The Power of One: Being God's Representative

The following message from Pastor Greg Laurie is made possible by Harvest Partners, helping people everywhere know God. Hey, I want to hear from you. Would you consider emailing me? You can reach me at Greg at Harvest dot org. Again, that's Greg at Harvest dot org.

And you can also make me one of your friends on Facebook and drop me a comment. You may be the only Christian that some people will ever know, and you are a representative of Christ. It's been said Christians are walking epistles written by God and read by men. You may be the only Bible some people ever read. If some people evaluate the Lord by what they see in your life, is that a good thing? Pastor Greg Laurie has a word of encouragement. You make your stand for what is right.

And trust me, God will bless you for that. The power of one. Every so often, some company will have a serious customer service debacle.

And it spreads all over social media. Do you wonder what the company president thinks about the way his organization is characterized? Spiritually speaking, we're representing God every single day.

How's that going for you? Today on A New Beginning, Pastor Greg Laurie returns to his World Changers series as we consider a fine example of leadership set for us by the world changer named Moses. We are going to be looking today at one passage of Scripture. Exodus chapter 32.

So turn there with me if you would. Exodus 32. A final look at the life of Moses. And the title of my message is The Power of One. One Christian making a stand in a given situation can change everything around them.

I once heard it said, I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And what I can do, I ought to do. And what I ought to do, by the grace of God, I will do. Listen to this.

One godly man or woman in the darkest situation can make a dramatic difference. And here's the thing. I don't know where you are right now, but maybe you're in a place you don't necessarily want to be. You don't know why you're in the setting that you're in right now. Why did I end up in this neighborhood with that neighbor? Why did I end up in this classroom with that teacher? Why did I end up in this workplace with this boss or this person that works next to me? Why did I end up where I am? I wish I wasn't in this place. Did it ever occur to you that God put you right where you are for a reason? A beautiful young woman found herself as the queen of Persia at a strategic time in the history of the Jewish people because a plot was hatched for them all to be exterminated and she was oblivious to this. And her uncle Mordecai said to Queen Esther, who knows that God has not placed you where you are for such a time as this. And I suggest the same is true of you and the same is true of me. We want to go out there and make our stand. And trying to get out of where we are to borrow a 60s saying, Bloom where you are planted.

Except that I am here because God has put me here and I am going to do the best job that I can to shine my light for Jesus Christ. How many of you have heard of Billy Graham? Raise your hand. Heard of Billy. Yeah. You have heard of him. Most of you. How many of you have heard of Bill Bright? Bill Bright.

Not as many. He founded Campus Crusade for Christ. I had the privilege of getting to know Bill Bright.

And of course Billy Graham as well. And so here is another name. How many of you have heard of Henrietta Mears? Raise your hand. Henrietta Mears.

Almost no one. Yeah. Ok. Who is Henrietta Mears? Ok. She is an interesting lady. She was felt called by the Lord to teach a Sunday school class at the First Presbyterian Church in Hollywood in 1928. Under her direction her class grew from 400 to 4000. That is a big Sunday school class. Everybody wanted to hear her speak.

She ended up founding Gospel Light Publishing and the Forest Home Conference Center. And what is interesting about the impact of Henrietta Mears is over 400 young people entered full time Christian service as a result of the impact of her life including Bill Bright and Billy Graham. So maybe you are not a Billy Graham but you could be a Henrietta Mears. You see. Again to quote that statement.

I am only one but I am one. I cannot do everything but I can do something. And what I can do I ought to do.

And what I ought to do by the grace of God I will do. How many of you have heard of Sammy Mason? Raise your hand. Sammy Mason.

Almost no one. Well ok. Sammy Mason was a stunt pilot and a committed follower of Jesus Christ. And he would teach people to fly out at the Santa Paula airport. One day a man came to him and said he wanted to learn to fly.

This man had bought an antique Stearman biplane. And it turns out that this man's name was Steve McQueen. And at that point Steve McQueen was the number one movie star in the world. And he had conquered auto racing and motocross. And now he wanted to learn how to fly.

