Leaving a Suitcase in Israel

How would you answer this question? What's the real purpose of the church? The church has forgotten the redemptive role in our country especially.

It seems to be running around trying to make earth a more comfortable place for people to go to hell from. While the church may be used by Christ in any and all of those other things, it is our redemptive purpose that keeps us on task. We pray and we plead and we train and we work for the salvation of others. Often churches have programs and activities that serve both the members as well as the community.

There's nothing wrong with programs. That can be a great outreach into the neighborhood. But we need to remember that church programs and ministries should have a redemptive purpose. Today on Wisdom for the Heart, Stephen Davey begins a series entitled, How to Get to Heaven from Earth.

That's an important thing to know, isn't it? We'll be looking at the message of salvation and the role we can play in doing God's work. We have a resource that might help you as you share the gospel with others.

It's called God's wisdom. I received an email from a radio listener living in Germany. It began, Dear Stefan, his spelling, which of course was the way he would pronounce it over there.

It means a lot to me to know people who have a personal relationship with Christ and are called to proclaim his good news. Here in Germany we have a saying, quote, I left a suitcase in Berlin. He explained it means that you have kept some sort of tie to a city or to a people that you've left even though you have moved away. Then the note went on to explain that while he had moved away from his hometown, he still had a suitcase there, meaning his heart was still in some way back there with his family, his people, his roots.

I love that expression. I left a suitcase in Berlin. We can identify it with that, can't we? You have suitcases like these. You've left them here and there as you've traveled, perhaps around the country. They represent places of emotional tie and roots and special events. They're sort of dotted around in your memory, places in this country. Maybe for someone here, it's that farm where you grew up.

You have left a suitcase there. It's a place of fond memory. My parents recently took a trip back to Minnesota where my dad was raised on the farm and they showed me pictures a few weeks ago and there was my dad standing next to a fence pointing and the caption said this was where the barn was. And then I learned the story, caption continued, that I burned down when I was six years old playing with matches.

He'd never told me that story. But that place still represents to him, as it were, a place where he's left a suitcase. Maybe for you it is the school where you began your first teaching assignment.

You'll never forget it. Maybe it was that first apartment you and your spouse lived in after you were married. Maybe it's the church where you came to hear the gospel and trust Christ as your savior. You're here today but you have suitcases in other places. You have places of emotional investment and ties, roots.

Go deep. What a great expression for how we feel with former places where we still care and love. We've been studying the movement of Paul and we've watched him. He's traveling around the Mediterranean world and from reading his letter here and other letters, they're filled with emotion and longing.

It's obvious to us that the apostle Paul has left a suitcase in Israel. And it becomes very apparent as we begin this new paragraph in what we call chapter 10 and verse 1. Brethren, he writes, my heart's desire and my prayer to God for them is for their salvation. We're going to stop with this one verse and what I want to do is just unpack Paul's suitcase and bring out into the open three characteristics that tell us what kind of man he was that also tell us why he was so effective in the lives of unbelievers in bringing them to faith in Jesus Christ. Frankly, as I read this verse and studied, I skipped over it and I was thinking I'm going to get to verse 2. I bear them witness.

They have a zeal for God but not in accordance with knowledge. That was what I wanted to get to but the more I looked at this verse, the more I knew this is where we would camp out today. So let's stop and unpack this phrase together and discover why he was so winsome to those who disbelieved in Jesus Christ. Well, the first quality of character is what we'll call an inward passion. He had an inward passion and we could add to that that explained his resilience. Paul writes in verse 1, this is my heart's desire.

Later on in the verse, he tells us his heart's desire is for the salvation of the Jew. This is my eudicia. This is my deep longing. This is my greatest satisfaction.

