Wow! What a weekend! I admit, I forgot how tiring it was to have so many services, but it is so worth it! On Saturday night alone, 12 people bent the knee to Jesus Christ! That never get’s old! Here are some more thoughts on the weekend.
- In this series all ministries are working in total unison. What that means is that the children are talking about what it means to be bold for Jesus (verses a wimp), so are the middle school students, the high-schoolers and the adults. We are even doing the, “Diary of a Wimpy Christian ” or DOWC as we have come to refer to it as–in or Lifegroups! So, everyone is on the same page.
- 92 decisions for Christ! Like I said, NEVER gets old!
- I talked about how there is a God crafted, shaped and molded superhero in each of us so that we can do great things for God–not to bring glory to ourselves (that’s actually a tell-tale sign that something is not of God) but to bring glory to Him. Unfortunately, there is also a wimp in each of us. The wimp just wants to be comfortable and have a life of complete ease. He will never rock the boat, never challenge anyone or anything, loves all things P.C., and is the polar opposite of what Christ made you and me to be! We all need to kill the wimp once and for all! The superhero; however, is always ready to do things only God can empower him to do. He’s bold and courageous for the Lord! He knows what God has called him (or her) to do, and he’s ready at all times to do it.
- Our first Saturday evening service in over a year and a half was a pleasant surprise! There were a ton of people there and the energy was high! But best of all, as I said, 12 people got saved! Wooo Whoo!
- As an example that everyone (absolutely everyone) has both a wimp and a superhero in them (we ended up referring to it as a Dr. Jeckle [actually, we said, ‘Dr. Erkle,’ because, after all, we are talking about wimps here] and Mr. Hyde thing) and that there is a constant battle going on for which one will dominate at any given time. Pretty ridiculous when you think about it. How can a wimp dominate anything? Nevertheless, he does. In fact, the wimp leads the way far more often than the superhero for most of us.
- Peter was a picture perfect example of this Dr. Erkle/Mr. Hyde thing. He spent his entire time with Jesus vacillating between a wimp and a bold superhero of the faith. But I need to make a correction. Hey, we all make mistakes! I said Peter might have been stupid to pull out his sword when an entire Roman cohort (apx. 600 soldiers) accompanied the Jewish priests and Judas to take Jesus prisoner–but he certainly was not a wimp! I stand by the ‘not being a wimp part.’ But now I’m having secede thoughts about even the ‘stupid’ comment. If you read, John 18:1-6, you’ll see what I mean…
1When he had finished praying, Jesus left with his disciples and crossed the Kidron Valley. On the other side there was an olive grove, and he and his disciples went into it.
2Now Judas, who betrayed him, knew the place, because Jesus had often met there with his disciples. 3So Judas came to the grove, guiding a detachment of soldiers and some officials from the chief priests and Pharisees. They were carrying torches, lanterns and weapons.
4Jesus, knowing all that was going to happen to him, went out and asked them, “Who is it you want?”
5“Jesus of Nazareth,” they replied.
“I am he,” Jesus said. (And Judas the traitor was standing there with them.) 6When Jesus said, “I am he,” they drew back and fell to the ground.
You catch it? Look at verse 6 again…”they drew back and fell to the ground?”
Who did? THE ENTIRE ROMAN COHORT AND EVERYONE WITH THEM!! Flat on their faces simply from the power of the spoken word of the great I AM! Guess who would have seen this? Guess who had a front row seat to this?
Peter
And when Peter saw this, Erkle went a running and the superhero came out. He pulled out his sod thinking, ‘Let’s get this party started! You want a piece of me?! You gonna mess with Jesus?! Well I’m with Him! The one that just slammed you to the ground with a thought! You wanna rumble?’
So, maybe Peter wasn’t as illogical as we all thought. He just didn’t understand the mission–even at this late hour. Jesus was not going to establish Himself as King by force. He came in humility, a servant, to save. Peter had a long way to go.
- There are still 3 weeks left of the Diary of a Wimpy Christian series. Keep on inviting. It was a pretty good start (especially as school has not yet started and this was the last ‘getaway’ weekend. We nevertheless had hundreds more attend than usual! That was great to see! Can’t wait for next week. You all rock. keep on inviting because God is going to do great things!
- If you missed the first installment, you can watch the message here as soon as it goes up (probably sometime tomorrow.