Influence is one of the greatest gifts we have been given. This is a commodity often bought and sold, however real and eternal influence is of unspeakable value. It is more than a recommendation or a sales pitch, but it is the monument that our lives represent. What we are and what we do that still stands when they lay our cold bodies in the grave.
The lives we have touched, the burdens we have shared, the prayers we have prayed, the friends we have made, the children we have brought into this world, they all are stones of the monument built by our influence.
God uses the persistence and integrity of men to open and close doors of blessings and curses upon others. Righteousness and wickedness bears its fruit in the lives of those that surround them that sow the seeds of both. We have all been impacted by the evil deeds of others, just as we have been showered in the blessings from righteous souls we have been blessed to be around.
The Law of Unintended Consequences
Like dominoes falling, the things we do lead to a progression, for there are things that follow other things. That is why some of us sit here today and others are marking time in a prison cell. One thing leads to another.
The Power that rests in the bosom of One Person. The power found in the choices of one man.
THE POWER OF ONE MAN
ONE: ADAM.
- One man sinned and from this one choice we see a world that death reigns in response to this one mans rebellion.
TWO: ABRAHAM.
- One mans act of simple faith caused every proceeding generation of God fearing people to have his spiritual DNA imprint on their faith.
- What enabled Abraham to relinquish his security, his soil and his son in route to retirement?
THREE: JACOB.
- Jacob, the action of one man opened the door for his family to be more than a tribe but a nation and later became the very ground from which Christ would spring.
FOUR: JOSEPH.
- The reverberating effects of one man saved a family, saved a nation, and saved the world. Who would have known when Rachel, Jacobs wife, finally had a son, that this little seemingly spoiled brat would become someone of such consequence.
- Just one among 10 other brothers. The youngest at the time. Who would have thought that this one PERSON would change the history of the World.
- His dreams
- His brothers
- The Betrayal
- The Pit
- The Lie
- The Prison
- Being forgotten
- How could someone who was so low ever amount to anything?
- What enabled Joseph to stay steady from the pit to the prison to the palace?
FIVE: CHRIST. THE POWER OF ONE MAN
- We could see this example repeated in the life of Christ.
- What was the last act Jesus did, there hanging on a cross, bleeding, thirsty, naked, in unspeakable pain and
- shame, watching his mother see him suffer.
- FATHER FORGIVE THEM.
- FOR THEY KNOW NOT WHAT THEY DO!!
- You can doom others in your unforgiveness, but can you not see that you are poisoning yourself and your own destiny by not being able to allow forgiveness in the lives of those that have done you wrong.
- This ability that makes us most like Christ is found in our ability to give unconditional, unrequested forgiveness.
- Freely you have received, Freely Give!
SIX: NEHEMIAH.
What enabled Nehemiah to leave a palace job for a construction site?
- SAW – God’s glory returning to Jerusalem with the walls rebuilt.
- FELT – The shame of Israel’s apparent inability/apathy to succeed.
- KNEW – God would see the project through and restore honor to Himself.
SEVEN: JOSHUA.
What enabled Joshua to lead a band not an army to defeat Jericho?
- SAW – God as a warrior who could defeat any army by any means.
- FELT – Israel desperately needed to see-God’s reward for obedience.
- KNEW – Obedience to God, however illogical He seemed, brought victory.
EIGHT: MOSES.
- What enabled Moses to leave the farm so he could lead the families of Israel through a forty year journey?
NINE: DAVID.
- What enabled David to go from protecting sheep as a shepherd to protecting an entire nation as a warrior and a king?
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