What is the Simplicity That is in Christ?
Rick Railston
July 14, 2012
Well, greetings again. I’d like to open the sermon by relating to you a true story about a graduate student who was studying for his PhD in Biology. He was in a one-on-one course with a professor. It wasn’t a classroom situation. The professor put a fish on a tray in front of the student at the start of their session and he said, “I want you to tell me the single defining description you can make about this fish.” Then the professor walked out of the room. This fellow is relating this incident. He starts scratching his head and thinks of this and thinks of that and said, “What’s the defining characteristic about this fish?” So he first came up with the idea that well, fish can breathe under water. The professor told him to write a paper about this defining characteristic. So he wrote a paper later that day about the gills and how it takes oxygen out of the water and then makes it useful to the fish and went through all of that. At the next class session, I don’t remember if it was the next day or the day after, he presented the paper when the professor walked in. The professor looked at it, shook his head and said, “No, that’s not it.” Then the professor walked out of the room.
This graduate student began to rack his brain and he thought, maybe it’s how the fish swims, so he began to look at the method the way the fish swims, the fins and how they work and the tail wagging and the propulsion, etc. He prepared another paper about all of that, defining the mobility of the fish. So at the next class, the professor comes in, looks at the paper, shakes his head, throws it down on the desk and says, ‘No, that’s not it.”
So this went on for two or three more sessions and he began to get ever more detailed in his mind about what’s going on here. Each time, the professor would throw the paper down and say, “No, you’re missing it, you’re not getting it.”
Finally, out of desperation, (this graduate student is writing this article) he said it was late one night and the paper was due the next day. He didn’t know what to do and he said, “I finally broke down and started counting the scales of the fish.” He said, “I counted every one of them and divided them into rows or sides or whatever.” He said he knew this wasn’t going to work, but he didn’t know what else to do. The professor came in the next morning and looked at the paper and just shook his head like this student just shouldn’t even be there and shouldn’t be a PhD candidate at all. The professor said, “Look, you’re making the task way too complex. You have overlooked the simplest answer. You’ve missed it.” The graduate student finally gave up and said, “I give up; it’s beyond me. I can’t comprehend it.” The professor shook his head and said, “The fish is bilaterally symmetrical.” This means, if you look at the fish, head on, the right side is identical to the left side. That is the defining characteristic of this fish. The graduate student said, “I learned a huge lesson.” It went on for a week or ten days. He said, “I learned a huge lesson from this, because sometimes simple answers elude us as human beings, and certainly as a student.”
Humans tend to over complicate things. I think we’ve all been there; we’ve all done that. In the world today, we see evidence of that all around us. Nothing is simple anymore. For those of you who have yet had the joy to sign up for Social Security, you’re just going to have a ball! Try to get an answer. Try to deal with someone. You talk to five Social Security agents and you get ten different answers. It is very confusing.
Then today, the thing that grinds me most is trying to get a live operator at any company you call. What they say is, “Pay attention to our menu because it has changed recently.” Everybody says that. You have a particular problem and they say, “Press one if, press two if,” and you go through fifteen of them and none of them relate to the problem you have. Then at the end, they say, “Would you like to repeat all of this?” By then you’re yelling into the phone, “I want to talk to a live operator!” I’ve seen Dorothy just pounding these buttons, yelling into the phone and you can’t get a live operator. Nothing is simple anymore. Forty years ago, you dialed a company and some nice, human voice would come on and they would direct you where you wanted to go. This doesn’t happen anymore; it is way too complicated. You can’t even buy gas without pressing in some kind of number or phone number or pin number or this or that.
The basic fact is that the truth of life tends to be very, very simple, but man complicates everything. Let me read you a quote from the book, “Einstein’s Cosmos”. It was written in 2004 by a physicist, who I think most of you are familiar with. His name is Michio Kaku. If you watch PBS and any of the scientific shows on PBS, he’s an Asian man, he has shoulder length gray hair and he is a very bright guy. On page 13, he talks about Einstein and the following. Notice Einstein’s approach: “Einstein’s theories are based not so much on arcane mathematics.” Now the word “arcane” means difficult to understand. So he’s saying Einstein’s theories are based not so much on difficult to understand mathematics, but simple, physical pictures. Einstein would often comment that, “If a new theory was not based on a physical image simple enough for a child to understand, it was probably worthless.” If you have studied the Theory of Relativity, Einstein would paint pictures about what was actually happening to illustrate the theory, and it was very simple. A child could understand it.
That is also true about understanding God’s word. Christ did speak in parables and we are told that He spoke in parables in part to hide the meaning from those who were not called (we understand that) but He also spoke in parables to teach us lessons that even a child could understand. Many times He did that. Yet, after the leadership of the Worldwide Church of God changed in 1986, we were told as ministers and later the brethren were told that God’s word was far too complex for mere laymen to understand. We were told that the average member and the average minister did not have the “tools”, (and I say tools in quotes) necessary to understand the deeper subjects of God’s word, the implication being that you had to go to advanced seminary in order to understand the Bible. Now to illustrate that, let me read from a Pastor General’s Report that Joseph Tkatch wrote on December 31, 1991, “The Church highly respects the need for deeper theological work. It believes that a full and accurate statement on the nature of God would be a major achievement in the history of dogmatics.” Now, up to that point, Mr. Tkatch had never used that word, and my guess is he didn’t know the meaning of that word. Most of us don’t. Dogmatics means true principals and so what he said is, “The Church believes that a full and accurate statement on the nature of God would be a major achievement in the history of true principals.” But in the meantime, he goes on to say, “It defers to experts whose task it is to dissect, analyze and define what normally lies beyond the resources of the vast majority of believers.” So what he is saying is, “To understand the nature of God and understand the Bible, it is beyond most of us (our ability) to comprehend or understand.” This was code for the fact that God’s word is too complex and we are too stupid to understand. It takes a church intelligentsia, a seminary trained intelligentsia to interpret God’s word for us. That’s what came about, as most of us know. This belief has been and, frankly, is currently being promoted in the Protestant world and in the Catholic world. The priest interprets the Bible. The seminary graduate, the PhD in theology interprets the Bible for us.
