This is Andy Thomas from the Masculine Journey Podcast where we discover what it means to be a wholehearted man. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just seconds. Enjoy it, share it, but most of all thank you for listening and for choosing the Truth Podcast Network. Welcome to If Not For God, stories of hopelessness that turn to hope. Here is your host, Mike Zwick.
Alright, If Not For God with Mike Zwick. Today we have for you Romans chapter 12 and I'm reading from the New King James Version if you'll follow along starting in verse 1. I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, wholly acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith. For as we have many members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function, so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another, having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them. If prophecy, let us prophesy in proportion to our faith, our ministry, let us use in our ministering he who teaches and teaching, he who exhorts in exhortation, he who gives with liberality, he who leads with diligence, he who shows mercy with cheerfulness. Let love be without hypocrisy, abhor what is evil, cling to what is good, be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love, in honor, giving preference to one another, not lagging in diligence, fervent in the Spirit, serving the Lord, rejoice in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing steadfastly in prayer, distributing to the needs of the saints given to hospitality. Bless those who persecute you, bless and do not curse, rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep, be of the same mind toward one another, do not set your mind on high things, but associate with the humble, do not be wise in your own opinion, repay no one evil for evil, have regard for things in the sight of all men.
If it is possible, as much as depends on you, live peaceably with all men. Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath. For it is written, Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord. Therefore, if your enemy is hungry, feed him.
If he is thirsty, give him a drink. For in so doing you will heap coals of fire on his head. Do not overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. And thanks be to God, blessings be on his reading. You know, one of the things that I'm thinking about this is Romans 12, especially towards the end of that chapter, I had a friend of mine named Tiger and Elena.
Elena, Tiger's wife, had told me, she said that, Mike, Tiger was sick as a dog with COVID. And she said that when he was so sick, he was actually praying for the people who had started this virus in the lab in China, the Wuhan lab in China. He was praying for them. If you think about it, that really doesn't make any sense. But according to the Bible, it makes perfect sense that we do pray for the people who are persecuting us.
See, the natural tendency for all of us is to be angry at people when they're doing us wrong. But when they see us, when the people who are doing us wrong, when they see us responding in a loving manner, then many times they're won over by our love for Christ, and many times they want to give their lives to Christ as well. And at the beginning of the chapter, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, wholly acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
So in other words, we don't need to be just like the world. When I was thinking about this, there was a story of a lady named Ruth Anna Metzger, and she was a professional singer. She would always go to these venues to sing for weddings and stuff like that. And there was one wedding that she went to sing for. And in that wedding, she was told right before they had sent her something to RSVP for the reception after the wedding. And so she sang in the wedding just as she was supposed to.
But after the wedding, at the reception, her and her husband actually went up to the maitre d' and they said, hey, we're here for the reception afterwards. And the guy who was going to let him in said, what is your name? He said, well, I can't find the name.
Can you spell that for me again? And she spelled the name and he said, you're not in the book. And so Ruth Anna Metzger said to him, she said, well, it doesn't matter. She said, I was a singer at one of at the wedding, so I should be able to go through. And what she said was she said at this reception was the most beautiful reception that the food was perfect.
There were ice sculptures. She saw lobster. I mean, it was everything that you could have wanted, but she did not RSVP for this wedding.
And so the maitre d' said to her, excuse me, ma'am, there's a there's a waiter right here that'll show you to the door. And as she was going down the escalator, she didn't say anything to her husband. Her husband didn't say anything to her. She was really, really upset.
And she says until they started to get on the road, they hit G, they got into the garage. And she says when the she remembered that when the invitation arrived for the reception, she was very busy and she never bothered to return the RSVP. She said, besides, I was a singer. Surely I could go to the reception without returning the RSVP. She says, as we drove on, I began to weep.
She said I was not weeping because I had just missed the most lavish banquet of my life. She said, but I was weeping because suddenly I knew what it will be like someday for people as they stand before the entrance of heaven. People who were too busy to respond to Christ's invitation to his heavenly banquet. People who assume that the good things that they had done, even perfect church attendance or singing in the choir, would be enough to gain entry to heaven. People who will look for their name in the Lamb's Book of Life and will not find it there.
People who did not have time to respond to Christ's gracious invitation to have their sins forgiven and accept him into their hearts. And she said, and then I wept again because I was so grateful that I had many years earlier received Christ as my personal savior and can be confident that my name is written in the Lamb's Book of Life. She says, as yours? And this was from the book Heaven by Randy Alcorn and it reminds me that whatever else that we've got going on, whatever else that we've got going on, the fact that our name is written in the Lamb's Book of Life is more important than anything else.
