Compelled... to Tell Every One Every Thing
Ephesians 3:7-9
Eph 3:7 CEV God treated me with kindness. His power worked in me, and it became my job to spread the good news.
Eph 3:8 CEV I am the least important of all God’s people. But God was kind and chose me to tell the Gentiles that because of Christ there are blessings that cannot be measured.
Eph 3:9 CEV God, who created everything, wanted me to help everyone understand the mysterious plan that had always been hidden in his mind.
Have you seen a dusty piano?
Many homes have a piano in it that is never or rarely used. The children played it in their youth, but it’s been silent for years. Now it is polished infrequently – when someone notices a layer of dust. It displays family pictures and various trinkets collected over the years. It really adds to the character of that room. Yet the piano remains silent.
There is something sad about an instrument of beauty that is capable of stirring music – that sits quietly in the corner, functioning as a plant stand.
Many of us are like that old piano. We’re all clean and looking good on the outside – capable of so much more than is being accomplished. But instead of accomplishing our purpose in life we are intent on personal happiness, pleasure or mere survival.
The potential is present but the reality is boring and dismal
"You lose with potential. You win with performance."
Bill Parcells, Pro football coach, Cited in BITS & PIECES
Benjamin Franklin’s thoughts captured on this gravestone inscription are very true:
"Died - age 25
Buried - age 70
Here lies the average person"
And what is that purpose in life? Whatever the one to whom we are indebted for our life says!
Prayer or Teaching or Potential
Howard Hendricks wrote, Years ago in a church in Dallas we were having trouble finding a teacher for a junior high boy’s class. The list of prospects had only one name - when they told me who it was I said, "You have got to be kidding." But I couldn’t have been more wrong about that young man. He took the class and revolutionized it. I was so impressed I invited him to my home for lunch and asked him the secret of his success. He pulled out a little black book. On each page he had a small picture of one of the boys, and under the boy’s name were comments like "having trouble in arithmetic," or "comes to church against parent’s wishes," or "would like to be a missionary some day, but doesn’t think he has what it takes."
"I pray over those pages every day," he said, and I can hardly wait to come to church each Sunday to see what God has been doing in their lives."
Three Reasons We Are to Tell Others
#1: God treated me with kindness
Gratitude overwhelms us – or it should!
We were lost without Jesus
We were treated kindly
Dr. John Rosen, a psychiatrist in New York City, is well known For his work with catatonic schizophrenics. Normally doctors remain separate and aloof from their patients. Dr. Rosen moves into the ward with them. He places his bed among their beds. He lives the life they must live. Day-to-day, he shares it. He loves them. if they don’t talk, he doesn’t talk either. It is as if he understands what is happening. His being there, being with them, communicates something that they haven’t experienced in years - somebody understands.
But then he does something else. He puts his arms around them and hugs them. He holds these unattractive, unlovable, sometimes incontinent persons, and loves them back into life. Often, the first words they speak are simply, "Thank you."
#2 God gave me the power I need
I am forgiven
I am healed
I am restored
#3: It’s my job
It’s a great job – helping others to find him
Mat 11:28 CEV If you are tired from carrying heavy burdens, come to me and I will give you rest.
Mat 11:29 CEV Take the yoke I give you. Put it on your shoulders and learn from me. I am gentle and humble, and you will find rest.
Mat 11:30 CEV This yoke is easy to bear, and this burden is light.
Three Excuses That Don’t Matter
#1: “I am the least important of all God’s people”
Listen - You are what God needs in your place on this earth.
You are being watched and God can use you like he used Paul – no matter how little you think of yourself.
In fact, it’s good to think humbly of your self
It is good to think little of oneself
Not false modesty… Humility is a matter of really understanding who you are. Paul understood and he was not guilty of false modesty. When he looked at himself from certain aspects, Paul felt that he was less than the least of all saints.
Paul felt his shortcomings keenly; and he singles them out with a modest eye. Paul was as holy as the holiest upon the earth; but among the humble, he was the humblest. The longer he walked with Christ, the lower were his estimates of himself.
Someone has pointed out that Paul’s growth was like this: When he was young in the ministry, he said, "I am less than the least of all the Apostles." Later he wrote, "I am less than the least of all saints." And just before he was exalted to glory, he said, "I am the chief of sinners."
#2: “They won’t listen to me”
God didn’t call us to be successful – he did call us to be faithful. This verse shows us several things about Paul’s attitude.
When I consider what Paul says here, it is no marvel to me that this man was so greatly used of God for the glory of Christ.
I am fully persuaded that, in great measure, the success or failure of a man’s ministry will depend on his attitude toward the work.
#3: “They are beyond help and hope”
This verse also shows us that Paul thought very much of his brethren.
These two things usually go together – a low opinion of self and a high opinion of others. Paul was not unrealistic. He saw many weaknesses in the saints, and he boldly rebuked them. Yet, he saw that all were God’s saints that were in Christ, and in that he saw perfection.
Paul was very loving in his attitude toward his congregation. He counted it great grace that he was permitted to preach among the Gentiles. Read the first chapter of Romans and you will see how debached and depraved the Gentiles had become.
But Paul was sent to labor among them, and he preferred them to any other congregation.
"I never knew a man," said Spurgeon, "succeed among a people unless he preferred them to all others as the objects of his care.
When ministers despise their congregations, their congregations will very likely despise them, and then usefulness is out of the question.
Don’t write people off…
Not ever! There are the down and out. But there are also the up and out. People in every walk of life need Jesus – from CEO’s to auto assembly workers. From clerks at Target to MSU prof’s.
They certainly are beyond help and hope if you never say anything to them…
Three Truths Which Compel Us To Tell Every One Every Thing
#1: God is the creator of every thing and every one
They all have value
Several months ago someone asked me if we would allow a homosexual to attend our services at MCC.
This is a hard question – not because of what they are but because of what they ask of us. Atheists; etc.
#2: God appoints us to help
The Plan
The angels in heaven longed to understand it
WE ARE THE PLAN
THERE IS NO OTHER PLAN
#3: He knew the answers they needed
Paul wanted to declare to all men the mysteries of the gospel.
"It is true that both the first creation, when God made all things out of nothing, and the new creation, whereby sinners are made new creatures, are of God by Christ." (Matthew Henry)
Hidden and now revealed – the answer is now here!
And it’s for everyone
Compelled... to Tell Every One Every Thing
Paul was compelled
Let us be compelled as well
May I tell you about my wife, Donna?
Donna can talk to anyone. She goes into a grocery store and if there are babies present you might as well get a book and read a little because it’s going to take her a while to get beyond the bread rack.
But it’s more than just babies. Donna sees beyond the clothing and the hairdo. Donna somehow transmits a message of acceptance to people around her.
This past week she told me about being in a store and visiting with a 70 year old woman for about 45 minutes. They talked about her children and about all kinds of things.
Somehow the conversation went to church and God. The woman said in kind of half joking way, “I’m just a pagan”. Donna said, “God loves you so much.” This 70 year old woman responded, “Thank you, I will not forget you.”
Jesus is the Lord of the harvest and this woman is ready to be gently and lovingly be brought to her eternal home. One plants, another waters, and another harvests. Jesus is the Lord of all.
What Donna planted another will water and someone else with help to make that final decision for Jesus.
Pray
Pray for that woman today.
Pray for the person on your right or on your left
Pray that you will not be a dusty piano in God’s house
