Difficult People Series Part 1 - Critical People

HANDLING DIFFICULT PEOPLE – 1

CRITICAL PEOPLE

PRAISE AND CRITICISM – WINDOWS TO THE HEART

It is better to be criticized by a wise person than to be praised by a fool! Ecclesiastes 7:5 NLT

• Praise – often reveals what you value most.
• Criticism – often reveals your deepest insecurities.

How can you think of saying, 'Let me help you get rid of that speck in your eye,' when you can't see past the log in your own eye? Matthew 7:4 NLT

WRONG RESPONSES

1) FIGHT

2) FLIGHT

RIGHT RESPONSES

1) LISTEN.

• When their motive is to help not hurt.
• When the person can help.

If you listen to constructive criticism, you will be at home among the wise. If you reject criticism, you only harm yourself…Proverbs 15:31-32 NLT

2) ANSWER.

• When the person is missing information that would change his perception.
• When the person is open to change.

The Ephraimites asked Gideon, ‘Why have you treated us like this?...’ And they criticized him sharply. But he answered them… Judges 8:1-2a

3) DISMISS.

• When the person is characterized by being overly critical.
• When this person emotionally unhealthy or wounded.

Jesus replied, ‘Every plant not planted by my heavenly Father will be rooted up, so ignore them. They are blind guides leading the blind…they will both fall into a ditch.’ Matthew 15:13-14 NLT

WE CAN’T PLEASE ALL PEOPLE,

BUT WE CAN PLEASE GOD!

For we speak as messengers who have been approved by God to be entrusted with the Good News. Our purpose is to please God, not people. 1 Thessalonians 2:4 NLT

Consumed Part 2 "True Worshipers

June 13th

TRUE WORSHIPERS

Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. John 4:23

TRUE WORSHIPERS

1) WORSHIP WITH AWE.

In his right hand he held seven stars…His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance. When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead…Revelation 1:16-17a

Shachah (170 times) (shaw-khaw') (to royalty or God) bow down, fall down (flat), do reverence, worship.

Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire. Hebrews 12:28-29

2) WORSHIP WITH ABANDONMENT.

David said to Michal…’I will celebrate before the LORD. I will become even more undignified than this, and I will be humiliated in my own eyes…’ 2 Samuel 6:21-22

Hallal (hal-lal’)–praise, be clamorously foolish or mad before the Lord. – hallelujah.

Worship in the Psalms

Shout to God. Sing a new song.

Dance before Him. Clap your hands.

Bow down. Lift up your heads.

Tell of His might. Stand in awe.

Meditate on His truth. Walk in his ways.

Still your heart. Cast down your idols.

Run to Him. Make a loud noise.

Lift your hands. Tell the nations.

Clash the cymbals. Seek His face.

3) WORSHIP WITH INTIMACY.

I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory. Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you. I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands. My soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth will praise you. Psalm 63:2-5

Sharath (shaw-rath'); to attend as a minister or worshiper.

• When is the last time you have been overwhelmed in the presence of God?

• In view of who God is and what He has done, what is your response of worship?

• God is seeking true worshipers. Is worship a way of life for you?

• Do you know the One True God in an intimate and personal way?

Consumed "A War For Your Worship"

June 6, 2007



Last night we started a brand new series called "Consumed." We had the Junior High join us for this one.

It's all about how worship isn't just singing. It's a lifestyle.

Really worship is the only reasonable response to who God is and what He has done for us.

Here's the video that kicked off the night.

Consumed

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Last night we answered the question "What is the one thing that God desires from us that we can freely give, or withhold?"

Our Worship.

There has been a war for our worship before the world was ever created.
When Satan said this;

‘I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God; I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly…I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.’ Isaiah 14:13-14

Lucifer wants himself to be worshiped, Jesus wants the Father to be worshiped

Here is some of the points we made

1) You are a worshipper
It's where ever you spend your thoughts, your time, your money, or basically whatever you value most in life.

But God has something to say about that….

‘You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself idols…You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God.’ Exodus 20:3-5

2) You will become like what you worship

But their idols are silver and gold, made by the hands of men…Those who make them will be like them, and so will all who trust in them. Psalm 115:4, 8

Then we talked about the "3 most important players" in a corporate worship setting.

- The Audience

- The Performer

- The Director

These three things are so commonly given all the attention. But it's way off isn't it?

- there’s only one audience, an audience of ONE

I’m gonna argue that most of us haven’t started there

Example:

- If I have a meeting with a really important person, I show up on time

o In fact I’m probably early

- If I’m going to a movie that I want to see, I’m probably there early if I can be

- If I am going to that meeting, I’m probably going to bring my “A game” to the meeting.

“Some people don’t like the kind of worship here”

“I don’t like the worship”… well that’s a dangerous statement, since you’re not the audience.

So how do we learn how to worship?

So we answer this question…

WHO IS GOD AND WHAT HAS HE DONE?

For me.

