Possible with God

“I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice.” (John 10:16)

God has a people in every people group in the world. He will call them through the gospel with Creator power. And they will believe! What a power is in these words for overcoming discouragement in the hard places of the frontiers!

The story of Peter Cameron Scott is a good illustration. Born in Glasgow in 1867, Scott became the founder of the Africa Inland Mission. But his beginnings in Africa were anything but auspicious.

His first trip to Africa ended in a severe attack of malaria that sent him home. He resolved to return after he recuperated. This return was especially gratifying to him because this time his brother John joined him. But before long, John was struck down by fever.

All alone, Peter buried his brother in African soil, and in the agony of those days recommitted himself to preach the gospel in Africa. Yet his health gave way again, and he had to return to England.

How would he ever pull out of the desolation and depression of those days? He had pledged himself to God. But where could he find the strength to go back to Africa? With man it was impossible!

He found strength in Westminster Abbey. David Livingstone’s tomb is still there. Scott entered quietly, found the tomb, and knelt in front of it to pray. The inscription reads:

OTHER SHEEP I HAVE WHICH ARE NOT OF THIS FOLD; THEM ALSO I MUST BRING.

He rose from his knees with a new hope. He returned to Africa. And today, over a hundred years later, the mission he founded is a vibrant, growing force for the gospel in Africa.

If your greatest joy is to experience the infilling grace of God overflowing from you for the good of others, then the best news in all the world is that God will do the impossible through you for the salvation of the unreached peoples.

John Piper 

Bible Study

Ezekiel 34:11-13

 Will Seek Them Out

[11] “For thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I, I myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out. [12] As a shepherd seeks out his flock when he is among his sheep that have been scattered, so will I seek out my sheep, and I will rescue them from all places where they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness. [13] And I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries, and will bring them into their own land. And I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the ravines, and in all the inhabited places of the country.

Ephesians 2:13-18

[13] But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. [14] For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility [15] by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, [16] and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. [17] And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. [18] For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father.

1 Peter 2:25

[25] For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.

John 12:32

[32] And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”

Do You Trust God Enough to Give?

“‘Bring all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be food in My house, and try me now in this,’ says the Lord of hosts, ‘If I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you such blessing that there will not be room enough to receive it.’” MALACHI 3:10

 

PONDER THIS

You’d probably say, “Pastor, I want faith.” But do you really want faith? The truth is your faith will begin to grow when you start seeking growth in God. So, would you like for God to be real to you? Then, God says, “All right, you put me to the test. Prove me.” Being truly rich, however, has nothing to do with money—and everything to do with faith, love, spiritual power, and knowledge. But, if God can’t trust you with ten cents out of a dollar, what makes you think He can trust you with Holy Spirit power? If you haven’t been faithful in your finances, who will give you the true riches as a steward?

When you tithe, you’ll do more with ninety percent and God as a partner than you will ever do with one hundred percent by yourself. You say, “But, Pastor, I’m poor. I know you’re talking to wealthy people, but you’re not talking to the poor people today. Would you tell a little widow on a pension that she ought to tithe?” Of course! If there’s anybody who needs the blessing of God, it’s that little widow on a pension. God doesn’t want her money; He wants her. He wants to bless her. He says, “Come now and trust me. Prove me.” We all need to trust God enough to give to Him, then sit back and watch what He will do.

What does it look like to trust God with your finances?

Have you ever put God to the test with giving? What was that like?

PRACTICE THIS

Consider how you could be generous, investing in the kingdom of God today.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

Medicine for the Missionary

“All things are possible with God.” (Mark 10:27)

Sovereign grace is the spring of life for the Christian Hedonist. For what the Christian Hedonist loves best is the experience of the sovereign grace of God filling him, and overflowing for the good of others.

Christian Hedonist missionaries love the experience of “not I, but the grace of God that is with me” (1 Corinthians 15:10). They bask in the truth that the fruit of their missionary labor is entirely of God (1 Corinthians 3:7; Romans 11:36).

They feel only gladness when the Master says, “Apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). They leap like lambs over the truth that God has taken the impossible weight of new creation off their shoulders and put it on his own. Without begrudging, they say, “Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God” (2 Corinthians 3:5).

When they come home on furlough, nothing gives them more joy than to say to churches, “I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me to bring the Gentiles to obedience” (Romans 15:18).

“All things are possible with God!” — in front the words give hope, and behind they give humility. They are the antidote to despair and the antidote to pride — the perfect missionary medicine.

John Piper 

Bible Study

Job 42:1-2

Job’s Confession and Repentance

[1] Then Job answered the LORD and said:

    [2] “I know that you can do all things,

        and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.

Jeremiah 32:17

[17] ‘Ah, Lord GOD! It is you who have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm! Nothing is too hard for you.

Luke 1:37

[37] For nothing will be impossible with God.”

Mark 14:36

[36] And he said, “Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.”

How Did God Design the Body of Christ to Work?

“There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are differences of ministries, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of activities, but it is the same God who works all in all. But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all.”

1 CORINTHIANS 12:4-7

 

PONDER THIS

God gave you a spiritual gift not for your enjoyment but for your employment. Your spiritual gift is to bless the Church, not to bless you. It is a tool, not a toy. Paul told Timothy to stir up the gift of God, and that’s what we need to do too. We need to study to show ourselves approved to God.

If a person has the natural talent to sing, he or she must develop it. So, you also have a spiritual gift, but you have to study it and work at it to develop it. When we start to pursue the Lord with our gifts, growing in our relationship with Him and improving in our gifts, something beautiful happens. Ephesians 4:13 says, “we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” In other words, God has given His people gifts, and when these gifts work together, the body matures and becomes like its head, the Lord Jesus Christ.

How have you used your spiritual gifts to build up the Body of Christ?

How have you benefited from someone else’s spiritual gift?

PRACTICE THIS

Take a spiritual gifts test to see what your gifting is, or if you know your gift, put it into practice to build up the Body of Christ.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

The Great Missionary Hope

Even when we were dead in our trespasses, [God] made us alive together with Christ — by grace you have been saved. (Ephesians 2:5)

The great missionary hope is that when the gospel is preached in the power of the Holy Spirit, God himself does what man cannot do: he creates the faith that saves. The call of God does what the call of man can’t. It raises the dead. It creates spiritual life. It is like the call of Jesus to Lazarus in the tomb, “Come out!” And the dead man obeyed and came out. The call created the obedience by creating life (John 11:43). That is how anyone is saved.

We can waken someone from sleep with our call, but God’s call can summon into being things that are not (Romans 4:17). God’s call is irresistible in the sense that it can overcome all resistance. It is infallibly effective according to God’s purpose — so much so that Paul can say, “Those whom [God] called he also justified” (Romans 8:30), even though we are only justified by our faith.

In other words, God’s call is so effectual that it infallibly creates the faith through which a person is justified. All the called are justified according to Romans 8:30. But none is justified without faith (Romans 5:1). So the call of God cannot fail in its intended effect. It irresistibly brings into being the faith that justifies.

This is what man cannot do. It is impossible. Only God can take out the heart of stone (Ezekiel 36:26). Only God can draw people to the Son (John 6:44, 65). Only God can open the spiritually dead heart so that it gives heed to the gospel (Acts 16:14). Only the Good Shepherd knows his sheep, and calls them by name with such compelling power that they all follow — and never perish (John 10:3–4, 14).

The sovereign grace of God, doing the humanly impossible, through the gospel of Jesus Christ, is the great missionary hope.

John Piper