Chapel: Saturday
Morning
“Seven Differences
Between Jesus and Religion”
- Living our lives in either ‘hateful submission’ or giving God glory
- Hateful submission – grudgingly following the rules – breeds resentment in ourselves – life a failing marriage that wont divorce
- Giving God glory – to the point that people want what we have – nobody wants hateful submission, that attitude turns others off
- Isaiah 64:6 – “All of us have become
like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags”
– English translates words to “unclean” and “filthy” but original language
means menstrual uncleanliness. Modern day rags – Jeff said ‘dirty tampons’
- Verse meaning: because of sin we are
so unclean compared to God, our actions and going through the motions mean
nothing no matter how great we think they are
7 Differences
Between Jesus & Religion:
Religion says, if you obey, I will love you
Jesus says, if you love me you will want to obey
- Following rules to ‘be good’ leaves us
unsatisfied and breeds hateful submission, we never believe God can truly
love us and therefore don’t truly pursue a relationship because we don’t
understand the truth. Understanding that God loves us despite all the
dirty rags draws us to him and helps us want to be more like him (i.e. obey)
- What father says to his child, “if you
do this, then I will love you?”
- “Religion says do, Jesus says done”
Religion says, there are good people and bad people
Jesus says, we are all bad people and Jesus is the only good one.
- We compare ourselves to our neighbour
but they are on the same playing field as us
- We can tell which one we believe by
how we view Old Testament stories – do we see ourselves as the Davids who
kill our Goliaths (sin)? That’s religion. Or do we see ourselves as
- We can be honest about sin because
Jesus is the better Biblical Old Testament hero in each story
- Thinking we can earn salvation =
spitting on the Cross
- Example: jumping to Hawaii – someone
might be a pro long jumper, but they’re still only jumping into the
shores, no matter how great they are at it they’re not closer to Hawaii in
the grand scheme of things
- God doesn’t grade on a curve, he
grades on the Cross
Religion says, if we pray hard enough God will give us health and wealth
Jesus says, it’s all about getting God regardless of what else is happening
- Religion wants God’s stuff, Christians want God. The
creator is better than the created 100% of the time
Religion says, when things go badly God is punishing you
Jesus says, when things go badly God is using it to draw us to him
- How often do we turn to God when things are good? Do our prayers come quicker when we need something or are asking for help?
Religion says, salvation is uncertain
Jesus
says, salvation is certain. You are secure because Jesus is secure. For you to
lose your salvation it means Jesus would have to lose you.
- Hebrews 9:12 - With his own blood—not the blood of goats and calves—he entered the Most Holy Place once for all time and secured our redemption forever.
Religion says, change your behaviour to change your nature
Jesus says, chance your nature to change your behaviour.
- Outward “show” is useless in getting rid of sin
- “Picking off the dead fruit from our trees” – without Jesus we are all the same stump and the fruit will grow back and rot again, we need Jesus do transform us to be able to get rid of the dead fruit permanently
Religion ends in pride and despair
Jesus brings humble and confident joy
- We can make a checklist but can never finish checking it off – we either look at the checks and become prideful or see the unfinished items and feel despair that we can’t do it on our own
- The Cross has zero to do with us – it wasn’t our effort
- We can be confident because it’s done and finished – we can boast in our weakness
Luke 15:11-32 – The Prodigal Son
- Verse 12: It was shameful to ask for inheritance before death of father – meant he may as well be dead
- Verse 20: Shameful for adult men to run – how excited he was
- Verse 20: son hasn’t showered after working with pigs – father gets filth all over him in that embrace
- Story was being told to Pharisees, not the younger son’s audience
- If we are the older son, we don’t actually want ‘fair’ – if grace was fair we would all be in hell – it’s unfairness is it’s beauty
- Pharisees – living life like a marriage where there is no spouse – doing all the stuff but nobody is there
- Enemies of Jesus are rebellion and religion – the latter is more deceptive because we think we’re good to go by checking things off a list
Chapel: Saturday
Evening
Three Identities
We Put Ourselves Into… Before Jesus- Romans 1:25 - They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator…
- Ephesians 1:3-6 - 3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. 4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love 5 he[a] predestined us for adoption to sonship[b] through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.
