07-20-2014 The Disciples: The Bringer
/We had a sweet day of worship this week, and we’re all enjoying the unusually pleasant weather this Summer (especially after so many people were predicting that it might get terribly hot this year). Of course, now that I’ve said that, everyone’s going to blame me if temperatures soar over the next week or two...
A number of our FCCers were out and about, either on family trips or at home struggling with physical issues, so please keep your fellow church family members in your prayers. In fact, may I suggest that you consider trying out what I regularly do, and grab the church directory so that you can pray through the households represented one at a time. But don’t try to do it all at once -- just take a letter or two a day, so that you can give each household the time that they deserve in your daily prayer time.
Of course, that means that we’re probably due to put out a new church directory sometime soon, so that we can make sure that we don’t accidentally forget anyone as we go through those daily prayers.
For that matter, perhaps I shouldn’t assume that we’re all spending time in quality prayer every day. As you’ve all heard me say on multiple occasions, my marriage would begin to suffer if I didn’t talk with Wendy on a regular basis (and especially if I didn’t regularly take the time to actually try to figure out what’s important to her, instead of just sharing what’s important to me), so how many days can I go without sharing with God and reading His Word before it starts making my relationship with Him suffer?
In our message this week, we looked at the last of the Twelve Disciples -- but I kinda saved the best for last. I can really connect with Peter’s energy and impetuousness; I am encouraged by Levi Matthew’s penitence and God’s grace to him; and I really like the quiet, faithful pragmatism that Thomas showed... but I’m genuinely impressed by Andrew.
No, he didn’t give any great speeches, or do any spectacular miracles, or draw crowds of thousands to the Lord with his eloquence. But there are two absolutely crucial elements to Andrew’s ministry that are worth being impressed by:
1) He’s the only disciple with any “speaking lines” in the Bible about whom we never hear anything bad -- everyone else get chastised, or corrected, or chided about something.
2) Almost every time we see him doing anything, he’s bringing someone to Jesus.
It sounds like a simple thing (in our world, where everyone tries so hard to be spectacular and tends to be impressed by the big and showy ministries), but it’s such a quietly powerful testimony to simply dedicate yourself to doing the right things, for the right reasons. In doing that, Andrew brought Peter to the Lord (who later spectacularly brought thousands), and he brought a little boy with a lunchbox (and thus, through Christ, helped to spectacularly feed thousands), and he even brought Philip when the latter seemed a little confused about what to do when people came to him and asked to see Jesus.
So what kind of disciple are you striving to be? One who’s always looking for the spectacular (like Peter)? One who’s more interested in judging the lost than in saving them (like the Sons of Thunder)? One who needs everything explained to him before he’ll believe it (like Philip)? One who can’t get past his own sinful desires and expectations (like Judas Iscariot)?
Or one (like Andrew) who simply wants to commit to doing the right thing for the right reason, every day... and then lets God decide what to do with what we bring to Him...?