Where is Your Pulpit?

Welcome back to Ignite. I want to talk to you about the fact that you have a pulpit. Oftentimes we think of a pulpit as you know up on the stage right with a lectern and all the pomp and circumstance that goes around that but but if you read the definitions of what a pulpit is it goes way beyond that and in my terms I would just say if anybody who has more information than I have on a given subject they kind of have a pulpit. I did this television show for a lot of years called Car Crazy. Wait, teen years. And one of the great interviews I ever did was with the rock musician the guitarist Jeff Beck. Amazing Cargoyne. I'm there because he's a car guy but when we finished him we actually had if there was so much we did two shows together he was fabulous. But then I said I want to I wanted to sit and watch you play your guitar. So in the studio and he started playing and I can see in my mind right now it's been a few years the way his fingers glided so effortlessly. It was like he he was my teacher and I was a student. I was never going to play a guitar but you get that you get the understanding of he had his pulpit was that he was a great guitarist and I'm sitting there watching it. Wow. Pulpit take off all kinds of things. I'm reminded of Eric LaDelle you know back in the series of Fire Story. Remember and what a great story. Of course he was born of mystery parents and went on to be a mystery afterwards but his great story was in running and he felt that when he ran the whole spirit flowed through him and he used running as his pulpit. I had a great professor in college by the name of Ken Armstrong. Dr. Ken Armstrong. What are the best professors I ever had? And he taught me so many great things but one thing he said was if you want to be great hang out with great people and do whatever you have to do to hang out with great people. Carry their bags. Take out their trash. Do anything. Just hang out with great people and you become great. Now that's I guess there's some scripture. I don't know what it is but it's it's it's a truth that works and I have done that and I've had many great people in my life that I have run to. I've known Dr. James Dobbs and Jim Dobbs and I have been friends since I was 14 years old and and he's been more than a mentor to me. He's been a rock to me. His life he and Shirley both. They never changed just as easy to be with as ever with this loud voice and this unchangeable voice for nothing's going to change Jim Dobbs and and I have watched that and and he has been a model for me in how I've lived my life and not to change. A lot of change is going on right now. There's a lot of people that I hugely admired a few years ago that that I will say will avoid now because of apostasy. There's a lot of crazy stuff going on. That's over another subject. David Wilkerson. David Wilkerson the author of The Cross and the switchblade. He found on Times Square Church a 51st and Broadway. I found that church with him close friends for 40 years of profit. He prayed every night for two or three hours a night every night for 40 years. We'd come home at night, be 12 o'clock. Karen, they're going to bed. He's going to pray and this man knew God. He carried on conversations with God when he prayed. He would say he'd hear back and he'd carry on. That's how course he was to God. Obviously he was a great man of my life and I owe much of where I am today to David Wilkerson so that that idea of hanging if you want to be great. If you want to know God, hang around with people who know God, okay? I got to go to the other end of the scale and I'm going to tell you that I had a friend. His name was Bob since passed away but Bob was a good bit older than me married one of my college friends. Bob was not well spoken and he was now of well stature. He didn't have any status. He did all kinds of wonderful things for God. The church couldn't live without him but he was never the chairman of the board or speaking in front of a lot of people. But Bob knew God and even though he did not speak while he knew God and whenever he would come into the room I would run to Bob. I would say with Bob as much as I could. If we got to it here I would move people away so I could sit next to Bob. Bob was a huge influence in my life. It wasn't because of stature, it was because of his relationship with with the Lord and my wanting to have a little more what he has. I started sharing my faith. I both started sharing my faith back when we were first married. I now go back to 1973. This is 50 years. We have been sharing our faith every day for 50 years. That's incredible. I'm old. You know what? I'm building my business that was a tiny little business. I'm working like crazy. I'm working 18 hour days. I did that for about 30 years. It worked really hard. But at the same time I found myself going from being a horrible faith share not wanting to be a faith share to doing a little more and then after a while you get to where you start doing it more easily and start and just relaxing and having fun doing it and becoming quite good at doing it. I have to say you know you start shooting baskets. You may miss them all for a while but you keep doing that after all you're going to start sick of some baskets and that happens when you share your faith. When you do that you enter into this thing called joy and I never realized there was something different between happiness and joy. Happiness comes and goes. I have to hide. I think I did a podcast on this. Happiness is fleeting. It's depending on what circumstance going out the moment. But joy. Oh man. If you have joy you could go through anything. How do you get joy? That's another subject. I was I was finding to the point where I was saying I should go into full-time ministry. I was really thinking I should go into full-time ministry. It was said to me so clearly. I just kept it because I was now I'm sharing my faith with with gusto. You might say that's still a word we're used. Then you do it with energy and you look forward to doing it and then the results are having a thing. God you're leading me into full-time ministry and so I prayed this most really the most fervent prayer of my life saying God if you want me to go into full-time ministry. I'll leave my business. It will fail. There's nobody else to lead this this little fledgling family business. I'm the third generation leader but I would do that. I just want to be where you want me to be. I just want to serve you whatever that is. Now 20 minutes later I got walked to my house by the name of David Knudden. I had never spoken to him before and again there's a story I've told many times. It's in my book Ignite Your Life. But very quickly he just started asking me questions and he said I just the area just wanted to stop by. I see how you're doing. How's it going? And so I decided as a missionary kid he was a missionary kid. He grew up in Africa with a missionary family. My age he was my age and I had his own business. And as I started sharing he said wow God's giving you a wonderful ministry here. He said what do you mean by that? He said well pastor couldn't reach all the people you reach but as a