This is my heart's desire. You could translate that word eudicia in all those expressions. In other words, Paul is saying I find nothing in the world so satisfying, so fulfilling to my deepest longing than to see unbelievers come to faith in Jesus Christ, which to me is absolutely remarkable when you consider what the Jews have done to Paul already. How could he ever say this? He's been stoned and beaten, forsaken, humiliated and ridiculed and shunned and scorned, hunted, hated, you name it. He's experienced it from the hands of the people he says he loves. By now, Paul should be carrying a grudge a mile long saying something like, well, Lord, whatever Israel has coming to her, let her have it.

Not this. You see, as you unpack this suitcase, you do not find deep resentment or desire for revenge when you would think they would be in here somewhere. Would you remember with me that this man was an honored man? He grew up in a wealthy home, so wealthy that his parents were able to take him to a leading university of their day. He sat at the feet of the greatest scholar in their generation, a man named Gamaliel, an attorney, and they were able to afford that kind of private education for Paul. And he grew up and so distinguished himself among his peers that he was made a special prosecutor to the Supreme Court. And it was his task to uphold and to defend the traditions of the fathers. It would be him that would seek to stamp out this threat.

But now he has no connection to the Supreme Court other than the fact that they hate him. He has very little money. In fact, we learn in other texts that he supports himself and finances his trips by making tents. What inner drive, what inner passion this man had. Do you know anybody with inner passion? You know a driven person? Maybe you're sitting in the seat of a driven person. We see illustrations of it all around us. Maybe you watch some of the opening ceremonies of the Olympics.

The stadium is filled with young men and women athletes who are driven. They have spent years, in fact, many of them since they were little children preparing for that competition and they are driven by their desire to win in that competition. This is the inner drive of a woman that enters the jaws of death to deliver a baby and then once another one.

Have you forgotten? There's an inner drive, passion for that. Well, Paul has this inward passion that created this kind of special resilience. Listen to an incident that occurred. Let me just read it to you from Acts 14.

Here's something that's happening. He's preaching in these towns and Jews came from Antioch and Iconium and having won over the crowds, that is they're trying to wrestle away the attention of the crowds from Paul. Having won over the crowds, they succeeded. They stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city, supposing him to be dead. They figured they'd killed him. But while the disciples stood around him, he got up and you can imagine that for a moment. They're standing around this bloody pulp. They know he's dead. But while they're standing around him, the text says he got up miraculously restored and he reentered the city.

That to me is the amazing thing. I would have said, guys, it's time to find another city. They don't like me there. That hurt. But he goes back. And then the record continues. The next day, he went away with Barnabas to Derby and after they had preached the gospel to that city and made many disciples, they returned to Lystra, strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith. Wow.

Can you imagine? Of course you'd listen to him tell you to keep in the faith because he was doing it himself. Let's look at a second characteristic that made him so effective as the Lord's ambassador. Number two, he had an upward pleading that expressed his confidence.

You see, Paul not only had an inward passion that explained his resilience, he had this upward pleading that explained his confidence. Notice, brethren, my heart's desire and my prayer to God for them. The antecedent of them is back up in chapter nine. Look there in verse 31. He tells us who them are. But Israel, that's the them, pursuing a law of righteousness, did not arrive at that law.

Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith. But as though it were by works, they stumbled over the stumbling stone. In other words, they had enough of this talk of a Messiah who would die.

This is not what they wanted or had expected. Which leads you to wonder, why would Paul pray for them? If we believe that God is sovereign and we do, well then why do we pray for unbelievers?

Let me give you three very quick answers. Number one, first of all, the only kind of God worth praying to is a God who is sovereign. That's why we pray to him. Prayer to any other kind of God is useless. He can do nothing but sit up there and think, I wish I could help you, but I can't.

I'm not powerful enough. Listen, the only kind of God who can answer prayer is a sovereign God, one who is in total control of all things. And we intuitively know that if God is truly God, he is sovereign. Even the liberal theologian who might be driven to his knees will pray that God will heal his child from certain death.

