So I exhort the elders among you, as a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed: shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you; not for shameful gain, but eagerly; not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock. And when the chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory. Likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elders. Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”
In the early years, we had no elders. And when I started, I knew the importance of having elders for accountability, structure, making sure you've got what I call a backstop. And I had a wise man tell me, whatever you do when you launch this church, don't lay hands on elders too soon. I said, really? He said, the reason that church plants blow up most predominantly is because you're laying hands on men to partner with you that you don't know well enough. And then all of a sudden, things start boiling over and you don't survive it. And he said, Carl, it's the most important bit of counsel I'd give you is do not have elders. And I was like, what do I do? He said, get a few men around you that have known you for 10 years or longer, that have a long track record of having known you, and they trust you, and you trust them. And even though they're not in the church, wherever they are around the country, bring them in as a just a team. That's going to bring some accountability financially, spiritually, all those kinds of things. And so I picked a few guys that were near and dear to my heart, that knew me well. A couple of them are. You might even know them. One was Crawford Laritz, a dear friend for a lot of years. So I asked Crawford if he'd be on my board. They weren't a board of elders, but they were a board, a man that's gone on to be with the Lord right now. Luis Palau was on my board. He was an evangelist, heavily in South America. Incredible man of God. And Robert Lewis, who wrote Men's Fraternity, he was another one of my men. And these were just incredible encouragers. It was a humbling thing. You know, we'd be like two months into it, and I'd get the guys on the phone, hey, conference call. Hey, gentlemen, here's where we at. You know, we had an offering. We brought in $198. And. And I'm talking with these guys that have been in ministry for a long time. And I'm like, and. And I personally had been to the mountaintops, but here we are in humble beginnings, man, just moving from a sidewalk to a little place and then a little bit bigger place. And it was a great experience because by the time we started to really see and trust great men of God and bring in elders, for which I'm grateful for all of them today, I'm grateful that we don't have yes men. We have men that ask questions. And really, more than Even asking questions. They provide spiritual insight based on their knowledge of you, the body of Christ. And it's so encouraging. But one of the big aha moments that I had was that. And I don't say this from presumption and certainly not pride, but when. When we started this church, because of my bride and I's experiences leading up to it, we had a mindset that if almost like you build it, they'll come kind of field of dreams kind of thing. And I didn't know how hard the ground was to till in downtown Chicago. And as we began to open up the doors, it was a very short order that the Lord revealed to me through a set of circumstances to go back to the beginning of why we do what we do. There's a lot of people in our culture today, a lot of pastors are validated or sadly invalidated by how many people are coming and how much money is given. And although those are important metrics, they are not the primary metrics for the health of the church. We're called to make disciples. And the Lord put me on this disciple making quest that I am so humbled today. I'm a big believer still in this principle that a great coach in the NFL. I used to be a 49ers fan before I was a Bears fan. And I'm a Bears fan until they move to. That's gonna. That's gonna be hard for me, man. The Indy Bears, Indiana Bears, that ain't. That ain't working anyhow. That's for another time. I can tell there's strong opinions in the house here today, but Bill Walsh was a great, great coach. He's died now, but somebody wrote a story about his philosophy. And his philosophy wasn't to go out and win a Super Bowl. His philosophy is, you get the right men on the field executing what God's called them to do, or what the coach has called them to do, what God really birthed in them with that natural ability to do. And he had this phrase, the score will take care of itself. And, you know, I gotta tell you guys, the Lord used that in my heart to tell me, let's go make disciples, for which we're still getting our feet under us. Making disciples is so counterintuitive to the dominant church culture that we've been raised in, because the dominant culture is, come, listen, go away. Hopefully the message doesn't evaporate by 1pm and then come back and do it again. Right? And I'm looking at Bruce and June Jin back here, and this is A couple that's so committed to disciple making. And Stephen on, just Stephen and Nikki, one of our new pastors here is just a great man of God. I not only love his transformation story, but his zeal to see people's inner lives aligned with the power of the empty tomb. And it's just a beautiful thing. But this is the truth, guys. If we get in our place and we execute well, the gifting that God has us in, all of us, the score will take care of itself. We don't have to worry about nickels and noses. Man, that's a decent metric. I mean, somebody's got to count the offering. For crying out loud. We count noses around here. But we can't get hung up on those two metrics. But if we get hung up on the metric of disciple making, that's the handlebars to get hung up on and it'll change everything. I