Wednesday, April 05, 2006
April 5th 2006--Role of a Pastor
April 5th, 2006
The Role of the Church and Its Pastor
I lost a car a week ago. Sloan drove off in it. But before she did, she personalized it. She put a Dave Matthews Band decal on the back. It looks like a nude dancer. But it wasn't until she put water and soap in a bucket and washed it that I knew something significant had happened, because whatever a teen cleans in this world is of value to them.
So in the last flicker of sixteen candles, Jill took my truck and Sloan took Jill's car, leaving me a pedestrian, a walker, a person on foot. And I can't describe to you the feeling I had when I walked out the first time to go somewhere and was met by an empty driveway.
So please watch out for me. I might be grumbling to myself and walk right out in front of you, and always remember that I have the right away.
And when it comes to leading the church, it becomes confusing about who has the right of way. Who yields to whom? There are several assumptions we make:
1. We yield all control to the expert pastor and sit passively by while he
dominates the church.
We can look across Christendom and choose those dominated by one man. What he says goes and what goes is what he says.
Usually he has a list of dos and don'ts of his church. The bylaws are stacked in his favor. He demands every member to tithe and keeps a record of all those who don't.
He runs the church like it's his business, and those who adhere to his rule and reign are his chosen ones.
When he divides up his pastoral duties, they hold the favorite spots. And some people like this because of the attention they get.
Then there are those who love the fringes because it doesn't cost anything on the back row of the church. Slip in late, slip out early.
Jill and I went to a wedding one time and we're seven minutes late to discover that the doors had been locked. We couldn’t get in.
No church locks it's doors literally, but the dictator slams them shut from the pulpit. He blows a cold blast of spiritual damnation. He chastises his people on the fringes until they either give in to the guilt or leave because they feel like there time is up.
And there are those who use the church. They're are those who believe the pastor is the hired gun, that he is a dispenser of religious services, that he is a civil servant. Both are wrong. Both are the extreme opposites. Nobody wants a pulpit pope, nor do we want hired gun.
2. Then there's the church that binds and gags the pastor.
The power group in the church sets rules and standards for the pastor. The big money givers hold a short leash on the pastor. He preaches their doctrines. He pleases their people.
Their tithes to the church dupes them into believing that they know how to best use the Lord's money that just a moment before the offering their money belonged to them and after the offering it still does.
But who wants to attend a church where the body of Christ has its dictators who see fit to leave the majority in the dark? They want the people to tithe sacrificially and serve the way they do without ever questioning their authority.
The only thing worse than a pulpit pope is an inner-click of power holders, who believe they are smarter than the rest of God's people and therefore should be trusted.
Usually people of this caliber make huge assumptions about what God wants for his church. They make their plans and ask God to bless them, which is the direct opposite. They believe they should make plans and assumptions then involve God.
I had this happen to me just last week in another situation. But it comes with a little bit of good news. I'm no longer a pedestrian. I have a car.
It's a hand-me-down. Someone graciously gave it to me when she bought a new car. Blair is an official car owner. My name doesn't appear anywhere on the bill, thank God.
But I did the research for her. I called around to find her the best deal on a VW Jetta Value Edition. And Richard answered the phone. He told me he only needed to sell four more cars to receive a bonus. He was mine.
Plus, I knew that VW had a great college graduate program. No credit history, no problem. You just couldn't have bad credit. Plus, they pay the first payment for you.
Yeah, pretty good, huh? So I went for it. I gave Richard the required information. He said he would run Blair's credit history and call me back. He did. It was a bingo all the way, so Blair and I went to pick it up this past Friday.
When we got to Volkswagen of Huntsville, Richard had it sitting on the showroom floor. Heads-up play for a former baseball trainer at the University of Alabama.
And it was sharp and Richard gave her a tour of the features. It had this cool key that closed like a switch blade and with a touch of a button it shot out. He used it to pop the trunk and Blair was all smiles.
And we moved over into Richard's glass office while he printed a copy of Blair's graduation certificate.
Then he said he'd go get Stan, the financial man, and while Stan finished things up, he'd go fill up her car with gas. A thirty dollar value. Free. Just for buying a car!
And while he was gone, Blair and I looked over our shoulders at the platinum gray Jetta sitting there in it's last new car moment, and we made comments, bad comments about the old Honda Civic that Blair calls Nemo, because she knocked off one of the side view mirrors, which made it look like it only had one fin.
