TRUSTING HIS AUTHORITY

Transcription

1 TRUSTING HIS AUTHORITY Series: Go Where He Leads January 22, 2017 Adam Mosley Trust, Authority, Hope, Richness, Power Proverbs 3:5-6, Ephesians 1:17-23 Dr. George Ayittey is a Ghanan economist who holds the position of Distinguished Economist in Residence at American University in Washington, DC. And Dr. Ayittey has spent several years now making a lot of people uncomfortable. He s spoken out against NATO interference in African disputes, against persisting colonialist mentalities in both western and African nations, and against African leaders and their failed policies. In other words, he s made a lot of enemies! But probably Dr. Ayittey s greatest claim to fame is a simple analogy - the cheetah vs the hippo. He describes the current generation of African leaders as The Hippo Generation - people who sit around and do nothing while getting fat and rich off the backs of the poor. But he says there is a new generation of emerging leaders - The Cheetah Generation who are willing to run hard - to do the hard work - and to find success in the right way without abusing and causing suffering amongst their neighbors and countrymen. Take a quick listen to Dr. Ayittey as he describes Africa s Hippo Generation leaders: [Video] Bandits and crooks who use the instruments of state power to enrich themselves, their cronies, and tribesmen and exclude everybody else. Sound familiar? Have you seen that kind of abuse of power here in Kenya? Does it only apply to heads of state and powerful politicians, or have you seen it in people closer to you - people who use whatever power, whatever authority they have to enrich themselves and those closest to them? Have you abused your own authority in that way? We re continuing our teaching series called Go Where He Leads: A Year of Trusting God, and this morning, I want to talk about Trusting His Authority. But before I jump in, let me pray that God will open our eyes, ears, and hearts to what he has for us this morning. Prayer 2017 Adam Mosley Page 1 of 9

2 We re in the 3 rd week of a four week series that s all about trusting God. A couple of weeks back, I said that this is really going to be a year of trusting God - for our church community, for our families, for our lives. I also announced that week that my family will be transitioning out of the leadership of this church and returning to the U.S. This has been a difficult decision for us, but one we are confident in because God has spoken clearly and specifically. If you want the full story, you can head over to trinitynakuru.org and listen to the talks from the past two weeks. For those who were here for those talks, I think you will agree that there is no doubt that this is God s plan. Still, following God s plan requires us to trust him - to trust that his ways, his plans, his means, and his intentions are far better than anything we could come up with. So, we ve been focusing on a couple of verses found in one of the books of wisdom in the bible - a book called Proverbs. This is Proverbs chapter 3, verses 5 and 6: Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight. Proverbs 3:5-6 And so we ve talked about trusting the Lord with all your heart - trusting him completely - and last week, about leaning not on our own understanding - trusting his wisdom in our situation. Today, I want to look at that third line - in all your ways submit to him. Now, submit is kind of a weird word - and frankly, its an unorthodox translation of the Hebrew word found in the original text of Proverbs. The Hebrew word used here is yada, which is a very ancient word that simply means to know. A lot of English translations use the word acknowledge - in all your ways acknowledge him. And I can understand why the NIV translation says submit because acknowledge really falls far short of what yada means. Yada - to know - really means something like, to know or learn to know, to perceive, see, find out, discern, distinguish, recognize, consider, be instructed, and make known. Now, that s a lot to insert into this verse, so translators, as so often happens, are forced to choose a word they know doesn t really convey the full meaning of the original text. This is a problem inherent in any translation Adam Mosley Page 2 of 9

3 So, for our purposes today, let s look at it this way - this phrase - in all your ways, yada him - in all your ways know, be known, discover, discern, and receive instruction from him. OK? That s what we re talking about here. In all your ways know, be known, discover, discern, and receive instruction from him. Everything we do should be sort of soaked in God in this way. And soaking like that requires complete trust. I don t soak in stuff I don t trust. Like, I might taste something I don t trust. Just a little taste. I might touch something I don t trust. But I m not soaking in something I don t trust. And in this case, the thing we must trust in order to yada him - to know, be known, discover, discern, and receive instruction from him - is that we must trust his authority. You know, one of the things I do like about the word submit (and I ve talked about this before) is that there is a voluntary nature to submission. To submit to someone s authority is not the same as being subjugated to their authority. Subjugation is about someone exercising power over me by force. Submission is about me saying, I voluntarily come under your authority. Militaries do this. Sport teams do this. Businesses do this. Even rock bands do this - groups of people who choose to work together toward a common goal by allowing their movements, their actions, to be ordered by a chosen leader. That s submission. In all your ways submit to him - in all your ways, voluntarily come under God s authority, direction, and wisdom. And if we do that, there are certain outcomes we can expect. When we trust God s authority, we ll have an opportunity to discover certain things along the way. The Apostle Paul was a guy who wrote much of what we now call the New Testament of the bible, and he wrote it in the form of these letters to different people. And one of those letters was to the church in Ephesus. We call it the book of Ephesians. And in the book of Ephesians, chapter 1, Paul writes this, starting in verse 17: I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. [How do you do that? In all your ways yada him. He goes on ] I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at 2017 Adam Mosley Page 3 of 9

