Leadership in Context with Keith Tucci
Episode 033
Not Everyone Has to Like You, pt2
Everyone did not like Jesus. Everyone will not like you.
If our desire is really about pleasing God, it is a lot less tempting to try to please people. From a motive standpoint, you can’t do both. I do believe that when you please God, He does give you favor with certain people. I also know that when you please God, it stirs up the adversaries—people who don’t like Jesus and therefore won’t like you.
There are several things that we must stand firm on. These are things that our culture does not agree with. But they are foundational. They are important. And regardless of what people think of us, we must stand firm on them.
1. Jesus is THE way.
There is no other path to God. He is the way, the Truth, and the life. This needs to be clearly declared without fear of retribution. We need to take the stand that Jesus is the only way. There are no other paths to God. Not to be clear on this point would be a radical disservice to everything else we believe.
2. Heaven and hell are real literal places that exist, and people are going to go to one place or another.
Heaven and hell are the containers of eternity. This generation has had far too little biblical teaching on heaven and hell—especially about what they are like, not just who is going to what place. The sense of eternity, as opposed to just earthly fulfillment, is lacking. We need to declare that from the Scriptures.
3. God is the absolute and specific creator.
God is the creator of the world. The world was created by design. God is a divine architect. God created the beginning. God created time for man to mark his progress. The first revelation of God is Him as creator. (That is why the attempts to minimize the Old Testament are so repulsive to the Holy Spirit.) He is not just a sustainer. He is creator. He created everything to His specifics and design.
4. Human sexuality is under God’s authority.
God created man. God created woman. We need to not just declare whatit is, but whyit is. We need to talk about the family unit and reproduction. We need to talk about the differences between men and women and how they complement each other. There is so much doctrine in the Bible on this, and we need to be a people who talk about it. Just being against one form of sexual relationship, like homosexuality, is not the answer—although we are obviously against that if we believe the Bible. We have to be pro-man, pro-woman, and pro-marriage. Let’s be clearly for masculinity. Clearly for femininity. Let’s be clearly for marriage. Not just saying something about it. Offer marriage classes, pre-marital classes, follow-up for newlyweds, marriage counseling, parenting classes. Do the things that are pro-marriage.
5. Taking the life of the unborn, or any innocent person, is clearly unacceptable.
The Scripture is full of references to the innocent. God established seven cities of refuge for the innocent, or those who hadn’t been proven guilty yet. Think about how key that was to God’s economy. God created a just situation for people to be able to defend themselves so the innocent would not be slain. God said that if the innocent were slain in that city, then it would bring condemnation on them for not defending the innocent. We need to do more than just say we are against abortion; we need to give the biblical doctrine on being pro-life and why life is so valuable.
These are very critical times we live in. God knew these things were coming and addressed them ahead of time in Scripture. God’s revelation was very clear on these items in both the Old and New Testament. And we need to be very clear if we are going to accurately lead people to Jesus. What good would it be to win someone to our way of thinking and not win them to Jesus?
Jesus wasn’t always popular. Our mandate is not to always be popular. But it is always to be truthful and effective for the gospel.
Join us next week as Keith Tucci continues to put leadership truth in the context of the local church. And as always, please like, share, rate/review, and invite others to listen. See you next week!