I commented on the Michelin tires that should never give her the same problems Nemo gave her. Once a tire blew and she went sailing into the median of I-65 and stopped just before entering traffic going the opposite way.
Then Blair would point the key chain thing at me and act like she'd just pulled a switch blade on me.
After a couple of moments like this, Richard returned with Stan, the financial man, who wore a sweater without sleeves. Very astute. Older man with a few nugget rings of excellence on his fingers.
"This is Stan, our credit expert," Richard said.
We went through a round of hi, how-are-yous. Then Stan said, "Well, we have a small glich. We overlooked something very important to the graduate program. You can have no credit, but you can't have bad credit."
Then he pulled out a piece of paper and shoved it toward Blair. "You are two months behind on your student loan."
What!? This was my reaction. Blair sat solemn. I said, "Shoot, I thought it got deferred."
Then Richard said, "It was my oversight. I just missed it when checking the credit. But this can be fixed simply. All you have to do is have a co-signer, and if your father will sign, then this will be all cleared up, and we'll be all set."
Then Stan said real quick, "That is if you have good credit, Mr. Stofel."
And Blair, wanting to get the car on her own, would not let me sign. Blair stood and did a Bree Vandercamp, off Desperate Housewives.
She stood and took a breath like Bree. Then she said, "Thank you for your time. I guess I'll come back when I have my student loan situation taken care of."
Then she plunked the switchblade key down on the glass table with a clunk and said, "Let's go, Dad."
So I stood to outstretched hands. I shook both and followed Blair out the door, and once outside I called after her.
She said, "Don't talk to me."
I said, "Blair, they said they'd have to check with their credit department tomorrow. So they're going to do it. It's just too late today to do that." I sped up, trying to catch up with her.
But she sped up and said, "Don't talk to me."
We got in the truck and drove home from Huntsville in complete silence.
When we got home, Richard called and said he just happened to get someone at Volkswagen credit on the phone, and they said there shouldn't be any problem. So come back and get the car in the morning.
Sure, there was probably an oversight. I don't think they set me up until the end.
But maybe, back in Stan's office, he exposed the ugly little mark to Richard. Maybe they pursed their lips and scratched their car selling wisdom and said, "Well, you know, if she had a co-signer this would clear it up. What does the father look like? Think he has the money to do it?"
Who knows what transpired back in that office where deals have gone through and deals have failed like ours? But it's safe to say that they had it all figured out in their minds. They had the upper control. They had a father over the emotional barrel. He'd do it. He'd do it for a girl who just graduated college. "Sure, he will," they said.
But it didn't happen like they planned.
They should have said, "Blair, take the car home. Drive it until Monday, and we'll get this straightened out," which is what eventually happened.
Then Blair could have gone from there. But they made a huge assumption.
Now these car salesmen were out for the money, but somewhere inside their motives they truly wanted what was best for the customer. They just made the assumption that they knew what was best.
And I don't think the inner-click of power realizes that they have the church and the pastor on a short leash. They truly think that they are doing the best thing for everyone.
And we can sit here tonight and make assumptions about how we think this church should go, but let us not make wrong assumptions.
The assumption of common sense, of emotion, of tradition, of reason. Whether we know it or not we fall back on these assumptions during a crisis.
Common Sense says, "Well, all she needs is a co-signer."
Emotion says, "Her father will not let this deal go bad."
Tradition says, "Let's do it the way we always do it."
Reason says, "Well, let's see how to work this out using every possible avenue."
Reason sounds good in theory. But does reason always speak the truth?
What assumptions are we making right now about our lives, our church?
1. That we'll find a building.
2. That finding a building will solve some of our problems.
3. That things will be different than the last church we were involved in.
How do you know these things will happen?
What is the difference between faith and assumption?
Hebrews 11:1 says, "Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see."
What is assumption? Something that is believed to be true without proof.
We make assumptions all the time. But we can never assume anything because if we do, then we are making the agenda. We go into the future with an expectation, expecting a certain thing to happen.
It happens all the time, doesn't it? We dream of a big life and live a small one. Then we get depressed because we feel slighted, ripped off, robbed. Then we blame God.
So it is our assumptions that we have to learn to live without.
But you say, "We have to have a plan." Sure, that's common sense and reasoning, which is good. When in total doubt do what makes sense. That's my motto. But when we are living by faith, it may contradict common sense and reasoning.
Making an assumption means that we have worked out the plan in our own minds, right down to the finest detail.
