Being Light in Your Generation

Dannah Gresh: Imagine you’re on trial for being a Christian. Would there be enough evidence to convict you? Ouch! Here’s Kim Cash Tate.

Kim Cash Tate: If we’re following Christ and serving His purpose, it should be evident in how we live, evident in our witness. It should be known that we belong to the Lord and serve the Lord.

Dannah: This is the Revive Our Hearts podcast with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, author of Holiness: The Heart God Purifies. It’s October 26, 2023, and I’m Dannah Gresh.

Okay, so old people like me might remember that Bob Dylan once sang this:

Bob Dylan singing:

You’re going to have to serve somebody, yes indeed!
You’re going to have to serve somebody.
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord,
But you’re going to have to serve somebody.¹

Dannah: Now I realize you may be thinking, Wait! I thought I was listening to Revive Our Hearts. What’s Bob Dylan doing on my favorite program!?” Well, it’s an illustration, so bear with us.

Even this pop song from the ’70s gets it. But maybe a more biblical illustration would be what Joshua said to the Israelites: “Choose this day whom you [are going to] serve . . . But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” (Joshua 24:15 ESV)

We say, “I’m going to serve the Lord,” that’s what we’re all about, right? But what exactly does that look like? Nancy, we’re going to address that today on Revive Our Hearts, right?

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: We are, Dannah, and I’m so thrilled to welcome to Revive Our Hearts today as a guest teacher, my dear friend, Kim Cash Tate. Once you’ve heard her, you’re going to feel like she’s your friend too!

Kim is a member of the Revive Our Hearts Board of Directors. Some time ago we aired a message that she shared at our national women’s conference Revive ’21. She spoke then about something that she has a passion for: clinging to the Lord in every season of life. In fact, she has a ministry called Cling Ministries. That’s her heartbeat.

Kim Cash Tate is a wife and a mom, and she’s a talented musician, speaker, and author. She’s written multiple books, including quite a few fiction books. In fact, I’ve read and really enjoyed one of those. It’s the first book in The Promisesof God series. You may want to check that series out yourself. 

Kim also has a book called Cling: Choosing a Lifestyle of Intimacy of God. We have links to more information about Kim’s books, as well as her message from the Revive conference, in the transcript of this program at ReviveOurHearts.com.

Most of all, Kim is a woman who loves the Lord, loves His Word, loves her family, loves His people; and I’m so thrilled to have her on Revive Our Hearts once again today. Kim shared the message you’re about to hear with a studio audience here at the Revive Our Hearts headquarters.

Before she spoke, she and I had a brief conversation to help folks get to know her better. Let’s listen.

Nancy: The first time, Kim, that you and I met officially was at the Sisters in Ministry event that we did here at the end of 2019—before the whole world got shut down! 

Kim: Yes.

Nancy: You were here and a part of that. I learned at the time that really you were not new to Revive Our Hearts. In fact, just tell us for a moment about how you first connected with Revive Our Hearts’ message.

Kim: So about twenty years ago I had been a practicing attorney. I wasn’t a believer when I decided to go to law school. I just wanted to make money! I thought, That would be a good way to make money, I’ll be an attorney!

I was practicing law at a firm in Wisconsin, and I was saved when I was twenty-seven. So at that point, I was a practicing attorney. I had my first child at thirty and then my second child, my daughter, at thirty-two.

Over the course of those two pregnancies, the Lord was moving in my heart to put the career behind me. A year after my daughter was born I left the practice of law, and I was at home for the first time, a stay-at-home mom. 

I had to adjust to being a stay-at-home mom; nobody in my family was a stay-at-home mom. It was always drilled into me, “You have a career. You make your own money!” because my parents had divorced when I was young, and so my mom was a working mom.

She wasn’t a believer, so that’s what was always drilled into me. And so, I’m home for the first time with these two toddlers and grappling with this new identity that I have. The Lord led me to turn on my radio, and there was Nancy on the radio!

You, Nancy, had just started on Revive Our Hearts radio. 

Nancy: Yes, it was early in Revive Our Hearts radio.

Kim: I would listen to Nancy. There was this voice helping to ground me in the season I was in, and helping me to be steadfast in my calling. I didn’t have any voices growing up who were saying the things that Nancy was saying.

I needed Nancy’s biblical wisdom, and I needed her voice of godliness to say, “You are walking in your purpose and your calling in this season of your life.” It was such a blessing! Never would I have dreamed that one day I would be at Revive Our Hearts with Nancy!

