We have been studying together about the nature
of Jesus.
And of course you have very well memorized
by now those 14 points that are vital
if you expect to make it, you know.
But we'll go over them quickly again.
When you look at the greatest in the
kingdom teachings where Jesus is speaking of himself
and then go to Philippians chapter 2 in
the mind of Christ passage, you discover that
Jesus is servant, that second he does not
lord it over others.
Then he leads by example, you're doing good.
And then he is humble and as a
child.
And then he is as the younger, then
as the least and as the last.
Then from Philippians, we discovered that he used
no force on us and was not driven
by blind ambition.
And then he made himself of no reputation.
Then he was fully human and he was
obedient even unto death.
Hey, you've got it.
Wonderful.
Now here's the thing.
When you start living this kind of lifestyle
as the, the Lord works it out in
your life.
And I hope you understand that this is
what he works out in your life.
It's not some new burden I've got to
struggle under.
This is a joyous pattern that when he's
at work in your life, you know what
he's up to now.
He's working this out.
When you live this other centered giving kind
of lifestyle, you discover yourself affecting others.
You begin to find yourself in a sense
of spiritual leadership.
You might say, I want to address some
problems and victories that come from spiritual leadership.
What does it mean then to lead in
the nature of Jesus?
What kind of things can we expect to
have happen if our lives are developing in
a way that we're affecting others and consequently
finding ourselves in roles of spiritual leadership?
Well, I need to tell you something.
This is a little bit funny, but it's
kind of tragic in a way.
There are certain parts of scripture that I
have difficulty with.
I doubt that that's true of you, but
I do.
And in first Corinthians chapter 12, verse 23,
and I'll just paraphrase it to you.
Paul tells us something that disturbs me.
He says that we give the greater honor
to those parts of the body that are
most unseemly, most embarrassing.
Now that has always bothered me because it
didn't seem to me to be true.
As a pastor, I had some unseemly parts
and I tried to pretend that they were
visitors.
I never recall giving them greater honor.
And then a dear friend of mine, who
seems to me at least to be very
wise, said, maybe we're approaching this the wrong
way.
I said, what do you mean?
He said, maybe we should find out who
we give the greater honor to.
Then we will know who the unseemly parts
are.
I said, wait a minute.
I get the most honor in my church.
He said, I know.
And he said, then the elders would be
next in honor there.
He said, yep, that's right.
That's right.
Now, you know who the most unseemly parts
are.
I thought, wait a minute.
Yes, that's true.
Because when you get a group of us
leader types together, you know what happens?
You've got a room full of egos and
that very thing is the opposite of the
nature of Jesus.
And so that is the thing that makes
us most unseemly.
And then Jesus comes along and he says,
oh man, they're in terrible shape.
I'm going to have to cover them and
make them leaders.
Give them some honor.
They can't seem to exist without it.
So in a leadership position, in a way
you find yourself being covered by God because
the ego you struggle with is opposite to
the nature of Jesus.
So before you get proud, just think of
that.
Okay.
Then I noticed that there were different kinds
of leadership that I had observed, not just
in the kingdom of God, but especially in
the world too.
And probably the kind that would frighten us
the most would be a kind of aggressive
form of leadership that gets its power from
its coercive capabilities.
It says you will do what I tell
you because I am bigger than you, or
I have more power than you, or I
have more influence than you.
And we have seen governments with that kind.
Perhaps you've even worked under people that had
that kind of leadership style.
That is not a kingdom style of leadership.
Probably the most common kind of leadership that
we have seen be what you might call
institutional form of leadership, where there is a
position that exists and that position in the
institution has power that goes with it.
And then when someone is secured to fill
that position, you do not know whether they
are that person capable of doing that or
not, but we plug them into the position
and just hope that they have that kind
of capability.
And it isn't really the person that has
the power, but it's the position that has
the power.
And if a person leaves the position, the
position still has the power.
The person no longer does.
That's a governmental form, a democratic form, a
bureaucratic form where the position itself has the
power and the person doesn't necessarily.
However, there's another form of leadership that Jesus
exhibited, and it's a leadership that comes out
of just who he is, his anointing and
his capability.
It does not coerce, nor does it need
a position in order to lead.
Jesus said the most remarkable thing.
He said to the apostles, if you love
me, keep my commandments.
That is so encouraging to me because most
of my life I thought it was really
if you know what's good for you, you
will keep my commandments.
But Jesus never coerces anyone to follow him.
It's always an invitation.
Whosoever will can come to him, and we
follow him not because Jesus had a position.
He didn't.
