Ron Dunn Podcast - The Sufficiency of Christ

Episode Date: March 5, 2014

You are listening to the Ron Dunn Podcast. Ron Dunn is a well-known author and was one of the most in-demand preachers during the latter part of the 20th century. He led Bible studies all over the United States, Europe, and South Africa. For more information and resources from Ron Dunn, please visit rondunn.com. But tonight I want you to open your Bible to the book of Colossians chapter 1. In these evening services we're going to be looking and preaching from the book of Colossians, one of my favorite books.

A little book, but it has a big message. And it again has some of the greatest truths concerning the Lord Jesus Christ that you will find in any of these letters of Paul. Paul writing from prison to a church that he has never seen, a church that he does not know, but he's heard about their faith and he's praying for them. He opens in that first chapter saying that he has heard of their faith and of the love that they have towards all the saints

and the hope that is laid up for them. And he says in verse 9, For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you and to desire that you might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, that you might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God.

Strengthen with all might, according to his glorious power, unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness, giving thanks unto the Father, who has made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in life, who has delivered us from the power of darkness and has translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son, in whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins.

When I was 17 years old, I pastored my first church. I was in college, and the First Baptist Church of Black Gum, Oklahoma, just a few miles from where I live, where I grew up, called me as their pastor. Fifteen women and one man in that church, and it only had one beacon. But I bought me a car, 1949 DeSoto convertible, cream color. And I bought something else. I bought one of these clergy tags and stuck it on the license. I thought, well, I'm a reverend now. I'm pastor of church, and who knows,

maybe I'm parked somewhere and they won't'm pastor of church and who knows, maybe, you know, I'm parked somewhere and they won't give me a ticket because it says clergy, you know. And so I put that clergy. Well, one night, Kay and I were out dragging the gut and you don't know what I'm talking about. You know what it means to drag the gut?

Good night. To cruise, to drive up and down the main street of the town so everybody can see you so you can see them never heard of that anyway we were going up and down the main street anyway we were dragging the gut

but came to a stoplight and when we were sitting there a car pulled up beside us and I looked over and it was a friend of mine and we're sitting there a car pulled up behind beside us and I looked over as a friend of mine and we kind of you know ways like that and you know you know these things instinctively I knew what he was thinking he knew what I was saying I bet I can beat you the next signal light and so we kept watching for that light and when that light changed well I mean we took off and I beat him I really did I beat him to that stoplight, and I was waiting for him when he got there.

And when he got there, you know what he said to me? He said, Dunn, you either need to change the way you drive or take that clergy tag off your tax sign. And he was right. So I took the clergy tag off my cart. I'll tell you what he was doing. He was saying to me, you need to walk worthy of the Lord. He was saying to me in a different way exactly what Paul is saying to these Colossians and really what he's saying to all of us tonight. I think there are times when the Lord says to us, you either change the way you're living or you take the name Christian off your name. You either change your behavior and walk in a manner that is worthy of the Lord

or else take the sign down. I think sometimes you and I don't realize how incredible it is that God has given us his name and that Jesus Christ has given us his name and in a sense his reputation is wrapped up in the way you and I behave. And we ought to be, if we're Christians, we ought to be conscious at any time

that we walk worthy of the Lord. Now, not walking worthy of the Lord just when somebody may be watching, but walking worthy of the Lord as a constant habit of life. And this is what Paul is praying for. I want you to notice this prayer in verse 9. Paul says, first of all, in these opening verses, as I mentioned, he's heard about what God has done

in the lives of these Colossians. He's heard about the faith that they have towards Jesus and the love they have to all the saints and the hope that is laid up for them in heaven. And there again you have that triunity of blessings that you'll find so much in the bible faith love and hope faith love and hope you remember in first corinthians it says now there are these three faith love and faith hope and love but the greatest of these is love and all the way through the writings of paul you'll come across those triad of blessings or virtues, faith, love,

and hope. That is the characteristic of a believer. Where you find a believer, you find a believer who has put his faith in Jesus Christ, has love towards all the saints. Notice he says toward all the saints, and he has a hope that is laid up for him in heaven. Now one of these days that faith will turn to sight, and one of days, that faith will turn to sight. And one of these days, that hope will turn to reality. But love will always be the same. That's why Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13 that the greatest of these is love, faith, hope, and love.