Now during those years, one of the concepts that many of us hung onto with all our might is given in the following scripture. Let’s go to II Corinthians 11 and verse 3. This is a principal that all of us can hang onto and most of us did hang onto when this kind of propaganda was being passed down to the ministry and then to the membership. Notice what Paul says.
II Corinthians 11:3. But I fear, (He says, “I’m afraid for you all.”) lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, (the Greek means craftiness) so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. (KJV)
He said, “I’m worried about you, because Satan is trying to corrupt your minds and get you away from the simplicity that is in Jesus Christ.”
The Greek word for “simplicity” is Strong’s #572, and it means singleness, that is, not complex. If you have a concept or a machine or something that is single, meaning it has very few parts or just one part, it’s not very complicated or complex. He’s saying the simplicity of Christ, (that is in Christ) is not complicated. God’s word here clearly contradicts the word of men by saying that the concepts brought by Jesus Christ are very simple and very easy to understand and they are not complicated.
So, I thought it would be a good time to look back and investigate this subject, and so the title of the sermon is, “What is the Simplicity that is in Christ?” What was Paul referring to? What did he mean?
Now, let’s understand that scholars over the centuries have told people that understanding God’s word is a complex thing. You have to have training and you need very high intelligence in order to understand the word of God. Now, as I said earlier, Catholicism says that the average lay member needs a priest to interpret the Bible. We were told in the Worldwide Church of God that you need a seminary trained man to interpret the Bible for us. The Catholic and Protestant world teaches that the Bible, at best, is a deep mystery that requires advanced schooling; that’s the “tools” that Joseph Tkatch talked about, that it’s a deep mystery and you need advanced training, the tools necessary to properly understand the Bible’s teaching.
The best example I can think of to illustrate this, the Protestant and Catholic view, is the doctrine of the trinity. Let me quote from the Catholic Encyclopedia. If you want a hoot, just buy yourself a Catholic Encyclopedia, because it’s got a few laughs in there. I know they don’t mean it that way, but that’s the way it is. Let me read from the Catholic Encyclopedia under the heading of “Trinity, Holy”, on page 295. Now listen to what the authors of the Catholic Encyclopedia say about understanding the doctrine of the trinity: “It is difficult in the second half of the twentieth century to offer a clear objective and straight forward account of the revelation, doctrinal evolution and theological elaboration of the mystery of the trinity.” Now here we are, 1,800 years down the road from this doctrine, and this portion of the encyclopedia was written late in the last century, and they’re telling us that we still don’t understand the trinity after almost 2,000 years of study? Going on, he says, “Trinitarian discussion, Roman Catholic as well as other, presents a somewhat unsteady silhouette.” What they’re saying is, “It’s kind of fuzzy.” This is after studying this for centuries.
Let me go to page 304. Here’s the hoot. “There are few teachers of Trinitarian theology in Roman Catholic seminaries who have not been badgered at one time or another by the question, ‘But how does one teach the trinity?’” The professors are being badgered by the students, “How do you teach this thing, this concept?” The encyclopedia goes on to say, “And if the question is symptomatic of confusion on the part of the students, perhaps it is no less symptomatic of similar confusion on the part of their professors.”
So this whole doctrine of the trinity, after millennia, is not understood by the students, not understood by the current priests and not understood by their teachers. It’s very complicated, not understandable. In fact many priests and professors, if you ask them about the trinity and ask them to explain it (we went through that when it was being brought into the Worldwide Church of God) they sidestep it by saying, “It is a holy Mystery. Only God knows; we can’t understand it. It’s a holy mystery, but we still teach it! We can’t explain it, but we still teach it.” As we know, the trinity came into the early New Testament Church through Greek theology that was adapted by “Christian” theologians.
Now, the Worldwide Church of God did the same thing in the ‘90’s. We all remember, sitting out there in the audience, the convoluted sermons, attempting to explain the trinity. Some of those sermons were self contradictory, and it was obvious the person giving the sermon didn’t understand it. Obviously, we didn’t understand it, and yet we were told we didn’t have the tools to really understand this whole subject of the nature of God, particularly the trinity. We didn’t have the advanced education; we didn’t have the IQ; we didn’t have the training. It was a not-so-subtle hint, that unless we had gone to seminary like a couple of guys did back at Pasadena, we were not equipped to understand such complex subjects or concepts.
Yet Paul tells us, as we just read, the truth is simple for everyone to grasp. It is not complicated. So, let’s ask the question, “Why would God call the weak of the world, the weak things and the base things? Why would He call the weak of the world to a truth that was too complex for them to understand?” That makes no sense at all.
