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Can You Trust God?

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trust

A common question that people ask is, “How do I know I can trust God?”

We talk about how to trust God when life falls apart, when the bottom falls out of a relationship, when we hit hard financial times or we get a phone call we didn’t expect.

What about just trusting God each day, whether things are good or bad?

There are promises all over the Bible about God, His character, what He will do and will not do. But how do you know those are real and will not fail?

That’s the question the apostle Paul is seeking to answer at the beginning of Romans 9.

Trusting in God is a hard thing to do, but when we do, it leads to our joy.

One of the things I often encourage people to do who struggle to trust in God is to ask themselves why they don’t trust God. What keeps you from that? Is it something you think God should have done? Is it because of a past hurt or a relationship that fell apart?

Often without realizing it, we don’t trust God not because of God but because of ourselves.

Once we are able to see why we don’t trust God and what keeps us from taking that step, we are able to deal with that.

It isn’t as simple as “just trusting God more.”

The reality, though, is all of us trust in someone or something in our lives.

We trust in people everyday.

Yet the reverse is true, and we know it to be true.

Misplaced trust does not lead to joy.

One of the things that I find most fascinating about Habakkuk chapter 3 is how Habakkuk reminds himself of how God has moved in the past. He recalls how the nation of Israel began, how God brought the nation of Israel out of slavery in the book of Exodus and gave them the 10 Commandments.

What Habakkuk is doing is reminding himself of how God has moved in the past. Often our struggle is with trusting that God will show up. Habakkuk is showing us, “God worked in the past, so I can trust He will work now and in the future.”

This doesn’t mean that God will work in the same way as the past. It doesn’t mean He will work on our timetable, but we do know He is at work.

You may be in a place where you need to remind yourself of how God has worked in the past of your life. Maybe you need to journal or make a list of things He’s done, prayers He has answered. Maybe you need to determine why you don’t trust God, what is holding you back and how to move forward in that. What things are you placing your trust in that will ultimately let you down and take away your joy instead of giving you joy?

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Bill Hybels on “The Lenses of Leadership” from Leadership Summit 2016

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leadership

I’m at the leadership summit with the team from Revolution Church. This is by far the best leadership conference of the year. So much wisdom and inspiration wrapped up into two days. I always blog my notes, so if you can’t attend or missed something, I’ve got you covered.

In session 1 Bill Hybels talked about The Lenses of Leadership. He had 4 different lenses on stage, that represented how leaders look at the world around them and the organization/team they lead: the passionate  leader, shattered lenses (which shows a leader who doesn’t know what could exist), performance lenses, and lenses with a review mirror to see what is behind you (legacy lens of leadership).

Here are some takeaways:

  • Armed with enough humility can learn from anyone and that is an enormous key to leadership.
  • Leadership is leading people from here to there.
Leadership is leading people from ‘here’ to ‘there.’ @BillHybels

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  • Leadership is moving people, energizing people.
  • Leadership is moving people to a preferred future.
  • For team members to pay the price to go from here to there, they will have to feed off the passion of their leader.
  • The highest inspiration for team members is to work for and around a passion filled leader. This is more important than money, benefits and everything else.

How does a leader get passionate?

  • Passion is derived from mountains of a beautiful dream or the depths of frustration that is going terribly wrong.
  • Have you encountered something that frustrates you? That you can’t stand anymore? That’s your dream.
  • Question to consider: How full is your passion bucket?
  • Question to consider: Whose job is it to keep your passion bucket full?

Shattered people lenses

  • Many leaders have shattered lenses who don’t know how to be emotionally healthy and creating a healthy team.
  • An organization will only be as healthy as the top leader wants it to be.
An organization will only be as healthy as the top leaders wants it to be. @BillHybels

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  • The leader can choose if the culture will be high functioning and caring.
  • Religion is all the things you do to appease a God you know you’ve disappointed.
  • What this world needs is not more pastors of churches but pastors who lead their businesses, schools and the military well.
  • The job of the leader is to destroy transactional noise. The talk that keeps people from performing well and kills morale. Transactional noise is when someone who is a jerk and gets promoted and people are mad (water cooler talk).
  • Leaders need to develop the skill of talent observation. 

