You Are Somebody

When you're talking to someone about the Gospel and they reject it, let it go. Let God handle it and remember you are someone when you represent the King of Kings. Prayer and faith will always put you where God wants you to be.


Scripture: Mark 6:10, Psalm 37:23

Transcript

Alright thank you very much, and hello again dear radio friends. How in the world are you? Doing alright today? I trust so, bless your heart. Glad to be back with you. This is your friend Dr. Cook and I’d like to refer you to the sixth chapter of Mark and we go down now to verse ten. Our Lord has just been giving these men an object lesson in trusting God and now He’s giving them their specific instructions. He said, “In what place soever ye enter, it would house there abide till ye depart from that place”. In other words, don’t skip around, if you don’t like Mrs. Smith’s cooking, don’t jump across the street to Mrs. Jones. Now, that’s an interesting concept isn’t it? Loyalty begins at the operational level. One of the marks of a successful Christian worker anywhere, is that he or she is loyal to the people who take care of him or her. He says, don’t be jumping around and trying to curry with everybody. Whoever takes you in, stay there, be glad for it, maybe they only give you breaded loin of spam, whatever it may be, but be glad for it.

Torrey Johnson and I had a two-week evangelistic meeting up in northern Wisconsin somewhere, back in the 1930s I guess it would’ve been. We were both young and full of vim and vigor, and he was the evangelist and I was the song leader, and we stayed during the meetings, in the home of a dear widowed lady, who being of a frugal turn of mind thought that she would save a little money, they gave her a daily stipend to feed these two preachers, but she thought she’d save a little money, so she bought a huge ham, great, big ham, and do you know we had ham everyday for two weeks? I tell you, it was a long time before I could enjoy roast ham or boiled ham after that. Well, you were tempted to say, “Let’s check out here and go to the local motel, at least we can go next-door to the diner and get a meal”. No, you don’t, you don’t do that. He’s says, “Where you where you stop and where people take you in, you stay there”. Why? Because there is something you have to prove and that is that you’re a real person and that you value people more than your own convenience. If you’re in Christian work and many pastors, I know do listen to me, day by day, you’re a pastor your Christian work remember, loyalty is shown at the operational level, not in what you say. So He says, “When you come into a town and people take you into some home, you stay there”. Don’t be jumping around. Interesting concept isn’t it?

Then He says, “Whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear you, when ye depart thence shake off the dust on your feet for a testimony against them”. Now, why is this? There is a, there is a certain basic dignity that you and I have, as servants of the most high God. You don’t have to cringe or grovel as a Christian worker. There is a certain basic dignity that you have, God-given, that will keep you from cringing or flinching or groveling or being embarrassed about yourself. You are representative of your Lord. Paul says, “Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ as though God did beseech you by us, we pray you in Christ’s stead be ye reconciled to God”, and you have all the dignity and authority of an ambassadors so that when you’re not stuck up, and you’re not vindictive, and you’re not going to lose your temper and lash out at people, by the same token if they reject the message of the Lord Jesus Christ, you’re not going to be apologetic about it. He says, you shake off the dust on your feet against them and I’ll take care of them in the judgment. You’re somebody when you represent the Lord Jesus Christ you are an ambassador for the King of Kings, hold your head high and have the dignity and the good bearing of a person who is in the employ, let us say, of royalty. How does that work out in everyday life? Well, the Holy Spirit of God will guide you, but in everyday life when you, when you are in the presence of someone in conversation and the matter of the gospel message comes up and you present the claims of Christ, and the person either mocks or scoffs or laughs or throws you out whatever it may be, you don’t get angry, but new do you get hurt. You simply realize that His message is being rejected and you keep your dignity and you walk out of the situation, not angry, sad no doubt, because the person is rejecting Christ, but with an inbred dignity born of the fact that you are representing Almighty God. I don’t know if I’m putting that thought across very well to you, but you know, we could stand a lot more people who are aware of the fact that they are workers together with God.

We got a lot of eager proselyters us who claim to be soul winners, we’ve got a lot of hard-working Christian workers who periodically get tired and quit and go do something else, but we have a real need for people who are aware of the fact that they are laborers together with God and when they enter into a conversation they’re speaking for God and when they’re accepted, people are accepting God, and when they’re rejected, people are rejecting God and when they walk in or out of a situation they have the God-given dignity of the servants of the King. You get that point of view and it’ll make all of life a thrilling adventure as you know that every step you’re working for your Lord. The Bible says, “The steps of a good man are order of the Lord and He delighted in His way”. Well, did you follow me on that? Any of you get anything? Oh, I hope you did, bless your heart. You’re somebody, hold your head high and keep your heart tender and obey your Lord, step by step.

