The Church’s Most Important Truth

“The One Most Important Truth for the Christian Believer”

John 14:20 At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.

“And Preached Christ Unto Them.”

Acts 8:5 Then Philip went down to the city of Samaria, and preached Christ unto them.

Acts 9:20 And straightway he preached Christ in the synagogues, that he is the Son of God.

· After I got saved in 1979, I used to be troubled by scriptures such as the ones above. These scriptures illustrate for us some of the evangelistic efforts under the ministry of Phillip, the evangelist. I could not figure out why, and how, Phillip could possible preach a person instead of preaching about things.

For me, Christianity was all about my relationship with Christ, and how He could impart eternal life, and innumerable amounts of benefits and blessings to me, and to a dying world. How can you preach a person anyways?

It was not until the Lord brought me in contact with the teachings of the great Chinese apostle and martyr Watchman Nee, did I began to understand why Phillip and others in the New Testament preached a person named Jesus Christ

I have to come to realize in my twenty-one years as a believer, that Christianity has little do with blessings, miracles, and all that we can get out of God. By itself, these things are not wrong! As a matter of fact, the Lord commands us to take all of our requests to Him. However, if your Christianity goes only as far as having a give and take relationship with the Lord, where the focus is to get your prayers answered, obtain blessings, and believe God for miracles, you will be miss out on most of what God has for you. I give you my word; you will be eating spiritual ground beef for your whole life, as an earthly believer, instead of the filet mignon and lobster that God is so desirous to feed you with.

Today I want to teach you the most important truth that you will ever learn as a Christian. Most believers, and most churches, never understand this truth, though the New Testament over and over teaches on it. Hence the great weakness, the inability to overcome sin, the powerlessness over the lies of Satan, and the helplessness to be freed from the love of the world, continues to be found in countless believers throughout the centuries.

The truth is that Christianity has little to with our obtaining of blessings, miracles, and answered requests. CHRISTIANITY COMPLETELY HINGES UPON AND HAS ALL TO DO WITH THE REVELATION OF THE PERSON OF JESUS CHRIST, OR THE FAILURE THEREOF. OUR PERSONAL SUCCESS, AND THE SUCCESS OF OUR CHURCHES AS BELIEVERS, IS DIRECTLY PROPORTIONAL TO HOW MUCH THE PERSON OF CHRIST IS REVEALED!

· As you shall see, Satan has successfully deceived the church in part, to divert it from understanding and valuing the supreme importance of the revelation of the Son of God in its midst. The fault is mainly ours! Our obedience to God is shallow, compromised, and limited; our knowledge of the Word of God is poor at best.

Secondly, we have been deceived to allow the second most important truth in Christianity to slip right through our hands!

THE SECOND MOST IMPORTANT TRUTH IN ALL OF CHRISTIANITY IS THAT THE UNDERSTANDING OF, AND THE EMBRACING OF THE CROSS-OF CHRIST, IS GOD’S ONE AND ONLY MEANS TO REVEAL THE PERSON OF CHRIST!

Do we ever hear in our churches about the preaching and revelation of the person of Christ? We instead are being made aware about prosperity, being blessed, getting a miracle and so forth. Lesser still, do you ever hear about the preaching of the cross of Christ? Do you understand the cross?

· We have indeed put the chicken before the egg. Everything that we seek as believers today must come out of a personal revelation of the Person of Christ, and our understanding and embracing of His cross.

· We are doing things backwards. We are asking God to bless us, and to perform all of these great miracles in our lives. Yet we remain, and shall remain in bondage, hurt, sin, and godly powerlessness, unless we understand and implement these two supreme truths into our lives.

·Let us study, learn, and become truly free, shall we?

Christ is God’s Treasure Chest

· Let us begin our study by observing the following scriptures found in Colossians and in Ephesians. In Colossians we discover that inside of Christ are hidden treasures. In Ephesians we find that Christ contains riches. It sounds like if Christ is a treasure chest, doesn’t it?

