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#47 The Positive Power of One Person !(19/10/02) By Dr. Robert H. Schuller My son and I are beginning a new series of messages entitled The Positive Power of One. This morning I am speaking on The Positive Power of One PERSON. This message is not to honor any particular profession. I was in Moscow last
week and had a wonderful visit with Mikhail Gorbachev for an afternoon.
He told me this joke: "A doctor, an architect and a politician
got together to debate on which was the first profession in the
human family. The doctor began by saying, 'Well, it was obviously
a doctor because a rib was taken out of Adam to make Eve.' The
architect said, 'You're wrong. Before Adam and Eve, this world
was in chaos. And we architects organized the whole world.' The
politician said, 'You're both wrong, where do you think the chaos
came from?'" I have lived life long enough to see that anything and everything that is significant and world changing didn't start with a big political party called Republican, Democrat, Communist or whatever. The world is not shaped by the masses. I was a history major and that hit me while I was studying History. History is not shaped by the masses. History is not shaped by the huge military armies. History is shaped by one person ... good or bad. Napoleon Bonaparte ... one man. Joan of Arc ... one person. Adolf Hitler ... one man. Winston Churchill ... one man. The list goes on and on and on. When you look at these people they seldom were in royalty or aristocracy. More often than not, they came from a simple place, often times they were poor. One person that the world watches! I want you to think about the power of one person. Jesus said: "You did not choose ME, but I chose you, and appointed you ..." (John 15:16) I've been preaching, teaching, observing, evaluating, measuring and testing these words of Jesus most of my life. And I truly believe that every single human being is someone for whom God has a plan that God can use. It makes no difference what race, color or religion you are. God even uses people who don't have a religion or a faith. The Bible makes it very clear that oftentimes the people that God uses to even change the history of the world are not aware of how they are being used at the time. I will tell you at the close of my message this morning about the power of one person who is responsible for this Crystal Cathedral. And it is not I. The person who is responsible for it, didn't live to know it or hear about it. I was a history major before I got into my studies in psychology. And, as I look at the history of the world, I am astonished and convinced that history clearly shows that the human race is basically moved and shaped by one solitary person who has discernment and insight to see something ... to hear something ... to feel something. Then there must be integrity, which means honesty and humility. Egotism wipes out integrity for egotism is an exaggeration of reality. So that person is humble and honest. Three
Qualities that Empower Leaders 1) Insight ... 2) Integrity ... then ... 3) Involvement. They speak up. They stand up. They make a statement and people follow. So history ultimately is shaped by that individual. So today I want you to leave this Cathedral knowing that every single person is empowered by God to make a difference in the world and that means you. I don't know who you are. I don't know how educated or illiterate you may be. I don't know how rich or poor you are. I don't know where you work or what your profession is, but I know something very true about you. There are people, close to you, who know you. When you talk they listen. They may be neighbors in your apartment complex ... they may be employees who work beside you ... or, they may be relatives. Every single human being is a center of influence. How large is that influence? No one can measure that, even if it is only one other person, especially a child. As I visited with Mikhail Gorbachev, he began to share more about his family home. I didn't realize that Mikhail Gorbachev was baptized when he was a baby by his Christian mother. She did it in secret. A Russian Orthodox priest immersed this little naked, baby boy in the traditional baptism sacrament that is still the same today in the Russian Orthodox Church. So Mikhail Gorbachev was lifted up and dedicated to God by that priest and his Christian mother. She put icons of Christ's face in all the family rooms. But Mikhail's father had become an ardent Communist. He didn't like the pictures of Jesus so he would put a picture of Stalin next to each picture of Jesus. I am convinced that Mikhail Gorbachev, more than he knows and more than he understands, received the baptismal promise from God when he was baptized in the name of God. Passionate prayers and the prayers prayed by sincere people to God are not forgotten by the Lord. But I know one