Let Him Do the Changing

Transcript

Alright, thank you very much, and hello again, radio friends, how in the world are you? Doing alright? Oh, I hope so. Bless your heart. I’m fine, thank you, and I’m doing alright. Praise God from whom all blessings flow. I sit down at this desk here, the tape recorder is on, the microphone is in front of me, my Bible and notebook and concordances and an assortment of comfortable junk around me as I’ve sometimes described for you. And here we go on a few minutes of opening the Word of God and trying to put a handle on it so that you can get hold of it for yourself.

Paul said, “I’m preaching Christ.” “Him, we preach.” And the last time we got together, we were looking at some of the things that are involved in preaching Christ, warning every man and teaching every man and presenting every man perfect in Christ Jesus. To warn: To turn away from sin, and turn to God. To teach: means to inform until the individual is ready for action. To present perfect in Christ: means to help the individual to grow up in Christ to a place where he or she realizes that they’re complete in Him.

Now in verse 29, he says, “Whereunto,” now you had in order that in verse 28, now he says, “whereunto,” that’s another purpose clause. You see what I mean? All of this hangs together. He said… This is the reason and this is the purpose. He said, “Whereunto,” that refers to presenting every man perfect in Christ. It’s work to develop Christians. Did you know that? You never drift into sanctity. It’s work to develop the Christian life. “Whereunto I also labor.”

Have you given any thought to the question, “Am I willing to work hard for Jesus?” Many a person has a very low coefficient of exhaustion. Many of us seem to get weary in well-doing in a big hurry, and we say, “Oh, I’m tired, don’t count on me anymore.” He said, “I labor,” that’s a roll-up-your-sleeves kind of a word. “I labor.” Now, I’m not talking simply about going to meetings or belonging to committees and that sort of a thing, I know that that involves work. I’m talking now about the work of shepherding and dealing with people. You do have, regardless of your position in the church, beloved, you do have what I call a public, that’s an advertising man’s term for people who listen to you. You have your own public, you have your own friends who respect you and who listen to you. They don’t ask what does he mean when you say, “Good morning”? They trust you. They believe in you. That, beloved, is your field of endeavor.

Now, let me ask this question: How hard are we working at reaching and improving and blessing and inspiring folk who are in our public, so to speak, our field of endeavor? Are you working at it? It must be admitted that for the most part, we go through our days routinely. When I say “work,” the average homemaker thinks in terms of get up, get dressed, get breakfast, make the six lunches, get the family off to work and school, pick up three million things they dropped en route, do the housework, do the washing, do the ironing, do the shopping, take the dog to the vet, take junior to the cub scouts, take Missy to the music lesson, prepare the supper, get it ready, get it on the table, the family comes home family famished, they devour it, you do the dishes, straighten up the kitchen, and sit down, exhausted, in a chair, and somebody has the nerve to say, “What did you do all day?” You feel like biting him, right? [chuckle]

Now? That’s what work means to you. Now, has it that struck you, and I’m talking now to mothers, homemakers, has it struck you that aside from all of these things that are so demanding and which heaven knows they won’t do themselves, you have to do it, aside from the tasks that are ours, has it occurred to you that your main work is in developing these people? Do you work at showing them Christ in your own life, do you work at leading them to a place of victory instead of defeat in their own battles, small and great? Do you work at encouraging them to share their faith with others? Do you work at this matter of presenting them perfect in Christ, a place where they have the delightful awareness that Jesus is all they need? See, that’s different from the tasks that are ours. When we say “work,” we think of all the things we have to do. Paul, when he said, “work,” thought about people to develop.

Oh, the same thing is true, of course, in Sunday school teaching or in being a pastor or a missionary or an evangelist. Your work, beloved, is not the things you do the sermons, you preach the solos, you sing the lessons, you teach and all of that. That is a means to an end. If it is any good at all, it’s a means to an end. What is the main purpose? The main purpose is to bring people to a place where they are liberated in Christ and growing up in faith in Him. You work at that. “Whereunto,” he says, “I also labor.”

