Let's turn your Bible, by the way, to I Peter Chapter three. I Peter Chapter three, we’re in a sermon series right now where we’re looking through this book, this powerful letter, written by one of the pillars of church. Peter, when he wrote this letter, was an older man. He was not...I guess, he wasn’t the immature Peter that we see Jesus talking about in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. By this point, he was within a couple of years of dying for the cause of Christ. Paul had already died, so Peter knew that one of the great leaders of the church had already died and Peter, I think in his heart, knew that his time was coming to an end. So he sits down and writes I and II Peter which were kind of his life thoughts, kind of life message, and he wanted to write them all down and he wanted to encourage the local churches who would read these letters. And so we’re in the third Chapter today.
I want to talk to you about something that when I bring up this topic, in fact, there’s a couple of topics that when a pastor brings up in a church, there’s an immediate, I can feel it coming back from you, this immediate wind of suspicion. And for example, any time I talk about money, and I’m unashamed about talking about finances and talking about money here, but I can feel it from some of you, you know, that maybe you’ve had a bad experience in the past where maybe a pastor, a leader, or whatever talked about money with bad motives, and so I know that when I bring up certain topics, that you’re going to have to at some point trust the motives of my heart, that I’m not bringing it up to get something out of you, instead I’m bringing up these topics because I believe that we will not be fully formed, mature desciples unless we talk about these topics.
So, my goal on Sunday morning is not to “wow” you. My goal is not to stand up here and to create some kind of buzz or to “wow” you with some kind of awesome talk. My goal as the pastor of New Life Church is to build disciples. And so, if I were having a one-on-one conversation, or maybe I’m sitting down with you and your wife, or sitting down with your family or maybe just the two of us, if we were having coffee one day or we were having regular meetings where we were discipling one another. This is a topic that I’m going to talk about today that would be one of the first four or five topics that I would bring up in conversation.
And so this morning in a conversational way, I’m going to have a discussion with you about the church’s new four letter word. The church’s new four letter word because I believe the idea of submitting to authority has been demonized in our culture. In fact, in the American culture, we have a natural resistance to submitting to authority. In fact, we have a declaration of independence which I love, I’m grateful, thankful, thankful, thankful, to live in a country where we are free. However, the kingdom of heaven is not a place of independence. Independence is awesome for a geopolitical nation state and I believe America’s democracy, the republic democracy in which we live, is a great model for the rest of the world to follow. I’m still very much in love with my country but, however, the kingdom of heaven is not built around a democratic idea. It’s not built on the platform of a democracy. The kingdom of heaven is built on the idea of community, freedom from bondage, living in community with one another. All of us submitting ourselves out of reverence to one another, submitting ourselves, living humble lives in community with one another; that’s the kingdom of heaven. Well, in order for that to happen, there has to be clear boundaries and clear systems of authority. It has to be recognized, it has to be something you’re willing to submit to. But the problem is, is that many of us have submitted to authority in our life only to be abused. In fact, the world’s view of authority, when I say submitting to authority, when I said that in the room this morning, here was probably the four things that popped into your mind. The first thing was abuse. In other words, I am not going to be ever be abused again. If you’ve ever been hurt and I have been hurt, I’ve shared openly about my story as a young man. I have burn hurt, wounded by those that I’ve entrusted myself to. I have submitted myself to authority only to be abused. I know the pain of that, the hurt of that, and so as a young man, when I went through that season in my life, I made the same inner vow that maybe many of you have made. I’m never going to do that again. I’m going to protect myself from the pain of submitting maybe to a leader who was immature or just plain hurtful. So, I’m never going to do that again. Well here, the problem with that is, is when you make those inner vows, you’re separating yourself from something that’s pretty important to God, so you hear and think of abuse.
The second thing you might think of is manipulation. You know, he’s saying this because he wants something from me. He wants to tell me what to do. Or the third thing you might think of is he wants to control, control my life. Let me just talk openly about this. I don’t have the bandwidth nor the emotional fortitude to control your life. It’s all I can do to control my own. So I, really, I don’t have any desire to control any of your lives. I just can’t do it, all right. In fact, some of you are so difficult, it’ll just be impossible to even try. I wouldn’t even try it. All right, number four, and this is a big one, and this is the big one in our American culture. When you think about submitting to authority, we think about the loss of personal freedom. I’m not going to be able to be make the free choices, and that’s not at all what we’re talking about today.
