text stringlengths 7 443 |
|---|
[900.44 --> 901.36] So I'm not going to do that. |
[901.62 --> 903.06] I'm going to leave next week for him. |
[903.28 --> 906.26] But I'm going to give us just a few minutes of like big picture. |
[906.82 --> 909.38] What does this book of Jude have for the church today? |
[909.38 --> 918.16] Okay, first thing that comes to me as I study this book is how fragile the church is, right? |
[919.14 --> 922.14] The church family is a fragile family. |
[922.52 --> 924.58] In fact, it's just like all of our families. |
[924.70 --> 927.52] It doesn't take a lot to divide your family, does it? |
[928.28 --> 931.48] And if you disagree with me, I'd invite you to rewind by two years. |
[931.58 --> 932.58] Remember this thing called COVID? |
[933.46 --> 934.28] No, you don't remember that? |
[934.32 --> 935.56] You've just repressed those memories. |
[936.02 --> 938.20] For a while, you couldn't eat with your families. |
[938.20 --> 940.86] And then when you could, you didn't know if you wanted to, right? |
[941.20 --> 942.16] It was tough. |
[942.30 --> 943.78] And a lot of people were divided. |
[943.98 --> 945.26] And some people had strong opinions. |
[945.26 --> 946.32] And they read certain articles. |
[946.44 --> 948.08] And then all of a sudden, there's like major conflict. |
[949.06 --> 951.34] It doesn't take much to divide the church. |
[951.60 --> 958.42] In the case of this church, it's a few key leaders with a few bad pieces of teaching and bad lifestyle. |
[958.42 --> 960.58] And they're wreaking havoc in the church. |
[961.22 --> 962.16] It doesn't take much. |
[962.16 --> 970.12] And Jude is calling the leaders of the church who are faithful to the hard work of standing against that for the sake of the whole body. |
[971.08 --> 972.24] And that's very hard to do then. |
[972.36 --> 974.12] And I will add, it's very hard to do now. |
[974.32 --> 978.66] In postmodern British Columbia, where we have high thresholds of tolerance for disagreement, |
[979.02 --> 982.66] it's very hard for us to say, hey, this is not in line with the way of Jesus. |
[982.76 --> 984.02] And we have to talk about it. |
[984.02 --> 989.66] But secondly, I want to loop back to that connection between false teaching and immoral living. |
[990.24 --> 996.22] It's fascinating to me how Jude's main concern is not necessarily the content of all the things that these people are saying. |
[996.40 --> 997.34] It's how they're living. |
[998.18 --> 1004.08] Because that reveals to Jude and to the rest of the church that these people can't be trusted. |
[1006.04 --> 1007.86] Character is critical for Jude. |
[1007.96 --> 1011.10] And it's true, just as true now as it is for that church then. |
[1011.10 --> 1016.74] Because we still have the temptation to be wooed by someone's eloquence, the charisma, |
[1017.38 --> 1023.10] their ability to be persuasive in conversation and relational abilities rather than their character. |
[1023.62 --> 1026.12] And when I say character, I mean like the basics of the fruit of the Spirit. |
[1026.30 --> 1034.48] Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, self-control. |
[1034.62 --> 1036.32] These things are so critical. |
[1036.32 --> 1043.06] And yet, we can so quickly overlook them because we're wooed by these competent skills that people have. |
[1043.22 --> 1044.86] This happens in the church all the time. |
[1045.50 --> 1050.82] And usually, if you hear a story of abuse of power or toxic leaders in the church, |
[1051.16 --> 1057.24] there is a story in their background of people being wooed by the gifts and overlooking the weaknesses of character. |
[1057.24 --> 1061.20] And there are many people, it's a nervous thing to say this when you're a pastor yourself, |
[1061.28 --> 1067.44] but there are many people who are given a very huge platform who do not have the character for it. |
[1068.26 --> 1073.28] And it breaks my heart to see so many stories of abuse of power in the church because people have overlooked character. |
[1074.24 --> 1079.54] Now, I'm going to share a story about our youth pastor, Misha, because it's very fitting for this moment. |
[1079.54 --> 1084.64] But over COVID, when we were looking for a youth pastor, we had a lot of applicants. |
[1085.04 --> 1087.36] And some of you are here, you're on our hiring team. |
[1087.44 --> 1088.28] You might remember this. |
[1088.56 --> 1092.46] And we had, I don't know, 20-something applicants at the beginning, and we interviewed eight of them. |
