In this sermon, the speaker discusses the concept of living an enlarged life according to the Bible. He emphasizes that it is possible for Christians to live small lives, confined to their own self-centeredness. The speaker shares four snapshots of individuals who exemplify living a large life by following God's plan and being obedient to His commands. He also criticizes the current state of some church meetings, where everything is scripted and timed, and encourages the congregation to seek a genuine experience with God. The sermon concludes with a prayer for God's guidance and blessings, and a call for the congregation to show love and encouragement to one another.

I want to talk to you today about the enlarged life. You know, the Bible talks about enlarging the pegs of your tent. The Bible talks about the beautiful blessing we can have by living large lives. While it's also possible even for a Christian to live a very small life. I look back at my life, I know people who live large lives and I've met all kinds of people, non-believers and believers who live lives no bigger than this monitor here. They're just confined to a two by four. And they move around in it and it's all about them and they miss out on the kind of life that Jesus promised. To get to this enlarged life, I want to give you four snapshots of four people. Two are connected because it's a conversion experience where not only the person converted is involved, but someone who was sent to him. And I just want you to watch this and read it with me. Now, the first one is a little boy by the name of Samuel. Samuel comes into the world at a time of gross immorality and gross departure from God by God's own covenant people, Israel. And Samuel is dedicated by his mother and he is left to live with Eli, an old backslidden priest who's living in Shiloh where the tabernacle is. This little boy dedicated to the Lord has a strange night as he tries to sleep in the house of the Lord. The Lord calls to him once as he's sleeping and he runs to Eli and says, you called me? And Eli says, I didn't call you. Go back to bed. He goes lay down again. He's called again. He hears someone saying Samuel. He goes to Eli again. Eli says, leave me alone. I'm not calling you. And then this happens. The Lord called Samuel a third time and Samuel got up and went to Eli and said, here I am. You called me. Then Eli realized that the Lord was calling the boy. So Eli told Samuel, go and lie down. And if he calls you say, speak, Lord, for your servant is listening. So Samuel went and lay down in his place. The Lord came and stood there calling us at the other times. Samuel, Samuel. And then Samuel said, speak, for your servant is listening. Now, hundreds of years later, a prophet arises in Israel and his name is Isaiah. And in a certain year, the year that a good king named Uzziah died. He has an epiphany. He has a vision of God that overwhelms him. I'm just reading from part of it. Look at Isaiah six in the year that King Uzziah died. I saw the Lord seated on a throne high and exalted and the train of his robe filled the temple and then skipping to verse six. Then one of the seraphs that was an angelic being flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongues from the altar. With it, he touched my mouth and he said, see, this has touched your lips. Your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for. And then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, whom shall I send and who will go for us? That us is probably speaking of the Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And I said, Isaiah said, here am I. Send me. Now, a thousand years later, there is the beginning of the Christian church. But one of the real danger moments of the church, this new fledgling church is a man by the name of Saul of Tarsus. This devout pharisaical Jew who is persecuting the church and wants to destroy it. But he gets converted. And as we read here, he's telling now in Acts 22, the story to a huge crowd that wants to kill him. He's telling them, listen, here's what happened to me. I was on the road to Damascus and a light shone and I was knocked off my mount and I was there to persecute Christians and I had Christians killed. But this is what happened to me. About noon, as I came near Damascus, suddenly a bright light from heaven flashed around me. I fell to the ground and I heard a voice say to me, Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? Who are you, Lord? I ask. I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you are persecuting. My companions saw the light, but they did not understand the voice of him who was speaking to me. What shall I do, Lord? I asked. Get up, the Lord said, and go into Damascus and there you will be told all that you have been assigned to do. My companions led me by the hand into Damascus because the brilliance of the light had blinded me. A man named Ananias came to see me. He was a devout observer of the law and a highly respected by all the Jews living there. He also was a Christian. He stood beside me and said, Brother Saul, receive your sight. And at that very moment, I was able to see him. Now, I want you to notice something about all four of those people that are involved, because they dispel one of the great fallacies about what Christianity is about and what relationship with God is about. You'll notice that whether it was little Samuel or whether it was the prophet Isaiah or whether it was a new convert who was a persecutor of the church or it was, if you want to read it better about Ananias in Acts 9, it tells how the Lord came to him and said, Ananias, I want you to go to a certain street and lay hands on a man who has just been. He's praying right now. His name is Saul of Tarsus. And Ananias goes to the Lord. