Matthew 7:7-11
August 11, 2013
Ask, and it will be given to you;
search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For
everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone
who knocks, the door will be opened. Is there anyone among you who, if your
child asks for bread, will give a stone? Or if the child asks for a fish, will
give a snake? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your
children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those
who ask him!
While on a getaway with my wife in Ohio, back in the
spring of 1995, I read something that changed my whole perspective on life, ministry,
and church. We had gone there in celebration of my finishing my dissertation
for my Ph.D. (400 of the most boring pages ever written). I had decided that I
would get back to reading the spiritual and devotional books that I had put on
hold for a long time while immersing myself in academia. I was sitting on the
patio of the inn we were staying in, and reading a story in Catherine
Marshall’s book, Beyond Ourselves. The
story penetrated me. It captured me. I reflected on it for days. I kept
thinking, “How can I live this story out
in my life?”
The story transformed how I understood ministry and
church. I realized that there was another way that a church could, and probably
should, be in its life with God. It helped me to see everything differently—in
a way that made me realize that God was not only deeply immersed in all we do,
but wants our lives and churches to be places filled with grace, love, and
providence.
I want to share this particular story with you, but it
comes with a warning. I preached this story about 12 years ago, and had an
interesting experience afterwards. A member came up to me and said, “Graham, something odd happened after your
sermon. I was walking up the aisle and overheard a woman say to a number of
others, ‘That was the worst sermon I ever heard.’” She then said that while
standing in Fellowship Hall, she overheard another woman telling her friends
that “That was the best sermon I’ve ever
heard.” After listening to this sermon, it will either be one of the best
or worst sermons for you, depending on whether this is a story you’ll let
yourself believe. I knew both the members who said the sermon was the
worst/best (both have passed away). The one who thought it was terrible told me
later that she thought the story I told was all made up. Not by me, but by
Catherine Marshall. The other loved it because it fit with what she had
experienced so often in her life.
So,… I want to tell you this story about George Müller,
the man who inspired me so much. Müller was born in Prussia in 1805, the son of
a tax collector. Looking at his childhood, no one would have suspected that
this young boy would grow to become one of the 19th century’s spiritual giants.
His childhood and adolescence were spent mainly seeing what he could get away
with, and getting into trouble for the things he didn’t get away with. As a
child, he started stealing money from his father, who was an accountant and tax
collector for the Prussian government, and his life of trouble grew from there.
Even when he was caught stealing or misbehaving, he did not think about how wrong
he was to do the things he was doing.
Instead, his thoughts turned to how he
could be more clever and get away with the same things in the future.
George’s father sent him to a religious school, hoping it
would straighten him out and prepare him to become a pastor, but Müller
continued to rebel. The only things he excelled at were chasing women,
drinking, gambling, and manipulating others. At times, he tried to change his
life, but soon he would slip back into his old ways. This pattern of drinking and
partying continued after he graduated from school and began attending college.
As much fun as he had partying and drinking, deep in his heart he knew that he
was living a self-destructive life. He kept tying to change, he yearned to
change, but soon he always slipped back to his partying ways. He seemed to be
destined for a life of self-destruction.
It was in a bar one night that the seeds of his
redemption were sown. He was in his third year at the university, and as he sat
in a bar drinking, in walked a man named Beta. Müller had known Beta back in
high school, although they had never been great friends. Beta and he struck up
a friendship as drinking buddies. They spent much time together, including
travelling around Europe. They had wonderful times together, although deep in
Müller’s heart he still knew that this life was not right for him. Several
months after their return from travelling throughout Europe, Beta told Müller
about some of the new friends that he had been spending time with. He said, “For some weeks I have been attending a
meeting on Saturday evenings at the home of a Christian... They read the Bible,
they sing, they pray, and someone normally reads a sermon.”
Attending a Christian meeting wasn’t the kind of thing
that would normally pique George Müller’s interest, but Beta kept talking about
how wonderful these meetings were. Müller was willing to try anything once,
even though he was skeptical. So, he decided to join Beta at the next meeting.
What he didn’t realize was that God was about to extend an invitation for
George Müller to join God by walking the servant path.
At the meeting, his new friends read scripture, sang, and
prayed. Müller was deeply affected. He had never really seen someone pray
deeply before, and he was caught by a contrast: “I could not pray as well, though I am much more learned than this
man.” From that moment, Müller was caught by the power of Christianity, for
he was seeing the Christian faith through new eyes. It wasn’t the dry, dead
faith he had seen in church, but an alive, vibrant faith that transformed
lives. This transformed Müller’s life. He would no longer live a life devoted
to self-indulgence. He now would serve Christ.
