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“All and In All” Conclusion
Broadcast #1401
August 11, 2019

Transcript of message from TV Broadcast 1401 -- taken from Closed Captioning Text

— Brother Phil Enlow: How can I live the Christian life? There’s only One who’s ever lived it! But the secret is, God’s plan is that He live in us…and so, He gets to live the Christian life through us as we learn how to believe and how to yield and how to actually live it out. Now granted, it’s a process, and we struggle and buck against it, and don’t believe it and have a thousand and one points of resistance. But I’ll tell you, there is a God who is going to win this battle!

( congregational amens ).

We need just to be surrendering and believing. That’s what Paul wanted people to understand. Why is life so hard? Why does God seem to be against me? Well, He wants to kill you so He can replace you with Christ.

( congregational response ).

Now, if we understand that we can kind of go along…we can, oh yeah, I get it, Praise God! See, just like what Paul went through. Oh God, get this devil off of me, this is miserable! I can’t serve you like this! And God said, My strength is made perfect in weakness. And so Paul said, oh…you mean I was, it was too much of me, huh? Too much of my own effort. That was the problem and so now, oh, I get it, oh.

You see where understanding comes in. We need to get what God’s plan is. It’s not like your life here, not like the way you thought, any point in your life. It’s a whole new paradigm, if you will. This is God’s plan from eternity to eternity. And He is calling us out of the people of the world and setting us on a course that leads to glory. Praise God!

So, “We proclaim Him, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone perfect…” or complete, “…in Christ.” (NIV).

Interesting little tidbit he drops in here in the last verse of chapter 1. “To this end I labor….” Ah ha! You got works in there. I’ve got to do something. But listen to how he finishes that verse. “To this end I labor, struggling with all his energy, which so powerfully works in me.”

Do you see the divine…what’s the word? Anyway…partnership, I guess is one way to put it. Isn’t that what Jesus did? He said, the Father works, hitherto I work. He didn’t say, well, here’s some good things to do. God’s told me what kind of things He likes so I’m gonna go out and do them. There’s a lot of that. Folks, we need to find out what God’s actually doing.

( congregational response ).

And if we will learn from Him and walk close with Him, He can begin to teach us and help us and show us things to do. But when we do them, if we’re doing them the way God wants it, then it’s going to be Him in us doing it. It’s like the electric drill illustration that I’ve used so many times. I may have to be the one to stick the drill out there and pull the handle, or the trigger, I guess it is, whatever you call it. You can tell I’m a carpenter, can’t you?

( laughter ).

I’m the one that’s gonna take the drill in my hand and put it out there and pull the trigger, but I don’t have the power. I’m gonna have to be connected with a source of power if any drilling is gonna happen. And that’s how the Gospel and the Kingdom of God works, is where we learn to be workers together with Him and learn how to yield ourselves to Him so that the things that He desires that we do, not just in works as we think of them, but in our relationships, in fulfilling the things that He tells us that He wants…the kind of people He wants us to be.

How can we do that, except learning how? Oh Lord, this is what You’ve called me to do. I have no power to do this. But I believe in You. I’m trusting in You. I am looking to You. Oh God, and by faith, I’m gonna go ahead and do it, but I’m doing it with a certain kind of understanding and expectation. I get that You know I can’t do this in myself. So, I’m not gonna fool myself into thinking, oh, You expect me to something You know I can’t do. He knows we can’t in ourselves. But I’ll tell you, when we step out in faith and do what He has called us to do, God will be in it and help us to do it and it will be Him doing it.

( congregational amens ).

We are not left to our own resources. Thank God! But anyway, He wants to encourage…my purpose is that you be encouraged and so forth, united in love and have all this understanding, because Jesus has got all the treasures of wisdom of knowledge.

Now do you see, part of the reason for this reference, is that in their culture, again, you had these false religious ideas that were threatening to influence people, even in the church. They were influencing in certain ways. And so Paul wanted to shoot that in the head and say, look, don’t you go looking for your answers someplace else. They’re in Christ. All the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are in Him.

So now, one of the keys to the Christian life, I believe, is in verse 6. “So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him….” Well right there, that shoots legalism in the head. There are a lot of Christian, so called legalists, or so-called Christians I guess I should say, who think they were saved by faith and kept by works! Okay, I’ve blotted out your sins now go straighten up and fly right.

But how did I get into my relationship with God? How did that happen? Did I do something? Did I somehow qualify myself? No! He said, God’s qualified us, earlier. How does that happen that I come into a relationship with a holy God? All I can do is just surrender and believe.

