ROMANS, II

hey guys,

here's a rough outline of friday's message...

I. Introduction

II. The Standard (1:16-17)

• The Gospel
• Righteousness

III. The Sin

• Its "Sinfulness" (1:18-25)
• Its Judgment (2:5-11)
• Its Universality (3:9-18)

IV. The Salvation (5:1-11)

• Justification by Faith
• Saved from Judgment

V. The Savior

• His Name (Matt 1:21)
• His Death (Rom 3:21-26; 5:6-11)
• His Triumph (Rom 5:18-21)

VI. Conclusion

• Focusing on the Savior
• The Meaning/Reminder of Christmas (Luke 2:1-20)

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to sum up, its basically hitting key points of the Gospel and culminating in Christ with a reminder of what Christmas is all about--Him who was born to save His people.

the focus will be probably be more in The Sin (III) and The Savior (V). i want to try and draw out how bad sin really is, and in doing so, show how awesome what Christ did was.

my goal also is to point things out through the study bible so hopefully the kids will have a better idea of how to use it and what's really there.

Reconciled with God

Reconciled with God

Romans 5:8-11

First I’m going to ask one simple question.

• Where is your relationship with God at?

And then I’m going to talk about the verse.

• I’m going to go over the idea of sin being the problem that keeps us from having a relationship with God. And then share how the cross and Christ satisfies the problem and how we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son.

• The amazing thing is that this happened when we were enemies with God. And it was nothing that we did but what God did through Jesus Christ that we can now have a relationship with him.

Then I’m going to talk about how some of the students might feel about there relationship with God.

• Some of you might feel like you’re not good enough or that you’re too sinful to be loved by God. That’s not true. That’s actually taking away from the cross. That’s where grace comes in. It’s okay to feel sorrow over your sin but God’s children are happy. They are full of joy, love, and grace.

• Perhaps some of you might feel like you’re okay with God. That God accepts you. But that’s such a light word. God doesn’t accept you. He loves you and wants to fully embrace his children.

Finally I will close with encouraging them to simply turn towards God. To fan into flame any spark that they feel about desiring God.

30 Hour Famine Message

alright, so what I felt God leading me to speak on was a sort of comparison of "What does the gospel look like to us" vs "what might it look like to them" with the point being of course that for the poor and oppressed, they need their basic needs taken care of where we in the US for the most part can take that for granted. In there is the point that they are beloved and made in the image of God and therefore must be treated as people.

Let me know what you guys think. I will also have another message which I'm not quite sure about, but will be more of a sum of and challenge message.

1. Our World vs Theirs
2. Story – can make spaghetti
3. 2 different worlds
4. We live in different worlds
5. But still they are the image of God
6. What does that mean?
7. In some ways we participate in keeping them in that world or creating that world
8. What gospel has come to mean for us?
a. Grace
b. Sins
c. All still good
9. What gospel would mean for them?
a. Basic needs
b. “Give us this day our daily bread”
c. Image of God – treated as people
i. Engagement
ii. Talking
10. We are the church- missional. Good news, what is that?

Cafe Night

Hey guys... well I finally got a chance to work on my outline this evening. My head has cleared a bit, and I feel a little more coherent. So hopefully this makes sense... if not, blame the flu.

My main point is to draw the distinction between community in the world and community in church. My sense is that most junior highers and high schoolers feel pretty alone these days. Even with lots of people around them, they don't feel heard or known in a meaningful way.

Intro: Real world community. I'm not 100% sure what I'm going to do with this section yet. Probably some sort of illustration demonstrating the loneliness and isolation of the world. I don't want to spend a lot of time here, but it's pretty important. If the kids don't identify with this, the rest of the message is pretty pointless. So suggestions would be much appreciated.

Body: Church community.

a. Preconceptions about the church - probably a lot of kids think they know what church is...

b. What the church really is: community

c. Text: 1 John 3. The main point from this passage is that because God loves us, we are to love one another. That if we are really to be the church, we must look to one anothers' needs and care for each other in a way that the world does not. Part of what makes the church life changing is experiencing God's love through other people.

