Various Passages
April 2, 2000
Introduction: One of the pioneers in the cellular phone business is a fellow by the name of Craig McCaw. He started his business, McCaw Cellular Communications, in 1976, just three years out of college. Eighteen years later, he sold his company to AT&T for $11.5 billion! Not too shabby for a fellow who is dyslexic and who lost his father while in college.
What do the people who know Craig McCaw say about him? One of his competitors says that Craig’s strength is taking bold risks. “His thinking was visionary,” recalls Jack Roberts. “He was willing to play close to the edge.” A cell phone industry analyst described Craig as “a big risk-taker, but an intelligent risk-taker.” Mr. McCaw hired people he trusted and gave them lots of room to get results. Hershel Shosteck says, “He gave a lot of autonomy to his subordinates, and they took the ball and ran with it.”
McCaw himself would say to the audience at the American Academy of Achievement in 1997, “The greatest burden you can put on someone is trust. If you pass autonomy far down in any group of people, you’ll get extraordinary results if you ask for a lot.”
In all of his ventures, McCaw has demanded that employees be fully committed. He has asked them to buy into his belief that “if I want the wall to fall down and I’m willing to pay the price and push on it long enough, it will fall down.”
Craig McCaw is driven by certain values. He would say, “Consider the long term; short term gratification is just that. Be humble: If you think you’re great, you’re probably not. Respect co-workers. There is absolutely no room in an organization for sarcasm and making fun of others. A team is a group of people that channel themselves toward a clear goal that transcends their personal wishes and egos.”
His biography, titled, Money From Thin Air, will be published next month by Random House.
Craig McCaw’s life story embodies certain values and beliefs that we would identify with. Of course, we have no goal to amass 11.5 billion dollars! But as a church family in pursuit of our mission and our vision as an outpost in the kingdom of God, we hold to particular values. Like Mr. McCaw, we would seek to complement our weaknesses with the strengths of others. Other similar values we would embody are trust, respect for one another, humility, an eye for the long-term, and teamwork toward a clear goal. These kinds of values enable us to accomplish our mission.
We want to finish up our series on vision this morning, and it’s important we understand the differences between vision and mission. We are waiting for a word from the Lord on our vision, but our mission has already been spelled out in the Scriptures. Though our vision may change from season to season, our mission will never change.
If “teamwork toward a clear goal” is a precious core value, we have to ask, “Do we all know what our goal is?” What are the Biblical mandates God has given to us that constitute our mission, a clear goal for us? If we are all on the same page in this regard, then we will be free to trust God for a vision that moves us toward that ‘clear goal’.
Have you ever noticed these two panels on the walls here in the sanctuary? The one on my right reminds us that our mission is to declare to the world there is a Savior. John 3:16--
“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
The one on my left reminds us that our mission is to build up the church. Ephesians 5:25-26 –“Christ also loved the church, and gave Himself for it; that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word.” If we were to add verse 27, the picture becomes even clearer: “That He might present it to Himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.”
In times past we have declared our mission to be one of “Reaching Out and Building Up”. All that we are about here is to achieve this goal—reaching out to a world that badly needs to know there is a Savior, and building up the Body of Christ so that it is mature and complete, holy and without blemish..
We find these mandates in other verses like Mathew 28 and Ephesians 4 and John 4.
Mathew 28 is a very familiar portion: "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." Jesus said, “Reach them and teach them”.
Ephesians 4:11-13: “And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.” The Lord said through Paul, “Reach out, bring them in, build them up, until we are mature together.”
John 4:23-24: "But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. ‘God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.’” Jesus told the woman at the well, “Reach them, for even God is the Seeker in a cosmic game of Hide and Seek; Build them up in the truth so their worship is acceptable to Him.”
We’ve probably all known churches that emphasized one of these mandates over the other. Some churches have become only evangelism oriented. All their efforts are geared toward proclaiming the Gospel. The Gospel is preached every Sunday. Invitations are given each Sunday to make a decision for Christ.
Other churches are focused on building up the believers in the church. All their efforts are geared toward Bible studies, small groups, etc., and little is done toward reaching out into their communities.
We here at the Upland Community Church want to be a church that is balanced, that is fulfilling BOTH of our Biblical mandates. Our goal is to be a church family that others find to be warm, friendly, and welcoming. And our goal is to move us all forward on the road to spiritual maturity. We want to be a church family that hasn’t forgotten what it’s like to be lost. And our goal is to become people of substance so that Proverbs 24:10 could never describe any of us: “If you fall apart in your day of crisis, there wasn’t much to you in the first place.” Our goal is to be a church family that has a clear testimony in the community. Our aim is to know how to hear God’s voice when He speaks because we’ve become experienced with walking with Him.
Our mission, given to us in the Scriptures, could not be clearer. Reach out to the lost, bring them in, build them up so the church is mature and complete.
Now the question for us that demands an answer is this, “How do we go about accomplishing this mission?” Well, that’s where vision comes into play. For there are literally thousands of ways of reaching out to the lost and building up the saved. Evangelism can take hundreds of approaches. For example, what Philip did with the Ethiopian eunuch was quite a bit different from what Paul did with the intellectuals on Mars Hill. Two different situations with two different contexts with two different kinds of people required two different approaches for sharing the Gospel. As another example, thinking about Philip’s Ethiopian contact, when the Italians occupied Ethiopia in 1935, all of the Protestant missionaries were expelled from the country. When the missionaries left, there were 60 believers in 3 congregations. For seven years there was no word out of Ethiopia as to what was happening with the church. When missionaries were able to return to Ethiopia in 1942, they found 18,000 church members in 155 congregations. What had happened? During the early days of mission work, one of the national believers was a helper to one of the missionaries; he was a ‘suitcase man’. He traveled with the minister wherever he went. So when the foreigners were kicked out, this believer decided to do what he had watched the missionary do. He got himself a ‘suitcase man’ and duplicated the efforts of his former mentor. He went from city to city declaring the Gospel! Others did the same, the lost were reached, and the church grew in great numbers!
Like the matter of evangelism, edification of the people of the church can take many different avenues. The way Paul addressed Philemon in calling him to a greater maturity was worlds apart from how Paul instructed the Corinthians on their road to spiritual development. The ways in which the Hebrews were warned was far different from the approach Paul took with the Philippians. But the goal was the same in both cases: the building up of the body of saints known as the church.
So what roads shall we take in fulfilling our mission? If we reflect back into the 30 years of our past as a church family, we can see we’ve traveled many different roads. In fulfilling our evangelism mandate, we’ve a long history with the people of this community through Helping Hand. A number of years ago we purchased the Explorer bus and many unbelievers have sat in its seats and slept on its beds in trips to ball fields and amusement parks. When the AWANA leadership changed the requirements to participate in this ministry to youth, we modified the AWANA program into our own unique BASSYCS ministry. Nothing we’ve done has reached so far into the families of this community! We sent 20 individuals over a two year period to Russia with the CoMission project, and the evangelistic impact of those efforts may only be known fully in heaven!
We’ve done many other ministries over the years in our attempts to proclaim the Gospel in relevant ways. VBS and Fun-In-The-Sun. We’ve started home groups with the intent of sharing the Gospel in our neighborhoods. We’ve taken people to the Billy Graham crusade in Indy and we’ve taken youth to see the Power Team in Marion.
Our efforts at evangelism in the future will take even different paths as we trust God to give us new visions for how to be His ambassadors in an increasingly corrupt, purposeless, post-Christian world.
In seeking to edify the believers of our church family, we’ve offered the Equipping Center and we’ve trained people how to share their faith in friendship evangelism. We’ve had seminars on stewardship and we’ve had week-long training sessions on prayer. We offer Sunday School classes for all ages and all interests, and we preach the Word each Sunday in the context of worship services. We have church-wide pot luck dinners, women’s fellowship ministries, and prayer walks in Ireland.
More and more of us are reading the Bible through in a year, seeking to become people of the Book. We’ve invested in technologies like the video projector that makes learning easier in our audio/visual age. We built a gym that is used often through the week, and we make scholarships available for young people to spend a week at Miracle Camp. And the lists could go on and on in the ways that we have sought to bring the body of Christ in this place to maturity.
Well, enough of the past! What does the future hold? We are looking to God for His direction for us. We of the church leadership are convinced He will lead us. We are praying and fasting to that end. In the meantime, we plan to be faithful. We plan to continue doing those core things He has lead us into in the past.
I’m reminded of a Persian legend that tells us of a certain king who needed a faithful servant and had to choose between two candidates for the office. He took both at fixed wages and told them to fill a basket with water from a nearby well, saying that he would come in the evening to inspect their work. After dumping two or three buckets of water into the basket, one of the men said, “What is the good of doing this useless work? As soon as we pour the water in, it runs out the sides.”
The other servant answered, “But we have our wages, haven’t we? The use is the master’s business, not ours.”
“I’m not going to do such fool’s work,” replied the complainer. Throwing down his bucket, he went away.
The other man continued until he had drained the well. Looking down into it, he saw something shining at the bottom that proved to be a diamond ring. “Now I see the use of pouring water into the basket!” he exclaimed. “If the bucket had brought up the ring before the well was dry, it would have been found in the basket. Our work was not useless.”
It is easy to think that the routine things we are about in our ministries sometimes appear to be fruitless. Sometimes we DO wonder whether those 5th grade boys will ever begin to come around. At times we waver in our commitment to serving in the nursery, forgetting that new families with little ones evaluate us most severely on the conditions we ask them to place their babies and toddlers in. These ministries sometimes feel like taking water out of a well with a bucket and trying to fill a woven basket!
But there are diamonds to be found in the faithful execution of those things the Master has called us to!
Before we move into our service of communion this morning, it is worth a reminder to all of us that Mission and Vision are different. Our mission comes straight out of the Scriptures and it is unchanging. It will be our task and clear goal until that day the Lord Jesus calls and we rise to meet Him in the air. We are called to faithfully reach out to the lost and to persevere in the labor of building up the body of Christ to maturity.
But our vision for fulfilling our mission can find expression in untold ways. Our vision, both personal and corporate, will come from hearing the voice of God, from assessing our culture and our community. Our vision will come from evaluating our competition and formulating a plan to draw others away from their interests in other priorities.
Our vision will make us effective in our mission. Pray for us in leadership positions in the church. Ask God for a personal word for how you can exercise the gifts He’s given you for the sake of our mission here together. Share with me what God seems to be saying, and let’s make a plan together!
DISCLAIMER: These messages are offered for your personal enrichment. There is no legal copyright on this material. You have my full permission to use any of this material as long as you cite the source for any substantial amount used. Enjoy!
Showing newest 6 of 47 posts from April 2008. Show older posts
Showing newest 6 of 47 posts from April 2008. Show older posts
Monday, April 21, 2008
"Learning to hear the voice of God"
I Samuel
March 26, 2000
Introduction: The life of Wolfgang Amadaeus Mozart was portrayed in the mid-80s by the film, Amadaeus. In a film clip that Art and I want to show you from the movie Amadaeus, we see Antonio Salieri commenting on the life and music of the famous composer and conductor. Salieri lived in the days of Mozart and had a difficult time coming to grips with the genius of this younger fellow artist. As you watch this morning, make special note of what Salieri says about the voice of God. We have put two short clips back-to-back by way of introduction to our continuing series on vision and the part that the voice of God plays in leading us into His perfect will for us.
(Film clip here)
As portrayed by the movie, Salieri had a very definite conviction that God would speak, and did speak, through the music of Wolfgang Mozart. How was it that Salieri could recognize that what he was hearing was indeed the voice of God? The sublime beauty and the perceived perfection of the music fit Salieri’s expectation of what God would compose! In the second clip, the portrayal of forgiveness flowing with such power was surely God singing! How else but by the voice of God could such reconciliation flow out into and over the audience?
Well, Amadaeus IS just a movie, and the character playing Antonio Salieri voices words put in his mouth by a script writer and a director. Just what might the Scriptures have to say to us about the matter of recognizing the voice of God? If God is still involved in our world as we saw last Sunday, if He is still speaking as a shepherd speaks to his sheep and they recognize His voice, if His voice is still being heard in our day, how do we recognize it? Our goal this morning is to find some answers to the question, "How do we recognize the voice of God?” In his book, Hearing God, Dallas Willard suggests four practical benefits for the children of God in knowing His voice.
What might it mean to us in the matter of confidence if we could recognize His voice when He speaks? What might happen to our fears and our anxieties, our timidity and our cowardice if we had a foundation for confidence?
What could discerning His voice mean to us in the matter of protection? Who among us has NOT seen foolishness issuing out of the statement, “God told me to do this!” Who has NOT heard of tragedy overtaking the lives of the followers of cult leaders who supposedly speak for God?
Would being able to hear and identify His voice add quality to our experience of this one life we have to live? Is there anyone here who would NOT want to have the kind of faith that Samuel had? Or that David had? Or Hannah? Or Peter?
What would being able to hear His voice with assurance mean to us in our outpost in His kingdom? Could we not better execute our duties and our mission as soldiers of Christ if we were certain of our marching orders? If we knew what our assignment is for today regarding the King’s business?
It seems to me there are powerful reasons, huge benefits, and great blessings that could be ours if we knew how to recognize His voice when He speaks to us. So let’s look into the Scriptures and find our answers and tap into these blessings.
Turn with me to the book of I Samuel and let’s read about three different phases in the life of the man Samuel, the famous prophet/priest of Israel. In exploring his experience with God and God’s voice, we can come to some answers for our question this morning.
1 Sam 3:1-10 records the first phase. We could call this phase the “Learning to Discern” stage. The second level, found in I Sam 16: 1-13, we could designate the “Walking the Talk” years. The third portion of Samuel’s experience, by far the most unusual, perhaps in all the Scriptures, is found in I Samuel 28: 1-25. We could title this phase the “Obeying Though Disturbed” phase.
Let’s begin this morning in the beginning, I Sam 3. We know this text fairly well, having referred to it several times in the last few weeks. For the sake of time this morning, let’s cut and paste this text together. Verse 1: “Now the boy Samuel was ministering to the LORD before Eli… It happened at that time as… Samuel was lying down in the temple of the LORD where the ark of God was, that the LORD called Samuel; and he said, ‘Here I am.’
Then he ran to Eli and said, ‘Here I am, for you called me.’ But he said, ‘I did not call, lie down again.’ So he went and lay down.” This same interchange takes place two more times – God calling Samuel, and Samuel running to Eli, thinking that Eli has called to him in the night. Verse 7, a verse of commentary, tells us why all this is happening. “Now Samuel did not yet know the LORD, nor had the word of the LORD yet been revealed to him.” When God calls the third time, the text tells us, (vs. 8b) “…Eli discerned that the LORD was calling the boy. And Eli said to Samuel, "Go lie down, and it shall be if He calls you, that you shall say, "Speak, LORD, for Your servant is listening.'" So Samuel went and lay down in his place. Then the LORD came and stood and called as at other times, "Samuel! Samuel!" And Samuel said, "Speak, for Your servant is listening.
Now there are several insights we can draw from what we’ve called the “Learning to Discern” phase of Samuel’s life.
First, it’s important that we see the learning process that is taking place here. Recognizing the voice of the Lord is an educational process. Every voice has its own particular qualities. We come to know those qualities by experience. Samuel came to know that the voice he was hearing was not Eli’s but rather God’s.
What if I were to ask us to close our eyes, and then I asked Laryssa to stand and say a few words? But with our eyes closed, what if Tom stood instead and spoke? All of us who know Tom or Laryssa would immediately recognize whose voice was speaking. Our experience with them has given us clues!
It’s like that with the voice of God. If we look at the Lord Jesus as the revealer of the Father, we see that His voice has the quality of authority. The Gospel writers regularly remind us that the crowds who heard Jesus speak said He spoke as One with authority. There are no tremors in this Voice! There is no timidity in this Voice! The quality of command, the quality of power is associate with God’s voice.
Another quality to God’s voice is a characteristic spirit. We would expect the voice of God to be peaceful, joyful, and all the other things we know of the Lord Jesus. Even rebuke, for example, would be more gentle admonition than harsh condemnation. We would never expect the voice of God to be hysterical, would we? This quality just doesn’t fit what we know of His spirit. James 3: 17 says, “But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits, unwavering, without hypocrisy.”
Remember the illustration from Wesley Stafford, the president of Compassion International? He was alone out on the prairie east of Colorado Springs in the first week of his new position as head of this organization. In the middle of his singing and praising God and looking to the future, he thought that Compassion might be sponsoring a million children by the end of the next twenty years. An almost audible voice said to him, “That’s all?” As he whirled around to see who had spoken way out there in the middle of nowhere, a follow-up question pierced his heart: “What about all the others?” Two questions translate into gentle admonition!
Don’t we all wish that the last rebuke we received had this spirit to it?
There are other qualities to the voice of God, but these two will get us started in our own study.
Secondly, beyond coming to understand the different qualities of His voice, we are to study His ways. Part of Samuel’s responsibilities growing up in the temple was to study the ways, the dealings of God with His people. There can be no question that Samuel as a young boy spent a lot of time in study. He was in training for future responsibilities. In the New Testament, we find the young Jesus interacting with the leaders of the temple in matters related to “His father’s business.”
Do we remember seeing this element - studying His ways - in the great commandment? Remember the great commandment? “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” Learning to discern His voice will require that we engage our minds in the loving of God!
As I have been reading the book of Jeremiah this week, I’ve been making notes whenever I’ve read the word “voice”. Up through the first 8 chapters, I’ve been surprised at how often this term appears in Jeremiah’s text. Too many times God says to the Israelites, “This is a nation that does not obey the voice of the Lord their God…” He calls out, “Obey My voice and I will be your God…” I am studying these references to understand more how to recognize the voice of God.
A third element in the “Learn to Discern” dimension of recognizing God’s voice is coming to appreciate circumstances. The young Samuel would always remember this particular experience. He would never forget the details of the events of this night. I like how Frederick Meyer has said it: “God’s impressions within and His word without are always corroborated by His providence around, and we should quietly wait until those three focus into one point… If you do not know what you ought to do, stand still until you do. And when the time comes for action, circumstances, like glowworms, will sparkle along your path; and you will become so sure that you are right… that you could not be surer though an angel beckoned you on.” (The Secret of Guidance) Samuel, as a young man, was learning to discern the voice of God. So must we!
Now there is a second phase beyond the “Learn to Discern” one. The next phase we want to consider this morning I’ve called “Walking the Talk.” It is found in I Samuel 16:1-13. If we were to take the time to read these thirteen verses, we would be reminded of how God used Samuel to anoint David king over Israel, replacing the incompetent Saul.
Highlighting the text, we see God saying, “Fill your horn with oil and go; I will send you to Jesse the Bethlehemite, for I have selected a king for Myself among his sons.” Now Samuel argues with God over a few details, but finally, “Samuel did what the LORD said, and came to Bethlehem. And the elders of the city came.. (and he said), Consecrate yourselves and come with me to the sacrifice.’ He also consecrated Jesse and his sons and invited them to the sacrifice.
When they entered, he looked at Eliab and thought, ‘Surely the LORD'S anointed is before Him.’ But the LORD said to Samuel, ‘Do not look at his appearance or at the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.’
