Lecture

Father, we bless Your name today. O God, we love You. We exalt You. We extol you. We worship You. We lift You up. Now Father, we ask that You would speak to us. Release Your presence, Your power, and the teaching ministry of Your Spirit in this house across this nation, across this network of leaders. Confront us. Challenge us. Change us, and draw us closer to Yourself. We pray in Jesus’ name. To that end, I’m available for You now to use me according to Your will. Stand in my body, think with my mind, speak with my tongue, and say to us those things You’d have us know, and then take all the glory. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Wow, what a week. Has anybody been blessed yet? Anybody been blessed? Just the blessed people, come on, give to the Lord. If you haven’t been blessed, we’ll get around to you a little later on. Just the blessful. Praise God. Thank you.

I want us to just honor and give God thanks for the pastor of this church, my friend and one whom God trusted. God trusted him with this vision, and he has been faithful to it. My friend, my brother, pastor of this church, Pastor Bill Hybels. Come on, give God the praise for him. Amen. Love you, man. Amen.

Pastor was talking about reaching across the racial barriers and across racial lines, and the first thing you should know is that you don’t start the clock with a chocolate preacher ’til he reads the text, okay? So ’til I read the text, don’t start the clock. Amen. I just freaked somebody out in the sound room and in the control room. “Where’s this man going? What is he going to do to us? Amen. Amen.

In the book of 1 Corinthians, Paul writes in chapter 4 to this young church, a church in a culture much like ours. Possibly. Most like ours than any other city, maybe Ephesus, but Paul writes to this young church of believers and leaders. He spends much of his time defending and legitimizing the call of God on his life. He writes to encourage them; he writes to respond to questions and issues, challenges and problems that have arisen in his church.

In chapter 4, he makes an interesting statement about leadership, and those of us who are on the front lines, and in chapter 4 of 1 Corinthians he says in verse 9 (King James), says, “For I think that God hath set forth us the apostles last, as it were appointed to death.” Paul says in verse 9, “For we are made a spectacle unto the world, and to angels, and to men.” Paul says, “We are made a spectacle.”

I want to recommend to you a great refreshing translation as a paraphrase of Scripture, many of you may have it. It’s called The Message; The Message by Gene Peterson. And notice how Peterson translates this verse and paraphrases this verse. He says this, “It seems to me that God has put us who bear his Message on stage in a theater in which no one wants to buy a ticket.” It says, though “God has placed us . . . on a stage in a theater.” He gets that from the word spectacle. The word spectacle is the word theatron from which we get our word theater, and so, it says, “God has put us . . . on a stage in a theater in which no one wants to buy a ticket.”

How often we struggle being on the front lines. As leaders of the people of God, how often we live in between two tensions. We struggle sometimes with the intoxication of success, and we are driven to succeed. We are driven to do it. We are driven to make it happen—the intoxication of success—sometimes to the neglect of other areas of our lives, sometimes to the neglect of family and sons and daughters and health, because we’re driven by the intoxication of success.

Sometimes we struggle with the devastation of insignificance. We sometimes look down the street around the corner at the television and we see what someone else is doing, another ministry is doing, and sometimes we find ourselves existing in the shadow of what we even deem to be greatness and success; and we wrestle and we struggle with the devastation of insignificance. Does this matter? Why am I doing this? Why can’t I do more? Why don’t they do this? Why isn’t this happening? The devastation of insignificance.

Paul says, “God has put us on a stage in a theater, and sometimes it’s a theater where no one wants to buy a ticket.” Paul wrestles and struggles with the call of God on his life and the realities of that call. And so prior to this he has said in chapter 2 of the same book, verse 2, he says, “I’ve made a resolution. I’ve resolved.” King James says in chapter 2 verse 2, he says, “I am determined.” It speaks of a mental process that draws a conclusion. “I’ve made up my mind,” one version says. One version says, “I have resolved that. I’m driven by an unshakable resolve.” And here’s what Paul says, “I have determined; I have made a resolution; I’ve made up in my mind to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ. My life is driven and obsessed and focused and determined to be lived in relationship with Jesus the Christ. And so as I live my life on this stage of life, I do it. In acting they say you have to have a motivation. My motivation is Jesus. The thing that prompts me on, that pushes me on, that urges me on is Jesus.” He later says, “Now you follow me as I follow Him.” His life is lived and defined in relationship to Jesus the Christ. And he says, “Sometimes I feel as though I’m on a stage.”

You may be on a stage today and feel as though you’re on a stage maybe in America and some of the sites across this network or New Zealand or Brazil or Denmark. You may feel as though God has placed you on a stage in Norway or Sweden or South Africa. You’re on a stage before the world as though it’s a production, and your job is to make the star look good. He’s the star of this show. The producer is God. The stage is the world. The script is the Word of God, and the plot is redemption by the blood of Jesus the Christ.