The Performance Lens

  • Speed of the leader, speed of the team.
  • The leader must help the team maximize team performance.
The leader must help the team maximize team performance. @BillHybels

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  • A leader must lay out challenges and goals.
  • Team members always want to know what the leader thinks of how they are doing.
  • Don’t have too many goals because it will lead you to work in ways you aren’t proud.
  • You also can’t simply be faithful to your calling and have no goals. That’s laziness.
  • Are you thriving, healthy or underperforming as a team or organization?
Are you thriving, healthy or underperforming as a team or organization? @BillHybels

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  • It is cruel and unusual punishment for a leader not telling his team how they are doing.
It is cruel and unusual punishment for a leader not telling his team how they are doing. @BillHybels

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The Legacy Lens

  • What people remember about you when you are gone. Everyone will leave a leadership legacy.
  • Leadership is not about time, it is about energy. It is about where you spend your energy (what you think about, focus, decision making).
Leadership is not about time, it is about energy. @BillHybels

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  • Leadership can become a legal drug that other things will have a hard time competing against.
  • God never intended for our vocations to crowd out other parts of our lives.
  • When you look into the rearview mirror, do you like the legacy you are leaving behind?
When you look into the rearview mirror, do you like the legacy you are leaving behind? @BillHybels

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  • Legacies can change in an instant with a simple choice.
  • Leadership matters and it matters disproportionately.
  • Question to consider: How do you need to get better? How do you need to grow as a leader?
  • Question to consider: What is your passion? What is your dream? Are you feeding your passion? Are you keeping your vision bucket full?
  • Question to consider: How many of you have shattered people lenses? Do you know what a healthy team culture looks like? Feels like?
  • Question to consider: Do you need to slow your organization or team down? Do you let your team and organization flounder? Do people know what hill to climb? Does your team know if they’re winning?
  • Question to consider: Is your legacy one you are proud of? One your kids and spouse will be proud of?
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How to Trust God

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trust God

Maybe you still struggle with this question, “Can I trust you, God?” After all, when we sin, we are telling God we don’t think we can trust him. This is a question everyone has; in fact, it is the same question Abraham had in the Old Testament.

If you’ve grown up in church, you know the story of Abraham, and our knowledge of his story kind of takes away some of the amazingness. In Genesis 12, we have this man named Abram. He all of a sudden appears in the pages of Scripture. He is out in the desert and he hears a voice. A voice he may have heard before, but maybe not. We aren’t told. This voice, God from heaven, tells him to pack up what he has and move “to a land I will show you.”

Now picture this: Abram goes home and tells his wife Sarai that they are to pack up and go to a land that this voice (God) will show them. I always wonder what that was like. If she was like most wives, she probably asked him how long he’s been hearing this voice. Has it said other things? Did it give any directions? Any hints on what lay ahead?

No, Abram would tell her. Only that we are to start walking and stop when he says.

What God does tell Abram is that he will one day be a great nation and that all the people of the world will be blessed through him. The irony of this is that Abram has no children and is seventy-five years old.

Finally, as he walks to this land, there is a fascinating promise given to Abram in Genesis 15. Time has passed, and Abram and Sarai still do not have a child. From their perspective, they are not any closer to being a great nation than when they left their home. So Abram does what we would do. He whines to God. Complains, actually.

God takes it and is incredibly patient with Abram through this entire conversation. As Abram unloads his feelings of despair, lack of faith, anger, and hurt over his desire to be a father, but yet not having this desire met (are you beginning to see the connection between not trusting God and giving in to temptation or other sins?), God tells him to look to the heavens and number the stars. Abram can’t number the stars, as there are too many of them. “So,” God tells him, “shall your offspring be.”

God doesn’t just stop there. He tells Abram what he (God) has done. What is interesting to me is that when God gives commands in Scripture, in particular the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20, before giving a command, he reminds the people of what he has done. God is about to make a covenant, a promise with Abram, but before he does, he reminds Abram of what he has done so far. He hasn’t just led him to a new place and promised him a son; he has guided, provided, and protected him and his family.

Then and only then does God give commands or make covenants. In Exodus 20, before giving Moses the law, he reminds him, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery”(20:2). This is the foundation of the commands of God, his promise and the freedom that he provides.

