"Spiritual Preparation for Kingdom Work" by Elisha Byler | CGS 2023

Lesson Transcript

So our next title is Spiritual Preparation for Kingdom Work, and this is a title, this is a topic that's very dear to my heart. For those of you who don't know me, I moved from Pennsylvania to Mexico 25 years ago, and I did not have much spiritual preparation for Kingdom Work. But the Lord's been working in my heart, and so I just want to share a little bit of what God has done in my life, and I want to inspire us, challenge us. I'm going to start out with a story.

Not far from my home in Indiana, just across the state line in Ohio, there lived an old woman who was the terror of all who had seen or heard of her. She was finally arrested and sent to the Columbus Penitentiary. She broke every law of the institution, and they exhausted every form of punishment upon her. Times without number, they had sent her to the dungeon, and for weeks at a time, she lived on bread and water. Finally, an old Quaker lady from the same part of the state asked permission to see her.

The prisoner was led into her presence with the chains upon her hands and feet. With downcast eyes, she sat before the Messenger of Christ.

The old Quaker lady simply said, "My sister." The old woman cursed her, and she said, "I love you." With another oath, she said, "No one loves me." But she came still nearer, and taking the sin-stained face in both her hands, she lifted it up and said, "I love you, and Christ loves you." She kissed her face, first upon one cheek and then upon the other, and she broke the woman's heart. Her tears began to flow like rain. She rose to her feet.

They took the chains off, and until the day of her death, they were never put on again. But like an angel of mercy, she went up and down the corridors of the prison, ministering to the ones of others. The Quaker lady had a spiritual river flowing out of her. There was grace that flowed out of the Quaker lady. Not much in that story about methodology, but there's a lot in there about spiritual preparation.

And so when I moved to Mexico, I began to share the gospel with people, and I just thought that if I could make them understand it, they would believe it. And they weren't listening, and they weren't accepting the gospel, and I thought, "I need to figure out how to make this more logical, to make them understand the plan of salvation." And finally, I just began to realize that it wasn't about logic. They needed the power of God to touch them.

And for the last 15 years, we've been working with indigenous people, the Taromata Indian people. Their worldview is so different than ours. They don't think logically many times, and what they need is the power of God to touch them. And there needs to be a flow from someone to them. And that's why I like that song, "Channels Only." All I can be is a channel through which God's grace can flow and touch people's lives. And that's what the world today needs. Appreciated the sermon that we just heard.

It's true that the times we are living in are so much different than the times that the Anabaptists lived in. But still, there are souls being saved, and I praise God for each soul that can be saved yet in these times that we're living in. So I have an agenda. I really want to see laborers sent out into the harvest fields of the world. And that's been a passion on my heart for a number of years, is to help other people get out into Kingdom Work.

I would like to see an army of laborers go out and reap the harvest fields of this world. But we need spiritual preparation. I've also seen people go as laborers and get burned out and lose out in the faith and go home defeated. I've seen that over and over and over, way too many times, people who were not spiritually prepared for Kingdom Work. And so we want to talk a little bit this morning about how we can be prepared.

So as a young man, I read a lot of biographies, missionary biographies, and biographies of heroes of the faith. And I used to go around telling people stories of the biographies that I had read. "Hey, did you ever hear of so-and-so and the great things that he did?" And one day, God just gently said to me, "That was great what those men did, but so what are you going to get done?" And so it's our turn to step up. We're in our generation, right? And this is our time to fight the good fight of faith.

A number of years ago, my mother passed away, and we were going through the stuff at the old home place, and we had a big burn pile. We were burning a bunch of junk. And one of the things that went on that burn pile was two great big signs that said Revival Meetings, and we burned those big signs. And I was just watching those signs go up in flames, and I was thinking, "Is the time of the Revival Meetings over?" And again, I felt like God spoke to me and said, "Yeah, the older generation are passing on.

It's your turn now. Now it's time for you to step up and do what you can in your generation." All right. It is a spiritual war, and it's a mortal combat. What is a mortal combat? It means we fight it out until somebody dies, right? And it's a mortal combat. The enemy wants to destroy our souls, and it's a fight for eternal life. All right. So some of you know that I have been interested in mission strategy, and so I'm not against strategy. I want to make sure that I make that clear right from the start.

