Joel Young Blog.com

This Sunday as I was preparing myself to preach I arrived at Horizon’s worship facility quite early. I ran over my sermon notes, prayed, and in tried to find some time to just be quiet. As I often do, I found myself staring out the huge wall of windows in the front of our building. As I peered through the glass I couldn’t help but wonder about my point of view at that moment. I was seeing the world through the lens of the church. I thought about the people who were driving by and wondered what their relationship to Christ was like (or if it even existed at all). I thought about the priorities in their lives, the things that occupied their time, and though people were speeding by in their cars I sincerely wanted to walk through the doors right into the road and have that conversation with someone to see what there life was really about.

What I came to realize through this short episode of people watching is that is that I view the world through the eyes of the church all the time, but I don’t often get to view the church through the eyes of the world. Maybe that’s because I’m too close to it or have a biased opinion since I’m a life-long church boy, but whatever the reason viewing the church through the world’s eyes is not my natural perspective.

I imagine people drive by our church building and formulate opinions about us and the way we do things (much like I did from the inside). For better or worse they form an opinion of Christ and/or his church based on their natural perspective, and their lives are a result of that perspective.

What I’ve realized is that change only comes when we are able to shift our perspective. The church will never become what the world needs it to be unless we make it a point to look upon our work from the outside from time to time. And, no one will turn their heart and life over to Christ and if they aren’t first able to change their perspective on what really matters.

I don’t have a super spiritual challenge to go along with this other than to pose this question. How do we do that? How do we change our perspective on changing the world’s perspective? How do we get real about what we’re doing? What will stop us from becoming narrow-minded, ineffective churches?

I don’t have all the answers, but I know we need them now more than ever.

One of the most puzzling things I have ever witnessed in my life is our nation’s relationship with Lent. I didn’t grow up in this tradition so I feel that I view it with outsiders eyes every time it rolls around. So, every year as thousands of people give up something for Lent I sit back and marvel at the broad spectrum of motivations. Some use this as a time of focus and prepare for the upcoming celebration of Christ’ resurrection, as it was intended, but others who don’t claim Christ as their Savior or really celebrate in his resurrections at all still give up something. And while this may seem like just another case of “monkey see, monkey do,” I truly believe that this type motivation is more than just a desire to fit in with the crowd.

You see, I think that we all have a deep desire to get rid of things in our life that don’t work or that hold us back from our true potential. That doesn’t mean that we’re any good at it, but I would say that the overwhelming majority of us at least have the desire to make our lives about the few things that actually matter. So, even people who could care less about what Lent represents see a value in participating.

Though there are exceptions, most people give up things for Lent that are relatively meaningless.

“I’m going to stop drinking soda…I’m not going to check facebook…I’m not going to eat any fast food…I’m going to give up television…and so on…”

Here’s how I feel. If you can willingly give up something for Lent, and find that it significantly improves your life/focus, isn’t it worth giving up all together? Even if we leave the spiritual implications out the conversation for a second, doesn’t that just make good sense? I sure think it does.

On the other side of the coin there is a FAR greater potential for impact in our spiritual lives. If giving up something for a short period of time allows you to better focus on Christ, why would you not remove that road block permanently?

I’m not saying that I’m better than you because I don’t give up something for Lent, but what I’ve realized is that there is no sense in giving up something that just doesn’t work for a short period of time. If I really want to set my sights on the goals God has for my life I need to give those things up permanently…cut out the fluff…trim the fat…(and any other analogy you can think of)…because all that matters is what matters, and all that matters in my life is serving the purposes of the God that I will spend eternity with.

So, what matters in your life? Whose purposes are you serving? What do you need to cut out of your life permanently?

As I have been preparing for this week’s sermon on the temptation of Jesus from Matthew 4 I have had to flip my thinking on a lot of things. It is very easy for us to look at the scenario in Matthew 4 and focus on only Jesus’ reactions, but miss the motives and methods of Satan. Furthermore, It’s easy for temptations to become so common and casual in our lives that we never realize what they truly are.