So what we’re going to do next in the sermon is to refocus on five examples of the simplicity that is in Christ. You can think of some others, but for the sake of time, we’re going to talk about five examples of the simplicity that is in Christ. The following is the first one, and these a child can understand.
1. God loves all His Children.
Just like a mom and dad love their kids, or should love their kids, God loves all His kids, all His children. Now in the early days in the Worldwide Church of God, the Church emphasized obedience and God’s wrath on the disobedient. There wasn’t much talk about love, as we know, and I (like the rest of the Church) ran away from the understanding of the love of God for a number of years. In my case, it was 25 or 30 years almost. We just didn’t want to go there because it was “Protestant”. Finally in these latter days, many of us have begun to realize the fact that God loves all His kids, all His children. John 3:16 … This is a scripture that we ran away from because it was quoted so often. What does it say? “For God so loved the world,” not just the first fruits, not just the ones He was dealing with, but “God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes on Jesus Christ should not perish, but have everlasting life.” He wants all of His children, from Adam and Eve down to the present day, to have everlasting life and believe on Jesus Christ.
When you think about it, what was the worst experience God the Father ever had? I don’t mean to humanize God, but what is the worst experience He ever had? It had to be watching Jesus Christ suffer, being spit on, being scourged, being beaten, being nailed to the cross. He looked down and watched that. We think about watching our kids when they get sick and they suffer, or as the Nelson family is looking on little Miette and how bad that is. For God to look down and watch Christ suffer would have been horrible, but He did it because He loves all of His children. He loves us to the point that He wants everyone, every kid, every child, every adult, every old man or woman to be in His kingdom. Let’s go to Luke, Chapter 12 and look at verse 32. God willingly watched Christ suffer; Christ willingly went through the suffering because of what we’re going to read here.
Luke 12: 32. Fear not, little flock;
He’s talking, obviously, to the disciples then, and He’s talking to us as first fruits today, but He’s talking really to all mankind.
Luke 12: 32. Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.
Now like the professor did with the fish, let’s ask the question here under this first point, God loving all His children: What is the single defining description you can make about God? The single defining description you can make about God? We find that in I John, Chapter 4. We’ll read verse 8 and then verse 16, because it’s repeated twice and anytime God repeats something back to back, it’s for a reason and for emphasis. John says it very plainly and very simply. A child, a kid can understand these words.
I John 4: 8. He that loves not knows not God;
If we don’t have love, if we don’t love others, love God, we don’t even know God.
I John 4: 8b. … for God is love.
As I’ve said before, it’s not that God has love, He is love.
I John 4: 16. And we have known and believed the love that God has to us. God is love; and he that dwells in love dwells in God, and God in him.
This is very easy to understand. God is love, therefore, because of that love, He loves everyone that has ever lived and He wants everyone that has ever lived to be in His family. The thought should occur to all of us, since God loves all His children, what about us? Shouldn’t we love all His children too? You better believe it! We should.
So the fact is, closing out this first point, is that God loves all His children. This is a concept that is very simple and very easy to understand. A little three or four year old can understand that God loves me as a little kid. God loves all His children, just like Mom and Dad love me. Very simple, anybody can understand that. We don’t need a theological degree to get that concept.
2. The simplicity of God’s plan of salvation.
It’s very simple. The concept is so simple. It’s found in one verse. We can find many verses, but we will just go to one. This tells us just about everything we need to know about God’s plan of salvation as far as God’s motivation and God’s desire for us to be in His kingdom.
Revelation 21: 7. He that overcomes shall inherit all things;
All things, God’s kingdom, God’s family, the universe.
Verse 7b. and I will be his God, and he shall be my son.
One sentence says it all. Now the Greek word for “overcomes” is Strong’s #3528, and it means to subdue, either literally or figuratively; to conquer, to prevail, or to get the victory.
So, we’re being told that he that subdues, prevails, conquers or gets the victory, is going to inherit everything. Overcomers are going to be in God’s family is what it tells us. So then the logical question is: Overcome what? If overcomers are going to be in His kingdom, then what is it that we must overcome? That is found in I John 5: 4. These simple concepts, like the example of the fish, elude people, in part because God is not calling them, but it can elude us. We can get off into the twigs and the branches and way out there on a limb somewhere and we just forget about these basic concepts that are so simple.
So, what are overcomers supposed to overcome?
I John 5: 4. For whatsoever is born of God overcomes the world: and this is the victory that overcomes the world, [even] our faith.
So whosoever is going to be in God’s kingdom, the thing they’ve overcome is the world, and we know this is Satan’s world. We know in Revelation 12, verse 9, that Satan has deceived the entire world, he has influenced the entire world. So when we’re told here in I John 5, verse 4: “Whatsoever is born of God overcomes the world,” this means you overcome Satan, you overcome the world that Satan has deceived and we overcome also our human nature and the influence of the world upon us. The key to overcoming, again, is to become like God and like Christ. It is such a simple concept, that in order to overcome, in order to be in God’s kingdom, we have to change from the old person to the new person. The new person is like God and Christ. Let’s go back once more to Ephesians 4: 13. Every few sermons we come back to this because this is the key to being in God’s kingdom; it’s the key to being the Bride of Christ. The key to overcoming is to become like God and Christ. God gave certain offices in the Church for the work of the ministry.
Ephesians 4: 13. Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge (the true knowledge) of the Son of God (who He is; what His nature is like) unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.
