Invite Them To The Table

Finding more leaders for our ministries and churches is a common goal.  Yet, there is a common problem of not seeing that they are right in front of our eyes.

Unfounded Complaints

This is the situation in numerous churches all around the globe.  The complaint is that hardly anyone is qualified or ready to lead as elders or ministry leaders in the church.  Larger ministry organizations make similar complaints.  There are not enough leaders with the experience to move into higher levels of leadership.  

Those at fault are the senior leaders themselves.  Either they haven’t developed the leaders they need, or they have unrealistic expectations for those who might join in the leadership.  It is a lack of leadership to complain about a lack of leaders.

The future leaders will always be the younger leaders.  And emerging leaders need to identified, valued, developed, trusted and given real leadership.  They need to be invited to the table.

Unfair Despising

It is because many of them are too young, we think.  They don’t know as much as we know.  They don’t have the experience we have.  They don’t understand the organizational history we understand.  The list of deficiencies can go on and on, and sadly it actually does in some churches and ministries.  

This is unfair.  And besides, this is actually a positive list, not a negative one, if a church or ministry is looking to the future for greater and growing Kingdom impact.  Those who are overly conservative in sharing leadership will find that they are primarily working with their close friends and are given more to cronyism than they perhaps realize.

We often forget that Timothy was only about 30 years of age when he led the Ephesus church and its church planting mission to the interior of Asia.  The Apostle Paul instructed Timothy, and by extension those older than he, on this matter.

1 Timothy 4:12 ESV “Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity.”

There is little to fear and a whole lot to be gained by entrusting leadership to others.  Who might you be overlooking as having great potential for the Kingdom of God, for your church or ministry?  What do you think about inviting them to the leadership table?

While Waiting For Justice

What do you tend to do when you get anxious, or eager, for wrongs to be righted, but, you do not see it happening fast enough, or even at all?  

Hopefully, we maintain our trust in God, and peace, and hope, to a strong degree, even though we still might mix in various forms of doubt or despair.  

Some of us might act out for justice on our own without faithfully consulting God.  Some of us might begin to wonder about God’s commitment to justice, or even His power and wisdom.  

Some of us might give up and give in, not knowing really what to do or not to do, what to think or what not to think about God, justice and faith.  Some of us might get stuck in a state of shock and bewilderment whether for a brief time or very long time.

Yahweh Will Deliver

Proverbs 20:22 ESV “Do not say, “I will repay evil”; wait for the LORD, and he will deliver you.”

When faced with personal injustice we are not to tell ourselves, “I will repay.”  Nor, are we to tell this to others, boasting of our new holy crusade.  And the last person we should tell it to is God Himself, even if it is to offer Him a share of spoils. 

The admonition here is doubly emphasized in the Hebrew.  This is really important:  DO NOT seek revenge and DO wait upon the Lord.  He has His purposes, and at the right time, in the right way, He will deliver you.

This is a promise from Him.  He will protect, He will vindicate, and He will compensate.  This is what we need to keep saying to ourselves, so we will not say, “I will repay.”

It is so tempting to take matters of justice into our own hands.  But, God wants us to look to Him.   He is perfect and all-powerful and impartial.  We will mess it up with our prejudicial wrath, lack of knowledge, and we won’t really be able to get it done anyway, since we have such limited powers.  His purposes and wisdom and power are beyond our understanding, and trustworthy.

Can We Wait?

We need to “wait.”  And this might mean until Christ’s Return for full justice.  Can you wait?  And in the meantime can we even bless our enemies who curse us?  Can we have such faith?

There are so many of the Psalms that can help us pray for such faith. Here is one of them.

Psalms 25:1-3 ESV “To you, O LORD, I lift up my soul. O my God, in you I trust; let me not be put to shame; let not my enemies exult over me. Indeed, none who wait for you shall be put to shame; they shall be ashamed who are wantonly treacherous.”

Also helpful is Jesus’ teaching from a famous parable.

Luke 18:7-8 ESV “And will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?””

There is much to be learned about waiting for God’s justice.  God lets things go for a while as He works out in mystery a glory to be revealed.  He asks His People, “Can you wait?  It is okay to have both faith mixed with some consternation.  But, can we wait with an increasing confidence, peace, and patience?

Sam, Our Bodyguard

He picked us up each morning at our hotel, and returned us safely each evening.  Most mission trips don’t include bodyguards, but this one did.  And Sam was our favorite.

Tough Job from Day One

A number of years ago, our church partnered with a local Christian congregation in a Muslim-dominated country.  The goal of our national partners was that together we would establish about a dozen cell churches in a series of apartment buildings by the end of the week.

On the first day we held a large church meeting before heading out to do mission work.  When the meeting ended the fifteen teams scattered in all directions.  Sam, our government-assigned bodyguard, was distraught.  There was no way he could keep track of all the crazy Americans going every which way.

So I took Sam aside and told him it would be okay.  I bought a couple of Cokes and we sat together on plastic chairs in the dusty alley and talked for a while.  I assured him that the people would be wise and that God would protect them.  He said he believed in God.

