Steadfast Ministry

Speaker 1 (00:02):

Hi, I am Brian Mosley, our team here at right now. Media loves serving the church. We believe the mission of the church matters and that your leadership matters. Whether you're watching this message by yourself or with your leadership team, we hope that it's an encouragement to you. In this session, Jen Wilkin, who's an exceptional Bible teacher who's going to give hope to fatigued ministry leaders. I know that it'll serve you wherever you are in ministry.

Speaker 2 (00:31):

Well, hello friends. How's everybody doing? How many of you in here are local church practitioners of some kind like you are involved in active ministry in your local church? Just throw your hands up in the air, okay? Praise God. You are my people. I have to tell you, you heard that I'm from the Dallas area. I literally came from my job at my church to come over and talk to you today. So many of the things that we will be talking about are fresh on my mind because I literally walked out of meetings where we were discussing them. So for example, I was having a meeting about our next gen and family ministries, which I'm currently responsible for, in which the woman who was leading the meeting said, I no longer use the phrase, hindsight is 2020 because 2020 was the worst. So I now say hindsight was 2019, and I thought, I am taking that.

(01:21):

I want that because probably if you've been doing ministry in the local church, you have had a similar experience to the one that I have had over the last several years. We came out of Covid, but we didn't really come out of it. There's a lot. There's just a lot. I was told at various points that I was either too liberal or too conservative. Sometimes I was told those things at the same time, anybody else have this experience? I got in trouble for not saying anything about some things. And then when I did say things I got in trouble for not saying everything about the things that I said things about. I have seen the report on the state of theology. You heard I'm a Bible literacy advocate. When the state of theology report came out recently, did you guys get a load of that?

(02:09):

It turns out that a lot of us who call ourselves Christians think that Jesus was just a really good teacher but is not God. So that's what we would call a Trinitarian heresy. That was a disappointment. I'll call that a disappointment. That was disappointing to me. Also, many of us also seem to believe that there are many ways to be saved despite the fact that Jesus actually said the opposite. So that report was a big fat downer. On top of that, I have learned that the average attendance for church members is about two times a month. That's about all they can muster to get there is about two times a month. And since I'm invested in Christian education, this also is problematic for me. I need you more than two times a month if I'm going to form you with more formative effect than the culture that has you.

(02:53):

Oh, that's right, the other 28 days of the month. So that wasn't awesome. Bible literacy rates are dropping at the same time that deconstruction stories are on the rise. Do we think there's any correlation between those two things? Jen does. Okay. And then you've got things like just general nasty things like inflation and then things like the fact that since 2000, our attention spans have dropped from 12 seconds to eight seconds, which means that we now officially have a shorter attention span than a goldfish. That doesn't feel awesome either. We need steadfast hope, we need steadfast hope in a disorienting time. On top of that, yeah, we had, okay, so one of my roles at my church is to say things on behalf of women that women have not said. And so about eight years ago, I went to our facilities manager and said, Hey, it would be great.

(03:58):

I'm going to just code this because it looks like many in this room are not actually women. It would be great if in the women's room we could have, we'll just call them supplies, which women find helpful so that they don't have to act like smugglers when they're walking around in the building that we call the church, right? Women. Does that sound like a good idea? So he said to me, oh, do you mean just in the staff areas? And I said, no, I mean in the actual I would like in the large women's room, I would like, could we do this? And he said, yeah, they're going to steal 'em.

(04:41):

So just flash forward, I was unsuccessful for a number of years in asking for this, and I travel around the country. I'm in a lot of women's bathrooms at churches, and it did feel to me that other people did feel that this was a safe way to minister to women. Flash forward, I got a new boss back in March. He's the sweetest guy and poor guy. First thing out of my mouth when he gets there is, Hey, I need to talk to you about the women's bathrooms. He does not want to have this conversation with me. He gets this just blank stare on his face every time I bring it up and he's like, look, I'll follow up. I'll see what I can do. And so I checked back with him actually just yesterday and I said, Hey, how are we on this initiative? I'm just going to call an initiative at this point.

