The Finger of God

I'm going to read a couple of verses from Luke 11, starting at 17 and a half. Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste. House falls upon house.

And if Satan also is divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand? For you say that I cast out demons by Beelzebul. And if I cast out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore, they shall be your judges. But, if it is by the finger of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.

And when Jesus talks about casting out demons by the finger of God, he's describing his ministry and ours. Every single one here in this room who is now a follower of Jesus is called to that kind of ministry. The ministry that could best be described as one in which the finger of God is operative.

Now the problem is that most of us, perhaps all of us, have a really watered down and very weak idea of the ministry to which we've been called. Even our Christian heroes, modern day Christian heroes, are very often weak, watered down, assassins of the ministry to which every single one of us here has been called now to serve. You know, what do we think of as somebody who's really a successful Christian worker? So often it's somebody who starts a new church and in no time they have a thousand members or somebody who begins a new movement or opens a new mission field and then later on they write a book about his life or her life.

In no way to take anything away from those people. Praise God for them and their ministries. But we have been called to minister with the finger of God and when we do this we are moving in a realm which is not visible to the human eye, doesn't receive human glory, and once you get a taste of ministering in the power and in the name of Jesus in such a way that you see the redemptive flow and you see healing coming to people and you see the chains being broken, you don't care about whether you're starting a new church or a new movement or somebody writes a book about your life.

The only thing that matters now is to be alive, so alive to God that you end up all the time in the right place at the right time that you find yourself fitting in with the mysterious movements of God's kingdom in such a way that every time somebody comes your way you receive that person as sent from God and you know that there's something that you are to say or to do and you find yourself verily able to touch their life with healing and to drive away evil with God's finger. This is the kind of ministry our Lord had. It was not flashy, even though healings took place in abundance.

And he always kept a lid on it. Don't go telling everybody about the fact that you received your sight. Jesus was so sensitive to his father that he always was at the right place at the right time and he was making the most of every opportunity that came his way.

Right up to the cross. To the apostles he gave the same kind of ministry. They likewise fit in with God's movements and in the ordinary, very simple, down-to-earth, daily rounds these men and women did supernatural things.

But our whole conception of this is so bent out of shape by modern, slick Christianity that it's very difficult for us to even get this in our heads. Perhaps the group of people who had at least some sense of what this is would have been the Hasidic Jews of a couple hundred years ago. And here you would have people who were living under all kinds of oppression oppression, by the way, from nominal Christians to the point that their property was taken people were killed, dragged away, all kinds of awful things.

In the midst of this, you had these Hasidim these pious ones who always would be clustered around one man who would be called a tzaddik a righteous one and this tzaddik was the kind of person, or the ministry that he was supposed to have was the very kind of ministry that you and I ought to have. It was believed that this man had only one thing on his heart and that was God. And his mind was fixed on heaven and he wanted to serve the coming of the Messiah and he didn't care how many people admired him or what happened in the world around him he was only interested in serving God.

It was believed that wherever this man went angels opened the way and that he was the one who was at the right place at the right time even if he ended up in the middle of a forest someplace he knew that God sent him there and he could read hearts and heal and drive away evil. Now the Hasidim that were around him really didn't do very much but serve him and it was really very often from then that he drew his strength and so you could say that they didn't really have a ministry in the same sense. The only one who had a ministry was the tzaddik.

Now let's take it the other way around. You know, this righteous one had a sense of what you and I ought to be and do, really but now let's suppose instead of one righteous man surrounded by a group of pious ones we have one pious one, if you want to call it that surrounded by a group of righteous, effective ministers. Jesus, don't you see, becomes the Hasid or he really becomes the Chesid which means mercy incarnate the one merciful one in our midst and from him we draw our strength and he transforms every single one of us into a tzaddik, a righteous one and he sends us forth to touch human lives with the finger of God.