Proverbs 20:24 "A man's steps are directed by the LORD. How then can anyone understand his own way?"
Making an assumption means we refuse to allow God to direct our steps. How do you do that? We begin to listen to the voices of the world and criticism more than we do the voice of God.
What if Noah had listened to the men of his day that made fun of an old man building a ship hundreds of miles from a body of water?
Business professors conducted a study with a group of monkeys. It's a vivid story of failure. They placed four monkeys in a room with a tall pole in the center. Suspended from the top of the pole was a bunch of bananas.
One of the hungry monkeys started climbing the pole to get something to eat, but just as he reached out to grab a banana, the experimenters blasted him with cold water.
Squealing, the monkey scampered down the pole and abandoned his attempt to feed himself. Each monkey made a similar attempt and was drenched with cold water. After attempting a few more times, they finally gave up.
The researchers then removed one of the monkeys from the room and replaced him with a new monkey. As the newcomer began to climb the pole to get the bananas, the other three monkeys, who'd tried but failed, grabbed him and pulled him down to the ground. It was a brave act of rescue.
So after the new monkey tried to climb the pole several times and was dragged down by the others, he too gave up and never attempted to climb the pole again.
Then the researchers replaced the original monkeys, one by one, and each time a new monkey attempted to get the bananas, the other monkeys would drag him down before he could reach them.
In time, the room contained only new monkeys who had never received a cold shower, who'd never even attempted to climb the pole for bananas, but none of them knew why.
Life can become this experiment. They lived by assumptions, which are believing in something without having proof. We stop looking up, but we really don't know why.
Faith on the other hand says we have hope. Did the monkeys have hope? No, they stopped hoping in getting the bananas down. Assumptions are void of hope, in theory.
When we listen to or make decisions based on human potential and advice, we become like these monkeys. We never attempt great things for God.
What we do most of the time is to do what Richard and Stan, the financial man, tried to do to Blair. They appealed to the father's sentiment. "He'll buy the car. But sometimes sentiment doesn’t change the father’s pocketbook. It remains empty.
And what churches do a lot of times, and what we do as individuals, is try to manipulate God by appealing to His sentiment.
"Well, how can a good God allow that to happen?" We are appealing to or trying to manipulate the Father's sentiment to get what we want. But sometimes the Father has different plans.
Think of the three guys who risked their lives to get David water while they fought the Philistines.
David said in their hearing,
2 Samuel 23:15-17 - "David longed for water and said, 'Oh, that someone would get me a drink of water from the well near the gate of Bethlehem!'"
16 So the three mighty men broke through the Philistine lines, drew water from the well near the gate of Bethlehem and carried it back to David. But he refused to drink it; instead, he poured it out before the LORD.
17 "Far be it from me, O LORD, to do this!" he said. "Is it not the blood of men who went at the risk of their lives?" And David would not drink it.
Man, you talking about a serious assumption. That was a risk. The appeal to David's sentiment backfired, because they failed to factor in David's belief.
They made a plan, executed its steps, reached the goal, then offered it to David for God only knows why.
Was it a desire to advance in the army? Was it loyality? But the shocking thing about the episode was how David reacted.
We can think we are doing great things for the Lord, when in actuality we are doing them for our own pleasure or rewards.
Motive is the power behind faith. It's the reason we hope. We hope for things not seen because we have a motive. But who ever has pure motives?
We are motivated by our desires. That's why we make assumptions. We desire something, and we get motivated to make it happen, even if it involves God.
Isn't this the reason we get God involved? We think he can help us get what we want. Right?
Maybe you desire something tonight. You may even be motivated to go for it. Motive influences our choices. I had this kid today at DG west. He faked passing out. Hit the dirt between buildings. He had a motive, but he made the wrong assumption.
Desire + motive = assumption
David's desire + his men's motives = a botched assumption
God's desire + our motives = botched assumption
God's desire + His motives = His plan
And you can plug this into every formula of your life:
Our marriage + my desires + my motives = botched assumption
Vintage Faith + our desires + our motives = botched assumption
Vintage Faith + God's desires + His motives + God's plan
Now you see the huge challenge before us. How do you live a life based on this formula?
We must continually check our motives. The way we do this is by asking ourselves why we feel motivated to do it? Will it make us comfortable? What's in this for me?
We have to return repeatedly to those three things we spoke of the first week:
1. Worship
2. Love
3. Making disciples
The way to tell when we are missing God is when we make assumptions and reality proves otherwise.