(05:26):

I said, I've noticed that they are showing up in sort of the auxiliary spaces, but they're still not in the main spaces. And I had told him, I said, the last guy told me that they would be stolen, and I just really feel like that's not going to happen. So he says to me yesterday, he goes, all right, I will double down. I will resend the email. We will get this to happen. But he says, I have to tell you, the last time that I bounced this question out there, I was told that due to Covid, there are supply chain issues.

(05:54):

And I thought to myself, well, great. Now they're going to steal 'em. That makes me feel fatigue. I feel fatigued. Hindsight is 2019. Can we go back there? I don't feel steadfast. Do you feel steadfast? And I think of the words of James to us in James chapter one, count it all joy. My brothers and sisters, when you meet trials of various kinds for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness and let steadfastness have its full effect that you may be perfect and complete lacking in nothing. Apparently trials produce something in us. They produce steadfastness, but we have the attention span of a goldfish. Not only that, but we live in a culture, in a society that tells us you don't have to wait for anything. You can have what you want when you want it, exactly how you want it. So not only do we have short attention spans, we see waiting of any kind as a problem to solve rather than a discipline to learn.

Speaker 2 (07:16):

And so here we are on the tail end of several very difficult years, asking how many resources am I still supposed to have in myself as those of us who are leading in the local church constantly batting down challenge after challenge. What am I supposed to do? And yet here we're learning that everything that we are encountering is supposed to build in us steadfastness. I would like steadfastness. Would you like steadfastness? And I think that we think I'm doing my best. I'm doing it right as far as I know how to do it right. Why is it so hard? And I think back to David's words in Psalm 139. David was someone who also tried hard to do things right most of the time.

(08:03):

And in Psalm 139, he is celebrating a big God. He's talking about how the Lord has searched him and known him. And then he says this thing, and it has just stuck in my head. He says in Psalm 1 39, 5 and six, he says, you hem me in behind him before and you lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me. It is high. I cannot attain it. You hand me in behind and before and you lay your hand upon me. So because I am a woman and I have spent a lot of time in women's ministry, which I affectionately refer to as the pink ghetto, I'm very familiar with Psalm 139 because it is the theme at just about every conference that we put on. And I have often read that verse and heard it taught almost as though it is meant to communicate.

(08:57):

And it's just a big snuggle hug from Daddy. God, he just hemmed me in behind him before he lays his hand upon me. But really there's something important that is going on there in David's words. The whole psalm is giving us a huge picture of who God is. And when he says, you hem me in behind him before and you lay your hand upon me, he is indicating that God is both behind us and before us and is with us in the present. And he's everywhere. He's all around us. And it occurs to me that if we want to have steadfastness in the time of our trying, that we need a perspective. We need a different perspective than we have. If we feel disoriented, what we need is to be reoriented. And so I would like to suggest to you that we reorient ourselves a little bit in the midst of the difficulty that we're facing. How many of you in here right now would say ministry is difficult for you in this season?

(09:55):

The rest of you are lying or it's coming for you in the next six months? That was dark. I got dark real fast. I want us to be reoriented in a disorienting time. So the first place that I would ask us to look is up. Look up. I'm going to say a really obvious thing. Are you ready? The Bible is a book about God. Anybody want to disagree with me? Okay, I didn't think that you would. But the problem is that sometimes when we come to the Bible, we don't read it as a book about God. We have a tendency to read it as a book about who us? Right? Okay. And it is a book about us. It's just that we have to understand how to get to the US part when we get there by understanding the Bible as a book about God.

(10:43):

So there are these researchers, doctors, Piff and Ketner, and they have done research into awe, a WE, awe. And what they have found is that humans are the only mammals who are capable of experiencing goosebumps for a reason other than fear. So that means that your dog or your cat, if you play Mozart for them, they do not get goosebumps when they look out at a sunset, they do not get goosebumps. The only time that they get goosebumps is if they are about to be eaten by another animal if something threatens them in some way. But humans, we are not like that. We are able to experience goosebumps when we see or experience anything that transcends. And then P and ketner make this stunning observation. They make the observation that humans today are all deprived, that we spend so much time looking down at a phone or looking inward that we have forgotten to look around us and experience all.

