wibo: perry noble
Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce Perry Noble. Here’s what he had to say this afternoon:
- Mark 3:13
- We need to understand our calling.
- “Growing up, I was the fat kid.”
- “Are you doing what you’re doing because you’re called to do it?”
- “We don’t volunteer for this stuff. We’re called. If we’re volunteering, we’re stupid.”
- I Cor. 1:26 “God chose the foolish things of this world… It’s because of Him that you are in Christ Jesus.”
- We need to understand our priorities.
- Our calling: (1) Be with Jesus. (2) We are supposed to preach. (3) We are supposed to have authority.
- “There is way to much imitation and not enough revelation in the church. We’ll get it when we spend time with him.”
- “God is not green, Kermit is. God doesn’t want us to save the planet while people are going to Hell.”
- “It will be a cold day in Hell when I preach a message on recycling at the neglect of the Gospel message.”
- “I’m crazy enough to think God has at least one more big move in him.”
- “Stop walking in fear. Start walking in the authority that God has given us.”
- “Do you really want to be a prostitute the rest of the life, or do you want to do what God has called you to do?”
- “Sometimes God will call you to do some things that don’t make sense.”
- God to Perry: “Boy, you do what I tell you to do and let me take care of the results.”
- “You and I are going to experience temptation and spiritual warfare on a level that others in our congregation will never understand.”
OMG! This is the words of the man in the will of the Father! I get so pumped and encouraged by the wisdom of Perry. Bless You!
By the way, it must be cool to serve in a church like New Spring!
“Do you really want to be a prostitute the rest of the life, or do you want to do what God has called you to do?”
This gripped me: can you explain more of his context, Tony? Just the sentence before (or after) would probably do the trick…
I can agree with the statements about green/recycling. But I have to wonder if those were general statements, or aimed at any other churches in particular. Is it possible to expand upon that?
I understand the larger point Perry is trying to make. But the gospel message is not merely about the individual. Salvation is cosmic in nature. It’s about the reconciliation and restoration of all things – creatures and creation.
“God is not green, kermit is….” This is vintage. I absolutely love it! Ben’s comment that “salvation is cosmic in nature” is not only disconcerting to me, it’s baffling. Last I read, this earth will ultimately be destroyed (no matter how hard we may try to protect it) and a new heaven and new earth made. It’s the people that Jesus died for not trees! Just my two cents.
Salvation and conservation are not mutually exclusive. We can lead people to Jesus while taking care of the planet. What’s important is to not let the latter become more important than the former. Sure, this earth will pass away, but why would we think that God has called us to be good stewards of everything except the home he gave us?
I’ve been scanning blogs to get feed back on Mark Dever’s message…did anyone stay for it? It doesn’t seem like anyone has much to say about it. I was looking forward to his talk more than anyones simply because he stuck out on the lineup…
Jill, essentially what Perry is challenging leaders to do is this: listen to God and do what he says to do. His concern is that pastors are selling out their vision to appease people who aren’t called by God to a specific mission.
(Perry, if I miss represented your thoughts, chime in.)
tony
ben, are you still around? what is your scriptural foundation for the statement “salvation is cosmic in nature?” That’s a new one for me.
and, for others, you’d have to hear the message in its entirety to catch perry’s position. he acknowledged that he recycles. his concern is that churches are putting alternative agendas ahead of the Gospel message.
i’m glad to see his comments grabbed your attention. :-)
tony
Got it, Tony–very relevant to our new church plant. Many “well-intentioned” folks whisper (and shout!) about what Solid Ground should do/could do. We (staff) just wrapped Simple Church and with Perry’s/your encouragement, I will help our team to just say “no”.
If I could chime in on Bens behalf, he is refering to the gospel being two parts. One is the personal salvation gospel message, of Man-Sin-Jesus-Eternity and the second being Creation-Fall-Redemption-Restoration. From what I gather, Perry is refering to the first, and its personal implications, this tells how we get saved but it doesn’t really explain the need or why. The second portion is a zoomed out version of what God is doing on a major scale. I personally believe we have neglected the second for an over emphasized personalization of the gospel that feeds our over self indulgent culture that church seems to be playing on. Personally, Jesus isn’t my personal savior, he didn’t come and die just for me, he came to die for everyone and thats a love that blows me a away, thats the love we need to talk about, not a simple smaller love that people can grasp, its the fact that we can’t grasp it that gives it power. If you watch the trends of churches, and especially the missional movement, this is coming back into focus and as a person who is torn from a seeker/unchurched model to a missional model I truly believe that the gospel needs to be rescued and redeemed. If you are interested in more, read or listen to some Tim Keller messages, its a good resource to learn more about it and its implacations to the church.
“God is not green, Kermit is” Now that made me LOL! However, I’m a little sensitive to making fun of Kermit, he was one of my childhood homies growing up…ahhh, confession is good for the soul
”For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself ALL things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross” (Col 1:19-20).
”God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ” (2 Cor 5:19).
In the words of the late Robert Webber, ”God’s story suffers from reductionism and privatism. The Christian faith has been reduced to a few doctrines of self-interest. God calls us to his story. God’s story is about the whole world from its very beginning to the very end. It includes all the nations and governments of the world, it includes the earth sun and sky, it includes the entire universe. This story even includes you.”
I agree with Ben — though I’m far from being a tree-hugger, I feel that being responsible with the environment is a spiritual issue.
I think that we need to treat the world around us similar to the way we treat our money. Money is a resource that we are called to be responsible with; are not trees and water abundantly as important? Are they not also gifts from God that are required to exist in a clean and healthy state so that we can STAY ALIVE?
It’s seems fairly foundational to me that part of loving our neighbors would be to make sure that future generations have a world to live in at all.
“We need to understand our priorities.”
I saw notes from a friend that went to C3 at Fellowship this year, and on it said that “As the leader, it is up to you to know what matters.”
I love that Perry keeps Jesus as the number one priority over anything else that competes for air time during that one hour on that one day that he has to convey a message. Who wouldn’t follow a leader like that?
If you are wondering why the “creation” comments are so important and you want a detailed explanation – read NT Wright’s book “Surprised By Hope”. He definitely falls on the side that argues God IS green. He deals with the Scripture indefinitely and his view is that if we fail to realize the importance it betrays a deficiency in our understanding of heaven, resurrection and the mission of the church. Very relevant reading for this discussion.
Colossians 1:19-20 uses the prepositions “on” and “in”. On earth and in heaven. The reconciliation here is “all things” in the created universe, not the created universe. Note the phrase “having made peace”(NKJV).
Eph 2:14-16 For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation,
having abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace,
and that He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity.
It is mankind (Jew and Gentile alike) with whom making peace is necessary, not creation as a whole. The word “world” in 2 Cor. 5:19 is actually transliterated kosmos from the Greek, but it has eight definitions. One being:
the inhabitants of the earth, men, the human family
And to finish quoting the verse… God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. (2 Cor. 5:19)
As stated above…
2 Peter 3:10 But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up.
Reference Revelation 21:1 as well. We should be good stewards of all the gifts God has given us, earth included, but Perry was addressing pastors on understanding priorities. Giving time behind the pulpit to the Green movement, which is based on a global warming LIE, would be a travesty in replacement of the gospel.
Sorry….. I also feel the urge to state that God is very deeply personal. Read Psalm 139 and Matt. 10:30. In addition to Psalm 139:2, there are many references to God knowing our thoughts, and searching our heart. Jesus died to redeem all, but I believe He would have done the same for just one. He would leave the 99 to seek the one that was lost. Our Lord is very personal.