As all of my preaching opportunities are as a visiting preacher, one concern that I have is am I preaching what the Lord desires for the church. I have just finished preaching in three different churches, in as many months, and have experienced an amazing confirmation that the message was exactly what the Lord wanted for that church and at that time.
I preached basically the same message in all three churches. It was a discussion of forgiveness from Mt 18:23-35, the parable of the wicked servant or, as I prefer to title it, the parable of the merciful king.
The Message
The message is simple, we are like the first servant with a mountain of debt owed to the king. In fact, it’s 200,000 work years worth of debt. We are also like the first servant in that we live trying to dig ourselves out of our own problems and in reality only dig ourselves in deeper. Our final similarity is that the first servant received undeserved and unrequested grace and mercy from the king in the cancellation of his debt, and we have received the same if we have trusted in Jesus for our salvation.
The servant failed to appreciate what was done for him and went out attacking another servant for a meager amount owed him – it was like 4 or 5 months of pay, which is nothing compared to 200,000 years he owed the king. When the king learned of what the servant had done he had the servant dragged back in before him and, because the servant should have forgiven his fellow servant as he had been forgiven, the king sent him to jail to be tortured until all the debt was paid off.
Jesus closes the parable with a strong warning, ““This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.” Mt 18:35
The Confirmation
The first church I preached this message at was at the church we attend in Comayagua. The pastor had invited me to preach on that date about a six weeks prior. The message was well received and the pastor would like me to preach it to a group of youth leaders in Tegucigalpa. That’s nice but I would not necessarily look at that as confirmation from the Lord. The week after I preached, there was a group in from the states visiting the church and the guest preacher also preached on the very same passage with most of the same points.
I had also been invited to preach at a church in El Coquito where we have been working. We changed the date twice and so ended up preaching about a month after the Comayagua church. The message went fine and afterwards the pastor told me that on Friday they had an event in the church where a man from the congregation had come forward during the service saying that the Lord had told him two women in the church needed to forgive each other. This man is new to the community and so does not know the history of the people in the church. He named the two women and it turned out that they both had previously dealt in witchcraft and that they indeed needed forgiveness but were unwilling. They had a guest preaching on Saturday and he preached on… forgiveness. I came in on Sunday and preached on forgiveness. The pastor was very happy and very thankful for the message.
Finally, we joined a team from the US that came down to serve at an orphanage we have been going to since 2007. I was invited to preach and gave my message on forgiveness. Another man who had come with the team had been invited to share a message for the Wednesday service and his message that he prepared before coming to Honduras… forgiveness from Mt 18!
The Movement of the Spirit
For me these three separate events that ended up with similar results is very encouraging for our life in the Spirit. I had not asked for confirmation that what I was preaching was the desire of the Lord for the church, but it was the concern on my heart. I absolutely marvel at how God was working, coordinating events across time and space, to bring the messages together. The pastors at the two churches and the staff at the orphanage all clearly saw how this was of the Lord!
God is working in ways we can not imagine. We are too limited to even ask for what God already has in store for us.
For those of us who have been cleansed by the blood of Christ, God has become our heavenly Father, and His love and hope for us is that of a father for his child. He has gone before us to lay down our path with opportunities crafted for us and to glorify Him. He waits and He hopes that we will put aside our own desires to discover the treasures He has placed in our path!!
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Eph 2:8-10
While I praise the Lord the confirmation of the messages, I will not be looking for amazing confirmations in the future as it is enough to trust in the Lord and that His Word will accomplish His will.
So is my word that goes out from my mouth:
It will not return to me empty,
but will accomplish what I desire
and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.
Isaiah 55:11
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