titled this message today, Destined for growth. But if I haven't been clear already, I want to be clear right now. The focus of Scripture is spiritual growth, not numerical. The grace of God. Titus 2:11 and 12, two of my favorite verses in the Bible. The grace of God saves us and trains us to renounce ungodliness, worldly passions and to live self controlled and to live godly, upright lives in this present age. Wow, imagine that. To renounce worldly passions and to live self controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age. Don't you want that? I do. And According to Titus 2:11 and 12, it's the grace of God, his unmerited favor, his unparalleled power that enables us to do that very thing. And then my dad's favorite verse, Philippians 1:6, who began this work in us, he will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. Aren't you glad it's not up to you to carry it on? It's his work and he wants to do that in us. Today we're going to focus on a very short passage of scripture and it speaks to elders in the church. Now I want to be really clear with this because some of you could think, ah, yeah, this is an opportunity for me to tune out because I'm not an elder. I don't even aspire to be an elder. But I want you to know some very important truths about elders that some of you do not know. So let me roll through a few of these. They won't be on the screen, but let me pour out my heart here for a moment. The early church was small Enough for relational shepherding. Okay, you've got to remember this in all my study of eldering, and I've done a deep dive on this. About two weeks ago, it began. The average church size in the early church in the first century was somewhere between 20 to 50 people. That was it. And the church size was limited by, ready for this, the size of the home. So they would get high density amounts of people into a living room type of situation. But elders were called to be the overseers of the hearts of people. The elders were not counting noses and nickels. They knew people. They understood the needs. And that's why I'm so grateful for our elders. They understand you and they give feedback. This is what God's doing. This is where we need to grow. It's tremendous. Wayne Meek says this. The early Christian groups met in private homes. The size of such gatherings was necessarily limited by the architecture of the house itself. Second thing I want you to know is that elders was designed for shared spiritual oversight. Alexander Strock has written a book called Biblical Eldership. It's about this thick. I got through it once who. It's heavy. But in it. He says the New Testament concept of elders is that of a. That of a plurality of qualified spiritually mature leaders shepherding the local church together. But here's what you need to know. Structures change, but principles remain. The Scripture is pretty silent, being prescriptive about, how many elders do you have for 60 people? How many elders do you have for 100 people? How many elders do you HAVE for 5,000 people? It's a good question. And pastors today have wrestled with this. But I think the best way to reconcile it, guys, is that elders are shepherds of souls that keep a finger on the pulse of the body of Christ. How are we doing? Do we need to adjust? Do we need to change? Gene Getz says the biblical story on local church leadership does not describe specific forms, only functions and directives. There's a couple other things I want to give you on elders that are very important. That sets the deck for today. Elder qualifications reflect mature Christianity. I love what John Piper says. He says the qualifications for elders are not extraordinary. They are what every Christ follower should aspire to. So there's a notion that, oh, we got some elders good. I don't need to live that way. But that's not the goal. All of the qualifications for elders are a calling on our life, all of us, to step into a spiritual maturity process. They aren't extraordinary to be held by a few They're a calling for the whole. This is why the Apostle Paul said this. Follow me as I follow Christ. It's a let's go. And God willing, our elders live in such a way that they can say to you, follow me as I follow Christ. Mark Deaver has wrestled with this whole issue of elders and leadership in the church, and he captured it so well. He said one of the best signs of a healthy church is not simply having elders, but raising up future elders and leaders. Boy, we need more of that. The mission. According to Colin Marshall and Tony Payne, they wrote the great book the vine and the Trellis. They talked about the mission of people, developing people. And this is a couple of quotes from their book. Christian ministry is the ministry of the Word by people to people. As much as I love what we're doing here, this is person to people, people to people is as you look to one another and you encourage each other with the word of God. That is what is so desperately needed. That was the model of discipleship and elders even in the early church. They went on to say at another point, the real training challenge is not training people for ministry tasks, but training them to be disciple making disciples of Christ. So the whole issue of elders is that we have men who are in charge of souls, not that they're responsible for that change, but they. They pray for, they emulate Christ and they begin to pour into the lives of others. And we pour into the lives of others and into the lives of others and into the lives of others. We're so intent on this that we're coming. We're going to have a big announcement at the end of our service today about something called Revolution 1230. And I want you to know that I hadn't planned on even saying this here, but I'm going to do it. If we're going to be a church and no longer just settle for going to church, we're