Conclusion: I want to be honest here about our intentions. I don't want to trick anyone. I want for everyone who comes to the outreach night to know that God loves them, but perhaps the best way for them to experience that is simply by us loving them, by us caring about their needs and their lives, by us listening to them and then praying for them.

From there, I'll explain everything and we'll go right into the small group time.


It's pretty simple and to the point, but I want to keep it that way. I definitely want it to be short. My one worry though is that it's too "lovey." Like, we're gonna creep people out by talking about loving them. Do I need to tone that language down or is that something kids really need to hear? Part of me thinks kids are really cynical and will think this is weird, but part of me thinks that the kind of kids we attract tend to be those who need to hear these things?

Thoughts?

I hope this makes sense. I'm tired.

Whoever Wishes to Become Great

Hey guys. Sorry for the delay. Here's my outline for Friday:

I. Introduction

1. Recapping Retreat
2. Mark 10:45

II. Mark 10:35-45

1. Worldly Perspective (vv35-42)

• James and John try to gain prominence/honor
• They were trying to "get a leg up"
• The other 10 feel indignant because they didn't ask first
• Their goal was to become great
• Jesus was just talking about how He would die in vv32-34 and they immediately try and become "great"

1. Godly Perspective (vv43-45)

• "But..." -- the contrast
• Whoever will be great will serve
• Whoever will be great will be a slave
• The purpose of Christ:
• (1) to serve
• (2) to give His life
• (a) He foretold His death (Mark 8:31; 9:30-32)
• (b) He was determined (Mark 10:32-34)
• (c) "The Triumphal Entry" (Mark 11:1-11)

III. Conclusion

1. Christ came to die--to become a ransom for many
2. Mark shows us the Suffering Servant of the Lord
3. The focus is more on Jesus' deeds rather than His teaching

• Application: If we want to be like Christ, we better learn how to serve and love.

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The bullet points aren't necessarily actual points like a traditional outline, but some are just general comments or statements. The main point of the message will be focusing on why Jesus came--namely, to serve and to die.

I didn't plan on there being a parallel to the retreat, but it just so happened to work out. So the further breakdown might be looked at as: the disciples (or our) perspective versus God's perspective. Jesus clearly contrasts the worldview of becoming "great" not only in His words, but in His life.

I'm thinking in the intro to have a brief time of meditation over Mark 10:45. So I'll probably just read it over a few times and hopefully it'll soak in more because I think that verse really captures the essence of Mark as a whole.

And the concluding application will be for us to look for opportunities to serve and love others. Our goal isn't to remain comfortable and seek our own needs, but our goal is to seek the needs of others. To be like Christ is to serve.

Community Transformation

Hey guys... I'm really excited about this message, but also pretty nervous. This is our big week to pitch small groups to the kids. I think a lot of them are already interested, but I want those who are unsure to see the importance of being in a small group, and I want those who are interested to see the purpose. I really want this message to bring those points home.

It's been tough to make this point while keeping our NT study consistent. Mark isn't a great text for community, and I didn't want to just force a point that wasn't there. So I'm really focusing on the idea of discipleship in Mark, and how it was never meant to be done alone. I'm not in love with it, but I think it works. If you have better ideas though, I'm all ears. Anyways...

The big idea is: a life of following Jesus is not mean to be easy. The journey is virtually impossible to make alone - but it can be filled with grace and joy when done with others.

Main text: Mark 8:31-38. The key part of this text is verse 34: if anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.

1. Discipleship is hard. Following Jesus wasn't meant to be a joyride. I might spend some time talking about Mark's conception of discipleship - that the disciples constantly fall short. Mark wants us to see and understand the struggle.

Three points about discipleship are made. We must:

a. Deny the self - We are called to give up our own self-interest, our own worldly desires, and surrender our lives to God. This is a "radical abandonment of one's own identity and self determination." This is a heavy call, to be willing to say that my life is not my own, but God's.

b. Take up one's cross - This is a clear call to a life of suffering and sacrifice. We must be willing to folow Jesus even in the face of suffering and shame. These parts of life are not an exception, but an expectation. We all struggle to accept that we might suffer at times for our faith.

c. Follow Jesus - Lastly, we are called to be like Jesus. Here, the emphasis is following him to the cross, but a basic principle of discipleship is to live a life like Christ. Most of the kids will already understand how hard this is.