“He’s the creator and sustainer of the universe, he knew my weaknesses, I was born at this moment because he knew my gifts would be best used at this time…. And what did I do? I turned my back on him, I became a pathological liar, I lied so much that I couldn’t remember the difference between that and the truth, I cheated my way through high-school and J.R. High. But God, He continued to love me. When my life was nothing but rejection of Him, He reached out to me. ”

- my God

- redeemer

- my rock

- fortress

- sent His son for me

- He died for me

- He took someone who didn’t know how to tell the truth, and now allows me to proclaim this truth.

MY ONLY REASONABLE RESPONSE IS WORSHIP

- to Give him my life as an act of worship

- not 20 minutes of song, but my life

…since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire. Hebrews 12:28-29

How do I respond?

It should be the most natural thing that you’ve ever done, as you respond to His supernatural goodness.

How do we worship?

- it’s the natural response to a super-natural God

Sometimes I lift my hands

Sometimes I get on my knees

Sometimes I laugh

Sometimes I preach even when I’m sick

IT’s an act of worship

See you’re not the audience, He is, we’ve come to worship Him.

Because…

• IN VIEW OF WHO GOD IS AND WHAT HE HAS DONE, I BRING AN OFFERING. AND I AM THE OFFERING.

Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God-this is your spiritual act of worship. Romans 12:1

We can't wait to continue this series next week as talk about "True Worshippers."

The Peacemaker

The Peacemaker

(from Rob Bell's Leaving Ignorance for Awareness)

Judges 15: 1-11

Did you notice how this started so simply and all of a sudden it was 3,000 men.

1. what they each do is demonize the other person.

a. A person stuck in this pattern can’t say “maybe I had something to do with this.

b. The pattern always leads to something worst

2. They have the excuse – “this is just how the world is”

a. It’s un-creative

The Myth of Redemptive Violence.

“The world is made better through acts of violence”

“Popeye”

“in a typical segment, Bluto kidnapped a screaming Olive Oil, Popeye girl friend. When Popeye attempts to rescue her the massive bluto beats his opponent to a pulp. At the last moment when our hero oozes to the floor a can of spinach pops from Popeye’s pocket and spills into his mouth. Transformed by this gracious infusion of power, he easily diminishes the villan and rescues his beloved.

The format never varies. Neither party ever gains any insight.

Violence does not teach Bluto to honor Olive Oil’s humanity, and the repeated pummeling’s do not teach Pop-eye to swallow his spinach before the fight.

This myth is everywhere.

No one gets mad at Bruce Willis and says “you d didn’t need to blow up the building.

Matthew 26:47-53

I could do it the world’s way… but I’ve found another way. I’ve come to put an end to the violence.

Haven’t we seen enough

v.54

he came to bring peace

v.55-56

The cross is always personal for us… but Jesus is calling out the whole system and screaming that it’s a lie.

He dies violently, but his hands are clean.

He dies naked, but with dignity.

The cross confronts the whole myth.

Where are all the peacemakers?

The people who say, “no there has to be another way”

Jesus goes to the cross saying “ you can kill me, but some ideas live on”

You can put the cross in the warm fuzzy corner and that’s ok, but the cross is subversive to all of culture.

So when He rises from the dead, he said “this is my son”

What if when things went wrong people said “call in the Christians, because they’ll no how to make peace here.”

Through Jesus God forgives us, but the cross confronts the entire system of the world and screams “there is a new way.”

1. Are you involved in demonizing someone else or tried to make them look bad?

2. Have you ever done something back to somebody because of what they did to you?

Origins Week 3

Origins Week 3

“For the Leaders”

(based on the notes, thoughts, and outline of Erwin McManus' New Origin's Project. Many thanks to the folks at Mosaic for helping push the Christ's dream for the church.)

When I was around 15 years old I got in an argument with one of my teaching Pastor’s. He crushed my argument and at the end of the argument he said, “Is there anything else that you can do and be happy?”

For me? No.

Tonight is about recognizing who we are as a nation and who could be as a people.

Lack of responsibility… maybe church doesn’t always feel “right” to us, because we are missing the idea of God’s dream. And we’re missing the dream because we are too caught up with our own thoughts of what “right” is.

• We have a culture of Christians wanting to be fed.

The “We’re not being fed here” statement.

Question: “What kind of human beings need to be fed? Babies, and people who are mentally incapable of feeding themselves.

1 Corinthians 3:1-4

1 Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual but as worldly--mere infants in Christ. 2 I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready. 3 You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere men? 4 For when one says, "I follow Paul," and another, "I follow Apollos," are you not mere men?

Question: Is it always the job of the parents to feed their kids for the rest of their lives? Of course not! Only at first. But at some point and time the child needs to learn how to feed themselves.

At some point the Child can become a parent on their own and feed others.

The ancient church would grow, and then someday they would leave to plant another church somewhere else. They did that, because they had grown in their faith to a point where they didn’t need the Apostles to tell them everything.

