Implementing a Theology of Work - Lesson 5

Mr. Kent Humphreys
Implementing a Theology of Work
cm120-05
What Did Jesus Do
Lesson Transcript

[00:00:06] In this session, we want to ask the question, what did Jesus do? You know, a number of years ago, everybody had the bracelet on that was built around that book that was written over 100 years ago. What would Jesus do in this situation? Many teenagers had that. But the question we want to ask for you as a leader in your church or as a leader in the workplace today is what did Jesus do? Let me read you a quote that I got just last week from an email from a pastor in Oklahoma City. In my city. He said this. He said, I've not had an excellent mentor as a pastor. Like most pastors, I've had lots of formal education, but I've not had an experienced pastor friend to mentor me as a pastor. There has been no Paul or Timothy in my life. And then he said this. He said, The main thing for Jesus was making disciples from last people. That was his mission. Have you considered that when Jesus spent time with people, he only spent time with lost people? This would include his disciples quotes from a pastor just in the last couple of weeks. And one other thing before we start our session today, I want to tell you that from what did Jesus do? This is chapter two in this book of shepherding horses, understanding God's plan for transforming leaders, which is probably going to be made available to you where you're taking this class. And the second book is How to Do That, Shepherding Horses Volume two, and that will be using as a resource in a number of our classes and in some of our classes, like the one we just did on the workplace. You'll find a lot of that information in the opening doors.

[00:01:48] But Christ at work opening doors. And I think these resources in addition to the class will be a great help to you. But the popular question was what would Jesus do? And my question to you is, what did Jesus do? And we need to be following his example. So I've looked at scriptures and I've gone through the gospels time and time again, just going through Matthew, Mark, Luke and John as a business leader and asking myself the question, What did Jesus do as he walked here on the earth with his disciples? I mean, whatever Jesus did is what I need to be about doing as a business leader, as a leader, seeking to equip other business leaders as a leader, seeking to impact my community, as a leader, seeking to build bridges with pastors. What did Jesus do? What things did Jesus do? And I think that Jesus did five things that I want to have us center on today, five things that Jesus did. Number one, when Jesus was in a community, Jesus went into the community and had everyone to respond to the good news. The first thing Jesus did is he told everyone when Jesus went into a city, he would always give the good news. He would always give the gospel. And so the first thing that we need to do as we work with people is to tell them the good news. And Jesus did that. And we're doing a pretty good job of that today. In our nation, we have satellite and we have Internet and we have television, we have radio, we have books, we have pamphlets. We have many ways of telling people the good news of Jesus Christ. We're probably not failing much in that area.

[00:03:32] But the second thing that Jesus did is he taught many to understand God's principles. Whenever Jesus went into a city, he would normally, as he talked to the people, then he would go into the temple and he would teach. And boy, are we doing a good job on that today. We've got Christian television, we've got Christian radio, we've got Internet, we've got blogs, we've got all sorts of of iPods. We've got audios and videos and unbelievable teaching resources that we've developed over the last few years. And so we are teaching biblical teaching of God's Word is more prolific today across our nation than ever before. But it seems to have less and less impact. But we are teaching many. The third thing that Jesus did is he trained some to do the work. Now training, there's an interaction and training. When I think of training, I think of the 70 as Jesus sent them out two by two. And so Jesus did train some to do the work. Fourthly, Jesus equipped a few to reproduce. Now, while we've done a good job on telling and teaching and training, we haven't done a very good job on the reproduction. Jesus trained a few to reproduce. He equipped a few to reproduce. The equipping process is a process that has to be done in a smaller group. It can't take place with 50 or 100. You can train, but in my definition, you can't equip leaders, reproducible leaders. It has to be done in a small group. And finally, Jesus modeled a relationship with the Father. We're going to cover each one of these five areas in our class today. Jesus taught everyone. I mean, he told everyone. He taught many, He trained some, He equipped a few.

