Several years ago, on New Year's Day, a beautiful float in the Tournament of Roses parade suddenly sputtered and quit. It was out of gas. The whole parade was held up until someone could get a can of gas. The amusing thing was this float represented the Standard Oil Company. With its vast oil resources, its truck was out of gas. (Steve Blankenship, Edmond, Oklahoma, Leadership, Vol. 6, no. 1)
For me, that truck describes a lot of Christians. They have vast resources in Christ, but more often than not they find themselves “out of gas.” How about you? Do you find yourself “out of gas” these days? Do you find yourself powerless to do what you know God wants you to do? Then I invite you to turn with me to Mark 3, Mark 3, where we discover how to connect to Christ in such a way that His power flows through us.
Mark 3:7-10 Jesus withdrew with his disciples to the lake, and a large crowd from Galilee followed. When they heard all he was doing, many people came to him from Judea, Jerusalem, Idumea, and the regions across the Jordan and around Tyre and Sidon. Because of the crowd he told his disciples to have a small boat ready for him, to keep the people from crowding him (or restricting him). For he had healed many, so that those with diseases were pushing forward to touch him. (NIV)
There were a lot of people crowding Jesus that day, but they were not really interested in getting to know Him. They were only interested in what they could get from Him. They only wanted to be healed of their diseases. Jesus, as the healer and miracle worker, was very popular, but Jesus wasn’t interested in popularity.
Mark 3:11-12 Whenever the evil spirits saw him, they fell down before him and cried out, “You are the Son of God.” But he gave them strict orders not to tell who he was. (NIV)
Again, these demons tried to control Jesus and strip him of his power, because they believed that calling a person by his true name grants mastery over that person. But Jesus did not allow them to continue their useless babble. His sovereign word of rebuke rendered the demons powerless and kept them from popularizing His name.
You see, even though Jesus was attracting great crowds, He didn’t come to be popular, because it was restrictive to His true purpose. He didn’t come to BE served, but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many (Mark 10:45).
Even so, when the crowds were crowding Him for selfish reasons, Jesus still healed them. Jesus still cast out their demons. Jesus still cared for them. And there are people who “crowd” Jesus today. As a healer and miracle worker, Jesus is still quite popular.
Some time ago (March 2009), Dutch artist Johan van der Dong decided God needed a telephone number. So, he got him one, a cell phone number to be exact—to show that God was “available anywhere and anytime.” In an interview, Dong said, “In earlier times you would go to a church to say a prayer. Now [you] just make a phone call and say your prayer in a modern way.”
Do you know, within one week, over 1,000 people left God a message!
The only problem is, when you call the number, you get a recorded message: “This is the voice of God. I am not able to speak to you at the moment, but please leave a message.” That doesn't exactly communicate the idea of a God who is “available anywhere and anytime,” does it? The only thing Dong has managed to do is connect people to an altogether disconnected God. (Reuters, “Leave God a message at his Dutch answering service,” www.reuters.com, 3-2-09; www.PreachingToday.com)
That’s not at all like our Lord Jesus Christ. For even when we come to him for selfish reasons, even when we crowd Him, He still heals our hurts and casts out our demons.
Jesus cares for the crowd, but I want something more. I’m not content just to get some of my needs met. I’m not content just to meet with Jesus on a Sunday morning and feel good after leaving the place worship. I want Christ’s power flowing through me the whole week! I want Christ’s power to do God’s will and to fulfill God’s calling on my entire life. Isn’t that what you want? Then…
DON’T CROWD JESUS.
Don’t come to him just when you have a need. Don’t pressure him just for your own selfish reasons, because that’s not where the real power is. Instead…
ANSWER HIS CALL.
Respond to his invitation. Commit yourself to His will for the rest of your life. For while Jesus cares for the many, He calls only a few to a special relationship with Himself.
