Let No One Despise You for Your Youth

Here's a little thought for you parents out there (but youth keep reading!). Discuss it with your teens! It's my favorite topic of conversation with teens and parents - the difference between parenting as a rule enforcer versus parenting through living out the gospel. Same for the teen side of life - living by following a bunch of rules versus living out of our desire to please God.
We did a series early on at Gateway called Think. Be. Live. It was a counter view to the old adage Know. Be. Do. which was used by the military and a few advertisements. Our take was something like this...

It's better to THINK about the rules we follow (what you believe about them) rather than just KNOW the rules. If we really take the time to do this, the rules and our devotion or decisions about the rules can actually become a part of who we are, a part of our BEing. Now, since we have done the brain-work, we will be more likely to LIVE out the desired virtue rather than just having a list of DOs and don'ts.

Some examples:

No sex before marriage. THINKing about why this is important is much more valuable than just KNOWing about the rule. Countless numbers of Christian teens and adults are breaking this rule everyday. Why? Because it's really not a part of who they are, it's just a rule. In the "heat of the moment" the brain is NOT functioning at normal operating capacity! If this rule is just something they follow out of fear or obligation rather than something that's really a part of who they are, they will fail.

Not drinking. Same thing here. Statistics in both examples show that the drinking (and sexual activity) rates among Christian and non-Christian teens and young adults are essentially the same. Why? This ideal is not something that we are teaching kids to think about, we've just told them to follow the rule. But peer pressure is much stronger than that!

By the way - that thinking part is where the gospel comes in... the gospel is the true changing force in a Christian's life. If you don't understand the gospel, the sacrifice of Christ for your sins, can you really seek to honor God in your daily living?


Article:
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Let No One Despise You for Your Youth
April 21, 2008 | By: David Mathis
Category: DG Resources

This week's sermon: "Let No One Despise You for Your Youth: A Vision for the Next Generation"

The Ten Commandments are not central in Christian parenting. The gospel is.
The gospel is the rule and power by which we teach our children to live. The gospel is the culminating word of God that can break in on our children, who are born in sin, and by the power of the Holy Spirit bring about the new birth and forgiveness of sins and strength in suffering and biblical maturity.

Successful parenting is more than compliant kids. It is gospel-saturated living and teaching—a gospel is not just something that begins the Christian life but empowers it and shapes and sustains it.

Changed and sustained by the gospel, our children can rebel against the low expectations of adolescence and "do hard things" in a way that magnifies Jesus.

Original article page link.

7 deadly: LUST

The secret, dirty, unspeakable thing that we just don't want to talk about. Well, here it is...

Lust - uncontrollable desire, raging hormones and thoughts, dirty secrets, impure thoughts... there's a ton of common definitions about sex and lust.

What has the church taught you about sex?
Just say no.
Don't do it.
Wait until marriage.
It's dirty.
It's good.

Where have you learned the most about sex?
School
Friends

Parents
TV
Internet
Magazines
Music
Media in general

Do you think the church should be involved in teaching about sex?
Yes
No
A little, but not really

Who knows the most about sex?
Parents
Friends
Teachers
God

Based on these questions and the answers you gave listed here, what kind of view do people have about sex and sexuality?
MIXED UP
TWISTED

Well, God teaches us about sex, sexuality, and lust. It's right there for our reading in the Bible. Period. We just don't look there for our views. All we do is say "don't". As a church, we have failed to TEACH you the proper means to deal with your sexuality. If we are to base our sexuality on what God says (since He created it, you know) then we as a church need to address it, you the student, your parents, and us as your church leaders. All that said, we want you to come to us with any questions. You can still count on us to be confidential, but you can count on us giving you a TRUE account of what's happening in you because we will never, ever base our counsel on the sinful view of sex. (Parents: this goes for you, too. Talk to us about your concerns! Your kids are bombarded every single day by tens of thousands of sexual images and messages - there are statistics, seriously. We have a lot of catching up to do!)

So here we go...

Lust is simply this - Satan's twist of God's love. Get it? God created love, Satan comes along and twists it. Love always gives. Lust always takes. Love is what causes us to make sacrifices, to see things as beautiful, to appreciate the things around us. Lust is just the opposite. Lust causes us to want to take away from others, to think you deserve what you want, to see people as objects, to think that others "owe" you certain actions.