- All New Testament epistles (letters) give us
our identity in Christ first,
then give us commands
- Three identities: worldly pleasures,
performance, and past/pain
Worldly Pleasures
- Never eternally satisfies – we demote ourselves to slaves (rather than children of God), we’re always yearning
- What do you think about in the five minutes before bed? Good indicator of your worldly pleasures/idols
- If that object is take from you how would you react?
- “Humanity is a conveyor belt of getting exactly what we want ad then saying, ‘that’s it?’”
- Toilet water vs. tap water – if we are in the desert and thirsty, we would drink toilet waters if it’s what’s available. But if there was tap water there also, we would drink that because it’s so much better. Just like putting our identity in stuff instead of Jesus – the stuff is never going to be as good as Jesus even if it seems good in the moment or we think it’s all we have
Worldly Performance
- Rather than demoting ourselves to slaves (above) we promote ourselves to place of God – “epidemic in America” – also in Canada
- Access to God has nothing to do with our performance – all about Jesus’ performance - we live a traded life
- Difference between an employee relationship vs. a family relationship – we screw up at work and can be fired, but as children when we mess up our parents become more involved – how it is with God, he becomes more intimately involved in our lives when we don’t perform well
- Performance plays itself out in approval from others rather than approval from God
- Ephesians 1:4 - God presents us holy and blameless – we can’t do that ourselves – His performance not ours!
- We earn nothing but inherit everything!
Worldly Past/Pain
- Often because of failure from the first two
- See ourselves as the sum of our mistakes – we see the shame and try to hide behind stuff
- What is ultimate authority – our emotions or the God of the universe?
- Who are we? Is our answer to that question an activity or identity answer
- “In the depth of your soul are you a Christian?” “Well, I’m trying” – would we answer that if it was our dad? “Are you my son?” “I’m trying” – of course not! We either are or we aren’t – if we’re ‘trying’ on our own, we’ll never believe we’ll get there – past and pain hold us back from feeling as though we’re worthy – doesn’t matter how hard we try – we are God’s children because of Jesus’ effort – even if we’re trying to be better, it doesn’t mean we aren’t there because Jesus gave ultimate pain for us instead
- 1 John 2:1 – Jesus is our advocate – even in our sin and filth he whispers that he loves us – God doesn’t see sin but sees blamelessness because of Jesus – scandalous grace
Who we are has nothing to do with us! All about his performance, his efforts, his victory – not yours – true identity is in Him
See also: http://jeffbethke.com/our-addiction-to-activity-noise-facebook-twitter/
See also: http://jeffbethke.com/why-god-loves-ungodly-people-including-you/
Chapel: Sunday
Morning
Created as
Worshippers
Romans 11:36-12:1 - For
from him and through him and for him are all things.
To him be the glory forever! Amen. Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters,
in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and
pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.
Worship = see everything, recognize it’s wonderful and enjoyable, and recognize God as amazing Creator and thank Him
·
Question is not do we but what do we worship
·
Whatever you give glory to you will sacrifice
for
·
Three ways to know what you worship – what do
you do with your money, time, and energy
·
To live a fruitful life we must see those three
things as a gift and then turn around and give thanks to God for them
Worshipping in Spirit
& Truth
·
Spirit – anywhere anytime attitude
·
Truth – letter of law/standard
·
We can’t choose either or, we must have both for
worship
·
Dividing secular and sacred for worship?
·
All truth is God’s truth – He has a monopoly on
truth
·
What music do we listen to – does it have to be ‘Christian?’
We can find truth in ‘secular’ things and it’s still God’s truth
·
“Anytime you add ‘Christian’ to anything but a
human it’s a marketing term”
·
“If you can insert your girlfriend’s name into a
worship song it’s probably not doctrinally correct”
·
Christian art – cheesy and sinful? “Spoof” logos
(secular things from 20 years ago with a Jesus spin) – communicating that Jesus
is cheesy and a copycat
·
We can enjoy our different domains of life if it
is a path of spirit and truth
·
Ministry is anything we can do with a glad and
thankful heart – god wants to take what we love and redeem it for him
·
When we hoard what we love for ourselves, that’s
sin
·
What do we love doing? Sports? Art? Singing? If
we do those things for our selfish glory it’s sin – if we do it and turn it
back to God for His glory because we are thankful, that’s worship
·
Can’t turn it back for God’s glory? Probably
shouldn’t be doing it then
See also: http://jeffbethke.com/why-chick-fil-a-apple-products-are-holy/
Chapel: Sunday Evening
What Happens if We Fail?
