Welcome to Equip Night

1. Welcome to Equip Night Humility in Ministry & Leadership

2. PREFACE • This is the accompanying PowerPoint of Donna Boisvert and Emily Buck’s New Testament online class group project. • Please see our paper and use it as you go through this presentation. • An expanded preface is written in the paper. • Teaching material and bibliographic information is also in the paper. (Our paper plus the PowerPoint is our presentation)

3. Watch This!!!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JnkGyw2sFY

4. Luke 18:9-14The Parable of the Pharisee& the Tax Collector

5. Humility in Ministry & Leadership Jesus gives us the ultimate example of how to live and serve. We will use Jesus’ Parable of the Pharisee and Tax Collector to look at humility in our lives and ministries. Begin with prayer and scripture reading. (Luke 18:9-14)

6. Luke 18:9-14 9“To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: 10Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: “God, I thank you that I am not like other people--robbers, evildoers, adulterers--even like this tax collector. 12I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.” 13But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, “God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” 14I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

7. Commentary/Discussion Points Let’s break into the three ministry groups and examine the scripture. Who is involved? Where is it taking place? What were the dynamics, relationships issues? Identify other scriptures that might relate to this situation. What is Jesus expecting us to learn?

8. In light of the scripture reading, discuss the following questions with your group. When I fast, pray, or do my “religious” acts, who is my audience? Do I do such acts to earn my own righteousness? Do I compare myself to others in my service? When I pray, am I like the tax collector, who knew his unworthiness and that only God’s mercy could justify him? Do I sometimes, maybe without saying, assume that my works put me in better position with God? Am I looking at other people as I pray, or are I looking only at Jesus?

9. Parables, Pharisees & Publicans • Jesus used parables throughout his life and ministry, as a way to teach and illustrate to His followers how they were to live out their faith. • Paraboleis the Greek term for parable. • A story from daily life illustrating a moral or spiritual lesson. παραβολή

10. Parables, Pharisees & Publicans Jesus used the contrasting attitude and demeanor of certain characters, related to their position in society, to demonstrate the “right” and “wrong” way to demonstrate their faith

11. Parables, Pharisees & Publicans What preconceived notions do you experience, when you encounter Pharisees or Tax Collectors in Scripture?

12. Parables, Pharisees & Publicans • The title Pharisee coming from the Hebrew word perushim. • Linked to a meaning depicting “separated ones” or “separatists.” • They were strict protectors of both the written law, The Torah, and the oral tradition. • First-century Israel respected the Pharisees for their piety and devotion to the law.

13. Parables, Pharisees & Publicans • The Tax Collector was one of the most despised individuals in Jewish society, seen as a thief, an agent of the Roman Empire and a sinner. • The term comes from the Greek word telones meaning publican or tax collector. • Publicans were seen as traitors who collected, and benefitted from the crippling taxes that the Jews were obligated to pay to Caesar, included tariffs, customs, sales taxes and an annual tax to Rome.

14. Humility: Application in Ministry & Leadership • When Jesus chose to use these two characters, so very opposite in the eyes of the residents of Palestine, he created what Thomas Boomershine calls a “reverse expectation”. • It is actually the religious Pharisee who is criticized against the backdrop of a corrupt tax collector, deemed as “justified before God.” • Jesus wanted us to think about our claims of righteousness and humble ourselves before God, recognizing that we must depend completely upon His grace, like the Publican.

15. Humility: Application in Ministry & Leadership 25 Jesus called them together and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. 26 Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, 27 and whoever wants to be first must be your slave— 28  just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” --Matthew 20:25-28

16. “Not so with you” Leadership MandateKen Blanchard & Phil Hodges

17. Humility: Application in Ministry & Leadership • Considering the Parable of the Pharisee and Publican, what lessons can we learn about desiring to live out a servant leadership model? • What are the do’s and don’ts that make for a leadership style that resembles Jesus’ mandate to us?

18. Humility: Application in Ministry & Leadership • Rather than self-promotion and superiority, Jesus calls us to be humble, to reverse that expectation that we are somehow righteous in our own sight by our status, our title or by the deeds we do. • He calls us to a life & leadership of humility and to a ministry that shares His love for the poor, the outcast and the sinner.

