Welcome to ECB's Weekly Sermon Podcast. ECB is an international church in Bangkok, Thailand,
with dozens of nationalities worshipping together. We invite you to connect with us from wherever
you are through our website, ecb.asia, or our mobile app. And now we pray that you are blessed
by this week's sermon. Today we begin a new series of studies called Servants Devoted to God that
will take us all the way through the end of March. And Pastor Venana will be sharing the pulpit
throughout this series. But before we actually start the study, please join me as I pray. If
your grace did not find us, if we did not say yes to your calling, our lives will be a whole
different story. Thank you for your grace. And as we begin this new series of studies from your
word, I ask you, Lord, shape our hearts with it and use me in your power and in your grace.
In Jesus' name, amen. The word of God says that the moment we began following Jesus and we declare
that he was our Savior, at that moment when Jesus saved us, we became not just his children,
but we became servants devoted to God. And what we're going to explore in this series
throughout this month is that there's a set of things that we need to learn as we follow Jesus
that is part of the kingdom of God. And the word of God says this very clearly,
so simply in 2 Corinthians chapter 5, this is what the apostle wrote to us, followers of Jesus,
would you read it out loud with me? And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live
for themselves, but for him who died for them and was raised again. The moment God saved me when I
was six years old, God is telling me, Pablo, the moment you asked me to save you, I did not just
save you so that you will die one day and go to heaven. I saved you so now the life I give you,
you will live for me. And not just me, but also you, anyone that says I'm a Christian,
I follow Jesus. Jesus saved you so that the life you have, you will live for him. And that's a shift
that completely transforms the way we live and think and the decisions we make. It's a shift of
mindset. Because now that I am a follower of Jesus, the word of God says that Jesus has given me now
a new citizenship. I am a citizen of heaven. I like to call that a heavenian. That's who we are now.
We have a citizenship that we belong to, that new place. The world is just passing, but we belong to
a new community of God's people. And not only that, but also I have this identity of being one who is
a servant of God. Before, I used to serve my sin, my purposes, and I tried to just please God if I
could so that he could bless my plans. And God says, no, now that you are my child, you are my
servant. Follow my purposes. Live for my vision for you. And then not only that, but also I have
this new purpose that the word of God says he called us to make disciples of all nations. He
wants to use your life and my life as a way of shining his light to the world so that people who
are in darkness will come to know God because of you. That they will come to encounter God because
God's presence was manifested through your obedience to him. And no matter where he placed you,
whether it be your job, your family, a new location, it doesn't matter what circle of people you
involve yourself with, that you can be a channel of that light so that people will come to know
Christ. These are the changes that God did in me, a change of citizenship, a change of purpose,
a change of identity. And all this together, we call this servants devoted to God. We are the
people of God, followers of Jesus, who are driven by a love for God and with the desire to just serve
him. That's why we say servants devoted to God, love God and serve with devotion. That says it all.
But I learned earlier in my life when I had to move the first time from one country to another,
that once you move to a new domain, you need to learn the new culture. And in Chile, we kiss
everybody on the cheek. Hi. It was like that. In Mexico, it wasn't like that. Hi. It will go like
this. I had to learn a new way of greeting, also a new way of eating. I learned that in Mexico,
if you ask the person that invited you to their home, is this food spicy? If they would tell you
no, they were lying to you. They said, no, it's not spicy. That meant it is. If they say a little bit
spicy, that means a lot. If they say, well, it is really spicy, that meant don't eat it. You'll
regret it later. And this way of functioning changed. And if you don't adapt to the new culture
and learn how they work and start functioning in alignment with that culture, then you're not
going to be able to survive in that culture. And now that God saved me, he saved me from the kingdom
of darkness into the kingdom of light. I belong to his kingdom, and in his kingdom, there's a new
culture. And one of the things that changes is that there's a new attitude in the kingdom. And I
need to learn that attitude as I follow Jesus, because if I don't have that attitude, I will be
completely held back from pursuing God fully as he wants us to. And what we will learn in this
first study is that the attitude of the kingdom is adaptability. And if I am going to follow God and
be a servant devoted to God, I have to master this attitude of adaptability. The first Christians,
they were with Jesus. He taught them, then he died, he resurrected, he appeared to them at the
beginning, and before he ascended to heaven, he told them, look, I'm going to give you something
that you will need to follow me. He's about to leave them, he's going to be ascending, he wouldn't
be with them anymore, physically like he was before, but he tells them in Acts 1-8, you will
receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all
Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. And this is the beginning of the movement that you
and I joined when we said yes to Jesus. We became part of a movement that started at this time,
where people were making disciples throughout the nations, and it was marked by this power that
Jesus was giving them, the power of the Holy Spirit. So the Word of God says that actually
they did stay there in Jerusalem waiting, they were worshiping God, praying, the apostles, and
some of the early believers, there were about 120 people there gathered when the Holy Spirit
encountered them, and they started receiving this power to speak in these languages they did not
know previously, and it just happened to be the languages of the people that were surrounding the
area where they were meeting. So people from all these different places could understand the wonders
of God that they were declaring. But at one moment, the Apostle Peter stands up and starts
preaching the gospel, and just like Jesus said, you will receive power and you will be my witnesses.