thing, it was Mikhail Gorbachev who alone did what had to be done and that is break up Communism. And I believe it was the influence of his Christian mother. The power of one person ... the mother of Mikhail Gorbachev ... and history was saved from thermonuclear war. I said to Gorbachev, "You are not an atheist. You are a cultural atheist, but Christ lives in your heart because you keep dropping Christ's name all the time." I said, "We have millions of people in America who would say they are Christians, but Christ does not live in their hearts. They are cultural Christians just like you are a cultural atheist. You had to get a career going. You had to rise to the top. God wanted you at the top because He wanted to use you to bring peace. God wanted to use you to bring religion back into your country. And so it was Mikhail Gorbachev who invited me to preach in 1989 to open the doors of religion in the USSR. His mother never knew how God would answer her prayer. But Gorbachev's mother is the taproot, in my opinion, of what finally ended the cold war. The power of one person, often nameless. We have here on our campus America's first suicide prevention telephone counseling ministry high in the Tower of HOPE. That is due to one person, not a committee, not a church board, not me nor any of my family. It was Sir Alan Walker of the First Methodist Church in Sydney, Australia who saw people committing suicide and founded the first live 24-hour telephone-counseling ministry in his country. These people were told, "Troubled? Call us, it costs nothing, and we'll listen to you." I was so inspired by Alan Walker's dream. Then a young woman attempted suicide in our neighborhood and succeeded, and my wife broke down and broke apart ... and our New Hope telephone suicide prevention ministry was started here in the Tower of Hope. The power of one person is phenomenal. Remember Tianamen Square where suddenly, out of the crowd, walking in front of a moving tank is one nameless Chinese boy. He changed the world. He changed China more than we know. The power of one person. One of my dearest friends in life was W. Clement Stone, a name you might know. When he died a couple of weeks ago his photo made the front-page news of the Los Angeles Times, the front page of the Times in London, the front-page of the Chicago Tribune and around the world. W. Clement Stone was a poverty-stricken little kid in Chicago. He didn't know his father. He sold newspapers to earn enough money to help buy bread for his family to eat. Later, he moved from selling newspapers to going door to door to sell insurance. At one time he was named the wealthiest person in the United States of America. And it was at that time he spoke here on our campus. I said to him, "What is it like to be the richest man in America? What kind of feeling does that give you?" He said, "Power!" Power - that scared me because I thought that power is dangerous. He answered, "Robert, power is good, if you want to do good." Yes! "So what are your goals?" I asked and he instantly exclaimed, "My goals are to live to be 100 and to change the world." W. Clement Stone celebrated his 100th birthday this past May 5th. He lived to be 100! Five months later, he died peacefully having lived to be over 100 years old. Amazing. Clem Stone was known for his PMA ... the title of his book: Positive Mental Attitude: Dream it and you will achieve it. He taught it! He lived it! I told the 1,200 friends and family at his funeral, when I was invited and honored to give his funeral sermon, that W. Clement Stone changed the world. He really did. He felt that America had to start talking to communist leaders in China. One of our leaders needed to meet with them and it should be our president. It should be a conservative president because if a liberal president went, the conservatives in our country would say America is selling out to communism. So W. Clement Stone targeted Richard Nixon as the one who could do this if he became president. W. Clement Stone changed history when he wrote out a $4 million check for Nixon to get elected ... and Nixon got elected. Nixon went to China and opened the door to China. The rest is history. When I was in Beijing only a couple of months ago, the leaders there still remember Richard Nixon with fondness. W. Clement Stone, an insurance salesman, changed history. Wow! One person has the power to do immense things. Even if he is not in a political power position or even if he is not in the top financial power structure of the nation or the world. There is no one person that is more famous through the past 2,000 years as a great philanthropist like the poor widow. It was a time of philanthropy. The people were giving their offerings in the church and Jesus saw this one woman, a widow, drop in a mite (a few cents) and He said, "She has given more than all of you. She gave all that she had." (Mark 12:43) One nameless