Responding to God (Scriptural Leadership)

God is moving all around us. Even in the beginning His Spirit moved above the waters. His very breath moved about the unfinished creation. He continues to move today. He is working in our lives and in the lives of those around us. He is moving in our families, our workplace and within the church. God may be moving in some of your lives as we speak. His Spirit could be convicting you, or leading you, or calling you in a number of ways. It is a humbling thought to realize that there are about 6 billion people on earth and each of us is still on God’s mind when He works. The question that we face today is not whether or not God works, but how we respond to His work. When we see God move, when He reveals His truth to us, when His Spirit convicts us, how do we respond?


Scripture is replete with examples of the responses of man to their God. There are two that are emphatically contrasted for us in the book of Romans: Adam, the first of God’s creation, and Jesus Christ, God’s Son. “For if many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for man (Romans 5:15).” The Apostle Paul shows us the results of the response of two men to God. Adam was created and placed in the most beautiful place in the entire world. He was created in the very image of God; given every advantage that we could ever imagine. The only command was not to eat from one specific tree in the middle of the garden. Adam and his wife had to respond in some way to that command. Their response was to ignore the command of God and replace it with what was pleasing to them.

Satan convinced man that God was trying to hold him back, to keep him from becoming something greater. “So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate (Genesis 3:6).” This is how Satan works. He constantly tries to convince us to respond to God based on our temporal view of the world rather than God’s eternal will. The Devil tries to turn our attention downward and inward, even though God has called us to look outward and upward (Col. 3:1-4).

Satan is trying to give us a false perception of the battlefield. Whether we admit it or not, there is an invisible world around us. This world is largely defined in light of the things that go on in that invisible world because that world is eternal. When we allow Satan to turn our attention to the things of this world, we are no longer defining our lives within an eternal context. We are living for what we see now, and not for what is to come. This makes it nearly impossible to respond to the work of God in the proper way since His work is done in the context of the eternal. He is always working among His people so that they “may not perish but have eternal life.” His rewards are not always going to make us wealthy or affluent in this life. He is more concerned with our souls than our accomplishments and achievements, our possessions and our riches. In the beginning man chose to respond to God by ignoring and replacing His commands. He felt that his way was best, and God’s way left something to be desired.

In contrast to Adam’s response to God we see the response of Jesus during the most trying time of His life on earth. As He agonized about God’s call on His life in the Garden of Gethsemane, our Lord prayed, “Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but Yours, be done (Luke 22:42).” Jesus was confronted with the choice that Adam had faced in the beginning. He was faced with the choice that each person throughout history has had to make throughout the course of their lives. How would He respond to the directive of God? When God required more than a nominal commitment what would He do? Jesus proved in His prayer that His desire was to respond in a way that would accomplish God’s eternal purposes. In direct contrast to Adam – through whom sin entered the world – Jesus submitted Himself fully to God’s desires and impacted the lives of every person who has followed Him. “Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience many will be made righteous (Romans 5:19, 20).”

These truths contained in Scripture remind us that with each passing day we are confronted with God’s work in some way. Somehow He is moving in and around our lives and each of us must choose to respond to Him. Each Sunday morning we are confronted with God’s Word, and though there may be no altar response, every person who has heard the Word must respond in some way. We can either submit to God’s Word and let Him mold and shape us, or we can ignore God’s voice and Spirit in favor of our own ideas and wisdom.

In light of all this, it is imperative that the leaders of God’s church understand how this affects them. What does it mean as we meet and discuss the work of the church? How can we ensure that we are responding to God in the proper way?

First of all, we find the will of God through the witnesses that He has provided for us, His Word and His Spirit. The Word is the measuring rod against which our ideas and thoughts are judged. All of our actions and our efforts must be conformed to what is taught in the Bible. It is our inerrant, infallible rule of faith. Without an ever-growing understanding of Scripture we can never be the leaders that God has called us to be. The Bible is not used by the church simply to justify our opinions, it is used as a revelation of God’s will. The Spirit helps us to respond that that will.

So many times we spend countless hours trying to reason among ourselves when our God has called us to reason with Him. “Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord (Isaiah 1:18)...” The role of the leader within the church is far too often looked at as “to make decisions.” A thorough review of Scripture leads us to a contrary conclusion. The role of leaders is to respond to God with submission. It is not our responsibility to “make decisions” but to seek the will of God and actively follow it. That goes against our cultural norms and everything that we have been conditioned to believe, but it does not go against the teachings of the Bible.

God gives His vision through Scripture and leads through His Spirit, and the direct response of man should be prayer. “When God intends to do a mighty work, the first thing He does is to set His people praying.” This is our submission to His will. We know that it is God’s will to save the lost. Our response is to pray for His direction in accomplishing that will. It is His will for His people to live in unity and love. Prayer is the means of seeking direction for this.

