Texas, Ambitions and God's Will

One of my favorite stories in the Bible is the story of Joseph, one of Jacob’s twelve sons, in Genesis. God gave Joseph some dreams and those dreams included all eleven brothers and his parents bowing down to him. With great confidence, anticipation, and with great immaturity, Joseph told his father and brothers all about the dreams. Like Joseph, I probably told too many people all about my dreams and ambitions from an early age.

Joseph's Dream by Martha Stern

At the same time, I was getting kicked out of conferences, camps, doing a lot of detention in school and my dad was getting a lot of phone calls which started with, “Hello, Rabbi Rosenberg, you need to come and pick up your son, Matthew.” Never malicious, always loving God— but ever stumbling over myself and my hyperactive body which moved faster than my brain could warn me of the consequences of my actions. I have always felt that God has called me to speak into the lives of thousands of people and for the first time in my life God is actually making it happen.

Ethiopia w/JVMI

In 2014 I went to Ethiopia with a group of eight young leaders, Jewish Voice Ministries International and Rabbi Jonathan Bernis. It was a forever life-changing experience. While in Ethiopia I had dinner with Pastor Wayne Wilkes. Wayne is probably one of the most encouraging people in the world, and at the time of our dinner in Ethiopia, he was not a pastor. He was just a guy who has been around the block a few times who wanted to encourage a young preacher. As a result of our meeting in Ethiopia, Wayne, who has since become the Pastor of Jewish Ministry at Gateway Church in Dallas, Texas, asked me to speak at Gateway’s Messianic service about Hanukkah.

The service happens once a month and the two previous speakers were Dr. Michael Brown and Rabbi Jonathan Bernis. My thought progression was, “What?! Ok, Lord. Whoa, that’s crazy! That’s heavy company. Crazy! Ok, let’s do this! Whoa! Crazy!”

The Messianic service at Gateway brought over a thousand people and I spoke about Hanukkah and how God wants to use us to Light Up The Darkness (watch the message here, December 2014).

Preaching At Gateway Church

After meeting and talking with many people after the service, I went back into the green room to get my things. I stood there by myself and said to the Lord, “That was awesome, thank you for this opportunity.” The Lord said back to me, very clearly, “You did good, son!”

Selfie During My Message at Gateway

For maybe the first time in my life, I did not question whether it was Lord. I didn't have the internal struggle over whether I was just trying to make myself feel better about myself or if the Lord really spoke to me. I heard Him. He was proud me. And that is the real reason I do what I do: For Yeshua. For His kingdom. To help people who are far from God come closer to Him.

Look, I’m a Rabbi. I’ve been preaching, teaching and encouraging people for the last ten years (and more before it was my job). Sometimes in the midst of all that we are doing for God, we forget why we do it. What an awesome reminder I received from the Lord that day in Texas at Gateway Church.

I want to make Him famous. I get mixed up sometimes with dreams of my own fame, with the greatness of my own name. But, I am reminded that all I have is from the Lord. His desire is for me to use everything He has given me to make Him famous. Among my Jewish people. Among the nations. Everywhere. Everyone.

In all the things that I am seeing God do with me, the moment I heard God’s say, “You did good, son!” was worth everything to me. I am in awe of all God has done in 2014. In my family, my marriage, my children, at Restoration (my synagogue) and all that He is doing.
I want to stay in awe of God. It seems to me that is the only place worth staying. I
have nothing without Him. To know that God is proud of me is worth more to me than likes on Facebook and Instagram. It’s worth more that the opinions of my colleagues, contemporaries, family, friends and congregation. In all honesty, its hard to believe
that and most of the time the opinions of other people are what I am striving for. I want everyone to be proud of me and think highly of me. But I want what God thinks of me to be the most important to me.

So, I’m asking God to make His approval enough. I don’t ever want to get wrapped up in positive or negative opinions of me. I want to be wrapped up in what God thinks of me. God approves of me. Not because of what I do, but because of who I am in Him and His son, Yeshua.

And guess what? If you turn your heart towards Yeshua, He approves of you, too!

I am confident that 2015 is going to be the best year ever! For me, my family, Restoration in Seattle, Messianic Judaism, and the greater body of Messiah. God is willing and able to do more than anything we can hope for and imagine. It doesn't mean 2015 will be without pain, hurt, and obstacles. But, it does mean that through whatever we go through God will never leave us or forsake us. He wants to walk with us through everything this new year brings.

At Restoration we opened 2015 with a preaching series through Pastor Steven Furtick’s book, Crash The Chatterbox. This series is the perfect way to start the year because it will help us hear God’s voice clearly and focus on the individual and corporate assignments that He has called our community to. We have been encouraging Restoration to buy the book for deeper reflection. (listen to the series here).

Even though we are all going through different things or have different dreams and goals, God has a hope for you and wants to make your dreams come true in 2015. Everything you have been through, all of the good and the bad, play a part in who are and who are becoming. Our mission at Restoration is “to lead people to become fully devoted followers of Yeshua.” We never really arrive, we are constantly becoming more fully devoted to Yeshua. As our devotion increases, we see God reorganize our dreams and ambitions to fit His dreams and ambitions for us.

