GYC 2025: Seeing the Invisible

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Generation. Youth. Christ. (GYC)

What's in Your Hand? "Called to Lead with What God Gave You"

Jermaine Gayle

Garhett Morgan

01 The Staff No Longer Yours

02 The Staff Ignites

03 The Staff vs the Crook

04 The Staff Abused

05 Passing the Staff

Father in heaven, we want to ask in a very special way as we come back 1 more time with empty cups and I'm asking you to fill them.

Fill them with your Word, fill them with your Spirit, fill them with yourself.

We want to be so deeply connected to you there, Lord, that we ourselves not be seen anymore.

We want to have what the disciples experience when those people looking at them, seeing their boldness, we're able to proclaim, we can tell that these men have been with Jesus.

That's our goal, our desire, so help us now as we talk about the staff or the crook, is our prayer in Jesus' name.

Now, a few places we could start with this, and our title is Staff vs.

The Crook, and crook is kind of an interesting word.

So the crook is basically, you know, Moses had the staff.

You ever seen, like, in Egyptology, they have the scepter of the king, right, or the Pharaoh, and there's 1 that's like a curved thing right there?

And so basically we're going to be comparing the leadership of Pharaoh with the leadership of Moses.

But there's somewhere I want to start that we looked at a little bit ago, and there's a point that I missed that will tie very well into the subject matter that we have right now.

If you could go back to Matthew 4, the temptations of Jesus, I'd like to start there again.

And there's something I want to show you here that I think Moses struggled with early on in his, well, revolution, if you want to put it that way.

Matthew chapter 4, we see the temptations of Jesus.

Notice what Satan does when he questions the identity of Christ.

In verse 4, he tempts Jesus to perform an action to prove his messiahship, right?

The same is true with the second and the third temptation.

Why don't you prove to me through your action that you actually are who God called you to be.

I think as Adventists, we struggle with that sometimes because feelings and facts are very different, amen?

And often, maybe you don't feel like you are doing well as a leader, right?

Maybe you're in your wilderness experience like we talked about, and maybe you're going through a difficult situation and you're feeling like a failure, you're feeling all these different things, and you get that voice in your mind which is the devil saying, are you really a leader like God wants you to be?

Because you're not looking like a leader right now.

And then he often will tempt us to go out and prove to ourselves that we are what God has called us to be.

Now, of course, the New Testament says that faith without works is dead, and works are important.

However, as Adventists, sometimes we try to prove our identity, our relationship with Jesus, by performing, right?

So I'm not—I don't feel like a very good leader right now, Pastor Jermaine.

So I'm going to go out there, I'm going to do this and this and this to prove to everybody and prove to myself that I am the leader that God wants me to be.

We have a word for that, a few different words for that.

We also...legalism is another 1 of those things, right?

God wants us to do things for Him, but with a spirit of pleasing God, and not to just satisfy our feelings of inadequacy.

Yeah, and I think that's the danger of performance-type leadership, right?

Validation coming from the product, productivity.

But there's something deeper that we have to uncover here.

And that's what Jesus was struggling with.

In fact, his style of leadership is so antithetical to ours that Jesus, the way that he led was to die for mankind.

Everybody was expecting him to overturn Rome and demonstrate power, right, as leadership by power.

And then you might think of another example.

When Jesus was close to dying, right, he's talking to his disciples.

This is in, we can say this is John 13, when he got them all together in the upper room and Jesus was explaining to them that I'm going to Jerusalem and I'm going to die.

Does anyone remember what he did in the upper room?

Now when was the last time, right, you heard of a U.S.

Let me jump in here real quick on the washing of feet.

You ever notice how attendance drops when it comes to Communion Sabbath?

I don't know if that's just my church or it's your church, but when people find out it's Communion, like, attendance drops.

We call it, you know, foot-washing service is 1 way to say it, but ordinance of humility is like the kind way.

And I think 1 of the reasons that happens is people are uncomfortable with the idea of that, which is the whole point!

Jesus is the leader, and he comes into this room, and all of a sudden, he's doing that which a servant does.

You know back in those days you would have you know the servant at the door that kind of helps you out with that but Jesus tells the servant hey step aside I got this and he got down and he starts to wash the feet of the disciples.

Does anyone remember which disciples stopped him?

And Jesus is like, bro, if I don't wash your feet, you have no part with me.

And then the brother, hey, give me a shower, man.

And Jesus used that as a model for leadership.

As a leader, there's nothing beneath you, right?

And it's important that the people that you lead see you in those areas of service.

At my local church, I'm the pastor, but guess what?

It's also important when nobody sees you.

A few months ago, I was getting ready for prayer meeting at my local church, and I arrived at prayer meeting quite a bit early to prepare, do some stuff, right?

I was there a few hours early, and anyway, it was before prayer meeting, and so I walked to the men's bathroom, and as soon as I walked to the men's bathroom.

Oh no, don't tell me someone did not flush.

Series

What's in Your Hand? "Called to Lead with What God Gave You"

03 The Staff vs the Crook

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

What's in Your Hand? "Called to Lead with What God Gave You"

01 The Staff No Longer Yours

54m

Ignite Your Local Church for Mission

Q and A and Final Charge

1h

Our Desperate Need of the Spirit is Now

04 Praying in the Spirit

53m

Ron Clouzet ~ A Voice Behind You: How To Know God's Will For Your Life

When God Speaks to Youth

1h 12m

Plenary

No Lost Opportunity

33m

General Sessions

ECOM Sabbath School

58m

SPARK: How to Start a Fire for the Lord in Your Church

SPARK: How to Start a Fire for the Lord in Your Church- Part 3

1h 1m

What's in Your Hand? "Called to Lead with What God Gave You"

04 The Staff Abused

44m

Ellen White? Why Should I Care?

05 Why I Believe In Ellen White

45m

Justin Kim, Amy Sheppard, and Nomthandazo Malambo: GPA's and SDA's

Christ’s Method: A Practical Approach in Ministering to Academia

56m

Making Sons of Hell? The Don’ts and Do’s of Soul Winning

Addressing Objections and Answering Difficult Bible Questions

1h 2m

Biblical Leadership

Biblical Leadership Part 5

59m

Sound Doctrine