Voice of the Nazarene 11-19-23

I'm coming to you from North Central Ohio, we share with you the voice of the Nazarene, a week by week venture into the Word of God sponsored by the Bucyrus, Ohio Church of the Nazarene, we joined our Pastor Reverend Ray LaSalle, and the voice of the Nazarene.

Second Kings chapter seven, verse three. And there were four lepers, leprous men at the entering in of the gate, and they said one to another, why sit we her until we die? Want to talk to you about choosing right options. We're free moral agents, we have the ability to choose.

We have the power of volition as people that want to rule that out, but God never ruled that out. God gave to you and I have the power to choose, we can choose him or leave him out of our lives. I don't want to play a game with you. But I am even concerned about choices in heaven. You say there won't be any choices. Lucifer made a poor choice. A third of the angels made a choice to disenfranchise God, and they were cast out of heaven. I hate to think they'll still be choices. You better get involved in a real good choice for God and stick with it. You can't choose him here, you wouldn't choose the one there.

Talking about choosing the right options, mom used to ask, What about dinner? And I'd say what's my option? She said yes or no.

Some restaurants are like that, and especially the hospitals it all tastes the same anyway.

What's the option? It tastes the same. One corporation, they had a meeting in a high rise building office buildings, many, many stories up. They had a policy it had to be 100% on a policy. Everybody had the vote positively toward a policy. They spent hours over one issue and one man could not bring himself to change his mind. He had a dissenting vote, and it held him up. And finally a big old board member leaned over to him and whispered, could you just step out in the hall for a moment?

And they did it took him over to the window. He said, You see how many stories down that is? He said, Yes. He said, If you don't change your vote, I'm gonna throw you through that one window. Little guy went back into the meeting and said, I've changed my mind. I've changed my vote. And of course, they passed on it. And another board member said to him said, What caused you to change your mind? Well, he said, I decided to change my mind when somebody took the time to explain my options. We're going to study today four men, who were certainly running out of options. I mean, if there were ever individuals running out of options, it had to be these four men who had leprosy.

And let me explain during this time in Israel, a famine had come unlike any famine that had ever happened in the history, biblical history of time. Food wasn't just scarce, there wasn't any food. It had come to the place and you can read it, it's right there in chapter six.

People were killing and cooking their own babies and eating their own offspring. One lady came complaining to a King said my neighbor and I, we agreed to kill and cook my baby and the week has passed and she refuses to kill her baby so we can eat.

They were desperate. They were selling donkey heads to eat. It becomes such an issue they were even eating the waste of turtle doves. Severe, severe famine, and it had gone on for some time and there was a prophet named Elijah. And Elijah came onto the scene. He stepped into this situation, and he made a prophecy. He said tomorrow there'll be plenty of food. That was good news, but they didn't take it well. I mean, after all of this time of hunger, perhaps it lasted for months, maybe even years. For a preacher to say, Tomorrow, there'll be plenty of food. Now here's what I know.

When you're down to nothing. God is up to something. When you're down to nothing, God is up to something. And may I also add, I've always found there's joy suckers. That's what I call them. People that will just deflate your tires. They'll puncture your balloon. They'll take the joy out of any situation. My last pastor and I came and they were averaging about 140. He just couldn't get it over that. Mother's Day would come and everybody's mother lived somewhere else, and the attendance dropped, on a holiday. Thanksgiving would come and everybody went someplace else to have turkey. You couldn't pop it. You couldn't get above that 140. Richard Hurles at that time was pastoring, about 20 miles from and he said, Ray, you need to have a friend day weekend. I said, I don't know anything about a friend day weekend. I just got here. I don't have any friends here. Well, he said, You've got to get your people bringing their friends. I said, How do you do it? He said, Let me explain. I said, tell my wife, don't tell me anything I won't remember it. And he explained it to her and boy did I push to sell that idea. I went for at least a month in advance.

