Does Jesus Lead you?

What Great hands we are in.

“How does that give you authority”

Safety Vest when your a grade 5 safety patrol.

- Kids when they start baby sitting their siblings, the authority that has been given and the sudden change of both the siblings being looked after and the caretaker!

We are in a transitional time and there are things we need to change and shape before the next lead pastor gets here and I want to really push you on some of these things.

See Pastor Bob was awesome and we are looking out to the next pastor and we have great expectations and I actually want to lower your expectations to a certain degree. Not to say that we won’t have high expectations of our future lead pastor to be a man of God and a leader for God’s people.

Maybe our expectations have gotten even higher as time has gone on.

However we cannot put our individual and collective futures in the hand of a lead pastor. Honestly nobody in the room, nobody in ministry can create and maintain the vision that has the greatest impact in our lives and in the world around us.

That is why we are not putting our trust into human hands, we put it into God’s hands. Listen to Colossians and I want to invite you to keep your bible open to Colossians 1 and starting at verse 15 because we are going to lean on Pauls words for the Colossians.

Paul is telling this group of people in Colossi how to follow, Paul never established this church but rather is being asked to encourage this church to follow Jesus because they are easily influenced by the culture around them.

Paul writes this poem that we are going to be settled in:

Colossians 1:15–17 NIV

The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

To break down the start we need to understand Paul is pulling us back to the creation story, where God creates the world in the 7 days. In all of that Jesus is the image of the invisible God, so that when we think of God we see the image of God that is Jesus, the firstborn over Creation and in that language we also know that Jesus is the established ruler over creation.

In one action packed line we see Jesus as God and the ruler over creation.

Then to butter us up we are then told Jesus is the greater, the power, the authority. Everything is through him and suddenly that whole creation narrative is blasted open and Jesus is the central thread that is woven in the whole story.

That when God created man and woman Jesus is there forming and shaping them.

These packed lines of the poem show us the authority that Jesus has.

Jesus has the authority over all creation, however we need to remind ourselves that Jesus in all of his authority has power over us. We have a choice to live into that authority or run from it.

Not that Jesus is a dictator type leader but rather that he is a good leader, actually he best leader we have and will ever have!

Jesus is the leader .

We give Jesus that leadership because of what he has done, in creation first, in being the author of the world we must trust him to guide us on the day to day.

And in this season of transition we need to pay attention to Jesus’ authority in our lives. Because we are so blessed to be in his hands, I cannot imagine being in control of the world.

All things are in his hands, do you know the value of Jesus being in control?

We need to be people who trust Jesus before we react.

If we know Jesus is in control we start to pray into it, but if we act like Jesus is in control we start to live into his purpose. We need to know Jesus is the leader of our own lives, it is never going to be a person, a pastor, a mentor, a influencer. No, Jesus is declared the leader of our life in this poem and its even added too that Jesus requires the full attention of his people.

Colossians 1:18 NIV

And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy.

Jesus is the head of the church and the first to be raised from life so that in everything he might have supremacy.

Supremacy meaning that he is the superior one in all things.

Breaking that down we need to understand first that Jesus is looking to be the first thing in our lifes,

as the author of creation and the one who holds all things in his hands, he wants to be first in your life...

as the head of the church he wants to be first in the gathering.

He wants supremacy, how this is not a evil dictatorship, he wants first not for the power nor the fame, but the love. Jesus’ power never came to rule over people and have submission but to complete his mission. Jesus’ death and resurrection are the proof of that.

Colossians 1:19–20 NIV

For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

Jesus’ need to be first in your life is not to dictate your free will. That’s something we often fear.

“Jesus I would give you my life but I am afraid I won’t have my freewill” and to echo back to that age old question why did God allow Adam and Eve to eat the fruit, he wanted them to have free will.

The difference between saying “God I give you my life” and the idea that God will dictate it is that it will always be our choice to follow God. However when we follow Jesus we choose more and more every day to put our own lifes to death and to take up more of what Jesus wants.

Jesus wants to lead you!

That is what supremacy of Jesus is all about.

Death to self, the things I want the person I want to be. The goals and power and fame and money and all those things that I want. Putting down the idea of me and taking up the idea of Jesus really leading me.

And I want to touch more on this idea but first we need to see the vision that God has presented us with, both as a Church that is the gathering of the people that he loves but also as individuals.

Death to self, Life in Christ

We need a refresher of what God’s view of us is and how that plays into our everyday life. If we are followers of God we want his vision, because it is the best version of who we want to become.

However I am going to read you the next piece of the poem and how it talks about freedom and that being apart of his plan.

Colossians 1:21–22 NIV

Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation—

So we have the pretext the before Jesus message, we were alienated, a foreign being. all to say we had once been distant. But if you are following along in the poem it is becuase Jesus that we are now close.

We have been moved from being far away and now we are close by once again. We once lived in BC but saw the light and chose Alberta as some would say. We are close to God.

However,

We must choose to be close to God, see what it says, our evil behaviour is what had alienated us from God, our distance was for a reason and that reason being the sin and sinful behaviour that we had and held on to. Jesus’ reconciliation. The forgiveness that is given by Jesus is what pulls us in but we need to constantly live out that dependancy of wanting to be made right by Jesus.’

We need to die to our self and be alive in Jesus

We have blockades to giving ourselves fully to becoming what Jesus wants:

Giving everything but your heart

When it gets hard

Taking our time to follow

Give up the Ego, Give up the self fulfilment, the self desire, the me me me, go for the give it all to you! God we give it all to you.

This is where Jesus’ leadership skills come best, he has a the best understanding of where you need to grow and how you need to get there.

Take a architect for example, they know the blueprints.

