Deep and Wide

Welcome to this edition of PowerPoint with Jack Graham.

A little later in the program we'll tell you how you can get a copy of Dr. Graham's book, Man of God. But first, here's the message deep and wide. Take your Bibles now and turn with me to Isaiah chapter 54. I want to speak to you today about our future. I want to talk to you about your future and mine. The title of the message is Deep and Wide.

Maybe you remember the little childhood song we sang in Sunday school. Deep and wide, deep and wide, there's a fountain flowing deep and wide. Then wide and deep, wide and deep.

Well I want to talk to you about going wide and growing deep. That's what Isaiah 54 is about. Look at it with me beginning in verses 1, 2 and 3. Sing, O barren one who did not bear, break forth into singing and cry aloud, you who have not been in labor.

For the children of the desolate one will be more than the children of her who is married, says the Lord. Enlarge the place of your tent and let the curtains of your habitations be stretched out. Say stretched out. Do not hold back. Say do not hold back.

Lengthen your cords and strengthen your stakes. For you will spread abroad to the right and to the left and your offspring will possess the nations and will people the desolate cities. That's what God is saying in this unique passage.

Right on the heels of one of the most important passages in all of the Bible Isaiah 53 when the Messiah Jesus is promised who would come and bear the sins of the world, take our iniquities away, take our sins away. Right on the heels of that right next to that great passage are these words about barren Israel, broken lives in Israel, people crying out to God. In the ancient world in the days of these prophets if you were unable to bear children it was a reproach. And many women who could not bear children would be in deep sadness and heaviness and cry out to God and pray for a child. We ought to always remember among our friends and in this fellowship the women and men who are crying out and praying that God would give them children.

It's an important prayer. But in that day the women were desperate to have children and they would cry out in their barrenness that God would give them a child. Rachel was such a woman who cried out, she did not have a son, she cried out for a son saying, God, God, give me a child or I will die. Now in that context Israel was barren and God gave them a promise. You who are barren, you who are without child, Israel, you're going to flourish. You're going to spread out to the nations. And did God keep that promise?

He certainly did. God has blessed Israel and to the nations and of course has established His land in Jerusalem once again in 1948. Israel became a nation once again and God is gathering His people and in these last days we know the Jewish people play a vital role in the future of the world and so much of what we see in the turmoil of the Middle East of course is related to Israel and Jerusalem. But God says my people are always going to be here and they're going to flourish. And those who bless Israel, God will bless. And God chose to bless Israel and He gave them children and more children. Now that's the primary application.

But there's a personal application for us today. Those of us who are in His church, those of us who are spiritual Israel, if you will. That God has called us to create a family. To bear children into the world. Spiritual children.

Because the church is not an organization to join, it is a family to share. We are God's forever family. And therefore we are to bring forth children. God wants to expand His family.

Thus you have those words that we paused and looked at for just a moment. We repeated them. If you're going to expand your family, if you're going to have more and more and more children then you need to enlarge your house. You need to enlarge your tent. They lived in tents.

Many of these were Bedouin shepherds. And so He said lengthen those cords. Get wider cords because you're going to add rooms onto your tent, onto your house. And while you're lengthening those cords and don't spare, He said make it big. Because children are coming and then drive those stakes deeper into the ground.

Because if you're going to expand the house and go wider then you're going to have to go deeper as well, lest a wind or a storm come and blow it all away. So God is saying to His people, to His church, I'm going to keep giving you children. You're going to be fruitful.

You're going to be blessed beyond measure. And there will be incredible joy in bearing spiritual children. Paul spoke of being a spiritual father. He said in 1 Corinthians 4.15, I became your father in Christ Jesus through the Gospel.

He was talking to Christians at Corinth and He said, I became your father through the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Are you a spiritual father to anyone? Are you a spiritual mother bringing children into the world and expanding and enlarging God's house? Oh, it's a tragedy if someone is physically maternally buried. But it is a greater tragedy if we are spiritually buried. If we don't have children, our own children, our own families, our friends, our neighbors to bring into the Kingdom of God. Like Rachel who prayed, give me children or I die. There was a Scottish preacher years ago who had a burden and a brokenness for his homeland Scotland and he cried out, oh God, his name was John Knox, oh God, give me Scotland or I die.