Paul says, “I live my life with the resolution that I will always live in relationship to Him. I’ve determined. I’ve made up in my mind.” He begins that chapter back in verse 1 of chapter 4 by giving us some roles that we are to play, and so he says, in a sense, “My first resolution is that I will complete my mission. I have a call on my life. I’m on this stage, and I’m living my life in relationship to the star who is Jesus, and there are certain roles that I play. My first resolution is I have resolved and I’m committed to completing my mission.”

In the book of John 17, Jesus prays as He’s on His way to Calvary, and He prays what has come to be called the High Priestly Prayer. Many of us think and have known it as the Lord’s Prayer as opposed to the disciple’s prayer, the “Our Father” prayer, which was not the Lord’s Prayer that He prayed. It was the model that He gave for us to pray. In fact, He could not pray that prayer because in that model prayer there’s a line that says, “And forgive us,” and He had nothing for which to be forgiven. He was the spotless Lamb of God. And yet He does pray in John 17 on His way to Calvary, and He prays for those leaders, and He prays for those who follow in His footsteps and take up the mantle of leading this new movement ordained and designed by God. And interestingly enough in the beginning of that prayer in chapter 17, He says an interesting phrase about verse 3 or 4, He says, “Father, I have glorified You on the earth.” Glorified, glory to God: That’s one of those terms in our holy vernacular that we often sing about, talk about, preach about. We share it with one another, “Glory to God.” We use it in various phrases, put it on the back of our cars, put it on our license plates, but what does it mean to glorify God? How do you do that?

In John 17, Jesus tells us, in probably the most succinct passage, a revelation of what it means to glorify God. Here’s what He says. He says, “Father, I have glorified You on the earth,” He says, “because I have done the work You gave Me to do.” One version says, “I have completed My assignment.” One version says, “I’ve done that which You assigned Me to do.” So what does it mean to glorify God? Jesus tells us. “I glorify God when I do My assignment.” Jesus said, “I’ve done it. I’ve done it. I’ve glorified You.” How did He do that? He says, “Father, I’ve glorified You because I’ve done my assignment. I’ve completed it.”

I was a student about 150 miles south of here in the middle of Illinois, for those of you in different parts of the country and around the world, a school called the University of Illinois. I studied there four years. Bless you, bless you. Illini in the house, oh yeah. And I took a class in criminology, have no idea why I took that class today. I cut that class every way but loose. It was one of those classes where your entire grade is dependent upon a paper. Anybody have those kinds of classes where your whole grade is dependent upon a paper, one or two papers or whatever? And so I came in about three weeks or so before the final end of the quarter of the semester, and I noticed that a paper was due. Hadn’t been to the man’s class all year, and so I went to the library, and I crammed and pulled all-nighters and pulled out my typewriter—we didn’t have computers back in those days. Some of you have no idea what a typewriter is, I know. Little history lesson for you right along through here. Typewriter was the predecessor, the prototype of the computer. So I’m typing all night long, I’m putting in all-nighters, and I’m drinking coffee, and No-Doz, and you know nothing about No-Doz, I know; and I turned my paper in. And I’m just so proud of myself, I’m just so proud of myself. I didn’t go to the man’s class all year and here I am with a paper, you know. I put the paper down on the man’s desk. Praise the Lord. Thank you, Jesus. Hallelujah.

I get the paper back about a week later, and the man wrote notes on my paper. That’s your first clue when the professor writes notes. He said this: “Good paper. Great content. Good research. Grade F.” And the man put the “F” in red. Now an “F” is an “F” in black ink or blue ink. The man put the “F” in red ink and put a circle around it. Didn’t take all of that; I got his point. He put the “F” in red ink and a circle around it. He wrote me a note. “Good paper, great content, good research.” At the bottom he wrote a note: Grade “F.” Note: “But this was not the assignment.” “Wonderful paper, great research.” Grade “F” in red with a circle around it because he said, “This was not the assignment.”

Jesus says, “I’ve glorified You because I’ve done My assignment.” Listen to me, every man, every woman in this room; every man, every woman watching a part of this network, you have an assignment. You’re not here by accident. There’s a call of God on your life. You are where you are on purpose. You must live, you must stand, you must minister with the resolve: “God placed me here, and I shall fulfill the anointing, the assignment, the call, the mission on my life. I have an assignment to do, and I only glorify God to the degree to which I fulfill my assignment, I complete my assignment. I get no points for doing your assignment. I get no points for making up my own assignment.” It does not matter how well you do what you do do, if you don’t do what you should do. Did I say that too fast? Let me back it up and give it to you again. You missed it. It does not matter how well you do what you do do, if you don’t do what you should do.