And it also turns out that Steve had been searching for his entire life for the meaning and purpose of life. He was raised by an alcoholic mother that had little to no time for him. He also never knew his biological father.

He spent time at the Chino Boys Republic because his mother wanted nothing to do with him. He lived a crazy life. He ascended to the top of the hill in the world of Hollywood and was making millions of dollars and had everything a person could want but there was a big hole in his heart. And it just came at the time when he wanted to learn how to fly so he spent hours in the cockpit with Sammy Mason. Sammy Mason was a man's man.

Kind of a salt of the earth guy. And Steve admired him. And Steve asked Sammy, What is your secret?

You are different. You seem to have peace. And Sammy told Steve about his faith in Jesus Christ. And Sammy's faith was so strong Steve actually asked, Can I go to church with you?

I found that interesting. Not that Sammy invited him. But Steve said, Can I go to church with you?

Sammy agreed. They ended up at the Ventura Missionary Church in Ventura, California. And the pastor there Leonard DeWitt who I have met and interviewed spoke and preached the gospel and at the end of his services he would invite people to Christ just like we do. And so after a few weeks had passed he heard that McQueen was coming to his church and he just told the people, Leave them alone. Don't bother them.

Don't ask for autographs. McQueen came and said, I want to talk with you. And they had an extended conversation which resulted in Steve McQueen committing his life to Jesus Christ.

Ok. So the power of one. So you have heard of Steve McQueen. You probably haven't heard of Sammy Mason. You have heard of Billy Graham.

You haven't heard of Henrietta Mears. Doesn't matter. We all have a part to play. We all have something to do.

We all have a sphere of influence and we want to do what we can do while we can do it. Because you may be the only Christian that some people will ever know. You are the only one. And you are a representative of Christ. It has been said Christians are walking epistles written by God and read by men.

You may be the only Bible some people ever read. And so I want to look now at the power of one. One man who impacted millions of people. One man who through his godly life of integrity kept two and a half million from turning to idolatry. I am talking about Moses the man of God.

And you know what. When Moses the man of God left the scene literally all hell broke loose. Exodus 32.1. They are waiting on Moses. When the people saw how long it was taking Moses to come back down the mountain they gathered around Aaron.

Come on they said. Make us some gods who can lead us. We don't know what happened to this fellow Moses who brought us here from the land of Egypt.

Interesting. Instead of recognizing it was the Lord through Moses who had led them out of Egypt they thought it was Moses himself. And as soon as Moses was gone they were looking for something to take his place. In effect they were saying, look we need something we can touch.

I mean Moses was the guy. We could grab him by the arm. We could voice our complaints to him.

We could pat him on the back. But he is not here. So we need some tangible thing. We cannot relate to an invisible God. We need an object. We need a thing.

We need something that we can look to to help us. And that is where the golden calf comes in. Now we can be critical of Moses but really we should not because it was his integrity and influence that kept them from doing this. In fact Moses the man of God should be commended, emulated, and followed. He demonstrates the power of one.

How did he do it? He was a man of personal integrity. He was Moses the man of God. And when he is out of the picture look what happens.

You know what? Aaron just did a bad job. And how did Aaron even get in this position? Because Moses wanted him there. When God came to Moses and said, I want you to go to the Pharaoh and demand the release of my people. Moses was like, no way Lord. I am not a good speaker.

I have a speech impediment. I don't want to do this Lord. I will tell you what.

I will make you a deal. Moses said to God, let me bring Aaron with me. He is smooth. He is articulate. He is the gift of geth. He can do all the talking. The Lord said, all right. So he agreed but this was not God's real plan.

And now when Aaron slept in charge he was like the worst babysitter ever. Pastor Greg Laurie will have more insight from the life of Moses, the man of personal integrity, in just a moment. Hey everybody, Greg Laurie here inviting you to join me every weekend for what we call Harvest at Home. It's a church service. It's a worship service. It's a Bible study. And it's wherever you want it to be, in your home, in your car, sitting on a beach, walking down the street, watching it on your phone. Wherever you are, you can take it with you and be ministered to every weekend.

