15 But the Lord said to him,
"Go, for he is a chosen vessel of Mine to bear My name before
Gentiles, kings, and the children of Israel. 16
For I will show him how many things he must suffer for My name's
sake." Acts 9:15 - 16
The first message I preached at my church this year had to do with
the value of a life. I titled this message: One Life, One Word,
One Testimony, which consequently will be the name of this two-part
message. In the message I preached, I discussed how our lives are
significant because the Spirit of God gives it significance. We
often underestimate the impact that our lives can have in the earth.
We have the Spirit of God dwelling in us, leading us and guiding
us into all truth. Because of that fact, our lives have much significance.
The problem we have in our nation is that we do not believe that
we can actually make an impact in the earth. In many cases, we have
believed a weak gospel that really does not have power in our lives
or the lives of others. It is hard to convince people that they
can actually live a victorious life. People claim the victory in
Jesus name, but they do not believe that they have the victory,
live defeated, and bring no glory to the Lord. We have a word that
when people put their faith in it can change a life to the uttermost.
However, we seemingly have forgotten or failed to believe in this
word.
I think about our society and how many of the philosophies and ideas
of previous philosophers have saturated our society and thinking.
Many of these philosophies have found their way into the church,
are mixed with the true gospel, and people are becoming more accustomed
to living in bondage rather than in victory. Ironically, much of
the bad doctrine that goes forth promises victory and dominion,
but it actually only produces defeat. The reason is that the gospel
that we see the apostles (might I note that the church was built
upon the foundation of apostles and prophets) preached is hardly
the gospel that we preach commonly today. If we do happen to preach
the gospel, then we are so scared to speak boldly because we are
afraid that the gospel will do precisely what it has the potential
to do: repel people, causing them to become hostile.
When I think about how many anti-Christian movements have systematically
changed the way our society thinks, I become very convicted by it.
I have a problem with the settling that we have done. What I mean
to say is, people who do not have the authority of the Spirit of
God have successfully removed prayer out of school, cast doubt on
the definition of marriage, clouded the reality that abortion is
murder, and a host of other issues that are threatening to reshape
society, as we know it. Many people in our society have even bought
into the lie that truth is not knowable. Some word it very bluntly:
“what is true for you may not be true for me.” Then
we have the ever-intimidating term, “politically correct.”
We do not ever want to be accused of not being “pc”.
Other people say, “You can’t judge me”. We are
too afraid to preach the gospel because we are afraid of being accused
of being judgmental. Others say, “You are just like all those
other Christians, wanting to push your religion on me.” Therefore,
we do not want to preach the word because we do not want people
to think that we are forcing religion on them. In fact, we have
made religion a dirty word. All of these things have censored many
Christians.
We justify ourselves and say, “We do not want to add an offense
to the gospel so that we can reach more people.” This is nonsense
and an excuse. The fact of the matter is that we are scared. We
are so full of what people will think about us that we refuse to
truly care about other people. This is reality. We try to act as
if we are so compassionate and loving, yet we are nothing more than
hypocrites are at times. We do not believe that we can change society
because we do not comprehend the power that is available in the
gospel to change lives. It is time that we start becoming honest
with ourselves rather than putting up this facade. In many ways,
we are failing to do what the Lord commanded. It is time for us
to wake up!
If people would read and understand their Bibles, they would realize
that God has always done a lot with a little. The children of Israel
became a nation through Abraham. One man birthed a nation. Moses
defied the odds by leading Israel against the Egyptians and caused
the nation of Israel to be delivered from an oppression that had
lasted 400 years. The children of Israel conquered cities two and
three times the size of them. Nations were so scared of this little
group of people that had been freed from the Egyptians so miraculously,
that they built walls to keep them out of it. God used Elijah to
destroy 400 prophets of Baal. Elijah was one man. He used Jesus
to change all of humanity forever. Jesus turned a little boy’s
lunch into a feast for thousands! Jesus used a little of faith (of
the people) to do various wonders in their midst (not insinuating
that he had to have their faith in order to do these things either).
Finally, a handful of believers in Christ were responsible for turning
the world upside down. Because of these few witnesses, just about
everyone in the world, even today, know about Jesus of Nazareth,
the One who Christians believe to be the Messiah! God has always
used a little to do a lot. Many times, He used just one person to
execute a change in a time and culture. Why then do we limit the
power of God by not believing that He can use us to help change
society?