Over time, Müller immersed himself more and more in the
Bible, and eventually decided that God was calling him to be a missionary.
After graduation, he left for England to become a missionary in London to the
Jewish population. It did not take him long to realize that this was not his
real calling, but it did lead to an invitation for him to try another ministry.
He accepted an invitation to preach in a small Baptist church in Teignmouth,
England. It was after serving there as a preacher for several years that he
made another decision that would change his life and put an indelible stamp on
his future ministry.
Müller made a decision to surrender completely to God,
and to rely completely on God for his welfare. He decided that would no longer
take a salary or stipend for his preaching. Instead, he would rely completely
upon God to help him and his family financially. He had already been moving in
this direction for some time. Ever since he had become a Christian, he had
always been struck by the passage in Matthew 7: 7 that says, “Ask, and it will be given you; search, and
you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you.” Was this true?
How do we find out if God will really give, reveal, and open the door if we
ask, seek, and knock? He had been experimenting for years on giving more and
more of his life to God. It seemed that whenever he had trusted in God
completely, God had always come through. When he needed money to finish his
university education, some wealthy American students had approached him to be
their tutor. They paid enough money for Müller to finish his education. He had
also experienced God’s providence when he first went to England as a
missionary, and in his ministry in Teignmouth. Now, he was ready to extend this
experiment to all of his life.
George Müller’s life became a great experiment of faith.
For years following his decision to rely completely upon God, he never received
a salary. Instead, he continually went to God in prayer, and in the end money
always came in. Sometimes Müller and his family would be on the verge of
missing a meal or losing everything, but God came through every time, even if
it sometimes seemed that God provided only at the last moment. Müller never had
money in the bank, but whenever he needed anything, he would go to God in
prayer and ask. Soon, someone would stop by his house with one, five or ten
British pounds, saying, “I don’t know why, but I just felt you needed this.”
His life was not easy by any stretch of the imagination. Müller lost a
fifteen-month-old child to pneumonia. He also suffered financial strains quite
often, but whenever he had to have the money, something came through. He
learned that when he relied on God, especially in difficult times, God always
provided.
As time passed, Müller felt called to care for the many
orphans he saw on the streets. This was the time of Charles Dickens’ Oliver
Twist, when only the children of the wealthy were able to go to orphanages upon
their parents’ death. The rest either went to workhouses or lived on the
streets. People didn’t care much about children in those days. Müller walked
the streets of Bristol, England, and saw orphans everywhere. Why didn’t anyone
do anything about them? Why wasn’t anyone helping them? As time passed, he
couldn’t get the faces of these children out of his head. Slowly, he felt God
calling him to care for these children, but he also felt called to do so in a
radical way.
Müller felt called to start an orphanage, but to do so in
a way that radically relied upon God and God’s grace. This would be an
orphanage of God for God’s children. So, as he began to put his plans to paper,
he sensed the need to set up certain guidelines that were grounded in faith.
First, the orphanage would never ask directly for money. Instead, they would
rely on God in prayer to provide money. If, at any time, the children missed a
meal or could not have the things Müller felt they needed, he would close up
shop and stop the experiment in reliance upon God. He also was pretty stringent
in his demands for the children: each boy would have three suits; each girl
five dresses; each child would have her or his own bed and cubby; two pairs of
shoes each; three meals a day; fresh air and work; and all would be taught to
read and write, which was radical in those days. In fact, he was often
criticized for giving education to lower- class children. Today, we might not
see these as being all that much, but you have to remember that in those days
few cared about orphaned children, their condition, or whether they lived or
died.
In 1836, he started his orphanage with just a few orphans
living in a small house in Bristol in a working-class neighborhood. By early
May, though, he had nearly 30 girls, and from there the orphanage kept growing
as he added young boys. When they outgrew this house, they bought another, and
then another. Soon, they moved to a large tract of land in the country and
started constructing new homes. And then they built more. All along, they never
asked for money, but coincidences (or providences) kept happening that allowed
them to continually grow. When the price of land was too high, the seller
generously dropped the price into their price-range, which meant he would make
almost no prophet. People Müller didn’t know came from nowhere to give him
money, usually on a whim. Almost always what they gave was right on the button
for what was needed—no more, no less.
This is not to say that the whole process was easy. In
fact, it often was a struggle. There were times, especially the years 1838
through 1846, when they barely managed to scrape by. During those years, there
were times when, after breakfast, they had no money for lunch, and had to spend
the morning praying for God to provide. Each time, God came through. Sometimes
it was in the morning mail when several pounds would be included in a letter.
