Sola5 Wednesday Recap - 3/25/09

This weekly topic is an effort to recap the Wednesday night Bible study I teach at Sola5, my youth group. I hope it serves to help us all in contemplating the ceaseless riches of God’s grace as revealed through the Scriptures.

In last night’s study of the book of Ecclesiastes, we picked up the same theme that we explored last week, namely, the marks of a life being lived wisely with God as its focus. We looked at Ecclesiastes 7:14-29, examining three truths from the text, sought to understand them, and then discussed how they affect our lives, right here and right now.

First, in verses 14-19, we looked at the first truth – appearance isn’t everything. Solomon discusses the fact that a wise man realizes that the same God has created both the day of prosperity and the day of disaster. He talks about the things he has seen in his life that make little sense to us – often, it seems, the bad guys win and the good guys lose. The world’s reaction to this is reflected to us by Solomon in these verses – don’t be overly righteous (and end up a martyr or a doormat) or overly evil (and end up in trouble and misery), but just live life and look out for yourself. However, how should the Christian react? Solomon tells us that the same God is in control of both the good and bad things that befall us, a God who is perfectly wise and good. The implication, then, is that there is design and a reason behind all things, even when we can’t or don’t see it. Appearances aren’t everything, for our sovereign creator is always at work, weaving the story of human history for his glory and our good. Thus, our reaction should be a trust in him that runs deeper than circumstances. We can lean on him, depend on him, find joy in him – even when times are difficult – a lesson powerfully demonstrated in the life of the prophet Habakkuk.

In verses 20-24, we examined the fact that true wisdom causes humility. Solomon asserts that we all are fallen and tainted by sin. We cannot be too quick to harshly judge others when they wrong us, because we know that we’ve done the same thing to others ourselves. He even admits that though he dedicated his life to the pursuit of wisdom, there is still much about the world that he cannot figure out. True wisdom brings with it a right view of ourselves. We see sins and shortcomings, and we see that we’re not nearly as significant and important as we’d imagined. Thus, true wisdom directs itself outward, building others up rather than calling attention to ourselves. This same lesson is one that Paul taught to the Christians at Corinth, rebuking them for allowing their spiritual knowledge to destroy those around them.

Finally, in verses 25-29, Solomon drives home the truth (which he had come to realize all too well) that marriage is serious business. He talks about a fate worse than death – a woman who serves as a spiritual trap for a man. This could easily be true with the genders flipped – the point is that romantic relationships can easily be a snare rather than the blessing God intended. Solomon learned this lesson the hard way, with his many wives leading him away from God for much of his life. For the teens in my group, marriage seems like a distant prospect. However, this truth has major implications for them as they navigate the minefield that is our modern concept of dating. Consider how strongly Solomon warns against giving ourselves emotionally to the wrong person – he calls it a fate worse than death. There is no person who will have a greater influence on you than the person you marry. This raises the stakes when it comes to looking for that person. Thus, I asked my students, “What are you looking for?” What is it that you are drawn to in the people you’re attracted to? What sort of influence would they have on your spiritual life? Are they someone who will build you up in your love for Christ? If not, then what on earth are you chasing? Romance and marriage are among the most amazing gifts God has given us (for proof, you need go no further than the next book in the Bible, The Song of Solomon). However, it can also be among the most deadly of traps if we’re not seeing it as an avenue for glorifying God, just like everything else Ecclesiastes has discussed. Ultimately, our reaction to difficult times, our level of humility, and our approach to dating and marriage will say a lot about whether we’re living our lives unto God or living the wasted, vain, worldly lives that Solomon warns against. Take stock of these things, and look inward. What do they tell you about yourself?

The Humble Star

Any NBA fans, or even sports fans in general, ought to check out this great post from The Blazing Center's Stephen Altrogge on a picture of humility from L.A. Lakers star Lamar Odom.

Fried Computers and God's Providence

This would normally be the place for the Sola5 Wednesday Recap, and in a way this is it. However, the lesson that God taught me last night has been far more impactful than the one I taught my students, so I pass it along.

Every Wednesday, I head over to the church about an our before our youth meeting to finalize copies of my materials for the week – my sermon notes, outlines for my students, lyrics to the songs we’ll be singing and so on. Yesterday, I was in the process of finalizing my files when I got a call on my cell phone. I got up and talked to a friend of mine for a few minutes, pacing around the room (as is my norm when I’m on the phone, for whatever reason). In doing so, I apparently picked up a considerable amount of static charge, because when I sat back down at my computer and touched the mouse, I got a pretty good zap. Therein started the strangeness. When I went to continue my work, my computer had froze. At first I thought it was just the mouse, but the keyboard was unresponsive as well. I powered the computer down and turned it back on. The fan started up and the power light came on, but there was no BIOS beep, no clicking of the hard drive, and nothing on the screen. The monitor was in standby, which meant it wasn’t getting any sort of signal from the computer. In short, my static jolt had fried my motherboard.

