Zeros to Heroes - Week 1

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Hebrews 11:39–40 NET

And these all were commended for their faith, yet they did not receive what was promised.For God had provided something better for us, so that they would be made perfect together with us.

Isaiah 32:8 NET

An honorable man makes honorable plans; his honorable character gives him security.

Zeros to Heroes

Isaiah 32:8

But he who is noble plans noble things,

and on noble things he stands.

After my series on 2 Peter, I wasn’t sure what Jesus wanted me to share with you all.

I have a thousand ideas stored away for future podcasts, but none of them were ringing true in my spirit.

I didn’t feel that alignment with Holy Spirit that said, YES, this is what I want you to share Joe.

And, that’s really important to me BTW.

I will not develop content that that He’s not engaged in and inspiring in me.

Joe Bailey has nothing of value to say apart from Jesus. Period!

I was sitting in silence, listening for His voice, thinking about His mission and my part in that, thinking about the REAL NEED for MEN, who are fiercely loyal to Jesus, Men who are Passionate about living lives that reflect true Nobility, Lives that are marked by unselfish love and Noble Discontent!

Stick with me in this brothers. Bear with me in this series and share it with other men.

because, I believe God wants to use this to help raise up a group of men, perhaps small in number, a few hundred at most, but men who are filled with a Noble Discontent combined with a fierce love for Jesus and a faith that believes that while the world may never know their names, They are mighty men of Valor in God’s hands and in the Kingdom they are known as men of true Nobility.

To the world they are nobodies, Zeros... but in the Kingdom of God and to the Souls that Jesus touched through them, they are Heroes, Noble Warriors who willingly gave their all so that others lives that were wrecked and left destitute by the ravages of this sinful broken world could know true peace and find the comfort and love they so desperately needed and only Jesus could bring.

Some listening to podcast today know that Jesus, really is the ONLY answer.

Some of you like me have tried the other avenues, you’ve walked other paths and other roads, suffered outside of Christ and now know experientially that this is true, that Jesus is the promised Messiah, the Promised Savior, The Promised King.

The Jesus is the Only Way, The Truth and Life to those who trust him.

You know deep inside that Eternal Life isn’t something we are just waiting on, it’s something that we are called to live in today.

You know that the Kingdom of God isn’t something we are waiting for, it’s already here.

Luke 17:21 Jesus said

“for behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you.”

While we are waiting for his soon return, we aren’t called to stagnant, we are called bring His Kingdom to bear on this World.

There’s a barrier here however, I know God wants to remove right now in the hearts and minds of a few good men.

It’s that mentality of “Who am I, to think I can make a difference?” “I’m nobody” “I am not talented, I don’t have the right tools, I don’t have the right education, I don’t have what it takes”

In this series, I want to explore the lives of people in the Biblical Story who were Zeros, who likely had this same narrative playing over and over in their minds. Men and Women who were the most unlikely to ever do anything that mattered.

BUT GOD, called Nobility out of these men and women and in the face of unsurmountable odds, it the most hopeless of scenarios, God used just a few good men and women to bring the blessings and peace of His Kingdom, to bring the blessing of His light to displace the darkness that was swallowing up the people around them.

In his Book “Bible Nobodies that became Somebodies, Lance Wubbles speaks of a man who was filled with Noble Discontent. And because He

was filled with a burning discontent against the “status quo,” there was hope for him.

He was a million miles ahead of the man who had slipped into a mind-numbing cowardly contentment.

It is bad to be whipped, but to be content to remain so is infinitely worse.

It is bad to be in the prison house of your foes, but to lodge there till you no longer care for freedom is an even greater travesty.

To be in the far country among the swine like the prodigal son is a terrible calamity.

But to come to the place where you are content to live there, where you feel at home among the stench and the filth of it all, that is the very climax of calamity.

To be in the Church and yet count for nothing is extremely pathetic.

To be a spiritual pygmy, a moral dwarf, that is tragic indeed.

But to come to the place where you persuade yourself that that is God’s best for you, that is the supreme tragedy.

To be content with the worst when you might have the best.

Wubbels, Lance. Bible Nobodies Who Became Somebodies: 50 Inspirational Characters Who Prove that Anyone Can Be Special in God's Kingdom (Wubbels, Lance) (p. 249). Destiny Image. Kindle Edition.

This is mindset that I want to challenge in us all in this series.

We have become content to live in the filth and stench of a world where lives are wrecked by addiction, marriages and families are destroyed daily, children are cast aside like unwanted little creatures, they are sleeping on the bare floors of DCS offices all around the country, abandoned by parents whose lives are swallowed up in destruction and misery and as long as they are out of sight, they are out of mind.

We’ve allowed ourselves to become comfortable in a world were young women are stolen from their homes and families, addicted to drugs and then forced into sexual slavery.

We aren’t just comfortable with in, we support it!

The recent statistics of men who regularly attend church and are engage in a pornography addiction is 68%.

Nearly-two thirds, it’s 50% among active pastors.

Jesus I pray, let this not sit well in our hearts!

And every time we look at those images, we are supporting the rape, the destruction of innocence and de-humanization of someones daughter.

Are we ready to stand before God and give an account for promoting the rape and exploitation of young women he died to save?

Maybe you saying, Joe, I don’t do that. I don’t support these things!

But are we living lives that are inspiring the men that are doing that to repent of this horrific behavior and calling them to true Nobility in Christ?

Are we raising up Godly fathers that won’t abandon their children and who will open their homes up to a child who has been abandoned?

Are we inspiring True Christ-Like Nobility in those around us?

To those who know to do Good and they do it not, to them it is Sin!

James 4:17

I calling for a few good men, who are ready to become filled with a Noble Discontent, men that are tired of living in the tragedy of settling for the worst, when we are called to bring forth the very best.

Men who may look like Zeros but who have just enough faith and Noble Discontent to trust God to build them and make them Heroes.

In his book Wild at Heart-John Eldredge said that

“Men want a battle to fight, an adventure to live, and a beauty to rescue and love”

What greater adventure could be offered, what greater battle could one give himself to than the cause of Christ and the mission to rescue those around us and bring them into the beauty of his love?

In this series, I’m not just going to challenge you. I’m going to offer you a way to get engaged and partner with me and other like-minded men.

I can’t in good conscience call us out and then not offer a path for us to be intentional and invest ourselves into becoming men of Nobility.

Be looking for this in the weeks to come.

Men, Please be praying with me.

Jesus has been forging a relationship and a partnership in my life for the past year that I am now convinced he wants to use as the platform to call men filled with Noble Discontent and then Train and Equip these men to be the Zeros made Heroes that our Father has destined them for.

A Band of Godly Brothers who can no longer be comfortable in the stench and are ready to take ground for the Kingdom of God.

Men of Valor who are ready to be the agents of change in their families, their churches and their communities.

There are a lot of guys that talk about this.

But, Jesus ain’t looking for talkers, he ain’t looking for men that are hearing the call, He’s looking for Doers.

I felt that! Right then! Some of you felt that hit you square in the Heart. God is calling you right now and you know it.