Followship | Sunday Gathering | Annex Church

god we welcome you into this space and this time i pray that you would speak to us he would teach us you would grow us together we would be sensitive and learn to be more sensitive to your presence to your spirit to your voice to your guidance thank you for everyone who's here today pray for those who are joining us from home as well we love you in jesus name everybody said together there's nothing worth more that could ever come close nothing can compare you're it's in your presence i've tasted and seen of the sweetest of loves when my heart becomes free it's in your presence lord this place is it's in your presence close is of the sweetest holy spirit you are welcome your glory god is it's your praises let us become more aware of let us your presence let us experience the glory of your goodness let us let us let us is is your glory god holy your glory god is it's in your presence lord let's pray one more time god speak to us teach us grow us make us to better followers of your son jesus his way we thank you for his blood for his resurrection that gives us life and we invite you to do some work in our hearts today jesus name amen if you would go in your bibles to the third book of john third john it's right before the end of the bible this is later in his life we call him grandpa john he is an elder he is wise he's experienced he has walked with jesus he is the apostle always talking about love and he even describes himself as the guy who jesus loved so john first alright third john chapter one it's only one chapter we're gonna read an entire chapter of the bible today in fact we're gonna read an entire book of the bible today so that should be good while you turn there friday night is parents night out you can register for that for free at anx.life also next sunday at 5 pm is dinner in the garden if you wouldn't mind sometime today or even during our gathering going on your phone rsvp it's totally free but it allows our team to prepare the right amount of food and set up the garden appropriately third john starting in verse one john writes the pastor speaking of himself to my good friend gaius how truly i love you we're the best of friends and i pray for good fortune in everything you do and for your good health that your everyday affairs will prosper as well as your soul i was most happy when some friends arrived and brought the news that you persist in following the way of truth nothing can make me happier getting reports that my children continue diligently in the way of truth dear friend when you extend hospitality to christian brothers and sisters even when they are strangers you make the faith visible they've made a full report back to the church here a message about your love it's good work you're doing helping the travelers on their way hospitality worthy of god himself they set out under the banner of the name and get no help from unbelievers so they deserve any support we can give them in providing meals and a bed we become their companions in spreading the truth earlier i wrote something along this line to the church but diotrophies who loves being in charge denigrates my counsel if i come you can be sure that'll hold him to account for spreading vicious rumors about us as if that weren't bad enough he not only refuses hospitality to traveling christians but tries to stop others from welcoming them worse yet instead of inviting them he throws them out friend don't go along with evil model the good the person who does good does god's work and the person who is evil falsifies god and doesn't know the first thing about god everyone has a good word for demetrius the truth itself stands up for demetrius we concur and you know we don't hand out endorsements lightly i have a lot of more things to tell you but i'd rather not use pen and ink i hope to be there soon in person and have a heart to heart talk peace to you the friends here say hello greet our friends there by name there is this ideology within the church language that seems to be per pervasive around the idea of how we need to get back to our roots as christians we use phrases like the early church in the first century church i think even the title of our sermon series burned it's not supposed to be this way may give us the idea that it hasn't always been this way so here we are in the first century grandpa john is writing to a church somewhere near ephesus or asia minor to his deep friends and one entire book of the bible in the new testament that has been canonized as the word of god is a personal letter not a theological one in fact this is the only book in the new testament that doesn't mention the name of jesus he speaks of the name maybe connotating the name of jesus but nowhere in it does he mention jesus or the cross it's a personal letter it's it's john the elder writing to someone who he has discipled and trained and mentored and encouraged and he mentions three names the first is gaius and then we have demetrius who seems to be the latter who he speaks about but he would kind of get and gather from this letter that this is the guy who's delivering it so he's kind of brought up in the letter saying like hey don't shoot the messenger demetrius we like him and then there's diatrophies who just seems to get too little verses in this passage but kind of the blunt force trauma of what john is trying to get across and so we have these this image of three different individuals in this letter and mainly two types of leaders gaius and atrophies two types of men or leaders in the church one who is welcoming the outsider who is who is letting people sleep in his home who is making way for those who are traveling to spread the good news about jesus to be welcomed and to be taken care of and