“God’s Agenda”
- If you want God’s blessing on your life, then you have to get with God’s agenda. 1st line of PDL: “It’s not about you.”
- Stop praying “God, bless me.” Instead: “God, help me to do what you’re doing.”
- The Kingdom is the single biggest image in the New Testament.
- Where is it? Wherever Jesus is king… Heaven, earth, within you…
- What is it? God’s people fulfilling God’s purposes on God’s planet for God’s glory
- Cf. Matthew 25: If you want Christ to come back just get out and start sharing your faith
- The disciples always wanted to talk about prophecy and signs; Jesus wanted to talk about evangelism.
- God’s agenda is the church.
- What if someone said, “I like you but I just can’t stand your wife (or body)?”
- God created the entire universe just so He could create a galaxy just so He could create a solar system just so He could create a planet just so He could create an ecosystem… just so He could create a human that would choose to love Him and He could love the human back.
- Your parents may not have loved/wanted you, but God did, and he made sure you had the ability to love them back, and in turn love Him.
- God is a creator. You are most like God when you are creating. So stop trying to change culture. Create it.
- The Moses “Staff to Snake to Staff” story
- Why is that in the Bible?
- Hint- When God asks you a question, it’s not for His benefit.
- Likewise, when God does a miracle, it’s to teach a truth.
- Moses’ Staff
- His identification as a shepherd. Who he was
- Symbol of Moses’ income. What he had
- Symbol of Moses’ influence (over sheep :P). What he did
- Take your ID/influence/income and throw it down.
- God: “And if you surrender it to me I will make it come alive like you’ve never imagined. And every time you pick it up again, it’ll go dead.”
- From that point forward, Moses’ staff is always referred to as the Rod of God… it pops up in the 10 Commandments, the Red Sea, Pharaoh, simply all over the Pentateuch
- So: What’s in your
wallethand?
Warren’s Response to the Moses’ Staff Story
- After writing Purpose Driven Life, an AIDS trip where he accompanied his wife really turned him around.
- “What’s in my hand?” – Affluence
- I Corinthians 9 – “It’s ok to get paid for preaching, but I wanna do it for free so no one can doubt my motives.”
- Not gonna spend the money on myself
- Not gonna take a salary from the church
- Gonna give salary back for 25 years
- Gonna set up AIDS and poverty charities
- Gonna become reverse tithers (give 90%, live on 10%)
- “There’s a bumper sticker that says ‘Honk if you love Jesus!’ Well I wanna make one that says ‘Tithe if you love Jesus, any fool can honk!'”
- “What’s in my hand?” – Influence
- Psalm 72 – “Solomon’s prayer for more influence. It sounds more selfish than good ol’ Jabez! Solomon was already the wealthiest, wisest man on the planet.”
- But it’s only selfish until you read the purpose: “So that the king may help the orphaned and marginalized…”
- “I want to use my power for these people to speak up for those who have no influence.”