Now it says, “It went out and preached that men should repent”. Repentance is always prior to faith. Repentance is always prior to saving faith. Anybody that tells you that it doesn’t matter what you do, doesn’t matter how you feel, doesn’t matter what your conduct is, just believe on Jesus, is only giving you half the truth. Repentance, see you can’t go two ways at once, and you can’t go away from God and toward God at the same time. Sin takes you away from Him and how in the world are you going to trust the Savior if you haven’t turned your back upon those things that break His heart and for which He died and came to Him? Jesus said, “Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish”, and the message and the New Testament was and that repentance and salvation through faith in His name should be preached among all nations. You have to turn around and go God’s way before you can really trust Him to save you. That doesn’t mean that by human effort you’re going to clean up all things in your life. That’s different. You need God’s enablement to do that and he will help you but there has to be the heart to see God, “See ye Me and he shall live”, says the Bible. “Ye shall seek Me and find Me in the day that ye shall search for Me with all your heart”. James says, “Draw nigh to God and He will draw nigh to you”. The old prophet said, “Them that honor me, I will honor”.

My barber friend, Jack Richards, used to add to that. He’d quote the verse, “Them that honor me, I will honor”, then he’d whirl me around in the barber chair and look deep into my eyes and say, “My brother, the more you honor Him, the more He’ll honor you”. I remember that. See repentance, what does it mean? Well, there are three English words, there are three Greek words I should say, better, three Greek words that are translated by English word repent. The first is metanoia, which is means change your mind or thinking. The second is metamelomai, a reflexive verb acting upon the person himself, it means change your feelings, your feelings change. The third is a little verb from which we get our strepto- of prefixes in medicine, streptococcus and so on, strepho is the verb which, means to, means to turn around. So what God is ask me to do is to change my way of thinking about sin and to realize it isn’t cute, it isn’t clever, it isn’t something that’s going to gain anything for me, it’s harmful, tragic, and it’ll break my heart and others and land me in Hell. I need to change my mind about sin, and then of course as a result I’ll change my feelings about them and be sorry about my sin, and then finally, I’ll turn around and go the other way. To turn toward God is the pivotal point of repentance, and when you do that, and at the same time commit yourself in faith to the Lord Jesus Christ, He does the saving and He does the changing and He does the cleansing, He does the forgiving. You know then the saving power of God. It said, “They cast out many demons and anointed with oil many that were sick and healed them.” What is the process of ministry today as compared with that they did? I’m convinced that demons are still real and that God uses believers to cast them out, here and there, where it is part of His plan and glorifies Him. Particularly, is this true of the mission fields of the world. Been on many mission fields by God’s grace, I run across many who had this particular ministry of rebuking Satan’s powers in human life. What about healing? There again, I believe that God pleases to heal people, when it’s part of His perfect plan to do so, and yet I have to admit, that even though divine healers themselves have died so that God doesn’t always heal nor indeed in my opinion, can we command Him to do so. Jesus said that we should pray, “Thy Will be done in earth as it is in heaven.” The fact remains that God’s desires that you should be in health and that you should prosper that’s His overall desire for His children, and you can pray and God does heal in answer to prayer. I can’t say that it’s always so because the facts would seem to indicate that it isn’t, but I can say that when it pleases our heavenly father in answer to prayer to heal divinely, He does so and the glory goes to Him and people are drawn closer to the Savior as a result. Does that line up with what you understand to be the truth? I do think also that some people are given the gift of healing as the Bible teaches. I don’t have it, I’ve prayed for some people and they got well, and I prayed for others and they died, so if you get sick and call for me, watch it. See, I don’t think I have that particular gift, but God has given to some people that wonderful gift and as they exercise it under the leadership of the Holy Spirit, our Lord Jesus is glorified and lives are changed. Why I’m saying all of this is that I want you to make room in your thinking for the way God works. You can’t give Him orders you can’t dictate to Him, but you can accept the way He works and He does heal and He does bless and He does deliver and He does answer prayer, and you and I are the ones that need simply to yield ourselves to Him and let Him be God in our lives.

Dear Father today may we have the authority of God’s servants, may we have the divine assurance of being in Thy Will, as we do what God wants us to do with human lives, in Jesus’ name, Amen.

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



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