Last night we took some much needed time to stop and reflect on what we have learned so far this year. Volleyball was the name of the game for the evening and I don't know about everyone else, but I had a really good time.
As we moved into the "message" time, I opened with a brief overview of everything we had covered up to this point. Below you will see a simple illustration (drawn by yours truly) of the foundation for all of our messages this year.
You would not believe how long it took me to produce that simple image... Anyway, the heart above represents your life. It represents you. Everything we are talking about this year centers around how to live the Christian life in a non-Christian world. The cross represents Jesus Christ being at the center of your life and the book represents the Word of God (the Bible) as your basis for truth. You see, if we want to live the Christian life, we first must be sure that we are of the faith and that we are in submission to the Bible as our authority in life. If you don't believe in Jesus, or you don't trust the Bible as a reliable source of truth, then you will fail to live out the Christian life in this world. Everything else that we have talked about or will talk about this year is founded on the understanding that Jesus is Lord and the Bible is our authority. That means we look to Jesus and we trust His Word to teach us what is right and good.
The Bible tells us about the nature of mankind - that we are created in the image of God but are separated from Him because of our sin, which condemns us to death. Every person is born with a sin nature and is destined for death. On our own, there is nothing we can do bridge the gap and get to God. When we understand this about mankind, it helps us to see that apart from God we are all doomed. We are not basically good, we are not evolving into better or more perfect beings, and we are not all going to Heaven (apart from God, none of us are). This has HUGE implications for living the Christian life, because it means that if we are not going into the world and telling people about Jesus (as we are supposed to do) then they won't ever have access to God.
The Bible also tells us about our role in the world, and specifically how we are to relate to non-believers. In His famous "Sermon on the Mount" in Matthew 5-7, Jesus tells His disciples that they are to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world. We broke that down to mean that we are to be blessings toward others (salt), doing good whenever and wherever we can. We are also to speak the truth whenever and wherever we can (light), shedding truth and light in an otherwise very dark world. Even if someone is in direct opposition to God and persecutes us as Christians, we are to speak the truth and demonstrate toward them the same kind of live and mercy that God showed us through Jesus Christ.
The Bible gives us a direct command when it comes to our relationship with our parents: "Honor your father and mother". We talked about the fact that "to honor" means "to obey". We are to obey our parents. And this is a serious command, as it sits right in the middle of the 10 Commandments. Its right up there alongside "Do not murder". And there is no caveat to this one either. There is no stated exception, like "obey them unless they are being quite unreasonable". We are to obey our parents, unless (yes, there is actually an exception) they tell us to do something that goes against the Bible. We obey God first, then parents. And if we do this, it will go a LONG way in helping us to have a good, healthy relationship with our parents.
The Bible completely obliterates any foundation for racism. In the beginning when God created Adam and Eve, He was starting the entirety of the human race from one set of parents. That means that all of us, no matter our skin tone, are able to trace our lineage back to the same common ancestors. We are ALL descendants of Adam and Eve, which means we are ALL one race - the human race. Therefore, skin tone should have absolutely no bearing on how we treat each other. No one is superior or better than anyone else, this is what the Bible teaches. We are equals in sin and separation from God, and those of us who have been saved are equals in the forgiveness and grace we have received in Jesus Christ.
The last two weeks we watched a YT video by Dr. Jason Lisle, in which he shared evidence from astronomy that supports the truth of the Bible. One of the benefits of seeing this evidence is that it encourages us in our faith, to know that what we believe to be true is supported by the world that God created. Knowing these evidences also helps us to have an answer for the hope that we have in Christ. When the people of the world come against us and accuse us of being crazy or stupid, we can show the rationality of our faith and stand our ground.
Most of our time last night was spent in a discussion, as I gave students the opportunity to voice any questions that had been raised but not answered in any of the previous messages. It started slow but it turned into a good discussion, and I am planning on having another one sometime in February of 2022. I hope you're able to be there and participate.
As we move forward this year, we will continue to tackle some of those big topics that the church is facing right now. We will discuss a biblical perspective on abortion, sexuality, social justice, and even politics. It is important for us, as Christians, to discuss these topics and come to a common understanding of how we should handle each of them from a biblical perspective. I fully expect there will be some hard conversations to come, but they will be necessary.
May the God of all peace be with you.
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