businessman you can. He gave me this line. Your business is your pulpit. Wow. I'd never put together that the life that I'm now living is my pulpit. The life you're now living is your pulpit. Look around. There's people all around you are lost. You're there. You're you have purpose. God has you right where he wants you. You may want to go somewhere else somebody. I don't care where that is. I don't care if you're a young person and you're a job you don't like right now. Right now this is your pulpit. And if you honor him recognizing this is your pulpit you do that. You start living for his purpose that he has all kinds of plans for you and it just plays out. You know it's never been easier than now to do that. I've been doing it to care that I have both been doing it now for 50 years as I just mentioned. But you see yourself differently. I transition and see myself as a guy it sells car wax to a guy who's in ministry that God's using and using my business as my pulpit and the more I did that the more he blessed my business and now we're the number one selling car wax in America. I mean it's amazing. That's work. I didn't do it you know fight and struggle and all that. Every meeting was how do I lead everybody who whatever that meeting was it's my own board meeting or it's it's a huge retailer who are really in their business. I want to lead them closer to Jesus. This little thing of this little light of mine. This little light of mine I'm gonna let it shine. That's what we're to call to do. It just happens that our little light right now is huge. Thank God we're in tragedy. We're in turmoil. The whole world's in turmoil. There's darkness everywhere we look and this little light of ours shines bright. People don't expect us to be happy. They just don't. They just don't. And when they see happiness and it's real happiness real joy in us they won't what we have. And that's our pulpit. I don't care how mean you enjoy you. I don't care if you're living on the street. I don't care where you are. When you have joy you can have joy no matter where you are. When you know God is with you. You know God loves everybody on the street as much as he loves you and and me. And how are how is he going to reach them unless he has Christians among them speaking to them. That's a whole another subject. But when you're in the dark place when you lost four years ago you're 49 year old daughter. When you're when you're dying in the hospital the doctors give up on you. They give it up on me. I'm toast. I mean I still had joy. Nothing affected my joy. And I used the darkness. People don't say well of course he's he's smiling. He's got a beautiful wife and business and cars. Of course he's smiling. If I had that I'd smile too. Well guess what? I'm talking about truth that I discovered in the midst of tragedy when I had no hope. I had a friend of him was Anne and and she served the Lord all her life but she just she was like she was there. She's not a way to have them. We came from a great Christian family but she was also a business woman and did great things in business and all kinds of things and and and even remarried. And then she got cancer and that's when our relationship really took off because she started questioning what was God doing her life and when I explained to her what we've just been talking about she got really excited to realize that she was going to use her cancer to lead people to Jesus Christ and she did. And she got to where as I was when I was in the hospital looking everybody walks through that door the one more person I could talk to you about the Lord. And she did that and I talked to her regularly until finally she didn't have a voice strong enough to talk but could she still push buttons on her computer and we still and I tell you know he's kept you alive there's still at least one more person even when she talked to you about God. She had a pulpit in her weakest moment. I often tell the story of Mrs. Demado who was one of the most godly people I've ever met and she died horribly and I was mad at God. They couldn't stop her pain. It was cancer she could not stop her pain. They gave her the most serious stuff they they could not stop her pain. And then we go to her funeral and I'm mad at God. I've been mad at God several times. He puts up with this. He puts up with this. And I'm out of funeral and I'm just beside myself. I'm just mad. I'm just seeing they're mad. I don't understand you God. I don't understand and until three different nurses got up one after the other and each told their version of the same story of how they had nothing to do with God till they met Mrs. Demado. And they never met anybody who had so much pain who had so much joy and they each decided that's that God's real. I want what she has. The one nurse I had never forget she said as I was walking down the hallway the day she died I was walking down the hallway and I could hear her singing hymns. Wow. So let's go back just for a second then I'll end this but you know Romans 828 I love this verse. All things worked together for good for now until you get to heaven. God will make everything in your life worked together for good as long as you love him and live for his purpose. The question is what's good? Was was that good for Mrs. Demado to have all that pain? You better watch. Do you know when she got to the other side and she realized that God led three more people into eternity because of that momentary pain and now she's gonna be with them forever. Are you kidding me? Is she gonna be doing back flips or what? See God's definition of good is how many people how many more people can I get into heaven because of you and if I need to put you through some fire to get a few more people in heaven that's to your credit that's to your benefit. Wow. 100 years from I say so often it's probably more like a year for now I don't know what it is but but say to say 100 years from now the only thing it's gonna matter when you're in heaven this is for Christian stuff you're Christian 100 years from now the only thing that will matter when you're in heaven is how many people are in heaven because of your influence because of your pulpit. Thank you about it. I think of matter how many bottles of car wax they sold or how many good things they did or built or what it's it's it's hand stubble it means nothing how many people are going to be in heaven because of your influence and if there's if you if you're right now like most Christians say none yes that's why you need to get busy and now it's never been easier let me leave you with one last thought and then I'm out. Can you imagine being in heaven and having a person walk up to you and say because of your influence I'm here. Thank you. Imagine having a person come me over say because of your influence I went to that church I went to that service I prayed that prayer God rescued me and saved me and forgive me my sins and I'm here today because of your influence. Wow can you imagine to have a whole bunch of people say that to you that's possible if you keep first things first live for God's commission live for his purpose and move everybody every day closer to Jesus. See you next time.