At the beginning of 2018, I got to hang out a lot with Nate
Bramsen who is an incredible preacher, missionary, world traveler, athlete,
friend, social media powerhouse, and follower of Jesus... I mean I’m talking
like heavy doses of his presence haha. For starters, I got to ease into his
ministry at a conference in Tennessee and hear him speak passionately on the
glory of the cross, and the Christian’s charge to stand firm in the faith. Then,
I met up with him more personally towards the end of the conference to go over
the game plan for the next couple of weeks as he was going to fly to Colombia along
with his friend Madison to work with some friends and I to challenge and
strengthen a whole bunch of churches and people in Colombia, especially our church
and me included. 
He and Madison touched down in Bogota and from there on out
it was pure adrenaline man. I mean like conference after conference; exploring
waterfalls after climbing mountains; cruising around in motorbikes after doing
so in taxis; meetings after (or during) meals; hair cuts (what little there was
to cut) after running around to find free wifi; and yeah – I mean just all
sorts of fun and intense moments of watching and helping him pour into others
whether they be church leaders, young followers of Jesus, recovering addicts,
people devastated by an avalanche, or anyone else who happened to show up at
one or more of the 20 speaking engagements he had in the lapse of 10 days… I
mean this guy took the definition of a missions trip to a whole other level.
…So it was kind of awkward because there would be moments
where a meeting would end and he would be talking or praying with someone and I
needed to tell him something or have him go somewhere but in my mind it was
just like, “man – if I interrupt him now, that might seriously affect this other guy or girl’s future ‘cause the
conversation they’re having right now seems really intense.”
But I would interrupt him anyway, and he would be like, “it
better be for something important because I was just having a really meaningful
conversation back there.”
…But besides just setting up the meetings and going
everywhere with him, I was also his number one interpreter. Of the 20 messages
he gave, I interpreted for 18 of them, and I think that more than anyone else, I
was the main guy benefitting from his exposition of the Word. Why? Well,
because besides just hearing everything he said and processing it and then
translating it in my mind, I was also saying it out loud again for everyone to
hear. And let me tell you, every message was super powerful, and meaningful,
and challenging, and inspirational and yeah – I don’t know, just right on.
Yet in addition to the awesome time that we got to hang out
in Colombia - 5 days after leaving, Nate got married, and I had the privilege
of being one of his 33 groomsmen.
So, there’s this passage in John chapter 3 where a few of
John the Baptist’s disciples are frustrated because even though John the
Baptist at one point was baptizing tons of people (he had even baptized Jesus), all of a sudden everyone was going over to Jesus to get baptized by his disciples instead (v.
26)... and you can almost pick up on the inferiority complex they were having when
they complain to John and are like, “So why does Jesus get all the
attention now?” and “What’s the big deal with this guy anyway?" Well John the Baptist’s response is awesome, and what he says is that he was sent before Jesus to prepare the way for him (John the Baptist’s message was that of repentance), but now that Jesus’ ministry was in full force – he felt the same way I felt when I was a groomsman at Nate’s wedding… I was happy for him! And I just wanted to stand beside him in showing everyone my approval and support for what was taking place as he was getting married to Priyanka… I didn’t want to take the spotlight away from this beautiful couple, and I certainly didn’t want to be envious or lame or depressing either. John the Baptist needed to decrease so that Jesus could increase, and in my own experience, that’s what I felt like I had to do when Nathan Bramsen came to Colombia.
Essentially, I had prepared the way for Nate. I set up his
itinerary, and when Nate came I didn’t want to have him sit down while I
preached or something like that, I wanted him
to preach as much as possible because he does it way better than I do, and
I wanted all my friends in Colombia to benefit as much as possible from his
awesome ministry. I mean heck – I even
wanted to benefit as much as possible from his ministry, because when the
knowledge and glory of God and the spiritual lives of those who hear the Word
are at stake – we need those who can most effectively bring about that work, sharing it. My role was like that of a mid-fielder getting the soccer
ball to the striker so that he or she can score the goal... Or like the
baseball player who’s in the line-up to hit a single so that the power slugger
can hit a grand slam and bring everyone home.