I am not against strategy and planning. However, strategy and planning are not going to make it happen alone. We've got to be spiritually prepared for this great work that's before us. Okay. So I read the story of the Quaker lady. She didn't have strategy, but what did she have? She had a flow of the grace of God going through her life, and she touched one of the worst criminals in her area. I was thinking of Peter Waldo. He's also one of my heroes. Peter Waldo lived and died about 800 years ago.

That's a long time ago. Now, what do you suppose Peter Waldo must have done? What kind of a person was he? How did he live, and what was his character like that he left an impact and a legacy that 800 years later, we still know about Peter Waldo? I don't know if his strategy was so great, but there must have been a flow of God's grace in that man's life. In fact, people aren't even sure if his first name was Peter, but we know that he was a man of God. I was thinking of Hudson Taylor. I read about him recently.

The place that he lived in, in China, there was a lot of people. There was a dense population, and he didn't have a lot of time throughout the day for personal meditation and Bible reading and prayer. He was a busy man. And so what did Hudson Taylor do? He got up at 2 o'clock a.m. 2 a.m., he got up and spent an hour with the Lord every night. That man had the grace of God in him. Today, we still know about, everyone knows about Hudson Taylor. Was it his method, or was it the grace of God within him? E.M.

Bounds said, "God's plan is to make much of the man, far more of him than of anything else. Men are God's method. The church is looking for better methods. God is looking for better men." Or we could add women. So I decided to go through the life of Jesus and pick out a number of outstanding things from the life of Jesus that we can learn from. All right. So somehow we're missing the one slide here, but the first one that I had was his baptism in water and his baptism in the Holy Spirit.

That was where his ministry began. So the baptism in water, Jesus had nothing to repent of. He had never sinned. And so what did the baptism in water represent in Jesus' life? It represented an absolute public display of surrendering his own will and doing his Father's will. How many of you have ever come to an absolute, full, complete surrender before the Lord? That's where it all starts.

If you have never come to an absolute surrender in your life, then you are not prepared for any kind of Kingdom Work, very little. You've got to come to an absolute surrender before God. And that's a one-time thing, but it also has to be maintained day by day. Jesus said, "We must take up our cross daily and follow him." And so there has to be an absolute surrender in our lives.

And I would encourage each one of us to just, in a very real way, with your own mouth, tell the Lord, "I surrender," and then name off all the things that you want to surrender. Name off your I remember in my own life saying, "Lord, if you want me to end up in a wheelchair, I will be willing, and I will serve you joyfully. If you want to take my wife and every one of my children, if you want to take my money, if anything, my reputation." And I would encourage us.

We've got to come to an absolute, full surrender before the Lord. And then we have, as he came up out of the water, it says that the Spirit descended like a dove and filled him. We must be walking in that fullness of the filling of God's Holy Spirit. He has to be flowing through us. And there has to be a miraculous flow of God's grace coming through us to other people. And this was the cry of my life for many years, was to be filled with God.

And there's a passage in Luke 11 that really goes into this in more detail. I'm going to read Luke 11, verses 5 and down to verse 13. It says, "And he said to them, 'Which of you shall have a friend, and go to him at midnight, and say to him, 'Friend, lend me three loaves, for a friend of mine has come to me on his journey, and I have nothing to set before him.' And he will answer from within and say, 'Do not trouble me. The door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed.

I cannot rise and give to you.' I say to you, though he will not rise and give to him because he is his friend, yet because of his persistence, he will rise and give him as many as he needs. So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives, and he who seeks, finds, and to him who knocks, it will be opened. If a son asks for bread from any father among you, will he give him a stone?

Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent instead of a fish? Or if he asks for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him? So a friend of mine has come to me on his journey, and I have nothing to set before him. There are many friends that come to us on our journey through life, and we, in our own selves, have nothing to set before them.

