3 Things You Will Need to Lead Through the Chaos
Today’s episode is a little taste of IF:Lead 2020! Every single one of you will listen to this content and be so changed. I’ve gotten to record so many interviews with speakers and we NEED this right now! We feel an impossible tension right now. We’re trying to make good decisions, be thoughtful of people that we love, and also accomplish the things that God has called us to do. Our way through this is that we are going to lead strong and that we are going to lead humbly. That we're going to be bold and humble. We have to manage that tension, because hiding out and being checked out during this season is not an option. God is doing something on earth. It's undeniable. We want to be a part of it. It says in Ephesians that he prepared in advance the good works we would do. So we know that there's good works for us to accomplish. If we're breathing, there are things that he has planned for us. But I think what happens is we get paralyzed because it's overwhelming. Our world is so chaotic right now and there is so much pressure. I tend to want to shut down and hide out and cope, but that’s not the way of Jesus. Today we’re going to talk about 3 surprising ways he has called us to lead through 2020. You’re going to hear from 3 of my friends - Jada Edwards, John Mark Comer, and Christine Caine. You can check out their entire talks if you head over to iflead2020.com!
Jada Edwards
Number one, your strength is not going to just be for comfortable places. And number two, your submission is your opportunity to make God shine. So your strength is not just going to be uncomfortable places. Your boldness is not going to be places that are tried and true. And you've been there a million times and you know what you're doing. That boldness and that strength is going to come because God has empowered you for the moment. I told him if anyone ever gives you an opportunity, if God ever creates an opportunity for you to do good on his behalf, whether it's on the stage or in a one on one conversation and you let fear or arrogance or a doubt or insecurity be the reason you say no, then you should be very concerned. You should be concerned that you may not get other opportunities. You should be concerned that you've missed a moment to do something great for God. Don't ever let fear or arrogance or worry be the reason you say no. When you have an opportunity to do something great for God. I know it's easy to put on a show and to entertain everyone here at home, but God has called us to go. To not to stay at home. So he's going to call you to places and stages where the approval is not guaranteed. It will be inconvenient, but you will be so compelled to obey God, to show the world what God has done in your life, that you will say yes. That strength doesn't come from some mantra or some positive vibes or because you've worked yourself up to doing it. Strength comes because you're compelled to say yes, when God gives you a chance to represent him.
Number two, your submission is how you make God shine. In essence, our submission is how we make God's glory our priority. We say, “God, what the world thinks of you is more important than what they think of me. So I will be submitted. And even when I have the right answer, I'll know how to be quiet. And even when I'm afraid, I will still say yes.” It's an opportunity to show the world that even in all of your weakness, even in all of your life story, all the things that should disqualify you, God works through those things. When you are yielded to him and submitted to him is how we stay on the right course, because it's just like a Twitter thread. You can start following comments and answering questions and find yourself in some place that is very far away from the original point. That's why God said, “Joshua, be strong and very courageous, and be careful not to waiver to the left or the right then you'll have success.” God has a path of victory, but that path has a certain set of directions and steps and you have to follow it. So church leaders, Christ followers, you have been called to be both bold and broken. You've called to be courageous and careful. You have been called to be strong, but still submitted. The world needs to see in you what they saw in our savior: that you can have the full power of the Holy Spirit, the courageous calling of God and still do it with kindness and humility and wisdom. So let's be careful not to call our fear or our procrastination humility. Let's be careful not to call our arrogance or our ambition boldness. It's not those things. Boldness is that God- given strength when it doesn't make sense. Humility is that God driven gratitude because you know all that God has done for you. You know you can't do this thing on your own. The world is waiting for believers and leaders to not just live in the boldness camp, not just live in the humility camp, but find a way as Jesus did to weave these things together. The world needs to know that even when you have the right answer, sometimes you're not going to say it until someone asks. The world needs to know that when you're not naturally inclined to do something, because boldness is not about personality, that you'll still say yes, because God has given you the opportunity. So my prayer for you in this season of life, navigating what it means to be a leader, whether you're leading your family leading three, four, or five or leading hundreds that you ask God to find that space for you between courageousness and carefulness. So the world can see what God wants to do.