Do you get the point? The purpose of any ministry is to give
God the most glory, just like in sports the purpose of playing is to win.
What’s going to work best? How are we going to accomplish the goal? How is God
going to receive the most glory? …Those are the questions we should be asking
ourselves, not “how many people are following me? how awesome do I look as I
stand on stage? How am I going to get
more glory for myself?” …And I say that, and it sounds obvious, but in real life it can
be a struggle… I’m sure that there’s more than one of us who has, at some
point, compared him or herself to Nate and been like, “Why don’t I get invited
to speak at huge conferences and have people eagerly follow me wherever I go?” “Why
can’t I travel to dozens of countries each year and get to soak in the beauty
that each exotic place has to offer?” “Why am I not an elite diamond member
that flies first class with Delta and posts sick pictures of air plane wings in
the sunset that get thousands of likes?” …You laugh, but it’s
true.
Well, because Nate does it better than we do. His messages
penetrate deeper, his gospel is clearer, his passion is more contagious, and he
also walks around in his sermons and keeps everyone awake a lot more
effectively than we do.
Is that bad?... No, it’s awesome! In fact, it’s what should
give us all joy, just like it gave John the Baptist joy to think about Jesus, and
it gave me joy to think that Nate was getting married (v. 29). It gives me joy
to think about Nate’s ministry because he’s reaching more people for Jesus and
inspiring more youth to follow him, and that’s the point. He’s giving more
glory to God and that’s spectacular. Nate, and now his lovely wife Priyanka along with him, are out there to win for the Kingdom of God, and that should make us super excited
because we’re a part of the same team.
It’s kind of like when you see Nate with his shirt off and
you’re like “jeez lue weez man haha, I didn’t even think those types of muscles
existed” haha. Well, the truth is that they do, and Nate has them and they’re
not fake, and now that you’ve seen them you have one of two choices to make
(okay so this illustration is starting to get really weird all of a sudden haha,
but just bear with me for a sec). The two options you have are either to keep
your shirt on, or you can start working out more often, like he does, and
eventually get an 8 pack yourself (ok, so in the picture I probably should have
kept my shirt on).
And it’s the same in ministry – you can see the widespread
effect of what Nate is accomplishing through the power of the Holy Spirit, and
you can get behind him in praying and helping him and Priyanka make it further,
or you can sit back and try to think of ways in which they aren’t perfect. You
can also either be intimidated by Nate’s influence and “keep your shirt on,” or
you can get a communication degree or start praying and studying the Bible more
like he does and start daring yourself to step out in faith beyond what you
already have.
Nathan Bramsen is one of the most influential disciples of
Jesus in our generation, and just like Paul said to the church in Corinth,
“follow my example as I follow the example of Christ” (1 Corinthians 11:1), so also in many
ways we should follow Nate’s example as he follows the example of Christ. Maybe
not in all ways, but in a lot of ways I think we should (Nate has plenty of
idiosyncrasies that are neither here nor there).
But it’s that drive to win that’s so powerful…
I remember a few years back we were playing doubles against
two random old men in tennis, and there was a match where I was serving, and we
were up 40 - love. Well, I missed my first serve and I was getting ready for my
second, and I asked Nate if I could try to serve it hard again and he was like,
“no, I think you should play it safe and we should just win this thing.” Well,
we did win that game, but at the end of it all we lost the set because the
old guys were just plain cheating. I was kind of like, “whatever, it’s just a
game,” but Nate was really frustrated.
What I learned right then was that Nathan is programmed to
win, and just messing around in tennis or life or whatever is not an option
because there’s a lot at stake… And you know? He’s right. Why in the world
should we be messing around or letting old cheaters get in the way of us when
Jesus has given us a clear assignment and there are so many people out there
who desperately need us to share the gospel that we’ve been entrusted with?
Every single time that I’ve been with Nate, it didn’t matter
if he was preaching to 20 people or if he was preaching to 700 – he always did
it with everything he had in him.
And that’s the kind of guy I want to be passing the ball to in
real life.