And I told the board I said I want you to invite your friends and I know most of you are to mean to have any friends. And I want the choir to invite your friends. And of course when the next Sunday came, I got up and the board were to come and read off the names of their friends and I named off about 20 families that I had invited and shamed them all. You don't want to hear all the story. But when the weekend came a friend day, they were 454 people showed up.

And the next weekend was Easter we plan two big Sundays in a row to break this curse and to start a momentum and to rock the boat, a little. Create a hunger to grow. And three people never showed up and I announced the Sunday before I'm going to preach my world famous Easter Sunday Sermon. Well it wasn't, I didn't have one. But I was going to have something. And I called it my world famous if you don't mind. You don't have to say amen, you haven't so far. So anyway, three people didn't show up, we had 451 out, rock the boat. I was feeling pretty good about what God was doing. And a little old lady came up to me.

She said, You think you really done something big because you had this crowd out. But I want you to know this Church used to run this many ever Sunday. Thank you. You're so gracious. It's people like you that make my day. Year later, I'm out on a fishing boat with Buford Blair who had pastor during the church's high level. And I told him the story and what she had said he laughed and laughed. And he slapped the boat and he cried with laughter and finally he said, We never saw that many people in one Sunday in our entire ministry there. He said we've never cracked 200, I don't know what she was on. But she better keep taking it, it's got her on a high. And what I do I try to avoid those in my life who are joy suckers. They'll deflate you take the air out of you and always make you feel worse than you already feel. I don't need any help. Elijah said, tomorrow there'll be food a plenty there'll be plenty to eat. And there was an aide to the king and he came over and he spoke up and he said if God were to open the windows of heaven, it wouldn't happen. Let me tell you something. This is just a newsflash, God could open the windows of heaven. And God can open the windows of heaven for you and God can open the windows of heaven for me. That's the good news. And here's something else I want you to realize. If you don't see it, before you see it, you'll never see it. If you don't see it before you see it, you'll never see it. This is what I want you to know about God. Our God majors in removing obstacles. He's in the business to remove obstacles. You have three groups in the story. The first group I want to call them sitters, s-i-t-t-e-r-s, bible said there were four men, just sitting outside the city gate.

These men had leprosy. The reason they're outside the gate, they weren't allowed inside to socialize with a city people.

They have this rare disease called leprosy and it was transferable they felt and it would spread and if they even got near anyone, they had to cover their face and cry out, Unclean, unclean, unclean. They were the rejects of society. And here's what they said in verse four, if we say, We will enter into the city, than the famine is in the city, and we shall die there: and if we sit still here, will die also. Now therefore come, let us fall unto the host

if they save us alive, we shall live; and if they kill us, we shall but die.

Anything we do, we're going to die unless we find some mercy.

And these four men are sitting outside the city. And here's what they said, we've got three options, boil it down to three options. We can either go into the city where they'll run us out anyway, but there's a famine, they're eating their kids. And if we sit right here, we're going to die. Our only hope is maybe if we can approach the Syrian camp. And you got to understand the Syrians, and their huge army is outside the city of Samaria, and they're besieging the city. That's why there was no food inside the city.

They couldn't get food from outside, inside, and they'd eaten up everything they had.

And this great army has come past Samaria. They're in their tents, they've got all the food in the world. They said if we can approach them, they could kill us. But there is a chance they might have mercy. Four men disenfranchised, marginalized, ostracized, unwanted, outcasts rejects. And they said, if they don't kill us, perhaps they'll give us something to eat it.

Here's what's amazing. It's a principle. God has given you a mind. I just thought maybe I'll tell you that case your mom didn't. God gave every one of us a little bit of gray matter about three pounds it's called the brain. And you and I have a mind and we can make a choice.

We can choose you say, Well, Pastor, I'm waiting on God to show me perhaps he already has.

He gave you a brain you might oughta use it some time. God promised he'd go with us wherever we go. You come to a fork in the road, God which way to go make a wise decision God's gonna go with either way. But you can make a good choice and choose and God's gonna go with you make the best choice, you can. Options. They're called. I like what Will Rogers said. He said, even if you're on the right track, you're going to get run over if you just sit there.