Why? Because he knows that the God worth praying to must be a God capable and sovereign over disease. Or many people that prayed that the hurricane wouldn't come near them, why? Because they intuitively knew that the kind of God worth praying to, the one true and living God, would be a God who is sovereign over nature. And so we plead for God related to unbelieving souls because we know God is sovereign over unbelieving souls. Secondly, we pray for unbelievers not only because we know God is sovereign, but we pray because we know God is the one who saves.

For those in here who are sharing your faith with unbelievers, this is incredibly reassuring. God is the one who does the work. He deserves all the credit.

He is doing the work. We do the planting and the watering, but God gives the what? God gives the increase. He gives the fruit, 1 Corinthians 3, 6.

Listen to Jesus as he says this. No man can come to me except the Father which hath sent me draw him. That's actually reassuring to those who share their faith, that God will be the one to draw, that God alone will be the one to open the eyes, that God alone will be the one to open the minds.

Be prepared? Yes, I can tell you a testimony of my own life related to evangelism explosion. Once I learned that, it was incredibly helpful in sharing the gospel with people, but the reassuring thing is knowing that even though I have that, it is still God who alone must work and all I am is available and prepared for him to use me. But I don't have to know all the answers.

Neither do you. Paul isn't praying here for answers. He is praying to the answer. And he is pleading for the unbelievers, the kinsmen according to his flesh.

The word for praying here is a very strong Greek word, daesis. It could be translated and often is in the New Testament with the word beg, to beg. In Luke chapter 5, a leper saw Jesus and the text says he fell on his face and he begged him saying, Lord, if you are willing, you can cleanse me. And the Lord looked at him and said, I am willing to be cleansed. Later on in Luke chapter 9, the father of a desperately ill boy comes to Jesus and the text says he shouted out saying, teacher, I beg you, look at my son.

He is my only boy. You see, there is a sense of desperation in this word. And Paul is desperately begging God on behalf of the unbeliever.

Why? Because he knows God alone is sovereign and God alone can save. Why pray? Third, we pray because our sovereign saving Lord has chosen to use us in his redemptive plan. Have you ever noticed it is the people who are prepared that seem to lead others to Christ? Have you ever noticed it is the people who pray for others that seem to be ready to share the gospel with them?

What a coincidence. This is the message of Romans 10, the responsibility of us to be messengers. Look over in chapter 10 verse 13. Look there for whoever will call upon the name of the Lord will be saved.

We give a universal invitation. We don't know what God knows. Listen, God says through Paul, how then shall they call upon him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in him whom they have not heard?

And how shall they hear without a preacher, without a messenger? God has chosen to use us to deliver the message. God has ordained the ends and he has ordained the means to his ends. And we happen to be privileged to be his means to his ends in the redemptive plan of God.

Nowhere does scripture give us the responsibility to figure out whom God has chosen. But he has given us the responsibility to preach and teach and testify and pray and exhort and plead with unbelievers proclaiming the saving gospel to anyone who will hear, praying and pleading and begging God all along to save them. And when he does, we are overjoyed that God alone who can save not only saved but used us in the saving process of this unbeliever.

I pulled up to a home for an appointment knowing the husband was an unbeliever, gracious and sharp and inquisitive. I turned off my pickup truck in the driveway and for a brief moment prayed as I typically do and I'll tell you what I did not pray. I did not pray, Lord, give me the ability to so articulate the gospel that it will be irresistible.

Lord, help me to out with him. Give me deep answers for deep questions. No, it's more like this, Lord, if you're calling this one, if you're about to open his eyes, if you're going to open his ears to the gospel, would you do it tonight? And if you would, allow me the privilege of being the one to share the news. In this particular instance, this gentleman placed his faith in Christ and when I drove away around midnight, I did not in the truck get it alone and say, oh, I did it. I did it.