It’s just a total God thing, but it’s just so sweet to me knowing that twenty years ago she was the voice on the radio that was being used by God to encourage me and help me to be steadfast! Thank you for your faithfulness through these twenty years of Revive Our Hearts! 

Nancy: Thank you, Kim. What I love about this is, those two kids are now grownups; they’re in their twenties.

Kim: Yes, they’re in their twenties.

Nancy: I hate to say this, but now you’re one of those “older women” in Titus 2. God is using you and your voice, your writing, your speaking to ground women of various seasons of life in the Word of God!

So this is the baton of faith that we’re always talking about. It doesn’t all relate to age, some of it does sometimes. But here’s a woman who over those years, the last twenty years, has gotten grounded in God’s Word.

I’ve been watching a number of YouTube videos on your YouTube channel. Every time I hear you, Kim, you’re opening the Book, taking people to the Book, getting people’s noses in the Book (that’s “the Book” with a capital “B”-—the Word of God). That’s why what you have to say rings true. It is true because you’re drawing it right from the Word of God.

So thank you for joining us today. May the Lord just give you freedom and fresh oil as you point us to the Scripture and what God has put on your heart. Thank you so much.

Kim: Thank you, Nancy. 

This past week I attended the homegoing service for the mom of a close college friend. She and her mom were really close, and because of that, a lot of us got to know her mom as well. I wanted to be there for her, so I traveled to Maryland—which is where I’m from.

Over the course of a couple of days it also became a time for college friends to catch up on each others’ lives—thirty-five years I’ve known these women! And when you’re with people you’ve known that long, and the context of the reunion is a homegoing service, you do a lot of thinking about life . . . and purpose . . . and seasons. 

It brought to mind one of my favorite verses, which is Acts 13:36. It starts this way: 

For David, after he had served the purpose of God in his own generation, fell asleep. 

For years I have prayed, “Lord, I want to serve Your purpose in my own generation!” It’s a cry of the heart that’s made more real when we consider James 4:14 NASB 1995]: 

You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. 

From the perspective of eternity, we only have a little while here. As followers of Christ, we should want to serve the purpose of God in our little while! 

What does that look like, though, “serving the purpose of God,” and what does that entail? I love that we can read the Word of God and glean from people’s lives as to what that looks like, even what it doesn’t look like, depending on who you’re reading about! 

And so today, I want to share from a chapter that I turn to time and again. It features a prophet who just sets me on fire when it comes to living out God’s purpose! His name is Micaiah. How many of you know about Micaiah? Okay, wonderful! 

We’re going to talk about Micaiah today. This story is found in 1 Kings 22 and 2 Chronicles 18. We’re going to 2 Chronicles 18 because the first verse gives an important tidbit that’s not in 1 Kings. So let’s go there.

We’re going to go to 2 Chronicles 18 and see what lessons we can glean about serving the purpose of God in our generation. I will be reading from the New American Standard Version 1995 edition. So 2 Chronicles 18, verse 1 says this:

Now Jehoshaphat had great riches and honor; and he allied himself by marriage with Ahab. 

We’re in the period of the kings, when there was still a king in the northern kingdom of Israel, as well as in the southern kingdom of Judah.

At this time, King Ahab was king of the northern kingdom in Samaria. And you may know, he was a wicked king! He was married to Jezebel, who was also wicked. First Kings 16:30 says, “Ahab . . . did evil in the sight of the Lord more than all who were before him.”

King Ahab ruled as king of Israel during the infamous showdown between Elijah and the 450 prophets of Baal, which is in 1 Kings 18. Elijah had told them, “You prepare your altar; I’ll prepare mine. Then you call on the name of your god; I’ll call on the name of the Lord. And the God who answers by fire, He is God!”

So those prophets called on the name of their god. Nothing happened. And they called on him all day. Elijah prepared his altar, called on the name of the Lord, and fire fell from heaven, causing the people to fall on their faces and say, “The Lord, He is God!” (1 Kings 18:39).

Elijah then proceeded to kill the Baal prophets. As a result, Jezebel said he would be dead by the following day! That should give you a picture of life under Ahab and Jezebel! Also, after that, King Ahab wanted a vineyard that belonged to a man named Naboth. Naboth refused. It was part of his inheritance; he wanted to keep it!

Jezebel found out about it and had Naboth killed! Ahab went to take possession of the vineyard. Elijah confronted him and pronounced judgment from the Lord against him. That’s just some of the backdrop concerning Ahab.

