Church, are you ready for some good news?

I have good news for you. It's a promise from God. I want to show you in the Bible.

By epic, I mean big, broad, expansive. Not limited. Not sitting back. Not constricted. Not over-cautious. Not passive. Not always reacting to the stuff going on around you.

But a life that is full of adventure, full of meaning, guided by passionate conviction, achieving transcending purpose, and arriving at a place of love like you never knew possible.

David defeated the Giant Goliath. King Saul hid in his tent and lost his kingdom. David lived an epic life.

Ten spies said that God's people could never conquer the Promised Land. Two spies declared, "With God, no problem." Forty years later, the 10 spies died in the wilderness. Caleb and Joshua lived an epic life, conquering the Promised Land.

Naomi had 2 daughters in law. When all their husbands died, one kissed Naomi goodbye, and is pretty much forgotten. The other chose the risks of staying with Naomi and Naomi's God and 3,000 years later, you still know her name. Ruth lived an epic life.

That kind of epic life.

And I'm saying that that kind of epic life is the reward God gives you for pressing into the life of the Church.

And ultimately, it is this life—fully part of the body of Christ— and only this life that will bring you to heaven with the maximum capacity for everlasting rewards so glorious that they make Cinderella's castle look like a shack in a cardboard village.

These are the key leaders of the church. Other places in the Bible talk about other leaders, but these are the main ones.

The main thing about being a prophet isn't that you tell the future; it's that you tell the truth. Plus you have an intuitive sense of where people are breaking themselves against God's truth.

From the beginning of the church, until now, God calls out from among his people some to step up into leadership roles.

I grew up going to a small church in Chicago. When I was 8 years old, I was sitting in my Sunday School class with a little group of boys, four of us. Metal folding chairs. Cement basement floor. Cinderblock walls. Little dividers separated all the different groups, so we could hear the murmuring of all the other groups and their teachers meeting at the same time.

My Sunday School teacher was an ancient man we called Uncle Ben. He worked for a company that serviced vending machines, so he always gave us candy.

Uncle Ben finished teaching and had us bow our heads for prayer. Before he prayed, he said, "Boys, I believe God is calling some of you to serve him as a missionary or a pastor. If that's you, I want you to raise your hand."

When he said that, I had this flash of a picture in my mind. It was a picture of me preaching the gospel to thousands of people, a huge audience before me. My little 8-year old heart was pounding. And I knew that God was calling me to be a pastor.

I was too nervous to raise my hand, so I peeked to see if anyone else did. One of my best friends since kindergarten, Karl, had his hand up. That's all I needed.

So I raised my hand.

And that was it. That was my call to ministry.

And I was super afraid about what it meant.

I never told anybody about it. I didn't want to deal with it. I was embarrassed. Long story. I didn't say yes to that call of God till I was twenty... which was about the age that my friend Karl died. So I'm hoping God might do through me what he was going to do through both of us.

So here I am, because God gave the church some to be pastors and teachers and evangelists.

Why?

 

"For the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ" (Ephesians 4:12).