person, unknown to this day, but she has inspired more philanthropy than anyone else. The positive power of one person to make a difference is phenomenal. I invite you to become such a person. This Crystal Cathedral would not be here if it was not for one person. Many of you know that when we came to start this church we owned no property and we had no money. We looked for an empty hall, but couldn't find one. As a religious group, we were not allowed to use schoolrooms. So in desperation, I went to a drive-in theater and we announced a new church. I was the laughing stock of the clergy. They made fun of me, the drive-in preacher. But there were people who came to hear me. On the very first Sunday in the drive-in was a green Buick car. Driving that green Buick was Warren Gray. He was an Episcopalian who wanted to come to church but couldn't take his wife, Rosie. Rosie had had a stroke. She couldn't talk and she couldn't walk, but she could sit and worship in their car. So they came week after week. I called on them and they became members of the church. When our offerings were enough, we built our first church building... a little chapel three miles west of the Cathedral. When the chapel was completed with pews, an organ and altar, we were ready to leave the drive-in. I wouldn't have to hold an umbrella over my head on rainy Sundays or get cold in the winter anymore. Then someone asked the board, "What are you going to do with Rosie Gray?" Rosie Gray is still alive. The Board assumed that Rosie would live no more than another three months. So the decision was made to have me preach at 9:30 in the new chapel, then pull the trailer with the organ to the drive-in theater and at 11:00 I would preach to Rosie and others who came. We would do that until Rosie died. We owed that to her. Well, Rosie lived all fall ... she lived all winter ... she lived the next spring ... she lived the next summer ... she lived the next winter. Meanwhile, the drive-in congregation was growing larger each Sunday. Then Rosie started getting a little better. She lived the next spring ... the next summer ... and the next winter. She didn't die! Another spring, another summer, another winter. Rosie just would not die! By this time the drive-in congregation was as large as our chapel congregation. We had a problem. Finally, since we did not know how long Rosie was going to live I couldn't go on running two different places every Sunday morning, we decided to sell the little chapel, then we could buy ten acres of ground close to the drive-in theater and build a church where people could sit inside and where large doors would open and people in the cars could be a part of the worship at the same time. So
we bought the land and we held a groundbreaking ceremony for a
walk-in/drive-in church. The ground breaking was the third week
of September 1959, three days later Rosie died!
I know God kept her alive until I could get the message that God
was trying to give me. The power of one
person. If it wasn't for Rosie Gray living so long,
we wouldn't have been in the drive-in theater that long ... and
I wouldn't have fallen hopelessly in love with the sky to the
point where I'd want a church where I could see the sun and the
trees and the birds and the light. Thank
you Rosie Gray, without you we wouldn't have a Crystal Cathedral. "You did not choose ME, but I chose you, and appointed you ..." (John 15:16) I think God has chosen you and me to believe in this ministry. To make this ministry a place of love and peace, of hope and acceptance. There's a lot of love here. Thank you for letting God use you. The positive power of one person. When you follow Jesus Christ, He uses you in ways that you don't even know. So I challenge each of you to: 1) Pray for insight See something. Hear something that no one else notices. Call it discernment. 2) Have Integrity Be honest and humble. Then, give the dream everything you've got. 3) Become Involved Put your heart and your passion in it, and God will change the world through you. You may not know it. It may be a small group and you change one of the women. She goes home and she changes her home. She changes her son who is only a little boy. That little boy grows up with a faith that he got from his mother. He may become the president of the United States. He may become powerful. All of it goes back to you, sitting in church this morning, bringing your small group together, changing a human being who is going to change others ... who will change the world. You may never know. Neither will I. We don't know. The positive power of one person ... and you are one of those persons!
O Lord, forgive us for thinking that the big group has to do it ... or the committee ... or the board has to do it ... or the university has to do it. I am one person. You can use one person. Use me. That is the prayer of each of us. Amen.
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