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The Emotionally Healthy Leader Podcast - The Wreckage of a Wrong Scorecard · CLA+

0:01
SPEAKER_00: Hi, my name is Pete Gizarro.
0:03
SPEAKER_00: I want to welcome you today to the Emotionally Healthy Leader podcast.
0:07
SPEAKER_00: I'm so glad you're here.
0:08
SPEAKER_00: The topic today is the wreckage of a wrong scorecard.
0:12
SPEAKER_00: The wreckage of a wrong scorecard.
0:14
SPEAKER_00: It's actually part two of a series we're doing on emotionally healthy success.
0:19
SPEAKER_00: Now, uh, we're in these, I'm going, I'm reviewing some of the background story of each chapter uh to supplement your reading.
0:26
SPEAKER_00: You need to read it.
0:27
SPEAKER_00: And I want to encourage you to talk about it among your team and with some other people.
0:30
SPEAKER_00: There's a free discussion guide with some introductory videos from me on our website.
0:34
SPEAKER_00: Just go to emotionallyhealthy.org slash success and uh download that study guide.
0:40
SPEAKER_00: You'll find it very, very helpful because you really need to talk about these very dense, weighty topics.
0:46
SPEAKER_00: So much is at stake.
0:47
SPEAKER_00: That's emotionallyhealthy.org slash success.
0:51
SPEAKER_00: Now, the last podcast we talked about what I got into the problem of how we measure success, and we talked about the lies we call success.
0:58
SPEAKER_00: And today we're going to talk about the wreckage of those lies.
1:00
SPEAKER_00: Uh part two of the book is actually about how Jesus turned success on its head.
1:05
SPEAKER_00: We're going to look at that, his reversals, we're going to look at the new scorecard, uh, two movements of that scorecard.
1:10
SPEAKER_00: Then finally, the question in the third part of the book is how do we live into that personally and how do we live into it as churches?
1:16
SPEAKER_00: And we talk about embracing a rule of life uh strong enough to bear the weight of our callings and then choosing God's slower, truer way.
1:25
SPEAKER_00: So it kind of all fits together here.
1:27
SPEAKER_00: But the book actually was written as a prophetic summons, a call uh to scripture, uh, to Jesus, and to measure what matters most to Jesus, which is the subtitle.
1:37
SPEAKER_00: And uh so I pray that you will ponder all the things you're hearing, whether you're driving or walking today.
1:44
SPEAKER_00: Uh so the we talked about in the last podcast the five most common wrong measurements of success.
1:49
SPEAKER_00: Uh for example, we talked about the lie of the size of our ministry determines our success, or the extent of our influence, the second lie.
1:56
SPEAKER_00: We talked about the amount of praise and affirmation we receive.
1:59
SPEAKER_00: That's a lie that determines our success.
2:01
SPEAKER_00: And we talked about the pace of our growth, is another lie about measuring success.
2:05
SPEAKER_00: And then finally, we talked about the way that our ministry or life compares with other people, and uh, as a fifth lie, the most common ones out there.
2:12
SPEAKER_00: There's others.
2:13
SPEAKER_00: Uh that actually, and actually, as you delve deep into our wrong views of success, underneath them all is the temptations of the devil with Jesus in the wilderness in Matthew 5 and Matthew 4 and Luke 4, when the devil comes and tempts Jesus.
2:30
SPEAKER_00: And those three temptations are so uh subtle, powerful, vast, uh sneaky.
2:39
SPEAKER_00: In some ways, I could spend the whole podcast just expounding on the three temptations, but really they are underneath everything we're talking about here about lies and the wreckage that they produce.
2:50
SPEAKER_00: Because the question is who holds the scorecard for you, whether or not you're a success.
2:54
SPEAKER_00: Now, when I'm a kid, when you were a kid growing up, uh the teachers held the scorecard.
2:58
SPEAKER_00: They got up there and said, F or or A or A, great job, not a good job.
3:02
SPEAKER_00: Uh, then maybe your coaches, your parents.
3:04
SPEAKER_00: Uh we we give the scorecard as children growing up to the people around us to tell us whether or not we're succeeding or doing well.
3:11
SPEAKER_00: Uh that's normal, I think, in the developmental stages.