And we already went over how Jesus was there planning this world out at the beginning.

We are like the foreman on the construction site, yes we can build the house. It might not turn out like what we were expecting but a house is built. But when we hear the plans from the architect we start to get a vision for what the house will look like and know how to build it.

Jesus is calling us away from ourselves, who we want to be and towards him and who he wants to be. However we will never get there with out Him.

Why is one of the fruit of the spirit self-control? because we need God’s handy work to move away from the worldly desires to move towards Godly desires.

This is a deeply personally calling that I want to set on your heart, that you would want to move away from a ego or personality that is self-fulfilling and towards a spirit of Christ-likeness.

This is the idea of death to self and life in Christ.

Jesus’ calls me to: 1. Say no to Me 2. Yes to Jesus

Choosing to put away the self-life and pick up the Christ Life

We need to be able to say no to ourselves!

Let me tell you this brings the poem to a narrative peak,

We learned about how Jesus was given all this authority how he is literally God and is the best leader because he is God. But here is where we see that Jesus’ call as a leader is that we would want to be more like him.

Parkview Alliance Church; The call is not to be more like the pastor on stage, let me tell you jump the middle man. The call is be more like Jesus.

We are looking for a lead pastor and it is important to who we are as a Church our DNA, hey I even ask who the pastor is when someone tells me about a Church. But the facts are is whoever the lead pastor is, they are not God, not even close!

Let me tell you every pastors major flaw, every pastor has this and some even try to hide it. It’s that they are human. They are just like you, built with personalities filled with good and bad memories stricken with the inherit tendency to sin but the passion to be more like Christ.

Let me tell you that you cannot lean on a lead pastor to be prefect but rather that you can lean on him to show you how to die more to the self focused person and be more alive in Jesus Christ.

Pastors just recite Jesus’ plans with funny illustrations about construction workers and most *like me! have never worked construction.

The best image of God we get is Jesus who calls us each and every day to follow him and to leave ourselves behind. The pastor is playing that game too, they might just be further ahead in the plans or have insight into it.

Jesus has a famous cost of following him in Luke 9 but in verse 62 he says:

Luke 9:62 NIV

Jesus replied, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.”

His true meaning is no one who looks back to the old self will be able to become the new. If we want to be people who follow God in everything we must be ready to put ourselves second to Jesus, second to the world, second to anything that is not us.

I want to encourage you to look up stories of people deciding that they are no long the first priority but rather choose to die to themselves and put Jesus and his way first.

Vision. / Where are we now

What follows after is repetition, where Paul ends his poem is in continuing what was called to.

Paul writes to the Church, Jesus is the leader and we are is such great hands because of that, that we need to live lifes that he calls us to live, less of what we want and more of what Christ is.

And now Paul is saying, don’t stop and then invites us to a greater calling.

This being the vision that is being established, we know that every great leader comes with great vision.

Napolean’s vision was to make a french empire!

Martian Luther King Jr’s vision was equality between different races

Nasa’s Mission is to reveal the unknown and benefit all humanity

All this vision add to the leader however Paul’s vision for the Church in colossi but now also for us is stated at the end of the poem.

Colossians 1:23 NIV

if you continue in your faith, established and firm, and do not move from the hope held out in the gospel. This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant.

Contiuning in faith, established and firm, not moving from the hope that is the Gospel. Our vision is to keep on going in security of our faith.

Let me clarify for a seconad, this is not a holding pattern! God’s people are not called to a holding pattern and they are not called to a passive vision. This is a moving mission.

Even though we do not have a lead pastor this is not a vision to keep on keeping on. This is a vision to keep on moving forward!

Parkview Alliance Church, we are not stopping to wait in this season, that is not the calling.

No we must contiune to further our love and devotion to Jesus and Paul adds this is the Gospel, that in taking his words and keep on moving the mission further towards the Goal we are joining with all the Church, past, present and future to make Jesus more and more famous and to become close and close with Him.

Remember what I said the leader is Jesus, we are in great hands because we follow the one who his a excellent creator, leader and the one who deeply loves his people.

This is not a call to Start a holding pattern

This is a call to Take the next step

A holding pattern is what a plane does

When a plane cannot land yet but has arrived already at their destination they are put into a holding pattern, and this is not to say that these are bad, delays aren’t great but some times needed. But to say that the past two years have been this holding pattern just waiting to land is amiss. Jesus was working in this transition and we are still here and he is still working.

So Parkview we are not in a holding pattern, there is no reason to just circle back but rather we are moving forward into the things that Jesus is calling us too.

It’s a call for you to take that next step in following Jesus, because he is the leader and he is calling you to a greater vision that is being more like Jesus.

This plays in to ways let me talk to all the greater assembly of people here today. We must keep moving forward, nothing is pausing in the plans while we wait for a lead pastor. We are entering into kick off next week with the full hope and expectation that Jesus will be present in Parkview as we ourselves grow deeper in relationship with him and as we invite others to meet God.

We are not stopping the vision of “Inspiring others to a growing relationship with Jesus”. So I want to invite you don’t step back and wait until the lead pastor gets here but jump on in, get deeper in because here is the individual call as well.

The greater vision for you is that you would be more like Jesus today then you were yesterday.

That is the security that Paul is talking about, not that you would accept where you are in your relationship with him but that you would desire to get deeper with him.

So we have a choice today, every single one of us in this moment of transition where we can choice to take a step out and put ourselves in a holding pattern. Or we have the choice and the call to make every day another step towards being more like what Jesus wants us to be.

If you are living a two steps forward and one step back then you are still in a motion to live more like what Jesus wants you to be.

Friends lets choose today to be people that keep moving forward because we know we are in great hands, Jesus’s hands.