None of us should want to do more than what God has planned for us to accomplish today, in this hour, and in this conversation.
We should not aspire to go faster than God or be stronger than God or to get out ahead of His plan.
We should not go beyond the scope of His dominion or His desire or His direction.
Our aspirations and our ambitions should not exceed those of the divine nature.
Nevertheless, we should not do any less than what God has planned for our extreme potential.
Because question one, what can God see?
You know what fills in that blank. There’s only one answer.
Does God love?
He does. He must. He is love.
Does God believe in you, in your potential?
Well, if God made you and God loves you, then when you combine the making, the hand crafting, and the loving, you get something called purpose.
God must have a purpose for making you, and He must have a purpose for loving you.
When we genuinely love someone, we want to spend time with them. God spends time with us by abiding. We love that word, to abide.
And then, God is a God of motion. He’s a God of action. He does. He gets things done. He goes to work. He’s got a purpose, a vision, a drive. He’s very unslothful. He’s not bored. He’s a go-doer.
And so I love abiding and I love co-laboring together with God for His purposes.
Because through co-working, we transmit this frequency of love. We get to know the person. Can’t know somebody just sitting there. You have to converse and you have to coordinate and you have to collaborate and you got to do stuff, work on it.
So knowing that we should not shirk our duty, knowing that we should not do less than divine potential demands, knowing that God has set a high expectation for our partnership, knowing that through Christ we can do valiant, magnificent, abundant, high performance ministry, we must then explore.
Scripture says through desire a man having separated himself seeketh and intermeddleth with all wisdom.
To intermeddle. It’s to play around with. It’s to really appreciate the mechanism and the layout and the material.
So the ministry opportunity that was brought to our attention this week, we were challenged to start an outreach at a local state college here in the Midwest.
Now a college nowadays is a very foreign place. It is not comprised of local students at all.
I’m a drastic person. I’m overstating the case. I totally admit that, but way less than half.
I would say, I don’t know the demographic split, but what I’ve observed is well over half of the attendees are not from this nation. They are from far across the world.
It is a very foreign attendance.
It’s a magnet where the outside world, the 96% of world population, comes to the 4%, which is the Americas, for education at the higher echelon on some kind of work scholarship educational arrangement. I don’t understand all of that, but college campuses nowadays are, they embody a locally available foreign mission field.
It’s not like it was 20 years ago where local high schoolers went to local college. No more. That’s not a thing. Now it’s foreign students coming here to learn.
And that’s intimidating to me because I lack capacity for loving all of the nations like I should.
I don’t have love enough to listen to the details of every culture and pattern and habit and history and belief system and experience. And it’s just different. It’s overwhelming to me.
But God so loved the world.
And God might want to stretch and grow my capacity or our capacity to love those that we don’t understand, and can only do that with God’s help.
I don’t really love confrontation. I don’t like to argue. And a college campus ministry is typically about arguing, it seems. I don’t like the word. It seems contentious. It’s not fun. It’s not fun.
I don’t mind thinking. I don’t mind a pleasant banter. I don’t mind exchanging ideas. I don’t mind postulating and posturing and theorizing and having a healthy, elevating, creative exploration of a topic.
I don’t like the grinding of accusation, the acid, the cutting, the slicing, the frustration, the confusion. I don’t like arguing.
I don’t like the takeover methods where somebody’s, I gotta ask you a question, can I ask you, I want to ask you a question, let me ask you the question, and they just, then they take the microphone and they run with it and they, I asked you a question, you answer my question, I’m in charge here, I asked you a question.
As soon as they ask you a question, it’s like, okay. Yes or no. Those are the only acceptable answers.
You did not ask a question. I guarantee you have no question. You asked what’s called a leading trap.
And it’s just, I don’t like to feel frustrated. When somebody asks a question that has very tight intentions, it’s a squeezing trap to tighten a person down. It’s not enjoyable. There’s zero curiosity in the question. There’s no humility in the question. None whatsoever.
It’s a prideful attempt to dominate. I don’t like the feeling of being dominated. It makes me have to retaliate. I do not want to retaliate. I don’t like that.
So, a college ministry is comprised of what, though? Does it have to be about arguing ideas? Can it not be about something bigger?
I mean, isn’t college a time for solidifying ideals?
Isn’t college a time for experiencing new responsibilities?
Isn’t college a time for evaluating all potentials?
Isn’t the college season a time to balance the rigors of academia?
Isn’t college preparation for career?
Isn’t college about establishing proper expectations for the next decade at least or beyond?
Is not college a season to consider soberly the structure of matrimony and the uniting of a family for the purpose of serving one another in love and developing a generation of children?
Is not college a time for maturity?
And indeed, sketching a blueprint for one’s life, is not college a time of coagulation and acidifying and solidarity and congealing of all of the fundament that has been offered to me from the previous generations, my father and my father’s father and my mother and all the influences and my coaches and my teachers and my trainers, is not this now the shoulder upon which they form the platform and then I launch off into identity?
Is not college the season to struggle and evaluate the definition of how I fit into my divine potential?
And it’s not my potential. It’s got to be the Creator’s potential through me.
