Acts 1: Leadership

I got to teach a little bit at small group last night, and since God gave me the notes for Acts 1 in sermon outline form, I thought I’d share them.

1.  Leadership is important

• This chapter marks the very beginning of the church.  The apostles’ leader (Jesus) had just left earth, so they were unsure of what to do.  There is a community of believers, which is great because verse 14 says they were “together constantly in prayer,” but there was no one stepping up to lead, and, as a result, there was little action.
• Jesus had commanded them to “go out and make disciples of all nations,” so why was no one doing this?  I think part of this is because they had a command but no idea of how to go about accomplishing these things now that their leader was gone.  There was no one physically there to cast and direct vision.  BUT, Jesus chose someone to lead before He returned to heaven – Peter.

2.  Jesus chooses His leaders.

• From what we know, Peter was certainly not a perfect person.  However, Jesus chose Peter to lead.  He even called Peter a rock!  This reminds me of something a friend of mine said, “God doesn’t call the prepared; He prepares the called.”  Really, the only requirements for Peter to lead are that he be seeking Jesus’ will and be willing to follow that will.
• Important side note:  Everyone, including leaders, is following someone or something.  If you are a leader, you can only lead people to the things you are following.

3.  We see three things in Peter’s leadership:

a.  He refers to scripture.

• Why?  Jesus did it.  The word of God is living and active, and God desires to speak to us through it.
• Hebrews 4:12 – Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.
• God’s word has authority and offers so much more than our own words could ever offer.  God is a much better leader than any of us could ever be, so why not use His words?

b.  He prayed.

• Jesus did this too!
• Prayer is crucial in any aspect of leadership.  Here, Peter uses prayer to help him make a decision.  He wanted to do what God wanted him to do, so He asked God to make the right decision evident.  As a leader, you should be constantly asking God for direction and guidance as you lead others.

c.  He trusted God.

• Big surprise…Jesus did this one too.
• Picking a new apostle was a big deal.  I’m sure there were a lot of people who wanted that position, but they were able to narrow it down to two men.  Then they completely handed it over for God to make the decision; they cast lots.  Notice, they did not make provisions for “just in case.”  They didn’t try for the best two out of three.  They asked God to show them the man He wanted for the position and trusted Him to do that.

*In summary, our leadership should be modeled after Jesus’ leadership.

If you pray for God to humble you, you better mean it

Wow.

That’s pretty much the only word I can think of to describe tonight.  I have been humbled, and I have been encouraged.  I have been built up, and I have been broken.  I have wept, and I have rejoiced.

Tonight Brad cast some crazy awesome vision for the next series at Fuse.  Part of what’s coming is for us to teach students how to serve.  So, to demonstrate this to us as leaders, the youth staff washed the feet of every volunteer present.  Before tonight, I had never had someone wash my feet.  This was possibly the most humbling thing I’ve ever experienced.  I know the point of washing feet is for the person doing the washing to be humbled and to show themselves to be humble before the person whose feet they are washing.  But all I could think of as Whitney was washing my feet was how undeserving and how unworthy I am of the love of a Savior who humbled Himself in every way.  Yet, I have that love.

As I walked back to my seat, I found myself desperately begging God to break me for the students He has entrusted me with.  I pleaded for Him to humble me in every way possible so that I can serve them.  God is doing such an amazing work in the lives of these students, and He allows me to not only witness these things but also to take part in them.  And every time I think about this, I find myself humbled once more.

Hopefully I will be able to better describe all that happened tonight once I’ve had some time to wrap my mind around it.  Until then, “wow” is just about all I have to offer.  I guess the main point of this post is just for me to say that I absolutely do not deserve the opportunity to do what I get to do.  I am in no way the most qualified person to lead these students nor am I worthy of seeing the amazing works God is doing in their lives.  Tonight, I am so humbled and so very thankful.

G’night.