Even if you're on the right track, you're going to get run over eventually, if you're just sit there. And these men said, we're not just going to sit here and tons of people are just sitting. I think first of all, we're sitting on the provision

16, the great gold and silver line text of the Bible, For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him, should not perish, but have everlasting life. God has given you that provision. Fact of the matter salvation has been given for

8, for by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it's a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. God is saying I've given a gift to you, I've given to you the provision of salvation. And some of you come week in week out and just sit there. And you're gonna sit on the provision of salvation and let it pass you by and die in your sins. And we sit on that provision. I think sometimes we sit on our potential. I found that one of these days is usually none of these days. The one of these days but yeah, it's none of these days. First Peter

10 says, As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another. Understand that God has gifts for you, and he's gifted you and God has given you potential and God has given you ability and many times we just sit on it when God wants to use our lives. Listen, the gift that you have, use it whatever it is, use it for God's glory. Don't go off using your gift for yourself and shove God out of your life.

That potential God's given you, that uniqueness. God is saying, don't just sit on it. I'm amazed when I look at Hollywood, and I look at Nashville, Tennessee, and I look at the great musicians with the great singers. I'm amazed how many grew up in church and God gifted them. And now they're sitting at a keyboard on some rock band or in some Honky Tonk or playing a guitar, playing the keyboard or playing the drums or out with a microphone singing lead, the Jerry Lee Lewis's and the Mickey Gilley's, all of the talent God had given to them, and they sit on it, and use most of their life for themselves with their gifts. We often sit on our purpose. Let me just stop and say, one day, I'll be gone.

Don't ever allow in your thinking, the fact that you might think I'm a hero, and maybe you haven't, I'm sure you haven't. I want you to know one thing. I'm just a man I am made of clay, I have feet of clay. I have a lot more weaknesses, than I have strengths. Now, I want to say this this morning. I'm doing exactly what God intended that I should do with my life. There's not a shadow of a doubt. But what I was born to do what I do, and that's to preach. There are things I'd rather do at times.

But I believe that God created DNA in me in my mother's womb long before I was breathing my first breath of air outside of mama, God had called me into the ministry. And I'm doing and I'd have loved having been a criminal lawyer. I liked to, and I think I could have had success out in the business world. But why would I stoop to do that, when I can be in the high calling of preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. And what I'm saying to you, God has a purpose for your life, and don't stoop to anything below that purpose, just to satisfy your flesh. God has a purpose for everybody. And God doesn't want us to sit on that purpose. And they asked, Are we just going to sit here until we die? You say, Well, Pastor, I'd like to go back to school. But the problem is, if I go back to school, I lose four years of my life. Hey, come up here real close. Let me have your ear, because you can't hear back there. Let me whisper in your ear. Don't go back to school, but you'll still be four years older either way. And you could advance yourself. You say, Well, I think I I would like to start a new business. I'd like to run for an office. I'd like to find a better career for myself. I'm simply saying, Don't just sit there do something about the dream that God's put in your heart. So we see the sitters, but I see also the getters. Look at Verse five, and look at verse seven. It said they go into the camp of the Syrians, and when they were come to the uttermost part of the camp of Syria, behold, there was no man there. Now, here's these lepers. Probably out of the four, at least one of them, their nose had rotted off.

Probably ears were missing out of the four man. Fingers are gone. Toes had rotted off with leprosy til they could hardly walk and would have to cripple along. And guess what happened?

I want you to see this. These four men get up. They're leaning on each other. They're heading for that Syrian camp. And when they do, the Syrians hear these four men coming. But it didn't sound like four lepers. God made it sound like it was a massive Israeli army. They didn't hear four lepers. They heard an army coming and they literally fled.