The Bible says that our body is the temple of God. Christ dwells in us. If we would really recognize that we are walking temples, carrying with us the presence and image of God, then we might be able to combat this lust thing. But really remembering this concept takes a lot of practice. We have to meditate on this and really make it apart of us. If we don't think about this, and study it, and pray about it, and really seek God to help us, then we will be doomed to fail. Why? Because "don't have sex" and "don't lust" are just rules with no meaning. They are not a part of who we are.

Look at our culture, it's a one-night stand, let's hook up, I'm only dating 2 people and 9 others online...

It's crazy.

Ok, all of this "meditate on God" stuff sounds good, but what do I do when I'm faced with lust. Seriously. Every time I see ________ I have really bad thoughts. Every time I'm online, I just can't stay away from the temptations.

Unfortunately there's not easy answer. You have to make a choice to live your life as a sacrifice to God - in everything. If our thoughts about the opposite gender do not honor God, then they are sinful.

One of you asked how to know the difference between lust and love. If I'm married, and I just want sex with my wife, is that lust or love? Well, the easy answer is not easy. Although sex is OK in marriage, you can also lust in marriage. The question actually needs us to examine our heart. Are you (remember, you're married) looking at you wife as an object or as the person you love? That's the key. It's a matter of the heart. Now that's in a committed, marriage relationship. OK, what about in your non-married relationships. You can love and desire your boyfriend or girlfriend, but you have to be extra careful. You are not married. Sex is FOR marriage only. You can really spend a lot of time or effort dreaming about this. That's when you are sneaking right into the lust category. Do you see the difference?

Love seeks to develop a relationship that involves sacrifice and giving.
Lust seeks to get what you desire and sees the other person as your object of love.
You have to remind yourself that lust is Satan's perversion of God's love.

Lust is when we try to fill our need for love (relationship) with something physical (sex).

Did you know that the emptiness we are trying to fill with sexuality is often our lack of relationship with God. We are so desperate for REAL LOVE (which only can come from our creator) that we try anything to fill that empty spot. It usually starts with small compromises and then grows into huge, uncontrollable lust. You've seen people on the news convicted of really gross things. Do you think they wanted that a long time ago? Probably not. They made little decisions to get pleasure and they eventually couldn't stop. It's not a disease. It's a lack of something we see in scripture - SELF-CONTROL.

Jesus gave us a great example to deal with lust. Remember the woman caught in adultery? What did Jesus do?

1. He forgave her. Forgiveness is huge for us, as Christians. If we lust, we have to forgive ourselves, not hate ourselves. We have to seek God's forgiveness.
2. He gave her power. He told her to go and not sin anymore. That right there should be a great reminder that we have the ability to stop sinning. If you have a problem with lust, listen to Jesus. GO and sin NO MORE! WOW!

Here's a few ways to stop or prevent lust.
1. We determine to be free from lust with the help of Christ.
2. We keep our bodies holy, as a sacrifice to God. We respect our bodies and others.
3. We have to remember that sex is sacred and it is God's gift to us.

4. We constantly remind ourselves of these things by reading scripture, praying, leaving little notes in your purse/wallet, discussing it with a respected adult.

5. We get an accountability partner - someone of the same gender who will get in our business about our private habits.

6. What else can you think of as a help for you?

7 deadly: GLUTTONY

Gluttony isn't so bad. You gotta eat, right?

Philippians 3: 19 talks about folks whose "god is their belly." Woah. Keep reading and he says "their glory is in their shame." That's a reference to sensuality - sex. What do you think about that? Right before this, in verse 18, he explains that these people are enemies of the cross. !!! Now, that sounds serious.

Is the sin of gluttony only referring to food, overeating? NO! We've got to look at this sin from the whole perspective. Gluttony is the sin of over-indulgence. Not just food, but other pleasures, too. You can look anywhere around the good ol' USA and see gluttony of all sorts. Americans are horribly obese. We have very high rates of deseases that are related to our poor eating habits. America has an extremely high level of personal bankrupcy. Our garages are so full we can't even park our car in there. Although Gluttony typically refers to consuming too much food or drink, it actually is consuming too much of anything.

Gluttony is the sin of TOO MUCH.

What do you have too much of?
What consumes most of your time?
Your thoughts?
Your money?

You see, what we consume (food, drink, drugs, money, tv, music, video games) can eventually consume us. Example: people used to eat so they could live, but now we live to eat. You get the difference? Remember, we're not just talking food.

Any time you do something to satisfy your desire for more, that's gluttony. Gluttony is the desire, the unquenchable thirst, for more. It you trying to feed your soul with food for the body. Get it? The soul needs spiritual food (God, Christ, scripture, etc.) but we try to fill our emptiness with food for the body (cake, huge sub snadwiches, super duper sized meals, gallon size drinks, etc.).