to be supported and one who is quite the opposite the question i have for you today as we maybe try to get away from the idea that oh it used to be really good and back in the day the church was had it together it seems as if even in the first century the church had the same problems we have today controlling leadership manipulation loyalty valued above character divisions gossip rumors and some nice sessions of just hashing things out like imagine getting this letter you're in the church you get it it starts to spread throughout the church in the area and grandpa john is calling people out by name like if you're if you're gaius or gaius depending on how people pronounce it there's four different gaiuses in the new testament we don't know which one this is but you're probably like wow that was so nice of him to say and if you're diotrophies you probably will not go out for a few weeks like you don't want anyone to see you like you just got called out by name in particular ways that you conduct yourself that are antithetical and antichrist to what the church believes in john's like you can be sure that when we meet we'll have a conversation about this face to face and he goes i have a lot more to say but i'm not going to write it down i'll just come visit so then there's this like dread probably over that man but also some warming of hearts going like okay john's gonna come he's he knows the way of love he's the apostle of love he was the one whom jesus loved he's gonna get us back on track that even in the first century as the way of jesus and the church was growing and learning and spreading that some of the problems that persist today were just as prevalent back then it just had the same issues i had a pretty simple but important conversation with my two eldest children yesterday i had noticed that pretty much any time i asked all of my kids to do something that one of the older boys would say no or i don't want to or their favorite phrase that's not a good idea but the second they would say it their little sister would watch them and mimic their every move and even to their exact words like i don't know that my youngest daughter even knows what a good idea is but i said all right guys we're going to do this my eldest says that's not a good idea and my two-year-old mumbles that's not a good idea i said it's time for a bath no no i said okay it's time to get out of the bath who wants to go first not me not me and then the littlest one mumbles not me so i had to sit him down after the bath i said guys listen your little sister listens and watches everything that you do in fact she may not even know what she's doing but just that you're doing it and so you have a responsibility as the big brothers to make sure that what you're teaching and how you're leading her is the right way in a way that's respectful to mom and dad and respectful to each other and loving to other people so you have to be careful that the decisions you make don't just affect you they're gonna affect your little sister as well after that little mini conversation i had one with my oldest son who seems to be a tone setter it's like when he's in a bad mood the entire house is in a bad mood and when he's in a good mood it seems like the whole house is just in a good mood i came home just the other day and he had been gone all day with my mom and i told my wife i said it's so quiet calm and peaceful and she goes yeah he's not here and i think he may kind of be the catalyst to some of the stress i said this sounds like a good conversation to have with him because when you are a person of influence of any sort whether you own a company or you're a leader or a manager or a pastor maybe you have a following on social media maybe you're a writer or an author or a blogger or maybe you're just the big brother leadership always comes with responsibility isn't that like the whole point of spider-man you know like with great leadership great power comes what great responsibility but if we don't pause and realize that if we are in a world that is consistently and constantly pursuing power and influence and leadership but we don't pause and go with all of those things that we desire so ardently also comes the responsibility with it at first i read this this little tiny book in the new testament and i thought that's kind of rude john like you're not even there you're just hearing this report of what's coming back and you're calling this dude out by name like shouldn't you have like this could have been a private conversation like isn't that kind of the kind of where we lean like maybe this should have been handled a little more privately and maybe he could have said hey i've heard some things are going on i'm not going to get into specifics when we get there we'll work it out but no no he literally goes straight for the jugular of diotrophies and he's like i've heard about you and how you always want to be first and how you want everyone to do what you say and how you don't even respect the leadership that that i have and the other apostles have and you spread vicious rumors and you're refusing to be hospitable towards outsiders and we're gonna deal with it when i get there and that's not okay and then it hit me as i researched this man desired influence and desired power and if you want the public's attention you also must submit to the reality that you will be tried publicly as well that if you want people to follow your lead when you fall short you have to be vulnerable and transparent enough in those moments to let the people who you're supposedly following see it as well so maybe it's not his cutthroat maybe it's actually quite simple maybe what john is attempting to do as he writes this letter is to pull aside the older brother and say i