Radical
I have just finished reading the book Radical by David Platt, pastor of Brook Hills Church in Birmingham. I had breakfast Friday morning with my pastor and we shared our hearts - he shared why he's been in a bit of a funk over the past few months and what God was stirring in him. He was sort of struggling with how to even articulate his thoughts with me. Much of what stirs Keith has been stirring in me for some time and I too haven't been able to put my arms around all I feel God is doing. So I shared a lot of what I got out of this book and it was exactly the things that were stirring in Keith. He's called a meeting of the Board of the church for a day of retreat to dig into this. God is calling Christ Community to "Break through". Break through to the other side and to "more". A deeper, more passionate, more devoted walk with God. To get there, we're going to have to tear down some walls. Some strongholds (personally and corporately) need to be broken. Families need to be fixed. Finances need to be fixed. Freedom from bondage needs to take place.
I can't sleep and it is 1:30 on Saturday morning (now its 2:45). I need the sleep but this is moving me and I need to get it down. These are some of the things I am wrestling with and then some comments from the book....
The church is under attack. I've been able to share a few times with the men in our church and we've talked about some of this. Marriages in our church are in trouble. Marriage all over America is under attack. Satan's attempted "death blow" to the church is taking place in our homes. If Christian marriages fail or are full of contempt or seething anger, our witnesses fall apart.
Money is a huge issue. We are a nation of consumers and consumerism has invaded God's church. Joel Osteen tells us that God wants to prosper us financially - that Jesus' death was about lifting you and I out of mediocrity - that "because of the price He paid, we have a right to live in total victory not just a good family, good job and good health but victory over our finances as well. He has paid the price that we may be totally free...free from poverty and lack..." God's church is consumed with consumerism. The "American dream" is "God's dream". Really? Is that really why God gave up his Son to suffer a horrific death...so I can be wealthy?
Manhood is under attack in the church. I've written about this numerous times but we have a generation of men in their 30's and 40's that are ill-equipped to lead their homes as a Christian. In many cases, their wives have stepped up into that void and not only do these women work in corporate jobs, they serve on local boards, lead the PTA, attend three bible studies a week and "know" the bible a lot better than their husbands. And so what does the man do? Shrink back.
This isn't politically correct but it has been on my heart for years - we have a generation of young black men in America and especially in the South who have no future. They are aimless. They don't stand a chance. They have no hope. The church has done a poor job of making our own backyard a mission field.
Lastly, this notion of "fully alive" or in John 10:10 that "He came to give us abundant life". It is one thing to accept Christ but something quite different to be radically alive in our walk with Christ. To be completely "sold out" on Jesus. To not fear the condemnation from our father or brother or wife or co-worker if we just totally throw ourselves into Jesus. To be willing to spend 5 hours on a Friday night in prayer and the Word. To be willing to sell everything we have and give up the "American dream" to pursue and follow God wherever He may lead us. A guy told me one time that instead of practicing a lucrative medical practice, he chose to give away his medical talents. He opened a free medical practice in Augusta. People told him he was crazy. His father is a successful real estate developer. He was raised in a "money" family. His uncle is a local physician. He could have just fallen into line and had the big house, beach place and boat. People told him "you'll be poor" and his answer always has been "Yeah, only for about 80 years and in the framework of eternity, that's nothing."
As David Platt says, "Am I willing to hear the Word...even if it convicts me. Am I willing to obey the Word...even if it costs me?"
So these things have been stirring in me - some of them connected and some of them not and I picked up the book Radical. Wow. Oh my.
"It is entirely possible that he will tell us to sell everything we have and give it to the poor. But we don't want to believe it. We are afraid of what it might mean for our lives. So we rationalize these passages away. "Jesus wouldn't really tell us to not bury our father or say good-bye to our family (Abraham). Jesus didn't literally mean to sell all we have and give it to the poor. What Jesus really meant was....And this is where we need to pause. Because we are starting to redefine Christianity. We are giving in to the dangerous temptation to take the Jesus of the Bible and twist him into a version of Jesus we are more comfortable with. A nice, middle-class, American Jesus. A Jesus who doesn't mind materialism and who would never call us to give away all that we have. A Jesus who is fine with nominal devotion that does not infringe on our comforts, because, after all, he loves us just the way we are."
Oh my.
He then talks about a trip he took to Hyderabad, India. He says that Bonhoeffer said "the first call every Christian experiences is the call to abandon the attachments of this world" and that as we spend our time pursuing the American dream, literally billions of people will remain in the dark to the Gospel. On a hill in Hyderabad, "God gripped my heart and flooded my mind with two resounding words, "Wake up". Wake up and realize that there are infinitely more important things in your life than football and your 401(k). Wake up and realize there are real battles to be fought, so different from the superficial, meaningless battles you focus on. Wake up to the countless multitudes who are destined for a Christ-less eternity."
Yes.
He goes on and talks about his experiences with the underground churches in China and in Muslim controlled nations -- people that sneak out together early in the morning to worship God in secret. 60 people crammed in a room with a light and their Bibles. No plasma TV's on the wall, no cushioned seats, no praise band, no cool video clips to sell the point of the message, no time limit so we can get to the club by 12:30 for lunch -- just people starving for God's Word. People so hungry, they will meet for 3-4 hours to just read the Bible and pray. "I want to know him. I want to experience him. I want to be a part of a people who delight in him like the Asians who have nothing but him. And I want to be a part of a people who are risking it all for him."
That taste. Oh, to have a taste of that in America where we care more about how comfortable the chairs are in church -- or -- we complain that the nursery workers who tend to our kids for an hour aren't organized like we think they should be. I too hunger for that passion. I crave an abundant, abandoning faith. I crave being in places where God has to show up. I'm sick of the prosperity/comfort Christianity. I want to be uncomfortable. I want risk in my faith.
I'll end this long post with this last image he talked about. I used this Friday with the FCA kids. We all stand alone on a beach with a wall of water 1,000 feet high coming at us 100 miles per hour. That water is our sin. We own it. No one helped us get it. It's ours. And we can't run from it. We stand alone on that beach with no one to turn to. As we stand there that crushing wall of sin comes at us like a freight train. We can't outrun it. Our time is up. We must face and own our sin. In that moment, we don't just "accept" Jesus. Jesus doesn't need me to accept him. He isn't a facebook friend I decide to add after an emotional weekend retreat and then I go back to my nice, comfortable, American consumerism life. No, in that moment, I BEG for a Savior. I cry out. I fall to my needs at the horror of my life's work and the depravity of my soul. Without a Savior, I'm doomed.
And Jesus takes that wall of water and we are lifted up presented to God in Christ's glory -- none of our own doing. In that, we praise him, "Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty. The one that is and is to come. With all creation I sing, praise to the King of Kings, you are my everything and I will adore you."
How on earth we've taken that picture of salvation and turned that into a "Jesus wants to make me rich" theology is beyond me. In the context of that wall of water crushing down on me and my salvation through Christ, my 401(k) no longer matters. 1 billion people on this earth have not heard the name of Jesus. That matters. The Gospel needs to be shared and Jesus doesn't do it by himself. We came to Christ through others who shared their faith with us. So too for us...we are to go. Go share the Gospel to all corners of this earth. And if that means we "give up" all that is the American dream...so be it. Go. He commands...Go.
Soar!
Saturday, December 04, 2010
Wednesday, December 01, 2010
How good is good enough?
(from a sermon by Andy Stanley)
Surely there is more than one way to get to Heaven. Jesus said the only way to the Father was through the Son. But surely, there must be more than one way.
Oprah says there is. She says that in our goodness we can all “get there” and while one might call it “God” the next might call it “the light” but either way, we can all get there in any way we choose through our “loving, kindness and generosity”
What idea supports this belief that “good” people go to heaven?
Good Buddhists, good Muslims, good Jews – the common denominator is not our belief system or how we pray or worship…it is that we are good people.
Good dad, good person doing good deeds.
We like this way of thinking. Why? Because we’re all good.
1. It is a fair system – good things happen to good people
2. You’ll make the cut – because after all, you’re good.
3. This system motivates you to be good
4. It is a very consistent view of a good God – good God, good Heaven filled with good people. It is logical, practical and makes common sense.
But there some major problems with this system
1. There is no clear standard of good and bad so we can check our progress.
No scale. No test scores. Doesn’t God owe us a clear hurdle to get over? So we pull the bible out “Love your neighbor as yourself, love the Lord, be kind, be obedient..” It’s all in there…I’m living according to the Good book. Good God, good Heaven, good people.
The problem is even if we were all living by our own internal scale and gauge – there is no consensus. We have no earthly idea of what “good” is.
2. We don’t know where the cut is
50% 70% 85% what do I have to score to get in?
When does the counting start? At age 6, 16 or 40?
Do some sins count more against me than others?
Many people think Christianity is unfair because some people won’t hear the Gospel
You know what….so is the “good people system”.
It is like a teacher starting the school year saying, “There is one test at the end of the year and it is pass/fail. You’re dismissed.” And you say, “Wait…are there no notes to take?” Nope. “Is there anything we can read?” Nope. “Is there anyone who has gone before us that we can talk to?” Nope.
“You mean you are going to test us on material you’ve never covered, never explained to us, never taught us and we’re supposed to figure out what it takes to pass?”
Yep. Class dismissed.
The same is true of the “good” system – you have made up the rules. You’ve decided what is good. After all, you are good.
Here is what the Bible says…
“All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” Rom 3:23
“There is not one righteous. Not even one.” Rom 3:10
“Therefore no one will be declared righteous in His sight by observing the Law – rather through the Law, we have become conscious of sin.” Rom 3:20
Oh, OK …”I’ll keep the 10 commandments…that’s good and if I do, I’ll get into Heaven.”
Did you know that in that whole part of the Bible when God gives Moses the 10 Commandments and Moses brings them down to the people…there is not one mention of the word “Heaven” or “Eternal Life”?
Oh, OK….”I’ll just do my best to do what is right. I have this innate sense of what is right. That’s what God will look at.”
Major wars have been fought over what two sides thought was “right”
150 years ago, many Americans thought slavery was “right” and they even would quote scripture to back their argument.
The Nazis thought what they were doing to the Jews was “right”
We chased the Indians off their land because we came here to pursue religious freedom and we thought we were “right”
3. It makes a liar of Jesus
Jesus taught that “bad” people go to Heaven and “good” people don’t. The good people washed a certain way, ate certain foods, kept all the rules. Jesus walked around forgiving the people who didn’t keep the rules.
Jesus taught that “good” people don’t go to Heaven. Forgiven ones do. Go read Luke 23:32-43 -- read how Jesus dealt with the criminal on the cross next to him.
Jesus taught – everyone is welcome, everyone gets in the same way and everyone can meet the requirement. The requirement is John 3:16. “For God so loved the world that He gave his one and only Son and whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
Whoever “really tries hard”?
Whoever is “really good”?
Whoever “keeps the 10 commandments”?
NO. Whoever believes in Christ.
Being a Christian is all about placing all my trust in what Christ has already done. He said on the Cross… “It is finished”. It’s done. I can’t add to it. It’s not about me being good.
ALL that is needed has already been done on my behalf.
Christianity isn’t about being good. It is about understanding I am forgiven.
(from a sermon by Andy Stanley)
Surely there is more than one way to get to Heaven. Jesus said the only way to the Father was through the Son. But surely, there must be more than one way.
Oprah says there is. She says that in our goodness we can all “get there” and while one might call it “God” the next might call it “the light” but either way, we can all get there in any way we choose through our “loving, kindness and generosity”
What idea supports this belief that “good” people go to heaven?
Good Buddhists, good Muslims, good Jews – the common denominator is not our belief system or how we pray or worship…it is that we are good people.
Good dad, good person doing good deeds.
We like this way of thinking. Why? Because we’re all good.
1. It is a fair system – good things happen to good people
2. You’ll make the cut – because after all, you’re good.
3. This system motivates you to be good
4. It is a very consistent view of a good God – good God, good Heaven filled with good people. It is logical, practical and makes common sense.
But there some major problems with this system
1. There is no clear standard of good and bad so we can check our progress.
No scale. No test scores. Doesn’t God owe us a clear hurdle to get over? So we pull the bible out “Love your neighbor as yourself, love the Lord, be kind, be obedient..” It’s all in there…I’m living according to the Good book. Good God, good Heaven, good people.
The problem is even if we were all living by our own internal scale and gauge – there is no consensus. We have no earthly idea of what “good” is.
2. We don’t know where the cut is
50% 70% 85% what do I have to score to get in?
When does the counting start? At age 6, 16 or 40?
Do some sins count more against me than others?
Many people think Christianity is unfair because some people won’t hear the Gospel
You know what….so is the “good people system”.
It is like a teacher starting the school year saying, “There is one test at the end of the year and it is pass/fail. You’re dismissed.” And you say, “Wait…are there no notes to take?” Nope. “Is there anything we can read?” Nope. “Is there anyone who has gone before us that we can talk to?” Nope.