The Role of the Church and Its Pastor
I lost a car a week ago. Sloan drove off in it. But before she did, she personalized it. She put a Dave Matthews Band decal on the back. It looks like a nude dancer. But it wasn't until she put water and soap in a bucket and washed it that I knew something significant had happened, because whatever a teen cleans in this world is of value to them.
So in the last flicker of sixteen candles, Jill took my truck and Sloan took Jill's car, leaving me a pedestrian, a walker, a person on foot. And I can't describe to you the feeling I had when I walked out the first time to go somewhere and was met by an empty driveway.
So please watch out for me. I might be grumbling to myself and walk right out in front of you, and always remember that I have the right away.
And when it comes to leading the church, it becomes confusing about who has the right of way. Who yields to whom? There are several assumptions we make:
1. We yield all control to the expert pastor and sit passively by while he
dominates the church.
We can look across Christendom and choose those dominated by one man. What he says goes and what goes is what he says.
Usually he has a list of dos and don'ts of his church. The bylaws are stacked in his favor. He demands every member to tithe and keeps a record of all those who don't.
He runs the church like it's his business, and those who adhere to his rule and reign are his chosen ones.
When he divides up his pastoral duties, they hold the favorite spots. And some people like this because of the attention they get.
Then there are those who love the fringes because it doesn't cost anything on the back row of the church. Slip in late, slip out early.
Jill and I went to a wedding one time and we're seven minutes late to discover that the doors had been locked. We couldn’t get in.
No church locks it's doors literally, but the dictator slams them shut from the pulpit. He blows a cold blast of spiritual damnation. He chastises his people on the fringes until they either give in to the guilt or leave because they feel like there time is up.
And there are those who use the church. They're are those who believe the pastor is the hired gun, that he is a dispenser of religious services, that he is a civil servant. Both are wrong. Both are the extreme opposites. Nobody wants a pulpit pope, nor do we want hired gun.
2. Then there's the church that binds and gags the pastor.
The power group in the church sets rules and standards for the pastor. The big money givers hold a short leash on the pastor. He preaches their doctrines. He pleases their people.
Their tithes to the church dupes them into believing that they know how to best use the Lord's money that just a moment before the offering their money belonged to them and after the offering it still does.
But who wants to attend a church where the body of Christ has its dictators who see fit to leave the majority in the dark? They want the people to tithe sacrificially and serve the way they do without ever questioning their authority.
The only thing worse than a pulpit pope is an inner-click of power holders, who believe they are smarter than the rest of God's people and therefore should be trusted.
Usually people of this caliber make huge assumptions about what God wants for his church. They make their plans and ask God to bless them, which is the direct opposite. They believe they should make plans and assumptions then involve God.
I had this happen to me just last week in another situation. But it comes with a little bit of good news. I'm no longer a pedestrian. I have a car.
It's a hand-me-down. Someone graciously gave it to me when she bought a new car. Blair is an official car owner. My name doesn't appear anywhere on the bill, thank God.
But I did the research for her. I called around to find her the best deal on a VW Jetta Value Edition. And Richard answered the phone. He told me he only needed to sell four more cars to receive a bonus. He was mine.
Plus, I knew that VW had a great college graduate program. No credit history, no problem. You just couldn't have bad credit. Plus, they pay the first payment for you.
Yeah, pretty good, huh? So I went for it. I gave Richard the required information. He said he would run Blair's credit history and call me back. He did. It was a bingo all the way, so Blair and I went to pick it up this past Friday.
When we got to Volkswagen of Huntsville, Richard had it sitting on the showroom floor. Heads-up play for a former baseball trainer at the University of Alabama.
And it was sharp and Richard gave her a tour of the features. It had this cool key that closed like a switch blade and with a touch of a button it shot out. He used it to pop the trunk and Blair was all smiles.
And we moved over into Richard's glass office while he printed a copy of Blair's graduation certificate.
Then he said he'd go get Stan, the financial man, and while Stan finished things up, he'd go fill up her car with gas. A thirty dollar value. Free. Just for buying a car!
And while he was gone, Blair and I looked over our shoulders at the platinum gray Jetta sitting there in it's last new car moment, and we made comments, bad comments about the old Honda Civic that Blair calls Nemo, because she knocked off one of the side view mirrors, which made it look like it only had one fin.
