DEC 27 2015 | Conflict, Relationship and the Kingdom

Sea Change Church · "Conflict, Relationship and the Kingdom" · Adam Stadtmiller · December 27, 2015
Acts 6:1-7
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

Let me read. In those days when the number of disciples was increasing, underline that, in those days there was a movement of God's Spirit, the Hellenistic Jews among them complained against the Hebraic Jews because their widows were being overlooked. Two groups of Jewish people from different parts of the world having a disagreement at the location of the first church in Jerusalem.

They had heard what was going on. They had all come together. They were attending this one church. And all of a sudden there was a problem. The widows were being overlooked. We know that the scripture in James says true religion is what? To look after widows and orphans. If you don't know what to do with your spiritual life and you're a little bit concerned that you're not living right for God, just go help some widows and some orphans.

It'll get you back on track. In their daily distribution of the food. So the twelve gathered all the disciples together and said, It would not be right for us to neglect the ministry of the Word of God in order to wait on tables. They knew what they were built for. Brothers and sisters, choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the Spirit.

Circle that. Full of the Spirit. And wisdom. It begs the question, can there be a half filling of the Spirit? Can there be a three quarters, a two thirds, a twenty percent? This says they want to be full of the Spirit. And what does that mean? And wisdom. I know a lot of people that are full of the Spirit that have no wisdom. And I believe you can have two.

And I believe one of the things that the first church shows is that they had an amount of impact and infusion of the Holy Spirit that is almost unmeasured. Or it was eternal, so it was unmeasured. But they knew how to shepherd the anointing of the Holy Spirit. Shepherd. If you don't shepherd the anointing of the Holy Spirit, you can oftentimes get into excess.

We will turn this responsibility over to them. The responsibility. I talked earlier about our members having responsibility in the church. And it will give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the Word. I love that. The proposal pleased the whole group. Good. We're back to unity. They chose Stephan, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit.

So now he not only had wisdom, but it mentions that he also has what? Faith. What if you had that three, just that three, those three components in your bat belt? I mean, in your spiritual bat belt. What if you had those? What if you had faith? Like really strong faith that you believed that your hope and your faith were bigger than the problem that faced you.

That's all we want. One percent more faith and hope than the problem that faces us. And if you had a fullness of the Holy Spirit. Like you just felt empowered. You experienced it. And some of you might be asking, well, what does that mean? We'll talk about that in January as I talk about spiritual gifts in January. Move into a little season. We take a break from Acts.

Full of faith in the Holy Spirit and wisdom was the other component. Wisdom. Wisdom. You know who the wisest man of all time was the Bible ever said? Solomon. You want to know the problem with Solomon at the end of his life? Didn't follow his wisdom. Didn't follow his wisdom. Took on women from other nations and started following after false gods.

Hey, it's incredible to be wise. You need some discipline with your wisdom. It's great. You can be the wisest person in the world. And if you don't have the discipline to follow your wisdom, what is wisdom good for? So wisdom takes a little bit of self-propelling in the direction of faithfulness and discipline. And it said they were faith full of the Holy Spirit and Philip Prochorus.

I haven't heard him too much. Nincanor. Timon. Parmenas. Let me try this one. Everybody want to try that name? Parmenas. And Nicholas and Antioch, a convert to Judaism, which means he was a Gentile that became a Jew. Now, this is interesting because we had a blending not only of different sects of the Jewish people, but also Gentiles mixing in. I've got to say, when you have, you know, they wouldn't even spend any time with Gentiles before this.

They were supposed to be separate from them. Now they were eating and worshiping with them. I want to say there was no church problem in regard to theology, and I mean theology that is above-board theology. I'm not talking about people that are off base completely about things to do with Christ, that we can't figure out if they can figure this out.

I think Charismatics, Pentecostals, cessationists, we can all, if they can get together, the Jews and the Gentiles, can we not find unity? What is so spectacular, what is so fantastic about this first church is that they were able to find unity in the midst of their diversity, and Jesus Christ was Lord. They were able to work out their grievances and their differences.

In verse 6, they presented these men to the apostles. Who presented them? Bueller? Not the elders, not the 12. No. No. The seven ones that got presented. They were like in Bible class back at, when I was back at Azusa in Point Loma. Who gave them? The disciples. Who were the disciples? Everyone that was in the church. All the disciples. They were considered disciples.