Mark 3:13-15 Jesus went up on a mountainside and called to him those he wanted, and they came to him. He appointed twelve—designating them apostles—that they might be with him and that he might send them out to preach and to have authority to drive out demons. (NIV)
My friends, that’s where the power is – not in the crowd, but in the calling. The word for “called” in verse 13 implies “an urgent invitation to accept responsibilities for a particular task, implying a new relationship to the one who does the calling” (Louw & Nida). You see, Jesus wants these 12 to be more than just a part of an adoring crowd. He invites them into a special relationship with Himself so that He might send them forth as His special representatives with His words and His power to make a difference in this world.
I don’t know about you, but that’s what I want for my life. I’m not content just to be part of an adoring crowd. I want a special relationship with Christ so that I might represent Him well in a world that so desperately needs Him. If that’s what you want, then I urge you to answer His call on your life.
1st of all, answer Christ’s call to be with him. Respond to His invitation to get close to Him, not to crowd Him, but to enjoy a special intimacy with Him that those in the crowd cannot even imagine. That means spending regular, unhurried times in His presence.
In an area of Africa where Christianity has spread quite rapidly, new believers were zealous about their daily devotions. They would find their own spot within the wild thickets and pour their hearts out to God. After some time, the spots became well-worn, and paths were created. Soon, each one's prayer life was made public. If someone began to neglect his or her devotional life, it would soon be noticed by others. Believers would then gently and lovingly remind those in neglect, “The grass grows on your path.” (Today in the Word, June 1992; www.Preaching Today.com)
Don’t let the grass grow on YOUR path. Get close to Jesus as often and as long as you can. Open His Word, the Bible, so you can listen to His voice. Then talk to Him about the things He puts on your heart. Enjoy regular times with Jesus, so He can begin to make a difference in your life, first, before you try to make a difference in others’ lives.
President Theodore Roosevelt, was a charismatic figure who made quite an impression on people. One journalist, William Allen White, wrote of his first meeting with Roosevelt in 1897:
“He sounded in my heart the first trumpet call of the new time that was to be… I had never known such a man as he, and never shall again. He overcame me. And in the hour or two we spent that day at lunch, he poured into my heart such vision, such ideals, such hopes, such a new attitude toward life and patriotism and the meaning of things, as I had never dreamed men had… After that, I was his man.” (Mark Galli, managing editor, Christianity Today; source: Thomas Bailey and David Kennedy, The American Pageant, ninth edition, D.C. Heath, 1991, p. 676; www.Preaching Today.com)
If a mere man can have such an impact on a person, how much more our Lord Jesus Christ? Spend time with Him and let Him pour into your heart a new vision, a new hope, and a new attitude towards life. Then afterwards, you will say with thankfulness, “I am His!” Answer Christ call, first, to be with Him. Then, and only then, will you be ready to serve Him.
In his book, How to Obtain Fullness of Power, R. A. Torrey writes, “We are too busy to pray, and so we are too busy to have power. We have a great deal of activity, but we accomplish little; many services, but few conversions; much machinery, but few results.” —R. A. Torrey, American evangelist (1856–1928)
R. A. Torrey wrote that nearly a hundred years ago, but it is still very descriptive of so many Christians today. My friends, if we are too busy to spend some time with the Lord, then we are just spinning our wheels. The power comes not from more activity, but from time alone with Jesus Christ.
So more than anything else, answer Christ’s call to be with Him if you want to accomplish anything of value in your life.
Then, #2, you can answer Christ’s call to preach. You can respond to His invitation to speak His Words. Now, don’t let that word “preach” in verse 14 scare you. It simply means “to announce something” and it was used of the King’s heralds who announced His message to the people. They didn’t have to come up with their own message. All they had to do was announce His message.
So it is in our communication of the Gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ. We don’t have to come up with our own message. All we have to do is share with people what our King, Jesus, tells us to say. And it doesn’t have to be with any great eloquence, especially if we’ve spent time with Jesus.
John Stott, a well-known British pastor and theologian, was invited to preach at the University of Sydney in Australia; but after he got there, he lost his voice. He describes his experience as follows:
“What can you do with a missionary who has no voice? We had come to the last night of the [evangelistic campaign]. The students had booked the big university hall. A group of students gathered around me, and I asked them to pray as Paul did, that this thorn in the flesh might be taken from me. But we went on to pray that if it pleased God to keep me in weakness, I would rejoice in my infirmities in order that the power of Christ might rest upon me.