Jesus says, “I’ve completed my assignment. I’ve glorified You.” Paul says back in 1 Corinthians, he says, “Now, we’re on a stage, and we play two roles” (4:1-2). He says, first of all, “Men are to regard us, conclude, look at our lives, and they are to make certain conclusions.” First of all, that we are, one version says, that we are “ministers,” and then He says that we are “stewards.” One version says “servants and stewards” because both words are synonyms and words for servants or slaves. Now watch this carefully. Paul says, “They ought to account us. They ought to observe our lives and draw a conclusion. As they look at us on this stage of life produced by God, they ought to draw a conclusion of our lives, first of all, that we are servants, ministers.”

Now that is not Paul’s more common word for servant or minister that he uses: diákonos, from which we get our word deacon. It’s a very interesting word used primarily only here in this text because the root of this word, when he says, “They ought to conclude that we are playing the role of a servant of a minister,” the root word means “to row” R-O-W. The prefix of that word is huper which means “under,” so the word means, it speaks of a particular slave with a particular job description, and the job of the slave is to serve as an under-rower. It speaks of a slave who works in the belly of a ship under the deck, and his job is simply to row.

Did anybody see Ben Hur? Remember that? Charlton Heston? Changed to be Moses later on, same guy. Very spiritual brother. But there’s this scene in which Ben Hur is in the belly of the ship. Remember that? And there’re two rows of slaves, and they’re rowing, rowing, rowing, rowing. That’s the picture here of this word. Slaves but serving as under-rowers. Here’s what Paul says (I love it). He says, “They ought to look at your life and my life and draw a conclusion. First of all, that you’re a slave. You’re a servant,” and Paul says, “There are scenes in which you function as an under-rower, the slave working in the belly of that ship.” How might they draw that conclusion? Because here it is: When you are rowing, when you are rowing, listen now, when you’re a slave rowing, you are facing where you’ve come from. You didn’t get it on this side. Let me try these people over here. When you’re rowing in a boat you are headed in the direction that’s behind you. You smart people over here, you got it.

So here the particular kind of slave or servant whose life is characterized as a rower under the deck of a ship, and they ought to conclude that we’re living our lives in service to God. How might they conclude that? First of all, because when you are rowing, the slave, the person who lives their life as a rower does not determine the destination of the ship. You do not determine the direction of the ship. You don’t determine when your life turns left or right, stop, fast, slower. All you do is row. You have no determination of the destiny or the port in which that ship will land. Your life is under the command of a captain.

We have a song in the African-American tradition called “Old Ship of Zion.” It pictures life and pictures the kingdom of God as a ship, and it says, “Get on board, get on board.” And then it says, “Well, who’s in charge of this ship?” And there’s a line that says, “King Jesus is my captain. Get on board, get on board.” He says that we are to function as under-rowers in the kingdom of God who do not determine the destiny of their lives, the direction of their lives. That’s what it’s like being a servant, being a leader, for we are servant leaders, and our destiny is a part of the call of God on our lives, and we live in relationship to Him.

Paul says, “We are also stewards, ” comes from the word oikos, which means the word house, and it speaks of another slave. But this slave’s responsibility is an interesting one, because it is one who works or controls a particular part of the household. The word actually is a word from which we get our English word economics, oikonomos, and it means “to manage a household.” So that we are leaders, servants, but with responsibility, and we are managing, if you will, serving as servants and slaves in someone else’s house. That’s liberating to someone today, because it’s not your church. They’re not your people technically. You are simply the servant-leader managing that spiritual household owned by the Master. He says, “If you let me, I will build My church,” and so he says we serve as stewards, but then he throws us a curve in the next verse. He says, “And it is required of stewards that they be found faithful.” Interesting word . . .

Verse 2 says, “It’s required of stewards.” Verse 1 says, “They ought to conclude that we are ministers or servants and stewards.” But the second verse says, “It is required of a steward that they be found faithful.” There’s a problem in this text, there’s a syntactical problem in this text. The natural flow of the text would be, “We are required to be servants and stewards, and it is required of servants and stewards that they be found faithful.” That’s not what the text says. The text says, “It’s required of stewards.” Why the distinction? Why the difference?