You see how, leave those up there for a minute because these are all subtle lies of the enemy to take us away from something that’s so kingdom. I do believe the church is a family, totally. That’s the first thing I think of. When I think of the word church, and I put this on my Facebook I think this morning or whatever, not that any of you should ever read that but what I said was, church is not an event to attend. It’s a family in which to belong. I really believe that. This is not some event on my calendar to come to on a Sunday morning. This is a family. You guys are family to me. I want to be with you. This is a family reunion. This is a gathering of friends and family this morning and what I believe though is, we’ve made church kind of this individual thing that we can just kind of church hop around. In fact, church hoppers, typically the reason people jump from church to church is because they don’t want to submit to authority. They just want the benefits of the gathering but they don’t want to come in to the messy family and really get their hands dirty with anybody around them. But I’m here to get my hands dirty. I’m here to live life with each other. I’m here to, on the good days and the bad days, to be together.
And so I first think of church as a family. Let me get back to my point. But I also believe church, the church as large the church, is also an army of servants. God wants to mobilize us to do his will, to do his bidding here on the Earth. So I do think of church first as a family, secondly as an army of servants. But I can look out across the crowd, I know a lot of you are active duty military. Some of you are retired military, and I’m thankful for you serving our country, but you can tell, you know this, that in the heat of battle and the heat of conflict, the worst thing that can happen is a breakdown of authority. If a soldier has to ask for an explanation when the bullets are flying, somebody is going to lose their life. You have to trust your leaders when the fight starts. You have to say, “Yes, sir,” and do what they say or the army will fall into disarray and we lose the battle, right? Now, if I were the enemy trying to tear apart the arm of God that’s on the Earth, the first thing I would do is tear down this idea of authority, because then we become lone mercenaries instead of a collective group of people doing something together. And I believe that church by large, if you were to be honest and we were all to be honest this morning, the local church in America is more about being a lone mercenary than actually being together as an army, and that’s why we’re very ineffective. That’s why we’re not seeing [inaudible 0:08:08] happen in the world, that’s why we are losing ground instead of taking ground is because we become a group of individual, independent, lone mercenaries, and we can’t do that much longer. Let me just say this bluntly, our very survival will depend on whether or not we really get this, this theory, this thought today into our hearts, if we really will submit to authority.
And now, so I’m never going to ask you to do something that I don’t do, and so I didn’t know...when I was planning this message, I didn’t even realize that Pastor Tom was going to be here today so I said, “Great, I got this perfect sermon illustration sitting on the front row”.. So I told him to get a smile and wave thing ready because I’m going to talk about him a lot today.
So let’s look at I Peter Chapter three, okay. So Peter understood this, Peter understood the idea of submitting to authority. Peter had been under authority, was under authority and by the way, Peter didn’t lead the church in Jerusalem. Did you know that? He was a leader there but probably the brother of Jesus, James, was the primary leader there. So Peter understood, even in his own world, about submitting to authority, and yet when he traveled or spoke to other churches, when he wrote this letter, he himself carried a great deal of authority as an apostle, but he himself was submitted to authority. So when I read this, the reason that I brought that up and I want you to hear that as we read this passage, hear that through that lens, through that context, okay. At I Peter three verse one, he talks about husbands and wives. “Wives, in the same way be submissive to your husband.” Now women primarily have misunderstood this and I know...I don’t want anybody throw anything at me okay. So let’s keep reading this, let it speak for itself. “Wives, in the same way be submissive to your husband so that if any of them do not believe the word, they maybe won over without words by the behavior of their wives.” By the way, our behavior will always win over people more than our words. What we do, who we are, speaks louder than what we say, Amen, for all of us. Not just for wives, but for all of us as believers. He says, and when they see the purity and the reverence of your lives, your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes. Oh, by the way, he was not demonizing those things. In fact, I enjoy girlie-girl. I’m married to a girlie-girl who wears all that stuff, but that’s not where she gets her identity. It’s from the inside out where we get our beauty and so he wasn’t condemning those things, he was simply saying don’t let that be who you are.
