Join Rick Hughes on The Flatline as he unpacks the elements that constitute a prosperous spiritual life. By dissecting significant biblical passages, Rick explains how God’s long-suffering, as described through the term ‘makrothumia’, illustrates divine patience and love for humanity. Dive into the realms of spiritual wisdom and understanding, tools essential for Christians to properly respond to God’s call. The episode further encourages believers to engage in reflective practice by emphasizing the importance of bearing fruit and spreading the gospel. Rick Hughes fulfills his seasoned role as a guide, steering listeners towards a fulfilling life as faithful citizens of
Welcome to the Flatline with your host, Rick Hughes. For the next 30 minutes, you’ll be inspired, motivated, educated, but never manipulated. Now, your host, Rick Hughes.
SPEAKER 01 :
Good morning and welcome to the Flatline. I’m your host, Rick Hughes, and for the next few minutes, please stay with me. It won’t be long, just about 30 minutes of motivation, some inspiration, and a whole lot of education. And as we always say, no manipulation. Because we’re not trying to sell you something. We’re not trying to con you. We’re not going to ask you to join up, fess it up, give it up, nothing like that. But we will ask you to listen. Listen as I try to verify and identify God’s plan for your life. by taking a deep dive into the scriptures. If we can do this, then you have the freedom to orient and adjust to the plan. It’s always up to you. So thank you for listening. I have a couple of things to say before we get started. First of all, we have a new book about to come out called The Spiritual Life of the Christian. The Christian Spiritual Life. It’s a wonderful new book we’ve worked on for quite a while now. I think you’ll enjoy it. You’ll be able to order it as soon as you want to. We should have it printed by the end of the summer. and hope you’ll take advantage of it and get it, The Christian Spiritual Life. It deals with, you know, if I ask you, how’s your physical life going, you might say, well, I got a toothache, or I broke my toe, or my arm hurts. But if I say, how’s your spiritual life going, a lot of people don’t know how to respond to that. What do you mean, my spiritual life? I’m talking about the life you live as a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, the part nobody else can see, the spiritual life, not the physical life. So the new book deals with your spiritual life and what it consists of and how it functions and operates. And one other thing I want to say, I haven’t said it in a long time, but there is another website that confuses people when you try to contact us. There’s a gentleman in Georgia who has a website called richardhughesministries.org. That is not me. I am not richardhughesministries.org. I’m very close to that. I’m rickhughesministries.org. I don’t know how this happened or where it came from, but that’s been getting people confused lately. I had somebody try to say, make an online donation to your ministry. Is this you? We don’t have online donations. We don’t accept online donations. I’m not to say we don’t accept contributions if you want to make them, but we don’t request them. We don’t ask for them, and we don’t have an online donation site. So our website is simply rickhughesministries.org, not Richard Hughes Ministries. That’s another individual. Okay? No said. Now you might remember last week that we were talking about knowing God’s will for your life. We went into that quite a bit, talked about it quite a bit, so please allow me to expand on that subject this morning. And by the way, we have started now on our 21st year of broadcasting The Flatline on radio shows across America. Currently we’re broadcasting on 126 radio stations across this great nation and even in Alaska and the Philippine Islands. Okay, now let’s go. Does God have a specific plan for your life? Does he? Yes. I’m going to read you a passage of scripture that you should be familiar with. A lot of people know it. And then I’ll try to explain it to you. This is Jeremiah 29, 11. Jeremiah 29 11 For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. This statement by God through the prophet Jeremiah was made to those who had been carried into exile from Jerusalem. The northern kingdom, called Israel, had already been conquered by the Assyrian Empire in 722 BC. And the 10 tribes that made up that northern kingdom had been lost into history and disappeared. But the other two tribes known as Judah, the southern tribes, were conquered in 580 BC by the Babylonian kingdom under the rule of who’s known as Nebuchadnezzar. At that time, around 5,000 inhabitants of Judah, the southern kingdom, were carried into captivity. And it was Jeremiah and Ezekiel who exposed the sin Judah had committed that caused this to happen. And this is way too much history to teach here and for us to understand in our short time. So let’s focus on that one passage, Jeremiah 29, 11. God’s word to those in exile from Judah was to prepare for a long stay in Babylon. It wasn’t going to be one year. It wasn’t going to be two years. It was going to be 70-year exile designated to discipline them. And once they recovered from their sin and turned back to God, he would eventually return them to their promised land. This verse that I just read to you, Jeremiah 29, 11, however, is not about God guaranteeing personal prosperity. However, there is a fundamental truth found in this verse, and that truth is this. Listen carefully. God is not mad at you. He’s not mad at you. In fact, God loves you, and he only desires the best for you. And the scriptures plainly declare God’s will for your life starting with 2 Peter 3, verse nine. I’ll read it to you. It says, the Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some people count slackness, but is longsuffering, that key word, longsuffering towards us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. So there is a plan for