(11:46):

So whether that's out in nature or through music or through art or whatever it is that stirs us, that we are all deprived and then they draw some conclusions from our awe deprivation. And that is that when we are deprived of awe on a regular basis, we become more inward focused. We become concerned only with ourselves and our own needs. We have less connection to community and love of others, which sounds, just hang with me for a second. An awful lot like something the Bible says, love the Lord your God with heart, soul, mind and strength and then neighbor as yourself. In other words, if you would look up more, it would change the way that you look out more. And then they make this suggestion, they suggest that humans should make a concerted effort to have more daily experiences of all, which is so great. Wouldn't it be amazing if you and I had somewhere, somewhere that we could go daily where we could experience, oh, hey, what do you know?

(13:03):

Look up. How do we look up? How do we know what is true about a transcendent God? It's right here. It's right here. Now, can you know something from a sunset about what's true about God? Yes, absolutely. You can you stand at the edge of the Grand Canyon and know something that is true about God? Yes. Yes you can. And so can the pagans, right? No one stands at the edge of the Grand Canyon, not the agnostic, not the atheist, and not you. No one stands at the edge of the Grand Canyon and looks out and says, I am awesome. Everyone gets reoriented, right? Everyone. And what we can know about God out in nature are the broad brush strokes of what can be known about God or Romans. One says that everyone can know. But what do we have here? We have in fine tipped pen the nature and character of God for you, for look up in an age that is disorienting.

(14:05):

Look up and understand a God who transcends that feeling. You get at the Grand Canyon where you look out and you think, gosh, it sure feels like I may not be as big of a deal as I thought in the best way, right? You don't walk away going WW, I'm not a big deal. You're like, wow, this is amazing. There's so much more to consider than just my own concerns. And yet those of us who are believers in dwelt by the Holy Spirit, we have access to that in specific terms in here. The Bible has so much to say about the nature and character of God. And when we understand who God is because we are made in his image, we then understand who we are in relation to him in a way that we would not otherwise. So if you are head down, feeling beat down by whatever is going on in your particular circumstance, your first step should be to look up reorient yourself. Remember that God is indeed seated andron between the Cher, he is reigning and ruling. Look up and remember who your maker is.

(15:25):

You hem me in behind and before you lay your hand upon me, which brings us to the natural next step from looking up look within you because the knowledge of God and the knowledge of self always go hand in hand. There is no true knowledge of self apart from the knowledge of God. That's John Calvin, right? And what is he saying? He's saying that when we look up and we see that God is high and lifted up and seated and thrown between the cherubim, then we understand ourselves differently than we did before. If we mistakenly thought that we were the sovereign rulers of our own little universe, we now know that we are limited in our ability to accomplish anything apart from God. In fact, apart from him, we can do how much? Nothing. Oh, yeah, that's pretty absolute. Okay, so I mean, I can't even get supplies in the women's room, right? Eight years. Eight years, guys. Okay, ladies. Okay. So the knowledge of God always informs the knowledge of self. You think you're a pretty merciful person, right? You think you're pretty patient with those around you. Until you compare yourself to the patience of God toward you, he perseveres with you in your sin patterns over and over and over again. And yet you want to use a nasty hand sign with the person who cut you off in traffic.

(16:53):

Now, you will tell yourself that you're a pretty patient person until you compare yourself to God. Because we have a tendency to surround ourselves with reference points that reaffirm our own feelings about our own self-sufficiency. So some of us actually design our peer groups in such a way that our friend reference points reflect well on us. I mean, sure, sometimes I gossip, but what about Susan? She's the worst. And as long as I'm comparing my control of my tongue to another human being, then I don't have to assess it in light of the perfect speech of God and whose image I am made aid. So we need to look up and then we need to look within ourselves. Or as David cries out in Psalm 1 39, search me oh God, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts. See if there'd be any grievous way in me and lead me in the way everlasting.

