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