Then Jesse called Abinadab and made him pass before Samuel. And he said, ‘The LORD has not chosen this one either.’ Next Jesse made Shammah pass by. And he said, ‘The LORD has not chosen this one either.’ Thus Jesse made seven of his sons pass before Samuel. But Samuel said to Jesse, ‘The LORD has not chosen these.’ And Samuel said to Jesse, ‘Are these all the children?’” Pause with me here a moment. What a perceptive question on Samuel’s part! God is going to pick Himself a king from among Jesse’s sons, but all the sons in sight are rejected! Can we suppose for a moment that Samuel doubted the voice of God? Is it possible that Samuel misunderstood what God had said? Our text resumes: “And he (Jesse) said, ‘There remains yet the youngest, and behold, he is tending the sheep.’ Then Samuel said to Jesse, ‘Send and bring him; for we will not sit down until he comes here.’
So he sent and brought him in. Now he was ruddy, with beautiful eyes and a handsome appearance. And the LORD said, ‘Arise, anoint him; for this is he.’ Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the midst of his brothers; and the Spirit of the LORD came mightily upon David from that day forward. And Samuel arose and went to Ramah.”
What we see Samuel doing here is the very thing he had been learning. He is having a conversation with God. He is listening to God’s voice and he is acting in accordance with God’s instructions. He rejects Jesse’s sons that God rejects, he chooses the son that God has chosen.
Again, there are insights we can draw from this phase of Samuel’s life. First, if we want to recognize God’s voice, we must be in a position to listen. As each of the sons of Jesse passes before Samuel, the prophet thinks, “Surely this is the one!” But none of them are. Samuel is hearing the voice of God saying, “Nope, Not him, No, Rejected, Unacceptable, Not this one either.” And Samuel will not choose any son that God has not chosen. He is committed to listening.
The question we must ask ourselves, with great honesty and sincerity, is “Do I really want to hear God speak?” How many times did the Lord Jesus say, "If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear"? What are the assumptions here? There are at least two: there must be many people who have ears but they have no real desire to hear what God would say to them. Secondly, God will not speak to those who do not want to hear Him. The conclusion we can draw is that we will never learn to recognize the voice of God if we are unwilling to listen to what He has to say.
We spoke last week of Dr. James Dobson, president of Focus on the Family. It is his testimony, when he needs to know what God wants him to do, that “I get down on my knees and say, ‘Lord, I need to know what you want me to do, and I am listening. Please speak to me through my friends, books, magazines I pick up and read, and through circumstances.’”
A corollary to this issue of being willing to listen is our willingness to obey. It is not likely that God will make His voice known if we have no intention of obeying. We will never come to recognize His voice if we are not willing to do what His voice says. We see the proof of that in our third and final passage.
This final phase of Samuel’s life (or perhaps more accurately, his death) we could call, “Obeying though Disturbed.”
Our final text is I Samuel 28, and here we find King Saul in a most difficult predicament. In a nutshell, Samuel has died, the Philistines have come in force against Saul and the Israelites, and Saul doesn’t know what to do. 28:6-7 tells us, “When Saul inquired of the LORD, the LORD did not answer him, either by dreams or by Urim or by prophets. Then Saul said to his servants, ‘Seek for me a woman who is a medium, that I may go to her and inquire of her.’ And his servants said to him, ‘Behold, there is a woman who is a medium at En-dor.’” In an act of complete desperation, Samuel goes to this woman in disguise and asks to speak with Samuel. Receiving assurances of protection against doing what had been forbidden, the woman calls up Samuel from the dead.
28: 12ff – “When the woman saw Samuel, she cried out with a loud voice; and the woman spoke to Saul, saying, ‘Why have you deceived me? For you are Saul.’ The king said to her, ‘Do not be afraid; but what do you see?’ And the woman said to Saul, ‘I see a divine being coming up out of the earth.’
He said to her, ‘What is his form?’ And she said, ‘An old man is coming up, and he is wrapped with a robe.’ And Saul knew that it was Samuel, and he bowed with his face to the ground and did homage. Then Samuel said to Saul, ‘Why have you disturbed me by bringing me up?’
And Saul answered, ‘I am greatly distressed; for the Philistines are waging war against me, and God has departed from me and no longer answers me, either through prophets or by dreams; therefore I have called you, that you may make known to me what I should do.’
Samuel said, ‘Why then do you ask me, since the LORD has departed from you and has become your adversary? The LORD has done accordingly as He spoke through me; for the LORD has torn the kingdom out of your hand and given it to your neighbor, to David.
As you did not obey the LORD and did not execute His fierce wrath on Amalek, so the LORD has done this thing to you this day. Moreover the LORD will also give over Israel along with you into the hands of the Philistines, therefore tomorrow you and your sons will be with me. Indeed the LORD will give over the army of Israel into the hands of the Philistines!’”
Now as unusual as this story is, there are two things clear to me: One, Saul cannot hear God because he has developed a character of disobedience. And two, Samuel is once again hearing the voice of God and obeying. There is no way that Samuel is going to speak to Saul apart from the permission, even the commandment of God. The only other tale in all the Scriptures that even comes close to this one is the account of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16. In that story, the dead man, in hell, is conversing with Abraham in paradise. That too could only have happened with the express permission of God.
The point that we can make is that coming to recognize the voice of God requires a character of obedience. Further, the character we develop in this life lives beyond our death. Samuel’s obedience extends into the realm of being disturbed. We don’t know what he was doing when Saul arrived at the medium’s home in Endor, but he must have been enjoying it, for he talks to Saul about being disturbed. Another point we can make is that once we come to recognize the voice of God, we will know it for all eternity. Once we become experienced in this matter, we will just know His voice with certainty for the rest of our days. I like the way Abraham Lincoln said it: “I am satisfied that, when the Almighty wants me to do, or not to do, a particular thing, he finds a way of letting me know it.”
We are out of time, but I want to leave us with some questions to ponder. Can we learn to hear the voice of God? Yes, we can. If Samuel, as a young lad, could start down that path, so can we. Do I want God in my life to that extent? God told Samuel to do some things that were dangerous. I won’t learn to recognize His voice if I only let Him speak on my terms, you know, only comfortable, riskless, safe terms. Do I want to hear His voice? What if He calls me to go to Africa? Do I want to hear His voice even when I’m not in a crisis? Do I only want to hear His voice to get me out of trouble? Do I regularly reflect upon what has happened in my day? Do I pay attention to recurring thoughts? Is there a time in my day when I just sit quietly?
Learning to recognize the voice of God can be done! Learning to discern His will for us is full of promise of life, blessing, and adventure. It’s time for us to get started! Our future depends upon it. Our vision for His kingdom awaits it. Let’s do it.
DISCLAIMER: These messages are offered for your personal enrichment. There is no legal copyright on this material. You have my full permission to use any of this material as long as you cite the source for any substantial amount used. Enjoy!
March 26, 2000
Introduction: The life of Wolfgang Amadaeus Mozart was portrayed in the mid-80s by the film, Amadaeus. In a film clip that Art and I want to show you from the movie Amadaeus, we see Antonio Salieri commenting on the life and music of the famous composer and conductor. Salieri lived in the days of Mozart and had a difficult time coming to grips with the genius of this younger fellow artist. As you watch this morning, make special note of what Salieri says about the voice of God. We have put two short clips back-to-back by way of introduction to our continuing series on vision and the part that the voice of God plays in leading us into His perfect will for us.
(Film clip here)
As portrayed by the movie, Salieri had a very definite conviction that God would speak, and did speak, through the music of Wolfgang Mozart. How was it that Salieri could recognize that what he was hearing was indeed the voice of God? The sublime beauty and the perceived perfection of the music fit Salieri’s expectation of what God would compose! In the second clip, the portrayal of forgiveness flowing with such power was surely God singing! How else but by the voice of God could such reconciliation flow out into and over the audience?
Well, Amadaeus IS just a movie, and the character playing Antonio Salieri voices words put in his mouth by a script writer and a director. Just what might the Scriptures have to say to us about the matter of recognizing the voice of God? If God is still involved in our world as we saw last Sunday, if He is still speaking as a shepherd speaks to his sheep and they recognize His voice, if His voice is still being heard in our day, how do we recognize it? Our goal this morning is to find some answers to the question, "How do we recognize the voice of God?” In his book, Hearing God, Dallas Willard suggests four practical benefits for the children of God in knowing His voice.
What might it mean to us in the matter of confidence if we could recognize His voice when He speaks? What might happen to our fears and our anxieties, our timidity and our cowardice if we had a foundation for confidence?
What could discerning His voice mean to us in the matter of protection? Who among us has NOT seen foolishness issuing out of the statement, “God told me to do this!” Who has NOT heard of tragedy overtaking the lives of the followers of cult leaders who supposedly speak for God?
Would being able to hear and identify His voice add quality to our experience of this one life we have to live? Is there anyone here who would NOT want to have the kind of faith that Samuel had? Or that David had? Or Hannah? Or Peter?
What would being able to hear His voice with assurance mean to us in our outpost in His kingdom? Could we not better execute our duties and our mission as soldiers of Christ if we were certain of our marching orders? If we knew what our assignment is for today regarding the King’s business?
It seems to me there are powerful reasons, huge benefits, and great blessings that could be ours if we knew how to recognize His voice when He speaks to us. So let’s look into the Scriptures and find our answers and tap into these blessings.
Turn with me to the book of I Samuel and let’s read about three different phases in the life of the man Samuel, the famous prophet/priest of Israel. In exploring his experience with God and God’s voice, we can come to some answers for our question this morning.
1 Sam 3:1-10 records the first phase. We could call this phase the “Learning to Discern” stage. The second level, found in I Sam 16: 1-13, we could designate the “Walking the Talk” years. The third portion of Samuel’s experience, by far the most unusual, perhaps in all the Scriptures, is found in I Samuel 28: 1-25. We could title this phase the “Obeying Though Disturbed” phase.
Let’s begin this morning in the beginning, I Sam 3. We know this text fairly well, having referred to it several times in the last few weeks. For the sake of time this morning, let’s cut and paste this text together. Verse 1: “Now the boy Samuel was ministering to the LORD before Eli… It happened at that time as… Samuel was lying down in the temple of the LORD where the ark of God was, that the LORD called Samuel; and he said, ‘Here I am.’
Then he ran to Eli and said, ‘Here I am, for you called me.’ But he said, ‘I did not call, lie down again.’ So he went and lay down.” This same interchange takes place two more times – God calling Samuel, and Samuel running to Eli, thinking that Eli has called to him in the night. Verse 7, a verse of commentary, tells us why all this is happening. “Now Samuel did not yet know the LORD, nor had the word of the LORD yet been revealed to him.” When God calls the third time, the text tells us, (vs. 8b) “…Eli discerned that the LORD was calling the boy. And Eli said to Samuel, "Go lie down, and it shall be if He calls you, that you shall say, "Speak, LORD, for Your servant is listening.'" So Samuel went and lay down in his place. Then the LORD came and stood and called as at other times, "Samuel! Samuel!" And Samuel said, "Speak, for Your servant is listening.
Now there are several insights we can draw from what we’ve called the “Learning to Discern” phase of Samuel’s life.
First, it’s important that we see the learning process that is taking place here. Recognizing the voice of the Lord is an educational process. Every voice has its own particular qualities. We come to know those qualities by experience. Samuel came to know that the voice he was hearing was not Eli’s but rather God’s.
What if I were to ask us to close our eyes, and then I asked Laryssa to stand and say a few words? But with our eyes closed, what if Tom stood instead and spoke? All of us who know Tom or Laryssa would immediately recognize whose voice was speaking. Our experience with them has given us clues!
It’s like that with the voice of God. If we look at the Lord Jesus as the revealer of the Father, we see that His voice has the quality of authority. The Gospel writers regularly remind us that the crowds who heard Jesus speak said He spoke as One with authority. There are no tremors in this Voice! There is no timidity in this Voice! The quality of command, the quality of power is associate with God’s voice.
Another quality to God’s voice is a characteristic spirit. We would expect the voice of God to be peaceful, joyful, and all the other things we know of the Lord Jesus. Even rebuke, for example, would be more gentle admonition than harsh condemnation. We would never expect the voice of God to be hysterical, would we? This quality just doesn’t fit what we know of His spirit. James 3: 17 says, “But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits, unwavering, without hypocrisy.”
Remember the illustration from Wesley Stafford, the president of Compassion International? He was alone out on the prairie east of Colorado Springs in the first week of his new position as head of this organization. In the middle of his singing and praising God and looking to the future, he thought that Compassion might be sponsoring a million children by the end of the next twenty years. An almost audible voice said to him, “That’s all?” As he whirled around to see who had spoken way out there in the middle of nowhere, a follow-up question pierced his heart: “What about all the others?” Two questions translate into gentle admonition!
Don’t we all wish that the last rebuke we received had this spirit to it?
There are other qualities to the voice of God, but these two will get us started in our own study.
Secondly, beyond coming to understand the different qualities of His voice, we are to study His ways. Part of Samuel’s responsibilities growing up in the temple was to study the ways, the dealings of God with His people. There can be no question that Samuel as a young boy spent a lot of time in study. He was in training for future responsibilities. In the New Testament, we find the young Jesus interacting with the leaders of the temple in matters related to “His father’s business.”
Do we remember seeing this element - studying His ways - in the great commandment? Remember the great commandment? “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” Learning to discern His voice will require that we engage our minds in the loving of God!
As I have been reading the book of Jeremiah this week, I’ve been making notes whenever I’ve read the word “voice”. Up through the first 8 chapters, I’ve been surprised at how often this term appears in Jeremiah’s text. Too many times God says to the Israelites, “This is a nation that does not obey the voice of the Lord their God…” He calls out, “Obey My voice and I will be your God…” I am studying these references to understand more how to recognize the voice of God.
A third element in the “Learn to Discern” dimension of recognizing God’s voice is coming to appreciate circumstances. The young Samuel would always remember this particular experience. He would never forget the details of the events of this night. I like how Frederick Meyer has said it: “God’s impressions within and His word without are always corroborated by His providence around, and we should quietly wait until those three focus into one point… If you do not know what you ought to do, stand still until you do. And when the time comes for action, circumstances, like glowworms, will sparkle along your path; and you will become so sure that you are right… that you could not be surer though an angel beckoned you on.” (The Secret of Guidance) Samuel, as a young man, was learning to discern the voice of God. So must we!
Now there is a second phase beyond the “Learn to Discern” one. The next phase we want to consider this morning I’ve called “Walking the Talk.” It is found in I Samuel 16:1-13. If we were to take the time to read these thirteen verses, we would be reminded of how God used Samuel to anoint David king over Israel, replacing the incompetent Saul.
Highlighting the text, we see God saying, “Fill your horn with oil and go; I will send you to Jesse the Bethlehemite, for I have selected a king for Myself among his sons.” Now Samuel argues with God over a few details, but finally, “Samuel did what the LORD said, and came to Bethlehem. And the elders of the city came.. (and he said), Consecrate yourselves and come with me to the sacrifice.’ He also consecrated Jesse and his sons and invited them to the sacrifice.
When they entered, he looked at Eliab and thought, ‘Surely the LORD'S anointed is before Him.’ But the LORD said to Samuel, ‘Do not look at his appearance or at the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.’
Then Jesse called Abinadab and made him pass before Samuel. And he said, ‘The LORD has not chosen this one either.’ Next Jesse made Shammah pass by. And he said, ‘The LORD has not chosen this one either.’ Thus Jesse made seven of his sons pass before Samuel. But Samuel said to Jesse, ‘The LORD has not chosen these.’ And Samuel said to Jesse, ‘Are these all the children?’” Pause with me here a moment. What a perceptive question on Samuel’s part! God is going to pick Himself a king from among Jesse’s sons, but all the sons in sight are rejected! Can we suppose for a moment that Samuel doubted the voice of God? Is it possible that Samuel misunderstood what God had said? Our text resumes: “And he (Jesse) said, ‘There remains yet the youngest, and behold, he is tending the sheep.’ Then Samuel said to Jesse, ‘Send and bring him; for we will not sit down until he comes here.’
So he sent and brought him in. Now he was ruddy, with beautiful eyes and a handsome appearance. And the LORD said, ‘Arise, anoint him; for this is he.’ Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the midst of his brothers; and the Spirit of the LORD came mightily upon David from that day forward. And Samuel arose and went to Ramah.”
What we see Samuel doing here is the very thing he had been learning. He is having a conversation with God. He is listening to God’s voice and he is acting in accordance with God’s instructions. He rejects Jesse’s sons that God rejects, he chooses the son that God has chosen.
Again, there are insights we can draw from this phase of Samuel’s life. First, if we want to recognize God’s voice, we must be in a position to listen. As each of the sons of Jesse passes before Samuel, the prophet thinks, “Surely this is the one!” But none of them are. Samuel is hearing the voice of God saying, “Nope, Not him, No, Rejected, Unacceptable, Not this one either.” And Samuel will not choose any son that God has not chosen. He is committed to listening.
The question we must ask ourselves, with great honesty and sincerity, is “Do I really want to hear God speak?” How many times did the Lord Jesus say, "If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear"? What are the assumptions here? There are at least two: there must be many people who have ears but they have no real desire to hear what God would say to them. Secondly, God will not speak to those who do not want to hear Him. The conclusion we can draw is that we will never learn to recognize the voice of God if we are unwilling to listen to what He has to say.
We spoke last week of Dr. James Dobson, president of Focus on the Family. It is his testimony, when he needs to know what God wants him to do, that “I get down on my knees and say, ‘Lord, I need to know what you want me to do, and I am listening. Please speak to me through my friends, books, magazines I pick up and read, and through circumstances.’”
A corollary to this issue of being willing to listen is our willingness to obey. It is not likely that God will make His voice known if we have no intention of obeying. We will never come to recognize His voice if we are not willing to do what His voice says. We see the proof of that in our third and final passage.
This final phase of Samuel’s life (or perhaps more accurately, his death) we could call, “Obeying though Disturbed.”
Our final text is I Samuel 28, and here we find King Saul in a most difficult predicament. In a nutshell, Samuel has died, the Philistines have come in force against Saul and the Israelites, and Saul doesn’t know what to do. 28:6-7 tells us, “When Saul inquired of the LORD, the LORD did not answer him, either by dreams or by Urim or by prophets. Then Saul said to his servants, ‘Seek for me a woman who is a medium, that I may go to her and inquire of her.’ And his servants said to him, ‘Behold, there is a woman who is a medium at En-dor.’” In an act of complete desperation, Samuel goes to this woman in disguise and asks to speak with Samuel. Receiving assurances of protection against doing what had been forbidden, the woman calls up Samuel from the dead.
28: 12ff – “When the woman saw Samuel, she cried out with a loud voice; and the woman spoke to Saul, saying, ‘Why have you deceived me? For you are Saul.’ The king said to her, ‘Do not be afraid; but what do you see?’ And the woman said to Saul, ‘I see a divine being coming up out of the earth.’
He said to her, ‘What is his form?’ And she said, ‘An old man is coming up, and he is wrapped with a robe.’ And Saul knew that it was Samuel, and he bowed with his face to the ground and did homage. Then Samuel said to Saul, ‘Why have you disturbed me by bringing me up?’
And Saul answered, ‘I am greatly distressed; for the Philistines are waging war against me, and God has departed from me and no longer answers me, either through prophets or by dreams; therefore I have called you, that you may make known to me what I should do.’
Samuel said, ‘Why then do you ask me, since the LORD has departed from you and has become your adversary? The LORD has done accordingly as He spoke through me; for the LORD has torn the kingdom out of your hand and given it to your neighbor, to David.
