In Partnership with God
Let me begin today by saying that God Needs Nothing!
God is self existing, he is self sufficient, and he is self sustaining. He was, and is and evermore shall be. He dwells in Eternity past, in Eternity Present and in Eternity Future, – he does not live in time nor does he consider time, days or hours as we do. He takes counsel and advise from no one, he is not put under pressure by anything or anybody, he does not change his mind and in fact nothing about God ever changes – he cannot change.
(We call this his immutability) Nothing ever occurs to God, he doesn’t suddenly come up with a fresh idea. He is Omniscient (all knowledge – all knowing) he is Omnipresent (He is everywhere at one and the same time – and in both His eternity and in our time) He is Omnipotent (all powerful) – nothing beats God and nothing baffles him.
He flung the galaxies into space as sparks from the Anvil of his eternal words, including this planets galaxy, and he set time and space in “frames” with limitations beyond which they cannot pass. Everything He created, (and he created everything) he did so perfectly, without flaw or imperfection, and was well pleased calling it all “good”. Gen 1:25 He finished it all in 6 days and rested on the 7th day. These were both days of creation and days of formation, in which the Divine Architect both fashioned and framed the worlds. Hebrews 11:3
Yet in all of that which he had created, there stands out a remarkable fact, and it is to this fact that I wish to draw your attention today. GOD DECIDED TO NEED YOU? God decided to make himself a “partner” – to go into partnership, to co-operate, to co-own, to co-labour with another – and God made MAN! Genesis 2:7. God does not need our help, but God has chosen to use our help. God does not need our service, but God has chosen to use our service. God does not need Children, but he has chosen to make us his sons and daughters – Praise God.
He called the created man “Adam” meaning “taken from the Ground” and the first task he gave the man was to name the animals. Adam was a genius, obviously, because he had been created by a genius! God does not create idiots or dummies. Now I believe that there are many idiots and dummies around nowadays, some who would have us believe that we were all made Monkeys and evolved over time to what we are today, … but Darwin will never make a Monkey out of me. These idiots exist because unlike Adam, they reject the Logic, the Logos, the word of God, and favour human logic instead. (I simply cannot understand why men prefer their own counsel instead of their creators?) I know that God created a Genius in Adam, purely from the logic of stimulative conversation. God spent time conversing with Adam, so you don’t imagine that God would have created a numb-scull? God downloaded an intelligence into both Adam, and Eve (the woman that God created for him) that permitted them to be wise without the influences of schooling or normal parenting. (Remember that they were created “adults” not infants)
Now I don’t intend to dwell any more on Adam and Eve at this point – for my focus today needs to be on the PURPOSE for partnership rather than on Personalities. Yet it is important for me to point out to you here that God does nothing except that he does it in partnership with a person. That might shock you, so let me repeat it. God does nothing except that he does it in partnership with a person. This is a fact of Scripture. You can search the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, and apart from the Creative work itself, God always operates in co-operation with his creation – in partnership with man.
Some of the more knowledgeable amongst you may cite the occasion recorded in 1 Chronicles 21 & 2 Samuel 24 – when an Angel was sent from Heaven to destroy Jerusalem, but these records show us that it was David’s prayers, and his building of an alter that stayed Gods hand of Judgement. God co-operated with David at that time. The point I am making is that God chooses to partner with us, and today if you have trusted in Jesus as your Sin Bearer and Saviour, then God is your partner, God will work with you, but like the game of “Chess” while you may be waiting on God, God may be waiting on you, because it may be “YOUR MOVE NEXT”?
God is a “gentlemen” if its not his move, he can’t move!
God wants to partner with us, to share DOMINION, to share RESPONSIBILITY, and to help us OVERSEE our world, but most of us usually feel we have no partners, and no God on our side, and more often than not feel we walk alone? But the Devil is a liar, and God is for us, and God is with us and God
is in us. The reason we regularly feel alone is I believe, due to the fact that we have not been taught, not understood about partnership with God – about Partnership with the Divine.
Turn back if you will to 1 Samuel 17 and that familiar story of David and Goliath from which we read earlier in the service.
We should remember that long before David got anywhere near the battlefield, Goliath was taunting the armies of Israel daily and they were living in mortal fear of him and his company. David, unlike his brothers was not a soldier. He was a shepherd. He was responsible for his Father Jesse’s sheep on the hillsides around Bethlehem, and only went down to the battle with provisions for his brothers, with no intention of doing any of the things we see him doing in this chapter. But in verses 8 through 10, we discover something that Goliath said that is significant for us today in our understanding of Partnership? Something that stirred David’s heart?