your life. He doesn’t want you to perish in the lake of fire. He wants you to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and receive him as your savior. And to prove that, he is long-suffering. This Greek word, long-suffering, is pronounced makrothumia, the way it’s pronounced in the Greek, makrothumia. And it’s a word for divine patience. If you have never trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ and received him as your Savior, then every day you are alive is God demonstrating his patience for you, his love for you, by giving you time to change your mind about the person of Christ and to trust only him for your forgiveness and eternal salvation. Remember, excuse me, Time does not shout, it just runs out much sooner than you think. So never doubt God’s love for you. He’s patient with you, he’s long-suffering towards you, he’s waiting on you so you won’t perish in the lake of fire. He demonstrated this love by sending his son to pay the penalty for our sin. In 2 Corinthians 5, 21, the Bible clearly says the one who knew no sin was in fact made sin for us so that we could be made the righteousness of God through him. That’s the wonderful way that God demonstrated his divine patience towards you and his love for you and allowing his son, our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, to pay the penalty for our sin. Yep, God has a plan, a plan to give us a future. As it states in Jeremiah 29 11, I know the plans I have for you. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you and to give you hope and a future. His plan for you offers prosperity, safety, and security for your life i mean who else besides god would give you whatever you need to sustain your life free matthew 6 31 through 33 listen to this lord jesus christ said don’t worry about what you’re going to eat don’t worry about what you’re going to drink or what you’re going to wear for all these things the gentiles seek after that’s the lost people the unbelievers For your heavenly Father knows that you need these things, but you seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all those things will be added to you. There’s another guarantee rooted in his love for you. He will make sure you have food, shelter, and clothing. The only thing God asks of you is that you become a member of his kingdom. I’m confident God intends for us to be productive citizens of heaven, aren’t you? Even though we’re still here on planet Earth, His desire is for us to be productive citizens of heaven. That’s his will for your life. Philippians 3.20, for our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Once you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, you have an identity identified as a citizen of heaven. and there is a plan for you. God intends for you to be productive citizen of heaven even though you’re still here. So the question I’m asking this morning is what does God require from you? If you’re going to be a productive citizen of heaven, what does he want you to do? in order to understand that let’s look at paul’s challenge to the colossians in colossians chapter 1 verses 9 through 10 we read these words it’s for this reason that we also since the day we heard about it do not cease to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will and all wisdom and spiritual understanding and that you may walk worthy of the lord fully pleasing him being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of god now i’m sure this can apply to us as well so let’s look at the specifics of this prayer that paul prayed for the people in colossi he said first of all he’s praying that they would what be filled with the knowledge of his will That translates into knowing God’s will for your life. Where does he want me to be, what does he want me to think, and what does he want me to say? And this is accomplished by acquiring two things, he said. I’ll read it to you again, listen carefully. We pray for you and ask that you be filled with the knowledge of his will, here comes the two things now, in all wisdom and spiritual understanding. By acquiring wisdom and spiritual understanding. If these conditions are fulfilled, then the believer, the Christian, he goes on to say that you will walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God. I could stop right here and teach many, many hours on each one of these intentions of Paul for the believers in Colossae, but let’s start with what? Filled with the knowledge of his will. The key to understanding what Paul is suggesting is the word knowledge. Normally, this Greek word would be pronounced gnosis, G-N-O-S-I-S. However, it is not the word used here. In this instance, he uses another word called epinosis, E-P-I-G-N-O-S-I-S. These are two different words. Epinosis, epi means full, not partial. Information heard and understood. The word epinosis, information heard and understood and applied, you have to apply it. In other words, a Christian can go to church, listen to the sermon, listen to the flatline, listen to some preacher on the radio, but unless the information is believed and applied, then it’s of no advantage to the listener. It’s just gnosis. It’s just knowledge. And I’ve run into a lot of people that can quote scripture. They know scripture. They can quote verses. They don’t apply what they know. To understand God’s will for your life and my life, we need something called wisdom. That’s what this verse says. Should I read it again? Fill with the knowledge of his will by acquiring wisdom and spiritual understanding. Wisdom is contained in the scriptures. That’s where it comes from. Why are the scriptures wisdom? Because they are the mind of Christ. Here, listen to 1 Corinthians 2.16. For who has known the mind of the Lord, so that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ. There it is, right there. The scriptures are the mind of Christ. What’s written in the Bible is the thinking of the Lord Jesus Christ. So Paul equates the wisdom of the scriptures to