Depending On The Resource Of God

➡ The text is a sermon from a ministry called Your Daily Bread, emphasizing the importance of active commitment and self-discipline in Christian life. It argues that while relying on God’s strength is crucial, it’s not enough to just “surrender” and do nothing. Instead, Christians should actively strive to grow spiritually, resist evil, and live righteously, using the resources God provides. The sermon cites various Bible verses to support these points.
➡ The text emphasizes the importance of active faith and effort in Christian life, rather than passive surrender. It explains the concept of ‘three-dimensional salvation’ – past, present, and future – and the role of spiritual armor, such as the helmet of salvation, in protecting against discouragement and doubt. The text encourages believers to remember the promise of future victory and reward, and to continue living out their faith with strength and dedication.

Hello, my name is Paul, and I am the voiceover for a ministry provided to you by Jim Pugh at God Is Government called Your Daily Bread, taken from Christ’s teaching of the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6.11. This is a daily devotion ministry focused not only on up-to-date, but uplifting Scripture, but Scripture that will grow your spiritual connection with Christ. We hope that you receive these devotions to uplift you, encourage you, but most importantly, advance your knowledge base of the Holy Scriptures. Today’s focused discussion will be depending upon the resources of God. Now, I agree that we must depend upon the resource of God, I agree that we must depend upon God’s energy and God’s power and God’s strength, but it is unbiblical to think that all we do is just sit there.

And so, as some people maybe have had a problem with the emphasis I’ve been making on commitment, on self-discipline, and the Christian life, on subjecting your flesh for the strength of God. But you shouldn’t, because that’s what the Bible teaches. For example, verse 10, let’s go back to our text. See if you find the words surrender here. You’re in a battle with the enemy. Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. Put on the whole armour of God that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil, for we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against wicked spirits in high places.

Wherefore, take unto you the whole armour of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having your loins girded about with truthfulness, having on the breastplate of righteousness, and your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. Above all, taking the shield of faith, with which ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one, and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. Now you don’t read anything in there about surrender.

What you read about there is discipline. What you read about there is commitment. That’s the idea. The Christian life is a war. And if you were to go to Hebrews 12, you’d find the Christian life is a race. And if you were to go to 1 Corinthians 9, you’d find that the Christian life is a fight. We must be, says Titus 3.8, careful to apply ourselves to good deeds. James 4 and 1 Peter 5, we must resist the devil. 1 Corinthians 9, we must beat our body to bring it into subjection. Ephesians chapter 5, we must look carefully how we walk.

Philippians chapter 3, we must press on to the mark of the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. 2 Corinthians 7.1, we must cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the world. Now listen, it is way too simplistic to say that all that is needed in the Christian life is some kind of belly flop to just kind of fall over in a dead faint and say, alright God, you do it. That is way too simplistic. On the one hand, that’s what the quietists were saying. They were countered by a group called the pietists, who were the legalists, saying you got to do it all in the flesh.

And the balance is in the middle. Yes, we depend on the strength of God. Yes, we rest in his power. Yes, we abide in the vine. Yes, we count on a divine resource. Yes, it is not I but Christ. But on the other hand, there must be brought to bear in the Christian life a tremendous level of commitment, a tremendous level of self-control and self-discipline. There must be in the Christian life a dedication of our lives on a day-to-day basis to fight Satan with all the energy we have. It’s way too simple to just say surrender and that’s it.

Let me show you the balance by having you look with me at 2 Peter 1. In 2 Peter chapter 1 in verse 3 we read this, According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who hath called us to glory and virtue. Now listen, God has called us to glory and virtue. And in order to equip us for that, his divine power has given us all things pertaining to life and godliness. Listen, as a Christian, you do not lack any needed resource.

You have all things that pertain to life and godliness. Where did you get it? Through the knowledge of him. When you came to know him in salvation, God gave you everything you need. So divine resource is there. He calls it divine power in verse 3. We have divine power, we have that available. Now through that divine power, verse 4 says, We are given exceedingly great and precious promises, tremendous promises, tremendous power, and then we become partakers. We have power, promise, and a partaking of the very divine nature itself. Now this is God’s part.

God says here’s my power, here’s my promises, partake of my very nature. Tremendous, magnanimous resource for living the Christian life. Do we just say, oh, amen, and now I’m just going to surrender to that. I’m going to let go and let God turn it all over to Jesus, do nothing. No, because you come to verse 5 immediately. And verse 5 says, and beside this, beside this, you give all diligence. Get at it, man. Get with it. Be diligent, be disciplined to add to your God-given faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge, and to knowledge self-control, and to self-control patience, and to patience godliness, and to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love.

In other words, you get on the job, and beloved it is not as simple as walking an aisle and making an act of surrender. That is part of it in your life. There must be a commitment to the lordship of Christ. There must be an acknowledging of his power and resource in your life. But it doesn’t end there. It begins there. In Romans 6 there is a yielding of yourselves, yes. There is a yielding of yourselves in Romans 6, but there is also a mortifying or a killing of the deeds of the flesh.

So it isn’t all as simple as that, and that’s why we make no hesitation for proclaiming the truths of Ephesians 6. There’s balance. Go back, if you will for a moment, to Philippians chapter 2, and you’ll see the balance again. In Philippians chapter 2 verse 12, Wherefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. And the word obey is the keyword in the verse. You work out your salvation if a life of obedience.