“You mean you are going to test us on material you’ve never covered, never explained to us, never taught us and we’re supposed to figure out what it takes to pass?”
Yep. Class dismissed.
The same is true of the “good” system – you have made up the rules. You’ve decided what is good. After all, you are good.
Here is what the Bible says…
“All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” Rom 3:23
“There is not one righteous. Not even one.” Rom 3:10
“Therefore no one will be declared righteous in His sight by observing the Law – rather through the Law, we have become conscious of sin.” Rom 3:20
Oh, OK …”I’ll keep the 10 commandments…that’s good and if I do, I’ll get into Heaven.”
Did you know that in that whole part of the Bible when God gives Moses the 10 Commandments and Moses brings them down to the people…there is not one mention of the word “Heaven” or “Eternal Life”?
Oh, OK….”I’ll just do my best to do what is right. I have this innate sense of what is right. That’s what God will look at.”
Major wars have been fought over what two sides thought was “right”
150 years ago, many Americans thought slavery was “right” and they even would quote scripture to back their argument.
The Nazis thought what they were doing to the Jews was “right”
We chased the Indians off their land because we came here to pursue religious freedom and we thought we were “right”
3. It makes a liar of Jesus
Jesus taught that “bad” people go to Heaven and “good” people don’t. The good people washed a certain way, ate certain foods, kept all the rules. Jesus walked around forgiving the people who didn’t keep the rules.
Jesus taught that “good” people don’t go to Heaven. Forgiven ones do. Go read Luke 23:32-43 -- read how Jesus dealt with the criminal on the cross next to him.
Jesus taught – everyone is welcome, everyone gets in the same way and everyone can meet the requirement. The requirement is John 3:16. “For God so loved the world that He gave his one and only Son and whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
Whoever “really tries hard”?
Whoever is “really good”?
Whoever “keeps the 10 commandments”?
NO. Whoever believes in Christ.
Being a Christian is all about placing all my trust in what Christ has already done. He said on the Cross… “It is finished”. It’s done. I can’t add to it. It’s not about me being good.
ALL that is needed has already been done on my behalf.
Christianity isn’t about being good. It is about understanding I am forgiven.
FCA Talk 6 – Why we need a coach
What if the football coach showed up the first day of summer practice and said "Y'all are talented - you figure it out. We'll be back for the first game and see how you do."
What if the basketball coach took 5 very talented players and just turned them loose? Let them run and gun. What if the coach never came to practice...just gave them what they wanted, let them just play, let them just have fun? No conditioning. No position coaching. No free-throw practices. Just "run and gun boys...you're talented...figure it out"
Would that work? Does it work in life? Is that mindset working in America where we just want to do what makes us feel good. We don't want the consequences...we just want to do things and buy things that make us feel good.
At the start of the movie, Coach Carter takes a part-time, low-paying job coaching the basketball team at his old high school. Of course, the boys are wild, cocky and unruly. Plus, they had a dismal 4 and 22 record!
80% of the boys in that high school wind up in jail. Only 50% graduate and 6% go to college.
Isn’t this a picture of the world and man? Isn’t this a picture of our culture today? We are cocky, wild and unruly. We want what we want. Life is all about what we can grab and our record of success is abysmal. Marriages ending in divorce, addition to cocaine or booze or meth, addiction to sex, a culture drenched in pornography and reckless living. We are a people who know the rules, know what is right/wrong and yet, we still chase after what makes us feel good despite the cost.
Coach Carter sets out to coach the boys = the fundamentals, the plays, the discipline, getting them into shape and he sets strict rules for the team:
• 2.3 GPA minimum (higher than the required 2.0 GPA)
• No skipping of classes
• Must sit in the front row in class
• Must wear jackets and ties on game days.
The natural reaction? Three players walk out of practice.
Isn’t that our reaction to God? He sets some rules for us. He gives us some guidelines for life, i.e. don’t be drunk with wine, don’t cheat on your wife with another woman, don’t covet what your neighbor has. And isn’t our reaction to just walk out on that?
God gives us the Bible (the Word) it is our playbook for life – plays for offense and defense. James 1-2
So Coach Carter puts in these rules, focuses on discipline, focuses on respect and the team starts winning games.
Cruz, who had walked out in the first session, fights like crazy to get back onto the team. And after impressing the Coach, he's allowed back on.
It soon becomes apparent that all that has changed is the boys' ability to win. They taunt opponents, skip class, and get bad grades.
So, the boys start to win because they follow their coach – God starts to bless us. And as soon as we get some blessings, we turn our backs on God and want to Quarterback our lives…we’re in control now God, thanks for getting us here….
So Carter goes crazy himself.
• He locks them out of the gym (in the midst of an undefeated season!)
• He forfeits some games
• He makes the players get tutoring, instead of basketball practice
This leads to Cruz quitting (again). He goes back to dealing drugs full-time. But the untimely death of Cruz' drug-dealing cousin shakes some sense into him. He focuses on basketball full-time, leaving the life of crime behind.
Just like Cruz, we rebel. If we can’t have life the way we want life, we rebel. Depsite all God has done for us in the past, we still take control of the wheel and it takes a brush with death to wake Cruz and us up!
The players' parents want the basketball to continue, and get the school board to approve it!
But the boys prove that they've learned something - they’ve been coached --, by going to basketball practice, AND GETTING TUTORED ON THE BASKETBALL COURT!
A good number of the players ended up going to college - a rarity for kids from their school.
Coach Carter is a great picture of why we need Christ. We cannot do this life alone. If left to our own devices, we'll train-wreck life every single time. We need a coach. We need to surrender our "I know what I'm doing" rebellious attitude and we need to come under His guidance. We need a coach.
What if the football coach showed up the first day of summer practice and said "Y'all are talented - you figure it out. We'll be back for the first game and see how you do."
What if the basketball coach took 5 very talented players and just turned them loose? Let them run and gun. What if the coach never came to practice...just gave them what they wanted, let them just play, let them just have fun? No conditioning. No position coaching. No free-throw practices. Just "run and gun boys...you're talented...figure it out"
Would that work? Does it work in life? Is that mindset working in America where we just want to do what makes us feel good. We don't want the consequences...we just want to do things and buy things that make us feel good.
At the start of the movie, Coach Carter takes a part-time, low-paying job coaching the basketball team at his old high school. Of course, the boys are wild, cocky and unruly. Plus, they had a dismal 4 and 22 record!
80% of the boys in that high school wind up in jail. Only 50% graduate and 6% go to college.
Isn’t this a picture of the world and man? Isn’t this a picture of our culture today? We are cocky, wild and unruly. We want what we want. Life is all about what we can grab and our record of success is abysmal. Marriages ending in divorce, addition to cocaine or booze or meth, addiction to sex, a culture drenched in pornography and reckless living. We are a people who know the rules, know what is right/wrong and yet, we still chase after what makes us feel good despite the cost.
Coach Carter sets out to coach the boys = the fundamentals, the plays, the discipline, getting them into shape and he sets strict rules for the team:
• 2.3 GPA minimum (higher than the required 2.0 GPA)
• No skipping of classes
• Must sit in the front row in class
• Must wear jackets and ties on game days.
The natural reaction? Three players walk out of practice.
Isn’t that our reaction to God? He sets some rules for us. He gives us some guidelines for life, i.e. don’t be drunk with wine, don’t cheat on your wife with another woman, don’t covet what your neighbor has. And isn’t our reaction to just walk out on that?
God gives us the Bible (the Word) it is our playbook for life – plays for offense and defense. James 1-2
So Coach Carter puts in these rules, focuses on discipline, focuses on respect and the team starts winning games.
Cruz, who had walked out in the first session, fights like crazy to get back onto the team. And after impressing the Coach, he's allowed back on.
It soon becomes apparent that all that has changed is the boys' ability to win. They taunt opponents, skip class, and get bad grades.
So, the boys start to win because they follow their coach – God starts to bless us. And as soon as we get some blessings, we turn our backs on God and want to Quarterback our lives…we’re in control now God, thanks for getting us here….
So Carter goes crazy himself.
• He locks them out of the gym (in the midst of an undefeated season!)
• He forfeits some games
• He makes the players get tutoring, instead of basketball practice
This leads to Cruz quitting (again). He goes back to dealing drugs full-time. But the untimely death of Cruz' drug-dealing cousin shakes some sense into him. He focuses on basketball full-time, leaving the life of crime behind.
Just like Cruz, we rebel. If we can’t have life the way we want life, we rebel. Depsite all God has done for us in the past, we still take control of the wheel and it takes a brush with death to wake Cruz and us up!
The players' parents want the basketball to continue, and get the school board to approve it!
But the boys prove that they've learned something - they’ve been coached --, by going to basketball practice, AND GETTING TUTORED ON THE BASKETBALL COURT!
A good number of the players ended up going to college - a rarity for kids from their school.
Coach Carter is a great picture of why we need Christ. We cannot do this life alone. If left to our own devices, we'll train-wreck life every single time. We need a coach. We need to surrender our "I know what I'm doing" rebellious attitude and we need to come under His guidance. We need a coach.
TIME
How much time do you have left?
At 15-17 years old, you don’t think about your death and you shouldn’t.
But at 46, the end starts to be more of a thought.
It seems like just yesterday that I was sitting right where you were and in a flash, 30 years has gone by. In another flash, I’ll be my father’s age – 76 years old with the end very near.
For some of you, you are seniors.
High school never seemed like it would end and in a flash, it has.
Some of you are now thinking about college and you’re scared. But trust me, those 4 years will be gone quickly and in just a few years, you’ll be working.
In a flash = you will be going to work 5 days a week. High school will be a distant memory and college will be over.
Even now as you reflect, doesn’t kindergarten seem a long time ago but yet also something you wish you could go back to? Wasn’t life a heck of a lot easier as a 5 year old?
So we’re going to talk about time and where your story fits into the timeline of life
Moses – born a Hebrew was adopted by Pharaoh’s daughter. He became the Prince of Egypt. He discovered his heritage and killed an Egyptian while defending a Jewish slave. He flees Egypt and goes to the middle of nowhere. He becomes a shepherd. He spends 40 years essentially doing nothing. All day long every day, over and over, tending sheep.
But God has a plan for him and sends him to Egypt to free the Hebrew slaves.
Moses wrote Psalm 90. It gives us a great picture of how we are to view time. We are to view our lives in the context of God.
As a teenager, you think life is all about you. And for the most part, it is. Your whole world tends to revolve around you. You are focused on you. When you walk into a room, you immediately think “What does everyone think of me”.
But at some point in the natural progression of your life, you’ll begin to learn life isn’t all about you and you’ll start to ask “So then, what’s the point?”
As Moses says in this Psalm, “From everlasting to everlasting – it is God”.
God turns people back into dust saying, “Return to dust you mortals”. No matter how cool, how popular, how rich, how famous you are…at the end God will say to you, “Return to dust”
“A thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by – or like a watch (3 hour shift) in the night.”
If we think in 3 hour terms while God thinks in 1,000 year terms, how long is your life in God’s perspective.
It’s like the government debt clock showing how fast money is spent.
You work your entire life and save money and when you die, you’re estate owes the government $400,000 in taxes – before your family can even write the check, the government has spent the $400,000
All you’ve worked to accumulate – your whole life’s work – spent in 5 seconds.
That is you life….PFFFHT….gone….in an instant, your life is gone. “Like grass – new in the morning, withered at night.”
The point of all this isn’t “Your life doesn’t matter”, the point is that our life is so common, so quick, snap of a finger and over – that it is futile to try to create something meaningful on your own.
Our only hope for purpose and meaning is to inject what time we do have into something much larger than “my” story – to inject it into what God is doing, his grand scheme.
"Seek and you shall find". All other things can be sought and NOT found --money, pleasure, power, fame, health, peace, security or worldly success. Only God is guaranteed.
Man chases after pleasure and money and power and fame and no matter how hard we chase after it, we never reach it. You can never reach pleasure. You can taste it but you can never own it, possess it. Fame and power are always short-lived. Money – you can spend you whole life accumulating money but there is always going to be someone else who has more than you do. You can’t ever “win” the money game. No amount of money ever truly satisfies man.
Have you ever thought, “If only I get that new iPad or that new BMW – if I get that, I’ll be totally happy” How long does that last?
You can chase these things all you want but you will never find happiness in them.
So if we realize that our time is limited and that in reality, we are quite small, it changes the focus of our life.
Look at President Obama – he was elected with this huge mandate. He was hip and cool. He was young and vibrant. He spoke passionately about hope and change. America got drunk on his charisma.
The power of America was shifted to him and he made a fatal error we are all so prone to make, he began to think all of this was about him. His legacy. His mandate to re-arrange society and fix all of our problems. He started to focus not on the economy or on jobs but on passing a piece of landmark legislation – something that he would go down in history for having done. And so they passed healthcare reform.
The American people didn’t like it. 60% of the voters didn’t trust it but he pushed it through. He thought he knew best and knew what we needed and he failed to listen to the people that put in office.
