Oneness With God in His Purpose
John 3:6; Galatians 4:4-6; Romans 9:6-8
We are now to consider oneness with God in His purpose, but before we come to that I want to say a general word.
I think it must be very clear to everyone that what we Christians have been brought into is a very great thing. I do not know what is your conception of the Christian life. It may be just a matter of having your sins forgiven and being given the promise of heaven, or it may be something more than that, but we ought to be realizing that this into which we have been called is something immense, something which the longest life here on this earth can never exhaust. Abraham lived will over a hundred years, but he never came into the fullness of all that unto which God had called him. He is included with the large number about whom the writer of the Letter to the Hebrews said: "These all died in faith, not having received the promises" (Hebrews 11:13). Many of those referred to in that chapter had a long life and walked with God, but at the end of their long lives they had not exhausted all that unto which God had called them.
You may wonder why I am saying this, but there are many young Christians in this conference, and I feel that one of the greatest needs among young Christians today is to know how very great is the thing into which they have been called in Christ. Those of us who travel from Far East to Far West in this world are really shocked by the little knowledge that Christians have of the full meaning of Christianity. It is quite the exception to find anyone who knows more than the elementary things of Christianity. If I said nothing more than this, it would be important.
This is not just extra Bible teaching. This is the living provision which God has made in His Son, Jesus Christ, for every one of us. I could desire nothing more than that you should go away from this conference saying: 'Well, what I have come into is something bigger than anything I ever imagined it to be!'
So we proceed at this time just to look at a little more of this great meaning of our calling.
If you were to try to sum up the whole meaning of the life of Abraham, you would have to do so in one thing. Why did God call him out of Ur of the Chaldees and deal with him in the way He did through his long life? The answer is found in one thing: The purpose of God was to secure a heavenly people on the basis of sonship. Abraham was the first of a new race of heavenly people. God said to him: "In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed" (Genesis 22:18), and that was to be realized through his son Isaac - a people of a heavenly nature in terms of sonship. Here again we touch perhaps the greatest thing that has ever been revealed to man: God's intention and purpose to have at last a race of people who are His sons. There is nothing greater in all God's revelation than this - that He would make us into His sons.
We have said that in Abraham's case this was to be realized through Isaac, but those of you who know your Bibles know quiet well that Isaac was a natural impossibility. If Isaac was to be at all, an absolute miracle had to be worked by God from heaven, and when Isaac did come, Abraham was more than ninety-nine years old. Sarah was just ten years younger, and that speaks for itself. The Apostle Paul put it in this way: "He (Abraham) considered his own body as good as dead" (Romans 4:19). Isaac was impossible - but Isaac was born. It was a miracle of God - and all the sons of God begin there. It is absolutely impossible to be a son of God unless He works a miracle.
~T. Austin-Sparks~
(continued with # 16)
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