don't know if you know this but the way that you act is being watched and the way that you're treating others is being repeated by the people in your church and you may have the right intentions maybe maybe the outreach was not letting outsiders in because he was afraid of false teachers maybe he wasn't being welcoming because he didn't know everyone and he wanted to make sure that the people who were there were taken care of first and that was his responsibility as a pastor or an elder or deacon maybe maybe he had the best intentions but how it played out at least from john's perspective was that the decisions he made affected what john calls the way of truth the way of truth look at verse 1 again let's start with gaius because this guy seems to be like a pal like he seems to be the kind of guy i want to be around the pastor to my good friend guy is how truly i love you we're the best of friends and i pray good fortune in everything you do for your good health that everyday affairs prosper as well as your soul in the original language that every day your affairs prosper as well as your soul could have also been worded this way i want your outside life to be as healthy as your inside life like i want you seem to be the most spiritually strong and healthy and rich and loving and vibrant person in this community and my desire my prayer not a promise but my prayer for you is that you succeed in life and in everyday affairs like you're succeeding in spiritual affairs i was most happy when some friends arrived and brought the news that you persist in following the way of truth nothing could make me happier than getting reports that my children continue diligently in the way of truth dear friend when you extend hospitality to christian brothers and sisters even when there are strangers you make faith visible they made a full report back to the church here a message about your love it's good work you're doing helping these travelers on their way hospitality worthy of god himself they set out under the banner of the name get no help from unbelievers so they deserve any support we can give them in providing meals in a bed we become their companions in spreading the truth there's five things that he's praising him for first first his spiritual health you're healthy on the inside i want you to be healthy on the outside you're showing how well you know jesus by how well you treat people who can give you nothing in return one author said it that way he said the sign of the truest most sincere leaders is the way that they treat people who can offer them nothing in return like think about the best ceos and the best pastors and the best business owners the best moms and dads like isn't that the sign of the truest most sincere and loving parent is how well you treat little terror people who can do nothing for you in return my son told me last night you don't ever do anything for us and i said one day that will be true but not today one day i won't but right now sun the roof over your head the food in your stomach and the clothes on your back are because of me why why does that make me a good parent because he can offer nothing in return they told us that when we got pregnant for the very first time they said oh kids give back way more than they take and they lied the second thing that he is is he's committed to the way of truth that this man gaius seems to be under the leadership of diotrophies so diatrophys is the pastor or the elder he's the guy who's at least assuming authority he likes to be in charge he seems to be the most prevalent voice within this community but gaius has taken a back seat but he's committed to the way of truth even though his leader is not committed to the way of truth the third way he says he's hospitable you seem to open up your house and your table and your food you seem to share everything that you have with people you don't even know fourth he's loving like that's one of the best descriptions you can ever read of a person or hear of yourself he said they made a full report back to the church here a message not about your charisma not about your gift set or your teaching abilities or how much money you make or how much influence you have the message wasn't about his following or his power or his wisdom the message that they brought back to john and others was that gaius was loving that guy is loving finally he says and in providing meals in a bed you welcome you welcome them as companions in spreading the truth he's collaborative he's not competitive if there's anything we can say about the the american modern day church and i don't mean this as little sea church i mean big c church is that we see other churches as competition and not collaborators like we're threatened another church moves in down the road another church plants or or another church seems to be doing well in other areas or not or is getting attention and and it's like we're threatened by other churches instead of joining and rejoicing with them wow that's amazing i'm so glad i remember when i first started the church i didn't even want to meet with pastors rachel would always ask me like why aren't you pastors like i don't like them like pastors are the worst and over the years i've actually become friends with several different pastors and the more and more i talk with them meet with them and pray with them and share meals with them and just learn about their everyday lives the less and less they become competition and the more they become collaborators and the same is true within the church no one's sitting in this room with you no one who we work alongside with in ministry no one who's serving the poor and no one who's giving to the church this is not a competition this is a collaboration that's why paul describes the