(17:55):

Now, what the world will tell you to do is to look within yourself and see your intrinsic value. They're not 100% wrong, it's just that our intrinsic value is not because of who we are per se, but because who we are. Our value is because we are made in the image of God and because he has laid his hand upon us. But when we look within, we do so not so that we can feel full. That is not our first goal. Our first goal is actually the opposite. It is so that we can be empty emptied in the best way. How often have we prayed for the Lord to come and fill us up without asking him to first emp empty us of self-sufficiency, of self-righteousness, of self-reliance, of self-promotion, of self preservation, of self-satisfaction, of self-determination, of all of the selfs, even this one self-loathing Lord fills the empty, the beatitudes.

(19:08):

Do not say blessed are the full. They say blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. It is the empty that the Lord is pleased to fill. And so when we ask to be searched and known, what we are saying is, Lord, empty me of all of the things that do not belong in a Christ follower, so that you may fill me with all of the things that do. And in an age of disorientation, when everyone is looking to you to be the ministry hero, Lord help you. If you decide to step in and fit the bill, we have to be emptied of any sense of ourselves as the savior of the situation and in ministry. I don't think I probably need to tell this room that if you need something from being in ministry to make you feel awesome, you're probably in the wrong line of work.

(20:09):

So we look up, we're reoriented to who God is. We look within, we ask that we would be emptied so that we can be filled. Matthew 2312 says, whoever exalts himself will be humbled and whoever humbles himself will be exalted. That's another way of talking about fullness and emptiness. And so we look up and we look within, and then we also look around. Look around yourself. Who's around you? What are you surrounding yourself with? You hand me in behind and before you lay your hand upon me, you see, I'm not capable of being in the past and I'm not capable of being in the future because I am not eternal and omnipresent in the way that God is. I'm only capable of being where in the present, right here, right now. This is why the scriptures tell us not to be anxious about tomorrow, but sufficient to the day is the trouble thereof. We need to be present in the present. We have to look around us and ask, are we being wise? Are we redeeming our time in wise ways? Am I actually feeding my disorientation and my anxiety by the people I'm spending time with and the ways that I am spending my time, the places that I am sending my eyes to look at things?

(21:41):

So let me ask you something. Who builds you up? Who speaks life to you in their words? And example? Think of a person right now or maybe if you're very, very lucky, think of two people. And I don't mean who blows sunshine at you. I mean, who genuinely knows how to call out the good in you and call you to more of that? Who is that person? Who are those people? How much time have you gotten with those people lately? Because now let me ask a counter question. That one who wears you down? A few more names come to mind and as if it were not enough that we're actually in church with those people, we're hanging out with them on social media.

(22:36):

Proverbs 1320 I think is relevant to the way that we think about spaces like Twitter or Instagram. Wherever critique is flowing freely, whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm. Don't think that constantly bathing in someone's opinion about someone's opinion, about someone's opinion isn't sharing company with fools. And don't think for a second that it isn't robbing you of your daily dose of all who builds you up, who wears you down? How can you get more proximity to life givers and less proximity to life takers look around you. How are you redeeming the time? How about this? What grounds you and what distracts you? In other words, what are you feeding your soul?

(23:38):

I'll tell you what grounds me time with my people. I want to be around my family as much as possible because they are people who speak life to me, and they're also people who will call me out on stuff that nobody else will. But I know that they love me so deeply that it's for my good, which means as I'm looking at my calendar, I'm going to give as much time to them as I can. What distracts me? Oh my gosh, Netflix, Instagram. You guys know how much time am I going to give to those?

(24:14):

Where are we fixing our eyes? What are you looking at? Look around you. Who are you surrounded with and what are you surrounded with? Don't ever think that your disorientation isn't potentially linked to those things, those things that distract you. They're trying to whittle away at that remaining eight seconds of attention span that you have. And this is what we need. We need to be to quote Ted lasso. We need to be goldfish in our memories as it relates to critique. And we need to be elephants in our memories as it relates to encouragement, because I don't know how you factor those things, but in my world, I can get one word of negativity that will stick with me for weeks and weeks and I can get 10 words of encouragement that I forget in eight seconds. We need to work to flip that. We need to work to flip that. Why? Because those who are speaking the encouraging word to you look like Christ. We should listen to them.