Anything else. As a matter of fact, you know, one of the things that I was thinking about is that, you know, I went back into the book of, you know, First Kings, Second Kings, First Chronicles, Second Chronicles, all that stuff. I think there's a Third Kings as well. But, you know, when I was looking at this, we all know that Solomon, one night he had a dream, knew that it was going to be king, might have already been king. And the Lord came to Solomon in his dream and he said, Solomon, anything that you want, he said, I will give it to you.
So Solomon said, Lord, he said, and this is the way that we know it. He said that, Lord, he said, I just want you to give me a heart of wisdom so that I can rule over my people in a kind and a generous manner and I can do the right thing. And the Lord actually came, the Lord actually came back to Solomon and when he came to Solomon, he said this, he said, because you did not ask for long life or for the death of your enemy or for riches or any of that, he said, I will give you what you ask for, which was wisdom as we know it, right? He said, but I'll also give you what you didn't ask for.
I'll make you the richest man and the wisest king who has ever lived. And he said, if you obey my decrees, then I'll give you long life as well. Well, if you actually do a study of the Hebrew of what Solomon asked for, it's a Lev Shema.
And so a Lev Shema is not, it's not actually wisdom. What he asked for was a listening heart or a heart that listens. And you know, one of the things that I think about right now, especially in the time that we have going on right now in this country with everything that is going on, if nothing else, we need to have a heart that listens to Jesus, a heart that listens to God and says, God, what do you want me to do? I was talking to a friend of mine before I came over here today and she says, Mike, she said, everything that God has, God has promised me something. And I'm not going to say what it was. She said, but God has promised me something. And she said, every person who I've told this thing to that God has promised me, she said that nobody believes me. They think that I misheard from God or I don't know what she said. But time and time again, I knew that I heard from God.
And she had told me, she said, Mike, you're the only person left who believes this. And you know, I guess it's so many times in my life while we're asking God for wisdom. One of the things that I think about is that I've made the mistake of hearing from God. God has told me something.
And then I go around and ask everybody else what they think about it. Well, God didn't tell them. He didn't tell them what he wanted. He told me. And so one of the lessons, and I've had to learn this the hard way, is that if God is telling me something, and if God is telling you something, if you're listening right now, it doesn't matter if it doesn't make sense in the natural. It doesn't matter if everybody else tells you that you're crazy.
Hey, maybe you shouldn't have told them in the first place. All that matters is that you know that you've heard from God and that you're listening to God. Like that lev shema, a listening heart, and make sure that you listen to God.
And it doesn't matter what anybody else says. Going on in verse four, for as we have many members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function. So we, being many, are one body in Christ and individually members of one another, having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us.
Let us use them. If prophecy, then let us prophesy in proportion to our faith. Our ministry, let us use it in our ministering. He who teaches in teaching. He who exhorts in exhortation. He who gives with liberality. He who leads with diligence.
He who shows mercy with cheerfulness. Let love be without hypocrisy. Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil. Hate what is evil. Cling to what is good. Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love.
And so I'll stop right there. And what I see right there is, first of all, that in this chapter in Romans 12, they don't say, okay, now all you're going to do is share people, share the good news about Jesus. Now, that's the most important thing.
That is the most, you know, if you don't do anything else, make sure that you share the good news of Jesus Christ with us. But what I don't see in here is that, well, prophecy is here for a little while and then when you're done, you know, after the first century, that's going to go away and the gifts of the Spirit are going to go away as well. But what it says is this. It says that everybody has their own gift.
You know, I'll just pause for a second here. I think so many times in the Christian circles, so many times when we go to churches, so many times when we see somebody on YouTube or on TV or whatever, the person who gets all of the accolades is the teacher who's up there preaching in front of people. And by the way, that's a really important job. If you're in, you know, the book of James, in James 3, verse 1, it says, Let there not be many teachers among you, for you shall be judged more harshly.
So that it is important that we need the teachers and that we need good teachers. I'll also say this. Be careful who you listen to. Many years ago when I first started selling insurance, I started selling insurance for the first few months. And then my boss, Vance, had actually come to me and he said, Mike, what's going on? I want to follow you one day.
I want to see what you're doing because you're not selling a lot. And he came with me for the day and he said, Well, who are you listening to? And I said, Well, there was this guy named Matt that when we had our first convention that I went to and he told me all this stuff. He says, First of all, Matt's not selling any of insurance.
And he said, Secondly, I don't even think Matt's selling anymore. So, you know, be careful who you listen to. So it is good to have good teachers. And we have good teachers here on the Truth Network, but there are some teachers that are teaching some questionable stuff. I mean, I know a guy who started to listen to somebody and he's saying that Jesus came back in the first century and that Jesus is not coming back, that the book of Revelation, none of that is true.
I mean, you know, guys, be careful what you listen to. You can believe the word of God. You can believe the word of God.
