Just Do It // Wisdom That Works, Part 19

A Different Perspective Official Podcast

Whilst some people under spiritualise life - I have to do it all in my own strength, others over spiritualise. They expect God to do the things they can do and then they wonder why things fall in a great almighty heap. So where’s the balance - between us killing ourselves at something versus leaving it all to God. What’s the middle ground? How’s it supposed to work?

One of the hardest things for me to learn and it's something I'm still learning as a Christian, a Jesus follower, is this. On the one hand I think we should all work hard and be diligent but because of who I am, my natural make up, is that I'm this go getter action man.

I have a tendency to have a go at things at 100 miles an hour. Because of that I can often find myself, in a sense, running ahead of God. When I'm working so hard, pedalling so hard, getting myself so exhausted I find that I'm trying to do it all in my own strength and then not leaving room for God to bless whatever it is that He's got me doing.

I don't leave room for God to do the mighty miracles that only He can do. And so I can end up achieving much less through all this hard work than would have been possible if I'd relied on God. Der. But the other end of this equation, the opposite extreme if you will is what I call the spiritual couch potato.

The person who had all these dreams and talks about all these wonderful things and never makes any of them happen. They want to do this for God or achieve that in their lives but well you know they just never get around to getting off the couch. Seems that God doesn't show up and doing miracles at all no matter how long they sit there and wait.

How much do we do and how much do we leave room for God to do? That's the question we're going to put under the microscope on the program today.

My hunch is that this is a dilemma that most of us face if it's our heart to serve God. God, what do you need me to do? What are the things I need to do and what are the things where I need to give you room to do your bit? Where's the balance Lord?

And to be honest that's the question I grapple without almost on a daily basis in having the responsibility of taking this ministry of Christianityworks forward to reach millions of people each week around the world with the good news of Jesus. On the one hand our small team here at Christianityworks, there are just nine of us.

Each person works incredibly hard and without that hard work I just don't think that we would have seen the incredibly rapid growth in the reach of these programs around the world. From zero to over a thousand radio stations broadcasting these programs in just under five years.

Not bad and in a worldly sense we'd say, 'Well aren't those people clever?' And well they may be but here's the thing. If you ask me, 'Berni, how did that happen so quickly? How is it that you went from zero to a thousand radio stations broadcasting these programs in such a short time?'

You know what my answer would be? I have to tell you I really don't know. Truly. How is it that these programs are heard in Rwanda and the Congo and across Europe and Asia and the Pacific? How did that happen? I really don't know. Because somehow these doors just opened up before us and we kind of walked through them.

Miracle after miracle. None of this would ever had happened without the miracles and so, do you see my dilemma? How much should it be our hard work and how much of it belongs to God?

Well lets do what we've been doing these past weeks and dive into the Book of Proverbs for God’s wisdom on this whole subject. Proverbs chapter 14, verse 4:

Where there are no oxen there is no grain. Abundant crops come by the strength of the ox.

And then Proverbs chapter 14, verse 23:

In all toil there is profit but mere talk leads only to poverty.

Two pretty poignant verses. Basically what God’s saying here to us through these two verses is this. That it's normal for us to have to work at things. To apply our skills and our energies and our creativity.

I mean a farmer back in those days, before mechanisation, he could stand there and look at his field but unless he yoked up the oxen and ploughed the field and sowed the grain there simply wouldn't have been a harvest. It doesn't matter how much he believed in God for a harvest.

Sitting inside on the couch channel surfing with the remote control wasn't going to do it. He had to get off his proverbial, apply his energies, get the oxen yoked and go and make it happen. No surprises there although sometimes people sit there channel surfing, praying and wondering why nothing's happened.

A bloke by the name of Michael Yousef, perhaps you've heard him talk on radio, well Michael recently wrote a book called, "You Want Me To Do What?" with a subtitle "Get Off Your Blessed Assurance and Do Something". I love that title, its great isn't it? And it captures the sentiment behind these two verses from Proverbs perfectly.

Blind Freddy can see that in toil there is profit but mere talk leads only to poverty. It's a basic law of the universe. And if perhaps you're one of the talkers instead of one of the doers that part of today’s message is for you. But if hard work is all that we're into then our potential is going to be seriously limited.

Unless God is in the business of building this house then the builders are labouring in vain. Unless God is going to bless our efforts then frankly we're wasting our time.

Most of us, I guess, know the story of Jesus feeding the multitude, it happens twice. Once He feeds 4,000, another time He feeds 5,000. The disciples want to send all these people away at the end of the day to get some food. They're out in the middle of nowhere, they've been listening to Jesus preaching.

No one's got any food and so they think, "well, it's time for them to have a Mac attack and go and get some dinner", but Jesus has a different idea. This is what Watchmen Nee, the Chinese pastor martyred in the 1970's wrote on this subject. He said:

What do we mean when we talk of God’s blessing? We mean divine activity that's not based on human activity. We mean a working of God that is not based on our work. The blessing of God is not something we can earn by our efforts; it is not something we can buy with our money.

One penny should always procure one penny's worth but if without our one penny God gives us ten thousand penny's worth that's God’s blessing. His blessing makes our calculations futile because it leaves us without any basis from which to calculate.

When five small loaves provide nourishment for five thousand people and leave a surplus that fills twelve baskets that is God’s blessing. So many of us, instead of looking to the Lord to bless the loaves, are looking at the loaves in our hands.

Our one hope in face of today's immense need is that He will perform a miracle and that He will do it by taking the bread into His hand and blessing it. When the Lord, in His goodness, brings us to a totally new position where we recognise the paramount importance of His blessing then the way will be open for Him to work.

Isn't that a powerful perspective? Sometimes we get to thinking that our hard work is the beginning and the end of it all. But if that's where we're at then all we're capable of doing with our five loaves and two fishes is feeding, well a couple of guys. But you want to feed five thousand with a couple of loaves and two fishes then that requires God’s blessing.

Friend, I encourage you to work hard. To use your gifts and your skills and the resources God’s placed in your hands, the things He's entrusted to you and use them with all that you have for His glory. But equally I encourage you to adopt a high view of the essential nature of God’s blessing on our efforts.

In fact it's that blessing that makes all the difference. You ask me, "how did we get from zero to a thousand radio stations playing these programs in under five years?" My friend it happened through God’s blessing. We did the little things we could do, God blessed it and He fed the multitudes.