Map Maker

Benton MacKaye had a life altering encounter around 1900. It wasn’t his first time venturing into the forest, but it was what I will call a holy moment. As he looked at the culture around him, all it’s technological advancement, emerging convenience, and such there was a big check in his spirit. All these promises of the world seemed to leave his soul empty.

So he and his small group of friends packed a hiking backpack and bushwhacked into the backwoods of Vermont. “After traipsing over glacier-scraped rock and through the seemingly never-ending forests, MacKaye found himself at the peak of Stratton Mountain. There was no view from the summit, so MacKaye climbed a tree until he found one.”

This is what we have called Chasing The High View.  That is, looking at the world, consumerism, the need for ever more, the rat race, the state of relationships, the state of hearts and deeply knowing that for all the promises, there has to be a HIGHER WAY! To look at all of this now I’m not where I was meant to be. (SINNER, PATIENT, LOST)

When MacKaye reached the top of Stratton Mountain, he didn’t see what he expected. So he climbed a tree. Atop that tree he had a life changing encounter. He topped the tree, on top of the mountain, he had a higher perspective. I’d like to say, even if he didn’t know, that he had an encounter with God. He saw how little he was, how little the way of humans is. Worship is an encounter with God. It’s not about us, it’s a perspective change. It’s to see the Holiness of God following.

Matthew 28:16–20 ESV

Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Jesus is the Way!

Over the last 8 weeks we have established a foundation from scripture. Matthew 22:37-40,

Matthew 22:37–40 ESV

And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

A High View of God

A High View of My Calling

A High View of Others

A High View of Mission

Wholly devoted followers of Jesus become the maps that leads others to the Way!

What does it mean for your life to be a map that leads others to Jesus?

To be a wholly devoted follower of Jesus?

9 Marks of Being Wholly Devoted Followers of Jesus.

Brokenness is the realization that all the things we believe should fill us are not filling us.

BROKEN: Trusting in Christ alone can make us whole, we freely admit our own brokenness and trust our lives into Jesus' hands.

Luke 5:31 (ESV)

And Jesus answered them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.

Romans 3:23–26 ESV

for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

BROKEN: Trusting in Christ alone can make us whole, we freely admit our own brokenness and trust our lives into Jesus' hands.

From broken to all in! I’m a follower! I have become an apprentice of Jesus.

FOLLOWER: We are all in. Holding nothing back, we will pursue his presence, prioritize his word, and align everything in our lives with his loving leadership.

Mark 8:34 ESV

And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.

Broken, Follower, I need to be transformed into a worshipper!

WORSHIPPER: We give God our full attention. This is more than singing; this is rooting ourselves in the reality of God’s transformational work.

Romans 12:1–2 (ESV)

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

This movement of loving God with all my HEART, MIND, AND SOUL is to see my need. That I am broken. That to be whole I must surrender all to Jesus, and be transformed into a whole new self.