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This is Glendale Presbyterian Church, people moving power. This tape includes the reading of scripture and a sermon by Dr. Bruce W. Thielman entitled Be Loyal to the Royal in You. This is the first in a series of five messages on Saul.

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As soon as the voice stops on this side of the tape, be sure to turn it over for the remainder of the message. This tape is copyrighted and all rights are reserved. Any commercial use, in full or in part, requires the advanced written permission of Dr. Thielman.

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The private use of this tape for the spiritual gain of yourself or others is heartily encouraged. If you would like a catalog listing additional tapes available, write to people moving power at the address on this cassette. The scripture reading of the morning is from the first book of Samuel, reading selected

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verses from the ninth and tenth chapters of the book. There was a man of Benjamin whose name was Kish, and he had a son whose name was Saul, a handsome young man. Now the asses of Kish, Saul's father, were lost.

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So Kish said to Saul, his son, "Take one of the servants with you, and arise, go and look for the asses." When they came to the land of Zuth, the servant said to Saul, "Behold, there is a man of God in this city, and he is a man that is held in honor.

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All that he says comes true. Let us go there. Perhaps he can tell us about the journey on which we have set out." Then Saul said to his servant, "But if we go, what can we bring the man?"

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The servant answered Saul again. "Here I have with me the fourth part of a shekel of silver, and I will give it to the man of God to tell us our way." So they went up to the city.

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As they were entering the city, they saw Samuel coming down out toward them on his way to the high place. Now the day before Saul came, the Lord had revealed to Samuel, "Tomorrow about this time I will send to you a man from the land of Benjamin, and you shall anoint him to be prince

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over my people Israel." Now when Samuel saw Saul, the Lord told him, "Here is the man of whom I spoke to you." Then Saul approached Samuel in the gate and said, "Tell me, where is the house of the seer?"

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Samuel answered Saul, "I am the seer. Go up before me to the high place, for today you shall eat with me, and in the morning I will let you go and will tell you all that is on your mind. As for your asses that were lost three days ago, do not set your mind on them, for they

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have been found. And for whom is all that is desirable in Israel? Is it not for you and for all your father's house?" Saul answered, "Am I not a Benjamite from the least of the tribes of Israel, and is

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not my family the humblest of all the families of the tribe of Benjamin? Why then have you spoken to me in this way?" Then Samuel took a vial of oil and poured it on his head and kissed him and said, "Has not the Lord anointed you to be prince over his people Israel?

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And you shall reign over the people of the Lord, and you will save them from the hand of their enemies round about." And Saul returned to his own people, and Saul's uncle said to him and to his servant, "Where did you go?"

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And he said, "To seek the asses, and when we saw they were not to be found, we went to Samuel." And Saul's uncle said, "Pray, tell me what Samuel said to you." And Saul said to his uncle, "He told us plainly that the asses had been found, but

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about the matter of the kingdom of which Samuel had spoken to him, Saul did not tell his uncle anything." Then Samuel brought all the tribes of Israel near, and the tribe of Benjamin was taken by lot.

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He brought the tribe of Benjamin near by its families, and the family of the Matrites was taken by lot. Finally he brought the family of the Matrites near, man by man, and Saul, the son of Kish, was taken by lot.

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But when they sought him, he could not be found. So they inquired again of the Lord, "Did the man come hither?" And the Lord said, "Behold, he has hidden himself among the baggage." Then they ran and fetched him from there, and when he stood among the people, he was

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taller than any of the people from his shoulders upwards. And Samuel said to all the people, "Do you see him whom the Lord has chosen? There is none like him among all the people." And all the people shouted, "Long live the King!"

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And may God bless to us and to our understanding this reading from his holy word. Let us pray. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen. There was a certain sea captain who every night, in order to locate his place on the

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ocean, would use his sextant to shoot the stars. And every night an illiterate sailor who did not know much about the ways of captains watched this procedure. One night as he was shooting the stars, a very spectacular falling star was seen, whereupon

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the sailor said, "Good shot, captain, at last you hit one." I want to ask you this morning how often you're hitting the stars in your life. I want to ask you if you're really being loyal to the royal in you, if you're living in accordance with the capacities which God your Father has given to you.

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And I want to ask that question in terms of this story of Saul. Let me sketch it again for you in broad, bold strokes, like a Picasso lithograph, only this not carved into a rock, but into the living stone of the word of God. Saul is the son of Kish.