Now you remember that the disciples became, the 12 disciples became what? They had a new name after the Holy Spirit came. Apostles. Everyone else became disciples. Now Jesus mentions disciples, and the scripture mentions disciples. In the four gospels many times, and he sent out the 150. He sent out the 72. Was it 72? Right. He sent out the 72. These were all disciples.

So the apostles got together, and they said, hey congregation, go figure it out. And then the congregation came back. They took congregational responsibility. Write that down. Congregational responsibility. That makes a pastor sleep good at night. When a church understands that they have a thing called congregational responsibility. And the other thing is that the elders and the apostles, they trusted the congregation.

They trusted. And there was an ebb and flow of leadership. We're a congregational church. That's the way in which we try to work. That's why we have things like membership and voting. So we can say to you, hey, go figure it out and get back to us with what you think. So it says that they saw this, and it says they presented these men to the apostles.

The apostles obviously agreed with their decision. Don't you? Just imagine what it would be like for a pastor if you could just tell the congregation, hey, these are the needs. Could you please go figure a great solution out? They come back with a solution as opposed to a problem, and you're able to say, that is a fantastic solution. Let's pray.

Let's bless this. Kick this thing out the door and get it going. That's how church should work. That is so phenomenal. It is so beautiful. Let me just, one of the things that I love is when people come to me, not with just a problem, and it's okay to come with me with problems because we get stuck, but when people come to me with a solution. I recently had one of the staff members come in, and they said, well, we got this and this and this thing going on.

And I said, what I need you to do is come back to me in an hour with a solution. I got enough problems. I didn't say it that way. I'm just telling you now. I got enough problems. We have a talented staff. Seriously, I think we have one of the most talented staffs that I've seen. We are talented. We are gifted. I said, go out, figure it out, and come back in an hour.

You know how long it took him to come back? Ten minutes. With a solution. I said, that sounds great. I gave a couple input, a little bit of input on the solution. Now go do it and make it happen. Work in your area of calling. Do you see how the church works like that? I think one of the ways congregations are being shortchanged today is the whole church becomes a show.

We put on a really good show, and it becomes transactional church. That you come, you give us your money, you applaud when we have someone on stage, we give you the best of the best with everything we do. We wow you with smoke machines or whatever the thing is, and we make it all happen. And we come and we put on a show. You're happy. The bathrooms are clean.

The kids are safe. They come home with a picture, and you go home and say, I went to church and it was awesome. I see that a lot. I see that it's like we're trying to create something that you could never recreate on your own. And what I want to do is I want to work with the congregation. I want to have a breathing. You know why? Because we're limited as a staff.

The elders are limited. Kai and Bev, I can't believe how much you guys do, and Zach as right, and Zach. Right, Zach? They can only do so much unless some people come alongside them and say, we want to be a part of it. And I want to invite you into that. What I like is that I'm sure they didn't bless everything that came to their door, but on this thing they said, go figure it out, and we will bless it.

And it says, so they prayed and laid hands on them, and they kicked that idea out the door, and there was unity. That's my paraphrase. Seven, so the word of God did what? Spread. Spread. So the result, the result of this conflict was what? The proclamation and the expansion of the kingdom. Where do you see that? Where do you, how often do you see when a conflict is turned in to the expansion of God's kingdom in the world?

Let me assure you that every conflict in a church, every conflict in your life, every conflict in your business, every conflict has a platform and the ability to expand God's kingdom. If you can, with the other people, choose to step into that. And even if the other person chooses not to step into it, if you step into a conflict with God's grace and with his power and with prayer, and leaning more on him than on your own things, I want to say the kingdom will be expanded at least, at least in your heart.

Expand the kingdom. Confirm. Conflict is an opportunity for grace. Conflict is an opportunity. It's always an opportunity to become more like God because God is unified in everything that he does. And that's why God loves unity. Loves it. Why does God hate divorce? Because it's antithetical to who he is. God is completely unified. Why does he say that?

He hates anything that is not of him. And so unity, when he sees unity in a church, when he sees unity in a relationship, when he sees unity even in your own thinking, because we need to be unified, not just what I want, but what I want and what I will actually do, those are two things. What you want for your life and what you do. Having wisdom and the ability to follow the wisdom is a unified thinking.

When God sees unity, he not only steps into it, he indwells it because he has to, because he is unified and unity is at the very nature of God. Fight for unity. Fight for it. Don't lay down and give away the keys to the kingdom for something that's wrong for the sake of unity. Always balance. But fight for unity. And where there is unity, in Psalms 1, it's either 31 or 33, it says God commands what?

