Only the Inspired Can Inspire | Pastor Marcus Mecum

Well, real quick, if you've got your Bibles, you can turn with me to Genesis chapter two. And I want to talk to you as quickly as I can. And I don't have much time around the idea of living an inspired life, being inspired to inspire. The word inspire means God breathed. It means in spirited. And there's three times we know of in the Bible that God exhales. The first one is found in Genesis chapter two, the second one in John chapter 20, the third one in second Timothy chapter three, the first one, you know, it God takes the dust of the ground and he forms Adam or he forms man. And then he breathes into him the breath of life and Adam or man becomes a living soul. He breathes into him. That's where we get the word inspiration. And suddenly that mud man that God had formed with this touch, because God created us to need his touch. And then he breathes into him and he becomes a living soul. The second time is in John chapter 20, verse 22. This is on resurrection day. Jesus has just been raised from the dead. It's the evening. He walks through the walls into the house that the disciples were gathered in. They touch his hands, his feet, his side. And then he breathes on them and they received the Holy Spirit. This is the transition from the old covenant to the new covenant. This represents being filled with the Holy Spirit salvation. They are saved on that moment under the blood of the new covenant. And the point is, is God exhaled. The second time God exhaled, they were filled with the Holy Spirit. The Bible says, let everything that hath breath praise the Lord. That's not just your normal breath. It's speaking of let everyone that has God breathe his spirit on the inside of you. Let him praise the Lord. And by the way, God, at some point is not going to just exhale, but he's going to inhale. And what that means is that you have the same spirit that raised up Christ from the dead living on the inside of you. The moment he inhales, that's the moment that we're taken up. According to second Thessalonians, we're caught up together in the air and we will forever be with the Lord, but God breathe into man. God breathe into the disciples, his spirit. And then second Timothy three 16, he breathed into the scriptures. The scriptures were inspired by the Holy Spirit or God breathe. And so he breathed into the pages that we read in the Bible. And I think it's interesting that when God breathe the scriptures, as they wrote, they wrote stories. Really the Bible is just God's story. God's story of, of his relationship with man. It's a beautiful story. It has a beginning. It has an ending. You can walk through the different scenes. And as you begin to walk through the scenes, there's all these stories that begin to help us understand the plot.

We've got the creation. We just talked about that scene. You've got the fall where Adam and Eve eat of the tree of good and evil. After that, you've got God's judgment or the flood and the arc is built with Noah. You've got the flood. You've got all these pictures. You get to the redemption part of the story. Jesus is born. He shows up. He lives a sinless life. He dies on a horrible cross. He pays the price suffering for our sin. He's buried. He rose again from the dead ascended to the right hand of the father. And then we get to see acts. We get to see the early church. We get to see this working itself out in people's lives, which by the way, acts doesn't have a conclusion. The book of acts, if you read it, it just kind of feels like they forgot to keep writing the conclusion of the book. But most scholars agree that was intentional because the acts of the apostles never stopped with the apostles. It has been to be continued from generation to generation to generation. And then of course we have revelation. We have the end where God renews and restores all things. My point is God speaks. His language is stories because he knows that we're inspired by more than just facts and figures and numbers. For example, when I say the word apple, you don't see a P P L E. You see the apple because God knows that we need stories to speak to the heart. He's trying to inspire us. He's trying to breathe life into us because only the inspired can inspire. So as quickly as I can, I want to talk to students. I wanna talk to teachers and I wanna talk to parents. Quick stories to each one of you and then we'll pray for our students. The first I wanna talk to is students. This first story is of a young mom. She was 13 years of age. She got pregnant out of wedlock. She has her son, his name is Ben and he was born into the inner city of Detroit, Michigan, a very crime-ridden area that he would be raised in. Sonia, his mother, was not educated. She had no formal education. She couldn't read, she couldn't write. At age 15, she has another child, his name is Curtis,

so she's raising two boys, a single household. Because she's uneducated, because she's illiterate, she ends up having to work 12, 13, 14 hours a day cleaning houses and because her boys are being raised in this type of an environment, this type of home, she's absent all the time. She doesn't have the skills to teach them. As they begin to grow up, they fall to the bottom of their class, they begin to fail. Eventually, the principal reaches out to Sonia, brings her in and says, listen, your boys are reaching an age where I'm just going to warn you, because they're failing, because they're at the bottom of their class, they're beginning to be susceptible to get pulled into gangs and different types of criminal activity and I just want you to know, I've watched this happen. This is the stage that they're about to, their whole lives are going to change because of how they're doing. Sonia took this to heart, she got home, she went to the little shack that they lived in there in Detroit, went to the back room, prayed, she was a Christian, she prayed for two hours, she's on her knees saying, God, help me, help me with my boys, give me an idea, anything you can give me, I need it, I'm here, I wanna help my boys, I don't want them to end up in crime, I don't want them to end up in a gang, don't make them pay the price for my mistakes