They left the food, they left their wealth, they left everything behind, and they fled the tents. They heard an army coming. I'll tell you what, God could take a handful of us and make us into an army. If we'd get together on it, or we can just sit there. They made a mass exodus. I mean, the Syrians ran for the hills. And here's the observations that I want you to see. God didn't move until they did. God didn't move until they did you say well, I'm waiting on God. Maybe God's waiting on you.

Because James 4:8 says, Draw nigh to God and God will draw nigh to you. But you need to draw nigh to him. You need to seek him if you want him to seek you. The story is told to Joshua chapter three verses 15 and 16, that God rolled back the Jordan River. But before he did, the priest had to put their feet in the water. God wanted to roll the river back, but he didn't do it until the priests put their feet in the water. Sometimes we have to do something first, If we want God to do something.

James 4:8

Sometimes you have to get a hold of God by faith in prayer about some situation, if you want God to respond. And here's the second thing I observed. I think God wants to surprise us. And if you look at verse five, they arose at twilight to go into the camp of the Syrians and when they were come to the uttermost part of the camp of Syria, behold, there was no man there.

Now, one translation reads, to their surprise, no one was there, to their surprise. Can I ask you something? When was the last time that God surprised you? I get surprised every Sunday. I'm surprised every Sunday. Every Sunday, when I walk in here, sit down in the front seat and look around. And I look at that great big choir up there singing their hearts out and I look over here and I see musicians playing. I peep over my shoulder, and I see people sitting all over this place. And I wonder what in the world am I doing here?

I'm surprised. You say no, no, it was your vision? No, no, let me tell you something. It was God. What's going on here is the God thing. My first pastoring it it doubled. The second pastoring it more than doubled. And this thing and it's God, it's not me.

It's God. If anybody is surprised, I'm the most surprised one here. And you know what? We need the Lord to surprise us. Now you got sitters, you've got getters.

Now, let me show you what they did. They go toward those Syrian tents. And the Syrians ran out and left. And incidentally, right now, if you'll turn on the news, you'll find that Israel and Syria are bombing one another right while I speak.

Still a big fight on, things haven't changed that much. But back to the message. When those lepers got there, they found the tents empty of people, and they found silver they found gold there was food they ate, they had their turkey or ham or well, they weren't supposed to eat ham. Just hamburgers. And they ate their fill. And guess what they did? You read it right here. I'm not making all this up. Look at verse eight. It said they took the silver and the gold and the raiment. And what do they do? They hid it and they ran back and they got some more and they ran and they hid it and they're hoarding it. That's what most of us do. We take what God has done in our lives, and we just kind of hoard it, we kind of hide it, we run our 40. In our own denomination 60% of the churches are about running 50.

We just found something good and we take it and we hide it. We keep it for ourselves. Our little parking lot, our little pew, our little spot. Look at what Matthew 10 Verse eight says, freely, you have received freely give. God is freely given to you and I. And he says to us, you need to freely give. You see it's not enough for someone to tell me about Jesus, I need to turn around tell somebody else about Jesus. Somebody told you it's not right for you to keep a silent. It's not right for you to hoard it. It's not right for you to hide it. And while I'm on that, I can go out and fail and stumble and fumble and make a mess of things. And have to run back and say God, I'm sorry for what I did, and turn around next week and do the very same thing over and come back God forgive me. And another week or month I turn around and fail again. God forgive me and then I turn around and I cross my arms. And I won't forgive somebody else.

And I want you to know that's wrong. To the God that has forgiven me, I ought to forgive others. Whatever it may be about. who am I to not share it with others? And who am I to make it about me you have the sitters you have the getters And then I take you to a third group and that's the givers look at verse nine, then said one to another, we do not dwell, this day is a day of good tidings, and we hold our peace. If we tarry till the morning light, some mischief will come up on us. Now, therefore, that we may go and tell the king's household, I want to tell you a little secret, and you need to get it out. And some of you won't have a problem with a secret. Since I've told you a secret. In a moment, you're going to tell everybody, women can keep secrets better than men. Just takes more of them.

God has done a great thing here in this ministry. But he done it, so we'd go and tell others.