3:15
SPEAKER_00: The problem is we just continue with that of giving the scorecard of our success to other people and looking to them to basically determine whether or not we are succeeding or not.
3:27
SPEAKER_00: That's a it's a slavery.
3:29
SPEAKER_00: Um and uh because a weight of living up to other people's scorecards is crushing.
3:35
SPEAKER_00: And uh, I experienced that myself over the years, years of pastoring, bringing in consultants, I gave them the scorecard, bringing in very gifted, anointed people to speak or uh minister in our church.
3:46
SPEAKER_00: I'd be in awe, I would give them the scorecard to determine whether or not succeeding.
3:50
SPEAKER_00: Of course, social media, how many likes I've got, how many followers I have, uh publishers can determine, okay, they're they're telling me whether or not I'm succeeding.
4:00
SPEAKER_00: And and so it's it's a crushing, distorting, how do I say it, uh, walk to get into, and we give other people a scorecard outside of God.
4:10
SPEAKER_00: But getting to God and worshiping Him alone is no small task.
4:15
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus actually called it a game.
4:18
SPEAKER_00: When we play the success game of the world around us, uh, there's an incredible text, and which I spent so much time in in preparation for this uh for this book when I was writing chapter two, and it's in Luke chapter seven, when uh Jesus is dealing with the Pharisees and Sadducees, and and he says, uh he compares the religious leaders to children who are playing a game on the playground.
4:44
SPEAKER_00: And he says, You so what will you compare the people of this generation?
4:48
SPEAKER_00: What are they like?
4:49
SPEAKER_00: They are like children who, among the marketplace, they called out to each other, and we played the pipe for you, and you didn't dance, Jesus, and and we sang a dirge for you, and you weren't sad.
4:59
SPEAKER_00: And basically saying, Jesus, you're not playing the game that we're playing here around what success is.
5:04
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus gives you examples.
5:06
SPEAKER_00: So John the Baptist came preaching repentance, and he was a hermit.
5:10
SPEAKER_00: He was a very odd fellow, a real ascetic.
5:12
SPEAKER_00: And uh they called, they said he had his demon because he wasn't playing the success game of the first century.
5:17
SPEAKER_00: Then they referred to Jesus as someone who had a because he was so liberal, he's eating, he's drinking, he's at weddings, he's mingling with all kinds of people that aren't fitting the uh the profile of the kind of people you should be hanging around if you're the Messiah.
5:32
SPEAKER_00: And they said that Jesus, he's you have a you're a glutton and a drunkard.
5:35
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and they wrote him off because Jesus wasn't doing life according to their scorecard.
5:42
SPEAKER_00: And uh, but it's important to understand that when Jesus came and John the Baptist, they were ripping up the world scorecard because it it wrecks you.
5:50
SPEAKER_00: It does that kind of damage.
5:52
SPEAKER_00: And they were giving a whole new scorecard for how one measures success.
5:56
SPEAKER_00: And uh, but the Pharisees and Sadducees, they they had been shaped by this old scorecard, much like us.
6:02
SPEAKER_00: And that's how they they lived.
6:05
SPEAKER_00: And for them to actually repent, and the word is used there in Luke 7, to repent and embrace God's purposes and new way, uh, was a radical reorientation.
6:14
SPEAKER_00: That was gonna be very, very, very challenging.
6:17
SPEAKER_00: And um, they had a lot to lose.
6:19
SPEAKER_00: They had position, they had people praising them, people looked up to them, they had jobs, uh, and Jesus was calling them to radically redefine how they looked at success um and uh to actually reorient themselves around Jesus.
6:34
SPEAKER_00: Uh, that was gonna require a lot uh from the religious leaders in the first century.
6:38
SPEAKER_00: Some, of course, did it, most did not, but it requires quite a bit from us as well.
6:44
SPEAKER_00: So my editor really uh called me to say, you've got to dig into this wreckage uh and have a chapter on it, because it's so important that people see the consequences of a wrong scorecard.
6:57
SPEAKER_00: And so I spent quite a bit of time on it.
6:59
SPEAKER_00: It was very painful, even looking at my own life as I as I worked on it.
7:03
SPEAKER_00: But I'm gonna give you three wreckages that are gigantic around the uh the price of a wrong scorecard.