I have no love for the heathen. I have no compassion. I have no grace to give the hurting and the depressed and the sinners, and I have nothing to give them in my own self, absolutely nothing. And so what do I need? I go to God and I say, "God, I need these three loaves." Jesus said, "I am the bread of life." The three, many times in scriptures, represents the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. This person is going to God, and he's saying, "God, I need you.

I want to be filled with God himself so that I have something to give to the people that I come in contact with on my journey through life." And he will answer from within and say, "Do not trouble me. The door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed. I cannot rise and give to you." All right. So does God not want to give us? When I began to really seek God, to really know God, and to really walk with God, this is what it felt like. It felt like God got further away. Did God get further away?

Was God not really happy with my request? We have to be tested. And God has to bring us to a place where we get desperate and we really, really seek the Lord. And as we get in that process of really being desperate and seeking God, God does a breaking work within us. He empties us of ourselves. I say to you, though he will not rise and give to him because he is his friend, I'm not some special friend of God. I'm not more special than anyone else. No.

Yet because of his persistence, he will rise and give him as many as he needs. Persistence is the key. Keep coming back and keep develop that habit of seeking God. Develop the habit of rising early and praying. Develop the habit of Bible reading and just seeking God's presence day by day, every day. That's what God wants. So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives. And he who seeks, finds.

And to him who knocks, it will be opened. Praise the Lord. We can come into the presence of our heavenly Father. And then in verse 13, "If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?" And the Holy Spirit in the scripture is compared to a wind, to a river, to fire. Wind cannot be wind unless there's movement. A river cannot be a river unless there's movement. If it ceases to flow, it becomes a pond.

The Holy Spirit needs to be flowing, flowing into us and flowing out through us. In Ezekiel, it talks about the river flowing out of the temple. And it says that everything will live wherever the river flows. But it says the swamps and the marshes will not be healed. A swamp or a marsh is where the river flows in, and it doesn't flow out. It just sits there. And when God flows into your life, you must let that flow out to this world. Praise the Lord. All right. Then we have the fasting in the desert.

And Jesus fasted 40 days, was tempted of Satan. I've never fasted 40 days. But I have done some fasting. And I have come to the conclusion that if we're going to be a vessel in God's hands, if we're going to be an effective kingdom worker, we will have to fast. That's part of it. We will have to fast. And so Luke 4:13 and 14 says, "Now when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time.

Then Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee, and news of him went out through all the surrounding region." He had to go through that. And we have to go through the testing also. We have to go through the desert, the temptation, the dry times. And after the testing, it says he returned in the power of the Spirit. And so yes, we need the infilling of God's presence, but that has to go through the time of testing. And that's part of the spiritual preparation, going through the time of testing.

So Jesus had regular prayer and Bible reading. How do we know that it was regular? Over and over, the Bible talks about Jesus' prayer life. And so Jesus prayed regularly. Years ago, the Lord laid on my heart the need to get up in the morning and spend at least a solid hour with the Lord in prayer and in Bible reading. And that actually changed my life. It transformed my life. There were people in the church that I would have attended that said that they don't have a regular devotional life.

They just read the Bible and pray when the Lord inspires them to do it. And they felt like regular prayer in the morning is maybe legalistic. Well, the Lord got a hold of me and showed me that I have to take the first hour of the day in prayer and Bible reading. And I am very convinced of that. How do we know that Jesus read the scriptures? People talk about the big scrolls they have, and they were in the synagogue and all of that. I don't know exactly how it was.

But when Jesus went into the synagogue, it says he stood up to read. And he found the place in Isaiah where it's written. He was familiar with the scriptures, and he was good at reading. That means he read the scriptures a lot. All right. Let's go to Galatians 5:22 and 23. This is the fruit of the Spirit. Galatians 5:22 and 23 says, "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

Against such there is no law." The last one there is what I want to talk about, the self-control. Now, self-control sounds like I'm controlling myself, right? But if it's a fruit of the Spirit, then he's doing it, right? So who's doing it? Am I controlling myself, or is he controlling me? Well, it's a combination. I make a firm decision to exercise self-control, but I don't have the power. And so he empowers me in self-control.

