Hey, a series on leadership won’t have anything for me. And you may be thinking, well, I’m not a leader, I don’t do stuff up front, I don’t lead anything, I don’t have leadership gifts, I’m the kind of person who wants to stay more quietly in the background, and so these next weeks I’ll need to take a pass. I hope it’s good for others, but there won’t be anything for me. Welcome to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith, I’m David Pick, and Colin, there may be many listening today who are thinking exactly that. Don’t move on, do not take a pass on this series, because whether you think of yourself as a leader or not, your influence is broader, bigger, and far more important than you may be thinking right now. All of us have spheres of influence, family, co-workers, neighbors, friends, but how do we know if we’re being an effective leader? Yeah, well, and I don’t want to rush over that. The influence of a mother, influence of a father, brother, a sister. I want us to think today about the circle of people God has placed around you, and then we’re going to think about the kind of influence that you can have on the people that God has placed next to you. And we’re going to look at seven key questions that’ll help us to evaluate where we are in terms of our own spiritual progress, which is going to be a gauge of our readiness to be useful to others. This really is a practical message, so let’s get on with it. If you can, join us in Psalm 23. As we continue the message, your influence is greater than you think. Here’s Colin. God has placed you, whoever you are, at the center of a circle of influence. And I want you to do something with me right now, if you would. Grab a pencil or a pen, grab the piece of paper that is in the worship folder, and draw a box on that piece of paper, and divide the box into four sections, into four boxes within the box. And in the first box, I want you to write the word, friends, the word friends. I want you to think about your friends. God has placed them next to you. God has given you influence in the lives of your friends. The only question is going to be what kind of influence that will be. So I want you to use that box, beginning now, and then over this coming week, I want you to fill that box out. You will very quickly find that the box needs to become a sheet of paper in and of itself, because God has given to you a circle of influence among your friends. And your influence on these people will depend on where you are headed, and the pace at which you are moving. Then in the second box, I want you to write the simple word, family. And you can start filling this box out as well. And you may find, not everyone’s going to fill out a whole lot of stuff in every box, but you will find at least one box in which you’re filling out a lot of stuff. And for many of us, by the time you’ve written in children and grandchildren and brothers and sisters and uncles and cousins and second cousins and all the rest of it, you will find that there is a very substantial sphere of influence in which God has placed you at the center. And you can’t write down the names here, but remember to include the children not yet born. The children who may be born of your line in fifty years or a hundred years if Jesus Christ has not returned. Third box. Think about your work. God has placed you at the center of another sphere of influence there. Some of you are in sales. You have an order book. Think about your order book. Think of whose names are there. There are folks there for whom Christ has died. Some of you are in business. Think about the people that you are privileged to employ. And God has placed them in your direct sphere of influence. Some of you teach. Think about the classroom. Think about your colleagues on the staff. Some of these folks are not Christians. Perhaps many. And for many of them, you, you may be the nearest that they ever get to the light of Jesus Christ. God has placed you at the center of a sphere of influence. That’s what leadership is all about. What is that influence going to be? Fourth, think about your church. God has joined us together as the body of Christ. Some of us are full of joy. Some of us are quite hard to please. What will your influence be? What will be the effect of your trajectory, your thoughts, your conversation on people who are around you? What will they become like? They’ll become like you. Some are full of faith. Some are full of fear. What will your influence be? Your influence matters to the whole trajectory of the body of Christ. One morning, a man by the name of Henry Varley was in a prayer meeting, a few other men. During the meeting, Varley was moved to say this. He said, the world is yet to see what God can do with and for and through and in a man who is fully and wholly consecrated to him. And there was another man in that prayer meeting who heard Varley say these words. And he said, by God’s grace, I want to be that man. His name was Dale Moody. What kind of influence do you have? Christians desperately, desperately, desperately in our culture need to feel the heat of a life that is seriously devoted to Jesus Christ. Why should that not be you? Why should it not be you on the college campus? Why should it not be you in business? Why should it not be you in your neighborhood? Why should it not be you right here where Christians need to see a model of a more stretched out following after Jesus Christ? God has placed you at the center of multiple spheres of influence. So please promise me this. Let it be settled now. Never say during the series, there’s nothing here for me, because you’re at the center of all these spheres and your influence matters. The only question is what that influence will be. So consider your sphere of influence, friends, family, work, church. It’s much bigger than we sometimes think, much bigger. Then I want to give this second invitation to you. I want to invite you with me to consider your present position. Where are you in your journey? It is very important from time to time in a Christian life, you’re following Christ perhaps for many years. It is very, very important from time to time to have a moment where you stop and assess where you actually are in relation to your following after Jesus Christ. I don’t know when you last did that. Had a serious review of where you are in your life in relation to your following after Jesus Christ. He leads me, what does my following look like? Preparing for this series has, along