John Mark Comer
The more load that we are under, the more we need to prioritize rest, not the less. Most of us default in the exact opposite direction. When asked, “why aren't you like practicing Sabbath right now? Or why is there no vacation? Or what is your morning prayer like?” the answer is usually “well, I'm just busy or I have little kids or I'm running this company or we're in a startup phase or where we're trying to survive COVID-19.” I get there's truth in all of that, but we all have our list of excuses. What if the opposite is true? That the more of the pressure cooker we're in the more we need to rest? I read a book recently on a female Olympian. There's a quote in it from her trainer who said, “at the elite level, what separates the Olympian from just the professional athlete is not how hard they work, but how hard they rest. Once you get to that level, they all pretty much work the same.” That was the doctor’s claim. But what really separates the women from the girls or the men from the boys, so to speak, or the Olympian from the professional, the elite of the elite, is how hard they prioritize, not only work, but also rest. This is about accepting our limitations - of time, of emotions, of our bodies. The fact that we're mortal and in a body. Take a look at this quote from Ordering Your Private World by Pastor Gordon MacDonald. My favorite line in the entire book was this quote, “Jesus knew his limits. Well, strange as it may seem, he knew what we conveniently forget. Time must be properly budgeted for the gathering of inner strength and resolve in order to compensate for one's weaknesses when spiritual warfare begins.” We must take our rest just as seriously as we take our work. We must bring the same level of discipline and dedication to both because they live in a symbiotic relationship and we need to expect the enemy to tempt us to go beyond our limitations. That's one way of reading Genesis 3 and the temptation of Eve and of Adam. It’s a temptation to transgress by going beyond our limitations, our place in the cosmos under the creator and over the creation. The enemy is still alive and at work to tempt you and me to go beyond our limitations - our emotional limitations, our relational limitations, our physical limitations, and our spiritual limitations. He often plays, like he did with Eve, to our ego and to our fear. The results are just as disastrous. Rest is a weapon. It is a form of spiritual warfare against the enemy. It's very hard to tempt a well-rested, emotionally healthy, happy, and serene people. We fight the enemy in the soul and in society itself with rest as much as we do work.
Christine Caine
The scripture tells us that the Holy spirit in us is unstoppable. So it's not that we’re unstoppable. We're not great and we don't have a secret, magical formula, but we do have a supernatural Spirit of God living on the inside of us. Every Christ follower, whatever sphere, whatever season, whatever country. In fact, the Lord, I think very deliberately, made sure that we knew that by taking all stages away. That's exactly what's happened all around the earth. He’s reminding and telling Christians, “I have actually filled you with my Spirit.” God didn’t say the platform is going to save the world. Jesus said to the disciples - the disciples were walking with God incarnate. You think it doesn't get any better than that. But Jesus says, “it’s better that I go.” What a phrase - “it's better for you that I go.” I still try to wrap my head around that. That God incarnate would say to his disciples, “boys, I need you to pause. It's better for you that I go because when I go, I'm going to send another.” So here we have the third part of the Trinity - I'm going to send the Holy spirit for every believer in Christ. Ephesians tells us that we are saved and filled with the Holy Spirit until the day of redemption. Every one of us. I'm going to give you the Holy spirit to live on the inside of you. So if you go into a lockdown because of COVID-19 in the year 2020, don't freak out. Because the same Spirit that raised me from the dead lives on the inside of you. Churches might’ve shut and platforms might’ve closed down and there might be certain restrictions, but God was thinking ahead! He knew what was going to happen in 2020. He knew we'd need the Holy Spirit of God, the third part of the Trinity, living on the inside of us to lead us and guide us every step of the way. No matter how much of the world shuts down. No matter how much chaos and confusion there is. No matter how lonely and isolated we feel. You don't have to freak out because the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead, he sent to live on the inside of us.
