The Things That Concern Us

In getting my message ready for tomorrow I've been thinking about the Pharisees. On paper they believed most of the same things that Jesus taught, yet they clashed with Jesus time after time. It was as if there was a large gap between what they claimed to believe and how they lived it out. Or maybe, it was a problem of the order of their priorities. They seemed obsessed with their rules and themselves while Jesus was obsessed with the lost and God.

It makes me wonder sometimes if we don't get carried away with things that aren't as important as we think they are. I know that times and cultures have changed, but I see many churches focusing on things that I don't think Jesus and the early Church gave a whole lot of thought to. I'm not saying that these things aren't covered at all and God knows I might be missing something, but these are somethings I've picked up from my readings of the life of Jesus and the early Church:

They weren't overly concerned with leadership development - No twelve step principles, no annual leadership development retreats, not even quarterly leadership training classes. I'm not saying these things are bad, it's just that it seems that Jesus thought that the best way to train a leader was to put them in a situation bigger than themselves and give them opportunity to succeed or to fail.

I don't think they ever took spiritual gift assessment tests - These might not be that familiar to all of you, but if you ever spend any time in a charismatic church chances are you've seen classes offered on "discovering your gifts" or something similar. Paul tells the church to pray for the greater gifts, but other than that it doesn't seem to be something that he was worried about. People discovered their gifts by serving God in the way he called them. Just like Moses at the burning bush, if God calls you to speak He'll give you the gift of speaking. If He's called you teach you'll have the gift of teaching, etc. If we believe that "spiritual gifts" are tools to accomplish God's purposes then we should focus on the purpose and have faith that God will provide the tools needed to do the job.

They didn't care about buildings, stage design, or production - These are all nice things, but I think we give them to high of a priority in our minds. The early Church got things done outside, in public squares, and in borrowed houses and locations with nothing but themselves and the message. We can too.

They weren't afraid of sin - Jesus was a friend of sinners and tax collectors, He was accused of being a drunk and a glutton and guess what. He didn't care. You don't find the lost sheep inside the sheep pen and a shepherd that can't keep himself from being eaten by the wolves isn't much help to the sheep he's to protect.