May 20 2009
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Discipling, Personal Growth

Discipleship Among Friends – Groups of Three

Confession, prayer, accountability, godly advice, and your life’s direction.

All of these things are good – vital even, but they’re best when they’re working together. Sometimes that takes a little bit of intentionality.

I learned what I’m about to share from ACU professor Kent Smith. You might be interested in trying this out:

Find two other Christian friends of the same gender, and make a commitment to one another to meet together once a week.

Each week, each person asks these three questions of themselves to discuss with the others: 

1) What is God calling me to do?

NOTE: You will be hard pressed to find an answer to #1 if you aren’t listening. God speaks to us in many ways, and the most common one is through our own personal time we spend with Him alone in prayer and Bible study. If you’re not in the habit of spending time with God, then it could be that you’re not listening to what He’s trying to tell you. Think about it.

2) What am I going to do about it?

That is, what tangible action am I going to take to accomplish what God is calling me to do or become? 

3) How can this group help?

How can we work together to help one another accomplish what God is calling us to do in our lives?

 

This is a great thing to invite a friend to be apart of. Once you have three meeting together, encourage each other to bring more.

Once you get six people coming, multiply. Now you have two groups of three. Keep the format the same for both groups (three is a good number – six is too many for deep discussion and meaningful confession), and each time a group reaches six committed members, multiply again.

You don’t need a “leader” to start something like this – just three people willing to take it seriously.

This is a powerful, effective, and easily reproducible weekly study if the people involved take it seriously.

If you’re looking for something more, get a couple of friends together and try this.

It might just change your life.

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May 19 2009
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Devotional Thoughts, Discipling, Leadership, Personal Growth, Resources, Teaching, Theology

Notes From The Pepperdine Lectures – Brian Simmons

Notes from Brian Simmons’ keynote presentation at the 2009 Pepperdine Lectures – “The Triumph of the Cross” covering Colossians 2:8-15 – Thursday May 7, 11AM.

  • Starts out polling the audience about their fears – more people in the audience are afraid of spiders than anything else.
  • Tells a story about a college girl in a class he was teaching sitting on the front row. He noticed a spider dangling over her head during his lecture. He decided to ignore it instead of calling her attention to it and making a scene.  The spider eventually dropped down onto her head and got in her hair. Other students noticed and once someone told the girl a spider was in her hair, she jumped out of her seat and started freaking out running around pulling at her hair screaming and crying until she ran out of the room. They didn’t see her back in class that day.
  • The next time the class met, she came to the door and opened it up, and before she crossed the threshold she stuck her head in the room, looked around, and asked, “Are there any spiders today?”
  • Spider as an illustration: there are only a few spiders in the United States that can actually hurt us. Black Widows and Brown Recluses are bad, but 95% of the spiders we encounter can’t hurt us at all.  That doesn’t keep people from being afraid of them though.
  • The girl gave that tiny spider authority over her – the spider couldn’t hurt her, but the girl treated it like it could. All the power it had over her it had because she gave it power over her.
  • The same thing was going on in Colossae at the time of Paul’s writing – Christians had given authority to something small that really didn’t have any authority over them – only the authority they gave it.
  • If sin has power over us, it’s because we’ve given it power over us.
  • Christ and _______ (insert whatever you’d like) is not the gospel!
  • Tells real people’s stories he’s encountered – 1) Dan is a drug dealer who got a bunch of kids hooked on meth. Came to Jesus, but doesn’t feel forgiven, so he slipped back into his old lifestyle. 2) Mary is a woman who came to Jesus, but still struggles with doubt – doesn’t feel saved.
  • Dan and Mary don’t believe they’re saved, because they need Jesus and a feeling. That’s adding to Jesus!
  • Colossians 2:23 – people give power to things that don’t have power
  • The Cross has triumphed over the powers and authorities of this world!
  • Colossians 2:9 – Christ is so much more powerful than the thing that’s victimizing you!
  • You don’t need Christ and a “really, really, remorseful feeling.” You just need Christ!
  • Colossians 2:15 – Christ “disarms” – this word is used to describe a battlefield encounter where the victor defeats his opponent, takes his weapon, holds it over his head, and gives a victory shout. He completely dominates his opponent. That’s what Christ does to sin!
  • “In my house, I’m the spider-killer!” Tells story about his daughter screaming in the middle of the night because a spider was on her wall. He, as daddy, entered her room with a tissue, smashed the spider, wadded it up in the tissue, and triumphantly flushed it down the toilet. “I triumphed over the spider!”
  • Triumph = a complete conquest.
  • Christ has not only triumphed, but has rescued us as well! Why do people have such a hard time believing this?
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May 18 2009
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Leadership, Popular Culture, Preaching, Resources, Sermons, Teaching, Theology

Matt Dabbs: Our View of Jesus Impacts the Way We Live

Matt Dabbs wrote a good article you ought to read: How We View Jesus Impacts the Way We Live.

Yesterday, the question was, “How do you view yourself?” – today, the question is, “How do you view Jesus?”

Just like the question, “Who am I?” has profound implications for how you’ll think and behave in the world, an even more important question is, “How do you view Jesus?”

In order for your identity to be firmly rooted in Him, you need to know the real Him – not what popular culture has turned Him into!

Jesus Christ is the Son of God – the Lord and Savior of mankind and the only bridge that exists, and ever will exist, between man and God. That’s a view of Jesus rooted in the teachings of the Bible – the real view.

The secular view of Jesus is not quite the same as what I’ve just shared. Popular culture teaches that Jesus is nothing more than “a spiritual life coach” (to quote Monte Cox from the Pepperdine Lectures) no different from every other religious leader found in the history of the world.

If your view of Jesus is no different than your view of Buddha, Muhammed, Ghandi, or … the list goes on and on … then it really doesn’t matter if you decide to live a Jesus-centered life or not, because your “Jesus” isn’t real!

Living a Jesus-centered life is only a blessing to you and the rest of the world if your Jesus is the real thing – if He’s a fraud, then so is your faith!

That’s going to sound pretty tough to a lot of people, but that’s the message of the Bible, and that’s what Matt’s article caused me to think about this morning.

If you’re interested in learning more, Mark Driscoll has a couple of good sermons posted online that will help you have a biblical understanding of who Jesus is … check it out:

You may have to spit out a few bones, but Mark does a good job of breaking down theology behind what Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection mean for those who decide to follow Him.

Give it a listen!

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