2. Despite the struggle, discipleship is possible with help. I may look at some other texts to support this section, but I think the principles are self-evident. Success in all three aspects of discipleship require people to take the journey with us. No one can follow Jesus alone.

You need people in your life to provide you with:

a. Truth: Sometimes it's hard to know which way to go. We might think we're following Jesus, but we need brothers and sisters to guide us back when we stray from the path. Denying oneself is hard - we're naturally self interested and other people can help us see things in our lives that we need to let go of and give to God. WE need to be reminded of times when we need to follow Jesus.

b. Grace: We're going to fall. Period. We need people to pick us up and love us and care for us when we do. When we encounter those times of struggle and sacrifice, we need people with us to suffer alonside us and carry us when we need it.

c. Joy: Jesus didn't mean for faith to be a burden, a struggle. People are what make a life of discipleship worth living. A life alone, trying to be like Jesus, is almost not worth it. Going through it together can bring so much joy.


The controlling metaphor that I really want to emphasize is the idea of faith as a journey. Others make the journey easier and more enjoyable. They make the journey worth going on. Small groups provide people who may be lifelong companions.



I'm interested to hear all your thoughts.... thanks!

A tour of the sermon on the mount: a few easy steps for relational kingdom living

hey guys,

here's my outline for the message... You know me, I'm a big sermon on the mount guy, so I thought I'd do a sort of sequel to my last message (salt and light as relational evangelism). Something that hit me in the beginning of seminary is how Jesus' commands can sound so tough sometimes... but my ethics professor suggested that Jesus actually provides what he calls "transforming initiatives" to help break cycles of sin, thus making sin easier to conquer. Its a very "here and now" view of breaking sin that I love. So admittedly, the sermon will seem a little unfocused at the end... but I will try to focus on the fact that Jesus is a savior of the present and that by his word and power and method we are empowered to tackle sin a little bit at a time. I'll then go through some of the items in the Sermon on the Mount and show how kids can work at breaking down these walls bit by bit.

So the end will have a bunch of different applications that hopefully every youth can relate to a few of them. I think I'll try to rely on small groups for tackling those to get at the hearts of those issues more specifically.

LMK your thoughts

I. Being the salt and light… (“I want to be salt and light…”)
a. Relational (like last message)
b. But some of Jesus’ commands are so hard…
II. The impossibility of the law (“…but Jesus’ commands and Kingdom living can be tough… sometimes Jesus asks the impossible…”)
a. The Law, however, still remains
b. Points out sin and its consequences
c. Feels like we can never escape, living with guilt, unable to break free
III. Little Steps offered by Jesus – Kingdom living (Transformation) (Jesus commands might be tough, but he still offers little ways of breaking cycles, especially thinking about them relationally)
a. Jesus is the savior – here and now, transforming initiatives, empowers us with word and method
b. Keep relationship and covenant in mind
c. Highlighting some little ways from the sermon on the mount to be salt and light
i. Meekness
ii. Hunger for thirst and righteousness
iii. Merciful (and compassion)
iv. Peacemakers
v. Anger (reconciliation)
vi. Adultery (lust and such)
vii. Lying
viii. Retaliation
ix. Loving enemies
x. Almsgiving, fasting
xi. Do unto others and Love God, others

NT series Matthew

Alright, sorry fellas I’m always so late on these things. But I have been working on this Friday’s message and I’m pretty darn pumped about it. So check it out…

I decided to kick off the series on the NT (Matthew) by doing several chunks of it and bringing it back to these two main questions, “What is this teaching me about Jesus and what Jesus is teaching me?” I really want to emphasize that the gospels are all about Jesus. Sometimes we make them about ourselves and that takes away from really knowing and understanding Christ and letting Him transform you.

The 3 main chunks of Matthew I’m going to go over is

Matthew 13 Parable of the farmer scattering seed

Main points: Jesus is deep and like the crowds on the lakeshore that day, our task, again and again as we read scripture and think about God’s work in our own day, is to think it through and figure it out. It won’t always be easy. Christianity isn’t about cozy little lessons to make us feel better. It’s about what God is doing in the world-what he’s already done in Jesus and what he wants to do through us today.