This is the king with whom King Jehoshaphat made an alliance through marriage. . .which is interesting, because King Jehoshaphat, King of Judah, was one of the few kings known for seeking the Lord and following Him.

He enters into this alliance with the wicked king, giving his son to marry Ahab’s daughter, Athaliah, who was herself very wicked! So on this day, King Jehoshophat goes to visit his in-law, Ahab, at Samaria.

2 Chronicles 18:2: 

Some years later he [Jehoshaphat] went down to visit Ahab at Samaria, and Ahab slaughtered many sheep and oxen for him and the people who were with him. And induced him to go up against Ramoth-gilead.

Ahab king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat king of Judah, “Will you go with me against Ramoth-gilead?” And he said to him, “I am as you are, and my people as your people, and we will be with you in the battle.” (vv. 2–3)

So Ahab makes this a special occasion. He’s a consummate host. He kills an abundance of sheep and oxen so they can have a feast. But he has a motive: he wants Jehoshaphat to go with him to war to recapture Ramoth-gilead.

Here is another alliance that Jehoshaphat is willing to enter into with Ahab. He actually says, “’I am as you are, and my people as your people, and we will be with you in the battle.’” But he adds this in verse 4. It says: “Moreover, Jehoshaphat said to the king of Israel, ‘Please inquire first for the word of the Lord.’”

The first lesson we can glean from this chapter is that: Serving God’s purpose means you need to seek God’s will! The problem here is, Jeshoshophat agrees, and then says, “Let’s inquire of the Lord.” We do that sometimes, don’t we?

Maybe it’s the pressure in the moment: someone has just gone to great lengths to show you hospitality, and it’s extended family, and that person is now asking for your help. So you give the answer that seems right, but it’s from your flesh. You haven’t asked God about it. “Yeah, I’ll help you.” And then it’s, “We-e-ll, you know what? Let me pray about it!”

It would seem that Jehoshaphat switched up and is now doing the right thing, but we later find that when he does get the word of the Lord—which is that the Lord is against Ahab and Ahab will be killed in this battle—Jehoshaphat joins him in the battle anyway.

But verse 1 told us the underlying issue: he had already entered into an alliance with Ahab. That’s what he should have inquired of the Lord about. He should have sought the Lord’s will about that alliance of giving his son to marry Ahab’s daughter.

In the following chapter, which is 2 Chronicles 19, verse 2, Jehoshophat gets this word from the Lord (spoken to him by Jehu, son of Hanani the seer): 

Should you help the wicked and love those who hate the Lord, and . . . so bring wrath on yourself from the Lord?

If we want to serve the purpose of God, we need to seek Him and His will in all that we do, including the people and projects we align ourselves with. We need His direction, and He is always faithful to give it!

Proverbs 3:5–6: 

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him. And He will make your paths straight. 

Let’s continue with 2 Chronicles 18:5: 

Then the king of Israel assembled the prophets [Jehoshophat has told him, “We need to inquire of the Lord,” so Ahab assembled the prophets] four hundred men, and said to them, “Shall we go against Ramoth-gilead to battle, or shall I refrain?” 

And they said, “Go up, for God will give it into the hand of the king.” But Jehoshaphat said, “Is there not yet a prophet of the Lord here that we may inquire of him?” So Jehoshaphat said, “Inquire of the Lord.” (vv. 5–6)

Ahab proceeds to get four hundred prophets! 

Now, this is after Elijah slew four-hundred-fifty prophets of Baal. Where did this other four hundred more prophets come from who are not true prophets of God!? There is never a shortage of people who are willing to serve the enemy’s purpose. 

They tell Ahab just what he wants to hear: “Go up, for God will give it into the hand of the king” (v. 5). But Jehoshaphat knows these people are not speaking for the Lord, so he asks again, “Is there yet someone?”

Ahab responds with this in verse 7: 

The king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, “There is yet one man by whom we may inquire of the Lord, but I hate him, for he never prophesies good concerning me but always evil. He is Micaiah, son of Imla.” But Jehoshaphat said, “Let not the king say so.”

Second lesson: Serving God’s purpose means there will be people who don’t like you. Imagine that the person who holds the highest office in the land hates you simply because you’re doing what God has called you to do.

