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Those Special People

Originally preached 12/18/05

Most of you folks have often heard me pray, not only for the salvation of our loved ones but also for those people God has caused to come into our life who effect us in a special way. These non-Christian friends, neighbors, classmates, bank tellers, store clerks, honest auto mechanics etc. have been, and are still being used by God to bless us in a special way.

For instance, we have all had times when, just as it seemed as though we were about to become overwhelmed by difficult circumstances, along would come a special person who, either removed the burden or helped us to carry it.

This morning I would like to speak about other kinds of special people the Lord has caused to cross paths with us. In fact, some of these folks are so special that we wish we never laid eyes on them. Have you ever met someone like that? Imagine the following scenario.

Ever since the new owner took over, the woman had the unmistakable feeling that her days working for that company were numbered. She started to dread going to work. After being there since High School she had acquired a lot of marketable skills. And so she took comfort in knowing it ought to be a piece of cake to land another job.

The man had an air of superiority about him that really bugged the woman. Plastered on his face was one of those tight lipped perpetual frowns that gave her the impression that that she was imposing upon him whenever she had to ask him something. For instance, his answers were usually an abrupt yes or no, followed by an annoyed look which seemed to ask, so why are you still standing here?

It never failed. Whenever she left his office she had that old familiar sickening feeling right in the pit of her stomach that stayed with her for the rest of the day. She couldn’t get this guy off her mind. Actually, the last thought she had at night before dropping off to sleep was what did I do to deserve this jerk?

To make matters worse was the fact that she really needed that job. Money was scarce. Her husband was recovering from back surgery and would be out of work for at least another three months. She had a couple of teenagers with mega appetites. It seemed as though as long as it didn’t move, her kids quickly scoffed it down. And, as hard as she tried, she couldn’t land another job.

The Friday before Christmas, a couple of her co-workers were suddenly let go. Their services weren’t needed any more. The company could manage just fine without them. The woman shared her concern with her close friends, both in and out of her church. She asked them to pray for her. And of course she went to the Lord in prayer also.

She reminded Him how much she needed that job, at least until she landed another one. Until then, she couldn’t afford to loose it. During the next couple of months her concern escalated. She grew increasingly uneasy with each passing day. She knew it would only be a matter of time before she was also given the axe.

Her prayers became more fervent. She pleaded with God, but all she seemed to get was silence. She kept the prayers up but it was almost as though God didn’t here her. What made things worse was the fact that she knew He could help her in a Mila-second if He wanted to. Bottom line, it wasn’t that He couldn’t but rather that He wouldn’t. That fact made the woman angry.

The dreaded day finally arrived and the woman had a hard time believing God really cared about her at all. He knew how much she needed that job. He could have prevented her from loosing it if He wanted to. He had to know how difficult it was to find another job in the midst of all the mega corporate downsizing and outsourcing.

When she was employed she was barely able to keep her head above water and now she would have to survive on less money from unemployment insurance. The whole thing just wasn’t fair. She had been taught to believe that God was her loving Father. If she treated her kids the way God was treating her now, people would say she was an abusive mother. Why was He subjecting her to such difficulty?

Have any of you folks ever had a similar experience. Can you identify with the woman? Don’t you just love it when God sends these kinds of special people into your life? I’m not thinking about someone being on the periphery. I mean the right in your face kind such as the teacher who cuts every kid except you some slack. In fact the teacher seems to go out of the way to find fault with you.

Then there is the special person who always stands out in a meeting you have to attend. It doesn’t matter that everyone else is willing to give and take and move on. This special person never wants to. All he or she is interested in is disagreeing. With everything! Even if there isn’t anything to oppose, he or she always manages to come up with something. You can’t help wondering what you did to deserve this special person.

I seriously doubt if I’m the only one here who has had special people bad mouth me behind my back every time they had an opportunity. You know the kind of person I mean. It’s the one who smiles to your face and pretends everything is fine and then goes out of his or her way to viciously stab you in the back.

Often those kinds of special people are closer to home. They are a parent whose child can never please and visa versa. The same is true of bosses and co-workers and neighbors and classmates. Has the though ever crossed your mind that perhaps God put that special person on this earth just to make your life as miserable as possible?

These special people hurt us, often very deeply. We may be still reeling from one blow when we get clobbered by another. Have you ever cried out to God in protest and begged Him to get that person out of your life? I have. And you didn’t care how He did it. You would leave it up to Him.

Can you guess how He has sometimes answered my fervent pleas for this kind relief? He sent a couple more like-minded special people into my life. They were like flies swarming all over me. I felt like I was a piece of moose plop on a hot summer’s day. And I can’t help but wonder why my loving Father allows me to experience this kind of stuff.

Hebrews 12:1-11 (AMP)
1 THEREFORE THEN, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses [who have borne testimony to the Truth], let us strip off and throw aside every encumbrance (unnecessary weight) and that sin which so readily (deftly and cleverly) clings to and entangles us, and let us run with patient endurance and steady and active persistence the appointed course of the race that is set before us,

2 Looking away [from all that will distract] to Jesus, Who is the Leader and the Source of our faith [giving the first incentive for our belief] and is also its Finisher [bringing it to maturity and perfection]. He, for the joy [of obtaining the prize] that was set before Him, endured the cross, despising and ignoring the shame, and is now seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

3 Just think of Him Who endured from sinners such grievous opposition and bitter hostility against Himself [reckon up and consider it all in comparison with your trials], so that you may not grow weary or exhausted, losing heart and relaxing and fainting in your minds.