But the teachers aren't, according to this passage, they're not supposed to be any better than anybody else. As a matter of fact, I know an older guy who we have a meeting with every Monday. His name is Loren, and he prophesies over people and he gets it right on the money. And I remember at first when I, you know, when I first heard this guy speaking, I was like, This is a little different.
I don't know what's going on. He would speak into me and he would say things that were right on the money. As a matter of fact, there was one time where I had a, my mom had bought a trampoline for the kids, and I had not jumped on a trampoline in probably 20 years. And that morning before I went to the prayer meeting, I was jumping on the trampoline. And so right before this guy was going to prophesy over me, he said, Mike, he said, I see you jumping on a trampoline.
And I just absolutely started to freak out because I said, wow, that is awesome. And so then I realized that what he, what he said was good. And as he's prophesied over me and others in the group as well, that I realized that the stuff that he said has been right on the money. And so he's told me stuff that nobody else could have known.
I didn't share this with anybody else. Nobody else could have known, but he prophesied over me and I believe it. So prophecy is still for today.
This is not something that was just 2000 years ago, but it is still for today. And as it goes on, it says, some have, we have different gifts prophesy according to your faith or ministry. Let us use it in ministering. You know, however that ministry looks, if you feed the poor, if you, if you help the sick, whatever else you're doing.
I mean, that's, that is awesome. Everything that we are doing as Christians, even though we have several different, several different types of ministry, I believe that we should all be working together. Now, if you're feeding the poor and if you're doing it in a Christian ministry in somehow or some way, you need to open your mouth and share the good news about Jesus. Otherwise, I mean, there's, there's people in other countries, there's people of other religions who are doing good things, good things for the poor as well. What makes you any different than them? So, but as long as we're helping people out and we're sharing the good news of Jesus with them, you know, I believe that's very important, you know, and it says to, you know, don't repay evil for evil, vengeance is mine. I see all this stuff and it says to love your enemies.
I mean, a lot of times we can't do this on our own. Matter of fact, there was a, there was a few years ago, I actually went to a, it was a Duke basketball game. And when I went to this Duke basketball game, they were playing Stephen F. Austin.
And this was, I want to say it was at the end of 19, it was the 1920 season, just before, just before all that COVID stuff happened and stuff like that. And so, you know, the game was on November 26th of 2019. And I remember it was at the beginning of the game, Duke was winning and I was right on the floor with the Cameron crazies, but Duke was winning the game. And so what had happened was when Duke started to win the game, all of a sudden it's like Duke, they kind of let their guard down. They weren't really playing as hard.
They weren't really putting their whole selves into it. And I think kind of what they were saying was, we've got this, this team can't hang with us, no big deal, this, that, the other, whatever. And so what happened though, when Duke started to let up, the other teams started to score.
They started to come back and they really started to believe that they could win the game. And so towards the end of the game, and this is a guy that you never see, but there was a guy named Kevin White. He's the athletic director for Duke. So technically if he had wanted to fire coach Krzyzewski, who's been there for so long, maybe the greatest coach of all time in college, he could fire him.
But Kevin would always, he would never come down to the floor. But when Stephen F. Austin was playing against Duke and they were playing neck and neck, he came down right on the floor and he was watching the game. In other words, what I'm saying or what I'm trying to say is this, is that he was there the whole time. He was there the whole time, but, you know, I guess towards the end of the game when Duke was kind of slacking off and they weren't doing what they were supposed to be doing. And this was a great Duke team, by the way.
I mean, this was a really good team. But what happened was, was he came down and he said, it was kind of by him being there saying, hey, I'm here. And I want to let you know something as well. If you're listening to this right now, you may think that what you're doing isn't amounting to anything. You may think that nobody notices, but I want to encourage you that God is up there watching.
He sees everything that you do. You know, and I've had people tell me, well, Mike, you have more of a voice than we do because you're on the radio or you have the podcast or stuff like that. But, you know, I'm telling you, there are people who absolutely, you know, maybe very few people know about them. But I know a lady named Esther, she goes out and prays for blind people and they're healed. That is awesome. I mean, that is absolutely awesome.
I mean, just because, you know, people aren't clapping for her, maybe everybody doesn't know her or whatever. It doesn't matter. God sees what she's doing. And I want to encourage you that God is not comparing you to Mike Zwick. God is not comparing you to Stu Epperson.
God is not comparing you to to to Billy Grimm. God, just like it says in this Romans Chapter 12. He has given you a certain set of gifts and all that he asks you to do is to do the best. He asks you to do the best with what you've got.
God will completely work this thing out. As a matter of fact, you know, during the time of Constantine, Constantine was not a Christian. And all of a sudden there was a battle. And in the middle of the sky, Constantine and his soldiers saw something in the sky that was, it was a cross. And he saw something, I believe it was in Greek, and it said in this sign conquer, in this sign conquer.
