GOD IS MY HELP WHERE THE RUBBER MEETS THE ROAD

GOD IS MY HELP WHERE THE RUBBER MEETS THE ROAD

                It is a bit of a funny saying “Where the rubber meets the road.” But we instinctively know what it means. It is that point where theory meets reality, where we move from thinking to doing.

                The Bible is a book full of instructions, laws, promises, advice, grand ideals and revelation, but none of it does us any good unless it works where the rubber meets the road. But the problem is that many Christians can talk endlessly about what the Bible says without actively obeying its instructions, or living by its promises, or walking in its revelations.

                We can believe and talk and discuss it on Sunday, or Saturday as the case may be and yet live the rest of the week as if the Bible has virtually no application to real life. We do not expect any supernatural intervention. We don’t pray about stuff unless we are in deep trouble. In fact there was a popular song a few years back which said, “God is watching us from a distance.” But such a song would only come from the pen of one who enjoyed no covenant partnership with Jesus through His Holy Spirit.

                Our lesson this week has been based on the idea that God is our help. It is based upon Psalm 40 where David describes to us applying his faith where the rubber meets the road. He believed in God and He confessed it openly and he often declared that God was with him in every trial and circumstance. He began Psalm 40 by declaring God’s faithfulness saying: I waited patiently for the Lord; and He inclined to me and heard my cry and brought me up from the pit of destruction, out of the miry clay.”

                It is as though David had breached the annals of time to have a new covenant heart long before Jesus came to bring us a new covenant. I believe that faith can do that, for we can have faith in something that has not yet happened. Hebrews 11:17-19 tells us that Abraham perceived the gift of God’s only Son when he received his own son back from the dead as a type. Jesus told the Pharisees, saying: Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day; and he saw it and was glad.”

                Now Paul brings faith home to us in the New Covenant by comparing the two covenants. In Romans chapter 10 he says: “For not knowing about God’s righteousness and seeking to establish their own, they did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end (or the goal) of the Law for righteousness to everyone who believes. For Moses writes that the man who practices the righteousness which is based on law shall live by that righteousness.” Romans 10:3-5

                Then Paul goes on to say something a bit strange concerning the New Covenant and how it differs from the Old saying: “But the righteousness based on faith speaks thus, “Do not say in your heart, who will ascend into heaven? (That is to bring Christ down) or who will descend into the abyss? (That is to bring Christ up from the dead.) But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart”- that is the word of faith which we are preaching, that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved; for with the heart man believes resulting in righteousness and with the mouth he confesses resulting in salvation. For the Scripture says, “Whoever believes in Him will not be disappointed.” Rom. 10:6-11.

                Here again Paul demonstrates to us that the New Covenant is not based upon the Mosaic covenant of Law, but on the Abrahamic covenant of faith, for Abraham believed and it was reckoned to Him as righteousness… and so it is with us. Romans chapter 4:22-25

                But here in this somewhat confusing jumble of Romans 10 we see something of how our faith works where the rubber meets the road. Instead of serving a distant God by trying to keep His commands written on stone, we now serve an imminent God… in our hearts and even in our mouths as we speak. And while we know that Jesus is in the heavenly sanctuary functioning as our High Priest, we know that through the agency of His Holy Spirit, Jesus is closer to us today than He was to His disciples when He walked the earth.

                This knowledge should affect our walk in the most profound ways imaginable. David was a man of faith with a New Covenant heart and we are constantly inspired by his declarations of faith and his love for God, but we have something today that even David did not have.

                Jesus said to His disciples: “If you love Me you will keep My commandments.”  John 14:15 And here Jesus is not talking about the Law of Moses for Jesus is here introducing the New Covenant to His disciples and he is saying that if you love Me, you will follow My instructions as I have taught you. In fact he had recently said to them:  “A new commandment I give to you that you love one another even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples if you have love for one another.”  

                Then right after Jesus said, “If you love Me you will keep My commandments He goes on to describe how this new covenant will work. He says: And I will ask the Father and He will give you another Helper that He  may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive because it does not behold Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides (WITH) you and will be (IN) you.” John 14:15-17

                So when did the New Covenant take effect? Did not Jesus instruct them to tarry in Jerusalem until they had received the promise of the Father? So the New Covenant took affect when the Holy Spirit came down on the day of Pentecost. That is when Jesus as our High Priest, sent down His Holy Spirit to animate our lives. So when as this week’s lesson teaches us, that God is my help, we must know that number one on the list of His Help is the Holy Spirit whom Jesus promised to send to be our Helper.

                The Holy Spirit is the very life of the church.  If we don’t have the Holy Spirit we don’t even belong to Him. Romans 8:9 says it outright: “However you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him.”

                So how should this knowledge of the indwelling Spirit of Christ affect those of us who are born again? Do we not realize that we are living oracles… that we are living temples of the Holy Spirit and if so, then every waking moment of our lives should be a demonstration of that infinite power that resides in us?

               

                The New Covenant does not consist of people walking in the flesh and struggling to keep the Law. Rather we have become people of the Spirit of God who, though we live in these bodies of flesh, we are nonetheless walking testimonies of the presence of Jesus in our lives.

                Paul says, “As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him.” And then Paul goes on to say: “For in Him the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form and in Him you have been made complete, and He is head over all rule and authority.” Col, 2:6, 9-10.

                Here then we see a changing of the guard from Law to the indwelling Spirit of Christ and so Paul’s conclusion is this: “Therefore let no one act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day… things which are a mere shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ.” Col 2:16, 17

                So some argue that if we walk away from the Law, we stop obeying Jesus Christ, but that is not so. In fact our obedience to Christ becomes infinitely more real because now the very Spirit of Christ is living and walking in us and so every moment of our lives serves as a testimony to the living God.

                We become His hands and His feet. We are His body and if the Holy Spirit does not dwell in us then we are not His body… and it is this living in the power of our “Helper” the Holy Spirit that food and drink and festivals and new moons and Sabbaths become mere shadows, for the substance belongs to Christ. We have now entered into the true REST to which those things pointed.

                We have entered into the ever present “Today” of Hebrews 4:7. And yet people go on preaching the Law, the Law, but Paul says we can’t have it both ways. We are either in the Old Covenant or in the New Covenant and the Old Covenant cannot save us… it can only lead us to the foot of the cross, there to die for our own sins, or to receive Christ’s death in our place. When we do that, then He gives us His Holy Spirit and we live by something infinitely more powerful than the Law.

                But the big warning to the church today is that many, who claim to have been set free from the Law, are not really living by the Spirit either. They are living in the flesh… living as if the Spirit of Christ is not in them. Living according to the dictates of their own fleshly minds… serving themselves rather than God… living for self rather than for Him.

                This is a word from the Lord for all such people today. We have entered into crunch time. 50% will no longer do. I must have 100% of you or I will spit you out of My mouth. Your faith is about to be tested and many will fall away from the faith giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of demons. Put away the world and the flesh and the devil and follow Me. You are a temple of My Spirit, but you have become cold and indifferent. Come back to Me now or you will be caught up in the landslide of those who are just now abandoning Me. Come to Me now and I will restore you and make you whole. My New Covenant is not an escape from the Law, but a far greater fulfillment of it and it can only be accomplished by My Spirit says the Lord.