THEY SAID IT COULDN'T BE DONE

 
But Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

Matthew 19:26

Christianity is a religion of impossibilities! Consider the following impossibilities. God did the impossible when He –

◊ created the universe from nothing (Gen. 1:1; Psalm 33:6; Jn. 1:3);

◊ created life from none-life (Gen. 2:7; Job 33:4; Jn. 1:4);

◊ enabled an elderly barren woman to conceive and bear a son (Gen. 18:14; 21:1-2);

◊ revealed the future in verifiable and specific detail through His prophets (Jer. 25:13; 29:19; Amos 3:7; Acts 3:18);

◊ sent His eternal Son into the world by being born of a young virgin girl (Isa. 7:14; Mtt. 1:23; Lk. 1:23; Rev. 12:5);

◊ empowered the Christ to perform miracles of healing (Mtt. 4:23), resurrections (Mtt. 9:25; 11:5), food-provision (Mtt. 15:36);

◊ raised the Christ from the dead (Mtt. 28:7; 1Cor. 15:4);

◊ translated (ascended) the resurrected Christ back into the dimension of eternity (“Heaven”) (Jn. 20:17; Acts 1:9)

◊ sent the Holy Spirit into the earth to spiritually regenerate, gift, and empower those who surrender/ed to the Christ (Acts 1:8; 2:4; Eph. 5:18; 1Cor. 12:7);

◊ enabled the apostles of Christ to perform miracles similar to the Christ (Acts 6:3; 19:11);

◊ despite virulent and brutal attempts to destroy both the Church and the Scriptures, He has miraculously preserved both (Acts 6:7; Psalm 119:89).

He said to them, “Because of your little faith. For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed,
you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.”
Matthew 17:20

 

FOR THOSE WHO DARE TO DREAM

One of the first mobile phones in the 1990s was soon
likened to carrying ‘a brick’ around!

What was once thought of as impossible by one generation has frequently become common-place to the next generation because someone dared to dream and ask, “Why not?” In the mid-1990s, a young Bill Gates wrote a book entitled, The Road Ahead at a time when powerful computers filled entire rooms and personal computers were a novelty used for playing Space Invaders by those who didn’t have a book to read. In his book, Gates predicted that computing would soon be able to be done on a small hand-held device that could easily fit into your pocket and would be connected wirelessly to an invisible storage-“cloud” enabling users to access and retrieve enormous amounts of information instantly. He predicted that these hand-held computers would be integrated into mobile phones and would also enable identification (even national passports) and financial transactions to buy things without the need to carry credit-cards or cash. “Impossible!” Computer experts of the day scoffed at his brash and daring predictions. While Gates leveraged the resources of Microsoft to try and make it happen, and eventually developed a disappointing prototype, he was never able to achieve what he had forecasted in his book –

but that didn’t mean it was “impossible”! While Gates himself failed to fulfil his vision of what would later become known as a ‘smart phone’, another brash young computer engineer (Steve Jobs) took Gates’ vision and began to dream of a totally different way to merge the internet, a mobile phone, a music-player (“iPod”) and a computer, and thus, in 2007, the iPhone was introduced to the world — and what was once thought impossible has now become common-place. 

https://www.youtube.com/embed/MnrJzXM7a6o? 

  ‘THE PASSING OF THE IMPOSSIBLE’ BY F.W. BOREHAM

In 1914 F.W. Boreham marvelled at what was once thought impossible was now considered common-place. In writing in his weekly Hobart Mercury column (and later published by Epworth Press in a collection of essays called, Mountains In The Mist) he declared to his secular readers the position that Christians held about what constitutes the impossible – 

Of course we know, being the Christians that we are, that there is no such thing as an impossibility in the world or out of it. An impossibility is an impossibility. Impossibilities belong to the realm of mythology. They inhabit the same weird world as the brownies and the elves, the fairies and the ghouls. As serious and scientific and practical and believing men, we must frankly confess to ourselves that the very notion of an impossibility is, on the face of it, a ludicrous absurdity.
F.W. Boreham, The Passing of The Impossible, ‘Mountains In The Mist’, 1914, p. 38