And so he says, “Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit which is of great worth in God’s sight. For this is the way the holy women of the past who put their hope in God used to make themselves beautiful. They were submissive to their husbands like Sarah who obeyed Abraham and called him her master.” Now, stop here for a second. Has anybody ever heard the story of Abraham and Sarah? Raise your hand if you’ve heard the story of Abraham and Sarah, okay. Now, do you know what Abraham did to Sarah? Two different times, a foreign king fell in love with his beautiful bride and instead of claiming her as his bride, Abraham said, “This is my sister. You can have her.” She was two different times taken into another man’s house because Abraham didn’t have the courage to say, “No, this is my wife.” And yet, Sarah goes, “Well, he’s a knuckle head sometimes, but he’s my master. I’m submitted to this man.” It’s amazing isn’t it? And when Peter wrote that, he knew that story. And so it’s not about submitting to perfect men, it’s about submitting to the idea of the authority and letting God fixing, and God did fix Abraham by the way.
All right, let’s keep reading. “You are her daughters if you do what is right and do not give way to fear. Husbands, in the same way be considerate as you live with your wives.” That’d be a good first step wouldn’t it ladies? Just to be considerate. In other words, think less of themselves and more of you. That’d be great. How many, Amen. That used to be-- shot me down. Ladies, come on, be considerate. All right, this is your time to shout okay. “Be considerate as you live with your wives, and treat them with respect as the weaker partner.” Now, stop, stop, stop, stop. Women, ladies, look at me. This has been misunderstood. Can I tell you what he’s saying here? He’s not saying that you’re less intellectual. He’s not saying that you are emotionally unstable. He’s not saying that without men, you couldn’t survive. He’s not saying that. What Peter is saying here, he says, “The weaker vessel is...”, the reason he said that is because remembering the Greek old Roman culture in which they lived, women were considered property. Women had no rights. Peter was talking to a culture where women were considered property. By the way, ladies, the best thing that ever happened to the freedom of women was Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ set woman free to be strong woman and I am [inaudible 0:12:50] across the board. You know that about me. I believe in the strength of women.
So here’s what he’s saying. What do you mean weaker partner? He’s saying for those of us who have priviledges, remember he’s talking to men here. He’s saying, “Listen guys, in our political, social, cultural system, we are the ones as men who have all the rights. Your wives don’t have the rights”. So for those of us who have rights, let’s make sure that we honor, and protect, and nurture the women that we’re married to who have no political rights right now”. That’s what he’s talking about. He’s not talking about your intellect, he’s not talking about your emotions. He’s talking about the political system in which they live. Men should defend women, Amen. In fact, the best thing we can do for women, is to be men. Amen, ladies? You don’t have problem with this being men as long as we’re considerate, and respectful, and protective, and caring. and nurturing. In fact, if we act like Jesus, you’re kind of okay with us aren’t you? Amen. Raise your hand if you’re okay with men being like Jesus.
All right, let’s keep reading. It says, this has kind of turned into a marriage talk and I didn’t mean for that to happen. Let’s keep going. All right, then he says, listen to this guys, “And as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your prayers.” Can I tell you the biggest enemy of a man’s prayer life is to be mean to your wife. In fact, don’t pray if you’re going to be mean to your wife, because you’re wasting your time. And I’m aware of this, and Pam knows this. Pam knows me better than anybody in this room and there are times, though very rare okay, very rarely this has happened but from time to time, I’m not a good as perfect. I’m not perfect at home, all right, and we fight sometimes. I know it’s hard for you to believe but sometimes I really blow it at the house as a husband and what happens is, Pam knows this. Pam knows that she knows exactly when she’s going to get the apology. I mean, it’s like so predictable, so predictable, bam, bam. It’s going to be during my quiet time the next morning because I come before the Lord you know the Pope Brady, Holy Brady, “Lord Jesus, you know, I’m having this prayers,” and the Lord says, “Hey, hey Brady, you’re wasting your time until you make it right with Pam.”