As you did not obey the LORD and did not execute His fierce wrath on Amalek, so the LORD has done this thing to you this day. Moreover the LORD will also give over Israel along with you into the hands of the Philistines, therefore tomorrow you and your sons will be with me. Indeed the LORD will give over the army of Israel into the hands of the Philistines!’”
Now as unusual as this story is, there are two things clear to me: One, Saul cannot hear God because he has developed a character of disobedience. And two, Samuel is once again hearing the voice of God and obeying. There is no way that Samuel is going to speak to Saul apart from the permission, even the commandment of God. The only other tale in all the Scriptures that even comes close to this one is the account of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16. In that story, the dead man, in hell, is conversing with Abraham in paradise. That too could only have happened with the express permission of God.
The point that we can make is that coming to recognize the voice of God requires a character of obedience. Further, the character we develop in this life lives beyond our death. Samuel’s obedience extends into the realm of being disturbed. We don’t know what he was doing when Saul arrived at the medium’s home in Endor, but he must have been enjoying it, for he talks to Saul about being disturbed. Another point we can make is that once we come to recognize the voice of God, we will know it for all eternity. Once we become experienced in this matter, we will just know His voice with certainty for the rest of our days. I like the way Abraham Lincoln said it: “I am satisfied that, when the Almighty wants me to do, or not to do, a particular thing, he finds a way of letting me know it.”
We are out of time, but I want to leave us with some questions to ponder. Can we learn to hear the voice of God? Yes, we can. If Samuel, as a young lad, could start down that path, so can we. Do I want God in my life to that extent? God told Samuel to do some things that were dangerous. I won’t learn to recognize His voice if I only let Him speak on my terms, you know, only comfortable, riskless, safe terms. Do I want to hear His voice? What if He calls me to go to Africa? Do I want to hear His voice even when I’m not in a crisis? Do I only want to hear His voice to get me out of trouble? Do I regularly reflect upon what has happened in my day? Do I pay attention to recurring thoughts? Is there a time in my day when I just sit quietly?
Learning to recognize the voice of God can be done! Learning to discern His will for us is full of promise of life, blessing, and adventure. It’s time for us to get started! Our future depends upon it. Our vision for His kingdom awaits it. Let’s do it.
DISCLAIMER: These messages are offered for your personal enrichment. There is no legal copyright on this material. You have my full permission to use any of this material as long as you cite the source for any substantial amount used. Enjoy!
"A matter of hearing God's Voice and making a response"
Various Passages
March 19, 2000
Introduction: The musicians among us and the music lovers here today will recognize the name Carlos Santana. Mr. Santana is a guitarist who has sold 40 million albums and won 10 Grammy awards. He came to Christ in 1981 under the influence of his wife, Deborah, and would testify today that divine intervention has guided his life. He is quoted by Mike Angell in an article as saying: “My reality is that God speaks to you every day.”
While meditating one day Santana had a vision with a message. As he described it to Guitar Player magazine’s Andy Ellis, he was told in his vision to “hook up with people at junior high schools, high schools, and universities.” He was told “the youth of today need more positive music.” Out of that vision came the album, “Supernatural” which won 9 Grammys this year and has sold 8 million copies.
Andy Ellis says that Santana doesn’t so much create music as he receives it. Carlos sees himself as a channel. While many guitarists select their instruments based on wood or wires, Carlos Santana picks equipment that allows his spirit to come through.
Carlos Santana’s reality is that God speaks every day!
Reading through the monthly letter from Focus on the Family this week, I noticed Diane Passno saying, “People often wonder what it is like to serve under an organizational president who views ‘success’ in terms of listening to God’s voice, rather than experiencing rapid growth or receiving worldly praise.” Dr. James Dobson apparently also thinks that his reality is listening to God’s voice.
So what are we to make of meditation, visions, and hearing God’s voice? Is it possible that God still speaks today? Is that a daring idea? Or is the idea of God speaking today presumptuous and maybe dangerous? Or could it be even more dangerous and presumptuous to try to live life with any hope of success without hearing God’s voice? Could it be that God will make known His vision for us by speaking to us? I have shared with you my experience as a young Marine in Vietnam reading the book of Jeremiah, when God spoke so very clearly in response to my need for direction. I have told you about my days in Indonesia as a veteran missionary when God spoke to me so very clearly in response to my need for direction.
So what do the Scriptures say? For who is Carlos Santana… and James Dobson… and Jerry Cline? And what does it mean that God speaks, that we might hear His voice? Were our souls made for a rich, interactive relationship with the Creator, or were they not? How does that happen practically speaking, hearing God’s voice? How can I know it is His voice I hear? What if it is His pattern to speak and just now in my circumstances I don’t know what to do, but He is not speaking now? Well, this morning, we will answer some of these questions, but we may not get to all of them!
Consider with me this morning a number of questions and a number of Bible passages, and let’s see if we can go from this place this morning with more understanding than we came with.
Let’s ask first, Does God speak today? Hebrews 3 and 4 would say yes.
Heb 3:7-8 -- Therefore, just as the Holy Spirit says, "TODAY IF YOU HEAR HIS VOICE, DO NOT HARDEN YOUR HEARTS…”
Heb 3:15 -- While it is said, "TODAY IF YOU HEAR HIS VOICE, DO NOT HARDEN YOUR HEARTS…”
Heb 4:7 -- He again fixes a certain day, "Today," saying through David after so long a time just as has been said before, "TODAY IF YOU HEAR HIS VOICE, DO NOT HARDEN YOUR HEARTS…”
What has always interested me about these verses is this: As part of the book of Hebrews, they were written in the first century. That’s the first time frame to keep in mind – “Today” is at least the time in the first century when the writer of Hebrews said it to his readers. If his readers heard God’s voice, they were not to harden their hearts.
But the writer of these first century words in Hebrews is quoting verbatim from Psalm 95: 7-8 – “For He is our God, and we are the people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand. Today, if you would hear His voice, do not harden your hearts…” That’s why in our Bibles these words are set apart in some way. The NKJV puts them in italics and sets them off with quote marks. The NASV puts them in quotes and uses upper case letters. So “Today” is also the day of the Psalm writer, several hundred years before the first century.
And finally, of course, the “Today” of Hebrews 3 and Psalm 95 is the day of Israel’s rebellion in the day of Moses, several hundred years before the days of the psalmist. If “Today” is Moses’ day, if it is David’s day, and if it is a day in the first century, then we can conclude that “Today” is also today, this day, March 19, 2000. And “Today” is each day that we live and breathe. See how the writer of Hebrews says it: “(3:13) …but exhort one another daily, while it is called “Today,” lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin…”
The Scriptures make this same point that God speaks today in other ways. Did you notice the reference in Ps. 95 to us being the people of His pasture, the sheep of His hand? When the Lord Jesus speaks to the disciples in John 10, He describes Himself as the good shepherd. John 10:1-5 says, "Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter by the door into the fold of the sheep, but climbs up some other way, he is a thief and a robber.
2 But he who enters by the door is a shepherd of the sheep. 3 To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4 When he puts forth all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. 5 A stranger they simply will not follow, but will flee from him, because they do not know the voice of strangers."
As the Lord used these images with His disciples, so we who are His disciples today can expect to have the same kind of relationship with Him.
Does God speak today? I’m persuaded the Scriptures say He does. If we are His sheep, and if we are alive today, there is opportunity to hear His voice.
A second question: How does He speak? The Bible tells us He speaks in several ways. First, we know He speaks with a voice. (That may strike you as absurd, and not worth saying, but stay with me!) When the young boy, Samuel, in I Samuel 3, is lying down, the Lord calls to him. Samuel answers, “Here I am!” and runs to Eli’s bed. But Eli hasn’t called him. Samuel goes back to bed. Two more times he hears a voice calling him, and twice more he goes to Eli. Finally, (1 Sam 3:8-10) “… Eli discerned that the Lord was calling the boy. Then Eli said to Samuel, ‘Go lie down, and it shall be if He calls you, that you shall say, "Speak, Lord, for Your servant is listening.”’ So Samuel went and lay down in his place. Then the Lord came and stood and called as at other times, ‘Samuel! Samuel!’ and Samuel said, ‘Speak, for Your servant is listening.’” Samuel was hearing a voice, a voice that sounded like Eli’s.
The new president of the university was introduced in chapel this past Monday. Dr. David Gyertson shared his testimony and told about his father hearing a voice as he put the car in reverse and started to let the clutch out. The voice said, “Where is David?” The dad didn’t know, so he got out of the car and found his 2 year old son sitting on the ground, straddling the right rear tire. His left leg was on the inside of the tire, his right leg on the outside, and he was pretending to play the drums. Dr. Gyertson attributes the voice his father heard as the voice of God or one of God’s angels.
When Peter Marshall, the great minister of the Gospel, still lived in Scotland (before coming to the States and rising to the position of Chaplain of the United States Senate), he took a shortcut home one foggy, pitch-black night across the moors of Northumberland where there was a deep, deserted limestone quarry. As he walked along, he heard a voice calling him with great urgency, “Peter!” He paused in his walk and answered, “Yes, who is it? What do you want?” Because there was no answer and thinking he was mistaken, he started walking again.
Then he heard the same voice, with more urgency, say, “Peter!” Marshall stopped again, and while trying to look into the darkness, he stumbled. Falling to his knees, he put his hand out to catch himself, and felt nothing. He felt in a semicircle around his knees and realized he was at the very edge of the abandoned quarry. One more step and he could have lost his life. (Catherine Marshall tells that story in A Man Called Peter, and Dallas Willard retells it in his book, Hearing God.)
Peter Marshall heard the voice of God or the voice of one of His messengers.
And who can forget the account of Paul on the road to Damascus where Acts 9 tells us he heard a voice? “And the men who journeyed with him stood speechless, hearing a voice but seeing no one.”
God speaks in a voice.
Secondly, we know from the Scriptures that God speaks with a small voice. Stay with me. This is an important distinction from our first point. Some who wonder whether God still speaks today have never had the dramatic experiences like those I’ve just described. It is not hard to remember Elijah’s experience of hearing the voice of God. In 1 Kings 19, the Lord was not in the great wind that tore into the mountains and broke rocks in pieces. He also was not in the earthquake that shook Elijah’s cave, nor was He in the fire that passed by the lonely prophet. Elijah heard the voice of God in a still small voice that followed all these spectacular events. God’s still small voice was “the sound of a gentle stillness,” a gentle whisper of a voice. I think we can safely say that God more often speaks in a small voice than He does in the urgent, dramatic illustrations I’ve shared.
Consider with me Proverbs 20:27. “The spirit of a man is the lamp of the LORD, searching all the inner depths of his heart.” In the Jerusalem Bible this proverb says, “Man’s spirit is the lamp of Yahweh, searching his deepest self.” God uses our spirit to communicate with us. Those communications take the form of our thoughts, though the thoughts do not originate with us.
This is how Willard says it in his book: “As we grow in grace, God’s laws increasingly form the foundation of our hearts; His love is our love, His faith our faith. Our very awareness of our actions, intentions and surroundings then bears within it the view that God takes, bringing things into the clarity of His vision just as a candle might illuminate what is on our dinner table. Therefore, the spirit of the individual truly is the ‘candle of the Lord,’ in the light of which we see ourselves and our world as God sees. In this way we are addressed by Him, spoken to by Him, through our own thoughts.
This is something you can and should test by experiment. Those who begin to pray that God will enlighten them as to the nature and meaning of the processes that go on in their own soul will begin to understand. They will begin to see their spirit functioning as the candle of the Lord.” (end quote)
So the light of God begins to shine on all our parts, “the inner depths of our hearts.”: what we think about our family, our profession, our fears, our sexuality, our reputations, our appearances, and a 1000 other parts of who we are. When we realize that those thoughts, the things we are thinking, continue to recur or persist, then we ought to give them special attention. What might God be trying to say to us? This is no doubt what the Psalmist had in mind in 139:23 – “Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me and know my anxious thoughts…”
G. Campbell Morgan, one of the great expositor’s of a previous day, said it this way: “To the individual believer indwelt by the Holy Spirit there is granted the direct impression of the Spirit of God on the spirit of man, imparting the knowledge of His will in matters of the smallest and greatest importance. This has to be sought and waited for.”
One of our youth pastors in Texas used to say quite regularly, “Give expression to those impressions.” What he meant was that we should find ways to express the things that we are being impressed with. When I feel a nudging of the Lord, when a thought is going round and round in my head, I need to do something. How many times have we thought to call someone and it turns out our call was so timely and helpful? Mike Manganello shared with the church family one Sunday evening about being burdened to visit someone. When he rang the doorbell of the person he was to visit, that person had just hung up from a call with a parent where the parent had said he/she would pray that someone would come by and encourage this son/daughter.
Many of us have had these experiences where God spoke to us in a still, small voice. He used our thoughts to communicate His will.
God speaks in other ways as well. Not only does He speak audibly, not only does He speak quietly, He also speaks by way of messengers. I read this past week a verse that makes this point. In Acts 23:9, the scribes of the Pharisees stand up to defend the apostle Paul from the Sadducees with this comment: “We find no evil in this man; but if a spirit or an angel has spoken to him, let us not fight against God.”
The Christmas story is full of accounts of the angels of God coming as messengers to deliver God’s words to His servants. Hebrews 1:14 makes the point further: “Are they (the angels of vs. 13) not all ministering spirits sent forth to minister for those who will inherit salvation?” And, of course, there is that famous verse in Hebrews 13, verse 2: “Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some have unwittingly entertained angels.” What might God have said to a godly host over a meal where angels were the guests???
I could tell you a recent story related to me by a friend, but we’ve got more questions to answer this morning. You have heard these kinds of stories, and often they have come from solid, mature people of faith who give us little reason to doubt their experiences.
God also speaks in dreams and visions. Paul was led into Europe by God speaking in a dream through the man of Macedonia in Acts 16. We all remember Peter’s rooftop vision in Acts 10, and who can forget Ananias’ feelings when God told him in a dream to go and lay hands on the fire-breathing Saul, now blind in Damascus (Acts 9)?
I’ve shared with you from this pulpit the dream the high school girl in our Texas church had. She had been looking for her watch, had looked high and low, prayed, and during the night dreamed that she saw her watch in the Kleenex box on the bathroom counter. When she awoke, she went to the tissue box and there found her watch!
Fifth, and finally, God also speaks by His Spirit and by His Word. We know the Word of God “is living and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” How often have we been reading the Word and have been pricked by the Holy Spirit as to something we need to do or stop doing, etc? That, my friends, is the voice of God.
There is a third question I want to address this morning, and it is this: How do we hear God speak to us? If He still speaks to His children, His sheep, and if He uses different mediums, what do we have to do to hear His voice? I want to offer several suggestions by way of an answer.
First of all, we will not hear God speak if He is not speaking! Profound, right? The verses of Hebrews 3 and 4 say, “Today, IF you hear His voice…” We must let God be God, and we must acknowledge that He speaks when He wants, and He is silent when He wants. The text surrounding Samuel and his first experiences with the voice of God make it very clear that “the word of the Lord was rare in those days; there was no widespread revelation.” (1 Sam 3:1) Consider also Job, who had no clue what God and Satan were up to when he began to suffer horribly, and God chose to be silent during those early days of his pain.
As much as we might like to have a word from God about any particular issue or request, we must allow Him to be silent if He chooses to be silent. After all, it is His voice!
Secondly, we can hear His voice if we seek to hear it. Saul, who would become the apostle Paul, is the rare exception where God bowls him over and takes his sight from him. It is rare that God will vie for our attention. Our experience will be more like what God says to Jeremiah: (29:12-13) “Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.” The book of Proverbs makes the same point over and over.
So how do we seek him with all our heart? We might fast, showing God that our desire for spiritual realities is more important than physical needs. We might designate a certain period every day that we set aside to pray and listen. We must certainly deal with any known sin in our lives that would block His voice from our hearing.
Thirdly, in knowing how we hear God speaking, we expect that His voice will be in accordance with His written Word. We can immediately reject all the voices, dreams and visions that would be contrary to His Word. What He has said in His word is sure. What I hear, and what I think I hear, may not be as positive or indisputable as what is written. I like how Tony Evans said it this week on the radio. There are three dimensions to the will of God. One is comprehensive. That covers everything, and only God fully knows that dimension. A second dimension is His moral will. We have that in the Scriptures and we can all know it to the depth we want to study the Book. The third dimension is His personal will for us. We won’t find in the Scriptures whether God wants us in Indiana or Indonesia. But He does have a place where He wants us to be. So we need to hear Him tell us what His will is for us personally. And that will of His will never be contrary to what He has defined by way of guidelines and principles from the Bible.
As we look to God for the vision He has for us, for us personally and for us together as a church family, we must expect to hear His voice. He will let us know the avenues we should take. We know those avenues will be within the principles outlined in His Word. We must wait upon Him for His direction. He will reveal it in His time through some medium of His voice.
Friends, we are surrounded in our world by people who need to see and understand that God is at work in our world. These are people in our neighborhoods, on our campuses, in our workplaces, in our families who are looking for someone who has a handle on life.
Who else lives better than the one who has a relationship to God through Jesus Christ? Who else lives better than the one who knows his calling, who has a vision, who understands when God speaks to him/her?
I invite you today to decide to become that kind of individual! I invite you today to become a Jacob’s ladder—one who connects this world with heaven’s kingdom! I invite you today to decide to become an envoy who brings a word from God into a world of human affairs run amok!
DISCLAIMER: These messages are offered for your personal enrichment. There is no legal copyright on this material. You have my full permission to use any of this material as long as you cite the source for any substantial amount used. Enjoy!
March 19, 2000
Introduction: The musicians among us and the music lovers here today will recognize the name Carlos Santana. Mr. Santana is a guitarist who has sold 40 million albums and won 10 Grammy awards. He came to Christ in 1981 under the influence of his wife, Deborah, and would testify today that divine intervention has guided his life. He is quoted by Mike Angell in an article as saying: “My reality is that God speaks to you every day.”
While meditating one day Santana had a vision with a message. As he described it to Guitar Player magazine’s Andy Ellis, he was told in his vision to “hook up with people at junior high schools, high schools, and universities.” He was told “the youth of today need more positive music.” Out of that vision came the album, “Supernatural” which won 9 Grammys this year and has sold 8 million copies.
Andy Ellis says that Santana doesn’t so much create music as he receives it. Carlos sees himself as a channel. While many guitarists select their instruments based on wood or wires, Carlos Santana picks equipment that allows his spirit to come through.
Carlos Santana’s reality is that God speaks every day!
Reading through the monthly letter from Focus on the Family this week, I noticed Diane Passno saying, “People often wonder what it is like to serve under an organizational president who views ‘success’ in terms of listening to God’s voice, rather than experiencing rapid growth or receiving worldly praise.” Dr. James Dobson apparently also thinks that his reality is listening to God’s voice.
So what are we to make of meditation, visions, and hearing God’s voice? Is it possible that God still speaks today? Is that a daring idea? Or is the idea of God speaking today presumptuous and maybe dangerous? Or could it be even more dangerous and presumptuous to try to live life with any hope of success without hearing God’s voice? Could it be that God will make known His vision for us by speaking to us? I have shared with you my experience as a young Marine in Vietnam reading the book of Jeremiah, when God spoke so very clearly in response to my need for direction. I have told you about my days in Indonesia as a veteran missionary when God spoke to me so very clearly in response to my need for direction.
