Richard Ellis Talks

Richard Ellis: You can make as much money as you want, it'll never make you happy. You can marry an accessory of some kind and think that's going to fix it, it'll never make you happy. And you're going to screw that person's life up in the process.

If God has got his hand on your heart and your life and he tells you to go and it costs your life, it would be better to go somewhere and lose it than to stay here and keep it because you'll lose it here.

Guest (Male): Welcome to Richard Ellis Talks with Richard Ellis. Thanks for allowing us to share this time with you. You may be stuck in traffic or stuck in life. Either way, today's message is going to help you get on the right track as you learn how much God loves you right where you are.

Richard's unique style checks all the boxes, with a lot of hope, insight, truth, and of course, humor. Today's talk with Richard will get our conversation started, but we want to keep it going with you. So let's stay in touch through our website, richardellis.com. But right now, let's go ahead and get right into today's talk. Here's Richard Ellis.

Richard Ellis: The title of today's message is God's Odds. I want you to start with me in Matthew chapter 28. Sometimes the assumption is made that everybody who goes to church knows the deal. It's like going to some kind of sales convention or some corporate meeting where everybody knows the deal, all the conventions, all the lines, and all the scoop on the products.

We forget that there are people out there who have never read the Bible, don't know anything about it, don't know what Jesus said, and why there's such this rush and incredible push to go tell the whole world. Why don't you just get it and stay home? Why do you get passionate about it? Why do people cry over other people and get emotional and all freaked out? Just be religious and leave me alone. You believe what you want to believe, let me believe what I want to believe, and let's just all leave each other alone.

It's a very personal thing. It's a very private thing. Let me keep it to myself. At some point, the most personal, private thing cannot be contained. You have to share it, you have to declare it, and you have to speak it to somebody because you can't take it anymore. It literally consumes your life, and you've got to speak.

We'll read here and then go through some other passages here. God shows up on the planet in Jesus, which is just to me, what are the odds of that? What are the odds of God coming to earth? I keep going over in my mind the way he did it. The odds of being born of a virgin, there are no odds. That's not possible. The odds of anybody living a perfect life, it's never been done but by him.

The odds of somehow being crucified on a cross would make salvation possible for an entire world, for history, all of mankind. And the odds of somebody being buried in a grave and then being raised from the dead. Maybe he was just asleep. Maybe he was in a trance and he never really died. He was dead for three days.

And what are the odds of him being raised from the dead and then coming back and for weeks on end, seeing and meeting with these disciples, his followers, and then one day leaving and saying, "I'll be back"? What are the odds of his coming back? It's been 2,000 years now he's been gone. What's he waiting for?

He is providing us every possible opportunity to do what he asked us to do when he left. If you know the story when Jesus had been raised from the dead, he'd been out moving among the people for a number of weeks. You find him in Matthew 28, starting with verse 18. Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, "All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. I'm it. I've got complete authority in heaven and down here. I'm in control.

Go therefore," or it can also be read, as you are going and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I've commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. Amen.

Let me tell you something. I've read that since I was a little boy. It's nuts. There are these people out here on this hillside and he's about to be beamed up into heaven, disappear into the clouds. How do you do that? He stands on this hillside outside of town and looks at a bunch of guys and says, "Here's the deal. I'm in control and I'm leaving. And here's your responsibility. You guys, you 11 guys, you take it out there."

Not to Jerusalem. He didn't give them a target like Jerusalem and say, "Take Jerusalem." He says, "Go make disciples of all the nations." That's your job. 11 guys are supposed to take it to the whole planet. What are the odds of that? Is he crazy? Sometimes I read the scriptures, I look at the world, it just explodes. You watch population charts and for a while, it flatlined and then all of a sudden, it just starts to double and just takes off and people are multiplying and multiplying and there are billions of them.

If you keep track of it, there will be 10 billion before long and there's no end to this, it seems. It gets better because there are more people to reach, but it gets worse because there's no way we're going to reach all these people. Most Christians are complacent and most American Christians don't do anything. It's a time card we punch. We show up at church and we give a little money and sing a little song and go, "Well, it wasn't very good today. I don't think I'm going back there," or, "I don't feel good after I leave."

