Ron Dunn Podcast - Godly Living

Episode Date: September 4, 2024

In this message Ron helps us understand how we should live a goldy life. Some of Ron's messages were digitized from older materials and as such the quality of the audio may be poor. From the series The Fullness of Christ.

chapter 3, all of Paul's letters have a very easy identifiable division. Usually Paul starts out by stating truth and doctrine and teaching.

But there is always a point in his letter where he turns from just the instruction, but then he turns to the application. And usually you can recognize this change by the words wherefore or therefore or so then. But there's always a poem in Paul's letter. For instance, in Romans 12, therefore. And in other letters, there will be a division where Paul, not that he is no longer writing doctrine and truth, but he is applying it.

First of all, he states the truth and then he relates the truth. And I believe that is a divine order in the lives of all of us. There is no way that you and I can begin to live the truth if we do not know the truth. And I know that sometimes

it is very popular in many places to generate doctrine and to frown upon traditional teaching and such as this. But if you do not have a foundation of doctrine and truth, then the life that you live is nothing more than the energy of the flesh and humanism. But on the other hand, if all you have is doctrine and teaching and truth and there is no living of it, then you have dead orthodoxy and one is as bad as the other hand, if all you have is doctrine and teaching and truth and there is no living of it, then you have dead orthodoxy and one is as bad as the other.

The beautiful thing about the Bible is that it always maintains its equilibrium, always maintains its balance. First of all, there is the truth, the doctrine, and then there is how this applies into our lives. And the turning point in Colossians comes in chapter 3, in verse 1, when Paul says, If then ye be risen with Christ, live like it. And we looked the other day, or the other night, how that Paul in this passage talks first of all about putting off the old man

and putting off the old clothes, and then putting on the new man, which is renewed in Christ, and then putting on the new clothes. First of all, you take off the old clothes of sinful life, and then you put on the new clothes of Christ's likeness.

But then what do you do when you're all dressed up? When you put on the garment, when you have taken in the food, then what do you do? What's next? Always a little bit sad to come to the last night of a conference like this. I don't know how many people have said it this week. Oh, I wish we could go on for another week. Some of us really hate to go home tonight.

For various reasons. Some of us have to go back to work. Or some of you have to go back to work. And we hate to go back to that. We have to get back into the old land. Some of us hate to go back though because there are problems there and heartaches there and it's been such

a relief to get away for a few days. Some of us dread to see this conference come to an end because we've been here before and we've been built up and punched up and taught up and then as we've left in up and pumped up and caught up

and then as we've left in a matter of days or weeks we find ourselves tipping back into the old as it's in the early life. What I would like to do tonight is to share with you three guidelines

that Paul gives us for godly living. How am I now to live in all the truth that I've heard? As Eric and Dr. Hoffman were preaching tonight, I sat back and marveled at how much gospel was being preached.

You do understand that Dr. Hoffman doesn't preach sermons. He just paraphrases the Word of God. You can't find a report in there to alliterate and it's hardly ever a poem. But all he does is just get up there and let the Word of God come out. And I sat there tonight

listening to these two men and I said there has never been any greater, greater concentration of gospel preaching and real, deep theological preaching and we've been here in demand. So,

what do we do with it? What do we do with it? How do we cause this to work out into our lives? I want to read three verses. Verses 15, 16, and 17. And Paul, after he has given to us the instructions about putting off

and putting on, and then in verse 14 he said, now when you put on all of these clothes and you take the love belt, the belt of love, and you tighten it around you, that holds everything together. Now you're all dressed up and you're ready to you. That holds everything together. Now you're all dressed up

and you're ready to go. So he says, And let the peace of Christ rule in your heart to the which also you are called in one body and be ye thankful. Let the word of Christ

dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. And whatsoever you do in word or in deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by Him.

Three guidelines, says God in the Bible. How do I take this and work it out in my life? The peace of Christ, the word of Christ, and the name of Christ. First of all, Paul says in verse 15, after you're all dressed up now and you're ready to go out and live the life, here's what you do first. You let the peace of Christ rule in your heart. That's the first thing.

Let the peace of Christ rule in your heart. Now, the Bible speaks of the peace of God and the peace of Christ. It also speaks of peace with God or peace with Christ. Now there is a difference between the two. Every Christian has peace with God. Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God. Now that's automatic.