So what do the Scriptures say? For who is Carlos Santana… and James Dobson… and Jerry Cline? And what does it mean that God speaks, that we might hear His voice? Were our souls made for a rich, interactive relationship with the Creator, or were they not? How does that happen practically speaking, hearing God’s voice? How can I know it is His voice I hear? What if it is His pattern to speak and just now in my circumstances I don’t know what to do, but He is not speaking now? Well, this morning, we will answer some of these questions, but we may not get to all of them!
Consider with me this morning a number of questions and a number of Bible passages, and let’s see if we can go from this place this morning with more understanding than we came with.
Let’s ask first, Does God speak today? Hebrews 3 and 4 would say yes.
Heb 3:7-8 -- Therefore, just as the Holy Spirit says, "TODAY IF YOU HEAR HIS VOICE, DO NOT HARDEN YOUR HEARTS…”
Heb 3:15 -- While it is said, "TODAY IF YOU HEAR HIS VOICE, DO NOT HARDEN YOUR HEARTS…”
Heb 4:7 -- He again fixes a certain day, "Today," saying through David after so long a time just as has been said before, "TODAY IF YOU HEAR HIS VOICE, DO NOT HARDEN YOUR HEARTS…”
What has always interested me about these verses is this: As part of the book of Hebrews, they were written in the first century. That’s the first time frame to keep in mind – “Today” is at least the time in the first century when the writer of Hebrews said it to his readers. If his readers heard God’s voice, they were not to harden their hearts.
But the writer of these first century words in Hebrews is quoting verbatim from Psalm 95: 7-8 – “For He is our God, and we are the people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand. Today, if you would hear His voice, do not harden your hearts…” That’s why in our Bibles these words are set apart in some way. The NKJV puts them in italics and sets them off with quote marks. The NASV puts them in quotes and uses upper case letters. So “Today” is also the day of the Psalm writer, several hundred years before the first century.
And finally, of course, the “Today” of Hebrews 3 and Psalm 95 is the day of Israel’s rebellion in the day of Moses, several hundred years before the days of the psalmist. If “Today” is Moses’ day, if it is David’s day, and if it is a day in the first century, then we can conclude that “Today” is also today, this day, March 19, 2000. And “Today” is each day that we live and breathe. See how the writer of Hebrews says it: “(3:13) …but exhort one another daily, while it is called “Today,” lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin…”
The Scriptures make this same point that God speaks today in other ways. Did you notice the reference in Ps. 95 to us being the people of His pasture, the sheep of His hand? When the Lord Jesus speaks to the disciples in John 10, He describes Himself as the good shepherd. John 10:1-5 says, "Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter by the door into the fold of the sheep, but climbs up some other way, he is a thief and a robber.
2 But he who enters by the door is a shepherd of the sheep. 3 To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4 When he puts forth all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. 5 A stranger they simply will not follow, but will flee from him, because they do not know the voice of strangers."
As the Lord used these images with His disciples, so we who are His disciples today can expect to have the same kind of relationship with Him.
Does God speak today? I’m persuaded the Scriptures say He does. If we are His sheep, and if we are alive today, there is opportunity to hear His voice.
A second question: How does He speak? The Bible tells us He speaks in several ways. First, we know He speaks with a voice. (That may strike you as absurd, and not worth saying, but stay with me!) When the young boy, Samuel, in I Samuel 3, is lying down, the Lord calls to him. Samuel answers, “Here I am!” and runs to Eli’s bed. But Eli hasn’t called him. Samuel goes back to bed. Two more times he hears a voice calling him, and twice more he goes to Eli. Finally, (1 Sam 3:8-10) “… Eli discerned that the Lord was calling the boy. Then Eli said to Samuel, ‘Go lie down, and it shall be if He calls you, that you shall say, "Speak, Lord, for Your servant is listening.”’ So Samuel went and lay down in his place. Then the Lord came and stood and called as at other times, ‘Samuel! Samuel!’ and Samuel said, ‘Speak, for Your servant is listening.’” Samuel was hearing a voice, a voice that sounded like Eli’s.
The new president of the university was introduced in chapel this past Monday. Dr. David Gyertson shared his testimony and told about his father hearing a voice as he put the car in reverse and started to let the clutch out. The voice said, “Where is David?” The dad didn’t know, so he got out of the car and found his 2 year old son sitting on the ground, straddling the right rear tire. His left leg was on the inside of the tire, his right leg on the outside, and he was pretending to play the drums. Dr. Gyertson attributes the voice his father heard as the voice of God or one of God’s angels.
When Peter Marshall, the great minister of the Gospel, still lived in Scotland (before coming to the States and rising to the position of Chaplain of the United States Senate), he took a shortcut home one foggy, pitch-black night across the moors of Northumberland where there was a deep, deserted limestone quarry. As he walked along, he heard a voice calling him with great urgency, “Peter!” He paused in his walk and answered, “Yes, who is it? What do you want?” Because there was no answer and thinking he was mistaken, he started walking again.
Then he heard the same voice, with more urgency, say, “Peter!” Marshall stopped again, and while trying to look into the darkness, he stumbled. Falling to his knees, he put his hand out to catch himself, and felt nothing. He felt in a semicircle around his knees and realized he was at the very edge of the abandoned quarry. One more step and he could have lost his life. (Catherine Marshall tells that story in A Man Called Peter, and Dallas Willard retells it in his book, Hearing God.)
Peter Marshall heard the voice of God or the voice of one of His messengers.
And who can forget the account of Paul on the road to Damascus where Acts 9 tells us he heard a voice? “And the men who journeyed with him stood speechless, hearing a voice but seeing no one.”
God speaks in a voice.
Secondly, we know from the Scriptures that God speaks with a small voice. Stay with me. This is an important distinction from our first point. Some who wonder whether God still speaks today have never had the dramatic experiences like those I’ve just described. It is not hard to remember Elijah’s experience of hearing the voice of God. In 1 Kings 19, the Lord was not in the great wind that tore into the mountains and broke rocks in pieces. He also was not in the earthquake that shook Elijah’s cave, nor was He in the fire that passed by the lonely prophet. Elijah heard the voice of God in a still small voice that followed all these spectacular events. God’s still small voice was “the sound of a gentle stillness,” a gentle whisper of a voice. I think we can safely say that God more often speaks in a small voice than He does in the urgent, dramatic illustrations I’ve shared.
Consider with me Proverbs 20:27. “The spirit of a man is the lamp of the LORD, searching all the inner depths of his heart.” In the Jerusalem Bible this proverb says, “Man’s spirit is the lamp of Yahweh, searching his deepest self.” God uses our spirit to communicate with us. Those communications take the form of our thoughts, though the thoughts do not originate with us.
This is how Willard says it in his book: “As we grow in grace, God’s laws increasingly form the foundation of our hearts; His love is our love, His faith our faith. Our very awareness of our actions, intentions and surroundings then bears within it the view that God takes, bringing things into the clarity of His vision just as a candle might illuminate what is on our dinner table. Therefore, the spirit of the individual truly is the ‘candle of the Lord,’ in the light of which we see ourselves and our world as God sees. In this way we are addressed by Him, spoken to by Him, through our own thoughts.
This is something you can and should test by experiment. Those who begin to pray that God will enlighten them as to the nature and meaning of the processes that go on in their own soul will begin to understand. They will begin to see their spirit functioning as the candle of the Lord.” (end quote)
So the light of God begins to shine on all our parts, “the inner depths of our hearts.”: what we think about our family, our profession, our fears, our sexuality, our reputations, our appearances, and a 1000 other parts of who we are. When we realize that those thoughts, the things we are thinking, continue to recur or persist, then we ought to give them special attention. What might God be trying to say to us? This is no doubt what the Psalmist had in mind in 139:23 – “Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me and know my anxious thoughts…”
G. Campbell Morgan, one of the great expositor’s of a previous day, said it this way: “To the individual believer indwelt by the Holy Spirit there is granted the direct impression of the Spirit of God on the spirit of man, imparting the knowledge of His will in matters of the smallest and greatest importance. This has to be sought and waited for.”
One of our youth pastors in Texas used to say quite regularly, “Give expression to those impressions.” What he meant was that we should find ways to express the things that we are being impressed with. When I feel a nudging of the Lord, when a thought is going round and round in my head, I need to do something. How many times have we thought to call someone and it turns out our call was so timely and helpful? Mike Manganello shared with the church family one Sunday evening about being burdened to visit someone. When he rang the doorbell of the person he was to visit, that person had just hung up from a call with a parent where the parent had said he/she would pray that someone would come by and encourage this son/daughter.
Many of us have had these experiences where God spoke to us in a still, small voice. He used our thoughts to communicate His will.
God speaks in other ways as well. Not only does He speak audibly, not only does He speak quietly, He also speaks by way of messengers. I read this past week a verse that makes this point. In Acts 23:9, the scribes of the Pharisees stand up to defend the apostle Paul from the Sadducees with this comment: “We find no evil in this man; but if a spirit or an angel has spoken to him, let us not fight against God.”
The Christmas story is full of accounts of the angels of God coming as messengers to deliver God’s words to His servants. Hebrews 1:14 makes the point further: “Are they (the angels of vs. 13) not all ministering spirits sent forth to minister for those who will inherit salvation?” And, of course, there is that famous verse in Hebrews 13, verse 2: “Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some have unwittingly entertained angels.” What might God have said to a godly host over a meal where angels were the guests???
I could tell you a recent story related to me by a friend, but we’ve got more questions to answer this morning. You have heard these kinds of stories, and often they have come from solid, mature people of faith who give us little reason to doubt their experiences.
God also speaks in dreams and visions. Paul was led into Europe by God speaking in a dream through the man of Macedonia in Acts 16. We all remember Peter’s rooftop vision in Acts 10, and who can forget Ananias’ feelings when God told him in a dream to go and lay hands on the fire-breathing Saul, now blind in Damascus (Acts 9)?
I’ve shared with you from this pulpit the dream the high school girl in our Texas church had. She had been looking for her watch, had looked high and low, prayed, and during the night dreamed that she saw her watch in the Kleenex box on the bathroom counter. When she awoke, she went to the tissue box and there found her watch!
Fifth, and finally, God also speaks by His Spirit and by His Word. We know the Word of God “is living and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” How often have we been reading the Word and have been pricked by the Holy Spirit as to something we need to do or stop doing, etc? That, my friends, is the voice of God.
There is a third question I want to address this morning, and it is this: How do we hear God speak to us? If He still speaks to His children, His sheep, and if He uses different mediums, what do we have to do to hear His voice? I want to offer several suggestions by way of an answer.
First of all, we will not hear God speak if He is not speaking! Profound, right? The verses of Hebrews 3 and 4 say, “Today, IF you hear His voice…” We must let God be God, and we must acknowledge that He speaks when He wants, and He is silent when He wants. The text surrounding Samuel and his first experiences with the voice of God make it very clear that “the word of the Lord was rare in those days; there was no widespread revelation.” (1 Sam 3:1) Consider also Job, who had no clue what God and Satan were up to when he began to suffer horribly, and God chose to be silent during those early days of his pain.
As much as we might like to have a word from God about any particular issue or request, we must allow Him to be silent if He chooses to be silent. After all, it is His voice!
Secondly, we can hear His voice if we seek to hear it. Saul, who would become the apostle Paul, is the rare exception where God bowls him over and takes his sight from him. It is rare that God will vie for our attention. Our experience will be more like what God says to Jeremiah: (29:12-13) “Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.” The book of Proverbs makes the same point over and over.
So how do we seek him with all our heart? We might fast, showing God that our desire for spiritual realities is more important than physical needs. We might designate a certain period every day that we set aside to pray and listen. We must certainly deal with any known sin in our lives that would block His voice from our hearing.
Thirdly, in knowing how we hear God speaking, we expect that His voice will be in accordance with His written Word. We can immediately reject all the voices, dreams and visions that would be contrary to His Word. What He has said in His word is sure. What I hear, and what I think I hear, may not be as positive or indisputable as what is written. I like how Tony Evans said it this week on the radio. There are three dimensions to the will of God. One is comprehensive. That covers everything, and only God fully knows that dimension. A second dimension is His moral will. We have that in the Scriptures and we can all know it to the depth we want to study the Book. The third dimension is His personal will for us. We won’t find in the Scriptures whether God wants us in Indiana or Indonesia. But He does have a place where He wants us to be. So we need to hear Him tell us what His will is for us personally. And that will of His will never be contrary to what He has defined by way of guidelines and principles from the Bible.
As we look to God for the vision He has for us, for us personally and for us together as a church family, we must expect to hear His voice. He will let us know the avenues we should take. We know those avenues will be within the principles outlined in His Word. We must wait upon Him for His direction. He will reveal it in His time through some medium of His voice.
Friends, we are surrounded in our world by people who need to see and understand that God is at work in our world. These are people in our neighborhoods, on our campuses, in our workplaces, in our families who are looking for someone who has a handle on life.
Who else lives better than the one who has a relationship to God through Jesus Christ? Who else lives better than the one who knows his calling, who has a vision, who understands when God speaks to him/her?
I invite you today to decide to become that kind of individual! I invite you today to become a Jacob’s ladder—one who connects this world with heaven’s kingdom! I invite you today to decide to become an envoy who brings a word from God into a world of human affairs run amok!
DISCLAIMER: These messages are offered for your personal enrichment. There is no legal copyright on this material. You have my full permission to use any of this material as long as you cite the source for any substantial amount used. Enjoy!
"God Wants Me 'Others-Oriented'”
Matthew 25
March 12, 2000
Introduction: The grave of Mrs. Rachel Jackson is located in a garden on the 425 acre estate known as the Hermitage. The inscription on her tombstone reads like this, in part: “Here lie the remains of Mrs. Rachel Jackson, wife of President Jackson, who died the 22nd (of) Dec. 1828, aged 61.
Her face was fair, her person pleasing, her temper amiable, her heart kind; she delighted in relieving the wants of her fellow creatures, and cultivated that divine pleasure by the most liberal and unpretending methods… to the poor she was a benefactor; to the rich an example; to the wretched a comforter; to the prosperous an ornament; her piety went hand in hand with her benevolence, and she thanked her Creator for being permitted to do good.” (WORLD, March 11, 2000, pg. 39)
It is obvious from this brief epitaph that Rachel Jackson lived a particular dream, and the major focus of all her dreams and vision were other people. Other people , hurting and needy people, were the object of her energies, her efforts, her time and resources.
As we continue to think about vision and what kind of vision God has in store for us individually and as a church family, we cannot get away from this defining trait of vision. Vision is always others centered. As we pray and as we search the Scriptures, we who are serious about doing what God wants us to do find ourselves looking for unique ways to serve others, to meet their needs, to help them to wholeness and health.
The passage I want us to look at this morning is Matthew 25. In studying this passage, I was struck with what it reveals for us of what God’s vision is for this world and for all of mankind in it. It is not surprising that this vision is others-oriented! Along with what God is showing us of His heart, I also noticed some patterns of living that reflect God’s vision that we ought to consider incorporating into our vision. I want to share these insights with you and draw some applications for us to put into practice as we go out from this place today.
Now just briefly, there are some difficulties with understanding elements of Mt. 25 that can be unraveled and overcome if we’ll remember that this chapter is part of the answer to questions the disciples had asked Jesus in Mt. 24:3. That verse goes like this: “As He was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying, ‘Tell us, when will these things happen, and what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?’" Any confusion we have had in times past trying to understand Matthew 25 can be cleared up by keeping in mind the disciples questions that prompted Jesus’ answer. The issues of chapter 25 point toward the end times, though there are obvious applications we can make to life today.
Now this chapter 25 is too long for us to read in the time we have together today. So as you notice the paragraphs and subtitles in your Bibles, let me scan this chapter for us. Just for novelty’s sake, let’s start at the end of the chapter.
There are three accounts that make up this chapter. The final message has to do with the returning Lord Jesus, described as the King in verse 34 and He is separating sheep from goats. That is verses 31-46. The story just previous to that concerns 3 stewards who are entrusted with the master’s wealth and the accounting they must give upon his return from a long journey. That is verses 14-30. And finally, verses 1-13, the first story is about 10 virgins who are waiting in the evening for the coming of the bridegroom.
Now in our first segment this morning, the sheep and goats story, we are given a glimpse of God’s vision for His creation. Notice in verse 33, the Lord Jesus has separated the sheep out, setting them on His right while the goats are placed on His left. Then He says, vs. 34, "Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.’”
What impresses us here is that God, before the creation of the world, had a vision. This vision of the Heavenly Father was of us together with Him in a kingdom! That was His goal even before He began the process of creating the world and all that is in it. Now the fundamental characteristic of that vision was a kingdom where everyone has an ‘others’ orientation. Notice what Jesus says about these sheep and how the ‘sheep’ here react to what Jesus has said.
Verse 35: “For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.”
“Then the righteous will answer Him, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You something to drink? And when did we see You a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? When did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’”
"The King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.’”
The outstanding, primary quality of the kingdom of heaven is one of people helping others. Before the creation of the world, God envisioned a realm where people would live together, where the most common element of life was one person helping another.
We thus are not surprised to find the Lord Jesus saying in another portion of Scripture that the greatest person in the kingdom of God is the one who was the servant of all. There can be no question that the key element in our vision will be the needs of others!
Now notice another important detail here in our passage: The “sheep” act surprised that they have served the Lord Jesus in this way. Verses 37, 38, and 39 find them asking, “When did we do these things to you?” And Jesus answers, “You did it to Me when you did it to My brethren.” This detail helps us to understand that this aspect of the life of these ‘sheep’ is not the cause of their salvation, but rather it is the evidence of salvation. They weren’t doing these things to be saved, they were doing these things because they were saved.
Consider a modern day example by the name of Hannah Hawkins. Hannah Hawkins is a 58 year old widow who today resides in Washington, D.C. She is a retired, school admin aide who initiated in 1985 an after-school program called Children of Mine. Her program serves some 80 kids who come to a rundown community center after school to do their homework and eat a hot meal, to receive tutoring and counseling, to participate in arts, crafts, dance, drama, and Bible lessons.
Children of Mine grew out of a covenant with God that Hannah Hawkins made in 1970. Completely devastated by the murder of her husband, she made this deal with God: “If He would allow me to get up out of my bed, that I would serve those that were less fortunate.”
There are many of the ‘less fortunate’ in her neighborhood: many fathers are missing, many mothers are missing; older children bring younger ones with them to the ministry of Children of Mine. One 12 year old brings a 3 year old; the older one is raising the younger one! Hannah Hawkins told World magazine’s Marvin Olasky in an interview: “I ain’t easy to deal with, but my children know I love them and care about them.” This widow prays with ‘her kids’, she prays for them, and she tells them about Jesus. (WORLD, March 11, 2000, pg. 35)
Hannah Hawkins fits the pattern of one of the sheep of God’s kingdom who will one day hear the King say: “Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.”
There’s a lesson here for us as we are praying about this issue of vision. We could state it this way: God’s will for us is always others-oriented. Every vision that God will call us to in His still small voice will involve elements that meet the needs of others. Every vision that God will entrust to us will draw us out of ourselves for the sake of others. An others orientation can take many forms. An others orientation can be expressed in many ways.
Consider these examples that Jesus makes reference to in our text: providing food for those who are hungry, making sure those who are thirsty have a cold drink, inviting into our homes those who are lonely, supplying clothes to those who are naked, going to visit those who are sick, and taking part of an afternoon for those who are in prison.
