When Something Is Missing Part 2

Yesterday's story was the opening to my message on Sunday from the 13th Psalm. I tried to bring out the idea that the Psalm lacks what I would consider a climax (as introductory story). We have David lamenting the fact that it feels like God has abandoned him and that his enemies are going to triumph. The tension builds as David cries out to God for an answer. Without an answer he surely will die and all his enemies will celebrate his demise. All this brings us to the point in the psalm where we want a climax. We want the answer to come, a solution to arise, and the enemy to be defeated. In short, we want God to step into the story and do something.

Yet, God never steps into the story. We're expecting a climatic moment for God's power to be displayed, and what we get is something very anti-climatic. We get nothing. After all the build up, David ends the psalm by declaring that he will continue to trust, rejoice, and sing for God has been good. He goes from complaining that God has forgotten him to singing because God is God, and nothing in the story has changed.

My point I felt was simple to understand, but harder to accept. God can and does still answer prayer. There are climatic points in our lives were we need God to step in and he does just that. However, and I can't explain why, there are other times when God chooses not to step in. Moments where we desperately need God, and he remains silent. The climax of our story doesn't come. When that happens, we're left with a choice. Is faith in God dependent upon him doing things for us, or is it based on belief? Belief that he is God both when he steps into our story and when he chooses not.

Maybe it just resonated with me, but I thought it was a good word.

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When Something Is Missing

The year was 1987. A seventeen year old girl raced down a maze of New York alleys. The area around a wicked slash in her jeans was quickly becoming stained red. The pounding of footsteps and shouts of men pushed her on. She was lost and tired, but if she stopped she was dead. Two wrongs turns and a backtrack brought her into the view of her pursuers. Trying to duck into another alley, she lost her footing on some loose gravel and went tumbling down. She lay on the pavement dazed. Then, without warning, they were there. Rough hands grabbed her and pinned her to the ground. A foot was placed solidly on her neck and pressure slowly began to be applied. She coughed as it became harder to breathe. They had found her and now she was going to die. Through the pain she looked up past the buildings into the night sky and saw the most amazing thing.

The Monkey Trap

Tonight I am finishing up my three part “How to Lose Your Faith” series. I’m dealing with the monkey trap, or perhaps better understood as hanging onto the world when all it means is death. I’m starting with the classic story (or legend) that you can trap a monkey by placing an object that it desires in a jar with an opening only big enough for its hand to slide in. Once the monkey grasps the object, it can’t fit its fist back out the jar’s opening. I’ve searched and it doesn’t appear to be a true story which I will make clear tonight, but it really does illustrate the way people view this world. They talk about wanting heaven, but they’re holding so tight to their possessions and relationships that when Christ does return they’ll be left behind.

I have a mental picture of a person holding onto the ground with Christ pulling their feet in mid air trying to get them to let go. Won’t happen that way, but this is the picture I have of people that loudly say they love Christ but really love their things instead. You can hold onto one thing in this life and what you hold onto will determine your future. We must hold onto Christ. He is the only way to the Father.

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Look Him in the Eye

We had an incredibly powerful youth service tonight. I preached on John 8:1-11. It’s the passage on the woman caught in adultery. The whole message revolved around the idea that she was worthless in everyone’s eyes. The Pharisees thought she was worthless and would have gladly killed her if it meant finding fault with Christ. The man she was sleeping with thought she was worthless. Since he doesn’t appear anywhere in the Scriptures I’m assuming he didn’t care enough about her to stand up for her. Then the woman herself must have thought herself worthless as she stands ashamed with her sins exposed.

Yet, Christ looked at her and loved her. A person worthless to the world had value to the Lord. In his eyes, she was priceless.

I preached as best as I could then prayed over the youth. Then, we had the youth form a circle facing outward so they weren’t looking at each other. Then my youth workers and I went around the circle. We looked each youth directly in the eyes had told them how special they were. We told them just how much Christ loved them.

It was awesome. Some of the youth could barely maintain eye contact. Some were weeping. It worked out that all of us leaders were able to talk to every one of them. Each youth had three people look them in the eye and express how Jesus views them has priceless.

You could sense God’s presence and all we can hope is that it continues.

One Idea & Repitition

Last night, I sat in the church basement with "The Brotherhood." No, it's not some crazy version of a board meeting. The brotherhood is the high school age guys in our youth group. Not all of them, but a few at least. We relax, play pool, and try to get into God's Word. Usually, I have a lesson that we loosely work our way through. This time though, I allowed it to be free question and discussion. Always an interesting time. Questions about why we do certain things in church like raising our hands to is it required to pray over our food before we eat. The coolest part was when one of my guys repeated the main point from the previous night's sermon. I included it yesterday. "Every choice is an opportunity to please God." I made the conscience effort on Tuesday to repeat that phrase at least a dozen or more times. I had the youth repeat it with me. I even yelled it as some youth were leaving for home. It was my main point and I wanted them to remember it. So it was really great when one of my guys repeated it and shared that it was burned into his brain and he kept hearing it all day at school. Of course, my desire is that they actually start putting it into practice, but at least I branded it onto their brains a little.

This was my attempt to do something a little different in one of my messages. So far so good.

Choices

Just wanted to pass along the main point of my message from last night's youth group.

"Every choice is an opportunity to please God."