I will die. It's that kind of passion. And oh how we ought to cry out because there's nothing more wonderful, nothing more joyous in life than bringing a spiritual child into the family of God, being a part of that process, that delivery system where we introduce, bring people to Jesus. In one sense, I would say in my own life is certainly the greatest joy since my salvation. And you know, salvation in some way when I was converted as a child, I didn't understand a lot about my salvation but now that I know quite a bit about salvation of the Bible and the Gospel, it's even greater in some sense when I see people say, when I see people unwrap, it's like, I'm like a boy at Christmas when I give a gift now and see somebody unwrap it. There's greater joy in that than receiving a gift yourself.

Such great joy. We ought to have a spiritual family. Jesus has that joy, He speaks of that joy in Hebrews 10 of bringing many sons to glory. Now, God wants children in His family and if you're a Christian, you are responsible to bring as many people into the family of God as possible. If you're not a Christian, if you're not saved, you're welcome in the family of God.

Our prayer is that you would know Him and meet Him this very day, that you would believe in the One who died for you and rose again so that you could have eternal life, to fill that big old hole in your heart, to give you a brand new life, to forgive all your sins, the one you've been looking for, what you've been looking for your entire life is a relationship with God. As many as received Him, Jesus, to them gave you the right to be called the children of God even to them who believe on His name. You can become a child of God today. But just as God said to Israel, tear the walls down, expand the place of your habitation, lengthen those cords, expand and do not spare, so are we to think this way. We're to think more people for Christ, more people into the family of God, greater things will God do.

Now let's make this personal. You have family members and friends and neighbors and co-workers and others in your life, fellow students, teammates, classmates who don't know Jesus. Are you bearing spiritual fruit? Are you bringing forth fruit?

Are you bearing children? Can you say, can you sing thank you Lord for the children that you're giving me? Jesus said it clearly before He ascended to heaven from the Mount of Olives. He said, you shall receive power after the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you shall be my witness to the ends of the earth, starting right where you are and to the ends of the earth.

And then He ascended and the angel said, He's coming back. And many of us believe that Jesus is coming back soon. When you look at the world today, the extreme violence and these satanic movements that are going on, there's something different.

There's something, this isn't headline hysteria. I'm just saying that many people believe that we've come to a tipping point in history and that the future is going to be very different. I believe Jesus is coming soon.

He's coming back. And in the meantime, He's called us to enlarge His family, to grow and to go with His church and to bring people to Jesus. I believe God wants to do greater things, new things.

Do you? You're listening to PowerPoint with Jack Graham and today's message, Deep and Wide. Our world desperately needs men of God, strong men who model gentleness, lead with humility and speak the truth and love. We want to help you identify the traits of a real man of God by sending you Dr. Jack Graham's insightful book, Man of God.

Our thanks for your gift today. In it, Dr. Graham gives you biblical insights to what a true man of God looks like to his spouse, his family and the world. To request your copy of Man of God, call 1-800-795-4627. That's 1-800-795-4627.

You can also text PowerPoint to 59789. And don't forget to visit jackgram.org where you can shop our e-store, give a gift online or sign up for Dr. Graham's free daily email devotional. Our website again is jackgram.org. Now let's get back to today's message, Deep and Wide. Do you believe in a God who can do big things?

I do. This is why I'm calling us to greater prayer these days, to greater expectancy. Too many Christians don't believe God to do anything, except maybe take them to heaven someday. God wants to do greater things in your life. What are your holy ambitions? What are the great desires that God has implanted into your heart? I remember as a teenager when God put it in my heart to preach the Gospel. He gave me a desire to preach the Gospel. I had no idea what that would mean but I'm so grateful that I was able to fulfill and fulfilling God's purpose in my life that God did so much more than I could have ever imagined or dreamed. In the book of Revelation we're told that around the throne of God are peoples from every language and every nation and every tribe and every dialect and people from all over the world that are going to be born into the family of God and around the throne of God, millions, myriads of them praising God forever. We have a big God.