Even when individuals tried to identify him and
say, you're the Messiah, Jesus said, shh, don't
tell anybody, don't tell anybody.
Isn't that amazing?
Now, I would want it advertised.
But it wasn't the position that mattered to
him, it was the ministry.
He came for people, not a position.
You realize that.
And so he exhibited his love toward people,
and people would follow him precisely for that
reason.
Precisely for that reason.
And Jesus ends up saying, now, if you
love me, keep my commandments.
Now, I want to make what's going to
amount to two lists over here.
As you know, I'm sort of into lists,
as I see them in the scripture.
One of them is going to be a
rather negative list.
We can call it the problems of power.
And we're going to turn, by the way,
to Matthew chapter 20, if you want to.
And call this the problems of power.
Or you may call it, if you wish,
the problems of power hunger.
In Matthew chapter 20, beginning with verse 20,
a fascinating story.
Then the mother of Zebedee's sons came to
him, to Jesus, with her sons.
I love this.
Matthew doesn't even name the guys.
Doesn't name the mother.
He just says the mother of Zebedee's sons.
Now, we know, Mark especially comes right out
with it in his gospel.
We know this is James and John.
Now, they were also known as the sons
of thunder.
I don't know if that means mama was
thunder or daddy was thunder.
We know more about mother than we do
about daddy.
And here, James and John come with mama,
kneeling down in front of Jesus and asking
something from him.
And he said to her, what do you
wish?
She said to him, grant that these two
outstanding, brilliant, wonderful, no, that's not there.
But I know she was thinking that my
mother would.
Grant that these two sons of mine may
sit one on your right hand and the
other on your left in the kingdom.
But Jesus answered and said, you do not
know what you ask.
Are you able to drink the cup that
I'm about to drink and be baptized with
the baptism that I am baptized with?
And they said to him, we are able.
I love this.
So he says to them, you will indeed
drink my cup and be baptized with the
baptism that I am baptized with.
But to sit on my right hand and
on my left is not mine to give,
but it is for those for whom it
is prepared by my father.
And when the ten, that's the rest of
the guys on the apostolic team.
And when the ten heard it, they were
moved with indignation against the two brothers.
Amazing.
I think right off the, you see these
men were power hungry, wouldn't you say?
They wanted something from God.
They wanted not the opportunity to minister more.
They wanted a position.
There is a position that exists.
One is called right hand.
Another one is called left hand.
But we would like those two.
They happen to be the top ones.
And I mean, who else but us?
Would you want?
I can hear it.
And immediately we discover that Jesus says to
them, you don't know what you ask.
So what happens when we become power hungry
is discernment suffers.
We quit thinking right.
We begin to not know what we are
asking for.
We may be able to come up with
great logic.
We may be able to say, oh, but
look at the skills I've got.
And look, I've been with him for a
while anyway.
And at any rate, why not me?
Why so?
I was the one that asked.
And listen, I know those forms of logic.
I have used them even with God.
But what happens when we become power hungry
is something snaps in our spiritual mind.
And we lose discernment.
And Jesus said to them, you don't know
what you're asking.
Now, one thing that happens here, and I
want you to keep this in front of
your minds is that when they sought these
positions, they were not thinking of the nature
of Jesus as they sought them.
They were thinking something far more personal for
themselves.
They had lost the ability to think about
others, and consequently their discernment suffers.
Well, also when this happens, your brothers suffer.
There's a good understanding of why.
Let's just write this up here.
Your brothers suffer.
You see, the moment I want that higher
position, and especially if I happen to gain
it, by that very desire and act, I
am shoving away all opportunity for that, if
God should so desire it, from those who
are my brothers.
I begin immediately to say, oh, I'm not
interested in being least and last.
I'm not interested in serving.
I am interested in climbing.
And immediately when I begin to do that,
my brothers will suffer.
Any of you ever played the game called
King of the Hill?
It's probably the best training game for the
world that I know of.
You have a hill.
The job is with your friends, you gotta
get up on top, and you climb, and
you claw, and you push, and you drag,
and finally you get on top, and your
whole goal was get on top.
Now you have a new goal.
Stay on top.
And in order to do that, you have
to kick and push and scratch and scream.
Now, none of that was really very good,
and not one bit of it cared one
iota for your brothers.
So when we begin to get power-hungry
as these guys were, they weren't thinking about
the others.
They should have known that there would be
indignation on these guys' part.
They should have known that.
But they didn't seem to care.
So when we begin to get power-hungry,
our brothers are going to suffer.
We will, in the middle of this, and
it's kind of part and parcel of the
same thing, we will become insensitive.
