Posts filed under ‘Bible lessons’
40 Days
Today is Ash Wednesday. It marks the first day of Lent. For the majority of my life I never really observed Lent. Sadly I was never taught about the spiritual significance of this season. Until a few years ago I never participated in observing Lent. And quite honestly still today I’m somewhat uncomfortable in some circles using the term “Lent.” I know this shouldn’t be the case, but for too many Christians we haven’t been challenged to observe many of the liturgical seasons that can have such an significant impact on our relationship with God. And Lent is one of those seasons.
Last year I posted this entry with a link to an article about Lent. I taught our students about Lent and focussed on it as a time of intense focus on God and spiritual growth. Tonight I taught about Lent again. But this time I spent more time talking about why this should be important for us as followers of Jesus. I referred to the question I asked in Sunday School last Sunday and the question I wrote about in this entry earlier this week. For me when I think about what I deserve…what’s fair…I can’t help but to want to deepen my relationship with God. I want to spend focussed time with Him. I want to spend time in intense study and prayer. I want to allow God to purge me of anything in my life that doesn’t need to be there. I want to allow Him to change the way I talk, the things I do, and the words I say. And I believe with an incredible amount of conviction that once our students accept what is fair and right and just (that they die and go to hell) any apathy that exists will be replaced with a passionate desire to know more of God, to allow God to change them, to tell others about God’s amazing grace and unconditional love. There will be a natural desire and an unexplainable urgency to live as Jesus lived, to love as Jesus loved, and to leave behind what Jesus left behind. I pray for you as a parent and for your teenager that during this season of Lent you would spend intentional time focussing on your relationship with God and that you would allow God to grow you, to stretch you, to refine you, and to change you as He sees fit. Yes, this can (and should) happen throughout the year, but let’s take advantage of this season that is before us as we prepare our hearts to remember the ultimate sacrifice that was made for you and for me.
Is it fair?
So yesterday in Sunday School our focus was that God demands purity in His church. This was the 7th week of a 16 week study on the beginning of the Christian church. The scripture was from Acts 5:1-11…the story of Ananias and Sapphira.
I lead a small group of middle school guys and after we read the story I asked them the question, “Is it fair what happened to Ananias and Sapphira?” Go back and read the passage for yourself and answer the question. The immediate response in my small group was a resounding “No! It’s not fair.”
I have left this particular passage many times thinking it was absolutely not fair. But one area that God has been working on me personally is in this area about what is fair when it comes to my relationship as a sinner with the one true and holy God. Here’s what I’ve discovered and the challenge I gave to my small group yesterday and to you today: When I realize that what is fair and just and right is for me to die and spend an eternity in hell because I am a sinner, and when you realize that what is fair and just and right is for you to die and spend an eternity in hell because you are a sinner…we will become infinitely more passionate about the overwhelming grace and love and forgiveness of God.
Each time I sin I deserve to die, but rather than striking me dead Jesus took that blow for me on the cross. That’s grace. That’s reason to celebrate. That’s what a dying world around us needs to know and experience firsthand.
So is it fair what happened to Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5? Absolutely it was fair. Does God demand purity in the church…the Bride of Christ? Absolutely He does…no questions asked. Is it fair that I take my next breath? or the one after that? No…it’s grace.
Explaining Lent
Like many of you, I grew up Baptist. Warmer weather meant Spring was here. Spring meant Easter was coming soon. Easter meant…well, to be totally honest, it meant new church clothes. Of course we celebrated Easter at church on Easter Sunday. Our church usually did a huge Easter musical of some kind. We sang “Up from the grave He arose!…” People came to church who hadn’t been since Christmas Eve. It was a good day. A Happy day. But that was it.
Jump ahead 30 years. 2 Years ago I was challenged in my church to participate in “40 Days of Prayer and Fasting” during the 40 days immediately before Easter. I reluctantly decided to participate. Essentially we were observing Lent even though we didn’t call it “Lent.” Since then I’ve studied Lent and have been deeply convicted of the importance of this time in the life of all believers as we prepare for the Easter celebration. I’ll be teaching on Lent tonight. Not so much as an obscure (at least to us Baptists) part of the liturgical calendar, but more as a practical means of spiritual growth.