So they become the witnesses at that point, and the Apostle Peter preaches, and this is what the
Word of God says, those who accepted his message were baptized, and about what? About 3,000 were
added to their number just that day. And this is where change became very, very noticeable. And this
is where the struggle began. Because put yourself in the foot of the apostles, or the feet of the
apostles. You know, they had spent all these years with Jesus in a small group. Just Jesus and us.
And I miss those days. And then Jesus started becoming more famous, and now we have to put out
with the crowds, but Jesus was still with us, giving us time alone with him. And then after that,
we just betrayed him. But he resurrected, and he appeared to us, and he assured us of his love,
and it was still just us. And then that day when we encountered the Holy Spirit, it was just 120
people. It was just still intimate enough, and we were all in awe of what God had done. And we missed
Jesus already. But on one day, we became 3,000 people. 3,000. Do you know what it's like to manage
3,000 people? I have to start teaching people about God, and baptizing them, and organizing
this whole thing. 3,000 people like that. Change just found us completely unprepared. We just,
as we say, built the airplane as we were flying it. It was just like a lot of change at once.
Now, if you are like me, there's an aspect of change that is fun, nice, but there's also
some things that we don't like to change so much. I still like the routine of having my black coffee,
no sugar, dark in the morning. And if I'm traveling, I'm going to have some portable coffee maker of
some sort, because I want my routine. Do I sound all that ready to you? And we resist change one
way or the other, because we like that which is familiar. And now the apostles will have to go
through change and realize that this calling that God gave them and us to make disciples was complex
because it meant that we are always becoming, not just us maturing and growing and being transformed,
but also the making of disciples and the communities that are born out of that calling, always changing.
And therefore, I'm never to that place where it's just like, oh, comfortable again. It's like always
having to operate in that space. And that can get to us to the point in which our ability to follow
God becomes compromised. So one of the things that they discover as they engage in this journey of
making disciples is that it was more complex than they had anticipated. They were just thinking of
the front end and they realized that there was a back end that was as important as the front end.
What do I mean by front end and back end? If you have ever accessed a website, you know what the
front end is. You go, you put the address or you click on something, you are there on the website,
you see pictures, you see images, there are things that you click on and it takes you to another
place. You see text, you see images. All your experience is what is called the front end.
The back end is not those pictures and colors and clicking. The back end is a bunch of code. And if
you're a coder, you know what that is. It looks like nothing compared to the front end, but it's
as important as the front end because without back end, there's no front end. But people don't
want to click and see a bunch of codes either. Without a front end, the back end doesn't matter.
They are both important. And when it comes to being involved as a community in making God known and
living for the one who died and resurrected on our behalf and making Him known among the nations,
we will always be operating in these two, front end and back end. And that makes change complex.