[00:05:31] He modeled a relationship with a father. Once you understand these five, it will dramatically impact how you do what you do as a pastor or as a leader as you train leaders. So let's look at number one. Jesus told everyone to respond to the good news. Jesus came into Galilee proclaiming the good news, the Gospel of the Kingdom, the Gospel of God. The time has come. At last, the Kingdom of God has arrived. You must change your hearts and minds and believe the good news. Jesus told everyone the good news. We must tell everyone the Gospel Today. Jesus wants us to give the good news of the Gospel, the Gospel of the Kingdom, His Gospel, the good news. Jesus told everyone. The good news marked Chapter one, but Jesus secondly taught many to understand God's principles. The vast crowd heard this with great delight, and Jesus continued with His preaching. Jesus always taught and preached as He went into every city and marked Chapter 12. It talked about the delight that they received when Jesus taught. Can you imagine sitting there on the hillside with Jesus hearing his teaching? Can you imagine being there in the temple, hearing the teaching? And as he interacted with the scribes in the Pharisees, Jesus was a marvelous teacher, the best teacher of all time. He taught many. He taught many to understand the principles of God. He said, Listen to me, all of you, and understand He wanted us to understand his teaching. He said, Are you so lacking in understanding? Jesus wanted his disciples. He wanted his people to understand the principles that He was teaching. As we teach today, as you teach as a pastor, you may teach is a Sunday school teacher, is a leader in the workplace.

[00:07:31] Teaching provides an atmosphere of change. Normally, in a large group setting, it stimulates thinking. It answers the question of who is to do the ministry and what do they do? The teacher says, Here you are, here's what you're to do. Here's what the Bible says. We need good, strong biblical teaching. We need good, strong universities and seminaries to turn out teachers who are teachers of the word of God, not of their own opinion, not of what the secular people are saying, but teachers of God's word. Jesus taught many. Number three, Jesus trained some to do the work. The Lord commissioned the 70 disciples and sent them out to buy two in advance parties. You remember how Jesus sent out the 70? He trained them and told them what to do, and he sent them out and they came back with great results. And so Jesus did training. He didn't do a lot of training. He mainly did teaching and equipping on the 12. I think training can take someplace between maybe 12 to 70 people. It provides an atmosphere in which the individual changes and then it usually happens in a group setting of the training and then the trainer sends them out. They're involved with each other, they're involved emotionally, they're engaged with each other, and relationships and the training process, they learn how to do what they're to do. They learn skills, they learn when to do it, to do the things that are taught. They've already been taught that they are to do it and what the mission is. And then the training sequence, they're taught how to do it, specific skills, when to do next, what to do next. The things that are done. Jesus did that. He did that with the 12, He did that with the servants.

[00:09:20] He did that with groups of people and sent them out into the community. These three things we are doing well in the church today. If you count all the the training I have a little bit of problem with because we've shoved in the DVD sometimes and we haven't taken enough time to have some individual training. That's very important for the person that works in that training class. But Jesus did tell everyone he taught many and he trained some. There's a little graph that I have here, and I hope that that you can see it, but it shows that as we go from a large group through a small group, through an inner circle, down with our time with God as we go from if you look on the right hand side, from telling to teaching, we tell. We want a response of telling. But then we we teach the follower, we train the disciple, we equip the mentor or the leader, and then we have our personal time with God. As we go down through the process, the process becomes to a smaller group of people and it becomes more intense, intentional. So Jesus told everyone he He taught many, he trained some, he equipped a few. And then he he related. He he revealed his relationship with the father. If you look on the left hand side, when I'm telling you something, I expect you to change. I expose you to some concepts. I don't know if you're going to change or not, but I expect to have some change in your life. At least I've told you about that. And then when I teach you, there's an atmosphere there that creates an atmosphere where you as a learner, as a listener, that light and a large group are exposed to that teaching.