That is the job of an overcomer, to overcome what we were when we were called and when we were baptized into becoming like Jesus Christ. We know in Philippians 2: 5, it tells us, “Let this mind be in you which was in Jesus Christ.” So, God’s plan of salvation is so simple. Overcomers will be in His kingdom. We have to overcome ourselves, our nature, the world influenced by Satan, and Satan’s influence. What we have to do is concentrate on making ourselves ready to be the Bride of Christ by changing who I am now into the image of our Savior. So, every day we should ask, “Is what I am thinking right now something that Christ would think? Is what I am doing right now something Christ would do? Is what I am saying right now something Christ would say?” I wrestle with this every day. Are we heading in the right direction, the direction that Christ wants us, both as a Church and personally? Is this the way Christ wants us to do it? If He was on the earth today and had to make this decision, what decision would He make? Not what we want, but what He wants. So becoming like God and Christ is so very simple and so easy to understand.
Kids mimic their parents. The young son starts walking like his dad at an early age, standing like his dad. The same way with girls and their moms, they mimic their parents. We see that. What God is saying, “I want you to mimic Me; I want you to mimic Jesus Christ, so that when the time comes for My Son to marry, you will be like My Son. This is very simple, easy to understand.
3. The simplicity of what God wants from us and what God requires from us.
It is so simple. Not hard to understand. God’s plan, our journey towards salvation is not complicated. It’s difficult, yes, but it is not complicated. Let’s go to Mark, Chapter 12. We’ll begin in verse 28 and will carry it through to the beginning of verse 34. Christ was asked a very simple question and He gave a very simple answer. Anybody can understand this. One of the scribes came to Christ and he had heard them talking and reasoning together and he had perceived that Christ was answering him well. So, at the end of verse 28, he asked Christ, which is the first commandment of all.
Mark 12: 28. And one of the scribes came, and having heard them reasoning together, and perceiving that he had answered them well, asked him, which is the first commandment of all? (KJV)
This was a very simple question. Christ didn’t dodge it like a modern politician. You ask Obama or Romney a question today and they’re dodging and waffling all over the place.
Verse 29. And Jesus answered him, “The first of all the commandments [is], Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord.” (KJV)
We talked about that many times in the past. That’s not a good translation. Basically, the Hebrew says, “Obey God only. Obey God and nobody else.”
Verse 30. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength; this [is] the first commandment.
There’s no room for doubt, very simple.
Verse 31. And the second (The man didn’t ask for a second. This is a two-fold concept, two-fold commandments.) [is] like, [namely] this; You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these.
Notice what the scribe said…
Verse 32. And the scribe said to Him, Well, Master, you have said the truth; for there is one God; and there is none other but He:
Verse 33. And to love Him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love [his] neighbor as himself, is more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices. (KJV)
Notice what Christ said in the beginning of verse 34…
Verse 34. And when Jesus saw that he answered discreetly, He said unto him,
You are not far from the kingdom of God.”
You’re very close; if you understand this, you’re very close. What a simple precept. Our entire life should flow from our love for God, and we should love God because He loves us. We should love Him with all of our being and then we should love our neighbor as ourselves. A three year old can understand that.
Now we show our love for God by how we treat other people, how we treat the brethren. I love John’s writings because he is so clear and so plain with nice, short sentences and right to the point. He’s not afraid to call a spade a spade; he’s not afraid to call hypocritical conduct by what it actually is.
I John 4: 20. If a man say, I love God, and hates his brother, he is a liar;
It’s very simple to understand. If you say you love God and then you hate your brother by the way you treat them, you are a liar.
Verse 20b. for he that loves not his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? (KJV)
The guideline for how to do that, how to love your brother, is so very simple. Christ said it in Matthew, Chapter 7, verse 12. Let’s go there. Again, this is a very, very simple concept. Christ begins this sentence with “therefore” because He’s referring to all that He said before.
Matthew 7: 12. Therefore all things whatsoever you would that men should do to you, do you even so to them; for this is the law and the prophets.
This is not complicated, not hard to understand. If you want people to love you, you love them. If you want people to be friends with you, you be friends with them. If you want people to treat you nicely, you treat them nicely.
Hillel, the elder, said this in the first century B.C.; he was a rabbi and said this before Christ was born, he said, “Whatever is hateful to you, do not do this to a friend.” Whatever you hate, do not do that to a friend. He says, “This is the entire Torah, the rest is commentary, go forth and learn.” These are very simple concepts.
We had that illustrated when we went back to Boston to see our son, Britt, and his wife, Julie. We have two little granddaughters. Josie is nine and Mattie is four. They’re two active little girls. I was in the back seat on one side and Josie was next to me and little Mattie was in her car seat by the window. As kids often do, you know they get kind of territorial, and so Mattie started wailing that Josie was reaching over into her territory. Then Josie wailed back that “Mattie’s touching me or Mattie is poking me.” Then I watched Josie and she leaned over against the car seat and just pushed and pushed and got her head over on the car seat and Mattie was wailing that, “Josie’s moving over here and encroaching on me.” (She didn’t use those words.) But she was upset and the both of them were kind of getting into it. So Britt leaned back and told them to shut up and be quiet, and so it was about seven or eight minutes until we got home. The car got really quiet for about seven minutes on the way home. The two girls didn’t say a word to each other. You could tell as we got closer to the house, both of them were very uncomfortable, because they get along and they love each other, and they really didn’t like the way this had gone. So, we unloaded, got into the house; Dorothy and I were sitting at the kitchen table with Mattie, who was coloring. You could tell there was still some tension in the air between the two sisters. I could see Josie coming in and she walked across the room and was at Mattie’s back and she reached around and gave her a big hug and kissed her on the cheek. All of a sudden, Mattie’s face just lit up and she said, “Jose, (That’s her nickname for Josie.) You’re the best!” You see, the concept is so simple because they both knew it wasn’t right what they had been doing. They didn’t like the feelings between them and all it took was one of them (and it should have been the older one, the more mature one,) to come and make it right. Once that happened, everything was fine.