I commented on the Michelin tires that should never give her the same problems Nemo gave her. Once a tire blew and she went sailing into the median of I-65 and stopped just before entering traffic going the opposite way.
Then Blair would point the key chain thing at me and act like she'd just pulled a switch blade on me.
After a couple of moments like this, Richard returned with Stan, the financial man, who wore a sweater without sleeves. Very astute. Older man with a few nugget rings of excellence on his fingers.
"This is Stan, our credit expert," Richard said.
We went through a round of hi, how-are-yous. Then Stan said, "Well, we have a small glich. We overlooked something very important to the graduate program. You can have no credit, but you can't have bad credit."
Then he pulled out a piece of paper and shoved it toward Blair. "You are two months behind on your student loan."
What!? This was my reaction. Blair sat solemn. I said, "Shoot, I thought it got deferred."
Then Richard said, "It was my oversight. I just missed it when checking the credit. But this can be fixed simply. All you have to do is have a co-signer, and if your father will sign, then this will be all cleared up, and we'll be all set."
Then Stan said real quick, "That is if you have good credit, Mr. Stofel."
And Blair, wanting to get the car on her own, would not let me sign. Blair stood and did a Bree Vandercamp, off Desperate Housewives.
She stood and took a breath like Bree. Then she said, "Thank you for your time. I guess I'll come back when I have my student loan situation taken care of."
Then she plunked the switchblade key down on the glass table with a clunk and said, "Let's go, Dad."
So I stood to outstretched hands. I shook both and followed Blair out the door, and once outside I called after her.
She said, "Don't talk to me."
I said, "Blair, they said they'd have to check with their credit department tomorrow. So they're going to do it. It's just too late today to do that." I sped up, trying to catch up with her.
But she sped up and said, "Don't talk to me."
We got in the truck and drove home from Huntsville in complete silence.
When we got home, Richard called and said he just happened to get someone at Volkswagen credit on the phone, and they said there shouldn't be any problem. So come back and get the car in the morning.
Sure, there was probably an oversight. I don't think they set me up until the end.
But maybe, back in Stan's office, he exposed the ugly little mark to Richard. Maybe they pursed their lips and scratched their car selling wisdom and said, "Well, you know, if she had a co-signer this would clear it up. What does the father look like? Think he has the money to do it?"
Who knows what transpired back in that office where deals have gone through and deals have failed like ours? But it's safe to say that they had it all figured out in their minds. They had the upper control. They had a father over the emotional barrel. He'd do it. He'd do it for a girl who just graduated college. "Sure, he will," they said.
But it didn't happen like they planned.
They should have said, "Blair, take the car home. Drive it until Monday, and we'll get this straightened out," which is what eventually happened.
Then Blair could have gone from there. But they made a huge assumption.
Now these car salesmen were out for the money, but somewhere inside their motives they truly wanted what was best for the customer. They just made the assumption that they knew what was best.
And I don't think the inner-click of power realizes that they have the church and the pastor on a short leash. They truly think that they are doing the best thing for everyone.
And we can sit here tonight and make assumptions about how we think this church should go, but let us not make wrong assumptions.
The assumption of common sense, of emotion, of tradition, of reason. Whether we know it or not we fall back on these assumptions during a crisis.
Common Sense says, "Well, all she needs is a co-signer."
Emotion says, "Her father will not let this deal go bad."
Tradition says, "Let's do it the way we always do it."
Reason says, "Well, let's see how to work this out using every possible avenue."
Reason sounds good in theory. But does reason always speak the truth?
What assumptions are we making right now about our lives, our church?
1. That we'll find a building.
2. That finding a building will solve some of our problems.
3. That things will be different than the last church we were involved in.
How do you know these things will happen?
What is the difference between faith and assumption?
Hebrews 11:1 says, "Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see."
What is assumption? Something that is believed to be true without proof.
We make assumptions all the time. But we can never assume anything because if we do, then we are making the agenda. We go into the future with an expectation, expecting a certain thing to happen.
It happens all the time, doesn't it? We dream of a big life and live a small one. Then we get depressed because we feel slighted, ripped off, robbed. Then we blame God.
So it is our assumptions that we have to learn to live without.
But you say, "We have to have a plan." Sure, that's common sense and reasoning, which is good. When in total doubt do what makes sense. That's my motto. But when we are living by faith, it may contradict common sense and reasoning.
Making an assumption means that we have worked out the plan in our own minds, right down to the finest detail.