I think it was a night or two later or whatever it was. Constantine had a dream where Christ came to him in this dream. And he confirmed, yes, this is what you need to do in this sign conquer. So what he did was he had all of his soldiers, they put crosses on their shields and they ended up winning the battle. And after that, Constantine got all of, you know, he got basically his whole country to convert to Christianity.
And so at the time it probably looked impossible. How is this thing of Christianity going to spread? We don't have to worry about the hows or the whats or the whys or exactly how it's going to happen or exactly, well, how is it going to look here?
How is it going to look there? God hasn't called us to figure it all out. He's called us to be obedient to him.
All that we have to do is to be obedient to him. And sometimes, as a matter of fact, a lot of times there's stuff in life that really doesn't make a whole lot of sense. I mean, I was talking with a friend about on the way over here to record this show about this. And I said, there are so many things in life that just don't make sense. As a matter of fact, when you look at the book of Job, it says God said he didn't do anything wrong.
Job did not do anything wrong. But yet when the devil came up to, went up to heaven, it seems like, God says, what are you doing here? And God says to him, he says, have you considered my servant Job?
So he and he said, there's nobody like him. He's without sin. And then the devil starts saying, well, you say that now. But what's going to happen when all these bad things start to happen to his family? And so then bad things start to happen to his family. He loses his children. He loses all of his possessions.
Today we would say his 401k, everything else. And then, matter of fact, after that, Job starts to get sick himself. The only thing that Satan couldn't do is he couldn't kill Job. He said, I'm going to allow you to do everything else to him, but you're not going to be able to, not going to be able to kill him. And so then when the response that Job gives is when his wife comes up to him and says, you know, why are you doing this?
Curse God and die. And Job says the best thing that anybody could say. He says, should we not accept the bad things from God as well as the good? He said, the Lord gave, the Lord took away. He said, blessed be the name of the Lord. And that's how we need to be when we're going throughout our daily lives. As a matter of fact, one of the things when it seems like a lot of times good things happen to bad people and bad things happen to good people, one of the Psalms that I read is Psalm 73, and it's a Psalm of Asaph. And it says, Surely God is good to Israel, to those who are of a pure heart. But as for me, my feet had almost slipped.
I had nearly lost my foothold, for I envied the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. They have no struggles. Their bodies are healthy and strong. They are free from common human burdens.
They are not plagued by human ills. Therefore, pride is their necklace. They clothe themselves in violence. And then he goes on and says, all these good things are happening to these bad people. And then he says in verse 13, Surely in vain I have kept my heart and have washed my hands in innocence. All day long I have been afflicted, and every morning brings new punishments.
If I had spoken out like that, I would have betrayed your children. When I tried to understand all this, it troubled me deeply till I entered the sanctuary of God. Then I understood their final destiny.
And it says in verse 18, Surely you have placed them on slippery ground, the evil. You cast them down to ruin. How suddenly they are destroyed. Cunts completely swept away by terrors.
They are like a dream when one awakes. When you arise, O Lord, you will despise them as fantasies. So when good things happen to bad people and bad things happen to good people, you know, it says in Scripture, it says that the Lord rebukes those that he loves. So in other words, if bad things are happening to good people and God is not showing them, he's not rebuking them, that's a bad sign.
Because when they die, the evil, when they die without surrendering their lives to Christ and turning from their wicked ways, if they surrender, if they do not surrender to Jesus, then when they die, they're going to die and go to hell. So sometimes maybe the worst thing that could happen to somebody is to have everything go right for them because then they're not going to feel the need to cry out for the Lord. But so many times if you've got bad things happening to you and life just seems tough, maybe that's in the best place that you could be because God is getting your attention.
Maybe that's the best place that you could be. And I absolutely mean that. You know, I talked about Solomon a little bit before. I talked about, you know, John Wesley. You know, there was another thing that I was thinking about as well. And the other thing that I was thinking about was this.
It's one thing when the ship is in the sea and another thing when the sea gets into the ship. One of the things that we have to do, and especially from reading Romans chapter 12, is we have to realize that God is in control, number one. Number two, we're not God, okay?
And then number three, we cannot compromise with the world. We're not called to go out with the world and say, okay, I know what the Bible says about marriage or I know what the Bible says about abortion or I know what the Bible says about Jesus being the only way, but because we don't want to receive persecution or we want to fit in, we're going to try to compromise with the world about this and that's not the way that it works. And so if you've never given your life to Christ, I encourage you to pray with me today. Dear Lord Jesus, I'm a sinner. The Bible says that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God and I am a sinner, Lord. Forgive me of my sins, Lord. I accept you as my personal Savior. I turn away from my sin and I commit the rest of my life to you. In Jesus' name, amen, if not for God. If you're at home, go visit Greater Love World Outreach Center over in Burlington. This is the Truth Network.
