Listen, God has some “only ifs” that we have to adhere to, if we want to see Him move. “Only then will this country I gave your ancestors be my permanent home, my Temple.” That’s powerful! “Only if, only if, only if.” God has some big ifs. And God has some “only ifs.”

People will tell you when you talk to them about God… They’ll give you a lot of excuses. If you go back and listen, I’ll bet you a lot of the excuses start with what if. You tell people about God and they tell you why they don’t believe in God. It is mostly because of their ifs. They’ll say things like, “Well, if God is real then why does he allow sickness and pain? If God is real why doesn’t he heal my mother? If God is real why does he let bad things happen, and why is there war? And, if God’s real why do we have poverty and why do we have all this crime? Why do we have hatred? Why do we have people that are so cruel and mean and stealing and cheating?”

People get hung up with ‘what ifs’. If, if if… You could be sharing with someone about how God can use them in some ministry and they say, “Well, I don’t know. What if I’m not smart enough? What if I can’t type fast enough? What if I’m not talented enough to be on the worship team?” Well, if you sound squeaky and terrible then, no, that’s not the place for you, but you can come help vacuum the hallways. You can help in Pastoral Care. You know if you can do something and you know if you can’t.

Some of you are sitting on it and you’re just being selfish. You say, “I don’t want to go out another night. I don’t want to come to church two hours early. Blah, blah, blah!” I wonder if God looks down and says, “Blah, blah, blah… Are you going to feel that way when it’s time to be at the Pearly Gates and I’m here waiting for you?” And you say, “Well, I don’t think I really want to go in there yet.” Well, you don’t have a whole lot of choices. God can say, “Okay, fine. Gabriel, just keep the door locked, send them on down to Hades. Satan will be more than happy to receive them right now.”

We can get stuck on stupid, can’t we? I’m asking the Holy Spirit to nudge you every time you say if! When God has something for us to deliver or something for us to do, we need to get on it! Your thing to do might not be up here preaching but it might be doing something else in the house, so we can draw more people in. So we can accommodate those that are here. So we accomplish what we need to do and feed the hungry and give toys out to the little children who don’t have any.

There is more to this message! You can watch it on YouTube at RockCCBaltimore!