I told him to relax and stay cool, we would all be back in a few hours.  And then I left.  Since we all returned as promised, he was much at ease the following days.

Friendship Beyond Religion

Sam’s job was to protect us each day as we traveled.  He was even ready and willing to shoot others for our safety.  Sam was a Muslim man, but by God’s design, ironically ended up making a way for our team to share the Gospel more freely.  Apparently, ensuring national tourism dollars was more important than religion in this religious land.

Sam really had no choice but to listen to our Christian messages and meetings.  And we would share Christ with him, and share stories from our lives with one another.  He enjoyed being with us and our national partners, and we enjoyed having him with us.  We all learned a lot from one another.

After three days with us, Sam was transferred to a different detail, and our group was assigned another bodyguard.  Maybe Sam was listening too sympathetically to Gospel.  Or, maybe it was simply a routine change.  We never saw Sam again on that trip, but many of us still pray for him and what he heard.

God’s Glory in Hard Places

Much progress was made toward the goal of starting apartment-based call groups.  Our partner church put a lot of the line to make this happen.  This is because they firmly believed that the Lord wanted them to reach out more boldly and share hope with their community.

It would cost them a lot in the coming years.  The loss of a building and property by unethical means.  And even one of their leaders would be martyred.  This is a difficult place to be a Christian, and moreso to spread the faith.

Their courage and risk-taking was inspiring, humbling and empowering.  They assumed the cost without reservation, even when it came time to pay it.

Hebrews 10:32–39 ESV “But recall the former days when, after you were enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings, sometimes being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction, and sometimes being partners with those so treated. For you had compassion on those in prison, and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one. Therefore do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised. For, “Yet a little while, and the coming one will come and will not delay; but my righteous one shall live by faith, and if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him.” But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls.”

God sets up our relationships, those with partner congregations and mission opportunities, and those with bodyguards such as Sam.  We need to be ready for whomever and whatever God brings our way.  We must be intent on bringing glory to Him by our faithful Gospel witness, by our our honorable actions and in pursuing the relationships in front of us, without fear.

Our Spirituality And Our Happiness

We are used to finding good practical life instructions from the Proverbs.  But, we are less familiar with the Book of Proverb’s advice on true spirituality.  These three verses in Proverbs 15 show the connection between our spirituality and our happiness.

Knowledge Leads to Gladness

Proverbs 15:13–14 ESV “A glad heart makes a cheerful face, but by sorrow of heart the spirit is crushed. The heart of him who has understanding seeks knowledge, but the mouths of fools feed on folly.”

The condition of the heart will show itself in one’s looks and the way one carries oneself.  One’s spiritual state can be fairly well surmised from one’s face, smile, eyes, and mood.  We all know this and experience this, and it is what helps care for one another in spiritual struggles and growth, leading to conversations and prayers.

The discerning heart, that is the one who understands, sets himself to seek knowledge because knowledge of God and His Word will affect his soul and bring spiritual vitality into his life.  We all know the feeling after reading our Bibles, meditating, prayer, group study, sermons, worship, etc.

The fool on the other hand doesn’t bother with such things like seeking knowledge; the result is that he becomes so spiritually starved that that his appetite for knowledge of God and His Word is small, and when he does nibble at it, it is only to promote his own foolishness.  Such a person is often sorrowful and just can’t get joy, and easily gets crushed in spirit by life.

The cheerful heart comes from knowledge, feeding upon knowledge.  The cheerful heart is sustained by God.  He causes the hunger for knowledge and He gives the satisfaction, and the desire for more and more.

A Heart Filled with Continual Joy and Satisfaction

Proverbs 15:15 ESV “All the days of the afflicted are evil, but the cheerful of heart has a continual feast.”

We often say that “attitude is everything.”  This is true and fits well here, as long as we realize that in v.15 we are not talking about manufacturing such an attitude from within ourselves.  The point is having a perspective that comes from God, His Word and Spirit at work within us.

The first part of this verse might reference our lives when they are less than pleasant; and so, how we are able to overcome this through spiritual vitality.  Or, it might point out that those with an afflicted heart are always in pain and have no escape.  The depressed, who are not spiritually vibrant will tend to stay that way throughout their lives, day after day.

Either way, the spiritually vibrant of heart see beyond their life circumstances even when they are not in perfect alignment with what they will be one day in glory.  Such persons even rejoice and still find much grace upon which to feast and enjoy their lives.  I think we all know people like this—maybe you are one.

The Proverb Points to Christ

We know our Lord Jesus Christ was sent to give us this kind of abundant life and we have it flowing to us and through us from His work on His Cross and in His Resurrection. 

John 4:10–14 ESV “Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”” 

John 7:37–39 ESV “On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.”

We experience the reality that “the cheerful heart has a continual feast” in even greater ways than the people of God under the old covenant did.  Simply put, being filled with gratitude and happiness will help us become more spiritual.