Back in slavery in this country there were at least two classes of slaves. There were field slaves; there were house slaves. The house slaves were those who had an interesting degree of responsibility and relationship with the master, so much so that often they identified themselves with the master. But they were servants and yet they had responsibility. It was not uncommon that in the morning time, the master or the mistress of the house would have a list of chores that the slave or servant in the house was responsible for doing. And many times they would leave and they would go to other plantations or go into the city or whatever slave masters do, and they would come back in the evening with one thing on their mind, to find that the servants have been faithful in completing the task assigned to them.

One day the Master shall return. Don’t ever forget that. He’s coming back, and when He comes back He comes to find that you have been faithful as a leader, faithful as a servant. Paul says, “I’ve made up my mind. I’ve made a resolution that I will live my life fulfilling the role and the assignment that God has given me.” Paul also says, “I’m living my life in consecration.” In Romans 12 he says, “Present your body a living sacrifice. I present my body symbolic of my entire life. I surrender my life to Him. I live my life in consecration to Him.”

Now back in the Old Testament, the paradigm for priests who served in the temple was given with the life of Aaron’s relationship to Moses, and so the Bible says, “That when it came time to consecrate Aaron . . .” Notice an interesting thing happens in Exodus 29. The Bible says, “They were to bring him out to the door of a tabernacle and there they would wash him, purify him, sanctify him, ‘holy-fy’ him, consecrate him.” The Bible gives very specific instructions as to where that is to happen. He says, “At the door of the tabernacle.” Many of you remember the layout of the tabernacle. You come into the tabernacle, there’s this big court, there’s the outer court, there’s the inner court, there’s the Holy of Holies. Well, to enter into that court that was literally a door, a gate, if you will. And he says, “Bring them to that gate, to that door and there anoint Him, sanctify Him, wash Him.” Get this picture: He’s brought to the door, the gate, the opening, and He’s facing the nation, and it is there that God sanctifies Him. It is there that God washes Him, cleanses Him, prepares Him, anoints Him in the door before the nation. Because when God prepares you as a leader, He does not prepare you in the shadows.

The challenge that we have as leaders in the body of Christ is that oftentimes God is cleansing us while we’re trying to cleanse others. God is fixing us up while we attempt to fix up others. He says, “Bring him to the door of the tabernacle and there wash Him,” and so they strip Him down and they wash Him in front of the whole nation with everyone looking on.

Isn’t that the way it is in leadership? That God is still working on you? God is still cleansing you, and yet you continue to serve and minister and help others and bless others and yet you have your own stuff. We stand before the people. We stand before God stripped naked. Who can see you naked? Who can handle your nakedness? Before whom do you stand naked and accountable? Who can see your scars and your wounds and your mars and your bruises?

He stood there, and it is there that God sanctified Him, that God washed Him. We stand before the world often as wounded healers baring our wounds and our scars, but there is good news. He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquity. Wounded, wounded. A wound is an open gash observable. You can see it. A wound is a gaping gash in the skin. A bruise is a wound underneath the skin and quite often cannot be seen. It’s an injury underneath the skin. Watch this. He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. Transgression: to step across, to transgress, cross over. He was wounded for the times when I crossed the line, when I sin, when I fail Him, when I stumble, when I fall. But He was wounded for my transgressions: wounds, open, public. He was wounded for the things that you see me do that are out of line and out of order, that are across the line.

Ah, but He was bruised. A bruise is underneath the skin. You cannot always see it. It is not a gaping gash in the skin. It’s bruised. It’s there but cannot always be seen. He was bruised for my iniquity; my iniquity. Iniquity is significantly different than sin, than transgression. Transgression is what I do, what I’ve done, what you see, what’s open. Iniquity is my bent, my tendency, my proclivity. It’s what pulls me. It’s the bruises in my life, the struggles in my life underneath the skin, the tendencies in my life, the weaknesses, the flaws in my life. And I stand before the people of God trying to serve with my own inner battles, and yet He was bruised, ah, for my iniquities.

What’s your bruise? What’s your inward struggle? I have them: my bent, my tendency, my proclivity, the thing that the enemy taunts and tempts me with. I fight it every day of my life, that which is not always observable by those to whom I minister. I’ve been there, struggled with the dust and the dirt of my own iniquity: pornography. What’s your bruise? A drug habit? Alcoholism? What’s your bruise? I’ve got news for you. He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquity.

Finally, Paul says, “My resolution is not only to complete my mission, not only to consecrate myself but finally to commit my ministry and life to Him.” I beseech you therefore brother and by the mercies of God that you present your bodies. You present. “Present” in Romans 12 is a technical term. It speaks of what happens when the people of God come into the temple to worship, and you bring a sacrifice. It is a very technical term which means it is the precise moment in which you bring that sacrifice and you place it in the hand of the priest, symbolic of placing it in the hand of God. It is a technical term because you have technically not presented until you put it in the hand of the priest and take your hands off of it.