If you want to be loved, you have to show love. If you want to have peace, you have to make peace. It’s very simple. It only took me decades to understand that. It only took me decades to understand how much God loves me, how patient He’s been with me, how forbearing and kind and gentle He’s been with me; and He’s been doing that for close to fifty years now, but it took me a long time to understand that. So if God has treated me that way for almost fifty years, shouldn’t I treat other people the same way? Of course.
This scripture hit me like a ton of bricks in the mid to late nineties. I had read it for years, read it for decades, but just blew it off and read right over it. Again, these concepts are so simple. This is the thing that just hit me.
I John 3: 14. We know that we have passed from death unto life,
How can we know that? Because I want to know that; I want to know that I have passed from death to life. My jaw dropped open.
Verse 14b. because we love the brethren. He that loves not [his] brother abides in death. (KJV)
Think about that. We all want to know that we’re going to be in God’s kingdom. We all want to know that we are going to have eternal life, and the way we do that is, if we love the brethren, we have made the transition from death to life. Now the obvious conclusion is, we obey both commandments, loving God first and then loving our neighbor as ourselves. Look at verse 16.
Verse 16. Hereby perceive we the love [of God], because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down [our] lives for the brethren. (for each other.)
What a simple concept. It’s so easy to understand. If we love the brethren, we have passed from death to life. The conclusion when I read that, and like I said, it hit me like a 2x4 between the eyes, is that we shouldn’t run away from the concept of love. It’s in the Bible. It’s what God is and yet we ran away from it.
Do we tell God we love Him? I’m ashamed to say it took me about twenty years to utter those words. I respected God, I honored God, I feared God, I obeyed God, but to actually kneel down and say, “God, I love you with all my heart.” It took me a long time to get there. The emphasis was on obedience; the emphasis was on God’s wrath and it took me a while. I hope it didn’t take you that long and I hope all of us, every day, kneel down and say, “God, I love you. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
Do we show the brethren, by our actions and by our words, that we love them? Remember, we’re talking about what God requires of us, this third point. It is so simple! What He requires of us is what Paul said, “The better way” at the end of I Corinthians, Chapter 12. He said, “I show you a better way” and then he launched into what we call the love chapter. God says it is so simple. Love me with all your being; love your neighbor as yourself. It is a better way and it is so simple, easy to understand. That was the third.
4. The simplicity of the concept of pleasing our Father.
Many times we find understanding in our children. You look at how little kids behave and interact, we find spiritual understanding from them, just like the example of our two little grandkids. What happens when parents show love to their children, when parents cuddle them or tell them they love them? How do the kids respond? Do the kids spit in the parent’s face? Of course not. What the kids do is love them back. They give them a big hug and kiss and say, “I love you Mommy; I love you Daddy.” I’m looking out at the audience at Kathleen and she has her two granddaughters on her lap and they’re loving every minute of it. That’s the response, when the parents show love to the children, the children show love back. They show love in return. We love them first, they know that and guess what? They want to please us. They want to make us happy. They’re not perfect. They have their moments, but they want to please us because we love them so much. Rather than obeying just to stay out of trouble, they obey because they love us and they obey because they want us to be happy with them. They want us to love them and kiss them and pat them on the back and tell them how much we love them and what good children they are.
Remember, God first loved us. Again, go back to I John 4:19. There’s so much in three epistles of John, so much truth about life, about the nature of God. Here’s a very important principal.
I John 4: 19. We love Him, because He first loved us. (KJV)
No ambiguity; you don’t need a PhD to understand this sentence. God first loved us. He called us. He gave us His Spirit. Christ sacrificed Himself for us and as a result, we love God and should love God with all our heart, but we do so because He first loved us.
So, our heavenly Father wants the same from us relative to Him as we want from our children relative to us as parents. Look at Colossians 1:10. Our children want to please us because they love us. God wants the same from us as His little kids.
Colossians 1: 10. That you might walk worthy of the Lord unto (What?) all pleasing, (Meaning everything we do is pleasing to God and Christ) being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God.
That’s what God wants us to do. So, it’s a simple concept that God the Father wants His children to please Him. It’s His desire that we please Him. Why? because it’s for our benefit. You see, God doesn’t need us. God doesn’t need us to please Him, as though He is hungry or lacks something. No, God wants us to please Him because it’s good for us. We love Him, we behave in a way that pleases Him; He is happy with us, we are in harmony with Him and it is better for the children to be in harmony with their parents. You see, when we keep the commandments, we show our love for God and Christ by pleasing them. Again, turn to I John, Chapter 5. We will read verse 2 and the beginning of verse 3. These concepts are so simple and yet people get way off base, way off on the twigs and the branches and they forget these simple, basic truths that are so easy to understand.
I John 5: 2. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep His commandments.
