Luke 2:42-45 “When he was twelve years old, they went up to the festival, according to the custom. After the festival was over, while his parents were returning home, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but they were unaware of it. Thinking he was in their company, they traveled on for a day. Then they began looking for him among their relatives and friends. When they did not find him, they went back to Jerusalem to look for him.”

How often we make the same mistake – thinking that Jesus is with us when He is tarrying someplace else. It is very important to make sure that all I do, what I think, etc. that Jesus is with me and not tarrying someplace else.

One of the problems with tradition is that we get set in our ways and often we find the Spirit of Jesus moving in a different direction and we do not notice and so carry on the same way trying to accomplish the work of God in the flesh.

We find this in the history of the church and especially when it comes to missions. In the first wave of missions William Carey (known as the father of Modern Missions) went out like Abraham not knowing where he was going, but knowing that God had called him to launch out. In being obedient to the Lord – New Mission Societies came into existence. Also, the Bible Society was started so that the Word of God could follow the mission endeavors. Much of the mission work during that time was being established along the coastlands of the different continents.

In the second wave of missions Hudson Taylor went to China and saw that most of the work was being done along the coastland. He decided that he would change his dress from European to Chinese and go inland. In this new paradigm, new structures were needed to achieve what the Spirit was doing. So we find New Mission Societies were being established – the China Inland Missions, Africa Inland Missions, etc.

In what is known as the third wave of missions, again new paradigms were needed. Cameron Townsend handing out Spanish Bibles in Central America gave a Spanish Bible to an old man who did not speak Spanish. The old man spoke to Townsend asking: If your God is so great why can’t He speak my language? This led Townsend to do research and found that there were many different languages and so the Bible Translators work was started as well as many other missions meeting this need to get God’s precious Word into all the languages of the world.

The reason I mention these different waves of missions over the past several hundred years is that we were slow in seeing what the Father was doing and moving along with Him. We see the same thing in the church today. I can predict what will happen in most of our church services every Sunday and maybe this is what the Lord wants, but perhaps the Lord might want to do something else, but because we get caught up in tradition we do not see that Jesus is tarrying someplace else.

Jesus said: “My Father is still working, so I am working, too. Most assuredly, I tell you, the Son can do nothing of himself, but what he sees the Father doing. For whatever things he does, these the Son also does likewise.” (John 5:17,19 WEB)

We all are to be ‘watchmen and watchwomen’ and we need to be asking the question: What is the Spirit of Jesus doing? I first came into missions 57 years ago, and since then missions have changed. What and how is God working today?

Some years ago, I was in a conference in Dubai where they set aside some people to help facilitate the Chinese Christians who were moving along the Silk Trail on their way back to Jerusalem. When the Operation Mobilization ship DOULOS was in South America the goal was to see Latinos also moving towards Jerusalem. In so doing along the way they evangelized Southern Europe as well as Northern Africa. We know that in the last days Jerusalem will be the hot-spot for the world and with all of the movement taking place today, both politically and economically, God is doing something very special.

But what about our own personal life? What is God doing in us? How is He working in us? After almost 60 years of being a Christian, in the last couple of months God is working in my life to become more flexible in certain areas, and working in my emotions when I am under a spiritual attack, but I know that I need to keep asking myself how Jesus is working in my life to mold me more into His image which I long for.

What about our families? Our children? Our grandkids and in-laws? What and how is God working in them? Do we know so that we can work along with Him, especially in prayer? The main question is: Are we moving with Jesus when HE moves, are we tarrying with Jesus when HE is tarrying? This is our goal! This is my desire!

“You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.” Luke 1:31-33

Here Mary was given a tremendous promise that she will have a son who will be great, called the Son of the Most High, and will be given the throne of his father David and will reign over the house of Jacob forever. What a tremendous promise to someone the world would call a “nobody.” This should speak to many of us, because we too like Mary have the tendency to think: I am a “nobody.” The answer, I believe, is found in first Corinthians 1: “Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?”

When we look around at the problems that we face in the world today the challenge for the answers is out to the “wise man,” the “scholar” and the “philosopher,” but they have none.

What is the answer that God gives: “But God chose the foolish things (the nobodies) of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things — and the things that are not — to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him.”