In Genesis 15, after reminding Abram, he makes a covenant with Abram. We aren’t told in Scripture if Abram asked for it, but he was at least doubting and wondering if this was going to happen. He was complaining to God, as we would do. This has always been a comfort to me, that God doesn’t strike down questions in the Bible, but listens and answers them.

God tells Abram to bring him a heifer, a female goat, a ram, a turtledove, and a young pigeon. Abram did, and cut them all in half. In this time period, when two people made a covenant, they would kill the animals and cut them in half, and then they would walk through the animals, saying, “If I don’t keep my end of the covenant, may I end up like these animals.”

It was getting late and Abram fell asleep. Then God made a covenant with Abram, while he was asleep. As the sun set and it was dark, a smoking fire pot and flaming torch passed between the pieces. Abram never passed through the animals; only God did.

This is the extent to which God goes to keep his promises as our Father. He makes the promise and keeps it, even when we don’t. Even in our moments of failure, doubt, and fear, he is still strong and sure.

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How You See as a Leader

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leader

How you see as a leader, shapes everything about your leadership. If you think in steps, that’s how you evaluate the effectiveness of a ministry or sermon. If you are highly relational focused on making people feel cared for, this will shape how you see things, how you lead and evaluate things. If you are a big picture, visionary, this will affect your outlook. If you care deeply about doctrine over everything else, that will also affect how you see things. The reality is, though no leader wants to admit this, no way is the “correct” way to see things when it comes to leadership. All perspectives are needed to lead an effective church.

The Old Testament establishes three primary leadership offices for the people of Israel:

  • Prophets: God’s messengers to his people
  • Priests: Mediators who approach God on behalf of his people
  • Kings: Rulers who govern God’s people

In the New Testament, we see that Jesus perfectly fulfills each of these offices. He is our final and authoritative Prophet (John 1:1). He is our Great High Priest (1 Peter 5:4). And he is the conquering King of kings (1 Timothy 6:15).

Do you feel like your role is a mismatch for your talents?

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The prophet is the Bible guy (I’m using guy because it is shorter, women have the same lenses). When a prophet reads the Bible, they ask, “What does this tell me about God?” They love verses, mission, doctrine, theology. All they need is a verse for it to be true. They don’t need feelings, just a verse. For them, it is all about the mission and truth. This person will often post things about their beliefs on social media, whether it is about vaccines, theology, gay marriage, abortion, being gospel centered, etc. They seek to argue people into the kingdom of God.

The priest is the relational guy. When a priest reads the Bible they ask, “How does this passage make me feel?” They are all about shepherding, relationships, making sure everyone is cared for. They are on the lookout to make sure everyone is connected, feels loved, wanted. They want to make sure no one falls through the cracks. This person can often sacrifice truth in the name of keeping a relationship. Willing people to continue sinning in hopes they will turn around from more time spent together. Priests often find themselves wasting time in meetings or counseling sessions that never seem to end.

The king is the systems and organizational guy. When a king reads the Bible they ask, “What does this make me want to do?” They want steps. They love excel, spreadsheets, things that add up, budgets. They want systems to care for people, systems to move people from one place to the other. They want to be organized and they want the churches they are a part of to be organized. Most churches aren’t sure what to do with kings.

Do you wish you could use all your talents in your job?

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What often happens is if you have a priest leading the church, they will be intimidated by the kings because they are more efficient. They will struggle with prophets because prophets have a clear picture of the future. Kings will get frustrated with prophets because they can’t ever get to their vision, only cast it. They will also get frustrated at a prophet preaching because there will never be any steps. Prophets will often say what the bible says and sit down, “letting the holy spirit do the work.” Prophets will get frustrated with kings because “they don’t get it” and want to talk about how a church will get there, so a prophet always wonders if a king is on board. A prophet gets frustrated at a priest because they keep talking about people who need help or haven’t bought in and are slowing the church down.

Which one is right?

All of them. They are all needed on a leadership team and to help a church become who God calls it to be.

How to succeed as a leader.