We have to love God first, then we try to please God by keeping His commandments and, guess what? The last six of the commandments tell us how to love our neighbor as ourselves.
Verse 3. For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments.
Now, “this is the love of God” can be understood in a couple of ways. It’s what God loves; God loves us to keep His commandments because it’s good for us, but the love of God in us allows us to keep the commandments. If we don’t have the love of God in us, we can’t keep the commandments. We’ve seen people try and they fail and they leave the Church, because they didn’t have the love of God or didn’t have enough of God’s Holy Spirit. So, every day, we need to pray, “Father, I want to please you above all else. I want to make you happy above all else. Please show me how. Please help me to be pleasing in your sight, in your eyes.” So this concept of pleasing our Father again is so simple and so easy to understand. It’s part of the simplicity that is in Christ.
5. The simplicity of Faith.
We read about faith earlier. Let’s turn to Hebrews 11, the faith chapter. We’re going to read two verses. We will start in verse 6, because it tells us that we can’t please God (tying in to the previous point) without having faith. It’s impossible.
Hebrews 11: 6. But without faith [it is] impossible to please [him]:
The fourth point is that we should please God; it’s a simple concept. This tells us that unless we have faith, we cannot be pleasing to God.
Verse 6b. for he that comes to God must believe that He is, (meaning that He exists) and [that] He rewards those that diligently seek Him.
Yes. Then verse 1 tells us what faith is. I’m going to read it out of the New Living Translation. I think it’s a great translation.
Hebrews 11: 1. Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see. (NLT)
Let me give you an astonishing fact. How many times is the word “faith” found in the Old Testament? Just think a minute. How many times? A dozen? Two dozen? Fifty? A hundred? Faith is mentioned twice in the Old Testament. Only twice. Guess how many times it’s found in the New Testament? 232 times. Now you talk about a difference; something happened between the Old and New Testament. What happened is the first fruits being called and God’s Holy Spirit and Christ’s sacrifice. Faith is spiritual in nature. It is not physical. You could talk about faith all you want to people who do not have God’s Holy Spirit and it doesn’t mean anything. But in the New Testament, where God’s Spirit was available, you talk about faith 232 times because faith is spiritual; it is not physical. We need to understand that.
In the early days in the Worldwide Church of God when most of us were called, the practice of faith or having faith was centered around healing. Would you cave in and go to a doctor? If you saw one, you lacked faith. That was the litmus test of faith back then, whether you went to a doctor or not. I think over the last decades, we have learned that faith is so much more than whether or not you go to a doctor. Faith should be practiced in every aspect of our lives, every day of our lives.
Look at how our young children trust us. I remember back when our son, Brit, was about four and it was in the fall in New England and we went picking apples at a farm. There was a loading dock on the farm and the dock was about head high to me. Brit ran up the stairs before I could get to him, ran to the end of the dock, looked at me with a gleam in his eye and he launched himself in the air like Superman and I was down below. He had the biggest grin on his face because he knew and had absolute faith that his Dad was going to catch him. Now I didn’t have quite that amount of faith! Here’s this kid rocketing my way and I was so startled. Yes, I caught him and he thought that was so cool. I told him never to do that again. But, we learn from our kids. That is simple faith. That says everything about faith. He just jumped and his Dad was going to be there to take care of him. That kind of faith should be applied in every aspect of our lives. Faith, after all, is a fruit of God’s Spirit. Galatians 5: 22, (we won’t turn there); we know faith is a fruit of God’s Spirit.
Let’s go to Galatians 2: 20. The simplicity of faith; we cannot please God without it. Paul is explaining another concept to the people, the Brethren.
Galatians 2: 20. I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live;
Christ died on the cross, he said, “But I’m still alive.”
Verse 20b. yet not I, but Christ lives in me:
Through God’s Spirit; through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, through repentance and baptism and the laying on of hands.
Verse 20c. and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me. (KJV)
What he is saying is, “I live every day, not by my faith that I conjure up, but I live by the faith of Christ,” meaning the faith that Christ had when He walked this earth, and that is a gift of God. It is a fruit of God’s Holy Spirit; faith in God’s existence, faith that Christ is His Son, faith in our calling, faith in the truth and validity of God’s word … that kind of faith.
We won’t turn there, but in Galatians 3:11, the principal that we’re told is that the just (those who are in a right standing with God) shall live by faith. Every day in every way, we should live by faith. Probably the most pregnant example of that of faith is the example of Abraham. The example that I get from Abraham, when he offered his son, was that God never does anything for our harm. He never does anything to hurt us. He does everything for our good. Everything that God allows to come our way or causes to come our way is for our good. In talking with the Duprees about that, the trials they are going through, everything God allows is for our good. Abraham had that faith. He walked three days and three nights to the mountain, tied up his son, had the firewood, had the knife; yet somehow Abraham understood that this is ultimately for my good, for Israel’s good, for the promises God has given me and for my son’s good. He learned what we read in II Corinthians 5: 7, “We walk by faith and not by sight.” One aspect of that faith is that God will do what is best for us. No matter what happens, God will do what is best for each one of us, so we can be His children in His kingdom.
So, before this is all over and we’re getting closer and closer to the end, we’re going to need faith and we’re going to be given the opportunity to walk by faith and not by sight. That’s something that has come my way over the last several years. You learn to walk by faith and don’t take the physical appearance too much into consideration. You must walk by faith and do what God says and you know, behind it all, God is moving the chess pieces on the chess board and it’s all going to come out for the benefit of all concerned. Faith that God will get us through everything that comes our way, and faith that God wants us in His kingdom. Let’s go to Philippians 1: 6. This is the last point about the simplicity of faith.
