Today is Good Shepherd Sunday. The reading is John 10:11-18. In this message we discover what it means that Jesus is the Good Shepherd and how we are shepherded by him.
Tag Archive - Discipleship
Daily David, Week 12, Day 4
We have come to the second to last of our studies on the life of David. Our reading is from John 21:15-25. Here Jesus appears to his disciples after his resurrection.
Why does Jesus ask Peter to feed his lambs (21:15-19; see John 18:15-18, 25-27)?
Peter had expressed a devotion to Jesus. In John 13:37 Peter had told Jesus that he would lay down his life for him. Yet, after Jesus is arrested, Peter denies knowing Jesus three times.
Jesus now approaches Peter now to seek reconciliation and restoration. Peter is wounded. He knows he let Jesus down. He had promised to do one thing, but then did another. Now Jesus assures Peter that he still loves him by entrusting him with responsibility. No matter the mistake in the past, Jesus was restoring Peter to a place of trust.
What does Jesus mean when he asks Peter to feed his sheep?
He is putting Peter in a place of leadership. Jesus is giving him responsibility to disciple others to follow Jesus. Now that Jesus is going to be ascending into heaven he is giving asking Peter to continue the work.
Do you think it was significant that David was a shepherd before he became king? Why?
Yes, Jesus was known as the Good Shepherd. Jesus now tells Peter to care for his sheep. Psalm 78:71 says God took David from the tending of sheep and made him the shepherd of God’s own people. David’s times as a shepherd was used by God to prepare David for the greater task he had in store.
What is our role on this earth (15:22)
To follow Jesus.
We read in Acts 13:36 (NLT): “David had done the will of God in his own generation, he died and was buried with his ancestors, and his body decayed.” Now reread this verse and replace David’s name with your name. Will this statement be true or false?
This is for each of us to ask ourselves. Peter’s purpose was to serve by discipling others. Our task is no different. How are you following Jesus today? Who are you being discipled by? Who are you discipling?
God’s Mission Possible
This week we kick of the last part of our summer message series. In June we focused on Celebrate. In July we focused on Cultivate. Now during the month of August we will focus on Care. These are the three parts of Lord of Life’s vision.
The text for this first message on Care comes from Ephesians 3:7-21. During this message I go verse by verse to show how God has given us the special privilege to be his servants to carry out his mission in this world. During the next few weeks we will talk about what exactly that mission is.
Our special guest speaker next week will be Curt Berg who serves as the director of Care Ministries at Lord of Life.
Three Things to Share
There are a couple of things I want to share with you this week that I am really excited about.
Vacation Bible School
What a great week this is. The church building is packed each night with kids and their families attending our Hometown Nazareth VBS. Please keep the rest of this week in your prayers. On Sunday, we will have the opportunity to celebrate God’s blessings from the past week. In my Sunday morning message I plan to share what I learned during my time at VBS.
One Worship
Once again we will have ONE worship on the Sunday of Labor Day weekend, September 4. We will split the time difference between the 8:30am and 10am worship services and worship at 9:15am. This is an exciting worship when we will worship as ONE church on a Sunday morning. It has been a highlight for me every year we have done this. Please note there will be no Sunday School on that morning.
Also, this year we are adding something additional. After worship is over we will have a church wide picnic. It is a great opportunity to come together. There will be food and games. It is a time to relax, to be together, and to celebrate being the family of God.
Fall Message Series
I want to thank everyone for their input and feedback for the upcoming Fall message series. I received a good number of submissions and have prayerfully considered what I heard from you and what I have been hearing from the Lord.
I am excited to share with you today that our Fall message series (starting with the ONE worship service on September 4) will be focused on the life of King David. David is the second most written about person in the Bible behind Jesus. When Jesus walked on this earth the Messianic expectation was that the kingdom of David would be restored. David is described in two separate places in the Bible as “a man after God’s own heart.” David was a shepherd, warrior, king, musician, husband, father, and more. I believe we have much we can learn from David.
David was a great man of God, but he was not without his shortcomings. We can learn from his successes and from his failures. It is my prayer that this will be a learning experience and faith growing experience for our church that will extend well beyond Sunday morning.