Like who designed me? What are my skills? Better yet, what are my gifts? Better yet, what is the purpose of those gifts, and when do they flow, and to who, and for why, and the outcome?
What is expected? What is appreciated? What is most praised? What can I do for hours upon hours and just get lost in the enjoyment because it’s the thing that I was born to do?
Is not college time for deep work, not self, but beyond self?
Haven’t we grown to a point of maturity where we are no longer self-centered? I mean, toddlers are self-centered and kindergartners are self-centered and elementary students are hopefully less self-centered.
In middle school, they’re still contentious and defending and there’s anxiety and pulling of hair and accusations and tantrums and just name-calling and garbage.
When we get into high school, shouldn’t we have put away childish things?
And when we get beyond high school and we get into the college years, shouldn’t we be really close to some kind of breakthrough?
I mean, what is expected?
What manner of persons ought we to be in light of the knowledge of all of these things?
Considering the fact that the entire surface of the earth will soon be melted, and that if Scripture is accurate, since no prophecy has ever been proved wrong, we are approaching a major transition in the experience of humanity on this plane.
Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of people ought we to become?
And to be right now, there’s a sobriety, a sober-minded realism that we are here and soon will be there.
And these thoughts are beyond most, but should be pondered, especially by the most energetic, zealous, enthusiastic, mature, selfless, serving thinkers and doers of this generation.
We are the next generation.
Certainly, if there is a Satan, he targets college students with number one tool of all time, is doubt. Just put question marks everywhere.
Number two tool of Satan is confusion. Blending things together that never belong together. What if this and what if that? What if they both have... the same time, doubt, confusion, and then saturate the soul like a sponge in a big barrel of fear.
Fear of this, fear of that, what if, oh my, lions and tigers and bears, let’s freak out.
Satan is the author of doubt. He’s the author of confusion. He’s the author of fear because fear hath torment. And he loves torment, internal, external, torment, pressure, pain, unnecessary.
Satan is the author of depression, which is thinking about yourself until there’s too much pressure.
Alleviate the pressure by selflessness. The answer is not within.
The answer is outside. The answer is through partnership with Christ in service to our fellow humans. We can experience fulfillment and victory, walking in the light, keeping our attitude right, only infused by divine power.
Because ministry is a co-powered operation. It’s not a single vehicle fulfilling anything. Anything done in the power of the flesh is hollow, shallow, weak, pointless. Self-righteousness is not acceptable to the ultimate decision maker.
So then we were asked, what is your platform? What is your business plan? What is your student organization? Tell me, what is it about? I need to know specifically in writing, what is your purpose on campus? What students are you working with? What is your vision?
And there are the traditional answers, which is always have a next event, and have the event be a speaker that addresses an area of intrigue, such as the nature and the historicity of a worldwide flood across all cultures, in light of this new movie that came out a couple years ago about the flood, and 85 students showed up to consider the matter.
You know, we could banter back and forth about the freedom of will. How can God know the future if I can choose what to do? How does that work?
Yeah, well, that assumes that the past is locked in time, and that the future is locked in time, and that is a false assumption. Huh?
What if there are more than one possible future? Well, that wouldn’t make sense. Well, what if things don’t have to make sense? What if your logic has limits? Well, that’s not logical. Okay, well, you worship logic, and God is beyond your logic. Well, I just want it to make sense. Well, stop saying that word for five minutes and no synonyms to making it. It’s just got to work. Make it work in my mind.
Well, no, it doesn’t have to work in your mind. God allows and knows the combination of all potential possible futures beyond the scope of your perception of reality and eternity.
Explode. No computation.
So how do we start a conversation with a lost, confused college student world?
Well, I like the beginning where God defines Himself as timeless and creator and purposeful. And He’s the Spirit and He works with us and He writes. He’s a writer of books. He’s a book. He works through people. He communicates clarity, boundaries, distinction, persona.
He brings up, guides, mentors, leaders through Moses, Joshua, the judges. He works through Samuel and the Kings.
He is introducing us to the history of one particular type of people, which is just prototype to represent the rebellion and the resistance of the human soul against all offers of good. They forgot, they complained, they grew weary, they rejected, they resisted, they were put into captivity, they experienced the consequences. Then they felt regret and then they sang, they were delivered, and the cycle went over again. It’s so sad.
And yet God tells us all of these stories for our learning, that we could see the nature of ourself in the mirror.
He then speaks about suffering through Job, the expression of the emotion and the intellect through the Psalms, the roller coaster of life, the lack of human wisdom in Proverbs, the hollowness of life even of a rich person in Ecclesiastes, the depths of relational love in the Songs of Solomon.
And then perhaps the favorite stellar standout book in all of the original First Testament is Isaiah. God clearly defines some poetry, some nuance, some depth, the voice, the clarity, the resonance, the bass, the tinsel tinkle, just the broadband of Isaiah.
He goes 40 solid chapters of mystery.
And then in chapter 40, about halfway through, God stops talking through the prophet. He grabs the microphone and Himself from heaven declares, my identity is, boom.
And He starts filling in the blanks about who He is, how He thinks, what He can do, His power, His love. He flexes. He flexes for a solid 13 chapters all through the book of Isaiah. So amazing.