(25:18):

So we need to look up, we need to look within and we need to look around. But there's another very important place that we need to look that I think we forget about. It was just Halloween. This is not a question of whether you observe Halloween or not, but let's have a quick show of, no, let's not. But you know how in horror movies, you're watching the horror movie, and what do you just want to yell at that person? Half the time there's some scary guy with an axe that's right behind their shoulder and they're just wandering around doing their thing, and you're like, dude, just what? Turn around, look behind you. Look behind you. I think that sometimes we forget that that is good advice for those of us who are followers of Christ as well, although not in a creepy horror movie way, but in a very life-giving and important way.

(26:18):

Look behind you and I mean, look way behind you. The author of Ecclesiastes says, Solomon says that God has placed eternity in man's heart, yet he cannot discover what God has done from beginning to end. So in other words, there are years and years and years that humans have lived on the earth. And what does he say? There's nothing new. Under the sun is his other famous phrase and he says, and yet we have this longing for eternity, but we still can't even figure out or make sense of what God has done from beginning to end, from alpha to Omega. What's that saying? Disorienting. This can be a disorienting time. But then there's this passage in Hebrews, which I have to tell you I didn't understand for a long time in an embarrassing way. Hebrews chapter 12, one and two, you probably know it. Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, do you know this one?

(27:17):

Let us also lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely. I would like to do that and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Man, this passage has everything. It has the look up element, look to Jesus, founder and perfector of our faith, right? And it has this look forward piece that we'll get to in just a minute, but it also has this other thing since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also run the race. And I'll tell you, for years I read this passage and I was like, this is amazing. There are all of these people in the great cloud of witnesses and they're looking down on me and they're saying, run that race.

(28:05):

You run that race, girl, you can do it. Look at that big pep squad I have up there. And the reason that I read the passage this way is because I did not think to put it in its context. Hebrews chapter 12 comes after what? Hebrews chapter 11 and what's in Hebrews chapter 11? A great cloud of witnesses, a great cloud of witnesses. But what are they bearing witness to? Are they bearing witness to me running the race? No. What does it say? It says by faith, Abel, by faith, Abraham by faith, by faith, by faith. And why does it say that? Because they are bearing witness to the faithfulness of God to all generations. One of the liabilities of having the attention span of a goldfish is that we actually think that the things that we are facing now are more significant or harder than any generation before us has ever faced, which is a big reason that we have so many deconstruction stories right now, is because we have a generation of people who have been affiliated with Christian belief, who have a soul sucking question hit them that they actually think no one has ever wrestled with before.

(29:21):

And I say that with compassion. Please hear this. Because the reason that they think that is because somewhere those of us in the local church responsible for their spiritual formation have not given them a vision for what's over their shoulder. I look behind you. Look behind you. Hebrews 11 goes all the way back to Abel. You know who Abel is, right? He's the son of Adam and Eve. He had a very bad brother whose name was Cain, and we are told that we are supposed to look back to Abel. It says, by faith, Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain through which he was commended as righteous. God commending him by accepting his gifts. And through his faith, though he died, he still speaks able is still speaking because of his faith, still speaking to you and to me today. Do you know why Hebrews 11 goes all the way back to able?

(30:30):

Because Abel's sacrifice, the pleasing sacrifice to God is the first righteous act that is described for us in scripture outside of Eden. Once fellowship with God is fractured in Eden, what do we see? We see a next generation and able is there testifying to the faithfulness of God in the wake of the greatest break humanity has ever seen. There he is. Through his faith, though he died, he still speaks all the way back to the first generation post Eden. There he is, and listen, able is speaking to you, not just Abel, but if Hebrews 11 is telling us the truth, then Enoch would also like a word with you. Noah would like a word with you. Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Jacob. They have something to say to you about stead fastness. Joseph Moses, they would like a word with you as well. Israel sandals damp on the shore of the Red Sea would like you to know something about the faithfulness of God to all generations, Rahab would like a word with you, Gideon, Barack Samson, JE, that David Samuel and the prophets would like to say something to you about the faithfulness of God. Look over your shoulder. They're calling to you, Steven, James, Peter, and Paul, Lydia and Phoebe and Priscilla. They would like a word with you as well. Augustine, a tenacious, Luther, Calvin, Wesley, Whitfield, Edwards, Chesterton and Lewis, Lottie, moon, Fannie Crosby, you name 'em.

