Tag: Authority

Men of Faith – Taking the Lead

October 6th, 2015

Men of Faith Breakfast
Taking the Lead
Ephesians 4:31-32

I asked Troy what God was saying to him for today and if there was a theme or focal scripture for today. So, he wrote me back and pointed me to Ephesians 4:31-32
Ephesians 4:31–32 (NIV84)
31 Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. 32 Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.
And then Troy said his reason is that if a man is head of the household, then he must Lead with Faith.

So you see there two lists: Don’ts and Dos … but Paul in these verses puts them in two categories “get rid of” and “be”.
The phrase “get rid of” means “to take away, to withdraw from the bank”. So we are saying here … Where will you spend or deposit your resources? Where will you deposit your wealth and what will you have when you come back for a withdrawal. So, bad accounts to deposit your wealth are in the first list
Get Rid of
– Bitterness – that is a frame of mind that is resentful, thinking we deserve better than we get
– Rage – is excessive anger that becomes a flashpoint
– Anger – not definitive anger, but distorted by uncontrolled passions
– Brawling – anger acting out physically
– Slander – it isn’t always lying but it is evil speaking about someone in order to hurt them or their reputation
– Malice – Wuerst says this is the root of the rest, a hateful feeling
Those are the bad accounts … where we deposit our resources, passions, actions

Be – ginomai – Become = Abandon one thought for another. Change Banks for your Deposit
– Kind – good, kind, easy
– Compassionate – displaying felt affection, tenderhearted
– Forgiving – this is not forgiving in the sense of bearing the sin in atonement but charizomai – comes from the same word charis … Grace. To do a favor … not deserved, but pleasant, benevolent …
So … simple list of dos and don’ts … we know what we are supposed to do …
But Troy said he was interested in these verses because WE are supposed to LEAD
So, what is this about taking the lead? What is Paul teaching us? We don’t learn it from just two verses. Hopefully today I’m going to make you think. Hopefully I’m going to make you go back and read the entire section.

What are we learning about leading our families?

1. Leading Comes From an Understanding of Position

4:1 says “As a prisoner of the Lord … live a life worthy of the calling … be humble, gentle, patient bearing with each other.”
Why? Because I am a Prisoner of God’s Grace
Every other instruction is based on this understanding.
Jesus is Sovereign Lord of All, Creator, Redeemer, the One who gave his life to purchase yours … if you have never surrendered to him, you will be a frustrated Leader at best or a cruel dictator at worst.
Our position is that we serve under authority. We can’t lead without understanding that
The worst leaders are those who want no accountability
The worst leaders are those who think they world revolves around, rises and falls with them.
Great leaders understand their position, those over them, those under their responsibility.
I have heard recently retired Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey saying “my job is not to create policy, but to recommend and implement the plan to carry out the policies and objectives we are given.”

So, I belong to Christ. I am under authority, so I cannot just do whatever I want.

So as we continue to Read this Chapter and Understand

2. Leaders Understand More is Caught Than Taught

Paul says that God has given us church leaders to help us become mature so we aren’t tossed about by the waves. You don’t get there alone. Submitting to and welcoming instruction and mentoring
Paul talks about Actions, Attitudes, and Accountability in this chapter. If our kids are rebellious, angry, selfish, … where did they get that?
I’m not saying we can’t lead unless we are perfect men, but we have to be transparent with our family. When we ignore the rules that we don’t think are important, our family is watching. If your kids obey YOU, but not your wife, maybe they are catching it from you. Do you follow? Do you speak respectfully? Do you process and control your anger or do you rage? They are watching. Do you always act like everyone owes you something? Actions, Attitudes and Accountability. I can’t just do what I want.
Ephesians 4:22–23 (NIV84)
22 You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; 23 to be made new in the attitude of your minds;

I must get rid of the one list and become the other because I am accountable to our God and Savior and because I am leading others. V30 says “do not grieve the Holy Spirit” … We are accountable to the Spirit who lives in us. What does that mean?
1 Thessalonians 5:19 calls it “putting out the Spirit’s Fire”. It hinders the fire of transformation in our lives as well as for those we lead, beginning with our family.
I won’t develop it, but if you want to Fan the Flame instead of quenching the Spirit … it is found there in 1 Thessalonians 5:16-22 … Read it later, but here are the cliff notes
• Rejoice Always
• Pray Always (without ceasing)
• Give Thanks Always (in everything)
• Test Everything
• Always abstain from every kind of evil