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His father has lost a herd of asses. He sends Saul and a servant to find them. They ask the assistance of a noted prophet of the day, Samuel. Samuel tells them that the asses have already been found, but more important, he goes on

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to say to Saul, "I have found you, and God has chosen you to be king over Israel." Saul responds by pointing out that he is from an insignificant tribe and from the least significant family in that tribe. But Samuel goes on to use a device very common in that day for discovering the Lord's will,

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throwing lots. And by throwing these lots, he selects out of the 12 tribes, one tribe. It's the tribe of Benjamin. And out of all the different bloodlines in that one tribe, he selects the Matrite line

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again by throwing lots, leaving the choice, as it were, to God. Then out of all the Matrite line, he casts lots and discovers that the lot falls upon the family of Kish. And then the family of Kish is brought before Samuel, casting lots still, man by man, and

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the lot falls on Saul. So they get ready to crown him king, and they come looking for him, and they can't find him. And Samuel says to God, "Where is he?"

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Now when all of these people gathered together for this effort of discovering who the king would be, they came with their caravans, and all of these camels and the baggage thereof were gathered together at one place, and God says, "He's off hiding there amongst the baggage." The King James Version puts it in an interesting way.

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It says he was hidden among the stuff. So he went off amongst the stuff, and they found him, and they brought him out and crowned him king. But consistently in all of this story, you will notice Saul tried to avoid being loyal

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to the royal in him. Instead he tried to lose himself in the shadows of the baggage. I would submit to you that Saul was a much-blessed man. His father had a lot of money.

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He was himself very good-looking. In height, he was taller from the shoulders up than any other man in Israel. He was a responsible person. He was given this task to go and look for this lost herd.

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There was some humility in him. He was willing to accept the guidance and the suggestions of this servant who said, "Let's go and see Samuel." He had a proper sense of reverence.

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He did not come seeking anything from God's servant without having first made sure that he had an offering to bestow on God and the people of God. There were, you see, many wonderful characteristics, kingly characteristics in Saul, which had been put there by his creator.

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And now the time had come when God was ready to take the yield on his investment. Now the time had come when he expected Saul to assert the sovereign gifts which God had bestowed upon him. Now was the time for Saul to begin to live in loyalty to the royalty which God had put

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in him. But instead of doing that, Saul runs away. Now the message which I believe I have from God for you today, whether you're seated here in this sanctuary or whether you're listening to these words on a tape ten days from now

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or ten weeks from now or ten months from now or ten years from now, the message which I have from God for you today is this. Live in accordance with the powers and gifts which God has given you. Don't live on a lower level than that which has been planned for you by your heavenly

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father. Be the scepter of yourself and wield it. The scriptures teach very clearly that God has given to each of us great and significant gifts.

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Paul says to the Ephesians, "Grace is given to each of us according to Christ's gift." Or again he writes to the Ephesians, "Though I am the least of the saints, still to me a gift has been given." He counsels his young son in the faith, Timothy, and what are his words of counsel?

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"Rekindle the gift of God that is in you." And he says to the Corinthians, "There are varieties of gifts, but the same God inspires them all and gives them to all." The testimony of the word of God is that God has put into every one of his children certain

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tiny touches of himself, and he calls upon us not to hide amongst the stuff of life, but to assert those sovereignties which he's made a part of our experience. To live out the role of the hero that he's hidden in us. To discover the saintly which he in magnificent generosity has put there and expects us to

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use and to rejoice in. I had a conversation a couple of weeks ago with a medical doctor who is a member of our congregation. We were talking about our new order of worship, and he expressed his particular pleasure in

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the fact that we had an extended period at the beginning of the service, and then a little bit later a period in the midst of our time of prayer, both given over to silence. He said, "I like that because it gives me time to rediscover myself and then to get myself in touch with God."

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I think that's a very beautiful sentence, and it's made beautiful because of the beautiful life that's behind it. I know that doctor, and I know him very well. I know that in the practice of his medicine, he has the spirit of Christ.

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I know that his healing touch has been given him by God and that he uses it. I know that he seeks to follow the example of Christ as a husband and as a father. I know that he has moved in the spirit of Christ in leadership roles in the life of this congregation.

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I know his parents well, and they've told me more about him as a child than he probably wishes that I knew. And among the things they've told me is that they always sought to bring him to the complete fulfillment of the capacities God had given him.