(32:16):

They're in the great cloud of witnesses and maybe they are cheering us on. I hope they are. But I'll tell you the one thing that I know. They are looking to Jesus, who was the author and perfecter of their faith. And when they look around at the circumstance that we are in now, I tend to think that they are saying nothing new under the sun. Great is his faithfulness. Look over your shoulder, look behind you. The God who is faithful to them will certainly be faithful to us. And with that in mind, we have one last place to look for perspective. Look in front of you, look in front of you, but not in the way that we so often think when we're in times of uncertainty and upheaval and disruption, we think, oh, I just need to know what to do. I got to make another decision.

(33:23):

Just tell me the right decision to make. Right. What does James say in James chapter one right after he talks about steadfastness and perseverance? He says, if any of you lacks what? Wisdom. Wisdom, let him ask God. It gives to all liberally without finding fault. Wisdom is not knowing what to do. Wisdom is taking the facts that you have and making the best decision that you are able and trusting the rest of the Lord. Okay? Knowledge is knowing what to do. Knowledge is knowing what to do, and how often are our prayers for wisdom? Actually prayers for knowledge. Lord, give me knowledge of the future. Just tell me what the right decision is. And so when I tell you to look forward to reorient yourself, I do not mean ask the Lord to tell you what tomorrow holds. He will not do that. He's actually told you that sufficient unto the day is the trouble thereof. We have this naive assumption that if we knew what was coming tomorrow, we would do the right thing. I would use that information. Well, Lord, you can trust me.

(34:31):

To which the Lord says no, the future belongs to the secret counsel of the Lord. You have enough to deal with just today. You're only supposed to be present in the present. Now, this doesn't mean that we don't plan for the future. We plan so far as we are able. We apply wisdom, but looking to the future is not placing our faith in outcomes. It is rather placing our faith in the God of all outcomes. These are two very different exercises. We do not have knowledge of the future and the scriptures tell us. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe those are the words of Jesus himself.

(35:18):

But we do have one critical piece of information about the future, don't we? And it has to do with how this all ends and it ends a lot like it started only better with a new creation. We move from a garden to a city. We know that no matter what is happening in the 70 or 80 years that the Lord has entrusted to our generation, that there will come a day when all things will be made new and that the one that we look up to who is seated andron between the cherubim son of God seated at his right hand that that son will return visibly. We know that that's coming.

(36:11):

And so when we pray thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. What do we mean? We mean that so far as it is possible with us in a disorienting age, we will order our lives. We will reorient ourselves so that our obedience and our steadfastness, our clear markers, one might even say a light, a city on a hill, that we are looking toward that kingdom by living like we're in it today. We want to do what pleases the Lord. We want to be obedient to him. We want to be those who live lives of righteousness. The Spirit has empowered us because of the sacrificial work of Christ, because we want to look like Christ. Because when we look like Christ, we look like inhabitants of the new Jerusalem, not this place right here in the new Jerusalem. We will have everything we need.

(37:17):

I don't know what will be in the women's restrooms, but I have hope. We know that perfect provision awaits us there and this life trains us to long for it. This is the wilderness wandering for us, but there still remains for the children of God a Sabbath rest, but not yet. But when we are steadfast because we have oriented ourselves to who is above us and to how we should look inward and to who is around us and to who has gone before us, and to the joy that is before us, then we are able to live in this world as those who know a better kingdom is coming count at all joy.

(38:20):

When you endure trials of various kinds, not because they're joyful to go through, but because they are markers of a steadfastness that holds us for a joy that is kept for us. Thanks be to God. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you. We thank you that even though we look around and see shifting sand, that you are a steady rock for us. We ask, Lord, that you would teach us to be grounded in our daily dose of awe. That you would be for us an anchor, that we would understand ourselves rightly. We would understand our surroundings rightly, that we would know who has come before us, and that we would look ahead. Lord, help us to be oriented, to be grounded, that we can serve you as we ought, and we ask these things in your son's name. Amen.

Speaker 1 (39:22):

We should never get over our awe and wonder of God. As you leave this session, think about the ways that you and your team can approach ministry and where that deep reverence could revive your kingdom work.

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