and she's just praying and seeking God. After two hours, God speaks to her, gives her an idea, she walks out, sets her two boys down, Ben and Curtis, and she says, listen, God has just spoken to me and he's told me what you are to do. Every day after school, from this point moving forward, you're to go to the school library and read two books every single week and after you read a book, I want you to write a book report to me on those two books every single week. They still kind of feared their mom a little bit and so they obeyed, they begin to read, they would write her the book reports. She never told them that she couldn't read the reports that they were writing, but they wrote those book reports and one day in science class, the teacher asked the whole class a question and Ben had just read a book on that exact same subject earlier that week and so he lifted his hand and the teacher looks at him and sarcastically, in a humiliating way, he's like, oh yeah, sure, Ben, you, of course, of all the people here have the answer, why don't you stand up and give us the answer? And Ben stood up to his feet and he began to quote a textbook word-by-word answer to the teacher's question. His eyes popped out, the teacher's jaw dropped and he said, you are exactly right, you are exact, that is the exact answer I was looking for. And Ben Carson is his name, would go on to say it was that exact moment.

In that exact moment, he says that it doesn't take a lot to change the trajectory of somebody's life. He said, it was one thing that changed my life and it was in that exact moment and it was the moment that I gave the correct answer because I knew God had made me smart. I say that. The reason that's relevant is because he would go on, of course, to medical school, he'd become a neurosurgeon. I don't have my notes for time's sake, so I'm gonna do my best. If you wanna fact check me, do that. I don't know if I'm gonna be exactly right, but at age 34, he becomes a neurosurgeon. I think it was John Hopkins Hospital, whoa. And then, it's gonna be a rough one here. And then, at I believe it was age 36, he performs a surgery that had never been performed successfully before where there were conjoined twins from South Africa, that means they were joined at the head. He separated them. Not only did they go on to live healthy lives, but they went on with no side effects and he became one of the greatest, at the time, the greatest neurosurgeon and is still one of the greatest neurosurgeons alive today. And it all goes back to a moment in his life where he. realized I'm not the things that everybody else has said that I am.

We know that he's an advocate politically for Christian values, and he's an advocate for Christian freedoms, not just here in the United States, but all over the world. He's defending persecuted Christians in the church all over the world. And it all goes back to a moment that he said, I realized that I got to believe something different about myself if I'm going to end up somewhere different. Be inspired, inspire. At some point you have to ask yourself, am I going to just be who everybody else says that I am? Or am I going to hear what God has to say about me? Am I going to hear what God... In other words, you need to let God introduce you to yourself every day. Not what somebody else is, but what does God say about you? And I can tell you this from experience. What God has to say is normally very different than what you've heard your whole life. The second story I want to talk to teachers, principals, school administrators. This is a story about a young man by the name of Mike, got into high school, was in all kinds of trouble. The teachers immediately begin to talk about what are we going to do with this kid? We can't seem to get control of him. He's disrupting everybody.

Of course, all that information finally made it to the principal. And the principal is going to have to decide what to do with Mike. He doesn't want to kick him out. He knows his future will be messed up if he has to kick him out. So the principal is a Christian and he goes and prays. And just like Sonia, Ben's mom, he begins to say, God, I need your help. I need you to give me an idea. I need you to give me something to help this young boy. And so he goes and he prays and God gives him an idea. So he calls Mike into his office. Mike comes in thinking he's in trouble. You don't go to the principal's office unless things are bad. And he's thinking he's going to get kicked out. And the principal just stares at Mike. What seemed like forever, it was very uncomfortable. And finally, the principal looks at Mike and he says, I want to see your hands. And he said, what? He said, no, I want you to give me your hands. And he grabs Mike's hands and he looks at him and he says, he says, Mike, you have unusually strong hands. Your hands are unusually strong. Did you know that? Your fingers are very long and slender. That's very unusual.

Your hands are very unusual. Mike, do you know that? And Mike just, he's confused. He has no idea what the principal's up to, what he's talking about. And he said, Mike, I believe you have the hands of a physician. He said, I believe these hands one day will do operations and surgery on people that will remove sickness and disease and will give them hope and life. These are not normal hands. They're the hands of a physician. Mike got up and he left and he couldn't get that out of his head. Every time he'd look at his hands, going to do some type of trouble, he'd remember those aren't normal hands. Those are the hands of a physician. And over time, he begins to look at his hands and think, well, what if the principal's right? Starts to apply himself, eventually goes to college, eventually goes to medical school, eventually becomes a surgeon. And my point is it all goes back to a moment. Somebody got with God, asked for help, asked for an idea, and then they went and they helped speak into that person's life a different future.