7:10
SPEAKER_00: The first is the violence we do to ourselves.
7:13
SPEAKER_00: It it's a vi the word is violent.
7:15
SPEAKER_00: It it we we do violence to who God uniquely made us to be and his unique destiny for us.
7:21
SPEAKER_00: I like what Parker Palmer said, and I'll read you the quote in his book, Let Your Life Speak.
7:25
SPEAKER_00: Before I can tell you what I want to do with my life, I must listen to what my life is telling me about who I am.
7:32
SPEAKER_00: Vocation is not a goal to be achieved, but a gift to be received, accepting the treasure of our true self in Jesus that I already possess.
7:43
SPEAKER_00: And it comes from a voice inside of us by the Spirit of God that says, Be the person I created you to be and fulfill the original selfhood, your destiny that I gave you from the time you were born.
7:56
SPEAKER_00: I like the way Rumi said, uh, the Persian poet, to live unfaithfully to yourself is to cause others great damage.
8:03
SPEAKER_00: And you see, you're unrepeatable.
8:05
SPEAKER_00: You, you are, you're, there's nobody like you on the face of the earth, and there never will be another person like you.
8:11
SPEAKER_00: And um, you're a gift to the world.
8:14
SPEAKER_00: God's got a plan for you, he's got a destiny for you.
8:17
SPEAKER_00: The world needs you.
8:19
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't need you to be somebody you're not.
8:21
SPEAKER_00: It needs you to be you.
8:22
SPEAKER_00: I love the Hasidic story about at the end of your life, Rabbi Susha says, God said this: at the end of your life, God's gonna ask you, why were you not Moses?
8:31
SPEAKER_00: Why were you not Jeremiah?
8:33
SPEAKER_00: Why were you not so-and-so?
8:34
SPEAKER_00: God's gonna ask, why were you not you?
8:36
SPEAKER_00: Why didn't you live out the life I gave you to live out, the dream I gave you for your life, the seeds I put in you?
8:42
SPEAKER_00: We like the word differentiation.
8:44
SPEAKER_00: Uh, that what the call of maturity is for us to differentiate, stay connected to people, but live our God-given true self in Christ, and have the courage to stay connected, but be clear about our values, uh, God's call on our life, God's timetable, et cetera, to be have a solid self.
9:04
SPEAKER_00: It's what Jesus had, and John the Baptist as well.
9:06
SPEAKER_00: Jesus had a lot of pressure on him, just like we do.
9:09
SPEAKER_00: You have pressure from your family, you have pressure from your friends, you got pressure from your coworkers, you got pressure from the culture, you have pressure from the messages of your family of origin.
9:17
SPEAKER_00: Well, Jesus had all those pressures too, uh, but he knew who he was.
9:21
SPEAKER_00: He knew what the father is called for his life.
9:23
SPEAKER_00: And so he resisted his family's agenda and a crowd's agenda and the religious leader's agenda.
9:28
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and even the 12 disciples, they had agendas for Jesus.
9:32
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus did not need people to move towards him to feel like he was okay with himself.
9:36
SPEAKER_00: He didn't have a reflected self that came out of other people.
9:39
SPEAKER_00: He actually had a self that was he knew himself and he was reflected from God himself.
9:44
SPEAKER_00: And so he he knew himself and he was able to cut the path in his short earthly life.
9:49
SPEAKER_00: And I love the example of Jesus as someone who uh did not do violence to himself, and neither did David.
9:54
SPEAKER_00: He's another great example in the Old Testament.
9:56
SPEAKER_00: Because David cuts through all these obstacles that are seeking to do violence to him.
10:02
SPEAKER_00: Uh, he's got his family, he's the youngest of eight brothers, and uh.
10:08
SPEAKER_00: in 1 Samuel 17 that you're useless, you don't know what you're doing, you can't go up against Goliath, and they put him down.
10:13
SPEAKER_00: But David doesn't let them do violence to him.
10:16
SPEAKER_00: Then Saul tells him, You can't go up against Goliath.
10:19
SPEAKER_00: And Saul had killed 330,000 troops of uh the Philistines.
10:24
SPEAKER_00: I mean, he'd he was a great warrior, and he says to David, You really can't do this.