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. No, I'm not going there. Because Saul of Tarsus, as in persecution, as in having Christians killed, he says, no, you go, you lay hands on him. He's praying. He's going to see he's going to be filled with the Holy Spirit. And I'm going to tell him all the work that he's assigned to do. And Ananias, with a beating heart, you can be sure, goes to the new convert Saul of Tarsus. So we have Saul of Tarsus being converted and then we have Ananias going to him. Do you notice one thing that happened in all four cases? In all four cases, they were called to action. Christianity is about action, going, speaking, doing in the name of the Lord. A Christianity that doesn't have a faith, that doesn't have a going, a doing, a saying, a loving, a praying at the Lord's command is some malformed, some subnormal brand of Christianity that we can't find in the Bible. Whenever God comes into relationship with someone, he starts to give orders for what that person's supposed to do. Always, no exceptions. A little boy, a prophet, a new convert, or Ananias, a Christian. Always it's this, Lord, what shall I do? Not what shall I think? Not just only what shall I believe? Not only what shall I meditate on? What shall I do? Speak Lord, your servant is listening, Samuel said. What does a servant do? He does whatever the master tells him. In Isaiah, it's more passionate. God is saying, God, Almighty God is saying, who will go for us? God, if you want to do something, just do it. You don't need anyone. Yes, I do. This is one of the great fallacies in our minds that God is going to work separate from us. Now God can do whatever he wants. And in the Bible, God does things sovereignly. But for the most part, God has chosen in the New Testament era especially to work through his body. My head, the image the Bible gives us of the church is we are the body. Christ is the head. The head is the intelligence, the head through the nervous system and the brain of whatever it sends. It sends messages to the body. So my message just came, lift my hand and I lift my hand. The message is just sent to walk over to the pulpit. I'm walking over to the pulpit. A message was just sent to me to pick up the Bible. Now my hands obey and I pick up the Bible. If the body is paralyzed, if the body is sick, no matter what motions the head is directing, they won't be carried out. This is a great misconception among many people. God is going to do something separate from us. Without us talking, without us loving, without us praying, God is going to do something because God's on his throne and God is good all the time and all of that. And then what we do is see God do very little because he works almost always through his body. Like me, I work through my body. I'm here today and my body is preaching this sermon to you. The Christian church has always been plagued by errors that have snuck in that pull us away from God's original plan. God's original plan is you're saved. You're called into relationship with him and then as it was said to Saul, go into the town and your work assignment will be given to you. That was what Christianity meant to everyone. That's what Lord meant. Paul, a bond slave of Jesus Christ, he would call himself often. What do bond slaves do? Whatever they're told to do. That's what makes life big when you're getting orders from the king of kings and the Lord of Lords. What makes life small is when you're living in your little racial box, your little West Indian box, your little white box, your little democratic box, your Republican box, your, your make money box that makes life. You're living midget lives. We don't even have an existence compared to the men and women who lived in the, in the days of the Bible and the early Christian church. But there's always been Christianity being plagued by things that take us away from this. And a lot of us have grown up with such a misconception of Christianity that what I'm saying sounds almost odd to you. But let me prove otherwise. One of the first movements that attacked the Christian church was monasticism. Monasticism, a lot of them had mixed good motives in some of these things. Monasticism was a movement that said to stay clean in a dirty world and to live for God. You had to escape the world and live by yourself somewhere. One famous monk actually built a tower about 30 feet high and lived in it for more than 20 years on a pole with a little area to sit. Other monks took orders to lock themselves away and swear not to speak to anybody for year after year after year. They took a vow of not just chastity and poverty. They took a vow of silence. They would not speak. And this was all going to be pleasing to God because if I don't talk, I'll have less chance to sin with my mouth. Makes a kind of twisted sense. So monasticism was huge. Parents would be proud if their child took orders in one of