We Are All Dependents

For anyone familiar with the US tax system - no, we are not talking about filing taxes. That's not the kind of "dependent" we're talking about today.

    My dad is an extremely hard worker. His work ethic is exemplary (particularly within the church). Having grown up in the church, I saw him plug in all over the place - setting up for events, shoveling snow, working the car wash - whatever needed to get done he was there to help. As I grew up, I slowly took on his work ethic for myself, too. But there was a dark side to it that I also took on - my dad hated asking for help. He was always willing to help others, but never willing to receive help himself.

    When we see someone working on something, our first instinct is to step in help them get it done. However, if someone came up to me and asked if I needed help, my immediate answer is almost always "no". Technically, its an honest answer. Do I need help most of the time? No. I am capable of completing most tasks on my own, and I like it that way. But even if I don't need help, I could certainly benefit from it. Whatever I am doing, I can probably do it faster and better with help that on my own.

    So why wouldn't I want help? Well, I think it comes down to the fact that we live in such an individualistic society. American culture pushes the idea of being self-sufficient, independent, and doing things on your own. We see it all the time in TV shows, where one of the characters will have this really hard thing to do, and they'll be like, "This is something I have to do on my own". EVEN THOUGH it would go way better and be much easier if they accepted the help of their friends or family.

    We did a little game during youth group where one of the students had to take plastic balls from one bucket and run them, one by one, across the room to another bucket. The goal was to see how many he could run across in 30 seconds. He was pretty fast, and managed to get 7.

    So then we added 5 more people, and they formed a line and passed the balls down the line into the other bucket. As you can imagine, they were able to get a lot more working together than he could by himself. I believe they reached 18.

    But then I added one more challenge to the game. Or rather, took something away. I took away the bucket that had the balls in it. Guess how many they were able to get across without that bucket? 0. Zero. Zilch. Nada. Without access to the bucket, they couldn't do anything, even when working together.

Our message focuses on one verse:

John 15:5 - "I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing."

    This is Jesus speaking to His disciples about the life and work He has called them to. When we put our faith in Jesus as our Lord and Savior, we receive new life from Him, and with that new life comes a whole mission to make disciples of every nation all over the world. We are called to live for Him, according to His Word and teaching, and to share the good news about salvation through Him to everyone we meet.

    In this verse He gives both an encouragement and a warning to those who have put their faith in Him. The encouragement is that when we stay connected to Him, He will empower us for ministry. He will give us the energy we need to "bear much fruit" and live the life He has called us to. He will work through us to spread salvation to our friends and family. This is wonderful news!

    But the warning is that when we are disconnected from Him, our efforts will be fruitless. We cannot live the life or do the work He has called us to without being directly and consistently connected to Him. We won't be able to live according to His Word, we won't be able to obey His teachings, and we won't be effective in bringing the good news to others when we are disconnected from Jesus.

    Jesus is the bucket from that game earlier. When we have Him in our lives, we can do some great work for God's Kingdom. When we have Him and other believers working alongside us, we can accomplish even more amazing things! But when He is not there, when we are disconnected from Him, we cannot do nothing.

    As I mentioned before, our culture pushes this idea that we have to be self-sufficient, that we have to be independent. But when we put our faith in Jesus, we are already acknowledging that we are not self-sufficient. Jesus is the only way to salvation - we cannot obtain salvation without Him. We already depend on Him for salvation, so why stop there?

    Our culture tells us that dependency is a weakness, that we are weak if we need to rely on someone else. But Jesus says that's ok. Because we absolutely have to depend on Him. And He says that unless we depend wholly on Him, we cannot live the life He has given us.

    So, if you want to live for God, if you want to serve Him, if you want to please Him, and receive the joy, peace, and love that His life offers, you have to keep going back to Him.

How do we connect to God?

By spending time reading His Word.

By spending time praying to Him.

By spending time worshiping His name and His mighty works.

By spending time with other believers.

    Ask yourself this: how often do you do those things? How often do you read the Bible per week? How often do you pray each week? How often do you worship God? And how often do you spend time with other Christians?

Once you have answer for those questions, consider this: How connected do you feel to God?