For verse 13 says, It is God who works in you to will and do of his good pleasure. You have God working in you his will, and you work it out in your obedience. That’s the idea. God works in you with his will, you work it out by obedience. There’s the balance. God is at work, and you’re at work. Look at Colossians chapter 1 verse 29. Maybe the most definitive verse of all, Colossians 1, 29, beautifully shows this perfect balance. For this I also labor. Paul says, I work hard, striving according to his working, which works in me mightily.

You see, I work, and God works. That’s why I say it’s far too simplistic to just be banging the drum for the concept of surrender. There must be a commitment in my life to self-discipline, diligent obedience. In fact, you see, if you take the view that it’s all just let go and let God, what are you going to be with all of the New Testament exhortations? What do they mean then? If it’s all the Lord, then they should have been directed at him, not me. No, no. There’s a balance between a yieldedness to the Lordship of Christ and a total discipline and commitment in my own life to follow through in obedience.

Now, in 2 Corinthians, just one other word to show you. Chapter 6 verse 4. But in all things, commending ourselves as the ministers of God. All we want to do is to commend ourselves or demonstrate that we are God’s ministers. We want the world to know, in much patience, in affliction, necessities, distresses, imprisonments, stripes, tumult, labours, watchings, fastings, by pureness, by knowledge, by longsuffering, by kindness, by the Holy Spirit, by love unfeigned, by the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armour of righteousness on the right hand and on the left.

And you notice something wonderful about this. There’s a phenomenal blending of things. Patience, that’s personal attitude, affliction, necessity, distress, stripes, imprisonments, tumult, labour, hard work, watching, fasting, pureness, knowledge, longsuffering, kindness. Those are all things that I must produce in my life, but I must see those things. And what’s the source? By the Holy Spirit, by divine love unfeigned, by the word of the truth, which is the Bible, and by the power of God, and by the armour of righteousness. Those are all things God gives us, the perfect blending of the two.

And so we depend on God and give our all. That’s the idea. Now let’s come back to Ephesians 6 with that in mind. What I’m trying to say, beloved, is that Ephesians 6 doesn’t contradict the Bible anywhere else. And the people who have perhaps taught you in your background that all you needed to do is surrender missed the point. There’s far more to this Christian life than that. You know, they used to actually say that the only way to grow in your Christian life is through this total surrender, where you just flop back and do nothing.

Where the Bible says that you grow by acting in an obedient fashion, in a self-disciplined commitment to Jesus Christ, that is a matter of everyday effort. You don’t grow by no effort, you grow by maximum effort. Now let’s look at the armour again. And so we’re not hesitant now to put it on. I hope that’s clarified that issue. We are in a battle, and a battle to be won demands our greatest output and our greatest effort. And so we must first have the belt of truthfulness, and then the breastplate of righteousness, and then the shoes of the gospel of peace, and then the shield of faith.

And then in verse 17 we must take the helmet of salvation. And that’s where we stopped last time. What does it mean? What is the helmet of salvation? We told you last time it doesn’t mean getting saved. Listen, you wouldn’t have the belt of truth, and you wouldn’t have the breastplate of righteousness, and you wouldn’t have the shoes of the gospel of peace, and you wouldn’t have the shield of faith if you weren’t saved. I heard a guy speaking on this on television this week, and he said the helmet of salvation means getting saved.

It does not mean getting saved. You don’t get saved fifth, you get saved first. And as I said last week, we were saved in chapter two. This is chapter six. We’ve been saved for four chapters. The helmet of salvation is something other than just the simple act of saving grace. We’re already in the army, that assumes that we’re saved. What is it? I told you that salvation has three dimensions. Past, present, future. Now listen to me. That is the only definition of salvation that the Bible understands. There is no other kind of salvation than a three-dimensional salvation.

Past, present, future. The Bible knows nothing of a salvation only valid in the past. The Bible knows nothing of a salvation only valid in the present. The Bible knows nothing of a salvation for which you have to wait to find out if you get it in the future. The Bible only knows a three-dimensional salvation. Past, present, future. We have been saved, are being saved, and will be saved. The past, justification, which results in sanctification and promises glorification. Salvation is only seen biblically in those three terms, all gathered into one. The past we’re saved from the penalty of sin, the present we’re saved from the power of sin, in the future we will be saved from the presence of sin.

And so you must see salvation in those three dimensions. Now the dimension of it, to which Paul specifically alludes here, is the future. The helmet of salvation is not something dealing with the past, it’s not something even dealing with the present, in a sense. It is something dealing with the future. And this is what he is saying, you can be sure of your salvation in the future, and that becomes a protection against the broadsword that Satan wields. And I told you last time that he has a big broadsword, a rhomphaia, the Greek word, and it has two edges.

One edge is discouragement, and the other edge is doubt, and Satan wants to clobber you with discouragement and doubt. And the protection you have is the helmet of salvation. When you get discouraged, remember there’s coming a great, glorious day. When you get discouraged, remember there’s coming a victory celebration. When you get discouraged and you want to be weary and well-doing, remember you reap if you faint not. Remember that someday there’s going to be a reward, someday there’s going to be a crowning day, someday Jesus is going to face you and say, well done, good and faithful servant.

And remember, that day is coming. And when Satan wants to belt you with discouragement because the battle gets wearying, because you get tired, because the struggle is endless, remember there’s coming a victory day, there is a finish line, there is a final gun. The clock will run out and will stand face to face with Jesus Christ in that glorious moment. Thank you for joining us in this exploration of depending upon the resources of God. Until next time, remember to keep the faith, stay strong, and continue to shine your light in the world. To hear these daily devotions of your daily bread, please log on to goddessgovernment.com.

Goodbye, and may your faith always lead the way. [tr:trw].