the monastic groups and made a vow and just disappeared. Some of them did good works, but others helped the poor. Others just farmed the land and said by not living in the city and being isolated, I'll at least live a pure life, which of course proved not to be true. Then there was the movement of scholasticism and scholasticism said God wants our heads to be filled with knowledge. So let's even start with the Bible. We got to study, study, study, study. We got to fill ourselves with knowledge about God. We got to learn about God. We got to memorize scripture. Let's memorize the whole new Testament. Let's understand the writings of the early church fathers and let's study. So people locked themselves away for decades to do nothing but study because they figured, look, I'm studying God's word. This must be pleasing to God. But the action connection that we see in what I just read was destroyed in both monasticism and in scholasticism. Then there came and all of these elements of course have truth to them in one way and yet end up in error. And then there was a movement of mysticism where people said, listen, I got to experience God and his presence. You know, Paul one time said 14 years ago, I knew a man who was lifted up into the third heaven. I want to have experiences with God. I want to wait on the Lord. I want to be in his presence. I want to be in his presence. I want to be, I just want to be with God. I want to be in rapture. I want to learn to worship more. I want to enjoy his presence and that certainly has an element of truth in it, but it's not at all the Christianity of the new Testament. Paul said, tell me what I should do. Who am I supposed to help? Who am I supposed to talk to? Do we need time alone with the Lord? God knows we do, starting with the speaker. But mysticism developed the idea that you removed yourself from society because you were enjoying experiences with the Lord. And then I went always into funny doctrine and self-indulgent teachings. Martin Luther, they say, was one day on a tower and he was pacing in the tower on the top of this tower walking around the great German reformer. And as he was walking around, he was saying, God, where are you? God, where are you? My soul is dry and I feel so cold. God, where are you? And this man who translated the Bible from the Hebrew and the Greek into the German language, he just walking in and saying, God, help me. God help me. Where are you? And suddenly as he looked over the tower and down where all the people were milling in the town square, he heard a voice saying, I'm down here among the people where I've always been. And Luther went, what? And that's the life that Jesus led. He went about doing good and healing all of them that were oppressed by the devil. He had moments alone with the father, but then he got so busy he couldn't even eat lunch, couldn't have dinner. And his own family thought he had lost his mind because he was so busy ministering to people. Now the most current aberration away from the kind of Christianity that's in the Bible is what I would call spectator Christianity. And it's everywhere. It's in Puerto Rican churches. It's an English churches. It's in black churches. It's in the South. It's in the North. And it basically comes down to this once a week, maybe more, but basically once a week you come and you sit like you all do and you watch what the Binion's do and what I say. And then you go home until next week. And if someone says, how are you doing with the Lord? I go to the tab. I go to the Brooklyn tabernacle. That's where I go. And the speakers preach and some of them are orders. Some of them are plain speaking people like me, everybody trying to do their best hopefully. And there's great music. And it's a spectator sport. It's like Barclays Center. It's like going to a net game or a Nick game or an opera or concert. You sit, you watch, then you go home. And if someone said, what did you do today? I went to church, participate, speak, get marching orders, be available to God 24 seven. What are you talking about? I go into church on Sunday. I don't miss a meeting. I get there early. And this is the current departure from it. And it's everywhere. And the meetings are run like a show and their time down to the minute. Recently I spoke at some place and the timing went off on the meeting. They have these things called scripts and green sheets or whatever. And I just try to serve wherever I go. And I said, so what do you want me to do? So they told me this, how long you have to speak. And then they came to me and they had this person will pray for 50 seconds, not for 45, not for a minute and a half. He will pray for 50 seconds. And they showed me everything. And then they came to me because things had gotten out of whack. And they said, Pastor, we're so sorry. You have 14 minutes to speak. Because we got to dismiss them or the people won't stay. Just stay in God's presence. Enjoy a meeting. Hear the Word of God. No, no. It's a show. Show begins, show ends. If you let it run too long, they might not come back next Sunday. And that would be the end of everything. Well, that's commonplace. Talk to the Binyons. That's the way everything is run. Isaiah, Samuel, Paul and Ananias all had encounters with God. And in every case, whether it's direct or implied, they were told that they had an assignment