We never even scratch the surface of what he left us here to do and to be, and to lay our lives down. If it means living for him, great. If it means dying for him, fine. Is it easy to say those things and live that way? No, of course, it'd be tough to die a terrible death. It's not about getting rich and buying a bunch of stuff and being comfortable. Get on with your life. People have been doing that for thousands of years and they end up with nothing and nowhere, nothing to show for their life.

They leave a bunch of money to people that are going to go waste it anyway. They don't understand what it took to make it. Two generations down the road, it's all gone. He says if you try to hold your life, you'll lose it. If you let it go, you'll find it. You say, "I don't want to be talked to this way. My life's great." Is it? Is it? Do you wake up in the morning going, "God, I got another day. I'd love to be with you in heaven, but I got another day here. Okay, where are we going today, God? Please don't let me waste this day, God. It's the only one I've got left, maybe."

I've got mom and dad and sisters and brothers and family and friends and they don't know you. If they die today, God, they're screwed forever. You can't let this happen. God, don't let me waste this day. You fall asleep at night, you go, "God, what an amazing day. It was tough, it had its struggles and its problems. Financially maybe things are tough and I'm not well and I'm tired and whatever, but God, I know you and I know somebody else might know you today as a result of me being on this planet another day."

God, thank you that there's fulfillment and passion and joy and excitement in knowing you and living for you and being a part of this great challenge that you've placed us here and put us here to do. You go to spend money and you say, "God, can I buy this?" And he says, "No, you know what? I want that money to go to support some missionary somewhere. You can live without that." You say, "But I'll really look good in these shoes, God. More people will be drawn to you if I have these shoes. They'll say, 'Look, Christians can wear nice shoes too, God. I need these shoes.'"

He says, "But it's you're talking about sacrifice. What about me?" What if Jesus had lived that way? What about me? You can't hang me up on this cross. What about me? His whole life was not about me, it was about you and laying it down. Let me tell you something. If you lose your life for his sake, you find it. There is no better way to live.

Every once in a while somebody will come up to me and say, "Man, you ought to be in advertising." I say, "I am." You ought to be selling something. I say, "You know what? I'm giving something away. It doesn't get any better than this. There is no ad firm on the planet that could offer me enough money to pull me away from this. My prayer for you is that for God's sake, for your sake, find out what he made you to do and do that and be that. Stop being complacent and compromising and one foot on both sides. Abandon your life to the cause and let him use you up. You won't regret it."

Jesus says to this handful of guys, couple handfuls of guys, "Okay, take the planet." That's what he said. "How are you going to do that? You're leaving. You're it. You're the one we've been following around and now you're up here going to just disappear and leave us by ourselves to take the planet? What are you crazy?" I mean if I'm one of these guys, I'm like this plan is not a very good plan. Our leader got killed and he was raised from the dead now he's leaving again.

What are we going to do? What is up with this God and this Jesus and this has all been too wacky? How are we going to do this? One of the things he told them to do was to wait. You can't do this without God. He gives us impossible tasks and then he says, "Wait, because if you don't have my power working in you and through you, you will never accomplish what I've asked you to do."

Look over at Acts chapter 1, verse 1 and following. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts. He starts out by saying, "The former account I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach," so he's writing to one guy and all of us get the benefit. "Until the day in which he was taken up, after he through the Holy Spirit had given commandments to the apostles whom he had chosen. To whom he also presented himself alive after his suffering by many infallible proofs, being seen by them during 40 days and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God."

"And being assembled together with them, he commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which he said, 'You have heard from me; for John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.' Therefore, when they had come together, they asked him, saying, 'Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?'" What are you doing? Is it now? We don't want to wait. Restore it now.

He said to them, "It's not for you to know the times or the seasons which the Father has put in his own authority." He says, "Don't worry about that. You want to know a time and a day when you can go home and it'll all be over." He says, "Don't think about that. What are you to think about?" Verse 8: "But you shall receive power. All you don't need to know time and days, you need to know you'll have power to live every day. You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to me in Jerusalem."

So start here where you are. "But then it's going to move to Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth." This is impossible. What are the odds of this small group of people reaching the planet? Now when he had spoken these things, while they watched, he was taken up and a cloud received him out of their sight.