Countless times throughout history God has moved, not through the structures of His people, but through their submission. When we humbly pray to our God, He will move in a mighty way among us. “Call to Me and I will answer you and show you great and mighty things that you do not know (Jeremiah 33:3).” Leaders do not lead the church because of their intelligence, talents, abilities, finances, or even elected position. They are called by God to lead in submission to His will. They must set this example for each person within the church. If they are not willing to submit to the will of God and allow Him to move, they forfeit the right to expect His work to be done among them.

By continually writing policy and guidelines, we are telling God – much like Adam and Eve – “we have a better way. We don’t really need you because your will can be accomplished through our methods and channels.” We are trying to define for God the ways that we believe He should work. There has never been a time where God has worked through man-made structure. God will not work through us because we sit on the council, or the board, or because we are a part of any other committee. He will work through us because we are people of prayer and men and women of the Word. He will work through us because we are living in humble submission to His Spirit. To place terms on this is to limit the work and the movement of God. If God is to use this specific congregation, His work will begin with the corporate response of the leaders to His will. I say this realizing that it may take more faith than some people within the congregation exhibit. There may be people who are uncomfortable with such an arrangement. The fact remains, however, that our top priority must be to please God. Our focus must be on the things of the spiritual world and not on the temporal world in which we live. His will is always spiritual and eternal, and we must realize that if we are to submit to Him.

By responding to God with our own strategy and our own opinion, we place ourselves in the position of Israel as they stood at the foot of Mount Sinai. Moses had gone up onto the mountain to receive the laws of God for His people. As they waited they decided among themselves that the current arrangement (to wait on God) was just not working. They needed something more tangible. Something they could touch and see. They immediately turned their attention to the worldly and made for themselves a calf of gold to be their God. You are familiar with the story. Their improper response to God led to their judgment by God. However, even evil people like those of Nineveh were restored when they responded to God’s Word in submission. They humbled themselves before Him, and God relented in His anger.

I realize that this goes against the idea that we are elected representatives of the people in the congregation. That is because we are not. We hold positions as “elders” within the church, not because we’re the brightest or the best, but because we are submissive to God. There are times where that submission may cost us dearly. It cost all of the prophets in Scripture. Many paid with their own lives. I once heard Bill Neece point something out that has stuck with me since. “The price has not changed.” Does the church in our day want to be a neatly organized machine that can carry out many social functions among its members? Or do we really want God to move among us? Do we want to see His power and His might? Do we want to see lives changed, families healed and relationships restored? God wants to see those things. He has done them before and the price in our day is still the same.

As leaders, we are confronted this day – and each day – with God’s presence. In what way will we respond? The call of Joshua to the Israelites rings true for us today. “And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve…”

Coming Out

"John appeared, baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.  And all the country of Judea and all Jerusalem were GOING OUT TO HIM and were being baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins." (Mark 1:4, 5)

The people of Israel were supposed to be God's covenant people.  They were the nation that God inhabited.  Jerusalem was the "city of God" and there was a temple in the city that was the very house of God.  Everything about that city within that nation was focused on that temporal dwelling place that had been built for the God that they continually sought. 

But before the time of Christ, God had been silent for 400 years.  People were starved for a word from God.  They wanted to know Him, and see Him move and work in ways that their fathers had experienced.  This desire to know God made them do the unthinkable.  They left the city, the temple, their traditions, and went out to the desert to see God work through one of the roughest figures that many had ever seen.  Have you ever considered what they were leaving behind in order to experience God?

They left behind the traditional places that God had lived.  The Jews believed that the temple in Jerusalem was the exclusive dwelling place of God.  It was the only place that one could go to be anywhere near His presence.  The rituals that were practiced by the priests and pharisees were rituals designed to bring about the presence of God. At one point these rituals had been valid - even commanded by God -  but by this time Israel had come to the point where they were simply going through the motions.  The ritual had become just that, ritual.  They had ceased to be about pleasing God and had become nothing more than a method for man to manipulate God.

I say these things, not to run down tradition, but to point out that sometimes tradition grows cold.  Those who went out into the desert were not leaving behind tradition simply to do something new.  Far too often we change just for the sake of change.  This was not the case.  These people were not leaving behind the commands of God.  They were simply tired of the ineffectiveness of man's interpretation of God's commands.  They wanted explanation, they wanted substance rather than formality and legalism.  These people wanted to experience the holiness of God.  They wanted to see Him work, they wanted to know Him.