Philippians 1: 6. Being confident (that means having faith) of this very thing, (What should we have faith in?) that he which has begun a good work in you will perform [it] until the day of Jesus Christ.
We’re going to need that faith that God will do what is best for us. He will continue to work with us and be with us until Christ returns, no matter how bad it might look. But we walk by faith and not by sight. Faith is a very simple and very easy to understand concept. Have absolute assurance that what we’ve been promised is going to happen.
So far, we’ve seen five examples of simple, easy to understand concepts that make up, in part, the simplicity that is in Jesus Christ. Now before we close, let’s look at a couple of more concepts about the simplicity that is in Jesus Christ.
The first concept we need to understand: If God’s way is simple, it follows then that we need to keep our lives simple. But the fact is, you see, we have an adversary that wants to keep our lives so busy and so complicated that our religious life gets crowded out. There is not time to think about God. There is not time to read about God. There is not time to talk about God.
Let’s go to II Corinthians 1:12. Paul is talking about something he is rejoicing in. This letter was written, in part, to make sure that this man who had sinned before be accepted back.
II Corinthians 1: 12. For our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in simplicity (Same Greek word, means not complicated) and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God, we have had our conduct in the world, and more abundantly to you-ward.
So he’s saying that, in simplicity, we have to conduct ourselves in the world. In simplicity, meaning a lack of complication, we have to conduct ourselves in this world, not with fleshly wisdom, but with God’s grace. So what this verse tells us is that our way in the world should be simple; we should keep it simple. We should not allow our lives to get overly complicated. Yet God’s people today face a lot of different complications. I know some brethren are working two jobs to make ends meet. That’s a complication. Many brethren are working hard to get their children through school. Many brethren are taking care of elderly parents; that’s a complication. Many grandparents are raising their grandchildren in the Church; that is a complication. Then on top of that, as if that wasn’t enough, we have the internet, t.v., computers, IPads and all this kind of stuff. These all compete with putting God first.
How do we put God first? How do we do that? We must focus on the essentials, and we’ve already talked about the essentials, the two big commandments. Everything I should do and everything I think, everything I say should be related to those two big commandments. I don’t mean to be trite, but we have to pray every day. Prayer is our chance to talk to God. If we let the world and the complications of the world crowd out our talking to God, shame on us.
We have to study the Bible every day, because that’s God’s way of talking to us. If we don’t have time for God to talk to us, what does that say to God? “I don’t want to please you; I want to do this; I want to do that; I want to do something else.”
If we don’t have time to meditate every day, that means to think about God, to think about God’s love, to think about God’s commandments, to think about examples in the Bible, to think about our life. If we don’t have time for that and how God’s word relates to us and how God and Christ relate to us, we tell God, “Hey, I don’t have time to think about you. I don’t have time to meditate on your way.” What does that say to God?
So, we have to put prayers, Bible study, and meditation right up there. We have to then put our family, our health, and then the Church. If we don’t take care of our family, how can we help in the Church? If we are sick, how can we help in the Church? Prayer, study, meditation, family, health and the Church, and we need to get rid of anything that distracts us from being God centered. If we have to shut the t.v. off, rip the cable out or pull the dish down, so be it. If we have to get rid of the internet and the computer in order to focus on God, if that’s what it takes, that’s what we need to do. We need to get rid of anything that distracts us from being God centered.
Herbert Armstrong said more than three decades ago, “You must simplify your life.” That is more true today than it was thirty years ago.
So, the first of the last two concepts is that…
If God’s way is simple, our way should be simple too.
The second one, the last one, is…
Satan wants to distract us from that simplicity.
There is an effort by Satan, and the world that he has deceived, to distract us from simplifying our lives. One way Satan does it today, and I see it all the time, almost daily, is he provokes us to major in the minors. He provokes us to focus on things that are totally irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. We pay undue attention to the twigs on the tree; ignore the trunk, ignore the big branches, but oh, we are laser-like focused on a leaf out here. It happens all the time. Remember, that there are many more twigs than trunks. There is only one trunk, lots of twigs, and we can get so messed up with the twigs that the trunk isn’t even considered. We see people today, particularly, God’s people spending all this time on presidential politics. What did Obama say yesterday? What did Romney say today? What did this congressman say there? What did the FDA do yesterday? They spend hours on this, and I have to ask myself, well, okay, if they’re spending hours on this, where is the study? Where is the prayer? Where is the meditation? Where’s the fasting? Where is the calling of the widow? The latest conspiracy theories; there have been ministers wrapped up and are today, wrapped up in conspiracy theories; the black helicopters and this is going on, the one-world government, and all of that. How does that change what is in the Bible? It doesn’t. How does that change how we conduct ourselves on a daily basis, if I knew if this guy is part of a conspiracy? It doesn’t change a thing. Why spend time doing that?