So we share it with others. And they said, here we are, we're free. And we've got food and we've got water and we've got ramian and we've got all kinds of resources we ought to tell others. We've got to be a giver.

Do you know what God wants? God wants your time. Your most valuable possession is not your money. It's your time. Life is only a minute only 60 seconds in it, forced upon me can't refuse it, didn't seek it. But it's up to me to use it. I'm a sufferer, If I lose it, give an account if I abuse it. Life is only a minute. But eternity is in it.

God wants your talent. Pastor, what should I give to God, whatever you're good at.

Whatever you're good at. Here's the third way. Give her testimony. God wants her testimony. And we seem to think that we don't really have a good story or a good testimony lesson. It's a crime to Christ story. What's wrong with a child of Christ story? I never did belong to a street gang and never been drunk. Never been on drugs. Got saved when I was nine. And I don't know about you, but I'm counting an awful lot on Sonshine childcare, ministry. I'm putting up my dollars and my hopes on the children's ministry. Because you see, it's one thing for God to save you in sin. But it's another thing for God to save you from sin. And if we can get them saved and their lives changed, God will have saved them from a life of sin, and give them a long story in the long testimony. Now listen, 96% of people come to Christ.

Because you told them. 96% of people will come to Christ because a friend or a family member or a co worker shared their own story of Christ transformation in their life.

And as a result, they came to the church. And I'm telling you this county is right with people. All they need is a good strong invite from you. And they would come. Now you can invite them out if you want to for Totally Christmas or whatever.

But don't you sit on it any longer? Don't you sit on the story? Don't you sit on this opportunity? Don't don't sit on what God's got. There's plenty of food here spiritually. We need to share it. But we also give our treasure. Stewardship is realizing that life is not about us. And when God is blessing us, he had more than us in mind. I read just on the computer this morning about David Greene who started a business in his garage he was working at a T G Y or whatever those things whatever the letters of that particular store is. They got this idea of it in his garage putting together picture frames, his wife helping him and his two boys begin to help him. They begin to build crafts, and he called his little organization Hobby Lobby. That thing has grown to 520 superstores in 42 different states. And it's a $3 billion annual income or revenue flow.

It's networth is somewhere around $4.5 billion and he's already given over 500 million and upwards of lifetime giving.

And he wrote a book titled Giving it all away. He is listed as number 79 of the 400 richest Americans. And his philosophy is God only blesses us. So we can bless others. He's paid off universities, bought up property and gave it for the start of universities. Churches hit him up all the time. They turn down, nine out of 10 and meet the need of one out of 10. God blesses us to bless us. Three groups, the sitters, we're just gonna sit here and do nothing. When we have such potential, so much purpose, and the provision of salvation, we're just gonna sit on it. We have the getters, I'm gonna get what I can, and I'm gonna hide it and I'm gonna hoard it.

And we have the givers. Am I going to invest in others? It means I stop and I take a little bit of time along the pathway to speak to somebody about good things about the Lord about my church, about ministry. Dr. Robert Schuller who pastored, the Crystal Cathedral. Pastor in a little small church up in Chicago didn't run very many. He was out pounding the streets, knocking on doors, trying to get somebody to come and hear him preach. And he got to this one house and knocked on the door wasn't much of a house and the door opened, there stood a man with a cigarette, tilted low out of his lips. In one hand he had a can of beer. No shirt on the big old beer belly, said what do you want? He said, I'm a preacher. He said I don't like preachers. He said, I didn't ask you what you liked. And Schuller's defense went up against him. He said, Come on in preacher, let's have a conversation. He stepped in, tried to tell him about heaven and he said, he believed you just die and that's the end of it. Well, he said, you don't want to go to hell do you said I don't believe in hell, and it made Schuler mad. And he said, Just go to hell then turned around and stormed out of the house. He was so ticked that he didn't knock on any more doors.

He just went straight home and walked in and his wife could tell he was quite upset and she said, what's wrong? He said, I just told her man to go to hell.