And we will get to see in three instances in the life of the first Christians how this operated
and what they had to do. The first one of those first challenges that they faced was right here
at the beginning of the book of Acts chapter four. It says that with great power, the apostles
continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus and God's grace was so powerfully at
work in them all. Remember, they had received power and through that power they started becoming
witnesses of Jesus and that power remained. God was using them tremendously. But then it says that
there were no needy persons among them for from time to time, those who owned land, our houses,
sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles feet and it was distributed
to anyone who had need. It was amazing. People were coming to know Christ. Oh, we learned that
they had certain needs. There's finances that is needed to address that need. I don't have the
money. Oh, but wait, some people here that are following Jesus have resources. They are selling
their lands. They are selling property. They are selling things, bringing the money. So now we can
address those needs and then people are growing and needs are being met. That's awesome. That's
great. That's front end. Back end. The story continues and it says, now a man named Ananias
together with his wife, Sapphira, also sold a piece of property and with his wife's full
knowledge, he kept back part of the money for himself, but brought the rest and put it at the
apostles feet. We are told that God, as he is starting this movement of his kingdom through
the apostles and this is the beginning of the church, he says, I'm not going to put up with
that because the father of lies is who? Satan. And now you have these people that have compromised
themselves with Satan by engaging with these lies about their finances. So God's discipline on that
moment is boom. Both Ananias and Sapphira, they both die right there in the presence of the
apostle Peter and everybody is just shocked of what has happened. And this is what we called a
case of financial corruption. Financial corruption is what happens when we haven't thought very well
about the back end. Imagine for a second that we want to just be a more biblical church here at
ECB. So starting today at the end of the service, instead of having offerings done traditionally,
I want to invite Pastor Rene to stand here, Pastor Phil to stand here, and just everybody
bring your money and put it at our feet. Okay? And then we will take care of the money and we
will address it and give it to the needs that need to be met. How would you like that? That's
biblical, isn't it? Ah, now I'm making you uncomfortable. I'm just not serious. You can
relax. The point is right. Imagine what's happening. Three thousand people, people selling, getting
money, putting it there. And then it's like, hey, I'm giving you money by keeping some of it. How
do you make disciples in a way that the financial system is cared for so that there's no corruption,
so people are not stealing the money or misusing it? How do you do that? Well, the apostles had to
learn that just this initial beginning requires something that they will have to put in place.
The text doesn't tell us exactly what that is at the moment. We'll just know much later in the
development of the church. But I have met some cases of people that were Christians following
Jesus and they stole money from the church. Sometimes pastors, sometimes people in the
management of money. In order to make disciples on the front end, we need a solid system behind.
We need accountants. We need people that are experts in finance. We need softwares. We need
people that can understand all of this stuff and how it works. And I remember that the years in Dallas,
we started attending with our leadership team and our elder board, these conferences that were for
financial health organized by a group of accountants and lawyers in the state of Texas. And there were
some big names in those conferences like Richard Hammer that was always so fun to listen to. And
whenever we went to those conferences, it was all about understanding financial systems, legal
systems within the context of US law. And the very first time we went, we came back and we met with
a team and we said, you know, we need to make some changes because we did not realize that we
were managing certain functions in the finances, especially with lab offerings and things like that,
that were illegal in the state of Texas. They were not unethical, but they were not aligned with the
law. And we had to change those things. And that's when we started becoming more aware of the phrase
conflict of interest. And now we have to start drawing certain things in place to make sure that
the church as an organization had the back end all well put together. And that took time. But I will
never forget the conversation with this accountant at that conference. She was attending. She was part
of her financial team at her church, which was a large organization. And she says to me, we tell
our pastors that our job is to keep them out of jail. And I will never forget that because that was
true to some degree. Because in the front end, you know, it's like you, you are teaching people,
you are leading people to cry. You want to do these things. There are resources that need to be
invested. But we are not the experts on all the finances and law and things. Do you mean that we
need accountants and lawyers and finance people in the team to make disciples for global impact?
The answer is yes. And if that is your area of expertise, be involved. But the second
challenge they had to realize of its complexity was as they started growing and they created this
system to be able to provide food for the people that needed food. And we are told right here in
Acts 6, chapter 1, in those days when the number of disciples was increasing, that's awesome, nice,
more witnessing, more fruit. But it says the Hellenistic Jews among them complained against
the Hebraic Jews because the widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution of food.
We will study this much later in this in the series, but it's enough to know that at this
point of the cultural backgrounds that these Christians were coming from started creating
this conflict. And now this aspect of feeling overlooked and that there's preference and all
of these things came to the apostles. And it's like, hey, apostles, there's this problem. We
have all this food, all these things, we're distributing it, but now there's conflict with
people. Can you help us distribute the food? Okay, 3,000 people. We are preaching, we are teaching,
we're baptizing the people, we are trying to address these things. And now it's like, you also
need us to do that. And at that moment it says, so the 12 gather all the disciples together and said,
it will not be right for us to neglect the ministry of the word of God in order to wait on tables.
