The Commissioning of God

Beginning a powerful leading the way audio, Dr. Michael Youssef. From his youth, Dr. Youssef felt God's call on his life, and after entering ministry almost 50 years ago, he has and is actively, passionately proclaiming uncompromising truth around the world. Welcome to Leading the Way with Dr. Michael Youssef. Today, a message looking at the commissioning of God. You'll see, regardless of your social or professional position, God has called you. He has commissioned you to be the hands and feet of Jesus right where you live and have influence. Also remember, connect with Dr. Youssef through audio and video podcast and other content at ltw.org.

More on that later. Right now, Dr. Michael Youssef with the final message in his series called God Talk. I wonder if you have ever been in a situation as a parent and you have given your child an assignment or a task. And with that assignment or the task, you've given him or her all the equipping and all the tools, all the motivations, all the encouragement that you thought they needed in order to accomplish this task or the assignment. And within a short period of time, you discovered they haven't even begun, let alone finished the assignment. I wonder in another situation, if you're an employer, God, an employee or a colleague, and you have said to the colleague and assigned him a task or her, and he said, here all the things you need in order to help you accomplish the task, to accomplish the assignment, all the tools, all the motivations, all the encouragement, all the things they needed, only to discover that they haven't even begun to take that assignment seriously, let alone accomplishing it. I wonder what your reaction would be.

I wonder how you feel deep down, whether you verbalize it or not, how you feel deep down. Now, we can speculate on the reasons that they may give. Some probably would say, well, I couldn't do that simply because I got so busy, I didn't get to it. Another excuse of somebody would say, well, look, you know, I thought it wasn't all that important.

So I just pushed it aside. I didn't think it was really worth all the effort and the energy that it is required for that assignment to be accomplished. Or somebody might say, well, you know, I just felt it was too much for me to do. Somebody might say, you know, I know you've given me all these tools, you've given me all these equipment, you gave me all the things I needed, but I still felt very inadequate.

I couldn't do it. And then you feel a sense of deep disappointment in your heart. But I want to ask you how you would even feel if you did not ask for that task or assignment to be done once, but you asked twice, three times, four times. You kept on asking, you kept on asking, and the same thing happens over and over again. I wonder the depth of your disappointment.

I wonder. I think most of us would feel either that person just did not take us seriously or that person just thought that we did not really, I did not really mean what I just said, or they probably thought that we are so unfair to give them such a task, or you probably feel that you really are not loved by that person or respected by that person or trusted. In any case, the disappointment is real, the hurt is real, the anguish is real, the feeling of being let down is real. And sooner or later, depending on your level of patience and tolerance and perseverance, you're going to act. Sooner or later you're going to act. Sooner or later you're going to do something. Sooner or later you're going to deal with this ignoring of your direction, with this ignoring of the assignment, of this ignoring of this commissioning.

Sooner or later you're going to do something, whatever it is. Now if you've ever been in that situation, if you've ever been there, certainly you begin to understand the depth of the heart of God. You begin to comprehend just a tiny little bit of God's anguish, forgiving his children, a commission, and repeated it again and again, and yet they ignored it. I wonder if you begin to sense the feeling of God's anguish over his children whom he has commissioned, whom he has sent, whom he has blessed, whom he has equipped, whom he has enriched, and yet they either ignore his commission or they get so busy they forget about his commission or they just could not be bothered with his commission or they just could not trust in the promises of God to be with them to accomplish this commission. And so they don't do it.

They don't do it, whatever the reason may be. But the disappointment on God's part, make no mistake about it, the disappointment on God's part is very real. The hurt on God's part is real. The sorrow on God's part is very real.

The feeling of being let down is very real. This is the last in a series of messages which I call God Talk. And here today, as I conclude this series of messages, I want us to focus on the commissioning of God as our only call in life, our only call in life. If there is one distinction between biblical faith and all the other religions, it would be this.

Listen carefully. Our God is a reaching out God. Our God is a pursuing God.

And yet all the other religions basically in the very, very essence, man is trying, is striving, is working hard, trying to bribe his God, trying to reach his God, and they cannot. Biblical Christianity is very clear from the very beginning that our God is the one who reaches out to us. Our God is the one who calls us. Our God is the one who pursues us. And from the very beginning, from the very beginning of history, God chose to use human beings to proclaim his message. God chose flawed human being to be commissioned as his children to make him known. This is the way he choose to do it.

And I often wonder why. But to understand the depth of Jesus' impassion about commissioning his children to be his witnesses in the world. In order to understand this, you must understand the historical account of God's longing, desire for his children to be his witnesses, to be a light, to be a salt.