to go, to do, to speak. Some of you might say, Pastor, those were prophets. And, you know, Saul of Tarsus, yeah, he was a new convert. But, you know, no, no, no. But listen, here's Ananias. Ananias is just a Christian man. We never hear of him before. We never hear of him afterward in the Bible. And he's just home one day. But he has he's in touch with God. And the Lord speaks to him and says, go to a certain house and lay hands on somebody and pray for them, because I'm going to use you to help shape one of the greatest, the greatest Christian who ever lived. So none of us can say, oh, no, this is just for prophets and this is for great men of God. This is for Billy Graham type people. No, this is for every single person who belongs to Jesus Christ. Jesus wants to use us as his body to deliver his message and to go on errands for him. And as I wrote in my Bible many years ago, a sentence that I saw in one of my devotional books, he who would be sent on errands by God must live close to Jesus. God has errands for us every day. Little simple things, words of encouragement, words of life, sharing the gospel, praying for someone. But it's action. All of us are called to action, not to be a monastic, not to be in some form of mysticism or legalism, but to live in touch with God so we can do what he wants us to do. Say what he wants us to say, like right now with this Hurricane Sandy. Do you think people need for you to enjoy the presence of God or do you think they need some food or they need their carpet dried? No, Christianity is intensely practical. Notice Ananias was just a regular believer, which tells us we're all now supposed to be in that kind of relationship with the Lord. The Lord can say, call that person and I'm going to give you an opportunity, pray for them on the phone. No, go visit that person. No, go up and tell that person something I want you to share with them. Go and help them. Give them a word of encouragement. All of us have to be available to that. Or what kind of Christianity is this? What are we doing? What kind of religion is this? We sit here once a Sunday and I do my best to preach and then we go home and forget about God until the following Sunday. Could that be why Christ died on the cross for us? If he's the head and we're the body, how is he going to carry out his wishes and purposes unless the body is healthy enough to carry out the wishes of the head? Now, notice Saul of Tarsus was told by the Lord, go into that house, he's blind, which cut him off from the physical world. And he was led into this house and the Lord said, there it will be told you the work that you've been assigned to do. I want to bring that to all of you today because I want to present you as a pure virgin to Christ, all of you. I want you to hear, well done, my good and faithful. Notice, not worshipper, servant. Not singer, servant. I wonder what your work assignment is. Maybe your work assignment is today to help and volunteer because we're in a rock between a rock and a hard place. But maybe your assignment is to be in the prayer band. Maybe your assignment is to go on a mission trip. Maybe your assignment is to be in a ministry here in some general kind of way. That's your work assignment. Some are in the choir, some are in the prayer band. Some are doing other things. Some are cleaning the building. But beyond that, what is your work assignment every day? I mean, do any of us wake up in the morning and say, Lord, here is your servant. Speak, your servant is listening. Who can I talk to during the day? And God talked to me during the day. If you open a door that I'm not aware of, make me be quick to obey you. But Lord, please speak to me and use me. Do not let me sit and serve you in a passive way, but I want to serve you in an active way. To save our souls, Jesus didn't meditate. He went to a cross and he died. He died on a cross for us. He shed his blood and you and I are going to sit still and just rejoice in the Lord always. And again, I say rejoice. Is that what Christianity is going to come down to? Or do we follow his footsteps who went about doing good, speaking words of life? No man ever spoke like him, the Bible says. The passionate part of this is that when Isaiah saw the Lord, he actually heard God say, who will go? How could God ask a question? The shortage that God has today is workers who will obey and go. Who will go? Who can we send? Is that not something that touches your heart? Almighty God is saying, I've got purposes and plans for my people and for this world, but who will go? Who can we send? The Father, what, says to the Son and the Holy Spirit, I don't understand at all, but he says, who will go for us? And then Isaiah responds to it and says, Lord, send me. I'll go. God's not looking for ability. He's looking for availability. God's not looking for intelligence. He knows everything. All God is looking for this morning in all of us is just make yourself available. But pastor, I don't know enough verses. Listen, he knows all the verses. He'll give you what you need to know. Just make yourself available. Can we put our hands together and say amen to that? Who will go for us? Who can we send? That's a large life. Oh, I've met some people who live large lives. Oh, my goodness, they're in touch with God. They're saying things and doing things that have the