This is the first attempt to write a job description for Pasarone ministry. It will not be right for us
to be doing all of that other stuff and then run out of time to do this. Brothers, sisters,
choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the spirit and wisdom. We will
turn this responsibility over to them and we'll give our attention to prayer and the ministry of
the word. And that is what they did. They chose a group of godly men who are also very much people
with high levels of cultural intelligence. And then they were able to address that need. It was
not just waiting on tables, it was really serving the people and addressing the conflicts. And this
group of leaders that eventually became known as deacons, because the Greek word deacons means
servant. So these servants started helping and the apostles were able to focus on what mattered most
to their role. And this is the first time that now they realize the structure that we've had so far
is unsustainable. This changing that we are experiencing constantly being in this becoming
state requires that now we look at the structure we have and reason is this sustainable or not.
And this is the first attempt to create an HR department in the church. Because these are the
people that specialize on creating job descriptions and salaries and figuring out that the whole system
has fair compensation. Wait, do we also need HR people? People that are experts on this field?
The answer is yes, we do. Front end, but also back end. And then they start preaching the gospel,
more people, the structure is good so they grow more, and then persecution comes and they face
another challenge. Because now as they start going throughout the Roman Empire, fleeing from
Jerusalem, now new churches become established throughout the empire. And the apostle Paul starts
going to different parts of the empire and they have new churches established, so new communities
of Christians. And then later as God established the apostle Paul writes to the church in Corinth,
and he tells them this, my brothers and sisters, some from Chloe's household have informed me that
there are quarrels among you. It's like really? From the very beginning the church has been like
this? Yeah, it has never changed. Never. Because the church is full of sinners saved by grace,
and we're still being sanctified by grace. So yeah, sometimes we act immature, we get offended,
we get hurt, and then divisions happen, and now the apostle Paul has to write to them to help them,
okay, you need to think biblically about these things. And this is what he tells them. What I
mean is this, one of you says, I follow Paul. Another, well I follow Apollos. And another,
well I follow Cephas. And another still says, the smarter one, I follow Christ. And now they have
these divisions among the community. It's like imagining people here at ECB saying, well I follow
Pastor David. Who is she? It's like, yeah, the pastor that was before you and before Pastor Renee,
I was here then, I follow Pastor David. And other people say, no, but I follow Pastor Renee,
I like him better. And other people say, I like Pastor Pablo better. I follow Pastor Pablo. And
the community is like that, and it's like what? What are you guys doing? Paul says. What after all
is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants. Because that's what we are, servants devoted to
God, isn't it? We're only servants through whom you came to believe as the Lord has assigned to each
his task. I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow. So neither the
one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who makes things grow. Follow God.
Don't follow us. Give glory to God, not to us. We are just servants. The one who plants and the
one who waters have one purpose, and they will each be rewarded according to their own labor.
Each one at a different stage called by God, positioned by God for a different season,
for a different purpose. Yet each one working on the same calling of making disciples, some water,
some planted, some work the ground. But who's the only one that can make really a disciple? Not me,
not you, only God. He's the only one that can convert a heart. So at the end, this challenge
taught them that unless we have a common vision that is clear, that is uniting us all, we're going
to end up with a divided community. Front end, make disciples, we have leaders, that's great. But
what good is that if we become people that are following leaders rather than a common vision?
And in organizational health, this is something that has become very clear. Healthy organizations,
if you are leading a church, if you're leading a business, if you have your own company, if you
are part of an NGO, it doesn't matter what organization it is, this is going to be the same
thing. A healthy organization is an organization that is united behind a common vision. We are
there, that's the glue. And leaders come and go to help us achieve that vision, but they themselves
are not the glue. Now if you are part of an organization that is centered in an individual,
that's a sign that you are not healthy as an organization. And this is typically something
that happens in organizations that are at the beginning. You start with the founder. The founder
came, the founder did, the thing grew. Now the founder has not just an initiative, an organization.
And now because he or she called all the shots initially, now it's centering that person alone.
But now you start feeling the growing pains. There's a change that needs to happen. We need
to move in a different season where it's no longer centered on the person, but centered on the vision.