10:28
SPEAKER_00: Um, you can't go up against Goliath, you're only a boy.
10:31
SPEAKER_00: And he actually puts his armor on David, which David eventually takes off.
10:35
SPEAKER_00: And then Goliath says, I'm gonna eat you up and spit you out.
10:38
SPEAKER_00: And uh so he's got all this pressure coming against him that really is violence, that would have crushed, I know, me very much at that young age, 17, 18 years old.
10:48
SPEAKER_00: But David takes off Saul's armor.
10:51
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't lead like other people around him.
10:54
SPEAKER_00: And he goes out with his five stones and a slingshot, and he charges Goliath.
10:58
SPEAKER_00: And and uh he's able to be himself, but he actually knows God.
11:03
SPEAKER_00: But and he's pondering on the inside, God, who have you uniquely made me to be?
11:08
SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm a shepherd.
11:09
SPEAKER_00: Uh, I know how to do a slingshot.
11:11
SPEAKER_00: He wasn't trained in javelins and and the and the different arrows of the day, the armaments of the day.
11:16
SPEAKER_00: And he knows God is living inside of him, and so as he's picking up the stones uh and going out in the field with his slingshot against Goliath, he's listening to God.
11:26
SPEAKER_00: He's much smaller than Goliath, but he's well differentiated.
11:30
SPEAKER_00: He's got a sense of self, and he doesn't let someone shove him down or plaster him or uh smother him.
11:38
SPEAKER_00: And he says, You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty, the army of the armies of Israel, which you have to fight.
11:48
SPEAKER_00: I'll strike you down and cut off your head, and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel.
11:52
SPEAKER_00: And so David's true to himself.
11:54
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't allow the success measures of the culture, the way things are done, to smother him.
12:00
SPEAKER_00: And he breaks through.
12:01
SPEAKER_00: In fact, his whole life is one of breakthroughs.
12:03
SPEAKER_00: He he brings in uh a new level of new kinds of worship with dancing and uh and and bands and before the Lord, and he brings the Ark of the Covenant back to Jerusalem, and and uh he he breaks 300 years of tradition because he's just true being true to himself and he's creating new ways to serve and know God.
12:23
SPEAKER_00: But he dances, he has worship bands, he's free.
12:26
SPEAKER_00: Uh he doesn't allow the wider culture around him, religious and secular, to define him.
12:34
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't allow anyone to do violence to him.
12:37
SPEAKER_00: And so, in the same way, the Lord invites you, and the Lord invites me, uh, because you're unrepeatable, to live out your God-given life and not allow violence to be done to that true, unique person that God has made you to be.
12:55
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's interesting.
12:56
SPEAKER_00: I I I remember early on uh as I was beginning to pastor and lead a church, and I remember preaching.
13:04
SPEAKER_00: And I I was I was I really wasn't sure what I was doing.
13:08
SPEAKER_00: I was my first time pastoring, uh leading a church, felt really weird, people calling me Pastor Pete.
13:14
SPEAKER_00: And I just my my formation, my spiritual formation, I'll just call it, it was shallow at that time.
13:20
SPEAKER_00: And so I was looking for other people to tell me I was okay.
13:25
SPEAKER_00: And I can remember preaching, and it was like there was a big on on the uh overhead projector behind me was a sign saying, please tell me I'm not a loser.
13:36
SPEAKER_00: Please tell me I'm okay.
13:38
SPEAKER_00: I was so insecure that I was looking for other people to soothe me.
13:44
SPEAKER_00: Uh and actually it was violent to myself.
13:46
SPEAKER_00: And I and I led for ye early years, I led basically copying other people versus really digging into who God uniquely made me to be, how he uniquely made me to be, and what was the vision and calling that he put in my heart, and that's to let that unfold and not allow the success scorecards all around me to basically crush me.
14:07
SPEAKER_00: And every one of us has to do that work.
14:09
SPEAKER_00: It is work because there are powers and principalities behind all the stuff around us.
14:16
SPEAKER_00: So when you go to social media and you feel like a loser next to this person over on, you know, down the block or in the next town, yes, it's worldly, but there's something behind that that's got another uh bolt of energy that's crushing.
14:28
SPEAKER_00: It's a wreckage, and it just takes you down.
