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GETTING READY FOR GREATNESS
Mark 1:9-13
I love the Olympics. If
you measure it on a per capita basis Australia
is the greatest sporting nation on earth. But
really it’s just a time to celebrate the colour
and excitement of sporting achievements on the
global stage. Besides, who cares who wins as
long as it’s Australia. I love the way the
Olympics bring out the sporting prowess of
people from many nations.
There has been
a lot of controversy about events being dropped
from the next Olympics such as softball. How do
you drop softball and leave in synchronized
swimming ? They should just let us Aussies sort
it out, we would have have thong tossing and fly
swatting.
Annette Henderson walked into
her kitchen to find Mick stalking around like a
great white hunter with a fly swatter. "What are
you doing?" She asked. "Hunting Flies" He
responded. "Oh!, have you killed any?" She
asked. "Yep, 3 males, 2 Females", he replied.
Intrigued, she asked. "How can you tell?" He
responded, "3 were on a beer can, 2 were on the
phone".
As I look around me tonight I am
aware that God has blessed us with many new
believers. Some of you here tonight will be
greatly used by God in the days to come. Already
people at Grace have started to speak to me
about the call of God on their life for fulltime
ministry. But obviously this will require some
degree of preparation, so let us consider
together how to “Get Ready For Greatness”.
Louis Pasteur the French chemist and
microbiologist (ever heard of pasteurized milk)
“Luck favours the mind that is prepared.”
Miguel De Cervantes the author of Don
Quixote said that “To be prepared is half the
victory.”
One of the great tragedies of
this century is the number of high-profile
people who have professed faith in Christ and
suddenly found themselves thrust into the
limelight. Once there, they are expected to
display a level of spiritual maturity that is
simply beyond them. They are often elevated to
the status of instant sainthood. When they can't
live up to expectations, they become the
subjects of gossip, rumour, and criticism. I
don't know why, but many people think that if a
celebrity becomes a Christian, he or she is
immediately mature enough to become a spiritual
leader.
Of course, I am really excited
when I hear about a well known person who
becomes a Christ follower, but just because
they’re a rock star or a footy hero it doesn't
automatically mean that they have the goods to
be a spiritual leader or a spokesman for the
Christian faith. The unfortunate thing is that
when the celebrity fails to meet our
expectations, we are just a little too quick to
ostracize that person and send them back to the
world. Some recent examples are: Bob Dylan, Bono
(of U2), George Foreman, Evander Holyfield and
the list goes on. Some of these people still
claim Christ as their Saviour, whilst others
appear to have fallen away.
Since I
don't know any of these individuals personally,
I wouldn't presume to speculate on their
spiritual condition. However, in each case I am
certain that too much was expected of them too
soon.
The world may offer instant
celebrity, but God never promises instant
maturity.
There is a process of
preparation that we must go through before we
can be used by Him. This process cannot be
avoided or circumvented. The process of
preparation is part of God's plan for us. It's a
path we must all walk. Even Jesus endured this
process. If we want to be used by God, we must
first prepare ourselves. Tonight, we're going to
look at the distinct paths we must walk in the
process of preparation. The first one is...
1. PUTTING IN THE
HARD YARDS
I travel a lot with work.
I was sitting on the tarmac once listening to
the pre-flight instructions (which I only ever
half listen to) and I heard the hostess remind
us that, in case of an emergency they tell the
adults to put their oxygen mask on first, then
to help their children. I was thinking, to help
someone is a good thing. But we must first
prepare ourselves before we can help others.
Jesus spent 30 years preparing for the work
God had called Him to do; But he only spent
three years actually doing it. 90% of His life
was lived in relative obscurity. We don't know a
great deal about this period of His life, other
than He learned His father's trade and worked as
a carpenter. Yet, when He was baptized, God
said, "You are my Son, whom I love; with you I
am well pleased." As far as we know, during this
time He didn't perform any miracles or preach
any sermons. He just worked hard at the family
trade, and this faithfulness in obscurity was
pleasing to God.
Abraham Lincoln... If I
had six hours to chop down a tree, I'd spend the
first hour sharpening the axe.
Dietrich
Bonhoeffer was a well-known German theologian
who was imprisoned by Hitler in during World War
II. During his imprisonment he admitted that it
is much easier to suffer publicly than it is to
suffer anonymously. Obscurity is often a hard
pill to swallow. It's the star people remember,
not the understudy. The understudy must know the
lines and rehearse the part just like the star,
but the understudy's talent is often never
witnessed by an audience.
In the last 20
years Mother Teresa received a great deal of
publicity for the work she did in Calcutta and
throughout the world. In fact, at one point she
had to make to make a decision not to accept any
more awards, because the ceremonies and
accolades distracted her from her work. It's
easy to forget that for decades she worked
tirelessly in total obscurity in the worst slum
in one of the poorest nations in all the world.