Matthew 14 Jesus feeds five thousand

Main points: Jesus in compassionate. Whenever someone is close enough to Jesus to catch a glimpse of what he’s doing and how they could help. We come in with our ideas, loaves, fishes, money, a sense of humor, time, energy, talents, love, artistic gifts, and skill, whatever we have to offer. He holds them before his Father with prayer and blessing. Then, breaking them so they are ready to use, he gives them back to us to give to those who need them.

Matthew 28 The resurrection

Main points: Jesus is awesome. Take away the resurrection and you take away the gospel from Matthew. Take away the resurrection and you take away everything we believe in. Nothing matters if Christ didn’t die on the cross and rose again. Our faith, our Friday nights, and our lives would be a huge waste. But, the one who walked this earth and spoke God’s kingdom message in parables, the one who showed compassion to those in need and fed five thousand, the one who gave up his life and sacrificed everything is now the risen Lord.

Community Evangelism

Hey guys... here's my outline for this Friday. It parallels chapters 7 and 8 from Divine Commidity somewhat.

Main idea: the church as a community has to do more than love itself, it has to love and welcome those who are new and different. We need to get better at this

Main text: 1 Corinthians 11:17-32 (and chapters 12 and 13).

1. The problem: Paul is calling out the richer members of the church for eating before the poor at communal meals. Inherent in this action is their own distorted view of community:

a. Own needs as primary: The rich were hungry, so they ate. They never really thought about the very real needs of the poorer members. They were in a position to give, but they were taking. The parallel for us is that we come to our own table (Straightforward) and enjoy community without offering it to others (new or marginal students) who might be starving for it. We get so caught up in our own desire to hang out and have fun, others are forgotten.

b. Affirmation of social categories: The rich were simply thinking the way they thought in the world. In the real world it was normal for the rich to go to the front of the line and eat at the head of the table. These social categories create division, not unity. For us, the same type of division can happen. We are too conscious of how people dress, how they talk, what they're like. We make determinations of who is like us and who is not, and that impacts whether or not we welcome them into our community. We have to stop thinking along those lines.

c. Attitude of superiority: similar to the point B, but a little different. Here the problem is that the rich probably thought of themselves as better and more deserving than the poor. Similarly, at Straightforward we can develop an attitude of spiritual superiority. We can see people who we know from school to be "sinners" or "different" or whatever, and that can prevent us from reaching out. There has to be grace and acceptance of who people are.

2. Paul's vision: One body. Unity.

3. Paul's solution: love. Paul's treatise on love is the antidote to the disease of divions in community.

a. Love is not self-seeking: acknowledges that it's not about us. We have to come here seeking to love, seeking to extend grace. Not looking to simply get ours.

b. Love does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud: love doesn't keep track of social categories. Doesn't look at people as being "too cool" or too "uncool" for us.

c. Love keeps no record of wrongs: love doesn't look down on people whose lives appear less "holy" than ours.

Example: table of Jesus - with sinners.


That's about it. The primary purpose of the message is to deal with the things that prevent us from being welcoming, and call on our kids to be intentionally loving and accepting. At the end, we'll allow them to apply this by giving them the chance to be a part of welcoming groups.

Bold Evangelism

hey guys,

here's the tentative outline for this Friday.

Focus: It is our identity and purpose to be the salt and light of the world
Function: To encourage the youth to be bold in their evangelism, specifically to go out and be involved and chase away darkness

Scripture is Matthew 5.13-17
13 “You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot.
14 “You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. 15 No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.

