Bible Study: Rick Warren
“God doesn’t bless a program. He blesses people.”
(speaking about Christians attacking on another) “I can’t figure out my own motivation half the time so how could I possibly know yours.”
“Don’t accuse and don’t ever defend yourself.”
Billy Graham: “If you wrestle with a pig both will get muddy, but only one will like it.”
“Leaders absorb the pain. Wimps fight back and retaliate.”
“The two most important words I can tell you for your ministry: Study Jesus”
1 John 2:15-17
Bible says, “God so loved the world” and “don’t love the world.” Which is it? The former “world” refers to “people” and the latter to “value systems” Our BIG problem: We do the exact opposite. Love the value system and don’t love the people!
Lust of Flesh
Anything that makes me feel good (T.V. Drugs, food, sex, porn, etc.)
Value of the Word: Hedonism – feels good then do it
Jesus: Satan says, “Use the power you have for ministry to serve yourself”
Preach: for glory of God? To show off?
Antidote: INTEGRITY
*You don’t compartmentalize your life when you have integrity. What you see is what you get. You are not one way with one group and another when alone or with a different group.
*Titanic Trap: “we can take water in some parts and not compromise the entire ship. This doesn’t work”
*“You’ll never sin by yourself. It always affects others.”
*“Other people may not know, but they are impacted.”
*“If I don’t read my bible for 2 days I know. 4 days-my wife knows, week-the church knows.
Lust of Eyes
To have. Greed. “I see it and I want it”
Acquisition of most toys wins
Commenting about prosperity gospel: “a lot of your theology would go out the window if you just did some international travel.”
Advertising industry feeds this (collected over 40 lbs. of Christmas catalogs!)
Jesus: Satan says, “All these things I will give you”
Antidote: GENEROSITY
*God “gave” his son
*“Love is spelled GIVE”
*Miser and miserable – same root word
*“Every time I give, my heart becomes bigger. I become more like him”
*“Last year we gave 91% of our income away and lived on 9%”
*Purpose Driven Life first line of book says “It’s not about you.” “When I wrote this I had no idea that I would be tested on it ten times a day. I had no idea I would be so stressed over that line!”
Pride of Life
Temptation to be loved, envied, respected, worshiped
“I am my own god—the master of my fate”
Value of the world: secularism –we don’t need God in our ___, ____, _____, etc.
New age movement: “You’re a God!” – that’s not a new idea!
Jesus: Satan says, “throw yourself down and angels will save you”
“God’s plan for glory is through the cross—not through showing off”
Antidote: HUMILITY
*“Most humility you see is fake humility and that is actually pride”
*Ex: “I know it wasn’t any good” = “tell me how good it was”
*Paul could say follow me as I follow Christ because he knew he was the chief of all sinners.
*“Everything you learned you learned from a model”
*Humility: 1) you can learn from anyone. 2) Refused to defend yourself
Conclusion:
“The only way to teach a leader to lead is to let them lead.”
“Only church planters can produce church planters”
“Professors reproduce professors”
“You can only reproduce what you are.”
Workshop 5 – Alan Hirsch – “Leadership Systems for Missional Movements”
Ephesians 4 – APEST (Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists, Shepherds, Teachers)
v.1-6 UNITY (we all are big on)
v. 7-11 APEST ( for some reason we only validate 2 – Preacher/Teacher)
v. 12-16 MATURITY/MULTIPLICATION (we are also big on)
Why do we leave A-P-E out?
Paster/Teacher Church – you get cared for and taught.
When we have all present we can multiply like a starfish
APEST – the image of Christ is in this
APEST – you see it in creation and in the world
It is not one-dimensional. Just like DNA it has all the code in it.
For example: I am 1. A, 2. E, 3. P, 4. T, 5. S (this explains why I don’t like being called “pastor Gavin.”
Why are we embarrassed about the other words (Apostle, Evangelist, Prophet)?
Click Here to read more on this via Alan Hirsch’s website.
Main Session 5
Matt Chandler
“We are in this room because somebody dreamed our dream before us.”
“Others had to lay down their lives so we could be here”
“Probably won’t cost us our lives because others paid that price for us.”
“Paul was one of the free-est men in history”
– Contextualized the Gospel everywhere he went
– Paul quotes pagan literature
“This (referring to all we talked about at the conference) isn’t new…it’s just our turn”
Things that hinder– not necessarily sin, but things that can get in way…like TV, sleep, food, safety, money, etc.”
Author – He started all this
Perfector – He will perfect it.
…to keep me from boasting.
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NEXT… my summary and take-a-ways from the conference. Need a few days to process all this.
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