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…”

No Apologies

I read an article a few weeks ago that was written by a Nazarene preacher.  He was lamenting the fact that we are so often apologetic about holiness.  People ask us what we believe and we tell them as if we're sorry for it.  We try to avoid the fact that Scripture does not condone sin in any form.  We do everything we can to keep from having to teach that we must live a sanctified life.  We don't want to have to tell people that God has called us to be holy.

My new year's resolution for this year is to teach the truth of the Bible (yes, we must be holy) without making apology for it (Not that I've ever been accused of apologizing).  I am well aware that those who are living in sin can't stand the idea that God has called us to live above sin and made provision for us to do so through Jesus Christ.  I know that they call those who teach that truth arrogant and prideful.  I make no pretense about the fact that the church culture of our day looks down on those who endeavor to live "in the Spirit." 

Since when did those people set the standard?  When did the truth of the Word of God become contingent on whether or not we like it, or agree with it?  The culture may be changing around us.  We know that the culture within the church has changed.  We like to water things down to the point that nobody really knows what we stand for.  Doctrinal teaching may or may not drive people away (I'll never be convinced that it does), but the truth is still the truth.  The words that have been inspired by our Holy God are still our sustenance.  They still keep us and for that fact we should make no apology.

A Prevailing God

Every year during the holiday season it becomes more and more apparent that man has succeeded in making Christmas (the celebration of the birthday of Jesus) about us.  We make our lists of what we want so that they can be distributed to all of our friends and family members.  Stores have taken any reference to Christ out of their advertising and displays, and schools have replaced Christmas concerts with Holiday concerts.  Man has done everything in his power to overcome the presence and power of God.  The time has come for us to pray the prayer of David.  "Arise, O Lord!  Let not man prevail..." (Psalm 9:19)

How many of us can honestly pray such a prayer?  We fill our days with activity after activity that will allow us to accomplish our ambition and meet our goals while giving little - if any - thought to what God desires to accomplish through us.  We wonder why the church seems impotent and powerless in our society today, and why our influence has diminished to the point where we are looked at as a fringe group of lunatics.  It's because our desire is not for God to prevail over man.  We want to see man get his way.  We want earthly success and great accomplishments to be admired by generations to come. 

If we are ever to be the church that God has called us to be, and the Christians that He wants us to be, it will be because God has arisen and prevailed over man.  This will never take place until we can honestly pray, as David prayed so many years ago, "Let not man prevail..."

What If?

I'm looking out the window at the rain this afternoon and wondering what Noah must have thought the first time he experienced this.  He had likely never seen rain before, and God had told him that this rain would flood the entire earth.  (I know that some of my more liberal friends don't believe that the entire earth was flooded, but the Bible says it was and you and I weren't there to prove otherwise, so we'll look at it as truth.) 

Consider the place from which Noah saw the rain.  He was in a boat.  He had never built a boat before, but there he was.  He didn't know if it would float, and this particular boat had no rudder to steer (check out the instructions God gave, there's not rudder or helm).  Of course, that was probably better for everyone since Noah was not a sailor and his sons were not navigators. 

Imagine the submission to God's command that it took for Noah to be in this position.  We talk about holiness as a consecration to God and His love and commands, and this is a clear example of such a commitment.  When God calls us today we always have a list of "what ifs" a mile long.  Whether it is finances, or resources, or support from others we always want to know "what if?"  Do we really think that the Old Testament prophets were without these same questions?  They probably asked every question that the human mind could imagine when God called them to do the improbable, and in most cases the seemingly impossible. 

Maybe if we are to see God's power at work among us we need to forget about the "what ifs" and just allow God to work.  We serve the same God who parted the seas, kept Jonah in a fish, defeated the prophets of Baal, and made the sun stand still.  Why do we feel this need to incessantly ask "what if?"  Do we really think that God is incapable of doing what He said He would do?  If scripture teaches anything, it teaches that God has given His word, and He will keep that word.  He has promised to provide, comfort, free from sin, among many other things.  It is time that we quit asking "what if" and simply trust in the one to whom we belong.

