Leading The Way

Guest (Female): Welcome to Leading The Way. This is the International Bible teaching ministry of Dr. Michael Youssef, and he is the author of more than 50 books, including his most recent culture challenging title, An Unholy Alliance.

Now, up next, Dr. Youssef examines how today's church is struggling for relevance in a culture that's becoming more and more distant from faith and truth. So maybe you wonder how your gifts fit into God's plan for your family, your church, your community, and your world.

Today, on Leading The Way, Dr. Youssef helps you see and take your place in making real life impact for the kingdom. Listen as Dr. Youssef begins this episode of Leading The Way.

Dr. Michael Youssef: When we taught the children the Shorter Catechism, and you ask a child, "What is the purpose of your life?" He or she would have told you within split seconds, "It is to glorify God and enjoy him forever."

Today, many adults cannot give you such eloquent and high and lofty answer. And yet the Bible makes it very clear that God has not only a plan and a purpose for each one of us, but we are under obligation to discover and to find out what is that plan, what is that purpose, in order that we may obey it, in order that we may fulfill God's purpose in our lives. Period.

And God's ultimate purpose or should be the result of working His plan and purpose in every one of us is that we may bring glory to the name of God, and so that His name be lifted up among the nations. That is the ultimate goal of the plan of God and the purpose of God in each individual who is listening to me right now.

Now, to be sure, there are blessings, there are benefits. There are glorious things that come to us as a result of us not only knowing but fulfilling the purpose of God in our lives. Yes, that is a fact. Nobody can deny that.

But the problem is when we allow the benefits and the blessings to become an end in themselves, we not only wrong God, not only we fail God, but we fail ourselves. But that's not all. When we fail to discover and obey the purpose and the plan of God for our lives, we ourselves become unfulfilled.

We ourselves become discontented. We ourselves will lose joy of living. We ourselves will be like a dog that's chasing its tail. We will become empty and depressed. We will go through the motions of playing church and going to church and going to this group and that group, but in reality, we are just going through the motions, but we are accomplishing nothing.

We will live a life of drudgery and dread. And that is why God's plan and God's purpose for His children is very clear because God wants every individual believer. God wants every husband and wife in a marriage relationship. God wants every Christian home. God wants every single person. God wants every Christian ministry. God wants every church not only to discover that plan, but to obey that plan.

I have met people in my life across the world who literally would say to me, "I don't want to discover God's plan in my life lest I don't like it." There are some who know the purpose and the plan of God for their lives, but they don't want to obey it. And so they live their Christian life in disobedience, and then they wonder why their lives are in shambles.

Here's an important truth. You cannot miss it, you must not miss it. God's plan and God's purpose can be best accomplished in community. God's plan and God's purpose for you are best fulfilled when we are in relationship with one another. When everyone is actively working, when everyone is exercising his or her gift in the body, when everyone's hands on deck, when everybody is involved, God will show up.

In fact, God gives us His blueprint. He gives us His strategy. He gives us His plan of how that works in the Scripture. It's found in the book of Nehemiah. After a series of corrupt kings who ruled over Israel, who would not turn their heart toward God, with some few exceptions.

But after constant prodding, after constant preaching, after constant rebuking, after constant calling of His people to stop living for self, to stop pursuing other gods, to stop being busy with life, to stop losing sight of God's vision and plan and purpose for them, to stop losing interest in the things of God.

Year after year, prophet after prophet, we declare to them the same message, but they stubbornly refused. They stubbornly refused. Finally, God fulfilled the prophecy that He gave to them through the prophet Jeremiah. And the prophet Jeremiah simply said this, "Because of your hardness of heart, because you are refusing to repent and turn to the Lord, God is going to send your enemy to come into your land and to drag you into exile, and this exile is going to last for 70 years."

And everybody laughed at him. Everybody laughed at him. They said, "Oh, peace, peace." And Jeremiah said, "These false teachers and false prophets running around saying peace, peace, but there's not going to be peace." And sure enough, right on schedule, just as God said it, the Babylonians come into the land of Israel, and they pillaged, they looted, they destroyed, and they took every able body into exile, into Babylon.

And there they stayed for 70 years, just as God said. You remember Daniel and Ezekiel, these were all prophets who have ministered to God's people in exile in the land of Babylon. They were not in Israel. They were in Babylonia. During those 70 years in exile, the Babylonians were defeated by the Persians. Babylon was the superpower of the day.

When they went into Israel and pillaged and took people and destroyed the walls of Jerusalem. They were the superpower, but then they ceased to be the superpower, and the Persians came, took over Babylonia, and they became the superpower of the day. But listen to me, God will keep His word to the minutest details because right on schedule, at the end of the 70 years, God gives a Jewish man who is in the courts of the Persian king, a man by the name of Nehemiah.