One of the things I want to do is to encourage you to read along as we go through the story of David. At the beginning of the message series there will be a reading schedule posted online and in the Sunday bulletin for you to follow along. It would be my desire to see the Scripture come alive for you during this time.
Have a great week!
The Bible Changes Attitudes
I often encourage people to read and study the Bible. The reason I do this is because I believe it is God’s Word and I believe there is power in this Word to change and transform lives. There is no doubt in my mind that frequent exposure to this life giving Word can only do you good.
A recent study done by Baylor University, reported in the Huffington Post, sheds some interesting light upon this. Here are some of the conclusions from this study:
The likelihood of Christians saying it is important to actively seek social and economic justice to be a good person increased 39 percent with each jump up the ladder of the frequency of reading Scripture, from reading the Bible less than once a year to no more than once a month to about weekly to several times a week or more.
Christian respondents overall were 27 percent more likely to say it is important to consume or use fewer goods to be a good person as they became more frequent Bible readers.
Reading the Bible more often also was linked to improved attitudes toward science. Respondents were 22 percent less likely to view religion and science as incompatible at each step toward more frequent Bible reading.
The issues seemed to matter more than conservative-liberal tags. In the case of another major public policy debate, same-sex unions, nearly half of respondents who read the Bible less than once a year said homosexuals should be allowed to marry, while only 6 percent of people who read the Bible several times a week or more approved of such marriages.
One interesting tidbit I found in this article was that less than 1/4 of respondents said they read the Bible weekly or more. It would seem the problem is not that Christians never read their Bibles. It’s that they are not reading it enough. Imagine eating only once a week. You would not be a very healthy person.
So why do we have such difficulty opening up the Word? I fear many Christians fail to open God’s Word because they are convinced they already know what it says. It is a matter of pride. The Bible becomes a tool to prove a person’s assumptions rather than provide fresh revelation. If you read the Bible to prove your assumptions there will be less motivation to open it up than if you read it to hear God speak. We are much better at speaking than we are at listening.
The thing I find is the more I open up the Bible and read the more and more I realize there is so much more I don’t know. As much as the Bible provides answers it also raises questions. I find that when I truly read the Scriptures it often confirms what I already know, but more often challenges me in things I don’t know. Reading the Bible is a lesson in humility. I learn I don’t have all the answers and I need to seek the One who does.
Cultivating Grace
This is the third part of the July Cultivate Message Series from Sunday, July 17. This message was shared by Brian Zielke who works with education and youth at Lord of Life. Brian recently completed his Director of Christian Education at Concordia University, St. Paul, MN and has been on staff at Lord of Life for the past 8 years. Here is a picture of Brian on his tricycle:
In this message Brian looks at John 15:1-17. Spiritual maturity does not happen by trying harder. See the try-cycle illustration Brian used in this message:
It happens when we are connected to Jesus. Jesus says if you remain in me you will bear much fruit.
Who is in control?
An insightful article by Perry Noble.
“In fact, if I can control anything…then the very thing I can control is so small and insignificant that it would hardly register on the eternal scale in regards to things that actually matter.”
Sometimes we lament how everything is out of control in our lives. Why do we assume we were ever in control?
Cultivating Godly Vision
Where there is no vision, the people perish . . . Proverbs 29:18 KJV
Our time is short. We are not here for very long. We don’t have enough time on this earth to waste on meaningless endeavors. As believers we are called to live with a greater sense of urgency. Make the most of today, because there might not be a tomorrow.
The way to do this starts with having a godly vision. If we are to make the most efficient use of our time it will be guided by having that godly vision. Without the clear vision you will miss out on accomplishing what you were put here for.
Cultivating a godly vision is as much about doing the right things as it is about avoiding the wrong things. We live in a world that is filled with distractions. Satan’s number one weapon he uses against us is to keep us busy. We end up trying to do so much, that we end up doing nothing. We make things to be important that are not really that important. We make them important because they seem urgent. Or we make them important because the culture and the people around us tell us to make them important. It is not God who has made them important.
Often times the distractions are seemingly good things. It is not that we are doing bad things. We can be distracted doing things for God. The problem is our focus. We are doing so many things we are not focused on any one thing. So none of the things we are doing really get our best effort. We feel pulled in many directions.