The Holy Bible : New Revised Standard Version. Nashville : Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989, S. Mt 5:13-16

The idea is that salt and light are in the world. Evangelism takes relationship and being outside the church walls. There they can let their light shine for God whether or not we get people into church

1. Salt of the Earth
a. Purpose of the Christian life
b. Making the world a saltier place
i. Called to be different
c. Salt goes out
i. Saltiness works better over time and effort
ii. Steak and marinate
d. Invests and spends time with
e. Acts church
2. Light
a. Inviting people with hope
b. Light Destroying the darkness
c. Essenes
d. Hiding light vs light that goes out
i. Hide and Go seek in the dark
e. Philip
f. These are our identities. God gave us these identities and God is with us. We can’t fail. Therefore be bold
3. Let your good deeds shine
4. Being bold in evangelism
a. Here at Friday Night
i. Inviting is good, we always want to welcome
ii. But even if not, we are called to be…
b. Out there
i. Spending time
ii. Being present
iii. Dark times and good times

The Straightforward Commission

Hey guys... I kind of made a command decision today as I was preparing this message. The evangelism series will be 5 weeks, taking us in to the middle of September when we'll start the new NT series. This Friday's message will be something of an introduction, the following three messages will elaborate on three of the points I'll make in the intro. And the 5th will be a closing message.

My message for Friday introduces the idea that we, as a youth group, want to rethink evangelism in a sense. The main focus is that evangelism is relational, and I hope that the kids will take responsibility for their part as disciple makers.

I've actually transcripted most of this message, but here's an outline.

I. Our perceptions about youth evangelism: program based. A lot of students buy into the idea that their friends will like church if we have a "fun night." They want to bring friends when they're sure there will be good worship or a good speaker or something fun. The assumption is that the program will matter most to their nonChristian friends.

II. Scripture: John 2:23-25; John 6:60-66

These are two short passages revealing Jesus' understanding of the miraculous and spectacular. Faith based on the spectacle is shallow and fleeting. Faith has to be based on more than "the show"

III. Straightforward evangelism: Personal, relational, focused on students, not staff and programs.

I'll spend the better part of the night making this point. I'll touch on some examples of God using relationships to reach people. But the main point is that I truly believe that the strength of our group, the way God wants to use our ministry is through loving community we have. I believe that what attracts newcomers and nonbelievers is not the program we put together (although messages and worship and games still matter), but experiencing God's love through our people.

What's makes our group so great can be a powerful tool for evangelism.

IV. Application

I'll touch on three steps for Straightforward evangelism. This is a simple but hopefully effective process that I'd like our kids to implement. Feedback here would be helpful.

1. Live provocatively: evangelism is a continuous act, not a one time thing. It happens every day at school when kids make decisions and live life. By loving people and living differently, people should want to know what we're about.

2. Seek to love: evangelism continues every Friday night. Every person who walks in the door should feel welcomed and loved. That is the responsibility of everyone, students and staff. We do this well, but it could be better. Some kids still fall through the cracks.

3. Be bold: ultimately, nonbelievers will come because students bring them. We're not going to march out into Cerritos with flyers. Students must use their existing relationships to bring people into the community we have. This takes boldness and trust.


That's that. I'm stoked for this series.

God is Lord

So the last "God is..." will be God is Lord. I'll be going off Psalm 93.

I. Intro/Definition

Here I'll define what being Lord specifically means.

II. The Reign of the Lord (v1)

Here I'll talk about how God is reigning currently and how everything is firmly planned in His hands.

III. The Endurance of the Lord (v2)

This section will be how God has existed and been always.

IV. The Power of the Lord (v3-4)

This part is where I'll talk about how God really rules over everything. In particular in the verses it talks about how He is mighty even over the waters.

V. The Holiness of the Lord (v5)

This last part will be about how He is true to His Word always and how holiness is always apart of His character.

VI. Conclusion/Application

--

So I'll be going through the Psalm and drawing things out from the Psalm. The way it'll flow is some intro and then defining what it means for God to be Lord and then really all the points that follow will be implications/characteristics of Him being Lord.

The conclusion/application will come in our submission to Him. We love to have God as our Savior all the time, but we don't always love to have Him as our Lord all the time because that means we can't always do whatever we want. The fact that God is Lord, and more specifically, our Lord, means that we live not to ourselves, but to Him. God is not an uncaring Lord or King, but He is the most loving and the One who will care the most.

Really what this series has been has been to put us in awe before our God. Hopefully the kids have been seeing that as we have progressed through and hopefully this last message will do the same.