body of christ as a body with hands and feet hands don't compete against each other you don't compete against other body parts we are a collaboration we together create this organism that brings out the truth of jesus to the world what great descriptions of a leader healthy on the inside committed to the way of truth hospitable loving collaborative and then verse nine comes and smacks diatrophies right in the face he said earlier i wrote something along this line of the church speaking of being hospitable and welcoming people and loving outsiders and and being generous being loving and collaborating i wrote something like this to the church but diotrophies who loves being in charge denigrates my counsel here's the picture john is painting john writes a letter to church and he's like hey it's gonna be great and this is how we're gonna live and we're gonna love each other and we're gonna work together and it's going to be amazing and we're going to be collaborators not competitors and he writes this letter and it's sent to the leaders of the church one of which being diotrophies and when they receive it diotrophies reads it and goes no and gets rid of the letter like imagine being the guy to throw away what could have been a part of the bible i wrote you something i tried to give this message to you but your leader diatrophies who loves being in charge he wouldn't receive it and if i come you'll be sure i'll hold him to account for spreading vicious rumors about us dr feast loved being first and loved being in charge so much that the only way to keep his influence and power was to spread rumors about the apostles i wonder how many times i've sat in church or how many times i've preached at church where in order to make my point i have to degrade somebody else's point detract from it and pastors are famous for this like we want to say one thing about a way we do church and in order to solidify and concrete the idea that we're trying to get across we use someone else who believes or sees it differently as an example of a bad way of doing it we even label each other oh they're charismatic they're pentecostal their health and wealth they're whatever and we try to label it because as long as we can say okay they're over there and that's not the way we do it this is the way to do it then it somehow builds up our own platforms and if and look at verse 10 and as if that weren't bad enough he not only refuses hospitality to traveling christians but he tries to stop others from welcoming them it wasn't enough for a diatrophys to just not receive people within his community he had to make sure that no one else around him received them either like this is some mean girls status leadership like do they even go here no they can't be here and in fact i'm not letting him in my house and you shouldn't let him into your house either and you shouldn't receive them either worse yet instead of inviting them in he throws them out many scholars believe that this was actually demetrius's experience so demetrius goes to the church and he's a minor he's traveling he's one of the companions of john and of apostles and he's he's helping spread the news about jesus he's helped networking the churches in in in the first century and demetrius goes here to this church and and diotrophies won't receive him and so demetrius is like hey i'll go around asking the other people in the church like can i stay at your house do you think you can help me out and draft is telling them no no you can't have them you can't stay with them either and you guys shouldn't let them in either in fact i don't even know about john john is the kind of guy you know he might have gone off the deep end we don't even know if he's really truly preaching the gospel anymore and and so here's demetrius like hey i'm traveling i know john john's not like that now you won't receive me you're telling all them not to receive me and that his experience was that gaius let him in so it's like if john gets this report from demetrius and he's like hey i went and doctor fees is kind of on a power trip bro and he wouldn't let me stay with him and he wouldn't let anybody else host me and he told them not to receive me he tried to put me out and cast me out from from the community but there was this guy named gaius and he just he didn't even care about what the leader said he loved me and welcomed me and hosted me and he gave me an experience and a collaboration like a true brother and he sent me on my way with food and clothes and money and he comes back and gives this report to john and john goes let's write a letter like hey theotrophies i know that you know now that i know of what happened i got a firsthand report of one of my most trusted comrades experience with you the first thing that diatrophy says is egotistical it says you love being in charge the original greek language would read something like this loves phileo first one translation puts it this way you love to have preeminence among others this is the opposite of the spirit that jesus has a desire to be first desire to be the best to desire to to be the leader is not the spirit of jesus philippians chapter 2 verse 6 it says about jesus who being in the very nature of god did not consider equality of god something to be used to his own advantage rather he made himself nothing taking the nature of a servant being made in human likeness and being found in the appearance as a man he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death even the death on a cross that when we have a desire in our hearts to be first and preeminent to be the leader to be the voice to be in charge as eugene peterson translates we have a spirit that is not of jesus who was god and still came as a servant like think of the picture of