Hey all, sorry for making the Monday Morning Rewind a Monday Afternoon Rewind. It’s been one of those mornings!
Our “Rooted” series will continue this coming Sunday with the discipline of Fellowship. The next couple of weeks after that will be Service and then Evangelism. I hope you are finding these messages on “spiritual disciplines” useful. I know that many of you are “seasoned Christians” but I hope that you find at least one or two helpful nuggets in each message. As a coach, I used to take my staff to clinics to network and learn. I told them that much of what they hear at their respective sessions might be repeat but if you can catch one thing, no matter how small it might be, that can help you become a better coach or person, it would be worth the time and effort. Long ago, the apostle Paul recognized that we are all on a learning journey and that journey doesn’t end until the day we take our last breath and Jesus takes us home. He wrote in Philippians 3:12-15 that he hadn’t achieved perfection yet. This is Paul, probably the greatest evangelist and maybe the most influential man in all the Kingdom of God in his day, saying this! Twice in the following verses he says “he presses on, looking forward.” No matter how long you have been a follower of Christ, there is always much to learn.
I will share one example of continual learning with you from my personal life. I was preaching one Sunday during the Easter season and a retired pastor who I respected mightily was in the congregation. I was in Matthew 26 teaching on the Last Supper. Jesus had told the disciples that one of them would betray Him. One by one they ask “Is it I Lord?” The Greek for Lord here is the word kyrios which means “the one to whom I belong.” The last disciple to ask the question was Judas who asks “Is it I, Rabbi?” Rabbi is translated as teacher. Notice the difference? It was something I had picked up early on but this seasoned pastor told me he had never caught that and thanked me for pointing that out. It was a dual lesson for me. The first lesson was that we are never too old or experienced not to pick up new information or teachings. The second was that this highly respected pastor was humble enough to admit that he had more to learn. I have taken those two lessons to heart. I go to church leadership conferences and coaching clinics for the purpose of learning new things. Wilfredo de Jesus, a national church leader, said that leaders never quit learning. If you quit learning, you quit leading.
All of you, regardless of your age or experience, are leading someone somewhere. I pray that you develop the habit of lifelong learning to better equip you for the journey ahead and the work of the kingdom. Afterall, my duty as your pastor is to “equip the saints for the work of the ministry (Ephesians 4:11-13). Sometimes in church just as in coaching a sport, you go back and review the fundamentals because it is easy with time to forget the foundational elements of any task. Give me five more messages to get through the fundamentals and then we will journey with the apostles into the work of the early church and those foundational elements by beginning a study of the Book of Acts. I can’t wait to see what happens when Jesus unleashes the disciples on the Kingdom! All I know is that the work started with a handful and today millions and millions of people claim to follow Christ. What a journey!
Pastor Rick
