Hey everybody, welcome to Healing Scars with Pastor Burton.
I am so excited and I can't thank you enough for tuning in.
This is the very first episode, that's right, number one, numero uno, the inaugural kickoff,
the start of it all, and we're going now.
So to give you an idea, I feel a little awkward right now.
This is new for me.
When I speak, I'm usually in front of a group of people, so I have a gauge right there in
front of me as to how well things are going, how things are being received or not received.
If I need to go into more depth, if a joke has been taken well, all that kind of stuff.
And I'm sitting here recording, I've probably gone through a half dozen takes just trying
to get through the beginning of this, and it's different.
It's a little intimidating.
So what I've done is I've sat down, I've said a little prayer, spoke to God, said,
Lord help me.
And what we're going to do is we're just going to jump right in here and we're going to kick
things off.
So with that said, welcome to the first episode.
The title of this is Reluctant Heroes.
It's that time of year, that's right, New Year's, when people start making promises.
It's upon us again.
And these are promises people know that they are most likely, they're not going to keep.
Matter of fact, they've probably made it year after year and they've broken that promise
year after year.
You know, call it resolutions, call it what you want, it's a promise.
New Year, new me, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Some of us fall on this category regularly.
Others, I'm trying to put it that tough guy attitude, a little bit more critical.
It's a new year, but I'm going to be the same jerk I've always been.
Paraphrasing the course because usually when people say that or they post the meme, it's
a little bit more vulgar.
So the other day though, I came across this and I saw it on Facebook and it brought to
mind one of the Marine Corps leadership principles.
And that principle is to know yourself and seek self-improvement.
I'm going to say it again.
Know yourself and seek self-improvement.
This is something we can all benefit from.
We all have weaknesses, we all have ways that we can improve.
There's definitely opportunities for us to improve regularly.
Now this is a biblical aspect as well.
Ecclesiastes 5.5 puts it this way.
There is, excuse me, it is better not to make a vow than to make one and not fulfill it.
You should underline that and highlight it.
If you're taking notes, make a note.
Ecclesiastes 5.5.
It is better not to make a vow than to make one and not fulfill it.
You see, you can't break a promise you never made.
And a broken promise is never, ever a good thing.
Matter of fact, most people will remember the promises that you broke than the promises
you kept.
And regardless of what day the calendar says it is, we should always strive to be better.
Now with that said, I want to remind you, everyone is a leader.
Everyone.
You, me, that guy down the block that you don't like, that person at work that annoys
the tar out of you.
Everyone is a leader.
Everyone is following an example.
Everyone is setting an example.
It does not matter if you're at work, church, school, home, out on the baseball field, anywhere.
Everywhere you go, you are being watched.
And we question that.
Really?
Me?
I'm a leader?
Maybe on the Xbox?
Maybe on the soccer field?
Maybe?
Big maybes, right?
See, people are full of doubts.
People are scared.
But God knows what He's doing.
And we see it throughout the Bible.
I'm going to go into some prime examples from the Bible of reluctant leaders.
I'm going to start off with Peter.
Peter was a fisherman, and Peter had one of the biggest stumbling blocks when he started
out.
Because he denied Jesus, not once, not twice, but three times.
That's right, Peter denied Jesus three times, yet he still went on to become one of the
most well-known apostles.
One of the people directly responsible for founding the early church, and gave what's
considered one of the greatest sermons after Jesus.
We can read it in Acts 2 verses 14 through 40.
Matter of fact, this sermon was so great and so powerful that in Acts 2 verse 41 it says,
Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about 3,000 were added to their number
that day.
Now that is a tremendous number.
To give you an idea, I'm going to bring it forward to modern days.
Most churches are pretty small.
The average church, I think the last thing I read it said the congregations are made
about 80 to 150 people.
Of course, you have your mega churches, they're quite a bit bigger, but even they, even they
would be impressed to see that many people join their church after just one message.
That's a lot.
At 3,000, I mean, holy cow.
That is a ton.
That is more people than we had students in my school.
If you think about it in that term, that's a lot.
How can you relate to 3,000 people?
Most of us, it's a struggle.
The next person I talk about, you go to Judges, chapters 6 through 7.
Chapter 6 through 7 tell us of Gideon.
This is a general.
Gideon was a man who felt he was abandoned by God and was so low on the totem pole that
he didn't believe God was actually talking to him.