Do you remember when the disciples said this?
26 And they were greatly astonished, saying among
themselves, "Who then can be saved?" Mark
10:26
If you are not familiar with the context of this scripture, this
is when Jesus explained how hard it is for those who have and trust
in riches to enter into the kingdom of God. There has always been
uproar about this scripture. I think also that there has been misunderstandings
on what Jesus intended here. Without getting too far into this whole
thing, let me just briefly make a point: we need to spend more time
reading and understanding our Bibles. I know I say that quite often,
but the Lord has placed on me to become even better acquainted with
the word of God. There is an art and science to Biblical interpretation.
If you are not aware of the principles and processes of it, then
it is easy to misunderstand what is being intended by the writer
or speaker. We talked about this in more detail in a previous series.
However, one thing that I did not mention is that we need to be
familiar with the culture of whom these books were written. I think
we are oblivious to the ancient Palestine. As a result, we misunderstand
what and why Jesus taught what He taught.
First of all, the camel going through the eye of a needle was a
proverbial term that was common to people in that region of that
time to denote something that was impossible. Therefore, it is easy
to understand the disciples’ astonishment at His words. However,
why would they ask what they asked? Why would they think that no
one would be saved if Jesus were speaking about those who trusted
in their riches? It was a common understanding of the Jews of that
time that there would be an earthly kingdom set up on earth. In
that kingdom, the Messiah would reign, and all the men apart of
that kingdom would be rich; in that they would now be apart of royalty.
Therefore, for Jesus to say that rich men could not enter the kingdom
of heaven, then in the minds of the disciples this meant that no
one would qualify to enter.
Also, you must also consider that the term rich for them was something
entirely different from our definition of rich here in America.
Think about this: America did not exist at the time that scriptures
were composed. Why then are we so arrogant to think that the things
that were spoken by Jesus, God, the prophets, or any of the apostles
were said in the context of America? I know that I am being a little
crude, but think about it. When we read the word rich or prosperity
in the Bible, we automatically assign to it our context of rich
and prosperous. For Americans anymore, to be rich is to have at
least 25 to 50 million dollars. Filthy rich is anything exceeding
100 million dollars. We have so many billionaires in the world now
that this has become the new standard of prosperity and definition
of being rich. Fifty years ago, to have 1 million dollars was to
be very rich. Today, you are not rich if you have a mere million.
You are fairly wealthy, but comparatively speaking, you are not
rich. Actually, if you want to be truthful, according to the standard
of living for the majority of the world, we are all pretty rich.
When reading the Bible, it is incorrect to try to understand what
is being said in our context. We must first understand it in the
context of the history, culture, and intent of the writer. After
this we can then move to the exposition part of interpretation:
applying it to our day and lives. The hearers obviously did not
have a lot of material things and money at this time because they
immediately talk about what they have given up in order to follow
Jesus. Therefore, riches in their mind were something completely
different from what we think riches to be. Furthermore, Jesus’
point was not the riches themselves anyhow; He rather wanted to
point out that it was hard for men who trusted in riches to enter
into the kingdom of God. The reason is because their hearts were
attached to the things of this world.
Although the apostles saw this as impossible, Jesus pointed this
out:
27 But Jesus looked at them and said, "With
men it is impossible, but not with God; for with God all things
are possible. Mark 10:27
Jesus was pointing out to them that even though it is impossible
for a camel to shrink to such a small stature and be able to fit
through such a small place, God could make it happened if He had
a purpose for it. In the same way, the Lord is able to work on a
heart of an individual who is attached to the world. A person whose
heart is attached to what he or she has can be changed. The Lord
can cause the once stingy individual to become a giver. Jesus is
not discouraging people from being wealthy here, as some have erroneously
taught and/or believed. Instead, He is making the point that the
Lord can change any heart. We have just stumbled upon my point of
bring this up: we have to believe that God is able to do the impossible.
He can change anyone. Many times, we fail to believe that God can
actually change the hearts of men and women. We shy from preaching
the word with boldness because we do not believe that God will change
the hearts of individuals. Perhaps someone will object and say,
“I believe, it is just…” To that person I say,
what you believe is reflective in your actions. There are people
out there who are waiting for the people of God to stand up and
declare the Lord. In the second half of this message, we will look
at some events in Paul’s life of how one man created such
an impact in the world.
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