And God, we might call that person to step down, to even move to another location altogether,
to give the organization a new season of growth. Change is hard. Front end, make disciples. Back
end, figure out how to bring a common vision together. And that is also difficult. Because
we connect emotionally, we cannot avoid that. I cannot say you need to like all the pastors
the same. That's not how it works. We connect better with one than the other. And I remember
that when I was in Texas this past summer, I got to talk to one of our friends. I had
the privilege of leading him to Christ. I met him as an unbeliever. God used me to lead
him to Christ. Then I mentor him. I disciple him. Then he was growing, maturing. Then he
got engaged. Then I did his marriage counseling and preparing him for his wedding. And then
I saw his children being born. I was there when they were born at the hospital. So I
had a very close relationship, a pastoral relationship with him. And as I was talking
to him this time, he said, it has been hard for us ever since you left. You left the bar
very high, and it's very hard. I've been visiting churches, going through places, but I cannot
find another pastor like you. And as he's telling me that, I did not go like, oh, tell
me more. I would like to hear more about that. So what else has been hard about, and what
else do you think about me? It wasn't like that, of course. Because like the apostle
Paul said, once you're grounded in Christ, that doesn't stick to you. You know you're
just a servant. Only God is the one that is something. But I had that opportunity to tell
him, look, you have to understand something. I am your spiritual father. I led you to
Christ. I mentored you. I walked with you at the beginning of your Christian walk. That
role no one else will have. So as you go to other places looking for other pastors, don't
think that you can replace that, because that was a unique stage in your life. And it's
okay to feel closer because of those experiences. But it's not okay to put those standards on
other relationships, because it will never be the same. It's like the widower that got
remarried, and now he's comparing his new wife to the old one. It's like, no, it was
a whole different marriage. It's a different season. It's just, that's not how it works.
And because this is part of transitions and challenges that we face when we face change,
it is very important to acknowledge the emotional dimensions that we have relationally with
people. But also it is very important not to let that reality hold us back from embracing
the future that God is calling us to. Change is part of following Jesus, because making
disciples is complex, front end, back end, and we need both. And the apostles learned
that soon enough, to the point that the apostle Paul writes to the Christians later, the whole
community, and he says this to them, we have different gifts, front end gifts, back end
gifts, according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy
in accordance with your faith. If it is serving, then serve. If it is teaching, then teach.
If it is to encourage, then give encouragement. If it is giving, then give generously. If
it is to lead, do it diligently. If it is to show mercy, then do it cheerfully. Whatever
your role is, do it knowing that we need both front end and back end roles as we are working
together. And at different seasons of our lives, some of those functions are more important.
And as we follow God together as a community, and as we follow God individually, we have
to master the attitude of adaptability. Because adaptability is the attitude of the kingdom.
We are always becoming, we are always following, and therefore the call to embrace change is
always around the corner. But to be adaptable can come in very different ways. What kind
of adaptability are you? There is the rock, the clay, and then there is the water. The
rock is adaptable. The person will take the chisel and go, pow, pow, pow, and then again,
pow, pow, pow, and suddenly the rock becomes something different. It changed. But that
kind of adaptability is very painful, and let me warn you about it. When God says, okay,
I need you to change, we are going to move your countries, we are going to change positions,
I have a new calling for you, and he has to take the chisel and go, pow, pow, pow, pow,
it hurts. And you feel like you are dying to self all the time, and it hurts. And you
say, God, no, really, God, no, please, please, no, don't call me to do that, not me, send
someone else, and God says, pow, pow, boom, okay, I'll do it, okay. And God says, I'm
not done yet, let's start again, pow, pow, pow. You can change like that if you want,
but that's not recommended. Now clay is a little bit easier, it's moldable. God says,
let's shape you this way, let's do that, and you say, okay, that's good, it's fine, you
take different shapes, and God molds you and says, okay, that's good, you are clay. But
the problem with clay is that it dries and becomes solid. It's only adaptable for a period
of time, and then you get so used to what God called you to do already before, that
when God says, another change, you say, come on, you must be joking. No, I'm not moving
again. You know how much work it is to box everything? No, no, no, I'm not moving again,
and that's the first reaction. It's because you have gotten so used to the shape you are,
and now you are resisting God, and that is not recommendable either. Now there's water.