We have a great God that is bringing together a great family across the earth and we get to be a part of it. Don't limit God in your life. Expand your life. What are your dreams? What are your desires? What are your hopes?

What are your aspirations? Don't cut Him off. Spare not. Lengthen the cord.

Believe God because faith is a muscle that moves mountains. You know, some people are, they just, they're little people. You know why? I'm not talking about physically small. I'm talking about they've got small hearts and small visions. They've got a little world. They're just little. They're shriveled up.

You know why? They've got a little God. Their God is too small. And if your God is too small, you won't dream much.

You won't do much. You know, when troubles and oppositions come, you'll fold because you've got a little God. You think, you know, you're worried. Why do you worry? Because you think your problem is so big, God can't handle it. Can you not trust God? Is God not big enough in your life to handle what you're going through right now?

Sure He is. But so many of us, our God is so small, we think of Him in such small ways that He's cut off, His power is cut off in our lives. Believe God. Believe in a God who is big. Say, well, I'm, you know, I'm a little older now. I can't do what I used to do.

Don't say that. God's got big plans for you. God has dreams for you.

If you're not dead, you're not done. Pray big prayers, bold prayers. Let God use you. Believe God for greater things in your life and your family. There's no person God cannot save, no problem God cannot solve, no predicament He cannot deal with in your life. Trust Him. So with that, expand, enlarge, put your arms around the world.

But there's one thing that I need to say before closing. God not only wants to create a big family forever, but until He comes, God expects us to care for His children and minister to His family. We go wide, but we also go deep. And this is why we have discipleship. This is why we teach God's Word. That's the other side of the Great Commission, make disciples and then mature disciples.

Evangelism and discipleship, they're not mutually exclusive. We certainly don't want to be a mile wide and an inch deep. When we expand the tent, we got to make sure we are deepening the stakes and lengthening the cords. The way we do that is to deepen the stakes. I want to show you three ways that we're going to deepen the stakes.

How do you deepen the stakes? There's first of all, the stake of biblical convictions. Biblical preaching and teaching. The Word of God, inerrant and infallible. This is our strong conviction and we are driving this stake deeper and deeper. The world doesn't need superficial, shallow, deep talks. People need the Word of God.

Not pop psychology, not just more programs. Nothing can take away from the power and the effectiveness of the Word of God. So we're going to drive, amen, we're going to drive down deep the stake of biblical conviction and stand upon the Word of God. Because if we don't, guess what's going to happen?

Our tent's going to blow away. Jesus said, not only are you the light of the world, but you're the salt of the earth. He said if you lose your saltiness, what good are you except to be thrown away? The salt is thrown away, it's worthless, it's tasteless, it doesn't sting. There's a sense in which the Word of God stings and penetrates into people's lives.

We so often lost our saltiness because we've lost our convictions. It's like going to a coffee shop and ordering a soy decaf latte. That's just wrong, you know what I'm saying?

That's just wrong. Or going somewhere and getting a tofu burger, what? You know, I want real coffee. If I'm going to eat a hamburger, I want a real burger. You know. And you know, people don't want tofu, they want truth.

That's right. Give me the strong stuff. Give me the Word of God. What right do I have to stand behind this pulpit and preach if I don't preach the Word of the living God? We're going to drive down deep the stakes of biblical conviction. Do that in your own life.

Secondly, drive down deep the stake of personal holiness and godliness. This generation has become way, way too worldly. And by that, I mean what John said, don't love the world nor the things of this world. We are loving this world way, way too much and becoming more and more like the world. And some of the things that used to surprise us and shock us, we just go, well. We've lost our sense of conviction about morality and right and wrong. We don't have high and holy standards from God's Word in this country any longer. We've got 50 shades of gray. And a lot of Christians are living in the gray. We're compromised.