“As it turned out, I had to get within one inch of the microphone just to croak the gospel. I was unable to use any inflection of voice to express my personality. It was just a croak in a monotone, and all the time we were crying to God that his power would be demonstrated in human weakness. Well, I can honestly say that there was a far greater response that night than any other night. I've been back to Australia ten times now, and on every occasion somebody has come up to me and said, “Do you remember that night when you lost your voice? I was converted that night.” (Student Leadership, Spring 1993, p. 32; www. PreachingToday.com)
God doesn’t need eloquence to reach people. He just needs a voice, your voice, with a living, vital connection to Him in prayer.
I like the way Luci Swindoll once put it. She writes: “A friend of mine was caught in an elevator during a power failure. At first, there was momentary panic as all seven strangers talked at once. Then my friend remembered the tiny flashlight he had in his pocket. When he turned it on, the fear dissipated. During the 45 minutes they were stuck together they told jokes, laughed, and even sang. [The Bible] says we are that flashlight. Just as the flashlight draws power from its batteries, we draw power from Jesus. As light, we dissipate fear, bring relief, and lift spirits. We don't even have to be big to be effective. We just have to be ‘on.’” (Luci Swindoll, "Heart to Heart," Today's Christian Woman; www.PreachingToday.com)
We just have to be connected to Jesus, and He does all the work through us.
If you want your life to count for something, then 1st, answer His call to be with Him; 2nd, answer His call to preach; and finally answer Christ’s call to receive power. Respond to His invitation to accept His ability and His authority to drive out demons and to overcome the forces of evil in our world. For you see, as we spend time with Christ, we not only speak His Words, we exercise His power.
Pastor Mike Breaux, pastor of the Heartland Community Church in Rockford, Illinois, talks about the time his daughter, Jodie, answered God's call to go into missions work.
When she graduated from high school, she said, “I don't think God wants me to go to college right now. I want to take a year to go to Haiti, and I want to serve people in a medical mission down there.” Her dad wasn’t so sure about his daughter moving 3,000 miles away from home to the poorest country in the western hemisphere, which is also AIDS-infested and controlled by the voodoo religion, but he supported her in her decision.
He says, “One of the hardest days of my life was putting my little girl on an airplane and watching it lift off, not knowing whether I'd ever communicate with her again.”
Then one night he gets an e-mail from Jodie. She wrote: “Dad, tonight has been the most remarkable night of my life. I got called out to this hut to deliver a baby. Dad, I've only delivered one, and that was with somebody. I'd never done this by myself, but I was the only one around. They called me, and I get to this hut, and there's this naked, screaming lady on the dirt floor. I got a flashlight, and I'm thinking, Here I am, 18-years-old, and I'm in a hut in a third-world country with a naked, screaming, pregnant lady. I have a flashlight, and I don't know what I'm doing—but I'm here. To make matters worse, this lady from the voodoo religion walked into the hut, dressed in her red and blue voodoo garb, and began to chant some voodoo incantation in Creole. She put some kind of oil on the lady's head, and when she started to walk away from me and the woman, she stopped at the woman's belly, put some other kind of saave there, and walked the opposite direction—all while chanting this Creole spell. I didn't know what to do. She stood at the head of this woman and stared a hole through me. When I was getting ready to deliver this baby, I just looked back at her, and I started singing. I knew she didn't understand English, but I just started singing: ‘Our God is an awesome God, he reigns from heaven above, with wisdom, power, and love, our God is an awesome God.’”
Jodie said that the voodoo lady became completely unglued. She grabbed all of her stuff and ran out of the hut. Jodie wrote, “That night I knew that that baby was going to be born with the blessing of God and not the curse of Satan.”