That comes with salvation. Every believer has it. What that simply means is that the war is over between God and myself. The hostilities have ended and now peace has been declared and now I'm in a position to receive the blessings of God. Several years ago there was a little book written called The Mouse That Roared. It was made into a movie. Some of you may have seen it many, many years ago, The Mouse That Roared. But the story

was about a little postage stamp sized country over in some dark corner of Europe that was going bankrupt. And they didn't know what to do and so they came up with this idea. They would declare war on the United States. And of course the United

States would defeat them and then they could apply for foreign aid. Because that's what we always do, isn't it? Every war that we fight, we go in and vomit the smithereens and we go back up and build it again. Now that's peace itself.

Because when the war is over and the peace treaty is passed, then you see our country begins to pour out all of these blessings upon that country to rebuild. And when we have peace with God, the enmity is over, the hostilities have ended, and now we're in a position to receive the favor and the blessings of God. Every believer has peace with God. But then there is the peace of God. Or here, the peace of Christ. Now let's listen.

The peace of God is God's own peace. The peace by which he himself is persecuted. The peace of Christ is Christ on peace. And for the believer, I believe that is largely subjective where the other is objective.

But for the believer, the peace of God being in our hearts is that calm assurance, that settled knowing in our hearts that everything is right between us and the Lord. It is an inner calm, an inner tranquility, an inner assurance.

Everything else may be going bad on the outside. You may be in the midst of all kinds of difficulties on the outside, but there is within the heart that restful assurance. You just know. You just know. You just know. Now the word rule is an

interesting word. It means to arbitrate, to act as an umpire. Paul says, let the peace which Christ has given you, the peace that Christ himself enjoys, let that act as an umpire or a referee

in your life. Have you ever sort of wished, you know, even a place like this, have you ever wished you could sort of have a, maybe a heavenly referee going around with you so that when you stepped out of bounds, he'd blow the whistle and you'd know when you were getting off the track?

Well, that's exactly what we do here. We have a heavenly referee who is always with us. And when we step out of bounds, he blows the whistle. When we commit a foul, he blows the whistle. This is what Paul is saying. He's saying you were called to this feast.

It was God's intention, both corporately and individually, you were called to enjoy and to know and to savor the peace of God. Now you let that peace act as umpire or make the decisions in your life. In other words, I think you think you're saying this. Don't do anything that will disturb that peace. Whatever you do, if you start out on a course of absence and suddenly that peace is disturbed and the heart is troubled

and there's just that, oh, there's just that something not right. There's just that something that's not right. You better back off from that just a bit and let the Lord give you a little bit more life there are times when I'm praying about something and I pray for it

and I have perfect liberty and freedom to pray and I have real peace about it this is life but there are other times when I start to pray for something there's a check there's a restraint there's a tenderness there's a restraint,

there's a hindrance. I don't know what you're saying. I don't hear you. I guess you could call this kind of a spiritual hunt. But when Paul talks about our discerning the will of God, our having the ability to recognize and to discern

the will of God, there's an inner, a spiritual intuition that God gives us. Listen, every Christian needs to learn to trust the Spirit of God which is in him, for instance. Most of us, most of us are terrified when we feel like we're going to have to find

or discover the will of God because we're scared to death that we can't do it. And so we look to someone else to tell us, what is God's will for my life? What does God want me to do in this situation? Never really the believing that we, I said, could ever, you know, really discern this. Then the same spirit of God that grows in the Apostle Paul grows in you. God plays no favorites in the family. You have as much of God in you as Paul the Apostle had in you. Apostle Paul dwells in you. God plays no favorites in the family. You have as much of

God in you as Paul the Apostle had in you. You have as much ability to recognize and discern the will of God as the Apostle Paul himself. You need to learn to lean and to trust

God in the witness. And when you say something, or you start out in some enterprise and, you know, it just doesn't feel good. For the time I think about this, I think,

this is a good sign that maybe the Lord is telling you to back off from that a little bit. Let the peace of Christ. Don't let anything disturb the peace of Christ. This past March, on a Sunday morning, I found myself at the First Baptist Church of Corm, Texas. Population 911.

We had 88 in thestool that morning. There would have been 100, but it had been raining heavily and the farmers couldn't get over the road to get into it. From Texas, first Baptist Church, 88 in Thunderstool. One night, one of the members said, what in the world is he doing? I walked to the phone with, I mean, you ought to be in some bigger church or something, you know. Well, I never asked to start a church. I go in little churches, big churches,

but I began to ask myself, what am I doing in church? Why am I here? And I tried to think, what made me, you know, I like to think back and how do invitations come and drop and all that. And I realized something.