The greatest of these is love. Why? Because one day, faith turns to sight. Faith will be no more. We'll have sight. Hope will turn to reality. But love never changes. Love will always be there.

Therefore, the greatest of these is love. So he says, now, having heard that, I'm just thrilled to death. But I'm not satisfied. And God's not satisfied. And you ought not to be satisfied either. So he says, since the day we heard of this, and for this cause,

we are praying for you more and more and more you see there is a sense in which there is really no satisfying of grace there's always more there's always more there's always more and so paul not content just to sit back and say well you've done a great job keep it up he says i tell you what i'm praying that you'll even grow more and more and more. The heart and the main theme of this prayer is, as I mentioned in verse 10, he says, that you might walk worthy of the Lord, living a life that is worthy of having his name attached to it. Again, this is a very familiar phrase of the apostles,

and he uses phrases like this, that your behavior be as it becometh the lord that you walk worthy of the lord that you walk worthy you'll find that phrase sprinkled throughout his epistles the word walk of course and symbolize the manner of life it symbolized the consistent manner of life he didn't say that you need to step worthy of the lord or jump worthy of the lord he said you need to walk worthy of the lord a lot of us jump worthy of the lord i mean you know every once in a while revival comes around we get a big surge and we take a good jump for the Lord. That's not what he's talking about. He's saying, I want you to walk worthy of

the Lord one step at a time, every day, same old day by day grind. But I want to make certain that every step you take, your consistent behavior is consistent with what Jesus Christ has done for you. I want to talk to you tonight about walking worthy of the Lord, what it takes to walk worthy of the Lord. And I want to, it's important, I think, that you see the structure of this prayer. Let's go to verse 9. He says, For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you and to desire, now here's what his desire is, that you might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual understanding. Verse 10, that you might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing.

Now notice in verse 9, he says, first of all, I desire that you may be filled with the knowledge of God, the knowledge of his will. Now we'll call that the basis or the foundation of a worthy life. Then he comes to the prayer itself, that you might walk worthy of the Lord, that you might walk worthy of the Lord. The goal of that worthy walk is that you might be filled

with the knowledge of His will. Then he says that you might walk worthy of Him unto all pleasing. That's the goal of a worthy walk. The foundation of the worthy life is being filled with the knowledge of God's will. The goal of that worthy life is so that you might please Him in all things. And then there follows four statements. Actually, there are participles in the text, whether they show up that way in your English version or not.

There are four participles following that, and these give us the ingredients of that kind of life. He says, being fruitful in every good work, number one. Two, increasing in the knowledge of God. Number three, strengthened with all might. And number four in verse 12, giving thanks unto the Father. So you see the structure. First of all, there is a foundation. The foundation is that you might be filled with the knowledge of God's will. And when you and I are filled with

the knowledge of God's will, that results in our living a worthy life. And the reason we live a worthy life is so that we might please Him in all things, not just some, not just a few, not just in most, but that we might please Him in all things. And when we're pleasing Him in all things, these are the ingredients. A person who is walk worthy of the Lord is a person who is being fruitful in every good work, a person who is increasing in the knowledge of God, a person who is being constantly strengthened by the power of God, and a person who goes around with thanksgiving in his heart. That's the worthy life of the Lord Jesus Christ. So let's take those. Number one, he says, I pray and desire for you that you may be filled with the knowledge of God's will and

all wisdom and spiritual understanding. What does he mean by that? Basically, he means this. I'm praying for you that you may know everything God wants you to do, that you may be filled with the knowledge of God's will. Now, when he says to be filled with the knowledge of God's will, what he simply means is I want the will of God, what God wants you to be, what God wants you to do,

I want that to permeate every facet of your life. I want you to have nothing, room for nothing else in your life except the doing and the knowing of the will of God, to be completely possessed by it, to be completely occupied by it, to be completely filled with it. In other words, he says, you and I can never even begin to walk worthy of the Lord until, first of all, we have settled the issue of doing God's will. Of doing God's will. It simply means that we live in obedience to the will of God. And that we do this in all wisdom

and spiritual understanding. He says that you take the will of God, what you know of it, what you know God wants of you, what you know God wants you to do, and you take that and use it in a sensible way and exercise it in a sensible way. That's a shorthand definition of in wisdom

