S2 Episode 16 | The Mantle We Pass

S2 Episode 16 | The Mantle We Pass. In this episode Leon discusses the burden of responsibility we all have to be the example for those who come behind us. Thank you for listening. Please leave a review.

Transcript

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Hello and welcome to the Unqualified Podcast with Leon Wilson. That's me. Thank you for stopping by. If you uh if you have stopped by and this is your first time, hit that like button. If this is your second time, hit that subscribe button and share these uh videos with other people that you think it might help because you know what? We're all looking for inspiration, we're all looking for motivation, we're all looking for encouragement, we're all looking to be challenged and we're all looking for growth. Sometimes we don't realize just how much growth we are missing out on. And we need that. We absolutely need that. If you're comfortable where you are, if you're comfortable in the current state of affairs that you are in, then I feel for you. You are spinning your wheels and you need help. Um, we all need to grow, every bit of us. And here's the thing is like a lot of times we, you know, we look at life and we think, man, I'm comfortable in where I am right now. And uh there was a guy, I think his name is Taiichi Ono, who said um having proper awareness of problems and an extremely low tolerance for the current condition is the proper mindset. What's that mean? Um I'm glad you asked. Here's what that means. You have to see what the current conditions are. And in those current conditions, you you have to be open to everything and and aware that in these current conditions and the problems that they are, you cannot be comfortable with the current state of things. You have to always be pushing forward. In manufacturing, the term continuous improvement is used. And it's it's thrown around in some cases, but it's it's used in a lot of others. Now, how does that involve or what's that mean when it's involved in in ministry? Um, well, the truth is you if a church is is not growing, if a ministry is not growing, if you are just comfortable with the current conditions and you're thinking, man, I'm all right with only having X, Y, Z, and let's just use congregants, um, you know, members of a church for an example, and and say, if I'm comfortable with 15 people in my church, then um, you know, what where's my church in 10 years from now? And let's just say in some churches, you know, there's the congregants are are maybe uh you know 70, 80 years old. And you know, and and am I am I even going to have a church here in five years, ten years, eight years, you know, whatever it looks like. And that's a that's a stark reality for a lot of churches, honestly, uh, is that they are falling off and their their members are old and and they're you know they're they're dying. And who's taking the mantle? I preached today on uh 2 Kings chapter 2, where Elisha um was he went with Elijah and and Elijah was taken up by God and uh in the whirlwind and the chariot of fire, and Elisha had um taken up the mantle of Elijah. And and today's miss you know today's message was about um how number one, there was you know, Elisha was a man on a mission and and that he was staying uh in accordance with the mission. There's uh the second part was about the mantle, and and you know, let me just go ahead and say, in today's world, we as Christians do not take a lot of thought into the future of ministry. And we ought to. We ought to take a very vested look at what the ministry looks like and what the future is, and and why do we do that? Because if the Lord tarries and you are sold that you have to step to the side or you're you die or or whatever, you know, and and that mantle is to be passed on to the next person, what have you left them? And are you if you if you're not concentrating on that, if you're not concentrating on building your mantle, on on putting your mantle together and establishing your mantle to pass on to the next um generation, then what are you doing? See, we don't like to think of ourselves as role models, but the truth is there's somebody watching what you're doing in life. And like it or not, you got you got several different camps of people watching you, but let's just say there's three that we're gonna concentrate on today. You got those who look at you and they support whatever you're doing, and you got those who look at you and they they are critical on everything that you do, and then you got those who look at you and they just notice you're just there and and they don't feel one way or the other about it. And and and whatever life is full of all three of those camps, and and and you know, I've I've got folks who I know can't stand, you know, me, and and if you mention me, it it probably makes them feel weird or something. And then I've got people that if you mention me, they they probably say some things that you know, some very kind things about me and and and all that, and that's awesome, and I appreciate those people, but I also appreciate the critical people. Why? I'm glad you asked. I appreciate them because they show the contrast of the people who do appreciate me. Those people who