And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel, who also said, "Men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus who was taken up from you into heaven will so come in like manner as you saw him go into heaven." Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day's journey.

And when they had entered, they went up into the upper room where they were staying: Peter, James, John and Andrew; Philip and Thomas; Bartholomew and Matthew; James the son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot; and Judas the son of James. These all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication, with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers.

So they go back and wait. What are they going to do without him? They don't have the power, they don't have the resources, they don't have any way. They've been told to take the planet and there's no way by themselves they can do this. These are not mathematicians, they're not brilliant men. These are common fishermen-type guys who have been given this mandate to go back and wait and something so amazing's going to happen that you'll have power to go take the planet.

Now here's where I want to camp out a minute in a bizarre verse, verse 15. And in those days, Peter stood up in the midst of the disciples and in my Bible, it's in parentheses, the next little phrase: "Altogether the number of names was about 120." Now it's getting better. It's gone from about 11 and if you keep reading after this, they got to pick somebody to replace Judas Iscariot and they get that done. But in this room, there's 120 people.

The disciples come back and I'm sure they're talking about what Jesus said. "What do we do? Well, we're supposed to wait. Well, what else did he say? Well, we're supposed to take the planet. Well, how are we going to do that?" If you go back a couple of thousand years, from all the research I can find, there were anywhere from 150 to 200 million people on the planet. Most people agree that that's what really were the numbers. That's one of the few places in history where we can agree that's probably exactly how many people, 150 to 200 million people on the planet.

If you just took conservatively or wildly, 120 believers right there that day, the ratio is about one Christian for every 1.25 to somewhere around 1.66 million people on the planet. Each of these people, the ratios are off the charts. You're each responsible to take a million-something people. How are you going to do that? And as the population continues to explode, what are the odds that we're ever going to be able to accomplish this?

We are not without him. But somehow, that 120 turns into a mob if you keep reading through Acts, what happens? He tells them to go not just to Jews, but to Gentiles. Literally, all these Jewish people from around the world are in Jerusalem at Pentecost. All heaven breaks loose. These people get saved by the thousands. The ratios even from believers to new believers are out of whack. It's not one-on-one, it's one on hundreds and hundreds and hundreds.

And all of a sudden these people go home and it scatters and God by his Holy Spirit begins to saturate the planet. People are driven to go and live and share this gospel, do things they never would have done apart from this. A guy like Paul who has every credential on the planet in the Jewish world and has an encounter with Jesus on a road to Damascus where he's going to persecute Christians and has such an encounter, he abandons everything and in Philippians even talks about everything I have, everything I was, I count it dung. Nothing. Waste. Compared to knowing Christ.

He abandoned, he lost his life, gave it completely to the pursuit of not persecuting Christians but pursuing people who weren't Christians and saying this is the opportunity he's made possible and the gift that he's made available. I don't have time, but I'm going to encourage you to go read Isaiah chapter 49. Even as far back as there, I'll read you some little snippets of this. Isaiah 49 and a lot of this passage talks about it refers to Israel, but it's really talking about Jesus. Jesus is the glory of Israel, he is the manifestation of Israel.

Isaiah 49:4 he says, "Then I said, 'I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for nothing and in vain; yet surely my just reward is with the Lord.'" Do you ever feel like you're doing the right thing and nobody gives a rip? Everybody, the highway is wide and long and fast lane, everybody's going that way and you're going this way and you think, "Why am I doing the right thing?" I don't know that Jesus ever felt that way, but there are certain times when you think, "God, this is not working."

The missionaries that labored, for instance, in China in past centuries and for decades would pray and share their faith and work and work and never see anybody become a Christian and think, "My whole life has been given to this and nothing has happened, God. And it's wasted." And God says, "No, it's not."

Look down a few verses more to verse 6. Indeed he says, "Is it too small a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the preserved ones to Israel? I will also give you as a light to the Gentiles, that you should be my salvation to the ends of the earth." Thus says the Lord, the Redeemer of Israel, the Holy One, to him whom man despises, to him whom the nation abhors, to the servant of rulers: "Kings shall see and arise, princes also shall worship, because of the Lord who is faithful, the Holy One of Israel; and he has chosen you."