He gives him favor with the king, and then he asked the king if he would send him back in order to restore the walls of Jerusalem. And Nehemiah goes back to Jerusalem. And he sees what had happened. The walls are broken. Lives are in shambles. Destruction is everywhere. And he looks at these broken walls, and he weeps. He weeps.

My friend, I want to tell you something, there's nothing wrong with you weeping over the condition of the church of Jesus Christ today. There's nothing wrong of weeping over the fact that so many evangelical preachers are afraid to talk about sin and repentance and heaven and hell. But it cannot stop there. You must not just stop at weeping. You must ask God, "God, what would you have me do to change my world? God, what would you have me do in order that I make a difference in my world?"

And that's what Nehemiah did. That's what Nehemiah did. God said to him, "You lead the people to start restoring and rebuilding the walls. Get your people to follow my plan, get your people to follow my purpose for them in their lives." And now we come to Nehemiah chapter 3. There you find God's incredible strategy.

God's blueprint for His plan and purpose for His children. And this is the same blueprint that God is handing every one of us. This is the same plan that God has for His children in the 21st century. God told Nehemiah that God's work cannot be done unless everyone's hand is on deck. God's work cannot be done unless everybody is involved.

God's work and God's plan and God's purpose cannot be fulfilled until every single individual becomes united as one man. Let me give you the three-pronged strategy of God. First, it is consolidation. Secondly, cooperation. And thirdly, confirmation.

First, God said consolidation. If you read Nehemiah 3, don't get bored with all the names. Just notice one phrase that is repeated again and again and again, one phrase throughout chapter 3. And that phrase that has been repeated over and over and over again is this, "and next to them, and next to them, and next to them, and next to them." And it keeps on repeating. Why?

Because God is saying that when you stretch your hand to do the work of God, God is going to stretch His hand and bless the work of your hand. And the Bible said that we are co-laborers with Christ. I want you to hear me loud on this one. If the spiritual walls in your home are broken, listen to me. You must unite your family in prayer.

You must unite your family in the desire to serve one another, not to fight with one another. You must unite your family in loving each other. You must unite your family on working together. When every member of the family, regardless of their age, begin to work together, pray together, and love each other together, God is going to show up at your home.

In any ministry, I don't care what it is, in any church, whenever the whole body becomes involved in prayer, becomes involved in ministry, watch out, God is going to show up in your church. And Nehemiah chapter 3 verse 1, it says, "Even the priests were involved in the building of the sheep gate." That's in addition to their priestly work.

Now, beloved, listen, when you get a preacher to get his hand dirty and do manual work, that's a miracle. I mean, that really is miracles in our time. But listen, there's an even greater miracle in verses 9 and 12. It says, "The politicians were getting their hands dirty, too. They were building the wall." That's even a greater miracle than the preachers.

In verse 2, it says, "Single women. Single women were building the wall." I have to believe that there were a lot of single men there. Great opportunity for fellowship. It beats the singles bar, hands down. But tragically, as it always seems the case, in verse 5, there were those people who wanted a share in the victory but not a hand in the battle.

My beloved friend, listen to me, I want every one of you to ask yourself these questions. Nobody can answer them but you. I can't answer for you, you can't answer for me. Here's the question that you need to ask yourself. If everybody in my church is like me, what would happen to my church? If everybody witnesses like I witness, if everybody attends like I attend, if everybody gives like I give, if everybody serves like I serve, if everybody prays like I pray, what would my church be? Let that question haunt you until you answer it to God.

There has to be not only consolidation, but also cooperation, secondly. In building of the wall, Nehemiah realized that there is work for everybody. There's work for everybody. There was a lot of debris that needed to be removed. There was mortar that needed to be mixed. There were stones that needed to be laid. There is supervision that needs to take place.

There is encouragement and motivation and uplifting of the sagging spirit of the workers. Somebody needs to go around and encourage people. Let me ask you this question. Could God have built the walls without the people's help? Yes. The one who said, "Let there be light," and there was light, He could click His fingers and the walls are up, but He didn't. Do you know why?

See, God created us. He made us. He knows everything about us. And God who created us knows that there is no fulfillment in laziness. There is no fulfillment in slothfulness. The God who made us knows that our ultimate fulfillment comes from being co-workers with God. And He gives us a blueprint of the way He wants us to work together, the way He wants His work done, the way He wants to bring glory to His name.

And so, He provided work for everyone. When I was working on this, I remembered the classic story about the four people named everybody, somebody, anybody, nobody. Let me read it to you. All four of them were working on a very important project. Everybody was asked to do the job. But everybody thought that somebody would do it. Anybody could have done it, so nobody did it.