Col 2:3 In whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

Ephesians 3:8 Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ;

· So if Christ is indeed a treasure chest then He must contain treasures INSIDE OF HIM, correct? What kind of treasures can we expect to find inside of Him or “In Him?” Let’s look at a few of them together.

Colossians 1:20 And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto( INTO) himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven.

God the Father will reconcile and harmonize the universe into Christ, at His appointed time.

Eph 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ:

Every last and tiniest “God given” blessing resides inside the Person of Christ.

Col 2:9 For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.

The fullness of the Trinity dwells inside the Person of Christ

Eph 1:20 Which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places,

21 Far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come:

Inside of Christ resides all accomplished victory, and hence all rightful authority over all the demonic, earthly, and angelic hierarchy of leadership. Christ also has that same authority over “ every name that is named”. Therefore, this includes the name of sickness, circumstances, and so forth, for all eternity.

So where does this “Christ laden with treasures inside of Him” live? He lives inside of us, right? Would it be a safe bet for us to say then, that we not only possess Christ, but we possess these immense and invaluable treasures, inside of us too? Wow!

This is the one thing devil is absolutely terrified of, and he does a good job keep the church’s’ attention diverted from this.

How Does the Church Really Operate?

Let us suppose that you and your family go on vacation to a beautiful secluded island on the Caribbean. One morning, as you meandered through the ivory color sands, a dark corner of barely protruding object suddenly grabs you attention. Totally shocked, you uncover a rusty treasure chest hidden by English pirates of old as they had fled from their enemies, the Spaniards.

To compound your amazement, when you finally break open the chest you find it laden and overflowing with pounds and pounds of gold and silver bars and trinkets, precious gems, brilliant stones, huge diamonds, superb rubies, exquisite rings, brooches, precious coins and so forth.

Let me ask you one simple question. Is it more logical to have you and your sons close and secure the chest, grab it by each of its handle and wheel it home laden with all of it bounty so that you can forever enjoy it and use it as you have need? That is one alternative!

However, you chose to sit for hours under the broiling sun of the cloudless Caribbean skies, and laboriously search through the chest for certain items of jewelry that your family deemed necessary. You dig and pull out the jewelry, breaking your fingernails and cutting your hands, and finally quit the process totally exhausted. In a deep frustration and an awful consumption of time, your family finds the fifteen or twenty pieces that they need. You then leave the treasure chest still have buried in the sand, still nearly full with hundreds pieces of jewelry now discarded around it, book a passage on a local sea plane, and go home.

We would have to agree that this family acted it in total ignorance and foolishness! Yet this is a perfect description of the church, and its relationship and depth of understanding to the Lord Jesus.

It Is Not “Where is The Beef”, But “Where Is The Treasure?”

Inside the Person of Christ dwells as we have seen, all of who God is, all of what God wants, and all that God possesses for this word and for the next. Here is the key to the puzzle! When Christ is revealed or manifested in us, all the treasures within or inside of Him will be manifested along with Him. The more revelation of the Son of God, the more will be the revelation of all that dwells IN HIM. It is an automatic reality.

The secret to the manifestation or revelation of the Son of God in our lives has to do with our uncompromising obedience. The more that we obey God, the more that Jesus Christ living in us will become revealed or manifested in our spirits or hearts. The less that we obey God, the less will be the manifestation of the Son of God in our lives. It is that simple!

John 14:21 He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.

(Today, we cannot cover in this lesson how the Lord becomes manifested in our lives. We shall study this in later teachings.

Remember; God has not given to us things! God has given us a Person, His Son! This is a very important point!

We are always asking God for things. God in turn wants to reveal His Son to us who CONTAINS ALL THINGS!

Heb 1:1  God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets,

Heb 1:2Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds;

CHRIST IS GOD’S POWER!

1Co 1:24 But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.