He was handed power and the people trusted him. He took that power for granted and assumed it was all about him and he just suffered the worst Congressional defeat in more than 60 years. He no longer possesses the power he did.
When we make it all about us – what we can accomplish, what awards we can win, what promotions we can get, what attention we gather…it never turns out well. 2 things will always happen – 1) we’ll run out of time before we “get there” and 2) history will never speak highly of us.
This is what happens to most dictators – Kim Jung Ill in Korea, Hitler, Hugo Chavez in Columbia – when it shifts from being about the people to being about their legacy, their place in history, it always goes off course.
Moses – of all people given his role in history – could have turned this thing and made it all about him. After all he parted the Red Sea. But Moses knew…
“Our days may come to be 70-80 years if our strength endures; yet the best of them are trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away. If only we knew the power of your anger! Your wrath is as great as the fear that is your due.” PS 90:10-11
In other words, if we could truly see the power of God, we’d give him all the honor he is due. Moses got closer to God than anyone ever has and it turned his hair white.
If we could be in God’s presence for just 1 second, we’d drop all this crap of “It’s all about me” and we’d gladly give him our 70-80 years to serve him however he saw fit.
When Moses asked God what the people were to call him, God said, “I am”. When they came to arrest Jesus, they asked him if he was Jesus and he said, “I am” and the Bible says those standing there fell down - overpowered by God’s word.
“Teach us to number our days” PS 90:12
How many days until your birthday? Until Christmas? Until you get to go on that trip or attend that concert? If you have ever counted days, this is what this verse is saying.
We should realize that our days in this life are numbered. There is a beginning and an end.
Embrace these days and know God gave them to you and they aren’t about you. We live to reflect God’s glory….not ours.
There is a grander story at work
I have a small but important role
The story isn’t about me
My glory is quickly going away.
I want to maximize my days in God’s story
It is about you Lord….not me.
Use me.
Show me where to live beyond self – to put down my desires so I can love and help others.
How much time do you have left?
At 15-17 years old, you don’t think about your death and you shouldn’t.
But at 46, the end starts to be more of a thought.
It seems like just yesterday that I was sitting right where you were and in a flash, 30 years has gone by. In another flash, I’ll be my father’s age – 76 years old with the end very near.
For some of you, you are seniors.
High school never seemed like it would end and in a flash, it has.
Some of you are now thinking about college and you’re scared. But trust me, those 4 years will be gone quickly and in just a few years, you’ll be working.
In a flash = you will be going to work 5 days a week. High school will be a distant memory and college will be over.
Even now as you reflect, doesn’t kindergarten seem a long time ago but yet also something you wish you could go back to? Wasn’t life a heck of a lot easier as a 5 year old?
So we’re going to talk about time and where your story fits into the timeline of life
Moses – born a Hebrew was adopted by Pharaoh’s daughter. He became the Prince of Egypt. He discovered his heritage and killed an Egyptian while defending a Jewish slave. He flees Egypt and goes to the middle of nowhere. He becomes a shepherd. He spends 40 years essentially doing nothing. All day long every day, over and over, tending sheep.
But God has a plan for him and sends him to Egypt to free the Hebrew slaves.
Moses wrote Psalm 90. It gives us a great picture of how we are to view time. We are to view our lives in the context of God.
As a teenager, you think life is all about you. And for the most part, it is. Your whole world tends to revolve around you. You are focused on you. When you walk into a room, you immediately think “What does everyone think of me”.
But at some point in the natural progression of your life, you’ll begin to learn life isn’t all about you and you’ll start to ask “So then, what’s the point?”
As Moses says in this Psalm, “From everlasting to everlasting – it is God”.
God turns people back into dust saying, “Return to dust you mortals”. No matter how cool, how popular, how rich, how famous you are…at the end God will say to you, “Return to dust”
“A thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by – or like a watch (3 hour shift) in the night.”
If we think in 3 hour terms while God thinks in 1,000 year terms, how long is your life in God’s perspective.
It’s like the government debt clock showing how fast money is spent.
You work your entire life and save money and when you die, you’re estate owes the government $400,000 in taxes – before your family can even write the check, the government has spent the $400,000
All you’ve worked to accumulate – your whole life’s work – spent in 5 seconds.
That is you life….PFFFHT….gone….in an instant, your life is gone. “Like grass – new in the morning, withered at night.”
The point of all this isn’t “Your life doesn’t matter”, the point is that our life is so common, so quick, snap of a finger and over – that it is futile to try to create something meaningful on your own.
Our only hope for purpose and meaning is to inject what time we do have into something much larger than “my” story – to inject it into what God is doing, his grand scheme.
"Seek and you shall find". All other things can be sought and NOT found --money, pleasure, power, fame, health, peace, security or worldly success. Only God is guaranteed.
Man chases after pleasure and money and power and fame and no matter how hard we chase after it, we never reach it. You can never reach pleasure. You can taste it but you can never own it, possess it. Fame and power are always short-lived. Money – you can spend you whole life accumulating money but there is always going to be someone else who has more than you do. You can’t ever “win” the money game. No amount of money ever truly satisfies man.
Have you ever thought, “If only I get that new iPad or that new BMW – if I get that, I’ll be totally happy” How long does that last?
You can chase these things all you want but you will never find happiness in them.
So if we realize that our time is limited and that in reality, we are quite small, it changes the focus of our life.
Look at President Obama – he was elected with this huge mandate. He was hip and cool. He was young and vibrant. He spoke passionately about hope and change. America got drunk on his charisma.
The power of America was shifted to him and he made a fatal error we are all so prone to make, he began to think all of this was about him. His legacy. His mandate to re-arrange society and fix all of our problems. He started to focus not on the economy or on jobs but on passing a piece of landmark legislation – something that he would go down in history for having done. And so they passed healthcare reform.
The American people didn’t like it. 60% of the voters didn’t trust it but he pushed it through. He thought he knew best and knew what we needed and he failed to listen to the people that put in office.
He was handed power and the people trusted him. He took that power for granted and assumed it was all about him and he just suffered the worst Congressional defeat in more than 60 years. He no longer possesses the power he did.
When we make it all about us – what we can accomplish, what awards we can win, what promotions we can get, what attention we gather…it never turns out well. 2 things will always happen – 1) we’ll run out of time before we “get there” and 2) history will never speak highly of us.
This is what happens to most dictators – Kim Jung Ill in Korea, Hitler, Hugo Chavez in Columbia – when it shifts from being about the people to being about their legacy, their place in history, it always goes off course.
Moses – of all people given his role in history – could have turned this thing and made it all about him. After all he parted the Red Sea. But Moses knew…
“Our days may come to be 70-80 years if our strength endures; yet the best of them are trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away. If only we knew the power of your anger! Your wrath is as great as the fear that is your due.” PS 90:10-11
In other words, if we could truly see the power of God, we’d give him all the honor he is due. Moses got closer to God than anyone ever has and it turned his hair white.
If we could be in God’s presence for just 1 second, we’d drop all this crap of “It’s all about me” and we’d gladly give him our 70-80 years to serve him however he saw fit.
When Moses asked God what the people were to call him, God said, “I am”. When they came to arrest Jesus, they asked him if he was Jesus and he said, “I am” and the Bible says those standing there fell down - overpowered by God’s word.
“Teach us to number our days” PS 90:12
How many days until your birthday? Until Christmas? Until you get to go on that trip or attend that concert? If you have ever counted days, this is what this verse is saying.
We should realize that our days in this life are numbered. There is a beginning and an end.
Embrace these days and know God gave them to you and they aren’t about you. We live to reflect God’s glory….not ours.
There is a grander story at work
I have a small but important role
The story isn’t about me
My glory is quickly going away.
I want to maximize my days in God’s story
It is about you Lord….not me.
Use me.
Show me where to live beyond self – to put down my desires so I can love and help others.
Thursday, September 30, 2010
FCA Talk 4 Sexuality
Remember, we need guardrails around us to protect us from more serious damage. If we ignore the need for guardrails in our lives, odds are we are going to get hurt.
We have a cat that sometimes wanders down to the end of our driveway hunting early in the morning. When I see her down there, I will text my daughter to warn her to drive slower than normal and to be on the lookout for the cat. I do that 1) for the sake of the cat and really more importantly, 2) for my daughter’s protection. I know that if she ran over the cat, it would be significantly impact her. That is a guardrail of sorts – guidance for her protection. Parents put up guardrails up for a reason – they tend to know more than you do. They’ve seen all the tricks and lies. The same is true for God and the Bible.
The Bible is a love letter written to God’s elect. It is a playbook of sorts – some offensive plays (reaching out to others) and defensive plays (things for our protection) – because God knows us and knows what is best for us.
Last week we briefly discussed deer hunting and how big bucks are hard to kill until the rut begins. I read this today on Buckmaster’s website, “Bucks, especially big bucks, are mostly nocturnal; they don’t travel the heavy doe trails; they don’t move around more than they have to; and they stay close to escape routes.” Guardrails.
Today we are going to talk about sex and our need for guardrails.
Sex is beautiful and powerful inside the confines of marriage. God knew what he was doing when he created Eve for Adam. Sex feels good and is, in reality, very much an act of worship. But very, very clearly God created and intended sex to held within the sanctity of marriage.
Sex outside of marriage is outside of God’s design. He knows best. He knows that two virgins uniting together on their wedding night, both inexperienced, both made for one another is the perfect design. They’ll learn together and they’ll bring no baggage nor comparisons to their marriage bed.
Unfortunately, our culture lives, eats and breathes a far different plan for sex and most of us have been seduced by that dark plan.
We talked about this a few sessions ago but our culture is absolutely drenched and saturated in sex. You are being baited and tempted every single day to the edge of the guardrail with sex.
I remind you that Americans spend $12 billion a year, $4,000 a second on pornography. The number one user of porn are boys age 12-17. If the goal is to enter marriage having never been with another woman and to learn sex with our wives, then tell me what porn is going to do a boy? What is he being exposed to? Is it “real”? Is that how sex really is supposed to be? Are women just objects to service men and fulfill the man’s lusts?
Porn is a lie. It isn’t real and every bit of it you watch and participate in stays with you like a cancer. There is a great saying in terms of computers – “Junk in, junk out”. If you program in junk to the computer, it is going to produce junk. The same is true of porn. You are ingesting junk and it will produce junk inside you.
If you are watching porn and think, “It does not matter” – you are kidding yourself and buying the lie.
Remember the Proverbs 7 story of the young man walking down the street and turning up the street toward the married woman waiting for him to seduce him.
That seems fun at the time. Surely it felt good. But it was wrong. She was married and her husband was away. The young man got lured into a trap by pursuing what felt good and soon was in a trap.
The young man was no different than Tiger Woods or Senator John Edwards or Governor Mark Sanford – they pursued what made them feel good and reaped the destruction that followed.
These men needed a guardrail. They needed a brick wall to prevent them from going anywhere near those women.
When it comes to sex, given the culture we live in, we need guardrails and we need those guardrails to be made of the strongest steel on earth.
The Bible is very clear on the topic of sex
Here's an easy verse to remember... "Flee sexual immorality" 1 Corinthians 6:8. Notice it doesn't say "walk away" or "be careful of", it says "Flee" i.e. run, escape, do not go near.
1 Thessalonians 4:3 - "You should avoid sexual immorality. Control your body in a way that is holy and honorable not in passionate lust like the heathens."
Lastly, Matthew 5:1 - "Do not commit adultery. If you look at another woman lustfully you have committed adultery in your heart."
Sex is a huge issue in the Bible and a huge issue in our culture. In 1960, 82% of Americans between the ages of 25-34 were married. Today that number is 44%. Rather than getting married the "culture" teaches us to just live together, have lots of sex and if it doesn't work out at least you haven't wasted getting time married. That is a lie. Remember, Satan is the father of all lies.
The culture is drenched in sex and if you engage now, it will never escape you. You'll never forget these hookups but odds are you might come to really regret them. Therein lies Satan's strategy -- lure you in with "everyone's doing this, it feels good" and then as soon as you do it, he'll pound you for the rest of your life with regret and guilt.
Here are some quotes from kids in the youth ministry I shared with you at our first 5th quarter on sex. If you think there is no pain, no hurt, no hooks in sex, listen to these…
I love him and I like sex but that is not the path I’m supposed to be on with God.
Dealing with pornography is so hard. It is like trying to break out of a cement box with no tools.
I feel like the loss of my virginity was a huge mistake. I am a Christian and I got caught up in the moment. I want to redeem myself and start over.
It’s just a normal thing for someone to ask you to go out and drink/smoke/have sex on the weekends. It is hard to resist the temptation.
I struggle with the loss of my virginity. I feel horrible, angry and disappointed.
I feel all guys see in me is the physical aspect. It makes me as a person feel worthless. I feel used and insignificant.
I feel trapped in sexual sin with my boyfriend. The guilt is overwhelming and I have no idea what to do. I’ve tried to stop but don’t have the courage to tell him no.