Submission

As Ezekiel stood among the exiles by the Chebar canal he saw a vision.  He saw four figures, each with four faces.  They represented the people of God - each face representing the banners of the tribes of Israel.  The details of the creatures in the vision are important, but there is one that jumped off the page at me the other day.  "And each went straight forward.  WHEREVER THE SPIRIT WOULD GO, THEY WENT, without turning as they went." (Ezekiel 1:12) 

Even in this Old Testament vision given to the disobedient captives the people of God (represented by these images) are guided by the Spirit of God.  They go where they are led by the Spirit without turning to the side, without stopping to admire and  chase the worldly things around them. 

The whole of Holy Scripture teaches submission to God's Spirit, and as Christians we claim the Bible to be authoritative.  The Word of God, inspired by His Spirit.  I believe all of those things to be true.  But if that's the case, why are we so afraid to submit to Him?  Why do we continually refuse to give up our control of things and let God be God?  This is why we don't see the holy people of God.  Holiness is God's love and His character showing through our lives.  If we do not submit to Him, how can He make us something better than we were before?  Without a full submission we simply cannot live the lives that God requires us to live.

Our refusal and fear of submission make no sense whatsoever when we really take the time to think about it.  How many people have ever had everything turn out exactly like they wanted it to?  How can that be since "we're in control?"  No matter what methods we employ to control our circumstances, things never happen like we had thought, or hoped, they would.  Yet we have convinced ourselves that we know better than God.  He created the universe, sent His son to die for us, performed all of the miracles that we read in Scripture, and we still will not submit.  The danger is this:  Historically, when the people of God refuse to submit to God they are judged.  Over and over again this has taken place.  This is the place in which we find Ezekiel.  We can keep telling ourselves that we are smart enough and powerful enough and rich enough to guide ourselves, but history has proven different since the beginning of time.  If we are ever going to see a revival of holiness within the church, and awakening of God's people, it will be when we learn to submit EVERYTHING to God.

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? 

Following at a Distance

When Jesus was arrested in Gethsemane most of His disciples scattered.  They fled in fear for their lives.  After having vowed allegiance to Him, they showed the great value that they placed on their earthly lives.  However, Luke tells us that Peter "followed at a distance (22:54)."  He had made the bold claim that he was willing to follow Jesus to the death, but after seeing Him arrested was only will to look on from afar.  Doesn't this seem like a familiar scene?

We have people in the church today who just can't understand why they don't experience the power of God in their lives.  They follow all the popular speakers and preachers, they read the most promising books, they go to the most up to date conferences and worship seminars, yet God just doesn't move.  Why?  I wonder if it's because so many are following at a distance.

There are thousands of professing Christians today who want to see the miraculous and the exciting, but they are not committed enough to their Savior to see it up close.  They follow those who are doing God's work and hope to see God move from a distance.  They're just close enough to see the fireworks, but not close enough to be scared of the bang.  We function within a church today that largely embodies this mentality that was displayed by the Apostle Peter so many years ago.  They want the benefits of following Jesus, but they don't want to make the sacrifice necessary to walk with Him.  So they think that if they follow far enough behind they can see the exciting work of God and simply be dragged into heaven along with the wake of those who are following God.  They want to see the results of a holy life without actually living one.  They want to see the results of an uncompromising biblical life, but they don't want to take the ridicule that may come with it.  They want to spend eternity in heaven, but they don't want to have to prepare for it during their time on earth.

As I was meditating on this scripture a couple of weeks ago it occurred to me that this is the case with many more "Christians" than we would like to admit.  They'll come to church and participate in some of the activities, but it's always from a distance.  They'll only come so close.  Can it be that one of the reasons that we don't see God move in a mighty way in our day is because we're afraid to get to close to His work?