There has to be self-control in our lives if we're going to be an effective kingdom worker. We've got to develop habits of self-control in our lives. Payson says, "God gives his answers more to the habit than to the act of prayer." Sometimes we don't really pray very much, but then we come into a crisis, and then suddenly we want to pray through, and we want to find answers about something because now we have a crisis. But church, we've got to be praying and walking with God every day.

And when you are in the habit of prayer, you will find much more answers to prayer than when you just pray during a crisis moment. E.M. Bound says, "The men who have done the most for God in this world have been early on their knees. He who fritters away the early morning, its opportunity and freshness in other pursuits than seeking God, will make poor headway seeking him the rest of the day.

If God is not first in our thoughts and efforts in the morning, he will be in the last place the remainder of the day." You want to be prepared for kingdom work? Get up in the morning and spend the first hour or two with the Lord. And I don't really see any other way to really be a kingdom channel than that. And I know there are other people that have factory jobs and work in the night. And there's a lot of variation. But somehow we have to find our way in this habit of prayer.

David Brainard is another of my heroes. I read through most of the diary of David Brainard. John Wesley, in talking to the younger preachers, he told the younger preachers, he said, "If your zeal ever begins to grow cold, and you find there's just not as much zeal in your life anymore, and you just don't have that passion that you had at one time," he said, "just go back and read the diary of David Brainard." That was his advice. Anyway, so David Brainard, he was trying to work among the American Indian people.

And he would just pray and pray and pray. That's about all he did, was just pray. And he would spend whole days in prayer. And he would be in such intense intercession that his shirt would be soaked with sweat, just from the intense intercession. And after several years of that, the power of God came down in a very tremendous way. There was one lady that he said she was under terrible conviction of her sins. He said, "A half hour before that, he doesn't think she knew that she had a soul.

And God came down and was working." So Zig Ziglar says, "If you don't plan your time, someone else will help you waste it." Pretty true. Jim Ron says, "Success is nothing more than a few simple disciplines practiced every day, while failure is simply a few errors in judgment repeated every day." Spiritual preparation, a lot of it is just a repeated habit that you learn. That's not all of it, but that's a huge part of it. Now, this isn't Christian, but I think it's just a universal principle.

What we are, what we repeatedly do, excellence then is not an act, but a habit. I think there's a lot of truth in that. Next, we come to Calvary. And I'm not going to make a lot of comments on Calvary. Calvary is a very sacred thing that happened in the life of Jesus. But at Calvary, our Lord laid down his life. Our brother just got done telling us about the Anabaptists who also laid down their lives. We must be willing to lay down our lives. Jesus said that if we want to save our life, we'll lose it.

And whoever loses his life will save it. And if you're going to do if you're going to be effective in kingdom work, we've got to come to the place where your own personal life where our personal lives are completely on the altar, completely surrendered. We've got to give up our comforts. We've got to give up our reputation. We've got to give up our own will. There's got to be a death to ourself. We sing the song, The Old Rugged Cross.

And it talks about, "I will cling to the old rugged cross." What does it mean to cling to the cross, to embrace the cross? That means when you get into a hard time and you're called to once again die to yourself, that means you don't just hold your breath until you're through. That means you realize that this is for my good, and I embrace this situation, and I choose to let the Lord put to death my will and my desires.

Learn to embrace the cross, learn to give up everything, and to die, and to be willing to give up your physical life. Our reputation is one of the hardest things to give up. Have you ever come to the place where you had to just completely give up your whole reputation? That's not easy. But if we're going to be effective in kingdom work, I think every single one will have to go through the complete death of our reputation. That has to be in place. Next of all, we come to Gethsemane. All right.

We're missing some slides here, but that's all right. All right. Gethsemane. Now, here's something else that I don't understand. Our Lord went through Gethsemane, and it's beyond my ability to understand. But there's a few lessons that I think we can learn from Gethsemane. I just listened to a sermon recently by David Wilkerson called The Making of a Man of God. If you ever have an opportunity, I recommend that message. It's a very good message. And he talks about our cup of pain.