God is Worthy

Big Idea: When we truly encounter God’s presence, we recognize that we give our lives and our selves to him not because he asks for it or because it’s required of us, but because he is worthy of it. To know who God is is to understand that he deserves everything.

I. Text: Revelation 4:2-11 (maybe touch on chapter 5 too)

Explain symbolism of text

Re-read a “translated” version

II. A picture of God

As beautiful (4:3)

As powerful (4:5)

As holy and eternal (4:8)

As creator (4:11)

As the Lamb (4:9, 12)

III. The response of God’s people

Constant worship and thanksgiving (4:9-10, 5:9)

Falling before him and laying down crowns (4:10, 5:14)


The great struggle of all of our lives is to get here. This is heaven – this is us at our best, in a redeemed state. But we work and strive to be like this, to come to a place where we fall down before God and give him our crowns. If you learn nothing else from this series, learn that God is awesome. Not awesome in the modern sense of the word, awesome in the sense that he inspires our awe. That he is so profoundly amazing that to actually see him and experience him should leave you breathless. Recognize that everything about who God is should move you to humble yourself. That the more you see that God deserves, the less you think that you deserve.

God as the Giver of Life

Hey guys, here's a rough outline of what I had in mind.... God as the Giver of Life. The idea is to focus the youth on God's life giving ministry, that is creation and redemption of life. We therefore are also givers of life having been given life by God (redeemed life).

Note: I will briefly touch upon creation. My personal stance is in the middle as regardless of how it happened, God is behind it. I will simply make that point to the youth and mention that there are faithful Christians on all sides of this equation. I'll leave it up to them if they wanna chat about that privately afterwards

OK, here's the outline:

God as the Giver of Life

I. God is the Giver of All Life (Genesis 1)

a. God as creator

b. All life comes from God, the originator of life

i. Will quickly mention that there are faithful Christians on both sides of the Creation/Evolution question

c. Adam and Eve – Sin destroys life

II. John: I Come so that they may have life and life to the full…

a. Jesus/God: Restorer of life

i. Eternal Life

ii. Corporeal Life

1. Freedom from sin

a. Galatians (It is for Freedom that we have been set free)

2. Reminder of “Straightforward Redemption”

3. Healing and wholeness

III. We therefore are givers of life…

a. We bring life to people that are dying (both physically and spiritually)

i. Evangelism

ii. Prayer

iii. Healing

iv. Forgiveness

v. Freedom from vicious cycles

God is personal

God personally invites you to have a relationship with Him. He is calling you out to truly live. God wants to be apart of every detail in your life. He created you not just to simply exist or to be average, but to be unique.

The bible is clear about your calling. We are to glorify Him in everything we do (Isaiah 43:6-7). From eating to drinking we are to bring glory to God (1 Corinthians 10:31).

What does it mean to glorify God?

To pray, and think, and dream, and plan, and work with God in every aspect of our lives is a way to glorify God. By bringing God into full focus and weaving Him into our every thought and every word and every action.

How does my relationship with God become more personal?

By going to the center and foundation of it all is the only way our relationship with God becomes more personal. Christ and the cross.

Here are some personal stories of my relationship with Christ and how they have shaped my life and have drawn me closer to God.

I’m going to draw this message into focusing on the cross of Jesus Christ. God is personal because he gave His son Jesus Christ to give us life. I’m going to try and make it clear and simple. My main point I want to drive home is this: Glorifying God is our joy and calling and passion and is the reason we were created. And a cross-centered life is a God glorifying life. In short, a relationship with Christ is all that matters.

God is joyful

Hey guys... the outline is coming along slowly. I spent most of the day trying to hammer out a topic. God is a lot of things. It's hard to pick one that is meaningful and relevant to the kids.

Anyway... the idea that I landed on was that God is joyful. Or, maybe a better way to put it is that God is a God of joy.

There are three basic points I want to cover, and there is a logical progression.

1. God is joyful (cf John 15:11, 17:13). I don't really want to get into what it means for God to be joyful. The point is that true joy comes from God. The joy that God desires for us to have is His joy. This is kind of the foundational truth, but I probably won't spend much time on this point. It leads us to the core of the message in points 2 + 3.