and all spiritual understanding. All perfection in the spiritual life lies in the knowledge of God's will. The most important thing for you to know, for me to know, is God's will. God's will for my life individually, God's will for my church, God's will for every creature. To have that knowledge of God's will to so permeate my being, to so fill me, I don't have room for lesser things. The number one priority in my life is that I know and do God's will. You can't even begin to walk a life that's worthy of the Lord

if you're ignoring the will of God. So he says that's the first thing. That's the foundation. We're not spending more time there. Then he says the goal of it is unto all pleasing, that I might please him in everything. Now I want you to notice something as we go through this tonight. I want you to notice how he uses words like all and every. Those are characteristics of Paul here. He says, I want you to walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, not satisfied with

anything less than all of it, that you may be filled with every good work, he says. So the goal of my life, and this is what we're talking about this morning, the goal of my life is that I may please Him in all things. You know, really and truly the Christian life can be a very simple life. It's really simple, what? That I may please him in all things. One of the first, well, it wasn't the first revival, but it was one of the early revivals I preached was in First

Baptist Church of Bowlegs, Oklahoma. I want you to know, folks, I've been to some fancy places. I was at the First Baptist Church of Bowlegs, Oklahoma. You know who was leading the music? Johnny Bassanio. You know him as John Bassano, but Johnny Bassano had his trumpet there, had picked up a trombone and a xylophone, and we were having a revival meeting there. And I want to tell you something. It was a real revival.

I had never been anything like this. It was scary because we were aware that God was doing something. We'd walk into that place at night. I mean, the place was packed, absolutely packed, that little church. And when you walked in, you could cut it with a knife. It was so thick, the power of God, the presence of God. People would come to the pastor's house during the day

wanting to know how to be saved. I understood this much. I understood that we were walking on holy ground, and it scared me to death. I was afraid I might somehow offend the Lord and grieve the Spirit and kill all of this. And I remember one night kneeling in the pastor's study and I was so overwhelmed by the burden of preaching because I realized how easy it is for ego and self to get in your preaching and then you grieve the Spirit and the power of God is gone. And I was wrestling with that. And I said, Lord, how can I walk out there tonight

and know that I'm doing the right thing? Lord, how can I handle this? And just as clearly as anything I've ever heard in my life as far as through the mind is concerned, the Lord said to me, there's only one thing you need to worry about. And that is this, that when you walk away from this place tonight,

you'll know that Jesus was pleased with what you did and how you did it. That's all you need to worry about. You don't need to worry about the expectations of the people. And I tell you, folks, that's a burden to any preacher and speaker, the expectations of the people. And sometimes you're concerned about the expectations of the people or the approval of the people.

He said all you need to worry about is just one thing. When you walk away from that, the Lord Jesus Christ can say, thank you. I was pleased with what you did. And you know, from that day until this, before I walk into the pulpit, always automatically in my mind, I say, Lord, I just want to walk away tonight

with one thing, to know that you were pleased. anybody else was or not that's all because you see God is the audience you're not the congregation you're sitting in on and overhearing what I'm saying to the Lord all service is directed to him isn't it you see I mean you folks are sitting in the balcony overhearing what I'm saying to God. God is the audience. He's the one that I'm to please. He's the one that I am to,

if you want to call it perform before or do my thing before, any way you want to describe it, God is the audience. And I must be content with his praise only, you see. So Paul says, I want you to walk worthy of the Lord, and the goal of this is that you may please him in everything. And then we come to the main part that I want to share with you tonight,

the ingredients of a worthy life. Are you living a worthy life tonight? How do you know? Well, there will be some characteristics. Number one, a worthy life, a worthy life, he says, is increasing in every or being fruitful in every good work. Now, I want you to notice that these are all present tense. That means continuous. This isn't just being fruitful in spurts, but it means a habit of life,

a consistent walk, a consistent habit of life. He says that you might be fruitful in every good work. And again, notice the emphasis there, in every good work. It's not a matter of our being fruitful in some good works. It's a matter of our being fruitful in every good work. You know what we do as Christians a lot of times? We, well, we compensate and overcompensate. For instance, you may say to yourself, well, I know that I've got some things in my life that ought not to be there, but I do tithe. You know, I mean,

a lot of people don't tithe. Well, I mean, a lot of people out there don't tithe. And one thing you can say about me is I do tithe. I know, I know that I lay out of church once in a while, and I know that sometimes I say some things that aren't Christian, but I, boy, I tell you this much, you can criticize me all you want to, but boy, I never miss my time.

