I got to listen to Matt Chandler today again as I drove around seeing my customers.  This guy is quickly becoming my favourite bible teacher.

Love his passion and, more importantly, his angle in tackling the text and the insight he has in understanding the big issues.  This is especially true in the area of being a disciple of Jesus and making Him Lord of your life instead of simply being a Christian.

Today I listened to his take on the parable of the Ten Mina’s found in Luke.

“A nobleman went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom and then return. Calling ten of his servants, he gave them ten minas, and said to them, ‘Engage in business until I come.’

But his citizens hated him and sent a delegation after him, saying, ‘We do not want this man to reign over us.’ When he returned, having received the kingdom, he ordered these servants to whom he had given the money to be called to him, that he might know what they had gained by doing business.

The first came before him, saying, ‘Lord, your mina has made ten minas more.’ And he said to him, ‘Well done, good servant! Because you have been faithful in a very little, you shall have authority over ten cities.’ And the second came, saying, ‘Lord, your mina has made five minas.’ And he said to him, ‘And you are to be over five cities.’

Then another came, saying, ‘Lord, here is your mina, which I kept laid away in a handkerchief; for I was afraid of you, because you are a severe man. You take what you did not deposit, and reap what you did not sow.’ He said to him, ‘I will condemn you with your own words, you wicked servant! You knew that I was a severe man, taking what I did not deposit and reaping what I did not sow? Why then did you not put my money in the bank, and at my coming I might have collected it with interest?’

And he said to those who stood by, ‘Take the mina from him, and give it to the one who has the ten minas.’ And they said to him, ‘Lord, he has ten minas!’ ‘I tell you that to everyone who has, more will be given, but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.  But as for these enemies of mine, who did not want me to reign over them, bring them here and slaughter them before me.’ Luke 19:12-27

There is so much packed into the that parable that to “unpack it” – as Chandler likes to say – would take a very long time.  For a great take on this from Chandler’s mindset, be sure to listen to his sermon below.

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In the middle of listening to the sermon, something struck me.  Here we have 3 servants singled out from among the 10.  One used what Jesus gave him and his efforts brought a huge return.  Jesus was pleased and gave him 10 cities.

The other had a smaller return.  Jesus wasn’t as pleased as the first guy, but still rewarded him proportionately.

But the third guy didn’t do anything and actually accused Jesus and pointed his finger at him.  Jesus then took what He had given to him in the first place.  He then equated this wicked servant to the ones who are “enemies of His” and had them slaughtered.

Chandler does an excellent job in describing these enemies as those who don’t want Jesus to be Lord of their lives – again, something resonating with me greatly these days.

But you know what strikes me?  This wicked servant was still a “servant”.  He still served Jesus.  But he didn’t have Jesus as his Lord and he had a wrong understanding of Jesus.  But at the end of the day, he was still a servant.

Made me think about what I do.  Sure I serve in my church.  Stuff done behind the scenes no-one has any awareness of.  I also put my hand up for many ministries ranging from multimedia to running the men’s group to looking after the kids.  So in effect, I am a servant.

But I need to ask myself the questions, “Do I know Jesus in the proper way?” and “Is He Lord of my life?”  If I have a “no” in my answer, then I really need to revaluate my walk with Him.  Because if I have a “no”, I’m the same as those who are enemies of Jesus and my serving is pointless and futile in nature.

And what about everyone else in Church?  In reality, our churches are made up of a bunch of people who sacrificially serve day in, day out but will end up in hell.  Because they serve while not knowing Jesus, nor are known by Him.  And they serve because of religion – not relationship.

Our churches are full of good servants and wicked servants – but servants nonetheless.

“Easy believism” is a term coined by Chandler in this sermon and it refers to modern Christianity’s watering down of how we are saved.  This is in total contradiction to what scripture teaches in the following versus..

“work out your own salvation with fear and trembling” Phil 2:12b

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’ Mat 7:21-23

This morning as I drove off to work, I asked Jesus to teach me to live with Him as Lord of my life.  He answered me through this sermon.

Thank you Jesus. This sermon was a great start.

I’ve been blogging at www.layguy.com for just over two years now.  Before that I posted a few items on Yahoo 360 and I copied a few of those posts over.  Tonight I took a trip into my stats just to see what’s been popular on this blog and below are the top half 5 posts over the years.  Hope you enjoy..

1. Man Turning Into A Tree

When I wrote this post, I had no idea just how popular it was to become.  It was the story of Dede – a man in Indonesia who contracted Human Papillomavirus (HPV) – a bug which causes skin diseases and warts.  However Dede suffered from a rare form of immune disorder where his body was unable to cope with HPV and his warts took on a “bark like” quality and just kept on growing and growing and growing….

2. Bill Hybels says “We Made A Mistake”

Will always remember when I heard Bill Hybels say, “We made a mistake” in regards to the “attractional” or “seeker sensitive” approach.  He admitted that this created a breed of shallow and spoon fed Christians.  Research by his church concluded that the goal of churches is to create disciples who are “self feeders” and are able to grow in their spiritual maturity and develop a deeper relationship with Jesus.

3. Watch Rob Bell’s NOOMA Online For Free!

While I am not a big fan of Rob Bell – mainly because of his emergent type need to need to question everything – I am a fan of this guy’s ability to communicate.  A great example of this is his NOOMA series of video’s – short stories designed to draw out conversation on spiritual matters for small groups.  I collected all his NOOMA video’s I found online (21 at the time), made a VODPOD collection and posted them on my blog.  Worked like a charm until they were deemed copy write and whoever posted them online had to take them off.