So, I get on the phone. I mean, honestly, I’m just wasting my time with God. He’s not going to let me come before him until I make things right with my bride back at the house, and Pam, I mean, she laughs about this at the house, she’ll tell you this. “He’s going to give me a call in about...I don’t know, about 7:45.” Sure enough, the phone will ring, Pam will pick it up. I said, “Pam, I’m so sorry.” She says, “It’s okay. I love you.” I said, “You knew you’re going to get a call.” “Yeah, I knew about before 8 o’clock probably.” This is the way our lives, this is the way we live our lives at our home. Because of this scripture, I know this to be true. You see, he understands. God’s not going to let me be an abusive husband. He’s not going to let me off the hook. I’m going to love that woman, and respect that woman, and be considerate to that woman, or God is going to deal with me in a way that I don’t want to be dealt with. Pam, in the same way, if she’s not respecting me or submitting to me, God will go to her. You see, God’s not going to let us live independently of one another. He will not let it happen.
All right, let’s keep reading, okay. He says, “Finally, all of you,” married, single, it doesn’t matter, “All of you live in harmony with one another, be sympathetic, love as brothers, and be compassionate and humble.” I know this, that one of the signs of a submitted soul is humility and compassion. You want to look for a sign for a submitted soul, you find someone who walked with tremendous humility not thinking less of yourself, thinking of yourself less. That’s the definition of humility. You want to write that down, it’s pretty good by the way. The definition of humility is not thinking less of yourself. The definition of humility is thinking of yourself less. You’re not the center of the universe and people that live like that typically have this humility about them, there’s a brokeness about them, there’s a compassion, they’re looking for people to help, looking for people to serve because they have come to the conclusion, they’ve come to the conclusion that humility is better than arrogance. Humility is something that has to be formed inside of us.
Let’s skip down to verse 15 because he says this and Peter makes this comment in verse 15, “But in your hearts set apart Christ...set apart Christ as Lord.” Here’s what I believe, you’ll never submit to people unless you’re completely submitted to God. You won’t submit to the authority that God placed in your life unless you first settle the issue in your heart that you are a surrendered person to God. All of me belongs to all of him. There’s nothing I’m witholding from God, therefore, I can take the next logical step by surrendering my life to people that God brings to my life. But if I have not first surrendered to God completely, I will not take the next logical step and surrender to the delegated authority that God places in my life. If I’m holding on to my heart, I will hold on to other places of my life. If I’ve come to God like this, with an open hand with everything in my life, then when God brings trusted authority into my life, it makes it so much easier to surrender because I’m already a surrendered man. Surrendered people know how to surrender. Broken people know how to give up. Surrender, come under the authority that God places in our lives.
All right, let’s keep reading now, verse 21...skip down to verse 31. It is the last part of verse 21 and says, “It saves you by the ressurection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at God’s right hand with angels, authorities, and powers in submission to him.” Heaven itself, when we get to heaven, and for all of you who said “Yes” to Jesus and made Jesus your Lord because when we all get there, we’re going to realize, “Man, heaven is a place of order.” It is a place of the Holy Spirit. It’s going to be an amazing place of worship and revelation and we’re going to see the things about God that we’ve never seen before, but we’re going to see the order of heaven, how things are ordered, that they’ve lived. Heaven is based and the foundation of heaven is on submitting themselves to each other and to God. And this is-- what did Jesus say. Let’s go back to Jesus himself.
Okay, John Chapter 14. What did Jesus himself model to us? What did he believe about authority? Now, Jesus said in Chapter 14 of John verse 30: He says, “I will not speak with you much longer, for the prince of this world is coming.” Now, remember John, the Book of John, Matthew, Mark and Luke were basically, covered the entire three years of his ministry. John primarily focused on the last, the third and final year of his ministry. So by John 14, Jesus is having very candid discussions with his disciples because he’s about to go to the cross and he’s given some final instructions, some final thoughts, and he says, “I will not speak with you much longer, for the prince of this world is coming. He has no hold on me.” By the way, I love that. He has no hold on me. Jesus said, what he was saying is, “I’m going to surrender myself to the cross, but he cannot take my life. I’m giving my life.” But the world must learn that I love the Father, and that I do exactly what my Father has commanded me.”