This was a late date. I just took this meeting very late, which is unusual for that time of the year. Well, now I remember. That Sunday I was supposed to have been in Hong Kong. I'd had that same book for a couple of years. And about a year

or less, perhaps, about a year before that meeting was to come up, I began to have just all kinds of absences. Every time I talked about it with her, every time I thought was to come up, I began to have just all kinds of absolutely just every time I talked about it with Terry, every time I thought about it there was just this nodding

to say something that just didn't seem right. I had no peace about it. I had no rest about it. I had no assurance about it and finally, finally after several months I did something that I hated to do but I felt certainly that the Lord must have been in it for some reason.

I sat down and wrote them and told them I apologize, I will not be able to do it. That's why I was in some test. Because just a week before there was a capacity at our house that would have been far greater if we'd been gone to Hong Kong and my father had just been taken to the hospital with about a month of tutoring and he had to have care 24 hours around the clock. I thought to myself, what would I have done

if I had been in Hong Kong, here around the other side of the world, and all of these things happening in my house and suddenly my dad being at the door of death and I wanted, and I realized that the Lord

had been gracious to me and made it possible so we could be close and could help and be active. Let the peace of Christ rule in your heart. The next admonition is found in the next verse. Verse 16. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom,

teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your heart, dear Lord. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. The word dwell, of course, means to be at home. It means to come in and settle down and live there.

To be at home in something. When Eric was talking about abiding, the idea is letting Jesus Christ be at home in your heart and you being at home in his, abiding in him, dwelling in him, not just passing through, but dwelling there, making that your residence. In the Old Testament, especially in the book of Hosea, one of the complaints that God had against his people was this.

He said, you treat my word as a stranger. You treat my word as a stranger. Now a stranger in Israel could come through and could stay and could live, but he could have no voice in the affairs of the country. He could not vote on any issues. His voice was not heard in any debate. He was a stranger. Nice to have around once in a while and nice to visit with you,

but when we get down to real business here, you're out of it. Because you're just a stranger. He said, you have made my word a stranger. Oh, it's nice to let it come in and visit for a while. But when we get down to the business of making decisions and voting on things, no, you have no voice in the matter.

You're just a stranger. Paul is saying, let the word of Christ take up settled and permanent abode in your heart. Make your home a heart. Make your heart a home

for the word of God. Instead of making it a hotel and check out things about 12 new names. But you let it dwell in your heart. Mr. Edwards made it a hotel and checked out times about 12 new names famous. But you let it dwell in your heart. Literally, so much so, he says, so much so, he says,

in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your heart to the Lord. Let it dwell in you so richly, Paul says, that it eases out of you in your heart to the Lord. Let it dwell in you so richly, Paul says, that it ages out of you in your conversation. As you converse with one another, the Word of God is so rich in your life that it doesn't make you peace. You begin to think like the Word.

You begin to talk like the Word. And as you let the Word of God dwell in your heart, and you let it take the impact in your life that it ought to be. Then he says, you will be walking as a Christian as you are. I want to come to the last one.

And that's found in verse 17. And Paul says, whatsoever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus. The peace of Christ, the name of the Lord Jesus. The peace of Christ, the word of Christ, the name of Christ. Notice how

Paul embraces everything. And whatsoever you do, whatever you do, in word or in deed. Now he's not talking about spiritual deeds or spiritual things only. He's talking about everyday practical

matters. For if you read in beginning in verse 18 and 19 and 20 and following the beginning of the chapter, Paul begins to get very, very practical, talking about wives and their relationship to the husbands and husbands and their relationship to the wives and children to parents and parents

to children and servants to masters and masters to servants. But Paul is saying everything you do, not just going to church and making religious decisions, but everything you do, whatever it is,

in word, in deed, if it has to do in the home, if it has to do in the marketplace, you do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus. What does it mean to do something in the name of the Lord Jesus. What does it mean to do something in the name of the Lord Jesus? Well,

to do something in the name of Jesus means that what you do is consistent with his character and his love and his purpose. And it is something that he himself would function. It's something that he himself would approve of.