So, the hard question: When have we last done any one of these kinds of things? Have we had any lonely person into our home in the past week? Have we carved some time out of our schedule recently to encourage someone ill and homebound? When did we last pass through those heavy metal doors of the jail?
My sense, friends, is just this: As we make time for these kingdom kinds of priorities, we will more likely hear God’s voice making known to us His vision for us. But if our days are spent running our children from one school activity to another sporting event, if our days are consumed with entertainment events and Bible studies, if most of our energy is discharged in the pursuit of extra income and more possessions, then it is very unlikely that God will bother us with even part of His dreams for His kingdom.
So, let’s make a plan! For those of us at the universities, let’s get out of our ivory towers! Let’s go to the vice-president of our department and say something like this: “My pastor is on my case about becoming more balanced with my life. I just can’t take on any more academic responsibilities. In fact, I’ve got to get rid of some I have now so I can become more of a kingdom kind of person. I just have to have more time for others in my community, you know, like those who founded this Christian university did.”
For those of us with children caught up in all that is available to them in school, clubs, extra-curricular opportunities, etc., let’s sit down together and decide which two things we are going to participate in this semester. Let’s include in our family plan some times together where we are going to minister to others.
For those of us who are students, let’s don’t sign up for 15 offices and clubs and intramural teams. Let’s sign on to help out with Helping Hand, or the Crisis Pregnancy Center, or a jail visitation team. Need an introduction to Chaplain Jack Brady of the Grant County jail? I’ll introduce you. Our son Toby has spent some of his Monday afternoons this semester with a fellow Purdue student named Sarah talking about abstinence in classes at one of the high schools in Lafayette. They’ve been sponsored by the local CPC. In previous semesters Toby has taken some Wednesday afternoons to do tutoring with kids in need, and in doing so he has served the King. For when we did this service to “one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.”
God’s will for us, His vision for us, is always others oriented. When we move in that direction, He opens windows for us to see more clearly His vision for His kingdom.
Let’s wrap up this morning with a brief look at the other two segments of this chapter. In the story of the three stewards, vss. 14-30, the Lord Jesus tells of a master going away on a long journey. This master entrusts three differing amounts of silver to three of his servants. The term the Lord uses is the word ‘talent’, and we know this is money, for it is called ‘money’ in verse 18. These stewards are supposed to make good use of this stewardship in anticipation of their master’s return. Two of the servants give a positive accounting to their returning master for their faithful stewardship. The five talent man and the two talent man have been responsible with their master’s money and have reaped a bountiful harvest. Both are commended as ‘good and faithful’, both are put in charge of ‘many things’, and both are invited into the joy of their master.
Sadly, the third steward has not been so faithful, and he is described as wicked, lazy, and worthless. His future does not include the joy of his master, but rather darkness, weeping, and gnashing of teeth.
The issue for us this morning, in this context of understanding vision, is simply that our others-orientation requires faithfulness on our part. That is lesson two: Our others-orientation must be faithfully engaged. By this I mean, the kingdom of heaven is not characterized by those who make a visit a year to one who is sick. It is not a cup of cold water once every six months to one who is thirsty. The kingdom of heaven is more than a trip to the jail to visit a prisoner once in a lifetime.
The vision that God gives us to fulfill will carry with it an expectation on His part that we will be faithful in its execution. By way of illustration, I’m reminded of the story of Mary McLeod Bethune. Miss Bethune had a dream to open a school for black children. When she arrived in Daytona, FL, in 1904, she had exactly $1.50 in her pocket. She began her school a month later in a rented two-story cottage with 5 girls aged 8-12.
Two years into her dream, Mary had 250 students and needed new facilities. She bargained with a landowner for a piece of land that was just a garbage dump. The owner of the land asked her in amazement, “Why do you want to buy that piece of land? It’s only a public dump.” Mary replied, “That’s not what I see there. I see armies of happy boys and girls going out into life full of hope and faith and knowledge.”
Once on a field trip outside of Daytona Beach, Bethune and her students came across a camp where poor, malnourished migrant workers tapped pine trees for sap to make varnish and turpentine. She established a mission on the site, and over a 5 year period established a chain of missions throughout the turpentine camps in the Florida swamps. On Sundays, the migrants would be counseled about cooking and sobriety and their children would be taught to read and sing.
To motivate the students in her school, Mary Bethune had “Enter to Learn” carved on the entrance and “Depart to Serve” on the exit. When she resigned as president in 1944 at the age of 65, Bethune-Cookman College had its own campus with 600 students. (Investor’s Business Daily, February 18, 2000) Miss Mary had been faithful over the long haul in her others-orientation.
The application for us is simple. Let’s serve others with diligence over the long haul. Let’s be on guard against laziness and worthlessness. Let’s not rest on our laurels of past service. Let‘s continue to make plans to help others. Then we, too, will enter into the joy of our Lord.
The third segment of Matthew 25 is the beginning story of 10 virgins. These 10 members of a wedding party are awaiting the coming of the bridegroom. The bridegroom has been to the bride’s house, and he is soon to return with his bride to his own home to resume the festivities that began at her home. These 10 virgins are waiting outside the groom’s home for the coming of the groom with his bride.
Alas, the groom is delayed in coming. And it’s been a long day, and the young ladies get drowsy and finally fall asleep. About midnight, as the text tells us, there is a shout that the groom is coming, and the 10 young ladies rise up to greet the wedding party. They trim their oil lamps to light the way, but sadly, 5 of the virgins don’t have enough oil in their lamps to keep them burning. They want to borrow oil from the five others, but these five will not share their oil for fear that they will all end up in the dark.
The five ladies without enough oil rush to the 76 station for a fill-up, and by the time they return, the bride and groom have entered the home and they find themselves locked out of the wedding festivities. The point of the story is that when the King returns (represented by the groom here, represented by the master in the second story, and described as the Son of Man in the third story)… when the King returns, He expects to find wise and prudent attendants, those who have prepared for His coming.
And that is the lesson for us, too. In our others-oriented vision, we not only want to be faithful, we also want to be wise and prudent.
In 1892, John Philip Sousa, after 12 years as the leader of the U. S. Marine Band, resigned to start a civilian band. It was a risky venture, for none of the traveling bands of his day were profitable. But for a man who would write 322 musical arrangements, seven books, and 336 musical pieces, including 136 marches, Sousa would prove that he had the savvy and the talent to pull it off.
During its 40 year history, the Sousa Band traveled more than a million miles and gave more than 15,000 performances to audiences throughout the world. On the personal side, Sousa always showed concern for others. “If a band member made repeated mistakes, Sousa didn’t publicly berate him. Instead, Sousa visited the man in private and made gentle conversation. If he learned that the player was under stress caused by personal problems, Sousa would either offer the man friendly advice or give him time off with pay so he could resolve his difficulties.”
Not many people know that John Philip Sousa fell off his favorite horse while riding in 1921 and broke his neck. After just 10 weeks of recuperation, with permanent damage to his left arm, Sousa led his band in a performance that he felt his audience deserved. Refusing to let the crowd see him in pain, sweat streaming down his face, he finally left the stage at the end near exhaustion, but those attending that evening didn’t know what he had gone through to serve them. (Investor’s Business Daily, January 14, 2000)
Sousa was a wise man in his day when private bands were not profitable. Sousa was a wise man in his treatment of his employees, showing them respect and concern. This wise man served his audiences while even in great pain because they deserved a performance they had paid to see.
Friends, let’s not be foolish and unwise in the spending of this one life we have. Let’s not be caught at the Lord’s return having flittered away our lives, our resources, our energies in the pursuit of lesser things. Let’s commit ourselves to the pursuit of a vision that we can handle wisely.
For when God shares a vision with us for us to execute, we know it will be oriented to others. He will expect us to be faithfully about that vision, and He will be pleased if we are wise and prudent in the fulfilling of it.
DISCLAIMER: These messages are offered for your personal enrichment. There is no legal copyright on this material. You have my full permission to use any of this material as long as you cite the source for any substantial amount used. Enjoy!
March 12, 2000
Introduction: The grave of Mrs. Rachel Jackson is located in a garden on the 425 acre estate known as the Hermitage. The inscription on her tombstone reads like this, in part: “Here lie the remains of Mrs. Rachel Jackson, wife of President Jackson, who died the 22nd (of) Dec. 1828, aged 61.
Her face was fair, her person pleasing, her temper amiable, her heart kind; she delighted in relieving the wants of her fellow creatures, and cultivated that divine pleasure by the most liberal and unpretending methods… to the poor she was a benefactor; to the rich an example; to the wretched a comforter; to the prosperous an ornament; her piety went hand in hand with her benevolence, and she thanked her Creator for being permitted to do good.” (WORLD, March 11, 2000, pg. 39)
It is obvious from this brief epitaph that Rachel Jackson lived a particular dream, and the major focus of all her dreams and vision were other people. Other people , hurting and needy people, were the object of her energies, her efforts, her time and resources.
As we continue to think about vision and what kind of vision God has in store for us individually and as a church family, we cannot get away from this defining trait of vision. Vision is always others centered. As we pray and as we search the Scriptures, we who are serious about doing what God wants us to do find ourselves looking for unique ways to serve others, to meet their needs, to help them to wholeness and health.
The passage I want us to look at this morning is Matthew 25. In studying this passage, I was struck with what it reveals for us of what God’s vision is for this world and for all of mankind in it. It is not surprising that this vision is others-oriented! Along with what God is showing us of His heart, I also noticed some patterns of living that reflect God’s vision that we ought to consider incorporating into our vision. I want to share these insights with you and draw some applications for us to put into practice as we go out from this place today.
Now just briefly, there are some difficulties with understanding elements of Mt. 25 that can be unraveled and overcome if we’ll remember that this chapter is part of the answer to questions the disciples had asked Jesus in Mt. 24:3. That verse goes like this: “As He was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying, ‘Tell us, when will these things happen, and what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?’" Any confusion we have had in times past trying to understand Matthew 25 can be cleared up by keeping in mind the disciples questions that prompted Jesus’ answer. The issues of chapter 25 point toward the end times, though there are obvious applications we can make to life today.
Now this chapter 25 is too long for us to read in the time we have together today. So as you notice the paragraphs and subtitles in your Bibles, let me scan this chapter for us. Just for novelty’s sake, let’s start at the end of the chapter.
There are three accounts that make up this chapter. The final message has to do with the returning Lord Jesus, described as the King in verse 34 and He is separating sheep from goats. That is verses 31-46. The story just previous to that concerns 3 stewards who are entrusted with the master’s wealth and the accounting they must give upon his return from a long journey. That is verses 14-30. And finally, verses 1-13, the first story is about 10 virgins who are waiting in the evening for the coming of the bridegroom.
Now in our first segment this morning, the sheep and goats story, we are given a glimpse of God’s vision for His creation. Notice in verse 33, the Lord Jesus has separated the sheep out, setting them on His right while the goats are placed on His left. Then He says, vs. 34, "Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.’”
What impresses us here is that God, before the creation of the world, had a vision. This vision of the Heavenly Father was of us together with Him in a kingdom! That was His goal even before He began the process of creating the world and all that is in it. Now the fundamental characteristic of that vision was a kingdom where everyone has an ‘others’ orientation. Notice what Jesus says about these sheep and how the ‘sheep’ here react to what Jesus has said.
Verse 35: “For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.”
“Then the righteous will answer Him, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You something to drink? And when did we see You a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? When did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’”
"The King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.’”
The outstanding, primary quality of the kingdom of heaven is one of people helping others. Before the creation of the world, God envisioned a realm where people would live together, where the most common element of life was one person helping another.
We thus are not surprised to find the Lord Jesus saying in another portion of Scripture that the greatest person in the kingdom of God is the one who was the servant of all. There can be no question that the key element in our vision will be the needs of others!
Now notice another important detail here in our passage: The “sheep” act surprised that they have served the Lord Jesus in this way. Verses 37, 38, and 39 find them asking, “When did we do these things to you?” And Jesus answers, “You did it to Me when you did it to My brethren.” This detail helps us to understand that this aspect of the life of these ‘sheep’ is not the cause of their salvation, but rather it is the evidence of salvation. They weren’t doing these things to be saved, they were doing these things because they were saved.
Consider a modern day example by the name of Hannah Hawkins. Hannah Hawkins is a 58 year old widow who today resides in Washington, D.C. She is a retired, school admin aide who initiated in 1985 an after-school program called Children of Mine. Her program serves some 80 kids who come to a rundown community center after school to do their homework and eat a hot meal, to receive tutoring and counseling, to participate in arts, crafts, dance, drama, and Bible lessons.
Children of Mine grew out of a covenant with God that Hannah Hawkins made in 1970. Completely devastated by the murder of her husband, she made this deal with God: “If He would allow me to get up out of my bed, that I would serve those that were less fortunate.”
There are many of the ‘less fortunate’ in her neighborhood: many fathers are missing, many mothers are missing; older children bring younger ones with them to the ministry of Children of Mine. One 12 year old brings a 3 year old; the older one is raising the younger one! Hannah Hawkins told World magazine’s Marvin Olasky in an interview: “I ain’t easy to deal with, but my children know I love them and care about them.” This widow prays with ‘her kids’, she prays for them, and she tells them about Jesus. (WORLD, March 11, 2000, pg. 35)
Hannah Hawkins fits the pattern of one of the sheep of God’s kingdom who will one day hear the King say: “Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.”
There’s a lesson here for us as we are praying about this issue of vision. We could state it this way: God’s will for us is always others-oriented. Every vision that God will call us to in His still small voice will involve elements that meet the needs of others. Every vision that God will entrust to us will draw us out of ourselves for the sake of others. An others orientation can take many forms. An others orientation can be expressed in many ways.
Consider these examples that Jesus makes reference to in our text: providing food for those who are hungry, making sure those who are thirsty have a cold drink, inviting into our homes those who are lonely, supplying clothes to those who are naked, going to visit those who are sick, and taking part of an afternoon for those who are in prison.
So, the hard question: When have we last done any one of these kinds of things? Have we had any lonely person into our home in the past week? Have we carved some time out of our schedule recently to encourage someone ill and homebound? When did we last pass through those heavy metal doors of the jail?
My sense, friends, is just this: As we make time for these kingdom kinds of priorities, we will more likely hear God’s voice making known to us His vision for us. But if our days are spent running our children from one school activity to another sporting event, if our days are consumed with entertainment events and Bible studies, if most of our energy is discharged in the pursuit of extra income and more possessions, then it is very unlikely that God will bother us with even part of His dreams for His kingdom.
So, let’s make a plan! For those of us at the universities, let’s get out of our ivory towers! Let’s go to the vice-president of our department and say something like this: “My pastor is on my case about becoming more balanced with my life. I just can’t take on any more academic responsibilities. In fact, I’ve got to get rid of some I have now so I can become more of a kingdom kind of person. I just have to have more time for others in my community, you know, like those who founded this Christian university did.”
For those of us with children caught up in all that is available to them in school, clubs, extra-curricular opportunities, etc., let’s sit down together and decide which two things we are going to participate in this semester. Let’s include in our family plan some times together where we are going to minister to others.
For those of us who are students, let’s don’t sign up for 15 offices and clubs and intramural teams. Let’s sign on to help out with Helping Hand, or the Crisis Pregnancy Center, or a jail visitation team. Need an introduction to Chaplain Jack Brady of the Grant County jail? I’ll introduce you. Our son Toby has spent some of his Monday afternoons this semester with a fellow Purdue student named Sarah talking about abstinence in classes at one of the high schools in Lafayette. They’ve been sponsored by the local CPC. In previous semesters Toby has taken some Wednesday afternoons to do tutoring with kids in need, and in doing so he has served the King. For when we did this service to “one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.”
God’s will for us, His vision for us, is always others oriented. When we move in that direction, He opens windows for us to see more clearly His vision for His kingdom.
Let’s wrap up this morning with a brief look at the other two segments of this chapter. In the story of the three stewards, vss. 14-30, the Lord Jesus tells of a master going away on a long journey. This master entrusts three differing amounts of silver to three of his servants. The term the Lord uses is the word ‘talent’, and we know this is money, for it is called ‘money’ in verse 18. These stewards are supposed to make good use of this stewardship in anticipation of their master’s return. Two of the servants give a positive accounting to their returning master for their faithful stewardship. The five talent man and the two talent man have been responsible with their master’s money and have reaped a bountiful harvest. Both are commended as ‘good and faithful’, both are put in charge of ‘many things’, and both are invited into the joy of their master.
Sadly, the third steward has not been so faithful, and he is described as wicked, lazy, and worthless. His future does not include the joy of his master, but rather darkness, weeping, and gnashing of teeth.
The issue for us this morning, in this context of understanding vision, is simply that our others-orientation requires faithfulness on our part. That is lesson two: Our others-orientation must be faithfully engaged. By this I mean, the kingdom of heaven is not characterized by those who make a visit a year to one who is sick. It is not a cup of cold water once every six months to one who is thirsty. The kingdom of heaven is more than a trip to the jail to visit a prisoner once in a lifetime.
The vision that God gives us to fulfill will carry with it an expectation on His part that we will be faithful in its execution. By way of illustration, I’m reminded of the story of Mary McLeod Bethune. Miss Bethune had a dream to open a school for black children. When she arrived in Daytona, FL, in 1904, she had exactly $1.50 in her pocket. She began her school a month later in a rented two-story cottage with 5 girls aged 8-12.
Two years into her dream, Mary had 250 students and needed new facilities. She bargained with a landowner for a piece of land that was just a garbage dump. The owner of the land asked her in amazement, “Why do you want to buy that piece of land? It’s only a public dump.” Mary replied, “That’s not what I see there. I see armies of happy boys and girls going out into life full of hope and faith and knowledge.”
Once on a field trip outside of Daytona Beach, Bethune and her students came across a camp where poor, malnourished migrant workers tapped pine trees for sap to make varnish and turpentine. She established a mission on the site, and over a 5 year period established a chain of missions throughout the turpentine camps in the Florida swamps. On Sundays, the migrants would be counseled about cooking and sobriety and their children would be taught to read and sing.
To motivate the students in her school, Mary Bethune had “Enter to Learn” carved on the entrance and “Depart to Serve” on the exit. When she resigned as president in 1944 at the age of 65, Bethune-Cookman College had its own campus with 600 students. (Investor’s Business Daily, February 18, 2000) Miss Mary had been faithful over the long haul in her others-orientation.
The application for us is simple. Let’s serve others with diligence over the long haul. Let’s be on guard against laziness and worthlessness. Let’s not rest on our laurels of past service. Let‘s continue to make plans to help others. Then we, too, will enter into the joy of our Lord.
The third segment of Matthew 25 is the beginning story of 10 virgins. These 10 members of a wedding party are awaiting the coming of the bridegroom. The bridegroom has been to the bride’s house, and he is soon to return with his bride to his own home to resume the festivities that began at her home. These 10 virgins are waiting outside the groom’s home for the coming of the groom with his bride.
Alas, the groom is delayed in coming. And it’s been a long day, and the young ladies get drowsy and finally fall asleep. About midnight, as the text tells us, there is a shout that the groom is coming, and the 10 young ladies rise up to greet the wedding party. They trim their oil lamps to light the way, but sadly, 5 of the virgins don’t have enough oil in their lamps to keep them burning. They want to borrow oil from the five others, but these five will not share their oil for fear that they will all end up in the dark.
