Archive for: April 2008

Growing Up Christian

Posted by Jeff on Friday, April 25th, 2008 | Comments (0)

growing up christian culture bubbleTonight Mike & I drove up to Red Lion Christian Academy for a seminar on Growing Up Christian by Karl Graustein.

For those of us who came to faith in Christ as adults, some of the quirks of growing up in the Christian subculture are alien to us. The experience of those inside the “bubble” is vastly different than my own. Working with people who have grown up knowing what it meant to be “saved” has been interesting. So many teens and young adults have the blessing and privilege of growing up in a church that informs them, but often fails to lead them to Christ in a way that transforms them. Karl Graustein describes 4 dangers, but I’ll just talk about three:

1. False Assurance
We need to question our Salvation. If our actions, motives, words and thoughts do not reveal that our thoughts have been transformed, we need to ask ourselves if we are really committed to Christ–or just playing the game. Has our life been changed by the good news of Jesus Christ? Or are we just meeting others expectations?

2. Lack of Amazement at the Grace of God
Nothing is so amazing as the grace, mercy and forgiveness of God. But, when we’ve heard about it more times than we can count, it’s easy to take it for granted.

3. Attraction to the World
There are so many things that distract us from our focus on living the life God calls us to live. Movies, relationships, leisure activities, etc. Look for what drives and attracts you–then ask yourself if it pulls you further from God or closer to Him.

Although the book is written for young teens, these are good areas for all of us who follow Jesus to evaluate our lives. I’m looking soon to teach a class for high school seniors on how to keep and strengthen your faith in college and these are likely to show up on week 1.

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Expelled with Ben Stein

Posted by Jeff on Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008 | Comments (0)

expelled movie ticket

After our small group, Nick, Winston and I went out to see Expelled tonight. The Expelled website says, in part, that “Big Science has expelled smart new ideas from the classroom. What they forgot is that every generation has its rebel…Ben blows the horn on suppression.” The movie is a documentary filmed as Ben interviews scientists on both sides of the Evolution/Intelligent Design (ID) debate. Of course, since it’s Ben Stein, it’s also interesting.

Ben Stein raises the question “What’s wrong with asking if the evidence is better explained by Intelligent Design than Darwinian evolution than simply dismissing such thought as inane and anti-intellectual.” If evolution is so foolproof, why are its proponents so defencive and censor ID ideas? There is an amazing interview with Richard Dawkins at the end. (By the way, I have read some of Richard Dawkins work, so please don’t think I’m a dismissive censor.) I don’t want to spoil the movie for you, so I’ll leave it at that…and look for the Ferris Bueller’s Day Off allusion at the very end!

Until you get a chance to see the movie, check out this video.

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Quest–Jesus

Posted by Jeff on Thursday, April 17th, 2008 | Comments (0)

We’ve changed the format of our evening service at church. We’re calling it Quest. It has a discipleship emphasis, so after the sermon we provide questions which people discuss around their tables afterwards. It’s been well received by all ages and I’va had a lot of good feedback from young adults. Our current topic is “Meeting God” and we’re discussing the three persons of the Trinity. These are some notes and questions from my talk/sermon at Quest:

God created us as relational beings—we naturally want friends and relationships.

mySpace—Facebook—myChurch
I am on all three “social networks” so I can connect with people. I love getting “friend requests” and connecting with new people or old friends. But there’s definitely a dark side to the web and what one can see on sites like mySpace. While we can argue about whether Jesus would be on mySpace, but we can also see how God becomes flesh and enters our space. John 1: 14 reveals that He’s become part of mySpace…OurSpace…. God, in the person of Jesus, came to “friend request” us.

Everything in Xnty hinges on Jesus—it’s what separates us from other religions. Jesus is not just a prophet, wise man, etc. He is the centerpiece of Christian faith and who He is affects everything we know about God

Colossians 1:15-19 reveals that if we want to see, know understand God the Father, we need to look at Jesus—who loves us & pursues (friend requests) us.
Jesus is special: 2 natures—human and divine
Some of us don’t have a problem admitting his divinity…it’s the other part of his nature that is hard for some people to comprehend at times, but Jesus was human too (Philippians 2:6-8).

For a time, Jesus gave up his position and humbled himself, took on Humanity and “grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men” (Luke 2:52). If Jesus is really human—then we can admit we are too.

We clean the house when guests are coming, but friends know how you live. We can’t be ‘super spiritual’ and don’t have to “because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted (Hebrews 2:18).” and Jesus calls us friends ( John 15:14-15) when we follow Him. We don’t need to impress Jesus (or others) with how spiritual we are, we need to run to him.

When we deny the humanity of Jesus, we teach ourselves that to be human is to be the opposite of spiritual. Jesus was as spiritual as we can be, but he was also fully human. We don’t want to embrace a lifestyle that embraces sin (Romans 6:1-4), but we can admit that we all struggle and fall. Jesus understands (Hebrews 4:15).

Discussion Questions:
The Bible teaches that Jesus is fully human and fully God. Which part is easiest for you to understand or emphasize? Is it easy to emphasize certain aspects of who Jesus is and ignore others?

Have you, or someone you know, ever felt the need to be “super spiritual” and deny the struggles people go through—anger, depression, etc.? Why do some people seem to think that not having struggles makes them more spiritual?

Read John 15:14-15. Describe your best friend growing up. What was your relationship like? Do we spend time with Jesus? Are we often in a hurry to get through our time with Him in order to get to something else? What does this tell us about our relationship with Jesus? If you’re bored, tired, just ‘blah’ or losing ground in your relationship with Jesus, what can you do to get back on track?

Read Philippians 2:5-11. Everything we want to avoid—pain, loss, hurt—is what Jesus chose for himself when he became like us. Why would he do that? When we suffer, our comfort is in that he lived, suffered, died and rose again. We have a “high priest” who can sympathize with our suffering. How is that comforting?

Bonus: Let us know what you’re thinking…
What things are hard for you to understand about Jesus? Does Jesus ever seem different to you than the God of the Old Testament? Post your struggles/questions or email me.

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Categories : sermons