Henry Blackaby
February 3, 1999
2:30 pm
Message Summary
"As goes God's people, so goes the redemption of the rest of the world," but God's people are too busy to do God's work, says Henry Blackaby in the first of his three messages on Experiencing God.
Blackaby, the author of the life-changing book Experiencing God, uses the life of Peter to reveal that God first seeks out the lost among His own people to use them to seek and save the lost of the world.
Even Christians in ministry may be lost to God's will, points out Blackaby. From Luke 5:1-11, he shows that while God is at work everywhere, many devout believers are so busy doing things for God that they do not have time to do God's work. He poses the question, "Are you in the middle of God's will?" and challenges believers to examine their lives and reconsider the direction of their efforts.
Blackaby urges Christians to stop giving God second best by living a life of religious duties. He entreats them to start imbibing the Scriptures and committing themselves to prayer, in order to discover God's will and find purpose, passion and direction in life.
If believes are willing to surrender everything to God, He will use them in a mighty, unexpected way, says Blackaby. So may believers' response to God's call in their life be: "Yes, Lord!"
Student Response
The business of life has kept me form giving God all that He deserves. Instead of surrendering my life to God and doing His work, I took my life into my own hands and asked God to help me accomplish my goals. God used this sermon as one of the ways to show me that if I want to find any satisfaction in this mortal existence, I need to turn the controls over to Him and start doing His will.
—Albena E. Gaydarova, Junior, Communications/Print Media major