When we consider the pace of change over the past one hundred years, it becomes apparent that what was considered impossible soon became common-place to the next generation. This applies not just to innovations such as the recent emergence of the iPhone, but also to previously ‘impossible’ human achievements including – the scaling of Mount Everest by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, breaking the four-minute mile by Roger Bannister, sending a manned spacecraft to the moon where Neil Armstrong and Buz Aldrin were able walk on the lunar surface, and while in 1910 the Men’s 50m freestyle world record was 86 seconds – in 2009, Brazilian, Caesar Cielo swam it in 20.91 seconds! And after Bjorn Borg had won 6 Roland Garros crowns (1974-1981), everyone thought it would be impossible for anyone to match that record, but last year (2020), Rafael Nadal won his 13th Roland Garros crown making him GOAT of clay court tennis after completing what most thought could never be done!

 

IMPOSSIBLE CHRISTIANITY!

It is assumed by many that modern Australia was first settled by the irreligious riff-raff of Britain’s over-crowded prisons. This is often the explanation given for how unChristian and unChurched Australians are why it would be impossible for Christianity to gain any traction in Australia. Added to this is the perception that the early Christian missionaries oppressed Aboriginal Australians who have then largely rejected Christianity. But consider the following challenges to these perceptions. In 1959, a young evangelist from the backwaters of North Carolina came to Australia to preach the gospel. When he arrived in Sydney, ten thousand people came out to hear him!

Even at night thousands of Sydney-siders braved the chill to come out to hear Billy Graham preach in the Sydney show-grounds on April 13th 1959

But it was when he came to Melbourne that something truly impossible happened! One hundred and thirty thousand people came to hear Billy Graham preach at the MCG!

Geoff Gawler was 10 when he saw Billy Graham at the MCG and says it changed his life.(ABC News: Jess Longbottom)

If Australians consider themselves irreligious, Tasmanians are a whole other level of irreligious. Take a tour of the Port Arthur historical site and you’ll gain an understanding why. But when Billy Graham came in York Park in April 1959, impossible as it was thought to be,17,000 people filled the stadium to hear the evangelist and, per-capita, more people than anywhere else in the world made a first-time commitment to Christ! 

“But that was then!” I hear you say? Consider then, that from this point churches around Australia began to experience extraordinary growth. A young returning missionary and his wife to Australia, Andrew and Lorraine Evans, took on a small church in Klemzig, Adelaide. Pastor Evans dared to believe that impossible is impossible and began praying for his church to grow extraordinarily. The church changed its name to Paradise Community Church (and is now called Influencers Church) and grew to be one of the first churches have a regular attendance of 2,000 people! But it kept growing and had a regular attendance of 6,000 before it established extra campuses around Adelaide to accommodate its growth. Meanwhile, around the same time, a young evangelist and his family moved to the pastorate of a church in Richmond, Victoria. This modest sized church of 150 attenders quickly grew to be a church of over 2,000 under the leadership of Pastor Phil Hills and planted around 200 churches around the perimeter of Melbourne! Today, “Richmond Temple” as it was known and today is known as Neuma Church has over 6,000 weekly attendees! Meanwhile, in Sydney, a young Brian Houston, planted a church in the Hills district of suburban Sydney and today that Sydney church has — what many people had always considered to be impossible — over 25,000 regular weekly attendees! In fact, I could mention churches in nearly each Australian capital city that now have attendances of over 10,000 people per week! Christianity impossible in Australia?  Think again. And time prevents me from documenting the many revivals and outpourings of the Holy Spirit on the Aboriginal communities of Australia resulting in an incredibly vibrant Christian Church among our First Nations peoples!