Another thing, gluttony is a distraction. It makes you focus on your wants rather than seeing the people all around you that are starving to death. Think about it. Not only do we miss people starving, we miss people that just need a buck or need some help buying clothes, we miss people who are homeless, people who are abused, people who really just don't know what to do to live.

Even Jesus was accused of being a glutton and a drunkard. He hung out with sinners, drank wine, ate with people all the time. But the key is Jesus understood the difference between a feast and excessive eating. A feast is a celebration that brings people together in community. Excessive eating often happens in private or with just a few.

Getting rid of gluttony...
Simple - give up whatever you are over-endulging.

Eating too much? Fast, take your lunch to someone on the street.

Watching too much tv? Sell the tv and give the money to someone that needs to pay their electric bill.

Seriously. This is a great way to fast, not just food, but our cunsuming habits, too.

Buying lot's of clothes every month? STOP - buy someone clothes at the women's shelter.

Don't forget to read Matthew 11:19

And here's a bonus to remember - when you live with less, you have more. Less stuff to take care of, clean, replace, mess around with = more time to think, to reason, to seek God, to know Christ and more opportunity to change the people around you!

7 deadly: GREED

GGGGRRRReed

The American Way.

Greed is the belief that everything belongs to you.
That you have a God-given right to whatever you want.
That you deserve the same things and accomplishments as someone else.

Greed is what causes us to make what we want (a new car, Wii, iPhone, popularity) and turn that want into a NEED. Do you NEED those things we just listed? NO!

Greed is what has caused us Christians to believe that the Christian life is "the good life", you know, easy street. Yeah. Right. Where is that in scripture? Do you know? I haven't found it yet. We've got Christians running around telling people that it's your God-given right to have riches. Yuck!

Of all the videos we viewed, the one on Kenneth Copeland's ministry brought the most comments. Why? We heard that "the news media was twisting things about Copeland because they are just attacking Christians." There was quite a bit of discussion on that.

Here's the question we left you to think about...

Why are we, as Christians, so quick to defend the actions of someone who calls themselves "Christian" without even considering that they may be in the wrong?

And one more...

Do you remember where the verses are that talk about Christians holding each other to a true standard? Can you find them? Do a little search in your Concordance for the word judge (remember to read the whole paragraph!) and read 1 Tomothy 4 & 1 Timothy 6:20-21.

7 deadly: ANGER

Ang-grrrr. Anger is violent. Ugly. Sinful. Well, what the heck do we do with our anger?

Jesus got angry. We know this from Matthew 21. But if anger is a sin and Jesus was sinless, why is our anger a sin but not his? Simply put, it depends on our anger. Why are we angry? Is it because someone did something to us or because we see injustice to others?

Jesus tore through the temple with what we call "righteous anger." He had a whip in his hand and kicked tail. He chucked the sermons for sale and the popular band Cd's right out the window. (Hmm. That makes you think, doesn't it?) He destroyed the merchandise tables and beat the people selling trinkets in the temple. He was angry, you think?

Righteous anger is natural. You see Jesus' anger when He saw the injustice against God in the temple. The merchants were making a mockery of God. They were selling the latest, greatest junk in the temple. Hopefully we get angry like this when we see bullying, abuse, cruelty, abortion, people twisting scripture, and many other things. Don't you think God gets angry about these sins? So we too can be angry about sin.

Sinful anger is also natural. We often get angry right away when someone hurts us or makes us feel small. This kind of anger is not focused on injustice. It is often a self-centered anger. I'm not saying you can't get angry if someone abuses you, that is injustice, sin, and you should be angry because God is angry about sin against you! What I'm saying is that our anger is sin when it isn't based on injustice. Keeping a grudge, constant annoyance with other people just walking around, freaking out when your little sister smacks her food at every single meal, self-loathing because you can't do something - these are all sinful anger!

We must deal with our anger, both kinds, the sinful anger and the righteous anger.

Here's how you start to deal:
1. Accept that you have chosen to be angry, no one made you angry.
2. Understand why you are angry, look for the real reason.
3. Express your anger in nondestructive, non-sinful ways.

Tackle any and all sinful anger head on:
1. Stop hanging on to it - look at it and decide to let go of it.
2. Stop making lists of reasons to be angry - that only keeps you angry.
3. Tell someone about it - let someone help you work through your anger.
4. Forgive - look at how Christ forgave you for your sins against God and use His example to forgive those that hurt you.