He needed proof that God was talking to him.
He questioned it.
Not once, not twice, but again, three times he questioned whether or not God was actually
talking to him because he didn't believe it.
You see a little parallel here between Peter who denied Jesus three times.
This is Gideon.
He's like, come on, no, you're not him.
God was talking to him.
To give you an idea of why Gideon felt that tiny, he and his people were living in caves
and were in fear for their very lives every day.
Just to go out into the world for their daily needs was a serious matter.
To make things even worse for Gideon, like I said, he was a general.
At that particular time, he commanded 32,000 troops.
That is a lot of troops.
And God stripped this all the way down to 300.
That's right, 300 troops were left when God was done separating them.
I know a lot of us think of the movie 300.
The feat that these 300 men accomplished was even greater though.
You see Gideon took those 300 men and was able to chase off his enemies.
That's right, he chased off his enemies, which were thousands.
They were seriously outnumbered.
And he was able to usher in a time of peace and freedom for the Israelites.
Gideon was a great general.
No doubt about it.
Like I said, we're going to come back and we're going to spend more time on Gideon here
as well.
Now, for the next example, Exodus chapters three through four, talking about Moses.
Now when we talk about Moses, most of us think of Charlton Heston coming down out the mountain,
a couple of tablets in hand, powerful imagery.
But I want to remind you, Moses was a man who was on the run for his life.
He was a murderer who had to run for his own life.
Now in that context, let me ask you, is this somebody that you would follow?
Most of you, if you were honest, would say no, because when we think of murderers today,
we say, lock them up and throw away the key.
As a matter of fact, there's some people out there listening to this who probably say,
give them the chair, gas them, hang them, shoot them, et cetera, et cetera.
We do not think highly of murderers.
In those days, it was no different.
Murder is a serious offense.
There's no doubt about that.
And Moses was a murderer.
Moses was a man who literally questioned God.
Exodus three, verse 11, Moses stated, who am I?
And God answered in verse 12, I will be with you.
Yet Moses continued to argue and play the what if game to the point that the Lord got
angry.
It kind of went like this.
Moses is sitting there, but what if they don't listen?
What if they don't believe me?
God said, I'm with you.
You better listen.
I'm with you.
Do you not hear the words coming out of my mouth?
Not quite literally the way it went, but I mean, basically, I mean, that's just, you
think about it, especially for those of you who are parents, this is really easy to relate
to because when our kids argue with us, you get to a point like, what did I say?
Right?
Even if you're not a parent, you have, all of us at some point in our life have had somebody
that we've gotten into an argument with.
I don't care how small it is, where we've basically gotten pushed to that point where
we're like, what did I just say?
All right.
Now with that said, we are all called to walk in faith.
Each of us has to carry our own cross.
And it starts right here.
It starts in your heart.
You see, the calling God places on you is more important than any of the wants you have
for yourself.
Why do some people turn away?
It's hard.
It's really hard.
It's hard to turn away from our earthly condition.
I want this.
I need that.
What will other people think?
Oh, that isn't cool.
I'm here to tell you, you have to get out of yourself.
You have to trust in God and find the ways to do what he's called you to do.
You know, if the Lord has called you to do something, the way to do it is there.
You just have to trust to start marching forward and you will start to find exactly what you
need to get the job done.
When you don't, you start kind of thinking, like I said, going back to these, you know,
these little things that pop into your head, you know, you know, oh, that's not cool.
What are other people going to say?
What do people think?
You know, we start putting the world in front of us.
These things pop into our head because I mean, that is the enemy at work in your life.
And we all know that he's a liar.
He's telling you things that are not true.
You're not good enough.
You're weak.
You'll never amount to anything.
You can't do this.
You can't do that.
You're stupid.
You're ugly.
You're too short.
You're too tall.
You're clumsy.
You're irritating.
You're hairy.
Et cetera, et cetera.
Why are you listening?
Stop!
It's a new year.
It's a new me.
Nonsense.
You are the same person today because you're not listening to God.
You want to be a new person?
You want to be a new me?
Start following the example Jesus set.
Stop caring about the earthly judgment of others and start caring about the judgment
of Jesus.
Now I'm not saying don't care about people.
No, because that's the attitude that people have.
Oh, I don't care.
Whatever.
I'm me.
I'm a self-made man.
That's garbage.