 

Ahab says, “I hate him!” Why? “He never prophesies good concerning me, but always evil!” Hmm, could it be because you’re always doing evil? God said this to Jeremiah regarding the prophets in Jeremiah 23:13, 

“Moreover, among the prophets of Samaria [which is where they are] I saw an offensive thing. [This is God talking] They prophesied by Baal and led My people Israel astray.”

Then a few verses down in Jeremiah 23, verses 21 and 22 God says,

“I did not send these prophets, but they ran. I did not speak to them, but they prophesied. But if they had stood in My council, then they would have announced My words to My people, and would have turned them back from their evil way and from the evil of their deeds.” (v. 22)

Ahab had hundreds of prophets in their midst that God did not send or speak to. 

Micaiah is the one who has stood in God’s counsel and spoken God’s words to Ahab and Ahab hates him for it! Jesus said this in John 15:18 and 19: 

“If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you.” 

Hate is such a strong word, isn’t it? I mean, we don’t want to be mildly disliked, that makes us uncomfortable.

Can you imagine hearing that someone hates you? But as followers of Christ we will be hated by the people in the world, we will endure the persecution, but we can’t let those things cause us to shrink back from serving God’s purpose.

The apostle Paul says in Galatians 1:10, 

“For am I now seeking the favor of men, or of God? Or am I striving to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a bond-servant of Christ.” 

Micaiah didn’t live for man’s approval or favor. He was serving God’s purpose in his generation.

Are you willing to forego approval and the favor of man for the sake of Christ? Are you willing to be disliked for the sake of Christ? That’s the mindset we need in this generation if we want to serve God’s purpose!

But Jesus gives us this encouragement in Luke 6:22 and 23: “Blessed are you when men hate you. . .” You wouldn’t feel that way if you’re finding out somebody hates you. It doesn’t feel that you’re blessed. But this is the truth of the Word. 

“Blessed are you when men hate you and ostracize you, and insult you, and scorn your name as evil, for the sake of the Son of Man. Be glad in that day and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven. For in the same way their fathers used to treat the prophets.”

And there’s another lesson in this same verse 7, (lesson number 3): If you’re serving God’s purpose, you should be known as serving God’s purpose, in other words you should be known as a follower of Christ. 

In other words, that shouldn’t be a fact that escapes people’s notice, like, “Kim is a servant of God?!You’re talking about Kim Cash Tate?! O-o-okay, if you say so.” That should not be people’s reaction!

If we’re following Christ and serving His purpose, it should be evident in how we live, evident in our witness. It should be known that we belong to the Lord and serve the Lord! Ahab might not have liked Micaiah, but he was not confused about who Micaiah was or what he was about!

He said, “There is yet one man by whom we may inquire of the Lord” (2 Chron. 18:7). 

He was actually praising Micaiah, he just didn’t know it! Micaiah served God and God alone, and the most powerful man in the northern kingdom knew it! Micaiah was a light in that dark kingdom.

In Matthew 5:14–16 Jesus said, 

“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden; nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.”

Serving God’s purpose in your generation means you are a light in your generation! It’s evident because you’re different. But let's be real, it’s not easy to be a witness sometimes. It’s not easy to be known as a follower of Christ. It’s not easy to be known as someone who believes the Bible is actually true, someone who just doesn’t say what everyone wants to hear, like these four-hundred prophets. 

We talked about not being liked by the world. What if the conflict is within your family? Sometimes the biggest challenge in being known as a follower of Christ and His Word comes from within your own family.

Have you ever been in a situation where maybe you’re with extended family at the dinner table, and a topic of conversation comes up that relates to Jesus or the Bible and you just cringe, because you know where this is going.

And you think to yourself, Here we go . . . It’s about to be a whole debate. So you say, “Okay, I’m adopting 2 Timothy 2: 24, ‘The Lord’s bond-servant must not be quarrelsome.’ I’ll just keep my thoughts to myself!” [she laughs]

And you feel the nudging of the Holy Spirit to speak up but you think, I’m probably just imagining things! And you keep quiet. And then someone just asks you straight out, “So what do you think?” Sharing truth from the Word will cause you to stand out. They will look at you differently. You’ll be known as a follower of Christ.

Jesus shared these sobering words in Matthew 10:32–36: 

“Therefore everyone who confesses Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father who is in heaven. Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I came to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man’s enemies will be the members of his household. 

Then, verse 39: 

“He who has found his life will lose it, and he who has lost his life for My sake will find it.” 

I have known what it’s like to experience that sword because of a family member who does not believe, and it’s painful!