The five ladies without enough oil rush to the 76 station for a fill-up, and by the time they return, the bride and groom have entered the home and they find themselves locked out of the wedding festivities. The point of the story is that when the King returns (represented by the groom here, represented by the master in the second story, and described as the Son of Man in the third story)… when the King returns, He expects to find wise and prudent attendants, those who have prepared for His coming.
And that is the lesson for us, too. In our others-oriented vision, we not only want to be faithful, we also want to be wise and prudent.
In 1892, John Philip Sousa, after 12 years as the leader of the U. S. Marine Band, resigned to start a civilian band. It was a risky venture, for none of the traveling bands of his day were profitable. But for a man who would write 322 musical arrangements, seven books, and 336 musical pieces, including 136 marches, Sousa would prove that he had the savvy and the talent to pull it off.
During its 40 year history, the Sousa Band traveled more than a million miles and gave more than 15,000 performances to audiences throughout the world. On the personal side, Sousa always showed concern for others. “If a band member made repeated mistakes, Sousa didn’t publicly berate him. Instead, Sousa visited the man in private and made gentle conversation. If he learned that the player was under stress caused by personal problems, Sousa would either offer the man friendly advice or give him time off with pay so he could resolve his difficulties.”
Not many people know that John Philip Sousa fell off his favorite horse while riding in 1921 and broke his neck. After just 10 weeks of recuperation, with permanent damage to his left arm, Sousa led his band in a performance that he felt his audience deserved. Refusing to let the crowd see him in pain, sweat streaming down his face, he finally left the stage at the end near exhaustion, but those attending that evening didn’t know what he had gone through to serve them. (Investor’s Business Daily, January 14, 2000)
Sousa was a wise man in his day when private bands were not profitable. Sousa was a wise man in his treatment of his employees, showing them respect and concern. This wise man served his audiences while even in great pain because they deserved a performance they had paid to see.
Friends, let’s not be foolish and unwise in the spending of this one life we have. Let’s not be caught at the Lord’s return having flittered away our lives, our resources, our energies in the pursuit of lesser things. Let’s commit ourselves to the pursuit of a vision that we can handle wisely.
For when God shares a vision with us for us to execute, we know it will be oriented to others. He will expect us to be faithfully about that vision, and He will be pleased if we are wise and prudent in the fulfilling of it.
DISCLAIMER: These messages are offered for your personal enrichment. There is no legal copyright on this material. You have my full permission to use any of this material as long as you cite the source for any substantial amount used. Enjoy!
"Vision Will Change Me”
Various Passages
March 5, 2000
Introduction: Once upon a time, the brothers Grimm had a dream. Jacob and Wilhelm wanted to study law. They dreamed of becoming attorneys. Even though each was offered a scholarship to the University of Marburg, the brothers wanted more. They realized that language and culture were the keys to law, so they set out to master German literature and folklore.
It wasn’t long before Jacob and Wilhelm fell in love with their subject and decided to put all their energies into understanding the stories of the German people. In the course of events, they wrote a book called “Kinder and Hausmarchen” or in English, “Children’s and Household Tales.” Their stories included “Cinderella,” “Sleeping Beauty,” “Snow White,” “Little Red Riding Hood,” and “Hansel and Gretel.”
The book of the brothers Grimm became a huge success in part due to their attention to detail. When Wilhelm was recording the story of “Sleeping Beauty” from Marie Muller’s version, she said that everyone in Sleeping Beauty’s castle fell asleep. When Wilhelm asked, “Who, exactly, fell asleep?” She replied, “Even the flies on the wall fell asleep!”
As a measure of their success, by the 1870’s, the book was being used to teach reading in schools all over Germany. By the beginning of the 20th century, it was second only to the Bible as a best seller in Germany, and it holds that position to this day. (Amy Reynolds, Investor’s Business Daily, Jan 1, 2000)
Two brothers who had dreamed of becoming attorneys found their dream completely changing their lives. A dream or a vision can and will change the dreamer!
According to World magazine’s Lynn Vincent, the book, Darwin on Trial, began “peeling back the thin curtain of science that shielded evolution to reveal what lay behind: Darwinian philosophers churning out a powerful scientific mirage.” The book’s author, Phillip Johnson, would say in an interview with Vincent, “I could see that evolution was not so much science as a philosophy that Darwinists had adopted in the teeth of the facts.”
Johnson is one of a cadre of proponents of what is called “intelligent design” that argues that the world and its creatures are evidence of a Designer. The ‘intelligent design’ movement is forcing Darwinists onto the defense in many of the debates that are making headlines in Kansas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma.
So, who is this Phillip Johnson who is behind so much of this stir? He is a man whose vision changed his life. In 1987, the UC Berkeley law professor asked God what he should do with the rest of his life. Part of the answer to that question involved a fateful trip to London where Johnson passed a bookstore and became hooked on a comparative study of evolutionary theory. In the early 90s he made contact with other scientists and theoreticians to form alliances around the issue of intelligent design. These were men like Michael Behe (Darwin’s Black Box), William Dembski (“God’s mathematician”, The Design Inference), and Steve Meyer (DNA by Design).
In 1993, Johnson’s book, Darwin on Trial, was published. This summer, his new book, The Wedge of Truth, will be released, and Phillip Johnson’s life will continue to be the answer to the question he asked God in 1987—“What should I do with the rest of my life?” A vision from God will change a person’s life!
When we look at some of the famous folks of the Bible, we see vision making dramatic changes in the rest of their lives! And vision holds that prospect for us as well. Would we be willing to ask the same question of God – “What should I do with the rest of my life?” What kinds of change would we be willing to undergo if we knew God had called us to something new for the next season of our life? What kinds of obstacles could keep us from exchanging complacency or the comfortable confines of what we now know for a fresh call of God?
Let’s look at a few men from the Book and draw some lessons from their experiences.
The first person I want us to consider this morning is a man called Jacob. His story is found in the book of Genesis. We see him at Bethel in chapter 28, verses 10-22. He is fleeing from Esau, having stolen the birthright by conspiratorial deception with his mother, and he is on his way to his uncle Laban’s place in Paddan-aram (Mesopotamia).
Readers of this account remember that Jacob has a dream one night while on the way. (He’s using a stone for a pillow (11); perhaps that’s the reason for his dreaming!) He sees a ladder spanning the distance between heaven and earth, and the angels of God are ascending and descending on it. Jacob also sees God standing at the top of the ladder, and God makes some heavy-duty promises to him. These promises are the extension of the promises God had given to Abraham back in Genesis 12, promises about numerous descendents, a great land, and the blessings of a great future.
When Jacob awakes, he says, (Gen. 28:16-22), "’Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.’ He was afraid and said, ‘How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.’ So Jacob rose early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put under his head and set it up as a pillar and poured oil on its top. He called the name of that place Bethel...
Verse 20 -- Then Jacob made a vow, saying, ‘If God will be with me and will keep me on this journey that I take, and will give me food to eat and garments to wear, and I return to my father's house in safety, then the Lord will be my God. This stone, which I have set up as a pillar, will be God's house, and of all that You give me I will surely give a tenth to You.’"
Jacob’s life is going to be significantly altered because of this vision he is given of God and this gateway of heaven. We see more of those alterations when we come to chapter 32. This is that famous passage that tells of Jacob’s wrestling match with God Himself. We pick up the story in 32:24 – “Then Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. When he saw that he had not prevailed against him, he touched the socket of his thigh; so the socket of Jacob's thigh was dislocated while he wrestled with him.
Then he (God) said, ‘Let me go, for the dawn is breaking.’ But he (Jacob) said, ‘I will not let you go unless you bless me.’ Now skip down to verse 30 – “So Jacob named the place Peniel, for he said, ‘I have seen God face to face, yet my life has been preserved.’ Now the sun rose upon him just as he crossed over Penuel, and he was limping on his thigh.”
Because of this rendezvous with God, Jacob will limp for the rest of his life. And that limp will always remind him of his encounter with God. His limp will always prompt him to remember that he struggled for God’s blessing, and he had emerged from the struggle victorious. What had begun with a dream in chapter 28 ends with a limp in chapter 32. The one who is Jacob in chapter 28 is now Israel in chapter 32.
Jacob’s vision produced some startling changes that impacted the rest of his life. The one word that had characterized his entire life up to this point is struggle. He had had conflict with his brother, with his father, with his father-in-law, and with God. He will be a different man from this point forward.
Another Biblical hero significantly impacted by a vision from God is Joseph. Joseph had a vision from God that certainly brought huge changes into his life. In Genesis 37 Joseph has two dreams. The first is found in verse 5 and the second surfaces in verse 9. Both dreams are slightly different, but they convey the same message. In the first dream (37:7), Joseph is speaking to his brothers, and we read: “…for behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and lo, my sheaf rose up and also stood erect; and behold, your sheaves gathered around and bowed down to my sheaf." In the second dream recorded in verse 9, Joseph is again saying: "Lo, I have had still another dream; and behold, the sun and the moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me."
Now everyone knows exactly what these dreams mean. In verses 8 and 10 we understand that both Jacob and his other sons realize what Joseph is saying: One day they will bow down to him, for he will be the ruler over all of them.
And the dreams do come true. And with their fulfillment, it is obvious to all that God was the author of this vision for this particular son.
For all of us who know Joseph’s story (that basically covers the rest of the book of Genesis), we know how this young man was changed. He went from being a shepherd and a farmer to being the prime minister of Egypt. He went from being his father’s favorite son hated by his brothers to being the patriarch of the family. He went from being a spoiled errand boy for his doting father to being the savior of Egypt and Israel. When God wanted to take Abraham’s family, numbering about 70 individuals, and make of it a nation of some 2 million souls, He gave a vision to a young man. Joseph would never be the same!
His experience in the pit where he was thrown by his brothers… his encounter with Potipher’s wife and subsequent prison time on trumped up charges… his long years of hard work endeavoring to rescue Egypt from a coming famine of 7 years duration… his forced separation from his family and the experience of starting his own family… My, how Joseph’s life changed because of the call of God upon him!!
I finished this week an autobiography of a Marine sniper who spent 13 months in Vietnam in the early 70s. J.T. Ward wrote his volume by compiling all the letters he wrote home to his mom while he was gone. He writes of seeing Viet Cong with wire bands around their arms and legs – wires that could become instant tourniquets if necessary for them to keep going in the midst of battle.
He writes of his own wounds from a grenade explosion that have to be kept open and cleaned for a couple of weeks before they can be stitched closed. He writes of the excruciating pain of that experience, and how at one point in a cleaning session an artery is nicked and he is able to watch his own blood spurting in rhythm with his heart beat as the nurse runs to get a doctor to stop the bleeding.
Now, J.T. Ward says nothing about the part that God plays in the unfolding drama of his experience, but I share part of his story this morning to highlight how events in our lives dramatically change us. Joseph had just such life-changing experiences that he recognized as being from the hand of God, and those experiences left him remarkably different from what he had been.
Consider with me for a moment another Bible hero: Moses had a vision from God that he would be the deliverer of Israel from the bondage, the iron furnace, of Egypt. We see Moses in Exodus 2 killing an Egyptian who is mistreating a Hebrew.
Many commentators think that by this time (the time of Ex. 2) Moses had had a vision of being the deliverer of the Hebrews. His actions here portray an attempt, a fleshly attempt, to be that savior. But Moses’ timing is wrong. It won’t be until 40 years later that he has the experience before the burning bush where God makes clear His plans for Moses and the Hebrews.
After quite a debate, after quite an argument and struggle, Moses embarks with Aaron on the mission to force Pharaoh to let the people of God go from Egypt to the Promised Land. That revisited vision and Moses’ conflict with God is recorded in Exodus 3 and 4.
My, how Moses’ life changed from living in the desert of Midian to bracing himself before Pharaoh in the palaces of Egypt! My, how Moses changed from being a shepherd dealing with sheep everyday to being a leader having to deal with Egyptian rulers and Hebrew tribal chiefs!
When God calls out to a man or woman, and when that call finds response in a tender heart, lives change!
We could continue on if we wanted. We could look at Joshua, we could look at David, we could look at Isaiah and Jeremiah, we could study Paul and Stephen and Peter and John, but the picture is clear enough, isn’t it? When God calls a person, when God gives an individual a vision for ministry and service, he or she undergoes profound changes.
One man limps as a constant reminder that his strength for walking in life must come from his God.
Another man becomes humbly dependent upon his God as he waits patiently for the dreams God gave him to become reality when everything he sees says they never will.
Yet another becomes the meekest man who ever lived, stepping way down from the power and influence of a prince of Egypt.
So what does all this mean for us?
If we want God to use us in this one life He gives, if we expect Him to speak to us and give us clear marching orders, if we hope to be an instrument useable in His hands, then we must be people (and we must be a church) that takes a healthy view of change. We saw last week that vision creates the future. It is now also apparent that vision changes us.
There are huge implications of this challenge for all of us. We must ask: So how important are traditions? We all know the seven deadliest words known to the church: “We have always done it this way!” Another variation isn’t much different: “We’ve never done it that way before!”
Of course, some traditions have noteworthy strengths. We will never be open to changing our concepts of our fundamental doctrinal positions. Suzie and I were invited last Sunday to join the lunch in the gym that our college volunteers had prepared for the college students to enjoy together. I asked the four fellows that were near me why they came to this church. One said, “We sing a lot of choruses in chapel, but I like the mixture of hymns that we sing here.” Another said, “My background is Brethren, and I want to be part of a church with Anabaptist roots.” Another student said, “I like my home church, and this church reminds me of home.” We can’t be all things to all the university students, but we can be what some are looking for.
And it may well be that some of those traditions that make us what we are will be stretched and tweaked and modified as God leads us into the future. BUT God will not share His dreams for us with us if we are unable or unwilling to consider change.
Another implication to the idea of vision and personal change comes in the form of another question: “How would my friends, those who know me best, say I react to new ideas?” How much am I in the grip of the known, the comfortable, and the normal? How easy is it for me to see the negative side of an idea instead of the positive? How strong are my tendencies to be critical rather than affirming? How much Pharisee blood runs in my veins?
In the invitation I received recently to minister in the Philippines, I noticed I was scheduled to lead an evangelistic healing service on the last Thursday night I would be there. Though I knew that I would be ministering in the context of a charismatic group, that kind of ministry opportunity had never crossed my mind, and my first reaction to it was not positive or healthy.
I was intrigued again recently to read the parable in Matthew 20 about the landowner who went to the marketplace to hire workers for his vineyard. You remember the story: He hired some laborers in the morning and agreed with them to pay each of them a denarius for a day’s work. Then the landowner went back to the marketplace at the third hour and hired some more, this time agreeing to pay them what was right. Again at the sixth, ninth, and even eleventh hours, the businessman hired more workers with the same stipulation: “Whatever is right, I will give you.”
You remember the end of the story: the landowner gave those who had come later in the day the same as he gave those who had worked all day. Even those who had only worked one hour since the eleventh hour received the same denarius. The landowner had some pretty upset people on his hands at the payday hour. But he said to one of them, Mt. 20:13: “Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what is yours and go…Is your eye evil because I am generous?”
The problem of those upset was their inability to think beyond their traditions and their limited expectations. Who had ever heard of such a generous businessman? Who would have imagined that a landowner might do something so unusual? Here was a man, representing God in the parable, whose outlook on life was neither critical, nor negative, nor traditional. He was positive, creative, generous, and committed to doing what was right.
And a final implication: If I hold too tightly to the wrong traditions, and if I’m too quickly adverse to something new and different, it is so easy to be self-satisfied. The Lord Jesus addressed the final church in Revelation 3, the self-satisfied Laodiceans, with the descriptive term “lukewarm”. The Lord Jesus would have preferred this church to be cold or hot. Cold water can be refreshing. Hot water is useful for many medical procedures. Lukewarm water is neither. It is hard for vision to grip a self-satisfied person. It’s even harder for vision to change a lukewarm person. Like the lady of last week, the mother of Matthew 15, we all need a bit of desperation in us, something to offset our natural tendency towards complacency. We need some sense of urgency to offset our affinity for lethargy.
I’m reminded of the two disciples in Luke 24 who are walking along the Emmaus road. Jesus joins them but they do not recognize Him. Finally, at supper time, as they eat together, their eyes are opened, they recognize Him, and then He vanishes. Do you remember their comments, one to another? “Were not our hearts burning within us…as He opened the Scriptures to us?” Dallas Willard calls this the “Jesus heartburn”, and if vision is to change us, we need it!
Conclusion: Vision, the call of God, the will of God for us – these are powerful revelation that promise incredible blessings. To know God more and more, to walk with Him according to His perfect plan for us… nothing else in life compares!
That vision, that call, that plan will change us --- IF it can get around our traditions, IF it isn’t discounted at once as something strange, out of the blue, IF it can get around our self-satisfaction and create a little heartburn!
DISCLAIMER: These messages are offered for your personal enrichment. There is no legal copyright on this material. You have my full permission to use any of this material as long as you cite the source for any substantial amount used. Enjoy!
March 5, 2000
Introduction: Once upon a time, the brothers Grimm had a dream. Jacob and Wilhelm wanted to study law. They dreamed of becoming attorneys. Even though each was offered a scholarship to the University of Marburg, the brothers wanted more. They realized that language and culture were the keys to law, so they set out to master German literature and folklore.
It wasn’t long before Jacob and Wilhelm fell in love with their subject and decided to put all their energies into understanding the stories of the German people. In the course of events, they wrote a book called “Kinder and Hausmarchen” or in English, “Children’s and Household Tales.” Their stories included “Cinderella,” “Sleeping Beauty,” “Snow White,” “Little Red Riding Hood,” and “Hansel and Gretel.”
The book of the brothers Grimm became a huge success in part due to their attention to detail. When Wilhelm was recording the story of “Sleeping Beauty” from Marie Muller’s version, she said that everyone in Sleeping Beauty’s castle fell asleep. When Wilhelm asked, “Who, exactly, fell asleep?” She replied, “Even the flies on the wall fell asleep!”
As a measure of their success, by the 1870’s, the book was being used to teach reading in schools all over Germany. By the beginning of the 20th century, it was second only to the Bible as a best seller in Germany, and it holds that position to this day. (Amy Reynolds, Investor’s Business Daily, Jan 1, 2000)
Two brothers who had dreamed of becoming attorneys found their dream completely changing their lives. A dream or a vision can and will change the dreamer!
According to World magazine’s Lynn Vincent, the book, Darwin on Trial, began “peeling back the thin curtain of science that shielded evolution to reveal what lay behind: Darwinian philosophers churning out a powerful scientific mirage.” The book’s author, Phillip Johnson, would say in an interview with Vincent, “I could see that evolution was not so much science as a philosophy that Darwinists had adopted in the teeth of the facts.”
Johnson is one of a cadre of proponents of what is called “intelligent design” that argues that the world and its creatures are evidence of a Designer. The ‘intelligent design’ movement is forcing Darwinists onto the defense in many of the debates that are making headlines in Kansas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma.
So, who is this Phillip Johnson who is behind so much of this stir? He is a man whose vision changed his life. In 1987, the UC Berkeley law professor asked God what he should do with the rest of his life. Part of the answer to that question involved a fateful trip to London where Johnson passed a bookstore and became hooked on a comparative study of evolutionary theory. In the early 90s he made contact with other scientists and theoreticians to form alliances around the issue of intelligent design. These were men like Michael Behe (Darwin’s Black Box), William Dembski (“God’s mathematician”, The Design Inference), and Steve Meyer (DNA by Design).