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Now when you understand that background, you understand how significant it is to hear that kind of man say, "I rejoice in those times when I can rediscover myself. Let's get in touch with the royalty in me and then reach out to God with that royalty." No wonder he gets turned on in such moments.

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I love those passages in the New Testament when we discover Jesus turning people on. Let me just share one with you. You remember the scene at Caesarea Philippi when Jesus is in conversation with Peter. Now you remember Peter.

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One moment red hot, the next moment ice cold. Ephemeral, vacillating. One moment high, the next moment low. In pole after pole, he's been chosen as the person in the New Testament with whom most

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people identify. We find a great deal of Peter in ourselves. One minute we're ready to go, and the other minute it's full speed in reverse. And Jesus is in conversation with this Peter, and he says to him, "Who do you say that I

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am?" Peter says, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." And Jesus responds, "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood is not revealed as to you, but my Father who is in heaven.

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And henceforth I shall call you Peter, and on this rock I will build my church." Now the word Peter means rock. What Jesus was saying was, "Henceforth I shall call you Rocky, and on this rock I will build my church."

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Now get the picture. Caesarea Philippi, where the headwaters of the Jordan are, sits at the base of a great cliff of solid stone. It leads up to the Golan Heights.

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That area is so important now in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Here's this great mountain of rock. It looks like it's been there forever, and it will be there forever. And perhaps Jesus, standing right there at the foot of that rock, no matter where you

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stand in that area, you're right at its base. He might have pointed to that, and he said, "Up to this time you've been called Simon, but from now on you're a rock, and on that rock I'm going to build my church." Jesus, are you kidding?

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Peter the vacillating? This one who's up one moment and down the next? No, Jesus wasn't kidding. He was giving to Peter an image of what Peter had the capacity to be.

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He was saying to Peter, "This treasure of steadfastness God has put into you, now claim it. You and I will make it real in your life." He was saying to Peter, "There's royalty in you, now be loyal to it."

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Peter did. There were times when he slipped. But the testimony of his life from that time on was one of strength. When it came time for him to die, he insisted on being crucified upside down because he

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didn't consider himself to be faithful enough to be crucified as his Lord was crucified. That was the steadfastness, the courage, the solidity that came into Peter. He was turned on when he got in touch with the Sovereign in himself. He suddenly discovered that God did not intend him to play any minor role, but had written

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for him a starring part. And God has done that for each and every one of us. He does not want us to play the minor roles in life. We are to lead out.

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He has put in us that which is required to lead out. Now all it takes is fidelity to the fantastic gifts he's put within us. The great tragedy of the life of Saul is that he refused to do that. Now there are some who argue that he didn't want to be king because there was in him a

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great humility. And they point to the 21st verse in this ninth chapter where Saul, on hearing what Samuel says about being king, says, "Oh, this can't be true because I come from a very humble tribe and from a very humble family, and I'm the most humble person even in the family."

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That sounds like an honest humility, but anyone who's spent any time in the Middle East knows that any time you say to a Middle Easterner anything in the way of a compliment, anything which lifts him up, he will immediately respond by verbally debasing himself. It's part of the conversational gambit.

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It's as common as saying, "Hello, how are you? I'm fine, how are you?" The response is automatic. There's no particular indication of humility in this.

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In fact, I would go so far as to say that if you study the rest of the life of Saul, which we're going to be doing together over the next four weeks, you will discover that there were really two reasons why Saul turned away from the capacities which God had given him.

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The first is a minor reason, the second a major. The minor reason was this. He probably did not want to look too deeply inside himself to find out the treasures God had hidden there because he was afraid he might find something ugly down inside.

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There are a lot of people, you know, who don't want to enter into any serious introspection lest they find some raging monster inside of themselves of which they'd be ashamed. You hear about that fellow who said, "I don't need to see a psychiatrist. Anybody who says I need to see a psychiatrist ought to have his head examined."

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When you hear that kind of person talk, you're most generally looking at the individual who's afraid to look inside because he's afraid of the evil he might find there. Now in part, that was probably Saul's problem, but he had a greater problem than that, just as most people do.

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For you see, most people refuse to look inside of themselves and to take the scepter God has given them there, not because they're afraid of the evil they might find, but surprisingly enough, because of the good they might find inside themselves. Now I know that sounds absurd, but I mean it quite seriously.