As Pastor Mike read Jodie's e-mail, his fatherly side thought, “You get on a plane tomorrow! What are you doing in a hut with a voodoo woman in the first place? But then he thought, “Way to go, Jodie! Way to make a difference with your life! Way to stop floating around accidental-like! Way to put your life in the hands of the destiny-maker! Way to make a splash! Who knows who that little baby she delivered that night is going to grow up to touch and who that person is going to touch—all because of one courageous girl who said, ‘Okay, God, I want to put my life in your hands; I want to make a difference.’” (Mike Breaux, in a sermon at Willow Creek Community Church, 5-26-02)
Do you want to make a difference in your world against the forces of evil? Then like that young lady, put your life in Christ’s hands. Get close to Him, and let Him use you for His glory. Answer His call to be with Him. Then you will be able to answer His call to preach and to have power over the “spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”
But you say, “Phil, I can’t do that kind of stuff. I’m inadequate. I don’t have what it takes.” Do you know you’re probably right! Neither you nor I have what it takes to serve the Lord, but that doesn’t matter with Jesus, because Jesus doesn’t call the qualified; He qualifies the called. Do you hear me? Jesus doesn’t call the qualified; He qualifies the called. Look at His original 12 apostles
Mark 3:16 These are the twelve he appointed: Simon (to whom he gave the name Peter) – which means rock! (NIV)
Well, let me tell you, Peter was no “rock” at this time. He had foot-in-mouth disease and was all over the place when it came to His commitment to Christ, but Christ saw the potential in Him and made him into a rock solid spokesman for the Kingdom of God.
Mark 3:17 [Then you have] James son of Zebedee and his brother John (to them he gave the name Boanerges, which means Sons of Thunder)… (NIV)
These guys had an anger problem, always ready to call down fire from heaven (Luke 9:54-55), kick people out (Mark 9:38), and fight for the top positions (Mark 10:10:35-39). John later becomes known as the “apostle of love,” but he certainly didn’t begin with that reputation. And the rest were no better.
Mark 3:18-19 Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James son of Alphaeus, Thaddaeus, Simon the Zealot and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him. (NIV)
Now, in this group you have “Matthew” – a despised tax collector, who cheated people out of their money and betrayed his own people. He comes with “Simon the Zealot” – That means he was part of a group of Jewish extremists organized to overthrow Rome, by force if necessary. Josephus, a 1st century Jewish historian, calls them “daggermen.”
Wiersbe says, “It would be interesting to know how Simon the Zealot responded when he first met Matthew, a former employee of Rome.” I bet there were a few fireworks!
You don’t think you’re qualified? Let me tell you these 12 were less “qualified” than most of us in this room! But Jesus doesn’t call the qualified; He qualifies the called, and He wants to qualify you and me as His special representatives.
All we have to do is answer His call. Don’t crowd Him only when you have a need. Instead, answer His call to be with Him, to preach, and to have power. Then we will begin the process of becoming all that He wants us to be.
A few years ago (2008), Mark Labberton wrote in Leadership journal about “a very difficult season when finances were tight” for him. He was driving a dilapidated car that had been donated to the church. It had lots of problems, including a ceiling lining that drooped down and grazed his head every time the broken shock absorbers launched him from the seat toward the roof. The car began to speak to him. It said, “Failure.” Mark wondered, “Why couldn't I get my life together?” He was getting older every year, he had a family, this car was humiliating, and he felt like a failure.
This continued for months until the day he took the car to the airport to pick up his nieces. It was a very hot day, the air-conditioning in the car didn't work, so all four windows were down. Only later did he realize vinyl flakes from the sun-scorched dashboard were being blown into the backseat and covering his sweet nieces.
So on that day, still without the funds to buy a second car, Mark leased a new car. It was wonderful! No flakes, no droopy ceiling lining, no broken shocks. He was thrilled until the day this car also began to talk. Its message was also just one word: “Fraud.” Mark says, “I was no more put together, no more successful with this new car than with the scuzzy borrowed one. It just looked better. I was a fake.” (Mark Labberton, "Between 'Failure' and 'Fraud,'" Leadership Journal, Winter 2008; www.PreachingToday.com)
Our lives swing between voices calling us “failure” and “fraud.” The key is not listening to either. Instead, listen to the voice of Christ calling you, “Come, be with me, so that I might send you out to preach and to have power to drive out demons.” How about it? Will you respond to His call today?