I came across this article titled “Explaining Lent to Non-Liturgical Christians” today. It’s written by a Baptist pastor. He does a great job of explaining very clearly the history and meaning of Lent.
Sticks & Stones…
Do you remember the old saying “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me”? I remember trying to convince myself that this was true as a boy who was often on the receiving end of the jeers and laughs of my peers. I still try to convince myself of this sometimes. But the truth is: words hurt. To be honest, there are times that I would rather be beaten with sticks and stones.
Tonight we are going to be taking a look at the power of words in both TM 412 and Escape. The Bible is really clear in teaching that our words are to be life giving. Sometimes life giving means encouraging, sometimes it means a loving rebuke, sometimes it means to simply bite your tongue and say nothing.
Our scripture focus for tonight: Proverbs 18:21 and Ephesians 4:29
How about you…What are the most life-giving words you’ve spoken lately?
What is Worship?
This Sunday our youth lesson is about worship…specifically what worship is and isn’t.
What does worship mean to you?
Death and Taxes
The only thing certain in life is…Benjamin Franklin made the profound statement about the 2 certainties of life that we are all familiar with: Death and Taxes. I barely made it through my college accounting class and rely heavily on other professionals to help me with my annual 1040, so I am definitely not the person to be addressing taxes. But I have dealt with death…a lot…too much…as a youth minister and as a hospice chaplain.
In the past few days a local student lost his mother and one of our own dear church members went to be with Jesus after a battle with cancer. If it hasn’t yet, death will affect all of our lives. Tonight we talked about death and how it is a part of life. And if we are going to allow our faith in God to saturate all of the other parts of our lives we can and must approach death with an understanding of the peace and comfort that Jesus offers us.
Death is never easy. We grieve. We go through a laundry list of emotions. It affects us deeply. But we have the peace of Jesus available to us. It’s going to be a hard few days for many in our community and in our church. Remember and remind others of these words of Jesus:
“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled…” (John 14:27).
TM 412 Tonight
We are learning the books/sections of the Bible in TM 412. I am rock solid in believing that every Christian needs to actively and passionately learn the Bible backwards and forwards and learning the basics of how the Bible is put together is foundational. Hopefully all of our TM 412ers will be able to say all 66 books of the Bible in order soon. I’ve put together a booklet that we have been working through to help us learn the basics of the Bible. They should be bringing that home tonight. Be ready! I’m going to tell them to ask you if you can say all 66 books of the Bible in order. Can you?
Tim Tebow, John 3:16, and Google
The NCAA BCS National Championship game on Thursday, January 8 featured the University of Oklahoma playing the University of Florida. The game included the 2008 Heisman Trophy winner, Sam Bradford, playing against the 2007 Heisman Trophy winner, Tim Tebow. So not only is this the biggest stage in college football, it is now the biggest stage featuring two of the brightest young stars of college football. If you watched the game, more than likely you saw many close-up shots of both star quarterbacks. And if you paid attention to those shots, you saw the eye black under Tim Tebow’s eyes with “John” written in the eye black under his right eye and “3:16″ written in the eye black under his left eye. If you’re like me you probably noticed, but didn’t think much about it…After all, John 3:16 has been on posters, billboards, and faces at almost all major televised sporting events for as long as I can remember.
Okay…skip ahead 24 hours. January 9. The top search on Google is…you guessed it…”John 3:16.” So, on the one had I think, “wow! What a great witness! Think about how many people are reading John 3:16 today…many of the probably for the first time.” But, really? I mean we’re talking John 3:16 here! This was the first Bible verse I learned. And I was probably 3 years old when I learned it. Everybody knows John 3:16! Right? Apparently not any more.