touch of God on their lives. And all you have to do, going in reverse order, is to have the spirit of Samuel and say, Lord, behold your servant. I'm listening. Your servant is listening. Servant implies I'll do by your grace. I'll do what you tell me to do. I'll go where you tell me to go. Most of us are living with just here's what religion is to a lot of us. What am I going through? No one understands what I'm going through. And then the other half of us are, I wonder how I feel today. Just think, people are dying without Christ. People are hurting, and we're checking our feelings. It's that old introspective religion that you will not find anywhere in the New Testament. Always looking inward. How do I feel today? How do you feel today? Christ is in you. I don't care how you feel today, but Christ is in you, the hope of glory. And are we going to just sit there and keep looking inward? I have had times in my life so morbid, so introspective, always looking inward, instead of looking at Christ and seeing the needs of people, instead of saying, God, give me your work assignment. Let me give you a few that have to do with like going. Like go to someone's house, help them. If you give a glass of water in my name, Jesus said, you won't lose your reward. Just a glass of water, dry someone's carpet. Bring some food to somebody. Just do it in the name of the Lord. A record's being kept in heaven of everything we do in the name of the Lord. I wonder what it means more to God, honestly. I wonder what it means more to God. I don't think any of you love to worship God more than me. I love to worship God. I love to sing. But I wonder what it means more to God. Us lifting our hands and saying hallelujah for the five millionth time, or going across the street and helping someone in the name of the Lord. I wonder what it means more to God. I can't judge that. I'm not deep enough, but I wonder sometimes. What means the most to the Lord? Paul says somewhere in one of his epistles, you've shown how much you've loved Jesus by the way you've ministered to his people. The only love we really show to Jesus on the bottom line is how we show love to other people. So let me just give you this, beside going, I just want to tell you the shortage that we have today of people with that act of Christianity. And it's not so much doing good works, but I just want to talk about this. Since Samuel, Isaiah, Paul, and Ananias all used their mouth. Ananias used it to pray and speak words of affirmation. What the Lord is really looking for today is people who are in touch with him who will speak words of life to people and share the good news of Jesus and tell people, hey, you know, I was messed up. I was messed up. I grew up in church, really didn't serve the Lord. My father was an alcoholic. I didn't want to be at home. And I wasn't a strong believer in Christ in high school or really even in college. But here's what Jesus did in my life. He forgave me of my sins. I'm giving you a little of my testimony. He forgave me of my sins. He's brought peace and joy into my life. I just got to tell you that. You could experience the same thing. That's what Jesus is needing. Well, no, God's going to save who he's going to save. Where would you find that in the Bible? Where would you find that? Go into all the world and preach the gospel. How can they believe unless they hear? But how can they hear unless someone tells them? And our Christianity has become so spectator-oriented that it's the minister's job to win souls. It's not me, but I'm telling you today. You want to live a large life? You want to be happy? You want to lay down in your bed at night and be full of joy? Just start opening your mouth for God. Start opening your mouth for Jesus. Not only speak words of life, but how about speaking words of love? If God loves the world, how will the world know it unless they see an expression of his love from his body? Listen again. If the Bible says that God is madly in love, how will the world know that he's madly in love with this world? God so loved the world. How will they know that unless we tell them about it and show them that love? How will they know? Oh, no, God, the Spirit will, show me that in the Bible. Show me that in the Bible where outside of the Christian church, God was doing great things. Just show me that. It's not found anywhere in the Bible. We are his voice. We're the ones who have to open our hearts and say, listen, God loves you, and I love you, and I'm going to show how much I love you. And we speak tenderly to people. You know what you can do today or tomorrow, brothers and sisters, another thing? God is called the God of encouragement. You can encourage someone today. I'm thinking of all the meanness that's in our culture, especially in this political season. I detest, I detest it. I can't stand it. The harsh words, the vicious talk. The world is so mean. Do I get an amen here? It's so mean. Who's going to speak words of kindness if it's not the Christian? If it's not Isaiah or Samuel or Paul or Ananias, who's going to speak words of encouragement to people? You know what people are dying for? They're searching for love. This is what I've learned. They're searching for love and they're searching for encouragement. And there's very few people who speak words of encouragement. Let me tell you about my