God Is Not Finished with Us Yet
Based on a sermon outline by Dr. Ronald Meeks.
Scripture Ref: Acts 9:1-6, 19b-28; 11:25-26; 13:1-5; 23:11
2 Corinthians 12:7-10
Other Ref: The Bible Knowledge Commentary
1. Introduction
a. Have you ever thrown your hands up in exasperation and said, “that’s it, I quit?”
b. Have you ever been so frustrated with somebody you were trying to help that you washed your hands of them?
c. Have you ever felt that God must surely want to say, when speaking of you, “that’s it, I’ve had enough?”
d. We have the assurance that He will not give up on us, that He will continue to work on us, to shape and mold us to His desired purpose for us.
e. Dr. Ronald Meeks, a Biblical Studies teacher at Blue Mountain Community College in Blue Mountain, MS, writes:
I have not had the opportunity to travel much, but several years ago my dad won a trip to Italy through his business and he asked me to go along. A highlight of the trip was visiting Florence, the great city of the Renaissance. One afternoon out of curiosity I went to a museum where the some works of Michelangelo were displayed. As we viewed the half-finished sculpture of St. Matthew the tour guide explained that this unfinished work was a prime example of Michelangelo’s philosophy of art. He believed that in a stone there was a figure or statue waiting to be released. The work of the artist was to free the statue from the stone. The statute was so lifelike that I thought any minute St. Matthew might just step out of that huge stone. As I looked at the half-finished statute, I could see that the artist had begun to free the statue but had not been able to complete it. The tour guide went on to explain that Michelangelo had numerous works he never finished.
As I thought about God’s work in us, I realized that God has begun a work in us to conform us to the image of Christ. However, unlike Michelangelo, God does not stop working in our lives until he finishes what he intends to accomplish. According to Philippians 1:6, God will finish what He has started; ultimately, God has no unfinished works of grace.
f. God will not be finished with us until we are in His presence. Until then, we are a continual work of grace.
2. God is not finished with us, though we may have sinned.
a. Paul, one of the greatest, if not the greatest, champions of Christ, did not start that way. He started as one of Christ’s greatest antagonists. Yet, Christ had a use for him.
b. Read Acts 9:1-6
(1) This passage is a critical juncture as Saul of Tarsus, the persecutor of Christ, is about to become Paul, the disciple of Christ.
(2) He had qualities that Christ wanted and could use:
(a) He knew the Jewish culture and language well.
(b) He knew the Greek culture and its philosophies.
(c) He had all the privileges of a Roman citizen.
(d) He was trained and skilled in Jewish theology.
(e) He had a worldly trade (tent maker) and could support himself.
(f) He possessed zeal, leadership qualities, and theological insight.
(3) Christ’s question “Why do you persecute me?” is significant. He doesn’t say “why do you persecute my church?”
(4) Christ’s question identifies the link between Him and the church. By persecuting the church, Paul was persecuting Christ.
c. If Paul could be forgiven of such a grave sin, and still be used as an instrument God, how can we believe that we cannot?
3. God is not finished with us, though we may have been rejected.
a. Have you lost friends or family members directly because of your faith?
b. Do you feel that because your friends and have family have rejected you (or the Christ you offer) that God must surely reject you too?
c. Christ’s disciples initially rejected Paul, but God wasn’t finished with him yet.
d. Read Acts 9:20-28
(1) Paul left Jerusalem a hardened enemy of Christianity to persecute the church in Damascus. However, through God’s grace, he instead preached the gospel to the very ones he had gone to persecute.
(2) So great was Paul’s reputation, the disciples did not believe him. They thought it was a ploy to trap them.
(3) Yet, God was not finished with him, though men had rejected him. Barnabas was the one who won over the other disciples and Paul ended up “preaching boldly” in the name of the Lord.
e. We may believe our rejection is a sign God has given up on us, but it is not.
4. God is not finished with us, though we may have found our comfort zone.
a. An old adage says “familiarity breeds contempt.”
b. We easily grow weary of the things we are used to doing over and over. We say our lives are in a “rut.”
c. We could just as easily be fooled into thinking that because we are doing the same thing in the church, we have found our niche, and we will be there forever. That may or may not be true.
d. I look at my progression over the years: church musician, choir member, interim Minister of Music, Minister of Music, Minister of Education and training, substitute Sunday School teacher for a man I felt left a pair of about size 50 shoes for me to fill, and now, pastor.
e. Paul may have thought that God was finished with him in Antioch because he had found a comfortable place of ministry. But God wasn’t.
f. Read Acts 11:25-26; 13:1-5
(1) Paul and Barnabas have been in Antioch for a year and they are teaching many people and winning them for Christ.