4 his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way. Ephesians 1:17-23 So, you see, there s this little group of gifts Paul is praying for here - hope, riches, and power - that are all predicated on this idea of the supreme authority of God and of Jesus in our lives. When we come under his authority, we have the opportunity, through wisdom and revelation, to experience God s fullness. I love how Paul prayed for and encouraged churches all over the known world. When you read the letters he wrote, he always talks about his prayers for the churches. And here, he says he s praying for a few things for the Ephesians. First, he s praying that they will know the hope of God And I want you to consider this morning: what does it look like to give God authority over your hopes? To receive the hope of God, rather than just the hope of humanity? If you know me, you probably know that I have a lot of hope - I hope for a lot of things - but I typically think of hope kind of like wishful thinking or positivity. But you know what hope really is? This word translated hope here is a Greek word that means to welcome and anticipate what is certain. That is what God s hope is about. Like, my watered down version of hope is something like welcoming and anticipating what I think might possibly happen. But the hope of God is about what will happen - what is certain. Because God s authority is complete, he makes our hope complete when we hope in him. So, how to we give God authority over our hopes - or we might say over our dreams? Here s the thing: I m a dreamer. Give me an hour and I could dream up a future for this church that you could probably really get behind. Three year plan? Easy. Five year plan? No problem. Ten year plan? I can do that. I love to dream of the future possibilities of things. What s harder, though, is to allow God to have authority over those hopes and dreams - to say, God, this is your thing, not mine, so I want to have the hope of you, not just some dreams from me. Look, I have a lot of passion, a lot of vision, a lot of energy, a lot of hope for what this church can become. How, then, can I bear to transfer the leadership here over to someone else to 2017 Adam Mosley Page 4 of 9

5 lead the church into the future? Because it s not about my hopes and dreams for Trinity Vineyard. Its about God s hopes and dreams for Trinity Vineyard. My hopes may or may not be realized, but God s hopes are certain. Our job is to welcome and expect (and at times, usher in) his dreams for this place. And that s something I can do whether I m Lead Pastor or not. I can join with you in welcome anticipation of God s plan for Trinity. But in order to do that, I have to give him authority over my hopes. The second thing Paul says to the Ephesians is I pray that you will know the riches of his glorious inheritance. Now, some of you have really perked up! Riches? God s got some riches for me? Well, yeah, he does but it s going to cost you everything you have. There s this funny thing about God. God s relationship with us can basically be summed up in three words: I ll trade ya! God has offered us immortality in exchange for our mortal lives, he s offered us fullness in exchange for our emptiness, he s offered us joy in exchange for our mourning, and yes, he s offered us his riches in exchange for the petty coins and paper and rocks and stuff that we call riches. But in every instance, he insists on a trade. We must give what we have in order to receive what he has for us. So, if you want God s riches - something that s really incomprehensible to us - then you have to give up your own earthly riches. In a phrase, you have to give God authority over your riches - over your money. You want to hear something really scary? I don t have a job lined up for when we return to the U.S. Melody has secured some part time work and I m in talks about a possible job, but nothing s a done deal. In fact, when we said yes to God about this transition, I had no idea what I was going to do for work. Now, that s not something I would normally recommend doing! If you have a job right now, hang on to it until you find something else - that s sound advice unless you ve heard clearly from God otherwise. In our situation, God has told us that he wants Melody to go back to university and finish her degree in Music Education, and he s made it clear that that s supposed to happen now. So we follow that directive and trust God with everything else - this church, our kids, our lives, and yes, our money. Now, this is not so scary to us because this isn t the first time we ve done this. We ve made this kind of leap before. The great thing about God is that the more you lay down, the more 2017 Adam Mosley Page 5 of 9

6 you receive from him, and the more confident you become in laying down other things in the future. We have example after example in our lives of giving God authority over our money and watching him come through. It seems like every time we make a conscious decision to give him authority over our money, not only does he provide for us financially, but he gives us the actual riches of his kingdom - he gives us relationships and experiences and a richness of life that we wouldn t have had if we weren t willing to trust his authority over our so-called riches. The third thing Paul prays for the Ephesians is that they ll know the incomparably great power of God. He goes on to say that the power he s speaking of is the same power that raised Jesus from the dead and gave him authority over everything. How do we get to know that kind of power - the incomparably great power of God? You guessed it. You ve got to give up your own power. You have to, in essence, give God authority over your authority. Man, we like power, don t we? We like authority. I have a friend who s a teacher in a local school, and he was talking to some secondary students about ethical leadership. And he gave them a couple of scenarios and asked them how they would respond. First, he asked them to imagine that they were working for someone who was engaging in some kind of unethical business practice. Like, what if they found out that their boss was embezzling money - stealing money from the company. How would they respond? Immediately, a couple of the students suggested that the best course of action would be to blackmail their boss. They figured if the boss was embezzling money, they could approach him or her and demand payment in order to keep quiet about what they knew! Why? To tip the balance of power, right? To get the upper hand in the situation. In the second scenario, he asked them now to imagine that they are the boss and they have an employee who doesn t agree with a decision they ve made - someone who challenges them. How do they respond to that employee. Their first reply? Fire them! Why? Because they shouldn t challenge the boss. The boss is in charge - the boss has the power. They shouldn t come against the boss! Understand, for my friend, this was completely demoralizing. Like, you try to teach kids the value of servant leadership and respect for others and here they are taking this authoritarian view of leadership Adam Mosley Page 6 of 9

