock Christ by saying the Lord Jesus Christ and he is not actually Lord in my life. Oh how we love to sing about Christ as Lord. You know the Christian's national anthem, all hail the power of Jesus' name. And how we like to sing it out lustily and heartily and get all the rhythm and melody and harmony of that glorious hymn. But how easy it is to sing all hail the power, crown him Lord of all. And we are hearts are moved and we are stirred emotionally and we feel warm and glowing inside. But what's it amount to if Christ is not your Lord day by day? We symbolize Christ's Lordship in theory. We talk about it, we speak about it, we sing about it, but I'm afraid it's devoid of content and reality. In practice, Christian men and women, particularly those who are a little younger, in practice, is Christ the Lord of your life? Let me ask you a few questions. What influence and what authority has the Lord Jesus in your daily life? What influence, what authority has the Lord Jesus in your daily life? Or, of course, we have the commandments. The New Testament is full of commandments for the believer, but what we tend to do is to reinterpret those things so that they do not mean what we say. Or, of course, we pray. We ask the Lord to help us. We ask the Lord to solve our problems. We ask the Lord to guide us. We pray for the Lord to help us in our Christian service. But that's got nothing to do with the Lordship of Christ. As a matter of fact, what we intend to do in our day and generation is to treat the Lord Jesus Christ as our servant. Someone who helps us. When I need peace of mind, I ask the Lord to give it to me. When I want some strength, I ask the Lord to strengthen me. When I'm going to serve him, I ask him to help me. But, beloved, if that's all Christ is, He's only a divine servant, a kitchen aid in your life day by day. The Lord Jesus does not exist to help you live your life per se. The Lord Jesus isn't one who just helps you with your plans, or I must speak, until a university student in the University of Michigan. I said, what are you going to go in for? He said, I'm going to be a doctor and I surely pray that Christ will bless me. I said, you've got no right to pray that. He said, what do you mean I'm a Christian? I said, you just said you told me you've decided to be a doctor and now you want God to help you. Find out what he wants you to do. Don't treat God as someone to help you fulfill your plans. I'm afraid a great deal of Christian service today is nothing more than human plans and human activity. Cain's offering. and we ask God to help us with our idea of Christian service if that's all the Lord Jesus Christ is in reality is not Lord in our lives do I go to the Scriptures for there I find the will of my Lord Jesus do I go to the Scriptures when making my decisions let me ask your questions when you are faced with a decision Is it your habit to say, Oh Lord, now help me and guide me please? Or do you realize that in the Word of God is the will of the Lord Jesus Christ, and do you go to the Scriptures to find out what the will of the Lord Jesus is? I'm afraid many of us don't even know where to look in the Scriptures. Frankly, in dealing with young people, When it comes to their putting their trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, I try to get away from them in the moment of their commitment lest they think that I have something to do with their becoming a Christian. And so repeatedly when I dealt with young people concerning salvation, I said, do you understand God's way of salvation? Yes. Do you know what you must do to become a Christian? Well, and the matter is with you. And you must go to the Lord Jesus and you must have dealings with Him. And if you have put your trust in Him, I do hope you'll come back and let me know. And I find that when young people really on their own have dealings personally with Christ, they are much stronger than those who seem to have been involved with a whole lot of people are telling them what to say and what to do and putting words into their mouths. Not that I'm saying there isn't reality in that sometimes. And so it is, in all of life's decisions, we should go to the Scriptures. It is not enough merely to say, Lord, help me and guide me. We're apt to become very much like these Oxford group moral rearmament people. You know what they do. Their idea of guidance is to empty their minds and sit under a tree and expect mysteriously things to come into their minds and hearts. But the will of God is in the Word of God. God guides us through His truth. And we're going to develop into all kinds of false doctrine and false behavior, unless we think of God guiding us through His Word. The Spirit guides through the Word. Therefore, I say, when we make decisions, do we go to God's Word? Does the Lord Jesus exercise a practical authority in my life and in my assembly when I come to make decisions? I will remember... the assembly in Paris and there was a certain missionary from a certain country not the United States and he'd been away for a long furlough and when he came back he found the assembly were doing things that quite surprised him I think I can mention it happens to be an English missionary and he was quite upset he said no you can't do things this way they said why not and he finally said would look if you do things this way you put yourself out of step with ninety percent of the assemblies in England And they handed him the Bible and said, look, we're French, we're not English. We're not the least bit interested in doing anything that the brethren assemblies do in England. Here's God's word. If we're wrong, show it to me in the Scriptures. Otherwise, please keep quiet. The French people can be very abrupt sometimes. And I think we've got, I personally believe there could be no more wholesome exercise than for us to forget about brethren tradition and brethren practice. and take a fresh look at the Scripture and see to what extent in our assembly life and practice we are following the Lordship of Christ as revealed in His Word or we're just following tradition. May I speak very frankly to you as Christians, how to what extent is the Lordship of Christ operative in your life as a family? Take the matter of birth control. Do you make your decisions regarding that practice on the basis of what you think is right? Or have you had direction from your Lord through His Word? Take the matter of bringing up your family, your children, what your children should do and what they shouldn't do. Do your children feel that Christ is the authority in your life or what other Christians do? Are you bringing up your family so when a family decision is going to be made, you go to the word of God. For God's word is your rule. Christ is your Lord. What about personal habits, doing this and doing that? Why do we do these things? Are we subject to the Lordship of Christ? Or do we just do what we feel is the right thing to do, what we think is all right, and then we ask Christ to help us? What about the matter of recreation? What about the