No. If you've done that, if you've shared your faith with some unbeliever and they've trusted Christ, you know what you say, God, thank you for doing it and for allowing me to be a part. This is to be our inward passion like Paul, this is to be our upward pleading and finally the last thing we'll unpack from Paul's suitcase is his outward purpose which defined his relationships. His outward purpose which defined his relationships. Everything about Paul ultimately revolved around the work of redemption and I mean everything. Paul did not view himself on planet earth as a tent maker. That's what he did to survive so that he could do something else, so that he could be someone else.

See, we tend to get together and we talk about what we do but that's the least important thing. Who are we? We happen to be ambassadors of Jesus Christ who also happened to work over here because God has placed us there to be his ambassador and that was Paul's perspective. He writes, brethren, my heart's desire and my prayer to God, my longing and my pleading to God for them is for their what? For their salvation. For their salvation. Did the Jews not need peace? Yes, they needed peace. Didn't the Jews struggle to survive? Yes. Were Jews hungry? Yes. Did they need clothing? Yes. Was there injustice in their world?

Yes. What about all of those things? All of those things are secondary to the redemptive purpose of the believer on planet earth. Jesus Christ provides this perspective when he said, what good does it do a man to gain the whole world and still loses what?

His soul. What good does it do a man to have peace and prosperity and clothing and food and justice and lose his soul? The church has forgotten their redemptive role in our country especially.

It seems to be running around trying to make earth a more comfortable place for people to go to hell from. While the church may be used by Christ in any and all of those other things, it is our redemptive purpose that keeps us on task. We pray and we plead and we train and we work for the salvation of others first and foremost and this defines who we are in the world.

You might be saying, well, I'd like to be more like Paul and I would agree I would like to be more like him too. But maybe you're saying I don't know how to do it at work, at school, wherever I am, I'm a believer, I want my friends, I really do, to come to faith in Christ but where do I start? Well, let me very quickly give you five principles to remember as you imitate the Apostle Paul and his passion. First and foremost, we have to start here.

If we can't check this box, we don't need to move further. Be willing to embrace your calling as Christ's representative. Be willing to embrace your calling as Christ's representative. In that office, on that campus, wherever, listen, ladies and gentlemen, you are it, you're it in that place.

You're there. You have an open opportunity. Don't abuse it.

Don't take your employer's time to sit around and take people through your latest study. Be careful how you use it but be willing to embrace your calling as Christ's representative. Do you own a business?

Do you manage a business? Let me give you a simple thing, a very simple thing. Play Christian music over the loudspeakers.

Try that. I don't know if you have a contract with Muzak or whatever but get to the end of it, end it, and then put your own CDs and just play music over the loudspeakers and you say, well, you know, people might not like it. Well, they like your business so much that they might overlook it but someone might hear it like I did just a few days ago sitting in Chick-fil-A reading my newspaper and as I'm sitting there reading my newspaper and I'm hearing music but then I keyed in on the, wait a second, this is Christian music and it was. I thought there's some manager in the back room with a mission and it isn't to sell chicken.

That might be his livelihood but his mission is to get the gospel to everybody who walks in to that Chick-fil-A who sees the opportunity for Christ. Second of all, be willing to communicate only what you know and that ought to be comforting. God knows what you know and He knows what you don't know and He puts you in positions knowing what you know and He wants you just to say what you know. Don't get out on the limb. Not many of us are Ravi Zachariases, great apologists. Not many of us are Charles Ryries, great theologians. God has placed you where He has placed you and He knows what you know and He's prepared those people for you and you for those people. So somebody asks you a question and it's a tough one. People will ask you difficult questions just to deflect away from themselves. As you're sharing the gospel with them, when it gets a little too hot, they'll shift over and say, well, what about all the people in Africa? And you, you'll have to say, you know, I don't know but what about you?

I don't know them, I know you. A lot of times it's just to deflect away. So hear their question, maybe even say I don't know but then don't stop there. Go home, study, communicate only what you know. Third, be willing to walk away from an argument you could easily win.

You might win an argument but lose a relationship or a path. Can you recall just for a moment all the conversations that Jesus Christ had with those Scribes and Pharisees? They were always trying to do what?