what he calls spiritual understanding. Spiritual understanding is a reference to being filled with the Holy Spirit. Spiritual is the Greek word pneumatikos, pneumatikos, and it’s a descriptive adjective referring to the insight that comes through the ministry of God the Holy Spirit. This is an amazing thing that Jesus promised about this. Listen to what he said concerning the insights and the wisdom that will come from the Holy Spirit. In John 14, 26, but the helper, that is the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance, excuse me, he will bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you. This is referring to spiritual understanding. He will teach you and bring to your remembrance everything I said to you. In Proverbs 2, 10 and 11, listen for the word wisdom here. When wisdom enters your heart, that’s when you respond to what you heard and you book it and you live it. and knowledge becomes pleasant to your soul, that’s the quest for understanding God’s will, then discretion will preserve you, you’ll be careful, and understanding will keep you. We call that the Fantastic Four. Wisdom, knowledge, discretion, and understanding. In this particular passage in Proverbs 2, it’s clear that understanding which comes from the Holy Spirit will keep you from self-destruction. Without gnosis becoming epinosis, through the filling of the Holy Spirit, you and I would have no chance to be a productive citizen of heaven as long as we’re on this earth. So this is what God’s will is for your life. Now let’s finish that verse in Colossians 1, verse 10. That you may walk, this is what he’s praying for, that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. This is God’s will for your life right here in print. That you would walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing him, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God. So let’s start with the word walk, that you would walk. What does that mean? The Greek word for walk is pronounced peripateo, peripateo. It’s a verb, and it refers to their lifestyle that they live, the lifestyle that they enjoy. In this case, in the Greek New Testament, this verb is in the imperative mood, which technically is a command from God through the Apostle Paul. The demand is to live a lifestyle worthy. The Greek word axios, A-X-I-O-S, worthy, means to live a life worthy of the calling that they received. What does that mean? It means showing qualities that merit recognition from God. We’ll find out about that at the judgment seat of Christ, whether we’re awarded for the way we lived or not. And that’s not about being awarded for not sinning. Will you be rewarded for living the spiritual life? Did you produce divine good or did you produce human good? Remember, you can do a right thing in a wrong way, and I’ve given you the illustration hundreds of times, for example, prayer. You think God’s impressed just because you pray? Remember the Bible says, if I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me. So if you have unconfessed sin in your life and you try to pray, what you’ve done is you’ve quenched and grieved the Holy Spirit. He cannot fulfill his ministry for you according to Romans, and so that prayer is unproductive. So you have to remember that. And that would mean that all those wonderful, sweet, eloquent prayers you prayed in the public, in front of the church, in front of the Sunday school class, they never got heard and they never got answered because you prayed it while you were out of fellowship. You were doing a right thing, but you did it in the wrong way. By that I mean you did it in the energy of the flesh, not under the filling of the Holy Spirit. The flesh can do good things. The flesh can be very moral, very nice, very godly type, acting type person. Praise the Lord, brother. Hallelujah, God. Oh, I love Jesus. And the whole time, the sin nature can be controlling your life because of unconfessed sin in your life. So that word walk and Greek word worthy means to live a life worthy of the calling that God gave them. We’re citizens of heaven. While we’re here, we need to be worthy of the calling that he gave us. We need to show the qualities that merit recognition. Paul gave the exact same challenge to the church at Ephesus in Ephesians 4, verse 1. He said, therefore, I, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to do what? To walk worthy of the calling with which you were called. It’s Paul’s desire that all believers, you, me, and everyone who reads this New Testament, live a lifestyle worthy of recognition and honor from God. And as I said, that will be determined at the judgment seat of Christ. And that’s found in 1 Corinthians 3, 11 through 15. If you haven’t read it before, write that verse down. 1 Corinthians 3, 11 through 15, it talks about the judgment seat of Christ. These are not unbelievers, these are believers, and they’re being evaluated based on production. Some of what they did is called wood, hay, and stubble, unproductive, burned up as rubble. The other is gold, silver, and precious stones, very productive and rewarded. Whenever you do something for God in the filling of the Holy Spirit, then that is gold, silver, and precious stone. If you do it in the energy of the flesh, it’s wood, hay, and stubble. So let’s say you decide to give some money to your church, and you give it out of fellowship. You have hatred in your heart for your neighbor. You’ve cheated on your income tax. You’ve lied to your spouse, but yet you gave some money to the church and you think that notched credit with God. It did not. It’s called wood, hay, and stubble. Anything you did while you were out of fellowship, anything you did for God claiming that it was going to glorify God is not worthy of any reward or recognition. It’s just going to be burned up at the judgment seat of Christ. Two characteristics of that particular lifestyle are found in Colossians 3.23. Listen carefully. Here’s the worthy lifestyle. I’ll give you two characteristics