Join us for Harvest at Home at Harvest.org. And now Pastor Greg continues his message called The Power of One, available at Harvest.org. Here is Moses up in the mountain and he is getting ready to return.

And this is what he sees. Exodus 32 verse 21. Moses comes down and demands, what did these people do to make you bring such terrible sin upon them? Hey don't be so upset Aaron says. You know how evil these people are. They said, make us gods who will lead us.

We don't know what happened to this fellow Moses who brought us from the land of Egypt. And so I said, whoever has gold jewelry take it off. And they brought it to me and I threw it into the fire and out came this calf.

Yeah that's exactly how it happens. What a lie. He was the one that says, you bring your gold. He was the one that melted it. He was the one that made it into the shape of a calf. And he was the one that said, here is your god Israel. Worship it.

You say, well I don't care. Why are they worshipping a golden calf? Because they came from Egypt. And Egypt was like idol central. Right? So they had all these images that they worshipped and they were used to this sort of thing.

And so they reverted back to this. And really Aaron also shows the power of one. But he shows the power of a bad example. See one man living a godly life had a great influence.

One man living a compromised life had a horrible influence. First he lies. He says, well we threw it into the fire and out came this calf.

What does he think? Moses is a complete idiot. That is not even a good excuse. It was George Washington who said, quote, it is better to offer no excuse than a bad one. Aaron initiated it. He was responsible.

And that is the second thing. He didn't take responsibility for his actions. It was his watch and he helped the people with this idolatry.

He should have stopped them cold and refused. And to make matters worse he wrapped it in religious jargon to do away with the guilt. Look at verse 5 of Exodus 32. He made a proclamation and said, tomorrow is a feast to the Lord.

Wait a second. A feast to the Lord. You are going to worship an idol and you are calling it a feast to the Lord? And then we read in verse 6. They rose early, offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings.

They sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play. You see what a contrast Moses and Aaron are. Moses sets an example that the people can follow. Aaron sets a bad example. Moses is known for his decisfulness, conviction, and doing what is right.

Aaron is known for his indecisiveness, his weak will, and wanting to fit in. You see he didn't want to offend anyone. And sometimes we are afraid to make a stand because we don't want to offend. Well you know I am not going to stand up for that. And you just kind of go along with the program. Don't do that. Make a stand.

Do what is right. Not what is easy. And sometimes when you do what is right it is very hard. It has been said, quote, A good leader takes people where they don't necessarily want to go, but when they get there they are glad they went.

I like that statement. A leader takes people where they don't necessarily want to go, but when they get there they are glad they went. A leader does what is right.

A man or a woman of integrity does the right thing if someone is watching or not. You see when Aaron was with Moses he was godly in quotes. When he wasn't with Moses he was pretty ungodly.

And he gave in and led them in this sin. Sometimes we are the same way. You know when we are around strong believers we are strong kind of. And the moment we get away from them we just crumble. We just collapse.

We just give in. Hey find strong believers to be around and in time you need to be that strong believer. You need to be that person in a group of people that says, I don't agree with that because the Bible says. Or no I am not going to go along with that. Or this is not the right thing. You make your stand for what is right. And trust me God will bless you for that. The power of one.

I am only one. But I can do something. And what I am going to do.

I am going to do that so do what you can do. I mentioned Sammy Mason earlier. And he played a key role in the conversion of Steve McQueen. I don't think Steve would have ever heard Pastor Leonard DeWitt if he didn't find a man he could connect to. A man that just lived it.

A man that Steve admired. And that led him to hear the gospel and commit his life to Jesus Christ. Look there is nothing this world offers that can fill a hole in your heart in your life that was designed to be filled by God and God alone.

You are sort of pre-wired this way. And this is why everything we are looking for is found in a relationship with Jesus Christ. And Jesus came to this earth. He died on the cross for our sin. He rose again from the dead. Now He stands at the door of each of our lives and He knocks and says in full, hear His voice and open the door and He will come in.

