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The Majesty Of Christ
Episode #283
With Martha Kilpatrick and hosted by John Enslow
Special guest: Julie
(J) You know it reminds me of the “Above All, Love” series. Jen just has been doing that for the new back cover of it. And that’s specifically what you talk about. You talk about, just real practical things where Christ indwelt you in love and didn’t really do it in words or in ‘preachiness’ or in anything like that, teaching. It just was, you were indwelt, embodied Christ’s life and love, and Him, and how that affected. It’s an amazing series you did in Fredericksburg, Virginia. And I just really appreciate it because I’ve seen it, and I see it being lived out in all these situations that we talked about; these just real common situations that are not common at all because Christ was involved. And there you can go back into what I’ve said a couple months ago, where I said, anything I do that Christ does, anything that Christ does in my life is eternal.
(M) Hmhmm, yeah.
(J) Whether that’s… and I used cleaning the toilets to erecting a building, to whatever, it’s all eternal if Christ does it in me. And that somehow not only displays, but brings forth the government of God, the Kingdom of God. And you said it very eloquently, and I say real just practically, but…
(Julie) I don’t know why, but I suddenly remember this. There was a quote that Napoleon Bonaparte said one time. And I thought it was profound. He must have been in a moment of ‘light’. But he said, ah, “Alexander the Great and I built our kingdoms on power, but Jesus Christ built His Kingdom on love, and that is why it will outlast every other kingdom.”
(J) Wow.
(Julie) And I think about in these situations, there’s one word that I’ve always associated with Christ in Martha, but also with Christ as I’ve seen Him in John, and that is regality. And when you see Him in these situations, even like with that man. As I saw it this morning through the eyes of the Spirit, the regality of Him, it just makes you fall in love with Him.
(J) Hmhmm.
(Julie) Because you just see what unbelievable respect He shows to the lowest person, doesn’t matter to Him, and that He had so much love and so much respect for that man, that He would want to come and minister to him even if that man never knew who He was. And it’s like it makes the Jesus Christ of scripture then to come alive because like the man that He healed and He slipped away in the crowd, and the man didn’t even know Who He was. I think it was the man born blind and they were saying… And He came back and had to find him later. He didn’t know Who Jesus was. And He was content to do that. He’s… It shows you… It’s like to me, it increases His government, because I know it sure increases His government in my heart, because when I see Who He is in His regality and His character and just the magnificence, He’s so unlike any other leader that has ever been. He has such love, and He has such magnificence, and you fall so in love with Him and you think, ‘I will follow You anywhere.’
(J) Hmhmm.
(Julie) And, and that is what… And I guess it blessed me because it caused me to realize I more than… He told me one time, He said to me one time, “You know Martha less than you think you do, and you know Me more than you know you do.” I think I said it backward, but anyhow, His point was I was encountering Him in her more than I understood. And it caused me to realize how much, like with John, how much more often… I have watched the Shepherd a whole lot more than I realized I watched the Shepherd, until this instant. I recognized Who He was yesterday with that man because I’ve see Him before. And it’s just, I mean so there’s an aspect to… it’s like increasing His government. Sometimes that doesn’t sound so appealing, but when you realize what an incredible and noble King, and loving King, and awesome King, and King that you would want to follow, and King that would be such a hope to us right now as we’re looking at a world that’s so lacking in noble or respectable leaders.
(M) Hmhmm.
(Julie) Then it’s just exciting; and He’s so ‘other’, He’s so ‘other’ than any other King. I mean what King do you know would slip in quietly into a Home Depot and walk with one of His subjects who needed Him? That’s just awesome. It’s just so awesome. And it just makes you fall in love with Him.
(J) Hmhmm.