You know what? It may be that God has chosen you. I don talk about this very much, but I was 14 years of age. I was at a thing with my parents, some religious thing they were doing, some church thing. I wasn't pursuing God, chasing after anything, and in a moment in time, I knew that God himself, I didn't hear an audible voice but I'm telling you, I knew he was in the room with me. And it was the most clear and overwhelming thing that my life, my job, my calling was to preach.

There were times I questioned whether I was a Christian, but when that call comes on you and I know it's not the same way for everybody, that's why I hesitate to tell you. But I'm telling you when it happens and when God puts his hand on you and touches you and says do something, and you know it, some of you here and beyond this place are running from it. And you will never be happy until you say yes.

You can make as much money as you want, it'll never make you happy. You can marry an accessory of some kind and think that's going to fix it, it'll never make you happy. And you're going to screw that person's life up in the process. If God has got his hand on your heart and your life and he tells you to go and it costs your life, it would be better to go somewhere and lose it than to stay here and keep it because you'll lose it here.

And see for some of you say, "Well, I don't think God's sending me to Africa." You know what? He's probably just sending you to work and you won't even go there. He's not after you to go off to some God-forsaken country, seemingly. He's saying, "You know what? All I'm asking you to do is live at work." And if you're going to happy hour with everybody, be happy. Not for an hour, let them know you got a life. Live it out in front of them.

Go to Luke chapter 2. This thing about taking it to the planet guys doesn't go away. It's all over the scriptures. It's even when Jesus is born and going to the temple to be blessed. Luke chapter 2, pick up about verse 25. Mary and Joseph take him to Jerusalem. There was a guy there named Simeon, he was just and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel and the Holy Spirit was upon him.

And the Holy Spirit had told him, "Before you die, you're going to see the promised one, the Messiah, the anointed one." Verse 29, he says, "Lord, now you're letting your servant depart in peace, according to your word; for you told me I wouldn't die. Now I can die in peace. For my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared before the face of all peoples, a light to bring revelation to the Gentiles and the glory of your people Israel."

He knew, Simeon knew this was not just a Messiah, a Jesus for the Jewish people. This was a Messiah for everybody. And he had seen this little baby who would live and die and sacrifice his life and he knew this kid was going to save the world.

And knew that it would be for the Gentiles as well. Look over at Acts chapter 13, verse 46. Then Paul and Barnabas grew bold and said, like he wasn't bold already, you get bolder I guess. They grew bold and said, "It was necessary that the word of God should be spoken to you first." He gets in their face a little bit. "But since you reject it and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, behold, we turn to the Gentiles."

"You know what? We given you a chance, we put the gospel out here. And I don't want to be rude or mean when I say this, I'll say it as gently and lovingly as I can: Do not abuse the grace of God."

You think you're going to walk in here to some church service or hear this in your car somewhere and somebody's loving you and praying for you and you go, "Well, I'm just not ready. I think I'll do that later." You know what? There may not be a later. And everybody says, "Well, there you go again, trying to scare the hell out of people. And threaten them with death and hell and fire and brimstone they'll turn to God." If that's what it takes, then you need to do that. This is forever, guys.

And you abuse the grace of God and think, "Well, I'll wait, I'll wait, I'll wait." You know what? Today if you hear his voice, do not harden your heart and say, "Father, I don't know what I've been thinking, but if this deal is what I think it is, I'm in now. I've thought about it, I've pondered it, I've postponed it. I'm not doing anything anymore. I understand who you are and who I'm not and how much I need you. I'm in right now, God."

And Paul, Barnabas, these guys look at them and say, "You know what? We told you, we've tried. You don't want it, we're taking it to the Gentiles." That's the deal anyway, but we started here with you. Jesus started with the Jews, wouldn't even talk to Samaritans for a while, to make it so clear to the Jews that it was for them first. But then it was going global.

"We turn to the Gentiles, for so the Lord has commanded us," verse 47. "'I have set you as a light to the Gentiles, that you should be for salvation to the ends of the earth.'" Now Paul knew what his job was. Now when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and glorified the word of the Lord. And as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed. They're like, "Great, it is for us."