Start now...
Why have you been angry?
Was it righteous anger or sinful anger?
Do you need to talk it out?
Do you need to forgive someone involved?
Do you need to remember how Christ forgave you first so that you could forgive others?

Destroy your sinful anger before it destroys you!

Don't forget about your righteous anger. What do you do about that? Usually you ACT ON IT. When we are angry at injustice, that is our clue to act. Sometimes we need to confront it immediately, sometimes we need to get help. But remember to use the same steps above. Double check your motive, talk it out with someone you trust, and consider forgiveness. This is the anger that you don't let go. This is the anger that caused Jesus to ravage the merchants in the temple.

7 deadly: ENVY

Is there a difference between jealousy and envy?

Your comments...

jealous - want what others have, personal between people, an action or speaking

envy - jealous with hatred, wanting others' stuff, the secret desire in your head

Hmm. Hard to tell the difference!

Envy is the secret sin that makes us sad. It's secret because no one will know unless you act on it or talk about it. It's the sin that makes us sad because we can't just be thankful for what we already have. Envy makes us always want more!

So we looked at the parable of the vineyard workers in Matthew 20 and we see that the guys all got the same reward. The same payment. How does that compare with our salvation in Christ? You guys said it looks like whether we are born again for 50 years or just a few days, we all have the same reward. That is cool! That is some kind of grace! God has the same reward for newbies as for the experts. There's no toiling away trying to "get it right" or saving up credits of good deeds. We just get the prize.

Sooooo, when we look back at the envy the vineyard workers had, we can see some similarities in us as we live each day. We want the talent of some other guy, or the looks of some other girl. We start getting all caught up in wishing we were something that God didn't create. We are saying to God, "You made a mistake!" Yeah, right, God making a mistake!

Here's the video we watched of Dave Busby. Have another look. I hope you will remember him for a long time. I hope you will remember his message until the day you die. http://www.davebusby.com/

"God doesn't make a mistakes. I have these diseases and God didn't make a mistake. I have been healed of the need to be healed. Even if I die the most painful death, sucking air through a straw, it wouldn't change the goodness and greatness of God, not even one molecule."

Please remember, envy says God makes mistakes. Get rid of it, avoid it. Stomp it out in your daily life and replace it with gratitude for what God has given you! Replace envy by remembering that Jesus died for our sin of envy.

7 deadly: PRIDE

Is pride a "Christian sin"?

It is, not only because Christians are regularly guilty of this sin, but because we would not even know that pride is a sin without the example of daily living from Jesus.

Pride used to be a sin. But sometime in the past, Pride took a trip to rehab, perhaps with Brittany, and all of the sudden, Pride is now a virtue. We are taught to have pride and display our pride. We are taught today that pride is attractive.

Here are some of your thoughts...
pride is good - if it's in your family, yourself, in God, in your work ethic, etc.
pride is not good only if it gets to be too much.

self-worth kind of pride is ok
arrogance kind of pride is bad

What we forget is that we are overlooking the sin of pride (arrogance, vanity, egotism) because we now mask it as self-respect, self-esteem, and self-confidence. Woah. You mean that having self-confidence is a sin? Yep. Could be. Jesus said we should love our neighbor as ourselves. If we are putting ourselves above or before others, then we commit sin. Yikes!

The reason our silly pride is such a big sin is because it is the first step to idolatry, that is, making something else more important than God, more important than the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. That's how bad pride is. When we have pride, we are thinking too highly of whatever we have pride in and not highly enough of our Creator.

We really can't think of anything wrong with healthy pride, we gave a lot of examples tonight. But Jesus was against it. Period. We look at Jesus in the desert and see that pride could have been an easy sin for Jesus to commit. But this wasn't just a silly thing that Jesus was going to let be a quick fix for food and water, Jesus was being challenged by Satan to act all-powerful like God is supposed to do. But what did Jesus do? He remained humble. He, the all-powerful one that could do anything in his own strength dicided to remain humble and NOT show his power.

Satan told us in the begining that we could disobey God and we would be like God (pride), he again asked Jesus to make bread for himself to show that he was God (pride). Hmm. It's begining to look like pride is a good start for a ton of sins.

OK, so here's the part that's going to get you thinking or mad or whatever. We have this idea that we should have self-love, or self-esteem. But when we have self-love, we are denying God of the love that is only for him. We were created to love God. We were created to love the Creator. We the created being are to love the uncreated God. Our pride denies God and lifts up ourself.