And he says, "Drink it." We've got to drink the cup of pain. And then he talks about our night of confusion. Let's go to Psalm 77. There was a time in my life where I was just in complete desperation to come into God's presence and to experience God and to be further prepared for his work. And I was up in the night just praying. I went out to the meeting house, and I was just walking around. And I had my hands up, and I was just crying out to God. And I opened my Bible up, and this is what I read.

I cried out to God with my voice, to God with my voice. And he gave ear to me. In the day of my trouble, I sought the Lord. My hand was stretched out in the night without ceasing. And it was like that just jumped off the page at me. It's like, "Well, wow, that's me." My soul refused to be comforted. I remembered God and was troubled. I complained, and my spirit was overwhelmed, Selah. You hold my eyelids open. I am so troubled that I cannot speak. I have considered the days of old, the years of ancient times.

I call to remembrance my song in the night. I meditate within my heart, and my spirit makes diligent search. Will the Lord cast off forever, and will he be favorable no more? Has his mercy ceased forever? Has his promise failed forevermore? Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has he in anger shut up his tender mercies? Selah. And I said, "This is my anguish. But I will remember the years of the right hand of the Most High. I will remember the works of the Lord. Surely, I will remember your wonders of old.

I will also meditate on all your work and talk of your deeds." We go through times where we don't feel God. We are tested, and we are brought through the fire or through the testing. And so what should be our response? The psalmist says, "This is my anguish, but I will remember." And so in those moments when we don't feel God, we remember the faithfulness of God in generations past. We remember the stories of the Bible and the stories of God's people throughout history.

And we stand by faith on those promises and on God's faithfulness in history. We remember the works of the Lord. And now let's go to Job. We have Job 23:8-10. Job 23:8-10. Look, I go forward, but he is not there, and backward, but I cannot perceive him. When he works on the left hand, I cannot behold him. When he turns to the right hand, I cannot see him. And so Job lost the sense of God's presence. He couldn't find God. He couldn't perceive God's presence. He couldn't feel God anymore. The feelings were all gone.

Verse 10. But he knows the way that I take. When he has tested me, I shall come forth as gold. Church, we must go through Gethsemane. We will face nights of confusion. And it's just normal. We must not think of a strange thing, the fiery trial which is to try us. Years ago, I went through a very difficult situation. And I told my wife, I said, "It feels like I went through a sausage machine." And just recently, I heard someone say a situation they had gone through. It felt like they went through a meat grinder.

Well, that's about the same thing, right? And God will take us through those situations. But church, we've got to go through them. We've got to go through and come out on the other side. And then it's what God in his word calls resurrection life. And that's the only thing that counts in God's economy is resurrection life. And that's what the world needs is for us to be a channel of that resurrection life. Let's read in 2 Corinthians 4:7-11. 2 Corinthians 4:7.

But we have this treasure in earth and vessels that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us. We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed. We are perplexed, but not in despair. Persecuted, but not forsaken. Struck down, but not destroyed. Always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus' sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.

This is what is going to build the kingdom, resurrection life. There has to be this daily maintaining this position of being dead to self and the life of Christ flowing through me. In God's economy, that's the only thing that has of any value. That's what is going to impact the world. I was thinking of Jacob. Jacob wrestled with the angel there at Panahel. And it says that the angel of the Lord touched his thigh, and it was out of joint. And from then on, Jacob limped. And I feel like I know something of that.

There's a place where God wounds us deeply enough that it leaves scars in our life. And we limp. But Jacob became a prince with God. Jesus had the nails driven into his hands and feet. And after his resurrection, the scars were still there. But he was resurrected, and he had a glorified body. And when we go through tough things, there's going to be scars left in our lives. But church, let's not focus on the scars. Let's live in that resurrection life of Jesus Christ. Many of us have been through church situations.

We've been scarred. We've gone through hard times. But we've got to find emotional healing. Jesus said in Luke 4 that he's come to heal the brokenhearted. I think there's people here that have a lot of emotional scars in their lives. I really believe that. It's something that's very common nowadays. Church, we've got to find healing for all of our emotional scars. Jesus came through Gethsemane and Calvary, and he found and he was resurrected and received a glorified body.

