lesson loop 7.10.13

Middle School
Matthew 18:21-35

We continued our series, "Turning From Sin", focusing on Forgiveness.
We looked at "The Unforgiving Servant", and explained that when it comes to forgiveness, there is a Cause and Effect.

The Cause is the God has forgiven us with a Unbelieveable Forgiveness.

• our debt is unimagineable
• repayment is impossible

The Effect is that we should have Undeniable Forgiveness towards others.

• God's forgiveness transforms us
• forgiveness is possible; indeed undeniable!
• the gospel colors our life

High School

Judges 4-5

Continuing our study in the book of Judges, we looked at God's Resourceful Deliverance.

Not only is Jael's act one that is resourceful, God Himself shows that He can use anyone and anything to accomplish His will - and the entire universe is at His disposal.

The main point of the night was: God can use anything. Are we willing to offer ourselves?

We saw these 3 things:

1. God uses men and women for His glory.
2. God uses the weak for His glory.
3. God uses creation for His glory.

You can also find audio of the lessons on the right side of this blog.

lesson loop 7.4.13

Here is what we looked at Tuesday night at youth group:

Middle School

We continued our series on Sin and Forgiveness, and we focused on Remembering.

Our memories can be powerful things, and God often instructed the children of Israel to remember, including:

• their slavery in Egypt
• how God redeemed them from slavery
• The day they left Egypt - Passover.
• How Miriam rebelled against God and was stricken with leprosy
• How the Amalekites attacked them as soon as they left Egypt

All of these things center around Israel's freedom from slavery, which was certainly one of their most defining moments as God's people. When it comes to Christianity, the defining moment is Jesus' death and resurrection. We as God's people are freed from slavery to sin because of Jesus' sacrificial death for us.

Here are some passages and main points we considered about the cross -

Romans 8:1-3
REMEMBER OUR FREEDOM IS IN CHRIST

Colossians 2:13-15
REMEMBER OUR FORGIVENESS IS IN CHRIST

Hebrews 12:2
REMEMBER OUR FAITH IS IN CHRIST

Because the cross is so central to our faith, we need to meditate on it daily. The gospel should be the center of our lives.

I also gave the students a website I look at every day - http://firstimportance.org/

Or you can find it on facebook - https://www.facebook.com/firstimportance

High School

As we continue our study in the book of Judges, we looked at Ehud, and we considered Providential Deliverance. We noticed that God's providence is an amazing, strange and sometimes even humorous thing.
Here are the main points:

1. God is in and over the details of life.

• Ehud's left-handedness - God used this interesting characteristic
• Eglon's fatness - his symbol of pride and prosperity was his undoing
• Graphic nature of the story - God doesn't leave any details out
• Satire - the way this passage of Scripture is written shows the humor of God
• Eglon's name means bull/calf - therefore, he is the fatted calf prepared for sacrifice
• The "tribute" that Ehud gave is the same word for sacrifice. This makes Eglon the 2nd sacrifice or offering
• The "message" that Ehud had was the sword
• The Bathroom confusion - the guards think that Eglon was relieving himself because they smelled what come out when Eglon was stabbed. :-/

Application:

• God knows every detail of our life, and he is over every detail
• God has designed us a particular way for a particular reason

2. God is the Supreme King

     * Because He is supreme, He will judge those who oppress His people, and He will do it in His time.

     * It is clear from this time that Israel needs a righteous king - this will be fulfilled in David, but ultimately in Jesus Christ. 

    * Ultimately, in the end God gets the glory!

Honoring our children too much

And there came a man of God to Eli and said to him, “Thus says theLord, ‘Did I indeed reveal myself to the house of your father when they were in Egypt subject to the house of Pharaoh? Did I choose him out of all the tribes of Israel to be my priest, to go up to my altar, to burn incense, to wear an ephod before me? I gave to the house of your father all my offerings by fire from the people of Israel. Why then do you scornmy sacrifices and my offerings that I commanded for my dwelling, and honor your sons above me by fattening yourselves on the choicest parts of every offering of my people Israel?’ (1 Samuel 2:27-29, ESV)

Behold, the days are coming when I will cut off your strength and the strength of your father's house, so that there will not be an old man in your house. 
(1 Samuel 2:31, ESV)

This is scary. The idea that any one of us parents could honor our children above God and lose His blessing is downright frightening.

To give some context here, Eli's sons had been cavalier in their approach to the priesthood, doing what they wanted when they wanted with no regard for the holiness of God. In fact, they were actually taking advantage of women who came to offer sacrifices. The Scripture says that Eli's sons didn't know God. They had no relationship with Yahweh, and they were living in dangerous blasphemy.

What is a parent to do in this situation? Eli does rebuke them in 1 Samuel 2, and yet apparently he continues to allow them to hold positions of prominence which they had no business of holding. Because Eli cared more about honoring his sons than honoring God, his family later becomes unravelled. 