How to avoid pride...
Remember you are not God and all that you do should uplift God, not yourself.
In other words, there is a God, and you're not Him.
That is, do things for God, not to be noticed. (dress in a way pleasing to God, not a way pleasing to your friend. serve the homeless for God, not because someone said you were great for serving the homeless.)

Remember this - pride is self-deception - it is lying about our real situation. We sometimes use pride to cover up our own insecurity.

And finally, my own take on pride...
What do we really have to take pride in? When we compare it to Christ's sacrifice on the cross, what can possibly compare? We should seek after being nothing. Not the greatest whatever, but nothing. Because in our nothing, God is made great. ONLY in our being nothing can God really receive the total honor that He deserves.

CHALLENGE FOR THE WEEK
Fast your pride. Rather than thinking highly of yourself, think highly of God and of others first.

THE BOMB
Prisde is when you think what you have to say is more important that what is being said.
Pride is when you think your idea is more important that another's idea.
Pride is when you won't listen - not only to others, but most inportantly to God's word.

The forbidden fruit.

I AM ON A RAMPAGE!
I am at war. I am aggressively searching out ways to defeat my enemy. I am ruthless in my assault. I am asking you to join me.

What am I fighting? Sin. Sin in my own life. Sin in the lives of those around me that I love. Sin all around me. I am fighting it all! I am sick of an apathetic approach to tolerating pet sins that have been around for years. I want them gone and I want it now.

What has created this fierce and zealous destruction mentality? Fear. I am afraid of what will happen if Idont pursue holiness.

I am waging my own war on several fronts. Within the boundaries of my own life I have released the powerful warrior of Truth. I am studying Scripture to uncover patterns of temptation and promises of righteousness and I am prayerfully applying these beacons of truth to my darkest areas. Externally, I have invited allies to join me in my assault. I have humbly and openly shared my vulnerabilities with a trusted few who stand watch over my life. I hold nothing from them. They can ask me anything and I am committed to honestly answer them even if the light is cast on rotting garbage.

The third division of my army works internally and externally, like a spy. It is prayer, my secret weapon. I am praying and have others praying for my victory. I know that prayer is powerful, but its force will most clearly be seen at the end of the way.

Adapted from a letter by Julie Norton White, reach-out.org

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Well, here it is. Our favorite subject. Sin. Well, not quite our favorite subject to talk about, but our favorite thing to do!

I have come to a very sad realization. The church has forgot about sin. We do not address it. We do not speak against it. Instead, we accept it. We hide it. We live with it. We dress it up like a pet and carry it around with us everywhere we go. As adults, we say, "silly little teenagers, they just don't know better" and we laugh at sin. But you, as the teen, wake up as an adult one day with a "cute little sin" that has turned into a raging addiction that controls your every thought.

This can not be!

Someone asked why the 7 deadly sins are "deadly". These 7 sins don't actually cause death. They are called deadly because the are the mother of all other sins. Out of these 7 sins come the terrifying sins that horror movies are made of. These 7 sins birth, produce all sorts of vile, evil, and disgusting acts. These 7 sins destroy lives, rip apart families, and completely sever our communion with God.

How do I stop sin?
1. Stop putting others down for their sin.
2. Read the word of God!
3. Identify your own sin.
4. Name it.
5. Admit to it.
6. Turn away from it with your mind, your heart, your speech, your eyes, your actions, your everything! (Dude, that's the definition for repent.)


Challenges:
COMMIT
Fasting social networking for 40 days. That means Myspace, Facebook, IM, TXT, email, and SMS. Ooh. Now that we've thought about all the ways we "network" we aren't so sure we can to this.

STEP IT UP
Confession for 40 days. Pick a parent and confess to that parent your sins on a daily basis. Practice confessing. Watch your behavior change and your parents heart change towards you. (And don't worry, we'll be letting the parents know about this challenge on Sunday morning.)

GO TO WAR
Fast all entertainment that is not God-exalting for 40 days. Wow. All entertainment? Yep. All of it. TV, music, movies, video games, sporting events, shopping, eating out. Whoa! That's every stinkin' thing I do! But you need to go back to the challenge - all that is *not God exalting* means anything that god doesnt get glory. Change up your music to be Christian music, find websites that help you grow in your faith and knowledge of Christ (like the ones listed to the right).

I know these sound tough, and they are! They are tough because sin is serious and we have to kill it, eliminate it from our daily actions. This is more than a little struggle, an all out war and we have to prepare for the battle!