Some Christians never want to take that responsibility.

• My job is not to feed Christians, but make them hungry.
• We don't need to eat, we need to exercise.
• It’s the practice of our faith that grows us, not believing of our faith.
• We teach the Bible on Sunday, but people don't live it out on Monday.
• I’ve been asked a lot about fake Christians. And usually a fake Christian isn’t somebody who simply talks one way and then acts another way.

To me a fake Christian is somebody who has no desire to grow, but they never feel any kind of conviction in their lives, and they base their decisions on the world and not on the word.

We Need Mature Leaders

• Maturity is the gap of time between learning and obedience.

Who’s doing it right? (church bashing)

Anti-catholic, anti-anybody who doesn’t do it how I think it should be done. (pastor needs more jokes, etc)

• Don't beat up on anyone reaching people for Jesus.

Leaders lead with the end in mind, not just the “here” in mind.

The wise recognize that the “here” determines the end and the accept responsibility for themselves… a leader never acts like a victim (just because I was abused, doesn’t mean that I have the excuse to treat others harshly. I know not to do that.)

• I want to be indispensable when I'm here and dispensable when I'm gone.

A Leader has nothing to prove

( and everything to give. And sometimes giving is by supporting others even if I think I could do it better or more efficiently. )

• The power of community is being willing to be led when someone's gifts are stronger than yours in a particular area. At some times, we all need to be a follower.

How can I succeed at my dreams or as a leader?

• The only limit to your effectiveness is the depth of your humility.

If you think you’re the most impressive person in the room, then others will be less impressed with you. It’s those that make others more confident and powerful that make the deepest impact.

(when Bill Clinton walked in to a room everybody was always drawn to them, because no matter how powerful he ever became, he always made his focus about talking about and to others.)

Phil. 2:5-11

5 Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: 6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, 7 but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death-- even death on a cross! 9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Phil 2:12-13

12 Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed--not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence--continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, 13 for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.

Just like people who are over-weight know how to lose it, so do we know how to follow Christ. It's by living out His way of life.

Origins Week 2

Origins Week 2

“Love is the Context of it All”

(based on the notes, thoughts, and outline of Erwin McManus' New Origin's Project. Many thanks to the folks at Mosaic for helping push the Christ's dream for the church.)

They Started Simply

Acts 4:32-37

They Meant Spiritual and Physical Needs

Acts 5:14-16

They Were persecuted (in between every move they made)

They Had to Change to meet needs

Acts 6:1-7

There were Two Kind of leader Types

Eagle Leader

· An eagle leader soars above and has great visions.

Hawk Leader

· A hawk leader swoops down on it's target and is focused.

How we’ve changed over the centuries

· We tend to program what we're not good at.

· It is far more important to change what people care about then what people believe.

- people’s spiritual needs were met first because people of that time saw life as frail. A broken bone= loss of limb. A simple infection was deadly because there were no antibiotics.

-

· We must move from talkers to changers of the course of history.

Are you doing just enough to feel like a Christian?

Origins Part 1

Origins

Part 1

(based on the thoughts and outlines of Erwin McManus’s New Origins Project)

The Ancient Church showed us how to be eternally relevant.

Martha

Luke 10:38-42

-Martha was too busy to be Holy

Doing the Right Thing

Paul calls out the founders of the Church… the guys that Jesus trained screwed up and Paul let them know it.

Galatians 2: 4-14

4 This matter arose because some false brothers had infiltrated our ranks to spy on the freedom we have in Christ Jesus and to make us slaves. 5 We did not give in to them for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might remain with you. 6 As for those who seemed to be important--whatever they were makes no difference to me; God does not judge by external appearance--those men added nothing to my message. 7 On the contrary, they saw that I had been entrusted with the task of preaching the gospel to the Gentiles, just as Peter had been to the Jews. 8 For God, who was at work in the ministry of Peter as an apostle to the Jews, was also at work in my ministry as an apostle to the Gentiles. 9 James, Peter and John, those reputed to be pillars, gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship when they recognized the grace given to me. They agreed that we should go to the Gentiles, and they to the Jews. 10 All they asked was that we should continue to remember the poor, the very thing I was eager to do.

11 When Peter came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he was clearly in the wrong. 12 Before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group. 13 The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray. 14 When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Peter in front of them all, "You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs?

Acts 17:16-34

The Right Thing is Never Popular

• Stop caring about what the Peters and Martha’s say, and start carrying the message of Christ.
• God is looking for men and women who will go to the few that are seemingly ignored.
• Look for the background people and you’ll know who God is thinking about right now.
• Paul specifically tailored his message to reach people who had no idea of who Jesus was.
• Everybody needs Christ, but every person has a different language that they speak. You need to know their heart and their language before you can expect to communicate a truth that they’re supposed to give their lives up for.
• When someone enters your community of faith, they also hear your subtext.

What’s louder? Your love and heart for God, our your love and heart for being accepted?