They were always trying to stump them. And he'd come back with these great answers, you know, just a sentence or two but if you've noticed as you've read, he stopped there when he could have kept going and he could have literally buried them. He stood before Pilate and Herod and the Sanhedrin and he refused to do what he could have done. He could have nailed them all to the wall but his purpose was redemptive and so what did he do? He let them nail him to the cross.

Fourth, be willing, in fact I want to change the word be willing to just say be eager, be eager to compliment, be eager to compliment before you critique. As you talk to people out in the workforce, you discover people believe a lot of things, don't they? Pretty interesting. I'm never more amazed at times than to hear what somebody believes so we have to be careful like the Apostle Paul who stood in Athens. You remember Athens had more gods and goddesses they say than men.

They lined the streets. Every municipal building was dedicated to a god or goddess. They had statues everywhere and Paul had traveled the city and he was so deeply disturbed but finally he gained an audience in the Areopagus and you would think he would say in his opening statement I cannot believe how you are so idolatrous and here's where it's wrong but instead his very first sentence was I perceive that you are very religious in all things. Isn't that great? I sense you're very religious in all things.

I've seen all your gods and then he goes into this but you've missed one. Let me tell you who he is. I was in an ice cream store with my 10 year old daughter.

I got all these fattening places here and I tell you about it. Well we were there and it was a new part of town for us in Raleigh and the woman behind the ice cream counter was Pakistani as I asked her where she was from. She was wearing her sari and very kind and helpful and I introduced myself and then my daughter Charity and I explained to her what Charity's name meant and that was it. We were the only people in the store and she was very kind and it'll be the first perhaps of many conversations I trust. When we walked out I asked my daughter I said did you see on the counter right by the cash register where everybody could see it sort of all by itself a little statue of an elephant sitting on its rear end covered in gold with little jewels with its trunk coming out.

Did you see that? And she said I did daddy. I said that was that woman's God.

I had seen many of them in India. Now if I go back in there I wouldn't want to walk up having recognized that now as I left walk in and say you know I noticed this you mean to tell me that your God is an elephant? What I ought to do is go in and I hope to and say something more like you know I see you're very courageous and letting people know who your God is.

What's his name? Maybe the next visit. Does he know who you are? And then again as God continues to develop my ice cream ministry and I go back many many times.

Does he really care about you? And then maybe I can get to the point where I can say can I tell you about my God and how I know he cares for me. That leads me to this fifth principle number five. Finally be willing to distribute truth one piece at a time.

You don't have to back the doctrinal truck up and unload. You know just because you're passionate doesn't mean you have to panic. You can take your time. If God is drawing that one to himself he has ordered the universe to have time and space to make room for that soul. So deliver what you know and deliver it one piece at a time if need be. I could give you two or three keys to opening the heart of an unbeliever. Number one, pray passionately for lost people. Number two, pray passionately for lost people. Brethren, my heart's desire, my deepest longing, and my prayer, my pleading, my begging to God for them is for their salvation. What passion, what pleading, what purpose. No wonder ladies and gentlemen the church is still reading and studying what this man had to say unto the influence of the Holy Spirit two thousand years after he left his suitcase in Israel. Often churches have programs and activities that serve both the members as well as the community.

There's nothing wrong with programs. That can be a great outreach into the neighborhood. But we need to remember that church programs and ministries should have a redemptive purpose. Today on Wisdom for the Heart Stephen Davey begins a series entitled How to Get to Heaven from Earth.

That's an important thing to know isn't it? We'll be looking at the message of salvation and the role we can play in doing God's work. We have a resource that might help you as you share the gospel with others. It's called God's Wisdom for Your Heart. One of the easiest things to do is install the Wisdom International app to your phone. This resource is right on the home screen so you can bring it up and talk through it with someone. We'll continue this series on our next broadcast of Wisdom for the Heart.