In touch ministries ( Dr Charles Stanley)

0:00Hey, this is Strawberry One Click, Samary Anderson. Are y'all doing our day of today? I hope everybody is doing well. If you're not doing well, let's find a way to get well, but of course you already know it be well. Right now we are going to praise a little bit without the chores, Stanley. The first sermon I ever preached I was scared to death. And my mother came in my bedroom about a half an hour before I went to preach the first message and she turned to Joshua one nine. She said, here's the verse of Scripture. I believe God wanted me to tell you. Friend, I never memorized the verse of Scripture so fast in my life. As I memorized verse nine. And so that it's always, of course, been a very precious passage to me. So I want you to turn to Joshua, because Joshua had a terrible congregation. And you'll recall that in the first chapter of Joshua,

1:02I'm going to start reading and you catch up because we don't have much time. He came about after the death of Moses, the servant of the Lord, that the Lord spoke to Joshua, the son of none, Moses, servant, saying, Moses, my servant is dead. Now therefore rise across this Jordan. You and all this people to the land which I'm going to give to them the sons of Israel, verse three, every place on which the soul of your foot treads I have given it to you, just as I spoke to Moses from the wilderness and this Lebanon, even as far as the great river you freight tees, all the land of the hit tides, and as far as the great sea to the setting of the sun will be your territory. No man will be able to stand before you all the days of your life. Just as I have been with Moses, I will be with you. I will not fail you or forsake you. These strong and courageous for you shall be given or you shall give this people possession of the land which I swore to their fathers to give them. Now listen to these next verses.

2:02Only be strong and very courageous. Be careful to do according to all the law which Moses, my servant, commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right or to the left so that you may have success wherever you go. This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous and then you will have success. Have I not commanded you to be strong and courageous? Do not tremble or be dismayed for the Lord your God is with you, wherever you go. Now I believe that prayer has to be a priority in our pastoral leadership because of their very nature of the role of being a pastor. And you and I know that that role is absolutely impossible as far as people's expectations.

3:04You will be expected to be a great preacher, a great teacher, a great administrator, a great financier, a great leader among men, a great father, a great parent, a great husband. In fact, the expectations are absolutely beyond all comprehension. Plus the fact you will be expected to be available 24 hours a day, have well prepared sermons at least three times a week, stay healthy and strong, take one day off a week and relax and never be uptight. And so there is no way in the world to do that. But God has given to us a very simple principle in the Scripture. God knew a long time ago that you and I were going to have responsibility that was impossible. But he gave to Joshua a responsibility equally as impossible. And if you notice what he said in this passage, you made him some wonderful promises. Now listen to what he said to him.

4:05And I think there are three things here that you now need to understand about what God said to Joshua. Because when we think about our role, there are some things that are very important that you now understand about that. And first of all, is the clarity of our call. He said to Joshua, Moses is dead, you now have the responsibility of leading these people. Let me ask you a question. How absolutely certain are you that God has called you into the ministry? You'll never get that certainty any other place except on your knees before God. And let me tell you why it's so very important that you are absolutely unmistakably certain that God has called you to preach the gospel, to teach the gospel or whatever he's called you to do. Because there's going to be some battles in your life and there's going to be conflict. And friend, the one thing you don't want to be doing when the battle gets all heated up, you don't want to be on your knees trying to figure out, God, did you call me or not call me?

5:08Am I in the place of all of you or should I be somewhere else? Things get a little tough and the fellow says, I don't have to stay here. If he's not committed to God, he doesn't. I don't have to stay here. I can go somewhere else. And so what does he do? He looks around to greener pastures. And he finds a place over here so he asks someone to recommend him and so he recommends them. So he goes over there, what he finds out is this. What to him was a greener pasture? The pasture who was there had already turned brown. He's looking for something green somewhere else. And so what happens? Men just go from church to church, place the place looking for greener pasture, wherever God plants you, stay there until God moves you. But you see, if you're not certain that God has called you and that God has called you to that place, then when the going gets rough, you're going to want to get going and you're going to get out of God's will and you're going to live your life wondering, did I make a wrong turn back there in my life somewhere?

