Wednesday Night 9-14-11 Homework

Hey CSBC kids,

I tried to put your “homework” directly onto the blog page, but I couldn’t get it to work.  So you can just download the file.  Here’s the link: Jesus’ Titles Match Game.

It is a match game.  You will have to match the Title of Jesus on the left to the relevant passage or passages on the right.  So that means you will need your Bible!  Good luck and get crackin’!

Can I Trust the Bible part two notes

Hey Clear Spring kids,

Here’s the notes from the Wednesday Night lesson on 9-14-11

How Is Jesus the Hero of the Bible?

• As Scripture opens, it immediately reveals its hero
• Jesus fully believed and affirmed that the OT was about him
• John 5: 39, 40
• Luke 24: 27; 44, 45
• Jesus came to fulfill the OT – Matthew 5: 17, 18
• Jesus claimed to fulfill the OT – Matthew 26: 56; Luke 4: 20, 21; 22: 37
• When Scripture is rightly interpreted, it is ultimately about Jesus as God, our Savior, the object of our faith, forgiver of our sins, and giver of eternal life. Therefore, to correctly interpret Scripture you will need to connect its verses, concepts, and events to Jesus

How Does the OT Point to Jesus?

1. Promises
2. Appearances
1. Christophonies
2. Walking with Abraham – Genesis 18; John 8: 56
   Wrestling with Jacob – Genesis 32: 30
3. Appearing to Moses – Exodus 3: 2-6; John 8: 58
4. Joining Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fiery furnace – Daniel 3: 24, 25
5. Calling Isaiah into ministry  – Isaiah 6: 11-21; 13: 22
6. Sometimes these Christophanies were referred to as “the angel of the Lord”
3. Types
1. OT representative figures, institutions, or events that foreshadow Jesus
4. Titles for God that Jesus adopted
1. Son of Man – Daniel 7: 13, 14
2. Suffering Servant promised in Isaiah – Isaiah 42: 1-4
3. First and Last – Isaiah 41: 4
4. Light – Psalm 27: 1; John 1: 9
5. Rock – Ps 18: 2; 1 Pt 2: 6-8
6. Husband or Bridegroom – Hos 2: 16; Eph 5: 28-33
7. Shepherd – Ps 23: 1; Heb 13: 20
8. Redeemer – Hos 13: 14; Titus 2: 13
9. Savior – Isa 34: 4; John 4: 42
10. Lord of glory – Isa 42: 8; John 4: 42

Mount Thor: who care’s if it’s Canadian; it’s still cool!

Abraham Piper posted something about Mount Thor on his blog, 22 words, and I thought it was really cool.  So I wanted to post something about it too.

Mount Thor is located in Auyuittuq National Park, on Baffin Island, Nunavut, Canada.  I have no idea where that is.  I just looked it up on Wikipedia and posted it here so I would look official.  Mount Thor has a vertical drop of 4,101 feet, which makes it the longest vertical drop in the world.  According to my math, that is almost 8/10 of a mile.  I think my math is correct.  Anyway, enjoy pictures of this awesome mountain.

Family: what’s the big deal?

he idea of the family is such a wonderful thing.    In it we experience love for the first time.  We learn how to do life.  The family is the building block of the local church.  It’s a direct gift from God in fact.  But even though the family is a gift from God, families can be messy! Sometimes it seems like we have the most wonderful family in the world; the next moment it may seem like a picture of our family should be located in the dictionary beside the word “dysfunctional”.  Stress from jobs and bills and deadlines feel like a ton of bricks on parents’ shoulders.  Husbands and wives tend to forget they vowed to “cherish” one another and instead think that they vowed to “put up” with one another.  Kids don’t listen. Fights ensue.  Doors are slammed.  Hearts can be broken.  Families can be messy.

It’s sad.  It’s especially sad when Christian families become like this.  We are the people of God who have experienced the rebirth and are to be filled with the Holy Spirit so that we can produce the fruit of the Spirit and pour out praise to Jesus Christ in everything we do.  The family is meant to be a blessing from God in which the fellow members love and support each other as the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit love one another.  God never intended the family to be a group of people who happen to live in the same house with each other but who can’t stand each other.  As the church of Jesus Christ, we must fight to produce families that love God to the core, families that seek the Lord together, families that strive for holiness together, and families that have a passion to spread the kingdom of God together.

