found this video on my good friends blog. thought it was so good that I would repost it.
Jesus is the only hero of the bible. We are not Jesus. Sounds basic, but if you are like me it is easy to make me the main character in the bible.
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Tough Stuff wk4
Great finale to our tough stuff series today. Here are my live notes from church at GBCK.
Excited for our Real Deal series starting in 2 weeks.
-sometimes God needs to take us through tough stuff before he takes us out of tough stuff.
-james 5:10-12
-when you do everything right, & everything is going wrong, keep doing right. V:10
-is my obedience to God attached to our circumstances?
-stuff got pretty bad for Jesus, but He still obeyed God.
-Jesus’ obedience was not based on circumstance, it was based on His love for God.
-when it seems like nothing is happening, something is happening, so keep going. V:11
-God is a god that works behind the scenes. Ph 2:13
-above all we must keep our integrity when we face tough stuff.
Priorities
I blog about this every once in a while. Probably more of a reminder to myself than anything else.
In the midst of life filled with stuff I need to remember my priorities.
1. Jesus
2. The wife
3. Benaiah
4. Work and everything else.
Lord help me not to make number 4 more important than 1,2, and 3.
What is the Goal of the Gospel??
As we preach the Gospel, I believe there are 2 goals that we should pray and be in faith for.
1. repent. if we are going to truly repent we have to be clear of what we are repenting of. we have to understand that our existence is disgusting to a perfect God. our sin makes it impossible to ever see or even be with God. Because of this we have to come to a point where we repent and turn from this life of gross sin.
repentance is not simply repeating a canned prayer, filling out a card, or responding in tears at an alter call. As much as this may be part of repentance, true repentance is in our hearts.
Acts 20:21, Mark 1:15
2. believe. To believe in Jesus as the only way to remove our sins mean that we believe NOTHING else can do what Jesus can do. Attending church, helping the poor, being a good person, living by good philosophies, can never remove our sin. Salvation is a gift. To believe is receiving this gift whole heartedly. Believing is knowing that the work of Jesus and the gift of salvation is the only truth.
My prayer is that as we preach the Gospel people will begin to respond in repentance and belief.
What is the Gospel??
The Gospel is the historical, factual account of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection.
As preachers it is very easy for us to get up on a Sunday and talk about bible principles, but the bible states pretty clearly that we are commanded to preach the Gospel. Matt 28:19. The bible also states that the Gospel is the power for salvation. Ro 1:16. No matter how great biblical principles are that is not our task.
So then what is the Gospel…
The Gospel in its simplest form consists of 2 big ideas.
1. we are all sinners. this statement is not exactly one that will draw in crowds. this statement is not exactly your feel good statement, but it is true and we have to preach it. if people never understand the grossness of their sin they can not repent. there is no need to repent. Ro 3:9-20
2. imputation. this is a big word that describes Jesus exchanging our gross sin for His righteousness. sounds crazy right, but it is true. Jesus takes our sin away, and in return gives us His righteousness. The result is that we can now stand before God on the day of judgement righteous. Gal 3:13,14
Preachers, we have to preach this every week. This has to be the center of our message.
a super smart guy has been blogging about this topic for the past few weeks. if you have a pulse you seriously need to check this out. it might just save your life. here is the link.
Gospel
an ongoing discussion at gbck is the gospel. I know what you are going to say. this is a basic topic, and what is there to discuss, but stay with me.
as we process though i am realizing 2 things.
1. after being a christian for 10 years and serving full time in the church I am only now beginning to understand the Gospel.
2. it is very easy for us as ministers to stray from the gospel and wonder into simply preaching good biblical principles.
check back in a few days as i try to break down what the Gospel is.
Tough Stuff
Last week we launched our tough stuff series in our morning services. Super excited about this series as we hope to better
equip Gods people to face challenging times in our lives. One great thought from this past week was that God sometimes walks us through tough stuff before He pulls us out of tough stuff.
For the next 3 weeks we will continue to look at what James has to say about suffering. Here is an overview of the series.
August 29: Test. Testing our faith strengthens our faith.
September 5: Temptation. Fighting temptation with truth.
September 12: How long? Patience is key in tough stuff.
September 17: Make it go away. There really is blessing in pain.
discipleship culture
“when the culture is is right, almost any method will work. when the culture is toxic, even the best method will fail.” 
Steve Murrell
loved this thought from the Accidental Missionary. Most leaders are smart enough to come up with some great strategies, but the majority of these leaders are not patient enough to create the culture needed to see these strategies succeed.
the question that remains then is how can we create a culture? here are some of my thoughts:
1. do it. I have to learn to model the culture personally. I have to go out and make disciples. I have to take individuals through essentials. I have to recruit people into encounter weekend.
2. talk about consistently. our methods needs to be talked about at every meeting and to every person. people have to hear us asking the same questions over and over again.
-have you done essentials?
-have you been through an encounter weekend?
-are you in a small group?
3. learn to say no. practically every day there are opportunities of a lifetime to make the church magically grow. most leaders jump on these opportunities of a lifetime and jump off of the focus to make disciples. if the opportunity is not helping every member to make disciples dont do it. events dont make disciples.
4. trust. a culture of discipleship is more than a few pastor making disciples. this is going to mean trusting people to make disciples. even though they might make more mistakes than disciples I have to learn to trust anyways. are people in the church honored that they get an opportunity or are they burdened that they have to do something? if the answer is the later maybe we took to long to trust people.
I am sure there is a lot more to creating a discipleship culture, but this should keep me busy for a few years.
gbck download: He > i wk4
havent posted one of these for a while. here is what has been happening at gbck.
-finished He>i series this past week. Pride is not exactly a thrilling topic to talk about, but it is definitely needed in the body of Christ
-super excited as we launch our tough stuff series. the reality is that life is not always perfect. the bible teaches how we as Christians can walk through tough situations in life.
-mens encounter weekend happening this weekend.
-been seeing some new faces in my small group. definitely love discipleship in its early stages.
-just installed some new screens at mauka lani. definitely think this adds to the service. it is always good to be able to bless mauka lani elem.
-still praying for pete elson. excited to hang out with him this coming week.
-youth staff meeting was fruitful yesterday. love the youth team. some super exciting stuff going down in the next few months at xchange.
-long week this past week. good thing i love my job.
-thats it for now. sister getting married in a few hours.
en2010 recap vid
-50 nations
-20,000 people
-2 venues
-the word of God
-worshipping Jesus
you definitely dont want to miss en2013 no matter where in the world it will be.
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