Now, there is one text among the great sayings of Jesus that I confess I never understood until very lately: ‘Verily, I say unto you, if ye have faith as a grain of mustard-seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove ; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.’ Now, I was so incredulous about the possibility of removing mountains that I had to see it done before I really and truly believed. I am writing in Tasmania. And here in Tasmania we have a mountain — Mount Lyell. And gradually a strange faith stole into the hearts of men. They believed that underneath Mount Lyell there was an abundance of copper. They suspected it. They investigated it. They believed it ! And when they really believed it, they actually said unto the mountain, ‘Remove hence into yonder place!’ They believed; they moved the mountain; and nothing was impossible to them. The men who drove the spectral impossibilities from the shadows of our civilization were great believers, all of them. Columbus did not believe in the new world because he discovered it; he discovered it because he first of all believed it…[And] The history of missions is one continuous story of the invasion of the impossible.
F.W. Boreham, The Passing of The Impossible, ‘Mountains In The Mist’, 1914, p. 44-45

 

THE GOD OF THE IMPOSSIBLE!

What often looks impossible today in the realms of technology, travel, power generation, medicine, and even church, often becomes common-place tomorrow. But it takes those who are prepared to dream and dare — despite their critics. I’m looking for people who are prepared to dream and dare with me. Our city of Launceston has many fine churches but it is yet to see what the God of the Impossible can do with a church that is prepared to dream and dare. When I read the closing book of the Bible I am captivated by the ‘dream’ of God to see people redeemed from every tribe, nation, and tongue that will eventually comprise a number so vast that no-one could possibly count them! (Rev. 7:9). This is God’s grand dare for the Church and I’m in on the dare! Perhaps we too could dream of a church made up of people from an many nations, tribes, and languages as possible! Perhaps we could dare to dream of a church so significant that hundreds come each Sunday just to find out for themselves what God is doing! And when the day comes — and the day will come — that such a church exists in our city of Launceston, Tasmania, we will remember that there many who said “It couldn’t be done!”

Your pastor,

Andrew

Let me know what you think below in the comment section and feel free to share this someone who might benefit from this Pastor’s Desk.

Some Problems Need Triaging Rather Than Solving

TRIAGING YOUR PROBLEMS

I was struck the other day when reading F.W. Boreham’s, WHEN SWANS FLY HIGH, as he discussed an apparently unsolvable problem he was facing, by his observation about many of life’s problems: “But the problem soon solved itself.” (p. 112) Shortly after reading this I was doing my morning devotions and had come to the story of Jehoshaphat in Second Chronicles where he too was faced with an overwhelming problem. But the gravity of his crisis and the urgency and enormity of its dire consequences if left unattended meant that this problem would never solve itself. If it is granted that some problems certainly do solve themselves, and it is similarly true that some other problems are solved by our diligence, there is surely yet another category of problems and King Jehoshaphat’s problem was definitely in this category.

Some men came and told Jehoshaphat, “A great multitude is coming against you from Edom, from beyond the sea; and, behold, they are in Hazazon-tamar” (that is, Engedi). Then Jehoshaphat was afraid…

Second Chronicles 20:2-3a

It is of course one of life’s guarantees: problems will happen. The late David Cartledge once said to me that the capacity of a person’s leadership was measured by the size of the problems they deal with. The bigger the problem, the bigger the leader needs to be to deal with it. If this be the case, as I think we can agree it probably is, then I shamefully confess that I have not always been a very big leader. Too often I have let relatively small problems fluster me. And because practice makes perfect I can testify on behalf of Dr. Boreham that many of life’s problems do indeed seem to solve themselves.

And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?

Matthew 6:27

But Jehoshaphat’s problem was never going to solve itself and, quite frankly, there will be a few problems you are confronted with that will never solve themselves and like King Jehoshaphat’s problem they will never be solved by our diligent efforts either.