Parents, I want you to know that if you feel like your family has become a mess and is getting worse, you’re notalone.  Many families are experiencing this.  But you can do something about it.  Let us learn together what we can do about it.  I believe God has a vision for our families to be a place where Jesus Christ is cherished, parents are filled with joy because they are maturing in Christ, and children are discipled in the joy and love of Christ by their parents.  God has laid out this vision in his word.  Let’s find out that vision together and seek to be families who marked by a passion for Jesus Christ.

Seesalt and Missions Talent Show ’11

I was proud of the young men in my youth group at Seesalt. A few of them participated in the Talent Show on Friday July, 8 2011. Sawyer Mayfield, Casey Merritt, and Matt Poole wrote their own skit, and then had to tweek it. Their tweeking caused them to have to ad-lib some of it on stage (Note: the “Rave” at the end of their skit was a running joke that the Seesalt Staff performed in their skits throughout the week).

 

Check out their video here: http://youtu.be/eyYJ0fxwl6o

 

Also, my main man Taylor Christopher stepped up on stage with his side kick (me!) and did an amazing performance of “Baby Shark”.

 

Watch that video here: http://youtu.be/Sls5uq-guSw

 

I’m proud of him for having the courage to get up in front of everyone and just have some fun. Great job, Taylor! Great job Casey, Sawyer, and Matt!

STEW!

I’m psyched about STEW this year!

For those who don’t know, STEW stands for Student Theological Emphasis Week. It is a joint week of awesomeness held at Burnsview Baptist Church and Hosted by Burnsview and Clear Spring Baptist Church.

This year we will have fun new games, an appearance by the Christian Rap sensation, The Ruckus, and great worship. But most importantly, our theme this year is EL: the names of God, and we will be taking a glimpse into the character of God through his names.

You see, throughout the Bible, as God interacted in human history, he gave himself different names that explained some great act He did or some Great aspect about Himself. We will be taking a look at those names, showing how they point to what this life is all about and how the very fibers of the gospel are tied up into who God is.

So instead of watching America’s Got Talent or whatever, join us July 17-July21 @ Burnsview Baptist Church in Greer, SC. STEW will start every night @ 6:30pm. Worried about missing dinner? Don’t fret. We will be serving dinner every night!

Come on out! We hope to see you there!

No Graven Images

Tonight we picked up on our study of the Ten Commandments again, and we studied the second commandment in which God commanded the Israelites to make no graven images.  The majority of this lesson was adapted from Al Mohler’s Words from the Fire, and J. I. Packer’s Keeping the Ten Commandments and Knowing God.

The Second Commandment and Human Creativity

• Creativity is a part of who we are; it is a reflection of the image of God in us
• We love to use our imagination; and imagination is a good thing
• Imagination even helps us understand how other people feel
• However, in relationships when we imagine someone to be something they are not, it hurts the relationship and the person
• Just as our imaginations can mess up our relationships with others, it can really mess up our relationship with God.

What is this commandment prohibiting?

• The first commandment says to worship only Yahweh and none other
• The second commandment says to worship Yahweh in the right way
• So in the second commandment, God seems to prohibit not only images of false gods but also false images of Himself. 

The God who is heard but not seen – Deuteronomy 4: 15 – 20

• God made sure that the Israelites understood that he has no physical form but a voice

So what’s the big deal about images?

• The golden calf – Exodus 32: 1 – 10
• Aaron didn’t create a brand new god.  He made an image and called it Yahweh. 
• The sin wasn’t worship of the wrong god but wrong worship of the right God.
• By making the bull Aaron was saying, “this is Yahweh; he is strong like a bull.”
• This dishonored God because it failed to display his whole character and glory
• When we make images of God we do the same thing

Stayed tuned for next week’s conclusion of this lesson

The Trinity, pt. 1

Today Illuminate Student Ministry began a Sunday School study on the Trinity.  Here’s the notes for those who missed it.  The series will be based on the teaching on the Trinity found in Wayne Grudem’s An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine, Marc Driscoll’s Doctrine, and Dr. Walter Johnson’s Systematic Theology I class at North Greenville University.