Do you see Satan’s strategy in all of this? You go in because you love him or it feels good and as soon as you’re in….you are stuck in a cement box with no tools to get out. You feel like you’ve made a huge mistake and want to start over. You feel horrible and angry. You feel trapped.
There it is….trapped.
What are some guardrails?
1) No porn ever. Period.
Porn is, quite simply, a complete and total LIE. Satan is the "father of all lies" and he is driving the business of porn. Porn is an emotional drug more powerful and more destructive than cocaine. If you are tempted, put a filter on your computer or turn the computer off. Go outside. Go look at the clear blue sky or a night, go look at the stars. There is something about the bigness of the world that kills the smallness of porn. If tempted just walk away.
2) No sleep overs ever. Period.
Never, ever sleep over. This isn’t as much of an issue today but it will be at college. Never put yourself in a situation where you are sleeping in an apartment or dorm room with a member of the opposite sex – even if you are just friends. And don’t say, “You don’t understand our culture, this is what we do”. Nope. That doesn’t make it work.
3) Hands off/no skin.
If you are dating, no touching. Foreplay is designed as the on ramp to sex. God gave us sex and He gave us foreplay. If you think you can start the foreplay without it leading to some form of sex, you’re kidding yourself. Don’t play with fire. Don’t light the match. You’ve got your whole life to enjoy sex with your spouse, don’t start it now.
4) No "soul mates".
If you are a girl, don’t make a boy your soul mate confidante and vice versa. Your confidante should be your parents or a friend not your boyfriend. What we crave in life is intimacy not sex. Opening our heart and our inner most hopes and fears to a member of the other sex opens the door to sex.
You may think these are too extreme. If so, I have three questions for you….
1) What do you want for the person you will eventually marry? Do you want him to have been hooking up with dozens of girls in high school in college? Is your deepest dream that he’d be sexually educated and experienced? Probably not. And so if you don’t want that for your husband, why are you pursuing it?
2) What do you want for your little sister? If you think this is bunk, is all this hooking up what you are eager to see your little sister doing in a few years?
3) Let’s say you think all of this is dumb and you just keep on going. In two years you wake up and think your girlfriend is pregnant or you are totally addicted to porn – that you are in a sexual disaster because you decided to step over the guardrails and foolishly decided to pursue feeling good – what then? Where will you be then? Will you cry out to God? Will you pray, “Lord, if you let her not be pregnant, I promise I’ll never do this again?” Probably. Save yourself that future anguish but putting up the guardrails now. A pastor who has counseled hundreds of people trapped in sexual disasters told me, "I've never had one person - not one person - say to me, "You know, I am so glad I got into sex at an early age, so glad I got hooked on porn, so glad I slept around with all those guys. Never once have I heard someone rejoice in those decisions."
If you establish these guardrails, I can guarantee you that you will not regret it. These really aren’t that extreme in a culture consumed and drunk with sex. The culture is trying to rip you to shreds and tear you apart. These guardrails should be a given for you to protect you from what is on the other side.
Lastly, what if you’ve already crossed over? Is it too late?
No! You can never get your virginity back but you also never have to do any of that again until you are married. We all make mistakes – some are more costly than others. But if you are convicted that this behavior is wrong for you and you are committed to turning a corner, God will forgive you.
In turning away from this past lifestyle, you can actually become a strong witness for the Lord. You can say, “I’ve made huge mistakes – don’t go there” to the younger kids around you.
No matter how bad your sin is, God will forgive if you break and give up and give it over to Him.
Remember, we need guardrails around us to protect us from more serious damage. If we ignore the need for guardrails in our lives, odds are we are going to get hurt.
We have a cat that sometimes wanders down to the end of our driveway hunting early in the morning. When I see her down there, I will text my daughter to warn her to drive slower than normal and to be on the lookout for the cat. I do that 1) for the sake of the cat and really more importantly, 2) for my daughter’s protection. I know that if she ran over the cat, it would be significantly impact her. That is a guardrail of sorts – guidance for her protection. Parents put up guardrails up for a reason – they tend to know more than you do. They’ve seen all the tricks and lies. The same is true for God and the Bible.
The Bible is a love letter written to God’s elect. It is a playbook of sorts – some offensive plays (reaching out to others) and defensive plays (things for our protection) – because God knows us and knows what is best for us.
Last week we briefly discussed deer hunting and how big bucks are hard to kill until the rut begins. I read this today on Buckmaster’s website, “Bucks, especially big bucks, are mostly nocturnal; they don’t travel the heavy doe trails; they don’t move around more than they have to; and they stay close to escape routes.” Guardrails.
Today we are going to talk about sex and our need for guardrails.
Sex is beautiful and powerful inside the confines of marriage. God knew what he was doing when he created Eve for Adam. Sex feels good and is, in reality, very much an act of worship. But very, very clearly God created and intended sex to held within the sanctity of marriage.
Sex outside of marriage is outside of God’s design. He knows best. He knows that two virgins uniting together on their wedding night, both inexperienced, both made for one another is the perfect design. They’ll learn together and they’ll bring no baggage nor comparisons to their marriage bed.
Unfortunately, our culture lives, eats and breathes a far different plan for sex and most of us have been seduced by that dark plan.
We talked about this a few sessions ago but our culture is absolutely drenched and saturated in sex. You are being baited and tempted every single day to the edge of the guardrail with sex.
I remind you that Americans spend $12 billion a year, $4,000 a second on pornography. The number one user of porn are boys age 12-17. If the goal is to enter marriage having never been with another woman and to learn sex with our wives, then tell me what porn is going to do a boy? What is he being exposed to? Is it “real”? Is that how sex really is supposed to be? Are women just objects to service men and fulfill the man’s lusts?
Porn is a lie. It isn’t real and every bit of it you watch and participate in stays with you like a cancer. There is a great saying in terms of computers – “Junk in, junk out”. If you program in junk to the computer, it is going to produce junk. The same is true of porn. You are ingesting junk and it will produce junk inside you.
If you are watching porn and think, “It does not matter” – you are kidding yourself and buying the lie.
Remember the Proverbs 7 story of the young man walking down the street and turning up the street toward the married woman waiting for him to seduce him.
That seems fun at the time. Surely it felt good. But it was wrong. She was married and her husband was away. The young man got lured into a trap by pursuing what felt good and soon was in a trap.
The young man was no different than Tiger Woods or Senator John Edwards or Governor Mark Sanford – they pursued what made them feel good and reaped the destruction that followed.
These men needed a guardrail. They needed a brick wall to prevent them from going anywhere near those women.
When it comes to sex, given the culture we live in, we need guardrails and we need those guardrails to be made of the strongest steel on earth.
The Bible is very clear on the topic of sex
Here's an easy verse to remember... "Flee sexual immorality" 1 Corinthians 6:8. Notice it doesn't say "walk away" or "be careful of", it says "Flee" i.e. run, escape, do not go near.
1 Thessalonians 4:3 - "You should avoid sexual immorality. Control your body in a way that is holy and honorable not in passionate lust like the heathens."
Lastly, Matthew 5:1 - "Do not commit adultery. If you look at another woman lustfully you have committed adultery in your heart."
Sex is a huge issue in the Bible and a huge issue in our culture. In 1960, 82% of Americans between the ages of 25-34 were married. Today that number is 44%. Rather than getting married the "culture" teaches us to just live together, have lots of sex and if it doesn't work out at least you haven't wasted getting time married. That is a lie. Remember, Satan is the father of all lies.
The culture is drenched in sex and if you engage now, it will never escape you. You'll never forget these hookups but odds are you might come to really regret them. Therein lies Satan's strategy -- lure you in with "everyone's doing this, it feels good" and then as soon as you do it, he'll pound you for the rest of your life with regret and guilt.
Here are some quotes from kids in the youth ministry I shared with you at our first 5th quarter on sex. If you think there is no pain, no hurt, no hooks in sex, listen to these…
I love him and I like sex but that is not the path I’m supposed to be on with God.
Dealing with pornography is so hard. It is like trying to break out of a cement box with no tools.
I feel like the loss of my virginity was a huge mistake. I am a Christian and I got caught up in the moment. I want to redeem myself and start over.
It’s just a normal thing for someone to ask you to go out and drink/smoke/have sex on the weekends. It is hard to resist the temptation.
I struggle with the loss of my virginity. I feel horrible, angry and disappointed.
I feel all guys see in me is the physical aspect. It makes me as a person feel worthless. I feel used and insignificant.
I feel trapped in sexual sin with my boyfriend. The guilt is overwhelming and I have no idea what to do. I’ve tried to stop but don’t have the courage to tell him no.
Do you see Satan’s strategy in all of this? You go in because you love him or it feels good and as soon as you’re in….you are stuck in a cement box with no tools to get out. You feel like you’ve made a huge mistake and want to start over. You feel horrible and angry. You feel trapped.
There it is….trapped.
What are some guardrails?
1) No porn ever. Period.
Porn is, quite simply, a complete and total LIE. Satan is the "father of all lies" and he is driving the business of porn. Porn is an emotional drug more powerful and more destructive than cocaine. If you are tempted, put a filter on your computer or turn the computer off. Go outside. Go look at the clear blue sky or a night, go look at the stars. There is something about the bigness of the world that kills the smallness of porn. If tempted just walk away.
2) No sleep overs ever. Period.
Never, ever sleep over. This isn’t as much of an issue today but it will be at college. Never put yourself in a situation where you are sleeping in an apartment or dorm room with a member of the opposite sex – even if you are just friends. And don’t say, “You don’t understand our culture, this is what we do”. Nope. That doesn’t make it work.
3) Hands off/no skin.
If you are dating, no touching. Foreplay is designed as the on ramp to sex. God gave us sex and He gave us foreplay. If you think you can start the foreplay without it leading to some form of sex, you’re kidding yourself. Don’t play with fire. Don’t light the match. You’ve got your whole life to enjoy sex with your spouse, don’t start it now.
4) No "soul mates".
If you are a girl, don’t make a boy your soul mate confidante and vice versa. Your confidante should be your parents or a friend not your boyfriend. What we crave in life is intimacy not sex. Opening our heart and our inner most hopes and fears to a member of the other sex opens the door to sex.
You may think these are too extreme. If so, I have three questions for you….
1) What do you want for the person you will eventually marry? Do you want him to have been hooking up with dozens of girls in high school in college? Is your deepest dream that he’d be sexually educated and experienced? Probably not. And so if you don’t want that for your husband, why are you pursuing it?
2) What do you want for your little sister? If you think this is bunk, is all this hooking up what you are eager to see your little sister doing in a few years?
3) Let’s say you think all of this is dumb and you just keep on going. In two years you wake up and think your girlfriend is pregnant or you are totally addicted to porn – that you are in a sexual disaster because you decided to step over the guardrails and foolishly decided to pursue feeling good – what then? Where will you be then? Will you cry out to God? Will you pray, “Lord, if you let her not be pregnant, I promise I’ll never do this again?” Probably. Save yourself that future anguish but putting up the guardrails now. A pastor who has counseled hundreds of people trapped in sexual disasters told me, "I've never had one person - not one person - say to me, "You know, I am so glad I got into sex at an early age, so glad I got hooked on porn, so glad I slept around with all those guys. Never once have I heard someone rejoice in those decisions."
If you establish these guardrails, I can guarantee you that you will not regret it. These really aren’t that extreme in a culture consumed and drunk with sex. The culture is trying to rip you to shreds and tear you apart. These guardrails should be a given for you to protect you from what is on the other side.
Lastly, what if you’ve already crossed over? Is it too late?
No! You can never get your virginity back but you also never have to do any of that again until you are married. We all make mistakes – some are more costly than others. But if you are convicted that this behavior is wrong for you and you are committed to turning a corner, God will forgive you.
In turning away from this past lifestyle, you can actually become a strong witness for the Lord. You can say, “I’ve made huge mistakes – don’t go there” to the younger kids around you.
No matter how bad your sin is, God will forgive if you break and give up and give it over to Him.
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
FCA Talk 3
If you’ve been with us – this is the context in which I share this message from the Lord
1. You are fearfully and wonderfully made. You are a masterpiece. God created you and God delights in you. The enemy hates you. He despises you. He is the father of lies. He seeks to steal, kill and destroy you…the masterpiece God created. There is a battle underway for your soul.
2. Because you are God’s masterpiece and He is your father – He has written you this book as a love letter. Its primary message is not damnation and this book is not a rule book. It is a love letter written to His children. It is a playbook like the football players have to play football. There are plays in here for offense and plays in here for defense. This is a living breathing document written to you for a full, abundant life.
At some point in your life you will be around friends moving in a different direction. Your friends can ultimately determine the direction of your life
In Proverbs 13:20 – “Walk with the wise and become wise but the companion of fools suffers harm.” The companion of fools suffers harm.
Your greatest regrets in life don’t revolve around your enemies but rather your friends
It is the foolish friend that gets us in a whole lot of trouble. A fool is someone who knows what the truth is…and doesn’t care.