Now, any explanation of the trinity; the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit, would make me believe that Jesus really didn’t have to ask God the Father because Jesus was God. I mean, the thoughts of the Father were synonymous with the thoughts of Jesus. They were connected. They’re intertwined, so Jesus was not saying, “Listen, I have to ask because I don’t know.” He was not saying that. What he was saying is, “I’m modeling something for you so that when I leave, you will follow my example. I’m asking my Father and He gives me input and I do what he asks me to do. I want you to live this surrendered lives to another so that you can be protected, so that you can model”. If you’re going to be a Christ follower, so if I’m sitting down with a young man or young man and I’m trying to help them enter in to this mature walk with Jesus, I’ll say, “Listen, the first thing you need to do, give up your independence. Give it up. Walk underneath. Walk along side people,” and I'd tell him this, I said, “Here’s what I believe and I know what you’re thinking and so what’s in it for me? What do we get in return for submitting to authority?” So if you were...again, if I’m sitting with you and I’m trying to walk us into a mature walk here today, I’ll tell you what you get, number one is you get protection. Well, protection from who? From two people, yourself and others. “I don’t need protection from myself.” Oh, yeah? You know why they call them blind spots, because you can’t see them. We all have them, right? We all have these places in our lives that we’re not aware of and unless somebody loves us and points them out to us, we’re going to keep walking through our life with something on our face and you know, this is the kind of friend I need from you. If I’m up here and I got something on my face, will you just please somebody point it out right there. “I got something up here? Okay, right there? Thank you.” You see, that’s all I’m asking for. You see, that’s how families do, don't let me walk around with something on my face. You know, I kind of felt that actually.
All right, here’s the point. Protect me from myself and protect me from others. Here’s what Proverbs says. Proverbs says first chapter one verse 29: “Since they hated knowledge and did not choose to fear the Lord.” Notice here, if you don’t surrender to God, you won’t surrender to others. I said that a minute ago. “Since they hated knowledge and did not choose to fear the Lord, since they would not accept my advice and spurned my rebuke.” Notice here...notice, please listen, they started off with not fearing God, not surrendering their heart to God, and they certainly are not going to listen to other people because they’re not listening to God first. Solomon knew this. Jesus knew this. Peter knew this. He says, “Since they would not accept my advice and spurned my rebuke, they will eat the fruit of their ways and be filled with the fruit of their schemes.” Notice here that primarily the first thing that happens when you really want to surrend yourself, is to surrend yourself for the protection from yourself.
So yesterday, Pastor Tom and I had this conversation and he pointed out something in my own heart that I already was aware of. I was aware not...I confessed this to him. I’m aware of a weakness in my life, and I’ll tell you what it was. It’s no big...I don’t invite no rumors to start. I’m really...I don’t like when myschedule changes. I like being in control of my schedule and when somebody throws something at me that wasn’t planned, it causes something in me and I don’t know what it is. I mean, it’s a control issue. I think I know exactly what it is, and so I’m aware of that weakness in me. I’m aware of that as a broken place in my life. It’s a control issue with me that I need to open my hands up and be open to God changing my schedule or other people changing my calendar unexpectedly. So we talked about this and I said, “Tom, I want you to keep me accountable when you see this in me, bring it up, because this is a blind spot for me. It’s a blind spot for me. It’s a strength because I get a lot done...I get a lot more done than most people because I don’t waste time. That’s a strength. The weakness of that is, I can be controlled by my calendar. Do you understand? All our strengths can become weakness and they can become blindspots and let you have somebody speaking to you and say, “Listen Brady, that strength that you have is now becoming a weakness. It’s you’re own strength that is now causing you to become weak”. You need to be protected from yourself and if you’re not surrendered to another person who can speak honestly to you, you’re going to go on living your life with a broken place of your heart that you caused, that you’re not even aware of, unless somebody speaks to you. Protection from ourselves and certainly protection from other people.
