21.02.10 - Anyone. Anytime.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been talking about a book that our daughter, Kirsten, gave me for Christmas. The book is “You Were Born For This” by Bruce Wilkinson. It is about being used by God to deliver His miracles into people’s lives. The basic premise is that God is compassionate and wants to do miraculous things in people’s lives – miraculous things that reveal His love and concern. There are needy people all around us and God wants to miraculously meet needs. The question is: Who will deliver those miracles? Who will go between God and those in need?

Bruce Wilkinson talks about four keys. The first one, that we looked at last week, is the key of making ourselves available. More than that, it is the key of eagerly asking God to use us. “Lord, send me to do your work.”

I did suggest that we might pray that this week and see what God does. Has anyone got a story to tell about making yourself available and God using you?

Bruce Wilkinson was flying once and planned to use the flight time to proofread a book he was writing. This was God’s work. This book might potentially influence thousands of people for God. And there was a deadline. He needed this time to do this job. He asked God to help him get this job finished (which secretly meant, “Please don’t ask me to help anyone in the next three hours.”)

As he boarded, he discovered that he was in a window seat with an empty seat on the other side. He thanked God for hearing his prayer.

Just before the doors closed he heard a loud, obviously drunk man enter the plane and his heart sank. He quickly reminded God of the work he had to get done. The man had hair dyed several colours and his body had been pierced in numerous interesting places. He stopped at Wilkinson’s row and the smell of alcohol seemed to fill the cabin. He sat down in the vacant seat, accepted a drink from the flight attendant and started to talk to Wilkinson. They exchanged chit-chat then Wilkinson deliberately turned away and focused on his work.

Rainbow Metal Man (as Wilkinson refers to him) ordered another drink. Wilkinson worked and kept asking God to protect him from further interruptions so he could finish this job. Rainbow Metal Man kept drinking until the flight attendant suggested he had had enough.

However, the words Wilkinson was reading convicted him until he prayed “All right, Lord, send me to serve You, even to this man. But let him start the conversation.”

No sooner had he prayed those words than Rainbow Metal Man said, “That’s a beep, beep good book!”

“Uh, you think so?” Wilkinson replied, trying not to get tipsy from the fumes, “How do you know?”

“Beeep, I’ve been reading it over your shoulder. But I have an important question. Are you a priest?”

“Where did that come from?” Wilkinson wondered. He wasn’t wearing black or a dog collar or a cross. Then a verse flashed through his mind.
1 Peter 2:9 You are a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvellous light.

Wilkinson stammered, “Yes, I guess you could say that I am a priest. But what makes you ask?”

They introduced themselves. Rainbow Metal Man’s name was Gary. As he talked, Bruce Wilkinson realised why God had sat Gary next to him. Gary explained that his best friend in the world had been killed in an accident the previous day.

Wilkinson said he was sorry. Gary sat in silence for a moment then said, “You know, when I went over and saw him dead, I couldn’t help thinking, If that was me, I don’t know where I’d go after I die. I couldn’t sleep all night. On the way to the airport, I said to God, ‘If You are there, God, please send me a priest!”

Wilkinson put his work aside and asked, “How can I help you, Gary?” He and Gary then had a conversation about friends and death and heaven and hell.

Was God involved in that? Who caused Gary to wonder where he would go if he died? Who planned for them to sit together on that flight? Had God planned that conversation? What happened in Gary’s heart?

Was talking to Gary more important than getting the proofreading finished? Wilkinson tells that story to illustrate Key 2. We can make ourselves available but God might have a task for us that we don’t find convenient or that involves people we don’t like. Key 2 is the People Key. The People Key is how you make God’s agenda and heart for people your own. You prepare for the inevitable collision between your preferences and God’s by yielding your rights in advance. That way he can deliver a miracle through you to anyone at any time.

We can want to deliver miracles into people’s lives but we come with assumptions and expectations and preferences about what that will look like; how it will happen. The problem is that God might have a different idea. In fact, Wilkinson says that in his experience, God’s miracle agenda rarely matches Wilkinson’s assumptions and expectations. We don’t have to choose between something bad and something good. We have to choose between something good and something miraculous.

Wilkinson’s plan was proofreading the book – something good and even spiritual. It was easy to argue for the need to get that done – something that might influence thousands versus talking to one drunk, foul-mouthed metal-man. No contest! It was already clear what God’s agenda for that flight was. Except that that wasn’t God’s agenda.