14:30
SPEAKER_00: You start making decisions that are not God.
14:33
SPEAKER_00: Uh so that's the that's the wreckage number one.
14:35
SPEAKER_00: We do violence to ourselves.
14:36
SPEAKER_00: And I wanted to spend a little bit of time on that because it's so important that we don't allow anything to do violence to ourselves, because you're a gift from God.
14:46
SPEAKER_00: But the second wreckage is we do violence to those closest to us.
14:51
SPEAKER_00: We do violence to the people closest to us.
14:54
SPEAKER_00: We we inevitably it happens.
14:56
SPEAKER_00: Uh now again, it's a far broader category than if you're married, your spouse, your children, if you've got children.
15:02
SPEAKER_00: It can actually go into your extended family, your close friends, your roommates, perhaps, your co-workers.
15:08
SPEAKER_00: But one of the first places that w it begins the violence, it happens to other people, is really in our teams.
15:15
SPEAKER_00: Because we've got a wrong scorecard, we're pushing, we're anxious, we're we're we're making plans out of anxiety, because it looks like the numbers might be going down.
15:26
SPEAKER_00: And so we run from one meeting to the next.
15:28
SPEAKER_00: We haven't really prepared properly, we haven't been reflective, and we diminish our own humanity, what we need, and we don't just diminish our own humanity, we diminish our team's humanity.
15:39
SPEAKER_00: And we set unrealistic expectations get set, there's a lack of investment in people's development, even on our team.
15:46
SPEAKER_00: People feel unseen and sometimes uncared for.
15:49
SPEAKER_00: In fact, decisions get made reactively and sometimes impatiently, and meetings can be crowded and rushed and unfocused, and there's a sense of urgency, an unhealthy urgency, a chronic urgency.
16:01
SPEAKER_00: And uh it's a wreckage.
16:03
SPEAKER_00: I had a, and I tell this story uh in the book, uh, two friends of mine I've known for decades, uh, who are now in their mid-70s, and they told the story of how they have two children who were married with their own families, and they told the story how each of their kids came to them separately and said basically the same thing to them.
16:22
SPEAKER_00: It was they lamented the fact that their parents were so involved in church as they were growing up that they didn't see their parents.
16:32
SPEAKER_00: They were out almost every night of the week.
16:33
SPEAKER_00: Now they held various positions from board members to prayer leaders to home group, small group leaders, I mean prayer prayer teams.
16:41
SPEAKER_00: I mean, they were they were involved in everything.
16:44
SPEAKER_00: And it was crushing to them to realize now their kids are in their 30s as well, that that is that's how their kids saw it and they lamented it.
16:53
SPEAKER_00: Uh, but as my friend said, he goes, Pete, I just thought I was doing what the pastor asked.
16:58
SPEAKER_00: Uh, but everything was about growth.
16:59
SPEAKER_00: Everything was about let's keep expanding this church.
17:02
SPEAKER_00: And uh we felt like we we had to do it because someone had to do it.
17:06
SPEAKER_00: And uh again, it's so interesting, interesting story.
17:10
SPEAKER_00: I know I underfunctioned at home because I overfunctioned at church.
17:15
SPEAKER_00: I I did way more than God asked me to do as a leader.
17:18
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and as a result, I had no, I had very little energy for Jerry and our four girls.
17:22
SPEAKER_00: And so I made some huge shift with emotional health.
17:26
SPEAKER_00: And I kept saying to Jerry, Jerry, just just just one more hill we got to take.
17:30
SPEAKER_00: Just another year uh or another five years.
17:33
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna get that done and life's gonna change, it's gonna change.
17:36
SPEAKER_00: And um, it didn't.
17:37
SPEAKER_00: Um, and so there's a wreckage in our families, there's a wreckage in our teams, there's a wreckage to our friendships because we don't have time for the friendships.
17:45
SPEAKER_00: And so our friends, our neighbors sometimes can feel neglected.
17:48
SPEAKER_00: Uh, extended family doesn't hear from us the way they would like because we just don't have the time.
17:54
SPEAKER_00: Volunteers can feel our anxiety.
17:58
SPEAKER_00: Um, congregants, people in our in our ministry can feel pushed aside by just so much to do.