You did not choose me, I chose you and ordained you that you should go and bring forth fruit not just sit in a pew, not just go to Bible studies not just say your prayers before you go to bed but go out and accomplish the redemptive work of the Lord in the time that's left and that your fruit should remain and so Jesus sends us forth to do exactly what the legendary tzaddik was to do to be at the right place in the right time, always and so touch human lives that when we touch them the broken image of God in their hearts is restored and if this sounds far-fetched listen again to Mark 16 this RSV, they're not even sure it's authentic so they put it in fine print so I'll have to take my glasses off to read it and these signs will accompany those who believe in my name they will cast out demons they will speak with new tongues they will pick up serpents and if they drink any deadly thing it will not hurt them they will lay their hands on the sick and they will recover and so we begin if we're at all open to this to understand and we begin to see this in our own lives that God has indeed given us a grace that does bring life to people and that does bring peace everywhere it goes and once we test that taste that, experience it and move in it who wants to build churches and open mission fields and have books written about them and all this kind of jazz we turn our backs on slick churchianity and we want to get on with the work of the ministry covered by the hand of God to which God has called us through his son Jesus now the same Jesus who calls us to such an effective ministry the ministry of the finger of God also warns us that there are certain areas that will threaten this ministry where we have to be on our guard and that if we mess up in any of these areas we may still build churches and draw crowds and write books and do all those things but if we mess up in any of these areas we will no longer be able to touch human lives with God's finger first if you really want to touch people in the name of Jesus with the finger of God pay attention to this area of your life the relationship between woman and man now before you come to the kingdom of God and are given this ministry maybe you were married five times maybe you lived in the gay bars maybe you were a porno addict or you read true romance every night before you went to bed ok but now that you've come into the kingdom and have been given this ministry this area of your life the area of the relationship between man and woman must be not only morally pure see now when Jesus talks about marriage and divorce or when Jesus talks about the danger of lust he's not putting his finger in a condemning way on your past your past is under the blood don't worry about your past get it there under the blood and leave it there but he is talking about our present this means that every single one of us in this room is either a eunuch for the kingdom of God that is you're living a single life in all purity sustained by God's grace or you are married or on your way to marriage now if you're married or on your way to marriage then your relationship with your mate must be sanctified by the love of God in you so that in your relationship with this mate or the one who will ultimately be your mate God comes first always first always ahead and also that you love your mate with the same merciful forgiving self-giving love that has been shown to you in the Lord that you're thoughtful that you honor this person and also that your relationship with that mate is absolutely and utterly pure so that in other words it is in no way compromised that you are true to your mate not only in your actions but in your imagination and your thought now if we allow ourselves leeway in this area then our ministries are going to be infected and if we don't take care of that they will be destroyed the second area to which all of us must pay attention if we want to minister with the finger of God is the area of the way we handle money it's all over scriptures Jesus makes such an emphasis on the importance of the fact that we must handle mammon in such a way that it's clear that we are serving not mammon but God he who is faithful in very little is faithful also in much and he who is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much if then you have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon who will entrust to you the true riches and if you have not been faithful in that which is another's who will give you that which is your own no servant can serve two masters for either he will hate the one and love the other or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other you cannot serve God and mammon the Pharisees who were lovers of money and they went to conventions all the time and talked about how God heard all this and they scoffed at him but he said to them you are those who justify yourselves before men but God knows your hearts for what is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God so we see Jesus watching the widow putting her two her little mite or two pence or whatever it was in the treasury of institutional Israel and he did not condemn her for it he honored her he was a good Samaritan he makes clear that the Samaritan not only spent time on that wounded Jew but money two pence which is the equivalent of two days wages in those days and is responsible if you spend more he says to the innkeeper when I come back I will repay you he keeps his commitment how many ministries are stunted because we are irresponsible in our use of money and how many ministries suffer because we allow ourselves to be deceived by money we think that money is the answer if we have more money we can do more good we start to beg for it we worry about it we put stock in it we think that money is our security we will not minister effectively with the finger of God my friends if we are irresponsible or if we are sucked in by money and begin to lust after it the third area if we are going to minister in the finger of God is the area of our temptation to anxiety about tomorrow there are two ways that you can face tomorrow one with anxiety which is natural to us two with faith in God one or the other when we are anxious about tomorrow