And if you’ve experienced that I know you know it’s painful. And maybe you feel alone because your friends or church family share about their whole extended family who’s on fire for the Lord, but you don’t really hear about people who are dealing with the sword Jesus is talking about.

Maybe you hear about it once the person is saved, when it’s a testimony. But when they’re going through it, they don’t want to talk about it. But you’re not alone. Jesus wouldn’t have told us this if it weren’t something many of us would experience.

And how gracious of our Savior to forewarn us of the reality so we could understand. It’s not that we’ve done something wrong. Simply confessing Christ and standing on His Word can cause conflict between you and the people you love because you’re known now as His follower.

Be encouraged! Keep praying for your loved ones. They don’t appreciate it yet, but the biggest blessing in their life is you—the one who is serving the purpose of God in your generation! You are the light they need. Keep shining your light and know that Jesus is with you!

As we close, I want to share this: the name Micaiah means, “Who is like the Lord?” Serving Christ’s purpose means becoming more and more like Him. Is that your heart’s desire, to be like Christ? Are you willing to serve God’s purpose despite the hardship it might bring? Are you willing to be known as the Lord’s servant? 

Well, we are gleaning from Micaiah’s life, and we haven’t even met him yet! Next time we will hear from this prophet as he enters the scene, and I believe we will be encouraged by how powerfully he serves the purpose of God in his own generation!

Dannah: Kim Cash Tate will be back to pray with us in just a moment. Do you get excited thinking about serving the purpose of God in your generation? Oh, I hope so! One way you can serve His purpose is to draw attention to the Lord and His Word.

And one way you can do that this coming December is through the set of thirty-one Advent tabletop cards—one for each day in December—that you can display in your home or at work. They have Bible verses, of course, along with a brief quote from Nancy’s Advent devotional book called Born A Child and Yet a King.

That book, by the way, has recently been redesigned and re-released, this time by Moody Publishers. The Born A Child and Yet a King cards are our thank you gift to you for your donation of any amount to help support the outreaches of Revive Our Hearts.

And for a donation of $40 or more, we’ll send you the Advent tabletop cards plus Nancy’s Advent devotional Born A Child and Yet a King. For all the details, or to give, visit ReviveOurHearts.com or call us at 1-800-569-5959.

Here’s Kim Cash Tate once again to lead us in prayer, and then Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth will share a closing thought.

Kim: Dear Lord, we can't serve Your purpose in our generation without Your help! It gets hard; we get weary. We need Your grace! Strengthen us to walk out your purpose day by day, and when we lose passion for serving Your purpose, reignite the fire so we can live each day unto You, for Your glory, honor and praise! In Jesus name, amen.

Nancy: Amen! Kim, thank you so much for taking us to the Scripture, helping us to see it with fresh eyes and to see what it says for us today. A lot of us, I think, have read those names and those stories and we just kind of just glaze over it because, “What does that have to do with us?”

But you’ve made it so clear and practical, and I sense that God’s been speaking to our hearts about ways that He may be asking us to “swim upstream.” We often have said at Revive Our Hearts that we’re “called to be like salmon”—swimming upstream, going across/against the culture, against the current—and that is hard! We’re going to be vastly outnumbered!

We’ve often said here that we’re believing God for a remnant of true women who love God, who love His Word, who are willing to reflect and represent Him, who are like Jesus in this world. But that’s never going to be the majority. And so that’s a hard place to be . . . but it’s a good place to be because God is using us in the darkness to shine the light of the gospel of Christ!

And that may be in your family, it may be in your workplace, it may be in your community. I know you’ve been encouraged today as you’ve heard Kim unpack the first part of this passage. We’re going to come back to it tomorrow, so be sure and join us with your Bible open and your heart open as we see how the Lord used this prophet Micaiah, “Who is like the Lord our God?” No one is like Him! And that’s who we’re called to represent in this generation. That’s what we want, to serve God’s purpose in our generation.

That’s what you want! That’s why you’re here, and that’s why we’re going together to the Word of God, to say, “How can we fulfill what it is that You’ve called us to do and be here during this season?” Thank you, Kim. We’re going to join you again tomorrow here on Revive Our Hearts.

Revive Our Hearts with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth wants you to be a light as you uncover the freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ!

All Scripture is taken from the NASB 1995 unless otherwise noted.

Bob Dylan. “Gotta Serve Somebody.” The Essential Bob Dylan (Revised Edition) ℗ 2014, Sony Music Entertainment.
 

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