Archive for the 'Monday Matters' category
Monday Matters: 06/19/06
June 19, 2006 3:04 pm
When Mark described his experience in the check out line, I thought he might as well be describing me. So many of the things he described, I’ve done. Counting people’s items in line. Paying attention to who is last in the next line to compare and see who gets through first. Wincing at those dreaded words: “Price check on aisle 3…”
What Mark was describing is impatience, so it was particularly helpful that he preached on these three words from 1 Corinthians 13:4, “Love is patient.” How is it patient? Simple: it waits peacefully and it suffers long. I don’t think I usually wait peacefully. I’ll wait if I have to. And I can be peaceful if I don’t have to wait. But waiting peacefully? That’s a tall order.
But that’s what love is all about. As Mark explained, “this quality is essential for any human in a relationship with other humans.” That’s us. This doesn’t come easily to any of us. Whether your siblings are borrowing your clothes, or you can’t wait to finish driver’s ed, or the monotony of daily chores is wearing you out–patience is still required. “If it isn’t patient, it isn’t love.”
How are you doing at being patient, at waiting peacefully and suffering long? Are you loving those around you with patience? Two simple questions you can ask your parents and siblings to help you get at this:
- Would you describe me as a patient person?
- What do I look and sound like when I am impatient?
Then ask your parents:
- What steps can I take to grow more loving and more patient?
Monday Matters: 06/12/06
June 12, 2006 10:08 amVince served us yesterday by teaching us what it means to “earnestly desire the spiritual gifts” from 1 Corinthians 14:1. He explained that the spiritual gifts are so important because they connect us to Jesus Christ, equip us for ministry, and reveal the power of the gospel.
Vince gave us six ways that we can grow in the spriritual gifts:
- Seek God, the gift giver. Ask him to show you what gifts you have been given.
- Inquire of your caregroup leader or pastor: what needs are in the church right now. Find out what would build up the church and work backwards from there.
- Assess your motives. Having a gift doesn’t equal maturity. But pursue maturity with humility.
- Have your abilities assessed by others.
- Seek opportunties to try it out.
- Use your gifts, and fan them into flame.
Ask your parents this question for application: how can I fan into flame that gifts that God has given me and use those gifts for the good of the church?
Monday Matters: 05/22/06
May 22, 2006 6:15 pmWhat should you bring to church? A passion for edification.
Mark preached yesterday from 1 Corinthians 14:1-5, using a lesson about the technical differences between the spiritual gifts of tongues and prophecy to make the overall point that any spiritual gift–tongues, prophecy or otherwise–is successful to the degree that it builds up the church. To help us understand this, Mark quoted Gordon Fee:
“The point of everything in corporate worship is not personal experience in the Spirit, but building up the church itself.” (Fee, 1 Corinthians, 667)
In fact, Mark explained, church is unique in that there are a million places someone could go to pamper their selfish desires, but church is the only place to go to–in love–be passionate about building others up. It’s one of the things that makes church unique.
So whether we are at caregroup, five15, a prayer meeting, or at a Sunday meeting, we need to make our job description to edify others. Mark mentioned at least four ways to do this: greeting people we don’t know (five15 Challenge, anyone?), encouraging others for how God is at work in their lives, thanking people for their service and participation in the church, and praying for others.
What do you bring to church? Is your passion to edify others? When was the last time you greeted encouraged, thanked, or prayed for someone on a Sunday morning or at a five15 meeting? Ask your parents for advice about how to make this a priority every time you gather with God’s people.
Monday Matters: 05/15/06
May 15, 2006 7:56 amLast week, as he was preparing for Sunday’s message on 1 Corinthians 13:4, Mark asked us: “how would you define the word ‘kindness’?” I thought: “It’s being nice to people.” So I was served yesterday when Mark helped us understand how the 1 Corinthians 13 kind of love makes kindness work in a much more meaningful way:
“Love will dispose us to relate to sinnners with kindness and hearty goodwill.”