Then there’s weeping, there’s sorrow. Jeremiah, the rebellion of the people. Nobody listened.
Lamentations, the ultimate trip through the ultimate pressure chamber of aloneness, all the wrath, all the evil, all of the absolute worst experiences of life are not in the book of Job. They are in the book of Lamentations. It speaks of eternal separation, just deep, dark, abysmal consequences of the human condition unresolved.
It’s actually a foretaste of the lake of fire in Lamentations 3. It’s poetic expression of carrying the weight of the guilt of the world.
Then we go through the minor prophets and we get to the silence between the Testaments.
400 years of nothing.
Malachi chapter 4 is God setting down the microphone saying, I’m not talking to you people for a couple hundred years. I’ll show up when you’re ready.
Long and strong silence before the fullness of time was come, and there was a vile, corrupt, self-elevated stench of supernatural dark velvet oppression called the Roman Empire. Thinking the philosophers who had elevated themselves, the scribes, the Pharisees, and the Romans all in synchronized belief system that human intellect and the physical world and human reasoning and human value was so amazing that salvation was certainly through self.
And yet in Matthew, the words reveal the coming of the king. He did not receive the kingdom, but He demonstrated His kingly ship, His leadership capacity. He was willing and worthy, but it wasn’t His season to take the crown.
In Mark, He’s the suffering servant, which is the near polar opposite of a king, but here He is, the suffering servant.
In Luke, He’s the man, the son of man, fully human.
And in John, He’s fully God.
In Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. I and My Father are one. Then took they up stones again to stone Him saying, you make yourself God, that’s not legal.
Then in Acts, the actions of the believers to deliver the good news to all those around, and the reception of that word of reconciliation to all nations, delivered through all the chapters of evangelism to the utmost parts of the then known world. Even all of Asia heard the Gospel in the book of Acts.
Then in Romans, three chapters of why we’re not qualified to be divine, why we are not God ourselves, cannot save ourselves.
Chapter four, simple faith according to the pattern established by this original person named Abraham, who was unworthy, who did not have ceremony, he was not qualified. He did one thing amazing, and that is he put his full confidence upon the coming Messiah through the Gospel, as simply explained to him, that he would have a seed, a child born through his lineage, that would be the Lamb of God. He understood the Gospel. He placed faith in the Gospel and therefore became the father of us all who exercise similar faith in Christ Jesus, our Lord, as our only hope of salvation.
Not self-righteousness, but Savior righteousness.
What shall we then say?
Chapter 6 of Romans, the core, is get serious about sin because it’s going to destroy you unless you intentionally get serious.
Chapter 7, you’re going to struggle. There will be two natures. You will not be entirely delivered from this wrestling match until you graduate to glory land.
Romans 8, you can walk in fullness of Spirit fullness. You don’t have to live under the guilt of doubt and dread and death. There’s a new law of the Spirit of fullness.
Ye shall live, led by the Spirit of God.
Corinthians is how not to be corrupt. Corinthians number two, how to fully serve, lay aside every weight, the burden, don’t do it that way, do it the better way, serve God, get back in the game, get out there in the ministry.
Galatians. Ephesians is positional. Philippians is gratitude. Thessalonians is transitional, because we are going from this world to the next. Timothy is for leadership training.
Hebrews is establishing the hierarchy that Christ is better than every high priest, better than every angel, better than the Torah, better than the Talmud, better than any human tradition. Better than.
We can put our full confidence because the old was simply a shadow and the new is eternal glory. It’s all been pointing to Christ. We’re compassed about with a great cloud.
Let brotherly love continue.
Book of James, get serious. Show up. Do stuff. Don’t be lazy.
Peter. Just an absolute ballistic missile.
First, second, third John is an 80-year-old man writing with the fervency of the power of God upon his life, having his external man boiled in oil, while his internal man was just so sweet and gentlemanly, like a grandpa.
And then we get to the final revelation of Jesus Christ, the full righteousness of God on display in the book of Revelation.
And the final invitation is come to the water of life.
Get ready for the big transition.
And there’s the Book.
So how better can we go onto a campus than just representing God? There’s only two options.
You either believe the God that wrote His own dictionary definition of Himself, or you are trying to fulfill God-like shoes on your own.
You’re trying to be your own savior. You’re trying to philosophize your way into demonstrating that you can be your own fulfillment, your own comforter, your own provider, your own leader. You’re being your own Christ.
And you’re miserable at it. It’s a horrible experience.
You’re trying to replace God in your life because those are the two alternatives. You conform or you replace.
Everyone faces truth and they only move two directions.
Toward the image of the fullness of the stature of Christ, or away. And therefore, they become hollow, shallow, empty, void, foolish, self-vaunting, puffed up, overwhelmed with self-consideration in an effort to avoid the obvious.
So what kind of ministry should we have?
Christ said He was meek and lowly in heart, but He was a hard worker.
If you show up, we’re going to work.
If He did take a day off, He went into a mountain away from the hordes of people, to spend some time recalibrating His soul to connect better with the heavenly Spirit.
