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

Am I supposed to be afraid of God?

Last night at Enlight (CSBC’s Wednesday Night Youth Service) a girl in my youth ministry came up to me after the service and asked me what it means to fear the Lord.  She was concerned that it meant that we are supposed to be afraid of God.  I explained to her that to fear the Lord doesn’t mean we’re constantly worried that God is going to zap us for kicks and giggles.  It means that we are to have a healthy, reverent respect for God.  He is infinitely bigger than us.  He can create anything he wants just by speaking it.  And he is holy (morally perfect and ultimate reality).  To think of someone like that could be scary, especially since he really could zap you at any time. 

I think there’s a lot of people who see God this way.  He’s just up there in the clouds putting up with us until Judgment Day.  But the Bible doesn’t stop there at explaining who and what God is.  While God is ultimately powerful and holy, he is also loving and kind.  In Romans 2: 4 Paul says that God’s kindness is meant to lead us to repentance. 

Now many people abuse God’s kindness and try to use it to justify their sins.  But that doesn’t negate the fact that God is kind to us.  And kindness is God’s way of leading us to repentance.  Even though we’ve screwed up bad, God still wants to offer a way of salvation.  He still wants to have  a relationship with us.  He still opens the way for us to know Him, in spite of our sin.  That is a good God. 

So remember, God isn’t up in heaven with a magnifying glass trying to burn us up like ants.  He really does care for us.  While he is powerful, and holy, and in charge, he still wants to love us and wants us to love him.  We can’t think that his kindness gives us a license to sin.  But we must also realize that he really wants to show us love and will fill our hearts with joy if we give our lives to him.

here it comes…

Today marks an iconic event in the minds of teenagers all across this great land: Back to School day.  Yes here it comes again, school.  No more long days at the pool.  No more sleeping ’til 10 (or 11 or 12).  Now it’s time for books, homework, and projects.  Now it’s time for being responsible again and getting to class.  School can be hard.  But for some people the worries don’t come from deadlines and math problems and research papers.  For some people going to a place with a couple thousand of their peers is what makes them fret.  Going back to the stress of fitting in and dealing with people who can be pretty big jerks can be overwhelming for some.

The apostle Paul had a lot of stress on him.  The book of Acts is full of stories about Paul and the ups and downs of his ministry.  He was sent by God to preach the gospel (the story of how Jesus came and died for sinners and will save sinners) to Jews and Gentiles.  Now the Jews were his own country men.  Gentiles were everyone else.  Paul had a deep burden on his heart for his fellow country men to know Christ.  After all, Jesus was a Jew.  They had been God’s chosen nation and had received his word and truth.  Paul desperately wanted them to be saved.  But most times he tried to preach the gospel to them, the accused him of blaspheming (saying something contrary to what God had said).  The ironic thing was that by not accepting Christ by faith they were blaspheming, not Paul. 

Acts 17 tells a story of when Paul preached the gospel to the Jews in Thessolonica.  Some of the Jews were saved but many of them were stubborn and hated Paul for what he was preaching.  They formed a riot and even got some guys to give a false testimony to the authorities saying that Paul was trying to cause a ruckus and disturb the peace of the city.  Paul had to run away for his life.

But Paul never wavered in preaching the gospel.  It’s because he was more concerned about glorifying Jesus than he was about what people thought about him.  He loved Jesus more than he loved pleasing people so that they would accept him. 

Jesus is calling you to do the same.  He is calling you to love him more than you love being accepted by other people.  He is calling you to fear you more than you fear man.  So what are you going to do this year at school?  Are you going to change who you are so others will accept you?  Or are you going to live like Christ so that others will see him in you and give him praise? 

The choice is yours.

What’s worse than spiders? I’ll tell you what’s worse than spiders!

I’ve never been too worried about spiders.  Sure I’ve never liked them; but I’ve also never been too scared of them either.  If they’re in my house, I squish em’; if they’re outside I will usually let them go.

I was at my in-laws’ house the other night for a get-together and as we were leaving through the garage, Mandy yelled for me to kill a spider that was crawling around the garage.  I usually take my sandal off and use it in my hand to kill spiders but my arms were full of stuff so i just had to stomp on it.  So I dance around trying to stomp on the thing and finally, bingo!  I hit it perfectly. 

What would happen next would be the most freaky moment of my spider-thwarting career.  As I stomped the huge spider, dozens of little black things shot all around my foot from where the spider was.  Then these little black things started crawling.  A hundred baby spiders!  Ugh!  Crawling all over the place and on top of each other and trying to crawl on my foot.  I freaked! 

But within a split second my spider killing senses came back to me.  I had a job to do: stop these spiders from infesting the house.  So with my hands full and nothing around to use to kill the baby spiders I started a two-step dance all over the spiders.  I looked like a Mariachi dancer.

 After about a minute they were all gone.  And I was thoroughly freaked out. 

So kids the moral to the story: Beware of stomping spiders because their kids may come back with a vengence.

bad attitudes and beatitudes

So I’m teaching the Adult Class for our church’s VBS next week and I’m excited/nervous because I’m used to teaching teens, not adults.  But it’s a new venture so I want to get focused and do well.

I’m going to teach on the beatitudes so I’ve been studying them and reading books, sermons, and articles to learn as much as I can on them.  I was reading a Piper sermon on the third b-tude: blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

Piper used James 1: 19-21 as one of his examples of meekness and made a point that has cut my spiritual pride right in half (much like darth maul at the end of Star Wars episode 1, which was the worst of all the Star Wars movies but that’s for another post).  Anyway he was talking about being quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry.  He said that the person who does not have these three qualities is someone “who does not like to listen to what other people have to say, especially if they speak with authority” and ” this person is quick to speak and quickly becomes angry if the words of others cross his opinion or call his behavior into question.”

And with those two lines the beloved Dr. P slashed and dashed his way through my prideful soul.  The reason: I HATE being told what to do, how to do things, when I should do them, and especially why I should do them.  I like to figure things out on my own (even though most the time I really end up needing help).  I like to be the one who decides what goes on because, apparently, God gave me and extra helping brains (at least in my own mind) and now I am even free from needing his help (again, at least in my own mind).  There is such a deep-rooted feeling of demanding my own rights before God, even though I don’t have any. 

There is another passage in James that talks about meekness.  James 3: 13 and 17 say that true wisdom is meek and that true wisdom is peaceable and open to reason.  It’s approachable.  It doesn’t hold onto itself as the standard of knowing everything but looks to God and does it’s best to conform it’s ways to God, not the other way around.

So to conclude: first, I know the posts I’ve written so far have been like Christian articles from a magazine or something that makes it seem like I’m the master bible teacher because I’m really smart and I’ve had all these interesting experiences in life that have taught me the hard way how to apply God’s word to my life.  That’s not the case (and it was a really long sentence).  I don’t feel that way.  I do want to write blogs about life and stuff and just try to connect to you and whoever else I can.  But today, I just had to tell someone about being meek because I was cut to the quick and I hope that it helps you out as well.  Second, I know I’m not the only one who struggles with pride and unmeekness (yes I made up a word).  I implore you, take a hard look at yourself as I do at myself and let’s work on putting Jesus first, not ourselves.  Let’s work on being approachable and seeing that we really have nothing as we stand before God.  The only thing we have is the grace he’s given to us.