I can prove this – it isn’t you that your parents lay in bed worrying about….it is the fools you hang out with – whose car you are riding in, whose house you are going to
This verse says that if you hang out with wise people you will become wise – hang out with people making good decisions and you’ll end up making good decisions
The verse does not say “if you hang with a fool you will become a fool” – it says you will be impacted by them
“But I’ll never do the things they do so it won’t impact me.” The Bible says you are wrong.
If you think you are too cool, too connected, too rich that this won’t impact you…you’re wrong
If you have friends who don’t care about their life, don’t care about their reputation…they are not going to care about your life, your reputation
The companion of fools suffers harm.
So we need some guardrails to protect us from the cliffs.
Once you experience going over the guardrail and over the cliff – you’d give anything to go back and do it over again. THAT is what we are trying to avoid.
Here is a critical principle – NO ONE ever sees the accident coming. Accidents just happen. You can’t predict when it will happen. But if you drive 80 mph on a winding road, you greatly increase the odds you’re going to have an accident.
Here are some red warning flags to look out for…
If you get in a car with a bunch of girls and the driver is texting or singing/dancing and not paying attention….
If you have never gone to the drinking/drug parties and you go and say “I’ll go but I won’t participate…”
If you hang out with bad folks with bad reputations and you think, “But I like them and it won’t harm me to be their friend”
When you start hanging out with people and cannot be yourself – you start to act how you think they expect you to act. They are playing on your insecurity.
If you feel pressure to compromise a core belief – drinking, sex, drugs, cheating, sneaking out of your house – when these things have never been a temptation and you are suddenly considering them
Here’s a big one – When you hope the people you care most about….don’t find out where you’ve been. When you start to create an excuse just in case you get caught…
These are warning flags of impending danger and why you need to put some guardrails up.
If you’ve been with us – this is the context in which I share this message from the Lord
1. You are fearfully and wonderfully made. You are a masterpiece. God created you and God delights in you. The enemy hates you. He despises you. He is the father of lies. He seeks to steal, kill and destroy you…the masterpiece God created. There is a battle underway for your soul.
2. Because you are God’s masterpiece and He is your father – He has written you this book as a love letter. Its primary message is not damnation and this book is not a rule book. It is a love letter written to His children. It is a playbook like the football players have to play football. There are plays in here for offense and plays in here for defense. This is a living breathing document written to you for a full, abundant life.
At some point in your life you will be around friends moving in a different direction. Your friends can ultimately determine the direction of your life
In Proverbs 13:20 – “Walk with the wise and become wise but the companion of fools suffers harm.” The companion of fools suffers harm.
Your greatest regrets in life don’t revolve around your enemies but rather your friends
It is the foolish friend that gets us in a whole lot of trouble. A fool is someone who knows what the truth is…and doesn’t care.
I can prove this – it isn’t you that your parents lay in bed worrying about….it is the fools you hang out with – whose car you are riding in, whose house you are going to
This verse says that if you hang out with wise people you will become wise – hang out with people making good decisions and you’ll end up making good decisions
The verse does not say “if you hang with a fool you will become a fool” – it says you will be impacted by them
“But I’ll never do the things they do so it won’t impact me.” The Bible says you are wrong.
If you think you are too cool, too connected, too rich that this won’t impact you…you’re wrong
If you have friends who don’t care about their life, don’t care about their reputation…they are not going to care about your life, your reputation
The companion of fools suffers harm.
So we need some guardrails to protect us from the cliffs.
Once you experience going over the guardrail and over the cliff – you’d give anything to go back and do it over again. THAT is what we are trying to avoid.
Here is a critical principle – NO ONE ever sees the accident coming. Accidents just happen. You can’t predict when it will happen. But if you drive 80 mph on a winding road, you greatly increase the odds you’re going to have an accident.
Here are some red warning flags to look out for…
If you get in a car with a bunch of girls and the driver is texting or singing/dancing and not paying attention….
If you have never gone to the drinking/drug parties and you go and say “I’ll go but I won’t participate…”
If you hang out with bad folks with bad reputations and you think, “But I like them and it won’t harm me to be their friend”
When you start hanging out with people and cannot be yourself – you start to act how you think they expect you to act. They are playing on your insecurity.
If you feel pressure to compromise a core belief – drinking, sex, drugs, cheating, sneaking out of your house – when these things have never been a temptation and you are suddenly considering them
Here’s a big one – When you hope the people you care most about….don’t find out where you’ve been. When you start to create an excuse just in case you get caught…
These are warning flags of impending danger and why you need to put some guardrails up.
Friday, September 10, 2010
FCA Talk 2 - Who are you matters
We had a Son rise service this morning at the Chapel on campus and had about 35 kids there. We talked about how important your internal boundaries are in life. Who you are on the inside will ultimately determine what you'll be.
If you don't think that matters - look no further than this past year with Tiger Woods, Mark Sanford and John Edwards. Here are three attractive, very talented, very powerful men that led dark double lives. As an observer we look at them and say, "If I had all that power or all that money or that beautiful wife and family there is NO way I'd be so reckless with my private life. These guys had it made." They did.
But evidently they didn't have a good grasp on who they were on the inside and where their boundaries were.
The irony with all three of these is that they were incredibly visible, public figures. John Edwards was running for President. Running. Out there campaigning. Visible. The media was all around him 24/7. And he thought he could pull off an affair with a staffer while all this was going on? And oh yeah, by the way, his wife was in the middle of a very public battle with cancer. And you want to say, "Really? Did you really think you could pull that off and keep this thing a secret? He really thought he was that special that the media wouldn't turn on him and crucify him?"
Mark Sanford was the sitting Governor of South Carolina and left his office for 4 days to supposedly hike the Appalachian Trail. He thought he could just walk out of his office and not tell anyone and in reality, he was in Argentina with his girlfriend. Mark Sanford's wife is this very attractive, polished, smart woman and he has three beautiful sons and he walked out on them for what he calls his "soul mate" and he was so blind that he thought he could disappear and no one would discover his secret. And you want to say... "Really? Did you really think that would work?"
And Tiger. Oh Tiger. I lose track of the women - 13...15...18 - how he kept track of them all, no one knows. But here is the best golfer in the history of the game, the most marketed sports figure ever, followed by the media 24/7 and he really thought he could lead this double life and no one would ever know? He really thought he was that "good" to pull this off? Did he really think any of these women were attracted to him? They weren't...it was his money that attracted every single one of them. In using all these women, Tiger was the one really being used. Look at this life Tiger had -- look at his wife! And you want to say, "What are you thinking?" He wasn't.
Here's the thing - the world/culture is baiting us with temptation right up to the edge of the abyss. We are saturated as a culture with sex. Look at the clothes the 12-13 year old girls are being marketed...short, short skirts, low cut tops. Andy Stanley says that 50 years ago, given what the women wore then, that these girls dressed like this would have looked like hookers. And they are our little girls!
They are being baited right up to the line. Look at Victoria's Secret. Look at the movies and TV shows we watch. We're being baited and tempted right up to the line and then when we step over that line and fall, the world throws its hands up and won't touch you. You are suddenly alone. A creep. A pervert. You took the bait and did what the world wanted you to do and yet, you fall all alone. You become toxic. The TV show that tries to catch child molesters...I'm all for that show because it exposes those that prey on young girls. These guys are absolutely tourqued up by pornography and chat room sex and our culture has now created a TV show to bait them into a home to meet a 15 year old girl for wild sex. Hidden cameras capture every moment of the destruction of these men's lives and then the TV guy steps out and says "You are busted". Everything they've hidden is permanently exposed to the world in a flash.
Look at Tiger. He's toxic right now. The companies that fawned all over him and paid him millions to hawk their goods have all abandoned him. When we think of Tiger now we remember his great golf skills but we also can never forget the shame. John Edwards will forever be known as the politician that cheated on his wife while she was battling cancer. Mark Sanford was a rising star in the Republican party and a likely Presidential candidate. Not any more.
The enemy is just trying to trip you up. And 13-14-15-16 year old kids would have the tendency to think "Not me, I'm young, I'm supposed to have fun, none of this stuff has hooks in it." Really?
Americans spend $12 billion a year on pornography. That is $4,000 every second. The number 1 consumer of porn is boys ages 12-17. It matters. You've got to make some choices about who you are on the inside before you can determine what you'll be on the outside. You've got to know your boundaries, what you will do and what you won't do. You've got to know what your non-negotiables are...where your line in the sand is.
This stuff matters. The world is coming at you hard and you are kidding yourself to play dumb and think you don't have to worry about it. You all are so incredibly blessed. You go to this great school. You have this great Chapel. You have world class athletic facilities, parents who give you just about anything you want and many of you drive nicer cars than I do. You are so blessed and if you don't think this stuff matters and you don't have anything to lose, you are kidding yourself.
Some of you have already stumbled and made huge mistakes. There has already been sex and drinking and drugs. Some of you have already decided you hate your body or that you have no friends. You are bound up in guilt over your past failings.
The good news is that in John 10:10 Jesus said "the thief comes to steal, kill and destroy but I have come that they may have abundant life." Life. Life. Freedom. No matter how much you've already screwed up -- and I've screwed up too -- there is freedom, great freedom in Jesus. He'll wipe away every sin, forgive every screw up, wipe away every tear and heal your broken heart.
All you've got to do is ask. Ask Him into your heart to be the Lord of your life. Admit you've made a mess of your life trying to run it yourself. Admit you cannot navigate and negotiate life anymore alone. Admit your weakness. Admit your desire for HIS strength and invite HIM into your life as your Lord.
A grand new chapter begins. Your past is past. The Son has risen!
Soar!
We had a Son rise service this morning at the Chapel on campus and had about 35 kids there. We talked about how important your internal boundaries are in life. Who you are on the inside will ultimately determine what you'll be.
If you don't think that matters - look no further than this past year with Tiger Woods, Mark Sanford and John Edwards. Here are three attractive, very talented, very powerful men that led dark double lives. As an observer we look at them and say, "If I had all that power or all that money or that beautiful wife and family there is NO way I'd be so reckless with my private life. These guys had it made." They did.
But evidently they didn't have a good grasp on who they were on the inside and where their boundaries were.
The irony with all three of these is that they were incredibly visible, public figures. John Edwards was running for President. Running. Out there campaigning. Visible. The media was all around him 24/7. And he thought he could pull off an affair with a staffer while all this was going on? And oh yeah, by the way, his wife was in the middle of a very public battle with cancer. And you want to say, "Really? Did you really think you could pull that off and keep this thing a secret? He really thought he was that special that the media wouldn't turn on him and crucify him?"
Mark Sanford was the sitting Governor of South Carolina and left his office for 4 days to supposedly hike the Appalachian Trail. He thought he could just walk out of his office and not tell anyone and in reality, he was in Argentina with his girlfriend. Mark Sanford's wife is this very attractive, polished, smart woman and he has three beautiful sons and he walked out on them for what he calls his "soul mate" and he was so blind that he thought he could disappear and no one would discover his secret. And you want to say... "Really? Did you really think that would work?"
And Tiger. Oh Tiger. I lose track of the women - 13...15...18 - how he kept track of them all, no one knows. But here is the best golfer in the history of the game, the most marketed sports figure ever, followed by the media 24/7 and he really thought he could lead this double life and no one would ever know? He really thought he was that "good" to pull this off? Did he really think any of these women were attracted to him? They weren't...it was his money that attracted every single one of them. In using all these women, Tiger was the one really being used. Look at this life Tiger had -- look at his wife! And you want to say, "What are you thinking?" He wasn't.
Here's the thing - the world/culture is baiting us with temptation right up to the edge of the abyss. We are saturated as a culture with sex. Look at the clothes the 12-13 year old girls are being marketed...short, short skirts, low cut tops. Andy Stanley says that 50 years ago, given what the women wore then, that these girls dressed like this would have looked like hookers. And they are our little girls!
They are being baited right up to the line. Look at Victoria's Secret. Look at the movies and TV shows we watch. We're being baited and tempted right up to the line and then when we step over that line and fall, the world throws its hands up and won't touch you. You are suddenly alone. A creep. A pervert. You took the bait and did what the world wanted you to do and yet, you fall all alone. You become toxic. The TV show that tries to catch child molesters...I'm all for that show because it exposes those that prey on young girls. These guys are absolutely tourqued up by pornography and chat room sex and our culture has now created a TV show to bait them into a home to meet a 15 year old girl for wild sex. Hidden cameras capture every moment of the destruction of these men's lives and then the TV guy steps out and says "You are busted". Everything they've hidden is permanently exposed to the world in a flash.
Look at Tiger. He's toxic right now. The companies that fawned all over him and paid him millions to hawk their goods have all abandoned him. When we think of Tiger now we remember his great golf skills but we also can never forget the shame. John Edwards will forever be known as the politician that cheated on his wife while she was battling cancer. Mark Sanford was a rising star in the Republican party and a likely Presidential candidate. Not any more.