18:04
SPEAKER_00: And uh our neighbors can remain strangers to us and that kind of sustained neglect inside of us.
18:11
SPEAKER_00: And we do violence to those around us.
18:13
SPEAKER_00: But there's one other violence that we do, and it's a big one.
18:16
SPEAKER_00: Not just we do violence to ourselves, not just that we do violence to our uh those closest to us, we actually do violence to the very work of God, the very work that God's seeking to do through us.
18:28
SPEAKER_00: We block it.
18:29
SPEAKER_00: In other words, listen, I I have refused what God was trying to do in and through me uh because I had my own agenda.
18:37
SPEAKER_00: I had my own measurement of success.
18:40
SPEAKER_00: And the wreckage was I was making plans that really had nothing to do with God.
18:44
SPEAKER_00: Uh I resented his interruptions, I ignored his voice.
18:48
SPEAKER_00: Uh, I would get angry when there were obstacles in the way.
18:51
SPEAKER_00: And in the process, I ended up pushing aside the very work God was trying to do.
18:56
SPEAKER_00: I wanted certain ministry outcomes so badly that I only half listened to God.
19:02
SPEAKER_00: I'm just like, I'm moving ahead here.
19:04
SPEAKER_00: Uh so everything from launching four church plants quickly within the first six years, uh, it created a lot of chaos.
19:11
SPEAKER_00: But I wanted to grow this thing.
19:14
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's just this past week, Jerry and I had a uh I I how can I say I was uh I was a jerk this week.
19:21
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I I I hurt her in a conversation we had, and um it was painful for me.
19:27
SPEAKER_00: She was hurt, and I realized I had hurt her, sinned.
19:31
SPEAKER_00: And uh I needed to wrestle with what's going on inside of me.
19:35
SPEAKER_00: And what's interesting, I had a lot going on, just like you do.
19:38
SPEAKER_00: And uh, but I knew God was trying to do a work in me, but also in our marriage and through us to the wider world, what we call emotionally healthy discipleship.
19:48
SPEAKER_00: And so, make a long story short, I had to clear a day and a half of my schedule to write her a very thoughtful, explicit forgiveness letter, asking her forgiveness, and really uh expounding on what was happening inside of me, not excusing it, but saying asking her for forgiveness very specifically.
20:09
SPEAKER_00: It was really painful to do.
20:12
SPEAKER_00: But it was the work of God for his work.
20:15
SPEAKER_00: And I can't tell you how uh, you know, so I slowed down.
20:18
SPEAKER_00: I I have a podcast to do, and I'm helping lead emotionally healthy discipleship.
20:22
SPEAKER_00: We have a conference, a global conference next week here in New York City.
20:25
SPEAKER_00: And so, well, it's just so easy to ignore something God wants to do because it doesn't look like it fits the growth strategies that we have in our head.
20:34
SPEAKER_00: And uh, we just keep going with an out-of-control schedule and strategies that look like they grow other ministries, and and uh we miss the very work God's trying to do in us and through us and and end up, I I know I resist the work God's trying to do in and through me.
20:48
SPEAKER_00: And uh my discipleship, my formation, uh I I still have that tendency.
20:55
SPEAKER_00: It can be so shallow, over and again.
20:57
SPEAKER_00: It can be wide and shallow over and again letting God do the deep, painful work inside of me and and and the multiple deaths that we have in our journey with Jesus.
21:06
SPEAKER_00: I like to call them there are seasons of dismemberment where we die on a new level.
21:10
SPEAKER_00: And uh yesterday, well the last couple of days was a moment for me to die on a new level.
21:15
SPEAKER_00: I did not enjoy it, but I knew it was the work of God uh for us and in us.
21:21
SPEAKER_00: But there's another way we block the work of God through us, is we rush ahead to do things for God.
21:26
SPEAKER_00: We make plans that, again, we're not listening.
21:29
SPEAKER_00: And I think one of the greatest texts, there's so many great texts, but it's uh the Mount of Transfiguration when Peter wants to build three booths uh for Moses and Elijah and Jesus.
21:40
SPEAKER_00: You know, let's let's let's let's can this revival going on here on the Mount of Transfiguration.