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When You Manipulate Your Husband, You Lose Him

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Manipulate your Husband

Over time in a relationship, couples fall into typical roles. They learn how to push each other’s buttons. They learn how to control the other, how to manipulate situations to get what they want and ultimately, how to win. This might be through force, silent treatment, being on edge, yelling, withholding sex, controlling the money or the schedule.

Men do this. Women do this.

I’ll post another time about how men do this, but for today, I want to focus on how many wives manipulate their husband and the consequences of that manipulation.

I remember preaching a series through the life of Samson at Revolution Church and while the series is geared towards men, there is a ton in it for women. Like this:

And in three days they could not solve the riddle. On the fourth day they said to Samson’s wife, “Entice your husband to tell us what the riddle is, lest we burn you and your father’s house with fire. Have you invited us here to impoverish us?” And Samson’s wife wept over him and said, “You only hate me; you do not love me. You have put a riddle to my people, and you have not told me what it is.” And he said to her, “Behold, I have not told my father nor my mother, and shall I tell you?” She wept before him the seven days that their feast lasted, and on the seventh day he told her, because she pressed him hard. Then she told the riddle to her people. -Judges 14:14b – 17

Samson tells a riddle to the Philistines, who are ruling over the nation of Israel. He makes a bet that they can’t figure it out.

They can’t.

So, the Philistines go to Samson’s Philistine fiance and tell her to find out the answer, so they don’t look foolish.

This passage shows a few things about men and women and their default sins under stress. Samson wants to win at all costs. Samson wants to avoid looking foolish at all costs.

His fiance makes the go to move that every woman uses, and uses a lot in marriage, manipulation. 

She wept before Samson for 7 days. She nagged, complained, gave him the silent treatment.

And in the end, she won.

But she lost Samson.

Every time you manipulate your husband, you lose him. 

Every time you manipulate your husband, you lose a little piece of him.

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You may not lose him to divorce, but you lose a piece of him. Trust is damaged. He begins to wonder if you are just using him. He begins to wonder if you have his best interest at heart or if you are out for yourself, your kids or someone else (maybe your mother, his mother-in-law). He wonders if you will fight for your marriage. He wonders what will happen the next time you don’t get your way.

It might be you stop talking to him, stop responding to him sexually, withhold information, give him cold stares, talk in passive aggressive tones, make snide remarks towards him.

Men will acquiesce all kinds of things for peace and the path of less resistance.

So, while many women “win” and get their way through manipulation, much like Samson’s fiance. They lose their husband and a piece of their marriage every time.

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6 Ways to Bring the Gospel into Your Parenting

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parent

In parenting, as in all of life, the goal of what you are trying to accomplish matters. It will dictate the decisions you make, how you spend your money and time, what you emphasize and ultimately, if you succeed or fail.

Too many parents, especially those in the church, have the wrong goal. Their parenting is not unique. What does that mean? It means, if you are a follower of Jesus, you should have a different goal and parent differently from those who don’t follow Jesus. Ask this, can you accomplish the goals for parenting or your kids without Jesus? Your kids can be successful, healthy, moral, marry well, have good values, and do all of that without Jesus.

Elyse Fitzpatrick said,

“Most parents who attend church want what most of parents want for our children. Jesus or no Jesus, we just want them to obey, be polite, not curse or look at pornography, get good jobs, marry a nice person, and not get caught up in the really bad stuff. It may come as a surprise to you, but God wants much more for your children, and you should too. God wants them to get the gospel. And this means that parents are responsible to teach them about the drastic, uncontrollable nature of amazing grace.”

Paul tells parents they need to expect their kids to obey, to honor them and to respect them. Many parents do not have this expectation. Whenever I hear a parent count to their child, they communicate, I don’t expect you to listen to me the first time. When I get to 3 will suffice. As kids get older and become teenagers, many parents let their guard down and don’t expect them to speak respectfully. It is easier to let them get away with it than put up the fight. I understand the weariness of parenting, but if God gave you children, it is time to step up to the plate.

Paul ends this section by letting us in on how to raise kids that are respectful and obedient. By discipline and instruction in the Lord. Whenever he uses the phrasing he uses in vs. 4, he is speaking about the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. He is calling parents to bring the gospel into their parenting, on all occasions  whenever possible.