And spiritually, God wants to do that in our lives. And the fullness of that will take place on the other side in our glorified body. But for now, God does want to work healing in our lives. And if we're going to be an impact in this world, if we're going to plant churches, if we're going to evangelize people, if we're going to shepherd people, we've got to find healing. You can't shepherd someone if you're not healed of your emotional wounds. Praise the Lord. We must face and conquer pain.

We talked about the cup of pain. I feel like I don't know much about this at all. But I've experienced some emotional pain, not much physical pain. Some of you probably have much more experience with physical pain. But church, we've got to face it and conquer it and embrace it and go on and find God's grace. Rejection. I've gone through rejection and loss of reputation. And you have to come to the place where you don't grind an axe and you're not bitter and you're not going over all those things in your mind.

You've got to find healing through the grace and the power of God. Confusion. It's just part of it. When Jesus was in Gethsemane, there was a certain sense in which there were forces and there were things happening that were just like beyond his comprehension almost in a sense. And yet, he went through all of that. Apparent failure. And this is one that has been the Lord has been working in my heart. Isaiah 49. And let's start in verse 1. And this is a prophecy, to a certain extent, of Jesus.

And I don't know exactly what all is in this passage, but let's read Isaiah 49, verses 1 through 6. Listen, O coastlands, to me, and take heed, you peoples from afar. The Lord has called me from the womb. In my Bible, I have the New King James Version. That word, me, is capitalized. They are taking it as a prophecy of Jesus Christ. The Lord called me from the womb. From the matrix of my mother, he has made mention of my name. And he has made my mouth like a sharp sword. In the shadow of his hand, he has hidden me.

And made me a polished shaft. In his quiver, he has hidden me. And he said to me, "You are my servant, O Israel, in whom I will be glorified." And so perhaps it's also it includes more than just Jesus. It's also God's people, right? It talks about Israel, and I believe that in in in the dispensation that we're living in, that would include us. Verse 4. Then I said, "I have labored in vain. I have spent my strength for nothing and in vain.

Yet surely my just reward is with the Lord and my work with my God." How many of us have felt like we've poured our lives out in vain? We've tried to plant a church. We've tried to witness to someone. We've tried to do something in God's kingdom. And it feels like it's all been in vain. And there's like a death that happens in our lives. But now let's go to verse 5. And now the Lord says, "Who formed me from the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob back to him, so that Israel is gathered to him.

For I shall be glorious in the eyes of the Lord, and my God shall be my strength. Indeed, he says, 'It is too small a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the preserved of Israel. I will also give you as a light to the Gentiles that you should be my salvation to the ends of the earth.'" And I really believe that's a prophecy about Jesus. He did not just die for the Israelite people. He also died for the whole world.

And there are times in our lives where there is apparent failure. Give it to the Lord, and out of that, out of the ashes, God will bring resurrection life. So spiritual preparation for kingdom work. There is a lost and dying world out there. There are demonic powers. There's a mortal warfare to be involved in. And we must be prepared. Seek the Lord. Develop habits. Seek the Lord early in the morning, if at all possible. Let the Lord heal you. And it is exciting to be a part of God's kingdom.

It is exciting to be part of this work, part of this army of taking the gospel out. I really, really desire and I hope that God will bring many of us into a place of fruitfulness in his kingdom. I'd like to just pray yet, and then I'll turn the time back to the moderator. Let's pray. Father in heaven, we give you our lives. Thank you so much, Lord, for your word. Thank you for the example of our Lord Jesus Christ and the lessons we can learn from his life. And I pray, God, for each individual here in this room.

I pray, Lord, prepare us spiritually for the work of the kingdom. Lord, do a deep work within us and fill us and flow through us. Lord, it's so exciting to be a vessel in your hands, a vessel through which you can flow. And I pray, Lord God, make us fruitful in your kingdom. Bless us, O God. We worship you. We praise you in Jesus' name. Amen.