6:09And can God use me to the fullest of what he would do if I had been sure that I was in the Lord's will? So God gave to Joshua a very clear call. Joshua Moses is dead, you're the man, the man is on you. The second thing he told him in this passage is this. He said, be very strong and courageous, three times in those verses he said to the same thing. Be strong and courageous, be strong and courageous, be strong and courageous. And my friend, to be a leader today in the church, you've got to be strong and courageous. To be strong and courageous, how does the man become strong and courageous? By getting on his knees before God, listen and sensing his own helplessness before God. The more self-sufficient you feel, the greater your potential of disaster. Don't ever forget that because it is in helplessness that you and I are driven to our knees before God.

7:11And it is when we're all now knees crying out to him, God, show me what to do next. How do I lead this mutiny group of people whose attitudes and whose desires are not spiritual things? You say, I don't want to be past of a church like that. In fact, a student was overheard saying, when I get out of seminary, I don't want anybody bothering me. I just want to go somewhere I can just study and preach the gospel, well friend, that might have been true 200 years ago, but this is the world in which you and I live and that's not the way it's going to be. If God has called you to be a pastor, He's called you to be strong, courageous, tough, loving, and tender. That's the way it's got to be. You say, well, how in the world can you be that you can't, unless you learn to live on your knees before God? Helplessness is our greatest source of strength. And that's why I say to you, that prayer must not only be a priority in my personal life, it must be a priority in my pastoral leadership or I'm going to fail.

8:15He said, be strong and very courageous now. Why? Because God was bringing him down to one simple thing. Notice if you will what he says in verse 8. He says, this book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night so that what? You may be very careful to do according to all that is written in it. Now I just want to give you a simple illustration that I hope you'll not forget, and I want you to remember this very carefully. When I was coming along, I was about 16 years of age and I had only seen my grandfather twice in all of those years. I was going away to school and somehow I just had this feeling I needed to go talk to my granddad. So I did and I spent five days with him. And what I did for five days was to listen to him. He'd been a pinnacle of the whole of this preacher and evangelist for many, many years. So I just needed to listen. So of the four things that he told me in that week, all of which I realized later were God's way of setting the direction.

9:23Of setting the direction for my life. This one stood out above all the rest. He and I was sitting on the screen and back porch one day and we were just talking and he said, Charles, obey God. He said, if God tells you to run your head through a brick wall, you head for the wall and when you get there, God will make a hole for it. Now, that was my first response. But let me tell you what God said to me when my granddad said that. What he was saying is this, Charles obey God and then leave all the consequences of your obedience to him. He can handle it. Here's what it all boils down to. If you can settle this issue in your life, you will eliminate a lot of problems in leadership.

10:27You will eliminate an awful lot of personal frustration and anxiety in your life as a leader for God. And here's the principle. The bottom line in every single decision is this. What would God have me to do, period? Not what would God have me to do based on the following consequences, not even the issue? The bottom line is what would God have me to do? And if you make that the bottom line of your life and you commit yourself to be obedient to God and leave all the consequences to him, and that becomes a guiding principle in your life, I'm going to tell you, you're going to head toward the thickest, highest brick walls you've ever seen. And you will never bump your head because God will assume the responsibility of taking care of your obedience.

11:29God is still demonstrating his awesome power, but he's going to do it through men and women who willing to yield to him, kneel before him, acknowledge their helplessness. I'm simply saying this. You say, well, I can't think in terms like that. My friend, don't underestimate what God is going to do in your life. You have no earthly idea what your potential is this morning. And your potential for God is magnified in proportion to the time you spend on your knees before God. You say, I feel so inferior. I feel so inadequate, praise the Lord. That's your source of strength. Your sense of inadequacy, your sense of feeling that you are incapable of doing it. That's what drives a man to his knees and that's what brings him to the place that God can use him. You know what I did as soon as I became the pastor? One of my first prayers was, Lord, give me forty godly men who will trust you, praying men.