(M) This story just will not, it will not leave me. It’s not at all spiritual. But I was a young, very young wife, and my husband was the first, the youngest Georgia state senator in history at the time. And so we went to many regal dinners at the Governors Mansion, and met many outstanding people. And I remember sitting at a table, and I’ll never forget this because to me it spoke of genuine greatness. It wasn’t Christ necessarily, so I don’t know that the stories worth anything. But there was a very prominent man and his wife at our table, very wealthy man, and a statesman of Georgia. And I was very, felt very young in this crowd, and very awkward, and they were… they saw that in me. And instead of going to the more important people, they gave me great kindness and deference. And I got something in my eye. And they could tell I was struggling, and so they came to my rescue and tried to make me feel as comfortable as anyone else was. That’s kind of Who He is. He’s such a King, but He is so aware of the lowest element of our being and I don’t know. That’s just Who He was for you, and for… To be a servant of chickens is godly? (Martha laughs.) To be silent to a hurting man is godly? To nurse a dog even if it makes you sick, who’s been mauled by a bear, that’s, that’s godly. That’s how He produces this holiness we’ve been talking about. He lets you be able to serve on the lowest element. That’s where He is. He didn’t come to the healthy. He came to the sick. Of course there is no healthy, but those who…We think sometimes we’re healthy. But He comes in all His Kingliness and majesty and dignity, wherever there is the lowest element of it.
(J) Well, we’re all low.
(M) Yeah.
(J) Every one of us is low, and He doesn’t put stock in our caste system of hierarchy, of position and rank and money and net worth and value, He’s the owner of it all. He created it all, so our little card-built kingdoms, you know, He’s like…So what He really values is the treasure within, the soul that’s there. Because we all have one of those. And He says this is what I care about, not whether you’re president ‘ blah-blah-blah, or whether you’re janitor ‘so and so’. I care about your soul, and every single one of us has that. And, and He puts respect and honor as one who carries a soul and who is able to direct that soul towards Him. We’re all equal in that. There is no ‘better than’.
(M) And see, as Sparks says, the role of the Church is to manifest Him; not talk about Him, not learn about Him, not quote His words, and, and have no care for Him as a Being, as a God. But we as Church are to manifest Him in the most ordinary daily lives, and that’s what you three have given testimony to; coming under Him, experiencing Him, learning of Him.
(J) That’s what I did, I learned of Him. In that situation I learned Who He was, and saw what He values, and then I went, oh! Well, then I can come underneath that. I bow to that. That’s what You value, You value responsibility, You don’t value dominance or ah…
(M) Or neglect. When you came into your authority, you had not only authority, wisdom, insight, knowledge of what to do, imagination, and ideas, you had the dignity of the King. Ironically it is in the humility of service that you bear the dignity of the King. But see we only, we only value the grandiose, the famous, the spectacular. I was reading to you all from Austin Sparks this statement from his writing about the greatness of the Church. “Christ, a word about Christ is true of the true Church. That He passed through this world unrecognized, unknown, making a positive affirmation that “No one knoweth the Son, save the Father”, Matthew 11:27. There’s a mystery here.” I think what we are in this group is more and more in mystery. It’s all such a huge mystery, to think you can contain it, contribute to it, even effect it. Don mentioned that on one of our podcasts that there’s nothing we can do but be available. “The word mystery, used so much by the apostle in the book of Matthew, is a most difficult word to explain. We have to resort to a paradox whenever we try to explain it. For mystery, mysterium, simply means manifestation in a hidden way.”
(J) Hmhmm.
(M) “That is a contradiction, a paradox. But that is the essence of the word, God is manifested, but in a hidden way.”
(J) Hmm.
(M) “No one knoweth the Son, saveth the Father and yet he that has seen Me has seen the Father.’ He is manifested as God in Christ, but in such a hidden way that it demands an act of God in specific revelation to reveal Jesus Christ.” So see it’s… He’s revealed, He’s always hidden. He doesn’t shout in the streets, He doesn’t break the bruised reed, He doesn’t snuff out the flickering wick, so. Beautiful stories, three beautiful stories; that’s where He is. I told Julie once, everything I know about Him I’ve learned from ordinary life, such episodes as you’re living. Because that’s where He is; He came as a carpenter. I will never get over that, that He worked thirty years as a simple carpenter in a common village, an unimportant village, before He ever opened His mouth as the Son of God. So unless we can, unless we can take Him in the… This is Enoch, John, Enoch walked with God. This is how. And Enoch was raptured. This is how he did it. He walked with God. God was in every event and was seen in every event, and he understood, and he had a great prophecy in Jude of the judgment of God. So it’s recorded in Jude. That’s Enoch.
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