The international influence Mother Teresa had
came with a price, during her years of
preparation, she walked the path of obscurity.
We all want to be recognized for our skills,
and most of us will be. God didn't you give you
a gift or talent to see it go unused and
unnoticed. But we must remember that God's plan
for us is that we be conformed to the image of
His Son, and that requires that we prepare
ourselves by walking, for a time, the path of
obscurity.
2. THE PATH OF
OBEDIENCE
A man was discussing the
fragility of many marriages with his girlfriend
and posed the following question, "What if you
wake up one morning and don't love me anymore?"
She immediately responded, "There's always
obedience." Source Unknown.
Let us
consider Jesus’ obedience;
(v. 9) At that
time Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was
baptized by John in the Jordan.
Many
people have wondered with why Jesus would find
it necessary to get baptized. John the Baptist
wondered, also. In another gospel account of
this event, John said to Jesus "It is I who
needs to be baptized by you." Jesus responded by
saying, "It is proper for us to do this to
fulfil all righteousness." (Matthew 4:13-15) Why
did Jesus get baptized? He had no sin to repent
of. He was not in need of forgiveness. He was
baptized for three basic reasons.
A. To
identify Himself with John's renewal movement.
John the Baptist was a revivalist,
calling people out of dead religion into a
vibrant relationship with God. In many ways,
Jesus' ministry built upon the work that John
began.
In Matthew 16, Jesus asked His
followers, "Who do people say that I am?" They
replied, "Some say John the Baptist..." During
His ministry, Jesus was compared to John the
Baptist because they both preached repentance,
they both preached salvation, and they both
preached that a relationship with God is more
important than religious customs.
B. To
set an example for His followers.
Though
Jesus didn't need to be baptized, He commanded
us to be baptized (Matthew 28:19-20; Mark
16:15-16), and He gave us an example to follow.
C. As an act of obedience to the Father.
(v. 10-11) As Jesus was coming up out of the
water, he saw heaven being torn open and the
Spirit descending on him like a dove. And a
voice came from heaven: "You are my Son, whom I
love; with you I am well pleased."
Jesus
lived His whole in submission to the Father. He
followed His Father's will, not His own. He said
what His Father told Him to say, and did what
His Father told Him to do. Jesus' whole life was
an expression of obedience to the will of God,
which is represented in His baptism.
The
Bible makes it clear that God is not interested
in our music, our preaching, our buildings, our
programs-when we try to bring them to Him in the
form of a feeble, half-hearted sacrifice. He
told us what He wants from us...
To obey
is better than sacrifice. (1 Samuel 15:22)
Neil Marten, a member of the British
Parliament, was once giving a group of his
constituents a guided tour of the Houses of
Parliament. During the course of the visit, the
group happened to meet Lord Hailsham, then lord
chancellor, wearing all the regalia of his
office.
Hailsham recognized Neil Marten
among the group and yelled out, "Neil!" Not
daring to question or disobey the "command," the
entire band of visitors promptly fell to their
knees! Today in the Word, July 30, 1993.
This is the kind of obedience we must develop in
our own lives. God wants us to obey Him. It is a
discipline that must be learned before we can be
truly useful to Him.
3. EXPERIENCING
OPPOSITION
(v. 13) And He was in the
wilderness forty days being tempted by Satan.
Before Jesus healed anyone or performed any
miracle, He endured a time of testing. Though
Mark doesn't say much about it, the other
gospels do. We know that during this time, Satan
approached Jesus. Jesus had fasted for forty
days and was physically weak. Satan tried to
persuade Jesus to make stones into bread,
because he knew that Jesus was hungry and that
the thought of bread would be tempting. He tried
to persuade Jesus to force the hand of God by
jumping from the peak of the temple, since God
had promised to protect Him. Notice that Satan
even quoted scripture to Jesus! (Psalm
91:11-12). He also offered Jesus all the
kingdoms of the world if Jesus would only
worship at Satan's feet.
Satan was
offering Jesus what Jesus would gain for Himself
anyway, but He was offering it to Him without
the price Jesus would have to pay. He was
saying, "Forget death. Forget Calvary. Forget
your mission. You can have it all the easy way
right now if you just worship me."
We
must remember that this was a difficult time for
Jesus. We are so aware of His deity-the fact
that He is God-that we forget He was, at the
same time, completely human. His suffering was
painful. The temptations he faced were truly
tempting. Hebrews says...
He himself
suffered when he was tempted, so He is able to
help those who are being tempted. (Hebrews 2:18)
In our quest to be used by God, we are
certain to find ourselves facing opposition and
temptation-just like Jesus did. Our only
appropriate response--just like Jesus--is the
Word of God. Every challenge that Satan
presented was met with scripture. This is what
we must do when we face temptation and
opposition: respond with the Word of God. Of
course, in order to use scripture, we must know
scripture.