jesus as a servant i just that picture of jesus grabbing his disciples feet dirty rotten traveled feet and he washes their feet as an example to teach his disciples you all desire power and influence and leadership and you all want to be first who's going to sit on my right hand and my left and i tell you today that the first shall be last but the last amongst you will be first he who exalts himself will be humble but he who humbles himself will be exalted not only is he egotistical but he is not honoring of authority he has lost his ability to learn from others anytime you have an authority issue what you are denoting to others is that you do not have anything to learn from them i don't have anything to learn from you you have nothing to teach me nothing to offer me not even apostles like john who walked with jesus who lived with jesus will he receive from he's committed to lies by spreading spreading rumors and gossip and slander he's refusing to be hospitable towards others he's threatened by other brothers and sisters in christ that's a common thread even in modern day someone comes in what if they teach better or sing better or what if they just know more about the bible than i do i mean i'm leading this bible study and this person's coming in and i don't maybe they know more than i do and we tend to get threatened by other people's experience with god and then he's controlling he says if that's not bad enough he not only refuses to be hospitable but he tries to stop others from welcoming them as well here is what diotrophies exemplifies he demands loyalty over love hey i know you want to love that person and help that person but you know just to be loyal to me and to stick with me if you wouldn't mind just putting them out as well that would help out why because human nature especially those who are power hungry is to demand others loyalty to them before we expect love of them that's prevalent in the church today that the people who are raised up in churches who end up with titles and salaries and who end up who end up with with platform and voice who seem to be the most successful in churches are always the most loyal to the leader not the most loving john is saying it should be the opposite it should be the other way around which is why he praises gaius you're the most loving you're the most loving amongst this community i'm going to call you out by name and theotraphase you just seem to demand loyalty and he's divisive he's divisive because he chooses and picks and filters and puts thresholds and standards on who belongs and who does it it says it's not even that he just refuses to bring them in he actually throws them out who who has ever experienced the moment where you've either watched witnessed participated or been been the primary offender in deciding who gets in or out of your group friend group who gets in and out of your life who gets in and out of your business who gets in and out of your church something about that kind of like like it's like a it's like it's like you're close to power but you don't exactly have it so you could smell it like i feel powerful and i can smell something like that felt good but also probably wasn't the best but to be able to say like you like a kid on the playground you can't play with us one kid at preschool told my little girl that you can't play with us and her big brother says yes she can she's my sister like there's theotrophies you can't play with us and there's demetrius he's like okay and then there's guys he's like yes they can that's our brother that's our sister we will find any reason to cast out to divide to excuse to push away and john is looking at this and he's calling this man out by name and then he flips the script he praises gaius he calls diotrophies out by name and then in verse 11 he says this friend don't go along with evil model the good one translation says do not imitate evil imitate good the person who does the the good does god's work person who does evil falsifies god's work and doesn't know the first thing about god and then he praises demetrius everyone has a good word for him no one can say anything bad about him the truth itself stands up for demetrius we concur and we know you know that we don't hand out endorsements lightly peace to you friends here say hello greet our friends there by name i love what ralph waldo emerson said he said do not follow where the path may lead go instead where there is no path and leave a trail i asked two questions when we started today who will you follow and how do you lead those are the two questions of any jesus follower who will you follow and how will you lead i think the church and christians we like to to to divide the church up into two groups there's leaders elders deacons and then there's you know the congregation or there's pastors and and there's sheep there's leaders and there's followers and we like to separate the groups as much as we can but as far as i look in the new testament the more and more i see that there are not two groups in the church leaders and followers there's just followers and there happens to be followers who lead paul put it beautifully to his letter to the church in corinth he said follow me follow my example as i follow the example of christ one man in this story adores being preeminent he adores being first in line and the most looked at and the one who always gets to speak and say something who has the most influence over everyone's decisions trying to control everything and the other man just adores others one man adores power one man just adores people and at the end of the day the man who adores power is knocked down in a letter publicly and the one who adores people is encouraged and praised for it the difference is that one desired influence