Water is a little bit different. Water is truly adaptable. You put it in a cube, it
takes the shape of the cube. You put it in something that is flat, it takes the shape
of the flat. It doesn't matter where it goes, it just becomes what it needs to become. And
God wants us to be like water, because He is the living water, and what people need
is to know the living water. And God says, be like the living water. I'm calling you
to go, please just go. Sure, adapt. I'm asking you to step down from the position you are
in. Are you willing? Okay, I'll adapt. You know, I'm asking you to wait a little bit
longer before the move. Are you going to wait? Yeah, I adapt. You see? You can be either
like rock, like clay, or like water. But adaptability requires that we are like water. That's a servant
devoted to God. We live for Him, not for us. And when our plants and His plants collide,
His plants take priority. Because the life, I live, I live for the one who died and resurrected
for me. Now, because change is something that happens often for those of you who are in
leadership, and here at ECB we have the blessing of having many in our families that are part
of people that God is using to shape and influence the world through their leadership roles.
I would like to share a couple of insights on that since leadership is my area of study
and just like insert this a little bit for you. If you are going through any transitions
in your organization, in your leadership role, first, if you have been called to fulfill
a new role in a new organization, and now you are transitioning there, the book, The
First 90 Days is a helpful resource to tell you how do you need to be thinking about the
first 90 days of your organizational change as you are leading this new place. Secondly,
what got you here won't get you there. It's a book that talks about the transitions that
you need to be thinking about now as an organization. Just because this function before doesn't
mean that this is what this new place needs. And you need to be discerning all those changes.
And then the third one is called The Leadership Pipeline. I particularly enjoy that book a
lot because it tells you, look, as you are moving from one role to another, hiring your
organization, what made you succeed here that perhaps called the promotion on you is not
the set of skills and the priorities that you need to have as you move. Those change.
And to understand how those change, you need to understand the leadership pipeline. These
resources have been written by people that have done research on organizational transformation
and things like that. So look at those if you are in any time of going through these
kind of transitions, they will help you. They will give you wisdom. Now they are not Christian
books, but they are still books that have truth. And all truth is ultimately from God.
But there is a book that we read and we had studied with the elders during this past year
as well that is talking about the transitions that we go as a community, as a church. You
want me to tell you a little bit about the back end? It's fascinating. The book is called
Taking Your Church to the Next Level. And it's written by a professor in Biola University
in California. And what he does is help you understand that a church is like people. It
goes through stages. Now if you had kids that became teenagers, did you ever go through
that experience where you look down at their pants and you realize, wait, those pants are
short on you now. It's like they were what you needed last year, but they are not what
you need anymore because you are changing. And just as we change, you go through human
stages of development, churches also go through stages of development. And what determines
those stages of development is the size of the church's end. Because imagine like the
apostles from 120 to now 3,000 in one day, lots of things change and the priorities of
what matter most changed. Because size brings with it the need for new structures, new ways
of doing things. And as you look at those changes, I just want to test you here. What
do you think that ECB is? If you have been here a long time, you can relate to the different
stages because if we start when ECB was 200 people. Anybody here was here when ECB was
200 people? Raise your hand. Okay. So a few of the oldest here. Okay. That's great. Yeah.
You remember that. What it was like, you know, the other building. This used to be perhaps
a parking lot or whatever and you have those memories and it was intimate. Everybody knew
everybody. The pastor knew everybody. He would come to our homes. It was like we were living
life together. But then that changed. Suddenly the church doubled. How many of you were here
when the church was about 400 people? Okay. Same. That changed. And now suddenly you have
to start creating new ministries. And then it doubles again. Now you're about 800 people.
And at that point it's like obvious that you know what? I cannot be preaching and praying
and serving the tables at the same time. We need other positions here. And people start
hiring new roles and things like that. But as they face that, they realize, wait, but
how do we know how much to pay the person? How much is the first salary? And we don't
have an HR department. I'm not an HR person. So how do we do this? And things are developed
as you go because you have to just figure out something. And often during that time,
the hiring goes with an apology. Sorry, we cannot pay you more. Because everything is
just being done in things that you, you're just trying to keep things afloat with the
changes. And then the next stage, and this is the stage we are at ECB. It's called the
centralized church. If you want to learn more about this and what that takes and what are
the priorities during this season, you can read the book. There's a whole chapter just
about that. But did you realize that even us as a community go through those transitions?