I’m not real sure just when it began to happen, but at some point in the past 20 years our culture has forgotten the value and importance of the Bible. As a leader in the church I want to make sure our church doesn’t forget…and specifically our youth. This Wednesday in TM 412 we are going to be taking a look at the Bible. We will go through a booklet I’ve written that will guide us through the books and sections of the Bible. We will talk about how we got the Bible and where the different translations and versions come from. And hopefully we will help to make sure that our Middle School students aren’t having to Google John 3:16.
God and Life
One of the greatest joys of being a minister for me is to see an individual integrate their faith with the rest of life.
A lot of people separate faith and life. That’s actually our human nature. And popular culture constantly reinforces the “need” to keep God out of the rest of life. That’s why it’s so important for us as parents to stay educated on culture…and especially teen culture. A great resources for staying on top of what’s going on in teen culture is the Center for Parent/Youth Understanding website.
This semester we will be doing a series on Wednesday nights with both our high school and our middle school students called God and Life. This is a series that will be defined by what is going on in current teen and pop culture. The goals are to:
- Take a look at what is currently going on in teen/pop culture and as a group discover how to approach that specific cultural event with a biblical worldview
- Teach students how to develop a biblical worldview
- Help students learn to live out their faith everyday
I’m really excited about this series. It will keep me on my toes as I will be studying popular teen culture each week. We will be looking at things like the current number one songs and movies, current events, quotes from celebrities, and controversial statements, articles, and people. Some examples would be proposition 8 in California, the new image of Barbie, or the Twilight movie/book series. This series will also give us an opportunity to talk about issues that are current and relevant in our students lives. Then we can discover together how incredibly relevant the Bible is when it comes to these issues.
Our format will be a little different beginning January 7. 7th and 8th grade will begin TM 412 at 6:00 in the Middle School room upstairs. High School will have Escape at 7:00. Please keep encouraging your students to be here on Wednesdays. And you are always invited to show up as well!
Here’s Where We’re Going in ’09
9 Days! That’s all that’s left of 2008. As we come to the close of another year I tend to think about what the coming year will bring for my family and for my ministry. Isabel will turn 4 and begin her last year of preschool before going to “real” school. Stacy will turn 29 and spend a good deal of the year talking about how “old” she is getting. We will have completed our first full year in Levelland. I will welcome my second group of 7th graders into the youth ministry here. We’ll get to see God do some really cool thinks in our youth ministry and in our church.
One of the things this new year will bring is new teaching focus as we dive into a new curriculum in our Sunday morning Bible groups. For the first 16 weeks of 2009 we will be going through a curriculum called Beneath the Surface from Inquest Ministries. The goal of this material is to introduce our students to the why and the how of spiritual disciplines. The first thing that got my attention was the title of the material…Beneath the Surface. There are only a few things that I really don’t like at all. At the top of the list is surface level Christianity. There are just way too many people who wear the title Christian like some kind of badge of honor or accomplishment. We forget, we didn’t do anything for this. According to the Bible, all we deserve is death (Romans 6:23). Sometimes people think “becoming a Christian” is something they need to do in life to avoid going to hell when they die, and once they “take care of it” they can get on with life. Again, the Bible clearly says that once I give my life to Christ, my life ends and from that point forward, Christ lives in me and through me (Galatians 2:20). And there are others who think that being a Christian is a one day a week gig. Once again I have to defer to the Bible: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23). I think probably God isn’t too crazy about surface level Christianity either.
And the best way (really, the only way) to grow as a Christian is through practicing the spiritual disciplines. These include (but aren’t limited to) prayer, Bible study, personal worship, corporate worship, fasting, stewardship, and serving. For a great read on spiritual disciplines, I highly recommend Richard Foster’s Celebration of Discipline. This is one of those books I read at least one time every year. (I’ll make sure our church library has a copy).
So the title “Beneath the Surface” captured my attention and the content is incredible. I’ll be blogging each week about the lesson for that week. I’ll also be providing additional resources and tools to help our students (and their parents) start putting these disciplines into practice. My prayer is that during these first 16 weeks of 2009 (and beyond) all of us will take a step forward in our spiritual journey through the genuine practice of the spiritual disciplines.
