An Authentic Calling: Representing Christ and His Kingdom through the Church

Ses s i on 4: A Ca l l to F reedom

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The Cost of Freedom for Laborers in Christ Comparing the calls to the "regular" army of God and its "officers"

Believers in Christian Community

Laborers Set Apart for Ministry

Considered wise in Christ

Fools for Christ’s sake

A sense of sufficiency and well being

Genuine lack and shortage of goods and funds

A sense of strength

Weakness and vulnerability

Receiving parental care

Providing parental care

Held in disrepute Reviled, persecuted, slandered Hungry and thirsting, poorly dressed, buffeted, often homeless, labor with their own hands Become like the scum of the world, the refuse of all things

Held in honor

1 Corinthians 4.8-13

Objects of care and support

Freedom Produces the Kind of Courage That a Leader Needs

Consider these two contrasting statements: “With the doors locked for fear of the Jews (John 20.19), and, “When they saw the courage of Peter and John” (Acts 4.13). These statements describe the same disciples, and the same opposition. What happened between the first and the second? The difference is the Holy Spirit. “All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2.4). And when the Holy Spirit is given control of the personality he gives not “a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power” (2 Tim. 1.7).

~ J. Oswald Sanders. Spiritual Leadership . 2nd Edition. Chicago: Moody Press, 1994. p. 60.

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. ~ 2 Corinthians 3.17 (ESV)