Are You Involved?

Last week I wrote a little bit about the gap between attending a local church & serving in a local church & how the gap between those two realities is the very gap that keeps most people & congregations frustrated in their faith.

Somehow we've bought into a faith that is neatly confined to our favorite seat on Sunday morning. Somehow we've bought into the lie that somehow we get to retire from ministry at some point. As a result, most congregations are stretched to their limits because those serving in those congregations are stretched to the limit. It's time for all of us to get involved in what God is doing. We all have "reasons" why we don't: ability, time, etc. Jesus cuts through all those excuses today the way He did when He told His disciples in Matthew 14:18, "Bring them here to me." Whatever you have, bring it.

"You'll Never Know What God Can Do With What You Have

Until You Bring Him What You Have."

The backdrop of that verse in Matthew is when the disciples were freaking out about the huge crowd & lack of resources to feed them. You know the story. They tried to get Jesus to send the people away, but He turns the tables on them & tells them to feed the people. Of course, the disciples protest & list all the reasons why they can't do it. After all, they've only got 5 little biscuits & a couple of fish. Jesus' response: "Bring them here to me." The truth is that all you have is all He needs to do something incredible, maybe even miraculous. We don't have to have all that it takes to meet a need or fulfill God's call. All we need is the faith to bring what we do have to our Savior & allow Him to bless it & do something unforgettable. So get out there, close the gap, get involved, & find your place in God's work in this world.

Close The Gap

There is a gap in many churches that for many leaders seems impossible to close, yet if we can figure out how to close the gap in our particular congregations, our ability to influence & impact our homes, communities, & the world dramatically improves. That seeming insurmountable gap is the gap between simply attending the local church & serving the local church. For too long too many of us have simply sat in a pew or a chair & filled our space each week. The cost of simply attending & not serving & investing our lives in ministry is too great for us to ignore.

1) The gap between attending & serving the local church is the same gap
    that keeps people from experiencing the power of God in their lives.

2) The gap between attending & serving the local church is the same gap
    that keeps congregations in a coma instead of becoming fully alive.

3) The gap between attending & serving the local church is the same gap
    that keeps cities from seeing the power of the Gospel.

What if each of us who say we follow Jesus refused to simply sit in church & decided to invest our lives in the church? What if we all began to find a place to serve? What if we found people to serve, people to invest ourselves in? Do you think that we would see God do a fresh work in our own souls? Do you think our congregations would be energized through the faithful ministry of its people? Do you really think that our cities wouldn't be affected by a congregation of God's people who are no longer on the sidelines but are boldly serving & sowing the seeds of the Gospel everywhere they go?

It's time to close the gap. If you're sitting & soaking, you're probably also spoiling. Where can you invest your life & in whom can you invest your life for God's glory? If the gap is going to close, it has to start somewhere. Why not with you?

Be Aggressive

This week at ZBC we wrapped up our summer message series in Nehemiah. If you like happy endings, Nehemiah 13 is not for you. After 12 chapters victory, revival, & renewal, we fast forward several years into the future to find that Nehemiah has had to return to Persia to serve the king before making a return visit to Jerusalem. What he finds is depressing to say the least. The people have descended back into the same lifestyle that had cost them in the past. The same temptations had brought them down again. The same things they had identified as chronic problem areas in Nehemiah 10 had reared their heads again, & the people had succumbed to the temptation. In Nehemiah's own words he was "greatly displeased." His confrontation of both the leaders & the people of Jerusalem seems overly harsh to some people, but there is something we have to remember: Nehemiah had invested years of his life into leading these people to honor God.

His frustration was directly connected to his sense of responsibility for these people. He knew what God could do in & through them when they submitted themselves to God's will, but He also knew what would happen if the people chose to rebel against God & pursue their own ways. There was a lot at stake. Most importantly, God's glory revealed & reflected through His people was at stake. Nehemiah took on the leaders in really aggressive ways. When the people violated the Sabbath by continuing to conduct business, he put the city on lock-down. When Nehemiah found out that his old enemy Tobiah had been given a place to live INSIDE of the Temple, he literally threw Tobiah & all of his things out. After years of leadership, instructions, & correction, the time for a soft warning had passed.

"Aggressive Temptation Requires Aggressive Accountability."

These chronic problem areas had been handled too softly for too long, & while getting physical like Nehemiah did probably isn't the best way to confront someone you care about, we should have the same sense of urgency & responsibility for one another. After all, how many of us have watched people we care about begin to drift away from God, but we hid behind phrases like "Who am I to judge?" The truth is that if the two of you are followers of Jesus, you are brothers or sisters in Christ & have a responsibility to protect one another from the dangers of sin & temptation. Our enemy is relentless & aggressive. Should we be just as relentless & aggressive in guarding one another & seeking to rescue or restore one another from his attacks?

Who do you need to reach out to in love in order to guide them back from a path that will lead to their own self-destruction? Be proactive, be aggressive, don't assume that they'll figure it out or learn their lesson. Rescue them. Perhaps you need to invite this kind of accountability into your life. Perhaps you are stuck in a cycle of defeat by the same temptations that take you down all the time. Who can you invite into your life as a sort of spiritual bodyguard? Do we really care about one another enough to confront one another in love in hopes of rescuing one another from the relentless, aggressive attacks of our enemy?