Here’s the second thing, counsel. What do we get in return for submitting to authority? Number one, protection. Number two, you get counsel. You get advice. You get wisdom. Proverbs 15:22 says, “Plans fail for lack of counsel but with many advisors, they succeed.” Now, Pastor Tom is not that much older than I am, but he has raised four children. He has pastored probably 20 more years than I have. It is to my benefit. It is to my benefit that I go to a man who’s already raised his children. He has grandchildren the age of my children, even though he’s not that much older, he got started earlier than I did. And I say to him, “Pastor Tom.” He’s like my dad. My dad passed away almost five years ago. I talked to him yesterday about Abram. I talk to him about Kelly. I talked to him about some parenting things that Pam and I are walking through with our kids and I said, “Tom, can you give some thoughts? Give me some advice. Am I doing the right thing. Does this sound right to you?” And even though if I didn’t ask that question, Tom has permission to hold his hand up and say, “Brady listen, I think you may need to reconsider that.” He knows he has that permisssion. I don’t have to ask him for permission, he’s been given that permission to tell me what to do with my kids. Or if he sees me, and I know what he’s doing, he watches how I’m interacting with Pam and I can’t pose. I can’t fake that. If he sees me mistreating Pam, putting her down verbally or doing something that’s not honoring to Pam, he knows he can say, “Brady listen, let me give you some counsel.” I took him through our Dream Center yesterday and he gave me some great advice. I can’t tell you all the details of this, but we have a gigantic building that could be given to us in the next two or three years. I mean, bigger than the New Life Campus. I’m talking a gigantic, huge, gigantic. Have you heard that word? Big building that we’re not ready to take even, but he gave me some counsel yesterday to settle that in my soul. It helped me think through the process of what that might look like. He gave me about a three-year plan to walk it out, walk toward this, and that’s counsel from a wise person but I don’t get that unless I’m submitted to somebody. Listen, a lot of you are walking away from some very smart people that could save you a lot of pain if you would just listen. Who is it that-- are you listening to?
I met with a young man...listen, I met with a young man not long ago in a restaurant and he’s 20 years old probably. You know, he doesn’t have the letter C of even thefirst clue yet. I mean, he’s just a young guy, and that’s the truth. Sorry to offend you but you’re 20, you don’t know a lot, all right. Because I was once 20, I thought I knew a lot too and I didn’t. I looked at him and said, “Who can tell you no?” He goes, “I don’t know.” Now, you know. I said, “You don’t have anybody in your life that if they told you no, you wouldn’t do it?”. “No.” I said, “You know what, you’re in a dangerous, dangerous, dangerous, dangerous spot and you’re missing out. You’re about to make some messy, messy, messy decisions and I’ll be here...I’ll be right here for you when you make them, all right. I’m not abandoning you. I’m not leaving you but you’re about to get real messy and I’ll be there to help you clean it up.” Or another option would be, I said to him, “Why don’t you find somebody that can tell you no and the mess will be a lot less.” I haven’t heard back from him. So I’m waiting for the mess and I’ll be there to clean it up.
Number three, and this is important, you get protection, you get counsel, and you get multiplied strength...multiplied. You want the strength to get things that God’s placing you be multiplied overnight, you come under authority. Here’s what Ecclesiastes Chapter 4 verse 12 says: “Though one may be overpowered,” let’s notice that. Leave that on the screen. If you are...listen, if you’re going to live as an independent person, you are going to be overpowered. You are...the most vulnerable sheep in the pasture are those who have strayed from the flock. Out on the periphery of the pasture by themselves away from the flock, living an independent life, make a declaration of independence, well you’re about to be wolf bait. “Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.” Let me tell you something, I want to be in the cord. I want to be...I want my life to look like this, so wound together with others that I’m not easily overpowered. Let me tell you something, I don’t feel susceptible. I don’t feel vulnerable either, and the reason I don’t feel vulnerable is because I’m surrounding myself, my life is intertwined like a rope. Strand, after strand, after strand, is wrapped around my life. I feel like I could charge hell with a water pistol and probably put out most of the fire. That’s how I feel because I am not living independently of others and because of that, God has multiplied Brady Boyd’s strength way beyond anything I could do by myself.
Four years ago...almost four years ago, I was alone on a retreat with a group of men. I was an elder at Gateway Church and while sitting alongside a riverbank by myself one day on a day of solitude and fasting, God said to me, “Brady, you’re going to leave Gateway and you’re going to go be a senior pastor, but you’re not going to leave the umbrella of Gateway’s influence.” Just loud as clear in my heart, I mean, it’s a loud thought. I knew it was God. I know God’s voice and just like that, I heard it. So I went back to the house that night to these group of men, I’m going to show you a picture of these men. This is the picture of the men I was with. Can you get that picture? There you are. This is where we were, we’re in Arkansas...Southwest Arkansas and here we all are. These are all the men that I serve with as elders together at Gateway. And this picture is in office for a reason. I have this picture there to remind me of the strength that I have. None of these men live here but I know this, an hour-and-a-half plane ride away, I got those group of men that can speak into my life. I feel strong and more capable than I should feel because of those men.