Well she said, Robert, you shouldn't have done that. Well, he said, he just made me mad.

Sunday, the door open back of the church, and in came Mr.

beerbelly and his wife. And as soon as the invitation was given, he stepped out came forward.

Schuller, left not long after that, and went to Santa Ana. Had a dream and a vision of starting a church a mega church. And that thing grew and the crowds gathered. They went from building to building untill finally, he raised millions and built a Crystal Cathedral into the 1000s in attendance, nationwide worldwide telecast.

Some years pass sitting in his office the Secretary rang him up and said, There's a man we'd like to see. He said, You know, I'm swamped. I'm busy. She said, I think maybe you need to see this Thank for being a part of the voice of the Nazarene visitors man. He's dying of cancer. And he said, You used to be his pastor. I'm suggesting you'd better see him, said sent him into my office. The man walked in a lot of his weight was gone.

His hair is now turned gray. And immediately, Robert Schuller recognizes I remember you from Chicago. Yeah, the man said, You're the preacher that told me to go to hell. He said what are you doing here? He said, I am dying of cancer. As always, my wife and I sold everything we had. They've given me about a year to live and I moved out here we're looking for a little house to live in and over the last months and weeks and year of my life, I would like to serve you. You have errands around the city you need to run, if you have weeds that need to be pulled, if you have you need somebody to shake hands with the back door, somebody to sweep up the carpet or clean the halls or to clean the windows on the church. Somebody to visit people in the hospital. I am yours for a year until I'm called home to heaven. And for a year, he literally gave himself to the Ministry of Robert Schuller and that church. He was dying, is on his deathbed and the wife sent word, would you tell the pastor to come? Schuller said I made my way across the city, through Santa Ana over to that house in a lower income bracket, knocked on the door, and she greeted me and brought me in and I slipped into the room and I realized immediately he was dying, right then he said it's your pastor, Reverend Schuller, I'm here and said he his lips move and he tried to mutter something and people were talking in the room and Schuller said everybody just for a moment, would you be silent and leaned down? And he said, What are you saying? He said, I just want you to know, I'm not going where you said I was and slipped into eternity.

There's people out yonder that will either be in heaven or hell. And you have the option of sharing or we can just sit here and have church as usual. Or we can make a mission field out yonder and go out yonder and touch lives. When I had my first friend day weekend ever, not everybody was for some fought it enough that they knocked me out of 50 people, they talked them out of coming. They called it playing church here. I don't know how inviting people out of the kingdom of God can be playing church, but whatever. We dropped that 50 some, I suppose they felt good about it. That's okay. It's no big deal with me anymore. But I had one man an old German. I call him a German because he appeared to me to be a German. His name was Bowersock he was a local doctor here in the town and attended this ministry. Bowersock, I never hardly saw him crack much of a smile, just always serious.

He came and said, Pastor, you and your wife, your kids, you get free medical service, just come to my office, set an appointment and calm I'll never charge you and he never did.

When he found out we were having friend day he never said anything. But when friend day weekend came he sent a note up to me and he said I have more than 50 people here that I've invited out of around 100 people. And he said you were going to give away a record I don't need a record I want you to give it to so and so somebody that didn't have much that was in our church. More than 50 people were invited that showed up because of one doctor that believed in his pastor enough that he didn't try to fight him but tried to work with him. And I'm saying if one guy can do that, like Bowersock, what could all the rest of us do? Who really put our mind or we could just sit there on our purpose, God's plan for our life. Don't miss the opportunity that God has thrown right across our path, grab it, grab it like a lifeline and say God, I think I'm catching on to my purpose here on Earth, to make a difference in other's lives. And I'm going to start sharing my church, and I'm going to share you Lord, and I'm going to share myself and I'm going to start sharing and not trying to hide and hoard what I can get.

Instead I'm going to give I'm going to be a giver.

every Sunday at 9am with BNC's pastor Ray LaSalle. For more information regarding BNC visit Bucyrus nazarene.org