[00:11:12] And as a follower, you understand where I'm leading you. And then in the training, there's a likelihood of change because you're involved in the process where you're actually going to do something about it. And then as I equip you as a leader, there's a tendency to change a strong tendency because I'm going to be working with you individually or in a very small group. And then as you capture what Jesus relationship was with the Father, then we're forced to change or either run away like Peter did, because we've seen the dynamics between the father and his son. So again, Jesus told everyone. He taught many, he trained some, he equipped a few. He modeled a relationship with God. So number four, Jesus equipped a few. Late in the evening, Jesus arrived with the 12. Jesus was always with the 12. Jesus constantly spent time with the 12. We see it in Scripture After Scripture He took with himself, Peter, James and John. He took the three apart. He took them to the Mount Transfiguration. He took the 12 apart. Jesus often took the 12 apart. Now I want to take you to the last few hours before the cross Jesus. In the last few hours before the cross. Jesus. He taught in the temple a couple of days before, and the last evening before he appeared before the governor and the others. Jesus took the 12. As I said in a session a few sessions ago, I would have had a big meeting if I knew this was my last day on Earth. I would have had a several hundred people. I would have thrown a big party. I would have thrown a big banquet and said, Here are some things I want you to know.

[00:12:59] But Jesus didn't do that. He could have drawn a crown, but he chose to not draw a crowd. What Jesus did is Jesus brought the 12 together. You remember He had him there for that last supper. Judas was there also. And then Judas left. Judas left and there were only 11. They finished the supper and they went over to the garden. And in the garden Jesus said, Now you ate, you ate, remain right here. And I'm going to take with me Peter, James and John. And he took with him the three Peter, James and John took them a little farther and said, Now you three remain right here, Peter, you and James and John, you wait here. They fell asleep just like the other ones did. And then it says the Bible says, and John, that he went just a little further and fell on his face before the father. And there you have the prayer, Jesus prayer of John 17, where he prays that we might be one. Now, Jesus modeled those things. He's modeled those steps right on that last evening before the cross. He had modeled before telling everyone he had modeled teaching in the temple. But the last three steps, he modeled the time with the 12, he modeled the time with the three, and he modeled the time with the father. So Jesus was equipping the 12 right up until his last night before the cross. He was constantly telling and equipping and helping those 12 and those three, and then modeling the time with the father equipping occurs and one on one or one on two relationships, and perhaps it can occur in a small group. But when you're equipping a leader, equipping leaders takes time. You can't mass produce that in one's will is at stake.

[00:14:49] Is he or she has to learn to make spiritual choices Because what Jesus asked them to do is say, Are you going to be a follower of me or not? Are you going to follow what I've talked about and the questions of where Jesus, are we going to do this and why? I have a spiritual walk. Jesus explains those things to the 12. That's it. Constantly spend time with them. Jesus spent far more time with the 12 walking along the road, sitting under a tree, having a meal together than all of his teaching and training telling put together. Jesus equipped a few. The reason why we're not more effective in equipping leaders in our churches today is that our churches are set up to train people in large groups or maybe in a Sunday school class, but it's mainly around the teaching experience, and teaching is good. We need biblical teaching. As a young man, as a young adult, I got a lot of biblical teaching. I got a thorough knowledge of scripture. I need that in my church. But what we also need that we do not have in most churches are spiritual, mature leaders coming along, gathering people in groups of one and three and 12, and equipping them to be the leaders that Jesus wants them to give. So I'm asking you, as a leader, as a pastor, as a leader in the workplace, who are you giving your life to? Who are the people in your inner circle? Do you have a Peter, James and John? If you were to have a health crisis or a crisis with your teenager or a crisis in your marriage crisis in your job. Who would you call if you have a crisis 2:00 in the morning? Who are the men and women that are closest to you? They may not be in your same city.