2. True and lasting joy is found in God, not things. The point of this section is that we have a distorted picture of joy. We think of happiness and pleasure, and we seek those things out in the world. Joy is better than both of those things, and we find it in God.

3. We are called to be a joyful people. The main reason I wanted to talk about joy is because I don't think we tend to associate faith and joy. We tend to get bogged down with the struggles and difficulties in faith. When we think of our relationship with God, we're so focused on what's wrong. Faith should be the source of a constant joy.

That's where I'm at now. I want to spend more time studying the idea of a biblical joy so that I can help the kids understand what it means to be truly joyful (and how to distinguish joy from happiness and pleasure). But ultimately, I want them to walk away feeling like their faith is a good thing. I'm kind of tired of us being downer Christians who always feel like crap and always feel like something is wrong.

Let's be a joyful people.

Friday, April 15

hey guys. brett said he couldn't speak this friday so i guess i'm up. here are my thoughts thus far, though i don't really have an outline yet.

my point for this week is "God is Praying". its a bit different in that "praying" is not really a characteristic, but i think it is characteristic of God, not only that He prayed for us, but that He is praying for us right now also. i think we don't typically have this thought. we know God sent Christ to die for us, that He has forgiven us our sins, that He loves us, that He hears our prayers, etc., but we don't always remember that Jesus is praying for us and that He has already prayed for us.

the text i'm going to look into is John 17, particularly vv20-26 which is Jesus praying for future believers--us. and also Rom. 8:34, which says that Christ was raised to the right hand of God and intercedes for us.

so i'm going to draw out the idea that God, particuarly Jesus, prayed for us and is praying for us still. i think it is such a comforting fact to be reminded of. and i will likely also hit at least somewhat on how Christ valued prayer. even in His impending death, He still went to the Father and prayed (Gethsemene). prayer to Him was precious time with the Father and to that end in John 17 is what He was praying for us.

so that's my rough thought so far. i have a lot of ideas, but they are jumbled still. i'll try to get a more concrete outline up by tomorrow. but that is my main idea.

God is... good

Hey guys... to be honest I don't have a real good feel for this message yet. I have some ideas that I like, but I don't have a real solid sense of direction. I have a big chunk of time to work on the message tomorrow, so I'll keep you posted on my progress. But here's what I have at this point. Please feel free to give suggestions!


1. God is good
a. I had a tough time deciding if this is what I wanted to talk about. It's
overly broad I know, but I do think it's something we forget or misunderstand.
Especially in light of the news of Luini's dad's death (which I imagine many of
us and the kids are struggling with), it's something I wanted us to dwell on.
2. Key text: John 10 - I am the good shepherd.
a. The imagery of the text emphasizes “shepherd,” but “good” is an essential
qualifier.
b. It doesn’t matter a whole lot if he’s a shepherd, but he isn’t good
3. What does it mean that God is good?
a. I don’t think I’ll spend a ton of time talking about what it means that God
is good. I might cover it briefly
b. But I want to focus more on what it doesn’t mean. The fact that God is good
means he is not a lot of the things we think he is.
i. He is not…
4. What does it mean for us?
a. God can be trusted
i. God is good and remains good at all times.
ii. At the heart of trusting God is the belief that he is a good God, a
good shepherd. He is undeniably good, unshakably good, good without
exception, good in the purest sense.
1. Our inability to trust him with our lives and situations often
comes from a defect in our view of God’s goodness.
b. We need to take time to taste it (1 Peter 2:3)
i. God’s character should be savored and enjoyed – what better
characteristic to dwell on then his goodness.
ii. We rarely just sit and savor God’s goodness


That's it for now. Obviously I'll develop sections 2 and 3 a lot more. More to come.

By the way... blogger SUCKS for formatting. Or maybe I suck. I don't know but I had the hardest time trying to compose an organized outline on this.

God Is (April 24)

hey guys,

sorry this is coming a bit late, i kept going back and forth on what i wanted to cover. originally i was planning to do God is Creator, but i'm going to switch it up and basically do an extended intro to the series. in a sense, really the first God is, will be God is and i'll be working through exodus 3, which i think fits nicely with what we've been doing and where we are headed. so here's my outline thus far, let me know what you think. hopefully it makes sense. sorry about the formatting, it just auto adjusts like that when you copy and paste..