Right. Where there is unity. God, not only, he doesn't whisper a blessing. What does it say that he does, Kai? Commands a blessing. Do you want to be blessed? Have unity. What I love about our unity for community group that has been meeting here on Friday nights, they are actually going to be stopping meeting on Friday nights, and they're going to be enfolding into our church as we start our new Sunday night worship expression.

I'm going to call it that. Here on Sunday. I know my wife's like looking at me funny. That's what you call it. We're going to be exploring the space of worship on Sunday nights. I love that they're called unity for community, but when they had to make the decision of what they were going to do as a group behind the scenes, they fought for unity and they have it.

I love watching that. I love our church. And I feel like we are in a season of unity. And I feel like out of Zechariah, the Lord said to me two years ago when I came, and it was interesting because last night in the Daily Audio Bible, he read this scripture. He said, I give you a staff to shepherd these people of unity and favor. Now, it didn't end up going that way for that time back then, but I felt like that's what the Lord said to me.

He says, I want to give you unity and I want to give you favor. And you can go a long way in the kingdom with unity and favor. And we are seeing a unified church. We have our conflicts and our issues, but we've been unified and we've stayed together unified. So it's a God's word spread. And the number of disciples in Jerusalem increased how? Rapidly.

Muy rapido. And a large number of, now this is powerful because once again, remember a few Sundays ago, I mentioned that no one else was willing to join them. And it was pointing to the Jewish priests, the rabbis, none of the elite, the intelligentsia of the Hebraic community at the time were willing to join them. But now, and there was a roadblock that stopped it.

And I will say that the enemy will often put roadblocks in the way of your purpose and your calling and the thing God has built for you to do. And the key is finding the key to unlock those things. And God allows that sometimes because He wants us to grow in maturity. Oftentimes, we just want to lay down and give up when there's some pushback.

When there was some, like I said last week, resistance. Now, I say if you have resistance in your life and you've prayed, try fasting with your prayer. And if that doesn't work, try some worship. If that doesn't work, try forgiveness. Just keep experimenting with God. These things are these massive walls in your life. Just explore, let me say it again, explore the space with God.

No one's stopping you. You know, well, I prayed, I prayed. Well, Jesus said these kind of demons only come out through prayer and what? Fasting. He said, I want you to explore the space. Try worship. Try the next thing. Don't try just one thing and quit. Attack. Stand. Be patient. Just find something you haven't tried before and dedicate it to God. The scripture says, commit all your ways to Him and He will what?

Direct your path or cause them, it does say that, and cause them to succeed. Now, recently, I've been committing my free throw shooting in my basketball league to the Lord. And I'm shooting much better from the free throw line because I've not been against it. It's true. It is totally true. I know this sounds foolish to you, but I am a horrible free throw shooter.

And it's embarrassing to look like Shaq when I don't have the rest of Shaq's game, okay, back in the day. So I committed to the Lord. And the Lord told me, I just felt like this hymn to say into my heart, why don't you have fun when you're shooting your free throws? Free throws is fun. And I thought, because there was all this pressure and stress, you know, everybody's looking.

I thought, I'm going to have fun. I just, poof, poof. Now my free, I'm probably shooting 65, 70% from 40, okay? So that's awesome. It's not as embarrassing. No one cares. You're just looking at me, okay? I was in a season, by the way, I was in a season of not hashtag winning. I've been in a season of losing. My eight-year-old's soccer team, Lucy, Lucy's the small one.

She's the one that was on the soccer team. They want you to know that because Lily says, people keep asking me how my soccer team went. She's not on the soccer team. Small one. We won one game all season, okay? Right, right, woo, woo, woo, woo. My basketball team at the Y, goose egg, zero wins all season that I'm on, okay? Okay? The Chargers, horrible.

My team. Chelsea football, horrible, Pauly. Getting relegated. Probably going to get relegated. Well, maybe it'll get relegated down to the lower ranks. The Lakers, horrible. Everything I touch right now is not turning to gold. If you added up all the wins of all the things I like and have been involved in over the last six months, it still wouldn't get the Chargers to the playoffs.

Like, it's not a good season of winning. This church was moving. We'll get back on it. This church was growing and rapidly and a large number of priests. There was a breakthrough. The priests were coming to the Lord. That's powerful. Because the gospel goes first to who? The Jews. And then where? Gentiles. It is a, God's heart is for who he promised it to first and for us equally.