And I wonder today as we close this service if you have ever asked Jesus to come into your life. You know maybe you are here because you came with your wife. Or your husband. Or your parents.

Or somebody else. You don't even really want to be here that much. But you are here.

And here is what I am saying. Are you ready to really come into a relationship with God? You can't live off someone else's relationship with God. God has no grandchildren. Only sons and daughters. And the way you become a child of God is by believing.

The Bible says, For as many as received Him, He gave them the power to become sons of God. You have to receive Him. You have to ask Him to come into your life.

You need your own relationship with God and you can have it today. And He will never let you down. He will never disappoint you. He will never abandon you.

He will never leave you or forsake you. He will be there for you to help you find the meaning and purpose in life you have been searching for. And best of all give you the absolute assurance of an afterlife in heaven. And all you need to do is pray and say, God I am sorry for my sin. I want Christ to come into my life.

Or for some of you maybe that have fallen away. You need to come back to the Lord. He will receive you.

But you must return to Him. God says, Return to Me you back-siding children and I will heal you. In a moment we are going to pray and I am going to extend an invitation for you to ask Christ to come into your life or for you to make a recommitment to Jesus.

Let's all bow our heads. Father thank You for Your Word to us. Thank You for sending Jesus to die for us than to rise again from the dead. And Lord Jesus we pray that Your Holy Spirit now will work here in this place in hearts of people and that they will see their need for You. In Jesus' name I pray.

Amen. Pastor Greg Laurie with an important prayer. And if you'd like to make a change in your relationship with the Lord today, Pastor Greg will help you do that in just a moment before today's edition of A New Beginning concludes. If you weren't able to catch every word of this presentation, you can get a replay by going to harvest.org. Just look for the message called The Power of One. You can also listen by way of our Harvest mobile app. Or to get a permanent copy on CD, just call 1-800-821-3300.

We can take your call anytime around the clock, again at 1-800-821-3300. And then right now we're highlighting something called The Jesus Storybook Bible, a Christmas collection, written by author Sally Lloyd-Jones, a good friend of the ministry who's here with us today, along with Pastor Greg's wife Kathy. Pastor Greg? Welcome to How to Speak Like a Brit featuring four people. One of us is a true Brit. The others are Americans trying to sound like a Brit. Can you identify the true Brit? We'll start with Dave in your best British accent. Say something, Dave.

Go. Uh, fanciest part of tea. Kathy, Laurie, go. I absolutely adore my friend Sally Lloyd-Jones. She's been such a dear one to me. We actually have eaten donuts many times together.

Wow. Now it's my turn. You know, I met Sally in Liverpool and we walked down the street together. We got some fish and chips.

It was lovely. Okay. Now, Sally, it's your turn. Say something.

Well, I just feel very sorry for you all. Can you identify the true Brit? Yes, it's Sally Lloyd-Jones. No, I say you're very good because I don't think you want to hear my American accent. Oh, I would love to.

Do you have one? Well, here's as much as I can do. Oh, really? Sure. I get it.

Very good. Well, Sally is a prolific writer and she's written books that are especially appealing to little ones. And if you don't have a copy of the Jesus Storybook Bible in your library, you certainly ought to. You know, Sally, I think one of the most intimidating things that parents face, even grandparents, is how to tell Bible stories to their children. How to read the Bible. One thing I recommend when you're doing devotions with kids is don't go too long.

I think we feel like it has to be a lecture. I think, you know, you keep it at a length that they will stay with you. Number two, involve them in the story. I like to ask questions, make it interactive, ask for their comments or thoughts as we make our way through the story. But this is something that you're especially gifted at doing. And you've given us a great resource in the Jesus Storybook Bible, this Christmas collection, which really is for the Advent season, for the Christmas season to go through each day. And not just your writing, but a cool little feature where you push a little button and you hear the voice of actor David Suchet. Mary and Joseph had to take a trip to Bethlehem, the town King David was from.