Anticipation

“Those whoe accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day.”  -Acts 2:41

Luke was obiously excited to see 3,000 people enter into the faith and into the church that day.  Did he feel overwhelmed and in way over his head?  Probably.  But he didn’t think the church was getting too big too fast.  He wasn’t worried about being comfortable and in control.  He saw Jesus Christ die on a cross, and then spoke to Him after He was raised from the dead!  He was just pumped up to see that the message of Jesus Christ was spreading.  He was witnessing proof that Jesus, a man he had followed for a long time and come to love dearly, did not die in vain.  He saw that his friend and Savior was doing what He said He would do.

Think about the things Luke had seen up to this point:

• He lived with and followed Jesus, watching Him perform miracles
• He saw Jesus crucified
• He saw Jesus taken back up into Heaven
• He had just heard, and was actually a part of, the apostles speaking in foreign tongues
• He saw 3,000 people respond to the message of Christ

I would say Luke was living in constant awe.  I also think he was used to being uncomfortable.  He didn’t see God do something huge then sit and ponder that thing.  No, Luke witnessed those things and kept looking and moving forward.

It is good and right to celebrate what God has done and what God is doing now, but we cannot let that celebration keep us from anticipating what God will do next.  Luke lived his life with expectancy of what God would do next.  We can’t let our knowledge of what God has done and is doing limit our view of what God will do in the future.

I think God sometimes looks at us celebrating what He has done and says, “yeah, what I did was great, but don’t miss out on what I’m about to do!  Look at me!  Don’t miss this!”  Yet we do miss out on what God does next because we take our focus off of Him and put our focus on His works.  He wants us to be involved; He wants to work through us.  But how can we be a part of what God wants to do if we aren’t watching and waiting for Him move?

We should be living lives of anticipation and expectancy.  We should celebrate what God has done, but we should never stop asking, “What’s next?”

Random facts and random thoughts…

If you decided to:

Google “God,” you would find 702,000,000 (702 million) results;

Google “Jesus,” you would find 261,000,000 (261 million) results;

Google “me”, you would find 4,930,000,000 (4.93 billion) results.

According to these numbers right here, the word “me” is mentioned more than 7 times more than the word “God” and almost 19 times more than the word “Jesus.”

How do those numbers reflect how we live every day? How much time do we devote to Jesus? How much time do we devote to ourselves?

Now, tell me what that says about us.

An Outpouring

Over the summer, I’ve had a lot of opportunities to share my faith with people and find out where they stand on faith issues, and I’ve discovered something through all of these conversations. People outside of the church perceive Christians as having a very messed up view of God. They think our God is judgmental, spiteful, and causes people to suffer just for the sake of suffering. They do not view our God’s love as unconditional, rather, they think there are all sorts of hoops to jump through in order to attain His love.

And this really bothers me. The God I serve has none of those characteristics. One of the things that draws me to God is His unconditional love. So why do people perceive God this way?

The answer to that question is actually very easy. That is how people outside of the church view God because that’s how they experience Christians.

Whether we realize it or not, we represent Jesus when we leave our churches. If we claim the name of Christ, then we never stop representing His name. Ever. There are no vacations from that. It’s time for us as the body of Christ to step up.

We cannot be complacent.

We cannot step into churches with a “feed me” mentality.

We have to become more selfless.

We must be the light that Christ has called each and every one of us to be in this world.

After these conversations, I’ve been incredibly challenged to reflect on where God has brought me from. I didn’t get to where I am on my own. I am every bit as in need of Christ as every person who stands outside of the church. You might want to take a second to read Ezekiel 16:1-14. After this picture of what God has done for us, who are we to turn our backs on the world? God has done so many wonderful things for every one of us! Why would we not want to share that with the rest of the world? Are we really that selfish? Or have we all just become so prideful and self righteous that we don’t even realize the beauty of what Christ did for us anymore?

Bottom line: we need to get over ourselves. Christianity isn’t about what we can get from Jesus. It’s about the love He poured out on the cross, and that love is for everyone. He didn’t die for us to thank Him for our own salvations but tell the rest of the world it’s going to Hell as we watch and do nothing. Words with action speak so much more to the love of Christ than do words alone. Jesus Christ bore our sins on the cross to bring glory to God. Our lives should be a reflection of that.

Can people see Christ in you? It’s time to make your life an outpouring of Christ’s love.