There is no division of his heart in how much he loves the Jews versus the Gentiles. But there is an order based on the way he decided to do things. And so it goes to the Jews first. And so the enemy always wants to stop the plans of God. And so he will attack God's plan. And he desperately does not want Jewish people to come to know Christ. I want to say one of the things with the church is we see a lot of Zionism.

You know, the church is very excited about Israel becoming a nation. What I want to say is what's close to God's heart is Israel coming to know who Jesus the Messiah is. That's the key. The nation thing is going to happen if you believe in prophecy, by the way. You can bless it and everything. But whether people get saved or not, according to what I believe in free will of God, is really up to prayer and God's spirit and caring for those people.

And so we see a breakthrough here that the Jewish leaders were beginning to follow God. Now this shook, as you will see, the core of the other Jewish leaders that did not. And they began to persecute them. A large number of priests became obedient to the faith. This is a story, as you'll see in your notes, about conflict, unity, leadership, congregational responsibility, and kingdom growth.

It's a great story. Let me say it again. This is a story about conflict. It's a story about unity, about leadership, about responsibility, and kingdom growth. Sounds a lot like our lives. You see, your life is about a lot of things, and it is about conflict. If you live with people, you're going to have conflict. Churches have conflict. I've never been afraid of conflict.

Never. But I've always sought to find resolution to that conflict and expand the kingdom. First thing we see, it says in verse 1, In those days. In those days. Now this passage, this phrase has been said before a few times in the book of Acts. Talking about what was happening then. And one of the things that we see as a pattern in the book of Acts, and you'll probably experience it in your life, is whenever you take spiritual ground, whenever you take ground in your life spiritually, there will usually be a counterattack.

And we see an ebb and flow. If you were to read through these first six chapters, you will see the kingdom of God was expanding. Many people were coming to faith. And then it says the Jewish leaders got jealous, and they threatened them. They not only threatened them, they severely threatened them, whatever that means. They threatened them because one threat wasn't good enough.

And it says that they were under persecution. And instead, their answer was to go back out and preach some more. And it says that the kingdom was expanded. And then after that, they gathered up all the apostles, and they put them in jail. And it says, so after that, there was another persecution. This time, they said they're going to put them in jail.

They're going to make good on their threats. And it says that an angel let them out of jail. And where did they go right back to? They went back to preaching. And last week, I said they were preaching the word of what? Does anyone remember what they were preaching? Life. It says that they went out and they spoke life. And I encouraged you last week to live life.

I want to live life. You know? It's like there is a life is bursting upon the scene all around you. And we can enter into it if we choose with the grace of God. There's flowers. There's wind on your face. There's love. There's the singing of children. And there's also this death machine that is churning out around the world as well. And we can tune into that if we want.

But we can also step into another reality that is happening at the same time. And so we see that there is a conflict here. And there's an ebb and flow. And whenever you take ground, opposition will happen. And if you have taken ground or chosen to take ground spiritually in the last few weeks, be prepared for a counterattack. One of the things I regularly do, and you might want to do this as well, is when I take ground and I know that things are happening spiritually, I pray against any attack of the enemy.

I believe in demons. The scriptures speak it's about demons. It talks about hierarchy. It talks about warfare. It talks about organized, strategic decisions by the enemy to attack your life. I pray confusion into those plans. Say, God, somebody did that for me one time. Carrie and I went up to this deliverance thing where they prayed over a bunch of stuff.

And then after the thing, they said, Lord, we pray confusion into the ranks of the enemy that they would be confused and angry and upset with each other. And I don't know how all those demonic relationships work. C.S. Lewis talks about it a little bit in the screw tape letters. But he says, I pray confusion into their ranks, that there would be bickering and upsetness and anger.

And I thought, that's a cool thing to do. I want to do that. I want some of that. And so that's one of the things that I pray. And as this church, we pray that on a regular basis in our Tuesday afternoon prayer. Prayer time that you were invited to if you can make it at your lunch, 12 o'clock. When I was in my first day of seminary, I remember we spoke about one thing, and it was conflict.

And let me just read this real quick on your notes. It says, every conflict has the potential to end in the death of something. Let me say that again. Going back to conflict. Every conflict that you have, ultimately, confliction, is that a word? If it isn't, you know what I mean. The final place of ultimate of all conflicts is war and death. You see, the path of any conflict, whether you're bickering, whether you're upset with somebody on the road when they cut you off, whatever it is, if you run any conflict to its full bloom, it will end in death.