[1092.88 --> 1094.78] And all of them were like, ah, these aren't great. |
[1094.90 --> 1095.46] We'll just wait. |
[1095.50 --> 1096.94] And we didn't hire any of those applicants. |
[1097.06 --> 1101.88] And then we came back to another set of interviews, and we had another huge set of people who applied. |
[1102.00 --> 1104.02] And we did another round of interviews all over Zoom. |
[1104.02 --> 1111.96] And what I remember so clearly is there were some strong candidates, like on paper, and like very articulate, very charismatic. |
[1112.28 --> 1114.34] They would be like, they have all the checkboxes. |
[1114.46 --> 1119.40] But there was a sense that we had as a team, like, hmm, there's something about the character of this candidate. |
[1120.02 --> 1121.16] There's a bit of pride here. |
[1121.22 --> 1124.36] It's like, I don't know if this person can really work on a team and be humble. |
[1124.68 --> 1126.50] And as a team, we said, no, let's not hire them. |
[1126.78 --> 1127.80] And then, where's Misha? |
[1127.94 --> 1128.24] Is she here? |
[1128.30 --> 1129.38] Oh, she's upstairs in launch. |
[1129.68 --> 1130.90] Now, I'm talking behind her back. |
[1130.90 --> 1138.74] Like, I remember so vividly, as does the rest of the team, Misha was sharing about her own patterns of her devotion life, |
[1138.98 --> 1142.80] how she's seeking to follow Jesus in the season of COVID with her family and her friends. |
[1143.08 --> 1146.84] And she just shared these things like, whoa, this woman loves the Lord. |
[1147.44 --> 1153.10] And in her ordinary life, she's seeking to be a disciple, not chasing after a platform, not chasing after authority, |
[1153.10 --> 1156.46] but she wants to serve with her gifts, and she's well-formed in the way of Jesus. |
[1157.06 --> 1158.10] And she's the one we hired. |
[1158.10 --> 1162.04] All that to say, character is critical. |
[1162.44 --> 1167.60] And Jude here, I want to say this as clear as I can, his message to every church then and now |
[1167.60 --> 1174.62] is to be very serious about the teaching of people and the behavior of people. |
[1175.22 --> 1177.32] Doctrine and life both are critical. |
[1178.94 --> 1182.96] And so at this point, I think it's worth pausing and just celebrating and giving thanks to God |
[1182.96 --> 1186.62] for the leaders in our church, the elders and deacons of our church. |
[1186.62 --> 1189.92] We're in a beautiful season of unity and peace around our leadership table. |
[1190.30 --> 1190.94] Some of you are here. |
[1191.06 --> 1192.24] James was leading our prayer. |
[1192.88 --> 1197.66] God's been good to us, and he's answered a lot of prayer about the character and the conduct of our leaders. |
[1198.44 --> 1202.80] And many of you might not know this, but for the last year plus, we've been reading |
[1202.80 --> 1206.94] and having special meetings together just to talk about spiritual formation. |
[1206.94 --> 1210.92] Not for the church in general, although that's true, but for us as leaders. |
[1211.40 --> 1214.08] And many leaders have now written out what's called a rule of life. |
[1214.48 --> 1218.48] And that language is just, it's old language, and it basically says, I'm going to take these practices, |
[1218.98 --> 1222.88] whether it's scripture reading, it's giving, it's hospitality, it's prayer, |
[1222.96 --> 1228.04] and I'm going to put those on my calendar and then become accountable to those, to other leaders in the church. |
[1228.50 --> 1229.50] And I think that's beautiful. |
[1229.50 --> 1233.70] And I can already see in some of the leaders in our church how that's producing fruit |
[1233.70 --> 1238.28] and allows us to say to our church body, come follow us as we follow Jesus. |
[1239.02 --> 1242.68] Allow our own lives to be a model of how we believe discipleship looks. |
[1243.02 --> 1244.16] We don't just want platform. |
[1244.60 --> 1246.90] We want character that invites people to follow Jesus. |
[1247.16 --> 1252.86] And let me just say as clearly as I can, what invites people to follow Jesus is your character. |
[1252.86 --> 1256.06] It's the way you live in your ordinary day. |
[1256.92 --> 1260.74] It's the normal moments of hospitality in your home, of time with your friends. |
[1261.12 --> 1266.30] It's the ordinary stuff that shows the love and the beauty of the gospel of Jesus Christ. |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.