Compromised. And so one of the things we need to be doing as a church is to drive down deep again the stakes of biblical godliness and holiness, to pursue holiness as the Bible says. Now, holiness is not the way to Jesus. Jesus is the way to holiness. So to get closer to Jesus and become more and more like Him, to commit to moral purity and godliness, the best thing Dad, your children could ever say about you is, my dad's a godly dad.

My mom is a godly woman. Let that be the pursuit of your life. Drive that stake deep down into your family and into your home, into your life and into this church. We're going to be calling one another to the highest and the holiest of standards.

We'll be preaching right and wrong and truth. Because what God says is right is right and what God says is wrong is wrong. Adultery is wrong. Not because I said it, but because God says it.

Forticating is wrong. Not because Jack Graham says so, but because God's Word says so. Homosexuality is wrong. It is an abomination unto God. Not because some Baptist said so, but because the Bible says so. Right and wrong.

Truth and untrue. Absolutely in the Word of God. So if we're going to be a church that moves into the future effectively and brings many into the family of God, we've got to make sure that we not only go wide, but we drive down the stakes of biblical conviction and personal godliness and holiness. And one final thing, spiritual faithfulness. I call you to faithfulness. Whatever happened to people who are faithful to worship and faithful to attend and faithful to be committed and faithful to witness and faithful to tithe and faithful to serve, faithful to minister to people. Faithful.

To be a faithful member, an accountable member to God's church. Too many Christians are not that faithful anymore. We run here and there. It's great to take a vacation and be out when you need to be out, of course.

But we're just out for any reason these days. Maybe if we don't have something else to do, we'll get to church. I want you to drive down the stake in your life and your family that I'll be faithful to and not just be in.

You're listening to PowerPoint with Jack Graham and today's message deep and wide. Today's culture has so distorted the concept of masculinity that some even reject it as toxic. But our world doesn't need less manly men. We need more men of God, men who love Jesus, make loving husbands and fathers and lead as servants. We'd like to help you uncover what God says about true masculinity by sending you Dr. Graham's book, Man of God.

You'll gain biblical insight into how you or the men in your life can live with purpose and passion, putting Christ first and living radically for him. Man of God is our thanks for your gift to help proclaim God's word through PowerPoint. So request your copy when you call today. Call 1-800-795-4627. That's 1-800-795-4627.

You can also text PowerPoint to 59789. And don't forget to visit Jack Graham dot O-R-G where you can shop our e-store, give a gift online or sign up for Dr. Graham's free daily email devotional. Our website again is Jack Graham dot O-R-G. Pastor, what is your PowerPoint for today? I do want to challenge you to share your faith and to do it faithfully. I know we get a little nervous and we are afraid of rejection or abuse or whatever, but the Holy Spirit will enable you to share your faith if you will commit to do it. Remember, you are a believer today because somebody, someone shared the good news of Jesus Christ with you. And let that be a motivation to you to share the gospel with others.

Also, remember you are not the one that is doing the converting. You don't have to talk someone into something, but rather simply tell people about Jesus and what Jesus has done in your life. And if you can share the gospel that Christ died for our sins and rose again and that if a person will put their faith in Christ and receive him, you will see the Holy Spirit will use you in ways that you can't even imagine. Another thing that I would really challenge you to do in sharing your faith is to build a prayer list of people you know who need to know Jesus.

There are friends in your life and relatives in your life and associates in your life and neighbors all around who need Jesus. So write their names down. Put them in your Bible, your journal, wherever you can write them. But make a list. It is your prayer list. It is your list to love others and bring them to Jesus. And I promise you this, when you get concerned about people, God will open doors to give you the opportunity to share your faith.

So get ready because God is going to use you. And that is today's PowerPoint. Remember when you give a gift to PowerPoint, we'll send you Dr. Graham's book, Man of God, as our thanks. Call 1-800-795-4627. That's 1-800-795-4627. You can also text the word PowerPoint to 59789. Join us again next time when Dr. Graham brings a message about how you can identify a real man of God. That's next time on PowerPoint with Jack Graham. PowerPoint with Jack Graham is sponsored by PowerPoint Ministries.