They would probably say, well look, we were
aggressive enough to come up and ask about
it.
If they didn't want a position, they should
have come and asked themselves.
Now here again, you're not thinking at all
about other people.
Only about whenever this is the approach you
take.
And I'm kind of getting depressed talking about
these guys in a way.
It's kind of terrible, isn't it, man?
We have to say, well what a thing
to do.
But this is what happens when you become
power-hungry, and this is the opposite to
the very nature of Jesus.
The whole system begins to do the wrong
sorts of things to other people.
And then Jesus says, after he says, you
don't know what you're asking, he says, can
you drink the cup that I'm going to
drink?
Can you be baptized with the baptism I'm
going to be baptized with?
And their response, I love this, we are
able.
Now that confirms to me that they had
lost their discernment.
But here's what happens.
Power-hunger will also make you arrogant.
That's like saying, coming to Jesus and saying,
we have done a survey between me and
my brother and my mother, and we have
determined that indeed we are the greatest in
the kingdom.
And otherwise we wouldn't have even come to
ask you about this unless we felt that
we really were the ones.
And that we were the capable ones.
Now if that's not arrogance, I don't know
what is.
It would be like someone putting a billboard
out there with his picture on it and
saying, you are looking at the finest Christian
on the face of this earth.
Look closely.
We would laugh and we would say, what
in the world would possess a man to
do that?
But that's what these guys are saying.
When you turn your thoughts toward yourself rather
than toward others and you begin to lead
for your own purposes rather than for the
benefit of others, you're going to find this
happening.
You'll just simply find it happening.
Well, that's not all that happens.
I want us to get thoroughly depressed before
we get out of here.
Oh, we'll get, we'll do better when we
look at the way we actually should lead
in a moment.
But one thing I discover is when you're
hungry for power, your symbols increase.
You could say you go for more perks.
Symbols of power are important to us, aren't
they?
I have discovered that my little beat-up
car gets there about as fast as the
Rolls-Royces do.
But you know, a Rolls-Royce is a
much greater symbol of significance, isn't it?
I almost have to put a sign on
my car that says, this is not an
abandoned car.
But when you begin to develop power positions,
I knew of one particular religious hierarchy where
the leader owned a red Cadillac.
And as soon as anyone got chosen to
be in positions of state leadership under him,
you could see there would be another red
Cadillac and another red Cadillac, another red Cadillac
just lined up there.
Why?
Because it was the symbol that we were
now in power.
Your symbols start increasing.
See, these guys wanted right hand and left
hand, high symbolism.
They didn't come up and say, would you
put us in a position where we could
be completely used of you?
They didn't ask that, did they?
We want the big symbols, right hand and
left hand.
You go to a hospital and you see
somebody walking down, a white coat on and
a stethoscope around his neck.
Symbol, isn't it?
Person of significance.
Doctor.
Yes.
Yes, doctor.
As we were driving here today, I laughed.
I couldn't believe it.
As I was driving here today, I saw
someone, I guess that symbol was so important
that rather than leave it at the hospital,
they had it hanging from their rear view
mirror in the car so that anybody could
say, oh yes, doctor, go right ahead.
Go right ahead.
We do other things.
I'm picking on them because I think that's
probably one of the most obvious things, but
you give me a position of power and
I am so corrupt that eventually I am
going to find some symbol that will let
you know, I am a powerful person.
You can do it with the clothes you
wear.
You can do it with the chair you
sit in.
You can do it with the office that
you have.
There are a thousand ways that you can
show the symbols and we do it.
You don't, I do.
Remember the story I told you too, of
my flying and in all my years of
flying, I have never ever purchased a first
class plane ticket.
Remember that?
Because I found that my part of the
plane gets there about the same time.
But I do fly first class quite a
bit because, you know, I'm one of those
over a hundred thousand mile a year passengers.
So they start treating you pretty good and
they give you upgrades.
And the coach tickets, gray, I don't pay
much attention to that, put it back in
my case.
But if I get a first class upgrade,
it's red.
Right here.
Just want you to see who's going on
this plane first.
And after a few minutes of that, the
Lord speaks to me and says, well, how
about that Irwin, you didn't even buy it
and already you're corrupt.
Yes, that's right.
I am amazed at how I go for
the symbols, go for the symbols of power.
The apostles wanted that.
And when I am leading in some way
other than the nature of Jesus, that's exactly
what happens.
Well, another thing that happens, and I've been
saying this all along here, and I guess
really this should be number one is we
focus on ourselves.
Sometimes in the past, in my life, I
have worked with individuals who really God had
given great vision to.