There is a conflict. And so that is, you see that in Scripture. There was a conflict in heaven. I read the beginning of the Cimmerillion this week by Tolkien, and he talks about the creation of elves and this whole thing, but it's all based on the story of Christ. And he talked about how the enemy, Satan, he didn't call him Satan in the thing, began to, was into music, and he began to play songs of discord.

And the angels around him heard the song of discord. This is not Scripture. This is a fantasy novel, but I like it. They began to become influenced by his discord. And that discord has led to death. It began with a thought, with Satan. It began with a thought. But I don't like that Jesus or God is getting all the glory, and I want it. It began with a thought.

And in that thought was an intersection. And I want to say with every conflict, with every thought, there is an intersection in your mind of which way you can go. Perhaps for a married woman or man, it's like, isn't that guy, isn't that girl, isn't she nice? They're really nice. And sometimes that thought goes to the next thought, to the next thought, until it leads in the death of a family.

It says right here that every, realize this, conflict is poison. Conflict is spiritually nuclear in a negative direction. Conflict is death. And the more conflict you have in your home, the more you have in your own heart, the more conflicted you're in, even in your own heart, in your own being, the more it can lead and is trying to pull you to death.

Now, you might be fighting with everything within you not to get there, but conflict leads to death. Every conflict. And so this conflict about who was going to feed the widows was meant to lead to death of this church. And every conflict can do that. Whenever a conflict comes across my desk or across my text or across my email or anything else, I always look at it with those eyes.

And let me tell you why. Earl Grant, great missionary pastor, first day of seminary. Had gone to Bible college, had finished. I was sitting up at Horizon. We were doing the campus here for my first seminary class. And Earl, we call him Earl the Pearl because he had all these pearls of wisdom. Earl the Pearl. Was a guy back in Africa, rode camels to go take the gospel to Arab nations back in the day.

I mean, just cool stories like that. And he got up and he said, he stood up in front of the class. He goes, I'm going to tell you one thing. And it is the most important thing you will ever need to know in ministry. I'm in the first class. I'm like, okay. First day. I'm ready to go. Give me this thing. He said, conflict resolution is the key to longevity in ministry.

That's what he said. Conflict resolution is the key to longevity in ministry. He says, if you cannot help individuals, help a church to manage their way through conflicts, he says, you will not have a long standing ministry. I never forgot that. I made that the building block for everything I've ever done. And I will say to this point, and I have people that have been with me for 15 years or 10 years at other churches.

I have never had a major, God willing, and I pray it continues on. I've never had a split or a major conflict in my ministry. I don't say that bragging or anything. I've just fought for unity. Fought. I've had some upsetnesses with people, had some things, but for some reason we've always been able to work it out. And I don't even know the secret sauce to that other than being committed to it.

Not willing to give up the truth for those things, but doing that. And as a church, that's where I want to lead our church. And if you're a part of this church, you've seen we've had our little things. We have a food ministry. We have different things that can blow up. We have missions and children's ministries, and we have all these things. But we're navigating our way through the minefield of discord in order to find unity.

It is so important for a church if the kingdom is going to spread unity. Unity. Conflict resolution is the key to longevity in relationships. And here unity was threatened. Now in Acts 4, it makes a powerful statement that I think would be hard to do at any church. Acts 4, let's go back. It's on your notes. All the believers. How many? All. When the scripture says all, how many does it mean?

Right. Does it mean some? Mostly? A few? No. It means all. All of the believers were of one in heart and mind. Imagine the power of that. Just in a church our size. Imagine if everyone in this building was of one heart and mind. We all had a similar passion, desire for God's kingdom, for his unity, for his peace. I think we're getting there, to tell you the truth.

But imagine that. Do you ever imagine what a church could look like? No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything that they had. Now why did they do this? One of the reasons they became a commune is because they believed, like many do today, that Jesus was coming back immediately. One of the things that drove them into communal living was because they believed that Jesus probably was going to come, like, in the next year, two years, five years, ten.

What was a real test of their faith is when Jesus didn't come back right when they thought he would. Even some scholars have argued that when Paul says, hey, don't get married, it's better off that you remain single. Why? Because Jesus is coming anyways. It doesn't really matter. There was this thought that Jesus was coming back. And so imagine that they were living in this context.

Let's just live all together. Well, pretty soon it's been a year, two years, six years, nine years. How do you continue on in that? And I wonder if as many of them would have signed up for that in the beginning. Who knows? But this is what some scholars think, and I believe it. But because of this communal living, they were all having to depend on one another.