And only then will you really understand how his people disappoint him again and again. Now when Christians talk about the Great Commission, they are referring to Jesus' commissioning of the 500 believers on the Mount of Olives. And his commissioning was that they would multiply themselves by witnessing and making him known. Let me read that for you and if you have your Bible with you turn please to Matthew 28, 18 to 20. And Jesus came to them and said, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.

And surely I am with you always to the very end of the age. Here's what I want to tell you. God's commissioning for his followers did not begin in Matthew 28. This commission that we call the Great Commission did not start in Matthew 28.

Do you know where it started? It started in Genesis chapter 12. When God revealed himself to Abraham, he revealed his plan for the world. When he revealed himself to Abraham, what is that plan? Here's what God said to Abraham. Abraham, through you and your descendants, you will be my witnesses in the world. That they were to make God known to the people of the nations.

That they are to reveal God to the world. And so in Genesis chapter 12 verse 3, here's what God said. I will bless those who bless you and whom he cursed you.

I will curse and the peoples of the earth will be blessed through you. That's God's plan. In one verse is God's plan. What did God mean by blessing the nations through Abraham?

It's very simple. That the nations are going to hear about the God of Abraham, Jehovah God, from Abraham and his descendants and they will come to believe in him and thus they'll be blessed. That Abraham and his descendants were commissioned by God to make Yahweh known to the nations. And when the nations come to believe, they'll be blessed. Abraham and his descendants were commissioned by God to be witnesses for God in the world. Abraham and his descendants were commanded by God to tell their neighbors about God and that they would come to believe in him and thus they'll be blessed.

That's God's plan. That's all it means. But alas, alas, history shows us that they failed miserably. That they became inward looking. That they became enamored with themselves. That they were so proud of their association with Yahweh that they would not want the riffraffs in the world to come and share in that knowledge of Yahweh. They kept the message to themselves.

They became navel gazing. And the best example of this inward looking refusal to obey God's commission is found in the book of Jonah. I can stand here and give you dozens of examples from the word of God of how they failed again and again. The cry of God's heart. But the book of Jonah is truly a classic example of how the people of God refused to obey the commissioning of God. Poor old Jonah. He thought that he could ignore the commissioning of God and get away with it.

And throughout Old Testament history, God gave Israel one victory after another. Why? So that they will make him known. Throughout history, God gave them one blessing after another.

Why? So that they get out of their huddle and make him known. And finally, around the period of 700 years before Christ, you see the God beginning to reveal the rest of his plan to humanity as the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah and Ezekiel, one after the other, one after the other began to unfold the plan of God withdrawing his commission and giving it to his son, the Lord Jesus Christ.

What was it? God is going to send from the descendant of Abraham, his only begotten son. And he is the one when he's lifted up, draw all men to himself. And that is why you find that in the very Gospel of Matthew, if you read it very carefully, is a deliberate comparison between Israel, the nation, the son of God who is disobedient to the commissioning of God compared to Jesus Christ, the obedient son who is obedient to his father. But I don't want you to miss this point. If you missed everything I've said so far, please don't miss what I'm going to tell you. Because history repeats itself with precision.

It really does. And that is why repeatedly the Lord Jesus Christ spoke to his disciples, spoke to his followers about witnessing and not committing the sin that Israel committed of getting into a huddle and become self-centered and become self-focused. In fact, we know only five times, one in the Gospels, one in the Book of Acts. But in reality, I have no doubt in my mind that those 50 days between the resurrection and the ascension, the Lord Jesus Christ repeated it over and over and over in their minds so they can get it. Be my witnesses. As the Father sent me, I sent you.

Make disciples of all nations that the task of witnessing and making Christ known is not relegated to the professional evangelists and preachers and teachers. Not at all. In fact, if you look at the 500 people that Jesus was commissioning at that time, none of them were professional priests or rabbi.

None of them occupied prominent places in the synagogues. None of them. He said to them, I am going to be with you and that's enough. That's all the qualifications you need. That's all the equipping you need.

That's all the tools you need. I wonder what we're going to do with it. Will we obey his commissioning? Will we open our hearts and our lips and our pocketbooks or will we get bogged down in our problems and our concerns and forget about his commissioning to us? The word is clear.

He has commissioned us to be witnesses. I know what some of you probably are thinking but you know what? I want to tell you this before I conclude.

The church that ceases to be a missionary church, soon it will become a mission field. And I know some of you say, you're not talking to me. I am really just one person, one Christian.

What can I do? You must be talking to the leaders. You must be talking to the teachers. You must be talking to the preachers. No, my beloved.

