“The God of the Impossible” Part One

Transcript of message from TV Broadcast 907 -- taken from Closed Captioning Text

-- Brother Phil Enlow: I’ve continued to have thoughts in my mind that are very much along the lines with what was shared and discussed a good deal in our prayer meeting on Friday night. We had a wonderful meeting and it was a good deal of sharing--very profitable--very peaceable spirit. And I appreciate the Lord’s faithfulness to us--to help us, and to encourage us.

But I’d like to start with the story of the rich young ruler, the rich young man it calls it in this translation in verse 17 of Mark, chapter 10, because I believe it kind of leads into what I have on my mind. “As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. Good teacher, he asked, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” (NIV).

Now of course, his question betrayed his thinking, didn’t it? He said what must I do? And in his mind there was a legalistic concept of…God lays out His requirements, I fulfill them, thereby He accepts me if I fulfill them. And so he felt like he’d been a very zealous, religious man, zealous to do whatever he felt God required, and so he just wanted to know, what else do I lack. I’ve heard you talking about this thing called eternal life. I don’t know about that, but I sure want it. And so just tell me what I’ve got to do. And that’s kind of where he was at.

But Jesus right away wanted to get something straight. “Jesus answered. No one is good--except God alone.” Let’s not talk about goodness…let’s not connect goodness with being human. They don’t go together. “You know the commandments: Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, do not defraud, honor your father and mother. Teacher, he declared, all these I have kept since I was a boy. Jesus looked at him and loved him.”

So there was no looking down His nose at this guy, was there? I believe that’s the spirit of Jesus towards anyone. There is something in Him, the very nature of God, the very love of God that reaches out to us in spite of our need, in spite of what we are. So don’t you ever feel based on what you are that God despises you and looks down on you. There is a love that reaches out that would rescue. He didn’t come, Jesus said, to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. That was His aim in everything that He did and said. So He looked at him and loved him.

It says, “One thing you lack, he said. Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me. At this the man's face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth. Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God! The disciples were amazed at his words.”

See, they were brought up in the Jews religion. They had the same kind of legalism in their own thinking. And I know that they were…they looked at this situation with amazement as you can see as it develops. You know, if this guy is not a candidate, who is?

“The disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said again, Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel…” Now it’s interesting...oh yeah, ‘those who trusted in riches’ is in some manuscripts, but not necessarily in this particular one. “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. The disciples were even more amazed, and said to each other, Who then can be saved?”

I mean, this to them was the ultimate candidate for the kingdom of God…a guy who had devoted his life to living by the commandments, pleasing God, comes to the One he understands represents the truth of God and says, what do I have to do? And that one little thing tripped him up. Who then can be saved--who then can be saved? If this guy can’t be saved, who then can be?

Now this is the key here. “Jesus looked at them and said, With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God.” Now this is not just a salvation issue as we think of that, that is, just a matter of how you enter the kingdom of God. It certainly is that. But look at the situation of this man. This man had done all of these things in his life. He had produced what the Jews considered to be righteousness in his life by obeying external commandments.

But Jesus was looking for something, and God is looking for something a lot more than just simply modifying our behavior to conform to an external righteous standard. When Jesus looked at the religious leaders and warned others about them, He said they were like whited graves, sepulchers. They had learned how to polish up the outside and make it look good, but what was inside was terrible. It was corruption. It was full of dead men’s bones and all…every evil thing. And it’s very evident from all that He said and all that He ministered that He was looking for a lot more from us than simple external righteousness.

The problem with this guy is that he was able to do all these things that he said…just natural human ability enabled him to conform outwardly to what was supposed to happen. But God was interested in the heart and He put his finger on the thing, the issue that had that man’s heart wrapped in chains, and he was not able to let that go, because, you see, he’s trying to come at this with human ability. What do I have to do, based upon my own ability, to get God to accept me?

And that’s the problem with every human being. It’s not hard to conform to many things if you’re just laying out rules to live by. But oh, there are so many things that are buried down in here that are so integral to what we are and the way we think. The hold of sin is so great down in here that we are totally unable to do anything about it and that is why this whole thing is called salvation.

And…first of all, the sinner who’s never come to faith needs to understand God is not looking for you to modify your life through your own strength, cleaning yourself up and then saying, here I am, God, accept me. And many times that’s what the message of life sounds like to an unbeliever. The devil has a way of twisting it around into something you have to do to somehow measure up to God’s standard and Jesus’ word is…and He used this circumstance to really drive this point home to the disciples…this is impossible. God knows that it’s impossible with you! That is why He has come offering salvation and saying, yes, it’s impossible for you, but it is possible with God. Everything that you see about you that is impossible for you to change is possible with God, and I’ll tell you that has implications for me as a believer.

( congregational amens ).

And that’s what’s really had my attention the last few days. How easy is it for us to settle into a life where we say, oh it’s wonderful to be free! Glory to God, I’m free, I’m happy, I’m rejoicing! And there are things in our lives that, yes, we have been able to straighten up and we can…we can put on a pretty good…I was gonna say imitation…a pretty good image of living for God and all that.

But there is not a soul in this building who does not have issues down in here, strongholds of the enemy, things that have come…you have come to accept, whether you admit it or not as, well, that’s impossible. And truth of the matter is, you’re right. If it’s a matter of you trying to fix what’s broken in your heart and your life, it is impossible! But oh how easy is it for us to settle there and accept that and just…well, that’s the way it is. And God is wanting to let us know that everything that is impossible to you is possible with God, as long as we sit there and say, I will never change. This thing has too deep a hold in my heart. I just cannot change this. I cannot fix it no matter how hard I try. It just never changes, so I guess that’s they way it’s gonna be.