and the other one actually had it without knowing one wanted the power wanted to be a leader and the other one was actually worthy of leadership simon sinek in his book leaders eat last said if your actions inspire others to dream more learn more do more and become more you are a leader if your actions inspire others to dream more learn more do more and become more you are a leader i think so many conferences and books and aisles in the bookstores and categories on amazon and ring word that we just dwelt so closely on is that word leader i want to be a leader i want to be a strong leader how to be a how to win friends and influence people how do how do i lead well how do i lead from the front or do i lead from the back and all of these little quips and languages about being the best leader possible how do i lead well in my home lead well in the church lead a company well and there's this obsession with leadership when as i look at the story of jesus and the men who ended up leading the best of his leaders as we might categorize them in the new testament were actually jesus's best followers they had the ability to follow before they had an ability to lead how do i know that the beginning of their stories all begins with a very simple statement from the rabbi jesus follow me like that was almost the threshold like this guy might make a good leader for the church like peter he might make the cut andrew james john they might pull this off matthew might even write a whole gospel about me but i think before i can give them the influence and power to lead the church forward i got to find out if they're a good follower how do all of their stories start jesus walks up on a beach he looks at the disciples who are throwing their nets and he goes hey follow me i'll make you fishers of men he walks into town he sees matthew there collecting taxes and he says follow me what does matthew do he leaves everything behind and he follows jesus not only that jesus was like the sketchiest leader possible they'd be like in a boat and he'd be talking about bread of life or something and then i'll be like did you pack bread is he hungry like i didn't bring any lunch and he goes i have bread you don't even know about and they're like what does that mean they go hey i'm gonna do this and then the third day we'll rebuild the temple and the disciples we want to come with you and he goes where i'm going you cannot but one day you will he would talk in parables and almost like code they'd be like jesus are we going to go here do that and he goes the son of man has no place to lay his head you know just like most random phrases and as i look at it actually think how beautiful it is is it of jesus he garnered the complete trust of 12 men where you go i'll go i'll follow even to their death peter put your short away bro like that's not the plan here jesus goes i'm going somewhere you guys can't come and he goes if you're going i'm going he goes you can't he created the best types of followers and they ended up being the best leaders what if we didn't study leadership as much as maybe we did some case studies and some personal studies and some heart changes of followership god make me the best follower possible because in my opinion the best followers end up making the best leaders eugene peterson the the author of the message translation of the bible and many other books on pastoral leadership and servanthood his son has actually published letters that his dad would write to him and one of the letters he writes this if our primary identity is leader we marginalize our follower status which is the only thing jesus seemed to care about with us jesus cared about how well we could follow and was rarely with concern with how well we could lead how do i know that peter his resume wouldn't have ever been the leader of the first century church he's a fisherman he's young he's inexperienced he's uneducated he's a zealot probably not the most ideal candidate to stand up on pentecost and preach a message paul educated pedigreed smart influential powerful he had a bad attitude john was power hungry i always wanted to be next to jesus look at the old testament leaders moses joshua elijah it seems as if their followership their ability to hear the voice of god and follow what he had to say is what determined the influence god gave them so it goes back to the questions who will you follow and how will you lead because within the church who we follow determines how we lead will we be the kind of church the type of community will you be the type of jesus follower who like paul can say hey i'm not perfect i'm flawed in many ways i have thorns in my flesh i fall short of god's glory constantly and consistently but i want you to follow me not because i am follow worthy i want you to follow me because i am following jesus those are the types of leaders we should elevate in churches not how well they speak or how well they dress what kind of influence they have or how charismatic they can be or how how beautifully they can play a piano i want to elevate leaders within our community who followed jesus like gaius can come back with with the word from demetrius and they could say this leader he's telling everyone not to welcome us and he's talking bad about you and he's casting us out and and then there's this guys guy who he made a decision in his heart to follow jesus before his leader i believe there are many people who are stuck in churches today because well that's just the way the leader does it and that's the way that they like it and that's kind of how they lead and so that's kind of what we do but i want us to have that guy a spirit in us in order to say i'm gonna be committed to the way of truth and to following jesus before i'm ever committed to