In 1993, Johnson’s book, Darwin on Trial, was published. This summer, his new book, The Wedge of Truth, will be released, and Phillip Johnson’s life will continue to be the answer to the question he asked God in 1987—“What should I do with the rest of my life?” A vision from God will change a person’s life!
When we look at some of the famous folks of the Bible, we see vision making dramatic changes in the rest of their lives! And vision holds that prospect for us as well. Would we be willing to ask the same question of God – “What should I do with the rest of my life?” What kinds of change would we be willing to undergo if we knew God had called us to something new for the next season of our life? What kinds of obstacles could keep us from exchanging complacency or the comfortable confines of what we now know for a fresh call of God?
Let’s look at a few men from the Book and draw some lessons from their experiences.
The first person I want us to consider this morning is a man called Jacob. His story is found in the book of Genesis. We see him at Bethel in chapter 28, verses 10-22. He is fleeing from Esau, having stolen the birthright by conspiratorial deception with his mother, and he is on his way to his uncle Laban’s place in Paddan-aram (Mesopotamia).
Readers of this account remember that Jacob has a dream one night while on the way. (He’s using a stone for a pillow (11); perhaps that’s the reason for his dreaming!) He sees a ladder spanning the distance between heaven and earth, and the angels of God are ascending and descending on it. Jacob also sees God standing at the top of the ladder, and God makes some heavy-duty promises to him. These promises are the extension of the promises God had given to Abraham back in Genesis 12, promises about numerous descendents, a great land, and the blessings of a great future.
When Jacob awakes, he says, (Gen. 28:16-22), "’Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.’ He was afraid and said, ‘How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.’ So Jacob rose early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put under his head and set it up as a pillar and poured oil on its top. He called the name of that place Bethel...
Verse 20 -- Then Jacob made a vow, saying, ‘If God will be with me and will keep me on this journey that I take, and will give me food to eat and garments to wear, and I return to my father's house in safety, then the Lord will be my God. This stone, which I have set up as a pillar, will be God's house, and of all that You give me I will surely give a tenth to You.’"
Jacob’s life is going to be significantly altered because of this vision he is given of God and this gateway of heaven. We see more of those alterations when we come to chapter 32. This is that famous passage that tells of Jacob’s wrestling match with God Himself. We pick up the story in 32:24 – “Then Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. When he saw that he had not prevailed against him, he touched the socket of his thigh; so the socket of Jacob's thigh was dislocated while he wrestled with him.
Then he (God) said, ‘Let me go, for the dawn is breaking.’ But he (Jacob) said, ‘I will not let you go unless you bless me.’ Now skip down to verse 30 – “So Jacob named the place Peniel, for he said, ‘I have seen God face to face, yet my life has been preserved.’ Now the sun rose upon him just as he crossed over Penuel, and he was limping on his thigh.”
Because of this rendezvous with God, Jacob will limp for the rest of his life. And that limp will always remind him of his encounter with God. His limp will always prompt him to remember that he struggled for God’s blessing, and he had emerged from the struggle victorious. What had begun with a dream in chapter 28 ends with a limp in chapter 32. The one who is Jacob in chapter 28 is now Israel in chapter 32.
Jacob’s vision produced some startling changes that impacted the rest of his life. The one word that had characterized his entire life up to this point is struggle. He had had conflict with his brother, with his father, with his father-in-law, and with God. He will be a different man from this point forward.
Another Biblical hero significantly impacted by a vision from God is Joseph. Joseph had a vision from God that certainly brought huge changes into his life. In Genesis 37 Joseph has two dreams. The first is found in verse 5 and the second surfaces in verse 9. Both dreams are slightly different, but they convey the same message. In the first dream (37:7), Joseph is speaking to his brothers, and we read: “…for behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and lo, my sheaf rose up and also stood erect; and behold, your sheaves gathered around and bowed down to my sheaf." In the second dream recorded in verse 9, Joseph is again saying: "Lo, I have had still another dream; and behold, the sun and the moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me."
Now everyone knows exactly what these dreams mean. In verses 8 and 10 we understand that both Jacob and his other sons realize what Joseph is saying: One day they will bow down to him, for he will be the ruler over all of them.
And the dreams do come true. And with their fulfillment, it is obvious to all that God was the author of this vision for this particular son.
For all of us who know Joseph’s story (that basically covers the rest of the book of Genesis), we know how this young man was changed. He went from being a shepherd and a farmer to being the prime minister of Egypt. He went from being his father’s favorite son hated by his brothers to being the patriarch of the family. He went from being a spoiled errand boy for his doting father to being the savior of Egypt and Israel. When God wanted to take Abraham’s family, numbering about 70 individuals, and make of it a nation of some 2 million souls, He gave a vision to a young man. Joseph would never be the same!
His experience in the pit where he was thrown by his brothers… his encounter with Potipher’s wife and subsequent prison time on trumped up charges… his long years of hard work endeavoring to rescue Egypt from a coming famine of 7 years duration… his forced separation from his family and the experience of starting his own family… My, how Joseph’s life changed because of the call of God upon him!!
I finished this week an autobiography of a Marine sniper who spent 13 months in Vietnam in the early 70s. J.T. Ward wrote his volume by compiling all the letters he wrote home to his mom while he was gone. He writes of seeing Viet Cong with wire bands around their arms and legs – wires that could become instant tourniquets if necessary for them to keep going in the midst of battle.
He writes of his own wounds from a grenade explosion that have to be kept open and cleaned for a couple of weeks before they can be stitched closed. He writes of the excruciating pain of that experience, and how at one point in a cleaning session an artery is nicked and he is able to watch his own blood spurting in rhythm with his heart beat as the nurse runs to get a doctor to stop the bleeding.
Now, J.T. Ward says nothing about the part that God plays in the unfolding drama of his experience, but I share part of his story this morning to highlight how events in our lives dramatically change us. Joseph had just such life-changing experiences that he recognized as being from the hand of God, and those experiences left him remarkably different from what he had been.
Consider with me for a moment another Bible hero: Moses had a vision from God that he would be the deliverer of Israel from the bondage, the iron furnace, of Egypt. We see Moses in Exodus 2 killing an Egyptian who is mistreating a Hebrew.
Many commentators think that by this time (the time of Ex. 2) Moses had had a vision of being the deliverer of the Hebrews. His actions here portray an attempt, a fleshly attempt, to be that savior. But Moses’ timing is wrong. It won’t be until 40 years later that he has the experience before the burning bush where God makes clear His plans for Moses and the Hebrews.
After quite a debate, after quite an argument and struggle, Moses embarks with Aaron on the mission to force Pharaoh to let the people of God go from Egypt to the Promised Land. That revisited vision and Moses’ conflict with God is recorded in Exodus 3 and 4.
My, how Moses’ life changed from living in the desert of Midian to bracing himself before Pharaoh in the palaces of Egypt! My, how Moses changed from being a shepherd dealing with sheep everyday to being a leader having to deal with Egyptian rulers and Hebrew tribal chiefs!
When God calls out to a man or woman, and when that call finds response in a tender heart, lives change!
We could continue on if we wanted. We could look at Joshua, we could look at David, we could look at Isaiah and Jeremiah, we could study Paul and Stephen and Peter and John, but the picture is clear enough, isn’t it? When God calls a person, when God gives an individual a vision for ministry and service, he or she undergoes profound changes.
One man limps as a constant reminder that his strength for walking in life must come from his God.
Another man becomes humbly dependent upon his God as he waits patiently for the dreams God gave him to become reality when everything he sees says they never will.
Yet another becomes the meekest man who ever lived, stepping way down from the power and influence of a prince of Egypt.
So what does all this mean for us?
If we want God to use us in this one life He gives, if we expect Him to speak to us and give us clear marching orders, if we hope to be an instrument useable in His hands, then we must be people (and we must be a church) that takes a healthy view of change. We saw last week that vision creates the future. It is now also apparent that vision changes us.
There are huge implications of this challenge for all of us. We must ask: So how important are traditions? We all know the seven deadliest words known to the church: “We have always done it this way!” Another variation isn’t much different: “We’ve never done it that way before!”
Of course, some traditions have noteworthy strengths. We will never be open to changing our concepts of our fundamental doctrinal positions. Suzie and I were invited last Sunday to join the lunch in the gym that our college volunteers had prepared for the college students to enjoy together. I asked the four fellows that were near me why they came to this church. One said, “We sing a lot of choruses in chapel, but I like the mixture of hymns that we sing here.” Another said, “My background is Brethren, and I want to be part of a church with Anabaptist roots.” Another student said, “I like my home church, and this church reminds me of home.” We can’t be all things to all the university students, but we can be what some are looking for.
And it may well be that some of those traditions that make us what we are will be stretched and tweaked and modified as God leads us into the future. BUT God will not share His dreams for us with us if we are unable or unwilling to consider change.
Another implication to the idea of vision and personal change comes in the form of another question: “How would my friends, those who know me best, say I react to new ideas?” How much am I in the grip of the known, the comfortable, and the normal? How easy is it for me to see the negative side of an idea instead of the positive? How strong are my tendencies to be critical rather than affirming? How much Pharisee blood runs in my veins?
In the invitation I received recently to minister in the Philippines, I noticed I was scheduled to lead an evangelistic healing service on the last Thursday night I would be there. Though I knew that I would be ministering in the context of a charismatic group, that kind of ministry opportunity had never crossed my mind, and my first reaction to it was not positive or healthy.
I was intrigued again recently to read the parable in Matthew 20 about the landowner who went to the marketplace to hire workers for his vineyard. You remember the story: He hired some laborers in the morning and agreed with them to pay each of them a denarius for a day’s work. Then the landowner went back to the marketplace at the third hour and hired some more, this time agreeing to pay them what was right. Again at the sixth, ninth, and even eleventh hours, the businessman hired more workers with the same stipulation: “Whatever is right, I will give you.”
You remember the end of the story: the landowner gave those who had come later in the day the same as he gave those who had worked all day. Even those who had only worked one hour since the eleventh hour received the same denarius. The landowner had some pretty upset people on his hands at the payday hour. But he said to one of them, Mt. 20:13: “Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what is yours and go…Is your eye evil because I am generous?”
The problem of those upset was their inability to think beyond their traditions and their limited expectations. Who had ever heard of such a generous businessman? Who would have imagined that a landowner might do something so unusual? Here was a man, representing God in the parable, whose outlook on life was neither critical, nor negative, nor traditional. He was positive, creative, generous, and committed to doing what was right.
And a final implication: If I hold too tightly to the wrong traditions, and if I’m too quickly adverse to something new and different, it is so easy to be self-satisfied. The Lord Jesus addressed the final church in Revelation 3, the self-satisfied Laodiceans, with the descriptive term “lukewarm”. The Lord Jesus would have preferred this church to be cold or hot. Cold water can be refreshing. Hot water is useful for many medical procedures. Lukewarm water is neither. It is hard for vision to grip a self-satisfied person. It’s even harder for vision to change a lukewarm person. Like the lady of last week, the mother of Matthew 15, we all need a bit of desperation in us, something to offset our natural tendency towards complacency. We need some sense of urgency to offset our affinity for lethargy.
I’m reminded of the two disciples in Luke 24 who are walking along the Emmaus road. Jesus joins them but they do not recognize Him. Finally, at supper time, as they eat together, their eyes are opened, they recognize Him, and then He vanishes. Do you remember their comments, one to another? “Were not our hearts burning within us…as He opened the Scriptures to us?” Dallas Willard calls this the “Jesus heartburn”, and if vision is to change us, we need it!
Conclusion: Vision, the call of God, the will of God for us – these are powerful revelation that promise incredible blessings. To know God more and more, to walk with Him according to His perfect plan for us… nothing else in life compares!
That vision, that call, that plan will change us --- IF it can get around our traditions, IF it isn’t discounted at once as something strange, out of the blue, IF it can get around our self-satisfaction and create a little heartburn!
DISCLAIMER: These messages are offered for your personal enrichment. There is no legal copyright on this material. You have my full permission to use any of this material as long as you cite the source for any substantial amount used. Enjoy!
"Vision is Creating the Future”
Mt. 15:21-28
February 27, 2000
Introduction: I.M. Pei is known in architectural circles as the Mandarin of Modernism. He was born in Canton, China, in 1917, to a wealthy banking family. As a young man, he knew that to get ahead as an architect he’d need the kind of education that would allow him to design the new things he saw in his head. He left China in 1935 and became a student at MIT.
After graduation, Pei went to work for a flamboyant real estate developer by the name of William Zeckendorf. When Zeckendorf got into financial trouble, Pei, instead of worrying about his future, saw an opportunity to start his own company. And so he did.
Walking down a New York street in the 1950’s with one of his designers, Pei gestured at the staid buildings around him on Madison Avenue and said to his protégé, “We are going to change all this.”
When Jacqueline Kennedy, newly widowed, arrived at Pei’s modest offices to interview him as a candidate to design the John Kennedy presidential library, she had already been to several other prominent architects. In Pei’s reception area, Mrs. Kennedy noticed fresh flowers, and she said, “That’s a beautiful bouquet. Do you always have those?” “Oh no,” Pei responded, “we only got those for you.”
Pei was awarded the project.
(“Architect I.M. Pei – His Vision Changed the World’s Skylines”, Investor’s Business Daily, Friday, January 7, 2000)
What I like about I.M. Pei is his understanding of vision. He set about to create the future! Whether it meant creating a new skyline in New York City or whether it meant creating the atmosphere to get the nod to build a presidential library, Pei wanted to do it. He had a vision for it.
As we continue to reflect upon the issue of vision, we see another element of it today in Matthew 15. As you turn there, consider what we already know about vision: Vision is a gift that God gives to those who will ask Him for it, to those who will pray. Vision as we see it in the experience of the man Nehemiah is a thing that can begin as a dream and end as a reality.
In the text before us today, I want you to see a mom and how she set about to create the future for her family. When we see her vision, we will be inspired to continue looking to God for the part each of us may play in creating the future as well.
None of us knows what the future holds. But God does, and He wants each of us to have a significant role in creating that future, in creating the yet-unformed parts of the kingdom of God. That, my friends, is an important element of vision—not only our personal visions, but our vision as a church family together.
The text before us is Matthew 15:21-28 – “Jesus went away from there, and withdrew into the district of Tyre and Sidon. And a Canaanite woman from that region came out and began to cry out, saying, ‘Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is cruelly demon-possessed.’
But He did not answer her a word. And His disciples came and implored Him, saying, ‘Send her away, because she keeps shouting at us.’ But He answered and said, ‘I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.’ But she came and began to bow down before Him, saying, ‘Lord, help me!’
And He answered and said, ‘It is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.’ But she said, ‘Yes, Lord; but even the dogs feed on the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.’
Then Jesus said to her, ‘O woman, your faith is great; it shall be done for you as you wish.’ And her daughter was healed at once.”
The three dimensions of this mom who is portrayed here by Matthew provide for us a simple outline for this message. We see her first as a desperate mom. Then she becomes before us a mother of determination. And finally, we see her delighted. Let’s consider her experience and learn some more lessons to help us with this issue of vision.
This mother’s desperation pops up before us like a target on a rifle range. We see it in verse 22. We can almost feel the shrillness of her cry. We can begin to imagine the tears on her face because of the heartbreaking condition of her daughter, a victim of cruel demon possession. Of course, she has heard about this ‘Son of David’ and some of what He has done for the sick and hurting, but now that He is passing by her region, she must act! He may not come this way again! This could be a once-in-a-lifetime chance for healing. The desperation she feels at the hopeless condition of her daughter is heightened by the briefness of this open window of opportunity.
Like Nehemiah of old, this mother’s vision grows out of her burden for someone else. No doubt this mother’s life is full and challenging. No doubt she is willing to shoulder the moment-by-moment burden of a handicapped child. A mother’s love willingly takes her through every moment of every day with one eye on her offspring and one eye on her household tasks.
But what of the future for the child? What of the days after Mom, when mom won’t be there, can’t be there? We only have to read a portion of the Gospels to have our eyes opened to this mother’s desperation. What did demon-possession mean for a child? It often meant epileptic-like seizures that led to dangerous experiences of being thrown into a fire or a pool of water—life threatening episodes. In chapter 12 of Matthew, demon-ization is connected to being blind and mute. In chapter 8, those who are demon possessed are extremely violent. Perhaps these conditions describe this child.
To make matters even worse, Matthew tacks on the adverb ‘cruelly’ here. It’s a word that means all the things that come to our minds. In the Scriptures and in extra-Biblical literature, this word is used to speak of oxen in a bad way, as if mired in a muddy ditch. It is used of someone who is ill, and it sometimes refers to a menacing curse. Biblical images of “cruel” speak of a person running from a hunter who seeks to trap and kill. God warns Cain to master the evil cruelty of his own heart lest it, like a monster crouching at his door, destroy him!
Weeds and thorns in a garden of flowers also portray the meaning of this term. Those of us who farm and garden can see “cruel” easily here.
But perhaps the foremost image of this term is darkness, as in the deep shadows of an alley in the inner city where terrible things can happen… darkness, as in a forest at midnight where we can’t see where we are going… darkness is perhaps the foremost Biblical image of this term Matthew uses to describe this girl’s demonization.
Through our imaginations, can we identify with this mother? Can we see why this mother is so desperate for her daughter? Is it hard to see why this mother wants to create a different kind of future for her child? Can we understand that this mom’s vision is to create a new future for the one she loves so much?
As our account continues to unfold, we see this mother’s desperation move into determination. Note the obstacles placed in the path of her vision; notice what obstructs the creation of a new future for her loved one: First, in verse 23, Jesus appears to completely ignore her! He won’t say a word!! What happened to His compassion we saw last week? What happened to His tender heart toward those enslaved by the evil one? What’s going on here? Did He forget to pray this morning? Has He forgotten why He came? At first blush, this is unbelievable!
There’s a second obstacle here. Matthew tells us she is a Canaanite woman. We haven’t forgotten that the Canaanites were the hated enemies of Israel. Mark simple tells us she is Greek, but Matthew can’t forget what a thorn in the flesh these people were to his ancestors! How does this descendent of Israel’s ancient enemies dare to come to the Jewish Messiah for a blessing?
A third obstacle surfaces in verse 23. The disciples don’t seem to be very sympathetic either. They beg Jesus to send her away. It appears they are annoyed by her cries, and they suppose that Jesus must be annoyed, too. “Send her away because she keeps shouting at us.”
A fourth barrier becomes clear in verse 24. Jesus declares that He was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. What Matthew hints at in his reference to her background as a Canaanite now becomes crystal clear in the statement of His purpose. This woman is outside the covenants and has no claim to any of the blessings of those covenants. She’s just a dog! It wouldn’t be appropriate to share the children’s food with the dogs!
Though all these barriers seem formidable, none can withstand the determination of this woman of vision. She will not be stopped by anything from creating a new future for her daughter! She worships Him (vs. 25) and like a skilled swordsman, she parries His every thrust. She says in verse 27, “You’re right, Lord. The bread is for the children, but even the dogs get to eat the crumbs that fall from the table!” This desperate, determined mother agrees with the Savior. She does not claim that her needs and the needs of her daughter make them exceptions, that they should be invited to dine at the Messiah’s table. She just advances the analogy into new territory. Couldn’t she just be allowed to receive a crumb of God’s mercy even though she is outside the covenant? Would that be outside the realm of possibility? Is that so unthinkable?
