Avoiding Evil

Life is meant to be shared. God did not intend for His people to be alone or separated from fellowship with others. A stand-alone Christian is one of two things: disobedient or not a Christian at all. Our purpose in life is not only to worship God but to have fellowship with Him and other people! We are meant to have relationships.

This brings me to an interesting question:
Can you have a relationship or true fellowship with someone who you do not know?

My vote is no! If I met someone for the first time today and all that we shared was a simple handshake and a hello then I cannot say that I have a relationship and experience fellowship with that person. That person would simply be an acquaintance and not a friend. However, if I sat down and began to talk to that person and within our conversation we open up and personally get to know one another, then I could say I am starting to build a relationship with them. God wants us to have relationships, not acquaintances.

In real fellowship people experience authenticity: Do people know you for who you really are? Do you open up and show people your true colors, or do you hide your feelings and thoughts in fear of what others might say or think? When people get honest about who they really are and what is going on in their lives then they are authentic. When people pretend, role-play, and hide their thoughts and feelings out of fear or regret then they are simply being fake. Being fake is simply lying. Every time you act in a false way you are a liar to everyone around you. People cannot really get to know who you are and you cannot begin to have true fellowship until you are authentic. This may be way out of your comfort zone…but I seriously doubt God ever asked you to stay in a comfort zone anyway. Real fellowship happens when people get real!

In real fellowship people experience mutuality: You simply cannot be a stand-alone Christian. We are here not to live our own lives, but to share life with each other. My gifts and talents are not for me, they are for you! God gives us gifts and abilities that will benefit others…and yet we often use them for selfish reasons to benefit ourselves. We are to keep each other accountable, encourage one another, serve one another, and honor one another. Christians do not grow spiritually mature in a box, but in fact spiritual growth happens when we are together, open, and honest, helping one another. It is so important to be authentic, so that others can help you with your real problems.

In real fellowship people experience sympathy: Many people will not open up because of the fear of what others might think or do. Some may even believe that their opinions or thoughts are not good enough or don’t count so they simply don’t share. The problem is, if you never open up and share your true self, then no one can ever really know you for who you are, and that eradicates fellowship. But when you do open up and share your true self then it is the believers job to sympathize with you and help you through anything, good or bad. Every time you sympathize with someone and you understand and affirm their feelings you build fellowship. True Fellowship cannot happen unless you are authentic, you share with one another and sympathize with one another. Without this true fellowship you are not fulfilling your purpose in life.

In real fellowship people experience mercy: Everyone stumbles, everyone falls, everyone makes mistakes. It is beyond wrong for us to hold someone’s mistakes over their heads as if we never mess up! Instead we must show mercy as God has shown mercy. You simply cannot have fellowship without forgiveness. Just as God has had mercy on us, we must show mercy to others. When someone opens up and becomes authentic our goal should never be to hurt them but to help them!

Fellowship is all about relationships! Relationships are all about getting to know each other authentically. Are there people in your church that you do not know? I am not asking if you know of them, but do you really know them. If there are people in the church that you do not know at all, then your purpose is certainly not finished…we should be about the business of making new relationships and strengthening the ones we have. It’s not easy, but it is certainly worth it.

Pressed

There are times I sit back and wonder what in the world is going through the minds of Jr. High students. I have come to the conclusion that Jr. High is a weird vortex where kids are stuck in a two year metamorphosis from children to teens. The innocent, sweet demeanor of childhood mixes with the rebellious, sour nature of a teenager and boom, you have a Jr. High student. They simply live on another planet and as a youth minister I have to go visit that planet to reach them. Working with these kids is a foreign mission trip all by itself.

We have an event called “The Fellowship” at our church, once every month or two, where kids come in to play games, watch movies, eat pizza, and hang out. The first fellowship we had this fall included a new group of seventh graders who had moved up into the youth group this year. These kids have enough energy to power the largest city in America! At one point in the evening I noticed that the entire group of Jr. High students was missing in action. I ended up finding them in the elevator, standing in a big circle with their shoes tied together! Weird…

Saturday night we had a hay ride and bonfire which included mostly Jr. High students because all of the high school students were at a band competition that evening. I noticed something strange was going down when a large group of girls walked over to the back of a vehicle and began pulling stuff out of it and whispering amongst themselves. It was dark and so I slipped off to the side and snuck around the back of them to hide behind a couple vehicles. My mission was quite successful…that is until someone moved the vehicle out of the way and I was exposed to the whole world! It was on! The pile of girls converged upon me with cans of silly string and all I could do was run and scream like a woman! I am of the opinion that they should ban silly string forever. We also played capture the flag in a big dark field with two different colored glow stix where kids had to run across a three acre field in the dark to grab the other teams stick and take it back to their base without being tagged.