Then Jehoshaphat was afraid and set his face to seek the LORD, and proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah.  And Judah assembled to seek help from the LORD; from all the cities of Judah they came to seek the LORD.

Second Chronicles 20:3-4

Some problems get worse if they are incorrectly assumed to be the type of problem that will solve themselves. The ancient masters of problem-solving all started by categorising problems into either of three categories (“triage”) :

(i) Problems that solve themselves,

(ii) Problems that are solved by diligent attention and efforts,

(iii) All other problems.

Distinguishing our problems into on of these categories is like triaging our problems. Jehoshaphat was quick to triage his problem into the third category. But how does anyone deal with a problem so big, so overwhelming, so grave that no amount of personal effort could ever resolve it? People we work, study, live with, face these type of problems and despair. The doctor tells a nervous mother the news that her young child will not be coming home today as they have found something concerning in the blood tests. A teenager has a moment of consciousness and feels a jolt of pain. The only thing they can recall about this day was driving off and looking at their phone after receiving a message. They then notice they can’t move their arms or legs and the shock takes over. A man drives home to his double-mortgaged house and wonders how he’s going to tell his wife that his business partner has fled after cleaning out their life-savings from all of their joint bank accounts. Yes, some of life’s problems are category (iii) problems! And Jehoshaphat gives anyone overwhelmed with Category (iii) problems a strategy for how they can be dealt with.

¶ And Jehoshaphat stood in the assembly of Judah and Jerusalem, in the house of the LORD, before the new court, and said, “O LORD, God of our fathers, are you not God in heaven? You rule over all the kingdoms of the nations. In your hand are power and might, so that none is able to withstand you.

Second Chronicles 20:5-6

I currently have problems in all three categories. My category (iii) problems at times overwhelm me. I take great heart from the way Jehoshaphat responded to his category (iii) problem. There is a lot to learn about leadership from this chapter of his life. As I consider how we as a church have to raise an additional $300,000 over the next six to nine months to fund our building extensions, I look to the principles this beleaguered King of Judah used for his overwhelming problem.

1. He led his people in worship of God in truth and didn’t try to solve his problem on his own. (2Chron. 20:4-6)
2. He reminded everyone of how God had provided what they needed in times past. (2Chron. 20:7)
3. He reminded God of His promises to them and prayed the Scriptures to God. (2Chron. 20:9)
4. He presented their precise need to God in prayer. (2Chron. 20:10-12)
5. He opened his heart and mind to God by heeding the voice of God. (2Chron. 20:14-17)
6. He led Judah in worship of God. (2Chron. 20:18)
7. He made the House of God and the worship of God a top priority by having the Levitical singers and musicians set the tone of each day. (2Chron. 20:19-21)
8. He then acted on what God’s Word said and waited for God to do what He promised. (2Chron. 20:22-30)

And the Spirit of the LORD came upon Jahaziel the son of Zechariah, son of Benaiah, son of Jeiel, son of Mattaniah, a Levite of the sons of Asaph, in the midst of the assembly.

Second Chronicles 20:14

No matter what number your problems can be categorised as, (i) (ii) or (iii), there is a God in heaven who longs for us to turn to Him in dependency with whatever need is overwhelming us. Your problems don’t need to be level (iii) before you can look to God to meet them. In fact, a great strategy for dealing with any problem is to ask for God’s help and do all we can within our resources, expertise and power to solve them. But there will be times when you have to tackle a category (iii) problem. When that time comes, remember King Jehoshaphat and what he did.

Then they returned, every man of Judah and Jerusalem, and Jehoshaphat at their head, returning to Jerusalem with joy, for the LORD had made them rejoice over their enemies. They came to Jerusalem with harps and lyres and trumpets, to the house of the LORD. And the fear of God came on all the kingdoms of the countries when they heard that the LORD had fought against the enemies of Israel. So the realm of Jehoshaphat was quiet, for his God gave him rest all around.

Second Chronicles 20:27-31

Amen.