They were effective, but I saw something as
I got close that disturbed me deeply.
And I knew it was just a matter
of time before it would all crash.
Though God had given them great vision, there
was something about their way of dealing with
people.
I found out, and I just watched it,
how they treated me, that I was there
simply to serve them.
And once they had squeezed everything they could
from me, I was cast aside because I
was no longer useful.
And I realized eventually that will crash because
God cannot honor that when we just focus
on ourselves.
In the 10th chapter of Mark, a fascinating
story.
You're familiar with it.
Mothers are bringing their children to Jesus.
Remember that?
For Him just to touch them.
It's a beautiful story.
I love it.
Verse 13.
Mothers are bringing their children to Jesus for
Him to touch them.
I can see the crowd.
It's a tender moment as they bring their
children.
It doesn't even say anything was wrong with
their children.
Maybe they just wanted to be able to
write in their baby book, guess who touched
you when you were two.
And into this lovely scene, which I'm a
bit jealous of because mothers don't necessarily bring
their children to me just to touch them.
It's more likely to get your hands off
my kid.
And mothers were bringing their children to Jesus
just to touch them.
And Jesus sees something go on that causes
Him great pain.
The apostles, bless their hearts.
His helpers were rebuking these mothers.
I can hear it, lady.
I don't think you understand.
This is the busiest man in the whole
universe right now.
He's holding the entire universe together by himself.
I mean, he really doesn't have time just
to be touching your brat.
I mean, your child.
However, I am a registered agent of his,
my card.
And at a more appropriate time, perhaps we
can get you a very brief meeting with
him.
And it will be brief.
And don't call us.
We'll call you.
Now, folks, what they were doing would be
what any world leader would ask his underlings
to do.
Protect me from people.
There are a lot of people out there.
There are a lot of people that want
things.
They want me to touch kids, you know,
and it's dangerous touching kids in this day
and age.
You know that.
I want you to protect me.
Build this wall around me.
That's why I chose you guys.
That would have been typical world leadership.
But instead, Jesus becomes very upset with them
and dignant.
He says, you suffer the children to come
to me for if such as the kingdom
of heaven.
Wow.
The apostles were thinking selfishly.
Jesus, our great Emmanuel, God with us had
his eyes on the people he had come
to say, what a difference, what a difference.
Well, another thing that happens when we have
power hunger, rejoicing is misplaced in the 10th
chapter of Luke, when the apostles had come
back from a real power trip.
Jesus had sent them out two by two.
They come back all excited.
Even the demons are subject to us in
your name.
And Jesus, in essence, says, hey, fellas, cool
it.
He said, don't rejoice that the demons are
subject to you, but rejoice that your names
are written in the Lamb's book of life.
So he authorizes us to live a life
of rejoicing in him, not over the power
that we have, but over the saved position
that we have.
And when you get a power hunger scene
in here, the rejoicing disappears, doesn't it?
The apostles who should have been saying, this
is incredible.
We can rejoice every day because we are
saved.
Remember that now instead, oh, did you see
what those guys were doing?
They were trying to take a position up
there.
Well, we'll watch them.
And you know that from then on, there
was suspicion in the group.
And the whole bunch was just sort of
watching to see whether James and John's mother
showed up today.
And they would watch her when she would
visit with Jesus.
They'd watch James and John.
You got to watch those guys.
They're ambitious.
And it changes the whole focus of things.
Now, here's one of the most terrible of
all things that happens when we are power
hungry is we begin to use shameful methods.
Oh, these guys.
Hey, Jesus, can we have a private audience
with you?
Mom, come here.
You do the talking, will you?
Jesus really likes you, and I think you
have some clout with him.
Can you see the shameful methods beginning to
happen?
When you are power hungry, the question isn't
what is right and best, what is godly,
what blesses everybody, but the question is what
works.
Does it work?
I get tired of getting heartbroken over the
public presentations of Christianity that I often see
from famous ministries and the fundraising methods that
I will sometimes see them using.
I consider many of them to be absolutely
shameful.
God is obviously in desperate straits if you
listen to these things and you realize, man,
what would make them do that?
Why would anyone ever want to use shameful
methods to achieve godly things unless they were
power hungry, just like these particular fellows were?
They were power hungry.
Well, finally, let's finish this.
I've had enough of this list.
Finally, what happens, this is very much like
becoming insensitive and our brothers suffer, equipping ceases.
In Ephesians chapter 4, this brings us really
to what I've been waiting to get to.
I'm tired of looking at this negative side.
The real joy is seeing how did Jesus
design us to do this?
What did he want us to do to
lead?