So … as we understand it is Caught more than Taught …

The Last thing on Taking the Lead then is

3. Leadership Has a Clear Vision

Be, Live, Say …

If you continue chapter 5:1 it says “Be Imitators of God as Dearly Loved Children”
– Be Imitators of God as dearly loved children
Lift your eyes. Lift your target. Your family is going to follow YOU first, so don’t compare yourself to someone else, aim higher, imitate God
How?
As Dearly Loved Children
Stop saying I will do this as soon as I’m good enough, mature enough, it fits your schedule or personality.
No, as Loved Children – don’t you love it when your children try and imitate you? How do children imitate? The word is to mimic.
Imitate God like Loved Children
• What God does, You just do it because you are imitating God
• You don’t care how it looks, you just do it, imitating God
• You don’t care if it fits or looks cool, just do what God does
• You don’t care if you are good at it, you just imitate God
Like a child loving Daddy, knowing Daddy loves them

Be … Live …

– Live a Life of Love
Live a LIFE … not occasionally, weekly, monthly the word peripateo means walk, behave, conduct, in a manner of living
Make your life … LOVE – agape … This is not sensual love that makes me feel. This is not conditional love that asks what have you done for me? This is DEVOTION. We do it because we choose TO. How do we live this manner of life love.
• As Christ loved you … don’t miss that what he has done for you is a past action, a present reality, and a future expectation. Love like Christ, yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
• He gave himself up … It is not enough to bring your children here to be taught God’s Word. And Send them to school to learn, and to a coach to be trained … You give them YOURSELF … it is the best you will give them, particularly if you are seeking God
• As a sacrifice … God loves it because he loves you … do it as an act of worship

Be … Live … Say …
– Say … back to 4:29 … we have to watch what comes out … Only let out what is beneficial. Only allow what is:
• Helpful
• For Building Up
• According to their needs

Men your wives, your children, need to hear your voice. But is what they hear helpful (good, fair, generous) Helpful to building up? Is there a positive future for those words? Is there a useful structure? According to their Needs?
Understand me men. I’m not saying you have to go around saying sweet nothings …
Sometimes correction is needed
Sometimes discipline
Sometimes Grace or Mercy
Sometimes it is an Apology that is needed from US
But Always it is with Love and an Expressed Vision of the Desired Future
That is Taking the Lead
So
Ephesians 4:31–32 (NIV84)
31 Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. 32 Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.

You know where do you get rid of it and where do you get what you need? His name is Jesus
Who Is God?

November 25th, 2014

Who Is God?
That is the question I have ringing in my head through this week’s incidents that boil to the top of a pot that has been recognized again since the August killing of Michael Brown. I say “recognized” because the pot is there, has been there, it just gets pushed aside, buried on the back and comes to the top every so often but is never really dealt with.
I lived and ministered in Ferguson for 11 years. We raised our sons there. I love North St. Louis County. I learned a lot in Ferguson, Missouri. This isn’t something new for St. Louis. It is a place of great division. It is a place of silent separation. It is a place where history said one man wasn’t a man because his skin was a different color and the Supreme Court made a judgment that he had no rights.
Who is God?
It is a city where people were turned back running from race riots and killings in Illinois because Missouri didn’t want to deal with the problem.
Who is God?

Who is God?
Where is God from?
Did God create us or did we create God?

So, shots rang out again months ago.
What happened? We aren’t completely sure, if we are honest.
We are told that a shop may have been burglarized
We are told that an authority told someone to stop
We are told that hands were raised
We are told that we want justice
Who is God?

Is Education god? then all else will bow to my pursuit of degrees

If money is god, then I will seek to acquire it at all costs. Interesting that when money is god it doesn’t matter what it costs someone else as long as I appease the god of acquisition of wealth in my own life. So if my workers live below the poverty level while I am a billionaire then so be it. If I can acquire wealth legally or illegally and if other lives are destroyed along the way, it matters not to my self-indulgent god. If I am a multi-billionaire discount shop owner, if money were not my god, how far would say 1 billion redistributed among my work force go for them? A long way. How much would it really hurt me? Nothing … unless wealth is my god, then it demands all
Who is God?
Is Justice god?
If so, then I will determine how I define that word and everything else I believe, do, say, will bow down to what I believe this god would have me do. If I believe rioting satisfies the god of justice, then a sacrificial riot I will offer. If I believe the god of justice demands the sacrifice of a burned down business, then I will do it. If I believe justice demands disregard of human decency I will do it. If I believe justice demands lethal force instead a non-lethal wound then I will do it.
Who is God?