another human being and following their way and even if it might set me outside of his good graces or her good graces i'm going to be loving here's the thing about what gaius did it was hard it's difficult no one likes being the odd man out no one likes being the one guy who kind of like well i'm not gonna do that i'm gonna do it this way we're afraid of feeling self-righteous or appearing to be better than others or maybe too pious or too stuck up but john praises it hey man you stuck to love when the leaders told you not to you stuck to welcoming others and including others when the leaders were casting other people out you stuck to the truth when the leaders were spreading gossip and slander and rumors and for that i love you and for that i praise you good job well done and i'm going to come join you all soon and help sort this out get this in order there is a responsibility on every individual in the body of christ to recognize when we're following the leader over when we're following jesus every single person in this community and in every local church has a responsibility as a member or constituent or congregant of their local church to be able to have the discernment of the spirit to recognize am i following the vision of man or of god am i blindly following a leader or am i following a leader who is following jesus are these the kind of characteristics that would define a church a community of jesus followers or are these the kind of characteristics that define followers of that person that man that woman that way that ideology that theology that sect of the church i think when you and i can have the spirit of gaius loving people welcoming people choosing to follow jesus over following man will enter into a freedom and relationship with others and with god that maybe we wouldn't have because we we went where the path led instead of creating our own towards jesus and following jesus is hard but all we got to do is when he turns left we turn left when he turns right we turn right it's hard because it doesn't always make sense to follow jesus in fact let me put it this way it rarely makes sense when you're following jesus but i'm okay with being the dumb disciple in the boat asking about bread and asking silly questions at least in hindsight if it means that i'm with jesus i give too much judgment on the people who crucified jesus sometimes like how could they cheer and throw and beat and spit how could they and i just think they were imitating evil instead of imitating good they were imitating evil instead of imitating good they were following evil leaders with bad motivations and selfish ulterior motives instead of following jesus it's that simple my prayer for our church is we kind of wrap up these conversations next week we have dinner and following we're going to have one more conversation rachel and myself about women in the church and god's plan for that but as we wrap up these thoughts is that we would go home and read third john and go god make me like guys make me the kind of person who's dedicated more to the truth than i am to power who's who's loving and and welcoming and inclusive it makes other people feel like they belong who's not competitive but collaborative so that i could be like jesus instead of like my leaders god we pray for our church in this season would you make us more like jesus i found myself i'm sure others with me and joining from home and found themselves imitating people who aren't you we imitate celebrities and influencers and pastors and leaders and business owners we imitate whatever we gravitate to because it seems like the best avenue can we be imitators of christ before we're ever imitators of a human being can we be imitators of the love of jesus before we're imitators of the leadership of men would you help us to treat others who have nothing to offer with love and acceptance to see them as collaborators instead of competitors would people be able to come into our midst and take back a good report to you to take back a good message about the way we love the sense of belonging the grace and mercy that triumphs over judgment do you work in our hearts would you do stuff within us and in this community before we demand it if others around us help us to be gaius in a diatrophy's world and thank you for coming as a servant meek and humble merciful and gracious to teach us the way to show us how to follow we love you in jesus name amen i remember when i was young and your voice shouted loud my name and since that moment haven't heard it quite that way well now that i'm older can you say it again i remember and for the first time in my life oh take me back back all the way back i remember when i was blind and then your love opened know the up that flooded my life now now that i'm older would you show me again oh when the oh take me cause you are real to me and only from the start and there's no space between the heavens and mind and you are near to me i've never been too far and in the end between when it was all simple and loving was easy when it was all simple and trusting was easy when it was all simple and loving was easy when it was all simple and trusting was easy when it was all simple loving was easy when it was so simple and trusting was easy when it was so simple oh take me back all the way back oh take me back back all the way back oh take me back to my first you

Channel: Annex Church

Views: 20

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: church, church leadership, bad leaders, jesus folowers, apostle john, the book of 3 john, called out publicly, bad leadership, we are jesus followers, church online, annex church, Albuquerque church

Id: Bh5Pz0Tko0Y

Length: 59min 30sec (3570 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 12 2021