Simply put, temptations are the devil’s way of challenging God’s place in our life and our devotion to him. Even though it doesn’t often take much to challenge our devotion, when we start thinking about temptations in this light we should become more aware of what is really at work. Look at it this way.

Tonight I’m taking my wife out to dinner. What if in the process of our night out together, a smooth-talking, bad-intentioned, slime-ball of a man approached my wife and tried to pick her up? How would I react? Well, my guess is that this dude would be picking something up, but it would be his teeth off the ground after I introduced them to my fist, and not my wife! I hope I would be able to handle it in a more appropriate manner, but my initial reaction would be severe and over the top. Why? Because it would be extremely offensive for someone to challenge my wife’s devotion to me, or the importance she holds in my life. When we’re out together it’s obvious that we’re “together”. Not to mention she’s currently eight months pregnant! So, I would take GREAT offense at someone challenging the validity and stability of our relationship.

Now, with that being said I had to ask myself this question. How do I react to Satan, who daily challenges much more than just my devotion to my wife, but my devotion to my God, my Lord, and my Savior? How often do I even get upset enough to want to knock his teeth out? Let alone take any kind of action to distance my life from him? I mean, if you’re not a physically violent person and someone hit on your wife AT THE VERY LEAST you would walk away from the person. Yet, so many of us allow Satan to live in our lives when he is challenging and standing against what should be the most important relationship in our life.

Maybe it’s time our reaction to Satan and his temptations became proportionate to the offense he creates in our lives.

This morning I was reading Romans 5 and the words leaped off the page as I read them.

Romans 5
1 Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.2 Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.3 More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance,4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope,5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

According to Paul, there is a cycle to suffering. When we suffer it isn’t for nothing. It is a cycle that will lead to character and eventually hope, with the help of the Holy Spirit.

Something I have to continually train myself to do is to view suffering from the perspective of what it will become. In Christ, suffering is never what it seems to be in the moment. Rather, it is maturity, character, encouragement, life, and hope that has yet to blossom. But the question remains: will you be able to give it the time to grow into that?

Give your suffering some perspective and time, and, in Christ, it will turn into something much more valuable.

It’s been really challenging, exciting, and frustrating for me to study the life of John the Baptizer for the last couple weeks of sermons at Horizon. There is so much about his life that I need to mimic, and so much of his attitude that I need to absorb. The humility that he lived with seems unprecedented in so many ways, but the way God worked through that humble attitude is undeniable. Even from the perspective of his biggest critics.

So, here’s what I’ve been praying for over the last month as I prepared to preach these messages.

“God, decrease my ability so that it becomes impossible for me to do anything without you. Keep me from relying on my talent, and force me to rely solely on your Spirit to communicate your message.”

Admittedly, this has been a pretty tough corner for me to turn. You see, nearly everything I have done in my life has relied heavily on talent. Everything that I do comes very naturally to me. If I don’t seem to have a talent or knack for something, then I quit doing it. That way the things I do can be done very well with, if necessary, very little effort. I’m not advocating this philosophy for life, but simply stating a realization that this is how I have operated for over twenty-six years. And yes, even in the last seven years of my ministry.

Public speaking comes naturally to me, and preaching is as natural for me as swimming is for a fish. But, as with many of the other things I do I have spent a large amount of time concentrating on increasing my ability in order to increase my effectiveness; when all along I should have been doing the opposite.

The mark of God’s ability to use a person is not that person’s talent, but their ability to rely on Him. I will become a more capable and effective preacher for the Kingdom of God when my abilities have decreased to the point that I simply cannot complete the task without being full of God’s grace and Spirit. If I’m full of myself there’s no room left for God, but where there is an absence of ego there is room for God to work.

So, are there areas of your life where you need to decrease your ability?