Now, he uses a strange word next. “I also labor, striving.” According to his working, when you strive, that means you have an adversary. And I will clue you in if you haven’t already discovered this, the moment that you begin to try to develop in others an active faith in Jesus Christ as Lord of all, that moment, you will sense opposition: First from Satan; second, from the person himself or herself. “Striving.” Not only is it work, but it’s a battle. “We wrestle not,” says Paul in Ephesians 6, “we wrestle not against flesh and blood,” not the people, “but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore take unto you the whole armor of God,” said he. You are in a spiritual battle, and Satan’s first priority is to keep people from trusting Jesus Christ and obeying His commands. So then when you start working in that direction, you’ll find opposition from Satan as well as from the latent rebellion that lies in every fallen human heart. People are allergic to any kind of change, especially if someone else is trying to bring it about. “Striving,” he said.

Now, if you do it on your own, you’re in for a great deal of heartache and disappointment. Don’t try to develop people in your own strength. It’s alright to use all the psychology that you can learn, it’s alright to be as wise as you can. Our Savior said, we should be wise as serpents and harmless as doves. It’s well and good to have all of the skills and techniques that you can acquire. Go right ahead, get all the learning and help and training that you can. But after all is said and done, you’re dealing now with spiritual matters, and spiritual battles are not fought by techniques; they are won by power, not by power, “but by my spirit,” saith the Lord. We wrestle against spiritual wickedness in high places, “wherefore,” he said, “take unto you the whole armor of God.” The helmet of salvation, the girdle of truth, the shoes of gospel, the sword of the Spirit, the shield of faith, et cetera: Spiritual equipment for spiritual tasks. He says, “striving according to His working.”

I can’t overemphasize the importance of getting ready spiritually for contacts with other people. Most of us blunder into each day half-asleep, groaning because we have to get up and go to work or school or whatever it may be, and we don’t realize that the most valuable part of the day is being neglected. Early in the day, the first impulses that you have, the first impacts that are made up in your consciousness, ought to be those of your blessed Lord. His working. Oh, to bow in His presence and commit yourself to the Lord, and to wait there until you know that His Spirit has filled your cup to overflowing, and you’re ready then to meet the family and to meet your co-workers and to meet your fellow-students and to meet the world in general, because you are now equipped with His working, striving according to His working. Don’t try to fight the battle by yourself. Don’t try to change people with your own efforts. They’ll resist you every time. Instead, let the Holy Spirit of God speak through you lovingly as the days go by and see God do the changing.

Small thought here: Evelyn Christenson wrote in one of her books that she was highly dissatisfied with some of the attitudes of people in their own family circle. And she had tried unsuccessfully to change them, so unsuccessfully, that on one occasion, there was an outburst by somebody who said, “Don’t preach to me anymore. I’m tired of it.” Deeply hurt, she sort of retired within her own shell for a while and then began to think about the whole matter and pray about it, and she began to realize that there was a good deal in her life, she said, that needed changing. And so she began to pray this prayer, “Lord, change me.” And she goes on to say that within a year or 18 months after she began praying that prayer, not only was she changed in certain very definite ways but she noticed a change in the attitudes of people around her. “His working, which worketh in me,” not in the other person, “striving according to His working, which worketh in me mightily.”

The secret of changing other people’s lives is to be so full of God that He’s doing something in you. The secret of changing other people’s lives is to be so full of God that He’s doing something in you, which is, we may say, contagious, and people say, “That’s what I want.” Does that make any sense to you, beloved? I know somebody’s saying, “Brother Cook, you don’t know what I’m up against. I have an unsaved husband,” or “I have an unsaved wife.” Or “I have rebellious teenage children,” or “I have a boss who’s impossible,” or “I have a landlord who won’t fix the hole in the wall so the rats and the cockroaches keep coming in, and life is miserable.” Or whatever it may be, and you say, “You don’t understand because you don’t know what I’m going through.” And of course, dear friend, you’re perfectly correct. I don’t know, and I can’t know. I’ve lived a while so I know some things that happen to people, and my heart goes out to you if you’re in difficult straits even now at home or on the job or in your living situation or with children or whatever. Even if you’re taking care of your aged parents.

Somebody wrote me and said, “Why don’t you preach about how to have patience with your aged parents?” Well, maybe I can have a lesson on that some time or other. But I have to tell you, beloved, the secret is not what you try to do; the secret is what God does in you. Remember now, this phrase: “Striving according to His working, which worketh in me mightily.” Dare to pray that God will change you and see what will happen to those around you. Good idea? You try that on for size.

Dear Father, today, may we have Thy working in us, working mightily, in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Till I meet you once again by way of radio, walk with the King today and be a blessing!