And it says the widows were being overlooked, a result of living communally. We see that one of the things that we see, though, is true. Growing churches, and this is true for all growing churches, and we're a growing church. Growing churches, as you'll see, give plenty of opportunity for conflict. Your cheese is going to get moved if you're at it, right?

Right? Now, I want to say what has been interesting to me is in the almost, we're going on two, it'll be two years in March. Wow. I remember I got the phone call that I had gotten the job two years, I think, I don't know, it was like mid-December, two years ago. I was like, where did that two years go? One thing I'll say is I have never gotten an email, and no one has ever said this to me here.

And this shows a mature congregation. We never used to do it that way. To this day, no one has ever said that to me. Now, my friends, when I took the church over, were warning me of all the, hey, you know, you're going to get, hey, we don't do it that way. And I've seen other friends go into churches that had a lot of maturity in one direction, and they've had to just battle.

I've never had to do that here. I walked into a system that was custom built for who God had built me to be. We were built for each, we were meant for each other, congregation. I mean, I think it's true. It's not that I don't understand my weaknesses. It's just a good match. It's a good hug. It's a good handshake. What I've told people is when they ask me about this church, this is what I said.

The church, imagine it like plumbing. Like, it had the best plumbing, and the water pressure was amazing. All they needed was a spigot. All I am is a little spigot. That's all I am. It's just one little tool. But how important, has you ever gone to go get a drink of water on a thing, and there's nothing to turn the water on? Then just a little spigot.

That's all I got to be, a little useful tool. But when we work together, God is beginning to move in really deep and powerful ways. And I'm happy just to be that little thing you find on the utility aisle. It says, growing churches give plenty of opportunity for conflict. I want to say, mature churches, and I want to say, mature congregations know what to go to the wall for.

I want to say, there's very few things I will go to the wall for. Very few things. And that has proven a huge spiritual weapon in a positive direction. Knowing what to go to the wall for. What you will give up. And being willing and patient to wait for things. And I find that the congregation, you guys as well, are willing to do those things. That there is an opportunity for conflict.

And churches, if you're going to have a growing church and be unified, you don't have to be unanimous. Does that make sense? Somebody said to me recently, you don't have to have a unanimous decision to be unified. That's true. Can you stay somewhere where you don't agree with everything? Do you have the ability to say, you know what? I wouldn't do it that way, but I trust that person.

Or I trust that ministry leader. Or I trust that person. And I'm willing to go for the greater good. The more people you get in a congregation to do that, the more kingdom expansion you're going to see. It's having short toes. It's not being tethered to your own opinions. In bondage to your own opinions. One thing I have to regularly detoxify myself is from my own opinions.

We can become toxic in our own opinions. This is what I think. This is how it should work. This is what I should do. To get back and to take my opinions and take them before God. Whether it be about your family. Whether it be about your marital relationship. Your business. Your finance. Whatever it is. Syria. Any of the things that are in the news. And you take them before God.

And you say, God, what's your opinion on this? That is spiritual money. That you go before the Lord and you say, when you start feeling something really strong. Unless it's a passion for God. Or a desire to worship. Be really careful with the opinions that you feel really, really strongly about. I don't think there's many opinions we need to feel very strongly about.

I think there's some. But I find myself getting when I turn on news or the things that my, you know, Facebook feeds me and the news feed. It's just all built to cause you to polarize. Because polarization brings clicks and clicks bring financial revenue. And so I have to go to the Lord and say, Lord, what do you want to do with this opinion? And recently I found my heart towards this one issue getting harder and harder and harder.

And then all of a sudden these verses started showing up in the scripture about that issue. I'm like, why does that keep coming up? And then somebody mentioned it. And then pretty soon God had just inculcated my life with this issue. But in the opposite direction of my opinion. That was bothering me. Because I have opinions. God needs to know them and honor them.

Thank you, Ellen. What opinions are you in bondage to? Are you in bondage to any opinion? And what does God think about that opinion? That's powerful. And in church, I need to do that. The elders need to do that. The congregation needs to do that. The ministry that you think is most important. Whatever the issue is. Can you take it before the Lord and come together in unity?

And so far we've proven we have proven to do that. Unity is a two-way street between the leadership and the people, right? I can't keep unity on my own. We have to do it together. This is one way to do it. Filter your opinions before Jesus. Filter your opinions. I love this. The apostles, as we come in for a landing. The apostles present a kingdom advancing solution.