God’s miracle agenda is summed up in one word: people. It is not about our preferences. It is about serving people. Jesus said, “I am among you as the One who serves” and “The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.”

It is not up to us to decide what we will do. It is up to God. We are called to serve Him and to serve His people. We need to surrender our perspective, our agenda, our wisdom to God’s agenda which will mean that God chooses who and when and where and how a miracle is to be delivered – and what miracle. It will always involve a person, or persons, in need but it might not even look like an opportunity to us.

Jesus went to some unexpected people: the unpopular (such as Nicodemus), social outcasts (such as the Samaritan woman at the well), people who interrupted what was going on (such as the paralysed man lowered through the roof), a late night visitor (Nicodemus), a ritually unclean person clutching at Him (the haemorrhaging woman). These things might happen at the time we least prefer, and involve someone we don’t like.

Last year we spent some time looking at Jonah. Jonah was a prophet. Presumably that means that he had already made himself available to God. But when God said, “Go to the Ninevites” Jonah just refused. Not the Ninevites! They were Assyrians. They were a notoriously violent nation that worshiped false gods. They were age-old enemies of Israel. Jonah wanted them destroyed. He didn’t want them repenting. God’s agenda was definitely not Jonah’s agenda, so Jonah ran away in the opposite direction.

Then there was the whole episode with the boat and the storm and the whale and eventually being vomited up. Then God said again, “Jonah, go to Ninevah.” Obviously, Jonah had been radically changed by his experience and he was now repentant, because this time he went.

He did go, but he hadn’t repented. He still wanted the 120,000 people in Ninevah to suffer God’s judgement. The fact that they repented and God spared them only made Jonah angry.

God is about people. Jonah did not have God’s compassion for the people of Ninevah. Jonah had not surrendered his own agenda. He was not willing to make it anyone, any time, any how.

The book of Jonah ends with a question. God asked, “Should I not have concern for these people?” We never find out Jonah’s answer. That is the heart of God: to have concern for people – people who will otherwise perish. We never find out whether Jonah came to that same understanding.

Maybe that is left an open question because we are meant to ask if we have come to God’s view about people. Do we care about people who are suffering? Do we care about people facing God’s judgement? We might be wide open to being used whenever, wherever, with whomever God wants, or we might be selective and we decide when it suits us.

Of course, if we are willing to be used whenever God wants, that will mean a much greater range of miracles that we can be involved in. If we select only certain types, we will experience God far less. Or maybe not much at all. Maybe God won’t choose to use us if we insist on it being on our terms.

Working with people, there will always be disappointments. People will let us down or not appreciate what we do for them. If we were simply serving people, it wouldn’t be worth it. But God calls us to serve people as a way of serving Him. You might remember these words from when we looked at Colossians last year.

Col 3:23-24 23 Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, 24 since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.
“It is the Lord Christ you are serving.” Jesus said that whatever we do for one of the least of His brothers or sisters, we do for Him. When we remember that we are serving Jesus that helps us get our priorities and motives right.

Again, I find this challenging to the point of being scary. I can easily think that I am doing the Lord’s work and be blind to an opportunity to serve someone. Wasn’t that the problem with the priest and the Levite in the story of the Good Samaritan? Who is my neighbour? So preoccupied with doing the Lord’s work that I miss the Lord’s work. I can easily avoid certain people or certain types of people. But I can’t argue with the rightness of letting God decide. I can’t argue with the rightness of being available for anyone, any time. I can’t argue with God’s compassion for hurting people whoever they are.

I might find it scary but equally, I don’t want to miss out on the privilege of encounters like the one with Gary. I want to see needy people experience God’s miracles.

Those of us who find it exciting but scary at the same time might need to talk to God about it. “Lord, I want to be part of what you are doing. I want to see people experience your goodness miraculously. But, at the same time, I am reluctant to approach certain people. I like to be in control. Please help me to be more usable; more pliable in Your hands; more ready to say “yes” whenever You show me an opportunity.”

The compassionate God who cares about people is looking for people who care about people. Is that you?

So we have two keys now. Are you ready to experiment with both and see what God does?
1. Send me to do your work,
2. Irrespective of my preferences, I will go to any person, anytime, anywhere, to do whatever You ask?

What opportunities might that availability and that submitted willingness open up?