Somebody got angry about that because that was everybody's job. Everybody thought that anybody could do it. But nobody realized that everybody would not do it. It ended up that everybody blamed somebody when actually nobody asked anybody. Now, beloved, that is sadly duplicated when it comes to discovering and fulfilling the plan of God and the purpose of God for everybody.

Because the reality is this, the greatest somebody of all is telling you that there is the most important job to be done. And anybody but you is not being asked to do it. Jesus is asking nobody but you because the truth is this, the work of God cannot be done without cooperation, without cooperation. The ministry of encouragement is one of the greatest and forgotten ministry among believers, among the people of God.

Prayer ministry, witnessing ministry, serving ministry, motivating ministry. They cannot be done without everybody cooperating. Unfortunately, sometimes, in some situations, you find people working at cross-purposes. I was thinking about those who worked at cross-purposes, and I thought of the two guys who were trying to wedge a refrigerator out the door.

I mean, they pushed, and they shoved, they pulled. I mean, for hours, for hours, and that refrigerator would not budge through the door. Finally, one of them turned to the other and groaned in desperation, and he said, "I don't think we will ever get this refrigerator out of the house." And the other guy was absolutely flabbergasted. I mean, he was stunned. He said, "Get it out of the house? I thought you wanted in the house."

Listen, hear me loud on this one. People who feel so fragile, people whose feelings are so easily hurt, people who refuse forgiving their brothers and sisters for their shortcomings, people whose feelings are always easily hurt, are the very people who sit back and do nothing and complain about what is wrong. And they say, "I'm not going to do anything. I'm not..." They're working at cross-purposes with God. They're working at cross-purposes for God's plan and purpose for their life.

But instead of pouting and folding of their arms and saying, "Well, somebody else got to do it," I'm going to challenge you. In fact, remind yourself of the following, that what you do is to the honor of God. It's to the glory of God. And remember this, only God is the one who's going to reward you.

First is consolidation, second is cooperation, and thirdly, there is confirmation. What do I mean by that? I mean that we must confirm and affirm one another. You see, anybody can criticize, anybody can complain, anybody can scoff. But it takes godliness, it takes a heart after God's own heart to say, "I want my life to count for something great for God."

It takes heart for God to say, "I want to be effective for God. I want to be affirmed, and I want to affirm somebody else in doing the will of God." Husbands and wives, listen to me, I can tell you from personal experience that in order to fulfill God's plan in your marriage, you must confirm and affirm your spouse at least once a day. Parents, if you want your children not just to thrive in this challenging time that we live in, affirm them and confirm them at least once a day.

Believers, see to it that you affirm and confirm somebody else at least on a daily basis. Now, listen, I'm not talking about complimenting their looks. I'm not talking about complimenting their clothes. I'm not talking about these superficial things, these silly things and superficial things, and they're not really important to me, but I can tell you, I am talking about confirming and affirming their good deeds. I'm talking about confirming and affirming their servant spirit.

I'm talking about confirming and affirming their service and their ministry. I'm talking about confirming and affirming their commitment to the Lord. I'm talking about confirming and affirming their kindness, their sensitivity, confirming and affirming their good character and their godly lifestyle.

You know, the human body never ceases to amaze me. Never ceases to amaze me. I am told that in a given body there are a variety of cells. For example, the nerve cells are very different from the muscle cells. And I was thinking about this, and the varieties of other cells as well, that each of those cells when they function as they are supposed to, as they were created to function, the body is healthy. There's no illness. Operates effectively.

I thought, you know, I doubt whether the cells in the different parts of the body get together and vote about what each of them going to do. Will you do that, brother, you're going to be in bed. I mean, you're going to be sick. I try to imagine if the stomach cells says, "I don't want to do this. I want to be the muscle cells," or vice versa. And then imagine what happens. In fact, I know doctors call when the stomach cells revolt, they call that indigestion. And when the brain cells revolt, they call that insanity.

But when the cells all operate the way they are created to operate, the body will be healthy. And beloved friends, to fulfill God's purpose in your life and in my life, in order to receive the blessing of God as we discover and obey that purpose, we will see the glory of God in our day.

Guest (Female): Understanding and acting on your purpose in life. Encouragement from Dr. Michael Youssef on this episode of Leading The Way. We thank you for listening. As Dr. Youssef explained earlier, the first step to being part of the body of Christ is a relationship with Jesus. So if you've never taken that step, you're invited to explore any questions you have with a Leading The Way pastor or counselor. We're at LTW.org/jesus.

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