Thirdly, and finally, this desperate, determined mom moves into satisfied delight. In verse 28, this mother hears the Son of David say the sweetest words imaginable: “…it shall be done for you as you wish.” Her determination in the face of desperation has paid off!
But the mother is not the only one filled with exhilaration here. Jesus is too. When He says, “O woman, your faith is great;…”, He is expressing greater emotion than we might catch at first blush. That little utterance, “O” in “O woman” reveals a heart moved by strong feeling. The Lord Jesus is as pleased as the woman is! We know what the writer of Hebrews said: “And without faith, it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him.” We conclude the Lord Jesus is greatly pleased with this mother’s faith, and the pleasure He experiences because of her faith can’t be hidden! He takes great delight in rewarding her with the gift her vision longed for.
The daughter has a new future!! She will no longer be at the mercy of the Evil Kingdom! No longer epileptic, no longer violent, no longer mute, no longer blind, no longer in danger of violent accidents. And no doubt, the mother is pleased as punch!
Delight is such a happy ending to a story that began with such desperation!
Now, with this mom in mind, a mother first desperate, then determined, and finally delighted, let’s draw some lessons about vision from her experience.
Lesson One: Vision is creating the future! This mother teaches us that you and I can shape the future!! Tomorrow can be different from today. What we have become used to does not have to be the end. God is looking to draw us into the pattern He is weaving on this giant tapestry that one day will be revealed as the kingdom of His dear Son. We just have to sign on; we just have to buy into the idea that He has a vision for each of us and for all of us together!
Now remember: Vision begins with an awareness of someone else’s need. That’s how Nehemiah’s began; that’s how this mother’s began. And I’m convinced that God’s awareness of this daughter’s need is part of this vision picture. Who else but God has orchestrated the circumstances of this meeting between a Gentile mother and the Son of God?
So we want to ask ourselves, what needs of others has God laid upon our hearts? It gives me a great sense of pleasure to see our college students and our grad students looking at summer ministries in far away places. There are so many people in other parts of the world with the need to hear the Gospel! Our own Katie will be spending her spring break down on the TexasMexico border with a group from the Baptist Student Union at TCU serving others and being used by God to meet their needs.
Somebody’s future is going to be different because of her vision. Vision is creating the future.
Lesson Two: Vision is a gift to those who are not satisfied with the present! This mother in our story is so burdened with her daughter’s need for release from her demons that she can never be satisfied with the present.
You see, my friends, there is a glorious future God wants us to have a part in crafting. But we’ll have to know some dissatisfaction with the present in order to see that crafting take place. Now, I suppose there will always be those of us who are quite content with things just as they are. We are satisfied with so much of the status quo that we don’t want anything to be different. We like the security of our rut; we know where the walls are, we like the protection we feel from the elements beyond our comfort zones.
But friends, we all know a rut is just a grave with the ends kicked out! For us personally, and for us as a church family, we must be willing to cut away some of the chains that keep us bound to the known, the comfortable, the safe if we want to create the future. We may not become as desperate as this mother was, but we’ll have to become at least a little bit desperate about the way things are now.
And, let’s not kid ourselves – there very well may be some in an audience this size just as desperate as our Matthew 15 mother. I know there are; their desperation is not frantic, yet, because of their faith, because of your support. They don’t need convincing that the present needs changing. They don’t need persuading that a very different future is waiting to be created. They are just wondering what it’ll take to make it happen. And that’s lesson three.
Lesson Three: Vision requires incredible determination! We’ve seen this determination in the mother of this passage. She is not put off by the total lack of response from the Lord Jesus to her cries. She ignores the disciples who were not pleased that she kept shouting at them. She refuses to buckle under the Lord’s comment that He was sent only to Israel. She will not surrender to the image of bread being off-limits to the dogs of the household.
Her love for her daughter fuels her determination like a bolt being flung from a crossbow. Her dissatisfaction with the present is like a smoldering volcano on the verge of eruption.. Her hope to create a better future, a demon-free future for her child, rages like a fire that refuse to die down.
So, the question for us is simply this: How would our determination be gauged against hers? How does the steel in our souls compare to the steel in hers?
I wonder if you’ve ever noticed the two events that follow this one in chapter 15? In verses 29-31, Jesus heals a great crowd of lame, crippled, blind, and mute people. Do you see where He is? Verse 29 says He’s sitting on a mountain.
Why there? Do you suppose He is gauging the determination of the friends of the lame, the crippled, the blind, and the mute? How badly do they want a new future for their handicapped friends? Bad enough to carry them up a mountain?
Look at the next text: Verses 32-39 record the feeding of the 4000, and I want you to see the setting in verse 32. These people have been with Jesus for 3 days, and they have nothing to eat. He doesn’t want to send them away hungry, “for they might faint on the way.”
Would any of us go to a weekend concert, a three day seminar if we knew there wouldn’t be any food there? Is Jesus making it difficult to follow Him? Has He set the bar a tad high just to see who will determine to follow Him, who is willing to pay the price of some discomfort, some exertion, some stress?
If we want God to share His vision for us with us, we must be committed to staying the course from the giving of the vision to the reality of it.
Conclusion: Vision is creating the future. Those that God will entrust a call to are those who are not terribly comfortable with the way things currently are.
They may even be desperate.
But the element that cannot be missing is determination. How badly do we want to follow the Lord Jesus? Howard Hendricks used to ask us at seminary, “So, what will it take to make you quit?”
I wouldn’t be surprised if this Canaanite mother didn’t hold Joseph up as one of her heroes. Remember his vision? Remember how desperate his situation became? Remember how he determined to obey his God? Remember the outcome of his faith?
If some of us today find our determination waning…
If some of us today are dreaming of a different future, but the sledding is pretty tough right now…
If some of us know we are just too content, too comfortable, too satisfied, and we’d like to know that vision God has for us…
Then I’d like to invite you to make a decision. Determine this day that God and God alone you will follow, that nothing will deter you from remaining true to Him, that you will trust Him to complete the vision that He gives you to meet the need of someone else.
DISCLAIMER: These messages are offered for your personal enrichment. There is no legal copyright on this material. You have my full permission to use any of this material as long as you cite the source for any substantial amount used. Enjoy!
February 27, 2000
Introduction: I.M. Pei is known in architectural circles as the Mandarin of Modernism. He was born in Canton, China, in 1917, to a wealthy banking family. As a young man, he knew that to get ahead as an architect he’d need the kind of education that would allow him to design the new things he saw in his head. He left China in 1935 and became a student at MIT.
After graduation, Pei went to work for a flamboyant real estate developer by the name of William Zeckendorf. When Zeckendorf got into financial trouble, Pei, instead of worrying about his future, saw an opportunity to start his own company. And so he did.
Walking down a New York street in the 1950’s with one of his designers, Pei gestured at the staid buildings around him on Madison Avenue and said to his protégé, “We are going to change all this.”
When Jacqueline Kennedy, newly widowed, arrived at Pei’s modest offices to interview him as a candidate to design the John Kennedy presidential library, she had already been to several other prominent architects. In Pei’s reception area, Mrs. Kennedy noticed fresh flowers, and she said, “That’s a beautiful bouquet. Do you always have those?” “Oh no,” Pei responded, “we only got those for you.”
Pei was awarded the project.
(“Architect I.M. Pei – His Vision Changed the World’s Skylines”, Investor’s Business Daily, Friday, January 7, 2000)
What I like about I.M. Pei is his understanding of vision. He set about to create the future! Whether it meant creating a new skyline in New York City or whether it meant creating the atmosphere to get the nod to build a presidential library, Pei wanted to do it. He had a vision for it.
As we continue to reflect upon the issue of vision, we see another element of it today in Matthew 15. As you turn there, consider what we already know about vision: Vision is a gift that God gives to those who will ask Him for it, to those who will pray. Vision as we see it in the experience of the man Nehemiah is a thing that can begin as a dream and end as a reality.
In the text before us today, I want you to see a mom and how she set about to create the future for her family. When we see her vision, we will be inspired to continue looking to God for the part each of us may play in creating the future as well.
None of us knows what the future holds. But God does, and He wants each of us to have a significant role in creating that future, in creating the yet-unformed parts of the kingdom of God. That, my friends, is an important element of vision—not only our personal visions, but our vision as a church family together.
The text before us is Matthew 15:21-28 – “Jesus went away from there, and withdrew into the district of Tyre and Sidon. And a Canaanite woman from that region came out and began to cry out, saying, ‘Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is cruelly demon-possessed.’
But He did not answer her a word. And His disciples came and implored Him, saying, ‘Send her away, because she keeps shouting at us.’ But He answered and said, ‘I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.’ But she came and began to bow down before Him, saying, ‘Lord, help me!’
And He answered and said, ‘It is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.’ But she said, ‘Yes, Lord; but even the dogs feed on the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.’
Then Jesus said to her, ‘O woman, your faith is great; it shall be done for you as you wish.’ And her daughter was healed at once.”
The three dimensions of this mom who is portrayed here by Matthew provide for us a simple outline for this message. We see her first as a desperate mom. Then she becomes before us a mother of determination. And finally, we see her delighted. Let’s consider her experience and learn some more lessons to help us with this issue of vision.
This mother’s desperation pops up before us like a target on a rifle range. We see it in verse 22. We can almost feel the shrillness of her cry. We can begin to imagine the tears on her face because of the heartbreaking condition of her daughter, a victim of cruel demon possession. Of course, she has heard about this ‘Son of David’ and some of what He has done for the sick and hurting, but now that He is passing by her region, she must act! He may not come this way again! This could be a once-in-a-lifetime chance for healing. The desperation she feels at the hopeless condition of her daughter is heightened by the briefness of this open window of opportunity.
Like Nehemiah of old, this mother’s vision grows out of her burden for someone else. No doubt this mother’s life is full and challenging. No doubt she is willing to shoulder the moment-by-moment burden of a handicapped child. A mother’s love willingly takes her through every moment of every day with one eye on her offspring and one eye on her household tasks.
But what of the future for the child? What of the days after Mom, when mom won’t be there, can’t be there? We only have to read a portion of the Gospels to have our eyes opened to this mother’s desperation. What did demon-possession mean for a child? It often meant epileptic-like seizures that led to dangerous experiences of being thrown into a fire or a pool of water—life threatening episodes. In chapter 12 of Matthew, demon-ization is connected to being blind and mute. In chapter 8, those who are demon possessed are extremely violent. Perhaps these conditions describe this child.
To make matters even worse, Matthew tacks on the adverb ‘cruelly’ here. It’s a word that means all the things that come to our minds. In the Scriptures and in extra-Biblical literature, this word is used to speak of oxen in a bad way, as if mired in a muddy ditch. It is used of someone who is ill, and it sometimes refers to a menacing curse. Biblical images of “cruel” speak of a person running from a hunter who seeks to trap and kill. God warns Cain to master the evil cruelty of his own heart lest it, like a monster crouching at his door, destroy him!
Weeds and thorns in a garden of flowers also portray the meaning of this term. Those of us who farm and garden can see “cruel” easily here.
But perhaps the foremost image of this term is darkness, as in the deep shadows of an alley in the inner city where terrible things can happen… darkness, as in a forest at midnight where we can’t see where we are going… darkness is perhaps the foremost Biblical image of this term Matthew uses to describe this girl’s demonization.
Through our imaginations, can we identify with this mother? Can we see why this mother is so desperate for her daughter? Is it hard to see why this mother wants to create a different kind of future for her child? Can we understand that this mom’s vision is to create a new future for the one she loves so much?
As our account continues to unfold, we see this mother’s desperation move into determination. Note the obstacles placed in the path of her vision; notice what obstructs the creation of a new future for her loved one: First, in verse 23, Jesus appears to completely ignore her! He won’t say a word!! What happened to His compassion we saw last week? What happened to His tender heart toward those enslaved by the evil one? What’s going on here? Did He forget to pray this morning? Has He forgotten why He came? At first blush, this is unbelievable!
There’s a second obstacle here. Matthew tells us she is a Canaanite woman. We haven’t forgotten that the Canaanites were the hated enemies of Israel. Mark simple tells us she is Greek, but Matthew can’t forget what a thorn in the flesh these people were to his ancestors! How does this descendent of Israel’s ancient enemies dare to come to the Jewish Messiah for a blessing?
A third obstacle surfaces in verse 23. The disciples don’t seem to be very sympathetic either. They beg Jesus to send her away. It appears they are annoyed by her cries, and they suppose that Jesus must be annoyed, too. “Send her away because she keeps shouting at us.”
A fourth barrier becomes clear in verse 24. Jesus declares that He was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. What Matthew hints at in his reference to her background as a Canaanite now becomes crystal clear in the statement of His purpose. This woman is outside the covenants and has no claim to any of the blessings of those covenants. She’s just a dog! It wouldn’t be appropriate to share the children’s food with the dogs!
Though all these barriers seem formidable, none can withstand the determination of this woman of vision. She will not be stopped by anything from creating a new future for her daughter! She worships Him (vs. 25) and like a skilled swordsman, she parries His every thrust. She says in verse 27, “You’re right, Lord. The bread is for the children, but even the dogs get to eat the crumbs that fall from the table!” This desperate, determined mother agrees with the Savior. She does not claim that her needs and the needs of her daughter make them exceptions, that they should be invited to dine at the Messiah’s table. She just advances the analogy into new territory. Couldn’t she just be allowed to receive a crumb of God’s mercy even though she is outside the covenant? Would that be outside the realm of possibility? Is that so unthinkable?
Thirdly, and finally, this desperate, determined mom moves into satisfied delight. In verse 28, this mother hears the Son of David say the sweetest words imaginable: “…it shall be done for you as you wish.” Her determination in the face of desperation has paid off!
But the mother is not the only one filled with exhilaration here. Jesus is too. When He says, “O woman, your faith is great;…”, He is expressing greater emotion than we might catch at first blush. That little utterance, “O” in “O woman” reveals a heart moved by strong feeling. The Lord Jesus is as pleased as the woman is! We know what the writer of Hebrews said: “And without faith, it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him.” We conclude the Lord Jesus is greatly pleased with this mother’s faith, and the pleasure He experiences because of her faith can’t be hidden! He takes great delight in rewarding her with the gift her vision longed for.
The daughter has a new future!! She will no longer be at the mercy of the Evil Kingdom! No longer epileptic, no longer violent, no longer mute, no longer blind, no longer in danger of violent accidents. And no doubt, the mother is pleased as punch!
Delight is such a happy ending to a story that began with such desperation!
Now, with this mom in mind, a mother first desperate, then determined, and finally delighted, let’s draw some lessons about vision from her experience.
Lesson One: Vision is creating the future! This mother teaches us that you and I can shape the future!! Tomorrow can be different from today. What we have become used to does not have to be the end. God is looking to draw us into the pattern He is weaving on this giant tapestry that one day will be revealed as the kingdom of His dear Son. We just have to sign on; we just have to buy into the idea that He has a vision for each of us and for all of us together!
Now remember: Vision begins with an awareness of someone else’s need. That’s how Nehemiah’s began; that’s how this mother’s began. And I’m convinced that God’s awareness of this daughter’s need is part of this vision picture. Who else but God has orchestrated the circumstances of this meeting between a Gentile mother and the Son of God?
So we want to ask ourselves, what needs of others has God laid upon our hearts? It gives me a great sense of pleasure to see our college students and our grad students looking at summer ministries in far away places. There are so many people in other parts of the world with the need to hear the Gospel! Our own Katie will be spending her spring break down on the TexasMexico border with a group from the Baptist Student Union at TCU serving others and being used by God to meet their needs.
Somebody’s future is going to be different because of her vision. Vision is creating the future.
Lesson Two: Vision is a gift to those who are not satisfied with the present! This mother in our story is so burdened with her daughter’s need for release from her demons that she can never be satisfied with the present.
You see, my friends, there is a glorious future God wants us to have a part in crafting. But we’ll have to know some dissatisfaction with the present in order to see that crafting take place. Now, I suppose there will always be those of us who are quite content with things just as they are. We are satisfied with so much of the status quo that we don’t want anything to be different. We like the security of our rut; we know where the walls are, we like the protection we feel from the elements beyond our comfort zones.
But friends, we all know a rut is just a grave with the ends kicked out! For us personally, and for us as a church family, we must be willing to cut away some of the chains that keep us bound to the known, the comfortable, the safe if we want to create the future. We may not become as desperate as this mother was, but we’ll have to become at least a little bit desperate about the way things are now.
And, let’s not kid ourselves – there very well may be some in an audience this size just as desperate as our Matthew 15 mother. I know there are; their desperation is not frantic, yet, because of their faith, because of your support. They don’t need convincing that the present needs changing. They don’t need persuading that a very different future is waiting to be created. They are just wondering what it’ll take to make it happen. And that’s lesson three.
Lesson Three: Vision requires incredible determination! We’ve seen this determination in the mother of this passage. She is not put off by the total lack of response from the Lord Jesus to her cries. She ignores the disciples who were not pleased that she kept shouting at them. She refuses to buckle under the Lord’s comment that He was sent only to Israel. She will not surrender to the image of bread being off-limits to the dogs of the household.
Her love for her daughter fuels her determination like a bolt being flung from a crossbow. Her dissatisfaction with the present is like a smoldering volcano on the verge of eruption.. Her hope to create a better future, a demon-free future for her child, rages like a fire that refuse to die down.
So, the question for us is simply this: How would our determination be gauged against hers? How does the steel in our souls compare to the steel in hers?
I wonder if you’ve ever noticed the two events that follow this one in chapter 15? In verses 29-31, Jesus heals a great crowd of lame, crippled, blind, and mute people. Do you see where He is? Verse 29 says He’s sitting on a mountain.
Why there? Do you suppose He is gauging the determination of the friends of the lame, the crippled, the blind, and the mute? How badly do they want a new future for their handicapped friends? Bad enough to carry them up a mountain?
Look at the next text: Verses 32-39 record the feeding of the 4000, and I want you to see the setting in verse 32. These people have been with Jesus for 3 days, and they have nothing to eat. He doesn’t want to send them away hungry, “for they might faint on the way.”
Would any of us go to a weekend concert, a three day seminar if we knew there wouldn’t be any food there? Is Jesus making it difficult to follow Him? Has He set the bar a tad high just to see who will determine to follow Him, who is willing to pay the price of some discomfort, some exertion, some stress?
If we want God to share His vision for us with us, we must be committed to staying the course from the giving of the vision to the reality of it.
Conclusion: Vision is creating the future. Those that God will entrust a call to are those who are not terribly comfortable with the way things currently are.
They may even be desperate.
But the element that cannot be missing is determination. How badly do we want to follow the Lord Jesus? Howard Hendricks used to ask us at seminary, “So, what will it take to make you quit?”
I wouldn’t be surprised if this Canaanite mother didn’t hold Joseph up as one of her heroes. Remember his vision? Remember how desperate his situation became? Remember how he determined to obey his God? Remember the outcome of his faith?
If some of us today find our determination waning…
If some of us today are dreaming of a different future, but the sledding is pretty tough right now…
If some of us know we are just too content, too comfortable, too satisfied, and we’d like to know that vision God has for us…
Then I’d like to invite you to make a decision. Determine this day that God and God alone you will follow, that nothing will deter you from remaining true to Him, that you will trust Him to complete the vision that He gives you to meet the need of someone else.
DISCLAIMER: These messages are offered for your personal enrichment. There is no legal copyright on this material. You have my full permission to use any of this material as long as you cite the source for any substantial amount used. Enjoy!
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