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Most people are unwilling to discover the kingly characteristics God has built into them because they know that once they discover those characteristics, they're going to have to begin to live in accordance with them, and they don't want to do that. See we understand that if a person has a capacity and knows he has a capacity, he ought to begin

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to live using that capacity. So the only way we can avoid living that way is to refuse to see the capacity which is really ours. I've had doctors tell me about patients who refused to assert their health.

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As long as they continued to believe themselves to be sick, there were a lot of things they couldn't do that they didn't want to do, but as soon as they admitted they were healthy, they were going to have to begin doing them. So they would claim lack of health.

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I've known students who refused to do their best work because they knew that once their capacity to do good work had been revealed, everyone would expect them to reach that mark in the future, and they didn't want to have to be challenged that way, so they did mediocre work.

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That way they only had to perform in a mediocre way. I've even known little children who seemed to be very shy and diffident and retiring. Actually they did not want to assert themselves in all of their fullness because they knew when they so asserted themselves, people were going to expect more of them.

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So they retreated and put up a wall behind which they would let no one peer. Now this is what Saul was doing. He was refusing to be loyal to the royal in him because he didn't want the responsibility of it.

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How many Mozarts have lived and died without ever writing a note because they were afraid that once they did write notes, people would be expecting them to write a lot more notes as well? How many Einsteins have lived and died without ever advancing a theorem because they knew

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that once they advanced that theorem, they'd have to spend the rest of their lives in defense of it? Tell me. How many Schweitzers have been profitless to the world and of little value to themselves

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because they knew they had the capacity to invest themselves and once they did invest themselves, people would be making claims upon them for the rest of their days? Tell me. Could the cure for cancer have been found a dozen times by individuals who had the spark

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of genius necessary to do it but who refused to throw themselves into it with everything that they had because they didn't want those kinds of claims to be made upon them? They refused to measure themselves against the magnificence which God had put within them.

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When Saul came back, he didn't even tell his uncle that Samuel had anointed him king. And even when the lots were thrown and the sure will of God was made known, he ran off and hid in the baggage. Why?

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Well, the Bible says out of the heart are the issues of life and the heart is the center of the personality. And when at the center of your personality you have that which refuses to acknowledge the gifts which God has given you, well then, then you lose yourself inevitably amongst

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the stuff, the stuff, the whole stuff, and nothing but the stuff. Individuals like Saul need some compelling motivation to bring them out of this lethargy and into the kind of sovereign experience which God wants to be there. Now motivation is very important.

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Did you hear of the fellow who was walking across the cemetery one night and fell into an open grave? And he tried to get out but the sides were muddy and slippery and he couldn't make it. So he finally just pulled his coat about him and snuggled up in a corner determined to

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keep as warm as he could until the morning. Two hours later, another guy coming across the cemetery fell in the same grave. He didn't see the man over in the corner. He tried to climb out and of course he was slipping, couldn't make it either.

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And while he was trying, the fellow in the corner looked up and said, "You're never going to get out of here." He did. You see, when your motivation's right, you can do anything.

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Now what's the proper motivation for becoming loyal to the royal in you? I submit it's this. It's seeing what happens to people who do that. I know a man.

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Every finger on his hand's been eaten away by leprosy. Every toe on his feet's eaten away the same. And his eyesight is gone as well. But this man reached down inside himself, took hold of the gifts of God, the gifts of

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courage, of tenacity, of strength, of ingenuity, and he began to use the mind that he had and today reads Braille. No fingers, no eyes, no toes. How does he read Braille?

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He reads Braille with his tongue. I know a young man who graduated from a college in the East eight years ago. He was the last man in his class. Being the last man in his class, he got no job offers.

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This boy had worked up to the limit of his capacity, but he does not have a great deal of gray material. And he said to me on one occasion shortly after his graduation, "It's true, I don't have much IQ, but I have a lot of I wills."

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Today, seven years later, he is already approaching the top of his particular line of work. Why? He discovered within himself a gift of loving, a gift of openness, a tenderness, a sympathy, a gentleness to which other people respond.

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It has helped him in such a way that he's a magnificent husband, a splendid father, a pillar of the church of which he is a part, a major part in the life of his community, and a complete success in almost every standard of the word. Discovered you see what was in him, and build on that item.

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I know a man in San Diego. In the Navy some years ago, he got poliomyelitis, paralyzed from the neck down completely, living in an iron lung. He got tired of living in an iron lung.