4 You have not yet struggled and fought agonizingly against sin, nor have you yet resisted and withstood to the point of pouring out your [own] blood.

5 And have you [completely] forgotten the divine word of appeal and encouragement in which you are reasoned with and addressed as sons? My son, do not think lightly or scorn to submit to the correction and discipline of the Lord, nor lose courage and give up and faint when you are reproved or corrected by Him;

6 For the Lord corrects and disciplines everyone whom He loves, and He punishes, even scourges, every son whom He accepts and welcomes to His heart and cherishes. 7 You must submit to and endure [correction] for discipline; God is dealing with you as with sons. For what son is there whom his father does not [thus] train and correct and discipline?

8 Now if you are exempt from correction and left without discipline in which all [of God’s children] share, then you are illegitimate offspring and not true sons [at all]. 9 Moreover, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we yielded [to them] and respected [them for training us]. Shall we not much more cheerfully submit to the Father of spirits and so [truly] live?

10 For [our earthly fathers] disciplined us for only a short period of time and chastised us as seemed proper and good to them; but He disciplines us for our certain good that we may become sharers in His own holiness. 11 For the time being no discipline brings joy, but seems grievous and painful; but afterwards it yields a peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it [a harvest of fruit which consists in righteousness—in conformity to God’s will in purpose, thought, and action, resulting in right living and right standing with God].

How does this play out in our lives? Allow me to quote from an excellent little book entitled: “WHEN GODS CHILDREN SUFFER” by Horatius Bonar. Since it was written over a hundred years ago, therefore in the interest of clarity, I have taken the liberty on modernizing the language. Speaking of Christians who are suffering in the midst of real hard times, he writes,

“We are “living stones”, placed one by one upon the great foundation laid in Zion for the heavenly temple. These stones must first be quarried out of the mass. This the Holy Spirit does at [the time of] conversion [when we become born again]. Then, when cut out, the hewing [molding] and squaring begin.

And God uses affliction [sometimes in the form of special people] as His hammer and chisel for accomplishing this. Many a stroke is needed; and after being thus hewn [fashioned] into shape, the polishing goes on. All roughness [our rough edges] must be smoothed away. The stone must be turned around and around on every side [so] that no part of it may be left unpolished.

The temple indeed is above [in Heaven], and we are here below [on earth]. But this is God’s design. [Just] as the stones of [King] Solomon’s temple were all prepared at a distance [from the site] and then brought to Jerusalem, there to be [joined] together, so the living stones of the heavenly temple are all made ready here [on earth] to be fitted, without the noise of an axe or hammer, into the glorious building not made with hands.

Everyone then must be polished [during their pilgrimage on this earth]; and while there are many ways of doing this, the most effective is [through suffering]. And this is Gods design in chastisement. This is what the Holy Spirit effects: like a workman, He stands over each stone, touching and retouching it, turning it on every side, marking its blemishes and roughness, and then applying His tools to effect the desired shape and polish.

Some parts of the stone are so rugged and hard that nothing [except] heavy and repeated strokes and touches will smooth them down. They resist all milder treatment.

In patient love, this heavenly Workman carries on the Father’s purpose concerning us. He keeps beside Him the perfect Model according to which the stone is to be fashioned—Jesus, the Fathers chosen One–He labors until every part is shaped according to His [Jesus’]likeness, line after line. No pains are spared, no watchfulness relaxed, till we are made entirely like Him, being changed into the same image from glory to glory by the Spirit of the Lord. Thus affliction molds and purifies.”[1]

On this Sunday before Christmas I want to remind each of you folks that you are one of those precious “living stones” that the Holy Spirit is fashioning into the image of the Jesus. I want you to be able to be aware of reality and recognize Gods hammer and chisel in your own life? These divine instruments often take the form of an unfaithful spouse; a rebellious child or an abusive parent. Other times it may be an unfair teacher, a dictatorial boss or a friend who has betrayed us. Often it’s the loss of our health, finances or a loved one. We experience anger, grief, sorrow, frustration, loneliness and a myriad of other unpleasant feelings.

Some of the blows are soft and barely noticeable. Others are hard and often repeated and we stagger under them, feeling as though we are being pulverized by a God who doesn’t know what He is doing or really care all that much about us. Each stroke of the hammer is from Him (2 Kings 6:33; Job 5:6, 17; Psalm 66:11; Amos 3:6; Micah 6:9).

He who is perfect in love and infinite in wisdom determines the intensity and duration of our chastisement (Psalm 80:5; Isaiah 10:15, Jeremiah 46:28; Genesis 15:13-14; Numbers 14:33; Isaiah 10:25; Jeremiah 29:10).It will not last a second longer or end a second sooner than the key desired result is accomplished in us, producing a “living stone” which has been fashioned into the image and likeness of Jesus. What is being hammered and chiseled out of us is our sinful pride, self-centeredness, greed, lust, impatience, jealousy, envy, sinful anger, bitterness and the like. Repeated polishing will unveil love, joy, peace, contentment, self-control, patience, gentleness, humility and such.

What an incredible infusion of self-esteem you will enjoy when you visualize yourself as being one of those precious “living stones” that the Holy Spirit is fashioning into the image of the Lord? Then, one of the desires of your heart will be that Jesus, in His own way and time, make it possible for you to enjoy eternity with Him and “those special people.”

Lord willing…next week.


[1] When God’s Children Suffer, Horatius Bonar, Evangelical Press, 1967 edition, p. 75-76.

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April 19, 2015 Posted by Categories: Uncategorized Tagged with:
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