To top off the weekend I took my youth group to Reality House. This is a house of reality in Eureka, MO where they put you in a van and simulate a car crash, in which you die. You then go through all the stages of this life event: the hospital, the funeral home, the morgue, heaven, and hell. At the end of the tour they have counseling rooms where they share the gospel with each person. We have gone every year since I was in the youth group. After getting all of the students organized and into our large caravan of vehicles I hopped into my van only to discover why all the other adults avoided that particular van. It was filled with Jr. High students. It should be known that these kids have the ability to talk without breathing at a pitch that could shatter glass. If you ever decide to put thirteen of them in a van and drive for an hour be sure to bring ear plugs, Tylenol, and a double shot of espresso.

We have a large, high energy, highly motivated group of Jr. High students this year. This particular group is the largest class that has ever gone through the Sullivan school district, so the potential to reach a lot of kids is very real. I know a lot of people who simply cannot handle this particular age group and I can certainly understand… however God has wired me a little different because I love every minute of it. When we used to visit school lunches, before a couple of rouge youth ministers who made stupid choices screwed it up for us, I always loved going to the Jr. High school. These students love attention and flock to you as if you are someone important and special. You walk away from an experience with these kids feeling good and loved…. and tired, beat down, old, run-down, and with a splitting headache, but that is beside the point. I really like the new group of students that we have this year and I believe that God has some pretty awesome plans for them in the near future.

The most interesting thing that I am beginning to see is that these younger kids are entering a world that they are totally oblivious of. When I am working with High School kids I am dealing with students who are in the middle of situations and life changes that press upon them everyday. They are growing up and entering new levels of maturity whereas the younger students are experiencing this teenage thing for the first time as newbie’s. I know before long all that is going to change and their lives will quickly become like that of the older High school students… but I hope to build strong relationships and help them to grow spiritually in a way that will prepare them for what they will face before long. It is kind of like meeting a group of new recruits and beginning to prepare them for the war that is to come. If I could shield them and protect them from all of the things that they will be exposed to and have to deal with in the future I certainly would… but I know I cannot. I can, however, teach them how to act in those situations and hope that when it comes to that point they will make the right choices. But standing in the face of reality I realize that ultimately each and every one of them will make both very good and horribly bad choices in their lives and I will be there, not to criticize or judge, but to support them in the good and pick them up in the bad.

Why do I put all of my time, energy, and heart into a group of students who I know will make bad choices, who will fail, and fall, and falter? Why spend my life with other people’s teenagers who will inevitably mess up and who will foolishly make life choices that will certainly disappoint me? There is something within each of these kids that draws me to them. It is something that causes me to give my life, time, and energy to do what it takes to help each of these teens through life. It is something that I cannot resist, I cannot deny, and I cannot live without. This very thing brings me to my knees, causes me to weep with them, and hurt with them, and laugh with them, and rejoice with them. I cannot escape, I cannot hide, and I cannot run because it’s essence is within each of us. It leads me to love, it compels me to serve, and drives me to go beyond my level of understanding to reach into an uncomfortable realm in which I stand vulnerable. I see it when they smile, when they laugh, when they celebrate, and I see it when the hurt, when they cry, and when they sulk. I see it when I look at their faces and into their eyes… it’s the heart of God. ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only son…’ and that love is kindled within each one of them. I know it, and I see it in them, so my goal is to help them to know it and see it within themselves. God has called me to bring out the heart of God in each one of them, knowing that it will change their lives forever… it’s called making disciples.

Pressed

As a minister, I occasionally have to lead communion. This practice is one that is very solemn and contemplative as people consider the status of their hearts and the Lord’s sacrifice for them. A few Sundays ago I was asked to lead all areas of service including preaching and communion. The thing to be noted is that I don’t like to preach. It is quite arduous for me and I feel very nervous when I do it. One of the symptoms of my nervousness is dry mouth. Nonetheless, I finished my sermon and invitation and started into communion. As I picked up the bread, I facilitated the somber mood by discussing the seriousness of the bread before we took of it. This church uses loaves of bread so that you can see the physical breaking of the loaf as Christ body was broken for us. After my speech, I put the piece of bread into my mouth. I began to chew and chew and chew. I could not salivate to save my life. The dry mouth from my sermon refused any of the typical juices that would allow me to consume the bread. After a long, awkward pause of my chewing and the congregation watching in agony, I lifted the cup and with a much shorter and less somber speech I only said DRINK. The congregation chuckled as I struggled for a drink. The people in the first few rows had the privilege of seeing the bread quietly tucked inside my cheek. It was embarrassing. Everyone noticed. I am very surprised no body offered me a second drink of the wine.