If Activism is god, then be active make speeches, stir the pot, worry not if the pot boils over because activism is god. Sacrifice to god.

Who is God?
Where does God come from?
If WE created god, then we can decide what has value. If we created god, if man is not the product of God, then man has no more value than any other being. If we created god, then man, horse, ape, and house fly all have the same value and somewhere along the way we will work harder to protect the creature hiding in the thicket than the infant hiding in the womb. If we created god.
If we created god, then there is no such thing as authority.

I watched a young man on TV this week playing a fun but ultimately silly game. Standing before him was a man in a striped shirt. That man represents every rule of the game. That man represents authority. That man represents all that must be respected. That man stood with his hand outstretched in the universal symbol for STOP. Stop in the name of the law, stop in the name of love, stop in the name of decency, stop please. But no, that quarterback, wanted to do what he wanted to do. He didn’t care that authority stood in front of him. He didn’t care that rules stood in front of him. He didn’t care that there has always been a zone around the official that we dare not enter or touch and if even accidentally we cross into that space, we immediately apologize and beg forgiveness … No the quarterback cared only for his plan, only for his desire, and so he put his hands on authority, he put his weight behind his selfish desire to fulfill his own purpose and pushed authority out of the way. Not once, but twice, he pushed until authority gave way … and on the field seven other officials did nothing. On the sideline a coach did nothing. In the campus office, they did nothing, in the conference office they did nothing. There was a day when every person in the stands would have called the penalty. Every flag on the field would have been thrown. There was a day when the coach would have pulled his own player and sat him down on the bench for disrespect of the rules. The player, by the rules, should have been penalized, ejected, and thus suspended for the next game, but no one did anything.
Yes, it is JUST A GAME … but who is god? Money, Players, Coaches … SELF?
YES YES YES YES
Does a game really matter? NO … but it IS that hand that is up …
We are hearing a lot about “Stop My Hands are Up”
But if a hand up to stop doesn’t mean anything from the man in the authority uniform, then the hand up of surrender doesn’t mean anything either. At the root of the problem is that no one respects authority any longer, each does what he thinks right in his own eyes.
Who is God?
If we created god, then he is no god at all. If we created god, then we can create our own definition of reality
But if God is the Creator of man, if God had a plan and created this world and created man as the highest order of his creation, then everything changes
Where did God come from?
Is He from time or from Eternity?
John 1:1-3, 12, 14 (speaking of Jesus) – “in the beginning was the WORD and the WORD was with God and the WORD was God. He was in the beginning with God. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that was made
12 – To all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God –
14 The word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father full of Grace and Truth”

Jesus is Eternally God, Creator of all, who became flesh and dwelt among us that we might become the children of God
If HE is God and we are not then we cannot take vengeance into our hands because we aren’t God … Scripture says “Vengeance is mine says the Lord”
Vengeance is not our prerogative nor our possession.
The reason that vengeance belongs to GOD is because He is the ONLY ONE who is HOLY enough, JUST enough, WISE enough, and LOVES enough to administer it. When we take vengeance into our sin-stained hands we never get it right.

If we wonder why “hands up” no longer mean anything, look to that silly game this past weekend. That young man has seen hands held up in his face for the last two years and they meant nothing to him, not a girl’s hands saying “no”, a merchant’s hand saying “pay”, common decency’s hand saying “don’t say that outloud”, nor an official’s hand saying “wait” … and so he did this weekend what he has done, what has made him a winning football player, he shoved that hand out of the way.
So we live in a world that shoves everything out of the way except what we want, and that is true on both sides of the equation, and so we see an officer not respect hands up either and another life is wasted in the pursuit of a life with no God, a life with no restraint
So while hands of authority are being shoved aside,
While hands of surrender are being ignored,
God’s hand out too is ignored.
God’s invitation is ignored.
God’s hand is not just a hand up saying “no”
His hand is a hand held out that says “come”
“Come to me all who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest”
“Come to me all who are thirsty and I will give you living water”
“Come to me all who are hungry and you will be filled”

Who is God? He is Jesus Christ of Nazareth, Second person of a Triune God
Jesus is God, whether we accept it, reject it, ignore it, or embrace it, God He will be
He is God
God Help Us
God Help Us

Tag: Authority

Men of Faith – Taking the Lead

Who Is God?