Notes from a sermon, 1/27/07

Courageous Leadership: Do we really know what we are getting ourselves into?

Dietrich Bonhoeffer: “When Christ calls a man he bids him come and die.”
Now most of us didn’t enter ministry with the goal to die for our faith; it’s certainly not the driving aspiration of most of us in this room!

Yet the very core of courageous ministry lies a type of death, a death to self, and a willingness to do whatever Christ asks us to do wherever he asks us to do it!

Courageous ministry, at its very heart, is a willingness to put aside our own desires and to live for the will of God.

Isaiah 6:8-12: Isaiah’s call.
“Here I am! Send me!”
- Does he know what he is agreeing to? Probably not!
- For God says, “OK, but your ministry is going to be totally ineffective. But go anyway!”
- And Isaiah goes as a prophet to the people of Judah, yet the vast majority refuse to hear his message.
- Yet he goes with no regrets!


Inspiring story of William Borden.
-Already a millionaire at age 16 when he graduates High School
-Heir to the Borden Dairy fortune
-Was sent on an around the world trip for his graduation gift. This trip had a profound affect on Borden’s life. As he saw the hurt and devastation, people living without hope, he decided then to become a missionary. He wrote home and told his parents, “I am going to give my life to prepare for the mission field.”
-Motto: “Say ‘no’ to self and ‘yes’ to Jesus every time.”
-In his Bible he wrote the phrase, “NO RESERVES!”

-Attended Yale, where his passion to reach the lost was intensified. He saw the need even there on campus, and began small prayer groups that grew from 2 individuals to 1,000 by Borden’s senior year, and started a spiritual revival on Yale’s campus. He also began reaching out to the poor in the city and founded Yale Hope Mission in New Haven
-He decided he wanted to reach the Kansu people, one of the largest Muslim populations in China
-On graduation from Yale he was offered a number of high paying jobs, but turned them down in order to attend seminary at Princeton.
-“NO RETREATS!”

Upon graduation from Princeton, Borden decided he needed training in Arabic, and moved to Egypt to study there. Soon after his arrival, Borden contracted spinal meningitis and died. American newspapers wrote, “A wave of sorrow went around the world. . .”
- Yet Borden kept his resolve throughout his month long suffering. In his Bible he wrote two more words: “NO REGRETS!”

Courageous leadership means living life with the realization that it’s not our own; it goes to the will of God. It means living life with “NO RESERVES, NO RETREATS, and NO REGRETS!”