Then there is really getting into the twigs and the leaves about doctrine. Where is the place of safety? When do we leave for the place of safety? Who are the seven thunders? I don’t have a clue who the seven thunders are. Some day we will find out. When God wants us to know, we’ll know. Even if I knew who the seven thunders are, how would it change my conduct today? How would it change what I do tomorrow? It wouldn’t. The fact is, you see, people major in the minors. I have all I can handle obeying the basics that I understand, because it is hard, it is difficult … turning the other cheek, walking the extra mile, keeping the mouth shut. Those I understand, and I have a hard enough time there. I don’t need to get out here in la-la land, thinking about all this other stuff. I don’t have the time for it. It’s a distraction.
You see, Satan provokes us to obey and follow men, because if he can get our mind off God and Jesus Christ and onto a man, then he’s got us. Matthew 15: 9. Christ got all over the Sadducees and the Pharisees and the religious leaders because they started inserting their beliefs, their teachings, their traditions between God and man. Christ just railed on them.
Matthew 15: 9. But in vain they do worship me, teaching [for] doctrines the commandments of men. (KJV)
It’s happening today in so many ways. I just found out about one: Once you put on your Sabbath clothes, you must stay in your Sabbath clothes until sundown. Where is that in the Bible? What good does that do? You’re home and you want to relax and so you have to wear your coat and tie, and the women have their nylons on and they’re suffering and all. What does that do for resting on the Sabbath? This is teaching for doctrine, the commandments of men. Send in your retirement fund to this building project that we have. Give away the ability to support yourself in your old age, but, “Oh, we’re going to build this building.” This is teaching for doctrine, the commandments of men. Don’t call your former friends and, particularly don’t call your family because they’re not one of us. Again, this is teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.
You see, Satan wants to take us away and focus on this stuff rather than the weightier matters of the law. Matthew 23: 23, we know Christ is just lighting into the scribes and Pharisees. He did not talk this way to anybody, except the religious leaders.
Matthew 23: 23. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you pay tithe of mint and anise and cumin, and have omitted the weightier {matters} of the law,
And what are those? The New King James says…
Verse 23b. Justice, mercy and faith. (NKJV)
You have neglected those, but, Oh you can count out those leaves of mint.
Verse 23c. these you ought to have done, and not to leave the other undone.
Yes, we have to be careful about our tithes, very careful not to slack God in any way, but you can’t be so focused on that that you don’t understand and don’t exercise faith or practice mercy or justice. That’s why we are told to examine ourselves. II Corinthians 13:5, examine yourselves whether you be in the faith, whether you be there. It says, prove yourselves. That means to put ourselves to the test, doesn’t it? He says that Jesus Christ had better be in you or you are reprobate. That means if we don’t have the mind of Christ, the deeds of Christ, the words of Christ, it says we are reprobates. Reprobates are heathen. Reprobates are those who don’t want anything to do with God. So, we have to ask ourselves here in this second point of understanding that Satan wants to distract us, do I really get what Christ and God are saying? The concepts are so simple. Do I understand it? Do I get it, and do I uncomplicate my life to focus on the important matters? Do I resist Satan’s push and the world’s push to get me distracted from the truth?
God wants us focused on the fundamental and the important, all of which are simple to understand. If something is too complicated to understand, it’s probably not true, as Einstein said, and as we know from the Bible.
So, let’s wrap it up. I don’t know if you heard the man’s name, Oscar Wilde; he was an author and a playwright and a wit, a humorist. He lived from the mid 1800’s and died in 1900. He said the following about simplicity: “I adore simple pleasures. They are the last refuge of the complex.” Simple pleasures are the last refuge of the complex. I think as we get older, I know Dorothy and I do, we begin to appreciate the simple things in life, that first cup of coffee in the morning. It is so good. We grind the beans and then that first sip is just millennial. It’s heavenly. What a blessing. It doesn’t cost that much. It doesn’t cost millions of dollars. A sunset, you sit there in wonder and amazement because that will never be repeated again; sunrise/sunset, never to be repeated again. It’s a gift. You just sit there and think, what a great God!
Then Carol Rovey brought lemon pie today and after services and after the meal, my mouth is already watering. You take that first bite and put in your mouth, close your eyes and that lemon just kind of explodes in your mouth, and Oh, is this good! Life is good when that happens.
Watching a peaceful snowfall, just watching the snow come down. Snuggling in bed; on a winter night, I go to bed a couple hours after Dorothy, but it’s so nice to get in between the sheets and it’s so warm and you just snuggle up and go, Ahh. It’s wonderful.
Above all in just appreciating simplicities in God’s plan and God’s way of life. It is so simple. God called the weak of the world and in calling the weak of the world, how could He expect the weak of the world to understand something extremely complex? The fact is, He didn’t. It’s so simple. We need to realize the simplicity in God’s word and God’s plan, and we need to appreciate that simplicity.
One final scripture: I John 1: 5-7, in closing. Notice the simplicity of this concept. Children understand the difference between light and dark; very young kids understand the difference between light and dark. Notice this analogy…
I John 1: 5. This then is the message which we have heard of Him, and declare unto you, (we’re just repeating what we heard from God) that God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all.
Easy to understand.
Verse 6. If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth:
Verse 7. But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanses us from all sin.
So simple. Are we going to walk in the light, or are we going to walk in darkness? If we walk in the light, we have God has our partner, Jesus Christ as our partner. We are walking together in the light. If we go into darkness, we are by ourselves, and guess who our partner is over there? We don’t even want to think about that. The concept is so simple.
So, let’s be very thankful that we, the weak of the world, the base things of the world can understand these simple truths of God, and let no one deceive you about the simplicity that is in Christ.
Transcribed by RV 09/05/12