[00:16:33] They may not be in your small group. They may not even be in your church. But there are two or three women, men and women, that over the years for me, it's my wife and a couple of business leaders. A couple of years ago, I was in India speaking in five cities. We were on a five city tour and I was in the third city. And I remember on a Sunday morning I got the phone call and I got the email from my wife that my best friend, Bruce of 59 years of age had died. He'd gone to be with Jesus. God had taken him up with a sudden heart attack. My other best friend, Bill, who was part of our inner circle, and my wife David, in those with the three people in my inner circle, those were the three people that if I had a crisis in my life, that's who I would. And so we were in the third city. We were getting ready to go to the fourth city. I flew with the team to the fourth city and went ahead and spoke that next Monday morning, got my plane reservations, flew back to the United States and participated in the memorial service with my friend Bruce for my friend. And so, you know, he was one of my inner circle. And so the inner circle may change as things happen in people's lives and in your life, but you need to have an inner circle. And when you approach the storms of life, who are the people that you turn to? Finally, Jesus modeled a relationship with his father that they might catch the vision. You know, the Bible says in early in the morning, while he was still dark, Jesus got up and went to a solitary place and there prayed.

[00:18:00] Mark. Chapter one, verse 35 Jesus. Here is the son of man, the Son of God. And yet Jesus spent time with the Father. If Jesus, God's Son needed to spend time with the Father, what about you or me? You know, I've found that we get so busy as a leader, maybe leading a church or a Christian organization or leading the business. We we dash off to do something for God or do something for ourselves as we do that day and we forget about our relationship with him. May I just ask you, what about do you make it a priority to spend a few minutes, to spend some time to spend to spend extended time in your relationship with the father? I don't need to tell you this as leaders, but I would just really encourage you, you know, make it fresh. Don't depend upon your position and the time of preparation for maybe, pastor, that you're doing a message. I know I've had that tendency. You're doing that message. Your leader. You know, you're teaching a class or or you've got something that you need to do. Let me just remind you that you need to have a vibrant personal time with Christ. Let me remind you that get you a message Bible, get a living Bible, get something that gives vitality to the Scriptures, Read the Bible through in a different in a different paraphrase or a different translation. Find you a devotional book that you really enjoy. Find someone that really speaks to your heart. For me, it's as well. Chambers. I mean, the classic is my utmost for his highest, but find an emotional book that that can help you in your time with God, to really help you to go to a deeper level of intimacy with God.

[00:19:43] I've read probably ten or 12 of Chambers books which have been very helpful to me. And there's other people that I like, like Tozier and Andrew Murray and get some of the old classics of of of people who have walked with God 100 years ago and spend time with God. Not in the word and with those people to challenge your heart. But whatever you do, spend time. How's your prayer? I spend time walking. I just love to walk and pray. It's never been a strength in my life, and I was never really good at journaling and some of those things that other people are really good at and find a way that you can pray for others, whether it's a list or I've used three by five cards or I've used other reminders, find some things that as you have this vital relationship with a living Christ, this vital relationship with a father that Jesus modeled to us, that needs to be a big part of your life as a leader. Because Jesus not only told everyone and taught many and trained some, He equipped a few. He had that relationship with the three and the 12, and he had that personal relationship with the father where he got together with him. And in fact, that's what John 17, was all about. His he has prayer for us as he modeled. He let them get close enough. Pastor, you were told years ago you were told years ago that you couldn't let those people get too close. Well, listen, let me tell you, you need to let those leaders get close enough to see your walk with God, even when it's in the tough times. Pastor, you need to allow people in your congregation to see you have a relationship with the loving father business leader.

[00:21:34] You need to allow your team to see you when the times are tough. The disciples were close by. It says. He went a little beyond them and fell on the ground and began to pray. And he said, if it were possible, Lord, let this pass from me. But he let the disciples see him in his time of agony. Pastor, Leader in the workplace. Church staff Leader of an organization. Are you modeling the relationship with the father or you let the people see you up close? See the goal of walking with Christ spiritual teaching, training, equipping us to enable men and women that they might have a walk with Jesus Christ and Jesus modeled that kind of relationship with him. And the focus is not to be on our mind or emotions or a will, but on our heart. We need to really focus on the heart. The heart is really critical. And when one comes to know Christ, that person, when we see Christ that way, we see the necessity to change because we've been with the Father. When others watch your life, what do they see? Do you let them get close enough to see you as you really are? So what did Jesus do again? He told. He taught. He trained. He equipped. He modeled. Pastor, I pray that you're doing those last two things. I pray that you're taking some time to shepherd some of those horses that you're getting together with those leaders. You don't have to advertise it. You don't have to tell other people about it. I've got a pastor friend, Randy, in Oklahoma City. His church is right across the street from Iran. It's a good friend of mine a couple of mornings a week. On Tuesday or Wednesday or Thursday, you'll find Randy at a local restaurant.