21:44
SPEAKER_00: And uh Peter's anxious and but he's missing God's work, he's blocking God's work, and a voice the cloud comes from heaven and a voice says, Listen to him, because Jesus is talking to them about the crucifixion.
21:57
SPEAKER_00: And when Jesus asked them to go pray with him in Gethsemane, You know, they fall asleep and they come out, and Peter just cuts, gets he, gets his little sword and cuts off somebody's ear, the high priest servant's ear.
22:07
SPEAKER_00: And he's blocking God's work.
22:08
SPEAKER_00: God's work is for Jesus to be handed over and crucified and rise and ascend to heaven for the salvation of the world to be lifted up like a magnet and drawing all the world to himself.
22:18
SPEAKER_00: But Peter's got his own view of success.
22:20
SPEAKER_00: It's a wreckage.
22:22
SPEAKER_00: And so Jesus had to work with him to give him a kingdom view of what success is.
22:27
SPEAKER_00: And we'll talk about that next week.
22:29
SPEAKER_00: But they rebuke the 12 disciples over and over again.
22:32
SPEAKER_00: They're just, they're blocking God's work.
22:34
SPEAKER_00: They're rebuking parents for bringing infants to Jesus.
22:37
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus has to rebuke them.
22:38
SPEAKER_00: They're angling for positions of honor.
22:41
SPEAKER_00: Who's going to sit at Jesus right-handed?
22:43
SPEAKER_00: Who's going to sit at Jesus' left hand?
22:45
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus got to rebuke them for that.
22:48
SPEAKER_00: And they want to call down fire on their enemies, for example, the Samaritans, because they don't want to, Samaritan in the village did not want to receive Jesus.
22:56
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, they Jesus, who's not against us, is for us.
23:00
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus has rebuked them because they're, again, blocking God's work because they have a wrong scorecard and it's it's wreckage.
23:09
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus has to, you know, basically exercise it from them.
23:13
SPEAKER_00: I love when Jesus says in John 12 that the uh the devil will be driven out of this world.
23:19
SPEAKER_00: Jesus' crucifixion was like a mass exorcism.
23:22
SPEAKER_00: It was something that broke in the world, the devil's power over us, and we're free people.
23:26
SPEAKER_00: There's still a battle going on.
23:27
SPEAKER_00: But recognizing that there is a new scorecard in Jesus, and there's a freedom and a joy in that.
23:34
SPEAKER_00: Listen, God invites us to live through seasons.
23:39
SPEAKER_00: And I didn't like seasons.
23:40
SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's summers, there's springs when things are flourishing, there's fall when things start decaying, there's winters when it looks like there's not any fruit at all.
23:48
SPEAKER_00: And I remember there's seasons of pruning where God's pruning.
23:51
SPEAKER_00: I was talking to a friend, a pastor friend just yesterday who's in a building program.
23:56
SPEAKER_00: And I remember our buying a building uh when I was lead pastor at our church, and which is a multi-year effort, very difficult thing to do, multi-million dollars.
24:06
SPEAKER_00: And we weren't growing leaps and bounds at that time.
24:08
SPEAKER_00: It was like a kind of a pruning time, getting our vision clear who's going to be on, who's going to be off.
24:13
SPEAKER_00: It's not a time of significant growth, but I remember the tension of having to resist the fact that there are seasons, there are pruning seasons, and I need to embrace them and not block the work of God because I've got wrong scorecards.
24:27
SPEAKER_00: But also, again, kind of we just block the work of others.
24:30
SPEAKER_00: We want immediate results.
24:32
SPEAKER_00: And um, that's why Jesus was so careful to pray all night before choosing the 12.
24:37
SPEAKER_00: And uh he was actually even deliberate about when he would share truth with them.
24:42
SPEAKER_00: Uh he was prayerful about it.
24:43
SPEAKER_00: He didn't just tell them everything in the beginning.
24:45
SPEAKER_00: And and so I I I've learned that not to let things slide, uh, because I don't want to block God's war work.
24:52
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes things are happening around us in our community that need to be addressed, that take time, that seem to pull us backwards, but they're not, they're pulling us forward.
25:00
SPEAKER_00: But they have to be addressed.
25:02
SPEAKER_00: And I like to call it not giving the devil a foothold.