That's the trick of the devil. Don't let him get to you. I'm speaking to every one of you and I'm speaking to me. Some of you are saying, well, I'm just one person.

What can I do? I want to give you two examples. I thought of a dozen but I'll give you two very quickly because of time of what one person can do. Andrew, he brought Simon Peter to the Lord. One person and Simon Peter won 3,000 people to faith in Christ in one day. Israel Kimball was a layman. He was not seminary trained. He does not have degrees. He was a layman.

He was teaching a class of boys in Sunday school and he was led of God to lead this particular boy who was a shoe salesman to Christ. One person. He said, what would one person can do?

Deal Moody. One thousands of thousands upon thousands of people to Christ. What can one person do? Everything with God's power.

To be the next Spurgeon or Moody or Wesley or Susanna Wesley or Amy Carmichael. Don't underestimate what one person can do under the power of God. Now many of you have heard me say this before but I want to repeat it for a reason. The two years prior to birthing of this church, I have struggled inwardly in the presence of the Lord in my prayer about starting this church and I struggled and I struggled. I said nothing to anybody including my own wife and I just wanted, not because I want to be disobedient, but I really just wanted to be sure that I'm doing what God called me to do and not what I wanted to do. So it took two years and one of the great blessing that God began to reveal in my heart at that time is not only that this is going to be a tower for Christ, a lighthouse from which the gospel is going to echo around the globe, not only that men and women are going to come and be blessed of God in worship, but that from this place God is going to raise some mighty men and women for himself and I believe it today. I might not see it in my lifetime but I believe it with all my heart. That was God's will for this church.

One person can make a difference. As most of you know I fast and pray and prepare the message on Tuesdays and I already finished this message. I finished my preparation and then on Thursday I got a letter in the mail and it came from a 15 year old member of this church and the letter was basically reasoning with the head of a department in her public school as to why she could not play the leading role in that play because it's sacrilege. I honestly felt that I'm reading something that C.S.

Lewis would have written. It is so well reasoned, well articulated and with that letter came a poem that was written by this 15 year old member of our church. Let me see if I can read it, if I can do it justice. The title of the poem is A Call to Arm. It says there is a sign that reflects off the celestial gates in heaven. It reads, needed just a few good men. And here it goes. God isn't asking for the world.

He's only asking for a few. There is a revolution that needs to take place and it needs to start with you. So suck up your inhibitions. Shake off your fears. Jesus needs to be proclaimed.

There is people waiting to hear. The time of planning is over. Worriers need to suit up.

Satan needs no more advances. Hell, get ready to pay up. The general knows the battle plan. The sign up sheet is in your heart. A brave witness and faithful prayers.

He just needs you to do your part. So gather around your armed warriors. Put on your battle face. There's a war that needs to be won.

There are no second places. It says the celestial gates swung shut and a few good men dropped to their knees. I did not need confirmation from the Lord but I'm so glad he gave it to me. Will you be part or will you sit back in the seat of salvation and say somebody else will do it? Somebody else will witness. Somebody else will work.

Somebody else will invite. Let me plead with you in the witness of the Lord Jesus Christ that you'll participate, that you'll be part of this and that you'll have the joy of seeing God work in one person. Thank you for joining listeners all around the world for Leading the Way with Dr. Michael Youssef. You can learn more about Leading the Way and the impact of the ministry when you go to ltw.org. You know, our world has really become technology dependent, hasn't it?

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Now, if you have not gotten yours, start by searching for Leading the Way in your smartphone or your tablet store. Now, speaking of technology and outreach, over recent years, we've been able to distribute solar powered MP3 players called Leading the Way Navigators in various places worldwide where technology is minimized. These little MP3 players are loaded with Dr. Youssef's dual language teaching. Hello, listening friends. We are delighted that you tuned in. We are delighted to tell you that we are bringing you a series of messages on the cross. And then we're going to talk about the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.

So dual language is where Dr. Youssef teaches a few sentences in English, and then that's followed by a word-by-word translation into one of many languages by a local speaker. These have become a life-changing evangelism and discipleship tool that they're even nicknamed pocket missionaries by our field teams. Because these little navigators are just so effective in reaching souls for Jesus in places where missionaries are not able to work and in places where technology doesn't really reach. So we encourage you to learn more about these little pocket missionaries called navigators and learn more about Leading the Way's ministry and outreach strategies. Give us a call. 866-626-4356.

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We know that music means it's time for me to say goodbye. But do join Dr. Michael Youssef next time right here for more Leading the Way. This program is furnished by Leading the Way with Dr. Michael Youssef. Connect with us through our YouTube channel, Facebook, Twitter, and all of our social media networks. Learn more at ltw.org.