Great. If a church is to have radical kingdom advancement, it must empower those it leads. Let me read that again. Matter of fact, you read that again. I empowered you. Look. Let's read it together. Hey, there we go. Watch this. Let's do it together. If a church is to have radical kingdom advancement, it must empower those it leads. This is what the apostles said.

They came with a problem to the apostles. And they said, okay, I got an idea. We have an idea. Be the answer to that problem. Go figure it out. Be the answer. Become the answer to the problem. If you see things at this church that need help, if you see things beyond this church in the community that need to be changed, the model recently has become, come to the eldership and say, hey, can you guys fix this?

Fix this or leave the church and find a church that is doing it because they're doing the thing that you want them to do? What these apostles said was, hey, go figure it out. You go find the people. You go make the plan. You come back and we will bless it. They gave, they empowered the congregation. I want to say we want to be a congregationally empowering church.

If you see an issue, the windows are dirty in the fellowship hall and you don't like dirty windows, show up on Tuesday with a wash bucket and wash the windows. Whatever your thing is, be willing to serve. I want to share this story. Somebody, we have a lot of people that gather around the buildings, but somebody came and used the children's area for a restroom.

And it wasn't an easy, well, just leave it at that. It wasn't an easy clean. We'll just leave it at that. And everybody's like, whoa, what happened here? And I understand that. And, you know, the first thing I did was I was angry. And then I thought, you know, I'm blessed to have actually restrooms and bathrooms that we can use. What a blessing. And you tend not to think about the blessing of little things like that.

And thank God that someone had a place to go and they could use our church. And so I just, that was God's opinion. Did you see how you switched that? I went from like, what the heck are you doing? Like who, to, you know what? This was a safe place for them. And Jesus was born in a stable that looked a lot worse than that. And so I thought, okay, I need to go clean this.

And I was walking out and I told Carol what had happened. And I was walking out there with a bucket and Carol said, no, let me clean it. And I said, no, I got it. I said, you know, I need to do this on occasion because it keeps me in a good place. She goes, no, Jack and I will come back. And she volunteered you, Jack. She said, the thing I know about Jack is he would have done it.

And I know others in the congregation that have done this because this has happened numerous times. We have a large community of people that don't have a place to use restrooms. And this has happened here. Not that I want this to be the latrine of La Jolla, but I'm not inviting that. But I think I get it. And what I thought to myself is I love being on a staff where people fight to go clean up a mess like that.

They fight for it. No, let me do it. And that is an honor to Carol and Jack. And I could point, I mean, there's so many in this church that would do that, that would fight and say, no, you don't do that. I'll do it. So that, that, I don't even know, I don't even know what to call that. I just know that when you have that in a church, the kingdom of God expands.

The kingdom of God expands. And so I want to tell you another story. And this is, when I went to Australia to plant a church, I was, I wanted revival. God had called us here. I'd waited 16 years and moved down there. I was going to plant a church. And none of that happened. And I ended up having a job as a janitor at a camp. And then it just, you know, I was just doing that.

We were living there for a year and I did some ministry with Christian surfers, but it wasn't what I wanted. And I was cleaning and these kids had just messed up the entire camp. And I wanted to go be with my family. And I was, I was mopping. And so visions of grandeur going down there, seeing Australia come to Christ, have their first major revival.

And I was going to be at the heart of it. Like that's where I was in my twenties. Okay. In the center. Jesus be the center. It was like, Adam be the center. It's all about me. Yes, it's all about me. And I was cleaning up and I just, and I was upset and angry. And I felt like the Lord said, just clean. Like I'm the next kid showing up. Like I'm the junior hire.

Just clean this place. Like I'm the next junior hire showing up. And, and I just, I never forgot that. And so when I got to North Coast Calvary, it was a big church. I just remember the Lord just saying to me in my heart, I get these thoughts in my head. It says, if you're not willing to clean the toilets, then you probably don't belong on stage to preach.

And there was a season at North Coast Calvary about three years where my number was just not getting called. Like mine and I got gifts, man. I got to preach. We're going to do this thing, you know? And it was kind of like, hey, you got a ministry. We just, just go do it. And if we want your opinion, we might ask, you know? And it was like years, you know?

I wasn't doing announcements. I wasn't doing anything. And I finally just gave it up to the Lord. And I was, I was in the, the, the restroom one time and I, and I walked in. There was a bathroom and I don't know if I think there was a kid that had mental illness had been there, but it was a mess. And I felt like the Lord said, if, if, you know, be willing to, to clean it if you want to be on stage.