So how do I live? Surrender and believe…at every point of need. Right then, my need is my sins are standing between me and a holy God and I don’t have any life! So, I’m coming to You to meet that need!

But now, throughout my life I’m gonna be running into one need after another…where I cannot handle this, I can’t handle that. I see how You want me to be towards somebody and I just can’t forgive them, I can’t have the attitude I ought to have. Or I’m trying to do something for You and I’m just struggling because I’m so afraid that I just can’t do it. Whatever it is. How do we live for Him except by reaching up for Him and looking to the source God that has given to us.

And look at the next word. It says “…continue to live in him, rooted….” Do you see the imagery of that? Where does a tree get its nourishment? Where does it get its nourishment?

( congregational response ).

Yeah. When the wind blows and conditions get difficult, what happens? How does a healthy tree deal with that?

( congregational response ).

Sink those roots deeper! Why? Because that’s where the nourishment comes from. And what the Lord is saying through Paul is, at every point when I allow the wind to blow in your life, I’ve planted you in the richest soil in the universe. My life is in that soil. It’s the Lord Jesus Christ. Whatever your need is…this is an opportunity, not a problem.

( congregational amens ).

This is a moment of opportunity when I want you to, by faith, sink your roots in Me, believe that I am actually enough to help you in this situation and to meet this need, even where there’s a time element involved. That’s part of the challenge many times. But I’ll tell you, God…how many people here, right now, you see, you understand God’s trying to work in your life to get your roots deeper?

( congregational response ).

Yeah, if you know Him, that’s what He’s doing in your life. I’ll tell you, I feel that every single day. God is wanting me to get out of myself in so many ways, when I see ‘self’ trying to get in there and muck it up. But I’ll tell you, He is working and He’s changing our hearts.

And He’s doing it because He wants this invasion, not just to be parts of our lives so we can come together and encourage each other. That’s great. He wants to fill your life. He wants to fill my life. He wants to empower us to be the Body of Christ. He wants to be able to come and fill this place and then through it to be changing other peoples’ lives. There’s a greater expression of the heart of God and the life that is in Jesus that He wants to invade with that life!

( congregational response ).

It’ll fill everything one day. If Christ is in you, that’s in you right now. But oh how much of what is in us is covered up by us? And God’s gonna get rid of that stuff. He is going to change our hearts and our lives until this place can be filled with His life in a greater way than it’s perhaps ever been. I’ll tell you…is some magic gonna happen when we…if the Lord just shows up today, is some magic gonna happen and boom?!

( snapping fingers ).

We’re suddenly gonna be grown-up believers? I’ll tell you, God has a plan where He’s gonna bring every one of us to full sonship. I don’t know the time frame. I don’t know all of how He’s gonna do it. But I’ll tell you, He’s going to do it!

( congregational amens ).

He’s going to use the experiences we have down here and I believe people that have gone on, they’re still learning. There are people that have died in all kinds of spiritual conditions of immaturity. I believe God’s still teaching them. I’ll give you one scripture that kind of indicates that. “…He which hath begun a good work in you will perform it…” (KJV). How long?

( congregational response ).

Well now, Paul wrote that to people that have been dead for almost two thousand years. It sounds to me like there’s something still going on! See, God knows exactly how to bring together everything on that day. And, there’s gonna be a day when it will be brought together under the headship of Jesus Christ. And like I say, everything else will be gone. Oh Lord, hasten that day!

So…he talks about being, “…rooted and built up in Him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thanksgiving.” (NIV).

Now, he stops and deals for a moment with the problem that he had heard about in that community. “See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ. For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and you have been given fullness in Christ, who is the head over every power and authority.” Whoa!

The first time I ever heard Brother Thomas preach in person…Lord have mercy, we talk about how time has gone by, it’s been over 49 years now. He had just moved to Jacksonville, I think the end of 1968. And like the second week, second Tuesday, must have been…anyway, very early in January, he came back for a visit on a weekday night, week night. And, we were visiting from Asheboro and he preached on this scripture…Complete in Him. I still remember that message. That was powerful…just lifting up the person of Christ.

Folks, we have ways that we don’t even…we’re not even conscious of, of looking to some other source for our help. Because my problem is not simply how to navigate this world. My problem, not problem, the challenge to which God has called me…the pressing forward that we were singing about, is not your success in this life, it’s for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

( congregational amens ).

It has to do with the transformation of the inside so that I am more like Him and less like me!

( congregational amens ).