The enemy is just trying to trip you up. And 13-14-15-16 year old kids would have the tendency to think "Not me, I'm young, I'm supposed to have fun, none of this stuff has hooks in it." Really?
Americans spend $12 billion a year on pornography. That is $4,000 every second. The number 1 consumer of porn is boys ages 12-17. It matters. You've got to make some choices about who you are on the inside before you can determine what you'll be on the outside. You've got to know your boundaries, what you will do and what you won't do. You've got to know what your non-negotiables are...where your line in the sand is.
This stuff matters. The world is coming at you hard and you are kidding yourself to play dumb and think you don't have to worry about it. You all are so incredibly blessed. You go to this great school. You have this great Chapel. You have world class athletic facilities, parents who give you just about anything you want and many of you drive nicer cars than I do. You are so blessed and if you don't think this stuff matters and you don't have anything to lose, you are kidding yourself.
Some of you have already stumbled and made huge mistakes. There has already been sex and drinking and drugs. Some of you have already decided you hate your body or that you have no friends. You are bound up in guilt over your past failings.
The good news is that in John 10:10 Jesus said "the thief comes to steal, kill and destroy but I have come that they may have abundant life." Life. Life. Freedom. No matter how much you've already screwed up -- and I've screwed up too -- there is freedom, great freedom in Jesus. He'll wipe away every sin, forgive every screw up, wipe away every tear and heal your broken heart.
All you've got to do is ask. Ask Him into your heart to be the Lord of your life. Admit you've made a mess of your life trying to run it yourself. Admit you cannot navigate and negotiate life anymore alone. Admit your weakness. Admit your desire for HIS strength and invite HIM into your life as your Lord.
A grand new chapter begins. Your past is past. The Son has risen!
Soar!
Tuesday, September 07, 2010
FCA Talk 1 September 3, 2010
I’ve been praying about this night and asking God what he wants me to tell you.
Over and over the answer is very clear – “Tell them I love them”
“I am not a task master with a bunch of rules of don’t do this, don’t do that
I am not an angry God – I’m not always looking to catch them doing something wrong
I am not a far off, distant, removed “being” who doesn’t care
Tell them I love them. Over and over….I love them.”
The Bible tells us that you were fearfully and wonderfully made (PS 139:14)
I call it a Masterpiece. God took a blank canvas and a palette of colors and dreamed you into being.
He had a vision for each of you. He dreamed you into being. You are different from every other person on earth. 6 billion people and every one of us are unique. You each have your own talents and abilities and your own path.
Each one of you is a work of art…a treasure.
God dreamed you up just like He dreams up each sunrise and sunset. Each one is different than all the others.
You are a dream come true.
But many of you don’t believe it. You life doesn’t feel like a dream, it feels like a nightmare.
You feel like the whole world is against you. You feel alone. You feel betrayed. You feel orphaned. You’ve joined in with the crowd to be accepted and yet, you still feel alone. You’ve done things that you were told would make you feel better and for a time, it does feel better but then you wake up and things don’t feel so good.
So God dreamed you up and considers you a Masterpiece and after all this activity, you feel a piece of trash. There’s a reason…
We have an enemy. Satan is called the “father of lies” in the Bible. John 10:10 says he comes to “steal, kill and destroy but Jesus came that we might have abundant life”.
Satan takes this masterpiece that is your life and whispers into your ear lie upon lie…
Cheat on the test…everyone does this
Lie to your parents….they’ll never know
Sneak out at night….you’ll never get caught
Sleep with this boy…he really does love you and it won’t hurt anything
Watch porn…it can’t hurt anything to watch it
Spread gossip about a friend…after all everyone’s out to get you
When you walk into a room…everyone is looking at you. You are vulnerable.
Don’t be an individual….you’ll stand out too much and people will notice
When you see a wrong, don’t say anything….you don’t want people to think you’re a traitor
Smoke pot…it’s cool to be stoned out of your mind
See just how drunk you can get….it’s a blast to be trashed
Conform to the world….or you’ll be cast out and alone
Another lie of his… “I’m not here…this pain you feel is just life. Life just sucks”
Or even more diabolical… “There is a God and he’s turned his back on you. He’s angry with you.”
What about atheism? We are so smart that we decide there is no God.
Or Deism? We decide there is a God but he isn’t the God of Bible, he’s this being out there that wants me feeling good about myself.
So here we have this Masterpiece, this divine work of art being torn to shreds by Satan’s lies.
The power of sin, the nature of sin is that it entraps you. It starts small and it feels good and then it grows. Before you know it, its hooks are deep inside you. Porn is a classic example. But so is pride, envy, ambition, lust.
Satan pulls all these tricks to separate you from God.
But here’s the good news, Jesus loves you. God isn’t angry with you.
How can God be mad at a Masterpiece he dreamed up? He isn’t.
God wants relationship with you. If you’ve turned away from God in pursuit of the things that make you feel good, God wants you back.
God is pursuing you. He sent His only son here to die for our sins. Jesus was a man – he felt pain, he hurt, he was desperately lonely, he was betrayed by those closest to him, he was humiliated, he was tempted and he was hungry. Anything you feel, Jesus, the Son of God felt.
Through Jesus if you accept him as your Lord, your sin has been dealt with. Psalm 103 says “The Lord has removed it from you as far as the east is from the west”.
As a believer and follower of Jesus, I know I have been bought with a price.
His blood was shed for me.
He came to pay the ransom for me.
So God dreamed you up from nothing.
He has this great life planned for you.
He desires relationship with you.
He is, after all, your creator.
God created this Masterpiece that is you. You were fearfully and wonderfully made.
Satan is trying to destroy you
Jesus comes and is willing to take the bullet destined for you.
God loves you THAT much.
All you have to do is believe. All you have to do is admit you can no longer do life all on your own and confess your need for Jesus to take control of your life.
Let me end with the story of Anna...
Anna and the teenagers
We just came back from a weekend camp at YoungLife's Sharptop Cove in North Georgia.
A lot of families from Columbus were up there to witness the camp.
I love kids - especially small ones - so it was fun for me to engage with these kids during the weekend. One family had three beautiful daughters ages 4-7. The middle child, Anna was especially captivating. I know both sets of grandparents and she has the eyes of one of her grandmothers. She has a sparkling personality and a great smile. I had fun goofing around with Anna during the meals and later ran into her in the YL store. She smiled at me and said "Hey, what are you doing here?" I think she thought I only existed in the dining hall! I told her I was looking for stuff and she said, "I am getting a harmonica" and she showed me her blue harmonica. "Wow" I exclaimed, "That is the coolest harmonica ever" and she smiled and went on her merry little way.
That harmonica never left Anna's side the rest of the weekend. She was always playing it, always smiling. At dinner Saturday night, she was sitting at the table with all the chaos of a YoungLife dinner (300 kids in one very loud room), minding her own business, playing her harmonica. I looked over at her and she saw me, smiled (she always smiles) and kept on playing. I told her that she was so good at the harmonica and she said, "I know my Mommy and Daddy think I should take lessons" and she kept right on playing. The next day at breakfast she was doing the same thing. Her Dad told me that she spent all day Saturday playing the harmonica and that the teenagers were always circled around her. As Anna played, the teenagers followed. When I was talking to her Sunday, I again commented on her harmonica and again told her that she was very good and she replied, "Some people think it is my talent". Big smile followed.
So here is Anna - beautiful, sweet, happy and very much in love with life and her harmonica. Anna is extraordinary. Anna knows she has a "talent" and she is looking for it. Anna knows she has something special to contribute to the world. Contrasting that are the lives of 300 teenagers. They too are extraordinary but very few of them believe it any more. They very much now believe they are just ordinary. Life comes at the teenagers very hard these days - MUCH harder than I think many of us even realize.
There very much is a battle underway for the souls of our children. Anna, at this point is safe and happy but we know what is coming - we can see it in these teenagers. Don't get me wrong - I love teenagers too but you can very visibly see the scars of battle on them already. Many of these kids have already lost their sexual purity. The vast majority has already started drinking and it is shocking how many are already using drugs. Many of them have bought the world's lies. Religion is simply whatever is relevant to them at that moment - "God just wants me to be happy" or "God is seen through my boyfriend or my friends - and I have a lot of friends so God is happy with me". They live their lives in the pursuit of happiness and for many of them, it has taken them into some very dark places.
It was striking to witness the vast gulf between Anna and many of these teenage girls. Anna is free. They are in bondage. Anna pursues happiness in her own little world and it is innocent...as innocent as happiness found in her harmonica. Anna doesn't understand peer pressure. Anna is happy in her own skin. Teenagers pursue happiness by trying to fit in and by doing whatever the crowd tells them is "right". We witnessed a dozen or so girls all showing up on Saturday morning all dressed just alike. It was freezing cold but they all had on shorts and Ugg boots. Someone in that group decided this is what they were going to wear and like robots, the rest followed. Teenagers have very little tolerance for extraordinary. They crave ordinary. They want to all look alike, act alike, dress alike so they can all blend in and numb the pain that can come from standing apart from the crowd. Many will seemingly sell their soul just to fit in - just to be a part of the "in" crowd. And so...they all become ordinary...just like all the rest of the group. When the group starts having sex, you have sex. When the group moves beyond beer to pot, you start smoking pot. You conform or you are cast-out.
The lie is that if you become ordinary that you will fit in. What you find as you become ordinary is that you have stripped away all that God made you to be. You have given up what an Extraordinary Creator used to make you unique so that the other ordinaries will find you pleasing.
I don't write this to judge any of them. I understand. I was there not long ago. But I write this because it stands in such stark contrast to Anna. She is happy being Anna. She thinks she can play the harmonica and she plays her heart out. She doesn't obsess over dressing like her friends or wearing too much make-up or straightening her hair like "everyone else" does. She has no concept of text messaging, cell phones or Facebook. She is just Anna. She is just one very happy kid. It simply breaks your heart to see the damage the world does when it strips the kid out of a young person and makes them look like every other ordinary young person.
Christ came that we might have life and have it to the full (abundantly). He wants us to be extraordinary not ordinary. He wants us to stand apart from the crowd and to be independent of the world. He wants us leaning on Him. He offers us freedom - great freedom - in the extraordinary life while it is just so obvious the bondage - the terrible bondage - of the ordinary life.
Anna and her harmonica have life to the full. It is no wonder Christ said we must come to him as a child. Eyes wide open, trusting, dependent, every day another great adventure to live and a new audience for our harmonica.
God wants that for you. You ARE extraordinary. You ARE a Masterpiece. He does not call you to be ordinary or like the crowd. He made you fearfully and wonderfully. He loves you. He sees you every day. YOU matter to Him. All you have to do is ask Him into your heart to be the Lord of your life.
I’ve been praying about this night and asking God what he wants me to tell you.
Over and over the answer is very clear – “Tell them I love them”
“I am not a task master with a bunch of rules of don’t do this, don’t do that
I am not an angry God – I’m not always looking to catch them doing something wrong
I am not a far off, distant, removed “being” who doesn’t care
Tell them I love them. Over and over….I love them.”
The Bible tells us that you were fearfully and wonderfully made (PS 139:14)
I call it a Masterpiece. God took a blank canvas and a palette of colors and dreamed you into being.
He had a vision for each of you. He dreamed you into being. You are different from every other person on earth. 6 billion people and every one of us are unique. You each have your own talents and abilities and your own path.
Each one of you is a work of art…a treasure.
God dreamed you up just like He dreams up each sunrise and sunset. Each one is different than all the others.
You are a dream come true.
But many of you don’t believe it. You life doesn’t feel like a dream, it feels like a nightmare.
You feel like the whole world is against you. You feel alone. You feel betrayed. You feel orphaned. You’ve joined in with the crowd to be accepted and yet, you still feel alone. You’ve done things that you were told would make you feel better and for a time, it does feel better but then you wake up and things don’t feel so good.
So God dreamed you up and considers you a Masterpiece and after all this activity, you feel a piece of trash. There’s a reason…
We have an enemy. Satan is called the “father of lies” in the Bible. John 10:10 says he comes to “steal, kill and destroy but Jesus came that we might have abundant life”.
Satan takes this masterpiece that is your life and whispers into your ear lie upon lie…
Cheat on the test…everyone does this
Lie to your parents….they’ll never know
Sneak out at night….you’ll never get caught
Sleep with this boy…he really does love you and it won’t hurt anything
Watch porn…it can’t hurt anything to watch it
Spread gossip about a friend…after all everyone’s out to get you
When you walk into a room…everyone is looking at you. You are vulnerable.
Don’t be an individual….you’ll stand out too much and people will notice
When you see a wrong, don’t say anything….you don’t want people to think you’re a traitor
Smoke pot…it’s cool to be stoned out of your mind
See just how drunk you can get….it’s a blast to be trashed
Conform to the world….or you’ll be cast out and alone
Another lie of his… “I’m not here…this pain you feel is just life. Life just sucks”
Or even more diabolical… “There is a God and he’s turned his back on you. He’s angry with you.”