You see what we're doing? We're saying I'm doing so well over here, God will ignore what I'm not doing over here. We love to compensate. We sit down at the bargaining table and we say, all right, Lord, let's negotiate. I tell you what, if you'll ignore this, and if

you'll let me get by with this, I'll do double duty over here in this area. That's the way we like to do. And most of us tonight, most of us tonight use that without maybe being conscious of it. Because when sometimes when I'm criticized by the Spirit or when I realize there's a weakness in my life, I find myself saying, well, you know, nobody's perfect. And after all, look what I am doing. I mean, you know, I am doing a lot of good stuff. This little thing over here doesn't matter, you see. Oh, yes, it does. Because the life is to be totally consistent in every good work, in every good work, not just one here and one there. Overcompensating in one area cannot take care of lack in the other area now what I want you to see here is that this being fruitful is a

spontaneous result of walking worthy of the Lord he says if you and I are walking word to the Lord this will be the first characteristic, being fruitful in every good work. Being fruitful in every good work. Now what do you mean by being fruitful? You say, well, I know what bearing fruit means. That means winning people to Jesus. Yes, that's part of it. I know what being fruitful is.

That means that you're doing works for the Lord and you're bearing fruit. Yes, that's part of it. But I want you to notice that it is a spontaneous consequence of walking worthy with the Lord. Now, all of these things that I've mentioned can be fruit-winning souls to Christ.

That's bearing fruit, I believe. Doing good works, that's bearing fruit, I believe. Sacrifice of our praise, I believe that's bearing good work. Let me give you a definition of fruit though that covers the whole deal. Can I do that? John, Jesus says in John 15, that if you abide in me and my words abide in you, you shall bring forth much fruit. And over and over again, we are talked about the fact that you and I to bring fruit. In Galatians chapter 5, Paul says the fruit of the Spirit. First of all, he says, and it's wonderful how these things parallel, and sometimes paralyzed,

but he says in verse 15, 16 of Galatians chapter 5, he says, walk in the Spirit. Here we're talking about walking in the Lord, walking with the Lord. There he's saying walk in the Spirit, and he comes on down and he says, the fruit of the Spirit is this, and he names off those nine characteristics.

The parallel in our passage is being fruitful in every good work you see the parallel in one place paul describes it as the work of the holy spirit in the other place he describes it as the work of the lord jesus there's no conflict there though there are different ways to describe them you see now let me give you a definition of fruit fruit is the outward expression of the inward nature fruit is the outward expression of the inward nature I have always been in awe of people who can look at the bark of a tree and tell you what country that is my dad could do that look at a leaf and by the shape of the leaf tell you what kind of tree they were can you do that some of you can do that I can can't do that. I can't do that. I mean, I don't know. I don't know if it's a Christmas tree or an oak tree or whatever else. I just, I don't know. But you know how I can tell the nature of a tree? I hardly ever miss an apple tree when it has apples hanging from it, you know.

I say, I perceive that this is an apple tree. What makes you think so? Well, it's got apples growing out of it. Now, what is that apple? That apple is the outward expression of the inward nature. The inward nature of that tree is apple. The outward expression of it is the apple. It would be ridiculous for me to say this is a peach tree

when it's bearing apples. Fruit is the outward expression of the inward nature now you and i have a new nature that has been given to us when we came to jesus christ the spirit of god took up residence in us the secret of the christian life is that christ lives in me that's my inner nature. Do you know what fruit is? Fruit is the outward expression of that inner nature. Fruit is my exhibiting Christ in my life. Fruit is living in such a way that people can see Jesus in you, that my life bears some evidence that Christ lives within me.

I ought to be able to look at your life and follow you and see your life and know, man, that person has Jesus in them. That person is saved. Why? Because I see the evidence of it. That's fruit. That's fruit.

You go back to Galatians 5 and 22 where he talks about the fruit of the Spirit and those nine characteristics, love, joy, and peace, and so forth. You take those nine characteristics and I'll tell you something, that amounts to a Christ-like character. There's nothing that can be added to those to complete them fruit is the outward

expression of the inward nature Paul says if you and I are living a life that is worthy of the name of Jesus that there will be automatically spontaneously outward expression of his nature in us in everything we do not just when we preach but when we shop for groceries. Not just when we have family devotions, but when we are selling insurance or whatever it is we do. That he expresses himself in our every work.