going to have to overthrow some systems that we've adopted that have become part of the whoop and warf of what we expect the church to be, that are going to have to be radically altered. We've been working for months on something called Revolution 1230. You're going to hear more later, but we are thrilled because we are courageous enough to face head on what we've identified. Six systems in the church that we've adopted, inherited, grafted into us, that have caused us to be stifled in our spiritual growth. And you know what we're going to do? Like any good revolutionaries, we're going to overthrow those systems, we're going to throw them off and we're going to take hold of what the scriptures clearly give us. Ministry, guys, healthy ministry and a healthy church. It is incumbent on myself, Stephen, Summer, Bruce and June, Torrance and Samantha, it is incumbent on us to pour our lives into the hidden life of Christ in a way that become so accustomed to the word of God coming off of our lips that we're helping people overcome what seems impossible and live as they never imagined. I know you want that question is, how in the world are we going to get it? The interesting thing about elders is that it requires a certain level of proximity. I announced to the church last week in Northwest Burbs that Shane Wyatt came to me about two months ago and he's an elder that usually is focused in Northwest. And he came to me and he said, man, I've got a dilemma. I said, what's going on? He said, well, you know, I've got my business here in Chicago, but I've opened a company in Arizona and I've got some other things in the world works. And I really feel like God has me called to that. I said, well, what's the challenge? And he said, I don't feel like I can be an elder in this season. You know what I said to him? I'm glad you came to me because I was going to come to you. He loves 180. 180 Is he and Julie's church. Still is and will be. But I respect that integrity to say I need to step away because the involvement in the church for an elder is not to make sure is everyone in line or all the noses and nickels counted. But it's shepherding the body of Christ. That's what we need. So if you see Shane, pat him on the back and say you're a good brother, because he truly is. In First Peter, Chapter 5, we find some amazing words. I'm going to read all five first verses here, and this is what we find. So I exhort the elders among you as a fellow elder and witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed. Shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight not under compulsion, but willingly as God would have you, not for shameful gain, but eagerly, not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock. Look at verse four. And when the chief shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory. Likewise you who are younger, be subject to the Elders, clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another. For God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. We often cherry pick this great verse out of verse five, and we say, yeah, God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. The direct context here is how we relate to each other. If we're prideful toward each other, if we're cocky toward each other, God will not elevate that person. But as we humble ourselves toward each other, God will lift us up in due time. Amazing little passage, but in the spirit of the apostle Paul saying, follow me as I follow Christ, and with what the. The words of John Piper resonate with me big time. That the qualifications for elders are not some exemplary thing that's almost unattended attainable. But these are attributes that we're all moving toward. I want us to look with fresh eyes at this text today, and I want to give you five attributes of dynamic spiritual leadership. And here's what I want you to do in these next few moments. I want you to take this opportunity to ask the Spirit of God who wants to speak to you, and is this true of me? Is this not true of me? Is this something I need to grow in? And by the time we're done here today, I want you to select the one attribute that the Holy Spirit is saying to you. Grow in this. Focus on this. Just one. Some of you might say, Carl, and I'm done with all five of these. It's like, I got all five. Pick one. Pick one. I'm letting you off the hook. For some of you, I'm looking around and I know you. I want to say, pick two. No, I'm kidding. Not naming names here, because I'm a good shepherd, I promise you. But pick one, and let's go after them today. The first one is this humble leadership. Now, it's really funny. I want to give you an inside joke, kind of the secret of how the sausage is made. We go through a passage like First Peter and breaking up different pieces. And it came to this little portion, and I wanted to keep going on my portion and keep going. And it said, I already broke it up where you preach one through five. And then I take six on. And he said, and I've already got my outline for six on and everything. I said, no, just give me the whole thing. And he said, you're giving me three verses of, like, the final greeting in this letter. I said, man, it'll preach so well. And he's like, you're kidding me. I said, I'm kidding you. You get the, you get the humility text. So I don't want to linger too long on this point because next week Pastor Jit's going to be coming here and his whole focus is on humility. But I want to linger here enough to grab what we found in verse five and that is humble leadership is central. Do you know how powerful humility is? And the question a lot of us have is what does humility look like? Let me give you a few pithy things that some of you may have heard. But it's not thinking less of yourself, it's thinking more of God and getting your life aligned under him. And if we stop and get our