with other things, thrown me into the middle of that in my own life. And I’m inviting you to make that assessment of your life now, today. And I want to offer to you seven questions, and they’re simply questions that I have personally been wrestling with, using as searchlights in my own life over these last days and weeks. This has been a significant year in my life. I have now served here as long as I served in London. So I’ve had two ministries, one was 16 years, this one 16 years to this point, and grateful for the privilege of looking forward. But it’s a moment in life. So I’ve been a pastor now 32 years, and that has forced the question into my mind, well now where am I now? Where is there growth? Where has ground been lost? I am sure that there are other questions that could be added to the list, so you please add your own, as many as you want. But I urge you to note these down and to use them, and to say this is a moment in which I am being challenged to assess in the light of where I can influence others, where I am and where I’m going myself. Question number one, am I praying with faith? I could have just set the question, am I praying, and that would be a good question. But this question goes further. In Luke chapter 18, the Lord Jesus teaches us, he says that we ought always to pray. But at the end of the section in which he teaches us that we ought always to pray, he asks a question, and the question is, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth? Why did Jesus not ask the question, since he’s teaching about prayer, why did he not say, when the Son of Man comes, will he find prayer on the earth? Here’s the answer. Because what matters is not that I say my prayers, like the Pharisees did, or like millions of people in all religions around the world are regularly doing. What really matters, and what Jesus is getting at and challenging me with, is this question, am I praying with faith? Do I have confidence in God to do more than I can do? Or have I wandered into a spiritual wasteland in which I evaluate everything in terms of what I see as being humanly possible? Which is the easiest thing in the world to do once you’ve been a Christian for 10, 20, or 30 years? Am I praying with faith? Second, am I serving with zeal? I chose that word deliberately because it’s straight out of the Bible. Romans chapter 12 and verse 8 says that the one who leads must lead with zeal. There’s something about heat here, there’s something about passion here, there’s something about commitment here, there’s something about direction here. The leader must care passionately about where he or she is going and about the progress of others also. That’s why in 1 Peter, Peter says of leaders, be shepherds of God’s flock that is under your care. Serve as overseers, as pastors, board members, leaders, or whatever. Not because you must, but because you’re willing, as God wants you to be. And there can so easily be a sense of the treadmill of life that somehow gets into the way in which we are living for God. Am I serving with zeal? I’m not giving you answers here, I’m just raising questions. Because I want you to feel how much we need the instruction of the word of God in what it means to be a person who goes someplace and takes others with them. So I hope this is awakening some sense of need in you, some sense of I just can’t keep drifting through church week by week, what’s happening to me? And to raise concern about the state of your own heart that will lead to a genuine hunger after God. You’re listening to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith and the message Your Influence Is Greater Than You Think. It’s part of our series, The Surprising Influence of a Godly Life. And if you ever miss any of our messages, you can always catch up or go back and listen again. Go to our website, openthebible.org.uk. There you can download an MP3 for free or stream the message directly from the website. Let’s get back to the message now, we’re in Psalm 23. Here’s Colin. Third question, am I believing with confidence? God says the gospel is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes. Do I really believe that? I pray for an unbelieving friend or relative. Do I believe that God is able to save them through the gospel? I struggle with a temptation, with a habit that is difficult to overcome. Do I believe that God is able to deliver me through the gospel? I become tired, I become discouraged, I begin to wonder how long can I continue? Do I believe that the God who saved me is able to keep me? Do I believe these things? To ask my heart. Number four, am I confessing with humility? Martin Luther said it was the first of his 95 theses when our Lord and Master Jesus Christ says repent, he calls a person to a whole life of repentance. In other words, repentance is not a prayer at the beginning of the Christian life, it is a life of turning ever more fully to Jesus Christ. And a life of repentance is not a life of misery, it is a life of growth, it is a life in which the Holy Spirit is constantly opening your eyes to how you can take the next step now to become more like Jesus. And a process of examination like this may be the very means by which that reality starts connecting with your life. A Christian is a person who at any time has light to see what there needs to be more of in their life and what there needs to be less of in their life. What that leads to is a life that is characterized amongst many other things like thanksgiving and praise and worship, it is also characterized by confession, in which you see your needs, you see your failings, you see your sins. And you keep bringing them under the blood of Christ so that you do not waste your life in the shallow waters of a compromised obedience. Can you name a sin that you have confessed in the last week? In the last month? Because if you’ve lost the sense of being a sinner who needs to confess before God 30, 40 years down the track of the Christian life, then it will begin to play out in your worship, your heart will begin to go cold, the sense of what God has done for you in the cross of Jesus Christ will not shine because your eyes have become very dull to your need of it after these years you’ve been a Christian. It feels like something you used to need but it’s not a sense of need that’s with you burning bright now. And that leads straight into number five, am I worshiping with joy? I come to worship, do I participate or do I observe? In the presence of Jesus