But when they reached the little town, they found every room was full, every bed was taken. So is this the second time you've worked with David on a project or have you worked with him more than that? And where would most people recognize his voice from, Sally? Yes, well I've actually, he's recorded about three of my books.

He's done Jesus Storybook Bible, Thoughts to Make Your Heart Sing, and Song of the Stars, which is a Christmas picture book, and then this. And people would recognize him probably mostly from Agatha Christie's Inspector Poirot, where he played Poirot. And he's a master. Again, when you're in the presence of a master, you're tempted to think, oh, he's just reading. But that's the trick about a master, they'll make it look easy. And if they make it look easy, they're doing their job. And that's what he did with reading the Jesus Storybook Bible.

He just, he did it in one day, which to me is impossible. So in this new resource that we're offering right now, the Jesus Storybook Bible, a Christmas collection, what is David Suchet reading specifically? He's reading clips from the Christmas stories.

So they're very short, but they give you a flavor. And then there's also sound buttons that play Christmas carols, so they're fun too. So the whole thing is sort of an interactive, immersive experience.

And what's really amazing, and it would almost seem as if I planned it, which I didn't, but someone did. There are exactly the right number of stories in the Jesus Storybook Bible. If you start at the beginning to lead you up to Christmas Day to read one story a day in Advent, except for Sunday or something like that. But it makes for a really fun experience because what you're doing is you're setting up longing and Advent means waiting, doesn't it?

And so what you're doing is by reading a story a day, you're kind of setting up this longing for the one who's coming, the promised rescuer, the prince. But the thing about this Christmas collection is you don't have to have the Jesus Storybook Bible. You have the Christmas stories and then you have scripture references and a devotional for every day.

So you can have the Jesus Storybook Bible, but it doesn't require you to have the Jesus Storybook Bible. We're talking with Sally Lloyd-Jones, author of the new resource we're making available called The Jesus Storybook Bible, A Christmas Collection. And we're eager to send this your way to say thank you for your investment in making these studies available. Someone's generosity made today's study possible.

We're entirely listener supported. And we hope you'll help us keep these studies here on this station. And with your donation right now, we'd like to send you The Jesus Storybook Bible, A Christmas Collection. You can write us at A New Beginning, Box 4000, Riverside, CA 92514. Or call 1-800-821-3300. You can reach us any time around the clock at 1-800-821-3300.

Or go online to harvest.org. And then Pastor Greg, would you like to speak to those who'd like to make a change today in their relationship with the Lord? I would. You know, I received so many letters, Dave, from people from every walk of life, from successful businessmen to those who are incarcerated, to mothers struggling as they're trying to raise their children, to young boys and girls writing and saying they've made a commitment or a recommitment to Jesus. And maybe you need to make that commitment to Him right now. Let me lead you in a word of prayer. Yes, you can meet God right now. And I would just ask you to pray this prayer out loud after me. And this is where you are asking Christ to come into your life.

Pray with me now if you would. Lord Jesus, I know that I'm a sinner. I know that I've broken your commandments and I've fallen short of your standards.

But I thank you that you have loved me and you have called me to yourself. So I turn from my sin right now and I choose to believe in and follow you. Be my Savior. Be my Lord. And be my God from this moment forward. Thank you for calling me and loving me and accepting me. In Jesus' name I pray.

Amen. Hey, let me just say God bless you. You've made the right decision and welcome to the family of God. And we want to follow up with you by sending something called our New Believers Growth Packet to help you get started living as a Christian. We'll send it without charge if you prayed for the first time today to receive Christ. Just ask for the New Believers Growth Packet when you call 1-800-821-3300. You can reach us anytime 24 hours a day, again at 1-800-821-3300.

Or write us at A New Beginning, Box 4000, Riverside, CA 92514. Or go online to harvest.org and click on Know God. Well, join us next time as Pastor Greg continues his World Changers series. We'll consider the story of Jericho and how the Lord worked through a leader named Joshua. Be sure to join us here on A New Beginning with Pastor Greg Laurie.