Let us read again…
(8) And Goliath stood and cried unto the armies of Israel, and said unto them, Why are ye come out to set your battle in array? am not I a Philistine, and ye servants to Saul? choose you a man for you, and let him come down to me. (9) If he be able to fight with me, and to kill me, then will we be your servants: but if I prevail against him, and kill him, then shall ye be our servants, and serve us.
(10) And the Philistine said, I defy the armies of Israel this day; give me a man, that we may fight together.
We know of course that Goliath’s intentions were orchestrated by the Devil himself, for while the Devil knows that Spiritual warfare may be carried on in the heavenlies between his demons and heavens angels, … he also knows that physical warfare needs a man, and God needs a man. – So we have this challenge, “Choose a man – give me a man”. And God says
“I don’t have a man – but I have a boy” – Praise God.
Let me say a word or two to the boys who may be listening in today. God uses little people, and he makes big people out of them, because he’s a big God. God is not so much looking at your height, or your muscle, or your brains, or your brawn, –
as God is looking at your heart. If there is ever going to be any courage in your hand, it will be found first of all in your heart! God wants a “champions heart” like the one he had seen develop in young David. David was only a teen-ager at this time in his life, he was being mocked by the enemy without, and by his friends and brothers within Saul’s camp. They of course were only looking at the outside of the boy, his bandy legs, his thin arms, his breaking voice, they saw only his weaknesses, but Gods focus was on his strengths.
God saw a boy who was not afraid to tackle a Bear or a Lion that would come after a little Lamb. God saw a boy with inner strength to stand up for right against wrong, to stand on his own if need be, and to go forward with no hope, but the hope he had in God. Can God see this kind of Champion heart in you –
is there anything of David in you?
Without doubt, God could have sent a bolt of lightning from the throne room of Heaven that would have pinned Goliaths brains to the ground and fried them like sausage at the same time – but he didn’t. God would kill the Giant, but David would throw the stone. God didn’t need David, but God chose to need David. God does not need you, but he has chosen to need you. You will do the natural, He will do the supernatural.
You will open your mouth to speak, he will fill it with the right words. God has a mouth, but he needs your mouth.
David slung the stone, but God put it in the giants forehead. Moses lifted the Rod, but God parted the Seas. Jesus broke the loaves and fishes, but God gave the increase and the miracle.
Yes, even Jesus became a man, to partner with God in our Redemption and in our Salvation. ( Imagine for a moment if
you will this conversation in heaven. ) When our world was without hope, lost and dead in trespasses and sin, when the first Adam brought shame and blame on us all, God said,
“I need a man” –
But the Devil said, you have no man, you have only Jesus?
And God said: I’ll make him a man – and He did.
“And the word became flesh and dwelt amongst us and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth” John 1:14.
Jesus became Gods man for me and for you. Thank God.
And we can partner with God through the person of Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit makes Jesus real, a reality to us. Jesus is not merely a name in a book, he is a living person, alive – how do I know it? – because He lives within my heart! – and today he is anxious to live in yours also.
So the question facing us at this juncture is …
HAVE YOU DECIDED TO NEED GOD?
God wants you, but do you want God? The choice is yours. God will not invade your life, God will not push in where he is not welcome. God seeks to find you, he seeks to fellowship with you, seeks to save you, seeks to favour you, seeks to heal you and to help you, but if you reject him, turn your back on God, he cannot force you to love him, no more than I could force you to love me? And furthermore, God won’t send you to Hell if you don’t? God did not make Hell for us, he made Hell for the Devil and his angels. The only way that a man or woman, a boy or girl will end up in Hell, will be by rejecting God, and rejecting the Love of God. The choice is yours!
Can you see that you NEED to partner with God today?
Don’t you need him in your marriage, need him in your finances, need him in your business, need him in your relationships, don’t you need him in your future?
What future can you promise yourself without him, since he holds in his hands the very air you breath?
Now thankfully many of you listening have decided to partner with God and have chosen that path of faith and fellowship with Jesus Christ as your Saviour and Friend. To you I make three more comments, which are important for your spiritual growth and well-being.