are in the other category who just notice that I'm there, I appreciate them too. But the people that are super supportive, of course, you know, we want to appreciate them the most. We want to concentrate on them the most. We want to uh we want to celebrate those people a lot. And and honestly, you should want to celebrate people like that a lot because we need them. We need encouragement. All of us do. And appreciation goes a long way. But also the people who are critical against you and the people who can't stand you, you need those people too. In common parlance, they're known as haters. And, you know, there's gonna be people that are gonna hate you for whatever reason. And it doesn't matter what whatever that reason is. Uh one of the who I forget who it was said they hate me because they ain't me. And you know, there's a there's a degree to to that that is true, just the same. And you might think, oh, that ain't me, that ain't me. Let me let me point out that it is. If you're one of them people who you have a just straight up regular boat, let's just say it's a boat, you probably get a little aggravated at the people who have the big boats because they're wake and all this other stuff, like that wake comes by and it rocks my little boat and all this other stuff, or you see the people who have a uh a yacht and you're like, man, that makes me sick. You know, you got all that money and you throw that away, and you probably have to have a driver, and you're not a real boater, or whatever y'all call each other, or something like that. The same as you know, someone who can, if you can afford just a little motorcycle and and then somebody pulls up on this$80,000 motorcycle or whatever, it's like, ah, you rich people. It's the same thing. You can look at it different if you want to. It's the same thing, you know, like with a little church versus a big church, or you know, the the people who's got 700 people in their youth group or 1,200 people in their youth group. I I heard of our youth group yesterday, and they said they had like 5,000 people in their youth group, and two to five thousand people, kids in their youth groups. They had to have 30-something buses going out in every every service and getting these kids and bringing them in. And I I know that there's people that's probably like, man, you know, like look at them. They think that, you know, they think they somebody with their 30-something buses. When you ought to be glorifying the Lord, that somebody is going out there, putting the work in, and going out and getting these children and running the gospel by them. We we should want to celebrate that. But those people who are critical put they shed such positive light on what's going on. They show the contrast. That uh here let me put it this way. You hating on me just shows how big God is. That in spite of people like you, God's working. That He doesn't have to run anything by my haters to bless me. He doesn't be like, I cooked up this blessing for Leon. Let me go over here and ask this person, this person, this person what they think about it. No, God doesn't do that. In spite of my haters, God blesses me. In spite of your haters, God blesses you. People uh have reached out about last the last episode, episode 15, and and have um expressed their appreciation and gratitude that I was speaking up on and basically saying the you know the quiet part out loud. And you know, my I I guess my perspective on this is it ain't it sad that people feel like their voices are being suppressed. Ain't it super sad that you go to whatever church it is, and there's several churches, that you go to whatever church and you try to be a good member, and you try to you you try to go positive. And and I I was talking to somebody the other day, and they were talking about how Leon, I go, and and it's like it takes everything I can to concentrate. And um, you know, and it it doesn't matter if the music's good or if the preaching's good or whatever, it's you know, just so much drama going on, or or I feel this way, that way, or the other thing that I cannot focus. And then, you know, I've uh and this is just particular things, you know, uh at another church. It's like, you know, I I want to go and my my spouse won't go, and you know, and it there's fighting there because, you know, we want to go to church and they don't want to go here, and I want to go somewhere else, but I've haven't been told, you know, the Lord hasn't given me confirmation to leave. And there's, I mean, those are just different parts of the spectrum of conversation that I've gotten, feedback. And this churches from all over the place of people who have reached out and you know, and and and watched that video and and the different shorts and everything. And let me just put it like this God knows your struggle. He does. And he loves you. He loves you so much that he hears you and he wants to feed you. When Jesus turned to Peter, he said, Peter, do you love me? Peter said, Yeah, Lord, you know I love you. Come on now. He said, Then feed my sheep. It's a pastor's burden to feed the sheep. A preacher has to preach. If not, will God help us? But that under-shepherd, that pastor, should be tripping over themselves to to love on