What about atheism? We are so smart that we decide there is no God.
Or Deism? We decide there is a God but he isn’t the God of Bible, he’s this being out there that wants me feeling good about myself.
So here we have this Masterpiece, this divine work of art being torn to shreds by Satan’s lies.
The power of sin, the nature of sin is that it entraps you. It starts small and it feels good and then it grows. Before you know it, its hooks are deep inside you. Porn is a classic example. But so is pride, envy, ambition, lust.
Satan pulls all these tricks to separate you from God.
But here’s the good news, Jesus loves you. God isn’t angry with you.
How can God be mad at a Masterpiece he dreamed up? He isn’t.
God wants relationship with you. If you’ve turned away from God in pursuit of the things that make you feel good, God wants you back.
God is pursuing you. He sent His only son here to die for our sins. Jesus was a man – he felt pain, he hurt, he was desperately lonely, he was betrayed by those closest to him, he was humiliated, he was tempted and he was hungry. Anything you feel, Jesus, the Son of God felt.
Through Jesus if you accept him as your Lord, your sin has been dealt with. Psalm 103 says “The Lord has removed it from you as far as the east is from the west”.
As a believer and follower of Jesus, I know I have been bought with a price.
His blood was shed for me.
He came to pay the ransom for me.
So God dreamed you up from nothing.
He has this great life planned for you.
He desires relationship with you.
He is, after all, your creator.
God created this Masterpiece that is you. You were fearfully and wonderfully made.
Satan is trying to destroy you
Jesus comes and is willing to take the bullet destined for you.
God loves you THAT much.
All you have to do is believe. All you have to do is admit you can no longer do life all on your own and confess your need for Jesus to take control of your life.
Let me end with the story of Anna...
Anna and the teenagers
We just came back from a weekend camp at YoungLife's Sharptop Cove in North Georgia.
A lot of families from Columbus were up there to witness the camp.
I love kids - especially small ones - so it was fun for me to engage with these kids during the weekend. One family had three beautiful daughters ages 4-7. The middle child, Anna was especially captivating. I know both sets of grandparents and she has the eyes of one of her grandmothers. She has a sparkling personality and a great smile. I had fun goofing around with Anna during the meals and later ran into her in the YL store. She smiled at me and said "Hey, what are you doing here?" I think she thought I only existed in the dining hall! I told her I was looking for stuff and she said, "I am getting a harmonica" and she showed me her blue harmonica. "Wow" I exclaimed, "That is the coolest harmonica ever" and she smiled and went on her merry little way.
That harmonica never left Anna's side the rest of the weekend. She was always playing it, always smiling. At dinner Saturday night, she was sitting at the table with all the chaos of a YoungLife dinner (300 kids in one very loud room), minding her own business, playing her harmonica. I looked over at her and she saw me, smiled (she always smiles) and kept on playing. I told her that she was so good at the harmonica and she said, "I know my Mommy and Daddy think I should take lessons" and she kept right on playing. The next day at breakfast she was doing the same thing. Her Dad told me that she spent all day Saturday playing the harmonica and that the teenagers were always circled around her. As Anna played, the teenagers followed. When I was talking to her Sunday, I again commented on her harmonica and again told her that she was very good and she replied, "Some people think it is my talent". Big smile followed.
So here is Anna - beautiful, sweet, happy and very much in love with life and her harmonica. Anna is extraordinary. Anna knows she has a "talent" and she is looking for it. Anna knows she has something special to contribute to the world. Contrasting that are the lives of 300 teenagers. They too are extraordinary but very few of them believe it any more. They very much now believe they are just ordinary. Life comes at the teenagers very hard these days - MUCH harder than I think many of us even realize.
There very much is a battle underway for the souls of our children. Anna, at this point is safe and happy but we know what is coming - we can see it in these teenagers. Don't get me wrong - I love teenagers too but you can very visibly see the scars of battle on them already. Many of these kids have already lost their sexual purity. The vast majority has already started drinking and it is shocking how many are already using drugs. Many of them have bought the world's lies. Religion is simply whatever is relevant to them at that moment - "God just wants me to be happy" or "God is seen through my boyfriend or my friends - and I have a lot of friends so God is happy with me". They live their lives in the pursuit of happiness and for many of them, it has taken them into some very dark places.
It was striking to witness the vast gulf between Anna and many of these teenage girls. Anna is free. They are in bondage. Anna pursues happiness in her own little world and it is innocent...as innocent as happiness found in her harmonica. Anna doesn't understand peer pressure. Anna is happy in her own skin. Teenagers pursue happiness by trying to fit in and by doing whatever the crowd tells them is "right". We witnessed a dozen or so girls all showing up on Saturday morning all dressed just alike. It was freezing cold but they all had on shorts and Ugg boots. Someone in that group decided this is what they were going to wear and like robots, the rest followed. Teenagers have very little tolerance for extraordinary. They crave ordinary. They want to all look alike, act alike, dress alike so they can all blend in and numb the pain that can come from standing apart from the crowd. Many will seemingly sell their soul just to fit in - just to be a part of the "in" crowd. And so...they all become ordinary...just like all the rest of the group. When the group starts having sex, you have sex. When the group moves beyond beer to pot, you start smoking pot. You conform or you are cast-out.
The lie is that if you become ordinary that you will fit in. What you find as you become ordinary is that you have stripped away all that God made you to be. You have given up what an Extraordinary Creator used to make you unique so that the other ordinaries will find you pleasing.
I don't write this to judge any of them. I understand. I was there not long ago. But I write this because it stands in such stark contrast to Anna. She is happy being Anna. She thinks she can play the harmonica and she plays her heart out. She doesn't obsess over dressing like her friends or wearing too much make-up or straightening her hair like "everyone else" does. She has no concept of text messaging, cell phones or Facebook. She is just Anna. She is just one very happy kid. It simply breaks your heart to see the damage the world does when it strips the kid out of a young person and makes them look like every other ordinary young person.
Christ came that we might have life and have it to the full (abundantly). He wants us to be extraordinary not ordinary. He wants us to stand apart from the crowd and to be independent of the world. He wants us leaning on Him. He offers us freedom - great freedom - in the extraordinary life while it is just so obvious the bondage - the terrible bondage - of the ordinary life.
Anna and her harmonica have life to the full. It is no wonder Christ said we must come to him as a child. Eyes wide open, trusting, dependent, every day another great adventure to live and a new audience for our harmonica.
God wants that for you. You ARE extraordinary. You ARE a Masterpiece. He does not call you to be ordinary or like the crowd. He made you fearfully and wonderfully. He loves you. He sees you every day. YOU matter to Him. All you have to do is ask Him into your heart to be the Lord of your life.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
God Pursues
I read this yesterday and it just blew me away. I don’t think I’ve ever read this passage but it spoke to me deeply yesterday. The words are just so powerful.
God wrote these words about Moses. When you read them listen for God’s pursuit. Listen to how He describes the love of His people through the actions He took to rescue them. We are on the brink of celebrating God’s most wonderful pursuit of man. Jesus came in as the Great Liberator and the final blow was dealt to Satan two thousand years ago this week on the Cross at Calvary. Death has lost its sting forever over those that believe. For God so loved us He gave His only Son as a ransom.
Read these words very slowly. Let them soak in. Hear God saying these words to you.
Just ask whether such a great thing as this has ever happened or was ever heard of…..
Did any people ever hear the voice of a god speaking out of the midst of the fire, as you have heard, and still live?
Or has any god ever attempted to go and take a nation for himself from the midst of another nation, by trials, by signs, by wonders, and by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, and by great deeds of terror, all of which the LORD your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes?
To you it was shown, that you might know that the LORD is God; there is no other besides him.
Out of heaven he let you hear his voice, that he might discipline you. And on earth he let you see his great fire, and you heard his words out of the midst of the fire.
And because he loved your fathers and chose their offspring after them and brought you out of Egypt with his own presence, by his great power, driving out before you nations greater and mightier than yourselves, to bring you in, to give you their land for an inheritance, as it is this day, know therefore today, and lay it to your heart, that the LORD is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath; there is no other.
(Deuteronomy 4:32—39, paragraphing added, bold are my emphasis)
You can hear God telling His children the very lengths and depths He will go to in order that we may see His love and provision for us. No other “god” has fought for his people -- except our God. No other “god” showed up and commanded Pharaoh to “Let MY people go” -- except our God. No other “god” in the desert provided them food and water -- except our God. No other “god” gave a people a land flowing with milk and honey and enabled a victory over much stronger foes – except our God.
When this world beats you down -- when the bills stack up and the pressures of work mount -- when issues arise at home and stress appears in your marriage -- when you begin to think “I’m not sure I can make it” remember these words. Remember that God so loved you He chose you and bought you with His Son’s blood. You are worthy. You are fearfully and wonderfully made. God dreams great dreams for your life. And remember when this world seems to be going to hell (which it is) that God is indeed a mighty warrior. He is going to show back up one day and right all the wrongs, destroy the enemy and rejoice with the Saints. Remember – you are a Saint.
Soar!
I read this yesterday and it just blew me away. I don’t think I’ve ever read this passage but it spoke to me deeply yesterday. The words are just so powerful.
God wrote these words about Moses. When you read them listen for God’s pursuit. Listen to how He describes the love of His people through the actions He took to rescue them. We are on the brink of celebrating God’s most wonderful pursuit of man. Jesus came in as the Great Liberator and the final blow was dealt to Satan two thousand years ago this week on the Cross at Calvary. Death has lost its sting forever over those that believe. For God so loved us He gave His only Son as a ransom.
Read these words very slowly. Let them soak in. Hear God saying these words to you.
Just ask whether such a great thing as this has ever happened or was ever heard of…..
Did any people ever hear the voice of a god speaking out of the midst of the fire, as you have heard, and still live?
Or has any god ever attempted to go and take a nation for himself from the midst of another nation, by trials, by signs, by wonders, and by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, and by great deeds of terror, all of which the LORD your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes?
To you it was shown, that you might know that the LORD is God; there is no other besides him.
Out of heaven he let you hear his voice, that he might discipline you. And on earth he let you see his great fire, and you heard his words out of the midst of the fire.
And because he loved your fathers and chose their offspring after them and brought you out of Egypt with his own presence, by his great power, driving out before you nations greater and mightier than yourselves, to bring you in, to give you their land for an inheritance, as it is this day, know therefore today, and lay it to your heart, that the LORD is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath; there is no other.
(Deuteronomy 4:32—39, paragraphing added, bold are my emphasis)
You can hear God telling His children the very lengths and depths He will go to in order that we may see His love and provision for us. No other “god” has fought for his people -- except our God. No other “god” showed up and commanded Pharaoh to “Let MY people go” -- except our God. No other “god” in the desert provided them food and water -- except our God. No other “god” gave a people a land flowing with milk and honey and enabled a victory over much stronger foes – except our God.
When this world beats you down -- when the bills stack up and the pressures of work mount -- when issues arise at home and stress appears in your marriage -- when you begin to think “I’m not sure I can make it” remember these words. Remember that God so loved you He chose you and bought you with His Son’s blood. You are worthy. You are fearfully and wonderfully made. God dreams great dreams for your life. And remember when this world seems to be going to hell (which it is) that God is indeed a mighty warrior. He is going to show back up one day and right all the wrongs, destroy the enemy and rejoice with the Saints. Remember – you are a Saint.
Soar!
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Busyness
The busyness of this life has prevented me from sending you and email for almost two months. That is horrible. I have several things to share but I just have not had the time to sit down and concentrate long enough to get it done.
We have to be so careful with this. This age we live in is all consuming. I think one of Satan’s great tricks is to keep the treadmill of life on earth spinning as fast as he can. He knows that if we are consumed with being busy that we have very little time for silence. Busyness can be a weapon of the enemy – to keep us so busy, so distracted that we cannot see what is truly going on around us nor have time to commune with God.
But as much as busyness can be a tool of the enemy, silence is often a great tool of the Lord. God wants us alone and silent so we can hear him. Do you know just how hard it is to find silence? Even if you go off in the woods, odds are you’ll hear a far off dog barking or be distracted with distant road noise or the chirping of some blue jay. Silence is golden and, therefore, very hard to come by.
I wake up everyday to a clock radio. Once I exit the fog of sleep, my next action is to turn on the TV to see the latest business news (hey, it’s my job is the reasoning here). Shower, shave and get dressed and go eat breakfast with the kids. My first action in the kitchen every morning is to check my phone for overnight emails. Most mornings, the kitchen is filled with the sounds of Fox News. I get in my truck to go to work….XM radio is on. I come to work and I turn on the computers and log in to Bloomberg TV. The phones ring and I am surrounded by noise for the next 10 hours. I come home, visit with Shannon and the girls. We eat dinner, talk and usually watch TV. In the interim and all during the day, my cell phone is at my side and I am frequently texting answers back to clients. The next morning, the cycle starts all over. I go hard from 7am Monday until about 6pm on Friday – that is almost 55 hours a week in motion, on the move, responding to the world, email at my side, taking phone calls, meeting with clients being just….well...busy. 55 hours a week, 51 weeks out of the year. Please don’t hear me boasting in this. There is no manliness in this kind of life. This isn’t a testosterone-laced, type-A, Rambo talking here….this kind of life is sickening and a whole bunch of us are doing it.