12:39Took it four years to happen, but he did it. Because I believe you have to be a strong leader and you need godly men and women around you. And if you're going to do that, you must take the leadership. I do not mean to be domineering, to be loving, yes, but you have to take place in leadership. Well, let me move on quickly. I've got one other thing I need to say. Oh, I can say this morning. First of all, I said in the area of pastor leadership, it's absolutely sent you that you be a man of prayer because of the nature of the role that you have. But secondly, because of the heaviness of the task, the heaviness of the task, you do get weary in the work of the Lord. Not weary because you're weary of God, but weary in the work of times. And let me just share with you one of my failures. 1977, I thought I had to do it all. I was preaching about six times a week, I had three television programs and on and on and on.

13:39And I knew that I had too much going. So I want to give you the little warning. I knew I had too much going. I knew that I was on this wheel I couldn't get off of. I wanted off. I couldn't get off. Too much responsibility, too many expectations that I had placed upon myself. And as I look back, I can realize I was doing a whole lot more working than I was praying. And I am sure that my failure was because I substituted service rather than time for God. I knew better. And I'm not too sure how I got into that mess, but I got into it. Finally, I got so tired I just couldn't do it anymore. I just couldn't go any further. And Dr. Stephen Overt came to see me and by his good grace and God's love and tenderness and care for me. Set me aside for three months. And for you think, well, I love three months break.

14:39Let me tell you what happened. I went to a lot of the five weeks that there was no cars, no telephones, nothing, everybody said, well, I love to be in a place like that. Not if you've been going 95 miles an hour and comes to a dead halt. No, you don't. My son and he took a court out of school and went with me just to be with me. Here I walked and talked and prayed and sang and cried. God took me one solid year to get over that. Three months out of the pulpit, but a year before I ever got over it. You know what happened? I brought it on myself. I can't blame anybody but me. I brought it on myself. And I was lying in the hospital thinking, Lord, how did I get in this mess? I know better than this. And the Lord showed me something that I want you to write down. I want to give you seven words. And you can write about anything you want today, but some place you better put them in your Bible because you're going to need them. Here's the way everybody's got a formula for success. I have a formula for failure. It's guaranteed failure in the ministry.

15:41This is it. The seven descending steps and the first one is prayerlessness. You get to visit a prayer, to visit a look to God, prayerlessness, second step down, burden bearing. You begin to feel the weight of the ministry. The third step is weariness. It begins to take its toll and you emotionally and physically. The fourth step is discouragement because no matter how hard you try, things just don't seem to work out too good. The next step is disillusionment. God, maybe you didn't call me. Maybe I'm not wear a ought to be. Maybe the minister is not all it's cracked up to be. Maybe the Bible is not really everything you say it is. Disillusionment. The next step is drop out. The next step is drop out or if not drop out, disobedience to God and from disobedience to drop out to disasstern your ministry.

16:54Prayerlessness, burden bearing. Burden bearing to weariness. Weariness, discouragement, disillusionment, disillusionment, the drop out to disasstern your ministry. My friend, you can stop that in any place. But I guarantee you, you can fail if you put prayer on the shelf somewhere and try to do it in your own strength. I want to encourage you this morning to build around your group of people who will pray for you. I have one lady in our church whose ministry is praying for me. That's it. She's in the prayer room in my study every Sunday morning praying for me while I'm preaching. And all the people downstairs praying while I'm preaching and you should find a group of people, teach them how to pray. What they become is they become the group of people that keep the load lifted off of you. The load gets very heavy and you think, well, I want to be the pastor of a big church. So you think you do. All you want is more problems, more heartaches and more burdens until you're able to raise up enough people to pray for you.

18:02Hudson Taylor said it so beautifully. I have it in big letters in front of my desk that I look at it every day. They're not a single care by cell. One is too much for thee. The work is mine and mine alone. I work to rest in me. Rather, I have to keep reading that over and over and over again, lest I find myself taking upon myself burdens and heartaches in the load of the ministry that will wear you down. If you're going to be a strong leader, you're far better off leading off your knees than leading off your feet. Because if you lead off your feet, not off your knees, somewhere out there, you're going to find yourself on that ladder. Prayerlessness, burden bearing, weariness, discouragement, and maybe ultimately a disaster. And I believe that many men who have made a disaster of their ministries that is exactly what's happened to them. Well, can you do less this morning than to make a commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ, to say to Him, Lord, from this moment on,

19:11My commitment is to obey you at any cost, and I choose to leave all the consequences of my obedience to you for the rest of my life.