Sometimes it was even more miraculous. One time, they finished breakfast with
no money for lunch. The staff came to Müller and asked what they should do. His
answer was to do what they always had done—pray. As they prayed, they heard a
knock at the front door of the main house. It was the town baker. For some
reason, he felt the need to bake bread for the whole orphanage that morning. A
little while later another knock came on the door. It was a milkman. His cart
had broken down at the end of the driveway, and he couldn’t fix the wheel
unless he unloaded his cart. By the time he would have finished fixing the
wheel, everything would have spoiled. Could the orphanage use his milk and
butter? Things like this seemed to happen all the time to Müller and his
orphanage.
By the time he died in 1898, the orphanage (which still
exists today and has a record of all of the events described here) had 2,050
residents on a campus of 25 acres. There were many times when they had no
money, but God always provided in the end. They never asked for money, but over
the course of his life, Müller raised over $3 million simply through prayer.
Today, this would be in the neighborhood of $50 to $80 million. Before he died,
Müller became one of the most popular speakers in the world, speaking to churches
and gatherings worldwide. It’s amazing that so many have forgotten this man. It
is easy to doubt him, except for the fact that he and others meticulously
recorded all of his feats, and they are on public record in England.
What this story got me thinking is about whether we could
create a church of coincidence, where prayer leads to providence. It’s from this story, and my
subsequent reading of several Müller biographies, that I developed a belief
that if we truly seek God’s will in prayer, amazing things will happen to bless
what we do together. I started thinking about whether we can bring prayer into
how we make decisions, how we budget in a church, how we invite people into
stewardship, what we decided to do in mission, and so much more.
This story had an impact on what I started emphasizing
when I came here to Calvin Presbyterian Church. One of the first things I did
was to create both a healing prayer group and a regular prayer group. We built
a prayer labyrinth to help people learn to open to God. We began intentionally praying
and seeking God’s will on session. As
a result, this story had a direct impact on experiences we started having here.
Back in 1998, we had one such experience. We embarked on
the first capital campaign of three that we’ve done at Calvin Church over the
past 16 years. In that particular campaign we did several things over the
course of three years that were intended to seek and follow God’s will. The
first year of the campaign was devoted to renovating our sanctuary. Most of you
would not recognize the sanctuary today in comparison to what it was before the
renovation. In fact, many people who grew up in this church, but moved away, have
come back and have been awestruck by how the sanctuary looks now. The
renovation was a large one that cost us $125,000.
The third year of the campaign was devoted to creating an
endowment fund, and to tithing our campaign10% so that we could devote $33,000
to mission. The second year was a “George Müller” year, although no one titled
it that at the time. We left the second year of the campaign undesignated. We
knew we had to build out or up if we were going to continue growing the way we
were. We needed more classroom and meeting space, but we weren’t sure what to
do. So we decided to wait to see what God would call us to do. We told people
that we were collecting money in the second year to be available to what God
wanted. This was a bit controversial because some people said to me, personally,
that they couldn’t give if we didn’t say what we were going to do with the
money. But we couldn’t do that because we knew we’d only be putting money on
something artificial just to get people to give. We were waiting for God.
So in the process we created a task force to look at the
future of the church. We hired an architect to consult with us, and he told the
task force in a meeting, and me specifically in a one-on-one meeting, that if
we were going to continue to grow, we either needed to move our church to a
better location near I-79, or twe needed to buy three houses behind the church.
In his meeting with me, he said, “Have you looked at the middle one of those
houses, which is for sale?” I responded, “There’s a house for sale?” That was a Friday. On that Saturday I
contacted the real estate agent and toured the house, and found out that the
price had been reduced $10,000. We had a
regularly scheduled session meeting for the following Tuesday, so at the
meeting we discussed it and had the elders go outside and peer through the
bushes at the house. Over the next week, elders took tours of the house, and by
the following week the session put a tentative bid on it, which was then
confirmed by the congregation a week later. Providentially, because we had
money collected from the capital campaign, as well as money from the sale of
our church manse, we were able to buy this house outright within three weeks. We
now call that house “Faith House” because we believe that we had faith and God
provided.
Just as
providentially, the house next to it (what we call Charity House) became
available the following year, and we were able to buy it outright with money
left over from the sale of the manse.
And two years later, the house we call Hope House became available, and
combining the rent from Charity and Hope Houses, we were able to secure a
mortgage, which is now part of our Further in Faith mortgage. We believe that
all of this happened because we followed the example of George Müller, who
demonstrated that God wants us to do well in serving God, but that we have to
have the courage to seek in prayer what God is leading us to, and then to
follow in faith.
You’ve heard from the movie, A Field of Dreams, the idea of “If you build it they will come”? These
experiences have taught me that if you build a life of prayer, God will come.
Amen.