there will not be a single redeemed person who stands there with their arms folded listening to the singing of the angels. We will all sing, we will all shout with praise and joy to God, am I worshiping with joy? If not, why not? What is wrong with me? Number six, am I giving with gladness? Giving is a register of love within marriage, a marriage that is marked by withholding is not healthy and a Christian who is marked by withholding is not healthy. Giving is a register of love to Christ and love to the Bride of Christ and I express my love to Christ in many ways and one of them is that I give to the Bride, I work to earn money and I give it gladly to the Bride, is that true of me or am I tiring of that? Number seven, am I reaching out with love? Here we are in a world of need where some Christians are stretched out in sacrifice so that lost people on their way to an eternal darkness may see the light of Christ through the gospel and be saved. So I’m asking you with passion because this comes out of questions I have been deeply asking in my own life in these days, where are you in this journey, where are you, where are you headed, have you stopped, are you actually further back than you were ten years ago? I’ll tell you candidly friends, I have given myself a mixed report. Some areas where there is growth, some where there is decline and God is using these questions to bring to my attention what needs to be addressed and I commend them to you. I want you to consider your sphere of influence, I want you to consider where you are and just very, very briefly in this last moment, I want you to consider who you are following and just to ponder this question in this last moment, what will following Jesus Christ mean for you today? I hope you are a follower of Jesus Christ, if you’re not, that you will become a follower of Jesus Christ, that you’ll begin on this journey. The mark of a godly leader is that he or she is first a godly follower. Leadership begins by learning to follow. Can you say today, Jesus Christ leads me? Can you really say that? He leads me. That’s where there’s movement in my life, that’s where there’s following in my life. Now friend, only Jesus Christ knows where he will lead you. Only Jesus Christ knows what he has in store for you, but you can be sure of this, that there will be gifts of grace in abundance and that they will be mixed in with shattered dreams and intense pressures and great sacrifices and if, in a world of convenience, there are many people who are not interested in that kind of journey. Following Jesus Christ will lead you to take up a cross and it will not end there because following Jesus Christ will lead you into glory. He suffered, the Bible says, as an example that we may follow in his footsteps. He said that’s not possible, he forgave people who wounded him. He was in an agony and he reached out to care more about others than he cared about himself. He trusted the Father when he could not even feel the Father’s presence in his hour of pain. How can I possibly do that only in one way? By his Spirit living in you. You can’t do this on your own. It’s not in you to live like this. If you do this to yourself, you will settle into a Christianized comfort zone and the people around you will do the same because that will be your influence. There’s only one way to live this life. Christ awakens the desire for this life within you. That’s my prayer for today, that Christ will awaken this desire for this life in you. That like D.L. Moody who heard Henry Varley say, the world is yet to see what God can do with one man or indeed one woman who is wholly and unreservedly committed to him that by God’s grace you would say today, I want to be that man, I want to be that woman, I want to go after that. Christ awakens this desire within you and then Christ gives this life to you and Christ walks this journey with you. You’re listening to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith and the message, Your Influence Is Greater Than You Think, part of our series, The Surprising Influence of a Godly Life. And we’ll be continuing with the message next time on Open the Bible. Remember if you ever miss one of our messages, you can always catch up or go back and listen again on our website, that’s openthebible.org.uk. There you can download any of our previous messages for free or stream them directly from the website. Open the Bible is supported by our listeners, that’s people like you, and if you’re able to set up a new regular monthly donation to the work of Open the Bible, we’d love to thank you by sending you a free copy of the book, The Fight, written by John White. Colin, what can we expect to get out of reading this book? Well, you know, every Christian has a responsibility before God to grow. And that came home to me freshly when I was visiting a friend at another church, a senior pastor who’s a friend of mine. I was waiting for him after the service. I got into a conversation with someone who was on the security team in the church. I asked him, how long have you been in this church and how did you come here? And he said to me, well, you know, every Christian has a responsibility before God to grow. And he said, in our last church, my wife and I weren’t growing, but, you know, since we’ve been here, we’ve been growing and we’ll be here for as long as we continue to grow. Now, that brother was exactly right. Every Christian has a responsibility before God to grow. And you know, early in my Christian life, God used this book, The Fight by John White, to help me get growing as a Christian believer. It’s still on my shelf. The pages are really, really worn because it’s a book that I’ve gone back to many, many times. And it just is a practical encouragement on living the Christian life, how to grow as a Christian. My edition is years and decades old and delighted that there’s a new edition and that we’re able to share it with friends who listen to Open Bible this month. Well, the book is called The Fight and it’s our gift to you. If you’re able to set up a new monthly donation to the work of Open the Bible for £5 or more each month. Go to our website for details, openthebible.org.uk. For Open the Bible and Pastor Colin Smith, I’m David Pick and I hope you’ll be able to join us again soon. Ahab and Elijah were two leaders with enormous influence, but they chose very different paths, led people in different directions and saw very different outcomes. Find out why next time on Open the Bible.