HoHum:
Bill Hybels- If we are involved in the marketplace at all, we are trained to believe that time is money. That’s why we talk about managing time, using it efficiently and profitably. Cram more in. Start earlier. Work later. Take work home. Use a laptop on the commuter train. Phone clients while you drive. Check your email while you fly. Schedule breakfasts, lunches and dinners for profit. This is the key to promotion, to compensation increase, to power. Getting caught up in that intense pace can be rewarding! It’s exciting when the adrenaline starts to flow and you get on a roll, when you start racing faster and faster. But it leaves precious little time for quiet moments with God.
WBTU:
The word discipline and the word discipleship are the same words. When we make the choice to follow Jesus, the question is, “What disciplines will help me to be a faithful disciple of Jesus?”
3 disciples are important for us to remain faithful disciples of Jesus. These are in Luke 6.
This outlines for us an important night and day in the life and ministry of Jesus.
1. Jesus spent the night praying to God (Vs. 12)
2. In the morning, Jesus chose 12 of his disciples to be apostles (Vs. 13-16)
3. In the afternoon, Jesus healed the sick and preached the Word. (Vs. 17-49)
Notice the order- from solitude to community to ministry. The night is for solitude, the morning is for community, the afternoon is for ministry. This order is important.
Many times we go in reverse of this order. We start with ministry, we try to do things for God and for others. When we get frustrated, we turn to others and say, “Help, this isn’t working!” When others fail to help us, we think, “Maybe I should start praying.” Backwards!
Jesus teaches us that must begin with prayer, then from there to a community determined to live out God’s mission, then this community goes out together to heal and proclaim good news.
Thesis: Let’s talk more about these 3 disciplines
For instances:
Solitude (Luke 6:12)
Solitude is being with God and God alone. We find Jesus doing this all the time. “But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.” Luke 5:16, NIV. Why is this important?
Notice that here in Luke we find that Jesus was baptized by John. “and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”” Luke 3:22, NIV.
Jesus listened to the voice of His Father. People were applauding him; laughing at him; praising him and rejecting him, shouting “Hosanna!” one minute and “Crucify!” the next. In the midst of all of this Jesus kept in mind that He was the beloved Son of God.
Interesting that many times the people wanted a sign from Jesus to “prove that he was the beloved, prove that he was something and somebody, prove that Jesus was worthy of their time and attention. “The Pharisees came and began to question Jesus. To test him, they asked him for a sign from heaven. He sighed deeply and said, “Why does this generation ask for a miraculous sign? I tell you the truth, no sign will be given to it.”” Mark 8:11, 12, NIV.
Right after his baptism, Satan came and said things like, “Prove you are the beloved, change these stones into bread. Grab some power in this world to make a real difference. Make yourself famous by jumping off the temple and the angels will catch you.” Jesus in essence said, “I don’t have to prove anything. I am the beloved.” He was able to do that because He focused on His Father and He was constantly reminded of this in prayer.
Jesus is the Son of God. Through faith in Jesus we are sons and daughters of God. Jesus is our eldest brother who paid the price for us so that we can be sons and daughters of God. “You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus,” “Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.”” Galatians 3:26; 4:6
If we keep this in mind, we can deal with an enormous amount of success as well as an enormous amount of failure without losing our identity, because our identity is that we are beloved of God, sons and daughters of God. Long before we are rejected by some or praised by others- that voice spoke to us, ““This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” 1 John 4:10, NIV.
This realization allows us to go into this world and touch people, speak with them, and help them grasp that they also can be beloved of God. We are reminded of this in prayer. We have to listen to the One who called us beloved. Otherwise, we will run around begging for affirmation, for praise, for success and we will get frustrated and quit.
Jesus spent the night in prayer. I am sure that as he thought of the disciples and which ones should be apostles that he spent more than one night. How about 2 years! Ahpu often tells the story of the first Christian missionary that went to the Lisu people. Tried to share the gospel but failed. Spent 2 years in prayer and then went back and had a few converts and then things got rolling. See again, start with solitude, then community, then ministry. Solitude is where ministry begins. Jesus listened to His father and this is where we listen to our Father.
Community (Luke 6:13-16)
Solitude calls us to community. In solitude we realize that we are part of the human family and that we want to live in that family and enjoy fellowship. Goes against God’s design for us to always live in solitude.
However, community is not easy. In Jesus’ community of 12 apostles, the last name was that of someone who was going to betray him. Unfortunately, that person is always in our community somewhere.
Why should solitude come before community? If we forget that we are beloved, we are going to expect our community to make us feel that way. They cannot. No one can love us like God can. Some think that the church is a group of people who are terribly lonely so they grab onto other desperate and lonely people and attempt to build a community. If so that will be a disaster. No, we go to others and say, “I am beloved; you are beloved; together we can build a home.” Sometimes we will be close in that home. Other times we do not feel much love and that’s hard. However, when we try to find God’s love from humans we will be frustrated.
Within discipline of community are disciplines of forgiveness and celebration. Forgiveness and celebration are what make a community, whether a marriage, a friendship, a church.
What is forgiveness? Forgiveness is to allow the other person not to be God. We all have wounds. We are all messed up. Only God can forgive and heal. If we want other people to give us something that only God can give, we became desperately needy. We want love and before we know it we become violent and demanding and manipulative. People cannot take the place of God. “Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.” Colossians 3:13, NIV.
This is where celebration comes in. In community, in the church, we can celebrate how God is changing and helping others. ““A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” John 13:34, NIV.
In this world so many people live with the burden of self rejection. “I’m not good. I’m useless. People don’t really care for me. If I didn’t have money, they wouldn’t talk to me. If I didn’t have this big job, they wouldn’t call me. If I didn’t have this influence, they wouldn’t love me.” Underneath a successful and highly praised career can live a fearful person who doesn’t think much of himself or herself. Only can fill that void with God and his salvation
Ministry (Luke 6:17-23)
All Christians are called to ministry. “Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms.” 1 Peter 4:10
Jesus could do nothing without God’s help and power. “Jesus gave them this answer: “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself” John 5:19, NIV. “By myself I can do nothing” John 5:30, NIV. Jesus wanted to do one thing- the will of God. He was the completely obedient one, the one who was always listening to God. Out of his listening came an intimacy with God that radiated out to everyone Jesus saw and touched.
We minister in the power of God. ““I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” John 15:5, NIV.
We have to trust that as sons and daughters of God, power will go out from us and that people will be touched. Ministry can be expressed in two words: gratitude and compassion
Gratitude: Our life is full of losses- losses of dreams and losses of friends and losses of family and losses of hopes. Ministry means to help people become grateful for life in the midst of their losses. Gratitude sends us out into the world precisely to the places where people are in pain. Read Luke 6:20-23. To minister we have to be where the misery is so that they can be grateful to God in the midst of their pain.
Compassion: Compassion means to suffer with, to live with those who suffer. When Jesus saw the widow of Nain with her only son being carried out dead, “his heart went out to her and he said, “Don’t cry.”” Luke 7:13, NIV. From there Jesus raised the boy up from the dead. We cannot do that but we can be there. When we know that we are beloved, and when we have friends around us with whom we live in community, we can do a lot. We are not afraid to knock on the door while somebody’s dying. We are not afraid to open a discussion with a person in need of ministry. Begins with solitude, moves to community, ends with ministry.
Henri Nouwen- Jesus spent about 50% of his time in solitude with the Father, about 40% building community with the 12, and about 10% “doing ministry.”
I find this hard to believe. Let's say that Jesus spent 1/3rd of his time in solitude praying to his Father. This shows how backwards we are from Jesus, I know that I don't spend 33% of my time in prayer.