7 He asked them, If you fired everyone who disagreed with you, wouldn t that create a culture of fear in your company? Yes, they said, and that s a good thing, because then people will just do what you asked them to do. You see, from a very young age, we are filled with these images and this idea that the things that are the most important in life are money and power. And when we fall for that trap, we end up justifying nearly any action in order to acquire those things. But Paul says, you know what, there s a greater authority than anything you can acquire. And if we want to realize that authority, we have to lay down whatever power we may have. And we re not very good at this. The fact is (and I ll speak on behalf of my own people for a minute, because it s not just Africans who have a problem with this) white missionaries have, for far too long, abused their power in Africa and India and South America and other places. You see, I walk around here and I recognize every day the opportunities I have to abuse my power. As a white man in Kenya, I could get away with a lot of stuff! I could even commit brazen crimes and never get arrested if I was willing to pay off the right people. But perhaps just as frightening, I have an incredible amount of power just with my words. There are certain people who will literally do almost anything a mzungu tells them to do. And that has been the case for hundreds of years. Some of the very first missionaries from the west forced Muslims and Hindus and people of traditional religions to pray to Jesus for the forgiveness of their sins before they would be allowed to eat or to work and earn a day s wage. They forced them to eat foods considered unclean by their religion. They, in essence, used their power - the power of money, of food, of shelter, of work - to try to shortcut the work of the gospel of Jesus. Instead of bringing the good news of Jesus, they brought bad news of religious adherence and rigidity and punishment in an effort to win and convert rather than engaging in a relationship and inviting others into a relationship with Jesus. You see, when we attempt to use our power (to whatever end), we end up abusing people. There s a famous quote that you hear all the time - I m even told that former President Moi used to use a version of it. It s a quote from an British MP in the mid 19 th century - a guy with an awesome name - John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton (yes, you had to include the 1 st Baron Acton part). John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton said, Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men, he said, are almost always bad men." It s almost inevitable that those who attain power and then use that power will also abuse that power Adam Mosley Page 7 of 9

8 What, then, are we to do? Well, we have to be willing to lay down our power. Remember, God is always looking to trade. I give him my power - my authority - and he gives me his. And his power will not be abused. God s power is pure. Whatever authority I may have, I give that over to him - I give him authority over my authority in order to walk in his authority - in his power. That means in order to lead well, I have to first follow well. Jesus, the guy to whom God gave authority over everything, said, I do only what I see my Father doing. He was a great follower. Jesus is described in Philippians 2 as someone Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage Philippians 2:6 Jesus didn t use his authority to force people to do things. Instead, he laid down his authority. He gave God the ultimate authority and walked in that. If we re to follow Jesus, then we have to be willing to lay down our own power and to trust his authority over our authority. In all your ways, know, be known, discover, discern, and receive instruction from him. Be fully soaked in God as you walk through life and make decisions. I want to encourage you, as we continue to walk out God s plan for this church, to know, be known, discover, discern, and receive instruction from God. I ve been so encouraged over the past few weeks as I ve heard from many of you and many of our friends around the world - people I trust to hear from God - who have said things like, I don t know why, but I really get a strong sense that this transition is right. Just this morning, I got a message from my friend Mike Lehmann, the Lead Pastor of our sending church back in the U.S. He said, I have a growing sense that this is exactly what God wants to do. And if it s what God wants to do, then let s jump into it with all we have. If it s what God wants to do, then let s do it with confidence and energy and joy and hope. If it s what God wants to do, then let s pour ourselves into the future that God has laid out for Trinity Vineyard Church and the people of Nakuru Adam Mosley Page 8 of 9

9 God has great things in store for Trinity and for you. And you can trust his authority in your life and the life of this church. Trinity Vineyard Church Nakuru is a great church full of great people, and it will continue to be a great church far into the future. How do I know that? Because God has given and will continue to give you the gifts of his hope, his riches, and his power and you can trust his authority as you walk out his dreams for Trinity, for Nakuru, and for yourself. Let s pray Closing Prayer 2017 Adam Mosley Page 9 of 9