    Let me reassure you, if you have put your faith in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, you are saved. God is with you wherever you go and He will never leave nor forsake you. But the question is meant to assess how connected you feel. Because I am willing to bet that if you don't spend much time in the Word, in prayer, in worship or with other believers, you probably don't feel very connected with God.

    And this isn't some kind of a recipe for connectedness, as though you can do these things and always see an immediate result. But these are the practices of those who are actively seeking to be near to God. He has revealed Himself in His Word, He communes with us in prayer, He transforms our hearts when we worship, and He encourages us through fellowship with other believers.

    If you want to be connected with God and be effective in the work of His Kingdom, these are solid practices to help get you there. These teach us to depend on God, because after all, we are all dependents.

All At Once a Gentle and Thundering Noise

     I've found myself listening to "Overwhelmed" by Big Daddy Weave a lot recently (hopefully I don't get in some kind of copyright trouble for quoting their lyrics in the title). In the song they have this line in the second verse: "I hear the sound of your voice, all at once it's a gentle and thundering noise, oh God, all that You are is so overwhelming". This past weekend we took a bunch of students up to our Winter Retreat for a weekend of worship, fellowship, and time in God's Word. For the last decade we've been basically running our own camp - setting the schedule, lining up a band and a speaker, running the games, etc. And for the most part, especially the last couple of years, we were there by ourselves (just our church). This year we decided to join a retreat that the camp planned, which meant they ran the show, set the schedule, and invited a bunch of other churches to join in.

    For the first time in years we had other youth groups to fellowship with. It was pretty cool. The whole weekend was awesome, except for one part: there was no designated "Quiet Time" or "Time Alone with God" on the schedule. Whenever we ran our own camp, we were always careful to have specific times in the morning for the students and leaders to find a quiet space and spend time in God's Word. This past weekend, that didn't happen. So when we gathered on Saturday night to unpack what God had been saying to us throughout the weekend, like we normally do, many of the students felt like they hadn't heard from God at all.

    As I was sharing this message last night, I asked some of my leaders to make distracting noises during the message (and to try to be somewhat subtle about it). Then, as I was about to reveal what I thought the reason was as to why people weren't hearing from God, I coordinated with Emilie to blast super loud music over what I was saying. In case you're curious, it was the original Power Rangers theme song (they went so hard in that song). Naturally, no one could hear what I was saying over the music - it was too loud. So I signaled to Emilie to stop it and the other leaders to stop their distractions. It took a while, but I waited for the room to go silent (yall just love to make comments). Once it was completely silent, I repeated what I had said during the loud music, this time in a low whisper:

The reason we find it so hard to hear God's voice in our lives is because our lives are so full of noise that we never stop to listen and hear how God is speaking to us every day.

1 Kings 19:11-13 - "And he said, 'Go out and stand on the mount before the LORD.' And behold, the LORD passed by, and a great and strong wind tore the mountains and broke in pieces the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. And after the wind an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire the sound of a low whisper. And when Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his cloak and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. And behold, there came a voice to him and said, 'What are you doing here, Elijah?'"

    We often expect God to speak with great power and in a big, booming voice. After all, He is the Creator of all things - and He created the universe by speaking it into exist. We would expect such a powerful being to have a powerful voice. And when God has an important message or a challenge to give, He will shout it so you can't miss it. We can see this at work with Saul/Paul on the road to Damascus, when Jesus suddenly appears to him and calls out to him. We also see it when God spoke through the prophets of the Old Testament. But the Bible shows us that God doesn't want to always have to shout to get our attention. He doesn't always speak through great winds, earthquakes, or fires. Sometimes He will speak in a whisper. This is because He wants to have a relationship with us, and He wants us to want to hear Him.

John 10:27 - "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me."

Revelation 3:20 - "Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me."

Jeremiah 29:11-13 - "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart."

    The Bible is very clear that God is interested in more than just our obedience or our worship - He wants us to know Him. Knowing Him should lead us to obedience and worship. The very existence of the Bible, which we call "God's Word", is evidence that He wants us to know Him. God reveals Himself to us in the Bible. He talks to us through the Bible. And that's why it is so important to find quiet times. It is why we found it so hard to hear from God when we were at the Winter Retreat this past weekend, because we weren't being quiet and listening.