With this foundation in place we can start to partake and enjoy of the goodness of God when He gave us this one thing, His Son. Let us begin by understanding, that when we ask God to give us His power, in reality we are asking amiss. He has given us His Son! Look with me at the scripture above please. Jesus is the power of God. Therefore when He is revealed in our lives, God’s power is revealed with Him, in Him, or along with Him. The more that Christ is revealed in our lives, the more that we will automatically work in the power of God. We don’t need power; we need the Son of God to become a reality to us and the power will be ours!

CHRIST IS GOD’S SPIRITUAL GIFTS, CALLINGS, AND MINISTRIES

1 Cor 1:5 That in every thing ye are enriched by (By or In Him) him, in all utterance, and in all knowledge;

1Co 1:6 Even as the testimony (the revelation) of Christ was confirmed in you:

1Co 1:7 So that ye come behind in no gift; waiting for the coming (The revelation) of our Lord Jesus Christ

Re 19:10 And I fell at his feet to worship him. And he said unto me, See thou do it not: I am thy fellowservant, and of thy brethren that have the testimony of Jesus: worship God: for the testimony (The revelation) of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy

Please look with me at the scriptures contained in 1 Corinthians 1:5,6 and 7. In verse five it tells us that “by Christ” and “In Christ” (The Greek grammatical structure is interchangeable here), we are made rich in spiritual gifts. Two of the gifts mentioned in this passage could be the utterance gifts, which could include tongues, their interpretation, and the gift of prophecy. The other is the gift of the word of knowledge, which God uses extensively in healing. Verse six goes on to direct us to the fact, that the enrichment or increase of these spiritual gifts in a believer’s life is directly proportional to the revelation of Christ within him or her. Right? Verse seven instructs us that if the revelation of the Lord is complete in our life, we will lack in no spiritual gift. Therefore, the more that Christ is revealed in our lives, the more that we will automatically flow in the gifts and ministries that God has called us to. The gifts are IN HIM. As Christ is revealed, the gifts IN HIM will be automatically revealed along with Him.

Now please look with me at Revelation 19:10. Please be careful to see with me that Jesus does not give us prophecies per se. Jesus is the Spirit of Prophecy! Therefore, the more that Jesus is manifested in our lives, the more that we shall automatically flow in prophecy! Let’s look at one last one.

Christ is God’s Righteousness, God’s Redemption, and God’s Sanctification.

1Co 1:30 But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption:

In Corinthians 1:30 we see that Christ has been made into righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. Christ does not dispense these blessings! He Himself is the blessings! If we ask God to make us righteous, are prayers will be only halfway answered. If we ask God to sanctify us, we have missed God’s best.

God’s righteousness has to do with the manifested or outward qualities of God that originate from His inward holy character.

Sanctification is defined as the progression of our being purified by the Spirit of God.

Redemption has to do with the process of our being rescued from the power of Satan, bondage, sin, and the love of the world.

Christ does not produce these things in us as separate blessings. He has been made into these attributes. As Christ becomes revealed within our lives, God’s righteousness becomes more and more of a reality in us. It is automatic! As Christ becomes more discernible in us, we automatically find ourselves more and more free from sin, bondage and the schemes of the enemy. I know that I am redundant, but this is so important!

“And Ye In Me, and I in You”
John 14:20 At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.

Let us end our study today by observing what it says in John fourteen and twenty. The “YE IN ME” has to with our uncompromising obedience to the Lord. If we love the Lord with all of our hearts, we shall want to obey Him. If we obey Him, He will manifest Himself to us, as I said early.

John 14:21 He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.

Christ’s manifestation in you will also manifest along with Him, all of God treasures, which live in Him; we have talked about already. This is now the “I IN YOU”; Christ, and all that He has and is, becomes automatically assimilated in us by revelation. In other words His reality becomes our reality. The revelation of the Son of God in us becomes assimilation, and assimilation becomes reality, and with Him comes our assimilation of all of God’s inheritance.

Ephesians 4:24 And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.