You see, only the inspired can inspire. And every one of us, when we leave this place, we're going into environments, you teachers, you coaches, you principals, it's a difficult environment. Every imaginable background you're running into, it's easy to get discouraged, it's easy to get tired, it's easy to get weary, but never forget that you're not walking in there on your own. God has breathed his life into you and that inspiration is there for you to be an inspiration. And then the third group I want to talk to is parents real quick. This is a young couple, newlyweds. Again, stories inspire. God's given us stories, of course the story of scripture, but stories inspire us. We need to be inspired, it's how God created us. This newlywed couple, they wanted to have children, and they kept trying. After five, six, seven years, they finally come to the conclusion that they don't think they're going to be able to have a baby. Embarrassed by everybody always asking,

mom, dad, grandparents, when are you going to have a baby? When are you going to have a baby? They're just very embarrassed by their inability to have one. The wife wakes up and she feels something different. So she goes to the doctor, she didn't want to tell anybody, didn't want to get anybody's hopes up, but goes to the doctor and when she does, the doctor confirms that she's pregnant. So excited, she calls her husband up, he leaves work, rushes home, they have a party, they invite the family, the parents, grandparents over, they tell everybody that they're pregnant, they're gonna have a baby. Nine months go by, the baby's delivered, the whole family shows up at the hospital and they're looking at this baby girl that's just been born and they're doing all the things that parents and family members do, they're counting her fingers, she's got 10 fingers, counting her toes, she's got 10 toes and they're saying things, oh, I think she looks like you, no, I think she looks like him, and they're going, just doing what they normally do. Well, fast forward about five, six months, they start noticing developmentally that she's not doing what she's supposed to be doing, she's supposed to be able to turn over by then and she wasn't doing so, so they try to wait it out,

they do what they can, but she's just not seeming to be able to do the things that she should be able to do, so she goes to the doctor, the parents take this little girl to the doctor and the doctor runs his test and he comes back with his diagnosis and looks at the parents and says, I hate to be the one to tell you this, but there is something wrong with your little girl, she'll never turn over, she'll never crawl, she'll never walk, she'll never run, she'll never ride a bicycle and they were just devastated, of course, as any parents would be and the husband looks at the wife and says, listen, that's just one doctor's opinion, let's go to another doctor, let's get another opinion and so they do that, they go to another doctor, he confirms the same thing that the first doctor had said and so they go to another doctor, a third, a fourth, a fifth, five different doctors, all of them have said the same thing, the diagnosis is the same, she'll never crawl, she'll never walk, she'll never run, she'll never ride a bicycle. They hear about a doctor in Chicago that's supposed to be an expert in a particular area that their daughter is struggling with and so they call up this doctor's office and they ask to be able to meet with the doctor

and the assistant says, I'm gonna be honest with you, the chance of you getting in is slim, I mean, we have a waiting list right now that's backed up for months and months and months and the mom says, we can't wait months, we need to get in right away and she says, I'm so sorry, sometimes, randomly, it's very rare but there's a cancellation, if you'll just give me your number, I'll keep it here and I'll call you if I can and the next day, they get a call from this assistant, she said, I can't believe this, the moment I hung up the phone, somebody called and canceled and I knew that I had to call and see if you could get here. They lived hundreds of miles away, the appointment was the next day, they had to book plane tickets, they had to get their luggage, they had to get all the diagnosis from all the different doctors in a briefcase but they did it, they flew to Chicago, got a car, went to the doctor's office, they're in the waiting room of the doctor's office, you know, they're nervous, they haven't eaten, they haven't slept but the doctor finally calls them back, they go back to the little small room there at the doctor's office and the parents start to explain what's going on and they pull out the briefcase

and they hand him all of these diagnosis and all the results from the test that all these doctors had ran and as they hand these tests to that doctor, he hands it back to him and he says, no, thank you, I'm not gonna need that and the mom said, what are you talking about? They've done such extensive work, they've got all the things in here, all the stories at different stages, what's happened, I really think this could be beneficial and the doctor said, listen, I don't want anybody else's decisions or diagnosis to influence my decision. We have an expert staff here, expert nurses, we're gonna run our own test, go set out in the waiting room and so for hours, they're out in the waiting room, finally the doctor's ready to see them, they come back to the doctor's office and the doctor says to that mother and that dad with a big smile on his face, your daughter is completely okay, she will crawl, she will walk, she will run, she will ride a bike and the mother and father is so excited at one point but then they end up saying, how do we know that we can trust your diagnosis? We've been to five other doctors and every other doctor confirmed the same exact thing, how do we know to believe this diagnosis?

And the doctor says, well, it's really easy, the first doctor had a wrong diagnosis and then that diagnosis influenced every other doctor you saw after that and they all came up with the same diagnosis and the mother said, yeah, but we go home and we see our child and we see that she can't do what other children are doing at her age and the doctor said, that's because you. started to treat her like the diagnosis that you were given giving so she took on the symptoms of that disability go home treat her like you would anybody else and she will at some point crawl and she will walk she will run and she will ride a bicycle again and of course they take her home they start to you know just go about life doing their best to not cater to those things and she becomes a healthy amazing young girl I say this because a lot of times we have diagnosis spoken over our life we have things that people have said things that we have believed things that we have bought into things that we think that this is just how it is but every now and then you got to let God enter the picture you got to let God the great physician enter the scene and there's one thing I know about God he don't care what anybody else's diagnosis or opinion is he'll throw out the x-ray the test he'll throw out all that stuff and he knows how to make his own diagnosis when it comes to our lives I personally that you are to be inspired so you can every parent in this room you can inspire the greatest in your children's life there are parents that are here that raise children with disabilities you raise children that are have some type of disadvantage but you can make all the difference you've been inspired to inspire