    We can find plenty of examples throughout the Old and New Testaments of people finding quiet time alone with God. Genesis indicates that Adam and Eve probably got to walk and talk with God every day in the Garden of Eden (before the Fall). Moses' first encounter with God was in the wilderness, when he was alone. Samuel was trying to sleep as a young child when he first heard God speak to him. Daniel spent time alone in prayer every day, which is what got him sent to the lion's den.

    As Christians, our most important example is the one Jesus set for us. In Matthew 4 His first step in ministry was to spend forty days and nights fasting in the wilderness - He was spending time with His Father in preparation for His ministry. In Luke 6, before He chose who among His disciples would become "the 12", Jesus spends an entire night on a mountainside in prayer. And the night before He would be arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus spent many hours in prayer. These are only a few of the many examples in the Gospels of Jesus retreating to a quiet and solitary place to spend time with God.

What does quiet time accomplish?

Proverbs 2:1-10 - "My son, if you receive my words and treasure up my commandments with you, making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding; yes, if you call out for insight and raise your voice for understanding, if you seek it like silver and search for it as for hidden treasures, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God. For the Lord gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding; he stores up sound wisdom for the upright; he is a shield to those who walk in integrity, guarding the paths of justice and watching over the way of his saints. Then you will understand righteousness and justice and equity; every good path; for wisdom will come into your heart, and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul;"

    When we spend quiet time with God, what we are doing is exactly what the author of Proverbs is talking about. We are spending time in the Word of God, inclining our hearts and making our ears attentive to God's voice - we are actively listening to what God has spoken to us in His Word. He says we should seek wisdom and understanding with the same intensity that we seek money and treasure. When we seek God in quiet times with that kind of eagerness, we will find wisdom and understanding.

Paul says pretty much the same thing in a more familiar passage:

Romans 12:1-2 - "I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect."

    How can we be transformed and have our minds renewed? By spending time in God's Word and listening for God's whispering voice. We have to find a quiet place and remove distractions. That means you don't take your phone with you to that place. I would encourage you to not even play music (even worship music). Do your best to find a place of true silence and solitude. Then, open up your Bible, the Word of God, and listen as He speaks to you through the words on the page. When you stop reading, don't just close the Bible and walk away. Think about what you read. Meditate on it. Ask God to show you what it means, to help you understand it. And yes, I am saying to spend time in prayer. But don't limit yourself to the typical "letter" format of prayer. You know, the "Dear God, blah blah blah, amen." Ask questions, look back into the Word for answers. If you have doubts or don't understand something, talk about it with God and give Him time to respond. Prayer is supposed to be a dialogue, not a monologue, and for the most part God's part of the conversation has already been written.

    If you want to hear God's voice in your life, spend quiet time with Him. Don't set a time limit. Some days you might only spend a few minutes, and other days you may spend half an hour. The important thing is to quiet down all of the noise in your life so that you can make your ear attentive to the Word of God.

May the Lord bless you and keep you.

The 4 Loves

 SO, our last post covered a discussion on what it means to truly love God, but based on the feedback I got from each of the Family Groups it seems like a lot of yall got hung up on the idea of love. What even is love? And when we talk about love in the Bible, what do we mean? This can be really hard to understand sometimes because in English, we use love in a variety of ways. For example, the following statements are all 100% true:

I love coffee.

I love my mom.

I love my wife.

I love God.

Those are all true statements, but when you think about it, I don't love coffee the same way I love my mom, and I don't love my mom the same way I love my wife, and I don't love any of them the same way I love God. So, even though I am using the same word in all of those statements (love), I mean different things each time. This is why it can be so confusing for us when we are talking about "love" in the Bible. With that in mind, let's look at the four primary words for love in Greek (Greek is the language that the New Testament was originally written in, and these four words all get translated into English as "love").

1. Storge.

Storge is best described as a "fondness of familiarity". It is a bond that comes from shared experiences and circumstances, like being in the same family. You don't get to choose your biological family, but they are still your family. Even if you don't always like them, if they come under threat most of the time you will come to their defense. So, you might call this family devotion. A common trope in media is how siblings will hate each other and get on each others nerves, but when someone else shows up and starts messing around, the siblings immediately defend each other. You might hear the phrase, "Nobody gets to mess with my little brother but me." That's the idea of storge love.