This is why we need that godly vision. It is so we can say yes to the best. It is so we can say yes to what God desires of us and let go of the rest. If you are like most people, the problem is not that you are doing too little. The problem is that you are doing too much.
I want to ask you some important questions:
1) What is your God given vision? Do you have that vision? What do you use to guide your decisions?
2) If you don’t know what that vision is, what are you doing to discover it? If you know God’s vision, what are you doing to confirm that vision? Are you spending time in prayer? Are you spending time in the Word? Are you spending time with other believers to help you sort it out?
3) What are you doing to achieve that vision? Has the vision moved you to action? Or is it just good intentions? What steps can you take towards accomplishing the vision? Do you have anyone to encourage you? Hold you accountable?
4) What sacrifices do you need to make to achieve the vision? Anything is worth doing will not be easy. There will be sacrifices to make. Have you determined what those sacrifices are? Are you prepared to make them? Last week we celebrated the 4th of July. We remembered those who sacrificed their comfort, their security, their fortunes, and even their lives for the sake of freedom. May we be willing to do the same for the sake of the gospel.
In the end, it is so important our vision originates with God. If it is not God’s vision it will fail. Psalm 127:1 says, “unless the Lord’s builds the house, it laborers will labor in vain.” John 15:5 says, “apart from me you can do nothing.” At the same time Philippians 4:13 says, “I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength.” The point is if we are doing God’s work it will endure for eternity. If we are not doing God’s work it will not really matter what we do. Everything we see in this world will one day be gone. We will be laboring in vain.
If you are interested in hearing last Sunday’s message on this subject you can listen online at lolchurch.net/sermons.
On another note, I am planning upcoming messages for the Fall and the Winter. If there are any ideas that you might have for a Sunday morning message or message series, let me know. If you have a question you want answered or if you have a topic or an interest you would like to hear more about, then please visit lolchurch.net/sermonideas to submit it.
The Answer is Jesus
“The rain and snow come down from the heavens and stay on the ground to water the earth. They cause the grain to grow, producing seed for the farmer and bread for the hungry. It is the same with my word. I send it out, and it always produces fruit. It will accomplish all I want it to, and it will prosper everywhere I send it.” Isaiah 55:10-11
This sounds like a long way from where many of us are. Many of us are limping along. We are exhausted. We are depressed. We sucking wind. It is not joy that fills our hearts, but grief. We feel like we have been beaten up. We are stressed to no end. We don’t know of this bounty that is spoken of in Isaiah.
If this is where you are at, I have a simple message for you: Receive God’s love shown through Jesus Christ. That’s it. It’s that simple. Receive God’s love. Create space in your life for Jesus to wash your feet and to cleanse you.
I have been a pastor now for 11 years and this is something I have learned the hard way. It is easier to go and do things for God, than it is to sit and to be with God.
It is easy to loose Jesus in the church. There are meetings to attend, strategies of church growth to study, sermons to be prepared, and worship to be planned. It is easy to focus on the business of the church rather than a relationship with Jesus.
You maybe heard the story about the pastor who was sharing a children’s message. He asks the question, “what is furry, lives in trees, and likes to eat nuts?”
One of the boys raises his hand and the pastor calls on him to answer. The boy replies, “it sounds like a squirrel, but I know the answer is Jesus.”
We’ve been conditioned to know the answer is Jesus. We talk about him. We sing about him. Everything we do as a church is about Jesus. We know the answer is Jesus. It is hard to miss. And yet, Jesus too often turns up missing even in the church.
We make it about a lot of different things. We make it about worship. Is worship contemporary or traditional? We make it about the programs. Do they offer what I am looking for? We make it about the pastor. Is he a good preacher and teacher? We make it about facilities. Are they accommodating and comfortable?
If it is not about Jesus, then nothing else matters. Psalm 42:1 says, As the deer longs for streams of water, so I long for you, O God. We cannot live apart from God. He is our real need above all else.
In John 6:35 Jesus says, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry again. Whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” In Jesus there is 100% satisfaction guaranteed! We will never be lacking no matter how much or how little we have.
So is there a place where you are feeling unsatisfied? I will give you a simple answer: “Jesus!” Any place where you are feeling less than satisfied there is a very good possibility he is either missing or lacking in that place in your life. Receive his love! Stop trying to find satisfaction anywhere else. Let him give you living water.