There are so many people outside of church doors who go, "We're not good enough. We've crossed the line." How many homosexuals out there think, "You know what? I have done too many degrading things to myself with other people. There is no way those church people—every church they go to says, 'You know what? You're not welcome. Your kind ain't getting in. You'll burn in hell.' That's what churches tell them."

And God's looking for a bunch of Christians who'll say, "You know what? You don't have to burn in hell. Nobody has to burn in hell. Jesus died for any and everybody, whosoever will, let them come. Get in. And if you're not dead, you haven't gone too far."

When Gentiles, when lost people hear the message of the gospel and it is spoken through someone that loves them and has laid their life down and knows that Jesus has laid his life down, they start communicating. You know what? They get excited because most of us have spent an entire lifetime being rejected. And all of a sudden we find out that God loves us, has got a plan and a purpose and meaning and direction and can take care of our past and handle our future and get us through today and we go, "You know what? I've been looking for this all my life. Why wouldn't I jump in with this?"

In Acts chapter 26, verse 17, Paul telling the story to a king named Agrippa. And he relates what happened to him, let's start with verse 16. "And the Lord said to me, 'But rise and stand on your feet; for I have appeared unto you for this purpose, to make you a minister and a witness both of these things which you have seen and of those things in which I will appear unto you. Delivering you from the people and from the Gentiles, whom now I send you. To open their eyes and to turn them from darkness to light and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me.'"

And he says, "O King Agrippa, I wasn't disobedient. I'm doing what he told me to do." Now let me tell you something not parenthetically. I know some of my limitations and I know that we are all human beings.

But for some crazy reason since I was a kid, I believe this is possible. It is impossible. But because God said to do it, God would never ask you to do something if he wasn't going to give you the ability and the power to do it. He is not that kind of guy. So if he says take the planet, he says, "You start to take it, I'll back you up." And we get trapped by what we can see and what we can explain and how much money we have or don't have and God says, "You know what? Get your eyes on me and off of that and trust me and move. And I will back you up."

And all of a sudden power from nowhere comes and you speak the gospel and the Holy Spirit does something with the word of God and the words of God and people's hearts are changed and lives are changed. And it's like a wildfire that can take the planet literally, if we stop thinking about what can't be done and just concentrate on what God told us to do and do that. You can take the planet or he would not have said to do it.

And sometimes it involves literally you going. Sometimes it involves you staying and going to work or wherever with your own family. Sometimes it involves you giving your money sacrificially. And not buying a new car. You know what? I'd love to have a new car. Some people think I drive around an old Lincoln for fun or something. It doesn't start some days and I'm not complaining guys, but you know what? If that's not what I'm supposed to have, I'll get a new car in heaven. Some of you don't even have cars. You'd love my car.

You can live without something, but there are people around the world who cannot live without Jesus now or forever. And we've got to get in a different mode of thinking, not just existing, surviving, going through the motions. We've got to get in a mode to lay our lives down.

What are the odds of this working though? If they're God's odds, they're huge odds. We get a lot of cards. There's this picture of a family, just a normal old card. And there's all these grandkids and people and I realized who it was. And buried in all those kids and grandkids was a man and a woman who are sitting in here today.

This man in this picture lived in my building that I just moved out of downstairs. And I met him and invited him to church and he came and he was separated from his wife. And he lived here and she lived in another state. And it wasn't going to work. And God did something and they're sitting in this room together today and they had a card made. What are the odds of that? It's not possible without God. They were going completely different directions and there's a chance they're going to make it.

And there's these simple things that I see day after day. God says to me, "I can do these little things. I can do the great things that you're not asking me and trusting me to do. I'm alive, I'm working, I'm doing what people alone cannot do. Trust me. Try me. Let me have a shot at it."

Guest (Male): This has been Richard Ellis Talks with Richard Ellis. The message of the gospel is one we take very seriously in our mission to reach the planet. And you have a vital part of doing that along with us. If you've been encouraged by these talks with Richard, be sure to tell someone about the change they've made in your life. You can even share today's talk with them through the website, richardellis.com. And we'd love to hear your story as well as to how these talks have made a difference in your life too.

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