Trinity Quiz (T/F; answers at bottom of page):

1. The Old Testament mentions the Trinity.
2. The word “trinity” was used often in the New Testament.
3. The doctrine of the Trinity teaches that Jesus is a little “g” god.
4. The doctrine of the Trinity teaches that the Holy Spirit is just a force of God.
5. A good way to think about the Trinity is to realize that it is just three ways of thinking about the same
   person.  For example, my dad is a father, a son, and a brother, but all three describe the one same person.

The Trinity and Us

The Bible teaches us that there is perfect love between the three persons of the Trinity.  God relates within the Trinity in a perfect loving relationship. That same desire for relation is imprinted on our very souls, giving us the same desire.  However in sin we messed that up, but the original imprint is still there.  Community is something very important God.  It is in his very nature and can be seen in the nature of his ultimate creation, us.  Just by way of our existence we represent the Trinity!

So what is the Trinity?

• Wayne Grudem’s Definition:

God eternally exists as three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and each person is fully God, and there is one God.

•  The word “trinity” is never mentioned in the Bible, and no one verse explicitly says that God is triune.
• However, several passages speak of the concept.

When taken as a whole, the Bible teaches three things about the Trinity:

1. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are distinct persons
2. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are all  fully God
3. There is One God

Investigation:

Genesis 1: 26

Genesis 3: 22

Colossians 1: 15-20

Hebrews 1: 1-10

Think about it

1. Why is it important that we study the Trinity?
2. Come up with an analogy that explains that explains how One God can exist as three persons. How well does your analogy relate to the real Trinity.  Be ready to share you analogy in class next week.

I’m looking forward to going through the rest of this series with the CSBC youth!

Idolatry

Tonight was the last night of our mini series on Idolatry.  We’ve seen that our hearts are very deceitful and that our sin and Idolatry run much deeper than we may realize.  Here are some quick notes from tonight’s lesson.

Common Idols

• Money
• Sex

-Having sex with someone outside of marriage isan act of worship to the idol of sex, the bed is the altar

• Substance

-alcohol, drugs, food

-Phil 3:19

- Comfort Food – John 14:16

-when you go to something other than Christ for ultimate comfort, it is idolatry because it is your functional savior

• Morality
• People

-Prov 29:25

-Whose approval do you have to have?

How to Uncover Your Idols

• where your treasure is, is ultimately indicative
  of where your heart is – Luke 12:34
• what do you love the most?
• what is in the position of glory in your heart?
• what do you make sacrifices for?
• what do you make time for?
• where does your money go?
• what do you make emotional sacrifices for? 
• addiction problems are rooted in idolatry

How Do We Get Rid of Our Idols?

• you worship your way into sin and you have to worship your way out
• you have to displace sinful affections with greater, Christ honoring affections
• Ezekiel 14 ~ REPENT!
• Constant reflection on what Jesus has done for you – Colossians 3: 2
• Diligent Bible study – Hebrew 4: 11 – 13
• Pray for the Holy Spirit to reveal the depths of your idolatry – Jeremiah 17: 9, 10
• Be willing to let God change you

Teaching on Idolatry has really convicted me of my own sin, making me realize that my sin runs much deeper than I know.  I pray that these notes help you out.  Keep in mind the saying from Marc Driscoll: Idolatry is when we take a good thing, make it a God-thing, which is a bad thing.  And remember, children, keep yourselves from idols.  (1 John 5: 21)

me…Me…ME!

I was searching for sermons and articles on the 10 Commandments, and I found this article about Mark Driscoll.  He’s big on pointing out idols in our lives.  This article really makes me think about idols in my own life.  What am I doing about them?  Just letting them set up in my heart, or am I going to fight to kill them? 

Check out the article.  It may make you ask similar questions.

http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/10Commandments/ten-commandments-pastor-preaches-worship-modern-day-idols/story?id=8633226&page=2