Neverland - Andy Mineo

Rapper Andy Mineo has a song called Rewind. It is currently one of the theme songs of my life. It goes like this:

People think we’re different

We’re all the same

I got a little drama in my life, you got a little drama in yours What you do with it, it’s your choice

Cause I’m looking at my past through the rear view mirror

Thanking God I made it through

I am in awe of all that God is doing in me and I know that He wants to do the same for you! He wants to make your dreams come true. This is your time. You can make God famous and have the best year of your life. You can hear God’s voice clearly and move forward in all that God has called you to do with your life.

Just pray this simple prayer: “God I want to make you famous. I want my life to be about you and not about me. I want you to use me however you see fit to bring you glory in 2015!”

He won’t ignore you. He will answer. I know because He keeps answering me. 

The. Best. Trip (To a Church). Ever!

This past week I and seven of my Messianic Rabbi friends visited Beltway Park Baptist Church in Abilene, Texas.  I met Pastor David McQueen at the Jewish Voice Leaders’ Roundtable in November and asked him if I could come and hang out with him and learn about leadership.  He encouraged me to get a group of young Messianic leaders together to come and his church would foot the bill.  

I love leadership.  I love learning about leadership. I love reading about leadership.  I love being with people who are awesome leaders. David McQueen has seen his church grow from about 150 people to 4,000.  I know, you don't care about numbers.  But, numbers represent people, people who need God.  And if there is a place that is reaching people with the Gospel and changing peoples’ lives, I am game to hang out there. 

So we went to Abilene -- 8 messianic leaders under the age of 40:  Myself (Beit Messiah, Seattle, WA), Jude Caracelo (Kol Mashiach, Melbourne, Fl), Jesse (Fl), Tim Hyslip (Baruch HaShem, Phoenix, AZ), Cosmo Panzetta (Beth Yachad, Phoenix, AZ), S.K. (Raleigh, NC) Ari Waldman (Baruch HaShem, Dallas, TX), and Troy Wallace (El Shaddai, Frederick, MD). We went to watch and learn.  

What impressed me the most was how excellent everything was -- from the screens, microphones, iPads for the worship team, to the soundboards (yes, that is plural, as in several rooms had their own).  With large numbers comes lots of money and with lots of money comes great stuff.  Beltway has great stuff.  But more than all of that was the excellence of their people -- from the full-time staff, to part-time staff, to the people who attend on Sunday morning, to the Poormans who let us stay in a great little ranch that met all of our needs.  They really went out of their way to pour into us and treat us like kings. I hope to be able to do the same for people that want to come learn from me in 15 years.

I go to a lot of leadership conferences. I read and hear a lot of messages on leadership.  What I have not had the opportunity to do was be in the meetings or the back room conversations involving that leadership.  I see a lot of services and have planned many myself but to be in on the conversations of such a great congregation was a once in a lifetime chance (let's call it twice in lifetime because I plan to go back!).  Sitting in on meetings with the senior leadership team and the elders was awesome.  Watching how their sermon and creative teams worked to come up with different ways to present the message was inspiring. Seeing the kids’ service, the teen service, and the adult service was fantastic.  Even more, each service had a great ministry time that was not only purposeful and effective but geared to each specific group.  Of course I cried through all of the services because that's how I roll.  I felt the presence of God from the time we landed to the time we went home.  

Spending time with my young leader friends, the "future" of Messianic Judaism, was really outstanding!  It's funny when people refer to us as the future since we are all leading congregations right now.  It's also interesting to note that in our movement we are considered young when in reality the majority of us are approaching forty years old.  Not so young considering that almost everyone in leadership at Beltway Park is the same age as our group (Even the senior pastor is not that far off).  No one at Beltway looks at them as the future but rather just the leaders who are leading now.  But, I digress...

Probably the most significant part of the trip was the time the senior leaders spent with us and how they openly shared everything about their church with our group.  Pastor David and Pastor Keith really spent a ton of time with us and let us ask all kinds of questions and they really took the time to pour into us as leaders.  We walked away from this trip with a sense of how awesome it is when brothers and sisters gather together in unity and what it means to be a part of the larger body of Messiah!

We realized that during our time the Torah portion for the week was Yitro.  Yitro, the father-in-law of Moses, comes to Moses and teaches him all about leadership.  Man, did we learn from some amazing Jethros!  If you think I am implying that I and my friends are Moses you would be right.  In the end, as a group of 8 leaders, we committed to making ourselves better so that we can lead our Jewish people to Yeshua and to the salvation that He offers to all who call on His name. There were times where in the words of Cosmo we felt "like hobbits among the nephalim"!  Even their teenagers were giants! Ok, Maybe just me and Cosmo felt that way. We are short but we are confident in ourselves. 

Some Messianics have asked me, "Why go to a church to learn?"  The short answer is they are better than we are in so many ways.  Many in our Movement think that if an idea is not Jewish in its inception then it has no merit.  For me, I see great value in learning from our brothers and sisters in Yeshua (they call him Jesus ;).  They are Jethros for us.  Many in the Church use the language of older brother and younger brother.  As Jewish followers of Yeshua, we are "older brothers" in terms of faith and heritage.  But, in terms of building communities dedicated to sharing the message of Yeshua with all people, we become "younger brothers." The Jewish part and the Gentile part of the Body of Messiah have much to learn from each other and much blessing to share with each other as well.  And man were we blessed! (Yes, that is a fried egg on my TX Burger!)

Thank you Beltway Park Baptist Church.  Thank you Pastor David, Pastor Keith and the whole staff who showed us what a heart for Israel and young leaders looks like.  Don't worry we will be back!

Click here for more info on Beltway Park Baptist Church!