Now, at the beginning, I told you that
if we were in leadership, we are the
most shameful parts, but there is a lovely
paradox to this.
We are also a gift.
At the one time, our egos have to
be covered by his loving care.
At the other hand, we are gifts that
Jesus gives to the church.
In Ephesians chapter 4, beginning with verse 11,
you know it by heart, and it says
he himself, Jesus, gave.
See, he is a giver of gifts to
the church.
It says he gave some to be apostles,
some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers.
Now, let me stop here and tell you
that for some people, this passage is known
as the fivefold ministries.
Many of you ever heard that term before?
You haven't.
Well, good.
But as I journey around and meet a
lot of different people, they'll ask me, do
you believe in the fivefold ministries?
I'll say, what do you mean?
Well, you know Ephesians 4, 11, the fivefold
ministries.
Well, sure, I believe in it.
It's there.
It's in the Bible.
Well, then what are you?
Well, I'd flown into Zimbabwe in Africa a
number of years ago, and I was going
to be speaking at a church a week
later, and the pastor met me at the
airport at the same time that my host
met me.
And he said, well, I want to advertise
your being here since you'll be speaking at
our church next Sunday, and I thought I'd
come and ask you, just what are you?
Now, that's a difficult question for me.
I really resent the question, actually.
I said, well, I'm a follower of Jesus.
Oh, I know that.
I know that, he said.
But what are you?
I said, what do you mean?
What am I?
He said, well, you know, are you an
apostle, a prophet, an evangelist, a pastor, a
teacher?
Yeah.
I said, sometimes I think I'm one of
all of those, if only for a microscopic
moment.
I said, I'm probably a prophet because I've
been stoned in Jerusalem.
And I said to him, look, if you
can't just say I'm a follower of Jesus,
then you probably shouldn't even bother advertising.
He said, well, okay, okay.
But there are some people who get more
theology out of this one verse than you
can possibly believe.
It's like their whole system is built around
this one verse.
And I sat next to a lady on
an airplane flight once.
She was president of some state organization, a
Christian lady, but she was very much into
the five-fold ministries.
And she said, no church in America can
grow unless they understand and follow the five
-fold ministries and have those five-fold people
come in to see them and visit them.
I said, really?
I said, I didn't know that.
I said, it's funny that I see so
many churches that are growing like crazy, and
they don't even pay any attention to that.
They just do what God's given them to
do, and they don't try to find out,
well, who's the apostle?
Who's the prophet?
Are you the evangelist?
They just do it.
And nobody cares whether there is the title
on you or not.
She said, you know some churches that are
growing that don't do that?
I said, oh, I know some big churches
that don't do that.
And she said, well, I've never heard of
them.
I said, ah, you're reading the wrong magazines.
I said, you're getting all of your information
from a magazine that doesn't even know what's
happening out in the world.
They only know a very narrow little area
of it.
And I said, I wouldn't worry about the
five-fold ministries if I were you.
I would just be whatever God's called you
to be and let Him worry about that.
If you're a teacher, you'll teach people, and
people will learn.
If you aren't a teacher, if you call
yourself one, it won't help much.
If you're an evangelist and you win people
to the Lord, wonderful, you'll win people to
the Lord.
But if you don't win people to the
Lord and you call yourself an evangelist, what
can we say?
Don't worry about the titles.
Just be what God's called you to be.
Now, here's the thing that I really like.
Do you realize that the job description for
all five of these is the same?
There's not.
And now the apostolic job description.
And now the prophet's job description.
And now the evangelist's job description.
Now the pastor's, and now the teacher's job
description.
The job description is all the same.
And you look over here now.
Now, let's get to the good stuff.
Let's get to the good stuff.
The Jesus style of leadership.
See, he gave these gifts.
He says, number one, the gifts that he
gives will equip the saints to do the
work of the ministry.
Equip the saints for ministry.
Now, over on the other side, it would
gather the saints for my power.
Over here, it's giving yourself away to equip
them to do the work of the ministry.
This side gathers you around yourself.
This side pushes them away from yourself into
the ministry because you have now equipped them
and trained them, and they don't have to
lean on you.
I tell people, and I hope it's true,
man.
I like to think that what I do
is true.
But I tell people that if I present
Jesus to you in a way that you
don't understand it, and you have to keep
bringing me back so we can get this
thing about Jesus, then I have failed you.
But if I have truly done you right,
when I've taught you, you don't have to
have me anymore because you're now equipped.
Well, let me read the scripture so that
we can take these things out of it.
