Don't Believe the Lies! (Genesis 18:1-15)

Last Sunday was different than most for our high school youth group.

I jokingly (sort of) made the statement that most of the time, whether it be a church, youth group, or school, guys/men always seem to get beat up more by the Bible. Gods word seems to outline the failures of men on a much larger scale than women. This is seen in Adam, Lamech, Noah, Abram, David, ect.

Tonight was different in the sense that in Genesis 18 get a close up look into Sarah's sin that causes her to laugh at Jesus when he promises her a son. Sarah, along with many other fall into the sin of not believing in the promises of God. The reason that Sarah laughed at Jesus was because she thought Jesus made a promise that he couldn't deliver.

In I Timothy 2:12-14 Paul states that the reason that women aren't to teach was because just like Eve was deceived by Satan in the garden, women are more easily deceived. This is one of the areas of God's word that flies dead in the face of our culture and we have the choice: believe in God's Word and His promises, or like Sarah. choose to reject it.

After establishing this principle that women are more likely to be deceived than men, I took the rest of the night looking at 3 specific lies that high school girls tend to believe and how we can trust God when we are approached with these lies.

Lie #1: It is not fair that I have to submit.

Submission is something that women struggle with ever since Genesis 3:16 where God says that women are going to desire to rule over their husbands. We looked at how even high school girls struggle with submission, and what they do in order to control things are to use gossip, slander, and moodiness to almost scare others into submission so they wont mess with the girls. I have grown up in a house with a lot of women and I can personally attest that all young girls do this!

Lie #2: God is not in control of my future.

While guys are often lazy and don't have a care in the world, most young Christian women really plan out, fear, and struggle with what will happen to them in the future.

Girls like to have a step by step plan that looks like this:

I need this GPA, to get into this college, i need to find Mr. Right, he needs to be 6'4, have blue eyes, great skin, and have a good job that will allow me to stay home and have 3.5 babies, live in a certain type of house, in a certain type of community.

The problem is if that plan doesn't go exactly according to plan, girls freak out and claim that God doesn't love them or that he isn't in control, so instead of trusting in the promises of God they try to make things happen on their own. This inevitably leads to bad choices with guys, and bitterness and anger set root in their hearts and often times girls walk away from the faith altogether.

Lie #3: God isn't in control of the timing.

What we saw in Sarah in Genesis 18 was that she thought her time to have children had passed and that God hadn't worked soon enough. It is very easy for all girls to feel the same way regarding different things in their lives. "I should have a boyfriend by now", "I should be done with acne", "I should be done with school by now".....

When girls get so caught up with their circumstances and don't trust God, they are overtaken by stress, anger, and bitterness which leads to sin and can often have negative emotional and physical on girls.

It was a great night, covered a lot, and was worn out by the end of it!


cal

Why Sorrow is Better than Laughter

This morning I was doing some emailing in preparation for a conference our jr. high youth group will be attending this weekend. I was listening to a sermon while I was working and like usual I was absolutely destroyed by God's Word and my mind feels like a boulder rolling down the side of a mountain so I thought I would share what the Lord is teaching me in this moment:

Ecclesiastes 7:2-3 " It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting, for this is the end of all mankind, and the living will lay it to heart. Sorrow is better than laughter, for by sadness of face the heart is made glad."

How can sorrow and the house mourning be better than the house of feasting?

I have known this passage but always inwardly struggled with what this looks like and how this should play out in my life. I was in high school when the Emo movement was in full swing, and when I saw those kids i thought to myself "they are so sad, self-focused, and selfish that this is obviously not who Christ has called us to be as representatives of himself." Also, the Bible is filled with passages similar to Nehemiah 8:10 "the joy of the Lord is your strength" and Hebrews 12 where the writer says Jesus even died for the Joy set before him.

So how does Ecclesiastes 7:2-3 fit into the broader picture of us finding our hope and joy in Christ?

Here is how:

The reason sorrow and morning are better than laughter is because sorrow causes us to think about our human condition, eternity, and to call upon the Lord in a way laughing never will.

I have attended many sporting events in my life, these events are filled with laughter and joy (unless you are a cubs fan) as people watch and support their teams. I have never been at a game where all of sudden the fans in the stadium begin to join in a conversation about human depravity and the devastating effects of sin. At sporting events people want to drink beer, eat hot dogs, and talk about sports, its why they are there.

