Many years ago I had some church leaders who accused me of having too much power in the church. After consulting a dictionary, I discovered that "power" is defined as, "the possession of control, or authority over others." Their accusation seemed odd to me since the Lord himself said, "You know that the rulers of this world lord it over their people, and officials flaunt their authority over those under them. But among you it will be different. Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you must become your slave. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many" (Matthew 20:25-28). In other words, Christ-followers are not seeking positions of power they can then use to control people's actions. But, Christ-followers should be concerned about the influence they exert because "influence" is defined as, "the capacity to effect or sway others." When Jesus said that Christ-followers are, "the light of the world" (Matthew 5:12), he was saying that true light always influences the dark (John 3:19-21). My response to them was, "all those who worship Jesus Christ should be influential. But, power is not a position Christians intentionally pursue."
Over the next three weekends, I am preaching a series of sermons entitled, "Our Amazing Influence." I don't think many of us understand just how far our influence reaches and we need to know that we are influencing other people, whether we realize it or not. The only question is, "how are we influencing people?" Are we influencing them for the good, or for the bad? Here are the titles for my sermons:
10/31 & 11/1 - - "The Amazing Influence of a Godly Man"
11/7 & 11/8 - - "The Amazing Influence of a Godly Woman"
11/14 & 11/15- - "The Amazing Influence of Godly Parents"
I hope to see you at one of our weekend worship services. For times, go to our church website at: www.newhopechristianchurch.net If you attend worship somewhere else or are unable to be present one of these weekends, you can listen to the podcast of each message by going to the same website. Let's ALL be the godly influence God has called us to be.