Text: John 3:29-31
If you were born in the 70’s, 80’s or 90’s you are apart of what is being called the ME Generation. These are today’s young people, those who take it for granted that the self comes first. Generation Me has never known a world that put duty before self, and believes that the needs of the individual should come first. This is not the same thing as being selfish – it is captured, instead in the phrases we so often hear: Be Yourself, You must love yourself before you can love someone else, I’m doing Me today or It’s Me time. This culture has brought a self awareness; it’s the Garden revisited. This coincides with Paul’s warnings in: 2 Timothy 3:1-4 1 But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. 2 People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, 4 treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God—
1. Servanthood
- The way up is down; if we desire to be great then we must become servants of all.
- The greatest responsibility of man is to serve his fellow man, golden rule.
- Servanthood checks self-centeredness.
- This quality in a person will catapult them in all areas of their life; marriage, work, family etc.
2. Faith – Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.
- Without it we CANNOT PLEASE GOD! Knowledge, experience and technology cannot replace spiritual power.
- It is our vehicle to the next level and beyond!
- When venturing out to fulfill a dream/vision there is uncertainty and risk
involved
- Sometimes you don’t have the answers; cant see the tangible; this causes
fear of the unknown to set in.
- Many times we are unwilling to leave the safety of the harbor.
- This is where FAITH comes into the picture.
What is FAITH?
- Faith is a passionate intuition. ~William Wordsworth
- Every tomorrow has two handles. We can take hold of it by the handle of anxiety, or by the handle of faith. ~Author Unknown
- Faith makes things possible, not easy. ~Author Unknown
On the journey to fulfilling our dreams/vision we will encounter setbacks; opposition and the temptation to quit will be ever present!
- When things don’t go as planned or anticipated we tend to look back or entertain the thought of quitting.
- Usually there is a period where all goes wrong and we begin to ask ourselves did I make a mistake?
- It is here that we begin to doubt our dream/vision because we are not seeing the tangible results – we are moved by what we see or rather what were not seeing.
One night a house caught fire and a young boy was forced to flee to the roof. The father stood on the ground below with outstretched arms, calling to his son, “Jump! I’ll catch you.” He knew the boy had to jump to save his life. All the boy could see, however, was flame, smoke, and blackness. As can be imagined, he was afraid to leave the roof. His father kept yelling: “Jump! I will catch you.” But the boy protested, “Daddy, I can’t see you.” The father replied, “But I can see you and that’s all that matters.”
2 Cor. 5:7 We live by faith; not by sight.
“Faith Honors God and God honors Faith.”
3. Discipleship
- With the advancement with technology and education; there is the sense that our young ones are growing up too fast!
- We cannot have that same mentality when discipling people for the Kingdom.
- Jesus was with his disciples for a period of three years; key word is WITH!
- Good discipleship comes through good teaching & training, but great discipleship comes through great modeling & exampleship.
2 Fold:
- People do what people see – for the Leader
- You cant go far on your own – for the potential disciple
- Don’t just recruit them in to your ministry, recruit them into your lifestyle!
- This might not go well with the Me Gen. cause this means it’s going to cut into your Me Time!
- Our greatest contribution to mankind will be our EXAMPLE!
- People who have been honored throughout the annals of time are rememberd for their contribution; what they did, how they lived.
- As Leaders and those who have been around we need to WORK with people; it’s not easy! But very rewarding!
- We tend to leave a disciple when they get the hang of the task and eventually they don’t last long because they have been taught that ministry is work not people – they burn out!
John understood this principle, that anytime we need to go to the next level, there must be a decrease in self and an increase in Christ in our lives.
Conclusion: we must be willing to make a commitment to go to the next level no matter what!
