Friday, January 27, 2012 at 12:56PM Continueing our study of Jesus' lordship, Thursday we talked about Jesus being Lord of time. This discussion could have in a variety of directions, but yesterday we focused on the big picture scope of time, and both God and ourselves relate. We started by taking a look at these few verses from Psalm 90: 1-6:
Friday, January 27, 2012 at 11:51AM As you know, most of our ministry has been very narrow in scope, which has limited volunteer opportunities. While we haven't suddenly changed, we do have an eye toward a few options with our ministry and a strong connection to another ministry that uses as many volunteers as they can handle! Let me explain..
Thursday, January 26, 2012 at 12:55PM In light of January being “Sanctity of Life” month, I wanted to continue our discussion about Jesus’ Lordship in regards to Him being Lord of life. I didn’t tell the guys we were going to discuss abortion, as that would have limited our focus. Instead, we started from the beginning and tried to understand a few things.
First I asked them, “What do all men have in common?” After some pondering and a few funny answers, they came to a consensus that it was the fact that we were made in God’s image. Then I pushed them a little more, asking if all people were made in His image, or if age might be a factor. This of course leads to the question about what age or stage a person is considered to be a person. So we looked in Scripture:
Jeremiah 1:5: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”
Psalm 139:13: “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.”
Ecclesiastes 11:5: “As you do not know the path of the wind, or how the body is formed in a mother’s womb, so you cannot understand the work of God, the Maker of all things.”
Then I asked, “When does God begin to create?” It was clear to everyone in the room that He was active even prior to conception, being very much over the whole process. Knowing that God is purposeful and intentional in His work, we can safely say that image-bearing begins at conception, that a to limit the definition of life to a certain age is to claim greater knowledge than the Creator Himself
I read them this short summary of abortion laws by John Piper: “In effect, therefore, the law of our land today is that any abortion is legal in America until birth if the mother can give reason that the pregnancy or the child will be an excessive burden or stress on her well-being.”
“What does abortion effectively accomplish?” I asked. The answer was clear as we discussed together—it destroys a person made in God’s image, the pinnacle of creation. And in America, a woman can legally do so for her own comfort or ease, so as not to be inconvenienced.
In Psalm 127:3 we see that children are a gift from God, and we recognize His command to Adam and Eve in Eden, to “be fruitful and multiply”. God was intentional in creating humans so that we could reproduce, and continued procreation is a part of His redemptive plan. Abortion directly opposes the entirety of Redemptive history, past and present. It is the exact opposite of God’s design; it is destruction, not creation.
I don’t want to impose anything on our young men. But I do want them to understand how present realities fit into—or oppose—the greater picture of God’s work as it continues today. As we continued to discuss it was easy to see that this was new for some of them, and others had considered some of it before. I was discouraged by some reactions of selfishness, and encouraged by other thoughts and suggestions, such as adoption. Our guys are deeper thinkers than I often give them credit for, and this is certainly a topic worth chewing on.
- Shane Fast
Thursday, January 19, 2012 at 01:15PM We’ve been talking about what it means for Jesus to be Lord and examining specific areas of His Lordship. Tuesday we examined how Jesus is Lord of Race. As we often do, we took a step back in time to the Garden of Eden to begin our discussion. We read Genesis 1:27 and Acts 17:26 to establish two key points:
It was easy for our guys to see how the Fall and entrance of sin into the world really wrecked the potential for racial harmony. Racism, prejudice, envy, strife, and many more products of the Fall have driving wedges between races and people groups for generations. Obviously we still experience effects of the Fall today, even in ourselves.
And, as always, Christ is one who seeks to reverse the curse. I didn’t examine many examples from His life, but we did discuss John 4 and Jesus’ encounter with the women in Samaria. It was great to have a board for this time, because we could draw out how Jews normally detoured Samaria even though it made their trip much longer. As soon as I asked what they thought Jesus did, they said, “He went straight through it!” It’s encouraging that they are learning more of our Lord’s character and heart.
We also read from Ephesians 2:14:17:
“For Christ himself has brought peace to us. He united Jews and Gentiles into one people when, in his own body on the cross, he broke down the wall of hostility that separated us. He did this by ending the system of law with its commandments and regulations. He made peace between Jews and Gentiles by creating in himself one new people from the two groups. Together as one body, Christ reconciled both groups to God by means of his death on the cross, and our hostility toward each other was put to death.”
As we discussed the hostility that had existed between Jews and Gentiles, our guys began to see just how drastic Christ’s work was. In fact, the way He loved others looked much more like the shalom of Eden than our world today. His life’s work of redemption is one that begins the process of Restoration, making things perfect once more.
I emphasized the reality that Christ came first to reconcile men to God, and then men to one another. Only in the restoration of our relationship to our Father can we truly experience the fullness of racial reconciliation. However, I also believe it’s clear that we experience God in the fullest measure when we engage with brothers and sisters who are not like us. We discussed Revelation 5 as a proof of this. The ultimate joy of a Restored heaven and earth is being with God, but it’s clear from the text that being with people from “every tribe, tongue, people, and nation” is a part of that joy.
Our application points were obvious: Love all people of all races, celebrate color instead of being "colorblind", things like this. I told our young men that I know it’s hard to apply our call to racial harmony on a daily basis, because they aren’t usually around other races. However, that’s no excuse not to ask the Holy Spirit to convict us of our own sin, and to help us to live out the call when we have the opportunity.
It’s always hard to tell what is really landing in a person’s heart. But I know the topic of our discussion is in line with God’s heart. I also couldn’t help but think of how pleased Dr. King would have been had he observed the scene in our classroom on Tuesday. Hopefully we’re making an impact toward realizing God’s desire for racial harmony.
Saturday, January 14, 2012 at 09:06PM Wow, what a privilege we had today. A number of our students and Kingdom family descended on East St. Louis High School and did some damage--in a good way! We took away the old and replaced it with the new. Painting, cleaning, re-arranging, graphic design, and completely remodeling a classroom that we're going to use for Bible Studies and tutoring. It was awesome for our young men to take ownership and get up early on Saturday morning to be there; they were really blessed to work alongside so many other believers.
Here is a You Tube video so that you can see what was done today. It's not the best video (it doesn't have sound) but you can see and celebrate with us the impact this will have when others see what was done!