Transition from the Outer Man to the Inner Man – Conclusion by Pastor Doug Riggs

This message was originally recorded March 20, 2016.

My notes:

As Jesus walked this earth as man, completely dependent upon the power of God, so He continues in His resurrected glorified state to be as dependent. This resurrection life we are called to is to be as Christ’s, completely dependent on the power of God in Christ manifested in us by and through the Holy Spirit. It takes the triune God for us to live the Christian life. As we are weak without this power of God, and Jesus, "as Man, He is just as weak now as He ever was… completely dependent upon the Father."

As I listen to many pastors and teachers, it seems like they have one goal for everyone they preach to: receive Jesus as your Savior. Some go a step further and add as the goal an obedient life (i.e.: do this; do that; don't do this; and don't do that). The ultimate goal seems to be to avoid hell and go to heaven – then tell everyone you can about Jesus – oh, and by the way, read your bible and pray every day... that's about it.

Few that I've heard use the Old Testament as a teaching tool to explain the goal we should be pressing on to. For Israel, it began with the Passover - the blood of the spotless lamb applied to the doorpost that insured deliverance from the death angel. Then, passing through the Red Sea was that which insured deliverance from Egypt (today: the world). Then the goal was to conquer and occupy their inheritance, the land of Canaan. That required dispossessing the formidable giants (today: principalities and powers) and taking the land by force. That was their goal. What a huge disparity between Israel's goal and that of the church. We in the church are mostly not taught there even is an inheritance other than a mansion, a harp, and a halo. Salvation is not the inheritance. It’s only the beginning of the journey to conquer the land.

So, why should we take the Old Testament teaching so seriously. After all, isn't it really just history? That was then; this is now? "Now these things happened to them as an example, and they were written for our instruction, upon whom the ends of the ages have come." (1 Corinthians 10:11) If we blow off the Old and try to follow the New, we'll never really understand the goal of the church - our inheritance - very different and so much greater than that of Israel. The few bible teachers I can reference who taught us this are C.H. Mackintosh; T. Austin-Sparks; and Doug. "There is a goal; there is an end; there's a consummation for each one of us from the moment of new birth until glorification, there is a divine goal... God perfected the Author of our salvation through suffering. And so, there's absolutely no other way we can be perfected." "The goal of Hebrews is that we become perfect (mature; complete) in the perfected One, Christ."

"As we are brought into conformity to His death through sufferings, this is the only way in which Christ, who is our life, can become more and more in evidence. There's no other way." "That in us which has not experientially died yet - in Him it's dead, but it hasn't experientially died in us, that is a painful process."

Link to Audio: https://dougriggs.s3.amazonaws.com/Assemblies/3-20-16+sunday+assembly.mp3

Link to Discussion that followed: https://dougriggs.s3.amazonaws.com/Assemblies/3-20-16+discussion.mp3

Resource mentioned: March 20 Day by Day with T. Austin-Sparks (you can sign up for these daily emails): https://bookministry.wordpress.com/2016/03/20/march-20/

Brennan Manning: Our Call To Participate In the Healing Ministry of Jesus Christ (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IsQy0t6n0U)

C.H. Mackintosh: Notes on the Pentateuch (drop down the page about 1/3 to find it on my website - https://www.bookministry.org/Bookstore.html)

Maranatha!

John Mark

...hereby committing this unto the providential care of the enthroned Head of the Church; whose Name is blessed forevermore, Yeshua Mashiach - Jesus Christ!