Mark did go on to explain that I was partly right: kindness is relating to others with their good in mind. But it is more than that: it is goodwill shown even when being sinned against. Mark pointed us to this quotation from D.A. Carson:
“Love is kind - not merely patient or long-suffering in the face of injury, but quick to pay back with kindness what it received in hurt.”
As Mark explained, no one has shown us what kindness, motivated by genuine love is like better than Jesus Christ. No one has been more sinned against and yet acted with so much mercy and benevolent goodwill towards ill-deserving sinners than He.
Mark also helped us see how no one has shown us what kindness is like more clearly in our daily lives than our moms. Because they are around sinners all day every day (yes, that would be you and me), they are often sinned against, and have so many opportunities to show their kindness every day.
Did you spend time yesterday honoring Mom for how she shows kindess in your house? If not, don’t let the day end without taking time to encourage and thank your Mom for how she has shown kindness to you! She has demonstrated through her actions what Jesus Christ is like.
Monday Matters: 05/08/06
May 8, 2006 5:11 pm“Is Steve Patient? Is Steve Kind?”
Those were the questions Vince encouraged us to ask ourselves this question in his sermon yesterday on 1 Corinthians 13. Vince showed us from these 13 verses that Love Is Essential, Love Is Intentional (and maybe international?), and Love Is Eternal.
The most helpful moment for me came when Vince encouraged us to substitute the name ‘Jesus’ for the word ‘love’ in verses 4-7. He showed us that Jesus defines what love is and what love looks like when we consider who Jesus is and what he has done. Then Vince took it a step farther, encouraging us to substitute our own names for the word love. “Is Steve patient? Is Steve kind? Does Steve insist on his own way? Is Steve irritable?” That stinging feeling is the grace of conviction.
As we try to answer Vince’s question, we need to remember that–as one author has put it–”our self-perception is as accurate as a carnival mirror.” We need help from outside ourselves to see ourselves clearly and to answer Vince’s questions correctly. Here’s a way to apply this: sit down with your parents and your siblings and go through 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 and ask them to answer honestly: “Do you think I am…” Ask them to be specific, to give you examples, and then find out how it affected them. Do that, and you’re taking steps of repentance and learning to love.
Monday Matters: 05/01/06
May 1, 2006 5:28 pm
“We need to be wheeling and dealing in the currency of grace.” That’s how Jeff Purswell explained it yesterday, comparing his son’s fascination with coins and love for his piggybank to how we should employ our spiritual gifts. Jeff preached from 1 Peter 4:10-11 and made this basic point: “Grace in our lives brings glory to God when it finds expression in serving others.” Jeff showed us how Peter provides three characterstics of spiritual gifts:1. Their source is God’s grace
- A spiritual gift is a concrete expression of grace in our lives.
- Every Christian has received spiritual gifts.
- Spiritual gifts are not just a privilege–they are a responsibility.
- God’s grace never looks the same in any two people.
2. Their focus is other’s good.
- Results or faithfulness
- Recognition or God’s pleasure
- Personal fulfillment or self-sacrifice
- Personal preference or other’s needs
3. Their purpose is God’s glory
Using our gifts makes a statement: He is worthy of my life, my efforts, and my serving.
Jeff gave us gave us five questions for personal evaluation and application, and asked dads to lead their families in answering these questions. Two questions that I think are particularly relevant for our teens:
1. What spiritual gifts has God given me?
3. Am I serving regadless of whether I have identified my spiritual gifts?
Monday Matters: 03/13/06
March 13, 2006 7:42 pm
I went home from church after teaching the New Members Class yesterday because I wasn’t feeling well. So I want to let you write my Monday Matters post. How did you benefit from Mr. Gallo’s message yesterday? What are you going to apply from it?
Monday Matters: 03/06/06
March 6, 2006 9:38 pm
Mark’s message, “When to Say ‘No’ To A Steak,” from 1 Corinthians 8 is such an important one for us to hear.
The main point–my rights to do whatever I please must yield to my responsibilities to love my brother–is especially important for young people. So many of the choices you make: clothing styles, music and movie preferences, the food you eat, the people you hang out with… all of this and more has the potential to influence others, for good or bad.
