Saturday, April 25, 2009

Facing the world's five giants!


Rick and Kay in Rwanda
Sharing Christ's love
Rick and Kay share Christ's love with orphans during a recent trip to Rwanda. Photo by Matthew Warren

The world is full of problems. Some are small and some are huge. As Kay and I considered the problems facing the world today, we concluded there are five giants -- five pervasive problems that affect billions of people.

These are the ones we want to tackle, believing God gets the most glory when we attack the biggest giants. These problems are so huge that they can only be addressed with total dependence on God and with all of us -- your congregation and mine, Christians all around the world -- working together to confront them.

Here are the giant problems, as we see them:

1. The first global giant is spiritual darkness.

Here’s a startling truth: Billions of people have never even heard the name of Jesus Christ. Three thousand distinct people groups around our world wouldn’t even know the name of Jesus if they heard it.

“Who is that?” they’d ask. “What’s so significant about that name?”

These people know nothing about Jesus or about God. If you were one of those who had never heard the name of Jesus, wouldn’t you want somebody to come tell you about our Savior, our Lord? The Bible says in Romans 10:14 (NCV), “Before people can ask the Lord for help, they must believe in him; and before they can believe in him, they must hear about him; and for them to hear about the Lord, someone must tell them.”

The greatest giant in our world today is the fact that billions of people do not know Jesus Christ.

2. The second giant we want to tackle is the lack of servant leaders around the world.

Around the world, there are plenty of people in leadership who abuse their power. Many refuse to use their power for the good of their people -- instead they choose to use it for themselves. This has created chaos in the world.

Leaders must have moral basis. They must have wisdom. Proverbs 11:14 (NLT) says, “Without wise leadership, a nation falls.” Proverbs 16:12b (Msg) says, “Sound leadership has a moral foundation.” And Zechariah 10:2 (TEV) says, “People wander around like lost sheep. They are in trouble because they have no leader.”

In the developing world there are 2.1 million pastors and church leaders. Of those, 1.9 million have never had any training at all. Not only have these leaders not gone to seminary or Bible school, they haven’t even gone to high school or primary school. They have no training whatsoever -- and yet they lead the church. This must be remedied.

3. The third giant we’re going after is poverty.

More than half of the world -- that’s three billion people -- live on less than two dollars a day. One-sixth of the world’s population lives in slums. Those are heart-breaking statistics. Proverbs 28:7 (NIV) says, “The righteous care about justice for the poor, but the wicked have no such concern.”

It’s easy to live in a bubble and think the rest of the world lives like we do. When we go about our daily lives forgetting how most of the world lives, we tend to judge people for being poor. Job 12:5 (GW) says, “A person who has an easy life [that would be you and me] has no appreciation for misfortune. He thinks it is the fate of those who slip up.”

Tell that to the parents of 10 million little girls who’ve been sold into prostitution in Southeast Asia. Their families exist in such grinding poverty they see no other way to feed their families than to sell their little girls into prostitution. It’s a horrible existence.

4. The fourth giant we want to attack is disease.

Billions suffer the effects of famine and drought. They are homeless, hungry, and helpless. They’re ill. We can do something about that.

Psalm 38:6-11 (GW) says, “I am bent over and bowed down very low. ... My insides are filled with burning pain, and no healthy spot is left on my body. I am numb and completely devastated. ... I’ve lost my strength. Even the light of my eyes has left me. My loved ones and my friends keep their distance and my relatives stand far away because of my sickness.”

We have seen the effects of poverty as we've traveled. We’ve seen the effects of people with HIV/AIDS. The stigma is enormous. People are abandoned by their own families. Their bodies slowly waste away from opportunistic infections. As Christians we cannot ignore these people.

Ezekiel 34:4 (TEV) says, “You have not taken care of the weak ones, healed the ones that are sick, bandaged the ones that are hurt, brought back the ones that wandered off, or looked for the ones that were lost. Instead, you treated them cruelly.”

5. The fifth giant we want to tackle is ignorance.

Over half the world is still illiterate. How can a country grow and be strong economically when its citizens can’t read, can’t write, and don’t know the fundamentals of math and science that we take for granted? It’s no wonder these countries aren’t strong. Hosea 4:6 (NIV) says, “My people are destroyed from lack of knowledge.” There’s a desperate need for teachers and schools and materials to help people grow.

These five giants can be toppled. We can make a difference. In a future issue, we'll talk about why the church is the perfect tool for toppling giants.


by Rick Warren.

Little faith+Big God=Huge results



[The boy's father said,] "... If you can do anything, do it. Have a heart and help us!" Jesus said, "If? There are no 'ifs' among believers. Anything can happen." No sooner were the words out of his mouth than the father cried, "Then I believe. Help me with my doubts!"
(Mark 9:22-24, Msg)

Is it possible to be filled with faith and doubt at the same time? Yes!

You can have faith that God wants you to do something and still be scared to death. Courage is not the absence of fear. Courage is going ahead and doing what you’re called to do in spite of your fear.

You have to begin with the faith you already have: it may be just a little, but you start there. A beautiful example of this is the story of the man who brought his sick son to Jesus in Mark 9. Jesus looked at the man and said, “I can heal your son. If you will believe, I will heal him.”

The father then makes a classic statement: “Lord, I do believe. Help me overcome my unbelief.”

Have you ever felt like that? “Lord, I have some faith. But I also have some doubts.” This man was filled with faith and doubt, yet despite his honest doubts, he went ahead and asked Jesus for a miracle. And he got his miracle – Jesus healed his son.

No matter how weak or how frail you think your faith is, it’s enough. Pastor, it’s enough to get you through what you’re facing, and it’s enough to complete the vision God has planted in your heart.

Matthew 17:20 says, “If you have faith as small as the mustard seed, nothing will be impossible to you.” That’s not a lot of faith; in fact, it's just a little faith. But what else does that verse teach? “If you have faith as the mustard seed, you can say to the mountain, ‘Move’ and it will be moved.”

Mustard seed faith moves mountains. Don’t get this reversed. We like to read this verse backward. We want it to say, “If you have faith like a mountain you can move a mustard seed” – as if it takes enormous faith to do a very little task.

Everybody has faith. You had faith this morning when you ate your cereal -- faith that your spouse didn't put poison in your granola! Ha! You had faith when you sat down in your computer chair -- faith that it wouldn't collapse.

Everybody has faith; the difference is what you put your faith in.

Sometimes people will tell me they don’t want to join Saddleback until all their questions are answered; or they don’t want to make a commitment to Christ until they understand it all.

It's not uncommon for a pastor to tell me he doesn't want to start a new ministry until all his doubts are cleared up.

But that's not the way it works. If that was the way to approach ministry, it wouldn’t take any faith at all.

Instead, God wants you start with the faith you have, and based on the example of the mustard seed, you don’t need a whole lot of faith to do great things for God. You just need a little.

So here’s a trustworthy equation:
Little faith+Big God=Huge results

You take your little faith;
“Lord, I believe! Help me with my unbelief!"
And you put it in our big God,
And then he'll show you how he works out huge results.