“Accidentally” running into Jesus

Apparently, when you’re in love, you have a strange physical reaction when you run into that person unexpectedly, no matter how long you’ve known them. It’s almost like for a brief moment you are meeting this person for the first time, and you fall in love with them all over again. I say “apparently” because I’ve never been in love, so I don’t know personally. But this is what I’ve heard from my sources who are or have been in love.

Lately, I’ve experienced something similar with Jesus. Anytime my guard is completely down, and I’m not looking for God in anything particular, He shows up unexpectedly, and I have a physical and emotional reaction. My eyes start watering, and I get goosebumps all over. The next stage is crying if it’s exceptionally unexpected. My most recent experience with this was in my quiet time last night.

Before you read any farther, you may want to refresh yourself on Ezekiel 9. It’s not a long chapter, so go ahead and just read it really quick – the rest of this post will make much more sense if you do.

I’ve been reading through Ezekiel over the past several weeks, and I’m only on chapter 10 so far (Chapters 2 and 3 messed me up, and it took a while to get through those!) Well, being in the Old Testament, I wasn’t expecting to read anything about Jesus because, well, He hadn’t been born yet, and His earthly appearances in the OT are very few and far between. When I first started reading chapter 9, I questioned where this unnamed man in linen came from, but I continued reading and didn’t really think much more about it. Then nameless linen man comes back at the end of the chapter and says, “I have done as you commanded,” and I was just absolutely stuck on this man. Then it hit me. This man is Jesus! As soon as I realized this and started really seeing how this man’s actions in Ezekiel sort of mimic Jesus’ actions in the NT, I broke out in goosebumps and my eyes started watering. And it was awesome!

He puts a mark on people who are repentant in order to save them from God’s judgment. Just as He covers us in His blood when we come to Him realizing we need Him to cover over our sins. And being covered in His blood saves us from God’s judgment and punishment. Those in the city without this mark, God said He would not pity or spare them. And at the end of his task, the man returns to the Father and says, “I have done as you commanded.” Jesus’ last words on the cross were, “It is finished.” And out of all the parallels this man and Jesus share, it was the linen that clued me in on all of this. It’s strange what God uses to grab your attention.

The blood of Christ is all over Scripture.  Think about that for a second.  It’s not only in the New Testament.

It’s funny, but I get butterflies when I encounter Jesus unexpectedly like that. It brings me back to when I first experienced Him only four short years ago. Wow, I get spiritual butterflies when I “accidentally” run into Jesus. I really do belong to Him – body mind and soul! How am I that blessed?

Summertime

I realize I’ve been a complete and total slacker this summer as far as blogging is concerned.  I could throw out all sorts of excuses like my computer was out of commission until June, and I shadowed a doctor this summer for 10-12 hours every weekday, but, in the end, those are all just excuses.  If I had really wanted to blog, I could have made the time for it.  But, for what it’s worth, I’ll be blogging again starting now.  God’s grown me A LOT over this summer, which may be a bit of an understatement.  I don’t really know; you’d have to ask some of my friends who’ve seen it themselves.  Regardless, God’s given me a ton of new insight into some things, which I can’t wait to put out there.

Time

I found this in a journal from way back in Freshman year.  It’s kind of old, but I thought it was still worth sharing.

What is it about time that merits so much attention?  Is it that we know our time is limited, but we don’t know exactly when out “time is up?”  Are we afraid?  In our culture today, we fill our time with as many things as we possibly can – we are always busy.  It’s as if we are all scared to death of missing out on something.  The problem is, if you’re always busy, you’re going to miss out on something big – God.  A lot of the things that fill our time are distractions that take our eyes off of God.  Instead of filling our days from the time we wake up to the time we go to bed, we should make time to be still and know that God is God.  In fact, I’m pretty sure that’s a direct command from God.  We have a personal relationship with God (thank you Jesus!) and we HAVE to spend time with Him in order for that relationship to grow.

So here is the challenge:  look at your life.  What distractions fill up your time so that you don’t have the time for God?  Take some stuff out and take that time to get to know God.  He’s waiting to rock your world; you just have to let Him.

