Joel Young Blog.com

This has been one crazy week for me. It went something like this.

Had a REALLY crazy Sunday with some unexpected problems, but got to end it with one of our most unique and exciting Sunday Gatherings yet at Horizon. Got a filling on Monday morning. It was my first one ever and it was less painful than I had expected, but walking around drooling with numbness all day was just weird. Got my butt kicked, in the best possible way, by my team of overseers Monday night (these guys REALLY love Horizon and REALLY care about every detail of what we do). Spent Tuesday with my two year old son who hasn’t quite gotten the hang of using the “big potty” yet, and found out that evening that the windshield of my car had been completely cracked by some highway debris as my wife drove home from work.

Now it’s Wednesday and all I want to do it take it easy. I just want to spend the day watching back episodes of “Rob Dyrdek’s Fantasy Factory,” but I know I have a job to do. And in case I had forgotten that, God reminded me this morning as I again went over the text I’ll be preaching from on Sunday.

“For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline.”
2 Timothy 1: 7

Ouch! Talk about a 2X4 to the forehead. Ok God, I get it.

You see, even though my week as been completely insane and filled with out-of-the-ordinary-craziness I don’t have the time to slip into a life of timidity. God doesn’t have time for me to become a wimpy, waning, wannabe. He needs me to live out my calling with the “spirit of power” that he has given me, just as he did to Timothy and everyone else who claims his name.

What are you being timid about, and what are you going to do to get over it and get to work?!?!

This Sunday we’ll be finishing up our walk through1 Timothy at Horizon by talking about Godly contentment. Here are some things that have been running through my head based on 1 Timothy 6: 3-21.

Have I lived a life filled with contentment?

If I have, has that been good contentment or bad contentment (i.e. has my contentment been in the right areas)?

Have I done enough for the Kingdom of God/The Church of Jesus Christ?

I have gone after possessions and status not being content with what God has given me?

We’ll wrap this whole conversation up on Sunday at Horizon, but I wanted to go ahead and get your wheels turning.

As I preach through the books of 1 & 2 Timothy at Horizon it never ceases to amaze me how the simple principles laid out in the book have transformed my thinking. A lot of what is said in these letters is old hat for me. They’re things I already know and have been trying to do my whole life, but as it has many times before God’s Word has renewed itself for me again.

Chapter five of the first letter speaks about honor in relationships and family relations. The thrust of Paul’s words to Timothy indicate that how you treat others and how you take care of your family is the mark of how real your faith is. If faith isn’t revealing itself in your life then it’s probably not there at all. This is a harsh reality when you think about what honor, family, and our attention to similar concepts have become in our culture. They seem to be forgotten principles that need to be renewed in our nation and world before it is too late.

So, from your perspective: what can we do?

This week I’m going to be preaching on distraction. That’s not the message I had been preparing all week, but now that it’s Friday I realize that it’s the message God needs me to preach. The text hasn’t changed, but God has written a new word for this piece of scripture on my heart.

@markymarkmoore: I wish people would be less excited about shark week and more excited about Christ.

A friend of mine wrote this on twitter this week and I believe it sums up perfectly the point I want to make. The things that distract us from the awesomeness of God and the significance of Jesus Christ aren’t always “bad” things, but they can still distract us from what matters most.

I’m going to preach my guts out because this is a HUGE deal.

Ever heard of P90X? Well, if not it’s an intense 90 day workout and dietary regiment that is designed to turn you into a lean mean muscle machine. I have a brother that is obsessed with this thing and it seems to be living up to the hype from his perspective.

Yesterday I read, on twitter, about a plan that the Elevation Church staff has started together called B90X. Here’s how they describe it.

“B90X is a revolutionary system of intense, truth-absorbing, brain-busting Bible reading that will transform your understanding of Scripture from intro to nitro in just 90 days! Your personal trainer, Ruach “The Breath” Yahweh, will drag you through the most intense infusion of His vision that you have ever experienced and you won’t believe the results!”

This is an eye opener for me. I have been preaching through 1 Timothy at Horizon for the last two months and we are finally to my favorite part, chapter 4. Here, Paul advises Timothy, “…train yourself to be godly. For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come.”

How quick are we to realize and even try to whip ourselves into physical shape because we know we should? Being in great physical shape is a great thing. It reflects a healthy understanding for what it means to bear the image of God and preserve the “temple” he gave you. But for me, my focus on the physical, at times, has far outweighed my focus on the spiritual. It’s so easy to see the need for physical training and the results from such training, but it takes a little deeper consideration to really evaluate the state of your spiritual zeal and the need to improve. I think there is always room for improvement. Even in the life of a Pastor who has no trouble being in God’s Word every day.

Maybe it’s time we all jump on the B90X bandwagon and use it to kick-start our progression to becoming lean mean Bible reading machines! I think I’m going to give it a go in the very near future.

Check out the B90X reading plan by CLICKING HERE.