4. America’s Top 50 Influential Churches

This was posted back in July 2007 and has been getting constant hits ever since.  Snatched and expanded from www.churchrelevance.com at the time, this post lists (with URL’s and some Pastor’s blogs) the most influential churches in the US back in July 2007.  Makes for interesting reading and a great place to check out church websites and resources on some of the best churches around.

5. The Demon Seed – Fallen Angels

This is one post from a series of posts I did on the Nephilim – the hybrid offspring of angels and humans before the flood and the real reason God destroyed the earth.  Most Christians (including Reformed) don’t take this topic seriously and brush it off as fantasy.  But I invite you to take a journey with me with this series of posts and you will never see history the same way again.  Entire series (although unfinished) listed below.

The Demon Seed

The Demon Seed – Pt 2

The Demon Seed – Text & Questions

The Demon Seed – Fallen Angels

The Demon Seed – The Nephilim

The Demon Seed – Demon DNA

The Demon Seed – And Also Afterward

Hmm…. makes me want to complete this series.

If you are looking for a cost effective way to build a website for your church  or ministry, then you need to look no further then Clover.

This is especially true if you have no skills whatsoever in designing and building websites as Clover has been designed from the ground up for ease of use.

In fact, they used the model of a 60 year old grand mother with no computer skills to create this tool.  My apologies to the grand ma’s out there as I’m sure there are a tonne of grand pa’s in the same boat as well as a tonne of younger people also.

But the fact is, Clover allows anyone to build and run a website with minimum fuss and dollars.  When I was looking for solutions to build the website for my church, I settled with Joomla as most packages cost at least $4,000+ for even the most basic design.  Half decent designs would cost a lot more!

Joomla is a great tool, but the problem is that in my little church plant, I am the only one who knows how to use it.  Something happens to me and the site is finished.

I wish Clover was around back then as this is an awesome tool and would only set you back $1,000 plus $20 per month for hosting.  And anybody can pick it up in no time – including 60 year olds!

Check out the following promo video…

Don’t take my word for it, head off to Clover and have a play with it yourself.  Test drive the different themes and, even better, play around with the backend – and actually edit and add whatever you like.  You will quickly see how awesome and easy this tool is.

Thanks to Adrian Warnock’s blog, today I got the chance to taste the awesome resource known as “The City” – the Mars Hill Church online community building tool.

Turns out the good people at Mars Hill have made available a fully functional version of the The City at The Gospel Coalition.

Adrian Warnock describes the Gospel Coalition as;

“..a growing fellowship of Christian churches, organizations and individuals who are committed to a certain kind of ministry—that which is biblically-faithful and gospel-centered.”

Sounds good to me.  These guys have a tonne of material centred on exulting a biblical view on the Gospel free from some of the modern assaults on its interpretation and application.  If you haven’t checked it out yet, click here for more.

The City was developed by Mars Hill and actually purchased by Zondervan and will be made available for churches in the near future.  Here’s your chance to try it out and also get plugged into one of the best ministries around. Click on one of the options below to join.  No matter where you join, you will have access to all the tools.

For more Gospel Coalition resources, check out any of the following links:

Twitter |  iTunes |  Facebook |  YouTube

Want a free audio book with no strings attached?  While there might be a few ways to get your hands on some second rate stuff out there, www.christianaudio.com is a great place to check out if you’re into Christian audio books.

One of the cool features of the site is its “First Chapters” podcast where they release the first chapter of a certain book as a podcast.  You get to hear the first chapter and, if you like it, you can go ahead and purchase the rest of book.

But by far the coolest thing about www.christianaudio.com is the free monthly download.  And instead of being stingy by offering titles no-one has even heard of, www.christianaudio.com make available awesome titles.

This month is no exception.  The free audio book is Leonard Sweet’s “So Beautiful” – released on www.christianaudio.com even before the printed version is released!  What a deal!

Leonard Sweet is currently the E. Stanley Jones Professor of Evangelism at Drew Theological School (Madison, NJ), and Visiting Distinguished Professor at George Fox  University (Portland, OR). He the author of more than one hundred articles, 600 published sermons and thirty books, most recently The Gospel According to Starbucks (2007).

The blurb on “So Beautiful” goes along the lines of..

What is commonly known as DNA today was called “…so pretty!” when it was discovered years ago, and over the course of his ministry, author Leonard Sweet has discovered that this divine design also informs God’s blueprint for the church. In this seminal work, he shares the woven strands that form the church: missional, relational, and incarnational. Sweet declares that this secret is So Beautiful!

Using the poignant life of John Newton as a touchstone, Sweet calls for the re-union of these three essential, complementary strands of the Christian life. Far from a novel idea, Sweet shows how this structure is God’s original intent and shares the simply beautiful design for His church.

And to wet your appetite even more, check out the following short promo..

To download this free audio book, head on over to www.christianaudio.com, create a free account and download to your heart’s content.  Hope you enjoy.

I came across the Passion 4 Christ Movement (www.p4cm.com) over at Poops blog the other day.

Been checking it out and enjoy the site greatly.  But the stand out to me so far is the talent of Blair Wingo. 

Blair is a model, actress, and, since being saved by Jesus, is the official spoken word artist of the movement – which is actually a local small church plant in LA.  Blair is just one of many talented people they have at the movement and I look forward to checking out more in due course

Check out some of Blair’s spoken word talent below: (for more video’s either check out the website listed above or visit the the P4CM YouTube channel here)