The path of preparation
includes a path of opposition, a path of
testing. Just like the Olympic swimmer who gets
up when it is still dark in the middle of winter
to prepare themselves for the challenge of
competition, we too will face a time of testing
as we prepare to be used by God in our own
lives.
CONCLUSION
I heard a minister say
once, "Before God use you publicly, He must
tutor you privately." We cannot be used of God
until we've been made ready. There is a process
that cannot be short-circuited. It involves our
walking a path of obscurity, obedience, and
opposition. But if we walk it, this path
leads--always--to eternal glory
God Bless
you this week,
Pastor Chris
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This Month's Journaling
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AUGUST
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1. - Is. 65,66; Ps. 62; Jn. 3
2. - 2 Ki. 21; 2 Chr. 33, Jn. 4
3. - Nah. 1-3; Jn. 5
4. - 2 Ki. 22; 2 Chr. 34; Jn. 6
5. - 2 Ki. 23; 2 Chr. 35; Jn. 7
6. - Hab. 1-3; Jn. 8
7. - Zeph. 1-3; Jn. 9
8. - Jer. 1,2; Jn. 10
9. - Jer. 3,4; Jn. 11
10. - Jer. 5,6; Jn. 12
11. - Jer. 7-9; Jn. 13
12. - Jer. 10-12; Jn. 14
13. - Jer. 13-15; Jn. 15
14. - Jer. 16,17; Ps. 96; Jn. 16
15. - Jer. 18-20; Ps. 93; Jn. 17
16. - 2 Ki. 24; Jer. 22; Ps. 112; Jn. 18
17. - Jer. 23,25; Jn. 19
18. - Jer. 26,35,36; Jn. 20
19. - Jer. 45-47; Ps. 105; Jn. 21
20. - Jer. 48,49; Ps. 67; 1 Jn. 1
21. - Jer. 21,24,27; Ps. 118; 1 Jn. 2
22. - Jer. 28-30; 1 Jn. 3
23. - Jer. 31,32; 1 Jn. 4
24. - Jer. 33,34; Ps. 74; 1 Jn. 5
25. - Jer. 37-39; Ps. 79; 2 Jn.
26. - Jer. 50,51; 3 Jn.
27. - Jer. 52; Rev. 1; Ps. 143,144
28. - Ezek. 1-3; Rev. 2
29. - Ezek. 4-7; Rev. 3
30. - Ezek. 8-11; Rev. 4
31. - Ezek. 12-14; Rev. 5
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Don't forget
bring your Bible and a notebook to church
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CAN YOU
PRAY?
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We need you to be part of our prayer team.
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The Bible tells us that prayer changes things.
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Would you like to be part of a life changing force
in our church?
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or if you have a prayer request
If so, contact
Pastor Di or call
41236050
What does God say to you?
Do you want to get to know God and His word better?
Journaling is a great way to read through the Bible and
learn what it has to say for each of us.
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You are never behind!
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Today is a great day to start.
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God gives us a new day every morning!
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HELP!
Ministries in Grace Community Church need you!
Everything from setting up chairs to running cables and preparing food,
Grace is a Team Ministry. If you feel you would like to be involved in
Grace, please see one of our Team Leaders or Pastor Chris who can direct
you to who you need to see.
Library
click here to view
library web page
Come and browse our selection of books,
dvd's
and videos at Grace Library. Also Life Journals available.
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EXPRESSIONS OF INTEREST
are called from prospective students for a
Kingsley
College Extension School in Maryborough.
Subjects to be offered:
Introduction to Old Testament, Intro. to New
Testament; Wesleyan Church History.
Classes will be held every 3rd Saturday,
starting July through October. Study for audit $180;
Study for credit towards Licensed Minister status-$450.
Direct questions and interest to
Pastor Di ASAP.
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"Christianity Explained"
see Glenys
To download
Life Journal
files -
Self Extracting or
PDF File
The Online Bible
Download
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DISCOVERY
GROUPS.....
Discovery Groups are groups of people who meet to talk
and learn about God and His word.
It's a great opportunity to get to know people in the
church, and be encouraged mid-week.
Current Discovery Groups are held throughout the week on
Mondays and Wednesdays.
On Friday nights is Youth Bible Study, especially for
teens. See the weekly
calendar
for places and times. If you wish to start your own Discovery Group,
there is room for plenty more. See Pastor Chris for details.
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If
you are interested in joining a team here @ Grace....
please see any of the team leaders or Pastor Chris for 'how to'
information. |
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This Month's
Journaling
click here
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We meet at The
Powerhouse,
on the corner of Kent and
Tooley Streets, Maryborough
Fellowship
meal from 5:15pm-5:45pm Worship Service
starts @ 6:00pm.
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Grace Community Church a Wesleyan Methodist Church
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