then we start to worry about what we shall eat, what we shall drink what we're going to put on what's going to happen to us maybe I'll get sick maybe I'll have an automobile accident maybe I'll get caught in one of those tornadoes maybe there's going to be a war maybe who knows maybe all of it's going to happen the Lord doesn't promise us specific things about tomorrow other than that he will be there in tomorrow if we walk with him March 1976 you're going to have on the 5th of March not now but on the 5th of March 1976 what you need to face that day you're going to have if you walk with Jesus if we face tomorrow with anxiety if we don't see this as sin then our ministry evaporates but if we face tomorrow with the help of the Lord admitting our anxieties and fears to him and cry out to him to increase our faith in this area Lord I believe, help my unbelief and if we start to walk into tomorrow trusting him and throwing these anxieties out the window we go from strength to strength the next area that we have to be on our guard in if we're going to continue to minister with the finger of God is the area of a critical attitude and I speak as one who's been convicted of this and guilty of it probably the guiltiest in the whole room but one thing is for sure the Lord who says judge not and you will not be judged condemn not and you will not be condemned means what he says and that we can't possibly minister effectively if we're all full of that kind of thing we think of ourselves love to think of ourselves as Jesus' disciples but when we indulge in the habit of being cynical and critical and sour of everything we see that isn't connected with our own ego we put ourselves out of the ranks of the disciples and in the ranks of the scribes and Pharisees that was their thing why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye and fail to behold the log that is in your own eye take the log out first now for many of us when we go to somebody else's fellowship we just have no peace until we find something there that we can tear apart and for some of us it's simply a habit such a habit that we almost think that there's nothing to talk about at the dinner table unless we can find somebody to make fun of or rip up or tear apart or bicker about and for many of us it's an inner habit of thought we have something to get uptight about walking down the street going to a concert we're not happy until we find somebody we can belittle or something we can laugh at in a derogatory way but if we're going to minister in the finger of God this must change so that the mercy of the Lord that has been shown to us begins to color our attitude in this area for all people believers and unbelievers perhaps the most important of all is the area of the unforgiving heart again and again and again our Lord hammers home on this thing forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us forgive and you shall be forgiven if you don't forgive men their trespasses says Jesus neither will your Heavenly Father forgive you your trespasses don't argue with me argue with Jesus what is this gospel that we have Jesus what is the finger of God but the finger that lifts the guilt away from us puts it on himself and drives the evil away that's what the finger of God is how in the world can we effectively minister with that finger if we have closed the door of our own hearts to God's mercy by refusing to be forgiving toward one other soul no doubt this is the main reason why as Helen was saying God throws us together like this a whole bunch of nutty people with many different backgrounds in order that we might learn to be forgiving we're going to of course irritate each other and rub each other the wrong way and do all kinds of things that are going to try our patience and as we learn to do this we learn to forgive God doesn't send us off on all the roads of this world like lonely tzaddiks he sends us forth he sends us back to our own place and in this body we rub against each other and we learn to forgive and the more effective we become at forgiving one another the wrongs that are done to us or that we think have been done to us the more freely and mightily the grace of God flows out if we're walking around with a chip on our shoulder all the time how in the world can we turn around and bring life to somebody else and therefore shall they be your judges but if it is by the finger of God that I cast out demons then the kingdom of God has come upon you these signs will accompany those who believe in my name they will cast out demons they will speak with new tongues they will pick up serpents and if they drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt them they shall lay their hands on the sick and they shall recover and they went forth and preached everywhere while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message with signs that attended it God has already called us to this and he's already sending us out to do it and if we'll keep our hearts carefully fixed and watchful in these five areas we will go from strength to strength now if there are any among us who perhaps are hearing the call into this ministry today answer it let God touch you with his finger let God lift you up to the cross and merge you into the body of his son that you die and come up out of that tomb a new person and then let God send you forth to minister with his finger to the wounded broken, forgotten lonely, troubled hungry, thirsty souls that are on all sides of us all the time may God help us now to respond to the call in whatever way it comes to our own hearts let's pray deliver us heavenly father from justifying the marketplace of spiritual idleness when we have heard the call and deliver us heavenly father from justifying our own ineffectiveness when we have been given all we need to really bring light Lord God we pray that you so open our eyes that we can see the difference between all the twaddle that we occupy ourselves with and the meaningful and glorious and wondrous life and work that you've given us in this late hour equip your saints Lord God with everything needful and send them forth with glory and joy in their hearts to bring light to those who seek we ask it in Jesus name Amen