The more access I’ve gotten, the more I’ve realized no one knows what they’re doing, we’re all just trying stuff. Their pastor had just said “one day we’ll do that,” and they were all working toward that but they weren’t there yet. When I started out, I thought “oh, let’s go check out what they’re doing!” So we’d read their books and we’d say, “oh this is such a brilliant idea,” and then we’d go to their church and they weren’t doing that at all. Everybody’s just trying stuff.Ĭan I give you a little secret about the big places? Please don’t let this leave the room. Both are wrong.Ĭan I give you a little secret about the big places? Please don’t let this leave the room. The temptation is to either idolize guys or rip them down, depending on the level of bitterness. And I want to encourage you, church planter: don’t feel the need to attack larger churches and ministries. I want to play my part well, and be content in that part regardless of what it is. The man who loves Jesus Christ deeply praises God when he’s being devoured by lions and when he’s being overrun by foreign armies, saying, “If this is my role in the furtherance of your kingdom, praise your name.” This is the man we need: men who play their part well, are content in that part regardless of what it is, and become all they can be in Christ. Run with endurance the race that is set before us.ĭon’t try to be someone you’re not. It’s comforting to pretend that your sins don’t bother God, but if repentance is not a continuing ethic in your life, you are a liar. Repentance is an opportunity to grow in holiness and come into deeper intimacy of God. 1 John 1 lays out two paths: we can walk in light or not, and this comes down to how we handle sin. The life of the believer is marked by repentance. Lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely. However, Hebrews continues in 12:1, “Therefore since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith.” No technique we can try will determine whether we are the faithful who shut the lion’s mouth or the faithful who are devoured, but either way we can deeply praise God’s work because he’s doing exactly what he said he would do in Genesis 12. We hold up men who shut the mouths of lions and put foreign armies to flight and call it normative we elevate an unrealistic expectation that we can control the blowing of the spirit. We’re often taught that technique determines where we will fall on this list. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword.” Some of you will shut the mouths of lions. In Hebrews 11:33, we’re told of people who, “through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight.” In the next verses, we’re told that others, still faithful, “suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment.
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