(2) Yet God had other plans for them. And so, they were called from the life and work to which they had been accustomed to begin anew in a different location.
g. We may think that because we have found a comfortable place to live and minister that God will not lead us to something more challenging, but He may not be finished with us yet.
5. God is not finished with us, though we may have unremovable hardships.
a. Do you have a weakness or something you struggle with on a continuing basis?
b. Have you asked God repeatedly to take it away only to be ignored, to continue to struggle with it every day.
c. Paul did. He called it a thorn in his flesh. Read 2 Corinthians 12:7-10
(1) Numerous explanations have been offered for Paul’s thorn.
(2) They range from continuous temptation, persistent opponents, chronic maladies (such as ophthalmia, malaria, migraine headaches, and epilepsy), to a speech disability.
(3) Regardless of what it was, it is no doubt Paul would consider it a hindrance to his ministry and continually ask God to take it away.
(4) But, he learned a valuable lesson from its presence. Divine power is best displayed against human weakness so that God alone is praised.
(5) Rather than removing this thorn, God gave Paul grace to deal with it.
d. Those hardships, or thorns in our flesh cause us to grow. We may think they are horrible, but without them we would remain weak.
e. Let me give you an example. Read:
A man found a cocoon of an emperor moth. He took it home so that he could watch the moth come out of the cocoon. On the day a small opening appeared, he sat and watched the moth for several hours as the moth struggled to force the body through that little hole.
Then it seemed to stop making any progress. It appeared as if it had gotten as far as it could and it could go no farther. It just seemed to be stuck. Then the man, in his kindness, decided to help the moth, so he took a pair of scissors and snipped off the remaining bit of the cocoon. The moth then emerged easily.
But it had a swollen body and small, shriveled wings. The man continued to watch the moth because he expected that, at any moment, the wings would enlarge and expand to be able to support the body, which would contract in time. Neither happened! In fact, the little moth spent the rest of its life crawling around with a swollen body and shriveled body and shriveled wings. It never was able to fly.
What the man in his kindness and haste did not understand was that the restricting cocoon and the struggle required for the moth to get through the tiny opening was the way of forcing fluid from the body of the moth into its wings so that it would be ready for flight once it achieved its freedom from the cocoon. Freedom and flight would only come after the struggle. By depriving the moth of a struggle, he deprived the moth of health.
Sometimes struggles are exactly what we need in our life. If we were to go through our life without any obstacles, we would be crippled. We would not be as strong as what we could have been.
f. We may think that because we have hardships God has not removed, He has forgotten about us; but God has not forgotten to give grace to us.
6. God is not finished with us, though we may have an uncertain future.
a. The Sanhedrin, at one point, plotted to kill Paul.
b. They swore with an oath they would not eat or drink until Paul was dead.
c. Because Paul was a Roman citizen, the prison commander protected him. Yet, his future was uncertain because he still had to face the charges brought against him, but he was going to face them in Rome.
d. Read Acts 23:11
e. The only thing Paul was sure of was that he was in God’s hands. After being taken into Roman custody, he remained so for a long period of time. Ultimately he arrived in Rome, just as God said he would.
f. You may not know where you are going, you may not know what life has in store for you, but you may rest assured of one thing—there is no uncertainty on God’s part. He knows exactly what will transpire.
g. Even when you think He has abandoned you, you may be sure He is not finished with you yet.
7. Summary
a. God begins a great work in us from the moment we are conceived, and continues to do so until we draw our last breath.
b. We may think at times in our life that God is finished with us, as in fed up, through, done. However, that is not the case.
c. The postal service used to say “neither wind, nor rain, nor hail, nor snow will keep us from our appointed rounds.” We can modify that and say that neither sin, nor rejection, nor complacency, nor unremovable hardships, nor an uncertain future will keep God from completing his work in us.
d. We must, just like Paul, learn to rely entirely on God. We must, just like Paul, continue to lift the strength of Christ above our weakness. We must, just like Paul, allow God to complete the work He has begun in us.
8. Invitation