It's something that he himself would not mind seeing his name attached to. To do something in the name of another person, you do what is consistent with their wishes, what is consistent with their character, and what has their approval. I can just stand up here tonight and say in the name of Jamal Badry, I'm inviting everybody over to my hotel room after the meeting because we have a bottle of wine that the management gave us. Now we all want to have a bunch of wine over there and Jamal wants all of us to come and celebrate and he's going to bring

some more drinks in. We're just going to get really pie-eyed drunk. Some of you don't seem too surprised at that. Well, you would know a meeting would give Jamal the benefit of the doubt that you would know a needle will give you now the benefit of the doubt that you would know a needle you know this much

that is inconsistent with what I know about this to do something in the name of Jesus is to do that which is consistent with his character and purpose and would have his function done.

Some years ago, my television set died for a long time and had been to many doctors, but was none the better. And one day it just gave up the ghost and passed on. Well, a friend loaned us a little black and white TV. Now that's what my family calls roughing it. Black and white TV. And have you ever noticed that when suddenly you're in the market for a product, you begin paying attention to the commercials?

You know, most of the time, boy, thank the Lord for mute buttons on those things. You can shut off those commercials, or you can punch and go to somewhere else. But suddenly, when you're in the market for a certain product, you start paying attention when those products are advertised.

I was in the market for a television set and so I began paying attention to the commercials advertising the various televisions. We were going to make a big investment buying a television. I want to get the best I can buy with my money. You know whose motto I liked best?

Ended up didn't get one of theirs, but I loved their motto best. Zenith. You know what the slogan, the motto of Zenith is? The quality goes in before the name goes on. Isn't that good? I think what they're saying is that when you see the name Zenith on a product, you don't have to worry about the quality, brother.

We think so highly of our name that long before we ever put our name to that thing, we make certain it is up to quality. I think this is what Paul is saying. If you and I are believers, we bear the name of the Lord Jesus. God has entrusted His name with us. And as a Christian, everything I do, everything I say, I am really putting the name of Jesus on it. Paul says you make certain before you ever put the name of Christ on that, that the quality has gone into it. Paul says you make certain before you ever put the name of Christ on that, that

the quality has gone into it. Doing it all in the name of the Lord Jesus. Several years ago, I live in Irving, Texas. We have since 1966. And we moved to Irving from Dallas to Pastor Church there on MacArthur Boulevard, MacArthur Boulevard Baptist Church on MacArthur Boulevard in Irving, Texas. At that time, all of our checks had my office address on them, 2616 MacArthur Boulevard. Now, right next to us, there was some apartments that were in the same 100 block, 2600. It just so happened that on all of my checks, it had Ronald Dunn, 2616 MacArthur Boulevard, Irving, Texas. But there was another Ron Dunn in Irving

who lived in the apartments next door at 26-something MacArthur Boulevard. You say, now, what do the checks have to do with this? Oh, everything. Everything. This Ron Dunn was what the cops call a paper hanger. I mean, he wrote hot checks. And I want to tell you something, folks. That really kind of proved out to be inconvenient for us.

It got so bad, it got so bad, that when my wife would go shopping, the Safeway or Skaggs or wherever it was, and she was going to write a check, she'd say, now, we're not the ones you're looking for. Because you do not know embarrassment. You really do not know what it means to be embarrassed until you write a check at Kmart

and give it to the clerk. And louder than she's spoken in all of her life, she says, I can't take this check, Mr. Dunn. Your name is on the hot check list. And so you make certain ahead of time. I had a fellow from the big state liquor store call me one day wanting me to come back and pick up that $6 check I'd written.

I said, I didn't write any check. He said, yes you did. I told him I was a Baptist preacher. That didn't sway him one little bit. One day, one Tuesday, my wife was having a prayer meeting in our house with some of the women in the church. Prayer meeting.

The phone rang. Long distance from Miami, Florida. A collection agency guy was on the phone looking for Ronald Dunn, wanting me to make up a bunch of hot checks I'd written down there. My wife said, that's not my husband. You're thinking about somebody else. He began naming the stores that these checks were written on.

She said, my husband has never been in those stores. He named some of the things that had been bought. This fellow had bought women's lingerie. And she said, my husband didn't buy many lingerie. He said he bought it for somebody. There's another Ron Dunn now living in Irving too. Not the same one, I hope. But he's in the phone book and I'm not.

I know the man hates me. I hope I never have to see him face to face. Can I call information 214 for Irving, Ron Dunn's number. Call that number. You know what you'll get? An answering machine. Hello, if you're looking for the Ron Dunn who's a preacher, I'm not him. If you're looking for me, please leave your name and number and I'll get back to you. By the way, don't do that. Now, what was the problem with this fellow writing these hotcakes? I found that people were judging me by what somebody else with my name was doing.