We used to have a farm. We still have part of it. We're trying to sell it, but since my dad died. But we used to spend a lot of the summers there. And I remember one summer that walking down the road to the lake, there were three trees. I don't know what kind of trees they were.

They were three trees that somebody years ago had planted and looked like columns down to the lake. And I was walking down there one summer afternoon, and I noticed something peculiar about that third tree. It looked as though somebody had taken a ruler and drawn a line straight down the middle of that tree. Over on this side all the leaves were dead. Over on this side all the leaves were green. It looks like somebody had killed the right side of that tree well you know I noticed that he would and I said well I guess we're gonna lose that tree

eventually one side all the leaves on it are dead on the other side all the leaves on it are green a lie I went back Thanksgiving we spent Thanksgiving down there and I was walking down to the lake one day, and I saw that tree again. And it had changed. It looked like somebody had taken a ruler and drawn a line straight down the middle of that tree. And on this side of the tree, all the dead leaves were there. This side of the tree, the leaves were gone.

The limbs were bare. It was such a sight to really zero in on that. this side of the tree, the leaves were gone. The limbs were bare. It was such a sight to really zero in on that. Why is that so? On one side of this tree, the leaves have not fallen. Those dead leaves are still on the tree. But on this side of the tree, the leaves have all fallen and the branches are empty. And I got to thinking about that.

And when I got back home, I went to a friend of mine who's now in glory, but he was a wonderful preacher who knew something about everything. And I was talking to him, and I said how surprised I was about that. And of course, well, he knew why. He said, oh, I'll tell you why. I said, why is it that dead leaves don't fall off a dead tree, but dead leaves do fall off alive trees? Have you ever noticed that? The side of the tree that was still alive, all the leaves were gone off of that side.

But the side that was dead, all the leaves were still there. Have you ever noticed, you know, you chop down a tree and you come back in six months and it's still laying there and the leaves are still on it? Dead, brown, crumbly, but they're still on it. I said, how is that? He said, it's easy. He said, dead leaves don't fall off trees. He said, they are pushed off. As the sap falls in the tree in the changing of seasons, that life coursing through those branches pushes off the dead leaves.

The reason the dead leaves on the dead side of the tree never fall is because there's no life over there to push the leaves off. You know, God's smart. I tell you what it's genius the way he's arranged this thing you know he could arrange it like this boy when fall comes around you're going to have to get up there

and pull every one of those leaves off that tree or you're not going to have room for any green leaves next summer and so I get a ladder and I climb up that tree and you know those leaves are hard to pull off sometimes and I'm pulling off all these leaves pulling off all these leaves and boy I'm getting rid of a lot of leaves and then I climb up that tree, and you know those leaves are hard to pull off sometimes. They really are. And I'm pulling off all these leaves, pulling off all these leaves. I said, boy, I'm getting rid of a lot of leaves.

And then I look up, and the forest is full of them. I said, Lord, I'll never finish by spring. He says, that's not the way to do it. You don't have to pull off all those dead leaves, trying to make room for new leaves. What do you do, Lord? He said, you just make certain that the tree's alive and healthy and that the life is flowing through it,

and the life that's in that tree will itself take care of the dead leaves and sprout the green leaves. Now, Paul is saying of the Holy Spirit, he's like a tree planted in the believer. And as long as the Spirit of God, as long as Christ, his life is flowing through me unhindered, that I'm filled with the knowledge of God, as long as Christ's life is flowing through me, unhindered that I'm filled with the knowledge of his will, you know what happens?

That life flows through my life, and it pushes off the old dead leaf of hate to make room for the leaf of love. It pushes off the old dead leaf of anger to put out their mercy. It pushes off all those old dead leaves itself and makes room for the new leaves, the fruit. It is not your job, not my job, to pull all the dead leaves off trees. Say, I'm going to give up this, I'm going to give up this,

I'm going to give up this. No, that's not the way to do it. I'm going to overcome this, I'm going to overcome this. No, that's not the way to do it. The way to do it is to make certain that you're walking worthy of the Lord and that the Spirit of God is filling you and flowing through you without hindrance

and He Himself will take care of those dead leaves, I guarantee. For more Ron Dunn materials, sermon outlines, devotions, and scanned pages from his study Bible, please visit rondunn.com.