theology straight that we were all born with our backs to God, we were born as enemies of the cross. I have a co host, Ali Domerson is how you really pronounce that name. But she's one that when she stumbled on it, you know, she says, everybody says we're all children of God. Everybody on the planet, we're all God's children. And she says, Carl, that's not true, is it? I said, no, it's not. But to as many as receive him, to them he gave the right to be called children of God, you see. But we weren't born children of God. And I know this is hard for some of you to grasp because we almost get spiritual amnesia for those that are truly born again. Even if you were called out of darkness as a child, you remember a time when you recognized, whoa, I'm a sinner, I need a savior, I'm headed the wrong way, I need to turn around and give all that I am to Jesus Christ. But if we've got our theology straight, we never have one upsmanship on anyone in this world. And there is nothing more disgusting than a self elevating Christ follower who somehow thinks I did that. One of the great dangers in, in Western Christianity is that it creates almost a political storm, a social storm of self elevation. And we begin looking down at people because of the grace of God, those who are truly born again. And my suspicion is that a lot of people that have that mentality have never been born again. They're Christian in name only and so they think they know God and that God knows them. But they might be among the many who will say Lord, Lord. And he's going to say, I never knew you because the truly born again connected at a heart level with good theology. Understand I was born as an enemy of the cross. Whoa. I was born with my back to God. I was Born reckless. I was addicted to my appetites. I was on a broad path that leads to destruction. But God by his grace, tapped me on the heart and said, you're a sinner. You need a savior, and you turn to him. Listen, if you got your theology straight, humility will follow. Please hear me. Can I just say again and again and again, whoa, whoa. If you weren't here, we sang that song earlier. Can I say again? Angry Christians have never led anyone to Jesus Christ. Don't be an angry Christian. Don't be self righteous. Don't look at people's positions, politics, whatever, and go, but boy, they are stupid. Humble yourself under the mighty hand of God. We didn't do that, right? God did that. God did that. Andrew Murray has a lot of great quotes in the book Humility. I love to rattle off some of my favorites. Maybe the simplest one is humility is the place of entire dependence on God. That's what humility is. So I want to ask you, how are you doing on humility? Now, if that's your one, don't get up and walk out yet. Hang with me. We got four more. And if you need two, one's on the way. Second one is caring leadership. This is what we found in that text. Shepherd, the flock of God among you. It's to tend, to feed, to protect, to nurture, like a shepherd. It's not having a verse to slap on somebody. It's maybe a verse to just encourage somebody. It's a verse that will put God's arms around somebody. Not even your arms. Oftentimes we think, I need to have. I've got to be this. This shepherd. No. The role of a shepherd is to point people to the good, good Father. That's who can change everything. I don't know how many of you have ever looked at the brass plaques all around Chicagoland, but there are brass plaques everywhere. We had some friends in town. We decided to go down to Lake Michigan. We drove down Dempster Thacker, all the way down to the end, parked, paid an ungodly amount of money for one hour of parking. See, even Christ followers can take shots at government every now and then if you aren't angry. So I plugged the meter and did that thing. And then we go walking and we started walking down the lakefront and we came upon Arrington Lagoon. You probably, some of you might have seen it, some of you maybe never been up there. And it was. We stopped at Arrington Lagoon, man. We saw families with little kids, and then we saw these creatures, man. Ducks and geese. And my bride, she's bold. She just walked right down, right onto this beautiful platform and she's got her camera out and there's a mama goose with the gooselings. And the gooselings were like little, they were like fourth or fifth graders right in that age range. And so they, they were super fuzzy. Have you ever seen gooselings? They're just like super fuzzy and they're so shoot and you want to grab them. And my bride's sitting there getting pictures and that mama goose is like. Walking with my wife. Like you a I, you look like a nice lady, but you might be the devil. That's what the mama goose is saying. This is like raw. And a shepherd and a leader, and we're all aspiring leaders, has an eye out for brothers and sisters who are a little fluffy, maybe not fully grown. And then that shepherd looks at himself and says, there's a little fluffiness in me too. And we care and we block and we protect and we love and if need be, we go. Brah, Didn't know that was coming, did you? John Calvin says caring leadership says the duty of a true Pastor is not to domineer but to care for the salvation of the flock. And on a personal note, I think one of the greatest gifts God gave me is to go through a heart rending experience that some of you have spoken of plenty of times, probably close to 20 years ago now. And through that, the Lord used that as a refining fire through tears in my life in a way that my bride says that when I preach and when I'm on radio because I host a morning radio show, she says there's an empathy for people in your voice and from your heart that wouldn't have been there without that 20 years ago. Bubba, Caring leadership cares for people. You're not quick to say you got that wrong. I don't like how you set that up. It's