Regarding the church of Philadelphia in Revelation 3 Jesus said this: “And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write: ‘The words of the holy one, the true one, who has the key of David, who opens and no one will shut, who shuts and no one opens.  “I know your works. Behold, I have set before you an open door, which no one is able to shut. I know that you have but little power, and yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name.”’ ” Revelation 3:7-9

The enemy works tirelessly to stop and hinder us from fulfilling what the Lord has laid out for us. I believe that one of the ‘traps’ that Satan uses to good affect is the thought pattern that we are not worthy or that we lack the skills to be used by the Lord.

When God called Moses to go and do what He wanted him to do, what was Moses’ excuse? “But Moses said to God, ‘Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?'” Exodus 3:11 “But Moses said to the Lord, ‘Oh, my Lord, I am not eloquent, either in the past or since you have spoken to your servant, but I am slow of speech and of tongue.’” Exodus 4:10

He said, “But I will be with you.” Exodus 3:12

Jeremiah’s call:

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; Before you were born I sanctified you; I ordained you a prophet to the nations.” Jeremiah 1:5

Jeremiah’s answer to God:

Then Jeremiah said: “Ah, Lord God! Behold, I cannot speak, for I am a youth.” Jeremiah 1:6

God’s response to Jeremiah’s lack of faith: “Then the Lord put forth His hand and touched my mouth, and the Lord said to me: ‘Behold, I have put My words in your mouth. See, I have this day set you over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out and to pull down, to destroy and to throw down, to build and to plant.’” Jeremiah 1:9-10 (NKJV)

Timothy as the young protégé of Paul was challenged: “Let no one despise your youth, but be an example to the believers in word, in conduct, in love, in spirit, in faith, in purity.” 1 Timothy 4:12 (NKJV)

I would venture to say that in a real call of God one sees the difficulties entailed with that calling. We see this also with Moses and Jeremiah. I know in my own life when God was calling me to preach I thought God was making a mistake, because the one thing that I hated the most in school was public speaking.

But I have come to realize what Paul said: “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” (Philippians 4:13) When God called me to preach He gave me this word: “I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” Matthew 28:20

The question for me was this: Would I believe that He was with me and then act upon it? I did and found out that He is not a man that He should lie. He has been with me and I realize that He can take us ‘nobodies’ and use us to fulfill His purpose.

Only believe

We have a tendency to think that power and influence go together or that they are identical. Or like some would say, “people of power have influence and people of influence have power.” But is this the case? The answer is no!

One Jewish Rabbi brought it out like this: “Imagine you have total power. Whatever you say, goes. Then one day you decide to share your power with nine others. You now have at best one-tenth of the power you had before. Now imagine that you have a certain measure of influence. Then you decide to share that influence with nine others whom you make your partners. You now have ten times the influence you had before, because instead of just you there are now ten people delivering the same message.”

We have the example of the Lord Jesus Christ who, although He was God in the flesh, put aside His divinity and became a man. He came into the world with no power, but with great influence. “Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death — even death on a cross!  Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” Philippians 2:6-9

The first coming of Jesus Christ into the world He came as a babe in a manger needing help to survive. He was not raised in an important city, nor attended a prestigious university, but instead He was brought up in an obscure village of no importance as far as the world was concerned. His only stand on the world stage was for 3 ½ years before He was crucified for going up against the religious and political system of His time. But like Dr. James Allan Francis said in his sermon: “He rises from the dead. Today we look back across nineteen hundred years and ask, what kind of trail has he left across the centuries? When we try to sum up his influence, all the armies that ever marched, all the parliaments that ever sat, all the kings that ever reigned are absolutely picayune (trivial or of little importance) in their influence on mankind compared with that one solitary life.”

Power works by division. Influence works by multiplication. In other words, the more power you share the less you have, but the more influence you share the more you have.

What did Jesus do? We read that Jesus spent the night in prayer and the next morning He called His followers and out of them He chose 12 whom He called Apostles. We read in John 20:22 “And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” One could say that He gave them His influence and they went forth and spread that influence.

The great need today is for visionary leaders of influence to be able to articulate the vision they have so that people can understand and identify with it, and then go forth and share those same ideals.