So what is the application for you and I? Whom do we honor more - our children or God? I hope you love and cherish your children. I know my girls are 3 of God's greatest gifts to me. But do I ever worry more about what they think than what God does? Perhaps. If we ever abdicate our responsibility to disciple our children because we want to be liked by them, we have made a misstep. If we ever succumb to laziness and fail to perform the hard work of leading our children to Jesus, we could be guilty of Eli's sin. And make no mistake - it is hard work to lead children to Jesus. 

I don't know exactly why Eli failed to discipline and disciple his sons. I can only gather from the text that he cared more about them than God. I know that I don't want to make the same mistake. I am praying for you as well - that you would steer clear of Eli's error.

lesson loop 6.27.13

Here is a recap from the lessons on Tuesday night:

Middle School

We continued our series on Sin and Forgiveness called "Turning from Sin".

We really focused on what Grace is. We began by having each student attempt to tally their "spiritual score" based on all their righteous deeds. After seeing this was impossible, we talked about how this is contrary to the way holiness works. The students then gave their definitions of grace, and I gave some Biblical examples (children of Israel and the healing of the 10 lepers) Then we focused our time on Ephesians 2:1-10, which really gives us an excellent understanding of grace.

From Ephesians 2:1-10, we saw -

1. God's Grace Is Not Deserved
2. God's Grace Is Given To Display His Glory
3. God's Grace Enables Us To Actually Do Good Works 

I am praying that the students have a crystal clear understanding of salvation by grace.

High School

HS continued in the book of Judges and looked at our first judge - Othniel. While not much is mentioned about him, this seems intentional, because he is set up as the ideal judge and the deliverance that God brought through him was the ideal restoration that should have happened with each judge (but didn't).
My main points were:

1. Our Unfaithfulness Stirs God's Anger (yet He doesn't sin in His anger)
2. Our Hope is Stirred by God's Faithfulness (His covenant love is the stabilizer of the universe)
3. Our Direction is Reversed by God's Salvation (God can heal us from whatever sinful course we are on, whether we are an unbeliever or His child)

I really challenged the teens that there is hope to be found in God's deliverance. That is the main point of the book of Judges. God, because of His covenant love, provides deliverance when we don't deserve it.

By the way, for the first time I have recordings of the lessons in the right column if you wanted to catch exacty what our lesson covered.

Here are the links for both growth group questions, so that you can look over what your children discussed with their leaders.

MS Growth Group Q's

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QA24A03AkX8UV5zCFenTYlCAwyAUrQlezKyFgvBSCkE/edit?usp=sharing

HS Growth Group Q's

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ZgYXLFunZhWqZpGHYHKNa8-HZE9e0RoWq89TrboMeoo/edit?usp=sharing

Have a great rest of your week!

lesson loop 6.12.13

Last night was Water Night and we had an awesome time! Between the super water slide and the water balloons flying around, there was a lot of water! :-)

Besides all this, we had our normal worship, lesson and growth group time.

MS started a brand new series on Sin and Forgiveness called "Turning from Sin".

We considered the 3 primary themes in Scriptures -  Creation, Fall and Redemption

We considered how God created everything beautiful, sin messed it all up, and God is redeeming things through His Son Jesus Christ. We illustrated this by writing our names on pieces of plastic and dipping them in dye to represent how sin has polluted everything. Then we washed them off in water to represent how God cleanses us from our sin.

HS continued in the book of Judges and looked at "Roots of Disobedience" - magnetic idolatry. My 2 main points were:

1. We Must Know God Personally
2. We Must Worship God Exclusively

We often struggle to break free from idolatry, and often return to the destructive cycle of sin, just like the Israelites. We were challenged to repent from our sin before sin takes its toll on us, with God's covenant love as our motivation.

Here are the links for both growth group questions, so that you can look over what your children discussed with their leaders.

MS Growth Group Q's

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-fPetto8tIE_zJ7O5tmkh0kpT7Idcb3KyymQr-x4uSc/edit?usp=sharing

HS Growth Group Q's

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-gL_nECbbHuwYTVRL5BEryHTfJNA5oCoxyHYdkqw0_4/edit?usp=sharing

Have a great rest of your week!

small group questions for tomorrow night

Parents who will be at Family Night tomorrow -
Like usual we will break up into groups to discuss after the lesson. If you are there with your children you will meet as a family, while the rest of the students will meet in their growth groups.
Here are the questions we are going to go over. If you have an opportunity to look over them ahead of time, it may help you as you prepare to go through them with your children after the lesson tomorrow night.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1MhVRlCvHW93SZBmUIx_UROdYi7Dq_N50Zg4dfM0Rw-s/edit?usp=sharing

Hope to see some of you tomorrow night!

lesson loop 6.3.13

David Day shared with our students last Tuesday from 2 Corinthians 12.

Here are the questions that the growth groups went over -

What are the things in our lives that we consider thorns in the flesh?

What do you usually boast about?

What are the things you consider yourself weakest in?

Why should we boast in our weaknesses?

What would it look like for someone to be boasting in their weakness and trials as Paul describes?

How does Paul's description of our attitude as it should be compare to your attitude today?

In what ways can you act more intentionally in your weaknesses to bring glory to God?