not having your agenda even in the way you serve. It's saying, here I am, Lord, send me. And it looks at others and says, how can I care for you? It doesn't even say those words. That caring heart can come across with listening eyes. Have you ever talked with someone with listening eyes? Isn't it beautiful? It's like there's their eyes are listening to you. And that's what we're called to be. The third attribute. And some of you are like, stop, I got my two. Third attribute is willing leadership. This is what we find in verse two. Not under compulsion, but willingly. Willingly just means freely, voluntarily, from Inward desire. It's funny because in First Timothy 3:1, we find that it is a noble thing to aspire to elders. And it's applauded by Paul and you might think, is aspiring to elders really okay? And it is. If you see it as caring, if you see it as shepherding. There's some of you in here that have more leadership chops in you than you can imagine. You've got ability to do things. God wants to utilize you. God wants to take the gifting that he's given you and pour it into the hearts of other people that need some encouragement, some guidance, some direction. And being willing is great. Charles Spurgeon said, no man should look upon himself. As if the ministry had been forced upon him. Your eagerness, your willingness, is a noble thing. And some of you have wondered, is it okay if I have a desire to use my gifting in a certain way in this church? Is it okay if I aspire to. Listen to me. If your heart is humbled before God and your aim is to glorify God and help other people, step forward. We want to hear what's on your heart. We want to hear the passion that God has placed in you. He wants to use you. I've got two more. Not just willing, but eager leadership. Oh, yeah, eager. Now, Scripture says in verse two, not for shameful gain, but eagerly, readily, zealously, with joyful readiness, ready to go. Eager leadership, but not for shameful gain. Got a really tough story to share with you. As a younger Pastor, I was at a church and we were needing to raise a significant amount of money, and we had the capacity at that time, I think there were about 3,000 in the church. And I think we had 40 some people on staff. And we were raising, I think at that time, 2.2 million or something like that, dollars, which is a lot of money. And I was going to be meeting with groups of people in small little groups and in some cases, taking couples to lunch and just giving them the vision and pouring out my heart. And there was a man that wanted to tag along with me, and I didn't know it until we got quite a ways down the road, but this guy was actually going back and doubling back with the people that we met with and trying to sell them what he did in his profession. I'm not saying that what he had was bad. I'm saying that any leadership in the church needs to be careful that we're not tapping into the people to exploit them for our own gain. We can't afford to have elders here that are wanting to get close to you so that you can buy real estate from them. That's exactly what we find in this text. The shameful gain was absolutely that. And this is not to say we should never do business with each other. I think we should. But we should see each other as brothers and sisters first, not as ATM machines. And I want to tell you, I've got a brother who I've been encouraging in the Northwest burbs, and he's a man who's a. He's a great carpenter and he's a great builder, and he's been getting ripped off where he works. And I told him, I said, bro, you got to get out on your own. He goes, yeah, I've been thinking about that, but I have a hard time putting myself out there. I said, I'll put you out there. Open your company. You're at an age where you need to start providing for your family differently, and it's time to go, man. And so is it okay if we use that brother and no, I don't have his name and his company picture going up here or anything like that. Wouldn't that be weird? But is it okay if we go to that brother and say, hey, listen, I got a bathroom renovation. Could you help me? Yes. Is it okay to do business with each other? Man, the early church only had each other. No one else did business with them. But we don't build relationships to exploit them. That's the difference. Not for shameful gain, but eagerly. Are you eager for leadership? I want you to be. I believe that the spirit of God wants to use your unique passion and your unique gifting, bring those together in a way that God begins to flourish you and give you a passion for what it is he's called you to do. Let it roll, man. I can't see everyone because of the lights that are blaring at me right now. But I can see enough of you. I see enough of you right now that I know there is untapped potential sitting in front of me right now. Let God use you. Be eager to jump in. Cultivate that kind of leadership. Follow others as they follow Christ. The fifth attribute is exemplary leadership. This is what it says in verse three, being examples to the flock. Exemplary means it's a pattern or an imprint or a model of worthy imitation. It is that great. We've got a general contractor at the new building in Northwest. His name is Costas. Costas is a terrific guy. I haven't known him long, but I'm getting to know Costas. And Costas is a general contractor who came up to us, and he said, look, here's the deal. I want to be the general contractor on this full renovation, and there is no other general contractor that can touch the price I'm going to give you on this thing. And he is absolutely right. He's been generous beyond what you can imagine. But he's got these guys that have worked for him for 20 years. I said, do you have different subs that you bring in or bid against people? He goes, no. I've worked with these guys so long, I trust them. They trust