“You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor,” is the ninth commandment of the Decalogue. According to Watson the tongue once made for praise to God has become an instrument of unrighteousness. We are commanded not to slander our neighbor. Anytime that we speak, witness or swear by something that is false against our neighbor or anytime that we speak what is false by swearing for our neighbor we break this command. In the world today we tend to take this commandment lightly by allowing certain lies like small ones, white lies, joking, or hiding things that could be harmful. God commands us to be truthful and live in the truth of his word, we should not deceive by lying or slandering. The mandatory part of the whole commandment is implied, which is that we stand up for others and vindicate them when they are injured by lying lips. We are called to love our neighbor, not harm them. In the same way we need to stand up for our God and not let and false slander be spread about him as well. We can bear false witness to God as well when we make God out to be something that he is not.

The 10th commandment is “You shall not covet thy neighbor’s house, wife, man-servant…” This commandment forbids covetousness in general and then gives a few specifics such as wife, ox, and so on. This I feel is one of the bigger problems in our culture today. Any time we see something that we want and we desire it more than anything else we covet that thing. Coveting is one of the leading causes of breaking the other commands, for example as we covet a neighbors wife we commit adultery, when we covet their things we steal, and so on. When our thoughts are wholly taken up by the items that we desire and we spend more time working to get items on earth than we do to get the things of heaven then we are coveting. When the focus is on the individual in society then the purpose become fulfilling the selfish desires of that individual, and this is the heart of covetousness. Our desire should be God, and our focus and work should be on obtaining a greater relationship with him and fulfilling greater glory to his name, and in seeking him first he will give us all that we need so that we do not have to covet. The best remedy to covetousness is contentment. If we are able to remain content with what we have and what God has given us then we will not covet that which others have. In our world we are bombarded with commercials and items to make us want and desire more than we have, and desiring more than we have is a direct violation of God’s command.

The ten commandments were an important part of the lives of the Israelites and continues to be important for our lives as well. As we seek to obey each command fully we will grow in our love for God in our hearts, minds, and souls, and as we grow in our love for God we will grow in our love for our neighbor. God has given us these commands for our own good, not to harm us but to help us and we would do good to observe each command in our thoughts, speech, and actions.

“Thou shall not commit adultery” is the seventh commandment given to us by God. God commands his people to be pure. Watson states that in this commandment “there is something tacitly implied, and something expressly forbidden.” The thing that is implied is that the ordinance of marriage should be observed. Love and fidelity must be observed within marriage as God has commanded. Anyone who places certain feelings or emotions, which should only be reserved for their spouse, on something or someone other than their wife or husband has ultimately committed adultery. Adultery does mean having a relationship with someone else other than your wife, but it can also cover so many other things involving purity. We are to be pure and holy as God is holy.

The thing Watson says is forbidden in the commandment is infecting our own bodies with pollution and uncleanness. This can include a mental or physical thing in which we lust after something or someone other than our God or our wife. With the growing divorce rate and single parent homes it is evident that this commandment has fallen by the wayside. People do not honor God with their bodies. We not only commit adultery against ourselves and our spouses but also against God himself. Any time that we lust after something over obedience to God then we make that thing greater than God and commit adultery against him as we seek it. The Israelites were guilty of this as they forsook their God and worshipped others. This world has taught us how to be great adulterers, and it is time we let God teach us how to be pure and holy by observing his commands.

The eighth commandment is “Thou shall not steal.” Many would claim that this commandment is obvious and leave it at that, but once again like all of the other commandments it implies many different things that we are far to often guilty of. It is obvious that we can steal material items from others, but we can also steal from our neighbor by holding back spiritual truth that he should know, or by greedily charging him interest on something he has borrowed, or we can even borrow money or items from someone and never pay them back. Any time we rob our neighbor of something that is due to him we are stealing and harming him, not loving him. There are also many ways we can steal from ourselves too. If we don’t allow ourselves what we need such as food and shelter we rob ourselves of what God has graciously given us. If we keep ourselves for studying the word of God and worshiping him, then we rob ourselves of the glorious relationship we should have with our God. We rob ourselves when we waste the time that God has given us, spending it only on pleasure and vanity. In a world full of entertainment and pleasures galore we have a tendency to waste our time on those things and not spend it on the things that really count. We also steal from God. When we do not obey God we are robbing him of the glory that is due to his name. Anytime that we break any of the other 10 commandments we rob God and people of the things that are due to them as commanded by God. The opposite of taking is giving. We should not steal from God glory, but give to God glory, and we should not steal from man but give to man. This is all to often a foreign thought in our society today, but should be a part of every believer.