[00:23:24] Jimmy's in fact, he's written a book with that subject. But you'll find him with five or six or seven of the young business leaders under 3540 years of age in his church. They're spending time with those men. And a lot of the people in the church don't even know that he does that. But every year or two, he'll get a new group of men and spend some time with those group of leaders. Because Randy knows as a pastor of a large church that one day he'll leave that church and when he leaves that church, he's not only going to be rewarded from God for telling and teaching and training, but who are the men that he equipped? What was the next generation that he mentored and disciple, and that he modeled a close enough relationship with Christ that they could see him? So the question is, what did Jesus do? We see what Jesus do? Or are we going to do what our congregations have asked us to do? Are we going to do only to build the church? Are we only going to be worried about attendance or are we only going to be worried about our programs? You say, No, I'm worried about the people. Then let's worry about the people. Are you ministering to the needs of the people? And particularly, are you training the next generation of leaders and are you equipping the leaders? Because if you are to do what God's asked you to do, he said, your job, Pastor, is to equip the saints for the work of the ministry. Your job, Pastor, is to do what God's asked you to do. Your job, Pastor, is to do what Jesus did. Don't get this from me. From can't, don't get this from this teaching, Get it from the New Testament.

[00:25:01] You look at the gospel yourself and you see how. Jesus spent his time with the 12. You see what Jesus did and you model what Jesus did and pastor will convict you when you stand before the judgment. When I stand before Christ, he's going to ask me, What did you do with the gifts, with the tools, with the opportunities, with the people that I give you? Have you done what my son has done or have you done what the world told you to do in the world? Has this involved in a lot of committees and activities and programs and structures and building institutions like churches and businesses? I give my life to build the business. I give my life to build my church. But that's not what Jesus wants me to do. He wants to give my life for people. And if I can do that in the process, great. But it's not something to give my life for. So the question is, what will you do today? So let me just pray for you as a pastor. Let me pray for you as a leader in the workplace that as you lead others, you will be in equip or even in the workplace. These principles go right to the workplace. I had a 400 employees. I had a leadership team of six. I had a middle leadership team of 30. My job as a CEO and business owner was to give myself to the six and the 30, not to the 400. Yes, I wrote to them. Yes, I spoke to them. Yes, I encouraged them. But my primary responsibility was to minister to the six and 12 around me and the 30 middle managers, and we'll be sharing that in the leaders later session on leadership.

[00:26:36] Let me pray for you as we end our session today, Father. I want to thank you. I want to thank you that you gave us your son, Jesus, to model what it's all about. Jesus. Thank you. That while you were here on Earth, you not only taught and trained and told them all, but you model that relationship, Lord Jesus, with the 12 and with the three, and you model that relationship with the Father even in your last 24 hours before the cross. Lord, As these pastors, as these leaders from the marketplace, as these future leaders and seminary students and people who are getting ready to graduate from a seminary or a college or a training program. LORD As they look out upon their cities, as they look out upon their workplaces, as they seek to be active in leadership of churches, may they understand the things that you did, Lord Jesus here on Earth, and may they model your relationship that you had with the 12, with the three, and with the father. Thank you for helping each man and woman in this class that they may see the results of invest in their life and the next generation that they may equip both this and the next generation of leaders to be impactful as they impact their communities for Christ. For improving your Holy Spirit. Come through each one of us and give us the power to live out that vision in our companies and our churches in our cities. And we pray this in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. Thank you for joining us for this session.