This scripture has an interesting parallel in our day.  We go through the motions, and do what we've always done, and we don't experience God, we don't experience holiness, and we seldom experience anything more than those of the world experience.  We are generally pretty ignorant of the commands of God, why God gives them, and what we need to do with them.  We don't experience God because we've become very good at performing ritual and ignoring the substance.  I think this is probably a "form of Christianity that denies the power."  Scripture gives us the information that we need to experience God.  If we earnestly seek Him, He will be found.  The Bible gives us an abundance of proof that if we are seeking God, and not simply a free ticket to heaven, we will experience His presence in our lives.  We will see Him work among us, and within us, and around us.  The question is, how much dead ritual are you willing to give up to experience Him?  Are you willing to come out from among the cold, dead ritual that we practice to experience God through prayer, His Word, and His Holy Spirit?  It had taken the people of Jerusalem and Judea 400 years, but by the time John the Baptist came onto the scene they were finally willing.  Are we? 

Blessings of the Holy Spirit

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such there is no law. (Gal. 5:22)"

When Jesus Christ ascended to heaven, He empowered His people with the Holy Spirit of God. The Spirit cleanses us, sanctifies us, and conforms our character to that of God. He can provide us with all of the things (and more) listed by the Apostle Paul in his letter to the Galatians. Not only can He provide those things, but we fully expect Him to. God has promised these things, and He should provide them in the way that we want them.

Something occurred to me along these lines this week. Can we really expect the blessings of the Holy Spirit if we are unwilling to stand in the truth revealed by Him? The Holy Spirit inspired the Word of God, interprets the Word, and teaches us about the Word. He is God's witness to us in the world today. There are things that are clearly revealed (such as the call to be holy) that are largely ignored by the church in our day. We explain them away and try to diminish the importance of many truths by making lists of "essentials" and "non-essentials" but the fact remains that the Spirit of God inspired these truths.

I think that if we are ever going to see revival among God's people it will come first and foremost through the prayers of God's people; but I also suspect that many of our prayers are in vain because we are not praying from the proper foundation. We do not see the blessings and power of the Spirit in the church because it is not sought with a proper foundation. The truth that is revealed by the Spirit is something that must be applied to our lives as a foundation for everything that happens spiritually.

We have tried for far too long to get by on what we think and what we want. It is time that the church stand on the truth that has been given by God. Look around you. The world, and especially our nation, is in turmoil. We have compromised too many times. We have ignored the truth far too often. If we are to be the holy people that God has called us to be we must be people whose desire is to know the truth that will set us free.

Spiritual Disciplines

The church of our day has become very focused on doing good works. The current generation seems to use works as their measuring rod for success within the church (especially those who claim to be "emergent"). There are congregations that cancel Sunday morning services to go do things in their communities, and others who give weekly pep talks on doing good things for people. Don't misunderstand me, THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH DOING GOOD THINGS! In fact, the Bible says that we should do good things. However, I'm beginning to get the feeling that we are pursuing good works to the extent that we have devalued spiritual disciplines.

You know what I mean. We will go out of our way to help people do whatever they need done (again, not necessarily bad), but when is the last time you fasted? When is the last time that you took an hour to worship God during the week? When is the last time that you spent an evening in prayer? It is pretty hard to argue that these disciplines are not necessary in our lives. The Bible teaches that there is importance in fasting. Paul said, "Pray without ceasing." Worship is what man was created for.

If the Bible is so clear on the importance of these things, why do our works often take priority? I say all this to make this suggestion. It is good for you to do things to help other people, but if you're doing so many things that you are neglecting spiritual disciplines maybe God does not intend for you to do ALL of those things. Maybe you should narrow it down to some of them. I know people will say, "people keep calling me," or "I can't turn people away." I understand how hard that can be to do, but maybe sometimes the phone needs to ring. Maybe there are times that it is more important for us to spend the time in fasting and prayer, or to spend time in worship than anything else. Maybe the church is not the holy bride that it was called to be because we do not spend the necessary time practicing spiritual discipline.

Just a thought.

Expectations

I have nothing original or new to post this week, but I'd be interested to hear some thoughts on a quote that I've been thinking about for a few days. It is from A.W. Tozer's book, "Reclaiming Christianity."

"As God's people, you have every scriptural right to demand that you hear the Word in power, and if you do not hear the Word in power, you have a right to rise up and ask why. If you are hearing nothing but teaching, nothing but instruction, with no evidence of God in it, and the preacher cannot say, "I appeal to God" to say whether this is true or not; if this cannot be, then you have a right to demand that somebody preach that can. On the other hand, every man who stands in a pulpit to preach has a right to expect that the congregation believe in power and are so close to God, so surrendered, so full of faith and so prayerful that the Word of God can work in power."