The loss of the computer wasn’t the biggest deal in the world. I was pretty sure the hard drive was OK (it is), and I actually had a comparable machine that a friend of mine gave me a few months ago that I was planning to use for parts. No, the more pressing matter was that 15 minutes before our youth meeting, my plan for the night was completely unraveled. I had no notes, none of the study questions I planned to give my students, no lyrics for the songs that were going to perfectly bookend our study, nothing. Hopeful that plugging the hard drive into the new machine would allow me to quickly get the files I needed, I had one of our adults lead the first hour with our group, which is our game and fellowship time. Surely that hour would buy me the time to get the new Frankencomputer up and running.

Nope. At 7:00, I walked downstairs and stood in front of our group (which included a couple visitors) with my plan for the study shattered and none of my notes. I was going to just wing it, frantically trying to recall all the references I had written down. That’s when it hit me. Our passage last night was Ecclesiastes 5:1-7, which talks of the importance of coming before God in silence and awe and not being hasty to offer up countless words. I was about to stand before a room of teenagers and talk to them about the importance of tuning out the constant distractions our lives present and humbly and quietly seeking God in his word, both personally and corporately. I was going to tell them that so often, we approach God and his word with a million other things distracting us, not allowing us to hear with clarity and receptiveness what he has to say. Yet, here I was, rattled and nervous because my master plan for the evening had fallen through.

My confidence was in all the bells and whistles I’d added to my message for the evening. I was more focused on the peripherals than on God’s Word. I was allowing myself to be distracted by the same sorts of things that I was going to tell my students they should work to not be distracted by. Humbled, and now rattled in a whole different way, I started the study, and was honest about the lesson that God had just taught me through a burst of static electricity and some overloaded circuits. At the end of the night, I wondered whether anything productive had come from my lesson. I felt unprepared, incoherent, unsure. Then today, I got an email from one of my students talking about the impact of the lesson last night.

God fried my computer for a reason. I needed a dose of silence before God, a dose of realizing that my own ideas and plans and abilities were serving in a way to impede my dependence on God’s Word. I had thought about all the things that distract us from hearing God’s voice – our culture, our hobbies, our other loves – but I hadn’t thought about my biggest distraction: myself. It was a lesson I’m incredibly thankful for, and a motherboard was a small price to pay for it.

Why We Don't Understand Headship in Marriage

"Just as Jesus redefined greatness as being a servant in Matthew 20, Paul redefines being the head [in marriage] as having the responsibility to love, to give oneself, and to nurture [his wife]." - Jeff Stinnett

Check out the full sermon, preached at my church on December 7th, here. Great stuff.

Christ on Display in Canton

A big thanks to my uncle Chris Cowan for passing along C.J. Mahaney's post on Redskins WR Art Monk's recent induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Monk's induction speech should be an encouragement to every Christian to remember the true measure of a man. An excerpt...

"...even now as a Hall of Famer, the one thing I want to make very clear is that my identity and my security is found in the Lord. And what defines me and my validation comes in having accepted his son Jesus Christ as my personal savior. And what defines me is the Word of God, and it’s the Word of God that will continue to shape and mold me into the person that I know he’s called me to be.

So I’ve learned a long time ago never to put my faith or trust in man, for man will always fail you. Man will always disappoint you. But the Word of God says that Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever. And He will never fail you.

And that is what I live by and what I stand on. Being included into this fraternity is a pretty humbling experience for me. I always grew up seeing these guys as giants and legends who make significant contributions to the game of football. And it’s pretty hard for me to believe that I’ve now been included as part of them. Growing up I was never voted the most likely to succeed. And there was never anything about me that would have given anyone the impression that I would have played in the NFL, let alone to be standing here.

There’s a scripture that I think about almost every day and I’ve come to personalize it to my life. It says: “Lord, who am I that you are mindful of me?” [Psalm 8:4]. And the Apostle Paul says, “Think of what you were when you were called. Not many were wise by human standards. Not many were influential. Not many were born of noble birth” [1 Corinthians 1:26]. And when I look at my life and how I grew up, I certainly had none of those qualities or benefits.

But I understand and I know that I’m here not by, in, and of my own strength—but it’s by the grace and the power of God upon my life, who I know gave me favor along the way, and who provided opportunity and room for me to use my gifts.

So I am very grateful to receive this honor, and I can stand here before you and say, “Hey, look at me, look at what I did.” But if I’m going to boast, I’m going to boast today in the Lord, for it’s because of him that I’m here and I give him thanks and glory and honor for all that he has done for me."

Be sure to check C.J.'s post, and the full transcript of Monk's speech.