25:05
SPEAKER_00: And I had the once my the wreckage of a wrong scorecard, one of it was I was not addressing things because I thought it was hinder our growth.
25:13
SPEAKER_00: But actually, I what I missed was no, it was actually advancing our growth.
25:16
SPEAKER_00: It just looked like it was going backwards.
25:19
SPEAKER_00: And again, my fixation on numbers and external growth kept me from actually addressing difficult issues, elephants in the room that take time.
25:32
SPEAKER_00: So, again, we can only give away who we are.
25:35
SPEAKER_00: That's why, again, our walk is so, so key.
25:37
SPEAKER_00: Let me just give you three sentences that I've learned to live by.
25:41
SPEAKER_00: And there are there are wreckages when we get off course.
25:45
SPEAKER_00: The first one has to do with your peace and your joy in Jesus.
25:48
SPEAKER_00: If you're doing something that's costing you peace and joy, whatever you're doing, it's too expensive.
25:54
SPEAKER_00: Because listening to the peace of God, the kingdom of God is not a matter of uh is not about eating and drinking.
26:00
SPEAKER_00: It's righteousness, joy, and peace in the Holy Spirit, Romans 14.
26:04
SPEAKER_00: If you don't have time to talk about something and you're just moving ahead, uh, you don't have time to do it.
26:09
SPEAKER_00: You're rushing.
26:10
SPEAKER_00: Uh and self-care, if you're not doing self-care, you're you're engaged in spiritual warfare and you're losing.
26:16
SPEAKER_00: Because self-care itself is an act of spiritual warfare, sabbaths, sabbaticals, etc.
26:22
SPEAKER_00: So let me close with this and leave you with a little story from Luke 13.
26:27
SPEAKER_00: This is hard stuff to look at, not just the lies we believe, but the wreckage that comes as a result of believing these lies, because the wreckage is far-reaching.
26:36
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus, I want to set you up for what's to come because Jesus is not leaving you here.
26:41
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and I think of the story of Luke 13, the woman who uh is bent over, and she has been for 18 years, Jesus said by uh, Jesus says by uh Satan himself, and she can't see, she can only see downward and a little bit to the right or left.
26:57
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus sees this woman come into the synagogue while he's speaking, and he calls her forward.
27:03
SPEAKER_00: And he calls her forward and says, Woman, you are set free from your infirmity that's got you bent over.
27:10
SPEAKER_00: And he puts his hands on her and immediately she stands up straight and she gives God praise.
27:15
SPEAKER_00: That's why I wrote this chapter.
27:17
SPEAKER_00: Now, not to leave you in the wreckage, no, no, but to help you see it clearly enough to say, God's got something forward for me out of it.
27:25
SPEAKER_00: He's taking me somewhere.
27:27
SPEAKER_00: We can't build because it's gonna take a lot to build well unless we reckon with the damage.
27:32
SPEAKER_00: This isn't this issue of how we measure success and engaging ourselves to measure what matters most to Jesus, this is a revolution.
27:42
SPEAKER_00: It's gonna change everything about the way you spend your time and energy.
27:46
SPEAKER_00: So we're gonna turn to the reversals of Jesus and how he lays out his kingdom, so what it means to stand up straight.
27:52
SPEAKER_00: But I want to pray for you now that the Lord touch you because if you're like me, you've spent some time with lies and wreckage.
28:02
SPEAKER_00: But the Lord wants you to know that he loves you and he's got a plan for you, and he wants you to stand up and he's gonna set you free, like he did for that woman in Luke 13.
28:13
SPEAKER_00: Uh, you're you're not the wrong scorecard.
28:15
SPEAKER_00: You are the one Jesus is calling forward to touch and set free.
28:19
SPEAKER_00: So I pray that you would see Jesus, you would hear his voice, you would you would feel his hand on you to lift you up and give, help your sight to be restored and your bent over back that comes from wrong messages, wrong formation.
28:35
SPEAKER_00: Uh, Jesus will straighten you up into a place of freedom and joy and spaciousness out of which you can give your life to others and set them free.
28:45
SPEAKER_00: God bless everybody.
28:46
SPEAKER_00: Have a wonderful day.
28:48
SPEAKER_00: See you soon at the next podcast.