First of all, in this partnership, GOD IS NEVER GOING TO DO YOUR PART. In this partnership, God has his role, and you and I have our roles. They are not the same, nor are they at any time interchangeable. We must discover and uncover our part, then do what we can do, and at the same time rely on God our partner, to do what we cannot do. We do the possible, he does the impossible. We must face up to the things that are our responsibilities, even to the things we don’t like to do, or don’t want to do. Even the Queens and the Prime Ministers and the Presidents all must carry out functions and duties that they don’t like. I heard of a young woman who was having a baby – in her prayers, she was overheard saying “Lord” I am going to need some help changing the nappies, the diapers,” to which the Lord speedily directed her to the text in Malachi 3:v6 “I am the Lord – I change not” Don’t EVER expect God to do your part.
Secondly, YOUR PART IS NEVER SUPERNATURAL.
Now I speak often at great length about living in the supernatural, and in the miraculous and while that is both expected and exciting it is not WE who can do the miracles, but HE! We can live in witness to them, and also as benefactors of them, but our part is to do what we can, and his part is to do what He can. Thank God that we are partners with HIM. Just to think of it, … Partnership with the Divine in everything I do, …it is mind boggling, mind blowing, but can be true if you want it and believe for it.
As we‘ve seen: David had the stone, but God had the shot.
Let me share with you something that happened just two weeks ago in this very studio during this very broadcast. Since New Year I had been struggling with a persistent chesty cough and was unable to broadcast live on 29th December. The only time in 6 years that I have missed a live broadcast. Thankfully, the cough left me within a week, but returned to trouble me on the Sunday morning of the 19th last. Prior to the broadcast I told the Lord that unless he gave me a miracle I could not preach nor even pray on air. Before leaving home, I asked him to enable me to do it without a cough… and I arose from my knees saying “I shall not cough on air”.
I arrived here coughing, I spoke with my co-presenter Frida coughing, I coughed during every hymn, and musical item – but at no time, in Prayers, Readings or Sermon did I cough or feel the need to cough. I did my part, and God did his part. As you know I walk in the miraculous, but that is always
HIS Part.
Finally, YOUR PART IS ALWAYS FIRST.
That may seem a little “unfair” but let me explain.
Speaking of those who believe, Jesus says in Mark 16:18 “They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover. “ Jesus did not say that the sick shall recover and we shall lay hands on them, he said if we do our part, “lay hands on them” he will do his part “they shall recover”.
So we must make the first move – its your move my friend!
Yet many of you are finding a multitude of excuses today for your inactivity and lack of any real service or effort in the things of God. Some will argue that they do not understand Gods word, or that they see too many contradictions.
Let me say that Gods word has no contradictions, but many believers are full of contradictions. If you don’t understand the Scriptures, its not that there is any contradiction or anything misleading, it is simply that you don’t understand.
Don’t be afraid to admit you don’t know if you don’t know.
Others have excuses that involve their families, or their age, or their health, or their abilities or their gifting, but I have discovered that the greater majority of excuses used in the Church for inactivity, (and believe me I have heard them all over the last 40 years) – they come directly from the Devil himself. He is a liar, and sometimes a very convincing liar. I am grateful to Teresa Conlon from Times Square Church in New York who says, “The Devil is all mouth – shut him up and you shut him down”! (I like that.)
That’s what you and I need to do, its time we shut the Devil up and shut down much of what he’s been doing in our world. It is time to come against the evils that have destroyed our home and family life, destroyed our children’s childhoods, destroyed our mental attitudes, destroyed our dreams and visions, destroyed our hopes and ambitions – time to come against these Hellish and Deceptive evils in the name of Jesus and take them down and take them out. We must counter the negativity around us, the pessimism, some even within the Church, the defeatism and weariness that has gripped so many. Its all from Hell and we must attack it. No weapon formed against us can prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against us in judgment God shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD, and our righteousness is in Jesus, says the LORD. Isaiah 54:17
If God be for us who can be against us? If God be with us -partner with us, who can stand against him?
NOW THIS FINAL WORD.
Dr. H. C. Mason tells of the man who in a prayer meeting prayed earnestly that God would with His finger touch a certain man. Suddenly he stopped his prayer. The Pastor asked him, “Why did you change your prayer?” He replied, “Because God suddenly said to me, `You are My finger.’ So now I must go
and touch the man for God.”
Prayer for God’s dealings with men is fundamental. If we do not wait on Him before we do any task, we shall be as the nine disciples who could not cast one demon out of the boy. But with the prayer must be our willingness to go at Gods bidding.
Some do not pray with a real sincerity for those who need God. Some pray but do not go. God would have us pray and go!
God needs your finger … That’s Partnership.
God Bless You. Amen