HT: C.J. Mahaney

Sola5 Wednesday Recap - 7/2/08

This weekly topic is an effort to recap the Wednesday night Bible study I teach at Sola5, my youth group. I hope it serves to help us all in contemplating the ceaseless riches of God’s grace as revealed through the Scriptures.

Last night, we continued our summer Q&A series “You Asked For It” with a very important question. The question submitted was, “What do you do when you feel like everyone is against you – even in the church?” Obviously, feelings of rejection and disconnection can be difficult to deal with, but these feelings are all the more tragic when even the body of Christ is failing to function properly. Rather than dealing with the surface problem and talking about how to cope with those feelings, we spent the majority of our time last night trying to get to the root by asking the question, “How do we foster a deeper sense of unity among our church and our youth group? To answer that question, we turned to Philippians 2:1-11. In this passage, Paul appeals for unity among the Christians at Philippi, and then proceeds to show them how this is practically worked out.

Paul begins in verse 1 by emphasizing the reason for unity. Plainly put, why does it matter? Is unity among believers just the “icing on the cake” of the Christian experience? After rejoicing extensively in chapter 1 over the Philippians fervent newfound faith and their partnership in the gospel, Paul tells them of the urgency of that faith producing unity. In fact, Paul says that if the Philippians’ faith does anything for them, then it should produce unity. Paul sees this as a foundational truth for any group of Christians to grasp. Unity is not superficial, and it’s not an option.

In verse two, Paul shows us the appearance of unity. What does it look like? We see that the first thing that characterizes Christian unity is having the same goals. Paul admonishes the Philippians to be of the same mind with one another. What do we mean when we say that two people are “of the same mind?” We mean that they think alike, that they’re going in the same direction mentally. Thus Paul is telling the people to get on the same page in their thought process and strive toward the same thing – the glory of God. One we’re united in mind, Paul says to have the same love. We should all be seeking to imitate the love of Christ – a love that is selfless, forgiving, and redemptive. The love Scripture calls us to all share isn’t a love that we can switch off when it’s convenient. People in the church, myself included, will wrong one another – it’s the sad reality of the sinful nature that is within each of us. However, a case can be made that our Christian love can be most clearly be seen in how we respond in exactly those situations. We need to have the love of Christ for one another, no matter what someone might have done to us.

In verses 3-4, Paul talks about the attitude of unity. What attitudes do we need to cultivate in ourselves to bring this unity about? The first is humility, seen clearly in Paul’s command to “consider others more significant than yourselves.” This is a hard thing to do. Think about it – think about all the people in your church, especially those who rub you the wrong way from time to time. Can you honestly say about them in the depths of your heart, “I am more concerned with your happiness than I am with my own.” This is our calling. This humility is put into action through the second part of an attitude of unity – service. Service takes the idea, “I am more concerned with your happiness than I am with my own,” and it adds, “And I’m willing to work to make it happen.” Service seeks to build others up (and by implication, to avoid at all costs tearing others down) even when it’s difficult and there’s no conceivable reward awaiting us at the end. These two attitudes are inseparable, and they must be present in order to produce the unity God calls us to.

Finally, in verses 5-11, Paul shows us the attitude of unity demonstrated in the person and work of Jesus Christ. Christ was humbled by definition. The eternal second person of the Godhead, the creator of heaven and earth, enshrined in glory from eternity past, took on humanity, became a human fetus and was born a man. By laying aside his exalted existence and entering into his own creation, Christ humbled himself in a deeper sense that we can even begin to imagine. And having been humbled in his humanity, Christ humbled himself in practice. If God was going to become a man, surely he’d at least make the most of it and arrive as an exalted king, worshipped and adored by millions, right? Not hardly. Jesus lived for 30 years as a carpenter’s apprentice for his stepdad, spent 3 and a half years as a homeless traveling preacher, and spent his final days being beaten to a pulp, mocked incessantly, and nailed to a post to die. Though he had no obligation to anyone, “the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” After all this, Christ was exalted by God, enjoying the reward to which he had been called. Are we willing to follow? Are we willing to humble ourselves by definition – claiming nothing as our own and letting go of our own glory? Are we willing to humble ourselves in practice, becoming servants even to those who at best are indifferent and at worst react violently to us? And are we willing to find our exaltation and reward as joint heirs of Christ rather than in temporal glory on earth? Only when we’re living in this way can we enjoy the unity with our brothers and sisters in Christ that God intended.

This Sunday, our group leaves for M-Fuge mission camp in Philadelphia. Pray for us, that we might all strive for this spirit of unity as a youth group both while we’re gone and when we return. Pray that we’ll extend that effort not just to our youth group, but to all of our church. And pray for God’s grace as you strive for unity with your brothers and sisters in your own little corner of Christendom. And as you undertake this difficult, gritty task, keep 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24 in mind.