When I talk to students about their decisions in these areas, I sometimes hear them say things like, “This style is just my personal preference. It doesn’t affect me. If other people don’t like it, they don’t have to [fill in the blank]” Maybe it doesn’t affect you. But does it affect someone else? Does it tempt them to sin? We’re part of a church, something much bigger than just ourselves. That means that everything we do affects others, for good or bad. So Christian love mandates that we act out of love for others, concerned for their best interest, even if it means forgoing our “rights” to our preferences in music, movies, wardrobe, etc.
The critical question we need to ask ourselves: “If I do this, will someone who knows me be encouraged to imitate my behavior and so be led into sin?”
Four basic points from the text:
1. “All of us possess knowledge.”
2. “This ‘knowledge’ puffs up, but love builds up.”
3. “Take care that this right of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak.”
4. “If food makes my brother stumble, I will never eat meat.”
Before you decide to become a vegetarian, remember Mark’s 5 points of application:
1. Being a Christian in a fallen world is tricky, but God always provides a way of escape from every temptation.
2. Christian living is grounded in love, not knowledge.
3. Christian community is messy.
4. The stumbling block principle means I will choose to yield my rights when exercising them will lead a brother into sin.
5. The stumbling block principle is designed to serve the weak, not empower the easily offended.
FOR APPLICATION AND EVALUATION:
Ask your parents if there is anything you do that others might be tempted to imitate, and so fall into sin.
Monday Matters: 02/27/06
February 27, 2006 7:15 am
Mark’s message yesterday–Marriage, Divorce, and Remarriage–was tremendously helpful. If you are something-teen years old, you might be wondering what this message has to do with you. Actually, it has a lot to do with you.
I hope it is preparatory for your future matrimonial state, but there is also immediate application. You were probably already familiar with the sad statistic that more than half the marriages in our country end in divorce, and maybe you already knew that the divorce rate in American churches is roughly the same as the culture.
How encouraging for Mark to point out that divorces are exceedingly rare in our church, almost non-existent. This is no ground for smug self-righteousness on our power; it reveals the preserving power of God!
For teens, this means an opportunity to communicate gratefulness to your parents. As your parents remain happily married, growing in their love for one another, working out conflicts with the help of others in the church, rather than running to a divorce lawyer, they are displaying the grace of God to you, to the rest of our church, and to the world. They are worthy of specific expressions of your gratitude for their marriage. And thank God for preserving them and other parents like them!
Monday Matters: 01/30/06
January 30, 2006 8:08 amWHAT’S ON YOUR MENU?
Did you know that the Bible has so much to say about food? Mark reminded us yesterday in his message, Eating and the Glory of God, that the gospel changes how you live, and this includes our approach to eating. Mark taught us from 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 that when we eat, we are doing one of two things: 1) thanking God, or 2) sinning. So there are two ways that we need to approach food:
1. Eat Like A Temple. What does that mean? It means that when you remember that your body is a temple, you will eat aware of the God of that temple, and grateful to the God of that temple. In light of God’s magnificent provision of food and gift of pleasure in food, how can we not be grateful? Mark went on to explain that how we eat matters to God. Eating certain foods won’t make us more godly, but eating with a grateful heart will.
2. Eat Like A Slave. Here, Mark meant that we need to eat remembering that we are not our own. As Christians, we have been “bought with a price” - the ransom paid by the blood of Jesus. We weren’t purchased just to be free and independent, we were purchased to belong to a new owner: God himself. And this redemption affects our bodies as much as our souls.
For Further Thought And Discussion. Here are some questions you can use with your parents to think more and talk more about this message:
- In your own words, what does it mean to eat like a temple and eat like a slave?
- Explain from 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 why it matters to God how we eat.
- Describe your attitude toward food. Is food an escape? A diversion? An idol? A part of your life that is disconnected from God and the gospel?
- How often are you grateful to God for food? How often do you begin a meal by thanking God for your food, even if you are by yourself?
- What change can you make to your eating habits this week to be more grateful to God for food and to worship God with food? Do it.