What I'm saying is you need to start caring about the judgment of Jesus.
You need to start caring about what God wants you to do.
You need to start listening to Him and stop listening to the world.
But what if they call me stupid?
God already answered this.
He told Moses and he's telling us.
I will be with you.
You see, we have to change our mindset as individuals and as a community, as a society.
We need to realize that while we live in democracies and republics here on earth, in heaven, it
is the Lord's kingdom.
The Lord's kingdom.
There's one kingdom, one ruler, and it's His way or the highway.
His way.
Not ours.
His.
Everything you do is important.
Everything you do will lead you down the path to who you will become.
Now you could be a sinner and continue to sin or you could become the person God wants
you to be.
You could go to hell or you could go to heaven where you'll be rewarded with more than any
of us can imagine.
We've already been promised this.
Our rewards are waiting for us there.
But what happens is we lose focus on His way and we start doing things our own way and
we put ourselves on the highway.
God doesn't.
Jesus doesn't.
We do.
See, people are going to be jealous of you.
People are going to be hateful of you.
It's a fact of life.
It just is.
You can't and you will not ever please everyone around you.
You can't.
Genesis 37 tells us of Joseph.
Joseph is a man who was sold into slavery by his brothers, his kin, the people he should
have been closest to.
But his brothers sold him into slavery because of their own jealousy, their own envy.
Yet even with this, he was a slave who over the years rose up through the ranks to be
declared as Pharaoh's second in command.
Second in command.
That's how well trusted and how revered this guy was.
That's a lot to his character.
He went from slavery to second in command.
That's a lot.
You see, even a small drop of water will cause ripples than the rest of the water.
Just a drop will cause ripples.
And it doesn't matter what age you are.
As an adult, as a teen, even if you're a child, as a child, and as a Christian, you
could set an example that saves the soul of an adult who has yet to find a relationship
with God.
And of course, as a teen and as an adult, we all have that ability in us to lead people
to the Lord.
This is what we call planting the seed.
You want proof of how some of this happens.
I'm going to give you an example here.
What do young people think of when something terrible happens?
We're talking about our little kids.
Oh, that's sad.
That's bad.
Stop.
You shouldn't do that because it's wrong.
Now you think of how teenagers and especially adults think about things.
How do I get that person back?
Let's make them pay.
If I was in charge, they'd be tarred and feathered.
They're justifying revenge.
They're passing the judgment and already looking to execute.
Judge-jury-executioner.
So let me ask you this.
Who sets the better example in those cases?
The youngest do.
Let's bring it home.
The movie Gladiator, the main character Maximus, he's rallying his troops for a battle and
what he tells them is this.
What we do in life echoes in eternity.
This is a rally cry.
He's telling his people they don't need to be afraid and that everything each and every
single one of them does will be recognized long after they're gone.
That they are the example for generations to follow.
And so are you.
Ask yourself, what example am I showing?
What example should I be setting?
What does God want me to do?
See if you don't do it here, where you're at, then you won't do it out in the world
where it matters most.
See this is your proving ground.
Not only do you learn here, but this is the place where you get to start doing what God
commands us to do in your own life.
The next step is for you to take it into the world and bring God's love and hope and light
to those who don't have it and so desperately need it.
The people who are living in darkness, you know I've said it time and time again, going
all the way back to the days when I was a field training officer and everything all
the way through my days, you know even my interviews, you know as an EMT and everywhere
that I've been, it's always come up and it's something that, talking about catchphrase
or whatever, this is one of the most important things in your life.
The light of God is in you and it is up to you to be the light in other people's darkness.
In other people's darkness, you are the light.
And when you look at statistics of people who don't go to church, I mean really, even
I'll say, to the unbeliever, the most that many of them will ever see of a church is
you.
You and the example you set, the way you treat people, the way you talk to people, it's important.
You just said, you are the light of the world.
You are the light in the darkness.
You are the light on the hill.
Plain and simple.
Tomorrow is not promised to us.
Even finishing out the day is not promised.
What we have to do in this moment is we need to take advantage of the opportunity.
Let Jesus into your heart and start to follow His example to the best of your ability.
And that will lead you down the path to becoming who God wants you to be.
It's the time to stop being a reluctant leader and start figuring out how to become the leader,
to become the person that God wants each and every one of us to be.
Thank you again for tuning in.
We'll catch you next time.