It is exhausting just thinking about – just typing it.
In all of this, it is very hard to find silence. I crave it. But I know that silence won’t find me. I have to make time for it and for God. Don’t get me wrong, I talk to God all the time – all during the day – brief little snippets here and there. But what God craves and what I so desperately need is quality, alone time.
We have to be deliberate and purposeful to find the time to be silent. A few years ago I set out to retrench a bit. I gave up the lie that in order to be successful, we had to be really involved in the community… “to give back” is what they all say - almost to try to capture you in some sort of duty... obligation... guilt. And so, I exited all the boards and committees I served on. Just a few weeks ago, I quit the Rotary Club after a decade of “having” to attend something every Wednesday at lunch. My Wednesdays are still too busy but I have removed at least one obstacle in my path towards silence. I now have that hour free of obligation. I’m not sure it will lead to an hour of prayer time with God, but I know I had no chance of silence sitting in the Trade Center every Wednesday at noon with 350 other Rotarians.
The lie of the world is that we have to be successful and that in order to be successful, we have to be busy. The busier we are…the more successful we’ll be. As a pastor once told me, "If you win the rat race, you’re still a rat". Many Christians quote the Jeremiah 29:11, “For I know the plans I have for you…plans to prosper you and not harm you, plans to give you hope and a future” and take that verse as a sort of prosperity gospel. In today’s paper there was a story about a local author featuring her new book, Will Jesus buy me a double wide (‘Cause I need more room for my plasma TV). I just bought the book. She made a great point about the prosperity gospel and Jeremiah 29:11. She was asked, “Don’t you believe God wants to bless you?” She replied, “Yes, just not in U.S. currency.”
So we run ourselves to death chasing this prosperity lie – that God wants to bless us in US dollars and we don’t even see that in so doing, we have lost the sound of silence and time alone with the Creator.
May you take this and find some silence. May we be deliberate in prioritizing our lives not around things and status and currency but in the one true thing that lasts – our relationship with God.
Soar!
The busyness of this life has prevented me from sending you and email for almost two months. That is horrible. I have several things to share but I just have not had the time to sit down and concentrate long enough to get it done.
We have to be so careful with this. This age we live in is all consuming. I think one of Satan’s great tricks is to keep the treadmill of life on earth spinning as fast as he can. He knows that if we are consumed with being busy that we have very little time for silence. Busyness can be a weapon of the enemy – to keep us so busy, so distracted that we cannot see what is truly going on around us nor have time to commune with God.
But as much as busyness can be a tool of the enemy, silence is often a great tool of the Lord. God wants us alone and silent so we can hear him. Do you know just how hard it is to find silence? Even if you go off in the woods, odds are you’ll hear a far off dog barking or be distracted with distant road noise or the chirping of some blue jay. Silence is golden and, therefore, very hard to come by.
I wake up everyday to a clock radio. Once I exit the fog of sleep, my next action is to turn on the TV to see the latest business news (hey, it’s my job is the reasoning here). Shower, shave and get dressed and go eat breakfast with the kids. My first action in the kitchen every morning is to check my phone for overnight emails. Most mornings, the kitchen is filled with the sounds of Fox News. I get in my truck to go to work….XM radio is on. I come to work and I turn on the computers and log in to Bloomberg TV. The phones ring and I am surrounded by noise for the next 10 hours. I come home, visit with Shannon and the girls. We eat dinner, talk and usually watch TV. In the interim and all during the day, my cell phone is at my side and I am frequently texting answers back to clients. The next morning, the cycle starts all over. I go hard from 7am Monday until about 6pm on Friday – that is almost 55 hours a week in motion, on the move, responding to the world, email at my side, taking phone calls, meeting with clients being just….well...busy. 55 hours a week, 51 weeks out of the year. Please don’t hear me boasting in this. There is no manliness in this kind of life. This isn’t a testosterone-laced, type-A, Rambo talking here….this kind of life is sickening and a whole bunch of us are doing it.
It is exhausting just thinking about – just typing it.
In all of this, it is very hard to find silence. I crave it. But I know that silence won’t find me. I have to make time for it and for God. Don’t get me wrong, I talk to God all the time – all during the day – brief little snippets here and there. But what God craves and what I so desperately need is quality, alone time.
We have to be deliberate and purposeful to find the time to be silent. A few years ago I set out to retrench a bit. I gave up the lie that in order to be successful, we had to be really involved in the community… “to give back” is what they all say - almost to try to capture you in some sort of duty... obligation... guilt. And so, I exited all the boards and committees I served on. Just a few weeks ago, I quit the Rotary Club after a decade of “having” to attend something every Wednesday at lunch. My Wednesdays are still too busy but I have removed at least one obstacle in my path towards silence. I now have that hour free of obligation. I’m not sure it will lead to an hour of prayer time with God, but I know I had no chance of silence sitting in the Trade Center every Wednesday at noon with 350 other Rotarians.
The lie of the world is that we have to be successful and that in order to be successful, we have to be busy. The busier we are…the more successful we’ll be. As a pastor once told me, "If you win the rat race, you’re still a rat". Many Christians quote the Jeremiah 29:11, “For I know the plans I have for you…plans to prosper you and not harm you, plans to give you hope and a future” and take that verse as a sort of prosperity gospel. In today’s paper there was a story about a local author featuring her new book, Will Jesus buy me a double wide (‘Cause I need more room for my plasma TV). I just bought the book. She made a great point about the prosperity gospel and Jeremiah 29:11. She was asked, “Don’t you believe God wants to bless you?” She replied, “Yes, just not in U.S. currency.”
So we run ourselves to death chasing this prosperity lie – that God wants to bless us in US dollars and we don’t even see that in so doing, we have lost the sound of silence and time alone with the Creator.
May you take this and find some silence. May we be deliberate in prioritizing our lives not around things and status and currency but in the one true thing that lasts – our relationship with God.
Soar!
Tuesday, January 05, 2010
The world groans
Romans 8:18-23 - “The sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed in us. For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body.”
You can feel the tension in his writing – the sufferings of this present time…anxious longing…waiting eagerly…futility…set free from slavery…creation groans…pains of childbirth…adoption…redemption, etc. You can feel the suffering and you can feel the longing for rescue, the pleas to be adopted, redeemed – the desire of a hostage to be set free by the Great Liberator.
I can feel the tension in this present world. The stress of work, money issues, raising children, health concerns are always there but today, we get this sense that the entire world is simply….groaning. Radicals chant in the street “Death to America” and try to blow up planes on Christmas day, Hollywood has lost its freaking mind, the global economy still shudders from last year’s financial earthquake, our culture is obsessed with not offending anyone at the expense of not standing for anything, the Tiger Woods’ debacle – you just feel the whole world is about to come apart. It is.
The entire creation is in bondage to sin and has been for the whole of history. No place on earth escapes this. One day, creation will be set free – no more depression, heartaches, tumors – but for now and until Christ returns, the world will remain in this bondage.
And the thing about it is -- it is fair. John Piper says of this, “God judicially sentenced the world to this suffering for man’s sin. Adam & Eve did it their way – they shook their fist at God and said, 'We’re going to eat what we want to eat and you can just get out of here with all your rules.' We do the same thing only we are more subtle, more sophisticated. This world seethes with rebellion in nice clean suburban form.”
That’s a good description – the world seethes with rebellion. I surround myself with every comfort I can muster. I’ll get the flat panel TV’s, iPod’s, nice cars, nice clothes and I’ll watch what I want to watch on TV and bunker down in entertainment. I’ll save for retirement and sock away money for later years because…I deserve it. We live in the rampant pursuit of “more” out of a sense of deserving it and it is rebellion against God. The stronger I pursue this, the deeper in bondage I sink. I’m guilty of this. Are you?
So it not an overreaction on God’s part for the world to stay this way until Jesus returns. We experience pain and suffering and bondage because that is just how serious sin is.
But there are great promises in this passage as well. After all of this, we will see the end. Glory will be revealed in us. Why do we desire great things? Why are we captivated by canyons, mountains, skyscrapers and huge stadiums, The Lord of the Rings, Gladiator and Braveheart? Why do we aspire to greatness? That drive to great things is glory and it is in us because we are made in the image of God. That inner greatness will be revealed in each of us one day. Glory will come and we will be like bright shining lights. We’re going to be revealed. We will be titans.
We are here in hope. When life feels futile, remember, we are here in hope. Christ became a curse for us and our death and suffering in this life is no longer God punishing us. God has no wrath for me – He is just purifying me. Preparing me. These pains I feel aren’t pains of death – they are birth pains. Those that believe will be born into a new body, new life and new pleasures. Death has no sting. We have nothing to fear.
There is a saying, “He is so heavenly minded, he is no earthly good.” I’m not so sure about that. Given this truth, given this redemption, adoption and transformation…given the glory about to be revealed in each of us shining brighter than the sun….if we really believe this, how can we not be heavenly minded? If we really believe we’ve been bought, we’ve been redeemed, we’ve been adopted into His family and that one day, we’re going to be glorious and healed….how can we NOT be passionate about spreading His gospel?
So as you start this New Year may you do so with a new passion for the lost and a new gratitude for the salvation that is yours only by the Grace of God, the Great Liberator who came to set the hostages free. Freedom! (Thanks to John Piper for much of the material for this note)
Soar!
Romans 8:18-23 - “The sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed in us. For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body.”
You can feel the tension in his writing – the sufferings of this present time…anxious longing…waiting eagerly…futility…set free from slavery…creation groans…pains of childbirth…adoption…redemption, etc. You can feel the suffering and you can feel the longing for rescue, the pleas to be adopted, redeemed – the desire of a hostage to be set free by the Great Liberator.
I can feel the tension in this present world. The stress of work, money issues, raising children, health concerns are always there but today, we get this sense that the entire world is simply….groaning. Radicals chant in the street “Death to America” and try to blow up planes on Christmas day, Hollywood has lost its freaking mind, the global economy still shudders from last year’s financial earthquake, our culture is obsessed with not offending anyone at the expense of not standing for anything, the Tiger Woods’ debacle – you just feel the whole world is about to come apart. It is.
The entire creation is in bondage to sin and has been for the whole of history. No place on earth escapes this. One day, creation will be set free – no more depression, heartaches, tumors – but for now and until Christ returns, the world will remain in this bondage.
And the thing about it is -- it is fair. John Piper says of this, “God judicially sentenced the world to this suffering for man’s sin. Adam & Eve did it their way – they shook their fist at God and said, 'We’re going to eat what we want to eat and you can just get out of here with all your rules.' We do the same thing only we are more subtle, more sophisticated. This world seethes with rebellion in nice clean suburban form.”
That’s a good description – the world seethes with rebellion. I surround myself with every comfort I can muster. I’ll get the flat panel TV’s, iPod’s, nice cars, nice clothes and I’ll watch what I want to watch on TV and bunker down in entertainment. I’ll save for retirement and sock away money for later years because…I deserve it. We live in the rampant pursuit of “more” out of a sense of deserving it and it is rebellion against God. The stronger I pursue this, the deeper in bondage I sink. I’m guilty of this. Are you?
So it not an overreaction on God’s part for the world to stay this way until Jesus returns. We experience pain and suffering and bondage because that is just how serious sin is.
But there are great promises in this passage as well. After all of this, we will see the end. Glory will be revealed in us. Why do we desire great things? Why are we captivated by canyons, mountains, skyscrapers and huge stadiums, The Lord of the Rings, Gladiator and Braveheart? Why do we aspire to greatness? That drive to great things is glory and it is in us because we are made in the image of God. That inner greatness will be revealed in each of us one day. Glory will come and we will be like bright shining lights. We’re going to be revealed. We will be titans.
We are here in hope. When life feels futile, remember, we are here in hope. Christ became a curse for us and our death and suffering in this life is no longer God punishing us. God has no wrath for me – He is just purifying me. Preparing me. These pains I feel aren’t pains of death – they are birth pains. Those that believe will be born into a new body, new life and new pleasures. Death has no sting. We have nothing to fear.
There is a saying, “He is so heavenly minded, he is no earthly good.” I’m not so sure about that. Given this truth, given this redemption, adoption and transformation…given the glory about to be revealed in each of us shining brighter than the sun….if we really believe this, how can we not be heavenly minded? If we really believe we’ve been bought, we’ve been redeemed, we’ve been adopted into His family and that one day, we’re going to be glorious and healed….how can we NOT be passionate about spreading His gospel?
So as you start this New Year may you do so with a new passion for the lost and a new gratitude for the salvation that is yours only by the Grace of God, the Great Liberator who came to set the hostages free. Freedom! (Thanks to John Piper for much of the material for this note)
Soar!
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