Sermon - 2019-04-10 - Lead and Endure
Tonight we arrive at our final night before the week of Holy Week. We have covered a lot of what it means to be a disciple: prayer, worship, learn, serve, and encourage. Each of these you may have known but I also hope that some of them surprised you as to how you are living them out or could be making them part of your daily life. Which brings us to tonight. Now tonight’s topic is one that many feel that they rush away from or they are pushed to it and because of that, they feel overwhelmed because the other parts are not solid foundations in their life. Tonight’s topics are: Lead and Endure.
Let’s start with the first of leading. Now this is not what we normally see within the world. It is not about making grand speeches, having your name or title give you honor, or even that people will automatically love you. When we talk about leading in the church and from Jesus’ perspective, we talk about servant leadership. That means caring, supporting and encouraging others in their abilities. It means not doing the work yourself but working with others to get the job done but the focus of leading is not the task at hand but truly it is the relationship that is being strengthen in the act of doing the task.
Now for those of you looking like I am talking about a dream world. I am really not so let me give you an example to better highlight what I mean. Within DiscipleLife here at church, we have a team of people who work together to ensure that we have Fellowship events for all ages to be a part of. Now these one time events have time and energy poured into them so that things are organized for those interested in coming together. However, the purpose of the event is not necessarily the act of doing the event but rather the relationships that are formed through the event. Another example of this is: God’s Work, Our Hands, when we have events for people of variety of ages that they can sit around a table or work at home of an individual. While the work is being done, conversations can happen to strengthen the relationship and community as a whole. Now it is the organizers who gather a team of people together to make an event happen are living out this Servant Leadership.
This leads us from leading to enduring. Perhaps a better understanding of enduring is that of persevere or repeat. All of the aspects that we have talked about in being a Mark of Discipleship are not parts that we do one time in our life and we are done with them but rather they are opportunities that we continue to come back to so that others and even ourselves may learn anew from the mistakes and success. For we will see leaders who will strive for their own sake. We will have them lead events but not share the work or aspects to allow others to grow. We shall declare an event a mistake but that does not mean that we are done with that part of learning of what God is striving to teach us. So we return back to Prayer and worship, giving God glory and honor in all that is happening. We return back to know that we are NOT God but we are learning and serving others to grow to better understanding of God’s Will and our role in it. Yet all of this is found in the encouragement that we have and feel from others within our life, the strength of the community both that we have invested in and others are investing in us.
Now for those of you looking like I am talking about a dream world. I am really not so let me give you an example to better highlight what I mean. Within DiscipleLife here at church, we have a team of people who work together to ensure that we have Fellowship events for all ages to be a part of. Now these one time events have time and energy poured into them so that things are organized for those interested in coming together. However, the purpose of the event is not necessarily the act of doing the event but rather the relationships that are formed through the event. Another example of this is: God’s Work, Our Hands, when we have events for people of variety of ages that they can sit around a table or work at home of an individual. While the work is being done, conversations can happen to strengthen the relationship and community as a whole. Now it is the organizers who gather a team of people together to make an event happen are living out this Servant Leadership.
This leads us from leading to enduring. Perhaps a better understanding of enduring is that of persevere or repeat. All of the aspects that we have talked about in being a Mark of Discipleship are not parts that we do one time in our life and we are done with them but rather they are opportunities that we continue to come back to so that others and even ourselves may learn anew from the mistakes and success. For we will see leaders who will strive for their own sake. We will have them lead events but not share the work or aspects to allow others to grow. We shall declare an event a mistake but that does not mean that we are done with that part of learning of what God is striving to teach us. So we return back to Prayer and worship, giving God glory and honor in all that is happening. We return back to know that we are NOT God but we are learning and serving others to grow to better understanding of God’s Will and our role in it. Yet all of this is found in the encouragement that we have and feel from others within our life, the strength of the community both that we have invested in and others are investing in us.
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