things we see, the things we read, the places we go? Do we do these things and see these things because we want to? Or is Christ our Lord? Are we taking the initiative or is Christ taking the initiative in our lives? You see, the principle of the authority and the initiative of the Lord Jesus Christ is a primary principle in the life of the Christian. I remember some years ago in Toronto, I'd had the joy of leading a certain university student to Christ, and she came to me and wanted to know it was all right for her as a Christian to go to the junior prom, a dance. Oh, I said, I haven't any idea. I don't know whether it's right for you or not. Well, she said, you don't dance, do you? I said, no, but that's none of your business. Well, she said, you don't seem to be very helpful. I said, my dear young lady, I am not the Lord in your life. If you're going to amount to anything as a Christian, you've got to find out what the Lord Jesus wants in your life. Please don't order your life on the basis of what other Christians do or don't do. Otherwise, they'll order your life and not Christ. I said, let me ask you a question. Supposing the Lord Jesus were to tell you he didn't want you to go to that dance, would you obey him? Oh, she said, I don't know. Well, I said, he's not going to even waste his time talking to you. She said, I'm not even prepared to obey him. He's obviously not your Lord. She thought for a moment, she said, very well, I'll do what he wants me to do. Could you give me any help? I said, yes, I can. I gave her a series of passages of God's word to study. And I said, I believe with all my heart if you and sincerity study these passages of Scripture and seek God's will in the light of God's word who show you what to do. I didn't see her for about three months. I said, how is the dance? She sort of grinned and said, I didn't go. But you see, why did she make that decision? Because Stacey Woods advised her not to dance, no. Because other Christians didn't dance, no. She got her orders from Christ. I never forget when we started our work in Stanford University many years ago. And I found a group of Christians, all of them danced. And I said to them, well, I never knew a group of Christians who went on with dancing and went on with the Lord. I don't think God can bless you. Well, they said, does that mean you're not going to help us? I said, no. But I said, I want a promise from you. I said, will you be willing for the next three months to study God's word, to seek his mind, and to give up this practice if you believe it dishonors him? And they said, we will. There are grandkids. Within four months, every one of them has quit dancing. And the testimony of Christ in that university for many years has been a wonderful, wonderful thing. But they didn't do it because intervassity said so. They did it because Christ spoke to them. Christ was their Lord. And so it is with all these things. I was talking to a young man in the last ten days. He said, God's been speaking to me. I said, what's he's been saying? He said, I'm not yet thirty and I'm earning eighteen thousand dollars a year. But I'm working so hard I haven't got time to study God's Word. I haven't got time to serve the Lord Jesus. And I've come to the conclusion that if Christ is going to be my Lord, I cannot go on with this kind of life. And that splendid young man is preparing to give up his... excellent position that will pay him very many more thousands of dollars in the few years because he believes it's more important to have time for prayer than a study of God's word and the service of God that will earn a lot of money. And you know what some of his friends are saying? He's going crackers, he's going off his head. Christian friends, I mean. And so we could go on and speak at great length, but time has gone. And I would suggest to you, therefore, that we need to take a new look at the reality of the Lordship of Christ and its practical application in our lives day by day. Do we do things out of tradition or because Christ is personally Lord and led us? You see, part of our difficulty is this. We fall into two errors. One is this. We pattern our lives after the Christians all around us. Our church practice is often more based upon the tradition of previous years than a direct understanding of God's will. And then we all tend to be status seekers. We want to dress like other people, look like other people, have houses like other people. We order our lives on earth on the basis of people around us, whether it's the affluent non-Christian society or the affluent Christian society. It makes little difference. But if Christ is your Lord, he's going to determine every aspect of your life. You're not going to treat him as a great convenience to help you live your life. You're going to realize that he calls the signals, if I may speak colloquially, and you do what he wants you to do. All that we could really understand that. And when it comes to the matter of Christian service, nowhere is it more apparent. Remember the story of Cain and Abel. Abel acknowledged the Lordship of God, and he brought the firstling of the flock, and God accepted his offering. Cain would not acknowledge the Lordship of Christ. He brought the offering of his own hands and expected God to accept it. Where at time I could give you illustration after illustration, heartbreaking illustrations from the mission field, where missionaries and missionary societies are doing all sorts of things. And they say, Lord, this is what we're doing, please accept it, please bless it. The spectacle of a missionary society aiding the Roman Catholic Church. And in expecting God to bless them. And I could give you many, many other illustrations of that sort of thing. What we tend to do today is we get our own ideas. We'll give tons of literature to one country. We'll set up great worldwide broadcasting stations. We'll do this. We'll do that. It's our idea. It's our organization. And then we say, Lord, bless, Lord, help. And then we offer him like Cain, the work of our own hands. And God will reject it. God must be Lord in your life. Christ must be Lord in your Christian service. Christ must be Lord in your assembly life. God wants to bring us to the condition where we do not merely sing or hail the power of Jesus' name. But that in every detail of my life, Christ is the boss. Christ is the dictator. Christ takes the initiative. Christ calls the signals. And in every matter of my life I go to his word. And I have no hesitation in saying that if I come to you and say, I believe this is God's will, hand me a Bible and say, demonstrate it from the Scripture. And unless we get to that position, Christ and His Lordship are an empty symbol. Christian men and women and young people. Is the Lord Jesus Christ a beautiful image like Abraham Lincoln or someone like that in your life or is he in reality your Lord God the Father has declared him Lord God grant that in the fullest possible extent he may be the Lord of my life and the Lord of your life for his name's sake let us pray