Thanks again Pastor Steven for leading the church through innovation and dedication.

Last week we started an open-ended sermon series at Horizon on the books of 1 & 2 Timothy. These two letters from Paul to Timothy, and really the entire church in Ephesus, have a great deal of insight contained within them. Not just insight into what the church should be doing, but what they were struggling with as well. I don’t want to say that I enjoy it, because that might come across wrong, but I am often encouraged by hearing what other churches are struggling with. Sometimes it’s right in line with what our local church is struggling with, and that can remind us that we’re not alone in our plight.

Looking through the lens of these letter for the past few weeks has helped me to realize that there are somethings that deserve more attention and emphasis than we currently give them at Horizon. And that’s been a great thing.

So here’s my question…

If someone, who knew your church and pastor well, wrote a letter to your church about the work that is being done, what would it say? What things would you be commended for? What things would you be commanded to stop?

Sometimes we don’t see things the way they really are until someone shows them to us.

I’m more than just a little excited that we are starting a new series this Sunday at Horizon called 1 & 2 Timothy. This series will be an extended look at these two letters that are filled with wisdom on leadership, life, and love. We’ll be learning from the wisdom of Paul, who was one of the first men to plant churches for Jesus Christ’s Gospel. He was a pioneer of what we are doing RIGHT NOW. How cool is that?

As a preacher there is nothing that excites me more than getting an opportunity to preach the Bible straight up. No frills, no cute titles, no wishy washy parallels. Just letting scripture speak straight to the hearts of God’s people. If I can give people the truth of scripture and get out of the way then hearts and lives will be changed. I hope you’ll join us for the entirety of this series. It’s going to be great!

Sunday morning at 11am.
Get directions

I have been processing a lot of things inside my own head lately. I feel like I am finally getting what it means to let God do the leading, both in my life and in my work, and it has caused me to spend more time listening than I ever have before. During this season of listening I have come to some humbling realizations about myself, but none have been more real than what God gave me through Jenna, my wife, last week.

Sunday was one of the best worship experiences EVER at Horizon and we were trying to process it all as we came down from cloud nine that afternoon. If you know me, you know that I process out loud and therefore say everything that I’m thinking. On this particular Sunday I was elated with the response to the sermon God has laid on my heart. It was really one of those weeks where I had to pray ALL WEEK that God would say something through me because I felt so inadequate and unable to articulate His message, and boy did He. The Word rocked everyone there and caused many people to honor my delivery of that Word like never before.

Selfishly, here’s what I was thinking, and what I said to my wife. “When did these people begin to respect me, and the Word that God has put inside me, so much? It’s not like they didn’t before, but today I really felt the weight of their respect for me as God’s instrument to lead His church like never before. Why/how did that happen so suddenly?” As carefully as she could my wife articulated to me what was crystal clear to her. She answered, “Because now you believe you can lead this church.”

WHAT?!?! At first I was taken back, and a little angry. How dare she question my confidence in following God’s leading. I seriously thought to myself, “She just doesn’t get it. She doesn’t know what she’s talking about.” I mean, confidence has never been something that I have lacked before.

Then, after a few minutes of silence I came to this humbling realization: SHE WAS ABSOLUTELY RIGHT! I had been leading this church and trying to follow God’s prompting for over a year, but up until a month ago I really didn’t have confidence that God could do the job through ME. I don’t know what I was thinking, but the way I lead was telling people that I had doubts about God’s ability to use ME.

It’s a humbling thing when you realize that the only thing standing in the way of God radically blessing His calling on your life is YOU.

Yesterday at Horizon was one of those Sundays that was awesome beyond words. God showed up and he rocked our world. Here are some of my unfiltered thoughts after what could possibly be described as my most encouraging day of ministry ever.

• I LOVE PREACHING!
• I love it when people come to church for the first time, and are so affected by it that they are bringing friends the following week. That’s God at work in their life.
• When a sermon affects the preacher, it will affect the church.
• Planning for God’s power and expecting Him to show up is BEYOND EXCITING!
• Most people don’t care about where you are, they care about where you’re going.
• Seeing bits and pieces from the sermon posted in people’s facebook statuses gets me PUMPED UP!
• The aforementioned fact does not excite me because people are quoting me, but because GOD’S WORD IS AFFECTING PEOPLE’S LIVES!
• When I get excited I use ALL CAPS and EXCLAMATION POINTS!!!!!!
• I love the people I serve with at Horizon.

Most of you are probably aware that Newsweek recently published an article that stated the “decline” of Christian America. Well, they gave Mark Driscoll an opportunity to respond to the article and its content and I really appreciate his point of view so I wanted to share it with you all.

What he talks about is this article is spot on the point of our latest series at Horizon called “Practical Atheist (Are You Who You Say You Are?)”. Check out the entire article by following the link below.

“Has Christian America Come to an End?” by Mark Driscoll, Pastor – Mars Hill Church