Monday, June 20, 2011

Jerrell Altic's message at MetroLive

Acts 6:1-15, 7:1. Stephen models "Outlive Your Life" through this way: 1) Would the gospel of God go forward if you died?!? Or do fears of insecurities;of man, of loss of prestige...hold it back? We should expect those in authority to be in opposition to God's message through our lives. We want to give up but our call is to hang on just a little longer. Alot of times God advances the gospel through intense persecution. "Obedience opens eyes." Equally disobedience closes eyes. Are we " Stephen-available to be used or are we there like Saul giving approval to people's death around us?!?"
2) The world around us only worships that which it can see. We like Stephen need to worship the unseen to eventually see Christ for Who He truly is.
Our call is lived out by being there to plant, to water and sometimes harvest the people in which the gospel has been planted in. Our call is to be bold/courageous and pray/evangelize. If we don't raise the level of obedience (fill in the blank) then we will not be available to help those coming up behind us! Let's raise the level of obedience 1 level tonight!

Ben Stuart's 2nd MetroLive talk

I Peter 1:3. We are people of Jesus but we need to go beyond that in we are called to be the people of resurrection. The world is going "Ok, but what is that to us?!?" Resurrection should be life-changing but the question is it to us? Our present and future should be different because Jesus' action in the past. Our present and future is affected by our view of death but Christ's substitute for us, secured our future hope. Christ's triumph over death gives us victory over our "little deaths" we face daily.
Christ's death establishes purpose: Share Christ's peace in a world that desperately needs it. "Death loses it eternalness when Christ makes His sacrifice for us"
We are born-again to show God and His Glory to a world that has been blinded and bored. What a sad commentary. Christ is our "Living Hope" waiting to be shared with a desperate and seeking world. This is a despite the world, ie. Stephen Hawking saying it's crazy and pathetic to "make-believe" that Christ's story is anything other than make-believe.
The world can explain Christ away but it cannot explain away His followers! So step up and answer the call/questions that the world presents...

Friday, June 3, 2011

Notes from MetroLive:Ben Stuart

Some of my notes from last night's opening night of MetroLive 2011, from Ben Stuart, the director of BreakAway Ministries, up at College Station. MetroLive is held at my homechurch, Houston's First Baptist Church at 7:30pm.
Ben Stuart spoke on John 21, which deals with, Peter going to Galilee to return to fishing and Jesus speaking to him from the shore after a fruitless night of fishing. Ben puts out the question for us to consider: "How does God view us in our time of failure?"
The answer is that God views with love,care and concern. He seeks to restore us, to make us useful to Him.
To do this He brings us, as He did Peter, to the place of our call that God places on our life. In Peter's case, Christ recreates Peter's first encounter with Christ, after a fruitless night of fishing, Christ calls out to Peter from the shoreline, and asks a question, He fully knows the answer to, "Children, have you caught any fish?" Then Christ says "Why don't you try fishing from the rightside?" To which the disciples do and begin to catch fish aplenty. They realize it's Jesus and Peter dives into the water and swims ashore to meet the Lord. Jesus then provides breakfast for disciples.
Jesus then knowing the poison of Peter's failure which if left unchecked and unaddressed could potentially kill Peter's ministry for Christ, so Christ draws out the venom of failure by recreating the scene of Peter's denial. And proceeds to confront the failure head on by asking Peter about his devotion to Christ and allows Peter to see how his power and desire to follow Christ wasn't enough, Peter would need Christ's strength to accomplish all Christ had for him.
Christ shows it's not just about being a "fisher of men" but to go beyond that and be ready to feed His sheep.
We need to seek out Christ and ask for His help both to remember our call and when necessary to go and return to scene of our greatest failure and seek Christ's help in drawing out venom of the failure, so we may be fully ready to be used by Christ.