And perhaps you come from a church background that was a very specific size and that size
determined the way you experience church. But now that you come here, it's a different
size that you're used to the way you experience church changes. But if God is calling you
to be here, what are you going to be? A rock, clay or water? These things are a reality.
That's why with the leadership team and the elder board, we have been working on evaluating
how we're doing ministries in this new season. And start thinking about our ministries as
ecosystems that we want to group in a way that is congruent so that it can flow much
better and hire people accordingly. So this is the stage in which we are in. But it doesn't
matter whether the changes that you are experiencing are as a church ministry or the changes that
you are experiencing are as individual in your own walk with God. In order to develop
the attitude of adaptability, all of us need to overcome the obstacles that will be common
to all people. Let me take you through those briefly because maybe you are stuck right
now in one of those. And these are holding you back from embracing the changes that the
Holy Spirit is actually calling you to embrace. The first one is resisting change, thinking
that change by definition is bad. And typically you will say, I just don't like change. Period.
You know, that's it. I just don't like change. That's going to hold you back. You need to
embrace the change when the Holy Spirit is calling you into it. Nostalgia. Nostalgia
is when you look back and you say, oh, I remember those old days. I wish we could do that again.
And there's nothing wrong with that. When it becomes an obstacle is when you are stuck
like that. It's like, look at the present, look at the future. No, I just miss those
days. Every time I look at the present, it reminds me what we are not anymore. You know,
and it's like, and you are being held back from seeing the present and the potential
of the future and really embracing what God is doing.
Fatigue is when change has been happening so much that it's like, you know what, another
change, I'm going to have a mental breakdown. It's like, I'm just tired. It's like, I get
attached to this person and now the person is leaving again. I don't want to attach to
anybody else anymore. And you become distant and you are just fatigued for so much change.
So when you hear that there's more change coming, you are ready. It's like, you don't
want to even hear it anymore. That can hold you back from embracing what God is doing.
Territorialism is when you have your kingdom and your way of doing things. And when it's
like, we're talking about changing it, we're going to remove that role. We're going to
create a new one. Or, you know, we're inviting somebody else in the team and the person has
expertise and can help you. It's like, no, no, I don't like that. This is how I've always
done it. It worked in the past. It will work today. And the person becomes like very stiff,
like the dry clay. In the kingdom of God, there's only one kingdom and it's not yours.
It's not my kingdom. God's kingdom. Everything else is a bunch of servants with temporary
assignments. And the last one is ignorance. This is a person that sounds like, you know,
the Holy Spirit will figure out and it will work out at the end. We needn't to worry about
the back end. God will provide, will do everything, everything will be fine. And they think that
dependence on the Holy Spirit means always figuring out as you go. But that's not what
we just read in the words of the apostle Paul. It is the Holy Spirit who gave us gifts. Front
end gifts, back end gifts. And both need to be used. And there are moments in which we
do need a strong HR team, a strong finance team, a strong team of lawyers. We need things
in the back end so that we can do the front end and build it to the next level. That's
how it works. We don't want to be held back by ignorance. So whether it be resisting change,
nostalgia, fatigue, territorialism, or ignorance, are you resisting the change that God is calling
you to? Because if you are, I'm here to remind you, adaptability is the attitude of the Kingdom.
And you have to choose, are you going to be a rock, a clay, or living water? And I just
pray that you will choose to be living water. Father, talking about change, you who were
willing to send your son, and Jesus, you who were willing to take the form of a human like
us, flesh and blood, you know firsthand what is the cost of making disciples. And just
as you were willing, help us embrace that attitude that is not born from us, but born
out of a love for you. And if any of us has been resisting the change in our lives that
you are calling us to, if there's anyone here that is being held back by comfort, by selfishness,
by fear, take this time to break that, Lord, that we may leave this place free like living
water, free to pursue you. In Jesus' name.
Thank you for tuning in to the ECB Sermon Podcast. Whether near or far, if you are looking
for community or are in need of prayer, we welcome you to engage by sending us an email
to office at ECB.asia. If God is calling you to support our ministries, you will find giving
options on our website. And remember to join us next week. God bless you.