Scripture: Exodus 3:1-15
Proposition: To go from "Who am I?" (ourselves) to "Who are You?" (God) so that we would be humbled, so that we would expand our minds, so that we would worship


I. Intro Series ("God Is")

A. "You Are" + "Straightforward Redemption"
1. The focus is more so on us
i. Our identity/standing (before God)
ii. How God is going to redeem various aspects of our lives

B. Changing Gears
1. Less about us, more about God

C. The Study of God (Packer/Spurgeon)
1. There is nothing of higher pursuit
2. There is nothing more humbling
3. There is nothing that expands more


II. The Set Up (Background)

A. God Brings Moses to Himself (3:1-4)

B. The Holiness of God (3:5-6)

C. God Hears the Cry of His People (3:7-9)


III. God Is

A. The Purpose of Moses (3:10)

B. "Who Am I" (3:11)
1. What we have already covered
i. You are...
a. Chosen
b. Holy
c. Royal Priesthood
ii. Redemption
2. Moses recognizes his inadequacy

C. God Responds (3:12)
1. It's not about Moses
2. It's about God
i. "I will be with you"

D. "Who Are You" (3:13)
1. What we will cover
2. The focus of our series -- God is...

E. God Responds (3:14-15)
1. I AM WHO I AM (14)
i. He was
ii. He is
iii. He will be
2. LORD (15)


IV. Conclusion

A. The Attributes of God

B. The Goal of the Series
1. To answer the question, "Who are You?"
i. To keep us humble
ii. To expand our minds
iii. To bring us to worship

Outline-Message April 3 (comments and questions needed) - draft ii

Focus: God is with us.
Function: To preach the good news that God does not leave us alone. He is not just a God up in the sky. He is a God down on the ground.
Text: Matthew 28.20 (18.20, 1.23, Hag 1.13, Gen 28:15; Exod 3:12; Josh 1:5, 9; Isa 41:10)

I. Text – Jesus (and God) is with us. (and surely I am with you til the end of the age…)
II. Views of God
a. NT Wright: don’t believe in a God far away and distant
b. God wants to be intimiately involved in every way
c. Part of God’s character
III. Jesus: The Kingdom is Near
a. God’s presence: available and immanent.
IV. You are not alone (Chosen!) Gift that God has given us
V. Power to redeem because God is here.

What do you think of switching II and III? I'm going back and forth on that one...

I think IV and V could be switched (Eugene's suggestion). I'll see how it flows when writing it. Other thoughts?

Message for April 3 - opening thoughts

Hey guys, what are your thoughts on the following...

I love the idea of redemption of time, but its a bit broad and I feel like that's sort of the theme for the whole series, we just didn't cover free time. But something I'm not sure we covered was jobs in the future (correct me if I'm wrong). I could cover a bit of that... but then focus in on God being here and now and wanting to be part of our lives. He empowers and centers our lives. It sort of segues into "God is" as well. Let me know your thoughts

Youth Access

I was thinking guys... maybe we shouldn't let the youth view the blog. There is some value in letting them see the process, but I think it might take away from the purpose of the blog. The goal is for us to work on these messages and be critical and experimental and throw stuff out there. If we know the kids are reading this, it actually limits how candid we'll be.

What do you all think?

Opening Post

Hey Straightforward Staff! Here is the new CBC Straightforward Blog. The primary purpose of this blog is for speakers to discuss upcoming messages, but of course, we can use this for any sort of discussion pertaining to youth group (and prayer requests and other stuff too I'd say).

But basically, it is the task of every speaker for the upcoming week to post an outline of their message by the time they go to bed on Tuesday night. Then all speakers and anyone who wants to can comment on what's being developed. (Speakers must do this by Wednesday before sleeping). This can help facilitate awareness of the subject for the upcoming Friday.

I'll be speaking this Friday so Tuesday will be the first message post

Any one in youth group can view this, so please let them know if they're interested. I'm only allowing you guys to comment, but if someone in Straightforward needs posting privileges they can request it

Thanks
Brett