Not everybody has power, but we all have influence. Influence starts in the home with a father and mother upon their children. Influence does not come with titles, fashions, riches, etc., but with a willingness to listen, to teach and to treat other people’s views with respect even if we disagree. We need to keep in mind Luke 6:40 “Students are not greater than their teacher. But the student who is fully trained will become like the teacher.” We raise our disciple to the same level of influence that we have. We produce what we are. Of course, this can work both in a good as well as a bad way.

So, we as followers of Jesus Christ are to go forth and influence, “making disciples of all nations.”

We live in a world of opposing ideas. When I think of the divisions that we have in America we see this coming out. We have the progressives who want social justice and that is their end game, but what does social justice mean to the progressives?

David Horowitz in his book BIG AGENDA says: “Progressives dream of a world of political correctness and politically enforced equality, where everybody is taken care of by taxing the rich (until there are no more rich), where universities and schools do not admit ideas that are hurtful or offending, where environments have no pollution, where countries have no borders, and where nations have no armies. Progressives are so enthralled by their dreams of a heaven on earth that they see those who oppose their dreams as evil, and which is why progressives hate anyone who opposes them.”

Progressives recognize what we call the ‘fall and redemption’ of mankind. They recognize that we live in a world that is fallen, but they see themselves as the redeemer and have taken the place of God. In this sense progressivism has become a religion and like most religions they work from the outside in.

However, with us who call ourselves born-again Christians we see just the opposite – which is the need to work from the inside out. Change the heart and you change the person; change the person and you change the culture. We read that “in Christ we are a new creation.” (2 Corinthians 5:17)

Why is the ‘heart’ so important? Scripture tells us: “Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.” (Proverbs 4:23) The heart is the very essence of who you are. Out of it “come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. These are what make a man unclean; but eating with unwashed hands does not make him ‘unclean.'” (Matthew 15:19-20)

We also read that “as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.” (Proverbs 23:7 KJV)

Yes, we live in a fallen world and there is only one solution and that is the Gospel of Christ. Paul told the church at Rome: “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.” (Romans 1:16 KJV)

What do the progressives see? They see the hostility of racism and sexism, but with the Gospel we see these barriers of hostility broken down. “For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility.” (Ephesians 2:14)

Progressives see the haves and the have-nots, but those who have been redeemed and are a new creation see things from a different perspective. Apostle John told us: “Let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.” (1 John 4:7) One main characteristic of God’s love is to give. “For God so love the world that He gave….” (John 3:16)

Some of the great benevolent works in the world have been done by those who have experienced God’s love in their life and many times it has cost them their life. In these acts of charity, of giving, many of the have-nots in the world have been touched and their lives have been changed so that they become one of those who have and out of love will give and help others.

Examples like the Dohnavur Fellowship in India where Amy Carmichael rescued Indian girls (have-nots) from being sold as Temple prostitutes, or where Mother Teresa who was known as the “Angel of Mercy” and also as the “saint of the gutters.” It was said of her that her life bore witness to the joy of loving the greatness and dignity of every human being – both the haves and the have-nots.

I preached in a small church in the “red light” district of Sao Paulo, Brazil where the congregation of the church consisted of the have-nots: prostitutes, homosexuals, the alcoholics, etc. In my travels around the world I have seen men/women who have been transformed by the Gospel reaching out to the have-nots.

One of the problems is that so many of those who call themselves Christians are not walking the talk. We so often want people to listen, but they want to look and what they see is for the most part not at all unlike the world around them.

The word “Christian,” like so many words today – has lost their meaning. Some years back I was preaching in Goa, India (a Portuguese colony) and asked a Hindu man what he thought a Christian was and he came up with three definitions. A Christian to him was one who got drunk, was immoral and ate pig meat (which is an abomination to a Hindu). I decided then and there that I would not call myself a Christian, but rather a follower of Jesus Christ.

However, the bottom line to the problems of the world is not the “progressive” solution of “taxing the rich until there are no more rich, universities and schools admit no ideas that are hurtful or offending, environments have no pollution, countries have no borders, and nations have no armies.” (From the book Big Agenda)

The answer is the Gospel of Jesus Christ going forth into all the world to change people from the inside out – one person at a time.