Earth Shattering Ideas

Over the past couple of days, I’ve heard a lot about Martin Luther, so I’ve had a lot of opportunities to think about him.  I don’t know if you realize this, but he had some pretty earth-shattering ideas.  Many of his ideas serve as the foundation for many churches’ ministries.  The idea that each individual is called to serve God regardless of their profession – yep, that was Luther.  Yet, we don’t really question this idea.  We might go as far as to call it truth.  To us, the idea that Jesus is for each and every person just makes sense.

However, at one time, this was a new idea.  AND it was questioned.  How did Luther make these conclusions and draw these new ideas?  I think he must have looked at his culture and the needs of his peers.  Then he must have found a way to read the Bible and take in God’s word without preconceptions based on the church’s doctrines.  In doing so, God spoke to him in a huge way, providing him with insights that are still around today.

How would it feel to read the Bible without any previous expectations or ideas from what we’ve heard as “common knowledge”?  To read the Bible without they many man-made doctrines we have come to hold in such high regards?  Reading the Bible in this way would be almost like reading God’s word from the perspective of a child.  We would be free to draw our own conclusions!  We would be able to hear from God without interference.  Wow.

But, is this possible?  It must be possible if Luther was able to do it.  Especially if he was living in a time much more repressed and controlled than where we live now.  Who knows what kinds of new insights we could gain if we decided to let God be God and to listen to what He’s trying to say to us?

Anyone see the opportunity for a revolution in that?

You Are Cherished

If you think about it, every heart must be nurtured in order for it to flourish.  The act of someone investing their time and energy into caring for and nurturing a person’s soul has a huge effect on that soul’s development.  It’s as if even children know or understand deep down how important it is to be cherished.  I mean, look at the little girl who loves it when here daddy calls her his little princess, or the little boy who absolutely glows with joy when his dad tells him he’s proud of him for something.

And maybe that’s what it comes down to – feeling cherished.  It is vital to the soul that the person feels cared for.  People often ask themselves various questions in attempts to determine their value in other people’s eyes.  “If I never found my niche, would it really bother anyone?  Am I really worth it?  Does it hurt someone else for them to know I’m not alright?”  If a person can answer “no” to any of these questions about themselves, then they tend to wonder what the point is in continuing to grow and move on with life.  Why try to find you calling if you believe no one would be any worse off if you never found and lived out the purpose for you life?

Fortunately, I can answer “yes” to all of those questions, and so can every one else – because there is not a single life that God considers to be worthless.  However, there are far too many people out there who feel broken and unloved, maybe even unloveable, because they never actually felt cherished.  Maybe they were born into an abusive family.  Maybe their parents divorced and completely abandoned raising their children.  Maybe their parents died and so they never knew the bond between parent and child.  In any case, these children who feel abandoned and unloved grow into adults with many insecurities about themselves.  If you felt neglected or worthless as a child, of course you’re going to have some self-esteem issures as an adult!

I believe this feeling of unwantedness is something that both attracts people to and repulses others from Christianity.  On the one hand, there is this God who loves unconditionally.  He invested time in creating you.  He made you with a purpose.  He pursues an intimate relationship with you.  His heart breaks every time your heart is broken.  He sacrificed something precious to Him (Jesus) because you are that important to Him.  He doesn’t want you to suffer the punishment you deserve.  Simply put, He loves you.

On the other hand, you’ve never known unconditional love and are thus suspicious of it.  You’ve always had to gain acceptance by working hard to please others.  The idea that someone likes you even when you don’t even like yourself seems outrageous.  For you, there has always been a catch.  In your life experiences, you’ve only known that if it seems too good to be true, then it always is.

It’s hard to break out of that mindset.  How do you finally accept that God’s love is real?  A lot of times you have to get to the point that you are so broken that there is no where else to look but to God.  When you finally realize there is nothing in this world you can rely on to get you out of your mess, then you can finally begin to see that God’s love is real.  Seems too good to be true in contrast to all the let-downs in your life?  This is the only time where it’s actually that good.  And it only gets better with time.  You are cherished.