And I will not ask for a show of hands on how many who know the Lord and walk with the Lord for many years are in that place with respect to something and often times many somethings in your life. Well I certainly would be the first to raise my hand, probably twice, because that’s the way it is, so long as we are striving and struggling to do it ourselves. But if Jesus’ words are to be believed--and I think they are--these things that are impossible with us are possible with God. And the danger is that somebody comes to Christ and they are genuinely born again, but now God’s purpose begins to unfold in our lives and His purpose is…what is His purpose?

( congregation inaudible ).

To change us into the image of His Son! There is a transformation with a goal in mind that when we’re done, we’re gonna be like Him. That’s what John says in 1st John, chapter 3. “We know that when he appears, we shall be like him.” Now I can guarantee you that when that is fulfilled in me and in you, it will not be because we have somehow in the energy of our own strength and our own faith, our own whatever…faith in ourself…our own ability, have somehow brought that to pass. God is gonna have to do what needs doing in my life, or it ain’t gonna happen.

But oh, I’ll tell you what, God has been talking to me and, you know it’s always a challenge to want to preach something like this because I’m so far short myself. But what is impossible with me, is possible with God. What is impossible with you, is possible with God. And I think many of us are stuck in many areas of our lives for the lack of this simple truth, that we have come to believe. Whether we say it or not, we have come to believe that this or that thing is just an impossible situation and we’re gonna just have to just live with it. Well I believe the Lord is here to say, that ain’t so. God has declared that what is impossible with you is possible with God.

And I’ve…we’ve likened this many times, I think in the past, to the conquest of the land by the Israelites. And of course, we know that God’s not interested in geography and earthly territory, this earth’s gonna burn up anyway. This [pointing to heart] is the territory we need to be concerned about conquering. This is all we can handle right here. You don’t have to worry about straightening somebody else out. You’ve got somebody that’s a whole lot worse than the one you’re trying to straighten out that you look at when you look in the mirror…that you see when you look in the mirror.

But I’ll tell you what God is wanting us to learn the same lesson that they learned in a measure when they conquered the land. Because the Lord sent them up against people who were greater and stronger and taller and mightier than they were, and they were living in tents and the people they were going up against were living in walled cities. Are there places in your life that seem like walled cities with giants living inside? Yeah. But that’s what the Lord sent His people up against.

But He said, I’m gonna go with you. You listen to Me. You do what I say, when I say it, and I will be with you, and they will not be able to stand against you. And so they began at Jericho and went on and began to conquer the land. But you know the conquest of the land was not something where they simply marched in, said, we’re here, leave now. There was not [a] quick, easy button to push. They had some fighting to do, didn’t they? They had to actually obey the Lord. They had to actually go with an expectation that they were going to triumph because God was with them.

Now think about what I just said in relation to what we deal with in our own hearts. How many times do we sort of “swat” at our problems, but with a sense of defeat before we ever start? God help us. God help me. God wants to minister to us a faith that when we undertake battles that He has laid before us, victory is possible!

Now that doesn’t mean it happens without fighting, without our doing anything. They didn’t just lay and sleep in their tents and get up and the giants were gone. They had to be willing to take up a sword, but there was in their spirit, in their heart, in their understanding, there was an expectation of God going before them and making the difference in the battle. It didn’t mean the battle was going to be a five minute affair. Sometimes it took a long time. There was years…the conquest of the land took years, but they did conquer it.

In one case, of course we have the case of Caleb. What was he? 80 years old when he got to the land? He said, I’m as strong today as I was before. Give me my land, I’m going in. And he had one of the most difficult places. It was a stronghold, a fortress where giants lived. I mean this was a castle. They were behind walls and he was just out there. But God gave him the victory and he was able to share with others. He had springs of water to give to his kinfolk, because he believed God.

He said, God…it doesn’t matter, the circumstances, the difficulty I face does not matter. What matters is what God has said. Which am I going to believe? Which am I going to go by? Am I going to go by my own sense of futility, looking at my own natural resources, or am I gonna say, God has sent me…has given me this…it’s mine and I’m gonna take it? It doesn’t matter if the battle lasts five minutes or five years, or what! I’m going in and God is gonna be with me and I refuse to look at any other circumstance. I’m going in. And God backed him up.

I’ll tell you, there’s a lot of unbelief that wants to rise up when you talk about something like this, isn’t there? That’s why this is needed. I need this. We need to take a fresh look at where we’re at, the places where we’re stuck, and begin to look at our circumstance with a different eye, with a different sense of vision. Does God intend for us to stay where we’re at spiritually until He comes? No, He doesn’t. And it’s awful easy for us to paper over these areas in our lives with activity. I’ll pray more. I’ll do this…you know we get ourselves real busy, but it never gets down to the root issues.

You know one of the comments that was made. I think it was Brian, I’m not sure. There were so many that were good, but was the simple fact that we need to be honest. We are not very honest many times when it comes to what’s really going on in our lives. And there are so many issues that bind us, that hinder us, that drag us like weights in our lives, that God wants to set His people free from!

And so many times what we do without being conscious of it, we approach the things that the Lord would put His finger on in our lives the same way this rich young ruler approached the problem of his riches. That was an issue that had his life locked down. He was captive of Satan in that area. He just…his affections, everything…it wasn’t just, I can’t do this. It was a ‘will’ problem.

Is that your problem? It is mine in areas. There’s areas where I’ve got a problem with more than just the ability to do something, I’m not even sure I want to sometimes. Are you honest enough to admit that that’s a problem sometimes? God help us. But do you know something? There’s a wonderful scripture in Philippians that talks about working out our salvation. And of course that’s not ‘for’, it’s working ‘out’, it’s the working out of something God has given to us. That means putting it into effect. What He did at the cross is all we will ever need. It’s done. It’s history. He has given a full and a complete salvation, but there has to be an outworking of that.

Return to Transcripts Page

---

---