19. Emphasis in MinistryJesus Friend of Sinners

20. Emphasis in Ministry: Jesus Friend of Sinners • Jesus broke religious & social rules of his time by associating with the outcasts of Jewish society. • Jesus dined with tax collectors & sinners, associated with & taught women, ministered to the ritually unclean, & dared to declare a tax collector “justified.” • He was condemned & shunned by the religious leaders, responding to their hypocrisy with warnings & reproach. • Again, Jesus’ models this “theme of reversal: where humble “outsiders” receive blessings or commendation, while prideful “insiders” suffer rebuke or loss”. Mark Straus

21. The Gospel for the Outcast Luke Chapters 9-18 • Major Theme in Gospel of Luke • Good Samaritan (10:29-37) • The Persistent Widow (18:1-8) • The Great Banquet (14:16-24)

22. The Gospel for the Outcast Luke Chapters 9-18 • Philip Yancey explores another reversal as it relates to ministry in the church today. • He talks about how church has become a place for the respectable, where “the down-and-out, who flocked to Jesus when he lived on earth, no longer feel welcome…” • Jesus was the friend of sinners. They liked being around him & longed for his company. • Legalists found him shocking, even revolting.

23. The Gospel for the Outcast Luke Chapters 9-18 • “What was Jesus’ secret that we have lost?” • Can it simply be that those who live on the outskirts of society can somehow recognize more easily their need for a saviour? • Philip Yancey, From the book: The Jesus I Never Knew

24. “Therefore I say to you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much. But to whom little is forgiven, the same loves little.” Luke 8: 47

25. “He has shown you, O Man, what is good; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justly, To love mercy, And to walk humbly with your God?” Micah 6:8

26. The Spiritual Disciplineof Humility The first test of a truly great man is his humility. By humility I don't mean doubt of his powers or hesitation in speaking his opinion, but merely an understanding of the relationship of what he can say and what he can do. John Ruskin

27. The only humility that is really ours is not that which we try to show before God in prayer, but that which we carry with us in our daily conduct. We had long known the Lord without realizing that meekness and lowliness of heart should be the distinguishing feature of the disciple. Andrew Murray

28. The greatest test of whether the holiness we profess to seek or to attain is truth and life will be whether it produces an increasing humility in us. In man, humility is the one thing needed to allow God's holiness to dwell in him and shine through him. The chief mark of counterfeit holiness is lack of humility. The holiest will be the humblest. Andrew Murray

29. The sufficiency of my merit is to know that my merit is not sufficient. St. Augustine

30. Humility is not thinking less of yourself but thinking of yourself less. Humble people let go of image management and self-promotion. They honor others by making the other’s needs as real and important as their own. Adele Ahlberg Calhoun

31. Guided prayer time Use this time to think about what we’ve discussed and pray through the scriptures on the screen.

32. Father, help us to be confident in your righteousness, and to look only to you. “All of us have become like something unclean,
and all our righteous acts are like a polluted garment; all of us wither like a leaf,
and our iniquities carry us away like the wind.” Isaiah 64:6 HCSB “All have turned aside, they have together become corrupt, there is no one who does good, not even one.” Psalm 14:3 NIV

33. Jesus, I thank you that you are the Friend of Sinners. “Later, Levi held a banquet in his home with Jesus as the guest of honor. Many of Levi’s fellow tax collectors and other guests also ate with them. But the Pharisees and their teachers of religious law complained bitterly to Jesus’ disciples, “Why do you eat and drink with such scum?” Jesus answered them, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor--sick people do. I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners and need to repent.” Luke 5:29-32 NLT

34. Jesus, I thank you that even though we are sinners, we are saved by your grace! “But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions--it is be grace you have been saved.” Ephesians 2:4-5 “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8 NIV

35. Lord, help us to serve in humility. “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble….Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.” James 4:6, 10 NIV “He guidesthe humble in what is right and teaches them his way.” Psalm 25:9 NIV “But those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” Matthew 23:12 NLT

36. (click below link to play song) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJXIugwiN7Q&feature=relmfu