And I thought, yeah, you know what? So I spit shined it a little bit, walked out. I walked past, 30 seconds later, I walked past Pastor Mark's office and he opens the door. And he says, Adam, um, can you preach this weekend? I was like, yeah. And it was, it was like Thursday. You know what I mean? And I'm like, so I said, yeah. And I wrote a sermon and the sermon was called Praying for Your Elephant.

And that became a book. And, and everything went from that point. That isn't anything about me. It's just some really good men poured into me and told me things like that. And they said, if you want to be the real deal, like, do that stuff. And all I know is that everything that happened, I believe it goes back to that toilet. I did. I do. We have to be a, and I'm going to say as a congregation, we have to be willing.

Like God has built me. And so they say in the scripture, look, it isn't right for us to be waiting on tables, but they were willing to do it. See, it's not about what you, it's not about what you, what you, about should, but are you willing? And these men were, they were willing to die. And I want to say as a congregation, I want to implore you to be those kind of people.

And I hope, look, I might not always be that kind of person. You know, we have to continually renew our desire to follow Jesus. But can we all go there? Can we all get to that place? I just love it. And I believe we are a church that are. And so the final thing is this, be the answer. There was a level of spirituality that was required to wait on tables in the first church.

I just want to say they look for men that were full of wisdom, full of the spirit. I said I was going to give you this little piece about being full of the spirit. I got to say that I don't know what it means to be full of the spirit. But what I do know is this, is Thessalonians says you can quench it. I don't want to argue about what it means to be full.

All I know is that the scripture says that you can do things to make the fire bigger and you can do things to pour water on it. I know that. So pour gasoline. Be a spiritual arsonist in your life. Be a spiritual. Go set a fire at Panikin. Go, you know, like a spiritual fire. We went up there this week and we bought, you bought, by the way, we took your missions funds and we bought, that's just Kai and I's kind of coming around with Bev.

We bought 40 pounds of coffee that are going to put in little coffee things for the new year and Christmas. And we're going to give a chocolate bar and a copy of Praying for Your Elephant. That was Kai, I did, not mine. And we're going to give one to everybody on this block. And Zach, yeah, right? But it's a little spiritual fire where we said we want to bless our block, have a cup of coffee, but we also want to bless Panikin.

We went and bought 40 pounds of their coffee. We just want to be within this community making it happen. That's what we are doing. We want to do it in a way that you can look at it and say, that's what I can do in my house. What's your coffee shop? What's your, you know, where you go get your hair done? Whatever it is, find your spot and go light a spiritual fire there.

Find your place. Go to Claremont. Go to UTC, Bird Rock, PB, El Cahon, wherever you live. We're starting to expand. Go light, let's burn the city down. I'm serious. With a spiritual fire, because God is what kind of fire? He's a consuming fire. And whatever spiritual fuel you give Him, He will light it on fire. Be people full of wisdom, full of restraint, full of the Holy Spirit, full of God's power.

Know your calling. Know what you're built for. In January, we're going to talk about what you're built for. I'm not so much into what's your purpose. I find that overwhelming. I find calling overwhelming, being in the center of God's will. If I'm in God, there's no center to God. He's eternal. I just want to be in God. I don't need to be in the center of it.

I find all these purpose things just American and Western, and I find so many people that are so discouraged with finding their purpose, they can't enjoy following God. It's just a mockery. And we've built it up, because I know that it sells books and this whole thing. But what I would say is, just what are you built for? Just do what you're built for.

Just whatever you're built for. Just live in it and enjoy your life. Have fun following God. I woke up singing this song not too long ago. It was on my lips. God, you are glorious, and God, you are fun. And I felt like the Lord said, have fun. I want to have fun at church. I want to have fun at my life. I just want to have fun. I want to have a good time, and I want to bless you, and I want to work with you, congregations.

So this is a challenge in 2016. Be the congregation that you want to go to. The church will become the church that you want, because you make it that way. You step in. You figure out what needs to be done. Go do it. Work with us. We bless you. Worship team, come up. Lord Jesus, you're a good, good father. We bless you, God, and we need more. We want to burn this city down.

A spiritual fire, God. That when this congregation passes the torch to the next generation of congregations that follow us, Lord God, that they will say during that season something happened. That La Jolla will never be the same. That UTC and the four corners of the world will be impacted because of what you have done. We bless you, Jesus. In the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.