Likewise very rarely does the bloody death of Christ come up as people are sitting down at a restaurant enjoying a nice steak and a fine wine. And when was the last someone started weeping over the eternity of their lost friends while blowing out the candles on their birthday cake?

The point is that when we are experiencing the "good things" in life we want to sit back and enjoy the ride, our minds are focussed on living in the present.

The purpose me writing this is not to condemn fun, i will still like steak and sports for as long as I live and Ecclesiastes 3 clearly states there is a time for laughter along with weeping. But I do want to say that sorrow and mourning provide great value to our souls that laughter never will!

I want to quickly look at 2 types of sorrow/mourning and look at how it is greater than laughter, spiritually speaking:

Type 1: Sorrow over the brokenness of our world/suffering

Very recently my wife and I endured a time of suffering together. There were tears, sadness, and a lot of hugging and comforting. This sadness and suffering was not a negative thing but in many ways was a blessing in our lives. Both Mary and I would say our walks with the Lord have been strengthened as we were made to rely solely on God, trust that he is good, and
believe even more deeply in His promises.

Whether it be war, starvation, death of a loved one, ect. only by experiencing that type of sorrow and suffering can we truly understand what it means to trust only in God and understand what Job means when he writes "the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord."

Times of sorrow (especially death) also directs our mind towards the eternal. We evaluate what we believe and whether or not our lives are consistent with what we believe. Sorrow makes us ask the tough questions that laughter and joy try desperately to keep trapped in the back of our minds.

It is for this reason that I often pray that God would destroy my friends and family who are lost in order that they may be drawn to the Himself! Sorrow brings about a soberness that is not found in laughter.

Type 2: Sorrow over Sin

I think Christians are not nearly broken enough over sin. If we were, the church would look drastically different from top to bottom, and would be a much greater agent of change in our culture. I firmly believe that through Christ we are more than conquerers of sin and death(Romans 8:37), and that allowing guilt of past failures to control our lives is sin in itself.

However our sin should cause sorrow in the sense as it serves as a reminder of our rebellion against God and the destruction it brings. Our sorrow over sin should continually bring us back to the foot of the cross as we lift the name of Jesus high in our lives out of a heart of gratitude and amazement for what he has done on our behalf. Where we could never impress God, Christ did so perfectly on our behalf.

I would go so far as to say if anyone is ever comfortable with their walk with God, and are not continually in desperate need for God to form them into his likeness, they are sailing in dangerous water! Or at least they dont understand magnitude of sin and Christ's atonement for that sin.

Sorrow over sin causes us to remove our pride insert Christ in its place!

Like I said, the point of all of this not to suggest that we walk around depressed and constantly keep a box of tissue with us at all times, but that when we experience times of sorrow, we can understand that sometimes sorrow and suffering is a manifestation of God's grace in our lives, as he continues to refine us and draw us closer and closer to himself.

Would love to hear your thoughts,

cal

What I am reading!

I know all of you are obviously dying to know what I spend my free time reading so I thought I would enlighten all of you :) Kidding aside here are 3 books that I have read or am in the process of working through that are challenging me and I would recommend to anyone. So here they are with a quick synopsis by each.

Just Read: Vintage Church by Mark Driscoll and Gerry Breshears

I absolutely loved the book! Most simply put, it is a book about what a Biblical church should look like. It goes into issues from doctrine, to roles of leadership, to how to best mobilize the body for ministry, to even how to best use technology to enrich the church. Mark Driscoll is my favorite author and I really appreciated his latest work. I am very excited to see how God is going to use what I have learned from Vintage Church in the future!

Reading: Religion Saves + Nine other Misconceptions by Mark Driscoll

I just started digging into this book. The purpose of this book is to look at 9 major issues that are debated by people in the church and look how we can handle these issues from a Biblical perspective. In some ways this book was born out of frustration because so often people hold to firm beliefs on issues and fight to the death with others about things the Bible doesn't outline for us (i.e. dating). This often leads to division and fundamentalism(legalistically holding on to rules outside of scripture), both of which don't please God and are extremely dangerous for the church.

In this book Pastor Mark looks at 9 of these issues and I am looking forward to seeing how he unpacks touchy issues such as birth control, dating, grace, humor, and faith and works!