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You remember how when he was a kid, they used to play a game called frog breathing, in which you would capture a certain amount of air in your mouth and then with your tongue force it down your windpipe. Now if he could teach himself to do that again, he thought he might be able to breathe outside

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of that iron lung. He did. He now is only in the iron lung at night. After being free of the iron lung, he decided he'd like to go to school.

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He picked San Diego University. Paralyzed from the neck down. Couldn't write a note. Couldn't even operate a tape recorder.

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So what did he do? He trained himself to remember everything the teacher said. He graduated from that school and then from law school and practices in San Diego today. A man you see, who reached down inside of himself, and when he found what was there,

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reached up to God, and God and he together, using the powers and the gifts bestowed upon him by the Father who made him, have turned that life from a defeat into a victory. Now there's nobody in this room this morning who's confronting the difficulties of that leper who reads Braille with his tongue.

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And there's no one in this room this morning who knows what it is to exist totally paralyzed from the neck down. There may be some in the room this morning who don't have much in the area of IQ, but I've not met them here because almost all the people that I know in this fellowship

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have not only IQ, but I will. Too many of them, however, focus too much on the IQ and not enough on the I will. What I'm saying this morning is this. These individuals who accomplish these things, they didn't sit down and pray for any miracle.

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They didn't wait around for somebody to come and pick them up, prop them up, carry them along. Instead of that, they took what God had given them and they took the God who was ready to stand with them, and then they went out to build victories.

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My little nephew, Kurt, came in one day in Chicago. He said, "Uncle Bruce, fix my lunch. I could eat an elephant." It's that high.

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"I could eat an elephant." I said, "How would you eat an elephant?" He said, "One bite at a time." And that's what these people did.

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They started out one bite at a time, and starting out that way, they've got the elephant. What I'm sharing with you today is not a collection of pious platitudes or optimistic and unrealistic hopes. Some time ago, two psychologists, a man named James and a man named Lange, both stumbled

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across the same theory at the same time. As a result, we know it today as the James-Lange theory. It's been verified so many times that there are many people today who don't think it's a theory anymore but call it a fact.

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The thesis behind this idea, the James-Lange theory, is this. If you act as if you can do something, you will be enabled to do it. In psychological terms, when you encounter some set of circumstances, if you can control your reactions to those circumstances, you will be able to control your emotional reaction

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also. And out of your emotions will come your strength. Now that's what these individuals did. Confronted by the terrible circumstances which were theirs, this leper in Africa, this young

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man in Pennsylvania, and this practicing attorney in San Diego, each and every one of these people refused to react in a defeated manner. They acted as if they could win. They understood themselves to be the children of the king of the universe, the brothers

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of the prince of peace, our Lord Jesus Christ. And with God as father and Christ as brother, they took a look at the things which God had put into them, the gifts that were there. They focused on them and then they did what had to be done.

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I want to conclude this message this morning by sharing with you eight sentences. Eight sentences which I believe apply to every single individual hearing my voice right now. I would bet the last dollar that I have that every one of these sentences could be said by you.

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Think about them. Sentence number one, "I have great possibilities inside of me." Sentence number two, "I have dreams in me that haven't even been born yet." Sentence number three, "I have been too self-critical."

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Sentence number four, you'll want to dodge this one, but it's true, "I am my own worst enemy." Sentence number five, "I am a child of God and God loves me." Sentence number six, "That means I can do great things."

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Sentence number seven, "That means I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." Before I give you sentence number eight, let me remind you of something that happened a couple hundred years ago in Africa.

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They'd captured a bunch of blacks and were loading them on a slave ship to bring them to this country. They were beaten and dejected and despairing, but there was one black amongst them who stood tall and straight, commanding the situation.

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One of the men engaged in this terrible task said, "Who is he?" One of the other men said, "He's the child of a king and he can't forget it." Here's the last sentence, "I am the child of a king and I shall not forget it, which means I shall be loyal to the royal in me."

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Oh, if you'll do that, then my lord and my lady, the kingdom is yours. Let us pray. Oh God, our father, we thank thee for each gift thou hast given to us and we pray that thou will cause us to search ourselves and having found ourselves to live in accordance

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with those set sovereignties you've established within us. Grant unto us such a vision of who we are and what we can do by thy grace that we might claim the kingdom and claim the whole world for the kingdom too. We pray this as joint heirs with Christ Jesus, unto whom be the honor and glory forever and

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forever. Amen. [BLANK_AUDIO]