2. Eros.

This is probably the most familiar kind of love for you, because it is what we might think of as "romantic" love. This is a physical, intimate love between a husband and wife, and it is also the idea of "being in love". Eros love is the most prevalent kind of love portrayed in media, although they usually reduce it to more of a lust/passion than actual love. Regardless, most of the time when we use the word "love" in English, this is the kind of love we think about. This is also the closest we get to love being a feeling, since there is an element of feeling involved with this.

Here is the interesting part, just like we use this version of love all the time in our culture today, so too did the culture in Jesus' day when the New Testament was written. Eros love was used and talked about all the time. HOWEVER, this word doesn't get used once in the whole New Testament. Whenever the New Testament authors talk about love, they are never referring to eros love. They DO address the idea of sexuality and passion, but almost always in a context of setting proper boundaries.

3. Philos.

Philos love is the warm affection found between good friends and family members. This is an essential love for the human experience, as we are created as social beings. We need friends and positive relationships in our lives, and philos love is the expression of those relationships. Philos love goes a lot deeper than what we might call friendship, because when we think of our friendships a lot of times they are built around common interests or settings but don't go very deep. Philos-level friendships are very deep and strong bonds that hold people together. Jesus had a philos love friendship with Lazarus and His disciples. David (from the Old Testament) and Jonathan also had this kind of friendship.

Romans 12:10 - "Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor."

The underlined part there, "brotherly affection" is actually a combination of storge and philos. Paul took these two forms of love and mashed them together to describe the kind of bonds we should have with fellow believers. This is because we are not only bonded together through the shared circumstance of being part of the family of God, but we are also bonded through our shared faith in Christ and call to obedience. Its a powerful family-friendship love that we are called to have for each other as Christians. Do you love your fellow believers like this?

4. Agape.

The pinnacle of biblical love, agape love is an unconditional love. No matter the circumstances, experiences, values, behaviors, actions, words, or anything else, agape love perseveres. In the Bible, this stands out as the highest form of love. Agape love is the kind of love that God has for us. When Jesus sacrificed Himself on the cross for the sins of the world, He demonstrated agape love. No matter what we do, God still loves us (and good thing, too). We sin? God loves us. We fight against God? He still loves us. We decide to start hating God? God still loves us. No matter what the conditions are, God continues and will always love us.

John 3:16 - "For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life."

Guess which Greek word is used in John 3:16? That's right, agape. It doesn't say "For God was so devoted to His family..." or "For God was so in love with the world..." or "For God was such good friends with the world..." No. It says "For God so unconditionally loved the world..." He put us first, even though we didn't deserve it.

Matthew 22:37 - "Jesus replied: 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.'"

Once again, Jesus uses "agape" for the kind of love we are to have for God. We should unconditionally love God with all of our being (heart, soul, and mind). In the Mark version of this statement, Jesus includes our strength, and if you recall our discussion from last week, He set up a totem pole of priorities for us: God > everyone else > me. We are to unconditionally love God with everything we have, and then love others as well.

When we read through 1 Corinthians 13 (the famous love chapter), Paul uses agape for love throughout that passage. He isn't talking about romantic love, or friendship love, but unconditional love, and the kind of love that we are to have for others because that is the kind of love God has for us.

Now, I want to make sure we are all clear on this: when we talk about loving God, loving fellow believers, and loving those out in the world, we are not talking about eros love - the idea of being in love with someone. Biblical love has nothing to do with romance. Instead, when we talk about biblical love, we are talking about the choice we make to put others first unconditionally.

I can love others (and you) unconditionally because that is the kind of love God has for me. With my sin I have hated God, spat at Him, made fun of Him, and my sin was part of what put Him on the cross. And yet, He still loves me. Jesus still died for me. He gave me the example of what true agape love looks like, and He has called each of us to have that same kind of love for Him and for each other.

What would it look like for you to love God the way He has loved you?

What would it look like for you to love other believers unconditionally?

What would it look like for you to truly put the needs of others before your own and live like Jesus lived?