Ephesians 4.11, he himself gave some to
be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors
and teachers for the equipping of the saints
for the work of the ministry, for the
edifying of the body of Christ, till we
all come to the unity of the faith
and the knowledge of the Son of God,
to a perfect man, to the measure of
the stature of the fullness of Christ, that
we should no longer be children tossed to
and fro, carried about with every wind of
doctrine by the trickery of men and the
cunning craftiness by which they lie in wait
to deceive.
But speaking the truth in love may grow
up in all things unto him who is
the head, Christ, from whom the whole body
joined and knit together by what every joint
supplies according to the effective working by which
every part does its share causes growth of
the body for the edifying of itself in
love.
So the next thing we do, if we
are leading in the Jesus style, is we
edify the body.
We cause it to be built up.
This list that we're going to have right
now, it is password I had in a
denominational church once.
I taught on this and then I handed
out three by five cards to everybody and
I said I want you to write on
these cards the name or names of every
person who does this for you.
I said don't write on this card somebody
that you wish did or you think ought
to, but I want you to write who
does this for you.
I took the cards up and I said
if there is no one write the word
none so we'll know that this is a
actual card from a human being.
And I took them up.
I had just been pastor there a short
while and to my consternation the board members,
the elders that were currently there did not
make the list.
I thought oh man we have a group
of leaders here that have been chosen not
because they were leading in the Jesus style
but because maybe they got nominated and got
elected by somebody.
Well I wish I had time to talk
about that.
And then a couple of years later after
the Lord had spoken to my heart and
said work on the leadership, present this to
them, let them see what it means to
lead.
A couple of years later I did the
same thing again, taught a series on this,
passed out the three by five cards.
I said now who does this for you?
And to my great joy the elders led
the list man.
I thought way to go Lord, way to
go.
Well we will become equippers of the body.
We will bring people into unity of the
faith.
Now if someone comes to you and is
trying to say well now have you heard
about, I mean how can you do that
or be there or go there, have you
heard about this and so forth and so
they're trying to lead you over here and
say no look I have a thing going
over here that's pretty solid you know and
we only do a few weird things but
then you will know that you're in the
hands of someone that is not trying to
bring about unity in the faith.
But if someone comes and he's a Barnabas
and he tries to build you up and
make you stronger in the Lord and encourage
you a son of consolation then you know
here is someone that's a gift of God
and they're leading in the style that Jesus
has authorized for us.
Well the next thing that happens is that
we build people up in the knowledge of
Jesus, knowledge of Jesus.
Back in the early 70s there were a
group of fellows that went around the United
States, you would know their names if I
told them, who had this special knowledge.
In fact one of them said to me
that what we are teaching is rather sophisticated.
He said in fact I only know of
two or three people in the whole United
States that can teach this.
I thought oh really?
I mean the whole of the kingdom of
God rests in the hands of three of
you and I listened to them teach and
I realized I don't know anything more about
Jesus than I knew before but boy am
I confused.
It really was sophisticated and I'm not a
sophisticated person, you know that by now.
I'm one of the ones that Jesus got
happy that my kind could understand.
But if someone is truly giving themselves away
and equipping the saints after they have been
with me I'm going to come away knowing
more about Jesus.
Now the last time we were together we
talked about the Holy Spirit right and according
to what Jesus says when the Holy Spirit
is active in our lives he will speak
of me.
So someone that is equipping in the nature
of Jesus and anointed by the Holy Spirit
when I come away from them I'm going
to know more about Jesus than I knew
before and if I don't then they have
not been leading in the Jesus style.
One who is giving himself away will also
help me to grow into perfection.
Years ago I read a definition of a
friend.
A friend is someone who will never ever
ask you to do anything wrong or to
lower yourself.
Hey any of you dating that's a good
definition of Christian dating you know.
But when someone is working in my life
in an equipping way I end up serving
God more than I did before.
It's largely because they show me how.
I have been with individuals who have helped
train me.
They didn't know they were training me.
One particular guy his name was Jesse and
I watched him.
He had a way with children that just
blessed me.
You know I would walk along and I
would not pay any attention.
All right that's children big deal this is
the way we're walking let's go you know.
But he had this uncanny ability to notice
people and if a child was playing with
some new toy he would notice that and
he would say hey I bet you're having
fun with that.
And the kid would brighten up say yeah
I'm having a problem here though and he'd
say okay I'll help him.
It was a yo-yo and he'd show
him how you know and he'd go and
help him there for a second.
And I would think well now why didn't
I think to do that?
Because I wasn't noticing people that's why.
But there was something in his heart that
said I notice people.
I care about them and if in the
name of Jesus I can make a child
happy I'm gonna do it.
