Go Unless You Get A No

I had my first MOB (Men of the Bible) class last Wednesday. We met in the “man-cave” (formerly known as room E).  I used an old pizza box as the sign over the door. We are doing a series of lessons on discipleship by Erwin McManus. The first one was called “Advance: Go Unless You Get a No”. This is a great idea! It's biblical too. Jesus makes it pretty clear in the Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20) where He says, “Go and make disciples of all nations”. There is a lot of “go” in Acts 1:8 too. “You shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in Judea and Samaria, and even to the ends of the earth”.

Despite all the “go” in the Bible, we sure do a lot of waiting around don't we? Instead of “go unless you get a no”, we usually live more like “wait until you really know”! But besides waiting for Jesus to return, there is not much waiting written into our calling as disciples of Jesus Christ. Should you talk to your neighbor? Go! Should you go on that mission trip? Go! Should you feed the hungry? Should you give someone a bible? Should you serve in your church? The answer is never wait. The answer is go unless you get a no.

There will be a no from time to time. Don't worry though! God is good at getting our attention when His answer is no. It should not be very hard to recognize. Until then, the answer is “go!” Just imagine if believers around the world quit waiting around? Wow!  

Link to Erwin McManus

Rest

I have recently joked, “I just thought I had to preach the sermons. I didn't know I had to apply them!” The joke came about after having to put the scriptures I preached on, and the applications I made, to the test. For example, recently, I preached two sermons on Psalm 23. The first one was “The Rest of the Story”. It was an application to Psalm 23:1-2, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he restores my soul.” The bottom line in the sermon was that we were made for Sabbath rest. After all, it is in the ten commandments! If we are not resting, we are sinning. If we are resting in the Lord, we are being restored. Ahhh, that sounds good, doesn't it?

I got a chance to put this to the test on my recent getaway with my son, Jackson. Just the two of us took a week to go hiking and camping along the Appalachian Trail. We hiked 20 rugged miles. We didn't shower. We got bug bites. We had an encounter with a bear! My muscles ached. We got drenched in multiple rain showers. But that is not all we got. We got rest. Personally, I got away for a week. I unplugged. I called it “going off grid”. It was awesome. And as I woke up each morning in the Scriptures and in prayer and as I went to bed the same way each night, an amazing thing happened. I grew closer to my son, and I grew closer to my Lord. He restored my soul. I was truly exhausted and grimy by the end of the week, but I have never been more rested.

Link to sermon on 7/1/12 "The Rest of the Story"