life. My life, looking back on my life, all the tens of thousands, what, millions of interactions I've had with people, I can't tell you what small percent has been people encouraging me. I haven't heard that many words of encouragement in my life. I've tried to be an encourager. My name, Jim, means helpful friend. And by the grace of God, I've tried to help people. I try to be an encourager. But speaking for myself, I'll just tell you the truth. I get very little encouragement from anyone. People want something from me, demand something from me, want me to pray for them, and I'm all for that. I want to do that. I want to be a blessing to people. I'm not complaining that I'm not having a pity party. But how about your own life? How many people have walked up to you and really forgot about themselves and in the name of the Lord spoke words of encouragement to you? God is called the God of encouragement. How will he encourage people unless he does it through us? Could you please tell me? Like Barnabas, a son of encouragement, he was called in the New Testament. You find very few people who encourage. Criticize, gossip, negativity. I was with someone the other day. They were so negative, I wanted to end my life. I wanted to just, I wanted to do Harry Carey. I don't even know how to do Harry Carey. I wanted to end my life. Come on, how many have ever been around? Negativity, so, oh, cynical, so, oh, I wanted to run out of the room. And I couldn't. But encouragement? How about you? Have you been greatly encouraged by a lot of people in your life? No, real talk. Or do people just make chit-chat and text you? But how many times people have ever said to you, most people are so into themselves, that's why we don't encourage others, because we're so into ourselves. It's all about us and what we're going through, so how the other person is doing. But you know what? I have a heart. I have a nervous system. I'm just like you. Don't you need encouragement sometimes? Hello? How many need encouragement from time to time? Lift up your hand. Honest, come on, lift up your hand. We live in a very unencouraging world. We live dog-eat-dog, criticized, vicious. And I say to myself, I'm not complaining, God, send me more encouragement as you see fit, but Lord, make me an encourager. Who knows in heaven that the encouragers are gonna have the seats closest to the Lord? I don't know if people need sermons as much as encouragement. I don't know if they need a worship song or encouragement more. Because right now, this is a world where you could get easily discouraged. Are people, am I reading this right? Give me an amen if I'm reading this right. We live in a city where discouragement is so strong. And the Lord is saying, why don't you just be like Samuel? Make yourself available. I'll use you. I'll use you. Would you close your eyes and look into your own heart for a second? Are you available? You can be available today. God will help you be available. You don't need training, you don't need schooling, you just need available. A little boy said, speak, Lord, your servant is listening, and he changed the nation. Do you hear God saying, who will go for us? Who's gonna show my love to the people? Who's gonna tell them my message? Who's gonna love them and encourage them? Who's he gonna use, brothers and sisters? If he doesn't use me and you, who will he use? The White House, Congress, the Queen of England? No. And don't say, no, I'm not that special. Ananias was just a believer, just a regular, old-fashioned, good, born-again Christian. And God had him pray an anointed prayer. Who else will pray over people unless we pray? If God wants to do a new thing and he works through prayer, who's gonna pray those prayers? Who's gonna be there on a Tuesday night and say, no, no, that's my, no, no, no, that's my ministry. I make differences in the world because I pray prayers in the name of Jesus. Oh God, today, give us our work assignment. Help us not to live a 21st century American Christianity that makes us spectators. And we're shy and we give excuses for the way we live and we're not involved in other people's lives. We don't speak for you, we don't love for you, we don't encourage in your name. It's all about us. We made a little circle around us and said, this is my life, God, help me through it. Oh Lord, please save me from that. Forgive me for my selfishness. Give us enlarged lives. Not by psyching ourselves, but by just saying, lead me, Lord. Lord, the only day we're sure of is today. I don't know about tomorrow. I don't know if I'll see Monday. Saturday's gone. Use my mouth today. Use my body. Use my prayers. Use us all, Lord. Make us kind. Make us an encourager. Help us to speak words of love to people. Help us to reflect you. Speak, Lord, your servants are listening. Lead us and guide us with that gentle, still, small voice and help us to obey every time you speak. Bless your people. Help the volunteers to sign up. Help the other people to go and get food and help them to get on that line to tell about their needs so we can help them. God, just let this meeting end in a way that brings glory to you. We pray it in Jesus' name. And everyone said. Look at me, everyone. All the men, hug about six men and say something good to that brother. Ladies, hug, six ladies. Come on, hug somebody and say something good to them.