me. We communicate well. It's awesome. One day I was up there, and they're blowing out walls, and they're demoing space, and they're building out children's space right now and all that stuff. And here's something amazing. I'm walking around, I'm shadowing him, and I'm seeing something exemplary. He's talking with this subs, like, is there anything you need from me? Do you understand the prints here? What do we need to do with that? He's just. I was just blown away. I'm like, this guy is terrific. And you know what I found out? Costas is normal. Because within. Within a few days, I went back to the building. I had to pick something up, and Scott, our campus director up north, he said, hey, you might want to go talk to Kostas, but if you do, just know he's a little ticked off today. I was like, oh, Costas gets ticked off. And I came around the corner and said, Costas, how you doing? Well, I'm not doing great. And then I found out this guy really is Greek. His hands started flying everywhere. I mean, his hands are just flying around. And I said, what's going on, Costas? And he said, we've been demoing. They picked up the dumpster. You always leave another dumpster. They hauled it away. We got no dumpster. He said, I am so ticked off right now. And I thought, I can follow this guy. See, exemplary isn't weird. Exemplary is of noble character, making consistent good choices and being human with how things go every now and then. That's exemplary. My goodness, I love you all. I look out here right now, and I can look at Northwest Campus, and I see quality men and women, and I'm looking you in the eyeballs right now. Not perfect, but I see in so many of you such quality, such exemplary character. And you might be saying, there's more of that dumpster stuff in me than there is in Costas. God is not aiming for perfection. God is aiming for surrendered souls who are continuing to reflect the power of God in and through their lives to others around them. He wants that for you. How are you doing? The hope of the church is not a handful of elders, but a growing army of believers mature enough to say, follow me as I follow Christ. That's it. I've got 2 Y in the roads for you today. As you know, we are now changing what we do around here. We're having more time at the back end to take a couple of songs and worship truths into us. You know why we did this, and we're probably going to stick with this because we want our experience here on weekends to be a time of real discipleship as well. Oftentimes we get done with a message. We have a song. I put a blessing over you. And honestly, before you get to dessert for lunch, you have already forgotten what I've talked about up here, and I know that. So we wanted to begin to take some moments here in the services to allow you to say, search me, know me, try me, see if there would be any attribute of leadership in me that needs to grow and lead me in the way everlasting. And I want us to do that right now. Today we are going to pray for personal attributes of leadership. So on everyone, including the worship team, just hear my heart here. I'm going to go through these five. I want you to close your eyes wherever you are in this auditorium. And I as I check these off, you may have already landed on one. I want you to pick one and I want you to pray. And then I'm going to pray for you in just a moment that God would create this attribute in you like you do not currently have it. Is it humility? For a lot of you in this room, it will be that. Just humility. Humility. Connecting with the theology of who you are apart from God. He'll lift you up. Is it caring leadership? Shepherd the flock of God among you. Be brothers and sisters to one another. Not long looking for what is wrong. But looking for needs is shepherding what God would have you focus on? How about willing? Oh, Carl, if I was honest with you, I've not really been willing. I'm more of a Sunday spectator. I want to urge you more, make this your focus today. Become a willing participant in God's kingdom work. How about eagerness? I've been a little bit timid, Carl. There's some stuff inside me that God wants to get out. I'm not looking for shameful gain. But I want to grow more eager in leadership. Is that you, my friend? Exemplary. I guess we all could pick this one. Maybe this is number two for all of us here. Exemplary is that although we hold this treasure in jars of clay, we see the imperfections of our life and we say, oh, God, shine brightly in me. Shine brightly through me. I submit my addictions to you. I submit my bad act to you. I submit it all to you. I give you my life. Make me an example for others. I want you to take that word that God's given you, and I want you to pray, not aloud, but earnestly. In the deepest recesses of your heart. I want you to pray. God, make this true of me. Make this alive in me. I'll give you a couple of moments to pray, Sam. Father, we have people all over this auditorium and some watching online right now who are doing honest business with you. Some don't know how to converse with you really well, but you've heard the cry of their heart. Cry in my heart. I picked out one for me, too, Lord, and I want to pray right now. In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Oh, Father. Work in power. Cultivate willingness and eagerness and humility in an exemplary lifestyle. Do these things, we pray. God, please, Lord, heaven mercy on us in this moment. God, create in us a clean heart, oh God. And renew a right spirit within us, oh, God. Come, Holy Spirit. Convict. Comfort, whatever you need to do. Spirit of the living God, move. I pray. Pray, Lord. I pray, too, that you would wipe up tears that are being cried right now and that you would fill them with tears of joy and hope and expectation. You are a truly good, good father. That's who you are. And we give you praise.