The word for discipline, means to “nurture, educate, or train,” and the word for instruction, means “calling attention to” or “mild rebuke,” “correction,” or “warning.”

In other words, Paul is saying that the way Christian parents are to bring children up is by nurturing, correcting, and training them in the truth of or about Jesus Christ. Paul is telling parents to daily proclaim the message about Jesus to their children and to warn or rebuke them when they forget to live in the light of what Jesus had already done. He was telling them to tether every aspect of their parenting to the gospel message.

Here are 6 ways to bring the gospel into your parenting:

6 ways to bring the gospel into your parenting.

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  1. To bring the gospel to your kids, you must be changed by the gospel. If you aren’t changed by the gospel, you won’t be able to communicate the gospel to your kids. You won’t see your need for it, their need for it. You won’t see how great and mighty and all encompassing the gospel is.
  2. A culture of the gospel. Every house, family and business has a culture. A culture is how things happen without discussion. Does the gospel influence everything that you do as a family, as a parent? Does it dictate your finances, your time, rules, entertainment?
  3. Plan to bring the gospel into your home. What is your plan to teach your kids Scripture? When will you personally open the Bible? When will you do it with your kids? What will you study? For our family, we use a mixture of The New City Catechism and the Train Up questions from Revolution. Our MC uses the Train Up questions each week with the kids. We write the question and answer of the week in our kitchen and refer to it throughout the week and discuss at dinner as a family. For more on this, read Family driven faith. 
  4. Make time. The quality time argument is a myth. Your kids don’t need or want quality time, they want quantity. A big difference. Make time for daddy dates, family meal time. You may have to give up some hobbies as a parent. I haven’t golfed in 7 years. I’ll retire one day and golf then and I’ll be terrible at it. Studies show, kids who have regular meals with their parents are less likely to do drugs, smoke, have sex, run with the wrong crowd, and they get better grades.
  5. Don’t sacrifice the mission field in front of you. This argument often comes up in the discussion of a mom working. I’ve had mom’s tell me, “At work, there are so many people who don’t know Jesus, God has placed me there.” Each one who told me that then sent their kids off to have someone else raise them in daycare. What they did, while sounding noble, “living on mission at work”, they sacrificed the first mission field God gave them: their kids.
  6. Bring the gospel into conversations when your children sin. When your child sins, talk to them about it. Ask why they did that? What is controlling them? Ask your teenager why they wear that? What does that communicate about their self-image, how they believe God made them? Ask until you get an answer. Then, seek ways to bring the gospel into that. Talk about how because of Jesus we are approved, we don’t need to control things, we don’t need to be the most important. When you punish them, don’t walk away. Remind them of your love, of God’s grace and how Jesus took our punishment but there are still consequences. For more on this, read Give them grace. 
6 ways to bring the gospel into your parenting.

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The Details of God

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exodus

Katie and I are reading through the Bible right now and I just got done with Exodus and I’m moving into Leviticus.

One of the things that blew me away in Exodus are the details of God. While Exodus is a great story of how big and powerful God is, a great reminder about how God rescues us and redeems us.

Exodus shows the details to which God goes to redeem us. The details of the plagues, the provision of Israel in the wilderness. The details of the sacrifices and worship. Everything has been thought through.

It is a great reminder to me of how important all the things, big and small, in my life are to God. There is no detail too small, no detail that’s unimportant.

It also shows what God redeems us from. This past week, I preached on how the gospel frees us from our past, old ways of thinking and feeling. In Exodus, God goes to great length to show Israel that they are a new people, a redeemed people, his people. The passover is a great picture of this, the details that God gives them on how to eat, when, how quickly, etc. Showing them, you have a new identity, a new way.

Exodus also shows us how quickly the Israelites forget who God is, who they are, what God has rescued them from, what he has done for them and in them, and how quickly they fall back into old ways of thinking, feeling and believing. They complain more than almost anyone else in the Bible it seems. On and on they go, whining about how slavery is better than freedom.

I wonder if when we sin and fall into old ways of thinking, we are like the nation of Israelites. My old body image, my old goals and dreams, my old way of looking and thinking about money, marriage, sex, career, kids are better than a new way that’s formed in the gospel.