Proverbs 20:24 "A man's steps are directed by the LORD. How then can anyone understand his own way?"
Making an assumption means we refuse to allow God to direct our steps. How do you do that? We begin to listen to the voices of the world and criticism more than we do the voice of God.
What if Noah had listened to the men of his day that made fun of an old man building a ship hundreds of miles from a body of water?
Business professors conducted a study with a group of monkeys. It's a vivid story of failure. They placed four monkeys in a room with a tall pole in the center. Suspended from the top of the pole was a bunch of bananas.
One of the hungry monkeys started climbing the pole to get something to eat, but just as he reached out to grab a banana, the experimenters blasted him with cold water.
Squealing, the monkey scampered down the pole and abandoned his attempt to feed himself. Each monkey made a similar attempt and was drenched with cold water. After attempting a few more times, they finally gave up.
The researchers then removed one of the monkeys from the room and replaced him with a new monkey. As the newcomer began to climb the pole to get the bananas, the other three monkeys, who'd tried but failed, grabbed him and pulled him down to the ground. It was a brave act of rescue.
So after the new monkey tried to climb the pole several times and was dragged down by the others, he too gave up and never attempted to climb the pole again.
Then the researchers replaced the original monkeys, one by one, and each time a new monkey attempted to get the bananas, the other monkeys would drag him down before he could reach them.
In time, the room contained only new monkeys who had never received a cold shower, who'd never even attempted to climb the pole for bananas, but none of them knew why.
Life can become this experiment. They lived by assumptions, which are believing in something without having proof. We stop looking up, but we really don't know why.
Faith on the other hand says we have hope. Did the monkeys have hope? No, they stopped hoping in getting the bananas down. Assumptions are void of hope, in theory.
When we listen to or make decisions based on human potential and advice, we become like these monkeys. We never attempt great things for God.
What we do most of the time is to do what Richard and Stan, the financial man, tried to do to Blair. They appealed to the father's sentiment. "He'll buy the car. But sometimes sentiment doesn’t change the father’s pocketbook. It remains empty.
And what churches do a lot of times, and what we do as individuals, is try to manipulate God by appealing to His sentiment.
"Well, how can a good God allow that to happen?" We are appealing to or trying to manipulate the Father's sentiment to get what we want. But sometimes the Father has different plans.
Think of the three guys who risked their lives to get David water while they fought the Philistines.
David said in their hearing,
2 Samuel 23:15-17 - "David longed for water and said, 'Oh, that someone would get me a drink of water from the well near the gate of Bethlehem!'"
16 So the three mighty men broke through the Philistine lines, drew water from the well near the gate of Bethlehem and carried it back to David. But he refused to drink it; instead, he poured it out before the LORD.
17 "Far be it from me, O LORD, to do this!" he said. "Is it not the blood of men who went at the risk of their lives?" And David would not drink it.
Man, you talking about a serious assumption. That was a risk. The appeal to David's sentiment backfired, because they failed to factor in David's belief.
They made a plan, executed its steps, reached the goal, then offered it to David for God only knows why.
Was it a desire to advance in the army? Was it loyality? But the shocking thing about the episode was how David reacted.
We can think we are doing great things for the Lord, when in actuality we are doing them for our own pleasure or rewards.
Motive is the power behind faith. It's the reason we hope. We hope for things not seen because we have a motive. But who ever has pure motives?
We are motivated by our desires. That's why we make assumptions. We desire something, and we get motivated to make it happen, even if it involves God.
Isn't this the reason we get God involved? We think he can help us get what we want. Right?
Maybe you desire something tonight. You may even be motivated to go for it. Motive influences our choices. I had this kid today at DG west. He faked passing out. Hit the dirt between buildings. He had a motive, but he made the wrong assumption.
Desire + motive = assumption
David's desire + his men's motives = a botched assumption
God's desire + our motives = botched assumption
God's desire + His motives = His plan
And you can plug this into every formula of your life:
Our marriage + my desires + my motives = botched assumption
Vintage Faith + our desires + our motives = botched assumption
Vintage Faith + God's desires + His motives + God's plan
Now you see the huge challenge before us. How do you live a life based on this formula?
We must continually check our motives. The way we do this is by asking ourselves why we feel motivated to do it? Will it make us comfortable? What's in this for me?
We have to return repeatedly to those three things we spoke of the first week:
1. Worship
2. Love
3. Making disciples
The way to tell when we are missing God is when we make assumptions and reality proves otherwise.
