Posted on

Will Be Impossible for Them

Ministry is like herding cats to safety away from the cliff of culture that is crumbling beneath their paws.  In the Tower of Babel story in Genesis 11:1-9, God reveals a spiritual insight in verse 6 that can help the church move forward: “And the LORD said, ‘Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do.  And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them.'”

I.  Luke 22:31-32.  Told to fill the earth, mankind stayed all together and wanted to make a name for themselves rather than glorify God’s name.  In this behind-the-scenes heavenly insight similar to Job 2:3-5 or 1 Kings 22:19-23, God tells us that we should not put limitations upon what we can do in His kingdom for His name.  Yet, beaten down by the world, the church keeps the gospel contained within the walls of our buildings.

II.  Ephesians 4:1-16.  It takes unity to do so.  If Christians today were united as one people of God and spoke the one language of His Word, then we could have the unity of the Spirit centered around the seven “ones” of this passage.  If we could “attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God” to “the fullness of Christ,” then what we’ve already done as the church would be the beginning of what we would do.

III.  John 14:12-14.  We believe that “with man it is impossible” (Mark 10:27) rather than “all things are possible for one who believes” (Mark 9:23) and so shrink back (Hebrews 10:39).  We must believe that Jesus can with us and our churches and ask in His name so He can do it.  And then we must live the impossible with others by doing all, in word or deed, in His name (Colossians 3:17) every moment of every day of our lives.

What can we do together to make a name for God and not ourselves?  … if we were united in Christ with one direction, purpose, and goal?  … if we believed that God could do the impossible through us working together?

Posted on

With You Are Too Many

“I’ll tie one hand behind my back just to make it a fair fight!” says someone who believes himself at a great advantage to start with.  But what about God?  If He’s going to fight for you, what does He have to do to make it a fair fight for your enemies … or so you can understand His power?

Isaiah records that one angel slew 185,000 Assyrians, and yet Jesus said in Gethsemane that He could call 12 legions of angels to Him if He wanted to.  With a legion being 6,000 strong, that’s a total of 72,000 angels capable of handling 13,320,000,000 enemies.

With God on your side, who indeed could stand against you?

I.  Judges 7:1-21.  But, Gideon didn’t understand that.  He lived in a time when the great things that God did for His people were just dusty stories from long ago (don’t know what that’s like!).  Just telling Gideon that He will be with him is not enough for trust in God to be built.  So, through a series of tests, God shows Gideon that He will take care of him.  God had to get Gideon (full of man’s idea of strength) out of the way so God could be seen as GOD.  Paring down Gideon’s army to a mere 300, the bully, Midian, flees.

II.  Exodus 14.  In fact, throughout the Bible God uses impossible situations to show His power.  Gideon cites God saving them out of slavery in Egypt with the plagues, but it is at the Red Sea that God is seen as GOD.  Armed for battle in all of man’s strength (Exodus 13:17-18), the Israelites were nevertheless disorganized and unprepared to meet Pharaoh’s army.  Backed against the water with chariots bearing down on them, God–through Moses–parted the water and the Israelites walked through as on dry ground while the Egyptians drowned.

III.  Romans 8:26-31.  The cross is, of course, the greatest impossible situation in which God was seen to be GOD.  And, we have the reassurance that if God would not even spare His own Son for us that there’s nothing He wouldn’t give us.  He fights for those who trust in Him to be GOD, and so He uses those who can get themselves out of the way, be still (Psalm 46:10), and let Him battle for them (1 Corinthians 1:18-31).

But do we?  So often we go at the impossible situations in our lives with our own strength and resources.  Like Gideon, we need to know that God is GOD, and that when He is fighting for us, there’s nothing resembling a fair fight!