And I just watched him and I never
even said to him hey thanks for letting
me see that.
You know I'm convicted about that.
I want to notice people more than that.
Never thanked him for it.
I should because I talked to him on
the phone once in a while.
But you know what?
I found myself noticing people a little bit
more.
Has that happened to you?
Where you just watch somebody do it and
you think why didn't I do that?
I could do that.
He was equipping me.
He was living out the nature of Jesus.
Here he was a gift to the body
that I'm part of and I had a
chance to see somebody do it right and
it taught me.
It taught me and I didn't even realize
it.
And you know what happened this past weekend?
I was up in Idaho and I just
attended the the dedication of a crisis pregnancy
center and I noticed three kids come in
and they had these hummer things you know
with rubber bands on the end of one
end of the string and you you twirl
and go and they come into this fancy
dress-up dedication and they're standing there and
I thought are they gonna do it in
here?
But then I just logiced it out and
I realized mom and dad had probably bought
their presence at this.
Look if you'll go with us to this
we'll buy you a hummer and then you
can hum.
And so they're standing there and when it's
over they rush outside and it was time
for me to leave too and sure enough
they were standing out there and normally I'd
have just paid no attention and walked by
but I found myself stopping and walking over
and saying can I hear that go?
I love that hum.
Would you do it for me?
Oh yeah.
And I said you know in Alaska they
call that a wolf scarer and they make
it out of baleen bone of a whale.
Really?
I said yeah that's really fun.
I bet you're having fun.
Yeah we are.
Okay fine see you later.
And as I walked away the pastor who
was with me said and it just that's
why I'm telling you this now I'm not
trying to brag on myself much.
I always tell you the good stories.
The pastor said to me he said wow
that was fun to watch you do that.
I could have done that but I didn't
even think about it and at that moment
I thought that's just what I would have
said a few years ago until I was
with an equipper who showed me how to
pay attention to people and see things that
normally I would forget and if someone loves
you and is giving themselves away you'll discover
yourself doing more other centered in Jesus style
things.
Well another thing that will happen is you
will help people become stable.
Stability.
Well that makes sense if you're going to
build people on the rock that's rather stable.
I've passed my 35th birthday now and having
grown up in the church and teething on
the back of a pew I think I've
told you that I was born into the
church.
The very first Sunday I was in this
world I was in church.
I was.
The sermon that morning was about but having
grown up in the church I've discovered that
there will always be a hot new theology
that will come around.
It will always be there.
I have done some studying and reading about
some of the history of the church in
just this century and I've discovered that there
were different crazy little theologies that would go
around.
I discovered that in part of one state,
I won't tell you where it was, they
could tell that the Holy Spirit was there
because they would jump and I read that
and I thought I don't believe this until
a friend of mine brought me an article
from a group of Russian immigrants that have
come to the United States and they get
their messages from God when someone has the
jumper spirit they call it.
Now these people love God.
They love God.
But I realize there will always be something
like that that comes through.
It may be that someone has some sort
of detector and everyone will go for the
detector.
I want to learn how to detect.
Someone will see one particular verse of scripture
take it out of context and build whole
churches and denominations around.
It will always be and it'll especially happen
when revival is going on along the edges
there will be these eddies.
I used to live right on the Mississippi
River and right in the mainstream of the
river there was this constant heavy flow but
along the edges the whirlpools would form.
People drowned there more often than anywhere else
and in the whirlpools it was moving faster
than in the mainstream and it looked and
thought boy here's where the action is.
No that's where the death was.
But if someone loves you he's going to
be making you more stable in your Christian
walk and not trying to lead you into
some of these strange things.
You will be taught and you will teach
others to speak the truth in love.
Now you got to remember that speaking the
truth in love means that you're speaking truth
only that will make people grow and be
equipped and edified.
You will not become brutally honest which usually
is just honestly brutal but you'll begin to
ask how can I tell the truth about
myself that will benefit them because that would
be truth in love.
Have you ever struggled through something and God
has given you victory over it and then
you shared that story with someone else and
it enabled them to gain the victory too?
You had just spoken the truth about yourself
in love and it built a relationship and
edified someone else.
We learn how to be humble people speaking
the truth in love because someone does it
and shows us how.
They lead by example.
Well we grow up we help people grow
up and learn to do their share.
I think that some of the observations I
have made in my earlier years were of
people that only wanted to relate to God
out of what I would call an emotional
basis just as a newborn baby would.
A newborn baby isn't very stable.
They make a lot of noise and there's
a lot of cleanup work that goes with
them.
They don't do much work.