On Deck: Christless Christianity by Michael Horton

Christless Christianity is going to be the most theologically meaty of the 3 and also the one I am the most excited about reading. Horton's thesis for the book is that the "American Church" has replaced Jesus Christ as its head and in its place has put what he calls "Moralistic Therapeutic Deism". What this means is that churches have assumed that people know the gospel and what Jesus Christ has done, so instead of preaching the gospel the church focuses on how Christians can have a successful life..."our best life now". Rather than focusing on Christ as the focal point of the gospel we become the gospel and Christianity becomes all about making me happy, peaceful, and enlightened. This is a false gospel and pastors need to be constantly be preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ for in it and it alone lies salvation.

Horton looks at how this epidemic is playing out in the church and how we can combat this movement...needless to say I am pumped about this book!

have a good day!

Cal

Genesis 16 Hagar and Ishmael

Sunday night we continued our study in the book of Genesis where in chapter 16 we meet Hagar who will become the mother of Ishmael.

The first thing that hits me in the face when I read Genesis 16 is that when we allow ourselves to forget the promises of God and when we get consumed with our circumstances, our sin nature quickly takes over and everything begins to fall apart.

Sarai didn't trust that God would provide would provide her a child and therefore took the matter into her own hands and presented Abram with Hagar. Abram wasn't the leader of his family that God had called him to be and indulged in the temptation that was put in front of him, and Hagar was clearly in it for the money and was an Old Testament version of a gold-digger... Things deteriorate so quickly for all parties involved.

We also looked at the similarities between Adam and Eve when they sinned earlier in Genesis, and Sarai and Abram in this story. We see that:

Both women offered their husband what was forbidden

Both men are not being the leaders God calls them to be and fall into sin

In both instances the effects of the sin is devastating on human history

I find these similarities between the 2 couples so interesting as we see that Adam and Eve were the prototype for what God intended our relationship to be with God and each other and they quickly ruined things by falling into sin. God therefore chose Abram and Sarai as a vehicle by which he would restore humanity back to himself through Christ and yet Abram and Sarai fall into an almost identical sin!

We also learned that when we choose to sin, we choose to suffer great consequence. Ever since Genesis 16 there has been great conflict between the offspring of Ishmael and Isaac. It would be almost impossible to even consider the amount of war and lives lost to this indiscretion on the part of Abram, Sarai, and Hagar. It is easy to see why Christians, Jews, and Muslims are all uncomfortable with this chapter as it doesn't paint a great picture of the father (or mothers) of our faith.

We ended the night by looking at Genesis 16:10-16 where Jesus Christ shows up as the hero! In verse 10 Hagar has fled from Abram and Sarai because Sarai had become jealous and was mistreating her, she was pregnant, traveling across the dessert, going to a foreign land with the child of an alien. Things were not looking good for Hagar to say the least!

But we see in Vs. 10 that THE angel of the Lord (Jesus) comes to Hagar, blesses her, commands her to return to Abram and Sarai and most importantly causes Hagar to call upon the Lord and brings her to himself!

What I love about Genesis is that time after time we see that without Christ things fall apart and time and time again Christ shows up and restores things. It is impossible to read the Old Testament and not see Christ as the focus of everything that is taking place!

It was a great night and we are learning so much through our study of the Word together!

Cal

John 14: Jesus is the Way the Truth and the Life (JR. High YG Mar. 3)

Last night we as a youth group studied John 14 and here is a quick recap:

In the beginning of John 14 Jesus tells his disciples that he is going back to Heaven to prepare a place for us...I think its so cool that Jesus spent much the first 30 years of his life as a carpenter's son/apprentice and now he is acting as a carpenter in heaven building us homes!

We talked about who we would want to live by in Heaven if we could pick 1 person...I chose Peter. The reason being that when the guards tried to take Jesus in the garden, Peter cut one of their ears off. I figure if I can get on Peter's good side he would be a good neighbor and protect me from any hecklers in Heaven :)

One thing we noticed was that this would be a very scary thing for disciples to hear! Jesus was their leader, their teacher, their provider and the reason they gave up everything they had. Now Jesus was telling them he was leaving! The disciples were going to have to learn to trust Jesus in a whole new way!

We spent the rest of the night looking at the statement in John 14:6 "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me"

This is such a loaded statement that really flies in the face of what our post-modern culture of tolerance and individualism preaches. We as Christians are called exclusive, arrogant, and unloving because we believe that Jesus is the only way to the Father, but we believe that because we believe in Jesus! If we truly believe that Jesus is the Son of the living God who was born of a virgin, lived a sinless life, and died for our sins and rose again, we need to believe what he says!