I beseech you by the mercies of God that you put your life in God’s hand, that you put your ministry in God’s hands, that you put your gifts in God’s hand, that you present your body to God’s hands, that you recognize that He has anointed you and called you. He chooses you to use you. There’s an anointing on your life, a calling on your life that many will not understand, and you will sometimes stand in frustration and pain and hurt and sometimes the struggle is trying to help people who don’t want to be helped. To save folk that don’t want to be saved.

Sometimes the very people that you serve and that you give the most to will be the very ones who will betray you and turn from you and stab you in the back and hurt you and cut you, but you must stand because your life is not in your hand. You make a presentation. You present the people to God. You may be pastoring thousands and thousands, you may be pastoring a small church of 4, 5, 6, 10, 15 members. You lift them up to God. You put them in His hand. You consecrate them to Him, and you consecrate your life to Him. Every obstacle that comes in your life, God gives you the anointing, the power to overcome it because with every appointing comes an anointing. He anoints you to fulfill everything God’s called you to do. “Greater is He that is in you, than He that is in the world.”

The devil will do all that he can to take you out of character, swell your head, make you feel insignificant, damage your self-esteem. But when you’ve done all you can to stand, keep on standing by the power of the living God, and you place your life in His hands. That’s what makes the difference that you place it in His hand. You present your life to Him. Present the ministry. Present the people. Present your gifts, and place it in His hands. That’s what makes the difference. It all depends on whose hand it’s in.

A violin in my hand will make a squeaky noise, but a violin in Itzhak Perlman’s hands creates the music of the masters, because it all depends on whose hand it’s in. A basketball in my hand is worth about $29.95. A basketball in Shaquille O’Neal’s hand is worth about $30 million with hang time because it all depends on whose hand it’s in. A tennis racquet in my hand is a dangerous weapon, but a tennis racquet in Venus William’s hand is a Wimbledon champion, because it all depends on whose hand it’s in. A golf club in my hand gets the ball dribbling down the fairway, but a golf club in Tiger Wood’s hand is a Master’s champion, because it all depends on whose hand it’s in. A slingshot in my hand is a kid’s toy, but a slingshot in David’s hands will drop the Goliaths in your life, because it all depends on whose hand it’s in. A rod in my hand can beat off the animals, but a rod in Moses’ hand can part the Red Seas of your life, because it all depends on whose hand it’s in. Spit and clay in my hand will get you a little mud cake, but spit and clay in Jesus’ hands will open up the blinded eyes and set forth deliverance, because it all depends on whose hand it’s in.

Two fish and five loaves of bread in my hand will get you a couple of fish sandwiches, but in Jesus’ hands it’ll feed the thousands, because it all depends on whose hand it’s in. A piece of material in my hand is just the bottom of my coat. But in the hand of the woman with the issue of blood who pushed her way through the crowd, it’s salvation and wholeness by faith, because it all depends on whose hand it’s in. Nails in my hand might get you a little birdhouse, but nails in Jesus’ hand hanging on a cross, hanging between two thieves, with a spear in His side, blood dripping down His hands, nails in His hands, rivets in His feet, is salvation for the whole world, because it all depends on whose hand it’s in.

You put that ministry in your hand, it’s doomed. But when you put it in Jesus’ hand, you’ll go from Jerusalem to Judea to Samaria to the uttermost parts of the world, to Brazil and Denmark and South Africa and Sweden and Norway and the Netherlands and all around the world, because it all depends on whose hand it’s in. Place your life in His hand and watch God do miracles through you. Place your life in His hand. Captives will be set free. Sick folk will be healed by the power of God, because it all depends on whose hand . . .

I live my life struggling every day of my life to be a living sacrifice that can jump off the altar at any time, a living sacrifice that gets on the altar by choice, a living sacrifice that stays there and says, “Lord, use me. Breathe life into my deadness. Let me live my life in relationship to You, in the atmosphere of Your glory, the very air that I breathe. Oh God, I’m desperate for You. I cannot make it without You. There’s a hunger, there’s a thirst in my spirit for You that only You can fill. I’m desperate, I’m desperate, I’m desperate, I’m desperate for You. Feed me with Your Word. Cover me with Your presence. Oh God, I cannot do this without You. I dare not try, but I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” I live my life with a holy desperation. I’m desperate for Him, not just for a bigger house and a bigger crowd and more people and a bigger building. I want Him. I’m blessed by His hand, but I go past His hand to seek His faith. I’m desperate for Him. “Oh God, surround this place with Your presence. Release Your glory. As we inhale and exhale, let us breathe in You. Oh God, we’re desperate.”