Where I am drawing my energy from Him for the details of my life instead of from me. Oh, we have so many other answers. I’ll tell you, the psychologists and the psychiatrists do not have the knowledge! They do not have the answers! They don’t even understand the question! If Jesus fills this, He’ll take care of those issues!

( congregational amens ).

I’ll tell you, we just need to come to Him and throw ourselves on the mercy of God through the promise of the Gospel and the hope of the Gospel. We don’t need to be getting our answers from this world, we need Jesus Christ!

( congregational amens ).

He is the answer to everything! And you look at the issues that he begins to deal with, and how he talks about how Jesus…you know he dealt with the guilt of our sins but, he also dealt with His power to control us. He did it by putting me to death! But He wants me to get that, understand it and start living it out, by faith! That’s the only way I can do it because I still feel all that stuff.

But God wants us to understand, and I believe that if we’ll ask Him…how many believe that God wants to hold this back from us and not help us? No! Can we not go to Him and say, Lord, I see this in the Word but I don’t understand it enough. Help me. Help me to understand. Help me to grasp so that I can act in faith and react in faith and not just simply give in when my nature wants me to go a certain way.

Lord, You have already dealt with that. And not only that, You dealt with this devil that wants to come and oppress me, because he does it with everybody. Every single one of us is going to experience times when the Devil will just come and attack our minds and our spirits, and try to bring us down with lies and oppression.

But you know, we’re gonna have to learn as we go, that Jesus absolutely spoiled principalities and powers! This translation says, he disarmed them. I’ll tell you, the Devil has power over humanity because of sin! Because their nature agrees with it, he’s got power.

But when God dealt with the guilt and the power of sin and put it away, what does Satan have left? Lies is all he’s got left! And if we’ll learn to go by what the Word of God says and stand in the victory of Jesus Christ, He is gonna be the answer in those times of oppression. We can lift our hearts to Him and look to Him, and realize that we are complete in Him!

( congregational amens ).

Most of the time, I don’t feel very complete. Do you? But I’ll tell you, the fact still remains, this is God’s answer for your need and mine today. And I praise Him! I praise Him for what He’s done! I’ll tell you, this is a truth!

One of the things I remember Brother Thomas emphasizing, and he was thinking about certain kinds of theological teaching when he said it, but there are people who actually sort of, without perhaps intending to, will diminish Jesus and make Him kind of small and weak.

How do they do that? Well, Jesus can help us get our sins forgiven and become, you know, born again and set for the Kingdom of God. But now, if you want real power, go for the Holy Ghost. You know, many of you have heard a lot of that teaching. Oh, that’s where the power is! Now we need to get out of this weak, little place we are. We’re Christians, okay, that’s wonderful. But now you’ve got to come into this place of power. I’ll tell you, every bit of it comes from Jesus!

( congregational amens ).

His name is above every name! Paul does not lift up the Holy Spirit! Paul lifts up Jesus, who comes by the Spirit and empowers His people, every virtue, everything that God has for you! His only answer for your need this morning is the name of Jesus Christ.

( congregational amens ).

And virtue and provision that is in Him. The riches of God are there. If that’s not enough for you, there’s no answer.

( congregational amens ).

There’s no other answer God has. If there was some other answer, it would be drawing upon human ability, wouldn’t it? Something of this old creation, it would be looking to that for the answer. My answer does not come from anything that has to do with this world. My answer comes from heaven.

Jesus died! I died! My sins were buried in that tomb. He rose against all the efforts of hell to keep Him there. No devil could hold Him down. He has a name that’s above every name! All the glory He had with the Father before the world was, has been restored to Him.

Do you know He’s a man? You know, He’s still a man. He’s a glorified man. He is a picture of what God is gonna be doing for every single one of us. Oh, how amazing it is that God could take a glorified man and literally spread his life out. Do you know, He can do that through us, in various ways right here?

( congregational response ).

How can you and I affect somebody else? We’re just people. But I’ll tell you, to the extent God works in and through us, His Spirit can flow out and change somebody’s heart—that invasion that is going on can continue to happen. That’s what God is after right here. I believe with all my heart God is gathering a people that He is going to bring into the simplicity of what He’s talking about.

You know, I mentioned a scripture that I believe is also very, very central…and perhaps this is a way to sum it up. But it’s down here at the end of verse 11, when Paul has emphasized the fact that it’s not your earthly heritage that matters. It’s not whose family you were born in, what race you were born into, what earthly division of any kind you were born into. This is something brand new.

God is reaching into every corner of the globe and He’s bringing together a people who will be united in Christ. That’s the foundation we stand upon. And in that, Christ is all and is in all! Praise God!

