The Resurgence Conference that we held last week provided some amazing practical teaching and wisdom from some of the most gifted pastors from around the country. Although we had thousands of pastors in attendance and streaming the conference live, these teachings are extremely beneficial for any and everyone who loves Jesus. Here’s what one of my interns at Mars Hill U-District, Ian Forsyth, a 22-year-old who feels called to someday be a church planter, gleaned from the conference.
–Pastor Drew
One of the words that comes up throughout a Mars Hill internship is humility. As an intern who has been tempted to put humility on a long list of things that I should start working on one day, the Resurgence Conference served as an amazing reminder that I need to think of being humble not as something that I should do but as something that I need to do, and by the grace of God it is something that I get to do. It may seem counterintuitive, but humility is freeing and a source of great joy.
One of the things that stood out from Matt Chandler’s sermon was that while King Uzziah started his reign working on God’s kingdom, eventually he started working on his own kingdom instead. I’ve been forced to ask myself, “Am I trying to build God’s kingdom, or my own kingdom?” The significance monster that Crawford Loritts urged us to kill will try to convince us that building our own kingdom will satisfy us. The truth is that the joy that comes from building God’s kingdom, from seeing people meet Jesus, from witnessing dead people come to life, overshadows any pleasure that comes from building your own kingdom. Humility frees us to build God’s kingdom instead of our own.
Building God’s kingdom is humbling in itself because God calls us to do things that we cannot do by our own power. Nothing makes me feel joyfully weak like seeing God do the things that only he can do. Rick Warren said, “. . . you’ve never really believed God until you’ve attempted something that cannot be done in the power of the flesh.” Matt Chandler said, “We need weak men who, in their weakness, become strong.”
As an intern, there is always a temptation to become task oriented instead of kingdom oriented. Becoming task oriented is dangerous; success leads to arrogance and failure leads to despair, which leads us to either try harder by our own strength or just give up. Either way, you stop building God’s kingdom by God’s power. The flipside of that is humbly seeking God’s kingdom and taking joy in the fact that, as Matt Chandler said, “When people come to Christ at your church, that’s you being marvelously helped by God.” The joy that comes from seeing people meet Jesus always trumps the feeling of accomplishment I get when I finish my to-do list, and the Resurgence Conference has helped me adjust my priorities to reflect that truth!
To watch all the sessions from the Resurgence Conference for free and for more great content, go to theresurgence.com. If you would like to do an internship at Mars Hill, you can get more info and apply here.
