It is amazing how much can happen in three months. May was the last time I wrote a blog and it feels like a life time has passed since that day. Since May there has been political unraveling, social chaos, religious unrest and so much more. And in the midst of the all that has unfolded in the world I find myself more confident than ever that God is truly alive. That Jesus is very much making a difference in people's lives. And that God's Kingdom vision is becoming more real each and every day.
You may ask how I can see God's vision coming into reality in the midst of all that is taking place around us. And the answer is quite simple actually. I have come to expect much of God. This is in no way an arrogant expectation rooted in a self-centered desire to have more of myself. But rather, I am learning that my expectations of God's ability to bring his reality into our reality, to make our story apart of his story, to bring peace in the midst of chaos and pain, has greatly increased over these last few months.
There are countless people in the world, both now and in the past, who have accomplished amazing things in God's Kingdom. I think about Tim Keller and what God has done through him in New York and beyond. Or Billy Graham who had a vision of preaching in stadiums around the world. He eventually would preach to nearly 215 million people around the world. On a smaller, but no less significant scale, Elisabeth Elliot was a part of a mission team attempting to make contact with a tribe in Ecuador to preach the gospel. Upon making contact, the tribe killed five of the men on the team, one being Elisabeth's husband. Elisabeth later returned to the tribe who killed her husband, leading many to a relationship with Jesus. I think about people at Ethos who have committed their lives to creating companies, organizations, and ministries that are impacting people all over the world. And it makes me think about my good friends here in Nashville who are impacting their neighborhood with the power and presence of Jesus through consistent service and love.
The thing that all of these people have in common, the ones who have accomplished much in God's Kingdom, is that they expected much of God.
We often allow the limitations of our own reality to dictate our expectations of God's reality. This causes us to have very low expectations of what God will accomplish through us. However, God has never placed His action in the world on the limitations of His people. Rather, He has always placed His action in the world on the unlimited resources of Heaven given through his son Jesus.
This is quite possibly the most important thing we need to fully embrace. Our limitations will never limit the unmatchable resources of Heaven given to Jesus, by God, for the advancement of God's reality into the reality of humanity.
So much of my life has been lived in a reality of low expectation regarding God's action in the world through me. The way I would go about evangelism, ministry, pastoring, or simply any day to day activity, was hindered by my low expectation of who God is. I would try to compensate by doing more and more. By agonizing over how to craft the perfect sermon. I would make the most simple function an effort in futility because I felt like I needed to move it forward with my own strength.
What I have been learning over the past few months is that a low expectation of God typically leads to a high expectation of self. When we lower our vision of God and his action in the world we tend to raise our own ability, which always leads to frustration, burnout, and typically little fruit.
However, the more we raise our expectation of God the more simple our job becomes. Our preaching becomes about pointing people to the story of Jesus, knowing that people's acceptance of that story rests in God's hands, not mine. Our words in pastoring, in ministry, become fewer as we allow God's presence to soak into people's hearts rather than a beautifully crafted argument. We begin to have peace in our day to day lives because we realize that the transformation of neighborhoods and communities is not dependent on me alone, but rather, on the resources of Heaven being used by Jesus through me. It becomes about simply putting ourselves into the path of humanity and allowing the best of God within us to be given to the people around us.
As Laura and I work to build a foundation for our church that will be planted in Seattle, we are beginning to raise our expectations of what God will do in that city through us. But not simply Seattle, we are raising our expectation of how God will use Ethos to be a part of His work in Seattle as well. We are raising our expectation of how God will bring gifted people together to move with us to plant this church he is building. We are raising our expectation of God's ability to break through the barriers that a culture like Seattle has built to keep God out. We are raising our expectation of God to awaken an entire city to the Covenant he is inviting them into. We believe that God is planting a Kingdom seed in the heart of an entire city to one day rise up and be a catalyst for the redemption of the world. We believe God will release hearts that are captive. That he will bring peace to the hurting, to those whose lives have buckled under the pressure and oppression of life. And that he will reveal His word to be true, relevant to raise people's lives to freedom, and create the kind of community that attracts the world to it.
This is our expectation of what God will do through us in Seattle. There is no way we will ever accomplish this on our own. Praise God that His Kingdom is in no way contingent upon my abilities. But through Jesus in me I believe God will do more than I could ever ask or imagine.
Do have low expectations of God? Raise your expectations of God and watch as the majesty of his presence begins to shape the world around you into the world he imagines it to be.
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