people. And I'll say this too: the pastor's wife ought to be the same way. It's a team. The Lord gave you a helpmate, and that helpmate should be helpmating. It's like it it's it's that. You you shouldn't, there shouldn't be a um a contrast between that. And I I heard one time a minister, I forget um you know exactly how it went or whatever, but uh the minister's uh wife had said, Oh, the Lord called you, didn't call me. And I was thinking, my, my, my. I don't know how hard your heart needs to be in order for you to feel like you don't want to help, you know, with with the ministry. You know, it to me, if you're saved, you there's a hunger to serve the Lord that if you don't feel that hunger, then uh I just I don't know. I'm I'm taken aback by that. But it's that type of mentality that you know that gives our church, yeah, all churches. And I'm talking all churches far our churches far as all churches bad names. People people notice that. And that goes back to this mantle. The next generation is looking at your mantle, just like Elisha was looking at Elijah, and he told Elijah, I want a double portion of your spirit. And Elijah said, You ask a hard thing. Nevertheless, if you're watching, if you watch me the whole time, if you see me when the Lord takes me up, I'll give it to you. But if you don't watch me, it ain't gonna happen. That's a paraphrase. So Elisha kept his eyes on him the whole time as the Lord took him up. Even cried out at him and then got the mantle that Elijah dropped. And that mantle when he when he got it, he used it to do the exact same thing that Elijah did. He he slapped uh River Jordan with her with it, and it the waters parted and he crossed over on dry land. The onlookers they saw him and they said, Surely the spirit of Elijah rests on Elijah. Here's the thing you are somebody's role model, and you don't have to like that, but it's true. And your walk affects so many people. They see the way that you react to things, and they see the way that you act all the time, they see the way you talk, and they see all of the different um interactions, and and the way that you are stimulated, and the way that um that life around you affects you. And you have to ask yourself this. Do I have a mantle that somebody is seeing as inspiration? Or is my mantle one that if I were to drop it, no one would want to pick it up? If I was to hang my mantle on the hook on my last day, would somebody want to pick it up? Just like Elijah dropped his mantle. We'll call it a jacket, a coat. He dropped his jacket. Elisha picked it up and use that as the example. Follow the example of Elijah. You have to build your mantle, you have to build that that thing that's worth passing on, the torch, if you will, that's worth passing on. And that torch, when you pass that torch on to the next generation, is it going to inspire them to be better, worse, or no different? And that's a tough pill to swallow. But it it's a question that has to be asked. These churches that are around us that are that you know are just giving up and and just going by the motions, and you got all kinds of drama and all this other stuff, and no one's squashing the drama. We're just allowing it to go on, and preachers are able to do whatever they want to do, and nobody speaks up against it, and and these churches are they're losing people left and right, and and and it's like they're just bleeding credibility, and no one cares. To me, the question is you know, what's this look like to the next generation? Because they're seeing it, they're hearing the conversations, they know all the sidebar drama that's going on, and they could tell you and fill you in just like any of the adults can. Here's the thing: we do not have the burden of responsibility and are not taking the responsibility to care for our youth, care for our children, and ensure that the next generation is drama-free as much as possible, and we expect them to respect us. Our mantle ain't worth being put on our backs if we're not going to take care of it. And God is not mocked. God is not mocked. He knows what is going on, and whether we are stepping up and doing the right thing or or neglecting it. We've got to answer for that. We all do. Today we adopted the bylaws for our church. It's been a process, and I'm excited that we we met after church and we were able to adopt that, the staff. And we're moving forward with that. We're gonna be voting on those probably tonight, and and we're just gonna push forward with what the Lord has put on our hearts and everything. We're gonna have us a praise and worship service tonight. It's gonna be great. I'm excited about it. A little country church on top of a hill. We're looking for bigger land because we we're outgrowing it. But I have a burden for these churches that are failing, that are not doing so good. And I just want you to know that I'm praying for you. All of you people. I'm praying for you. I'm praying that the Lord moves in your churches, that he moves in your communities, in your counties, in your cities, and and that he does something amazing and revives all of these communities. Because we need it now more than ever. Listen, I love you, and God loves you. This has been the Unqualified Podcast with Leon Wilson.