of it. One of them’s in Colossians. Well, both of them are in Colossians, really. Here’s the first one, Colossians 3.23. Whatever you do, do it heartily as to the Lord and not to men. So that’s your motivation. Why do you do what you do? Do it to the Lord and not to men. You’re not here to impress men, you’re here to impress God and to walk worthy of his calling as a noble citizen of heaven. The only way you can do these things is according to Colossians 4 verse 5, walk in wisdom towards those who are outside, the ones that are unbelievers, redeeming the time. Walking in wisdom towards the unbelievers is a very interesting thing because as a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, you’re being observed 24-7. And if you are a Christian and you’re doing things that are unchristian-like, and an unbeliever sees you, then he tries to justify his life by saying, well, I’m as good as they are. I know what they do. They claim to be a Christian. They go to church. They’re a big member down there, and I know what they do. I’m just as good as they are. And see, he justifies why he doesn’t have to believe in Christ, because he looked at you and saw that you are not living worthy of what God called you to do. So this verse says, walk in wisdom towards those that are outside, unbelievers. Be very careful around them. And then he says, redeeming the time. And again, I told you that time doesn’t shout. It just runs out sooner than you think. And so God expects you to be redeeming the time, not wasting the time. There’s nothing wrong with having a hobby. I used to love to bass fish when I was able to do it. Loved to get in my boat and fish at night and night tournaments, things like that. And I wasn’t wasting time, I enjoyed it. But wasting time is something, you get into something that’s not necessary, something that’s non-profitable for God. And you can waste a lot of time. You need to redeem the time, time is short. Redeeming the time, you could be using that time to study the scripture, you could use that time to pray, You could use that time to evangelize, whatever you want to do. But be very careful to redeem the time and don’t waste it. Don’t go bebopping uptown thinking, oh, I’m going to go to the grocery store and miss an opportunity that God puts right in front of you. Because there may be someone there that day looking for salvation and you could be the person that could give it to them. In our passage in Colossians 1.10, Paul then challenged them to be fruitful or to bear fruit, and that meant to be productive, to reproduce. The Bible clearly says a fruit tree that does not reproduce is not worthy of any recognition. In Matthew 3.10, and even now the ax is laid to the root of the trees. Therefore, every tree which does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. as well as Matthew 7, 16. You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thorn bushes or figs from thistles? No. So obviously, God wants you to bear fruit. Yeah, part of being found worthy is your willingness to spread the gospel And by doing so, to reproduce the Lord Jesus Christ in your life and hopefully to bring others to him, to lift him up. He promised, he said, if you’ll lift me up, I’ll draw people to myself. And that’s our job. You can do that just by having a public prayer. And when you’re out with your family, do you bow your head and say the blessing? Part of being found worthy is your willingness to spread the gospel. Finally, the challenge is then once again to increase in the knowledge of God. That was the last part of verse 10 of Colossians 1. So how can you serve God you don’t understand? Not only does God want you to know him, but he wants you to understand him. Jeremiah 9, 24 tells you that. So you could start by learning the essence of God, which is the study of his being and his attributes. For example, he is sovereign, he’s righteous, he’s justice, he’s love, he’s eternal life, he’s omniscience, he’s omnipotent, he’s omnipresent, he’s immutable, he’s veracity. Now I could teach, oh man, hours on each one of those characteristics of God. But this is something you need to understand because this is part of the faith rest drill. You can’t claim what you don’t know and don’t understand. So I encourage you to start by learning the essence of God. If you need to know what it is, write to me through the website and we’ll get it back to you, outline it for you so you’ll understand the essence of God. So finally, we have the word knowledge. That’s the last word there. Knowledge, again, it’s the same word, epinosis. Full or complete knowledge. And that means that which is believed and that which is acted upon. So, that means do you believe and do you obey? Consider what you’ve heard this morning. I pray you’ll put it to practice in your life. There’s more to living the Christian life than just hearing somebody preach about it. It’s applying what you’ve learned into your life. It’s a wonderful opportunity that God’s given me to be with you. I’m so grateful for the 20 plus years. I pray God will give me more time to give you what’s in my heart and that you’ll listen. You’ll find that well-qualified pastor and you’ll get under his authority and you’ll start to grow and reproduce the Lord Jesus Christ in your own personal life. If you’d like to get that book on the Christian spiritual life, get in touch with us, let us know, and we’ll be sure you get a copy of it. Okay? And there is another word, another book that we talked about last week, and I’ll give you a little insight on that too. Get in touch with me if you’d like to know what it means to have divine guidance. I can refer you to where you can get that book. Okay, until next week, this is Rick Hughes saying thank you for listening to The Flatline.
SPEAKER 02 :
Thank you for listening to The Floodline with your host, Rick Hughes. If you’d like to contact Rick, please write to him at P.O. Box 100, Cropwell, Alabama, 35054, or online at www.rickhughesministries.org.