Looking Back So We Can Move Forward

The past is a tricky thing. We all look back fondly at "the good ole days" & think about the good times in our past, but at the same time, we're also prone to get stuck in the past. Looking back & celebrating the good times is great, but when you get to the point that you try to recreate or live in the past, you have a problem. On the other hand, if you have some past hurt in your past that you can't seem to move on from, that past hurt will impact almost everything about your future. The past is a great place to go back to & visit in our memory to celebrate the good time, to mourn the bad times, & to learn from it all, but living there or trying to export the past into our present is dangerous.

In Nehemiah 12, Nehemiah & the people are about to dedicate the newly reconstructed wall around Jerusalem. If you've ever been to a dedication, ribbon cutting, or grand opening ceremony, you know those events are extremely future oriented. It's all about the excitement of what the future holds for a new facility, organization, or business. However, Nehemiah begins this section of his memoirs by looking back. He looks at a couple of generations from the past. One generation led the initial return from exile back to the Promised Land. They resettled the land & rebuilt the Temple. They were bold, courageous, & faithful. Then Nehemiah looks at the next the generation, the one that immediately preceded his. This group of people weren't necessarily bad or evil people. They were just negligent. Their lack of faith stands in stark contrast to the generation preceding them who rebuilt the Temple & the generation that followed them who rebuilt the wall. It's not that they did anything overtly bad; they just did nothing. Perhaps they were content with the fact that the Temple had been rebuilt. Perhaps no one was ever bold enough to say, "Let's rebuild this wall & city." No matter what was going on, it's clear this was a part of Israel's past that needed to be learned from but not celebrated. Nehemiah then turns his attention to his generation & those who would come after him. Those generations had already demonstrated their faith, but there was so much potential for the future too. As they looked forward to the future, they needed to look back: to celebrate & to learn.

There's something really important we can learn from this passage that can be so important for us in our faith, our families, our ministries, & our communities.

"Learning From The Past Can Direct Our Future,

  But Living In The Past Can Destroy Our Future."

Our past is going to play a part in our future. We can't escape our past, but we don't have to be imprisoned by it. We get imprisoned by the past when we either choose to live there because those were "the good ole days," & there's no way God could have anything else in store for us or when we choose to live in the past & be defined by some of its hurts & defeats. The truth is that if you're a follower of Christ, you should assume your best days are ahead of you. God is still at work. Your past is filled with things that you can celebrate & things you can learn from, but God is leading you to take those things & follow Him with bold faith into the future.

What things in your past are you holding onto that are actually holding you back? They may be past victories or past defeats, but either way, their in the past. What can you learn from your past so that you can follow God faithfully into the future.

Confession That Transforms

Confession is a tough word. It's tripping with negativity. After all, just about every time we hear the word confession it's in connection with some guilty criminal or a child caught in an act of disobedience sheepishly saying, "I'm sorry," complete with protruding bottom lip. We've been conditioned to see confession as a negative thing, something that is always connected with guilt & shame.

However, if you take a look at Nehemiah 9 & 10, you see the other side of confession that gives us a more complete view & a more hopeful view of what confession is all about. After all confession really means "to tell the truth." It doesn't necessarily have to be negative or guilt ridden. It's just the truth. In fact, real repentance & confession actually is the way out of the guilt & shame that seems to hold us captive. The key is total confession. In Nehemiah 9 the people of God are moved to confess together. In fact, we learn that they spent hours in confession & worship. The interesting thing is that their confession doesn't start with them; it starts with God. Before they declare what is true about themselves, they declare what is true about God. He is powerful, majestic, holy, just, but also abounding in love & slow to anger. He is holy & just & simultaneously gracious & merciful.

It's these important truths about God's character & nature that moves them to also tell the truth about themselves. They are not holy. In fact, they are incredibly rebellious. God established a covenant of love with them, & He has always acted faithfully toward them, yet all the while they have been rebellious toward Him. But instead of being locked up in their guilt & shame, they are moved to not only confess their unfaithfulness to God, they are also moved to begin to change. In fact, in Chapter 10 they renew their commitment to the covenant God established with them by identifying 3 areas where they had consistently been unfaithful. By walking in faith to God they can be changed, transformed. I believe there's an important principle that we often overlook in our relationship with God.

"Confession That Starts With What's True About God

  Has The Power To Transform What's True About Us."

These people were moved not simply by their guilt. They were moved by God's faithfulness to them in spite of their guilt. Understanding that God is not just a holy & just God but also a compassionate & gracious God moves them to acknowledge the truth about themselves & be set free from that guilt & shame. Perhaps we need to spend more time reflecting on the character & nature of God than we do on our own shortcomings. Believe me, if you really spend some time in sincere reflection on God's character, you'll recognize yours too! You'll see the gap between God's holiness & your sin, His faithfulness & your unfaithfulness. However, you'll also be moved to run toward Him, not away from Him because you also know that He is slow to anger & abounding in love. That truth will move you to confess so that you can find freedom from your guilt & shame, & as you experience His faithfulness, you'll want to grow, to change, to be transformed.