So I went back to them that night and I said, “Listen, I think I heard the Lord on something,” and Tom was there, he’s in that picture. It’s Tom Lane right there somewhere, right in the middle. And so he was there, and he can tell you this is what happened. I said, “Guys, I heard God say I’m going to leave Gateway.” And I’d been there almost seven years at that time. I helped build Gateway. It was a part of who I am and I said, “I’m leaving. I think God has told me I’m leaving. I’m going to be a senior pastor. I don’t know where. I don’t know all the details but I don’t want to leave your influence. God said I’m not leaving your influence.” Now, I said to these guys, “Now guys, that’s what I heard. However, I will not do any of it unless you tell me, unless every man on this room tells me God said go, I won’t go. I’m not asking for your blessing. I want to be sent and you can’t be sent unless you’re sundered”. You can’t have that kind of thing unless I put it on the table because I trust these men. They’re Godly men. They would hear God the same as me, to be obvious not only to me.
By the way, if it’s just obvious to you and no one else, I don’t want to be kept and obvious here, but if it’s only obvious to you and no one else, chances are you’re about to make a big mistake. Let it be obvious to everybody else what your calling is. Quit telling everybody what your calling is and let it become obvious to everybody else without you telling them, right. I didn’t think I'd get very many Amens on that one.
All right, so fastforward, three or four months later, I got a call from New Life Pastoral search committee. Four months later, I got a call and that started a process and me surrendering again, and again, and again to these men, and when I was selected as your pastor, I would have said no to you if they had said no, seriously I would have. I’m telling you. I’m not exaggerating it. If you just said, “I want you to be our pastor,” but those elders said, “Brady, no. It’s not obvious to us. This is not God.” I would have said, “No.” I would have said, “Hey, thank you very much. I love you. No.” But they all prayed with me in a meeting, several meetings, many, many, many meetings. We prayed together and it became obvious, it became clear, it became crystalized that I was supposed to come here. So in that morning of September, I don’t know, 12th or 13th when Pam and I were right here on this stage. I’ll show the picture. This is a great picture. This is in my office too.
That’s kind of a...that’s an emotional picture for me for a lot of reasons. One is that, that morning right here, you know, we became family together. You let me join your family. But those men surrounding me represent 15 or 20 years of friendships, each one of them. Some of them, you know, there was a couple of guys there that were existing overseers that I really didn’t know but most of those men, I’m looking at those faces, I’ve known those men for 10, 15, 20 years. And Pam and I weren’t going through the motions up here of some ceremony, you know, kneel, prayer over, and some religous ritual. That’s not what that was that morning. It was us saying, “We surrender our lives to this call and we don’t know if we can do it by ourselves, but when we look around and we see how we’re surrounded with people, now I feel like I can do this because of those hands that were placed on me, were not just ceremonial hands being placed on me. Those were men who were saying, “Brady, we recognize who you are and what God’s called you to do, and we’re in it with you.” Let me tell you something, listen, I don’t know...I don’t know who you got in your life and I feel very wealthy, I feel very lucky, very fortunate, very blessed to have those kind of men in my life. I know that. I know that’s not true for everybody in this room, and I wish it were, but I want you to start somewhere, somehow, finding, asking God. First, surrendering every part of your heart to God so that when God brings men and women into your life, you can surrender yourself and find the strength that I’m talking about.
The last three-and-a-half years since I’ve been your pastor, there’s been some great days and there’s been some dark days. Can I tell you that everyone of those of our overseer stood by my side after the shooting, they were all here. Robert was on vacation. Pastor Robert was on vacation, cancelled his vacation, took the first flight out and was standing by my side the next day. Tom Lane was right by my side the next day. Larry [inaudible 0:36:08] was right by my side that night. Jack Hayford was here when it happened. All those guys dropped what they were doing and stood by my side and did not leave me until I told them I’m okay. They said, “Brady, we’ll stay right here and tell us when you’re okay.” Well, I wasn’t really okay but I knew they were busy, and I said, “I think I can make it.” I think I can make it now. And they all went back to their house but they called me, checked on me, they were right here with me. Do you understand something? Listen, cord of three strands can’t easily broken. Now, if you’re going to live by yourself, it’s not a matter of if you’re going to be overpowered, it’s just a matter of when. At least with two people, you can defend yourself. If you’re going to live independently, check back with me in about 10 years and let me know how that worked out, okay.