This is why i hate the "Jesus was just a cool morale teacher" statement. If you don't believe he was the Son of God, than he was a lunatic because he repeatedly said that he was the Son of God and called people to believe in him and follow him. He also said if you didn't know him you didnt know God. What I love about Jesus is that there is no middle ground with him. You have to totally embrace him or completely reject him and sadly I think many people try to find a middle ground which is impossible!

The rest of the night we looked at how Jesus actually is the way, truth, and life. We ended the evening taking some time to ask ourselves if we do really believe that Jesus was who he said was? And if we do how is that changing our lives!

It was a great night and I am already excited for this weekend!

cal

Sunday Feb 28 HS Youth Group - Covenant with Abram

This Week we were Genesis 15 looking at when God re-established his covenant with Abram.

What I love about this passage is that in the very first verse God tells Abram that God is his shield. What a beautiful picture! And what is even more awesome is that we as spiritual descendants of Abram have Jesus Christ as our shield.

So we spent the first part of the night talking about different ways that Jesus is our shield. I explained to the students that we need to understand that Satan and demonic opposition is a very real thing and should sober us up about our walk with Christ and we need to understand that we may face very real opposition when we commit to follow Jesus.

However we need to believe and embrace the fact that in regards to demonic opposition, or sin, or death that Jesus is our "Christus Victor" meaning that Jesus has already won the victory over these things and in Christ we share in that victory. While we need to be sober to satanic opposition we should not get consumed or overwhelmed by it because it is giving Satan may more respect than he is due. The battle is won! We have victory is Christ and he is our shield and protecter! I love that verse...So cool!!

We also see in Genesis 15 that Abram questions God about what is going on. Abram is really old, has no kids, is still an alien in a foreign land and says to God "how are your promises going to come true, I don't understand." In studying this passage we learned that it is ok to have questions and not understand what the Lord is doing as long as we continue to trust in Him and His Word. We also learned that when we have doubts to go to the Lord and talk to him rather than keep them inside because when we do it turns into bitterness and unbelief.

We finished the night looking at Genesis 15:11 where Abram sets up the covenant like God commands him and then immediately he has to fend off birds of prey that seek to eat the animals on the altar.

What we learned from that picture is that as soon as we commit to following the Lord and doing what he commands us we need to expect to face opposition. This happens because our sin and Satan would want to discourage us and have us fall flat on our face. This opposition is a test of our faith and we need to equip ourselves through God's Word, prayer, and accountability to deal with this opposition!

We finished the night in small groups looking at specific ways we can follow the Lord better and deal with opposition when it comes.

I love the students and really am beginning to feel God stirring in their hearts, its a cool and encouraging thing to see!


Cal

Sunday Feb 28 - Dating and Relationships

Sunday was a busy day for the student ministry! Sunday morning I was so excited to be able to take a both the Jr. and Sr. high students and have some time to teach on the importance of having a biblical perspective when it comes to dating/relationships.

I believe that have a Christ-centered perspective on dating/relationships is so important for students to be committed to having well before they begin the process. My hope Sunday morning was to outline some Biblical principals that would lay a foundation to help the students whenever they begin that process.

The first thing we covered was "What is the Purpose of my Life?" The reason we started by answering this question is because if we don't clearly understand what the answer to this question, we wont have the ability to do anything else well! We looked at a few passages but settled in at Isaiah 43:7 which clearly states that we were created for Gods glory. Since we are created for His glory our primary purpose is to Glorify God in all aspects of our life including relationships.

Another thing we spent a good amount of time was explaining to the students that they are under their parents authority and need to abide by the rules their parents have set in place whether or not the students agree with them. I explained, using Psalms 139:16 that God not only created us, but placed us exactly where he wanted us, and when we complain or choose not to follow our parents rules we are in fact telling God "I don't trust you" because God's Word clearly states that he is the one who has placed us under our parents authority!

We spent the rest of the morning looking at what we should look for in the person that we will one day marry and came up with a list of non-negotiable standards that we would set. That list included:

1. Passionately loves the Lord
2. Trustworthy
3. Kind (physically and emotionally)
4. The guy needs to be able to lead (motivated) and the Girl needs to be willing to follow
5. Committed to purity
6. Committed to you and the Lord!

All in all it was a great morning and I trust and pray that the Lord will do a great thing through the lives of all of our students!

Cal