First of all, Christ is everything! Again, all the answers you need, and I need this morning, are in Him. Go to Him! Seek Him! Reach up to Him! Believe His promise! Believe the provision of God!

Don’t you sense that in Paul’s spirit? Oh, he says, I get it. I know what life is like. I’m in chains myself. I go through tough times. I have times when the Devil works on me. I know what you’re going through. These things do happen to everybody that’s in this world.

But I’ll tell you, God wants us at every point to lift up our eyes. Not to just to say, oh, He’s great. But to lift up our eyes in faith…to believe He means you. What good would it do for Paul to tell us these glorious things and say, oh I forgot, He doesn’t mean you, Ron?

( laughter ).

( congregation inaudible ).

( laughing ).

Yeah. But isn’t that how the Devil works? He’s gonna inject some little thing that sort of nullifies it, the fine print in the scripture. There’s no fine print! Christ is all!

( congregational amens ).

End of story! Everything God has for you is in Him and that’s where we go to get everything that we need.

( congregational amens ).

But the key is not just that He’s out there somewhere dumping it on me, He’s in here! This is what unites us. This is what separates the people of God from the people of the world. It’s not that we’re anything. We are nothing! But it’s who He is.

( congregational response ).

And being connected to Him by the Spirit, is everything! That is the hope that you and I have for glory today. And so all of this, you see, is the foundation upon which He builds. You say, okay, now, start saying, ‘no,’ to all this bad stuff in your nature and start living out the love and the peace and the fellowship of the Spirit, and start behaving like this in your home and all these things. Man, every…how many have trouble with any of that?

( congregational response ).

Yeah. So what do you do about it? Well, that’s just the way I am. Or, I’m proud, I’m me, I’m gonna be me. No. My God! We go to Him in faith and say, Lord, this isn’t how You meant for me to be. And I have no power. I don’t have any more power to fix this than I could save myself in the beginning. I couldn’t forgive my sins. I couldn’t impart new life. All I can do is come to You for the salvation that I need today. Wasn’t that said earlier?

( congregational response ).

But it’s there! And I’ll say it again. Do you believe that God gave us this and then puts in some sneaky little fine print so that it really doesn’t help us? Or do you think He means for us to look, to lift up our eyes from everything that happens in our lives, and say, Lord, You have the answer and Jesus is my answer! And I am reaching up to Him for the strength, the wisdom, the virtue, whatever the need is! You are my life!

Doesn’t He say that? “When Christ, who is your life, appears…” Praise God! “…Then you also will appear with him in glory.” Back in the early part of chapter 3.

I’ll tell you, we have a hope that is beyond imagining. But every single bit of it comes from one source and His name is Jesus! He is over…in the plan and purpose of God, He is over the universe. Folks, He’s up to the job of helping you and me navigate this life. Our problems are not problems to Him. They’re just unbelief problems for us.

And God wants us to lift up our eyes and just put our hope and faith in Him. Walk the same way we came to Christ. And I’ll tell you, we’re gonna see God come in great ways in our lives. I don’t believe God has emphasized this in our midst this morning…what the other brethren said…I don’t believe He’s emphasized this just to make noise and so we can say, oh, that was a good service.

This is meant to make a difference in your life and mine, today and tomorrow and the next day, and right on from now on. God is pointing us toward our goal and saying, get your eyes off of yourself and your problems. Get them on the goal. Cooperate with the program. I’ve given you everything you need. His name is Jesus! You are complete in Him.

And I’ll tell you, we’re gonna have a God who will honor His word in your life. I don’t care where you’re at and what you think about yourself. God is able to save the worst of the worst! If that’s what you think you are, God’s able to save you.

( congregational response ).

And what a glorious thing it’s gonna be when we stand there in that day. I’ll tell you, the picture you see in Revelation of saints with crowns and they’re casting their crowns down at His feet. Don’t you think we’re going to think that way? We’re gonna be there and we’re gonna realize, I didn’t do anything! I didn’t do anything to deserve this! All I did was surrender and open my heart to the provision of an awesome God who loves me beyond imagining, who has opened heaven’s door to me. To Him be all the glory!

( congregational amens ).

To His name be all the glory! Praise God! Throughout all eternity He will have the preeminence among us.

( congregational amens ).

But we will walk together with Him and He will be our brother in this incredible new creation. That’s what’s unfolding, folks. I want to be a part of that and understand it so I can cooperate in a better way. But Jesus is all and He is in all! To Him be the glory!

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