I couldn't do anything about it. I can't copyright my name. I couldn't force that man to change his name. And everywhere we went for a while in the city, people kept judging us by what this other fellow with my name was doing. And I wonder if one reason the world has such a distorted picture of what Jesus is all about is because they keep judging him by what people with his name say and do. There's a good test over in Zechariah that prophet coming to the end of his prophecy

looking down to the time when the Messiah would come makes a very strange little prophecy he said in that day the words holiness unto the Lord will be on the bridles of the horses and it will be on every pot and pan in Jerusalem. Now that's a strange little prophecy. That when the Messiah comes and brings salvation,

one of the outcomes of that would be that the words holiness unto the Lord would be on the bridles, the reins of the outcomes of that would be that the words holiness unto the Lord would be on the bridles, the reins of the horses and the oxen that plowed. And you'd go into a woman's kitchen and there the pots and pans would have inscribed on that holiness unto the Lord. Well, if you know your Old Testament, you'll know that those words, holiness unto the Lord, appeared only one place, and that was on the forehead of the priest. And when that high priest

entered into the Holy of Holies, he had better go in with holiness or he'd be killed. And so he would wear upon his forehead holiness unto the Lord. And everybody expected it. You don't go into the Holy of Holies without holiness.

But I think what Zachariah is saying that when the Lord Jesus Christ comes into our lives, He takes even the secular and makes it sacred. And that every pot and pan in the kitchen will have holiness unto the Lord. In other words, he's saying

that when Christ comes into the life, He so redeems life, He so revolutionizes life, that a man who plows the field does it with the same degree of holiness as does the high priest. When a woman prepares the meal in the kitchen, she does it with the same degree of holiness

as the high priest does going into the Holy of Holies. And so it seems to me that a good test would be this. Whatever you do, whatever you say, can you write these words on holiness unto the Lord? would be this. Whatever you do, whatever you say, can you write these words on holiness unto the Lord? Can it be appropriate? Or let's take it back to our text. Every word that we speak,

every deed that we perform, can I write on that the name of Jesus Christ and Christ not be embarrassed to have His name identified with it? He goes on into verse 23 and he sums it up by saying this, And whatsoever you do, do it heartily with all your might. Give it your best shot unto the Lord

I do not believe the name of Jesus is glorified when you and I live a sloppy life or when we serve in a sloppy way when we do not give the honest day's work that we should as He tells us when we do not perform as parents as we should and when we are not the husbands and wives that we ought to be, we are not giving it our best shot, we have no right to write the name of Jesus Christ across it.

I'll tell you one thing I appreciate about this conference and about Mr. Bedford. Brother, he does it with all of his might and gives it his best shot. There's nothing cheap and shoddy about this. Sometimes in the work of the Lord, we, since it's for God, we try to see how cheaply we can do it. Or it doesn't really matter.

It doesn't really matter if it isn't done right. I've been in some churches. I've said to myself, I'd give anything in the world to hear the first sentence of the pastor. Because whenever he gets up to preach, the microphone is not turned on yet. He's only there 52 times a year.

Looks like they'd know he's going to be there and set the microphone on. You know, you're just... You're doing that for the Lord? I mean, you're coming into the presence of the Most High God who gave His best. I mean, gave His best for us. And we're coming in and we're giving Him the dregs of a busy day.

And we're seeing how cheaply we can do it. Because after all, it's just for God. It doesn't make that much difference. God will be pleased with anything. No, I don't think so. I don't think so. I think everything you and I do. I'm not saying that you have to spend a lot of money to please the Lord. All I'm saying

is that whatever you do, friend, you ought to do it with gusto and ought to do it with all of your might and give it your best shot. And then you can write the name of Jesus Christ across it and I think Jesus would be proud to acknowledge that part of it. The peace of Christ. Let it rule.

Act as umpire in your hearts. The Word of Christ. Let it dwell richly, overflowing in your heart. And whatever you do in word or in deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus.

Would you pray with me? Father, we thank you tonight for the week that we've just spent. Lord, how we have been filled and filled and filled with the glory of Your presence. What makes this music so magnificent? What made the choir tonight so absolutely perfect?

What makes the words of the preachers, words of life, is because of your presence. We thank you for your presence and for manifesting that presence to us. We thank you. In Jesus' name, amen.