I’m asking you at this point, are you easy to lead? I’m not asking you to do what I say. I’m not up here...if you think that’s my motive, then you don’t know Brady Boyd. I don’t want you just to do what I say, that’s not my motive. I’m trying to tell you something that’ll save your life though, if you’ll do it. I’m talking about something that will make a difference between you being successful for the kingdom of heaven, or finding yourself in an ditch. I’m talking about living your life intertwined with others, submitted to the authority of God first, and that should always be primary, always should be first. The authority of God superceeds all other authority, we know that to be true. But there will be people that will come into your life who need to speak truth into your life. Are you a sheep that can be easily led? Are you a sheep that’s always wandering off to the outside? I’m asking you the question this morning. Who is it that can tell you no? Just like that young man, I said, “A lot of mess is about to happen. You can clean up a lot of messes in your life, just let somebody tell you no every once in a while. No!
I want you to close your eyes for a minute. I’m telling you guys, this is a four-letter word in most people’s hearts. They just think this is awful...I wrote a little blog today about 10 things I wish somebody had told 15 years ago, and a couple of significant bloggers picked it up. It went [inaudible 0:38:26] all over the world like that, bam, like that. The only negative thing, the thing that...I got mostly positive feedback. The one negative thing, it was number five when I said, “You only have as much authority as you’re willing to submit to.” I believe that to be true. You want authority in the kingdom of heaven? You got to submit to authority. And when I wrote that in my blog, I got pounded by people because this is a four-letter word...people, they don’t believe this. I don’t think many of you believe. You’re resisting this talk today because you’re going to have to give up something in order to live like this, and our Colorado American culture says, “I can do this by myself.” No, you can’t. No you can’t. Listen to me, no you can’t. You cannot do this independently. You cannot do what God’s called you to do outside with the authority that God’s placed in your life. Husbands and wives, you want to settle a lot of issues at your house? Get this straight at your home. Listen, in 21 years of marriage, I’ve never had to tell Pam, “Look, Pam, I’m the leader. Submit to my authority.” Not one single time have I ever had to say that. The reason I don’t is because I serve Pam by leading her, and this issue is not an issue at my house because I’m considerate most of the time and I’m trying the best to be better at it. It solves issues in your marriage, submit to one another. Husband should be submitted to their wife the same as wife should be submitted to their husband. Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Become humble, and considerate, and compassionate.
Let me ask you a question, are you an independent person trying to do it by yourself, would you just confess that? God, I don’t think I have anybody in my life that can tell me no. I’m an independent person. I need help. Just ask God that right now. It’s that simple. Just repent and God will bring you people, by the way. God will send you mentors when you’re ready to be mentored. Right? And then ask yourself this question, “Am I, first of all, has all of my heart been surrendered to God? Am I holding on something that really belongs to God, which, everything belongs to God by the way. It all belongs to Him. So, let’s pray together this morning and this is just between you and God. I’m not pointing anybody out, I'm not asking you to raise your hand, but I do think this is a big issue that needs to be wrestled with, talked about at your house. Ask each other at lunch today or wherever you’re at with each other, just small group this week, ask each other, “Who in your life do you have that can tell you, no, and you’ll do it? Who do you have?” Ask each other. Let’s hold each other accountable on this, alright.
So, Father in heaven, we first of all come to you as sheep in your pasture and we surrender our lives to the sheperd of our souls. Lord, you are the sheperd of our souls, and we surrender ourselves to you. You, the Lord, is my sheperd. The Lord is my sheperd. You lead me, you guide me, you make me lie down. Would you annoint my head with oil? My cup runs over, but I am first and foremost a sheep of your pasteur. Lord, I pray that as sheep, that we would be easy to lead, that we would hear the whispers of God and be led by God. And Lord, let us surrender ourselves one to another out of reverence, out of humility, out of compassion. Let us surrender ourselves one to another, be led by one another. Father, I pray for the people watching live online, those who’ll listen to this later by podcast, those who will listen by CD or whatever measure, Lord, I pray that as they hear this, that your Holy Spirit would call us into living as family, submitted to another out of love, kind and compassionate as a family, Lord, as an army...an army of servants. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