Titus 2:11-14 - 11 For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. 12 It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, 13 while we wait for the blessed hope—the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, 14 who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good.
So what if we try to do all those things (saying no and living righteously) and still fall on our faces?
- We don’t train for things we’re already
amazing at, we train for things we need practice in – just like correcting
sins in our lives
- We want our Christianity like fast food – we want
to accept Christ and immediately live righteous lives and know all there
is to know so our walk in Him is easy
- But it takes our whole lives – “the path can
be like a dirt road, sometimes you crawl and your knees get bloody” – we are
going to try and fail, and try again – that’s how we learn
- Verse 12 is countercultural – we can do
whatever we want and God will still love us – when we understand that it
trains us not to do those things anymore – God is parental – gentle and
beautiful
- Power of sin is in law, not grace
- Old Testament law was designed to be broken –
too hard to keep perfectly – people knew they couldn’t be good enough on
their own to earn salvation – we know we need Jesus
- Grace forgives us despite not being able to
keep laws and rules – that’s the power to knock down sin
- Image of parents celebrating three steps of
their child – we can look at it and say celebrating is stupid because
after three step the kid falls down, why would we celebrate falling? Image
of God’s grace because he’s celebrating our efforts (the steps despite the
fall) to draw closer to him – he sees the effort, not the failing when we
try
- Grace is more powerful than darkness
- God says “I saw that before you did it and I
still came to get you” – he saw all of the things we would do and still went to the cross for them –
our sins don’t surprise him
- Sustaining grace - not using grace as an
excuse to do whatever we want because we have a safety net, but
understanding that when we do fall (which we will) He is there to catch us
- Foreign righteousness – we don’t get the glory
for being good enough on our own
- Hebrews 12:1-2 - Therefore, since we are
surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything
that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with
perseverance the race marked out for us, 2 fixing our
eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before
him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right
hand of the throne of God.
- 1 John 2:1-2 - My dear children, I write this
to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an
advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. 2 He is the
atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the
sins of the whole world.
See also: http://jeffbethke.com/why-jesus-doesnt-want-you-to-ask-him-into-your-heart
See also: http://jeffbethke.com/why-is-the-old-testament-so-boring/
Chapel:
Monday Morning
Question
& Answer HighlightsIf God knows what we’re going to do and still went to the cross, why does he still desire confession of sins to him?
- Difference between your standing with God
(made possible by Jesus) and our intimacy with him (what we are doing to
draw nearer – reading Bible, worship, prayer, confessing sins, etc.)
- Why do we gasp when a friend drops the f-bomb
but not when we walk by a homeless person or judge someone for their
actions? Legalism says only look at visible sins, not issues of the heart
- Ephesians 4:29 - Do not let any unwholesome
talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others
up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.
“Share Jesus like a homeless person sharing food”
How far can I go with my
boyfriend/girlfriend – again, this is legalism – when we ask that question, are
we asking it to glorify God or ourselves? Focus on glorifying God and the
question is better answered
Christians dating non-Christians and dating in
high school
-
Date for the intention of marriage – this doesn’t mean you have to get
married right away or marry the first person you date! But if we date just
for fun, it always backfires
- As Christians, we should be attracted to Jesus
in someone else’s life – more than looks, personality, etc.
- “Dating without the intention of marriage is
like going to a grocery store without any money. You will either leave
angry or take something that isn’t yours.”
Good books:
Porn Again Christan
Prodigal God by Tim Keller
Pursuit of God by A.W. Toser
Redeeming Love by Francis Murray
Struggling with porn – check out http://www.xxxchurch.com/
See also: http://jeffbethke.com/porn-sex-the-christian/
See also: http://jeffbethke.com/top-10-books-at-the-moment/
See also: http://jeffbethke.com/awesome-resources-to-deepen-your-walk/
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