You can't say I'd like to hire out
a baby here at $50 an hour.
There's not much demand.
Baby leasing or anything like that.
But when we grow up and when we
understand who God is regardless of how we
feel at a given moment we become mature
people who have been equipped because we've been
put in touch with the word.
We know what God is like.
Our emotions and they're fickle aren't they?
How did you feel on November 4th?
Emotions are fickle.
But God is not.
He is the same.
And when people are equipping me I'm steady
with God regardless of how I feel at
a given moment.
And I learn to be steady with Him
regardless of what's happening to me at a
given moment.
What would appear to be great tragedies can
happen and out of it I will learn
that God will be glorified because He wastes
nothing.
And I only learned that at the hands
of an equipper.
Someone who takes me to the word and
then plugs me into the body.
When Jesus said if you want to find
your life you have to lose it He
was telling us the truth.
And when someone is truly leading me in
the nature of Jesus, in the Jesus style,
He will very quickly try to teach me
how to give myself away.
I visited a commune.
Once was a commune up in northern Canada.
I mean way out in the boondocks.
Finally we had finished driving on roads and
we were driving on what didn't look to
me to be a trail but he knew
where he was going.
And we came to a river and I
thought this is it.
What do we do now?
He honked the horn and across the river,
this roaring river, came a boat.
Picked us up, took us over.
We climbed the bank and I discovered one
of the most beautiful communities I've ever seen.
Houses, no electricity, but they had everything they
needed.
Everything they needed.
It was beautiful.
It had been built by a group of
Christians who wanted to get away from the
world and be the community of God.
And they had done it well.
They lacked nothing except they violated the nature
of Jesus.
And what had been a community at one
point of 160 people, when I went there,
they had three people.
It was dead.
And when I investigated to find out well
what was the underpinning?
The underpinning was isolation.
Get away from the world so it won't
contaminate us.
But you see Jesus said no you're in
the world.
You're just not of it.
And he didn't say escape.
He said go ye.
And if I am leading in the nature
of Jesus, I am giving myself away and
teaching other people to give themselves away because
I know that that's where the joy is.
And I want people to be filled with
joy.
But if I say let's just escape, then
I've just drunk the poison of my death.
Because God has created you to be salt
and to be light.
A city on a hill which cannot be
hit.
So now you're about to go.
You're about to leave this building.
You're going to go out into a rather
confused world.
People out there really know we're in trouble,
but they don't have a clue as to
what will solve it.
There are people who are desperate emotionally.
They are desperate financially.
They are desperate in ways we can't even
begin to imagine.
Desperate.
They're terrified.
They are driven by forces within them that
they can't seem to control.
They are driven to do things that even
they hate.
And you're about to go out there where
they are.
Isn't that wonderful?
Because you're going among them with an entirely
different concept than others go among them.
You're going to go to bless them.
You're about to go out where they are
and be this kind of person to them.
They will not have experienced it before until
they see it from you.
And as the nature of Jesus lives out
in you and you take a role in
their life that's very much like John the
Baptist to prepare the way of the Lord
to them, changes are going to occur because
you will be a gift of Jesus Christ
to them.
What an awesome opportunity.
So as you walk out of here in
just a moment, I want you to think,
I'm a gift.
I wonder to who?
Who will I get to bless?
Often I come to church, I know that
you would never do this, but I often
will come to church and I'll just sort
of sit there and I'll think, boy, it's
been a tough week.
Satan's tanned my hide.
I think I'll go to church on Gail's
teaching.
Oh well, bless me.
You have 20 minutes to bless me.
And you sit in a pool of misery.
Ah, but when the nature of Jesus begins
to take over, it's different.
We begin to come with the thought, I'm
going to bless somebody.
I wonder who it is.
Oh, isn't it great that God let me
be a gift and I'm going to bless
somebody.
Is it you?
What would happen if this many of us
got together with that kind of thought?
We just walked on the ground, kind of
looking at each other.
And God has equipped you and designed you
not to leave this place thinking, oh boy,
it's tough out here.
I hope I can just make it till
Sunday.
If I can make it till Sunday.
But instead, I want you to get up
and just kind of look around and think
I'm going to bless somebody.
I wonder who it is.
If not here, where?
And when and how I'm going to do
it because I can't help it.
It's just in me.
It's the way Jesus is and I've got
to do it.
I'm going to bless somebody.
Are you ready?
All right, stand up.
So you gifted people, as you go, may
the love of God the Father, the grace
of our Lord Jesus Christ and the fellowship
of the Holy Spirit be with you.
Are you ready?
Go.
Good night.
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